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When hellhounds tore through Dean's flesh and licked up his blood like they've been running through the desert of neverending despair with nothing but a hint of copper in the air, he truly felt his soul leave his body.
His eyes locked with Sam's one last time, green meeting green when the air was filled with red. Red meat, red blood, red hot fear. His vision went white in pain, his skin crawling and burning and the claws of the beasts dragging through every layer of his being right down to the center where his cowardly self was hiding curled up like a baby.
Lapping at his ribs, chewing at the bone of his sternum, they slowly came to what they were looking for. And when nothing of his body was left to chew on and spit back up again, even the hellhounds felt pity for what was to come for him. As his soul had left his body, spears dragging their way slowly through his heart, he felt hooks pierce through him in all the parts he left to be hidden away, locked up and for no one to see.
On Dean's first day in hell, his wounds were cared for. His flared skin, lost tissue and broken bones were mended, his bruises cooled, his smaller cuts and sprains all healed up.
Someone came and sat him on a stool in a cold and damp room somewhere, the air was thick with pained shouts of previous inhabitants, and they told him to behave.
They took some clear liquid and dunked a cotton ball in it. No warning that it might sting, just straight to his dismembered heart, a sting burning so brightly that his eyes went all blurry. He was told to bite down hard on a leather strap if he felt like passing out, as every little cut on his body was wrapped in cloth. Dean was resistant, didn't want to be touched by the very people that dragged him here, but in the end the untended pain burned pieces of his soul faster than not fighting back. And when he first let himself breathe in again, the soft and delicate fingers on his skin turned into claws, ripping him open, eating him whole, leaving him to bleed and to ache.
Dean's second day in hell felt like a millennium. Every breath that pulled itself from his lungs felt like it took him ages to get his muscles to force it out. He was ripped apart piece by piece, from every part of his body to every part of his soul. Until his lungs ripped themselves apart with the screams and pleas for help he let out.
And when there was nothing left of him, he got put back together to start all over again the next day. Ripping his skin, biting at his joints, desperate for the fear dripping down his body in salty streaks.
Some day, years after he arrived, they brought in Sammy. Or whatever looked just like him. They sat him down, whimpering, a cloth stuck into his mouth. His eyes restless, bloodshot. His hands shaking in fear of being hurt by tools given to destroy one's utmost desires down to one's purest soul. Dean knew it wasn't really him. Or God, did he hope it wasn't. He couldn't be. Sammy was safe and sound above ground, and his soul was in the farthest place from hell it could be. But the eyes of the boy in front him looked so hopeful, so grateful to see him in the misty darkness of hell.
It couldn't be. Because in hell, Dean had no way to protect his little brother from all the pain and agony that he himself was tormented with. He had no soul to sell this time, no body to give up to guarantee that no hair on his brother's head was touched or ripped out or bent and knotted together.
He had to be fake. He had to be. Or else Dean would rip apart every inch of hell, burn up every soul he comes across, torture for eternity and kill the devil himself.
And when Sam was sat down in front of him, he wished for nothing more than to hug him, tell him he's alright, cry in his arms until there was nothing left to pour out. But he knew it wasn't really his brother. And he knew he couldn't put him through seeing his own brother cry like he needed to if he was.
So he never took a look at him again. Didn't listen to his desperate screams and cries for his brother as they dragged him away, didn't dream of him once. Didn't think about how they killed Sam with him when they sent the dogs to get him, colder than the knife that tore through his back, even more grotesque than the amount of blood he lost with knees covered in mud as he first died in his brother's arms.
After what felt like decades of violence, they left him rotting in his cell, never coming to get him but still never letting him rest. Moving by as he was settling to sleep, his cell nothing but a field bed and a pot. He didn’t need to eat anymore, his body had no needs that could be met. Sleep wasn't sufficient, food wasn’t substantial, nothing was enough to soothe the aches of his body and mind. Every time he dared to fall asleep, the light became so bright he saw nothing but the blood vessels in his eyelids. Every day he spent awake was filled with never ending silence, leaving his thoughts to run and his body to rot.
When Dean first had to torture souls himself, he took the knife and killed himself, only to be brutally stacked back together again.
Just as he was about to give up, words rang clear as bells. Dean Winchester is saved, as his lifeless body lay in the angel's arms, his hand steady on his shoulder, a mouth close to his ear whispering reassurance that he is, and always will be, safe when the angel was watching over him.
When he dug himself out of his own grave, his fingernails were cracking and ripping, his voice was nothing but a silent witness of what he'd been through only minutes before. His bones were aching, making him feel oh too conscious of his joints moving beneath flesh and skin. His muscles burned with every step he took, making him stumble more than once, twisting knees and ankles and hips. His skin was covered in dirt and dried blood, leaving it tingling and tense in every move.
He felt like he couldn't breathe the air in front of him, like everything was pressing him down to get back to the place he came from.
And though his eyes were burning and watering in an attempt to soothe a light he hasn't seen in over half of his miserable, tortured life, he knew where his steps were leading him.
Water. He needed water. Something to eat while he was at it, his stomach starved just as much as his soul, over and over again until both started to digest themselves.
And when the angel stood in front of him, he knew not to trust a single soul sent from heaven or hell to ever do any good.
“Good things do happen,” he said, locking eyes over the stale air of the barn, fumes of paint and smoke mixed as their breaths dared to mingle.
“Not in my experience.”
His skin tingled from his neck down his spine as he felt how the eyes of the man in front him were the sole reason he was tortured and torn up and eaten alive in hell in what felt like just minutes before. A blue so deep, so bright with curiosity, that his heart pounded against his ribs with burning spikes running from his sternum up to his collarbones.
“You don't think you deserve to be saved,” the man said, tilting his head to the right, his eyes now squinting at Dean, who wanted nothing more than to sleep, sleep for eternity and never wake up to the pair of blue eyes ever again.
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4:04 on the clock and his eyes are blurry, his vision fuzzed out on the corners, his mouth numb with an unhealthy mixture of alcohol and fear. He was tossing and turning in bed until his entire body was peppered in pain from cranky joints and tired skin.
And now he began to feel the presence of a man lying next to him. Not used to the firmness of the muscles beside him and too tired to even think of brittle consequences, he lifted his hand to drag it over the other's stomach up to his chest. It had been years since he slept next to somebody else, let alone another man. Desire and longing pushed so far down, it became its own sort of hunger.
“Cas, what are you doing here?” he mumbled against his own teeth, his eyes heavy as his tongue swiftly parted his lips.
