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Dean grins viciously into the demon's punch and slams his fist back into the skin-head's face. The beefy white man barely flinches, but it's enough time for Dean to reach for the knife in his belt. The demon slaps it away and it skitters across the abandoned factory floor and under a drill press. Dean ducks the next punch and tries to come up inside the bigger man's guard, but no joy: another solid smack to the face.

Dean's vision tilts and shifts but he's still moving forward, still swinging. He's got the demon backing up and feels a thrill of victory before a knife digs into his shoulder, ripping. Dean grunts, twisting away from the demon's partner and trying to back away from both, keeping each advancing monster in his blurring sight. He sees Castiel across the aisle, whispering an Enochian exorcism as he shakes the demon he has a headlock on like a terrier does a particularly recalcitrant rat.  Dean's vision is suddenly filed with pissed demons, male and female they advance on him and male and female he will disembowel them, wrecked shoulder or not.

The red-headed woman is faster and sweeps his feet out from under him; he lands hard on his cut-up arm. She's going in for a kick to the head when she's yanked back, Castiel's trench-coat snapping as he tosses her into the far wall. Not watching to see how she lands, Cas dives into the bald demon, shoulder to the stomach like he's been watching Packers re-runs again. They end up in a sprawled mess on the floor, and Dean scrambles over to help pin the demon as Cas speed-talks the exorcism.

The blackness burns out of the skinhead's body and he falls crushed and limp to the floor, dragging Dean's arms down with it. He's trying to disentangle himself when the female demon, blood streaking her auburn hair, sprints at them, screaming madcap. Castiel stands up between her rushing form and Dean's prone one, and begins the chant. She hits him, bowling him over onto Dean again but the angel just keeps on chanting. Dean catches her hand just as Cas finishes and a hair before she takes one of the angel's eyes back to Hell with her.

The host, now empty of the demon which rode it, crumples bonelessly, face suddenly sweet and faintly surprised. Dean scoots himself back, yanking his legs out from under Cas and the dead woman. Castiel is breathing hard, before he settles and pulls himself up like a restrung puppet. He turns and reaches a hand down for Dean. When Dean, dully, tries to figure out which arm would hurt less to be pulled up with, Castiel frowns and looks him over.

"You're injured." He says, nearly accusingly.

"I'm just hurt." Dean maneuvers his legs under him and, with a heave, drags himself upright. "Injury is permanent; hurt is just whining."

"That distinction makes no sense and no difference," Castiel was reaching for him with his magic fingers.

Dean stumbled back: "Don't waste it on me, man. Save up your angel-juice for the real fight."

Castiel continued to advance on him, undeterred and looking mortally stubborn.

"You are injured; you feeling pain now is needless. Healing you will not drain me."

Dean was preparing another argument when he smacked his hip-bone into the steel edging of a workbench. Swearing and clutching his new bruise, he didn't watch Cas's looming hand until it was on him.

A flurry of butterflies took off from where it lay on his shoulder, tappity-tapping their way down from his arm, flitting and re-stiching his torn skin, soothing his chest and hips and legs. He felt strains he hadn't remembered acquiring ease and crooked joints realign. The feeling was gone just as swiftly as it had begun, with the last wave of healing pinging down his newly undamaged arm. He rotated his shoulders, trying to work out the kinks which come of healing from Heaven.

Dean noticed Cas's hand was still on his shoulder. No, he noticed the angel's fingers, which were gripping him, like he was trying to memorize his shape. He glanced over at his friend only to see his eyes closed in concentration. Dean knew the healing was done, but Cas didn't seem to be ready to give up contact. He threw this observation into his mental pile of odd-angel-behaviors. He eased away from the man, grimacing as his muscles adjust away from compensating for his dislocated shoulder. The warehouse where he and Cas had just finished exorcising the demons is dank and shivvery-cold. The concrete floor is splashed with blood and scuffed from their fighting. He takes stock of the dead bodies--damn demons riding their hosts hard and hanging them up wet--and decides he'd rather skip town and let the local sherifs handle this crime scene. He looks back at Cas, who's staring at him, and says:

"You still here?"

Cas snaps his attention to Dean's eyes, then lowers them to his chest, where a ripped and blood-soaked t-shirt is the only evidence of Dean's previous wounds.

"I have matters to attend in heaven," Dean's brain catches up, and he shoves his way through his post-healing mental fog, and says quickly:

"No, wait, Cas; I'd, you're welcome to--" breath, think, breath, "I usually have a beer with Sam after a hunt. Want to join me?"

"I don't need to eat or drink, Dean," Castiel reminded him reproachfully,

"I know that, man, the beer's not to get drunk or get full; it's a ritual. A way to cheer for a day we didn't end up dead. It's a Winchester thing." Dean feels a chick-flick moment coming up, but quashes his discomfort. The angel deserved a bit of down time.

"That would be fine."

"Great," Dean claps his hand on Castiel's shoulder, digging his fingers in and turning it into an arm slung over the angel's shoulders.

They walked out the bay doors and into the gravel parking-lot, the Impala shading beneath the single low-slung and weary tree. Castiel stood stiffly as Dean popped the trunk and got out the beer cooler. Dean chuckled at his friend's alienness, then winced as his back objected to his cooler-lifting technique. He looked up at Cas and saw concern on the man's face. Dean decided to ignore this; Cas knew Dean would rather get his toe-nails painted lavender-peach than complain, and he swung the bottles over the Castiel. Castiel took his, and then levered the cap off with his thumb. Dean blanched and held his over for the Cas-treatment.

Dean thinks of turning this into an object lesson in how to act human, but realized the only humans Castiel really sees are the Winchesters, and they're so used to him he could get progressively weirder for a while before they objected. He just clinks their bottles together and tips back, smiling at the familiar taste and amber twilight air.

"What's there to do in Heaven?" He asks, casually. Castiel's shoulders slump and then he braces himself up again, replying in a flat voice:

"Raphael has control of most of the Host. I've concentrated on the edges, recruiting specialists and misfits and malcontents, trying to keep my people safe while hunting for cracks in Raphael's defenses. It's slow and I've lost brothers this week. But nipping at his heels though we may be, we're distracting him enough to keep him from freeing Michael and Lucifer."

"That's something, right?" Dean wavered, wondering why he felt the need to be optimistic. His friend's war seemed nearly done, and not in a good way.

"Is there, isn't there any big weapon you could use, an angel-nuke?" Castiel looked startled, then a strange expression drifted past, as quick and indecipherable as the shadow of a plane. Dean wondered what it meant, but Castiel replied:

"Not that I'm willing to use, just yet. I am working, but, there are compromises I must make. There are, deals." He tipped his bottle all the way up, draining it to empty, throat moving.

"I really should return. I must take status reports and reassign angels whose missions have failed, or completed satisfactorily." The angel made no move to disappear, Dean dropping his eyes to his nearly empty bottle. He emptied it, giving the angel time to decide what he wanted to do. He stayed still, eyes closed. Dean said quietly:

"If you need to rest, or brainstorm, I've got a couple of hours' drive to the motel and I wouldn't mind the company."

Castiel nodded and when Dean slipped into the driver's seat the angel was sitting next to him.

"I have no mental weather to speak of."

Dean took his car-start-up routine to rewind the last few sentences, translate Dean-speak to Cas-speak back to Dean-speak,

"I meant, you could explain a problem to me that you're having, in the war, with Raphael and I could help you plot a response."

"I don't think you can conceive of the kind of battles I need to fight."

Dean filtered the pissiness out of his friend's voice for the sake of a comfortable ride and said evenly,

"Try me."

Castiel humphed, and stared out the window. Dean waited him out, concentrating on navigating his way onto a country road and remembering the route he planned to take to the next job. He had a few days before he promised Sam he would meet up with him and Samuel, a few days to avoid thinking of the next Alpha hunt and what it meant that his baby brother preferred the company of their stone-cold grandfather and his dirty work for the devil.

"There are, many fronts. The closest I can come to your experience is to describe heaven as a twelve-dimensional cake, in the middle of baking and rotting and being digested and I need to find the right formula of frosting to hold it together."

"We can start smaller, man, tell me about one problem you're having right now."

"They are all one, Dean." Cas's eyes were eons away, not taking in the rolling wheat fields. "But, there is one man, angel, whose help I need. He fills Uriel's role in another garrison, and is currently unaligned."

"By 'Uriel's role' you mean being a gigantic douche?"

Cas ducked his head, hiding the twitch of this lips. "He's a weapon's maker, specializing in mass destruction." 

"Kill anyone I know?" Dean tried to make it light, but he was still uncomfortable that Cas's family were responsible for disasters of literally biblical proportions.

"Noah. Remiel was assigned the flood. It didn't cover the world--continental drift and uplift are responsible for the fossils of sea creatures found in the mountains--but the flood was devastating for the peoples of Judaea."

"So not a guy to half-ass his jobs. What does he need?"

"What?"

"The first step to recruiting someone is to get them something they need. You can get them something they want, but if you fill a need, you've got them. What does Remiel need?"

"I have no idea." Castiel is staring at him, maybe trying to translate this human attachment to needs and wants into angelic experience.

"Let's turn it around then: if he was going to turn you, what would he need to give you?"

"Remiel is currently unaligned."

"Yeah, I got that. But if he was on Raphael's side and he was trying to convince you to switch sides, what would he have to offer for you to consider it?"

Castiel seemed to think about it: "Your safety is a bargaining chip I fear will come into play if I become too successful." Dean carefully filtered Cas's tone here into something a normal friend might say, instead of a declaration-- "If he promised safe passage for my brothers after the cessation of conflict, that might sway me. But there is nothing that Raphael or any of his surrogates could offer me which would convince me to stand by as they destroyed Heaven as God left it and earth as I've come to know it."

"That's good to hear. But what if he wanted something smaller from you? Maybe he just wanted to know the location of an ancient weapon."

"A small betrayal is the identical to a larger one. I could never betray my brothers."

"I know, Cas, I never thought you would." Dean was smiling; Cas's earnestness was equal-parts frustrating and endearing. "But let's assume Remiel is a little more mercenary. Does he have a fondness for sweets, like Gabriel? A village he'd like to protect? Does he want his name to show up in more prayers? My Dad had this informant, this librarian in Utah, who would do anything for an hour with Dad's journal. He wasn't a hunter, but he dearly loved to read along, and see what we'd been doing. Sometimes the only leverage you need is friendship or knowledge. A little ego-stroking never--"

But the angel was gone, poof-ed out of the car. Dean scowled, muttered something about terminally flighty angels, popped in a tape, and let Metallica keep him company until dark.

--

When Dean pulled into the aspirationally-named Avalon Motel, he paused in the parking-lot, breathing into his vision of the next few hours: walk into a dark motel room, alone, watch TV, alone, drink some whiskey, alone, then go to sleep, alone, before driving up to Samuel's to rejoin Sam and the rest of the Campbells for a big Alpha hunt. He clenched his jaw and put his hand on the door handle, looking out the window into Castiel giving him owl-face three inches away through the glass. 

"Dammit, Cas," Dean muttered. Hustling his way out of the car, "I'm going to bell you, I swear to God." Dean was grinning and tipped his head towards the motel's front office before starting to walk, Castiel following him at his side. 

"Two double beds for my brother and I, please."

"Dean, I'm not staying."

Dean clapped his hand on Castiel's shoulder and said: "Sure you're not, Cas. He's scared of heights--could we have a ground-floor room, near a fire-escape?" He looked at the skeptical night attendant, "And two keys please."

They took the short way to Room 106, Dean leaving his duffle in the car, thinking they might get food later. He grabbed a free newspaper and handed a copy to Cas.

"Dean, I have important matters to attend to in Heaven."

"Yeah, Cas, I know," Dean leans over to fit the key into the doorknob. He opens the door and walks through, feeling the angel following him close behind.

"How's it go in Heaven? Did you try buttering Remiel up?"

Castiel looked entirely lost and Dean relented, "Buttering up: flattering, being kind to with the purpose of manipulating, coercing through kindness."

"No, not yet. I discussed your ideas with Rachel and she indicated Remiel could be made pliant with an increase in prayers using his name."

"That's great, Cas," Dean said, sitting down on one of the parallel beds, complete with plastic-y, ugly-bold patterned top-sheets. Castiel remained standing, hands loose at his sides. "I could do something about that first one. I've got a few Cardinals and lots of parish priests who owe me favors. By the end of services Sunday, we could have, I don't know, a few hundred, maybe a thousand people praying to the angel Remiel?"

Castiel eyes widened, like he hadn't considered Dean would lend his aid in a meaningful way. Dean withheld an offended harumph.

"That would be helpful," Castiel said, sitting down on the bed opposite.

"So what is it exactly that Remiel can do for you, Cas?"

"He can provide me weapons, information on Raphael's armaments and strategy. Rachel indicated that increased prayers would not only feed his ego but his power--the touch of their minds and souls might allow him to create stronger and better weapons, and make him personally stronger. He can give me advice, my followers hope and a sign our cause is not feckless." Castiel's eyes seemed to light up with his missionary zeal. 

"Cas: The Super Eveagelist. Just give me the word and we'll get those prayers rolling." Dean slid his hands back on the ugly bedspread, leaning into them and feeling the thin yet pilled surface of the coverlet. He stretched a smidge too far and his healed shoulder let out a singe of defiance.

Dean flinched, yanked the hand back to his side, trying to stretch the muscle out subtly. He failed.

Cas was standing in front of him, coat sweeping forward to brush Dean's knees with the wind of his movement. "What is it, Dean?

"Hurt, not injured Cas." Castiel reached his hand down, thumb slotting into the dip above Dean's clavicle and four fingers pressing gently into his knotted trapezius. "What's wrong?"

Dean pulled back, but Castiel only swayed closer to him, refusing to relinquish his hold on the his shoulder. "Leave it, Cas. Sometimes, when I heal fast, my muscles take a while to catch up. In the morning it will be great."

Castiel looked contemplative, weighing something. He walked around to the side of Dean's bed, hand never losing contact with his shoulder, and Dean felt the bed dip.

"Cas? What're you doing?"

"I am conversant in human anatomy. I believe I can realign your major muscle groups by means of appropriate force." He held up his hands and Dean laughed lightly,

"You offering to give me a shoulder rub? Man, that's nice of you, but it's not necessary."

"Dean." Castiel looked like Dean was trying to convince him the sun was fueled by the reaction of demon sighs and pony tears. "You feel pain because of my actions. I can, without real trouble, alleviate your pain." Dean felt his fight drain; Cas looked guilty and worn out and he was in no mood to argue with an angel.

"Fine." Dean said, squaring himself with the TV and trying to stop slouching.

The first sensation was of pressure, precise and slightly cool fingers orienting themselves. Then the flats of Cas's thumbs dipping up and out in circular motions along his upper back. He relaxed and shifted back a little, getting his hips more firmly set on the slippery coverlet. Cas kept working the same muscle group, moving down and out by millimeters, never pressing hard enough to hurt, just continuous sweeps of his fingers. Dean's mind and eyes drifted; he thought of the dead girl's face as he scooted out from under her and Cas's eyes as he pushed out the last of the exorcism in time to save them both. He'd, they'd both, earned a night to chill.

With Sammy, this kind of night would be spent hustling pool for pie-money, watching dumb TV, or, and he drifted back even further, when they were too small for Dean to remember in anything like technicolor, just sitting at the foot of one of their motel beds, his arms tucked around Sammy, heads sleepy and lolling. Dean remembered the brief time when Sam had been small enough to be cuddly and when Dean was old enough to need comfort but not be able to get it from their father. John was not a man for hugging scared preteens, so Dean took care of Sammy and Sam took care of Dean. Long before he'd thought of sex and for a time even after, they'd cuddled easily, giving each other the warmth their skin hunger asked for. Once they were old enough to feel awkward, Dean dealt with his skin hunger in other ways: fighting took some of it, being in bars with handsy women took a bit more, and the occasional lonely hook-up handled the rest. The odd hug from Sam did more than he cared to admit for his mental health, but since Sammy's resurrection, they hadn't had much time for chilling, Dean hadn't had any time for casual sex, and, well, fighting couldn't take all of it.

Dean blamed his skin hunger when, without any conscious intent, he rolled his shoulders into Castiel's hands and tipped himself back and over onto his stomach. Castiel didn't shift pace or pause, just reoriented and began working his way down Dean's back. 

Dean was fading in and out, the TV seemingly getting louder suddenly when Cas poked into a particularly hard muscle, fading out when he gentled the hurt out of it. He was ready to just fall asleep, half-sprawled across the top sheet with an angel's hands on his back when he felt their pressure reduce to nothing. He rolled over to his side, trying to work up the energy to joke, but all he had was a sleepy mumble.

"Thanks, Cas."

"You're welcome, Dean." Dean thought he felt the side of a hand on the side of his face, thought he saw the flicker of fingers brushing near his eye, but when he looked up Castiel was standing back, looking as impervious as ever. "I'll take my leave of you."

"No, wait, Cas,"

"Dean, I have urgent matters to attend to in Heaven."

"Yeah, ok, just--I'm going to be at Samuel's tomorrow by 9pm. If you have had a break or, I don't know, need help with something? Let me know." He mumbled, "It's a 15 hour drive." He felt pathetic, begging for company from a busy angel. He couldn't see Castiel's face through his sleep fog, but his voice sounded, looser, somehow.  Without its usual edges. "If it is at all possible, I will travel with you tomorrow, Dean."

Dean nodded to himself and dug his face into the blanket. The lights turned off and the sound of birds in flight signaled the angel had left the building. Blue-blue and deeper blue eyes followed him into his dreams that night.

--

Castiel was busy, but not so much that he couldn't have stayed a few more minutes to watch Dean sleep, phasing himself out of Dean's sight. He had not intended to leave when he'd said he had. But he did because he couldn't justify that experience to himself. Couldn't place the need to touch and be touched on his hierarchy of needs; he'd been taught that to be an angel was to be incorporeal, but his mortal-yet-undying body played a large role in his service to humanity. If angels were to love and serve men as God intended, that would seem to require them to act as men do on occasion. To speak to them, face to face, rather than through only dreaming and revelation. This would require angels to take human forms. And oh, how human was this form. It had grown into him, or, more like, he had settled into it, crafting its expressions to approximate his own, but as he took control of its minute ticks and twitches, it had eaten into his insubstantiality. Tonight he'd realized he could feel skin hunger.

Like touch, he knew angels were generally forbade sexual congress. They were taught to love and obey but never receive pleasure or provide it. Never possess or be possessed by any but God. But existing in a human body, the urges were so intertwined with his grace he could see no clear way between. He hadn't given form to them; not during his darkest days when he followed Dean's example and tried to drown his fears. It had turned out they could swim, and he had stopped running before finding out how engulfing himself in sex might turn out wrong. But during that time, he had, explored. With himself, watching others, remembering what he'd seen of Dean. He'd begun to add annotations to his memories, an additional layer. This touch looked like something he might enjoy; this flick of the wrist; this pressing. He thought he might enjoy them coming from Dean; Dean was the only body he allowed to share his mental filing space. He thought that, before he had taken Novak's body, his attitude towards Dean had been purer, cleaner somehow. But clean in the antiseptic way that Heaven's interstitial moments were--without taste or texture or human flaw. 

Castiel preferred the love he felt now to the lighter thing which had pulled him into Hell. The stench of unwilling duty had raked his first encounters with Dean: back then he believed, and followed, and believed. Dean's humanity had been so alien to his training. He'd been taught humans worshipped angels; Dean's insolence had been completely ungratifying. But Dean helped him. With the treads of friendship, they also began to stretch out communications mechanisms, tricks to get each other to listen and to get to the original meaning. He'd thought Dean was his first friend; after tonight's touch, he would have to think on whether that term still applied exclusively.

--

"You need new digs, man," Dean announces, bumping the motel room door shut with his hip as he balanced a tray of coffees and snacks in one hand and held the room key in the other.

Castiel crooked-stared at him, daring him to explain. Dean had sent him a text this morning: Breakfast? I'm still at the place from last night. Donuts and coffee unless you say otherwise. Castiel had arrived to an empty motel room not knowing what to expect.

"Digs: clothing, mechanisms for concealing nakedness, vital to survival in the arctic north." Dean intoned, hiding a grin as he laid his boons on the pinewood table.

"We're in Minnesota Dean, thousands of miles from the arctic--"

"You know what the state bird of Minnesota is, Cas?" Castiel stared at him, troubled inquisitiveness leaking from his face,

"The mosquito." Dean waited for a beat, to see if this would catch. Castiel seemed determined to ignore him until he said something sensible.

"Ok then: first, new clothes. Then, a treatise on joke telling, and by sundown tomorrow we'll be at the Campbel's compound and ready to rock."

"I thought the hunt started tonight, Dean." Cas said, shifting his hip to rest on the edge of the table where Dean sat scarfing down donuts and coffee with creamer.

"Yeah, it was, but I asked them to move it back a few days." Dean kept his eyes fixed on his Krispy Kreme: he'd delayed the hunt, asking Sam to trust him it was for a good cause. The cause was Dean wasn't ready to give up this break, this time away from family hurt and time to think. Helping Cas had felt good; he wanted to see what more he could do on the Heaven front. And he'd slept better after that massage than he had in weeks of Sam's tense company; but he wouldn't tell the angel that for blood or money.

Cas returned to the first subject, with an unerring ear for the non sequitur: "Why do I need new clothing?"

"Because the Holy Tax Accountant look is getting old? Because if you don't change on a regular basis people will get weird about it? Because you can't possibly think that get-up is the most practical fighting gear you could manage?"

"Dean, my clothing has little to do with my fighting ability. I could fight completely naked and have the same level of dexterity and skill."

Dean snapped his mind back from that image in time to focus on the problem at hand.

"You might be surprised. The right jacket, with little pockets on the inside for lock picks and scissors and snacks, big ones on the outside to hide a gun or a knife quickly: the right clothes can do everything to make a hunt easier or harder. And that doesn't even get into the jeans: thick enough to keep you warm crawling through haunted basements but light enough not to hold you back during chases." Dean was rambling, fighting to put what was truly a social call into a warrior's context: "You just need to try out some different options, Cas." 

"I don't have any money." The angel said, voice thin with tension but sounding convincible. "That's ok, man, we'll get started at a Goodwill--" heading off confusion at the pass Dean quickly added, "Goodwill: A used-clothes store that employs formerly homeless people to resell donated clothing to low-income people cheaply. The retail destination of choice for college students, new moms, and hunters."

Castiel nodded, whether approving of Dean's plan, Goodwill's mission, or some psychically delivered, heavenly epistle Dean didn't know. He stood up and gestured the angel out the door. Dean locked up the motel room, turning to see the angel waiting just behind him, angel's eyes snapping up to his from a surprisingly low angle. Dean threw his confusion at the look on Cas's face into the crazy angel pile, returned it and walking to the car.

He'd gotten directions to a Goodwill from the clerk at Krispe Kreme both in hopes he might take the angel's mind off his battles and because he needed a new t-shirt after this one had gotten ripped up last night. They drove for a few minutes, in companionable silence. He wanted Castiel to chill out, get into that headspace where new ideas come popping up in the middle of doing dishes or laundry or having sex. It wasn't nice to think of battle plans during sex, but Dean wasn't a nice guy. He suspected Cas wasn't either. Dean felt a familiar but altogether unwelcome rush of blood at this last image and he sternly told his body: Inappropriate erection. He took a purposeful wrong turn, adding 5 minutes to their trip. Inappropriate goddamn erection!

Dean noticed Castiel staring at him as he swerved and did an, unnecessary, U-turn but chalked it up to his use of the Lord's name, rather than the angel getting hit by the clue-truck about Dean's problem. Dean was running the boner-killer slide-show through his mental view-screen: Sammy getting shot, Dean getting shot, Castiel-parts in Chuck's hair, Dad getting slashed by the Zoroastrian demon, Ruby's face, Meg's face, Ms Sneeden from Park's Elementary School's face. Erection quelling, Dean pulled into the parking lot shared by the used clothes store and a car garage. He looked over and Castiel was still staring at him.

