Chapter Text
Ending Credits: As Long as I Have You (cover) – The Detroit Cobras
Fought My Way Up to the Sun
Dean asks for a beer once he and Bobby are safely ensconced in the warmth of his kitchen. Bobby smacks his hand and makes him sit and tells him no. Instead, he fixes a him a cup of black coffee, cheap, watery instant stuff, but strong enough to bring Dean back into the present.
Reality hits him like the force of a deadly car crash. He drove all the way to Sioux falls, and was drunk for most of the journey. He threw a bottle of whiskey at his father’s grave. Cas doesn’t want him anymore, like he figured he would happen so long ago, but had started hoping wouldn’t. Figures he shouldn’t have put that much stock in hope.
Bobby sits across from him at the kitchen table and folds his weathered hands together. He doesn’t speak, but he studies Dean from under the shadow of the bill of his cap with knowing eyes, like he knows what Dean is going to say as soon as he pulls his lips from the brim of his ceramic mug.
“You gonna tell me what in the darn hell you’re doin’ up here sloshed outta your mind?” Bobby asks, “I ain’t stupid, boy. Lawrence is fuckin’ six hours away. You don’t just make a freakin’ jaunt to my place.”
Dean thumbs along the handle of the mug, staring into the oily top of his half-drunk coffee. He gnaws on his dried-out, flaking lips before he says to the liquid, “I screwed up.”
“That so?” Bobby says, and leans back into his chair. He lifts his brows and drums his fingers against the table, waiting for Dean to go on. But Dean doesn’t go on, so Bobby continues to fill the silence, “’Cause what I heard was that you done some good.”
“Yeah, guess some folks are saying that,” Dean concedes.
“But?”
“But it’s not true, Bobby,” Dean says. He swallows the knot in his throat, sucking on his tongue, before he says, “Cas – Castiel, I fucked him up. That freakazoid lawyer set our building on fire. He did it ‘cause I was there.”
Bobby’s hand shoots across the expanse of the table. His palm connects with the side of Dean’s head.
“Ow! What the fuck, Bobby?” Dean rubs the tender side of his head.
“Goddamn idjit,” Bobby snaps back, “Here’s a question for you, boy. If it weren’t you that got the shit end a’ the stick with this Alastair guy, if it were some other fool kid, you think his kook lawyer wouldn’t a’ done the same damn thing to that guy?”
“But he didn’t do it to another guy. He did it to me. He did it ‘cause of me,” Dean says.
Bobby just shakes his head and folds his arms over his burly chest, “You’re gonna be the death of me, swear on my mama’s grave. Finish your coffee and get in bed, idjit. We’ll talk about this when you’re not drunk off your dumb ass.”
Dean mutters, “Do we have to?” which earns him a second smack to the side of his head.
When Dean drains his mug, Bobby snatches it off the table and rinses it out. He returns to the table to heave Dean back up onto his feet, wrapping a steel-strong arm around his middle to navigate him up the stairs while Dean complains about his sloshing head and clumsy feet.
He gets dumped on the bed in his childhood room, and vaguely feels his boots being unlaced and pulled off his feet. The blanket slides up over him and Bobby’s drawl says, “Get some sleep, kid.”
X
Dean leaves the room feeling cold. When Castiel looks down, his hands are shaking.
When an apple-cheeked nurse with a clipboard ducks through the doorway, he realizes the weight of what he has done.
Oh, good lord. He wants to get up, wants to chase Dean down the hospital corridor and tell him that he didn’t mean any of those things, that he’s so sorry. How could he – how could he treat somebody like that? His mind is a muddle of mixed memories, a mess of things in places where he shouldn’t be.
He wants to – no, needs to chase after Dean. He needs to tell him that he’s sorry for everything that just came out of his mouth, that he did not mean a single would that he said.
But he doesn’t have a prosthetic anymore, because it was in the apartment building when it burned to ashes. Without his prosthetic, he can’t get up out of this godforsaken hospital bed. He is trapped like a rat in a cage.
