Castiel finds Dean alone, for which he is grateful: sleeping on Bobby Singer's couch. He looks at Dean and thinks of before, before the war, before Lucifer rose, before Castiel rebelled for Dean, when Dean would wake to find Castiel waiting for him and snap with resentment, refusing to believe that the creature who had raised him from Hell could be an ally. Such a short time ago, Castiel knows, but abstractedly he thinks of it as aeons behind him; it was a short time, yes, but that was all it took for the Winchesters, as they so like to do, to change everything. To change Heaven, and Earth, and Castiel, for better or worse; Castiel thought he knew, then thought he knew otherwise, and now all he knows for sure is that he has no idea.
Two years, it's been, since he saved Dean, and for Castiel that would once have been a moment, a brief rebellious interlude in a life of devotion, but with Dean's influence it was long enough to change Castiel irrevocably; for Dean two years is long enough to fear and hate someone, resent them, accept them, befriend them and become their only ally, leave them and miss them and plead for their help, and now, Castiel fears, it has been long enough for Dean to come full circle.
He's human, was what Balthazar told him acidly. That's what they do. That's what they are, they're fickleness incarnate. So Dean's angry, he's not going to invite you to his birthday party, so what. You have more important things to think about.
If it had been anyone else, Castiel would have listened.
He watches Dean dreaming of flying and then of falling, and after a few minutes Dean in his dream hits the ground, snaps into wakefulness and meets Castiel's eyes.
His facial muscles twitch and then tense with controlled anger. 'Hello, Dean,' Castiel says, quietly.
'How'd you get in here?' Dean mutters, underlining to Castiel that he is not welcome, as if the Enochian symbols daubed on every window of the Singer house have not already been slight enough.
Not knowing what else to say, Castiel answers the question anyway. 'The angel-proofing Bobby put up on the house…He got a few things wrong.'
There is a pause. 'Well, that's too bad we gotta angel-proof it in the first place, isn't it,' Dean says coolly, and stands up. 'Why are you here?' he asks levelly.
'I want you to understand,' Castiel begins, moving towards Dean, preparing his arguments in his head, but Dean interrupts, rolling his eyes.
'Oh, believe me, I get it. Blah, blah, Raphael, right?' The venom in his voice is unmistakable and uncharacteristic, and it stings.
'I'm doing this for you, Dean,' Castiel says steadily. 'I'm doing this because of you.'
'Because of me,' Dean says quietly, turning away. 'Yeah. You gotta be kidding me.'
'You're the one who taught me,' Castiel says, keeping his tone matter-of-fact. 'That freedom, and free will - '
'You're a frickin' child, you know that?' Anger flares abruptly in Dean's tone as he turns back to face Castiel, cutting him off again, and Castiel feels his own spark of resentment as he thinks, no, Dean, I'm not. I am millennia older than you will ever be.
He does not say this, because he can see the hurt and the confusion on Dean's face, both now and in the image seared into his memory: Superman, Kryptonite, and with something as stupid as that it was all over.
'Just because you can do what you want,' Dean says, his voice rising in volume and fury, 'doesn't mean you can do whatever you want!'
And now, yes, he is angry. Does Dean, who begged him to rebel against his own people, after thousands of years of loyal duty, honestly think that Castiel doesn't know that? 'I know what I'm doing, Dean,' Castiel says, clipped and precise, because he wants to shout at Dean but he will not. He isn't here to argue; but once it starts he doesn't know how to stop.
'I'm not going to logic you, okay?' Dean says, with pain in his voice. 'I'm saying, don't. Just because. I'm asking you not to,' just as he asked Castiel for so many other things and against his better judgment Castiel granted them. Castiel would have liked to hear some logic from Dean for once, because there are seven billion lives at stake, human lives that Dean would care about, and Castiel reiterates that to himself whenever he thinks about Dean's expression framed by holy fire.
'I don't understand,' Castiel says, and thinks, seven billion lives.
'Look,' Dean says quietly, 'next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family.'
Of course. It always comes back to family, with Dean.
'Cas, you are like a brother to me, so if I'm asking you not to do something…' Dean bites his lip. 'You gotta trust me, man.' I trusted you, hanging in the silence, and Castiel wonders why Dean doesn't just come out and say it.
'Or what?' Castiel says evenly, and he knows that it is over.
Dean stares at him with betrayal in his eyes, then shakes his head. 'Then I'll have to do what I have to do to stop you,' he says simply, casting his dice.
'You can't, Dean,' Castiel says, silently pleading with Dean to believe him. 'You're…' He shies away from words like weak or irrational or not understanding this, because he doesn't want to hurt Dean any more than he already has, and settles for, 'just a man. I'm an angel.'
'I don't know,' Dean says flatly. 'I've taken some pretty big fish.'
It's happening, then. Castiel came here to reason with Dean, and all he has achieved is the Winchesters pitting themselves against him.
Castiel looks away, at the scarlet symbols which didn't stop him getting into the house but nevertheless drove their point clearly home: you're not wanted here, you can't convince me. He should have paid attention to that. He should have listened to Balthazar. 'I'm sorry, Dean,' he says, and then is somewhere else, so he doesn't have to hear what Dean says back.