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“Maybe to distract Dean, he’s not living in his worst memories. Maybe...Maybe, he’s trapped in the one thing he’s never had before.
It didn’t need to be said. A weight settled between angle and friend, heavy as the knowledge undoubtedly was to Dean’s loved ones.
Happiness.
Sam’s mind was spinning. It was hard to focus with Dean’s voice shouting his past trauma from every direction. Sam attempted to block out the noise and concentrate on the sounds that Cas was pulling through instead. His theory paid off faster than he expected.
Cas moved his glowing hand around the vast empty blackness, a lone light into the recesses of Dean’s own personal darkness. Searching through Dean’s good memories felt like searching for a diamond in the rough. It pained Sam’s heart a little more than he was expecting when he heard the little moments that translated to Dean’s only good memories.
*****
Focusing on Dean’s good memories made Cas smile. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting exactly. Maybe some childhood memories, positive moments with his family, maybe even some of their more recent bouts of peace that they occasionally scraped together?
The childhood moments were there, but they were over before Cas had enough time to set his mind into his task. Quickly Dean’s voice got deeper, growing up in chronological order with the selected memories Cas searched through.
Cas didn’t even have a chance to question what would come next before he was unexpectedly presented with the answer.
He could hear Dean speaking to him from the past. All of Dean’s happy moments echoed around him, bringing Cas back to that very time and place when the words were spoken directly to him.
He wanted to believe that Dean’s happy moments involved him. He wanted to imagine that when Dean went to his (as Dean would say) Happy Place, it was somehow with Sam and himself. If he was completely honest with himself, without Sam was preferred. But Cas understood the concept of projecting. And in addition, not so deep down, Cas knew that Dean could never return his feelings.
He was jolted out of his depressing thoughts by Sam shouting, “there!”
Cas pulled stronger towards the memory he had stumbled upon an odd feeling in his gut.
From around them, they heard Dean’s voice, but Cas had never remembered Dean sounding so...gentle.
“It’s okay baby, there’s a reason I’m the one who does the cooking.” Then Dean laughed the most carefree sound that had ever escaped him. And Cas knew that Sam was right.
This had never happened.
Cas pulled the memory forward, dragging them into a new domestic scene that seemed so plausible, it ached.
Castiel was hugging Dean from behind, in the bunker’s kitchen. Castiel was softly nuzzling Dean’s ear and Dean...leaned into it. The two of them were standing so close that Cas would be surprised if there was room to slip a paper between them.
Cas wasn’t aware of the throaty sound that left him, but it was enough to alert Dean to their presence.
“Sammy, hey I -” Dean began, turning away in sync with Castiel. Dean’s spun around so perfectly with his own double, it was a dance. A perfect waltz, with the two of them even holding hands.
When Dean’s green eyes, still half-laden in a smile, found Cas, his grin wiped off his face, to be replaced by a dark glare.
“Sam, what the hell? Who’s this…” he gave Cas a scathing look, “imposture?”
If Cas had a heartbeat, it would die off at the look of cold anger Dean was shooting at him. Dean hadn’t looked at him that way since they had first met.
Dean had stabbed him then too.
“Dean, what-wh, wait, I, I don’t understand.” Sam turned to Cas, then back to Dean, in total shock.
Sam, normally so observant, was officially the last to know it seemed. If Cas wasn’t in such a state himself, he would’ve found amusement in that knowledge.
“That makes two of us, Sammy.” Dean shoved his body in front of Castiel. There was almost no part of them not touching with how close they were standing.
Cas remembered very vividly once standing less than half of that distance and being told to step back for “personal space” reasons. Whatever this “Castiel” was, he was somehow worthy of Dean ignoring his own rules.
Cas wasn’t willing to sit passively by while Dean could potentially be in danger. He understood logically that they were safe in Dean’s mind, but it did nothing to calm the twisting nerves coiling up his body. Dean’s glare tore all logic from his grasp. Cas knew that look well. It was a look that their relationship had long ago outgrown.
“Dean, you need to listen to me. I am the real me, not him. This whole thing is happening in your head.”
Castiel slid his arm protectively around Dean’s waist, pulling him that last inch closer, mimicking their stance of moments ago. Cas knew that look as well.
Possessiveness.
Words of wisdom came to Cas at that moment. From an old television program during his Netflix days. He seemed to recall the show being about homosexuals.
