A/N: End/2014!verse. Set before the events of 5x04 'The End' (i.e. before Camp Chitaqua, before Sam said 'yes', but after Sam and Dean split up).
It started slowly, gradually. At first Cas didn't even notice himself, that small bits of humanity were seeping through, that he was behaving uncharacteristically of an angel.
Deciding to rescue a sparrow from a particularly vicious kitten was perhaps his first act of kindness. That was followed by him subsequently rescuing the kitten from the tree upon which it had trapped itself.
"Dude, a kitten? Seriously?" Dean cackles gleefully, halting Castiel in his narrative. "Figures your spirit animal would be a kitten."
Cas tilts his head to the side. "I don't understand. The kitten's spirit is entirely its own, I would never take it –"
"It's just an expression," says Dean, still shaking in between breathless huffs of laughter, "Sorry, go on."
Then there had been the time when one of his brothers, Gabriel, presumably, had decided it would be fun to flood a small town, and Castiel had found himself the unwitting rescuer of about a thousand people when he stopped the flood.
Gabriel hadn't been pleased. A twister had descended upon another town just a few days later, which Castiel managed to stop before any lasting damage had been done. It took three hurricanes, five forest fires and two earthquakes before Gabriel grew bored of their game. Each time Castiel stopped another of his brother's natural disasters, he wondered why he even bothered, but he kept at it until Gabriel lost interest and flew off to the North Pole to terrorize whales.
"What does he have against whales?" Dean asks now, somewhat incredulously, his eyebrows reaching critical heights against his hairline.
"Nothing, I believe," Castiel says, frowning, "It is one of his many pastimes."
"Dude needs therapy," Dean mutters, though his eyebrows no longer seem in danger of disappearing into his hair, and Castiel takes that as his cue to continue.
Next came emotions. Castiel decided he didn't like them. They were tiresome and endlessly frustrating, not to mention unpredictable and impractical.
It first happened when Cas started fidgeting uneasily whenever Dean was close. His throat would constrict and his stomach would turn unpleasantly, almost like there was a weight on his shoulders he was always lugging around. He sensed it would be better if he talked to Dean about it, but he wasn't entirely sure where to begin.
He tried talking to Dean, but every time they broached a subject that wasn't related to the Apocalypse or ways to take down Lucifer, Cas's throat would clam up and it felt like a vice had twisted itself around the vicinity of his ribcage, making breathing extremely difficult (not that he actually needed to, but it was still altogether not a pleasant feeling).
When it got to the point where he couldn't stand being in the same room as Dean without feeling like he might simultaneously combust, Cas snapped and confessed that he was the one who had let Sam out of the panic room that night.
Cas stops, because Dean is once more shaking with laughter, and that wasn't supposed to happen at all.
"Dean," Cas says slowly, fearing for his friend's sanity, "Are you alright?"
"Guilt," Dean says seriously, once he's calmed down sufficiently, "You know that's what the feeling is called, right?"
"Of course I do," Cas snaps, though in actual fact he hadn't; he'd just assumed that was how humans felt on a regular basis. Castiel hurries to continue before Dean manages to interrupt again.
The next time it happened was when he, Sam and Dean were at Bobby's on a weekend off. There were no hunts they had to be on, no unnatural disasters that pointed to Lucifer's whereabouts. It was the proverbial calm before the storm.
Dean had decided it was high time to educate Castiel on 'the ways of life', so Cas had found himself trapped (Dean snorts at his choice of diction) on the couch between Sam and Dean, watching a movie called The Lion King.
Castiel had stayed for the movie because he had nowhere else to be; Heaven was actively persecuting him, and there didn't seem much he could do about Lucifer and the Apocalypse at the moment either. So he remained where he was and watched The Lion King.
To his surprise, towards the end, he had found himself somewhat emotionally invested; Mufasa's death had resulted in a telltale wetness sliding down his cheeks, and he had flown off before either Sam or Dean could see and comment on it.
Dean is laughing again. Castiel fails to find the humour in his straightforward narrative, and once more worries for Dean's state of mind.
"Why are you laughing?" he asks, head tilting to the side as he studies Dean, who's flopped back onto the motel bed they're sitting on and is shaking with silent mirth.
"It's just – we thought you'd flown off cause you were – cause you were bored or somethin'," Dean snickers, "Or that you thought the whole thing was lame and – and beneath you – not cause you were friggin' crying – oh God–"
And Dean dissolves into seemingly helpless giggles.
Castiel huffs, feeling himself flush, and he's moderately certain this is what the humans call 'embarrassment' or maybe even 'mortification'. Cas decides he hates this feeling with a vengeance.
"Sorry," Dean says, still chuckling, and in a moment of clarity Cas can see Dean's soul again, shining pure white radiance, happiness and contentment emanating from it. Cas hasn't seen it in a long time, not since he fell, and it's just as breath-taking and amazing as ever.
