"Part of me always believed that you'd come back."
Dean to Castiel
Late afternoon before the December new moon. Dean hadn't been able to stand it in the bunker any longer. He had to be alone. It was just like a month ago, merely colder. No Sam trying to persuade him. No one there in front of whom he had to pretend he would be strong, as if he felt no fear. He was alone with the quiet of the forest. Nobody compelled him to uphold the facade further on. He did it nonetheless. Force of habit. After all, he still had to justify himself to himself.
Only with Castiel, his armor out of sarcasm and ostensible serenity had crumbled, for what would it have been of use to him, Cas had simply looked through his mask. With him, he had felt safe, he had trusted him. With him, he didn't have to be strong. For him, he didn't have to be a hero. Paradoxical. And yet Dean had been so much stronger when Castiel had been with him. The angel saw him as he really was, he knew his darkest sides, and Dean couldn't understand why he had stayed regardless.
Until now. Castiel had not returned. Everything had changed. Did he still trust the angel? After all what he had done? The answer was Yes. Irrational as it was. Because Castiel had only taken what had already been his, what belonged to him. Deep down, Dean knew that. Maybe it had always been like that.
Dean looked up to the sky. The first snow. Like wishes that fell from Heaven. They danced in the light and lay down like a consoling cloak on trees and bushes so that their branches would no longer remain bare. It would be so easy not to believe in miracles. But when has it ever been easy?
Dean still well remembered the nights when there had been no money for a motel room. In the back seat of the Impala, Sam's small body had cooled down much faster than his own. In the hope of being able to warm him, he had pressed the shivering child to his chest. While other children had wished for a Game Boy or a Pedal Go Cart, it had been his greatest wish that his little brother would not freeze to death, that Sammy would still be there when he woke up.
Dean inhaled the sharply cold air deep into his lungs. The wooded area around the bunker had a new face, familiar and foreign at the same time. Everything seemed so peaceful out here. But where others saw the world covered in powdered sugar, a winter wonderland and ice flowers on window panes, he saw Sammy's lips blue from the cold. Never, he had been able to allow himself to believe in miracles.
And then he felt the other's presence. Dean couldn't tell how exactly he knew. He could plainly feel it. As if they were two things that belonged to each other, with a connection so strong that it disregarded worldly rules. After weeks of separation, the nexus had just become more sensitive. Surely it would destroy them both, someday. The familiar rustling of wings. Immediately he felt safe. It wasn't absurd anymore.
The dream was already two weeks ago. Maybe Castiel hadn't had the courage to face Dean in real life. Or maybe he hadn't wanted to expose Dean to his presence. Or maybe he had just wanted to say goodbye to him and would not have been able to if he had actually been with him. They both didn't know.
Why was he here now?
Castiel stood in front of him and everything that had been so clear in the conversation with Sam shattered like thin glass at the tone of doubt. He had merely ever been able to hold Cas, but never bring him closer to himself. And now he couldn't even do that any more. Now he had found Cas and lost his best friend.
But of course Castiel had returned to him, just as he always did. And Dean didn't understand why, when he had given him so many reasons to leave. No death, no leviathans, no lost memories, no Naomie and no curse had been able to keep the angel from doing so. Not even Lucifer, the Darkness and the Empty. Castiel had fought his way back to him, every time. How did he deserve this loyalty?
An indefinable feeling flowed through Dean's body, just like it always was when he saw Cas. Though something else also mingled with this feeling. Desire. Raw, untamable craving. The curse demanded its toll. The hunter backed away.
There had always been something tremendously tingly when he had accidentally touched the sleek fabric of Castiel's coat, or when Castiel had suddenly appeared next to him, way too close, the personal space long forgotten. It had been comparable to the kick he got caused by holding his weapon at the ready. Concentrated senses. Heartbeat. Absolute clarity. But now, everything was different. Now, he himself was the weapon.
"Dean... I won't do anything to you." Pain lay behind Castiel's eyes. Snow crunched under his shoes as he took a step back as well to give the human space.
Everything was different, Dean sensed it. The dream of the lake. What he had wanted to say. The conversation with Sam. It all had happened so quickly. His whole life had got out of joint in no time. He had learned things about which he wasn't sure if he even wanted to know or if he shouldn't always have known. New sides had opened up of Castiel, of Sam, of Dean himself. The night a month ago had torn something open in him that could not be closed again now. Like the gates of a dam that no longer held back the tide, the flood. And the next new moon would dawn. Today.
