Chapter Text
Dean is kissing him.
As the initial shockwave passes on, Castiel’s eyes are fluttering closed and he reciprocates the kiss. In his heart, a hot swelling is so much that he feels he may choke on the warmth that erupts in his chest, his throat. Dean tightens the hold he has on Castiel’s arm, as if he knew, and the touch helps ebb away the eruption.
Then, Dean breaks away. Castiel suddenly feels so very empty and heavy nothingness is clipping onto his lips, laying flat like a second skin.
Dean’s head stays close.
They’re breathless.
Not daring to look at each other.
Castiel doesn’t feel it roll to life inside of him, but like two clasps snapping together, a wall of courage is erected from underneath his skin and he’s pushing his body against Dean’s, forcing him to the wall behind them and connecting their lips again. Hard, unforgiving.
Dean pushes his mouth against Castiel’s with equivalent force. Ugly, sour thoughts paper inside his mind and only thicken at the shift of Castiel’s hips against his. He uses the push of his kiss and the soft opening of his mouth to quickly ripen those thoughts into sweet fruit.
Fingers twitching, Castiel is pulled by the urge to feel the skin that lines Dean’s bones. Even though their kissing is anything but shy, his hands and his touch is. Slowly, he raises his fingers to gently, softly graze the bareness that is Dean’s wrist.
At the tickle of Castiel’s tender touch, the fruit mold. The facade fractures, then shatters.
Dean turns his head to the side. Castiel gets confused and brushes his lips against Dean’s hot cheek before pulling away himself.
In a low, hurried voice, Castiel asks, “Dean?” His gaze finally snaps upwards. Though, before his eyes, the structure of Dean’s facial anatomy has changed. In the pale moonlight, it was as though Castiel was looking at him for the first time all over again.
Dean, though, forces a thick swallow through a cotton throat. A sting forms in the space between his eyes and in the front of his throat. Eyes beginning to water, he closes them and one tear after the other falls.
“Dean,” Castiel is saying, his voice as soft and tender as his old touch. He lifts his hands and at the movement, Dean’s eyes widen. Castiel catches this look of - fear? - and freezes.
With the same falling rapidness this all unfolded with, Dean is sidestepping around Cas and their shoulders knock hard together, leaving a pinprick of sharp pain as Dean rushes out of the bedroom.
Becoming paralyzed, Castiel’s mind shifts to Medusa and how when a man dared to look her way, he became stone. A shuddering resemblance to those frightened statues washes into Castiel.
A squeal of old hinges sound from downstairs, snapping Castiel back into that cold, empty, dark room. A door smashes against its frame.
With overwhelming intensity, Castiel feels the weight of the room around him. Each corner stands like a tall presence, feeling as though they are merely inches away from the barrier of his skin. There is no hallway outside that door, no downstairs, and no outside. These four walls are what makes up Castiel’s everlasting existence.
He doesn’t feel his arm lifting, but then the cold drywall is under his fingertips and there is a knot in his stomach and if it weren’t for this trance, he would hurl.
His consciousness is clouded, wrapped in a thick blindfold, must be, because when his brain computes what he is seeing he realizes he has turned around and is facing the expanse of the bedroom, but has no memory of doing the action of turning around. The four walls are back in their positions; the corners stand at their normal heights. The moonlight is bright and stretches along the floor and into the hallway.
There is no Dean. No nobody.
The reality of Castiel existing alone in this room, this house, stands starkly in his mind. He feels every empty room as if it is an appendage protruding off his body.
With the movement of stepping one foot in front of the other, he is snapped back into place in the anatomy of his being.
He leaves the house, hearing the same squeal and smash of the front door.
As he walks down the sidewalk, one foot pounding into the concrete after the other, watery images of him leaving the house trickle into his mind. He barely remembers it, only how the hallway doubled and that the staircase was a hamster wheel of steps.
Along his walk, the spinning vortex of clouds and dreams that consumed his thoughts vanished, only to be replaced by a prickling sensation of paranoia. From above his head, the leaves shake with laughter. The waves meet up with the shore and their incessant whispering taunts Castiel from beyond the sidewalk.
He cuts left to put his back to it all. But like cold pondweed, they snake around him and pry at his shoulders, tangle around his ankles, and hold him back in their perpetual taunting. Only entering the light and life of civilization does Castiel feel their dead hands slide off him.
