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Castiel knew that the conclusion he had reached was not one of selflessness or any kind of moral virtue. It was an inevitability he had ignored in a state of delusion.
It had been there anyways, under his levels of metacognition, put in the peripheral while he wore his blinders and pretended it was human perception limiting his view. It was there, twisting and rotting inside him, because inherently, Castiel knew he was a coward.
He thinks, desperately, he should have prepared. He should have known , should have found a way to establish independent security outside of the safety the bunker walls provided and Dean’s insistence on making dinner every single night. He should have found some way to support himself, to make it so this foregone conclusion didn’t leave him like he was before, but to do that, he would have had to look it straight in the eye, and that wasn’t something he’d been capable of doing. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be here at all. He wouldn’t be desperately spending his time translating and organising the bunker, finding information for cases, perfecting his aim with guns for increased ease.
He should have found a way to make money . But he couldn’t even think of that. He couldn’t think of the cold, and the hunger, and the fact no where was safe ; no where, he was allowed . He didn’t know how to face it again, but he also knew it was grinding every mechanism to a halt in his brain. The key stops turning.
He grips the key so tight it leaves indentations in his skin. He has a key .
He remembers too, the first late October night -- the way he was stabbed into nightmarish confusion when it hit, nausea gripping and fire twisting throughout his torso. The way the world kept flickering, his perception, his confusion, from states of feeling so surreal he was fine to absolute fear to absolute fucking betrayal .
He remembers, walking, walking a lot, and he remembers, his feet hurt, the way the ground felt, some sort of ache, he had been walking a lot already; he remembers, he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop laughing .
The sound of his laughter like a cacophonous interlude to a reprise he’d never gain. Stabbing percussive reminders of how right Dean was to make this move, to kick him out. And he feels it, unsettling, the confusion overtaking the reason, the anger drifting in unbidden, the way it took him far too long to shape the realisation that this was happening because Dean never actually cared about him . It hit far long after Cas realised he deserved this, a sharp spike like unisolated ice injected into him. It hit far long after Castiel thought he didn’t deserve to just be something to use, that he couldn’t believe Dean would do this. All of that dissolved into his realisation that the shaky foundation of personhood he’d created for himself was bullshit.
He thinks of Gadreel, thinks of the mess Dean made desperately trying to keep someone he loves safe, holds it close to his chest. Nurtures it. Reminds himself that Dean is only okay with letting him die superfluously if he’s a risk to him or Sam. Or at least, Cas can tell himself that. He hadn’t had that, before. The emotions of whatever he felt be damned like he will eventually be once he does die. Dean let him stay this time. He has a key.
He can’t do it again, he says to himself. He can’t; he can’t; he can’t. He bundles up in layers and layers and pretends that he can continue staying warm. He shouldn’t be here another second. He shouldn’t have let himself stay here at all. He was always so desperate to be close to the Winchesters. It makes him feel sick to think about what he’s allowed himself. He’s mostly convinced that when they learn about what his selfish desires -- the ones that are rotting him from the inside out -- have let him risk, they truly will want nothing to do with him again.
He can’t even face Dean telling him it’d be better if he could leave again. It wouldn’t be confusing this time. He never deluded himself into thinking they would let him stay in any continual basis. He never humiliated himself in his embarrassing assumptions. He’s been waiting for the blade to drop every minute. But it doesn’t matter. It still freezes him up until he lets his mind drift away into some foggy place and lets himself just live there every time he tries to even imagine it.
He knows he has to leave the key, but the thought of letting go of it makes him start panicking so badly he’s afraid he’ll pass out. His body starts buzzing quite unpleasantly. There are all these constant reminders that he’s not only human. He’s maladapted at being one. But he has to let it go. He has to. Dean made it clear. He can stay. But he can’t be a liability.
