A Dream of Flight

by triedunture

Summary:

Cas starts visiting Dean in his dreams with astonishing regularity.

Supernatural fic: A Dream of Flight
Title: A Dream of Flight
Author: triedunture
Rating: R
Pairing: Dean/Cas
Spoilers: vague season 6
Warnings: torture, wing!fic, dream!fic
Word Count: 7300
Summary: Cas starts visiting Dean in his dreams with astonishing regularity.

<><><><>

It starts one night after a poltergeist hunt. Dean is covered in ectoplasm up to his elbows, and his eyes are heavy from two straight days without sleep. Sam is not much better off. They crash face-first, fully clothed, into their musty beds at the Palm Motel just off I-80.

Dean dreams.

He's sitting on an airplane, some cramped coach bullshit with sticky armrests and stale recycled air. It's a dream he has once in awhile. Usually after a hard night's work. Usually when he's so bone tired he can't fight it.

Dean grips the metal and plastic armrests and squeezes his eyes shut. The airplane is shaking back and forth, his stomach lurching up, down, right, left, up again. He tries to remember why he's flying on a plane but it's a dream; he doesn't remember anything.

"Hello, Dean."

Dean opens his eyes and sees Castiel sitting in the seat next to him by the little porthole window. That's when he figures out he's dreaming. Angels don't need to fly on planes.

"Cas." Dean nods to him. Doesn't release his death grip on the chair. "What's going on? 's probably something big if you're making the whole midnight ride through my dreams, right?"

Castiel lowers his tray table and accepts a glass of ice water from the long-reaching and faceless stewardess. "In regards to the ongoing war between angelic factions, I have nothing of import to share with you at the moment." He takes a sip from the squat plastic glass and sets it on his tray, settles his bunched trench coat more neatly against his legs.

Dean regards him with unconcealed suspicion. "You don't have anything better to do than creep into my pointless nightmares and say hey?"

Cas turns his head, swiveling it like bird does. "This is your nightmare?"

The airplane hits a pothole full of turbulence and warning sirens begin to beep and blare inside the cabin. Dean clenches his teeth. "It gets worse," he manages.

"The plane crashes?" Cas asks.

"Everything crashes, yeah."

A steep nosedive begins. The passengers are screaming.

Cas takes one last sip of water. "Let's leave, then." He reaches over and touches Dean's sleeve.

There's a bright flash. Dean blinks the light away. He looks down and sees his feet on solid red-sand ground. He cranes his neck to peer over the edge of a cliff. It's not a cliff after all. It's the Grand Canyon.

"You wanted to see it someday, yes?" Castiel is standing next to him, his arms limp at his sides.

"You brought us here?"

"I thought you would appreciate it."

Dean waggles his head side to side as if weighing the variables. "Better than dying in a fireball, sure."

"This will be a good dream," Cas promises. "You'll be able to fly without a plane."

A dry chuckle. "I don't have those kinds of dreams. The ones where you get to soar and float? Never had one in my life." He's never had the kind of dream where he's suddenly back in school and it's time for the big test either, so he figures it all balances out.

"This time will be different." Cas reaches out a slim white hand, and Dean takes it because it's a dream and nothing makes much sense, really. They step off the edge of the canyon and fall for a long moment. Dean is about to say, "Wait a minute, this is one of those dreams where you fall and fall and fall and then you wake up just before you hit the ground."

But then they stop falling and start flying. Long hawk wings sprout from between Cas's shoulder blades, and he supports Dean's weight in midair for a moment, his fingers holding fast around Dean's wrists. Then he calls over the rushing wind: "You have them too now!"

And Dean looks over his shoulder to see brown feathers, his very own wings. They spread out and seem to bear him upwards like when a parachute opens, and Cas is right there beside him. Below them the Grand Canyon stretches out impossibly wide and deep, and they dip down into it and swoop out of it and Dean's eyes are streaming and he's laughing. Castiel doesn't let go of his hand, because that's how he keeps his wings.

Dean wakes up to the sound of the motel manager banging on the door, shouting that it's past check-out time.

Later, in the car, while Sam is inside the gas station paying for their fill-up, Dean glances skyward and says under his breath, "Cas, what the hell was that about?"

He gets no answer.

<><><><>

The next time it happens, Dean falls asleep in the passenger seat of the Impala while Sam drives them through the warm Nebraska night. He cheek is resting in the little hammock he's made out of the seat belt, and he doesn't think he's going to get any real rest in this position, but then he's out like a light.

