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Chapter Text

“Son of a bitch,” is the first thing Dean says when he lays eyes on Castiel.

Castiel feels he deserves it.

Dean stands up jerkily from the edge of his bed, eyeing Castiel warily. He glances over at Sam, who came through his bedroom door two seconds before Castiel did.

“Is he real?” Dean asks Sam, pointing.

Sam just nods.

Dean still doesn’t move. He stares at Castiel with his mouth hanging slightly open, like he can’t process it.

“I’m real, Dean,” tries Castiel, with an apologetic shrug.

For a second, Dean keeps staring. Then in the blink of an eye, he leaps forward to hug him fiercely.

That’s better than being called a son of a bitch, thinks Castiel. He focusses on that flippant thought, because otherwise he might have to address the painful tangle of emotions that threaten to engulf him at the feeling of Dean’s body pressed tightly against him.

It’s not like their normal hugs. Dean’s clinging onto him for dear life. In the background, Sam’s explaining what Castiel just explained to him: how the Empty spit Castiel out because the deal was completed in bad faith, how he’s human now, how he trekked over here on his own steam and made a meal of his suit and that’s why he’s in ugly borrowed athleisure clothes. But Castiel is sure Dean isn’t listening. He can hear Dean’s short, sniffling breaths in his ear. He knows Dean, and knows he’s trying to hold back sobs.

Sam has stopped talking. Dean’s breath is hot against Castiel’s neck, his fingers digging into Castiel’s back, probably tense with the restraint it takes for him not to just fall apart. He smells distinctly of liquor.

Castiel is holding his breath, begging silently for some clue of how to deal with this situation.

“I’ll, uh, give you two a moment,” he hears Sam saying tactfully.

At the sound of the door being pulled to, the indication that they’re alone, Castiel lets out a deep breath. It doesn’t help. He feels panic rising in his throat. He doesn’t know what to say, how to apologise, how to begin consoling Dean.

Dean makes a hiccupping sound, and finally pulls back.

“Fuck, man. You have got to stop doing this to me.”

“I’m sorry,” mumbles Castiel.

Dean huffs. “Sorry for what? For saving me? For–”

He stops himself. They share a brief, uncomfortable look. Dean pulls him back into a tight hug.

“You’re a dumbass, Cas,” he mutters. “A fucking dumbass. And it’s been hell without you.” He lets out a breath of laughter. “I should know.”

At those words, Castiel feels a burst of affection that takes him by surprise with its intensity. “Then I’m here to save you from Hell again,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Dean softly. His grip on Castiel loosens, and he trembles slightly. “Yeah, you are.”

Dean gently tugs at Castiel’s arm, pulling him over to sit down next to him on the bed. Castiel just goes along with it, glad that Dean’s taking charge of the interaction.

Dean looks at him, bleary-eyed and somehow mournful. “Sorry, I– I’m really tired,” he says. “Might’ve knocked back a shot or two earlier.”

“It’s okay,” says Castiel mildly. Given Dean’s tight embraces, he reckons he won’t be annoyed if Castiel tries to comfort him. He reaches out to put his arms around Dean and lets him rest his head on his shoulder. He wants to stroke Dean’s hair, but he thinks that might be too much.

Dean nestles his head against Castiel’s neck, under his jaw. “Missed you, Cas,” he murmurs.

Castiel swallows, trying to think about anything but how very pleasant the warmth and weight of Dean’s body is. “I missed you too.”

Dean makes a contented humming sound, but says no more. His breathing starts to calm, becoming slow and rhythmic.

After a minute or so, Castiel thinks Dean has fallen asleep. He keeps cradling him, unsure of what to do next.

Eventually, his neck begins to cramp, and now the adrenaline’s worn off, he feels his stomach growling. He carefully tips Dean down into a lying position on the bed, tucking his legs up for him. It’s difficult without his angelic strength, but Dean seems to be in a deep sleep already, and doesn’t even stir.

Castiel indulges himself, giving in to his urge to stroke his fingers through Dean’s hair. It’s sweaty and greasy, but he doesn’t mind. That’s love, he supposes. At least he can be fully honest with himself now – he has to be, the words are out there.

It’s no use trying to fool himself now. It’s not all humans he’s entranced by on this level. It’s Dean, and only Dean.

*

Castiel slips into the kitchen, shutting the door quietly behind him. Sam’s nibbling at a sandwich, in a way that tells Castiel he’s not really hungry but needs to make himself eat. He looks up and nods.

“Everything okay with Dean?”

“I think so,” replies Castiel. “He fell asleep. He’s very much out of it.”

“I’ll bet. He hasn’t slept properly once since you’ve been gone.”

“No?”

Sam shrugs. “Just knocks himself out with whisky.”

Castiel feels his forehead wrinkling in consternation. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he says weakly. He notices now the weariness in Sam’s face, the redness tinging the whites of his eyes, and wonders what it’s been like for Sam watching his brother turn into a wreck.

“I know, Cas,” says Sam gently, and the kindness in his expression makes Castiel almost flinch.

He doesn’t deserve that kindness. In a way, his confession was selfish, burdening Dean with his feelings just before dying in front of him. For some reason it took seeing Dean like that just now, exhausted and almost pathetic, for him to fully grasp it. Does one need to be somewhat selfish to be happy? It’s something he has been wondering since he came back, in the days it took him to scramble and hitchhike to the bunker.

“I know,” repeats Sam. “He told me you made a deal, that it meant you had to die to save him. I get that.” He takes a deep breath, and it turns into a sigh. “But I won’t lie, it was hard on all of us. Eileen and I missed you, of course. Jack was torn up. Dean, though…”

Castiel looks down at his feet.

“You’re the closest friend he’s ever had,” says Sam. “I was really worried he might–” He hesitates.

Castiel glances up. “Might what?”

Sam purses his lips, then runs his tongue over his gums as though he’s considering whether it’s a good idea to say it. He looks at Castiel like he’s willing him to understand the significance of his words.

“Might decide life just ain’t worth living without you.”

There is a heavy lump in Castiel’s throat. It’s a sensation he is unused to, and for a brief second he wonders if something is physically wrong with him.

“I’m truly sorry for my absence,” he manages to say. He is surprised at how level his voice sounds with such a tight throat. “But I do intend to take care of Dean from now on.”

He pauses. His mind is clouded with guilt, and he thinks he sees doubt in Sam’s eyes. That would be fair. It would be an understatement to say Castiel has not always done a good job of taking care of Dean Winchester.

His voice finally loses its calm, and bleeds emotion as he tries to convince Sam of his sincerity. “He is the most precious thing to me, in Heaven or on Earth.”

Sam gets up off his chair, and reaches out to squeeze Castiel’s shoulder, his forehead creasing in sympathy.

“I know, man,” he says.

Why that gentle response makes Castiel so ineffably sad, he cannot fathom.

*

The next morning, Castiel is up early, despite his exhaustion. It is one of the most frustrating things about being human, he reckons, that one can be bone-tired and yet unable to sleep well. His mind is buzzing with thoughts, with trepidation, with regrets that are not entirely regrets.

He makes a mug of coffee and goes to knock on Dean’s door.

“Yup?”

He enters cautiously, and is surprised to see Dean already up, in fresh clothes.

“Oh,” says Dean with a smile when Castiel holds out the coffee to him. “Thanks.”

Their fingers brush as he takes the mug, and Castiel feels a spark shiver down his arm. Every physical sensation is more intense as a human. If he were ever to have sexual contact with someone he desires as much as Dean, he thinks it might break him.

He quickly stops himself from pursuing that line of thinking. That is something that will never come to be, and to contemplate it is only to gouge a wound in his heart that need not exist.

Unsurprisingly, Dean doesn’t react to the brush of hands. It’s not like such a brief touch is out of the ordinary for them. He takes a sip of the coffee and eyes Castiel with a fond look.

“Glad to see you weren’t a dream, Cas. I been having some weird-ass dreams lately. You all Lululemoned up, that was new.”

Castiel’s smile back is genuine. It’s nice to see Dean alive and well and distinctly less broken-up than he was yesterday. Thankfully, Sam has lent Castiel some clothes, and while they hang off him like he’s a scarecrow, he doesn’t mind – the jeans and flannel make him feel like a part of the gang again.

“You alright, Cas? I mean, you’re human now, right? Were you injured?” His lips quirk slightly in humour. “Did it hurt when you fell from the Empty?”

Castiel shakes his head. “Just a few bumps and scrapes. I had to wade my way through quite a few fields before I found a road with significant traffic.” He frowns in distaste. “At one point, I had to surrender my trenchcoat to a particularly persistent guard dog.”

“Jeez,” says Dean, slurping his coffee. “You coulda called.”

Castiel is tempted to roll his eyes, but restrains himself. He wants to avoid aggravating Dean while he’s in a good mood. “I don’t know your new number by heart. Besides, the Shadow kept a hold of my grace out of spite. I doubt it was inclined to give me the benefit of a working cell phone.”

Dean tilts his head from side to side in acknowledgment. “Well, at least you made it back in one piece. And I’m glad, Cas. I am. You know, we got you back, the world isn’t ending for once… I’m almost tempted to let my guard down.” He smiles cheerfully and takes another slurp of coffee.

“I think you deserve a rest,” says Castiel sincerely.

“Thanks, buddy.” Dean winks at him, although Castiel isn’t sure what it’s supposed to signify. “You’re right. I’mma go fix breakfast, if you want some pancakes. Also, you want some clothes that might actually fit, have at it.” He gestures at his closet. “Take whatever you need, I don’t mind.”

“That’s thoughtful of you.”

“Nah, this is all kinda…” Dean waves his hand. “Kinda my fault,” he mumbles as he turns to leave.

“Dean–”

“Pancakes’ll be ready in 10,” says Dean, making for the door, not letting Castiel continue.

“By the way,” says Castiel, pointedly enough that Dean stops and turns to look at him. “When I said that–” His voice catches, and he has to take another breath. “Before the Empty took me.”

He sees Dean draw a deep breath and tense up. This is going to be awkward. But now Castiel has started, he doesn’t see any choice but to forge on.

“When I said that. I didn’t mean it in a brotherly way.”

Dean presses his lips together, averting his eyes, and nods. “Yeah,” he says, “I know.”

“Some of my feelings towards you are not brotherly in the least.” Castiel doesn’t know why he’s saying it. Dean knows this. Perhaps Castiel just needs the certainty of a definitive rejection. There hasn’t been time for one until now.

Dean nods again. He’s still looking awkwardly at his feet.

“I don’t need you to reciprocate. I just want you to know.”

“Yeah,” says Dean brusquely. “You made that clear. Got it.”

Dean still isn’t rejecting him outright, and despite Castiel’s insistence that he doesn’t need reciprocation, this bothers him.

“You find my male body off-putting,” he mutters to himself.

“No,” says Dean abruptly. He almost sounds offended. He shakes his head. “No, that’s no big deal.”

Castiel sighs, unconvinced. “For years now I have been regretting that my vessel did not happen to be a buxom woman rather than…” He trails off at the surprise in Dean’s eyes.

“Years?”

Castiel swallows, and closes his eyes briefly. There are unformed words hanging between them. I have been in love with you for years, Dean. But that is obvious now, whether he expresses it or not. He stays quiet.

Dean coughs and moves back over to stand close to Castiel. He speaks in a low tone, like he’s confessing something. The hushed timbre of his voice makes Castiel’s stomach clench, and he’s not even sure if it’s in anguish or arousal.

“Well, if you had got yourself in a busty blonde, then you’re right, I probably would’ve been in you too before too long.” He catches Castiel’s gaze, his expression softening. “But I don’t think that would’ve been a good thing. For our friendship or for the fate of the world.” He leans in to pat Castiel lightly on the arm, and the gesture sends a jolt of excitement down Castiel’s spine. “Anyway, I can’t imagine you looking any other way.”

“Do you mean that in a good way?” asks Castiel. He’s lost sight of what kind of assurance he’s looking for.

Dean chuckles. “I guess so. It is what it is. You are who you are. And I’m glad.”

He turns to leave again, this time making it to the door, but Castiel can’t help himself.

“If it’s not my male form, then what is it?”

He doesn’t know why he asks. He has his answer; what does it matter why?

Dean lets go of the doorknob, exhales a long breath, and takes his time in answering. When he does, he has a look on his face that Castiel is terrified might be pity.

“I don’t know, Cas. That’s the thing about human feelings. Sometimes they don’t make a lick of sense.” He leans back against the door, folding his arms. “You’re my best friend, you know that. I can’t really even be mad at you, because I’d totally have died to save you too. In a heartbeat.” He looks Castiel up and down, and licks his lips in a tiny betrayal of anxiety. He shrugs. “And I can be into guys, sometimes. If I’d known you were too, we could have had some fun. I reckon you’d look real good in cowboy boots.”

For a brief moment his face flickers into a soft, lazy smile that makes Castiel ache all over. Then it dissolves, and his expression turns serious again.

“But do I wanna take you out to dinner and a movie, and hold hands, and whisper sweet nothings about your eyelashes or whatever?” He shakes his head, screwing up his lips. “No. Can’t explain why. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m messed up and I just can’t feel that way about a dude. Or anyone anymore. I don’t know. But I do know that you deserve that. You deserve that so much.”

His voice quavers slightly on those last words. The lump is back in Castiel’s throat.

“I don’t mind,” he says. “I don’t mind if you don’t feel like that. I’m happy just to know you, Dean. Really.”

Dean smiles at him, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Castiel fishes for more. He doesn’t know why he fishes. It happens before he’s even thought about it. “And to know that you love me as your friend.”

Dean frowns as though he’s surprised. Maybe Castiel said it too much like a question. “Of course I do.”

Dean’s lips twitch a little, like he can’t quite work out what to say next. That’s fair enough, thinks Castiel. All this can’t be easy for him.

“Dean–”

“Look, I know me and Sam aren’t the best at showing how we feel,” says Dean, an edge of frustration to his voice. “Or talking about it. Or even thinking about it. But we love you, Cas. You’re family. That’s not up for debate. Ever.”

“Thank you, Dean,” says Castiel quietly.

Dean nods in acknowledgement. He uncrosses his arms, takes a final glance at Castiel as if to check the conversation’s really done, and finally leaves to make breakfast.

Castiel stands there for a long while, just staring at the open door.

Thank you, Dean, he said. Because familial love is enough for him. His love is constant. It doesn’t need Valentine’s cards or hand-holding or sweet, furtive kisses to sustain it. The pain in his chest is all for Dean, because on top of all these weeks of grief, Castiel has caused him inconvenience and guilt.

Yes, he emphasises. Not for himself, only for Dean, his heart is breaking.

Chapter Text

On the way back to the bunker, Castiel knocked on the door of an old farmhouse. He made up a story to tell the nice couple that lived there, told them about a hitchhike gone wrong. They took pity on his bedraggled appearance, his muddy and torn suit. They handed him some of their son’s old clothes and let Castiel stay in his bed.

