Hello, my darlings! I consistently forget about the existence of this site, sorry. Wrote this a year ago but was super nervous about posting it because it's pretty far outta my usual wheelhouse. But, I sucked it up and posted it to ao3 a while ago and the response has been pretty positive so I thought you guys should get the chance to read it too ❤️ I am so normal about these two. So incredibly normal. (I say like a lying liar who lies.) Uh, small warning there is like, heavily implied/referenced sex at the end? Nothing is super explicit but it is clear what they're doing (this is the part that's outside of my comfort zone lol). Anyway, please be kind, I am but a smol asexual 🙏
Castiel doesn't understand human 'pet names' and 'terms of endearment' as well as he would like. He knows them, has heard them and parroted them and tried so hard to understand, but he just cannot grasp why.
He does not understand why he should call Dean anything other than his name, his name which means love and safety and protection and home and strength and power and all that Dean is to him and more. Why would some random word be more special, how could a word that millions of other, simple people use on their other, simple partners mean more than Dean, when that single syllable, those four little letters, are unique and singularly his own. When the sound of Dean rolling off his tongue is the sound of divinity.
But then.
Oh, but then.
Then Dean greats him in the morning as he stumbles into the bunker's kitchen with a cup of coffee prepared just the way he likes it still warm and fresh and steaming as he wraps his fingers around it with a soft, "Good morning, sunshine," as he places a gentle, almost reverent kiss on Castiel's forehead.
And Castiel feels his chest go warm and soft and okay, maybe he can understand it a little better now.
Then Castiel gets hurt on a hunt and Dean is right there beside him, putting pressure on the wound and getting Castiel's blood all over his hands and shirt but his eyes are wide, and his voice is shaky and terrified as he says, "Hey, hey, Cas, c'mon, stay with me, you gotta stay with me, babe," and presses their foreheads together and he is begging with Castiel to hold on just a little longer because help is on the way "you just need to hold on a little longer for me, angel, you can't go to sleep yet, just a little longer."
And when Castiel wakes up in a hospital bed minutes or hours or days later with Dean's voice calling him "babe" and "angel" still ringing in his ears and he cannot feel the pain of his wounds because he is filled too much with the warmth and softness and love from Dean's words to know the feel of anything else, he thinks maybe he does get it now, maybe he is beginning to understand why when Dean says those words with such softness and love and adoration.
Then Dean is hurt and Castiel is panicking because he doesn't have his Grace anymore, he is painfully, pitifully, uselessly human and he doesn't know what to do but Dean is holding his hand and making their eyes meet and he is comforting and reassuring Castiel which is wrong, it is wrong because Dean is the one that is hurt and Castiel should be comforting and reassuring him, but Dean is squeezing his hand and saying, "hey, I'm alright, darlin', it isn't much more than a scratch," and he's pressing a kiss to Castiel's cheek and showing him, "look, it's already pretty much stopped bleeding, darlin', I've had much worse than this and come out the other side no worse for wear, yeah?" and Castiel thinks that he is burning bleeding breaking because Dean is hurt and he is bleeding but he is also right and Castiel knows this but he is still freaking out because Dean is hurt and he cannot heal him.
And later, as Castiel runs his hands along the bandage he had wrapped so carefully around Dean's chest to cover the jagged slash across his breast and ribs that he knows will scar, as he lays there with Dean's head tucked into the crook of his neck and their legs tangled together within the sheets and wishes wishes wishes that he still had his Grace, he remembers how even bleeding and in pain Dean had called him "darlin'," had said that word with such gentle, loving reassurance and how just hearing that word fall from Dean's lips had calmed his racing heart, and he knows why, now, he has to because it cannot feel better than this, cannot possibly mean more than this, here, now.
(Castiel has always spoken Dean's name like a prayer, has always greeted him with, "Hello, Dean," like worship, has always known their bond as something sacred and holy and sublime. Castiel is devoted to humanity and Dean is the alter at which he kneels because Dean Winchester is everything good and right and divine about humanity.)
(Castiel is a Fallen Angel of the Lord, but he did not care and he did not regret a single action he had taken nor choice he had made that got him here because he knew what it was to feel true, human love for someone and what it was to be loved truly, deeply, selflessly in return.)
(Castiel was kissing Dean, trailing his fingers along Dean's scars, tracing constellations between the freckles scattered across Dean's body like stardust. He was drinking in the color of Dean's eyes, olive and emerald and gold and amber like sunlight filtering through the trees to dance along the forest floor, like light refracting through a glass of Dean's favorite aged whiskey, like starlight casting shadows through a stained-glass window. Castiel would kiss and worship and pray and love until Dean could no longer doubt his devotion, until Castiel had wrung every last drop of self-loathing from his body and convinced Dean that he was worthy of being saved, he was worthy of being loved, he was worthy of living, until Dean believed that he did not have to earn their love.)
(Castiel would praise and worship and prostrate himself on the ground at Dean's feet until Dean no longer thought himself expendable, no longer thought himself nothing more than another obstacle to be placed between his loved ones and anything that wished them harm, no longer thought himself something to be used up and broken down and thrown away with disgust like one might discard rancid meat.)
Then Castiel was unraveling Dean, slowly, carefully, one gorgeous, gossamer thread at a time with his hands and his mouth and Dean was writhing beneath him, rendered breathless by his steady ministrations and Dean was breathing his name like a prayer, gasping it into Castiel's shoulder like a plea, letting it tumble from his lips like a hymn as he cries out and trembles and comes completely undone and Castiel is kissing bruises into Dean's skin, marking his flesh and drowning in the taste of him and Castiel is lost in Dean's ecstasy, he is flying with wings built from all of Dean's sinful noises and loving touches and then he is nipping Dean's ear and whispering, "my beloved, my righteous man, ol monons, ozien, obza," slipping into Enochian, calling and claiming and consoling Dean all at the same time (my heart, mine own, my other half).
And then, oh and then, Castiel finally knew why, finally understood, as he and Dean lay tangled together, warm and full and sated, as Dean turns to him and asks what the Enochian means and Castiel explains, as Dean's face melts like sugar on Castiel's tongue into a soft, warm look of such utter love and adoration and tenderness that Castiel forgets how to breathe, as Dean watches him with those honey-whiskey-sage-pine irises still lit from within by an all-encompassing bliss, as Dean's eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles and dimples appear at the corners of his kiss-swollen lips and this, Castiel knows, is why, now he understands because it is all about the way Dean looks at him so lovingly, so trustingly, so bashfully at hearing that he is something Castiel treasures and loves and adores and Castiel will spend the rest of their lives branding that look on Dean's face into his mind just as he burns the words into Dean's skin with every kiss and bite and breath they ever share.