"Back again, Dean?"
Gabriel grins widely as Dean nervously opens the front door.
"Have you been waiting for me to come in?" Dean asks. "How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to know it took you an embarrassing amount of tries to get the guts to come in," Gabriel snorts. Dean glowers.
"Anyone ever tell you you're a dick?"
"All the time," Gabriel beams. "You coming in, or what?"
Dean glances worriedly, momentarily, at the doorframe, before stepping inside. Gabriel watches him with amusement lacing his gaze.
"The house doesn't bite, you know," He smirks. Dean rolls his eyes.
"It's not the house I'm worried about," He answers, which earns him a bark of laughter from Castiel's older brother.
"Yeah, I'd almost forgotten about that fight, yesterday."
"No you hadn't," Dean grates his teeth together and makes his way down the corridor, to the living room, where he suspects Cas will be.
"Yeah, maybe not," Gabriel admits with a brilliant smile. "But shiva is boring. Can you blame me for being entertained by it?" Dean shrugs in answer, and Gabriel continues. "Speaking of, d'you think you're gonna have another fight, today? 'Cause that'd be the perfect end to the perfect week."
This comment comes out sardonic and droll and Gabriel's voice cracks strangely in his throat. Dean glances at him as if to reconsider the man he has know some twenty-three years.
"It's been shitty, huh?" He asks. Perhaps his tone and expression are just the right amount of sympathetic and frank, because for the first time this week, Gabriel's shoulders slump earnestly, and his expression clears with sorrow and despondency and exhaustion.
"Shitty?" He repeats. "Yeah." A thick swallow, and then he continues. Dean glances quickly, subtly as he can about the room for sign of Castiel, but he isn't here. "Nobody gets—" He cuts himself off, looking down. "They're all like, hey, my dad died two years ago, but it wasn't unexpected for them. The had warning. And I know you can't prepare for it, of course you can't ever prepare for it—but after mom, you'd think—right? You'd think we'd get fair notice. Right?"
He looks up at Dean with the eyes of a pleading man. Dean's brow slopes with sympathy.
"Right," He agrees. Then, "You angry about it?"
"Pissed," Gabriel's lip curls minutely. "I don't know if Cas or Michael get that. But I'm pissed. This isn't fair. This isn't how things are supposed to happen."
"Yeah," Dean agrees. "It's shit."
Gabriel looks at Dean intently.
"But you get that, don't you, Dean?" Dean falters, unsure what it is Gabriel means, but he continues. "I mean—I know this is way out of line for me to say—but your dad died in an accident—so you get it, don't you? It's like, he's been ripped away from you. And there's no time for goodbyes, no time for—for anything. You're just left. Half a person, it feels like."
Dean reaches out to Gabriel without thinking, hand on his shoulder.
"Totally," He agrees. "And being pissed about it—that's fine. That's right. It's right, if it's how you feel. That's what Jimmy said to me when my dad died, and it was like, the only thing anyone said that comforted me. So now I'm saying it to you. Jimmy was pretty much the only person who comforted me, except—"
Speak of the devil.
Gabriel follows Dean's gaze to the doorway, where his younger brother now stands.
"Cas," Dean finishes, both as greeting, and as an end to his sentence. Castiel's lips twitch up minutely, though reluctantly, and he steps into the room.
"I'll fuck off," Gabriel slips away from Dean and out the room, Dean's gaze follows him only for a moment before it returns to Castiel.
"Thank you for coming," Cas says, sitting down on one of the low chairs at the wall of the room.
"That's—" Dean's throat contracts. "That's totally fine, Cas."
Castiel smiles a little more perceptibly, this time.
"No gifts, tonight?" He asks, almost with amusement. Dean flushes. He sits in the chair opposite Castiel's.
"Uh—" He fumbles, "actually, I found—and obviously, you'll probably already have a copy of this—but I found this really nice edition—"
Cas eyes him with something not too far removed from suspicion. It puts Dean even more at unease.
"You probably won't even want it—" His face is burning and feels as though it flakes at its corners like paper when it catches alight, but he reaches into his jacket pocket along the lining of the inside, and pulls out the Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, in an old hardback copy with a pretty icy blue cover that does not, absolutely not, remind Dean of Castiel's eyes. "And I dunno—do you even like him? Maybe it was a stupid gift, but I saw it, and I thought—well, poems always used to cheer you up—"
Castiel begins to laugh. Dean stops rambling, totally taken aback, and lets the book fall onto his lap.
He stares questioningly at Cas.
"I've—after so many years of knowing you, Dean," Castiel rumbles, eyes surprisingly warm, and—watery? "I honestly feel as though I only ever knew of you."
Uh, right.
"What?"
"What I mean," Castiel chuckles, "is that you still, somehow, manage to surprise me."
"Oh," Dean looks down. Then he presses the book into Cas's hand. "So is it okay?"
