Fic: An Eye For An Eye
Title: An Eye For An Eye
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5400
Spoilers: None for season 5
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: Dean needs a little time to deal with what Castiel did.
AN: AU sequel to My Eyes Are An Ocean. Written for the lovely morganoconner who wanted a follow-on. Extra thank you to pyjamagurl and miya_tenaka for taking a look at it for me.
Dean stares at himself in the mirror for a long time.
He hasn't seen himself for three weeks. He hasn't been able to look at his own eyes. Though, technically, he still isn't doing that. Because one of them is white glass, sunken eye sockets are just not sexy after all. The other - the other is Castiel's. Right there in his damn face. One of Castiel's eyes. Where it doesn't belong.
Dean holds a hand over the white glass one again and looks at himself. Can't quite get over how weird he looks with one blue eye. It changes his whole damn face. Makes him look strange, sharper. It's not even ordinary blue. It's that bright unsettling blue that Castiel used to love fixing on him, until he had to look away. And now it's his, now it's right there. Bright and accusing blue - and, ok, that sounds stupid but it's the best he's got.
It takes him another second to register the uneven roughness of his cheek under his palm and lets his hand drop - gets a good look at his face in the mirror. Then makes an irritated noise. Sam had reassured him that he'd been doing ok at the whole 'shaving himself' thing. Which is clearly a total lie. Son of a bitch, they're going to be having words. Also, his hair is a wreck, though that might be because he just woke up and not because he's been failing with a comb as well.
He laughs, watches himself laugh and then laughs again and doesn't even try to stop that weird spike of exhilaration because being able to see is awesome. Seriously. It's awesome. He'd come to terms with - okay grudgingly accepted the fact that he was going to be blind for the rest of his life. That he was going to have to work through never being able to drive again and smacking into his own family members and reminiscing while never being entirely sure if people were listening, or even still in the damn room. But it'd seemed a fair enough trade. Given the fact that all bets had been off as soon as the apocalypse reared its head.
Dean hadn't expect to be here at all. Didn't expect to still be alive when the dust settled, with Bobby and Sam and Castiel. God, Castiel. Last night had been - it all comes back all at once. Everything he asked for, everything they did, and Dean doesn’t know how he managed to be braver with no eyes than with one. But you don't usually wake up after you sleep with someone for the first time to find they've mutilated themselves so you can see again. There isn't exactly a hallmark card for that.
Though it's no secret that they both have a really messed up definition of what the word sacrifice means.
But still, this is a body part for God's sake. This is part of Castiel, that he thought Dean deserved? needed? He doesn't even know for sure. This is - this is everything all at once and Dean holds the sink for a second and just breathes and doesn’t look at himself and waits until he has some sort of control over the world again. Or at least over himself. Himself, at the very least.
Then he straightens, looks up again, still unprepared for that shine of strange, bright blue that doesn’t belong in his face.
"What did you do, Cas?" he asks the mirror. And it may be Castiel's eye but it's his very own 'we're going to talk about this bullshit' expression. It makes him huff out laughter again. Thready and unsure.
He should call him. Dean's pretty sure Castiel isn't going to be wandering round the house this morning. For maybe the first time in three weeks maybe he's not going to be anywhere near here. He's always shown up when Dean's called him. He'd always showed up when Dean couldn't see a damn thing anyway.
But, this morning he's almost certainly going to be far enough to need a phone. Dean's cell is somewhere on the night table. With the rest of his stuff that became pretty much useless after the last night. It's still sitting there, numbers programmed in, but more than likely completely dead. Unless Sam's been stealthily charging it when he wasn't looking - when he couldn't look. Dean wouldn't put it past him. He thinks Sam stealthily did a lot of things while he was eyeball-MIA. Up to and including crying into his pillow like a little girl.
Ok, he's just guessing on the last one.
Either way, Dean will probably have to pick up the phone if he wants to talk to Castiel this time.
He wipes condensation off the mirror. He's not - he doesn’t even know. He's not ready to talk about this. He's not ready for it to be anything other than this messed up but amazing thing. That he gets to - fuck, what? Keep? For good?
Or maybe he'd just afraid that Castiel won't come.
He watches his own face wince in the mirror. Jesus, yeah, maybe he's afraid of that.
Dean pulls himself away from the sink, takes his new and strange perspective back over to the bed and finds his jeans from last night. They're crumpled on the floor, tossed there when they - he can't think about that either - he gathers up everything, notices that his favourite shirt is about three shades lighter and his jeans have a new hole in them and what looks like an oil stain on the thigh. The collar of his green shirt has a tear in it. Half a dozen tiny things to discover in his boring-ass clothes that he never knew about.
He moves out onto the landing, and it's bright. It's really bright. He takes a moment to squint and blink away spots. Before he takes in the wood and the dusty carpet and the messed up tatty curtain at the end and the way light and dust does a little dance wherever they hit each other.
It takes him a short painful minute to realise he's holding his breath. Like he's waiting for something.
Dean realises abruptly that he's gearing up for a fight, heart thumping, fists clenched, listening for any little sounds that don't belong. He doesn’t have the best of instincts when good things happen to him. Or, maybe he's just learned crappy instincts when good things happen to him. Either way, he forces himself to relax.
Making his way downstairs tells him something else. Bobby and Sam had been pretty damn stealthy about moving stuff out of the way. Because Bobby's house is almost immaculate. All the rough piles of books and old chairs. The scattering of ammunition boxes and crates. It's all gone. Everything that could conceivably have been in the way to a newly blind man, stumbling around crashing into everything. It's all gone. They've pretty much turned the whole house upside down for him.
He tries to think of a more manly word than 'touched,' but comes up with nothing. Fuck it, he's touched. Bobby would kick his ass if he ever said it out loud, but he is.
Sam's in the dining room, perched on the edge of the table in a way that's probably not good for the wood. He has a mess of books open in front of him. Dean swears he just carries them all from one room to another, shovelling knowledge into that huge hair-covered brain of his.
He doesn't look up. One of his legs is jiggling against the edge of the table like he's a million miles away.