“Excuse me,” he says, and the nurses jumps. Marvelous. He apparently frightens the hospital staff, now.
“Yes?” she says, voice timid.
“Would it be possible to call my brother Gabriel?” he says. He tries to sound calm but each word shakes as it leaves his mouth. He’s upset that he’s here, that he’s trapped in this stupid bed, but beyond that he’s upset at himself. He’s in the present now. He’s in the present, and he knows what he said to Dean.
“Of course,” she says, shoulders sagging with relief.
A mere twenty minutes later, Castiel is so restless that he’s ready to crawl out of his skin – and Gabriel arrives. He looks panicked, and then stricken when he sees Castiel sitting straight up in bed, hands folded in his lap. He makes a face before he asks, “Are you…what’s going on? I feel like I just got sent to the principal’s office.”
On any other day, Castiel may have afforded that with a laugh, but he’s stuck here and he needs to get out immediately. Before he can speak, however, a second visitor ducks through the doorway.
Oh.
“Hello, Sam,” Castiel says.
“Don’t you ‘hello, Sam’ me,” he snaps, “What the fuck did you do to my brother?”
“I –”
“He just left me sitting on the fucking curb outside your apartment,” Sam goes on with a flourish of his arms, “Seriously? He just – took off! What did you do?”
Gabriel glances from Cas to Sam and back again before he asks, “Yeah. What did you do?”
“Something awful,” Cas says, “and stupid. I need to talk to him. Do you know where he went?”
“He said he was going to Bobby’s,” Sam replies.
All the way to Sioux Falls?
Oh. Oh, fuck. Castiel sinks further back into his bed.
He had one good thing. One good thing for himself, one person in his life that made it seem like – like he didn’t live for nothing, like he had survived what Samandriel didn’t for a purpose. He knows he’s told Dean that he loves him, but he doesn’t say those words enough. Dean should hear them every day, from everyone.
And Castiel has ruined it all. He was doing so well. His nightmares only came every so often. He hadn’t had a flashback in months. At their last session, Chuck said that he was proud of Castiel. But of course he ruined that. Of course he couldn’t keep himself together.
Everything that Castiel worked hard for broke in an instant.
“I broke everything,” he says. His eyes burn and he feels a little bit of wet leak out over his cheek, “I told him that the fire was his fault. I shouted at him. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it. I never would have – why can’t I just be okay?”
“Whoa, whoa,” Gabriel says, “Chill out, kiddo. We can still fix this. You said Dean said he was going to Bobby’s, right?”
Sam says, “Well, I guess – he said ‘away,’ but then he said probably Bobby’s. He doesn’t have another place to go, I don’t think, but he didn’t have a place to go when he ran off to Lawrence in the first place. I’ll tell Bobby to text me if Dean shows up there.”
“All right, all right,” Gabriel nods, “That’s good. Cassie, I’m gonna give sweet ol’ Pamela a call and see if maybe she can get something worked out here. You’re not supposed to be released for a while, but…”
“Just get me out of here,” Cas grunts.
“On it,” Gabriel says, and he pulls his cellphone out of his pocket before he disappears down the hall.
Beside him, Sam exhales through his nostrils and runs both hands through his hair. He asks, “How could you just do that to him? I don’t – I don’t understand.”
Castiel swallows and balls his fists against his eyes – traitorous, leaking eyes – before he answers softly, “Sam, I…I’m not okay. I apologize for that, but I – I may never be entirely ‘okay.’ I’ve seen things I never thought that I would have to see and it’s – i-it’s no excuse, I know, but I took it out on Dean and I just…broke it.”
Sam massages his temples and says, “Yeah. Fuck. I’m sorry. You’ve done so much good for him, it’s just – I don’t wanna see that go to waste, you know? Dean – he, well. He’ll never admit it, but he needs somebody. He thinks he’s better off on his own, I know he does, but it’s not true. Everyone needs somebody, and for a long time he had me, you know? But now I’m off doing crap on my own and he didn’t have anybody to lean on, anybody to take care of. But then I thought – he has you, you know? And you and Dean, you just. You worked. I’ve been so happy for him, ‘cause like, he had you and you had him and you’ve just been like…this unit.”
