Supernatural: The Crumbling Difference (Between Wrong and Right) [Part 1/2]
Title: The Crumbling Difference (Between Wrong and Right)
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sexual content, soulbonding, alcohol use, and language
Word Count: 16,518
Author’s Note: I started this story years ago for morganoconner and then abandoned it when Season 6 started and made all of my ideas canon in the worst way possible. I was determined to finish it eventually, however, so here it is, written for wincestielbang. This was my first time trying to write this pairing as well as my first time writing Castiel as a major character in a fic. His voice has always intimidated me, even in passing dialogue, because it’s so particular and so well done on Show, and it’s not easy for me to imitate. This was, therefore, a little ambitious, and I worked really hard to try and get it down. I'm not entirely sure I was successful, but I hope you guys will enjoy it anyway. Thank you so much to my artist, evian_fork, who did so much amazing work with so little to go on, and to clex_monkie89 for the last minute-iest of last minute beta jobs. Also to the wincestielbang mods for running a great challenge!
Summary: AU after 5x22: Tired of seeing Dean trying to live without his brother, Castiel decides to do what he can to bring Sam back. Raising Sam creates a bond between the three of them that follows Castiel to Heaven, linking him to Sam and Dean whether he wants to feel them or not. The Winchester brothers decide to settle down and rebuild a haunted house, making sure that Castiel knows he has a home there if he wants it. But while Castiel wants nothing more than to fall again and join them, his duty keeps him in Heaven, fighting a civil war for a place he no longer feels at home in.
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Castiel has been present for every event since Creation.
There is no atom in his Father’s universe that does not carry his imprint. He heard the first waves crash on the Earth’s shores, smelled the first flowers that opened on land, felt the heat of the first volcano, and walked with the first animals God gave that power to.
Castiel pulled mountains from the planet’s core until their peaks punctured clouds. He fought in ancient wars, stripped soldiers from battles, decided the fates of emperors. Castiel followed every human life like a thread, knows the origin of every drop of blood pumping through the heart of any man at any given time in history.
All of these things were done but none were felt. He received his orders, he obeyed them mechanically. Castiel touched every aspect of life, as did all angels, and, like the other angels, nothing touched Castiel. No miniscule scientific miracle ever caused him to linger between one errand and the next; no creature ever captured his interest; no man ever taught him love.
Castiel has tasted stardust, walked for miles at the bottom of the ocean. If he squints at the horizon on a clear day, he can see clouds shifting over Venus. But he had never been a part of anything. Not until Sam and Dean Winchester.
There was a plan once.
Plans are not solid, can be altered by the blinking of an eye or the way a water drop falls into a pool or by the strength of a little brother’s memory. This is not a lesson angels are taught in Heaven.
Castiel went billions of years with this as the foundation of his every action: God has decided Destiny, it cannot be undone. Time passes, but time has passed, and everything Castiel has been led to believe will happen is as good as over.
A rather insignificant creature told Castiel this was not the truth, and for some unknowable reason, he had listened. And he had been right to. Dean had not led him astray as his brothers had. Sam broke the plan, because Dean deviated, because Castiel made it possible. The three of them changed everything God had ever intended. Castiel used to believe he could see all of time: every moment of the past was his, he was everywhere in the present-but that future he took for granted is no longer any future at all.
He looks ahead and there is blackness, mystery, terrifying doubt. Castiel is proud of it. It belongs to him-just as much as it belongs to Sam or Dean-and it does not belong to Zachariah or Michael or even to God. Castiel never had anything of his own before.
The Winchesters were always meant to be Castiel’s Great Work. He has been tied to their bloodline since Adam first glanced in Eve’s direction, has known which couplings would lead to them and monitored centuries of ancestors with a removed, businesslike interest.
He felt nothing toward this task, not fear that he would fail or joy at having been chosen for something his superiors labeled as important. It was just another order and Castiel felt no more for it than he did when he arranged the patterns of distant constellations or chose the shape of a snowflake that would melt and be forgotten within moments.
Castiel was present when Dean Winchester was born. When Sam first tasted demon blood. When Dean first tasted Sam. It was of no interest to him if Dean stayed up too many nights rocking his brother to sleep. He did not care if Sam risked his life to impress his brother. If it was a sin for them to tremble as their bodies tangled, Castiel never stopped to condemn it.
But everything changed the first time he stood between the two brothers. Hanging in the air, there was something even they were not aware of, almost violent in its force-it choked the oxygen Castiel did not need to breathe right out of his vessel’s lungs. That was the first thing Castiel ever felt, and it was not his to experience.
He did not understand that it was love, could not interpret his response as envy. He just knew that it made him uncomfortable, and that he did not want to step away from it.
Now Castiel has felt things for himself. He was human once. He will always be human because of that. His Grace has been restored, but there is no way to squash away the fear or the loneliness or the desire that those few days of mortality incited in him.
Billions of years of life: Castiel remembers five weeks of them with anything even approaching consciousness. He remembers waking up and smelling the leather of Dean’s car, he remembers that this made him feel just the slightest bit safer. He remembers that Sam had looked at him sympathetically, had made sure to keep him fed when Castiel had not understood his own hunger. He remembers all too well the way his body had ached when Sam and Dean were in their separate room, loud cries echoing through the house, making Castiel suddenly piece together all of the things he had overlooked between them and why they mattered.
If anything was going to save the world, he knew, it was the unnamable sin in the next room. Castiel revered it and loathed it at once-not because it was indulgence but because it would never be his indulgence.
Sam and Dean did not pray the night before they stopped Lucifer. Sam and Dean whispered each other’s names. Castiel did pray, but he knows, even now, when they have emerged victorious and God has restored him and made him stronger than before, that the prayers meant less than the press of Dean’s lips to his little brother’s wrist.
Sam does not live to savor his victory. Dean hates their success more than he has ever hated anything. Castiel watches what the loss of his brother does to Dean, thinks of Sam locked in a worse place than either of them can imagine. He does not get much joy from winning, either.
There is a woman named Lisa. Dean goes to her because Sam demanded it. Dean does not know her, but he feels something for her, something Castiel has no hope of understanding. She seems afraid he will leave and afraid he will stay, but she welcomes him in, allows him to get away with much in the aftermath of his loss.
Months pass. If Dean is recovering, the improvements are too small for Castiel to see. He pretends more as the time drags on. Lisa convinces herself he is doing better. Castiel thinks Dean convinces himself, too. But there are times when he is alone and the façade washes away; Dean is more pathetic then than anything Castiel has witnessed.
He talks to Castiel often, just as he talks to Sam. Sam will never hear it, will never know. Castiel should not; Dean is supposed to be forgotten. His new task is in Heaven, he has his hands full (he does not have hands like this, Castiel realizes, half amused and half saddened by the way he still lingers on their expressions). But he sneaks away sometimes, not something angels should know how to do, and clings to his former charge.
“It’s his birthday, you know,” Dean says one day, eyes cast toward the ceiling. “Today is his birthday.”
He sits at the edge of his bed, the bed he shares with Lisa, and waits for approximately half a minute before sighing and continuing.
“I’ve never missed it in my life.” Dean smiles distantly. “I forgot mine one year, while he was at Stanford. Woke up three days later and realized I missed my own damn birthday. But not his. Never his. Not even when he wasn’t with me.”
Dean shakes his head. “Can’t celebrate now, though, can I?”
He laughs bitterly. “It’s been a year. I guess I should celebrate that, right? He saved the world, it’s supposed to be a good thing. Cas, come on. Just. It feels like no one remembers him. You remember, though. We oughta say thank you. He did it for us.” He wipes a hand over his mouth. “Please,” he whispers. “I don’t wanna be alone, man. Not today. I need someone to…”
He trails off, shrugging after a bit. He gets up then, goes downstairs to get a drink, even though it is not yet noon. Lisa and her son are at the zoo-she took off as soon as she got a look at Dean that morning, knowing he needed to be alone. It is true that she can do nothing for him now, but Castiel could. He stays at his station, feels a pang of something he remembers as guilt.
Dean drinks his way through the entire bottle and it does not seem to have much of an effect on him. He is as miserable as before, if a little sloppier when he tries to stand. He makes it back upstairs, crawls into bed. Castiel watches him close his eyes, does not avert his gaze when Dean opens his jeans and begins to work his hand up and down, looking profoundly bored with the activity. When he finishes, he lets out what is almost a sob and lies there staring ahead blankly with his cock out, his hand messy, until finally he turns over on his side.
“Fuck you, Sammy,” he says. Castiel hears genuine hatred mixed with the yearning and adoration. “Fuck you.”
Dean cleans himself up, falls back into bed, and sleeps the day away. He tosses and turns, makes the sounds of a threatened animal, and wakes up too many times, reaching for what should not be an empty space in his bed. Castiel does not technically have a heart, but it is broken, and he realizes he would rather let Heaven crash and burn than leave things the way they are a moment longer.
It took Castiel four months to pull Dean from Hell. That was with millennia of planning. Sam is buried twice as deep in the pit, at the very least, and there is no precedent Castiel can study for rescuing anyone from such a place. It should take centuries to dig him out.
However, Castiel is selfish now, has a motivation much, much stronger than what had driven him to save Dean. He cannot physically stand the moments that pass while the brothers are still separated.
One month after Castiel decides he must save Sam, or end his existence in the attempt, he feels a tiny electric wave pass through him-the first spark of Sam Winchester’s renewed life.
Sam returns to Earth just feet away from Dean’s doorstep. He stands outside and watches his brother through the window. His lips turn upwards just the slightest when Dean says something that makes the boy laugh. Sam turns away from the home then, face set as if he is going to leave, but before Castiel can panic or return to Earth to “tear him a new one” (as Dean would call it), he turns back. Sam was not raised to make sacrifices, not when it came to his brother’s love.
He strides to the door and knocks. Lisa’s face falls when she sees him, and she nods coolly, as if to an opponent she knows she can’t beat. There is no contest in the end between Sam and Lisa. Dean tries to do the right thing, but none of them know what that is, and Lisa knows what he really wants. They part amicably, but they do part.
Castiel is a poor judge of time. Everything humans do is terribly slow to him. He tries to give the brothers respect, knows what they want with time alone. But when he appears in their hotel room, they are not only not done, they have not quite begun.
