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Everyone always comes back a little wrong. It’s the price of coming back at all. You have to lose part of what makes you you. You have to leave it behind, there.
So the point is, they shouldn’t have been surprised at what happens when Cas comes back. He bursts into the middle of the motel room, yelling and covered in blood. His coat is shredded, he’s got cuts on his arms and chest, and Dean’s so busy trying to work out where the bleeding is and calm him down and take in the fact that Cas is back, he’s back, he’s back, that at first he doesn’t notice anything’s different.
Cas smells like a hunt, his hand is slick in Dean’s, and he stares into Dean’s eyes without blinking, his blue eyes electric with pain and confusion. He’s not used to being hurt, he says to Dean. He doesn’t like it. His fingers tighten in Dean’s. Is it bad? he asks. Dean, is it bad?
“No, dude, you’re an angel,” says Dean, staring right back at him. While Cas was gone he started worrying that he was gonna forget what Cas looked like. His face started to blur in Dean’s mind, just a little. So now he doesn’t want to look away, just in case. “You’re gonna be fine, you big baby.” He can hear his voice is husky. He’s scared. Cas can tell when he’s lying, is the problem, and he doesn’t know for sure that it is gonna be fine. Plus, he can feel Sam next to him, trying to get his attention.
Dean finally turns to look at Sam — and his stomach drops. Sam’s eyes are wide and he’s mouthing something.
“What?” he hisses, and Sam says, loudly and tactlessly, “There’s something wrong.”
Dean squeezes Cas’s hand so hard that Cas complains about it. “Sorry,” says Dean. “Sammy, don’t say that. It’s gonna be fine. There’s nothing wrong with him. Right?”
Cas agrees. He actually feels remarkably normal, considering what happened, he says to Sam.
“See?” says Dean. “And he’s an angel, and he should know. He’s got, like, powers and shit.”
“Uh, Dean,” says Sam. “You know he’s not speaking English, right?”
It’s such a fucking weird thing to say that Dean almost laughs. “First of all, yeah he is,” he says. “And second, how is this what you’re worried about right now?”
Cas says something, and Dean turns his head back towards him, because there is something weird going on. Cas’s forehead is wrinkled up and he’s frowning a little and he says - he says —
“Yeah, that’s Aramaic,” says Sam, nodding. “And that’s Enochian. Cas, can you speak in English?”
Cas snaps something that is definitely not English, and Dean — Dean’s never felt more betrayed in his life.
*
It turns out that the blood on Cas was mostly someone else’s. He’s fine, mainly. The cuts on his chest heal pink and raised, kinda pretty. Dean wants to run his fingers across them, but doesn’t.
He clearly wants to talk to them. He’s annoyed, in the most Cas-ish way, by his inability to communicate. He grabs a pad of paper and writes long messages that mean absolutely nothing to either of them. He wakes Dean up at 3am leaning over him and talking intensely in words that sound like poems to Dean, like scripture, like spells. He holds Dean’s wrist and shakes it and leans right into Dean’s space, forehead almost touching Dean’s. Dean really wants to reach out and try a Vulcan mind-meld, but he’s worried about being misunderstood. So he doesn’t.
He sees Cas’s scars when he has to force Cas to take a shower on the second day after he comes back, when he’s really started to smell and he’s still not saying anything that sounds remotely like hey, how are you guys, let me tell you what happened to me.
When Dean finally corrals Cas into the bathroom on that second day and points out the shower and the shampoo and the soap (whatever happened to him, he’s not back to his usual angelic self-cleaning yet), Cas lasts five minutes before he’s bursting out of the room, water still running and towel dangling from one hand, yelling and waving his arms.
“CAS!” yells Dean, trying not to look. “Come on!”
Cas stops his shouting and turns to stare at Dean. “Dean,” he says. Then he grabs Dean by the hand and drags him back into the bathroom. He points at the crappy little motel mirror, steamed up and scribbled over with finger marks. “Dean,” he says again, hopefully.
Dean can’t read it. It doesn’t even look like letters. “I don’t understand, man,” he says, feeling like a fucking failure. “I’m sorry.”
“Dean,” says Cas sadly.
