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I
Five years down the line and nothing ever really changes.
He hoped, rather than believed, that things would turn out different, but damp clumps of earth make the same dull sound, as they thud and scatter over a coffin lid, as they always did. Only difference is that, this time, Dean isn’t the one that dug the hole.
Sam is at his side, big hand clamped to Dean’s shoulder, still backing him up and keeping him steady. He isn’t sweating and shovelling dirt in midnight darkness this time, though. Today he wears black, and a carefully sympathetic expression that Dean doesn’t have the energy to pull him up on. It never did sit right with Sam, Dean stepping out of the hunt the way he did: sudden, like an unexpected full-stop, with no explanation.
“I’m so sorry, Dean,” Sam says, nothing else. They’ve been here so many times it feels like habit. You bury them, and bury a part of yourself, six feet under with the worms, and you shove down the pain and regret and guilt, and move on. But where to this time? Back on the road with his brother, and the monsters, the blood and the gore, or back to the little house with white painted shingles, and a job, and drinking after work on a Friday-nights. It’s as close to respectable as Dean’s ever likely to get.
It never worked out before, and looking down at the grave, Dean wonders why he thought it would be different this time. He couldn’t make it work with Lisa, or Cassie, so why in hell did he think this would be any different than the others lost along the way, trampled by monsters and demons and angels, the ugly background to Dean’s life. True, it was a different kind of danger, a human danger, spreading quick and silent and unnoticed through her body. Somehow it’s worse, because it’s left Dean with no one to fight, no focus for him to aim his anger at.
The headstone shines, wet from the rain that’s kept them company all day. It’s simple. He thinks she would have liked it.
“Do you want me to stay?” Sam asks. He watches, cautious, as if he’s waiting for Dean to crumble under the weight of his grief. He won’t, it’s not as heavy a burden as it should be, but Sam can’t know that, and it’s hardly the right place for the details.
“Nah,” Dean says, and shrugs Sam’s hand from his shoulder. “Got to get used to being alone at some point, right?” It’s a lie. She’d moved months ago, before she got ill. Sam nods, but it’s shallow and unconvinced.
They move to the procession of cars parked up close to the gravesite. The impala, still dark and beautiful in her old age, stands out like a monument among the dinky foreign cars and environmentally friendly hybrids; a relic of a different age, like Dean. A few of her friends, and the odd relative, stops him as he walks between the graves. They exchange meaningless words meant to comfort and condole. He nods and thanks them for coming because she would have wanted him to. He feels nothing.
“I thought Cas would be here,” Sam says as they part, again. How long will it be this time? It took a death for Sam’s first visit in six months—too busy saving the world, Dean guesses. The thought makes his fingers twitch, the feel of a gun in his hand suddenly so solid it feels real, like a phantom limb. Does he miss it? He convinced himself he didn’t. Dean can tell Sam wants to say something, something about Castiel’s non-appearance; it’s there behind his bitten lips as Sam frowns into the distance, too chicken-shit to make eye contact.
“I didn’t,” Dean says. Angel or human, Castiel has been unreliable these last years. Shows up when he wants and is always ready with an apology and an excuse.
Things had never quite been the same since Dean decided to stay put and try to build a life with the woman he’s just left in a hole in the ground. Castiel couldn’t understand the decision, didn’t know what it was like to find someone to love. How could he, when he doesn’t have the capacity to feel it. Dean is a little envious of that right now.
It hadn’t been an easy decision, but she was amazing. She knew about the hunting, knew who he was and the things he had to do to stay alive, and she loved him anyway—he would’ve been a fool to walk away from that when it was offered. Sam understood, eventually, even if he was disappointed to lose a hunting partner, but Castiel, with his messed up ideas of duty and responsibility—he just couldn’t. They’re still in touch, but it’s distant, not like it was before, and it’s best if Dean doesn’t think about it too much.
Dean says goodbye to his brother under rain and grey skies, Sam promising to call by in a day or two, but there’s the rumblings of a case nearby, and he wants to check it out. Dean sends him away. “I’m okay, Sam, really,” he says. They both know it’s an act, but only one of them knows why.