“Oh hell no!”
Sam gaped at Cas, his eyes wide, as though his up had just become down and the world forgot to warn him about the shift.
Cas stormed over and grabbed Dean’s arm. He yanked Dean free of his own twin.
Castiel’s lips pursed, and his eyelids narrowed slightly. From knowing what he did, of what he had come to think of as his own face, he knew that Castiel was furious.
Dean tried to break free of Cas’ grip, but he held on tighter still. A flashing thought warned him against bruising Dean, but his logic held. It helped to know that bruises in Dean’s head didn’t translate into the real world. Not physically anyway.
It was Cas verses Castiel in an all-out battle of tug of war, with Dean as the rope. Cas yanked and pulled, trying to think of a more sophisticated tactic to dislodge his counterpart ironclad grip.
He was an angel for god’s sake! He would not resort to this. He refused to lose the most important person to him, to himself.
Castiel didn’t seem to know about the dream state they were in, because he seemed to care a lot more about hurting Dean than Cas did. Castiel eyed the finger-shaped red marks on Dean’s left forearm regretfully.
Cas heart sunk. He shouldn’t be so affected but he couldn’t help it. This freak was pretending to care more about Dean, more about his pain than Cas did.
He didn’t want to hurt Dean. He’d do anything not to hurt Dean. But this was part of that. He had to stay strong. Cas tore his own eyes away from the Bruises forming under his own death grip. He hadn’t realized he was staring.
Briefly, he recalled that they weren’t just in “Dean’s head”. Rather they were in what amounted to Dean’s happiest memory. He didn’t deserve a jealous non-boyfriend and bruises in that happiness. Even if none of it was real. They had more important things to do here.
Even more important than seeing what Dean’s “happy” looked like? Questioned a small voice in his mind.
Cas pushed passed it, swallowing that train of thought down hard. It didn’t go down smooth.
Dean shot Castiel a pleading hurtful look, but Cas was faster. The panty to the right was open, but not for much longer.
Before Sam or Castiel could react, Cas had pulled the door closed tight and bolted it with his grace.
When Cas turned back to face the not so empty room, he jumped back slightly. The back of his head banging into the wall and clanging throughout the small room. Cas was only now realizing just how small.
Was it always so hot in here? Since when did temperatures bother him?
Dean had approached Cas while he had been focused on locking the door. His face was so close to Cas’ that he could feel his breathing. Something sharp was poking his side.
He fought back a snort. He shouldn’t expect Dean to be empty-handed. Dean was rarely without a weapon, even when he was sleeping. So why should a “day off”, if that's what this was, be any different.
“I won’t ask again,” Dean growled, eyes flashing dangerously in the dim lighting from the spindly bulb. “Who the hell are you, and why do you look like him?”
Cas gulped, Dean’s blade digging slightly deeper into his side. From this vantage point, Cas
couldn’t see if it was an Angel Blade or not, but it was unwise to call Dean’s bluff in any case.
He couldn’t resist. “Like who?”
“Like my husband, you fucking copy!” Who the hell do you think?”
Dean’s voice took on a dark edge. Cas knew he was losing his patience. He hoped Sam was keeping fake him at bay because he was suddenly feeling very dizzy.
He swayed, and Dean moved away to watch him fall. Cas’ stomach flopped. He shouldn’t feel his stomach do anything.
Husband…
Dean called him his husband...Well, not him per se, but still. Was this what Dean saw when he was happy. Cas had never dared to even dream. It was foolish to dream. But was it so foolish if Dean shared the same dream? Was it even possible?
Cas caught himself on the door behind him. He leaned all of his weight on it, his mind a whirlwind of what-ifs and disbelief.
“What’s wrong with you anyway,” Dean said, peering over him with mounting curiosity and dissipating anger.
Curiosity Cas could handle. But he still couldn’t handle basic speech.
“He’s...I’m...Husband?” I- I...”
He couldn’t get the words out. He said them to himself instead, a mantra in his own mind composed of a single word, like an unfinished thought, completed by a thousand reprimands.
Dean snorted. “Oh, you’re one of those aren’t ya, two men, against the Bible, all that crap? You know, If you’re gonna steal my angel’s face then you might as well be versed in the real stuff.”
