Chapter 51.
Cas put his phone away and gave Dean his full attention. "You look a lot better." he said, "And you smell better."
"Yeah, orchids." said Dean, "I feel like an Asian bordello."
Cas smiled.
"Don't laugh at me, Cas. It was all that was available and it's better than the smell of sweat."
"I like it." said Cas.
Dean sniffed his arm. "It's okay, isn't it?" He sat on his bed. "Okay, Feathers, we need to talk."
Cas braced himself for complaints about him taking the child into the library or for agreeing to the experiment in the first place and thus making it harder for Dean to refuse.
"Are you wearing your talisman?" said Dean.
Cas pulled it out from under his shirt. "Of course."
"Good. I need to know you're okay, Cas. I know it was different this time, less crazy, less intense, but still, one part of my toxic swamp got through and I need to know how that affected you."
That was a huge question and Cas struggled to find a way to answer that wouldn't trouble Dean even more than the answer he was dreading, that Cas had been wounded by contact with Dean's darkness.
"Because I don't care what Sarah and Sam say," said Dean, "If you don't wanna do this again, we never do it again."
"There's no reason not to." said Cas, "It was a powerful experience, but not a negative one. It's true that your unfiltered thoughts and feelings can be strong and painful, but this time, we managed to build a safe place in which to meet them in a calm and controlled way. I think we can use that again. I think we should. Is it okay to talk about what happened with the child?"
"Yeah." said Dean, sounding wary.
"Good, because I think that was more than just a random bit of your chaos jumping in. I think your mind, which has been getting more comfortable with the idea of addressing some issues, brought that child from your psyche and allowed us to talk to him and show him some affection and support."
"You practically adopted him." said Dean.
"What can I say? He was a good kid."
"He liked you a lot." said Dean, "I saw it when he looked at you. He trusted you."
"I think it was the angel thing." said Cas, "He said he loved you."
"Kids that age, they love everyone." said Dean.
Cas nodded. "I thought you might head down that little blind alley. You know that kid, Dean. He doesn't love easily and once he loves, he doesn't stop. And somewhere in his heart, there's a place for you, even with all your faults and flaws."
"And he's me. And I love myself. Anyone who's talked to me for five minutes could tell you that."
Cas smiled. Dean's mouth was dutifully reciting the usual script, but in his eyes, a completely different one was in use. "You thought he'd run from you in disgust or terror, didn't you?" said Cas.
"Yeah, I did." said Dean.
"But he didn't."
"And you knew it was me from the start and you didn't either." said Dean, "You hugged him ... me."
"He ... you needed a hug." said Cas, "And I needed to hug him. I needed to offer him any comfort I could, because that little kid should never have been left to handle all the horror alone."
"Dad tried." said Dean.
"I know he did. He poured his heart and soul into protecting you boys, but he was broken and grieving and obsessed with revenge. He couldn't be the father you needed."
"The stuff I said ... " said Dean.
"If you're worried that I'll repeat it, don't be. What happened at Bobby's stays at Bobby's unless you decide different."
"But you remember it all?"
"Every word."
"I said a lot of stupid stuff."
"You were very honest, with yourself and with me." said Cas. His phone rang.
"Answer it." said Dean, "It might be Jules."
Cas looked at his phone. "It is." he said. "Hello, Jules." he said.
"Almost forgot," she said, "How's your knowledge of the Apochrypha?"
"Infinite." he said, "Infallible."
"1 Esdras 1:14." she said.
"Ah, a claim of dominion?" he said.
"What's she saying?" whispered Dean.
"It's a matter of scripture." said Cas, "You wouldn't be interested." To Jules, he said, "SOS 4:11."
"Oh." said Dean, "It's like that, is it?"
"You are not exactly a Biblical scholar." said Cas.
"No, but when you're 15, living in motel rooms and horny as Hell, you soon get to know all the dirty bits of the Bible."
Cas covered the phone with his hand. "Not dirty, erotic, beautiful."
"Cas, I'm not judging either of you. I'm just glad you're getting some roe deer action after all." He smiled. "Sorry, shutting up, not listening anymore." He lay on the bed and started playing Against The Wind on his phone.
Jules said, "Is he giving you a hard time?"
"He means well." said Cas.
"Same book, 2:6." she said.
He smiled. "Sounds perfect. I'll call you tomorrow. Sleep well." He put the phone away again.
"You two are crazy in love." said Dean, stopping his music.
"Probably." Cas admitted.
"What are you doing here with me when you could be with her?"
"You have to be my priority."
"Why?"
"You, Jack and Sam are my responsibility. Jules isn't."
"She's just the woman you love."
"Exactly. Duty first, always."
"Bullcrap." said Dean, "You think I need you more than she does."
"You don't?" said Cas.
"If you lose your chance with her because you're putting me first ... "
"Then she was never worth my time in the first place." said Cas, "If I am to be with anyone, they have to love you like I do. Or at least accept that when my brother needs me, I will do whatever he needs me to do."
"Why can you say you love me but not that you love her?"
"I don't know." said Cas.
"Do you wanna talk about it?"
"No. We need to talk about the mindlink. It didn't hurt me. Did it hurt you? Because you were distressed at times."
"I won't say there was no pain. I don't believe you didn't feel any either. But it was pain around the kid."
"The kid was you."
"Okay, around the things he represented. Yeah, it hurt, but it's been hurting a long time. I just pretended to myself that I didn't feel it. Wow. I must be tired."
"You are, but I also think this is a choice, to be honest with both of us."
"Probably a stupid choice. Too much honesty can be very bad."
"You know it's not. Not this time. I won't ever use it against you."
"I might." said Dean. He smiled. "My mouth is no longer under my control, is it?"
"Or maybe it is, for the first time in years." said Cas.
"Let's talk about Bobby's." said Dean, "That was a very effective illusion."
"It was." said Cas.
"And if you're being honest, we both handled the mindlink a lot better when we were there."
"Perhaps because we could control what came in. Maybe we stopped being so afraid of it. I felt no undercurrent of terror, although you were afraid of the child."
"Yeah, different thing." said Dean, "Something else I noticed, the place felt solid, real ... "
"Coherent?"
"Exactly. No warps, rifts or chaotic edges. Even that hall of doors ... It was ordered. It was stable. Both of us made it, without conscious collaboration and yet your vision and mine merged into something that worked perfectly. Even on a subconscious level, we make a hell of a team."
"Yes, we do." said Cas.
Dean sat up and looked at him. "I mean it, Cas, I need to know for sure that you can handle it."
"All we need to do is keep going back to the same place. We meet at Bobby's, we let in what we want, when we want it. You know, we could even have a group therapy session including every age of Dean Winchester."
"Yeah. Let's not. Let's not even put that out there to give the subconscious ideas." said Dean, "Now, I guess I should sleep."
"Sarah's right. You have no reason not to."
"And you really want to waste your night to watch over me?"
"I watched over Jules for a night."
"Jules is a lot hotter than I am and I'm not about to snuggle up." said Dean.
"I can also zap you to sleep if you think you'll have trouble getting to sleep." said Cas.
"I don't think that's gonna be a problem." said Dean. He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "One last bit of honesty," he said, "I need you here. I can't explain it, probably won't repeat it, but right now, I want you to know that this whole by my side through the darkness thing ... It means a lot to me. And thanks for being kind to the kid when I couldn't."
"Thanks for giving me the opportunity." said Cas.
"I did everything I could to stop you." said Dean.
"I think it was you that made the kid appear." said Cas.
"There was something in him, even that night, that was unbreakable." said Dean, "I saw it in his eyes tonight."
"I saw it too." said Cas, "And I see it still in yours."