That night, Jack came to him in a dream. He explained what had happened with the Empty, informed Castiel of his new powers as a god, and offered to raise Castiel up to Heaven with him, a fully-fledged angel once more.

Castiel said no. He didn’t have control over that answer – to him, it was just a dream, and he is human now, powerless in dreams, a pawn to the whims of his subconscious.

Jack didn’t seem surprised at all. He posed no counterargument. He did not attempt to persuade him.

Since he arrived at the bunker, since Sam confirmed that the substance of the dream was true, Castiel has wondered what Jack knew that he didn’t.

*

He and Dean don’t talk about his confession again. Having known him many years, Castiel probably shouldn’t be surprised that Dean is adept at ignoring a reality that’s inconvenient to him.

Yet he finds something admirable in Dean’s efforts to treat him the same as before, as a close friend whom he can touch casually and share anything with. He doesn’t seem awkward, just happy to have his friend back. Castiel senses that Dean is less given to joking flirtation with him than before, but if that’s true, that’s only considerate of him. Castiel can’t resent him for that, and if he ever finds himself wishing for that light flirtation, he puts it down to nostalgia.

This is the outcome that Castiel should want. His only intention in expressing his feelings was for Dean to know that he was loved on a deep level. Dean knows that now, and he seems happy. That should be all there is to it.

After seeing the effect his absence had on Dean, Castiel does try to take better care of him in subtle ways – bringing him a drink or a snack when Dean’s busy with his car, tidying his room a little whenever he goes in to borrow clothes, anticipating Dean’s needs and offering him solutions. Dean thanks him but doesn’t seem to think it remarkable. It’s not much more than he did for Dean before, but now and then Castiel thinks he sees Sam’s eyes following him with curiosity.

Several days after his return, Sam finally breaks and comments on it. Castiel is doing Dean’s laundry for him, because he had to wash his own (or rather Dean’s) clothes anyway. Sam catches him on his way back to Dean’s room, carrying the basket of clean laundry.

“So tell me, what dirt does Dean have on you that he’s got you doing all his chores for him?” he asks with a laugh.

“He didn’t ask me to do anything,” replies Castiel, keeping his face as neutral as possible, however indignant he feels. He speaks quietly. “The grief I caused him has been weighing on my conscience. I told you, I intend to look after him from now on. This is my way of doing that.”

As Sam takes that in, his expression shifts to become rather more serious, almost concerned. “You know what, I get that. But do you really think doing his laundry is the best way to look after him?”

Castiel frowns, irritated that Sam is belittling his efforts. “Do you have a better idea?”

Sam hesitates, and seems to take his time in wording his answer.

“The reason Dean was so broken up wasn’t cause he didn’t have someone to wait on him hand and foot. It was cause he missed you. If you want to repent for your sins or whatever, maybe just spend some time with him? Watch some dumb old movies he likes? Something like that.”

“I already do that,” says Castiel. He was made to watch one of the more mediocre Kurosawas yesterday. He’s beginning to think Dean might have a fetish for samurai too, not just cowboys.

“Yeah, but you know…” Sam looks like he’s struggling to convey what he wants to, which is more usually Dean’s affliction.

“I don’t know, Sam,” replies Castiel, a little testily. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“Just… spend time with him.” He pauses. “Tell him you care about him.”

Castiel feels a knot of irritation tightening in his chest, feels his eyebrows drawing together, and has to force himself to speak calmly again. “He knows that, Sam. I died for him, if you’ll recall.”

“Right.” Sam fidgets. “Still, if you don’t say how much you care, he might not believe it. Sometimes Dean needs telling twice.”

Castiel is afraid if this goes on much longer, he might lose control of his carefully neutral expression. “Thank you for your advice, Sam,” he says. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

He walks away before Sam can continue the conversation. He goes into Dean’s room and puts the laundry basket on the floor, ready for sorting into the closet. (He’s implemented a system whereby the clothes are actually folded and put away neatly. Dean doesn’t seem to have picked up on it.)

He’s about to start on the folding when all of a sudden, an intense ache takes over his chest. He sits down on the bed behind him, wondering if the pain is cause for medical alarm. He hasn’t got that far yet in cataloguing human sensations. It doesn’t feel like he’s dying, at least.

The pain doesn’t go away, though. It seems to spread up to his throat and stifle his breathing. A choked whimper escapes him. He closes his eyes. The more he tries to subdue the pain, the more he whimpers. He feels like he’s going to cry.

He remembers something Dean told him years before, when he was without grace and in distress.

“I know it’s hard for you to remember sometimes, but humans gotta breathe. Just breathe, Cas.”

He tries it. He breathes deeply in, then out, in then out, on repeat. He thinks of Dean’s arm around him, comforting him. Slowly the pain recedes, and after several minutes, he feels collected enough that he can finish up his chores.

*

The next week, Eileen comes to visit. Castiel likes her and is glad to see her, but watching her and Sam share fond glances and touches makes his chest twinge unpleasantly with envy. He wishes he could just make crude jokes like Dean and laugh it off. But that’s not like him.

He’s glad Sam and Eileen have found happiness together. So glad. He just doesn’t like having to witness it, and is annoyed at himself for being bothered by it. He knows he loves Dean. Dean knows he is loved. That knowledge and acceptance of his feelings is what matters.

Eileen seems to have taken a liking to Castiel too, and while Sam is making dinner one evening, she plops down in the seat next to him in the library.

“What’cha reading?” she asks out loud.

Castiel knows the fundamentals of most major human languages. But like his English was when he first came to Earth, his sign language is stiff and formal, and he feels self-conscious using it.

Nothing of great import. A diversion, he signs. “Killing time,” he mouths along with his response.

“I heard you’re human now,” she says out loud, signing along. He appreciates her efforts to do the same as him, to make him feel at ease. “You’ve got finite time to kill.”

“That’s true,” he responds, still mouthing words here and there. “But to my surprise, I’ve found that one of the most pleasant aspects of existing on Earth is doing things that have no obvious end goal. Just being in a state of intense focus on something, even if it’s trivial.”

Eileen grins. “That’s deep, man.”

Castiel doesn’t know to respond, so he changes the subject. “You and Sam seem happy together,” he says. “It’s nice to see that.”

“Yeah,” Eileen replies, smiling. “We’re happy.” She pauses. “What about you? Now you’re stuck here with us Earthlings, you ever thought about… finding someone?”

Castiel looks away, overwhelmed with unexpected shyness. She taps him on the arm to get his attention back.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’m too nosy.”

He shakes his head to say she’s not. “To be honest, it is something I have thought about a little. But I’m not quite used to being human yet. My social skills are…” He screws up his nose.

“I think you’re too hard on yourself,” says Eileen gently. “I’d say you’re pretty charming. And you’ve made friends.”

Castiel shrugs. “I suppose so. But my experience with sex and romance is fairly negligible.”

Eileen cocks up an eyebrow. “That means you have some experience.”

Castiel tilts his head, smiling a little in coy amusement at her interest. “I don’t have none.”

She grins again. “Come on, then, girl, spill.”

He shakes his head with a smile, pretty sure that she’s just being silly, and there’s a brief pause in the conversation. She taps his shoulder again.

“Can I ask you something seriously?” Her expression is sheepish, and this time she mouths along without using her voice.

Castiel wonders if this is going to be terribly embarrassing for him. He’s still struggling with several aspects of human interaction and his body’s needs, and he fears she’s going to point out something he’s been doing wrong.

He shrugs, bracing himself.

Eileen leans in, which is strange given they can’t possibly be overheard.

“Have you and Dean ever…”

Castiel is quite sure her lewd gesture can’t be a standardised sign.

He screws up his face, trying to suggest the idea is ludicrous. Perhaps he’s not as good an actor as he thinks, because she looks to him apologetically and puts her hands up like she’s backing off.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Touchy subject.”

He can’t help his curiosity. “It’s not touchy,” he replies as calmly as he can. “The answer is no. Why did you think…?”

She gives him an incredulous look. “You two are very close.” The word ‘close’ comes with a suggestive raise of eyebrows.

“We’re best friends,” says Castiel.

“Yeah,” says Eileen. She looks like she’s considering her next words carefully. “The thing is, though, Sam told me Dean used to be quite the womaniser, but since you and he got cosy, there haven’t been many women on the scene. If you catch my drift.”

Castiel can feel his face twitching in discomfort. It’s painful talking about this, but he can’t stop himself. “I think his attention was more focussed on the apocalypse and so forth. But does Sam think…?”

He trails off again, not even sure what he wants to ask. He rubs at his forehead in agitation. The idea of Sam knowing about his desire for Dean, about his rejection, is deeply humiliating to him. It doesn't make sense – there’s nothing to be ashamed of in patiently, selflessly loving someone. Yet the idea of Sam finding out makes him want to cringe.

Eileen licks her lips. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“I can keep a secret.”

Eileen smiles mischievously. “Well, okay, you prised it out of me. A while back, I told Sam there had to be something going on between you two. He said no, he was sure you hadn’t ever… done anything.”

(Castiel is glad to be spared another lewd gesture.)

“Buuut he also thinks that Dean is in love with you.”

Castiel feels his face freeze. He wants to laugh it off, wants to make a joke, but in this moment he doesn’t even have control over his facial muscles.

He belatedly realises there’s a terrible pain in his stomach.

Eileen seems to notice his distress. She puts a hand on his arm and squeezes.

“Sorry,” she says, taking her hand back to sign. “I honestly didn’t think you’d be that surprised.”

“I am surprised,” replies Castiel. “That Sam would think that,” he clarifies, then wonders if he shouldn’t have clarified. He ponders whether he should mention how Dean has never openly been with a man, but Eileen is already responding.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. I just wanted to say, if you are looking for someone, maybe you don’t have to look that far?”

She looks to him with wide, encouraging eyes. Castiel is sorry to disappoint her, to say what he has to say. Absurdly, crushingly sorry.

“I appreciate the thought. The friendship Dean and I share is very dear to me. It is limited to friendship, however.”

She nods in acceptance. “Fair enough. Sorry to bring it up. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much about your ‘social skills’. With those big blue eyes you can definitely find a nice guy or girl to socialise with you. If that’s what you want.”

Castiel looks down bashfully at the table. He’s sure that Eileen would be a great cheerleader if he had a romantic interest worth pursuing.

“You gonna make me ask?” says Eileen out loud, since he’s not looking at her.

He looks up and frowns at her.

“Guy or girl?” she asks with a smile.

That, at least, is a question it’s easy to answer. “I’m not particular.”

“That’s good. Double your odds. Nice.” She winks at him.

Despite the discomfort lingering in his stomach, Castiel cannot help but smile back. He hopes he can count someone so supportive as a friend.

Chapter Text

When Dean comes into his Dean Cave the next night, Castiel is already crouching in the corner, rifling through DVDs.

“What’cha doing down there, Cas?”

“You said I could choose this time.”

“Oh yeah. I did, didn’t I?”

“But you don’t have much of a variety here.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s the catch, m’afraid. You only get to choose out of my favourite movies.”

Castiel notices another small stack behind Dean’s old westerns, and pulls it forwards.  “Oh. How about this, Legally Blonde?” He likes the dog and the bright outfit of the woman on the cover. He also likes the words ‘feel-good comedy’. Not many of the movies Dean makes him watch could be described as ‘feel-good’.

“What?” Dean comes over to peer over his shoulder. “Oh, that’s Sam’s crap. Veto on Sam’s crap.”

Castiel looks through a few more in the pile. “Mean Girls?” he tries, with beseeching eyes. “Eileen’s always talking about it, and I need to find out who this Glen Coco is.”

“Did I not just say veto?”

Since begging didn’t work, Castiel fixes him with an intimidating stare. “You never let me veto.”

Dean sticks out his bottom lip, and relents. “I guess Lindsay Lohan is pretty hot in that.”

Castiel settles into a chair, and Dean into his. They’ve added extra seats now, so that the four of them can hang out together, although Sam and Eileen are otherwise occupied that evening. Castiel understood perfectly well what that meant without Eileen’s lascivious facial expressions, but they amused him nonetheless.

As the DVD’s loading up, Dean glances over at him. “You been doing okay lately, buddy?”

“I’m very well. My bruises and cuts are all but healed up.”

“That’s not really what I meant.”

Castiel frowns. “If you mean emotionally, I miss Jack. But I’m sure he will come to me again in my dreams sooner or later.”

“Right.” Dean sucks his lips into his mouth. Castiel wonders why that goofy face provokes his longing so. “Nothing else? On your mind?”

Castiel narrows his eyes.

“Okay, don’t wanna talk about it. Cool.”

“If you have a question for me, please ask it out loud.”

Dean rubs at his mouth and gives a long sigh. “It’s not a question, really. I just– I’m surprised that… you don’t seem all that upset.”

“About what?” Castiel knows he’s being obtuse, and when Dean gives him a look, he gives up the pretence, feeling his face sag.

They’re both silent for a moment. Dean fiddles with the hem of his flannel shirt, staring down at his fingers.

“It’s not that I want things to be awkward. I don’t. It’s just, I’ve been there myself, and I know it can be pretty shitty, you know, pining…”

“I don’t pine, Dean,” Castiel insists.

Dean looks over at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I have accepted things as they are. No matter how you feel. I’m fully content to spend time with you like this.”

“Right. Except that’s a load of bullshit, isn’t it?”

Castiel feels his face flinch. He can’t summon an appropriate response.

Dean is avoiding looking at him again. He speaks in a rough undertone, and he sounds pretty annoyed. “I don’t know what the fuck kind of feelings celestial beings have, but here in the human world, when you like someone and they turn you down, it fucking hurts.”

By now Castiel has schooled his face back into a stoic expression.

“There is great variety amongst human reactions to emotional events,” he says. “In my case, I was aware of and accepted your answer long before I told you how I felt.”

“Yeah, cause you thought I'm not interested in dudes,” mutters Dean.

Castiel once again exerts great effort not to let his face twitch. He clasps his hands together in his lap. “I admit I had wrongly assumed so. But the exact reason for your answer is not of consequence.”

“It’d be easier to take, though,” says Dean under his breath, and Castiel pretends he doesn’t hear.

Dean shifts position, turning his body towards Castiel.

“So you’re saying it don’t matter squat to you? If I, say… come over there and lay a kiss on you or not?”

Castiel’s eyes flick over to meet Dean’s gaze, then flick away. He feels a prickling at his neck. “It does not bother me overmuch. I rarely think about it.”

“But if I did…”

Castiel wonders why Dean is doing this. Perhaps it is new to him, this idea that someone could fall in love with him unconditionally. Perhaps he needs such things explained to him, and Castiel ought to be patient with that.

“I would enjoy it, I imagine.”