This late into the night, very few places are open. To find where the tourists spend their time like cash, where there are more lights than people, and more people than space, a car is needed to get that deep into the island. Here, where people come to gorge out on fresh fruit and roast in the sun, the options of Dean’s whereabouts are limited.
The familiar deep green awning is passing Castiel on his right, where he and Sam had lunch a handful of hours prior. The chairs had been stacked inside the windows and a lone, buzzing light illuminates the stillness of the diner.
Further down the road is a bustle of noise. Down it and around the corner stand two opposing bars on opposite sides of the street. On the same street side Castiel stands, two men share a cigarette under a fading lamppost outside the bar. They laugh about something together.
Passing them and climbing the short stoop, what was once muffled noise becomes enveloping and clamorous when Castiel pushes the door from its frame. One step inside and the pungent odor of hard liquor, cigarette smoke, and sweat punches him in the face, making him crinkle his nose in disgust. The large crowd moves like a pulsating ocean under the neon lights, and together they make up the symphony of partying.
Through the glaring colored lights, Castiel’s eyes search the large room from the platform of the front door. He scans the back of each head, each profile, and each face. None of which belong to Dean. His lips purse, and from underneath his skin he feels the raging roll of anger and annoyance. As he turns to leave, his eyes still jumping, he catches a glimpse of someone at the bar.
A woman stands at the corner of the bar, her back to Castiel. She pushes her long black hair off her bronze shoulder, which catches the dim light that hangs above the bar, giving her a subtle glow. She reaches up a hand and places it lightly on Dean’s bicep. With no hesitation, Dean lays his hand on her side, right underneath the coconut-shell bra she wears.
Dean, lost in the auburn liquid that is his whiskey, forces a smile as he lightly pushes this girl off him. She had tacked herself into his side since he sat down, which when Dean slides his eyes to his watch, has been just under five minutes ago. Her skin is hot under his touch and when he pulls his hand back, he wipes the slick sweat off on his jeans. She’s talking about something that happened to her - no, she’s talking about a friend she wants him to meet. Dean closes his eyes and shoots back the whiskey so he can order another. And another. And another and another and another.
As he sets the glass back onto the counter, his eyes breeze over the girl and to the front door.
Dean’s heart plummets.
He freezes.
Castiel.
Cas.
And from the blazing look he holds, he is not very happy.
Dean blinks, and what he thought he saw is now gone; an empty front door remains. He thinks he must be hallucinating and searches the area and the faces around the door just to be sure. This whiskey must be stronger over here than on the mainland, he reasons with himself, and that he’s just not used to it. And with the addition of crumpled emotions, it’s really not a good mix.
“Dean,” the woman says with a toying smile, “did you hear me?”
He spares her a quick glance, then returns to his search of the front door. He goes in for another drink, but realizes he’s already finished off his whiskey, and dismaidly pushes the cup away. “Sorry, lady,” he’s saying, fishing through his wallet for whatever cash his numb fingers can hold. “I gotta go.”
He leaves her alone at the bar. He hears her scoff as he maneuvers through the dense crowd and due to the deafening music, just misses the last thing she throws at his back.
He climbs the platform, pushes open the door and as it hits its frame, he’s sucked from the living heat and spit out into the dead chill. Fresh air welcomes him, but he shakes it off and steps off the stoop.
Calling out for Castiel feels the same as putting a gun to his head, so he bites his tongue and turns to walk down the sidewalk towards home.
Not even making it a couple of feet from the entrance of the bar and Dean is being pulled from his upper arm into a space between two buildings. He’s thrown to the brick wall, the back of his head bouncing against it, and a flower of pain blooms where contact was made.
Instinctively, he raises his arms in both offense and defense, preparing for the next blow. When none comes, and the stabbing pain in the back of his skull becomes bearable, he cracks open an eye. Once his focus drilled into the silhouette that stands before him, he knew exactly who it was.
“Cas?”
Dean looks up at Castiel from his slumped position against the wall. With his head throbbing, he shuffles to stand straight, blurting out, “Cas, look–”
Castiel slaps him, hard.
A spike of pain heats Dean’s cheek.
