It was a good dream, maybe even the best sort of dream, the kind where things didn't make much sense, but at the same time they didn't need to.
He was lying on the beach, the sand hot under his bare back, his swim trunks were red with little white sharks- just like he had when he was fourteen and him and dad and Sam spent part of the summer in California. The sky was a brilliant blue green, more like a peacock than any color he had ever seen the sky take on before and it was riddled with stars even though he would have sworn that it was midday. Cas was leaning over him, telling him knock-knock jokes in his weird angelic language and dressed in a vintage James Bond style tux. The Angel was writing over Dean's chest with his too dark blood staining his fingertips.
They were both giggling like little kids even though the punch line went right over Dean's head.
Cas was beautiful while he was laughing, his face shone, his body language open and welcoming. It was a sweet sort of dream and Dean could not help but take him up on such a welcoming offer. He sat up, the blood running down his chest like water and he pulled the Angel against him. They kissed like it was the end of the world- all hungry mouths and sharp teeth cutting off half hearted cries of frustration at the clothes that Cas still wore. Then Cas shoved him back down into the sand and resumed him jokes and careful writings. They repeated this many times, the kisses becoming more and more desperate and the jokes turning more and more obscure, even though Dean never fully understood a single word. He had a feeling that the last one had something to do with a whale and basketball.
That's when he woke up. He woke to the very unusual strains of someone yelling in Spanish. Dean rolled off of the little fold away army cot, pulled on his jeans from the day before and stumbled up the stairs from the basement where he had spent the night. He found Cas and Bobby sitting as far apart as the couch would allow and watching Spanish soap operas. The only thing that could possibly make the whole thing any stranger was the fact that the Angel was rapidly translating the dramatic monologue into English for Bobby's benefit. He did not change the inflection in his voice when the mustached Casanova of a man turned away; shedding a single tear and the buxom woman with the gun took over the yelling.
"I should use this on myself," he said in his soft, husky voice, "after what you've done to me and my mother. My own mother- you son of a bitch."
"What the hell is going on?" Dean made the mistake of coming between the two men and the static lined little television set.
"Boy, get your sorry ass out of the way."
Dean put his hands up in surrender and sidestepped out of the way. "You're watching the telemundo?"
"If you make me miss my stories I will break your knees."
And Cas was still translating. "How could I have known she was your mother? Nora, she meant nothing to me, it's you that I love. It's always been you."
Dean was not sure that he had actually woken up and wasn't in some sort of waking dream… or nightmare. He shook his head and went into the kitchen, making some coffee in the World War two era percolator and some toast in the old gas oven.
He ate his breakfast out in the scrap yard, sitting in the semi wreckage of his Impala and listening to classic rock on a battery powered radio.
His life had gotten weird at some point.
Maybe it had always been this way.
Maybe he had only ever been fooling himself and really the fact that his life was balls to the wall insane on a daily basis had somehow escaped him up until this point.
He called Sam while he finished his toast. He got his brother's voice mail and left a mumbled and obnoxious, crumb filled message to the effect that the car was getting better and he still had no idea what was going on with the Fallen Angel things and that Sam Winchester is a girl. You know, normal brotherly sorts of things.
Something bad had happened to the clutch plate in the Impala and Dean spent the better part of the morning picking bits of it out of the car's engine. Cas joined him at some point, apparently 'Amarte es mi Pecado' had ended and his mysterious multilingual powers were no longer needed.
Dean had not spoken to the Angel since the little incident in the Ford the evening before and seeing the man rounding the back of the car, wearing a flannel under Dean's canvas jacket, brought the memory of their kissing (both in actuality and in his dream) to the forefront of Dean's thoughts.
He felt his cheeks heat up and he hated himself just a bit. He wasn't a teenager, but his body was rebelling against him just like he was. Heart racing and stomach feeling impossibly light and empty as if his meager breakfast didn't hold a chance of staying down, he gripped his pliers tighter and ducked his head, trying to focus on the task at hand- getting little shards of metal out of the engine block.
Cas didn't say anything, he just quietly slid into the passenger seat and watched Dean through the slanting crack where the raised hood didn't quite meet the body of the car. And he watched him like a dingo watches a human baby, a starved look backed by an insurmountable summit of patience.