“I guess he knows one word of English,” says Sam, standing in the doorway. Dean glares at him, and Sam stares back innocently. Dean never knows how much Sam knows, and how much is just his shithead little brother radar going off, but he gets this look in his eyes, when he sees Dean and Cas together. It says, I know something important is going on and I am going to fuck with you about it. Dean doesn’t need to be some kind of genius to work that out.
*
Dean keeps thinking about those first seconds after Cas came back. He was sure — shit, he must have imagined it. He used to think he understood Wiley E. Coyote, after all, and then he said so to Dad one day and Dad said that he was being stupid, the coyote didn’t talk. And Dean watched the cartoon again and Dad was right. Dean imagines a lot of stuff that isn’t true.
And anyway, Sam’s on it. He’s grabbed all the scribbles Cas has been making and he’s starting to cross-reference them against stuff in his books. “I think this word’s Coptic,” Dean hears him mutter. “Ecclesiastical Latin, maybe? Oh, hey, what if this is Irish?”
“It’s all Greek to me,” says Dean, trying to find the joke in all of this. Sam rolls his eyes.
“What?”
“C’mon, Dean. This is serious.”
“So? Anyway, how do you know any of this stuff? Coptic? Irish?”
“We both know it,” says Sam. “Or we should. What do you think we’re saying when we do those binding spells?”
“I dunno!” says Dean, feeling stupid and lost. “I just learn them! How’m I supposed to know what they mean?”
“Yeah, sure, Dean. Don’t worry about it, I got this,” says Sam, bending his head back down to the book he’s looking at. Dean slinks away, scowling.
He knows the truth. Sam’s the brain box, and Dean’s the dope who didn’t even finish school. He tried, he really tried, but his head was always somewhere else. He’d sit down and try to focus but then the words would fly right off the page and get mixed up with the plot of She-Ra and the lyrics of the song he heard on the radio once and the way Joe MacReady looked that one time and the best way to get salt into bullet casings and the exact shape of Minnesota and then it’d be an hour later and he still hadn’t learned a single thing.
So Sam’ll work it out. And Dean might as well sit back and relax until he does. After he’s fixed Baby and sewed up the hole in his jeans and polished his guns and stocked up on hunt supplies and gone to the hardware store and bought groceries. Maybe Dean’s not the best at sitting back and relaxing. But who is?
Except there’s Cas, sitting on the crappy motel couch watching something on TV. Whatever it is has got his head slightly tilted to the side, that look on his face Dean knows means that he thinks the humans are being stupid again.
“Whatcha watching?” he asks, mostly to fill up the air. It’s awkward, not being able to say anything to Cas, knowing the jokes won’t land. Sure, talking to Cas has always been a little like talking to a heavenly brick wall, but — no, that isn’t right. It should have been like that, but it never was. It never used to matter, what he actually said to Cas. Cas always just got what he meant. That’s what he’s missing now.
Cas looks up and says something brief. Probably the Ancient Sumerian for a telenovela. Or maybe porn. Dean looks over his shoulder, and — “Hey! You’re a Doctor Sexy fan!”
Cas says that he hasn’t seen enough of this show to call himself a fan.
No he doesn’t, obviously, because Dean can’t understand him. But that’s what he would say. That’s what the Cas in Dean’s head says.
“Aw man, this is one of the best episodes,” Dean says out loud, throwing himself down next to Cas. Their feet almost touch, so Dean crosses his ankles, then uncrosses them in case that looks weird, then turns to kick his legs up over the side of the couch, then realises he’s leaning his back against Cas’s shoulder, then wiggles to the side and ends up kind of hunched over staring at the wall.
Cas tells him to sit still.
“I’m just getting comfortable,” says Dean.
You look very uncomfortable, says Cas.
“Yeah, well, fuck you, man,” says Dean. Then he turns to look at Cas. Somehow - crap! - their faces have ended up close together again. Cas’s lips are a little bit parted, and he’s staring at Dean with one eyebrow raised. “Did you just speak to me?”
Cas’s eyes glow, and he starts babbling. Words pour out of his mouth like light and Dean can’t understand a single word. He wants to put his hand up to Cas’s cheek to stop him, because it’s hopeless. But he doesn’t.
“I think I’m going crazy,” he says. “Sorry. Hey, look, I told you this was one of the best episodes! Doctor Sexy’s operating on a patient and he doesn’t know she’s his mom.”
