Tit for Tat - Dean, Castiel, also Sam - PG13 - spoilers through 5.13 - 1/3maychorianMarch 31 2010, 19:36:15 UTC
Cas looks even more rumpled and worn than usual. The light on the street is dim here, on the way back to another motel from another bar, and Dean's eyes are blurred with drink. But he thinks maybe Castiel's hands are shaking, a little, before he hides them in the folds of his trench coat. Dean's had enough alcohol to make him sleep, but not quite enough to make him stupid.
Dean must be used to Cas showing up out of the blue. He didn't even flinch this time. "Hey, man. What's up?"
Cas draws a breath. "I am..."
It isn't like the angel to lose his words. Dean tilts his head to him, narrows his eyes, listens harder.
"May, may I stay with you for a time?"
Dean shrugs easily. "Sure, whatever. C'mon, the motel's that way."
Dean flops into bed immediately, but he's pretty sure Castiel spends the night. When they wake up the next morning, though, the angel is gone.
--
"I'm sorry," Castiel says, running his fingers through his hair, making it even more disheveled. He's starting to look like a hobo, Dean thinks with an inward smirk. "I...I am becoming less and less powerful with every day. I should have been able to...to..."
"It's okay," Sam says through gritted teeth, looking the other way as Dean cleans and bandages the jagged bite marks on his arm. "I'm fine."
Castiel stares at the bloody flesh with misery. To Dean's surprise, he doesn't take off, but sits there and watches until Dean is done. He spends the night that time, too.
Dean wakes up to take a leak in the dead of night. On his way back to bed he is almost started by the still, dark figure in the corner of the room, only visible now that his eyes have adjusted to the darkness after waking. It is Castiel sitting in the room's ratty armchair, his head tipped back. Dean can hear his breathing over Sam's, low and erratic.
He approaches, curious, watches his familiar angel sleep, sees sweat shining at his hairline, eyelids and fingers twitching. He's dreaming. Who'da thunk. Poor guy really is turning human, not just needing to sleep but doing the mental aerobatics, too. And it doesn't look like it's a good dream, either.
He's a hobo, but he's their hobo. Sam always wanted to take in the strays when they were little, and it looks like he finally got his wish. Dean can't just leave the guy alone in a nightmare.
He reaches out to shake Cas's shoulder, tap his cheek, something, but the angel's eyes fly open before his fingers touch down. He stares at Dean for a split second, eyes wide with the whites standing out in the dimness. He's almost shrinking back into the upholstery, shoulders hunched and tight, hands gripping the arms of the chair.
Then he vanishes in a flutter of wings, and Dean curses quietly in the empty air. He goes back to bed, grumbling with no one to hear it but himself.
--
Sam has been irritable and pissy for two whole days now, snapping for no reason, snarking back a little too sharply, a little too meanly, when Dean teases him. At first Dean lets his irritation rise to meet his brother's, and their barbs get sharper and harder, until they end it with a giant food-fight-cum-wrestling-match to clear the air. Dean ends up sitting on Sam's chest, staring down into his panting face and holding his wrists above his head.
"Now tell me what's been bugging you, you big baby," he demands.
Sam rolls his eyes, then his body, forcing Dean off him with a muffled grunt. He pushes himself up to sit against the end of the bend, making a face as he brushes a strand of spaghetti from the comforter to the floor. "It's just...do you think maybe the demon blood... You keep saying I'm still human, but what if..."
Dean huffs and sits up straighter, facing his little brother head on. "Just spit it out, Sam. What is it?"
"Cas won't let me touch him anymore," Sam gets out all in a rush. He blushes and looks away immediately. "I mean, it sounds stupid, but it never seemed to bother him before. He even shook my hand that first time, when I don't think he even liked me. And now we're kind of...friends, right? But all of a sudden I can't even brush his arm with mine when we're walking or he flinches away and avoids me and..."
Re: Tit for Tat - Dean, Castiel, also Sam - PG13 - spoilers through 5.14 - 2/3maychorianMarch 31 2010, 19:37:13 UTC
Dean frowns, mind spinning backward over the last few weeks of interaction with their angel friend. Sam gasps, mistaking it for agreement. "Oh, man, you think so too, you think the demon blood is just too much for an angel to..."
"What? No. Shut up, Sam." Dean shakes his head. "I really don't think this is about you, man. He...he's been avoiding me, too. I didn't notice until you pointed it out, but...yeah. All of a sudden it's like he doesn't want to be touched by anyone. Not me, not you, not even people on the street. Something's going on, man."
Sam has gone quiet, still and thoughtful, bent deep in concentration like that statue of the guy who is thinking so hard his toes curl into the dirt with the effort. "Something's going on with Castiel," he echoes.