Unnerving was one word for it.
So the hunter hunched his shoulders and grappled with the loose radiator hose that kept getting in his way. He strangled that hose, because it was something to do with his hands. The thing ended up in the dirt and Dean with it, deciding it would be best to work under the car where he couldn't see the Angel watching him.
"Arturo is having babies with both Nora and Paulina."
Dean paused a moment and felt a little frown forming before it dawned on him that Castiel didn't actually know anyone named Arturo and was most likely referring to Bobby's soaps. "You don't say."
"Yes… I did. Quite clearly in fact. And Arturo doesn't know about Nora's baby either. I think he plans to stay with Paulina."
"That bastard."
"I did not know that his parents were unmarried."
"It's just a say- never mind." He reached for his wrench and came up empty handed. "Cas, hand me that box-ended wrench."
"I don't know what that is, Dean." The Angel got out of the car, his shoes crunching in the dirt somewhere to the left of Dean's head.
"It's in the toolbox." He explained with a vague wave of his hand and the toolbox clanged down noisily beside the Angel's feet.
Cas started handing him tools. Non specific tools, many of them not wrenches, ok, none of them were wrenches… but Dean took them all, choking on a smile and a mumbled 'thank you' with each new offering. Cas was a horrible helper as he lay on his stomach beside the car, feeing tools to Dean and asking half a million questions about how cars work. It was a nice distraction, talking about something base and perfect like a man made marvel of steel and ingenuity. Cas' fingers brushed his now and then and each jolt of contact shook Dean free of the world of combustion engines, dragging him back to memory of those fingers clutching at his hair.
"Can you fix all the cars here?"
"I could probably figure out how- but it wouldn't be worth my time. No one wants most of these junkers. They're just for parts."
"Or for places to get lost." He offered, passing a hammer to Dean.
He took the hammer and placed it on his other side in the ever growing pile. "Lost?"
"Like in the green one yesterday."
Dean had been very lost- they both had. "Yeah." His mouth had run dry. "Cars are good for that too."
A hand full of sandpaper was next to join the pile. Cas cocked his head just a titch, watching Dean. "Talk dirty to me?"
Dean quickly sat up, or tried to. All he managed to do was to smack his head very soundly against the Impala's underbelly. "Son of a bitch!" He cradled his face in his grease stained hands.
"Are you hurt?" The Angel's normal deadpan voice took on a hint of worry.
"No, Cas. I feel great." He was fairly certain that he had managed to smash the stitches that Sam had given him.
"Are you using sarcasm?"
"No." He wasn't sure he could open his eyes against the throbbing pain, not yet anyways.
"Why did you do that, Dean? You're bleeding."
With more care than probably necessary, Dean wiggled out from under the car and sat upright, leaning against the steel bumper. He pried his eyes open and looked at his hands, there actually was a bit of blood mixed with the black of the engine grease. Wonderful. "You want me to talk dirty? Where the hell did you hear that?" He pressed his slightly clean wrist to his head and the sting of the reopened wound. "Fuck, Cas. You can't just say things like- you just can't."
Cas had scooted round the car to crouch beside Dean, the dark green of the jacket turned a dusty grey from the dirt he had been laying in. "The man said it."
"Man? The fuck he did, Cas. I know it was you." He looked sideways at the Angel.
"No, the man in the song… he keeps saying it."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" And then Dean heard it. The dinky little radio that he had left blasting somewhere on the hood of a nearby vehicle was playing Poison's 'Talk Dirty to Me'. "Damn it, Cas. You've got to learn about context."
"Context?" He was pushing Dean's hands aside and using the sleeve of his flannel to help stop the blood.
"You can't just say 'talk dirty to me' to a dude."
The Angel was frowning, leaning closer and dabbing at Dean's face with his other sleeve. "I didn't say. I asked."
"Well, don't ask like that." He closed his eyes. Cas was far too close and Dean was far too tempted to make it worse.
"But what does it mean?"
"It's-" he really didn't know how to explain something like this to Cas. It was true, he had fumbled his way through the 'erections are a normal part of life' speech, but dirty talk was a little more… in depth than he felt comfortable walking an Angel through. "It's complicated." He settled on.
