I wrote this pretty late at night a while back and forgot to post it but I finally found it and here it is! It's just a short/angsty human!cas x dean one-shot. Hope you like it and tell me what you think!
"The sky is falling."
"I'm telling you man, it was a meteor shower."
"No! It looked like a person! A person, on fire! You believe me, right, Mom? Mom?"
Dean pushed his way through the crowd of people to the front of the small convenience store. The man behind the cash register was facing away from the milling crowd in his store. His eyes were riveted to the TV behind the counter. On screen, a blonde newswomen was frowning as she gave the same story she'd been giving for the past week and a half.
"Scientists still aren't sure what caused this bizarre supernatural phenomenon, but it all seems to be centered above the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the so called Garden of Eden river valley, in the Middle East. They calculate that those rivers were the epicenter of some explosion that then sent debris and shrapnel ricocheting through the atmosphere and all over the Earth."
Dean sighed and counted the seconds with his breathe. Three, two, one. The woman's hand reached up to tap the small microphone pinned beneath her ear. "We've just received word that the United Nations will meet in New York City to discuss the implications of this bizarre occurrence and to try and put measures in place that will protect the citizens of the world during this troubled time."
"Yeah, right," he muttered, hefting his bag of items onto the counter. It crashed onto the cracked plastic with a heavy thud and the man behind the cash register whirled around with fear on his face.
"Whataya want?" The man's pulse beat rapidly in his throat. "Can't you see I'm busy, man?" he gestured to the TV.
Dean slid a wad of cash across the counter. "Do me a favor, would you?"
The man sighed and took the cash, counting it between his grubby fingers. Then he reached into the bag and began pulling out the items Dean was trying to buy. Two rolls of toilet paper, sunglasses, hamburger meat, hamburger buns, two slices of thick-cut apple pie, and a stuffed animal in the shape of a whale. The whale dangled in the man's hand by the tail and he raised his eyebrows at Dean.
Dean cleared his throat roughly. "It's not for me."
The man rang up his items without comment. He stuffed the cash into the register and turned back to the TV. "Have a nice day," he said absently.
Dean grabbed the plastic bag with a scowl plastered across his face. "Yeah, you too."
Back at the bat cave, Dean tossed the bag onto a long wooden table at the center of the room. Sam sat on one end, fiddling with the keys of his laptop. There was a Cas-shaped mess at the other end, but the angel – man – himself was nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Cas?" Dean frowned at Sam.
Sam didn't look up from his keyboard. "In the shower."
Dean blinked and started to pull the items out of the bag. "That's the fifth one today."
"He's alternating between hot and cold." Sam slowly raised his eyes to his brother. "Said he likes the hot ones better."
Dean shook his head and placed the stuffed whale on Cas's chair. "Obviously."
Newspapers and fountain pens lay scattered around Cas's end of the table. The ex-angel had been reading through the recent papers and circling random words with the thick black end of the fountain pen. Dean sighed and held up the paper, reading through a couple of the circled words.
Save. Whales. Falling. Skies. Dark. Clouds. Thunder. Today. Chance. Rain. Marriage. Wife. Dead. Husband. Missing. Found. Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost.
Human. Humanity. Man.
Dean dropped the paper and scrubbed a hand over his stubbly jaw. "He's not taking this well."
Sam clicked his laptop lid shut with a rough clatter. "How would you handle it, Dean?" Sam's mouth was drawn down in an unhappy, flat line.
Dean's brown furrowed. "Look, Sammy. If this is about –"
Sam pushed away from the table so violently he almost fell out of his chair. "Don't Sammy me, Dean."
Dean skirted the edge of the table and caught up to his brother, stopping him with a hand on his arm. "Look, Sam. I'm just as torn up about this as you are. But that doesn't mean I can forget some of the crap he put us through this past year."
"This isn't about that!" Sam shrugged off his brother's grip. "He needs you, Dean! And you're just so damn determined to ignore it!"