Dean has three fingers inside of his brother when Castiel arrives. He is in his own world, and it is only when Sam startles and lets out a cry of surprise that Dean pauses.
He laughs. “Aww! Did I hurt you, virgin?”
Sam rolls his eyes, a rather uncomfortable expression that Castiel believes is supposed to be interpreted as disdain. “Dude, turn around.”
“Thought I was going first,” Dean replies.
“No, seriously, turn around.”
Dean looks vexed when he pulls his fingers back from his brother and turns, finding himself face-to-face with Castiel.
“I apologize,” Castiel says. “I did not realize you were fornicating.”
“Well, we’ve always been pretty subtle about it,” Sam replies, smirking as he pulls white sheets over himself modestly.
“Cas?” Dean asks. He sounds a little hurt, a little lost, a little like he cannot believe all the things he’s getting back at once.
Castiel sees a hidden vulnerability under his detached expression, and he wonders if Dean is worrying Castiel will tell Sam about the last year.
“I will return at a more convenient time,” he says, turning to avert his gaze from the brothers.
“Cas, wait,” Sam cries out from the bed, but Castiel has no intention of obeying the order. Even Castiel knows enough about social interaction to know any conversation he could try to conduct now would be discomfited.
He is surprised when he feels a hand curl around his arm and tug him back before he can vanish. He turns to question the touch, but he hardly gets to see that it is Dean holding on to him before Dean’s hands are on his face, his lips on Castiel’s.
Castiel does not respond. He does not know how to respond. He does not understand why Dean is doing it, why Sam is letting him, why he cannot bring himself to break the contact. Dean pushes closer to him, his lips more insistent. Passionate, and Castiel feels a spark of what he has only experienced from the outside. Dean is kissing him, this is no longer Castiel attempting to draw from what they share.
Dean pulls away and tugs at Castiel’s arm again, almost like an excited child. He points to Sam, to the handprint on his brother’s shoulder, the one that matches his own. Castiel winces seeing it. He did an imperfect job raising Sam. The skin holding his soul in is thin, so thin it's a miracle it's not broken. Sam's soul nearly shines out. It casts a faint orange glow, just enough to remind Castiel of his failure. He seared Dean's soul, as well, pulling him from Hell, but the healing had been complete by the time Dean had awoken. Sam did not fare as well in Lucifer's grasp. The angel left Castiel very little to grab onto.
“You saved him,” Dean says.
Castiel nods, fingers on his lips, not entirely capable of processing why this is significant when Dean just kissed him and Castiel had felt…loved. Not the shadow of someone else’s love. Castiel had felt it.
Dean turns back into him, hands gripping his face, forehead pressed against his as he smiles and murmurs almost nonsensically. “You saved him. You saved my little brother. First me and now Sammy. You gave me back…”
Dean does not finish, is kissing him again, and this time Castiel opens his mouth, tries to match Dean’s movements with his own. Sam still has not said anything but is sitting up watching them closely when Dean breaks away again.
“I…don’t know why he keeps doing that,” he explains, though he is not entirely sure Sam looks jealous.
Sam laughs. “I do,” he says, reaching out to squeeze his brother’s hand. Dean turns to look at him and does not turn back to Castiel.
This is, he thinks, an appropriate moment to leave. But Castiel’s feet feel as though they are bound to the floor, and he is no longer foolish enough to tell himself he does not know why he is reluctant to go.
“You just gonna stand there and stare?” Dean asks after a short time, turning to shoot Castiel an amused look over one shoulder.
“No. I am sorry. I should…”
Dean stands and tugs the sheet off his brother, revealing Sam’s nakedness underneath it.
“Lay back for me,” Dean says.
Sam swallows hard, his eyes darting to Castiel as he obeys his brother. He spreads himself wide once he is on the bed, closes his eyes, and waits. Sam does not know or care what his brother’s plans for him are. He trusts Dean completely, and Castiel cannot force his eyes away from the sight of him completely at their mercy.
Castiel has accepted sacrifices on God’s behalf before-that is what Sam looks like now: an offering waiting to be taken up by something divine.
“You want him, Cas,” Dean says, walking toward him. It is not a question.
Want? he wonders, letting the word sink into him, trying to decipher what it means. Castiel never wanted any of those gifts he took in Heaven’s name for himself. He is not supposed to know how to want.
But what falls from his lips is, “yes,” and Castiel has never been quite so sure of anything.
“I got him ready for you.”
Castiel shakes his head, tries to step back. “No, Dean, I can't.”
Dean laughs. “Yeah, you can.”
“You were-”
“Eh, no worries. I already popped his cherry once, right Sammy?”
“Blow me,” Sam replies.
“My blushing bride,” Dean says, winking one eye at Castiel. “Come on.”
Dean takes his hand and pulls him to the edge of the bed. “I’ll help you,” he promises, whispering right into Castiel’s skin as he circles him and begins to remove the articles of clothing Castiel had been planning on hiding under.
Castiel looks directly forward as Dean undresses him, eyes lingering on Sam. He is still on display, but he sits up against a wall of pillows watching them: biting his bottom lip so hard he might be drawing blood, fingers so tightly fisted in the sheets that his knuckles are white. He looks depraved, a threat to everything Castiel was taught to love in Heaven, and beautiful-so, so beautiful.
Castiel gives a start as Dean pulls down his pants, leaving him entirely exposed. He had been so distracted, he had lost track of Dean’s actions while he still had a tie around his neck. Dean laughs at his reaction, picking up a bottle and wetting his hands before wrapping them around Castiel. Castiel gasps at the touch, which only makes Dean grin wider. Castiel considers complaining when Dean draws his hands away, but then Dean inclines his head toward the bed.
“You know what to do, Cas,” Dean says hotly when Castiel does not move. “I know you’ve watched us.”
Castiel swallows hard and crawls onto the bed, but he cannot bring himself to do what is expected of him. He hovers over Sam wishing the hot ache gripping his body would subside and let him think.
“Don’t keep my little brother waiting.”
Castiel knows an order when he hears it. He sinks down into Sam, into what is either paradise or torture. He does not own this body anymore, has no control over the sounds that leave his lips or the way he rocks into Sam. Sam gasps, long fingers digging into Castiel’s shoulders. He pulls Castiel down and kisses him. “It’s okay, Cas, it’s okay,” Sam whispers, too low for his brother to hear, as one hand moves gently, soothing down Castiel’s body.
It doesn't feel like it is going to be okay, but Castiel does not contradict Sam.
“Good, Sammy?” Dean asks.
Sam bites back on a groan. “So good,” he says, pulling Castiel in closer. “It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve-Jesus, Dean he’s so hard.”
Castiel feels something work its way through him as the blasphemy leaves Sam’s mouth, something automatic and slightly painful, but Castiel does not respond the way he is supposed to. Instead of wrath, Castiel feels exhilarated and, although he cannot stop the angry snap of his hips, it does not seem to punish Sam at all. He cries out in pleasure.
Castiel hears the creaking of the mattress as Dean climbs up behind him, feels Dean’s hand run down his spine as he moves into Sam, but Dean’s touch no longer terrifies him the way it had moments ago. Not when he knows it leads to this, not when there is so much more happening under him than Dean is offering.
And then Dean manages to change the situation again, leaving Castiel to wonder how humans keep up with this. Dean is pushing a finger inside of him, one of the fingers that had been inside of Sam, and Castiel knows what that means for him.
He does not complain.
Dean’s other hand rests on his hip as his finger moves into Castiel, learning the way he rolls into his brother. He does not warn Castiel before he pushes a second finger in, or when he finds something inside of Castiel that explains why Sam is crying out the way he is. Castiel cries out, too.
“More?” Dean asks, a playful lilt to his tone. “Yeah, I’ve got more for you.”
This time, Castiel knows what is coming. It does not do him any good to be prepared. His hips stumble out of rhythm and he falls into Sam the moment he feels Dean's cock as it breaches him.
“No, no, no,” Dean whispers against his neck, giving it a light bite. “You take care of Sammy, or I’ll stop.”
Castiel knows only one thing right now, and it is that he does not want Dean to follow through with that threat. He takes a deep breath and pulls out of Sam briefly, regaining control of his body, sliding back down and finding a pace that agrees with Dean’s thrusts.
The brothers draw closer, lips joining over Castiel’s shoulder. When they break, Sam’s mouth finds Castiel’s and Dean kisses his neck.
They work together like this until Castiel feels something else building in him. Unsure of what it is, he attempts to suppress it, which makes Sam laugh, his head falling back.
Castiel moves down to suck at the exposed skin as Sam speaks, “It’s okay, Cas. It’ll feel good,” he promises. “I’ll do it with you.”
He lets go of the sheets and wraps his hand around his own cock, eyes locking with Castiel’s as he begins to stroke himself. Sam's other hand grasps Castiel’s forearm, fingers tightening to indicate that he is close. “Come on, just let it go.”
Castiel closes his eyes, glad his face is hidden in Sam’s skin, though he does not entirely understand why that matters. He feels something release inside of him and hears a muffled cry as Dean ducks down to cover his brother’s mouth. Castiel feels himself emptying into Sam and something hits his stomach. When he lifts his face, Sam grins at him.
“That’s the whole point,” Sam explains, pushing Castiel a little to put some space between their bodies. Sam runs a finger through the white mess on his own chest and smiles at Castiel.
“Open your mouth,” Dean tells him from behind.
Castiel does, accepting Sam’s offering, licking the thick white off his fingers. Dean moans then, and Castiel feels a warm, wet rush inside of him. His stomach clenches and he sucks harder at Sam’s skin, knowing that what he is tasting is the same as what he just filled Sam with, what Dean just filled him with, and somehow finding that extremely rewarding.
Dean pulls away from him with one last press of lips to his shoulder. This time it is gentle and warm. He whispers ‘thank you’ against Castiel’s back, but his voice is so low. Castiel is not supposed to hear it; Sam definitely does not. Dean does not know that Castiel can feel his words carving into his bones without needing to hear them.
Castiel copies Dean once he is situated on the bed and reluctantly pulls out of Sam. Sam gives one last soft sigh and moves over, offering Castiel a place between them in bed. Castiel lies there because he does not know what else to do, and Sam sits up on one side to face him, running a finger over his face and kissing him again.