He dreams about the house he grew up in, except it's sort of combined with the ramshackle house he and Cas stayed in during that terrible stint where Sam had left them and hookers seemed like a real good idea. The kitchen is still white and clean like his childhood kitchen, but the living room is dank and abandoned and filled with empty tin cans.

Castiel sits at the kitchen table, drinking a tall glass of milk.

"Would you like some?" he asks, and before he knows it, Dean is sitting across from him with his own glass. He knows somehow that his mom has poured it, but she's not in the room. She's dead.

"Hey, so, I get it. I got seven solid hours last night, no bad dreams or anything. But now I'm well-rested and good to go. So why are we here? " Dean asks. The glass of milk is cold and tastes good.

Cas looks at him, that angel look, like they see something about you that isn't there. His eyes are clear and cool. "Because I wanted to spend time with you, Dean."

Humans never talk like that. They never say exactly what they're thinking, because half they time they don't know what they're thinking and the other half of the time, it's too embarrassing to admit. But Cas doesn't get shame. Not yet, not really, Dean thinks.

Dean smirks into his milk. "Sam and I have five hours on the road before we get to the next ghost town. You could hitch a ride if you want to see me so bad."

Castiel leans forward in his 1970s-style chrome chair. "Here in your dreams, we are alone." His eyes flicker to Dean's, then down to the table. If angels bothered with blushing, this might be the closest he gets.

Dean blinks and swallows. "What?"

Cas sits back and sighs. He draws a pattern in the condensation on the table left by the milk glass, whorls and whorls. "I've made you uncomfortable." He tips his head. "That was not my intention."

"No, it's just— What?"

The angel pushes away from the kitchen table and walks into the abandoned cabin of the living room. "I'm sorry, Dean. I didn't think—"

But Dean can't hear him because some loud song with lots of piano and female vocals is coming from some phantom radio on the kitchen counter. It covers what Cas was going to say.

"Wait, don't! Come on, Cas!" Dean gets up and tries to follow him, but just as he stands, he jolts awake in the passenger seat of the car. Sam is listening to the chick song on the radio, tapping out the beat on the steering wheel.

Dean's glare reaches him, and Sam turns to his brother with a sour face. "What? I'm driving. Rules are rules."

<><><><>

The next time it happens, it's the familiar fishing lake. They're sitting on the dock, their feet in the cool water. Castiel's feet are very narrow with long toes. Next to them, Dean's feet look small and fine-boned.

"I don't remember going to bed," Dean says.

Cas doesn't stop swishing his feet in the water. "You were knocked out by a demon. She threw you through a wall. Don't worry, Sam is taking you to the hospital. There will be no permanent damage."

"Oh. Good." Dean worries his bottom lip. "Listen, Cas, about last time..."

"Don't concern yourself," Cas interrupts. "We do not need to talk about our feelings. That is the usual way, correct?"

Dean can't help it: he snorts. "Thanks. For keeping me company while I'm out of action, I mean."

"My pleasure." Castiel wriggles his toes in the black-brown water.

They sit in silence for some time before Dean speaks up. "Cas, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"All your angel buddies seem to hate us humans. Why aren't you down on mankind too? Were you, I dunno what you call it, raised differently or something?"

Cas considers for a long moment. He licks his dry lips. "My brothers sometimes feel that, because they were created first, because they were given so much responsibility, that our father must have meant for us to be better than what came after. This kind of thinking is dangerous." He quirks an eyebrow at Dean. "As an oldest son, you know this better than most. We were meant to save each other, not war with each other." He folds his hands in his lap. "The fact that your species has invented the chili cheeseburger only solidifies my feelings on the matter."

Dean laughs long and loud, a rusty metal sound. "We save each other, huh?" he repeats.

Castiel's foot brushes against his in the cool lake water, and his hand covers Dean's on the sun-bleached wood of the dock. Dean looks at him sideways, and Cas is staring hard at the water, as if searching for words.

"Yes," he says. "Constantly and inevitably."

His hand is warm and dry. He turns to Dean, and his lips are warm and dry as well. They brush Dean's cheek, against his brow, and finally, his parted and surprised mouth.

"Please," Cas whispers, his voice a broken thing against Dean's neck, "let me—"

Dean wakes up in a hospital bed and immediately thinks, What the fuck, Cas?

<><><><>

He's started to think of them as dream-dates, and Dean is determined to get to the bottom of them by the time he hobbles into the latest rundown motel room with Sam. His head is bandaged (slight concussion) and his knee is smarting (torn ligament) but he'll be fine just like Cas said. Dean sinks into the bed, but the pillow smells of mildew and cigarettes, so he ends up on the ratty sofa. Which smells only slightly better.

