Chapter Text
Castiel wakes up. It’s too bright.
He strains to see, grimacing in the light, and this is how he remembers that he isn’t an angel anymore.
There’s stillness for a moment. He breathes. He tries to think, to remember, but then the pain catches up to him. It’s in his head, dull and pounding, and it seems to be everywhere else, too. Mostly his arm. Deep, lancing lines of it.
Castiel groans, and the sound surprises him right back into silence.
“Cas?” Dean says.
He looks to his side.
--
He manages to sit up in the bed. He’s still feeling tired, and Dean is hovering near him, a hand on his shoulder. His right shoulder, not the one with bandaging on the arm. Dean keeps a hold, and it’s helpful, sort of.
“Okay?” Dean says, when there are pillows behind Castiel, when the blankets over his legs are straight. There are two blankets. The larger one is white, and the other is knitted and gray. It’s very strange, but Castiel nods, slowly, taking in the room. It’s a bedroom. There’s a dresser, a light brown rug, white walls. A lamp on a small table by the bed. There’s a window, sunlight shining through, trees outside.
This isn’t the bunker. It also isn’t a motel room, and Castiel is confused.
He looks back at the bed. At the gray blanket. There are memories surfacing, unlinked images in his mind. The car. Walking a dirt path with Dean, one that thinned to nothing in thick grass. Feeling unsteady, his eyes on the ground.
And before that. His siblings.
He remembers his siblings, and things falls into place. Something tightens in his chest, heavy and cold, something that he needs to breathe around. He looks down at his arm again. It won’t stop hurting. But it’s covered by bandages, bright and white, neatly wrapped.
“You came to get me,” Castiel says. He looks at Dean, who’s moved to sit on the edge of the bed. Castiel had called him, and Dean had found him. He’d been in Dean’s car, he remembers now, holding something tightly to his arm. His coat. The trenchcoat, blood seeping through it, and he’d been fading in and out of consciousness. Dean had been driving. “Thank you,” Castiel says.
He tries to catch Dean’s eye. Dean isn’t quite looking at him, and it’s always been easier to talk with Dean when they can meet each other’s gaze. But Dean doesn’t look back.
“Of course, man,” he says. One side of his mouth tips upwards.
Castiel knows what Dean had said on the phone. He isn’t angry about what’s happened. He isn’t angry at Castiel.
It had been a surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel says now. Not for the first time. He says it selfishly, though: he’s testing Dean’s reaction. Dean’s already shaking his head, and Castiel watches this like it’s an oasis in the desert, like he is a man dying of thirst.
“You don’t have to be,” Dean says. It isn’t true, but it is so nice to hear. Castiel kind of wants to close his eyes. He doesn’t, though; Dean is looking at him again, with a quiet smile. The kind of smile Dean gets sometimes, usually when there’s just Dean and Castiel. He says, “So. How you feeling?”
“Fine,” Castiel replies, right off. And then, because he’s remembered now, “You said this is a safehouse.”
“Yeah,” Dean says. He pats the bed, and Castiel looks down at it. “Yeah, it’s not been used for a while, I guess, but. It’s a good one. It’s got wards, we can add a few more, you know. It’s – you like it?” he asks, with a strange kind of nervousness.
Castiel glances around again. He can only see this bedroom. It seems fine. He can’t remember the rest of the house just now.
He thinks that it has a porch.
“Yes,” he replies, a little uncertainly, and mostly because he suspects that Dean wants him to. He doesn’t know why it’s important; he isn’t entirely sure why they’re here. Things are a little hazy. Perhaps it was more convenient to come here, though, with his injury.
He thinks of something else. “You were angry in the car.”
Dean’s face goes kind of still.
“What?” he says. “No.”
Castiel frowns, trying to recall. He’s weary, and his arm is distracting him; the headache and various other pains are all distracting him. And at the time, in the car, he hadn’t even been entirely awake. But he thinks that Dean had been on the phone.
“You were shouting.”
“Oh,” Dean says. “You heard – uh. I was just – I was stressed out.”
“Were you talking to Sam?” Castiel tries. He still thinks Dean had sounded angry.
Dean’s quiet for a moment.
“Yeah,” he says, finally. “It was Sam.” He laughs, and Castiel doesn’t understand the laugh. His eyelids feel like weights, though, closing heavily with each blink. “Cas,” Dean says. “You should rest some more, man. You’re pretty beat up.”
Castiel shakes his head, too slowly.
“Kevin’s working on the reversal?” he says. Dean had mentioned this. It’s important.
“Yeah,” Dean says, and Castiel doesn’t realize that he’s closed his eyes until he feels Dean’s hand on his shoulder again. “Yeah, he’s got it, man. Get some sleep.”
--
It feels very strange, being here with Dean.
