Author's Note: So this is my first 'official' Supernatural fanfic! I've been a huge fan of this show for months - no, that's not true, I've loved this show with all my heart for months now and I can't believe it took me so long to finally write something and publish it. I'm a little out of practice, so be kind. I do appreciate constructive criticism, though. And as for Destiel: I will go down with this ship, I swear. For me, they are head canon as well as my absolute OTP. - Reviews are love!

Setting: Set immediately after episode 7 of Season 7.

Warning: Slash, strong language

Disclaimer: All rights belong to God Kripke and Co. with my deepest love and gratitude for creating such wonderful characters. (And bring Cas back already!)

Let It Back

"So … do you wanna talk about it?"

They were sitting in their motel room, perched on beds opposite one another, and Dean knew he was in trouble when Sam started to speak in that artificially casual way that meant he was about to talk about feelings again.

Dean sighed. He wasn't surprised. He'd had it coming ever since his outburst outside the museum in that wretched town of psychics. Glad as he was to finally be able to turn his back on the place, he knew the next conversation wouldn't be fun. Almost as soon as they'd slammed the motel room door behind them, Dean muttering "Home sweet home" and Sam rolling his eyes at him as always, he knew his brother would waste no time in trying to get him to spill the beans on what had been going on with him lately. Apart from his feelings of guilt about Amy and his feelings of overall worn-outness about having yet another bunch of blood-thirsty monsters to deal with which couldn't even be killed, that is.

"Come on, shoot."

Yes, Sam meant well. But whatever, he wouldn't go that easy on him. Dean sighed.

"What d'you mean, Sammy? Talk about what?"

His younger brother's puppy dog eyes chanced a glance upwards.

"I don't know … all of it, I guess."

Dean threw his hands in the air in mock despair. He couldn't even quite decide whether to be annoyed or amused.

"Oh, come on, Sam, we've had that before. What, it's Feelings Hour now? Do you want me to just grab Huggy the Share Bear and let it all out, wallow in my feelings a little bit?" he scoffed.

Sam smirked. "Feely, he said, I'm pretty sure it's Feely."

"What?"

"It's Feely the Share Bear."

Dean laughed, then remembered he was supposed to be annoyed. Another sigh, another eye-roll. "Oh what, now we're laughing it off? Come on!"

Dean pushed off the bed and was about to walk away, when his brother's entreating voice stopped him in his tracks.

"No, Dean, stay. All I mean to say is… We're both pretty messed up. I know, that's not news. But I just figured … since we're both kind of a wreck, we might as well talk about it, see if it helps. And don't forget, Ellen said she was gonna kick your ass six weeks from Sunday if you don't man up."

Dean laughed softly. "Yeah, I'm still kind of surprised that museum guy really had the mojo … Doesn't usually work for folks who go bragging about how "it's in the family", you know."

Sam snorted as well. "Yeah."

… And Dean shouldn't have felt safe quite so soon.

"So… do you miss him?" Sam went on.

Better play dumb, fake it till you make it. "Miss who?"

Now it was Sam's turn to roll his eyes. "Come on. Ca—"

Abruptly, Dean held out his hand. It was a reflex. He didn't even look at his brother, and he didn't need to, because his voice said enough. "Don't. Don't – say his name."

"Then don't play stupid, Dean! We both know this is hard on you, and I'm sick of trying to pretend it's all fine!"

"Fine, so I'm not okay! So what? Neither you nor me are in any position to be able to find out what happened to him, or to, I don't know, bring him back. Got it? It's no use, so why dwell on it?" He tried a fake expression of 'I don't give a damn' and failed miserably, which didn't go unnoticed.

"Because I can see it," said Sam. He sure was in his element now. "I just can't stand you looking all –"

"Come on, Sam, spare me!"

"Could you drop the freaking attitude? Just answer the question!"

Dean panted heavily, turned his back again and waved his hand in a desultory manner. Then he flopped back onto the bed. Sam stood up and paced the room, then sighed and sat down in a battered old armchair a little distance from his brother. It must have been some remnant of the 70s, judging by the sickening green color of the cushions and the way the thing creaked when he sat down on it. After a while, Dean looked up and met his brother's gaze, green on green, his eyes wide open for once, honest. Why not, actually. Why not try. Maybe it'll help. After all, what was there to lose? Fears about burdening his baby brother with inconsequential troubles clearly didn't go into the equation here, and wouldn't be a valid excuse. Damn.

"Yes," he said.

"You do miss him?" Sam said softly.

Dean looked about the room in despair. If he was going to admit this, he wasn't going to be able to end this conversation with his masculinity intact.

What the hell.