Cas sighs, and turns to look at the TV screen. He thinks that this is a ridiculous premise for a show. Dean looks at his profile, lit up by the screen, and carefully doesn’t let himself think anything. He looks at Doctor Sexy in his red cowboy boots, crying over his mom who he thinks is going to die (she doesn’t). And then he looks back at Cas, and catches Cas looking at him. Cas blinks, and Dean jumps, and they both look back at the TV. Cas leans forward, elbows on his knees so he can concentrate better, and Dean leans forward too. Their knees touch. Neither of them says anything about it. They watch four episodes in a row - it’s a marathon - and then Dean leans back into the couch because he’s feeling kind of sleepy and wakes up three hours later with his head against Cas’s shoulder.
Go back to sleep, Dean, says Cas, his voice rumbling through Dean’s chest, and Dean does.
*
When Dean wakes up the next morning, he’s face down on the rough fabric of the couch, in the hollow where Cas’s ass used to be, and he can hear Sam and Cas talking somewhere behind him.
“Just talk normally,” says Sam. “Tell me what happened, and I’ll record it. I’m gonna send the audio to a guy I know. He’s a linguistics expert at the University of South Dakota.”
I don’t see why this is necessary, says Cas. I’m certain Dean can understand me.
Dean sits up. Cas and Sam are sitting at the table, leaning over Sam’s laptop.
“What’re you doing?” asks Dean blurrily. He drooled a little in his sleep. He reaches up to swipe it off his cheek and sees a damp patch on the breast of Cas’s coat.
Sam purses his lips.
Good morning, Dean, says Cas.
“You sure he’s not speaking English?” asks Dean. Something’s really gotta be wrong with his head, because he could have sworn —
“He’s saying Dean, so yeah, I guess he can speak some English,” says Sam. “And half an hour ago he said stat, I think.”
“We watched Doctor Sexy last night,” says Dean.
“Uh huh,” says Sam. “Sure.”
Dean has to bite his tongue, because the joke’s right there, and if Sam was less of a little bitch he’d say it. But also Dean doesn’t want him to say it, because that would mean someone admitting that watching Doctor Sexy could be a metaphor for something else. And that Dean’s thought about it. Not, like, a lot. But thought about it.
“I’m sick of sitting around,” he says, to give his mouth something to do. “If you’re gonna play PhD Barbies all morning I’m gonna go find a case. Saw something in the paper yesterday - that accident, with the girl, and the house? Could be something.”
“Sure, Dean,” says Sam. “That’s fine. We’ll be OK.”
And maybe Dean knows that he can’t be useful, not when it’s something like this, but it hurts a little, to have Sam keep on confirming it.
“I read,” he says, defensively, to no one.
“No one said you didn’t,” says Sam.
You said I didn’t, Dean thinks. He still remembers that.
“But you don’t read Old Church Slavonic,” Sam goes on.
“Yeah, well, neither do you,” snaps Dean, and he heads off to load up the car.
*
He’s turning onto the highway, about to bite into a breakfast muffin, when Cas clicks into being in the passenger seat.
Dean screams, and egg spatters across Baby’s steering wheel.
“WHAT THE FUCK, CAS?” yelps Dean.
Sam isn’t listening to me, says Cas. And anyway, I prefer being with you. You are my favorite.
“You can’t just say — you know people don’t say shit like that?” asks Dean.
Oh, so you do understand me, says Cas. I thought so. Hello, Dean.
He grins at Dean, and despite himself Dean grins back.
“Fuck you,” he says, automatically.
Cas wrinkles up his forehead, like he’s thinking. Where are we going? he asks. Do you know you have food on your face?
“Out to the house I was talking about. I called the woman there and she said — Cas, come on, personal space!”
Cas has reached forward and is very gently wiping a smear of sauce off the corner of Dean’s mouth. His thumb is warm, and it brushes against Dean’s lip just as Dean sticks out his tongue to lick it off. The car swerves, and Dean almost side-swipes a blue convertible.
You should pay attention to the road, says Cas. Dean, sweating from all his pores, grunts and grabs hold of the steering wheel with both hands. He doesn’t trust himself to speak.