"Come on, we haven't got all day." Dean levered himself out of the seat as Castiel, perhaps trying to appear human for the scant other shoppers in the parking lot, tried to make the door handle work. Dean watched his attempts as he circled the car, yanking the door open, nearing spilling Cas to the ground.

"Woah there, Cas." Dean reached his arm over, clasping the angel's forearm and wrenching him out of the car. He pulled him to standing and this time it was Dean invading Cas's personal space. He tool the opportunity to straiten the angel's tie, uselessly, before dragging him along to the smudged glass doors of the store. Dean took off for the men's clothes section, briskly shuffling through the over-stuffed racks of t-shirts as Castiel meandered behind, eyes big and taking in everything. 

"Yeah!" Dean smiled as he held up his prize: a worn Zeppelin tour shirt. Castiel just cocked his head at him, Dean turned, refusing to deflate, and side-stepped around him to the slightly more formal section. He pulled out three dress shirts, two long-sleeved shirts, and half-a-dozen t-shirts in subdued colors.

"Try these."

"Dean: I still do not understand why I need to adjust my attire."

"Come on, man, just humor me."

Castiel looked skeptical, but took the armload of clothes and the jeans which Dean grabbed, ball-parking the angel's size. Dean walked him to the changing room and he went inside. Dean stepped back, trying to indicate with his body that he wasn't being a creeper and watching anyone change when his pants vibrated.

"Dean: I do not understand these buttons." said a text message with absurdly accurate punctuation and spelling.

Dean whuffed a sigh before grabbing a shirt at random from the rack, walking over to Castiel's stall, holding the shirt up above the whicker door, and silently but vigorously demonstrating how to get a button in and out. He could imagine the angel staring at hands, face quizzical and serious as cancer as his fingers fumbled on his buttons, exposing his--

Dean yanked his hands down, and strutted off to the shoe section, hoping to find something more practical for the angel than his current dress shoes.

His pants buzzed. "Thank you, Dean."

"Ur welcome Cas."

Pause.

"Whats ur shoe size?"

Then, hurriedly, dreading how the angel would express his lack of information this time, 

"Take off ur shoe, then on the bottom, or on the strip of leather which goes on top of ur foot, will be a list of numbers. Text me the one next to 'US'"

Dean heard a crash, as if the angel had gotten caught up in his clothes and fallen against the thin wall of the changing room, then his phone lit up:

"I do not understand why Americans and Europeans have different systems to indicate foot size when you are all of the same species."

Dean was considering his reply when he received:

"9."

Dean punched in: "Thx" and started rummaging through the loosely organized bookcases for something practical yet sturdy. He found an old pair of converses in lime green, hiking boots a size too big, and white sneakers. He decided to try and let the angel choose his own best match when he texted him:

"How's it going in there?"

Then, striding across the store and imagining a snarky response, quickly typed:

"Come out when ur wearing an outfit you like."

He saw the door peek open, then the angel came out. Black socks, worn-in jeans, and the Zeppelin shirt--How had that ended up in Cas's pile?--Cas looked like a grad student after a rock concert, hair crazy from taking off shirts and pulling them back on again. Then Castiel looked up and Dean hoped no one else in the store could see what he was seeing, because the intensity in that look could floor a soccer mom. He withdrew his previous opinion: Cas looked like a hunter, nothing less and everything more.

"How's it feel?"

"The shirt is thin and the pants are scratchier than my previous pair, but I can see the benefit in thicker cloth."

Dean moved forward to pluck at the writing on the Zeppelin shirt,

"You know what this is from?" Not waiting for an answer, "It's a shirt from one of Zeppelin's shows. The man who donated that shirt probably went there, probably saw it. It's like the clothes you get here have a history, have a presence before they become yours."

Castiel looked down at Dean's fingertips where they were pressing into his chest and Dean took a big step back.

"Uh, yeah, I got you some shoes to try as well."

"I'd like to try some of the other shirts."

"Ok, here they are. Text me if you need an opinion."

Dean fled to the cassette tape corner of the store, not waiting to see the angel's reaction to his flight. He heard the changing room door close and his shoulders slumped as he took the last few steps to the black wire bookcase which held a mixed-up mass of old music. What am I doing, taking an angel of the Lord shopping at Goodwill? he muttered to himself internally. He thought back, mind hopping between sense memories: Cas's hands on his back, Cas's wrist in his hands, Cas's chest under his fingers. Dean slammed down on the progression. He felt a vise squeezing around his chest, the first hints of a crush getting settled in him. He'd not had time for the romance part of dating for years, and it had been in high school when he last felt the tingle-fingers of affection for a guy. Dean sighed, trying to focus on the dusty tapes in front of him. Dad hadn't taken his making goo-goo eyes at the other hunter's son well. The kid had been trouble, Dean had realized working his way through the memory years later, 10 years too old and an acre too dark for Dean's 14-year-old semi-healthy self. Dad hadn't ever tried to warn Dean off of girls, but this boy. Dad had taken him out for rifle training and, during a reload round, had gone over the Winchester dating code of ethics: the girls Dean would date he'd had to treat right, use protection and always listen to what they wanted. His Dad had taken a breath, cocking his gun and saying:

"You'll date girls, Dean. That's what men do."

That may have been what men do, but Dad had also said "Take care of Sammy," and sometimes the elder Winchester forgot how much money two growing boys needed to, say, eat. So Dean didn't date guys but sometimes, when he'd budgeted down to the last penny and there was still nothing left to eat and no one left to call, he'd walk out to one of the bars and look fetching until some guy looked interested. Dean had always been able to pass for older than he was, and at 16 he could look 20 in a certain light and with a guy willing to suspend disbelief. 20 bucks was the difference between eating and not some weeks.

People who hadn't sold sex always got it wrong--most guys who want to buy from other guys don't want to fuck them, or even be fucked by them. They want to put their mouths on someone else, on a shape they can't get at home. Dean followed part of his Dad's advice, he always used protection and the rest, well, what John Winchester didn't know couldn't hurt either of them anymore. He'd only done it a few times, just like he'd only robbed convenience stores for bread or taken money out of Pastor Jim's collection plate a few times. He had done a lot of things after the first time he'd seen Sammy curl up around his empty stomach, whimpering when he thought Dean was asleep, to avoid ever having to live through that again. But he'd enjoyed the attention in the bars, they'd done something for his skin hunger, and something for him as well. And as he'd barreled out of his teenage years, he'd gotten better at other, less conspicuous scams, and outside the odd look he'd exchanged in a bar, hadn't done much with men since. He'd always thought, if he'd been raised differently, if he'd had a different life, maybe? But wishes were for civilians and he didn't need the trouble of dating men in rural America.

Now came the question: was Castiel a guy? Ok, well, he was guy-shaped. That had been a help, as far as Dean was concerned, since he'd've had no idea what to do with a lithesome female angel strutting towards him and intoning: "I'm the one that gripped you tight and raised you from perdition," just like he could never have taken a female angel seriously if she said "You don't believe you deserve to be saved." He'd've joked or turned it into a pick-up line, rather than let the words fall like perfectly round and hollow stones, to his core. That feeling that he was special for and in and of himself colored his strongest impressions of Cas, even through the Hell threats and his complicity in the Take Your Vessel to Torture Day. It meant that he owed the angel more than he could pay. It meant that Sam's attitude change and Samuel's brokenness and Lucifer's box of crazy notwithstanding, Dean wanted to be near the angel to soak up that feeling and figure out what he could to reflect it back.

Dean felt a hand on his upper arm and knew Cas was behind him. Without looking up, afraid his internal monologue would show on his face, he said:

"You find something you like?"

"You weren't answering your phone." Dean looked guiltily down--he chalked all groinal sensations up to his thoughts and had forgotten he had a device on vibrate down there--then snatched a Bon Jovi tape off the rack and turned. Cas was wearing the same Zeppelin shirt, a darker pair of jeans, and the hiking boots. He must have figured out socks for himself. Cas was so close to Dean, when he looked down to see his shoes Dean's forehead had almost touched Cas's. Dean couldn't back up without smacking into the metal rack behind him and was only slightly disappointed when the angel side-stepped him to peer into the collection of cassette tapes.

Dean waited a beat for the angel to say something, then turned with him, shoulders slotting together easily. Dean hadn't realized he was staring at the Zeppeling shirt on Cas's chest until a white hand ghosted into his view, heading for the tape rack. Long fingers plucked a tape off the far side, which Dean hadn't gotten the chance to look at yet. Dean shook himself, sidling away from the angel and ending their nearly ankle-to-shoulder line of contact.

"Buy whatever you want, ok? I'll pay at the front. Uh, I'm going to go check out the leather jackets."

Castiel shot him a confused glance but then went back to the rack, carefully piling his selections straight-edged against each other on top of his armload of clothes. 

--

He found Dean, zoned out at the coat rack, fingering a two-thirds-length beige leather duster. Castiel moved into his field of vision, and Dean started then nodded, and together they made their way to the front of the store. Dean paid for 3 pairs of jeans, 3 t-shirts (including the black Zeppelin which was still on Cas's chest), 2 button-ups, a pack of black socks, a pack of briefs (both new and unopened), the leather duster, the Bon Jovi tape, and six of Cas's tapes. Dean didn't look at them too hard, trying to pull out a credit card with a credible name without flashing his dozen IDs. The clerk wanted to make Castiel take off the Zeppelin shirt to de-tag it. Castiel looked affronted so Dean glared at the clerk and manuerved the angel so he was leaning over the check-out desk and the clerk could snap the tag off. 

Hoard safely stuffed in recycled shopping bags, Dean and Cas walked out of the store. Dean expected him to disappear at any moment, but when he reached the truck the angel was still there. He popped it open, then swung the bags in, rescuing the tapes before he closed the trunk again. Propping his hip against the side wheel-well, he said: "You mind heading back to the motel? I never got that shower and we can get some chow at the diner next door."

Castiel nodded, then went and stood by the passenger side door. Dean withheld a grin, remembered the angel's previous bad experience with handles, slipped into his side and leaned over to open the latch. When he looked up, the angel was gone.

Dean drove back to the motel in silence, newly bought tapes looking small in their dime-store bag in Cas's seat. Though it's clear film he could see a group of nuns. He still planned on showering and hoped the angel would be there when he arrived. Maybe he had a brief errand upstairs and was meeting him back at the motel? Pathetic, he thought to himself. Pining. But when he walked into the hotel room, it was empty and cold. He brought his duffle with him as well as the new clothes. Dean kept his mind blank, refusing to worry about the angel leaving without saying goodbye when they'd only been apart for a few minutes. He refused to be that needy. Dean stripped in the room before walking into the bathroom, twisting and popping out the hot-water handle and getting a good steam going. If he thought he heard the sound of a thousand hurried wings in the next room, he ignored it. The angel could wait a few minutes for him to get clean.

--

Castiel had had an urgent matter in Heaven, but the urgent matter had been thinking about what to do with Dean. His human body slowed his thoughts or clouded them or that's what he told himself. His arm still tingled where Dean had pressed up against him at the tape rack. He felt warm and then unbearably cold when Dean had moved away. Castiel had scoured his actions to see what he had done to warrant the separation, but could not affirmatively conclude anything. He was confused.

He took his time choosing a heaven to sit in, finally settling on that of the mystic poet Rumi, who never had a problem mixing faith with sexual feelings. He sat, surrounded by sitar music and polyrythmic drumming and tried to work it through.

1. He and Dean shared a profound bond,
2. He cared deeply about Dean's well-being,
3. He liked it when Dean touched him and when he touched Dean,

Then he tried to think through possible conflicts:

1. He, Castiel, was currently in league with the King of Hell, working together to use Purgatory for power,
2. Dean would not look kindly on this pact,
3. Dean was a human and his eyeballs would literally explode if he saw Castiel's true form,

A strange and organic feeling in his chest reassured him that he could work through any of these problems if only Dean would lean against him again. Castiel shook himself, trying to force some cool-headed-ness into his thoughts. Suddenly Rumi's heaven seemed less than helpful, the incense cloying and the drums spastic. His skin felt itchy with distance. Castiel hurled himself out of there and into Dean's motel room, in time to hear him bang his head on what sound like the shower curtain rod. Castiel slumped into a chair and resigned himself to not having a plan as far as Dean was concerned. He would have to try and work it out as he went.

--

Dean was deeply grateful he'd remembered to put a towel around his waist when he stepped out of the bathroom and he saw the angel slumped at the rickety table with a look of quiet desperation on his face. He was less glad when his jump of surprise at seeing his friend there dislodged his lazy tucking job and he had to grab it with both hands to keep from truly embarrassing exposure. "Cas! What're you doing here?"

Castiel just looked up at him and said "Hello, Dean."

"Just, uh, just give me a minute, ok?"

He was still wearing the Zeppelin shirt! Dean felt a lift in his chest like his ribs had been anchored to a batch of balloons filled to the bursting with helium. Dean waddled over to the his duffle, rummaged around in it until he found something passable, then crashed back into the bathroom, clicking the door behind him with a grateful sigh. He realized he was still down a shirt from the demon fight and had been so wrapped up in explaining sartorial diversity to his wayward angel he'd forgotten to get himself new digs. Maybe I can steal that one back from Cas, later. He wondered what the angel would smell like but then slammed a mental door as thick as the one guarding Bobby's panic room down in front of that train of thought.

He reemerged, suitably cold and still working his hair over with a damp towel. The angel's face was better controlled but still openly distressed.

"Hey, man, what's up?"

"I've been thinking."

Dean rubbed his towel over the back of his head, ruffling his hair and trying to buy his face time to settle into a "friend" not "horn-dog" setting. "Yeah?" He said, muffledly. "What about, Cas?"

There was a silence; he glanced up and saw a world of blue and prying eyes. Castiel's face looked strained; he glanced around, seeking and said--

"Remiel. How soon do you think you could deliver an increase of prayers in his name?"

Dean's face folded in, suddenly businesslike. "This Sunday, Cas, like I told you."

"You've already approached the Cardinals?"

"Well, no, but--"

"Dean, if I am to rely on your skills in my negotiations I must be sure of your commitment." His voice was harsh and his stare difficult to look away from.

"You know I'm good for it, Cas, don't worry about it."

"I must worry, Dean. If this falls through--"

"You know what Cas? I said I would do it and I will. Do you want me to do it in front of you so you can check my work?" Dean used his snidest tone.

"Yes, that would be fine." Castiel settled into his chair expectantly.

Dean sucked in air to deliver a much more literal "fuck you" to the angel but it caught in his throat when he saw Cas's trusting face. He whuffed it back out and yanked his phone out of his pants, collapsing ungracefully onto his motel bed, flipping the cheap plastic open and dialing. He felt the bed move under him and the clothes-bags rustle as Castiel sat next to him, arm brushing his as he brought the ringing phone to his ear.

"Cardinal Cardoza? It's Dean Winchester, John's boy? We helped you out with that--yeah, the poltergeist, yep, that's it. I have a favor to ask. Do you know of the angel Remiel? Yeah, he's not too well known down here but I think you'll find a lot of good comes from including him in this Sunday's prayers. You've heard about the increase in possessions? Yeah, it has to do with stopping that. You want a specific prayer. Ok, give me a minute,"

Dean pressed his palm over the microphone and leaned away from it, incidentally into Castiel. Shoulder's rubbing, he whispered:

"He wants a prayer text for Remiel."

Castiel spoke as if reading from an internal form: "We raise our voices today to the angel Remiel, to protect and guide and intercede for our sake to God, our Father, the most glorious and the most high. We pray to him for peace in this time of strife and strength in this time of trial. In praise of your name, Oh God."

Dean repeated it to Cardinal Cardoza, never moving his shoulder away from Castiel's. He dialed his other contacts, Cardinals Hughes and Van Devanter, Pastors McReynolds, Brandeis, and Butler, Fathers Sutherland and Roberts and Brother Stone. He finished with a sigh, looking sideways at Castiel:

"Happy?"

Castiel looked at him and then at his hands, steepled in his lap.

"No." Dean straightened, startled, "Even bringing this boon, I do not know if Remiel will take up my cause and I fear for the safety of my brothers if I fail."

Dean leaned into him again, saying "All you can do is try, right man?"

Castiel resettled his shoulders and said, doubtfully, "Yes."

He moved to stand and then froze. By inches, he turned to face Dean, chests almost touching.

"Thank you, Dean, for your help."

Dean was holding his breath, but managed to squeeze out: "No problem, Cas. Anytime."

Castiel looked at him closely, then stood up.

"I must go." Dean stood as well, still close enough a breath could press them together. He braced for the sudden wind of Castiel's passing but felt nothing but the low heat coming off of the smaller man's body. Their silence stretched and then creaked.

"Uhm, Cas?" 

"Yes Dean?"

"Not that I want you gone, but I'll need to pack up and head out pretty soon if I want to make the border by dark." Castiel still stood stiffly, eyes staring.

"Do you, I don't know, want to ride with me for a while?" Dean wracked his brain for a reason which didn't sound pathetic, "You could practice your pitch to Remiel and explain those crazy nun-tapes you made me buy."

"I am not planning to pitch him anywhere or anything, I merely intend make him aware of the benefits of aiding me."

Dean sighed, but before he could slide down that conversational hatch his eye fell on the bags of new clothes he'd carried inside for Castiel.

"Hey, Cas, what do you want to do with your new clothes?" Castiel looked confused, "In the bags? They need somewhere to stay when you're not wearing them."

"Oh." Castiel looked around the room, "What do humans usually do with their clothes?"

"Well, people store them at home, in their closets or drawers or, mostly, layering the floor." 

"I don't have a home." It hit Dean then, right after Cas said it, that he wasn't being the best friend or most tactful guy around.

"Hey, you know what? You can keep them with mine. I'll just--" Dean strode over to the bags sitting forlornly in the middle of the bed, "Here." He grabbed them by the flimsy handles and walked over to his duffle on the chair opposite where Cas had been sitting when he'd excited his shower. "Keep them here." He cleared out a side of his bag, showing Castiel. "When you want them, when you want to change, you can get them here anytime. Just ask."

Castiel nodded, eyes a little wide. "Alright?" Dean said, trying to smooth over any discomfort his reminder of the angel's homelessness had caused him.

"That would be fine. And you shouldn't call the women on that tape crazy, they are pretending to be sisters of the order of Carmel defending their faith from French revolutionaries." Castiel said, watching as the hunter carefully folded Cas's clothes and put them next to his rumbled ones in the duffle. Dean looked at him questioningly: "The tape. Poulenc's opera Dialogues of the Carmelites."

"Ok, that doesn't sound like music. That sounds like pain." Bag zipped, the angel fell into step with Dean as he headed for the exit. They got to the Impala's trunk and Castiel said:

"It's drama and faith and, " Castiel's voice got smaller, "Jimmy liked it."

Dean froze, hand on the trunk and key in the lock. "Shit, Jimmy? Where, is, is he still in there?"

Castiel tucked his face to the side, saying softly, "No. In the field when Lucifer smote me Jimmy's soul found its place in Heaven. I was, gifted this form as I came back."

Dean threw his bag into the trunk and pushed it shut. He walked to Castiel, taking the long way around to the driver's side. He raised his fingers and tapped on the angel's temple: "So, you're the only one in there now?"

"Yes, Dean, it's just me." Castiel replied.

Dean smiled: "That's a good thing," he said softly, brushing some non-evident  dust off the angel's t-shirted. Then he took a breath and a big step back. "Ready to go?"

"Yes, Dean."

They both slid into the car and Dean started her up. Castiel had the bag of tapes in his lap and carefully reached in pinching the yellowed plastic between his fingers and pulled it out. He turned it over in his hands, trying to figure out how to open it. Dean reached over, brushing his palm against the back of Cas's hand as he snatched it away and opened it with a crack. He ejected the Metallica tape, put it in the Carmelites box, and tapped the new tape into the deck. As the low strains of the orchestra eased out of his baby's system, Castiel narrated:

"The opera functions on several levels. On one, it is about a young rich woman making a family of choice rather than accepting the one she was born into. She chooses a life of obedience to God over an unattractive marriage and an overbearing brother. On another, it is about how humiliating pain can lead those who've spent their lives praising God to forsake him. On another, it is about how people of faith can respond to an authority which demands they place it above God." He paused and said:

"Can you skip it to near the end?" Dean nodded, keeping his eyes mostly on the road he wound it forward, tape chittering in the deck. He pressed play, then Castiel pressed stop, their fingers intermingling for a moment. He got to working on the "forward" and "back" buttons until he reached the part he wanted. It sounded different to Dean's ears than the earlier part. 

It was stark and sounded a bit like Empire Strikes Back. Then it got fiercely quiet with a rumble of hums under. It crawled up his spine.

Then the prayer started:

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
et spes nostra, salve.

Dean was zoning out to the church-y music when the sharp sound of a blade set a shot of adrenaline through his body.

"What the fuck was that?"

Castiel looked at him, face intense: "The nuns are being led to the guillotine. They are singing praise while watching their sisters have their heads chopped off."

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.

The sound of a blade slicing down fast and heavy kept up a steady beat under their voices, jarring Dean every time he started to enjoy their clear sound. 

ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ,
ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ,
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.

Dean could hear that fewer women were singing now, though they were still making a go of it:

Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
et Iesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.

He listened, Cas's face painful to see, like he was remembering watching this. Maybe he was there, Dean thought, heart pinging for his friend. He could only hear two women singing now:

O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.

There was a screech as the last voice fell silent and the blade echoed on the tape. It sounded over; a final chord. Then:

Deo Patri sit gloria,
Et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito
In saeculorum saecula.
In saeculorum--

Then complete silence. Castiel pressed the stop button and sat, looking at Dean. 

"Jimmy was kind of a downer, wasn't he." He said trying to be light, eyes drifting to the Metallica tape.

"He understood the price of faith in God." Castiel replied sternly and a little distantly, his eyes looked hurt. "He believed; he knew about paying for love with death."

"Well, I still think he was a downer."

Castiel huffed and looked out the window. They stayed in silence for a few miles, then Dean pushed the tape back in, rewound it to where he thought the final scene began and said:

"This time, can you let me know what they're saying?"

Castiel turned startled eyes to him, searching his face again.

"Yes, Dean, of course."

And they listened to it again; this time Dean was prepared for the guillotine noises but not for the fervor with which Castiel translated their prayer:

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, 
the life and sweetness, and our hope, hail. 
And our hope, hail. 

Chop. 

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, 
the life and sweetness-- 

Chop. 

And our hope, hail. 
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, 
the life and sweetness, and our hope, hail. 
And--

Chop. 

Our hope, hail. 
To thee do we cry out--

Chop. 

Poor banished children of Eve--

Chop. 

And after our--

Chop. 

Mourning and weeping--

Chop. 

To you we sigh--

Chop. 

And weeping in this valley of tears. 

Ah--

Chop. 

Therefore, our advocate, turn those, 

your poor--

Chop. 

eyes of your heart toward us; and to Jesus--

Chop. 

Advocate--

Chop. 

For us, at last, after--

Chop

The end. 

O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. 

O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin--

Chop.

O merciful . . . 

"Here she pauses," Castiel said. "The new Mother Superior is considering abandoning her sisters. She is weak; but she finds strength."

O loving, O sweet Virgin--

Chop. 

Dean winced at that one. The sudden silence seemed even more awful than it had been when the prayers were in Latin. "Now what's happening?" he asked,

"The protagonist, a woman afraid of everything, including fear, arrives to see her sisters bodies. She isn't dressed in their cassocks but in a fine gown--her noble brother had been protecting her from her sisters' fate. She escaped him to join them, if only in death. She then offers another prayer, the Gloria Patri:"

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, 
And to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, also now, and always, 
And to ages of ages.

Chop.

They listened as the tape ran out, the last chord wringing something from Dean's gut. He glanced over at Castiel then kept his eyes to the road. That stare, it felt like he was hoping to drill understanding into Dean head with the power of his mind alone.

He was quiet, feeling something working its way through his head.

"Is that what you want to be, Cas? A martyr?"

Castiel turned quickly away. "Angels cannot be martyrs. That's a human occupation."

Dean dug in: "Would you rather kill yourself for God than live without him?"

