"Think about it. You could have been Anna."
~ . ~
It all began as a typical Winchester evening. Sam and Dean were holed up at a kitschy motel. They had fought about dinner, which generally indicated they had been spending too much time together, so Sam left to pick up some voodoo talisman from a fellow hunter, and give Dean some much-needed alone time; the opportunity to act on that one-in-a million chance that there was a decent looking piece of ass just sitting there waiting for him at the dingy motel bar with the flickering beer sign.
Dean was a bit road-weary, but optimistic when swung through the saloon doors, but his enthusiasm quickly drained. Aside from the middle-aged bartender it was a sausage fest. There may have been another, larger woman at a rickety table by the kitchen door, but if he had to strain his eyes to make that determination then it really didn't matter.
He sighed with a grimace and squeezed his eyes shut while he shot off a silent prayer. He remained paused by the door a bit awkwardly, wondering if he would get to hear the deep flutter of celestial feathers, as if a peacock were going to suddenly fan its tail in the alley. All was quiet, so he set off towards the empty side of the bar where he sat down and ordered a burger and a beer.
"Hello, Dean."
Castiel had entered the bar like any other patron. Even though Dean suspected he was coming, the closeness of his voice still made him start, albeit almost imperceptibly.
"Hey, Cas. You busy?" Dean asked without looking up from his beer. He caught the bartender's eye and gestured for a second drink.
The angel, Castiel sat down at the bar, careful after so many lectures about personal space to leave a stool between himself and Dean.
"I am, but I am able to return to the moment I left without expending too much grace."
The bartender brought the second drink over and Dean slid it to Cas, swiveling to face him for a moment and visually confirm his presence and appearance. Cas was Cas. The trench coat, the blue tie, the bed-head all present and in their usual good form. Cas opened the beer and took a swig, not for any love of the drink, but in order to fit correctly into a bar setting.
"Where is Sam?" Cas asked him after a few moments of silence.
"Off getting the charred bones of a hermaphroditic chicken... and Thai food."
The bartender delivered Dean an above-average looking cheeseburger and fries in a red plastic basket. He thanked her and ordered another beer.
Cas mechanically took a second sip of his own.
"I guess he figured I needed some alone time." The statement came out of nowhere, in between a mouthful of burger and a handful of fries.
Cas tilted his head and squinted at Dean, but Dean was too enraptured with his food to notice or care. They didn't speak again until he finished his meal, wiping his fingers clean and tossing the napkin into the basket. He slid it across the bar to be cleared away, gesturing for yet another drink. This one he drained almost immediately, presumably to help wash down the greasy mess he had just consumed rather quickly.
The bartender spotted a trend, and approached with a fourth beer. Dean accepted it gracefully, but requested two whiskeys as well. With every new drink Dean received, Cas dutifully took a swig of his own. He politely finished his beer and pushed the empty away when the whiskey arrived.
"Do you require my assistance with your hunt?"
Dean was staring a hole in the countertop, swirling his whiskey around his glass. He started a bit when Cas spoke, and reached up to rub his face and eyes, unceremoniously.
"Nah," he replied from behind his hands. "It's pretty low-level stuff. And Sam is having way too much fun with his voodoo research."
"So you summoned me here to watch you eat a burger."
Dean bristled a bit.
"I said if you weren't busy," he pushed through clenched teeth. It was clear that, as easy as their hunt might be, he was on edge.
Cas swiveled to face him, gazing at him earnestly.
"I was just confirming that this was a social invitation. Thank you. I appreciate the temporary distraction."
Cas's gratitude softened Dean considerably. He smiled and held out his whiskey glass to indicate a *clink*. Cas cocked his head, then mimicked the motion, holding his tumbler steady as Dean's pushed his forward to make produce an empty clank.
Dean loosened up after that, letting the tension melt further from his shoulders with each passing sip of whiskey. He stared at a muted television for a few minutes, until seeing commercial with a Godzilla character destroying a city of high prices. He asked Cas if there were ever a creature like Godzilla on the earth. Cas was at first bewildered by the question, as usual, but after the provision of a significant amount of backstory he denied that there were any similarities between Godzilla and the reptiles of prehistoric times.
They sat and talked in this easy manner for over an hour, ignoring questioning glances from the bartender when the subject matter became bizarre.
"So Cas, if you leave and go back to the second after you left, will we be - out of sync or something?"
Dean was beginning to venture into drunken time-travel theory. He was clearly much more relaxed than he had been at the start of the evening. Cas was the same, stoic, head-tilting companion, awkwardly sipping away at the drinks that Dean ordered for him, wasting their purpose with his angelic constitution.
He squinted yet again, his voice lowering.
