"I'm dreaming again."

"Yes."

Dean glanced back at the placid lake over his shoulder. He was standing at the end of the pier, and Cas was standing in front of him.

"Why this place?" Dean asked.

"I thought you liked it. I've found you here before."

"It's just a lake."

"It's peaceful.""Yeah. That's how I know I'm dreaming."

Dean sighed.

"You shouldn't have come here, Cas."

"Why?"

"You know why."

Dean's storm-blue eyes held Cas' ocean-blue ones.

"I've come to you in your dreams before," Castiel said. Dean had the distinct feeling that the angel was stating the obvious to avoid the issue.

"You've come to me with messages, important things.""This isn't important to you?"

"I didn't mean that." He sighed again. "Cas, have you ever heard the phrase 'don't mix business with pleasure'?"

"It's never applied to me. I've only ever known business before."

"Before what?" Dean asked, knowing the answer.

Castiel narrowed his eyes in a way that might have looked insulting on anyone else. But Dean knew this look well; it was the look of an angel trying to comprehend human emotion, that foreign and dangerous thing.

"Before you."

Dean shook his head.

"You're an angel, Cas. I've already been to Hell once. Do you think I want to go back there for defiling a Heavenly being?"

"I pulled you out of Hell once, Dean…" He touched Dean's left shoulder, where his own handprint still lay. "I can do it again."

Dean closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"So, what - you saved me from Hell, now I owe you one?"

"One what?"

"Don't do that, Cas. You're not as innocent as you want to pretend. If you were, you'd never ask me to…"

"I never have asked you."

"Yes you have!" Dean shouted. His voice echoed off the calm surface of the lake. "You do it every time you look at me! You do it every time you appear to me instead of Sam! You do it every time you come to me like this, in my dreams, in my head, where you know I can't fight you!"

"Do you want to fight me, Dean?"

Dean had tears in his eyes now, and he made a strangled sound of protest to keep them from flowing freely. He wiped the back of his hand across his face.

"Why do you do that, Cas? Why do you always talk to me in riddles? Can't you just own up to your part in this? Can't you just admit what you're doing here?"

"I came because I wanted to see you."

"Why!" Dean shouted, urging a confession.

Castiel looked down at the pier, as if ashamed.

"Because I care for you, Dean. More than I should."

"And…?"

"And… I want you to care for me."

"Now lose the edited-for-seniors dialogue."

Castiel's eyes narrowed again, and this time it was a gesture of insult. Dean wanted him to stop talking in riddles?

"I'm not designed to feel this way about humans, Dean. It's difficult for me to understand it, but… I think… I love you."

"Oh, I know you love me," Dean said. Castiel was taken aback, mostly by Dean's contempt. "You love me, I love you, Sam loves me, I love him, but that's not what we're talking about here, is it Cas? Tell me why you're really here."

Castiel clenched his jaw and glared. "I don't know what you want from me, Dean."

"I want you to admit that you're in love with me!"

Castiel took a slow, deep breath and looked down at the pier again. "I can't."

"Why? Because I'm a man? Because it's wrong? Well let me tell you, Cas, this isn't exactly right for me either!"

"It's wrong because you're a human, Dean. It has nothing to do with gender. My vessel is male, but I am neither male nor female. I am an angel. I am immaterial. I am not supposed to experience desires of the flesh."

Dean found a little sympathy then, but had no intention of showing it. "So what happened?" he almost jeered.

Castiel sighed. "Jimmy."

"Jimmy?"

"Yes."

"Your vessel?"

"Yes."

"You're saying Jimmy is in love with me?" Dean did not sound convinced.

"No," Castiel answered.

"Good, 'cause I gotta tell you Cas, that sounds like a whole lotta crap."

"Jimmy is human. Jimmy has human desires."

"Desires for me?"

"Desires for…" Castiel paused. "…intimacy."

Dean stared at him. "You're saying Jimmy wants to get laid?"

"There's no need to be crass, Dean."

"But that is what you're saying, isn't it? Jimmy wants to have sex with me! Well that's just great!"

"Jimmy has no desire to be with you, Dean. He loves his wife. He misses her."

"So if you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with?"

"That's not it."

"Then what, Cas? Help me out here!"

"You're upset, Dean. You need to calm down."

"I AM CALM!" Dean shouted, throwing his arms out to embrace the idyllic scenery of his dream: the pine-covered hills, the clear morning sky, the crystalline lake. "THIS IS AS CALM AS I GET!"

"No," Castiel reached his hand out to Dean's forehead - a sure sign that he was about to work some angel mojo.

