FIC: i can see your halo (2/2)
Title: i can see your halo (2/2)
Author: pesha
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R-ish
Warnings: sexual connotation/discussion, general Winchester angst
Spoilers: All of Season Six; This contains a few bits and snatches of dialogue lifted straight from the show, so if you haven't seen season six, I wouldn't read it.
Word Count: 16,634
Challenge: Written for angel_kink for deancastiel's Everlasting Birthday Challenge.
Prompt: There is not enough HALO FIC out there. I've only ever read two and it's seriously under represented! You can do whatever you want with the plot, but try to have a canon setting please.
Notes: This is technically AU from 6x12 "Like a Virgin," but it does use as much canon as I could throw in there and still have halo!Cas. I do sincerely hope that you enjoy it!
Thanks: Thanks to la_rubinita and the folks at ficfinishing for listening to me as I muddled through my first story in an era. I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate Harley and Lala for putting up with me as I edited a lot. Thanks, folks. I appreciate you.
~*~
Part One
Shockingly enough, Dean returned to the room with food and found his brother and the angel sitting in silence. They had moved from their respective beds to the chairs and they had obviously both found clothing for the day. He wasn't surprised to see that Sam hadn't showered or that Cas had returned to wearing the trench coat. He was surprised to see that neither of them were even pretending to be doing anything other than watching the door, waiting on him to return.
Dean decided to laugh it off.
They needed a little humor in their lives while they could still enjoy it. After all, he'd already secured himself a trip back down to Hell; Dean knew from personal experience that he ought to find all the enjoyment he could on Earth to make up for what was waiting downstairs. It might as well be his job to make up for the complete lack of humor that Sammy insisted on showing daily.
"Sam I get. He's stalking the door because he needs me -the successful hunter-gatherer of our dynamic duo- to return with food for his gigantic self to keep him from going all Godzilla on the locals and eating tourists in a frenzy. What's your excuse, Cas? Did you just miss me?"
Dean gave the angel his best shit-eating grin-wink combination.
His brother snagged the bag of food from him and began to unpack what Dean had managed to scrounge for them from the nearest diner. The place had been equipped with the same menu of fast and greasy that they'd come to expect from every other diner exactly like it over the years; Dean hadn't been too picky about what he'd ordered.
He had left because he needed space: to think, to deal, to adjust.
The food was a bonus. To Hell (again) with Sammy if he didn't like that Dean had gotten him a cheeseburger instead of the chicken salad. Dean had remembered to tell them to hold the mayo and hadn't insisted on adding bacon to Sam's even though he still thought that eating a burger without bacon should be labeled as a capital offense in all fifty states and possibly the US Virgin Islands.
"I was concerned for you, Dean. Your departure was abrupt and my abilities to monitor you are severely limited due to the Enochian sigils inscribed into your bones. I am also having difficulty monitoring large areas."
Castiel admitted the last of it as if he were apologizing for some grave offense. Dean wasn't sure what it meant that his guardian angel was apologizing for telling him that he couldn't use his holy satellite connection to make sure he wasn't ravaged by zombies on his way to get burgers and fries. It sent a twinge of discomfort through him that had him rubbing his chest.
This was his fault.
"Sorry about that, Cas. I guess it goes without saying that I won't do it again. Here! Burger. I know they're your favorite. I got it the way I liked it since I don't think I know you've ever expressed a preference."
He retrieved the wrapped burger from the bag to hold out as a peace offering. Dean still couldn't look at the angel directly without being reminded of what a complete moron he'd been to grab-halo-first-ask-questions-later. His halo was spinning in constant lazy motion that Dean knew would suck him in if he let his eyes catch on it.
After taking a breather to retrieve food, Dean refused to let himself think that he now almost considered the dark mark on the bright ring...awesome.
Castiel took the proffered sandwich from his hand with his customary level of seriousness, "Thank you, Dean. I appreciate your consideration."
"Yeah," Sam added with a dry cough, "You're very thoughtful, Dean. I'm glad you managed to think enough of my arteries to decide to leave off the bacon and the mayo. The lettuce is a nice surprise, too. They didn't have a salad?"
The jibe was familiar. Relaxing. Dean let himself smirk as he leaned against the wall by the small table to eat his own burger.
"What can I say? I looked the menu over, thought about it, then realized I had a reputation to uphold and decided a burger wouldn't kill you. You can stand to eat something good for a change. If it makes you feel so bad after, you can always just jog to the next town instead of ride. I know it'd definitely be good for my health."
Castiel looked from his untouched burger to Dean, "Where is the next town? I was unaware that you had a new lead."
The truth was that they didn't have a next plan. They were winging it -not as literally as the angel, of course- as per their usual. Dean was going to make a crack about how Cas was supposed to be working on that whole don't-take-everything-so-literally thing, but his words got stuck in his throat by the choked hand print spiraling around Cas's head.
Sam took that as his cue to save Dean with a quip about how plans were overrated and wholly against the Winchester Way. It was true, funny, and distracting enough to have the moment pass without comment. It didn't relax Dean enough to make it easy for him to look at the angel again though. He settled for eating his own burger while making a study of the floor. Funny how all these rooms seemed to have the same bad carpeting; Dean wondered if they were all built by the same company. Likely.
...and he was considering how cheap motels were built. It was official: Dean was going back to Hell because he touched an angel's special angel part and this was only the beginning of his torment.
"Cas? Don't you have a war front to fly back to?"
Sam had been mid-sentence about some kind of weather pattern in the midwest when Dean had spoke. He sucked in a breath that was audibly shocked.
"Dean!"
Somehow he managed to even make Dean's name sound bitchy when he said it. Dean still had no idea how he did that. He'd done it enough over the years that Dean should have been used to it by now, but he wasn't. It grated every time and set Dean's teeth on edge which was part of the reason why Dean might have admitted to sounding a little more pissed off than necessary when he replied back.
"Sam! I'm just saying. Lately, if you bother to show up, you're in a hurry to get gone again as soon as possible. Now you want to hang out with us all of a sudden?"
Dean forced himself to look Castiel in the eye as he asked. Cas deserved that much. His voice might have been angry and the tick in his jaw certainly was, but Dean's eyes were pleading with the angel to understand what he wasn't able to say. He couldn't say what he really wanted to because that wasn't part of the Winchester Way.
The angel lay his burger down on the table -still uneaten- and stood easily enough. He was as unflappable as ever from what Dean could tell and that? That was more than comforting in Dean's book. He needed Cas to be okay. Dean had fucked up enough in his life without the worry that he might have managed to fuck up Cas too.
"I do have a war front to get back to. Yes, Dean. You're right. Call me if you need me. I will---leave the ringer on."
It would have been funny if Dean hadn't been watching Cas's face when he disappeared. It was only a second, a breath of time, but the angel's implacable facade had broken in the moment before he'd vanished and the break hadn't been a good one.
It had been pained.
Dean collapsed into the chair the angel had just vacated and held up a hand to ward his brother off.
"Don't. Sam. Just don't."
Sam didn't and they spent the rest of the evening mapping out where the road would take them to next.
~*~
Sam won’t stop picking. The road had taken them backwards to a town where Sam had evidently already been and it was as if every fear Dean had in his head was coming to life. Death had warned him that Sam couldn’t pick at the wall.
Death hadn’t said that Sam shouldn’t do it or it wouldn’t be a good idea to do it or that doing it might give him a headache or something. Death had said Sam couldn’t pick at the wall he’d built around his memories.
Dean had tried to explain that to Sam, but it was like he was speaking angel to him or something because his brother had simply nodded, blank and uncomprehending, and Dean had no idea what to do about it. He couldn’t get why Sam refused to take Death’s warning seriously. It wasn’t as if Death had a great sense of humor or something. The guy didn’t just say shit to hear himself talk unlike certain demons who should not be named.
He sighed as he flipped his phone open to follow up with Bobby on the whole thing.
“Tell me you have a suggestion for what I can do to convince him to back off the wall. He’s not listening to me. It’s like he thinks Death was joking or something when he said not to try to remember. Last I checked? Death didn’t have a very good sense of humor.”
The sigh on Bobby’s side of the line was tired, as tired as he’d ever heard it, but Dean didn’t hear the tell-tale clink of glass hitting glass which meant that he wasn’t drinking. It was still a good day when Bobby wasn’t drinking to survive it. That was Dean’s take on it, anyway.
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t think there’s any way to win this one. Sam’s going to do what he’s going to do and you and me? We’re just going to have to work to find a way to fix him when he breaks again.”
It wasn’t even a question of if Sam would break, but when. Dean refused to comment on how fucked up that was because he knew there was no point. It would be no more than pissing in the wind if he bothered to try. He was scowling at the price of gas at the station across the street from him when Bobby caught him off guard.
“On another note, I heard from the man himself that you’ve been slipping your hand under Castiel’s angelskirt. What’s that about? Have you gone and decided you’re acknowledging your profound bond with Castiel by embracing your angelsexuality?”
“What?” Dean croaked, “Bobby, man! Not cool. Not cool at all.”
“You’re the one who’s jeopardizing the fate of the free world by going around molesting angels left and right. One wasn’t enough? You tryin’ to start a collection now?”
Dean was thrown enough that he couldn’t come up with anything witty to say in return. He couldn’t even think of a single comeback that wasn’t ’I swear I didn’t mean to’ and how friggin’ ridiculous was that?
It wasn’t as if he’d gone out of his way to try and slip one in on Cas. He was Cas. The guy literally redefined personal space on a daily basis. Dean hadn’t figured he’d care one way or another if someone copped a feel of his shiny parts. Come to that, Cas himself had considered it fair play seeing as how he’d had his angelmitts all over Dean’s own special human parts when he was pulling him soul-first out of Hell.
“Whatever. I’m an idiot. I shot first and aimed later. Nobody died from it. Moving on.”
Weak, but at least he’d managed something. He’d picked his jaw back up off the road if nothing else.
Bobby was feeling kind or something because he did let it slide with a gruff rejoinder that said he wished he had been drinking before Dean called. It also let Dean know that he likely would be drinking as soon as Dean snapped his phone closed. If he were Sam, he’d pull out his best bitchface and couple it with a knowing whine to try to convince the old man that drinking wasn’t the answer.
