Chapter Text
Dean wasn't exactly sure how they'd gotten to this point.
He was sitting there in Rufus's cabin and staring at his cell phone, willing it to just ring, dammit. He hadn't heard from or seen Cas since their Loony Tunes adventure, and it'd already been three days... Which, admittedly, considering it was Castiel, wasn't the longest time he'd disappeared for, but--
Dammit, Dean just wanted to know he was alright. Freakin' angel.
It was hard for him to shake that incessant desire of making sure he knew Cas was okay. After all of that time spent in Purgatory; the endless searching, hunting, killing, looking for some sign that he was there-- that he was alive. And when he climbed out and spent all of that time trying not to blame himself for Cas not making it out with him, telling himself that it wasn't his fault... The relief he felt when the angel popped up and showed him the truth, that Castiel felt as though he needed to serve his penance... It was drowned out, though, by the looming question of "What the hell pulled him outta there?" Not knowing was making Cas's absence even more nerve-wracking. What if whatever got him out did it for a darker reason, instead of peace and love and all that crap? None of them were ever brought back just 'cause. What if it had plans for him, wanted to use him and his knowledge of-- well, everything? Cas couldn't go through that again, and Dean wanted to be there to make sure nobody could get their grubby mits on the guy.
If only Cas would freakin' call--
The sound of a rustle in the sudden wind and the distinct smell of ozone and lightning were the only warnings Dean received before the familiar deep voice rang in the air around them.
"Dean."
With one word, Dean felt all of the tension, all of the worry drain out of him the second he felt it reverberate in his ears. He didn't speak immediately, just let the relief wash over him before he could even dare look up and meet that cerulean stare.
"Cas," he finally responded, hoping it'd sound like a simple greeting, but able to feel the heaviness in the single syllable.
Okay, so he was kind of angsting over the guy. He was his friend. He was worried. It's not like the guy had abandoned him; he just stayed behind for a few days, probably did a little "grace-searching" or whatever the angel equivalent was for hippie Buddhist meditation or whatever. It wasn't any reason to sound so... forlorn, though, Jesus.
The corners of Castiel's mouth quirked up in the barest of smiles, but it was something, and it made the knot in his stomach unfurl even more so. "How are you, Dean?" The angel asked, stepping forward and taking a seat in the chair across from him at the table. It was such a mundane act, so simple, and he couldn't help but take note of the fact that Cas was appearing more and more human ever since he came back. Like he appreciated the small things humanity offered, the minute reprieves and actions those in this realm had the luxury of taking advantage of instead of spending every waking moment running for your life, killing the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night first before they can kill you.
Dean swallowed and allowed himself to really absorb the fact that he hadn't worried himself into delusional behavior and that this was really happening. "I'm fine," he replied, tone almost terse through his suddenly dry throat. He coughed once and leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms and stretching his legs out in front of him. Cas didn't flinch or move away when Dean's calves brushed against his own. "I'm fine," he said again, voice sounding much more sure this time. "You?"
Castiel's brow furrowed and he looked upon Dean with confusion and that familiar tilt of his head. "You seem... concerned about something," he said suddenly, ignoring Dean's question. "Is there something the matter?" He took a second to break their locked gazes and look around the room as if he hadn’t taken notice of his surroundings until that moment before meeting his eyes again. "Where is Sam? Did something happen?"
Dean shook his head and bumped his leg against one of Cas's in a sign of reassurance. "Nah, he's okay; he just went out to do laundry and grab a bite to eat since he lost this week. He also owes me an extra slice of pie." He couldn't help but mention the pie with a nice, smug smile. He'd been waiting forever for Sammy to lose again, and it'd been almost as pathetically long since he had a delicious slice of dessert.
He wanted that damned pie.
Cas seemed even more confused by the answer, though, and took upon a look of deep concentration. Dean refrained from shifting uncomfortably under that heavy gaze, always feeling like it could see right through him whenever it was fixed upon him. "Oh," the angel said after a minute, once it finally dawned on him. His eyes shone bright with that same 'I Understand Now' look he'd developed when he suddenly comprehended one of the many meaningless things humans do to make life more complicated and interesting. "The game you and your brother frequently play involving a piece of parchment, a dual-bladed cutting utensil, and a stone symbolized by overly simplistic hand gestures. Sam finally lost, and now he must reward you with your favorite dessert and clean both yours and his soiled clothes." A tiny smile played on his lips. "I understand."
