Hello to anyone that’s reading! If you’re new to my tumblr or to this particular fic, the place you probably want to start is here.
As you may have seen so far, each fic-part switches between POV’s. We’re back to Dean today, though we’re still in angst-vile. All is not lost, though! Bear with me, sweet tumblr-inos :)
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to anyone who reads, notes, comments or messages. This is just the beginning of my tumblr experience and it has been wonderful so far!
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
A Very Human Risk
Part 4 - Dean
“Cas? You still in the shower?”
Dean could hear water running as he swiped the motel card and stepped through the door. He dumped the beer he carried down onto the end of the second bed, avoiding thinking for the moment about the strange, yet somehow exhilarating moment with Cas in that spot just a short while before. “Cas?”
He stepped up to the bathroom door, knocking with one knuckle. “Hey Cas, I’m back… I’m kinda still hungry, you wanna order pizza or something?”
The water continued to run, but there was no response. Calm down Dean. He’s fine, he found himself thinking. Unbidden, the image of Cas’s face, his eyes closed as he lay on a simple cabin table, comes rushing to Dean. He’s fine. He’s not dead. He’s in the shower.
For a few minutes, Dean stood awkwardly next to the door, before forcing himself to shake off his jacket and place his gun on the nightstand. His eyes rested on the bathroom door. I’ll just open the door and shout, I won’t go in and be weird…. I just need to know he’s okay. Just checking up. It’s been a rough day, after all.
“Cas, just letting you know I’m back from the store.” Steam gushed out of the tiny bathroom past Dean as he swung the door open, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the foot of the bed, standing sideways in the entrance.
When there was no response, Dean was done. He stuck his head into the bathroom. “Sorry Cas, I’m not meaning to intrude or anything, I swear… don’t think you could hear me calling from the bedroom.”
It took a couple of seconds for Dean to take in the scene before him. Cas is stood in the shower, burning water beating down onto his shoulders, as he leaned his forward to rest his brow on the tile, a hand each side of him holding him up. The rest of his body was somewhat obscured by the slightly yellowing shower curtain, but the plasticy fabric did nothing to hide the fact that the angel was crying. Deans green eyes widened in surprise as they followed the tears down the angels cheeks. It had taken a moment to even realize what he was seeing… the drip of red falling from the corner of Cas’s squeezed shut eye. Deep distress. Dean had looked it up once, with Sam – both of them fearing that Naomi had done some physical damage to Cas. But the only reference they had found to angels crying blood had indicated that when suffering, an angel can lose control of their empty vessel and without the underlying processes that make the vessel ‘alive’ for the angel, the tear ducts can fill with blood. Suffering.
Dean approaches gently, a hand going out to rest on the back of the angel’s neck. Goddamn that water is hot, he registered in the back of his mind. “Castiel?”
He jumped. Cas jumped like a cat, so lost in thought that even with his supernatural angel-senses he hadn’t heard Dean speak or approach until his fingers rested on top of his spine. He blinked over at him, streaks of bloodied pink water quivering down his cheeks. “Dean?”
Brow furrowed with concern, Dean pushed the shower curtain aside and reached up to turn the water off with one hand, using the strong, tanned arm that now rested atop Cas’s back to pull the angel into his chest.
“Cas, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” The sparkle of green in Dean’s eyes seemed to glint dangerously for a second. “Did someone hurt you?”
Whatever answer the angel would have made was lost into Dean’s chest as his attempts at comfort seem to suddenly cause Cas to come undone, shaking and sobbing into his arms.
Well shit, Dean thought. He battled with sorrow at seeing his best friend sobbing so desolately, warring with a simmering rage at whatever or whoever had caused this distress in the usually stoic angel. How do I fix a wet, bawling angel who can’t even tell me what’s wrong?
Keeping a firm hold on Castiel, one arm around him at all times, Dean guided his reddened, damp body out of the shower and through to the bedroom, murmuring senseless, comforting gibberish the whole time.
“It’s okay Cas, I got you… Come on buddy, I got you…”
He pressed lightly on Cas’s surprisingly muscled shoulder, forcing him to sit down onto the bed as Dean pulled the top blanket up and tried to get it around him, suddenly very conscious that Cas is completely naked. Keep your eyes up, eyes up, eyes up, He chanted mentally as he maneuvered the blankets, tucking them around the angel like a fussing mother hen. Sitting next to him then, Dean extended an arm around his blanketed shoulders and pulled him towards him again. They sat like that for a few minutes while the angel’s breathing slowed and his sobs became gentle hiccups.
Once he seemed calmer, Dean tilted his head down, trying to catch Cas’s eyes. He could feel the heat radiating out from his reddened skin even though the blanket.
“Hey hot wings,” he tried lightly. “You always have the shower that warm? Human skin can be a little fragile, y’know.”
“Yes,” Cas answered simply, his voice even lower and scratchier than usual from all the crying. His gaze dropped back to his blanketed lap, returning to silence and breathing.
