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It happens once and only once. They never talk about it and Dean never tells Sam.
In the middle of the afternoon, in a motel in the middle of nowhere, in between finishing a case and moving on, Cas had flickered into his room.
Sam had been out and Dean had almost fallen off the bed he’d been lounging on, cursing out the angel only to… stop. Because Cas had been worn through in a way that Dean didn’t typically see.
He’d cautiously approached Cas’ side, growing more alarmed when Cas had buckled, dropping to his knees on the crappy carpet. A deep-seated pain had been obvious around Cas’ eyes and Dean had asked a series of rapid-fire questions, about ‘what’ and ‘how’ and ‘fucking answer me, man?’
All of which could be boiled down to mean: ‘how can I help?’
Cas hadn’t answered the why but he had given a stilted, whispered answer about what he could do, and it was how Dean had ended up tentatively standing behind Cas and warily slipping his hands into blurred feathers that didn’t quite exist in any way that he could truly comprehend.
He’d shut his eyes quickly, working by touch and listening to Cas’ sharp, stuttering breaths.
He’d barely known what he was doing, but he’d still been able to tell the wings were… a mess. It had felt a little bit like he was suturing up a bad wound after a hunt, even if he couldn’t explain how straightening and smoothing down feathers had the same effect.
Dean couldn’t have told you how long he worked, just that he’d silently and determinedly tended to the feathers, taking his cue from the tension in the room and the way the wings had fluttered.
When he’d finished—hearing them disappear, his ears popping and hands tingling like he’d just gotten a static shock—he’d opened his eyes.
Cas had still been kneeling, shirt discarded at some point, a fine mist of sweat visible on his pinkened skin. With his head bowed forward, he’d looked oddly vulnerable and timid. Dean had been overly aware of the strange… intimacy of the action.
He’d come around carefully, calling the angel’s name gently. Cas had looked up with an unfathomable expression, looking both worn out and overstimulated.
But he’d given one long blink, followed by three rapid ones, as if emerging from another place. He’d murmured, ‘thank you, Dean’ before disappearing, not giving him a chance to say a single thing back.
Dean had shaken his hands, even going into the bathroom to wash them, but they’d stayed humming all day and into the night.
He'd never brought it up with Cas, not when he'd next reappeared unruffled and normal, or when they'd gotten a moment alone a week later. He might have had a dozen questions pinballing through his mind, but some things… well, he’d somehow known it wasn’t a thing to be asked about.
So, he’d kept his mouth shut.
And, over time, he’d mostly forgotten about it; with all the things that had happened in the years that followed, a brief weird moment in a motel room had just faded to the background.
But he really should have given it more attention.
And it’s not like someone points it out to him. Not like some demon makes a wisecrack or an angel sneers something disgusted.
It’s just him and Sam in a room with Sam trialling a protection spell that goes sideways and he can’t figure out why until he can and then there is a whole lot of gaping on his part, quick research from Sam followed by a strained joke before Dean storms out of the room.
“Cas!” he shouts, vibrating with barely leashed emotion.
The angel had been in a different part of the bunker, unaware of what spell Sam was poking around with, if he had of been aware, Dean is pretty damn sure he would have diverted their attention or outright burned the page to keep them from attempting it.
He finds him in the war room, looking like he’d just stood and was going to find him, but Dean got there first.
“Dean, what—”
“When the fuck were you going to tell me what your Winchester spa-day meant?”’
Cas blinks owlishly, completely confused. “I don’t understand what—”
“Wings, Cas!” he demands, crossing his arms. “When I tidied your fucking wings.”
Cas pales, his widened eyes no longer that way from confusion but alarm. His gaze also darts away, like he’s having trouble holding Dean's. It makes Dean’s heart, already racing, trip and spasm in his chest. Because that looks an awful lot like confirmation.
Dean does his best to hold onto his anger, if only because that’s the easiest emotion to deal with right now.