Dean did a double-take. "Dude," he said, clearly affronted, "don't say 'soiled' like that. It's not like we friggin' peed all over them! They're just, y'know, dirty."
Cas at least had the wherewithal to look slightly apologetic. "I am sorry. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable." Dean brushed it off with a vague gesture of his hand and took a sip of the beer he'd been nursing for the past while. "But, if your brother is safe and you have pie to look forward to," he began again, fixing Dean with a look of both curiosity and care, "what has you so concerned?"
"Nothing," he replied, too quick, too clipped. Cas could see right through him and Dean knew it. He could practically feel those intense eyes brushing over his mind and pulling out his secrets for the whole world to see. He broke their stares and took a long pull of his beer, maybe keeping it to his lips a bit longer so he didn't have to speak anymore.
"Dean," Castiel said, ever patient with him. "When I arrived, I could feel your worry as if it was a tangible force. Something must be--" And suddenly, it looked as though he'd come to another realization. Dean didn't pull the bottle away, regardless of how ridiculous he felt just holding it there.
The angel fidgeted in the wooden chair. "Is it because of me?" He asked after a moment, the whisper of the words practically booming in the sudden silence of the cabin. "Were you concerned about me?"
Dean didn't know if he was imagining it or not, but he thought he heard hopefulness in his friend's voice. "Maybe a little," he gruffly admitted, finally pulling the bottle away and setting it heavily upon the table. "You practically just got back, and it didn't feel right to just leave you there, even if you wanted to stay to watch over Fred or whatever."
Castiel gave him a warm smile, bigger than just the curl of the corners, but not a full-out grin. "Dean," he said, injecting that warmth into the single word and making Dean's chest clench strangely, "I appreciate that you are worried for my sake, but I am fine. There were a few things I needed to... Mull over." And fuck if Dean didn't see the almost imperceptible twitch of the angel's hands as though he were about to lift them and make air quotes. The thought almost brought a smile to his face. "I said I couldn't keep running from my past anymore, but that doesn't mean I can return to Heaven, either. I..." Cas looked down at his hands folded upon his lap. He suddenly looked very small, almost fragile. "I need to... I need to think about what I want to do; I know I still need to help people, and I would like to continue to assist you and Sam along your hunts, but... I don't feel I have completely served my penance just yet. I think... I think it'd be best if I..."
Dean hung on to every word, the uneasiness in his stomach rekindling. He was all for Cas clearing his conscience and trying to make up for his mistakes, but... He could feel the words bubbling up before he could stop them. "What, you think it'd be best if you run off and join a convent or something?"
Confusion. "Dean, convents are for nuns. My vessel is not a female, and therefore cannot--"
"Become a priest, whatever," Dean snapped.
Castiel took a deep breath, the first real falter in his usual mask of calm stoicism. "Maybe," he admitted with a hint of frustration. "I'm not sure. I don't know what I think is best yet."
Dean scoffed and didn't reply. Castiel's blue eyes hardened and became more intense in a way that sent prickles along the back of Dean's neck, and he could sense the sudden thickness in the air. "What?" It sounded more like a demand than anything. "Dean, I do not appreciate your attitude regarding this situation. I would think that you would be glad that I am trying to consider all possibilities, that I am trying to look at this from every angle--"
"And what angles are those, huh?" Dean retorted. Just stop. Dean didn't want to do this. He had been enjoying the relief pooling in his core at seeing his friend safe and sound, knowing that nothing had gotten to him. But he couldn't stop himself from voicing these stupid thoughts. Cas is safe, outta Purgatory, sane once again, free of God-powers and Leviathan alike, and now... Now he suddenly didn't need them anymore, was that it? He didn't want to be around them? Dean didn't know where this fear had come from, and hating it, he knew it was a fear. After everything, Cas was just going to leave? Maybe he'd return to the wife he'd had-- what was her name? Daphne?-- when he had recreated himself as Emmanuel, when he'd forgotten everything he'd done-- to the world and to Sam, when he'd been blissfully ignorant of what he was and what he'd become, when he'd forgotten about angels and demons and the apocalypse and being a fake God-- when he'd forgotten about Dean. And it stung. The pain curled around his insides, nestled in deep along with all the other pains Dean preferred to bottle down and drown with booze and easy lays-- not that he'd been participating much in the latter, but that was beside the point.