And they stare at each other, sharing a hundred questions and no answers.
--
"Wanna stick around?" Dean asks after the next case, deliberately casual. "It's gotta be a long flight back to...where-the-hell-ever. We were gonna watch that monster movie marathon on the SyFy channel. Your cultural education still needs work."
Castiel watches him thoughtfully, keeping a careful distance of three feet, as he had been doing at all times. Now, ironically, Dean misses the personal space invasions. The guy looks more weary and lost than ever before. Even his coat is gathering stains and tears, places where the fabric has worn through.
"Very well," Castiel says slowly. "And perhaps we can have...pizza?"
Dean grins and nods. Castiel has displayed a careful avoidance of red meat since Famine, but pizza is the first human food he had tried all on his own, and liked. Dean does not at all mind humoring his newfound tastes.
Sam and Dean convince Castiel that proper movie-watching involves shoving the beds together and all sitting in a row against the headboards, fighting over the remote during commercials and doing their best not to kick the pizza boxes off the ends of the beds. Through various maneuvers they get Castiel sitting between them, make him lose the trench coat and kick off his shoes, legs stretched out in front of him and wiggling toes poking through holey black business socks.
At first Castiel's shoulders are hunched and tense, but gradually they loosen, relax. Sam and Dean talk over the movies, making fun of the bad effects and comparing the monsters to the ones they face. Castiel is silent, listening, occasionally with a small, hesitant smile they almost don't see.
It's the best slumber-party-at-the-end-of-the-world ever.
Dean refrains from doing victory arms or a fist pump when Castiel falls asleep on his shoulder. While it was his true objective for the evening, celebration now would probably ruin it.
--
After midnight, Sam settles down in his own bed, snoring in the deep sleep of the mostly-just. Dean doesn't sleep much nowadays, but he watches the infomercials, occasionally flipping channels to see if anything else is on and not finding anything. He and Cas have slipped down on the pillows, still partly propped on the headboard, the angel's eyelashes brushing Dean's t-shirt-clad shoulder. Dean has slipped an arm around the guy, partly because it's more comfortable, partly to keep him from flying off again.
Eventually it comes as he expects it to--Cas begins to twitch and jerk in his sleep, though he doesn't make a sound, lips clenched even in unconsciousness. Dean turns his head and watches from the distance of inches, sees the sweat beading, the eyelids fluttering. It's a bad dream; Dean knows.
He sets the remote aside, wraps his arm more firmly around the trembling shoulders, and takes hold of a limp wrist to give it a shake. "Hey, Cas. Hey, buddy. Wake up."
Castiel wakes with a jerk, instantly tense. Dean can feel the alarm thrumming through him, all through the warm length pressed against Dean's side. The angel stares to Dean's left, creepily blank, instantly alert and guarded. Dean gets it, he does.
Re: Tit for Tat - Dean, Castiel, also Sam - PG13 - spoilers through 5.13 - 3/3maychorianMarch 31 2010, 19:38:25 UTC
"What were you dreaming about?" he asks.
"Angels don't dream."
"Bullshit."
Castiel tenses even more, impossibly, turns his head to stare at the flickering, mute television. His breath is quickening; he wants to pull away, escape the closeness. He'd fly if he could do it while leaving Dean behind, but Dean grips his shoulders and holds on, makes himself a weight around the angel's neck.
Dean breathes out, sucks in air and smells sweat and blood and the stale pizza on the floor. "C'mon, Cas. I know what this is. You're having nightmares. You watch people too closely, avoid being touched. You like being around me and Sam because we make you feel better, but even then you don't want to be too close. I know this, man. I know exactly what this is. Maybe angels don't dream, yeah, but maybe angels who are losing their mojo do. You're more like us and I'm sorry, but it is what is and we have to deal with it."
Castiel breathes, in and out. Slowly, slowly, a little of the tension leaks out of his body. He turns his head, ducks it down against Dean's shoulder so Dean can't see his eyes. "Angels don't dream," he says again. "These are memories."
"Tell me about them."
"I don't want to."
He sounds like a child. Dean blinks up at the ceiling, denying the moisture gathering at the edges of his eyes. Yeah, he knows that, too.
"Tell me anyway."
Castiel's fingers curl in the front of Dean's shirt. "Why are you so eager to help me when you won't let yourself be helped?" He sounds genuinely curious, but also exasperated, irritated.
Dean can't really blame him. "Because helping others is easier than helping yourself. You've been watching humans for millennia--you hadn't figured that out?"
Castiel grunts a grudging acknowledgment. "I will not let you help me unless you let me help you."