Castiel nods. It’s all he can do before he says, “I will not let that go to waste, Sam. I promise.”
“Good,” Sam says, and then repeats it with a nod, “Good.”
X
It’s too early to be alive.
A splitting headache courses through him like Thor himself just slammed Mjölnir into his skull. Dean hasn’t been this hungover in years. He doubts that the drink is the only thing to blame. He’s hungover emotionally. Like, son of a bitch. He’s done it again, fucked up what he good he had going in his life.
It’s just – when he pictures his life without Cas there in it, it feels fucking empty. It feels as empty as it felt when he thought he’d never speak to Sammy again after their falling out so many years ago.
It’s fucking pathetic, is what that is.
At his back he hears a door creak open, and the heavy sound of rubber-soled boots on hardwood. He groans into the pillow smothering his face, and then hears Bobby say, “Good, you’re up.”
“Fuck off.”
Smack.
“Ow,” Dean complains, and rolls over, groaning again when daylight assaults every one of his senses. His stomach gets sent into overdrive, and he leans over the edge of the mattress to hurl up what few, watery contents he has in his gut. It burns on the way up – still mostly whiskey and cheap instant coffee.
Bobby leaps back and swears, “Oh, Jesus!”
“Sonuva – sorry, Bobby,” Dean says.
“S’okay, son,” Bobby replies on an exasperated sigh. He steps over the puddle of vomit to press a glass of tap water and a couple of aspirin into Dean’s hands, commanding, “Drink.”
Dean obeys despite the lurch in his stomach that tells him not to, downing the pills in one gulp before he finishes the rest of the water and sets the glass aside on the bedside table, next to the coffee can of flowers. Bobby stands and watches him do it all, nose crinkled at the mess on the floor. When Dean finishes he says, “Now, you’re gonna go shower while I clean this shit up, and then we’re gonna have a discussion, you hear me?”
Dean doesn’t respond to this but with a noise of frustration. Bobby just shakes his head and turns on his heel, stalking out the door.
It takes far too long for Dean to convince himself that it’s worth it to get out of bed. In the end, what does it is one glare from Bobby, when he returns with a bottle of cleaner in one hand and a checkered rag in the other.
A hot shower is either exactly what he needs or exactly the opposite. On one hand, the hot water rolling down his back does wonders for his hangover – or maybe that’s just the aspirin kicking in. On the other hand, with the silence behind the patter of water beating down on the shower floor, Dean has time to think. If there’s one thing that he doesn’t want to do right now, it’s think. He doesn’t want to think about apartment buildings going up in flames or blue eyes narrowed in anger. He doesn’t want to think about how he’s supposed to be at the station working again next week, doing his duty to the public just like he always wanted to do.
Fuck.
He likes living in Lawrence. Sure, he’s got shitty memories tucked between seedy alleys and the lots behind strip clubs, but the good memories outnumber those by far. He has his first Christmas with Cas, laughing while closing up Trickster in the early hours of the morning with Charlie, watching Batman with Cas, dancing to I Need You with Cas at that biker bar, or…
Everything with Cas, he guesses. Even their fights. Even when Dean found out Cas wore a prosthetic and reacted badly and Cas threw a beer bottle at his head and missed.
Even that.
So how the hell is he supposed to live in Lawrence when he knows he’ll feel Cas there with him? He’ll do that pathetic thing where he’ll wonder what Cas is doing when he’s supposed to be worrying about other shit, like his job or if he’s out of toilet paper – and then he’ll think about how Cas is doing at school or if Cas is running out of toilet paper.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
A knock jerks Dean from self-pity, followed up by Bobby calling out a rough, “Kid, you okay in there?”
“Fine,” he responds.
“You been in there for forty-five,” Bobby says back, “You plannin’ on coming out anytime soon?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, “Just give me a minute.”