Cas didn't take any time before responding blunt and to the point. "The ones where I consider what is best for you and your brother, Dean. The ones where I consider what happens if I stay after--" for a second, there was no other sign of Cas's struggle for the words other than the repetitive bob of his adam's apple. "-- after everything I've done to you both," he finished lamely.
Dean's grip tightened on his beer bottle, and for a second there, he would have welcomed the sharp dig of the glass splintering beneath his fingers. That pain deep within him, a pain reserved specifically for the angel before him, writhed in his middle and swam its way to his esophagus, burrowing within itself to form a lump for him to choke on. "So, you think Sam and I can't take it? You think we'd rather have you run away, like a coward, than see your face? To be reminded of everything you did?"
Cas ripped his gaze away guiltily. "Not running away," he corrected through clenched teeth as his hands curled into white-knuckled fists in his lap. "I'm not running away." Those cerulean eyes met his once more, and there was an undefinable fire burning beneath him.
Shut up, keep making him angry, stop it, push him away, tell him you want him to stay, remind him how badly he fucked up, remind him that we've all fucked up. Dean choked on it all, his thoughts warring within him. He wasn't any good at this. He just wanted to know Cas was okay, he just wanted to see him and to be reassured that he really was back and not once again a tool for another evil.
"I just need..." The angel's shoulders slumped with defeat, and the weary look upon his face reminded Dean all too much of the expression he'd made when they'd trapped in the flames of holy oil. "I just don't know what to do."
"So you think it's best to go off and deal with this by yourself? Haven't you learned a friggin' thing yet? Jesus, man, why don't you just ask for help like a normal person?" Dean didn't need the exasperated glare to remind him that Cas wasn't a normal person. "Are you ever just gonna ask me for help if you need it, Cas?" Before he could shut himself up to keep the words from spilling out, he knew he was encroaching even more so on the real matter at hand, one he'd have given anything to keep from addressing right now-- right ever. "It just seems like you'll go to everyone but me." He knew part of him was exaggerating, that Crowley wasn't everyone, but damn if Dean didn't feel that way at the time.
And there it was, the look of hurt lining the angel's face as his mask slipped even further out of his grasp. There was a certainty in his eyes, though, as he locked them onto Dean's. That fire within them intensified, bordered on desperate. "It will always be you, Dean," he uttered, a thickness in his voice that grated against Dean's heart and made him want to hit something for the hell of it. He had a feeling they weren't on the same topic anymore, and he really didn't want to deal with this right then. "I will always choose you," Cas said again, leaning forward in his seat closer to Dean, as though if he just looked hard enough at Dean he could burn his sincerity into his being.
Dean couldn't accept those words, though. "You didn't when it came to winning over Heaven and booting Raphael's ass out. When it came to either coming to me or making a deal with friggin' Crowley, of all the scumbags on this planet!"
And there it was once again, out in the open.
He watched as Cas wrestled with the words stuck on his tongue, his eyes glassy and almost begging, full to the brim and then some with seemingly endless anguish. They stared into Dean with the weight of it all, pleading for him to just understand all of the things his mouth couldn't even begin to translate into speech.
Dean was a hairsbreadth from taking the words back, from grabbing onto the lapels of Cas's ridiculous trenchcoat and tugging him to his chest with all the force he had in his body. He wanted to wrap himself around the angel like a cocoon, keep him as close and as safe as he possibly could for-- well, forever. He wanted to tell him how much he fucking missed the sonofabitch and how much he blamed himself for everything and that if he'd just paid a little more attention instead of being so wrapped up in his own crap and always waiting so hard for the other shoe to drop that he might as well have toed it off himself...
If, maybe after Sam had taken the nosedive into the cage with Michael and Lucifer, when they were in the Impala together and he was rolling his promise to his brother around in his head...
Maybe if he'd just put it all on the backburner and asked Cas if he'd stick around for a little while, maybe kick back with a couple of cold beers with him...
