Chapter Text
He's made some big mistakes in his life and he's messed up a few things. These included consorting with demons, getting addicted to demon blood, lying to Dean, and last but not least, of course, letting Lucifer out of his cage. Still, he didn't think he deserved such a huge punishment for all that. Really, it was the injustice of the universe that he was stuck in the suddenly tiny Bunker, a six and a half foot tall lightning rod placed exactly between an angry Dean and an equally angry Castiel.
Whatever was between them, it was almost as bad as Castiel betraying them. Cheap whiskey bottles were piled in a dark corner behind a trash can, covered by a garbage bag. And Castiel had taken the plasma from the living room to his room so he wouldn't have to leave it too often. Plain and simple, he walked past Sam one morning with the foot-long TV under one arm and the wires in the other, said hello, and then ducked into his room, and since it was six in the morning and he was just heading to the bathroom, he could barely see the road, he couldn't even muster a protest. He actually didn't quite care that he was going to lose the TV, he'd put what he wanted on the computer, but then Dean sniffled softly. Which added another little unspoken quarrel to their very quiet household.
The case was therefore an absolute necessity, without which they would have gone mad. And he wasn't going to argue about accepting it. He simply tossed one file on the table in front of Dean, who was sitting in the kitchen to the sound of his favorite rock songs, and the other he tossed from the doorway of Castiel's room right into the angel's lap. All this without a word of explanation, just stating that they were leaving in an hour.
And they were.
°°0°°
A large sign above the town's name proclaimed 'Welcome to the Garden of Eden full of roses!' and below it in smaller letters 'The most romantic town in the States'.
He smiled wryly inwardly.
He couldn't even count the number of times he had read somewhere that this one city in particular was the most romantic city in the world, and downright a mecca for all lovers. Only to have it usually turn out to be haunted by a vengeful ghost, a feral werewolf, a pack of vampires, a witch who enjoyed carving out the hearts of teenagers, and countless other monsters of all kinds. If he were to compile a blog guide to the scariest places in the states, all those love towns would be at the top of the list.
"Something's not right in this town," Castiel broke the silence that had lasted several hours.
Dean jerked in surprise, and Sam dropped his cell phone in his lap, wondering where he was trying to find any available places in the local motels. As usual, they were out of luck and some sort of festival was going on. Oh no...! A pie festival. He already knew there was no way his brother, no matter what mood he was in, was going to miss attending a pie festival.
"They already do in the towns we go to for work, Cas," Dean told him sourly, taking the next turn so sharply it sent Sam flying against the Impala's door, "So where to?"
He shot his brother a brief, disapproving look. As if it wasn't bad enough that their car had no airbags at all, Den had to cut corners with it like a madman.
"You should see the turn into the parking lot in a minute. The Field Rose Motel... what in the world is that name?" He didn't dare insert a comment and shake his head, "I don't know how many or what kind of rooms they have there. Their website was made by a dilettante to say the least."
"Okay," Dean rumbled neutrally, and this time in an orderly fashion, he slowly turned around a huge rose bush with the motel's name sign still in front of it.
The parking lot was small and full. This time Dean's driving skills were working, even if they were sometimes unnecessarily violent. There was no way Sam would have been able to drive into the spot where he'd slid the Impala in without scuffing the paint. The only question was how he'd drive it tomorrow, if he was the one who got the lot. Even worse, how Castiel would drive it, because he was capable of not only scraping the paint, but also smashing the bumpers and crushing the doors. If Dean doesn't want to get up, he'll have to volunteer, loudly and without giving anyone a chance to protest, to go get the food. He'd rather be the one to destroy the car than Castiel. Dean didn't need another reason to be mad at him,and what's more, Sam himself didn't need Dean to be even more pissed off.
"Hopefully they'll have hot water running here," Dean commented before opening the door and climbing out into the parking lot.
Castiel immediately followed suit from the back seat as he... opened the door straight into a huge rose bush.
There was no way he could squeeze through there without tearing his flannel on the huge thorns sticking up almost dangerously from the cumin of the bush, as well as from its branches even around the huge, pink flowers themselves.
He frowned a little and looked closer.
