Today was Dean's final day in the bunker, and frankly, he'd exhausted all options of passing the time. He couldn't read anymore. He couldn't watch any more television. There was nothing new to amuse him. He cleaned the bunker top to bottom one last time and had cooked and fussed and rearranged and Sam had said that if Dean touched any more furniture, he'd have Castiel banish him to the other side of the planet.
He found Cas down in the pool, swimming languidly, wings crackling in and out of existence. Watching his wings fade in and out of existence was fascinating to watch. One moment they were corporeal, solid black and iridescent, and the next sliding into an opaque smoky grey, before disappearing completely and starting all over again. Cas said that particular trick took centuries to learn. Testing himself, Dean laid back on one of the lawn chairs they had, and closed his eyes. He imagined himself making his wings fade and then disappear. Basically, he imagined himself being human again. The feeling of empty shoulders, no weight on his back, though they didn't really have them anyway. Removing them from his peripheral in his head, and in his memory. The weightless feeling did sweep over him for a moment, and then he felt normal again, save for Castiel.
"Dean…" He opened his eyes, and Cas had stood up in the water, wings floating about gracefully, pure wonder and concern in his eyes. He'd grown used to Cas appearing and disappearing, mostly due to the extra sense of knowing about it half a second earlier than he did as a human.
"Dude, what?" Cas merely pointed, and when Dean cast his gaze back, he almost panicked. Almost. "They're gone? Did I do that?" He blinked, and suddenly it was as if the wings had never left, shivering slightly in the wake of panic emanating from Castiel. "Dude, awesome! I thought you said it took centuries to learn?" Castiel flapped his wings once, and landed gracefully in front of Dean. He leaned forward, more concern than before on his face, in his muscles, even showing in his wings.
"It's supposed to, even in natural-born angels. How are you doing it? What's the spell you're using?" Dean frowned, not quite understanding what Castiel was saying to him .
"Spell? Dude, no. I'm just imagining it. I laid back, and thought about having no wings, and it just happened. Just like on the roof. I imagined my clothes dry, and the feeling of being dry. There's no spell, man." Castiel glared, and Dean was suddenly a little worried at his advanced prowess with catching onto the whole Angel thing. With only a few seconds warning, Castiel and Dean were standing in Heaven. Or at least, he assumed that's where they were because it was just so damned bright.
"This is where I come to think. It's not my Heaven. Angels don't get them. Angels get offices and work spaces, galleries. Souls get their own Heavens, all existing within, on top of, or adjacent to one another. I believe you've already seen yours and Sam's, plus the combined effort of Jo, Ellen, and Ash's Heaven." Dean thought back to that day, being in those different Heavens, being in the Garden, finding out Sam was his soulmate on a technicality. Though, he assumed that had been changed, because his attachment to Sammy was becoming alarmingly less and less. Not to the point where he didn't love Sam, but not so….attached.
"Yeah, I remember that." Dean tried not to show how it affected him. "So you are allowed in other people's Heavens?"
"Yeah, and if you listen, I'm sending out a message to a particular Angel, who can help….assess you."
"As long as it isn't Naomi doing the assessing, I couldn't care less."
A short while later, a smartly dressed Asian man ambled up to them. "You called, Castiel?"
"This is Dean Winchester, newly recruited Fledgling. And he's possessing quite a few abilities he shouldn't yet, at least, certainly not by the traditional means. Dean, this is Andriel, Guardian of Prowess and Talent, Angel of Saturdays and part of the Grigori Watcher Clan, as I am."
"Pleased to meet you Dean. Come, let's find somewhere we can test you out."
Castiel and Andriel stood to one wall of the stark, white room that they were now in. Dean was leaning, braced on the only table in the room, trying not to listen to the hushed tones they spoke in and not succeeding very well. It didn't help that the other two angels were speaking a little too loudly. Or was it the fact that Dean's senses were starting to adapt? Another thing to file under 'Ask Cas Later'.
"Castiel, you know the first test is in his eyes. And, from all outward appearances, he's passing that without even having a closer look. They are, as written, quite 'unnatural and ethereal in color.' I have seen few Fledglings adapt this quickly."
Cas cleared his throat and moved so that he was blocking the movement of his lips from Dean, fearing the man had learned to read lips in all his years as a hunter. He hadn't, however, accounted for Dean's newfound hearing talent. Which Dean hadn't exactly accounted for either.
"No, Andriel, they have always been like that, since he was a small human." Castiel looked everywhere but at the angel in front of him. For the first time Dean had ever seen, he was embarrassed in front of another angel. Dean bit his lip in thought. Yes, it was true that Cas had been assigned as his personal guardian angel all those years ago, but this was something more. Far beyond the profound bond, far beyond the easy friendship they had developed, Cas had noticed his eyes. Like, really looked at them. It was simultaneously creepy and overwhelmingly charming at the same time...
"Alright Castiel, what do you think we should test then?" Cas' eyes flicked towards Dean's for half a second, before settling on his own shoes, which he began to scuff like an anxious 12-year-old.. Andriel tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for Castiel to speak up.
"Well, how about the butterflies?" Andriel sat a moment, pensive. Dean watched this entire exchange quietly, assessing his danger. He supposed old habits died hard. He noticed his hand reaching for the gun that wasn't even there - one that hadn't been there for quite some time now that he thought about it.