Castiel took longer to answer than Dean was at all comfortable with: "I don't know what God wants anymore; if I did, dying in his service would be an honor."

Dean slammed his hands down on to the wheel, turning to his friend: "That's bullshit, Cas. You, you're not worth so little that you can just talk about offing yourself like that."

"Dean, you gave yourself to demons to save Sam. Do you think I love God less than you love your brother?"

Dean blanched and tightened his grip on the wheel.

Castiel's tone softened. "You said in the green room there were things worth dying for, Dean. God is one of them."

But that was before I knew you. Dean thought. That was before I thought I could care about anyone but Sam.

But he kept silent. After a moment, Castiel looked to the road again. Dean got tired of this silence quickly and reached into Cas's bag, finding a tape at random, and swapping it out. He hit "play" and gospel started blaring out of the speakers. He quickly tuned it down, then looked over at Cas:

"Are all your tapes religious, Cas?"

"I selected for those which I thought might sounds like heaven, Dean. There isn't one sound or any human instrument which touches on the choir of angels, but some of your composers' attempts at praise get close."

They listened companionably to "Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore." Dean grinned at this last one, imagining the pissy archangel getting his hands dirty rowing ordinary people across a river. The silence between them eased into something companionable and they spent the next few hours winding through Castiel's tapes, none of which were as dark as the french opera and none of which required translation.

--

It was near dusk when Dean decided to pull over. Through some combination of intentional and unintentional tardiness, Dean hadn't made the border. He would have to call Sam and ask him to put off the hunt another day. He could imagine his overgrown brother's bitchface but decided to risk it. He parked outside of a motel with a half-lit flamingo adorning the billboard and decided to wait the sun peaced out before checking in. He went around to the trunk and pulled out his beer cooler. Castiel was still sitting in the passenger seat. Dean walked over and tapped on his window with the bottle-bottom, startling the angel who had seemed to be lost in thought.

He opened the door, having apparently mastered the handle after significant study, and took the bottle with a small nod. Dean leaned against the side of the Impala and Castiel joined him, shoulders and arms touching. Dean saw him sneak a look over to at his face and then their arms, then back at Dean but Dean pretended not to notice. He leaned into the angel, heads coming closer together. Castiel twisted the top off of his bottle then reached across Dean to grab his, bringing them face to face and chest to chest. 

The angel looked up with a started gasp and Dean leaned in that last inch and pressed his lips to the angel's. As soon as they touched Dean's logic circuits cut in and ran like icy acid through his veins, settling in his stomach. He could barely appreciate the softness of the other man's lips or the soft smell of him, something like flour and lemons with barley, before he yanked himself back desperately trying to remember when he'd lost his internal bulwarks, when he'd become so stupid,, apologizing:

"Cas, look, I didn't mean it, I'm really--"

But then he was being pulled down into another kiss, the angel's hand firm against his neck, bottle dropping unopened from Dean's hand, which had found a calling holding his friend's shoulder. Castiel pressed in, chests touching and breath hot and close. 

"No, Dean." He said pulling away.

Dean could barely catch up--

"What, Cas, what're you--"

"You did mean it. So did I." Castiel looked at him intently, far enough back Dean could think but not giving him any room to hide. He had meant it. He'd meant it. He just had no idea what Castiel meant by it.

"What're you--"

Castiel rushed forward to kiss him, and Dean decided he could table a deeper conversation for when the angel's lips weren't opening under his and letting his tongue discover what Heaven tasted like.

--

Dean and Castiel didn't have sex that night, or the next night. Dean still wasn't sure where Cas was getting his ideas about sex from but didn't want to risk mixed signals by pressing too far. They kissed. Castiel curled up on Dean while they watched TV, Dean carding his hand though the smaller man's hair, preening him since he leaned into that touch and smiled this tiny, soft smile when he did it. On the second day in the Flamingo Motel Dean called Sam and told him he needed a few more days. He spun out a lie about a vampire nest he and Castiel were working on which they thought might lead to an Alpha for Crowley. Castiel had been sitting at his side on the bed, arm behind Dean, but at the lie he rolled off and stalked over to the window. Dean threw him a questioning glance, but opted to finish his conversation with Sam. When he hung up, with a stern promise to be there by Friday night come Hell or high water, he stood and stepped up behind the angel. He slid his arms around his friend's sides but should have known from Cas's stiffness there was a problem. Castiel turned into Dean, hands tight and arms stiff beside him:

"What was that?" He hissed. Dean looked confused. Castiel raised his hands between them and pushed Dean away.

"Dean." Dean backs off, trying to pretend they aren't going to have a fight.

"You're hiding us from your brother. Why?"

God, sometimes he wished Cas could catch a clue. Dean hadn't exactly come out to Sammy.

"I'm not hiding us; it's just none of his business."

"Dean, I have watched you for years. You have told Sam about every conquest as it was happening or shortly thereafter since he left Stanford."

"Well," Dean tried to make supplicating hands, "You're not exactly a conquest, are you?"

"What am I, Dean? What will you call me to Sam?" Cas's eyes were deadly serious.

Dean dropped his hands and narrowed his eyes,

"What does it matter what I call you? You're Cas. He knows who you are."

"It matters to me because it matters to you. If you think you can hide me--"

"I'm not hiding you Cas! I just didn't want to tell Sam I'm in a Big Gay Relationship with my guardian angel!"

He sucked in a breath; there, he'd said it: Relationship.

Castiel said: "I'm not gay, Dean. I'm not straight. I'm an angel. I have no gender and no sex."

Dean replied, "Like that matters to Mr I'm-Going-To-Tease-Dean-Until-We-Both-Die-Of-Old-Age-Or-Wendigo-Noming, The-Moose-Face."

Castiel was uninterested in his joking.

"What do you want me to do, Cas? Call him back? Tell him, tell him what? What do you want me to tell him?"

Castiel didn't back down; he got up in Dean's face, eyes tight and angry: "I want you to tell him I'm here in your room and sleeping in your bed with you. I want you to tell him I'm not disposable or optional or up to debate."

Dean finally tuned in and slowly brought his arms up behind the angel, giving him plenty of space to bolt.

"Hey; this isn't a fling, Cas. I wouldn't waste our friendship on a fling. You're family; if you push me away today or tomorrow or in 10 years we'll still be family. It's just . . . " Dean struggled for words, "We're not like brothers; we're--" Lovers sounded too awful, Boyfriends were people you walked to class, Husbands were a level of scary Dean was not capable of, "We're friends, Cas. That's what we are. We're friends who are attracted to each other and do something about it."

Castiel was not impressed or satisfied.

"Can we just say we're dating until I figure out something better? Until we figure out a better way to say it?"

"That will be acceptable." Castiel finally relaxed in Dean's arms, wrapping his own around him. He buried his face in Dean's t-shirted chest and said: "But you have to call him back now and say it."

Dean sighed and, with chest-attached-angel, called his brother back.

"Yeah, Dean, what's up?" Dean sighed again, but Castiel's hair looked up at his reproachfully so he barreled on,

"I have to tell you something."

"Dean, we cannot push the hunt back another day--"

"Cas and I are dating." Dean could feel Castiel grin into his chest while the line between Sam and he froze.

"Repeat that, please?" Sam said, voice harsh.

"Castiel, Angel of the Lord, and I, Dean Winchester, are working on a Big Gay Relationship." Dean was giddy with fear; what if Sam freaked out? What if he never wanted to talk to him again? What if he resurrected Dad so Dad could come yell at him about how to be a man again?

"Huh." Was all Sam said. Then, "This is new?"

Dean let out a huff of air--no yelling yet--"Yes, it's new Sammy," he replied sarcastically, "We weren't doing it like bunnies behind your back."

"Huh." Sam said again. "Put Cas on the phone."

"What, why--"

"Dean. Put Cas on the phone."

Dean looked down at the angel's head and said: "It's for you." He held the speaker to Castiel's ear while the angel unwrapped his arm from Dean's waist to support the device himself.

"Yes, Sam? Yes, Dean is in the room. Yes, Dean is not 'fucking with' you." Long silence on both ends, then Dean could hear the tinny sound of Sam's voice while Castiel looked concerned and focused, "Absolutely. Yes. There will never be any doubt of that. Yes, good to talk to you too. See you tomorrow." He flipped the phone closed and looked up at Dean.

"What was that all about?"

"Sam wanted to ensure I knew the penalties for breaking your heart; he confirmed that you have a limited experience dating and I should take you occasionally resorting to anti-social behavior as a signed of conflicted affection rather than betrayal or disinterest."

Dean's eyes bugged out a bit, horrified Sam had shared his head-shrinky opinions with his not-quite-boyfriend angel. He spluttered before he realized Castiel had used his distraction as an excuse to sneak his hand, holding the phone, into Dean's pocket. The angel looked up at him, all innocence, as Dean's breath hitched. He withdrew his hand with nothing like a wayward caress, but Dean found himself hard and unable to rationalize away his interest in seeing more of the angel than could be guessed through his jeans and t-shirt.

Dean crushed the smaller man to him, breathing in his dusty-citrus-y smell and ignoring the growing pressure in his nether-regions. He and Castiel would have world enough and time to deal with all aspects of their Big Gay Relationship. Today, they were going to focus on the careful art of the make-out session and Advanced Cuddling with Fewer Knee-to-Back Impacts. If Castiel's hands drifted a bit farther than they had the night before, well, it was their last chance at privacy before arriving at the Campbell compound the following morning.

--

Dean and Castiel kissed twice more before coming around the doorway to the war room, mouths pressed tight and urgent, hands pressing, gripping each other with nearly painful intensity. Dean finally broke off and jerked his head towards the meeting room where Samuel was assigning positions for the up-coming Alpha hunt. Castiel nodded and marched forward, trench coat snapping behind him. Castiel had muttered something about dressing appropriately to meet Dean's family, which furthered Dean's suspicion Castiel had been reading Emily Post as a practical guide to human dating. But Castiel had arrived back from his much delayed--and successful--discussion with Remiel in full Jimmy armor and they hadn't had time to talk about it. They entered the room bumping shoulders as they both tried to walk through the door at the same time, with Dean finally pulling himself a little behind Castiel to stand and watch the chalk-board over his shoulder.

Castiel's ear looked enticing from this angle, but Dean decided to focus on a more subtle target. Trying not to move his shoulder, and keeping a look of concentration firmly shuttered over his face, he inched his hand up to ghost his knuckles down the angel's spine. Cas stiffened and shot him a look but then returned his attention to the board. Dean smirked inside and tried again, hitching his hip agains the doorframe behind him to get more space to maneuver before slowly pressing the flat of his palm into the smaller man's lower back.

This time he won a shudder and a shoulder roll. He started inching his hand down towards the angel's trench-coat-covered hips when:

"Dean!"

Dean's head snapped up, a guilty look artfully held back beneath his attentive face. A lifetime of messing with Sam while Dad lectured paying off in the most unexpected ways, and he said:

"Yeah, Samuel?"

"You'll lead the left flank, getting through the trees on the facing hillside and up into the rafters of the warehouse where they're nesting. Be ready for anything--Alphas are craftier then their spawn and tend to like traps."

"Castiel: you'll stick with Dean. That's it everyone: see you at the cars at dawn. Get some shut-eye before then."

Dean volunteered for the night watch, Castiel casually drifting after him after picking up a sawed-off shot-gun. Dean liked to do his watch on the roof, laying back against the rough shingles and hidden from view of the road by the bright porch light. Together, he and Castiel walked around to the side of the house where he'd stashed a ladder in the bushes. He leaned down to haul it up when his peripheral vision filled up with angel and he sucked in a tempted breath. Deciding to ignore the obvious make-out potential of the shadowed side-yard, he briskly lifted the creaky ladder up and laid it against the eaves, grinding its feet into the dirt. Glancing back at Castiel, he started up the ladder when he felt a warm hand on his ankle, under his pant-leg but over his sock. He froze and looked down, seeing an absurdly innocent face staring back up at him, illuminated palely by the moonlight. Dean gulped, and gently pulled his foot up, Castiel's long fingers slipping off with what felt like an intentional caress. Dean hurried the rest of the way up the ladder, wondering if these jeans really fit as well as he thought they did.

A moment later, Castiel was up on the roof with him and Dean tipped the ladder over, back into the bushes. A defensible position with a direct pathway to it was much less useful than a defensible position enemies would have to spend precious time assailing, and both he and Cas could swing down off the roof quickly if they had to. Dean crouch-walked over to his usual perch, where he'd stashed a blanket and some beers. The night was hot and humid, and there as precious-little breeze easing through the whispering trees, and so the beer was warm and sticky. But it was beer, and a moment later when Dean had a lapful of Cas, he couldn't really object to anything.

Dean enjoyed this more frantic side of the angel: he liked the attention, the feeling of control and warmth and preciousness that came from so powerful a being choosing to spend time on him. He enjoyed the weight of Cas on his thighs even more, and when the angel made a small noise of frustration as he tried to undo Dean's shirt-buttons, Dean couldn't help but smile into his mouth. That smile broke down some of the angel's momentum and turned the kiss into something slower, more exploratory and comforting. Castiel's hands slowed on Dean's buttons, taking the time to trail the back of his hand down Dean's taught chest and wrap an arm behind his back. Dean groaned at the shift in pressure and angle, but what made him catch his breath was the feeling of enclosure, of safety he felt with Cas's arm around him. He pressed his forehead to Cas's, taking a moment to breath in the man's scent and enjoy the press of their chests together.

The snap of a branch to Dean's right brought him back from their comfortable space. He took a deep breath, tucking his head into Castiel's shoulder and trying to pack as much sense memory in as he could. Castiel straightened up at a second sound:

"Dean, we should inspect the perimeter. It will not do for us to be distracted from our duties."

Dean teased, easing them both forward as he prepared to take his weight off of his arms.  "I wasn't the one who jumped a man, Cas."

Castiel huffed and pressed a fond kiss to Dean's temple, then lightly sitting back on Dean's knees, trailing his fingertips along Dean's side and down his leg until it rested with his other hand in his lap. The angel looked strangely prim for a man who'd been gulping down air between searing kisses not a minute before. "Maybe you'll rethink your earlier tactics in the briefing room."

"I was paying perfect attention to the briefing. We're going after a hydra nest. We have intel there are 15 of them: 1 alpha, 6 adults, 8 children. Our goal is to bag and tag the alpha. Hydra regenerate quickly unless the wounds are cauterized. They have bad eye-sight, so we'll use the flash-bangs and try to move fast. My team is in charge of producing sensory overload for the creatures, defusing any traps on the left flank and setting some of our own for the Alpha. Sam's leading the decoy frontal assault and Samuel is covering the right flank."

Dean smirked--multitasking for the win. A third sound in the forest finally pulled both of their attention back to their immediate task and Castiel rolled off of Dean to crawl to the edge and look over. 

"See anything?"

"Nothing of import: there are 15 rabbits, 2 hawks, a pair of copulating badgers and 245 field mice, but no humans, demons, or supernatural beasts."

"So what are we hearing?"

"I think the badgers."

Castiel crawled back to where Dean lay on his stomach, peering over the other edge of the house. He slid in close, forearms and thighs touching. Dean pushed down the roil of affection and arousal the man's proximity brought him, and focused his binoculars on the road to the house. No movement, no suspicious sounds; just the half-moon rising through the swampy air and the smell of Cas next to him.

Dean inched away from the edge, wanting to secure a safer locale for any potential goings-on. He would hate for the throws of passion to turn into the falls of embarrassment and potential perpetual fraternal teasing. He made his way back to their blanket, Castiel shuffling beside him. Dean lay on his side on the blanket holding his arm open for Castiel to tuck himself in, if he so chose. He did, slipping into Dean's embrace and sliding his thigh between Dean's. They lay there together, breathing the same air, letting the sounds of the forest surround them. Dean felt Castiel's hands begin to move against his chest, seemingly aimlessly tracing the seams and plucking at the buttons. Dean leaned his head down to whisper in the angel's ear:

"You know what I'd like to do?"

"Hmm?" Castiel murmured, pressing his hips closer to Dean's.

"I'd like to take you and lay you down on this roof. Then I'd like to, slowly, slip my fingers under the hem of your shirt, unbuttoning as I go, pressing skin to skin until I've got you down to your pants." The angel had stiffened at the first brush of Dean's lips on his ear, and now made a small wanting sound. Dean grinned and began sliding his hand down the angel's back, applying just enough pressure not to tickle but not enough to warp the fabric of his coat. The angel shifted his hips closer to Dean's and shuddered.

"Then, once I'm through with your upper-body, I'll move down to your pants. I'll unzip them, pull you out and swallow--"

At this Castiel groaned and rolled them both over, straddling Dean's thigh and kissing him furiously. Dean ground back up into him and they both moaned at the renewed contact. Never breaking the connection between their lips, Castiel drove his hand down to Dean's hip, pressing into his erection. Dean arched up, trying to get more of that delicious pressure but Castiel held him down with his weight on Dean's leg. This was a game they hadn't tried before, and perhaps the roof wasn't the safest place for it, but then, nothing in their lives was ever safe.

"Could we, might we," Dean felt Castiel pull away, catching his breath, and face showing his scramble to organize his thoughts. "I'd like to," Cas shook his head in frustration, the words not seeming to come. He dove in to demonstrate, one strong hand pushing Dean's arm above his head and holding it there, pinned, and kissing him thoroughly. Dean stilled under him, slowing his response to the kiss. Castiel moved down to his neck all the while keeping pressure on Dean's wrist while Dean breathed deeply and trying to guess how far Castiel wanted to go with this. Dean had, in his varied life experience, certainly participated in some power exchanges, but never with anyone who, if it came to it, he couldn't overpower. Doing it with someone like Castiel, who was all controlled fury and electric righteousness in a fight and held within him at all times the potential of danger, slicked a current of fear up Dean's spine.

Also, lust.

Castiel pulled back suddenly, taking Dean's stillness as a sign he'd pushed over a boundary. He pulled himself off of Dean's leg and was clambering onto his own side of the blanked shame-faced when Dean pulled him back down, hooking his ankle behind Cas's legs and holding on to him. They were face to face, Castiel staring intently at the blanked under Dean's shoulder and avoiding all attempts at eye-contact. Dean brought his hand up and rested his palm on his cheek.

"I didn't say no, did I?"

Castiel shook his head, not seeming to disagree but to distance himself from the question he'd tried to ask.

Dean continued: "That's something we'd need to talk about. We'd need to be clear on what we were doing, how we'd stop, why you want it so that I can understand and get it right. I want to get it right with you, Cas." Dean leaned up, stomach muscles bunching and guided Cas's face to a light kiss.

"We can do it; we just need to talk about it."

Castiel sighed, and this time when he rolled off of Dean, the hunter let him, though he made sure he got his arm under Cas's head and kept a thin line of contact from ankle to crown. Cas wriggled down, settling his head in the crook of Dean's shoulder and turning it away to stare out over the trees.

When he next spoke, his voice was flat and low, with none of the breathy passion which had filled it moments before.

"The hierarchy of the Host is immutable. There are strong and weak, and degrees of the same. The Cupids are nearly the lowest. The archangels the highest, below God, of course. It is something we are trained to--angels of course are woven with certain standards of power and certain levels of grace, but the finer distinctions between a lieutenant with a specialty in trap-making and a captain in charge of a sub-section of a garrison have more to do with personality than inherent rank."

Castiel paused, parceling out his words slowly. Dean hated to hear him using his public voice on him, but tried to understand he was asking his friend to describe in English what was a complex system in Enochian.

"There are certain, dominance displays involved in demonstrating one is prepared for a certain rank. They usually take the form of grace flares, where two angels who feel their respective ranks are inappropriately recognized test the strength of their graces against each other. There are more formal contests, in the bicentennial promotion years. I, I wasn't as strong as many who I aspired to command, and so developed a knack for trap-setting. In that way, I could show my cleverness and aptitude without engaging in a direct contest of wills."

He paused again, Dean concentrating on remaining still and not kissing that blank tone from his friend's voice which always seeped in when he spoke of the Heaven he lost. Dean settled for reaching over with his free hand and intertwining Cas's fingers with his own. Cas sighed and continued:

"I was very good, at the trap-making. What I did to Zachariah in the Green Room was one of my favorites, but the sigils I've shown you--they aren't common knowledge among the angels. Most are from our history, from darker times of deeper cracks within the Host than we experience even today. Some I invented myself; that I could do so should have been my superiors' first clue I would one day rebel." Cas smiled bleakly: less a smile than a grim baring of teeth. "Innovation is not a supported behavior in Heaven."

Dean nodded and remained silent.

"I was not only good at it: I enjoyed it. I had been the weakest of my garrison for centuries before I began to rise. I had been, hazed, at first, and then, well, I did not come to enjoy traps without being caught in a few of them myself." At this Dean rolled onto his side, engulfing the smaller man and trying to communicate with his warmth that he was sorry Cas's family sucked.

Cas mumbled into Dean's chest: "Most of it wasn't so bad: the brothel you took me to, the task you gave me, I had been asked to do similar things by the Host when they first came to test my loyalty and weaknesses at the beginning of my training."

Dean froze, his chin tucked over Castiel's unruly hair: "Cas, if I had known--"

Cas patted his chest within the hug and said, muffledly, "It is not of import. That was a long time ago; I proved myself then by avoiding temptation and as I grew I learned to avoid those who took pleasure in, controlling. I allowed myself to be demoted and transferred to ensure I was free of them."

Dean released his embrace, opening up to let Castiel roll onto his back. He didn't, instead throwing his leg over Dean's and tucking himself in tighter to the hunter's side. He spoke, cheek tight to Dean's chest, eyes staring far past the furthest tree on the horizon:

"When it was first discovered I was good at traps, I was assigned a younger angel to practice with." A spur of jealousy uncurled in Dean's belly; he squashed it firmly. "He was young; newly formed to replenish our ranks after the Morningstar fell. He buzzed, zipping around as if he discovered flight and had gifted that knowledge to the rest of us. He practiced basic inter-angel warfare; I focused on containing him rather than defending myself. He was transferred when I could no longer fail at containing him, but there was a moment one morning." Castiel's voice grew softer, more open. "We were practicing in a green and grassy heaven, and he snuck up behind me for an attack, and I bound him where he flew." Castiel paused, took a breath, then continued, sounding more clinical. "I turned and saw him trapped, pinned to the perfectly blue sky. I saw his wings straining and his sword caught. We were friends but it tripped a line in me seeing him straining and yet peaceful, trusting that I wouldn't harm him and content to wait until I released him."

Dean saw Castiel's gaze refocus on his immediate surroundings, his face pulling back into its public stoniness. "I liked it. There are things which my vessel, my body, wants, Dean. Things I want because I am in a body and I, I care for you." He propped himself up on his elbow, staring intently into Dean's face: "But there are also things I wanted as an angel, that I still want. From you. With you."

Whatever he was searching for in Dean's face, he didn't seem to see it. He closed his eyes tightly, face closed. "It's not necessary, Dean. I don't, I don't need it. I just; it's something I've been thinking about and I, I wanted to," He trailed off.

Dean stared into Cas's face, gears spinning and grinding and realigned and then he grinned, grabbed the hand Castiel wasn't using to hold himself up with, and pulled his own arm above his head, fumbling to put Castiel's hand on his wrist.

"I trust you, Cas." Dean said, tugging the stunned angel on top of him and kissing his neck. "I say stop, we stop," he murmured between kisses, "We can work out more complicated safewords in the future, but tonight, we go until I say stop, ok?" 

Cas still hadn't moved, was still staring at Dean slack-jawed.

"Did you hear me, angel? Hold me down and fuck me."

Castiel's face broke open the look of want searing itself into Dean's mind. He fell on Dean, kissing and writhing and still managing to get both of Dean's arms pinned above his head. Dean glanced up at them and saw the sky, still dark but two hours from dawn. He still a little nervous, but for two hours and the look on Cas's face, he could make it work. Castiel nipped at the long, exposed line of his neck.

"You're mine, Dean Winchester. Mine."