"Yes, I miss him. I miss him so much it kills me. Apart from feeling so damn guilty that I didn't do enough – didn't listen, didn't pay enough attention, you know, didn't manage to hold him off from doing something so stupid. I just – I just miss having a, a brother in arms, you know? It felt good to know there was someone out there, to know there was someone else watching out, for both of us …"

"Instead of just you watching out for me, you mean?" Sam scoffed. "You know it's not like that anymore."

"Yes, Sam, I know. It just doesn't always feel like that, you know?" he sighed again and rubbed a hand over his face wearily. "Well, anyway, it wasn't anything like that at the end, was it? It wasn't as if he was still trustworthy or loyal. So what the hell. But I still feel guilty about the way he …"

Sam was silent, biding his time. Waiting. After a moment, which felt long because it was so laden with tension and yet swift because of the multitude of thoughts that rushed through his mind, Dean started to speak again.

"I don't know. I don't know what it was that we had, I just always felt there was some connection or something. There was someone who understood … someone as loyal as a brother but without the complications of family issues, you know? Someone who was … I don't know, all mine." God. Corny. "Someone I could care about … who cared about me in the same way, someone I didn't have to keep secrets from and who could handle it, someone who wouldn't go away … God, I sound like a 16-year-old who's just been dumped for the first time … I mean, think about how it was for both of us. It WAS good to know that angels are real, wasn't it? To know that someone's out there, even if many of them are dicks. At least someone else was fighting all that crap we put up with. And Cas was … different. Special."

Dean looked thoughtful again, and Sam wondered how it was he could say the name so easily. It was absurd, the way both of them could talk about deceased loved ones and give the impression that they were coping, while inside they were so obviously not. He wanted to be tactful. He wanted to not stress Dean out. But his curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to spur his brother on a bit.

"Different how?"

"… Like in the way that he believed in me, you know? I mean, don't get me wrong, I know that you and Bobby have got my back a hundred per cent, I know that you believe in me, or at least trust me … but you should've been there, Sammy. The day that I first met him … and he just looked me in the eye and saw things I still don't believe are there. Even when he thought I was gonna cave and say yes to Michael, he still believed I was a "righteous man". And, I don't know, that's … something you don't get every day. Not me, at least. And he proved that again and again … that … belief …"

A smile flitted across Dean's face, so swiftly it might not have been there at all, but for Sam, it told a story. Dean smiled in an amused way, almost in the way he did when he was thinking something dirty, but then that smile gave way to a different expression, and was wrenched by a grimace of terrible grief. Surely he must have imagined it. Yes, it was a loss, and yes, the angel and his brother had been close, but … all that tension, all those longing gazes which had always weirded him out … that certainly hadn't meant anything, had it?

And then Sam heard himself say "Tell me everything."

He wasn't sure whether, in the end, he had wanted to hear it or not, but then again, they knew everything about each other anyway, and it wasn't as if it truly came as a surprise.

They were in a hotel room after a fight; another crappy motel room after another crappy fight with a demon. Dean didn't remember now who or what it was, since the following events blacked out everything else so entirely. But he remembered Cas beaming him straight to the room via angel express, and then coming straight towards him with a look on his face that could almost be described as furious, were his face not so damn hard to read.

Cas strode to him and scrutinized him, examining the injuries on Dean's face and arms and neck that came with being flung around a room by some black-eyed bitch.

"I'm fine, Cas."

"Let me decide that."

He gingerly touched a finger to Dean's face and Dean could feel the cut on his cheek heal instantly. That in itself wasn't so unusual; Cas usually fixed him and Sam up after a fight if he was around. But the way his eyes were contracted to little slits and his jaw was set was disconcerting, to say the least. So Dean decided to go for it. After all, he had never been one to avoid a fight. Or … a healthy argument. Or something.

"What's going on with you?"

That seemed to set Cas off. For all that he was usually so calm and collected, he virtually exploded. He took a step back and took a deep breath. Then he burst out: "How often do I need to tell you? Don't – be – so – careless with yourself!"

Puzzled. Dean was puzzled. What the …? "Careless? I had it under control, okay?"

"Right. Which is why you wound up nearly getting yourself AND your brother killed, not to mention the poor family."

Dean sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Whatever this was, it was silly. So he went with what he usually said to Sammy. Maybe they'd get this over quick.

"What's your point, Cas?"

Cas waved his hands through the air, seemingly at the end of his wits. Thinking about it now, had Dean ever seen him that angry? So seriously pissed off?

