i love you you're so selfless 
i'm sorry i'm so selfish

ILYIS pt 2, mel bryant & the mercy makers

chapter twenty five

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JACK MANAGES to get the stupid gorgon decapitated. Dean cares more immediately about Catherine. Her head is bleeding, and she won't wake up.

"Cath, hey, come on, sweetheart..." He gently tries to ease her awake, but she's not moving. "Sam!"

He comes rushing over after checking on Cas. "Is she breathing?"

"Barely," Dean responds, a hand on her neck to check her pulse. He can only just feel it. "Her pulse is weak."

"Let's get her out of here."

Dean scoops her up bridal style and carries her out to the car.

The drive back to the bunker is long and excruciating. Dean lays her across the backseat, her head in his lap. One hand is at the top of her head, stroking her hair and keeping it out of her wound, and the other stays near her throat to feel her pulse.

Throughout the drive, it keeps skyrocketing and then dropping, but she doesn't move an inch. He barely breathes the whole way home.

Eventually, they make it, and Dean carries her to the infirmary. He gently sets her down on one of the beds, then brushes the hair from her face.

Cas comes over and rests a hand above her forehead, a faint glow emitting from it.

"Well?" Dean demands.

Cas shakes his head. "I can't heal her. I can't see inside her head, she's– she's completely blocked off. I can't do anything."

Dean vaguely hears Cas and Jack argue about the use of Jack's powers, and then the kid storms out. Rowena makes a comment, Dean doesn't hear it. He doesn't look away from Cath, unmoving and bleeding on the bed. Dean doesn't see Castiel's sympathetic look before he goes chasing after Jack.

He exhales, looking to the others. "What do we do?" He asks a bit desperately.

Rowena sighs, moving forward. She looks down at Catherine like a mother would gaze at a sick daughter. "Clean her wound, make her comfortable. Then we'll see."

"Can't you do something?"

"What more could I do, a witch, than an angel?"

Dean knows she's right. He takes a deep, yet unsteady breath and moves away from the bed to grab supplies to clean her head. Then he grabs a chair and sits on her left side.

Sam comes over and grabs his shoulder reassuringly. "She'll be alright."

Dean can only nod. He starts to clean her wound with shaking hands.

At some point, Rowena urges Sam out of the room, and then he's alone. Once the blood is cleaned from her face, he leaves the chair and puts away all the supplies.

Rowena comes back in, bag in hand and coat on. "I'm going to see if there's something at my flat that will help. Call if anything changes, yes?" 

Dean nods, and Rowena turns to leave. She hesitates, eyes on Catherine in the bed. Her face ever so slightly betrays a sliver of fear. Dean might even dare to say the witch cares about Catherine. 

She does tend to have that affect on people. 

Rowena leaves, and once again, he's alone.

He starts haphazardly reorganizing things to busy his hands, or keep himself from pacing. Eventually, he remembers he's still wearing his jacket, and slides it off. He tosses it on one of the beds and returns to the chair.

He takes her limp hand, folding it between his own. It's cold.

He leans down, pressing his forehead to her knuckles. It takes everything in him not to shatter right then.

"Not now, Cath," he whispers. He raises his head to look at her face. She doesn't look peaceful. She looks frightened, more than anything. "Not like this. It's too soon, we've– it's too early. Fuck." He drops his head and squeezes his eyes shut, pushing back the onslaught of tears.

He's been here before, years and years ago, sitting at the dying bedside of someone he loves.

"I haven't said it back. You're not dyin' until you can hear me say it."

At that moment, she squeezes his hand. It's not a reply, it's a death grip. It catches him by surprise, and he says, "Cath?"

A small, strained noise comes out of her, and then she goes limp again.

No more than a few seconds pass before she's gasping awake, sitting straight up. Her hand slips from his grip and automatically goes to her head wound, a wince on her face.

"Catherine?"

"Dean?" Her unfocused eyes turn in his direction. She seems to look right through him.