"More complicated than a car? You explained cars well." He was frowning. Dean didn't need to see it, he could hear the confused pout. "Can you show me?"
Dean made a noise, something low and frustrated and hopeless. It was possible that Castiel was actually trying to break him. It could all be part of some deep plot, possibly orchestrated by Sam. It could just be part of some giant cosmic joke. Everyone, all the higher-ups, standing around laughing at the oldest Winchester left on the plant.
"You can't show someone talking, Cas." He still did not open his eyes.
"I meant demonstrate. Did I not use it right? Bobby said that I should attempt to sound more normal when I speak."
"Are you serious?"
"I don't know any other way to be."
Dean was rolling his eyes, even if they were still closed. "It's like… you tuck up close with someone, somewhere dark and private-"
"Like in the 'old man's ford' or in the basement?" Cas had really been listening to the song like it was teaching him all those important human things he needed to know- like his PBS shows.
"Uh, yeah." The soft feel of the flannel against his face was distracting. "And you say things."
"Dirty things? Like mud and wood ash?"
"No, Cas. Other things." He sighed slow and heavy. "Sexy things."
Things got quiet and if it weren't for the firm presence beside him and the touching of the tender skin along his hairline he would have questioned if the Angel was even still with him.
"I don't understand."
He sighed again. This was stupid. It was the best word he could find for it. It was just stupid. He slited his eyes and was surprised to see Cas not looking at all confused, but his eyes bright with that same hungry expression he had when he first came out to the car. It was quite possible that the Angel did understand very well what Dean was talking about, but for that to be true Dean would have to believe that the simple minded, human like creature, that quietly sang the cookie monster song along with the tv, was actually a sly and calculating man.
Yeah right.
He wasn't buying that for a second.
"Things like… uh, well, you know." He found himself clearing his throat. "You've been learnin', I've been yearnin'. All the good times… Way, way down inside, honey, you need it." Dean's voice was almost even as he quietly did not sing the familiar lyrics. He was trying to speak in a language Cas would understand. Cas liked music. "You've been coolin', baby… all the good times I've been misusin'- uh- Way… way down inside, I'm gonna give you every inch of my love." He could feel the heat in his face and was glad that most of it was hidden behind those flannel sleeves. "Way down inside- you need… love." And he suddenly broke out in a grin, realizing the last line of the song and finding it absolutely hilarious that he was about to say it out loud. "Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your… backdoor man." And then he was laughing. He doubted that Led Zeppelin had Cas in mind when they wrote the song.
Backdoor man.
He had just said backdoor man to a dude.
It felt good to laugh.
It felt good when Cas parted that soft flannel curtain and kissed him, too.
Head wound and lack of dignity aside, it felt really, really good.
It still was far from what Dean would consider 'proper kissing, but it was enthusiastic. And something really needed to be said for enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm was awesome.
It was really fucking awesome.
But there was a bad sound, and it was interrupting the awesomeness.
The radio must have been giving up, because the classic rock had vanished in a high electrical scream of feedback. Cas pulled back slightly with a frown, Dean's lower lip still trapped between his teeth. A growl came from somewhere deep in Dean's chest, a sound to rival the radio. He was gripping the collar of his own pilfered jacket, feeling almost desperate to taste the Angel again. He craved it, he needed it. And their lips only just barely met once more when all hell broke loose.
Some sort of misery born storm must have rolled in while Dean had been under his car. It was all sleet and the earth rattling thunder from lightning striking far too close. The crackle of electricity in the air made the hair on Dean's arms stand up and the one filling he had on a back molar buzz with heat. The air around them was alive and the strong alkali stink of it was suffocating.
Cas had sat back on his haunches, face turned up to the sky, his blue eyes wide and almost panicked.
"We need to get inside." Dean was climbing to his feet, the icy rain soaking him all the way to the skin in seconds, and Cas was still- unmoving and unblinking, looking up at the sky while his breath trickled out of him in a fine white mist. "Hey, Cas, come on." He grabbed the Angel by the shoulders in an attempt to haul him to his feet. "You're freaking me out, man."
"He found me." His words were all but lost on the wind. "The wards weren't enough."