*
They stand on the porch together and Dean rings the doorbell of the old house. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, a white clapboard three-storey rotting quietly away. It gives Dean the creeps, which is usually the kind of bad sign that means they’re about to have a good hunt.
Dean’s given Cas one of his fake IDs - Agent Jepsen - and told him to just shut up and nod when Dean gives him a look. Yes, Dean, says Cas obediently, and Dean can’t pretend he doesn’t get a kick out of that.
An older woman comes to the door. Her eyes are red and she’s blowing her nose on a handkerchief.
“Agent Perry?” she asks, and Dean nods. Cas nods too, way too enthusiastically. Dean flicks his wrist to stop him, and Cas closes his palm around Dean’s knuckles.
“Uh —” says Dean, stepping forward too fast and almost overbalancing. “We — uh — we called you. About. The. The accident.”
We are sorry your niece is dead, says Cas.
“He’s Swedish,” says Dean. The woman’s staring at them both like they’ve got two heads. “Can we — can we see where it happened?”
The woman leads them into a tall white-painted room at the back of the house that takes up its whole height. Bookshelves line the walls and knick-knacks are piled up on tables and in corners and strewn across sideboards, flowers and coins and tiny animal bones. There’s a balcony high up above them and a big stained-glass window stretches across one wall that covers them all with color. Dean’s hands are striped blue and pink and purple. Cas stands staring up at the balcony, his face and hair haloed gold. Dean glances at him, looks away.
“This is it,” says the woman, pointing at the balcony. She’s still wiping her face. She’s short, good looking in a MILFy kind of way, wearing a baggy dress with bulging pockets. Maybe they’re all full of handkerchiefs, Dean thinks. Though who the hell has handkerchiefs these days? “She jumped from up there. She - hung herself. And then - that’s where Frank saw her. My nephew. He told me he saw her, but I didn’t believe him - and now Frank’s dead too!”
She sobs, dramatically.
“Anything else, ma’am?” asks Dean. “The Bureau needs all the details.” Something’s weirding him out about this. He flips on the EMF reader in his pocket. Nothing.
“Since when does the FBI investigate hauntings?” asks the woman. She suddenly sounds suspicious. She’s got her hands in her pockets.
“Since never,” says Dean. “Ghosts aren’t real. But we’ve gotta check out unexplained deaths, and —”
“Dean,” says Cas, clear and insistent as a trumpet note, and he reaches out and grasps hold of Dean’s shoulder just as the woman brings her hands out of her pockets, a curse bag in each one. She flings them at Dean, and he can tell that if they’d hit him they’d have done a lot of damage — but they don’t, because by the time they start flying through the air he and Cas are already somewhere else.
Cas does that thing, the angel thing, where he picks up Dean and shakes every molecule of him out and rolls him forward into a different part of the universe. Like always, it makes Dean feel upended, peeled clean, like he’s had a revelation. And, like always when Cas pulls a trick like this, he hears the Dad voice in his mind telling him that he should take Cas out in the back yard and put a bullet in his head. He’s a monster, after all. Maybe he’s Dean’s friend right now, but in the end, a monster’s a monster.
Dean looks at Cas, faintly pink cheeked and scowling, his trench coat askew, still with his hand hovering over Dean’s arm protectively, and knows that he’s never, ever going to be able to do it. Dad knew monsters, but he didn’t know Cas. He didn’t know a lot of things. Monster isn’t the right word for what Cas is to Dean.
“I bet you do that to all the boys,” says Dean, nonsensically, still feeling his atoms rearrange themselves. Cas has brought them out the front of the house, next to where Baby’s parked.
No, says Cas. Just you. She was a witch, Dean.
“You don’t say. Okay. Let’s end her.”
It’s a dumb, empty thing to say. Everything Dean says feels dumb today. But Cas just nods seriously, like Dean’s told him something important and profound, and they head back into the house together.
*
Turns out there wasn’t any ghost, just a witch who wanted the deeds to the house that her niece and nephew had been given in their dad’s will. Dean and Cas deal with it, no talking necessary, and then they drive back to the motel together. The road’s shimmering with heat, and Dean puts on his sunglasses, cranking the window down and the radio up, singing along to the music.
I like this, says Cas. What is it?
“Britney Spears,” Dean tells him.
A warrior, says Cas, nodding approvingly. Who is this Amy?
