Cas hated the smell of pine.

The good news was he wouldn't be smelling it much longer. For all that he marveled nature and the creation of it, the fact was quickly understood by him that you can only truly appreciate it from far above – get a peek at it all, then go on your merry way. Standing in the dirty air and breathing it in with now-human lungs, feeling and seeing the grit caught underneath his now-human nails, even feeling the weight of his own body strain on his hips – which was sure to put him in a walker. All these things were annoyances, constricting, infuriating. Below him. An angel of the Lord with dirt on his fingers and a sweat soaked shirt. He picked up the hammer he was sent to the trunk toolbox for. Even holding things in his hands, he felt disconnected. Halved.

He put his eyes to the hand that was supposedly gripping the tool and took a deep breath. Good God, he hated the smell of pine.

Color was creation, just as creation was color. Sounds rippled through the air in hues and tones, atoms of dust painted the sky blue and the ground its own euphony of gradients. Birds lifting off shaped the course of their masterpieces, caused bomb bursts of yellows, blues, reds, all set to rain down and fill his brain. A brain that used to be full of colors, never without the pure iridescence surrounding him and offering itself to his angel eyes.

Now the forest was gray. And the air was gray. His mind, gray. Empty. Achromatic. A cappella. Pine needles crunching from under his feet should have showered him with rainbows of vibrations, sounded to him like every fine symphony, but instead fell sharp and guttural behind him. It was destruction, to move through life and not create a song with your steps. He was tearing apart his father's world by merely carrying a hammer. So he stepped lightly, almost to dance on the ground.

His dance to the tent sent him past the younger of his two Winchesters unrolling sleeping bags and inventorying supplies. He looked up at the fallen angel and nodded with a smile. Gray. Cas nodded back.

He walked so lightly, in fact, that his voice scared the plaid garbed brother unraveling a tarp with muddy hands. Muddy hands that looked good on him. Belonged to him. A strong human using his tools given him by God to move mountains. The mud on his own fingers was the sickest show of irony, his own scarlet letter. He didn't bother to shake off the clump of mud that found itself on his hand from Dean's.

Dean hooked the hammer to his belt loop and flipped one side of the tarp. He stilled when he realized Cas hadn't moved.

"Wanna give me a hand?" he asked, eyes searching. Gray ones. The sight kicked the wind from him and he closed his eyes to the drab world. In his mind, Dean's eyes were still a thousand different shades of green, changing in the light like diamonds, yet thousands of times more valuable.

He nodded again and picked up the gray tarp.

The crickets sounded dull, puny, out-of-tune flutes with mouths pinched too tight. The snores and coos of the brothers asleep on either side of him running like mere hands through the air, moving and blowing nothing.

During the day, hammering the tarp into place over the tent, the echo of metal on metal was shrill and discordant, not at all like blending colors on the canvas of the earth, creating to simply create. They were absorbed by every surrounding pine, no trace. Only the injustice of it left for him.

Angel hearts weren't made for feeling. Feeling human things, at least. There are measures of loyalty an angel must feel, which stems from love, if not a respectful kind. Love for a father, for all the art of the world, the creation and creator. But an angel in a host can only feel so much of the human's emotion. They are stones washed over with water: steadfast. A type of insurance; if one can't feel anything, then there's nothing to conflict with the missions. To an angel, the emotions of humans are visitors, left covered in the closet.

He was blindsided by what his human side was feeling with an angel heart. The waters of anger, frustration, happiness, all built themselves high against an angelic dam, and losing his given grace was the straw to break its back. Feeling years of pent emotions forthwith was practically cataclysmic. Fingernails gripped around his eyes, wings ripped away from his spine. Years of tyranny, torture, and betrayal flooding his lungs, his limbs, left him in a gray world with not a ledge to cling to.

It had been months. And Cas hadn't seen a single color, or heard a single musical note.

Except for his Winchesters. His own guardian angels with holsters on their hips and knives in their boots. All he had left to live by.

What did the deluge have to feel about the Winchesters?

