Third year at Hogwarts: a chance to take new classes, join new clubs, and maintain old feuds. Castiel and Dean are headed back to Hogwarts, angrier and more awkward around each other than they've ever been. Quidditch try-outs and Duelling Club rivalries put them to the test, but this year, something bigger than bludgers and more harrowing than hexes might be coming their way.
Read it here on AO3!
And since it's been a goodly while, check out our recap of last chapter to get you back up to speed - it's below the cut :D
LAST TIME ON A PRIORI…
Castiel agonises over what to give Dean for a birthday present, and ends up considering the importance of boundaries and deciding not to give Dean anything. He has a run-in with Ruby, who tries to tell Castiel that Dean is a Muggle-born. Castiel disbelieves her, thinking she’s just being spiteful. Dean visits the Owlery and hugs his owl, Gandalf, and thinks about Castiel and why they aren’t talking. He has an eye-opening conversation with Philippe LeChat about blood status, and what seems like a life-threatening encounter with one of Lisa Braeden’s Herbology creations. At a Quidditch match, he opens up to Lisa, and watches Jo win the Quidditch Cup with the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Later, Dean goes back to the library and, after a talk with Joshua the librarian about literary censorship, decides to leave the Martin Miggs comic with all its Muggle stereotypes on the shelf, but with some annotations. Ash finds Castiel to call in a favour: Castiel promised to help Ash find a new base for his illicit potion-making business. While trying to move the potions ingredients out of the dungeons, they are both caught by Professor Abaddon Apollyon, who confiscates the ingredients and gives out a week’s worth of detentions. The detentions end up being with Lisa, and she and Castiel end up passing notes about Dean, which leaves Castiel no wiser and a bit sadder. Dean discusses his summer plans with his fellow Hufflepuffs, and then heads to the end-of-year feast to find out that Hufflepuff won the House Cup. He goes to visit the curious door with its strange markings and mechanics; he can’t make any progress in getting it open. Finally, Dean takes the train home and on Platform 9¾, Lisa kisses him for the first time. Dean turns to see Castiel was watching, but says nothing to him.
When he salts the bones, burns them, he does it so gently.
Like his hands do the work of these lovers for them, since they're gone.
At the end, when there's nothing left - he waits for so long, until there isn't anything left - Dean thinks about the way they'd been laid out, not touching.
The sun comes up.
Not touching.
Suddenly - furiously - Dean reaches for the blade in his belt and plunges it into the dust. His hands shake. His cheeks are wet. He needs to go home.
So he goes. Hesitates, before leaving the door to the outside open behind him, so the wind can sigh through. A last gentleness, wretchedly given - a chance that the ashes will be moved by nature, to touch.
When he wants boys, he feels the plunge of the knife. When his hands want to linger he lays himself out, alone, with a quiet cruelty no one else can see. Silent. Not touching.
Until the day he's raised from Hell. And there on his shoulder, burned into his skin, is a touch.
Length: ~5k
Tags: Canon Divergent, Y yo a ti Cas timeline, Misunderstandings
It's three months after Castiel was brought back from the Empty after confessing his love to Dean, and things are awkward between them. They haven't talked about it. Castiel can feel how much Dean wants to, but he won't let himself, and Castiel can only wait. But one night, with Castiel halfway across the world, he gets a text from Dean that might change everything - even if Dean didn't quite mean it to.
Castiel
It was just awkward. Castiel couldn’t deny it. Things between himself and Dean were definitely awkward.
Three months back on Earth, safe from the Empty with a little help from the Winchesters and from Jack – but Castiel and Dean still hadn’t talked about it. The things that Castiel had said – and what Dean had said in return.
I love you. Me too, Cas.
Castiel knew he should have expected this, the awkwardness. Hadn’t he known Dean long enough, at this point, to be able to predict him? And there was nothing more predictable than Dean not wanting to talk about something.
Still, it hurt. There had been that shining moment of happiness, if a word as soft as happiness was even the right way to describe the feeling of absolute blazing corrosive joy that Castiel had felt when Dean had told him that his feelings were reciprocated. And now, there was just… silence.
It was awkward.
And Castiel didn’t know what to do. Was Dean waiting for him to say something? But Castiel had already said it all. It was Dean who’d only managed to choke out a few words, Dean who must have more to say. And yet he said nothing. Days were slipping past full of staring and loaded sentences and quietness.
The fact that it was all so familiar didn’t make it any better. Castiel wanted something different. It had been different before they’d said anything out loud, but – but there had been something about hearing Dean say those words, me too, Cas, that had changed everything.
He didn’t need much. Nothing grand or unusual, only something to ease the tension. Even if it was just an expression on Dean’s face that acknowledged what had passed between them, instead of pushing it away.
But Dean… Castiel knew it was different for him. There were things that Dean didn’t allow himself, for a tangle of reasons that Castiel only barely understood. Dean didn’t let himself touch. Dean didn’t let himself speak. Dean didn’t let himself look.
But Dean wanted to.
Castiel knew Dean wanted to. So many aching years that Dean had longed for him, and Castiel had been able to feel it like a prayer – and not some soft and murmured thing, a prayer of an older kind, something raw and wordless and desperate. Something on its knees. Castiel could feel the yearning in Dean. It would have been so simple for Castiel to offer touch, but Dean hadn’t ever really let him. And Dean still wasn’t letting him.
And Castiel could still feel the longing.
When they were together, and when they were several thousand miles apart, too. It was there. Never any quieter or gentler, not even from far away. It always touched the same place in Castiel’s grace that it had done from the start. And the feeling of it was just the same, too, like being doused in oil and dropped into flames that reached and hoped and hungered.
Beautiful fire. A beautiful prayer. Castiel wanted to answer it. Dean behaved as though he didn’t know it was there.
The tension in the bunker had become too much, last night, and Castiel had abruptly left with just a quick text to Dean.
> I’m going to look for the artifact Sam read about in Seoul. It shouldn’t be left unguarded.
The artifact was probably just a trinket, if Castiel was being honest with himself, and its significance paled in comparison to everything they’d been through, but it was a reason to get away from everything and give himself a break. It would have only taken Castiel moments to find the artifact if he’d wanted, but he drew it out. He walked rather than flying, pacing the streets of Seoul, following up on the leads that Sam had found. His grace hummed and sighed against Dean’s prayer.
He hoped that when he returned, something might be different. That he and Dean could talk. Maybe even – as he walked down a side-street with neon lights that glowed through the drizzling rain, Castiel allowed himself a wry little smile. Maybe even do something together. Go somewhere. Go on a date.
A date. To a human the word would probably sound little, and normal, and silly for an angel to be thinking about. But to Castiel, it just sounded like something new.
And it was so easy, somehow, to picture Dean coming into the bunker's kitchen, pointing at Castiel semi-aggressively, and saying, so. You, me, date. Up for it?
Would that be how Dean would phrase it? Castiel tried it a few different ways in his head. Down for it? How about it? You in? Each time, the Dean in Castiel's mind looked almost angry as he waited for an answer. Each time, Dean's face softened when Castiel said, yes.
So easy to imagine. So out of reach. Castiel walked on through Seoul, the rain starting to thrum down harder.
–––––
Dean
It was awkward.
Dean knew it was awkward, and he wasn’t thinking about it – he wasn’t. Except when Cas did stupid shit like ditching the bunker without warning, leaving just some handwritten note like a kid sneaking out of his tent at summer camp, it made it kind of harder to ignore.
Staring down at the note in the bunker’s library, Dean pressed his lips together and read it over again, his eyes scanning the words while his brain paid no attention to them, lost in thought.
There was something so ridiculous about it all. The moment between them, the – whatever it had been, when they’d admitted their crap to each other – it felt so overblown to look back on. Sure, Cas had had to summon the Empty, he’d had to get all deep just to save Dean’s hide. But Dean… what he’d said had just been stupid. No point to it. Dean cringed when he thought about it.
Me too, Cas.
The words were so little like something Dean would ever say that they might as well have been in a foreign language. Me too, Cas? That kind of thing didn’t have to be said. Because obviously, him too. But what were they supposed to do about it? Buy each other flowers? Feed each other chocolates? God forbid – hold hands?
Dean felt a little hot rush in his chest just thinking about it, and an accompanying stab of guilt. What were they, seventeen? They were old. Too old for flowers and chocolates. Too old for holding hands. And too old for this weird tension between them, Jesus. Who got nervous and tongue-tied and awkward around a crush at Dean’s age?
Who called it a crush at Dean’s age?
Dean, sat in the library at the bunker, dropped the note Cas had left and picked up his phone. Practicalities. Just focus on the practicalities. He should at least make sure Sam had kept Cas up to date with the latest research about the artifact that might be hidden in Seoul.
Dean tapped on the screen of his phone for a few seconds, holding it a little further away from his eyes than he used to have to do. He read over what he’d typed once, and then hit send.
–––––
Castiel
Castiel’s phone hummed.
With a little clench in his gut, Castiel stepped under the cover of a dark doorway to get out of the rain, and pulled it out of his pocket. Dean’s name was on the screen, obviously. There was the usual leap of excitement, tinged with a familiar sinking feeling in his chest. Dean would probably be angry with him for leaving.
With a stoic line to his jaw, Castiel opened the text, knowing it couldn’t be anything good.
> So. You up to date?
Castiel stared down at his phone.
No… no. He couldn’t have read that right. He blinked, and tried it again.
It still said the same thing.
You up to date?
Dean had just asked Castiel if he was… up to date? If he… wanted to date?
However many times Castiel reread the text, it said the same thing. Castiel stood absolutely still, his eyes puzzling out the letters of Dean’s message again and again.
It was – it was just the way Castiel had imagined it, if not word perfect. The brusque tone, the question. Castiel, half in shadow in a porch in rainy Seoul, stared down at his phone as if it had just promised him the moon.
Dean had just asked Castiel if he was up for dating.
Via text. Obviously. Maybe all this time, it had just been that trying to talk face-to-face had been too much. Maybe Castiel should have left for halfway across the world months ago.
Castiel could feel his heart pounding. He couldn’t stop himself reading Dean’s question, over and over again.
–––––
Dean
When the text from Cas finally came back, Dean snatched up his phone. It wasn’t that he’d been sitting and staring at it, waiting for a reply – he’d just got a little lost in thought, was all, wondering where Cas was and why he wasn’t answering sooner.
The text, though, when Dean read it, put a frown on his face.
> I’m so glad you asked. Yes, I would love to.
Wait. What? Dean checked over what he’d said himself in his first text, just to be sure he hadn’t made some kind of a typo. Nope, he’d definitely just asked if Cas was up to date with the artifact.
So, Cas would love to… what?
Cas was glad he’d asked about what?
None of it sounded like the answer to a simple question about research on an artifact, at all. Maybe Cas was just in the middle of something, and misread Dean’s text. Not something that had ever happened before, but still. Whatever.
Dean circled his thumbs over the keyboard on his screen, and then typed a reply.
< Love to do what
Keep it simple, he figured.
He sat puzzling over Cas’ first message as he waited for a reply. So glad you asked. What did that even mean? Was Cas ever particularly glad when Dean asked anything?
The reply came back quickly, this time.
> Anything you want to do. :) Maybe just going to a bar?
Dean squinted down at his phone.
Anything he wanted to do about what? A bar?
Was he losing it? Dean reread the text over and then over again, and looked back up their conversation to try to make Cas’ reply make sense. The emoticon was typical enough, even though Dean hadn’t seen a smiley one in a while. The way it made his chest squeeze was ridiculous. It was just a smile. And it just followed the words, anything you want to do.
Before he could let his mind run too far with what exactly that could mean, Dean texted back in confusion,
< You want to go to a bar?