He dared to say that he had a fairly extensive knowledge of plants, especially those that were poisonous to either humans or monsters, plants used in magic, and medicinal plants - usually each belonging to at least two of the above groups - but he also knew a little about garden and ornamental plants. And he'd never seen this kind of shrub rose before, not even in a book. Large, ornamental flowers mostly meant small and sparse thorns too, because the essence of rose breeding was to achieve the largest, most colourful flowers, a pleasing fragrance and to reduce the number of thorns to a minimum. All of these ideally together.
He ran his fingers over the petals of the nearest flower.
"Are you coming or do you still want to pick a seedling, Samantha?" bellowed Dean at him.
He gave him a sour look.
"I'm coming."
He shuffled across the driver's seat to the open door, successfully slamming his knee on the steering wheel, of course, or the reason he hated sitting in the back seat so much. Except, of course, for the fact that his feet never fit in it. And slipped out into the car park.
Dean had managed to pull their luggage out while he was investigating the bush, so he shoved his in his hand, and Castiel managed to move a little to the side and start exploring the grey evening sky as if there was nothing more interesting in the area. He did this often, almost every time he got out of the bunker and had a chance to stop and look up for a moment. He suspected that Angel was doing it in an attempt to keep an eye on Heaven, though it probably wasn't even possible for him. If Heaven was up there somewhere, then it was either very far from Earth, in a parallel universe, or at a frequency that humans were unable to pick up in any way. It would be interesting to ask Castiel about this when the opportunity arose.
Leaving the consideration of the sky aside, he slung his bag over his shoulder and strode with Dean to the reception desk.
The other two rose bushes just inside the entrance were hard to miss, given that their branches were encroaching on the door and threatening again. He frowned at them. It was nice to decorate a motel by its name, a sombrero like that on the walls or old shotgun shells were fine, but nothing was to be overdone.
"Good one. Do you have any more rooms?" Dean asked, leaning against the front desk.
The older woman on the other side leaned over to the computer and at a rate of one finger a minute, the "I'll vomit if I find it" method, began tapping away at the keyboard. Suddenly he had a pretty good idea who did the website for the hotel and a compulsive need to ask if he could redesign it for them. A few extra bucks would be handy. And if they had to be on stakeout on this case, or investigate for two hours tops, he might even have time for that.
"We've got one triple room and two doubles," she finally gave them the very comforting news.
"He'll take the triple," he said before Dean did.
"I'd rather have two doubles," Castiel corrected him, much to his surprise, which he expressed with a look, "I'll pay for it," he added towards them, pulling a crumpled wad of bills out of his pocket, just about enough to cover the two nights he usually ordered in motels, and placing them on the table.
The receptionist looked at Castiel, then at the bills, then at him and Dean. He took a breath to talk the angel out of it. It was pointless for him to spend money that, besides, he wasn't even sure where Castiel had gotten it, and that was why it could be dangerous. But Dean had beaten him to it.
"Two doubles," he said coolly, but the way he clutched the keys to the Impala made it clear that he was definitely not as calm as he looked.
The woman just shrugged, tossing the two room keys on the counter and grabbing all of Castiel's bills off the counter, only to return a few pennies. Possibly a little less than she had, but he didn't say anything in response. The golden rule was that if you didn't know where your money came from, you'd better never defend yourself against its theft.
So after the receptionist had stolen her fair share, she gave them a few basic documents to sign, not even a driver's license or other form of ID. He quickly sketched his name, as did Dean, then checked with a glance to make sure Castiel hadn't gotten his wrong this time. Surprisingly, no, he was getting better at the little things.
Since Angel still had a pen in his hand, and Dean wasn't having any of it, he grabbed both keys off the counter and very happily stepped outside into the cool air. Yes, even inside the front desk they had an overabundance of roses and rose patterned things. He fervently hoped they wouldn't also have rose-patterned linens and a flower-shaped soap dish in the bathroom. That wouldn't get Dean out of there by a pair of oxen. Sometimes it was really hard to believe how his thirty-year-old brother could get away with running soapy boats down a swollen sink.
Though probably not today, as he judged when he saw him walk out the reception door. He was as taut as a crossbow string.
He was quite glad he'd taken the keys himself, because he couldn't imagine what Dean would have done or said if Cas had stood in front of him, as he had in front of Sam, and held up his hand in mute request for his key.
