Chapter Nine - All Of It For You

Same as always. I keep repeating myself. It's night. You know it. It's always night.

We have more actual conversation, yall. I needed that I think. Not sure how happy I am with it though, tbh. But well. Tired of rewriting and not getting anywhere. Sad fluff, kinda. Hope you'll like that.

References, lemme think. Something to "Tis the damn season" by Taylor Swift I think. Count on me to get all of Evermore in here before the fic's done. Oh, and kinda "Let me love you" by Ne-Yo. Not really intentional, but anyway.

Note that in the middle part, everything in italics happened before the first part of this took place, that's why it's in past tense and emphasized this way bc I was afraid the timeline would be confusing...

~oOo~oOo~oOo~

Dean hasn't asked him to leave.

It isn't the same as asking him to stay, but it's a start.

Perhaps Sam is right. Perhaps there's hope. Perhaps they can still be friends.

Cas has never expected anything from Dean, not even that he would be allowed to stay and love him from afar. He hadn't been able to keep himself from hoping though. The Winchesters are his family, the reason he'd fallen in love with the world, with humanity, with...

All he wants is for them to want him back, in whatever way they could. They aren't really good at expressing it, but Cas has slowly learned to read the complicated language of people unable to say they care about each other. They'd let Cas into their home, had given him a room of his own even though they knew he didn't sleep, which was as good as a permanent invitation. It had needed time for him to get the real meaning behind such gestures, but he hopes he understands it now.

In the end, we all just want someone to choose us. Cas had chosen.

He watches Dean play with Miracle, the way the hunter jumps around, squats down with his hands on his knees, laughs at the dog barking and running around, chasing his tail. It's the most carefree Cas has seen Dean in a long time, maybe ever, and he feels his heart flutter. He gets to witness a side he always knew to be there underneath all that responsibility and worry burdening Dean, a side he'd only ever caught glimpses of.

Cas smiles to himself. The sun is shining through the crowns of the trees, painting the path around the lake in a mosaic of light and shadow. A soft breeze moves the branches and fills the air with the sound of rustling leaves, makes Miracle's long hair dance around. Birds are chirping and the nature is beautiful and alive, and Cas can do nothing but think how right Dean looks here. He's playing and he's smiling and he's surrounded by peace and beauty and it's everything Cas has ever wanted for him.

"Cas? Hey? Someone home, feathers?"

He's snapped out of his thoughts by Dean's voice, the hunter is looking at him expectantly, one eyebrow raised and mouth curled in amusement.

"Pardon me. I was just...lost in thoughts."

"Obviously." Dean lines in beside him, walks next to him down the path. "Wanna fill me in?"

"Oh", Cas looks down, pretends having to watch his feet while he steps over a root, "it wasn't important." Don't blush.

"Okay." Dean looks at him from the side, eyes squinted curiously, but then he shrugs. "Keep your secrets", he says, but it sounds more teasing than reproachful.

"I don't have secrets." Not anymore. Not from you.

Dean stops at that and looks at him for a moment, a moment during which Cas unconsciously holds his breath even though he's not sure why. Dean opens his mouth, closes it again, and Cas just thinks he's about to say something when Miracle interrupts by jumping at Dean to snatch a stick out of his hand. He watches how Dean scolds the dog playfully, but throws it again anyway, looking after him with a sparkle in his eyes.

Cas stands and stares unabashedly (again), now that Dean's attention is captured elsewhere, the familiar fluttery warmth creeps back into his body.

It had been a long time ago, years like the blink of an eye in an angel's life, years that feel like millennia to Castiel's heart. He hadn't understood it, at first.

Those feelings, new and exciting, but also frightening in their intensity, unknown and uncontrollable. The emotion that had been thrust upon him by spending so much time on earth. It was torture. He wouldn't have exchanged it for the world.

He hadn't known what he wanted, only that he wanted something, which is the worst kind of wanting.

At some point, he had understood. He couldn't even recall a moment when he had known, it had been a steady process, the revelation creeping up on him slowly until it was finally clear as day, so obvious and inevitable that he wondered how he could ever not have known.

