Chapter 54.
Dean and Anael sat against one of the larger trees, side by side. "You know what humanity is, don't you?" said Dean, "It's weakness, confusion, vulnerability, dirt and death. When you're human, those classy shoes of yours are gonna rub and pinch. Rain will soak you, mud will stick, your nails will break and every winter snot will stream out of your nose and those are the fun parts."
"You're human. You're not weak." she said.
He ignored her and continued his list. "Right now, showers are a novelty. When you're human, they'll be a daiy necesity. You'll need food and you'll need to buy food and you'll need to sleep."
"I want to sleep." She said.
"Because you never have." he said, "When you need to, every night, it soon gets old, especially when you can't and hunters mostly don't."
"You seemed to sleep pretty well last night." she said. She wasn't bragging. She seemed not to know why that had been.
"I seem to sleep better with you around." he said.
Her eyes met his and he knew he was smiling, even though he was trying hard to be serous. It was hard to be grave ad forbidding when he could see the playful look in her eyes. She was ready to counter anything he said.
"I'm not sure confusion is a human thing." she said, "Angels get confused by everything."
He had to concede that point. "True," he said, "But human emotions are a mess."
"Why are you so much against the idea?" she said, "It's my life and should be my choice. Even Cas agrees with that now."
"Hey, I'm the last person to want to take away someone else's free will, but I want you to know the bad side as well as the good and you need to ask yourself whether trying to become something you're not is your smartest move right now."
"But if Jack makes me human, it won't be something I'm not anymore."
"But you'll still have the thought patterns of an angel, probably the instincts too. You've been an angel a very long time."
"Maybe the reason I wasn't a very good angel is that I never had those thought patterns and instincts at all. Maybe I'm more human than you think."
She looked human, looking at him with a longing to change his mind, to be human in his eyes as well as her own and he would gladly have played the game and treated her as human, as long as she didn't become one, doomed to live a hard and painful life and then die. It wasn't just the Winchesters who were cursed to suffer that, it was the universal human condition.
It might be dull under the halo, but it was safer. Well, no it wasn't, as Cas could testify, but it was safer than being a human. The thought of her on a hunt, human and hurt, blood trickling down her face, chilled him to the heart. To be human was to be at the mercy of everyone around you, all the time. She could be shot, stabbed, bitten, beaten. Hell, she could fall downstairs and break her neck. She didn't seem to care what he said.
"It's not just physical danger," he said, "Humans get hurt i all kinds of ways."
"What? And you think angels don't? How long have you known Castiel?"
"Castiel is hardly a typical angel." he said.
"Neither am I." she said.
He sighed and leant back against the tree. "I know it seems like I'm stomping on all your dreams, butt I just wanna keep you safe. I wanna stop you from making a decision you could regret."
"I could regret any decision," she said, "Including my decision to be with you."
"True, but becoming human is not so easy to reverse." he said.
"You really think there'll come a time when I ditch you, don't you?" she said.
"I'm trying not to think that." he said, "Stupid, because at some point, you're gonna make the choice between being with me and becoming human and you're not gonna pick me. So I should keep my expectations low and consider this temporary."
"If you make it so it has to be a choice, maybe you don't deserve to be chosen." She said.
"I know I don't deserve to be chosen." he said, "I don't know why you're with me now." He glanced at her, looking for signs that she wss reconsidering that.
She didn't say, "Good point!" and walk away. Instead, she said, "Why are you with me, when you hate both what I am and what I want to be?"
It was a bright, Kansas morning with a warm, golden light on everything and although he knew it was a fair question, he didn't want to attempt an answer. He couldn't hope to keep her either way. Either she would stay an angel and tire of playing among the humans or she would become human and he would have to end things.
He couldn't watch her suffer all the miseries of human life and know that she hadn't needed to undergo any of them. Angels were like moths, drawn to the bright but brief light of mortality and all of them had burned off their wings once already. He didn't want her to do it again.
He'd managed to charm his way out of difficult questions before. He shuffled closer to her and said, "Let's not argue about what you are or could be. I like who you are. If we have limited time together, let's make the most of it." He kissed her and was relieved when she responded warmly.
After some time, he said, "Do you wanna do something today?"
"Like what?" she said.
"Like go somewhere. See a movie or something."
"You mean like a date?" she said.
"Exactly like a date." he said.
She smiled at him shyly, as if she hadn't walked naked into his shower just days before. But it made a kind of sense. She knew he didn't date, as such. She knew it meant something. He didn't know where he was going to take her, but it wouldn't be a bar this time. She deserved better. Whenever it ended, he at least wanted her not to regret all of it.
She moved away a little and he didn't like that. It felt as if she might already be bored with him. Then she turned her back on him and slowly allowed herself to lean back until her head lay in his lap. That was better. Automatically, he begam to stroke her hair.
"I love you." she said and it felt both wonderful and terrible. She added no conditions, no warnings of an end if he made the wrong decision. Hers was a simple, sweet love and he tried to tell himself it was the childlike love of an angel, who could never understand love as humans did, but he was starting to suspect that she understood love a lot better than he did.
She closed her eyes and he didn't feel that she was waiting for him to say anything in response. She didn't expect him to say it back. Her expectations of him were low, so low and yet he still failed to meet them. She wanted his acceptance and he could not accept her, either as angel or as future human. Whatever she was, whatever choice she made, it was still a problem and he knew that made sense to nobody but him.
She looked so peaceful that he would have thought she was asleep, if angels ever slept. He suspected she had closed her eyes to better focus on the sensation of his hand on her hair. Angels could easily suffer sensory overload. They had never been intended to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. And that raised a problematic point for Dean.
"Is there a reason," he said, "Why the lights didn't flicker, that night at the motel?"
"Were they supposed to?" she said, opening her eyes and looking up at him, her brow furrowed.
"When Cas and Jules get amorous, the lights flicker. Sometimes, they blow altogether." he said.
"And it bothers you that it didn't happen for us? You think I did something wrong?"
"No, I just worry that maybe it wasn't that mind-blowing for you."
"Castiel was always a little more highly strung." she said, "And he and Jules had more of a build-up to their first time."
"It wasn't just the first time." he said.
"I could make the lights blow, but it means using powers I can't use now."
"For them, it's not something they do deliberately." he said. She was looking troubled again, so he said, "Forget I mentioned it. Just wanted to check that I did okay, that you were satisfied. I didn't mean to make you feel like you did something wrong. Close your eyes. Relax."
She closed her eyes and he started stroking her hair again. "Every time I open my mouth, I hurt you," he said, "I don't want to. I love you."
She opened her eyes and reached out a hand to touch his cheek. "I love you too, Dean and I'm not planning on ditching you. Stop worrying about every little thing. You need to know how it was that night? It was incredible. It was beautiful. I don't know why the lights didn't blow, because I wasn't interested in the lights. Only you and I existed."
"I wish I could say something, anything that doesn't make things worse." he said.
"You do okay, Dean. I love you always works."
"All the stuff I said about humanity, I said because I love you, not to hurt you."
"And when I tell you it won't change a thing, I'm saying that in love too." she said.