"Here," he dropped it into his palm and smiled, "but you could have slept with us. It would have been more comfortable and cheaper."
"Yes, I could have, but why?" asked Castiel in a stiff voice, with a very clear sense of angelic condescension in the background, "Because I'm the angel who doesn't need to sleep so he can spend the whole night standing in the corner?" He leaned closer and, though it seemed impossible given his height, gave Sam the impression that he was suddenly somewhere above him, leaning down from a great height, "Did it occur to you that I want my own room so I can have my own privacy? That I want my own bed, my own bathroom, and maybe even my own television? Or that my entire existence so far, longer than your human brain can even process, doesn't culminate in this moment, standing here with you two in a spitty parking lot outside a cheap motel?"
He shuddered. A sudden blast of cold enveloped him as if a fierce but nonexistent wind had risen, bringing with it a whole snowdrift.... the middle of spring... in Iva. There could be no doubt that the weather was unlikely to be the cause of the unpleasant frost. In defense, but also in an attempt to calm Castiel's anger, he held both hands up and tried to smile more. It wasn't easy with the suddenly stiff muscles in his face.
"Okay, all right, Cas. You want your own room, you have your own room, and you'll have it whenever you ask for it. No problem, man, okay?"
Castiel didn't answer, not that he was expecting an answer at all, shooting one glance at a scowling Dean, turning on his heel and striding briskly toward his door. He frowned behind his retreating back.
This was going beyond all bounds. Castiel was one of the most patient people, and indeed angels, he'd ever known. He couldn't count the number of times Dean had reprimanded him in his role as big brother and the angel had taken it literally without blinking, then apologized with genuine contrition and asked what he could do to atone for his transgression. And in doing so... well, in doing so, he could have sent Dean to his proper limits with a word and then just disappeared. Best case scenario. Worse case? They were still only human, and Sam was well aware that holy oil or not, getting an angel to do something he didn't want to do was nearly impossible. Because in the end, there was always the worst case scenario of him just leaving his vessel and materializing in his true form on this plane of existence. Then they, plus a few hundred people in the immediate area, could only wait about three seconds before their bodies evaporated in a flood of light.
So if Castiel raised his voice in threat, it was serious. Probably more serious than he'd originally thought, meaning no trivial argument between him and Dean, but something really serious.
"What's wrong with him?" he asked, turning to, what else but his brother.
"How the hell should I know!" Dean snapped at him snarling, as irritated as Castiel was, and snatched the room keys from his hand.
Just as he had sent Castiel off with a look earlier, he did the same with Dean, who took a step in the exact opposite direction. There was no doubt that this was serious and that something had happened between Dean and Castiel. Not a stupid argument. Something far more.
He inhaled through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth to regain his lost composure, mentally preparing himself for a battle with Dean over his secret that he simply couldn't win, and caught up to his brother.
"Because it's you."
The lock on the door clicked, and Dean opened it sharply wide before turning to him, frowning.
"I just don't know anything," he snapped a second time, storming angrily into the darkened room, smelling as usual of cheap cleaning products and even cheaper air freshener probably crammed into the air conditioner.
He walked in behind him and closed the door behind them so they would have privacy and their eventual argument wouldn't be heard until they reached the reception desk.
"If you confide in anyone, it's always you, even though you're permanently suffering from emotional constipation. And it's pretty clear," he dropped his bag of belongings on the floor and waved a slight hand towards the room Castiel was in, "that he did it too, and for some reason it pissed you off. So just tell me, what is it with you and Castiel?"
"There's nothing between us!" Dean exclaimed with unusual defensiveness, "And I don't know what's eating that angel! It could be anything. A hole in the ozone layer, a stray puppy he heard about on the news... He slept badly! His feathers are ruffling or he's got angel shit! I don't know! I'm not his wife to know everything about him!"
Even though Dean was talking angrily, still none of what he was saying was the worst thing he'd heard from him, and most importantly, it wasn't directed in his direction at all. No, it was self-accusing anger. Anger at his own actions, which he either considered wrong or cowardly or just too desperate to fit his idea of a real man who couldn't be brought down or even touched by anything. There was nothing he could do about Dean's anger like that. There was only one option, to wait for him to burn out and, which he wasn't happy about, for his brother to fold and reveal what was on his mind himself.