Dean awoke in his motel bed, gasping as though Castiel had pushed him off the peir and into the icy waters of his dream. He caught his breath and looked instinctively across to the bed beside him. Sam was asleep, long girlish hair flopped over his eyes, and a patch of drool collecting on his pillow.

A sense of relief stole into Dean's chest at the sight of his brother, safe and at rest.

"This is as calm as you get."

Dean whipped his head back to the wall in front of him, which had been empty a moment before. Cas was standing at the end of his bed, looking perfectly unruffled by the sudden transition into reality.

Unless…

"Am I still dreaming?" Dean whispered, so as not to wake Sam, just in case.

"Are you?" Castiel purposely answered with a question, just to piss Dean off. Dean knew it, and he didn't bite. He only glared and thought to tell Cas to keep his voice down. But Cas' voice was naturally soft and low. Dream or not, Dean knew that Cas would never be the one to wake Sam up simply by speaking.

"You love him," Castiel said to Dean, looking at Sam. "You'd do anything for him. You'd die for him. You'd go to Hell and back for him." Castiel flicked his dark eyes back to Dean. "Again."

"What's your point?" Dean asked, nonchalant.

"My point is," Cas looked down at stained threadbare carpet this time, "I'd do the same for you. Again."

Dean could hear himself breathing, how shallow and ineffective it had become. "You have orders to keep me safe," he tried to convince himself, but Castiel wouldn't let him.

"I have disobeyed orders to keep you safe. I was not born with free-will like you were, Dean. I had to learn it. Maybe it came from my vessel, the way these other human impulses have, but it's mine now. My will is my own."

Castiel walked slowly and deliberately around Dean's bed, stopping beside the frail human body. Dean's breath came faster, more shallow, more useless, as the angel laid a tender hand on him.

The palm burned hot against the side of his face. Dean did not flinch away, but instead relaxed into it, closing his eyes, letting Castiel's divine heat melt his fears. This touch would not leave a mark that anyone could see, but Dean would feel it whenever he thought of Cas.

The angel leaned over the bed and gently tilted the human's face towards his own.

"My will is to be with you," Castiel whispered, so quietly that God Himself may not have heard it. But Dean heard it. Those words were spoken just for him.

Castiel closed his eyes and kissed Dean's mouth. He had seen humans do this many times, but was quietly astonished at how easily he had picked up the mechanics of it. When Dean parted his lips, Castiel did the same; when Dean's tongue pushed gently against his own, Castiel pushed back. The emotions were anything but easy, and Castiel might live a thousand years more and never understand what it was he felt for Dean, or how an angel could feel anything like this for a mortal man, but the mechanics… Jimmy seemed to be taking charge of that.

Dean turned his head, breaking the kiss. "Jimmy…" he said, as if reading Castiel's thoughts.

Castiel had heard of humans saying the wrong name in these situations, but he didn't think that was it. "Dean? What's wrong?"

"I can't do this," he said. "Not with… him."

Castiel sat down on the bed, getting comfortable for a long conversation, one he had hoped to avoid. "My vessel disturbs you."

"I'm not gay, Cas," Dean said. "And neither is he. You want me and I want you, but I don't want him and he doesn't want me. You might be genderless, but we're not. Jimmy loves his wife. His female wife. You said so yourself. If it was just you and me, I don't know, Cas, maybe I could turn for you, but I can't force Jimmy to do this. I won't."

Castiel laced his hands together, thinking. His shoulders slumped as he did it, and Dean wondered what they would look like with visible, impressive wings attached.

"Would you prefer it if I found some young female prostitute to inhabit for a night?"

Dean's eyes lit up. "You can do that?"Castiel laughed softly, a sound so rare and wonderful that Dean couldn't even bring himself to be disappointed by it. "No, Dean, I can't do that. I wish I could, for your sake."

"For both our sakes," Dean amended. "And Jimmy's."

"He's not really here, you know," Cas offered, as if it might change Dean's mind. "Not anymore. He's been with me so long now that I can barely feel his consciousness. I have his memories, his emotions, his…"

"Desires?"Castiel smirked. "Yes, those too. But his personality, his soul, what really separates his entity from mine…" He looked at Sam, and Dean followed. "Jimmy is sleeping."

Sam was sleeping on his other side now. His back was to Dean, and his sheets were kicked down around his knees. Dean counted his blessings that his brother was not a light - or naked - sleeper.

Sam really was a blessing and Dean knew it. Sam had been Dean's only blessing, his only reason for living, for far too long. Now Castiel had made it onto that very short list, but in a very different way.

Dean watched his brother's back rising and falling with the easy breath of sleep. Cas was right, this was when Dean was at his calmest, when he knew that Sammy was okay. It did not surprise him to realise that Castiel knew him so well.

