Disclaimer: Supernatural and its characters are the property of Eric Kripke. Sadly, I do not own any of these guys.
I will ride, I will fly,
Chase the wind and touch the sky,
I will fly,
Chase the wind and touch the sky.
From Disney's Brave: "Touch the Sky" - 2012
Bobby Singer hadn't always been a family man. Sure, he'd been married once, and he had loved Karen like no other woman he had ever known, but they never had any children, and after her death he became a different person, a gruff old drunk who could be extremely intimidating without even meaning to. He simply wasn't the fatherly type, or so he had always thought. His old house just wasn't a very homey place, in his opinion, and he never attempted to make it any more so – he didn't mind having only himself for company, after all.
So how, thirty years later, his house had come to be essentially a home for John Winchester's boys and now Dean's not-exactly-male angel lover Castiel, he honestly had no idea. And sometimes he kind of wished it hadn't – like now, when Dean and Castiel were in the middle of their third argument in as many days, talking loudly enough in the living room for Sam and Bobby to hear every word they said from the kitchen. It reminded him of exactly why he was glad he never actually had to raise teenagers, despite the fact that Dean was actually thirty-one and Castiel had been alive for millennia and only appeared to be in his mid-thirties.
"No. Absolutely not. No way in Hell, Cas."
"Hell has nothing to do with this, Dean."
"I don't care! The answer's still no!"
"But if you would just think about this rationally –"
"Rationality has nothing to do with this, Cas," Dean repeated mockingly. Then he stormed away from Castiel, taking long strides to put as much distance between them as possible until he reached Bobby's kitchen and stepped inside. Plopping down into one of the old chairs at the kitchen table, he laid his head in his hands, fingers twisting in the spikes of his hair as he gave a long-suffering sigh. Bobby and Sam, who had been sitting there drinking beer while Sam took notes on the best way to trap a Wendigo for killing, both gave him strange looks when he came into the room.
"Something wrong?" Sam asked, as though he hadn't heard the entire exchange already. Dean and Cas had been butting heads back and forth for days, and he was getting sick of them pretending nothing was wrong in Sam and Bobby's presence when the other two hunters could feel the tension from the other side of the house.
"It's nothin', Sam, leave it alone. Cas is just talking crazy."
"It isn't crazy," Castiel said haughtily, striding into the kitchen a moment later with a look on his face that said Dean had only walked away from the discussion because Cas let him. It was true, too; if the seraph had wanted to stop Dean from leaving, he could have done it with barely a twitch of his fingers. However, since Sam and Bobby were his friends and Dean was his lover, he refrained from using his powers on them without their permission as a show of respect.
"I'm only trying to help you," he continued when he saw the slight eye-roll Dean sent his way.
"'Help.' Riiiight," Dean said with a snort, snatching Sam's beer and taking a long pull from it.
"Okay, slow down a minute," Bobby growled, throwing his hands up in the air to get the hunter and angel's attention. "What the hell is going on that's so bad you two gotta keep fighting about it for days at a time? For God's sake, you two idjits stopped the Apocalypse without battin' an eye and a little argument is too much for you to handle? Quit acting like a couple of bratty teenagers and just work it out!"
Castiel at least had the decency to look slightly embarrassed at pulling Bobby and Sam into their argument, but Dean just crossed his arms, glaring obstinately at his boyfriend.
"Cas here thinks it'd be a good idea to just grab me up and go flying all over the place for kicks. I told him hell no, and I don't know how I could get much clearer, but apparently something about that is still hard to understand."
"Dean," Castiel said reproachfully, striding over to the table and wrapping his arms around Dean's shoulders from behind. "I only want to help. You're irrationally afraid of flying, and I'm sure it's because the only times you've ever flown have ended badly. And someday, you may need to combat an enemy who is most at home in the air. That fear will cripple you if you don't address it before you have no other choice. I want to take you flying to show you how harmless it is, that's all."
"I know," Dean almost whined, his earlier anger beginning to drain away as he felt the angel's arms around him and heard the soft pleading in his gravelly voice. "But Cas, you just don't understand. You love flying, that's fine. Good for you. But you have wings, so you're always in control of yourself whenever you're in the air. Me, I have to rely on someone else, and I just can't trust anyone else to keep me alive at thirty thousand feet."