The air was buzzing with the sound of pipes behind a wall.
“You don't sleep, stop pretending,” he chuckled against his own shoulder as he pushed himself up on his elbow.
The body next to him didn't stir, didn't move an inch, even when Dean's hand brushed softly through his hair.
“Hey, Cas, you hear me?”
His breath caught in his throat, bile shooting up the moment the other's lifeless head lulled to the side, his eyelids and jaw hanging open lazily, pulse flat and breathing empty.
The breath he took when he shot up in bed came close to breaking the water's surface after almost drowning in a lake when you were just learning how to swim and you felt nobody was looking out for you, only for hands to grab you under your arms and pull you back up.
The bed beside him was empty apart from a few pillows, his head pounding in an unsteady rhythm, offset from his heartbeat so much it made him gag. His breath moved his entire body back and forth, his head hung low to the side and his eyes were shut so tightly it would have drawn blood if his lashes were as sharp as teeth.
And Oh God was he relieved to find the angel safe and sound sitting in the library, reading up on occult lore and what looked like spells coming from not only different cultures but different dimensions.
A soft tune was seeping through the speakers of an old radio that somehow still picked up on frequency through the thick walls of the bunker, cracking at times but leaving no space for the breathing of the pipes and buzzing of the lightbulbs to interrupt.
Steam was rising up in curls and whirls from the cup that was patiently sitting at height with Cas’ knee on the little table next to the armchair.
One hand on the warm cup, the other one holding open the book in his lap, his legs folded on top of each other and his upper body relaxed into the soft cushions of the chair, Cas sat, looking down, his eyes moving in smooth lines beneath his glasses as he read each word, only interrupted by blinks and sniffles of his nose.
And all Dean could do was look at him from afar. Admire the warmth he must feel right now, as Dean felt so cold against the concrete, his feet bare against the chilling hostility of the floor, his skin still used to the heat of his sweat soaked dream.
A small sigh slipped past his lips as he watched Cas take a sip from his cup, which Dean assumed was filled with some fruity tea or something brewed from herbs he has never heard of before.
“Hello, Dean. What are you doing awake at this time?” Cas asked, hot steam fogging up his glasses as if it was offended by the words spoken into it. Quickly blinded by the white steam, he took them off and placed them quietly on the table next to him.
Their eyes met across the room, Dean still standing in the threshold of the crow's nest to the library, his head hanging a little low.
“Coulda asked you the same thing, don't you think?”
“I don't sleep, Dean. You know that,” Cas said, tilting his head to the side, his eyebrows drawn together ever so slightly and his eyes panning to take a look at the man in front of him.
“Right. Well, seems I don't either.”
Dean's body seemed to rebel against his mind and his heart seemed to start a revolution in his chest, because just as he decided to leave and go back to his room, his feet didn't move. Not like when he's pinned against the wall by a ghost on a hunt, he could have physically moved his legs in the direction he was coming from, but his heart started clinging to the man opposite him so loudly, missing him already even though the blue of his eyes was clear enough to burn through the little amount of clothes Dean was wearing and even though his presence wouldn't change just because he wasn't visible from another room.
And as if he knew, as if the angel could still read his thoughts even though he lost that ability ages ago, he asked with a soft voice: “Do you want to join me? I could use some company if you're offering.”
So Dean nodded his head, almost tip-toed towards Cas and rubbed his palm over his own face. If it was to calm his nerves from the dream, to check if it was all real or just force of habit when he's tired, he didn't know. But when he sat down close to Cas he felt what he hasn't felt in a while. Safe.
It was quiet for a while, Cas sipping his tea and Dean sinking deeper into the comfortable armchair, arms resting up at his sides, his breath slow and trying to steady itself.
His sternum ached like something was lapping at it again, whether it was greed or fear or something else, he didn't know either. Cause when he first felt like that, it was neither love nor heroism nor greed that caused his pain, it was something with razor sharp teeth and claws digging into his flesh so deep they touched bone with their first hit, gashing his chest open with their first contact.
It may have been an act of love, saving his brother like that. Maybe he was a hero for going out this way. Maybe his greed was punished. But seeing his brother's eyes blow with fear and feeling his lifeless body in his arms was not worth what he offered.
All he did was make things worse. Making monsters out of men and killing everything that crosses paths with his very own claws.
Too bad he fell victim to himself more than most others. Cause when it came down to it, saving his brother wasn't about the twenty-two year old kid in his arms, bleeding out on his knees, breathing raggedy as his lungs filled with blood and heat. It was about saving what belonged to him. Saving his brother so he wasn't alone, so he didn't fail at the one thing he was never supposed to fail at.
And when hellhounds tore him up, it was only what he deserved for his greed and hunger to keep his little brother alive. It wasn't out of love, not pure love at least. It was a suicide attempt that went too well, hoping to get Sammy up and breathing again so that he didn't fail. Because he couldn't fail, couldn't be the reason that Sam got hurt, couldn't be the reason that Jess' death ripped him apart every day on their way, when they weren't home.
He couldn't be the reason Sam felt as if he had no home. So he had to choose if he wanted to fail or if he wanted to get himself killed. And when the claws dug through his chest to look for his soul, he knew all they'd find would be a broken, hurt and injured child waiting for his family to forgive him.
“Dean?” Castiel’s warm voice pierced through his thoughts, echoing through his skull almost painfully, like a bright light when you’re just about to fall asleep, “Is everything alright?”
Dean opened his eyes again, pulling himself out of his own head that filled with thick goo trying to drag him down, filling his lungs and heart until he was drowning in it. He stopped rubbing his palm over his sternum.
His eyes were tired and sore from waking up so rapidly before, always alert and waiting to be held at gunpoint. His jaw clicked shut, and it took everything from him to just stay where he was and look the other in the eyes.
“You know,” he breathed out, “it’s been what – years since you dragged me out of hell.”
Dean was biting his bottom lip now, his eyes filling with guilt and shame, almost daring to spill over.
“I still feel like I’m down there sometimes. I can’t get rid of it. It’s in me, and it’s eating me alive. And I — I feel like all this won’t go away. Ever.” He rubbed his hand over his face again, dragging the tears that threatened to pour down away out of the corners of his eyes.
His eyebrows set into a deep frown, his eyes wandered around, and he had nothing to focus on, so his chest was slowly heaving in bursts of air rushing through his lungs.
Cas didn’t reply with words, he just took his hand from the warm mug as he put it to the side, and held it out, palm facing upward, resting on the soft armrest of his chair, offering it to Dean.
