Falling

by DeannaReadX

"Y'know, even though we met years ago, sometimes I feel like I hardly know you. You should tell me about your life" "That's a long story," "Then just tell me the important parts," Cas thinks for about fifteen seconds before the answer comes to him. ""On September the eighteenth, 2008, I saved a righteous man from hell"

Castiel feels it before he sees it, the wind rousing him from his unconsciousness, the dampness of the soft mud against his back, the trees calling out together in unison, almost dancing in mantra to what is about to unfold.

He pushes himself up, but his arms feel weak, tired. In fact, his whole vessel aches like its finally becoming real, solid. His blood... wait, blood? He can feel that too, his blood is pumping thin and fast around the veins beneath his skin, the stubble on his chin tickles, the healing scar on his leg is sore. And his chest is caving. It feels like it is anyway. His torso feels empty, a gaping hole where the essence of his preciousness used to exist, damaged and tainted and darkened, but never leaving, it had always been there, fuelling him, setting him apart from the world of humanity.

And now there's nothing. His throat is clogging, stinging his eyes, filling them with liquid. He stands, but he's wobbly and his fingers are stiff and almost mechanical. He moves numbly forward through the shrubbery, steps and stumbles over rocks and leaves and twigs until he is stopped in his tracks at an opening, gaze fixed in awe on the pulsing sky; a greying, mystical blue rumbling with life. It looks like it's crying.

And then he sees them, cylinders of light, comets with blindingly, heart shatteringly stunning golden wings, and when he squints in disbelief and agony, he can make out the shapes of them, his sisters and brothers all travelling fast and surely to the cold, hard, unforgiving ground of planet earth.

Falling.

And the sensation fills him with a nausea he has never experienced before, his body is lurching, his gut contracting and forcing bile through his throat. He arches forward, dropping to his knees and crying out, tears streaming thick, hot and quick down his cheeks. He can't breathe, his lungs hurt as he gasps and gnarls for air. His neck is pulled up by an invisible force and his arms fly out to their sides as his life bursts from him in an explosion of brilliance and power, the final traces of his grace leaving him deflated, broken and alone to feel every single emotion he has repressed for the entirety of his existence. Its left him nothing. A lost, exhausted shell of his former self.

He doesn't want to move, he doesn't want to talk, he doesn't want to open his eyes. He wants to stay here, to rot away for his sins, to suffer everything he deserves to whilst his family lose everything they have ever held dear.

Some time later, he isn't sure how long, strong, shaking, calloused hands wrap around his biceps and inch him up. A warm, familiar body supports his weight. He recognises the smell of old tobacco, alcohol and earth, nature. Its so incredibly, revealingly human, that it sets him off again, his insides clenching and quivering uncontrollably against his ribs, the retching horrible sobs tumbling from his cracked lips. The hold on him is adjusted and arms engulf him, a rough, low, voice whispering comforting things against him. One of the arms take a tighter grip around his waist and suddenly he is being slid into a box, a metal box with leather interior and it feels almost like home. A home that would never be available to him ever again.

A rumbling sound starts up and they are moving, gliding over roads and fields and gravel. They drive for what Castiel thinks is a long time, but he's still uncertain. Everything is wrong, everything hurts, everything is disconnected, yet too overwhelmingly wired to him, and he can't turn it off, not this time. He doesn't deserve to.

He is helped into somewhere, some place underground and then he's settled onto a bed and his coat is pulled away from him, his dirty, torn shirt replaced with a soft cotton t-shirt, his trousers pulled down his legs and a blanket is thrown over his body.

Then, like the switch that used to exist inside his mind, a hand brushes hair back from his face and lips press to his forehead, and the pain shuts itself off, the fatigue flooding his body as his muscles relax and he rolls into a troubled sleep.

Dean. That's the name he had been searching for.

Dean Winchester.

His Dean.

He is going to be okay.

Castiel doesn't talk. His throat is sore, and his tongue feels numb. So he stays silent. Dean wakes him around half past three in the morning, claiming he has had 'a good sixteen hours shut eye' and that he smells like canine faeces so he needs a shower.

He's assisted in walking, but he still isn't registering his surroundings. The details slip in and out of his sensory memory stores, decaying in his mind the moment they enter it. The only thing real to him at the moment is his boys. The Winchesters. More specifically Dean, profound bond and all that. Also, the human has not left his side since they arrived in what he recalled Dean naming 'the bat cave'.

When morning comes around, Sam doesn't join them at the table and Castiel does not ask why, its written all over Dean's face, the features he knows so well, better than anything he's ever come across. Dean is terrified, livid, angry; Castiel knows that look because its one they have in common. It means that his brain is screaming at him every second that it's a possibility he can very well lose the only two people he has left in the world.

They eat in continued silence. Dean has to get up a couple of times to shut out the power, and turn it on again because the frequencies are still spiking up. Castiel knows in his aching heart that its only the last of the angels falling to earth.

The bacon sandwich Dean provides is notably tasteful, and its only the insignificance of such a thing that stops Cas from asking how he had ever learned to make such nice food when the two brothers had basically lived off tins of beans their whole lives.

Eventually, he gets rather tired of watching his friend brooding, and sits back in his chair, eyebrows settling into a frown. It throbs in his gut as a reminder that he can't just read Dean's mind to see what he's thinking anymore. He is going to have to do this differently. The human way.

"You are unhappy," Cas says, catching his friend's gaze.

"Oh, so you're talking now?" he replies, quirking his brow. He rolls his eyes when Cas doesn't say anything else, and lets out a bitter half laugh, sighing, hand running through his hair as he shrugs.

"If you're going to ask me why I'm not skipping around grinning, I'm going to kick your scrawny little ass," he says, hand stretching out and flexing the fingertips, steady as ever, military composure. He works to distract himself from the awful thoughts Castiel knows are flowing around his head.

"I'm going to assume that means you are not in the mood to converse the state of your mindset"

"No Cas, it means my brother is dying and my best friend is half-way to losing his mind with grief," Dean asseverates irritably, dropping eye contact and bowing his head. Castiel has to remember himself, the force of his human emotions are a lot more frequent and temperamental than his angel ones had been. This is horrible. He doesn't know if he can do this, if he will be able to deal with it.

"M'sorry man, I'm just – I'm just a little cloudy this morning okay, things aren't looking too good right now," he apologises. Cas nods, just once, small and certain. They don't speak again all day.

Castiel thinks he's holding it together rather well if he's being nice to himself, like Dean has told him to be.

He's having very graphic and painful nightmares all the time, and he flinches at random points in the day because his back hurts without his wings there, so much that sometimes he can't breathe. Sometimes it chokes him, clogs his throat, makes his heart beat a thousand times a minute. Sometimes it paralyses him. Dean says it's called a 'panic attack'. Cas wonders if he really is losing his mind.

But he's not refusing to function, so he thinks there might be a chance for him yet.

When Dean chucks him the keys to the Impala – its a routine so that Cas can make a quick getaway if something happens to Dean in the diner; it's pointless though, like Cas is really going to leave if Dean was in trouble - and goes into the café to buy pie, Cas wonders what's really in the boot of the car. He's never properly looked at Dean's weapons. He knows there's enough in there to put the man away in prison for life, but he's never really observed them properly. He wonders if he'll be taught how to use them. He suspects he will, eventually, when Dean thinks Sammy is getting better and has more time on his hands.

Castiel moves around the sleek black car and opens the boot the manual way, feeling the usual pang in his chest when he's reminded that he can't just make things happen with the click of his fingertips anymore.

He reaches out his hand and it's peculiar, not seeing the beige cuffs of his trench-coat, or feeling the silk of the shirt against his chest, the weight of his angel blade in his pocket. He still has that, but he's put it in the top drawer of Dean's bedside table, he has decided that he doesn't want to see it anymore, doesn't want to touch it. Its just a reminder of how astronomically things have gone wrong. Literally.

Now the outfit has been replaced with a dark blue t-shirt, a plaid blue over shirt, and a black denim jacket that smells of Dean. He feels better now Dean has given him some of his old clothes, he feels warm and protected. But, like most things, he knows it's an illusion.

His fingertips close around the white pearl handle of Dean's gun, the one that has survived the five years Castiel has known him. He knows Dean is attached to it, that it has some sort of meaning behind it. Everything the Winchesters own has a meaning to it, they own so little, its impossible for all of it not to. As Cas holds it in his hands, he draws in a breath and thinks about how it would feel to press the cold metal to the temple of his head; would it be menacing, frightening? Or would it be comforting, the promise for it all to just float away from him, leave his body, his body that is bursting with emotion he's trying desperately to sort, to put into sections, boxes. But it's all so squiggled, so messy, so abstract, and it's rumbling and pulsing with pain. Its always at the front of his head, right behind his eye sockets.

But he can't, Dean needs him. He would never forgive himself if Castiel does this, if he takes his own life in the middle of the parking lot in autumn with the specific gun Dean calls his own. There's a thread of irony in there, but Castiel can't quite grasp it.

