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The immortal, the myth, the Angel of the Lord swayed lightly on sensible shoes planted a little too far apart for a soldier. A lecherous grin tugged at the left edge of his mouth and his eyes drooped to uneven slits of blue. He swirled brown liquid around his glass, each pass a little too close to the rim and the freefall to the bunker floor.
Dean peered at him over the rim of his own glass. "Cas, are you ... drunk?"
"Bitch, I might be," retorted the angel, and then laughed at his own command of surfing the interwebs.
Both Winchester brothers' faces hardened into a precarious combination of disbelief and amusement as they looked at each other. Shrugging, Sam picked pepperoni and green peppers off his slice of pizza and tipped his head back to drop the delicious food into his cavernous mouth. Enormous feet propped up and crossed on the table told the room just how relaxed things were for the moment in the cosmos. On the other hand, Dean sat stiffly with one eye on the angel and the other eye on the kitchen doorway should Castiel stumble back into the liquor cabinet he'd built in his sanctuary kitchen.
"You know," Castiel slurred, pointing at the brothers with his glass, "it's a lot easier to feel inebriation now that this grace is killing me. I forgot how much I enjoyed it. You're onto something here, Dean.... Dean, bean, mean, lean, Dean...."
Sam's brows lifted straight up to his hairline. "You better slow down. Hangovers suck, man."
"You know what else?" continued the angel, completely ignoring Sam's cautionary warnings. He planted his hands on the nearest table in a bent posture as if imparting state secrets. "The more this grace bleeds away, the more I feel again. Feel. I need a tourniquet." Glassy eyes found his glass. "Ah, tourniquet, thy name is Jack Daniels."
Dean cleared his throat, mumbling to his brother. "Come on over for booze and pizza sounded a lot simpler this afternoon."
"The hell happened?" Sam mumbled back.
"I am a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent and I can hear your cells banging around in your bodies! Do you really think I can't hear your secret brother language?" The more Castiel drank, the more human he sounded in speech and tone. "I'll tell you what happened. I was driving my Lincoln and I stopped for gas in Kansas City. When I paid the clerk, I was distracted by a child--a pretty little blonde girl with green eyes--and I slammed the car door on my own hand." Castiel's temper rose and he flashed his unused hand. Swollen, stiff, and various shades from black to blue to yellow across his knuckles brought to mind a crushed hand and a series of expletives that would make even Dean blush.
"So...." Dean let the syllable hang there.
"I can't heal my own hand anymore!" boomed Castiel louder than a natural voice could project. Abruptly, the drunkenness allowed his anger to shift to apathy. He shrugged without acknowledging the outburst. "So I came home and did what Dean would do. Now I don't feel anything. It's nice."
Silence filled the casual pizza dinner with such an electric tension that Sam sat perfectly still as if he feared moving a fraction of an inch would crackle a lightning bolt through the room.
Dean, on the other hand, abandoned his glass on the table and grabbed a swaying Castiel by the sleeve. The angel found his legs as Dean grasped the crushed hand around the wrist with one hand and experimentally touched stiff, swollen fingers with the other. Wincing, Castiel jerked backwards a fraction of an inch backwards and peered at Dean through wide, stunned, blue eyes. Human pain still took him by surprise. Part of Dean pitied him in that moment of unmasked naivete.
"Your hand's probably broken," Dean diagnosed quietly.
Castiel frowned at the unwelcome return of human fragility. "I don't know how to repair that kind of damage except ... my way."
"I got it," replied Dean, quietly satisfied with the duty. "Sit down."
A low, rough sound interrupted the moment. Sam cleared his throat and, as Dean glanced his way, he scratched an uncomfortable path over his head. Feet dropped to the floor and the younger Winchester heaved himself up to his full height.
"I'll get the first aid stuff," said Sam, clearly looking for a swift exit.
He hated watching his brother feel like a fifth wheel around them but he didn't know how to articulate it. Saying so meant acknowledging the unusual depths of something that routinely developed between him and the angel. Sometimes he was aware of staring at Castiel's mouth and even pictured what it might have felt like to pull that full lower lip between his own. Sometimes he damn near grabbed the nearest thing with boobs like a rutting animal just to convince himself that blue eyes and dark stubble didn't matter. But he never, ever enjoyed seeing the truth written all over his brother's face and he never, ever wanted Sam to feel chased out of room after room after room over the years.
"I need more Tennessee alcohol," the gravelly voice muttered.
Castiel lunged for the bottle on the neighboring table, jerking Dean by their linked hand. He wobbled on unsteady feet and rammed his hipbone into the table, which sent him limply across its surface.