“…’Kay. If it’s more than ten I’m bustin’ in there whether you’re still in your birthday suit or not,” Bobby warns.
Dean scrubs himself clean with generic ivory soap and the vaguely fruity shampoo that Bobby bought and has still sitting there from when Anna and her girls came up for Christmas. He shuts off the water, head still heavy with the aftereffects of alcohol, and towels himself dry. When he returns to the bedroom, he finds a fresh set of clothing that Bobby left out for him. The t-shirt and pair of paint-spattered jeans are much too big on him, but he feels better when he shrugs on one of Bobby’s old flannels. The fabric smells like Bobby, like bargain detergent and practicality.
When Dean makes his way into the kitchen, he reaches for one of the bottles in Bobby’s liquor cabinet. This earns him a smack on wrist and a muttered, “Like hell,” before another mug of shitty coffee gets placed between his palms.
Dean hunches over the table. The smell of the watery brew in front of him makes his gut twist a little. Bobby must read the nausea on his face, because a beaten Tupperware bowl lands in front of Dean and Bobby says, “You need to barf, you aim for that.”
“Thanks,” manages Dean.
“You gonna bother tellin’ me what the heck you’re doin’ at my place, now?” he finally asks.
Dean thumbs the warm rim of the mug and says, “Kinda a long story.”
“I got time.”
Dean finally dares to swallow some coffee and says, “Cas, he – fuck, I dunno, Bobby. He told me it was my fault and he told me to get out.”
“Dagnabbit,” Bobby complains, “That boy.”
“He ain’t a boy, Bobby,” Dean points out.
“No, he sure as shit ain’t,” he agrees, “He should know better. The hell does he get off sayin’ something like that?”
Dean wets his lips and says, “I think, uh. I think the fire stirred up some crap from his tour.”
“Aw, balls,” Bobby affords this, “Then you gotta know he don’t got his head on straight.”
“Maybe,” Dean shrugs, “Maybe he meant it.”
“I doubt it, boy,” Bobby says. Then he leans forward, “Tell you what. You take some time here. Coupla days at most, though. Then I want you back in Lawrence and I want you to talk to him, you got that?”
“Yeah,” Dean says, though he has no intention of ‘talking’ whatsoever, “Yeah, got it.”
“Good.”
“Good,” agrees Dean.
After a silent few minutes, Bobby stands and says, “Hate to leave you like this, boy, but I got work I gotta handle. But you need anything, you just holler.”
“Sure, Bobby,” Dean says.
Sure.
X
The cavalry free Cas.
A combination of Chuck, Pamela, and the acquisition of quad cane for Castiel to walk with in the interim gets him an early release signed and stamped. Castiel thanks both doctors, but doesn’t both lingering. He needs a change of clothes, and then he needs Dean.
Gabriel drives both Castiel and Sam to the apartment building that Cas intended to share with Dean. His stomach lurches at the conglomeration of cardboard boxes stacked in empty places. Only one box is open, one of the boxes that reads ‘DEAN’ across the side in marker. Cas hobbles toward it, off-balance and slow without the use of a prosthetic and only barely aided by the quad cane.
It’s empty but for one thing: the comic book that Castiel purchased for Dean during their first Christmas together.
Oh.
“Kiddo, we’re here to get you changed into some better clothes, remember?” Gabriel says from behind him.
Right. Gabriel brought him clothing from the nearby Walgreen’s to change into, but they’re cheap and itchy and don’t fit right. Some of his clothing burned up in the fire, but most of it is here, in his new home. At Castiel’s instruction, Gabriel opens a box near to the fake fireplace against the wall at the far left of the apartment. From it, Castiel grabs whatever’s on top. He escapes to the bathroom to change and manages well enough considering.
Sam tries to help him to Gabriel’s Audi.
“No,” Cas says in return.
The first half of the car trip consists of Gabriel swearing at rush hour traffic and Sam getting on the phone with his airline to cancel his flight and reschedule for a different one, and then calling Jess to explain that he won’t be back home for at least another couple of days.