Dean bore his teeth, he didn't know any curses good enough to express his feelings. He didn't know who had found Cas now, but things tended to get ugly when the Angel was worried about people finding him. "Come on." He repeated. "We need to get inside, behind the threshold. Guns and salt and exor-" and that's when it hit him from behind.
He fell forward, tripping over Cas' crouched body, sending them both sprawling in a tangle of limbs and fresh blood and something rolling and dark like a boiling shadow, but ten times more corporeal and as cold as death. Dean had no idea what it was, but it lifted him effortlessly and threw him like a stone through the window of the nearest car… which happened to be the Impala's windshield that was already cracked and splintered and gave very little protest to Dean's body passing through it.
The familiar leather of the seat was pressed to his cheek and he just wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep. Distantly he heard a man's voice raised in anger and for some reason that was important to him. He struggled for a moment, fighting to lift his head, but instead his eyes slammed closed with a great sense of finality and he went limp.
"Ya idjit, can you get up?" Bobby's voice was coming down the line sometime later, maybe seconds, maybe years, rough and worried and not at all like Bobby was meant to sound.
"No." Dean's mouth formed clumsily around the word, the single syllable seemingly much harder than it should have been.
"You better, Dean. We've got trouble." He sounded closer, but there was no way to know for sure without opening his eyes, and Dean knew if he managed that that the dull threat of pain that was waiting on the edge of consciousness would rush in and swallow him whole.
"Cas?" Little, single words felt like the best plan right then. Nothing too complicated, nothing to let his body know that he was really awake and that it should act accordingly.
"That's the trouble."
And if that was true it was reason enough for Dean to drag himself back to the land of the living. He felt he owed the Angel something, and not just quick and dirty fumbles in cars, but something far more substantial and meaningful. The man had saved him more than once, and as Cas had said, they were friends and friends get their sorry asses out of broken cars when someone needed them.
Dean didn't know how much of the blood was his, but by the light-headed, woozy feeling building at the base of his skull, it was possible that most of it had come from the bazillion little cuts all over him, complements of the shards of glass that once pretended to be his windshield. It was everywhere, the rain had let up while Dean had been out and there was nothing to wash away the slick red smears that clung to the hood and roof of his car and pooled darkly where it mixed with the pale mud and rainwater all around them. And there were feathers, inky black ones like motes caught tumbling in the curls of wind winding through the rows of junkers, and pale ones, smaller and perfect, pale feathers were laying in the blood and dirt, most as white as snow, some flecked with gold and amber. It looked like someone took a machete to a father bed.
He swayed on his feet, leaning against the car's door for support. God, he didn't feel good.
Bobby was standing beside him, shotgun in hand, but only half heartedly pointing it in the direction of the front of the Impala. Whatever was over there out of Dean's line of sight was apparently not much of a threat.
It was with much trepidation that Dean made his way round the shell of his poor car, not really wanting to see what Bobby had called trouble, but he could hear the strange little noises on the wind and the stupid part of his brain told him that he really wanted to know what was making those moist sounds.
He really should start ignoring that part of his brain, that part of him was not so wise, that part of him didn't mind things like nightmares and thought throwing up out of pure distubia was a good thing.
Cas was laying curled on his side, his blood, a little too dark to be mistaken for Dean's , had soaked through the canvas jacket and was congealing beneath him too thick and in too great in quantity. And Gabriel of all people was crouched at his brother's side, hands pressed to Cas' ribs like he was attempting to hold something in, attempting and loosing the fight. His thin arms shaking with the effort.
But that wasn't the half of it. One of Cas' beautiful black wings was crumpled against his back, blurring and shifting in the light, the other one lay quite solid and real and easy to see a few feet away, feathers stripped away in places and jagged splinters of bone poking out here and there, glaringly bright in the mess of darkness. But the wing was not the only thing lying very wrongly in the mud, there were bits of red, thick meaty bits that must have been meat of some sort, and there were bones there too, just tiny pieces, really no more than scraps. Like a cow had been shoved through a wood chipper. Except cows didn't have fingers, and Dean knew that one of those little chunks was definitely a finger.
Something in his brain shut down. It wasn't helpful at all, but it did keep him from screaming, so maybe it wasn't all bad.