He can’t deny that’s a ludicrous understatement. He’s enjoyed kissing people he was only somewhat attracted to. The very idea of Dean’s mouth against his, now he allows himself to imagine it fully, makes him feel utterly breathless. It induces a tightness in his groin and abdomen that he struggles to subdue. His shoulders hunch and he ducks his head a little, hoping his arousal is not too blatant. He doesn’t want to make Dean feel uncomfortable or guilty.

Dean’s tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, his gaze skimming over Castiel’s neck and body then back up to meet his timid eyes. “Yeah. Okay. That’s– that’s what I thought.”

He turns back to the TV and presses play, and they don’t discuss the matter any further.

*

Surprisingly, it turned out Dean already knew the plot of Mean Girls, though he claimed he’d never watched it before. For his part, Castiel is delighted to finally understand the reference when Eileen comes up to him and slots her arm casually through his.

“Come on, loser, we’re going shopping.”

“Shopping?” he mouths to her.

“Aren’t you tired of looking like a knock-off Winchester? I wanna dress you up. And I need to get out of this bunker for a while. I’m going stir-crazy in here.”

It’s difficult for them to talk while Eileen’s driving them to the mall, so for most of the journey Castiel stares out of the window at the rolling fields. He doesn’t mind. He recognises his human need for outdoor light and space, so easily neglected compared to sleep or food or water. Even humans sometimes seem to forget about it. Maybe he should persuade Dean to go outside more often. It might help cheer him up.

He has fun shopping with Eileen. She helps him pick out a few shirts, some pants made of nice soft material (he struggles to understand the enduring popularity of denim) and a smart-looking sweater. He’s not sure about the white blazer she suggests, but he tries it on anyway with the other clothes.

“Oh, there you go, Cas,” she says as he emerges from the fitting-room. She’s given him a sign nickname that looks a lot like the sign for ‘goody two-shoes’. He likes to think she means it affectionately. “Preppy works for you.”

“That shade really suits you,” says the sales assistant, swanning over to adjust his shirt collar for him. “Brings out those baby blues.”

Castiel shoots Eileen an apologetic look. Since they came into the store, the assistant keeps on only talking to Castiel, and speaking over Eileen’s signing like she isn’t there.

Eileen shrugs it off. “She’s totally wet for you,” she signs to Castiel with a deadpan expression, and he cracks up in a laugh.

“What’s funny?” the girl asks him.

“My friend,” replies Castiel, smiling at Eileen. “She’s hilarious. You’re really missing out by ignoring her.”

He’s only stating a fact, but the assistant seems to take umbrage, and leaves to attend to another customer. Eileen for some reason gives him a high-five.

They go for a coffee afterwards. Or rather, Eileen has a coffee. Castiel has hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles. He doesn’t see the point in having mortal senses if you don’t get the cream and sprinkles.

“You’re very tactful, aren’t you?” Eileen says to him, apropos of nothing.

“What?”

She smiles gently. “You haven’t asked why I’m not spending today with Sam.”

Castiel just looks down awkwardly at his drink. He doesn’t get many invitations to hang out with people other than Sam and Dean, and he thought it best not to question it.

“You know, I really like Sam,” continues Eileen, “but he can get so serious. I like that’s he’s earnest, but he gets kind of intense sometimes. Very intense. It can be a bit much.”

“I hope everything is still going well between you two,” Castiel responds tentatively.

“It’s fine. I just needed a little time off for myself. Who can blame him with all the shit he’s been through, but the boy does have trouble working through his feelings sometimes.”

“Well, he’s a Winchester,” replies Castiel with a wry smile.

“Right,” replies Eileen, smiling back. “You know just what I’m talking about. You and me, we should form a club.”

“I’d like that,” says Castiel. He’s never been in a club before.

“The Wives of Winchesters Support Group?”

He feels his forehead creasing of its own accord. “I wouldn’t like it if we called it that.”

When they get home, Dean’s reaction to his new look is rather strange. Castiel assumed that Dean would be pleased that he’s got a few of his own clothes and doesn’t need to borrow quite as many.

Instead, when he walks into the kitchen in his smart new outfit, Dean looks startled at the sight, fidgeting and tensing with his mouth hanging open. Then when Castiel asks what he thinks, he relaxes a little, and deliberately wrinkles his nose, like he doesn’t really care for it.

“Hey,” says Eileen as she comes in behind Castiel. “I picked that blazer for him, doesn’t he look hot?”

“He looked hotter in my clothes,” retorts Dean. Then he screws up his face in embarrassment, and clarifies, “I mean, objectively it’s just a better look than the professor vibe.”

He stands up quickly, and Castiel could swear he sees him hit his shin on the table leg, but Dean acts like it didn’t happen.

“Anyway, I was just… going to check on my car,” he mutters.

As Dean hurries out of the room, Castiel shoots a confused glance at Eileen, but she’s not looking at him. Her head’s ducked and she has her lips pressed together, arms clasped over each other like she’s trying to restrain herself from saying something. And although Castiel pesters her, she won’t tell him what it is.

For the rest of the day he does feel a little disappointed, though, that his new look doesn’t appeal to Dean’s taste. Not that it should matter. He tells himself it doesn’t matter.

*

“Dean?” Castiel knocks softly on his door.

“C’min.”

Dean is sitting propped up against the pillows on his bed, playing with his phone. He nods his head at Castiel.

Eileen left the day before, and Dean seemed in a good mood as he wished her goodbye – he was making cheerful jokes about how he’d give Sam away at their wedding. But today, he is sombre, and has hardly been out of his room.

“What’s up, Cas?”

“Just restless,” says Castiel, shutting the door carefully behind him. “Wondering what you’re doing.” If he says directly that he’s concerned, he knows Dean will almost certainly shut him off.

Dean gestures. “Addicted to this dumb game on my phone. M’already on level 23.”

“I see.” Castiel notices the bottle of whisky on the nightstand. “Have you been drinking?”

“You want one?” asks Dean, offering the bottle.

“That’s not what I asked,” says Castiel gently.

Dean gives him a long-suffering look. “Come on, man. Don’t be like that. I’m fine.”

Castiel tilts his head. “Holed up in your room, drinking alone?”

“If you’ll have one with me, I won’t be alone?”

Dean waggles his eyebrows, and Castiel accepts. He sits on the bed next to Dean, crossing his legs, maintaining a certain distance.

Dean doesn’t have an extra glass, so he just passes his to Castiel, who takes a small sip. Then Dean goes back to staring at his phone.

For a few moments, neither of them speaks.

“Nothing happened today, then?” tries Castiel.

Dean sighs. “Yeah, everything’s fine now. The world isn’t ending. We’re safe. Everything’s peachy.”

“You don’t sound very peachy.”

“No,” replies Dean simply, and there’s another long pause.

“Are you going to tell me what’s the matter, then?” asks Castiel.

Dean shrugs. “Hell if I know.” He frowns deeply at the phone screen, and mutters to himself. “It’s nothing, but it’s everything.”

“Right,” says Castiel, not knowing how to respond.

Dean finally drags his eyes away from his phone, setting it down with another sigh. Castiel moves a little closer to give him a reassuring touch on the arm. Eventually, Dean continues.

“With everything that’s happened… Before there was always some emergency to deal with, but now I have time to think about things.” He pauses, and looks to Castiel with undisguised pain in his eyes. “Thinking fucks me up sometimes. Everything we’ve been through. Sometimes it just…” He lifts up a fist and opens it like an explosion “…hits me out of nowhere.”

“I know, Dean,” says Castiel softly.

He does know. Although Dean is past the worst of his lingering trauma from various deaths and injuries, from Hell, from witnessing the deaths of people they lost along the way, it’s not like it’s something that just vanishes one day with no trace.

Castiel wishes he could understand. He wishes he knew the words that would take away the visceral pain of those memories, that could shake Dean out of the terrible places he gets frozen in sometimes.

He shifts position again to put an arm around Dean. He watches intently as Dean takes the glass from him and swallows down another gulp. Dean stares down at the remaining liquid for a moment before setting it aside.

“I’m glad you’re back, man,” he says. “God, I was fucked up for a while there without you.”

Castiel feels a pang of guilt.

“I’m here now,” he says. “And as long as you let me, I promise I’ll stay.”

“As long as I let you,” echoes Dean in a flat voice. He turns his head, and Castiel is startled to realise how close their faces are. Dean, however, seems completely absorbed by his thoughts. “I been a real dick to you, Cas. I’m sorry.”

Castiel is heartened by the apology. He chastises himself for focussing on it – Dean has already apologised for past wrongs, and he is in distress.

“You’ve done your best, Dean. You’ve always done so much for me.”

Dean gently shakes his head. “You’re too sweet to me, man.”

“No,” Castiel insists. “No, I’m not. I want you to understand that.”

Dean swallows, and Castiel just knows behind those soft green eyes he’s battling with some serious self-loathing.

“I really mean it,” he adds for emphasis.

At that, Dean’s lips perk up ever-so-slightly into a small, affectionate smile.

“Aw, Cas,” he murmurs, with so much fondness contained in those two short syllables.

He reaches up and strokes his fingers through Castiel’s hair. The gesture could not be mistaken for platonic, especially not with the way Dean is looking at him, open and needy, his eyes flicking down over Castiel’s lips.

Just as Dean moves forward to close the gap by an inch, Castiel draws his head back slightly, not enough that he might appear to be recoiling.

Still, discomfort appears on Dean’s face, and it makes Castiel’s chest ache.

“Cas, I– let me?”

The ache in Castiel’s chest deepens. “I told you, it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel that way.” His voice is trembling, and he can’t seem to stop it. His arm is still halfway round Dean’s shoulder, but he can’t make himself move it either. “You don’t have to force yourself.”

“I ain’t forcing nothing,” says Dean in a hoarse voice. “If you don’t want it, I’ll stop, of course I will. But I really just…” He closes his eyes for a second, and swallows. “I need this right now.” When Castiel doesn’t respond right away, Dean tilts his head and looks at him doubtfully. He sounds like a lost little boy. “Can I have it?”

Castiel’s protest falters and dies in his throat. What is the point in loving Dean if he cannot comfort him in times like these?

Besides, he wants this too, at times has wanted it mindlessly and selfishly in a way he rarely acknowledges. He can come up with no reason to deny him.

“Of course,” he says, and takes Dean’s face in both hands to kiss him softly.

Chapter Text

The kiss surpasses Castiel’s imagination. His whole body is alight, is trembling, at the warmth and softness of Dean’s mouth. His thoughts are in disorder, and as he tries to grasp at them, they slip away. His mind is nothing but a blur of instinct and feeling.

This should be for Dean, all for Dean, to provide him the comfort that he needs. It should be gentle and sweet. Yet Castiel is kissing him harder and more urgently. He finds himself moaning with his own tremulous want, the overwhelming desire that he has been pushing down and down, that is now erupting inside him. He’s not giving, he’s demanding, and for some reason Dean is yielding, letting Castiel press him down against the bed to climb on top of him. Castiel breaks the kiss to let out a harsh gasp as their bodies move sinuously together.

“Fuck, Cas. Yes,” Dean mutters gruffly, and Castiel has no words any more so he just kisses him again, revelling in the sensation of Dean’s lips and tongue sliding against his, Dean’s hands caressing his hair and neck and shoulders, Dean’s leg hooking around him to tug their groins firmly together. He doesn’t understand why humans ever do anything else if sexual congress can be this exhilarating.

Dean’s body is muscular and solid, yet pliant and responsive under Castiel’s touch. As he trails a hand over Dean’s smooth, bare chest, he hears Dean whimper, and feels a heady flutter of power, followed by a surge of unadulterated lust. He has given up the pretence that this is about friendly comfort. He needs completion. He needs release in Dean’s arms. Anything else either of them might need is lost in the haze of frantic desire that ensues.

When it’s over, Castiel collapses on top of Dean, their sweaty bodies lying feeble together for a brief, delicious moment. But then he quickly rolls off onto his back, afraid the weight of his body is uncomfortable for Dean. He’s suddenly conscious of such things again, now that his lust is sated.

As he lies there, still panting, he hears Dean’s similarly heavy breaths beside him, but he can’t quite make himself look over. They’re both half-naked and dishevelled, Castiel’s smart new pants scrunched round his thighs, and he feels a slight chill over the wetness of his bare crotch and stomach. But his body is enveloped in heavy satisfaction, and he doesn’t bother to wipe himself up or straighten his clothes.

Eventually, Dean breaks the silence. “Fuck,” he breathes out into the musky air.

Castiel wonders if that’s a good reaction. He’s never been with a man before, but Dean climaxed immediately after him, so he supposes he did at least an adequate job.

This suspicion is confirmed when Dean, after pulling up his boxers and shucking off his jeans onto the floor, rolls over to clasp Castiel’s head and press a wet kiss to his forehead. “Thanks,” he says. “You’re awesome.”

Awesome. Like he’s talking about a cheeseburger or something. Castiel will accept that, though. In his post-coital contentment, he feels nothing but tenderness for Dean.

He gets up to grab some clean clothes from Dean’s closet. When he lies back down, it’s in a t-shirt and boxers. Dean moves closer, and they settle instinctively into a wordless embrace, with Castiel stroking his hands over the bare skin of Dean’s back. He can feel the slight ridges of scars, of old wounds, and the intense tenderness surges in him again. It makes him feel strong and protective and incredibly close to Dean.

Yet when he wakes up the next morning and Dean is nowhere to be seen, he isn’t particularly surprised.

*

Castiel cautiously enters the kitchen, but he only finds Sam washing dishes.

“Morning,” says Sam with a friendly smile. “You slept in.”

Castiel is immediately arrested by the possibility that Sam realises he wasn’t in his own room last night. But there’s nothing suspicious or teasing in Sam’s voice, so he dismisses the idea.

“Yes, you two have already finished breakfast, haven’t you?”

“Dean headed out somewhere,” replies Sam, as though he sensed Castiel’s unspoken question.

“I’ll just have some cereal, then.”

Castiel feels somewhat awkward around Sam ever since that conversation with Eileen. He thinks Dean is in love with you. That thought is more difficult than ever for him to push aside this morning, as he goes around the kitchen opening and closing cupboard doors.

“Actually, I’m not hungry,” he declares, and hurriedly walks out.

“Okay,” he hears Sam saying behind him, and even if he sounds puzzled, Castiel has bigger things to worry about.

Dean finally shows up that afternoon, while Castiel is attempting to distract himself from his unruly thoughts by reading a hefty tome about vampires. Vampires ought to be interesting, he reasons, but everything seems terribly dry compared to the urgent anxieties that are plaguing him, and at the point that Dean enters the library he’s just finished reading the same paragraph for about the fifth time.

“Hey,” says Dean as he approaches.

“Hello, Dean,” replies Castiel, his eyes trained on the book. Sixth time’s the charm.

There’s a brief silence.

“We should talk,” says Dean eventually.