Dean wasn’t Sam though and he’d long since given up trying to be. He wasn’t the good brother in the family no matter what Heaven might want to say on the subject.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean interrupted Bobby’s tirade on the damned dragon book, “Bring you the dragon book. Keep my hands off Cas’s angel parts. I got it. I’ll see you as soon as I can load Sammy up and get there. Try not to drink yourself into liver failure in the meantime.”
Hey. At least he said something.
Dean distinctly did not let himself think about how long it would take him to drive to Sioux Falls or how much liquor Bobby could drink before he could get there. He didn’t think about what it meant that Sam had mentioned his little angelic indiscretion to Bobby and he definitely didn’t attribute the flush of his face to a friggin’ blush of shame from being called out on what was so completely not hanky-panky business with Cas of all people.
Just for the sheer fact that he’d had to endure that conversation, Sammy was listening to Skynyrd on loop through Arkansas.
And Dean was going to sing along.
On every song.
Yeah.
That would just about make them even.
Just about.
~*~
It turned out that Dean hadn't been worrying in vain when Sammy kept picking at the damned wall until he had a breakthrough on the arachne case. Sure, it was good enough to get them the assist they needed to get through the case alive, but it wasn't worth it in the end as far as Dean was concerned. They still had to kill the thing, hadn't managed to find out anything from it that was more useful than there-are-more-of-us-creepy-bastards-than-you-know, and his brother had wound up in a shaking pile on the floor.
Dean had watched Sam hit the floor and felt as if Cas had finally made good on his threat to toss him straight back into the pits. Honestly, he'd be hard-pressed to say whether or not he wouldn't voluntarily jump back into Hell if it meant he never had to see his kid brother writhing in torment from memories of the place.
He'd called for Castiel without thinking about it. It had been instinctual, a knee-jerk reaction, and Dean had immediately regretted it as soon as the angel materialized in front of him. His eyes sought out the halo where it was circling in a strange, vibrating way that indicated worryfearalarm to Dean and being able to see it doing that, to see a part of the angel that he should not have ever been privy to, was unnerving.
A half-remembered quote floated through his mind about how some things were not meant for human minds to know; Dean waved a hand at Sam. That was something he could focus on: fix Sam. They could both focus on that and it wouldn't be weird. It wouldn't be weird at all.
"Sam's been poking at the wall. He remembered stuff and now he's...you see him! What do we do? Can you fix him?"
The angel's brow furrowed, "I warned you about this, Dean. His soul was in tatters. Literally shredded and torn in ways that I cannot even contemplate without being overwhelmed with pity for what he must have suffered in Hell. If he has created a breach in the protective barrier Death placed around his memories, there will be nothing you or I can do to save him from that."
Dean's jaw clenched in reaction. He would not be told there was nothing he could do. There was always something that could be done. They were Winchesters. Winchesters didn't believe in never unless it was in reference to 'never give up.'
He reached down to heave Sam up from the floor, ignoring the pull in his shoulders from Sam's weight. It didn't surprise him when Castiel lent a hand, but the way the angel shifted his brother's bulk mostly off Dean and onto his own slighter frame was a little jarring. Dean wondered if Castiel realized that his vessel shouldn't be able to pull off some of the moves he managed in it and then realized the answer was likely yes.
They carefully lay Sam down on his bed; afterwards, they spent a few moments trying to each do something to arrange his limbs to a more comfortable position. When Sam looked as if he was as comfortable as a comatose guy could get, they both stopped. Dean stopped to try to catch a glimpse of what the halo was doing while Cas seemed to simply...stop.
"Thanks for...coming," Dean managed.
His voice wasn't exactly grateful sounding, but it was the thought that counted, right? Dean was trying to convince himself that it wasn't Castiel's fault that the angel couldn't touched-by-an-angel away the damage to his brother's soul. It wasn't something he had a lot of knowledge about. For all Dean knew, the only one who could heal a soul was The Big Man Himself and he was still MIA.
Cas gave him a wry smile and his halo lowered slightly closer to his head to lazily rotate, "You are welcome, Dean. Of course."
Dean forced a return smile and nodded. He sank onto the side of his own bed to stare uneasily at his brother. Silence fell between them broken only by the sound of breathing and Dean was lulled into a sense of calm until Castiel spoke again.
"I would do more for him if I could."
He looked up at Castiel in surprise, eyes catching immediately on the golden ring that was mussing the angel's hair on every oblong revolution. Dean forced his eyes down to meet the angel's instead. Somehow the intensity of direct eye contact with the angel had lessened since Dean could see more than a glimpse of the real being inside Jimmy Novak's meatsuit.
Dean surprised them both with his response.
"I know."
It was true though. He did know. Dean knew beyond a shadow of doubt that Castiel would do anything, give anything, to be able to help Sam. He still wasn't sure why the angel would do so much for his brother, but Dean knew that was likely because he was unwilling to ask rather than he thought Castiel wouldn't answer him if he did.
He nodded at the plastic chair by the window.
"Take a load off. We could be here a while."
The angel moved stiffly to the chair and sat. He placed his hands on his knees and fixed his eyes on Dean, calm and implacable as ever as long as Dean didn't let his eyes wander too far up.
"I've got nothing but time, Dean. I am...glad to wait with you."
Dean knew he was too. He'd have said thanks again for it, but it was enough that he held the angel's eyes and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. Dean had learned early on in their friendship that the angel might not be good with words all the time, but he always understood the things that went without saying.
Sticking with him while he waited out Sammy's latest breakdown?
It went without saying that Dean was grateful for that.
~*~
Sam had come back to himself and their world had kept turning. They'd worked another job and it---it hadn't been great. They'd saved a dirtbag who most likely deserved the terrific punishment the ghost had wanted to dish out and, in doing so, had been forced to watch as an innocent woman had died. A good person, a nice girl, had had to die to see the job done. Dean hadn't been coping with it well and neither had Sam. They'd needed a few moments apart. Sam wanted the room to himself; Dean had decided to take a drive and, on that drive, had decided to call Cas to check in on him.
Cas had shown up and then Dean hadn't been able to come up with anything to say. All the things he'd wanted to talk about -the unfairness of seeing that young woman die so the dirtbag could live, how it was always the janitor, how Sam wouldn't stop scratching at the wall, all of it. The words had simply stuck in his throat, lodged there behind the ones that wanted to analyze the shining halo that he could still see after all this time. A half hour passed where all Dean could do was watch for the flash of his smudged handprint on Cas's angel part while Cas watched him in return.
That was it. That was completely it, Dean decided.
"Dude! Can you do something about the halo? It is seriously distracting!"
Castiel replied with his best I-mean-serious-business voice, "No. In my defense, I have often felt the same about your face."
A muscle ticked in Dean's jaw as he tried to control his reaction. He was doing okay with it until he noticed that the angel's eyes were tracking the movement and his halo had scrunched down closer to his head. It was as if he was waiting to see if Dean would react badly to being told that Cas was often seriously distracted by his face and that was friggin' hilarious no matter how Dean looked at it.
He let out a bark of laughter that turned into a full-out belly laugh which had tears leaking from his eyes as Cas's damned halo lit up like The Little Halo That Could and shot up a good foot over the angel's head to spin as if its life depended on it. Dean guessed that was "happy" in halospeak and that was funny enough to have him lose his breath all over again. It felt so good to laugh that he let himself have it for a while.
Neither of them could fix Sam's soul, the world was likely still in Grave Danger, and Dean may or may not have unwittingly fulfilled some kind of Major Prophecy by pulling a sword out of a big rock. It had taken him an embarrassing length of time to realize that the difference between him and Sam now was the sword; Dean still didn't know what that meant.
Anyway, Dean figured he deserved a few minutes to forget about all of that and lose himself in laughter. Cas even laughed with him. A little. Okay, it might have been more of a chuckle, but it was good enough for Dean considering how bright and crazy his halo was behaving. For all Dean knew, the halo was doing the Hilarity Dance.
It surprised him how much he hoped that was true. Dean liked the idea of being able to make the serious angel laugh way more than he imagined he should. He liked the idea of making Castiel feel anything more than he should.
The thought sobered him enough to regain control of himself. He was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand when Cas got around to asking him what they had been laughing about. That didn't surprise Dean at all.
"Why was that so amusing?"
Dean shook his head, "Cas, this is one of those things that...well, let's just say it wouldn't be funnier in Enochian."
"Of course it wouldn't be, Dean. Angels don't have faces in the sense that---"
He couldn't help it. He was laughing and he couldn't stop and Dean wasn't sure if he could ever look at the angel again without having a thousand "your face" jokes run through his head. Naturally Cas wouldn't get any of them since angels don't have faces which had to be the best trump to a Your Face joke that had ever been told.
Waving a hand in surrender, Dean choked out, "Please. Cas. Stop talking. You're killing me. I would pay to have you tell Sam that my face frequently baffles you, but he'd know I put you up to it and I can't even. Man. The next time I need a comeback? I am completely stealing the line 'Angels don't have faces.' Just telling you now."
Castiel nodded as seriously as Dean had ever seen him. His halo was still super bright and super spinning which had to mean they were good. It was good. Hell, with the laughing? It was great from where Dean was sitting.
He shouldered his sword and shook it off, "C'mon, Cas. Get your shiny head in the car and we'll try to get back to Sam before our happy has a chance to wear off."
The angel darted a look up at the air above his head, then back to Dean. It was clear he was trying to see what Dean was seeing. Dean wondered if he could.
"It looks brighter to you? Now?"
Dean nodded his agreement to avoid speaking. There was the chance that Cas would let it go. He could try at least. It wasn't as if they hadn't spent enough time today talking about how much attention Dean was paying to the halo when Cas was around. If he admitted to much more awareness of the thing, even Cas might get the wrong idea.
He wasn't even going to touch with the business end of his dragonsword the fact that it might not be the wrong idea.
Dean had developed halo-vision, not grown ovaries.
Cas slid into the car opposite Dean, taking up Sam's space with a kind of casual ease that no one else had ever managed. He shut the door firmly -without slamming it as Sam had a tendency to do- and Dean was struck anew at how bright the damned halo was when they were enclosed in the relatively small space of the front seat.
"You can perceive changes in its intensity?" Cas persisted.
Dean tried for another nod as he started the car.
"Dean?"
He sighed. So much for keeping up the happy, Dean decided. Of all the things to pick up from his brother, Cas had learned how to make his name sound like a bitchy curse word. Great.
"Yeah. Okay? I can tell when it's brighter or when it spins crazier and I can see it move up and down. If it's doing anything? I can likely see it. Trust me, man. I can see it."