He sleeps and dreams of a crossroads at night.

"Let you what, Cas?" he shouts at the sky. "What the hell is going on? Cas!"

Dean turns and finds Castiel standing in the center of the crossroads, his shoulders slumped as if in defeat.

"This isn't going how I planned," he murmurs.

"Yeah, well, welcome to the club." Dean drags his hands through his hair, frustrated, tired. "If you have something to say to me, then fly down while I'm awake and tell it to my face!"

"I thought this would be easier." Castiel sighs. "But you are yourself, even in dreams."

A huff of laughter. "You love it." Said flippantly, automatically. May as well have stabbed Cas in the chest with one of those shiny angel blades, if the look on his face is anything to go by.

"Yes. I do." Castiel takes a step forward, closing in on Dean. "I love you, though I've tried not to."

"Oh, come on." Dean takes a step back. "Dude. Cas. I'm sorry, but I'm not into guys."

"I am not a guy." His eyes are sharp pinpricks against blue.

"Well, you look like a guy to me."

Cas looks down at himself as if seeing his vessel for the first time. "I sometimes forget how much emphasis humans place on eyesight," he says. He snaps his fingers and suddenly he's an olive-skinned brunette dressed in a slick pantsuit.

"Whoa." Dean blinks.

"She's a distant cousin of Jimmy Novak. She lives in Arizona. She is not a perfect fit, but she will be adequate for my needs. I can find her tonight if you wish," Cas says, and somehow it's still Cas's deep gravel voice, which is all sorts of wrong.

Dean thinks of Jimmy Novak's little daughter and the fear etched on his face when he sacrificed himself for her. "Nah," Dean says. "That'd be kind of a shitty thing to do just to get some, don't you think?"

Then Cas is Cas again, and Dean breathes a little easier.

"This form is familiar to you," Castiel points out. "Even in a dream, you do not like me appearing any differently."

"Well, yeah."

"Doesn't that tell you something?" Cas asks.

Dean is awake before he gets a chance to answer. The alarm clock is playing NPR: the Blue Angels will be performing in today's local airshow.

While Sam is in the shower, Dean stands in the empty parking lot and shouts for Castiel to come down here, you son of a bitch, you fucking coward, you mindfucking freak. But nobody comes, and Dean's throat becomes raw and parched.

<><><><>

The next night, they make it back to Bobby's house. Dean props himself up at Bobby's desk and starts in on the massive stack of decaying books, because research is better than sleep. Sam makes a feeble attempt at helping, but around three in the morning, he groans and presses his hands to his eyes.

"I need rest, Dean, and so do you."

Dean gulps down his fifth cup of coffee-like sludge. "You go on ahead. I'll keep at it."

"Dean, we don't even know what we're looking for. We have no leads and no idea how a witch can make someone, uh, explode." Sam glances at one of the crime scene photos again, a sick look on his face. "Maybe it will make more sense in the morning."

"Maybe," Dean agrees. "Go to bed, Sammy. I just have a few more things I want to check."

Sam clump-clumps up the stairs with his ridiculously big feet, and Dean turns back to the books spread open in front of him. He props his chin in his hand and sighs. He really doesn't give a shit what's in those hex bags or how the witches are making their victims go boom; he just doesn't want to deal with Cas and his dreamy weirdness tonight.

He's studying an illuminated drawing of a witch being burned at the stake circa 1400 when he feels a presence behind him.

"Cas," he says in greeting, keeping his voice even, his eyes still on the book.

No response, not verbally anyway. But a six-pack of Del Sol is placed on the corner of the table by a pair of thin hands. Dean's elbow brushes against the cardboard packaging; it's ice-cold.

"Nice 'sorry I'm such a creepster' present," he comments. Plucks a bottle from the pack and twists off the cap.

Cas steps in front of the desk. "I am not here to apologize, Dean."

Dean takes a long pull from the bottle and rolls his eyes. He's about to dismiss the angel with a wave of his hand and go back to flipping through the lore books, but when he looks down at the pages, the words are all jumbled and backwards.

He's heard somewhere that you can't see words in dreams.

"Son of a bitch. I fell asleep?"

Castiel nods. "You are exhausted."

"Yeah, well, whose fault is that?"

And suddenly, they're not in Bobby's house in South Dakota and it's not night. They're at the edge of the ocean, the east coast if the white sand is anything to go by. Dean is standing in the warm water with his jeans rolled up to his knees, his bare feet sinking in the silk-scratch of the sand. The waves come in gently, as clear as green glass. Off to the right, a school of tiny silver flakes darts one way, then another, then out of sight.