Castiel says nothing at first. This is it, he supposes. Where Dean says he regrets their encounter, or he didn’t enjoy it, or it was all a mistake and Castiel should probably just leave the bunker and move on because this is all too uncomfortable for him to cope with.

Castiel feels his hand trembling as he attempts to casually turn the page. “If you like.”

“You–” begins Dean, then takes a deep breath and starts again. “Last night was really shitty of me.”

Castiel looks up at him abruptly. That was not what he expected at all.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” says Dean.

“I don’t understand why you’re apologising to me,” says Castiel sharply. He frowns. “Do you think I didn’t take pleasure in it? I assure you, I very much did.”

Dean looks thrown by that, perhaps embarrassed. He tips his head, his eyelashes fluttering, and he licks his lips nervously.

“No, I mean, I shouldn’t have taken advantage.” At Castiel’s bemused face, he adds quietly, “I don’t want to make you think there’s something there that isn’t.”

Castiel is developing a headache, an insistent pulsing pain in his temple. He puts it down to the strain of navigating this conversation without triggering Dean’s self-hatred.

“You did nothing wrong, Dean,” he says carefully. “You needed comfort, and I hope you got it from me. I enjoyed the experience. What is there to apologise for?”

For a moment, Dean is quiet. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. Castiel continues to stare at him placidly.

“But you understand, right,” says Dean eventually. “I can’t give you more than that.”

Castiel feels anger rising in him, and for once, he fails to stuff it down. His head is pulsating too much.

“I never asked you for more,” he says fiercely. “I never asked you for anything.” He stands up, stacking his books loudly on top of each other. “If you regret what we did, I’m truly sorry. I got caught up in it. It was selfish of me.”

“Selfish?” Dean seems strangely offended by that. “What the fuck, Cas.”

Castiel feels his temper is on the verge of unravelling, and he makes to leave.

“I was thinking only of myself,” he mutters as he brushes past Dean.

“Well maybe you oughta,” Dean calls after his retreating back. Castiel detects confusion mixed in with the indignation in his voice. “You gotta look out for yourself, man.”

Castiel lets the door fall shut with a bang, and does his best to ignore Dean’s words. He doesn’t succeed very well. There are tears forming in his eyes.

He retreats to his room, and instinctively curls up on his bed, pulling a blanket over him. He clutches at it tightly. It’s strange how much comfort his human form derives from such trivial things.

Castiel thought he could not feel more for Dean than he already did. He may have been wrong. The swell of affection induced by hormonal release is something he had not reckoned with. That intense feeling is no longer something he can bury away and hide from himself out of convenience. He feels it slowly curdling to resentment in his stomach.

As he lies there, he thinks about texting Eileen. She might have some advice. But then he would have to explain the whole situation, and tell her how he lied the other day about wanting Dean. Tell her that Dean still doesn’t want him, not like that, seems to outright dismiss the notion of them being together romantically, despite being aroused by him physically.

He realises belatedly that Dean was right. If he had no sexual interest in men at all, his rejection would be easier to take.

Castiel stays cocooned in his room until Sam calls them for dinner. He’d rather skip it, but his wretched mortal body needs feeding. Again.

Dean’s already sitting in the kitchen when he arrives. Castiel studiously ignores him. When Sam comes over to the table with the pot of pasta, he barely glances at the two of them before sighing deeply.

“Not this again, guys.”

Neither of them respond. Sam rolls his eyes.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Sam turns to Castiel pleadingly.

“Look, I expect this crap from Dean. But you, you’re like literally thousands of years old, can you not be an adult and, like, use your words?”

Castiel fixes him with a glare, and doesn’t hold back the directionless contempt that has been festering in him. Sam visibly shudders.

Dean pushes his plate away. “I’m not hungry,” he declares, sliding his chair back.

“Come on, man, I spent time making that.”

“Sorry,” says Dean, shaking his head as he gets up. “No appetite. I’m not myself today.”

He sounds extremely tired, and Castiel glances up in concern despite himself.

“But Cas, I– for what it’s worth?” As he catches Castiel’s cautious gaze, Dean’s eyes soften. “It helped.”

He walks out of the room, and Castiel is left with Sam staring at him in curiosity, as relief and self-chastisement mingle in his chest.

*

Gradually, the tension between them thaws. Castiel sits and watches Dean cleaning his guns, and passes him things when asked. Dean spends hours labouring over a homemade pecan pie, Castiel’s favourite. He lets Castiel pick their evening movie twice in a row; Castiel gets to watch Legally Blonde without a peep of resistance.

A few words exchanged here and there soon morphs back into their easy banter. Sam voices his relief that they’ve made up. Dean rolls his eyes. Within a week, things are back to the way they were. Except—

Except Dean doesn’t touch him any more, and Castiel, unconsciously and later consciously mirroring him, doesn’t touch Dean either.

The fact that this vacuum of physical contact is so noticeable only highlights to Castiel how much Dean used to touch him – on the arm, the shoulder, the small of his back, to comfort or to guide him. How their hands would brush because they walked so close together, speaking in low, secretive voices, not because they had something to hide, but simply because they were so wrapped up in each other.

He misses that intimacy. His skin aches for it. It begins to bother him so much that he does something he is loth to – he prays to Jack for help.

Since Castiel came back to Earth, he has prayed a few times, presuming Jack could hear him. He has expressed his gratefulness, his fatherly love (what an absurd thing, to be a father to God), his wish to see Jack again even if only in dreams. He has never asked for anything.

Yet he finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed after another day with that strange distance between him and Dean, asking Jack for guidance. He prays for help in regaining Dean’s trust and intimacy, prays for something to show him the way. In the back of his mind there is the small, treacherous thought that his existence was much simpler when he had only to obey orders.

Jack would never give him direct orders. He would probably never even give firm advice. But Castiel hopes that at the very least, by focussing on and contemplating his love for Jack, he might come to some breakthrough in his efforts to be loving and forgiving towards Dean.

*

The next day, as he’s helping himself to a pair of pants from Dean’s closet, something falls out of the pocket onto the floor with a soft click and rolls away. Glancing down, Castiel doesn’t see anything, so he gets on his knees to peer under the bed.

It’s only a coin, an old quarter glinting at him from a couple of feet under the bed, far enough that he has to duck his head and reach to fetch it. As he does so, he notices something else under the bed, tucked in the corner between the wall and the nightstand. A folded piece of clothing.

His curiosity gets the better of him, and he pulls it out to examine it. It’s a worn green jacket, but unlike most of the floor under the bed, it’s not particularly dusty. Unfolding it, he feels a strange chill come over him as he spots the dark brown of dried blood.

It takes him a second or two to put things together, to recognise his own handprint on the shoulder. A memory flashes through his mind of pushing Dean to the floor, mere seconds before the Empty came for him, mere seconds after–

He hurriedly folds the jacket up and puts it back where he found it, paranoid that Dean might come in and catch him looking at it.

Having replaced the jacket, he gets up off his knees and sits on the bed. He looks down at the dull quarter in his hands, wondering at his own flustered reaction. What would it matter if Dean did come across him looking?

It matters, he supposes, because the jacket must have some kind of significance to Dean, if he has kept it unwashed and hidden away where no one would normally find it. Castiel doesn’t understand what significance precisely. But he takes it readily as his sign from Jack, a sign that he should persist in showing patience and love for Dean, that eventually they will get their friendly intimacy back. He holds onto the coin, as a reminder.

Chapter Text

A few days later, Castiel is up late texting Eileen, sharing cute videos of baby animals. He’s told Dean before he thinks they’re probably the best thing about the internet, but Dean just laughed and patted his shoulder, looking at Castiel as though he’d said something adorably stupid.

Now that he thinks about it, Dean gives him that look a lot. He doesn’t pat Castiel on the shoulder recently, and that still makes him a little sad.

In the course of their text conversation, Eileen lets slip that she and Sam have talked vaguely about moving in together in future, somewhere more cosy and convenient than a bunker out in the sticks. Castiel wonders what would happen to him and Dean in that case, whether they would continue living together.

Castiel doesn’t have other obvious options, but when he thinks more about it, he realises neither does Dean. Eileen was right when she mentioned that Dean hasn’t had any women around recently, not romantic interests at least. And a great number of his friends are unfortunately now deceased. As for Castiel, he’s never had many people he could truly call friends in the first place. Certainly there’s no one he’s anywhere near as close to as Dean.

That thought used to make him strangely happy, to make him appreciate how special his friendship with Dean was. Now it starts to scare him a little.

All this contemplation is too much for his tired brain, so Castiel texts Eileen goodnight and begins to settle down to sleep. But just as he’s reaching to turn off the bedside light, he hears a noise, as though someone’s lurking outside the door, and instead gets up warily to his feet.

He hears another sound that’s like shuffling feet, recognises it, and with some exasperation goes to open the door.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Dean. His hand is clenched by his chest, as though he was hesitating to knock so late at night.

“Cas,” he breathes, with a relieved smile on his face.

There are large bags under his eyes, and his skin is a disturbing shade of ashen grey. He doesn’t wait for Castiel to ask what’s wrong.

“Had a bad dream,” he croaks out. “Something happened to you. Bad things.”

“I’m okay, Dean. I’m here.”

Dean shakes his head. “Real bad things,” he mumbles. “Just wanted to see you.”

Castiel gives in and reaches out to briefly touch Dean’s elbow – a safe, friendly touch. It’s not enough to be truly comforting – they both know this – but it’s safe. “It was only a dream.”

Dean stares dully over Castiel’s shoulder into the room. “You know, I’m still afraid sometimes that this is all a dream. That I’ll wake up and you’re still trapped in the Empty and there ain’t a damn thing I can do to help you.”

He looks back into Castiel’s face with a mournful expression.

“Dean,” says Castiel firmly, “Even if I were in trouble, it’s not your responsibility to save everyone.” He’s extremely tired, and part of him wishes Dean would stop wallowing in self-blame long enough for them both to go back to bed and get some sleep.

He feels pretty terrible for having that thought when Dean looks at him meekly and replies, “You’re not everyone.”

Castiel can’t drag his eyes away from Dean’s gaze. It’s almost like when they were first getting to know each other, when he was fascinated by Dean in quite a different way – for the novelty of him, how unpredictable he was at times. There’s something in Dean’s expression that Castiel isn’t sure he’s seen before, that he can’t quite figure out.

Dean breaks the gaze, inhaling sharply.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” he asks. At Castiel’s alarmed expression, he adds, “I mean just next to you. No touching, no weirdness, I promise. Just so I can look over and know you’re really there.”

Castiel feels his whole body tensing. The awkwardness between them the last week or so has been wearing, and he doesn’t want to make it worse by refusing Dean. His reluctance largely stems from how badly he wants Dean sleeping next to him. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to indulge himself again. But he has always had trouble saying no to Dean on these rare occasions when he lets his vulnerable side show.

He glances over his shoulder at the double bed behind him, and his eyes fall upon the quarter dollar from the other day, lying on the nightstand where he left it. He remembers the jacket folded up under Dean’s bed. He remembers his own resolution to be patient and loving towards the man whose trauma he does not fully understand (and has, however unintentionally, contributed to).

“Very well,” he says before he can overthink it. “Please stay on your side.”

“Course,” agrees Dean, and adds an emphatic hand gesture. “100%. No weirdness.”

Dean is true to his word. There’s more than a foot of space between them as he falls asleep.

Castiel is glad to find himself more comforted than perturbed by Dean’s presence, at knowing his friend is safe and content beside him. He lets Dean’s peaceful, rhythmic breathing lull him to sleep.

*

Castiel wakes some hours later to the sight of Dean’s face right in front of him, shadowy grey in the meagre light that leaks in from the corridor. Dean is close enough for him to touch, close enough that Castiel could simply crane his neck to kiss his cheek or forehead, even his sweetly dreaming mouth. He does none of these things, because even half-asleep, he’s aware of the rules of their interactions. He is incredibly tired. He closes his eyes.

Dean’s face is still drifting through his mind as he dozes. Dean’s eyes flutter open, full of self-doubt, questioning whether he even deserves this comfort.

“I love you,” says Castiel. Saying it makes him feel proud and virtuous. His love can weather any storm. It does not need Dean to mirror it.

And yet, he sees Dean’s expression crumple. He doesn’t speak, but in this realm of the subconscious Castiel doesn’t need angelic powers to read Dean’s mind.

The last time you told me that, you fucking died on me.

But, but, stutters Castiel’s mind in desperation, as Dean’s face recedes behind a flood of swarming blackness, but it was not possible.

It was not possible to save Dean and to stay there by his side.

With despair there comes the corollary to that thought, the dread that has been creeping round the edges of his consciousness for some time now: It is not possible to give Dean everything he wants and still maintain the same contented love for him.

That is correct, comes a voice in Enochian, and now Castiel is sinking into the comfort of Jack’s presence like a warm, fragrant bath.

Unlike Dean, Jack’s visage is lifelike, not a blur but a solid form. His body is as it was on Earth, but his voice is now deep and mature, his words weathered with divine knowledge.

Love is not less precious for having its limits. Humans are beautiful. But they are chaotic, imprecise, imperfect. How do you propose to sustain a flawless love for that which is flawed?

Castiel feels childish and inarticulate in his pleas. “Jack, tell me what I should do. I love him.”

Jack smiles affectionately, and in his smile he radiates that familiar purity and innocence. Castiel, understand. In your time on Earth, you have cast off your cold ferocity, your need for absolutes. You have learnt to love deeply, passionately, beyond reason.

Jack’s smile fades a little, his manner growing more serious, beseeching Castiel to understand.

And the price for that is mortal hunger. That is the way of things.

*

Castiel wakes again, this time with a start. He and Dean have rolled closer, and their shoulders are touching. Dean’s limp hand is resting against Castiel’s thigh. The sound of his breathing is close.

Castiel is afraid that if he moves he will wake Dean as well, so he lies still. In the dark and quiet, there’s nothing to focus on but the faint tickle of Dean’s breaths and those two points of heat where their bodies are touching.

Gradually Castiel becomes aware of a third point of heat growing within him, rising in his belly, sidling down to his crotch. He carefully shifts away. Dean doesn’t wake.

His arousal still doesn’t recede. After several minutes, Castiel slides out of bed and tiptoes out to the bathroom to take care of it.

Since their encounter, he has allowed himself to fantasise about Dean. There seems little point in restraining himself any more, if he even could, and the release makes the tension he feels every day more bearable.

He recalls Dean writhing and gasping under him, head thrown back, muscles taut with pleasure, and it doesn’t take him very long at all to find relief.

When he returns and climbs back into bed, Dean stirs.

“Where’d you go, man?” he mumbles in a needy voice.

“Just to the bathroom. Go back to sleep, Dean.”

“Mkay.” Dean rolls over, away from him.

