Welp, almost caught up with what I already have written uggghh. But I wanted to go ahead and put this one up. Parts of it I'm not sure I like.
Cas is essentially a housewife pahah. I just like to think that'd he has a lot of energy he needs to get out of his stystem. And it sets up for what happens next, as well, I suppose.
When he wakes up, Dean is gone and Bobby informs him that he's gone on a hunt. "He's gonna keep me updated on what he thinks it is and if he can handle it himself. If not, I'll go help him, don't worry." And Castiel realizes that he must have shown his fear on his face. For the most part, he's gotten better about controlling what he shows and what he doesn't, but it's harder where Dean is concerned. He's pretty much transparent when it comes to the boy, and Bobby has mentioned it once or twice – always in an approving way, because, after all, Dean is like a son and he likes knowing that there's someone else out there who has his back.
"Dean's a tough kid," Bobby's saying now, as they sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Castiel isn't sure if he really likes the stuff, just that he knows he prefers it black rather than half full with sugar and that he likes the burst of energy it gets him. Dean wasn't incredibly happy when Bobby introduced it to him – going off about how Bobby was always trying to make sure Castiel wasn't drinking or eating anything unhealthy and that the last thing he needed was to be addicted to caffeine – but he gave in when Cas seemed to like the taste of it well enough and liked being able to share in what he saw as a 'morning ritual.' "Well, I guess he's thirty now, so not exactly a kid." Bobby laughs, and Castiel looks fondly at him across the table.
"I know," Cas says, but he sighs. "I'm just not used to not being able to help out somehow." Especially since Sam is M.I.A. he doesn't say, but he keeps thinking about it. He wonders how long it'll be before he or Sam finally tells Dean. With every passing day, the grace period that Dean might offer him grows smaller. It's almost to the point that Dean would probably never forgive him if he found out that he had kept it a secret for so long.
"He's also not stupid. He knows his limits and he'll let me know when he's reached them."
Surely enough, it turns out to be a nest of vampires and Bobby won't let Dean handle it alone, so he leaves Castiel to defend the house and the junkyard and generally just feel pretty useless. He tells himself that it's for the best because he's not healthy enough to be more than a hindrance to them at this point, but it doesn't change the fact that he wishes he could do something to help. The feeling of helplessness is worse than it's ever been now, but this time it's not connected to feelings of not being able to make himself feel better. Back when he had his Grace, he could feel when Dean was in danger, could appear at his side instantly, could save him. Now he doesn't have that connection and his brain is filled with worry and he can't calm himself down or escape from it – of course Dean is in danger, because Castiel, his angel, can't come to his side, can't protect him. And he doesn't care that Dean seemed to get along alright before he pulled him from Hell because Dean still got hurt. He still struggled and bled and almost died and if Castiel had been there then, had been able to help him, he would have in a heart beat. But now he can't and he's feeling helpless without having any form of escape or reprieve because Bobby's out there too and he cares just as much for the old man as he does for Dean and everything in his heart and mind is going crazy.
Back when he first got to the salvage yard, he was too weak to do anything other than sleep, so the first few weeks went by relatively fast. Now that a month and a half has gone by and he's gotten stronger, however, it's harder for him to find things to occupy his time. Dean won't let him hunt, obviously, or he would have woken him up today, and he has no interest in cars or cooking without one of the two here really, so he finds himself sitting around the house all day reading the texts that Bobby has stashed throughout. They aren't very enlightening, because he knows most of the information anyway, but they pass the time.
Today, he picks up a book on vampires to see if there's anything he could offer if they call for help, and he taps his foot impatiently as time refuses to go by as quickly as he wants it to. All he can think about, with every word he reads, is that Dean and Bobby are facing these things and he can't do anything about it. He stares at his phone and considers sending a text to Dean, but decides against it. Even though Dean had encouraged him to text if he needed anything, that was in reference to when he went to the store or into town – and he knows Dean wouldn't appreciate getting a text in the middle of possibly bloody fight. He bites his lip and closes the book. He doesn't need a reminder on how dangerous the situation is, it'll just make things worse.
It's an hour after Bobby left that he decides he's going to clean. All the basic supplies are in the kitchen and he reads the instructions on how to use it all and finds himself on all fours on the tile, scrubbing away years of dirt and grime and he realizes he's found something he actually enjoys doing. He likes seeing the change from dirty to clean. Like he's making a difference in a very small and miniscule way – but it's a difference nonetheless and his feeling of uselessness dissipates slightly.
