Chapter Text
For a while Castiel sleeps, his body sinking boneless into the mattress, and when he wakes, it’s dark in their room and his body is stiff and aching, as if he’s not moved a muscle while he slept. With a soft sigh, he rolls onto his back, stifling a cough as he stretches his legs and arms, one hand brushing against something warm and solid – Dean, lying on the other side of the bed.
Some hours have past, he thinks, and there’s a faint light seeping in through the curtains, silver with the approach of dawn. He watches it with a sinking heart; today, he knows, he must leave.
Dean takes a long breath and Castiel can tell he’s awake and brooding. Even without his grace, their bond is deep and profound, sometimes stretched taut and sometimes drawn close, but always there. So far, anyway. Castiel thinks, if it ever breaks, the recoil would probably kill him. Hester may have thought him lost from the moment he laid a hand on Dean in Hell, but Castiel knows different. He knows that was the moment he was saved.
Outside, traffic is picking up and the beams from car headlights stripe across the ceiling in waves. “I got your stuff back from the Laundromat,” Dean says quietly. “You gotta get yourself some more clothes, man.”
Cas just smiles and says, “Thank you, Dean.”
“Least I can do.”
“I appreciate it,” he says. “When you have nothing, small kindnesses are infinitely valuable. I’m learning that.”
There’s a pointed beat, then “You don’t have nothing, Cas. You have me.”
It hurts, how much he wants that to be true, but…
“In Purgatory, in Lucifer’s crypt,” Dean says, his voice quiet even in the quiet of the room, “I wasn’t lying, Cas.”
As always, he feels a couple steps behind. “What do you mean?” He turns his head to look at Dean, but he’s staring up at the ceiling, his eyes gleaming in the passing lights.
“When I said— when I said I needed you. I wasn’t lying. I need you with me, Cas. I want you with me. I can’t explain it. I just do.”
Something pulses in Castiel’s chest, hot and liquid – like his blood, only burning. “I feel the same.” I’ve always felt the same.
“You’re the only one who really understands,” Dean presses on. “Sam— I mean, Sam’s Sam. He’s my brother. He’s – he’s everything to me, Cas.”
“I know.”
“But I can’t— There are things he doesn’t get, or I can’t lay on him, or tell him—” He swallows, and Cas watches his throat move. “But you and me, Cas... You were there, in Hell. In Purgatory. Here. You know, Cas. You know the worst of me, and you still… You’re the only one who’s always believed I’m worth saving.”
“I still do.” Cas turns to face him, eager to make him understand. “Everything I’ve done has been for you, Dean. To help you, or save you.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, lifting a hand to squeeze the bridge of his nose. “How about you stop doing that? It never ends well.”
“I can’t stop,” Cas says. “No more than you could stop trying to save Sam.”
Dean’s staring at the ceiling again, but he drops his hand and it lands on Castiel’s wrist. It’s heavy and warm and Cas likes it there. He’s tempted to cover Dean’s fingers with his own, but suspects he’d pull away, so he just takes comfort from Dean’s touch while he can. Humans, he’s discovering, are driven by sensation in ways he’d never imagined. “Sam’s my brother,” Dean says eventually. “Of course I’ll never stop trying to save him.”
“And you’re my brother, Dean.”
“No I’m not. It’s not the same.”
After some thought, Castiel says “You’re right, there is a difference. You didn’t choose Sam as your brother, but I did choose you. I chose you over Heaven, over my garrison, over fate – over my Father’s will, perhaps. I chose you, Dean. And I will always protect you, even if the only way to do it is by staying as far from you and Sam as possible.”
Even, he adds silently, if I don’t understand how that helps.
“Jesus,” Dean says, both profane and earnest, his hand tightening until his fingers are digging into the bone of Castiel’s wrist.
He touches his fingertips to Dean’s knuckles and Dean lets go, but Cas catches his hand before he pulls it away. “We are brothers,” he repeats. “I would die for you, Dean.”
“Yeah, me too,” Dean says on a sharp exhalation of breath and rolls onto his side, fingers still caught in Castiel’s grip as he looks at him. “I get it. I just can’t explain it: this. I don’t know what this is, Cas.”