In that moment, Castiel feels ashamed of himself, for getting off on Dean’s unintentional touches without his knowledge. It seems he’s been infected by the pervasive sense of shame that humans have surrounding sex. It’s an illogical shame, he reasons to himself. Humans often believe the presence of lust to make love less pure, but Castiel doesn’t see it that way – for him, that intense desire is just another manifestation of their bond, of his deep appreciation for everything that Dean is.

But perhaps this is the curse of mortal hunger; with his grace, it was much easier to curb his lustful urges. Indeed the first time he got an inkling of his sexual attraction towards Dean, it was as a human, lying in a sleeping bag in the store room of a gas station, thinking a little about his non-date and a lot about Dean’s wolfish smile, his sweetness, his arm slung protectively around Castiel’s shoulders. At the time, Castiel was mystified by his body’s reaction, but he was mystified by much back then, and didn’t dwell on it.

But if that is the price for human love, it isn’t much to pay. He can deal himself with the arousal that bothers him, and Dean is none the wiser.

The bed creaks as Dean rolls back to face him, whispering, “Hey, was it me woke you up?”

“No.”

“Sometimes I thrash around. In my sleep.”

“I know,” says Castiel. As an angel, he watched Dean sleep more than he would let on.

“If I do, you can wake me up.” There’s a pause. “Please wake me up.”

“I will.” He did that, sometimes, too.

“Thanks, man.”

Castiel cannot help himself. He reaches out to put a hand on Dean’s shoulder. The warmth seems to radiate down his arm, throughout his body, and he feels an immense sense of relief. “It’s okay, Dean. You’re safe now. We’re both safe.”

“Yeah,” Dean murmurs sleepily back. “Yeah, we are.”

Castiel takes his hand back, feeling the warmth linger on his palm. He concentrates once again on Dean’s soft breathing, and drifts off to sleep.

Chapter Text

As before, Dean leaves the room in the morning while Castiel is still sleeping, but Castiel is relieved to find him right away as he steps into the kitchen.

Not only that, but when Dean sees him come in, he gives him a genuine smile. “Hey, sleeping beauty.”

“Good morning, Dean.”

Dean hands him a mug of Earl Grey. His face is already becoming more serious, his brow creasing in contrition.

“So, um, I’m sorry,” he says awkwardly. “Wasn’t right to ask you that. I don’t know why you went along with it. But it won’t happen again.“

Castiel has a sinking feeling. He is afraid that Dean will withdraw from him further, that not only will they not touch again, but Dean will stop sharing things with him, stop being comfortable around him, stop seeing him as a best friend.

He’s about to say he didn’t mind at all, but then he thinks it might scare Dean even more if he sounds too eager.

“I’m not going to hold it against you,” he says lightly, sipping the tea. Dean added honey and lemon and a splash of cold water, the way Castiel likes it. Dean can be very considerate when he tries.

“Really?” says Dean, tilting his head as though he thinks Castiel is slightly crazy. “I would. If I were you.”

“You were suffering. It’s normal to seek comfort from a friend.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t– I messed up.” He mutters under his breath, “Again.”

I would do anything to relieve your suffering, Castiel wants to say, but he is tired of trying to make Dean believe it. So tired that he is beginning to doubt its sincerity himself.

“Well, no one’s perfect,” he says instead, a trite attempt at being reassuring. He puts his mug down on the counter to rub at his bleary eyes with both hands.

Dean moves a step closer and just as Castiel turns towards him, Dean presses a hand to his shoulder. Castiel almost jumps in surprise. The touch isn’t light and casual – it feels solid, meaningful, intended to convey something.

“Trouble is,” Dean says hesitantly, “you kind of are, though.”

Dean’s gaze settles on his, and Castiel’s breath seems to stick in his throat. Dean’s expression is earnest, his eyes crinkled in affection, his lips parted and slightly pouting before they quirk into a tiny smile. It’s a look of tender admiration that takes Castiel entirely by surprise.

It’s not that Dean has never looked at him in an adoring way. But it’s the first time since Castiel returned, the first time with his words of love hanging between them, lending everything weight.

Dean squeezes Castiel’s shoulder, and Castiel’s breath returns to him – he inhales deeply, his eyelashes fluttering. He feels that he ought to say something, to brush off the compliment perhaps. But he wants Dean to keep looking at him like that forever.

They both turn their heads at the sound of footsteps approaching the door. Dean’s hand drops rapidly from Castiel’s shoulder.

“Hey guys,” says Sam as he enters the room, and something in the tone of his voice tells them he’s sensed there’s something off. Castiel realises he and Dean are standing unnaturally close together – or at least, it’s unnatural for them of late.

But whatever tension Sam might have sensed, he doesn’t dwell on it. “So, I think I found us a case,” he announces. He launches into a description, something about ghouls over in Missouri, but Castiel’s mind is faraway.

Yes, he thinks to himself, that moment just now must be what Jack meant by hunger. Not hunger for sexual consummation – Castiel could live without that, if Dean didn’t want it. No, what he hungers for is Dean’s regard, his concern, the tenderness that he sensed in Dean’s gaze mere moments ago. Perhaps that last one was just wishful thinking on his part, but nonetheless – without that nourishment, his mortal love may perish. That is the way of things.

“Come on, man,” says Dean.

Castiel was barely aware that Sam had finished speaking. What he is aware of, to an absurd degree, is that as Dean leans back against the counter, their arms brush together. They’re shoulder-to-shoulder, for no particular reason, and the amount of happiness this brings him is entirely unwarranted.

“We agreed,” says Dean. “We’re taking time off to recuperate. A few months at least.”

“It’s been a few months already,” says Sam, although he doesn’t seem particularly invested in his argument, and Castiel wonders why he even bothered to bring the case up. “And you know I only agreed to that because you were a fucking mess after–“

His voice cuts off abruptly into an uncomfortable silence. Castiel stares down at the floor, experiencing the familiar sting of guilt.

“But look,” continues Sam apologetically, “we’re good now. We got Cas, we got Eileen. Aren’t you going a bit crazy with nothing to work on?”

Ah, thinks Castiel. That’s why Sam brought it up. He’s fed up with Dean’s mood swings, and assumes they’re down to boredom.

“I don’t know, man,” says Dean, sounding thoroughly indifferent.

Sam’s eyes narrow in scepticism. “Normally you’d be climbing the walls after a week or two.”

Dean doesn’t respond. Castiel suspects he wants to refuse the case, but doesn’t want to make Sam worry about him.

“From my perspective,” Castiel interjects, “it is quite pleasant to just spend some time with you two while not in constant fear for our lives.” He trains his eyes on Sam as he says it, but he feels Dean beside him shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and is extremely conscious of their shoulders rubbing together. “Is the case really urgent?” he asks.

“Not really,” concedes Sam. “I could make a call or two and get someone else on it.”

“Why not?” says Dean, picking at his nails. “Let someone else save the poor bastards for once.”

“I just thought you’d be restless.”

Dean shrugs. “I don’t know, man,” he says again. “Right now a coupla ghouls just don’t seem all that important. I got a lot on my mind lately.”

“Oh yeah?” questions Sam, his tone slightly teasing. “Like what?”

Dean doesn’t elaborate. He simply saunters out of the room, clapping his brother on the shoulder as he passes. “Make the call, Sammy.”

As Dean walks out, Sam turns to Castiel as though he might have an answer.

“Don’t ask me,” says Castiel, still unsure whether to be concerned or glad about Dean’s behaviour this morning. “I know the dangers of Dean thinking too hard as much as anyone.”

That gets him a chuckle, and thankfully Sam doesn’t quiz him any further.

*

In the evening, they get takeout pizza, and the three of them sit in the map room eating and relaxing. Even when the pizza’s finished, the brothers stay there, drinking far too many beers between them.

“You’re still here?” asks Castiel as he passes through the room again an hour or two later.

“We got all the time in the world now.” Dean gestures at a chair. “C’mon. Have one beer with us.”

Castiel isn’t a huge fan of beer, but decides to humour Dean and sit with them a while. Dean opens a bottle with that silver ring he wears sometimes, and push-slides the beer across the table for Castiel to catch. Sam raises his eyebrows, mildly impressed by Dean’s accuracy.

He and Dean carry on their jovial conversation about some TV show that Castiel’s never seen, but expects Dean to force on him sooner or later. He watches Dean’s fingers fiddling with the bottletop. Dean has nice hands, he’s always thought. For such a macho guy, he takes good care of his nails.

The memory of Dean’s hands touching him intimately flashes through Castiel’s mind, and he looks away in embarrassment. The brothers just carry on talking, oblivious.

Finally, Dean’s attention flicks over to Castiel. “Hey, I know you’re a lightweight, but you can have more than a sip, it won’t kill you.”

Sam laughs, a carefree laugh that Castiel is glad to hear. “Dude, why you always so intent on corrupting the angel?”

Dean smirks to himself as an idea occurs to him. “You ever played drinking games, Cas? I guess you didn’t go to many high school parties. It’s fun, you get to find things out about people.”

Sam snorts. “Yeah, TMI things. I am not playing Never Have I Ever with my brother and my brother’s boyfriend.”

It’s not the first time that Sam’s referred to them as a couple – though it’s usually as an old married one – but it is the first time Dean fails to ignore it. His lips twitch and there’s a momentary flash of panic in his eyes. It’s almost imperceptible, but Castiel can see Sam picking up on something, sees his tipsy brain whirring as his gaze flits between Dean and Castiel.

“Perhaps you can teach me some other game,” Castiel says in an attempt to distract him.

Sam waves his hand to refuse. “Nah, actually, you know what. I’ve had too many beers already. I’m going to bed.”

“Suit yourself,” says Dean as Sam gets up to leave. “Me and Cas gonna play Seven Minutes in Heaven!” he calls after Sam’s retreating back.

Castiel doesn’t know what that game involves (presumably the joke revolves around him being a former angel), but Dean has an irritated look on his face when Sam doesn’t even acknowledge him.

“He was only joking, Dean,” says Castiel quietly.

“I know,” mutters Dean. “So was I.”

There’s a brief, awkward silence, then Dean gets up from his chair to start collecting up the bottles and pizza boxes. Dean spontaneously tidying is not a good sign. Castiel tries to think of something bland and inconsequential to say, but Dean interrupts his thoughts.

“You ain’t said anything to him, have you?”

“No,” replies Castiel, uncomfortably conscious of what Dean is referring to. “Have you?”

Dean shakes his head. “Don’t really talk to Sam about that stuff. Random hook-ups I’ll never see again, sure. But not…” He licks his lips anxiously. “Well. He’s my brother, you know. It’d be weird.”

He’s scattering crumbs all over the table as he folds up the pizza boxes, but Castiel reckons this is not worth pointing out.

“Actually,” continues Dean in a casual voice, picking up a beer bottle and picking absently at the peeling label to avoid eye contact, “I wasn’t that surprised you didn’t know I’m kinda into guys, cause I never even told Sam about it. Didn’t ever really seem important.”

Castiel is glad that Dean would confide that to him. It’s something he’s been wondering about. “I think he knows, though,” he says gently.

Dean tilts his head, brow furrowed in concern. “Why’d you say that?”

“Um.” Castiel can’t come up with a suitable lie in time. “Eileen told me.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. Castiel fidgets. He wonders if Dean will be annoyed that he and Eileen were talking about him.

“She said, a while back Sam thought you were infatuated with some guy.”

“Oh.” Dean’s expression is difficult to read. “Huh.” He half-sits on the edge of the table. “With who?”

“I don’t know,” says Castiel, nervous under Dean’s scrutiny. “She didn’t say.”

Dean pouts. “Weird. Normally he’d give me a ton of shit over something like that. Like, literally never shut up about it.”

Castiel takes a deep breath. It can be hard work, processing all Dean’s emotions for him. “Maybe he thought you were serious. About that guy. Maybe he didn’t want to interfere.”

If his heart is aching as he says it, it’s such a familiar ache by now he barely registers it.

Dean frowns, lost in thought. “Huh.”

There’s another long pause.

“Maybe we should go to bed,” says Castiel eventually, standing up and resting his fingertips on the table.

Dean looks at him strangely for a second, then looks away as his eyelids flutter, and Castiel realises too late the innuendo.

He looks down at his hands. “I don’t mean–“ He cuts himself off, because he doesn’t even know what it is he doesn’t mean. He let Dean sleep in his bed last night. If Dean asked to do that again, he probably wouldn’t object. If Dean tried to seduce him–

But before he can complete the thought, Dean is moving round the table towards him, and Castiel turns, looking at him in surprise, not comprehending quickly enough what is about to happen.

Dean takes him by the hips, nudging Castiel’s body to face him fully before swiftly leaning in to kiss him.

The kiss is smooth and sultry, and Castiel melts into it before his brain can come online. Kissing Dean is one of the most pleasurable sensations he’s ever felt, even moreso now Dean is being tender with it, the movements of his lips slow and deliberate.

Castiel grips the edge of the table for balance, flooded with arousal as Dean presses closer against him, his tongue lazily caressing Castiel’s. Dean’s hands slide around his back, holding him carefully in place, and Castiel gives a warm hum of contentment. He has been so starved of Dean’s touches, and this is the kind of romantic embrace that has long been lingering in the back of his imagination, that he has never allowed himself to think too much about because it seemed wholly out of reach.

Dean starts laying small kisses along his jawline. He mouths softly at the sensitive skin of Castiel’s neck, eliciting a squeaky gasp. Castiel’s eyes flutter halfway open, catching sight of the red plaid of Dean’s shirt, and it brings him abruptly back to reality.

“Dean?” he says firmly, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Dean pulls back for a moment to look at him, biting his lip as he rakes his eyes over Castiel’s neck and chest. “Mmm?”

“What is this?” asks Castiel. His voice sounds small and feeble.

Dean smirks at him, a smirk that promises filthy things. “Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” replies Castiel in frustration.

Dean responds in a low, smooth drawl that makes Castiel’s legs go weak. “It means I’mma keep kissing you cause it feels damn good.”

He leans in again, but Castiel reluctantly turns his head away. “I don’t understand,” he repeats. “Why are you doing this now?”

Dean just looks disconcerted and shrugs. “Why not?”

Castiel fixes him with a hard glare, because he has had enough of Dean’s evasive answers.

Dean lets out a sharp breath. “Fine. Okay. I guess I needed to see how it’d feel. You know, I think I just realised something. I think if Sam walks in and sees me making out with a dude, I could probably actually live with it.”

This is not a flattering answer to give, Castiel reckons. He purses his lips. “And if Sam thinks you’re really my boyfriend?”

Dean ducks his head reflexively, and Castiel needs no more answer than that. He tries to wriggle out from between Dean and the table, but Dean’s hands are firm on his waist.

“Dean,” he growls, as anger seems to surge up from the pit of his stomach. “Let go of me.” Dean doesn’t, so Castiel pushes harder to get out.

Dean relents and lets go. “Jeez, I’m sorry,” he says irritably. “I just needed to see.”