Maybe if he'd just tried harder to make sure Cas knew that Dean really was his friend, really did think of him as family, that he really would be there for him if he ever needed help...
But Dean wasn't that type of guy; Dean didn't do those kinds of things.
The words didn't come. Instead of holding the angel against him, telling him that it was all okay, that he suffered enough, that Dean didn't hate him, could never hate him no matter what Dean said or how overemotional he got despite (because of?) how hard he shoved everything down and out of the way instead of talking about it like a normal person...
Or a girl.
They both sat there, each gazing at the other with mirrored expressions, needing the other to know, to listen, regardless of whether or not the words were spoken aloud.
"I," a syllable finally escaped from Cas's lips. His mouth opened and closed a few more times, his mask of stoicism long since shattered and replaced by a look of desperation so human Dean wanted to scream at the wrongness of it. "I was trying--"
"Trying to what?" Dean snapped without realizing it. "To spare me? Spare me from what? 'Cause I think we both know how well that turned out." The words escaped his mouth without a second thought. He wanted to hit himself for it, for the pain he saw etching its way across his friend's face. His brain was running on auto-pilot, though, and he knew it was out of fear; Fear of what they were doing, what was happening; fear of what had already happened; fear of whether or not he and Cas could ever truly be the same again-- hell, if Cas would ever be the same again.
Fear of never seeing another look on the angel's face other than pain and self-loathing and a darkness so deep it was as though all the grace he'd ever had had been ripped from him and replaced with an unfathomable ocean of guilt.
Fear that those big blue eyes would never stare at him again for far too long to be comfortable for anyone else but them, that he'd never see them crystal clear with thoughts and emotions and other things he tried his damndest not to think about except on those achingly lonely nights when those unnameable things crept out from the corners of his mind and lured him towards thoughts of invasions of personal-space and the deep timbre of a voice he'd gone a few too many times in his life afraid he'd never hear again... Never hear his name practically growled with that voice's distinct rasp, whether in faint amusement, exasperation, or just blatant confusion-- like when he used metaphors or pop culture references or--
Through the haze of thought, he saw the dams break even further in Cas's expression, and he found himself yanked harshly back to this wholly undesirable moment by the rattling sob wrenching its way out of the angel. It was a noise so harsh, so unrecognizable, and so unheard of from this creature of God that something in Dean hated himself for being the cause of it. "I was trying to keep you from having to sacrifice anymore!" Castiel suddenly shouted, shocking Dean even more so as he suddenly slammed a hand on the table and leapt from his sit to loom over the hunter. "Haven't you done enough?! Haven't you lost enough?! Who was I to ask you for-- to ask you for anything? Who was I t--" Cas's voice cracked and his face crumpled into something so distraught Dean couldn't come up with an accurate word to describe it. The angel roughly raked his fingers through his hair, leaving the dark locks even more messy and haphazard, like an glimpse of what his thoughts must've been like inside. He took an abrupt step away from Dean and turned his back on him, clenching fistfuls of his wild hair as he tried to find some way to let Dean know whatever the hell it was he was trying to tell him.
Dean rose to his feet, shaken by the unfamiliar emotions rolling in waves off of his friend. He was expecting anger at his words, not-- not whatever it was that he was witnessing. Anger he could deal with, anger he was good at dealing with; he could always use a fight. But this... When Dean had taken note of Cas's newfound human-like behavior, he had never imagined that it ran so deep, that all of this was thundering under the surface of his straight-faced angelic friend. The small coy smiles and light-heartedness was one thing, but this anguish he was now witnessing... Dean almost wished for the old Castiel back, the one who only ever expressed confusion at humanity's inane and ridiculous methods and behaviors.
There was another wrecked sound and Castiel swung around to face him once more. "No matter what I do," he began as he took that all too familiar position too many paces within Dean's personal bubble, voice thick and even raspier with choked-down tears. "No matter what I say... Nothing else matters anymore. I can say I'm sorry, I can beg for forgiveness, I can offer my existence up, I can lock myself within Purgatory--" his hands drew up and fell to his sides with hopelessness. "I can never make amends! I can never be at peace with myself and what I've done! And I don't deserve to be! All of those people? All of my brothers? What I did..." His voice wavered beneath the haunted words. "There are no words for it. No matter what, I will never forget what I did to them. I'll..." Without breaking their stare, Cas's hand rose to reach across the small space between them, and Dean's heart an elaborate (and thoroughly embarrassing) tapdance at the promise. Promise? His mind hollered back at him. Obviously, your alcohol tolerance has dwindled and you're fuckin' stupid drunk right now. His brain scoffed at him. Promise, gimme a break.
