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There was a day in winter that started with sparkling snow and ended red as blood and black as ebony. It was Dean’s blood and Castiel’s wing, feathers mingling black on red on white – and Dean thought of that stupid joke Sammy had come home with one day in third grade: what’s black and white and red all over? An injured angel and a dying human, he thought grimly, in the worst freaking winter snow of the year.
He could still feel the slow pulse of blood from his side even though he had managed to field-dress it well enough to stop his immediate demise. If Cas would just wake up… it was an uncharitable thought. Cas had blocked most of the blow, transforming it from fatal to merely crippling by taking the full force on his arm and wing. And he had still managed to gank the bastard angel who’d tried to kill Dean. Then he had started leaking blue-white light from the wound and passed out before he could heal Dean. Angels really were dicks.
It wasn’t the wound that would kill him at this point though, even if it wasn’t helping, it was the cold. Night was swiftly approaching and Dean had been lying in the snow for twenty minutes already. He was still shivering, which he took to be a good sign, but he couldn’t feel his legs anymore. Whether this was due to blood loss or cold he wasn’t sure, but it was a real problem, because he had to get to Cas, who was lying sprawled ten feet away. It was an arbitrary goal, but maybe if he could make it that far he could wake Cas up and then they could both not die. Right.
So he sat up, whimpering a scream he never would have let out if Cas had been conscious or Sammy there. But Sam was safe with Bobby and Cas was… Dean shook his head to clear it. Damn. He was drifting. Not good.
He checked the makeshift bandage; sodden with blood but holding the worst at bay, and put both hands into the snow. He heaved himself forward, his whole body protesting. Then he heaved again, pulling his limp, numb legs along as best he could. It hurt, oh god (bastard, fuckup, fuck you) it hurt, but he moved.
Some interminable time later his head cleared enough to register that one hand rested on fabric, not snow. He looked down to where he was clutching a handful of Cas’ trench coat. He smoothed it out and then remembered, “Cas!” he tried, his voice coming out a croak. He cleared his throat and shook the angel slightly, “Cas you gotta wake up. You gotta wake up now. Come one Cas. Castiel! Wake up!” He thumped Cas on the chest as hard as he could with the hand not holding himself up.
And then like a miracle, like the sky, like two splinters of summer, Cas’ eyes opened, “Dean, why are you –“ his voice cut off as Dean keeled over sideways, his arm giving out.
Castiel caught him, ran his eyes over him once, and tapped two fingers to his forehead. The wound was gone. Dean felt a pint of blood restore itself to his system. He looked at the red snow. Maybe more. “Thanks Cas,” he said, and then Cas tapped him on the forehead again and all of a sudden they were back at the safehouse Bobby had found for this job, “Dude, warn a guy,” Dean grumbled, without his usual fervor. And then he noticed that Cas was still lying on the floor, and more importantly he was still leaking blue-white light from one wing.
“You okay man?” he asked, reaching a hand out to help Cas up.
Cas didn’t take it. “I believe I am, er, bleeding to death,” he said, voice even scratchier than usual, “You should leave, as it is likely to be explosive.”
“What the… I’m not – who do you think – what the hell man,” Dean said, in what was not his finest display of eloquence, “you’re not even bleeding.”
“Not that you can see,” replied Cas.
“You mean your wing?” asked Dean.
Cas stared at him, eyes wide, “You can see that?”
“Well yeah,” Dean said, confused, "can’t everybody?”
“…no,” said Castiel.
“Oh,” said Dean, and then, “so that’s why nobody ever says anything. I thought it was just some weird angel mojo.”
“No,” said Castiel again. There was a silence for a moment while Dean remembered Cas shielding him with his wings, blocking the wind, blocking spells, stroking a feather down his arm to comfort him…
And then Castiel shuddered and moaned in pain, and Dean looked for the wound in the wing. It was there, dripping spots of Grace into the crappy carpet, leaving little singe marks, and without thinking Dean put his bloody hands into the black feathers to stop the shining flow.
There was a flash like a thousand lightbulbs bursting at once and Castiel cried out something in Enochian that made Dean’s ears ring, and he clutched at his shoulder like it was the only thing in the world that was real.
Then reality reasserted itself with Dean’s clean hands buried in a no longer injured wing, and Castiel’s hand clamped tight on Dean’s tingling shoulder.