The house is dark by the time Dean faces the empty rooms alone. The storm that’s been building all day flings rain against the windows, so hard it sounds like stones, and the wind rattles the eaves. He doesn’t bother switching on the lights as he heads to the kitchen, it’ll only reveal more empty space than he can handle right now.
Dean, hooks a beer from the rack inside of the refrigerator, wedges the top against the counter and pushes down until the lid pops off. The gold cap rolls across the floor until flops to the side and goes still. He doesn’t bother picking it up. She hated that. She would be pissed if she knew. They argued a lot about the little things. It wasn’t all moonlight and roses, even from the get go; sometimes Dean worried that it never really was, wondered if he loved her the way she deserved, or if he was just grateful that she loved him. But, everything had fit, and she was the one, so he had to believe it would all work out in the end.
“Sometimes, when I look at you, I can tell a part of you is somewhere else,” she had said to him, head cushioned on his chest, Sunday morning laziness weighing down his limbs under soft clean sheets. “I wonder where that part of you is, but I think I can guess.” Out there, out on the road beside Sam, or Castiel. She doesn’t need to say it aloud.
“I want to be here,” he’d said. “I don’t need the road, I’m done with it. I want to be with you, we were meant to be together, you know.”
The Oracle had known it. Dean had told her about it not long after he’d moved in, but she didn’t really understand those things. Dean knew that the Oracle couldn’t be wrong, but she’d pulled a face and laughed, said it sounded a vague and superstitious, like reading horoscopes in the daily paper.
“That might be, but I’m not so sure the road is done with you yet.” Maybe she was right, but she sounded sad, and so he’d been careful to act contented. It worked, most of the time. The separation had only been a trial. Dean was sure she’d have come back, if the cancer hadn’t taken her first.
He turns and leans back against the edge of the counter, stares at the bottle top fallen close to the leg of a green chair, one she’d got from a yard sale. His lips tilt at the memory of how she’d proudly shown off her bargain. It was hideous, but he kind of liked it anyway.
As he looks up he sees a shadow on the other side of the table, a shape darker than the rest; waiting, unobtrusive and silent.
“Didn’t think you’d come,” Dean says.
Castiel shifts in his seat, uncomfortable at Dean’s tone. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be welcome,” he says. “And I didn’t know her well. I thought it might be... inappropriate to attend the funeral.”
“Then why did you bother to come at all, Cas?” Dean snaps. He isn’t in the mood to deal with Castiel’s shit today. Every visit over the last few years has ended in tension. They can’t seem to get on like regular people, always picking at each other, tapping on the rawest nerve possible. It leaves Dean feeling irritable and distracted for days afterwards.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” Castiel says.
“Yeah,” Dean laughs with a sour note and spreads his arms in display. “Well, as you can see, I’m just fine. So, no need to stick around, not your style anyway is it.”
“Dean, I’m sorry,” Castiel says. He sounds like he means it, but he’s helpless in the face of Dean’s dismissal. “I don’t know what to do to help you, Dean. I wish I did.”
“You’re sorry. Sam’s sorry. Everyone’s fucking sorry,” he spits. “Doesn’t change a damn thing does it? She’s still dead. My life is fucked up, again, but everyone’s sorry about it.”
Castiel stands, moves closer, but Dean can’t watch, can’t look him in the eye. He doesn’t want to see stormy-blue instead of warm steady-brown, it feels disrespectful somehow. He doesn’t move as Castiel’s arms wrap around him and pull him in. He tries to stay frozen, to feel anger, to feel annoyed, any of the usual things he feels when Castiel is near. They don’t come. Instead there is a tightening in Dean’s throat and prickling heat behind his eyes. He can’t hold back for long.
“It’s okay, Dean,” Castiel says. His voice is soft by Dean ear, a deep vibration that rolls though his chest, like the thunder that rolls through the sky. “I’m with you.”