There are the bandages on Castiel’s arm, and there are two more, that Dean calls butterfly bandages, on his face. Castiel touches them, interested, and Dean tells him to stop.
It’s difficult to move at first, to stand or walk without everything aching. Castiel learns that this is because of all the bruising.
“You did pretty well, though, dude,” Dean says. “Getting away from those dicks, when they’re still – they’ve still got some mojo.”
Castiel keeps his eyes on his arm. Dean is changing the bandages. Castiel can walk to the couch now, and that’s where they’ve been sitting. He’s seen the rest of the safehouse, too. It reminds him a little of Bobby’s, although it’s smaller, with only one level. There are wooden floors with rugs on them, a large kitchen table, a bookshelf and small television in the living room. The couch is a faded brown, blankets hanging on the back. There are a lot of books.
Dean has a small box on his lap, with bandages and antiseptic wipes, with the painkillers that he made Castiel take, so the bandaging would go better. The wound on Castiel’s arm is quite a bad one.
Dean isn’t talking much about what’s happened. He’s said that Kevin is working on translating a reversal of the spell, and that Sam has recovered from the trials. They’re both at the bunker. Castiel’s siblings are out in the world, but their grace is still intact; they won’t be suffering.
They’re angry with him.
“Ah,” Castiel says, by accident, at a particularly strong twinge of pain.
He wishes that he hadn’t, particularly when Dean says, “Sorry, sorry,” one hand moving to touch Castiel’s wrist, there and then gone.
“It’s fine,” Castiel mutters, embarrassed.
He is human, now, and it’s so different.
It’s good to focus on other things.
Dean helps with this. While he’s quiet on the subject of what Castiel has done, he’s very talkative otherwise. Mostly about human things. They sit in front of the television and Dean talks over all the programs. Castiel’s still tired, his injuries wearing him down, and it’s good to sit and listen. The couch is comfortable, the safehouse warded and a fair distance from the town that Dean says is nearby. Castiel has looked out the kitchen window and seen the clearing of grass around them, the trees. He’s sat at the table while Dean’s cooked food at the stove, and he’s made some things himself. Coffee, toast. Breakfast, once, cracking eggs and adding bacon, watching oil spit from the pan. He’d put the food onto plates and seen that Dean was watching him.
Castiel sits on the porch that evening. There’s a bench there, and the air is cold. He can see leaves turned yellow and orange, red and brown. Some have already fallen. He imagines the grass going brittle with frost, the trees all edged with white, winter arriving here. This is a quiet place. Castiel has never spent time like this before. Not when he’s been himself, when he’s known himself. He has no memories like this that haven’t fractured, that haven’t become wrong, unsettling to recall.
And there’s something like guilt hovering at the edges, from time to time. Because he likes this. He likes being here. Yes, it is frustrating to be slowed by his injuries, to have Dean showing him how to tend to his arm, how to cover it for the shower, when Dean surely has far better ways to be spending his time. But all the same. Despite that.
This is nice.
Castiel looks at the bandages on his arm, and he imagines that the whole safehouse is swaddled with them, that the clearing is wrapped tight. Keeping it enclosed. But he’s getting better. He’s healing. He suspects that they’ll return to the bunker soon, and he feels like that’s all right. That is what’s right to do. It’s still been good, to be here.
The front door opens behind him, and Dean steps onto the porch. They’ve updated the house’s warding now, and added more out here, too. Castiel has shown Dean the ones that he’s drawn, ones that could be placed in the bunker as well. He’d explained the meanings, the different points, until Dean had stopped him to say, “Cas, hey, you give me the basics, I’ll just go with it, yeah?”
“Oh,” Castiel had said. “Yeah.” He had just been glad to have a way to help. To be useful.
“Hey,” Dean says now, and he drops a jacket onto Castiel’s lap. It’s black, and similar to the ones that Dean often wears. Dean had bought it earlier, when he went down into the town, using one of the cards that he’s given Castiel. Castiel has these cards, now, and a new phone, some identification. More clothes. Things that humans have. That hunters have.
“Hello,” he says to Dean.
Dean sits down beside him on the bench. The sky is faded blue, the clouds faint and thin. The leaves are moving in the breeze, rustling, and Castiel sees it all as a human would.
He tells Dean that he’s feeling better, but Dean only says that they should both visit the town tomorrow, then. Castiel needs an anti-possession tattoo. He needs warding against his siblings. Dean talks about a diner there, too, and he says that there are some cool stores, ones that Castiel would probably like.
“Sound good?” Dean says, and Castiel thinks it does.
--
Castiel’s grace was carelessly taken. He hasn’t really been thinking about that. About the absence. But he has been thinking, quietly, that it might not all be gone. There might be remainders. Small, insignificant. But there. He dreams of nothing that night, and then he dreams a burst of light. Sudden and sharp. He wakes up with his head aching, his head wanting to split apart. He lies in the dark, shocked. He smiles.