"Whoa, hold on," Dean said, pulled back into the moment. "Sit down 'til you get your sea legs back."
Defeated, the angel slumped into the nearest chair but did nothing to pry himself free of Dean's loose grip around his wrist. Dean leaned back against the table behind him with a foot hiked up on another chair. He studied the damaged hand before him if only to keep himself busy and not forced to look into bloodshot, glassy eyes.
He bent Castiel's second finger inward just slightly toward his palm. "Does this hurt?"
"Yes."
"This?" He tested the third finger.
"Everything hurts."
"Can you move your fingers on your own?" Dean held his hand palm up and waited.
"I can't. Pain grows intense."
With a nod, Dean carefully framed his own hands around the injury to protect it and keep it immobile while he waited for Sam to come back. Time passed in silence as Castiel occasionally swayed like someone pushed his chair. Of course, Dean had been there just like that in chairs just like those for most of his life drinking his way through broken bones, gunshots, dislocated joints, and stabbings of every kind. There was no point in asking Castiel how he felt or why he did it. He knew better than anyone and he wasn't even facing the loss of angelic grace for the fourth time.
"You could've been a doctor," Castiel commented through the blur of alcohol.
"Got used to taking care of Sammy a long time ago," he replied, hoping he sounded casual and absent.
A lopsided smile creased the angel's lips. He looked up at Dean from his chair and it became apparent that he wasn't capable of maintaining a linear conversation. It meandered and spiraled like the sensation of intoxication itself.
"You're pretty," he stated, the edges of his words blending together.
"You're drunk," Dean retorted. His mouth threatened to crack into a smile.
Castiel laughed deep in his chest and admitted the accusation with a wiggling, loose nod. "I am, but that doesn't alter the fact that you're so very aesthetically pleasing, of course. Watching over you is a pleasure."
Heat rose around the back of Dean's neck. He shifted in his chair.
"Your eyes are the color of the Kansas grasslands from above. I spend a lot of time hovering above humanity, you know. I'm an authority on these things. The vast grass prairies across Kansas reflect in your eyes and that's a fact." Castiel's chin tipped up appraisingly. "There's sunlight in your hair and your skin too."
"You gotta stop reading romance novels, Cas," mumbled Dean, uncomfortable with the excited blood thrumming through his ears. "Did Sammy get lost?"
"My favorite thing about being human was kissing." The way he stated it so simply without even looking at Dean confused its meaning until he continued with a shrug. "Of course, the person I kissed wasn't a person at all and she deceived me as well as the soul still trapped in that body. But the kissing--"
"--Cas--"
"--I want to kiss you." Castiel's eyes turned back up to Dean's in the finality of his decision. "Can I do that? Kiss you?"
"I...."
That hesitation made Castiel's features droop. "You don't want me that way. I was uncertain."
"I...."
A thin, dark brow flickered upward in a questioning expression. He was confused and Dean knew it. Drunk and confused. That was the worst possible combination because if Dean allowed it, Castiel could very well turn monotone and disappear again once he sobered up and realized his behavior. If he didn't plunge ahead, though, Castiel's sense of rejection might never heal and he doubted another chance would come again.
"I might be dying but I still see your soul," he said.
"You're not dying," croaked Dean.
"I am." And the acceptance in his calm features threw Dean into a swirling tidepool of anger, regret, and sorrow. "Dying puts everything into sharp perspective. Don't you think?"
"Yeah," Dean agreed.
Castiel stood, kicked his chair back, and fit himself into the wide space left by Dean's casually open legs where he sat on the table. "Good. There's been enough liquid courage and there's no time to waste anymore." One strong, pliant hand curled around the edge of Dean's jaw and pulled their faces together.
Much to Dean's surprise, or maybe not, he went willingly though without a word either way. Lips crushed together somewhat awkwardly--a combination of wobbly drunkenness and the uncertainty of a first kiss. A low hum of pleasure seeped from between their swollen, wet lips but Dean couldn't quite discern who made the sound. He hooked a hand around Castiel's wrist in an unspoken plea not to let go as his mouth opened to welcome a deepening, a new taste of tongues brushing tongues. All else melted away into the background and left Dean in the moment with the angel.
"Oh, thank God." It was Sam. He strode into the room with impeccable timing and a white box with a red cross stuffed under his arm. "I couldn't take one more day of the will they or won't they crap. Maybe now I won't have to run off every time you two make googly eyes at each other anymore. Cas? Let's get that hand in a splint."
Laugh lines crinkled around Castiel's eyes. "Of course, Sam."