A/N: Written for day 3 of Supernatural Deserved Better Creation Challenge on tumblr hosted by foundfamily4eva. Prompt: Castiel Has Rainbow Wings

(late to this because of a migraine)

Castiel was an angel again. He supposed to his family he'd never really stopped being one. Dean had even told him it was more about who Castiel was rather than what he was. And he had the mind of an angel, all the information and the ways of thinking. He'd just had a soul instead of Grace. Now, his Grace was back, and he was… different. So different in fact that he found he couldn't stay in the bunker.

So he'd left. Left Sam. Left Dean. Cas just couldn't do it, couldn't be with them when he had such awful grief tearing him apart.

He'd been hesitant to do it after he got his Grace back, hesitant to look at his wings. He knew what the wings of his brothers and sisters looked like. They were damaged, feathers fallen, some barely just clinging on.

Castiel knew his would be like that too.

So he found an abandoned barn, and he summoned his wings.

The pain sent him to his knees, and he screamed through gritted teeth. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision.

Oh, it hurt! He could feel the monstrosities they had become, could feel the feathers that had been ripped out with the Fall. They hadn't burned like those of his brethren, but they were still… gone. His wings were far too light, and felt horrible and wrong on his body. These weren't his wings. They weren't.

But they were.

So Cas was glad to be alone, glad to grieve this.

His wings had been beautiful once. So beautiful. The memories of them stung, so he left them alone. After a time, he was able to dismiss his wings from the physical realm, and then he got in the car and drove. He didn't know where he was going or why until he was outside the bunker.

It was drizzling, and the sun had dipped below the horizon. Castiel sat in his Continental, staring at the entrance to the bunker. Grief lay heavy in his chest, and it was ripping him up inside, working its way outward. He nearly shook from it. His body tensed, and his hands balled into fists. He wanted to do something with those fists, but he didn't know what.

No, I can't.

Castiel forced himself to take deep breaths, and relaxed his hands.

Then, he got out of the car to go into the bunker.

He sought out Dean. He didn't know why, but he did it on a whim, on what humans might call instinct. Dean was in his room, watching something on his laptop, headphones on. He jumped upon seeing Castiel, tapped the space bar, closed his laptop, and slipped his headphones off.

"Hey, Cas!" he greeted him enthusiastically, as he set the device on the floor. He went over to him, and wrapped an arm around him. Castiel gave him a full-body hug in return. Dean pulled away, and searched his face. Castiel wanted to hide himself, but he didn't. He let Dean see all his pain. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Castiel hesitated, not sure this was the right thing to do. But no, he'd already gone all in when he'd been searching out Dean. He sighed, and went over to Dean's bed. He folded his hands together, putting them between his knees. He looked up at Dean, and that grief reached to claw into his heart. He bled.

"My wings…" Castiel got out in a hurried rush of words. "They're not the same."

Dean hissed in a breath, sucking on his bottom lip. He turned, as if surveying his surroundings for a bit, and then closed his door. He sat down beside Cas.

"It's okay," Dean told him. "I know. I saw the other angels' wings. I'm sorry."

"Mine used to be so beautiful," Castiel said, still on the verge of tears.

"I wish I could've seen them. Can you…" Dean paused, as if unsure if he was stepping over a boundary or not. "Can you show me?"

Castiel smiled.

"Of course, Dean."

He tapped on Dean's head, and then he was in his friend's mind. He found a space where he could force in his own thoughts and have them be stored in Dean's memory, and then he exhaled, and part of his consciousness poured into Dean.

Dean gasped at the image that flooded his brain. His breath was stolen from him in a beautiful, powerful grip. What he saw was more transcendent than anything humanity had to offer.

There was Castiel, in the barn, the night they'd met. He was glowing, and Dean knew the shadows of his wings had shown through into this realm, but now… now he saw them as an angel would. God, they were… There weren't words. Beautiful didn't even come close to what he was being shown.

Castiel's wings spread out behind him, majestic and full. His feathers flared, as if to say that, yes, he was an angel, and that he wouldn't be cowed by Dean.

The feathers themselves…

They were rainbow. They glowed with the grace of Heaven, Dean's human mind only able to comprehend them as the rainbow of an oil spill. The colors shifted and changed, holding Dean captive with their beauty. There were the colors of the leaves in autumn, the colors of flowers in bloom in spring, the pure white and blue of a winter snowfall, the full, robustness of summer. They were the sun. They were silver and gold, and the stars in the night sky, and birth and death, and the vastness of the universe condensed into one, perfect being. They were Castiel.

Dean cried.

He cried at seeing those wings in his head, at re-experiencing meeting him and realizing… realizing that this angel was so god damn beautiful it was incomprehensible.

Castiel finished implanting the image in his mind, and he removed his hand from his head. Dean just stared, open-mouthed.

"Cas… you're beautiful."

"Thank you, Dean. However, I am not anymore."

"You are. You just need me to keep reminding you of that. Cas… th-thank you for that. Seriously, man, just… Wow. Can they heal? Can the feathers grow back?"

"With time," Castiel answered.

"Well…" Dean started, slapping a hand to Castiel's thigh, the gesture casual yet meaningful at the same time, "till then, you're still beautiful to me."

Castiel smiled, and Dean imagined those wings spread out behind him, rainbow like all the light in the world.