He hesitated, pretended to not see it laying there between them as a silent offering of calmness. Didn’t want his greed to drag him down once again, making it impossible to come back from it this time. He knew that if he took the hand that he was offered, it'd leave him bleeding again. Cold again, choking on nothing but a dry throat as he digs himself out of dirt and despair.
It was tempting to take the warmth, but never, he thought to himself, would he take it. Could he take it. There was too much at stake, too much to lose once he let go again. But he wanted to. So badly. He wanted to take the angel’s hand so much that his body churned, and his throat tightened around the bile threatening to leak out.
“It’s okay, you know? Nobody will see.”
“It’s not that–“ He moved his head ever so slightly to look away, fastening his grip on the fabric of his armchair. He took a few, rugged breaths as he clenched and unclenched his jaw, his wrists, his fists.
Everything and nothing clashing in his heart, ripping it in half and stitching it back together in seconds. Every heart beat being a convulsion of ex- and implosion, every breath a last and first one, every blink a drought and a flood at the same time.
And with eyes pressed shut, his face burning hot, he reached for the outstretched hand.
They fit together like warm pieces of wax molding into each other, taking each crease and each bend of their fingers and melting them together.
Cas didn’t do much, just hummed out a sound of comfort and slowly stroked his thumb over the back of Dean’s hand.
And to his surprise, the world didn’t crumble down around them. The world didn’t stop, the hellhounds didn’t tear through all the gates of hell to rip him apart, nobody yelled at him and his father didn’t spontaneously rise from the dead to tear him apart for being so, so vulnerable.
But he felt like at least one of those things should have happened. Whether it was John Winchester shouting at him, making him feel like a kid that got caught for lying about something, or hellhounds punishing him for his greed or maybe the devil himself killing Cas just for the fun of it.
One of those miserable things should have torn their hands apart, leaving bleeding, raw flesh where they fused together.
Nothing happened, and the slow and steady ups and downs of a thumb ghosting across his burning hot skin felt as if it was peeling it back not to hurt, but to reveal what’s underneath it all.
Not to punish and humiliate him for what the fingers were to find, but to gaze at him with nothing but warmth.
“It’s not your fault, Dean. You’re just left to deal with what you didn’t break. I know it’s unfair.”
Cas’ voice sounded as if he was hushing a crying baby or a bleeding dog. Soft and sweet and no edge or blame in it at all.
“You weren’t put on earth to suffer, Dean. There may not be a reward for life in death. And even if you feel like life is nothing but heartache and blood, you deserve to feel it as more than that.”
“Yeah, as if that was so easy.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“But it sounds so easy when you say it." His bottom lip twitched and trembled, making his teeth click against each other. If his eyes had any more power than to show what was in front of him, they would have torn a hole in his thighs.
“I don’t even know how to breathe most days. And I don’t know how Sam does it, he’s been through so much more than I have, and he gets up every day and he fights back. I don’t know how to do that. Not anymore, or — I don’t know if I ever did.”
Dean's breath caught in his throat, locking itself in place. Not going forward or backward, circulating only between his neck and mouth. He tried swallowing around it, but there was no use in making it go or stay.
“Feels like the only purpose I have in this world is to kill. I kill and I destroy and I do it again and again and I don’t do any good cause what’s dead doesn’t even stay dead anymore.”
His heart felt hot. Like iron coming from a fire, it felt like it was glowing red hot and bright. And it felt like it could melt any second now, seeping into his intestines so scorching hot it would burn them before it even touched them, turning them into charcoal and dust on its way through his body until it melted through the bottom of his feet.
He took a breath that filled his lungs with cold air.
Everything hurt. And it never felt like it stopped, it just nestled itself deeper into his chest until it was clawing at his sternum from the inside, chipping away the bone of his ribs, chewing and gnawing on his cartilage until it was gone.
“Man, I just want my mom." His voice shook. He felt like a kid that's been sent to the front lines of a terrible war. For years and years he didn't even let himself think those words. "And I miss my dad. He was such a fucking bastard to me all the time."
He chewed on the inside of his own lip until it was sore and bleeding, and he felt like each of his breaths was swallowed by the beast inside of his chest.
"And I miss my brother, even if he’s right next to me every day. He’s sleeping in a bed not three rooms away from me right now. But I miss him. I feel like I fucking killed him and never got him back." His eyes were restless now, widened as he realised what he had said. "And I miss my friends. I miss Bobby and Charlie and I miss you, too, and I got you all killed. And it’s not fair that I get them back when others have lost them too.”
Dean took his hand away from Castiel’s to bury his face in them. A small sob escaped his lips as he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing them to hurt, making his vision speckle with grayish shapes and bright grains of colors. And Cas let him. Let him sob and crumble and cough up what blocked his breath until it was silent sniffles and there was nothing left to choke on.
He stood up to sit on the armrest of Dean’s chair, leaning back and placing his hand between his shoulder blades. And he moved it from the back of Dean’s neck down his spine to the place of his back where his lungs were hiding, moving ribs and heaving slowly, letting air flow in and out, twitching occasionally. Moving his hand up, Cas cradled the other's skull through his hair. Letting his fingers sprawl in and out, from the nape of his neck up to the crown of his head, from behind his ears back down to his spine.
The silence was calm, not as restless as it was before.
“How about you go back to bed? You seem like you haven’t slept well in a while,” Cas said into the silence.
With a groan, Dean leaned back, and finally looked into the other’s eyes. His own were stained red, the green glowing almost threatening against it. Everything in his face looked tired, spotted and tinted by the blood vessels in his skin.
“It’s no use, Cas. Last time I slept well, I was like twenty-four. And probably super drunk, cause the last time I remember really getting good shut-eye, I got knocked out by a rugby player in a bar.” He rubbed his hands over his sore eyes once more, dragging his fingers over his skin and leaving small red tracks on his cheeks.
Cas let out a chuckle. “You do realize how absurd that sounds, don’t you?”
“I do,” Dean mumbled against his own palms, his lips slowly raising into a smile, “he was hot though.”
“Was he now?” The hand he had placed on Dean’s back now slowly glided downwards over his shoulder and came to rest on the inside of his elbow.
“Mhmm. Tall, muscular, pretty face. All you could wish for in a guy.”
“How come he hit you then?”
“Might have told him he looked like Patrick Swayze and John Travolta had a baby a few beers in. He said he don’t swing that way and I said if I swung that way I’d swing right into his lap. Wasn’t well received." Laughter broke from his chest.
“You are insufferable.”
“I am aware, trust me." Silence fell between them, more comfortable than before, but still with words unsaid left between them.