There was something about this conversation that was making his heart beat harder. Come on, he told it. What, you can face down the end of the world more than once and a little text conversation still has you like this?
Ignoring his solid logic, Dean’s heart only raced faster when Cas texted back,
> Yes, of course. Unless you think it’s a bad idea?
So… Cas wanted to go to a bar? With Dean?
That was – well, it wasn’t that strange on Dean’s personal spectrum of strange to not strange these days. Fighting Death and God and God’s sister and all the rest of it kind of put a bunch of other strange crap way down the list. But this was still… weird. Not bad weird, necessarily.
But how had they got here, why were they talking about this? What kind of a bar, why? Dean had just wanted to check up on Cas in a few brief words and suddenly they were making evening plans? Cas was making no sense. Was he doing it on purpose? Dean read the whole conversation over again, and pulled a face of utter and annoyed confusion for the benefit of no one, and shook his head.
He thought about it, and licked his lips, and shook his head again.
And then thought some more, and made a hand gesture, as if asking of no one, what the fuck.
He texted out,
< What do u mean
He stared down at the text for a second, and then deleted it, and tried instead,
< Why are we talking about this
He didn’t even read that one over again before deleting it. He made another face, and then quickly typed and sent,
< But you’re in Seoul
However they’d arrived at the idea of going to a bar, it didn’t particularly matter when Castiel was thousands of miles away. Had deliberately ditched, in fact, which was more of an obstacle to them having a nice evening out tonight than the distance between them, but Dean wasn’t going to say that directly.
> Only for a short while longer. I’ve almost completed the search for the artifact. Then I’ll come back :)
Another damn smiley face, another little lift in Dean’s chest. Look at him. Fully grown, and soft over the idea of his best friend looking forward to spending an evening together. Yikes.
Practicalities. Dean fired off another text.
< Okay... you just wanna talk or what
If Cas was going to try to insist that they talk about stuff, well – the drinks would probably be a good place to start, but Dean would need to psych himself up to the idea of trying to explain anything at all that had happened between them. Me too, Cas. He kept hearing himself say it and wanting to bury his head in his hands. What had he been thinking. What had Cas been thinking, when he’d decided on Dean. That had to earn the award for the worst fucking choice in the history of the world.
Dean’s phone buzzed in his hands.
> I think talking is what people usually do on a date. But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.
Dean’s eyes went wide.
–––––
Castiel
Across the world, in the porch in Seoul, Castiel watched as Dean’s little typing bubble with three dot dot dots appeared, and disappeared, and reappeared.
He tried to quiet the excitement in his chest, tried to remind himself that Dean had just implied fairly heavily that he wouldn’t want to talk on their date – which wasn’t unexpected for Dean, but it did leave Castiel wondering what else Dean might want to do.
A thought occurred to Castiel about something they might be able to do without talking, and he swallowed, and felt his hopes fly higher.
Or perhaps Dean just wanted to sit together in silence. That would be alright, too. Companionship in the quiet. When he thought about it, Castiel knew it would be more than enough just to sit by Dean in a bar and drink together, knowing that they were both choosing to be there. Even if they didn’t say a single word the whole evening, even if Dean didn’t so much as look at him the whole night. They could spend the date speechlessly. But it would be a date. It would be an acknowledgement. Maybe it would ease a little of the longing that Castiel felt and felt and felt from Dean, burning.
Finally, a text from Dean came in.
> Wait what
Wait, what?
Castiel felt his heart sink.
There was something wrong. That tone, just two stark words – something wasn’t right. Castiel scrolled back up their conversation. Had he accidentally said something rude? He couldn’t find it, reading the texts over and then over again. He’d used emoticons to show that he was happy. Had they seemed sarcastic?
Did it seem as though Castiel didn’t really want to go on a date? Or that he wouldn’t really be content for them to not talk on the date? Hurriedly, Castiel began typing again.
< I mean it. We don’t have to say anything. I just want to be there with you.
It was the kind of text that Castiel would ordinarily type out and then delete because it was too forthright, too emotional, too much for Dean – but this time, he just hit send before he could think about it. Worse than Dean being grossed out by Castiel openly having feelings was the idea of Dean not knowing that Castiel really did feel those things.
There was a long silence. Castiel stood still, waiting for Dean.
How many times had he stood, quiet, expectant, wanting Dean to be ready, hoping he would be ready, prepared to wait for an eternity until he was? In the span of Castiel’s own lifetime, he’d waited just a blink of an eye. But somehow this blink had been torturously slow. A torture Castiel would have fought to the death before trading.
Castiel’s phone hummed.
> You really want to go on a date
Castiel stared down at the screen. He couldn’t tell if the tone was judgemental or vulnerable. He blinked, and thought hard – and then, with a little shake of his head and hard press of his lips, he made a choice.
Quite suddenly, the street in Seoul was empty.
–––––
Dean
Dean almost fell out of his chair when Cas appeared opposite him in the bunker.
“Shit!” Dean swore, grabbing the table in front of him with one hand. He watched as Cas tilted his head just slightly sideways at Dean’s other hand, instinctively on the butt of his gun.
He eased his hold.
“Could’ve killed you,” Dean mumbled. Cas smiled wryly.
“You could have tried,” he said.
Dean swallowed. Right. Angel powers were all the way back up, these days.
“You’re back,” he said blankly, just to say something, because immediately leaving the room didn’t seem like it would be a good idea – however much the nervousness in his brain was insisting that this conversation wasn’t going to go well, and he needed to bail.
“Yes.” Cas lifted his phone up to face Dean, so that Dean could read their conversation on the screen. Dean glanced over it. It was strange seeing his own words on the left side of the screen, almost embarrassing. “What does this mean?” Cas asked.
Dean got to his feet, feeling too low down still in his chair.
“Uh…” He watched Cas warily, while trying to keep his tone light. “You tell me, Cas.”
“No,” Cas said firmly. “You asked me if I really wanted to go on a date.”
“Yeah,” Dean said.
Cas stared at him, clearly expecting more. Dean tried waiting him out for a few seconds in silence, hoping Cas would say something else, but Cas had that determined look in his eye that told Dean he was going to have to be the one to say something.
“What about it?” Dean said.
“What does the question mean?” Cas asked.
“Well, Cas, it’s kind of all right there. In the message.”
“You just asked if I really want to go on a date,” Cas said again.
“Yeah,” Dean said. “So, do you?”
It was all wrong. His tone was all wrong. It was aggressive, and blunt. He sounded outright angry at the idea that Cas might actually want to go on a date, and that tone didn’t even vaguely map over the ridiculous leap in his chest at the idea of a date together.
But somehow, Cas’ shoulders were dropping, and his face was relaxing, as though – as though that was what he’d been expecting to hear. Or even what he’d been hoping to hear.
“Yes,” Cas said.
Dean felt his mouth fall slightly open and his eyes go wide, and he looked away.
He could feel his breath suddenly coming a little short. He tried to stand very still and be very quiet so that Cas wouldn’t see what that one-word answer had meant. How much it had shaken Dean.
It was only when he heard the yes that he realised just how little he’d expected to ever hear it.
Cas wanted to date. The hot rush in Dean’s chest was back, and the accompanying punch of guilt readied itself… but held back. Because Cas had said yes.
He’d said yes.
“Is that a surprise?” Cas said, his tone dry but not unkind. Dean swallowed, and managed a smile when he looked back over.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Oh.” Cas looked confused. “But… I told you…”
“I know.” Dean shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d wanna do any of that crap, though. Human stuff.”
He saw something clear on Cas’ face, as though something that had been weighing on him had suddenly been lifted.
“Ah,” he said. “Well… I do. Want to.”
Dean nodded, once, a little sharply. God, he had no idea how to do this. And it didn’t help that he could feel things moving inside him, shifting, like walls crumbling, like stuff he’d smothered finally elbowing its way up to be felt – a blazing feeling, a hurting feeling, a wanting. Somehow both familiar and terrifying.
“Okay,” Dean managed aloud.
“As long as you still want to,” Cas said.
Still? Had Dean ever actually told Cas that he wanted to go on a date? Maybe he’d just been that obvious. Or maybe Cas had actually been able to guess what Dean wanted from the way Dean had said me too, Cas, even though Dean hadn’t been able to guess what Cas wanted in spite of literally being told I love you.
“Do you?” Cas asked, when Dean was silent for a second too long.
That wanting feeling, that hot tense ache that almost had Dean’s teeth gritting against it at this point, it was demanding a yes. It was saying go, go over there, what are you waiting for now? But Dean swallowed it. He couldn’t just have that. He couldn’t. Could he?
“Well,” he said. “I dunno. I mean. We are kinda old for it. Aren’t we?”
Dean watched Castiel consider it, his heart thudding.
“I’m fairly old,” Castiel said, “yes. But I think I’m still allowed to try new things.”
“New things,” Dean echoed.
“Yes.”
“Like… dating.”
“Yes,” Castiel said. “If you want to.”
“And like…” Dean went to say something else, and then stipped himself. Too many things all rushing to the front at once. Too many possibilities. Too many things that he’d given up thinking he could ever have. Too many things he’d told himself it was right that he didn’t have, because it’d be embarrassing if he did.
But now, here was Castiel, standing in front of him and saying he wanted to go on a date. Watching Dean quietly, waiting for him to finish what he’d started to say.
“Like…” Dean said, and then stopped again, and shook his head. “I don’t know, Cas. I’m not… you know.”
“You don’t want to?” Castiel said, the question spoken so neutrally that Dean knew it came with effort – Castiel’s muscles had to be heaving with holding that door open for Dean to leave through, if he wanted. But Castiel was still holding the door. Still saying, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.
“No, I – yeah. I mean, I – yeah, I want to,” Dean said, saying the last part to the floor. His chest felt as though it was going to crack open. He wanted walk around the table between him and Cas, and drop to his knees, and just ask Cas with his eyes to touch him, anywhere, anyhow, gentle or not. “Just… I mean, look at us. Are we really gonna fit with any of that crap?”
He couldn’t imagine them trying to do the usual sweet romantic stuff. Dates and gifts and cards and flowers. So stupid after everything they’d been through, like sticking heart-shaped bows on the muzzles of two rusting guns.
“What kind of crap?” Castiel asked.
“You know. The whole schtick. Lovey-dovey crap.” Dean mumbled it, aware that even in describing it he sounded ridiculous. Lovey-dovey? Christ.
“I thought we could just try things out,” Castiel said. “And see if we can do them our way.”
“But what if it doesn’t work,” Dean said, making an attempt not to sound too wretched. He watched Castiel, waiting for him to give up, to say this was already too much work, that it wasn’t worth it, and they should just carry on going as they had been.
“Then we try something else,” Castiel said.
“Right,” Dean said, with an almost-laugh. “And we just do that over and over, huh.”
“If you’d like.”
“You’d seriously be okay with just keeping on trying forever?” He said it as if it were a joke.
“Yes,” Castiel said. “Of course.”
Dean went quiet. The expanse of the table between them was far, much too far. He stuck his hands in his pockets and nodded, because he didn’t know what else to do.
Cas saying that he’d keep trying forever was absurd. What was even more absurd was that Dean actually believed him. Cas had that look on his face, the one that allowed no argument, not angry or proud, just – sure. Certain.
If nothing they did together felt right, Cas would stick by him and keep trying new things. Forever.
Dean felt a part of himself breathe out, and with it went the last of the wall. Now Dean was immolating, standing still in the library of the bunker, just burning and burning with wanting to be touched by Cas, and –
As Dean watched, Cas’ jaw was tightening, as though he too were holding himself back against what he needed.
They stared at each other over the table. You first, Dean begged him silently. Please, just come here, just come here.
Cas’ blue eyes were locked with his, trying to say something Dean couldn’t hear.
