Chapter 29.

With everyone together, things actually felt pretty normal. Nobody mentioned the night before and happier things got discussed instead, like Charlie's arrangement to stay with Lydia at the weekend and the plans Sam and Eileen had for the nursery.

Anael sat opposite Dean, as if nothing had changed and that felt good. She talked less than the others, but she often did and when someone made a joke, she laughed, if she understood it.

Cas still looked unhappy, but not angry. Dean was used to seeing guilty Cas and he knew that it would take a while for him to snap out of it. He didn't say anything. His mishandling of the whole situation had already caused problems for Jules and it probably wasn't a good idea to do anything without a lot of thought. Jules was right, they lived in fear of losing each other and once Cas got it into his head that he had done something wrong, it was hard for him to move past it.

Gradually, as usually happened, people drifted off to their rooms. Cas and Jules were first, then Charlie, then Dean realised that Sam and Eileen were sticking around in case he didn't want to be alone with Anael.

"Hey, Sam, Eileen, you look exhausted. You should get to bed." he said.

"Are you and Anael okay?" said Sam.

"We're not gonna fight and we're not gonna have sex." said Dean, "You can stand down until the morning."

Sam nodded. "Okay. Goodnight."

After they had gone, he turned to Anael. "You're fine with that, right?"

"Yes." she said.

"Because, if you feel weird being left alone with me ... "

"I like being alone with you." she said.

That seemed both good and bad. He decided he should talk to her properly.

"Good," he said, "Because I think I've handled everything as badly as I could and I need to apologise for that and explain things."

"Nothing to explain. It meant nothing. I got it."

"No, see that's not entirely true." he said, "I thought saying that would make it easier, but it really hasn't. It wasn't meaningless, just ill-advised."

"Which means ... ?" she said. Talking about human stuff to angels was never easy.

"It means my feelings were real, but I had no right to express them."

"Oh." she said.

"Oh?"

"Who exactly said you had no right?"

"What?"

"Because I know I didn't and neither Castiel nor Jack was there. Who else gets to decide?"

"It's not that a person told me, it's just that ... Look, just because I want something, doesn't make it mine. You got that?"

"No. You're saying you wanted sex?"

"Yes."

"And I wanted sex, so we had sex."

"Yes."

"But somehow we're not allowed sex. Is this one of the stupid rules humans make for themselves, like not being allowed to cross the road at certain places?"

"No. Yes. No. This stuff is complicated."

"Clearly."

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about it. I just want you to know that it couldn't have been just anyone. It could never work out between us, I know that, but I wanted, very specifically, to be with you last night."

"Do you love me?" she asked.

"No." he said. He remembered his conversation with Jules, when she had asked if he would stop loving Anael if she showed signs of age. His response had been immediate and visceral and he had felt insulted at the very thought that his feelings could be so shallow. "I don't know." he said.

"When will you know?" she said.

This time, he was more honest. "Probably never, because I really don't want to think about it."

"The angel thing?"

"No, the Dean thing."

"Have to say, last night, the Dean thing seemed a lot more fun."

He smiled. "Are you flirting with me, now? I'm trying to be all calm and respectful and not think of you naked."

"So, not thinking of me naked takes effort?" she said. Her smile was very appealing.

"Right now, it's taking every little bit of strength I have."

"Good, because all day, I've been thinking of your body."

"We both need to stop thinking those things." he said.

"Yes, because it must never happen again."

"No, never." he said.

"Even if we both want it to and everyone else is fine with it."

"I'm not fine with it."

"But you do want it."

"I've often wanted things that were not right."

"Okay, this is wrong. Is it evil?" she said.

"No." he said.

She got up and walked away. He feared he had hurt her again, but she returned with a half bottle of whisky and two glasses. She poured whisky into both glasses and pushed one across the table to him before retaking her seat.

He drank some. It tasted of denial.

"Whose rules are we breaking?" she asked, "Whose rules do you even obey? You told Heaven where to stick its rules."

He couldn't answer. He wished he knew a way to explain to her things that didn't fully make sense to him.