Dean has to explain, and Cas processes in serious, thoughtful silence for a few minutes. But by the time they’re back at the motel he’s perked up, and is singing along to Right Round and making Dean laugh until his stomach hurts.
Sam’s happy too, when they get back, happy enough to ignore the fact that Dean took Cas on a hunt.
“I didn’t take him! He just turned up!” protests Dean.
I followed him, says Cas, nodding. He understands me.
The professor Sam’s emailed’s already replied to him, given him some pointers, said it wouldn’t take too long to crack. Dean doesn’t wanna tell him that maybe he’s already cracked it. He likes Sam when he’s got that nerdy glow to him, likes seeing the pride he takes in studying. It makes him think of that other shadow life, the version of Sam who never had to leave Stanford, who’s successful and happy and still in love with Jess.
So he lets Sam persuade Cas to sit down for another recording session while he kicks back with a beer in front of the TV.
Yes, he hears Cas say. I was dead for quite a while. That was the difficult part. Sam, I’m not sure whether this is helpful. Can’t I talk to Dean?
“Hey Dean! Dean!” says Sam. “I think I’m getting something. He says he was helping someone, I think. And there was a murder? No. Wait.”
Dean, your brother is not listening to me, says Cas. Can you not explain to him?
“You guys don’t need me,” says Dean, trying not to smile. “You’re doing great.”
Both Sam and Cas protest. “Dean!”
“I can’t hear you,” says Dean. “Doctor Sexy’s operating on someone with a bomb in her boob implants.”
And maybe Dean’s also a little jealous, still, that Sam still hasn’t asked for his help. But that’s stupid, because what kind of help can he give? He doesn’t know shit.
But he does know Cas, right? He does know Cas. And that’s kinda scary, when he thinks about it too hard.
He hears Cas and Sam talking, back and forward, and then there’s a pause, and the noises of Sam eating his gross rabbit food. Footsteps across the motel carpet, and then —
May I join you? asks Cas.
“Be my guest,” says Dean. “Doctor Sexy’s been poisoned and he’s operating on the President.”
Cas nods. The stakes are high, he says seriously.
“Dean, you know he probably can’t understand what you’re saying,” says Sam, crunching on lettuce.
“Course he can, Sammy! Come on, look at him! He gets it.”
I do get it, agrees Cas. As does Dean. He’s a very intelligent man.
Dean feels his neck heating up. “Shut up!” he mutters.
“You guys are weird,” says Sam. “Whatever. I’m gonna shower and go to bed. Enjoy watching Doctor Sexy.”
And there it is. That was definitely the joke. Part of Dean is proud of Sam, but there’s a much larger part that’s screaming. Because if Sam knows, then - then what? Then it’s real? Then it counts? No, it doesn’t.
“Yeah, we will,” says Dean’s mouth. “All night long.”
God, he hates himself sometimes.
*
They don’t say much. Dean gets himself another beer, and another, and halfway through the episode where Doctor Sexy has to do a c section in a hurricane he falls asleep. He wakes up with his face against Cas’s shoulder, breathing Cas’s ozone and warm skin smell. The TV is talking to itself, the voices on it low and crackling. He squints.
“This isn’t Doctor Sexy,” he mumbles.
The show ended, says Cas. I found this instead. They’re cowboys. On a road trip, just like us. It’s strange, but I like it.
Two handsome guys wearing cowboy hats are driving in an old car. They’re laughing and talking, listening to music. It takes him a while to realise they’re speaking Spanish. Dean’s missed part of the plot, he gets the feeling something bad has happened but that’s in the past. It’s kinda pretentious, kinda arthouse, but he can see why Cas likes it.
They check into a motel, pull out guns from their bags - hey, this really is them, what the hell is this movie, why hasn’t he ever heard
of
it
oh no
oh no
because then the guys turn to each other and start kissing.
Dean’s brain shorts out. This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening, right now, to him.
Because Cas is giving the scene the kind of laser focused attention that he pays to anything he’s interested in. He’s doing his best cat watching birds through a window thing. He stares at the screen, eyes narrowed, and then his gaze flicks to Dean, and away again. Dean can see the cogs turning in his mind. He can see this - oh my god, they’re taking off their clothes, oh my god, oh no, this is so hot, please no - is going into Cas’s this is what humans can do to each other brain bank. Cas is going to know. Dean has really only survived the past few years because he’s been sure Cas hasn’t known.