Cas had completely slid to the floor now, on his knees before Dean. Not in the way he always envisioned.
My angel.
When Cas shifted to the floor, Dean backed off slightly, looking down at Cas from his new vantage point.
“Come on! What’s wrong with you? You gonna talk pal?”
An argument broke out from behind the door. Sam was preoccupied with Castiel, which meant
that it was up to Cas to convince Dean that he was dreaming.
It was a job he would normally be up for. He usually never had trouble reaching Dean.
Dean had, in fact, been using an angel blade. He was tapping it against his palm in impatience.
Cas nearly choked. He knew that blade. That very specific blade. It wouldn’t even be the first time that he had given his own blade to Dean.
“What the actual fuck dude?” Dean muttered, shaking his head.
Uncontrolled tears swarmed Cas’ vision. He couldn't do it. He wasn’t strong enough. His greatest and strongest desire dangled in his face, and he was and yet was not, a part of it.
His lips moved of their own accord, his eyes streaming. “How-how long,” he stammered, eyes cast to the floor.
“Gonna need you to be a bit more specific there.”
“Husbands...How long.” He felt like he needed to breathe suddenly, but then couldn’t. The word “husband” echoing over and over in his mind, replacing all cognitive functions.
Dean peered down at him, expression finally showing something other than anger or curiosity.
Dean kelt down, eye to eye with Cas. “Okay, I’m listening. Who are you?” His tone was a thousand times softer than any he had yet to use. Somehow that made it worse. Of all things, Dean had never shown him pity.
Cas couldn’t blame him. Tears on his cheeks, strewn on the floor, couldn't string together a sentence. He pitied himself.
“How long? Please. Please tell me.” He resisted the temptation to grab Dean’s collar as he leaned closer to Cas’ heap of a figure. Dean already thought of him as either pathetic or hostile, and Cas wasn’t in the business of encouraging either of those schools of thought.
Dean’s eyebrow raised. “Why does that matter?”
Cas didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. How could he explain the multitude of emotions storming throughout his body? The history they shared, the deep love that thrummed around his grace. Dean was the first and only person to ever make him feel seen.
Cas was stuck watching his dying wish teased in the form of his own likeness. He swallowed hard around something in his throat that wasn’t there before.
Dean sighed. He sat down, cross-legged, facing Cas. Between the two of them on the floor,
there was no more room to move around.
The pantry shelves towered above them. Cas realized that there was more than one whole shelf of just pie crust. He almost smiled at that. Almost.
“Five years, okay?
Cas nearly jumped. He couldn’t explain it, but he wasn’t expecting Dean to answer him.
My turn now. Why do you look like him?” Dean’s head tilted. “Exactly like him,” he muttered, eyeing Cas up.
Cas didn’t answer right away. Five years. That was a lot to take in. Cas had known Dean now for much longer, but in Dean’s mind, they would have...gotten married, long ago.
When he was human if his timeline was right.
Did that make the Castiel out there a human? Was that what the big difference was? Could Dean only ever be with him if he were human again? Cas squeezed his eyes shut, clearing his vision of a few welling behind his efforts to remain calm.
No, he said, angel. He had called Castiel an angel. My angel to be exact.
Cas wasn’t sure what the connection was, but something had to be different. Was this all a ruse being played by Michael? How would that keep Dean compliant and unsuspecting? Unless…?
He had to be sure.
Dean sat in a pretzel, bow-legged knees only inches away from Cas’ in the tiny pantry. To the untrained eye, his shoulders were lowered, his face soft, and he was reclining sixty degrees.
Cas knew Dean better. He didn’t miss the fingers ever presently clutching the angel blade sitting casually on his lap, or the lack of eye movement away from Cas.
Dean was a master manipulator. If he was trying to get Cas to let his guard down, Cas would have to get his shit together, as Dean would say.
“When I-eh- when he came to you, five years ago, and you, you said anything you need right? I asked you, I mean, he asked you to stay in the bunker, as a human. What did you say then? Please.”
Cas couldn’t be positive that was the moment. He got an explanation long after the whole Gadreel situation about why he had to be kicked out that day. That was the one and only time they spoke about it.
Cas didn’t bring up how crushed he had been, and Dean didn’t let on if the guilt behind his rough voice was relevant. Cas had always wondered but been too afraid to ask. How much did
Dean regret that day?