The beer is still in his hand, so Dean drinks some more.

Cas is next to him, his trousers also rolled up to the knee, which is stupid because his coat is trailing down to the water, soaked. He looks out toward the horizon, his eyes squinting at what could be the sunset but is probably sunrise.

"The most sensible thing would be for you to refuse me," Cas says.

Dean drinks more beer. "Come again?"

"You are mortal. I am not. That, along with many other complications, makes this proposition unlikely to succeed." Cas glances over at him, and the sun is in his eyes. "In the past, I would never have considered even attempting something so foolish. But you have taught me to believe in foolish things. So I tell you now, Dean: I want to be with you. Do you want that too?"

A trickle of sweat runs down Dean's temple and he swipes at it with the rounded face of his cool beer bottle. "If you think I should say no, why even ask?"

"Because you have also shown me the value of allowing humans a choice where one exists. It is the most fitting gift I can give to you."

Dean smirks at the sunrise. "You're nuts."

"I am as God made me."

The bottle is dropped into the ocean (but it's a dream, so littering is no big deal) and Dean's hand finds Cas's above the waves. Their skin is sticky with salt air, and warm. Their fingers curl together. This is weird, Dean thinks. This was always going to happen, wasn't it? No. This is my choice.

The ocean is gone, replaced by a field surrounded by fallen trees. Dean's flat on his back, looking up at the stars. Underneath him is soft, warm earth. His grave, he's lying on his grave. It's unmarked; he is not.

Cas is there now, above him. He's peeling off his coat, his shirt and tie. He still smells of salt water and seaweed. Dean helps him shrug out of his shirt and he sees Cas's bare arms for the first time. Cas has a mark on the white flesh of his inner arm, a hand print burned into his skin.

"What the hell?" Dean traces it with his fingertips.

Cas looks down at him with a gentle, knowing look. "When I held onto you and dragged you from the Pit, you were, of course, holding onto me as well."

"I did that to you?"

"We did it to each other," Cas says, and leans down to kiss him.

We save ourselves, Dean thinks. He gives into the kiss, allows it, encourages it along. He's unclothed now too, or maybe he always was. They're both in the dirt, rolling. Cocks sliding against stomachs and thighs. Sweat and salt. Cas tastes like the ocean.

It's a dream, so it doesn't have to make sense when Dean slides into Cas, and Cas is inside him at the same time. He feels him, hard and hardening further, while he's arching up into him. Cas above him, or on his hands and knees, fingers scrabbling in the grave dirt. Dean kisses the back of his neck, bites down on the soft skin behind his knee, all while he's also being fucked somehow, being driven shoulders-first into the ground, being held in place by a hand on his hip while Cas enters him.

"Love you," he promises into Castiel's collarbone. "Jesus, fuck, Cas, love you."

Cas is chanting; yes, yes, Dean, I know, yes.

Dean thinks briefly how amazing it would be for this to end with Castiel drinking him down, swallowing him like the ocean. And then it's happening, and Cas is on his knees in the soft dirt, and dragonflies are trundling by in the heavy air, and Cas's tongue is light on his cock. Unsure and virginal and Dean groans, a hand threading through Cas's hair. He guides him through it wordlessly. And it's wonderful without being perfect, which makes it perfect.

"Ca—" Not even a whole syllable manages to escape Dean's lips at the end, just a huff of breath, a sound that may have been Castiel's name. He's done, he's coming, he's coming undone.

He's in Bobby's study. The morning light is slanting through the curtains, and Sam is shaking his shoulder.

"Another killing. It's on the news. Let's go."

Dean swings his gaze around the room blearily. No six-pack at his elbow, no clothes missing from his body, no sign of Castiel. He tells himself he shouldn't expect it, that Cas wasn't here, not really, he was just in Dean's head. But after all that, after what they did, the guy doesn't even show his face for a second? Dean is strangely angry/anticipatory, shaking off his sleep.

"Let me grab a shower," he croaks, and his voice is unused and thin.

<><><><>

The new murder leads them to a witness, who tells them something strange, which leads to an abandoned shopping plaza, which is just another sign of these hard economic times and also is where the witches work their magic.

Sam kills one, Dean dispatches the other. They make one last sweep through the building just to be safe, and it's Sam who makes his way down one long hallway, gun drawn, and pushes open the door to the claustrophobic back room.

