This is my gift fic for the Destiel Secret Santa for @wildsofourhearts
It took me a few tries to get this done and it’s not the best I’ve written (in fact it’s quite messy) but I hope you enjoy it & I happy holidays!
The three wishes were:
-Dean seeing Castiel’s broken wings for the first time, emotional hurt/comfort
-Castiel waking Dean from a nightmare and calming him down
-Castiel believing he is Needed rather than Loved and Dean actually telling him he loves him for the first time
Summary: Dean and Cas are alone doing research in the bunker while everyone is away. Deans got nightmares and Castiel is there for him. Hurt/comfort/fluff.
SPOILER
This is set somewhere between s14 e05 (Nightmare Logic) and s14 e06 (Optimism)
(After Michael left Dean and before he is repossessed)
I’ll watch over you.
Those were the words that Castiel told Dean years ago.
Angels are watching over you.
Those were the words his mother used to tell him as she tucked him in at night.
I love you.
Castiel had told Dean once as he was about to die.
Castiel felt obliged to keep his word, watch over Dean, love him and protect him at all costs. It was difficult at times but mostly it was like breathing. You do it all the time, without thinking and at times without effort. Though sometimes it was like having an asthma attack. A heavy pain followed by the shattering of his heart. It was easy to love Dean. And it was difficult to love him. Easy to watch him with a smile but difficult to watch over him, hard to protect him. A man so set on self distinction and blinded by a duty and a love for his brother and his family. Yes, it was difficult sometimes to protect a man who himself was bound on protecting others. Someone who never cared for his own safety, only the safety of others. But still, Castiel kept his word. He protected Dean, loved him, he watched over him the best he could.
The angel knew that he had fallen, and he knew that he had done so for humanity. At the time he was even willing to. What he didn’t know was that humanity, in his mind, was a synonym for Dean. He had fallen for Dean, this human, in every way possible. As the years came crashing down on them, with all the pain and difficulties that followed and the more “human” he became he figured it out. But Dean was not like him, he was truly human, his best friend and his duty was clear. Protect him. So he did as best he could. All of it in silence. All of it for Dean.
Some random week in October Sam was away with Jack to hunt his first wendigo a few states from the bunker. Mary was still away with Bobby and unlikely enough the bunker was empty of all apocalypse hunters. The only ones left were Dean and Castiel who were supposed to do research on archangels and weapons and what not. And Dean hated it, he always had and would much rather be out there, doing the actual fighting. Making the actual difference between good and bad.
The bunker was quiet and still, chilled by the settled sun outside. The only sounds echoing through the war room for the past hour were the turning of pages and Dean occasionally shifting in his seat. He had given up on trying to make sense of the words in front of him a while back and sat instead watching Castiel, thinking and waiting for the clock to turn late enough for him to go to bed. He noted how Castiel sat unnaturally still as he concentrated and how his brow furrowed when he came across something remotely new. He did this sometimes, watching the angel. Just like the angel sometimes watched him, neither knowing the other did.
“This is boring.” Dean suddenly burst out to Castiel, breaking the silence. He hated research and figured that they’d done at it all day so he might be allowed to give up now.
“You should go to bed, it’s almost midnight.” Castiel said after a while, as if he’d read his mind.
“I’ll keep reading while you sleep.”
“Yeah, alright. Thanks buddy.” He answered simply enough as he pushed the chair back and got up. Just before he rounded the corner though he slowed down and wished the angel a good night.
As he got to bed Castiel’s words echoed in the back of his head. I’ll watch over you. He had told Dean as he was about to sleep once. And somewhere deep down he knew the angel still watched over him on still nights. Though this one, as they so rarely were, was not still. Dean was troubled by dreams and horrors. Lately, ever since Michael had been driven out of him and gone who knows where, he’d been dreaming of what he did under his control- and worse. Though he was used to bad dreams by then, he’d had them ever since the fire the yellow eyed demon started but it was somehow worse now. Like he had more to loose. He’d always had his brother to worry about but now he had his mother back, Jack was human and Castiel had just returned to them. He couldn’t afford to loose anything else but could feel his mind starting to break as night after night he was woken up- wishing for the dreams to disappear.
That night Dean dreamt of Castiel. He’d dreamt that Michael had found him and made him hurt the angel with his own hands, a scene that was set on repeat in his head, mixing a dream with a hazy memory. Dean was fighting Michael, squirming, biting and punching at the archangel. Fighting as hard as he might to kick the son of a bitch out. But nothing he did was good enough. Michael was too strong but still he couldn’t keep his mind asleep for too long, Dean wouldn’t let him. He had to get back to his family. But if he was going to be possessed Dean was set on making the bitch hate every second of it. But Michael was not easily won over. He crept into his head and rooted through every memory he had, all the good and all the bad. At first he tormented him with all the worse ones
Sam dying
Hell
Apocalypse
Making all the painful shit play back in his own head. But then he began to torture him with all the best memories he had.
