He turns back then, still sad, still stricken and feeling helpless. "I'm not lying to you, Dean. Why should I lie to you? You have always known, some part of you, how I feel about you." Or so he had hoped. He closes his eyes a moment, collecting himself. His head has been an awful wreck for years now and it's just now that he's feeling like himself and able to explain things to Dean. Not that he blames Dean for mistrusting him now, but he doesn't know how to make this better and can't accept that it can't be.

"I didn't leave with the tablet because I didn't trust you specifically. I had just come back to myself after months of having everything I knew rewritten. I was free of the control, but I didn't know who or what I could trust. I was confused. I was afraid. Dean, I was being hunted. I came back to you in the end."

Castiel doesn't want to let it go. He doesn't want to deal with it another time. He is upset, he is angry, he is frightened, and he is dreading the fact that he has yet to confess to another crime he has committed. And he does, and soon, before Dean finds out from another source. And if Dean can't forgive him for the things he's done so far, how can he forgive him for that too?

"I'll live." He hesitates when Dean asks to see it, and turns slightly away. It's not that he doesn't trust him to tend to his wound, but he still feels like he's held his heart out to Dean and had it roughly tossed aside, and how can he let Dean care for him when he is trying to desperately hold himself together?

He's still looking at Dean like Dean might actually bite him (for all the good it would do) but shrugs out of his coat and jacket, takes off his tie and then unbuttons his shirt so that Dean can see the wound on his stomach. It's healing slowly, too slowly, far more slowly than it should be - even considering that the wound came from a bullet made from an angel's blade. Cas is watching Dean carefully, his words still thrumming in his head - the knowledge that he can't fix this too much to allow him to just move on and relax as quickly as Dean has switched himself off.

"I'll be fine."

"Yes." It is a simple answer, and he can do this much. He winces at Dean's touch, he is holding his stomach much too taught to do the injury any good, but he feels far too tense at the idea of Dean touching him like this. Of touching him now when he knows that he has lost the friendship he holds so dear and instead this attentiveness comes from ... obligation perhaps.

"I don't know."

"Why are you doing this, Dean?" He blurts out the question before he can really think about it or any effects it might have. Honestly at this point he just doesn't understand. If there is nothing fixable left between them, if he has truly lost the man, then there is no reason he should want to care for him the way he is doing now. He shouldn't want him here ... unless it is merely Dean's need of him.

"You have no obligation to me. I know I have broken the bond we shared, but I would still come to you when you need me. You shouldn't have to suffer my presence."

And Dean hasn't asked him to go, but Cas just doesn't understand why Dean wouldn't want him to. He doesn't want to be in the way or make Dean uncomfortable by his presence.

"Then what am I?" He needs to understand, he needs Dean to explain it to him because every time he's thought he understood he's gotten it wrong. Dean still doesn't understand him either though and that is equally frustrating."

"When I was out of purgatory it was you I went to, you I wanted to be with. I only left after Naomi intervened. Dean, I am trying so hard to do what's right, and trying so hard to be at your side but you tell me I can't fix what's been broken and that I never do the right thing. Heaven is just as broken, yet again something I have done, and my family there has turned their backs on me as well, used me as a tool or a weapon to be controlled and pointed where they will but no of my own accord and ultimately doing more damage everywhere."

He looks away from Dean, down to his hands and he just feels lost without direction or anchor. "What is the point of me if I can't serve heaven and I can't serve you? How am I anything but an obligation if I've lost your friendship and you don't need me anymore?"

"I'm not putting it on you, Dean I just don't underst-" Dean shouts out the difference, angry and Castiel is floored by what he says because what does that mean? Castiel has only ever been a servant and a soldier. He has only ever been those two things and when Dean says he doesn't need those things but needs Cas he just ...

"What more to me is there?" And he doesn't know because that's there's ever been and that's how he thinks of himself. He's never had the chance to get to know himself in any other capacity.

Dean's answer is even more frustrating because it doesn't even begin to touch on the question.

"Then what do you mean when you say you need me? Dean what is it that you need? If you say you need me, not the soldier, not the angel - when you make that distinction but then say you don't know who I am, what do you mean? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm not trying to make things worse but I don't understand. I'm not human, I'm not used to people depending on me for ... personal comfort or whatever it is you want me here for. I'm not unwilling to give it but I need you to teach me, to show me, to help me understand. I don't know who I am anymore. What is it you see in me? Who am I to you?"

It's a futile question and ends with Castiel standing up and walking halfway across the room, he brings a hand to his head, realising he is getting a headache and that is not normal. "I think that I'm falling."

There are things he still needs to say, things that he needs to clarify because Dean still isn't understanding what he's asking. He can figure out who he is in time, certainly. He just doesn't understand where he fits in. If he's not a brother, if he's not a friend, if he's not a comrade in arms or a weapon to be used then what the hell is he?

"I think that I am falling. Like I did before. During the apocolypse. Becoming human." It's the only explanation for the series of symptoms that Castiel is experiencing, and really he should have seen it before - maybe he even did - but he doesn't really want to admit it even now because it's too frightening. "I'm not healing the way that I should be, I'm tired, exhausted, I slept last night - eight hours. I'm hungry, and I have a headache."

"Fix it?" Castiel laughs slightly bitter and sad all at the same time, and every bit of it aimed at himself. "Dean, we don't. I have fallen so far, rebelled so thoroughly. I believe that heaven has simply decided that I am no longer welcome. I've crossed too many lines. If this is what I am becoming then there is no going back this time."

He's quiet for a moment and then turns back to Dean, a helpless look on his face. "It's terrifying. It was before, but I honestly didn't think we would survive the apocalypse I wasn't worried about where I would fit in in the world. Now things are different. I have no identity here, no connections, just you and Sam. In that respect this might not be so bad, except that the current state of our relationship has left me thoroughly shaken. And for that reason, when I ask you what you see in me what I am asking is ... have I lost you?"

"I don't want a life out there. I wasn't brought up valuing family and jobs and security the way that humans are. I am in this life whether I am with you or not, I would just rather be with you."

He takes a few steps towards Dean when he explains that this is merely a fight, and Castiel looks doubtful. "I asked you how I can fix things between us. You said that we can't. You haven't asked me to leave, no, but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking about you and me. Are you simply angry, something that we can resolve? Or have I fallen too far out of your respect. I want to be here, but I won't stay if you're only letting me remain because you would feel guilty putting me out. I want to repair our friendship. I want you to trust me again. I don't expect an immediate fix, I just need to know if it's possible."

"That's not what I mean!" He's losing his temper and he doesn't mean to but he is so frustrated with his inability to communicate and express himself and he longs for the days when Dean could just look at him and know what he meant.

"I'm not asking if I can stay. I'm asking if you can stand it if I do. I never wanted to leave you, Dean. Do you remember what I said to you when I got back? You asked me what I wanted to do and I told you I wanted to be a hunter. That I wanted to ride shotgun. The first thing I did was return to you before even pausing to clean myself up. I went straight to you. And that is what I do when I have free will. I only left you after it had been taken away."