"Little fella says you know him and I shouldn't shoot his face off." Bobby said softly and it almost made Dean jump out of his skin.
He was nodding, then his body got some sort of message that maybe he should be doing more than standing there like an idiot and he stumbled over himself to Cas' side.
That strange moist noise was coming from the broken looking Angel, or more specifically from the hole in his side that Gabriel was trying to keep covered.
"What the fuck happened?" Dean's words were sharp and accusatory, he needed someone to blame as he stripped out of his over shirt, pushed Gabe aside and shoved the bit of cotton into the sucking wound that must have gone all the way down to Cas' lungs. Each breath was attempting to bypass the normal lines and just go straight through the gaping hole in his side. It was a bad kind of injury, the kind that people died from it they didn't get to hospitals.
"I-" the little Angel was still clinging to his brother. "The weather patterns, Sam saw them, knew something bad was coming." He swallowed thickly. "It was Anduriel."
"We need to get him to the doctors- right now." Dean wasn't actually in the mood to hear the story of what happened, because what happened was not as important to him as what would be happening if they didn't do something fast.
"Can't- doctor can't fix this."
"The hell they can."
"Dean, I'm out of juice. I used what I had of my Grace getting here and blowing up that bastard. We won't be able to get him to a hospital in time to do any good."
"I hate you." He said simply, struggling to pull Cas into his arms. If Gabriel wasn't going to help him he could go fuck himself. Dean was not about to just watch Cas die, by suffocation or bleeding out.
"Don't move him, you'll make it worse." He finally let go of his brother, grabbing hold of Dean's arms.
"Help me or don't, but I will kick your sorry little ass if you don't get out of my way."
"He can fix this himself."
Dean paused long enough to see how pale Cas' face was, he had lost too much blood, he looked almost grey, his eyes bruised and his lips blue tinted. Cas wasn't in a state to fix anything. "He needs to get to a hospital."
"He needs his Grace."
"He doesn't have any, you little prick, you know that."
"He can take some of yours."
"I don't have any." Dean felt some sort of bitter emotion building in the back of his throat. He didn't want to sit in the mud arguing, but he also knew that even if they had a teleporter and the words best surgeon waiting for them, it was too late. Cas was trembling, his skin clammy and cold.
Gabe didn't ask permission, didn't explain what he was doing, he just looked at that desperate and broken expression on Dean's face and DID. Though what exactly he did was beyond Dean's understanding. The little Angel took his brother's limp hand and forced it up under Dean's shirt, over his heart and it was as cold and clammy as if he was already dead. The blond was talking fast to his brother, the words tangled and lost and Cas stirred slightly, his pale lips moving even if no sound came out. Gabe made a frustrated noise and looked up at Dean, all wide eyed and frantic. "Tell him it's fine," he demanded. "Give him permission."
Dean wanted to ask if it would hurt, it was that simple childlike part of him that would always worry about things like that. But he knew that even guarantied agony would not stop him, and he didn't know when he had gotten to the point with Cas, that he would give him almost anything. It was almost as bad as he was with Sam. He couldn't tell them 'no' if his life depended on it. And even that knowledge wasn't enough to scare him off, though he knew that it should. He was in deep. Way too deep and he didn't know if he would ever see light again. "It's ok, Cas." And it was. Whatever was happening was ok, as long as the Angel didn't leave him like this.
Those cold fingers over his heart flexed slightly, or maybe Dean just imagined it. "Take it, Cas. Whatever you need- take it, just don't die."
And that was permission enough apparently. Something jerked in Dean, something deep down and sturdy, something important. It tore free, he could feel it come loose and it trembled as it spilled out, all white hot like a collapsing star. It was burning up inside of him, glowing so bright that he had to force his eyes closed, though he had no proof that the nova was tangible or anything more than a horrible feeling welling up, climbing and boiling and rushing to the place that Cas' fingers dug into his skin. It felt like dying, like breaking, like being born. It was a wild feeling, raw and breathtaking and horrible and wonderful and Dean did not pass out. His eyes were closed and he fell, that's all. He just fell over and didn't get up again until the sun had pass out of sight behind the tree line and the world had grown dark everywhere else except for that radiance inside of Dean. That took much longer to fade.