Dean honestly had no words. He'd only been gone for two, maybe three minutes, and when he'd left, nothing had been out of place. Cas busily shuffling around the kitchen, picking up spices and putting them down while mumbling to himself, the chicken sizzling quietly to itself. Everything was normal, or at least as normal as it could be for him, Dean supposed.
And yet, upon Dean's return, there Cas was, sitting at the table, back to the door, shoulders shaking.
"Hey, Cas?" Dean was trying to convince himself that this was not happening, and at the same time debating whether or not to simply turn around and walk out. But he didn't. Cas dropped his head into his hands and started shaking harder. "You okay?" Dean only got a snuffle in reply. "Cas, what's wrong? What happened?" As awkward as he felt, the hunter reached out and put what he hoped was a consoling hand on the poor man's back. The shaking only increased with a low broken moan. Dean grimaced as he forced himself to pull out a chair sat next to Cas.
"Man, you gotta tell me what's wrong. Everything was fine when I left."
Cas finally looked up, eyes oily and raw from his first tears. Dean swallowed thickly. Tere was something inherently wrong about seeing tears on this particular being's face, and somehow Dean's thumb found its way to Cas's cheek to brush away a fresh trail.
"Dean I can't do this," he said slowly, a hiccup punctuating his words.
"Do what?" Dean's concern grew as he leaned in. Had Dean been missing the signs? Did Cas need help? What was going on? Cas looked down at his hands and clenched his fists once.
"How do you humans do it?"
"Do what?"
"The emotions, Dean! How do you live like this?" He sounded frantic now, like he was rushing to get everything out at once. Dean began to back up. This was not his area of expertise. He considered calling for Sam, but that only lasted a second before the guilt settled in. Cas was his friend too, and he deserved Dean's attempt at comfort, right? So Dean clenched his teeth and set the gears in that part of his mind to a grudging crawl. When he decided he had the best answer he could give, he shifted towards his former-angel again and cautiously laid his hand over Cas's. He made sure not to be too committed to the gesture, so that Cas could easily push it away. He hoped Cas would push it away. But to his chagrin, and relief, Cas flipped his own to take hold of Dean's calloused palm, lacing their fingers together. Well, there was no taking it back now, was there? Surprisingly, Dean wasn't upset or even perturbed by the action though, and it almost gave him pause.
"Cas, look. This is kinda like the blind leading the blind, you know? I mean, I'm kind of known for throwing my emotions in a vault, but uh, I guess if you need some-" Dean licked his lips and tried again, "What I mean is that I understand how awful it must be to go from having no emotions to having them all tumble down on you."
"Dean, what do you mean 'no emotions'?" The two squinted at each other for a moment, and Dean tried to understand desperately what Cas meant.
"You know, how like angels don't have feelings? They're order-following machines?" Dean frowned as Cas shook his head slowly. The tears hadn't stopped, but they had slowed. Good. Maybe Dean wasn't so good with the "dealing" part of emotions, but he was a master at the "distracting" part.
"Angels experience emotions in much more potent concentrations. As I've turned, I've noticed tha-" he choked before coughing all over the table.
"Dude, you gotta cover your mouth when you do that," Dean said with a grimace.
"I apologize," came the morose reply. The hunter could practically feel his friend closing down and shutting him out again.
"Hey, hey," he turned Cas's chair so they faced one another better. It required them to let go of their hands, but when they sat face to face, Cas made as if to take Dean's again. Dean felt his stomach flip as Cas retreated back into himself. Dean put aside his hatred for all things girly and grabbed back at his friend's hand before he could realize what he was doing. "You gotta let me in, man. I know, humanity sucks, but you're here now, so let's figure this shit out and sort through it. Together." He didn't understand why he'd tacked that last word on, but he decided not to read too far into it. It was the moment. Yeah, that was the reason. The angel coughed a few more times on the unnatural feel of his tears before giving his friend the most heart-wrenching look; Dean knew the guy had known Cas had puppy-dog eyes, hell, he'd stared at the guy long enough to know every nuance of his expressions, but this one made Dean want to punch himself in the face.