Castiel settled back into the seat and became still, motionless as they drove. Dean knew that was his typical Thinking Mode, but it was nerve-wracking after he'd pretty much admitted to being able to see the angel's soul changing. It had to be a little freaky to Castiel too. He literally couldn't imagine a world in which it wouldn't be freaky to hear that some random guy was watching his inner thoughts play out via halo-vision.
"I'm sorry," Dean offered as the silence stretched out between them too long.
"What are you sorry for, Dean? I do not understand."
He didn't either. Dean could tell from the sound of his voice. He didn't even need to take his eyes off the road to check the halo out.
"For, you know, looking. I'd turn it off if I knew how I'd turned it on in the first place."
Castiel, Angel of the Lord, surprised Dean all over again with his awesomeness when he responded with simply, "I know."
Dean supposed it was totally fine that they got each other as well as they did. They did share a...well, they'd been through a lot together. There was nothing wrong with that.
It wasn't weird, Dean reassured himself.
It was just another part of the life of Dean Winchester.
~*~
The first thing Dean did after he got back to his life -his real, hunter life- was grab the freakin' awesome Sword of Bruncvik and tell Sam he was going out. They had learned from Bizarro TV World that their counterparts didn't talk to each other. That he and Sam weren't really brothers. That their lives were complete without each other or hunting or angels or all the things that meant anything to Dean and Dean? Dean needed to reaffirm that he was himself again.
Sam nodded at him and that was it.
His brother understood. They didn't need to talk about it. It wasn't that they didn't talk like those Bizarro World actor guys. It was that they didn't need to talk all the time. Some things were simply understood.
The ball field was abandoned for the season. It was far enough off the beaten track that Dean wasn't worried about pulling off there. He left the car with a fond pat to her hood while he took the sword down to the field to swing it for a while. It was still unbalanced, still worn, and any magical secrets it held it was still keeping them to itself. That didn't mean that Dean didn't feel like the best version of himself when he was working with it.
He was panting for breath when his alone time was interrupted by the familiar sound of wings.
Dean wiped his arm across his forehead while he looked over at Castiel. The angel was sporting a chastised look that was only emphasized by the cowed idling of his halo. It was almost more than Dean could do to look at him, but the halo was different. Dean could look at the halo all freakin' day. The thing was more entertaining than late night pay-per-view's finest offerings.
"Would you like to touch it?"
Dean started. Okay, so he'd been caught staring at the angel's halo again. It was becoming routine enough that it no longer brought him out in a sputtering fit or caused his face to flush like a teenager, but it was still damned uncomfortable to be called on. The thing was seriously distracting though.
Castiel could be calm as ever, face set as a wall, but that halo gave him away every time.
If he was looking at it when anyone asked Cas a question, Dean could tell exactly how it affected the angel. A question he didn't want to answer made the halo dim, hover down lower to the crown of his head, where a question that he hadn't thought about made it light up brighter than sunrise and soar far enough above his head that Dean could have stuck his whole arm into the space it left behind. Worrying questions made the rotation tilt to a strange, wobbling angle, whereas some questions simply made the damned thing start spinning fast enough to make Dean's stomach turn from looking at it.
It was cool.
There was no other way to say it.
Not that Dean knew of anyway. Eloquence still wasn't his strong point.
Would he like to touch it? Hell yes, he'd like to touch it, but Dean could still see the evidence of the last time he'd touched it since it had left a definite impression on the spinning ring. There was a silver blur that came around every revolution now and it was in the same position as the dark smudge from the diner. Dean didn't have to be eloquent or a genius to figure out that was his handprint burned into Castiel's angel part.
"I don't think that's such a good idea, Cas."
Cas nodded slowly, his expression as intense as ever on Dean's face, but the spinning ring crouched low enough on his head that it was practically singeing his messy hair. The halo's rotation was a sluggish turn as if it were afraid to draw too much attention to itself or as if it didn't have the heart to spin any faster. Dean couldn't help but think that maybe he'd hurt the angel's feelings. He didn't think it was a light gesture that Castiel was offering.
He wanted to make sure that Cas knew that he got it.
Dean wished he had Sam's gift for puppy eyes and innocent chatter.
With a grimace, Dean tried to explain, "Cas. Look. I appreciate the offer. Man, you have no idea how much I get that it's a big deal that you're even making the offer, but the last time I grabbed onto that thing, it knocked you out of commission for nearly a day, took out part of a town, and left a scar that I can see from here. I don't think it's a great idea for me to go grabbing it again to see what happens, do you?"
Castiel's brow furrowed in confusion and his halo spun faster even though it didn't rise from its lowered position, "No. I don't think it would be wise of you to 'grab it' as you say, but if you were, perhaps, a bit less...a bit more..."
Words weren't Cas's strong suit either. It was one of the things that made their relationship as comfortable as it was for Dean; he didn't have to do the constant talking and sharing thing with Cas. Cas just got it.
"Gentle."
Dean stared at him.
It sounded strange coming from Smitey McSmiterton. Gentle wasn't exactly a word that Dean would use to describe Castiel who came down like the literal hammer of God in most of his interactions. The halo was supposed to represent the purest, most basic part of his angelic essence and he wanted Dean to handle it with care? That didn't sound too convincing for it to be attached to a warrior angel of the lord.
"You think I should handle it with care?" he asked skeptically.
The halo swung erratically out of its normal orbit, looping on a diagonal axis around the angel's head that bisected his forehead. Dean looked away from it to study Castiel's eyes. Their earnestness was not diminished at all by his newfound halo-vision. That, in itself, was a comfort to Dean. It was good to know that while Cas might have been keeping a part of himself hidden, some of the real him had always shone through for Dean to see.
"I think we've already proven that it can be damaged if you don't."
Castiel's level tone made Dean grit his teeth.
"Why don't you say things?"
The halo slowed and began to return to its low spin. Dean watched it muss Castiel's hair and wondered again how he'd never noticed that the angel's hair was getting messier by the second on most days. Another dude's hair wasn't normally on his list of things to make a note of, sure, but this wasn't any other dude. This was Castiel; Dean had always noticed the little things about Castiel.
Castiel asked, "Say what things? I don't understand."
"I know you don't. You don't because I think you don't try sometimes. There you sit wearing your human Jimmy suit and you're not even trying to show any emotion. That damned halo is practically cowering on your head and spinning so slow it might as well just stop and you want me to think you're fine?"
Once again, the angel's eyes looked up to the space above his own head as if he thought he could see what Dean saw. It didn't work that way from what Dean could tell and from all that Castiel had told him to date, but it didn't mean that Castiel still didn't try whenever Dean admitted to being able to see a particular movement or exhibition of the halo. Dean didn't know if Castiel saw anything at all in the space or if what he saw was simply not halo-like, but he did know that Castiel's eyes turned back to him too soon for him to believe the angel had seen what he wanted to with his glance.
Castiel offered, "I am sorry, Dean. I do try, but emotions are not expressed the same way amongst angels. Angels aren't meant to have emotions."
He looked frustrated enough with that admittance that Dean really could tell he was trying. It had to be the truth. Cas wasn't good enough at any kind of facial expression to feign that level of annoyance.
"Okay, then we'll treat the emotions thing the way we've treated the other human things you don't get. You come to me when you don't know if eating five cheeseburgers at once is normal. You come to me if you can't figure out how to charge your cell phone. You come to me if you can't remember how long humans need to sleep. Why not this?"
"Because you don't seem to be very good at emotions, Dean. You have even said as much yourself as has Sam."
That was---a pretty fair point.
"Fair enough. I'll give you that. Fine. You come to me anyway! I'll figure it out with you. If I don't know? I'll ask Sam."
Castiel opened his mouth as if he was going to voice a protest and Dean held up a hand to stop him. Two could play the whole mind-reading game. If the angel thought he knew Dean, well, Dean knew him pretty damned well, too.
"I will ask Sam. For you. We'll make sure that he knows it's for you."
The angel's mouth closed and he nodded as serious as Judgment Day.
"Very well, Dean. I accept your terms. From now on, I will come to you if I have questions about emotional matters."
Silence stretched between them once more, companionable and comforting. Dean had relaxed enough to move to the abandoned bleachers and stretch his legs out in front of himself. He'd gotten comfortable enough to lean back on the seat, cross his feet at the ankles while Castiel's halo had soared up a few inches to steadily revolve around the angel's head. It was giving off a faint glow that illuminated the angel softly; if Dean weren't able to see the halo itself, it would only look as if Cas were getting the very best of the evening sun. Dean wasn't staring anymore, but that didn’t mean it was easy to keep his eyes off the angel.
He'd just figured out how to manage it -think about Sam and how he'd collapsed again recently from Death's wall crumbling- when Cas spoke quietly.
"I want you to touch it."
There were a lot of ways Dean could react to that. He suppressed all of them in favor of trying to understand.
"Why?"
Cas's eyes roved over Dean's face as intently as Dean was sure his own had been raking over the angel's halo, "When you touched it before...Sam was not wrong. I did like it. I've never felt anything like that before, Dean. I have been touched. Do not mistake me. I may be a virgin, however that may horrify you to consider, but I have experienced touch, companionship, love with my brethren."
When Cas stopped talking, Dean nodded to show he was following. He understood what the angel was saying even if he didn't understand what that had to do with him getting too handsy before. There had been a distinct stain on Jimmy's suit pants that said Cas hadn't not liked it; Dean couldn't imagine how Cas wasn't blaming him for that as much as anything else. Dean would have killed a guy for doing something even close to that humiliating to him in private much less public.
"I enjoyed you touching me, Dean. I let you touch me."
The quiet, solemn confession was enough to make Dean wish he were the one Death had outfitted with a handy mental wall to block out the bad memories. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to live with himself knowing that he'd scarred Cas and taken from him what was meant to be one of the best memories of his life.
He pulled his legs back in and curled over to rest elbows to knees and face to hands.
"I'm so damned sorry, Cas," he muttered mostly to his palms, "If I could make it up to you. I swear to you. If I knew a way to take it back. You deserved better for your first time."
"My first time? Do you classify what happened between us as a sexual encounter? Dean, I was under the impression that for an act to count as a sex, both parties had to be involved."
Dean wasn't sure how to answer that. He gave a slightly hysterical laugh into his hands as he tried to come up with a way to explain what he meant. Cas's innocence was great sometimes and sometimes it made Dean wish he had an owner's manual or an angel liaison or something.