The brothers fall asleep soon after that. Castiel vanishes.
He tells himself he is done with them. God knows, he was supposed to be done with them a year ago. He got his reward now, he had them for however brief a time, and he set things right. They can be happy, they can go on. Without him.
Castiel really hates that about them.
They don't, though. After all the trouble he went to just to get them their lives back, they still refuse to say thank you the right way, by letting him move on and do his work. He has all of Heaven to clean up, an army of brothers and sisters to teach how to run their own paradise, but he can hear every word they say once they invoke his name, and they don't do it sparingly.
He hates them for that, as well.
It's a very confusing time for him on the whole.
"Castiel."
He turns his head toward the voice, trying not to hear the same sound echoing from Earth. He would give away Heaven to learn how to tune them out.
"Yes, Rachel, what is it?"
She blinks at him blankly, oblivious to the sharpness in his tone. That's for the best. He didn't mean to snap at her. The men he is truly upset with cannot hear him, and at least one of them would only laugh if they could. "Raphael sent an envoy," she says. "They've brought his terms for peace."
Castiel shakes his head. "Send them back."
"You will not even hear them?" she asks.
"I already know what his offer will be," he says. "The terms will not be acceptable."
She disapproves, he knows. She does not grasp the implications of what Castiel is fighting to protect, none of his angels do. They are on his side only because they have chosen to interpret his resurrection as God's will. Rachel is unimpressed with Castiel's leadership, and well she should be. But he will not-cannot-give even an inch up to Raphael. He will not undo what the Winchesters won, even if it would end this war he no longer wants any part of.
He sighs as she exits the room and feels a hot burning, first on his arm, then intensifying as it spreads. The scorch is so forceful that he loses himself for a moment and finds himself on Earth when he opens his eyes. On Earth, at the end of their bed.
"What was that?" Sam asks.
Dean stares at his hand, then at Sam, and shakes his head. "I don't know," he says.
They're at opposite ends of the mattress, each on their back as if something flung them apart, but they move closer, slow and cautious. Sam reaches out and puts his hand over the faded pink fingerprints on his brother's skin. Castiel feels a tickle down his spine, but it's not until Dean mirrors his brother's action, presses his palm to Sam's arm, that the electric shock that called Castiel here from Heaven repeats itself.
He should not be surprised. The handprints he left on the brothers' shoulders were never just a mark. The quiet, nearly invisible bond he had forged to save Dean has burst into something impossible to suppress now that it has wrapped around Sam as well, physically manifested the connection between Sam and Dean's souls with Castiel's ties to the both of them holding it all together. It has been hard to think through the fire it sparks in him at the best of times, but now that they're touching each other where the bond is most intense, Castiel feels as useless as any human in the throes of passion.
They must be able to feel it too, like Dean never could when it was just him, because their eyes widen now as they hold each other. They lean in, kissing each other deeply before pulling away, and then they separate, bodies shaking. They should let go, Castiel thinks. It's too powerful for them to stand, too confusing for him. They should let go.
Sam turns his head in Castiel's direction, eyes searching the room. "Castiel?"
Castiel stays hidden. He does not want to get involved in this. He's been trying so hard not to get involved.
"We can feel you," Dean says, looking to his brother for confirmation. Sam nods, and Dean continues, "C'mon, Cas. That's just creepy."
Castiel drops the cloak; it's not much use to him at this point. "Hello."
Dean and Sam both laugh at that. "Hello?" Sam says. "That's what you've got for us?"
"I'm not entirely clear on what the protocol in these situations is," he admits.
Dean snorts and Sam smiles, rolling his eyes. "Funny. He's funny now."
"That's me rubbing off on him," says Dean. He smirks. "Literally."
"What the hell just happened, Cas?" Sam asks, pointing to his brother's arm.
"Ah, that," Castiel says, trying to sound casual. "I believe you've just discovered a bond I unintentionally created while lifting your souls from Hell. So, uh, just don't do it again, sorry for the confusion, and I hope you both have a satisfactory evening."
"Wait," Dean shouts before Castiel can return to Heaven. He stops, the same inability to turn away from Dean that possessed him last time taking hold. Castiel shivers and tries to make himself go. This cannot be like last time. "What does that mean, you bonded us?"
"Actually, you two were already bonded," Castiel informs them. "It'll just be life as you know it as long as you don't touch the handprints at the same time again, so there is nothing to worry about."
Sam shakes his head. "Cas, you felt it too, didn't you? That's why you came here."
"There is no precedent for a situation like this one. My involvement was unintentional," Castiel explains. "I did not create the link. But it was necessary to save you both."
"Hey, we're not mad," Sam says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "We're just trying to figure out what's going on."
Dean relaxes back onto the bed, kicking his feet out confidently. "Hell, I liked it."
Sam licks his lips and looks to Castiel. "Did you like it?"
Castiel finds that his hands are a rather fascinating thing to look at. "It called me away from Heaven."
"That's not an answer," Sam insists. "Did you like it?"
"I'm very busy."
Dean laughs. "He definitely liked it."
Sam crawls to the end of the bed, reaching out to take Castiel's hand. Castiel looks at him, still intoxicated by the lust that called him here, and is momentarily impressed by how much naked flesh there is to tempt him. "You can stay," Sam offers.
"Yeah," Dean says from behind him. "Why watch the show when you can be in it?"
Castiel shakes his head, pushes Sam's hand away, and takes a step back. If he makes this a habit, he'll be lost. "I have to go," he says and disappears.
Their revenge is swift and unforgiving. They spend the next hour inside each other, their hands firmly sealed over the bond. An hour is less than nothing to an angel, but this one feels as if it lasts a year. It's a terrifyingly human way to experience time; Castiel tries not to think about that as he attempts to work despite the lust their every move shoots through him.
It's a good thing Castiel sent the envoys away. He would not be able to converse at a time like this. It would have been embarrassing.
He lets himself wander, his mind falling back to Earth like his body so desires to do. He would give anything to see them embracing the way he knows they are, hands gripping forearms tightly as Sam thrusts into Dean and Dean murmuring Sam's name, then Castiel's. They were beautiful like this, and he knows it would be just as good the second time. But he must settle for feeling them and nothing more.
Sam groans, following his brother's example. They're both saying Castiel's name as they come, like he's there, and he really might as well be. He knows just by thinking of them, he's making them feel good, and when their orgasms hit, Castiel feels an intense wave of euphoria wash through him.
He is able to enjoy it for a splinter of what would count as a second on Earth before his door opens without the courtesy of a knock.
He watches over them closely as days, weeks, a month slips from him. His war rambles on unchanging. Neither side gains an advantage. Sam and Dean are still hunting, just as invariable as Heaven. This is unsurprising; they have done little else in their lives. Like Castiel's brothers and sisters, who take orders so well and still fail to grasp that they can stop that now, Sam and Dean simply don't know another way.
The hunts are small now. The kind of thing Castiel was annoyed to see them expend their efforts on a year ago. He never understood the point of killing ghosts or vampires, not until this connection formed. It seemed so futile to go chasing after such small rips in God's plan when there was Lucifer to worry about.
Now he can feel the almost painful contentedness Dean experiences when he leads a child back to its parents unharmed. The sensation is addicting. Only one child. So little accomplishment in the larger scheme, but for Dean, for the part of Castiel that is Dean now, the sense of self-worth borders on blasphemy. No single angel is allowed such pride. What they accomplish, they accomplish together, and the praise all goes to God. Their father, who does not even seem to know or care what is being carried out in his name.
He sees Dean through Sam's eyes, as well. Or rather, he feels what Sam does when he looks. Hero. Not just to that little boy. Not just a mantra Dean repeats to himself to believe he matters. For Sam, it is absolute truth. What he sees when he looks at his brother would be enough to crush Hell and Raphael's threats forever if Castiel could only find a way to harness it.
"Hey, Cas." The words hit him like lightning bolts. "It's Sam. I know you can hear me."
Castiel should not go to him, but he's been so good about resisting lately. One day will surely not cost Heaven much.
"What do you want?"
Sam's body reacts with the same sense of electrocution Castiel's had when he'd heard the words up in Heaven. He turns, smiling at Castiel. "You came."
"What do you need?" Castiel asks more sharply.
"You," Sam answers, stepping forward.
Castiel responds by taking a step back, but is only rewarded with a greater temptation, Dean's hand on his shoulder from behind. "Hey, relax," Dean says.
"We're on a hunt," Sam tells him, pointing to the papers spread out on a table nearby. "Haunted house. Thought you might be able to help."
Castiel nods. "Are there demons there? Can they lead us to Crowley?"
Dean laughs at him, but not unkindly. "Nope."
"Does the location hold some kind of significance? A curse from Heaven perhaps or a gateway to-"
Sam's mouth pulls up into a grin. "It's just a haunted house, Cas. We think a vengeful spirit. Maybe a revenant, but probably just your average ghost."
Castiel blinks at them uncertainly. He is trying to understand their point, but what he thinks he's hearing is that they called him all the way from Heaven for a haunted pile of wood. "Why would you waste my time with this?"
Neither of the brothers seems to be put off by Castiel's response. Dean just places a shotgun in Castiel's hand and gives him a small smile. "I'll get the car," he tells Sam.
Sam watches him leave, then turns back to Castiel as soon as the door closes. "You were lonely," Sam says, patting him on the shoulder and steering him toward the door. "You can fight your war. You can stay away from us if that's what you want. But we can feel when you're lonely, and that we won't allow. So we're going on a hunt, and you're not getting out of it."
The job takes one-thirtyfifth of a millisecond. Castiel destroys the spirit as soon as he senses it. Their job is done before they walk through the door.
Sam and Dean don't listen when he tells them this, they just drag him inside to 'make sure there won't be any more trouble,' they say. Mostly they poke around the rooms while Castiel stands in the entrance trying to figure out what exactly he should be doing.
He can hear them shuffling through the rooms, the walls all worn too thin to block the sound out, but he doesn't suspect what they're up to until they meet up again in the front hall.
"We'll have to be careful on the stairs," Dean says when he's coming down. "A few of them are about three pounds from caving in."
"Hmm," Sam says. "Water in the kitchen's running. Nearly brown, but it's running."