"Okay?" Castiel repeats, frowning quizzically. Dean gestures down to the book in answer. "Oh," The writer's expression turns warm again. Dean hasn't seen it so warm in years. What has he done to deserve this kind of warmth? "Yes, Dean," Castiel confirms. "More than okay. Very—it's very thoughtful of you. All of this. I'd almost forgotten how thoughtful you were. Are." He corrects himself.
Dean flushes furiously at this undue praise, and Cas notices, his expression turning troubled on account of Dean's blushing.
Which—ah, shit. Dean is only just remembering how it is things happened, all those years ago. Cas thinks, inevitably, that Dean is blushing because he's embarrassed to be complemented by a guy who happens to be attracted to other dudes. And Cas thinks that Dean is the straightest arrow out there—which, even though it's Dean's fault Castiel thinks this—still couldn't be further from the truth.
"I, uh—" Dean looks down. "You're giving me more credit than I'm due. I've been a shitty friend. I want to be a better one."
Castiel's expression is soft.
"I don't think you've been a shitty friend, Dean."
The words are spoken gently, almost whispered, and they still somehow manage to pummel at Dean's soul, turning it black and blue.
"And I don't think you're telling the truth—"
"People grow apart," Castiel rolls his eyes. "People have fights. Isn't that normal? Does that make you a shitty friend? Of course not. I'm not angry about what happened. Not anymore."
Dean really can't look at Cas, now. Neither of them have mentioned what happened that night, neither of them have mentioned the fight, since first seeing each other this week, for the first time in nine years. It has weighed heavy between them, and swung like a pendulum, gaining momentum and pressing resentment into each of their interactions, but now Castiel has actually acknowledged it.
So what next?
"Well, you should be," Dean answers, gruff. "I would be."
Castiel glares.
Obviously, and once again, Dean has said entirely the wrong thing.
"What does that even mean? And why do you say it?"
Dean opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.
"I don't understand you, Dean," Castiel repeats the sentiment, again, and shakes his head. "I don't think I ever will. Maybe once I did—or, thought I did—but you're so intent on digging up the past. And in a mangled, bruising way. It's ugly. It feels ugly. Why is that? Why do you do it?"
Dean shrugs, avoiding Cas's gaze.
Because I didn't get any closure.
Because you just left, and I never got to explain myself.
Because you don't even seem to care any more. And I want to see if you still do, if you ever did.
"Because—" Dean tries, "I don't," His lips turn downward and he begins to feel ill. "Because Jimmy was like a father to me, too."
Castiel's expression softens.
"Well, I know that, Dean."
Do you?
"In any case," Castiel begins again, tone a little more practical and far less emotive, "thank you for the book. It was very thoughtful, and I'm grateful for it. It's a nice edition. And I like Dylan Thomas—so you needn't worry."
Dean smiles weakly.
"I was, uh—at Jimmy's burial—I couldn't stop thinking about that poem you showed me."
Castiel's head inclines to the side.
"Which poem, Dean?"
"The one—Allen Ginsberg?—And you showed me it, because it reminded you of your mom—"
"Song?" Castiel asks. "Or Kaddish?"
"Kaddish," Dean answers. He plays with his hands. "Anyway, I couldn't stop thinking about it. The lines kept running through my head."
"It's quite a long poem, Dean," Castiel replies, almost with a laugh, and Dean is tempted to feel affronted, that Castiel would even think to mock or tease him at this confession.
"Well, yeah," He agrees, "but my head was moving that fast. It wouldn't shut up. I couldn't stop thinking about things—about a lot of things. And that was one of the things. The lines just kept reeling through my brain."
Castiel nods, gaze on the floor, rather than Dean.
"I think I was a little different to that," He says, slowly. "My brain kind of shut down. My limbs felt disjointed. I was—" He laughs shortly, but it turns bitter and distorted in an instant. "I was a stranger in my own body. That's how it felt. Everything was numbness."
Dean's throat closes up, eyes stinging.
He wonders if, now, of all times, if he told Castiel the truth—the truth of how he feels, how he has always felt, and explained away the lies—if Castiel would return the sentiment. Tell Dean he loves him, too. Tell Dean he is forgiven. Tell Dean he wants to make a home with him, forever.
But no. It's too late. Of course it's too late.
"I know I'm maybe the last person you'd want to talk to, Cas," Dean acknowledges, "and you must've gotten a lot of these offers from a lot of different people, by now; but if you ever need anything—anything—a friend, someone to vent to, someone to—" Dean cuts himself off. "Anything," He starts again, "just say the word. And I'll be here. I promise."
Castiel stares at Dean with glittering eyes.
His voice comes out short and crackles in his throat.
"Thank you, Dean."
"It's nothing," Dean shakes his head. "You're family, Cas," He decides. "We—I—care about you."
And he means it. But Castiel can never know how much.