He's very quick to notice the things he knows Bobby wouldn't want him to clean – sigils, wards, hex bags, etcetera – and he even draws a few of his own that he knows none of the other hunters use. A ward against unwelcome visitors, human or not, strengthening sigils that reinforce the walls of the house so that it can withstand storms – small little gifts that he'll never mention to Dean or Bobby, but serve mainly to make him feel better and keep them safe.
Safe. It wasn't until a week of being at Bobby's that Castiel realized that, during his two month downward spiral in Texas, he probably should have been at least a little afraid the whole time. He was starving and throwing up – two things that had never happened to him before – accepting rides from strangers, walking along stretches of road that he had no idea even led anywhere other than desert. When he finally looked at a map, he realized that, at one point, he was dangerously close to ending up in one of the areas where there was maybe a town every hundred miles, and nothing but sand and dirt in between. He was lucky that he hadn't died, especially since he wasn't trying very hard to live in the first place.
When he had told his full story to Dean, starting with the first day after he Fell, Dean had fallen silent. His eyes filled had filled with intensity as Castiel finished telling him about that first week – the week where he crumbled, dehydrated and starving on a dirty motel floor, screaming at God and Heaven until his voice was hoarse – and Dean stood up and left the house. When he came back an hour later, his face was red, and he stared at Cas in a way that made his stomach twist and knot and he grabbed his hands and said, deeply, "I will kill you myself before I let you treat yourself that way again" and he turned the T.V. on, effectively ending the conversation. Eventually, Cas got to finish telling his story, as well as talking about the few months before in Heaven when prodded, and Dean seemed to take it better that time, knowing that, despite everything Castiel was telling him – he was here now, and he wasn't starving or dying anymore.
"Why did you Fall?" Dean had asked one day, leaning against the doorway of the bathroom where Castiel had just finished washing his face.. "If…you don't mind my asking." Castiel did mind, in fact – mostly because he didn't like thinking about it, but also because he didn't know if he could take lying to Dean. Up until then, he hadn't had to lie at all. He had just kept his secrets and there was never a situation that called for revealing them. In fact, the only mention of his Fall before then had been on Castiel's part, and, even then, he never talked about it in detail.
He had cleared his throat and stared at himself in the mirror because he knew exactly what he could say, and he wouldn't be lying, but he didn't know if he wanted to see Dean's face when he said it. There was a line he had been dangerously close to crossing and he knew that admitting this would just about do it. So, looking at his blue eyes in the mirror, he said, gravelly, "Because I cared more about you than I did about Heaven." And he splashed more water on his face, eyes closed tight in his palms, and listened as Dean shifted uneasily, breath heavy.
"That was stupid," Dean growled, and then turned on his heels and stomped down the stairs.
After that, though, Dean seemed to regard him differently.
He began to stare longer than necessary, something that he had always reprimanded Castiel for doing before, and started watching for his reaction at seemingly unimportant times. Cas feels as though he's being studied now, as if Dean's suddenly seeing him as someone different and wondering what kind of person he is. After all, he is a little different now anyway. While he still has many of the traits that he thinks might be considered the same ones he had as an angel, his emotions have started showing much more freely despite his struggle to stay stoic. Human Castiel may reveal things that would explain what he had said earlier, and maybe Dean is hoping to catch them.
The thought of Dean's eyes boring into him causes Castiel to get those annoying bumps on his arms that should only be associated with cold, but are popping up a lot more often lately. Luckily, they go away fast, but it's enough to make his face scrunch up a little bit as he straightens out Dean's blanket on the couch. He distantly wonders if he should offer to let Dean take the bed tonight, because, after all, he might be injured. Though he pushes the thought away quickly, he still plans on asking him about it tonight. He feels bad taking the only other bed in the house all the time.
When they come home, he's just finished the living room, and has a vacuum in hand. He'd organized the books on the shelves and in stacks, in terms of their relevance to different topics and a few in the order they were written in and he really hopes that Bobby doesn't mind but it really was driving him crazy. They walk though the door, laughing, slightly bloody and stop short when they see Castiel. He smiles, and it's a genuine and large smile because they're okay and greets them, but they continue to stare.
