Hello! and, just to let you know, my new novel 'After the Fall' is out now on Amazon, and over at Lulu.
It gets worse.
Dean hadn't know it even could get worse, but is has. Because now that Sam knows what an angel banishing can do to him, he's gone into over-protective mode. If a demon uses that symbol on Castiel, or even near Dean, it could kill him, so Dean can't go on hunts that have even the slightest whiff of demon activity about them. He has to stay in a double protected hotel room, warded against demons, and against angels, keeping himself safe.
It's boring and frustrating, and Dean would say it was the worst thing, except that it's coupled with Sam trying to talk to him about purgatory, and about Cas, and he'd rather stay in a locked cell for the rest of his life than talk about that.
Then there's Cas himself, who, it's safe to say, is pissed with him. Only he's pissed in a uniquely Cas kind of way, because he shows up, ponys up his blood, or sticks his hand on Dean's face to draw out the excess energy, and then flits off again.
Dean knows it has to be hurting him, he remembers what happened to Castiel when they first came back, and that by not spending enough time hanging around with him the angel had to be in a lot of discomfort, even pain.
Still, he couldn't bring himself to suggest that Castiel should maybe stay for a while.
He gets through the days the only way he knows how, by drinking, picking fights with Sam, with witnesses, with strangers, and finally, inevitably, with Castiel himself.
It happens one night, about a month after Sam got clued into the whole mess, Dean comes back to the house late. It's an abandoned little place a few miles out of town, and, because there are no demons around, Sam had let him go out for a drink. Well, Sam was probably glad to have him out of the way. They weren't talking much these days, either Sam was angry with him for being so angry all the time, or Sam was trying to give him space. Either way it was tense silence ten hours a day.
Dean was drunk, very drunk. He hadn't been when he'd first left the bar, with a girl. But after they were finished, in a lay-by on a road with no signs and no passing cars, he'd driven her back to town, then parked up and finished the bottle that he'd found rolling under the car seats. By the time he got back he wasn't exactly stumbling, but is was close.
He got in, went upstairs without checking on Sam, and went into his room.
Castiel was sitting on the edge of the bed, frowning at the wall.
Dean sucked in a breath and sighed, turning away and throwing his jacket over a stack of planks that someone had left against the wall.
"Hello to you too," Castiel said.
It was the sarcasm that made Dean take note. Cas had been many things since purgatory, but snappy wasn't one of them. He sat down heavily on the bed.
"Get it over with then."
Castiel reached out and put his hand on Dean's, where it lay on his knee. He gripped it with what was probably very little of his actual strength, but it was far from gentle, and the roughness felt pointed.
Dean snatched his hand back and Castiel stood up and walked across the room, examining the cracks in the plaster.
"What the hell are you so pissy about?" Dean shot at him, because even from his vantage point he could tell that Castiel's teeth were gritted. A nice human trick he appeared to have added to his angsty repertoire.
"The fact that you were with a woman before you came here."
Dean hadn't actually expected a direct answer. Castiel usually ignored his digs and vanished. Not today though.
"I'm sorry," said Casitel, not sounding sorry at all, "was I supposed to lie?"
"Sorry if I hurt your precious feelings, shouldn't you be storming off now?"
Castiel turned and glared at him.
"I am not human," he began,
"Well that's fucking obvious."
"I am not human," Castiel snapped, "and so if you think that this...antagonism, changes anything, then you are sadly mistaken. It may help you to sling barbs at strangers, but I am not blind to what is beneath your...performance. And neither is Sam."
Dean stood up. "So you've been spying on me, again?"
"I spoke to Sam."
"Why the hell are you going behind my back to-"
"He called me!" Castiel said, cutting across him, "he called, I came, as you told me to do, remember? Even if I had nothing to offer."
Dean's body stiffened. "What did you tell him?"
"Not that he didn't already know."
"Cas-"
"That you're a stubborn idiot with more anger than sense, and that right now you hate everyone, especially anyone who sees you as more than the nothing you perceive yourself to be."
Dean glared at him for fifteen whole seconds.
"Get out."
Castiel shook his head.
"Now, Cas."
"No."
"Get out, or-"
"Or what? You cannot banish me, Dean. You can't make me go away when you find me inconvenient...so now we're even."
"Even!" Dean exploded, "You seriously think we will ever be even? After everything that..." he shook his head. "We are never going to be the same. Do you get that? Never. I don't care what we went though, I don't care that you have part of my soul, I am never going to love you."
Castiel sighed. "This isn't about that."
"Oh, sure."