He drops the gun before he does something irrational, and runs his hands over the long, cool metal of the arrow that is strapped to the inside of the lid of the boot, eyes flickering down to what looks like the object that's supposed to fire it. He follows the contraption sideways to the section dedicated to the herbs and fluids and spell ingredients, the instructions for exorcisms.

Its then when he sees it, the soft, glossy blackness, the spine of it a slightly greyer colour. The soreness in his back almost cripples him, and the skin tickles like the slither remnant of a memory, a whisper of rushing wings, fluttering as he moved. He feels it in his gut, all the way through his diaphragm, up to his throat. He closes his eyes tight shut, tears are already trickling down his cheeks and his knees nearly buckle. Well, they do, hands just catch his elbows before he can hit the ground. The boot is slammed shut and those same hands are cupping his neck, forcing him to look straight into Dean's eyes.

The pain is stinging, stagnant and alive in his head and it just – it really, really hurts.

"Hey," Dean's gruff voice demands his attention but he still can't stop the sobs "hey, look at me," he snaps sharper, thumbs stroking over his jawline roughly, the tears catching on them.

"It's okay, it's not that bad- hey!" Dean steps closer, pressing his forehead against Cas', noses brushing, breath steady and slow "you can't do this Cas, you can't blank out like this. I need you"

"I'm nothing!" Castiel shakes his head against Dean's, coughing and spluttering through the crying "I'm nothing without it, how could – how could you possibly need me? I c-can't heal him Dean, I can't save him and – I don't even know why you're still bothering with me, I'm not useful-" Cas breaks off, pushing back, swallowing heavily, breaking the eye contact, running a hand through his hair.

"I'm not useful anymore," he breathes, the emotion catching in his vocal cords, cracking his voice. He's trying so hard to stop crying, he really wants to, he does, but the feather, and the wings and the – the emptiness.

Dean looks at him then, he looks at him like he's stabbed him in the gut, and his eyes are filling with tears and it just makes everything worse because Castiel can't, he's never been able to do Dean tears. There is just something about it, about knowing, seeing that someone so incredible, is hurting.

"Seriously?" Dean spits it and Cas almost winces "you seriously think, that this is about you being useful?" he's livid, outraged, furious "if you think that, then five years, all this, you don't know me at all. You're my best friend Cas, if you think that this," he breaks off, gesturing with his finger between them "has ever been about you being useful, you don't know how god damned fucking wrong you are"

Cas can't speak, he has drawn a blank. But the tears have stopped and he's staring in slight awe at how much he had offended Dean just by saying that he was useless.

"I didn't realise-"

"Really? You didn't realise that you mean more to us, to me, than just the odd hocus pocus here and there to make it all better? Cas, you have no idea how much – you don't even – dammit Cas! Do you remember when I did this and you dinged me up till I was drinking my own fucking blood through my nose in that alleyway?"

Cas remembers it. He had been so angry, he had just lost it with him, pummelled his fist repeatedly into Dean's face. That was back when maybe the bond between them hadn't been so strong; he could never do anything like that now (with the exception of when Naomi was in his mind of course) he would die before that happened again.

"If – dammit, if we only die once, which I'm pretty sure is true for you right now, I would be damn happy to die with you... or Sammy of course. But you know... there's – fucking shit man, you don't half short circuit me sometimes Cas. There's never really been anyone in my life apart from Sam, no one permanent anyway, and it's fucking strange you know, having something to live for besides my baby brother. But I do man, I have you, and you're just as important to me, you're family . I can't lose you to this Cas, and I can't have you thinking that you're not worth anything if you don't have your angel juice"

Dean looks like he's done yelling, but he's still worked up and breathing heavy and Castiel's chest aches but he feels different, he can hear himself think again, he can see it more clearly. The skin on his bones isn't so numb.

He sucks in a deep breath, the cool air finally rushing through him, filling his lungs to the core, waking him up almost. His head feels heavy, but not so painful, like he's just a little congested and his eyes feel itchy.

"My apologies Dean, I believe I have been... unreasonable. I – I think I'm tired. May we return to the bunker now?" Cas requests, his voice is quiet, his head bowed as though he has been scolded by a school teacher or parent. He feels disappointed in himself, and those thoughts, they still weren't banished from his mind. He still feels defeated, lost, worthless. Without his powers, he really does feel like a baby in a trench-coat. Except he doesn't have the trench-coat anymore, he has asked Dean to burn it. These new clothes... well, Dean's random pick out of his wardrobe, they're soft. With the remnants of his aura, Cas can feel his best friend's presence on them. He thinks he'll be as attached to these as he was to Jimmy's suit.

Dean's eyelids droop for a moment in weakness before he lets out his own breath and swallows, looking up at the sky. Cas ignores the notion, repressing the pang of nostalgia. He will miss hearing Dean's prayers.

"Whatever man," Dean looks like he wants to say something else for a moment, but he closes his mouth and nods, taking the keys back from Castiel and gesturing for him to get back in the car.

Cas almost smiles at the cushioned, plush leather of the front passenger seat. He considers for a second, the possibility that Sam might actually die, and that this seat may soon be his forever. But he doesn't kid himself into thinking that he could ever replace that gaping hole in Dean's life.

And then Cas realises what a hole it would leave in his own life. It dawns on him that he loves Sam as much as he loves Dean. It's in a different way, but he still loves him and he doesn't know how he will deal with the aftermath of Sam's death should it occur, on top of falling from heaven, from his home. But he concludes that he will have to, in Dean's terms, 'suck it up' because Dean... Dean will be devastated, broken, shattered into a million pieces. He will blame himself, take it all on his shoulders, carry it around with him. If Castiel thinks he's got it bad now, it will be nothing compared to how Dean will feel if Sam does not make it through this.

They drive home with more silence. Dean does not play the radio, nor does he glance sideways at all. He keeps his eyes fixed forward on the road, calloused, tanned hands firmly on the steering wheel of the car he loves so much. Their home. The bunker was nice, it was safe and secure and spacious.

But through everything, through all the death and loss and memories and the two Winchester boys growing up, the car had always been there, always present. The Impala, of course, has all the things other cars have... and a few things they don't. But none of that stuff's important. This is the stuff that's important. The Army man that Sam crammed in the ashtray, it's still stuck there. The Legos that Dean shoved into the vents. To this day, the heat comes on, and you can hear them rattle. These are the things that make the car theirs. Really theirs. Even when Dean rebuilt it from the ground up, he made sure all these little things stayed. Because it's the blemishes that make her beautiful.

And this car is significant, it has history, stories, love built in it from the brakes all the way through the engine, along the paint job. Sam is half of that.

He is half of a whole. The other half, Dean. They will never be whole without each other.

"We do need you Cas, you've always been important, and I'm sorry man – I'm sorry that you've ever thought any different," Dean's voice is quiet, barely there, but Castiel hears it. He is fairly certain that, Angel powers or not, he will hear that voice from across the other side of the galaxy.

Dean is driving fast because he wants to get back to Sam.

But for the moment, Cas realises he is getting to be a part of these stories, and he eventually leans his head against the cold window, closes his eyes and casts peace through his mind, slowly slipping into a deep sleep. The deepest in days.

Sam wakes to what he thinks is an empty room. His entire body aches, and there's a fresh lick of salty sweat sticking to his t-shirt. He moves to sit up, and sees Cas, curled up in the chair that Dean normally occupies. He's dressed in what Sam recognises as Dean's jeans and Jasper Conran top, a blue pullover cardigan on to keep him warm despite the central heating in the bunker.

Sam hasn't seen Castiel since he had been half-way through purifying Crowley, and if he's being frank, the former angel looks almost as bad as he does. There are hollow, deep dark shadow's around Cas' eyes, his cheekbones are over pronounced, he's pale, weak looking, a shell. If he looks closely, he can see the small twitching in Cas' left eyebrow suggesting that the dude they love is still in there somewhere; its in the way he curls his arms around himself, he always does that when he's sleeping. The only difference is that now he needs it regularly; he probably has to eat as well, drink. He's human.

Castiel is human, but he will never be regular. Not to Sammy. Castiel is the man who saved his brother. Not in the whole 'dragged him out of hell' way, but in so many other ways. He grounds him, reminds him of who he really is, angers him, but keeps him calm. Castiel is so much more to Dean than he thinks he is.

Sam knows he's seriously ill, he feels it in the thinness of his blood, in his arms and legs and in his mind. He doesn't know if he will ever get better. He's not one for wills or last wishes or anything, but if he has to ask for something, if he really wants to die knowing that something is certain, its that Castiel and Dean are aware of how they feel about each other. They're both idiots though, so it wasn't happening any time soon.

"Cas," Sam croaks, meekly reaching out a hand to prod Cas' leg slightly. The former angel snaps awake, blinking in a moment of fear before his eyes land on Sam and he visibly relaxes, sitting up straight. He looks at Sammy for a moment, taking him in. Then he looks really, really sad.

