InsaneJournal

Who: Castiel & Dean Winchester
What: Dean and Cas finally have serious talks about their relationship
When: 9/24
Where: the Impala, the desert
Rating: Medium - TW Dean’s depression, talk of sex
Status: Complete




Dean had taken Baby out for a drive while Castiel was at work, left a note on the table and everything. He’d driven deep out into the desert, took nearly the whole day to do it, but he and Cas needed to talk where there weren’t any distractions. The middle of nowhere seemed the best bet and maybe it’d be romantic or some crap watching the sun go down and the stars come out.

He sat on the hood of the car all stretched out with a bottle of cold coke resting on his thigh just waiting for the sound of wings to join him.

The note hadn't been very specific, but Castiel had found that it hadn't been difficult to find Dean, anyway. He knew that wasn't always the case for everyone - he certainly couldn't just pinpoint where every specific person was that he might want to see. But for Dean it was easy, just a simple thought and then he was there beside him. That was new, and wholly unsurprising.

"Hello, Dean," he greeted, standing near the Impala; still wearing his work clothing plus the trench coat that was becoming closer and closer to being ever present on him despite the California weather.

Dean took a swig of his coke. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, still watching the sky. “Thought we could maybe use some neutral territory for you to...maybe get off your chest all the crap that’s been going unsaid.” Like Cas’ clear worry that Dean was working so damn hard to ignore because it just weighed as more pressure on him to pretend to be better.

Cas smiled at that, but it was half guilty before he schooled his expression back into his usual solemn blank. He'd been doing more of that lately, and even he wasn't sure if it was just an after effect of the dreams or something to do with not wanting to seem too emotional around his husband who clearly had it hard enough.

Either way, he scooted himself onto the hood of the Impala next to Dean, stared out into the distance for a moment. "That's a lot of talking," he said cautiously, carefully - a little hopefully.

“And I got a lot of driving back to do,” Dean pointed out. “We’ve got time.” Another swig of delicious burn down his throat and Dean stretched out more comfortably.

Nodding, Cas glanced at the bottle of soda, took some relief in it like he had been so many other times this week when he realized it wasn't booze. So. He figured that was something to begin with, since they had to start somewhere.

"You stopped drinking, again." Cas never had been very good at subtle conversation or small talk for the sake of it, and so just jumped right in.

“Turns out the devil’s not completely evil,” Dean replied, closing his eyes to bask a little in the sun. “It wasn’t your fault that I started again in the first place. You get that, right?”

"Yes." Just because Dean managed to twist everything into being his own fault didn't necessarily mean that Castiel always did the same. He knew why Dean had started again, they both did. That Castiel hadn't been focused enough to stop him? That was his fault.

Cas pulled his knees up enough where he could rest his chin on them. "Is it as bad as the last time?"

“No,” Dean said quietly. “Not nearly.” He let out a slow breath. “Doesn’t make it any easier, but at least I know the warning signs now, right?”

"Yes," Castiel agreed again, feeling relieved. He'd been wanting to ask that for a while now, but had refrained because -- well. Talking to Dean about anything issue related was sometimes difficult. Always difficult.

"Are you angry with me?"

Dean shook his head. “No, just…” He looked over at Castiel. “I worry about us sometimes.” Which was hard enough to say in the first place that he wasn’t sure how it was going to go over. Honesty was a bitch.

The truth did kind of hurt. Cas continued to stare out into nothing, looped his arms around his knees until he could clasp one of his wrists with his other hand. "I love you," he said, as if that might just fix everything. He knew it wouldn't, though. Not really. But he didn't know what to do to fix things either, because he could never completely pinpoint what was wrong in the first place.

But obviously something was, that only recently Dean had started sleeping in the same bed as him again after a week of not was as much telling as it was slightly encouraging.

“I know,” Dean said. “And I love you too. If I didn’t think whatever was broken wasn’t worth fixing, we wouldn’t be out here.” He looked over at Castiel, reached for one of his hands. “Sometimes...I’m not sure we really know each other all that well at all. So...I think we need to work on that, because obviously neither of us is going anywhere, but we could...maybe start dating?”

They would be the two to do things completely backward; the two who got married after less than two weeks and who needed to slow it down and date after the fact. It was nearly laughable, the predicament that they'd gotten themselves into. Nearly. Castiel did not laugh.

He did, however, reach over and take Dean's hand into his own, curling his fingers around Dean's and holding tight. "I'd like that," he said, honest and earnest and nearly glowing with the pleasure that little suggestion gave him.