The next day they leave the safehouse, walking across the clearing to the trees. There’s the dirt path that Castiel remembers, shaded by the branches overhead, cutting a sheltered route through the forest. Everything feels fresh here, his skin chilled in a way that he likes. His hands are cold, but he doesn’t mind. He can hear birds overhead, calling to one another, but he can’t pinpoint exactly where they are now. He looks for them, trying to see amongst the leaves. It’s surprisingly difficult.
“You okay there?” Dean asks, after a little while. Castiel stops searching.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’m okay.”
Dean throws him a quizzical look, but then he’s talking about the town again, about where they’ll have lunch. He sounds enthusiastic.
There’s been no point to considering the last year, the things that have happened during it, and so Castiel has not been doing that. But as they reach the town, he lets himself remember Dean’s prayers. The ones that happened after Castiel left with the tablet. These ones are still clear in his memory, and he thinks them over now. Some of them had been angry. But even in the angry ones, Dean had been saying the same things: Just come back, Cas. We need you here, man. You’re never fucking here, don’t you think maybe it’d help?
Castiel slides a glance Dean’s way, now. He’s walking with his hands in his jacket pockets, and he seems relaxed, at ease. He’s been talking to Castiel, making jokes and moving around the safehouse, cooking and going through the books, everything as though it’s perfectly normal. As though it’s all right with him.
Dean looks over suddenly, noticing Castiel’s gaze, and Castiel almost looks away. He feels oddly caught. But he tries a smile, instead. Experimental.
And Dean grins back at him. A little confused, perhaps, but a definite grin.
“Diner’s down this street,” he says, and Castiel nods. He’s thinking, with a slow, dawning surprise: Okay. All right. He’s thinking that he understands.
In the diner, a few customers look at Castiel oddly, but this is something that he’d expected. His face hasn’t quite healed yet, and Dean’s explained different lies that he should use if he’s asked about the bruises. It seems to depends on who’s asking. Castiel has gone over these in his mind, just in case. But nobody asks.
They order their food. While they’re waiting, Dean talks about another place that he’s eaten recently, and then about the food on the menu, giving opinions, pointing his finger at Castiel over the issue of seafood in diners. It’s sketchy, apparently, and never ordered.
“Well. Some people must order it,” Castiel says, skeptical. Otherwise, why would it be kept on the menu?
“Idiots,” Dean tell him firmly. “Idiots order it, okay?”
Castiel almost smiles.
“Okay,” he says instead, and Dean narrows his eyes, then nods, like he’s accepting that response.
“But, uh, you’ll try different stuff, I guess,” he says. “Figure out what you like.” He frowns down at the menu for a moment, his expression difficult to read, and then he sets it back on the table. “We’ll figure things out,” he says, suddenly. Castiel looks at him, confused. “All this – the angel stuff,” Dean mutters, glancing to the side, then back. “We’ll figure it out.” He holds Castiel’s gaze, and Castiel manages to nod. “Okay,” Dean says. “Good.”
Castiel feels grateful. For this, for Dean. He feels it as something that rises in his chest.
“Dean,” he says. “You know that I appreciate this. All your help.”
Dean shifts in the booth, his eyes on the table again. He mutters, “Cas.”
Castiel waits, but that’s all he says. Their food arrives.
--
He gets the tattoos that afternoon. Dean has talked him through the process. He walks with Castiel to the tattoo studio, and then announces that he’ll leave him to it. There are stores he can check out, he says. A secondhand bookstore, a woodwork place.
Castiel soon learns to be glad of this. His tattoo artist is named Gabby. She’s shorter than Castiel, with a lot of curling black hair and plenty of tattoos herself. Flowers and branches and other things, small words looping around her arm. Gabby points out a spot for him to sit while she prepares.
“All right,” she says, soon enough. “You can lie down.”
“What?” Castiel says. He’s looking at the tattoo gun. Dean had called it this earlier, a tattoo gun, but it doesn’t actually look like a gun. It looks very different. Gabby is holding it in her hand.
“Stomach for these, right? You’ll need to lie down, lift your shirt.” Gabby shrugs a shoulder, nodding her head at where Castiel is sitting. There’s cushioning, and a pillow of sorts. “It’s pretty comfortable.”
Castiel keeps looking at the tattoo gun. “Okay.”
He lies down. It is very strange. Gabby pulls a chair over and lifts the gun, and Castiel lets his eyes slide away.
“You don’t like needles?” Gabby asks him, as she gets started. It’s a little painful. Not particularly. It’s all right, and really, Castiel can relax.
“They’re fine,” he says, to the wall at his side. There are tattoo designs on there that are interesting to look at. Gabby makes a humming sound.