“Do you, uh… do you wanna talk about it?” Dean asked quietly, hoping that his voice didn’t betray that ‘talking about it’ was hardly one of his strong suits.
Cas raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. He knew.
“I wouldn’t wish to make you uncomfortable Dean.” He paused and shook his head slightly. “Let’s just put some TV on. A beer, maybe.”
Although that was definitely what Dean would prefer in any situation, something didn’t sit right in his stomach just letting the angel shrug it off. He was crying blood. Sobbing like a baby. He barely shows any emotion at all but… he seemed so heartbroken. I can’t let that go, buddy.
* * *
After passing Cas the remote so he could find a show for them to watch, Dean stood from the bed and stepped briefly into the bathroom so he could privately call Sam in a whisper.
“Dean? Why are you whispering?”
“I’m in the bathroom, away from Cas.”
“You know he can probably hear you anyway, right?”
Dean sighed. “Yeah. But I’m hoping he’s being polite. Listen…. Did anything happen earlier? When you were sneaking around with my damn car?”
He heard Sam give a long exhale before he responded. “Why Dean? Like what?”
“I went to get beer and when I came back he… he was in the shower. Crying, Sam. Like… tears of blood crying. Remember when the God Squad tortured Samandriel?”
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
“Yeah, uh… I guess that might be my fault. I mean, it might not be, but…” Sam trailed off awkwardly. “Did he say anything to you? Before you went to the store?”
“Not really… he cleaned up one of my wounds for me. We…uh... chatted for a minute I guess.” Dean reached up, pushing his hand through his hair. “I mean… it was a little… intense? I suppose? I dunno. Probably no weirder than he usually is. Why? What’s going on Sam – what did you do?” The frustration was clear in Dean’s voice.
“You’re probably going to be mad at me, and I just want to say you have every right to be, I probably should have talked to you first…”
“Sam.”
“I just… I thought I was helping him I guess? I mean I understand why you would be angry but…”
“SAMMY.”
“He’s in love with you, Dean.”
And..... that’s it for today! Back tomorrow, to our embarrassed Angel.
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
Here’s the last little part to round off A Very Human Risk. I had fun posting this over here! Thank you to my lovely little band of followers, you’ve made my first week on this tumblr awesome!
I have another fic I’ll be posting after Mishapocalypse calms down - it’s a one-shot, fix-it kind of deal set during Season 12. That won’t be the last, I have something much bigger in the works, but that will be what’s next!
Thanks for reading. I love all of you, humans!
A Very Human Risk
Epilogue – Sam
It had been a couple of hours since Dean’s whispered phone call from the motel bathroom. Sam half expected his brother to come busting through the door of his room to whup his ass… and he wasn’t sure whether he should take his absence as a sign that he wasn’t mad, or that he was really, really mad.
Sam had already called Jack to check in, letting him know they’d be home a little later than planned. He’d taken a long shower, organized his duffle, and finished his salad. Eventually, he gave up fidgeting and read. A full three hours now, he noted. Closing his book, he almost made up his mind to call Cas and check that he’s okay, when there was a knock on his door.
Opening it to see Dean stood wordlessly in the doorway, Sam held up a hand somewhat defensively.
“Dean, I…”
Stepping forward, Dean pulled him in for a heartwarming brotherly hug.
“Thank you, Sammy.” Releasing his shoulders and regarding him with a wry grin, Dean awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “Turns out, you really do know me better than I do, sometimes.”
“So…” Sam’s huge smile is verging on teasing already. “The Winchester Gospels were right. Destiel after all?”
He only laughed even more when his brother smacked him, not that gently, right in the shoulder.
Welcome back! Or hello, if you’re here for the first time. (In which case, you may want to start here.)
Our first peek at Cas’s perspective is a little shorter, but somewhat heavier, than our forays with the Winchesters. It’s a little more ‘wall of text’ but somehow that felt better for the character than the first draft did, so I hope you’ll forgive me for that.
Please do slide me a quick message or comment to say hi if you enjoy the fic, I’d love to get people’s feedback on how it’s going.
Above all, enjoy!
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
A Very Human Risk
Part 3 – Castiel
“Hmm.”
Castiel made a small noise of contemplation as he worked loose his tie, dropping it onto the small wooden bench next to the motel shower. What did I do wrong? He contemplated stoically, running back over Dean’s expressions and sounds during their discussion as he shed his white shirt. Dean seemed flustered and embarrassed, judging from his pupil dilation and raised pulse… but why would he be so from that topic? I brought it up, not him…false modesty?
Shoes, belt and pants folded neatly onto the bench.
Humans can still be so confusing sometimes. Even being one only helped so much. Understanding their emotions…. and my emotions now, I suppose… seems a never ending task. Shaking his head a fraction he neatly folded his underwear on top of his dress pants before he stepped into the plastic stall, following Dean’s instructions to get washed up.