“It’s just you and me,” he says simply; to him, it isn’t complicated. “This is the bond we share. It’s profound.”
“And that’s why we keep coming back to each other? Even when all we do is make things worse.”
“You don’t make things worse for me.”
“Are you kidding? Dude, if it wasn’t for me you’d still be sitting on your cloud playing a harp. Instead you’re in a crappy motel bedroom with freakin’ pneumonia. And you’re human.”
“It’s not a crappy motel,” Cas says. “It’s warm, the bed is very comfortable, and the shower is clean. Also, my current predicament was mostly self-inflicted.” He can’t help a wry smile. “I seem to specialize in Greek tragedy – I could give Icarus a few pointers.”
Dean narrows his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
He does, and he gives it some thought. “You mean,” he says, picking his way through, “that if I hadn’t disobeyed the second time—” He falls silent, remembering that Dean doesn’t know his story in the way he knows Dean’s. “That is, you think that if I hadn’t helped you stop the Apocalypse, I’d be an obedient angel in Heaven?”
“I guess,” Dean says, but he’s got a sharp mind and focuses in on Cas with an intensity that’s intimidating; he’s not used to Dean being able to perceive more about him than he can perceive about Dean “What do you mean, if you hadn’t disobeyed the second time? What was the first?”
He allows a slight smile, because he’s human now and he supposes none of it really matters anymore. “It wasn’t meant to be me,” he explains. “The angel who raised you from perdition? It was meant to be Michael, of course. A little like Excalibur, perhaps, Michael intended to pull his sword from the stone – metaphorically speaking.”
Dean’s mouth falls open as he processes the ramifications. “I’d have said yes,” he realizes immediately. “If he’d offered to ride me out of the pit, I’d have said yes in a hot freakin’ minute.”
“Yes,” Castiel agrees. “Perhaps you would.”
Dean blinks, brow furrowing slightly. “So how come…?”
“I found you first,” Cas says. “I saw your soul, Dean, shining so bright in that dark place, and I knew—” He shakes his head. “I just knew it was meant to be me. I even thought I felt my Father’s hand in that moment.”
Dean snorts. “I bet Michael was pissed.”
“More than a little,” Cas admits. “But he couldn’t kill me, of course, because of this bond we share – Michael knew he would need me to make the connection, to persuade you to agree to become his vessel. Even so, I suspect he had me reprogrammed again before he sent me back to Earth to find you.”
“What?” Dean says. “Reprogrammed – again?”
“I discovered recently that they’d been doing it for millennia,” he says, the realization still painful and dizzying. “Our memories – our will – they controlled it all, Dean: the Archangels, Naomi and others. The things they had us do, the murder, the wrath.” His breath hitches at the thought of all the blank spaces in his mind, the void where guilt and remorse should be. “The blood on our hands, Dean,” he sighs. “So much blood spilled by angels in the name of our absent Father, and most of it washed from our memory to maintain the illusion that we were still serving God.”
“Jesus,” Dean says, again.
“Yes,” Cas agrees solemnly. “He would not have been pleased, had he known.”
Dean huffs a laugh, the way he sometimes does when Cas says something unintentionally amusing. “So you’ve always been easy for free will, huh?”
Unsure of Dean’s exact meaning, he says, “I realize now that I must have always been … rebellious. But this time it was different, this time I had a cause. I rebelled because I believed in you, Dean, because you gave me purpose, you changed me. And because I…” he hesitates “because I—”
“Cas.” It’s a warning, sharp and bright. Don’t go there.
Castiel ignores it. “Because I’d have rather died than lose you.”
Dean shuts his eyes and there’s nothing but silence and the sound of passing traffic between them.
With a sigh, Castiel rolls onto his back; he suspects he’s crossed one of the invisible human lines he couldn’t even see when he still had his grace. “I still would,” he says, completing the confession anyway. “I’d still rather—”
“Yeah, well,” Dean growls, “not gonna happen.”
“That isn’t your choice.”
“The hell it isn’t. You’re not gonna die for me, Cas. You’re not gonna die, period.”