A thrum ran up Dean's sides and his dick got back into the action. He writhed up against Castiel, desperate for more contact, but Cas just straddled his thighs, pinning him at two points. "You're going to need to stay still. The more you struggle, the slower I go." Cas's voice was different, fuller and more direct with an undercurrent of pure heat.

Dean whined, a keening sound which he hadn't heard from himself before Cas but drove the angel wild. This time, Castiel smirked down at him, held his wrists tighter with one hard hand and began unbuttoning Dean's shirt.

"Shhh, shhh Dean. You want to test my control? Fine. Test me."

Dean started trying to get out of Cas's grip, twisting his wrists and pushing up with his legs. Castiel just sat there, adjusting his hold but firmly in control. As Dean amped up the amount of force, Castiel remained calm and still, giving Dean a look which would have flushed his entire face if he wasn't already panting from his struggles. With one final twist, Dean maxed out and settled down, breathing heavily.

Cas leaned in, ducking his head below Dean's field of vision and hiding his face in the bigger man's shoulder. He whispered hoarsely in his ear: "This, this is what I wanted. If you say stop, we will, but this, this is beautiful. You are beautiful."

It was either the compliment or the way Cas had sneakily lined up their cocks when he leaned over, but Dean started to shake. Cas, head still nestled in Dean's shoulder, whispered: "I'm going to require affirmative consent before we continue."

"Yeah," Dean gasped articulately, "Yes. Just; more? More. Yes." Dean shook his head, trying to wrench some sense into his words. "I'm doing fine; I like the feel of you; keep going."

Dean heard him smile, could picture his face lighting up in that free smile which nearly no one but Dean knew the angel carried within him. It felt like a prize bigger than the sun when he saw it. Cas sat up, Dean's wrists still firmly pinned and legs just as immobile.

"Alright then," Cas murmured, "Pants." He looked at Dean's torso, stretched in long, clean lines highlighted by sweat glinting in the moonlight. Cas's face was soft, wondrous. Dean saw him make a decision.

"No penetration; just hands and cocks and mouths tonight," Cas had barely finished the sentence when Dean was flying, the smaller man having released his hands and legs, flipped him over and hauled him up until he was kneeling on all fours with Cas draped over his back. While Dean was catching his breath from the sudden change in perspective, Cas tipped him forward until his cheek pressed into the blanket and gathered his wrists behind his back, holding them again and firmly with his left hand. Dean could have felt ridiculous, ass up in the air like that; could have felt exposed. Could have said no, this position was too far, he was too out of control. But the entire time, Cas had kept in tight to him, the hot flesh of his thighs and stomach and hips covering him, protecting him. So Dean leaned back, sank himself back into Cas's hips and gave up that last bit of self-doubt, the lingering thought that he had chosen to trust unwisely. Cas felt the submission and the knowledge that Dean was his rocked him and, for a moment, he let go of Dean's wrists and clung to him in an awkward backwards hug.

A moment later he slipped his hand back up between them, controlling Dean's wrists as his free hand began trailing from Dean's shoulder to his ribs. He splayed his hand there, fitting a finger into each of the grooves of Dean's ribs before dragging down to his waist, where Dean's jeans were still demurely buttoned. Cas, careful to only touch the fabric, undid the button and unzipped the fly. The gush of fresh air touching his straining cock through his already damp underwear made Dean gasp and grunt: "Please."

Cas shimmied Dean's jeans off his hips, then carefully peeled his underwear down as well, never touching the dick which hung heavy between the man's thighs. Dean was sucking air in and blowing it out fast, and Castiel ground his slacks-covered hips into Dean's bare ass prompting and groan and a "Please, Cas, you're killing me here."

Cas smirked, and leaned forward, keeping his hip pressure in place, and carefully trailed his fingertips past the hunter's ear and through his hair, luxuriating in his shivers, watching him fall apart. Castiel moved his hand down again, this time brushing and rubbing and gently pinching his nipples before sliding his hand around the base of Dean's cock and squeezing gently. The sound Dean made was original; a full-body groan which went on as Castiel slid his fingers up over his head and back down again. His fingertips found a drop of precum and brought it up to his mouth, smacking wetly so Dean knew what he'd done. But Dean was already at fever pitch, barely holding on, so, feeling merciful, the angel licked his own palm and began jerking him off almost roughly, pulling and rubbing and cupping Dean until he went stiff in his arms and began to undulate, mouth open in a silent moan, cum making a big wet patch on their blanket. Cas ran his fingers up and down Dean's cock idly, easing him through the extended orgasm until there was nothing left to give and Dean began to collapse. Cas caught him, and tipped him over onto his side, arranging his arms in front of him and holding him from behind. 

He held him as Dean shuddered, shaking and finally settling into a sleepy thrum with occasional post-coital writhings mixed in. Cas carefully pulled Dean's underwear and jeans up, tucking him in and trying to zip him up one-handed before giving up and enjoying the feel of the shivering man in his arms. Thinking back over the last half hour, Cas couldn't suppress his own jerk of the hips, remembering the look of Dean's bowed head when he surrendered, the way his arms looked stretched over his head, the slack-faced moan when Castiel drove into him. His movement shook Dean out of his stupor, which is how Castiel found himself on his back with an enthusiastic Winchester unbuttoning his slacks and pulling them down. Dean swallowed him down whole, taking his cock deep into his throat and sliding his tongue along the bottom ridge of it. Dean fastened his hand around the base and began to pull him in and out with his mouth. Castiel's head flew back, striking the roof with a thump and lolling bonelessly as Dean pushed him to the finished line. Cas was muttering,

"You're so, I can't, how can, I just, Oh, Oh, Oh Dean." His hands flew down to Dean's shoulders as he hurtled off the edge, writhing wildly and head flinging back and forth as he rode his way through. Dean eased up beside him, hand still on the other man's cock, body wrapped around him and head tucked into his shoulder. Dean's breathing was tight again and Castiel was barely sucking in enough oxygen to stay conscious.

As the world started to lose its shimmer, Dean took the edge of the blanket and carefully cleaned Cas off. They would need to change clothes before anyone saw them, and preferably shower since they now both stunk of sex and sweat and pheromones and each other. Dean couldn't bring himself to care, nuzzling closer to Castiel's floppy and still form.

A breath or dozen breaths later, neither man could guess, Castiel said in a small voice, "Thank you."

Dean harrumphed, uninterested in sex partners feeling the need to thank anyone for great sex. But he held the angel tighter. A few dozen more breaths and Dean starts to notice the stars were dimming. He tilted his head back and sees the night sky lightening. He pressed a kiss into Castiel's chest and started to sit up. The angel grumbled and rolled onto his side. They still had half an hour, and for once, Dean watches Cas sleep, or as close as the angel could get to it.

He's terrified of the humanish qualities his friend is exhibiting, though he's enjoying them immensely at the same time. He hopes, would pray but who knows where that would go, that Castiel keeps himself, his grace. Doesn't give it up for a God who could seem to care less. Dean clenches his jaw and zips himself up, swinging his feet over the drying wet spot and towards the peak of the roof. He army-crawls to the edges of the roof, seeing nothing has changed since they last checked. He gets back and his heart clenches in his chest at the sight of the man he'd just made love to, curled on his side, face half-hidden beneath the flap of his trench-coat.

He breathes for another moment, then leans over to Cas, gently shaking him awake and reminding him they need to shower. He wished they could do so together, but there was only so much fate-tempting this Winchester brother could stomach for an evening, and with a kiss that was more teeth and lips than anything delicate, he sent the angel to clean up. Cas's shot-gun across his knees, Dean stared down the road, sun creeping up his back, with the smell of Cas drifting around him.

--

The hour after dawn finds them rolling out of the compound, Dean and Cas sharing the back seat of one of the Campbell's Land Rover's with a box of flares and low-level explosives. Samuel's driving, his eyes grating over them disapprovingly. Dean expected they hadn't been nearly as subtle as they had thought they had with the previous night's experiments, but couldn't bear to give any fucks. He glared back, then turned to Cas to continue explaining the use of a flash-bang, shoulders kept carefully apart.

The hydra compound is more of a barn and when Samuel drops Dean, Cas, and some of his cousins off a half-a-mile away, everything's as they expected. It all goes to shit when Dean's forward scout trips some sort of early-warning security system and instead of coming out of the trees with 50 feet of clear grass to cross before scaling the barn roof, they walk into a line of fire-breathing adolescents, humanoid with skin like asphalt and eyes like embers. The forward scout got the worst of it, clothes catching fire before Dean popped his attacker with his sawed-off. Cas immediately dragged the injured man back to the tree line, batting out cinders on the screaming man's chest before kneeling next to him and pressing his hand to his forehead.

The last Dean saw of Cas is him kneeling over his fallen family member before Dean has to refocus on the battle, swinging with his machete and taking a tall, skinny one's head off, shouting for the cousin who'd been assigned the rigged flame-thrower duty to come and cauterize the wound. Dean pushed forward, dragging off a hydra about to melt the face off of another cousin and throwing him to the ground, following through with another killing blow. He looked up, panting, and saw eight child-sized bodies. He repressed a surge of disgust, either for himself or for creatures which sent their young out to die first, and stood. He silently gestured to his remaining troops, seeing the worst injuries were some blistered and burnt hands and faces. He wondered how the man who'd taken the first blow was doing but decided to trust Castiel to handle it and himself.

He raised his hand, gesturing them up to the roof. They climb up, looping ropes over the exposed external beams and walking up the side of the wall. For a terrible moment as Dean's legs hung over the edge but before he could pull his body up, he could feel a hand grabbing him and yanking him down. It was only imagination, but he breathed deep as he held his hand down to help the rest of his group up.

The roof was in tatters, only the frame safe enough to walk on. Stepping softly, he peered through the gaping slats of the roof and saw what looked like a moldy hayloft. He crept farther up the beam, waving back the cousin that tried to follow him, and peered down. Got you, you ugly bastard. The Alpha was there, lounging like a king in a maroon velvet armchair in the middle of the empty barn. His head was pebbly and grotesquely oversized for his frame and his voice was low and hissing in their language. Dean leaned down, squinting to get a better view of who he was talking to when his shifting weight caused a flurry of dust to swirl down towards the hydra Alpha's head. Dean froze as the Alpha sneezed and coughed and looked around before slowly looking up. His fiery eyes made contact into Dean's and the level of rage he saw gripped his spine. Dean shuffled back as the Alpha roared a challenged and frantically gestured for his group to set their knots and get ready to repel down. 

With a yell, Dean jumped on a weak spot in the root a few feet from where he'd been standing when the Alpha spotted him, hurling a flash-bang down with one hand, holding his rope with his other and squeezing his eyes shut. The sound was deafening but unlike the 7 adult hydras arrayed beneath him, he was expecting it. He kept them closed as his feet touched the ground, listening for the pops and squeals of the other flash-bangs his group had prepared. When he opened his eyes Sam and Samuel's crews came bursting through the doors, all wielding long knives and a few equipped with hair-spray flame-throwers. They charged through the remaining hydras, taking advantage of their confusion. He watched as Sam strode up to the Alpha, whipping his blade around and through the thing's throat. It caught on his spine, and Sam was forced to lean in, bracing his palm on the back of the machete and sawing through. The thing's eyes never left Sam's face. They seemed to follow him as its head fell back, bouncing sickly on the floor. 

Dean pulled himself out of his crouch, ready to help Sam bind the Alpha before his head regenerated, when he saw Castiel appear, looking bewildered in the middle of the fight. A hydra, desperate and leaderless, turned away from the cousin it was about to melt into the floor and took a breath to roast the standing angel. Castiel's eyes were searching, looking for Dean, and Dean fought his body and gravity and momentum, driving himself forward to crush the angel to the floor as a bolt of flame singed the air above them and the hair on the back of Dean's neck. He landed heavily on the angel, surprised blue eyes filling his vision, and was inhaling to yell at him for being terminally clue-free when he heard a sound which made his skin turn to ice:

Screaming, Sammy was screaming. It was high and broken and horrible in every way Dean could imagine. He wrenched his head around to look for his little brother, but at first all he could see was blood and smoke. The Alpha was standing over him, head mushy looking but regrown, but there were no flames on Sammy's prone and writhing body. His face was screwed up and snapping back and forth but Dean couldn't see what was wrong.

He ran over, tackled the Alpha, with no thought other than getting him away from Sammy. He could feel Castiel running behind him, and when a hand pulled him back from slamming the Alpha's grinning face into the concrete one more time he let it. Cas straddled the thing's chest and brought his own knife down, slicing through his neck cleanly. Dean scampered back, turning to Sammy's twitching and stiller form. He saw now that his little brother was clutching his hands to his chest, the skin deeply purple and loose-looking. He moaned, then shook again with a violence which terrified Dean. Dean leaned over and held his shoulders down, trying to keep his head from smacking into the ground. Sam's eyes were closed and his breathing rapid.

"Cas, kill him and get your ass over here." He looked over; the angel had the Alpha's body on its stomach and was binding his wrists and ankles with a chord. He didn't kill him, merely yanked a last knot and rose. He strode over to Dean before kneeling next to him and laying his two fingers on Sammy's forehead. Sammy stilled, but still did not wake.

"Fix him, Cas. Now." Dean growled, tension making his voice tight and fear keeping it low.

Castiel nodded and closed his eyes, pressing his palm to Sam's forehead. Dean waited, eyes shifting between Sammy's achingly closed face and Cas's lined one. Cas's frown deepened and he put a hand on Sammy's arm, pressing into him.

"What's the matter Cas? Why isn't he waking up?"

Cas was silent, face beginning to look a little desperate.

"Goddamn it, Cas, why isn't he waking up?"

Cas just focused on Sam, ignoring Dean.

"Cas!"

He snapped his face over to Dean, horror and shame coloring it. "I can't Dean."

"What do you mean 'you can't?" Dean asked wildly. "Why the fuck not?"

"I'm unable to heal him." Dean's mind hopped back a few steps, letting him see the entire scene floating above his body. He saw Sammy lying twitching and pale, Cas's hands on him, his own bent head. He snapped back in, to hear himself say, voice so cold: "That is unacceptable. Fix him, Castiel."

"Dean, I am trying. I used, there was, saving Mark, transporting him to safety, returning here, it--it was not without cost."

Dean was disgusted, unable to process: "What the fuck do you mean, 'cost'? There's, you need to save Sammy." He thought he was shouting.

Castiel's face was brutal, "I can't Dean. I need a few hours,"

"No." Dean said, standing up. "No, Cas. Save Sammy,"

Castiel bent his head, hunching his shoulders, before seeming to make a decision and nodding. He leaned forward, pressing both hands to Sam's face and mumbling to himself. There was a flash of light and the angel collapsed over Sam's chest, utterly still. Dean crashed to the floor, rolling Castiel onto his lap, hand on his chest to see he was still breathing and finding the same of Sammy, who was still unconscious but no longer in clear agony.

Dean glanced down at the angel in his lap, slipping his hand up to his face and checking again for breath. It was there; slow and steady; the angel just wouldn't wake.

"God, Cas, Sammy." Dean bowed his head for a moment, then looked up to see Samuel staring at him as his cousins averted their eyes.

"Get the Alpha in the van, ok? I'm taking him to Crowley. Gwen, can you get Cas and Christian, help me with Sam?" He stood, eyes shuttered. Samuel said:

"I'll take the Alpha in--"

"No. I need to see Crowley."

"That's not a--"

"No."

Samuel paused and then nodded and walked over, grabbing the still unregenerate Alpha by the chord Cas had hog-tied him with and dragging him heavily behind him, out the door.

Dean gently lifted Cas's torso up, helping Gwen get her arms under him and getting him up off the floor. Then he turned to Sammy, checking his breath-sounds again before levering him up, getting an arm under his shoulder making eye-contact with Christian before they lifted him together. They carried him to the truck one of their cousins on the ground assault team had drove up to the barn and laid him in the back seat. Dean tried not to look at Sammy's hands, skin still discolored and paper-thin looking. He had a horrible idea. As Christian was getting ready to shut the door on Sam's feet Dean said,

"Wait. Christian, give me your water bottle." Christian gave him an odd look, then leaned around to the cab, grabbing a sturdy black plastic container. Dean grabbed Sam's right hand, pulling the disturbingly limp limb over the prone man's head and squeezing water over it. It ran into the ground, black and oily looking.

"His skin; the Alpha's blood must have poisoned him. Get me water, towels, and whiskey." He used his knife to cut Sam's shirt off where the Alpha's blood soaked it, finding the same deep purple marks on his brother's chest. He shook his head, screaming at himself for not thinking of it earlier. Of course the Alphas have weapons their spawn never did. Of course blood mattered.

He shouted out to everyone to make sure to rinse their hands with water and disinfectant--read: alcohol--before driving as he waited for Christian to bring him more. It seemed no one had gotten quite so up close and personal as Sammy had with the Alpha. He reached under the back seat, found the first aid kit and pulled out a white, clean towel. He emptied the rest of the water bottle onto it, then began to scrub Sammy's hands like when he was a little kid and Dean had to help him go to the bathroom.

The towel slowly turned black, but Dean kept scrubbing until most of the staining was gone from his fingers, then his palm, then his forearm. He couldn't prevent the initial poisoning, but maybe he could prevent the Alpha from re-poisoning Sam through his blood. Finally, Sam was clean, his skin still pale and chaffed from the towel but looking less alien.

He threw the towel on the floor of the truck and got in, lifting Sam's head and shoulders onto his lap. Christian slid in the front, and Dean said:

"Let's go."

Christian started the truck and pulled out smoothly. Dean glanced back and saw Gwen shut the door of her Range Rover, Castiel's trench coat wrapped around him in the reclined front seat, face still blank and body still limp. The sight drove a hot knife through Dean's chest and gut, tearing him up and sticking with him, even as he readjusted Sammy's shoulders to make sure he could breath during the long drive to the compound.

--

A little later, not more than an hour Dean guessed from within his dark thoughts, he heard come over the radio:

"Holy shit, the angel's gone."

"What?" Dean yelled, surging forward to grab the CB radio out of Cristian's hand. Christian kept it away from him, eyes mostly on the road, replying:

"Repeat that, Gwen?"

"The damn angel, he just, he sat up, yelled something, and then vanished."

Dean was cold all over, hands gripping Sammy's arm tight enough to bruise.

"Ask what he yelled," he hissed at Christian.

Christian glanced back at him, smirked, and said: "Dean wants to know what his pet angel said before skipping town." His grin was ugly,

Crackling back over the radio Dean heard, "Fuck if I know. Sounded like 'I'm going to kill him' but who knows with the feather brain."

Dean's breathing was ragged as he struggled to get his his cellphone out of his jeans' pocket. Finally yanking it out one-handed, Sam weighed a ton, he flipped it open with his thumb and speed-typed.

"Cas, Cas, are you ok?"

Nothing. He waited; maybe he was texting a full status update. He could tell Christian was finishing up the conversation with Gwen, getting an ETA from Samuel of two hours until they got back to the compound, and confirmation they would contain the Alpha from there and ship him out the next morning. It was too long for even Cas to type out a message.

"Dammit Cas, respond."

Then,

"Cas."

Dean crouched over his brother's body, hand tight on his phone, eyes squeezed shut and ears full of the sounds of the road.

--

The whip of wings snapped back against Castiel's ears, echoing off of the grimy tile of Crowley's torture chamber.

"I specified they were not to be harmed."

"Hello to you too, biscuit." Castiel had no idea why Crowley insisted on progressively weirder nicknames. The urge to ask Dean what it meant to be a "biscuit" shot through him, trailed swiftly by guilt. He knew what he would have to ask for now, and knew equally well that Dean would hate to see him here. Castiel could see his horror and pain and shock. He'd seen it on Dean's face when Sam was fallen into Ruby's strangle-hold and the waves of shame he felt were only kept off his face by the disconnect he maintained between his body and his true self. Dean might hate him to be here, but Dean wasn't here and couldn't see him; Dean was sitting with Sam dead to the world and that's why Castiel was getting ready to ask the king of hell for a favor. First things first, though.

"The Winchesters are out of bounds. Was I unclear?"

Crowley was in his face, a gust of cooper-infected air buffeting Castiel's mouth.

"You'd do well to remember we are partners in this little venture; you don't get to give the orders." Crowley's voice was poisonously light, as always. His fussy tie and tailored suit were rumpled, though the inevitable blood-spatter was blissfully concealed by the black.

"I cannot continue if you harm the Winchesters. I will strike out at you and your allies and our agreement will be severed. They cannot be harmed."

"Sam's barely had a scratch; he'll be fine in a few days." Castiel held back his derisive response; debating demons was futile. The cost he'd taken on the ensure Sam's survival would bind him tighter to Crowley, he knew it.

"His recovery-time is immaterial. They cannot be harmed."

"Broken-record much? There's only so much I can do, sweet cakes. I can't control every Alpha--if I could, we wouldn't need our little pact, would we?"

"Try harder."

"Why do I get the feeling that if it was Dean I'd be a smear on the far wall? Playing favorites between brothers is rarely a good long-term strategy, even if one of them is your--"

Castiel lost control for a moment and when he came back to himself he was holding Crowley at eye-height, forearm crushing his throat and hips pining him to the wall. The look of triumph in the demon's eyes disturbed him; it looked like confirmation of a new and shiny button he could press.

Castiel flew back, letting the man's possessed body fall where it lay. He schooled his face into impassivity and tried to backtrack.

"Your theories on my motives are unamusing. You would do better to focus your attention on holding up your obligations. Harm to the Winchesters decreases their effectiveness and harms both of our objectives. You are stalling: get the information we need faster."

"It's not something you can order out of an Armani catalogue: information gathering on this scale requires vast and delicately maintained networks."

"Complaints and excuses aside, have you learned anything of use?"

"No; just keep, um, supporting those two boys and we'll get there. That hydra just might be the key--good on you for getting it." Castiel nodded and then forced himself to say:

"I require more souls. I had to use the debting-spell during this morning altercation."

"Ooh, aren't we the demanding one. Think because we've finally found a place to stick it at night we can always get what we want?" Castiel's face was hard but he kept himself from reacting again.

"Of course, my dear. You'll find what you need at the usual place. Just remember: for every advance I give you, you'll owe me." His self-satisfied smirk was unctuous but Castiel focused on reiterating his message once more:

"I will abandon this task if the Winchesters come to any further harm. I will know and you will suffer for it." He disappeared in another flurry of wings, but not before glimpsing a superior look on Crowley's face. There was little and less he could do to protect Sam and Dean when he was not with them, and truthfully, Crowley could not be expected to control the behaviors of the citizens of Purgatory. But Castiel required himself to hold the demon accountable to all pieces of their bargain and knew there was equally little he could do to prevent these two men from placing their bodies between danger and innocents.

With a sigh and a gust Castiel landed on crumbling sidewalk, between two cakily-painted Soviet apartment blocks in Leningrad. He walked into an alley between them, through a small wooden door in a side wall. Inside was a well-kept apartment, empty and dusty and grey. On the peeling linoleum covering the small table he saw the dark wooden box. He opened it and the light which shown out would have scored the eyes out of any mortal being. He caressed the souls within, feeling their lives and stories. He never took enough to snuff them out, more like warming himself at a fire which needed no tinder. For a long moment, he let their sufferings and joys and sins and kindnesses fill him, replenishing the depths of his strength. He'd given all he had in his reservoir of strength and some of the reservoir itself to heal Sam in that way and needed to refill and rebuild it. He eased the souls back into their casings and stepped away, the room dimmer than before he'd entered.

He left the small apartment and paused in the alleyway, absorbing the trifling sunlight and sporadic graffiti. He turned to face the open street beside him and began walking, bursts of wind snapping at his trench coat and clipping at his thin-socked ankles. He let the cold nip him, wrap its suffocating breast around his mouth until his body could barely breath with it. He was hunched over, arms going around his stomach. He had no need to feel pain, but the grossity of Crowley's presence aways caked the film between his true self and his flesh. He kept walking for a long time, hunching and then forcing himself straight. Walking.