“Cas,” Dean said, into the silence.
Cas watched him, waiting.
Dean’s mind was a blank. He didn’t know how to take this feeling, this all-encompassing burning wanting yearning feeling, and turn it into words. He didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted without accidentally putting it out of his own reach in the asking. He didn’t know how to want in the way that received, only in the way that was hopeless.
And Cas only looked at him and waited.
Dean opened his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he said. Cas’ expression flickered, but he didn’t move. “I – you – Cas, Jesus, I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do you want me to go?”
“No,” Dean said quickly, immediately.
“Do you want me to stay here?”
“Yeah. I mean…” Dean swallowed. “No.”
Now Cas looked confused.
“Do you want me to…” Cas paused, puzzling it out. Dean watched him thinking, if I shouldn’t go, and I shouldn’t stay, then…?
“Cas,” Dean said, “come here.”
Cas blinked, and Dean watched the slope of his shoulders change, watched the way Cas’ eyes lightened with a sudden hope. He watched Cas take a step around the table, and then another, slowly, as though afraid to scare Dean off.
Dean couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. His hands were too big. He’d just asked Cas to come to him, and Cas was coming to him.
He couldn’t wait any longer. Dean moved, quickly, decisively, making for Cas as Cas came towards him, needing to be close and needing it now, and then – and then they were in front of each other in the bunker library, they were right in front of each other, standing with their hands by their sides and looking at each other. And all Dean could think as he looked at Cas was,
This is so heavy, it’s too much, it means too much.
And all Dean’s furiously thudding heart wanted was touch, anyway, no matter what it meant.
Cas reached up a hand, and gently – so gently – put it against Dean’s cheek.
Dean held his head up for a long moment, trying to keep himself together, keep it all in, be still, be silent. He gritted his teeth against the feeling in his chest, against the blazing of his happiness –
And then, he let go.
He closed his eyes, and breathed out. And leaned into the touch.
“I love you,” he heard Cas say.
“You shouldn’t.”
“I love you,” Cas said again, more determinedly, and Dean felt Cas’ forehead press to his own.
The touch of him was better than absolution. It was beautiful. It was perfect. Dean could feel the love of it running through him, easing the rusted gritty parts of him that had thought all this beyond him, and he wanted to gasp through the feeling of it like he was swimming through cold water. If he’d tried ten minutes ago to imagine Cas saying I love you to him again, Dean would have imagined it so sweet and unlike them. But this, this was happening. Cas’ forehead against Dean’s. Cas’ voice saying those words, I love you. And it felt real.
It felt like him, Dean, and it felt like Cas. This was who they were. This was how they loved each other.
“Me too,” Dean said. “Me too, Cas.”
He leaned forwards, and kissed Cas.
They didn’t go to the bar, in the end. They found they had enough to do without going out.
–––––
Dean
The next morning, in the kitchen, Dean turned to Cas and said casually,
“By the way, you never actually said. Are you up to date with the new research on the artifact? We should probably still try to find the damn thing.”
“Am I up to…”
Dean watched as Cas’ expression changed. It went from slight confusion, to sudden horror – and finally settled on a kind of dry acceptance.
“What?” Dean asked.
Cas came to stand by Dean, and because he could, Dean leaned forwards and kissed him again. His heart raced as he did it. Cas kissed him back, and Dean felt as though gravity probably shouldn’t be holding him down at this point.
“I, um,” Cas said. “When you texted me yesterday… I thought when you asked me that, you were asking me on a date.”
Dean’s brain took a second to catch up – and then he pressed his lips together to hold in a laugh. Cas tilted his head to one side.
“Don’t,” Cas said.
“I wouldn’t,” Dean said.
“Dean…”
“I’ll never mention it again.”
“I thought…” Cas closed his eyes, his head dropping as he smiled again at his own misunderstanding, and Dean let himself laugh. He reached out and put a hand on Cas’ shoulder, still a little tentative, still feeling his heart sing with the ability to touch. Cas leaned in, their bodies swaying together slightly.
“I love you,” Dean said, the words flowing up out of him like water from a spring, so easily, so naturally. He felt the immediate seize of panic afterwards, hearing those three words said in his own voice, out of his own mouth – but he couldn’t regret them, not when he saw Cas’ head lean back again, his blue eyes glowing with happiness.
"I used to know what I was doing," Dean says one evening.
Beside him on the sofa, Castiel lowers his book and tilts his head.
"You did?" he says with a touch of dryness, and Dean makes a face at him.
"Yeah. Believe it or not." Dean shifts, trying to sit bigger, rougher, to make up for the fragility of what he's saying. "It all used to be so easy. I knew what I had to do."
"And that was?"
Dean shrugs.
"What I was told."
Castiel considers him for a moment, before putting down the book.
"I understand that." He pauses, and then says, "It's easy to miss that."
"Mmm. Made life simpler, didn't it," Dean says, a little burr of irony in his voice. But then, with complete sincerity, he reaches for Castiel's hand.
Castiel gives it to him. The touch of his skin on Dean's is complicated. It's just palm to palm, fingers interlocked, warm and familiar - but inside, Dean is messy. Overflowing. Happy, guilty, loving, loved, sorry, hoping, having, all of it. More. And no one tells him which parts of it are right or wrong, or what he should do about any of it. So he holds onto Castiel's hand tighter.
"I'd miss this more," Castiel says. And Dean smiles.
Castiel's grace is missing, and Dean's frustrated - instead of looking for it, all Castiel wants to do is grow his flowers. Eventually, the two of them have to talk about it.
Read it below or here on AO3!
Tags: Canon Divergent, Gardener!Cas, Cas' Grace
This fic was inspired by this wonderful art by saminzat, and written as part of the @spnreverse-promptchallenge!
It’s not Heaven. It’s not even close. It’s just a garden, where Castiel is growing things.
If it were Heaven, Castiel thinks, then Dean would be looking a lot happier, those wrinkles around his eyes all eased away. If it were Heaven, there would have been a break in the clouds overhead when Dean arrived.
If it were Heaven, the peach rose would be in bloom, not straggling all green and leggy and ungainly through the picket fence that Castiel had put up to help it grow.
Castiel puts down the secateurs he’s been using to prune the forsythia, and takes off his gardening gloves. He walks over to Dean, acutely aware of the fact that he’s wearing enough sunscreen to make his skin shine, the worn-thin, oversized blue t-shirt he found at a Goodwill that says Thyme to Garden, and a very large sunhat to protect the back of his neck.
Sunburn, he reminds himself, is more uncomfortable than the growing look of mixed amusement and judgement in Dean’s eyes. Even on a cloudy day, his skin will burn if he’s outside for a long time. Something he learned the hard way after becoming human.
“I thought you were researching a case,” Castiel says to Dean as he approaches.
“Done. Thought I’d come say hi.” Dean raises an eyebrow and a half-smile at him in greeting. “So, hi.”
Castiel stops a few feet from him and tips his hat a little further back on his head, so that Dean can clearly see his face.
“Hello,” he says. Dean takes in the hat, the t-shirt, the full gardening ensemble, with one sweeping gaze.
“Looking good,” Dean says.
Castiel looks down at himself, and then solemnly back to Dean.
“Thank you,” he says, with just enough irony in his tone to get Dean to smile. Or it would have been, usually, but today Dean’s expression is sinking back into hard lines. The greyish, muted light seems to lie heavy on him, putting a coldness in his eyes.
Castiel searches his face. Just as he’s about to say something more, Dean breaks their stare, glancing around at the plants nearest him as a light breeze ruffles at them.
“They’ve grown since last time you showed me,” Dean says. He’s holding himself strangely, his fists clenched. Castiel tilts his head to one side, and then looks around with Dean at the garden.
He feels the familiar spark of happiness as he surveys his handiwork. Once, the place had been a sad little patch of chalky, lump-filled earth. Now the flowers drip off their stems like dewdrops, and the soil smells rich, and the leaves tremble their creaky little paths to follow the sun each day. Even the blossomless peach rose has strong roots.
Castiel glances back to Dean, and feels the warmth in his chest sputter out. Dean’s eyeing the plantlife with an expression that doesn’t seem impressed.
“It’s been a while since last time,” Castiel says.
“Yeah. Well, you know.” Dean looks distracted, frowning down at a squat little succulent plant. There’s something bothering him, obviously, and Castiel isn’t sure whether Dean wants to be asked about it or have it be left alone.
“You’re always welcome,” Castiel tries quietly. Dean seems to catch himself, shifting his expression to something more neutral as he turns back to Castiel.
“Yeah,” he says, not as though he particularly believes it, and – in a way that almost manages to seem genuine – not as though he particularly cares.
“You can stay,” Castiel says. “If you want. There’s plenty to do. If you’re not busy.”
Dean puts his hands into his pockets and looks around the garden again, this time with his eyes a little less sharp.
“Nah,” he says. “Nah, I don’t wanna spoil the fun.”
Spoil the fun? Castiel gives Dean a look that he hopes is eloquent, and Dean rolls his eyes.
“I dunno, man,” he says. “Anyway, it’s not really me, is it.”
He looks tired, Castiel thinks.
“Didn’t think it was you, either,” Dean adds after a half-beat. He reaches up unselfconsciously, and then seems to realise what he’s doing at the last moment, and awkwardly flicks the brim of Castiel’s hat with the back of one finger before taking a step away. “Didn’t think you’d ever go in for… you know. Whatever this is.”
Castiel can easily read that expression on Dean’s face. He’s seen it before, in other times, other places. The mixture of bravado and hurt and confusion had made sense when lives had been at stake and grand lies had been unfolding, but this – here, today, in among his roses and sunflowers, Castiel hadn’t expected it. Dean looks betrayed.
And Castiel doesn’t know what to say. He reaches up to his hat, just brushing the brim with the tips of his fingers in the same place Dean touched it.
“I need the hat,” he says. “To keep the sun off my neck.”
“Right,” Dean says. “Yeah.” He looks up at the sky, which is still an overcast grey.
“Even through clouds,” Castiel offers.
“Uh huh. Okay.”
Castiel squints at him.
“You seem angry,” he says. No more dancing around it. Predictably, Dean makes a face, as though the suggestion were ridiculous.
“Nah.”
“Dean.” Castiel fixes him with a look, and Dean shrugs.
“Whatever, man.”
“If something is wrong…” Castiel says.
“Listen, if coming out here and growing your little flowers and everything helps, then that’s fine,” he says. “It’s fine.”
There’s a but coming, and Castiel knows enough to wait for it. Dean looks aimlessly around at the burgeoning plants. His eyes trace the tangle of a buddleia, until he glances back to Castiel, who raises an eyebrow.
Dean’s front drops, the stiffness going out of his shoulders, his hands unclenching.
“But your grace, man,” he says. Castiel looks down at the ground. He should have expected this, he knew. But somehow hearing the words still takes him by surprise.
“What about it,” he says, in a tone that doesn’t really want an answer, but knows it’s going to get one.
Dean’s hands come up, palms facing out, asking a question without words at first.
“Seriously,” he manages after a moment. “What about it? It’s your grace, Cas.”
“I know,” Castiel says.
“It’s gone,” Dean says.
“I know.”
“It’s been months.”
“I…” Castiel sighs. “Yes.”
“You told me it was just gone,” Dean says, ducking his chin slightly to catch Castiel’s eyes. “Like it was no big deal. And now all you do is spend time up here, planting flowers. Not even trying to look for it. I don’t get it, man. And whenever I try to bring it up, you just say –”
“It’s taken care of,” Castiel says, at the same time as Dean mouths the words along with him, his expression exasperated with a spiderweb of hurt threaded through.
“It’s your grace.”