Castiel frowns. “I’m human,” he reminds him, although he doesn’t see how Dean could have forgotten. “I’m mortal – I will die.”
“Not on my watch.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he sighs. “You can’t stop me dying, Dean.”
“The hell I can’t,” Dean grumbles, as if that’s any kind of answer.
“I think I’d like a hunter’s funeral,” he muses. “It would be cold under the ground and I—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dean growls. “What’s wrong with you?”
Castiel is silent, considering the question; a great deal is wrong with him, but he doubts Dean is asking for a list. “I’m sorry,” he says after a pause. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset.” Which is self-evidently untrue. “Besides,” Dean adds, in a calmer, lighter voice, “this isn’t gonna last. You’re not going to be human forever, are you?” He looks at him then, an intense and penetrating look, like he’s trying to see some kind of hidden truth – as if Castiel is keeping secrets again.
“I don’t know,” he admits, because that’s as honest as he can get. “I have no idea whether I’ll be able to restore my grace.”
“Anna found hers.”
“There may be nothing left to find after Metatron’s spell. Besides, Anna already—” His voice just cuts out then, as if his throat decided it didn’t want to talk because he can remember sliding the blade into Anna’s body, watching her die with her wings burned black into the ground. He remembers so many others of his kind, dead in heaven by his hand. “I don’t,” he begins, but it’s difficult to get the words past the tightness in his throat, “I don’t even know if I deserve to regain it, Dean. Maybe this is fair punishment for my hubris.” He gives a sad smile. “Fitting, at least.” He blinks, feels treacherous human tears on his face and, embarrassed, swipes them away.
But it’s too late; Dean’s already noticed. “Damn it, Cas,” he says, in that gruff, gentle voice he occasionally deploys. “Is that what you think this is? Punishment?”
“What else?”
“Um, how about temporary? It’s not like we haven’t been through this kind of crap before, dude.”
“This is different.”
“The hell it is,” Dean objects. “Don’t just lay there and take it, Cas. Fight back. That’s what Winchesters do, right? Stick it to the man. Fight the power. All that crap.”
“I’m not a Winchester.”
Dean looks at him again. “Sure you are. You’re family, Cas. You know that.”
“Family…” He shakes his head, irritated. “You shouldn’t say things you don’t mean, Dean.”
“I do mean it.”
“Only you and Sam are family.”
“That’s not true.”
But Castiel knows it is; Dean might talk about family, but his priority is and always will be Sam. Cas’s ejection from the bunker is simply a metaphor for the fact that he’s on his own in the world.
“You should sleep,” he tells Dean, his path clearing before him. “You’ve got a long drive tomorrow.”
“I’m not leaving tomorrow.”
Cas smiles a little. “You should sleep anyway. I’ll keep watch for a while.”
“You’re sick.”
“Just for a while, Dean. I’ll wake you if I get tired.”
He waits until Dean’s breathing is slow and even and the brightening dawn is filtering through the curtains into the room. He gets up in silence, collects the clean clothes dumped on the other bed and dresses in the bathroom. He’s still sick, he knows, but it’s not as bad as before; the rest has helped and he has the bottle of pills in his pocket. He’ll be okay. He ties his boots, shoves the clean, dry sleeping bag into his duffel and slips his cell phone into his pocket.
When he returns to the room, Dean is still sleeping. He’s sprawled on his back, one arm flung out towards the empty half of the bed where Castiel had slept. What Cas means to do is walk to the door, open it quietly, and slip out. But he can’t forget Dean’s warmth, or how much he wants to help despite the secret reasons that exile Cas from the bunker. What he feels for Dean is difficult to pin down – love, he supposes, but it’s a small word to encompass so much fierce emotion. Admiration, loyalty, affection, need: it’s all those things plus an undefined longing when they’re apart that he can already feel tugging at the pit of his stomach, their bond stretching thin. All of that he feels and doesn’t know how to name it. But it gives him pause, stops him between the bathroom and the door, and pulls him over toward the bed.