"Sam, you look..."

"Like I'm dying," he lets out his infamous breathy laugh, giving up on pulling himself up into a sitting position, and settling for propping his neck up against the headboard.

"That is not what I was going to say," Castiel replies curtly. Sam raises an eyebrow and shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest. They're still strong and toned, but they have no solidarity in them. At that moment, Cas wants nothing more than to have his grace back, just for a second, just so he can stop all this, so he can save him.

"I am... I am sorry Sam. I would be able to help you if I was still – if I had just listened to Naomi-"

"Hey, Naomi tortured you Cas, you were right not to trust her, whether she was telling the truth or not. And I was going to end up like this whether you'd fallen or not," he hushes him. Castiel moves to open his mouth and say something, but Sam shakes his head, soft eyes full of pain and exhaustion. It breaks Cas' heart.

"Don't do that Cas, don't beat yourself up. Dean needs you to be strong okay, I need you to be strong," Sam says, and it's so quiet, so done. Cas can only swallow and nod, adjusting himself further in the chair.

"Where is he?"

"He's sleeping. It was becoming ridiculous, he was refusing to leave you. It took me a large part of three hours to convince him retire to bed for a while," Castiel explains. Sam looks as though he would roll his eyes, if he had the strength to stretch his optic nerves that far. It seems almost as though it would cause some sort of aneurysm.

"I will get you better Sam, I swear to you, I will find a way," Cas says after a few minutes of thoughtful silence.

"Cas-"

"No Sam, I mean it. I'll be better, I'll get the bus or something, I'll go-"

"Cas-"

"And I'll find someone, anyone. There has to be a way-"

"Cas!" Sam half-shouts and the little colour he has drains from his face. Cas shuts up, but continues to watch as Sam wills himself to gather a small amount of strength back.

"Just promise me something, will you?"

"Sam-"

"Cas, I am not going to keep arguing with you, will you just make the damn promise?"

He shuts up again and Sam takes in another rattly breath and smiles slightly.

"I just need to know that you're gonna be here. Always. For my brother"

Cas has to remember that his human emotions are still amplified, and takes a moment to tense up and force himself not to burst into tears like a child. Once he sufficiently has himself sorted, he sits forward, tightly grasping Sam's hand in his own, making absolute eye contact.

"I will never leave, I can't, I have no where else to go. My place is with you and your brother, it always has been and always will be, until my human life comes to its end"

Three weeks into his humanity, and Cas can shoot a 9mm Glock at pretty much any target. The power of holding that in his hands, pulling that trigger and watching it hit something in front of him, to the left of him, to the right; its overwhelming, and he's what Dean calls 'a natural shot'. He doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it seems to make Dean relax a little, so he lets it comfort him for a moment, knowing that he doesn't have to rely on the boys to protect him for the rest of his life.

Dean spends the rest of the day showing him different set ups to spells and rituals, having him make, and unmake hex bags. He already knows most of it, but he lets Dean teach him anyway; seeing that he looks more animated than he has since Sam dropped ill.

Dean says he'll teach Cas to drive when Sam gets better. Cas lets him bask in his denial.

That night, Sam takes a turn for the worse, and they both spend the night sat around his bed, wide awake, talking about the times when things weren't so bad – yes times like that did actually exist. Dean laughs himself stupid when they get onto the whole 'pizza man' thing, and Cas sulks for half hour, arms crossed over his chest. In the morning, Sam's fever is back down and Cas feeds him some soup after sending Dean off to go and have a shower.

When he comes back, Cas has given Sam some more painkillers and he looks more responsive. Dean sits him up against some pillows and they spend some more time reminiscing. Dean tells some god awful jokes, which makes them laugh even more and by nine o'clock that night, both Cas and Dean have consumed a ludicrous amount of caffeine and energy bars, and are still sat in their chairs, watching Sam flit in and out of both deep and light sleeps. There's an air of goodbye in the air, but no one mentions it, the notion hurts too much.

Its Cas that loses the battle against consciousness first, and Dean watches his two favourite people sleep until the early hours of the morning, when he starts to feel sick, and goes to get something to eat. He devours the last of his pie and drinks a beer, all the while keeping the tears at bay. There is no way he's going to let this break him right now, not now he had Sammy and Cas to watch out for, not when things are hanging by such a thin thread.

There are times through the next day where Dean has to try and prepare himself for the worst, and he decides afterwards that he refuses to ever let it get to that point ever again.

Two days later, Sam is walking and whining and brooding.

Dean is on top of the world.

Cas is hunched over in a chair, a bottle of vodka on the table beside him. Dean dabs at Cas' bloody eyebrow with concentration he rarely possesses. Sam has already re-located his shoulder, and is currently stitching up his own lacerations, also swigging from an alcoholic beverage. Castiel has taken the brute of the hunt of course, being new to the whole thing. He has at least three broken ribs and Dean is not talking, which means that he's pissed off and should not be tested.

"Dean, I can finish that, you've been awake for fourty eight hours, go to bed-"

"Shotgun shuts his cakehole, remember?" Dean snaps, not looking sideways at his brother.

Suddenly, Cas' t-shirt is being pulled over his head, and Dean is forcing him to stand so he can wrap his diaphragm in tight bandages. Cas refuses to let himself wince throughout the whole process, and makes his own way back to his designated bedroom.

Around two in the morning, Cas wonders back into the living room, wordlessly lifts Dean's weight up to full height, and drops him into bed. He crawls in beside him and turns his back to him, getting comfortable. Well, as comfortable as he can when half of the fragile human bones in his diaphragm are broken and held together by corset-tight bandages.

All three of them sleep for at least twenty hours.

Dean finds a new way of dealing with heaven falling, and takes to popping up behind Cas whenever he isn't expecting it, saying "Hello Cas" in a gruff voice that is a poor imitation of his own, and proceeding to laugh his head off when Cas almost has heart failure every time. He doesn't get bored of it.

Before they know it, four months have passed and Cas is on his way to becoming a very skilled hunter. He is also educated in something called 'Disney'. Dean isn't a big fan, but Sam seems to love them, and Cas accepts the action because he gets to sit on the sofa beside Dean and eat popcorn. He really likes popcorn.

His favourite is The Lion King, although he goes into outrage when Mufasa dies, every time.

"Cas, it's supposed to happen, it's the plot line and all that shit"

"But Dean, Simba is all alone!"

One night, Cas is woken by a terrible nightmare that makes him scream at the top of his lungs, body curled in on itself, hands clenched so tight, his fingernails are making his palms bleed. Dean rushes in, settling himself under the covers and wrapping his arms around his best friend, prying his hands apart and humming Bon Jovi into his ear until the sobbing stalls and the shaking dies out, and Cas drifts back to sleep.

Castiel doesn't understand Dean's logic, because 'living on a prayer' is not the correct song to make a fallen angel feel better. It works though, so he doesn't complain.

The following weeks see Castiel's nightmares returning with a vengeance. He can't stop screaming until Dean pulls the covers over them and chases them away. He has almost constant nail marks on his hands, and every morning Dean bandages them for him.

This arrangement seems to bring about an unspoken change in the dynamic between the two. Dean brushes gently past his friend whenever he's in the room, puts a hand on his waist casually to steady himself so he can reach to get something. They are a lot more comfortable. Dean has not mentioned personal space once.

Castiel is learning to cook as well, he can do burgers and Dean says he can do a 'mean omelet'. Cas makes note to make them whenever he keeps Dean up too long during the night with bad dreams, as a sort of returned favour.

The one night, it gets really bad and Cas loses it. Dean has to pull him forcefully up into a sitting position and slap him hard across the face. Sam doesn't wake up, but Cas doesn't stop crying and Dean lets out a sigh, swallowing tightly and nodding as if he is making a decision. He lies down in bed, pulling a catatonic Cas down to him, cradling his head against his chest.

"It's okay Cas," he breathes against him "I got you, you're safe. Nothings gonna get to you, you're okay"

Cas calms down, but Dean doesn't make him move, he simply pulls him in closer, a hand stroking through the hair at the back of his scalp, mouth pressed against his forehead. For a while that night, Cas wonders to himself when they had gotten so at ease with this type of physical contact. He knows that he loves Dean, he loves him more than anyone, but he doesn't know how he loves him, or in what way.

All he knows is that he will never be able to be anything close to happy, living away from this man. He doesn't intend to ever leave his side.

Cas crouches down, frowning, tilting his head sideways a little as he reaches out to pick up the clump of bloody hair between his fingertips. He sniffs at it and he can feel Dean's bemused eyes on him from the left. He quirks one eyebrow, taking a mini plastic bag from the pocket of his jacket and slipping the hair inside. He stands back up to full height, looking very pleased with himself. Sam purses his lips to stop himself from grinning and Dean glares at him.