Dean's mouth tipped down at the corners. "You're his friend too, Sammy. Why can't you help him?"
"Yes, I am. But right now I'm still chocked full of angel juice leftover from the trials." Sam threw his hands up in exasperation. "He takes one look at me and his face crumbles. He feels physically sick around me, Dean. So I can't be there for him, right now. And it's killing me because Castiel is my friend too." Sam stopped and closed his eyes. He sucked in a deep breathe through his nose then blew it out through his mouth. "But even if I wasn't shot up with angel mojo, I'm not you, Dean."
Dean staggered back half a step. He tried to hide it by turning around and unloading the rest of the bag, but Sam saw the fear eclipsing Dean's usually stoic expression. "So?" Anything more than a one-word answer and Dean was afraid his voice would have shook too much.
"You two have something." Sam stood apart from his brother, clenching his hands into fists. "A bond, or something. I'm not condemning it – hell, I'd even support it – but right now you just need to suck it up and accept the fact that you two need each other."
"I don't need that lying son-of-a-bitch!" Dean turned on his brother with fury burning in his eyes. "He used us, Sammy. He used us in every way possible, then left us for dead when the time came."
He turned away and strode to the other side of the room, pumping his fists at his side.
"I don't know what you're choosing to remember, Dean." Sam chased after his brother, raising his voice to be heard over the rapid thud of Dean's pulse. "But I remember a man who left after breaking free of some kind of hypno-mumbo-jumbo in order not to kill you. He was so broken, so hurt by that Naomi bitch, but he fought against it – and won – for you, Dean. So he didn't have to kill you."
Dean jerked to a stop and Sam nearly crashed into him. Sam backed up and stared at Dean's rigid back, watching his pulse flutter against the side of his throat.
"I didn't . . . ask him to –"
"That's just it, Dean!" His brother's voice rose in excitement. "You didn't have to!"
Dean turned around slowly and locked eyes with his brother. He swallowed harshly. "I –"
"Go talk to him." Sam pointed down the hall. Light and steam drafted out from under the bathroom door, filling the dark hallway with faint signs of life. "Just . . . do something. Please."
The bathroom door grew in Dean's vision until it was all he could see. He tried to turn to look at his younger brother, but he couldn't seem to look away from the wooden door, outlined faintly with golden light.
"What about you?" Dean swallowed thickly. Something slid down his throat, dropping into the pit of his stomach with a heavy splash. Fear? No. Acceptance? No. It was . . . it was . . . "Are you okay, Sammy?"
Sam nodded, dropping into his chair with a relieved look. "Yeah, man." He hid a cringe behind his brother's back, pushing through the leftover pain to get to the happiness of bringing his brother and his best friend together at last. "I'm good. Now go. Talk. To. Him." He nudged his brother with his foot, pushing him towards the door.
Dean took two careful steps forward, edging farther and farther away from the safety of his brother's company and into the uncertainty of his future with Castiel. Fear of the uncertainty. Was that what he was feeling? Dean didn't think so. He was a hunter for god's sake. He wasn't scared of anything (except flying). And whatever monster he was scared of, usually didn't stick around long enough for him to be frightened for long. Purgatory, among other things, had cured pretty much all of Dean's fears, so then what was he feeling?
It took him nearly ten minutes to cross the short hallway to the bathroom door. It took him five more minutes to work up the courage to knock.
"Cas?" He rapped his knuckles against the door. "You in there?"
The door opened slowly, letting out a thick billow of hot steam into the hallway. It swirled around Dean's face and his ankles, blocking his sight for a hot moment. When it cleared, Cas was standing in the middle wearing nothing but a loose pair of swim trunks. They hung low on his hips, revealing a nice V that dipped down beneath the fabric. His hair was wet and spiky, dripping as Cas cocked his head to the side, staring oddly at the uncertain expression on Dean's face.
"Hello, Dean."