He’s been letting Cas stand way too close and grab him way too hard and say stuff to him that a normal, actual guy would never say. And he’s been making dumb jokes and innuendos that should have pinged Cas’s radar - would have, if he’d been human - but it’s always been safe, always been fine, because Cas can’t understand what any of those jokes mean. He’s been skating right up to the truth and he thought that was okay. And now this happens.
Shit.
“Hey I’m getting kinda tired I’m gonna go to bed I think I need to sleep?” he says, his voice sounding shrill and panicky.
Is this because of what you told me, that men are not allowed to watch porn together and talk about it? asks Cas thoughtfully. If it helps, I was not expecting this to become porn.
“It’s not porn it’s just a movie,” says Dean, not breathing properly. “It’s fine it’s fine I just need to get some sleep.”
Dean, says Cas, worried. Are you a homophobe?
“NOPE,” Dean snaps, and he turns around and flees for the bedroom. He’s not sure what he’s saying no to. No to everything. No to this whole situation, and Cas looking at him like he’s disappointed in him. This was not the way this was supposed to go, he thinks, and what does that mean?
He kicks off his shoes and gets under the covers fully clothed. He knows that’ll piss off Sam, currently snoring in the next bed.
He closes his eyes. He sighs. He turns over. His neck itches. He turns over again. He groans. He can’t sleep. His crappy brain’s working overtime, playing the last half hour again and again and again.
Dean.
“whatthefuck?” says Dean, his eyes snapping open.
It’s some undefinable time later. Sam’s still snoring in the bed next to him. It’s still night. And Cas is kneeling next to his bed, hands clasped like he’s praying, beaming at him.
Dean, he says, excited. There’s something you need to see.
“Cas, come on. I told you to stop waking me up. If the motel’s not on fire I don’t give a crap,” says Dean, rubbing his eyes to try to pretend he was asleep. What the hell is Cas up to now?
The motel’s not on fire. Come outside! It’s good. And he grabs Dean’s hand and tows him out of bed. Dean doesn’t even get a chance to put on his shoes.
He looks down at Cas’s hand on his, and he can feel his heart beating strangely. After what happened this doesn’t feel safe. He tries to pull away, just a little, but Cas just shifts his grasp, lacing their fingers together more securely. Dean gives up. It’s hard to argue with Cas, once he gets going.
Cas drags him out of the motel room door, into the parking lot, and points upwards. His eyes are shining, like he’s on the verge of tears, and he smiles and smiles at —
“Well, holy shit,” says Dean, looking up at a sky streaked with falling stars. White light dashes across the blackness, again and again, leaving purple after-shocks every time he blinks.
A meteor shower, says Cas lovingly. A beautiful phenomenon.
You’re a beautiful phenomenon, says Dean’s brain. He manages to stop his mouth from repeating it, just. He stands next to Cas and they stare and stare. They’re still holding hands.
After a while they move over to Baby and lean back on her hood to watch. Dean’s turned on the radio, very softly, and a song floats around them.
All my life I’ve been slow and senseless, not struck dumb, I’m just dumb that’s all —
“Dean,” says Cas.
Dean turns his head to look at him. Their shoulders are almost touching, and so even in the dark he can see every angle of Cas’s face. He looks blissfully happy, more drunk than he’s ever been on the beers Dean made him try.
“I’m glad I came back,” says Cas.
“Me too, buddy,” says Dean. It comes out too husky, and he coughs, and then he realises he’s just coughed in Cas’s face and totally ruined the mood.
Not that there was a mood.
“Uh,” he says. “Sorry.”
But Cas keeps looking at him, not at the stars, like it’s Dean he’s come out here to see, like there’s not a fricking light show above them, and Dean realises too slow that there is a mood. Shit. There’s a mood.
“So how about those stars!” he says. “Haha!”