So he kept his calm and his distance, and promised himself that he would do so in the future. And probably from Castiel, too. At least until he solves the case.
"Noted," he relented for the second time in barely ten minutes, but at least this time he kept his dignity and didn't, literally, get a cold shower. He simply turned to his bag and bent down to begin removing the computer and their journals from it. He could feel Dean's silent presence very clearly behind his back, but he pretended not to notice it at all. It was as if nothing had happened, no one had raised their voice, and a few rooms away, there was no angry angel. He knew with certainty that it would work, and it did.
Dean let out a deep breath, his sudden relaxation was downright palpable, then mumbled something about going to the bathroom and the next thing he knew the door was slamming behind him as well. He glanced over his shoulder at the incriminating floral papered door and sighed.
His hand wandered into his pants pocket, and he pulled out a rubber band from there, pulling his hair into a ponytail in one practiced motion so it wouldn't get in the way of his computer work. And to be ready for the case meeting, because as he suspected, it was going to be long and fraught with tension.
°°0°°
He turned the cold water tap on all the way and watched the water flow. It hummed uncomfortably loud for his aching head. Damn it! He shouldn't have driven so many hours without rest when he was hungover. Or he should have had a drink to cheer himself up before the trip. Or he should stop drinking so much. Hehe! I don't think that's gonna happen. He amused himself in his mind.
He scooped up a palmful of ice water and dipped his face into it. The cold water stung, especially in his eyes and chapped lips, but it was refreshing. Then, letting the water escape between his palms, he leaned back against the sink and looked in the mirror, looking... well, not exactly good, but usable. He raked through his hair, leaving it damp and brushed up. That would cool his aching head long enough to survive the case chatter and sit through it... next to Case. Maybe without his stomach clenching and twinges of nervousness running through his body. The damn tremor that had him squeezing the steering wheel the whole way here, drumming his fingers against it, gritting his teeth and rubbing his knees together like he was some horny hooker. And he wasn't! He wasn't hard, just because Cas was in the back seat... okay, maybe a little, but that was his anger. All that adrenaline and blood rushing furiously through his body. It just happened all the time.
He turned off the water and wiped his hands on his shirt. He was ready for anything.
He opened the bathroom door and the first thing his eyes fell on was Cas standing next to the table. In his lost trenchcoat, haughtily erect and looking so... so... kissable. Ugh, that was a terrible look. And the horrible, upsetting feeling of knowing she couldn't touch him. Yeah, that was what was really bugging him right now. Not some blackmail, not the way Cas was mad at him, but the need to hold him. He felt so incredibly stupid. When was the last time he'd wanted something as pathetic as a proper, strong hug from someone? He couldn't remember if he ever had. No, hell, he'd never really wanted one, not even with Lissa. He liked those moments in front of the TV when he threw his arm around her shoulders and tolerated it quite calmly if she snuggled up to him after sex or snuggled into his side in bed, but he'd never... no, he'd never wanted it the other way around. That was until Cas.
He wanted to feel warm again.
Oh, shit! He wasn't allowed to think about that. He'd forbidden himself, firmly and emphatically, and the prohibition sounded in his head pretty much like something his dad would say. And it still carried weight. With his voice sounding exactly right in his thoughts, he pulled a chair up to the table and sat down on it. If Angel hadn't done it by now, he was simply out of luck, he would be standing. Or Cas could sit on his lap. God, it would be so great if the angel sat on his lap. He could breathe in that perfectly clean scent of his again... feel his body against his... Damn it. Don't think about it, Dean, don't think about it. You had all this and you lost it through your own cowardice. If you don't have the balls to be yourself in front of your family, you just lose everything. That was a given. If only he'd given Cas another chance...
He went crazy. He could clearly feel the intense stare in his back. He turned slightly over his shoulder and met the bright blue eyes burning a hole from the side of his head.
"Good of you to show up, Dean," Sam said with a slight sneer, as if perhaps he'd spent a month in the bathroom, "Did you read the file I gave you?"
"What file?" He asked with a frown, since he only vaguely remembered Sam tossing something like a folder on the table next to his drink glass before he left. He'd left it lying there without opening it.
"Yes," came a simple, short, quiet voice beside him.
