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They’re in Baby. They're driving home. The sun has nearly set, the sky a ferocious blend of blood oranges and dark lavenders, melting together in pink strokes across the clouds. A deep blue settles from above.
Castiel has experienced sweetness before. He’s tasted molasses, he could taste the excess sugar in the jelly of his PB&J, the way cotton candy melts on his tongue, too hot and sharp against the tongue for his liking.
Sweetness belonged to food, consumables containing copious amounts of sugar. Sometimes, it belonged to something cute, like wide-eyed puppies or curious kittens. It was the celebratory exclamation at the end of a Candy Crush game indicating success.
A lie wasn't meant to sound sweet. His lies never did. His lies were rough and lacked all melody. They were sour and left a rock sinking in the bottom of his stomach. Castiel couldn’t understand how this lie specifically stuck to him, the grains of sugar digging at his core.
“I love you, too”
How could a lie possibly sound so sweet?
He’s not even sure he heard properly. He’s not even sure it’s real.
The Empty scrambled his senses, disoriented him. Ever since his first disconnect from Heaven, it had taken Cas a long time to acclimatize to the large amounts of sensory input humans face every day. The buzz and chirp of electricity, the way velvet sticks to the grooves at the tip of one’s finger, the smell of the earth following a thundershower, or the chill of exposed skin. Castiel finds goosebumps are such a strange phenomenon to experience. Now the oriole’s birdsong is like biting a carrot, the sun a never-ending whistle, and the leather of the car seat reminds him of a cat’s tongue brushing across his skin. None of it feels right.
But when Dean was touching him, holding him up against the meadow grass – that was real, that was right. Cas could feel that. It was Dean.
His hands clenched into tight fists. He doesn’t understand. Dean is real. Then why did he lie? He knows how much Dean needs him, but it couldn't be worth such a monumental falsehood. Why would Dean want him back if he didn’t mean it?
And worst of all: he won’t stop talking.
Cas loves when Dean talks. He loves when he has a million things to ramble on about but nothing to say. Because he does. There’s so much hidden beneath the surface, trickling out between the Kurt Russell trivia and the plot synopsis of the latest Star Trek episode. Sometimes he lets things slip. Castiel isn’t sure if Dean lets them slip just for him, or if no one else notices. He’s seen Dean from the inside out, he knows what lies at his core, and he could stay there forever, if Dean would let him.
But Dean won’t let him. They’ve been through this once before, already. Castiel as a human was not a welcome fixture in Dean’s life.
At least not a permanent one. Motel rooms were different.
At first Castiel didn’t mind the texture of Dean’s voice in his ears; it was a nice distraction from the rubber tires pressing and crunching against the gravel of the road, and the static of Dean’s music. Cas couldn’t keep his eyes off his hands, convinced it was his nails breaking.
Then they turned onto the highway, the tires smooth against the cement. Like soft-serve ice-cream. Baby’s engine revved, adjusting to highway speed, like the stern voice of God's chastisement. The uneven splatter of bugs hitting the windshield reminded Castiel of the sound of plucked guitar strings. He misses the times when Dean would play for him. The wind blew against the car. It was like Sam’s hairdryer against Cas’ ear. It was like the vortex of The Empty chucking them back to Earth. Dean had to raise his volume to hear his own voice over the calamity. Castiel sat in the passenger seat, hands clasped in front of him. They’re two hours away from the bunker. A relatively short trip in Winchester experience. But there’s too many sounds, too many senses. Castiel can’t focus on Dean’s voice; he can’t wrap his head around why?
“Dean,” Cas says, squinting at the bang of a rock against Baby’s exterior. Death banging at the dungeon door.
Dean doesn’t hear him, he’s operating at a different volume level. He keeps talking.
“Dean, please!” Cas shouts. His own voice grates against his ears. He grimaces, flexing one of his hands. “A little quieter, please.”
Dean glances to look over Cas. “Yeah, no problem, bud,” he says, frowning. He turns the volume dial, letting the music run soft (like rabbit fur). “You good?”
Cas frowns. He traces the grime staining his one hand. His skin is sawdust, it’s like gunpowder. “It’s still on me,” he says, digging the pads of his fingers into his skin. He can't scrub it off, he wants to claw out of his skin.
“I know,” Dean says. He sounds reassuring. But is that a lie, too? “We’ll get you a shower back home. And chuck those in the laundry. Do you know if detergent takes this stuff out?”
He keeps saying that. Back home. The bunker isn’t Castiel’s home, not really. It is a place to stay, very graciously offered by the Winchesters. He doesn't have a home. Once, long ago he considered Heaven a place to belong. He'd strove for acceptance amongst his peers, his brothers and sisters. He never managed to accomplish it. Heaven would never be home.
