A/N: This is a threeshot, or a trilogy, or whatever you would like to call it. The title of this part and their family histories will be explained far more in the last part, which is horribly morbid but this was very fun to write. I did a lot of research for this story, which is mainly for the second part, where they are actually fighting. My great uncles were all in the war, and one was even a part of Operation Overlord. My mother also gave a book with letters sent before and after this invasion to loved ones back home, so I am hoping the story is almost entirely accurate. If not, I sincerely apologize and hope you can overlook it, and enjoy the story for good ole entertainment purposes. Researching isn't really my thing anyway.. :/ Also, I'm still working on Wayward Sons and Angels, I'm just sidetracking with this until I get a little more feedback, so I know how to proceed.

Destiel. World War II AU. Enjoy, loves. Review if you feel up to it. It means a lot.

I do not own Supernatural and never will. Le sigh.

Castiel Novak was in love with Dean Winchester from the moment he stepped foot in their tent.

He was sitting with a blond haired man with a lanky build, playing cards and mumbling every once in a while. The other soldiers were spread about, but Castiel only saw Dean, though of course he didn't know his name at the time.

Their unit had just been moved to a small town on the England coast in preparation for Operation Overlord, and the last thing he had expected to find here was someone to fall in love with. Even stranger was the fact that he fell in love with a guy, a fellow soldier.

Castiel did not believe in love at first sight, and he had vowed he never would. As much as their father liked to drill the concept of miracles into their minds, love was something else entirely. Duty came first, and silly relationships were always last, if they were to happen at all.

Dean, however, became an exception to what his father had taught him, all in one single instance where the world tilted and he was suddenly in the sky, completely isolated from his brothers.

Something he had learned from himself was that this war was awful in every sense of the word. It ate away at one's morals and health, one's mind and wellness. It could drive one mad, as it had Raphael, his brother. It could kill you, as it had his other brother, Gabriel. It could make you a terribly cold person, as it had his oldest brother, Michael.

Castiel's own chances of survival were so slim, especially after being assigned to this particular operation. A part of him knew it was ridiculous to think he could form a romance between drills, planning, and the looming invasion in general. Another part of him said that was all the more reason to go crazy for once. His dad wasn't here to say no. Michael wasn't here to lecture him on why it was wrong, so why not? The rational part of his brain told him that men didn't love other men, though his rapidly beating heart was protesting without mercy.

"What's wrong with you?" Chuck asked, as he just stood there, staring slack-jawed at the pair playing cards.

His friend prodded him impatiently, drawing the focus to himself.

"What?" Castiel answered after a few seconds.

Chuck shrugged, throwing his bag onto the nearest bunk, flinching when some of the papers flew out. He made no move to pick them up immediately, instead running a hand through his hair, his face somber. Chuck could look perfectly childish, and then suddenly very old. At the moment, he appeared ancient and worn.

"Nothing. Go play cards. We have a day of drills tomorrow, so you might as well relax while you can."

He climbed onto his newly claimed bunk, snatching the papers and muttering apprehensively. When Chuck was in his more childish moods, he usually shook Castiel awake in the middle of the night to announce a new novel idea, a new plot line, or generally to discuss his characters.

Although it was annoying, Castiel preferred it to this run- down side of him.

Though he was anxious to go talk to the other soldiers, particularly to the one who drew his attention so insistently, he began to help by picking up papers, smoothing out the folds and politely asking what ideas he wanted to pursue.

"Quit staring at that guy like a puppy," Charlie hissed in Dean's ear.

Dean winced, eyes darting around to make sure no one heard. The soldiers at the neighboring table (crate, actually), didn't look up.

"Shut the hell up, man. I'm not staring." He had, in fact, been staring at the man with messy dark brown hair who had just walked in. Or maybe it was black. The lighting in the tent obviously wasn't good, but it didn't matter. The frame of him was so enticing, he couldn't help but to stare.

Charlie laughed as he noticed him doing it again. The poor guy probably wasn't even aware it was happening.