“And what about what I need, Dean?” snaps Castiel as he steps back. His mind is reeling with unexpected bitterness. At one time he would have felt insanely grateful for just a single kiss from Dean.

“I thought you wanted this,” says Dean, but the way he says it, it doesn’t sound like he’s even convincing himself with that argument.

Castiel just glares at him, shakes his head and strides off back to his room. He doesn’t know what else he can do.

“Fine,” calls out Dean, not bothering to control the volume of his voice. “Fuck you, Cas.”

Fuck you, Dean, replies Castiel in his head, and wonders how he got to here from selfless love.

Chapter Text

“Jack,” murmurs Castiel under his breath. “I wish you would let me know. Why did I choose to be human?”

He’s lying in the dark in his room, with the door locked in case Dean comes to hash things out with him. He can’t handle the idea of that right now. The taste of the kiss is still on his lips – the taste of beer and musky breath and Dean.

He knows Dean’s anger is just a manifestation of fear – his fear of losing another friend, of being alone, of being found unworthy. Of Castiel thinking his platonic love is not enough and dismissing it. Then what is Castiel’s own anger, where does it stem from? Why does it overwhelm his patience and benevolence?

“It’s too hard,” he says, his voice barely a whisp of air. “I do not have the strength. I was not built for this…”

His lips stop moving. The words are on the tip of his tongue, but his heart is not in them, and surely Jack knows it.

Restore me. Take me with you.

There is something still tethering him to Earth, though he cannot say what exactly. Without his grace, he is no longer able to protect Sam or Dean or their friends in a meaningful way. Why should he be here, and not in Heaven?

He was long reconciled with the idea that Dean did not share his romantic love. He was content with nothing in return. But what he has received so far is worse than nothing, it is a new kind of torture, and now he has finally come to acknowledge a terrible fact: to cure his chronic distress, to preserve his positive regard for Dean, he needs to distance himself until such time as their feelings have calmed.

He closes his heavy eyes, and prays to Jack one more time, to ask for his forgiveness.

Forgiveness, because he is not strong or flawless enough to persist in active love. Not with what he has now come to perceive as the reality: that, yes, Dean needs him, but that need for Castiel far outweighs Dean’s concern for him.

*

It is not difficult for Castiel to find Sam alone the next morning. He usually rises an hour or two before the others, and he looks up from his yoghurt drink with surprise as Castiel comes into the kitchen.

“Couldn’t sleep well?” he asks.

“Not exactly,” says Castiel, sitting down across from him. “I’m afraid I have a favour to ask of you.”

“Um. Sure.” Sam looks disconcerted, probably because Castiel would ordinarily go to Dean first with any favour he needed. “What is it?”

Castiel hesitates. It’s one thing to resolve on a course of action, and quite another to take steps to put it in place.

“I was hoping you might employ your photoshop skills to help me make some papers.”

“Papers?”

“Identity records. I’ve been thinking for a while now, it might be for the best, if I’m going to live the rest of my life as a human, to get some more experience outside of this bunker.”

Sam raises an eyebrow.

“Get a normal job, rent an apartment. Something like that.” When Sam still doesn’t look convinced, he adds, “Everyone needs a purpose in life, Sam. And while assisting you in future hunts is one option, I would like to find out what other options might exist.”

Sam screws up his forehead, looking uncomfortable. “Uh-huh. Have you, uh, talked to Dean about all this?”

“Your brother is not my keeper.” The words come out far sterner than he intended.

“Ookay. But, like, did something happen between you two? If Dean is being a jerk, at least give me a chance to talk some sense into him.”

Castiel shakes his head. “I just need to do this for myself. I would appreciate it, though, if you would let me be the one to tell him about it.” He pauses. “So would you be able to help me?”

Sam nods. He seems at least somewhat reassured that Castiel is going to deal with that awkward conversation. “Of course,” he says. “Let me finish up breakfast, then I’ll see what I can do.”

*

Castiel is putting away dishes in the kitchen when Dean marches in and slaps down a bunch of printouts on the counter in front of him. “Who the fuck is Steven Tyler?”

Castiel may or may not have put off breaking the news to Dean a little longer than necessary. In his defence, Dean has been assiduously avoiding him. He has been out of the bunker for most of the past few days, always “going for a drive” or “picking up supplies”.

“I believe he’s a well-known rock musician,” Castiel replies coolly.

“Don’t fuck with me on this, Cas. I’m not in the mood. Why is ‘Steve’ looking for apartments in Nebraska?”

“Because Kansas is extremely dull.”

Dean glares at him. Castiel sighs.

“I was going to tell you, Dean.”

There’s a long, uncomfortable silence.

“You said you weren’t going to leave again.” The moment he’s said it, Dean looks embarrassed at his blatant neediness.

The lump in Castiel’s throat is painful. This is horrible. But he’s made up his mind.

“I’m not disappearing,” he says. “I’ll only be a couple of hours’ drive away.”

“But you’re still moving out. You’re still leaving. Because of me.”

“I just need some time. To work out who I am without the Winchesters. If I’m anyone at all.”

“Without me, you mean,” says Dean.

Castiel shrugs. Yes, he thinks. “Maybe,” he says. He feels himself fidgeting awkwardly.

Dean takes a deep breath, leaning back, frowning at the crumpled papers on the counter. There are printouts of emails, floor plans for apartments, and job listings that Sam thought might suit Castiel: assistant librarian, translator, museum curator.

“Damn it,” mutters Dean to himself. His anger seems to dissipate for a moment as he takes it all in. “You’re really serious about this.”

“It’s not something I’d do as a joke,” says Castiel, with quiet irritation.

“But how you gonna…” Dean gulps. The worry on his face seems genuine.

“It will be a big adjustment,” says Castiel. “But I’ll cope.”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s not just… You’re human now, what you gonna do if some big bad shows up for you, huh? You won’t have our protection. And before you say it, yeah, I know, I know I fucked up before, I made you go out all defenceless and deal with the human world by yourself. I did it once and I still feel like shit about it and that’s why I am not gonna let you go it alone again.”

Castiel wants to sigh in exasperation. Of course Dean still feels guilt about that incident, despite the extenuating circumstances and the fact Castiel refused any help from him out of a misplaced sense of pride and indignation.

“You know as well as I do there are no big bads to hide from any more–”

“As far as we know right now.”

“–and even if I’m human, I’m not a child,” says Castiel, anger swelling in his chest. He gathers up the papers. “I don’t need your permission to move out. It’s decided.” His eyes flick over Dean dismissively as he heads out of the room. “This argument is a waste of both our energies.”

Dean reaches out to catch his arm, but Castiel deliberately steps away to avoid it.

“You can’t just decide something like this all by yourself, Cas.”

Castiel pauses in the doorway, turning to fix Dean with one last contemptuous glare.

“Actually, I think you’ll find I can.”

As he storms off to his bedroom, he’s aware that Dean doesn’t chase after him. He doesn’t even know why part of him wants him to.

*

A short time later, as he’s sitting on his bed looking through the job listings again, Castiel overhears Sam and Dean arguing loudly in another part of the bunker. He can’t distinguish what they’re saying, but he doesn’t need to in order to know what they’re arguing about. He feels bad for dragging Sam into this, but he didn’t know any other way. He’s still clueless about how many things work in the human world, mundane things like finding a job and an apartment.

He does hear Sam say something about Dean “blowing hot and cold with the poor guy”, and feels himself wince in embarrassment. Sam can’t be wholly oblivious to what’s been going on the past couple of weeks, and Castiel hates to imagine how much he might have figured out.

It does seem ridiculous on the face of it, almost spoilt, to move out because Dean isn’t in love with him. But he’s found romantic love is not as clear-cut as he once thought. It’s not a matter of simple, constant reverence but an active behaviour, and controlling his behaviour towards Dean takes energy. Dealing with Dean’s behaviour takes energy.

Despite everything, though, he doesn’t regret his confession. One day perhaps, Dean will look back on all this and feel in his bones how deeply he was loved. One day he will derive strength from it.

That’s what Castiel must cling to.

Half an hour or so after the voices have subsided, there’s a knock on Castiel’s door. He ignores it.

“I know you’re in there, Cas.”

Castiel still doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to fight with Dean again.

“I’m coming in, okay?”

Knowing that, he should have locked the door. He tucks the papers under the bedcovers and stands up as Dean comes in.

Dean is looking thoroughly repentant. He doesn’t wait for Castiel to speak. He steps inside, closing the door behind him, and the words spill out of him rapidly.

“I wanna say I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry I went and kissed you the other night. I’m sorry I asked you for things I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry I didn’t think enough about your feelings.”

He takes a laboured breath. His voice becomes strained as he trips over his words.

“It’s just, sometimes – I’m trying to take it easy, to get myself back – but sometimes I’m so fucked up from everything that’s happened, I can’t think straight. You know that, and I don’t know why you’ve hung around so long, but… but you know sometimes, I just get trapped up in my head, and I don’t know who I am, and nothing helps.” He looks to Castiel with pleading eyes, and lets out a shaky breath. “Nothing helps except you.”

“Okay,” says Castiel.

“Okay?” Dean’s expression quickly turns to annoyance. “Okay? I don’t get you, man. One minute you say you’re super into me, the next you act like you just don’t give a fuck.”

Castiel pinches at the bridge of his nose. “I’m tired,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

“Fine. Tomorrow, whatever. Just give me one fucking minute to process this before you go running off by yourself.”

“Haven’t you had time?” asks Castiel sharply. He feels incredibly weary all of a sudden. “How long have we known each other?”

“Cas,” begins Dean in a imploring tone, but he doesn’t seem to know how to continue.

“How do you want things to be between us, Dean?” asks Castiel. “What do you want from me?”

Dean opens and closes his mouth, taking a long time to come up with a futile answer. “Can’t we just go back to how we were before?”

Castiel shakes his head. “No, Dean.” He is surprised at the gentleness of his own voice. His anger of the last few days has cooled to a tranquil, persistent sorrow. “No, we can’t.”

Dean’s eyes are full of pain, but Castiel does not have the capacity to absorb Dean’s pain for him any longer.

“I defied Heaven for you, Dean,” he says, slowly, placidly. “I gave up everything I knew. Countless times I have fought for you, and died for you. I gave you comfort when you asked. I gave my love. I gave my grace – I am human now solely because I wished to stay on Earth with you.”

It’s only as he says it that he realises the truth of those words. He knows now why he refused Jack’s offer, why he continued to refuse. Because there was a small, stubborn flicker of hope in his heart, one there has always been, one that he fooled himself was long ago snuffed out. The hope that Dean would turn around and say he felt the same. That they would live a brief, blessed human lifespan together as equals, that Castiel might die having been truly, passionately loved by the being he adores most in this universe.

That is the best and worst thing about being human. There is always a flicker of hope.

Tears are blurring his sight.

“I have no more to give you,” he says. “I am spent. If you wish for us to continue our friendship in the future, I must beg of you – let me go.”

Dean is quiet. He hangs his head, and his Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows back his words.

He glances up at Castiel again and they stare at each other, one of those long, intense stares electric with meaning that Castiel has only ever shared with Dean. For once he lets all his emotions spill onto his face. He wills Dean to sense the pain and frustration in his heart, how very difficult it has been for him to make this decision.

Dean shakes his head and walks out of the room, gently pulling the door to without a sound.

Chapter Text

Sam kindly offers to drive Castiel up to Nebraska and help him get settled in. Castiel chose a furnished room, so they have only to purchase him some work clothes and other sundries, and he’ll be all set to start his new job in two days.

Besides the clothes he bought with Eileen, Castiel has few possessions that are really his, and it barely takes a minute for him to load up the trunk of the car while Sam is up front fiddling with something on the dashboard.

“Here,” comes a voice from behind him. Castiel is surprised that Dean would turn up, even more surprised to be handed a parcel. “For you.”

Dean hasn’t been completely avoiding him over the past week, but their interactions have been stilted and perfunctory. Dean didn’t show himself for breakfast that morning, and Castiel wasn’t expecting him to come and say goodbye. Dean doesn’t like goodbyes, and Castiel suspected he was still in denial about the whole situation.

“Dean,” he begins, then finds he has nothing else to say. He has been deliberately focussing all his energies on the practicalities of his new life. He thought if he had to decide what his attitude to Dean should be, he could do it later.

“Don’t open it till you get there.” Dean almost turns to walk away, but lingers a moment longer. “And Cas, just look after yourself, okay?”

Castiel is still at a loss for words. “I will. You too.”

Dean nods curtly, and Castiel watches in silence as he heads back into the bunker.

“You ready?” asks Sam quietly. Castiel doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there watching.

Castiel takes the package with him into the front seat, and puts it on his lap, trying to guess what it is as they’re driving along. It’s soft, and not particularly heavy.

“You can open it now, man,” says Sam in amusement.

“Dean said not to.”

“I won’t tell.”

Still, Castiel waits. Part of him is afraid he might get overemotional at seeing whatever parting gift Dean has chosen, either because it’s too meaningful or not meaningful enough.

The next day, alone in his new bedroom, he finally unwraps it.

He isn’t overly surprised to find the package contains a brand new beige trenchcoat. Dean doesn’t like change. It makes sense he thinks that Castiel should just stay the same, that he should wear the same outfit for the next decade or two that he has for the last.

What is curious, Castiel notices, is that the lower part of the collar, on the left side above the heart, has been slashed open, yet restitched so carefully that the tear is barely visible. Castiel runs his fingers over the slight ridge in the fabric.

It takes him a few minutes to recognise that it’s the exact spot where Dean stabbed him with the demon blade, all those years ago when they first met in the human realm.

What friendship, what intense love blossomed from such a violent beginning. Castiel absorbed that violence, Dean’s fear of the unknown, and simply brushed it off like it was nothing. He burnished that deep passion into love.

He wonders if that’s something like what Dean intended to convey. He wants to believe it is.

It’s only later, when he tries the coat on, that he finds a folded-up note in the pocket: Dean’s misspelled words written with surprising neatness on a small piece of paper that looks like it’s ripped from a memo pad, the kind he uses when he’s pretending to be a cop.

You stiched me back together

(more then once) &

I’ll never forget that. Dean

Castiel stares at the paper blankly. There are too many emotions welling up in him, and he doesn’t know which ones he’s supposed to let himself feel any more.

He tucks the paper back in the pocket, then folds the coat up carefully. He hides it away at the back of a drawer, together with that mixtape he brought with him even though he doesn’t own a tape deck, then he gets himself to bed. He’s got work in the morning.

The next day, he spends the quarter he’s been carrying around in a vending machine, to get a pack of Cheetos. He gives it to a homeless man by the bus stop. He knows what it is to be hungry.

*

Castiel soon settles into his new life in Lincoln, Nebraska, shuffling paperwork in various languages by day and in the evening relaxing or going to office dos or cultivating plants on his small balcony.