When he could stand it, he joined Dean at Sam's sickroom cot in Samuel's closed office, taking a moment to take-in Dean's sweat-stale shirt and quietly mashing hands. He could feel the man he'd healed resting in his bunk--the burns had been grievous, but Cas could feel some small pride he'd saved his life and what looks he had to begin with. He surveyed Sam and found him to be recovering satisfactorily--the poison had put him to sleep but with Castiel's intervention no longterm damage seemed likely. He would check on him again when Dean was asleep.  

He couldn't have spent more than a moment gathering this information before he looked down to find Dean's arms crushingly tight around him. His body had reacted when the man had stood, perhaps at the sound of his entrance, and dove into a hug. Though Castiel's vessel was smaller, Dean seemed hunched, twisted, and Castiel reached his hand up to hold the hunter's head to his shoulder. Dean settled more closely into him, making a muffled sound, so small and unintended and hurt Castiel burned with rage at the beast who caused it and shame for his role in requiring its capture. He wrapped his free arm around Dean's waist, pulling him even more tightly against his smaller frame. Trying to say with his body what he could never express in English, trying to apologize for his Sam's hurt. 

Castiel felt Dean loosen up and took his cue from that to give the man space to back up. Instead, Dean dragged their mouths together, backing Castiel up until the bookcase of Samuel's study dug into his hips. He seemed to need something, some touch-transmitted reassurance. Castiel pushed back, keeping up, trying to keep Dean as involved in this as possible for as long as he could, anything to keep that small sound from coming back. Suddenly Dean backed away, Castiel's body automatically following until he stopped, held himself straight:

"Where were you?" He demanded. "You just disappeared."

"I had urgent matters to attend to in Heaven." Castiel cringed as he lied, roaring discomfort keeping his words formal even as his body rapidly cooled from the loss of contact with Dean's skin.

"Urgent? Urgent? God, Cas, it's nice to know where I stand." Dean's snark was like a lion's roar: rarely deadly, mostly defensive.

"You need to be more careful. I cannot protect you at all times." Dean's face closed, looking pissed.

"You know what Cas? Fuck you. Sammy's lying here, still as dying, and you're feeding me bureaucratic bullshit. I can't believe you." He stumbles back against the bookcase, stricken and shattering while Dean just stands there, glaring. Castiel considers disappearing. Just, stopping being there. Dean's attack was both unexpected and deserved. Dean's so far inside his guard he feels each cut like an angel-blade to the gut. 

Just as Castiel's gathering himself up to depart the normal way--through the door--he feels Dean move closer. Castiel braces for an attack, another onslaught, but gets none of it. The static of guilt in his head is making the world blurry, confusing his sense of time. He glances up under his hair at Dean. Dean's still staring at him, but there's a strange look on his face, like impassivity masking guilty horror. Very slowly, like Castiel was the one threatening to maul his bloodied partner, Dean raises his hands, palms out. He steps slowly towards Cas, and Castiel is entirely frozen, body crouching reflexively, protecting the place where his roughed-up heart would be.

Dean keeps getting closer and closer, eyes intent on Cas's shoulder, until they are a breath away.

Castiel muttered: "I don't know what you're doing, Dean."

Dean laughed, a huffed surprised noise which nearly sounded painful.

"I'm trying to make it better, man. I, I can't just say that stuff to you."

Castiel nods jerkily: he would vastly prefer it if Dean never said that stuff to him ever again.

"I, I don't know if you want me to touch you or not. I, I don't want to do something you don't want." Dean's face has gotten more readable since he started talking: fear, apprehension, guilt, hope, all warring for stubbly turf.

Castiel ducks his head, unsure what he wants. He wants his emotions to be clear as well, but doesn't know what to do. He tries talking:

"I nearly never don't want you to touch me, Dean. I just need to know what you think it means. Why you are angry with me leaving when I am needed by my brothers, why I am to be blamed for Sam's hurt, why," Castiel gulped, this was all pouring out a to faster than he had intended, "Why you only touch me this way when we're alone."

He was staring Dean in the face now, fully, boldly. They were still in kissing distance and the barrier between them had taken on a swiss-cheese texture, but it was still thick in some places.

"I nearly never don't want to touch you, either." Dean said, carefully, "I guess I want your company, waiting until Sammy gets better. I guess I know there's nothing either of us can do. When someone's sick and we can't, there's nothing, when they just have to get better on their own, the people who love them watch and wait." Dean cocked his head, considering, "It's like prayer. You're not demanding an outcome: you're just showing up and hoping God will get the message. And God, Cas, I know you had nothing to do with Sam getting hurt. I just; you cut the bastard's head off. I know you're on my side. But he's still hurting Sam."

"And not touching me where your family can see?"

Dean folded into himself a little, ruffing the back of his hair with a palm.

"That too. That, it's like, gah, how do I explain. It's not that I'm ashamed, not that you don't mean the same thing to me wherever we are. Not that you don't deserve to be touched whenever you want to be and not that I don't feel like an itty-bitty magnet when you're in the room shining like the sun. I've never brought a hunter girlfriend home before. I've never seen someone on a hunt who could be as hard as we need to be and soft we are with each other. Some of it is I need my game face and some of it is this is new to me and, fine, some of it is that I like working out what we are together when we're together and not when you're family or mine is judging us."

Castiel nodded, eyes downcast.

Dean smiled cautiously, saying: "I'd like to hug you; please don't throw me across the room." 

Castiel had expected a quick grip and then a retreat, but Dean came across the distance slow as the sun rises, easing his arms around Castiel's waist and holding him tight. As he had when the smaller man had arrived suddenly in the room, he tucked his head down onto his shoulder, breathing deep. Castiel felt broken down and built up again. He could hear the conversation after this: "Dean, it is my fault Sam got hurt." Dean would pull away, eyes full of horror and beginning to plan an attack. "I'm working with Crowley. Your Alpha hunts? The intelligence they bring back helps me in the cause against Raphael. It's my fault; my fault; my fault, my fault, myfaultmyfaulmyfaultSamishurt." But Castiel could too clearly envision the look of disgust on Dean's face and he couldn't do it. Instead, he stayed stiff and quiet in his arms, slowly moulding himself back into the hug, trying to keep his mind blank.

Just as Dean asked him to, he sits and waits in vigil with him, both of them watching Sam sleep. Dean quietly told him about the poison and Castiel grilling himself for not thinking of it earlier. Dean puts his arm on the back of Castiel's chair, fingers trailing idly over his shoulder, but when the door starts to open he snatches it back. It's Samuel, checking in to make sure Sam is recovering. His eyes linger on how close Dean and Castiel's chairs are, but he says nothing. A few minutes later, Gwen comes by to tell them dinner is in 20 and they should get washed up soon. When she closes the door Castiel turns to Dean,

"I must leave, Dean." Dean's eyes widen but then he nods.

"Uh, ok. We'll miss you at dinner." Castiel stands, preparing to leave. Dean is staring down at his knees,

"Just, Cas: are we ok?"

Castiel looks down at him, heart wringing,

"Yes, Dean, we're ok."

"So, when will I see you next?"

"I will spend tomorrow ensuring Remiel is ready to process the increase in power the prayers will bring him. Sunday I will be with him. Monday I will likely also be occupied. Tuesday? Perhaps Tuesday."

"Alright; just, if you get a minute," Dean pauses, breaths, pauses, "You know you're always welcome here. If you need to talk or . . . anything." Castiel thinks of tipping the man's head up, kissing him until he can't breathe; straddling his hips and pushing their bodies so close together this distance disappears. He doesn't; he can barely think through his guilt.

"I will endeavor," and he flies away.

--

After an uncomfortable night sleeping in a folding chair, Dean was ready at dawn to take the Alpha to his just reward. He still hasn't decided what he wants to say to Crowley. He is mostly tired of getting jerked around, never knowing why he's going after this target or that one. He wants justice for his hurt brother, but barring that, to know why it had to happen. He suited up, noticing Castiel's absence more than he cared to, and went to see Christian about getting the hydra Alpha out of the cage and into the van. Christian asks after Castiel with a nasty tone Dean decides to attribute to the early morning. Samuel wakes up and demands Dean take company along. Dean, glancing towards the room where Sam's still unconscious, refuses and says anyone free should sit with Sammy. Samuel lets it slide, then chops off the Alpha's head another time to ensure Dean has a quiet ride and hauls him into the back of the truck wrapped in a tarp trussed up without an inch to move.

Dean lets his thoughts coagulate as he gets out of the driveway and ends up furious. Dean fumes as he drives, at Cas for being impenetrable, at Sam for being hurt, at Samuel for getting them into this relationship with Crowley. He hasn't had much time to think about how they'd gotten into this mess, fetching Alphas for Crowley to--what? Torture then? Kill them? Serve them at elaborate demon banquets? Dean shook his head, trying to convince himself it was above his pay grade to care. He grimaced--nothing felt above his pay grade anymore, now that he was helping an angel carry his fight in Heaven and the king of Hell gather Alphas. It makes his skin crawl to think Crowley has a lair less then two hours from the Campbell's compound.

He arrives, eyes scraping over the squatting and water-stained building. He wondered where demons got their real estate, the economy couldn't be that bad that everyone wanted to sell to Satan spawn, then decided he didn't want to know. The Alpha is quiet in the back and no, Dean checks, his head still hasn't come back entirely--Dean would describe what it looks like but his best asset as a hunter is his ability to shut off his imagination so he decides it looks like a Alpha trying to regenerate its head. Perhaps even without cauterization multiple decapitations tired it out, or Samuel had given it some kind of Alpha-focused healing retardant. Too many secrets in the Campbell family by half.

He hauled the Alpha down, letting him bounce crunchily on the asphalt before he starts dragging him to the entrance. Christian had said to take him down the hall, down the stairs, to a laboratory-looking room. He'd smirked coldly:

"You can't miss it."

Dean slid the Alpha heavily over the pitted tiles. The place was creepy with the light half-filtering through the crusted panes and it practically emoted industrialized torture. Dean shudders and hurries up. He pulls the Alpha down some steps, expecting the dank air to fill with charnel house smells but instead he gets nothing but Pine Lysol and Crowley's smirk.

"Hello, feather lover, I didn't expect you to make delivery."

Dean glared, hoping the nick-name was just Crowley fishing and news of his relationship with Cas hadn't already reached the demon king. "Hydra Alpha; he's a little fucked up now but he should regenerate soon," Dean said, dumping the wrapped body in the middle of the room. The king of hell oiled his way across the floor, getting up in Dean's face. Up close, he looked a little disheveled. There were bits of plaster on his shoulders and rips in his black suit's shoulders, like someone had grabbed it.

"You don't have any clue why you're here, do you poppet?" He hissed, distain and creep coming across on parallel frequencies.

"I'm keeping up my end of our deal, Crowley." Dean said, standing his ground only by virtue of a lifetime of stubbornness.

Crowley stepped back, evaluating, "Ah, but why?" He peered at Dean's face, for a moment looking eerily like Castiel, "Don't you want to know why I want all of these Alphas?"

Dean stayed silent, not sure the game they were playing.

Crowley turned, crouching to unpeel the tarp with his thumb and index fingers. "What you don't know can hurt you, Winchester. You should be more curious."

Dean's tired of waiting and decides to play. "Why are you having us collect Alphas for you?"

Crowley still had his back to him, he'd pulled out a big knife and was sawing through the ropes binding the Alpha. He paused, and half-turned to Dean.

"Why don't you ask your boyfriend, Cas?" A beat, then, "He'd love to tell you all about it."

Dean turned to leave, "If you're just going to fuck with me, I've got a brother to get back to."

Crowley stood and began to move towards him, "Oh, but I'm not the one fucking with you. You've got the smell of that trenchcoat all over you but," Crowley's voice turned singsong-y, "You don't know what you've gotten yourself into." 

Dean clenched his fists, breathing through his nose and keeping his voice even: "You're here and he's not. Why don't you tell me, since you're so desperate to?"

Crowley gestured expansively to the torture room, "Gathering intelligence for our joint venture, you see," he was suddenly much closer to Dean than he'd been a moment before, "Your lover and I, we have an arrangement. I get him the location of Purgatory, and he gets to eat half the souls."

"That's bullshit." Dean said, tight into Crowley's space. "Cas would never make a deal with you." Things are starting to tug inside his mind--clues Castiel had dropped about doing things he didn't wish to, not killing that Alpha, what he shouted before he woke up from his post-Sam saving coma. Even how upset Cas had seemed last night at Sam's bedside had tasted wrong. Dean tried to keep his thoughts off his face but Crowley looked ready to crow.

"Ask your bedmate what he's been doing for me these past months." Dean suddenly couldn't handle Crowley's lear anymore.

"Fuck you," he spat before he jogged back up the stairs, Crowley's laughter trailing after him.

--

He didn't even make it to his truck before the first urge hit to call Castiel down to scream at him, but he didn't want to have this conversation anywhere near Crowley. He threw himself in the cab, wrenched the hulking monster into gear and sped off, getting to the highway in record time. Dean was having trouble controlling his breathing and he needed answers now. He made it to the highway and pulled off on the side of the road, slamming the door as he stalked off into some trees bordering a dairy farm, and puling out his phone and shouting at the sky as he typed:

"Cas! Castiel! Get your feathery ass down here!" Dean kept his ears open for the tell-tale sound of wings, but heard nothing.

"Castiel, I swear to God, you had better get down here." Dean felt like he'd been simmering for hours and just reached a rolling boil. Another,

"Crowley said you're working together: is that true?"

and

"You had better explain to me RIGHT NOW."

and

"Cas. Seriously. Now."

He kept shouting and texting for five, then ten, then twenty minutes. After half an hour, he got back in the truck and began to drive back, cursing thoughtless, naive, hard-of-hearing angels the entire way.

--

The next two days weren't much kinder. He couldn't get Cas to respond, not to prayers and not to text messages. If he hadn't been so furious with the angel for endangering Sam, for throwing them all in harms way and not telling Dean about it even after he, they, when he clearly should have. Mad though he was, he still followed up on the Cardinals to ensure Remiel's prayers got through. Monday morning Sam woke up, looking wrecked but more like he was getting over a bad flu than had just been knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's door courtesy of some Alpha hydra blood.

Castiel finally appeared to Dean just before dawn on Tuesday morning, when Dean was sitting a solitary watch shift on the top of the roof. When he heard the rustle of a trench coat stilling after sudden flight behind him he refused to turn around, hunching his shoulders and glaring down the road. He felt Castiel pause behind him, heard him take a deep breath and walk tentatively up to where Dean was crouching. Still refusing to look at him, in his peripheral vision Dean saw the angel sit down, keeping a solid foot in between them. His heart crunched at the carefulness, the distance, but he reminded himself why he was mad at the angel and bore down on that feeling, keeping it hot.

Castiel was owl-facing at him, and all Dean could see was Sam's face, slack with exhaustion, injured from a fight Cas had sent them into.

"Dean--"

"Is it true?" He spat when he turned to stare at the angel, "Is it true you're working with Crowley?" There was nothing of sympathy in his voice, but something close to begging. As convinced as he'd made himself over the past few days that Cas had betrayed him, had lied to him, he could hope it wasn't true.

Castiel met his eyes, and Dean knew, even before he said with total sadness, "Yes, Dean, but if you'll only let me explain--"

"No, Cas, God, no." Dean leaned towards him, trying to force the knowledge into him, "Don't you get it? You don't make deals with the devil."

Castiel yanked himself back, face a mask of hurt: "Never, Dean? What about your deal?" Dean blanched, "Or Sam's attempts at deals, or your father's, or your mother's, or your grandfathers's?" He paused, a little out of breath, saying quietly, "And I didn't make a deal. We are working together but I never--" he shook his head, and Dean could see disgust on his face, "I never intended to keep my side. I was using him, using Crowley for information." He glanced over at Dean but squared his shoulders to continue, "And I won't stop. He says, I believe, we are close to determining the location of a gateway to Purgatory--"

"And what the fuck do you want with Purgatory, Cas? What good can come of that?" Dean was still holding tight onto his rage, though he was strangely comforted that the angel was planning to lie not only to him but Crowley as well. It seemed only fair.

Castiel huffed and rubbed his hands over his face, Dean noticing for the first time that he looked tired, "There is a power that comes from souls, Dean. A, renewable energy. A few souls, properly and temporarily contained, can restore a broken angel or," he looked at Dean, "be used to cure a dying man." Dean started; he hadn't thought of where Cas had gotten the energy to save Sam when he said he was tapped out. "More importantly to my purposes, I can distribute the power of all of the souls of Purgatory to increase the strength of my followers and so end the war in Heaven."

"All the stuff with the Cardinals was, what, a sideshow?" Dean asked, caustically, holding tight onto his anger.

Castiel turned to him, looking startled. He reached his hand out for Dean's arm but let it drop: "No, Dean. No, that was," and here a sneaky smile crept onto his face before disappearing in the face of Dean's anger, "Remiel was the key, provided information which tied everything Crowley has brought me together. Without his help, without you," Castiel eyes were bright, face open, "I could not do what I am preparing to do." Dean's carefully tended levies of anger broke. He sighed, dropping his head to his hands.

"You needed to have told me, Cas. You need, you can't just not trust me and trust me other times." Castiel was silent, al his glee at his plans working out seeming to drain from him. Dean couldn't have that. He sighed again and sat up, reaching out his arms. 

"Come here." Castiel dutifully scooted closer, still keeping a distance between their bodies so as Dean leaned over to hug him he had to move those last few inches. The angel was stiff as stone in his embrace, but when Dean buried his face in the angel's shoulder he relaxed a mite.

Dean breathed in the angel's scent, feeling it ricochet around his insides.

"I'm sorry about what happened to Sam, Dean. I really am." Castiel mumbled, "I threatened Crowley, I," he paused, "I threw him into a wall and said our arrangement was over it he touched you, either of you, again." Dean laughed and the inner part of him which had begun to feel hollow with the loss of Cas's presence and the anticipated loss of his friendship began to fill. His anger had occupied it for the past two days, but this feeling of closeness was simply fuller. He kept his mouth pressed to the rough fabric of Castiel's overcoat, but let his hand drift down to the man's hands, clenched in his lap. He pried one free and squeezed it, smoothing his thumb over his palm before interlacing their fingers. They breathed together for a minute, the sounds of the forest in autumn filling their ears and the wind tickling Dean's nose with Cas's messy hair.

Muttering into his coat, Dean asked, "What's next?" 

"Hmm?" Castiel replied, eyes pulling themselves back from the horizon.

"You said Remiel was the key. Have you found Purgatory?" Dean's voice wasn't entirely happy, but he was trying some of Castiel's hope on for size.

"Yes; Remiel revealed Raphael had been mining the edges of Purgatory for the past year. This explained a great many things: Raphael had never been the most powerful of the archangels and it was surprising to many of us that he rose to lead. No one had remembered him playing this kind of leading role when the Morningstar fell." Castiel ducked his head, smiling, "With the extra power from the prayers, I was able to convince Remiel that I could keep him safe and he showed me the sigil which is needed to open it. The Alphas have provided enough clues as to the locations of of one of the gateway." Cas was talking fast, body humming with energy, "Dean, the war may be over soon. Tonight I will open the gateway."

Dean froze, knowing how many things could go wrong in the final push of a war and shocked he had so few hours left with Cas. Castiel reached up and patted his arm.

Very softly, he said, "I have cleared my schedule for today. For us to spend together. If you wish it. I," He paused, face suddenly sad, "I may not have time to be with you as much as I would like until the fighting is over. I would prefer to be here, but . . ."

Dean nodded, then sat up.

"In that case, let's get off this roof and get us some breakfast. After that, well," he grinned, suddenly committed to making today the best he could make it, "There's a motel down the road." 

Castiel smiled as Dean stood, pulling the angel up with him and starting for the edge of the roof.

--

It seemed "soon" was a relative term to angels. Castiel only had minutes, sometimes, rarely, hours for him after that. The power Cas had pulled from Purgatory was enough to convince many of  the angels to back down, but Raphael wouldn't give up, and running a guerrilla campaign, threatening Cas with assassination and his friends with torture and "reeducation." Castiel was rarely happy with a victory in the grinding war; Dean knew any advance on his part meant the deaths of his brothers on the other side. But Dean no longer had the impression Cas's war was unwinnable, not that he asked for details. 

He also tried not to ask about how the work with Crowley was going. After the revelation of their partnership, he'd stopped working on collecting Alphas, whose detailed knowledge of Purgatory helped Castiel target which sections to harvest, instead focusing on regular hunting. Sam seemed content to keep working with Samuel and Dean tried to get back to the compound for a few days every month. But other than those times, he spent his days driving from place to place, staying alone in motels, doing the little jobs that only someone with his skills could do but, for the first time in his life, trying to stay safe as well. He tried to carry the entirety of their relationship inside himself at all times because he knew Cas didn't have time to tend it. Dean couldn't do the Alpha hunts. The fights brought him too close to Castiel's battles in heaven and he couldn't concentrate on the jobs. Losing an Alpha, losing any advantage in those fights could mean Castiel's cause and he was worse than useless under that pressure. He also couldn't stomach Crowley's smirking face at the end of those hunts and so he fought on the sidelines, the smaller battles. Salting-and-burning those ghosts drawn to the psychic scars of the larger war, cleaning up after Alphas, saving people, hunting things. 

He had a lot of thoughts, worries about Cas, about the future, their future, particularly why he found himself comfortable living in stasis, waiting for Cas. He drove, he hunted, he listened to Castiel's tapes, crazy and depressing as some of them were. 

On a long stretch of highway between Nevada and Utah, driving in the dark with no streetlights and a billion stars, he thought about how there was a core inside of Castiel which Dean could never get through. Dean shaped and moulded himself around the people he loved--son, shield, surrogate father, ultimate hunter--and his essence was that he could have those relationships that he'd die for. But Castiel was immouldable. Yes, he picked up mannerisms and hitched his breath when he's touched unexpectedly but there's a depth at which nothing Dean does will every change what Castiel is. It's like his heart is made of granite. Sam had told Dean once that granite was lithified magma condensed under the pressure of mountains. Granite was too hard to let water into it, so when there's water it runs off the top and under granite batholiths (which is why there are no wells in the Rockies and why they had to hike their water up with then on that Wendigo trip). Very rarely, when granite was subjected to swift and inescapable changes, like an earthquake, it shattered and suddenly is capable of being filled with water, but only in those cracks.

Dean sometimes wished something could crack Castiel into pieces, so he could get all the way inside. But he loves him too hard to want to see him exist through that kind of trauma, and so clings to the outside of his granite heart. He would rather have him whole and that piece of him never touched by Dean than crumpled and wasted into something Dean could get his hands around.

--

They were in the middle of a practice bout in the Campbell's central room, cots and map-covered tables pushed to the edges of the room, when Dean heard the rustle of an angel's wings. He dropped the knife he'd been about to play-slash Christian with and lunched to catch Castiel, who had arrived upright but was entirely unconscious by the time their knees hit the floor. Dean fell, taking as much of the impact on his legs as he could.

The angel was worse off than he'd ever seen him. His face was bleeding from half-a-dozen small scrapes and his entire lower jaw was purple and swollen. Dean's fingertips brushed the angel's ragged hair as he gently touched the bruise. He was wearing his trench coat but under was only one of the shirts they'd bought together at the Goodwill with a gaping rip all the way across his stomach. Tugging the limp angel higher up in his lap, Dean gently pulled the shirt up, finding a shallow but long gash stretching from Cas's left ribs to his right pelvic bone. It seemed that whatever cut him had only stopped when it got to his jeans, which were covered in dust and blood. Dean cringed, but then began to to check him for other injuries, starting by feeling the angel's hands for breaks. Yes, Cas could heal himself but it was easier if his breaks were set beforehand, if he didn't have infections to fight off. 

His knuckles were bruised and one on each hand was split, but Dean could find no fractures. Sam knelt into his field of vision, holding the small emergency kit they kept in the weapons room and without a word began to clean and bandage the angel's other hand. Dean scooted out from under him, holding his head in his two hands as he lowered it to the ground. He began to ease the angel out of his trench coat once he finished with his hand, getting ready to tend to the ugly gash on his stomach. He looked up at Sam and Sam stood, walking to the bigger first aid kit with the sewing thread and hospital-grade disinfectant. Just as Dean finished getting Cas out of the coat his entire body seized and his eyes flew open, scanning wildly around the room as he drew in a huge breath of air. He lunged up and into Dean, wrapping him in a painfully tight hug, face buried in his collar-bone and breath hot and fast on his shirt.

