The truth about Castiel was that he'd never been a constant. He'd always been the exception. The wildcard. The unpredictable satellite orbiting the periphery of his life. Once in a while Castiel's distant trajectory would intersect with his own, like a bright flash of something ineffable across his sky, a comet or a shooting star - no, that comparison hit way too close to home now.
And anyway, Cas wasn't a tiny speck in the lonely nights. He was more like a sun.
Like the sun, he always came back. No matter how dark the nights became, or how cloudy the days. No matter how much Dean's faith wavered. The sun always rises. Maybe in a way, Cas had been a constant after all, a light he'd counted on even when he didn't realize he could.
But then the sun turned human and moved in with them, and that was where the metaphor broke down a bit.
He met Cas... shit, seven years ago? It didn't seem like that long. He could still clearly picture the sparks, the dark wings spread across the hurriedly scribbled sigils on the walls of the barn, and the absolute awe. But at the same time it felt much longer. He could barely remember a time before hell and the apocalypse. Sometimes it seemed hard to believe he hadn't known Castiel forever, that he hadn't spent his entire existence just waiting in the gaps between the angel's touch.
Ex-angel, he corrected. Emphasis on ex. Even now, he constantly needed to remind himself in his head. Truth be told, if anyone were to look at the guy now, wearing a faded Winchester jacket over a plaid shirt, squinting at an old Men of Letters diary or book, scratching his stubbled cheek idly... he looked almost ordinary. For Dean however, the awe never quite went away.
"Whatcha reading, Cas?" he asked. He plopped a fresh mug of green tea next to the dusty book. Castiel was fascinated by the concept of beverages. He liked coffee and tea, juice, alcohol, milk, you name it. The way Cas rambled on, drinks were apparently a fascinating testament to the creativity of the human race. For Dean, making drinks and food was a way to placate his annoying instinct to take care of people to the point of smothering them. It worked out pretty well for them both.
Cas threw him a small smile, impossibly unassuming and sweet for a being hundreds of millions of years old. He brought the steaming liquid to his lips. He grimaced when it burned his tongue.
Something sad twisted inside Dean's chest, but he'd grown accustomed to the feeling long ago. It wasn't too hard to brush off.
Cas licked his finger before turning the page, a habit he'd picked up God knows where. "It's an interesting anthology of North American ghost encounters in the nineteenth century. Most of the hypotheses on the relationship between spirits and souls are wrong, of course."
"Sometimes I think you read these things just to complain about the mistakes."
"Yes, I thought I needed a hobby. Pointing out the ignorance of the human race seemed like as good a past-time as any," Castiel deadpanned.
Well, some things didn't change. Not even stripping him from a huge part of himself could stop Cas from being subtly snarky. He unfailingly had just the right delivery to make people wonder if he was genuinely oblivious or just messing with them.
Dean grinned despite himself. "Hey, you should write your own books. The autobiography of the angel Castiel. It'd be totally accurate, and you could preserve all the priceless knowledge in your noggin for future generations." His grin disappeared as soon as the words left his mouth.
The only reason Cas needed to 'preserve all that knowledge' was because of his sudden mortality. Cas had an expiration date now, just like any other fella on the street.
It didn't even make sense to get upset about, really. Every single person who decided to hang around the Winchesters pretty much signed their own death warrant anyway, and Cas himself had bitten the dust more than once. But when he dared imagine a happy ending, which wasn't often, he saw himself taken down in a fight, he saw Sam die peacefully with a beautiful wife and a handful of children, and he saw Cas inexorably keeping on, a solid pillar in the ever-changing flow of earthly souls, untouched by the burden of time. But Cas might die with any stray bullet now. Cas would get old. Part of Dean still couldn't bear such a thought.
Truthfully, he was taking Castiel's new mortality worse than the fallen angel himself.
But Cas didn't seem to notice Dean's discomfort, and appeared to give the suggestion serious consideration. "I don't know, Dean. Writing stories sounds very... human," he finally replied.
"Yeah. Yeah, it does," Dean murmured.
They slipped into companionable silence.