It was him. It was always him. Everything in Cas' life leads to him. All his words, all his days, all his decisions, all for him.

I'm hunted, I've rebelled and I did it, all of it, for you.

If he would dream, it would be of him, and he's not ashamed of it. If he is to bestow this kind of love on anyone, he's proud his heart had chosen someone like Dean. Dean Winchester, who doesn't trust easily but loves fiercely, who thinks too little of himself and too much of his faults, who drinks too much because he cares too much, who started up as Castiel's mission and became Cas' friend, who takes up all of his time and all of his thoughts and all of his heart.

And he needs it, this love. It gives him hope, it gives him strength, it gives him direction.

It has even given him his name. Cas. Castiel had been the Angel of the Lord, the cover of God. All names are made up by somebody else and Dean had, without knowing it, stripped the name given by his father of its heavenly duty. The el in his name stood for God, and by removing it, Dean had declared him no longer a possession of Heaven.

He'd just needed time to figure out that Cas belonged to Dean instead.

Sometimes along the way, it had made him feel lost. He didn't even know his purpose anymore. As an angel in heaven, he'd loved and served God. That was his purpose. As an angel first on earth, he learned to love humanity. That was his purpose. But then, he'd fallen. Fallen from grace, and fallen in love. And as a fallen angel, he'd discovered a new kind of love, love for a single human being, love that was different from everything he'd experienced before. The love he'd known, it had been nothing but a pale imitation of the real thing. This love for Dean, it was overwhelming, all-encompassing, frightening. It was beautiful. Like...Dean's love for pie versus his love for Sam. Even though you used the same word, the meaning behind the feeling was entirely different.

It comes with new aspects, though, this love. Aspects Castiel had yet to understand, had only started to fully explore and learn to experience. It had been confusing, the human aspects of loving someone in a way so thoroughly unlike the innocent angelic love for all of creation. Love directed at a single being, it was strange, contradictive and confusing. Sometimes, it was a warm, pleasant fluttering in his stomach. Then again it was something stronger, more forceful than anything he'd ever encountered, taking control over his mind and even his body.

What is it, that peculiar power Dean seems to have over him? It has been very uncomfortable at first. A smile could clear his head of all thoughts. A touch let his throat go dry. An image popped up in his mind at night, unbidden, refusing to be banned. And his vessel, weak, human thing that it is, acted appropriately to those thoughts...

Or inappropriately. Considering it's his best friend we're talking about. His best friend who'd definitely not want him thinking those thoughts.

Afterwards, he's ashamed. But Dean never needed to know. And none of this is even nearly as embarrassing as going to suck up all of the most evil creatures ever created in the hubris to believe you could become God, so...

He guesses it's all about perspective.

~oOo~oOo~oOo~

Sam and Eileen could see Dean walking up the staircase from where they had been sitting in the library. They had seen how he'd stopped at the top, leaned with his forearms on the banister and softly spoke to the dog sitting beside him on his leash. Above all, they had seen the soft smile curling the corner of Dean's lips, a smile Sam had missed seeing on his brother in a very long time.

"Hey", Sam had called up, capturing Dean's attention. "Waiting for something?"

"Ah..yeah." Dean had looked down at his feet, the smile deepening, and if Sam had seen that expression on anyone else, he might have called it shy. "Cas...eh. Cas is coming."

"Oh?" Sam's eyebrows had shot up in surprise, but before he could say anything, the angel in question had come sweeping into the room, trenchcoat floating behind him.

"Sorry, am I late?" He hurried up the stairs to Dean who Sam would've sworn to see lightened up at the sight.

"Nah", Dean had grinned. "Right on time."

Sam watched how they stood on the platform for a moment, both smiling those slightly sheepish smiles and a bit too obviously not trying to look at each other. He smiled to himself, warmth bubbling up in his chest at the familiarity of it all. This was what he'd endured for years. He'd never thought he'd be grateful to get it back, but holy shit, he was.