"Well, it looks like we're dealing with a Cacodaemon"

Sam actually smiles this time, clapping a hand to Cas' shoulder "good man, you're getting better at this. Well, what's our plan of action, boss?" Sam teases Dean. He narrows his eyes.

"Shut up," he gruffs. Later, when they stop off for Sam to rest – he still needs a lot more recuperation time than his companions – and he's sleeping in the back seat, Dean leans against the hood of the Impala next to Cas, hands in his pockets. He nudges him, not looking at him.

"You did good earlier. You're still weird with the whole sniffing and touching dead things, but you got it right. We may make a half-decent hunter out of you yet," he says, voice low and embarrassed. Cas simply smiles to himself, nodding.

"Why are you always so reluctant to allow me to accompany you and Sam on hunts?" Castiel asks, and there's a small pause. Dean's eyes flutter closed, his head dropping a little as he stares at the floor.

"I wouldn't have chosen this life for myself, if I had the option. I mean, I know we're saving people, and I wouldn't take it all back, I wouldn't let those people die; but if someone had asked me when I was a kid if I really wanted to become a hunter, I would have told them to shove it up their ass. It's not the worst life ever, but it still sucks sometimes, and you're different Cas, you're free now. You can do whatever you want to. What gives me the god-damn right to set you up in this life when you could be doing so many other things?"

Cas thinks about this for a moment, imagining himself behind the desk of some horribly commercialised twenty story building trying to work those infernal lap things that Sam uses for research. He imagines himself in a typical American house with a child that resembles Jimmy's, a wife or a husband – oh no, that doesn't feel right. That feels peculiar. A partner in life that isn't... that isn't Dean Winchester.

"When Sam was... when he was ill, he made me promise something," Cas begins, trying to think how to word it right. This could be something of a defining moment, if he just gets it right.

"He requested that I promise to look after you, should he pass away," he continues, holding a hand up at the start of Dean's angry face "what you don't know, is that I never needed to make that promise, if you need me, I will always be here; I always come when you call, that has always been true, and it does not seize to be true simply because I am no longer an angel," he explains sincerely with not a single waver in his tone.

"Cas-"

"I am your friend Dean, your best friend. I was a rather disappointing angel, I do not intend to be a disappointing human being. So, if we experience the apocalypse again, if the world is taken over by the undead like so many of you like to imagine, if we are forced into exile or come across an obstacle such as the Leviathans, I shall be there to fight beside you and Sam, whether you want me there or not"

Dean still looks at the floor, but his features soften further and his ridiculously perfectly shaped mouth curls at the side a little. Cas knows that smile, its reserved specifically for him, and it always grows into the brightest, most true grin.

"Man I wish I knew how to quit you"

Cas' chest flips around from the inside and his stomach feels funny and warm. Suddenly his scarred palms are sweaty and his cheeks are flushing and he has to swallow the sheer amount of fondness clogging in his throat. The time that passes between them before anything else is spoken, is not awkward as such, but it's not completely comfortable either. Cas wonders what he'd see in Dean's mind if he could look into it now.

"Y'know, even though we met years ago, sometimes I feel like I hardly know you. You should tell me about your life"

Cas seizes up for a second, his brain short-circuiting. He doesn't know what to say. He's a human being with thousands of years of the world in his head, an ordinary man with extraordinary things bursting from every part of his subconscious. Where does he even begin?

"That's a long story," he speaks slowly, unsure of what he should do; thousands of years in heaven, and earth and Dean wants to know his life story?

"Then just tell me the important parts," he urges gently, not looking at him, but listening avidly. Cas can always tell when Dean's attention is completely focused on what someone is saying, because he keeps still; apart from when they were watching Movies, there was no other time when he could ever sit stationary.

Cas thinks for about fifteen seconds before the answer comes to him, and its so easy, so simple, so incredibly true, that he can't believe he didn't reply with it straight away.

"On September the eighteenth, 2008, I saved a righteous man from Hell"

Dean is deadly quiet, Cas doesn't even think he's breathing until he swallows again and lets out a rattly sigh from the bottom of his chest.

"I remember," Dean nods, eyes lifting up to the stars in the sky, and once again, Cas can't help but terribly miss going about his business and hearing Dean's prayers, the truest form of honesty the man has ever released to anyone. Cas has always been honoured to be put in such a position of trust with someone who doesn't normally trust anyone but himself.

"You knocked out Bobby and I stabbed you," Dean chuckles ethereally, smile present on his lips again.

Cas has never been able to put a label on his love for the human, he has always been scared to work it out, to really dwell on it; all he knows is that its more powerful than anything he has ever come across, and that is saying something, because Cas' father is God and his brothers are archangels, his other brother, Satan. But sitting on the Impala as a human being, next to the most important person he has ever met, he has never been more sure that he is completely and utterly, unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Dean Winchester.

And he really doesn't mind.

It happens for the first time when they're hunting a werewolf, and Cas has already been fist fighting with the alpha, so he's rather sore and pissed off, and he doesn't know where Dean and Sam are and he's pretty sure he's going to have to shoot someone in a minute.

He steps silently, skilfully along the alleyway, knees bent ever so slightly, eyes calculating, gun clutched steadily and tightly in his hands, silver bullets loaded. He's good at this. Dean didn't think he would be, but he is, and his name is spreading among the hunting community like wildfire, almost on equal calibre to his two companions. But this is the first time he's encountered a werewolf, he doesn't know their fighting style, and he's having to make it up as he goes along.

There's a swipe of air and Cas freezes, whipping around, gun up in front of him at eye level, muscles tensed in defensive mode. There's another swish and he flies around again, heart skipping a beat when suddenly there's a death grip on his wrist, and his body is moving according to that. The gun drops out of his hand no matter how much he tries to hold onto it.

He forces his free fist up into his attacker's ribs, taking a split seconds satisfaction at his yelp, but he doesn't have time to bask in it, as he has to dodge a returning punch and deal with the foot embedding itself in his calf. He coughs in pain slightly, already worn out from the beta he has just taken out and he's distracted, claws slashing a flesh wound across his diaphragm. It's not deep, but it's bleeding heavily and he actually finds himself growling in frustration.

He charges back at the werewolf, punching him across the face, kneeing him in the stomach, and then in the nose, avoiding being smacked in the jaw with bloody knuckles. He lays his fist into his opposer's groin. He lurches for his gun on the floor, lifting it to aim it at the guy's heart.

His chest hurts for a moment as the alpha's eyes widen in fear, before he pulls the trigger and the bang pushes him back on his feet a couple of steps, the blood splattering only a little as the alpha's body drops unceremoniously to the ground. Cas' throat bobs in sync with his eyes sliding closed as he breathes through the adrenaline coursing through his body. His head throbs and he doesn't know why it's affecting him like this. In the last month alone he has probably killed at least four creatures threatening humankind, without a problem.

He feels like the sounds around him are blurry, the colours around him misting out as he has to remind himself to double his grip on his gun so it doesn't fall from his fingers. He can smell it, the blood on him, the sweat.

"Hey," a voice cuts through the clouded sound barriers in his ears and hands are gripping his shoulders, arms embracing him, a palm pressing to the back of his head. Cas can't help his arms acting of their own accord, threading around Dean with a hold he thinks he should probably be complaining about. But there's no pushing away and hands bunch in the fabric of his jacket "you're okay, you did good," Dean pulls back slightly, cupping Cas' neck and looking him directly in the eyes "you did good," he repeats, waiting for Castiel to numbly nod at him.

Dean's hand taps his face affectionately, quirking his mouth once. It says 'I'm not happy with the fact that you were the one who had to do this, I'm sorry'. It happens, and Cas thinks that even though its a short moment, something shifts between them and he can't help but want to kiss Dean there and then with blood spattered on his face, and a bleeding leg and a throbbing headache.

"Sammy, get the body," he instructs, taking the gun carefully from Cas' hand. He nods once at Cas, and there's a look in his eyes that says he's having a Dean moment, one that means the hunter is probably thinking very, very hard about something. But he swallows, tenses his jaw, and claps Cas once more, hard on the shoulder, before breaking eye contact.

Castiel can feel his Parasympathetic Nervous System returning his body to its normal state, and a sweat is breaking out on his forehead. He wipes it away with the dirty sleeve of his jacket and sniffs, blinking back a surprising wetness in his eyes. Dean is okay. He's safe.

"Dean, you need inform me where you are going if we have not been in contact for more than an hour during a hunt," Cas' voice is faint, but stern as he takes a wobbly step forward and looks his hunter in the eyes.

There's a few seconds in which Cas lets the relief wash over him, and lets his heart accept the love rushing through his chest before Sam clears his throat and the eye contact is broken again. Dean takes the body from Sam's shoulder with a slightly over-the-top speed, and hoists it over his own, gesturing for the two to follow him as fast as they can back to the Impala. He's panicking. He's heard Sam muttering about it before under his breath when Dean is in a bad mood, something about 'big gay panic'. Castiel doesn't understand that, but he doesn't ask. There are a lot of things he has learnt not to even bother trying to talk about. Slowly, he is grasping the art of 'tact'.