Cas decides he can deal with being laughed at if it means Dean's happy; Dean deserves to be happy, and if Cas can help him even a little he's going to do it. He smiles, a slight quirk of his lips, and continues his story.
After emotions had come the loss of his powers. Castiel soon came to realize that 'ganking' demons was becoming harder, more taxing. Each time he did it his Grace seemed to drain away a bit more, until eventually he'd pressed his palm against a demon's forehead and nothing had happened.
Flying used to be effortless, second nature, to Castiel. It came easily to all angels, and he was usually able to traverse great distances with barely a conscious thought. It soon became harder to do so, however. He couldn't travel as far as he used to, he couldn't transport as many people.
Losing the ability to fly was perhaps the most staggering. Castiel missed the feeling of wind rippling through his wings. He missed being free to go wherever he wished, instead of stuck in the vehicular contraptions humans travelled in.
Cas lapses into silence, remembering the inexplicable joy and delight flying filled him with, the sheer exhilaration that, after millennia, still hadn't worn off.
Dean's silent, for once, green eyes fixed intently on Castiel.
"Imagine losing the ability to walk," Cas says softly, closing his eyes and fancying he can unfurl his wings, feel the rustle of feathers, the rush of air. "It takes some getting used to."
A hand comes to rest tentatively on his shoulder, and Castiel leans unconsciously into it, desperate for the contact. Taking a deep breath, he continues.
Cas found out that he had lost the ability to heal himself the hard way. They were hunting a wendigo, for lack of any leads that might lead them to Lucifer. Castiel still remembered the sharp starburst of pain as the creature's claws had raked down his chest – he had never felt physical pain that wasn't angel-inflicted before – and falling to his knees since his frail human body had decided it was out of commission.
He remembered fading in and out of consciousness, struggling to gather tendrils of his Grace to heal himself, as Sam and Dean took down the wendigo efficaciously ("Dude, no one says 'efficaciously' anymore," Dean snorts). His Grace had seemed just out of reach, teetering at the edge of his grasp, and he was afraid one wrong move would push it off the edge and he would fall.
He'd had to be taken to a hospital and healed – Sam and Dean made up a halfway believable tale about wolves to explain away the claw marks – and the recovery process had been a bitch, but –
"Did you honestly just say 'bitch'?" Dean cuts in, seeming torn between amusement and incredulity.
"It would seem so," Cas murmurs, wondering if Dean's influence on his vocabulary might not be such a good thing after all.
"And why are you telling me this?" Dean asks, brow furrowing, "I know about the wendigo – I was there, remember?"
Cas shrugs. "You said you wanted the whole story." He clears his throat and plunges back in.
The recovery process took up a considerable amount of time, and inconvenienced quite a lot of people, Dean in particular. ("You're a pain in the ass when you're injured, you know that?" Dean says exasperatedly. "Your bedside manners leave a lot to be desired," Castiel returns.)
After that came the need for sleep, for food. The few times Castiel had been unconscious in his considerably long life had been him being knocked out in battle or grievously injured enough that he lost consciousness.
Never before had the necessity to rest and recuperate been on him, and Cas would admit he was more than a little intimidated by the prospect of giving himself in to the darkness for a handful of hours each and every night. ("I can't believe you were scared of sleeping," Dean snickers, before schooling his face into neutrality at the glare Cas shoots him).
Food Castiel could deal with. It was one of the few newfound joys of being human, he discovered. Not having eaten anything since Famine was last in town and Jimmy's craving for ground meat had gotten slightly out of hand, hunger hit Cas like an angel falling to Earth at meteor speed…
"I don't think that was my best metaphor," Castiel pauses to say, frowning as he tries to think of a more apt description.
"It's okay, man, don't sweat it," Dean chuckles, amusement still radiating off of him even though Cas is being perfectly serious. Deciding not to dwell on it, Cas shrugs (a decidedly human gesture he'd picked up) and continues.
Castiel decided he liked hamburgers – or maybe that was Jimmy, he wasn't entirely sure – and pizza – though that may have been Dean's influence once again. Chocolate was absolutely divine, in Castiel's opinion. Or, as close to divinity as he could get in his current state. Maybe that was why he favoured chocolate so much – the multitude of flavours assaulting his taste buds the best thing he'd had since beginning to fall – and the resulting pleasure as it slipped down his throat, warming him up from the inside out as close to touching his Grace, being in tune with it, as he could get.
"Dude, you're talking chocolate porn, and that's just wrong," Dean groans, giving Cas's arm a playful shove from where he's half-sprawled on the motel bed.
Castiel pointedly purses his lips and goes on.
Although his Grace had been rapidly diminishing over the course of the year, and he was slip-sliding his way towards being completely human, there were still moments when what was left of his angelic powers seeped through.
It had been during a hunt to clear out a vampire nest in Nebraska, and Sam had been preoccupied with the leader and its cohorts. Dean had been virtually swamped by half a dozen of them, and Castiel could see, even from across the room, that at least two of them were about to infuse him with their blood.