Why the hell did he let Cas watch TV, who thought that was a good idea? Angels shouldn’t learn about human stuff! It messes with their brains. It makes them weird. Cas is weird, and it’s Dean’s fault. Dean’s fucked him up by teaching him about Doctor Sexy and Britney Spears and erectile disfunction ads and dirty movies. He’s learning the wrong words. He’s an ageless being from another realm and he’s - he’s —
He’s not leaning forward. Dean’s leaning forward, but he’s not. Dean’s going in for the kiss, but Cas is just staring at him. Dean is kind of sliding sideways on Baby’s hood, and Cas isn’t catching him.
This is the worst moment of Dean’s life. He wishes he’d died on a hunt years ago so he’d never have to experience this.
He stops still, humiliated. He can hear his breath. The song’s still playing.
“Hmm,” says Cas, narrowing his eyes the way he does when he’s reassessing something. “All right.”
And he reaches out, cups his hand around Dean’s shoulder, pulls him forward across Baby’s windshield and kisses him.
Cas is a great kisser. That’s the first thing Dean’s scared rabbit brain can think. He’s a great kisser. Dean’s wondered what kissing Cas would feel like, wondered a lot, actually, but he’s never imagined it like this. He forgot how solid he’d be, the weight of him, his hands on Dean.
Cas’s mouth opens against Dean’s, so hungry it’s like there’s a fire burning in him. His fingers tighten in Dean’s hair and he pulls Dean against him and Dean thinks, dizzily, that maybe he has a type and it’s angels. Holy crap.
They break apart for a second, and Cas stares at Dean with unfocused eyes. Then he grabs a handful of Dean’s t-shirt and drags him forward off the hood of the car and round to the back seat. It’s really hard to argue with Cas, once he gets going. The t-shirt comes off, as do Dean’s pants, but when Cas starts muscling out of his trench coat Dean grabs his hand and says, “You gotta leave the coat on, man.”
He means it as a joke, because he can’t imagine Cas without it, but maybe it isn’t totally a joke, if he’s honest. He can’t stop talking, after that, nervous giddy bullshit pouring out of his mouth. Anyone else would tell him to shut up, he’d tell him to shut up, but Cas just says, “This is very interesting, Dean,” and somehow Dean finds himself believing him.
Cas doesn’t say much else, but he does start glowing like his body’s in front of a candle, a delicate pink buzz that lights up his skin from inside. Dean traces his fingers across it, fascinated. Keep Cas turned on and they never need to pay the light bill again. Not that they do anyway, they — focus, Dean.
Then Cas grabs hold of him, his eyes glowing, and says, Dean! and Dean does focus, completely.
Afterwards they lie on the back seat of the car, the windows steamed up like they’re in Titanic, Dean half asleep pressed against Cas’s chest, his underwear down around his ankles. Then he wakes up, worried.
“I - uh - I don’t think angels are supposed to do that,” he says, face in the dip of Cas’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I fuck stuff up.”
“What are you talking about, Dean?” asks Cas. Dean can feel his muscles shifting in puzzlement.
“I - I fuck stuff up!” says Dean in a rush. “I - if you hadn’t watched Doctor Sexy with me you wouldn’t have seen that movie, and we - and it - you’re an angel, Cas. I’m sorry.”
“Do you think that was the first time I had seen something like that?” asks Cas. “Dean. I don’t sleep. And humans are endlessly inventive. Your own internet history —”
Shit.
“Yeah, but you’re not supposed to - I shouldn’t have —”
“Did you not enjoy it?” asks Cas, worried. “I was not sure if I was using the correct technique.”
“I - yeah, no, I did. But Cas. Angels aren’t gay.”
“In my true form I am roughly the size of the Chrysler Building, but much wider,” says Cas severely. “Who I choose to have sex with in this vessel is immaterial. I am not like any of you. Although of all the humans I have met, you are the most similar to me. I think our atoms vibrate at similar frequencies. You always understand me, after all. You are my equal.”
It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever said to Dean. He should bask in it.
“But I’m not - I’m not smart,” his mouth says, because he doesn’t ever know when to shut the hell up and have something nice happen to him.
“Dean, you have been understanding me in twenty different languages since I returned,” says Cas. “The fact that I am now mostly speaking English seems to have hardly registered with you. Your mind is a wonder.”
Dean’s so embarrassed that he kisses Cas to shut him up, and Cas starts glowing again, and Dean starts feeling pretty glad they watched whatever that movie was. Thank god for gay cowboys! Which is a sentence he never thought he’d say.