The water was still running behind Cas, splashing drops out into the open air. They flashed brightly in the bathroom lights, sparkling like small diamonds in the faux-sunlight.
"Can I . . .?" Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Can we talk?"
The new human nodded slowly, stepping back and leaving the door open for Dean. Dean stepped in cautiously, peeking around the small, steamy bathroom. Words written across the fogged mirror spelled out Cas's agony in abstract human concepts – Pain, Agony, Fear, Loss, What is? How can I? No more. Wings. No more.
"Aw, Cas," Dean breathed, dropping his face into his hands.
The angel pretended not to hear, stepping back into the shower, but leaving the curtain open. He stood in the spray of water in his swim trunks, letting it run down his chest and through his hair.
Dean flipped down the toilet seat and took a seat, letting his arms hang loosely between his knees. "So."
Cas said nothing. He turned in the hot water so his back was bared to Dean.
The horrid scars, the very real, very solid burned red V's tracing down his back, were still hard for Dean to look at. Traces of gauze itched across the side of the cuts from where Sam and Dean had tried – rather futilely – to patch up Cas's gaping wounds. Compared to the only semi-corporeal black wings the angel had displayed from time to time, the scars were a painful reminder of his past as a an angel of the Lord and his future as a powerless human being.
"How are you, er, holding up?" Dean began awkwardly.
Cas remained quiet. He turned back to face Dean, staring at him with heavy-lidded blue eyes.
Dean took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Not so good, huh?"
"How do you think, Dean?" Cas said slowly.
Each word that came out of his mouth was a challenge. It was hard to speak, hard to think, hard to do anything. All that time, all the angels had looked down on humans. Laughed at how pitiful they were, how they could do hardly anything for themselves. But now, stuck in a human body, Cas understood their pain.
Depression was very real to him. Anxiety was very real to him. Hunger, loneliness, need, nausea, anger; they were all very real to him.
He appreciated Dean and Sam's struggles all the more for what they'd put their minds and their bodies through, but it also made him hate them for it.
They had struggled through so much, done so much for others and so little for themselves. They probably didn't even think they were doing the right thing anymore; it had become so natural for them to be the forces of good that whenever they did good things, whenever they made the right choices, it was hard for them to bear and understand that.
So what did they want from poor Cas? Why were they still hanging around him, helping him out? What had he ever done to them besides betray them and doom them to a life of eternal torment and slaving away for the various forces of heaven and hell? He couldn't keep count of the numerous times he'd betrayed them, or went against their trust. It was against his very nature as an angel – or, ex-angel – to do so, yet he found a way every time.
Why did they want him? Why did Dean want to even speak to him?
He agonized over everything in the exact same way Dean did.
I'm a piece of shit, Dean thought, looking at his best friend standing half-naked in the shower. He probably feels like crap now and I've done nothing for him. He deserves better than us. We owe him everything. Without him Sam and me . . . we'd be nothing. Without him, I'd be nothing.
They stared at each in silence for a minute more before opening their mouths to speak at the same time.
"Dean, I –"
"Cas, I –"
They stopped. They looked at each other. They blinked in surprise. They even blushed together, too.
A short burst of laughter erupted from the hallway as Sam fell on the floor, holding his gut. The whale stuffed animal bounced off his head, landing on the floor next to his thick mane. He rolled around in the steam billowing out from beneath the door, chuckling at the adorably confused love-struck pair.
"SAMMY, I SWEAR TO GOD!"
"Why was Sam looking in from outside? Why would he do that?"
"'CAUSE HE'S AN ASSHOLE, CAS!"
"You don't have to be so mean about it."
"I'M GETTING A DRINK!"
"Thanks for the stuffed animal, Dean."
". . . Your welcome, Cas."
"I'm glad we talked."
"Yeah." He ran his hand through the ex-angel's dark wet mop. "Me too."
Steam billowed through the halls of the bat cave as Castiel took his sixth shower in a row, rapidly switching the water dial from burning hot to ice-cold.