He had acted instinctively, reaching for his Grace, which had been muted and tamped so far down it was almost gone. In that instant, however, it surged to the surface, and Castiel could feel it simmering just beneath the vessel's skin, allowing him to see and hear and taste and touch everything, and it felt so wonderful to be himself again he could have sobbed.
The vampires didn't stand a chance – within three seconds Cas had the nest cleaned out and he was standing next to Dean. ("That was you working your mojo?" Dean asks, lifting his head from where it's pillowed by an arm, "I thought Sam was the one who ganked their asses.")
The return of his powers was a brief respite, Cas soon discovered. He could feel it ebbing away almost as soon as they were out of danger, the rush of energy in him replaced by bone-weary exhaustion, until his Grace was as far out of his reach as the ether, the connection between him and his angel mojo stretched too tight, too thin, ready to snap at a moment's notice and send him plummeting, falling.
He doubted whether he would be able to use his powers a second time without breaking the connection and severing the tie to his Grace entirely.
"But you did," Dean interrupts, sitting up abruptly and giving Cas such a withering glare a lesser mortal would have quailed. "You stupid son of a bitch."
"Hush, Dean," Cas says, smiling faintly. He pushes Dean back down to the bed with a hand on his chest, and goes on.
It was before they knew Lucifer's endgame was the Croatoan virus. He and Dean had been having a rare night off, with no hunts to contend with, no Sam to worry over. It was just their luck that the bar they walked into contained nothing but Croatoans, hungry for fresh meat.
Dean and Cas had barely made it through the door before the Croats were on them, spitting and snarling with inhuman rage, their hunger for flesh apparent. The two of them were swamped, outnumbered thirty to one ("Twenty," Dean cuts in, fond amusement tingeing exasperation in his voice, "It's 'twenty to one'.") and Cas really didn't have time to worry about the actual statistics just then because he was too busy trying to fend them off himself and Dean, trying to keep them from being infected.
As one of the creatures launched itself into Dean, knocking his friend over, canines poised over the vulnerable throat bared in front of it, Castiel's vision tinted red and unadulterated rage swept through him because he had pulled Dean from Hell, had sewn his soul back together from the tattered remains it had been after his time in the Pit, had defied Heaven and fallen for Dean, and he would be damned if he was going to let a stray Croat take Dean away from him.
Cas started as the last vestiges of his Grace manifested itself, before he recovered and clung to what remained of his powers, letting it build inside of him, strength seeping back into the very core of his being, and he relished every moment of what might well be the last time he could feel his Grace.
He had only time to gasp out a 'Dean, close your eyes' before he lunged forward, knocking the Croat away and shielded Dean's body with his own as his wings unfurled and snapped open, brilliant, blinding light suffusing the bar. He vaguely registered the Croats' screams as they perished, eyes burnt out of their sockets, as he set to work gathering what was left of his Grace to heal Dean, until only his torn clothes showed the encounter they'd just had with the Croats.
Castiel knew, then, as he carefully helped Dean to his feet and felt his Grace fading fast, that he had used his powers for the last time, and he didn't regret a second of it, not if it could save Dean.
"You're just a hopeless romantic, aren't you?" Dean says, though his tone is anything but teasing, as does the warm hand resting on the small of Cas's back.
"And that's the story of how I fell," Cas says mock-seriously, in an attempt to lighten the tension that seems to have permeated the room.
"Sarcasm, eh? There's hope for you yet," Dean smirks, reaching up and ruffling Cas's unruly mop of dark hair.
Castiel grins back, before allowing himself to be pulled down to the bed to lie beside Dean, where they proceed to talk about nothing and everything and eventually drift off to sleep, and for the first time in a very long time, Cas isn't scared.
xxx x xxx
There's a difference between falling and flying.
Falling is slow, gradual. It's painful, and not just in the physical sense. It had hurt in ways Cas can't bear thinking about, and it still hurts sometimes. It's a dull ache in the area of his ribcage, filling him with a hollow emptiness, reminding him everyday of all that he's lost.
Flying is quite the opposite. It's at the speed of light and over almost as soon as it begins, but Cas learns to treasure the barely-there time in between, learns to appreciate the wind ruffling his feathers and his wings bearing his weight. It gives him a sense of fulfillment, of joy, and reminds him of who he is.
With Dean, though, Cas can never decide if he wants to fall or to fly.
He doesn't know if he wants his Grace so he can be of better use to Dean, can help guide him, guard him, through the undoubtedly perilous road they have ahead of them. Or if he wants to fall, to experience everything they are about to go through along with Dean, not just beside him, because he has defied Heaven for Dean, what more can falling do to him?
Cas doesn't know it, but his decision was made the moment he cut his forearm and banished Zachariah from the Green Room.
He has, and will, always stand by Dean Winchester, even if it means falling instead of flying.