A/N: Once again, I'd like to apologize for whatever this rambly mess is. I've sorta been in a funk while writing this chapter and I think it's affecting what I write about. But y'all seem to enjoy the slice of life/more emotional chapters, so… Here ya go.

Nineteen

The first thing they did, before even leaving the site of the bunker, was properly ward the car. They washed Brooke's blood off the windows from where she had warded them before and drew the symbols back on in marker. And that act got Castiel thinking.

"I should ward myself," he said, scratching at his beard. "Now that I'm human, a tattoo would stick, properly." He glanced at her over the top of the car. "You should be warded, too, if you're gonna be with me. If they're looking for me, then…"

"Then they're looking for me, too," she finished. "Yeah." She grinned. "Well, I'm already pretty tatted up, so… one more won't hurt."

Castiel smiled a little, blushing, and looked at the ground. He knew that three of her tattoos were directly related to him, and he'd always been shy about them.

Brooke leaned on the roof of the car and looked at Castiel. "You're cute when you blush," she said, with a mischievous smile.

He looked up at her, blinking quickly, and then returned her smile.

The trunk and back seat were packed with as much stuff as they could bring: clothes (they'd have to shop for more clothes for Cass); water; non-perishables; various electronics and charges; forged documents for all kinds of things; cash and credit cards. All that was left was to get in and drive.

###

The warding tattoos that they got took a while, for there was a lot to them, and they had to be written in Enochian, which meant that the tattoo artist had to continuously look back at the paper upon which Castiel had written it. Cass tried to insist that Brooke get the tattoo first, but she refused, stating that the angels were looking for him most of all, so it was imperative that he become warded against their searching first.

She sat in a chair, waiting, the sound of the needle buzzing in the background. When he came to her, wincing only slightly, she stood up and went back to get hers. They had decided to get them in the same place—around one side of their ribcage, wrapping slightly around one side. Brooke had decided this location because it was one of the few places with enough open space left on her body. She could not get it on her back because of her massive angel-wings tattoo. Castiel had simply nodded his head and decided to get it in the same place.

"It'll hurt," Brooke had warned. "The tattoo."

He had been unconcerned. "I've been in worse pain," he'd said.

They checked into a motel room afterwards to be more comfortable for a few days while their tattoos healed. They left the bandages on for a few hours, as they were meant to, and then went and washed their hands and began to peel the bandages off. Brooke had to take her shirt off to better access her bandage, but Cass was in a button-up shirt and simply began to unbutton it.

Brooke smiled ruefully as she began to remove the bandage across her ribs. "When I got the tattoo on my back," she told Castiel, who was standing next to her in the bathroom, "it was hell trying to put the ointment on."

Castiel said nothing, but stepped behind her to study the wings across her back. He traced a finger down her back, murmuring, "Now you're the only one of us with wings."

She closed her eyes at his touch, shivering slightly, and said, "Too bad I can't use them."

Castiel moved back in front of the mirror and began to peel the bandage across his ribs off. They were silent for a few minutes, washing their tattoos, drying them gently, applying petroleum oil.

Then Castiel gave Brooke a sudden, secret smile, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, and unzipped his pants.

Brooke stared at her husband. "I mean, I'm down to fuck, but—

He shook his head, and began to peel at another bandage, right above the line of his pubic hair.

She stared. "Cass. You got two tattoos?"

He only smiled, carefully peeling the bandage off.

"Cass, if you tattooed my name—

"It's not your name," he said.

She watched, and slowly the tattoo revealed itself, in looping calligraphy: Entreat Me.

She stared at it for a while, then slowly looked up at her husband and smiled. "You're very sweet," she said. Then, hesitantly, she asked, "But why would you put it there? I mean, you get that I put my Angel Whore tattoo above my vagina for a reason, right? It's supposed to be sexual. But… a Bible quote, above your dick?" She laughed. "That's bold."

Castiel was smiling, a little smugly. "At first I thought to put it on the other side of my ribs, and I was going to ask that it say, Entreat me not to leave thee. But then I… had an idea." He glanced away, his eyes twinkling, then looked up at her again. "I chose not to use the whole quote. To entreat is simply to ask someone for something." He placed a finger under her chin. "You could ask me not to leave you, or you could ask for… well, anything."

Brooke stared into his eyes, and raised an eyebrow. "Anything?" she repeated.

"Anything," he said. "Whatever you want."

Brooke was, of course, turned on, but she suddenly burst out laughing at a thought. "You know, if you put the tattoos together, they say, Entreat Me, Angel Whore."

Castiel inclined his head, smiling wider.