“Dean,” said Cas without moving his mouth, “what did you do?
*
The worst thing was that they were snowed in. No, the worst thing was that Castiel said he couldn’t zap them out because his Grace was exhausted. No, the worst thing was that Dean could tell he was telling the truth.
“No, the worst thing is that you keep running through lists of worst things in your head Dean,” growled Cas from the other room, and yep, that right there was the worst thing. Cas could hear his thoughts all the time, and he couldn’t hear anything but vague impressions from Cas unless he was trying to make Dean hear.
“I can’t hear everything Dean, I already told you. I only hear when you’re projecting, which is all the time. I’m frankly astonished no one has complained before. Don’t you have psychic friends? This is absurd.”
“Don’t be such a whiny dick,” Dean thought at him very clearly, and then threw up a wall between them made of black steel and chrome.
Castiel muttered something in Enochian and Dean laughed. There was a little silence.
“Did we know I can understand Enochian?” asked Dean cautiously, and out loud.
“No,” said Cas thoughtfully.
“Uh,” said Dean, “Not to be weird. But that was really funny. Do you, like, actually have a sense of humor?”
Cas looked almost sad, “It’s always funnier in Enochian,” he said.
*
It was easier after that. Cas stopped answering Dean’s thoughts, and Dean got better at putting up walls. Cas cracked really terrible, deadpan jokes in Enochian, and Dean continued to find it hilarious. They discovered that Dean couldn’t read or speak Enochian, only understand it, which Cas said was “Interesting.” Castiel did not touch Dean with his wings.
One morning Dean awoke to a sense of discomfort from Castiel. Sleepily he pushed his mind out and tried to soothe whatever was bothering him like he had when Sammy broke his arm in fifth grade. Castiel’s mind was huge and echoey somehow. Like a cave, Dean thought, and a thought came back, no, like a cathedral. It was warm and welcoming, and there was a brightness to everything that felt like light through stained glass. Very far off he could hear a choir of impossible beauty singing something like a hymn.
He walked, or floated, slowly through that huge place looking for the source of the discomfort. He didn’t find it, but he did start to wake up fully, and as soon as he did that he retreated to his own mind with a gasp, flinging his eyes open and clutching at the bedspread.
Castiel was sitting on the edge of the bed with an expression on his face that Dean was afraid to try and read. He flashed back suddenly to the side of a dark road and the same look in Castiel’s face then, like Dean was something precious.
“What was…” Dean trailed off, because Cas had opened his mouth to say something at the same time, and Dean could feel how much he wanted to say it, and how unsure he was at Dean’s reaction.
“You first,” they said simultaneously, and then Dean waved his hand and Castiel said in Enochian, “I am in distress, will you give me succor?” and what could Dean say to that? Even if the word “succor” in Enochian unfolded like origami in his head to mean about eight thousand possible things, some of which were physically impossible on this plane of existence and some of which Dean definitely should have been freaked out by. But it was Cas asking, and Dean somehow knew that it would be okay, not one of the things that involved six wings and a ram. Which also, what the fuck.
“It’s my wings,” said Castiel, “They were injured and I can’t reach far enough to clean them properly. If you are willing I would ask you to do it for me. That is the source of the hurt you were seeking earlier.”
Dean supposed that if he’d been willing to barge into the guy’s mind before he could hardly chicken out now. “Sure,” he said, sitting up and cracking his neck, “Do you want me to wash them or something?”
“No. or rather, not exactly. They do need to be wiped down, but mostly they need to be… reordered.”
Dean started to grin, “Dude, you want me to preen your wings for you?”
Castiel gave him a flat look, “It is not like preening a bird,” he said, voice very slightly irritated, “my wings are multidimensional, vast, and made of Grace.”
“I dunno, they look pretty feathery to me,” Dean said, raising an eyebrow at the two huge black shadows behind Cas, “I grant you they’re big, but…”
“You see what you expect to see,” said Castiel, raising and spreading the wings until they brushed the walls and ceiling. Dean could see where patches of feathers were disordered and dirty. It did look uncomfortable.
“It is,” Cas said, giving Dean an inscrutable look. Dean hastily walled his mind off inside the Impala, hoping Cas hadn’t caught on to just how much he was looking forward to getting his hands in those feathers again.