Andriel turned to Dean, smiling gently, but nothing about it made Dean comfortable. Instead he found his skin crawling. He tried to shake it, he was an angel now, he was supposed to put all of that behind him now. Angels weren't paranoid. He had to learn to trust angels as much as he did Sammy. The man in front of him was the same species and person as the friend standing just a bit too close to next to him. Speaking of which, 'Cas, get out of my ass."
"Dean I'm not in your-... Dean."
Dean cracked a slow smile. This was a learning process for Castiel as much as it was for Dean. A small part of Dean appreciated how far Cas had come, how much he cared for himself and others now. "I heard you say something about butterflies?"
"Yes, butterflies. Angels have a good mastery of most of the nature God created for us, but none have the relationship with us quite like butterflies. They were made for us, as friends and as allies. There's a particular reason that they eat meat, you know? They have helped us fight many battles, because we can manipulate them."
"Hold on. Manipulate?" Dean blinked stupidly at Castiel. Butterflies?
"I mean that loosely, more like we ask and they comply. But being able to ask them to do something, and they do it, is a very angelic trait."
"So, what? They're like dogs? You can 'ask' them to attack something and they will?" Dean's mind went right to the image of Sam being swarmed by a mass of colorful wings and his little brother trying futilely to swat them away. To Dean at the young age it was, he couldn't admit it, but it was beautiful to see all those colours, all that beauty swarming to his little brother.
"I didn't do that, Dean." Castiel gave himself away.
"Didn't do what?"
"The butterflies when Sam was younger. That wasn't me. "
"What do you - wait. Did you read my mind?"
Castiel continued as if he didnt' hear him."...Although it does seem angelic. Perhaps Gabriel was keeping a closer eye on you two than he cares to admit… Though that being said, you were right, they were very pretty."
"Cas I swear to God will you stay outta my head." Dean smirked though, at his own joke. The joke fell on deaf ears, however.
There was a silence as the things unsaid remained that way. This was not the time or the place to resolve all the issues they had shared since...well, since the start of what the both of them thought as 'the Free Will Years'.
"So are we doing the butterflies or…" Castiel's stance changed from friendly and open to defensive. It was subtle, but there. Just a small change in the way he held himself really, but it made Dean suddenly defensive too.
"You don't have anything to worry about Dean, we just need to scope out where you are in terms of knowledge of yourself. Mastery of willpower is something already impossible by angel standards for an angel, so this is as new to us as it is to you. But this is also good because we can help to teach you things as well."
"So what do we need to do?" Dean was resigned to his fate at this point. He just wanted to get this over with and get onto the job of being and Angel - whatever the hell that entailed.
Castiel smiled over at him and in the blink of an eye, there was a colorful swarm filling the room. "Call them."
"By name?"
"No, Dean. I need you to think for a moment. Remember how you got dry? Well I want you to reach out, and sense them. Feel their presence, connect with them."
"Sense them?" Dean closed his eyes as he had before, relaxing every muscle in his body. He felt his wings ripple for a moment before he caught up with the sensation and began to focus.
"Okay, can you feel my presence? Go quiet and reach out with your mind. I need you to do that with the butterflies. Reach out and hear them."
Dean steeled his mind, and settled his pounding heart. He actually felt his mind go still, which was weird and distracting at the same time, but instead of focusing on that, he went with his gut. Relaxing, exhaling, he treated this meditation like he would shooting at the range with his father. He sent himself back to his first shoot-out with his dad. Once his mind was still, he reached out gently.
Butterflies were fucking weird.
All of them were thinking together and, yet, separately. And all had one thought louder than the rest of the buzzing of 'food', 'pretty', and 'sex'. That thought, that one loud thought, was 'angels' and it was the sweetest, fondest thought, filled with love and loyalty. And it weirded Dean out to no end.
"Dean, can you hear them?" Castiel regarded Dean for a moment, and Andriel wrote something down.
"Cas are you in my head again?"
"Yes, but I figure you'd prefer me to Andriel. Dean, can you hear the butterflies?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You shouldn't be able to hear anything. Butterflies don't think, they are entirely instinctual beings, incapable of anything then forwarding their race." Dean blinked rapidly, processing that for a moment.
"Then tell them to shut the fuck up for me, would you?"
And, just like that, there was a silence. One that burned his ears and sent a prickling feeling down his spine. Dean gasped quietly, unexpectant of that reaction. He looked at Cas accusingly, and Castiel looked quietly back, waiting for something Dean wasn't apparently giving.
Castiel blinked, and frowned. "Dean, we didn't do that."
"Like hell you didn't. Don't mess with me, man. It's not funny."
"Dean, we didn't do it. Angelic law prevents us from interfering in these tests. This is all you. Give them another command."
Castiel gestured to the butterflies, which had now settled on the floor by the fake door.
Still not believing what he was being told, Dean looked over to them and smirked. He was going to show Cas.
All at once, the mass moved again, headed right for where the angels stood. If Dean thought it was funny to see a tiny Sammy Winchester become a walking butterfly, then it was easily twenty times as funny to see the very stoic Castiel in the same situation.
Dean let out a chuckle that echoed in the room. Being an Angel was definitely more fun than he thought it would be.