This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
- T.S. Elliot
"It's the end of the fucking world," Dean says harshly, his face inches away from Castiel's. "Feeling fine aside, this is some deep shit we're in, Cas. And you can't even make eye contact. What the hell are you going to do if Lucifer shows up? Look at the ground and shuffle your feet? Avoid him to death?"
Castiel, of course, cannot meet Dean's eyes, even as Dean berates him for exactly this. Dean knows he can't hurt Castiel physically, so he allows himself to vent his anger on the angel. He has learned from his previous mistake that punching Cas is harmful only to his still-slightly swollen hand, but that doesn't stop him from grabbing the angel's face and pulling it upward to force Castiel to make eye contact.
"Look at me, goddamnit," Dean growls, and Cas still avoids his gaze. "Why won't you look at me?" he says, lowering his voice in volume, but with no less intensity.
"How do you feel," Castiel says, in barely a whisper, "when you cannot save someone? When you don't get there in time to fight off the monster?"
"Like shit, Cas," Dean growls, still holding on to the angel's face so he can't look away. "How else am I supposed to feel?"
"Now imagine," Castiel continues, closing his eyes so he doesn't have to look at the other man, "that this person, the person you could not save, was the one person on Earth you were meant to protect. And the creature to which they fell was the greatest evil this world could ever know." He opens his eyes, trying to avoid Dean's stare. It isn't difficult, because after Castiel's words, he can't quite meet the angel's gaze.
"Cas... I—" Dean begins.
"I'm not looking for your sympathy, Dean Winchester. I'm just telling you," Castiel says quickly, cutting him off, "the way things are." He meets Dean's eyes for a moment and then looks away when Dean releases his hold on the angel's face and backs away.
"I have to go check on Sam," Dean says, by way of explanation. His brother is unconscious in the next room, being watched—or more likely, ignored—by the prophet Chuck.
"Wait," says Castiel as Dean turns to leave. Dean starts to turn as Castiel grabs him by the shoulder and spins him. Although he is acutely aware that his brother and Chuck-the-prophet are not ten feet away from them, though separated by a closed door, Dean feels he needs to do something to- to forgive Cas, to show him he shouldn't feel guilty for Lucifer's rise to Earth, to make him listen. And since words didn't work, and physical strength was an impossibility, he does the next thing that comes to mind.
It strikes Dean as he presses his lips against Castiel's that kissing is a bit of an odd thing to come so quickly to his mind as a means to reach the angel, but, fuck it, it seems to work. Castiel makes a noise that is something between a gasp and a moan, and Dean can't help but feel a little bit amused with regard to his ability to affect the angel.
They kiss, and Castiel grips Dean's shoulder, his hand fitting tightly into the mark it had made when he had pulled Dean out of Hell. Dean slides a hand into Castiel's shirt and lets it rest on the angel's chest.
With his other hand, Dean struggles with the button on Castiel's pants and the angel mutters his name. Dean always figured that the angel was so sanctimonious that even during sex (and yeah, Dean's thought about what Castiel would sound like during sex) he would sound as though he was praying, but Dean's name on his lips sounds more like a curse, spit out roughly and hoarsely as the angel reacts to Dean's actions. Dean smirks.
At Dean's first touch, Castiel looks at him for a moment before his eyes roll towards the back of his head. He keeps glancing at the man as Dean strokes and touches him. And when he comes, with a small noise that might be a sigh or a whimper or a groan or maybe the hottest sound Dean's ever heard (whatever else, it's definitely the last option), Castiel is looking directly into Dean's eyes, holding his gaze. Even when Castiel slumps back against the wall, panting, he can't look away, and Dean can't tear his eyes from the angel's fiery expression.
"Cas," Dean says later, sitting next to Sam's bed as his brother sleeps. Castiel is leaning uncomfortably against the door frame, and Chuck isn't in the room, but Dean can hear the clicking of computer keys and assumes the man is adding to the "Winchester Gospel" (and hopes that these additions have nothing to do with what took place between him and Castiel in the next room.
"Yes, Dean?" the angel responds.
"You haven't failed, really. We're not dead yet, none of us. And I don't plan on being killed by some evil sonofabitch in the near future, not even the evil sonofabitch. So, really," he shrugs, "you have nothing to worry about." Even as it's coming out of his mouth it sounds stupid—they have a lot to worry about, more by the minute, if the research Bobby keeps emailing them is at all indicative of what they're looking at for the future—but Castiel looks at him as though he's said something that was legitimately reassuring rather than completely asinine.
Dean looks at Sam, sleeping peacefully on Chuck's guest bedroom's bed, and he looks at Castiel, who is looking back at him. And it's true. Not that they have nothing to worry about, that was just crap, but the other part. They are alive, and all things considered, that's no small feat. Castiel hasn't failed yet, thinks Dean, and if Dean can help it, he's not going to fail, and that's something.
Dean looks the angel in the eye, and knows that Castiel's thinking the same thing.