"I'm right here," he says, moving to the edge of the bed. He reaches out to cup her face, and she flinches at his touch. She grabs his arm with one hand, reaching out for him with the other.

"Something's wrong," she says. Her hand finds his face, and her breath wavers. She traces her thumb down his nose, over his lips. Her voice drops when she says, "I can't see."

He swears under his breath. "You hit your head."

She breathes in sharply, the hand gripping his arm squeezing tight as her face scrunches up. Her other hand drops to his shoulder, like he's the only thing keeping her upright.

"Cath?"

"Dean, I— shit— I think you should go."

"What? I'm not going anywhere."

"I can't—" Before she can finish her sentence, she gasps and throws her head back, arms going limp.

He jumps from the bed and backs away when he sees her eyes flash blue.

When she looks at him again, he knows it's no longer Catherine.

She slowly moves off the bed, still staring him down. Then she shoves out a hand and he goes flying back to the wall across the room.

"Well, Dean," Michael says, strolling over to him. "I guess that little idea of hers didn't work out so well, now did it?"

"Go to hell," he strains out, glaring at her.

One side of her mouth upturns in a grin. "I'll see you there, sweetheart." She squints her eyes slightly, and the power clamps down around his throat.

It barely lasts a second before she's stumbling back again, her eyes flashing once more. Not looking where she's going, she loudly crashes into a set of drawers and crumples to the ground.

He's at her side in seconds. "Cath, hey, look at me."

She shies away from his touch, chest heaving. "Stay back!"

The others come rushing in as she pulls herself to her feet.

"What's going on?" Sam immediately questions.

Dean misses the next flash attempting to find an answer for Sam, and is caught off guard when Cath tackles him, hands wrapping around his throat.

"I'm going to make you regret ever bringing your mother home, Dean Winchester," she sneers in his ear. The others rush to pull her off of him, but they don't get far as she throws them back with barely a tilt of her head.

Dean claws at her iron hands, gasping for air. Through his blurring vision he can see her straining for consciousness. He chokes out her name, just once.

It's enough. The blue flash is quicker this time, and she immediately retracts her hands as the others fall to the ground.

Before a word is spoken, she's scrambling off of him and stumbling out of the room.

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EVERY MUSCLE inside her is burning. Her blood is humming. Catherine wonders if that's what power feels like.

She keeps feeling her hands around Dean's throat, hearing him choke her name.

Muscle memory alone gets her to Dean's bedroom. All she can really see are lights and shadows.

She shuts the door behind her.

She feels her way to the bed, nearly tripping over a pair of her own shoes near the desk. Shoving her hands under pillows until they find the blades, she grabs them both and shoves them into her jacket. 

Then her vision returns to her, and her hands are no longer her own. Her body starts moving without her permission.

He makes her watch. He storms through the bunker and kills anyone he sees.

She's not even sure she's actually screaming. Only he could hear it. Is it real if it's not coming out of her mouth?

She's too weak. She can't stop any of it. She can only watch as her own hands burn souls out of bodies, can only watch as Michael kills her friends.

In the library, Dean's voice yells from behind her.

She throws everything she has at the barriers of the angel, and finally it works. Her vision goes out and she falls to her knees.

Immediately she reaches for the blade, knowing Dean is coming towards her. "Stop!" She shouts, holding out the blade. The room seems to go still. She stands on shaky legs. "Don't come any closer."

"Cath...drop the blade," Dean says.

She shakes her head. "I can't keep him in. I can't."

"You don't have to do this."

"Tell me something, Dean," she says, willing her voice not to break. "How many?"

"What?"

"Tell me how many bodies there are in here. I can't see them."

There's a few seconds of silence before he says, "...five."

Her throat hitches and she adjusts her grip on the blade. "And how many in the halls?"

"You don't wanna know, sweetheart."

She squeezes her eyes shut. Her whole body tenses and she's fighting back the archangel again. He tries to infiltrate her mind, take control of her body, but she won't let him. Not with Dean standing in front of her.

The effort might be killing her.

Dean says something else she can't quite process as hot tears spill from her eyes. They sting her cheeks.