They relocated to the living room on the grounds that it was bigger and a little less personal than Dean’s bed. Cas directed Dean to sit on the couch while he himself sat on the floor. His wings, usually shadowy and unclear even to Dean, became somehow more solid. They looked realer now, and Dean suspected that anyone could see them. He got a hint of the other dimensions Cas had been talking about – the feathers seemed too delineated somehow, and the shadows under them went down a long way. They were also messy, and Dean could see why Cas was uncomfortable. Feathers stuck out every which way, and there were several that looked like they might need to come out.
“You can take them out if you need to,” Cas said, "but please try to avoid it is you can. It will hurt. And… preening my wings is not like a bird. It will… take more of you. You may stop anytime you like.”
Dean shook his head and determined to keep going until Cas was comfortable again. He put one hand on black feathers and Cas shuddered all over. Dean could see the hand and feel the feathers, but he could also feel something that scraped along the surface of his mind and sparked like electricity. He understood that this was what Cas meant when he said it would take more of him. There were…lines of… power –
“Grace,” came Castiel’s voice in his mind –
- and they were bent and dimmed where they should be shining and straight as razor wire –
- and into Dean’s mind came the knowledge of how to fix them –
- and he reached out and gripped the line in both hands and tweaked –
Dean’s vision dimmed as a flood of Grace crackled along the newly opened channel. For a moment he thought he might pass out but then something pulled him back and reminded him that he had a body. He took his hands off the line but kept them buried in feathers.
Cas had twisted himself around and was staring at him with an almost frantic look on his face.
“You okay man?” Dean asked, willing his voice not to crack.
“This will be more difficult than I imagined,” growled Cas, voice scratchier than usual.
Dean abruptly had to hold back panic, “Did I hurt you?”
Soothing warmth cascaded over him, smoothing down spikes of fear. Cas’ “No,” was backed by a wave of comfort, so that Dean could tell how much better it felt already.
Dean lost a little time somewhere while he reordered Cas’ right wing. It took concentration, and he was determined to do it well. He had to work simultaneously on both levels, the physical and the metaphysical, and it took a while. He could feel Cas’ mind there with him, but it was somehow inaccessible for the moment, merely observing and directing when Dean needed it.
And then he came to the end of the first wing and he came back to awareness of his own body.
Cas was clinging to his ankle hard enough that he thought there might be bruises later, and his wing was draped over Dean’s lap. Dean stroked it gently and Cas shivered and moved, slowly releasing Dean’s ankle. They sat for a minute without speaking, though Dean could feel Cas gathering himself for something. This second level of communication was very odd. There were… harmonics that he didn’t understand, some kind of wordless knowledge passing between them just below the conscious.
Cas dragged his other wing into Dean’s lap, “It’s like body language for your mind,” he said, “you know it on a level deeper than your subconscious.”
“Soul language,” said Dean, picking up the words from the back of Castiel’s thoughts.
“Yes,” he said, nodding once, “and you appear to be very good at it.”
“Thanks.”
They sat for a minute more, and then Dean took a deep breath and started on the second wing. As before it took all of his concentration but felt completely instinctive. This time he stayed more in his own body, and was distracted by Cas, who started breathing hard less than halfway through. His mind was still closed off and steady, but he put his forehead on Dean’s knee, and clung to his leg for dear life. Dean tried to project reassurance and confidence, and Cas let out a little breath that was almost a groan. Both of his wings were against Dean now, the left one sprawled across his lap and the right one pressed firmly up against his side. He was warm. Dean built a wall of glass.
Some time later Dean finished the wing, but sat with both hands buried in black feathers, eyes closed, adding steel latticework to his glass wall. He was exhausted body and mind, and didn’t even protest when Cas zapped him straight back to bed. It was early still – he had woken to Cas’ discomfort almost as the sun rose – and he could lie in for a bit.
He did mutter a protest when Cas gently unwound his hands from his wings and disappeared, but he reappeared again almost immediately. He carried a bowl full of something that looked like water but glowed faintly when he looked at it with the corners of his eyes.
“Holy water,” Cas said, “you have never seen it blessed by an angel before, even such a poor one as I.”
Dean began to protest that Cas was the best of angels, the others were all assholes, but cut himself off as Cas dipped a wing in the water and it blazed.