When he had first lost his powers again, it had taken him sixteen days to be able to leave the bunker after Sam answered the door to let him in. He was so terrified that if he left, they’d never let him in again. Sam needled at him then, one night, saying that he never had to leave the bunker, but if Cas could tell him the reason . Cas couldn’t respond. He couldn’t risk it being the final straw. So he said something about it being better if he stays, in case of emergency, to have access here if no one else was, and they needed someone. It hadn’t made sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now, but then they gave him a key .
He has never had a physical object he cares for the way he does with this. He thinks he understands the depths of human symbolism in a way he was never capable of doing before. And he thinks he’d rather tear out his own grace -- not that he has any left -- over get rid of this key. But he knows what needs to be done.
He should tell Sam and Dean, he knows, he should tell them what risk he’s put upon them with his stubborn stupidity and incapability of facing the truth. Feeling in any way welcome, even if he probably wasn’t really, had corroded his insides, and he just didn’t know how to put his thoughts towards wondering if he should be here. If he could be risking their lives. After everything he’s done, all the enemies he’s made, it seems obvious. But he’d immediately ration well, they also have enemies, and they gave him a key .
He is a coward drowning in his own sick desire for acceptance and connection and human reciprocity. He is a coward, and he didn’t want to die from the cold, then burn. He is a coward with a target on his back from his nonsensical pride harming countless. Aim right at the bunker.
He does an exercise. He pictures Sam and Dean dying because of him. He pictures it gruesome. He pictures their betrayal. He pictures them regretting ever letting him stay here. Ever knowing him, if they don’t already. He pictures it in more and more detail unfolding until he grabs another sweater he doesn’t need to just pretend maybe he can layer better; maybe it won’t be so cold this time.
He leaves the key on the bed. He really likes having a bed. He thinks he might be a hedonist. He likes piling pillows on top of himself and disappearing in a nest. He likes the water pressure. He likes imagining Dean liking the water pressure. He likes Dean’s movie nights, and he likes Sam’s gentle smile, and he likes the thrill he gets each time Dean stares at him in elongated expanses. He likes the safety. He likes it all so much. He can’t even think of it. There’s significance he hasn’t known, or maybe he’s known it, but he didn’t get it, not until now. But he loves Sam and Dean.
He leaves the key on the bed, and no extra elaboration. He’s not very convinced they’ll care much that he’s gone. They’ll probably notice, he thinks; maybe be relieved, he laments. They can always call him. He has a phone and a charger, and maybe he can find some outdoor outlets along the way. He can’t really think that far ahead.
He leaves the room, memorising it in his eyes. It’s basically his. He’s stayed there for over two months now. He likes to pretend it’s his.
He marvels at how he feels more grief than fear, as he heads towards the door, having to picture it shutting behind him repeatedly in preparation for it to happen. He can barely see straight.
He wonders, absently, how long will it take for the key indentations to fade.
--
He makes it to the war room before he runs into Dean. He hadn’t been expecting to see him here now, as Dean is usually in the kitchen this time of day. It hurts more than he’d like to admit as Dean looks at him with scrutiny, and Cas averts his gaze. He can’t tell Dean. He can’t hear the words from Dean’s mouth again. He can’t do it. If he leaves, he can leave with the minuscule fantasy that Dean would try to find some alternative. But he knows that’s not true, and he can’t face it.
“Where are you going?” Dean says, and he immediately seems wary.
“It’s not important, Dean,” Cas says, and he aims for a large space in his route between them, and doesn't stop walking. Just like he can’t face inevitability straight on, he also can’t look at Dean. He hears Dean move towards him, but he doesn’t stop until Dean grabs his shoulder.
Cas is about to give some speech about how Dean doesn’t control his comings and goings, all the while knowing he’s a coward who cannot say goodbye properly, but Dean knocks him off guard.
“It, it is to me,” Dean admits. The vulnerability causes Cas to look up, forget what’s happening, forget his mission that sits like mountains in his stomach. “I mean, you have a friggin’ bag packed Cas, suddenly out for all-nighters?”
“I’m leaving, Dean,” Cas says, trying not to be moved. He can’t explain. He can’t face it. He can’t face Dean’s face morphing into understanding and pity. He can’t face the rejection again. He wants to live with some other sort of fantasy.
