Chapter Text
Castiel felt his heart swell as he gazed down at his charge. Dean Winchester slept lightly as he always had, hypervigilant, but being a little less than human had its perks and Castiel remained undetected by the hunter. In recent years Dean’d gained just a small bit of weight, in no way unhealthy for a man his age, simply growing soft around the edges. The soft pudge of his stomach enthralled Cas in a way little else had been able to. He perched, invisible, on the arm of a ratty green couch, and watched. His eyes cut through the darkness and saw what no human could, the slow rise and fall of Dean’s chest.
Though Dean had always acknowledged his presence the bare amount necessary to exchange information, it meant more. To Cas now, it would always mean more. He understood on some level that he was closer to being human now than he’d ever been before. Sure, his grace has slowly dwindled, but it wasn’t ever enough for all of Jimmy’s brain to really touch him. In an act of repentance for his actions against Sam, he had sunk low enough to be noticeable. No part of his celestial body was untouched by it now.
It was… not quite a relief. In the eyes of his brothers, his family, and Dean, all of which deserve separate mentions as they refer to vastly different concepts, it wasn’t allowed to be one. Not fighting, that was all he wanted to encompass. Maybe even the opposite of violence, if he so dared. He’d made sandwiches for the brothers, and he’d wanted, deep in his chest, to watch them be fed. He knew or thought that he knew, that no one had ever felt the way he’d felt for them in return. His itchy scrubs a waving flag of surrender in garish white.
Jimmy had helped back when he was still around, now having ascended in an act Cas would never again dare to replicate. His tan trench coat had suffered much more for Dean’s jabs at its appearance than any real wear and tear thanks to the grace he’d once held in abundance. Now the coat held him, and in its vast embrace, he missed the first friend he’d ever made or lost. He knew Jimmy was gone from him like he knew Dean’s underbelly would be velvet. Deep, not in this heart that pumps blood, but in his real being. Deep in his wings, he knows it.
He is zeroing in on a new freckle the sun has kissed into Dean’s skin when the man suddenly lurches, shooting upright in bed. He gasps in desperate breaths, and his eyes dart around the room before landing on Cas. Castiel remembers when the bees had landed on his bare skin, and the sensations are exactly alike. Dean’s eyes widen and for a few short moments, he is very, very still. Castiel offers up a small but genuine smile in return, nothing but happy to let Dean mirror his own behavior. Dean’s replication of his statuesque stillness warms the empty cradle of his human body’s soul.
But then Dean’s hand is coming up to grip uselessly at his chest, fisting in the thin fabric of his sleep shirt. His ragged breathing returns slowly to a normal rate and he curses like a sailor. Hurls defensive insults at Castiel for having scared him, and finally leans back against the headboard to stare curiously into the bright eyes of his broken angel. “I wish,” Castiel’s voice scrapes out, grinding over his vocal cords like hot coals, “I wish I had been able to produce royal jelly.” It teeters in the air like a dirty confession, and Dean’s glassy eyes are wide again, this time with surprise at hearing Cas speak, as well as incomprehension.
“Royal- what, Cas, what does that even mean?” Dean questions, a small amount of frustration bleeding into the curiosity there. The patience to understand a friend, a wavering friend. A wavering patience. Castiel’s eyes fill with salty tears, awash with hot shame. He looks down, and the floor swirls in hexagonal patterns whenever he squints. Dean moves no muscle, in fact, his hands look pathetically limp in his lap, on his plush thighs. “I collected the honey,” Cas looks back up at Dean, “but you deserve better. You deserve royal jelly.” Dean watches closely as Castiel seems to struggle with himself, hands coming up to flap at his sides. “I, I should have made you more. Maybe then, maybe if you were more you could…, I,” Castiel trails off into silence, blue eyes fixated on his own weathered hands where they flap like birds lost in a storm.
Even though Dean doesn’t and won’t understand, he still feels compelled to urge his friend on. To get some kind of an explanation for the behavior Castiel’s been displaying even if it’s conveyed in a language unknown to him. Spoken word always has been somewhat, and he feels that hopelessness to understand even stronger now.
“If I was more you could… what, Cas?”
“Matriphagy,” Castiel whispers through a smile, tears draining what little water remains in his vessel and leaving him feeling profoundly empty even as they run over his stretched lips and drip into his open mouth. “Wh- what did you say?” Dean stutters out on a choked breath. All through his life, he’d thought about that. About matriphagy. About what it would have been like to be consumed by Mary’s love, never even having to leave her nurturing womb. But he had, and not only had he left her, her ashes, her home, her memory, he’d consumed her instead. Blonde hair, green eyes, freckles, he’d taken all there was for her to give.
Then, what exactly was Cas trying to imply? He wanted Dean to…to…
"I wish," Castiel sighs, curling in on himself, "I wish that your soul could absorb my grace. You know, angels can absorb each other, technically. Larger celestial bodies can consume their lesser peers, taking in an outside grace to add to one’s own.” Dean’s mouth opens and closes again, floundering like a suffocating fish. Because what Cas wants? That's not possible. More even, than its impossibility, it isn't something Dean would want. Castiel knows this, and he aches.
“We don't want you gone, Cas. Hell, I don’t want you gone. You don’t need to,” Dean struggled with the words that could convey it. How little he wanted Cas to leave, or the fact that Cas didn’t need to sacrifice himself for Dean, even he wasn’t sure. But he was sure he had to try. It wasn’t as if he’d gone and forgotten about his best friend's admission to suicidal ideology. It wasn’t as if that was something forgettable, that did not haunt him day and night alike. “To kill yourself,” he finally landed on. “I don’t know what’s going through your head right now, but you gotta believe me when I say that’s the last thing I want.”
“Of course,” Castiel says, deep voice laced through with melancholy. Almost as soon as the words are uttered he is gone, away, to be consumed one again by the hive which may not have use for his grace, but which envelops him anyways.