Dean held back just as firmly. He looked down at the coke bottle on his thigh, resolutely anywhere but Cas while he spoke the hardest thing there was to say in his mind. “I married you so you wouldn’t leave,” he whispered roughly. “It’s...stupid and fucked up, but I loved you, love you, and I just couldn’t stand to see you walk away like everyone else.”

It was kind of stupid and definitely fucked up. Castiel thought it was probably equally fucked up that he understood, that he rather felt exactly the same way. Not because he was used to people running out and leaving him, but because he wasn't used to anyone at all before Dean. He was used to no one really liking him at all, or not liking anyone else enough to get them to like him.

"I know," Cas said, only now deciding to stare intently at Dean now that he wasn't looking back. "I wouldn't leave you, Dean. But I was selfish too, for nearly exactly the same reasons."

Dean ran his thumb over the rise of Castiel’s knuckles. “None...none of my life has conditioned me to believe that anyone would willingly stay with me, not once they actually saw more than just green eyes, a charming smile and a hard dick.” He took a swig of his coke again. “And I look at us and I want us to be a family and happy and whole and...and maybe one day take Pen up on her offer to carry a kid for us, but...but I have to let you in and maybe you have to do the same for me.”

Currently, Castiel couldn't even fathom the idea of a child in their lives, but he could see where Dean was coming from with it. Someday, maybe. When everything was less complicated and they were less -- whatever this was that they were, currently. If that was possible.

"It wasn't your dick that interested me," Cas said, glancing down at their intertwined hands. "Not that it isn't very nice, but I'd never bothered caring about sex before you, so I probably could have -- you know." He shrugged, a little lamely, before turning his gaze back out to the desert. "I want for things to be better. I will try my hardest." He gave a pause, licked his lower lip. "I don't like talking very much. But I will do it more."

Dean didn’t ‘you know’ but he didn’t particularly want to ask for that to be answered. “I know.” At least he knew that Cas didn’t like talking much. “I just...I look at the house, y’know, our house except it’s really not ours. I mean the garage is mine and the office...has become mine, but all the rest of it feels like me tiptoeing around your space, like I’m still just a guest instead of someone who...who has a stake in things. And sometimes I think, well, maybe if we got a different house, we could figure out how to do it from scratch but...that’s not the point is it? A different house would just be us transferring our problems somewhere else and not really working on them. It’d end up just like it is now only with a different floorplan.”

Castiel really did not like the idea of buying a new house, but since that wasn't the point, he didn't say so. He ran his thumb over Dean's, strangely interested by the feeling of the joint moving just below skin, as he considered and let this new information sink in.

"It's difficult," he said, after a moment. "I haven't shared a space since I moved out of my parent's house. Nearly twenty years. And then there's…" He paused, not sure how to speak on his compulsive desire for everything to be just so. Dean knew about it though, Cas knew he did, so he changed his aim in the conversation. "It's your home too. I did the paperwork for that. If you want something different, you… well. Do it." And Castiel, in turn, would try his very hardest not to let it set off his nerves.

“That just sounds like a bigger, louder version of the why can’t we just keep the lube on the damn nightstand argument waiting to happen,” Dean pointed out.

"What do you want me to do?" Castiel asked, and to his credit it wasn't testy, or even angry. He wasn't trying to argue, he was just being genuine in his confusion. "I can't help the way I am. I don't know how to fix it, Dean."

“I don’t know,” Dean said softly, almost defeated. “But just letting me push you around until you blow up at me isn’t going to help anything.” It was sad, and Dean tried not to think about how much they were absolutely meant for each other but completely not right for each other at the same time.

"It's your house too," Castiel replied, hunching over a little more, until he was smaller looking than he had any right being, considering he was six feet tall. "I won't blow up. I won't. Just warn me. And I promise I'll be better." Cas felt like he promised that an awful lot, and wondered if he could ever really just manage doing it.

Those words shot through Dean in a way that few others could. Promising he would be better in that meek little tone… If Dean closed his eyes it sounded an awful lot like a younger version of him speaking. And that was the moment Dean Winchester felt like shit. Complete shit. He just sat there in silence, not sure what to say or do about any of what he was feeling.

When he finally did find words, it was to tell Castiel the one thing he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to. “The wound that freakshow gave me,” because he didn’t have any other real term for the crazy-go-nuts bizzarro Samandriel that had showed up to fuck with their lives, “if you hadn’t found the kid when you did, I probably would’ve been dead inside a week. And I knew it...the whole time, I knew. I started drinking even more to kill the pain and then I started sleeping in the other bed so you wouldn’t notice me sweating and...and then I stayed in the other bed because I couldn’t deal with knowing that I was ready and willing to give up and you just...had no idea.”