Whether it’s the words, the arms holding him, or the puff of warm breath across his neck, Dean doesn’t know, but something snaps, a wall crumbles, and the first hot tear falls from his eye.
“Drink with me, Cas,” he says. The breath of his words moves the dark hair behind Castiel’s ear. It’s shot through with a little grey now, Dean notices.
II
“You remember the Oracle?” Dean asks a few hours and a lot of alcohol later. “We had to do that whole fortune teller bullshit, yeah?” They sit on the kitchen floor, side by side.
“Of course, I remember, Dean. It was just before you came here,” Castiel says, voice irritatingly steady compared to Dean’s slurring.
Dean’s held onto this for years. She was the only one that ever knew. He never even told Sam, didn’t want him to try and convince him it wasn’t real. Dean wanted it to be real—guess he was wrong. He doesn’t know why he’s admitting it now, but the words fall from his mouth anyway. “He told me there was still hope,” he says, looking down at the bottle. He scratches at the edge of the label before starting to peel it off. “He said that I could still have the life I always wanted. That I could find it if I just opened my eyes and looked. Asshole said I’d find a woman, one who saw me, good and bad, who would love me as I am.”
“That sounds nice, Dean.” Castiel manages to only sound a little patronising.
“Shut up, Cas,” Dean says impatiently before going on. “Oracle said she would save me, and that we would be together in this life and beyond.” Dean wipes a hand across his face, still sticky with snot and salty tears he hadn’t bothered to wipe away. “Guess he was full of shit, huh?”
“You think he was talking about her?” Castiel says. He’s frowning, not that it’s an unusual look for him, but it’s deeper than normal—or maybe not, Dean doesn’t really know what’s normal for Castiel anymore, does he?
“Yeah, course he meant her. She fit the bill perfectly. Saved my life didn’t she? Knew it was her the moment she slashed that shape-shifter’s throat with the silver cake-slice.” He smiles at the memory, but it fades too fast. “And I did love her,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself. “I did.”
“I know you did,” Castiel says in his blandest voice. He never did like her much, blamed her, Dean thinks, for taking Dean away from the fight.
“And I tried so hard, Cas, so fucking hard to make it work...” The words catch in his throat. He wants to stop them somehow, doesn’t want to admit that he’s wrong, broken, that he had this perfect, fated thing, in his grasp, and he still couldn’t do it right.
“Dean?” Castiel turns to him, puts a hand on Dean’s knee, light but warm. It makes Dean feel sick.
The words won’t be stopped. “I always felt like something was missing? You know?”
“No.”
That gets a huff of sad laughter from Dean. “I guess you don’t,” Dean shrugs. “You’re lucky, Cas. To have never loved anyone—I mean I know you love God and all, but I mean in a human way. You’ll never have to feel what it’s like to lose it, or to be confused about it, or to love with no hope.”
“I do know what love is, Dean,” Castiel says, quiet, head turned away again.
Dean snorts and lifts the bottle to his mouth, takes a drink. He’s pretty far gone, and he’s fed up of his life turning to shit, everything he does, failing. He’s fucking sick of it.
“Thought I might love you, once,” he laughs bitterly, “Long time ago now.” Did he really just say that after keeping it in, locked silently away behind bluster and denial, for years? What a time to dredge up stuff that doesn’t matter anymore. Dean knows it’s inappropriate, that he should feel bad, but he hasn’t got the energy to care.
Castiel stares at his profile, brows drawn close. “Dean, what..?”
“What do I mean?” Dean finishes for him. “Well I don’t mean the ‘I love you like a brother’ kind of love, that’s for sure. What a fucking idiot, huh?” He takes another big pull from the bottle, realises it’s whiskey in his hand now, instead of beer, and isn’t quite sure how it happened. “Don’t worry about it, Cas. I was just confused, what with the apocalypses and all. Then you left anyway, so I gave it up as a bad lot.”
“Dean, that’s not...” Castiel shakes his head.