"Right." Dean cleared his throat then, breaking the moment none of them seemed to be aware had been observed by Sam (he couldn't even be sure they knew he was still in the room at all), Dean opened the heavy bunker door and wordlessly stepped outside, swiftly followed by Cas. The door closed and Sam stood as the echo faded away, unable to stop smiling.

This is where he still stands right now when he hears the footsteps behind him, and turns to find Eileen, grinning from ear to ear. Sam shakes his head with a disbelieving laugh.

"How on earth did you do it?"

Eileen shrugs her shoulders.

"I believe it was a joint accomplishment."

"Yeah." Sam huffs. "But I've been trying to work on them for weeks and you're here..what? Maybe an hour and they're talking again."

She innocently shrugs her shoulders again, smiles this smile of hers that carries just a hint of mysteriousness and mischief.

"I mean how?" Sam laughs again. It's a good feeling. Then he shakes his head, lifts his hands and lets them fall to his sides in humble acceptance. "Ah you know what? I don't even care", he goes on, hands flying along and signing the words of their own as he speaks. "You're a genius, I fucking love you, I-"

He breaks off in shock, mouth open, stares at her surprised face.

Shit. Shitshitshit.

He hadn't meant to say it like that. Fuck.

"I- I meant. I-" He stammers and he knows it, tries to keep himself from producing more words by driving a nervous hand through his hair. An awkward chuckle escapes his throat in a futile attempt to cover up his agitation. "Sorry, that was- uhm."

He meant it. Oh, he meant it. He meant it for a long time. He meant it every time he called her, he meant it when she left, he meant it the last time they kissed, he meant it when he brought her back, he meant it when she was a ghost and maybe even before that.

He just didn't mean to do it like this.

He'd learned the sign, he'd thought out scenarios when and where to do it, he'd-

"Sam." Eileen comes back into focus, and his eyes flicker down to his hands for a second when he feels her fingers wrapping around his. He hadn't been aware his hands had been shaking before. Eileen squeezes his fingers slightly and he can do nothing but look up at her, his breath knocked out of his lungs at the smile that greets him. "I love you, too", she says, no signs, holding onto his hand instead, just says it out loud as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Sam is staring, and he knows it, but well. He guesses he's entitled.

"You do?", it slips from his lips, and he mentally slaps himself. Stupid.

But she just smiles.

"Yeah."

Sam swallows, eyes lowered to their joined hands.

"Great", he says, of all the things he could have said. But his mind is blank. There's just her hand in his and a feeling of lightness blooming in his chest. When your heart is involved, it all comes out in moron. "That's..." He trails off, loses himself in tracing his thumb over her knuckles.

"Sam."

His eyes snap back up. "Huh?"

Eileen smirks, something warm that looks like the equivalent of a fond eyeroll.

"That's supposed to be the part where you kiss me, you know?"

She smiles wider, and Sam opens his mouth, feels his reasonable thinking rushing back into his head.

"Oh, yeah." He feels the grin spreading across his own face. "That's...yeah."

And he does.

~oOo~oOo~oOo~

"Are you happy, Cas?", Dean asks him at some point while they're sitting on a bench between the trees, the beautiful scenery of the lake spread out in front of them. Miracle is playing at the edge of the water. The air is warm around them, the bench is warm from the sun, and Dean has taken off his flannel that's knotted around his waist now.

"W-What?" Cas stumbles over his own tongue, definitely only in surprise about the question and not at all because he's having a hard time not staring at Dean's exposed arms.

"Are you- Are you happy?" Dean doesn't look at him, eyes sweeping over the wide expanse of water. "It's just because...y'know, you said..."

Happiness is in just being.

Is that what Dean could be alluding to? Surely not. Cas opens his mouth, finds that he doesn't know what to say, closes it again. Is he happy? He's happier, happier than he was yesterday, happier than he was this morning, happier than he was before Dean said I miss you. Is he happy, though? He can't really tell.

Probably. Maybe. No.

He's as happy as can be expected. Maybe as happy as he can become. He isn't sure.

"You know what?" Dean shakes his head to himself before Cas can answer. He's leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, eyes lowered to the ground at his feet. "Forget it. It was just me being- anyway."