He rolled in his sleeping bag, something he decided he nor any other human should ever have to sleep in. Dean was covered up to his neck, head lolled to the side and blowing soft clouds into the air, Sam was hugging the other wall, Cas' snoozing sentinels on his either side set to protect him. The rain pattered lightly on the tarp over the tent, and Cas found he was thankful for the darkness; no light to miss the colors by.

He could, though, make out Dean's features from the leftover light of the dying fire. Not the entire face, but maybe the fan of his eyelashes, showing the same gray as his hair, but in his head they were the gold crowns were made of. He wanted to reach out and pluck his fingers across them like harp strings, to play them, but they would no longer sing for him. So he plays them in his mind while Dean sleeps and Cas can look for as long as he can manage until he falls asleep to the music. He looked down, at his cheeks, and thought about how he wanted to see them smiling, turn freckley like they do in the summer, or red like they do when he's embarrassed. Then down at the swell of his mouth, the full bottom lip. He licked his own, thinking if they felt as soft as they looked, or if they could move mountains like his hands could. A laugh came to his head, the broken man watching the protector. Seemed a pathetic thing to stoop to, but it was the same as breathing by then.

But Cas could write songs about his arms, could play the tune with the hair that dusted them. Use his fast heart as percussion and paint the air around them red with the blood of his body, his own hand the paintbrush. Tell generations stories about the brave man with the soft lips and hard jaw. The ground would soak up the flood water and he would shake the dust from his feat, walk away from what falling forced him to be.

His fingertips ghosted over the fringes of Dean's hair, the short places on the sides and the truer places on the top. He didn't touch, though; touching would mean something, admitting something to himself that he couldn't understand. If the something meant anything in the first place.

Shame, hatred, and disgust was what the waters brought him. It played through his head like a movie, following the order they arrived, when the dam broke open. He wanted to claw them out, break his ribs and tear the noose away from his heart to let it breath and pump, because a human heart needs to pump. Only, it was pumping these poisons through his body, affecting everything, betraying him.

It brought all these things to him, the consequence of a grace ripped out when it shouldn't have, until he was left a trembling, praying mess. These came and it went, as did the pain from it, but one stayed:

Love.

His human heart was quick to forgive, and as it put itself back together Dean's arms were even quicker to support. He had to let Dean be his wings, and right then, his legs, and his eyes. The last strings of his heart that gave him any consolation told him he loved this man. What else was there to feel for a person who gave you the shirt from their back, or the support of a crutch?

Cas let his fingers dip and trace Dean's cheek. The hunter didn't stir, and Cas let himself enjoy the cooled skin, even the stubble around his jaw where it always grew quickest, and his lazy breath warming his hand. He took his fingers to Dean's hair and pushed them through, feeling all he could. Who cared if he stole the moments, or if it meant something? He let his mind be, relaxed all over. Sleep was coming. A different unfair thing.

Fishing through Dean's hair, he took his eyes back to the golden lace of his eyelashes, and played their strings in his head till he was nearly asleep. As his thoughts cut off hither and thither, and puffs of warm air from Dean's mouth joined the hazy edges of his vision, Cas was glad the last things he looked at were his pink lips.

Ripples shot out in the water of the lake, but they brought little comfort to Cas. They should be luminescent, shifting and waving and extreme, even under the cloudy sky. As it was, he couldn't separate the water from the sky on the horizon.

Rain was falling then too, when his heart released him back to the land of the living. Waking up, he felt completely fine. No pain, no wears. Lungs filled as they should, heartbeat in rhythm. The ceiling looked dim, but then again the whole room looked dim. The window was blemished with rain and the tin ceiling panged somberly overhead. Sleep was itching at his eyelids again. He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

The cozy room smelled like smoke. And he was shocked awake.

It wasn't as if he hadn't smelled it earlier. He took another drag of the room: smoke. And that was it.

But that was how human brains worked. Taking sensory information, translating that to a concept: smoke. A single word in your thoughts.

To an angel, smoke should have been a mirage of reds and grays, coiling and swimming together, dyeing each other, feeding each other. Should have pricks of green showing through, showing life after fire. Should sound like a rolling timpani, brooding baritones. And Cas saw none of that. Heard even less. Only had the word, none of its cadence.

To test his sentence, he made a hard fist and slammed it to the table under his back.