Dean seems upset for some reason. His jaw is set, and it takes him a while to say anything more. Cas doesn’t want to move. He has to move.
“Why?” Dean finally asks, the word terse.
“Dean, I said it’s not of import,” Castiel reiterates, feeling panic rise.
“Not of import? Dude you’re-- you’re taking off without explanation what? Got a job you’re jonesing to get to? Dislike it here that much?”
“It doesn’t matter Dean, just let me go,” Castiel pleads. He still can’t explain. He wants this to be his memory. He wants Dean’s resistance to be etched into his mind, so he can replay it over and over and pretend it means something, besides Dean not thinking Cas can survive on his own now that he’s weak and feels some misplaced responsibility.
“Why won’t you tell me? I’m, I’m not stopping you, but you gotta give me some sort of reason, man. I, uh, thought you liked it here.”
“I do,” Castiel says. He doesn’t know why, but he can’t let that be misconstrued.
“Then why?” Dean raises his shoulders out like shackles.
“Why do you need a reason? You can still call me. I just think it’d be prudent of me to leave the bunker.”
“C’mon Cas, that’s bullshit. You’re welcome here. You got the key right? And uh...” Dean trails off. “Yeah maybe I need a friggin’ reason.”
Castiel doesn’t know why. Maybe it’s because the last time he had to go, he had to fight every urge to beg Dean to let him stay. He remembers the sliding incomprehensible sharp pain. He remembers the burritos turning from comfort and satisfaction to sickness in his stomach. He remembers throwing them up on the side of the road, eventually, in between his hysterical laughs.
He feels hysterical again.
Dean is beautiful. Dean is acting like he wants Cas to stay. He’s in front of Cas, gazing at him as if the only way Castiel is able to pass him to the door is if he solves this final riddle of why Cas, who so obviously desires to be in Dean’s orbit so much he’s soft and rotten on the inside like an overripe fruit, would leave. He almost says, well, the flies are after me.
“You need a reason ,” Castiel returns. Dean’s clenching his teeth like Cas is mocking him. He isn’t. He just can think of an infinite amount of reasons why he doesn’t belong here. He wants to list them alphabetically. He wants to sit for hours in Dean’s lap listing them off while Dean pokes meaningless holes in them all with his hands on Castiel’s back. He wants everything except for Dean to see it. For Dean to say it. He can leave. He’s doing it. He’s trying. He loves Dean, and Sam, this is his proof. He’s doing it. But he can’t have Dean kick him out again. He goes to push past Dean, but Dean stops him. Castiel’s heart is racing, blood pounding.
It’s harder, when he’s human. It’s harder to deny that all these sensations come from any place, but being overwhelmingly in love with him. Dean’s touch feels electric.
“Yeah, I do,” Dean says. Castiel feels the hysteria building again. He feels high on Dean’s proximity. He feels even higher on the terror of never having it again. His fears melt. He decides to go nuclear. He knows how to convince Dean he should leave without facing the overwhelming guilt of having endangered Dean at all. He knows, in the back of his mind, he still has to face Dean deciding Cas is right to leave, but his brain feels like it’s dazzling and bright, and he can’t see anything but emanating light.
“Alright,” Castiel says. And closes the space between the two of them and kisses Dean in a way he’s imagined more times than he’s really ever imagined anything. Often to taunt himself, to show himself the ways in which he ruins everything.
Dean doesn’t pull away, and Castiel knows he should immediately, that Dean kissing him back on reflex doesn’t make what he just did not despicable, but he can’t . So he keeps kissing Dean, thoughts just hysteric and gone and refractions he can’t even transcribe. He tries to speak it through it, though, all the love, the adoration, the devotion, and the overwhelming grief that this is the last he’ll ever see Dean. He isn’t naive. He knows Dean wasn’t going to contact him this time, just like he didn’t the last. He has nothing else to lose. He’s so greedy. But he can’t help it when kissing Dean is brighter than a supernova.
