super-mum-locked requested: “put it down, please!”
Dean was drunk. Very drunk.
He lifted the bottle in his hand to his lips, only to find it empty.
With a groan, he stood up and stumbled to the kitchen to get a beer, now that all the whiskey was gone.
“Dean?” He looked toward the stairs where the soft voice had come from. Cas stood there, looking almost scared. “Please, come to bed.”
“Later,” Dean grunted, twisting the top off of the bottle.
“Dean, please-”
“Later,” Dean yelled, throwing the top at Castiel. He laughed when Castiel flinched and went back to the living room. He passed out on the couch, beer half empty. Again.
Castiel took the bottle from his hands and covered him with a thin quilt. He pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and went back upstairs to sleep alone.
This had been a regular occurance in their house since Dean’s father died. Dean didn’t know how to handle his emotions, so he drank them away until he was too numb to move. Some nights he didn’t even come home, but he’d stumble in the next morning, stinking of booze, perfume, and sex.
Castiel knew that he should put a stop to it, make Dean face his issues, but the verbal abuse that Dean threw at him when he brought it up frightened him.
“Put it down, please,” Cas whispered one night, when Dean reached for his fourth beer. Castiel had made Dean’s favorite dinner, hoping to please him enough that Dean wouldn’t need to drink. Dean made a face at him.
“I’m a grown ass man, Cas. I can have a beer if I want one.” He opened the bottle and Cas snatched it away, moving to the sink, out of Dean’s reach.
“That’s my last one Castiel, don’t you dare.” Cas tilted the bottle up and poured the liquid down the drain. Dean turned a frightening shade of red and grabbed Castiel’s wrist tight in his hand.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” He yelled. Cas struggled against the painful grip on his wrists and Dean shoved him away. Right in the wall with Castiel favorite painting hanging there.
Cas’s cry of pain snapped Dean out of his angry haze. He looked at his husband, crumpled on the ground, surrounded by glass, his blood ruining the peice of art he’d treasured.
“Cas, I-” Castiel flinched away from him, pressing into the wall.
“Get out,” He whispered. Dean’s eyes widened.
“Cas-”
“Get out!” Dean stumbled back and fled from the house. Castiel curled in on himself and cried.
He fumbled to stand, cutting his hands and kness a few times, before managing to get up the stairs to their bedroom. His bedroom. Dean hadn’t slept in their bed for so long….
His tears didn’t slow as he packed his dufflebag, taking one of Dean’s shirts because he coldn’t resist.
He looked around the room and sighed. This room where he and Dean used to spend hours making love on the weekends, the kitchen where Dean taught him how to cook, the living room where they made out like teenagers instead of watching the movies they had rented. And now his whole life was packed into one tiny bag.
He opened his bedside drawer and took out the stationary pad he had there before going back to the kitchen.
~*~*~
Dean was completely sober when arrived home.
He had bought Cas flowers, not because he hoped that they would fix things, but that they would be a step in the right direction. He also had a flyer for a local AA group.
“Cas?” He called. No reply. He walked into the kitchen and the flowers fell from his hands.
On the table, Cas’s wedding ring held down a note. Dean picked it up with shaking hands, tears slipping down his face. He sat down, looking at the note Cas had written. The letters were shaky, as if Cas had been shaking as badly as he was now.
Dean,
I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t watch you do this to yourself and I can’t take the abuse and the cheating. Not again. Not from you.
I love you, so much, but this is not the man I married. I know that he’s in there, but you keep killing him more and more each day.
You need to get help, Dean. And until you do, I can’t be with you. I just can’t
Please call me when you are my husband again. I want to come home
Dean dropped the note and, for the first time in years, let himself cry.
Six Months Later
Dean walked out of the rehab facility feeling better than he had in years.
He expected Sam to be there waiting for him with balloons or some shit. What he got was so much better.
Castiel threw his arms around Dean’s neck with so much force they both went tumbling to the ground.
“Dean,” He was whispering. “My Dean.”
“Cas,” Dean pulled back and wiped his husband’s tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry that I hurt you.”
“You’re better now. You can work on earning my forgiveness later,” Cas said. “Do you have my ring?”
Dean pulled his amulet off and undid the clasp, allowing Cas’s wedding band to slid into palm.
Cas put it back on and wrapped his arms around Dean again, saying how much he loved him and how he had missed him.
“Let’s go home,” Cas said, finally bending his head down to kiss Dean. Dean nodded.
“Let’s go home.”