When Dean woke the next time Castiel was already up. Covering a fake yawn with his hand, Dean wiped away his unattractive drool. He swung his legs off the bed and sat up to attention.
The partially packed duffel and the neatly laid out clothes from the goodwill store over the maps on the other bed, showed Castiel had been busy. The slices of pie sat on napkins copying the way Dean had laid out the bagels earlier. There was a scattering of pencil shavings on the floor and Dean's shorter knife lay on the table next to Castiel. It must have been employed to pare down the nub of pencil. Castiel was still in the white tee and he was scribbling furiously.
Channeling his best Joey Tribbiani, Dean chanted, "Hey Cas. How you doin'?"
While the Friends reference may passed over his head, the words resulted in a wide toothy smile from Castiel. Dean found his own face responding in kind.
"Yeah, me too. Whatcha writing?"
Castiel put up a finger to let Dean know he needed a minute. Dean took the opportunity to hit the head, shuck on his jeans and boots and crank up the coffee maker. He glanced in the mirror over the unit of drawers. A strained grimace at his fluffy hair led to snort of self-loathing and blind rooting in the newly packed bag. He pulled out the pot of petroleum jelly and slathered it on his palms. Back at the mirror he ran it through his hair, spiking it up. It made good emergency hair gel. He didn't realize he had an audience until he saw Castiel biting hard on his pencil stub. Dean shrugged, feeling like a tween-boy caught being vain.
"So wassup Cas?" Dean smirked away his embarrassment.
Castiel gave him a knowing close lipped smile. He pushed the pie towards him. That was enough invitation for any pie-loving soul. Dean bit into the sweet spiced apple and pastry. He moaned his appreciation for well made baked goods. Castiel had broken off a corner of his slice and was licking his fingertips. Dean wondered if Cas was going to eat every meal by breaking off pieces. He didn't know if he was going to able to control his urge to lick the fleck of apple off Castiel's lips if he kept up the finger sucking.
Coffees ready, Dean added creamer and sugar. He noticed as he took the couple of steps back to the table, that there was a pattern of pink dots on the back of Sam's tee from Castiel's re-opened wounds.
"Cas, man? Would you lift up the t-shirt? I want to look at your back."
Castiel pulled the clothing off completely, balling it up and placing it on the other side of the table. Dean assessed the expanse of flesh with a critical eye. Things were not any worse. In fact, it looked markedly better than earlier. The blood spotting had resulted from where the cotton pressed against the cleaned small cuts.
"Looking better." Dean let his satisfaction with the improvement leak into his pronouncement. He retook his seat and passed over the other coffee. They ate in comfortable near-silence. Dean made the occasional click of his tongue in food appreciation. Castiel's pencil made a few final scratches against the paper.
"You writing a novel? Am I in it?" Dean was curious about all the tightly filled lines of text.
Rolling his eyes, Castiel crossed out one word and substituted another. Then he handed the book to Dean. It weighed heavier than a little notepad should. Castiel immediately busied around, clearing the napkins, rinsing the coffee cups, and disappearing to the bathroom.
Dean tilted his chair onto its back legs and propped his boots on the table. He licked a sweet speck from the angle of his lips and prepared to read.
Dean.
You have asked what occurred.
There are not enough pages or words to explain….
I fell...
Then I fell again and again. I see many things from my long existence when I close my eyes. Repeatedly Metatron slashes though my vessel's throat and rips my Grace. Other times I see the first time we met and I cover your soul with my wings.
Dean put down the book. He lifted his hands to his face, covered his nose and mouth and pressed into the corners of his eyes with his pointer fingers. He dragged his fingers down his skin and took a deep breath. "Fuck it, Cas." This was difficult to read.
You asked what happened. At the first dawn in the forest I walked north believing Kansas lay that way. In folly, I continued at night. Human eyes and pre-sentience failed me and I fell from a precipice. A juniper tree broke my fall but dislocated my shoulder and damaged my ankle in a temporary but painful manner.
Dean looked up to tell Castiel it had been a sprain and that he was safe now, but the bathroom door was still shut.