“I know, I know, that’s not appropriate, right?” Dean laughs again as he turns and blinks at the blurry Castiel sitting on the floor next to him, edges smudged and soft focus. “You’re still real pretty though, Cas.” Dean touches the lines at the corners of Castiel’s eyes. They’re deeper now than they’ve ever been, Castiel’s many brushes with humanity made solid, carved into flesh.
“Don’t do this, Dean,” Castiel warns.
He doesn’t want to hear it. Dean doesn’t want reason, or honour, or to ‘work through the grief’ like all the leaflets say. Dean wants comfort, wants the heat of a living body to melt his frozen blood, and make it pump again. He wants to feel hard and alive. His heart clenches, squeezing like a fist beneath his ribs, an old feeling he has long since learnt to put aside. Fuck, but he had forgotten what it was like, and with all the carefully erected barriers dissolved in whiskey Dean feels a heady rush of want, thick and primal.
Fuck it, fuck everything. He leans in and presses his lips to Castiel’s. His alcohol infused blood sings at the touch, he’s dizzy with it, the earth shifting and lurching to the right. He tries to catch Castiel’s head in his hands to hold himself steady, but he’s slow and clumsy, and then Castiel is gone. Dean topples forward, barely catches himself before he face-plants into the black and white checks of the pock-marked linoleum. He sprawls there, for a few breaths, wondering what’s happened.
“I think I should leave,” Castiel says, disembodied voice drifting somewhere overhead.
Dean mumbles into the floor. “What a surprise.”
“Do you need help getting to the bedroom?”
Dean drags himself up to sitting, slumps back on the cupboard doors, where her flower edged table set waits for a dinner party that will never happen. “I can manage, thanks,” he grumbles.
Castiel nods. “Okay. I’ll be back.” He spins on his heels and walks out, car keys jangling in his hand. So, still human then, Dean guesses; it’s always been hard to keep up.
That night Dean dreams of the Oracle, and the nonsense story that sent him on the path to ordinary. It’s vivid, in flashes of colour and feeling that leave Dean gasping.
The old man, gap-toothed grin flashing from a thick white beard, strings of brightly coloured beads circling his neck and tumbling over a thin bare chest, jewel-bright against dark skin, was very powerful. Dean could feel it, rolling from him in waves, singeing the air like bursts of electricity. It tasted metallic on the back of his tongue. The Oracle would give them nothing until they had their fortune told—it seemed an easy deal at the time.
He held out his hand, silently waiting for Dean to cover it with his own. Wizened fingers and yellowed fingernails stroked over Dean’s palm as the Oracle’s eyes glazed over, milky white, drifting to wherever the future is held.
“You’re heart is fractured,” he said. “There are pieces of you scattered across the world.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean said, only half listening. What good did knowing the future ever do?
The Oracle sighed. “You’ll never get anywhere with that attitude,” he snapped, pinching the back of Dean’s hand until he startled, attention pulled back into the room. “The world spirit has seen fit to bless you with guidance, you should listen,” he said in a heavily accented voice. Dean laughed, he couldn’t help it the old guy was pretty funny.
“Sorry.” Dean sat up a little straighter, trying to concentrate.
“Now where was I? Oh yes.” The Oracle slipped easily back into his trance. “There are traces of you in all the people whose lives you’ve touched, but you ache, because they can’t give that love back to you. They can’t fill in the holes that are left when you move on.”
“This doesn’t sound much like the future to me granddad,” Dean grumbled. He wasn’t in the mood for a damn retrospective.
“Patience,” the Oracle said, unmoved. “Everything has meaning, if you take the time to see it.” Dean rolled his eyes but stayed silent. “There is still hope. You can be healed,” he said, leaning forward he dropped his voice to a whisper. “When the time is right, the one will come to you.”
“Who?”
“The one who saves you,” the Oracle said as if it was obvious. “One who sees the dark places in your heart, and the brightness of your soul, and loves them both the same.”
“Who is it?” Dean demanded, heart suddenly in his throat, choking him.