It's ridiculous. It also makes as much sense as anything in their lives does.
"Sounds fair." Dean braces himself. "You already know everything about me, man. Return the favor. Then we'll figure something out."
They are silent in the dark, breathing. "Very well."
Dean nods. And waits.
"You already know that Heaven can be as cruel as Hell. Their treatment drove Anna insane. It nearly did the same to me."
Dean listens. He can hear Sam's stuttered breathing on the next bed, knows he's awake and listening too.
Dean must be used to Cas showing up out of the blue. He didn't even flinch this time. "Hey, man. What's up?"
Cas draws a breath. "I am..."
It isn't like the angel to lose his words. Dean tilts his head to him, narrows his eyes, listens harder.
"May, may I stay with you for a time?"
Dean shrugs easily. "Sure, whatever. C'mon, the motel's that way."
Dean flops into bed immediately, but he's pretty sure Castiel spends the night. When they wake up the next morning, though, the angel is gone.
--
"I'm sorry," Castiel says, running his fingers through his hair, making it even more disheveled. He's starting to look like a hobo, Dean thinks with an inward smirk. "I...I am becoming less and less powerful with every day. I should have been able to...to..."
"It's okay," Sam says through gritted teeth, looking the other way as Dean cleans and bandages the jagged bite marks on his arm. "I'm fine."
Castiel stares at the bloody flesh with misery. To Dean's surprise, he doesn't take off, but sits there and watches until Dean is done. He spends the night that time, too.
Dean wakes up to take a leak in the dead of night. On his way back to bed he is almost started by the still, dark figure in the corner of the room, only visible now that his eyes have adjusted to the darkness after waking. It is Castiel sitting in the room's ratty armchair, his head tipped back. Dean can hear his breathing over Sam's, low and erratic.
He approaches, curious, watches his familiar angel sleep, sees sweat shining at his hairline, eyelids and fingers twitching. He's dreaming. Who'da thunk. Poor guy really is turning human, not just needing to sleep but doing the mental aerobatics, too. And it doesn't look like it's a good dream, either.
He's a hobo, but he's their hobo. Sam always wanted to take in the strays when they were little, and it looks like he finally got his wish. Dean can't just leave the guy alone in a nightmare.
He reaches out to shake Cas's shoulder, tap his cheek, something, but the angel's eyes fly open before his fingers touch down. He stares at Dean for a split second, eyes wide with the whites standing out in the dimness. He's almost shrinking back into the upholstery, shoulders hunched and tight, hands gripping the arms of the chair.
Then he vanishes in a flutter of wings, and Dean curses quietly in the empty air. He goes back to bed, grumbling with no one to hear it but himself.
--
Sam has been irritable and pissy for two whole days now, snapping for no reason, snarking back a little too sharply, a little too meanly, when Dean teases him. At first Dean lets his irritation rise to meet his brother's, and their barbs get sharper and harder, until they end it with a giant food-fight-cum-wrestling-match to clear the air. Dean ends up sitting on Sam's chest, staring down into his panting face and holding his wrists above his head.
"Now tell me what's been bugging you, you big baby," he demands.
Sam rolls his eyes, then his body, forcing Dean off him with a muffled grunt. He pushes himself up to sit against the end of the bend, making a face as he brushes a strand of spaghetti from the comforter to the floor. "It's just...do you think maybe the demon blood... You keep saying I'm still human, but what if..."
Dean huffs and sits up straighter, facing his little brother head on. "Just spit it out, Sam. What is it?"
"Cas won't let me touch him anymore," Sam gets out all in a rush. He blushes and looks away immediately. "I mean, it sounds stupid, but it never seemed to bother him before. He even shook my hand that first time, when I don't think he even liked me. And now we're kind of...friends, right? But all of a sudden I can't even brush his arm with mine when we're walking or he flinches away and avoids me and..."
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"What? No. Shut up, Sam." Dean shakes his head. "I really don't think this is about you, man. He...he's been avoiding me, too. I didn't notice until you pointed it out, but...yeah. All of a sudden it's like he doesn't want to be touched by anyone. Not me, not you, not even people on the street. Something's going on, man."
Sam has gone quiet, still and thoughtful, bent deep in concentration like that statue of the guy who is thinking so hard his toes curl into the dirt with the effort. "Something's going on with Castiel," he echoes.
And they stare at each other, sharing a hundred questions and no answers.
--
"Wanna stick around?" Dean asks after the next case, deliberately casual. "It's gotta be a long flight back to...where-the-hell-ever. We were gonna watch that monster movie marathon on the SyFy channel. Your cultural education still needs work."