Castiel went unearthly still at that in the sort of way that only he seemed to be able to manage. It wasn't even effort some days -- just every single muscle freezing in place and keeping him exactly where he was. That there was no breeze out here to even move his unruly hair made it more striking.

He wasn't even sure what to say, if he should just be sad or angry. Cas wasn't even sure who he would have been angry with, himself or Dean. After a long moment, he blinked his eyes closed and then kept them that way, because he certainly couldn't look at Dean right now. It hurt more than he could possibly describe that Dean would let something like that happen to himself. A selfish part of Castiel was equally hurt over the idea that Dean would just leave him.

"I love you," he said again, and was angry with himself for how desperate and broken it sounded, for how it clearly wasn't enough, and how he didn't know what else to offer. Being more open or not, Castiel thought it only wise not to spill more words out just yet, to say that if Dean wasn't here, he didn't see the point of being either. It was entirely too much, and it would only end in more misplaced guilt. Some things, he supposed, should just remain secret.

“I don’t,” was Dean’s distressingly quiet response. He loathed himself more than anyone else ever possibly could. He’d been brought up with that kind of hate, had only had it burned more into him when he was in the Service and now...now he was still stuck with the conviction right down to his core that he was worthless and useless and deserved love from no one even though everyone was trying to show him the opposite.

Dean Winchester was saved. Hah. Dean Winchester never deserved to be saved in the first place. “I’m sorry you married a train-wreck, and...I’m even more sorry that the therapy and the getting back on the wagon,” or the being on the wagon in the first place, “isn’t helping that.” But how did you tell the person you loved more than the whole world that you had to talk yourself out of suicide on a daily basis? That you should probably be committed but you know he’d only blame himself somehow and that the doctors would look at the dreams and just keep you longer and in the end you’d only get better at hiding it? Castiel was still Priority One. That Dean himself fell so far down that list as to not even count as priority anything wasn’t a thing he ever thought he’d be ready to talk about.

"I'm not," Cas said, tilting his head to the side and opening his eyes into a half squint. For how wavering his tone had been only a moment before, he now seemed strangely resolute. "I married you, and if I hadn't been sure I wanted to, I wouldn't have."

He sighed then, letting go of Dean's hand just so that he could rearrange himself, sit up a little straighter. "I'm sorry it isn't working, too. I'm sorry you don't think you deserve anything good, and that you don't like yourself. I would do anything to have you not feel that way." But even Castiel, who didn't quite understand people, was aware it wasn't something only he could fix on his own. Or even that it could be fixed.

“I don’t know how,” Dean answered, drawing away from Cas’ hand so he could settle back in his own space. “I’d give you everything I have, but I’m not sure how much that is in the first place aside from a couple nice cars and a crap attitude.” And devotion. Cas really was stuck with Dean forever, or as much forever as Dean had in front of him. He was shutting down. He could feel it. He had to fight all those instincts because giving into them just meant that they’d be stuck in the same rut they were already. The only difference would be that they were both aware of how miserable they were there.

“Part...part of the reason I’d asked you to watch me and Lucifer,” even though Lucifer had fucked that up real quick, “was so that...maybe in watching him you could see how to get through all the cracks in me to find who you actually married.” There was a reason for it. Cas may not have liked it, and even if he’d actually Seen and Understood, Dean didn’t think he’d stop whatever it was that existed between him and the devil. No matter all the fucking that went on, that wasn’t his and Satan’s relationship at all, and it wouldn’t be even when they got to that point. “I’m not a good top, or dom or whatever name you wanna put on it. I’m a soldier and I take orders. I don’t give them out.”

Tipping his head back, Cas watched the sky for a while -- the clouds rolled by at a pace that was grueling without wind and it was boring as far as most scenery went. But it was vast, and Castiel was a little terrified at how much he wanted to stretch his wings and explore it, to escape this conversation that neither of them seemed to be getting anything but pain from. He wouldn't though, of course he wouldn't. Castiel was positive that he would give up more than easy freedom for Dean Winchester.

"I'd rather go on dates to find out who I married than watch someone else figure it out for me," his tone was slightly bitter, but he knew he couldn't hide that. He went on anyway, even though he was sure there was an argument coming up for this topic already. Maybe it was good they were in the middle of nowhere, where their voices could carry and bother no one else when they actually started to yell.

"If you don't want to top, you shouldn't."