Dean studied Cas’ face, debating how much to reveal, or how much to press Cas’ knowledge of a situation he shouldn’t have known about in the first place. It was hard to say.
“Question for a question, deal?”
“Deal!” Cas agreed, grateful for the olive branch, however small.
“You asked me one already, so my turn next.”
Cas nodded, though it wasn’t a question. He was getting a better handle of himself. Tears no longer ran free, and he no longer felt like a drowning human. Somehow, Dean interrogating him, however thinly veiled, was more common ground than Dean...then Dean…
“Why do you look like him?”
If Cas didn’t know better, he would buy into Dean’s carefree attempts at nonchalance. But for Cas, there was no missing the sharp undertone of carefully smooth commands, in which Dean often spoke in.
The scuffle behind the door had quieted. Cas prayed that was a good thing. But Sam’s silence reminded him that he was not just here for himself and Dean. There was a lot more than just this cupboard at stake if he couldn’t get through to Dean.
Without realizing it, Cas had completely lost himself in Dean and what he had just seen. Cas was an angel. A former commander himself. Dean wasn’t the only master manipulator here. And Dean had just given Cas the perfect opening.
He wiped his eyes, as they grew hard behind his sleeves. It was just Dean. He knew Dean. Sometimes, better than Sam. It was time to prove it.
Dean was taken aback by Cas’ change in demeanor. Cas didn’t give him time to recover.
“I look like him because I am him. Or rather, he looks like me because he is me.”
Dean opened his mouth to comment, but Cas cut him off.
He leaned in the remaining foot between them. Taking advantage of the small space, he broke a long ago established rule made by Dean. Dean had no choice but to make direct contact with Cas’ serious expression.
“Dean, please. Remember. We are in your head. Michael, he’s possessing you, distracting you inside your mind.”
Cas’ stomach felt weird again when Dean didn’t pull away from their change in proximity. There wasn’t time to analyze anymore.
“Dean, listen to me! Remember! Remember Michael!”
Dean’s face paled, lips parting around the words, Michael.
Cas was finally getting through to him.
A thunderous crash made them both jump. The door splintered and swung open. Dean was standing there, wearing an old flat cap.
“Get away from him,” he growled, using Dean’s voice, only...wrong.
Michael grabbed Cas by the back of his collar and flung him backward into the kitchen beyond. He landed roughly, head crashing into the cabinets. When Cas recoiled, ready for a fight, he left a head-sized dent in the wood.
Dean had stood up, poised, an angel blade still in hand.
It was Dean on Dean. Two Cas’ and two Dean’s, it was a strange day.
Speaking of which...Looking around, Cas easily made out the prone forms of Sam and himself unconscious. While Michael was preoccupied, Cas shimmied over to check on Sam. His pulse was strong, but his forehead sported a deep gash that would need stitches if the wound would somehow follow them into reality.
Dean’s grunt of effort brought Cas’ attention back to the struggle taking place only a few feet away. Dean was wrestling with Michael, grappling to get the upper hand. The angel blade discarded in a corner of the floor. Michael must have disarmed it from Dean while Cas was checking on Sam.
Without words, Cas understood Dean’s plan. He lunged forward, grabbing Michael. Together, Dean and Cas managed to shove Michael into the pantry. Together they slammed the door shut, Dean pushing the lock in the slot, and Cas bolting it with his grace. They moved back in tandem, both staring at the vibrating door in trepidation. Michael banging to get out, shouting threats over the sound of Dean’s panting.
Dean and Cas shared a look. “Don’t say it,'' Dean said, walking over to Sam.
Cas wasn’t planning on “saying it”. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t other things he was dying to say.
Dean avoided Cas’ eyes and the inert Castiel in favor of gently guiding Sam back to consciousness. Sam groaned, clutching his head. Before Sam could fully regain consciousness,
Dean regarded Cas over his shoulder. Turning back to Sam, Dean muttered so quickly that Cas would have for sure missed it had he not been a supernatural being.
“I told him to stay.”
Cas felt a familiar pull that he didn’t resist. He allowed himself to be brought back to the bunker, back to real life, back to where Dean pretended not to be in love with him. Back where he would pretend not to have just heard what he had.
