He didn't know what else to do, or if there was anything to be done anymore.
"I'm not playing hide and seek with you, so go the hell away," Dean billowed from inside the bedroom Castiel had been avoiding for the past minute or so. It seemed he would have to do something after all, even when everything else had failed.
The pie he'd sought with Metatron's guidance sat cold on the library table, a sympathizing and sniffling Sam seated beside it with a gentle but forced smile. The beer had been drained, the bottles laying haphazardly atop the rest of the trash for the world to see but, most importantly, for Castiel's glazed eyes to linger on.
He knew it was a faulty attempt from the start, and he began to doubt whether it had been worth the try. It hadn't gained him much besides Sam's pity and a dull ache in his gut.
And yet, Castiel couldn't help himself from trudging down the hallway, from lingering at the edge of the light pouring from Dean's bedroom, from following the false beacon of hope that called to him like a siren to a lost man at sea. He knew Dean would rather feed himself to hellhounds than see him but Castiel had to keep trying, and would for as long as he could. And heaven knew, he had his whole life to keep trying. That was, unless Dean got his hands on an angel blade. But Castiel didn't even die right, so who was to say that would stop him.
Besides, here he was just steps away from Dean and it didn't seem like much of a choice now.
So he took a step, and another, and then he was there inside Dean's room for the first time. Despite wanting so badly to see what it would look, smell, feel like, it hadn't felt right to go in there while the boys were out especially with Dean being as mad as he was. It still didn't feel right; as if he didn't belong even though, like all the other things in the room, he belonged solely to Dean.
He decided against touching anything.
"Uh, no. You can get out now," was the immediate response to Castiel's entrance. Dean had been lying stomach flat on the bed before the disruption, his upper torso twisting to see who he already knew would be there. His scowl could have easily been from the awkward position of his body, but it was perfectly directed to his former friend. Dean could taste the bitterness on his tongue, knew the sharp edge of his glare and almost, just almost pitied Cas for being at the end of its blade.
"Dean, please," the utterance was getting redundant at this point and they both knew it. But it didn't keep the words from being said, over and over like a broken record pleading to be heard. It was just, Dean was so tired of this tune.
There was a sigh, a minuscule improvement from the silence Castiel was becoming accustomed to but an improvement all the same. He took it as encouragement and took a step forward. A bad move, apparently.
Dean lurched from his bed, a hand striking out with palm spread in warning. "Cas, I swear to god, the only reason I won't beat the shit out of you right now is because I know that baby fat is made of steel. But I'll tear your fucking guts out if you come any closer."
"Dean, you have every right to be angry-"
Dean's scowl deepened. "No shit."
"- and if it helped, I would let you physically assault me as you probably, most likely," the incredulous look on Dean's face made Castiel cringe, "definitely want to but it doesn't seem possible without injury to you, so-"
"Get to the fucking point or get out," the words' aggression fell flat with the exhaustion clear in Dean's wavering arm and possible resolve.
"Dean, I can't apologize enough. I will never be able to, and I don't think I ever want to stop apologizing even if you do find some way to forgive me."
"The hell I will." His hand dropped, an opening.
Castiel took a step closer and Dean instantly recoiled, his legs hitting the edge of his bed. Castiel paused, stung both by Dean's hate and the possibility that the glint in Dean's eye was that of fear. He had done this to Dean. This was the damage he alone had created, and no amount of blaming Naomi would do because the Castiel who had left that crypt was not Naomi's but Dean's. He had been the Castiel Dean had trusted to stay.
"And you shouldn't. You won't and you shouldn't but my apologies don't need a reply, Dean. I just want you to know that I didn't mean for this- No. It doesn't matter. I just want you to know that I will and am repenting for everything I have done. It won't be enough, it will never be enough but it's all I have to give until you allow me to do more."
Dean's eyes narrowed, the vein in his throat jolting in suspicion. "Like what?"
Castiel's lips twitched in a ghost of a smile that quickly vanished. "Allow me to help you? To be useful around here like before?" Dean was shaking his head, a dark laugh in his throat, and Castiel was losing his opening and he found himself speaking faster and louder as if blasting the words through Dean's ear canals would help get his plea across. He took another step forward and, this time, Dean didn't have any further to retreat. Hopelessly, Castiel's hands reached up in surrender or in seek of an embrace; Dean didn't want or care to know. "I'm no good at groceries, apparently, and even if I was I should be doing more to help you and Sam. Please, Dean. Let me try."
The pressure of Cas's words, the closeness of his outstretched hands that were so familiar and missed like the touch of the breeze on a burning man egged Dean on. And he couldn't, or wouldn't, see past the flare of anger and frustration that every Cas-sealed promise ignited.
With veins jerking against his skin like they wanted to tear out and wrap around Castiel's throat, Dean's strained arms snapped up and swiped away Castiel's kiss-and-make-up, pushing open hands away from him like flies.
"No, you know what, screw this," he hissed, his hands futilely pushing at the angel's chest, wanting to push everything away. "I don't want you around, got that? I have the right to be pissed, to hate you, to want you to get the hell out of my face. Get out of my life. After everything you did, I have that right." Dean shook, but his resolve was stone solid and rolling off of him in heated waves.