The ride is tense and uncomfortable – none of them speak, even when Gabriel turns on some pop song that Castiel can’t stand. He knows his brother is doing it to try and garner a response, and he won’t give him the satisfaction.
As soon as they break from the confines of the city, it’s much easier. They’re quicker, though they have to stop to fill up the Audi’s tank and refuel themselves with coffee and corner store snacks. Castiel tries to eat, but can’t. He thought he would be relieved to have food that wasn’t from the hospital, but the thought of eating anything makes his gut turn.
All that he can think about is Dean.
Dean.
Dean, whose face he watched fall when words that shouldn't have been his own came out of his mouth. Dean, whose smiles became little treasures every time Castiel could coax one out of him. Dean, who is just as damaged, just as hurting, just as fucked-in-the-head as Castiel is. Dean, who loves fiercely even if he doesn't always say it out loud.
Castiel hopes that Dean still loves him even after what he said.
"Gabriel, why are you slowing down?" he asks, jerking his head up from where he's pressed his cheek to the window glass, so far gone in panic and need to get to Sioux Falls, to get to Dean.
“Cassie, we gotta stop for the night,” Gabriel finally says.
They’ve been at it for hours, but the highway traffic slowed them down too much, and while they’re only a few hours out of Sioux Falls, Gabriel looks like he’s about to fall asleep at the wheel.
“Okay,” Cas concedes.
Gabriel exits the highway and pulls into the parking lot of a cheap motel in a tiny town made up of only a clutch of houses, some mobile homes and trailers, a few gas stations and fast food establishments – and the motel.
The room that they rent smells musty, and Castiel has to share one of the beds with Gabriel, and he feels awful knowing that they’ve had to stop on the way to Dean. He feels sick to his stomach, so angry with himself that he tosses and turns. He catches Sam watching him out of the corner of his eye, a look of concern clouding his face. Castiel has no right to that concern, but of course. Of course he has it. Because Sam Winchester is a good man and is his friend, and Dean Winchester is the most amazing man and the man that Castiel loves. The Winchesters are good people, even when they've been scorned, even if they lie, even when they argue. At heart, they are good. Better than Castiel, in any case.
Dean is the reason that he can’t sleep. He is sorry, so sorry, and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to articulate all the thoughts reeling through his mind. His brain tortures him with the image of Dean’s face deflating like punctured tire, like Castiel had taken all the good out of him with just those few words, taken everything from him.
At two in the morning, he reaches for his Gabriel’s phone where it’s plugged into the wall – Castiel’s has yet to be replaced – and texts to Dean’s number that he’s so sorry and he’s on his way, before he realizes that Dean’s cellphone went up in flames, too.
Anxiety keeps him awake for the rest of the stay. He doesn’t shower the following morning like Gabriel and Sam insist upon doing, and with shadows under his eyes follow them to the car after checkout so that they can drive through McDonald’s for a to-go breakfast.
His McMuffin – or whatever the hell it is – tastes bland, but the coffee isn’t terrible. Being on the road eases his fretting mind while simultaneously aggravating it.
“It’s okay, Cas,” Sam finally says, “Just – stop worrying, okay? Dean’s definitely at Bobby’s. I got a text from him last night.”
Good, that’s definitely good.
The road seems to go on forever, and Castiel wants Gabriel to speed more than a mere fifteen miles per hour over the speedlimit. Gabriel refuses, though they both know that the car could accomplish it.
"Kiddo, it'll slow us down more if we get pulled over by the fuzz," Gabriel points out, and Castiel wants to accept that and shut his mouth, because at least his brother is helping him, even after he's been so terrible.
Still, he turns to Sam and asks, “Can you – can you text to Bobby that I said that I’m sorry and that I’m going to be there soon?” His face heats with shame and he’s upset that he had to resort to asking his partner’s brother to text his adopted father to contact Dean, but he’d do anything at this point, anything to convey to Dean that he didn’t mean the words that he said.
