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Castiel traced the outline of Dean’s face, fingers inches above the young man’s sleep-relaxed face. There was a-a tearing of his heart, it hurt. He believed this was what humans would call a breaking heart. He had never-he’d never thought it possible, this thing called a breaking heart. Well-categorically, it happened. Humans did it all the time. Angels had been known to Fall for a human. Castiel, though, he’d always regarded these as oddities, as events not related to him. He had not thought it possible that he had a heart to break. He was a soldier of God, an Angel of the Lord. He did his Father’s bidding and no else.
Until Dean Winchester came along. With his challenges to his way of thinking. Castiel had learned far more about the race his Father had created to… replace him and his brothers from Dean Winchester than he had ever learned in the millenia spent watching over them, guarding them from a distance. The bond had always been there. Everyone acknowledged that. But when Sam Winchester had told him, point blank while Dean was out picking up dinner, that Castiel needed to either make a move or leave, that this, as Sam put it, stalemate wasn’t doing any good for anyone, Castiel had realized that perhaps his bond with Dean Winchester was unique. One that could not be replicated with another human, another being.
He was in a state of flux. He could see that it was causing Sam Winchester great tension. The boy seemed to believe his brother would waste away from pining. Or that Castiel would and it was just a question of when. Perhaps this was true, perhaps it was not. But to cement this unique bond, to be wholly Dean’s and Dean’s his, Castiel had decided to follow the younger Winchester’s advice, to leave for a while and let Dean realize what he no longer had. Perhaps he ought to go occupy the entirety of the Chrysler building, after all, it was just his size. He needed to observe more relationships between humans, he wanted to learn what it was to a human to have such a bond. Sam and Dean had certainly not set good examples so far and if his bond with Dean were to be successful, well, he ought to be able to have a basis for how to interact in such a pairing first.
It was with some level of regret that the Angel drew his hand away from the elder Winchester’s sleeping face and disappeared silently into the night.