“As you have succored me in my hour of need,” Cas said in Enochian, “Please allow me the honor of tending to you.”
As usual the words carried meanings far beyond the usual, with undertones ranging from abasement to supplication, to the direct service of the Holy Spirit. Dean didn’t even try to unpack it. There was a ritual weight behind them that felt important, so he just said “okay,” and leaned back in the pillows to let Cas do his thing.
Within thirty seconds he realized that this was a terrible idea. Apparently one of the many meanings of that Enochian phrase was a ritual bath, which apparently meant that Cas was going to give him a sponge bath. Using his wings as the sponge. Dean abandoned his steel-latticed glass wall and built a fucking chrome-plated fortress.
“Why do you wall yourself away from me?” asked Cas, a faint flash of quickly suppressed hurt coming from his head.
Dean closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look at him, cheeks flushing, “You don’t want to see what’s in my head dude, trust me.” Cas’ hands were all over him, pressing damp feathers into his skin. They did not speak again until he was finished. Despite himself Dean was panting a little, and one of his hands had to release a death grip on Cas’ ankle. But his mind was still hidden inside his (chrome-plated, steel-reinforced, double-walled) fortress, so none of the sweaty, gasping, embarrassing glimpses of Dean’s traitorous imagination would have bled through. He was unbearably glad that at some point Cas had turned him on his front. He willed his hard-on down with fierce thoughts of Bobby in a speedo. “…time is it,” he managed.
“Noon,” said Cas, and Dean cracked an eye to see him sitting quietly beside the bed, hands folded, wings tucked neatly down his back. He still wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“Lunch,” said Dean, decisively.
They ate lunch in silence – well, Dean ate lunch and Castiel watched – and cleaned up in silence. The mental undercurrent of their minds seemed deeper though. Dean could feel Cas more clearly. The cathedral of his mind was right there, light streaming out, doors open, heavenly chorus singing… Dean came back to himself with a start and found the sink almost overflowing with soapy water. He shut it off quickly and looked up at Cas, who was once again staring at him with a wondering look on his face.
And the thing was, Cas didn’t show that much expression normally, unless he was angry. But Dean could feel the overlay of his emotions and he could tell what every shift of the eyebrow meant, every quirk of the lips (don’t think about lips), and every… wing movement?
“My wings are me,” said Cas, responding to Dean’s thought, “My vessel is mine, but my wings are myself. Everything is… less through the vessel.” He projected his meaning and Dean understood. Sensation was dulled though the body, like being touched through a blanket, or expressing himself behind a semi-opaque screen.
“So when I touched your wings – “
“It was intense,” said Castiel, and Dean felt something pulse through his mind that he couldn’t interpret. It was gone in a flash, suppressed almost before he could feel it. Then he paused. He didn’t consciously know how to interpret it, but this was like body language. He took a quick inventory. His heart was pounding like he’d been running, and a small surge of adrenaline tingled through his fingers and thighs. He looked up. Body language. He was good at this.
He dried his hands and took down his mental walls.
Castiel’s lips parted in surprise and Dean flushed. Reflexively he started to build a barrier and then let it fall instead. Castiel brushed ever so gently against his open mind and then a surge went through Dean like a bolt of lightning and Castiel’s wings snapped open and up in a huge display. Dean stared and shook a little, and Castiel made a noise and then he was right there having actually flown four steps forward rather than walking. Those huge wings curved forward and Dean reached out and –
Sometimes he forgot that Cas had the strength of an angel, but this was not one of those times. Castiel pulled him away from the sink, cocooned him in feathers, and slammed him up against a wall with enough force that Dean gasped even though he was cushioned by wings. Then Cas groaned and bit Dean’s shoulder, and suddenly his mind was blazing, the chorus drowned out by the sheer force of Cas’ want. His hands were tight on Dean’s hips, tight enough to bruise, and Dean couldn’t think, could only react as Cas ran his tongue up his neck and kissed him.
Somewhere in a corner of his head Dean had the presence of mind to reach both hands up and grab a double handful of feathers and Grace and drag his fingers down. Castiel’s mind pounded and he gasped “Dean!” against his mouth, and Dean realized that Cas was shaking almost as hard as he was.