"Okay, I'll repeat that for Dean," Sam said, turning to him a laptop whose screen showed pictures of five people obviously pulled from hospital charts, "There have been five cases of people suddenly losing consciousness here in the city in the last less than two months. They happened in different places and at different times. Some were at home, others at work, one woman had just picked up her son from a midday workout and never left her car. According to medical reports, there are no obvious signs of assault or injury on their bodies..."
"We'll have to check that for ourselves," he growled half to himself.
"Exactly," his brother nodded his head, "The doctors don't know what to look for, we do, but I'd trust them on one thing. Neither of them are unconscious. Technically, they're not conscious, but it's not any kind of classic coma, just in a phase of rem sleep from which they've failed to awaken by any available means."
"Genie?" He suggested. It was the first thing that came to his mind.
"I thought about him, but all the victims made it to the hospital, or at least five of them. How would he feed on them? And why would he have so many of them? He's been feeding on one for weeks, why have five?"
"Unless it's one of the doctors," he put forward a theory that had just popped into his head, "He can disguise himself as one and still have access to tasty morsels."
"I accept that, but why did one of the victims wake up?" Sam questioned, enlarging one of the photographs. It was a man in his mid-forties, with nothing extraordinary about him. He was starting to go a little bald and could lose a few pounds, but otherwise just nothing. Not that it had any bearing on whether a genie or some other monster would want to eat him. He didn't often see that monsters had any particular taste in whether people were small, big, skinny, fat, bald, or hirsute. Rather, they usually cared about the quality of the internal organs. Yeah, yeah, a fat man's heart was just as good as a skinny man's, according to the werewolf. But one thing all the monsters had in common was that they didn't just take a bite out of each other's mouths. They didn't. It took a fucking lot of effort, putting one's own life on the line to take their food, ideally before they had time to die.
"Then it won't be a genie," he reasoned aloud, leaning down to his bag strewn on the ground. He had energy drinks tucked in his pocket. They were horrible shit that tasted like those awful carnival lollipops that you ate once in disgust and washed down with beer, and then felt a second time when they were crushing out of your throat somewhere behind a noisy attraction, but they helped him get over his hangover.
He pulled out a can of the warm drink and opened it.
"If you drink that now, you won't sleep all night," Sam warned him.
"Shut up, you mama hen," he muttered back, taking a deep drink, enduring his brother's disapproving look, "I think I'm going to throw up before... But what about the witch?"
"Witches don't curse randomly, and I haven't found any obvious connection between the victims yet. Most importantly, again, why would she leave Mr. Clint alone?"
"The curse didn't have to be broken by the same witch who cast it," Cas echoed calmly, causing Dean to jerk and stiffen as he tried his best not to turn and look at him.
"You mean his wife?" Sam asked, more of a rhetorical question.
He could feel the angel behind his back nod. Somehow, in some fucking mysterious way, his image literally appeared before his eyes, tilting his head just the slightest bit in a nod and then raising it again, his eyes... those damn bright eyes glittering blue. His breath hitched in his throat, tensing even more than when Cas had spoken and clutched the can.
He heard the unpleasantly loud screech of aluminum, and he forced his grip to loosen. He could squeeze the can just as easily as if it were made of fine paper, and he really didn't care about having its over-sweetened contents all in his lap. All he had were these one pair of comfortable pants that hadn't been washed in two weeks, so they finally stopped smelling like disinfectant and cheap soap. Oh, shit! He was sweating them anyway, because as soon as the grip loosened, his hand started shaking and a few drops of caffeinated sugar water landed on his knee.
Fucking work! He couldn't even shoot with that or....
He jerked sharply as he suddenly felt something warm on his back and the smell of pie entered his nose. He craned his head to the window to see if by any chance it was open and the smell from the nearest diner or stand was wafting through. It wasn't, the smell was just coming from nowhere. Damn it, but still... He'd like a pie. God, a sweet pie, smelling like the ones he remembered from his childhood and... Castiel? Weird, but accurate. Pie on clean grass after a rain. He was probably already hallucinating from mixing booze and that energy shit.
He shook his head and shuffled a little in his chair. The heat didn't subside and actually, without meaning to, caused his stiffness to simply disappear. He sipped his drink and slouched. More relaxed than a moment ago, he even managed to cast a brief glance over at Cas.