"Not upstairs," Dean replies, shaking his head. "Looks like a goddamn horror movie set up there and smells even worse."
Sam nods, like he'd expected as much, and Castiel feels well and truly lost.
"Well," he says, looking over at Castiel. "What do you think? Can people live in it?"
"This foundation is unstable." Castiel shifts his feet and clears his throat. "The water, where it does run, leaks and is contaminated by bacteria and fungus, none of which are compatible with human immune systems. The blood on the walls has seeped in too deeply to be painted over instead of replaced. The roof might give way any moment. Frankly, I am surprised it has not yet. There are seven different species of varmint living inside of the building, and the land is too cursed by the long history of violent deaths to grow plants."
"It's ugly, too," Sam adds, wiping dirty hands off on his jeans. "But I don't think it always was."
Dean nods, gives Sam a look, and then nods again. "Alright," he says. "Sounds like we've got our work cut out for us."
Castiel suspected what their intention was, but he did not truly expect them to try to go through with it once they had a few days to reflect on the challenges of the situation. Sure enough, Sam and Dean spend the next few weeks returning to that house between hunts. Shuffling around. Bringing materials there that they pick up along the way. Castiel will not pretend to understand. He simply watches when he can.
They are trying to make it livable. It's astonishing, really, just how many times he can underestimate them. They did envision a life outside of their hunting routine, and now they're actually trying to build it.
He thinks, not for the first time, that humans have an incredible talent for imagination. If God had given angels this talent instead, his war would be done with by now. But then, if angels were humans, he wouldn't be so eager to get back to the Winchesters.
He joins them for more hunts along the way, even though they still feel frivolous. He isn't like them, he hasn't saved his world. He still has work to do. Instead he lets them pull him back to bed with them and can't really make himself believe he regrets it. The pleasure is always too intense.
This time it's a vampire nest near Milwaukee. Castiel decapitates two of the monsters, leaving the others for Sam and Dean, and only uses his grace to decimate one that is too far from him to reach before he sinks his teeth into Sam's shoulder. The brothers, Castiel has learned, do not get the same enjoyment from hunts when Castiel vanquishes all of their enemies from the start. Even though this way is messy and needlessly risky, this is the way they prefer.
Of course, it ends badly. Castiel did try to tell them.
Sam has a slice in his thigh, blood soaking too quickly through the denim of his pants. Castiel watches it seep out of him, observing Dean's concern, and puzzles over how this waste is preferable to a quick clean completion of the job. He is no one to argue with their ways, however. Castiel is just a guest amongst them.
"Take us back to the motel," Dean says, looking up at Castiel. He's got Sam's head cupped in his hand, and he's trying to look reassuring, but he is scared out of his wits. "I gotta get him stitched up."
Castiel nods, blinking and setting them back where the day started, with Sam on the bed, silently clenching his fists to try to distract himself from the pain.
"Move," Castiel tells Dean, and Dean does it immediately, giving way so that Castiel can draw close. It takes a brush of his fingers to close Sam's punctured skin. He presses a bit harder, until the wound is completely healed.
Sam makes a surprised, breathy sound, and Dean murmurs something. Then the brothers are pressed on either side of Castiel, kissing him wherever they can reach him. He doesn’t know if it's thanks or if the whole thing was a trap to get him right here, but he doesn't particularly want an out, so he doesn't look for one.
They make him feel human when they fuck him.
"Now's the best time to start working on it," Sam says, unloading a pile of wood from the Impala's trunk into Castiel's arms. "Still got most of the summer left. We can get a lot of work done before it starts getting cold. Move in by the fall, maybe."
Castiel looks down at the timber in his hands and back up at Sam. He blinks, because he has nothing to say. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"Take it up to the house," Sam says with a smile. "I'm gonna make another run to the hardware store, but you and Dean can lay things out."
"I thought we were going to hunt," Castiel says, still too confused to put any force into his words. "Not carry wood into a house."
"Our house. Bobby had some money saved up, and he figured he doesn't have much use for it at this point. Place was dirt cheap." Dean comes up behind him, putting one hand on each of his shoulders and steering him up the broken path toward the house. "C'mon man, it'll be a nice day off for you."
"I'm fighting a war. I don't get days off."
"Sure you do. And you're spending this one helping us out. We need all the manpower we can get," Dean tells him as he walks Castiel to the door. "You should have seen the expression on the real estate agent's face when we told her we were gonna try and renovate. Like she thought we were crazy." Dean stops to open the door, which swings open without a key. He looks back at Castiel and laughs. "Like that, yeah. She looked just like that."
Castiel follows him inside and sets the wood down by the door where Dean points. He dusts off his hands and straightens to meet Dean's eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
Dean is leaning against the wall, and his fingers drum on the peeling wallpaper for a long few seconds before he looks down at the floor, shrugging his shoulders. "Lots of reasons. Can't be a hunter forever, right?"
Castiel nods. He supposes that's true for humans. "But why stop now? Here?"
Dean licks his lips. "I got used to it with Lisa and Ben," he says. "Living like a normal person, I mean. I didn't mind it. It had its good points."
Castiel can tell there's more to it. He's not sure if that's the bond or if he's just learned to read Dean well enough by now. He hopes it's the latter. "And your brother?"
"Sam…" Dean scratches the back of his neck. "Sam's doing real good, considering. You-you did a good job bringing him back."
Castiel winces, suddenly realizing the real reason behind all of this. They don't want to stop hunting. Dean doesn't not want to be a hero. Castiel just did an imperfect job raising Sam. "He can't handle the job?" Castiel asks.
Dean shakes his head. "It's not that simple, Cas. He's fine most of the time. He's still a great hunter. Most of the time."
"How bad is it?"
"When it's bad, it's real bad. But, Cas, he's got it under control 90% of-"
"How bad?" Castiel repeats, his voice firmer.
"He sees Lucifer. Pretty much all the time as far as I can tell. He has nightmares-no surprise there. He, uh, hallucinates sometimes. Thinks he's being tortured. Screams like he can feel it and everything." Dean's eyes grow more distant as he speaks. Castiel can only imagine the horrors he's reliving. He shakes his head and blinks a few times, as if he's coming back to himself, then gives Castiel a weak smile. "Those are the worst. He doesn't recognize me when they happen. It scares me. Don't even want to imagine one of them happening while he's got a gun in his hand or a ghost on his tail."
Castiel frowns. "If I'd saved him faster-"
"Don't do that, Cas. Don't. You saved him. You brought him back. He's only human, he was never gonna come back from that without a little damage, but he's in one piece and that's no thanks to me."
Castiel shakes his head and looks down at the ground, and Dean moves forward, putting a hand on his wrist and squeezing. "Sam's always wanted something like this. You're lucky, you know, he'd mostly shut up about it by the time you showed up. You didn't have to hear about it or watch him-" Dean cuts himself off with a laugh, and Castiel wonders at the fact that after all of their betrayals and suffering, Stanford is still the wound Dean will never be able to let go of. "Man, you got nothing to feel sorry about. I think he's secretly really goddamn smug that I ended up having to be the one to suggest we slow down. And…it's good for us. I never thought we'd get to stop, always thought I'd die bloody. And I was fine with that, but I never wanted it for him. Never expected to save the world, either, and now that that's done, I dunno. I think it's okay that we're letting ourselves off the hook."
"So this is really what you want, Dean?"
Dean nods, smiling as he presses in. "This is what we want," he says, tipping Castiel's chin up and sealing their lips together. He kisses Castiel for what feels like an eternity and then pulls away. "Cas, there are three bedrooms upstairs. I know it's not much yet. But we're gonna fix her up. And when we do, there'll be room for everyone. Sam and I, even when we're fucking, we've always had our own beds. A room though, imagine. A little place to go back to, all our own, for when we're pissing each other off. You ever had anything like that to yourself, Cas? I sure haven't. Even when the little bastard went off to school I could hear him bitching away in the passenger's seat."
This body, which his vessel so sorely regretted letting him have, is the most space Castiel has ever been able to call entirely his own. A whole room, no matter how small or how broken the house around it, sounds like paradise.
Paradise. Castiel frowns. "I have to go back to Heaven, Dean. My brothers-"
"I know," Dean says. "We get it. And we get that it's important to you. But, just. If the war ever ends, Cas, and if you make it out the other end. We've got room for you here." Dean leans in and kisses him again. "You just gotta get out alive, okay? Get out alive."
The door opens again, admitting more sunlight than the windows and the cracks in the wood had been doing. Dean steps back from Castiel, shielding his eyes, but Castiel keeps his hands anchored low on Dean's back.
"You two having all the fun while I'm hard at work?" Sam asks. His hands are full of bags, and Dean grins wickedly as he steps forward to take some of the weight from his brother. The look he gives Sam holds such promise that Castiel can feel a hot flush as it passes through him.
"Anything else in the car?" Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head 'no.' "This town doesn't have all the materials we're gonna need. No big surprise there. I could only get the basics."
Castiel watches them with confusion, then snaps his fingers. Both of the brothers look up staring first at him and then around the room. The lights are working, the floor is brand new and made of hardwood, gleaming and polished. There's a fresh coat of paint on the walls.
"What'd you do?" Sam asks, his voice caught somewhere between cross and amused.
"If this is what you want," Castiel shrugs, "there's no need to spend the summer working on it."
Sam shakes his head. "No. It's not-it doesn't mean the same thing if we just let you snap your fingers and fix it. It's not ours."
Castiel tilts his head, watching Sam curiously. "But Dean said that you already own it."
Dean laughs, patting Castiel on the back. "Nah, man. Put it back. We're gonna fix this place with our bare hands, like men." Sam snorts and Dean shoots him a look before continuing, "If you're gonna help, you're gonna have to pretend you're human."
They really do have the most frustrating fondness for making things complicated that Castiel has ever encountered. He raises his hand, but Sam reaches out to stop him.
"Uh, you can leave the foundation. It'll be nice to know that's not about to cave on us, at least."
"And the air conditioning?" Dean says hopefully. Sam gives him a flat look, and Dean sighs. "Alright, alright. Just the foundation."
Castiel snaps his fingers and in the blink of an eye, the house around them is again a decaying heap of what Dean would normally call shit. But it's a shit heap with a solid foundation, so that's something at least.