"My point is – but why am I even telling you this, when I know you won't listen?" he said in his raspy voice, and there it was; his resigned expression. Dean knew that one. Not that he'd studied the angel's face time and again at every opportunity, in order to decipher some tell-tale signs of strong emotion on that altogether expressionless tax accountant's face …

"Yeah, but neither do I want you to be all pissed and brooding if you're going to spend some of your precious time on earth with me, so get it over with, all right?"

Cas sighed, exasperated. "You – have to realize your value. You have to realize what you're worth. You have to be more careful," he said, as reasonably as possible.

Dean sighed and rolled his eyes, but the angel went on in a more forceful tone.

"No, listen. I am being selfish here. I don't even mean what you're worth to the world in general or to angels or demons. You have to realize what you mean … to me. To your brother. To everyone you hold dear. You should see yourself charging towards those demons, it's suicidal!" Cas all but grabbed Dean by the shoulders.

Dean wanted to say, Whoa, why so melodramatic? This was too emotional for Cas. Way too … intimate. He wanted to stop it. And yet … embarrassing as it was to admit it to himself, he was transfixed by the blue eyes staring into his. His head tilted in exactly the same way he had looked at Dean the first time they had met, Castiel gazed intently at him. He stared at him for a very long time, scrutinizing Dean so thoroughly that he could almost feel his soul being examined, his inner self being felt for tears and bruises, or any other signs at all of injury, pain or self-loathing.

"It makes me – so angry to see how little you think of yourself." Trying to explain, trying to justify. "I shouldn't – I shouldn't care so much. It's not … well, it's one of the reasons I became what I am." He breathed a laugh, then became serious again. "But I can't help it that I do."

And then Cas' expression changed to a mixture of Emotionally Heated and Avenging Angel and he behaved more uncharacteristically than Dean could ever have imagined. And yet, in that moment, he somehow expected no less. Castiel stretched out his arms, leaning against the wall at Dean's back, resting his hands on the gaudy wallpaper at each side of Dean's shoulders. Dean was trapped. His body could not get away even if he wanted to, but his mind was worse. He was paralyzed, in shock, unable to judge. There was no knowing whether this was good or bad, welcome or repellent. The sensation was simply alien, unknown. To see Cas acting like this, to see his angel taking control … to feel lips on his that were rough and soft at once, purposeful yet gentle … Something in Dean's brain short-circuited.

"You… are worth so much more than you think," Cas murmured. Another kiss. A peck, almost. "You have done so much … and yet you fail to realize it. You have redeemed your mistakes a thousand fold, and if you could see the way I see, you would know. Your soul is not as battered and broken as you think it is. You are … the most fascinating creature I have met on earth. And I fail to see how you, of all people, could have confidence issues."

Dean just stared at the angel, wide-eyed and unmoving. A challenging glint adorned the blue then, and if Dean hadn't been transfixed before, he sure was now.

"Do you have confidence issues now?", the angel asked. "Do I make you uncomfortable?" He leaned in closer. Dean could feel the angel's breath on his cheek, teasing and tickling and in that moment so alluring he wished he could catch it, trap it and keep it in a jar. "I could stop …"

"Oh, shut up," he managed to say then, in a very raspy voice, and he pushed back. His lips met the angel's once more and caught Cas by surprise. A moment later Dean wasn't pinned to the wall anymore; he was doing the pinning. And after some more seconds of bewilderment, Cas responded, with all the awe and devotion only an angel of the Lord was capable of.

It had been the best kiss of his life.

It hadn't been the first time Dean had kissed a man, and it hadn't made him throw over all his beliefs and convictions and change his life forever. But it had, without a doubt, been the sweetest and most passionate kiss he had ever shared with a person … and even though he didn't like to dwell on it, he had also never kissed a person who'd meant so much to him before.

He could see Sam staring at him, gaping, like he had when he was a little boy and Dean had told him about his conquests (then mostly blond cheerleaders a few years older than him who'd agreed to peck him on the cheek occasionally). Sam's expression was one of astonishment, amusement, barely satisfied curiosity and shock. Then came confusion, a mixture of "I can't believe it!" and "I knew it!" … curiosity again.

"We have a lot to catch up on," he said eventually.

And even though he knew it would be painful, even though he couldn't imagine anything worse than dwelling on a pain that rivaled the feelings he'd had about the loss of his dad … Even though some part of him clamored for those secrets to remain hidden and buried, to be viewed only from the distance and with a lot of drinks in him … Even though they had larger concerns, and though he was the big brother, and wasn't he supposed to listen to Sam? … Dean couldn't agree more.

I admit it might be a bit ... well, not alltogether in-character and maybe a bit too romantic. But well ... who knows, maybe I'll edit it once upon a time, or elaborate. So ... review? :)