The Oracle smiled, knowing and a little bit smug with it. “It’s not for me to spill secrets. You’ll know when the time comes.” Dean growled in frustration, he’d never seen the point of fortune tellers, they always talked such bullshit. The Oracle dropped Dean’s hand, blinked the mist from his dark brown eyes, and sat back on his heels. “Take comfort,” he said, “You can have a full life Dean Winchester; you only need to open your eyes to find it. And once you have found each other, you will never truly be parted, not in this life, or the next. And those cracks,” he said as he leaned forward to jab a bony fingertip against Dean’s chest. “They will heal. It just takes time.”
III
Dean wakes to a pounding headache, a loudly protesting back, and the uncomfortable realisation that he hadn’t actually made it to the bedroom. His cheek is stuck to the floor where he’s drooled during the night. The hazy memories of the dream clash with recollections of the previous night, until it’s all a scramble, a Jackson Pollock of a nightmare. He groans, and slaps a hand over his eyes to block it out the light that seeps in, pink, though the kitchen curtains.
Jesus Christ, what was he even doing? Getting smashed and unloading all his old crap onto Castiel like that. Shit, the kiss. “Oh God, I’m such an asshole,” he moans, letting his head fall back to the floor.
“Frequently, yes,” Castiel says from where he’s leaning on the doorframe. Dean jerks upright; his brain lags behind and thumps painfully as it catches up and settles inside his skull.
“You came back.”
“I said I would.” Castiel stares, and seconds stretch out, long and thin. Finally he nods, as if he’s determined a suitable course of action, and comes over to heave Dean to his feet. “You should get cleaned up,” he says seriously. “She wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
She—fuck. He’d forgotten. How could he have forgotten? She’s only been gone a few days, a few weeks if you count the time in the hospital, a few months if you’re counting from the time she moved out of the house. What special kind of asshole was he that went from leaving her in the ground, to trying to make out with his best friend, in the space of a few hours?
Castiel drags Dean down the hall and into the bathroom. Dean stares as Castiel searches the cupboard for towels, which he dumps in Dean’s arms as soon as he finds them. “Take a shower,” he orders, and leaves the room. The door bangs shut and pains stabs violently through Dean’s temple. He does as he is told; climbs into the shower and leans against the wall as the water flows over him, cool, and clear, and reviving.
He comes out, washed and dressed, and feeling more like a human being, to find Castiel standing at the stove. The smell of bacon warms the air, while the sizzle of it fills the quiet.
“When did you learn to cook?” Dean asks, stunned to find Castiel so apparently at home with a frying pan in his hand, moving with a fluid surety, as if he’s done this a thousand times before.
Castiel shrugs. “I pick things up here and there. I worked in a diner for a while, on a case.” Castiel, in a diner, flipping burgers and talking to locals, Dean can’t wrap his brain cells around that image. “Here you go,” Castiel says, as he piles eggs and bacon onto a plate already set out on the table. He misreads Dean’s shock as hesitation and says, “It’ll make you feel better, just eat it.”
He sits down, before looking up into Castiel’s face. His hair is messy, and there’s sweat on his brow from standing over the burner, but his eyes are bright with concern. It makes something swoop in Dean’s stomach. It’s a sensation he recalls well and it has nothing to do with the after effects of the alcohol.
“Thanks, Cas.” It comes out cracked and raw. Castiel doesn’t comment—for which Dean is grateful—he just gets on with cleaning up the debris from his adventures in cooking.
It’s a strange day. Castiel is careful and watchful, as if he thinks Dean will fall apart at any moment. Break down, overwhelmed by his grief. Dean doesn’t know how to tell him that he won’t. He’s sad she is gone, she was one of the best, and he’ll miss her, but she left him months ago and deep down, Dean realises he had already let go.
“We’d broken up,” he says suddenly.
Castiel turns to him on the couch, brings a bent knee up to the seat and it brushes Dean’s thigh. Such a slight thing, but Dean is very aware of it. “What do you mean?”