"If I listen for it, no matter where I am, I can hear all your prayers up to this moment, simultaneously. The most recent come to the forefront, but I can single out any call, from our last hunt together to the shouts of anguish that somehow made it out from the depths of hell."
Dean turned to him with a look of surprised disgust.
"Geez, Cas. Why wouldn't you just shut them out? You gotta be able to. Shit. No wonder angels don't sleep."
"We can choose what we hear. I listen to them all as a reminder."
Dean suddenly noticed that he felt heavy. His lids felt heavy. His head was weighing him down and he finally was not interested in seeing the bartender approach. He pulled cash out of his wallet and settled their tab, gesturing to Castiel with a quick jerk of his head that they should continue outside.
He took a deep breath of cool night air and released it slowly while he held the swinging door for Castiel to follow behind him. Dean meandered slowly towards his room at the end of the long motel strip. Cas paused, then followed.
"So, wait. What do you get out of listening to every single collect call we've ever dialed?" He picked up, more alert in the fresh air.
Cas considered how to put it into easy terms, slipping his hands into the pockets of his trench coat as he stepped up to Dean's side.
"You never change."
"Are you calling me stupid?"
"No. I'm saying that from the first whisper to this very night, Dean Winchester is the same. Your soul is unwavering, despite the addition of, literally unGodly amounts of pain and uncertainty. You have yet to change."
Dean had unconsciously stopped walking. Cas matched his stop and turned slowly to meet Dean's gaze, his eyes breaking through the night like a lighthouse armed with steely blue lasers.
"You were the first soul to know that I questioned my father's orders. You have seen me make many ill-fated decisions in the name of good intention, and I have seen you do the same. When I question my being, and whether or not I am equipped with the equivalent of your human soul, I find comfort in your prayers, and the hope that despite my folly and my family's manipulation, there is some part of me that has remained constant. And loyal. If not to my father, then at least to you."
Dean swallowed as the alcohol in his blood graciously sent a generous swell of emotion into his chest. He resisted the urge to take a swig from a bottle, because his hands had been empty for some time.
"Is this just my prayers were talking about, or the whole gang's?"
This made Cas grimace, and he turned to begin walking toward Dean's motel room. Dean kept pace, watching Castiel's temple pulse with the flexing of his jaw. How very human of him.
"There's too much variation in the others. It's just yours."
Dean let his chin jut out with pride before overtaking Cas and reaching the door to his room. Cas stopped and stood, a bit awkward, but otherwise serene. Dean jangled out his key and slid it into the lock, then paused and turned to the angel.
"It's just - do you ever - Think about it. You could have been Anna."
The flash in Castiel's eyes was doused by a feigned look of ignorance, something he had only recently learned how to do.
"I am Castiel. Anna was Anna."
"No, man. I mean your meat suit. Your vessel."
Dean was so drunk. Cas smiled and stepped close to him.
"Dean, are you suggesting that the gender of my physical manifestation is the only reason we aren't currently engaged in a sexual relationship?" He watched Dean's lips for an answer.
Dean faltered. It seemed like a lot of assumptions on his part. But he knew Cas better than he knew his own brother. The voice that told him Cas would do anything for him wasn't just his ego. It was more like a prophet in his mind, or message burned into his subconscious by their "profound bond".
Dean pondered this momentarily, then caught a familiar shifting of weight in the corner of his eye. He squeezed his lids shut suddenly, thinking Cas, don't leave. Don't leave yet. You can't just fly out of here every time - Don't do this to me anymore. I'm drunk. I'm trying to think.
Dean opened his eyes and Cas was still there. The angel stepped back an inch or so, and sighed. Another blatantly human gesture he had begun to use with ease.
"The Lord God saw fit to bring me back from nothing, not once, but two times. Both times he rebuilt this vessel for me, though James Novak is no longer inside of it. I believe we can safely assume that in your physical universe, this is who I am."
Dean let his eyes travel over Castiel's face, without a hint of disapproval.
"I am privileged to walk with both men and angels, and my grace easily supersedes the desires of the flesh. But mark my words, Dean Winchester, if I were ever to find myself thoroughly human, cut off from your prayers-" he lowered his head, menacingly- "it would take more than an outdated cultural-"
"Alright, Cas, enough!" Dan held his hand out and pressed it lightly against Cas's chest.
Cas grit his teeth, then let his lips curve into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Go to bed, Dean."
Dean turned back to his door. He turned the key and shouldered in, freezing for a minute, then turning his head back.
"Cas could you, like, tune out for an hour?" There was no shame in his inebriated request for privacy.
Cas rolled his eyes. He had already stayed himself through his initial urge to fly. This time he whipped himself away with the majestic "harumph" of celestial down.
Dean smiled as he locked himself into his dark an empty room, letting his imagination wander through the possibilities of Cas's hypothetical suggestion.