Dean takes his boots over to him, with completely soundless steps, waits until Sam catches sight of him out of the corner of his eye.
He watches his head lift. Watches Sam see him. His brother promptly drops the book he's holding, which smacks into the floor in a burst of broken binding and pages, that Bobby's going to be pissed about later.
"Hey, Sam," Dean says. There might be a smile to go along with that too.
Sam's face opens up in shock and Dean's struck, so fucking hard, by how much he missed his stupid, giant, dorky face. God, he'd missed it so damn much. There's a rush of movement and then he has Sam's huge hands holding either side of his face. Tipping it up and gawking at his new eyeball like he has mad scientist plans for it.
"Oh, my God," he says.
Dean makes a face at him and Sam reluctantly lets him go, draws a breath.
"You can see, you can - that's not ... Jesus, Dean that's -"
"Yeah," Dean says quietly. "Yeah it is."
"Dude he gave you one of his eyes, that's insane, that's - why would he -" Sam stops, makes a face that's some complicated mixture of trepidation and horror. Dean suspects he's trying to think of an acceptable way to ask if his brother deflowered an angel.
He dares him to go there with his new-found eyeballing powers.
Sam eventually just shakes his head and hauls Dean in, tries to crack a few of his ribs with his enthusiasm. Then tries to crack a few more with his manly backslap of manliness.
"It's good to see you again, Sam," Dean manages to grunt out.
Sam makes a noise, something that ends up lodged somewhere and turns into a manly throat clearing noise.
"I can't believe he did that," Sam says roughly. He eases back, looks at him again, and can't seem to stop. "Can you see properly out of it - is Cas ok?"
Dean takes a breath.
"I don't know. I just - he was gone before I woke up." Dean realises, a second after it's out, what he's just admitted to. He's already trying to work out how to make it sound less compromising than it actually is. But Sam's expression has already finished its hysterical dance of surprise and is valiantly attempting to get back to 'wow, you can see.'
His brother is clearly throwing him a bone, under the circumstances.
"Did you call him?" he asks.
Dean shakes his head.
"I think maybe I need a minute to deal with this. I think he probably knew that as well."
"Or he knew you'd be pissed at him," Sam says.
"Maybe," Dean admits. Because there's a lot of that underneath still. This is something that he would have kind of liked to talk about. Before he woke up with someone else's body parts. "That too, and how the fuck am I supposed to be mad about this, Sam? How can I possibly be pissed about this and not be messed up?"
"It's a lot, I mean I'm looking at it and I still don't quite believe it," Sam says, all in one breath. "Also, it's...it's a little bit creepy." He frowns, like it hurts him to admit it.
"It's not creepy," Dean protests, though he's fairly sure that it is. He'd stared at it in the mirror for nearly half an hour, after all. Because it's not his, doesn’t really belong to him, it's not - fuck, it's Castiel's eye. He raises one shoulder in a reluctant half-shrug. "Ok, maybe it's a little bit creepy."
"It's Castiel's," Sam says, as if he's been holding that in since he first saw him.
"I know it's Castiel's," Dean bites out. It doesn't get any less strange the more he says it.
Sam's nodding and Dean doesn't even think he knows he's doing it. He has to admit, this might be weird for Sam as well. Not as weird as for him, obviously. But still weird, still a hard-to-accept level of weird.
"You're looking at me and that's kind of incredible and I kind of want to hug you again -"
Dean pulls a face
Sam nods.
"Yeah, it's ok, I'm restraining myself. But it's going to take a bit of getting used to. Seeing it in your face, I mean."
"You think I didn't notice that?" Dean says. Since he's the one that actually has it in his face.
The tread of boots shuts them both up, and Bobby comes down the stairs grumbling.
"What are you two girls belly-aching about this early in the morning?"
They both turn to face him at the same time.
Bobby looks at Sam, then Dean. His eyes lock and stay, one fierce look of surprise, and then satisfaction.
He grunts at Sam.
"Told you that angel would find a way to fix him if it killed him, didn't I?"
Bobby turns back and snorts at Dean.
"Well, what a fine pair you'll make," he says flatly. "Now, you'll even match." There's a sense of relief under the words. Something thick and awkward which Bobby's covering with a scowl and an air of long sufferance.
Dean nods at him, a grin creeping up on his face that he can't hope to stop.
No one tries to hug anyone though. Which Dean admits to being glad about, it's not like anyone died after all.
Bobby huffs out an irritated sound.
"You have an eyeball again, congratulations, now use your new magical powers of seeing to go and make me a damn coffee."
~~~~~
Dean knows about the myth where the Stygian witches pass around one eye between them. But he doesn’t need that to be lodged in his head, because he's fairly sure his brain could turn that into such an awesome nightmare.
It's surprising what your brain throws up when your angel boyfriend - no, damn it, your angel significant other gives you one of his eyes. Though Dean's always leant towards the practical. Flights of mythical fancy are more Sam's area.
So ten minutes after Bobby has his coffee and Sam has stopped gawking at him. He goes hunting.
Bobby has a million things in a million places and Dean knows if he looks through enough drawers he'll find what he's looking for. Fingers muddling through the bits and pieces, shiny things and dark smooth rock and screws and batteries and candles and everything he's spend a week learning how to recognise by touch.
He finds it under a box of ammunition, tangled up round what looks like a collection of protection charms.
He stares at it, turns it over in his hand a few times, then puts it on. He ends up amused at the complete and utter lack of difference it makes. It has to be kind of an improvement though. Dean doesn’t know how the hell Sam and Cas and Bobby put up with his creepy-ass shiny white eyeballs.
Sam pauses where he's been piling books on the table and looks at him, he raises an eyebrow.
"An eye patch, dude, seriously?"
Dean leans back against the table, ignores the creaky, protesting noise it makes under his weight.
"It's not like the other eye was doing anything," he says. Because that's true enough. The other eye isn't going to be doing anything any time soon either.
"Still it's a little - you look..." Sam frowns, Dean can practically hear him reaching.