He slapped his cards down to flaunt a royal flush and reclaim his friend's attention.

"I win. Again," he announced loudly, holding his chin high.

The other soldiers certainly heard this and laughed, well accustomed to Dean Winchester and his rotten luck.

They could hardly boast about their own, being in the 29th Infantry, one of the first assigned to storm Omaha Beach during the operation, but they could certainly find light by teasing Dean Winchester and his incapacity to win a single game of cards. Even Greg, who was the slowest runner, the slowest to understand drills, and the one who lost almost every game himself, could beat Dean.

"Okay. Fine, what do I owe you?" Dean snapped, just a little embarrassed. His dad should have taught him how to play cards, so he could teach Sammy. Too bad that never happened.

Charlie didn't answer immediately. Instead, he shuffled the cards and dealt them out again. He never got tired of winning, but personally he was trying to distract Dean from the two guys who were playing with paper. If the other soldiers knew about Dean batting for both teams, as he liked to call it, they might not like him as much. Scratch that. They would treat him like a pile of dog shit.

Dean and Charlie had been friends almost since birth, their military careers leading them down the same roads, just as life always had. So of course he had known Dean had a weakness for men to the slightest degree. He had known for years, though Dean would never admit it unless tricked into it with mind games, which just happened to be Charlie's specialty.

He had been raised in such an open minded household, he only encouraged Dean to be bolder with his actions, despite the fact that society wasn't all that welcoming to his kind, to say the least.

"A dozen cases of beer and a girlfriend is what you owe me, my friend. I need some love in my life," he answered when he saw his friend's eyes drifting curiously over to New Guy. If he kept this up, he would start drooling, and that the others would certainly notice.

He made this demand seriously, though he and all the other soldiers knew that their chances of survival were entirely microscopic. To accentuate that particular thought, one man sat in the corner writing a farewell letter to his wife and daughter, a tear streaming down his face. He wasn't the only one writing, or the only one crying. Just the only one at the moment doing both.

"Right. Like a girl would take you!" Dean scoffed, turning his attention back to his cards with a furrowed brow. No such luck, as always. A part of him decided that Charlie did it on purpose somehow, giving him the worst cards he could get.

"Oh, and you're doing so much better?"

Dean was infamous for one night stands with women, but he never settled down. He was always moving from one thrill to the next. Charlie wondered at first if that was what the war was to him- the next thrill, and the largest one yet by a colossal margin. But he had seen the terror in Dean's eyes more than once and he learned quickly that his friend would give anything to be safe at home with his brother.

"My love life is terrific. I bet I could get any woman in this quaint little town to fall in love with me in a week."

Charlie smirked, approving of his hand, before raising his eyes to meet Dean's ever defiant glare. It was a challenge he wanted? Fine. Let him have his fun before they went dancing on land mines.

"Okay. Get pretty boy over there to love you. You know, the one you keep staring at. One week, give or take a day, and I bet he wouldn't fall for you. No, I can guarantee it."

"I can't work with a week, especially since General Eisenhower has given us a few days estimate for the plan. What do I do if he calls us in tomorrow?"

Charlie exhaled loudly, rolling his eyes and laying down his cards to flaunt another speedy victory.

"Yeah. I seriously doubt that. Hey, here he comes. Don't be bashful now!"

Dean threw his cards at his laughing friend, finding little humor in the situation, but still feeling a slight kick of excitement as the two new soldiers pulled up chairs, deep in a conversation, the other brown haired man waving his arms around for emphasis.

"So then then man will reconcile with his wife, but the daughter will be unforgiving. Then, the man will die in a car crash, leaving the daughter devastated and determined to do all the things her father ever wanted to accomplish in life. How does it sound so far, Cas?"

Charlie gawked at the man whom all this had come from, having no idea what he was talking about or why 'Cas' was so attentive to the utter nonsense.

"I'm Chuck," the obviously crazy man said when he realized he was being stared at.