*****
Sam jumped to action first. He made quick work of undoing Dean’s binds. Dean’s head lulled, and he blinked rapidly. Cas following Sam’s example assisted in peeling off nodes from Dean’s temples and neck. When Dean opens his eyes properly, they met Cas’ at once. Instead of their usual linger, they escaped to Sam’s relieved expression at their first chance.
Dean stood up, leaning on Sam’s shoulders, still avoiding Cas. There was a long moment, a deep silence that filling up their minds. The room thick with the unsaid.
Dean’s eyes trained so hard on the floor, as though all the answers would be found on the old woodwork. For a moment, they all stayed frozen that way. Dean burning a hole in the tiles, Cas staring at Dean for any sign, anything at all, and Sam trying hard not to look between them.
“Dean, are you okay?” Sam began slowly. “I mean, Michael, is he...um?”
“Mh fine Sammy.”
Dean sighed so deeply, he came out of it shaking slightly. “He’s right here,” He said tapping his head. “I...I got em.”
Sam placed a comforting hand on Dean’s shoulder. They exchanged the kind of look that Cas and Dean never did. A look of understanding that can only be passed between brothers. Dean’s gaze surrendered to it long enough to reassure sam, before retreating back to the safety of his downcast.
Cas’ thoughts were burning. The dizziness he felt in Dean’s mind followed him out. Swerling so fiercely around his brain that his very grace hummed with it.
“Dean?”
He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Instead, he filled that one complicated word with as much emotion as he was feeling at the time, praying it could eliminate the stronghold they choked over his heart.
“I said I’m fine Cas,'' Dean said still to the floor. Then, with sudden vigor, He pushed Sam’s hand
off him and walked purposefully out of the library. In the distance, they heard a door slam shut.
Cas winced with the sound. It was his turn for Sam’s hand on his shoulder. He looked up to meet Sam’s doe-greys, watching him slowly. Sam’s mouth opened and closed, clearly fighting to say or not say something.
Cas briefly managed to feel bad for Sam. He had no clue what was flying, yet he was doing the utmost to be respectful about his obviously raging questions.
Cas decided to spare him. He got up, muttered a quick, “I’ll be in my room”, and left to do just that.
Once inside, he flopped onto his rarely used bed. He stared at the bare white ceiling until his eyes burned. He closed them tightly, clearing his throat. A few drops of water slid past his chin.
He stayed that way for a while. Unmoving. Embracing his own patheticness.
Dean didn’t want to even look at him when he came to. Dean was disgusted by him. He must be. He was horrified that Michael had trapped him in such a ridiculous ploy. Perhaps somehow this was done to both torture Cas and Dean, just in different ways. The ultimate hell.
Cas understood at last. He hadn’t seen Dean’s happy place at all. He had seen Dean’s nightmares. He was sure of it now.
His face flushed with a shame so bone-deep, he was shaking. How could he ever think that Dean could love something so broken? With a soul like Dean’s, that outshined his father himself. Of course, he could only see Cas as a friend at best.
Thoughts of Dean, of loving Dean more than friends ever could, he did his best to lock away tight. Ironic as he only learned how to do that from Dean himself. If he didn’t notice it, it wasn’t there. That’s how human emotions worked according to the Winchesters. And yet...yet here he was feeling sorry for himself for believing for even one second that he was worth anything more than a nightmare induced by Michael to repel Dean.
*****
Dean watched the two little dots on his digital alarm clock. Each blink echoed like an unheard tick in his mind. Taunting him.
Cas, Cas, Cas, Cas.
It never ended. Sam came right up to talk to him. He was doubtful of their success in the long run. He promised Dean that they would come up with a plan soon. Dean had only grunted in reply. While Sam was on his way out, he hesitated by the door. His hands frozen halfway from reaching the doorknob.
Dean knew what Sam wanted to say. He knew what Sam was dying to ask. It seems that Sam was really the last to know in this case. If his heart wasn’t pounding through his ears in fear that Sam would, in fact, gather his courage enough to ask, he would find humor in that.
“Sam…”
Sam’s head swiveled back to Dean so fast, he was surprised not to hear a crack. Sam gazed at Dean, silently begging for answers that Dean was too afraid to give and Sam was too kind to ask.
Dean paused. Taking in the intense pleading. He tried drawing courage from it, but it was useless. He couldn’t think past his own embarrassment.
