The first time it happens is after a hunt. Sam's out for supplies. Restocking the med kit, he'd said.
Yeah, and Dean's Miss Universe 2009.
He's just taken another swallow of whisky, has just set the bottle down on top of the toilet tank, has just picked up the bloody shirt again and gone back to working the blood out of it under the cold tap.
He's just taken a breath in when the air changes; he's just had time to look up in the mirror when. . .
It's That Hand, and it isn't. He remembers, all at once, one breath, one second, one decade, one lifetime, one million possibilities, one Look.
One Being, and one Act, and the Journey from that Place to this One.
He can feel everything, all at Once. One. Once. A million things, together and apart, and he was That, had been There, but now. . .
Now he wasn't. Now he is here. Now he has eyes and a mouth and a body and feelings. Now he is himself. Now he is Dean. Now he is a man.
Man, he hears. No. Man. Animal. Less--
Lesser?
He opens his eyes, not knowing he'd closed them.
"Cas," he pushes out through a dry throat, "what the-- what the fuck, man?"
"Dean."
That's it. That's all he gets. One word, and then the angel takes his hand off Dean's shoulder and leaves the bathroom. Dean drops the bloody shirt he's been holding back into the sink. He braces himself on the stained porcelain of it, looks at his eyes in the mirror. He looks at himself, as he is. Now.
Christ. Talk about Touched by a Freakin' Angel.
Dean breathes in and out, trying to steady his heart rate. It's impossible, though.
The air hasn't changed back. It's still. . . charged. Heavy. Meaningful.
Castiel is still here. Dean straightens from the sink and turns around. Carefully, he walks, takes each step closer, weighed and measuring and proof of reality.
"It could not be erased," Castiel says. When his head turns, and his eyes lock on Dean's, he clarifies with a short, "The mark on your arm."
"What?" Dean asks. He hesitates in the doorway, trying to stop himself from fidgeting. "Why not? Some kind of signature?"
There's almost a smile when Dean is finished talking. "In a manner of speaking," Cas responds.
Dean shrugs, then walks over and grabs the first shirt he sees. He puts it on and moves to the rinky-dink table set over by the window. There's a six pack, minus two, and he takes a new bottle and opens it on the edge of the table. After chugging about half of the brew in maybe three seconds, he pulls it down and looks back across the room.
Almost smiling.
Dean holds up the beer bottle and tilts it a little. "You ever have one of these?" he asks. Castiel's freaky angel eyes follow the movement of the bottle, but otherwise he's motionless. Still. It's creepy and weird, and as much as he doesn't want to acknowledge it. . . it's somehow soothing, too. Castiel is. . . soothing.
Dude's much calmer than Sam anyway, or any of the poor schmucks they're trying to help and prevent from being killed. Bobby's pretty laid back, but even he's--
"No," is Castiel's answer. "I have never tasted."
"'Tasted,'" Dean repeats back. He thinks about that a little, takes another long pull off the beer. "Wait," he says, "you mean you've never. . . eaten? Or had anything, anything at all, to drink? Like, ever-ever?"
"That is correct."
Dean pulls out one of the chairs and drops into it. He takes another swallow of the beer, and then sets it down on the table to his left.
"That is just. . . sad, man," he finally declares. When he looks up, Castiel is still standing in the middle of the room. He's still looking at Dean with the same degree of intensity that he looks at everything.
Not almost-smiling anymore. Now that face is almost-frowning.
The mouth opens, and Dean's expecting some oblique, vague-as-shit response, all about God's Plan and their roles in the Scheme of Things and yadda yadda yadda.
"Dean," Cas says, his voice surprisingly soft. . . and then abruptly it's like a switch is turned off. The intensity fades a little. The air in the motel room goes back to normal. Power down. "Where is Sam?"
"Out buying stuff. Why? You two got a date?"
"We have work to do," the Angel of The Lord states.
And Cas has left the building.
The second time it happens, Dean's under water. He must've been unconscious when Cas laid his hand on him because coming to has never been that rough. And nothing else would explain the out-of-place, soothing gap between what he remembers as struggling to kick his way back up to the surface, and being fully unconscious where it's always the Fire and heat and Screams under his hands as he cuts that muscle in the right cheek and the blood flows down his arm in streams when he--
"DEAN!" is shouted right in his ear, and he opens his eyes to a blurry Sam hovering right in his face. The next second is him trying to breathe and, Jesus Christ, his fucking chest hurts. He gets air, but it hurts like a mother.
"Sorry, man," Sammy says, and Dean must've made a face. "Had to do CPR," Sam adds in that way of his.
"Fuck," Dean hisses out. He blinks the last of the water out of his eyes, and then gives the place a quick scan. "We get the whatcha-ma-callit? She-berry?
"Shabriri," Sam corrects. The corners of his lips turn up a little, though, so he's just faking being annoyed. "Yeah," Sammy says, craning his neck to look over his shoulder at something, "the thing is definitely gone."
And so Dean turns his head and follows Sam's line of sight. At first, it only registers as light -- blinding, intense light. The longer he looks, though, the more he can make out. There's a dried-out, corpse-y looking husk lying right by the shore of the lake, and the light's leaning over it.