He wasn't given a chance to reply before Castiel was finishing off a thought that really set his head spinning.
"Unless you too were affected by our encounter. Did you also ejaculate, Dean? If you did, this could prove to be serendipitous because I fear that I may not be a suitable sexual partner for you otherwise. I am not aroused by most acts of manual stimulation that seem to please human partners. I have been trying to learn the most common practices."
He snapped his head up from his hands to gape at the angel, "Manual stimulation? Wait. No. Ejaculate? That's---no. Cas, you can't just ask me if I came in my pants from touching your special angel part. That's on the Not Cool List."
Castiel's face betrayed only a hint of confusion, nothing close to what might be considered helpful to Dean since he had no damned idea where the angel was getting off talking about---about getting off with him! There were plenty of things that Dean had thought about with concern to Cas. Cas was his friend, almost a replacement brother to him when Sam wasn't...well, he wasn't someone Dean was thinking about fucking. He wasn't someone Dean had any right to think about fucking. Cas was an angel!
The lack of insight to be gleaned from his expression could be made up for with the halo usually, but that was even more confusing to Dean than ever. Where it usually spun crazy or high or low or off-center when Cas was feeling out of sorts, now it was only rotating at a steady rate mid-level above the angel's head. It was as if he really weren't as effected as Dean by the whole thing. Hell, it was as if Cas were totally at peace with the idea of being Dean's lover and that was scarier than anything else.
Dean wasn't nearly good enough for Cas to be thinking those kinds of thoughts about.
There weren't a lot of guys out there who wouldn't be a better choice for Cas than Dean, assuming the angel was really into guys and not chicks. Come to that, it made a lot of sense seeing as how Cas had turned down Chastity in such an epic fail moment and never seemed to find any of their waitresses attractive no matter how well their uniforms fit.
"Cas, have you really been thinking about being with me? Sexing with me, I mean?"
Cas nodded slowly in assent, his halo was spinning distinctly faster. Dean was more glad than ever that he could see the damned thing because if he hadn't been able to, there would be no way he'd have believed the angel was serious. It was hard enough to believe after Cas had shipped him and Sam off on a wild goose chase trying to protect his war effort without a by-your-leave.
"You shipped me and Sam off to Bizarro World without a word, Cas. I think you've got fucking confused with fucking over."
He jerked back from where Dean, taking a step back from the bleachers where Dean sat, and his halo moved down to hover closer, slowing again. Dean clenched his jaw. He would not feel bad about maybe hurting him when Cas had literally let him be used him for a diversion.
"I told you it was Balthazar's plan."
"Yeah, then you told me you'd have done the same thing!"
"I didn't!"
They stared at each other, both looking a little surprised at the vehemence in Cas's tone. Dean had asked Cas to try to make an effort to show more on the outside; he hadn't really expected the request to take as well as it did.
He tried, "Damn, Cas. You're a quick study. I almost believe you're getting pissed at me."
"I---am."
Dean blinked at him.
Castiel folded his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. It was obvious that he was making a divine effort to do something with his face other than the placid nothingness that Dean had come to expect from him. The result was a combination of frustration, agitation, and plain old bitchiness that would have done Sam proud.
"Damn, Cas. Repressed hostility much? I'd tell you to wipe that look off your face if I wasn't afraid you'd listen to me and do it."
It was a weak attempt at levity that only served to prove how much Dean had underestimated the situation when Castiel spoke again.
"I would do it, Dean. That's the point, isn't it? I do everything that you ask. I always come when you call. I am your friend and you, who seem to understand me better than any of my brethren, still won't believe me when I am sincere with you."
Dean sucked in a breath in reaction. They weren't pulling punches today, apparently. It was getting bad enough that Dean wondered if he shouldn't call a time out or a truce or something before his big mouth landed him short an angel in his pocket.
"Cas---I don't know what to say, man. It's not that I don't believe you. It's just that you won't tell me anything! You're talking about what you do for me, but that's a two-way street. I have stood by you myself. I've done my best for you. I've tried to be a better damned man for you! I know I'm not good enough to have you in my corner, Cas. I don't need you to tell me that. I do need you to trust me as much as I trust you because otherwise? I can't help but fail you even more than I already have."
Dean shrugged a shoulder and gave him a faltering grin, "I'm only human."
Castiel's eyes left his own for the first time in what felt like their entire relationship. His gaze had moved down to the sword that Dean had honestly forgotten about. It lay dull and abandoned at Dean's side, a relic of a civilization that Dean couldn't even pretend to understand and Cas had likely watched rise and fall. The thing didn't look like anything of any importance at all.
"You always underestimate yourself, Dean. The truth lies there beside you. You are the Righteous Man. If you weren't, you couldn't have possibly freed that sword from the stone. You wouldn't even now be staring at the truth of me, one of God's own Created children, and you wouldn't be sitting there with the ability to wield my heart as easily as you wield that blade. For love of you, Dean Winchester, I will do whatever it takes to preserve this world. I will fight any adversary, even my own brother who by right of my Father's Will is mightier than I could ever hope to be. I would even side with demons if it meant I could keep you safe a little while longer."
The confession at the end had set the halo wobbling off-kilter worse than Dean had ever seen it. It scared him. He couldn't think what that would mean. All he could think was that Cas, Cas who had literally saved him from Hell, loved him.
Dean tried that on for size, "You love me? You love me."
Their eyes met again and Dean didn't bother looking at the halo, but he didn't need to in order to know it was leveling back out as quickly as it had gone askew.
It appeared that Cas had run out of words because he simply nodded once in answer to Dean's question.
Dean stood from the bleachers, leaving the Sword of Bruncvik behind as he closed the gap between himself and the angel. Up close the halo gave off a heat that Dean had forgotten about. It made his face feel almost uncomfortably warm and, for the first time, Dean found himself looking at Castiel's chapped mouth. The heat from the halo must dry out his vessel pretty badly. That made sense, come to think of it.
He licked his own lips in empathy, "Can you feel it when you kiss someone? You didn't seem to hate kissing Meg."
Dean was watching Cas's mouth for his reply and almost missed it when the angel simply nodded once in a jerky acknowledgement. His face felt hotter than ever and Dean looked up to note that the damned halo was practically on top of Cas's head. It was glowing bright enough that he squinted in reaction and quickly looked away.
The good thing about it was that it definitely let him know Cas wouldn't be faking it.
That was always a good thing in Dean's book.
He could have made a smartass comment about the angel's eagerness showing. Could have said how he hoped Cas had his wings strapped on tight because Dean was a much better kisser than some demon bitch. Could have said that he thought he loved Castiel, Angel of the Lord, right back for believing in him, for being willing to do anything to save him and his brother, for looking at him as if he mattered even after he'd had his holy hands all over Dean's very unholy soul.
Dean could have said plenty.
Instead, he fisted his hands in Jimmy Novak's stupid trench coat and jerked Cas forward to mash their lips together in a kiss that was more teeth than anything else. It was enough of a shock to the angel that his folded arms jerked out to the side in reaction and the familiar snapping sound of wings rocked Dean to his core. He almost opened his eyes to look to see if he could actually see those wings now, but didn't because Cas's tongue was pressing insistently between his lips and all Dean could do was groan as he let it into his mouth. Dean was surprised to find out that Cas really had learned a lot from the pizza man as the kiss continued, but he wasn't surprised at all that, once Cas figured out Dean wasn't backing down, the angel was grabby; he figured it would be worth the bruises on his hips if it meant Cas was going to let him grind against him like that.
"Oh yeah. You love me," Dean offered, his tongue thick in his bruised mouth.
Cas rolled his eyes, "I said as much, Dean. Do you merely wish to hear me say it again?"
"No. We'll keep that one for special occasions like stopping the apocalypse again or for when I'm dying, y'know?"
"Does this mean that you love me? Or that you wish to copulate with me?"
A beat passed and Dean felt as if the halo was burning a streak across his forehead. He moved back to consider how to respond and Castiel apologized in reaction.
"I'm sorry, Dean. You did tell me to come to you with emotional questions."
"Yeah---not my best move, I'll admit."
Castiel moved to pull back himself and Dean clenched his grip on the angel's coat tighter.
"Wait. Alright. I'll say it."
They both seemed to hold their breath and even the halo spun slower as if it too were waiting for Dean to manage to come out with it already.
"I love you, too. There. I said it. Now! We need to talk about the important things like how gentle is gentle and exactly what kind of experiments have you been conducting in manual stimulation?"
Castiel's gaze was fixated once more on Dean's face and Dean was feeling entirely too full of himself to note the intensity in Cas's voice as he replied back.
"These are important things to us. We will discuss them and after...I would like to trust you with something I have done that I am not very proud of, Dean. I would like to tell you---"
Dean stopped him with a kiss and rubbed his hips against the angel's.
"Later, Cas. I'm going to grab the damned sword, you're going to put the heavy stuff on the back burner for a bit, and then we're going to find a room to ourselves where we're going to try to catch a view of Heaven on Earth."
Castiel nodded as if Dean had said something vital, pivotal to his continued survival and Dean would have thought the angel was cooling off if the heat coming off his halo wasn't getting hotter and hotter. He had a flash of what that burning ring would feel like if Cas went down on him and shuddered at the thought; Dean had a feeling any contact burn he got from it would be totally worth it seeing as how Cas was developing quite the oral fixation.
He snagged the sword and Cas followed him back to the car, apparently content to ride with him wherever he wanted to take them.
"I consider you to be better than a glimpse of Heaven, Dean. I thought you should know."
Dean paused as he was getting into the Impala and shot a look over at Castiel. He swallowed thickly at the intensity of Cas's whole countenance. Cas was a glimpse of Heaven on Earth.
He offered him back the best he could.
"Ditto."
Dean had never been an eloquent guy. It was a good thing Cas knew that before he went and declared his love and all.
He still didn't know how they were going to stop Raphael, wasn't sure he was ready to hear whatever confession Castiel was going to make to him later, and had no clue what the fuck being the bearer of the Sword of Bruncvik meant in the grand scheme of things, but Dean was happy. As he steered the car toward the nearest motel -not the one he was sharing a room in with his kid brother- with an angel in his passenger seat who loved him, Dean realized he really was happy.
Most people wouldn't consider his situation to be anything close to good, but, in the life of Dean Winchester, it was pretty freakin' great and Dean intended to enjoy every single second of it, contact halo-burn and all.