Castiel figured this would come, planned for it, braced himself for impact as hands shoved at him. He moved with them, letting Dean have the upper-hand for as long as he wanted it and secretly, quietly, relished the brief sparks of peace that came with each touch.
"All I ever do is trust you, no matter what you do. All I ever do is forgive you for all the shit that you've thrown to the fucking fan and what do I get? I get treated like a – what do you feathered fucks call me? Oh, right, a hairless ape. Well, I get my hairless ass used up and tossed around like a fucking chew toy by someone I thought was a friend. Are you fucking kidding me right now? I owe you nothing, none of my time, none of the air you want to use up talking, nothing. And I sure as hell don't want your bullshit help, because it never helps. You never help, Cas. You think you do, but the truth is," he heaved, Dean's vision blurring and yet he could still see Castiel's face, knew it past the impairment like he knew his own and he could feel it sinking and he could feel his hands melting into Cas's collar, could hear the thump of his friend's body against the wall that shouldn't have happened because Cas doesn't get pushed around by anyone, not like this. And he was just so pathetic, like some lost kitten Dean was just supposed to take in even though he was allergic, even though he never liked how much they shed, how they always left without notice, how much of a liability they were when they were home and screwing shit up. And Cas was just there, hoping to be taken in even after he clawed Dean's face and then high-tailed it out. But he couldn't do it this time, because he was fed up of being the caretaker, of taking things and people in and then getting left behind when they found a better home.
"The truth is, the moment you laid a hand on me in Hell, I was lost. I was screwed. Not you, me."
And there it was. Castiel had worked so hard to get Dean to talk to him, to yell, to scream blasphemies at him and now there it was. It spilled out of Dean, floodgates crashing down and drowning Castiel in its wake. But that was okay, because angels didn't need to breathe and Castiel could take it. He could and would take whatever Dean would give.
"I'm so sorry, Dean." It was so flat in the quiet that followed Dean's frenzy and the grimace on Dean's face said as much. Yet, he didn't make to move away and Castiel found his right hand traveling to that face he'd healed so often but battered one too many times.
Dean flinched, his momentary stupor shattered as flashes of the last time Cas's hand came near him warned him against this new assault. One hand, once clutched tight against the angel's collar abandoned the crinkled material and snapped around Castiel's wrist but fingertips were already brushing light and tender against his ear and jawbone.
They brushed aside the small stray hairs that always sparked Castiel's curiosity and now he remembered just how soft they felt and how, when they bristled against the sensitive skin of Dean's ear, he could hear a human heart stutter beside him.
Ignoring the increasingly fierce grip Dean had around his wrist, either in warning or in encouragement, Castiel's hand began to trace the small spans of skin above Dean's eyebrows that hid past scars. Fingertips traced the curve of a cut he'd made around his friend's eye, the bruised, freckled cheekbone, gashed nose, split lip and he saw it all brutal and real as it had been the day he'd done it.
And then his lips covered his fingertips tracks, planting soft kisses upon the ghosts of injuries, the ragged fractures that were chipping away at them both. With lips, he yearned to heal what he could not with grace. Kisses sought out those cracks in Dean's heart and tried to stitch them together with murmured apologies against skin.
Dean could taste salt in the words Cas planted against his forehead, his eyebrows, the corner of his eye, his every pore as they sank into his skin; tattooed apologies as permanent as the sigils on his ribs. They were temptingly sweet but the bitter aftertaste they left when Castiel moved to the next reminded him that this wouldn't, couldn't be enough. Yet, knowing exactly where those comforting lips would go, Dean leaned into those kisses and drank in the apologies for lying about Crowley, for Purgatory, for unanswered prayers, for every little thing Castiel had done since he'd imprinted himself on Dean that summer so many years ago.
It was everything he didn't want Cas to do. It was everything he needed.
As Castiel neared the corner of pink skin he'd always craved to plant a kiss on, uneven fingernails dug into the skin of his vessel and he lingered in wait, wondering if Dean was telling him to get away. The space between them was heavy with Dean's breathing and Castiel's grief and he couldn't stand the weight of their waiting game, of the dangerous routine they'd fallen into of never saying everything that needed to be said, of never doing what needed to be done. So, he placed that last stitch of a kiss on that small corner of bottom lip reserved for him, lingering there selfishly and hoping that this would stop the pool of blood and lies and hurt between them from growing.
When he knew the length and pressure of his kiss had surely done its job and possibly became a little greedy, Castiel pulled himself away from that place he longed to call his own. He pressed his forehead against Dean's, relieved that the hunter had yet to do the right thing and sink the blade only a trench-coat's pocket away from him into Castiel's chest.
"I'm sorry for ever letting you go."
It was the last one in a siege of apologies, but it was the only one that truly, heavily mattered. And it lingered, as they did with Dean's hands locked onto Cas and caging him because otherwise, how was Dean to know this wasn't another trick? Or another flimsy apology that would be followed by a Houdini act? And it wasn't as if Castiel felt confined or trapped, really. There, pinned to the wall like many of the other things in Dean's room, he finally felt like he belonged somewhere and it was home to him in all the ways Heaven, a true cage, could never be.
"Then don't," came Dean's quiet response, not a plea nor a demand. It and the peaceful quiet that stretched thereafter as the two of them lingered in that small space, after too long of a time with such long spaces and long silences between them, was not forgiveness but the start of one.