Dean, he thinks, lets his lips form the word in silence before he leans down and presses a kiss to Dean’s forehead. It turns something tight in his chest, a hot, slick kind of hurt, and he turns away before he can change his mind about leaving.
This is for the best. Grabbing his duffel, he slings it over his shoulder and slips out of the room and into the world again. Alone.
Dean lets him go, lets the hotel room door snick closed, lets the twist in his chest tighten until it forces out a groan, and “Fuck.” He says it out loud, letting his fingers brush the place on his forehead where Cas had kissed him.
Kissed him?
He feels like fucking Judas, like Cas was offering forgiveness and condemnation in the same freakin’ gesture. “Fuck,” he grows again and slams his hand hard on the mattress. “Fuck!”
Unable to lie still, he pushes to his feet and stalks to the window. He twitches the curtains open and it’s his crappy luck that their room overlooks the parking lot and the road, that he can see Cas weaving his way through the parked cars with his bag over one shoulder.
Dean lifts a hand and presses it to the window, but Cas doesn’t stop and he doesn’t look back.
It’s for the best, Dean knows. Cas can’t stop running, and Dean can’t help him. He can’t offer him the sanctuary he deserves, the sanctuary Dean aches to provide in ways that unnerve him.
He thinks of Sam, of Ezekiel, of what he’s sacrificing for both of them, and he wonders what else he’s going to leave bloody on the altar of his own pathological need to keep his brother safe: Benny, every single person possessed or killed by a demon since he talked Sam out of closing the gates of Hell, and now Cas – human, sick, and hunted by some of the most powerful bastards on the planet.
Dean’s too chicken-shit to even think about how long Cas can survive out there alone.
Eventually Cas disappears around the corner of a building and Dean turns away from the window. He doesn’t shave – can’t even look at himself in the bathroom mirror – and almost loses it when he stuffs his crap back into his bag and realizes that Cas didn’t even take the clothes Dean had given him.
Stupid bastard, he thinks as he scrunches the t-shirt Cas was wearing in his hand. It’s still a little warm.
There’s a chance, a good one, that Dean will never see or hear from Cas again – that he’ll turn up as a John Doe in some hospital, just another nameless hobo found in an alley with the stab- wound that killed him written off as drug crime. And Dean will never know; he’ll never know how he died or where he’s buried. It’s not a small chance, either, given what’s hunting him, and the thought opens up something hollow inside him. It’s almost enough to send him racing after Cas and his hand twitches toward the keys to the Impala before he stops himself. He’s just driven that road and there’s no destination worth reaching at the end. The choice is still the same: Cas or Sam. And Dean can only choose Sam; he can only ever choose Sam.
It’s just that, this time, his usual unwavering certainty has been shaken. He feels sick in the pit of his stomach in a way he never has before, because Cas deserves so much more than this. He deserves so much more from him, and it’s killing him to send Cas away thinking that he’s lost Dean’s trust or, worse, that he’s not worth Dean’s help.
Of their own volition, his fingertips touch the place where Cas had kissed him. He can still feel its warmth, the ghost of Cas’s breath against his skin, and it makes him feel... It makes him feel, tight in his chest. He tells himself it was probably just goodbye, or maybe forgiveness; it’s safer that way, to think of it like that. Easier.
But even if Cas has forgiven him, Dean sure as hell can’t forgive himself. He’s lying to the two people he cares about most in the world and he’s under no illusion that it can end well. This whole fucked-up situation is on him and him alone.
Which means it’s on him to fix it. It’s on him to find a way to save Sam and bring Cas home. Maybe then, telling Cas he’s family won’t feel so hollow. Maybe then, Dean won’t feel like some part of him is missing, moving further away from him with every passing moment as if his attenuating soul is being rubbed threadbare.
Profound bond, huh?
He looks at his fingers where they’re still holding onto the t-shirt and realizes that Cas was right. It’s familiar, this ache, one he’s gotten used to over the years he and Cas have been drifting in and out of each other’s lives, a yearning that’s been part of him for so long he can’t remember when it began. But now he thinks about it, he suspects it was the moment Castiel first laid a hand on him in Hell.
And yet, painful as it is, he finds he likes the idea that they’re still connected, despite everything. There’s a strange kind of comfort in that.