"Castiel," the darker haired of the two added quietly.

"Castiel, eh?" Charlie asked, waggling his eyebrows at Dean, who growled something and snatched up his cards again.

He began arranging them with far more care than he usually did, feeling his face heat up a little.

"I'm Charlie. Shy guy is Dean."

"I am not shy!" he snapped, shoving the cards at Charlie to shuffle.

"Do you play?" Dean asked, turning to Castiel with determination to show Charlie he wasn't bothered by the man's blatant good looks. He abruptly realized he was, in fact, when Castiel raised his eyes to meet his own. They were such an enrapturing shade of blue; Dean briefly forgot what he was doing, or what he had just asked.

"Yes," Castiel answered, sending Dean's mind scrambling for the train of thought it had previously been on. He had asked him to play cards. Yeah, that was it.

Charlie snickered, dealing out cards for four players this time. He was going to be very amused these next few days, he could tell.

A week could be thought of as a very short time for someone to fall in love, a nearly impossible time crunch for such a life-altering thing to form. In such a dire situation like war, however, it was okay.

People clung to love here like it was their lifelines, their only connections back to home, back to sanity.

Neither Castiel nor Dean expected something like this to form between them. They didn't expect to find their only links to stability in one another, in the middle of this storm.

It only took them the rest of the night to talk to each other past the "lights out" call, to feel the connection. Charlie and Chuck exchanged smug smiles but let them be. They wanted to let them have this.

Yes, Castiel had known he had loved Dean before he knew his name. For Dean to be showing interest back was unbelievable, so much so that he wondered if he was maybe imagining the first day.

Castiel had seen how men who cared for other men had been treated, and he didn't like it, but the prospect of being with Dean Winchester was so overwhelmingly tempting, he found himself not caring. If they somehow lived through this, Castiel knew that he wanted to stick with Dean, wherever he went.

Going home wasn't tempting originally, which he explained to Dean on the second day they spent together.

"My father is a very reclusive man, but he raised us to fight for his morals, to make them our own. He is a devout man, even naming us all after arch angels, save for me."

"Castiel is an angel name?" Dean asked, sprawled out on Cas's bunk with his hands behind his head.

The June night was incredibly hot, so they were left only wearing the bottoms of their uniforms, sneaking unashamed glances at each other's muscles in the midst of conversation.

"Yes. Castiel is one of the three angels of Thursday, my mother's favorite day. She said every good thing that has happened to her has been on a Thursday: the day she met Father, their wedding day, and my birth. So she named me Castiel, a minor angel in comparison to Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel."

"Your brothers? Are they enlisted?"

Dean absently began to chew on a necklace that he wore at all times, much the way someone might wear a cross. It was his lucky charm, he had explained, but didn't say much more about it.

"Yes. I…I lost Gabriel before we officially entered the war. He was reluctant to be away from Kali, his wife. She was pregnant at the time. Anyway, he was stationed at Pearl Harbor, and he assured us all he would be fine."

Dean sat up, letting the pendant fall from his mouth. Castiel looked so sad, so lost; it made him uneasy and rather helpless.

"I'm sorry," Dean said quietly. It was a foolish thing to say, because it helped nothing, but he felt like Castiel needed some kind of comfort.

The tent was empty at the time; all the other soldiers were watching some movie. Dean and Castiel had insisted that they didn't feel well, so they had an excuse to come back to the tent.

Since they were alone, Dean was not exceptionally embarrassed to place a hand over Cas's, to provide a bit more comfort for him.

"Am I crazy," Castiel murmured, abruptly changing the subject, "or are you interested in me?"

He peeked up through his lashes, expecting a negative reaction, anywhere from disgust to anger. However, Dean raised one shoulder and lowered it, avoiding eye contact.

"I'm not really into guys. Honestly. You just…interest me, I guess."

The excuse sounded lame to his own ears, and entirely dishonest.

"Interest you? Or are you interested in me?" Castiel demanded. He would not spend his last few days alive being confused over his feelings.