"Yes. His wife could be part of the coven here, as could any of the other victims' relatives. Other witches are often tempted to break up other people's covens through relatives of witches they have feuds with," the angel elaborated his agreement.
"Wait, you think there's a whole coven of witches operating here?" He didn't hold back and asked Case directly, which was perhaps the first time he'd actually spoken to him since their discussion in the kitchen. Damn. That was weird, even the way Cas slowly turned his head to him and tilted it to the side.
"I feel like the laws of nature don't work the way they should in this town. The presence of Nemeton or some other place dedicated to witches would clarify my feelings."
"Wow... the filth is probably picking up steam here," he muttered to himself, taking another sip of his anergeta. The sacred places of the witch covens were usually a pile of old and new bones, at best some animals, rotting and dried organs, again at best just animal and all sorts of other disgusting shit and bodily fluids of all kinds. As for Nemeton, some good place in the form of a big tree and a congregation of good druids... Yeah, he thought that was a children's story.
"If that were the case, the composition of the victims would point to a mixed coven. Those are rare," Sam argued.
"In this day and age, they are. They weren't before."
It was hard to object to such a simple statement from Angel.
"I hate to say it, but I take witchcraft as the first working version. All in favor?" He asked, glancing first at Sam and then briefly at Castiel. He got no disapproval from either, so he was going to wrap this up. His head was hurting more than it had a few minutes ago, and the strange smell, coupled with the heat from the broken air conditioning, was starting to put him to sleep even through the empty energy drink can.
"Fine. The Order of the Phoenix meeting is dissolved and I'm going to bed," he concluded quite, short and decisive, and rose from his seat, leaving the two there without turning around. His steps headed straight for the bathroom.
He needed to... He needed a cold shower, to be away from Case and get some sleep. Yeah, that was exactly what he needed if he was going to make this thing work.
He closed the door behind him and... the sudden cold had him completely paralyzed. It was as if he'd fallen out of an imaginary bubble of tropical warmth and straight into the Acretic cold. Damn it! He shivered and pulled his flannel close to his body. Yeah, right, like wrapping himself in a shirt was going to do any good. Don't be such a sissy, Dean, he admonished himself, letting go of the ends of the shirt he was pulling to himself.
Winter was, after all, what he so fervently desired, so he should enjoy it accordingly.
°°0°°
His younger fucking brother, also called Sam by his friends, was absolutely right again. He lay there, listening to him snore, unable to sleep. Insomnia seemed to have become his faithful dog of late. He wasn't even trying to sleep anymore. Only it was damn infuriating.
He quietly got out of bed so as not to wake Sam, grabbed his jacket, and just as quietly slammed the door behind him. The night was warm, he might as well go to the bar and not disturb Sam with his return. Or just buy a carton of beer across the street, squat down against the wall and drink while he watched the cars go by. Yeah, the neon sign shining through the rose bushes proclaiming 'Non-stop convenience store' was like the holy grail. But his attention was immediately drawn to a very different light. Much smaller, but still more appealing. Just a thin strip of light shining through the curtains of Cas' room.
Slowly, he made his way in that direction. He stopped at the window, so that he could see in but not be seen, and peered in.
Cas was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, even including his trench coat, a large can of peanuts in honey laid on his lap, watching a small television hanging in the corner of the room. He looked so damn cool. He just sat there and stared at the TV.
That hurt.
He clenched his hand into a fist and gritted his teeth. For a while there, it had seemed... before they'd gotten here, that he was in as bad a shape as Dean himself, so now he should be suffering from some kind of angelic insomnia instead... What the fuck was he looking at that was so interesting that it even helped him forget? He asked himself, looking out a little more to see the TV that was on... Stupid late night reality show. Who the hell cared to watch sleeping people anyway?! Yeah, Case probably did, he had some special kink for that.
He walked briskly, and angrily, to the door of the room and knocked.
He didn't hear Case come to the door. He'd never heard him until he'd spoken right behind his back, and it didn't matter that he couldn't carry anymore. He probably had special plush covers on his shoes. Or the devil knew how he did it. Still, even though he hadn't expected to hear him, he froze in surprise when Cas's face suddenly appeared in front of him. And he had no bloody idea what he should say.
