It's the night before his 16th birthday but Dean can't sleep. Castiel hasn't been back to visit in several weeks. Everything had seemed normal again between them but then he started appearing only infrequently.. and when he did come it wasn't for very long. He didn't know how to fix it and Cas never said anything. Dean sure as shit wasn't going to initiate a talk about that awkward night.
Dean goes to the window and sits on the sill, hanging a leg over the side. Maybe he should have brought up that his birthday was coming up the last time he'd seen him, but how was he supposed to know he wouldn't show up again for so long. It was kinda silly but he would have liked to see him tomorrow night.
The stars seem to get brighter the longer he stares at them. He imagines Cas gliding around up there with wings he's never seen.
"Cas." He whispers into the night. "Where are ya, man?"
His mom wakes him up with chocolate chip pancakes and a new watch, black with a large face and metal links on the band. At the dinner table, he keeps checking it, smirking.
"Have you picked out where we're going for your birthday dinner tonight, hun?" She tries to contain the mess that is Sam tearing apart a pancake in his booster chair.
"I'm thinkin' Smokey Bones. You can never go wrong with BBQ."
"Sounds good. No.. Sam baby.." She catches half a pancake midair as it goes flying. "Okay no more chocolate for you, mister."
When Dean gets to school, Charlie gives him sticker about the size of his hand in homeroom.
"Happy Birthday! It's for your locker. It was seriously lacking affiliation." Dean smiles when he sees it's the DeathStar from Star Wars and on impulse gives her a one-armed hug. They hadn't been too close besides idle chatting before class but it kinda touched him.
"Aw. Are we having a moment?" She laughs pulling back and punches him in the arm lightly. "You're getting sentimental in your old age, Winchester."
"Yeah, I guess so."
At lunch, him, Benny, Victor and Ash all skip lunch period to grab pizza at a nearby Mom n' Pops place. They spend almost an hour joking between mouthfuls of sauce and cheese, sipping pepsi and feeling carefree and full of that youthful excitement you get when you're out with friends, reveling in being somewhere you're not supposed to be.
They make it back just before the classes change for 5th period and he even has time to pull Amanda into their favorite hidden spot. He whispers pet names between kissing her sweetly and she lets him get to second base this time. It was turning out to be a pretty great birthday..
Until he gets home.
When Dean comes through the door, Sam is crying in his fenced in Baby Corral. Arms up, it's clear he wants to be let out but his mom is pacing in the kitchen on the phone.
Dean goes to grab Sam and holds him close, making soothing noises.
"No, don't you do this to me-" He walks a little closer to hear. "I know, but you said-" His mom smiles weakly when she notices him. "Just please come home as soon as you can. Okay, bye."
Sam squirms, so Dean lets him down to waddle away. "What's up?"
"Your father's going to be a little late."
"Seriously?"
"I know, I know. He says he'll be here soon."
Dean sighs. "Okay, whatever."
Flatly refusing to consider doing homework on his birthday, Dean goes to the TV and flicks through the channels until he finds a Ren and Stimpy marathon.
Hours pass and Mary makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crusts cut off, to hold them not to take out his annoyance on his mom, he smirks and asks Sam, "You get any of that in your mouth there, buddy?" Even though his brother's was cut into four triangles, he still managed to get grape jelly all over his chin, nose and one ear because he stubbornly refused any help. Sam giggles and tries to reach the jelly on his nose with his tongue.
Mary kept glancing out the curtains at the front yard, then the clock, finally at her sons, giving a strained smile and saying something like "I'm sure he just got held up. Any minute now."
It was looking more and more like their traditional family birthday dinner wasn't going to happen. Dean smiled for his mom and said it was alright. Not to worry and they could go out anytime.
Around 7, when it was just starting to get dark outside, his dad bursts through the door. Hand still on the knob, he slumps against it and looks close to tipping forward.
"John?!" Mary quickly runs to him and checks for where he's wounded.. because blood is soaking his shirt and dripping on the linoleum.
"I..I'm alright. Call Bobby." He winces and sits down right there in front of the door.
"Dad?" Dean goes to help him.
"Take your brother upstairs Dean."
"Okay, but Dad-"
"Now, Son!" He bites out and sucks at his teeth as if the exertion of yelling hurt.
Dean's jaw ticks but he turns to pull a sniffling Sam out of his booster seat and grab a dishtowel to wipe his face on his way to the stairs. He watches his mom talk frantically into the phone and hunch down by his father's side before starts up to his room with Sam in his arms.
"It's alright, Sammy. We're gonna hang out in my room for a while, kay?"
He pulls his cushy comforter off his bed and spreads it out on the floor. Setting his brother down, Dean grabs some old Superman, Green Lantern, Flash and Batman figures for him to play with.