"Dean!" he calls, and it's not a sharp bark, it's a drawn-out question.

Dean rushes to his brother and sees what he sees. And he doesn't have an answer.

The room is illuminated only by the ring of holy fire. Cas is there in the center, on his knees on the hard concrete floor. His arms are stretched out and held suspended by what look like gold manacles and chains, bolted to the ceiling. His head is bowed, but a trickle of blood is visible at his temple, at the side of his neck. His clothes are torn and burnt. There is blood, so much blood. It's flowing from two very precise slashes on his wrists, dripping steadily down to be collected in twin vessels. The round glass vases are brimming with blood.

Castiel doesn't respond to the Winchesters when they douse the flames, when they call his name, when they touch his shoulder or raise his chin. His eyes are open, watery and unseeing. They seem to focus briefly on Sam's face or Dean's hand, but then the recognition is gone, replaced with cloudy not-thereness.

A fleeting wish that the witches were not yet dead, so that Dean could kill them again, and more painfully.

Dean breaks the gold chains (actual, honest to God gold; they're pliable and soft) and tears strips from his flannel overshirt to bind Cas's wrists. Sam takes hold of his limp form. Dean offers to take the burden from him, holds out his arms and says, "Here, I can—" But Sam just jerks his head, "I got him," and carries him from the building. Dean follows closely with the gold chains (because it would be stupid to leave them behind) and thinks Cas looks very small and very human in his big little brother's arms.

They bring him back to Bobby's house in the backseat of the Impala, hoping Bobby might know more about doctoring an angel than they do.

Bobby takes one look at Cas and says, "What the hell do you expect me to do? Christ, just fix 'im up like you would anybody."

Cas is installed in the guest bed, relieved of his bloody clothing and slotted into a clean, worn tee shirt, some plaid boxers, both borrowed from Dean. Dean is the one who does the undressing and dressing. "I used to be able to get you into PJ's without even waking you," he reminds Sam. "If anyone knows how to do this without jostling, it's me." What he doesn't say is he thinks it might be a small betrayal if he lets someone else see Castiel's bruised body. When he slices the ruined white collared shirt from Cas, he checks the inside of his left arm. There's no hand print, and that bothers him.

They take turns changing the bandages on his wrists. The bleeding slows, then stops. It's nearly twilight when Cas's eyes flutter open and fasten on Dean, sitting next to the bed like Florence fucking Nightingale and full of questions.

"Dean." Cas can barely speak, his voice coming out as a whispered prayer. He attempts to sit up.

Dean bites back all the questions and settles on reassurance for now. "Hey, take it easy." He pushes Cas gently by the shoulders, and he goes back to the pillow without any resistance. "You got banged up pretty bad. Just concentrate on getting your angel healing powers online, okay?" He nods to himself, convincing himself if no one else. Reminds himself not to be angry; you can't be angry with a dude in critical condition, even if he did take off the morning after (or never showed up). "We can talk about everything when you feel up to it."

As further proof of his limitless coolness with the situation, Dean's hand finds Cas's under the bedsheets. He twines his fingers with Cas's and gives a light squeeze, just like when they stood on the beach in his dream.

Dull blue eyes widen in fear, confusion maybe. "You're touching my hand," Cas says softly.

"Yeah." The reassuring smile is still in place.

"You've never done such a thing before. Do you think I am dying?"

"What? No, I— And of course I have, I did it the other night."

"The other night?"

"In my, you know, mind." Dean shifts in his creaky chair. "You were there; you've been showing up in my dreams for days. Doing the whole nocturnal visit thing."

Castiel's eyes are swimming now, a roil of Not Understanding. "Dean, I have been held captive by the coven for eight days. If I had been able to get a message to you, I would have told you where I was."

His fingers tighten around Cas's hand. "N-no, it— We saw the Grand Canyon, remember? You taught me to fly? We—" But Dean sees no hint of recognition in Castiel's face, and he is overcome by a fiery burn that creeps up his neck to the crown of his head. "Jesus. It was just dreams. Just regular old fucking dreams."

Castiel is floundering. He senses that Dean is upset but he doesn't understand why, and how could he? He tries out some words he's seen Dean and Sam use with each other. He tries his best. "I'm...I'm sorry."

He is about to suggest, gently and without thought to the lingering pain in his wings and his grace, that Dean tell him about these dreams. He especially would like to hear about teaching Dean to fly. It sounds wonderful.

But Dean snatches his hand away and stands up, his rickety wooden chair scrapping against the floorboards. Dean turns his back to Cas, dragging both hands through his hair, his spine a rigid line under his thin tee shirt.