He hadn’t felt so violated in years. He fully understood that it had to be done. He didn’t blame Sam or Cas for a second. But that didn’t mean he could absolve himself from blame. He knew that Cas would never - COULD never love something so broken. He knew for over 6 years. But he was scared. Terrified. Hearing it out loud, from Sam...that Cas would never see him that way. No, Dean was happier in his head, where he would hold out a slimmer of hope that fantasies came true.
“Nothing, just...goodnight man.”
Sam nodded, though his expression remained unsettled.
He had only taken his first steps out the door when Dean shouted, “wait!”
Sam did. And waited more. And more, as Dean battled his desperation to both pretend nothing happened, and to get comfort from his brother.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Sam said simply. He shut the door behind him.
Since then Dean had been lying in bed, staring at his damn clock. Willing the changing numbers to hypnotize him to sleep. His head hurt like a bitch. He could feel Michael banging around in there. What was worse, Dean could hear him.
Dean’s thoughts rattled around Michael’s personal racket like balls in a ping pong court. He wondered how much privacy he really had at the moment. Michael was mid-tantrum, yelling and banging things around, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hear Dean’s inner dilemma. It was more likely that he just didn’t care.
“Angels,” Dean snorted. Freaking angels.
The word made his heart pang. Cas was an angel. Not all angels were bad then, were they?
Cas.
The clock blinked stupidly back at him. Taunting him.
Cas, Cas, Cas, Cas.
He shut his eyes tighter. He knew heartache when he felt it by now. But it never made it easier.
A knock at his door nearly made him jump. What the hell, it was at least, Dean checked the clock, three in the morning. It briefly dawned on him that he had to “check the clock” to see the time. He only was staring at it for the past few hours, apparently not comprehending a thing.
“Dean, you awake?” Sam’s soft voice floated in from behind the door.
Dean’s heart fell. The small part of him that believed in fantasy dared to have a slimmer of hope that Cas was behind the door.
Idiot! He knew better. Now wasn’t the time for make-believe. He had an angel to hold back and yet again, a world to save. No rest for the wicked.
“Yeah, I am.” He stood up slowly, rubbing his exhausted face.
Sam appeared, face ashen. Dean stood up straighter. “What happened?”
“Um, it’s Cas, he-”
Dean jumped to his feet. “What! Is he hurt, is he -” A thought seized him. “Is he gone?” He asked in a small voice.
Sam sighed. Dean hadn’t realized just how much this was taking its toll on his little brother. Looking for Dean while he was taken over by Michael, the worrying. He didn’t even know when was the last good nice sleep either of them had.
“I passed by his room just now, Dean he’s...Dean, he’s...um…”
Dean walked right into Sam’s line of vision, fighting the urge to shake him. “What! He’s what!”
He was far too tired and shaken to fake composure. His every nerve, already so frayed, lit up in warning.
“I think he’s crying.”
Sam looked crestfallen at the confession. Dean could see how that was hard to say. It was worse to hear.
Dean didn’t know what drove him. He didn’t have the first clue what he was going to say or even do. All he knew was one thought had finally taken over him. He finally had clarity for at least this one thing. He would not allow Cas to cry if there was any possibility of doing something about it.
He dove past Sam and nearly ran straight down the corridor to Cas’ room. When he got to the door, he froze. His throat was oddly tight with his heart in it. He didn’t know what to do.
A faint sob shook him through the door. That was all the incentive he needed.
He knocked.
All the sounds from within the room vanished at once. Dean’s heart stopped being satisfied in his throat and seemed to be trying to evacuate through his mouth. He pushed it down as the door swung open.
Cas was still lying in bed. He hadn’t even moved to open the door. Dean would normally be pissed at a blatant waste of mojo like that, but the sight of Cas now, nearly broke what was left of his heart.
Cas was curled up, still fully dressed in his coat and shoes. His face was hidden by his arms, but there was no missing the way his whole body vibrated with emotion.
Dean pressed on. Fueled by the one thing he did best.
Taking care of his family.
*****
Dean contemplated what to say. Impulse rushed him there, but now that he was facing Cas, he wasn’t the least sure about what to say.
He wishes he knew what the hell drove Cas to act this way. He had literally never seen the angel cry before. Not once. Whatever was bothering Cas, must be huge.