“Cas!” he snaps.
The angel actually cringes a little. “No one should have mentioned that to you.”
“No one did!” Dean barks. “I had to figure it out when Sam’s latest spell for a protection charm backfired on me.”
Cas finally looks at him, frowning in concern. “What spell? What were you attempting to—?”
“Not the point, Cas,” he bites out.
“Dean,” he begins, a little put out furrow in his brow, but like hell is Dean getting sidetracked. He saw the translation, he can read the fine print.
“We’re angel-married, Cas!”
Cas winces, gaze drifting away again, staring with great fascination at the wall. “That is not… an exact equivalent, Dean.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Then explain it, buddy.”
Cas looks as if he’d rather do anything else, fidgeting on the spot, like if he puts it off long enough, it might go away.
“Cas!” he snaps, patience already running thin.
“The act was not… mutually binding,” Cas forces out. Dean waits, silently demanding more. “You are not an angel, Dean.” He pauses, but this time, he seems to be struggling to phrase it, so Dean doesn’t interrupt. “It was… a one-sided event.”
Dean blinks, his arms loosening in surprise. “So, what? You said yes, and I said, no?”
“More accurately, you said nothing.”
“But it still happened?”
He hesitates, but slowly nods. “Yes.”
“And you can’t take it back?”
Cas’ head snaps up, finally looking at him, and it’s with an unexpectedly smite-y look. “No.”
And Dean might not understand a lot of things about this weird angel-wing marriage, but he knows Cas.
He’s pretty sure that statement is less ‘no, I can’t’ and more ‘no, I won’t’. It’s bitten out, vehement, as if maybe, taking it back is something he refuses to do on principle. And that… that is a whole other fucking thing to swallow.
“… Cas.”
The righteous stubbornness disappears from Cas as if it was never there. He turns back to the wall, refusing to look at him.
“It will have no effect on you, Dean.” His brow furrows. “I will have to speak with Sam, see what he was attempting to do. There are very few instances when this would even register.” His lips twist, almost a pout. “Of all the ones you had to find…”
Dean nearly laughs, because of course Cas would be pissed off that their freaky Winchester luck found them the right spell to highlight Cas’ dodgy marriage proposal and make him deal with it.
But he can’t laugh, because he’s still reeling.
“Cas… man… you… this…”
But he can’t form a sentence, not sure how he wants to end any of them. Cas sighs, and in a very human gesture, rubs a hand over his face.
“I can promise you, Dean, it only has meaning to angels.” He sighs a little. “And even that would be…” he frowns, clearly struggling to translate whatever it meant in angel to something human. “I cannot explain this well.” He huffs. “We have a profound bond; many have remarked upon this—”
“They were talking about this?”
Cas shakes his head. “No. What I…” he winces a little. "It was different.”
Dean stays silent, gives him a few moments to collect and start again. When nothing happens, he prompts, “Still waiting, Cas.”
Cas gives another huff, and it’s the usual annoyed fondness and wow doesn’t that suddenly have a whole new fucking meaning?
But even as Dean is swallowing that and all the implications that he’s been trying not to think about, Cas finally starts to talk.
“Angels don’t marry,” he says bluntly. “We can choose one other whom we can be… vulnerable with, whom we can trust to protect us and offer our own protection in return. It is… the terms aren’t exact. The closest summation is… someone I would freely offer my grace.” He swallows hard. “All of it.”
Dean’s eyes widen and he feels a very distinct need to sit down.
“I will not explain why I came to you that day,” Cas continues quietly, “I was… in an unstable state. I knew you would not understand the significance. I knew you would not, even by accident, reciprocate my offer. I gave it to you and will neither regret nor take it back.”
He looks back at Dean, but he can’t read a single thing in that blank face, those millennia old eyes.
“It cannot be used against you, nor can it truly be used against me. Our enemies know you are important to me with or without my actions. Only a few angels would even be capable of noticing it.” He smiles faintly, sadly. “And they would wish to unsee it, if they did.”