Author: pesha
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R-ish
Warnings: sexual connotation/discussion, general Winchester angst
Spoilers: All of Season Six; This contains a few bits and snatches of dialogue lifted straight from the show, so if you haven't seen season six, I wouldn't read it.
Word Count: 16,634
Challenge: Written for angel_kink for deancastiel's Everlasting Birthday Challenge.
Prompt: There is not enough HALO FIC out there. I've only ever read two and it's seriously under represented! You can do whatever you want with the plot, but try to have a canon setting please.
Notes: This is technically AU from 6x12 "Like a Virgin," but it does use as much canon as I could throw in there and still have halo!Cas. I do sincerely hope that you enjoy it!
Thanks: Thanks to la_rubinita and the folks at ficfinishing for listening to me as I muddled through my first story in an era. I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate Harley and Lala for putting up with me as I edited a lot. Thanks, folks. I appreciate you.
~*~
Part One
Shockingly enough, Dean returned to the room with food and found his brother and the angel sitting in silence. They had moved from their respective beds to the chairs and they had obviously both found clothing for the day. He wasn't surprised to see that Sam hadn't showered or that Cas had returned to wearing the trench coat. He was surprised to see that neither of them were even pretending to be doing anything other than watching the door, waiting on him to return.
Dean decided to laugh it off.
They needed a little humor in their lives while they could still enjoy it. After all, he'd already secured himself a trip back down to Hell; Dean knew from personal experience that he ought to find all the enjoyment he could on Earth to make up for what was waiting downstairs. It might as well be his job to make up for the complete lack of humor that Sammy insisted on showing daily.
"Sam I get. He's stalking the door because he needs me -the successful hunter-gatherer of our dynamic duo- to return with food for his gigantic self to keep him from going all Godzilla on the locals and eating tourists in a frenzy. What's your excuse, Cas? Did you just miss me?"
Dean gave the angel his best shit-eating grin-wink combination.
His brother snagged the bag of food from him and began to unpack what Dean had managed to scrounge for them from the nearest diner. The place had been equipped with the same menu of fast and greasy that they'd come to expect from every other diner exactly like it over the years; Dean hadn't been too picky about what he'd ordered.
He had left because he needed space: to think, to deal, to adjust.
The food was a bonus. To Hell (again) with Sammy if he didn't like that Dean had gotten him a cheeseburger instead of the chicken salad. Dean had remembered to tell them to hold the mayo and hadn't insisted on adding bacon to Sam's even though he still thought that eating a burger without bacon should be labeled as a capital offense in all fifty states and possibly the US Virgin Islands.
"I was concerned for you, Dean. Your departure was abrupt and my abilities to monitor you are severely limited due to the Enochian sigils inscribed into your bones. I am also having difficulty monitoring large areas."
Castiel admitted the last of it as if he were apologizing for some grave offense. Dean wasn't sure what it meant that his guardian angel was apologizing for telling him that he couldn't use his holy satellite connection to make sure he wasn't ravaged by zombies on his way to get burgers and fries. It sent a twinge of discomfort through him that had him rubbing his chest.
This was his fault.
"Sorry about that, Cas. I guess it goes without saying that I won't do it again. Here! Burger. I know they're your favorite. I got it the way I liked it since I don't think I know you've ever expressed a preference."
He retrieved the wrapped burger from the bag to hold out as a peace offering. Dean still couldn't look at the angel directly without being reminded of what a complete moron he'd been to grab-halo-first-ask-questions-later. His halo was spinning in constant lazy motion that Dean knew would suck him in if he let his eyes catch on it.
After taking a breather to retrieve food, Dean refused to let himself think that he now almost considered the dark mark on the bright ring...awesome.
Castiel took the proffered sandwich from his hand with his customary level of seriousness, "Thank you, Dean. I appreciate your consideration."
"Yeah," Sam added with a dry cough, "You're very thoughtful, Dean. I'm glad you managed to think enough of my arteries to decide to leave off the bacon and the mayo. The lettuce is a nice surprise, too. They didn't have a salad?"
The jibe was familiar. Relaxing. Dean let himself smirk as he leaned against the wall by the small table to eat his own burger.
"What can I say? I looked the menu over, thought about it, then realized I had a reputation to uphold and decided a burger wouldn't kill you. You can stand to eat something good for a change. If it makes you feel so bad after, you can always just jog to the next town instead of ride. I know it'd definitely be good for my health."
Castiel looked from his untouched burger to Dean, "Where is the next town? I was unaware that you had a new lead."
The truth was that they didn't have a next plan. They were winging it -not as literally as the angel, of course- as per their usual. Dean was going to make a crack about how Cas was supposed to be working on that whole don't-take-everything-so-literally thing, but his words got stuck in his throat by the choked hand print spiraling around Cas's head.
Sam took that as his cue to save Dean with a quip about how plans were overrated and wholly against the Winchester Way. It was true, funny, and distracting enough to have the moment pass without comment. It didn't relax Dean enough to make it easy for him to look at the angel again though. He settled for eating his own burger while making a study of the floor. Funny how all these rooms seemed to have the same bad carpeting; Dean wondered if they were all built by the same company. Likely.
...and he was considering how cheap motels were built. It was official: Dean was going back to Hell because he touched an angel's special angel part and this was only the beginning of his torment.
"Cas? Don't you have a war front to fly back to?"
Sam had been mid-sentence about some kind of weather pattern in the midwest when Dean had spoke. He sucked in a breath that was audibly shocked.
"Dean!"
Somehow he managed to even make Dean's name sound bitchy when he said it. Dean still had no idea how he did that. He'd done it enough over the years that Dean should have been used to it by now, but he wasn't. It grated every time and set Dean's teeth on edge which was part of the reason why Dean might have admitted to sounding a little more pissed off than necessary when he replied back.
"Sam! I'm just saying. Lately, if you bother to show up, you're in a hurry to get gone again as soon as possible. Now you want to hang out with us all of a sudden?"
Dean forced himself to look Castiel in the eye as he asked. Cas deserved that much. His voice might have been angry and the tick in his jaw certainly was, but Dean's eyes were pleading with the angel to understand what he wasn't able to say. He couldn't say what he really wanted to because that wasn't part of the Winchester Way.
The angel lay his burger down on the table -still uneaten- and stood easily enough. He was as unflappable as ever from what Dean could tell and that? That was more than comforting in Dean's book. He needed Cas to be okay. Dean had fucked up enough in his life without the worry that he might have managed to fuck up Cas too.
"I do have a war front to get back to. Yes, Dean. You're right. Call me if you need me. I will---leave the ringer on."
It would have been funny if Dean hadn't been watching Cas's face when he disappeared. It was only a second, a breath of time, but the angel's implacable facade had broken in the moment before he'd vanished and the break hadn't been a good one.
It had been pained.
Dean collapsed into the chair the angel had just vacated and held up a hand to ward his brother off.
"Don't. Sam. Just don't."
Sam didn't and they spent the rest of the evening mapping out where the road would take them to next.
~*~
Sam won’t stop picking. The road had taken them backwards to a town where Sam had evidently already been and it was as if every fear Dean had in his head was coming to life. Death had warned him that Sam couldn’t pick at the wall.
Death hadn’t said that Sam shouldn’t do it or it wouldn’t be a good idea to do it or that doing it might give him a headache or something. Death had said Sam couldn’t pick at the wall he’d built around his memories.
Dean had tried to explain that to Sam, but it was like he was speaking angel to him or something because his brother had simply nodded, blank and uncomprehending, and Dean had no idea what to do about it. He couldn’t get why Sam refused to take Death’s warning seriously. It wasn’t as if Death had a great sense of humor or something. The guy didn’t just say shit to hear himself talk unlike certain demons who should not be named.
He sighed as he flipped his phone open to follow up with Bobby on the whole thing.
“Tell me you have a suggestion for what I can do to convince him to back off the wall. He’s not listening to me. It’s like he thinks Death was joking or something when he said not to try to remember. Last I checked? Death didn’t have a very good sense of humor.”
The sigh on Bobby’s side of the line was tired, as tired as he’d ever heard it, but Dean didn’t hear the tell-tale clink of glass hitting glass which meant that he wasn’t drinking. It was still a good day when Bobby wasn’t drinking to survive it. That was Dean’s take on it, anyway.
“I don’t know, Dean. I don’t think there’s any way to win this one. Sam’s going to do what he’s going to do and you and me? We’re just going to have to work to find a way to fix him when he breaks again.”
It wasn’t even a question of if Sam would break, but when. Dean refused to comment on how fucked up that was because he knew there was no point. It would be no more than pissing in the wind if he bothered to try. He was scowling at the price of gas at the station across the street from him when Bobby caught him off guard.
“On another note, I heard from the man himself that you’ve been slipping your hand under Castiel’s angelskirt. What’s that about? Have you gone and decided you’re acknowledging your profound bond with Castiel by embracing your angelsexuality?”
“What?” Dean croaked, “Bobby, man! Not cool. Not cool at all.”
“You’re the one who’s jeopardizing the fate of the free world by going around molesting angels left and right. One wasn’t enough? You tryin’ to start a collection now?”
Dean was thrown enough that he couldn’t come up with anything witty to say in return. He couldn’t even think of a single comeback that wasn’t ’I swear I didn’t mean to’ and how friggin’ ridiculous was that?
It wasn’t as if he’d gone out of his way to try and slip one in on Cas. He was Cas. The guy literally redefined personal space on a daily basis. Dean hadn’t figured he’d care one way or another if someone copped a feel of his shiny parts. Come to that, Cas himself had considered it fair play seeing as how he’d had his angelmitts all over Dean’s own special human parts when he was pulling him soul-first out of Hell.
“Whatever. I’m an idiot. I shot first and aimed later. Nobody died from it. Moving on.”
Weak, but at least he’d managed something. He’d picked his jaw back up off the road if nothing else.
Bobby was feeling kind or something because he did let it slide with a gruff rejoinder that said he wished he had been drinking before Dean called. It also let Dean know that he likely would be drinking as soon as Dean snapped his phone closed. If he were Sam, he’d pull out his best bitchface and couple it with a knowing whine to try to convince the old man that drinking wasn’t the answer.
Dean wasn’t Sam though and he’d long since given up trying to be. He wasn’t the good brother in the family no matter what Heaven might want to say on the subject.