"Both, maybe. I don't know. I just don't think I'm gay. That's weird," Dean stammered, keeping his eyes focused on his hands.

"I'm not gay, either!" Castiel snapped.

Dean glared at him, fully prepared to protest, but he was abruptly at a loss for words as Castiel's lips crashed against his, moving intensely with all the unspoken words they had been too stubborn to say.

Dean could not begin to count all the girls he had kissed, but he knew that Castiel blew them all out of the water. He was fierce, direct, and passionate in a way that made his head spin. Quiet, obedient Castiel, constantly amazing and tantalizing him.

At one point, Castiel ended up straddling Dean, pushing him back against the pillows and framing his jaw with the same burning kisses that Dean suddenly couldn't live without. He was not gay. He couldn't be. But his every nerve was alive with heat and tension, and he knew that he could never live without this again.

If they were to survive, if he were to go home, to let Castiel leave on his own path, he would never be able to forget this. No girl would ever compare, or pull this same hunger from within him. He threw back his head, emitting a guttural sound he wasn't aware he could even make. Castiel's lips trailed back to his own once more, pressing desperately against them. Their little time together, the urgency to be together before it was too late, was transmuted in every single motion and gasp.

All Dean could do to hold onto sanity was to fix his eyes on Castiel's soft black hair, to tangle his fingers in it and draw him closer, though even when their skin was pressed together, it wasn't close enough.

"Dean, we need to stop," Castiel panted at last, drawing back. His hair stuck up at odd angels from Dean's insistent tugging, but he made no move to fix it. Dean nodded, feeling the sweat beading on his neck.

"Yeah. You're right, you're right."

With that, he rolled off and retreated to his own bed, feeling cold once he had removed himself from Castiel. He burrowed underneath his thin blanket, trying to feign sickness so that their bunk mates would be convinced when they returned.

It was relatively simple, with his flushed face and sweat framing his hairline.

"I'm not gay," he told Castiel, who was absentmindedly playing with his dog tags. He gave the slightest ghost of a smile, letting the tags fall back against his chest.

"Me neither," he replied, falling back against his pillows, the pillows Dean had just been pressed against. "Goodnight, Dean."

The next day was spent trying to make things less awkward around their fellow soldiers. Charlie could sense the change, the acceptance, as well as Chuck, but no others seemed to notice the longing in the pair's eyes as they stole glances at one another.

They spent as much time together as they could, in between dinners and drills. They knew it was a bad time to be distracted, right before such a big operation, but it was also the best time to live, so they carried on sneaking kisses and more when they found themselves alone.

The third night they sat in the corner of the tent while the rest of the guys challenged each other to an ultimate card game, thought to be their last.

Charlie and Chuck snickered to one another as they watched Castiel and Dean having a girly moment, but otherwise let them be, making sure no one was staring at them like loyal friends.

"So Sam gave you the necklace?" Cas asked, popping a sunflower seed in his mouth.

"Yeah. The kid means the world to me. I was hoping I could stick around to watch him graduate college, but I guess that's not happening."

Castiel flinched, hating such talk. He had entered this tent three days ago completely positive he was going to die, and he was okay with that, in a twisted way. They had all accepted it. Since Dean had started to express interest, however, he didn't want this to end. It made him sick to his stomach, the thought of saying goodbye to someone who already meant so much to him.

A part of him accepted the reality, but another part begged him to believe that it could work out.

"Maybe you will see him again. If we make it back," Castiel said.

Dean's eyes locked with his, searching his tone for any sign of sarcasm, though he found none.

"Listen, Cas," he began, toying with his necklace again. Castiel had quickly gotten to know this man, so he knew that this was a habit Dean had when he was thinking deeply about something.

"If there is a time where you don't think I'm going to make it, but your chances are looking good, take this necklace. Take it back to Sammy. Tell him I love him and all that stupid mushy stuff, okay? Will you do that for me, if you can?"

