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Engulfed in sunlight, Castiel sits across the grass from Dean.
His arms, clad in tan fabric, wrap tightly around his own body, the pads of his fingers delicately tracing a path Dean can't seem to follow. Running like rivers up to his collarbone, over to his back, ghosting over shoulder blades, feeling for something, something that is not. The place where lies the gaping absence of wings.
The angel that isn’t senses his presence.
Turns around.
Stares.
His eyes bleed forgotten grace.
Dean's own close. Open again. In that split-second, he can almost see their shadow - sprawled with grandeur over the walls of a decrepit barn.
The fallen angel's arms fall heavily to his sides.
"Dean?" he asks, less a question, more a plea. The request is unspoken, but Dean is helpless to it anyway. Acquiesces in a way he's only ever able to with Cas.
He crosses the grass in long strides, the space between them a chasm, suddenly so very wide.
Falls to his knees; an imitation of prayer, or a promise of one.
"Hey, buddy," Dean says, soft as fallen feathers and the fragile skin of the angel-turned-man crouched on dew-tipped grass.
Silence like grief meets the words, but Castiel leans against Dean's shoulder, the offering of a man with nothing else to give.
Dean's arm wraps around Cas' shoulders, imitates the weight of wings.
The man's gaze finds Dean's.
What he sees within them is not salvation.
Just a faded remnant of grace, and a shimmering freckle of ocean gold.