“So you're not going to try going back to bed?” Cas mumbled, smiling a bit. There was warmth all around him, his eyes a blue that had nothing but the glowing heat of a bonfire turned to embers.
“I've run on worse nights. And I got a few minutes before, just didn't last long.”
“I would offer to watch over you-”
“But you know how creepy that sounds so you don't." Dean pointed a finger at him and pinched his eyes. His lips twitched upwards, showing teeth white and sharp.
“Yes, something like that. I could, however, join you and proceed with my reading in your room. You don't need to sleep, just get some rest.”
“You know what, that don't sound too bad.” He shook his head softly, hanging low and tired.
“We could also make some breakfast for you to eat. And something for Sam as well, he goes on a run most days around morning, and we're not far from when he gets up.”
“You know his schedule?”
“He comes by every morning, Dean. Sometimes he shows me pictures of things he saw on his run. Or he brings me magazines to read from the gas station. I'm not watching him from afar, he's very much involved. And it helps me keep routine as well. If I were Sisyphus, he'd be one to tell me when to step back and let the boulder rest on a ledge. Without Sam, I would simply keep reading until my vessel bruises in blisters from turning the pages and until my human eyes bleed from moving all day and all night. He reminds me of rest.”
Dean looked at him with his mouth opened a little and his eyelids squinted together. A smile crept onto his lips. “Yeah, slow down, buddy. I get it.”
“He's one of my closest friends and allies, Dean. In war, as well as when I'm low on pastime activities.”
“Oh God, is this another nightmare?” Dean asked, rolling his eyes and falling forward dramatically.
“Seeing your brother coming home happy is one of my favorite things to do each morni-”
“Alright, you shut up, or I'm gonna have to keep an eye on you two in the future,” Dean said, rising up in his seat to push Castiel down into his armchair. Leaning over the other man, he couldn't hide the wide smile on his face, showing all teeth and slowly moving all the way up to his eyes to hide them behind his eyelids. His nose scrunched up a bit and the lines and wrinkles by his eyes became more and more, leaving his cheeks glowing pink and his lips bitten slightly.
“How about we make some food and then go back to bed together? You need some rest and some fuel, or you’ll be running on nothing but whiskey soon, and I’m not sure I want to tolerate that if I can prevent it," Cas said looking up at Dean, smiling right back. His fingers found Dean’s wrist on the armrest, holding up his weight and making his skin push and pull on opposite sides.
Castiel’s fingers were cool as they snuck around the exposed pulse on Dean’s wrist. He looked up to meet green eyes, moving his fingertips up the other’s arm, leaving a softly tingling trace behind.
“Yeah, okay,” was all that followed, Dean’s eyes tracing Castiel's face. Piece by piece was memorized, from his eyes down to the point of his nose and the bow of his lips, right down to his chin and finally the crook of his neck. Each wrinkle that was placed there by days and days of being in a human vessel, unusual for angels but oh so natural for Cas.
Every spot on his blue irises was burned into Dean’s memory. Having seen his face covered in blood and bruises before, memories crept back up, burning more, stinging in his own eyes. And it hurt. Hurt, because he knew he was the reason for bloodstains and scars. Because he knew he could never patch the other’s skin back up, could never let his lips trace the cuts that have long healed with everything from grace to ointment and bandages.
Dean’s hair had been growing. He liked it touching the back of his neck when he tilted his head to look up now, his ears slowly being covered if he didn’t brush it back, almost close to Sam’s now. They looked more and more like brothers again, their eyes the same color, their laughs getting warmer again and the young blond in Dean’s hair finally fading out to a calmer brown.
And Cas just looked back at him, smiling softly and following the dark pupils gazing upon his face. Carefully dropping his eyes down to Dean’s lips, shooting back up again in only fractions of a second
Someone cleared their throat behind them. And if either of them looked up, they would have seen Sam smiling, eyebrows slightly tilted upwards and head turned to the side. And when he noticed that neither of them were going to acknowledge him, he walked past the doorway with his freshly filled water bottle and tried to walk up the stairs as quietly as possible. Opening the heavy door to the outside and silently sneaking outside for the run he needed to get his mind clearer. Now with a new thought stuck in his head.
“I wish I could touch you,” Dean whispered between them, his voice growing a little louder at the end and breaking just then. He didn't know what part of him was speaking right now, and something about it was terrifying.
“Would it kill you to do so?” Cas tiled his head to the side, as he does so often when curiosity gets thrown at him, when his mind is trying to grasp what is right in front of him but seems so far from his understanding.
“I’m scared it might.”
“And would it be the first time you died for something you wanted? Or would it be the first time you got what you wanted and lived?”
Dean’s hands reached up to Castiel’s face, ripped themselves free from the other’s grip, clung to his jaw like it held him afloat.
And then he kissed him.
Not hastily, not hard or painful or like a dying breath. He brought their lips together without a word, just soft skin brushing past each other without much pressure, breathing in each other’s breath, resting openly together with eyes pinched closed and eyebrow drawn together. And with two huffs of courage, Dean pressed Cas closer, his chest rising with a lung filled with pride and fear and tears, like his dreams of hell had reached a final tipping point, pushing him up right against Cas, like he always had been destined to end up.
They pulled apart again soon after. Had to process the tingling warmth rising to their chests, the heat creeping into their ears and cheeks.
It felt like he was drowning, like he had done something terrible and unforgivable that he hadn't done in years now. He didn't even know where it was coming from now. Kissing someone had always meant sending them to certain death.
Dean felt the burning all the way up his neck to the top of his head, fine hair standing up in goosebumps, his neck twitching slightly to deal with the sensation in his muscles. Hot and cold ran up and down his spine, zapping up the tendons of the back of his head, his heart pumping blood as if he was running from something that had long caught him.
His head tipped forward, down onto Cas' shoulder, and he pressed his nose to his collar, his eyes pressed shut and aligned with the fabric that softly covered his warm skin, his lips between his teeth. His face hidden from the world, one hand still drawing circles on Castiel’s neck, the other resting in his own lap. He had dropped down from the chair’s armrest, not quite sitting on Cas’ lap, but their thighs touching with a pressure that wasn’t there before.
“I don’t know if I can ever do that again,” Dean laughed into the other’s chest, voice grumbling, and fear only quietly flowing through his vocal cords, leaving nothing but a high-pitched whistle in the back of his head so loud that it deafened him. But only him.
“That’s okay,” Cas said, bringing his hand up to rest between Dean’s shoulder blades, “you’re brave enough to act even when it feels like dying. I think that’s more than enough for today.”