“Unsee it?” Dean forces out. “Why? It look bad or something?”
“To them, yes. You’re human, and they won’t think well of me for it.”
Dean scowls instinctively. “Feathered dicks.”
Cas smiles deeper, more genuine and fonder. “Mmm,” he hums. Only to shake his head and look away. “To my point, I don’t believe anyone has noticed it. They would have been certain to comment to me, if they had.”
Dean really hates how easily he can picture the slimy, asshole comments that would have been shot at Cas for doing an angel bond with a human. He also can admit… some of them probably would have made shitty comments about his lack of response too.
And that deflates him quickly. Dean uncrosses his arms if only to rub a hand over his face, feeling abruptly tired.
“Cas—”
“It really does change nothing,” Cas quickly interjects, quiet but solemn. “You have no tie to me, Dean, nor am I owed any sense of loyalty. You can marry, have children.” Dean flinches instinctively, looking up but meeting Cas’ earnest expression. “It would bring me joy to see you happy, Dean.”
“But on your end,” he says roughly, “we’re married.”
“I’m ‘married’,” he even does goddamn quotation marks and Dean’s heart twists, “you are not.”
“But you want to be married to me.”
And oh… oh, shit, Dean didn’t really expect his words to draw out that kind of… longing. It’s plain as day on Cas’ face, want and affection and love but laced so equally with a sad acceptance.
“For an angel, I already am. I gave you that part of me a long time ago, and there is no other I would offer it to.”
Cas walks up to him and Dean tenses, feeling something not unlike panic, but Cas just stops in front of him, a respectable distance apart. Cas scans his face, a little more sadness entering his expression.
“I’m sorry if this has upset you,” he says quietly. “I will speak with Sam, make sure no other spells will be of concern.”
He hesitates, his hand half-lifting as if he wanted to touch Dean’s shoulder before second-guessing and returning it to his side. Dean doesn’t even know what to say, and in his silence, Cas walks around him and leaves the room.
Dean stands in the war room for a very long time.
It’s a couple of hours later when Dean finds Cas again.
The angel is in his room, having kept himself scarce for the rest of the day, not even coming out when he and Sam had shared an awkward dinner. They hadn’t spoken about the elephant in the room, which was good, because the only person Dean thinks he needs to talk to about it right now is Cas.
So, he mans up and knocks on the angel’s door, pushing it open and finding Cas sitting at the foot of the bed.
He meets Dean’s gaze briefly before looking to the side.
When he doesn’t receive any protest, Dean steps fully into the room, shutting the door. “Hey, Cas.”
“Hello, Dean.”
Nothing more is forthcoming and Dean shifts awkwardly, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“So, uh—”
“I spoke with Sam,” Cas interrupts, a downward slant to his lips. “I believe your brother found the only spell in this entire archive that would have reacted the way it did.”
Dean can’t help a half-hearted laugh. “Winchester bad luck. Guess you caught some by association.”
Cas snorts, flicking him an almost shyly happy glance—because right, that wasn’t just a because you hang out with us reference, that was kind of a because you married me reference. And Dean… kind of doesn’t want to take it back, or clarify which one he meant.
They fall into another silence, but this one isn’t quite as uncomfortable.
And the thing is, when it had all come out, he’d been angry and confused, wanting to shout and turn Cas into a target for never telling him what had happened… but after his explanations, Dean had been left to deal with the other emotions.
Emotions that he had, for years, been keeping tucked away in a box that could never be opened. Mostly because, he’d assumed that box would be unappealing to the angel in front of him and downright heartbreaking to him if he let the full weight of them rest on his chest.
Now though… now, he has to make a hell of a decision.
But maybe, Cas had already made it for them in a motel room years ago.
“Cas,” he says, swallowing when his mouth feels dry. “I want to… to ask about, um, the thing.”