Sam advised him that a desk job was better-paid and for some reason considered more respectable than service jobs like working at a gas station. Although Castiel suspects the work is far less necessary in the grand scheme of things, it is moderately stimulating. He does find that now he’s human, a suit and tie feels far more restrictive, but there is a certain pleasure in taking it off at the end of a long day.

His life is simple now. No monsters, no demons, no Heaven and Hell, no grumpy Winchesters. He reasons that he could move to a bigger city one day if he ever wishes for more excitement. But he’s probably had enough excitement to last him several lifetimes. And now, thanks to his subconscious reply to Jack, he only gets the one.

Sam has been extraordinarily tactful throughout, and never once pried into the details of Castiel’s falling-out with Dean. He sends a message every now and then to check he’s doing alright.

Dean hasn’t sent anything. That’s probably for the best, Castiel tells himself. When he thinks about Dean (and he thinks of him far more often than he’d like) there’s still an incapacitating sense of loss, one that prevents him from dissecting his emotions or deciding how he should respond if Dean does contact him.

Eileen, however, comes to visit him in person, and drags him out to a cocktail bar. Castiel doesn’t really mind being dragged. He likes cocktails. Apart from the umbrellas, which just confuse him, because cocktails are already wet.

He’s become comfortable enough with signing to Eileen that they rarely speak out loud, and it means they can have a private conversation in a public place. All things considered, it’s quite useful.

Eileen complains a little about Sam’s recent obsession with certain spells that require some pretty niche and expensive ingredients, and Castiel nods sympathetically.

But that was clearly just a warm-up. Eileen raps her fingers on the table impatiently.

“So come on then, ‘Steve’. God, that doesn’t suit you at all. Be honest. Why’d you move out the bunker?”

“What did Sam tell you?” he asks, trying not to give anything away.

“He just said you wanted to try out a normal life by yourself.”

“Right.”

“And I was like, ‘bullshit, it’s about Dean’. But he didn’t seem to know the details. So I thought I’d swing by to hear it straight from you. Tell me about your troubles, sister.”

Castiel sighs. He wouldn’t even know where to begin in explaining the whole story to Eileen.

“None of this gets back to Sam,” Eileen reassures him. “Cross my heart.”

Castiel rubs anxiously at his neck. “I think Sam might have figured some of this out by now anyway.”

“So there is something to figure out…?” she asks with a cheeky grin.

Castiel still feels unbearably embarrassed, and Eileen picks up on it.

“Okay. Look. Actually.” She coughs, as though she’s being discreet. “Sam thinks maybe Dean made a move on you, but he did it in his weird repressed Dean way and then tried to deny it and that made things really awkward between you.”

Castiel frowns at her. “You and Sam do like to gossip about us, don’t you?”

Eileen gives him a guilty smile. “Of course we do. And I bet you guys gossip about us. And now we’re gossiping about them. We’re all one big dysfunctional family. Now tell me, was Sam far off?”

Castiel has been debating for a long time whether to confide in Eileen. He doesn’t really have anyone else he knows well enough to talk to about it. And signing to her rather than using his voice does somehow lessen his anxiety about discussing things.

“Alright, then.” Castiel takes a deep breath to steady himself. “I profess, I do have some… some romantic interest in Dean.”

“What a shocker,” says Eileen with a pleased smile that tells Castiel she’s not surprised in the least.

He still feels embarrassed. He gives her a weak smile back. “The problem is, Dean’s interest in me seems limited to physical interactions.”

Eileen snorts out a laugh. “You two finally got it on, then? And you know, you can use the word ‘sex’ in front of me, Cas.” Again she goes for his “goody two-shoes” nickname.

“No, not just sex. Hugging, also. Sleeping next to each other. He likes it when I comfort him.” Castiel can’t help but smile wistfully as he talks about Dean.

Eileen raises her eyebrows. “I see. So let me guess. Dean wants all the benefits of being in a relationship with you, but he doesn’t want to commit?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never really been in a relationship. But the way we were doing all that, with him saying it wasn’t meaningful… it was causing me emotional distress.”

She pulls a sad face in sympathy. “Well, yeah. It would. You really like him, don’t you?”

Castiel looks down at his bright orange cocktail, its nonsensical umbrella taunting him.

“We’ve known each other ten years,” he says, because he doesn’t have the strength to try to explain what he feels for Dean at the moment.

Eileen props up her head on one hand as she considers. Then she taps his arm. “You think he’s afraid to come out?”

“I don’t believe that’s it,” says Castiel. “I think he just doesn’t have those feelings for me.”

“I’m pretty sure he does. Just, you know. Doesn’t like to admit it.”

“Who knows,” replies Castiel forlornly. “He doesn’t much like engaging with his feelings.”

“Or perhaps,” says Eileen with a smirk, “it’s just that he’s only ever learned to express his feelings through sex. Or, you know, selling his soul for eternity to save the person he loves. One or the other, no in between.”

Castiel finds himself smirking back at her, even though he is more or less guilty of the second one. “And pie,” he adds to the list, thinking fondly back on Dean’s attempts to apologise through the medium of pastry. “Also pie.”

Eileen seems a bit confused about that one, but brushes it off. “Anyway, if he was causing you that much stress, you were probably right to get out of there. Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a step back. Let him get his head on straight. He’ll come crawling back sooner or later.”

“Thanks,” says Castiel, because he’s not sure what else to say. He has already resolved not to get his hopes up about Dean changing his mind on anything. Not to mention, he still feels terrible guilt for leaving him, though he knows it was the only reasonable option.

“Any time.” Eileen laughs to herself. “Here we are again, at another meeting of…” She pauses her signing to speak out loud. “Winchestolics Anonymous?”

Castiel’s lips wrinkle in amusement. “Still needs work, I think.”

Before she leaves him for the night, Eileen gives Castiel a tight hug and a last reassurance.

“Just remember, whatever shit Dean is pulling, it’s not about you, okay? That’s all on him. You’re kind, and sensitive, and smart, and, like, an actual angel. I swear, if I didn’t have Sam I would be non-stop flirting with you.”

“But you do flirt with me sometimes,” Castiel signs back, with a questioning little smile.

“Yeah, I do, you little cutie. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Chapter Text

As he’s stepping off the bus after work one day, with a ten-minute walk home in front of him, Castiel spots a familiar figure in a flannel shirt. He thinks he’s imagining it. He’s been thinking he sees Dean a lot lately. So much so that when the figure turns, and calls out to him, he keeps on walking. Even when he hears his name, he finds himself reluctant to turn round and face the moment he’s been thinking about so long.

“Cas. Hey. Castiel! Wait up.”

Dean so rarely uses his full name that the sound of it makes him drag his feet in mild confusion.

“What the hell, man, don’t ignore me,” says Dean, catching up with him.

“Oh. I didn’t see you,” Castiel pretends, as Dean falls into step beside him.

Dean doesn’t look like he buys it, but he doesn’t argue. “I been worried about you.”

Castiel’s stomach is jittering, and he doesn’t know if it’s in anxiety or excitement. He wonders if he’ll ever have full grasp of such visceral emotions.

“So worried you waited nearly three months to visit,” he responds flatly.

“Sam said I should give you some space.”

“And you listened to him?” he asks incredulously.

“Well, maybe the kid knows what he’s talking about.” Dean pauses. “Sam has a girlfriend. I don’t have you.”

Castiel takes a moment to process that. He busies himself pretending to rummage in his work bag for something, trying to avoid Dean’s gaze while he thinks of a response.

Dean doesn’t give up, though. He grabs Castiel’s arm and pulls him aside to talk.

“So anyway, I came to tell you I’m an idiot.”

Castiel fixes him with a cold stare. “You drove all this way to tell me something I already know?”

Dean lets out a laugh. “Okay, that’s fair. I deserved that.”

Castiel is about to turn and keep walking, but Dean grips his shoulder again to stop him.

“Can we just talk a bit, though? Go grab some food together?”

“I told Jazmin I’d be home for dinner.”

“Jazmin?”

Castiel is smugly glad at the hint of dismay in Dean’s eyes. But he’s never been an adept enough liar to try to stoke Dean’s jealousy.

“She’s my roommate. Rent is expensive.”

“Roomies, huh.”

Dean’s voice still betrays a note of irritation. For a brief moment Castiel considers bringing up the one-night-stand he had with a work colleague a few weeks ago, but that whole escapade isn’t something he’s particularly proud of.

“Yes, roomies. Jazmin’s nice. And very tidy. She always puts the dishes in to soak. And she never leaves her sweaty socks balled up on the floor for me to trip over. Jazmin’s great like that.”

Dean’s lips purse, and Castiel admits to himself that was petty.

“I got a pet guinea pig, too,” he adds. He’s been wanting to share that with Dean. There have been a lot of things over the past couple of months he’s been longing to hear Dean’s reaction to.

“Oh?” says Dean, his face softening. “Really?”

“He’s called Frosty. He’s very cute.”

Dean smiles, and he looks incredibly handsome in the early evening light. Castiel has to glance away for a second, because his resolve is melting. He missed Dean so much, his body is aching with the urge to hug him.

“Can I meet him?” asks Dean.

Castiel shifts uncomfortably. Of course he wants Dean to come over. He wants to show him his apartment and his pet and the garden on his balcony. He wants to introduce him to Jazmin and have her call them a couple, the way people used to. And maybe part of him wants other things to happen. “I don’t know, Dean.”

There’s a long pause where Castiel trains his gaze firmly on Dean’s shoes. Dean lets out a sharp breath of frustration.

“Look, I’ll cut the crap, Cas. I’ve come to win you over. I want you to come home.”

“This is my home, now,” responds Castiel automatically. He realises he’s been rehearsing that phrase in his head, in anticipation of this moment.

“Fine, stay with your roomie. It’s not even that far. Just give me a chance–”

“I have other friends, now,” interrupts Castiel. “They are kind and respectful to me. I find satisfaction in my work. I’m ‘moving on’.”

Maybe the air quotes were unnecessary. He still doesn’t fully understand their nuances.

Dean responds in an unusually gentle voice. “Well, what if I don’t want you to? Move on.”

Dean’s expression seems sincere. Castiel swallows.

“Then I would say, you would need to have an extremely persuasive argument.”

Dean nods, taking a deep breath. “Okay. Fine. Bear with me. Uh, you know that thing humans do, when they want something so bad they don’t let themselves have it? In case they go and screw it up?”

Castiel isn’t sure if this is going where he thinks it is, so he keeps his tone as indifferent as possible. “Fear of success, I believe it’s called.”

“Right. That. Well, I reckon I managed to screw things up pretty bad with you, so there’s nothing for me to be afraid of any more.”

Castiel frowns, but Dean doesn’t elaborate. “What are you saying, exactly?”

Dean smiles, but in an awkward, ashamed way. “That I was a real asshole. About you. I danced around things, I kept hurting you, cause I was fucking scared of the whole idea of being with you.”

“Scared of what?” Castiel isn’t sure whether he should be offended.

“The thing is, okay… I’m good at having sex.”

Castiel raises an eyebrow in an unimpressed look. Dean ignores it and carries on.

“But that’s all I’m good at. Not so much the whole relationship thing. And there’s a reason for that.” He licks his lips in anxiety. “People who take the trouble to try and care about me? More often than not, they wind up dead.”

“Dean,” murmurs Castiel in sympathy, unable to keep up his cold demeanour.

“And then, don’t take this the wrong way, man, but when you went and said all that sweet stuff about me, how I changed you and all that…” He pushes a hand back through his hair in agitation. If Castiel didn’t know better, he would say Dean is blushing. “That’s a helluva lot to live up to. It was too much pressure.” He scratches nervously at the back of his neck. “And I mean, fuck, you’re an angel.”

“Was an angel,” mumbles Castiel.

“Whatever. It’s intimidating. I didn’t understand a lot about… angel emotions. And by the time I realised, duh, you’re not some perfect unknowable angel, you’re just my dorky friend Cas? By then I’d already fucked things up so bad I made you leave.” His voice cracks a little on those last words, and his face scrunches in contrition. “I’m sorry, man. I really am. I put you through a lot of bullshit, Cas.”

Castiel takes a moment to consider. He doesn’t really like being called dorky. But he understands the gist of the sentiment, and Dean seems earnest in his remorse.

“You did,” he agrees. “We could have spared ourselves a lot of anguish if you had just expressed these fears to me in the first place.”

“No, but I couldn’t have, cause I didn’t even get it myself. I was too busy getting hung up on stuff like going on dates and being cutesy, all that hearts and flowers crap. But we don’t need to do that. Cause, you know, we’ve known each other forever. We’re past the honeymoon. We spent like all our time together anyway, just bickering and making up.” He waves a hand dismissively. “So, anyway, whaddya say? You and me, going steady? How about it?”

Dean’s looking at him with both eyebrows raised in a hopeful, teasing expression. There are a hundred emotions churning through Castiel’s mind, the key one being scepticism. He can’t seem to find his voice.

As the silence between them lengthens, Dean’s teasing expression begins to slip.

“Cas?” His mouth tightens, and he glances around them at the almost-deserted sidewalk, taking a cautious step closer. “I’m serious, man. I wanna make it up to you.”

He looks intently at Castiel until he can catch his evasive gaze, and they can stare into each other’s faces in that strange, addictive way of theirs.

“Thing is,” Dean continues softly, “I realised, all that time, even when I made you really mad, you never once said a bad word about me. Cause for some reason, no matter how things get between us, you’ve always seen something good in me. And it makes me want to be… to do right by you.” His voice drops even lower, and Castiel has to strain his ears to hear it over the background rumble of traffic. “Cause I know I always saw something in you too, even back when you thought you could only ever be Heaven’s little bitch boy with a stick up your ass. I knew there was some part of you that cared. And you showed me I was right.”

Dean finally drops his intense gaze. There is an empty breathless pause.

“I wanna be yours,” he murmurs like it’s a secret, and Castiel feels a quirk of pleasure deep in his gut. “Just tell me what it is I gotta do.”

Castiel takes a deep breath. He feels dizzy, almost queasy with nerves.

He considers his words carefully.

“What if I want that ‘hearts and flowers crap’?” He thinks he got the air quotes right this time.

Dean squints at him, and takes a moment to respond. When he does, it’s in disbelief. “That’s what you want from me?”

“You said before that I deserve it. And I think you’re right. I’ve never been on a proper date. I would like to experience the thrill of courtship and romance.”

Dean points at his own chest, still looking doubtful. “With me?”

“Yes, Dean, with you. Do you think you can manage that?” He can’t help the sarcasm that slips into his voice.

Dean tips his head back, his nostrils twitching as he considers.

“Alright, then,” he says after a moment. Amusement creeps over his face. “One soppy-ass first date coming right up. You free Friday?”

“I finish at five-thirty.”

“Okay then. I’ll swing by yours at seven, give you time to doll yourself up. Deal?”

He holds out his hand. Castiel can’t help but think that’s not the most romantic way to confirm a date. But at least Dean is trying, and Castiel feels a shy smile worming its way across his face.