He eventually pulls away, before Dean does, which isn’t something Cas wants to puzzle, and he doesn’t dare look at Dean’s face. He knew the crash would hit. But Dean must be dazed in confusion and probably revulsion, so Castiel is going to flee while he has the chance. He’s racing towards the door when Dean calls out.
“Cas, wait,” he says. And Cas freezes. He must face the consequences of his actions, he guesses. He can’t turn around. He can’t face whatever is changing in Dean’s opinion of him, his perspective of Castiel and what he’s done. Cas fights the urge to defend it all, explain that he did it out of love, not whatever this is. That this is just a repercussion of the intensity of which he feels. But he won’t.
He has to leave. Dean will want him gone now. He’s succeeded. He feels dizzy, shivering, sick all over.
“Cas, what the fuck ,” Dean elaborates eloquently, and he’s caught up to Cas again, who’s still just frozen in space, a deer in the headlights, hysteria plunging into the darkest throes of his inevitable consequences for giving into his desires.
“I’m sorry,” Castiel says, when he finally has the words.
“So what? Giving me a fucking goodbye pity kiss before your Houdini act? And now, what, you can’t even look at me?” Dean says. Castiel doesn’t understand, doesn’t understand how he thinks Dean sounds desperate, hurt, as much as angry. He must be reading it wrong. He hones in on the anger and looks at Dean, faces the consequence. Dean, in all his beauty; Dean, who will now understand a glaring reason why Castiel would never actually be welcome here.
“I’m sorry,” Cas says. He feels something nasty uncurling in his throat. His lips still tingle from where they met Dean’s.
“You’re always sorry,” Dean says.
“I am no good here,” Castiel says. “Don’t make me explain anymore. Please.”
“You could just ignore it,” Dean says, and he sounds like he’s almost pleading. “C’mon Cas, you’re uh,” Dean’s shoulders drop. “You’re my best friend. Don’t leave over this.”
Castiel doesn’t know what to do. He feels relief consuming his whole body. Feels the tension leave so abruptly, he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to make it out the door. Dean’s still calling him his best friend. Castiel went nuclear, and Dean still wants him here.
Which means Castiel has no other choice. He has to break it all.
“I endangered you and Sam,” Castiel says. He recites his sin like it means nothing, voice low and monotone in its grave admittance. “I still have a target on my back. That demon that got away on our last hunt had cut a piece of my hair. He’s doing a ritual once he gets the rest of the ingredients to track me. He threatened both your and Sam’s lives. I know the spell, it’s very powerful even with warding. And I’m sure there’s been ways I’ve been a liability the entire time I’ve been here.”
He feels like he’s choking. Feels like he’s reciting his crimes before he gets hanged. He supposes that is what’s happening, in a way. He wanted to leave some sort of positive memory of himself in his wake, even if pitiful at best in the form he’s in. But now Dean’s going to tell him to leave. Now Dean’s going to hate him forever.
“What? You’re worried some half-assed demon that I failed at ganking is going to hurt you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay in the bunker then? Location aside, we’re like Guantanamo here.”
“By staying here I am endangering your life,” Castiel explains, driving the knife in deeper. “And Sam’s.”
“So?” Dean says, flabbergasted. Cas stares at his lips and fights the urge to touch his own. “By that logic, we’re endangering yours, since I’m sure countless of those black-eyed sons of bitches want a piece of us,” Dean says. Castiel doesn’t understand. He keeps waiting for the hatred, for the pity if he’s lucky (and by God , does he not want pity), and the words. I, I see. I agree. You can’t stay .
He keeps waiting, but Dean is looking at him like he’s lost his mind.
“I am so grateful for you letting me stay here,” Castiel says. Dean makes a face. “I understand that Sam’s safety comes first. I apologise for waiting this long to leave,” Castiel feels sick. He feels like he owes more of an explanation. Like he should eviscerate himself in some act of penance. “I was afraid,” he adds tersely. It’s only part of it. But it’s all he can muster.