"I have to," deep, painfully harsh breaths, "I need to," Dean's arms were around him as well, face tight to the top of his head,

"What, Cas?" Dean asked softly, "What can I do?"

Cas pulled back, face achingly open and needing,

"I must return to my brothers," Dean could feel the pain of loss again but hammered it down. He wouldn't mourn the angel until he was gone again, dammit. He would focus on him while he was here.

"Alright, Cas. We can stitch you up--"

"Hurt, not injured." He had a ghost of a smile on his face when his hand floated up to touch, feather soft, Dean's cheek.

"I'll come back for you."

"I know, Cas. Don't die, ok?" Dammit, Dean had promised himself he wouldn't, impose his, his stuff on Cas when the angel needed his entire being just to keep the planet from going to Hell in a Raphael basket. He ducked his head, whispering again,

"Just don't die."

Castiel was silent, shoulders still soft in his hands and body so close. Dean's eyes were closed, but he could still feel the angel moving in, achingly slow, body wincing from the angle of pressure on his stomach injury, could feel it the moment before their foreheads touched and they both paused there, eyes closed and arms around each other. Dean leaned forward, pushing their bodies closer together until Castiel was part of his balance. He felt the lightest brush of lips against his, could feel the words,

"I'll try."

Before the rush of wings left him entirely alone, sitting in the middle of the floor. He gasped for breath, arms falling heavy to his sides, angel's blood still on his hands.

"God," he heard a voice project behind him, "Do we have to watch this crap?" It was Christian, staring with disgust in his eyes,

"It's bad enough you're fags; do you have to flaunt it in front the the whole--"

WHAM.

Christian was on the floor, blood pouring off his broken nose, with Sam Winchester standing over him, breathing heavily, looking like a pissed off mother moose. Sam stared at Christian until he dropped his eyes and then stared around the room, shaming every single one of the Campbells who hadn't spoken up.

That done, he stalked over to Dean, reaching down for his shoulder and saying,

"Come on, man, let's go."

Dean wasn't really present, but he saw Sam pull him up from where he knelt on the floor and frog-marching him outside. The air was dry with midwinter cold and dim with dusk, and snow crunched beneath his boots as he watched himself walk to the Impala parked in the side yard driveway. Sam let him go to unlock the driver's side door and sat him down in his seat, gently wrapping his fingers around the steering wheel before closing the door and walking around to the passenger side to sit down. He put the keys in the ignition, turned it, and as Salve Regina came on Dean took over mid-stream, foot pressing in the break and pulling out the parking break, curving out of the yard, down the long driveway and onto the darkening country road.

They listened without conversation, and when the scene ended Sam pulled the tape out and put in another from the shopping bag. It was the gospel songs. When they finished that one, Sam put Carmelites back in rewound it to the beginning, and played the entire thing. Dean came to himself through patches and pieces, his baby doing most of the steering while his mind crept out from where it had been cowering.

He started talking.

"He's going to die, Sam. And there's nothing I can do about it." Something had shifted in Castiel's war. Some, piece of the negotiation had gone so wrong.

Sam's face was full of grief for his brother but he said nothing,

"There's. God, there's nothing I can do. I can't even fight for him. He's, he's fighting angels. Angels, Sam. The kind Mom said were watching over us. The kind who nearly got us killed a dozen or ten times. The kind that keep," he gasped, stuffing a sob back into his throat, "The kind that keep leaving Cas battered and broken and bleeding." He finished, voice low and dull.

"And there's nothing I can do. I can't help. I can't. Sammy, I can't." He tried to breath, air coming in in wheezes and gasps. Sam just sat there, listening, eyes kind. Dean calmed, getting his breathing and his pulse under control. He listened to the music for a while, remembered what it felt like to have Cas sitting where Sam was seated. Felt how brief their moments had been. Part of him wanted to pull away from those memories, pull away from the hurt they now caused. But he refused: better to remember what Cas had given him, what they'd made together, than to be fake happy. He listened to the sound of the car, the road, Sam's breathing. He got back inside himself. Breathed.

"All I can do, Sammy, all I know how to do is wait. To be here. To be where and when and what he needs me to be. To, to not have any expectations. To be open," he chuckled without humor, "God that sounds weak, 'to be open.'" He paused and then slowly: "But yeah, that's the best I can do. To, to be here. Present. Waiting and ready."

Sam nodded and went back to watching the fields roll past. Went back to listening to his brother's sorrow crackling under his skin and watching him remember himself, his hands tight on the wheel the entire night.

--

Dean subsisted, living in a holding pattern. In the rare moments he could help Castiel, he felt every atom of his being engaged; his world was sharp. Otherwise, he did what he could to help as many people as possible, using the skills he had. Castiel nearly never talked about his war, but Dean could feel in him that he was reaching a crux, a point where everything honed down to a few set choices. He could feel Castiel working through them, whether they were kissing pressed tight against an alleyway wall or Cas zapped in just to ride in the Impala with him for a few long miles, hand drifting over to hold his, wrists resting on the drive-shaft.

Three weeks was the first time he broke. Hunched over his steering wheel, he layed his head down and prayed for Cas to get his feathery ass down here. As soon as the thought passed out of his mind he flung back reassurances, telling Cas to stay where he was, finish what he was doing. That he understood.

That he understood.

--

One time Castiel arrived in Dean's motel room trenchcoat billowing, blissfully undamaged physically but with such a look of dumb numbness that Dean did nothing but hold him, standing there in sleeping-boxers while the angel trembled and slow as breathing returned the embrace. Dean leaned back to look at his face, lacing his fingers into the angel's hair and said: "Where could we go that you would feel safe?"

The angel started, then raised his hand to Dean's face and pulled them to a grassy hillside. It smelled like Kansas, but could have been Oklahoma or Nebraska--all fields are grey at night. Seeing Castiel wasn't making any moves, Dean took over, tugging him down to sit on the ground, arranging Cas in his lap so Dean cradled him from behind, arms wrapped around him and stomach and chest pressed against his back. Dean held onto the angel, who was still as stiff as he had been when he'd arrived. By inches and by hours, Castiel relaxed, leaning back. His breath was uneven: calm and slow sometimes, fast and racing others. Dean could only imagine the events which had driven his angel to this state but tried to believe sufficient application of shared warmth could ease his way. When one bout of fast breathing settled into violent shaking, Dean leaned forward, tightening his arms just that much more and whispering into his friend's ear:

"I've got you. I've got you. I've got you."

"You're safe."

He calmed after a few hundred of these and was back to breathing slowly. Dean eased back, trying to give him space to work out whatever he was working on without leaving him any doubt he was held.

After Dean had begun to name constellations after the monsters he had hunted, Castiel turned around in his lap, pressing his face up for a kiss. Dean gave it, revelling in the cool, clean taste of him and his closeness. After a moment, Castiel pulled away again and turned around, but instead of gripping his elbows, his hands started to wander over Dean's knees. Not so much titillating, as reassuring, remembering. Like he'd left reminders of himself in the dip between Dean's knee-knob and his thigh muscle, or along the back of his shin. Dean kept still, every one of his breaths pushing the angel up and down, settling them closer and closer as the stars looked on.

--

Another time, Castiel showed up just as Dean was getting thrown across a room by a vengeful spirit he had misjudged. He'd assumed it was the banker-owner of the house, a callous and parsimonious lender, who it turned out had been schtupping his clerk and his wife had a hate-on for every man who walked through that door. This meant Dean had walked in for a final sweep, expecting a clean house and found himself face-to-face with crazy. Even as he slid down the wall, he was getting ready to fire a salt round into the wailing spirit when she suddenly screamed and filled with fire. She burned away and he saw Castiel standing behind her, arm outstretched. His face was brutal and glorious but when he met Dean's eyes he quirked a smile at him, lowering his hand and walking towards him. Dean pushed himself up the wall in time to be pressed into it, Cas's tongue finding its way into his mouth, his hands pressed flat on the plaster of either side of Dean's face.

When he pulled back to let Dean breath Dean shared a grin and said:

"Well, hello to you too. Things going well?"

Castiel ducked his head but his eyes were full of mischief.

"I have a way in," he said, face more hopeful than Dean had seen it in months, "I have a project which, once completed, will ensure peace. That last Alpha was the key." He brought his hand in, tugging Dean's shirt up and pressing his hand to his bare stomach.

Dean's breath hitched but he managed, "That's great Cas," hips rolling forward but trying to sound intelligent, "What's the plan?"

But Castiel wasn't interested in talking and swooped in for another kiss, hand sliding around Dean's side under his shirt, pressing into the small of his back and pulling their hips together tightly. He was working his way down Dean's chest, Dean's head thrown back against the wall in abandon, when he growled,

"Not now."

Dean brought his head down to look at his friend's face which even now was pressed into his stomach. He thought he could detect a frown around his edges. Castiel pressed one more possessive kiss to his hip before straightening up.

Dean tried to cover his panic at losing him so soon with a grin:

"Heaven calling?"

"Yes. There's a, a sticking point in the negotiation. I, I must be present to resolve it."

"Hey, man, it's fine. Do what you got to." Dean belayed his casual tone with a hand wrapping itself around Castiel's fingers, squeezing them hard enough to leave imprints. 

Castiel squeezed him back before stepping back. A moment later, he was gone.

--

Dean sat with his hands gripping the steering wheel of the Impala tight, eyes locked on the horizon at the edge of nothing but straight rows of corn and a straight blacktop two-lane road in under a clear, warm California winter sky. He was driving between jobs; he'd talked to Sam this morning. He was going on another big Alpha hunt with the Campbells tomorrow. He shifted back into the headspace which had kept him alive for a decade: think no farther than the next hunt. But this time, instead of his father's revenge being the through-line of his existence it was his commitment to be for Castiel. He tried to be prepared for the angel's appearance at any time. Open to it, able to react to what the angel needed at the time rather than trying to impose progress. But mostly, Dean waited. 

He adjusted his grip on the wheel, sliding the worn dents and digs under the joints of his calloused fingers, steady pressure and texture. It had been three days since he'd seen Cas last, an opening in his heart so wide it gaped, but Dean focused on the drive and the job and exactly and only what was in front of him. That night he made camp. He had the credit cards for a motel room; heck, he was less than a night's drive from Sammy and the Campbells if he wanted knowing hunter company. But he didn't and couldn't imagine any good coming from a night-desk check-in clerk, a sterilized bathroom and scratchy sheets or an over-intrusive overgrown sibling. So he pulled out his old, battered tent and thin sleeping bag and set up in the backwoods of some big farm's side property, a mile and more from the main house. He lay out under the pine belt around his grove, counting stars, seeping the cold still night air into his soul's pores. Letting the tiny pricks of light among all that vast blackness remind him of something.

When he heard the tell-tale flap of a hundred angry wings he'd crawled into his musty tent and was on the far side of falling asleep.

"Dean? Dean? Why are you in a tent?" That scratchy voice tugged him back to reality.

"Cas, Cas, I'm here, give me a second," Dean slithered out of the sleeping back, fumbling and swearing for the zipper, finally collapsing the fabric door down to see his angel crouched and curious, framed in the quaking tent door.

Lifting his feet free of the lintel, Dean crowded the angel back, Castiel standing and looking at him, eyes bright and staring, skin luminous in the moonlight. Dean stood as well, unable to take his eyes of his friend's cheekbones--another detail he'd forgotten--and then he was hugging him, one arm inside the trenchcoat and another on top of it.

"I missed you, man."

"And I you, Dean."

"Where have you, how are you," Dean tried to check the angel for injuries without getting too far into his space, but the angel seemed unharmed. He let his hands drift more easily then, reassuring and reminding himself of his friend's shape and warmth and hollows and full spaces.

"How long do I have you?" He asked, trying for light diffidence rather than sheer desperation, puling back to gaze into the man's face again, which is probably why he caught the blanch of fear before a truly warm smile.

"Until dawn, Dean. A few hours, maybe more." Dean gripped him tight in another hug, unable to appear unaffected and unwilling to waste time caring.

"What can I, how can," Dean breathes, presses his cheek to his friend's scratchy cheek, and says, "What do you need?"

"You." Was Castiel's simple reply. Dean's breath jerked inside him, yanking him closer once more, hands getting tight, possessive around the angel's waist and the angel collapsed into him.

"You've got me."

"I just, I need, I can't," Castiel sounded lost, almost fearful and Dean remembered the expression he'd caught the moment before. The angel was shaking lightly in his arms, hands fluttering uncertainly between Dean's hips and his shoulders. Dean felt an answering sting of fear, but decided to focus on a problem he could fix.

"Why don't we start with this," he said, his tone easy and undemanding, slipping the beige trench coat off the smaller man's shoulders. When he had it loose, he laid it beside them on the pine needles, a makeshift blanket. Castiel had kept his arms stiff as Dean maneuvered the coat off of him, but when Dean glanced up he saw the angel's eyes had never left his face. He looked, practically hungry. It wasn't a look Dean was used to this early in the foreplay.

The angel wasn't bending and getting with the lay-on-the-ground program so Dean put his hand on his shoulder and pressed gently. With a start, Castiel folded up, his legs carrying him down while Dean tried to keep up, them both ending up in the pile on the ground.

"Alright, Cas," Dean said, hand still on his friend's shoulder and his knees around the other man's, "What's up?"

Castiel jerked around, bringing his face nose-to-nose with Dean's with a raw expression Dean could barely place. He was about to back off, to insist they talk, when he found himself on his back on the ground, a horny angel pressing himself between his legs and his mouth full of Cas-tongue. He went with it, hands gracing over the smaller man's shoulder-blades and sliding down to his ass to pull him in tighter. Castiel obliged with a moan, breaking off from claiming Dean's mouth to sucking tight on his neck. Dean arched up into the pressure, tipping his head to the side to give him fuller access and letting a harsh breath filter through his lips.

Castiel's hand had found its way between them, and was working its way south, first brushing with fingertips then cupping and pressing into Dean's growing erection. Dean slammed his eyes open, catching sight of the bedroom hair and rumbled suit-jacket of his lover, a slip of skin between his pants' hem and his shirt glinting in the starlight. Dean eased his head own shoulders up, getting leverage to begin unbuttoning the man's long-sleeved shirt and askew tie. Castiel pushed his shoulders down with a growl, then backed off, holding himself back and up, eyes frantic. Dean followed him up, hand light on the angel's stomach.

"Cas. What's going on? I need you to talk to me."

"Can't this be this be the one thing I don't need to negotiate? Can't we just, just be with each other, can't I just have," He shook his head, battling the words out, "Just tonight. Tonight I just need," Dean had worked the man's shirt up, needing more skin contact. The angel hissed his breath out and Dean laid a cool hand along his friend's fast-breathing rib."Yes. Can't I just have, this?" He pressed his hand to Dean's, digging his fingers into his own ribs.

"Always, Cas. We can talk in the morning,"

"Morning, yes," Castiel let out a broken-sounding laugh, which chilled Dean, "In the morning, yes." He shuddered, pulling himself upright, shoulders ruler-straight again. His eyes blazed like a star, like a promise: "Before then, Dean Winchester, I need you inside me."

Dean flushed at this, they never had quite gotten on the same page where talking dirty was concerned, but he got the sentiment. "Ok," he began.

"But Cas, we haven't," The angel cupped the back of Dean's head, pulling him up the angel was in his lap and his legs wrapped around his friend's hips. Castiel interrupted: "I trust you," and pressed a kiss into him, which grew in passion and tension the longer it went on, until Dean rolled them over, slowing towards the end to protect Cas's head from any hidden roots. His shirt unbuttoned, his hair wild and tangled, his eyes fixed on Dean's, and his slender fingers digging into the needles on either side of them and arms stiff, the angel glowed. Dean sank into the sight, protecting it in his heart, before he began to mouth his way down his chest, tonging the angel's nipples to get his usual rise out of him, balancing on one arm as he eased the angel's button off and zipper down, the angel lifting his hips to get the offending clothing away. Pants and briefs removed and coat-blanket straightened to avoid any sticky needle incidents,  Dean suppressed a moment of panic. He'd done this with girls before and with a few guys, but always with lubrication and preparation and conversations about relaxing and cleaning. The angel's body was taut as bow string and angelic muscle control or not, Dean needed him to relax before he could feel safe with the next steps.

"Cas," The angel's eyes, which had never left his face, seemed to zoom into focus, "I'll be right back. I need something from my bag," He ghosted his palm over the smaller man's erection, squeezing enough to give hime something to think about, "Hold tight."

The angel did, propping himself up on elbows to watch as Dean rose up off of him, reaching into the one-man tent and rooting around in his bag. Dean didn't know how much the angel knew about the upcoming act, enough to want it but not necessarily enough to know everything involved. As he riffled, he began to explain, "I'll need to touch you, to get you ready, and lube helps with that."

"Do you always carry lubrication, Dean?"

Dean grinned, trust Cas to use four syllables when one would do, "I picked it up at that Good Vibrations place in San Francisco, when we were there for that Chinatown ghost." They'd come over the Golden Gate bridge, Dean refusing to tempt fate by driving Sammy past Palo Alto south of the city. Castiel had appeared in their backseat, barely breathing out a "Hello," before staring out the window into the rolling fog banks and drifting sails of the Bay. He'd wanted to pull over right there in the middle of traffic, let the angel out and stand with him, watching the waves on the soaring and sawing bridge. But people were dying in Chinatown, so he let Sammy entertain Cas while he navigated local traffic and hoped today's visit would last long enough for some alone time. The job hadn't been memorable, and they'd left the city without sleeping over, but Dean had snuck away while Sam was at the library to duck into the sex store. Cas had trailed after him, silent and observing. Dean had meant this trip to be a way to bring up different forms of restraint with the angel, but something about his tone of face left Dean unable to breach the subject. And so he had bought a small tube of water-based lube and hurried out of the store before Cas could ask any awful questions of the perky saleswoman.

Dean found it, hiding in a corner of his duffle, behind an old local newspaper from 3 states away. He crab-walked his way out of the tent and the sight of the angel  propped up on his elbows, laying naked in the starlight nearly did him in. He gulped and knelt between his legs, hand steadying in his knee. "I won't hurt you, this won't hurt, but I'll need you to focus on being open and relaxed, ok man? We're going to go real slow."

Castiel nodded, eyes still painfully intense on Dean's face. He lay back, hands softer in the needles on either side of his coat, one drifting up to caress Dean's face, trailing down his neck to his shoulder and then the hand with the lube tube, plucking at a finger, pulling it closer to his body, before letting go and settling his hand, palm up, onto the ground.

Dean took a breath and then pulled his shirt off, wanting to add more skin to the mix, then shucking his pants and socks and underwear and shoes, Castiel following every movement like he was trying to memorize it. He leaned down, covering his friend's slightly cool chest with his broader, warmer one, and kissed him, slow and intentional. Dean's hand, the one without the lube, pressed into the angel's shoulder, gripping it like an assurance before slipping down to tweak a nipple. Castiel gasped into Dean's mouth, a small sound escaping him and drifting into the trees above. Dean's head drifted down, kissing  the swell of a shoulder muscle, his clavicle, standing out much too straight from his thin chest, the mound of his pectoral. Dean's hand drifted down again, tracing the outline of his friend's ribs and stomach, his mouth following shortly after. He wrapped his fingers around his overheated cock and sliding the skin minutely over the muscle. He cupped his hand around the balls, thumb-pad dancing over the too-soft skin between the base as the sac, as Cas keened into the night air. Dean grinned, these were sounds just for him, and slipped his mouth over his friend's cock. Castiel's hips, which had been straining upwards, desperate for more friction from his teasing hand, slammed into the ground, nearing jerking the hot flesh of his cock out of a surprised Dean's mouth.

Dean followed him down, swallowing the angel whole, pressing his lips to his hand at the man's root. He could hear the angel's whispered breath getting harsher the more he moved his tongue over the tight skin of his dick, and he waited for a strong exhale before drifting a single finger down to his hole. He found it puckered, not entirely tight but not as relaxed as he had hoped. He popped the cap off the lube, messily tricking some over his finger and the smaller man's groove, hoping its time in his palm had heated it to a less shocking level of coolness. Castiel stilled at the sensation, before arching up again into Dean's mouth. Dean kept Castiel buried deep in his throat as he began to gently tap and pat the opening. After a little bit, Castiel's legs relaxed and his voice smoothed into a steady, almost inaudible but still rhythmic moaning in time with the movements of Dean's mouth. About the time his thrusting settled, his hole opened up, relaxing and allowing Dean to ease the pad of a finger inside. He didn't grip at the new intrusion, though a catch in Castiel's breath let Dean know he could feel the difference.

Dean upped his technique on the man's cock, humming in the back of his throat on the deep thrusts and pulling his tongue along his slit on the shallow end. Dean slowly worked his finger inside, applying more lube as he went until it was a easy and relaxed mess. When Dean pulled all the way out to get another finger ready, Castiel nearly sat up all the way off the ground, his objecting noise and accusing stare nearly terrifying if they hadn't been so flattering. Dean eased his way back inside, the angel collapsing back onto the ground with his fingers digging holes in the pine dirt, the journey of two much easier and faster than one. Dean had barely begun to press three into the angel when his friend's vocalizations became words,

"Dean, now, I, I need, you need, I need you inside me now." His voice was breathy, but indisputable. Dean pulled his mouth off his friend's cock, covering it with his free hand to keep the shock of cold from pulling him out of this incredible, floaty headspace, and smeared lube all over his own, fully ready, dick.

"Alright Cas, yes, yes," He said as he positioned himself at the angel's entrance. He looked up, his mouth feeling swollen and used and valuable and caught a look of pure--possession? hope? fear? need? in the angel's eyes. He reached his lube-slicked fingers over to grip the angels hand, and when he felt a returning squeeze, he began to press in.

Castiel practically howled from the new sensation as Dean eased in and out, just the tip, just enough so that the angel could get used to it. One long, load moan followed another and another, until Dean was entirely encased in his suffocating heat. Having worked his way in, Dean looked down at the smaller man, who had gone entirely silent when their bodies were so tightly pressed together a seam barely appeared between them. HIs face was open, rapturous, eyes fixed on Dean's:

"I love you, Dean Winchester," Castiel said, in entirely too collected and serious a voice who had just been lighting up the night with carnal chorales.

"I love you, Castiel, angel of the Lord," Dean said, shakily and quakingly and with absolute truth.

He pulled shakily out, guiding himself back in at the speed of Castiel's breaths. Long breath in, long breath out, long breath in, long breath out. As he found the angle that made the angel writhe most perfectly, he pumped at it, again, and again, brushing that small bump he could barely feel with his fingers and only remembered through force of will inside that tunnel of red heat. In short order, the angel started to telegraph his arrival. His shoulders tightened, then his hands flew to Dean's back,  then his entire body stiffened. Dean slammed into him, frantic to bring his friend up and down and all the way there and when the angel seized up and began undulating to the rhythm of his orgasm, Dean was lost in the drowning blue eyes which had been locked on him since he appeared. Two breaths in, his own orgasm caught him by surprise, yanking his own eyes closed, forcing his head down, and riding his hips and stomach for an eternity of seconds.

When he came back to himself, he was slumped over the angel, sticky and cooling, feeling entirely sapped of energy. He managed to stop himself from rolling off into the pine-dirt, instead pulling out with a sigh, echoed by the man underneath him, and easing himself to his knees. He pulled on their joint hands, gentling him into sitting position and beckoning him towards the tent. The angel grabbed his hand, holding tight, eyes a little wild. Dean squeezed his hand back, eyes curious, then gestured at their joint mess. Castiel stilled, then nodded and stood up. He kept Dean's hand, following him to, but not into the tent. Unable to parse his friend's non-verbal intentions, Dean let Cas keep his hand while he reached into the tent to grab a rag towel. He bruskly wiped most of the visible mess off of both of them, trying not to over-stimulate the angel's spent cock--he didn't enjoy too much post-coital touching and Dean was trying to play it his way. 