Castiel hooked his pinky around Dean's index finger, the closest one he found in the darkening tent, and leaned forward slightly.

"Of course, Dean. But please don't make me do that. Please."

He shrugged, eyes focused on their fingers.

"I can't promise you anything, Cas. I just can't. I would end up breaking whatever I did, more than likely."

Castiel jerked back, a little hurt. He did his best to hide it, but Dean sensed it and changed the subject abruptly.

"So what was your mother like?"

Cas's forehead creased slightly, though that was the only sign of distress he gave.

"She died…shortly after my birth. Complications, I suppose. Dad pressures me the hardest, even harder than Michael. Sometimes I think he personally blames me for her death, and although it is almost trivial, I think he hates the fact that I am named after such a minor angel. "

His expression turned into a scowl, bitter and misplaced on his usually passive face.

"Michael and I don't get along as well as we should. There was a girl, right before I left…"

Dean sat up straighter, his expression becoming a mirror of Cas's.

"A girl?"

"Her name is Anna," Castiel continued, as if Dean had not spoken. "Michael thinks she would be perfect for me. He continuously tried to set us up, but even before I left I was beginning to wonder, about how I felt about guys. I'm sure now," he said, a soft smile spreading on his face.

Dean's shoulders relaxed, and yet he was still almost sort of jealous. He would never admit such a thing, but it was there, almost surprising him with its insistent gnawing.

"I'm glad we met. If we had met outside, in the real world, this wouldn't have worked," he said aloud.

It was Castiel's turn to be shocked; he drew his hand away, his blue eyes becoming guarded.

"Are you saying you are only doing all this with me because our chances of dying are tragic? That otherwise you would have nothing to do with me?" he whispered fiercely.

"Well, Cas. Be rational. Our kind, whatever we are, aren't very accepted. This is only working here because we're keeping it a secret and we know perfectly well only one of us will make it back, if that."

"The word is gay, Dean," Cas snarled, clenching his fists in his lap. His feelings were terribly hurt this time, and he was not up to hiding it.

"Or, bisexual in your case. And I thought this would work. I hoped. I care very much for you, Dean. I've never been in love before, but I think it's safe to say I know that feeling. I was hoping you would feel the same."

Dean turned his head to the side of the tent, closing his eyes and smiling lightly.

"I guess I win the bet."

"What bet?" Castiel said, his eyebrows knitting together to form what Chuck would call his death stare.

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, gazing at the roof of the tent and sighing. He hated that they were bickering, when there was so little time left. Why couldn't they just be happy?

"Charlie bet that I couldn't get you to fall in love with me in a week. I bet I could. I guess I won."

The last part was added with a nervous laugh as he realized he had pissed Castiel off unintentionally.

"Get off my bed," Castiel growled, turning his face away. He couldn't let Dean see the hurt in his eyes; it would only assure him about his stupid claim to victory. It made him feel guilty, but he wanted to hurt Dean too. Why should his heart be the only one to get stomped on?

Dean reached forward to put a reassuring hand on Castiel, but the action would do no good, so he stood up instead. Castiel kept his head down, refusing to acknowledge his presence.

"Cas," he began, but was interrupted by the sound of footsteps rushing towards their tent.

"Guys!" Charlie burst into the tent, panting and wide eyed.

"General Eisenhower. He says we are moving out tomorrow. Apparently there is a break in the weather patterns and it's a good opportunity to strike. They want us to review the plans again, one last time. Let's go!"

The soldiers scrambled up, leaving their cards folded in near victories and losses, their drinks half filled, or half emptied, all rushing to review their suicide. For their countries. For the British, for the French, for the Canadians, and for the Americans, they would fight as brothers. And two would fight as broken lovers.

Dean held out a hand to help Castiel up, to say he was sorry, but Cas shoved away the offer and stormed out, not looking back.

The tent was empty except for him; he knew he should get moving but his heart felt torn.

"I win, Charlie," he said aloud, though he didn't much feel like he won anything.

Not at all.