Disclaimer: Supernatural, its plotlines, and its characters are all property of the CW and the show's writers. I probably wouldn't be worth only $7 and a bottle of pop if I was actually involved with the show, so it's really not worth the effort to sue me, even if I would love to actually meet Misha Collins.

Summary: What Dean intended to be a short apology to Cas turns into the two men (or one man, one angel) sharing secrets with each other. Things that Dean hasn't even told Sam. And this conversation leads to activities that don't necessarily require words… Set sometime during season 14 when Dean isn't possessed by Michael. Destiel slash. Hurt/comfort, Romance. One-Shot. Rated M.

A/N: This is my first fic involving anything more than making out, so bear with me! I'm sorry if it's not extremely well-written, I have more experience with hurt/comfort than I do with romance and sex scenes. But, if you do like it, please leave a nice review!

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Secrets

Chapter 1

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Dean and Cas were sitting at a table in the library, each engrossed in their own activities. It had been a rough few weeks, and Sam, Dean, Cas, and Jack all thought they deserved a break before going back out into the world to hunt. So, while Sam had taken Jack out to watch a new movie (history, which was why Dean wasn't there), Dean and Cas were, for once, just relaxing. Dean was watching old reruns of Dr. Sexy M.D. and drinking beer while Cas was reading an old book he had found on one of the shelves surrounding them.

They sat in comfortable silence, not needing to say anything to enjoy the company of one another. Just being near each other made both men feel slightly more content then they would have if they'd been alone, being able to just hang out without having impeding doom hanging over their heads.

The problem was that Dean was starting to realize that he owed Cas an apology. Many apologies, actually, for not trusting him as much as he should. Dean trusted the angel with his life, and would willingly lay his down to save the trenchcoated man sitting across from him. And that was part of the problem. Dean was starting to realize that he was too hard on Cas. Whenever Cas would be gone more than a week without checking in Dean freaked out, and when the angel returned, he would yell at him. Sure, Cas really did need to be more conscious about checking in, but Dean really needed to cut him some slack.

He just cared about him too much. He had always been a little hard on the angel, but he had gotten considerably worse over the last few years, especially after his recent brush with death. As in, being stabbed by Lucifer and being resurrected because he annoyed the Cosmic Entity that ran the Empty too damn much.

So, finally having a few hours of silence (the movie Sam had taken Jack to was a double feature), Dean decided it was high time he own up to the bullshit he had pulled on Cas so many times.

"Hey, Cas?" Dean pulled his earbuds out of his ears and shut his laptop.

"Yeah?" Cas merely glanced up from his book. But, when he noticed that Dean was serious enough to turn his laptop off, he stuck a torn piece of napkin in between the pages he had been reading and shut the book, setting it down on the table in front of him. He leaned forward. "What is it, Dean?"

"I just…I want to apologize for the way I've treated you over the last few years." Dean sighed.

Cas quirked an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"It's just…sometimes I think, I know, that I'm too hard on you. Every time you forget to check in when you're supposed to, or when you show back up here after going radio silent for more than a week I lash out. I usually yell at you and storm off to drink or punch something. And I shouldn't do that." Dean explained.

"It's okay, Dean. I understand." Cas replied.

"I don't think you do, man. After the last time you died…I trust you, but I worry about you. You've died a lot, and I'm afraid that you won't come back if you die again. So, every time you don't answer the phone, I'm terrified that you've died some gruesome death and Sam, Jack, and I will never know. I've lost a lot of people, Cas, and I don't want to lose you." Dean continued. "In my lifetime I've lost my mom, my dad, Ellen, Jo, Bobby (twice), Rufus…I guess I could also count Crowley, since he was pretty loyal and semi-useful at the end, and you and Sam more times than I can count. I'm always scared I'm gonna lose the two of you for good."

"I'm sorry…" Cas started.

"No, I'm not blaming you. I know that, in our line of work, shit happens. You can't always call us and you can't always come to the bunker to check in. I totally get that. I just wish I didn't let that affect me as much as it does. I wish I wasn't so hard on you. And I'm gonna work on that, I promise." Dean finished.

"It's never really bothered me, but thank you. I appreciate that you care enough about me to try to change one small aspect of how you operate in order to benefit me. No one has ever cared about me like that." Cas replied.

"…Seriously? I mean, I know how the angels are, but no one has ever treated you with simple decency before? No one cared about you like family before you met Sam and I?"

"Angels don't operate that way. Gabriel was kind in a sarcastic sort of way, like you are sometimes, but I didn't have a ton of contact with him before he was 'killed.'" he made air quotes with his fingers. "He seemed to be the only angel capable of any form of kindness. And now he's dead. And since I wasn't on Earth very much before I rescued you from hell…no. No one has ever really cared about me before you and your brother do. And Jack, now."

"Gabriel wasn't the only angel capable of kindness." Dean responded vaguely.

"He's the only one I've ever met, and I assure you, I know many more angels than you." Cas replied.

"I meant you, Cas."

Cas looked just slightly taken aback. "Oh." Was his only response.

Dean sighed and leaned forward. "You're a good guy. It's as simple as that. You care about people. Especially us. You have helped us out, at risk to your own life, more times than I can count. You saved me from hell, you saved Sam from hell (even though you forgot his soul), you took Sam's hallucinations from his time in hell and turned yourself loopy, you constantly heal our injuries…"

Cas cut him off. "The only reason I had to transfer the hallucinations to myself was because I broke Sam's wall in the first place. It was my fault…"

"But you didn't need to do that. Knowing what was happening to Sam, a lot of people would have just let him suffer, or put him out of his misery. You didn't." Dean paused. "The point I'm trying to make is that you care about people. How did you get like that, when all the other angels are apathetic assholes?" he asked.