"I don't fucking believe this," Dean grates out. It's clear he's not speaking to Cas, so Cas holds his tongue.

Dean doesn't turn back. He bangs out of the guest bedroom, the door not quite slamming behind him, but still loud and final. Castiel lays in bed and breathes.

<><><><>

Sam finds Dean in a corner of the junkyard grappling with a long-dead carburetor. He's lit with a floodlight wreathed in ashy moths. The daylight is failing.

"Cas is awake," Sam says. "I guess you knew that, though."

Dean grunts.

"Were you gonna tell us he was up?"

A shrug. "He seemed fine. No rush."

Sam grabs the piece of oily machinery from Dean's hand, the mechanical version of switching off the TV. Hey, I was watching that, etc. Dean's eyes finally rise to meet his brother's, heated with annoyance.

"Do you have any idea what they did to him?" Sam's glare is a practiced thing.

Dean falters somewhere inside, but he doesn't lose the stubborn tilt of his jaw.

Sam continues. "They tortured him. Bled him dry over and over. That's what they were using in their spells: angel blood. They forced him to show his wings. They. Tore. Out. His. Feathers." With each word, Sam bangs the flat of his hand down on a nearby trunk lid.

"Wait, what?" Dean frowned. "I thought angel wings were..." Smoke, ash, shadows. Not real. Not something you could see outside of a stupid dream. Not something witches could take from Cas.

Sam gestured widely, his hands palm-up. "Cas says they knew how to make them manifest, whatever that means. And these feathers, which I guess are more like sheet metal or something, are pretty powerful. Like, the worst black magic you can think of." Sam's eyes are a liquid rebuke. "He's in a lot of pain, Dean. I don't know why you're pissed at him—"

"I'm not! Geez, I just needed some goddamn air, all right?" His eyes flick down then back up, checking to see if Sam is buying it.

He isn't. "Go sit with him for a little bit, will you? If I stay in that chair one more minute, my ass is going to fall asleep." Lanky arms across a broad chest: no arguments.

Dean trudges back to the house, up the stairs, his boots dragging his feet along. He plunks himself down in the bedside chair and doesn't look at Cas's expectant, wane face.

"So," he addresses the carpet, "gold, huh?"

Castiel shifts his legs under the blankets, not hiding a small grimace of pain. "It affects angels the way silver affects some unholy creatures. It is not a weakness we wish to make common knowledge."

"Good thing Jimmy Novak didn't own a nice Rolex." Or a wedding ring, Dean notices now. Had Jimmy just been too practical and pious to wear such a luxury, or had Cas asked him to take it off before committing their little indiscretion?

Dean clears his throat in the middle of a long silence. "They, uh, got hold of your wings."

Cas's fingertip traces the curving ivy pattern of the faded bedspread. "They tore them apart," he says quietly. "I will recover. But it will take time."

"Anything we can do? To help, I mean."

"It's not a physical wound. They need no medicine or gauze." Cas flexes, his shoulders rolling in discomfort. "Perhaps you can distract me while they mend."

Dean's eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline, and although Cas doesn't understand his reaction, he feels the need to clarify: "Tell me about these dreams you had of me. They sounded...nice."

It's such a small, nonsense word. Not the kind of word Cas ever uses: nice. That's what you call a silly kid's movie, or a greeting card, or the lady that helps you at the front desk.

Dean licks his lips. Decides to edit a little bit, for Cas's sake.

He tells him about the plane nightmare, about flashing to the edge of the Grand Canyon, about growing huge brown hawk's wings and flying in big loops and whorls over the sun-red dirt. Leaves out the hand-holding. Castiel listens intently.

"Hawk's wings," he mumbles, as if the idea amuses him. "That is very strange."

"Well, I've never seen the real thing. Had to make up something, didn't I?"

"Would you like to see them?" Cas asks, casual and earnest as if he's offering to show Dean his bottle cap collection.

Dean stares at the air to either side of Cas's shoulders. "Won't it hurt? To, uh, make them manifest?"

"It hurts when they're forced." Cas's eyes dart downwards, remembering. Dean hates witches a little bit more than he ever did.

"How did they do it?" Dean asks. He doesn't want to know, but on the other hand, he needs to know.

"They..." Cas trails off, and Dean can see the reason in his stark blue eyes: Dean already knows about the gold, Dean already knows so much.

"I want to be able to stop it, if someone tries again," Dean promises.