Nothing.

Again.

Nothing. A thud that reached into the air and simply died there.

Again. Again. Again, painfully so, and the sharp feeling in his wrist brought him short. It was also the day he began to understand how fragile he was. Where was the color? The music?

He was left pounding on the table till the splinters shed his blood – his human blood – and till restraint came in the form of calloused hands around his arms and ankles, he hadn't realized he was throwing his whole body around. Desperate in the silence for some color or sound.

Seeing the rain in front of him now was the only sign it actually was raining; Lord knew he couldn't feel it himself. When one's whole life had been spent fondling and bonding with the molecules and electricity of everything one touched, an experience away from that is hardly an experience at all.

The fall of boots on gravel reached him from behind, and a moment later Dean joined him on the fallen tree trunk. Smells of smoke and pine – ones that made him sick to his stomach lately – wafted over him a second later. Cas took shallow breaths instead, looking at the Winchester.

"We got our eyes on the bastard."

"Already?"

Dean nodded. "This one ain't much in smarts. Gave himself away almost as soon as we started looking."

"Good. Sleeping on the ground hasn't been doing much for my spine."

With a chuckle in his voice, Dean said, "You get used to it."

Cas' cords were struck at that. Parts of his head and heart squeezed at staying human with Dean and taking life on the same page. But the other parts didn't want to get used to the grayness or thinking in words instead of colors.

Dean started his next sentence tentatively. Cas became disappointed with himself being seen so morose.

"Do you want to come with us? We could use extra hands."

He smiled at the sentiment nonetheless. "No. You don't want me there. I'm practically useless. Babysitting isn't very conducive to a successful hunt."

Dean rocked in his seat, looking contemplative. "Nah, not babysitting. More like on-the-job training."

Cas wanted to go, but it wasn't anything new; he wanted to be near Dean every second he could. A scar on the inside of his wrist, a gift from his attack on the table, ran ragged on his thumb. The mournful look on his face didn't make it past Dean.

Quietly, like approaching a hurt animal, Dean asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Cas looked back at him, at his gray face with his flat eyes, and God, bring back the eyes that looked like the spring and clenched at his heart, and not in the awful way, but frightening even so. And the shimmer of hair that ran with so many colors they were a work of art all on their own. Bring him his angelic grace on a pillow and he would kiss the feet of the carrier. And then maybe Dean after that.

He recalled the night before, when he allowed himself the honor of putting his own skin to Dean's and thought about doing it again in the daytime, but couldn't allow the travesty; it was one thing to miss the colors when you couldn't see them, but the daylight hid nothing, his disability the least. "Have you ever thought how…pointless…living is?"

"Don't talk like that, man."

"Humor me."

Dean resigned to a considering look and a shrug of his shoulders. "I have my brother. I have you. People out there need saving, and no one else seems like they're gonna do it. Doesn't seem pointless to me."

"That's all fine and well," Cas looked out to the water. "But think further. Us, sitting here at the lake, will have no effect on the rest of the universe's existence. We die, we go to Hell, Purgatory. Heaven, if they'll let us in, and what good does the memory of you and me sitting at this lake serve us? Or anyone?"

"What does the future have to do with it? You can't enjoy things while you're here?"

He didn't see, he couldn't see, the point. Of why things always ended the same.

"You could kill all the monsters you want. Save all the humans you can. Go look at the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, every day of your life. What is the purpose of those experiences after you're dead? How can anyone live knowing anything they do won't change anything?" He cupped his face with his hands and dragged them against the skin, then looked back to Dean. "How do you two keep going?"

Dean was looking at the water, jaw set, eyes wide open, then back at Cas. "By finding something to live for. Things seem shitty now, and they'll get shittier. But why does that mean we have to let them stay that way?"

Cas was speaking nonsense, and in some part of his brain he knew it, but he opened his mouth anyway, ready for whatever dribble came out to argue. Or he would have, if Dean didn't stop him out right.

"Another thing, why does it have to be big picture? You know what happens when you die? You die. And you deal with it then. Your dad's good old Holy B, it talks about sins of the flesh. About storing your treasures in Heaven. Right?"