When his fingers were merely inches away from brushing against the shirt stretching across Dean's chest, though, Cas suddenly hissed and clenched his hand into a tight fist back at his side, as if his body had been subconsciously betraying him. Dean refused to admit to himself that he was kind of disappointed.
Maybe his brain had a point.
This time when Cas spoke, his voice wasn't bordering on hysterical desperation, but instead it was quiet and defeated. "I will never forget the expression on your face when you found out about the deal, about my deceit. Your disappointment was practically tangible." He let out a small humorless and almost bittersweet laugh. The sound was harsh upon Dean's ears. "No matter what Sam and Bobby said, you tried... so hard to believe in me, that I wouldn't sink that low... You made every choice I had made, every situation I'd found myself in, sound so unbelievably solvable had I just simply asked for your help." He took a small step closer to Dean, his gaze too open and too wide-eyed for Dean to handle, but he couldn't look away. "And every time I think about every opportunity I had to turn to you and say, 'Dean, help me'..." The angel swallowed heavily and waited a moment before he finally broke the stare and cast his eyes towards the ground, biting hard into his lower lip. Dean was actually glad he lost sight of that shadowed azure stare, because he didn't think he could handle all of that torment cookin' in it. And it was torment; Cas was haunted by it all, probably his every waking moment-- which, for a guy who didn't need to sleep was a pretty long time.
"No matter what I do to make amends, I will always hear your words in the back of my mind," Castiel spoke once again and slowly, deliberately, looked back up to meet Dean's eyes. There was that intensity there that almost frightened him, and he knew that Cas was far from done. "'Remember what you did, Cas'. Every chance you had, you took it and made sure that I hadn't forgotten, as if by some miracle--" he spat the word as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth, "--that was even possible."
"You forgot when you became Emmanuel--"
"Quiet, Dean, I'm not finished."
Dean was about to open his mouth and make a remark, but he bit his tongue and quelled that suicidal desire before Cas's smiting "look" turned into literal smiting. Bearing that same expression, he took a step even closer to Dean, and he had to bite down even harder to keep from taking a step back-- or thinking of doing something else that was entirely freakin' stupid. Seemingly oblivious to his internal struggle, Cas carried on, his tone quiet and heavy with the gravity of his words. "I would die for you-- have died for you, in fact, a number of times. I've put myself in the line of fire for you-- against demons, Leviathans, my own brothers, God's plans-- and yet, nothing else matters anymore. I have done things that dying a thousand times over could not even put a dent into what it would take to be forgiven. Because I can't be. And every time you look at me since--" Cas huffed a sigh. "-- since then, you'll make it your duty for it to be such. You'll look at me with... with hatred, and-- and disgust, and... And worst of all, with disappointment. And there is nothing I could ever do to change that."
Castiel's furrowed brow relaxed and his stare dropped to the floor for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts-- or his courage. "Hester was right," he whispered, his tone suddenly wistful and shaken. "When I first laid my hand on you in Hell, I was lost. But when I first saw you, when I first felt you, when my mark seared into your soul... I was more found than I'd ever been in my existence previous. I found a purpose, Dean, a reason. You were the most... beautiful thing I'd ever laid eyes on. Heaven and its gardens could never compare. Though Hell had scarred you in unimaginable ways, I was given the opportunity to make you pristine, to take you in my grasp, to know you and everything about you, and to make you whole again. And doing so was the most..."
Dean's mind once again unhelpfully clung to every word just as much as it wanted to deny each and every syllable that left his friend's mouth. He wasn't beautiful. He was broken. He was drenched in ugly truth and pain, and he had sins comin' out the wazoo. He was scarred and damaged, and he would've told Cas that he was insane if he hadn't already seen what the guy looked like in that state of mind. His shocking blue eyes had been earnest and certain, though, and his breath had felt warm against Dean in a way that was unerringly pleasant despite the current circumstances. He veered his mind away from that, however, and focused on the clench of Cas's jaw as the guy practically choked on whatever repairing Dean's broken and tattered soul was 'the most' of...