“I feel like I just lit a cigarette and burned myself down with it." His ears were losing a bit of the red that glowed beneath his skin. Nothing felt real, not even the words he heard himself speak.
“I’m glad I seem to bring out the poet in you. Now, does it feel bad to be on fire?”
Dean shook his head no. His face still buried. And while he felt like his entire body was vibrating from the inside out, his organs twisting in shapes he knew from before, his lungs filling with the scent of the one in front of him and trying, really trying to let the air go again. He felt safe. Like there was nothing close to stabbing him in the back. No hellhound was about to feast on his organs, his bones, and skin. There was no gun pointed at his head and no demon on his throat. He didn’t feel a hint of the fright he got so used to in his life.
It didn’t feel bad to burn bright and hot and almost invisible. It somehow, somehow felt safe.
“I feel so tired, Cas.”
Cas didn’t say anything, just brushed his nose to Dean’s hair. Breathing in what smelled like soap and warmth and pillows left behind in a ruffled up bed. He used to smell like sweat filled with adrenaline, like motor oil and leather jackets, like rusty metal and blood. But right now he smelled like a shower that had since been washed away by bedsheets that haven’t been changed in a while. Not dirty, just lain in for a while longer than sleep lasted.
Cas placed a kiss just above Dean’s ear. And if that kiss were a whispered word, it would have been understood. As a you’re okay. A you can rest.
“Sam will be back in twenty minutes. Either we move to your room or make breakfast, but I feel as comfortable as it is to be here with you, we could prevent having a conversation you are not yet ready to have.”
“My room,” Dean replied, slowly peeling himself from the other’s frame. The light was blinding even though it was dim. Stinging in his eyes and leaving a low grumble in his head.
So they both got up, stretched their backs out, and Dean’s body let out a terrifyingly long and deep yawn as his spine cracked concerningly.
“You go ahead, I’ll follow soon," Cas said.
And Dean stepped closer and pressed another kiss on the other’s lips. Short and close-mouthed, and gone as soon as their lips parted.
As Dean went back to his room, scratching his head and his bare feet hitting the floor with each step, Cas went to the kitchen and wrote down in scratchy handwriting, ‘Dean and I are in his room. He talked to me, and I feel he’s getting a little better. — Cas.'
He took a deep breath, got two glasses, filled them with water, and then walked up to Dean’s room. The door was left ajar, and behind it there was a quiet rustling of pillows and blankets. Cas pushed the door open with his shoulder, one glass in each hand and his head turned down to the floor.
Dean was sitting on the edge of his bed, hands holding the frame and shoulders pulled a bit higher than usual. His eyes looked tired, lids hanging low and pupils on the brink of emptiness. But still so full of something. Something that his body hadn’t yet realized, something that made him shudder and something that made his skin flush red, something that covered his arms with goosebumps.
Cas didn’t quite know what to do with himself. So he put the glasses down on the nightstand. He had left his suit jacket, tie, and coat behind in the library, looking for a bit more comfort before so they were draped over one of the wooden chairs by the research tables.
“I can give you a shirt to sleep in. Or, well– not sleep. But, you know-”
“Yes, I would like that,” Cas smiled at Dean stumbling over his words. He rarely did that these days, rarely had reason to get nervous or hasty.
So Dean got up and walked over to his closet, picked out a random band shirt he hasn’t worn in a while. And embarrassingly, it had a few mechanical oil stains on the shoulders and front. But neither of them seemed to care.
So Cas unbuttoned his dress shirt, starting at his sleeves and working from his throat down all the way to the last button before he slipped out of it easily. And when Dean’s eyes hit his softly tanned skin, he felt as if the sun had burnt him alive before. So in the short moment of folding his shirt and picking the other one up, he felt like ultraviolet rays were nothing on one human’s irises.
He slipped into the t-shirt and unbuckled his belt, letting the fabric of his dress pants fall to the floor with a thud. He stepped out of them to be left in his socks and linen underwear. The hair of his legs was slightly ruffled, his socks at different heights, and still he looked so very much like the man he had never been before but grew so fond of being.
So Cas picked up the discarded dress pants and folded them up neatly, laying them down on the desk in the room on top of his shirt. Shoes lost along the way, and his hair messed up by the change of clothes. He turned back to the bed, finding Dean looking to the floor.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, turning his head to the side.
“Not even the last night on earth, and I still got you in my bed somehow.”
“Not yet, so don’t mess it up." Cas stepped in front of Dean, whose head was at level with his stomach. And he pulled him close, pressing his head into the soft fabric of his very own shirt that has seen nothing but the dark inside of closet walls in recent years. Dean’s hands snuck around the back of the other’s naked thighs, his heart pounding in his chest.
“I've never seen you like this,” Dean mumbled, his chin pressed into Cas’ stomach, head turned up and eyes meeting the angel's, “It suits you." His ears burned red again, and he had to look away, turning his head to the side.
“Thank you, Dean," Cas said, running his hands through dark blond hair. “I must admit, it is quite comfortable.”
And soon, Cas let him go, walked to the other side of the bed and switched off the light. He flipped back the blankets and crawled under them, not really used to the warmth provided and not really used to the softness underneath him.
Both men were soon covered in darkness and pillows and blankets, the smell of Dean everywhere, even though he was barely visible peeking out the covers.
It smelled like milk and honey and sweat all mingled together but not stinging, never stinging.
It was quiet for a while as they faced each other, their hands and knees between them. And after he took the deepest breath of the day, Dean reached out to touch. Touch the other’s knuckles, the bone on his wrist, pulling him closer and closer until their noses touched, and their knees were tangled up.
Cas pushed his knee up higher, sliding right between Dean's legs. Comfortable, warm.
It wasn't about finding sleep, it was about finding rest.
And with fingers tangled in the hair in the nape of his neck, with lips pressed against his temple and the smell of warmth under his nose, Dean slowly drifted off to sleep.
The howling of hellhounds far, far away, no pain in his bones and no fear in his blood.
————————————————
Dean woke up again with the scent of cinnamon and baked apples in his nose. His face itching with his own hair brushing against it. His right shoulder was a bit sore, but the rest of his body was heavy and calm. He opened his eyes to a soft light coming from the nightstand, drenching only part of the room in a warm orange.
After a few seconds of mellow confusion, the night’s events slowly crept up his spine again, leaving the hair at the back of his neck to stand up a bit. He dragged the blanket back up over his body, turning to face the man he shared his bed with.