Dean watches how Miracle gets all excited over the movement on the surface of the water when he touches it with his paw, curious but not courageous enough yet to actually step into it. He barks at it and Dean smiles. And Cas watches Dean smile, head slightly tilted to the side.

"Are you happy, Dean?", he hears himself say, a wrinkle in his brow. Dean throws a fleeting glance at him, barely a second before his eyes find the lake again.

"I dunno." His voice is thoughtful and serious. "I guess so. I feel like I should be. I mean look at that." He gestures around, captures the beauty and peace surrounding them with a movement of his hand.

"Yes. I know what you mean."

"We're not really experts in...this. Peace and quiet", he says meaningfully and Cas nods.

"Apple-pie lives", he quotes what Dean had said once, smiles when Dean barks out a laugh.

"Exactly." He goes quiet for a moment, takes a deep breath. "I know I should be grateful", he says then, eyes on his hands, wringing them in his lap, "and I am, I really am. I love the job, y'know. But...My knees aren't what they used to be", Dean tells him with a wry smile. "My back hurts like a bitch every time we get back from a hunt and it's a damn miracle my liver's not killed me already-"

"It would have", Cas mumbles quietly, can't help himself.

A beat of silence. The rustling of fabric as Dean moves towards him.

"What?"

"It would." Cas is the one strictly looking ahead now, Dean's gaze burning in his side. "If I hadn't healed it." He sighs, turns to finally lock eyes with the stunned hunter. "My healing doesn't only take care of external damage, Dean."

"Oh. I- I didn't know that." Cas smiles sadly, knowingly, and Dean swallows. "Guess I can add that to my list of times you saved my life", he adds half-jokingly, but Cas can hear the gravitas underneath. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

They sit in silence for a moment, listen to the wind in the trees, the birds and the dog barking occasionally. Dean has shifted in his seat, is leaned against the back now, right next to Cas, yet so far away.

"I'm...I'm tired, Cas."

Dean's voice sounds small and exhausted, and as much as the admission comes as a surprise to Cas, he can clearly see the evidence of it when he directs his gaze at Dean's profile. There's a small smile playing around his lips, somehow sad and relieved at the same time. Cas guesses that revelation has taken Dean some time to come to terms with.

He shouldn't be surprised. Deep down, he isn't.

You are so brave and quiet I sometimes forget you are suffering.

"You say that as if it were a reprehensible thing", Cas says slowly, watching Dean intensely. "You've done so much, for so many people. And most don't even know that they owe their lives to you." Dean closes his eyes and Cas feels the need to touch him but holds back. "There's no shame in letting it rest now, Dean", he softly tells him instead. "You've done your share, more than that."

"I know." Dean nods, but there's resistance in his voice. "I mean in theory, I know, it's just..." Dean looks at him, and the look in his eyes shatters something inside of the angel. There's desperation there, a question, the longing for an answer, the fear to get one. "I don't really know how to do it, Cas", Dean admits, trying to hide the vulnerability by looking away. But Cas knows. He's seen it, he hears it, feels it. "How to...not hunt and just..."

He feels responsible, Cas realises. Of course he does. Dean always does. This man that loves too much and cares too much and hurts too much. This man that thinks he has to carry the whole world on his shoulders.

Cas wishes he could make Dean understand that that's not his burden to bear. But what can he say? To leave the past behind, you have to accept that it's over. No matter how many times you revisit it, regret it, get haunted by it - it's over. It can't harm you anymore. Not if you don't let it.

Letting go, it sounds so easy when he says it like that. But it's not. The hardest part of letting go is to understand that everyone else is okay with you. And Dean isn't even okay with himself.

There's an ache in Cas, put there by the ache in Dean. His chest contracts painfully as he stares sadly at the person he loves more than anything in this world and tries to think of something to get around that self-boycotting mind, a mind lying that he's good for nothing but taking care of everyone and everything except himself.

I want to heal the pain you feel on the inside just as I do with the wounds on your skin.

