This is a bit of an angsty chapter, but I hope Destiel feels will make up for it. Thank you, Ravenwolf36 for recommending this song! Chapter Text
Today, Castiel was sad.
Dean had pieced this together from the set of his jaw, the downcast blue eyes. Little things which helped him stumble through his and Cas' emotional stupidity.
It happened, every now and again. It wasn't like Dean Winchester's crash course in rock'n'roll minus the sex and drugs was really going to fix an angel's existential crisis. The signs were becoming all too familiar. Silence which stretched beyond the usual, clasping and unclasping his hands as he stared off into space, lip occasionally trembling and refusing to meet Dean's eyes, those were the signs. Dean didn't have any fucking idea what to do. Cas had taken to locking himself into distant rooms of the bunker when he got like this, and it took Dean hours to find him. Once he did find him, Dean just stood there, unable to say anything. More often than not, he slid down the wall to sit on the floor next to Cas, sometimes letting their shoulder brush. There was something so profound about Cas' sadness that Dean didn't dare to touch it with a witty hello or a shot of whiskey.
Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair. It was barely eleven o'clock, and a summer rainstorm had taken him by surprise. Sam was running errands, picking up beer and whatever girly essentials he needed. Dean paused. Where was Cas this time?
After scouring every room in the bunker, putting off the eventuality of what he might say or do once he found the angel, he noticed that the room with the cassette player's door was shut. Frowning, he gave three ginger knocks. There was no response, and Dean opened the heavy door.
Not entirely to his surprise, Castiel was sitting on the floor. Clasped in his hands was a slim book, and he looked almost naked without the long trench coat. Dean stood frozen in the doorway, met with the familiar thought, What the fuck do I do now?
"Hey." The hunter said, pausing by Castiel's shoulder.
Cas offered a sigh. Dean sat down by his side, and after a brief moment of hesitation Cas shuffled closer, until their shoulders pressed together. The contact felt… safe. Dean chewed his lip for a few moments, before crawling on his knees over to the cassette deck. He knew the cassette he was looking for, even if he wasn't sure he wanted to find it. He returned to Cas' side, sitting just as close as he had been before.
"Talk to me," he said over the soft yet scratchy guitar solo starting up.
Cas rested the book under his knees, taking no care to preserve his place. "I started to read poetry. Emily Dickens."
"Oh." Dean swallowed. Poetry was not, perhaps, his strong suit. "Do you… like it?"
"I understand it." Castiel spoke again after a minute. "I wish I didn't."
Listen to my bluebird laugh, she can't tell you why
Dean found himself rolling in a wave of thought which was rather inescapable. It started with Castiel rescuing him from hell, had Cas rebelling for him somewhere in the middle and ended with, Did I break you? Of course, it was immediately followed by You idiot, he's not broken. Cas was never broken. He was an angel, with all the whole steely soul and badass motherfucker status that went along with it. To think that he'd broken an angel… that was a whole new level of arrogance, even for Dean. Plus, he was just a blip on the radar in the life of an eternal being. No, Cas couldn't be broken.
Deep within her heart, you see, she knows only cryin'
Dean's throat had dried up, so he was glad when Cas finally spoke again. "I don't know what to do."
Just cryin', yeah
"What do you want to do?" Dean asked, hearing echoes of their conversation that first day he'd found Cas crying.
There she sits, a lofty perch, strangest color blue
Cas didn't say anything for a long time. Dean wasn't even sure he'd heard the question, until the response came, harsh and blunt. "I want you."
Flying is forgotten now, thinks of only of you
Dean's eyes widened, staring into Cas', oceans of blue that seemed to drag between them as he utterly failed to comprehend what the angel had just said.
Just you, oh
"I mean," Cas blinked, looking away. What a weirdly human gesture. "I want to be here, with you and Sam. It feels… like family, I suppose." He refused to meet Dean's gaze. "Like it did in heaven. Except without the chain of command, of course."
