Title: Tin Heart
Author: Lordwhat
Rating: PG-13
Pairings/Characters: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: Little bit of language, some gore imagery.
Word Count: 1726
Summary: Humanity turns out to be a two sided coin.
Notes: Sequel to Exhale, but you don't really have had to have read it. Prompt by my wife, I mean, Paula.
There was a time when Castiel thought of emotions as distractions, obstacles to be avoided that came with the risk of endangering their missions.
When he first took Jimmy's vessel he wasn't expecting to be confronted by them so quickly.
He flew down and sank into the man's skin. For a small moment their mind's combined. Small memories seeped through to him as Jimmy settled himself away.
It was strange. For a split second he was a human male with a wife and child. Then that second was over and he was an angel again.
When his daughter called him "Daddy" he corrects her rather than comforting her. Because she was incorrect. And Castiel was a being only made to follow orders and correct mistakes.
He first began to yearn for emotions when Anna was found. He saw the humanity she had built for herself. How she had been willing to die just to be human for a short time. It had confused him, her motives, right up until she had kissed Dean. He had thought himself unable to feel until then, yet he still felt a pang of what could be described as diluted jealousy.
It had caught him off guard. After that it, annoyingly, kept happening.
Then in the green room, when Dean had told him that their friendship was over, he knew he had no choice. That was when he decided to fall.
But falling only makes it worse.
The emotions had increased tenfold. Like with the physical changes it happens suddenly. He's sat in a diner with Sam and Dean. Dean ordered the two of them burgers whilst Sam has a salad. Dean stares down his nose at like it's existence is an insult.
"How can you eat that?" He cries loudly.
"It's good for you Dean. You know, being healthy?" Sam quips, not even bothering to look up from his meal.
At first their arguments had bewildered him, he'd assumed them close. Dean had to explain this to him when he offered to leave for a few days so he and Sam could talk about their problems.
Apparently if they were really fighting he would know about it, and the banter is "just dicking around."
"If being healthy means you have to eat that rabbity wet dream crap I'll pass."
The two brothers continue to bicker about their respective food choices while Castiel reaches for the ketchup and tries to open the lid, he isn't able to. He struggles with it for a few moments before he feels two hands on his.
"Dude, just let me before you give yourself a hernia."
As Dean takes the bottle from him a warmth spreads through him, from his stomach up to his chest, it's very enjoyable. He smiles.
"Cas?" Sam says. "You alright there?"
"Sorry?" He says absent mindedly, trying to feel as much of the sensation as possible. His smile widens so big he's grinning from ear to ear.
Dean's opens the bottle and begins putting the ketchup on his burger for him. Then looks up at him and realises what Sam's talking about.
"You're smiling. You got gas or something?"
"No." Cas says. "I just feel..." He trails off, unable to explain it.
He sighs and begins to eat his burger, beaming all the way. Dean watches him with wide eyes before leaning towards Sam.
"You don't think he's still messed up from the Famine thing do you?"
He can't move his wings.
He was aware they were decaying, dying, as he fell. That doesn't decrease the shock when he stretches one day, trying to click his back, as it had become stiff from remaining in the same position, and they stay limp.
He sits bolt upright and tries again.
Nothing.
"It's okay your back just clicked." Dean says, sat across the small table in their motel room. "It's a human thing.
"No. It's not..."
He closes his eyes, concentrates and tries again. When they don't even twitch he runs to the bathroom.
He stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds, His hair has begun growing, he needs to shave. He has bags under his eyes from where he repeatedly wakes up during the night, either from nightmares or forgetting to breathe.
His heart thuds in his chest, it reminds him of a pendulum, counting the time he stands there too afraid to look.
He tries to convince himself that maybe he ways just imagining it. He imagines what his wings must look like now, he's avoided seeing them for months. He has little to no choice now.
He urges them to appear, sure enough shadows begin to form on the wall behind him.
They stay down behind him.
They still don't move.
He takes a deep breath and reaches behind him to pull his left wing up. He cries out at what he sees.
He still contains enough grace that he can see more than the shadows, although this by no way a mercy.