Wait. . . leaning? Light doesn't lean. Dean squints, and tries to sit up. He grunts when Sam turns back and helps him with an arm behind his shoulders, but really all Dean can focus on now is. . . That Light.
He blinks again, trying to chalk up what he's seeing to just another concussion delusion.
"Dean?" Sammy asks, and it must be some water in Dean's ears that makes the sound of his voice so distant and far-away. "Hey, dude, what's wrong? What is i-- ?"
He remembers That Light, and as he thinks this. . . It turns. The Light turns and looks at him. It straightens, and he gasps in realization.
"Castiel," he Names, and the Angel comes closer. Its Light blinds him, and yet he can't turn away, can't shut It out, can't deny--
"Dean," the Angel says. It Sets a Hand to his shoulder, and when he can finally blink. . . he opens his eyes to find. . .
The Light is gone. It's Cas, Cas with a hand on his shoulder and that same stare zeroing in on him.
"Cas?" Dean croaks out. He works his tongue around his mouth, trying to drum up some moisture. For having just taken a nice long dip in an ice cold lake, he sure feels parched. "What? What're you doing here?"
"You were in danger," Cas tells him in a monotone. He's doing that almost-frowning thing he does, and that's how Dean knows that whatever happened back in that lake. . . whatever happened, it was serious. Cas doesn't just pop up to shoot the breeze. When he comes, that means there's shit to do, Important Shit. Angel Shit.
Dean thinks that last part is hysterically funny and huffs a laugh, which both Sammy and Cas seem to take as him choking. Sam pounds him on the back, and Cas. . . Cas freakin' rips open the arm of Dean's shirt and lines up his hand with the--
"Cas?!" Dean exclaims, maybe half a second before his vision whites out again.
***
The third time it happens is right on the heels of the second time. It's like opening his eyes while his head is stuck out the window of a jet. He can't imagine how it'd be possible for him to live through this, but--
He wants to. He wants to imagine.
He wants to Feel and Live and Breathe.
He is. He was, and then he wasn't and now he Is.
He. I. We. All.
Us, he thinks.
No, It Speaks. No "us." No "them."
All, They Say Together.
Love, It Tells him. Love and Be Whole. Love, and Know thy Maker. Love thyself and thou Love--
No.
Love. Love. Love, It Begs him. It Begs him. Please, It Cries Out--
And he opens his eyes.
"Jesus! Dean, what the hell was that, man?! Are you okay?!" Sam's face is close again, so close he can't see all of it, so close he can feel every breath from his brother's lips rush across his face. "Maybe we should go to the hospital. I mean-- "
And Sam keeps on talking and worrying.
He tries to look at Sammy. He tries to feel that clench in his gut that he remembers from every time Sam's voice got that quaver in it, every time the kid was worried or sad or pissed off or sullen or devastated. He tries, wants to, grabs for that feeling, but all he can see is. . .
Cas climbs to his feet, his hand leaving Dean's shoulder, and Dean jerks his head to the left to look at Sam so quickly his neck hurts. Sam's forehead is all furrowed and his mouth's doing that scrunched-up thing it does when the kid's freaking out and trying not to show it.
"Dean-- " he starts.
" 'm fine, Sam. Just a little waterlogged. Help a guy up, would ya?" Dean asks, sticking his hand out for Sam to grab.
He's hauled to his feet, and has to put a hand to his chest at the sudden shift in position. Goddamn, Sammy's got some huge hands on him. Shit better not have cracked Dean's ribs doing the whole paramedic routine, or else he's gonna owe him big time. Make Sammy dig the next few graves by himself and then see how compression-happy the giant oaf is next time Dean's out for a few seconds.
"Castiel," Sammy calls out suddenly, and Dean can't help but look over at the angel too. "Thank you. If you hadn't shown up when you did, I-- man, just. . . thank you."
Leave it to Sam to get all emotional on a guy with no emotions.
Dean thinks this as he watches. He looks closely at that face, trying to see anything resembling feeling or care or--
"It is my task," Castiel says to Sam. He's talking to Sam, and looking at Sam when-- "Dean," he suddenly says, turning to fully face him.
"Cas," Dean acknowledges. "Thanks for the, uh, save back there in the lake. 'Preciate it."
No emotion. Not really. Dean knows even his almost-frowning, almost-smiling concept is wrong. There is nothing behind those eyes but Duty and Obligation.
Guy's a freakin' angel. What else would be there for him or Sammy? Embarrassment? That he got stuck babysitting a couple humans while his brothers are all off fighting the good fight?
"It was my pleasure," Cas says, two seconds before disappearing into thin air.
Dean blinks in surprise, and then shakes his head. Almost-smiling, my ass, he thinks. Just more mind tricks.
Sam lets out a bemused, "Hunh," though.
"'Hunh,' what?" Dean asks, turning to look at him.
Sammy shrugs, eyes still on the spot Cas just vacated.
"Was it me. . . or did he just smile?"
"Who? Cas?" At Sam's distracted nod, Dean scoffs. "No way, dude. You're seeing things. Angels don't smile."
Sam just shrugs again, and Dean turns around and starts the long hike back up to the car.
Angels don't smile.
And they certainly don't Lov--