"Hi," came out hoarsely. Saying hello was basic, wasn't it? He hadn't even counted how many slaps he'd earned from his dad and Booby as a kid just for not saying hello. Even people you're mad at deserve a hello. Hey, hey, hey, hey! Demons too, say hello and goodbye before you slit their throats.
"Dean," Castiel said calmly, neutrally, almost distantly, standing in the doorway to the room.
"Can I come in?" He asked, leaning his hand against the door. He already had some experience in getting where he wanted to go, but trying to half-forcibly open the door to Angel's room was like trying to push away a Chinese wall with his own strength. It was clear to him that if Cas didn't want to let him in, he simply wouldn't be able to get in and he wouldn't be able to... what exactly? Talk, I guess. Hell yeah, he wanted to talk. Who knew Dean would suddenly be so eager to talk about feelings and other shit with an angel who sometimes didn't say more than 'Good morning' and 'Good night' in a day. Sometimes not even that.
"I'm not sure I want to let you in," Cas said after a brief pause to think, but before Dean could say anything or react, he actually stepped back from the door and opened it enough to let them into the room.
The door knocked behind him and Castiel stepped around it, putting at least three steps of distance between them. Damn him! He, who couldn't understand that standing in the bathroom doorway and staring at someone while brushing his teeth was not only rude, but more importantly, creepy?
"Why are you here, Dean?" He asked, repeating his name for the second time in a short time. I'm sure he was doing it on purpose. He had to know that every time he did, a shiver ran nicely over Dean's body from his toes to his nose.
"I just want to know how long you're going to be mad at me?" He asked... well, something he didn't really want to ask, to be honest. He just couldn't help it. Not when he saw how damn condescending Cas was looking. Yeah, okay, fine, he was right to want him to tell Sam about their relationship. He deserved better than to be some dirty late night secret. Damn it, it was Cas! It was just the way he forced it... like a spoiled hysteric.
"As an angel, I can stay angry for hundreds of years."
He chuckled. Amazingly funny, he did. He was in the mood for a joke at the moment.
"Well, that's not going to pay off, honey, because I'm not going to live that long," he snapped, more vehemently than he actually wanted to, but also with satisfaction, because it must have taken the wind out of his sails.
"It doesn't matter. Your soul is as eternal as mine," he said simply, which in turn took away any strength Dean had to defend himself, at least until Cas continued, "And I'm not... angry. I don't want to be angry," he clarified, emphasizing the last word as something very important, "but I'm not sure how to... stop being angry."
"Cas..."
He didn't get to speak as the angel took a step forward, closing the distance that separated them. Finally.
"I miss being able to talk to you, to touch you, to be with you. I think I miss your very presence. But I also feel... wronged and offended that you're ashamed of me, even though I understand that some of my past actions deserve to make a man like you ashamed of me."
He blinked. What the fuck...? The very last thing he would ever do in his life was actually be ashamed of Castiel. He was an angel, for God's sake! Okay, okay, most angels were nice sons of bitches he wouldn't lean his bike against, but not Cas. Sure, he was a bit of a weirdo and a dork, but it didn't matter. Not to him. He looked like a shallow jerk at times, chasing after every pretty skirt that had pretty legs peeking out of it, or staring at cleavage like a twelve-year-old, and he knew he looked like one, but he wasn't. Like Lisa. He was in love with her, in a way, different from Cas, but he wasn't with her because she was beautiful - though beautiful she really was - but because she was just her. That was what mattered.
"I'm not ashamed of you," he denied, emphatically, as he'd hoped. Although, who knew... maybe there was real shame in his voice, only it wasn't the shame associated with Cas. Gods, it never was. He was ashamed of himself, of his cowardice and inability to be himself. Whatever that meant. Whatever it meant he was as gay as the noonday sun.
Castiel tilted his head slightly to the side, looking at him with his bright blue eyes, which yes, were definitely peering into his mind, searching for a lie. He didn't move his gaze. He didn't like it, in fact he hated it when Angel could see through his lies, because he didn't want Cas to know when he was saying he was fine even when he wasn't, but this time he made an exception. He let him. Without speaking, returning his gaze without blinking, hands clenched tightly into fists.
"Then; is it because of my vessel?" Cas asked the next question, briefly glancing down at his body, "That's male and you've never lusted after another man. Would you rather I had a female body? Would it be easier for you to tell Sam about us then?"