Cas frowns, but more puzzled than upset. “Yes?”
Dean licks his lips. “I just, um… how would I have, uh, said yes? You know, to the… marriage thing.”
Cas shakes his head, his voice gentle and soothing, “I wouldn’t have let you, Dean.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “Sure. But how anyway.”
Cas’ expression pinches a little and he looks to the side again, away from Dean. “Some of your blood, placed upon my wings.”
He blinks. “What so no like, kisses or sex or something?”
Cas shakes his head. “Angels don’t…”
Yet, his expression twists in a way that has a jolt going through Dean because angels might not, but he’d bet at least one angel would.
“Intimacy is very different for us,” Cas continues. “I explained the act of offering my grace?” He glances at him, so Dean nods. “Providing your lifeforce would be a sufficient reciprocation.”
Dean blinks. “So, wait, if I’d had blood on my hands from a hunt—?”
Cas was already shaking his head. “Your intention to provide it for that purpose would be necessary. The differences are extensive enough that your consent would need to be unquestionable and—”
If he’s honest, Dean tunes the rest out, it’s a lot of nerd babble with some crossover about consent in vessels and frankly, that’s more Sammy’s kind of thing. He’s not a fan of words, he likes actions, and, fortunately for them both, Cas has given him a really simple way to make himself clear.
“Hey Cas?”
He blinks, clearly pulled from his rambling explanations, a small furrow of annoyance to his brow that makes Dean feel a swell of fondness.
“This thing doesn’t have a time limit, right? Like, I got the feeling this one-sided marriage was pretty ongoing, right?”
Cas’ expression closes off a bit, but he nods stiffly. “That’s correct.”
“Right, right, cool.”
He bends down and reaches into his boot, pulling out the knife he always has on hand. He walks up to a wide-eyed Cas and holds it out between them.
“You need to cut me, or do I do it?”
Cas doesn’t answer, just staring at the blade and his hand as if they’re a universal impossibility.
Dean shrugs and shifts the knife, moving to slice the palm of his hand, only to still when Cas’ hand wraps around his wrist.
“Dean.”
Nothing follows.
“Yeah, Cas?” his voice is almost a whisper, but that feels right.
It feels, if he’s being honest, like it did in the motel years ago, when even he hadn’t been able to deny the weight, the intimacy of the moment, even if he hadn’t known what it was. Now, he does. Now, he knows how to do something about it.
But Cas doesn’t answer, he just stares at Dean’s hands. It isn’t a protest, and when he lowers the blade further, Cas stays holding him, but doesn’t stop it.
He slices his palm, barely registering the sting as the blood wells.
“Gonna open those wings for me, buddy?”
Cas’ lips press together, but there is no shifting behind him, no indication that they’ve appeared in some form he can touch. So, he flips the blade, slicing a matching cut on his other hand, two palms, bleeding for his angel.
Cas makes a punched-out sound, half pain, half want. Dean drops the knife, no longer needing it and focuses back on Cas.
“Cas—”
“Dean.” His hand trembles around Dean’s wrist, and he sounds almost afraid. “This is… it will mean something, if you say yes.”
Dean tilts his head, looking down at the very-male vessel that, even though he’d want to deny it, has been sending a swoop through his stomach and heat to his groin for too many years. He also looks down at Castiel an angel; a being he can’t comprehend and never truly see without burning out his eyes.
But, he can give his angel this—can give his angel something that is important to him.
Because, at the end of the day, Dean loves him. He’s in love with him, and the main thing stopping him had been that he’d never thought Cas could feel any of those things back.
But, being unable to say half of that, he quirks a smile instead and remarks, “Guess I better change ‘buddy’ for ‘hubby’ then, huh?”
Cas’ head jerks up, eyes wide with shock and achingly hopeful—overwhelmingly longing.
Dean’s smile softens further and he says, “Let me make you mine, sunshine.”