After a while, Dean goes to sit at the window. He sees Bobby's beat up Chevelle tear into the yard and jerk to a stop. He crosses the room to the bedroom door and inches it open to see what he can hear. There's only muffled voices and painful grunts every so often.
"Thu-per Man!"
Dean opens the door a little wider, but can't hear much more.
"Dean! Thu-per Man!"
"Yeah, I know, Sammy. Superman."
"Dean."
He turns at the familiar gravelly voice, and sees Sam is pointing at his absent angel who's stepping down from the window sill. Sam claps.
"What the hell, dude! I don't see you for weeks and you chose tonight to turn up?"
Dean quickly closes his door and stops when he's halfway between Sam and Castiel.
"You prayed to me. I was.. concerned."
"What? No I didn't."
"Last night. I could not come until now."
Dean thinks about how he was thinking of him and said his name. Huh, guess that counted.
"Oh. Sorry.. I didn't mean to. I thought you prayed to saints and god and stuff. It works for angels too?"
"Yes. If you think of me and concentrate on words you want me to hear, then I will."
"Sorta like a one way convo on a can with a string."
"No.. nothing like that."
Dean grins. "Nevermind. Well I guess you should meet my little bro."
He steps aside and reveals an open-mouthed Sam who when he sees both of them are looking at him says simply, "Thu-per Man."
"Uh, yeah kinda. This is your imaginary friend, Cas."
Castiel raises his eyebrows at that but bends down and says, "Hello, Sam." He extends his hand like Dean did the first time they met. Sam just looks at it before grabbing his finger and trying to gnaw on it.
Cas lets him and gives Dean a confused if not slightly worried expression.
"Oh good. He likes you."
Extricating himself, the angel wipes his hand on his dark brown leather pants. "I don't remember that being part of your greeting ritual."
For a second, Dean imagines biting Cas' fingers and feels his face heat.
"Hey, can you uh.. like stick around for a bit? My dad's hurt downstairs and.. ya know, just till I know he'll be alright."
Maybe if it got really bad.. Cas could heal him. He won't ask until he knows it's a last option but still it's comforting to have him here. Just in case. He doesn't know if Cas senses this but after a second of frowning he finally says, "Of course."
Castiel sits down with an arm around one bent knee in front of Sam as he babbles on about each figure, half gibberish, half stunted words all strung together. He nods and listens the whole while and its makes him oddly happy after all the worry knotting his stomach about his dad.
"You are close with your brother." He says while he observes Sam laying down on the makeshift pallet sleepily.
"Yeah, he grows on ya." Dean ruffles Sam's mop of brown hair, affectionately. "You're close with a few of your siblings too, right?"
"Yes. A few brothers." Dean nods but Cas keeps talking. "I did have a sister once.."
"Geez, I'm sorry Cas." He hesitates with a hand already up to grab his shoulder to comfort him.
"She isn't dead, but she might as well be. She.. she left us. Left me."
Dean's confused but can tell this is one of those topics he should skip over. But Cas is the one bringing it up.
"You don't know where she is?" He tentatively asks.
Castiel picks up a Thesaurus lying on the floor with the other school books and Dean takes that as a hint. Apparently they were done talking about siblings.
After another hour, Sam is curled up on the comforter against Dean's leg. Cas is quiet, sitting next to him. He looks back at the window from time to time and it starts to irritate Dean. He can't help thinking about the days and days between Cas' visits now. Maybe he's getting bored with him. They've talked about every mundane human thing Dean could think of.. down to what games he plays with Sam and what he hates about Algebra. Maybe the angel had another guy.. or even girl he liked to visit more now. Eventually the nightly visits would continue to be less and less until one day… he'd just stop coming.
"I can almost hear your thoughts, you're thinking so loudly."
Dean glares at him. "What?! You can't though, right? Because that's really-"
"Impolite. And we are friends, as you said."
Cas glances at the window again and Dean's getting pretty fucking annoyed with it by now.
"If you wanna go, just freakin' go already."
Cas turns to him with knit eyebrows. "I don't."
A few seconds of more silence and Dean asks, "Cas, do you.. uh.. do you visit other people? Like on the days when you're not here?"
The angel is watching him closely now, not fidgeting with one of Dean's possessions like he usually does. Keeping those crazy blue eyes of his steadily on him, Cas asks slowly, "Would it bother you if I did?"
Dean grits his teeth and makes a scoffing sound. "No. Why would it?"
"If the answer doesn't affect you, why ask the question?"
"God, you're a pain in the ass sometimes."