"Dude." Dean's the first to speak, of course, but that's pretty much all he says because the rest is implied by the way he's staring around the living room that's now devoid of clutter.
Cas rubs the back of his neck nervously. "It was hard to just sit here, knowing that you guys were in danger…so I found a way to occupy myself," he mutters and he feels a slight panic that he's done the wrong thing.
When they both start laughing again, he lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. Bobby's saying something about how he forgot what color the carpet was and starts examining the newly organized books with a curious look on his face. Castiel knows that Bobby's organization probably comes from disorganization, but he says something about it being easier to find specific texts now and wanders into the kitchen for a victory beer. This, of course, starts the whole process of marveling over the cleanliness of everything and Dean making a joke about how having Cas in the house might be better than having a wife around and it's another hour or so before they're all sitting in the living room and Cas is listening to them tell the story of the vampire's nest Dean stumbled upon.
Though Castiel has been glad that Dean stayed here during his initial recovery, and was worried sick when he was on the hunt today, he likes the way Dean's face lights up when he talks about finally getting back into action. He's helping people again, and Castiel is almost angry at himself for taking it away from him. After all, he'd just gotten back into the game after Lisa when Cas called him, all pathetic and in need of care, and Dean had taken himself back out of it. He can't pretend that he hadn't been seeing the anxious looks on Dean's face on a particularly boring and uneventful day, or that he hadn't noticed that the morning paper is always scanned through too many times to just be due to an interesting story that Dean happened to stumble across. Dean is a man of movement, a wanderer, and he wasn't able to stay still at Lisa's, so why should he be able to stay still now?
Castiel's mostly quiet while they finish up their story, listening to Bobby get onto Dean about all manners of things while Dean keeps the smug look on his face that says "well it worked didn't it?" without him actually having to say it. Their banter is relaxed and easy and Cas knows that they've both been itching to start working again, which makes him both appreciate the time that they took out to help him and feel horribly guilty for it at the same time. Eventually Bobby gets up to go fix something for dinner, leaving Dean and Cas sitting alone on the couch. There's a slightly awkward silence and Castiel realizes slowly that Dean's sitting a lot closer to him than necessary and he's trying very hard to ignore it when Dean clears his throat.
"So," he starts, "you were pretty worried about me, huh?"
Castiel feels his face flush and doesn't say anything for a moment. "Yes."
"I can take care of myself, you know." There's no malice in his voice though, like he's just saying it to say it. "And if you're really worried, you can always call me."
"I wouldn't risk calling you at an inopportune moment, Dean," he mutters, though he appreciates the permission. "And I think if you didn't answer, that'd just make it worse." He doesn't want to say that it would drive him crazy and scare him half to death, but he figures that all of that might be implied or at least understood anyway.
Dean laughs. "Were you this protective of me as an angel, or is this new?"
"Always," he answers, without hesitation. "You're just more aware of it now because it's coming with stupid, human emotions." This makes Dean laugh, because of course Castiel still finds things he hates about being human. "I don't like being worried, Dean. It makes me feel…weird."
Dean pats his leg firmly, and Castiel's skin prickles and burns and his throat goes dry. "Well, as much as I appreciate it, don't get so worked up – I'm not worth a heart attack, you know." And he presses two fingers to Cas's lips suddenly, and says, gruffly, "And don't say yes you are because dammit Cas. Falling is enough."
Castiel feels as though he's forgotten how to breathe and all he can think about it the hand and those fingers and green eyes staring at him. And Dean's face is unreadable, because of course he can hide his thoughts when it comes to this, and there's still blood dried and caked on his forehead from a cut that he's forgotten about, and his fingers are probably covered in dirt and grime still, but they're rough and warm against Castiel's mouth and he feels like he's going to explode. And he hadn't been planning on saying Dean was worth a heart attack – because Dean was worth more than that. He was worth everything and Castiel wants to tell him that, yes, he did Fall for Dean, but he's now living just because Dean was upset at him for taking becoming a human too personally.
Both of them stare at each other for half a second, before Bobby calls Dean into the kitchen to help him stir the stew. He hesitates, finger pressed to Castiel's lips, hand still firm on his leg, and then he abruptly gets up and rushes out of the room as if he suddenly realized what was happening.
Cas is silent all through dinner, thoughts raging in his mind.
Both of them avoid eye contact.
disclaimer: supernatural © eric kripke