Her mouth dropped open. "That was your idea?"

He was still smiling, eyes very intense, and he growled at her, "Entreat me."

Brooke forced herself to focus. "Later," she promised. "Take care of this tattoo, first. You don't want it to get infected." Then she laughed. "You know, you've ruined that Bible passage for me."

###

The next week was spent doing pretty much nothing. They took it easy for the first few days after getting tattoos, watching TV and lounging around in the motel room. They went out to eat, Castiel ordering a different type of food every time, relishing his ability to actually taste it.

Brooke would stay up late at night, turned to face her husband in the bed, waiting for him to fall asleep. After he did, she would simply lay there and watch him breathing, watch his eyelids flutter as he dreamt. She began to understand how Castiel could have laid beside her for years, without sleeping, and never gotten bored. There was something very fragile and beautiful about Castiel when he slept that was absent from him when he was awake, a certain vulnerability.

One night, about two weeks into their time away from the bunker, Brooke was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of Castiel calling out. She was instantly alert, years of Hunting making it too easy for her to wake quickly, and sat up. Castiel was sitting up in the bed, already, breathing heavily, as if he'd just run a marathon. In what little light filtered through the blinds, she could see a sheen of sweat on his face.

She looked at him sadly, and whispered, "Your nightmare—what was it?"

Castiel breathed shakily, taking a long time to answer. "It was… when I went down to Hell, with a garrison, to rescue Dean all those years ago. But then when I got there… It-It wasn't Dean, it was… It was you trapped there, in shackles. You were… you looked so…" He shook his head. "The other angels, all they could think about was finding Dean. It was like they didn't even see you." He fell silent.

Quietly, gently, Brooke said, "You cried out, before you woke up."

Castiel pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his cheek on his arms, head turned to look at her. "The garrison became all these angels I knew…" he murmured. "Zachariah, Uriel, Raphael, Naomi. They all… dragged me away—away from you. You were screaming for me, begging me to help you, but I couldn't… couldn't get free. I must have yelled, trying to escape them, and that's what woke me up. That's what you heard."

Brooke sighed and laid back down, patting the bed. When Castiel laid down again, she began to run her fingers through his hair, something he often did to her, to calm her down. "You've been lucky, so far," she said. "Nightmares sorta come with the job description. It's just that, up til now, you haven't need sleep."

"Yes, I… I've done my best to shield you from nightmares, in the past, but I haven't always succeeded." His eyelids were fluttering as he tried to keep his eyes open.

Brooke smiled, continuing to pull, lightly, at his hair, run her fingernails along his scalp. "Shh…"

He closed his eyes and, after a few minutes, he was asleep.

###

Unfortunately, the nightmares weren't the only disagreeable side-effect of being human that Castiel had to deal with. Nearly a month away from the bunker, he got sick. It was only a cold, if the lack of fever was any indication, but he had never been sick before—not as a human—and it was very difficult for him.

Brooke left him for just a little while in a motel room by himself, under the covers, with the TV remote. She went to the grocery store and picked up some Kleenex, cough drops, Mucinex… NyQuil, so that he'd be able to sleep through his coughing and runny/stuffy nose. She meandered over to the hot food section and grabbed soup to bring back to him, the kind you had to ladle into the carry-out bowl yourself. The motel room didn't have a microwave, so she'd have to order take-out, probably, since she would insist that Cass have hot meals if he was sick, but it's not like she was going to make him go out to a restaurant with a cold, for everyone's sake.

When she returned to the motel room, grocery bags in both hands, Castiel looked up at her from the bed, sniffling. His nose was red, his eyes bloodshot, hair sticking up at odd angles from laying around in bed all day. He looked absolutely miserable. "Aww, Cass…" Brooke said, as if she were talking to a pet. "Poor baby… How are you feeling?"

"I'm—" Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off by a cough, which he covered with the inside of his elbow, as she had taught him to do. "I'm not a baby," he said, after his fit of coughing had subsided.

Brooke laughed. "It's a term of endearment," she explained, setting the bags down on the table.

"Why would you call someone you loved a baby? It sounds demeaning." Castiel's voice was rough from coughing, and thick with all the snot stuffing up his nose.

"Stop talking," Brooke said, coming over to him with a thermometer. "Put this under your tongue. I wanna make sure you don't have a fever, or didn't get one while I was gone."

He took it from her and obediently placed it under his tongue. It took seemingly forever for the thermometer to beep. She took it from his mouth. Ninety-nine degrees, exactly. So, not really a fever, but not not a fever. Then again… She glanced at him suspiciously. "You were always pretty warm when you had your Grace. You think you're still angel enough to run kinda warm?"