Castiel watches him thoughtfully, keeping a careful distance of three feet, as he had been doing at all times. Now, ironically, Dean misses the personal space invasions. The guy looks more weary and lost than ever before. Even his coat is gathering stains and tears, places where the fabric has worn through.
"Very well," Castiel says slowly. "And perhaps we can have...pizza?"
Dean grins and nods. Castiel has displayed a careful avoidance of red meat since Famine, but pizza is the first human food he had tried all on his own, and liked. Dean does not at all mind humoring his newfound tastes.
Sam and Dean convince Castiel that proper movie-watching involves shoving the beds together and all sitting in a row against the headboards, fighting over the remote during commercials and doing their best not to kick the pizza boxes off the ends of the beds. Through various maneuvers they get Castiel sitting between them, make him lose the trench coat and kick off his shoes, legs stretched out in front of him and wiggling toes poking through holey black business socks.
At first Castiel's shoulders are hunched and tense, but gradually they loosen, relax. Sam and Dean talk over the movies, making fun of the bad effects and comparing the monsters to the ones they face. Castiel is silent, listening, occasionally with a small, hesitant smile they almost don't see.
It's the best slumber-party-at-the-end-of-the-world ever.
Dean refrains from doing victory arms or a fist pump when Castiel falls asleep on his shoulder. While it was his true objective for the evening, celebration now would probably ruin it.
--
After midnight, Sam settles down in his own bed, snoring in the deep sleep of the mostly-just. Dean doesn't sleep much nowadays, but he watches the infomercials, occasionally flipping channels to see if anything else is on and not finding anything. He and Cas have slipped down on the pillows, still partly propped on the headboard, the angel's eyelashes brushing Dean's t-shirt-clad shoulder. Dean has slipped an arm around the guy, partly because it's more comfortable, partly to keep him from flying off again.
Eventually it comes as he expects it to--Cas begins to twitch and jerk in his sleep, though he doesn't make a sound, lips clenched even in unconsciousness. Dean turns his head and watches from the distance of inches, sees the sweat beading, the eyelids fluttering. It's a bad dream; Dean knows.
He sets the remote aside, wraps his arm more firmly around the trembling shoulders, and takes hold of a limp wrist to give it a shake. "Hey, Cas. Hey, buddy. Wake up."
Castiel wakes with a jerk, instantly tense. Dean can feel the alarm thrumming through him, all through the warm length pressed against Dean's side. The angel stares to Dean's left, creepily blank, instantly alert and guarded. Dean gets it, he does.
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"Angels don't dream."
"Bullshit."
Castiel tenses even more, impossibly, turns his head to stare at the flickering, mute television. His breath is quickening; he wants to pull away, escape the closeness. He'd fly if he could do it while leaving Dean behind, but Dean grips his shoulders and holds on, makes himself a weight around the angel's neck.
Dean breathes out, sucks in air and smells sweat and blood and the stale pizza on the floor. "C'mon, Cas. I know what this is. You're having nightmares. You watch people too closely, avoid being touched. You like being around me and Sam because we make you feel better, but even then you don't want to be too close. I know this, man. I know exactly what this is. Maybe angels don't dream, yeah, but maybe angels who are losing their mojo do. You're more like us and I'm sorry, but it is what is and we have to deal with it."
Castiel breathes, in and out. Slowly, slowly, a little of the tension leaks out of his body. He turns his head, ducks it down against Dean's shoulder so Dean can't see his eyes. "Angels don't dream," he says again. "These are memories."
"Tell me about them."
"I don't want to."
He sounds like a child. Dean blinks up at the ceiling, denying the moisture gathering at the edges of his eyes. Yeah, he knows that, too.
"Tell me anyway."
Castiel's fingers curl in the front of Dean's shirt. "Why are you so eager to help me when you won't let yourself be helped?" He sounds genuinely curious, but also exasperated, irritated.
Dean can't really blame him. "Because helping others is easier than helping yourself. You've been watching humans for millennia--you hadn't figured that out?"
Castiel grunts a grudging acknowledgment. "I will not let you help me unless you let me help you."
It's ridiculous. It also makes as much sense as anything in their lives does.
"Sounds fair." Dean braces himself. "You already know everything about me, man. Return the favor. Then we'll figure something out."
They are silent in the dark, breathing. "Very well."
Dean nods. And waits.
"You already know that Heaven can be as cruel as Hell. Their treatment drove Anna insane. It nearly did the same to me."
Dean listens. He can hear Sam's stuttered breathing on the next bed, knows he's awake and listening too.
It's a start.
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So angsty, but so sweet in that it shows the love the boys have for their angel
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At least, he has Dean and Sam to help heal him.
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