He wants to love Dean in a way that's like lightly running a finger over his soul until he finds a crack - and then gently fill his love into that fissure until it's healed. But Dean doesn't need Cas to fix him. He needs someone to love him while he fixes himself.

"I don't care what your mind says." Cas' voice is steady and determined when he finally decides on the words. "You deserve to be happy."

Dean's head snaps back to him, wide eyes filled with a mixture of shock and wonder. He opens his mouth, closes it again, absentmindedly licks his lips. Cas believes to notice how one of his hands twitches, as if contemplating if to reach out and touch. And isn't that a self-indulgent thought, Dean wanting to touch him as badly as he wants to touch and comfort Dean right now. Their hands stay where they are, though, the only hint of something going on underneath in the fact that Dean lowers his eyes to his lap, as if to guard them, keep them in place.

"What about you, though?", he asks then, eyes cast down. (It's easier. Directing the conversation away from himself, even if he's afraid of Cas' answer when the words leave his mouth.)

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what about you, Cas? Neither of us is used to...just living", Dean says, and isn't that a sad truth right there. "I mean, I dunno. Maybe Sammy's got other plans. Geez, maybe you've gotother plans." He throws a glance at Cas, just to let it glide away and into the distant woods behind him. "You're still an angel you know, and even if you don't got your wings anymore, you could go anywhere you want."

He says it as a matter of fact, but there's a new sort of tension in his jaw all of a sudden, the hands in his lap clench and unclench in a way Cas can't place.

"I have no wish to go anywhere else, Dean", he just tells him calmly, truthfully.

Not until you ask me to. Because what else is there to say. It's as simple as that.

"I just mean it'd be fine, y'know. If you did." Dean still doesn't look at him. The words are soft, a puzzling contrast to his strained shoulders.

"I don't."

"Okay."

Dean's voice sounds casual, but Cas thinks to notice how he relaxes slightly, smiles to himself, small and silent, while his gaze glides over the lake. He takes the liberty to believe it's because Dean's actually happy to have him around.

And Cas can do this.

Cas would be his friend, the friend Dean wants him to be, the friend Dean needs him to be. He'd be content in giving his love the way Dean is able to accept it. Cas knows that there can never be more. He knows that Dean doesn't want him like that. And it's fine, he tells himself. It's fine because as long as Dean is happy, so is Cas.

Yes, he knows he's never going to get what he truly craves.

And still, Cas loves him. It's nothing he can simply stop just because he knows it has no future. The pointlessness of it sometimes threatens to overwhelm him, but then he'd get to meet those green eyes again, a rare smile, an affectionate mumble of his name, maybe even a pat on the shoulder - and he knows it isn't pointless at all. Even if nothing ever comes of it. Cas knows Dean loves him, too. Maybe not quite the way Cas feels, but in his own way, he does. And yes, it's fine.

Someone can be madly in love and still not be ready. They could love in a way they had never loved before and be afraid of it. It's alright to love someone who doesn't love you back, or maybe just can't. As long as they're worth you loving them. As long as they deserve it. And Cas couldn't imagine a single person more deserving of love than Dean Winchester.

So he'd just keep loving him, not hoping for anything in return (well, hoping, perhaps, but not expecting), delighting in the thought that it might bring a spark of light to Dean's life.

Let me love you. I'll be content loving you from afar. Just let me love you until you learn to love yourself. And then even beyond that.

Many years have passed like that already, with Cas trying to give in every way he knows how, praying it won't be rejected. In return, he lives on moments, words, gestures. He's learned to read them, learned to see the love written in between the lines.

He can go back to that. Right?

On the way back to the bunker, he watches Dean throw a stick for Miracle, scratching the dog's fuzzy head when he brings it back. Dean smiles. And Cas smiles, too.

It will be enough, he tells himself, over and over.

"Come on, buddy. Let's go home", Dean says and Cas can't be sure who he's talking to.

It will be enough, he tells himself, as often as it takes to believe it.

Dean looks at him with sparkling eyes and Cas feels an ache so deep it's become a part of his very being.

It will be enough, he tells himself. It will have to be.