She asks questions as she works, and Castiel supposes that she’s making conversation. He knows that he should probably improve at this now, so he tries to reply to her each time. It’s always been easy enough to talk with Dean, and only somewhat more difficult with Sam. But he doesn’t think he does too well with Gabby. She’s nice about it, though.
“I don’t recognize these,” she says at one point, her eyes on the designs, and Castiel is distracted enough that he forgets to lie. He tells her they’re protective, and he sees Gabby’s eyes drift to his face, to the bandage on his arm.
“They’re symbolic,” Castiel adds, hurriedly.
“Yeah,” Gabby says. “I get it.” She gives him a smile that he recognizes as reassuring. “This one’s pretty cool,” she says, nodding at the angel warding. The Enochian.
“Thank you,” he replies.
--
Afterwards, he meets up with Dean.
“It go all right?” Dean asks him, glancing at Castiel’s shirt, then back at his face, then away.
“Fine,” Castiel says, and Dean nods. He puts his hands in his pockets and frowns at the sidewalk.
“Cool. Let’s head back.”
“Oh,” Castiel says. “All right.”
The walk back is quiet. Dean seems distracted, and Castiel isn’t sure what to say. He asks about Sam and Kevin, but this seems the wrong thing to do, so he concentrates on the ground instead, on not stumbling or walking in a way that’s too painful. He’s frustrated by how weary he still feels, by his injures and these tattoos. He wants to sit down. He wants to not be feeling these things. He thinks of the light, of his dream the night before; he tries to focus on that instead.
It’s a relief to get back to the safehouse.
“Would you like coffee?” he asks Dean, as they walk in.
“I’m good,” Dean says, sounding odd. Pinched. But Castiel does want coffee, so he goes into the kitchen all the same. Dean doesn’t follow. Castiel hears him walk through the living room, heading into the room that he’s been sleeping in. It’s not until Castiel is sitting at the table, a little uncomfortable, his coffee in front of him, that Dean reappears. He’s holding his duffel bag. Castiel looks at it. It’s packed. “So, uh,” Dean says. “I got a call from Sam, earlier.”
“Yes?” Castiel prompts, after a moment.
“Uh, yeah, yes,” Dean says. “He says – well, I should probably head back to the bunker, is all. Now you’re all, uh, healing up.”
Dean is acting edgily, nervously, but Castiel doesn’t see why. He’d thought that they’d be returning to the bunker soon. He’s a little surprised they’ve stayed away this long.
“Right,” he says, and he stands up. He looks down at the mug. Dean would definitely not allow it in his car. Castiel looks at the duffel bag again. “Are we going right now?” he asks, and Dean’s eyes go wide, his mouth parts. Like panic, Castiel thinks, confused.
He frowns at Dean, at his awkward expression, feeling unsure. And then he sees it. Then things fall neatly together.
Dean has a duffel bag, all ready to go. Castiel does not. Dean wants to head back to the bunker, right now. Alone.
“Oh,” Castiel says. Unfortunately, he’s entirely unable to think of anything to say after this, and that means Dean is talking instead.
“I was thinking – we were thinking it’s good for you here,” Dean says. He’s speaking quickly, his eyes fixed on a spot to the right of Castiel. “You like it here, right? And you know what you’re doing now, and it’s just, y’know. The angels are pissed at you. We’ve gotta keep the bunker safe. We’ve – ” He stops, and presses his mouth shut.
“Of course,” Castiel says.
This is only a misunderstanding, after all: this is only Castiel having misunderstood. The last few days are just something he’s misjudged. It isn’t as though that’s even a novel occurrence.
But Dean’s jaw is clenched now, like he’s angry. He’s still not looking at Castiel. “I’m sorry,” Castiel adds. “For – presuming.” His face feels too warm. There’s no point to that feeling, though. There’s no need.
“I’m gonna visit,” Dean says. “I’ll come back, see how you’re doing.”
Castiel isn’t sure what to say. He takes too long, and Dean adds, “And call me, dude, any trouble, you can – ”
“Yes,” Castiel says. “Thank you for allowing me to stay here.” That’s better. He feels better about that, but Dean is just shaking his head, like it’s another wrong thing.
Dean doesn’t say much else. He mentions visiting again, and then he leaves, quickly. Castiel has to follow him to the door, so that he can lock up. But he forgets to close it at first, watching instead as Dean walks away. Dean’s shoulders are drawn tight, his hand a fist around the handle of the duffel bag.
Dean glances back at him, and Castiel startles. He shuts the door, fast. He locks it.
It’s silent, in the safehouse. It’s still. The last few days suddenly feel very distant. Like a void in his mind, far away; empty and blank.
He looks back into the hallway, at the house.
This is where I’m staying, he thinks. This is where I’m going to stay.
It’s like he doesn’t believe himself.