The first answer he had on his tongue was that it would be a hell of a lot easier if Cas was a woman. He wouldn't be mired in shit like contemplating his own sexuality instead of enjoying sex. But at the same time, no, definitely not...
"You can't just change your body," he argued. Not because he didn't know he could change a body, so much as because he didn't like the idea of changing Castiel's vessel at all.
Of course Cas didn't get it. How could he either.
"Actually, I can, Dean. There's nothing real keeping me in this vessel, except... nostalgia," he added with a strange tone in his voice that, yeah, definitely sounded nostalgic, "I could find a female vessel, but I wouldn't like to do it. This body belongs to me and me alone. I don't have to share it with anyone else and that's not something an angel is lucky enough to have. But I'm..." He shook his head slightly, his eyes flicking away briefly, just as he did when he was trying to express something he was having trouble saying, "willing to consider getting a female vessel if that's what you want."
"I don't want you to have another body, Cas, I..." He fell silent. He simply couldn't, and in fact didn't want to, express out loud what was really making him dread the moment Sam found out about them. It was something he was embarrassed about. Damn! He was embarrassed to say that he was afraid he'd be a weak faggot if anyone found out he was sleeping with a man, because he could see quite clearly... it was completely in front of his eyes... the way the angel would tilt his head to one side and then, in his deep voice, full of conviction so strong it was impossible to argue with him, say something like 'homosexuality is not a sin' or 'God surely has more important things to worry about than who people have sex with' or some other similarly important bullshit. He's heard it from him before. Exactly that. Exactly those two things, even if it was just a comment on a discussion between politicians at the time.
Then he'd add something about Sam being understanding and not having any objections and hell, he'd be right. Sammy was so understanding sometimes it was scary. A paragon of all socially accepted virtues with a well hidden dark side. Yeah, that was his little brother, the one he shouldn't have kept anything from, the one he shouldn't have been ashamed of, but he was. He didn't want to drop in value in his eyes, but he didn't want to lose Case either. What more they had between them than friendship.
"I'll tell him," came out of his mouth to his own surprise, "Before we finish this case, I'll tell Sam about you and me."
Cas tilted his head to the side, and two wrinkles formed between his eyebrows... pretty cute wrinkles.
"You give me your word?" He asked very seriously, ridiculously serious considering they were in a musty smelling motel room, it was one in the morning, and a super censored sex under the covers was currently playing on the TV above them. It was a curious situation, but he found himself nodding.
"Yeah, you got it." If that was what he wanted, then she'd give it to him.
There was a moment's hesitation, another flash of blue eyes, before Castiel smiled widely and unadulterated. Literally, he beamed, only the silhouette of wings and the hideously burning eyes on his side, missing. No, okay, he wasn't glowing that much, but Dean was sure he could sense his joy and contentment. And the warmth spreading throughout his body, along with the smell of pie that must have seeped through the air conditioning to them. He really needed to know where they baked them. Right now was the perfect time for a slice.
"I believe you, Dean," he repeated his name, this time as a caress that made him smile stupidly.
His smile lasted for a moment and then it was suddenly awkward. They were still in the motel room. Still on the screen above Cas ran the night camera shot showing a moving ass looming under the thin blanket. And yeah, they still had half the night ahead of them and empty hands. Just embarrassing. Enough that even Cas's glow faded and Angel shifted indecisively from foot to foot.
"So does this mean we're... a couple again?", Cas broke the oppressive silence with a question that added to the awkwardness of the whole situation.
He blinked. Ha! More like he should have asked if they ever started being a couple. Officially. They probably had, sometime while groping each other on the couch back at the bunker and smoking at the workbench. That's when they started being a couple. Or maybe it was the first time they had a fight. They were a couple, I'm sure they were.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"In that case, I'd like to try what people call make-up sex," Castiel said again, as seriously as if he were planning a strategy to fight the hellish hordes swarming over them during some future apocalypse.
He heard the telltale thud, that was when two huge rocks he hadn't even known were there fell out of his stomach and out of his heart, and then he suddenly felt free. He laughed. Make-up sex! Hell yeah, he'd definitely want that one.
"I was beginning to worry that neither of us was going to suggest it," he said, relieved, taking two steps and pulling Case into a kiss by the lapels of his suit coat.