A/N: Awe look at me. Updating at a normal time :D:D Idk when this is gonna end but for now I think it's still going? I'd like to embellish on the romance aspect of this a little bit. :3 I hope you like it~
Soundtrack: Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade (Personally I like the cover by justinrobinett on youtube :3)
The Day I Fly Away
XIV
Castiel's bare feet were thunder on the cold tile floor (why was the floor alway so cold?) His breath rushed in and out of his tired lungs as if pulled by the tide of the sea, completely and beyond his control. His hair was disheveled and sticking out of place. What was the use of keeping up appearances in a place where everyone looked right through you anyways? His clothes were white as the wall behind him and the light ahead he could see from his eyes- he rushed and rushed and opened the door to Dean's office without any warning or knocking. Dean was alone in the room, scratching away at a piece of paper with a pen. Or was it a pencil?
"Dean-" Castiel gasped. His breath ran away from him. "I did it- I passed- the test- I passed."
Dean had a plasticy face on of surprise, and Castiel figured he'd already known, (of course he had), and Dean was always a terrible actor. It was like when he put on his doctor-voice. Nonetheless, his eyes were bright like the evening star and proudness flickered in and out of his being. He was proud of him.
"What?" we've been over this. He already knew. Don't pretend you didn't. "Really?" Sigh. "That's- That's amazing!"
Still the words made Castiel's heart beat faster. His face was flushed from running and his chest had started to calm, air starting to sit heavy in his lungs. His eyes were still wide, still vibrant blue, that blue that captured Dean's like the grass met the blue sky horizon. It'd been nearly two months of waiting for the results, two finger-nail-biting months, moons tossing and turning at night, for they couldn't sleep either. Now they could though. Now the night fell upon them.
Dean's pen lay on its side, abandoned, and only the soft sounds of people passing around the corner tittered up inside the walls of the room. Castiel still stood in the doorway. Dean looked at him expectantly, like he was supposed to walk a step more and into the room. Perhaps he would, and he did, he closed the door behind him and sat in the chair. The room felt warmer, oh so warm with his feet picked up from the floor and tucked under his legs in the chair. Dean watched him, and Castiel tried to think back to the first day he'd come in. Did the same intensity ring through Dean's eyes then or did something in Castiel bring that out?
Castiel pressed his lips into a small smile and glanced down at the floor. He didn't know what to say. Meeting Dean- everything after- it felt like an adventure; something to be recorded. He was so grateful, so blessed to have these memories buzzing around his mind, behind his eyes, behind his hair. He patted the pockets of his thin hospital-given clothes. He couldn't find the Sorry pieces. He oddly didn't care.
"So what are you going to do now?" Dean asked quietly. "Like… What do you want to be?" When you grow up was tacked to the end and taken down again. Castiel was already grown up, or so he looked.
"I don't know," Castiel said quietly.
Dean didn't seem nearly as discouraged as Castiel was. "That's all right," he said, "We'll figure it out."
We.
"What are we, Dean?" Castiel couldn't help but asking.
Slow songs filtered up from the floor and Castiel could have sworn to see them. The silence between them was soft like a kitten's coat, and instead of nervousness that should have squeezed Castiel's arm, it was comfort. He didn't need Dean to respond. It didn't matter what Castiel was to Dean, for Castiel knew what Dean was to him. Dean was his everything.
"What do you want to be?" he asked quietly.
"Don't do that," Castiel almost laughed, almost yelled. He spoke the words quietly, though. He didn't do either of what he almost did. "Don't play doctor, play therapist to me-" he stopped himself, as if his words had been cut from his throat. "Be true to me."
"What I want to be to you?" Dean clarified, though it seemed hesitant, "What I am already? What you are?"
All these fucking labels, meaningless, oh so meaningless. They didn't matter. Love was not something in words, but in the heart and in actions.
"You're mine," Castiel said without any doubt. "You're everything that could ever hold a place in my life. Everything I could ever want."
Dean dragged a hand over his face and leaned back in his chair crookedly. He breathed in deeply and muttered something that sounded like "fuck" but could have easily have been something more eloquent though Castiel doubted it.
"When do you leave?" Dean changed topics. It was too heavy.
Castiel licked his dry lips and sighed. "Two days. Later. I don't know. I'm allowed to leave whenever. I'm-" the word felt so strange on his lips, "Sane. Safe."
Dean nodded, eyes downcast and face pensive. "Do you know where you're going? Where you're staying?"
Castiel's heart caught in his throat with a weak butterfly net in a moment of nervousness. "W-Well… You said something about staying at your house, or- if you weren't serious-"
"I was!" Dean interjected before Castiel could continue. Blue eyes wide like the sky behind the window. "I mean- Yeah, I was serious about it. If you wanted to."
Another small smile, painted in watercolor over Castiel's skin. "I'd like to."
Dean returned it. "I'd like you to, too."
The smile grew bigger and Dean's as a result. There was a soft tapping noise and it took a few seconds to for Castiel to realize someone was knocking on the door. Dean's wrist flung up in front of his face and he said, "Shit- I have a patient coming in now. We can talk about this later, all right?"
Castiel nodded, a small nod, and he stood. The door opened just before he reached it and a thin boy with dark, crazed eyes and slumped shoulders trudged in and sat heavily in the chair across from Dean. He didn't blink or even recognize that Castiel was in the room, and so Castiel left without another word.
He closed the door to his bedroom, or what used to be, and looked upon it. It was home to him, for the longest time, it was.
Perhaps it's time to find a new home, though.