He stares ahead at the moonlight making shadows over his floor. Cas seems happy to just sit there without picking back up the conversation. After several minutes more of neither of them talking, Dean says, "I just wanted to know if.." Cas turns to him again, waiting. "If you have this with a lot of other people too or if I was.."
Dean manages to cut off just in time before he gets out "special." He's isn't looking anywhere near Cas' direction but he hears his, "No, I don't."
"Oh." Dean glances at him quickly. Chewing his lip, he turns away and then right back again. "No like not a lot or no like no one else."
Cas' lips twitch up for a quick moment. "No like no one else."
"Oh." Dean can't stop the stupid smile on his face so he shifts his gaze back down at Sam. When he looks up, Cas is still staring at him.
"Why me?"
Now Castiel turns away, shrugging. "Your window was open."
Dean nods, the smile slipping away.
"And you were.. interesting. Your soul felt restless. It was.." Cas frowns up at the ceiling like he's remembering. "..difficult to ignore. I could not seem to help myself from trying to learn more about you. I would not have approached you so directly had you not fallen that night."
Dean rubs the back of his neck, feeling flattered and anxious at the same time.
"Well anyway, I'm glad you picked my-"
Soft footsteps on the stairs have Dean sitting up straighter.
"Cas, you have to-" But he's already gone. His bedroom door opens and his mom comes in with her chin up and eyes puffy.
"Hey, honey."
"Mom, what happened?"
"He.. he said it was just a stupid hunting accident. He got kicked when a buck's..." She trails off and seems on the verge of crying now. Sitting next to Dean, Mary cups his face. "Your father is complicated, Dean.. But baby, he loves you very much."
"I know.."
"I promise we'll go out this weekend for your birthday. He really is a good man. I wish.."
"He's going to be okay, though?" He cuts in, not wanting to hear it.
"Yes, thank god for Bobby. Your dad will be fine. Angels were watching over him.. and they're watching over Sam and you too. Always."
"Mom.." Dean turns a little pink, thinking about Cas possibly just outside the window.
"You'll never be too old to hear it. Even if you're thirty and married with children, I'll be telling them too."
"Alright, alright. Geez." He rolls his eyes when she kisses his forehead.
"Thanks for watching over Sam tonight. You're such a great big brother."
She picks up her sleeping son and gets to her feet. Dean does the same and makes like he's about to change clothes for bed, pulling a tshirt and plaid pajama pants out of his drawers.
"Night, Mom."
She flicks off the light, maneuvering Sam in her arms and says, "Happy Birthday, Honey."
He waits no more than a minute while the sound of his mom descending the stairs fades and he goes to the window.
"Cas?" He whispers. Nothing. Maybe he took off when his mom came up.
"Dean." Whirling, he almost bumps into him standing right behind him.
"Where were you?"
"In your closet."
"My mom coulda seen you!"
"She didn't. I was interested in seeing her." He tilts his head a little and ask, " Have you told her about me?"
"Christ! Of course not."
"Then why did she say I was watching over you?"
"Dammit. You woulda had to hear that, huh? Just forget it."
Cas looks like he wants to argue but then instead says, "Your mother also indicated it was your birthday."
"Yeah. I almost forgot with all the drama. Doesn't matter.. it's just another day."
"I have seen enough of humanity to know you celebrate the anniversary of your birth. If you had told me I would have…" He trails off, brow furrowed.
"Cas, really it's no biggie. Don't worry about it. I'm going out with some friends this weekend."
The angel looks practically annoyed for a second before glancing at the window.
"I could.. would you want me to take you flying?"
"What, for real? You mean like.." Dean lifts his arms and flaps them once. "Flying flying."
"Yes. I would carry you."
"You really think you can take holding me and keeping airborne? I almost died taking a swan dive once already."
"You doubt my strength, Dean?" Castiel's whole body radiates irritation.
"No, I just mean.." He turns back to the window and steps up on the seat then the ledge to lean out and judge the distance to the ground wearily. "It's a long way down if you're wrong…"
Suddenly, Cas is behind him, flush against his back and bare feet braced outside his boots. Dean grips the frame hard so he doesn't panic and accidentally lean too far forward away from the warm body pressing against him from behind.
"I suppose you'll have to trust me, Dean."
Dean can only raggedly get out the next breath. He didn't really think about what it meant for Cas to "take him flying." An arm hooks around his stomach and he almost steps back.. but with Cas there.. there's nowhere else to go. He looks down again, swallowing.
"Are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be, I guess."
He thinks they'll lift off into the air or something and almost yells out when Cas pushes their bodies forward then kicks off the ledge so they're falling straight down. For only a second, one bleary blink, the ground rushes towards his face. He has time to mentally repeat "shit shit shit shit" before they pull up out of the dive with a graceful swoop and then they're steadily climbing higher.