“I got you,” said Dean, which was a blatant lie, since Castiel was pinning him so thoroughly he could barely move. Cas groaned again and Dean forced himself to calm down, forced his brain into gear, gripped Cas by the sides of the neck and tipped their foreheads together. “Look,” he growled, and closed his eyes.
They were so close that as soon as he did he could… sense the latticework of Castiel’s cathedral. It was shining with light so bright Dean could hardly stand it, but the shadow of wings covered him and the light reached for him, and he could feel how much Cas wanted him –
- he moved toward the cathedral and the light pulsed and somewhere in the distance Cas was clutching him like the end of the world –
- and then he was inside and it was vast, the size of the Chrysler building and all focused on him –
- he settled himself in and opened his own mind –
- the Impala was parked on the marble floor of the cathedral and in the back all of Dean’s dreams were coming true at once –
- he opened the doors and the light reached inside –
- and Dean knew what it was like to have Cas in his head, really in his head, not just reading the edges of his thoughts. Distantly he could tell that his clothes had disappeared, possibly into the fireplace, and he was pressed against Cas from head to toe, but even all of that skin couldn’t distract him from the feeling of Cas in his head. Dean considered himself fairly experienced, but he felt like he had never touched another person. Compared to this he never had. Castiel had thousands of years of practice transmitting sensation from mind to mind and he flooded Dean with –
- watching him fix the Impala, humming along with the radio and feeling the inexplicable urge to bend him backwards over the hood –
- seeing his determination on a hunt and wishing he would turn that attention on him, not a monster –
- the deadly, efficient dance they did as they whirled in tandem to take down three demons at once, wondering what it would be like to truly move together –
- coming to himself to find Dean bruised and bleeding at his hand, looking up at him from his knees with perfect trust, healing him and thinking NEVER AGAIN –
- dying in the snow and knowing that at least his last act was to save Dean’s life, maybe that would absolve him –
- the overwhelming feeling when Dean touched his bleeding wing –
- beloved, beloved, beloved, hiding it so that he could selfishly cling to the edges of Dean’s mind, Dean who hid himself inside the Impala –
[Somewhere in the distance Dean was gasping into a mouthful of feathers as Cas rolled inside him, couldn’t catch his breath, nothing could possibly feel this good.]
- Dean reordering his wings, his soul soothing away pain and warming every inch of Castiel, he could barely control himself, had to hide his reaction, but Dean’s hands were there, everywhere, impossible to deny –
- beloved, beloved, beloved, performing the sacred ablutions for Dean, beloved, bathing him, an excuse to touch –
And Dean, arching and gasping on the bed, (when had they made it to the bedroom?) seized onto that and sent back uncoordinated memories, flipping the flow of information in a frantic stream.
- panic when Cas was dying, no, he can’t die, I won’t let him, I’ll do anything –
- awe and wonder and lust at the sheer power of Castiel when he smote two demons at once, hot damn –
- hiding himself inside the Impala when he couldn’t control his thoughts when Cas spoke to him in Enochian –
- a dark road when they looked at each other and Dean wanted to move forward, close the gap, but Cas wasn’t human, might not understand –
- no fear for himself when Cas was beating him but a blinkering terror that he would never recover himself, that they had broken him irreparably, rage at whoever had done this, he’d kill anyone who laid a hand on his angel –
- Finally getting a hand on Castiel’s wings, what he’d wanted for so long, years –
[Cas breathed Enochian in a steady stream of endearments as they both collapsed, shuddering, into a sweaty mess of blankets and feathers.]
Their minds disentangled with palapable reluctance, and Dean could feel the weight of Cas, half on top of him, the hum of his mind close but not as intimate as before. His body ached pleasantly and in different ways than he was used to, but Cas must have used his mojo on the mess, because there wasn’t one.
And there was something different. Dean slowly became aware of a new level of knowing. He could, vaguely, sense Castiel himself. Not the human vessel, but the huge, coruscating pulse of celestial intent that was Castiel. The wings that moved in several extra dimensions, eyes that could see time, and also several colors Dean didn’t have a name for. It was dizzying. It was amazing.
“Well shit,” he said, trying out his voice, “That was awesome.”
A sense of great contentment laced through with smug satisfaction came to Dean, and Cas draped a wing over them. Dean sent back amusement and love, and licked one gleaming feather. Then –
“Oh balls,” he growled, “Sam is going to make fun of me forever.”