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean interrupted Bobby’s tirade on the damned dragon book, “Bring you the dragon book. Keep my hands off Cas’s angel parts. I got it. I’ll see you as soon as I can load Sammy up and get there. Try not to drink yourself into liver failure in the meantime.”
Hey. At least he said something.
Dean distinctly did not let himself think about how long it would take him to drive to Sioux Falls or how much liquor Bobby could drink before he could get there. He didn’t think about what it meant that Sam had mentioned his little angelic indiscretion to Bobby and he definitely didn’t attribute the flush of his face to a friggin’ blush of shame from being called out on what was so completely not hanky-panky business with Cas of all people.
Just for the sheer fact that he’d had to endure that conversation, Sammy was listening to Skynyrd on loop through Arkansas.
And Dean was going to sing along.
On every song.
Yeah.
That would just about make them even.
Just about.
~*~
It turned out that Dean hadn't been worrying in vain when Sammy kept picking at the damned wall until he had a breakthrough on the arachne case. Sure, it was good enough to get them the assist they needed to get through the case alive, but it wasn't worth it in the end as far as Dean was concerned. They still had to kill the thing, hadn't managed to find out anything from it that was more useful than there-are-more-of-us-creepy-bastards-than-you-know, and his brother had wound up in a shaking pile on the floor.
Dean had watched Sam hit the floor and felt as if Cas had finally made good on his threat to toss him straight back into the pits. Honestly, he'd be hard-pressed to say whether or not he wouldn't voluntarily jump back into Hell if it meant he never had to see his kid brother writhing in torment from memories of the place.
He'd called for Castiel without thinking about it. It had been instinctual, a knee-jerk reaction, and Dean had immediately regretted it as soon as the angel materialized in front of him. His eyes sought out the halo where it was circling in a strange, vibrating way that indicated worryfearalarm to Dean and being able to see it doing that, to see a part of the angel that he should not have ever been privy to, was unnerving.
A half-remembered quote floated through his mind about how some things were not meant for human minds to know; Dean waved a hand at Sam. That was something he could focus on: fix Sam. They could both focus on that and it wouldn't be weird. It wouldn't be weird at all.
"Sam's been poking at the wall. He remembered stuff and now he's...you see him! What do we do? Can you fix him?"
The angel's brow furrowed, "I warned you about this, Dean. His soul was in tatters. Literally shredded and torn in ways that I cannot even contemplate without being overwhelmed with pity for what he must have suffered in Hell. If he has created a breach in the protective barrier Death placed around his memories, there will be nothing you or I can do to save him from that."
Dean's jaw clenched in reaction. He would not be told there was nothing he could do. There was always something that could be done. They were Winchesters. Winchesters didn't believe in never unless it was in reference to 'never give up.'
He reached down to heave Sam up from the floor, ignoring the pull in his shoulders from Sam's weight. It didn't surprise him when Castiel lent a hand, but the way the angel shifted his brother's bulk mostly off Dean and onto his own slighter frame was a little jarring. Dean wondered if Castiel realized that his vessel shouldn't be able to pull off some of the moves he managed in it and then realized the answer was likely yes.
They carefully lay Sam down on his bed; afterwards, they spent a few moments trying to each do something to arrange his limbs to a more comfortable position. When Sam looked as if he was as comfortable as a comatose guy could get, they both stopped. Dean stopped to try to catch a glimpse of what the halo was doing while Cas seemed to simply...stop.
"Thanks for...coming," Dean managed.
His voice wasn't exactly grateful sounding, but it was the thought that counted, right? Dean was trying to convince himself that it wasn't Castiel's fault that the angel couldn't touched-by-an-angel away the damage to his brother's soul. It wasn't something he had a lot of knowledge about. For all Dean knew, the only one who could heal a soul was The Big Man Himself and he was still MIA.
Cas gave him a wry smile and his halo lowered slightly closer to his head to lazily rotate, "You are welcome, Dean. Of course."
Dean forced a return smile and nodded. He sank onto the side of his own bed to stare uneasily at his brother. Silence fell between them broken only by the sound of breathing and Dean was lulled into a sense of calm until Castiel spoke again.
"I would do more for him if I could."
He looked up at Castiel in surprise, eyes catching immediately on the golden ring that was mussing the angel's hair on every oblong revolution. Dean forced his eyes down to meet the angel's instead. Somehow the intensity of direct eye contact with the angel had lessened since Dean could see more than a glimpse of the real being inside Jimmy Novak's meatsuit.
Dean surprised them both with his response.
"I know."
It was true though. He did know. Dean knew beyond a shadow of doubt that Castiel would do anything, give anything, to be able to help Sam. He still wasn't sure why the angel would do so much for his brother, but Dean knew that was likely because he was unwilling to ask rather than he thought Castiel wouldn't answer him if he did.
He nodded at the plastic chair by the window.
"Take a load off. We could be here a while."
The angel moved stiffly to the chair and sat. He placed his hands on his knees and fixed his eyes on Dean, calm and implacable as ever as long as Dean didn't let his eyes wander too far up.
"I've got nothing but time, Dean. I am...glad to wait with you."
Dean knew he was too. He'd have said thanks again for it, but it was enough that he held the angel's eyes and gave him a nod of acknowledgement. Dean had learned early on in their friendship that the angel might not be good with words all the time, but he always understood the things that went without saying.
Sticking with him while he waited out Sammy's latest breakdown?
It went without saying that Dean was grateful for that.
~*~
Sam had come back to himself and their world had kept turning. They'd worked another job and it---it hadn't been great. They'd saved a dirtbag who most likely deserved the terrific punishment the ghost had wanted to dish out and, in doing so, had been forced to watch as an innocent woman had died. A good person, a nice girl, had had to die to see the job done. Dean hadn't been coping with it well and neither had Sam. They'd needed a few moments apart. Sam wanted the room to himself; Dean had decided to take a drive and, on that drive, had decided to call Cas to check in on him.
Cas had shown up and then Dean hadn't been able to come up with anything to say. All the things he'd wanted to talk about -the unfairness of seeing that young woman die so the dirtbag could live, how it was always the janitor, how Sam wouldn't stop scratching at the wall, all of it. The words had simply stuck in his throat, lodged there behind the ones that wanted to analyze the shining halo that he could still see after all this time. A half hour passed where all Dean could do was watch for the flash of his smudged handprint on Cas's angel part while Cas watched him in return.
That was it. That was completely it, Dean decided.
"Dude! Can you do something about the halo? It is seriously distracting!"
Castiel replied with his best I-mean-serious-business voice, "No. In my defense, I have often felt the same about your face."
A muscle ticked in Dean's jaw as he tried to control his reaction. He was doing okay with it until he noticed that the angel's eyes were tracking the movement and his halo had scrunched down closer to his head. It was as if he was waiting to see if Dean would react badly to being told that Cas was often seriously distracted by his face and that was friggin' hilarious no matter how Dean looked at it.
He let out a bark of laughter that turned into a full-out belly laugh which had tears leaking from his eyes as Cas's damned halo lit up like The Little Halo That Could and shot up a good foot over the angel's head to spin as if its life depended on it. Dean guessed that was "happy" in halospeak and that was funny enough to have him lose his breath all over again. It felt so good to laugh that he let himself have it for a while.
Neither of them could fix Sam's soul, the world was likely still in Grave Danger, and Dean may or may not have unwittingly fulfilled some kind of Major Prophecy by pulling a sword out of a big rock. It had taken him an embarrassing length of time to realize that the difference between him and Sam now was the sword; Dean still didn't know what that meant.
Anyway, Dean figured he deserved a few minutes to forget about all of that and lose himself in laughter. Cas even laughed with him. A little. Okay, it might have been more of a chuckle, but it was good enough for Dean considering how bright and crazy his halo was behaving. For all Dean knew, the halo was doing the Hilarity Dance.
It surprised him how much he hoped that was true. Dean liked the idea of being able to make the serious angel laugh way more than he imagined he should. He liked the idea of making Castiel feel anything more than he should.
The thought sobered him enough to regain control of himself. He was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand when Cas got around to asking him what they had been laughing about. That didn't surprise Dean at all.
"Why was that so amusing?"
Dean shook his head, "Cas, this is one of those things that...well, let's just say it wouldn't be funnier in Enochian."
"Of course it wouldn't be, Dean. Angels don't have faces in the sense that---"
He couldn't help it. He was laughing and he couldn't stop and Dean wasn't sure if he could ever look at the angel again without having a thousand "your face" jokes run through his head. Naturally Cas wouldn't get any of them since angels don't have faces which had to be the best trump to a Your Face joke that had ever been told.
Waving a hand in surrender, Dean choked out, "Please. Cas. Stop talking. You're killing me. I would pay to have you tell Sam that my face frequently baffles you, but he'd know I put you up to it and I can't even. Man. The next time I need a comeback? I am completely stealing the line 'Angels don't have faces.' Just telling you now."
Castiel nodded as seriously as Dean had ever seen him. His halo was still super bright and super spinning which had to mean they were good. It was good. Hell, with the laughing? It was great from where Dean was sitting.
He shouldered his sword and shook it off, "C'mon, Cas. Get your shiny head in the car and we'll try to get back to Sam before our happy has a chance to wear off."
The angel darted a look up at the air above his head, then back to Dean. It was clear he was trying to see what Dean was seeing. Dean wondered if he could.
"It looks brighter to you? Now?"
Dean nodded his agreement to avoid speaking. There was the chance that Cas would let it go. He could try at least. It wasn't as if they hadn't spent enough time today talking about how much attention Dean was paying to the halo when Cas was around. If he admitted to much more awareness of the thing, even Cas might get the wrong idea.
He wasn't even going to touch with the business end of his dragonsword the fact that it might not be the wrong idea.
Dean had developed halo-vision, not grown ovaries.
Cas slid into the car opposite Dean, taking up Sam's space with a kind of casual ease that no one else had ever managed. He shut the door firmly -without slamming it as Sam had a tendency to do- and Dean was struck anew at how bright the damned halo was when they were enclosed in the relatively small space of the front seat.
"You can perceive changes in its intensity?" Cas persisted.
Dean tried for another nod as he started the car.
"Dean?"
He sighed. So much for keeping up the happy, Dean decided. Of all the things to pick up from his brother, Cas had learned how to make his name sound like a bitchy curse word. Great.
"Yeah. Okay? I can tell when it's brighter or when it spins crazier and I can see it move up and down. If it's doing anything? I can likely see it. Trust me, man. I can see it."
