Dean tongued the canker swelling along the inside of his cheek. The alcohol had thinned away the wet skin inside his mouth over the hours, leaving it raw, red and inflamed. That happened sometimes, when he'd lave himself in liquor. It thinned him, too, leaving him less than the man with a brand in his arm, his blood pregnant with the need to execute the world. Less. To be disconnected from the nexus of the tired and lonely. From the pull of hate and rage. And he took another sip, grimacing against the way the alcohol burned inside his mouth. Shrinking smaller as he was trimmed away by heady neurons slow to tell him how he should feel. It left him empty. But hollow was better than the building scream inside his head.
Dean scratched at the mark on his arm as if it were a mosquito bite, trying to infect him from the source. He forced himself to pull away and sighed, looking at Cas's slumped form sitting on the stool next to him at the bar.
The hunter gave a small smile towards the angel as he watched Cas down another drink, some of it sloshing on the edges of his trench coat and the black lapels of his suit. Cas shrugged out of the tan and black, letting them fall to the floor until he was left clumsily rolling up his sleeves on his white button up shirt.
"Damn, Cas," said Dean, letting a hand find its way to the top of Cas's shoulder, resting it heavily inside the concave dip of it. "We're drunk."
One side of Cas's mouth turned up and he huffed in amusement. The angel downed another shot, slamming the empty glass on the counter then slapped his hands on the sides of it, rumbling "thirty," in a deep, albeit slurred declaration.
The small blonde bartender on the other side of the counter stopped, slack-jawed as she stared down at Cas's pile of empty shot glasses.
"What?" Cas snapped gruffly, and she scurried away.
Dean laughed, and it felt hollow. Like him. Like Cas, Dean thought, as he watched the angel lay his head down on the counter top, smashing one of his ears against the lacquered wood.
"I'm drunk," Cas whispered, his breaths heavy as he stared at the cukoo clock on the wall like he were taking it apart inside his brain. Dean was often fascinated by Cas's mind. The way the angel viewed the world in parts and gears, dissecting the human experience with brilliant detail in an effort to grasp the heart of it.
"It's here," Dean said out loud, not bothering with context as he looked into Cas's blue, glazed, sideways stare. Cas glanced to the bulging flesh of the Mark of Cain on Dean's arm, blinking and furrowing his eyebrows. "This" Dean continued, "is humanity; it's pain. It's death."
Dean's eyes scanned the way that Cas's shoulder blades caved in to the center of his back, the white, damp fabric of his shirt clinging to the form. And Dean's face fell as he thought of the long black wings that used to span that empty space, thrusting Cas into the skies.
And now, Dean watched the angel's ear turn red around the rims where it buckled under weight. It gave Dean pause as he realized the onus that ground Cas down. The burden that left the wane and thinned out version of God's soldier.
Dean swallowed. He'd never asked. It felt wrong. But, tonight, with the heat and burn of the drinks in his stomach, he couldn't seem to stop himself. Tentatively, Dean took a finger, drawing it down the crest of Cas's bowed back, dragging the skin where Cas's wings would be through his shirt. Cas shuddered and gave off a small exhale, but didn't move. Dean felt his own body sink into the tiny bits of warmth Cas's skin gave off where he touched, marveling that he'd never touched Cas like this before.
"Cas," Dean said finally. Quietly. "Tell me about it."
Cas's eyes shut. Dean waited, wondering if the angel would deem him worthy to hear it.
Cas bit his lip, then opened his eyes, head still laying on the long surface of the counter.
"Hot," the angel finally whispered, directing the comment to the cuckoo clock.
Dean waited.
"Like a log on a fire," Cas choked, continuing. "Crackling. Flaking, peeling, feathers bursting in showers like dander. Lost to the abyss of the skies, before the atmosphere could berth the bits of my soul that were shedding away to rest on Earth."
Dean swallowed. Cas's face was calm, but there was something thick inside his voice as his words were muffled and grounded.
"Like Hell," Dean suggested, but Cas's stare was far, far away.
"No, not like Hell," Cas said. "Like dying."
Dean didn't realize his fingers were still making patterns in Cas's shirt as if he were carving symbols over the invisible scars. Normally, he would have stopped. But not now, when the world was amber with drink, and the touch was like a balm to Dean's mark. The need was still there, but somehow, having Cas close softened the edges of it. Dean looked at Cas's calm expression and the way Cas's back muscles relaxed against his touch, wondering if the angel felt that way, too.
"Is there anything left?" Dean said, growing bolder as he imagined his fingers stroking through the matted patches of charred feathers.
"Yes," Cas said, "some. Not enough, but some."
Dean's hands stilled as he blinked against the fog of the room. Finally, quietly, he whispered:
"Does it hurt?"
Cas bit his lip, blinking hard and rapidly, his breathing getting fast, shoulders tensing again as his gaze drilled through the wall behind the cuckoo clock.
Dean nodded, taking his hand off Cas's back, letting it fall to his side again. He took a sip of his drink, wincing one more time. Then, slowly, he let his head fall down to the counter, his own ear smashed against the wood, looking at Cas.
And suddenly, Cas's gaze wasn't on the cuckoo clock. Finally, the angel was seeing Dean. They were together in a moment of loud breaths against the counter, staring and passing information quietly through the tiny space between them.
Cas's gaze only broke to look down at Dean's Mark.
"Does it hurt?" Cas whispered.
Dean let the fog part for Cas, wrapping them up together in a heady cloud of delirium and blue eyes. He swallowed.
"Not right now."