Title: Songbird
Word Count: 678
Characters: Castiel, Dean
Pairings: None, but can be taken as Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: This is set season 9, but gets a bit AU at the end.
Notes: It's a tad short but I think it'll do just fine.
Cas, Dean realizes, is a bird. This revelation is brought about while watching the angel (Former angel, he reminds himself.) fight. He wields a dagger (Wrong, all wrong, Cas wields a long silver angel blade that shines with light each time it slips out of his sleeve, not this dull, blood-splattered tool.) with finesse, slicing the heads off vamps with strange ease.
Again, Dean thinks, he is a bird. (Not just any bird, no. Cas is much too elegant, too graceful, too ethereal to be a typical, run-of-the-mill bird. He is a songbird.)
Now he's in trouble. The vamps have grown too much for him.
Once he was safe, wrapped up in his own innocence and assurance that he was right, in every manner of the term.
Dean hesitates (Unfaithful, he chides. Cas has never hesitated for you.) before leaping to his help.
Castiel hid in the safety of the nest, singing weak warbles, but he was so so happy and yet so so trapped.
The two of them fight as if they've done this all their life, (And they have, the two of them.) dancing a dance that is full of blood and pain and yet a dance all the same. They know the other's actions before they occur, and Cas seems incredibly happy at the thought of Dean Winchester fighting by his side. (But Dean cannot help but wish that Sam was by his side instead.)
Then his parents, his Father, had left, so all that was left was a nest full of children, unable to fly, trying to drown each other out with their cries of sorrow.
The last of the vamps are vanquished, leaving behind two pitiful, pitiful /humans/ in their wake. Cas grins weakly, and Dean finds that he cannot return it.
Some managed to fly, spreading their wings and leaving, but most stayed behind, never truly getting used to life without Father, instead creating twisted versions of how He would rule. Castiel, for the time being, followed.
They return in the Impala, neither speaking a word, though Dean can practically feel the questions, questions that will never be asked nor answered.
Finally, Castiel dares to fly, spreading his unused wings for the first time and relishing the feeling.
They arrive at the motel, to find Sam waiting for him. Sam must sense the tension because he says nothing as Cas collapses on the bed and Dean stumbles to the shower.
But then he falls down down down, and he is broken.
Dean doesn't get much sleep that night, and he suspects the same for Cas as well. (He wonders bitterly why he cares about him only now, away from dangers and things that go bump in the night.)
He tries to pick himself back up but he is only dragged in deeper, and somewhere, he can hear the indignant screams of his brothers.
Dean must have fallen asleep because he wakes up to find Cas gone. (He doesn't try and think about how it's his fault why Cas can't stay with them for too long, and Sam, ever the unknowing little brother, does not have a clue.)
The same people that help him learn how to fly are the same to push him back down while they themselves stand on his feathers.
"Where's Cas?" Sam asks as soon as he finishes brushing his teeth. Dean doesn't (won't) answer.
But he doesn't ever give up because he knows.
Dean can't take it anymore and stands outside the bunker and prays like he's never prayed before. (Which he hasn't, not before meeting Cas.)
Castiel, a songbird with ragged, tired wings, was meant to soar.
Moments later, there is a flutter of wings and Cas is here, standing an inch away from Dean with a shocked smile and eyes full of pure adoration. (The question is, "When have those eyes not looked like that while they rested upon him?")
"Dean," he says, and that's only a word, but he says it like it's the only one that has ever meant anything.
To Cas, it is.
This is basically me trying to explore the wonderfully complex and tragic relationship the two have because wow, are they complicated. It's almost annoying. Anyway, thanks for reading the whole thing. (If you're just skipping to the end then shame, shame on you and your family)