A modicum of clean-up achieved, Castiel drew Dean back to their makeshift blanket, pulling him down with him and setting themselves together, seated with legs and arms wrapped around each other. Dean could feel one of his ass-cheeks starting to go numb, but he told it to fuck off, and focused on the skin and smell and deepening eyes of the man surrounding him. Castiel looked over his shoulder and must have seen the lightening sky, because all of the liquid languor of his after-sex body disappeared in a wave of muscle tension. He pulled Dean in tighter, breathing into his shoulder in tight bursts. Dean returned the pressure, arms encompassing the angel, breath slow and steady and hopefully comforting. After a few dozen breaths, and a few dozen more before Dean would feel he would have to object to his lack of circulation, Castiel made a move to stand. 

Dean moves with him, slowly at first, extremities tingling, so for a moment he's kneeling at Castiel's feet as the angel looks down with piercing eyes.

Castiel drew him up, keeping a tight grip on his fingers.

For the first time that night, Castiel's face is turned away from Dean's, his eyes firm on the horizon's rising sun. "There is little and less I would let keep me from you, in the world I had planned." His head bowed, still facing away. "Just remember that, Dean."

The sunrise was touching the trees behind Castiel; his shadow was going from murky to unrealistically clear. Dean felt Castiel's hand suddenly shove up his back, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him down into a bruising kiss with more teeth than tenders. It went on and on, Castiel's mouth working and his hand iron on Dean's neck as he tried to reciprocate, tried to keep up.

And just like that: he vanished. Dean was left naked and alone in the clearing with the acrid taste of farewell on his tongue.

-

Dean had had to hear it from Rachel, one night when he was not more than a little drunk. He hadn't believed her, not then, not after he'd thrown the dart-board at her, and not even after she frog-marched him to his car, and teleported the whole hot mess to his motel. He didn't believe Anna when she was holding his forehead as he threw up what felt like a week's worth of tragically citrus-based drinks. But he knew what they said was true:

Castiel was in hell. 

As Rachel had explained, several times as he worked through his inebriation and Anna explained exactly once when he was sober enough to understand it, Castiel had made a deal. Not with Crowley, but with Raphael. He would spend a human lifetime in the box with Lucifer, tagging Michael out so that Michael could run heaven again. Why a human lifetime? Because Raphael was currently gestating, sans grace, in the tummy of an Pakistani leader's young wife. She'd just reached six months and the soul which had been in the cue for her fetus had gotten bumped to be twins with a slightly shocked but delighted New York housewife. Raphael agreed to be stripped of his grace for the century or so it would take him to be born, grow up a girl in Waziristan, marry, bear children, grow old, and die. He was condemned to live and die as a human, and after his death he would spot Castiel in the cage. It was not only Raphael's exile Castiel had bought: as shift-sherif of heaven, Michael had to agree to run things according to Castiel's rules. More free will for angels; no apocalypse; limited smiting. He had also negotiated amnesty for all of his followers and free access to earth for them, preserving the requirement to limit interference in earthly affairs.

Sammy thought it was a perfect solution when he heard about it over the phone: heaven got an experienced administrator, Raphael got the chance to learn to love his father's favorite children or at least get force-fed some empathy, Cas's angel-friends didn't end up smoke-streaked-wingmarks on the highway. Dean thought Sam was begging to have his face rearranged. There was nothing perfect about it. Castiel was in hell. In the box. With Lucifer. 

Dean begged God for help in his first few days. He knelt, he walked in circles in his room, he even summoned Rachel back. Nothing happened and the angel told him, with ugly facile pity, that it was the best solution for everyone involved. Dean released her before he could cuss out Cas's best lieutenant and burn one more bridge to a world he understood.

He started calling in his favors, though he found many of them had already ticked him off their lists after he called them all in at the beginning of the long war. The only welcome ear he found were the Cardinals and pastors and pastors' wives, who heard in his voice the desperation of a lost love. They promised they would keep Castiel in their prayers. Dean ended those calls quickly, trying to avoid shouting about "praying with your feet" and "showing up for those who save the world." He listened to Cas's tapes a lot and when they began to grind grooves into his ears, he bought more of the same. He crept along the highways, unable to see the joy in racing from backwater town to backwater town, saving ungrateful people from uninspired monsters. 

He knew every hour was 5 days Castiel spend in the box.

Sammy drove out to find him after a few weeks, meeting him on a bridge in Minnesota and dragging him back to the Campbell compound, keeping him under the bitchface equivalent of lock and key. He seemed to understand that any attempt to talk would be met with force, but with sufficient application of alcohol he got the interstitial moments from Dean. Not just that Cas was gone, but that Cas had left to save them; that Cas was being hurt; that Dean was not ok.

Sam eventually let him go, though only for a few hundred miles before he caught up with him, tailing him in his black Range Rover him until he pulled over. Sam stepped down from his car, walked over with his head down, yanked open the Impala's passenger door, sat down, and stared out the window. He left the Campbell's Rover's door left hanging open with keys in the ignition on the highway as Dean pulled away. Sam didn't say anything, and neither did Dean, for what felt like hours. Sam glanced at Dean, but seemed determined to constrain himself, to let Dean be.

Dean punched up the music, letting the aching altos of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" drag through him, his hands gripping tight on the steering wheel. Dean got them a room, with a minimum amount of social contact necessary, communicating through grunts and cash thrown down on the desk, Sam wafting behind him like a scrupulously polite ghost. When Dean sat down in the room, Sam sat down. When Dean turned on the TV to watch a baseball game, Sam watched it too. Somewhere around the ninth inning, Dean came to himself, shot a hard glance at Sam and said:

"Why are you here?"

"I won't let you die alone." 

Dean's face felt like Sam had drenched him with ice water.

"I'm not, Jesus Sammy, I'm not going to kill myself."

"Well, you're going to get Castiel and that's the first way that came to my mind, so it must have been on yours." Dean couldn't bring himself to lie to Sam's concerned moose face, because yeah, he'd thought of it. But even on the rack, or off of it as a torturer with freer range to roam in Hell, he knew he couldn't get into the box from inside Hell.

"I mean, can you, could you just, I don't know: wait?" Dean's stony face should have been enough information, but Sam's filter seemed to have been broken by the long, gagged car ride and he plowed on, "It's 100 years. Then he'll be back in heaven and you'll be there too, and you can," Sam trailed off, mind short-circuiting when he tried to imagine either how Dean would react after a century of no Castiel or the state Castiel would be in after the moral equivalent of more than a millennia in the pit.

"It's Cas, Sam."

"I know, Dean, but his deal; he saved Heaven. Heck, he saved Earth."

"It's Cas, Sam."

"He made a choice Dean, he chose--"

"He chose? Damn right 'he chose.' And I chose to love him and you chose to be his friend and if we don't save him we're choosing--" Dean's chair was knocked back, he was shouting, hearing his words echo back to him off the shoddily-wallpapered walls. He got quiet with an intensity Sam wouldn't have missed even without a lifetime of Dean interpretation: "If we don't save him, we're choosing to let our friend be tortured by the father of evil for more than 1000 years."

He let his eyes drop, sinking into his crap chair and collapsing his head into his hands. He spoke to the table: "If we choose to abandon him, we're no better than the monsters."

Sam let that sink in, and more convincing than Dean's words, was the anguish in his voice. Sam knew what could come of that, and refused to let it happen.

"Alright, where do we start?"

Dean's dull eyes raised up over his tired hands, "What?"

"Operation Angel-Break. What can get an angel out of the box?"

Dean took a beat, then the dullness seemed to flee his eyes, his body straightening:

"Another angel." Dean's brain was rushing into gear, a whirlwind of brain fluff blurring away as he stepped into Winchester problem-solving mode. "The rings of the horsemen. God. The apocalypse." Dean's hope deflated, "But even if we can get Cas out, we need to do it without freeing Lucifer." Dean would rather become one of the monsters in Hell than bring Hell to earth for everyone.

"Well," Sam said, wearing his teacher's pet face, "The box was originally designed for Lucifer, so it should be able to hold him alone. What if we found a way to supe-up Castiel, to get him enough power to pop his own way out while keeping Lucifer in?"

"That would be great, Sammy, but what could supe-up an angel?" Dean asked, prepared to be nasty. Then it struck him: "Prayer!"

"What?" Sammy said, temporarily derailed by Dean's new excitement.

"Prayer. It does something to the angels who get prayed to--they get extra, I don't know, mojo. Cas explained it," Dean gulped, forcing down his imagination's visions of where Castiel was right now, "When he was trying to get this master arms maker named Remiel on his side for a thing. I got the Cardinals to pray for him and the extra prayers were both a spiritual ego fluffier and an actual power-up for him. He reached, like, demi-arch-angel status the Sunday after that hydra hunt."

"Great," Sam said, "So we need to make Castiel stronger than the Morningstar. Let's assume Hell's weakened him, that means we need a lot more than just what the Cardinals can give us."

"Alright," Dean said, "What if we got the Cardinals, plus the Anglicans, the Charismatics in South America and the Evangelicals in North America."

"If we could convince some Imams and Rabbis as well, that might just do the trick."

The brothers were standing over the rickety motel-room fake-pine table, Sam's hand sketching out a battle plan in his notebook, grinning at each other. Dean's despair felt smaller: this might be solvable.

They might be able to save Cas.

--

Of course, it wasn't that easy. To get the Charismatics they needed an in, and most of the hunters they knew only had enough Spanish to order a taco. They ended up resorting to asking Rachel, in her Angel of the Lord suit, to pay a visit to some of the major leaders in South America, convincing them that the angel Castiel was worthy of veneration. Once Sam and Dean realized calling Castiel "Cassiel" made things go over smoother with the Imams and Rabbis, they did so. They worked it out that everyone would pray for Cas on the 7th Sunday after Easter, Pentecost, in four weeks. Cas would have been in Hell for three months, or 30 years relative time.

There was still the issue of focus: a helter-skelter of prayers from regular church-goings might help heal Castiel and pull him up to Lucifer's strength, but he needed a big burst to bust out, if their understanding was correct. They needed as many people of faith as possible. It was Bobby that figured that one out, after Dean spent the weekend twitching his way around the junk yard, pacing and harassing Sam until Bobby sent the younger Winchester on a not-totally-necessary supply run just to get him out of Dean's path of neurotic destruction. Bobby tracked the elder Winchester down to the corner of the yard, where he had parked his baby and was blasting "Salve Regina" from Dialogues of the Carmelites. Bobby swore he could hear the sound of a guillotine in the background, but he passed it off as he imagination, because that shit was just too dark. He waited through the damn opera's three false endings before shouting Dean out from under the car, shouting him inside, and shouting him into cleaning up for supper.

As Bobby watched the young man, his mind worked over their problem: how to focus prayers on 3 continents in a short enough early timespan as to give Castiel a day's power boost in Hell. He thought back to the opera Dean had incongruously been playing, and it sprung:

"Radio!"

"What Bobby?" Dean said, voice flat and shoulders as dumped as they'd been all weekend,

"We'll have them pray by radio. Everyone prays in the same 12 hours--that should be enough focus. Shopkeepers in Morocco, bus drivers in New Delhi, farmworkers in Caracas, pizza shops in Chicago, they all broadcast Mass or sermons or readings or the call to prayer. Get Castiel's name on the radio and we'll get the focus and the volume we need."

Dean's face looked shocked, and then he rushed at Bobby, throwing him in an awkward one-armed hug as he rushed out to the living room to begin calling his contacts.

--

Dean felt like he was flying and dying, all at the same time. It was the day when the prayers went out. The first call to prayer in Riyadh went over out the radio at 9:30pm PST (dawn in Saudi) the Saturday before Pentacost and Dean was awake, listening to it over Bobby's professor contact who carried his cellphone with him to his neighborhood mosque, where the imam finished the regular daily prayer and then asked for a special intersession for a friend, "Cassiel." Dean heard the rumble of the men repeating his voice, the women quieter, all crackling through the professor's cellphone. As the professor walked home, he chatted over the speaker with Bobby but all Dean could think was that it was another hour until dawn in Cairo, where the great Al-Hussein mosque's muezzin promised he personally and everyone he could convince to help him would include Castiel in their prayers. Dean paced the tiny motel room he and Bobby and Sam shared.

He'd decided San Francisco would be their home base for the final day. It the farthest major city west their contacts had gotten them, so with the exception of a few stragglers in Juno, the last big push would come out of the Bay Area's store-front churches and cathedrals and mosques and temples. They would know by the end of the noon service if it had worked, if they had done enough.

He waited, watching dozens gather at dawn in the Cairo mosque through a former classmate of Sam's iPhone. He stored each of these images within himself, to tell Cas about when he got back. The old man, feet infirm over the plush red carpet. The high arching ceiling with well-oiled carved woodworking. The little kid, struggling to say "Cassiel," as Sam's classmate coached him through the syllables.

Another hour. Bobby and Sam tried to convince him to sleep, but he just stared at them and went back to wearing down the ugly grey carpet.

Another hour.

Vespers in Paris, then London. He heard Cas's name echo through the Winchester Abbey, and spent the next hour looking at pictures of it over Sam's shoulder as he finished his circuit of the room. The garden looked nice, the castle like a proper fortress. Maybe he would take Cas there.

Two hours (they didn't have any contacts in Greenland).

Vespers in New York and an early-morning gospel station carrying the call. Dean got a call from Cassie; God only knew how she'd heard he was wrapped up in all this but she told him her paper was doing a front-page article, above the fold, about the rise in prayers the little known angel of Thursday. He thanked her, voice tight, and passed the phone to Sam. Dean took his walking outside, air smoky with fog. He started walking, texting Sam to let him know he'd be out.

He started downtown and worked his way to the sea, getting to a snag of beach between two thrusts of man-made land. He knew dawn had broken in Chicago and Dallas. He knew the man who had taken over Paster Jim's parish had called a special prayer group. Dean kneeled, though he could still not see the sun. The wet of the ocean dug into his knees but the sand was tight and held him still. He could barely think. There were prayers in half-a-dozen languages flitting through his head, but when he tried to drag one down, slip it through his teeth, it shredded. He tipped his head up, looking at the grey sky and throwing himself open.

"Cas." He just heard himself say. "Cas."

Eventually he got achy from the cold breeze and soggy knees and walked further up the beach to the dry sand. He sat, listening to the waves beat and letting the sound of the fog horn echo off his ribs. Dean could never get himself to meditate--not for a spell, not for Sam's dare, not even when he'd sought the comfort of non-chemical oblivion. He never could do it; his head just didn't turn off. But somehow all his practice waiting for Cas, being open and ready, coalesced inside him into a kind of patience. Without the stuttering flashes which usually accompanied his memories, thoughts of Cas began to unfurl in his mind.

His eyes when he'd promised Dean that "good things do happen."

His face when he was trying to be sly.

His eyes when he was trying to play human for Dean.

His hands wrapped around Dean's.

His eyes.

Dean saw the blue of them in the surf slowly approaching his feet and realized the sun had risen. He jumped to his feet and began walking, working his way back the motel. Somewhere along the way he began to trend right, dipping under downtown, until the ocean was on his right and he was walking past warehouses. He saw men pushing ice cream hand-trucks towards the churches with Sunday schools, yuppies running their dogs, homeless men tucking their hoods up trying for a few more hours of sleep under the assault of daylight.

He looked around and saw he was on a wide street, already filling with traffic. He walked to a corner and saw a street sign "Mission." He knew Sam'd contacted a older priest around here with a parish here from Episcopal church named St. John the Evangelist. He walked, stepping over sleeping homeless men and past Chinese bakeries just opening, Mexican taco places doing a sleepy business with the morning work crowd, a bank with massive bars on the windows. He kept walking until he caught a glimpse of huge red doors. He walked around the back of the church, trying to find a side door, and instead found a garden with a high, vine-covered dark wooden wall. The gate was unhinged but it looked like it should be locked. Dean peaked his head inside and, seeing no one, slipped through the gate.

He saw the roses first, pink and ridiculous, then the streaming branches of wisteria and creeping ivy working to reclaim a broad wooden bench. He stood, stunned for a moment with the alien tranquility of the space when his pocket buzzed. He pulled out his phone and saw a text from Sammy:

"U ok? 8am service is in an hour. Where R U?"

He paused, then made a decision:

"I'll meet u later."

He dropped his phone back into his packet, popping the battery out. He felt, he knew he was close to being able to pray for Cas and he wanted to manage it without distractions. He walked to the bench with a dipping rose bush hanging beside it and felt behind the petals for a thorn. He pressed it with his thumb, not tight enough to draw blood, but enough to make him remember he had hands and feet and lungs. The sharpness of the feeling brought him out and he heard himself say:

"Cas, Cas, we're coming." He focused hard, "Keep it up. We've got you; we've got you." He finished on a whisper.

He shook his head, wishing he could do better, but that's what he had for now. He let go of the stem, rubbing feeling back into his fingers and quickly turning, ready to go see if there was a way to get into the church before the first service. When he turned around, he saw a older man standing at the closed gate, wearing white robes and watching him. He stood up straight and looked at Dean, considering.

"Are you here for the 8am service?"

"Well, I was thinking about it," Dean paused, "Anything special about today?

"In fact, yes. The choir's got a lovely piece planned for the intercessional. You're welcome to stay here, but you might enjoy it."

"Sure," Dean said and when the man opened the gate to walk through, Dean followed him. The man lead Dean to the back row of pews, swiping him a program on the way. Dean flipped straight to the back and saw under the "Prayers to the People" a note "We pray for Castiel, a friend to the church and to mankind, for strength to rise and wisdom to return and healing to resume living."

Dean wondered whose idea the flowery language was, but decided it was safe to blame Sam. He settled back into the pew, watching as the few early risers meandered in. A wave of tiredness settled over him, dragging his arms down and cementing his feet to the floor. The music rose and the parishioners did too, but Dean took advantage of his seat in the far back to not engage in ecclesiastical olympics and instead let the service wash over him. He'd heard them go through the first three readings, ending with the gospel being read by the man who'd let Dean in, this time wearing a fiery red stole around his neck. Dean flipped back to the program to see what was next, and before his eyes caught the name of the song the first chords played on the organ ripped through him. The pages confirmed it: "Salve Regina" from Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. Dean felt his heart begin to pound, echoes of it thrumming through his ankles and wrists.

At the first note of the prayer, his breath hitched but he kept listening.

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordie,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
et spes nostra, salve.

He cringed where he expected the first sound of the guillotine, but instead the fervent peal of a bell rang out. 

Tong.

The sound grabbed him, transported him to that first time in the Impala, that first sound of Cas translating his vision of heaven for him. 

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordie,
vita, dulcedo, 

Tong.

The sound of the choir seemed to come from all around Dean, but as his ears adjusted to the shape of the space and the variations from the recording he had nearly memorized, he realized it was coming from behind him.

et spes nostra, salve.
Salve, Regina, Mater misericordie,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
et

Tong.

With the rest of the church, he turned in time to see the first singer pass him down the middle aisle, holding a bell. She was wearing robes of white which passed her bare feet.

spes nostra, salve.
ad te clamamus ex 

Tong.

She was followed closely by her women playing her sisters and as she rang her bell she stopped, forcing everyone behind her to walk around her suddenly frozen form.

sules filii Heve 

Tong.

Another stopped, staring towards the cross but otherwise motionless.

ad te suspiramus

Tong.

This one's eyes were closed, face glowing from the light coming through the great stained-glass windows, her silver bell reflecting their colors.

gementes et flentes

Tong. 

The sisters behind stepped with a smooth slowness, but with every new bell's ringing the path got harder.

ad te suspiramus, gementes

Tong.

et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia,

Tong.

ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
miseri 

Tong.

cordes oculos ad nos converte;
et Ie

Tong.

The two remaining women were nearly at the steps to the altar. One was old and bent, but when she rang her bell it mingled with the final voice for longer than Dean would have thought possible.

sum, benedictum fructum ventris

Tong.

The last one's voice wasn't terribly strong, but she spoke every word as if it were true and pulled from her own body:

tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ost]ende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Vir]go Maria.
O clemens--
O pia, O dulcis Virgo 

Tong.

The pause in the church was longer than on the tape, the young blond woman singing the solo working her way through all of her still sisters until she reached the top of the steps to the altar. Dean expected her to turn around, diva it up a little. Instead she knelt, head bowed, and in a clear mezzo sang the "Gloria Patri":

Deo Patri sit gloria,
Et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito
In saeculorum saecula.
In saeculorum--

Tong.

The entire church was silent, the last of the bells pealing around the nave. After a beat, the women relaxed and began to walk to the back of the church, smiling at each other and then the audience broke and began to applaud, loudly.

Dean was standing, still hearing that last bell ringing in his ears, before he thought to bring his hands up to clap.

--

The service ended softly, the sermon an examination on what it meant that God signified language through fire, why it was important that the apostles speak all the languages of the world, what that meant for the universality and vitality of faith. Dean let the entire congregation file past him, remembering how his heart had stuttered when the entire assemblage had named "Castiel" in their prayers, his voice echoing like those bells from the stone walls.

He sat as the vestry members cleaned up before the 10:30am service. He could feel them give him sideways eyes, but he let it bounce off of him. One more service. One more chance to get Castiel what he needed. He could barely sit for the thrumming in his heart but couldn't stand for the knowledge he would tip over and one of these old women would have to pull him back upright. So he sat, and let the beat that had been running through veins since 9:30pm the night before take over his thinking mind:

Cas-Cas-Cas-Cas.

--

Dean had nearly no memory of the last service. He came to himself as the "Salve" started again, and watched each singer carefully this time, folding what he saw into his memory. He watched their poise, how they breathed, but most of all, he watched their faces. They weren't facing the guillotine, but he could see they were thinking about what it would have meant for those women to do that. He could see they were thinking about where it would come from inside them if they had to choose death as payment for their love of God.

Dean was fully aware during the "Prayers for the People" this time. He whispered along with all of the other prayers read aloud, for daughters going off to college, uncles in the hospital, fathers overseas. He said Cas's aloud, as strong as he could, with as much force towards heaven or hell or wherever it needed to go, ending it with a whispered: "I love you, Cas. Come back."

--

Dean didn't know what he'd expected.

As the last prayer rang out, that Castiel would appear in the flash of lightning, his Holy Tax Accountant gear fully in place giving him owl face? Dean to step out of those big red doors and see him, standing in dark jeans and the Zeppelin shirt, smiling? Him to arrive, sitting next to him in the pew, turning and saying to him, "Hello, Dean"?

Nothing happened. 

The service ended and Dean sat empty. No Cas. No sound of wings. No ringing bells.

He felt hollow; no, hollowed out, like someone had taken an ice-cream scoop to his chest cavity. He pulled himself up a wall and walked, hand trailing on it as if he was blind, stumbling past the priest. He kept his hand on the wall, its bumps and smoothnesses all he could see or feel until the dark wood of the garden's high gate loomed in front of him. He pressed it in, stumbling as his hand lost contact with the wall. He jumped his eyes up, looking around for someplace to collapse when he saw him:

Castiel.

--

[Trigger Warning: Aftermath of Torture]

--

He was naked, only his back facing Dean, curled on the bench in the corner of the garden. Dean ran to him, knees banging on the ground in his haste to get closer. For a terrible moment he hesitated but then he reached out and touched the angel's shoulder, fingers light. 

Castiel screamed and rolled towards him, face terrible and chess a red mess, two fingers coming to rest on his head and pulling them out of the garden to--

They were in a field, Castiel struggling to get away from his, hands desperate, face in agony. Dean couldn't let go of his wrist and Castiel twisted his face up and then--

A gravel rooftop in the middle of a soaring city, Castiel yelling, his eyes wide and Dean knew his grip must be hurting the angel but if he let go then--

In a cold forest, mist cloying the air, Castiel's tugging less insistent but his face no less twisted. He pulled one more time and--

They were in a motel room, Dean was kneeling by a bed where Castiel had sent himself; not the one Dean shared with Bobby and Sam; someplace chillier than San Francisco but that was all he got before the angel turned his wrist and yanked himself away, rolling himself off the bed and scrambling between the other twin and the wall, crouching down with palms up and outstretched:

"No-no-no-no," he said, "Not Dean, please, not Dean."