A bird chirped at its flock flying over the water, almost left behind.

"All I know is that I'd rather run through Purgatory the rest of my quasi-life than live my actual one worried about how everything sucks. I mean come on, who has the time to walk on eggshells around here? Too much to get done. Too many things to see, tell people about. Treasures in heaven are fine and dandy, but I know there aren't any virgins up there for me."

Cas nudged his shoe through sticks on the ground. "I just can't help but feel like the bigger picture has been taken away."

Gray irises peeked through Dean's pinched lids, like he was just now seeing him. "Are you okay?"

That begrudgingly brought something bitter to his mouth. "I haven't felt okay in months, Dean."

The hunter's features flexed; he knew what it was like to feel horrible. "I meant, do you feel sick?"

Next was Cas' turn to pinch his eyes. Dean lifted a capable hand and put it to Cas' forehead, a position that had Dean close enough for Cas to feel the vibration of his voice.

"Your face is pale. More th'n usual."

Cas had to close his eyes from the pleasure. Ice might as well have been pressed to his head. Dean's hand called to the fever in his blood, and it was the closest thing to Heaven the Cas had felt since Heaven. Or since the evening before, grazing the nicest skin he'd ever seen.

"Yeah, I bet that feels good. You're hotter than Hell." All Cas could do was give a sorry nod and taste at his dry mouth. "When was the last time you drank some water?"

He thought for a tick. "Good question."

It was a moment more before Dean took back his hand, but in that time Cas chanced a peek at the world. And it was bizarre. Dizzying.

His knowledge of human art and their mediums was quite limited, none more so than photography. But a phrase he did know, from his tour of family polaroids with Sam, was double exposure; a phenomenon created when one image is superimposed through the colors and shapes of another. It was an interesting, if not discordant, accident. The skeleton of one showing through the face of another.

The picture in front of him seemed to rock on it axis. Tilted in the middle, until none of the lines matched up, and the split second Dean's hand was still on his forehead, Cas saw it:

Color.

The colored half trembled and broke apart before coming back together, like a ghost hiding and showing itself. Rain drops on water like fire flies of literal fire; clouds rolling with beautiful purple and grays, ones he didn't mind because those were supposed to be gray and angry; leaves waving in breezes sounding like bells and chimes playing every harmonic note they could muster. These made him feel strong, firm, and even the dead thing that was his seat opened to a repast for his spent soul. Clear headed enough to see and hear and feel, not to mention understand why it was happening.

Especially after Dean's hand was gone, and the power sizzled and the colors escaped from him. Cas choked audibly, too sapped to be angry, and a firm grasp on his shoulder stopped him from falling off the trunk. The gray world was back, and if he could, Cas would torch it all; at least smoke was supposed to be gray, too.

Dean tugged him back into sitting position, and with worry in his voice he started, "Cas, buddy, we need to get you to bed, get some water in you. You've lived too long to let the flu get a hold of you."

But Cas, in his breathlessness, brushed the idea way, at least for a moment. "Not yet, Dean, I'm enjoying this beautiful view."

"Okay." Dean said with a finalized tone. He sat up with momentum and a slap to his knees. Cas followed his form as it came to stand at his side. Dean held out a helping hand. Cas took the offer and stood. "Now I know you have a fever."

And he nearly fainted at the glimpse of green eyes in front of him.

Cas sat alone next to the fire, which started out raring and fierce when Sam ignited the lighter fluid a few hours before, but was now as tired as he was. The night was turning into a long one, and after the cough medicine Dean forced him to chug the anxiety was clashing with the drowsiness, making him sick. His fever, which was another he needed to have a talk with someone about, was putting everything behind a wall of glass, and it kept him uncomfortably distracted during the entire evening.

Coming back from the lake was close to the last thing he wanted to do. Cas closed in on a card table piled tall with supplies – shotguns, pistols, MREs, rolls of bandages, lengths and handfuls of knives, machetes, rosaries. He put his uselessness into his hands and tried to organize their tools, but no longer had he gripped the handle of an especially sharp blade did Dean's hand close around his wrist.

"No fighting, no blade. Drop it."