I spent several days by a stream recovering until hunger drove me on. A trail sign informed me that I was in Wyoming. I turned south. Some hikers shared food with me. They offered company but I moved on. When I emerged to roads and civilization, I was weakened by the necessity for food. My feet pained me and in the sun my vision swam. I was hit by a vehicle. My body rose up the bonnet and the windshield impacted my back and elbow. I rolled off. The vehicle did not stop, rather increased speed. I believed I was dying and regretted most profoundly that I had not found you.
Dean ran a hand over his mouth. "Fuck it Cas. Why didn't you get the first hikers to phone me? I would have come for you, you idiot."
A kind lady found me. She took me home to Gillette, fed me and let me rest. She gave me the pencil and this book. She arranged for a neighbor to give me a ride to Douglas. He works for the Forest Service and had to call to Thunder Basin and deliver a package to the district office in Douglas. The roadblock at the city limits spooked me. The next car that responded to my outstretched thumb was skirting the north of the city and heading here to Casper.
There was so much missing from this account. What roadblock at Douglas? Dean had driven along I-25 and there had been no obstructions. Granted it was before 6am. Why hadn't the 'kind lady' taken Cas to the ER? What had happened in Casper that he had felt safest behind a carwash?
It was two tightly written pages of loss, pain and fear. Dean gulped. He couldn't imagine it. Back from Hell, in control of his own physical body after forty years, Dean had found it jarring, weird, and fucking liberating. He'd been determined and focused on finding Sam, amid his confusion and the piercing audio of Castiel's real voice, former real voice now. For Cas, though, it must be confusing to vastly understate it. He had a body now. He was rooted in flesh, not able to shift into a celestial wavelength and then slip back into his vessel. His wanderings had been disorientated and downright dangerous. He fell from a cliff, was hit by a car, took rides from strangers who could have been evil sonsabitches.
When Castiel tentatively stepped from the bathroom Dean grabbed him in a fierce hug.
"You coulda been fucking killed, you…" The words were lost when Castiel's arms slotted around Dean's waist, "You nearly died on me, twice, three times if you count Meta-dick."
Dean choked up. His hand rubbed softly on Castiel's windshield injured bare skin. He needed to keep touching Cas. He needed to know that Cas was there, not dead in a forest or in some serial hitchhiker killer's basement.
"I don't know what I'd have done. Every time you leave me I shut down a little more. If you hadn't have come back this time..." Dean's voice trailed away.
Castiel withdrew his upper body a few inches. Their hips and legs still met. He narrowed his eyes, like he had when he asked Dean why he didn't believe he deserved to be saved, like he had before he had showed the hunter what really went down at the Purgatory portal. Then Castiel's face softened, as if he had found the answer he was seeking in Dean's eyes. He tilted his head forward. Dean moved on autopilot to meet him, drawn in by the motion. He mirrored Castiel. Their foreheads leaned against each other.
Time froze around them. Castiel inclined his head so that their noses tipped. Dean grinned and wiggled his face.
An Eskimo kiss.
A breathy hushed laugh left Castiel, whose hand came away from Dean's lower back and snaked up his Metallica tee to press fingers into his cheekbone by his ear. This time Dean didn't grab his wrist. He didn't pull away. He didn't allow that inner voice of doubt airtime. He leaned in a little more and pressed their lips together, then nipped and sucked tiny almost innocent kisses along Castiel's lower lip. Cas met him with his own caress, a more lingering one that moved to open tastes of pie and coffee, a hint of mint, and the soft warm inside of Castiel's cheek. Tangling slowly, a trace on the sloppy side, but not lacking in depth of feeling. Castiel's other hand moved languidly down to cup Dean's butt cheek. The phrase 'cheek-to-cheek' popped into his head. He didn't think it meant when a guy held your butt and face cheeks in each hand. Then Castiel hummed around his tongue and any random thoughts vanished. He was back in the present tense, holding Castiel, kissing Castiel, being kissed back by Castiel, breathing, tasting, feeling Castiel. There was no wrong here, only right, only as it should be, as Dean wanted to hold on to. He wanted this to last. He wanted this moment to stretch infinite and unending. They were in a bubble. The All Singing All Dancing Crap of The World could take a ticket and get in line. This was real. This was now. Dean was keeping this.
_ Author's note _
I'm crying now.