Cas’ eyes were closed as he lay on his back, his chest heaving slowly with occasional breaths, and his hands folded on his stomach over the blanket. Not a wrinkle on his face drawn deeper than the surface. He looked like he was asleep, and even though Dean knew he probably wasn’t, he thought he might feel the warmth coming from the other’s body on his own skin the way you only ever do when you woke up together.
Dean bit his own lip. He felt like something was crawling in his chest. Not necessarily painful, but he felt it wrenching and twisting and chasing after its own tail in circles just below his ribs. A breath escaped his lips that he wasn’t sure was his own, or if the beast in his chest forced open his lungs and pulled the air in and out by itself.
“Good morning, Dean,” Cas said, turning his head to face Dean, being slightly higher above him in the bed. A smile spread weakly on his face, all the way up to his eyes.
“Wh’ time’s it?”
Dean’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and suddenly his eyes felt heavy again too, his body pressed so firmly into the cushions, he didn’t need to try to revolt. Because he knew there was no use in pushing his body up, especially not to actually leave the other man behind.
His head came to rest on Cas' chest, whose arm was lifted up in an unspoken offer. Face turned to face him, his shoulder pressed slightly into Cas’ side, his knees drawn up into the pillows and his feet touching the side of the headboard. All tangled up, their bodies formed into their own shape together.
Dean’s hands searching for the skin of Cas’ bare arms, and Cas’ hand playing with the hem of Dean’s shirt sleeve.
“I don’t think I ever told you, but angels have different sets of eyes. And you can, what you would call, kind of shut them on or off separately and have several on simultaneously. Different dimensions use different eyes, so when I look at you and don’t turn it off, I see not just your body, but your soul. Visually, I mean. I see the shapes and colors and outlines of your soul the way you might only ever see it described in poetry.” Cas spread his fingers through Dean’s hair, his head still resting on his chest with no tension, ear pressed firmly to the other’s body.
Dean hummed warmly. He wasn’t fully awake yet, seeping into warmth once again, feeling the vibrations of Cas’ voice right in his own head.
“Until I met you, I always thought human souls were dull. Nothing in comparison to the angel’s grace. And when I first heard that I was chosen to bring back a soul from hell, I thought I may never find it under all the rubble and debris, for it may never shine brightly enough. I thought human souls were shallow and loyal to nothing but their own timid light. I thought I’d find an ember’s glow in a place of scorching flames and burning fire. But what I found instead was nothing like burning neon or bleeding colors. I’ve never seen a soul as bright as yours. As beautiful as you.”
“Oh, quit it,” Dean hummed, eyes still closed and nose pressed into the softness of Cas’ chest.
“Your soul is brighter than the sun, Dean. It burns so fiercely, I can’t explain how it stayed put for as long as it did. With a soul so radiant, so achingly, longingly glowing, it should have long taken your body as redemption,” Cas said, making sense of his words not until he spoke them aloud. Leaving the end of his thoughts open, letting the image of a small glimmer in hell carry him away once again, “I can’t explain what it feasts on, there’s nothing burning up, and yet it outshines the highest of archangel graces.”
Dean stayed silent, taking in the words reluctantly, thinking of his soul as nothing but a scared child with a torch, standing in the rays of so much brighter headlights.
“When I fell from grace, when I became human and lost myself entirely, I first saw your face with just one set of eyes. Human eyes. And they showed me that though I lost entire dimensions I saw before, your body became the language of your soul.”
“What color’s my soul?” Dean asked. He felt the beast inside him turn and twist, kicking and scratching his organs raw. And still it was not painful, only a movement inside of him that he had no control over.
Cas opened and closed his hands in Dean’s hair, pulling softly and pushing his fingertips from his ears all the way up to the top of his head.
“I don’t think there’s a word for it. At least not in the English language.”
Dean looked up, met the other’s eyes, which were already pinned down on him.
“Oh come on. You tell me about how beautiful it is and then can’t even tell me what it looks like. I wanna join in on the admiration.”
“I fear it will forever stay between me and a part of you that does not speak.”
A huff left Dean’s nose, sweet frustration and amusement mingling together, becoming one and separating again like milk and acid, curdling into something else. Curiosity, maybe.
He put his head down again, listening to the steady beat of the heart that Cas’ grace seemed to power consistently without the need to pump blood from his lungs to his brain.
“Can all angels see souls?”
“Yes, but like I used to, they usually don’t believe souls are more than shallow pools and oil spills on earth’s ground.”
“What’s Sam’s soul look like?”
“Different. More destructive, more blazing. It looks less like it’s radiating light, more like it’s spreading beyond control. But you have to remember that he was tortured for hundreds of years with no end. He had to become what tried to destroy him to keep it at bay. And he succeeded, greatly even, he just has a soul that knows no human bounds anymore.”
Dean became tense. What a stupid, stupid question to ask.
“I feel like Sam’s soul’s kinda purple. You know, like a deep shade of it. Maybe specks of blue and green. And I think his soul has sharper edges, but inside the colors are all mixed and blended together. Like inside it knows that it can just be.”
He sounded like a child, making up a story to compensate for a brother’s lost stuffed animal while being in such desperate need to believe the story himself. He felt stupid saying it, stupid for even believing in souls. For believing in the good and the bad, and for talking about his brother like he belonged to nothing but the side of the ones worthy of eternal protection. Because to him, it all felt real and like a fresh wound that didn’t stop bleeding even with being bound off and iced and sewn back together and traced with ointment and bandages.
And because with Cas, he felt like he could say it.
This time, Cas hummed along, listening to every word. Tracing Dean’s arm again, gazing along his left shoulder, touching it where a handprint was only implied now.
“Sammy’s soul’s not burned or bruised, I think it was the one thing that came up again intact. Maybe his heart’s burned up and his head is screwed up, maybe his body still carries scars from when we were kids, but his soul’s not gonna be buried.”
“You both have quite beautiful souls, Dean. Scars and pain, mistakes and suffering don’t take beauty, they change it.”
It was silent for a while. Only breaths and a very quiet sigh.
“I apologize if I hurt you with what I said,” Cas said, pressing a kiss against the very top of Dean’s head.
“You’re good,” Dean mumbled. And he did mean it. But something inside of him felt sorrow and loss again, like it did yesterday. A deep longing to make right what he failed at years ago.
Dean turned around, legs now touching Cas’ knees and hip, head still resting on the other’s chest, now facing away. He dragged an arm over his upper body, the other arm tucked away below. His nose nuzzled at the crook of Cas', and with a slow breath, he placed a kiss just there. Soft, quick and with no other intention than comfort.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. Fingers fidgeting with the hem of Cas’ sleeve. His eyes were tired, still, focused on something close to the texture of the fabric of the shirt underneath him. His shirt. On Cas’ body. "For stickin' around."