Sam and Bobby winced at his word choice at about the same instant Castiel's expression darkened, and by the time Dean realized what he'd implied it was already too late.
"I see. So you are against flying with me because you don't trust me to keep you safe…" Castiel's voice was soft and sad, his gaze directed at the floor now instead of Dean.
"No, Cas, wait –" Dean stammered, starting to push back from the table as Castiel's arms quickly dropped from his shoulders and the angel backed a few steps away. "That's not what I meant –"
"It is what you meant, Dean. I could feel the sincerity of your words. I just wish that you could find it in yourself to trust me. I love you, and I would never do anything to put you in danger."
Castiel's blue eyes were shiny now, and Dean felt a rock forming in the pit of his stomach when he realized he was about to make his angel cry. He reached out toward Cas, opening his mouth to apologize, but before the words could get out the angel was gone, vanishing with an almost silent rustle of his six wings.
"Dammit!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the table and almost spilling the bottle of beer before Sam moved it out of the way. "Why the hell does he always do that? He didn't even give me a chance to explain!"
"I think he was just tryin' to get outta here before you put your foot any farther in your mouth," Bobby said gruffly, shaking his head at the stupidity of this entire fight. "Honestly, Dean, you're a damn fool. Of all the people who might ever do anything to hurt you, I think Castiel's about the last. He built you from the ground up, remember? He fell from Heaven for you. Why the hell would he willingly do anything that would put you in danger, ya idjit?"
Dean sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes.
"I know, Bobby. I didn't mean to upset him, I just… I don't think I can do this, even if it is for Cas. I just don't think I can."
"Well I don't really care about that, but you'd better go apologize to him now before he decides to bring a bolt of lightning down on my house. And if you two don't knock off this stupid fighting now, I'm gonna drag you up to the roof and throw you off myself to see how well you fly. Understand?"
Dean gulped and grabbed his keys, immediately starting to jog toward the front door. "Yes, sir."
Castiel wasn't hard to find when Dean went looking for him. He was just sitting on the porch, legs dangling to the ground and the ends of his trenchcoat flapping in the gentle breeze blowing through the salvage yard. When he saw Dean approaching, he sighed softly, shooing away the tiny honeybee he had been allowing to perch on the tip of his index finger.
Dean put the Impala's keys in his pocket and sat down beside him, scooting over so they were leaning hip-to-hip, and threw his arm around Castiel's shoulders. He was more than a little relieved when the angel didn't move away but instead leaned into the embrace with a tiny huff. Dean swallowed against the hard lump in his throat. He was already feeling like a total asshole about this whole thing, and somehow the way Cas forgave him and welcomed him back into his arms so easily only made it worse.
"Cas? Babe, I'm sorry," Dean said gently, leaning over and softly kissing the angel's temple. "I didn't mean to make it sound like I don't trust you. I do – more than probably anyone in the entire world. You risked your life to rescue my soul from Hell, Cas! You fought against your entire family to stop the Apocalypse just because we asked you to. If you can put that much trust in me, you've gotta know that I can do the same for you, right?"
Castiel turned to face him, then, nodding and smiling ever so slightly at the hunter he had fallen head over heels for.
"I know. And I'm sorry for walking out before you could say as much. But you need to understand, I would never do anything to get you hurt. My only intention is to help you, Dean, and I promise if you'll let me, I think I can actually make it enjoyable for you."
Dean sighed shakily, running his hand over his mouth and chin in a classic display of nervousness, and then nodded, looking into Cas's eyes so the angel could see the sincerity when he spoke.
"Okay, Cas. Okay. But we'll do it when I'm ready, alright? I'll let you know when. Just… I have to be able to decide this on my own."
Castiel gave him a genuine smile this time, pulling the hunter into a hug and giving him a gentle kiss. "Of course."
Dean seriously couldn't believe he was about to do this.
As a hunter, he'd done plenty of crazy crap in his life – and a lot of it had been done willingly –but jumping off the edge of a cliff with only an angel in a vessel to stop him from plummeting to his death? Definitely near the top of the list. And he'd even let Cas talk him into choosing the Grand Canyon for the location of their first flight; at Dean's insistence, however, they had driven the entire way there. The less time he had to spend traveling by Angel Air the better, in his opinion.