Dean felt cold all the way down to his toes, burning rage only kept in check by the firm knowledge that he needed to take care of Cas. As much as he wanted to give him the space he so clearly needed, Dean could not stand the thought of the angel teleporting himself away where Dean could never find him again.

Moving slowly but with purpose, he walked around the bed and crouched down, reaching out to touch the angel's wrist with two fingers. The angel flinched so badly he smacked himself in the face with his hands, but he kept his eyes downcast and his face shuttered. Dean touched his wrist again, saying,

"Cas."

Castiel looked up swiftly, eyes darting around Dean's face before hunching in on himself even more.

"Please not Dean. I swear, I'll listen to anything you want. Just, don't make Dean say it."

Dean's heart was shattered and the glass edges of it were digging holes in his lungs. He had no clue what to do with this. He pulled back, close enough to grab hold if the angel decided to try to fly away again but trying to keep his body from terrifying the poor man. 

"Cas."

The angel whimpered, getting even smaller. Dean could see blood oozing over his hip where the gashes he'd only glimpses must be bleeding from the angel's flight. He blanched and tried to think of what to do. He tried talking,

"Cas. I know you can't see me as being real right now, so tell me what you don't want me to do and I'll try."

"Don't be here. Be anyone else. Please. I'll listen to anyone else say it, but not Dean."

"Say what, Cas?" Dean was sure he didn't want to know what had so terrified his friend, but talking wasn't running so he'd take what he could.

Castiel glared and said "You know." At the pure venom in his voice, Dean's heart burst and bloomed at the same time. It wasn't that he enjoyed seeing hate in his friend's eyes, but that he could feel anything but fear and pain was the first hint there might be some of him left. Hate took a sense of self, the sense that there were things people could do to you which were not ok. That self respect was one of the first things Alastair and Dean cut out.

Dean's ankles were aching from squatting and so, without taking his eyes off the cowering angel, he slowly turned and settled his back against the wall. Castiel hadn't moved an inch, hands still held up defensively, blood still trickling into the carpet from his chest wounds.

"Pretend I forgot. What don't you want me to say?" Dean tried to keep his voice neutral. No begging, no trying to make light, giving Castiel nothing to reconstruct as threatening or worthy of fear.

Castiel stared at him and instead of answering slowly folded his knees down, scooting back so he was kneeling with his arms obscuring his chest but no closer to Dean. He looked up into Dean's eyes and moved his arms.

Dean jerked so hard he fell to the side, scrambling back before he knew what was happening. 

Castiel's chest wasn't randomly carved up the way Alistair had liked it. It was marked with words cut in deep, some gaping open, some scabbed over, some bleeding as if the scalpel had slipped out a moment before:

"Mine"

"Property of Lucifer"

"Made in Hell"

"Mine."

There were eternity symbols, and numbers.

"5 days."

"50 days."

"500 days."

"5,000 days."

"10,000 days."

Dean's breath ripped through his throat, "Oh, Cas," he said, as he rocked himself forward. The angel was staring at him defiantly, hands at his sides. "Oh, Cas."

Dean moved forward, back to the position he'd been sitting before. His hand reached out to touch the angel's shoulder but at the look of hate covering terror he let it fell back into his lap. Dean let his head fall back against the wall and said.

"Cas," breath, think, breath, "I would never say those things."

Castiel just looked at him before turning away, covering his chest again and leaning back against the wall. Dean could see he wasn't just injured: he was exhausted. His skin hung loose on his face and his eyes were huge, their blue only made brighter by the deep purple half-moons under them. Dean breathed again, then decided to start small.

"Can I do anything to show you this is real, right now?"

Castiel shook his head; his hair was longer and flapped flatly, no less ragged. 

"Ok. What about if there way something I could not know if I wasn't Dean?"

Castiel kept his head down, done engaging.

Dean kept talking: there was nothing else he could think of to do.

"It would have to be something that happened after I returned from hell, since everything I knew came out to Alistair in some way down here," Dean gulped but pressed on, "And it would have to be something that you never would have told Lucifer, since he knew what I was to you." Dean felt sick saying that in the past tense. He felt worse saying Lucifer's name but needed to confirm that Cas had been interrogated, not just sliced up, that Lucifer went into for psychic violation as well as the physical stuff since that would direct where Dean went next. The look of fear on Castiel's face at the devil's name he knew he was spot on.

"Ok, then we're going to have to start small. So what is something that Castiel knows that Lucifer would never have thought to ask." Dean thought about it, trying to make his voice sound distant, not asking for any emotional favors from the hiding angel. He began stringing together his memories of the time he and Castiel had together and thinking through, trying to think of a shibboleth to give Castiel a thread to hold onto, to confirm this was earth and not another in decades of the devil's games.

"Lucifer would have asked about us, and Sammy, and the angels. He would have known about Samuel and the hydra and Crowley." Dean had a thought. "But he never cared about human things, little things, things that really matter." Dean thought. "The first time we kissed, what was I trying to get you to do right before?" He looked at Castiel. This wouldn't work if the angel didn't remember too. He had to believe this was not something the devil would ask, had never tried to know. Castiel had to trust his memory, which was a far leap after half a human lifetime spent in Lucifer's doggy bowl. "What was I trying to get you to do right before?"

"I was trying to get you to twist the top off my beer with your fearsome angel hands." Dean said, looking him in the eye and willing him to hear him.

Castiel started, looked at him, a flash of hope springing up from his eyes before they dulled, his lids fell closed and he tipped his head back, hands settling back over his knees.

"Your deception will not work." Dean's heart clenched, damn, and Castiel's voice was arctic cold. "I know why I am here. I am here until Raphael comes to claim my position by your side. Nothing can change that. Not heaven, not hell, not," his voice cracked and Dean's heart crumbled, "Not Dean. Dean cannot save me." His voice was full of such conviction Dean could see no way through.

"But what if I could? What if I did?" Dean was done being clinical and couldn't take his eyes off Cas. If this was all he got, if Cas could never get past the surety that Dean was Lucifer torturing him, he didn't know what he would do, except be there by Cas, doing his best not to hurt him and he couldn't do that from a distance, emotional or physical.

"He could not. You ensured it, when you killed him." Castiel's voice was cold and harsh. Dean felt shredded; he should have realized the devil would said that.

"So where am I, if not here?"

Castiel sneered at him, "You informed me he was in heaven. I made his and Sam's entrance a condition of my surrender, so I know it to be true." Dean filed that away for future thought, but focused on this. This might be a way to get to him.

"Alright, if Dean is dead then who was praying for you today?" Dean was taking a bet, hoping that Cas could have heard his voice among the tens of thousands,

"I, I, that must have been some illusion. He cannot be praying to me. I will see Dean in heaven." This last was said with such firmness Dean could hear in it the angel's mantra, his self-promise to get himself through whatever else Lucifer had done.

"Has the devil ever done that before, simulated tens of thousands of prayers? Not just the words, but the power?" Dean asked, desperately hoping not.

"No, you have not. I, I believe it is within your power to confuse my sense of hearing and thought and power however."

In a small voice, Dean asked: "C'mon, don't you know what's real? Can't you tell the difference between hell and earth? Doesn't anything feel different?"

Castiel looked over at him, curiosity barely peaking out of grim hatred. "I had thought I would be able to tell. Until the year where you convinced me I had escaped, was free and with," his voice shook, "with Dean." The angel hunched in on himself again and Dean felt cruel. Like he was near to torturing his friend by asking him questions, making him talk like Lucifer had made him talk. Maybe kindest thing he could do would be to let him be, let him come to see on his own. He felt guilty that his heart was fuller just from seeing Castiel in the room and knowing he wasn't under Lucifer's knife, but the wrongness sweeping off his broken form in waves made him sick.

He inched to his feet and stood with as few sudden movements as possible. Castiel simply stared at him, eyes cold and watchful as he edged his way to the bathroom for some towels to give the angel to clean himself up, anything kind that wasn't talking. He flipped on the light blindly. He knew to get he hand-towels he wanted to give the angel to clean himself up with he would have to take his eyes off of Castiel. He darted into the bathroom, but his heart filled with such terror he would disappear while he was out of sight that he snatched the nearest pile and flung himself back out the bathroom door.

The angel was gone.

--

Dean lost it. He trashed the motel room, smashing his fist into the '80s era television and crunching the other into the big bathroom mirror. He was screaming, and expected the hear sirens wailing but apparently he was at the end of a long block of vacants, or no one cared. Having kicked in the plaster around the wall and shouted himself hoarse, collapsed on the bed on his side, fury drained and weeks of worry and failure catching up with him. His bleeding hand crept down to his pocket, easing his phone out. He clumsily snapped the battery back in, wincing as his bones ground together unevenly. He punched Sammy's number on speed dial.

"Dean? Dean? Where are you? What happened?"

He recapped, using as small words as possible. His voice sounded tiny in his own ears.

He could hear Sam breathing on the other end, harsh.

"But, but it worked Dean,"

"Yeah, it worked Sammy. We got him out, but . . . I don't know if he can get him out too."

Sam was quiet.

"Yeah. You want us to come get you?"

"No. I'm going to wait to see if he comes back."

"Dean . . . "

"No. I'll wait."

"Alright. Call me tomorrow and we're coming to get you, no matter what."

"Bye, Sammy."

--

Dean wasn't sure when he fell asleep, but it was full dark when he woke up. He normally left a bathroom light on. When he moved to glance over to where he thought the bathroom was he remembered why it wasn't on: he'd broken it. He started when he felt a presence looming over him, his hand going to the knife in his boot, grinding bones and ripping scabs be damned. It moved, its head tilting and through the sliver of light which crept art the motel room's crappy blinds Dean made out an expanse of pale skin ending in jeans with something dark clutched in its hand. Everything was grey in the meagre light, but the form's white skin soaked it in. He looked up and saw the edge of Castiel's face, strangely blank and eyes glinting. Dean stilled, hand no longer going for his knife but body tense, ready to roll out of the way if the angel attacked or . . . he didn't know what.

"You allowed yourself to be injured." Castiel said, voice distant but eyes locked on Dean. 

"Hurt, not injured, Cas. It'll heal." Dean didn't know where this was going but talking wasn't running.

The angel nodded, movement queerly jerky, unpracticed. He backed away, towards the wall, hands feeling for it behind him, dark thing in his hand making contact first. Dean sat up slowly and the angel pressed himself back against the wall, head snapping to the side and breathing suddenly harsh.

"I won't, I'm not," Dean started, his friend's obvious fear tearing into him. He tried something else. "Nice digs. Where'd, where'd you get them?"

Cas said nothing, still breathing hard, preparing himself for expected pain. Dean tried to remember if he'd smashed the bedside light as well and, hoping he hadn't, he slowly reached over. Just as he was about to flick it on, hand hurts ready to ache from that simple movement, he said:

"Close your eyes, the light will hurt them." 

He closed his and turned the light on, lids going from deep grey to rosy to yellow as his pupils adjusted. He opened his eyes and the angel was standing before him, hand outstretched towards Dean's shoulder. His hand was frozen in the air, quivering finely, his eyes on where the handprint lay under Dean's shirts. Dean froze as well, eyes drifting up to the angel's face, which was a mix of terror and fascination. Dean tried not to breath, he was so still, but Castiel's hand dropped and he stepped back out of reach, shins bumping against the other twin bed. His eyes were down, head bowed, body shaking but at least he was on this side of the bed rather than crouching against the wall. Dean's eyes skated over the terrible marks on the angel's chest but refocused and tried again, not know what to say about the angel's actions.

"Those look like the jeans from that Goodwill. Did you, did you find the Impala?"

The angel nodded, jerkily, eyes held down.

"Is that," Dean's throat was suddenly dry, his eyes catching on the black bundle in the angel's hand, "Is that the Zeppelin shirt?"

Castiel's eyes shot up, scanning his before quickly dropping again. He nodded, this time a little more fluidly.

"You can have them; they're yours. I, I carried them around for you. When you, when you left, I; they belonged in my duffle so they stayed there." A ripple of something worked its way down Castiel's body at the word "belonged," but he kept his eyes down. Dean settled back, eyes caught again by the wounds on Castiel's chest. He asked,

"Will you fly away again if I go get a towel for you to clean yourself up with?"

The angel was entirely still except for a small headshake. Dean eased himself to the other side of the bed, holding his winces in and trying to keep the distance away the angel felt comfortable. He backed towards the bathroom door, eyes on the angel and hand feeling out behind him for the door entrance. He felt it, then tried to reach around, hoping there was a towel near the door. No luck. He swept his eyes over the shivering and eyes-downcast angel before turning swiftly, stepping into the dark bathroom without looking at the floor. His foot slipped on something, the hairdryer?, and he was so twisted around he couldn't catch himself on his arms properly though he flailed to try. His last thought before his head smashed into the tile floor was--What will Cas do?

--

When he awoke the second time, it was again to the sense of a looming presence. He opened his eyes slowly, hoping not to startle the angel he felt near him. He found himself on the bathroom floor, lying on broken glass, with an anxious-looking angel crouched over him. Cas looked more relaxed, not vibrating with tension and fear, and Dean wondered how long he'd been out. The angel was squatting on his haunches, wrists resting on his knees, hands loose. He was wearing the Zeppeling t-shirt but no shoes.

Dean took a deep breath and spasmed when the pain in his back shot through his nerves. Castiel stumbled back, bumping into the toilet before settling and looking at Dean curiously. He reached out his hand slowly, eyes again on Dean's shoulder. Dean gasped when his fingers touched him, the contact so missed and so welcome. This gasp set off another round of pain shakes, which he got under control but only after the angel had laid his whole hand on the cloth over his mark, pressing his fingers in. Dean let out a small sound at the pressure, and Castiel's eyes shot to his. He saw something there and a look of concentration settled on his face. He scooted closer, eyes darting down to the debris on the floor. Grabbing a towel from the broken wall rack on the floor, Castiel swept the glass shards from the mirror away from his feet before spreading it out and settling down on it, legs crossed. His hand had never left Dean's shoulder, and Dean watched every movement with fascination.

"Hold still." Castiel said, voice gravelly and firm. He pressed his hand down and Dean felt the almost-forgotten lightness of healing, the butterflies tappity-tapping down his arm and through his back, along his hands. When they tried to get to his most recent injuries they found glass still embedded in his skin from where he fell on it. Castiel frowned and grunted, pushing at Dean's shoulder, pushing him towards the bathtub, which was mostly empty of debris. Dean sat up and Castiel leaned with him, always an arm's length but never more, as Dean rose and brushed was he could off of his side and front, wincing as he caught his hand on a larger piece which tore his palm and his chest, where it cut through his shirt. Castiel gave him a frustrated look then motioned him into the shower.

Dean stepped over the side of the tub into the stall, slowly as the angel followed, standing outside and arm still touching. He looked Dean over and said:

"You will need to disrobe for me to heal you completely. You, you will need to remove the shards yourself, I, I--" It was clear the angel wanted to touch him as little as possible but felt compelled to help. 

Dean nodded, "Hurt, not injured Cas. I'll be fine." The angel shook his head, looking insistent and stubborn. Not wanting to spook the angel but feeling strangely unwilling to take off his clothes, and needing to know, Dean said:

"Cas, how do you know I'm not Lucifer?" At the sound of his name, Castiel yanked his hand back backing up to bump into the high bathroom counter. He didn't avert his eyes this time, instead staring at Dean's face, trying to read him.

"I don't," Dean hurt as much from that as from the angel's loss of contact, or the actual glass in his skin, "I don't know, I'm guessing. There are clues," he tilted his head, eyes flitting up to Deans. "The king of hell would never have fallen on a hairdryer, he liked the look of his elegant self too much. And . . ." his voice got quieter, "In three decades of torture, I've never known Lucifer to sleep as much as you do."

Dean nodded: he would take clumsiness and sloth as proof he wasn't the king of hell any day.

Not to be distracted, Castiel said:

"I will allow you to shower and see if you can confirm none of your injuries," at Dean's look, "'hurts,' are serious." He looked toward the door and Dean felt a jerk in his stomach--Cas was about to disappear again--and walked through it. Dean was doing his best to be cool, but as Castiel shut the door he said:

"Cas, will you be here when I'm done?"

Through the crack he heard.

"Yes."

--

It was the fastest shower-and-wound-census Dean had ever taken. Most of the damage from his fall was on his chest and legs. He had a nasty scrape up the side of his neck and a big enough piece of mirror in his forearm that he saw stars when he yanked it out but most of the cuts were cosmetic. His clothes were still covered with glass and he was who knows how far from his duffel, so he opted for two towels--both of which had mercifully been in the shower rack and untouched by his rampage--one around his waist and one over his shoulders. By the time he was done drying, they were pink stained, the wound on his forearm still oozing blood sluggishly. Before he opened the door, he called out:

"Cas, I'm coming out. My clothes are wrecked so I'm wearing two towels."

Hearing nothing in reply, he slowly opened the door and walked through. The angel was standing on the far side of the room, hands at his sides and face taut. He looked at Dean, eyes catching on the blood on his neck and arms and chest, and stepped forward, movements jerky again. He reached Dean and put his hand over the towel on his shoulder, though it would have been just as easy to slip it under. Dean felt the healing begin and let out a small sigh of appreciation, leaning into his touch--the angel jumped back, eyes huge and terrified.

"I can't, I can't, Dean, I can't--" and he was gone.

Dean couldn't take it. He was wiped out from the healing, the falling, the terror and joy and terror he felt around Castiel. He could barely think past his emotions, barely see past the clouds of guilt and grief and hope which were enveloping him. He took a shuddering breath and then walked back into the bathroom to try and clean the shards out of his clothes so he could figure out where he was and call Sam and Bobby for a ride.

--

The travel brochures at the front desk told him he was in Idaho, about 12 hours away the way Sammy drove and 10 the way Bobby did. They started out for him, Bobby driving his truck and Sammy taking the Impala. Dean didn't go back to the motel room; couldn't stand to look at it for one more second. He started walking along the highway, figuring there would be a diner someplace in the next 12 hours. It was early-afternoon on a warm day, too warm if not for the breeze gusting across the fields. As he walked, the edges of his hurts the healing hadn't managed to get to send his nerves their bills. He ground through, taking the hurts as reminders he was alive and moving.

--

It was 3 hour's walk to the nearest diner which, thankfully, had a bar across the road. Dean ate enough that his alcohol intake would have to fight for his consciousness, then slouched his way across the street. By the time he sat down at the bar though, he didn't want to be drunk. He wanted Cas. He ordered a water and a beer and watched the TV in the corner with the bartender, who didn't much seem to want to talk. He texted Sammy and Bobby his new location, and sunk in to trying to turn his brain off.

He couldn't, though. Images kept flitting by. "Property of Lucifer," Cas's outstretched palms, the terror on his face when Dean first turned on the light, the concern when he woke up after his fall, the irritation at Dean's stubbornness around his own injuries. Cas leaving. Cas leaving.

He shook off his brooding, and tried to make a plan. What did he know about helping Castiel get his head out of Hell? Dean had drawn on his well-honed powers of denial pretty extensively in his first few weeks, also drowning his self-hatred in ever more dangerous hunts and fighting with Sammy. He didn't think those tactics would help for Castiel. He thought about the smaller things which had helped him: seeing gratefulness on people's faces after he saved them, those few times he knew he had done good, the comfort of the Impala with Sammy safe beside him. Cas. Cas's faith in him had done more to make and keep him whole than anything else.

The evening crowd started to filter in: road-trippers and local farm-hands and couples for what turned out to be a pretty boisterous dance night. Dean took his drink to a corner to avoid any social interaction, but still found himself approached by pretty girls looking for partners. He smiled, face feeling tight, and waved them off, texting Sammy for an eta.

Another hour. Be there soon, man.

Dean sighed and settled, watching the whirling skirts and stitched boots as partners spun each other around.

Sam and Bobby arrived to find him still watching the crowd, still not drunk, and objectively miserable. Sammy walked him out while Bobby paid his meager tab. They all 3 stood in the parking lot, the neon light flaring over their faces as it changed and the music shoving a low humphumphumphump beat under their words.

"We got him out, son," Bobby said, "Everything else is just patience. He's a tough son of a bitch. Just give him time."

"Yeah, Dean," Sam said. "We can just head back to Bobby's place and we can all three of us wait for him there."

"He has to get used to things, stretch his wings-like; he'll figure it out." Bobby added with forced hopefulness.

"Maybe in a few days, guys. I just, I need some time to . . ."

Dean trailed off, voice uneven.

Sam and Bobby gave each other looks like Dean couldn't see them, Sam saying:

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Dean."

"Come on, Sam, Bobby. It's been 30 years for him and a helluva three months for me. A few days to decompress won't kill any of us." He tried to smile, but it felt false and he let his face go blank again.

"Alright, son, but if I don't see you by the end of the week we're going to send out a search party for you."

Dean nodded, trying and failing to smile again. He was turning to walk to the Impala when Sammy grabbed him in a hug. Dean always forgot how huge his brother was until times like this, when his entire world filled with Sammy-shirt. I his ear Sam said:

"Bobby's right Dean; Cas is tough. If he could carry you out, you can carry him out too." He patted Sam's back awkwardly and stepped away, nodding to Bobby--There's a man who understands personal boundaries--and walking to his car. He got in the front seat, set his hands on the wheel, and for the first time since Cas had reappeared, felt centered in himself. He watched Sam and Bobby drive off, east to Bobby's house before he headed west. He planned to work his way south, set up in the Colorado Rockies for a little bit, see how much wonder he could pack into a single day. The mountains always made him feel confident of something bigger and small enough to protect. He was a few hours in, having found the south-bound interstate, when the first wave of sleepiness sloshed over him. He ignored it, wanting to press on until dawn before he found a place to crash.

The next wave was harder and when he felt his eyelids droop he turned off the road, parking off to the side in some tall weeds where the Impala wouldn't be too visible from the road. He eased his seat back and rolled onto his side, left over aches fading away as he sank into sleep.

--

He thought the rustle of wings was in his dream, most of his dreams had involved Cas for months now, but as he became aware of the light filtering through his eyelids he could feel someone in the seat next to him. He shifted onto his back, legs pinging where they'd fallen asleep, and looked over at the angel. He was seated, back perfectly straight, eyes staring straight ahead into some corn. Dean tried to stretch without moving into Cas's space and said:

"Good morning."

Castiel's head jerked around and then he blinked slowly at Dean. Dean scooted up and raised his seat back. He pulled on his seatbelt and got the keys out, ready to start the car. He paused, then reached between him and Castiel for the plastic bag of music. He pulled out the Dialogues of the Carmelites tape as Castiel watched him, popped it in and turned on the engine. As he pulled onto the long, highway straight and black between slowly brightening fields dotted with cows under a cut-crystal blue sky, the strains of the Salve Regina started to flow out. Castiel started to shake and fumbled with the console, trying to turn it off. Dean reached over do it for him, their fingers brushing before Dean managed to hit "Stop" and the music clicked off. He lowered his hand to the steering column, palm up and inoffensive, other hand tight on the wheel. He looked at Castiel, whose hands were safely tucked back in his lap, and asked:

"You're not a fan of nuns anymore, Cas?"

"The music is still beautiful, but . . . self-sacrifice is not the highest service to God."

Dean raised his eyebrows, eyes glancing at the road to check it was still clear before staring at the angel,

"No?"

Castiel turned his eyes away, rooting around in the plastic bag before pulling out another tape, carefully ejecting Carmelites, popping it in and fast-forwarding. He hit play, in the middle of an old, crackly version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", hand staying pressed to the console:

If you get to Heaven before I do,
(Coming for to carry me home)
Tell all my friends I'm coming after you.
(Coming for to carry me home)

Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home,
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.

If I get to Heaven before you do,
(Coming for to carry me home)
I'll dig a hole and pull you through.
(Coming for to carry me home)

"No, Dean. Love is."

His hand drifted down to Dean's, intertwining their fingers and squeezing tightly.