It was so strange, how easy it was. To find Cas just there. Always there, every day. He was so accustomed to their prior uncertainty. He'd come to accept they would always be like that, one big tangled ball of begging and hoping and despairing, never being able to predict his angel's sudden appearances or departures. He'd learned to live with the awareness that every extended silence could mean the worst. Each goodbye implied the possibility that Cas might die far away, and Dean might never know what happened to him for sure, and he'd keep waiting for him to come back for the rest of his life. It simply came with the package of Cas.
He had to admit it was an unspeakable relief to know Castiel's whereabouts at all times. These days when Cas left without warning, he wrote them a note. "I went to the grocery store to buy coffee creamer" wasn't exactly the same as disappearing for months on end with the wrath of heaven on his ass. Yes, he could die much easier, but it was almost worth it just to know when something was wrong instead of constantly being left to wonder. It forced Dean to realize how much of the strain in their friendship simply stemmed from the abrupt separations.
Not so long ago, he couldn't even imagine Cas settling down anywhere. It was as ludicrous as imagining a childhood in which John actually stayed around. Yet Cas shared their every day, ate his meals with them, nodded along silently to Dean's cassette tapes, ganked monsters like a champ, was a surprisingly decent cook, enjoyed doing small menial chores like laundry and cleaning, and from the beginning Dean had been positive this was way way too good to last. His imagination ran wild with the hundreds of ways everything would go wrong. Allowing himself to hope usually led to his face getting reduced to a pulp or watching helplessly as his friend became a God, so he figured his pessimism was reasonable. Cas would leave for some reason or another. Dean was sure of it. It was unavoidable. Maybe he would blame Dean for his mistakes, maybe he would feel trapped and restless, maybe he would decide that he needed to get his shit together alone, maybe he would let Dean go under the pretext of some misguided attempt at absolution. Whatever reason Cas eventually settled on, the plush daily routine of the bunker - of their home - was a short reprieve and nothing more. Cas never stayed for long.
And yet it'd lasted. The universe had miraculously decided to cut them a break. He could hardly believe it, but sometimes good things did happen. Even if Cas was torn away from him like all good things eventually were, Dean would hold the last few months against his heart and cherish them in secret. He couldn't begin to guess who or what he should be grateful to, but he felt like he should thank someone, just for being able to have this.
Casually, he leaned against the warmth of Castiel's back, glancing at the faded pages over Cas' shoulder.
"Sea Pines, Massachusetts. A ghost ship. Hey, I think we iced that one a few years ago, " Dean commented, amused.
"I wouldn't be surprised." Castiel turned to him, his face so full of affection that Dean almost had to look away. "Maybe you and Sam are the ones who should write a book."
Dean took a long sip of coffee to hide his momentary embarrassment. He pulled up a chair and pretended to be interested in the writing. But Cas' face was tilted pensively in the lamplight, and his hands were gently stroking the old words, and suddenly ghosts were the least interesting thing in the world.
Dean almost kissed him right there.
A few inches in, he stopped himself short. He didn't feel nearly as surprised and panicked as he should. His fantasies and daydreams were constantly full of Cas, kissing him gently in the dark, kissing him urgently against a kitchen cabinet, kissing the soft curve of his neck, kissing his fingers and knuckles and wrists, kissing his messy hair on top of rumpled bedsheets, every possibility replayed lovingly, thumbed over so many times that they'd become dog-eared and worn. It seemed so natural to go for it that he'd forgotten he wasn't supposed to.
In his head, he already did it so many times it was almost mundane. He had the taste of angelic lips memorised in his dreams.
Perhaps he should be worried about the blur between fantasy and reality, and on some other day he absolutely would've beaten himself up for the slip. Instead, he was simply tired. He was so tired of denying himself what he wanted. It would only be too easy, too natural, too right to give in. Dean Winchester and Castiel, seated at a table with their mugs warming their palms, hunched over a book about ghosts, content and together and alive. Why couldn't that be their first kiss? It seemed like as good a time and place as any.