Dean wasn’t up for the challenge, not when he couldn’t even look his greatest failure in the eyes. He knew that somehow he was the cause of Cas’ anguish right then. He wished more than ever that he was a mind reader. That he could know Cas’ thoughts, understand them, comfort them.
Eventually, Dean concluded that standing there in awkward silence did worse than saying the wrong thing because Cas snapped at him.
“What Dean!”
Dean prayed he wasn’t the source of Cas’ anger, but he knew better than to pray. He knew better than to believe that he wasn’t to blame for his loved one’s misery.
“Um, you okay Cas - I -”
Cas stood up, finally meeting Dean’s eyes. Dean felt locked in. He was looking through a vacuum of emotion, trapping him in Cas’ angry, yet miserable face. Tear streaks. That’s what was so heartbreakingly different about him now. Tear streaks.
“Please Dean,” Cas said somberly.
He didn’t continue. His eyes pulled away from Dean to frantically look anywhere else.
To say Dean was confused was an understatement. He normally felt so utterly in sync with Cas, that to not be able to read him felt wrong in every way. If only he could just know what Cas was thinking. If only he didn’t have to have the conversation that he knew they were about to have. If only he could go back to before Michael, before it all. Back 6 years to when he wished with his full heart and soul, that he told a new human to stay.
Dean didn’t want to say what he knew came next. His best work was fighting the script, but his best friend was hurting, and it was his fault. He owed it to Cas to say it.
“I’m sorry.”
Cas’ crazy eyes ceased roaming and snapped back to him. His head tilted slightly, questioning.
Dean forced himself to meet gaze for gaze. He approached the bed by a few feet. Cas didn’t flinch back and he took that as a good sign to keep going.
Dean sat on the bed next to Cas, who was forced to sit up completely. Their feet pinned to the floor, knees touching on one side.
Dean swallowed hard. This conversation was intimate enough without the extra layer of physical difficulty.
They enacted one of their famous ones. Dean willing Cas to receive comfort from him without needing to actually say it. He wished he knew how to tell Cas that he wasn’t expecting anything, that he knew his feelings were his alone. That he didn’t blame Cas for not loving him. Most of all, he wished he knew how to beg Cas not to leave him again.
Cas sighed, the first to break the connection. “Dean, I don’t blame you, I’m not even mad at you.”
“Really?”
Cas shook his head. “I know Michael did that, not...not you. I know he gave you that nightmare to-
Cas’ voice grew deeper with each word until he had to clear his throat harshly. That was another thing Dean had never seen him do.
“Nightmare?”
Dean was more confused than ever. He was glad Cas broke the silence first, but he had no idea where he was going with it.
“Yes Dean, obviously the nightmare Michael trapped you in!” He sounded so sure and exasperated.
Dean was torn. On the one hand, here was the out he didn’t ask for. He could play the whole thing off as a nightmare and leave it at that. Something told him not to. The same thing that told him that was the wrong thing to do, judging by the lost look on Cas’ face.
“Cas what the hell makes you think that was a nightmare?” Dean asked incredulously. Drawing courage from sheer shock.
Cas shot him a “don’t fuck with me” look. Dean was just glad to be back on “reading” terms with him again.
Cas’ eyebrow shot into his messy hair. “Don’t Dean, just don’t.”
“Cas, I really have no idea what you’re -”
“JUST DON’T!”
Dean recoiled violently. Sliding several inches away from Cas on the bed. He gaped at him, at a complete loss of how to respond.
He had offended Cas much more than he realized. It was one thing to know Cas could never feel the same way, but another to realize how disgusted the whole idea made him.
This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have come into Cas’ room. He thought he was feeling heartbreak before, it was a pinprick compared to the thousand needles shredding him apart now.
“Okay, I… I won’t. I’ll just leave you alone then. I’m, fuck, I’m sorry Cas. I never meant to disgust you like that. Dean ran his fingers this his bed head. He pulled harshly, punishing himself.
“I’ll stop bothering you.” He got up to leave, but a hand on his wrist held him back. The hand twisted, forcing him to stop pulling his hair as if he knew exactly what Dean was trying to do. At least one of them was a mind reader.
He looked down at Cas in confusion. He wanted to escape to his room, try his turn out at crying,
but Cas was stopping him.
Why?
“Disgust?” He said in a small voice.
Dean remained silent. Waiting for Cas to go on. Almost needing him to reject him. Throw him out of the room, under the bus. Anything to give Dean the punishment he deserved for hurting his best friend this way.
