Supernatural Dean/Castiel the man who sold the world
Dean is tired. Tired to his very soul, and Castiel can see it. The weariness, the aching pain that spreads out through the muscled frame. Dean sleeps fitfully, body collapsed in boneless exhaustion on the couch in Robert Singer's home.
Under the exhaustion lays the wrath. The fury that burns hotter than hell fire and drives Dean on. The wrath is tempered by love. Tempered by patience and Hope. Castiel understands Hope. He understands that it can hurt so much more than any pain of the flesh. It is his Father's gift, and in someways His curse, to humanity.
That Hope is wearing thin, and when it goes, it will take with it the wall that keeps Dean's Wrath at bay. The Wrath will drive him, as it drove his father John. Wrath, Patience, and Love. So much love, completely unconditional. The kind only humans and He are capable of. And maybe not Him either, depending on the book you read.
Castiel has his orders, and he has learned the price of questioning them. He will not disobey. He does not serve this tired, broken man who means so much to his Father. He does not serve humanity.
And yet. He has no orders against comfort. Against caring. He has watched Dean Winchester, has come close to the Fall for him and his strength, his Righteousness. Dean will not forgive him after tonight. And if he does, Castiel will be beyond deserving it.
Touching a gentle hand to the sleeping man's brow, he let himself enter the mortal's dream.
The lake again, bright and tranquil.
"Got something you can't tell me again? Come to yammer about the Divine Right? How I should be grateful to be your lap dog and you've got a Plan that's gonna get us all out of this fuck hole so you can go back to guarding your pearly gates against mud monkeys like me?"
Dean doesn't look at him, doesn't lift green eyes from the motionless pole in his hands. Though the words are insulting and self loathing, the tone is just weary. Wrung out.
Wrath can push a body for years, love longer, but the toll... How much of the toll has Castiel himself made Dean pay?
"I came to let you rest."
"I'll be mighty amazed if I'm not sleeping already Cas."
Dean is the one who named him that. Effortlessly, unthinking, a shortening of his name that somehow bespoke of trust and companionship that Dean gave so sparingly to others. Sam and Anna have adopted the moniker, but only from Dean is it more.
"Let me carry some of your burden." He finds himself saying, crouching down to look into Dean's eyes. He wants, so very much, to help this man. This unique soul.
Dean's eyes are hollow in the dream light. Aching pits of more pain and turmoil than a single mortal should be asked to shoulder. But there is an iron strength there to. Not broken, as Dean believes, as the others think and fear. No. It's simply being honed; tempered by the conflict in his soul, when released it will shine like the first flaming sword. Blazing under it's own power.
"I can't Cas. Cause it'll just be heavier when you let go."
And Castiel knows. He knows that Dean knows. This will not end happily like the fairy tales the Winchesters never believed in. Both brothers will be scarred.