They have a werewolf to bury, but the desperation of that hug is still in the forefront of Castiel's mind, and Sam has to repeatedly pull him out of the way of lampposts as they make their way to the car.

They limp into the batcave at four in the morning and Cas doesn't sleep all night, wondering and wondering if there could ever be even a slither of a possibility that Dean may reciprocate his feelings.

He gives up in the end, and because he's so worn out, Cas doesn't have a single nightmare. He misses Dean in his bed.

"Uhh... Dean?" Sam says, raising an eyebrow at his brother when he doesn't take his eyes off Cas who is attempting, and failing to cook soufflé. The former angel wouldn't allow either of the brothers to assist him though, insisting that he was going to get it right by himself.

"Yeah Sammy?" Dean replies, seemingly daydreaming.

"You're uh... you're staring. At Cas. You have been for the last two hours"

Dean shoots him a look of anger that clearly communicates that if Sam mentions anything like that out loud again, he's going to have a bullet in his leg. Sam sighs and rolls his eyes, shaking his head. His brother is scary, but Sam doesn't care, he's tired of watching him brooding about his issues with his sexuality.

"Man, just admit it already, you're-"

"Sam!" Dean hisses, snapping his eyes around to make sure Cas isn't listening.

"Dean!" Sam reciprocates dramatically in a whispery voice. Dean hardens his glare and leans a little further over the table.

"Whatever you think I need to 'admit', you're wrong," Dean spits and Sam swallows, remembering that he's not talking to his father, this is just Dean.

"Bullshit man, you're head over heels-"

"Sam shut your fucking piehole before I shut it for you"

"Dean will you just listen for one freaking moment?" Sam says, losing his patience. They both make sure Cas isn't alarmed before turning back to each other "it's not a big deal man, loads of guys fall for their best friends-"

"Oh c'mon," Dean exclaims a little too over enthusiastically "it's Cas! I mean, not that he's not, you know, attractive or whatever," Dean's ears go bright red and he's not making eye contact. Sam purses his lips to hold back a smile; Dean Winchester can act the fuck out of a plan, he can be a teddy bear doctor, a Chippendale, a FBI agent, a forest ranger, but he can't lie about his feelings for Cas "but he's Cas," Dean finishes, still looking completely unconvincing; Sam wonders how he's even still relatively sane if he's this bad at lying to himself.

"Exactly. He pulled you out of hell Dean, he's saved our lives over and over again, he took the weight of insanity off me, and carried it in his own mind, and still managed to come through for you, he went to purgatory with you, he broke through the boundaries of mind control and months of training and torture so that he wouldn't have to kill you.

You've taught him how to think for himself, he rebelled against heaven because he believed in you more than he believed in freaking God. And he sat by my bedside whilst I was dying all through the night so that you could sleep, he's a fallen angel Dean, he's lost everything that made him who he was, apart from you, and you've saved him right back. If you're seriously still going to sit there and tell me that you don't love that guy more than anyone has ever loved another person on this planet, then you are absolutely ridiculous and you're going to do more damage than good by denying it"

Dean doesn't say anything else, simply because if he does, he will only confirm Sam's theories more. Its a crippling fear that sits in his gut along with what he feels for Castiel, an unexplored part of him that he's always been able to shut up with women and booze and violence. But after all that's happened, after weeks and months and now years of shit after shit being thrown at them, Dean just doesn't think he has the strength to deny it for himself anymore, he doesn't think he's strong enough.

He can hunt, he can machete the heads off vampires, he can burn Wendigos and sizzle bones in graves to get rid of ghosts and vengeful spirits, he can send demons back to hell and keep his baby brother off hell blood. But he can't even deny his feelings for his best friend. He can't. And it is that simplistic.

Dean wants to get drunk.

He has the whiskey on the table next to him that night, sitting on a coaster amongst all the research for a case they're working on. He does mean to drink it, he really does, but Cas wakes up screaming again and no amount of alcohol could make him ignore it or keep him glued to his seat, to leave the former angel sobbing and yelling himself hoarse and dealing with it all by himself. He has promised Cas that he will never have to be alone again, and, by their asshole of a God, Dean will be unironically damned if he breaks that promise.

Summer flies by in a blur of blinding, blistering heat and cold beers on the hood of the Impala after hunts. Winter arrives with an onslaught of snow and ice and vast amounts of the tomato soup Cas has grown so fond of.

The second time it happens occurs in Minnesota where they are hunting an Erinyes being controlled by someone in town. At first they believe it to be the simple Greek goddess being summoned to avenge someone's enemies, but when they meet it properly, its an ugly thing with the head of a dog, the wings of a bat, and snakes curling around it's waist snapping at them. Cas has to spend three nights in bed recovering from the venom of one of them, but eventually, they find a way to kill it, with the help of Garth who calls in a few research favours.

Armed with Machetes dipped in the blood of a descendent of the god Uranus, they attempt to fight it. Cas finally stabs the beast whilst Dean uses the distraction to slice it's head of. Sam sets the body alight for good measure before they realise that yet again, one of the snakes have bitten Cas.

Still not fully recovered from his last attack of poison, Cas spends the night tossing and turning in his sleep, sweating buckets but shivering violently with cold, hallucinating with wild, terrified eyes.

Around two in the morning, Dean has had enough of panicking and takes him to the hospital where they have to put him in a coma so that his body can fight the poison with the proper antidote. Dean doesn't sleep or eat, surviving on Coffee, and he only goes to the toilet three times in four days. Sam goes back to the hotel during the night, but returns to sit with his brother through the day at Cas' bedside. He leaves on a Coffee run on the Friday before Christmas and that's when Castiel blinks himself awake, grimacing as he moves his tongue around his dry mouth and struggles to catch his breath back.

There's snow outside on the window, crisp and white and beautiful and Cas takes a moment of numb-mindedness to watch the flakes fall gently on the window panes, gathering together in unison and settling down.

Its then that he spots Dean on the chair next to his bed, dozing. He's pale and thin and Cas wonders how long he's been out for. He blinks to clear his vision a few times and moves to sit up, only to realise that he has hardly any strength, feebly ending up flopping down on his back again, huffing in frustration. His skin feels rough and unnaturally warm for earth's winter temperatures and his head throbs a little, but overall, he seems to be functioning rather adequately.

Dean stirs slightly before his long lashes flutter open, his sleepy gaze landing on Cas. He sits up abruptly, alert and slightly panicked, although some tension leaves his broad shoulders and he mouths Castiel's name silently for a second before he swallows, shakes his head and closes his eyes, breathing rattly. His hand automatically finds its way to Cas' of it's own accord. The BP machine bleeps a little faster as Cas squeezes comfortingly, not really knowing what he should say. An emotion is caught in his throat when he realises that Dean probably hasn't left his bedside since he was brought in, and all he wants to do in that moment is kiss the worry from Dean's stupid beautiful face despite the four days stubble.

"Man if you ever do that to me again, I swear to G-"

"Don't use the lord's name in vane Dean," Cas croaks dumbly. Dean looks at him with a pained look for a second before he brings Cas' hand to his lips and keeps it there, his eyes drooping closed again, breath hitching as he tries to take in the fact that Castiel is awake, that he's not going to die.

The next day, Cas is allowed to be discharged, and Dean takes him back to the motel, making him sleep in bed for another five hours before he allows him to come out for food with him and Sam.

They travel back to the bunker that night, and Dean spends twenty minutes shovelling the snow out of the way of the steel door before they can get in. Its absolutely freezing cold, so Sam flicks the heating up all the way and gets to work cooking dinner. Dean goes to bed because Castiel threatens to stand outside in the snow with no coat on until he does, and when he's sleeping, Sam drives them out to the nearest town where they pick out a Christmas tree and some decorations.

When Dean comes stumbling sleepily out of his bedroom around eight o'clock that night, the bunker is covered in tinsel, paper chains on the ceilings, little plastic Santa ornaments on the mantelpieces, lights set out in thin cables over the frequency decs and on top of the kitchen cupboards, and a fully furnished, bright Christmas tree kitted with a star on top – Sam had tactfully avoided buying an angel – and ball balls complete with extra red and green tinsel.

Castiel is briefly aware of how ridiculously domesticated it is, considering their profession and their past and everything that has happened, but he doesn't think he really cares; this is good, this is comforting and he – he's part of a family. A family without astronomically blinding power and the ability to annihilate each other into a million atoms if one stole the other's toys. He loves these boys, these men that he has a very strange, unconventional relationship with, he loves them with all the might he has left. And it lives in Christmas tinsel and days spent by each others bed side and the time the Impala's radio broke and Dean had a mental breakdown, and the Disney movies, and pancakes and omelets and soufflés.