“I know,” Castiel says. “I know it is. But it’s taken care of, Dean. I don’t want…”
He cuts himself off before he says too much, pressing his lips together.
Dean shakes his head. Castiel can see him battling with himself, trying to decide whether he wants to push harder. Castiel keeps his face neutral, hoping Dean will drop it.
“Don’t want what?” Dean says, though, and Castiel feels his heart sink. “You’re human, now. And you’re stuck that way until you get your grace back, but you won’t even…” Dean seems to run out of words. Castiel tries to think of something to say to divert the conversation, take them down a different track.
“I’m doing better at shaving,” he says. “And I’ve learned not to brush my teeth before drinking orange juice.”
Castiel can see the slight smile on Dean’s face, but it’s almost completely buried under the worry and the anger.
“Right,” Dean says.
“Dean…”
“I just don’t get it. The grace… if it’s lost, I can help with that. If it’s destroyed, I can try to help too, or… we’ll figure something out. Or if it’s safe, why won’t you tell me what happened with it?” The strain in Dean’s voice tells Castiel that they’re at the heart of it now, at the reason for the tight shoulders and the clipped answers and the judgemental eyes on his catmint and cosmos. “Why won’t you just tell me?”
Castiel stares at him helplessly. The answers are in the back of his throat, ready to be said, but he can’t open his mouth – can’t get them out. He feels his heart thudding, his human heart. He doesn’t know if he likes that feeling, if he wants it – perhaps not, no more than he wants sunburn, or the taste of orange juice after toothpaste, or blood on his palms when he catches himself on that peach rose’s thorns.
But there’s something he does want. And any chance at – at that – any chance at all, it’s worth the weight of being human. He made a choice and he knows he’d make it, the same one, over and over again.
He thinks it all, but he can’t say it. Dean watches him, angry and confused. Overhead, the clouds lumber their heavy bellies across the sky.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Dean says. Castiel looks away, and Dean takes a step closer. “Cas,” he says. “I swear to god.”
Castiel looks up at him, knowing his own tiredness is right there to be seen on his face – and his sadness, his hurt. Dean’s expression shifts, and he comes even closer.
“What did you do, man? Is it that bad?”
It’s easy to see Dean’s mind working, trying to piece everything together. He’s probably thinking demons, and deals, and treachery, all the things that they’ve been through before. Castiel doesn’t know how to explain to him that he’s wrong without telling him the whole truth. And he can’t tell the whole truth.
“Look,” Dean says, “we’ll figure it out. If you just tell me – tell me where it is, or what happened. Did someone do this? And what… what does all of this have to do with it…” He looks around again at the garden. Castiel closes his eyes for a second, lets the familiar feeling of being here fill him as much as he can let it – the warmth in his chest, the spark.
He knows he should try to talk about it, but he can’t. He can’t.
When he opens his eyes, Dean’s waiting, watching him. Castiel opens his mouth – but nothing comes out.
Dean’s face tightens again.
“Okay,” he says. “So it’s like that. Great, Cas.”
“Dean, it’s –”
“No, it’s fine,” Dean says, his tone taut with bitterness, but his face carefully unbothered. “That’s fine. Deal with it by yourself. That’s always gone so well. And meanwhile, me, I’ll just, what? Wait for you to give me the bad news, I guess. That’s great, Cas. Really. You know, you –”
“Stop,” Castiel asks.
And a little of the fight leaves Dean again. He looks as though he wants to say something else, but doesn’t know what. His face is half apology and half anger.
“It just…” he says. And then waves his hand, like it doesn’t matter anyway.
And it’s the simplicity of the hurt in that gesture that has Castiel throwing all his caution to the wind and saying,
“I don’t want it back.”
Dean stops moving. His eyes fix on Castiel.
“What?” Dean asks.
Castiel’s jaw is tight, but he manages to say again,
“I don’t want it back. My grace. I know where it is. But I don’t want it back.”
All of Dean’s carefully placed anger is gone, suddenly, in his shock. There’s no performance, no strategy, in the way that he steps closer and looks utterly bewildered.
“You don’t?” he says.
“No. I…” Castiel hesitates, and then says, “I took it out myself.”
“You what?”
Castiel lifts one shoulder, a little diffidently. It had been necessary, so he’d done it. As simple as that.
“Cas,” Dean says, and then seems to be at a loss. Castiel doesn’t say anything. There isn’t anything to say, so far as he can see.
He’s made his choice. And if he ever regrets it, if he ever wishes things could be different, all he has to do is look at Dean and it pales to nothing.
“Cas… why?” Dean manages eventually, and Castiel breathes out.
He looks at Dean.
Dean stares right back at him, not understanding.
“Did someone make you?” Dean demands. “We can go and look for them, we can –”
“No,” Castiel says. “No. I chose to do it.”
“But Cas…”
“It’s –” Castiel presses his lips together again, trying not to let the expression look pained, even though there’s a flash of hurt through his chest at the thought of trying to say any of it aloud. Saying it would push the two of them, Dean and Castiel, towards a tipping point. A no-takebacks, no room for misunderstanding point. Sharp as a thorn.
And it’s the last thing Castiel wants.
Until they talk about it, anything seems possible. It almost feels real enough. But if they talk, it’ll all be over. Dean will tell him to take back his grace, and Castiel will have to leave. It’ll be over.
“You took it out. What would you do that for,” Dean says. When Castiel doesn’t reply, he reaches out and puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says, the word harsh enough to compensate for the touch.
“It’s nothing,” Castiel says.
“Cas.”
“Really, it’s…” Castiel stops. The denial dies in his mouth. He swallows, his eyes on Dean, before he looked down. “I just want to be able to stay with you.”
The last two words are too much – all of it is too much – but they’re out his mouth before he can stop them. Castiel breathes out and waits to feel Dean’s hand loosen its grip, drop away in shock at the unwanted intensity. It’s too much. Castiel knows it’s too much.
But Dean’s hand is still on his shoulder.
“You want to be able to stay?” Dean says.
“Yes.” Castiel says it bluntly, to try to shave off the emotion, make it easier to talk about. Dean’s hand still doesn’t move. Castiel can feel each place Dean’s fingers are digging in slightly through the thin material of his t-shirt. His heart is pounding and he wants to be able to turn it off, quiet it down, hear Dean’s heart instead in the way he could when he had his grace. He wants it with a sudden acuteness, a pang of loss.
“But – you can,” Dean says. “Why would you think you needed to do this?”
Castiel can’t look back up at him.
“Cas,” Dean says.
There’s a band of pain squeezing tightly around Castiel’s chest. He can’t quite seem to get his breath, suddenly.
“I just thought I’d fit better this way,” he says.
“Fit better?” Now Dean moves his hand, pulls back, though he doesn’t go far. “What do you mean?”
“You’re human,” Castiel says. He looks up, meets Dean’s eyes. “Now I am too. I thought, maybe…”
He trails off. He can’t say more. He can’t talk about what he hopes for, what he wants. He can’t.
Dean’s hand is back on his shoulder and the touch is different, now, less insistent. Softer. Castiel can see the gentleness in Dean’s eyes, shy and uncertain, allowed to show just for a few moments.
“We don’t have to be the same,” Dean says.
Castiel doesn’t know how to answer.
“We’ve never been the same,” Dean says. “But we’re still good. Right?”
There are no words in Castiel’s mind, or none that make sense – or none that he can say aloud. He wishes he could give Dean the way that he feels, just drop it into Dean’s mind, show him without having to explain it. The feeling is yes, good, of course we’re good, but there’s more – there’s different things, things I want to be to you, ways I want to be with you. And not telling you feels more and more like lying with every passing day but I don’t know how to tell you without you being suddenly aware that I’ve been wanting you in a different way to how you want me for a very long time, and will you hate me for that? Will you think I’m a liar? Will you send me away? Could I bear that? Could I bear it? If you hated me, how could I bear it?
“I just,” Castiel says, “I just want to be able to stay.” It’s the only part of it that will come out of his mouth.
“You can,” Dean says. “You don’t need… damnit, Cas, you didn’t have to take your own grace out just to be able to stay.”
Castiel nods mutely. Dean’s hand squeezes Castiel’s shoulder.
“So you can put it back, right?” he says. “The grace. You can go get it and put it back?”
“I could.” It comes out more direct and harsh than Castiel intended, and Dean’s grip tightens.
“So…?” he says.
Castiel can’t meet his eyes. He looks to the side, around the garden that he’s created. The flowers that have unfurled for him, trusting, unfussy about what deep love and secrets he’s hiding. The leaves and shoots that grow steadily under the care of his hands, no matter who else those hands wish they could hold.
“Cas,” Dean says again, and gives another squeeze, and then lets go. “Your grace is you, man. All these months, it’s not like you’ve had a good time being human, is it?”
“It’s worth it.”
“Worth it?” Dean echoes.
“If it means we’re the same,” Castiel says. And his reasoning isn’t even clear to Castiel himself, now. It just feels as though if they’re both human, if they both are the same thing, there’s a chance they could both feel the same way, too – it makes no sense, and yet Castiel can’t imagine letting go of the thought.
“We don’t need to be the same,” Dean says, repeating himself with a look that’s crossed between confusion and concern.
“But I…”
Castiel stops talking, cuts himself off. Dean’s eyes search his face.
“You want to be?” Dean says, cautious, hazarding a guess. And when Castiel’s expression tells Dean he’s right, his face goes even more soft with surprise. “Why?”
There isn’t anything that Castiel can say in answer. No explanations he can give that will make sense outside his own mind. All he finds himself doing is looking at Dean – looking at him more openly than he has done in a long time, half tight-lipped and wanting the conversation to end, half hoping that Dean will finally piece it all together. He allows himself to stare, frankly and directly, pushing away the guilt and shame that push at him and tell him to look down, step away, move back, leave. He stares like he once used to all the time, letting down the walls.
There’s Dean, he thinks. There he is. Sometimes the feelings in Castiel grow so big and overwhelming that he forgets the shape of the man at the heart of them. The way Dean cares. The way Dean looks at him right back, matches him – when it comes down to it, never pretends it doesn’t matter to him when it does.
Dean’s mouth opens to form words, but he seems to stop himself. Castiel watches Dean swallow, and feels the familiar swoop and ache in his chest as all his crushing sky-sized love focuses into the smallness of the place on Dean’s throat that he wants to touch.
Dean goes to say something, and then stops.
Castiel looks down at Dean’s lips, and then back up again.
Is it wrong, how much he wants to kiss Dean? The feeling is pressing, immediate, alive. It’s in Castiel’s blood, in his bones. If Dean doesn’t want him too, in the same way, does that make the feeling wrong? Or would it just be acting on it, making Dean aware of it, that would be wrong? But the feeling is a background hum in everything Castiel does. He acts on it even when Dean isn’t with him. He acts on it all the time.
Every passing moment changes the gaze between them. Dean’s waiting for him to talk, not filling in the space with any words this time, but his face keeps sinking further into something that looks dangerously like realisation.
“I don’t know,” Castiel says. If how he feels, or what he’s doing, is wrong, then he should look away. He should go away, leave Dean alone, find somewhere else to be. But he couldn’t, he can’t, not until he knows for sure that Dean doesn’t feel even slightly the same way – and he can’t ask, because as soon as he knows Dean doesn’t feel the same way, he’ll have to leave. The thoughts chase their tails in Castiel’s head and he stares and he stares at Dean and he hurts so much that he wants to hit his own chest just for the distraction of a simpler pain.
“You don’t know what?”
“I just don’t know, Dean.”
Dean is watching him carefully, his mouth slightly open, as though trying to figure out how to phrase something he wants to say. There’s a slight tinge of colour to his cheeks, too, Castiel notices.
