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Dean’s half-dressed and scrubbing blood off his hands when he appears. He hears it first: the rustle of wings behind him, then the air in the room is electric, making his hair stand on end. Then that deep rumble, like the earth moving under him: “Hello, Dean.”
Great, so he’s being babysat by an angel of the fucking Lord, and he’s not even given a fair warning to put a shirt on.
Turning and grabbing a towel to wipe his (mostly clean) hands, Dean sees Castiel standing in the doorway of the dingy motel bathroom, the dim light of the room making the angel seem to almost glow. Maybe he does, Dean’s not sure. It’s hard to tell with angels.
“Heya, Cas,” he says, making a valiant attempt not to shrink away from Cas’ stony gaze. His attention feels like a searchlight, and Dean’s frozen in the headlights. “What’s up?”
“I–” Castiel starts before cutting himself off. “Where’s your brother?”
“Out,” Dean says, like he doesn’t know exactly what I’m going out means these days. Blood, Ruby, exorcisms: you name it, Dean’s thinking it. He makes a mental note to call Bobby after whatever this is, because Sam’s not listening to anything Dean tells him, and Dean’s almost too tired to try.
“By out , I’m sure you mean consorting with the demon Ruby and further sullying the Winchester name,” Castiel says. Before Dean can retort, he continues. “That’s not why I’m here.”
He pauses again, hovering in the doorway, looking almost unsure. It’s a weird look on Cas, inhuman, powerful, soldier-of-God Castiel.
A normal person would have elaborated by now, but Cas is about as far from a normal person as you can get. Dean’s not all that surprised when Cas just stares as he tosses the towel in the sink, resolutely walking past Cas and into the motel room. He walks past Sam’s bed like it burns him to be close to it, digging in his bag for a clean shirt.
Turning back as he slides the shirt over his head, Dean prompts, “You gonna finish that thought, buddy?”
Castiel just tilts his head, brows furrowed as he intently watches Dean adjust the shirt.
“Those scars.”
Dean freezes. “What?”
Castiel takes a step forward, those searchlight eyes trained on his chest like he can see right through the shirt. Maybe he can.
“Those scars on your chest,” Castiel says again. “They’re important to you.”
Alarms blare in Dean’s mind. You don’t grow up a Hunter without learning to trust your instincts, and Hunters like him know that more than anything. You wanna be a man? Bobby’s voice echoes in his ears. You do that, but don’t forget, ain’t just the supernatural that’re monsters.
“Yeah,” Dean says warily. “And?”
Castiel takes another step, then another, until he’s standing across from Dean in the aisle between the beds. Casually, like there’s nothing weird about his presence here, Cas sits down on Sam’s bed, still staring up at Dean.
“When I rebuilt your body after pulling you from Hell,” he begins, and Dean clenches his jaw to keep from telling an angel of the Lord to shut the fuck up, “I was told to bring you back in good health. I healed your scars and several years’ worth of damage to your liver, reversed damage from untreated concussions and poorly-set broken bones, but those–” He stops, nodding his head towards Dean’s chest, and Dean resists the urge to cross his arms like he did before his surgery took care of the need to. “Those scars mean something to you. You wouldn’t have been happy to see them gone.”
Something about Castiel’s blunt honesty makes the alarms a little quieter in Dean’s mind. The angels he’s met so far – all two of them – make him think the Bible wasn’t all that accurate, so maybe he’s not about to be smited. Maybe.
“Yeah, Cas, they do.” Dean takes a seat on his bed, his knees just inches from Cas’. He can almost feel the energy radiating off of him like static electricity. “You–” He swallows. “You know what they mean?”
Castiel nods, slowly. “Yes,” he says after a moment, “though I’m not certain I grasp the extent of it. You, at some point, made the decision to undergo surgery as part of a transition between genders, and this isn’t something you share often due to fear of retribution from bigots in the Hunting community. Am I correct?”
Of all the ways this day could have gone, Dean hadn’t expected to end it teaching an angel about his gender experiences in a shitty motel room. But what’s his life if not unpredictable?
“You got the basics, yeah,” Dean says. Then, after a moment, he adds, “There a reason you’re here, or did you just have a craving for uncomfortably personal conversations?”
Castiel shifts, looking away from Dean for the first time since he arrived. “There isn’t any news on the war for the seals, and we have no new work for you.” Dean raises an eyebrow. “But I wanted– it would be good to talk to you. To understand more about the man Heaven has taken such an interest in.”
“For the war?” Dean asks, because what he’s hearing is that Castiel just showed up because he missed him.
Cas’ eyes widen. He looks almost nervous. “Yes,” he lies – Dean’s not sure how he knows he’s lying, but he does.
“Right,” Dean says. “For the war.”
“Dean,” Cas says after a moment, eyes returning to meet his. “My vessel… The man who agreed to let me use his body to walk the earth, he has scars like yours.”
Dean’s not sure he heard him right. “You mean, you’re– he’s–?”
Cas nods. “Transgender,” he says.
“You don’t– I mean, he doesn’t look like–”
“From what I understand,” Castiel says. “Transgender people can look like anyone. That’s something of a fallacy.”
Dean stops his stuttering, just staring at Cas. Or at his vessel, anyway, who apparently is a guy like Dean. Does that make Cas like him, too?