"I know. I... I trust you. I just don't trust myself."
That damn curse! He hated it. It had destroyed so much. Their first time together should have taken place differently. Like this, Dean hadn't imagined it. Mortified, he realized that he had imagined it. In those many lonely nights he had envisioned what it would be like to sleep with his best friend. And it had felt so good when he had touched himself in the dark. Nothing but his desperate gasping had filled the somber room. Exhausted and empty, he had fallen into a deep sleep afterwards. But with the approaching day the shame had come too. He had been so ashamed.
"I understand already. You feel uncomfortable having slept with a man although you only do so with women. But how do you humans say? Exceptions prove the rule?"
Strictly speaking, Dean hadn't slept with a man, but with an angel. Castiel had already wore female vessels. Angels themselves neither owned nor embodyed any gender. But that was certainly not the point for Dean.
Castiel had never fathomed why people made a difference there at all. They were the same after all, just with slightly varying equipment. When fighting in male vessels, something could shift at the bottom, in female ones at the top. Human souls shone in equal ways, no matter what body they inhabited. But by now he comprehended that the sexual intercourse differed considerably. He understood why it couldn't be insignificant to Dean.
"But you're no exception. You're... something special." Dean cleared his throat. "You're special to me." He wasn't good at stuff like that, he wasn't a man of big words. And so all that was left to him only was to hope that Castiel understood him.
"Does that mean we...?" Castiel narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. A gesture so familiar that it almost tore Dean's heart. Perhaps some things would never change.
Dean knew he had to be more obvious. He was a man of action, he had to do something unequivocal, something that left no leeway for interpretation. In lieu of an answer, he followed a sudden impulse and took a step closer. The personal space long forgotten as so often, sensing the breath of the other on his own skin, caught in the eyes of the counterpart as so often. For an instant he lost himself in the deep blue. Then he closed his eyes and gave in to a need that had been tormenting him for so long. When their lips touched, it was like sun after endless night, as if he had been drowning incessantly and could now finally breathe again. A moment of imperfect happiness. Happiness had always been something for him that happened to other people.
In surprise Castiel gasped, he hadn't expected that. The unfamiliar mouth on his own was gentle and compliant, almost pleading. Affirmatively he approached the tender lips. Dean tasted like Dean. He didn't know what he had expected either. A mixture of beer, burger and engine oil, maybe. But there was solely Dean, sheer and pure, unmitigated. An intoxicating sensation. Gingerly questioning, he slid a hand on the hunter's neck. This seemed to encourage the latter, for he carefully pulled him closer.
It was difficult for Dean to restrain himself, to curb his devastating longing. Just slowly he deepened the kiss. Unexpectedly, Castiel opened his lips and let him in. That was almost enough to make him lose his composure. Dean wrapped his arms more firmly around him while he entered the warm cavity of his mouth. As their moist tongues collided, the feeling was like an explosion that spread rapidly through their bodies, setting their nerve tracts on fire. A whimper left them, but neither was capable to tell which of them had been the source. Dean could barely contain himself. In one flowing movement he pressed the other body tighter to himself, in constant search for more contact, more closeness, until they were completely touching.
Then at once though, Castiel stiffened in his arms, broke loose from him and pushed him away. Disappointed and still a little dazed, Dean paused. Had he done something wrong? Did Cas actually not want all of this at all? Dean swallowed. In Cas's place, he wouldn't want himself either. Castiel was an angel and he was the human who didn't believe.
Castiel blinked and looked at his counterpart with an indefinable expression in his eyes. The fleeting smile on Dean's face was long since vanished, like the sun behind the clouds. Once again Castiel closed his lids and opened them anew. His throat felt raw as he spoke, "Are you doing this only because you have to?" Was the spell forcing the hunter into this behavior? Probably he wouldn't want it at all without that influence.
So that was it. Relieved Dean exhaled. Castiel had doubts about his motives. But hadn't he already told him this before, back then a long time ago: I'd rather have you, cursed or not. Would they still be at this point even without the curse? Certainly not, since that had been the trigger after all, but not the cause. The curse wasn't the reason. "No," Dean swallowed, "I'm doing this because I want to."
"You want..."
"You." It had simply slipped out of the hunter's mind and now he couldn't undo it. He couldn't take back his spoken word and found that he didn't want to either. He wasn't ashamed. He knew he should, but he wasn't.
