Chapter 64.

Dean looked around the room. The walls seemed to have settled into Bobby's wallpaper. The pile of books were still on Bobby's desk. He looked at Cas. "I think we have a degree of stability. If things go sideways again, we work together, okay?"

Cas met his gaze and said, "Okay."

"Look, man, there's something I have to tell you and it's bad."

He knew there would be a whisper from the walls and sure enough, it said, "I'm the worst friend you ever had."

"The walls are right." he said.

"The walls are you." said Cas, "Talking the same nonsense you always do."

"I've told you I hate the link."

"I lied." said the walls.

Cas was watching his face, a question in his eyes. His voice came from the wall. "Keep talking. Please, keep talking."

"What?" said Dean.

"No idea." said Cas, "Wall me is an idiot."

"I lied about the link!" said Dean's voice from the walls.

"It wasn't all a lie." said Dean, as much to the walls as to Cas.

"What part was?" said Cas.

"All my life, I've been alone. I mean, I had Sam, I love Sam ... "

"Sold my frickin' soul for Sam." said the walls.

"Shut up, okay?" said Dean, "This is hard enough."

"I never intended you to know." said the walls.

"Silence!" said Cas and the voices in the walls stopped.

"Thanks." said Dean.

"It's just us, Dean. You can tell me anything."

Dean looked around the room, searching for anything he could look at other than Cas's face. Then he summoned up the courage to look him in the eye. "You get used to being alone. You live with it. You know that the only person you have to talk to about stuff is the one you've spent your whole life protecting and you edit what you say and what you think. Hell, you even end up editing what you let yourself feel, because you need to be strong."

"That all sounds very familiar." said Cas.

Dean looked down, unable to say another word with Cas looking at him. "I hate the link." he said. He could hear the silence in the walls trying to turn back into words, calling him a liar. He could feel Cas using all of his mental strength to hold those words back for him. "I hate what the link does to you. I do. I swear. When you flinch from my disgusting, sick, evil mind, I hate myself."

"I love you." said the walls with Cas's voice.

"Sorry." said Cas, "I'll try harder."

"Don't." said Dean, "It's not worth the effort."

"Loving you, or stopping the voices?" said Cas.

Dean smiled grimly. "Both, probably. Cas, I hate the pain the link causes you, but I love the connection. I need the connection. I hate the damn talismans and I hate that we have to find a way to stop the link forever. I'll do it, for you. I just don't wanna do it."

Cas put his hand to his forehead, as if in pain.

"I know." said Dean, "Wall me is right. I suck as a friend."

Cas shook his head. "I thought it was just me."

"What was you?"

"Needing the link."

"You don't need it. Your mind screams, 'No!' when it happens."

"When it invades your mind and hurts you." said Cas, "When it feels like an intrusion, a betrayal of trust. I love the link, but hate what it does to you, how much you hate angels invading personal space. And your mind has to be the most personal space there is."

"You're saying you don't hate my toxic mind?"

"I hate that it feels toxic to you." said Cas, "You don't resent me for knowing your thoughts?"

"I just hate that they're not better thoughts. I hate that you see how corrupt and selfish and worthless I really am."

A whisper came from the walls. "The talismans don't ... "

"Be quiet!" said Cas to the walls. "Dean," he said, "I've shown you how I see you. That hasn't changed and nothing can ever change it. Yes, sometimes the touch of your mind is like an envenomed scourge. Sometimes, your pain is almost unbearable to me, but I would rather bear any of it with you than know you are trapped in there alone."

"That's not your job." said Dean.

"You say that a lot." said Cas, "As we've established, I don't know what my job is anymore. I don't think you know either, so maybe don't keep telling me what it isn't."

"Human emotion hits you hard. My pain is worse for you than for me."

"So how do you think love and friendship feel? How do you think I feel when you trust me, as you are now? And are you saying my pain doesn't hurt you? Because you threw that book into the fire."

"Fat lot of good that did." said Dean, "You still think you failed me, don't you?"

"I've failed you more often than I've failed God." said Cas.

"Neither of us deserves the loyalty you've given us." said Dean.

"You deserve a better friend than me."

"I deserve all the fires of Hell." said the walls.

"Dean, stop that." said Cas, "It's not true. It's never been true!"

Dean ignored him. "So, what was all that stuff about how much you hate the mind curse?"

"You needed me to hate it. It wasn't a lie. I fully intended to make myself hate it. I just haven't figured out how."

"I know it hurts you." said Dean.

"Yes, sometimes. It hurts you, too. It also makes it really hard for us to lie to each other and honesty is a big strain on our relationship. There are aspects to it that are terrible and we need to fix them, but it seems neither of us hates the touch of mind on mind."

"Could we rephrase that in a way that doesn't sound dirty?" said Dean.

"Dean, you think the Bible is dirty." said Cas.

"You're the one using it to keep things simmering with Jules."

"Not all intimacy is sex." said Cas.

"Definitely not in your case." said Dean.

"In fact, this may be the most intimate conversation of my life and I don't find you remotely attractive."

Dean grinned. "Well, that's because angels have no taste."

The walls whispered, very softly, "Don't mention Destiel."

"Who said that?" said Cas.

"I don't know. Meaningless gibberish to me." said Dean.

"And to me." said Cas quickly.

"The important thing is," said Dean, "That neither of us wants the link gone entirely. Controlled and limited, yes, but not gone. Because without it, the world is lonely."

"Yes." said Cas.

"We've both been wearing ourselves out pretending that we hate it. Think how well we'd be using it now if we'd put that much effort into working with it."

"This seems a pretty good use of it now." said Cas.

"Yes, it does." said Dean.