“Uh,” Dean says. His mouth shapes a ‘w’ like the start of a question, and then closes again, and he frowns – but he doesn’t look away.
He almost knows, Castiel thinks. He’s almost understood. And as soon as Dean understands, it’s over. Unless he feels the same way, which he doesn’t. He can’t. We’re not the same. No matter how hard I try and how much I change, we’re not ever the same.
He needs to cauterise this conversation like a wound, stop all this from happening, but he can’t find the words. Dean’s still watching him. Castiel’s heart is thunder in his head, drowning out his thoughts.
“You look like the whole world’s falling apart,” Dean says eventually. “Not an exaggeration. ‘Cause I’ve seen your face when the world was actually falling apart.” Dean points vaguely with one finger towards Castiel’s face. “And it looked like that.”
Castiel nods mutely, and Dean sighs and glances sharply away, and then back again.
“Come on, Cas, jesus. Something’s up, so whatever it is, just tell me.” He looks at Castiel for a long time, and then he says it again. In a different voice, quieter, with a little rise at the end as though of hope or something equally as stupid for Castiel to consider. “Tell me.”
It’s said in a way that makes Castiel want to believe he’s asking for all the things Castiel wants to give.
Dean’s eyes are wide, too. Like he can’t quite believe what he’s asking.
And Castiel’s human heart is pounding at that tone in his voice, that look on his face, because it feels as though – tentatively – they could be talking about the same thing. The longer Castiel watches Dean’s face, the more he sees it. There are the little flickers of denial, uncertainty, in the way Dean’s eyes narrow for a half-moment. And then there again is the rise of hope in the depth of Dean’s gaze, the openness.
It’s so small and barely-there that Castiel can’t trust it. He can’t know how this ends. It’s a rope thrown into down into his well, though, and with no idea what waits for him at the top, he still puts his hand on it and wonders if he’s strong enough to begin to climb.
“I, um.” He starts to speak, and his voice is low and rough. When he pauses almost immediately, Dean shifts his weight from one foot to the other, licks his lips. Castiel searches for the words. “I tried staking that peach rose. But it didn’t do any good.”
Dean looks confused. He doesn’t even bother to look down at the rose, just keeps his eyes on Castiel.
“What…” he says.
“It just grew that way,” Castiel says. He can feel a lump in his throat. “Naturally. It wanted to grow that way.”
“Okay,” Dean says, as though slightly concerned for Castiel’s sanity.
“I think sometimes it’s just like that,” Castiel says. He meets Dean’s eyes. “You can try planting them in the place you want them. Cut them back. Put a stake through them.” He resists the sudden, unexpected urge to reach up and touch the place on his chest where, years ago, Dean buried a knife in his heart. He swallows. “But sometimes there are things you can’t control. And even if it’s not… not healthy, or pretty, or the way it’s supposed to go… that’s how they’ll grow. Just towards the place they want to be.”
Dean’s listening intently, but his eyes are clouded with confusion. He looks like he wants to say something, and then stops himself. Castiel can’t blame him for not understanding, when half the point is that he’s talking without getting to the point. He doesn’t want to get to that sharp-split point when his life takes one of two courses, when Dean says one of two things.
“Dean, I…” Castiel says, and his hand reaches out. Unconsciously, awkwardly, the straggling limb of a plant that has never grown the way it should have done. And Castiel goes to catch himself, to stop letting his fingers trail through the air reaching for a place they can’t go – but then Dean takes his hand.
Dean takes his hand, and holds onto it. Not sweetly, not softly. Hard. Like they’re at the top of a cliff and Dean’s afraid of losing his grip and having to watch Castiel fall alone.
Castiel can barely breathe. Against the odds his hand is being held by Dean. Against the way that his words desert him, against the thousands of reasons that the two of them shouldn’t have ever even met, let alone be standing here together in a garden. Against all of it, Castiel’s hand is squeezed tight in Dean’s.
There’s a part of Castiel that’s trying to pinch itself, that’s shaking its head in denial, but Dean’s grip is warm and real.
“Cas,” Dean says. “Do you…”
The question has no ending, but it’s Dean, so the answer is yes. Castiel nods.
Dean’s expression seems, with just the smallest of looks in his eyes, to break apart. He holds onto Castiel’s hand and says nothing, doesn’t move.
“And…” Castiel says, but his throat goes dry. He can do this. He has to do this. If he doesn’t now, he never will. He tries again. “And… you?”
Dean looks momentarily bewildered.
“Yeah, Cas,” he says.
Castiel feels himself go light, so suddenly his stomach flips.
Yeah, Cas, he hears in his head. Yeah, Cas.
On another day, when Castiel hadn’t just told Dean how he feels through a series of oblique angles – when Castiel’s hand wasn’t still being held in the rough warmth of Dean’s – Castiel might have been indignant at that tone in Dean’s voice. As though it had been obvious, when yes, half the time Dean was staring at him like he actually mattered, was ready to die for him – but the rest of the time Dean couldn’t look at him, was ready to die for anything.
Their hands swing a little between them. Just their arm muscles getting a little tired, and their hands moving together. Such a very little thing to happen, Castiel thinks. So very small. After all this time it’s just one hand in another, and it means absolutely crushingly everything, in the way that he’d known it would.
It’s happening, he thinks. It’s happening. We’re the same. We’re the same.
A little clutch of fear that he might change, one day. Wake up and be something else, unexpectedly. Grow again, in a direction Dean doesn’t –
Castiel breathes. It’s alright. He’s torn out his grace for this. He can be the person Dean needs. He can change himself again. Over and over, if needs be.
He holds Dean’s hand. Tight. He can always change again. He can make them the same again. Whatever it takes. For this, for the feeling of Dean's hand in his, it would be worth it, anything would be worth it. But –
Dean’s grip goes slack in his own.
“Wait,” Dean says. “Wait. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Castiel says. He holds tighter. “Nothing.”
Dean’s hand drops Castiel’s. The loosening of his grip is a slow-motion whip crack across Castiel’s chest.
“No?” Dean says, looking at Castiel, asking with the single word whether Castiel doesn’t want anything that just happened. He puts his hands up just a little way, maybe a surrender, maybe just a gesture to show he isn’t touching.
“Wait,” Castiel says, his hand still in place, still reaching. It shows, then, he thinks to himself. That sickle-curve sharpness in his chest, the fear in him that he won’t always be able to fit himself to what Dean wants, it must show. Dean can see it. Castiel lifts his chin, tries to look as though he’s feeling incredibly happy, instead of just incredibly much. “Dean, why are you –”
“Cas…” Dean’s eyes are searching his face, looking for the place where something is wrong. Castiel wants to cut in, insist that nothing is wrong. Take Dean’s hand again, reach for more – he could reach for more, he thinks, and his heart twists, and his head feels light. He could reach for more. Dean might let him. Dean was holding his hand for a moment, there, by choice, as though it really meant something. Castiel’s mouth is dry.
“What’s wrong?” Castiel tries. But his stomach is sinking, even as he’s aching with the terrifying joy of the sudden opening of all the doors he’d always thought were closed for him.
Dean can see that he’s scared. Dean is going to figure it all out. And then those doors will close again.
“I mean…” Dean says. He blinks, shakes his head just slightly. Seems to remember where exactly he is, glancing around at Castiel’s garden. It’s all slipping out of Castiel’s grasp. They’re going to pretend as though the last two minutes never happened, Castiel can feel it.
It’s unbearable. It’s unbearable. The idea of having had it for barely a few seconds, and then losing it. Castiel reaches for words, for anything – something that will show Dean how much it all means to him, how far he’ll go to make it work.
“We’re both human,” he says, almost blurts. “I took out my grace. So we can be… so I can stay.”
Took out, he thinks to himself. What a clinical way to talk about the tearing, the self-destruction, the loss.
Dean just looks at him, mouth slightly open.
This is supposed to be the part where Dean argues, Castiel realises only when it doesn’t come. This is the part where Dean asks me what the hell I was thinking. Tells me to put the grace damn well back where it came from, and to stop making terrible decisions. And then I argue back, and tell him I’ll do what I want to do with my own grace, and I made this choice for him, and I’d do it again.
But Dean isn’t saying anything. He’s just staring. And Castiel stares, too. He can’t argue back when Dean hasn’t started the fight. He can’t push back if Dean never pushed forward. So they stand in silence. The clouds overhead roll on, oblivious to the hearts frantically pounding so far beneath them.
“Cas,” Dean says, and he says it differently to how he’s supposed to – quietly, carefully, handling the name like it’s made of something delicate. “I don’t know what you want me to say, man.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Castiel says.
“But you… you did that…”
Castiel watches him mutely.
“Why?” Dean asks.
So many answers. To be like you. To be near you. To show you I can change for you. Castiel opens his mouth and tries not to say too much.
“For – this,” Castiel says, managing to stop himself saying, for you.
“This?”
“This,” Castiel says, holding Dean’s gaze.
Dean holds his gaze.
“But it – ah. Jesus, Cas, this is hard to talk about.”
Castiel nods. He doesn’t want to let it go – feels sick at the idea of Dean just dropping the subject, and heading back inside, leaving the garden and forgetting all about what they’d said to each other. Chalking it up as somewhere he’d never go again. Too much baggage, too heavy, not worth it.
Dean puffs out his cheeks, though, and breathes out sharply, and says,
“It’s just that, hell, man, you never had to take the grace out to have… you know… anything you wanted out of me.” Dean looks uncertain as he says the last part, as though a little disbelieving that Castiel could want anything from him in particular. “You know that. Right?”
His voice is so different. So gentle in a way that Castiel only barely recognises from the most private of moments they’ve shared. Castiel is suddenly so intensely aware that they’re the only two in the garden, alone with each other. No one else to see them or hear them or judge what they say to each other. It’s a thought that gives him courage.
“I’ve changed for you since the beginning,” Castiel says. Dean opens his mouth, and then closes it, his eyes troubled. Castiel watches him, thinking. “Or –” he starts, as a new thought occurs to him. “Or, changed because of you, at least.”
Dean still looks confused, as though he doesn’t really see the difference. To Castiel, though, it feels clear as day. He changed because he met Dean – without that meeting, he would still be the angel he’d always been. But when he thought about it, the person he changed for was himself. Because it had felt right. Because it felt, period, and that was what he’d wanted.
It loops round and round perfectly in Castiel’s mind. Meeting Dean, the push Castiel needed to start running. And knowing Dean, now, the pull Castiel needs to keep changing, stay with him, stay together.
“I just thought,” Castiel says, when Dean stays silent, “if I could be human like you, then maybe you’d… maybe we could be the same. And stay that way.”
“And you want that,” Dean says.
“Yes.”
“Because…”
“Because,” Castiel says, a little taken aback, “I want… this.”
“But why’d we have to be the same for that? I mean – this?” Dean frowns, as though almost losing track of what he’s trying to say. They’re trying to talk all around it without using any words that are too big.
“Why…” Castiel trails off as he considers the question.
Dean shrugs, in a way that battles to look uncaring and ends up looking heartfelt.
“But… we need to be the same,” Castiel says. He wants them to be close like two leaves on a tree. Closer, two petals on a flower. No, closer still, not even two things. Just one, one plant, growing strong. He wants them that close, that inseparable, after so long being forced apart by fate and circumstance. No would-be gods or divine powers could set them apart if they were one thing. The same.
“But we aren’t the same, Cas,” Dean says, so quietly that Castiel only just hears it over the little burst of breeze that briefly ruffles over them.
Castiel feels his chest clench.
“I’m trying…” he says.
“No, I mean – I mean we can’t be,” Dean says. “I mean, we aren’t, ‘cause we’re… you know… two different people. There it is, you know? Different people. We can’t be exactly the same.”