"Things are okay between you and Castiel now?" she said.

"Yeah, everything fine there."

She nodded. "Good. I don't want to make trouble between you. I know what your friendship means to both of you."

"It's not because of Cas that I ... "

"No, it's something else and it's okay. If you don't love me, we can be friends. It's better than losing you altogether."

"You probably don't love me, either." he said.

"You could be right. How would I know?" she said. She took a long drink from her glass, leaving very little in it. Automatically, he refilled it.

"This is why it's wrong." he said, "Because we have entirely different perspectives on this. You can't understand your feelings. Sex can be overwhelming for angels."

"How many have you had sex with?" she asked.

"Only you, at full power and Anna Milton in human form."

"Was she overwhelmed?"

"No, but she did go crazy not long after."

"Do I seem crazy to you?"

"All angels seem a little ... No, you absolutely do not." he said, seeing the look in her eyes.

"You seemed overwhelmed last night."

He nodded. He had been.

"But my mind is the one that stopped functioning?"

"I didn't say that." he said, "I just mean that you might be confusing the sensation with an emotion."

"I'm an angel. I can distinguish molecules in a flavour. I can certainly tell the difference between really liking what you do to my body and wanting to be with you, even if it means never getting near your naked body again."

"Which it does." he said.

"I'm aware." she said, "I don't seem to be the one who's struggling to understand my feelings."

"You really liked it?" he said hopefully.

"Every second of it." she said, "Does it matter?"

It did. "Probably not." he said.

"But if you're worried I'll struggle with the platonic thing, don't. I have some self-control and like I said, having you around is the important thing.

They were both quiet for a while, finishing the bottle between them, then he fetched another and she said, "Who was your first lover?"

"I can't remember that far back." he said.

"Everyone remembers their first, don't they?"

"Not me." he said, "I've never been sentimental."

"Okay, best and worst, then."

"Difficult. It doesn't feel right to have some kind of league table. I wouldn't say any of them were bad. I was grateful, every time."

"You're not telling me anything." she said, "Can't friends discuss this stuff?"

"It's not as easy as you seem to think. Could you give me a best and worst?"

"Yes, easily. You for both."

"Me? Wow. Between the first and last time last night, my technique must have varied widely in quality."

"No, it was all good, but you're the only one."

The whisky blur evaporated. That made everything a million times worse. "I was your first?" he said.

"How is that a problem?" she said.

"You were a virgin?"

She laughed. "No, of course not. This vessel had a full and interesting life."

"And the angel inside it?"

"I just never got that close to anyone before you."

"This is bad." he said.

"How is this bad?"

"You didn't know anything about this stuff before last night."

"I had full theoretical knowledge. I think I did okay." she said.

"You did great, but you have no parameters for judging your feelings."

"Who judges feelings? Isn't that exactly the bad habit that has you all tied up in knots?"

"If you'd been with other people ... "

"Is that what you want? You want me to walk into a bar and pick someone up?"

"No." he said. Just the thought of it made his stomach lurch.

"Then I really don't see what I can do. It's not my fault you were the first."

"I didn't say it was your fault. It's the kind of thing I should have asked last night. It's the kind of thing I should have cared about."

"But you didn't." she said, "It didn't matter then and it doesn't matter now."

He put his head in his hands. "How are we gonna fix this?"

"You define what you want our relationship to be and that's what we'll do, because I can't make you love me and I can't bear to walk away."

"That seems unfair to you."

"It is." she said, "But so was Heaven. I'm used to it. We should go to our rooms now, before we get nostalgic and rip each other's clothes off."

"I'm sorry for everything." he said.

"You're sorry for the wrong things."

"I'm sorry for that, too."

They both stood. She walked around the table and paused in front of him for a moment. She touched his chest and her hand set off all kinds of thoughts in his head. "I love your body," she said, "But the man who's in there, I love more."

His chest tingled with anticipation of more and his body urged him to just forget all the problems and beg her for one more night, but this was Anael and she deserved better. "We can do this." he said, "We're strong-willed people. We can do platonic."

"We can do anything." she said.