"When I was an angel," he finally stuttered out, looking back down on the hand held in Dean's, "I felt so much more, there was this…this power behind it-"
"Then how come you always looked like you had a stick up your ass?" Cas glared through the mist in his eyes, but let it fall back when he saw the half smirk and soft edge to Dean's eyes. Cas sighed and decided to continue.
"I was in control. From the day I was created, I was a soldier. I knew how to prevent what I felt from interfering with-" his eyes darted up from his hands to Dean's lips, then back to his lap, "with what needed to be done." Cas's jaw clenched and his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. The silence between them stretched out and Dean desperately tried not to think about the way Cas wasn't letting go of his hand anytime soon. In fact, he was so busy not thinking about it, that he jumped when Cas finally snapped.
"I'm just so angry! This doesn't make sense!" The grip on Dean's hand tightened. "Why am I crying when I'm angry? Anger doesn't cause tears! And neither does frustration, I just-" his voice cracked and all the tension uncoiled from his shoulders as a new wave of salt-water bubbled up from his eyes. Like he was giving up.
Dean didn't think. He wasn't sure what it was about his best friend crying in front of him, but rational thought seemed to get thrown out the proverbial window. He grabbed Cas's shoulder as gently as he could and pulled him out of his chair and into a hug. Dean cringed as he heard Cas's knees bump on the tiled floor, figuring they'd be a nice shade of purple tomorrow, but forgot almost immediately as Cas's arms wrapped around him, reciprocating his gesture. The angel-turned-human's crying grew louder as he pushed his breaths through clenched teeth. Dean could feel the warmth of it over his neck and brought Cas closer.
"You're gonna be okay, alright? You're gonna be fine. And if you're not, well me and Sam and Kevin are all here for you." He chuckled a little before amending with, "That's probably not as comforting as it sounds." The only response Dean got was a tightened grip on the back of his jacket. They stayed like that for a while: Dean trying his hardest not to fuck up the situation with cheesy words or embarrassing gestures, Cas bleeding his soul into the fabric of his friend's flannel. It was so quiet in fact, the Dean could practically hear the drip from the leaky faucet from halfway across the room. He figured that the chicken he'd left in the pan had already turned to coal.
He started to imagine more domestic things like watching movies with Cas and Sam, not sixty-year-old documentaries on demon curing, but honest to God movies like Dr. Strangelove or Airplane, or doing laundry and folding it all like a family (and maybe "accidently" dying a pair of Sammy's underwear pink). A shift in Cas's postured pulled him out of that speed train to wishful thinking pretty quickly. The man sniffed once and leaned away to wipe his tears on his arm before letting out a shaky sigh.
"You alright now?"
"I-yes, I think so." Dean slowly pulled himself away and let out a huff under his breath.
"Good man, because I don't know how much more emotional crap I can take today. I mean, Sam's already wearing me down with his need to 'talk about your problems, Dean!'" Dean pitched his voice higher at the end, and Cas actually laughed. That made Dean smile a little. "So you think you can tell me what brought all this on?"
"Oh, uh, yes of course." He rose to his feet and led Dean to the opposite side of the room. There on the floor was a large puddle of milk, accentuated with one of the clear plastic cups Sam had bought a few weeks ago rolled out a foot or so from the mess. The two just stared at it for a while. Dean then looked to Castiel for confirmation, and receiving it, began to chuckle. Soon it was a full on roar of side-splitting laughter, and he had to bend over, hands on his knees, to keep himself upright.
"I fail to see how this is funny," Cas said. Oh shit, he sounded hurt. Dean tried to calm his humor down enough to explain.
"No, no, Cas I'm not laughing at you. It's just there's this old human expression and…" and he definitely did not giggle when he broke off. When he noticed Cas's look of confusion, he just came out with it.
"Don't cry over spilt milk."