"I am not trying to...coerce you into feeling for me." Castiel said vehemently, "I am not trying to force you to..." he broke off and shook his head, "the reason I'm here, the reason I keep coming here is because, quite aside from needing to be here, I want, to be here. I want, to be with you. And, while that should probably be taken as a measure of just how masochistic I have become, it is also because I have a part of your soul, and it tells me, constantly, exactly who you are. And you are not angry with me."
"Yeah I am."
Castiel looked at him. "You're terrified, Dean."
"No, I'm not." Dean shook his head, "I don't know what you're on but-"
"You know, you don't have to be." Castiel said, his fierceness softening until Dean really wishes he could stop his ears against it, and just not hear. "There are a lot of things to be afraid of right now, but I am not one of them...I wouldn't-"
"Shut up."
"...hurt you."
"Just shut up! I am not scared, I am not in denial. I want you to get out. I want you gone. Now."
He's so surprised when Castiel vanishes, that for a second he can't quite believe it.
And when the shock is followed by an ache, he forces it aside, and lies out on the bed, kicking off his shoes, and falling into a deep, intoxicated sleep.
The next morning, he emerges late, and finds that Sam is already up, and dressed, and has eaten breakfast. He's sitting in the desolate 'living room' and cleaning his guns, something that Sam actually hates doing, which is how Dean knows he's not going to like what's coming. The only reason Sam would willingly do it, was if he wanted to be available for talking, which he couldn't do if he was down at the library or internet café researching their latest monster.
Dean sat down on the sagging couch and picked up a knife and a sharpening block.
Sam went on polishing.
After a while he said, "So, walls are pretty thin here."
Dean said nothing.
Sam sighed. "I heard you fighting with Cas...sounded pretty serious."
"It wasn't."
"What was it about?"
"Just, you know, Cas stuff. Heaven, angels, rising cost of myrrh."
"Dean."
"Look, it's not important, can you just leave it?"
"No, I can't."
"Why?"
"Because it's never going to go away. As long as you need him, he'll be here, twice a day, and I cannot take you biting my head off all day in between. I cannot take you being angry 24/7, and I cannot risk you being drunk on a hunt, or getting angel zapped because you don't want to stay here, and see Cas."
Dean looked down at the knife, scraped it back and forwards, testing the edge every fifth stroke.
"Are you even listening?" Sam demanded.
"Yes."
"And?"
"Cas hasn't been by this morning."
Sam looked worried. "Why not? Don't you need him to...if you don't get his blood, won't it hurt you?"
Dean shrugged. "He'll be here later."
"Because he wouldn't leave you, or punish you for making things hard for him."
Dean glared. "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means that you're being an ass. And Castiel is probably suffering right now because of you."
"Sam, do me a favour and just stay out of this."
"I don't even know what 'this' is!" Sam said, exasperated. "Why are you being so...I don't get it, ok? Is this about you needing his blood, or..."
"Or what?"
Sam looked him dead in the eye. "About you being gay, Dean."
There was a handful of frozen seconds, where Dean just stared at him. Then his eyes fell to the knife and started sharpening again. After a moment more he said,
"I'm not gay."
"So what is the deal with you and Castiel right now? Because the way he looks sometimes...the way he talked to me when I called him..."
"Which you shouldn't have done."
"He's in love with you." Sam said, loudly, making Dean's whole body break out in uncomfortable gooseflesh. "And whatever happened with you two in purgatory, I seriously doubt it stopped with just you giving him part of your soul. I saw it on your face the second I brought you back. You were terrified."
Dean threw the knife down and stood up. "I am not gay."
Sam looked up at him, and Dean was struck by the look on his face. Sam didn't believe him.
"Did you and Cas have sex, in purgatory?" Sam asked.
"I'm not-"
"I'm not asking if you're gay. I'm asking if you and Cas had sex."
Dean's face set, hard. "No."
"So you did." Sam said, knowing Dean's lying face better than anyone else. Almost anyone. "and since you got back."
"No."
"But you've come close."
"No." Dean looked away.
"Do you love him?" It was costing Sam a lot to ask these questions. To push so far against the grain of his brother that he could see Dean's psyche shifting, crumbling. To assault him, and make him talk about what he'd been hiding for months.
"No."
"Thought so."
Dean looked like he wanted to kill him. Actual, burning anger radiated from him so strongly that Sam was actually a little scared.
"We don't have to talk about it anymore, right now. If you don't want to."
Dean walked out of the room, and second later Sam heard the sound of the car starting up outside. The rasp of gravel as Dean drove away.
He didn't know then that he wouldn't be seeing his brother for over a week.