Cas considers this and nods. "They tried singeing me with holy fire at first. Lighting my clothes. Holy fire can kill an angel; this you've seen. An angel's wings, they are like your legs, in a sense. They are what carries us away from danger. When we are about to die, they appear, an involuntary reflex, to try to save us one last time."

"So that's why all the iced angels have their wings burned into the ground when they bite the dust?" Dean asks.

"Yes. But I knew the witches wouldn't risk losing me; they wanted my blood. So I resisted the urge to spread my wings." Cas lowers his gaze, his pale face drawn into something like regret. Dean thinks he looked very like this in the kitchen of his childhood home.

"So how did they do it?"

Cas looks up at him, broken. "They told me they'd captured the Winchester brothers and were about to murder them in the room across the hallway."

Something catches in Dean's throat. He can't swallow.

Cas's hands twitch on the bedspread. "I had to get to you two, had to try. I had to save you, you boys, you're—" He closes his eyes. "Foolish of me to believe their lie." Shakes his head. "After, as they pulled fistfuls of my wings from me, they wouldn't say whether or not it had just been a ruse. I thought I had failed, and you and Sam were dead."

Dean has felt like a piece of shit plenty of times, but he's never felt like the biggest, cosmically shitty turd in all of history until now. Bad enough he's freaking out over his weird homo-dreams while Cas is getting tortured, but getting tortured because of them, because he thought he needed to save them? King of shit.

"Hey. We're fine," Dean manages to say, which is the stupidest thing he thinks he's ever said. He just doesn't know what else there is. He reaches across the blankets and takes Cas's hand in his again. "You'll be okay."

Cas seems to curl in on himself, and Dean moves from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed, to rub circles into Castiel's back, to let his head fall against Dean's chest. Cas's hand shakes in his.

"Want to hear about the dream I had where we swam in the ocean?" Dean asks, and Cas nods against his collarbone, and Dean tells a slightly exaggerated version of events. He describes the beer bottle and the school of fish and the sunrise and Cas's wet trench coat. He makes up the parts where they flop into the water and do the forward crawl for miles, until the water turns from glassy green to deep, opaque blue.

"In this dream, did you hold my hand?" Cas asks. "You said you dreamt it."

Dean swallows. He feels something cool and hard brush his shoulder, and he looks back to see something (a shape, a shadow) surrounding him. Cas's wings are becoming real, turning solid. They aren't like bird's wings at all. The feathers look more like the shaking leaves of aspens, silvery and metallic. They arch up and around Cas, enfolding Dean like an embrace.

"Oh," Dean whispers. He remembers Cas's last question. "Yeah. We swam and...I held your hand."

The wings quiver, leaves in the breeze. Dean's gaze travels along their high arches, their graceful bend and curve. There are patches, he sees now, where the leaf-feather-metals are missing, great big splotches that are bare, like chicken skin. Without thinking, Dean reaches out and touches one patch near the jointed bend. It's cold and clammy.

Cas stiffens in Dean's arms.

"Sorry, does it hurt?"

"It is tender," Cas says.

"Sorry."

"What happened after we swam?" Cas asks into Dean's tee shirt.

"We, uh." The wings are making Dean light-headed. They smell like the road right before a rainstorm. "We..." And for some reason, he just wants to tell the truth. Wants to just tell Cas, "We loved each other." Wishes he could make Cas understand without having to actually say it.

Compromise. "We got back to land, and you said you were in love with me." Dean pulls back just enough so he can look down and watch Cas's face for any reaction. But there's a lack of reaction, just blue eyes that keep staring into his own feathers. They brush against the back of Dean's neck. "Stupid, huh? Dreams are so frickin' weird sometimes."

Cas speaks, his voice strained, small. "Yes. How stupid."

The wings are withdrawing, Cas is withdrawing, settling back against the pillows, his wings pulled tight against his back. His eyes are rimmed with bruises, and they stare down and to the left. Dean remains at the edge of the bed, his mouth open a little.

He realizes Cas has been dreaming too.

Dean makes a decision. Reaches out and carefully, carefully runs his fingers through Cas's feathers. They sound like silver bells. Cas closes his eyes, his lips parting to release a breath of air.

"I said it back. In my dream," Dean adds, because it's so goddamn hard to put it all on the table. But Cas understands, he knows he will.

The angel lifts his eyes, blue glass, to Dean. He's transformed, his spine straightening, his lips forming soundless words. One wing, the one Dean is caressing, stretches out, brushes the long, thin feathers at the tip along Dean's throat.