"I don't remember telling you loonies that you could fill the place with red shit," Dean remarks in slight awe as he blinks himself awake properly, sitting down at the table and accepting the coffee Sam hands him. There's a flush in his cheeks and a twitching in the corners of his mouth however, that suggests Dean is taken aback and secretly very pleased with their surprise Christmas house takeover. Christmas rock tunes are playing on repeat all through the bunker every day until Sam finally turns 'the damn thing off' because its 'driving him up the wall'. Dean sulks for an hour before Cas presents them with egg nog and apple pie, and he simply grins wide, and sits up again. Cas has to stop himself from staring because its been so incredibly long since he has seen Dean this happy, and he realises, with a start, that things are almost edging towards better.

On the Tuesday of Christmas Eve, Dean drags Cas outside for a snowball fight whilst Sam is recovering from a hangover. To begin with, Castiel is feeble in his throwing, but when he gets hit with a lump of snow to the head, he growls, an evil grin spreading out across his mouth, and he bends down, gathering a solid ball in his gloved hands and throwing it full pelt at an unsuspecting Dean, hitting him right in the nose.

It knocks him backwards and he lands on his rear, looking up, confused at the shift in roles as he tries to figure out how he ended up on his ass in the snow. He huffs at Castiel who smiles softly, rolling his eyes and trudging towards Dean, holding out a hand for him to take so he could help him up.

Dean is closer than Cas has originally judged however, and when he pulls him up to his full height, he finds himself a mere few millimetres away from his best friend's face, breaths mingling, steamy condensation in the air, floating there, mixing in chaotic wisps and patterns. Castiel's blood is pumping in his ears and he knows he should move away, but Dean's scent is wafting through his brain and his eyes are staring right through him, his lips closer than they have ever been to his.

"Cas," Dean's voice is low, barely a whisper, and Cas' eyelids flutter slightly, frozen to the spot "it's really cold," he breathes, swallowing so his throat bobs heavily.

"Right," Cas replies, his tone so quiet, only Dean, being this close to him, can hear it.

Somehow Dean moves and his hands are on his own scarf, unwrapping it before throwing it around Cas' neck, tying it without breaking the eye contact at all. Dean rarely looks him in the eye anymore. Before they had ended up staring each other down all the time, but something has changed, and the more at ease with physical contact they get, the less Dean holds a look.

But now they have been staring for a good two minutes and still neither of them are stepping back or making any effort to move.

Dean feels helpless, glued to where he is stood, intoxicated by Castiel's body heat mingling with his own, the messy hair atop the former angel's head, the flush in his defined cheekbones from the weather, the fast, feathery breaths tumbling from his chest. Dean's eyes flicker then, down to his mouth, and the lips are chapped, reddened from the cold and slightly open. How easy it would be though, to allow it to happen, to give up years of denial and let himself move that slightest bit closer. His brain is yelling at him to just move but his body is stuck in place, transfixed completely by Castiel's proximity and the way he is still staring with hooded, glazed eyes.

And then it actually happens.

Dean isn't sure who caves first, but suddenly he is kissing a rough hot mouth, and hands are clutching at the back of his hair, fingernails scraping his scalp, drawing a guttural moan that is lost in the act, a warm body pressed tight against his own, his fingers grabbing his scarf around Cas' neck. Its all teeth and tongue and sucking and nibbling and soft, desperate whimpers of two starving, deprived men. Its his repressed dreams flowing through his brain, coming alive in front of him. His arms act of their own accord, bunching in the fabric of his coat on Cas' body, pulling him closer still, if its possible.

Fuck, how the hell is he supposed to give this up now? There isn't any going back, bouncing away from this, there's no sulking and forcing himself not to think about it, not to act on it again because its too fucking fantastic for him to forget.

Heat is rushing through his blood, flooding in a pit at the bottom of his spine. Its – fuck – its disorientating, blurry and like everything that has been locked up inside him for five years, is rushing out into the kiss all at once.

Eventually their mouths break apart, panting, foreheads pressing tightly, desperately together, hearts beating an erratic, almost painful rhythm.

They stand there still clutching at each other, trying to regain some form of composure, its almost embarrassing, and Dean is terrified because now he has nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, he can't do that without hurting Castiel. And he can't do that to his angel, he can't hurt him anymore than he already has. They need this, they need the closeness and the intimacy. They have to confront it now.

"Dean," Cas says, his voice almost comically shaky and gravelly.

"What?" he replies with the little sense he has left.

"You were right, it is really, really cold"

He can't help laughing because it's the most normal, Cas-like thing for him to say, something so ordinary; also, Cas complains a lot, like almost at every opportunity he gets. 'Dean, the heating is up too high', 'Dean, the mattress is getting lumpy', 'Dean, my back hurts', 'Dean the Impala smells peculiar, has Sam been eating tacos again?'

And the laughter sort of breaks a slight cloudiness between them that would have made the entire situation very, very awkward if they had stood there in silence any longer. Cas attempts to look offended at Dean's amusement when he takes a barely there step back, but fails and ends up smirking, just slightly.

"C'mon then," Dean sighs, his shoulders collapsing in defeat and emotional exhaustion. He doesn't know what his next move is going to be, but he knows that catching hypothermia isn't going to help anything, and Sam may be okay, but he's in no fit state to look after two grown men, especially since its Christmas.

He wraps an arm around Cas' neck and presses his knuckles into his scalp playfully, laughing at Cas' protests as he leads him back into the bunker, suddenly feeling really hungry.

January 24th. Cas remembers. Dean was born on the 24th January 1979. John Winchester had brought Mary roses and put them at the bottom of her hospital bed, the nurse got her some free grapes and a magazine which Mary hadn't touched, too wrapped up in her newborn son to worry about Jerry Damon, the comedian dying, or the Nuclear Tests going on in New York. Cas remembers that day in heaven, a loud kind of whisper had been present. His father, God, had been rather quiet, no orders were given that day. Not that Castiel can recall anyway, he had been rather at loss for what he should do. There were millions of other children born on that day as well, but Dean's name was breathed in a mantra repeatedly more than the others. So yes, Cas remembers Dean's birthday, it's only now that he really understands the significance of that day. Dean Winchester was written. He had been written from the beginning of creation; the emotionally constipated drunk with father issues and a possessive streak a mile wide for his baby brother. None of the angels had anticipated his importance, it was just a name, a name said occasionally every few hundred years. The righteous man.

And the date of his birth is one of the most important dates in history because, well, honestly, because it marks the beginning of so very, very much. The apocalypse for starters, and something to fight the evil already present and inevitable, the curse bestowed upon his family before he was even brought into the world. Dean was an unbeatable, irrevocable force of good and love and hatred and anger, a power within a simple human being that, standing on planet earth, has proved all prophecies wrong. No one had ever been prepared for Dean Winchester.

And when, for the millionth time, the 24th of January rolls around, Cas does what he always does; he leaves a single rose petal in Dean's jeans. Even before he met him, it was a routine. It was actually an order from heaven, but Cas has always put his own spin on things, normally he surrounds it with health energy, just to temporarily protect the human until the petal shrivels up and dies. But this time, there is no power in his veins, he no longer has that luxury.

Yet, the same as always, he leaves the petal in Dean's pocket, and the same as always, Dean doesn't notice.

He buys him a proper present for the first time too though, off his illegitimate credit card of course, because Cas has an actual wallet now, and his own money. Minuscule things like the law used to bother him, but it doesn't now, and so he doesn't criticise it when Dean hands him his illegal plastic card.

Its a leather jacket, a new one with real material and correct fitting and, although again Dean doesn't notice, Cas has the tag engraved on the bottom with the words 'pashs ol oi nanaeel gemeganza' meaning 'child of his own will' in enochian. Dean wears it every day until it starts to smell and needs to go in for dry cleaning. Castiel despises dry cleaning. He can never get the hang of it and he gets frustrated and then he normally ends up freezing because Dean chuckles, puts his beer down, presses a kiss to his cheek, and takes over.

Sam finds it absolutely hilarious, how flustered Cas gets sometimes, when Dean shows rare acts of affection. Castiel glares at him, and crosses his arms over his chest to, for the hundredth time, observe Dean working the the washing machine, trying to figure out how he should be doing it, and what he keeps doing wrong.

Sometimes there are points after hunts when Dean is badly injured, when Cas can't help being completely and utterly terrified. One day, a demon cuts Dean up so much, that Cas ties the creature to the chair in a trap and tortures him something stupid. Sam comes to stop him in the early hours of the morning, and he hears the sizzle of flesh, probably Sam's addition for extra measure, before he feels the tickle where his grace used to be as the Demon is sent back to hell.

He wonders, three years later when Dean is lounged across the sofa, his head in Cas' lap, pressing kisses to Cas' hand gently, absentmindedly as they watch disappointing television, if he even wants his grace back, if it was available to him that is.