Everything felt so surreal after that. Castiel didn't have much to pack up, just one or two drawings he made in the activities room and didn't want to part with. Everything else was owned by the hospital, and he wasn't too attached to anything anyways. He sat on his bare bed, stripped of sheets to be washed for a new patient. He was leaving when Dean's shift was over. He stared through the empty space of the room, as if it would whisper back to him like it once did. He could almost see the outline of Meg's or Gabriel's figure if he tried hard enough, but he didn't. It wasn't sane to want to live in the mind instead of the real world. Castiel wondered how the real world could be remotely as nice as any kind of reality the mind could create. Maybe he'd draw more or write another universe. Those were temporary escapes.
His hands wove together like thread in his lap. He'd worn these same hospital clothes, white or blue or grey like the movies. There didn't use to be distributed clothes like this, but once maybe a few years ago a girl used her hair ribbon and belt to hang herself in her room, and in other occasions long-sleeved shirts were used to hurt people, so now they just wore the same short-sleeved, thin material, shirt and pants with elastic waist bands.
He wasn't sure how long exactly it was when Dean knocked on the door of his room. His head snapped up, heart already beating faster and faster and faster, skipping like a scratched record, Dean opened the door.
"Ready?" he asked like Castiel hadn't been ready before he'd knocked. Castiel nodded quickly and stood up.
Castiel followed Dean through the hallway. There was this thing squirming up inside his ribcage and banging around; Castiel didn't know it it was excitement or nervousness or something else. Everyone else in the hospital was in their room. There was a curfew. There was a woman at the desk, typing at a computer and she smiled at Dean and Castiel as they passed her. Castiel wondered if Dean had said something to her about them leaving today.
The door opened like a fault through the earth's crust. Suddenly hit with a new type of air, hot and humid, chattering and horns honking and shouting around the streets. A man in a suit waved his arm and yelled something and a yellow car with the word TAXI on the side pulled up next to him. The man got in. Dean was walking along the sidewalk and Castiel followed closely by his side with his eyes wide and taking in everything around them. He hadn't seen the outside world for what felt like his entire life, or what he allowed himself to remember. He'd been outside in the garden at the hospital, but it hadn't been hardly this noisy, this chaotic.
The noises drowned out as they got closer to the parking garage, though they were still a dull buzz in the background. He followed Dean to a black car, and pulled the door open after Dean had already climbed in. It felt like he was dreaming, though everything felt so vivid. How would one go about living in a dream? Such a monstrous change, how to adapt? Dean was talking, idle chatter, about how the car was a 1967 Chevy Impala and how he loved it. He asked Castiel what type of music he liked, and Castiel shrugged.
Everything was moving too fast, too quick, one moment Castiel was back in his bedroom (except that it wasn't anymore) and the next he's in a car with lights flashing past them as they drove through night traffic. Castiel still wore his hospital clothes, and Dean told him they'd get him new clothes tomorrow. Dean did most of the talking. Castiel had no idea what to say, where to start when suddenly plunged into ice cold water without knowing how to swim, only that Dean was his life raft.
The car stopped before Castiel could properly understand the concept of being in a car and Dean was already getting out. Castiel did the same. He didn't know what to do other than to do the same. Dean was talking again, grinning and telling about the apartment building. Dean, apparently, lived on the third floor. There was an option for an elevator, but Dean normally walked up the stairs. Castiel did the same.
There were all these new smells, all these new people, people who spoke to other when they spoke, people who ate their food with utensils, people who didn't even blink when a car honked its horn. These people were normal. Castiel wondered who sat down and wrote down the list of things that made a man normal.
The door to Dean's apartment was open, and Castiel realized Dean had gone inside already. He could faintly hear Dean talking. He took a step in and closed the door behind him. The click of the door's lock was thunderous.
"-And here's the kitchen, the bathroom is down there. I've about got your room cleaned up, but it was kind of a mess when I started so it'll need a little work. Cas?"
Castiel looked up suddenly, pulled from his thoughts like someone cut the rope he'd been climbing with. He fell.
"You all right?"
"I'm fine," Castiel insisted. "It's just… All new."
Dean nodded. "Well that's to be expected," he said and motioned for Castiel to follow him. "Come on, I'm gonna show you your room and you can wear something of mine instead of those things."
Castiel walked out of his room again in a pair of jeans and an T-Shirt that had a band name on it. Even though Dean said the room was still a mess, Castiel rather liked it in comparison with his other one, bare walls and floor. Dean's home felt so right. Castiel never wanted to leave. Dean smiled when he saw him and said, "There you go! You look great!" making Castiel glance back down at his clothes like he'd never seen them before.
Dean insisted on making burgers for Castiel's first night out of the hospital because "hospital food wasn't any good." Castiel helped a little, though most of the time he just stood to the side awkwardly until Dean asked him to pass him a spice or knife or spatula. Like Dean had said ten times while cooking the burgers, they were really amazing. They sat at Dean's dining table which wasn't that big because Dean said he didn't get visitors often.
Dean ate two and Castiel only ate one. After that Dean suggested a movie, but it was almost eleven at night, and going to bed at nine every night in the past, Castiel couldn't stay awake another minute. His eyelashes felt heavier each second.
"Go to bed," Dean laughed softly.
Castiel nodded sloppily, or rather his head just moved around in a way that could have been a nod, and he walked into the room Dean had named his. The blankets smelled like Dean, and Castiel fell into the most comfortable sleep he'd had in a long, long time. He didn't remember turning off the light, but it had turned off sometime since he'd laid down.