“To me,” Castiel continues, “there’s something holy in it. Claiming an identity for oneself, regardless of what one is told to be. He is a good man, and my Father loves him no less than he loves any of his children.”
Dean’s never cared for God, never given two shits about what some voyeur in the clouds or his followers on Earth thought of him. He’s felt like less of a man for it, sure, and he’s felt unsafe at times because of it, but God? Who needs his approval?
Still, hearing one of his messengers tell him there’s nothing wrong with it is nice. Dean thinks his hands might be shaking.
“Did you–” Dean stops himself, clears his throat. “Did you choose him because of– of that?”
Castiel takes a deep breath (do angels need to breathe?) before answering, “No, but when I… consider it, I wonder if it wasn’t part of my Father’s plan. To speak to a man like you in a body you might recognize on some level.” He pauses, and Dean considers that. “And,” he says, quietly, “Of all the vessels I’ve taken, I’ve never felt such a strong connection to one’s experiences.”
The way he says it, it sounds like a secret. It makes Dean wonder–
“Do angels have genders?” It comes out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop it, but Castiel doesn’t seem taken aback by the question.
“Not as you would understand them,” he says. “We are addressed without gender in Heaven, and on Earth are aligned with our vessel more often than not. I’ve taken female vessels in the past, and though my brothers – another gender neutral term to us – have always addressed me as Castiel, people on Earth would see me as a woman in that form. I took no offense.” Before Dean can think of a way to respond to all that, Castiel continues. “However, I think I prefer being a man like you.” It’s so quiet that Dean would’ve missed it if he were further than a foot away from Cas.
Dean wonders, not for the first time, what Castiel would be like if he were a human. Would he be a man? Would he make the conscious choice to be one, like Dean did?
Castiel’s still staring at him, and Dean realizes he’s staring back.
“Can I–” Dean starts, nervously, “Can I see?” Was that weird? That was weird. Why did he ask that? He’s gonna get smited, he’s sure he is.
Castiel does that thing again, the head tilt and furrowed brow, clearly making a decision. Before Dean can tell him, no, nevermind, Cas is nodding, his hands coming up to undo his tie and slowly unbutton his shirt. Some insane part of his brain thinks about helping him, but that would definitely be too weird. Right? Right. And gay. Definitely too gay.
And then Cas shrugs off that giant coat, followed by the shirt, and pulls his undershirt over his head. And he just stares at Dean like it’s the least weird thing in the world.
There is an angel of the lord sitting half-naked across from him in a motel room, making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact, and Dean thinks, Shit, am I gay? before dismissing it. One crisis at a time, and right now Lillith is a much bigger issue.
Cas was telling the truth: Two horizontal scars stretch under his pecs, each with a perpendicular scar reaching up to end at his nipple. Slightly different incision technique than Dean went with, but the meaning is the same. Dean bites down the urge to touch it.
“What do you think?” Cas asks, like this is just a normal thing dudes do.
Dean swallows. “It’s… Your scars are really well healed.”
“So are yours.”
Dean lets out a huff of air in the vague shape of a laugh. “You don’t need to lie to me, man, I know they’re not. It’s what I get for going on a hunt three weeks post-op and ignoring every piece of recovery advice I got.” He doesn’t mind the angry red scars, though. Everytime he sees them, he’s reminded of the one thing he’s ever done for himself in his life, Dad be damned.
Castiel smiles that weird, inhuman, endearing smile. “That doesn’t surprise me, Dean.”
“Okay, rude, first of all,” Dean says. “Do you like yours?”
Castiel pauses, looking down at his bare chest. “I don’t know that I would consider them mine, as I’m technically only borrowing this body, but from an aesthetics perspective, I suppose I do. I appreciate what they represent, and to an extent, I suppose I can relate.”
The Castiel in front of him couldn’t be further from the angel he confronted in the barn, months ago now. This Castiel isn’t human, but he could be.
“What about you, Dean?” Cas asks, sounding like he genuinely wants to know. “Do you like your scars?”
“Yeah,” Dean says after a moment. “I guess I do. You were right, earlier, on why I don’t talk about it much. Well, that, and I don’t really think it’s anybody’s business, you know? I’m Dean freaking Winchester, no one needs to know I wasn’t always him. But I’m proud of my scars. Hell, they’re about the only ones I got by choice.”
“I’m glad I didn’t erase them, then,” Castiel says.
“Me too.”
Castiel pulls his undershirt back on, then shimmies back into his dress shirt and begins buttoning it back up. Dean commits the image of Cas’ bare chest in front of him to memory before he has a chance to stop himself.
“Dean?” Castiel says, pulling on his tie without giving a shit that it’s backwards.
“Yeah?” Dean finds himself licking his lips as he returns his gaze to Cas’ eyes. That searchlight’s got him again.
“I’m very glad we had this conversation,” Cas tells him. “I hope that we can have more in the future.”
“Me– Me too.”
Cas pulls on his trenchcoat, and before Dean can say more, he’s gone with a gust of wind and the flap of wings. He lets out a small sigh. Angels, man.
Dean finds himself running a hand down his chest, feeling the flat stretch of skin before he remembers what he was doing before Cas showed up and threw his whole night off course. Resigning himself to another night of fitful sleep worrying about his brother, he reaches for his phone and pulls up Bobby’s number.