Chapter 24.

Alone in his room, watching old horror movies, Dean felt terrible. There was a weight on him like the worst hangover ever and it was entirely self-inflicted. The rules of engagement were simple and always had been. It was perfectly possible to be friends and no more with a woman who would usually make your head spin, but you had to decide on the no more part right at the start and stick to it.

He'd liked Anael. Truth was, he'd liked her the first time he saw her and he'd told himself that was okay, because angel, because shallow, selfish, out for herself angel. Yeah, he wasn't stupid. He wasn't going to be led astray by a pretty face when it came with a butt load of ulterior motives and a slightly bent halo.

Then she'd betrayed them and although that wasn't on any level fine, still it was fine because of course she did. Angels were manipulative and they were crap liars and what kind of idiot believed an angel. But fine, he'd been a fool and she'd tricked him and it didn't matter that she'd tricked all the others too. He had known what she was and he had still fallen for it. It was fine. Manipulative angel manipulated. Fingers burned, lesson learned.

She'd asked for his protection and for Cas's sake, he'd let her into the bunker and he'd told himself it was only for Cas and not because she had a smart mouth and a sudden smile and sometimes found him funny and sometimes made him laugh. It definitely wasn't because she ... her vessel ... was beautiful. He told himself he didn't notice that.

He didn't give his protection lightly and although he'd told himself he didn't care what happened to one irritating angel who had tried to kill them all, it wasn't true. Her fear was real. She truly believed that Jack would be like Chuck and that all his gentle words concealed a choice between obedience or death. That she would turn to Dean Winchester, who threatened her daily, to protect her from Jack had told him how desperate she felt. He'd spent a lifetime protecting others. He didn't know how not to care.

It would have been fine. A good relationship was growing between them, helped on his side by some mellowing whisky and the kind of insomnia that made him want to talk. Whatever else she was, she proved to be a good listener and although she continued to make smartass remarks to him, he noticed that nothing he confided to her in their late night heart-to-hearts ever got recycled into a barb to throw. That gave him a weird kind of trust in her, despite everything.

That was fine too. She wasn't the monster he had considered her to be. he'd made a dumb choice in a moment of fear and he had made plenty of his own. When she gave her time and expertise on fashion and shopping to help Eileen with the wedding plans, he had forgiven everything else. She had flipped from unwanted outsider to family member and seeing Eileen's smile on her wedding day had made him love her.

As a friend and only a friend. The rules remained clear. He had known plenty of hot chicks he had never made a move on. In fact, the better he knew a woman, the less likely he was to make a move, particularly if she also knew him. Everything had been fine. Flirtations between them had been the standard courtesy flirting that he id with all women, just to make them feel attractive and to make him feel he still had irons in the fire. Then it had all unravelled in a day.

He knew every mistake he had made. He had tried too hard to impress her, making her laugh, humiliating liars for her amusement, finding the perfect car for her. He had let his guard down when she offered him cherry pie and he had seemed too interested in her desire to know more about human relationships. If he had seemed a little cooler, a little less concerned, she would never have walked into that shower.

The shower was his biggest mistake. He should have locked the door, or at least shut it. He should have made her wait out in the car or something. Above all, when she walked into his shower, wrapped in a towel and an air of confidence, he should have said two words, loud and clear, "Get out!"

It had taken thirty years of torture for Hell to corrupt him and thirty seconds of nudity for Anael. He still didn't understand why it had felt so impossible to send her away, why he had kissed her when he had known that was the worst idea in a lifetime of bad ideas. He only knew that from the moment she had walked into his shower, resistance had been futile.

He'd been lonely and tired and it had been a long time since he had buried his pain in meaningless sex. Nobody would have blamed him if he had gone off that night, smiled at some stranger in a bar and woken staring at a strange ceiling and trying to remember if shed mentioned her name at any point. It shouldn't have been Anael he woke up next to. It wasn't fair to anyone.

It hadn't been meaningless sex either, although he would have to convince everyone, including her and possibly himself, that it had been exactly that. He was struggling to make himself think that way. It hadn't felt meaningless. Just for one night, the eternal ache in his chest had gone and he had been at peace with himself. The guilt and shame the next day had fixed that, of course, but normal, meaningless sex just dulled the ache or distracted from it, it didn't make him feel valued, loved and human.

He would never feel that way again. He couldn't. She wasn't human, didn't know what love was and was going all dewy-eyed over him because that's what sex did to angels. That's why Cas still thought of April the homicidal reaper as a relationship. That's why she had whispered things she couldn't possibly mean as they tumbled happily in each other's arms.

Whatever she might be in the future, she was an angel now. Her body was a vessel, her gender a matter of present circumstances and might change tomorrow. She had no capacity for human love and neither, if he were honest, did he. They had acted out a little erotic romance and for a time, they had both made believe that it was real. He had simply woken first from the dream. He wasn't happy about it. He wished she had been the one to reject and humiliate him. He was used to it. It wouldn't have hurt him so much.

"Dean," said Charlie outside the door, "Do you need anything?"

He smiled sadly to himself. They still cared about him, after what he'd done. He hoped Eileen and Jules would be as forgiving when they heard. He hoped Sarah would never be told.

"Dean?" she said.

"You wouldn't happen to have a time machine, would you?" he said.

"Sorry, not on me." she said, "But I could bring snacks and we could sit in awkward silence together."

He laughed. "I love you, Charlie, but no. I think I need to be alone."

"Got it." she said, "If you change your mind, text me, okay?"

"Will do." he said. Charlie was a good friend. So was Anael, before he blew it and made sure they would never be the same way together again.