If he had to describe this whole thing between Cas and him with only one word, he would have to say 'complicated'. But right then, right at that moment, it wasn't. Not when he could move a few inches more to press that mouth against his. Just a few inches between more of the same or the end of his world as he knew it. He only had to take it, and he wanted to take it so badly that for a second or two he couldn't see why he shouldn't.
Cas stood up, startling Dean from his ruminations. "I'm going to get more tea. Would you like anything?"
A bit quicker than necessary, Dean stood up too. "Oh no, let me. I was gonna make lunch anyway." He snatched the cup before Cas could protest. He knew he sounded like a teenage kid doing favours for his crush, but hopefully Castiel couldn't tell. "More green? Or something else?"
Cas nodded politely as he sat back down. "Green tea is fine. Thank you, Dean."
Dean slunk away like the coward that he was.
He was brave about some things, sure. He wasn't afraid of running headfirst into deadly traps, though some might say that was stupidity rather than courage. But Cas... He'd always been chickenshit about Cas. Or you know, about wanting things in general. It was hard enough not to worry about everything he loved dying a painful and unavoidable death. How could Dean go so far as to wish for things he couldn't have? Didn't deserve to have. No, he'd rather keep limping on with what little he could call his, instead of wasting time chasing an impossible dream.
Maybe that was the difference between Dean and Sam. Sam had faith. Sam wasn't scared of happiness.
None of it mattered in the end, because Castiel... Cas didn't want him back. Dean thought he was experienced enough with flirting and attraction to tell when someone was interested in him. Cas definitely didn't show any signs - not conventional human ones anyway. Although sometimes, Dean could swear... No. He needed to believe that Cas didn't want this.
How else would he cope?
"Dean?"
Dean whipped around in panic.
"Dude," said Kevin. "What are you thinking about? You've been looking at the kettle for five minutes straight."
"I... what... um... The, uh, the... the sun," Dean stammered stupidly. He slapped himself internally. The sun? Really, Dean?
The prophet of the Lord wore his best I-can't-believe-the-shit-I-put-up-with face. "You were staring longingly at a kettle that isn't even on because you were thinking of the sun," he stated flatly.
"Yeah. Yeah. I'm just... Uh. Worried. What if they kill the sun?"
"Who the hell would kill the sun?"
"I dunno. Our... Enemies." Dean could physically feel the gigantic hole he was digging himself into.
Kevin shook his head, and walked up to the electric kettle. He pressed the button to turn it on. The kettle whistled to life. "The sun can't die. It's not actually alive," he explained with mock patience, as if he were speaking to a small child. "But if I've learned anything from the past few years, it's that we puny humans can die at any moment. So I suggest you grow a pair and tell the 'sun' how you feel."
He gave Dean a significant look before biting into his apple and ambling away.
Great. Now even Kevin was unto him.
Dean angrily plopped the teabag into the mug, feeling like a huge tool.
He pasted on a smile and walked back to the table. Cas' head was still bowed over his book. His brow was gently furrowed in concentration.
"Here's your tea. Sorry it took so long," Dean mumbled. His voice was thin and strained under the fake cheer.
It seemed incredibly unfair to think that Cas could be oblivious to Dean's inner struggles, that he could take his new humanity in stride when Dean still struggled with it daily, or that he could read the old forgotten stories of dead people when Dean sat right next to him with every fiber of his being fighting an urge to kiss his best friend. It seemed unfair that Cas probably didn't love him back, not in the way that mattered, and it would be even worse if he did. Even after falling down to earth, in some ways Cas was as far away from Dean's reach as ever.
If he made a move and Cas didn't share his feelings, he'd leave. And that was the last thing Dean wanted. But if Cas...
Out of self preservation, his mind reeled at the very possibility of his fantasies turning true. He didn't need the pain of disappointment. And dammit, he was happy with his lot, right? His life was good. He didn't want it to change. Statistically speaking, any changes in his life had a tendency to be really apocalyptic.
It was enough to have Cas close to him every day. It was. It would have to be.
He wondered how long he could hold on to that belief.
Cas smiled at Dean over his cup.