Work Text:
“Would you have done it?”
Despite the fact that he doesn’t have much to say to Cas right now, thank you very much, Dean can’t quite help himself from asking.
He sets the soup he’s making for Sam—kid always got nauseous after head injuries, never could manage anything heavier than that—on a lower simmer. It’s just Campbell’s, nothing fancy, but he knows having something in his stomach will at least make Sam feel physically better.
“Done what?”
“That time in Bobby’s kitchen, a few days after we met.” Years later, he can still feel the ghost of electricity on his skin, just enough to make the hairs on his arm stand straight. “You told me that if I didn’t go along with the plan, if I disobeyed, you’d throw me back into Hell.”
He lets out a little laugh at that. If Michael had been any real sort of strategist, he would have demanded Dean’s consent that night. He would have done whatever it took to avoid the Pit.
“Dean—”
“I wouldn’t ask a question I didn’t want you to answer.”
It comes out harsher than he intends. Cas bows his head. For a moment, that whipped-dog look steals into his eyes, the kind he wore constantly in the days of Netflix in the bunker. Then, it’s gone, and the expressionless façade is back.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe it isn’t a façade at all. Maybe he was right all those years ago—angels don’t have the equipment to care, even after they’ve fallen.
“I didn’t know then what I know now.”
Dean snorts. “Yeah. And what exactly do you know now?”
The soup begins to steam. Dean picks up the ladle and begins to stir it, just enough to ensure that it won’t seem like it came out of a can. He adds a couple of those stupid organic spice flakes to it too, for authenticity’s sake. That’s what he gets for letting Sam do the groceries last week.
“Fear. Pain. Love.”
On the last word, he almost stops stirring. It’s only an intense amount of concentration that keeps his back turned to Cas and his mouth shut. Instead, he waits for Cas to say something else.
“I would have done what my superiors told me to,” Cas says at last, never once looking up from his hands. “But I would have regretted it. Because even then, I—I cared. More than I was supposed to.”
Dean can’t respond to that. Instead, he starts searching through the cabinets for a clean bowl. Sam has a tendency to put the dishes back wherever he thinks they’ll fit, never in the spaces that Dean has very clearly organized. It’s his own fault if he gets soup served in a coffee mug.
“I still care, Dean. What I did today—”
“Jesus, Cas.”
He gives up on searching for a moment and lets the cabinet swing shut. As he turns towards Cas, he spots half a bowl of cereal—seriously, Sam?—sitting near the sink from this morning.
“What?”
Dean retrieves the cereal bowl and dumps it out in the sink. “I thought you learned something from being human.”
He can’t stand to think that dorky man—man, not angel—that watched Tombstone and spilled popcorn all over Dean’s bed is buried beneath a soldier again. So instead, he focuses on cleaning out the bowl.
Cas’s voice turns to ice. “I learned to stock a Slushie machine.”
Oh they are so not going there.
“Look, if you’re going to turn this into—”
“What do you want from me?” Cas snaps, shoving his chair back as he stands. “You tell me to do whatever it takes, and when I do that, you look at me like—like I’m a dog that didn’t do as it was told! We make sacrifices. That’s what we do. You said it yourself.”
Dean shakes his head. “Cas—”
“I’m not finished! Don’t you dare get high and mighty with me, Dean Winchester. I know exactly what you’ve had to do and sometimes it’s not pretty. Why should you hold me to a higher standard?”
He slams the bowl down so hard that it rattles on the tabletop. The flame beneath the soup splutters indignantly.
“Because you’re better! Because sometimes I think you’re the only thing in the whole damn world that is capable of actually being good!”
Dean feels a little like he’s run a marathon, letting all of that out at once, but now he’s started, it’s difficult to stop.
“Because I know you’d rather wander the world for the next decade curing kids in oncology wards and helping colicky babies and getting cats out of trees than doing this!”
His hands shake slightly as he ladles the soup out into the bowl. To his credit, none of it slops out on to the countertop. Dean sets the ladle back in the pot in case Sam decides he wants some more later.
When he turns around, Cas is standing almost directly behind him, just like he used to in grimy motel rooms up and down the American Midwest. Dean’s breath catches in his throat.
“Because I took an angel and I dragged him down,” Dean finishes. “And I thought maybe I could get it right this time around, this life around. I could keep you from—from having to—”
Cas takes the bowl out of his hands and sets it down on the table behind him. He’s still close enough for Dean to count his eyelashes, something he’s certainly not doing.
“You didn’t drag me down,” Cas says, quiet. “I jumped.”
The moment hangs, suspended, for what feels like an eternity. Then, Dean can’t hold himself back any longer. He leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of Cas’s mouth. His lips are chapped, but they’re warm. He doesn’t shy away. The second kiss is closer to the mark.
But when they separate and their eyes meet, Cas’s are sad.
“Don’t put me on a pedestal, Dean. You’ll only be disappointed.”
He takes a half step back and picks up the soup. Dean almost drops it when he hands it over. Before he can register what’s going on, Cas is gone.
The soup is almost cold.