"I look what?"
Sam forces his face into something slightly less expressive, as if he realises all of a sudden that Dean can see him now.
"You look like a Bond villain," Sam finishes eventually.
Dean thinks about pointing out that that's not actually an insult. But he's enjoying Sam's various facial expressions too much.
He holds a hand out and gestures.
"Keys."
Sam blinks and very carefully has no expression at all.
"What keys?" he says calmly.
"Don't you 'what keys' me, the car keys," Dean tells him. Because they're not playing this game.
Sam sighs and leans back in his chair.
"Dean."
It's funny how someone Sam's size and build can have a face that so closely resembles a disapproving fifties schoolteacher. Dean swears he's going to re-catalogue all of Sam's hilarious expressions.
"What?" he demands.
"I know you can see again but it's only one eye." Sam pretty much winces out the words. Dean didn't even know that was possible.
"So?"
"So, your depth perception is going to be screwed all to hell, and your new eye's the wrong colour if you get pulled."
Dean rolls his eye at him - hey, he can do that again now, bonus.
"They're not going to be checking eye colour."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "I don't know, with you looking like a pirate they might."
"Keys," Dean says again. Because he knows Sam. He's been blind for three weeks with Sam mooning guiltily in the background over every single time he's taken Dean's baby out. There's no way in hell he's holding out now Dean's capable of driving again.
Sam sighs and looks pained, or constipated, or both? But his will is collapsing like expensive pie crust.
"If you feel like you're -"
Dean sighs.
"Yes, I promise if I feel myself going blind again I'll pull over," Dean says.
Sam sighs and digs in his jeans. Hands the keys over like they're a loaded gun Dean's going to go out and juggle.
His forehead is creased up so hard it looks painful.
"Sam, stop worrying, I'll be back. I'll be back before dark. I just need to get out. I need to get out." The last word snaps out like a threat and Dean grits his teeth because he hadn’t even realised he was that desperate. That he needed it that badly.
Sam nods, like he understands, and doesn't protest again.
~~~~~
Dean drives sixty miles without stopping, miles and miles of road torn up underneath him. Too fast, considering, but he's feeling reckless and sharp and new. He can see pretty much everything and there's barely another car on the road, so he figures he's off the hook when it comes to judging how far away they are, and possibly smashing into the back of one.
The wind bites into his cheek, and the bare edge of his neck, and he just keeps driving. All that wide open space feels like it belongs to him and maybe here he can pretend that it does. Eating it all up now he can see it. A mess of entitlement and relief, and there right on the edge, pale and smeared out - because it's been such a fucking long time since he felt it - maybe just an ounce of actual genuine fucking joy.
He had to be alone for this, had to be. But he knows he'll have to stop eventually. He'll have to stop and get out and call an angel down and ask him why he gave him so much. Ask him how he could hand over this precious goddamn thing and just give it to him like he deserved it.
All the hows and the whys. Dean's going to have to stop and go back and ask them all.
He hits the breaks.
The car slows, comes to a stop at the gravelled edge of the road next to the low edge of a lake in the middle of nowhere. He pushes the door open and gets out, leans back against the metal and stares at the sky.
Maybe he doesn't have to go back.
"I'm pretty sure you're already here. Or at least that you can hear me. Because this is a big deal right? You couldn’t go too far. Couldn’t just skip off into nowhere and leave me hanging like this."
Dean shakes his head and stares off into the distance. It's still early enough for his breath to leave a trail in the air.
"I think we need to talk about this now, Cas."
He shifts against the edge of the hood, breathes out again and watches it slowly mix with the cold air and disappear.
"Cas -"
"I'm here."
Dean doesn't jump, but it's a pretty close thing. He turns his head and finds Castiel, standing a foot to his right. He's cautiously still, not leaning on the car, not making a sound on the gravel, staring out across the lake. The side of his face is set, firm but uncertain.
Dean reaches out, heart thudding in his chest. He grasps the angel's arm, and pulls him all the way round.
All the air inside him comes out in one messy exhale of relief. Because Castiel still has two perfect blue eyes in his face. Something hard inside Dean's chest very slowly relaxes. There's nothing but the relief, the overwhelming relief. He'd been half afraid he'd be...wrong, Jesus.
Dean's pretty much incapable of doing anything but dragging him close and bunching that ridiculous coat in his fists. Having the solid weight of Castiel in his grip, and it's not even funny that he's suddenly grateful for the weight, for the way Castiel's arms lift from his sides and fold round him, fingers pressing into his back. Like he's never hugged anyone before, but he's more than willing to learn. Dean holds him for as many seconds as he can get away with, without feeling like an idiot, at the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere.
He thinks about telling Castiel that it's considered kind of rude to not be there in the morning when you have sex with someone for the first time. Because that's a pretty important lesson, right up there with 'don't give them one of your eyes without warning them first.'
"Cas," he manages instead. When Castiel murmurs his name in reply it vibrates all the way through his chest in that steady growl of a voice. The angel squeezes him back, before Dean realises how tightly he's holding on.
Dean pushes him back so he can see him. Can't help himself from lifting a hand and curving it up across Castiel's cheek, making sure it's not some weird hallucination.
"I was worried you'd have, like, a huge gaping hole or something," he says roughly.
Castiel frowns sharply. "No, that would be - no. Why would you think that?"
"I don't know. Maybe that was just my own brain trying to creep the hell out of me. I've had the stygian witches going round in my head all morning - that's not the point." Dean stops, lets out a ragged sound that's as close to a laugh as makes no difference.
He's struck by the realisation that he's never kissed Castiel while he could see him, and how that matters for some reason now. Like the other times weren't quite real. He wants to, thinks he wants to badly. But there's still so much churning round in his head. It's a mess and if he doesn't get some of it out he's going to go crazy.
"You gave me one of your eyes," Dean says, and it comes out fierce, scolding. "Of all the crazy things to do without telling me. God, you didn't have to do that, you didn't have to - that's messed up, Cas."