So he sat back and used his nerves to pick his nails, watching the practiced mayhem, worker ants pulling together every scrap. Dean punching into different bags and tossing this and that to his brother. Sam catching them while double and triple checking the recordings on his phone, holstering knives to his belt and filling his spare salt satchel.

Seeing that, Dean scoffed. "Why are you bringing exorcisms to a vampire show? And salt, are we cooking them dinner?"

"Remember the last time a vamp hunt finished this easy? You ended up with…"

It was midnight – or sometime close, god if he knew – and by the light of dying coals Cas sat waiting in the cold, feeling the heat and pressure of the one-armed hug he got from Dean before they left. The gesture was jerked, awkward, but it didn't keep Cas from holding tight with both arms.

From the side a light panned left and right, a pinpoint in the trees. Cas' heart leapt to his mouth just as he did from his chair. Languid steps slow and shuffling in their pace followed after the flashlight. Despite the hope that the walkers were Sam and Dean, Cas touched the handle of the knife he kept for himself. When they were definitely coming to the camp, he sidled till he was pressed against a wide trunk and out of the light's beam.

Save for the crunch of leaves under the stranger's shoes, the night was wonderfully silent. Cas hoped he kept his adrenaline-infused huffs quiet.

Only a yard away. He held the knife tightly. Ready to strike.

The pair passed his hiding spot and stepped into the ring of the fire's glow. Cas tightened his core and made to swing, but at the last second recognized the heavy jacket Sam was wearing, not to mention that of Dean's wrapped over his shoulder.

His human brain drew its own conclusions, and he took hold of Sam's free arm instead.

Sam clutched a hand on the hilt of his own knife and whirled to face him, the relief on his face visible to who it was. Dean's slumped shoulders took the relief from Cas, however.

"He's okay," Sam assured. He took a few more labored steps, holding the weight of his slack and tripping brother like familiar baggage. "Things just went a little south. Once he rests," he brought Dean's arm back around, and, as the two lowered the grunting man onto the picnic bench, continued, "he'll be good as new."

Once again the three were crammed into the narrow tent. After coming back from the lake the rain had stopped, and now all there was to hear were sleeping breaths and swaying trees. Falling asleep without music always put toothpicks between his eyelids, and without the rain to cool the air the tent was sweltering. He was beginning to understand sleeping bags, even if it was doing its job too well. Taking extra care for Dean's side of the tent Cas tiptoed till he was out the door and standing in the cool drink of water that the night gave him.

Sweating. What a disgusting thing humans do. And for what, a chance that a stray breeze will come to blow you off? He had to appreciate the craftsmanship, but wiping a sleeve across his face he also had to wonder if built-in fans weren't an investment that should have been made. He wasn't much for knowledge about human afflictions, but he thought he knew this to be him 'breaking his fever', even though it felt the other way around.

On his way across the site, he passed the table Dean was laid on just hours before, spied the rag he'd used to clean him off. The back of Dean's head hadn't rested for ten seconds before Cas came back, handkerchief in hand. Sam hobbled away saying he was after the 'kit', which was really just a pencil box with rubbing alcohol, gauze, and a sewing kit. It made due, considering how much haste went into it after the last hunt destroyed their proper one, which, when he thought about it, was just before Dean considered a line of work that didn't need it in the first place.

White cloth turned to sick grays. Probably the first time Cas had ever been glad he couldn't see any more color, or hear the sounds blood made. He had treated it like a poisonous thing, folding the napkin to a clean side every few hisses from Dean. Between those hisses, Cas began putting together the story.

"They – ung! – they knew we were here. They had to 'ave – God!"

A river was practically flowing from Dean's eyebrow. Cas swallowed, trying to stomach the dark grays. His voice was thick:

"This one will need stitches."

Sam pushed Dean's hair back to see, subsequently forcing Cas to move out of the way. Lantern light hissed almost as loud as Dean was, giving them at least a little light to work by, but it had seemed to light itself for all that Cas was paying attention to anything outside of Dean on a picnic table in the middle of the woods and Jesus, he needed stitches. He had no idea how to give stitches. Dean's swears and exclamations nearly forced him to stop, and that was from merely playing clean up. How was he supposed to sew him together? A man should be able to tell the difference between blood and mud, especially on the face of the person he loved.