A kiss was placed on his head. Then his forehead, then between his eyebrows, his head tilting slowly upwards.
“Morning breath, man.” Dean smiled against the other’s lips as their mouths became at level, though in quite an uncomfortable angle, Dean’s neck far overstretched and Cas’ chin in the way of being at the same height.
“I’m afraid I don’t fall victim to morning breath, Dean,” Cas chuckled, his breath indeed smelling as neutral as ever.
“Well, what’s stopping you, then?” Dean said, teasing Cas not just with his words, but with his fingertips drawing circles on his chest, his knee nudging up and his nose slowly brushing against Cas’.
And while Dean's eyes were focused on the other's lips, Cas brought up a hand to cup his jaw, fingers aligning with bone and tilting his face closer.
Dean stretched his neck one last bit upwards, finally closing the last bit of distance, pressing their lips together and letting out a quiet whimper. He pulled away again quickly, a deep red grazing his cheeks.
“Dude, that was so unmanly,” he laughed, burying his face in Castiel's chest again, fisting at the shirt’s fabric.
“You're a man, Dean. No matter what you do, it is by default just as manly as it isn't. Gender does not exist the way you humans view it, and you do not need to be scared to express yourself based on stereotypes and oppression.”
Cas pulled at Dean's hair slowly but firmly.
“Kiss me again, I wanna have your lips back on mine. Not hear them talk nonsense.” Dean blushed again, deep and hot and embarrassing, but he felt the heat so consuming that for a second, the animal in his chest was bathing in warmth with his stomach turned to the sky. And with lips moving against his own, hands roaming over his body, and heat pulsing through his veins, he felt the beast whine and twist and turn in submission.
Cas’ fingers traced Dean’s spine, pulled him up by his shoulders, and let him rest on top of him. Their hips were resting next to each other, upper bodies pressed close, and Cas was framed by Dean’s elbows. As their lips parted, Dean pressed their foreheads together, breaths mingling, and eyes still closed.
“Some days I wish I was born in a different life. I know that’s bullshit.”
“I understand. But I think it is not too late to make your life the way you might have needed it before.”
"I wish loving someone didn’t have to feel like a crime," Dean whispered, and it fell between them like a heavy brick.
He moved his head to rest on Cas’ chest again, his nose touching the other’s neck, his lips kissed rosy and soft.
It was silent for a while, only soft pecks of lips hitting skin filling the air and deep breaths flowing in and out.
“Can I tell you something?” Dean whispered against warm skin. His fingers were tracing circles in Cas’ hair, pulling single strands softly and without intention.
“Of course you can.”
Dean took a breath, held it for longer than usual, hoping it would drag him down.
“I had a- like, something like a boyfriend, I guess. When I was younger. And I never told anyone. Not even Sam,” he said, shame rising in his gut again. It wasn’t that he felt judged. But he felt exposed. And if he learned one thing he was supposed to feel when he was exposed, it was fear.
And when the fear would pass, only shame could take over. Shame for loving. Anyone, really. But especially those he had no right to love. Touching was okay, though frowned upon. But a man has needs, and he may fulfill them.
His stomach burned, acid rising slowly up to where it should not have gone.
“Why did you never tell him?”
“Because I never told anyone. And I was young, so Sam was even younger. I don’t think he would have understood.”
“What was his name?” Cas asked, not a hint of anger or judgment in his voice, his hands cradling Dean’s scalp once again, brushing down his neck, and whispering kisses upon his temple.
“Lee. Was my age, a hunter as well. He came with us sometimes, I think his dad knew mine or somethin’ like that.” Dean bit his lip. Because something in him was fighting this confession so violently, a story from over twenty years ago still scratching his insides. And yet he felt that telling it, so close to another man, a man who understood him, would lift a curse from him.
“We shared beds and all, got drunk one night. We had just killed a bunch of ghosts by ourselves, you know. Dad and Sam were sleeping in the other room, and I think dad was out anyway. So I kissed him,” he stopped, something invisible stuck in his throat. Front teeth pressed against each other, pushing forward and heating up in friction. He felt his eyes sting and the corners of his lips pull downwards.
“It’s okay. I’ll stay,” Cas hushed him, letting him catch his breath.
“Can’t exactly escape with how I’m on top of you anyway." Dean pulled himself up a bit, looking down, smiling crookedly against everything rolling and swelling inside of him like stormy seas and rough weather.
“I’m much more powerful than you mere human are, still. So you better don’t test me, Dean.” His voice was stern, but there was a hint of honey sweet joy in it, his eyes surrounded by lines of happiness and teasing.
A grumble escaped Dean’s lips, and without much hesitation, he decided to rest his head on the other’s chest again.
“Lee and I were … whatever for a while. But it ain’t exactly easy to hide when you’re surrounded by each other and other hunters so much. You know, as a kid I was always told a good hunter can tell when something’s off by the snapping of a branch or the changed breathing of a kid. They can tell something’s different when water flows slower or dogs don’t bark. And between me and Lee, there was not a single dog barking. So some day, my dad pulled me to the side and told me I can’t keep going that way. Told me I can’t see other hunters like that, and that I was his boy after all. He said that others would see it too, that I was a risk for having pressure points like that. Told me that I could find so many pretty girls at school and that the world was open to get away from other hunters.”
Dean took a deep breath, remembering exactly what John had said to him that night, a rifle in his hand and Dean’s arm in the other. His voice so hushed he could barely hear it himself, but each word so pronounced that he would hear it miles, even years away.
“So I just told Lee that he had to leave tomorrow. Man, I was like, what—seventeen years old. I hadn’t even been on a hunt alone, and my dad already knew. I felt like he found me out, like he told me to be anything, just not that.”
His voice broke, and he didn’t want it to. It had been years, he had moved past it time and time again, and it felt so, so inappropriate to tell someone he had just kissed about how he told his first boyfriend to get lost and never return. And the fire with which he burned two ghosts of nuns that loved each other the way he loved Lee burned up again inside him, his eyelids shut, and he felt like a boy.
Images flashing past of the other boy asking him why, with hushed replies of we can’t do this anymore. A fight already lost, with such anger directed at someone who had nothing to protect himself other than guns and rock salt and rage. So they fought and threw things at each other, ripping their own hair out, knocking chairs over while one of them was still just in boxer shorts and a t-shirt he stole from the other. And beyond it all, there was an understanding between them. An I need you, too, and an others will find out and below all that the desperate want to not let go of the other.