“Deal,” he says, shaking Dean’s hand, and warmth tingles all through his body at Dean’s answering grin.

*

The next night Castiel lies on his bed kicking his legs up like a teenage girl in those “chick flicks” Dean pretends he doesn’t like, and messages Eileen. He doesn’t know why he’s been so shy about it, but it wasn’t until Dean called him to confirm that he decided to share the news.

Guess who I’ve got a date with? :D <3 <3

I don’t want to spoil your fun, replies Eileen, but Sam already told me ;)

Castiel is quite taken aback by that. He told Sam about it?! :0 Really??

Eileen takes a long time to compose her response. Castiel stares anxiously at the three little dots rippling over and over on the screen.

Yeah so apparently he came home late super chirpy saying he got a date. Then he got all serious and Sam had to sit there making a straight face while Dean’s telling him how he’s probably going to be shocked but just hear him out, yadda yadda.

Then Sam’s just like “dude I know it’s Cas”, and Dean has this face like someone’s hit him with a frying pan. Then he stutters like “but but…” and Sam says he’s known Dean’s into guys since they were teens. Dean’s like, if you knew why didn’t you tell me? and Sam says he’s been dropping loads of hints and Dean’s like “hints wtf who does that??” and just GOD I WISH I WAS THERE to see these emotionally-stunted dumbasses navigate this you don’t even know.

Anyway they hugged it out. It’s cool.

Castiel feels his hands shake a little as he replies.

I’m pleased that Dean felt he could tell him.

He wonders if Eileen notices how when he’s flustered he tends to get overly serious and formal, as though he can retreat to being his former self who was so skilled at repressing and ignoring emotions. But he doesn’t have that skill any more.

Perhaps it’s for the best. He can recognise how meaningful it is that Dean told Sam about their date, and accept how very happy and hopeful that makes him – not with the torturous type of stubborn hope he’s been struggling with for so long, but one that makes his solid human body feel light and free, like anything is possible.

He must be excited about it, replies Eileen. Make him grovel okay?

Castiel sends back a laughing emoji, although privately he thinks he might not mind if Dean were to grovel a little bit.

Of course he isn’t planning to turn down Dean’s offer to be his, not in a million years. But maybe it’s okay to let Dean woo him, to let him turn up with roses and take him to a fancy(ish) restaurant and pull a chair out for him like a gentleman. To watch Dean’s initial joking awkwardness quickly turn to genuine enjoyment when Castiel can’t stop smiling at it all. To see Dean’s endearing moment of self-doubt before he takes Castiel’s hand to walk him back to his front door and kiss him goodnight.

Maybe it’s okay to be a little coy, even a little selfish, to withhold a definite answer until the night they’re making out in the Impala after the third date, lost in a tender embrace, and Dean whispers almost accidentally between kisses, “God, I love you, Cas.”

Castiel lets out a tiny gasp. Their foreheads touch, their gazes catching as they breathe heavily together. The air between them seems to thrum in the dead silence of the night. Dean’s eyes are wide, almost fearful, as though he can’t believe that he actually said it.

But then Castiel trails his fingertips reverently over his cheekbone, his thumb grazing over Dean’s lower lip in appreciation, and Dean soon recovers. His voice is deep and full of wonder.

“You just make me fucking happy, you know. Like nothing else.”

Castiel feels like his heart might have stopped just with the way Dean’s looking at him, all the fondness and awe and helplessness in it.

There’s another pause.

“I really got it bad for you,” Dean mumbles.

A wide grin has spread over Castiel’s face of its own accord.

“I guess you can be my boyfriend now, if you want,” he says. He’s trying to look cheeky, but the stupid happy grin won’t go away.

Dean grins right back. “I’m a lucky man,” he says, and kisses him again.

Castiel has come to believe that sometimes, it’s okay to be a little selfish.

Chapter Text

Castiel is standing in a field of wildflowers. The sun is beaming down gently, illuminating the varied colours with a hint of golden hue. A pleasant breeze ruffles his clothes. The noises of birds and insects ripple softly in the background.

“It’s very calm here,” he comments.

Jack is crouching down nearby, picking flowers. He has a daisy chain around his wrist.

Your mind is very calm of late.

Castiel feels strangely self-conscious to have it pointed out. “I haven’t seen you for a long time,” he replies casually. “Dean says he hasn’t either.”

Of course, it is futile to try to hide any emotion from Jack. You are happy together, he responds, looking up with his childish, innocent smile. That’s as it should be.

A warm affection comes over Castiel. “And you, are you happy, Jack?”

Jack tilts his head to the side as though in consideration.

Could you explain your experience of being an angel to a human? I think not. I cannot explain my experience of existing in terms that you would understand. But you need not worry. I have a purpose. I’m not in pain.

Castiel accepts that answer. “It’s strange,” he muses. “I think I’m almost forgetting what it was like to be an angel. At least, I don’t experience my memories in the same way as I used to.”

You don’t appear overly bereft.

“No, I am not,” Castiel agrees. “I am largely content.”

Jack smiles again, amused at Castiel’s penchant for understatement. He begins to wander down a path, and Castiel follows, hearing Jack’s voice clearly though his back is turned.

There is something that I wished to impart to you. Do you recall what happened to you in the Empty?

Castiel pauses. They have arrived on a bridge now, a small brook burbling beneath their feet, but the reassuring sound is not enough to soothe completely the terror contained in that memory.

“I remember darkness and pain. The pain of my grace being ripped from me. Before that, I suppose, I was asleep.”

Jack nods. He hands Castiel a crimson flower from the bunch he is holding, and Castiel takes it without question.

Indeed. When you woke, the Shadow lashed out in frustration. It held onto your grace, so you would never return to trouble it again.

“I thought that my grace being taken was what woke me?” asks Castiel. “Isn’t that what you told me? The Shadow didn’t want me because the deal was completed in bad faith, for my own ends.”

The Shadow doesn’t care about small print. It wanted you, but against all odds you woke. My theory is that someone prayed so hard they woke you up.

Castiel cannot find a response. Someone. Someone prayed for him.

Jack hands him another flower, a pure white.

Previously I didn’t know that was possible, but I am learning that there are limits to even divine comprehension. Perhaps the shred of your grace that once knitted him together cried out for the rest.

Castiel feels a prickling sense of betrayal. “Why would you hide that from me until now?”

I promised not to interfere, and that meant not telling you things you shouldn’t know. To let things take their course. But as I calculate it, now, you having this knowledge will not change any future outcomes. All paths will converge.

Castiel accepts a third flower from him. A delicate baby pink. “Converge on what?”

But Jack doesn’t answer him, only smiles joyfully.

“If you can’t interfere, why offer to restore me to Heaven?” asks Castiel.

Jack keeps on smiling even as his visage fades, as Castiel floats back to consciousness.

Only because I knew you would not accept. Live well, Castiel. I am with you. Both of you. All of you.

Jack doesn’t say it in so many words, but in some deep, instinctive, dreamlike way, Castiel knows he has raised Jack to be loving and to be loved, and as the sense of his physical body returns to him, he feels it swell with pride.

*

Castiel cracks open an eye to see Dean trying to manoeuvre his way around the bedroom door with a full mug in each hand. With his unshaven face and bedhead, in Castiel’s pyjama pants and a faded Styx shirt, he scarcely looks like someone who could bend the laws of the universe to wake an angel in another dimension. Then again, he doesn’t look like someone who has saved the world on multiple occasions either. Castiel wonders.

Dean settles beside him on the bed to hand over the mug of tea, and beams when Castiel rewards him with a wet kiss on the cheek. Castiel has realised that Dean is actually grateful when Castiel makes clear demands of him, even simple things like bringing caffeine first thing before he’s out of bed, because it allows Dean to feel he’s fully earned the affection. He hopes that one day Dean will come to accept that he doesn’t need to earn it, but he knows these things take time.

They both sit back against the headboard, shoulders touching, Dean blowing at his hot coffee. Castiel takes a moment in his sleepy haze to reflect on how bizarre and yet normal their lives have become. From formidable agent of God to soft, fragile human in his poky shared apartment, smiling beatifically just because his boyfriend remembers how much honey to put in his tea. But he would not have it any other way. The mere fact that both of them are alive, and together, seems like a more profound miracle than anything he witnessed as a celestial being.

“I met your friend Jazmin in the kitchen,” says Dean.

Castiel glances at him. “Was it awkward?”

“No, she was nice. But when I said, ‘Hey, I’m Dean’, she said you never mentioned how handsome I was. Now what’s up with that?” He points at Castiel in accusation.

“Well, that’s not true,” replies Castiel indignantly. He’s definitely talked to Jazmin about Dean more than once, although now he thinks about it, it is possible that in the midst of gushing about how caring and loyal and protective he is, he forgot to mention how Dean is generally thought of as good-looking. It doesn’t seem like an important thing to say, in general.

Dean scratches at his stubble. “She said to me, the best ones are always gay or married.”

“Oh,” says Castiel awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s okay, I’ll take it as a compliment. Better get used to that kinda thing, I guess.” Dean grins at him, a little fake in his cheeriness. But he soon relaxes again. “So anyway, I’ve been thinking, we need to decide how we met.”

“How we met?”

“I mean, when people ask, I can’t exactly tell them you dragged me outta hell and then I shot at you and stabbed you in the heart.”

“Ah. I see the issue.”

“So we need to agree on a story.”

Castiel sips at his tea. “We were in the army,” he says casually.

“Oh?”

“Well, I was an interpreter, not a soldier. You didn’t know me, but I saw you were injured, and I came to drag you to safety. Unfortunately, you were woozy from all the blood loss, and you did end up stabbing me a bit. We can laugh about it now.” He looks at Dean with an oddly wistful feeling as he describes something that never happened. “But eventually, you got the chance to save my life in return. Risked yourself and your men to come and save me. It’s all very romantic.”

Dean is staring at him, looking flattered and bemused in equal measure. “You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?”

Castiel shrugs, slightly embarrassed at how involved his fantasies get sometimes. “Well, I needed a backstory. Ideally one that encompassed an encyclopaedic knowledge of languages, weaponry and ways people can die.”

Having said it, he realises that’s rather a dark thing to express, but Dean is unfazed.

“So I was in the army, huh,” he says with a dry laugh. “Guess that explains the shell-shock.”

“You were a good soldier,” says Castiel without thinking, an automatic reassurance but with a note of admiration.

Dean stares down at his coffee. His brow is quivering with mixed emotions.

Castiel recognises a good half of those emotions. They bubble up in him too when he thinks too much about the past.

He lays his hand gently over Dean’s. “But you don’t have to be any more.”

The atmosphere between them is delicate all of a sudden. Castiel is afraid he might have said the wrong thing, but then he sees Dean give a tiny nod of acceptance.

He leans in to give Dean another kiss on the cheek, his lips lingering close as he murmurs, “You can live just for yourself now, Dean.”

He hears Dean take a deep breath, then a long exhale. Dean tips his head so it’s propped against Castiel’s, and for a minute or two they sit there like that, breathing calmly together, Dean’s hand twitching slightly under Castiel’s steady touch.

Dean still needs comfort like this at times, of course, but the tone of it has shifted; he no longer clings to it like it’s the last gesture of kindness he will ever get. He lets it wash over him instead.

Eventually, Dean moves his head back to look at Castiel with a small smile. “You too, huh, Steve? Carving out your own slice of normality?”

Castiel smiles back, because Dean has to recognise now that even if Castiel is living his life wholly for himself, he still wants Dean in it. “I think Steve is doing alright for himself. At least he has an extremely handsome boyfriend.”

Certainly Dean’s appearance is not close to the thing he loves most about him, but when Castiel praises his looks it makes Dean bashful, and he likes Dean’s bashful face.

Of course, Dean tries to distract Castiel from his reaction. “Steve,” he echoes to himself. “What kind of a name is that anyway?”

“A very common one, I’m given to believe.”

Dean bursts out in a chuckle. “So, I should tell you. I went and called you Cas in front of Jazmin, then I had to pretend it was a nickname. She asked why Cas? I said, ‘It’s short for…’ and I couldn’t think of anything, so I said Caspian.”

“Caspian?”

“I don’t know. I saw a trailer on Netflix. Then she was like, ‘Oh, from Narnia. Oh, because he was in the closet. I get it.’” Dean laughs again. “So I guess she’s gonna be calling you Prince Caspian from now on. You’re welcome.”

“As far as I understand the term, I was never in the closet,” huffs Castiel. “I never even claimed to have a human gender until recently.”

“Yeah, tough breaks, huh? That’s what you get for trying to rebrand yourself. I mean Steve? Come on. You’re not a Steve.”

“I could be a Steve.” At Dean’s sardonic look he asks, “What am I then?”

“You’re a dork who needs to quit whining and drink up his weird-ass tea,” says Dean, but while they’ve been talking, his leg has been sliding its way under Castiel’s raised knee, and now their feet are rubbing together in a way that takes all the edge out of anything he says.

They look at each other with besotted smiles, and if Castiel is a dork for that, then so is Dean.

Castiel sips his tea again, because Dean made it for him, then puts it aside for a moment.

“Dean. When I was in the Empty, did you pray for me to come back?”

Perhaps he should have added some preamble, he thinks, as Dean frowns deeply in consternation. “What kind of a question is that?”

Castiel tilts his head to get him to answer. Dean relents.

“Of course I did.” Dean’s mouth tightens and his gaze lowers to his hands, which clench and unclench as he speaks. “I didn’t do nothing else. Well, I drank. You know how it is. Drink, pray, cry, pray some more. Realise you can’t fucking hear me. Punch a wall. Punch Sam when he tries to force-feed me some pie. Pray to you again, just in case, cause for some reason part of me had faith that–” He pauses, rubbing at his neck in discomfort. “But maybe let’s not talk about–”

He cuts himself off as he notices Castiel’s expression. Castiel knows he must look comically infatuated.

Predictably, Dean gets bashful at that too. “What? Come on, you saw me all fucked up, you know it’s not cute.”

Castiel can’t help himself. He presses himself against Dean, nuzzling his face into his neck.

“What?” Dean’s voice becomes teasing in the way it does when he’s trying to hide genuine concern. “C’mon, snugglebunny, what is it?”

Dean likes to call him ridiculous pet names like that, supposedly as a joke, but Castiel suspects Dean secretly likes it as much as he does. He presses a couple of kisses to the base of Dean’s neck, and feels the tension in Dean’s body loosen.

Dean pets at Castiel’s hair. “Mmm?” he says, a little suggestively, a little confused, but Castiel can’t get his voice out at the moment. He’s choked up in that annoying way that happens when you’re both human and overcome by your own feelings.

But it’s alright. He’ll explain to Dean later. They have time now, a whole precious human lifespan, to spend together as they deem fit. Castiel can tell him later.

You saved me, Dean.

The End