Sam's fingers were deft, though. They pulled and prodded, swept and inspected, with the clinical indifference of a professional worrying his lip.

It was childish, he knew, and a little foolish, as children were sometimes, too, but he couldn't help the very not-gray anger and jealousy that heated his human chest. It was all he wanted to do, to touch this man freely and without worry of requitement, do it simply because he wanted to. And here he was, bleeding a pool underneath himself while Cas could barely hang on to a bloody rag. He had never hated Sam before.

"Hey, don't worry." Dean held a drunk-on-pain hand towards him. "Sammy's a professional. Best fingers in the West, besides – ah!"

Sam cut a length of string between his teeth then produced a sick looking needle, curved on the end, from the supplies. The ambient light glinted off the end as he put the thread through the eye. Cas swallowed again and offered Sam the unscrewed alcohol bottle. His shaking, anxious hand nearly sloshed it out the top, a small weight coming away at the soft smile and nod from Sam when he took it.

"You said this was the easiest hunt in a while. What happened to all that?"

Sam wetted a napkin with alcohol by covering the mouth and tipping it over, setting it back with a thud.

"Shapeshifters." Moving his neck seemed to hurt, so Dean was watching Sam with a face full of dread out of the corners. "A couple of young ones messing with this farmer's animals. Looked like duck, so we thought –"

"Bite on this."

Dean took the offered gag and made a face –whatever kind of face that he could. "You want me to put your belt in my mouth?"

Completely business, Sam replied, "I could give you something else to put in your mouth."

"Ha, you wouldn't be too happy about that once you start sewing."

Cas looked at the split brow. "Which you might want to start doing soon."

Dean prodded Cas with his elbow. "You can get to work on this one."

He bunched up the hem of his shirt and revealed three nasty-looking rake marks across his abdomen. At least those had stopped bleeding, shallow enough to scab. Cas traced a trepid finger over the air around the wound, the trail of hair clotted with blood. His gasp at the sight was involuntary, as was his look to Dean's face. Sam had the needle pushed to the cut, primed to begin, his own brows furrowed. If it weren't for the hand on Cas' hip with the strength to redden the skin, he probably would have been lost in the macabre scene until Sam was finished.

"You don't have to watch. Just keep your eyes down. I'll be fine."

Which would have been just fine if his every muscle didn't contract under Cas' rag when Sam put the needle in. Any and every secret he had in his head was fair game if it would stop the torture.

Now the cool air singed his nose, pulling the heat out of him and leaving his head clear to the point of feeling his own heartbeat, this one the calmer version that was in his throat at Dean writhing in front of him.

Looking at the sky, it seemed like a travesty to not take the time to appreciate it. In the wild, the stars were bright, things tamed only by the moon, which he was sure Dean hung himself. He stripped the blanket from his shoulders, spread it over the moss and pine needles, and took a seat.

The night had its own sort of grace; it filled in the shallow areas and made them smooth, hid what would only remind him of his bleak future, played music one couldn't hear in the daytime. Made him strong, so he could hold himself up, because, after all, even in Technicolor things looked silver in the moonlight. He drank in the frozen air and cooled his sweaty brow.

Notes from the cricket section lulled him to a meditative state wherein only the extra crunch of pine brought his attention forward.

White, scant light hit the skin of bare shoulders and shined off a bit of zipper as the door of the tent opened and Dean came through. The trees outside the circle of dirt had the privilege of Dean's eyes searching them until he spotted Cas' huddled form near the fire pit, favoring a leg as he waddled over. Cas sat up straight when Dean's hand gripped his shoulder. Dean lowered himself with the support. He matched his own breaths to Cas'.

"You shouldn't be out here. You're going to pop your stitches."

Dean huffed into his relaxed position. "Have you ever had stitches before?"

Cas turned and raised an eyebrow.

"I didn't think so. I'll be fine, just gotta take it slow for a while."

A silence fell between them that might not have been heavy, but things Cas wanted to say, hear, even the fact that he wanted to lay his head down on Dean's shoulder, filled it with too many possibilities, and he only sighed. His human heart was not only afraid of being hurt, it was afraid of being happy. Of change that couldn't reverse. Of change that would change too much.