Cas didn’t need to take showers, but he did like them. Most of his memories of being human were fuzzy, unpleasant and overwhelming. So much….feeling. Pain was bright, commanding. Loneliness was quieter, yet harder to ignore. Heartbreak, he’d discovered, was a physical heaviness in the chest like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Like when Dean had sent him away. You can’t stay. Few pleasant things about being human remained clear in his memory, washed out by the all-encompassing feeling of just…feeling. Showers were definitely one of the most pleasing. The warmth trickling over his human body, the feeling of heat and liquid movement… it had reminded him, at the time, of wrapping his wings in tight about himself so that he could rocket up to the sky and beyond. Now, even as an angel, that feeling was lost to him. He wanted to fly, but he couldn’t. His tattered wings served only as another reminder of all he had lost. The showers though, remained.
He turned the heat up far higher than would have been comfortable as a human, trying to burn out the fleeting memory of all those negative emotions. But he knew there was a reason he couldn’t forget that feeling… that moment where he’d have sworn the world had dropped from under his chair as Dean dismissed him from the bunker. From his only home and only family. He knew why, now. He understood and it didn’t even occur to him to be mad that Sam would always come first. That protecting Sam would always be more important than protecting him. Dean and Sam were brothers, tighter than Cas had ever seen human families. He wasn’t mad. So why couldn’t he forget? Because that moment where I thought Dean didn’t want me to stay….. was the first time I was able to understand that I wanted to stay. More than anything. I wanted to stay with Dean. It had always been there, it wasn’t new – that electric connection between he and Dean. But until he was human, he’d never truly been able to understand the depth of what it was.
He reached for the tiny bar of soap the motel had provided; Dean had already used it thoroughly and the extra soap and bubbles had glooped and stuck to the little plastic shelf. He reached out to work it easily free and paused, looking at his fingers and remembering Sam’s hand an hour or so ago, resting on his knee. It had been a simple, comforting connection. Very human. Castiel felt a rush of affection and appreciation for Sam, this giant of a man who had always been his friend. A human brother who forgave easily and always tried to understand him, even though he knew as an angel he was incomprehensible to most humans. It was very like Sam to want to reassure Cas that he felt no ill or judgement towards him, for what he now realized must have been an increasingly obvious crush on his older brother.
Cas was used to being judged. It was part of his makeup. He had been judged and controlled before he fell, and long after. Loving Sam was easy… he was smart for a human, curious and simple to get along with. Thinking briefly to his celestial brothers, Cas momentarily considered that Sam would have been an excellent angel. A proper one, as he believed they had been intended to be. He loved Sam as a true brother. But loving Dean… loving Dean was pain. It was the opposite of simple. They fought, Cas because he could never say what he truly wanted to say and Dean because he didn’t understand Cas’s erratic actions. By never speaking of the truth of their situation, Cas had been able to continue to love Dean as a brother and friend, fighting by his side and doing what he could to share his burdens. The idea of jeopardizing that relationship, of risking feeling that heartbreak again by expressing those thoughts he had hinted at in the car…. Sam had been right. That is a very human risk.
Soaping down his body with the tiny white bar, Cas leaned his forehead against the wall of the shower and sighed softly. Be brave, brother… The voice floated unbidden through his mind on a wave of memory, a voice he hadn’t heard for several years. Gabriel. The most human of his haughty archangel brothers, it was Gabe to whom Cas had been closest in the recent millennia. Maybe Michael, once… but that was long ago. Before Lucifer. It seemed only Gabriel saw and understood the things that Cas did about this world. Ha, be brave. Cas thought sourly. His trickster brother would have had no problems there – if he’d have wanted Dean, he’d have flirted and smiled and whisked him off into bed the second he met him, whether Dean was straight or gay or anything in between. It wouldn’t have mattered; it was Gabriel. Castiel wasn’t like that. He’d never been confident in himself in that way, like many of his brothers were. He’d never had the cause or the time to worry about it. There were things about himself he was sure of; that he was one of Heaven's best warriors, that he was a superior tactician and that his aerial skills drew the eyes of many an angel. Hannah had noted once that as an angel, he was attractive and popular… before his fall. He’d been respected. Now, he was an outcast…and he was fairly sure if Dean saw his true face, he’d feel nothing but fear. They were too different. He looked down at his vessel, the water cascading across his smoothly muscled stomach and compact runner’s thighs. Now…. I am this. Jimmy gave me his everything and yet there is a part of me that wishes…. Another vessel would have been easier, perhaps. Maybe Dean would have liked me if I was different. The realization came cascading over him with full force once he let it in, and he raised a hand to the wall next to his forehead, supporting himself as he slumped slightly. This is what I am now. Not quite angel, not quite man. My heart won’t be returned to me because Dean will never see past this vessel. I’m nothing, and I am alone.
His shoulders shook as he felt the full humanity of his heart.
Thanks for reading! If you want to dive back inside Dean’s head and see where we go, check back tomorrow!
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6