"I love you, Dean," Castiel whispered. Dean turned his head on the pillow. Castiel was lying next to him, staring into him deeply, soulfully. Did angels have souls?

They had been lying on top of the covers of Dean's bed with their clothes on - Castiel still wearing his trench-coat and shoes - for close to an hour. It felt like minutes, and forever. Their hands were entwined between them.

"I'm in love with you, Dean," Castiel confessed softly.

Dean let go of Castiel's hand and propped himself up on his elbow. Cas could see the heal of his own handprint showing beneath the sleeve of Dean's T-shirt.

Dean peered down at him, and Cas looked up with wary puppy-dog eyes: had he done something wrong?

Evidently not. Dean smiled, leaned over, and kissed him.

Castiel's skin tingled. His heart raced and skipped as if he was in a fight for his life, and Dean was winning. He let this go on for a few blissful seconds, and then he broke the kiss, for the same reason that Dean had: "Jimmy…"

Dean nodded his understanding. "I've been thinking about that, Cas. When you said you couldn't jump a prostitute for the night, you meant that it wouldn't be right to, not that you were incapable of doing it. Am I right?"

"It amounts to the same thing, Dean. I spent months preparing Jimmy to be my vessel. It wouldn't be fair to possess someone who had no idea what was happening to them."

"You did it to Jimmy's daughter."

"I had no choice. You would have died. You all would have died," he added hastily. "Besides, the blood of humans that can be effectively possessed by angels without damaging the vessels only runs in certain families. Jimmy's is one. Yours is another."

"I know," Dean grinned.

Castiel narrowed his eyes, trying to understand. When he finally did, Dean's grin grew wider.

"No." Castiel sat up and swung his legs off the bed. He was halfway to the motel door before Dean sprang up and caught him.

"Hey, Cas! Stop!" This was an urgent whisper, but Sam grunted discontentedly in his sleep as though Dean had shouted the angel's name. Dean and Castiel both watched him for a second to see if he would stir, but Sam slept on.

"Cas," Dean continued, "will you just listen to me?"

"No," Cas growled firmly. "What you're suggesting is dangerous and immoral, and - "

" - and you want it just as much as I do. I'm actually guessing you want it a little bit more than I do."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you let me catch you heading for the door when you could have just as easily blinked out of here any time you wanted."

Castiel looked down at the carpet again, jaw clenching as if biting back a response. The truth was, he didn't have one.

"Just one night," Dean reminded him, almost pleading.

"It's not fair to Jimmy," Castiel said. "The last time we were separated, he nearly died. If I'm with you - really with you - I may not hear him if he's in trouble."

Dean liked the idea that Cas could be so distracted by him, but didn't say it.

"The only reason he got into trouble the last time is because he ran from us. He won't this time. He's asleep, remember?" Dean motioned to the bed that he and Cas had just vacated. "So, let him sleep."

Cas considered the bed carefully, silently.

"One night?" he asked cautiously.

"One night," Dean agreed, flashing his teeth.

Castiel took his trench-coat off and laid his vessel down on the bed.

"I don't think I've ever seen you with that thing off," Dean smirked.

"You're about to see me with a lot more off than that," Castiel warned him.

Castiel's heart was racing again, but not in the same blissful way as before. This was true fear, his worst fear, the fear of hurting Dean.

Dean crawled over the angel, caressing Cas's beating chest as he went. Cas shuddered beneath him.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked.

"It's not me I'm worried about. Dean, are you sure you want to do this?"

"It was my idea, remember?""You know I have to ask you," Cas said. "You know you have to say it…"

"Yes," Dean answered, pressing himself close to Cas. He kissed the angel's cheek and neck. Cas shuddered again, shivered, tingled, writhed - ocean-dark eyes flickering slightly in an effort to keep himself composed. "Cas…" Dean whispered in his ear, cruelly, ironically, sincerely, "…I want you inside me…"

Castiel half-snarled in his fast and savage quest to drag Dean down on top of him. Dean was startled by the sudden ferocity of the eternally peaceful angel but soon collapsed forwards, wondering awkwardly if Sam would choose this moment to wake up.

Sam still had his back to them, and Dean was grateful. He didn't want to stop. Not now. Not ever.

If Jimmy was asleep, then his human desires were more awake than they'd ever been, fuelled by the unlimited power of an angel. Dean was afraid now; afraid that Cas would abandon the plan and take him in Jimmy's body; afraid that Cas no longer had control of the white-hot energy coming off him - that Dean could see coming off him - and that Cas would simply kill him, one way or another. And Dean didn't care. He was afraid, and he didn't care. Cas might kill him, but Cas would also bring him back.