“But…” Castiel starts, and the word comes out sounding almost angry, so he checks himself and looks down. “But,” he starts again, “if I can just…”
“C’mon,” Dean says, the smallest of smiles softening one side of his mouth. “You wouldn’t really want two of me running around the place, would you?”
“That’s not how I meant it,” Castiel answers, his voice serious, but with a lightness in his eyes to acknowledge Dean’s brush with humour.
“Come to think of it, though,” Dean says, “I’d get a lot more work done on the car if there were two of me. And we could harmonise on Zepp tracks. Maybe you are onto something.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, though he can feel his heart lifting just seeing Dean reaching out for him, trying to make him smile.
“I wouldn’t let you share my toothbrush, though, no way.” Dean looks around the garden. “And this would have to go. Hate to break it to you, but no way are you digging around in the dirt for hours if you’re me. Not unless there’s something to salt and burn at the end of it.”
“I know,” Castiel says, and the words sound little and obstinate, but his hands relax. Dean is looking at him like he gets it – like he sees that curling fear inside Castiel, the one that can’t let them be two different and separate things that just happen by the grace of luck to be next to each other. Because luck runs out, and they both know it. The only way to be sure of staying together, the fear says, is to be so much the same as to be one thing.
But it’s impossible. Castiel can’t be Dean. And Dean’s right, too, because Castiel doesn’t really want to be. He doesn’t want to give up gardening. He doesn’t want to work on Dean’s car. He doesn’t want to share a toothbrush.
He wants to spend time growing things. He wants his own hands in the dirt. He wants – he wants Dean, in the way that he has done since meeting Dean. And he wants to keep wanting.
Even if he didn’t want it, it’s what is. They’re two plants next to each other. Hoping not to be uprooted, hoping for sun, hoping for kind hands that stake them upright and water them even when they won’t flower. Always at the mercy of whatever storms might come, however hard Castiel tries to tangle himself together with Dean, camouflage with him, become just the same.
There are plants that do that, Castiel remembers. Plants that tangle and blend with other plants. They’re weeds. They choke out the first plant, cut off all its light and food until it dies. Two things can’t become one thing without loss. And Castiel doesn’t want to lose Dean – and, he realises quite suddenly, he also doesn’t want to lose himself. There’s so much he wants to do.
Things he might be able to do.
He looks at Dean, who’s watching him piece it all together, giving him time in silence, or maybe just struggling to find more words. But either way, Dean is still here. Dean is in front of him. A moment ago, they were hand in hand.
They could be again.
“You good?” Dean asks, seeming to sense Castiel come to a conclusion.
“Yes,” Castiel says. Dean visibly relaxes, shoulders easing under his coat. Castiel wants to put his hands on those shoulders. He wants to reach out. He wants to touch. He wants, wants, wants, and it feels like still growing, it feels like still changing, it feels like being alive. Like being himself.
He wants to hear Dean’s heartbeat. He wants his grace back. With a sudden absolute certainty, Castiel feels how much he wants his grace back.
He meets Dean’s eyes, and says simply,
“It’s here.”
Dean cocks an eyebrow, catching Castiel’s mood without his meaning.
“It’s here?”
“My grace,” Castiel says. “You were asking where it was. It’s here.”
“Here?” Dean looks confused.
Castiel can feel his mood unfurling, the parts of himself that he’s pushed away and hidden – the parts that have known all along he wants his grace back – finally allowed to breathe, finally being given what they need. He turns his attention to his garden, bending down next to the peach rose that has been so wilfully refusing to blossom.
“I didn’t expect anything to grow when I buried it here,” Castiel says to Dean, over his shoulder. “But then the first flowers came, and so I bought more, and then I put in the fence, and – it helped, being able to come here.” He puts out his hand towards the peach rose, speaking meditatively, almost not quite to Dean at all.
His fingertips brush the tightly closed buds, the sharpness of the thorns. Castiel lets that want for his grace rise up in him, unafraid of the feeling now that he knows it can be acted on. He closes his eyes, and feels for his grace.
It’s right there, waiting for him.
Brilliant and electric. Fast, so fast, and all colours, colours so bright they hiss and spit as they rocket up the stem of the peach rose and through Castiel’s fingers, filling his body with a fierce familiar hum. Castiel breathes in and smells every flower in the garden at once and the breeze and the tang of sap and the rich wetness of the soil and there, behind him, Dean. He breathes out ozone, heady.
He can feel the hat on his head, the way it rests on each hair. He can feel Dean’s closeness, the way the atoms of air jumble between them.
He can feel the sunshine on his face when it finally breaks through the clouds overhead.
The world is turning beneath his feet as it should. The plants around him are creaking as they grow. Dean is breathing a little quicker than usual, and Dean’s heartbeat – there it is. That sound Castiel has missed since the day he tore out his grace. Thud thud, thud thud, thud thud. Castiel closes his eyes more tightly and focuses in on it, loses himself briefly in its rhythm.
“Cas?” Dean says. His voice has all the layers Castiel can hear as an angel. Richer, deeper. He can hear the roughness that comes from the light scarring in Dean’s throat after years of hunting, calling out warnings and yelling in shock. He can hear the exact pitch at which Dean ends the single word, the note that means it’s a question and it’s shy and it’s hopeful and Dean is trying to hide all of it.
The sun is bright when Castiel opens his eyes. There on the peach rose, at the tip of the stem through which he drew out his grace from the earth, is a full-blossom flower. Blushing petals unfurled, just waiting to be looked at, to be touched. Castiel reaches up a finger, and presses it to the velvet centre.
He stands up, and turns to Dean, who’s looking at him with something in his eyes that’s just the same. Newly unfurled, wanting touch.
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says, and Dean’s face relaxes.
“Here all along, huh.” Dean says. “Damn it, Cas. And there was me, worrying where to find it for no goddamn reason.” The words are irritable but Dean’s tone is a betrayal of them, because it’s so gentle, so serious. Serious enough that Castiel doesn’t feel silly when he takes a step forward, closer to Dean.
He meets Dean’s eyes silently, asking a question.
“You still…?” Dean says.
Still what exactly, Castiel wonders. Still want this? Still want you? Still look at you and think about how anything else I’ve tried to care about felt like trying to follow a script written for a part I was never meant to play, but with you caring grows up without me even trying like a wild rose in good earth?
The answer to all of it is yes. It’s Dean, after all. The answer is yes.
Castiel doesn’t use words to say it. Dean barely used them to ask the question, it was all in his eyes and the way he’s still holding his arms slightly out to the sides as though hoping to have a reason to put them around someone, and so Castiel gives him a reason.
The closeness – Castiel has always thought it might be jarring, if it ever happened, to be in Dean’s space like this. Something he’s wanted for so long and imagined so many times that the reality would be strange. But it’s not strange, it’s – it’s just a little slow, and hushed. It’s so quiet in the garden as they come together. Hand touching hand. Then arms reaching up. Castiel’s eyes tracing the lines of Dean’s face, finally having time to do it in as much time as he chooses, because Dean’s going a pleased shade of red under his gaze.
“I, uh,” Dean says, his voice a little hoarse. Castiel tilts his head at a slight angle. “I, uh. I don’t know how to do this. When it’s you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I – I don’t know if you want me to…” Dean’s eyes drop to Castiel’s lips. Through angel’s eyes, Castiel can see the slight tremor in him, the way he leans in just a little and then pulls back, the way his muscles are tightening in uncertainty.
“Yes,” says Castiel simply. He reaches up, and tilts his hat back.
“But you… it’s…” Dean looks at him helplessly.
And Castiel thinks perhaps he understands. This thing between them, the way that Castiel feels, it’s – it’s alive, it’s wider and deeper than the sky. It’s everything. And they’re supposed to, what, kiss about it? As though it were the end of a fairy tale? The end of a second date?
But then, they’ve done all the rest of it before. They’ve done blood and big choices. They’ve done hands grasping for each other against every rule, against all the smart money. And now there’s just this.
There’s just Castiel leaning forwards, and seeing relief and happiness break through on Dean’s face like sunshine for a second, before they kiss.
Castiel feels his wings unfurl.
It’s still not Heaven. It’s not even close. But – Castiel pulls back, and sees the expression on Dean’s face, the way his eyes are wide and unbelieving and so, so happy. But it’s a place, where Castiel is growing things.
Dean Winchester's been loved in a lot of different ways throughout his life. He was shaped by that love, changed by the expectations and hopes and hurts of the people he cared about. He learned fear and silence and caution. But Castiel's confession, free of expectation, might undo those lessons.
Tags: Fix-It Fic, Endgame Castiel/Dean, Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Minor Lisa/Dean Snippet and Minor Cassie/Dean Snippet, John Winchester’s A+ Parenting, Fallen Angel Castiel
Word Count: ~4k
“If you’re angry, you could just tell me,” Dean said. “God knows I’d get it.”
He glanced to his left and right before crossing a road, his eyes lingering on the faces nearest him, as though he were looking for someone.
“Cas, just talk to me.” The words were so quiet that no human but Dean himself heard them. He was still watching around him, waiting, but nothing happened.
He put his hands into his pockets again. Walked with his shoulders set a little lower.
“It’s not…” Dean muttered, a broken-off answer to a thought inside his head. “Just – I don’t know what you want me to do. Can you hear me thinking about you? ‘Cause it’s all the time, man. I don’t know what to do. Last time I saw you, you told me… but now you aren’t even…”
He rounded a corner and began to cross a small parking lot.
“If you’d just come here. You could tell me what I’m supposed to do. All I want is…” Dean’s eyes searched the backs of the cars he passed as if their number plates were esoteric texts with all the answers, all the things he needed to say. He breathed out. “I don’t know how, man, I don’t know what to do.”
Read the whole thing below the cut!
Dean was three years old and not quite steady on his feet, still, when his father took him outside to help shovel the snow. In his coat and hat he was a little duffled-up sweetheart, to whom nothing particularly bad had ever happened.
Red-cheeked and grinning, he left small bootprints in the snow.
“Come over here, Dean.” John stood behind Dean and lowered the shovel down to Dean’s height, so that they could hold it and move the snow together. Dean pressed his lips together and frowned as he followed his father’s movements. John’s coat smelled like smoke and the outdoors. They moved one, two, three, four, five big shovel-fulls.
“That’s enough for one day,” said a voice from the porch – Mary, smiling down at the two of them. John carefully lifted the shovel out of Dean’s reach, standing up to his full height. They’d managed to clear just a short stretch of the path that led up to the house.
“But Mom, there’s loads more!” Dean said, pointing to the rest of the pathway.
“Your dad can clear that. You need to come in and have some lunch,” Mary said. “Come on.”
Dean looked up to his father with wide eyes, but John put his hand on the top of Dean’s head and ruffled it so that his hat almost came off.
“Listen to your mom, Dean. In you go.”
Dean’s eyes travelled from his father’s face to his mother’s.
“There’s your favourite for dessert,” Mary said, coaxing him with a little smile.
“Yes!”
Dean made a sudden break for it towards her, running down the path he’d just helped to clear. After the crunch-crunch-crunch of the snow, the cleared pathway was hard under Dean's feet. Hard, and unexpectedly slippery.
“Whoa, there,” said John, as Dean felt his balance go, his feet skidding out from under him – and suddenly he was being lifted, one hand on either side of him. John pulled him up out of the fall, and set him back down in thick snow.
Dean blinked. It had all happened very fast.
“Next time,” John said, giving Dean a little push indoors, “I won’t catch you. You’ve got to learn, Dean.”
–––––
And now Dean was eleven years old and trailing after his father down a quiet midnight street, with a sleepy little brother in tow.
“Dad… are we nearly at the motel?”
“Nearly.”