“I hope he forgot about me. And I hope he gave up hunting like he said he would.”
Cas said nothing. Pain rising up from his heart. He felt pity. Pity for the person Dean once was, for the ones he lost, and pity for the words dying in his throat as he knew he should not say them.
“Dean, you’re not at fault for what you did as a boy. You can’t hold yourself accountable for mistakes that happened decades ago.”
Dean pushed himself up against Cas’ chest, trying to find his eyes with his own.
“So any mistake I ever made can just be waited out? No, man, I can’t just sit there and let it all wash away into a soup of meaningless eternity. And it wasn’t a mistake I made, it was a choice. And I know I didn’t choose to send him away by myself, but I was still the executor of a task I shouldn’t have been given in the first place.”
He saw Cas nod.
“I never loved anyone when I was an angel of the lord. I was a soldier and a brother, so I loved my father and I loved my brothers and sisters, but I did not know what true, free love was until I met humans. And at first I thought love was evil. Made to corrupt and to endanger human souls, to turn them bright until they burned up into ashes. I thought love was nothing but the chemical reaction of fire and gas. Made up to justify lies and rage and war. I thought kissing was like unloading a gun on someone's heart, and sex was deception’s purest form. And it took me a while to figure out I was wrong.”
Dean let out a sigh. Hurt by what he brought up himself, not for the first time tonight. He knew Cas meant well. And he knew he needed to let him do good, only then were his mistakes from the past truly redeemed. If he swore to not let them happen again.
“Dean, if there’s one thing I learned from human love, it is that even if it causes hurt and anger and destruction, it still knows how to persist. And if I learned one thing about you, it is that you are the most loving man on earth, because even though all that hardship and ache and hunger was put on you, you keep fighting for it.”
Dean looked down at him, something once again gnawing at his gut, chewing him up from the inside when it felt like there was barely anything left. If there was anything left, it has long turned into a mush of soft, warm flesh, only waiting to be thrown up and out.
“It may take you a while to realize, too. But I’m here to wait. And I’m not the only one waiting on your realization, so we will be alright. It's not the first time I've seen you thinking you don't deserve to be saved.”
Dean felt like the wound that’s been healing overnight was torn up again, because he couldn’t stop picking at the scab, making it bruise more, deeper, with much more blood leaking out over already existing scar tissue. It didn’t hurt as much, it was dull and pushed its way all up his spine into the back of his head. His bottom teeth hurt, too, pulsing and pushing and feverish.
So he pushed himself off of Cas' chest completely, and curled into himself, pulling Cas’ arm onto his body, dragging him over until he was surrounded again. No words left to speak.
“Thanks for sticking around, Cas,” he mumbled underneath the blankets. “And you better stay with me this time, you hear me? None of this running away bull crap or dying off somewhere. You stay here, okay?”
“I’ll do my very best,” Cas smiled, “as long as you'll have me.” He kissed Dean’s forehead, soft and warm and with the sole intention of taking the pain he saw in his eyes. He brushed his arm over Dean’s body, soothing what was left to soothe, seeing him so hurt by himself.
Because he knew Dean had memories stored deep down in his chest that nobody has ever seen again after they’d been sent down there. Memories of his father lashing out on him, memories of the world crumbling to pieces, memories of reasons why he can’t ever be what he was, even deeper down.
“Can we pretend like none of this ever happened?” Dean asked, voice tired and strained, a grumble coming with it. Worn out, exhausted, because he still hasn’t slept well for long enough. Because he was hurting, because he needed to cry but couldn't, because he needed a hug and a kiss, and because he didn’t grant himself any of it.
Cas sighed. He felt something sting deep inside his chest. Over the years he came to understand what that sensation meant. Something aching in one’s chest may mean anything from sudden death to a cough stuck inside a lung. It may be from immense joy or deep sorrow. And in Cas’ case, it was from something being taken from him that he never ever granted himself to have.
“I don’t mean – I mean like what I said. All that. Sorry crap. Not like that all between me and you.”
“If that is what you want,” Cas said after a little silence between them. He feared his touches were the wrong thing to give to Dean, but he didn’t let go. Dean’s bare arms filled with freckles and goosebumps, both running up all the way to his shoulders, begging him to stay.
“No. But I just never want to bring it up again, ever. You know. There’s a reason I don’t do chick flick moments.”
“I want you to talk to Sam about some things you told me, Dean. You need to stop hiding yourself from the world. You’re both older, Sam knows better than anyone what your father has put you through, and he will understand. You’re no monster, and Sam will never think of you as one.”
Sam knows nothing Dean thought. And then he thought that Sam wasn’t the one to blame for that, either. Because he never wanted Sam to know. And maybe Cas was right. Maybe he had to tell him some things some day.
“One day I will. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe in fifty years when he has gray hair. Still as long, I guess.”
He bit his lip, chewed on it, took another deep breath. His head felt clearer. Regret burning in his skin. He felt he shouldn't have said so many of the things he threw in front of the other's feet. Suddenly felt very aware that Cas wasn't human, but a celestial being cramped into a body. A body that had long been more than just a vessel, worn and used and cared for in ways that humans never could. And yet, there was a rise and fall of breathing lungs next to him, a pulse beating and pumping blood that could have easily stayed still. Cas was no human, and Dean tended to forget that, but not right now.
Right now he felt the weight of Cas’ being right in the middle of his chest. And he felt wings spread over, and thousands of eyes looking down at him. He felt a halo glowing over the pitch black fluff of hair that made the angel look so young from behind.
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to break down like that in front of you. It's just– I'm tired. And I'm sorry you had to bear that.”
“Well, I appreciate your apology. But I hope you know there's no need for one. You're forgiven, Dean. Always.” His hand rose to the back of Dean’s neck again, holding it firmly like a cat grabs her kitten, warm and grounding. "Don't apologize for being vulnerable, you're not on a hunt here."
"Been on a hunt since I started thinkin'."
"I know. But you're safe now."
Dean didn't know what else to say.
Nothing felt real, but nothing felt fake either. Like this was a dream, not more or less synthetic than one.
He closed his eyes to the humming of the pipes in the wall, and he let the aching in his chest bloom until it let tears well up behind his eyelids.
Somehow he felt comfort in the sorrow. At least he could still feel.
His back felt so protected that he drifted off to something close to sleep again. And he hoped so deeply that he could get used to the feeling of protection and safety.