"But none of that matters anymore," Cas repeated, seeming to have given up on expressing whatever he'd felt all those years ago and once more leaving Dean hanging. "So, I will go away and return when you call on me whenever you need something, like always. And you will look at me once again with hatred and a bitterness that makes me want to react in ways such as all of this that I do not fully understand. Then, you will talk down at me as though I am a child, while possibly throwing in another 'Remember what you did', just because you feel as though you have to. And after everything is said and done and the current evil has been vanquished and we save another life, I will go away again, because you can't take the reminder, and I can't take the coldness, and the cycle will repeat itself anew."
And suddenly, the warmth from Cas's body in such close proximity to his own, from the breath ghosting over his lips, was ripped from Dean as the angel turned from him and began to retreat. Panic immediately rang throughout his mind; he didn't want Cas to leave. He didn't want to see him only when they needed his help.
He didn't want to be so cold.
I don't hate you, please, I don't hate you.
But his mouth wouldn't listen, wouldn't speak the words he needed Cas to hear, the words that if spoken aloud would rid the air of a weight that had clung to them for far too long. I swear, I could never hate you, please, Cas, don't leave again. His mouth had another idea, though.
"You once said that you sensed forgiveness in me, y'know, for you." And though it wasn't exactly eloquent or the words he really needed Cas to hear, it still served his purpose and stopped his friend in his tracks. "You're goin' all friggin' Metallica on me with all this 'Nothing Else Matters' crap, how all's I do is remind you of your mistakes and you can never make up for what you've done... What about that?" Dean remembered that moment; He could easily recall the open, yet coy smile Castiel made after Dean had told him that he'd still rather have him, cursed or not. For a nervous second there when Cas had said that he didn't want to make him uncomfortable, he was afraid the angel was going to comment on his choice of words.
Cas turned back and gave him a rueful smile, looking all the worn and weary of the millennia of his existence. "I think," he sighed and looked at Dean with those sad blue eyes, "that it is one of my many punishments; to be tempted by the spark of forgiveness yet fear looking any deeper for another glimpse in case of the mere possibility of finding nothing."
For some reason, that sent its own spark of anger through Dean. "You listen to me, you sonofabitch," he growled out and stomped his way into Cas's own personal space this time. He took a small bit of gratification in the quick flash of surprise he caught on the angel's face. "You think you can just poof out of here after delivering me some cliché chick flick woe-is-me bullshit? Well, think again. If you're so freaking afraid of even looking, then don't you dare tell me what you think I feel. Maybe you can see emotions or whatever, yeah, but that doesn't mean you know what they're about, especially when you won't look deep enough."
There was a strange light in Castiel's eyes then as he looked up at Dean with a tilt of his head and absorbed the words and their conviction. "Dean..." There were so many things in that one whisper of his name that he couldn't pin any of them down. The angel's brow furrowed and no other word left his lips. Once more, though, his hand rose to reach out to Dean, and this time, there was no hiss or flinch. Cas's hand moved towards him at such a slow, hesitant pace that with every second, Dean could feel the nervous burst of his heartbeat in his stomach. I don't hate you, his mind supplied again, willing Cas to hear the words. But when the tips of the angel's fingers made contact with the skin on Dean's left arm, goosebumps rose along his flesh and every word was wiped clean from his mind. There was a sudden tingle and wave of warmth that spread through him at the slow brush of them upward, just barely touching the edge of where the handprint scar was once branded upon his shoulder.
He felt that touch roil through him, gentle and slow, but determined to make every cell in his body feel it.
"Wh--" Dean gasped out, and just like that, the sensation was gone. Castiel's hand returned to his side in a blink of an eye, clenched into a trembling fist. "Cas--" But Castiel looked just as surprised and rattled as Dean felt, his cheeks suddenly mottled red with heat, and Dean had to take another look to fully grasp in what he was seeing. Before Dean could get out another stuttered word, the angel was gone, and Dean was left standing in the empty cabin with every nerve-ending in him thrumming and his mind going through a borderline panic attack. The sudden silence rang too heavily in his ears.
"Son of a BITCH!"