Sam returning and the the bear hug he got as his brothers heart started beating again
Being dragged from hell to fill his lungs with the fresh air
Bobby, Sam and Cas, alive and well after they’d gotten Sammy’s soul back
Michael played these memories in his head, waking a small hope of seeing his family once more and that all would be alright in the end. But Michael crushed that hope as soon as it was formed- telling him that the only chance he had of ever seeing them again was through Michael’s grasp as he made Dean rip their souls out with his very own hands. But then he found something else, something Dean would never tell anyone; his longing for Castiel was more then just platonic. And so a whole new kind of torture began. The death of an angel- in every way possible, each worse then the last.
Suddenly, Dean felt firm hands on his shoulders trying to shake him back to life.
“Dean, wake up!” Castiels worried voice came through the fast fleeing dream. Cas. He sat up so fast he almost knocked his head together with the angels.
“Cas!” He breathed into the dark room. “You’re here!” He said, feeling more then seeing him.
“Of course I am, you called for me.” Silent tears were rolling from his eyes, his breath was stuck in his throat and his limbs were still shaking. The dream began to come back to him and he suddenly became aware of the room around him. A broken lamp by his bedside table that he had drunkenly walked into a few night earlier. The sheets on the floor that he had struggled from himself. The sweat soaked bed beneath him and his own tear stained face and Castiel right in front of him. As soon as he noted his watery eyes he quickly dried them. Too late but stillnot wanting the angel to see him crying like he sometimes had before.
“How did you know?” Dean asked, refusing to return the eye contact.
Castiel had stayed at the table in the war room of the bunker after bidding Dean a good night. He was beginning to agree with him in that research is boring. They had gone through almost every lore and book they could think of and still nothing. But he kept reading none the less. There is an answer somewhere, there had to be. It had barely been two hours since Dean left that Castiel could start to feel him shifting in his room and soon after came the scream. A blood freezing, terrified call for him,
“Cas!” He didn’t need anything more then that before running to his side. Horrified by the thought of someone or something having broken into the bunker and gone after Dean. Barley able to think of the thought that Michael had returned for him he crashed the bedroom boor open and saw Dean wrestling with the covers,
“Cas!”
At once he was by his side, shaking him awake.
“You were watching over me?” Dean asked, even though he already knew the truth.
“I’m fine, Cas. Just tired.” He said, knowing what Castiel would ask already but he knew that Dean truly meant, he was tired of worrying, the nightmares and the constant “big bad”. He didn’t press on because he figured that if he was patient enough he would eventually allow himself to open up. A silence stretched on, tense and filled with emotion. Castiel kept his eyes on him, memorising him like he had so many times before when Deans eyes closed and head fell.
“I’m sorry, Cas. I just blame myself for what Michael did.”
“You did it for Sam.”
“And I still did it.”
Castiel hated this, hated how much Dean hated himself and he hated him because he couldn’t see how good he truly was. How loved he was. Not only by the angel but by his entire family as well. Sam was out there with Jack, hunting so that Dean didn’t have to strain. His mother returned and so many others would do anything for him. But Dean could only see the the people he had hurt, not the ones he had saved.
As the night wore on, longer then the last in the spirit of autumn, Dean and Castiel sat opposite each other in the darkened room which the hunter called his own. One weighed down by sorrow and guilt, the other broken hearted by the sight. Granted, they didn’t sit there for long. Although the moments the did felt like hours to the two. Dean was happy that Castiel was by his side, he knew what it was like. To make a mistake and almost end the world for it.
“As I’ve told you before, none of it is your fault, Dean.” Castiel said, “and you are not a bad man. You are a very good man who unfortunately have had bad things happen to you.” But still he could tell that Dean didn’t truly believe him so he did the only thing he could think of. It might have seemed rushed to some. To some it might have seemed long overdue but to Castiel it felt like the right moment to show Dean how much he truly cared. He leaned in and kissed him. Short and sweet. So short in fact, that Dean barley had time to realise before it was over. He was, at first was shocked but it seemed to him the perfect moment as well, so he kissed him back. Finally showing the angel that he loved him as well. Finally letting himself be loved in return.
After the kiss they stayed silent for a second, breathing in the moment.
“Do you believe me now, Dean?” He managed to whisper out.
“I believe you.” And weirdly enough, he did believe him.