“Sam’s safety comes first?” Dean repeats, sounding incredulous, before his face relaxes. “You’re talking about Gadreel, that’s, uh, what this is about isn’t it? About the last time, you were human?”
Castiel freezes. He’s waiting. He’s waiting for a comet to hit that his father diverted from its natural physical gravitational path to crash into Kansas right now, huge and life-changing. He’s waiting for the map to light up, disasters upon disasters. He’s waiting for a sudden fire alarm diverting them all out. He’s waiting for the words to come out of Dean’s mouth. He’s waiting, and he can’t handle it.
“Gadreel was going to leave Sam for dead , Cas. I didn’t actually agree with him. Tell me you don’t think I agreed with him.”
“I don’t think you agreed with him,” Cas says, the words feel empty though. He’s repeating because Dean told him to. He’s just going to keep doing what Dean tells him to. “But I’m still endangering Sam’s life.”
“Maybe a bit! Not much more than usual. What happens if you go out there with a target on your back? You get the forces of Hell on your tail with that tracking spell and what then? You could be dead by Tuesday!”
“I know,” Castiel says tightly. It seems to do nothing to lessen Dean’s anger.
“You know?”
“I am not helpless. But I recognise the probable risks.”
“So what? You ki --,” Dean falters. “You take off, then next week I get some wannabe Talosian type demon taunting me with pictures of your dead body?” Castiel wants to argue that he has his angel blade, that whatever demons Dean’s referring to might not kill him, but he can’t. He’s too enamoured by how impassioned Dean is. Like Dean cares .
“I was killed by a reaper, and still had to go because of the threat I imposed,” Castiel says, trying to make sense of it.
“‘Cause Gadreel had me over a barrel! God, Cas I want you here, I could care less if some demons or angels or whatever want your head. That’s status friggin’ quo. That’s our entire lives.”
All the tension deflates from Cas like a precarious balloon. Like the strings puppeteering him are cut, and he’s stuck limp. He doesn’t understand. Furious, shattering hope is unfurling in his chest faster than he can comprehend what’s going on.
“You want me to stay?” he finally says, awed, confused. Dean must sense the change in atmosphere. Cas can practically smell the petrichor.
“Uh... well yeah. You, uh, you know that,” Dean says.
“Even after I kissed you?” Cas asks, shocked.
“Yeah, we should pretend that never happened,” Dean says, and it crushes something inside Cas, but does nothing for the violent hope.
“Of course,” Cas says. Though he realises he never really got to explain his deep affection for Dean, never got to tell him he was in love with him, it still feels good for Dean to know, because he has to know. And Cas is still allowed to live here. “Thank you, Dean.”
“Don’t fucking thank me, dude. Just. I don’t know, I know I’m shit at feelings, but if you’re going to. You know, I’ll make some fucking cocoa even, you can tell me all about whatever your heart desires.”
“Can we have some cocoa now,” Castiel asks, suddenly remembering the last time he had it when he’d been complaining about the cold so much. It was so sugary.
“Yeah,” Dean says, and he’s breaking out into a smile. “I will make you however many cups you want, dude. Yeah.” The hope is suffocating. Cas’s heart feels fuzzy and warm with the ways in which Dean’s eyes crinkle, like he’s happy, like crisis averted, like he’s willing to make Cas a drink just because Cas wants one. Cas tries not to think of his hands under Dean’s clothes, Dean’s under his, of other things that will never have a place here if he wants to remain. But he’s content. He’s happy.
An irrational fear boils over, and before he can realise what’s happening he asks, “Am I allowed to keep the key?” Dean looks at him perplexed, his green eyes like sunlit leaves.
“Yeah, it’s yours,” Dean says, so simply, that Cas decides to impression that into his mind as much as he can, whatever the cost. After all, all the key indentations left on Castiel seem to be wrapped up in this beautiful man who he loves so dearly.
And who makes really good hot chocolate.