"No, I…" Castiel paused to cough some more. "My head does feel a little strange."

"Great, so you do have a fever. Well, it's a small one." Brooke sighed and went over to the bags from the store. She pulled out a bottle of DayQuil and poured him some. "Here," she said, handing him the small measuring cup. "Drink this. Might taste gross, but it'll help with your symptoms."

He took the medicine from her and drank it. He made a face, at first, then smacked his lips. "Actually, it doesn't taste bad," he said, handing her the cup back.

She brought him a package of cough drops. "Suck on one of these. It'll help with your throat."

Castiel unwrapped the cough drop slowly and carefully, as if he might reuse the wrapper later, and popped the cough drop into his mouth. He smiled. "It's like candy," he said.

She smiled down at him. "Well, I'm glad you're finding some joy in being sick. I brought back soup for when you get hungry."

She took the wrapper from him and walked away to throw it in the trash. Her phone rang in her pocket. As she tossed the wrapper, she looked down at her phone. It was Dean. She smiled, answering it. "Hey."

"Hey. How're you guys?"

"Well," Brooke said, dragging out the word, and glancing at Castiel on the bed. "Cass is sick. He's got a cold. Little bit of a fever. I bet he'd feel better if you talked to him for a little while."

Castiel was staring at her from the across the room with large eyes. "Dean?" he asked, and his voice was so earnest that it nearly broke her heart.

"Is he really sick?" Dean asked, sounding surprised. "Yeah, I guess he can get sick now… He really is human." There was a pause, as if Dean needed time to wrap his around the fact that Castiel, the badass angel who had saved his life numerous times, was sick with a cold. "Yeah," he said, finally. "Yeah, sure, I'll talk to him."

Brooke handed Castiel the phone with a smile.

"Dean?" the angel-turned-human repeated, his blue eyes still so large, full of hope. Brooke did not hear what the Winchester said, but she watched as Castiel's whole body seemed to relax, hearing Dean's voice, his mouth lifted into a genuine smile. A pause. "Yes," said Castiel, glancing up at Brooke, still smiling. "Yes, she's taking very good care of me."

Brooke looked away, shyly, and busied herself taking all the groceries out of the bags, organizing everything, throwing the bags away—giving Cass some privacy with Dean. They spoke for only five minutes or so, and Brooke tried to make enough noise in the kitchenette so that her husband's low voice would be drowned out. Privacy was something that they had rarely had from each other in the past, but now that Castiel was Graceless, and they could no longer hear each others' thoughts, giving him some kind of alone time with Dean Winchester was the least Brooke could do for him.

Soon enough, Brooke heard Castiel call behind her, "Um, I'm done with your phone."

She turned and went back to the bed, slowly sinking down onto it. "You know if you get me sick, you'll have to take care of me like this," she murmured. There was some uncomfortable thought niggling at her mind, but she didn't want to pull it out to examine it just then.

"I wouldn't mind," he replied. "I would do whatever I could to help you feel better." He paused. "Perhaps we should sleep in separate rooms until I get better. You would be less likely to get sick that way."

Brooke smiled at how seriously he was taking this. "I'd rather risk getting sick," she said, but looked away as she said it, still trying to push down that thought.

"What's wrong?" Castiel asked, quietly.

She shook her head. "I'll tell you when you're not sick anymore. You should be resting."

"Please," he replied, and sorrow and desperation in his voice jolted her.

She stared at him.

"Please," he repeated. "I have spent the last seven years knowing your every thought, every emotion… If I still had my Grace, I wouldn't even need to ask. Please don't… don't hide yourself from me now."

She took a breath, feeling awful to be bringing all this up now, but it was something that had been in the back of her mind ever since Sam had fallen into a coma and had to be rescued by Ezekiel. She just hadn't had the time, or the want, to focus on it. "You ever think life dealt you a shitty hand?" she asked. "You ever think… maybe God doesn't… give a fuck, about either of us? About Sam and Dean? Maybe He's just… toying with all of us. Or maybe He really did leave, or die."

Castiel sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. He coughed, a little, and she heard him shift the cough drop around in his mouth; it made a sound as it hit his teeth. "I've been thinking about that since I lost my Grace," he admitted. "Sometimes, I'm… so confused. I wonder what the point of this all is." He shook his head. "I hate feeling so useless, needing to be cared for like an infant. And I hate how naïve I've been, trusting so many and having them all… throw it back in my face."

They sat in commiserating silence for a while, looking away from one another.

"I'd be lost without you," Castiel murmured, after a long time.