Then he realises that it’s starting to get light outside. Crap. And he checks his watch, and — crap. Sammy’ll be waking up real soon.
He pulls on his clothes, and gets Cas to put on the rest of his, and then they rush back across the motel parking lot and into the room and down onto the couch, flicking the TV on, right as Sam comes out of the bedroom yawning and stretching out to be about ten feet tall.
“Good morning, Sam!” says Cas cheerfully, turning round to beam at him.
“Uh, what?” asks Sam. “Did you speak English? Dean! Did you hear that?”
“Oh wow,” says Dean, trying to scoot far enough away from Cas that their thighs stop touching. Cas keeps scooching closer to him again. “Yup. Pretty crazy, right?”
Sam’s face pinches up. “Why don’t you sound surprised?” he asks. “What did you do, Dean?”
Dean’s brain spins between about five different answers. I didn’t do anything! It was the TV! Don’t ask me! His mouth settles on, “Yeah, fine. I broke the angel.”
“Broke him?” asks Sam. “Dude, you fixed him! It’s amazing!”
“I watched many episodes of Doctor Sexy,” says Cas. “And Dean helped, of course. He was very instructive.”
Oh crap. Is that - an angelic joke? Dean slides a look at Cas, and sees him smirking. It is a joke. Goddamn it, Cas! And now Sam’s looking suddenly suspicious, glancing between Dean and Cas like he’s pulling out one of his big books to translate what he’s seeing here into a language he can understand.
“So. What happened?” he asks at last. Dean sucks in a breath, and yep, Sam noticed that too. “To Cas,” he goes on. “What happened to Cas. While he was away.”
“Oh. Yeah!” blurts Dean, trying not to sound too relieved. “Yeah, I didn’t ask.”
“It did not come up,” agrees Cas. “It is not important.”
Sam looks like his head’s about to explode. “Not — but what if they’re coming after you, Cas?”
“They are not,” says Cas simply. “I killed them all. Who wants breakfast?”
*
Sam pulls Dean aside while Cas is making breakfast - literally making it, from the atoms up, they missed something when they tried to explain cooking to him, or maybe he just hasn’t watched enough Paula Deen yet. The Food Network’s not really Dean’s thing.
“What happened?” he asks. “Seriously.”
“Nothing, man,” says Dean. “Uh. He just started speaking English last night. It happens.”
“Dean always understood me!” calls Cas. “He is very intelligent!”
“Uh,” says Dean. “That too, I guess.”
“And we had s—” Cas blares.
“CAS!” roars Dean. “NO TALKING WHILE YOU COOK!”
“I didn’t know that rule,” protests Cas. “Apologies, Dean.”
“Uh huh,” says Sam, giving Dean a Look. Dean feels himself go red from the neck up. He wants to vomit. His ears are ringing. But —
“Was that a good idea?” is all Sam asks.
“Maybe,” says Dean defiantly, folding his arms. He’s still bright red. “So?”
“Nothing,” says Sam. “Nothing, man. I - I just. Not when I’m in the other bed. Deal?”
“That’s all you’re gonna say? Seriously?”
“What else do you want me to say, Dean?”
That I’m disgusting, thinks Dean. That I’ve fucked everything up.
“I’m not Dad,” says Sam, instead. “And neither are you. Do whatever you want. He’s weird, but I like him, I guess. You coulda picked worse.”
“Thanks, Sammy,” says Dean huskily.
“So, if this has all been cleared up —” says Sam. “I saw something online, yesterday afternoon. Didn’t wanna say anything, in case we got stuck here for longer, but it’s Tennessee - possible werewolf in the area. But, get this - the vics say they heard voices just before the attacks.”
“Nice!” says Dean, as Sam boots up his laptop and crouches over it, pulling up the story. Cas comes over, wearing - how the hell did he get an apron? - and carrying a plate of blueberry pancakes that smell, somehow, like cheese. And Dean looks at them both and feels so fucking lucky, so sickeningly happy, that he has to reach out and grab Cas’s arm to make sure he’s real.
I love you too, Dean, says Cas.
“Wait, what did he say?” asks Sam, looking up from his laptop.
“Trust me,” says Dean, grinning. “You don’t wanna know.”