His feathers have long since gone, leaving deep, bleeding holes, the surface of the skin is dried and flaking, yet the muscle beneath disintegrates into puss, seeping out of the pores. The bones show through the black segments of skins, partially broken, the hollow insides visible.
He stares in silence. He realises he's shaking, noises like a wounded animal start coming out of his mouth involuntarily as he looks of what's left of his power.
A lump of skin and puss drop to the floor.
"Cas, holy shit."
"Dean." He says. "I just-"
His legs buckle. He falls. Dean catches him.
Later on he realises that he went into shock. He just remembers numbness, the emotions slowing and stopping. His sight closes like lens and then everything is black.
In the distance someone's saying his name.
When he wakes up he's on his own in the motel. He sits up slightly and looks around, hears the shower and assumes it's either Sam or Dean, the other in nowhere to be seen. He lies back down and stares at the ceiling.
He tries not to think of his wings, closes his eyes and hopes that soon they'll be completely gone and he won't have the reminder of his loss attached to him. He tries for a last time to move them, it doesn't work, how could it? There's barely anything there any more.
He isn't given much time to be consumed by thought before the front door crashes open.
He jumps up with a yelp to see it's Dean carrying three boxes of what look like pie in one arm, three coffee's on the other.
He stops as the force of the door causes him to sway side to side. His eyes bulge out of his head comically as he tries desperately not to drop anything. He looks over and sees Cas staring at him
"Get over here and help you ass."
He rushes to him as fast as his still shaking legs will let him and takes the pies.
Dean chew on his tongue as he concentrates on putting the coffee's on the table without spilling any. He sits down with a groan before nudging one of the coffees towards Cas and nodding for him to sit. He sighs and accepts, confused. They were supposed to be running low on money since they maxed their second to last credit card.
"What's going on Dean?"
"Well Cas today we enjoy some of the finer pleasures in life Cas." He replies smugly, smiling to himself.
Before Cas can reply Dean leans back and takes a gulp of his coffee, then immediately spits out across the room.
"Jesus shit that tastes like ass butt!" He exclaims before furiously scrubbing at his tongue with his hands. Castiel tilts his head at the strange term, Dean just shakes his before taking Cas's coffee away from him.
"Okay gas station coffee is not a finer pleasure."
He jumps up and gets some beers out of the fridge, tossing one to Castiel.
"I'm told it's socially acceptable to wait until late afternoon to begin consuming alcohol." He says, examining the can.
"Special occasion!" Dean says as he sits back down, smiling bigger than before. When Castiel stares at him blankly he sighs and decides to elaborate.
"Our tin man's got his heart." He nods towards Castiel. "Now he's one of us he can have his pie and enjoy it too."
He takes a swig of his beer and Castiel is left to process why Dean would think he's made of tin. Then he realises that this is a form of consolation, the warmth in his stomach comes back as they look at each other. He sends him a silent thank you, he thinks Dean reads it.
Then it's too much, the emotions are too strong. He thinks it's affection, but from what he knows simple affection shouldn't be overpowering. He looks down at his can.
Dean's head follows his, trying to keep the connection there.
"Man, look... I know being human sucks, believe me. But we can't do anything about it. And I really don't want you hating it."
He stops for a second, probably to compose himself as Castiel needed to.
"I hate it." Dean confesses suddenly. The bluntness makes Cas look up again.
"All the guilt and pain. It sucks but we have it and that's that. So you might as well milk as much of the good stuff as you can while you can."
He shrugs before drinking again, Castiel mimics him in silence, thinking through what he said.
"Now. Pie." Dean commands, leaning forward to flip the lid off two off the boxes.
They sit and eat when they hear the shower turn off and Sam walks out of the bathroom.
"You're drinking beer? It's nine in the morning." He says, wrinkling his nose.
"Relax princess I got you some coffee." Dean replies with a sly smile, pushing the cup towards him.
Sam rolls his eyes again before taking the cup and drinking.
When he spits it out on the floor as Dean did Castiel laughs.
He may like his tin heart.