So this was that 'blind faith' thing that Cas was so fond of.

"Cas…" Dean trembled in spite of himself.

"I'm coming, Dean," Cas promised between kisses. "I'm coming to you…"

Castiel - or Jimmy - screamed and went rigid beneath Dean's body. Dean opened his mouth to call Cas' name, to ask him if he was okay, but found his own mouth filled with screams as the light burned through him, scarring every fiber of his being with that same invisible mark that he would always feel.

Light and sound - inhuman and unnatural - flared through the little motel room like a nuclear explosion. Sam was squinting before he'd even had a chance to open his eyes, and calling for his brother before he was even sure he was awake: "DEAN!"

Something told him to keep his eyes closed, and his ears covered, but Sam stumbled out of bed anyway, tripping himself up in his sheets. He thudded against the floor - thin carpet over concrete, judging by the way it bruised and winded him. By the time he had untangled his long legs from the sheets - only able to kick at them blindly, with his eyes closed and hands over his ears - the light had faded, and the sound was only a piercing echo in his brain.

Sam freed himself from his sheets and got to his feet. Dean was standing between their beds, looking down at something in his own bed.

"Dean!" he breathed. He scrambled over his bed and leapt up to hold his brother. "Dean! Are you okay? What was that screaming! And the light? Dean!"

Sam shook him to take Dean's attention away from the bed. In doing this, Sam's own attention was called to the motionless body lying there.

"Cas?" The light, the sound, Dean's non-responsiveness all clicked with the angel's demise. Sam, panicking, pushed past Dean to start on Cas, shaking him and yelling in his face: "CAS! CAS!" The angel didn't wake, and Sam was too stricken with fear and confusion to check for a pulse on the vessel. "Jesus Christ, Dean, is he…" He couldn't say it. "What happened?"

Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam, as if trying to understand him. "You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain, Sam," he said, in a low and steady tone that was not his own.

Sam stared into his brother's eyes, wondering what had happened to Cas and how badly Dean was affected by it. He might have imagined it, but Sam thought that Dean's eyes looked different, darker somehow, like the colour of the ocean.

"Dean…?"

Dean laid his hand on his brother's shoulder. The hand felt too hot, but maybe Sam was just cold. It was the middle of the night, after all.

"Go back to sleep, Sam," Dean said in that strange, even voice. "You'll feel better in the morning."

"What?" Sam protested in high distress. "Are you crazy? What about Cas!"

Dean moved his hand from Sam's shoulder to the side of his face, and smiled.

"Cas has never felt better."

Before Sam could say another word, his wide eyes fluttered closed, and he fell forward into Dean's arms. Dean caught him effortlessly and tilted Sam back into bed.

Dean walked around Sam's bed and gathered the sheets off the floor. He threw them over his brother, brushed that long girlish hair out of the kid's eyes, and then turned to see how Jimmy was doing. Not dead, as Sam had feared, but sleeping just as soundly as Castiel had intended. Dean took the man's shoes off for the sake of comfort - Castiel wouldn't have bothered, but Dean felt that he owed Jimmy that much after making out with him, presumably against his will.

Castiel reached for the trench-coat at the end of Dean's bed, and put it on Dean's body. This was the mechanical stuff, the human house-keeping, getting to know how a new vessel worked and felt.

"You think I'm a new vessel?" Dean said in his own insolent voice, having heard the angel's thoughts inside him. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders into the trench-coat. "You'll have a hard time controlling me, Cas, but I'll have fun letting you try."

Dean was suddenly aware of an unusual weight on his shoulder blades, too heavy to be explained by the coat. He smirked. Wings. Dean was finally feeling Cas' wings.

He thought about stretching them out and turned his head to see if he was doing it. He was, and there they were: enormous wings covered in soft, silver-black feathers and impossibly light for their size. They expanded behind him, unencumbered by the mortal fabric on his back. It was as if his clothing had been an illusion and now Castiel's reality was breaking through it.

Dean ruffled his - or Cas' - wings a little to amuse himself and then folded them against his back.

"Awesome."

When he was done playing, Dean looked down at his front and noticed that Cas had taken the liberty of dressing him by angel-magic. He was wearing his own street clothes instead of the T-shirt and sweat-pants he'd slept in. Thankfully, Cas had not put him in Jimmy's monkey-suit. Apparently the trench-coat was enough of a compromise for the night.

Dean took one last look at Sam, and Castiel took one last look at Jimmy, each reassuring himself that his chosen ward would survive the night without him. Then Dean and Castiel strode to the motel room door and left to get a room of their own.