The hunter was yanked out of his musings as he suddenly felt a gust of wind blow up from somewhere below him, and he backed up a few steps farther from the edge, an involuntary shudder working its way from his head to his toes. Monsters he could do. Demons? Fine. Ghosts? No problem. But heights? Not exactly his strong point, much as he hated to admit it. He swallowed hard as he felt Cas's hand touch his shoulder, trying not to imagine himself as a flat, bloody mess at the bottom of America's largest canyon.
"Are you ready, Dean?" the angel asked, chuckling softly when Dean just gulped and took another step back from the edge. "Relax," he whispered into the hunter's ear, slipping both arms around the taller man's waist, palms flat against his belly. "I won't let you fall. Now just stay still, and trust me."
Dean nodded, allowing Castiel to turn them around so that their backs were facing the edge of the cliff. His heart started racing when they began to step backwards. No way. No way in Hell could he mean they were going to –
And then they tipped back in what seemed like slow motion, feet meeting nothing but air as they plummeted headfirst over the edge. Dean screamed, unable to help the absolute panic he felt at dropping freaking head first toward the bottom of a canyon, and Castiel tightened his grip around Dean's middle without saying a word. Dean closed his eyes and grabbed Cas's hands in his own, squeezing them as tightly as he possibly could; had he not been an angel, Cas might have ended up with a few broken fingers.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity but was actually only about seven seconds, Cas twisted so that he was almost lying horizontally, Dean directly on top of him, and the hunter felt an immediate shift when the angel's wings unfurled with a mighty flap. A rustle of feathers announced the manifestation of the usually invisible appendages, which were now jet black and stood out for several feet on either side of them. After a few more seconds, Cas used their momentum to sweep them up into a glide, turning over so that Dean was underneath him now, and able to look down.
Bad idea.
As soon as he realized how high up they were, Dean suddenly forgot how to breathe, certain he was going to throw up as his insides jumped and twisted inside of him with every flap of Cas's enormous black wings. He closed his eyes again, not wanting to see any more of the dizzying heights than he had already been forced to.
"Cas, 'm… gonna be s-sick…" he groaned, feeling his stomach already heaving in preparation.
"No you aren't," the angel said softly, letting a tiny fragment of grace flow from the tips of his fingers into Dean's body and instantly soothing the nausea. "Now just relax, and open your eyes. You're safe with me. You. Are. Safe," he repeated firmly, until Dean reluctantly opened his eyes and looked down again.
It took a few moments to slow down his racing heart, and he was nowhere near as calm as he was in the Impala, but after a few minutes of maintaining a white-knuckled grip on Cas's hands Dean actually began trying to enjoy it a little.
The view was spectacular. Thousands of feet of blood red rock stretching in every direction; the tiny arroyos at the bottom of the canyon, eroding through the stone too slowly for a human to notice in their lifetime; small green plants, sparsely dotting the rocky soil; and all of it cast in a golden glow as the red sun started to duck behind the horizon to the west. It was really and truly breathtaking.
"Whoa…" Dean breathed as they flew over the edge of a waterfall and swooped down, Cas gliding low enough that he could reach out and touch the running water as the fish pursued the pair of them from below. Then he took them higher again, until they could circle around and see the motel where the three of them were staying, the Impala nothing but a small black dot on a bigger black dot that was the parking lot outside.
All too soon, Dean felt them gliding back toward the ground, circling lazily as Cas spiraled gently toward the front door of the motel room. With one last effortless flap, the angel righted them onto their feet, landing perfectly in front of the door without disturbing so much as a blade of the dry grass outside. With a barely-audible rustle of feathers he tucked his wings away, making them once more invisible to all but the Heavenly Host. This time, Dean was almost sorry to see them go.
"So, do you believe me now?" Castiel asked with a smug smile on his face, clearly pleased with how he'd been able to break through Dean's fear of flying.
"Yeah. I, uh… It was awesome," Dean said, blushing a little as he realized how foolish he'd probably looked to this being in front of him, who had been flying like this long before Dean was ever even an idea.
"I'm glad," Cas said warmly, leaning forward and giving Dean a light kiss. "It's… an honor to get to share such an important part of my life with you, Dean."
"Well then, I'm honored that you shared it with me, Cas," he replied, leaning forward to give Castiel a kiss of his own. "So, uh, you're probably gonna laugh, but…" He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
"What?"
"Can we do it again?"