He’d pay for that question later somehow, and Dean knew it, but because he’d asked there was a new purpose in John’s step. They didn’t stop at the liquor store that Dean knew John had been weighing going into. Walking past it, Dean felt a little break of relief in his chest. They’d get out of the cold sooner, and Sam could get to bed.
“Dean?”
Dean turned his head to look at his brother, keeping walking. Sam was wearing Dean’s coat, swimming in it, the hood pulled up and the elastic tight so only the round circle of his face was visible. It was nearly funny, but they hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and the humour was shaved off everything.
“Come on,” Dean said.
“I’m cold.”
“I know.” Dean cast a glance forwards at his father’s back. He lowered his voice. “It’s okay. Just a little bit longer.”
Sam made a miserable face. Their breaths were puffs of air between them. Underfoot was the hiss and crunch of melting, slushy snow.
“Can I have soup when we get there?”
“It’s late, Sammy. We’ll have something in the morning.”
“But I can’t sleep when I’m hungry…”
“Okay.” Dean cast another worried look towards his father, and then made a meaningful face at Sam when he looked back around. “I’ll find something. I think we have some of that apple juice left over.”
“That’s cold,” Sam said, but he’d quietened his voice, too. “And a drink.”
“You didn’t know?” Dean said, making sure his face was completely straight.
“Know what?”
“That’s the best part,” Dean said. “Cold drinks make you warm up faster.”
Sam narrowed his eyes, and Dean cursed internally. Every day Sam got a little smarter and a little harder to keep happy.
“That’s not true,” Sam said.
“It is,” Dean promised. “You’ll see.” He thought for a few seconds, and then said, "Maybe we can heat up the apple juice."
“Keep up, boys,” said John’s voice, from too far away. Dean realised he must have slowed down as he’d talked to Sam, even though he’d been trying to hold a steady pace. He reached for Sam’s hand, turning his head at the same time to call back to his father – and as he did so, he felt his balance betray him. His feet slipped in the slush, and in a rush he was a jumble of elbows and knees hitting the ground in all the wrong places.
For a second he sat still, assessing the damage. Nothing broken.
“Are you okay?” Sam said, the dish of his face looking pale and worried above Dean.
“I’m fine… ugh.”
“Get up,” John called, and when Dean turned his head to look, he saw that his father was turning away to keep walking. Dean scrambled to his feet, hands out for balance. His hip ached – he’d landed on it.
“I’m alright,” Dean said to Sam, pulling on a smile. “Let’s go.”
He hurried after John, making sure Sam was beside him, going as fast as he dared until they were right behind their father. His knee was starting to throb, too, and he kept it off his face carefully, because Sam was still glancing up at him.
“Saw you reach for your brother when you were falling,” John grunted. “Don’t do that. If you two’re on your own and both of you go down, you’re both dead. If Sam’s still up, he can go for help.”
“I wasn’t –” Dean tried to say.
“Don’t do it,” John repeated, more forcefully.
They walked on in silence.
––––-
And now Dean was twenty-one years old and stepping out into the brisk air of a winter evening, with his head a little light from the drinks he’d had in the bar at his back.
“Come on,” Cassie said from beside him, her eyes bright with laughter. “You can tell me.”
“Hey, we’ve been through this,” Dean said, as they began to make their way down the street, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“As if you could,” Cassie said.
Dean glanced over at her smile, and thought about the way the shifter he’d taken out earlier that day had looked at him, right before he’d swung the blade through her neck. He swallowed hard.
“I might,” he said, and held his arms a little out from his body. “How long can I contain this much raw aggression, you know?”
“Stop," Cassie said, nudging him with her shoulder. “Seriously, okay, just tell me what your job is.”
“Is it really worth your life?” Dean asked, putting on his most serious face.
“You’re really trying to tell me you’re, what – a spy? A fed?” Cassie asked. “C’mon, you can’t expect me to believe that. With that face?”
“Hey,” Dean said, mock-offended, as they passed closed-up stores and parking bays. “What’s wrong with my face?”
“Nothing,” Cassie said, “that’s literally the problem. The FBI don’t hire people who look like you, do they? This is real life, not HBO.”
“Okay,” Dean said, his face working not to look too pleased. Underfoot, the pavement was shiny with ice. Dean started to walk a little slower. “So, if this isn’t the face of a fed, what is it the face of?”
“Mmm. Radio show host?” Cassie laughed when Dean threw her a look. “Well, c’mon, how am I supposed to know? Third date and you still won’t tell me?”
“Just trying to keep the mystery alive,” Dean said, faking an absent kind of tone in the hope that Cassie would drop the subject. The sidewalk was getting more and more treacherous, each of his steps sliding just a little.
“The mystery is too alive,” Cassie said. “It could die a bit. I’d be okay with that.”
“Whoa… careful.” Dean’s foot slipped out from under him, and he only managed to keep his balance by grabbing onto a parking meter that happened to be close by.
“Easy, big shot.” Cassie watched him start to move again, even more tentatively. “Wouldn’t wanna lose the deal with HBO if you fall on that perfect face.”
There was an edge of hurt to her tone of voice, and Dean jaw tightened. Was he ever going to tell her, he wondered. Surely not. She’d hate it. Spending time with Cassie was like visiting a parallel universe. That world didn’t have room for monsters under the bed.
And so Dean kicked them back underneath as hard as he could, and smiled at Cassie, and held out his hand.
Cassie looked down at it, and then back up at him.
“Really?” she said, a smile waiting at the corners of her mouth.
“It’s slippery,” Dean said, and wiggled his fingers temptingly.
“Yeah,” Cassie said with a laugh, pushing his hand away, “it is, asshole. That’s why I’m not letting you take me down with you.”
––––-
And now Dean was thirty-one years old and watching a soccer game, gloves on, hat on, clapping along with the dark-haired woman next to him.
“Come on, Ben!” called Lisa.
“Like we practised, okay, kid?” Dean added, and watched Ben’s face relax into concentration as he placed the ball for his free kick, just a yard outside the penalty box.
“You practised free kicks with him?” Lisa said to Dean, sounding like she was holding back a laugh. Dean glanced down at her; she had her eyes on her son, but there was a little smile on her face.
“A couple times,” Dean said. “He asked.”
“That’s sweet. And I thought you two just watched TV and ate too much pizza together.”
“We do that too,” Dean said. “When I have a say in it.” He rubbed his hands together, trying to warm them up. On either side of Lisa and Dean, also at the edge of the soccer pitch, were other parents all waiting on Ben to take his kick. They were standing on wet grass, a few of them stamping their feet to keep them from going numb.
Ben took a short run up, swung his leg, made contact. The ball sailed high, dipped – and the goalie caught it neatly.
“Next time,” Dean called out when Ben’s face fell, and gave him a clap. The game played on.
“God, it’s cold,” Lisa said.
“You want my coat?”
Lisa looked up at him, her big brown eyes soft.
“You’re cute, you know that?”
“... Right.” Dean smiled awkwardly. Lisa’s would-be compliment hung in the air, sounding more incongruous the longer Dean stood tense and unmoving.
Lisa reached out, and put her hand on his folded arms.
“You wanna order in, tonight?” she said lightly. “Or I could make fajitas.”
“I can cook,” Dean said. “I’ll make burgers.”
“Mmm. Twist my arm.”
Some small burst of relief, there. Dean’s expression eased. He put his hands in his pockets, lifted his chin, as though remembering the role he was playing. Who he was, now.
He shifted his feet – and felt his right foot slide, almost right out from under him. He steadied himself, hands out to the sides, looking down at the grass.
“Careful,” Lisa said.
“Jesus,” Dean said at the same time.
“Come here,” Lisa said, holding out her hand.
Dean smiled.
“It’s all good,” he said, reaching out and giving the hand a squeeze, and then letting go quickly.
“Can’t have the head chef breaking his arm,” Lisa said, her hand still out.
“It’s fine, really.”
“Dean, would you hold my hand?”
“We’ll both go over,” Dean said.
“Mm-mm. I’ll hold you up.”
Her expression allowed no argument. Unwillingly, Dean allowed her to loop their arms together, Lisa pinning Dean to her side and turning back to the game, calling out to support Ben as he went for a tackle. Dean stood quietly. He was having to lean down ever so slightly so that Lisa could keep his arm tucked under hers.
He tried very hard not to move. Just the smallest slide of his feet and he’d be over and he’d take her with him. Every muscle in his legs was clenched, forcing himself not to slip.
After just a minute or so of stiff silence, Lisa sighed.
“Okay,” she said, “you win.”
She let go.
––––-
And now Dean was forty-one years old and walking down a street in Lebanon, Kansas, on legs that still felt a little new. The cold air was harsh; he took in a deep breath.
He went to cross the road, and a car gave a screech as it swerved suddenly to avoid him. The driver made a few different gestures at him through the window, and Dean held up a hand in apology.
It was easy to forget that things didn’t part and make way on Earth like they had done in Heaven.
“Couldn’t fix that for me, could you?” Dean said aloud. “Not that I’m not grateful for the ticket home, Cas, but Heaven had its perks.”
Silence. Dean kept walking, with only the slightest slump to his shoulders and crease on his brow. Lebanon was wearing snow like a big white coat. Dean’s boots crunched in it when he stepped off the gritted path to let a mother with a stroller go by.
“I should probably stop expecting to see you round every corner, huh,” he said. “Been a week now. And I keep wandering around thinking you might show up just ‘cause I’m looking.” Someone passing gave him a slightly frightened look and a wide berth as he walked by, talking to himself. Just another thing no one had much noticed in Heaven: the prayers. Dean frowned, and ducked his head. Tucked his hands in his pockets.
He walked quietly for some time.
Long enough for his hands to come back out of his pockets, and his shoulders to lose their self-conscious hunch. Long enough for the hurt in his eyes to seem nearer the surface.
“Might not even have been you that got me out of Heaven,” Dean said, his tone quiet, as though picking up the thread of a half-finished conversation.
A pause, in which he walked. Passed by other people, made no eye contact. Dean meandered a little as he went, as though his mind were elsewhere.
“If you’re angry, you could just tell me,” he said. “God knows I’d get it.”
He glanced to his left and right before crossing a road, his eyes lingering on the faces nearest him, as though he were looking for someone.
“Cas, just talk to me,” he said. The words were so quiet that no human but Dean himself heard them. He was still watching around him, waiting, but nothing happened.
He put his hands into his pockets again. Walked with his shoulders set a little lower.
“It’s not…” Dean muttered, a broken-off answer to a thought inside his head. “Just – I don’t know what you want me to do. Can you hear me thinking about you? ‘Cause it’s all the time, man. I don’t know what to do. Last time I saw you, you told me… but now you aren’t even…”
He rounded a corner and began to cross a small parking lot.
“If you’d just come here. You could tell me what I’m supposed to do. All I want is…” Dean’s eyes searched the backs of the cars he passed as if their number plates were esoteric texts with all the answers, all the things he needed to say. He breathed out. “I don’t know how, man, I don’t know what to do.”
He swallowed.
“It feels like I have to do something, though.”
He kept walking.
“Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just want to.”
He breathed out.
Emotions were crossing his face, too fast to catch one alone, too swift to parse. He looked down at his feet, watching where he stepped.
“If I had what I wanted,” he said, “you’d be here.” After a pause, he rolled his eyes. “I’m sure that’s news to you. Like, wow, right? Not as though I’ve ever asked, after all.” Another silence, and then he said, “But you know, I – it’s not that I just want to… fix it, or… finish things off. It’s not… I’m not…” He pressed his lips together, smiled wryly. “Jesus. I hope you can’t hear this. I’m not making any sense. I’m just trying to say, I want you here, man. I want you here to stay.”
A little flicker of light seemed to touch Dean’s eyes.
