InsaneJournal

Sam's hell had left him shaken. Dean didn't want to share that with Sam. It was unfair to make his brother deal with his own emotions and and Dean's. The whole ordeal had the effect that Sam had gone for, but the side effect was that Dean was rattled and uncomfortable for the time being.

Once he was alone and Sam had, if not gone to bed, retreated to his room, Dean actually started praying again. He needed it, even if Castiel didn't want to talk back.

"I had the shit scared out of me," he admitted, looking up at the ceiling like that meant anything. "Sam thinks he's some kind… horrible monster. That he's gonna end up destroying the world. And I didn't notice. I couldn't take my head out of my ass long enough to see it and… help him. I never realized how bad it was.

"I need you here, man. I was stupid to push you away. You've been there for me, and shut off because some fictional crap scared me. I do that, I freak out if something is good, 'cause I don't deserve. But I'm asking you to stay anyway, because I'm selfish. I'm not mad at you. Truth is, every time I am I can't hang onto it. I just want you to stay."

Dean’s words hung heavy in the air for several seconds before there was the distinct, familiar sound of wingbeats. Castiel’s wings were incorporeal, how they functioned was outside human perception, and it meant that the angel seemed to appear out of nowhere, but just outside of Dean’s view so it was almost like he’d been there all along.

He’d gotten used to Dean praying to him, even when he couldn’t answer, or it seemed inappropriate to answer. He certainly never invaded Dean’s space like this unless they were at war in some capacity and one of them needed something to be done. But now, he was quiet, and didn’t seem impatient or irritated because he’d been called away from something pressing.

“I’m not going anywhere, Dean.”

Dean was actually surprised when Cas answered. He sat up in bed like he'd had a shock and swung his legs over the edge. It was weird talking when he was just laying there on the bedspread. It wasn't even that intimate, just awkward.

"I didn't expect you to show up," he admitted.

Castiel stayed in the corner of the room, hands at his sides. He looked down at the floor for a moment, then at the door. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can go. Personal space?”

"No, it's fine," Dean assured him, pushing himself up off the bed. "I just, uh…" He was so unused to asking for things that he was painfully awkward about it. "Look, I'm really not angry at you. Not for anything. I mean it when I say that."

Castiel’s eyes flickered back up to Dean, and he nodded once. “All right.” Was that enough for him? It wasn’t entirely clear. He didn’t understand what had happened to Dean, but he trusted Dean enough to be honest.

"So…" Was there anything to add to that? If there was, it was either too much, or Dean just didn't know. "Talk to me," he decided. "We've been here how long, and I haven't even checked on you. 'Course you thought I was still mad."

Cas tilted his head to one side. “Checked on me?”

"There's no way you're all right after what you went through." He gestured helplessly. Dean remembered being in the crypt well enough. Cas had just shaken off some freaky mind control. He couldn't have been all right, and Cas internalized so well that it wouldn't show.

Castiel hesitated. After a few silent seconds, his rigid shoulders slumped and he looked off toward the window. “No, Dean,” he said quietly. “I am not ‘all right.’”

"Come here." Dean motioned for Cas to sit next to him, patting the bedspread and sinking back down.

Castiel watched the bed, then glanced at Dean. It took a moment for him to move, like he wasn’t sure why changing his location in the space would actually calm him or settle him. However, he did sink down to sit next to Dean, hands resting on his knees. “You’re from my future; am I ever ‘all right’?”

Dean took a deep breath while he decided whether or not to lie. In the end, the answer was not to, but it did take him a while. "I don't know," he admitted. "You end up human. But you have a life. You get a job. You are… taking care of yourself."

Castiel’s expression darkened and he lifted his head. “I lost my grace?” He tensed, and he changed from being quietly troubled to alert. There was something different about sitting next to Cas when he was an angel versus when he as a human. He had an energy, perceptible when things were quiet and still, a sort of buzzing like this entity was just barely being contained inside his vessel. In a silence like this, his wings couldn’t be seen but they could almost be felt, a shift in the air behind Dean, a sense of shadow when there seemed to be nothing there.

"It wasn't your fault." Dean wasn't sure if it went without saying that Cas had just been trying to do the right thing. Of course he had. He always was, and it let Dean forgive him every time he made a mistake. "It won't happen here. And maybe you'll go back knowing and you can stop it from happening."

“Of course it’s gone. I told Heaven to kiss my ass, I’m fallen.” Castiel looked up at the ceiling and then away. While the idea of losing his grace seemed like an inevitability, it was a punishment he could barely fathom. Stripping away everything that made him an angel, everything he knew. The last few years had shattered his worldview, destroyed his faith in God. “After everything I’ve done, it’s…” He nodded.

