Was trying to sleep, but then this popped into my head, so I had to get it out. The words fell together to prettily and insistently for me to try and pull that "wait until morning" crap. This is unbeta'd, so please be forgiving of errors. I think I got them, but who knows.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. It might own me though.
Sometimes Dean daydreams about them running away together, living the apple pie life, letting someone else deal with the things that go bump in the night. He dreams of waking up tangled in warm sheets with an equally warm body snuggled up to him. He dreams of the smell of coffee filling a quaint house, accompanied by the sizzle of bacon and eggs. Some days, he even dreams of white picket fences and a dog to take morning jogs with.
But then he remembers there's an apocalypse going on around them. That some arch angel wants him, the devil wants his brother, and that Cas is an angel himself. It is Castiel, after all, not just Cas like it plays out in Dean's daydreams. They've got no where to run to, so it's useless even dreaming about it.
He never used to think this way, fantasizing over impossible dreams that should never, can never, belong to him. He never used to dream such tame, suburban dreams about a nerd in a trench coat. There are days he misses desperately the wild dreams, the ones that involved busty women with too much lipstick and not enough clothes.
And sometimes he thinks Cas, Castiel, brought him back wrong. Not the grimy, dark kind of wrong that had been Sam on demon blood. No. Cas brought him back too good. Dean had never been righteous, never would have thought that word described him, would have laughed in the face of anyone who said it did. He was certainly far from it when he got down off that rack. But somehow, Cas scraped together enough light to make Dean right, righter than he remembered being since before a house fire that changed his life.
There were days none of it felt right. Days that Dean wished he had died that day fighting Lucifer. Because, yes, he had the apple pie life- the warm sheets, the warm body beside him, the coffee, and the bacon, and while there's no dog, there is a kid. And don't get him wrong, he loves Lisa and Ben, and he knows it should be all his dreams come true. But Lisa is no angel, not a real one anyone. And dogs are much harder to disappoint and lead astray than young boys looking for a father figure.
He needs fixing, and while he knows Lisa tries her hardest, he also knows her hardest will never be enough. He needs someone to build him from the ground up, to scrape together enough light to make him feel honest-to-God good. But Castiel left, flitted back up to Heaven, and Dean was left all alone with his apple pie life with the wrong players. And that wasn't fair to anyone.
Some days, he hates the bastard, rues the day he walked into a warehouse, all exploding lights and shadowed wings and "I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition." Those are the days he thinks about setting fire to the trench coat, sending it out in a blaze befitting an angel- light one of the decoy cars up with holy oil, the trench coat still in the trunk. He's almost done it a couple times. But then the other days happen, the ones where he prays to a God he knows isn't listening, begging for him to bring the angel back just one more time. Dean will look after him this time, he promises, will make sure the feathery ass won't get himself into trouble. Those nights the trench coat stays with him, held close as a reminder, both of better times and of failures. But he promises, give him just one more chance, he won't screw it up.
But Dean Winchester has been back on Earth far too long. Righteousness wanes, and he's much more of a liar.
He tries to keep his promise, really he does. Emmanuel is innocent and clueless, and Dean would rather keep him that way, no matter how it pains him personally. A Cas uninvolved is a Cas out of harm's way. But then he just has to go and remember, has to go and makes Dean's efforts add up to nothing, has to go certifiably off the deep end. And Dean doesn't know what to do with that. They don't exactly make How to Deal With Looney Angels for Dummies books. He might be losing it too because he tried looking. And Dean doesn't know what to do because a broken Cas hurts worse then an amnesic Cas, but at least it's better than no Cas at all. And so he pushes, admittedly too hard, but what's a man to do when his guardian angel goes off the clock? And it's everything and nothing he promised when he begged for "please, just one more chance." Because he's screwing it up, but isn't that what he does best? God should have known just whose hands he was returning Castiel to.
And so it seems karmicly fitting that Dean should lose him again, but this time he won't be weak and he won't give up. If begging doesn't work, he'll make it happen himself, he'll tear all of Purgatory apart if it means finding Cas. Truly, he's a man obsessed. And for all his trying, and for all his joy when he finally finds the angel, it hurts all the more when Cas lets go at the end. Because this time he didn't just screw up, he straight up failed. And that's a pain and a set of memories not so easily pushed aside.
He's still a man obsessed, but there's just no object for it. No Cas to pursue, because the angel didn't want to be pursued. And when he returns, it's all Dean can do to not simultaneously punch the guy in the face and wrap him up and never let go. And so it's awkward. And so Cas lies. And so vicious cycles continue. But he tells him he needs him, means to say loves him, only says needs him, but that seems to be enough. But not enough, because sure enough he's flown off again, leaving Dean behind, healed, but aching more than if he wasn't. And then they're all far too wrapped up in trials and sickness and angels falling out of the sky to ever reconsider just want it is they're doing. To ever reconsider what any of it means.
And Cas is graceless, just Cas, not Castiel, and Dean thinks maybe this time he can really do it. He can keep his promise. He can protect and fix Cas the way Cas fixed him. Only he doesn't. He tosses him to the wolves, all because Ezekiel said he can't stay. And Dean wanted to tell Ezekiel to stick it where the sun don't shine, but there was Sammy to think of. And Castiel the Angel never cured Dean of the bred-in need to protect his younger brother, and Dean never thought it needed curing. And so he lets Cas down, time and time again. Lets him down, even if he can't quite let him go. And when a blade sings pretty songs in his head, the voice of an angel hardly matters at all.
Which leads them to here. Dean is a demon, and Cas is still Cas, broken wings and falling feathers keeping his feet firmly on the ground. Only, Dean can see it now, can see just how much Castiel the Angel sacrificed for Dean Winchester the so-called Righteous Man. For Dean Winchester the Hunter. For Dean Winchester who Bears the Mark of Cain. And it hardly seems fair, and it's not what either of them asked for, not from the beginning. And if Dean were more human, he might long for days when he dreamed of sheets and coffee and dogs being shared with a nerd in a trench coat, might even long for when it was just the apocalypse keeping them from it. But he isn't, so he doesn't. But a man obsessed he'll always be. So he rearranges wings, a patchwork of feather and bone and tissue, because there isn't enough Grace left that demon blood doesn't offer a kind of cure.
And he feels quite proud of himself, because while Cas still can't fly, he can certainly fall, fall back down into Hell with Dean. Back to where they met. Dean the Demon succeeded where Dean the Man never could. He patched up his poor broken angel. Only, he never thought to ask if this is how Cas wanted to be fixed.