So what am I doing I ask myself. I have so many other things going on and I still manage to start a new story. I couldn't help myself. Cas and Dean have been an obsession since season 4 of Supernatural and now that I'm watching Season 8 I can't help but wonder why the writer's are messing with us! I hated Season 6 and 7 just a little because of what they did to Cas but I've come to terms with it. Anyway I wrote this awhile ago and had no idea what I wanted to do with it. Hopefully I do now. It's slightly OOC and in Cas' POV. The next couple of chapters will alternate POVs between Dean and Sam. Hopefully you enjoy!

The story goes AU after Season 5. Cas is still alive and well, Lucifer is in the cage but Sam isn't. No unfeeling, crazy Sam. No secretive Cas.

As usual all my stories are unbetaed, so all mistakes are my own!

Disclaimer: I don't own them. :(


He figured love was something like this. This tortured ache that stemmed from somewhere deep in his chest and radiated outwards until it affected his entire body. His hands clenched, his knees weakened to the point of buckling, and his breath became an agonized slide of compressed air, in and out of his chest. He wondered if he could die from this feeling, from the simple act of his heart exploding because it was too much, he felt too much where before he had felt nothing. Love was not something he would wish on anyone. How could anyone withstand this torture? His body didn't know what it wanted. Every single time he was around him he had to stop himself from reaching out. His body ran hot and cold and he hurt. He hurt with the amount of control he held over his shaking limbs and traitorous thoughts. He had never known need or want before, not like this. His wants and needs had always been insignificant next to his duty. Duty was all he knew, all he ever imagined for himself. And it had been enough, enough for the millennia of his existence. Until one insignificant human had destroyed it all.

He had been cold and emotionless. It suited him. He followed orders with a strictness that was admirable. He believed in his cause with a fervour that had never been quenched, not from the first moment he had come into existence. He knew right and wrong and could balance penalty and reward quite easily. There were no shades of grey in his life. Heaven was right, as it would always be.

Until Dean Winchester had stepped so suddenly into his life. He had known of the Winchester family. All angels knew about the Winchesters. Their fates were set unyielding into stone. He never thought he would ever meet them. He was a good soldier but his position in the hierarchy of Heaven was right in the middle. He was more than the lower class Cherubs, but he was of no significance to the Archangels. The only Archangel he had ever had a conversation with was Gabriel. And Gabriel was not the typical Archangel. He was crass and loud and exuberant, so close to feeling human emotions that he felt uncomfortable in Gabriel's presence. He afforded him the respect he deserved, but he was never easy in his presence. If he could feel fear, he might have been afraid that whatever flaw Gabriel had in his personality would somehow affect him.

He felt respect for those higher up than him. He felt fear for only one being. God. He had never met his father but he believed. And believing was all that he had ever known.

When he pulled Dean Winchester out of the depths of the fiery pit he felt an odd constriction on his grace as his hands gripped the manifestation of Dean's corporeal form. His hand burned, not unpleasantly as he dragged him further and further towards the light that was life. He wondered briefly if this had happened to any other angel before him, not that there were very many souls important enough to pull from Hell and well-deserved damnation. He considered briefly asking another angel what this could mean and was shocked by his own audacity. He had never before questioned anything in his many years. The question seemed innocent enough but he felt something akin to shame at the notion he would question at all.

So he grit his teeth and tried to ignore the almost pleasant feeling of Dean Winchester's soul brushing against his grace. He clung tighter than he should have, and the mark that was left behind was much more permanent than it should have been. Another mark of shame against him. Made all the worse by the faint stirring of ownership he felt towards this man. Almost like Dean was his. He ignored the feeling, blocked out the memory of the pleasing burn and went back to his station as a soldier.

Ignoring Dean Winchester seemed next to impossible with his following orders. He was to watch him, guide him, and keep him in line. He did not know what he could have done to deserve the task of walking on the Earth and shadowing a man that would start and end the apocalypse. He did not question it. It was as he deserved. Dean and Sam Winchester confused him. They had the souls of good men and yet all they had done in their lives should ultimately have condemned them to hell. Dean had already been there of course but that had all been part of the plan. That was the first time he had ever felt confused, not just with the brothers, but with Heaven. He knew next to nothing and he was used to that. But for some reason he found himself on the verge of questioning what purpose his orders held. Yes they were necessary, but in what way? And why had he been chosen? He wished then for the guidance of Anna, the former Captain of his garrison. She had always known what to do.

Of course that line of thinking was traitorous. Anna had fallen a mere twenty odd years earlier and the wound of her betrayal was still more than fresh. It burned his grace and yet she had been a true leader, a valued one and she had never compromised, had never strayed in her decisions. She had always known what to do. A new Captain had yet to be found. She had led them for millennia and she had left near chaos in the wake of her betrayal. Uriel was determined to lead them, as he'd always been. He had the strange and disturbing failing of ambition. He had never outright rebelled at Anna's commands but he acquiesced with apparent reluctance. Where Anna had always been stout in her belief that humans should be as loved as their Father had commanded, Uriel had been just as determined to see all their faults and ridicule all their failings. Cas had never truly been comfortable around Uriel. He was not as dead set on devotion to humans as Anna was but he did not disdain them, and he did not resent them. He felt he had reached an appropriate balance. Anna clearly had not. After so many years she had given in to whatever insane desire she had to become one of them. She had torn out her grace and fell to Earth before any Angel had the faint idea what she had been planning. He was looked on with much suspicion afterwards, especially by Uriel. He had followed Anna without a moment's hesitation, as was his duty. He felt almost punished by their scrutiny and almost ashamed. So it was more than surprising that he had been the one assigned to monitor Dean and Sam. Twenty odd years was nothing in the life of an Angel.

And now he was cursed with this curious affliction of loving Dean Winchester. His physical body had grown to crave his presence. He was afflicted with embarrassing and conflicting urges that he had no idea what to do with. Why did he need to stand so close? Why did his palms itch and fingers twitch with the need to reach out and smooth the worried creases in Dean's brow? Why was he always too warm in his presence when he had never been affected by temperature before? Why did Dean's smile, so fleeting and sarcastic, leave him speechless? Why did he appear so unexpectedly with the hope that maybe, just maybe Dean might be getting out of the shower or changing, or sleeping? He was beautiful in sleep. Dean was never calm, plagued with nightmares and never truly relaxed. He liked to rest his palm on Dean's cheek and soothe him, fill a part of Dean with something of himself, his grace. It was wrong. His grace was his own, his essence, his entire being trapped into his vessel. It hurt just a little every time he gave part of it up, like a piece of himself torn off. But Dean would smile every time he did. A small smile as his frown faded and his body settled from restless turning. His angry shouts and mumbled curses would fade into nothing. And he would say his name. Castiel or Cas. His name spoken with gratitude and joy. And he would ask him not to leave. It made him ache and burst and shake. Dean did not show that he realized what was happening when he was awake. He was always the same. But Castiel knew that somewhere deep and hidden he recognized the bond that was formed. Dean was his and he belonged to Dean, vessel and grace, his entire self.

He should have known that there would be consequences. Nothing this good, this agonizing was ever without consequences.

Reviews please? I would love some feedback on my first Supernatural fic! I'm nervous and excited and would love to hear what you think good or bad! :)