"Shit, Cath," Dean says, mostly to himself.

"What?"

"You're bleeding."

The metallic scent hits her a second later, and she realizes it's blood dripping down her face.

"Listen to me, Cath," Dean says, and she can feel him moving closer. He's going to try and take the knife from her. "Don't do this. Let's figure something else out, alright? This isn't our only option."

"How much longer are you going to keep saying that, Dean?" It's almost a whisper.

"Until you believe it." He sounds even closer now. Just a few feet away, perhaps. She still holds the knife as if pointed at him. If there's others in the room, aside from the bodies, she can't tell.

Slowly, she reaches into her jacket with her free hand. "I think he's killing me. I can't feel it."

"Don't say that. You're gonna be fine, sweetheart."

Her sister's last words echo through her mind. I'm doing this for us. She repeats them in a whisper.

His hand softly clamps around her wrist. In the same moment, she grabs the other blade inside her jacket. He pries the blade from her hand, and she lets him do it. "It's gonna be alright, Cath."

She hears the knife clatter to the floor. Her hand closes around his.

She just prays he hasn't noticed where her other hand is.

In a quick move, she pulls him tight and spins, pressing her back to his chest and wrapping his arm around her.

"I'm sorry," she breathes. A second later, she plunges the second blade right between her own ribs.

She doesn't hear anything else. She tells Dean she loves him, but she doesn't think he hears her.

Everything is overtaken by a white hot light, burning brighter than anything she's ever felt or seen before. She can feel the power burning out of her, the energy slipping out of her veins. Is this how her friends felt when she killed them?

It's so, so bright. So loud. Pain unimaginable, undreamt of.

Then it's gone, and it hasn't killed her. And there she lay, on the floor of the library, with Dean's arms around her and a knife in her chest.

"What happened?" She breathes.

Dean shushes her. "Just breathe."

Her own voice feels far away. "Michael—"

"He's gone, sweetheart."

Her lungs feel too small as she starts sobbing. Dean tightens his hold around her. She tries to reach for him, but finds she can't move.

"Don't try to move, Cath. Just hold still, you're gonna be fine, alright?"

"Where is Jack?"

"He's with Sam. They're okay." She hears the panic in his voice. It cracks her heart.

"Tell him—"

"No, no, no, no goodbyes, Cath. Whatever you wanna say, tell him yourself. You're gonna tell him yourself."

"Dean, please—"

"No, you listen to me, now. Just listen. I love you, Catherine, okay? You're gonna be just fine. I'm gonna— you're gonna get better. Everything's gonna be alright."

Her breath comes in smaller and shorter bursts. It scares her. Panic swallows her up and she desperately wishes she could see the walls of her home one last time.

Dean's voice wavers as he goes on. "After this we're gonna celebrate, yeah? We'll take the kid to the mountains like we talked about. A real vacation, how does that sound?"

More than anything, she wants to see him. See his beautiful, bright eyes, and his comforting smile. She wants to touch him, kiss him again. She just can't move.

She tries to speak, and starts choking. She thinks it's blood.

"Don't— don't try to talk," he whispers.

But she refuses to die without saying it one last time. "I— I love you—" she coughs and more blood spills down her chin. She's so warm. "I love you. Dean..."

But she finds there's no more air. No more sound, no more light. No more warmth. Not even his arms. 

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author's note !!

ok so basically i'm gonna just stop promising to update regularly or quicker cause every time i do something happens lol

i do deeply apologize for disappearing but just in case anyone was wondering, in the past like month and a half i got covid, my dog died, my brother damn near got kicked out, my bank is fucking me over, and i went on a week long trip and when i came back i immediately went thru my first breakup 

soooo...yeah no promises for quick updates cause im also starting a second job next week but i will try my best 

also idk when i hit 15k but thank u thank u thank u i love u all thank u <3 

as always pls vote & comment if u guys are enjoying, don't hate me too much for this chapter it'll get fixed <3

thanks for reading!!

-skye