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It wasn't long after Sam unleashed the devil on the world before Castiel voiced his dissent to Dean.
"I know he is your brother, Dean, but -"
Dean cut him off with a glare. "I know what you're going to say, Cas, and you can shove it."
Castiel shook his head in exasperation and stepped closer to Dean, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I am not blaming you for forgiving him, Dean. But I do not think keeping Sam around is the best idea right now. I know you think he simply made a mistake, but how do we know that -"
"Know that he didn't do it on purpose? Huh? Is that what you were gonna say, Cas?" Oh. Dean was angry. Very angry. "I know because I see it in his eyes every day. The guilt. The self-hatred. Trust me, Cas, he's a wreck. And he definitely didn't do it on fucking purpose."
Castiel sighed. "Dean," he pleaded, "I did not mean to upset you. I just cannot trust Sam right now, after everything we have had to deal with since I pulled you out of Hell. I -"
His human was fuming now. As Dean interrupted with a spillage of shouting and unholy language, Castiel vaguely remembered a cartoon Dean once showed him in which a character became so angry that its face turned crimson and steam whistled out of its ears, briefly paralleling that character to Dean. It actually frightened him a little; when furious Dean Winchester was the most formidable force Castiel had ever encountered in all his centuries of existence. He watched Dean as the man spewed profanities and waved his hands angrily, barely listening to the words. He unwittingly focused on Dean's eyes, Castiel's favorite feature on his favorite human. They were sparkling, but not with happiness, the way Castiel loved to see them. Dean was so upset that his eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Cas wished he could brush them away. Then his gaze flickered to Dean's attractive mouth, which was moving rapidly to form the shapes of the sharp words Dean was spitting at him. Without stopping to reconsider, Castiel leaned forward and pressed his lips to Dean's. But for once, Dean didn't melt into his touch. Instead he roughly shoved Castiel away and stormed into the tiny motel room bathroom, slamming the door behind him. A clear signal for Castiel to leave.
The next few days passed in a blur. Castiel took shelter in a little Georgia town called Rentz, blending in with the church crowd of Southern Baptists that Sunday morning. As he listened to the sermon, Castiel felt not at peace, but increasingly uneasy. The pastor was discussing sins, mainly homosexuality. Though he knew that the host of Heaven could not care less about men lying with men or women lying with women, Castiel found himself staring into his lap. Yes, he was an angel, and angels are, technically, genderless. But he preferred male hosts to female ones, and identified most with human men. So, according to this well-meaning but mistaken preacher, Castiel - an angel of the Lord - had sinned grievously when he fell in love with a human man.
Dean. Dean, with his beautiful eyes and glorious mouth and constant facade of bravado. Dean, with his bowed legs and hair that somehow stayed soft even when he spiked it. Dean, his Dean - with whom he had overstepped his boundaries when he accused Sam of being untrustworthy. Castiel knew now, too late, that he had been wrong to think it and wrong to say it.
He spent the rest of the church service wallowing in regret for the fight he had caused with the man he loved more than anything; when the pastor concluded the sermon and dismissed the congregation, Castiel was the first one out of the doors of the tiny church building. He had one focus in mind. Two, really, counting the fact that he had to get out of this stupid middle-of-nowhere town before he drove himself insane. He relocated himself to Atlanta, where he went in search of one of the few payphones still scattered around big cities - he had misplaced his cellphone sometime after his argument with Dean, when his mind was still too clouded with human emotions to pay attention to such a trivial thing.
He finally found what he sought and inserted a few quarters he happened to have been carrying in his coat - they were shiny and alluring and they sparkled in sunlight, so he kept them - into the machine. He carefully pressed the sequence of numbers that would connect him with Dean and waited anxiously. Within a few seconds he heard a familiar, tired voice from the phone's little speaker and his heart leapt.
"Hello?" Dean mumbled. He sounded about as bad as Castiel felt.
"Dean," Castiel sighed. "Dean, I'm sorry for everything. I want to come home."