She turned her head and looked at him. "You'd have Sam and Dean," she said. "They'd keep you straight—well—you know what I mean." She laughed a little.

He shook his head, slowly. "When I fell to Earth after Metatron stole my Grace," he began, and looked up into her eyes, "I did not think, at first, of Sam or Dean. I thought of you, my wife. Escaping Hael, getting to that laundromat, sitting outside for hours, waiting for you… The whole time, all I wanted was that hug I gave you when you finally got to me."

She smiled at him.

"I know… I know that you worry… about my feelings for Dean," he continued.

She flinched. They were having that conversation, now. "Hey, I—

"No, listen. I know that you accept them—my feelings. I know you only want me to be happy—but I also know that you worry. You think that… because you know that I would have given you Meg, that you… that you feel you're not allowed to be jealous. You try to let me have my time with Dean, like just now, on the phone. But it hurts you."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"No. Look, I never expected to come down to Earth seven years ago and fall in love with any human, let alone two. I…" He paused, took a breath, shook his head. "Trying to communicate my feelings to you is much harder when we can't just read each other's thoughts," he growled.

She chuckled. "Tell me about it."

After another breath, a deep one, he said, "Yes. Yes, I love Dean, and I… I was heartbroken when he told me I had to leave the bunker. But…" He looked at her, as he sat in the bed, and put his hand on top of hers. "But you…" He smiled, and even though his nose was red and his eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his smile was radiant. "You feel like home. More than Heaven ever did… more than Dean." He squeezed her hand. "You feel like home."

Brooke, much to her own embarrassment, began to cry, and threw her arms around him. He hugged her back, tangling a hand into her hair. "I'm definitely getting sick now," she said, and laughed.

###

Brooke did end up catching Castiel's cold, the symptoms of which started showing right after he got better. Brooke was annoyed about it, but mostly because she hated being stuck inside doing nothing for this long. There was only so much TV she could watch before everything on the screen started to blur together into a single, uninteresting blob.

Castiel became surprisingly adept at caring for her. She worried every time he went out for more supplies (medicine, food), but he always returned, safe and sound. She took to wandering around the room, wearing his blood-tinged trench coat, the TV volume up high enough so that she would not be lonely, though she did not actually watch it.

He came back from a grocery run, once, to find her up, blasting music through her laptop, dancing.

"Brooke," he reprimanded, "you should really be in bed. You're still sick."

"I have been laying down for days," she complained, though her voice was still thick from blocked sinuses. "Today, I wanna dance." She twirled around, the trench coat flaring out with her like a dress. "This thing is awesome," she said. "I can pretend I have wings." She spun again, harder, and the coat fluttered and rose in the air behind her like a cape. She laughed, feeling dizzy.

Castiel was staring at her in obvious concern. "I think you may be feverish," he said, coming up to her to press the back of his hand against her forehead. "You seem a little delirious."

"Shut up," said Brooke, flapping his hand away from her head. "Dance with me."

"I… I don't—

Brooke smiled up at him, swaying her hips to the music. "Fine. Then you can watch me dance."

He looked down at her, a bit helplessly. "You should really—

"Shhhh," she said, pressing a finger to his lips. She swung his trench coat off of her shoulders and held the arms out in front of her like the coat was her dance partner, then spun in slow circles, doing her best (terrible) impression of some fancy ball dance. After a few spins, she looked up at her husband, and then put a hand to her forehead as dizziness overtook her. Damn cold.

Castiel stood quietly, a soft, indulgent, lopsided smile on his face. "I've never seen you like this before," he said.

"I guess I go crazy when I'm bored and cooped up," she replied, walking over to him, stumbling a little as the world spun.

He caught her arm, alarmed.

"Okay," she said, with a laugh. "No more dancing."

Castiel helped her back to the bed, then went over and turned the music down.

"Aww," Brooke said. "You're no fun."

Castiel gave her a secretive smile, and went over to the grocery bags. He pulled something out and held it up for her to see: Jello. "Am I still no fun?" he asked.

So, they ate Jello, and soup, and other soft foods that would not upset Brooke's throat. His own time being sick, with Brooke caring for him, had taught him a lot. He seemed to have taken everything she had done for him to heart and was intent on doing it all for her, now. When her stuffy nose made it impossible to breathe, he would run the shower until the water was hot-hot, and then have her come sit with him in the bathroom with the door shut, so that the steam would help to alleviate her sinuses.

"You don't have to sit in here with me," she told him, once.

He smiled at her, saying, "Of course I do."