"You didn't like seeing me beat up."

These were words that surprised him. He looked at Dean.

"You've seen me hurt plenty of times. Even hurt me yourself. But I could tell when I was getting fixed up that you weren't happy with it." He paused, and Cas looked away. "Why is that?"

"Because -" He swallowed. He didn't want to admit the words to himself, even though it seemed to be the reason for his problems. "Because that could be me now." He looked back to his hunter, sure that the fear in his own eyes was crystalline, even in the dark. "I can't even handle the sight of your blood. Just sitting here, waiting for you both to get back, was too much. Before, I used to mend your bones and heal your thoughts by simply touching you. And now I can't even touch a bloody rag."

"It just takes time, man -"

"Time isn't something I have much of anymore. That could be me tomorrow, laying on a table while I die. And if not tomorrow, then when? It's only inevitable now, Dean. God isn't in Heaven. If he ever was. I can't get my grace back. And I'm left with a – a human heart that lets everything through, and an angel mentality that doesn't know how to handle it."

A sappy story about how strong he was or how capable he was wasn't what he needed, but to be fair, he didn't know what he needed. But Dean only sat and looked back at him, and Cas could see the pure, unadulterated sorrow passing his features. The guilt, where there shouldn't be any, for making the problem...a problem. Dean's problem. Only, it was Cas' problem. His mistake, his responsibility to find a solution. Dragging Dean into this – this mess – could only break them both apart. Dean still looked at him, keeping quiet and listening with him. It was his turn for a heavy sigh, and he did what Cas thought was unthinkable, what he himself wanted to do - rested his head on his shoulder.

Cas was already stock still, sudden anger making his muscles stiff, but shock was a greater paralyzer and it wasn't entirely the scratch of scruff on Cas' skin that turned him to stone. It was the sudden fierceness of the night blue sky ahead of him. The break of silence in the nature around him. Even the swell of life in his solidifying heart. From deep inside his chest came a shudder, his body making sure its disbelief at the irony was known.

A head on his shoulder let him in to the background music of the universe, the record spin of the planets around their center. His human heartbeat was mute underneath it all, but dissecting the instruments he noticed still a very heavy percussion. It was racing, driving the notes around them faster, faster, drowning out the rest of the band.

There he was, sitting next to a beautiful boy, one who gave him his sight, wondering if he loved him back, when all he had to do was listen to the man's heart. He just couldn't do it without some help. The beat crashed faster, and a second later Dean wrapped a loose grip around Cas' hand, resting together on his leg. Then, he felt it; Dean was the harried drummer.

"I don't want you to feel like that, Cas."

So much contact, so much music. He didn't know what to do with all the color. He sat still, feeling Dean like a fiery furnace he wanted to jump into.

"Being a human doesn't make you weaker. What makes you weak is taking what you have for granted. When you were an angel, you didn't think twice about getting stabbed, or shot at. You freakin' jumped out of buildings, didn't bat an eye. Now, you have to be careful. Learn to protect a life you didn't have before. Do you feel any less of a person now that you don't have your wings?"

With life humming in his ears again, his voice felt strong, sure. "It doesn't matter what I feel if it's fact. I'm vulnerable, I'm weak. Things are out there that I won't come back from. And you have the dishonor of carrying me on your back, even -"

"That's not what I asked. I asked, do you feel like less of a person."

For all his voice felt steely, he didn't want to concede; yes, I am a shell. One caving in.

"Shouldn't I?"

"Here's a hint on how to be human." Dean broke the held hand and dug a finger into Cas' leg that told him, it's time to listen. "Being human don't make you weak. Making excuses, that makes you weak. But having something to protect, something to die for, that makes you strong. You're gonna be a much stronger human than you ever were an angel. And if you ask me?" He gave a slight jackhammer to Cas' leg, sounding to his ears like the sweetest music. "I'm glad you're a human now."

Cas turned to him as much as he could, human heart trembling with trepidation, returned angel senses hit with the smell of Dean's body. He could barely breathe out, "Why would you ever be?"