Outside, it is dark. The crickets are humming. The stars are bright this far away from the city. From the highway, the whoosh of semis, spaced out by long bouts of silence.

Inside, Dean is stretched out along the length of Cas, precariously sharing the narrow twin bed, the soft and faded bedclothes. Their clothes are heaped on the floor. Cas's body is warm, still bruised, as close to human as it can be without falling. Dean touches him with great care, his arm, his flank, his hip. Stroking down and back up. The wings shake and shiver like trees on the side of a mountain.

"So you've never—"

Cas clutches at Dean's upper arms. "Never, in any of my forms."

"Is that...normal?" Dean rethinks the question. "For angels."

"No." Cas ducks his head against Dean's chest and licks the skin there. "I was often asked by my brothers, what are you waiting for, Castiel? But I had no answer."

Dean can hear his brother and Bobby creaking around downstairs. "We have to be quiet," he says.

Cas nods, his hair soft under Dean's jaw. Dean reaches for Cas's cock, hard and leaking against his stomach, and Cas seems genuinely surprised when he strokes it. "Oh," he breathes.

"Did you have something else in mind?" Dean asks.

Cas pulls away, his eyes glittering with the light from the stars that comes in through the window. "Yes," he says slowly, "but you must tell me to stop if you don't enjoy it."

"All right," Dean agrees, curious.

"But don't stop what you're doing. It feels..." If Cas says "nice" Dean thinks he's going to lose it. "...perfect."

That's fine then.

His hands keeps slipping up and down Cas's dick. Those silver wings bend over and around them, wriggling underneath and over him, until Dean is cocooned in celestial feathers. They tickle along his bare skin like small sparks; one hot, one chill.

It's Dean's turn to whisper, "Oh." A thousand small touches, the feeling of many hands hungry for his body. "Oh, fuck."

A feather licks his ear, another the base of his spine. Several tease the crack of his ass. One very boldly strides down the length of his cock to brush against his balls.

Castiel kisses him, his hands flat against Dean's chest. "I can let you feel what I'm feeling, if you like," he whispers against Dean's lips. "I—I want you to."

Dean nods though he doesn't quite understand what Cas is talking about.

Two fingertips press to his forehead. "Close your eyes," Cas warns just as the warm glow begins to suffuse the edges of Dean's vision.

And suddenly, Dean receives a glimpse of the whole of time. Feels the entire thing from the start of the universe to its eventual end. It's terrifying and he's shaking, but Cas is in his ear, saying, "I am here, I am with you, Dean."

The feathers are touching him, and he has a hand wrapped around an angel's cock, and eternity. He blinks away the stars and the big bang and he sees he's somehow already inside Castiel. He's rocking into him, his cock deep inside, and Cas is panting along his shoulder. Wings are all around, against Dean's jaw, his brow, his thighs. Dean's on his knees, he's hauled Cas into his lap. He sees all this but his eyes are still closed.

"Dean," Cas keens. Arches back, his hands anchored to Dean's shoulders, giving Dean enough space between their bodies for his hand to fist his cock. Dean thrusts one final time, and Cas's wings spread wide and straight. He comes, twitching, in Cas. On his stomach, Cas has painted him white and sticky.

Outside, crickets. One semi, whoosh. The stars.

The bed is damp with sweat. Dean lays Cas back down against the pillows. His wings are gone from sight, faded, as if in exhaustion. Dean worries for a moment about Cas's wounds, and maybe Cas senses his concern in his touch, because he opens his eyes halfway to look at Dean and say, "I'm all right."

Dean falls into place next to Cas, both of them panting still for air.

"You showed me everything," Dean says, marveling at it.

Cas's hand finds his in the dark. "It seemed only fair to return the favor," he says.

fin

A few notes:

1. I am pretty much certain Sam is an Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls fan. Deal with it, Dean

2. I love wing fics so much I made my own! The idea of using dreams to get Dean used to his hard-on for Cas came to me and I thought I AM SO CLEVER FUFUFU but I usually hate using dreams in stories. "It Was All A Dream" drives me crazy, and I should probably hate myself for using it here but then Cas and Dean Do It so I think that makes it OK, yes? Also I think I like beating up Cas. *slaps him around just a little*

3. Another reason I used dreams was to get more used to using present tense. I'm so used to writing in the past tense, and I know that sounds like a really small thing to whine about, but it's very hard to get into that immediate now now now mindset when you're used to taking your time and strolling along in past tense. Anyway.

4. Thank You for reading and I hope you enjoyed eeeeeet! Please comment if you can. I will love you for basically all time. *time confetti*