Castiel doesn't like the way his heart race increases at the thought of not having a home, at not being with Dean. Castiel doesn't know what he considers a home or where he could find it for himself, and then he looks to Dean, and all those worries flutter away on butterfly wings. He tries to focus on Dean's voice, on his plans for them when they get back, but it isn't working. He's talking about everything Castiel wants to distract himself from.
Dean's eyes flick back to Cas, and he can see it written all over Cas' face. "Okay," he says, his tone metaphorically changing gears. "Talk to me."
Cas purses his lips, avoiding Dean’s flickering gaze between him and the road. He got Dean to stop talking at a mile a minute, but now Cas is in a position where he's expected to answer. Cas looks out the passenger window, watching the weeds at the side of the road speed by them. It’s a blur of vivid and wild greens. It makes him motion sick. He’s forced to look back out through the windshield.
He’d never experienced motion sickness as an angel. But as a human, Cas experienced vertigo from the strangest things. The beat of electronica music, the shift of the floor when someone paces back and forth, looking up after reading small-print for hours. He thought humanity would ground him to the earth; it only loosened his connection.
“Cas,” Dean begins before trailing off. He opens his mouth, shuts it. He finally says, “I had to do it, to get you back.” Dean lifts the string out from around his neck. “It’s right here.” The ice-blue of Castiel’s grace swims in the small vial, its pronounced glow ebbing and flowing.
Cas stares out at the road. "I don't need it," he says. "It's yours now."
Dean drops the string of the necklace. "So what is it then?" Cas says nothing. Dean licks his lips, his ears twitch. “Jus’ give me something, man.”
Cas raises his eyebrows. He wants the truth? “You didn’t have to say it. It’s okay," he says, "You didn’t have to lie for me.”
“What are you-?" Dean’s own brow furrows. "I said it, I said- I did it to save you!”
“You should not have risked yourself for me like that. You are meant to have a life, you are meant to be happy. That’s not a life with me.”
Dean’s mouth falls agape before he quickly snaps it shut. His hand tightens around the wheel, he rubs his fingers against his thumb on his other hand, peeling away the grit. He readjusts in his seat. He chooses exasperation to hide his hurt. “Look, if you don’t want to stay-”
Cas’ face falls. “You want me back?”
“Yeah, I want you back, and I got you back.” Dean says, his voice rising again.
Cas scrubs at his hand. “Then what?” he asks.
“Then what,” Dean repeats airily. He tilts his head up, shaking it. “Whatever we want, man. Whatever you want, since you’re not staying.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what?” Dean spits back at him.
Cas isn’t used to the way human lungs stall in a crisis. He can’t say he likes it. “How do I know this is real?” he asks.
Dean slams the breaks, sending Cas forward into the dash. He puts his hands up just in time to catch himself. Dean steers Baby off to the side of the road. They both bounce in their seats, jostling left and right. Dean stops Baby in the grass, shifting into park. He unclips his seatbelt and slides over to meet Cas. Dean grabs Cas by the lapels, pulling him in by fistfuls of his trench coat, and crushes his lips into Cas’.
Cas shuts his eyes. It’s rough and it’s rushed and he’s never felt so grounded. He isn’t in The Empty, he isn’t in the impala. He’s in Dean’s arms, he’s in the meadow. They’re warm under the sun, the heavy weight of clouds passing overhead. He can feel the petals of the wildflowers, the sharp point of thorns on the stems.
Dean pulls away, catching his breath. He doesn’t dare loosen his grip on Cas’ coat. “Is that enough?” he breathes, “’cuz you said it, bud, way back when I asked you what about this was real.”
“We are.”
Dean’s lip trembles. “So is that real enough?”
Cas nods, also catching his breath. He brings a hand up to cover one of Dean’s, still clenching at his coat. It’s the only way he can keep convincing himself.
Dean stares Cas in the eyes. There’s not enough light for Cas to see their colour. Not that he could ever forget. “I want you to stay,” Dean says, his voice never wavering. It does crack, though, ever so slightly.
Cas blinks at him. His lungs aren’t constricted into shock. They inhale, they exhale. He’s alive, he’s here, and he’s real.
Cas doesn’t mean for the obviousness of it all to bleed so condescendingly into his voice when he says, “Then I’m staying.”
Dean nods, the corners of his mouth turning up, the lines in his face deepening. “Okay,” he says, slapping Cas on the shoulder. His voice is even, steady. “Then we’re going home.”
All the way back to the bunker, home, Cas keeps a hand on Dean’s. He’s tired, also another human sensation he’s getting used to. But with Dean singing along under his breath to the Led Zeppelin songs of their mixtape, its enough to send Cas into an easy sleep.
*