“You think I was disgusted by your nightmare?”
Cas yanked him back to the bed, leaning in close. Dean could smell him. He was intoxicating, as usual.
“Why are you so convinced it was a nightmare?” Dean muttered before he could stop himself.
Cas’ eyes went wide. “What?”
Dean’s resolve grew from the small voice of reason. The same little voice responsible for his starting this conversation in the first place.
“I said, why are you so sure it was a nightmare?”
Dean was afraid of the answer, but his was equally dying to know. It would obviously be Cas’ nightmare, but that didn’t explain why he was so sure that it would be Dean’s as well.
“Dean, stop it. I get it.”
“Then please explain, because I don’t.”
Dean, enough!” Cas exploded. “Enough, okay? You’re not protecting me, or helping me, or whatever you think you’re doing by lying. I’m so done lying.” Cas took a deep breath.
Angels don’t breathe.
Cas’ eyes were overbright again. Dean was desperate to feel anything besides shame and confusion.
Dean wanted to be in his bed, alone. Perhaps a good cry in the shower that he would never tell anyone about. Anywhere but this room, progressively hurting his best friend.
Cas’ hands gently grabbed Dean on either side of his face. Like a sweet caress. Dean tried not to feel the electricity course through him from it, but that never worked before. His mouth opened in surprise. What was Cas doing? It was such an intimate gesture. One they had never done before. Dean couldn’t help but imagine Cas crossing the remaining distance and planting
his lips firmly -
“I get it, I really do. You don’t need to protect me because you don’t feel the same. I know you could never…” A stray tear slid down Cas’ face. Dean literally couldn’t look away as it fell pasted Cas’ lips.
Cas held Dean in place, his thumb lightly rubbing Dean behind the ear. Dean’s body lit up like the bunker after a blackout. He still couldn’t move. Completely frozen by Cas’ words.
It was completely impossible...and yet, that same small part of Dean that got him into this mess, the only part that even Hell couldn’t take away, dared to say, but what if?
“You don’t have to say anything Dean. I’m sorry I’m acting this way, I just, that was a cruel thing Michael did, not you. I know you didn’t mean to shove my feelings in my face like that. I know you could never feel that way, no matter how much I want -”
If you asked Dean later what made him do it, what was the final push that he was missing for over 6 years, he would never be able to answer. Dean lived his life on a simple philosophy of impulsive action is better than death. In this case, he’d rather die than be rejected further from Cas. So why did he do it? He had no answer.
Dean’s lips pulled away so achingly slow from Cas’. Cas tasted like tears and honey. Kissing an angel felt like being pulled into his favorite sensations. The window open in his baby on a rainy day, fresh pie cooling near the oven, Cas’ aftershave when he was human, which lead to the first time Dean thought about Cas as more than a friend.
Cas let go of Dean’s face. His lips, chasing more even as Dean pulled away.
Dean’s heart sprinted to his throat again. He couldn’t regret what he did, but he had never been so terrified of a kiss before.
He waited in trepidation for Cas to say something, throw him out, hell, he was expecting Cas to punch him. The only thing he was not expecting was Cas to reclose the inches between them. He grabbed Dean by the back of his head, digging into his hair, and mashed their lips together.
Dean almost laughed. Cas’ fingers felt good tugging on his hair, but he slammed their mouths together a little too painfully, a little too sloppily. Dean was devoted to fixing it. He wrapped an arm around Cas’ waist, pulling him in. He opened his mouth, stretching his tongue into all of his deepest fantasies. His mind went blissfully blank. His brain a fog of disbelief and remnants of a blinking clock.
Cas, Cas, Cas
He needed more. Fuck did he need more. He pulled his angel in closer, breaking away from those perfect lips to suck on his stubble neck. Dean had never been so turned on in his life. He was already aching all over.
Cas pulled him off and Dean actually whimpered. He licked his lips around the ghost of Cas’ still lingering kiss.
“Dean, I don’t understand,” Cas said through panting. Dean could see Cas’ own pleasure tenting, killing off the insecure question in this throat. Once he spotted it, It was impossible to look away.
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Dean replied simply. Then went back to his fantasy. He welcomed in the aftershave, the pie, and the rain.
Dean did not return to his room that night.
End