Dean smiled, but it felt like his face was cracking in two. He wasn't sure what the emotions roiling in the pit of his stomach were, but they felt an awful lot like guilt and happiness and sadness and the strangest disappointment all in one.
So get all those blues, must be a thousand hues
"Maybe I don't deserve that," Cas contemplated, staring into his palm. "Maybe I need to atone for the things I did, in heaven and on earth." The words came falling out, bitterness spilling across them. "Maybe I ought to stop being so caught up worrying about whether I'm some angel freak of nature and moping in your living room all day, and go out and do something important. I mean, you never get to watch the bees, really, do you?"
And be just differently used, you just know
Oh, Cas. "Listen to me." Dean said, gritting his teeth. That painful ache in the back of his throat was not tears wanting to come, he was not going to cry now. "You're a hero." Cas let out a low laugh. "What you did wrong, you did it because you cared too much. You tried to do right and that's the damned best thing any of us ever do. So don't go out there because you think you're a bad angel and want to get reinstated as heaven's bitch, and don't go out there because you think you failed." Cas' face morphed into a tiny flicker of a frown.
You sit there mesmerized by the depth of her eyes
"But if you gotta go… go." Dean's voice was quiet. "I mean, I've said it before, I'm a crappy role model. You oughta go find some monks or hippies or something to teach you about life." He laughed nervously.
That you can categorize
She got soul, she got soul, she got soul, she got soul
Cas shook his head. "Maybe someday." Assuming Cas didn't die horrifically, he'd be along for centuries after Dean. Dean frowned, wondering if Cas would stay with Sam and Dean until they were dust in the wind. What a weird thought. "But the monks weren't the ones who made me question free will and destiny and taught me about humans, Dean."
Do you think she loves you?
Do you think, at all?
Dean watched Cas over the clawhammer banjo solo, soft strings running the length of the room. Maybe trying to teach Cas what it was like to be human had been a stupid idea. Dean didn't know the first thing about it, to start with. How could someone as fucked up as him help Cas? His brain offered a mental bitter laugh. He'd tied Cas down too long. Cas should be out there, helping people if it made him happy, watching the birds fly. Far away from the Winchesters and their fucking cursed lives. He was an angel, after all. Dean winced. Maybe it was like all the times he couldn't let Sam die. But it wasn't that he was afraid of Cas leaving, because Cas left all the time. The stinging realization came that if Cas left now, he'd never come back.
It was all too real, too raw and all together too much of a chick flick moment.
They'd been through too much together. Hell, purgatory, here and now and then and something in Dean's gut cried out when he thought of losing Cas, again. But the angel wasn't happy here, and maybe it was selfish of the hunter to keep him here, trying to make them both happy by fumbling through the half-life he could teach Cas about. They were happy, he realized. Sometimes. In those hidden moments, listening to music, Sam there or away, when they got lost in childlike, human things and forgot about the monsters.
Soon she's goin to fly away, sadly is her own
"I don't want to go." Cas grimaced, unclasping his hands. In an instant, they went from shaking to steady. "But Dean, I'm deadweight here."
Gives herself a bath of tears
Dean blinked. Deadweight. He'd never thought of it that way. "You… you're not." He seemed to have to gulp for air. "You can hunt with me and Sam if you want. Save people. It might not be all big and cosmic, but it's real. Cas, if leaving will make you happy, then do it." Cas closed his eyes. "But, I, uh," Fuck, how did it get to him saying this? "Stay."
and go home, and go home
Castiel looked him straight in the face, eyes wide, and offered a single nod. They stayed like that, sitting close together but barely touching, as the last strains of Buffalo Springfield danced around the room. Nothing was really different, but there was a change in the air.
Later, Cas asked if he could have the cassette, which had a few other songs dubbed onto it. Dean pressed it into his hand wordlessly and Cas slipped it into the pocket of his trench coat. Dean knew they were just like one of Bobby's old trucks, lovingly repaired but poised to break down at the drop of a hat. For now though, they were driving steady, and it was all right.