"We make sacrifices for the people we love," Castiel says simply. He doesn't even hesitate and Dean thinks that's how he's done all of this. That he never even hesitated, not once after he decided he was going to do this. And after last night, Jesus, maybe especially after last night.
Dean looks at Castiel, half unwilling to say what he knows he needs to say.
"Tell me you didn't just do this because we -" he tries to think of a good way to finish that.
"No," Castiel says. Voice firmer than usual. There's a brief flash of discomfort on his face, of unhappiness at the suggestion. "Last night didn't encourage me to take this course of action. I'd been investigating the idea for a while."
"I thought you said before that you couldn’t just put new eyes in my head." Dean remembers that conversation. He remembers it clearly, because every part of it had been spread through with silences and guilt. So many things he couldn't see but he could hear far, far too well.
Castiel's looking at his own eye, which is so damn weird. His arm shifts, just a little. Like he wants to reach up and touch it. Or maybe just to touch Dean. But he's stopping himself.
"Human eyes were no longer strong enough for what you'd seen. I thought perhaps one of mine would be - I wasn't sure it was possible. That, if forced to become a physical thing, it would be compatible with you."
"I don't like that you mutilated yourself, Cas," Dean says. It's quiet, but there's a fierceness to it.
"It didn't feel like a mutilation," Castiel says. He lifts his head, expression hard. "I feel...relieved that I could give you something you needed, that you missed. I feel joy that you can see again."
Dean looks at him, looks hard. But there's just that intensity that looks like honesty.
"Still, it can't have been pleasant for you. Not taking out one of your own eyes."
"It was...complicated," Castiel says. There's tension in his voice, like there's a memory under there which is unpleasant, which is painful.
"And it hurt like hell," Dean guesses tightly.
Castiel's quiet for far too long.
"Yes, but I didn't need it as much as you."
Dean's forced silent by the admission. Because he doesn't know if he could tear out his own eye - fuck maybe that's something you never learn whether you can really do until you have to. But the fact that, after they'd had sex, after they'd spent the night together. That Castiel had gone away while Dean slept and ripped out his own eye. That hurts in a way he has no words for.
"Cas -" it comes out thick and shaken and wrong. Dean swallows and swallows again and shakes his head.
Castiel waits for him, and doesn't push, doesn't ever push.
"You didn't have to give me one of your eyes, Cas. Hell, I don't even know how many you have. I don't know how many you have to spare."
"Five," Castiel says quietly. "I have five now."
Dean huffs laughter because that's one new thing he's learned today.
He looks away, then looks back again, expression carefully conflicted.
"I would have given you two but there are certain...complications to even giving you one. Two would have been too much for your body to -"
Dean digs his fingers into Castiel's sleeve, makes him stop talking.
"I'm not -" Dean makes a short sound, rough and messy "- Cas, you don't have to give me anything else. I told you before. You didn't even have to give me this. I just. I kind of don't know what to say about the fact that you did. I mean, I want to say something, trust me, I want to be grateful. I just don't have a clue how, and you know I love you, right. Because I'm a mess and I'm probably not going to be able to tell you in any way that's not stupid. I mean, I wouldn't have been anything like I was before, but I would have been happy. I think, if you stayed, I would have been happy enough. And now there's - everything is different. Not bad different just, God, yeah. And when I think about what you did for me it fucking hurts and I don't know whether that's in a good way, or a bad way. Because I've done so much stuff that hurt but ended up being the right thing."
Dean swallows something which wants to be a torrent more words, clears his throat and lets an exhale rush out of him.
Castiel's hand has found its way into his own and he's not exactly sure how. But Dean already has his own fingers pressed into the back of the angel's hand and that's ok. That's more than ok.
Everything is ok, just like that. Dean's not entirely sure how, or why. Couldn't even hope to explain it to anyone else. But he can breathe and Castiel’s hand is warm and his fingers are strong, so much stronger than his own.
"Thank you," he says roughly.
Castiel squeezes his hand almost hard enough to hurt.
"You're still staying though, right?"
"I have to stay with you and make sure you don't abuse it," Castiel says firmly, though there's an edge of tentative amusement to the words.
Dean frowns and tilts his head to look at him again.
"How exactly can I abuse an eye?"
Castiel's expression changes, just a little, something like satisfaction, but not, something close.
"You're looking through the eye of an angel, Dean. You'd be surprised what you can see now." Castiel's look is intent, there's something almost hopeful there. Something Dean's missing.
But even though Dean had kind of figured it wasn't a completely human eye it hadn't really registered until Castiel admitted it. His stomach does a flip. Because he doesn't even know what that really means but he's fairly sure he knows it's going to be something he's not ready for. Good things, bad things, or maybe just surprises either way.
Story of his life.
"So, you're going to stay and make sure I don't do anything I shouldn't with it, huh?"
"Yes."
"For good?" Dean pushes, without really meaning to.
Castiel tips his head forward, once, slowly.
Dean sighs and it feels like he's letting out so much more than air. It feels like that's the last piece of the puzzle. Like an almost too-hard stab of relief.
He turns around, tugs at the material of Castiel's coat, and Castiel raises his head like he was just waiting.
He was fairly sure Castiel would let him kiss him again after last night. But it's still a relief when there's barely a pause between their mouths being together and Castiel opening underneath him. The car makes quiet noises while Dean kisses him. He turns the outdoor chill of Castiel's mouth into damp warmth and drags his hair into an easy mess under his fingers.
When he eventually pulls back Castiel's hands tighten on his waist, beneath his coat. He makes a soft noise of protest that sounds surprisingly human. When Dean doesn't kiss him again Castiel's expression relaxes into something curious, waiting for Dean to speak. There's always that expectation there. Something that feels like trust.
He's missed that too.
"I've missed the way you looked at me," Dean admits out loud.
Castiel's mouth lifts at the edges. It's too much of a smile to be mistaken for anything else and Dean wants, desperately, to know how long he's been doing that. Because he's never seen it before, and it's kind of amazing.
"And that," Dean says quietly. "Now I have a new eye you have to do that more often, because it's awesome."