“He’s not figuring it out for you. He’s showing you where the damn keys are so that you can find them yourself,” Dean replied just as bitterly. But still, he could feel Cas pulling away and Dean moved too, off the hood of the car to toss the empty coke bottle in the backseat. He jingled his keys in his hand and continued, “I didn’t say I didn’t want to top. I said I’m not good at it. But hell if we’re being honest right now, then maybe you should know that I don’t really want sex at all right now. Not with you or the kid or Satan. And if you’d actually paid a-goddamn-ttention instead of settling into a sulk about it when things were happening, maybe you would’ve gotten that.” Dean slammed the back door louder and harder than he’d meant to.

“Just fly,” he said softly, hurt in more ways than he could hide. “I can feel you wanting to.”

Castiel stood too, standing in front of the car, wary and uncertain. It was unfortunate just how often he felt this way recently and how nothing he did or said seemed to fix it; for as much as he promised to do better, it never really seemed like he could.

He licked his lips, gaze turning to the ground beneath him. "I can't be like him," he said softly, but then turned his eyes back up at Dean, squinting and suddenly angry. "If you don't want sex, stop putting us into situations where it'll happen. You wanted this. You started this, and I shouldn't have to feel guilty and wrong every time I feel strangely about it, Dean, and I certainly shouldn't have to read between every line and expression given in order to figure out what you want. If you want me to pay attention and realize you don't want sex, stop telling me to get naked and have sex."

He stood a little straighter, flexed his wings behind him (not that Dean would be able to notice), and then just as abruptly folded them back into place at his back. "I won't leave. I said I'd try harder. I meant it." Castiel was hardly hiding his hurt, either.

Dean found himself just as livid. He jammed his keys back in his pocket, but rather than close the distance between them, he added more space. He was not going to be his father. “Look at my life, Cas,” he said lowly, “how the fuck easy do you think it is for me to just say I don’t want sex or that I don’t want to give someone important to me something they want?” Frankly, Dean had a harder time saying ‘no’ than Cas did.

“You can’t be him. I don’t want you to be him, but I need you to understand that some goddamn fucked up part of me needs him. Just like some part of you needs all the tenderness that kid can provide when all you’re getting is bullshit from me.” But of course, this was all Dean’s fault. All of it. He looked at the car and tried so very hard not to run. Just run until nobody could find him again, which would just be dumb because Cas had friggen Dean-GPS or some crap.

“I’m not going to apologize for what I started with them. I sure as hell don’t regret it.” Dean took a steadying breath and leaned facing his car, forearms braced on the roof. “Part of me just...thinks that maybe we should go on sleeping in our own beds so we can, fuck, get to know each other properly, but I know that once that wall goes up, it’s only going to stay up and you’ll be James and I’ll be...I don’t know, someone else and it’ll be the most awkward goddamn situation ever.” And it’d only be too long before one of them walked out the door. All anything was doing in his life right then seemed to be playing into his own spectacularly low opinion of himself.

It had been so long since he'd used anything but the name that Dean and the dreams had given him, so long since he'd even heard James, that it made Cas flinch, shift his weight on his feet and look at the ground. "I won't -- Dean. I won't be him again. That isn't me. I wouldn't know how to be James even if I tried. I don't want to sleep separately. It hurts to do that." Dean had to know, didn't he? Cas never slept well when Dean wasn't beside him.

It was more than obvious that they'd let all of this sit too long, because now there was so much that they were arguing and fighting over that Castiel couldn't even quite keep track. It was unnerving. He sighed, let everything sink in as best he could and then nodded. Cas never had been very good at keeping his anger and that was probably for the best.

"And I know you need him. I get it now, I do. It's hard to watch, though. I am trying." He didn't regret the choices made to get them where they were with the other two men, either. If he had, he would have objected already. Sticking his hands into the pockets, he leveled a look at Dean, wishing for all the world he could just communicate with facial expressions, all this talking was wearing him out. "I know it isn't easy. But we promised to try. I don't need sex. If you don't want it, please just tell me. I went without forever before meeting you, believe me when I say I can wait and not be upset."

“Okay,” Dean said roughly, bottling up all his hurt and shoving it back down again. They’d be okay. Somehow, they’d make it. They had to, right? “Get in the car then. We got a long drive ahead of us.”

Letting out a deep sigh, Cas ran his hand through his hair, leaving it far messier than it already had been, and then gave a nod. "Okay," he said, and supposed that was all either were really getting out of this for now.

So he got in the car and silently forced himself to deal with the newly confining angles of the vehicle, the way everything would feel too slow for hours. It was okay, he'd put up with a lot worse for Dean. He always would.