ON TO PART TWO
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Dean/Castiel
Rating: NC-17 for explicit sexual content, soulbonding, alcohol use, and language
Word Count: 16,518
Author’s Note: I started this story years ago for morganoconner and then abandoned it when Season 6 started and made all of my ideas canon in the worst way possible. I was determined to finish it eventually, however, so here it is, written for wincestielbang. This was my first time trying to write this pairing as well as my first time writing Castiel as a major character in a fic. His voice has always intimidated me, even in passing dialogue, because it’s so particular and so well done on Show, and it’s not easy for me to imitate. This was, therefore, a little ambitious, and I worked really hard to try and get it down. I'm not entirely sure I was successful, but I hope you guys will enjoy it anyway. Thank you so much to my artist, evian_fork, who did so much amazing work with so little to go on, and to clex_monkie89 for the last minute-iest of last minute beta jobs. Also to the wincestielbang mods for running a great challenge!
Summary: AU after 5x22: Tired of seeing Dean trying to live without his brother, Castiel decides to do what he can to bring Sam back. Raising Sam creates a bond between the three of them that follows Castiel to Heaven, linking him to Sam and Dean whether he wants to feel them or not. The Winchester brothers decide to settle down and rebuild a haunted house, making sure that Castiel knows he has a home there if he wants it. But while Castiel wants nothing more than to fall again and join them, his duty keeps him in Heaven, fighting a civil war for a place he no longer feels at home in.
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Castiel has been present for every event since Creation.
There is no atom in his Father’s universe that does not carry his imprint. He heard the first waves crash on the Earth’s shores, smelled the first flowers that opened on land, felt the heat of the first volcano, and walked with the first animals God gave that power to.
Castiel pulled mountains from the planet’s core until their peaks punctured clouds. He fought in ancient wars, stripped soldiers from battles, decided the fates of emperors. Castiel followed every human life like a thread, knows the origin of every drop of blood pumping through the heart of any man at any given time in history.
All of these things were done but none were felt. He received his orders, he obeyed them mechanically. Castiel touched every aspect of life, as did all angels, and, like the other angels, nothing touched Castiel. No miniscule scientific miracle ever caused him to linger between one errand and the next; no creature ever captured his interest; no man ever taught him love.
Castiel has tasted stardust, walked for miles at the bottom of the ocean. If he squints at the horizon on a clear day, he can see clouds shifting over Venus. But he had never been a part of anything. Not until Sam and Dean Winchester.
There was a plan once.
Plans are not solid, can be altered by the blinking of an eye or the way a water drop falls into a pool or by the strength of a little brother’s memory. This is not a lesson angels are taught in Heaven.
Castiel went billions of years with this as the foundation of his every action: God has decided Destiny, it cannot be undone. Time passes, but time has passed, and everything Castiel has been led to believe will happen is as good as over.
A rather insignificant creature told Castiel this was not the truth, and for some unknowable reason, he had listened. And he had been right to. Dean had not led him astray as his brothers had. Sam broke the plan, because Dean deviated, because Castiel made it possible. The three of them changed everything God had ever intended. Castiel used to believe he could see all of time: every moment of the past was his, he was everywhere in the present-but that future he took for granted is no longer any future at all.
He looks ahead and there is blackness, mystery, terrifying doubt. Castiel is proud of it. It belongs to him-just as much as it belongs to Sam or Dean-and it does not belong to Zachariah or Michael or even to God. Castiel never had anything of his own before.
The Winchesters were always meant to be Castiel’s Great Work. He has been tied to their bloodline since Adam first glanced in Eve’s direction, has known which couplings would lead to them and monitored centuries of ancestors with a removed, businesslike interest.
He felt nothing toward this task, not fear that he would fail or joy at having been chosen for something his superiors labeled as important. It was just another order and Castiel felt no more for it than he did when he arranged the patterns of distant constellations or chose the shape of a snowflake that would melt and be forgotten within moments.
Castiel was present when Dean Winchester was born. When Sam first tasted demon blood. When Dean first tasted Sam. It was of no interest to him if Dean stayed up too many nights rocking his brother to sleep. He did not care if Sam risked his life to impress his brother. If it was a sin for them to tremble as their bodies tangled, Castiel never stopped to condemn it.
But everything changed the first time he stood between the two brothers. Hanging in the air, there was something even they were not aware of, almost violent in its force-it choked the oxygen Castiel did not need to breathe right out of his vessel’s lungs. That was the first thing Castiel ever felt, and it was not his to experience.
He did not understand that it was love, could not interpret his response as envy. He just knew that it made him uncomfortable, and that he did not want to step away from it.
Now Castiel has felt things for himself. He was human once. He will always be human because of that. His Grace has been restored, but there is no way to squash away the fear or the loneliness or the desire that those few days of mortality incited in him.
Billions of years of life: Castiel remembers five weeks of them with anything even approaching consciousness. He remembers waking up and smelling the leather of Dean’s car, he remembers that this made him feel just the slightest bit safer. He remembers that Sam had looked at him sympathetically, had made sure to keep him fed when Castiel had not understood his own hunger. He remembers all too well the way his body had ached when Sam and Dean were in their separate room, loud cries echoing through the house, making Castiel suddenly piece together all of the things he had overlooked between them and why they mattered.
If anything was going to save the world, he knew, it was the unnamable sin in the next room. Castiel revered it and loathed it at once-not because it was indulgence but because it would never be his indulgence.
Sam and Dean did not pray the night before they stopped Lucifer. Sam and Dean whispered each other’s names. Castiel did pray, but he knows, even now, when they have emerged victorious and God has restored him and made him stronger than before, that the prayers meant less than the press of Dean’s lips to his little brother’s wrist.
Sam does not live to savor his victory. Dean hates their success more than he has ever hated anything. Castiel watches what the loss of his brother does to Dean, thinks of Sam locked in a worse place than either of them can imagine. He does not get much joy from winning, either.
There is a woman named Lisa. Dean goes to her because Sam demanded it. Dean does not know her, but he feels something for her, something Castiel has no hope of understanding. She seems afraid he will leave and afraid he will stay, but she welcomes him in, allows him to get away with much in the aftermath of his loss.
Months pass. If Dean is recovering, the improvements are too small for Castiel to see. He pretends more as the time drags on. Lisa convinces herself he is doing better. Castiel thinks Dean convinces himself, too. But there are times when he is alone and the façade washes away; Dean is more pathetic then than anything Castiel has witnessed.
He talks to Castiel often, just as he talks to Sam. Sam will never hear it, will never know. Castiel should not; Dean is supposed to be forgotten. His new task is in Heaven, he has his hands full (he does not have hands like this, Castiel realizes, half amused and half saddened by the way he still lingers on their expressions). But he sneaks away sometimes, not something angels should know how to do, and clings to his former charge.
“It’s his birthday, you know,” Dean says one day, eyes cast toward the ceiling. “Today is his birthday.”
He sits at the edge of his bed, the bed he shares with Lisa, and waits for approximately half a minute before sighing and continuing.
“I’ve never missed it in my life.” Dean smiles distantly. “I forgot mine one year, while he was at Stanford. Woke up three days later and realized I missed my own damn birthday. But not his. Never his. Not even when he wasn’t with me.”
Dean shakes his head. “Can’t celebrate now, though, can I?”
He laughs bitterly. “It’s been a year. I guess I should celebrate that, right? He saved the world, it’s supposed to be a good thing. Cas, come on. Just. It feels like no one remembers him. You remember, though. We oughta say thank you. He did it for us.” He wipes a hand over his mouth. “Please,” he whispers. “I don’t wanna be alone, man. Not today. I need someone to…”
He trails off, shrugging after a bit. He gets up then, goes downstairs to get a drink, even though it is not yet noon. Lisa and her son are at the zoo-she took off as soon as she got a look at Dean that morning, knowing he needed to be alone. It is true that she can do nothing for him now, but Castiel could. He stays at his station, feels a pang of something he remembers as guilt.
Dean drinks his way through the entire bottle and it does not seem to have much of an effect on him. He is as miserable as before, if a little sloppier when he tries to stand. He makes it back upstairs, crawls into bed. Castiel watches him close his eyes, does not avert his gaze when Dean opens his jeans and begins to work his hand up and down, looking profoundly bored with the activity. When he finishes, he lets out what is almost a sob and lies there staring ahead blankly with his cock out, his hand messy, until finally he turns over on his side.
“Fuck you, Sammy,” he says. Castiel hears genuine hatred mixed with the yearning and adoration. “Fuck you.”
Dean cleans himself up, falls back into bed, and sleeps the day away. He tosses and turns, makes the sounds of a threatened animal, and wakes up too many times, reaching for what should not be an empty space in his bed. Castiel does not technically have a heart, but it is broken, and he realizes he would rather let Heaven crash and burn than leave things the way they are a moment longer.
It took Castiel four months to pull Dean from Hell. That was with millennia of planning. Sam is buried twice as deep in the pit, at the very least, and there is no precedent Castiel can study for rescuing anyone from such a place. It should take centuries to dig him out.
However, Castiel is selfish now, has a motivation much, much stronger than what had driven him to save Dean. He cannot physically stand the moments that pass while the brothers are still separated.
One month after Castiel decides he must save Sam, or end his existence in the attempt, he feels a tiny electric wave pass through him-the first spark of Sam Winchester’s renewed life.
Sam returns to Earth just feet away from Dean’s doorstep. He stands outside and watches his brother through the window. His lips turn upwards just the slightest when Dean says something that makes the boy laugh. Sam turns away from the home then, face set as if he is going to leave, but before Castiel can panic or return to Earth to “tear him a new one” (as Dean would call it), he turns back. Sam was not raised to make sacrifices, not when it came to his brother’s love.
He strides to the door and knocks. Lisa’s face falls when she sees him, and she nods coolly, as if to an opponent she knows she can’t beat. There is no contest in the end between Sam and Lisa. Dean tries to do the right thing, but none of them know what that is, and Lisa knows what he really wants. They part amicably, but they do part.
Castiel is a poor judge of time. Everything humans do is terribly slow to him. He tries to give the brothers respect, knows what they want with time alone. But when he appears in their hotel room, they are not only not done, they have not quite begun.