“She moved out, back in the spring.” He looks at his hands, too afraid of what he might see in Castiel’s face to risk even a glance. “Said she loved me, but it wasn’t enough. Said she didn’t think I loved her right.”
“Did you?” Castiel asks, blunt as always.
“I did.” He pauses, thinks about it again, thinks about how he’d got used to the empty rooms too quickly. They hadn’t spoken in over two weeks, when she called with the horrible news about the cancer. She still didn’t want to come back, preferred to stay with her step-sister instead. “Well, I thought I did.” He looks away, ashamed. “I don’t know, anymore.”
“You should talk to Sam, he knows about these things,” Castiel sounds awkward, his voice tight.
“I’m talking to you, Cas.”
“I don’t think I can be much help.”
“Because you don’t know what love feels like?” Dean snaps, knows he’s being immature, scoring points.
He hears Castiel sigh, defeated. “No. Because I don’t know what it’s like to doubt the love I feel.”
“I’m not talking about loving God here, Cas,” Dean says, turning the DVD off with a more forceful stab at the button than is necessary.
Castiel bristles. “Good, because neither am I.” Dean feels him move. If he turns his head he is sure that Castiel will have his arms folded across his chest, defensive, probably pouting. They fall silent, like quarrelling children, too stubborn to say the first word.
The stab of jealousy is an arrow through Dean’s chest, painful and unexpected. He wonders why Sam never mentioned anything about Castiel meeting someone. It would’ve been nice to be warned, but then Sam never was much of a gossip, and Dean never told him the things he kept buried in the broken parts of his heart.
Castiel sighs, resigned, and tries to break the silence, “Dean I...”
“I don’t want to know,” Dean grumbles. “I buried my ex-girlfriend yesterday; I can do without this, right now.”
Castiel nods, looks chastened. “Of course, Dean, whatever you want is fine. I’m here to help, not cause you problems.”
“Good,” he says, hitting the play button again. The tv starts up with a burst of colour and noise. Dean turns up the volume until it’s loud enough to cover the silence that stretches between them. They drift through the day like that. Castiel orders pizza via an app on his phone, and once again Dean is shocked by the ordinary humanness of him. He doesn’t think about who’s been teaching him these things; he feels somehow cheated that he missed it.
It is not far into the evening when Dean starts on the beer again. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to hit the whiskey,” he says, waggling a cold bottle in Castiel’s face, condensation beading on the outside. He takes it and drinks it down, eyelids fluttering. Dean’s throat goes dry. Shit, he thought he’d got over this, and it’s all kind of inappropriate. He tries to keep his head in the conversation.
A few beers later and Castiel has mellowed considerably. It almost feels like old times. “I missed this,” Dean says. There is warmth inside he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“I missed you too, Dean,” Castiel says, a little soft around the edges.
“Yeah?” Dean perks up. “Then why’d you never come around? Man, I thought I’d done something to piss you off.”
Castiel shakes his head. “You didn’t do anything, Dean. I found it difficult to see you here. It was troubling in a way I didn’t really understand, at the time. I thought you didn’t belong here, that it was a lie, but I was wrong. I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.”
“You’re here now,” Dean says. He lets his head loll on the back cushions of the couch then rolls his neck to get a look at Castiel. It’s a mistake. Castiel is smiling, a fragile thing, more in his eyes than the twist of his lips. The spark of warmth in Dean’s chest blazes to life, leaping and burning, until he has to suck down cool air to get it under control.
Dean wants to reach out and steal that smile for himself. He doesn’t have the will to make himself stop, to slam down on the urge like he normally would. He moves into Castiel’s space, hand splayed on his thigh so he doesn’t topple forward as he catches Castiel’s mouth in a soft touch. It’s gentle, not drunken and clumsy like the night before.