Castiel settled back into the seat and became still, motionless as they drove. Dean knew that was his typical Thinking Mode, but it was nerve-wracking after he'd pretty much admitted to being able to see the angel's soul changing. It had to be a little freaky to Castiel too. He literally couldn't imagine a world in which it wouldn't be freaky to hear that some random guy was watching his inner thoughts play out via halo-vision.
"I'm sorry," Dean offered as the silence stretched out between them too long.
"What are you sorry for, Dean? I do not understand."
He didn't either. Dean could tell from the sound of his voice. He didn't even need to take his eyes off the road to check the halo out.
"For, you know, looking. I'd turn it off if I knew how I'd turned it on in the first place."
Castiel, Angel of the Lord, surprised Dean all over again with his awesomeness when he responded with simply, "I know."
Dean supposed it was totally fine that they got each other as well as they did. They did share a...well, they'd been through a lot together. There was nothing wrong with that.
It wasn't weird, Dean reassured himself.
It was just another part of the life of Dean Winchester.
~*~
The first thing Dean did after he got back to his life -his real, hunter life- was grab the freakin' awesome Sword of Bruncvik and tell Sam he was going out. They had learned from Bizarro TV World that their counterparts didn't talk to each other. That he and Sam weren't really brothers. That their lives were complete without each other or hunting or angels or all the things that meant anything to Dean and Dean? Dean needed to reaffirm that he was himself again.
Sam nodded at him and that was it.
His brother understood. They didn't need to talk about it. It wasn't that they didn't talk like those Bizarro World actor guys. It was that they didn't need to talk all the time. Some things were simply understood.
The ball field was abandoned for the season. It was far enough off the beaten track that Dean wasn't worried about pulling off there. He left the car with a fond pat to her hood while he took the sword down to the field to swing it for a while. It was still unbalanced, still worn, and any magical secrets it held it was still keeping them to itself. That didn't mean that Dean didn't feel like the best version of himself when he was working with it.
He was panting for breath when his alone time was interrupted by the familiar sound of wings.
Dean wiped his arm across his forehead while he looked over at Castiel. The angel was sporting a chastised look that was only emphasized by the cowed idling of his halo. It was almost more than Dean could do to look at him, but the halo was different. Dean could look at the halo all freakin' day. The thing was more entertaining than late night pay-per-view's finest offerings.
"Would you like to touch it?"
Dean started. Okay, so he'd been caught staring at the angel's halo again. It was becoming routine enough that it no longer brought him out in a sputtering fit or caused his face to flush like a teenager, but it was still damned uncomfortable to be called on. The thing was seriously distracting though.
Castiel could be calm as ever, face set as a wall, but that halo gave him away every time.
If he was looking at it when anyone asked Cas a question, Dean could tell exactly how it affected the angel. A question he didn't want to answer made the halo dim, hover down lower to the crown of his head, where a question that he hadn't thought about made it light up brighter than sunrise and soar far enough above his head that Dean could have stuck his whole arm into the space it left behind. Worrying questions made the rotation tilt to a strange, wobbling angle, whereas some questions simply made the damned thing start spinning fast enough to make Dean's stomach turn from looking at it.
It was cool.
There was no other way to say it.
Not that Dean knew of anyway. Eloquence still wasn't his strong point.
Would he like to touch it? Hell yes, he'd like to touch it, but Dean could still see the evidence of the last time he'd touched it since it had left a definite impression on the spinning ring. There was a silver blur that came around every revolution now and it was in the same position as the dark smudge from the diner. Dean didn't have to be eloquent or a genius to figure out that was his handprint burned into Castiel's angel part.
"I don't think that's such a good idea, Cas."
Cas nodded slowly, his expression as intense as ever on Dean's face, but the spinning ring crouched low enough on his head that it was practically singeing his messy hair. The halo's rotation was a sluggish turn as if it were afraid to draw too much attention to itself or as if it didn't have the heart to spin any faster. Dean couldn't help but think that maybe he'd hurt the angel's feelings. He didn't think it was a light gesture that Castiel was offering.
He wanted to make sure that Cas knew that he got it.
Dean wished he had Sam's gift for puppy eyes and innocent chatter.
With a grimace, Dean tried to explain, "Cas. Look. I appreciate the offer. Man, you have no idea how much I get that it's a big deal that you're even making the offer, but the last time I grabbed onto that thing, it knocked you out of commission for nearly a day, took out part of a town, and left a scar that I can see from here. I don't think it's a great idea for me to go grabbing it again to see what happens, do you?"
Castiel's brow furrowed in confusion and his halo spun faster even though it didn't rise from its lowered position, "No. I don't think it would be wise of you to 'grab it' as you say, but if you were, perhaps, a bit less...a bit more..."
Words weren't Cas's strong suit either. It was one of the things that made their relationship as comfortable as it was for Dean; he didn't have to do the constant talking and sharing thing with Cas. Cas just got it.
"Gentle."
Dean stared at him.
It sounded strange coming from Smitey McSmiterton. Gentle wasn't exactly a word that Dean would use to describe Castiel who came down like the literal hammer of God in most of his interactions. The halo was supposed to represent the purest, most basic part of his angelic essence and he wanted Dean to handle it with care? That didn't sound too convincing for it to be attached to a warrior angel of the lord.
"You think I should handle it with care?" he asked skeptically.
The halo swung erratically out of its normal orbit, looping on a diagonal axis around the angel's head that bisected his forehead. Dean looked away from it to study Castiel's eyes. Their earnestness was not diminished at all by his newfound halo-vision. That, in itself, was a comfort to Dean. It was good to know that while Cas might have been keeping a part of himself hidden, some of the real him had always shone through for Dean to see.
"I think we've already proven that it can be damaged if you don't."
Castiel's level tone made Dean grit his teeth.
"Why don't you say things?"
The halo slowed and began to return to its low spin. Dean watched it muss Castiel's hair and wondered again how he'd never noticed that the angel's hair was getting messier by the second on most days. Another dude's hair wasn't normally on his list of things to make a note of, sure, but this wasn't any other dude. This was Castiel; Dean had always noticed the little things about Castiel.
Castiel asked, "Say what things? I don't understand."
"I know you don't. You don't because I think you don't try sometimes. There you sit wearing your human Jimmy suit and you're not even trying to show any emotion. That damned halo is practically cowering on your head and spinning so slow it might as well just stop and you want me to think you're fine?"
Once again, the angel's eyes looked up to the space above his own head as if he thought he could see what Dean saw. It didn't work that way from what Dean could tell and from all that Castiel had told him to date, but it didn't mean that Castiel still didn't try whenever Dean admitted to being able to see a particular movement or exhibition of the halo. Dean didn't know if Castiel saw anything at all in the space or if what he saw was simply not halo-like, but he did know that Castiel's eyes turned back to him too soon for him to believe the angel had seen what he wanted to with his glance.
Castiel offered, "I am sorry, Dean. I do try, but emotions are not expressed the same way amongst angels. Angels aren't meant to have emotions."
He looked frustrated enough with that admittance that Dean really could tell he was trying. It had to be the truth. Cas wasn't good enough at any kind of facial expression to feign that level of annoyance.
"Okay, then we'll treat the emotions thing the way we've treated the other human things you don't get. You come to me when you don't know if eating five cheeseburgers at once is normal. You come to me if you can't figure out how to charge your cell phone. You come to me if you can't remember how long humans need to sleep. Why not this?"
"Because you don't seem to be very good at emotions, Dean. You have even said as much yourself as has Sam."
That was---a pretty fair point.
"Fair enough. I'll give you that. Fine. You come to me anyway! I'll figure it out with you. If I don't know? I'll ask Sam."
Castiel opened his mouth as if he was going to voice a protest and Dean held up a hand to stop him. Two could play the whole mind-reading game. If the angel thought he knew Dean, well, Dean knew him pretty damned well, too.
"I will ask Sam. For you. We'll make sure that he knows it's for you."
The angel's mouth closed and he nodded as serious as Judgment Day.
"Very well, Dean. I accept your terms. From now on, I will come to you if I have questions about emotional matters."
Silence stretched between them once more, companionable and comforting. Dean had relaxed enough to move to the abandoned bleachers and stretch his legs out in front of himself. He'd gotten comfortable enough to lean back on the seat, cross his feet at the ankles while Castiel's halo had soared up a few inches to steadily revolve around the angel's head. It was giving off a faint glow that illuminated the angel softly; if Dean weren't able to see the halo itself, it would only look as if Cas were getting the very best of the evening sun. Dean wasn't staring anymore, but that didn’t mean it was easy to keep his eyes off the angel.
He'd just figured out how to manage it -think about Sam and how he'd collapsed again recently from Death's wall crumbling- when Cas spoke quietly.
"I want you to touch it."
There were a lot of ways Dean could react to that. He suppressed all of them in favor of trying to understand.
"Why?"
Cas's eyes roved over Dean's face as intently as Dean was sure his own had been raking over the angel's halo, "When you touched it before...Sam was not wrong. I did like it. I've never felt anything like that before, Dean. I have been touched. Do not mistake me. I may be a virgin, however that may horrify you to consider, but I have experienced touch, companionship, love with my brethren."
When Cas stopped talking, Dean nodded to show he was following. He understood what the angel was saying even if he didn't understand what that had to do with him getting too handsy before. There had been a distinct stain on Jimmy's suit pants that said Cas hadn't not liked it; Dean couldn't imagine how Cas wasn't blaming him for that as much as anything else. Dean would have killed a guy for doing something even close to that humiliating to him in private much less public.
"I enjoyed you touching me, Dean. I let you touch me."
The quiet, solemn confession was enough to make Dean wish he were the one Death had outfitted with a handy mental wall to block out the bad memories. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to live with himself knowing that he'd scarred Cas and taken from him what was meant to be one of the best memories of his life.
He pulled his legs back in and curled over to rest elbows to knees and face to hands.
"I'm so damned sorry, Cas," he muttered mostly to his palms, "If I could make it up to you. I swear to you. If I knew a way to take it back. You deserved better for your first time."
"My first time? Do you classify what happened between us as a sexual encounter? Dean, I was under the impression that for an act to count as a sex, both parties had to be involved."
Dean wasn't sure how to answer that. He gave a slightly hysterical laugh into his hands as he tried to come up with a way to explain what he meant. Cas's innocence was great sometimes and sometimes it made Dean wish he had an owner's manual or an angel liaison or something.