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 5400
Spoilers: None for season 5
Disclaimer: In no way mine, or anything to do with me, I own nothing.
Summary: Dean needs a little time to deal with what Castiel did.
AN: AU sequel to My Eyes Are An Ocean. Written for the lovely morganoconner who wanted a follow-on. Extra thank you to pyjamagurl and miya_tenaka for taking a look at it for me.
Dean stares at himself in the mirror for a long time.
He hasn't seen himself for three weeks. He hasn't been able to look at his own eyes. Though, technically, he still isn't doing that. Because one of them is white glass, sunken eye sockets are just not sexy after all. The other - the other is Castiel's. Right there in his damn face. One of Castiel's eyes. Where it doesn't belong.
Dean holds a hand over the white glass one again and looks at himself. Can't quite get over how weird he looks with one blue eye. It changes his whole damn face. Makes him look strange, sharper. It's not even ordinary blue. It's that bright unsettling blue that Castiel used to love fixing on him, until he had to look away. And now it's his, now it's right there. Bright and accusing blue - and, ok, that sounds stupid but it's the best he's got.
It takes him another second to register the uneven roughness of his cheek under his palm and lets his hand drop - gets a good look at his face in the mirror. Then makes an irritated noise. Sam had reassured him that he'd been doing ok at the whole 'shaving himself' thing. Which is clearly a total lie. Son of a bitch, they're going to be having words. Also, his hair is a wreck, though that might be because he just woke up and not because he's been failing with a comb as well.
He laughs, watches himself laugh and then laughs again and doesn't even try to stop that weird spike of exhilaration because being able to see is awesome. Seriously. It's awesome. He'd come to terms with - okay grudgingly accepted the fact that he was going to be blind for the rest of his life. That he was going to have to work through never being able to drive again and smacking into his own family members and reminiscing while never being entirely sure if people were listening, or even still in the damn room. But it'd seemed a fair enough trade. Given the fact that all bets had been off as soon as the apocalypse reared its head.
Dean hadn't expect to be here at all. Didn't expect to still be alive when the dust settled, with Bobby and Sam and Castiel. God, Castiel. Last night had been - it all comes back all at once. Everything he asked for, everything they did, and Dean doesn’t know how he managed to be braver with no eyes than with one. But you don't usually wake up after you sleep with someone for the first time to find they've mutilated themselves so you can see again. There isn't exactly a hallmark card for that.
Though it's no secret that they both have a really messed up definition of what the word sacrifice means.
But still, this is a body part for God's sake. This is part of Castiel, that he thought Dean deserved? needed? He doesn't even know for sure. This is - this is everything all at once and Dean holds the sink for a second and just breathes and doesn’t look at himself and waits until he has some sort of control over the world again. Or at least over himself. Himself, at the very least.
Then he straightens, looks up again, still unprepared for that shine of strange, bright blue that doesn’t belong in his face.
"What did you do, Cas?" he asks the mirror. And it may be Castiel's eye but it's his very own 'we're going to talk about this bullshit' expression. It makes him huff out laughter again. Thready and unsure.
He should call him. Dean's pretty sure Castiel isn't going to be wandering round the house this morning. For maybe the first time in three weeks maybe he's not going to be anywhere near here. He's always shown up when Dean's called him. He'd always showed up when Dean couldn't see a damn thing anyway.
But, this morning he's almost certainly going to be far enough to need a phone. Dean's cell is somewhere on the night table. With the rest of his stuff that became pretty much useless after the last night. It's still sitting there, numbers programmed in, but more than likely completely dead. Unless Sam's been stealthily charging it when he wasn't looking - when he couldn't look. Dean wouldn't put it past him. He thinks Sam stealthily did a lot of things while he was eyeball-MIA. Up to and including crying into his pillow like a little girl.
Ok, he's just guessing on the last one.
Either way, Dean will probably have to pick up the phone if he wants to talk to Castiel this time.
He wipes condensation off the mirror. He's not - he doesn’t even know. He's not ready to talk about this. He's not ready for it to be anything other than this messed up but amazing thing. That he gets to - fuck, what? Keep? For good?
Or maybe he'd just afraid that Castiel won't come.
He watches his own face wince in the mirror. Jesus, yeah, maybe he's afraid of that.
Dean pulls himself away from the sink, takes his new and strange perspective back over to the bed and finds his jeans from last night. They're crumpled on the floor, tossed there when they - he can't think about that either - he gathers up everything, notices that his favourite shirt is about three shades lighter and his jeans have a new hole in them and what looks like an oil stain on the thigh. The collar of his green shirt has a tear in it. Half a dozen tiny things to discover in his boring-ass clothes that he never knew about.
He moves out onto the landing, and it's bright. It's really bright. He takes a moment to squint and blink away spots. Before he takes in the wood and the dusty carpet and the messed up tatty curtain at the end and the way light and dust does a little dance wherever they hit each other.
It takes him a short painful minute to realise he's holding his breath. Like he's waiting for something.
Dean realises abruptly that he's gearing up for a fight, heart thumping, fists clenched, listening for any little sounds that don't belong. He doesn’t have the best of instincts when good things happen to him. Or, maybe he's just learned crappy instincts when good things happen to him. Either way, he forces himself to relax.
Making his way downstairs tells him something else. Bobby and Sam had been pretty damn stealthy about moving stuff out of the way. Because Bobby's house is almost immaculate. All the rough piles of books and old chairs. The scattering of ammunition boxes and crates. It's all gone. Everything that could conceivably have been in the way to a newly blind man, stumbling around crashing into everything. It's all gone. They've pretty much turned the whole house upside down for him.
He tries to think of a more manly word than 'touched,' but comes up with nothing. Fuck it, he's touched. Bobby would kick his ass if he ever said it out loud, but he is.
Sam's in the dining room, perched on the edge of the table in a way that's probably not good for the wood. He has a mess of books open in front of him. Dean swears he just carries them all from one room to another, shovelling knowledge into that huge hair-covered brain of his.
He doesn't look up. One of his legs is jiggling against the edge of the table like he's a million miles away.