“Dean, what are you doing?” The words are a whisper against Dean’s lips, and he can taste them on his tongue. Castiel doesn’t shift away, or push at Dean to put space between them, this time.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Dean says into Castiel’s mouth. He drops another kiss, soft like the first, a little more movement this time, and Castiel lets him do it. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, bodies only inches apart, but it doesn’t feel new, or strange. “Fuck, Cas, it’s so good to see you, man.” Dean lifts a hand and runs his fingers up the back of Castiel’s neck, buries his fingers in curls of dark hair.
Castiel finally moves, catches at his arm to make Dean stop, as he tries to angle Castiel’s head, intent on deepening the kiss. “Dean, please. You’re being unfair.” Castiel slides away until his back hits the arm of the couch. Dean’s hands fall away, but he can’t let go, not altogether, not yet. They end up resting on Castiel’s waist, thumbs stroking arcs over the cotton of his shirt, fingertips tingling with the need to the feel skin hidden beneath. At least Castiel doesn’t look angry, if anything he’s wearing a look of betrayal, as if Dean has wounded him somehow.
Their earlier conversation jumps back into Dean’s head. Shit, he’d forgotten. “Sorry,” he says. “Guess I shouldn’t push it if you’ve got a girl now, huh?”
Castiel’s expression falls into confusion, brows twitching into a frown. “No. I haven’t, why would you think that?”
Dean joins him in his confusion. “Because you said...” His train of thought suddenly derails as another idea hits him. “You’re just not interested in me?” he accuses. Conceited as it might sound, it’s not something Dean’s often had to deal with.
Castiel looks at him as if he’s gone bat-shit crazy. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how I feel, Dean. I can’t be a distraction for you.”
“I don’t know how you feel, and I’m not pretending anything.” He lets Castiel go and immediately feels cold. Castiel doesn’t understand, and why would he? Dean’s kept everything locked up so tight for so long, he’d even managed to convince himself. Castiel looks like he might flee the scene at any moment, and most of all, Dean just doesn’t want him to leave. “You’re not a distraction, Cas, you never could be.” With nothing left to lose, he reasons, why not try the truth for once. “I’ve tried real hard to squeeze myself into a life than doesn’t fit right. The whole thing was like a weird dream that was never quite real. Then suddenly, you’re here, and you fit right. I don’t want to lose that again; you and Sam are the realist things I have. This is nothing to do with her, or the funeral, or any of that. I don’t want you to be a distraction, Cas, I just want you.”
Castiel pulls a face that Dean can’t decipher, and drops his head, hiding. Dean can see his eyelids fluttering in agitation as he sucks in a deep breath. When Castiel looks up again, he doesn’t need to speak, his answer burns in his eyes and the heat of his skin as he drags Dean back to him, hands clinging, mouths meeting, as they slide down on the couch. The tv plays on in the background, ignored in favour of seeking skin. It’s a blur, a kaleidoscope of texture and taste, as they pull feverishly at each other, stripping back layers, shedding more than just clothes.
“Stop” Castiel gasps, as Dean’s hands starts to work open his pants. “It’s too much.”
Dean grins into the skin of his neck, lapping at the first salty traces of sweat. “And it’s hot as fuck,” he mumbles. But Castiel stays tense, his fingers digging in to the muscle of Dean’s back. Dean lifts his head and looks into Castiel’s eyes, gone dark and wide. He presses a hand over his chest, in the center, between his ribs. “Don’t say you don’t feel it too, Cas. I can hear your heart beating, it’s racing.” He shifts to his knees so Castiel is bracketed between them. Takes his hand and presses it over his own heart. “Just like mine.” He waits a moment, tries to find right words, put them together in the right way. “I should have told you a long time ago, what you mean to me. But, I’m an asshole, Cas. You know that better than anyone.”
Dean smiles and lets Castiel trace the curve of his lips with a ghosting touch. “I have missed you, Dean. More than I know how to say.”
“You don’t have to say it, just stay with me, Cas.” Dean dips back down, pressing their chests together, lining up their madly beating hearts. “Please.”
Castiel, nods, mouths a soundless yes. His eyes never leave Dean’s.
