Rating: T, I think. Some bad language, probably nothing sexual, some violence.

Pairing: Dean & Castiel. Sort of. You can consider this to be unrequited love, or a deep, brothers in arms bond that neither of them really understand.

First attempt at writing for Supernatural!

One Shot: Because I Love You, You Are For Real

Castiel

I have never felt before. It is a very recent phenomenon.

And of course, I had no feelings about my lack of feelings. You cannot miss something you have never known.

The first time it happened, I believed I was dying.

I say first time. There had been little things before this. I was beginning to learn what laughter was, a little about friendship. I could worry about the Winchester brothers; feel isolated and afraid as I became more and more distant from Heaven.

No, I mean real emotion. Tear your heart out and watch it bleed out on the floor, soggy and broken, emotion.

Emotion so strong, so hard, so terrible that to experience it is to die a little inside.

Emotion that pushes you over the brink, so you can never go back.

Emotion that changes lives. That ends them.

And begins ones entirely anew.

***

There had been a fight. Sam's face was bleeding, body riddled with bruises. A few days, he'd be fine.

But Dean... Dean. He looked as if he'd been hit by a car. His breathing came in gasps, and it took only one cursory look-over for me to tell that he had internal injuries. He required emergency medical attention.

Emergency medical attention. Ha. Internal injuries are no match for an Angel of the Lord.

The lightest touch of my hand on his forehead, and he was healed. His skin was smooth and much too warm and my hand came away bloody. The touch lasted mere seconds, but I felt his body knit itself together beneath my fingers. His heart beat faster, stronger. Blood shrivelled itself back into his veins. Bones became whole once more. He became whole once more.

His head flopped back, eyes locked on mine. He gave me what I have since learned is to be called a "shit-eating grin" and said, "Well, it's about damn time, Cas."

The smile was fleeting, he was exhausted. He fell back on the bed he'd been awkwardly sitting on, almost instantly unconscious.

I was somewhat distracted.

It felt as if my chest had been ripped in two.

The flash of that human's smile had achieved what an Archangel could not. There was a gaping hole in my chest, and I could barely breathe.

I could feel myself begin to dematerialise through panic.

Dimly, I could hear Sam's voice.

"Cas? Cas, what's wrong?"

It was coloured with concern. I vaguely remember wishing I knew how to answer him.

I pulled back into my being, into myself, hundreds of miles away, thousands, maybe.

I was on a beach. It was deserted, and it was night.

I fell to my knees, my head in my hands. If I had known how to sob, I would have been doing so in earnest.

The sensations of pain and loss and devotion and joy and admiration and... love? Is this what love felt like?

These sensations, drowning me, more thoroughly than the crashing sea that spread out in front of me could ever have achieved.

The longer I lived among humans, the more I became used to the concept of "choice". That decisions had to be made, their consequences lived with. That the consequences could be Hellish. Sometimes literally – ask Dean.

It was dark and it was cold, (cold? I could feel cold?), and I was alone and I was not remotely equipped to deal with the terrible emotional onslaught that rained down on me.

Rain. Real rain, began to fall.

I hung my head back, let the rain fall on my face. Stared at the sky with those eyes, so blue, those eyes that had my vessel had received so many compliments on, back in the day.


I wonder what Dean thinks of my eyes?

I started, as if ambushed. Apparently, I could now be ambushed by my own mind.

Why should I care what Dean thinks of my eyes? Why should I even think of them as mine?

I did not know what to do. My brethren... they could not help me.

Who could?