Dean puffs out a hard breath. He feels slight pulls with their ascent, wings pushing down through the air to force them higher. All there is to see is a few dark houses and miles of tree tops. Castiel skims along them and they blur in a collection of deep green underneath him. The airs a little thinner now and colder this high up and he shivers. Cas' other arm comes around high up and pulls him tighter against his chest then swoops lower. Despite the chill, Cas' body always stays a burning warmth wherever it touches him.
This. Is. Fucking. Amazing.
The angle and velocity Cas keeps ensures his legs never dangle. Their bodies are always close and Dean doesn't worry about being dropped. His stomach does a flip flop like he's on a rollercoaster. Smiling, he yells out with a surge of jubilance. They pass over cow pastures and fields, never close to town. For a moment, he kinda feels like Superman and stretches his arms out far, laughing. Though he can barely hear it, he can feel Cas laughing deeply behind him. Eventually, they head back towards familiar clusters of homes with happy sleeping families he knows.
Thankfully, there's about two acres between the next closest house so no one sees their nighttime return. His house is still dark, window still wide open. This must be the view that Cas always gets coming to visit. His speed slows now and when they're almost on top of the window, he brings them up short causing their bodies to pull back and fall forward.. no longer horizontal. Cas touches down on the sill, letting him go. Dean shakily stumbles and is caught before he can trip. He's pulled right up against Cas' chest again, panting.
"Are you okay?" Cas waits for him to brace his arms on the frame and get steady.
"Yeah." He gasps, a bit of awe in his voice but he doesn't care. "It was.. wow. Thanks, Cas."
He still hasn't let Dean go, so he just continues breathing hard and staring ahead to see their melded shadows on his bedroom door across the room. It's like he's in a doorway between worlds.. half in his normal room with his normal life.. half out in the night and diving through the skies with Cas' impossible world.
They stand there together.. the press of Cas' chest to his back and leather pants against jeans until right up above his knees where Cas' legs are wider apart. He's weirdly nervous now than he ever was in the air with fields racing below him. A warm hand slowly drags across his stomach then moves to grip along the window right below Dean's hand, fingers barely touching. There's a tension he doesn't understand all of the sudden and he starts to freak when he seriously feels his jeans getting tighter and oh god why is hell is he fucking getting hard? It.. it. Must be the adrenaline from flying and.. and teenage guys get boners at the drop of a hat. It's goddamn hormones. He silently wishes Cas would leave. If he waits and Dean has to turn around.. it'll be painfully obvious and awkward again.
Cas leans close over his shoulder and Dean swallows the extra saliva in his mouth. What the hell is going on?
"Happy Birthday, Dean." Cas says right into his ear, his deep voice making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
With a quick whip of noise, he's alone. Shakily, Dean steps down into his room and blinks out at the night before looking down in confusion.
Dean wakes up a few hours later when he feels the bed dip. He squints his sleepy eyes to see a dark figure sitting at the end of his bed.
"Cas?"
"What?"
Dean blinks, totally fucking awake now.
"Dad! Are you.. how ya feelin'?" He stutters.
"Fine. Who's Cas?"
"No one.. I was dreaming or something."
His dad sighs and hunches a little over. Dean sits up and turns on his bedside lamp.
"Do you need help? Want me to-"
"No. Look I'm sorry about today, Dean." His dad is in his big gray bathrobe, but he can still see a bit of a large white patch of medical tape on his side.
"Don't worry about it." Dean doesn't ask why he couldn't wait till the weekend to go out hunting for deer.. why he had to go on his birthday because it seems petty with him all hurt in front of him. But he thinks it.
John brings up his arm and has a good sized knife in a brown leather sheath.
"This is a Bowie and I wouldn't be giving it to you if I didn't think you were mature enough to have it." Dean slowly reaches across to take it but his father doesn't let it go yet. "Now it isn't to play with and show off to your friends. I'll teach you a thing or two when I'm up for it but in the meantime.. keep it somewhere out of sight. Somewhere your mother or Sam isn't gonna find it. Okay?"
"Yes, Sir." Dean says, wide-eyed.
His father lets it go and Dean immediately slips it out of its holster to watch the moonlight glitter off the blade.
"Alright, now go back to bed."
Dean reluctantly stows the knife between his mattress until he can find a better spot in the morning.
John frowns and opens his mouth like he's going to say more but just cuffs Dean by the back of the neck and pulls him into a hug. Dean's startled but returns it, gently, trying to avoid his wound.
"Happy Birthday, Son."
Author's Note: Did everyone enjoy Dean's birthday? I almost have the next chapter done so it won't take so long.