Chapter Text
One night, in the bunker, Dean finds a feather on the floor outside of Cas’s room.
Dean heads for the bathroom where he sees Castiel’s shadow moving around. "I swear to god, if you are molting all over the place, so help me I will not hesitate t-to..." Dean's voice fades out. There are feathers everywhere.
Castiel does not look up as Dean hovers in the doorway. He continues grabbing fistfuls of feathers from the floor around him, trying to gather them up in his hands, but there are simply too many. He is muttering to himself, but not loudly enough that Dean can understand him, so he just watches the angel's frantic movements.
Dean clears his throat, which startles Castiel, who throws himself onto his feet, wings beating defensively, trying to appear larger, more threatening. Dean has never seen Cas behave in such an animalistic manner. Angels had always been so in control, refusing to show any sign of weakness, but there Cas was, panicking because Dean had snuck up on him.
"Woah, man, take it easy, alright?" Dean says, reaching forward to put his hand on Cas's shoulder, but Cas backs himself into a corner at Dean's advance. Dean takes a step back, hands up in surrender. "What's going on? Are you alright?"
"Yes."
Dean blinks at Cas a few times, waiting for more information. Cas avoids any form of eye contact and chooses to instead stare down the feathers in his hands.
"That only answers one of my questions."
As Cas's angel mojo drains away, he becomes more and more human. A few weeks ago, he stopped being able to conceal his wings. Dean had woken with a start when Castiel started screaming in the middle of the night.
Pistol in hand, Dean had gone barreling down the hall to find Cas holding on tight to two pairs of grey wings, although, at the time, the wings were just made of beams of light. Through gritted teeth, Cas had explained that it felt as though his wings were on fire. “They’re burning,” he kept saying, over and over again.
So Dean stuck to what he knew: treat the burn. He helped Cas into the bathroom and ran the shower on cold. He pulled Cas into the bath.
It was the strangest thing Dean had ever witnessed, water streaming down rays of light, as if they could be touched. Droplets fell off the ends of the lighted feathers and Dean reached forward and held the light in his hands. He never quite managed to wrap his mind around it, holding light, touching angel wings, but they felt feverish beneath his fingertips so Dean tried to drench the wings in the cold water, running his fingers through the feathers, turning his brain off because the whole thing was too confusing, and just relying on instinct, his need to take care of Castiel, who sat with his knees pulled up to his chest and did not move an inch.
Eventually his skin got so cold that Dean worried he had turned to stone. It wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing to happen. He shut off the water and asked Cas, several times, if he was alright, but Cas didn’t move. He closed his eyes and sat there until Dean wrapped a towel around his shoulders and left.
As days went by, the wings became more physically present, until they were palpable wings just like a bird's. Sam cut slits in a few of Dean’s shirts, so Cas could stop wearing Jimmy’s suit and tie. He had nodded in thanks when Sam handed over the new clothes. Cas hardly ever spoke. Would disappear into his room for hours. Sometimes Sam would go in to check up on him, find him curled up in a ball on top of the covers on the edge of his bed, wings pulled close to his body. Other times, though Sam would walk in on Cas lying on the floor, fingers tugging on his hair, wings spread out and twitching. Sam would try to talk to Cas. “Get through to him” or whatever, but most of the time, Sam left disappointed that he could not have done more.
Dean couldn’t stand to see Castiel. When they would sometimes pass one another in the kitchen or the hall, he would avert his eyes. It hurt him too much to know that Cas was in pain and there was nothing Dean could do to stop it, to fix it.
So, now, when Dean says Cas’s name again, trying to regain his attention, it’s his first time saying it since the night of the impossibly tangible light.
“They won’t stop falling out,” Cas says quietly. He looks up at Dean and lets a few feathers fall through his fingers. Then he clenches his fists and demands, “Make it stop.”
“You know I can’t.”
Cas storms past Dean and into the bedroom. He throws open the drawer to his bedside table and tosses the feathers in. The drawer is already half full of feathers.
“Why are you keeping them?”
“Why do you keep your mother’s wedding ring?”
Touché. “Alright, I guess I’ll get out of your hair, then,” Dean says, taking a step backward and watching Cas tilt his head and bring a hand to his hair, which is getting long and is tousled like a madman’s from him pulling on it all the time. “I just meant that I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want.”
Cas nods.
“Is that, you know, what you want?”
Cas’s eyes narrow. “I’m not sure. I’m not very accustomed to wanting.”
Dean decides to try from another angle. “Are you lonely, being in here by yourself all the time?”
This does nothing to clear up Cas’s confusion though. He knows little of loneliness, as it is still very new to him. He does not answer.
Dean clears his throat. “Okay, well, um. I’ll keep this simple as I can.” He takes a step toward Cas. “Good or bad?”
Although he takes a moment to answer, he replies positively.
“Alright.” Dean reaches for Cas’s sleeve and pulls him over to his bed and sits down next to him, their hands still close, but not touching. He grabs a blanket from the foot of the bed and wraps it around Cas, who has enough survival instinct to get by, but not enough to get by comfortably. He can feed himself, was quick to understand sleep, remembers to stay hydrated with a little prompting from Sam. Cas has watched over humans since they first came to be, so he understands more than Sam or Dean had expected, but he has no concept of comfort. He picks at whatever food is placed in front of him, has no preference about what he puts in his body, which is now his body. Cas is the only one inhabiting this body. It is his. Just his.
And it is thinner than it once was. And it shivers. And Cas tries his best not to hate it, but it is all so new and strange. The blanket is heavy. Feels almost like a third set of wings.
“Good or bad?” Dean asks again.
“Good.” Dean is just looking at Cas, and under his gaze he feels the pressure to say something. “Why are you doing this?”
“Funny thing about humans, they need a little more than just food and water and sunlight. Without it, things get kinda screwy,” he says, tapping his temple with his index finger.
“And you don’t want me to get screwy?” Cas says the last word slowly. It is foreign on his tongue. Much of Dean’s vernacular is new to Cas, riddled with references and innuendo that are simply over Cas’s head, but he tries to adapt.
“‘Course not. You’re a hunter now. Need you to be on your game.”
“Okay.”
"You're kinda a bottomless pit of need now, Cas. Sorta just the way humans are. Right now, what do you need?"
Cas thinks for a moment. "Quiet."
Dean nods and decides to put Cas to bed, the way he used to with Ben. More than just quiet, Cas needs sleep and safety and comfort. He pulls blankets around Cas, brushes his bangs away from his eyes, and promises he won't go anywhere. Sets up camp in the chair in the corner of Cas's room and lets him just get some rest. Cas manages to get a few hours of sleep, before his wings start burning again.