Dean prodded his finger like a reminder. "Because. It makes me strong. I have something to protect now, too."

'Surprise' wasn't even the right word for it. 'Aghast' just touched the surface. Dean didn't say it, he didn't have to, now, but Cas knew; he loves me, too.

And if there was some word that went above the feeling it would have been written all over his face, because Dean turned around quicker than Cas thought he could and pushed him into the blanket with an open palm.

It was an interesting thing, mixing a human heart with an angel's eyes, for even the very emotions coming through their pores took off like fireworks, evaporating in insane bursts when they hit oxygen. Carnal desires to be closer, closer, to curl himself smaller and fold into his body, to fix the world so only wonderful things could happen. The air was filled with notes of heat, of Dean, of their bodies, of left over fire pit smoke. Sweat was suddenly not so nauseating when Cas realized that Dean was covered in it, and that he loved the feel of their skin sliding together and them sharing it. Dean had him positively pinned to the blanket, his elbows locked under knelt knees, jaw held captive by a warden of bone and joints. Mouth taken over by Dean's and God, the taste of him. It was undefinable, taking his entire mental faculties up with two sweet lips, kissing him like it was a sin he couldn't wait to commit. Like there was something in Cas' mouth that made him whole, like it'd found where it wanted to stay. How could he fear the world, or injury, or death, when he lived a thousand years in that single second? Everything he needed was pressed on top of him. Everything.

A very human sensation was swelling the lower half of his body, filling the leftover parts of his head with commands to push, relieve. With the grown man on top of him, Cas hefted his back from the ground and angled his hips, setting himself back down again, not without the sweet reward of sensation against his assembly. A very not human sound came from both the men at that moment, and Cas called up enough sobriety to realize that, yes, Dean was just as filled, if the tent in his bottoms meant anything. Dean tried to pull away, not coming even an inch away before Cas refused to let him go, holding on to his lower lip with a solid bite like a lifeline. A free arm came out from under Dean's knee and Cas pushed off the ground, turning them both till it was Dean's time to spend on his back. Straddled like he always thought about doing, holding him in place with firm hands on even firmer shoulders.

Time solidified and hanged in the air around them, and even the crickets stopped to listen. The two were rolling and pinning and nipping, and this was Dean, what he'd prayed for when he thought someone had to be listening, and things were going to be fine, better than fine because he knew the only person he would need next to him was already there, had always been there, would always be. Gone were the thoughts clouding his eyes and making his lids heavy, the dark grays soaking into his days like mudded water stains the ground. Dean had finally returned the favor of being his savior, pulling him from his own kind of Hell.

Cas could tell from the lightening of the overhead sky that daytime was bound to break any time and he bargained all the colors in the world for an unending night on the now-dirty blanket. He'd been human long enough to know how things worked, the solution to the questions in his stomach, the same questions he knew Dean's body was asking, something building underneath a cap. Numb fingers fumbled at buttons and knots, and damn, he wasn't going to last, every movement an earthquake sending him closer, closer. He snatched Dean's head at the neck and took him over in a kiss, and it was imperative, vital, that the pressure be released and for them to ride it together, particularly now when the universe's clock was ticking against them. Dean's hand clasped and kneaded on the seat of Cas' pants, inching him this way and that, a tormenting slowness and as the first light broke over the hills and trees of those woods, Cas took control of Dean's hand too, rubbing them together to burn down the forest around them. The sky turned a brilliant yellow, turning the shadows on the ground to the west, bringing new life to the day, which Cas found appropriate. Like the clockwork the sun ran by Dean's fingernails turned into knives with one hefty grind against Cas, turning completely to muscle and sinew under him. The sight brought him over the same edge and he'd never known color which was revealed to him. Two bodies' outbreaths turning to one in the morning air, two hearts beating together, soiled garments and even dirtier words bellowed to whatever, whoever, was up there.

The first breaths Cas took on that new day, soaking in the heat and love and sun and color, and Dean – God, Dean – was filled to the brim with adoration and something he hadn't felt since he lost his grace, or the colors, or the music:

Hope.

And pine was there, too.

Cas loved the smell of pine.