He wasn't given a chance to reply before Castiel was finishing off a thought that really set his head spinning.
"Unless you too were affected by our encounter. Did you also ejaculate, Dean? If you did, this could prove to be serendipitous because I fear that I may not be a suitable sexual partner for you otherwise. I am not aroused by most acts of manual stimulation that seem to please human partners. I have been trying to learn the most common practices."
He snapped his head up from his hands to gape at the angel, "Manual stimulation? Wait. No. Ejaculate? That's---no. Cas, you can't just ask me if I came in my pants from touching your special angel part. That's on the Not Cool List."
Castiel's face betrayed only a hint of confusion, nothing close to what might be considered helpful to Dean since he had no damned idea where the angel was getting off talking about---about getting off with him! There were plenty of things that Dean had thought about with concern to Cas. Cas was his friend, almost a replacement brother to him when Sam wasn't...well, he wasn't someone Dean was thinking about fucking. He wasn't someone Dean had any right to think about fucking. Cas was an angel!
The lack of insight to be gleaned from his expression could be made up for with the halo usually, but that was even more confusing to Dean than ever. Where it usually spun crazy or high or low or off-center when Cas was feeling out of sorts, now it was only rotating at a steady rate mid-level above the angel's head. It was as if he really weren't as effected as Dean by the whole thing. Hell, it was as if Cas were totally at peace with the idea of being Dean's lover and that was scarier than anything else.
Dean wasn't nearly good enough for Cas to be thinking those kinds of thoughts about.
There weren't a lot of guys out there who wouldn't be a better choice for Cas than Dean, assuming the angel was really into guys and not chicks. Come to that, it made a lot of sense seeing as how Cas had turned down Chastity in such an epic fail moment and never seemed to find any of their waitresses attractive no matter how well their uniforms fit.
"Cas, have you really been thinking about being with me? Sexing with me, I mean?"
Cas nodded slowly in assent, his halo was spinning distinctly faster. Dean was more glad than ever that he could see the damned thing because if he hadn't been able to, there would be no way he'd have believed the angel was serious. It was hard enough to believe after Cas had shipped him and Sam off on a wild goose chase trying to protect his war effort without a by-your-leave.
"You shipped me and Sam off to Bizarro World without a word, Cas. I think you've got fucking confused with fucking over."
He jerked back from where Dean, taking a step back from the bleachers where Dean sat, and his halo moved down to hover closer, slowing again. Dean clenched his jaw. He would not feel bad about maybe hurting him when Cas had literally let him be used him for a diversion.
"I told you it was Balthazar's plan."
"Yeah, then you told me you'd have done the same thing!"
"I didn't!"
They stared at each other, both looking a little surprised at the vehemence in Cas's tone. Dean had asked Cas to try to make an effort to show more on the outside; he hadn't really expected the request to take as well as it did.
He tried, "Damn, Cas. You're a quick study. I almost believe you're getting pissed at me."
"I---am."
Dean blinked at him.
Castiel folded his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels. It was obvious that he was making a divine effort to do something with his face other than the placid nothingness that Dean had come to expect from him. The result was a combination of frustration, agitation, and plain old bitchiness that would have done Sam proud.
"Damn, Cas. Repressed hostility much? I'd tell you to wipe that look off your face if I wasn't afraid you'd listen to me and do it."
It was a weak attempt at levity that only served to prove how much Dean had underestimated the situation when Castiel spoke again.
"I would do it, Dean. That's the point, isn't it? I do everything that you ask. I always come when you call. I am your friend and you, who seem to understand me better than any of my brethren, still won't believe me when I am sincere with you."
Dean sucked in a breath in reaction. They weren't pulling punches today, apparently. It was getting bad enough that Dean wondered if he shouldn't call a time out or a truce or something before his big mouth landed him short an angel in his pocket.
"Cas---I don't know what to say, man. It's not that I don't believe you. It's just that you won't tell me anything! You're talking about what you do for me, but that's a two-way street. I have stood by you myself. I've done my best for you. I've tried to be a better damned man for you! I know I'm not good enough to have you in my corner, Cas. I don't need you to tell me that. I do need you to trust me as much as I trust you because otherwise? I can't help but fail you even more than I already have."
Dean shrugged a shoulder and gave him a faltering grin, "I'm only human."
Castiel's eyes left his own for the first time in what felt like their entire relationship. His gaze had moved down to the sword that Dean had honestly forgotten about. It lay dull and abandoned at Dean's side, a relic of a civilization that Dean couldn't even pretend to understand and Cas had likely watched rise and fall. The thing didn't look like anything of any importance at all.
"You always underestimate yourself, Dean. The truth lies there beside you. You are the Righteous Man. If you weren't, you couldn't have possibly freed that sword from the stone. You wouldn't even now be staring at the truth of me, one of God's own Created children, and you wouldn't be sitting there with the ability to wield my heart as easily as you wield that blade. For love of you, Dean Winchester, I will do whatever it takes to preserve this world. I will fight any adversary, even my own brother who by right of my Father's Will is mightier than I could ever hope to be. I would even side with demons if it meant I could keep you safe a little while longer."
The confession at the end had set the halo wobbling off-kilter worse than Dean had ever seen it. It scared him. He couldn't think what that would mean. All he could think was that Cas, Cas who had literally saved him from Hell, loved him.
Dean tried that on for size, "You love me? You love me."
Their eyes met again and Dean didn't bother looking at the halo, but he didn't need to in order to know it was leveling back out as quickly as it had gone askew.
It appeared that Cas had run out of words because he simply nodded once in answer to Dean's question.
Dean stood from the bleachers, leaving the Sword of Bruncvik behind as he closed the gap between himself and the angel. Up close the halo gave off a heat that Dean had forgotten about. It made his face feel almost uncomfortably warm and, for the first time, Dean found himself looking at Castiel's chapped mouth. The heat from the halo must dry out his vessel pretty badly. That made sense, come to think of it.
He licked his own lips in empathy, "Can you feel it when you kiss someone? You didn't seem to hate kissing Meg."
Dean was watching Cas's mouth for his reply and almost missed it when the angel simply nodded once in a jerky acknowledgement. His face felt hotter than ever and Dean looked up to note that the damned halo was practically on top of Cas's head. It was glowing bright enough that he squinted in reaction and quickly looked away.
The good thing about it was that it definitely let him know Cas wouldn't be faking it.
That was always a good thing in Dean's book.
He could have made a smartass comment about the angel's eagerness showing. Could have said how he hoped Cas had his wings strapped on tight because Dean was a much better kisser than some demon bitch. Could have said that he thought he loved Castiel, Angel of the Lord, right back for believing in him, for being willing to do anything to save him and his brother, for looking at him as if he mattered even after he'd had his holy hands all over Dean's very unholy soul.
Dean could have said plenty.
Instead, he fisted his hands in Jimmy Novak's stupid trench coat and jerked Cas forward to mash their lips together in a kiss that was more teeth than anything else. It was enough of a shock to the angel that his folded arms jerked out to the side in reaction and the familiar snapping sound of wings rocked Dean to his core. He almost opened his eyes to look to see if he could actually see those wings now, but didn't because Cas's tongue was pressing insistently between his lips and all Dean could do was groan as he let it into his mouth. Dean was surprised to find out that Cas really had learned a lot from the pizza man as the kiss continued, but he wasn't surprised at all that, once Cas figured out Dean wasn't backing down, the angel was grabby; he figured it would be worth the bruises on his hips if it meant Cas was going to let him grind against him like that.
"Oh yeah. You love me," Dean offered, his tongue thick in his bruised mouth.
Cas rolled his eyes, "I said as much, Dean. Do you merely wish to hear me say it again?"
"No. We'll keep that one for special occasions like stopping the apocalypse again or for when I'm dying, y'know?"
"Does this mean that you love me? Or that you wish to copulate with me?"
A beat passed and Dean felt as if the halo was burning a streak across his forehead. He moved back to consider how to respond and Castiel apologized in reaction.
"I'm sorry, Dean. You did tell me to come to you with emotional questions."
"Yeah---not my best move, I'll admit."
Castiel moved to pull back himself and Dean clenched his grip on the angel's coat tighter.
"Wait. Alright. I'll say it."
They both seemed to hold their breath and even the halo spun slower as if it too were waiting for Dean to manage to come out with it already.
"I love you, too. There. I said it. Now! We need to talk about the important things like how gentle is gentle and exactly what kind of experiments have you been conducting in manual stimulation?"
Castiel's gaze was fixated once more on Dean's face and Dean was feeling entirely too full of himself to note the intensity in Cas's voice as he replied back.
"These are important things to us. We will discuss them and after...I would like to trust you with something I have done that I am not very proud of, Dean. I would like to tell you---"
Dean stopped him with a kiss and rubbed his hips against the angel's.
"Later, Cas. I'm going to grab the damned sword, you're going to put the heavy stuff on the back burner for a bit, and then we're going to find a room to ourselves where we're going to try to catch a view of Heaven on Earth."
Castiel nodded as if Dean had said something vital, pivotal to his continued survival and Dean would have thought the angel was cooling off if the heat coming off his halo wasn't getting hotter and hotter. He had a flash of what that burning ring would feel like if Cas went down on him and shuddered at the thought; Dean had a feeling any contact burn he got from it would be totally worth it seeing as how Cas was developing quite the oral fixation.
He snagged the sword and Cas followed him back to the car, apparently content to ride with him wherever he wanted to take them.
"I consider you to be better than a glimpse of Heaven, Dean. I thought you should know."
Dean paused as he was getting into the Impala and shot a look over at Castiel. He swallowed thickly at the intensity of Cas's whole countenance. Cas was a glimpse of Heaven on Earth.
He offered him back the best he could.
"Ditto."
Dean had never been an eloquent guy. It was a good thing Cas knew that before he went and declared his love and all.
He still didn't know how they were going to stop Raphael, wasn't sure he was ready to hear whatever confession Castiel was going to make to him later, and had no clue what the fuck being the bearer of the Sword of Bruncvik meant in the grand scheme of things, but Dean was happy. As he steered the car toward the nearest motel -not the one he was sharing a room in with his kid brother- with an angel in his passenger seat who loved him, Dean realized he really was happy.
Most people wouldn't consider his situation to be anything close to good, but, in the life of Dean Winchester, it was pretty freakin' great and Dean intended to enjoy every single second of it, contact halo-burn and all.