"I always kind of suspected I was different from the other angels…a little more human. I was still mostly like them when I came down here, at first, but you and your brother brought out the better side of me." Cas answered.

"Why did you suspect you were different than them?" Dean asked.

"Nobody's ever asked me something like that before. And I'm not sure I want to talk about it."

"Why?"

"The other angels…they started to suspect that I was a little better, a little more empathetic than them. And I was shunned. Saving you from hell cost many angelic lives…and management was hoping that I would be one of them. And I knew it."

"They tried to kill you for caring? Well, that doesn't really surprise me." Dean replied.

"It doesn't surprise me either, but it did back then. They realized that I had a weakness on the battlefield: I cared about the angels that were dying. I wanted to avoid large battles to avoid the amount of bloodshed they cost, and management didn't understand that. They wanted ruthless, merciless killers with no morals. And that's when I realized I was different than my brothers and sisters – I cared, and they didn't." Cas paused. "I've never told anyone this."

"I'm glad you trust me. I was always kind of the same way, when it came to being like my dad. Sam doesn't know this, but I was always more like him than my dad. Dad was pretty ruthless. He had lost the love of his life, and nothing could fill that hole. He didn't want me to die, but getting a bite taken out of me wasn't that big of a deal, ya know?" Dean paused. "Sam was so innocent. I always played the role of the badass big brother, but I remember the first time I killed a monster…" Dean trailed off.

"What happened?" Cas piped up.

Dean sighed, resigning himself to telling the story that he had never told anyone, not even Sam. "It was a werewolf, one of the ones that only changed at full moon. And the problem was that Dad knew who the werewolf was, but hadn't gotten to him before the cycle ended. So the wolf would have been safe for a month before he started attacking again. But Dad was determined to end the werewolf's life before he had a chance to hurt anyone else. So, we broke into the guy's house. When kicked the door in, he and his wife, who he had surprisingly not killed yet, came barging down the stairs with a rifle. When he saw us, and all our weapons, he dropped the gun and kneeled on the floor, hands behind his head, and his wife did the same. He was begging us not to hurt him or his wife. But I had no choice, Dad had told me what to do. So, I leveled my handgun at his chest and put a silver bullet through his heart, right in front of his wife." Dean paused. "And we left. I put on the brave face of a warrior for Dad, but I was a wreck afterward. I barely slept for weeks, constantly waking up with nightmares of his wife's screams." Dean shook his head.

"Wow." Was all that Cas could say.

"I played the brave warrior so Sam could be the smart, quirky one. Dad could deal with him because he had a kid that did everything he wanted. So even though I had nightmares for months because of that kill, and struggled with many more like it, I put on a brave face. And to this day I haven't told anyone. Not Dad, not Bobby, not even Sam. No one knows that the mask I wore for so many years wasn't the man I truly was. And now I am that man."

"…I'm sorry you had to sacrifice so much. You deserved a better childhood." Cas responded.

"Don't most kids?" Dean replied.

"Yes, but…you're a really good guy, Dean."

Dean scoffed and took a swig of the beer he had been neglecting. "Yeah, no."

"Yes, you care about people just like I do. We're more alike than you think." Cas argued.

"Cas…"

"Seriously, Dean. You and I have both fought in many battles, and sacrificed ourselves for the greater good. We both have issues with out fathers, and with the other angels. We both care about this world, especially Sam and Jack. And we love each other –" Cas cut himself off in embarrassment. He hadn't meant to say that last part out loud. He loved Dean, of course, but he was sure that Dean would never say something like that. They were best friends, brothers, and that was all that Cas could ever hope for.

Dean sat up in his chair, a thoughtful look on his face. "…Yeah, I guess you're right. Sometimes I just feel like I've become too apathetic, that all those years of training from my father made me uncaring. I don't get nightmares anymore about the things I kill…"

"But you get them about the people you don't save. I know that you have nightmares after hunts where you couldn't save victims. When you were just a few minutes too late…which means that you care more than you let yourself think you do." Cas was relieved that Dean had chosen to ignore what he had said about them loving each other.

Dean leaned back in his chair. "Maybe. And you're right, by the way."

"About what?" Cas answered.

"We do love each other. I feel like we always have. You and I do share a more profound bond than you and Sam" Dean grinned at the rather horrified look on Cas's face and took another swig of his beer.

"I – I don't…" Cas stuttered.

"No need to embarrassed, Cas." Dean grinned again.

"Well, I didn't mean to say it quite like I did. I made it sound…romantic, I guess, when of course you love me like a best friend, or a brother." Cas replied quickly.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "And you don't think of me as a best friend or a brother?"

Cas's eyes flew wide open. "Of – of course I do…"

"Stop. I know you care about me, which means that you think of me as more than a brother, not less…" Dean narrowed his eyes and thought for a moment before the realization hit him. "Oh."

"Dean, it's not what you think…" Cas started to argue with Dean's pretty obvious train of thought.

"No, I think it is. And its okay. What you don't know is…"

"No! I don't want to hear your rejection, please." Cas yelled, interrupting Dean.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"You're straight, Dean. I know that. I'm…I don't know what I am. I'm confused. And yes, what you're thinking is true. But I don't want to hear you say you're not interested because you're not into guys. I don't think I could take that. So, let's just pretend that this conversation never happened." Cas stood and fled toward his room before Dean could respond.