Dean takes his boots over to him, with completely soundless steps, waits until Sam catches sight of him out of the corner of his eye.
He watches his head lift. Watches Sam see him. His brother promptly drops the book he's holding, which smacks into the floor in a burst of broken binding and pages, that Bobby's going to be pissed about later.
"Hey, Sam," Dean says. There might be a smile to go along with that too.
Sam's face opens up in shock and Dean's struck, so fucking hard, by how much he missed his stupid, giant, dorky face. God, he'd missed it so damn much. There's a rush of movement and then he has Sam's huge hands holding either side of his face. Tipping it up and gawking at his new eyeball like he has mad scientist plans for it.
"Oh, my God," he says.
Dean makes a face at him and Sam reluctantly lets him go, draws a breath.
"You can see, you can - that's not ... Jesus, Dean that's -"
"Yeah," Dean says quietly. "Yeah it is."
"Dude he gave you one of his eyes, that's insane, that's - why would he -" Sam stops, makes a face that's some complicated mixture of trepidation and horror. Dean suspects he's trying to think of an acceptable way to ask if his brother deflowered an angel.
He dares him to go there with his new-found eyeballing powers.
Sam eventually just shakes his head and hauls Dean in, tries to crack a few of his ribs with his enthusiasm. Then tries to crack a few more with his manly backslap of manliness.
"It's good to see you again, Sam," Dean manages to grunt out.
Sam makes a noise, something that ends up lodged somewhere and turns into a manly throat clearing noise.
"I can't believe he did that," Sam says roughly. He eases back, looks at him again, and can't seem to stop. "Can you see properly out of it - is Cas ok?"
Dean takes a breath.
"I don't know. I just - he was gone before I woke up." Dean realises, a second after it's out, what he's just admitted to. He's already trying to work out how to make it sound less compromising than it actually is. But Sam's expression has already finished its hysterical dance of surprise and is valiantly attempting to get back to 'wow, you can see.'
His brother is clearly throwing him a bone, under the circumstances.
"Did you call him?" he asks.
Dean shakes his head.
"I think maybe I need a minute to deal with this. I think he probably knew that as well."
"Or he knew you'd be pissed at him," Sam says.
"Maybe," Dean admits. Because there's a lot of that underneath still. This is something that he would have kind of liked to talk about. Before he woke up with someone else's body parts. "That too, and how the fuck am I supposed to be mad about this, Sam? How can I possibly be pissed about this and not be messed up?"
"It's a lot, I mean I'm looking at it and I still don't quite believe it," Sam says, all in one breath. "Also, it's...it's a little bit creepy." He frowns, like it hurts him to admit it.
"It's not creepy," Dean protests, though he's fairly sure that it is. He'd stared at it in the mirror for nearly half an hour, after all. Because it's not his, doesn’t really belong to him, it's not - fuck, it's Castiel's eye. He raises one shoulder in a reluctant half-shrug. "Ok, maybe it's a little bit creepy."
"It's Castiel's," Sam says, as if he's been holding that in since he first saw him.
"I know it's Castiel's," Dean bites out. It doesn't get any less strange the more he says it.
Sam's nodding and Dean doesn't even think he knows he's doing it. He has to admit, this might be weird for Sam as well. Not as weird as for him, obviously. But still weird, still a hard-to-accept level of weird.
"You're looking at me and that's kind of incredible and I kind of want to hug you again -"
Dean pulls a face
Sam nods.
"Yeah, it's ok, I'm restraining myself. But it's going to take a bit of getting used to. Seeing it in your face, I mean."
"You think I didn't notice that?" Dean says. Since he's the one that actually has it in his face.
The tread of boots shuts them both up, and Bobby comes down the stairs grumbling.
"What are you two girls belly-aching about this early in the morning?"
They both turn to face him at the same time.
Bobby looks at Sam, then Dean. His eyes lock and stay, one fierce look of surprise, and then satisfaction.
He grunts at Sam.
"Told you that angel would find a way to fix him if it killed him, didn't I?"
Bobby turns back and snorts at Dean.
"Well, what a fine pair you'll make," he says flatly. "Now, you'll even match." There's a sense of relief under the words. Something thick and awkward which Bobby's covering with a scowl and an air of long sufferance.
Dean nods at him, a grin creeping up on his face that he can't hope to stop.
No one tries to hug anyone though. Which Dean admits to being glad about, it's not like anyone died after all.
Bobby huffs out an irritated sound.
"You have an eyeball again, congratulations, now use your new magical powers of seeing to go and make me a damn coffee."
~~~~~
Dean knows about the myth where the Stygian witches pass around one eye between them. But he doesn’t need that to be lodged in his head, because he's fairly sure his brain could turn that into such an awesome nightmare.
It's surprising what your brain throws up when your angel boyfriend - no, damn it, your angel significant other gives you one of his eyes. Though Dean's always leant towards the practical. Flights of mythical fancy are more Sam's area.
So ten minutes after Bobby has his coffee and Sam has stopped gawking at him. He goes hunting.
Bobby has a million things in a million places and Dean knows if he looks through enough drawers he'll find what he's looking for. Fingers muddling through the bits and pieces, shiny things and dark smooth rock and screws and batteries and candles and everything he's spend a week learning how to recognise by touch.
He finds it under a box of ammunition, tangled up round what looks like a collection of protection charms.
He stares at it, turns it over in his hand a few times, then puts it on. He ends up amused at the complete and utter lack of difference it makes. It has to be kind of an improvement though. Dean doesn’t know how the hell Sam and Cas and Bobby put up with his creepy-ass shiny white eyeballs.
Sam pauses where he's been piling books on the table and looks at him, he raises an eyebrow.
"An eye patch, dude, seriously?"
Dean leans back against the table, ignores the creaky, protesting noise it makes under his weight.
"It's not like the other eye was doing anything," he says. Because that's true enough. The other eye isn't going to be doing anything any time soon either.
"Still it's a little - you look..." Sam frowns, Dean can practically hear him reaching.