The next kiss is even better than the last, Castiel opening to Dean without hesitation. He comes alive beneath him, strong enough to take Dean’s weight, to move him if he wants to, and he does. As they lose the rest of their clothes to the floor, Dean finds himself on his back. Castiel is everywhere; hands and mouth exploring with unrestrained fervour, every breath soaked in the spice of their sweat, heady and warm, and Dean gulps it down, drunk on it.
He gets lost in the push and pull, as they start to move together, nerves alight, strung out on the building tension, the heat building at the base of his spine. This is it, he thinks, when he opens his eyes and see’s nothing but blue, this is perfect; everything Dean never let himself have. He knows, right then, that he could give himself to Castiel completely, that maybe he already has and has just been running from it, for all these years.
In the aftermath, they lie together, tangled under a spotted blanket that Castiel pulls from the back of the couch to cover them.
“You okay?” Dean asks, once they’ve recovered their breath. “I haven’t freaked you out or anything?”
“Why would I be... freaked-out?” Castiel says, and it’s so reminiscent of Castiel from the old days that Dean can almost see the quotations marks around the words.
Dean shrugs as best he can with a full-grown man wrapped around him. “I don’t want you to feel obligated to me, you know. Just because of how I feel about you. This doesn’t have to be more than it is, if you don’t want it. I can’t drop this on you and suddenly expect you to love me back.” Castiel eyes him carefully. They are both aware of the words Dean’s just said without actually saying them. Dean waits. He hopes, and he waits.
It’s like the light of a miracle when Castiel blinks and smiles. “You really don’t know, do you?” he says.
“What am I supposed to know?”
“For someone who has seen so much, lived so much, you are incredibly blind, Dean Winchester.” He turns his gaze on Dean, and oh fuck, there it is. Dean had mistaken it for something else, friendship perhaps, or the last remains of Castiel’s dying grace, but it was there the whole time, burning and alive, flickering deep behind his eyes: Love.
“Holy fuck.” Dean feels the laugh bubble up in his chest moments before it burst from his lips. A sound of surprise and amazement, the sort that hasn’t been heard within the walls of his house in a long time “How long Cas, how long for?”
“For always, or near enough.” Castiel says it like its nothing, like it’s an immoveable fact, one he’s learned to live with.
“Shit.” Dean slaps himself in the face with a damp and slightly sticky hand. “This is insane.”
IIII
Sleep claims them. As the light fails, and the bad weather rattles the window frames, Dean slips into the darkness, secure in the knowledge that Castiel will still be there when he wakes. Drifting pleasantly in the dark, the words of the Oracle come back to him. You can have a full life Dean Winchester; you only need to open your eyes to find it.
He jerks awake, and the world comes into sharp focus. The thin orange of the streetlights through the window, pick out the line of Castiel’s profile, straight nose, thick lips, firm jaw—beautiful.
“Why are you staring at me?” Castiel asks with his eyes still closed.
Dean just smiles. It was Castiel, he realises, it was always Castiel. Dean just wasn’t ready to see it, the Oracle was right. “Sam says there’s a job not far from here. Maybe we can catch up with him tomorrow? See if we can help out.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to jump back in so soon?”
“I’ll be careful. And hey, I’ve got you to watch my back, haven’t I?” Dean slides a hand down Castiel’s side, teasing a sensitive patch until he squirms and bats Dean’s hand away.
Castiel smiles, and there is an interesting glint in his eye that Dean wants to get to know better. “It would be my pleasure to, erm... watch your back, Dean.”
It’s a terrible joke, but it might just be the best one Dean’s ever heard. He laughs and kisses Castiel into silence, tries hard to believe that Castiel is really here, in his arms; patient, ridiculous, stubborn, Castiel, the one he needs to make his life whole. She taught him how to live, how to open up, how to let himself be loved, and Dean will always be grateful for it. She was one of the good things he had in his life, and without her, he would never have been ready for what comes next.
Dean looks at Castiel, and he is breathless, excited and a little awed, and he knows the Oracle was right about one more thing; now they’ve found each other, they will never be parted again.