Dean has three fingers inside of his brother when Castiel arrives. He is in his own world, and it is only when Sam startles and lets out a cry of surprise that Dean pauses.
He laughs. “Aww! Did I hurt you, virgin?”
Sam rolls his eyes, a rather uncomfortable expression that Castiel believes is supposed to be interpreted as disdain. “Dude, turn around.”
“Thought I was going first,” Dean replies.
“No, seriously, turn around.”
Dean looks vexed when he pulls his fingers back from his brother and turns, finding himself face-to-face with Castiel.
“I apologize,” Castiel says. “I did not realize you were fornicating.”
“Well, we’ve always been pretty subtle about it,” Sam replies, smirking as he pulls white sheets over himself modestly.
“Cas?” Dean asks. He sounds a little hurt, a little lost, a little like he cannot believe all the things he’s getting back at once.
Castiel sees a hidden vulnerability under his detached expression, and he wonders if Dean is worrying Castiel will tell Sam about the last year.
“I will return at a more convenient time,” he says, turning to avert his gaze from the brothers.
“Cas, wait,” Sam cries out from the bed, but Castiel has no intention of obeying the order. Even Castiel knows enough about social interaction to know any conversation he could try to conduct now would be discomfited.
He is surprised when he feels a hand curl around his arm and tug him back before he can vanish. He turns to question the touch, but he hardly gets to see that it is Dean holding on to him before Dean’s hands are on his face, his lips on Castiel’s.
Castiel does not respond. He does not know how to respond. He does not understand why Dean is doing it, why Sam is letting him, why he cannot bring himself to break the contact. Dean pushes closer to him, his lips more insistent. Passionate, and Castiel feels a spark of what he has only experienced from the outside. Dean is kissing him, this is no longer Castiel attempting to draw from what they share.
Dean pulls away and tugs at Castiel’s arm again, almost like an excited child. He points to Sam, to the handprint on his brother’s shoulder, the one that matches his own. Castiel winces seeing it. He did an imperfect job raising Sam. The skin holding his soul in is thin, so thin it's a miracle it's not broken. Sam's soul nearly shines out. It casts a faint orange glow, just enough to remind Castiel of his failure. He seared Dean's soul, as well, pulling him from Hell, but the healing had been complete by the time Dean had awoken. Sam did not fare as well in Lucifer's grasp. The angel left Castiel very little to grab onto.
“You saved him,” Dean says.
Castiel nods, fingers on his lips, not entirely capable of processing why this is significant when Dean just kissed him and Castiel had felt…loved. Not the shadow of someone else’s love. Castiel had felt it.
Dean turns back into him, hands gripping his face, forehead pressed against his as he smiles and murmurs almost nonsensically. “You saved him. You saved my little brother. First me and now Sammy. You gave me back…”
Dean does not finish, is kissing him again, and this time Castiel opens his mouth, tries to match Dean’s movements with his own. Sam still has not said anything but is sitting up watching them closely when Dean breaks away again.
“I…don’t know why he keeps doing that,” he explains, though he is not entirely sure Sam looks jealous.
Sam laughs. “I do,” he says, reaching out to squeeze his brother’s hand. Dean turns to look at him and does not turn back to Castiel.
This is, he thinks, an appropriate moment to leave. But Castiel’s feet feel as though they are bound to the floor, and he is no longer foolish enough to tell himself he does not know why he is reluctant to go.
“You just gonna stand there and stare?” Dean asks after a short time, turning to shoot Castiel an amused look over one shoulder.
“No. I am sorry. I should…”
Dean stands and tugs the sheet off his brother, revealing Sam’s nakedness underneath it.
“Lay back for me,” Dean says.
Sam swallows hard, his eyes darting to Castiel as he obeys his brother. He spreads himself wide once he is on the bed, closes his eyes, and waits. Sam does not know or care what his brother’s plans for him are. He trusts Dean completely, and Castiel cannot force his eyes away from the sight of him completely at their mercy.
Castiel has accepted sacrifices on God’s behalf before-that is what Sam looks like now: an offering waiting to be taken up by something divine.
“You want him, Cas,” Dean says, walking toward him. It is not a question.
Want? he wonders, letting the word sink into him, trying to decipher what it means. Castiel never wanted any of those gifts he took in Heaven’s name for himself. He is not supposed to know how to want.
But what falls from his lips is, “yes,” and Castiel has never been quite so sure of anything.
“I got him ready for you.”
Castiel shakes his head, tries to step back. “No, Dean, I can't.”
Dean laughs. “Yeah, you can.”
“You were-”
“Eh, no worries. I already popped his cherry once, right Sammy?”
“Blow me,” Sam replies.
“My blushing bride,” Dean says, winking one eye at Castiel. “Come on.”
Dean takes his hand and pulls him to the edge of the bed. “I’ll help you,” he promises, whispering right into Castiel’s skin as he circles him and begins to remove the articles of clothing Castiel had been planning on hiding under.
Castiel looks directly forward as Dean undresses him, eyes lingering on Sam. He is still on display, but he sits up against a wall of pillows watching them: biting his bottom lip so hard he might be drawing blood, fingers so tightly fisted in the sheets that his knuckles are white. He looks depraved, a threat to everything Castiel was taught to love in Heaven, and beautiful-so, so beautiful.
Castiel gives a start as Dean pulls down his pants, leaving him entirely exposed. He had been so distracted, he had lost track of Dean’s actions while he still had a tie around his neck. Dean laughs at his reaction, picking up a bottle and wetting his hands before wrapping them around Castiel. Castiel gasps at the touch, which only makes Dean grin wider. Castiel considers complaining when Dean draws his hands away, but then Dean inclines his head toward the bed.
“You know what to do, Cas,” Dean says hotly when Castiel does not move. “I know you’ve watched us.”
Castiel swallows hard and crawls onto the bed, but he cannot bring himself to do what is expected of him. He hovers over Sam wishing the hot ache gripping his body would subside and let him think.
“Don’t keep my little brother waiting.”
Castiel knows an order when he hears it. He sinks down into Sam, into what is either paradise or torture. He does not own this body anymore, has no control over the sounds that leave his lips or the way he rocks into Sam. Sam gasps, long fingers digging into Castiel’s shoulders. He pulls Castiel down and kisses him. “It’s okay, Cas, it’s okay,” Sam whispers, too low for his brother to hear, as one hand moves gently, soothing down Castiel’s body.
It doesn't feel like it is going to be okay, but Castiel does not contradict Sam.
“Good, Sammy?” Dean asks.
Sam bites back on a groan. “So good,” he says, pulling Castiel in closer. “It doesn’t feel like anything I’ve-Jesus, Dean he’s so hard.”
Castiel feels something work its way through him as the blasphemy leaves Sam’s mouth, something automatic and slightly painful, but Castiel does not respond the way he is supposed to. Instead of wrath, Castiel feels exhilarated and, although he cannot stop the angry snap of his hips, it does not seem to punish Sam at all. He cries out in pleasure.
Castiel hears the creaking of the mattress as Dean climbs up behind him, feels Dean’s hand run down his spine as he moves into Sam, but Dean’s touch no longer terrifies him the way it had moments ago. Not when he knows it leads to this, not when there is so much more happening under him than Dean is offering.
And then Dean manages to change the situation again, leaving Castiel to wonder how humans keep up with this. Dean is pushing a finger inside of him, one of the fingers that had been inside of Sam, and Castiel knows what that means for him.
He does not complain.
Dean’s other hand rests on his hip as his finger moves into Castiel, learning the way he rolls into his brother. He does not warn Castiel before he pushes a second finger in, or when he finds something inside of Castiel that explains why Sam is crying out the way he is. Castiel cries out, too.
“More?” Dean asks, a playful lilt to his tone. “Yeah, I’ve got more for you.”
This time, Castiel knows what is coming. It does not do him any good to be prepared. His hips stumble out of rhythm and he falls into Sam the moment he feels Dean's cock as it breaches him.
“No, no, no,” Dean whispers against his neck, giving it a light bite. “You take care of Sammy, or I’ll stop.”
Castiel knows only one thing right now, and it is that he does not want Dean to follow through with that threat. He takes a deep breath and pulls out of Sam briefly, regaining control of his body, sliding back down and finding a pace that agrees with Dean’s thrusts.
The brothers draw closer, lips joining over Castiel’s shoulder. When they break, Sam’s mouth finds Castiel’s and Dean kisses his neck.
They work together like this until Castiel feels something else building in him. Unsure of what it is, he attempts to suppress it, which makes Sam laugh, his head falling back.
Castiel moves down to suck at the exposed skin as Sam speaks, “It’s okay, Cas. It’ll feel good,” he promises. “I’ll do it with you.”
He lets go of the sheets and wraps his hand around his own cock, eyes locking with Castiel’s as he begins to stroke himself. Sam's other hand grasps Castiel’s forearm, fingers tightening to indicate that he is close. “Come on, just let it go.”
Castiel closes his eyes, glad his face is hidden in Sam’s skin, though he does not entirely understand why that matters. He feels something release inside of him and hears a muffled cry as Dean ducks down to cover his brother’s mouth. Castiel feels himself emptying into Sam and something hits his stomach. When he lifts his face, Sam grins at him.
“That’s the whole point,” Sam explains, pushing Castiel a little to put some space between their bodies. Sam runs a finger through the white mess on his own chest and smiles at Castiel.
“Open your mouth,” Dean tells him from behind.
Castiel does, accepting Sam’s offering, licking the thick white off his fingers. Dean moans then, and Castiel feels a warm, wet rush inside of him. His stomach clenches and he sucks harder at Sam’s skin, knowing that what he is tasting is the same as what he just filled Sam with, what Dean just filled him with, and somehow finding that extremely rewarding.
Dean pulls away from him with one last press of lips to his shoulder. This time it is gentle and warm. He whispers ‘thank you’ against Castiel’s back, but his voice is so low. Castiel is not supposed to hear it; Sam definitely does not. Dean does not know that Castiel can feel his words carving into his bones without needing to hear them.
Castiel copies Dean once he is situated on the bed and reluctantly pulls out of Sam. Sam gives one last soft sigh and moves over, offering Castiel a place between them in bed. Castiel lies there because he does not know what else to do, and Sam sits up on one side to face him, running a finger over his face and kissing him again.