And when her coughing kept them both up late into the night, he never once complained; his well of patience was vast. He would sit up in the bed and hold her against his chest, loosely, so that she could sit up to cough whenever she needed to, and just talk. Usually, he would pick some history subject he knew about, from watching the Earth for thousands of years, and go from there, but sometimes she would ask him things, like:

"Am I the first human to have an actual relationship with an angel?"

"No," he said, softly, absentmindedly tugging at strands of her hair. "It's very rare, of course, because it is forbidden. Actually, sexual intercourse between a human and an angel is forbidden, but, of course, to prevent that from happening, Heaven decreed that any kind of romantic relationship was forbidden."

"So why didn't anyone try to kill me once they figured out what was up with us?"

"Well… you recall that I hid a lot about you from the angels, for as long as I could. By the time they all discovered the extent of our relationship, it was the least of their worries, what with so many of them intent upon bringing about the Apocalypse."

Brooke smiled, settling against Castiel's chest again after another fit of coughing. "Man, when you fall… you fall hard," she rasped, her throat raw.

"Well, you were… difficult to ignore, considering that anytime I went near you, you could read my thoughts. And you could see me, which always intrigued me."

Finally growing properly sleepy, Brooke yawned, and asked, "So, besides the Vulcan mind-meld thing, what was it? About me?"

Castiel was silent for a time, stroking her hair. Finally, he said, "In Heaven, I was… no one. Expendable. The first time I met Dean, in my vessel, he and Bobby tried to kill me, because they didn't know what I was. They thought, perhaps, I was a demon. Even after explaining that I was an angel, Dean was… doubtful. And then, when I showed him proof, he was angry."

Castiel fell silent again.

"But, you…" he said, after a few moments. "The first time you saw me, you cried. At first I thought it was from being tortured by the demons, then I thought, perhaps, you were afraid of me—which, you were. But, it was more. When we touched, and I heard your mind for the first time, yes, you were terrified. But you… you thought I was beautiful. You thought… the world of me, from the moment you saw me. You felt safe with me, you thought… that I could do anything. Even as petrified as you were of my true form, you… I think you gave yourself to me, right then, right from the first moment."

His voice was soft, and full of love, and wonderment. "You handed yourself to me, knowing, believing, that I would protect you, and I… I couldn't simply ignore that feeling. Somehow, it felt like a challenge, as if you were asking if I were up to the task of being there for you. I think I failed you, at first. I was never around; I left you at Bobby's and ignored you, but… the more times I came around you, the harder it was to leave you. You had put some responsibility on me, and it was the first time that anyone had ever looked at me and seen someone capable of… anything, other than basic orders."

Brooke was still awake, now more awake than she had been, previously, but she said nothing, terrified that if she spoke or moved, that he would cut himself off. She simply lay against him, willing herself not to cough, and kept her breathing even, waiting.

He continued, after another few moments of silence. "Here, you said to me, here is my heart. My soul. My body. Take them all, and hold them carefully, and treat me with love and respect. And I thought, I can't do this. It's too much. I don't know how. But, somehow, you knew that I was strong enough. You knew that I could do it… and I… I couldn't bear to disappoint you. I was a good soldier; I had to follow orders, and you… you had made your orders very clear.

"At first, I didn't know how to be gentle with you. All I knew was war and bloodshed. But… the gruffer I was toward you, the more you seemed to open up. You were like Dean, in that way. You didn't let me treat you with disrespect, and if I did, you'd stop me in my tracks. Here was a human who could, somehow, keep up with me. Yet, even as you… knocked me down a peg, even as you humbled me, you shored me up. You let me know that I was… strong, that I was powerful, and that you needed me. And the more I came to realize that you loved me, that you needed me, the more I came to realize that I loved you… that I needed you."

Brooke, finally, sat up in the bed, and stared at her husband, tears silently coursing down her cheeks.

He placed a hand on her cheek, reaching with his other hand for the box of tissues on the nightstand, and dabbed at her nose. She realized she was drooling snot.

"Oh," she said, snatching the tissue from him and furiously wiping her nose. "I'm sorry I'm so gross."

"You're sick," he replied, quietly. "I think you're allowed be gross."

She laughed, and then settled. "Castiel," she whispered, looking at him, again, in the dark.

"Hmm?"

"That was… the best… the most romantic thing you've ever said to me, in seven years."

He glanced away, shyly, asking, "W-Which part?"

"All of it," Brooke said. She sighed, contentedly, and settled herself against his chest again. "Might be the only good part about not being able to read each other's minds… You should use your words more often. You're quite eloquent when you want to be."

"Do you think so?" he murmured, playing with her hair again.

But she was already asleep.