The word hung in the air, like a sword of Damocles above them. Dean mentally implored Castiel to say something. Anything. But he merely stood there in his trench coat and didn't budge. The hair even more tousled from their kiss than before. A fluttering quiver ran through Dean's nerves as he thought about what he had just done. God, what had he done?! He had kissed a man, in his right mind, sober, of his own free will. A man, an angel, his best friend! But had they ever just been friends? Because in the end just meant only, and Castiel had never been only anything to him. Not only any angel, not only any useful companion on the battlefield, not only any friend.
"How long already?" Castiel had to know, because everything had changed for him since the day he had saved Dean Winchester from damnation.
"Right from the start, I think. Except I didn't know it then." The blond gave a brief laugh and ran his hand, somewhat embarrassed, over the short-cropped hair on the back of his neck. He also didn't know where this frightening sincerity suddenly came from. Maybe Castiel rubbed off on him. Maybe Sam's words had affected him. Maybe it was about time.
Dean remembered the incident all too well when he had been just 16 years old. Back then he had tried to explain to his father that he indeed was into women, but not exclusively though. For three weeks, John hadn't spoken to his eldest son until the disputes with Sam over the matter had degenerated. Even in those days, Dean had felt like he had been cursed. Why did he of all people have to have these "unnatural hankerings"? Since then however, his "perverse tendencies" had never been an issue for Dean again. Conditioned like an obedient dog, the perfect little soldier. Because the silence had been worse than everything else his father had done.
"Don't think about it anymore." Castiel wanted to put a hand on Dean's shoulder, but it refused him its service and came to rest on the crook of his neck instead. Instinctively, he pulled the human a bit closer and his hand slided higher. Gently, he caressed with his thumb across Dean's cheek, soft as falling snow.
"You've read my mind?" It was more of a statement than a question, and yet the hunter wasn't upset, to his own surprise. The arduously gained 'personal space', he had long since given up to Castiel, physically and psychically. He tore down all his personal boundaries for the sake of his closeness, so painful as it might be.
"It was very loud", the angel answered. But that was only half the truth. Dean's spirit had opened up to him, letting him in unhindered. Yet Castiel preferred to keep that to himself, after all he didn't want to unsettle Dean.
Instead, he reluctantly detached himself from the human and said: "Let's go inside. You're freezing." Dean hadn't noticed it due to the heat that burned within him. He hadn't even noticed that they were still out under the open sky.
Dean looked back in the direction he had come from. Traces in the snow. His footprints alongside those of Castiel's. Also already on the way there. "You were there, you were with me", Dean realized in surprise. Without showing himself, Castiel had accompanied him on his way and he would always do so, wherever it might lead them.
"Of course. I won't leave you alone. Not here. Not today." Castiel faltered. He hadn't revealed himself out of fear Dean would send him away again, not wanting to have him with him. For this time, he would not have turned against his will. This time, he would have gone. "We both know what decision you've made here last month. I wanted to be with you if you do it once more. Not to detain you... I just wanted... I didn't want you to be alone when it happened. I didn't want to let you die alone."
And here Dean could finally see it, all that other angels had told him so many times. Castiel not only cared about him, he loved him. Dean looked at him and understood that a miracle wasn't something you had to earn. Then he kissed him, different this time, not yearning, not to prove or validate anything. Castiel's face in his hands and Castiel's arms tightly around his body. It was as if Dean's whole world was being held together by those two arms. It was real and pure and desperate. Maybe that should have been their first. Dean leaned his forehead against Castiel's, the bridge of his nose grazed his cheek. Their breath mingled.
"Cas, I want to live." But I won't make it on my own. I don't want just to survive. I want to live. With you. And for you. Dean had always assumed that there existed exactly two kinds of love. The one you would kill for and the one you would die for. Now though, he recognized the one for whom he would live. No matter what it cost. He knew about the price.
"I'd rather have you. Cursed or not."
Dean to Castiel 7.23
- "You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell... Knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack... But I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean." Castiel to Dean 15.18
- "Dad never spoke about it again. I didn't ask. But he, uh... looked at me different. Wich was worse. Not that I blamed him." Dean to Sam 1.18
- poem 'Footprints in the Sand' https://blogs.transparent.com/german/german-poetry-spuren-im-sand-footprints-in-the-sand/
- "Dean, you asked what about all of this was real... We are." Castiel 15.02