The brothers fall asleep soon after that. Castiel vanishes.
He tells himself he is done with them. God knows, he was supposed to be done with them a year ago. He got his reward now, he had them for however brief a time, and he set things right. They can be happy, they can go on. Without him.
Castiel really hates that about them.
They don't, though. After all the trouble he went to just to get them their lives back, they still refuse to say thank you the right way, by letting him move on and do his work. He has all of Heaven to clean up, an army of brothers and sisters to teach how to run their own paradise, but he can hear every word they say once they invoke his name, and they don't do it sparingly.
He hates them for that, as well.
It's a very confusing time for him on the whole.
"Castiel."
He turns his head toward the voice, trying not to hear the same sound echoing from Earth. He would give away Heaven to learn how to tune them out.
"Yes, Rachel, what is it?"
She blinks at him blankly, oblivious to the sharpness in his tone. That's for the best. He didn't mean to snap at her. The men he is truly upset with cannot hear him, and at least one of them would only laugh if they could. "Raphael sent an envoy," she says. "They've brought his terms for peace."
Castiel shakes his head. "Send them back."
"You will not even hear them?" she asks.
"I already know what his offer will be," he says. "The terms will not be acceptable."
She disapproves, he knows. She does not grasp the implications of what Castiel is fighting to protect, none of his angels do. They are on his side only because they have chosen to interpret his resurrection as God's will. Rachel is unimpressed with Castiel's leadership, and well she should be. But he will not-cannot-give even an inch up to Raphael. He will not undo what the Winchesters won, even if it would end this war he no longer wants any part of.
He sighs as she exits the room and feels a hot burning, first on his arm, then intensifying as it spreads. The scorch is so forceful that he loses himself for a moment and finds himself on Earth when he opens his eyes. On Earth, at the end of their bed.
"What was that?" Sam asks.
Dean stares at his hand, then at Sam, and shakes his head. "I don't know," he says.
They're at opposite ends of the mattress, each on their back as if something flung them apart, but they move closer, slow and cautious. Sam reaches out and puts his hand over the faded pink fingerprints on his brother's skin. Castiel feels a tickle down his spine, but it's not until Dean mirrors his brother's action, presses his palm to Sam's arm, that the electric shock that called Castiel here from Heaven repeats itself.
He should not be surprised. The handprints he left on the brothers' shoulders were never just a mark. The quiet, nearly invisible bond he had forged to save Dean has burst into something impossible to suppress now that it has wrapped around Sam as well, physically manifested the connection between Sam and Dean's souls with Castiel's ties to the both of them holding it all together. It has been hard to think through the fire it sparks in him at the best of times, but now that they're touching each other where the bond is most intense, Castiel feels as useless as any human in the throes of passion.
They must be able to feel it too, like Dean never could when it was just him, because their eyes widen now as they hold each other. They lean in, kissing each other deeply before pulling away, and then they separate, bodies shaking. They should let go, Castiel thinks. It's too powerful for them to stand, too confusing for him. They should let go.
Sam turns his head in Castiel's direction, eyes searching the room. "Castiel?"
Castiel stays hidden. He does not want to get involved in this. He's been trying so hard not to get involved.
"We can feel you," Dean says, looking to his brother for confirmation. Sam nods, and Dean continues, "C'mon, Cas. That's just creepy."
Castiel drops the cloak; it's not much use to him at this point. "Hello."
Dean and Sam both laugh at that. "Hello?" Sam says. "That's what you've got for us?"
"I'm not entirely clear on what the protocol in these situations is," he admits.
Dean snorts and Sam smiles, rolling his eyes. "Funny. He's funny now."
"That's me rubbing off on him," says Dean. He smirks. "Literally."
"What the hell just happened, Cas?" Sam asks, pointing to his brother's arm.
"Ah, that," Castiel says, trying to sound casual. "I believe you've just discovered a bond I unintentionally created while lifting your souls from Hell. So, uh, just don't do it again, sorry for the confusion, and I hope you both have a satisfactory evening."
"Wait," Dean shouts before Castiel can return to Heaven. He stops, the same inability to turn away from Dean that possessed him last time taking hold. Castiel shivers and tries to make himself go. This cannot be like last time. "What does that mean, you bonded us?"
"Actually, you two were already bonded," Castiel informs them. "It'll just be life as you know it as long as you don't touch the handprints at the same time again, so there is nothing to worry about."
Sam shakes his head. "Cas, you felt it too, didn't you? That's why you came here."
"There is no precedent for a situation like this one. My involvement was unintentional," Castiel explains. "I did not create the link. But it was necessary to save you both."
"Hey, we're not mad," Sam says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. "We're just trying to figure out what's going on."
Dean relaxes back onto the bed, kicking his feet out confidently. "Hell, I liked it."
Sam licks his lips and looks to Castiel. "Did you like it?"
Castiel finds that his hands are a rather fascinating thing to look at. "It called me away from Heaven."
"That's not an answer," Sam insists. "Did you like it?"
"I'm very busy."
Dean laughs. "He definitely liked it."
Sam crawls to the end of the bed, reaching out to take Castiel's hand. Castiel looks at him, still intoxicated by the lust that called him here, and is momentarily impressed by how much naked flesh there is to tempt him. "You can stay," Sam offers.
"Yeah," Dean says from behind him. "Why watch the show when you can be in it?"
Castiel shakes his head, pushes Sam's hand away, and takes a step back. If he makes this a habit, he'll be lost. "I have to go," he says and disappears.
Their revenge is swift and unforgiving. They spend the next hour inside each other, their hands firmly sealed over the bond. An hour is less than nothing to an angel, but this one feels as if it lasts a year. It's a terrifyingly human way to experience time; Castiel tries not to think about that as he attempts to work despite the lust their every move shoots through him.
It's a good thing Castiel sent the envoys away. He would not be able to converse at a time like this. It would have been embarrassing.
He lets himself wander, his mind falling back to Earth like his body so desires to do. He would give anything to see them embracing the way he knows they are, hands gripping forearms tightly as Sam thrusts into Dean and Dean murmuring Sam's name, then Castiel's. They were beautiful like this, and he knows it would be just as good the second time. But he must settle for feeling them and nothing more.
Sam groans, following his brother's example. They're both saying Castiel's name as they come, like he's there, and he really might as well be. He knows just by thinking of them, he's making them feel good, and when their orgasms hit, Castiel feels an intense wave of euphoria wash through him.
He is able to enjoy it for a splinter of what would count as a second on Earth before his door opens without the courtesy of a knock.
He watches over them closely as days, weeks, a month slips from him. His war rambles on unchanging. Neither side gains an advantage. Sam and Dean are still hunting, just as invariable as Heaven. This is unsurprising; they have done little else in their lives. Like Castiel's brothers and sisters, who take orders so well and still fail to grasp that they can stop that now, Sam and Dean simply don't know another way.
The hunts are small now. The kind of thing Castiel was annoyed to see them expend their efforts on a year ago. He never understood the point of killing ghosts or vampires, not until this connection formed. It seemed so futile to go chasing after such small rips in God's plan when there was Lucifer to worry about.
Now he can feel the almost painful contentedness Dean experiences when he leads a child back to its parents unharmed. The sensation is addicting. Only one child. So little accomplishment in the larger scheme, but for Dean, for the part of Castiel that is Dean now, the sense of self-worth borders on blasphemy. No single angel is allowed such pride. What they accomplish, they accomplish together, and the praise all goes to God. Their father, who does not even seem to know or care what is being carried out in his name.
He sees Dean through Sam's eyes, as well. Or rather, he feels what Sam does when he looks. Hero. Not just to that little boy. Not just a mantra Dean repeats to himself to believe he matters. For Sam, it is absolute truth. What he sees when he looks at his brother would be enough to crush Hell and Raphael's threats forever if Castiel could only find a way to harness it.
"Hey, Cas." The words hit him like lightning bolts. "It's Sam. I know you can hear me."
Castiel should not go to him, but he's been so good about resisting lately. One day will surely not cost Heaven much.
"What do you want?"
Sam's body reacts with the same sense of electrocution Castiel's had when he'd heard the words up in Heaven. He turns, smiling at Castiel. "You came."
"What do you need?" Castiel asks more sharply.
"You," Sam answers, stepping forward.
Castiel responds by taking a step back, but is only rewarded with a greater temptation, Dean's hand on his shoulder from behind. "Hey, relax," Dean says.
"We're on a hunt," Sam tells him, pointing to the papers spread out on a table nearby. "Haunted house. Thought you might be able to help."
Castiel nods. "Are there demons there? Can they lead us to Crowley?"
Dean laughs at him, but not unkindly. "Nope."
"Does the location hold some kind of significance? A curse from Heaven perhaps or a gateway to-"
Sam's mouth pulls up into a grin. "It's just a haunted house, Cas. We think a vengeful spirit. Maybe a revenant, but probably just your average ghost."
Castiel blinks at them uncertainly. He is trying to understand their point, but what he thinks he's hearing is that they called him all the way from Heaven for a haunted pile of wood. "Why would you waste my time with this?"
Neither of the brothers seems to be put off by Castiel's response. Dean just places a shotgun in Castiel's hand and gives him a small smile. "I'll get the car," he tells Sam.
Sam watches him leave, then turns back to Castiel as soon as the door closes. "You were lonely," Sam says, patting him on the shoulder and steering him toward the door. "You can fight your war. You can stay away from us if that's what you want. But we can feel when you're lonely, and that we won't allow. So we're going on a hunt, and you're not getting out of it."
The job takes one-thirtyfifth of a millisecond. Castiel destroys the spirit as soon as he senses it. Their job is done before they walk through the door.
Sam and Dean don't listen when he tells them this, they just drag him inside to 'make sure there won't be any more trouble,' they say. Mostly they poke around the rooms while Castiel stands in the entrance trying to figure out what exactly he should be doing.
He can hear them shuffling through the rooms, the walls all worn too thin to block the sound out, but he doesn't suspect what they're up to until they meet up again in the front hall.
"We'll have to be careful on the stairs," Dean says when he's coming down. "A few of them are about three pounds from caving in."
"Hmm," Sam says. "Water in the kitchen's running. Nearly brown, but it's running."