“You could stay now,” he said, “right? You could actually stay. If you wanted to. And we could…” He stopped. “Yeah,” he said quietly.
A car drove by, and the child in the backseat stared out the window at him. Dean blinked back to reality.
“We didn’t have time to think about what we wanted,” he said into the quiet of the parking lot, when the car had passed and he was walking again. “All this time. Or maybe you did. But I didn’t.” He looked upwards, towards the iron sky. “And now there’s time, Cas, and all I’m thinking about is you.” He looked down. “I said that already.”
He moved on, stepping out the other side of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk.
“I remember you said that the… the thing you want, you can’t have.” Dean took in a breath and let it go. “I don’t know why you thought you couldn’t. Whatever it is, man, you deserve it.”
His feet carried him onward.
“You gotta be sick of hearing me talk at this point. But I just…” Dean’s eyes glanced over the snowy Lebanon street in front of him, and he crossed the road. “I just want you here. Maybe I should take a damn hint.” His voice strained, hurt betraying the attempt at levity in his tone. “But you said… I keep thinking back on what you said. About how you feel. And I, uh. You know. If you’d just let me…”
Dean lifted his hands, a little helplessly, into the air as he walked, as though wanting to give something invisible to someone who wasn’t there. He dropped them awkwardly, his expression creasing.
He was circling back around towards the mall, his footsteps pointing him towards home. He looked heavy, weary. The lines on his face were deep, and his eyes were unfocused, lost in thought.
The people around him paid him no attention. He was just part of the crowd. They swirled across his path and around him, irrelevant to him, not seeing him. Except –
Dean came to a sudden stop. His gaze sharpened.
Twenty feet away from him, standing completely still, was a figure. Not struggling with carrier bags or strollers or wallets and keys like the other shoppers going into and out of the mall. Utterly stone still.
Tall, almost as tall as Dean. Wearing a long coat. Brown-haired. Impassive.
Watching Dean as though waiting for him.
And Dean visibly blossomed. His mouth fell slightly open, his shoulders loosened, one hand reached out unconsciously.
“Cas?” he said, disbelieving – and Dean saw a slight smile appear on Castiel’s face, and the angel slightly raised one hand in greeting.
Warmth touched Dean’s eyes, rising up as though from a great depth. He began to move, at first taking care on the slippery sidewalk. But his feet hurried him, and he was walking fast and then he was almost running, caution forgotten, eyes on Castiel’s.
It was when he was only a few steps away that his foot hit a patch of black ice. His arms went out, struggling to balance him – Castiel moved forward, one hand out – Dean reached for him on instinct, grasping his arm, his body relaxing in obvious expectation of Castiel being able to pull him upright –
But Castiel’s weight tilted along with Dean’s, and the ground gave them both a hard and cold welcome. There were some muttered ooohs from people passing by, and a few of them came to awkward stops nearby.
Dean landed hard on his back, head hitting the cement. He stared for a moment up at the sky. It had all happened very fast.
He sat up, and saw Castiel kneeling beside him, inspecting his own hands.
“Fuck,” Dean said. He put a hand to the back of his head. No blood.
“Are you okay?” said someone behind Dean, and he waved them off.
“All good,” he said, seeing in his peripheral vision that the people who’d stopped to look were moving on. He looked at Castiel. “Are you… you’re…”
Castiel stopped staring down at his hands, and looked at Dean instead. His blue eyes searched Dean’s face. Under his gaze, Dean smiled – a smile that grew on his face from a tiny brightness in his eyes until his whole face was alight with it.
“It’s you,” he said. "Damn, Cas, it's really you."
“It’s me,” Castiel confirmed. His voice held a recognition of Dean’s smile, a reciprocal warmth.
“You’re here.”
“I heard you,” Castiel said.
“You heard me? Just now?”
“Yes.”
Dean nodded. He was breathing a little fast. His gaze searched Castiel’s face, partly seeming to be looking for something, partly seeming already to have found it. People were stepping around them to get inside the mall.
“It’s good to see you,” Dean said.
Castiel smiled too, at last.
“But you know,” Dean added, “you could’ve just appeared right next to me instead of a whole freaking mile away on a slippery sidewalk. That’s all I’m gonna say.”
“Ah.” Castiel, still on his knees beside where Dean was sitting, dropped his gaze. “That was, in fact, not under my control. Jack sent me down here. After I asked him to do something for me.”
Castiel looked down at his hands again, and this time Dean looked too. His expression broke into slight surprise when he saw red on Castiel’s palms, at the sight of the blood – and then the surprise came in a second, deeper wave, as realisation hit.
“Cas,” he said.
“Just a graze,” Castiel said calmly.
“But you – you’re – that’s not supposed to happen,” Dean said. He reached out, and took Castiel’s hands in his own, inspecting the little scrapes on the skin. “You can’t get hurt like this.”
“Well,” Castiel said, “I can, now.”
“But you’re…” Dean stared at Castiel, seeming suddenly caught in consternation.
“Staying,” Castiel finished for him.
Wide-eyed, still sitting on the sidewalk, Dean took this in. Something light crossed his face, then anger, then confusion.
“I heard you,” Castiel reminded him. Dean stared at him.
“What I said?”
“Yes.”
“About staying?”
“Yes.”
“And you… you want that?”
Despite the hustle of people around them, the crunch-crunch of their boots in the snow and the harshness of their voices, Dean and Castiel might have been the only two people in the world when Castiel said,
“Yes, Dean.”
“So, but – before, in the bunker, with the Empty, when you said – the thing – the thing you said you wanted –”
Castiel looked down at their hands. Dean’s holding Castiel’s.
Dean tightened his grip.
“Just that?” he said, his voice sounding thick.
Castiel said nothing, words seeming to fail him.
They stared at each other. Hands in hands, touching, Castiel bleeding. Dean didn’t let go.
“It’s yours,” Dean said roughly.
“You mean…” Castiel’s eyes were suddenly wide. “You mean that you…”
“Since pretty much day one. I just never thought you’d want that from me.”
The world moved past and around them. They didn’t notice. Castiel was radiating happiness in every body line, though he was unmoving. Dean was watching him as though afraid he might disappear in the space of a blink.
"Is this real?" he said. "My head hurts enough for it to be real."
Castiel nodded.
“You’re really staying,” Dean said.
“As long as you’ll let me.”
After enough time under the steadiness of Castiel’s gaze, it seemed finally to sink in for Dean – the truth of it, the reality of it. Dean breathed out.
He swallowed. He looked down.
He smiled.
“We should get home, then,” he said.
Castiel didn’t say anything, but he gave a nod made small by emotion.
“Oh. I’m sorry, though,” Dean said, his eyes catching on Castiel’s small injuries now that he was looking down again. His thumb lightly touched the place where blood was drying on Castiel’s palm. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have run at you.”
“It’s fine,” Castiel said, getting to his feet and pulling Dean up with him, their hands not letting go.
“I’ll be more careful next time.”
“Don’t be,” Castiel said, his blood on Dean’s hands, and still holding them. “Don’t be.”
Castiel says that he loves him, and Dean shatters.
Like the words are the blunt strike of a fist to his heart, it's immediate. Dean feels himself splinter. All the feelings, all and all and all of them, crack apart. It hurts.
Dean doesn’t move. Castiel is smiling so sadly and it's too much to bear. Dean draws in a breath as the infinitesimal moments eke past, rough sand grains down the throat of the hourglass.
Inside, Dean is bleeding in a thousand places. He notices it clinically, like he’d notice a dislocated shoulder on a hunt. He’s wounded, there’s blood, it hurts. It hurts. Castiel loves him. Shards and shards.
There’s a part of Dean that’s dropping to its knees, despairing. It says, why now? Why now? Why too late? And there’s a part of him trying to pull him to his feet, saying, not too late. Not too late, when he’s right here, he’s still here. You gotta get up. You gotta say something. Please.
The Dean on his knees covers his eyes. Don’t do this, Cas. Not when it’s too late.
Little fragments catch at Dean’s chest. Jagged wonder, shrapnel fear. Sharpened glass relief. He wasn’t alone. All this time, he wasn’t alone in the way that he felt. He wasn’t bad or wrong. Castiel loved him. Castiel loves him.
Despair is a knife in him. Despair is a shadow in his throat. Despair says, don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this.
But there’s a part of Dean that, on its feet, eyes full, wants to say something else. Something he’s pushed down and pushed away for so long. Something that he's carried in shame. Something that he thought could never be reciprocated, not ever. He wants to say it. He wants to say it so badly.
Eyes full, Dean forces the darkness back. He scrapes together the few gritty seconds they have left and he looks at Castiel, and he says,
Dean's doing fine. He's always late for work, he's not taking care of himself, and he isn't planning on changing that - but seriously, he's fine. Except for one thing: someone's brought back the chili pepper rating system for all of the professors on campus, and Dean isn't rated the hottest. It's Castiel Novak, the guy who's always walking around in terrible sweater vests, who's got the full ten chilis - and that's something Dean does plan to change.
Word Count: 25k
Tags: College Professors AU, Mutual Pining, Dean Winchester Learns Self-Love, Misunderstandings
🔥 Read it on AO3! 🔥
Or hit the read more for a little teaser taste yum wow
Dean showered the next morning, and shaved. He put on a little cologne. He wore a fresh shirt.
The drive to work was definitely more pleasant on a solid eight and a half hours of sleep. When he reached the teachers’ lounge that morning, he grabbed his usual coffee – but not before he’d waved good morning to a few other faculty members, and complimented the school’s head secretary on his new haircut.
“Good morning,” Charlie said as Dean sat down next to her on a couch, lowering her book for a second. “Hey. Someone looks clean.”
“Thanks,” Dean said. Teachers were passing them on their way to their early classes. “Hey, Balthazar. Rowena. Morning, Castiel.”
“Dean,” Castiel said, “Good morning.” He looked like he was going to say something else, but seemed to change his mind and went to sit over at his usual table with a mug of something that was gently steaming. Dean watched after him. Castiel retrieved a pen from his front pocket, and began to read what looked like an essay with his usual expression of intense concentration.
Charlie had disappeared back into her book, leaving Dean to meditate on Castiel a little longer.
What was it about him that had people rating him at ten whole chili peppers? Ten? Sure, the guy was good-looking. It wasn’t that Dean hadn’t noticed it before, so much as he’d worked to not think about it. But now that Dean properly looked at him, the thoughts that had been quietly lurking rose to the surface. Castiel had a kind of chiselled attractiveness to his face. He had an intensity to him that was definitely… magnetic? Was that the word for it? And obviously his eyes were that particular shade of blue, pretty striking.
But Dean himself had green eyes, didn’t that count for anything? And he had a jawline, too. He’d checked this morning in the mirror.
“Take a picture,” Charlie said, “it’ll last longer.”
“Huh?” Dean realised his mouth had been slightly open.
“Huh?” Charlie copied, and then did an exaggerated impression of his staring.
“I wasn’t,” Dean said.
“Uh-huh.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Uh-huh.”
Dean looked back over at Castiel.
“You think he knows?” he said.
Charlie glanced over towards him.
“No,” she said. “I think you got away with it.”
“No, no. About the app. The rating. You know… the chili peppers.”
Charlie narrowed her eyes.
“You look way too serious, asking me that question. Dude, the app will be gone in a week. It means nothing. You know that, right? I told you ‘cause I thought you’d find it funny too. I can take it down sooner – I could probably get a day off work to –”
“What?” Dean interrupted. “Serious? Me? Nah.” Dean jerked his head towards where Castiel was sitting. “I bet he is, though. Look at him, sitting over there. Just lording it over everyone else.”
Charlie frowned, and looked over at Castiel.
As they watched him together, Castiel took an unselfconscious glug of his drink, and scratched his ear.
