Chapter 10.

After supper and the usual chatter, the others gradually drifted off to their rooms and Dean and Anael were alone in the library. Dean poured out two glasses of whisky and slid one over to her. He watched her pick it up and drink some, admiring the elegance and enjoying the way she looked at him through her long lashes.

"I love the view from here." he said.

"There are no windows here." she pointed out.

"That's good. No distraction from the natural beauty." It was a good line and a non-celestial would have grasped his meaning.

"That doesn't make a lot of sense." she said

"It was trying to be a compliment."

There was a moment of tension as she seemed to run the exchange through her head, then she looked at him curiously and said, "You meant me?"

"Yeah. Maybe I need subtitles or diagrams or a banner saying, 'Flirting.'"

"Sorry." she said. She sounded subdued and hesitant and he regretted his tone.

"Relax," he said, "It's not you. I'm great at talking to women, until it matters and then ... well, you just saw how that goes. I'm not angry with you. I'm frustrated that I sound so dumb."

"You don't."

"I really do."

"Do you still worry about what I think?"

"Every frickin' day."

She smiled. "I must be the only angel who ever worried Dean Winchester."

"No, but you're the only one who worried me for this reason." he said.

She sipped more of the whisky. "Thanks for saying I can go with you tomorrow."

"Why wouldn't I? Family project. And I like having you around. You know I've never been with anyone who wanted to be a part of all this. Even Sammy had to be dragged kicking and screaming."

"Sam did?" she said, with evident disbelief.

"I thought all your kind knew all about us."

"My kind. Right. Well, some of us didn't."

"Hey, I didn't mean ..."

"Relax. Being around you has taught me to acquire a thick skin."

"My mouth gets ahead of my brain." He said, hating the way he could hurt her without meaning to and hating more that maybe an embittered corner of his soul did want to.

"It's fine." she lied, "Sam seems like such a natural hunter now."

"Yeah, he does, but at first, he didn't want any part of it. There was stuff between him and my dad and he wanted a normal life."

"With Jess."

"Yeah, with Jess, but he only met her because the demons set him up with her, because they could use her to force him back into hunting." He felt the anger rising again, " Our whole lives were rigged against us by God. Cas thinks I don't get it, but I do and that should make it okay, but it doesn't. I don't want that son of a bitch in his life." A troubling thought entered his head. She was an angel too, also programmed to serve God. "Like I said, I get it, that angels might feel a need to take care of him, to look for some kind of relationship with him."

"I don't!" she said and it was too swift and certain to be a lie. "I wish you'd killed him. He treated us all like pawns. He used us. He made us love him and then he showed us nothing but contempt. We believed and he broke us on the rocks of our belief. Metaphor." she added.

That reminded him of Cas. Angels barely understood metaphor, so those who discovered it added that footnote. It underlined how new it all was to them and how far some of them had come, but he also remembered Cas saying he had Winchestered another angel and he didn't know how to feel.

She misinterpreted his brief confusion. "It means ..."

"Yeah, I know." he said quickly, "I know how you feel. Not that I ever believed much, but people around me did. Sam did. Cas did."

"Are you okay?" she said. She could be a little too perceptive at times.

"I'm trying to be." he said, "This is supposed to be the easy part, the happy ever after crap. In the movies, it runs more smoothly. I wanna handle it better, but it's hard to let go of the past. It's hard to believe in anything." He drained his glass and refilled it, getting up to refill hers too. "I'm tired of not believing anything. I'm just tired." He sat down again, worried that she'd be as u impressed by that as he was.

"Of course you are." she said, "After everything you've been through, who wouldn't be? I don't even know all of it." She smiled. "Maybe I need to read the books."

"No!" he said, more sharply than he had intended. He tempered it. "I'd prefer if you didn't."

"Okay." she said.

That threw him. Angels were rarely so compliant. "Okay?" he said.

"It can't be easy, having that stuff out there. If the thought of people reading it upsets you, of course I won't do it."

It felt weird, any angel, especially this one, being so quick to agree to respect his boundaries. His own mother had refused not to read the books. It didn't feel like a lie. It felt like sensitivity and consideration. "Thanks." he said.

There was a lot more he could have said, but he didn't trust his voice to remain steady. The last thing he wanted was to end up sobbing at the table in front of her and then having to spend time in Sioux Falls with her after.

He quietly mastered his conflicting emotions and took a long swig of whisky. Eventually, he said, "You wanna light some candles tonight, slip into that little satin thing and make a hunter happy?"

"Is that what you want to do?" she said. He couldn't tell whether she was disappointed that be didn't want to talk.

He didn't know what to say. He didn't fully understand what he was feeling, so he couldn't expect an emotional rookie like her to understand. "Sometimes," he said, "I really need to keep you close." Was that too much? Too little? It was honest.

She emptied her glass in one gulp. "Drink up!" she said, "I'm about to rock your world."

Later, lying in their disordered bed in the candlelight, with the wisp of ivory satin on the pillow beside him and their satiated bodies comfortably entwined, he knew it had been the right decision. There were other ways to communicate than with broken words and rash statements and often, each of them needed a loving touch more than any empty chatter or worse, a deep, difficult conversation.

She stroked his chest and smiled at him. "Why did anyone make electric lights, when candlelight is better?"

He had to agree. By candlelight, she was impossibly beautiful. He played with a strand of her hair and said, "Because if I only saw you by candlelight, we'd never get out of bed."

"Sounds good." she said.

"Yes, it does." He ran his fingers along her shoulder blade, briefly remembering how hard he had tried not to find her beautiful and how impossible that had turned out to be. His room had been empty until she had shared it and now he wanted to stay there forever, in her arms.

"What are you overthinking?" she said.

He chuckled. "I'm not. I'm savouring the moment."

"Oh. Good."

"I know the odds are against it, I know that," he said, hoping he wouldn't hurt her again with his clumsy phrasing, "But I wish this could be forever."

She kissed his shoulder. "So do I." she whispered.

"If it ends tomorrow, still worth it, but I want forever." he said, "I wanted you to know that."

"If we both want forever, maybe it can work." she said.

"Maybe." he acknowledged. His eyes closed. He opened them again, wishing he didn't need to sleep.

She gently closed his eyes again. "You need to sleep, my love. I'll still be here when you wake up."

He didn't try now to open his eyes. He just smiled and let himself drift off with a smile in his face.