“Sorry, I can’t,” Sam says, “We’re in the middle of nowhere. I don’t have any bars.” He rests a sympathetic hand on Cas' shoulder, but when Castiel tenses, he moves back away.
Of course.
When they do reach a location with enough service, Sam does send text messages to Bobby. To Castiel's dismay, Bobby does not answer them.
They arrive in Sioux Falls in the late morning. Castiel scrambles to exit the car when they pull up behind Bobby’s home. They knock but don’t find him inside to answer, so Sam guides them around to the garage, where a pair of thick legs extends out from underneath a car that looks like it must once have been impressive, but is now faded and rusted.
Bobby says from his place, “Hold your horses. Be with y’all in a second.” He's humming something under his breath, something that sounds like the kind of music that Dean enjoys.
“It’s us,” Sam says, “Where’s Dean? Dind't you get any of my messages?”
“Aw, hell, boy. You know I don't do phone shit when I'm workin',” Bobby says to this. He rolls out from under the car and stands up, wiping grease-stained hands on a handkerchief from his back pocket. He zeroes in on Cas and points a finger at his face, “You. You go fix this, and you fix it now.”
“I know, I –”
“You know, huh?” Bobby spits, “No, you don’t. A certain conversation’s comin’ to mind here, one where I told you – I told you, don’t go lettin’ what happened to you screw up what you and my boy have. Does anybody fuckin’ listen to me, or am I just singin’ to myself here? Go, git. He’s out back by the targets.”
X
It’s a little fucking unfair that the weather’s this nice when Dean feels so much like shit. There’s barely a cloud in the blue sky above him, and the temperature is snug right between warm and cool. A breeze rustles his borrowed flannel, and he exhales a long cloud of cigarette smoke. He knows Bobby told him he wasn’t allowed to drink, but as soon as Bobby ducked out to the garage, Dean snagged the whiskey in the cupboard that he had his eye on.
Figures after all his hard work, he’d be right back here – in the plot of land behind the salvage yard, drinking and smoking like he always has.
No matter what he does, he’ll always end up like this. Coming up short, fucking it up, pouring whiskey down his throat so he doesn’t have to think about how fucking miserable he is.
The crunch of footsteps through the prickly field brush, slow and hesitant, sounds out over the slosh of the whiskey being tipped back down Dean’s throat.
“Told you to leave me be, Bobby,” Dean says, and expects to get another smack for fingering the bottle of whiskey.
“I am not Bobby.”
Dean jerks his head at that. His lips part in surprise and he can only get out, “Cas?”
“Yes,” Cas says.
Dean realizes that Cas is walking without a prosthetic, struggling for balance with nothing but a cane to support him. He walks slowly, but Dean knows that Cas would be pissed if he stood up to help him – he’d scold him for treating him like he’s helpless. So he waits, and lets Cas crumple to the ground beside him, falling onto his one knee and using his cane as leverage to shift so that he’s lying in the prickly weeds and dirt, just like Dean.
“Why’re you here?” Dean finally asks.
“I made a mistake,” Castiel responds, “I think it may actually be the worst mistake that I’ve ever made in my life. Could I have one of those?” He indicates to the cigarette between the knuckles on Dean’s right hand.
Dean nods and offers a cigarette and a light to Cas, who holds the flame to the end and exhales.
“Was it me?” Dean asks when Cas hands his lighter back, “Your mistake, I mean.”
“No,” Cas says, “God, no, Dean. I’m ashamed that I could ever make you think something like that. My mistake was – it was treating you the way that I did. Throughout all the time I’ve known you, I’ve been so angry at the way others treat you, and…and the way that you treat yourself. And then I turned and did the same as the others I’d been so angry at.”
“Uh,” Dean says, “Okay. But you weren’t wrong, so.”