Stuffing the shirt back into his bag, he fishes his cell out of his pocket, ignores the dozen messages from Sam, and pulls up Cas’s number. He types stay safe and hits send before he can change his mind.
When his phone pings a moment later, he’s surprised at how hard his heart kicks against his ribs.
You too, Dean.
And a moment later, Don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine.
He smiles – only Cas would use schoolboy grammar in a text – but there’s something fierce burning in the center of his chest and it’s making his eyes smart so that he has to blink a couple times before he can reply. He thinks for a moment, trying to put everything he’s feeling into something short and un-sappy. He goes with:
if you call, i’ll come
There’s a longer pause before the answer comes through, but Dean doesn’t move from where he’s kneeling on the floor next to his bag until Cas’s message pops up.
I know.
It loosens something some fraction of his knotted tension; at least, if Cas is in trouble, there’s a chance he’ll call him before it’s too late. It’s little enough, but he’ll take what he can get and it’s enough to push him out the hotel room, into the Impala, and back on the highway.
And it’s enough to keep him going until he can fix this mess – until Sam is well, Ezekiel is gone, and Cas is back where he belongs. At Dean’s side.
Comrades, brothers-in-arms, friends, family. Something else? His mind skitters away from labeling the nature of their bond; he just knows that it’s there, that it’s important, and that he needs it.
He needs it like he needs oxygen.
Like he needs Sammy to be safe.
And how the hell he’s going to reconcile that he has no idea, but for now all he can do is head to the bunker and hope he can find a way to work it out. Because one thing’s for sure, nothing will be right until Cas is back at his side, solid and constant and home
***
There’s something different about Dean when he gets back. Sam’s not sure what it is, but he’s calmer and he even brings food.
“So where’ve you been?” Sam asks, throwing a look across the table to Kevin as Dean pulls cartons of Chinese out of the take-out bag. They’ve been concocting theories about what Dean’s been up to, but Kevin’s answering smile is weak, only half there, and his attention dips back to the angel tablet that he’s taken to carrying around like a comfort blanket. The guy needs a break, Sam thinks.
“Just driving,” Dean says, with a look that brooks no argument. “Needed to stretch my wings, or something. Goin’ a little stir crazy in here.”
Sam knows how that goes, but he can’t shake the feeling that Dean’s not being straight with him. Again.
“So, uh,” Dean carries on. “Everything good here? Crowley behaving himself? You still getting better?”
“Everything’s good,” Sam says and starts eating. “So … you hear anything from Cas?”
Dean looks up, sharp. “No. Did you?”
“No.”
Dean jerks his attention back to his food with a frown.
“I was just wondering—”
“If he needs us, he’ll call,” Dean says, and then pauses for a moment and nods to himself. “Yeah, he’ll call.”
Sam watches him for a moment, the lines of his shoulders and the tension between his eyes. He’s never been entirely sure what’s going on between Dean and Castiel, but he’s not blind and there’s something there – something intense. He’s not even sure that Dean recognizes it, if he’s able to feel anything beyond his atavistic need to protect his little brother, even when his little brother is perfectly capable of looking after himself.
“What?” Dean says, glaring out from beneath his eyebrows. Sam’s been watching him too closely and maybe he’s afraid Sam’s seeing all those things Dean likes to keep hidden.
He gives an easy smile. “Nothing, I was just…” He waves his chopsticks toward Kevin, whose nose is in the angel tablet again, his food abandoned. “I was thinking Kevin could use a break. You know, after everything? Get away from Crowley for a while, at least.”
Dean glances over and grunts. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Gotta look after family, right?”
“Right,” Dean says, but this time he doesn’t look up. “Gotta look after family.”
Sam says nothing more, but he stores the conversation amid all those other little hints and hopes he’s been hording over the years. Because maybe one day Dean will be ready to let go; he’ll be ready to let Sam go and, by doing so, set them both free.
Maybe one day Dean will be ready to care about someone else, and let them care about him in return, and if that ever happens who’s to say that someone won’t be Cas?
Stranger things have happened, after all.