Like the firing of a shot, Cas’ wings appear in an instant. It bubbles a small laugh out of him, ‘eager, are we?’ he wants to say, but the naked emotions on Cas’ face dry up any humour. Because, Cas had been like this for years, one foot in a marriage he never thought would be reciprocated. Even now, he doesn’t look like he fully believes it’s going to come true.
And that just won’t do.
Stepping forward, Dean stops in the junction between Cas’ legs. Cas tilts up his head, staring up at him like he’s the angel—the magnificent, impossible being that should never be in his presence. Dean wants to squirm away from that abject adoration.
So, he closes his eyes instead and extends his hands forward.
His breath hitches when he touches feathers, but Cas outright whines. He also tumbles forward, head pressed to Dean’s stomach and arms wrapping tight around his waist. Dean’s heart skips but he doesn’t open his eyes, partly because, he can feel it’s not just arms around him. The feathers between his fingers have moved, arching forward and enclosing his body in a cocoon of Cas.
It feels protective, loving and possessive.
He smiles a little and continues to slide his bloody hands through the feathers, smearing his ‘lifeforce’ and his consent, his ‘I do’ into the closest part of Cas’ true form he can get. Cas shudders against him, breath, body and wings.
“Dean,” he gasps.
“Castiel,” he answers, stroking down a feather.
Abruptly, Cas is standing, it’s so shocking that his eyes snap open, but all he sees is Cas’ face; bright, slightly-glowing eyes, full of wonder and hunger and need. Cas’ hands cup his cheeks and before he can react, his mouth is caught by his angel’s.
He groans lowly, eyes closing again and hands fisting in feathers as he kisses back. Cas whimpers, body shuddering again. Dean swears the wings push up against his back, even more real than before as if he can feel each individual feather.
The kiss breaks and they pant. Cas’ eyes are alive with euphoria, a happiness he’s never seen before and Dean grins back—until he catches a shift of black and blue out of the corner of his eye. He turns his head and his eyes widen. They’re black wings, looking like the night sky, full of stars and yet, outlined by the blue-light in Cas’ eyes.
They’re otherworldly and beautiful and he can see them.
“I can see them,” he blurts out loud.
Cas sighs happily and nuzzles his neck. “You accepted me, gave me your blood. Of course you can see them now. Or… well, an aspect of them. You still are human, after all.”
“Right,” Dean breathes, still staring in awe.
He slides a hand over the feathers closest to his face, watching them shift and flutter in what he’s certain is delight. It makes him grin. Cas sighs again and Dean forcibly turns his gaze back to his angel. Cas is still tucked against his neck and he lifts a hand to stroke through his hair only to pause, realising the cut on his palm is gone, as is the blood.
“Woah. Hey, you healed it?”
“Of course.”
“But you barely got any.”
Cas chuckles, he also lifts his head, smiling so warmly, so lovingly. “A drop of your blood could say as much as oceans, Dean.”
Dean immediately feels flustered. He’s not even sure the words make sense, but he’s damn certain they’re sappy and chick-flick territory. (He’s also pretty sure his fucking blood might have outed all the things he's been feeling anyway.)
“Fine, fuck, whatever. Stop looking at me like that.”
“I am not looking at you any particular way, Dean.” He tilts his head. “I am merely happy to be in love with you, and to have your love in return. And to be bound to you for the rest of my eternity.”
Dean blushes. He knows he blushes, but he can’t do a damn thing about it.
“Oh, fucking—come here you sappy piece of shit.”
Cas continues to smile even as Dean slots their mouths together and tries to kiss his embarrassment away. Cas’ arms slide around his shoulders, and his wings wrap even tighter around them until he feels like he’s completely enveloped by Cas, the world ceasing to exist.
But, Dean figures that’s okay. He’s just gotten angel-married to Cas, he can indulge in a little bit of a honeymoon and hopefully even a wedding night.
Because after the last few years, and how long they’ve had to wait? Dean thinks they deserve it.