"Not upstairs," Dean replies, shaking his head. "Looks like a goddamn horror movie set up there and smells even worse."
Sam nods, like he'd expected as much, and Castiel feels well and truly lost.
"Well," he says, looking over at Castiel. "What do you think? Can people live in it?"
"This foundation is unstable." Castiel shifts his feet and clears his throat. "The water, where it does run, leaks and is contaminated by bacteria and fungus, none of which are compatible with human immune systems. The blood on the walls has seeped in too deeply to be painted over instead of replaced. The roof might give way any moment. Frankly, I am surprised it has not yet. There are seven different species of varmint living inside of the building, and the land is too cursed by the long history of violent deaths to grow plants."
"It's ugly, too," Sam adds, wiping dirty hands off on his jeans. "But I don't think it always was."
Dean nods, gives Sam a look, and then nods again. "Alright," he says. "Sounds like we've got our work cut out for us."
Castiel suspected what their intention was, but he did not truly expect them to try to go through with it once they had a few days to reflect on the challenges of the situation. Sure enough, Sam and Dean spend the next few weeks returning to that house between hunts. Shuffling around. Bringing materials there that they pick up along the way. Castiel will not pretend to understand. He simply watches when he can.
They are trying to make it livable. It's astonishing, really, just how many times he can underestimate them. They did envision a life outside of their hunting routine, and now they're actually trying to build it.
He thinks, not for the first time, that humans have an incredible talent for imagination. If God had given angels this talent instead, his war would be done with by now. But then, if angels were humans, he wouldn't be so eager to get back to the Winchesters.
He joins them for more hunts along the way, even though they still feel frivolous. He isn't like them, he hasn't saved his world. He still has work to do. Instead he lets them pull him back to bed with them and can't really make himself believe he regrets it. The pleasure is always too intense.
This time it's a vampire nest near Milwaukee. Castiel decapitates two of the monsters, leaving the others for Sam and Dean, and only uses his grace to decimate one that is too far from him to reach before he sinks his teeth into Sam's shoulder. The brothers, Castiel has learned, do not get the same enjoyment from hunts when Castiel vanquishes all of their enemies from the start. Even though this way is messy and needlessly risky, this is the way they prefer.
Of course, it ends badly. Castiel did try to tell them.
Sam has a slice in his thigh, blood soaking too quickly through the denim of his pants. Castiel watches it seep out of him, observing Dean's concern, and puzzles over how this waste is preferable to a quick clean completion of the job. He is no one to argue with their ways, however. Castiel is just a guest amongst them.
"Take us back to the motel," Dean says, looking up at Castiel. He's got Sam's head cupped in his hand, and he's trying to look reassuring, but he is scared out of his wits. "I gotta get him stitched up."
Castiel nods, blinking and setting them back where the day started, with Sam on the bed, silently clenching his fists to try to distract himself from the pain.
"Move," Castiel tells Dean, and Dean does it immediately, giving way so that Castiel can draw close. It takes a brush of his fingers to close Sam's punctured skin. He presses a bit harder, until the wound is completely healed.
Sam makes a surprised, breathy sound, and Dean murmurs something. Then the brothers are pressed on either side of Castiel, kissing him wherever they can reach him. He doesn’t know if it's thanks or if the whole thing was a trap to get him right here, but he doesn't particularly want an out, so he doesn't look for one.
They make him feel human when they fuck him.
"Now's the best time to start working on it," Sam says, unloading a pile of wood from the Impala's trunk into Castiel's arms. "Still got most of the summer left. We can get a lot of work done before it starts getting cold. Move in by the fall, maybe."
Castiel looks down at the timber in his hands and back up at Sam. He blinks, because he has nothing to say. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"Take it up to the house," Sam says with a smile. "I'm gonna make another run to the hardware store, but you and Dean can lay things out."
"I thought we were going to hunt," Castiel says, still too confused to put any force into his words. "Not carry wood into a house."
"Our house. Bobby had some money saved up, and he figured he doesn't have much use for it at this point. Place was dirt cheap." Dean comes up behind him, putting one hand on each of his shoulders and steering him up the broken path toward the house. "C'mon man, it'll be a nice day off for you."
"I'm fighting a war. I don't get days off."
"Sure you do. And you're spending this one helping us out. We need all the manpower we can get," Dean tells him as he walks Castiel to the door. "You should have seen the expression on the real estate agent's face when we told her we were gonna try and renovate. Like she thought we were crazy." Dean stops to open the door, which swings open without a key. He looks back at Castiel and laughs. "Like that, yeah. She looked just like that."
Castiel follows him inside and sets the wood down by the door where Dean points. He dusts off his hands and straightens to meet Dean's eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
Dean is leaning against the wall, and his fingers drum on the peeling wallpaper for a long few seconds before he looks down at the floor, shrugging his shoulders. "Lots of reasons. Can't be a hunter forever, right?"
Castiel nods. He supposes that's true for humans. "But why stop now? Here?"
Dean licks his lips. "I got used to it with Lisa and Ben," he says. "Living like a normal person, I mean. I didn't mind it. It had its good points."
Castiel can tell there's more to it. He's not sure if that's the bond or if he's just learned to read Dean well enough by now. He hopes it's the latter. "And your brother?"
"Sam…" Dean scratches the back of his neck. "Sam's doing real good, considering. You-you did a good job bringing him back."
Castiel winces, suddenly realizing the real reason behind all of this. They don't want to stop hunting. Dean doesn't not want to be a hero. Castiel just did an imperfect job raising Sam. "He can't handle the job?" Castiel asks.
Dean shakes his head. "It's not that simple, Cas. He's fine most of the time. He's still a great hunter. Most of the time."
"How bad is it?"
"When it's bad, it's real bad. But, Cas, he's got it under control 90% of-"
"How bad?" Castiel repeats, his voice firmer.
"He sees Lucifer. Pretty much all the time as far as I can tell. He has nightmares-no surprise there. He, uh, hallucinates sometimes. Thinks he's being tortured. Screams like he can feel it and everything." Dean's eyes grow more distant as he speaks. Castiel can only imagine the horrors he's reliving. He shakes his head and blinks a few times, as if he's coming back to himself, then gives Castiel a weak smile. "Those are the worst. He doesn't recognize me when they happen. It scares me. Don't even want to imagine one of them happening while he's got a gun in his hand or a ghost on his tail."
Castiel frowns. "If I'd saved him faster-"
"Don't do that, Cas. Don't. You saved him. You brought him back. He's only human, he was never gonna come back from that without a little damage, but he's in one piece and that's no thanks to me."
Castiel shakes his head and looks down at the ground, and Dean moves forward, putting a hand on his wrist and squeezing. "Sam's always wanted something like this. You're lucky, you know, he'd mostly shut up about it by the time you showed up. You didn't have to hear about it or watch him-" Dean cuts himself off with a laugh, and Castiel wonders at the fact that after all of their betrayals and suffering, Stanford is still the wound Dean will never be able to let go of. "Man, you got nothing to feel sorry about. I think he's secretly really goddamn smug that I ended up having to be the one to suggest we slow down. And…it's good for us. I never thought we'd get to stop, always thought I'd die bloody. And I was fine with that, but I never wanted it for him. Never expected to save the world, either, and now that that's done, I dunno. I think it's okay that we're letting ourselves off the hook."
"So this is really what you want, Dean?"
Dean nods, smiling as he presses in. "This is what we want," he says, tipping Castiel's chin up and sealing their lips together. He kisses Castiel for what feels like an eternity and then pulls away. "Cas, there are three bedrooms upstairs. I know it's not much yet. But we're gonna fix her up. And when we do, there'll be room for everyone. Sam and I, even when we're fucking, we've always had our own beds. A room though, imagine. A little place to go back to, all our own, for when we're pissing each other off. You ever had anything like that to yourself, Cas? I sure haven't. Even when the little bastard went off to school I could hear him bitching away in the passenger's seat."
This body, which his vessel so sorely regretted letting him have, is the most space Castiel has ever been able to call entirely his own. A whole room, no matter how small or how broken the house around it, sounds like paradise.
Paradise. Castiel frowns. "I have to go back to Heaven, Dean. My brothers-"
"I know," Dean says. "We get it. And we get that it's important to you. But, just. If the war ever ends, Cas, and if you make it out the other end. We've got room for you here." Dean leans in and kisses him again. "You just gotta get out alive, okay? Get out alive."
The door opens again, admitting more sunlight than the windows and the cracks in the wood had been doing. Dean steps back from Castiel, shielding his eyes, but Castiel keeps his hands anchored low on Dean's back.
"You two having all the fun while I'm hard at work?" Sam asks. His hands are full of bags, and Dean grins wickedly as he steps forward to take some of the weight from his brother. The look he gives Sam holds such promise that Castiel can feel a hot flush as it passes through him.
"Anything else in the car?" Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head 'no.' "This town doesn't have all the materials we're gonna need. No big surprise there. I could only get the basics."
Castiel watches them with confusion, then snaps his fingers. Both of the brothers look up staring first at him and then around the room. The lights are working, the floor is brand new and made of hardwood, gleaming and polished. There's a fresh coat of paint on the walls.
"What'd you do?" Sam asks, his voice caught somewhere between cross and amused.
"If this is what you want," Castiel shrugs, "there's no need to spend the summer working on it."
Sam shakes his head. "No. It's not-it doesn't mean the same thing if we just let you snap your fingers and fix it. It's not ours."
Castiel tilts his head, watching Sam curiously. "But Dean said that you already own it."
Dean laughs, patting Castiel on the back. "Nah, man. Put it back. We're gonna fix this place with our bare hands, like men." Sam snorts and Dean shoots him a look before continuing, "If you're gonna help, you're gonna have to pretend you're human."
They really do have the most frustrating fondness for making things complicated that Castiel has ever encountered. He raises his hand, but Sam reaches out to stop him.
"Uh, you can leave the foundation. It'll be nice to know that's not about to cave on us, at least."
"And the air conditioning?" Dean says hopefully. Sam gives him a flat look, and Dean sighs. "Alright, alright. Just the foundation."
Castiel snaps his fingers and in the blink of an eye, the house around them is again a decaying heap of what Dean would normally call shit. But it's a shit heap with a solid foundation, so that's something at least.
ON TO PART TWO