"I look what?"
Sam forces his face into something slightly less expressive, as if he realises all of a sudden that Dean can see him now.
"You look like a Bond villain," Sam finishes eventually.
Dean thinks about pointing out that that's not actually an insult. But he's enjoying Sam's various facial expressions too much.
He holds a hand out and gestures.
"Keys."
Sam blinks and very carefully has no expression at all.
"What keys?" he says calmly.
"Don't you 'what keys' me, the car keys," Dean tells him. Because they're not playing this game.
Sam sighs and leans back in his chair.
"Dean."
It's funny how someone Sam's size and build can have a face that so closely resembles a disapproving fifties schoolteacher. Dean swears he's going to re-catalogue all of Sam's hilarious expressions.
"What?" he demands.
"I know you can see again but it's only one eye." Sam pretty much winces out the words. Dean didn't even know that was possible.
"So?"
"So, your depth perception is going to be screwed all to hell, and your new eye's the wrong colour if you get pulled."
Dean rolls his eye at him - hey, he can do that again now, bonus.
"They're not going to be checking eye colour."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "I don't know, with you looking like a pirate they might."
"Keys," Dean says again. Because he knows Sam. He's been blind for three weeks with Sam mooning guiltily in the background over every single time he's taken Dean's baby out. There's no way in hell he's holding out now Dean's capable of driving again.
Sam sighs and looks pained, or constipated, or both? But his will is collapsing like expensive pie crust.
"If you feel like you're -"
Dean sighs.
"Yes, I promise if I feel myself going blind again I'll pull over," Dean says.
Sam sighs and digs in his jeans. Hands the keys over like they're a loaded gun Dean's going to go out and juggle.
His forehead is creased up so hard it looks painful.
"Sam, stop worrying, I'll be back. I'll be back before dark. I just need to get out. I need to get out." The last word snaps out like a threat and Dean grits his teeth because he hadn’t even realised he was that desperate. That he needed it that badly.
Sam nods, like he understands, and doesn't protest again.
~~~~~
Dean drives sixty miles without stopping, miles and miles of road torn up underneath him. Too fast, considering, but he's feeling reckless and sharp and new. He can see pretty much everything and there's barely another car on the road, so he figures he's off the hook when it comes to judging how far away they are, and possibly smashing into the back of one.
The wind bites into his cheek, and the bare edge of his neck, and he just keeps driving. All that wide open space feels like it belongs to him and maybe here he can pretend that it does. Eating it all up now he can see it. A mess of entitlement and relief, and there right on the edge, pale and smeared out - because it's been such a fucking long time since he felt it - maybe just an ounce of actual genuine fucking joy.
He had to be alone for this, had to be. But he knows he'll have to stop eventually. He'll have to stop and get out and call an angel down and ask him why he gave him so much. Ask him how he could hand over this precious goddamn thing and just give it to him like he deserved it.
All the hows and the whys. Dean's going to have to stop and go back and ask them all.
He hits the breaks.
The car slows, comes to a stop at the gravelled edge of the road next to the low edge of a lake in the middle of nowhere. He pushes the door open and gets out, leans back against the metal and stares at the sky.
Maybe he doesn't have to go back.
"I'm pretty sure you're already here. Or at least that you can hear me. Because this is a big deal right? You couldn’t go too far. Couldn’t just skip off into nowhere and leave me hanging like this."
Dean shakes his head and stares off into the distance. It's still early enough for his breath to leave a trail in the air.
"I think we need to talk about this now, Cas."
He shifts against the edge of the hood, breathes out again and watches it slowly mix with the cold air and disappear.
"Cas -"
"I'm here."
Dean doesn't jump, but it's a pretty close thing. He turns his head and finds Castiel, standing a foot to his right. He's cautiously still, not leaning on the car, not making a sound on the gravel, staring out across the lake. The side of his face is set, firm but uncertain.
Dean reaches out, heart thudding in his chest. He grasps the angel's arm, and pulls him all the way round.
All the air inside him comes out in one messy exhale of relief. Because Castiel still has two perfect blue eyes in his face. Something hard inside Dean's chest very slowly relaxes. There's nothing but the relief, the overwhelming relief. He'd been half afraid he'd be...wrong, Jesus.
Dean's pretty much incapable of doing anything but dragging him close and bunching that ridiculous coat in his fists. Having the solid weight of Castiel in his grip, and it's not even funny that he's suddenly grateful for the weight, for the way Castiel's arms lift from his sides and fold round him, fingers pressing into his back. Like he's never hugged anyone before, but he's more than willing to learn. Dean holds him for as many seconds as he can get away with, without feeling like an idiot, at the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere.
He thinks about telling Castiel that it's considered kind of rude to not be there in the morning when you have sex with someone for the first time. Because that's a pretty important lesson, right up there with 'don't give them one of your eyes without warning them first.'
"Cas," he manages instead. When Castiel murmurs his name in reply it vibrates all the way through his chest in that steady growl of a voice. The angel squeezes him back, before Dean realises how tightly he's holding on.
Dean pushes him back so he can see him. Can't help himself from lifting a hand and curving it up across Castiel's cheek, making sure it's not some weird hallucination.
"I was worried you'd have, like, a huge gaping hole or something," he says roughly.
Castiel frowns sharply. "No, that would be - no. Why would you think that?"
"I don't know. Maybe that was just my own brain trying to creep the hell out of me. I've had the stygian witches going round in my head all morning - that's not the point." Dean stops, lets out a ragged sound that's as close to a laugh as makes no difference.
He's struck by the realisation that he's never kissed Castiel while he could see him, and how that matters for some reason now. Like the other times weren't quite real. He wants to, thinks he wants to badly. But there's still so much churning round in his head. It's a mess and if he doesn't get some of it out he's going to go crazy.
"You gave me one of your eyes," Dean says, and it comes out fierce, scolding. "Of all the crazy things to do without telling me. God, you didn't have to do that, you didn't have to - that's messed up, Cas."