“That’s just it, though. I was. I was so wrong to say that anything was your fault,” Cas responds. He takes another drag off of the end of his cigarette, and sends a cloud of smoke up into the air, “I’m not well, Dean. We both know that. I’d been improving but God knows I’ll never be the same as I was before Paktika. I close my eyes and I - I see the faces of the dead. I see Samandriel and I see that man that blew himself up. I’d like to pretend that I’m normal, that I could be – but what if I never get there?”
Dean chuckles, an unhappy, soft sound, and replies, “Christ, do I know that feeling. 'Cept for me it's leather belts. That fuckin' pickup when I was fifteen. Never wanted anybody to know that crap, but. The whole world does.” A sardonic smile curls his lips.
“I shouldn't have - I should not have said what I did about Alastair, Dean. It was," he gulps in air and sighs, "it was cruel of me. Neither of us…well, we have histories,” Cas says. He looks at Dean as he says this, and if Dean didn’t know better, he’d say that Cas is actually leaning into him, “But, if you’d still have me…I want to try. I want to try being unwell together.”
Dean stares. When he finally finds the words to say, he sputters, “Cas, that isn’t fucking funny.”
“I was unaware that I was trying to be humorous,” Castiel replies.
“Um,” Dean says, “Oh.”
Cas deflates. He exhales cigarette smoke, and when he looks back at Dean he looks like a puppy that’s been abandoned out in the street in a cardboard box. He ventures, “Is that a no?”
“Jesus, Cas,” Dean exclaims, “No it’s not a fucking no. But what if – what if we fuck it all up? We do a lot of fucking up.”
“I’d rather try and fuck up then not try at all,” Cas admits, "And who wake me up from my nightmares if not you? Gabriel doesn't know the tune to Hey Jude, you know."
Dean stubs out his cigarette butt in the dirt and stretches up into a sitting position. More than anything, he wants to say yes to Cas, to give what they have another go, but he doesn’t think he could handle another round through the wringer. There's only so much a guy can take, and sometimes...sometimes he just feels like he was meant to be alone.
“May I kiss you?” Cas asks. He’s so goddamn soft-spoken when he says it.
Dean can’t help but swallow and answer, “Yeah. Go ahead and kiss me, angel.”
When he says the word ‘angel’ he knows he’s forgiven Cas. And Cas pulls him down and their mouths connect, he knows he’s going to tell Cas that he’s willing give their thing another go. And then when their tongues touch and taste, he knows he’s gonna want to do this forever. He’s gonna want to kiss Cas like this for the rest of their lives.
They break for air, and Cas says, “You told me you love me. I saw it on the television. Was it true?”
“Of course it was true, you dick,” Dean replies, and then adds, “Guess I should probably say it when you can hear me, huh?” He cups Cas' stubbly cheek with his hand. His beard is overgrown from days without shaving spent in a hospital bed. Dean strokes his thumb through the coarse hair and tries not to acklowledge the well of affection that bubbles up from deep in his gut. Goddamn handsome son of a bitch, with his blue-as-hell eyes that crease at the corners, his tanned skin, and that awkward, crooked smile. It's a vulnerable smile, so fragile Dean imagines it would take very few words to break it.
“I imagine so, yes,” Cas replies.
“Then I love you,” Dean says, “And I gotta tell you, angel, I don’t know what to do with that. I love you more than I ever loved anything before, and it freaks me the hell out. The things you do to me…” He makes a vague motion in the air with his hand.
Cas having that much power over him – it’s fucking scary, okay? He didn’t know that one night in September that he’d approach a sullen-looking john or that he’d see the guy the next morning when he treated himself to a decent breakfast. He didn’t know that they’d watch Batman and Star Trek together, or read scifi novels together, or get an apartment together. He didn’t know that that man would give him a home.
He didn’t know he’d fall stupidly, against all better judgment, in love with the guy.
He wants to regret it. He wants to say that he regrets it all and that he was better off living his life on his own.
But he was never better on his own, and he doesn’t regret a damn thing.
“I love you too, Dean,” Cas tells him, a small smile playing on his lips. Dean leans down and kisses that smile right off of Cas’ face.
Yeah.
Dean doesn’t regret a goddamn thing.