He's not sure. He misses his family so very much, its an ache in his chest that's as crippling as it had been moments after he had felt them falling, but then he will not be able to grow old with Dean, he will not be able to watch the greying in his companion's hair or the more prominent creases gathering in the corners of his fantastic eyes. Well, he would, he would just have to watch him grow old without ageing a single year himself. Angels are eternal.

At least, that's what he has always thought.

Castiel gets his grace back three weeks later.

He's suspected that Sam and Dean have been doing something behind his back for a while, but when they're on a 'hunt', and Metatron is dragged through onto the planet and chained to the floor inside an angel trap right in front of him after they've been fighting demons for an hour, Cas is, to put it lightly, really rather taken aback.

Apparently the Demons, in the absence of a now very human Crowley, have been serving Metatron for the four years in which Castiel has been trying to adjust to life without his original family and abilities. He can't say anything, he can't talk, but Dean and Sam aren't even really paying much attention to him, they are too focused on ripping the vial from around Metatron's neck, and questioning him about the rest of the angels and their essences.

Dean has that look on his face, the one that tells Castiel there's no way Metatron is walking out of this alive. It's pure fury, the kind of anger one only becomes capable of after a visit to hell, and Cas is reminded for the first time in about three or four months, that Dean spent fourty years in that place cutting up souls and inhaling the smell of sizzling flesh and bone. He is reminded that his boyfriend is, in the midst of the real apocalypse raining down on them, slowly creeping out from under the woodwork along with whispers of the Croatoan virus taking out little villages, a hurricane of anger wrapped in agony and the bitter tang of experience.

Castiel keeps his eye on Sam now, for the most part of their hunts, wondering if and what the circumstances would be if he were to say yes to Lucifer.

"Where is it?" Dean's voice echoes loud, a bellow through the entire warehouse, bouncing off the walls, hollow and forceful in the space of the angel trap enclosing both the boys, and Metatron.

"Where's the fucking grace being stored?"

"You have it! You have your boyfriend's grace in that vial!" Metatron sobbed as Dean slowly dragged the old angel blade across the jaw of their captive.

"I mean the rest of it," he yells, getting angrier by the second. Sam is quiet, but he normally is when he's really furious, and he leers over Metatron, flanking Dean with an almost identical expression on his once young and innocent face.

"Fucking tell me!"

Metatron is sobbing now, actually physically sobbing. Castiel thinks he should be angry, furious, he should be so full of wrath, that the traces of his grace that would always be with him caused the circuits in the building to blow. He feels like he should be screaming and shouting and kicking the hell out of the angel that had ruined his entire existence, ripped it apart from the seams and left it to shatter and cause devastation all over the world, the galaxy, the cosmos. He knows he should want to cause Metatron unimaginable pain.

Instead, he's frozen to the spot because he can feel it. It's in a vial in Dean's hand, and its flickering, untamed and unaccounted for, undernourished. Its calling out to him, he wants to gravitate towards it but he's paralysed by this crippling fear. If he has his grace back, if he's allowed to be an angel again, what will he do this time? As a human, he – well, actually, humans can do more damage than expected, Sam and Dean had proved that, but he could do less harm as a human, even if it was slow and painful and oh so incredibly complicated.

And then he takes a step forward and Metatron's eyes flicker over to his and then he feels it. Its a spark to begin with, starting in his gut, until its a full blown rage in his chest and yes, there it is, the lights flicker and he can't believe the ecstatic buzzing on his skin, his hairs standing on end, shivers running up his spine and then he cracks his back and neck because there it is, the dormant tingle in his shoulder blades that makes his entire body vibrate with agony and the ghost of power. There's a lump in his throat and it almost chokes him.

He's been blanking out what the boys are saying, but he suspects Metatron has given up the information they'd been beating out of him because Dean steps away and Sam stand up from his crouching position, breathing slightly heavy, a look on his face that tells Cas that he knows what they have to do to restore heaven. He doesn't spend much time looking at Sam though, because Dean has turned and he walks forwards towards Cas and his hand is shaking as he holds out the tiny glass vial. There are tears in his eyes and fuck, Castiel feels Dean's pain. It takes a certain toll on him when he lets go of his temper, Cas knows. Dean scares himself sometimes, and he works so hard at keeping a tap on the fury installed in him by his years in hell.

"There," Dean breathes, chest rising and falling deeply, lips quivering, hands dotted with the blood of Metatron's vessel "you can – you can have this – you can be yourself again, properly, you know?"

"What did you do to get this Dean?" Castiel's voice is crackly and broken and its right there in front of him, but he doesn't trust it, and he doesn't trust that Dean hasn't done something really, really, stupid to drag Metatron from heaven.

"Cas, just – shit would you just take the damn grace?"

He looks at it again with longing in his heart, still terrified of what it means, what it represents. This was his fault, all this, his family ripped from their home, forced into humanity, into averageness. He didn't know if he was willing to take this, if he could actually allow himself to have it back, to feel it inside of him again.

He makes the conscious decision before he's really realised it, and his fingers reach out and take it, the cool glass soft and witholding against his fingers. His knees actually collapse and he can feel the skin breaking against the old rough concrete of the warehouse, but it doesn't bother him. He's shaking and tears are rolling down his cheeks and its all very, very overwhelming.

He wonders then, for a second, if he will be as in love with Dean as he is now when the grace takes his body again, if things will be the same between them, if their three years of growing and learning and changing as a couple, as people, will sit the same in his heart as it did before. He then wants to slap himself, because what a stupid, illogical thought. Dean has always been incredibly special to him, even when he was an angel, he loved Dean back then, and he loves him now, with all his being and existence, and if that doesn't prevail, he doesn't know what will.

And then he's smashing the glass on the ground, and it rises in silvery wisps and rushing patterns of power and elegance and fierceness all in one, wrapping around him, enveloping as if embracing an old lover or a soulmate, a lost limb. It feeds his soul – yes, he can feel souls again, and its almost like a relief he hasn't been searching for because its been so long since he's been able to physically feel Dean's soul in his presence, its intoxicating. It blooms inside him, replenishing his human organs, healing everything apart from the scars. The scars stay on his skin. He wants them there, he wants the reminder that things were different, for a while, that he was human, and it was horrible and painful and disorientating, but it was worth it and it was special and that was where he had been when he had fallen in love.

But this is who he really is, this is familiar and real and perfect, and this is his twisted, damaged, old grace and he doesn't ever want to have it taken from him ever again. His limbs are taken over, in a moment of blinding brilliancy as the final parts of it attach itself to him, his mind, his skin, his fingers and toes and eyes, and then his arms are forced outward and the remaining power bursts out from him, overflowing at the seams, before rushing back along through his blood, settling at the core of his essence, his aura, everything that makes him, well, him.

He can hardly believe it when he comes to, hardly believe the rush, the pulsing in the back of his mind, the fluid feel of a higher power, a god. He stares down at his hands in utter and complete shock, and then the sobs come; he can feel them building in his chest, cries of ecstatics, of the pure, raw emotion coursing through his veins. He's probably catatonic or something, because Dean kneels in front of him, flicking his chin up and smiling at him slightly through watery eyes glazed with pain, and joy. And Castiel can't help crying his eyes out then, he sort of huffs and coughs and whimpers, a sobbing mess on his knees, heaving gently into the chest of his boyfriend, trying to use the feel of his warmth, his scent, the feel of his soul to steady him, to ground him for a moment. Because this whole thing is impossible, it can't happen; Metatron has the entirety of heavens devices at his hand, but Dean has brought him here. Sam and Dean have dragged him down to earth and trapped him, and holy fucking christ – no pun intended – he doesn't think its possible for him to love Dean anymore than he already does, but apparently it is.

Cas can't help grabbing Dean's face and kissing him, desperately, ridiculously, breathlessly, covered in tears and dirt and sweat and its almost typical really, almost comical how ironic it all is. He doesn't much care because Dean kisses him back, as always, with equal fervour, and he lets himself go for a moment, lets himself be comforted because he needs it, and Dean needs someone, something to bring him back from the place Cas knew was difficult for him to draw away from. Its fantastic, and arousing, and inconvenient because hello, Sam is in the room, also Metatron is still alive, and things are probably all happening with bad timing, but whatever, Castiel could live with that, because it's Dean, and his damn mouth – and Cas doesn't curse lightly – and he breaks away before it takes a different nature, and they sit there, foreheads pressed together as usual, panting and laughing with fear and disbelief. Castiel will forever be indebted to Dean, he will never forget that it was he and his brother who returned his grace to him, who worked and did something stupid and probably close to world ending just so that he could really be happy again, so that he could feel truly complete.

"If you have done something diabolically nonsensical to get us to this point, I'll beat you up in an alleyway again," Cas says as Dean pulls away and hauls him to his feet. He doesn't meet his eye, but shrugs and smirks smally, limping back over to Metatron with a renowned anger. It wasn't as strong as it was before, but it was there all the same, and Castiel could not let this happen, he would not let Dean lose himself to his fury.