"We make sacrifices for the people we love," Castiel says simply. He doesn't even hesitate and Dean thinks that's how he's done all of this. That he never even hesitated, not once after he decided he was going to do this. And after last night, Jesus, maybe especially after last night.
Dean looks at Castiel, half unwilling to say what he knows he needs to say.
"Tell me you didn't just do this because we -" he tries to think of a good way to finish that.
"No," Castiel says. Voice firmer than usual. There's a brief flash of discomfort on his face, of unhappiness at the suggestion. "Last night didn't encourage me to take this course of action. I'd been investigating the idea for a while."
"I thought you said before that you couldn’t just put new eyes in my head." Dean remembers that conversation. He remembers it clearly, because every part of it had been spread through with silences and guilt. So many things he couldn't see but he could hear far, far too well.
Castiel's looking at his own eye, which is so damn weird. His arm shifts, just a little. Like he wants to reach up and touch it. Or maybe just to touch Dean. But he's stopping himself.
"Human eyes were no longer strong enough for what you'd seen. I thought perhaps one of mine would be - I wasn't sure it was possible. That, if forced to become a physical thing, it would be compatible with you."
"I don't like that you mutilated yourself, Cas," Dean says. It's quiet, but there's a fierceness to it.
"It didn't feel like a mutilation," Castiel says. He lifts his head, expression hard. "I feel...relieved that I could give you something you needed, that you missed. I feel joy that you can see again."
Dean looks at him, looks hard. But there's just that intensity that looks like honesty.
"Still, it can't have been pleasant for you. Not taking out one of your own eyes."
"It was...complicated," Castiel says. There's tension in his voice, like there's a memory under there which is unpleasant, which is painful.
"And it hurt like hell," Dean guesses tightly.
Castiel's quiet for far too long.
"Yes, but I didn't need it as much as you."
Dean's forced silent by the admission. Because he doesn't know if he could tear out his own eye - fuck maybe that's something you never learn whether you can really do until you have to. But the fact that, after they'd had sex, after they'd spent the night together. That Castiel had gone away while Dean slept and ripped out his own eye. That hurts in a way he has no words for.
"Cas -" it comes out thick and shaken and wrong. Dean swallows and swallows again and shakes his head.
Castiel waits for him, and doesn't push, doesn't ever push.
"You didn't have to give me one of your eyes, Cas. Hell, I don't even know how many you have. I don't know how many you have to spare."
"Five," Castiel says quietly. "I have five now."
Dean huffs laughter because that's one new thing he's learned today.
He looks away, then looks back again, expression carefully conflicted.
"I would have given you two but there are certain...complications to even giving you one. Two would have been too much for your body to -"
Dean digs his fingers into Castiel's sleeve, makes him stop talking.
"I'm not -" Dean makes a short sound, rough and messy "- Cas, you don't have to give me anything else. I told you before. You didn't even have to give me this. I just. I kind of don't know what to say about the fact that you did. I mean, I want to say something, trust me, I want to be grateful. I just don't have a clue how, and you know I love you, right. Because I'm a mess and I'm probably not going to be able to tell you in any way that's not stupid. I mean, I wouldn't have been anything like I was before, but I would have been happy. I think, if you stayed, I would have been happy enough. And now there's - everything is different. Not bad different just, God, yeah. And when I think about what you did for me it fucking hurts and I don't know whether that's in a good way, or a bad way. Because I've done so much stuff that hurt but ended up being the right thing."
Dean swallows something which wants to be a torrent more words, clears his throat and lets an exhale rush out of him.
Castiel's hand has found its way into his own and he's not exactly sure how. But Dean already has his own fingers pressed into the back of the angel's hand and that's ok. That's more than ok.
Everything is ok, just like that. Dean's not entirely sure how, or why. Couldn't even hope to explain it to anyone else. But he can breathe and Castiel’s hand is warm and his fingers are strong, so much stronger than his own.
"Thank you," he says roughly.
Castiel squeezes his hand almost hard enough to hurt.
"You're still staying though, right?"
"I have to stay with you and make sure you don't abuse it," Castiel says firmly, though there's an edge of tentative amusement to the words.
Dean frowns and tilts his head to look at him again.
"How exactly can I abuse an eye?"
Castiel's expression changes, just a little, something like satisfaction, but not, something close.
"You're looking through the eye of an angel, Dean. You'd be surprised what you can see now." Castiel's look is intent, there's something almost hopeful there. Something Dean's missing.
But even though Dean had kind of figured it wasn't a completely human eye it hadn't really registered until Castiel admitted it. His stomach does a flip. Because he doesn't even know what that really means but he's fairly sure he knows it's going to be something he's not ready for. Good things, bad things, or maybe just surprises either way.
Story of his life.
"So, you're going to stay and make sure I don't do anything I shouldn't with it, huh?"
"Yes."
"For good?" Dean pushes, without really meaning to.
Castiel tips his head forward, once, slowly.
Dean sighs and it feels like he's letting out so much more than air. It feels like that's the last piece of the puzzle. Like an almost too-hard stab of relief.
He turns around, tugs at the material of Castiel's coat, and Castiel raises his head like he was just waiting.
He was fairly sure Castiel would let him kiss him again after last night. But it's still a relief when there's barely a pause between their mouths being together and Castiel opening underneath him. The car makes quiet noises while Dean kisses him. He turns the outdoor chill of Castiel's mouth into damp warmth and drags his hair into an easy mess under his fingers.
When he eventually pulls back Castiel's hands tighten on his waist, beneath his coat. He makes a soft noise of protest that sounds surprisingly human. When Dean doesn't kiss him again Castiel's expression relaxes into something curious, waiting for Dean to speak. There's always that expectation there. Something that feels like trust.
He's missed that too.
"I've missed the way you looked at me," Dean admits out loud.
Castiel's mouth lifts at the edges. It's too much of a smile to be mistaken for anything else and Dean wants, desperately, to know how long he's been doing that. Because he's never seen it before, and it's kind of amazing.
"And that," Dean says quietly. "Now I have a new eye you have to do that more often, because it's awesome."