The Five Times Castiel heard Dean's prayers (and the One Time He wishes He hadn't)
A prompt left in my askbox on tumblr. Feel free to go leave me more Destiel prompts at voxxerfoxxer . tumblr . com
"Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here."
"Well, I feel stupid doin this, but I am fresh outta options. So please. I need some help. I'm praying ok? Now come on! Please!"
"Castiel, hello. Possible loose nuke down here. Angelic weapon. Kinda your department. Here that, Cas?!"
"Dear Castiel, who art maybe.. running his ass way from Heaven, we pray that you have your ears on. So.. breaker..breaker..?"
Castiel had heard Dean pray a thousand times, it seemed. From idle calls in the impala for company during a particularly nasty fight and seperation from Sam, to murmured words in the hunter's sleep, where Cas assumed some nightmare of Hell plagued him.
He didn't make it a habit of invading the other's dreams. It was an exhausting ordeal for one, and two it was a line he wasn't sure he was meant to cross.
But after the first time he interrupted a particularly nasty nightmare to let Dean rest with the dream of being saved from the bowels of Hell and rest easily, it became habit. Nightmares were often adjusted, allowing the other to settle into softer slumber.
Of course, those things all stopped when Cas was gone and the nightmares came in full, vicious swing. First Cas 'died' at the hands of Leviathan, and then he came back only to shatter what fragile pieces were left in repentence for Sam's state.
The nightmares didn't stop when Cas returned. They got worse, angrier, more violent.
It wasn't until Purgatory that the nightmares subsided. Maybe because he had such little time to sleep with. Maybe because every night there was a subtle prayer before bed like a child's ritual.
In that place, with all it's evil and darkness and hatred, he slept easily. Peacefully. Purely.
Enough so that soon the dreams shifted, changing into exotic things that matched the wild landscape of Purgatory. Things that had Benny squirming, sleeping a few extra yards away.
Dean never knew Cas was the dreamcatcher burning away his nightmares. He never realized it was the angel's fingerprints left in his mind, warding off all the bad scenarious his mind cooked up. Dean never put it together that Cas' prolonged presence in his dreams (among other subconscious urges) caused the wicked steaming stews of sweat and hushed names and growled moans in his dreams.
Thus, he never thought to try to keep quiet or quell the lashing dreams that left him flinching and grinning in his sleep, murmuring to himself like a madman.
For all the times before where Cas had heard Dean's voice, he'd thought himself an expert on the hunter's prayers. There were the sarcastic ones, the most common. The earnest ones, rare things that always managed to set the angel's heart on fire.
There were tired prayers and lonely prayers and whispered little confessions that Dean didn't mean for Castiel specifically, but still he listened. He always listened. Especially in Purgatory.
So it came as no shock that the angel settled down for the night, tucked in a tight corner of a cave like a scared bat waiting out the sun. Leviathan had been chasing him all day and most of the night, and he'd missed half of Dean's prayer for that night.
Oddly it was something that infuriated him enough to lash out, executing his pursuers at the cost of previous grace and stamina. Wounded and exhausted he had crawled to shelter, wishing desperately this would be a night Dean mumbled in his sleep. Perhaps about Sam or the Impala. Anything that would perk Castiel's ears, his energy, his soul. Anything that would give him some connection to the hunter he tried so effortlessly to get in touch with.
Even if it cost grace to listen, even if it cost him dearly to assuage those nightmares, he never thought twice about it. Not for Dean.
So it came as a special comfort when Dean's voice arrived in the back of the angel's tired mind.
Castiel eased into the unforgiving stone around him, shutting his eyes against the darkness and trying to sink into the sound of Dean's voice and the feeling that out there somewhere his heart was still beating and his lips were still forming the angel's name.
"Cas." Came Dean's featherlight murmur. A whisper in the dark that had the angel smiling. It was selfish. Reckless. But he lavished it with all the greed his human heart could muster. Forget riches or decadence. All he wanted from the world was Dean.
"Cas." Dean's voice came again, more urgent. Briefly every hair stood on end. Every muscle tensed and every bone screamed to move, to lurch and fly and tear Purgatory apart to get to his hunter.
But then his name arrived again. Strained. Desperate.
Castiel hesitated, listening.
A moan was whispered, barely audible, with a grunt that just barely resembled his name.
Blue eyes opened. Squinted. Was he? No..
All night the noises continued.
Cas didn't get a second of sleep. Not until Dean's various grunts and moans and whispers that went from audible calls to half-mumbles and snores peetered out. It was when the hunter jolted, gasping and grunted and calling that odd name "Benny" that Cas was able to tune out. To turn his attention elsewhere. The dingy Purgatory sun was rising, and Cas wasn't sure if he had the strength to move.
So just for one day, he didn't. Just for a few hours he sat, thinking of Dean. Of what dreams he could have possibly had.. What scenarios and images and words and touches lurked in the back of the hunter's mind. Desperately Cas ached to flee there. To hide in a dream where he would wait for the night to come and Dean's hands to arrive on cold skin.
Oh what he wouldn't give to remember what it felt like to be touched. A handshake. A pat on the shoulder. Human contact, at all. Wistful longing for a hug one day filled the angel's mind.
A hug, a kiss, a warm clean bed.
That was the morning Castiel became nocturnal in Purgatory. He thrived on the nights, filled with desperate prayers and even more so dreams, with murmurs that changed from pleas to low growls. Like some broken radio the angel made up his own stories and images to fit the audio, wavering dangerously down the line of temptation. It became a game in time, to tempt but never indulge. It was a torterous hobby that kept him going on the worst days, when leviathan were at their worst.
And it was in the dying afternoons, as teh sun set and his eyes opened from his own lust-filled dreams that Castiel sighed, sometimes wondering if he'd have been better off not hearing the one particular "prayer" of Dean's at all.