"Dean," he says firmly, cutting through the air. Dean freezes and Sam's mouth opens a little, raising his eyebrows "no," Cas insists, walking forward, past him and moving a hand over the fire. It died down at once, disappearing as he had commanded it. This was incredible, and it felt so real to be powerful again, to be himself.

"Fallen Angels," Castiel says, eyes narrowing as he gets down on one knee next to Metatron's bloodied face "so... temperamental. They could just... break, you know? At any time. And, well, I would know, considering I fell," Cas tilts his head to the side, jaw tight, heart beating with a sudden force of hatred he's struggling to control.

"I'm contemplating whether I should let you live Metatron. What is your opinion on the matter?" Castiel asks, frowning and pressing his fingers to the forehead of his fellow angel, clearing the blood from his face so he can see him better.

"You're going to kill me whatever I say," Metatron coughs, looking him straight in the eye. Castiel wants to, he really does. There are no words for how much he despises him, wants to rip him limb from limb, make him suffer as he had – that was it.

Cas draws in a deep breath and nods, rummaging in Metatron's pockets for the angel blade he knows will be in there, his head thumping with the force of his loathing. He doesn't want his first act with his grace returned to him, to be the act of murder. Although, he supposes that in a way, this is worse. It might actually do Metatron some good however, serving penance.

He presses his palm down on his forehead once more, not smiling, not even really looking at what he is doing. He clicks his fingers, and the glass vial is fixed and in his hand again, not a trace of dirt on it. Cas swallows, tries to calm his raging mind, and wets his lips, pressing the angel blade to Metatron's throat, blocking out the pleas of desperation as he cuts a small slit and draws out the grace, holding the bottle so it can slither in. He caps the container, and drops it in the pocket of his brown denim jacket, standing up with a face set in stone.

"You can have it back when you've done something to deserve it, something for the humans, something time consuming and worthwhile. We're in the midst of an apocalypse Metatron," Cas says, looking down at him one last time "time is of the essence, you should, to better the phrase, 'get your ass into gear'"

"Its over," Dean breathes, eyes wide, one arm cradled against his bleeding torso. He has one eye swelling up and blacking and there's a trickle of crimson escaping the corner of his lips "its finished," he repeats in a more sturdy voice. He's numb for a few moments before he nods, just once, and swallows, breathing in a shaky breath and closing his mouth, lips quivering ever so slightly, eyes glassy and filled with unfallen tears.

"Sam," Cas' voice is low and quiet, his vocal cords slowed, immobilized "you're bleeding," he chokes a little as his legs step forward once and Sam looks down at his diaphragm, a slightly blank look on his face, before his hands go to the wound. Cas intercepts them and they end up clutching each other, Cas' palms pressed against the back of Sam's hand.

"Don't move," he tries to make his voice louder this time, more solid, but it's still as weak and quivery as the last time he had tried to talk. He catches Sam as his knees give in, and softens the weight as his knees set to the ground.

"Dean," Cas manages. His hands are shaking, and Dean finally catches up with his limbs, moving towards them, pulling Sam against his chest as Cas tries to find his grace through the exhaustion and pain in his body, his mind.

He just about maintains his power enough to take Sam's face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together, closing his eyes.

"Sam, I need you to – I need you to breathe," he gravels, and slowly he feels Sam's soul healing after it stops fighting his grace, and the horrible gargling at the back of Sam's throat stills and turns to rasps of air, his heartbeat trying to steady itself, his body slowly allowing Cas to fix him. It would take more than some hocus pocus though, years and years and nightmares and cold sweats.. Sam will be feeling Lucifer's mark inside him for a long time prior to this.

But Dean is right, Cas realises as he finally lets himself stumble back onto his backside from his knees, it's over. Its actually really, truly over. Lucifer is dead, and – fuck, its really over. The apocalypse, the fighting, the fear, the guilt, the horrors and massacres, all those innocent people; it is all at an end.

He can barely contain the relief washing over him, flooding through his brain, his veins, tickling over his skin, making his hairs stand on end. He has to gulp for his own Oxygen as he lets his back fall and land on the ground, his eyes resting as he waits for Dean to tell him that they need to move. What is next, should be damage control, Cas thinks. But for now, all he wants to do is crash out naked and spend the next three days sleeping in Dean's arms. For now, they needed their rest. After all, God knows they deserve it.

"Behave," Cas says, narrowing his eyes slightly as Dean scoffs and sits back in his chair.

"I don't know what you're on about, I always behave myself," he says, feigning innocence. Cas raises his eyebrows but doesn't say anything else as Sam comes back into the living room carrying pizza, Amelia behind him with two bottles of wine in her hands.

"You're gonna love this one Cas, its classic," she grins, sitting on the second sofa with Sam as he sets out the food on the coffee table, shaking his head in typicality at Dean as he immediately steals three pieces and settles back down amongst the interior.

"Dude, you're not eating?" Dean asks, that prepared look of concern ready in his eyes as Cas shrugs and sighs, rolling his shoulders; after such an intense time as a human, Cas still finds it incredibly overwhelming that he has his grace back, that the emptiness inside his gut has gone, that his wings are there, replacing the horrifying, crippling phantom ache that used to exist among his shoulder blades.

"I'm not particularly hungry at the moment Dean," Cas replies, passing up a glass of wine as Amy starts pouring them out. Dean takes his own with a small smile, and Cas shoots him a small glance of appreciation. Dean was protective, weary; he had been betrayed by so many in his lifetime, it was no wonder that he was taking so long to really accept Amelia into their peculiar little family unit.

"Will you just have a piece of damn pizza?" Dean says and Cas lets out a breath of irritation, stealing one of his and half-forcing him to sit back properly so he can curl up against him, tearing into the bread with his teeth with pointed annoyance, ignoring the slightly smug look on Dean's face as the movie credits roll in and Castiel is informed that Tom Hanks is voicing someone called Woodie. He is mildly interested, but then again, he's never that invested in movies when they put the projector on, he likes to use the time to watch Dean's face without it being profusely awkward or, as Dean usually said 'downright creepy'.

These were movie nights, and Sam doesn't let them miss a single one of them. Every Friday they do it, the previous one had been The Avengers, which Cas had made a point about expressing his affection for, as he knew Dean had been trying to gage his opinion of it the whole way through. Dean likes Marvel films, but isn't too keen on DC, and he finds Batman's voice 'fucking hilarious' but also 'really damn badass'.

Sam doesn't come on hunts with them anymore, not if he can help it, but he still does the research for them, and he helps patch them up when its been particularly brutal. Amy works about three miles out from their bunker and they're saving up to buy a house in the nearest state so they can start – and Cas smiles every time Dean cringes when they mention it – having kids and building a family of their own.

If Cas is being honest, he doesn't have many ambitions, he doesn't need 'a picket fence', he doesn't need to don a suit and procure a job, they've already talked about not wanting any children, although one day, Cas thinks, he would rather like to marry Dean, should they decide it's the right time. He doesn't want to be set up in the stereotypical human life with his hunter boyfriend, he doesn't think they would be able to handle it. No, they're fine as they are, driving for long hours in the Impala, staying in the occasional motel, saving lives and killing monsters; and when its all over, when they've done what they call a job, they get to go home, their place, their sanctuary. Its not a terrace with a patio and a garden, its still just an inherited Winchester bunker, but they make it their own, and they're comfortable and sorted and Castiel has no desire to change it much any time soon.

Its taken them a long time though, to get this far. After they had averted the final apocalypse, after killing Lucifer, it had been a year before they had back anything even slightly resembling their old dynamic. It had taken them another two to really get used to it, for Cas to find the balance between being an angel, and living with a human, being in love with one. And even now Castiel still has his nightmares, Dean is still a chronic insomniac and he still drinks more than would be recommended by a Physician. They still have explosive fights, and Cas still finds it difficult not to quit out on the conversation when things get difficult.

Its far from conventional. Actually, it's probably about as far away from conventional as it gets, although Dean absolutely adores dropping angel puns and chat up lines when they're out at the grocery store or in a bar or working a case. It's... a working progress. It will probably always be a working progress.

But... well, after a very, very, very long stretch of unfortunate happenings, of experiences, of hell and heaven and demons and angels and humans, after everything that they've been through together and everything that could have happened, they are extremely lucky to end up in such a position of comfort, of privilege.

What remains after nearly a decade of it all, is a man. A broken, healing, monument of a man who has literally been to hell and back, a man with regrets and demons in more than one sense of the word, a man who has done terrible, terrible things and is capable, always, to do more of them, if required of him. A man with a brother whom he will no doubt still die for one day, a man who loves fiercely and with abandon, but trusts no more than three or four people, including himself. A man that no one anticipated, no one prepared for. A man with a human soul that just happens to shine brighter than anything Cas has ever seen, despite being burned and blackened and tainted over the years.

What remains is a man and his angel protecting those who cannot protect themselves.

A man and his angel who, despite not always voicing it to one another, will love each other until the very end of time, and beyond.