"Still not right," Dean finished. "It was stolen, Cas. It wasn't punishment, it was theft." And Dean couldn't fix that for him either. Maybe if he'd tried harder, but he'd have Ezekiel breathing down his neck, telling him to make Cas stay away or he'd destroy Sam.

Cas frowned. “Why?” he demanded, harsh only because he was confused.

"Because Metatron is an asshole." Dean said it like that was the entire story. If he mentioned the consequences, the angels falling, it would just make this whole thing worse. From here, Castiel couldn't try to make it right. At least at home he was trying to make himself useful.

“Metatron?” It couldn’t have been the entire story, and Castiel wasn’t accepting it as much. “Metatron is the scribe of God, he’s been missing for… millenia. Where did you find him?” If Dean had wanted to keep things simple, he’d mentioned the wrong detail.

"He found you." Shit. "Cas, it doesn't matter. What he did wasn't your fault, that's what I'm getting at."

Unfortunately for Dean, Castiel wasn’t letting it go. “What did he do?”

"No," Dean said, more roughly than he'd intended. "You got screwed, okay? He took your grace for a fucked up reason. Doesn't matter what that reason was. Point is that it wasn't your fault and never was."

For a few tense moments, Castiel tried to stare Dean down and intimidate him into telling him, but when it became clear that Dean wasn’t going to give it up, he glanced away. Did he really want to know? He’d destroyed enough as it was. “Why did you want to check on me, again?”

"It was supposed to be to check on you and try to make you feel better." Which had, not unpredictably, gone like shit. Dean rested his forearms on his thighs, letting his hands hang between his knees. "I just don't want you blaming yourself for crap that isn't your fault."

“No, Dean, I have plenty of crap that already is my fault to deal with.” It wasn’t said cruelly. If anything, Castiel had a grim sense of humor about it just to cope with the fact that if he didn’t, he’d break.

Not long ago, he’d been convinced that if he saw what he’d done in Heaven that he’d kill himself -- something he’d confessed to Dean in a rare moment of vulnerability and never mentioned again. He kept his feelings and his problems private, and was relatively certain that it didn’t matter to either of the Winchesters. He was their friend, but he was also a weapon, a tool to be used when they needed extra firepower. He’d listen to Dean pray but it never occurred to him that he could be just as honest in return.

"That doesn't have to be your life here." As if Dean had any luck escaping his life, getting away from his guilt. That was different. Here he had Sam and Adam. It wasn't as if any of Cas's brothers were here, no one he'd killed or betrayed. He had the luxury of not thinking about it. Dean clapped a hand on Cas's knee and added, "You can start over."

Castiel looked down at Dean’s hand, his brow furrowed. “How?”

"No one here knows what happened except for us. I'm not angry at you. Neither is Sam. You don't have to make anything up to us." Dean's hand lingered a little too long, squeezing to be reassuring. "Do something that makes you happy. Hell, travel. You can get around fast enough to go anywhere you want and be there for a while."

“I did travel,” said Castiel plainly. “You told me to come back.”

"Because you weren't traveling, you ran off."

Castiel just barely rolled his eyes. Yes, Dean, all right. For several moments, he just sat there, letting Dean touch his knee and accepting it as something he liked. “I don’t know what to do with myself,” he finally said. “I don’t know how to start over; I don’t know how to be anything other than what I am. I’ve already given up my home and my brothers and my faith.”

Dean was quiet, thanks to what looked like thoughtfulness. In reality, he was distracted by Cas's mouth. Today, right this second, it wasn't for any particularly dirty reason (although he had memories that he really shouldn't have, and he still had piles of guilt over it), Cas was just… there.

He felt sixteen again, and decided that he didn't like it.

Pulling his hand away, Dean cleared his throat to try and brush off the awkwardness that Cas probably hadn't noticed in the first place. "We're not an entire race. We're not even as big as your garrison. But me and Sam and Adam, we're family. You could start by just being here with me." Beat. "Us."

Castiel still struggled with accepting the fact that he was wanted. Dean had said it before. He’d even said it while Castiel was beating the life from him, and it had broken him from Naomi’s control. After everything, he was wanted. He was family.

He didn’t necessarily know what that meant. All other angels were his brothers, but they were divided into military units. They were close, but they were still bound by loyalty to God and to their orders. He had angels that he missed, most of whom were dead, names that Dean didn’t know and didn’t care about -- and for those that were alive, he was sure he could no longer trust anyone. Not after the way Naomi had manipulated him, and the way that war had torn them apart.

He needed to start over, because he couldn’t go back.

“I…” Castiel reached out and laid a heavy hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “It’s a start.”