Pushing his hand to the side of his face, he looks back at Castiel, bewildered. “W-what, are we in some chick-flick now?” He asks, then dips his head down and hisses out in pain.
Castiel stands before him. He looks at Dean with a face set in intense, radiating anger. His gaze, fiery, burns Dean’s skin. When Dean looks back at Castiel, something deep inside of him stills. In the dark light of the alleyway, it’s easy to mistake how the shadows shape Castiel’s features. It’s easy to tunnel in on the simmering anger and think he’s standing before John, and not Cas.
“Sometimes,” comes Castiel’s voice, “I tell myself I understand you, Dean. Sometimes I think we are on the same page, the same wavelength, and we just get each other. Then you turn around and do something I would have never predicted.”
Adolescent snarkiness fills Dean and he’s opening his mouth to bite back when Castiel winds his fist and makes contact with Dean’s jaw. His mouth clamps closed, teeth rattling together, and Dean is being swung back against the bricks once more. His gums burn, his teeth ache, his jaw stings.
“I believe we are finally getting somewhere, but then I find you with that whore.”
Rolling his head back on the bricks, his chip tilted up, Dean spits out, “Yeah, Cas, tell me how you really feel about her.”
Castiel’s face sets once again. He lands a fist into Dean’s abdomen. Standing tall, he watches as Dean crumples to the dirt caked ground, holding his stomach.
Slowly, Castiel says, “I have done so much for you, Dean. For years, I have stood and fought by your side. I have defended you to my enemies' faces. I have chosen you over my friends, my brethren. You , Dean. For years, my loyalty has stood with you. Everytime you call, everytime you need me, I drop everything to help you .” He kneels down by the fallen Dean, who is propping himself up with an arm. Castiel leans in close. “All I ask in return is an answer, Dean. A clear one.”
Dean’s face scrunches up and he throws out a fist, but with unwavering eye contact, Castiel is catching his arm and twisting it down and behind his back. Thrown off balance, Dean's other arm stumbles, and his chest is being pushed into the ground. Castiel raises Dean’s bent arm further up and pushes it into his spine, making Dean let out a high grunt.
“Cas, Cas, Cas. Please, man. My- my arm, you’re gonna break it.”
With a tilt of his head, Castiel keeps his cold stare and the pressure still, and peers down at Dean. “I thought,” he begins, his voice calm; his voice cool. Dean stops squirming and cranes his neck to look up at Castiel, “that moving here was supposed to purify us. Be our fresh start as you and Sam said. So, why,” he shifts his weight to push down more on Dean’s arm, making him suck in a quick, sharp breath, “are you acting like we still have targets on our backs? Everyone believes us to be dead. Here you, Sam, and I are allowed to love and be loved freely.”
Castiel lets a moment pass them by, one more moment of holding Dean in place, one more moment of making him fear that he is one twist away from a broken arm, before he relinquishes Dean. Castiel stands up and steps away, giving Dean the space he needs to push himself into a sitting position and rub at his hurting arm. With his mouth slacked open, Dean tilts his head to the open sky and groans.
His head still leaned up against the brick, Dean slits his eyes down to look at Castiel as he says, his voice rough, “A fresh start to be different people. No more hunter Dean or hunter Sam or Cas. No more killing people. And, more importantly, no more losing people.” He breathes heavily and moves his good hand to hold the strain in his shoulder. “I’m tired , Cas. I’ve been tired. All the- the stress and the killing and the tracking and the being killed , it’s turned me into a hateful, hateful person. I am not.. I’m not..” He looks away, his head still back against the brick. He swallows. “I just want to live a normal life, Cas. That’s all I want.”
“All you want?” Castiel repeats. “And- and this normal life entails whores in coconut bras?”
Against his better judgment, Dean rolls his eyes. His mistake burns him instantly, and to act like he didn’t just roll his eyes, he looks out to where the alleyway breaks and at the street beyond. Internally, he’s piecing together words to form a response, but the words keep fading out from his brain.
In the silence, Castiel continues. “I’m starting to think we have two different interpretations of fresh start.”
The words crash through Dean like a tidal wave. He rolls his head to look up at Cas, to look him in the eye. Their gazes lock. Mounting guilt weighs heavily on Dean’s chest and even with the steady breaths, he can’t seem to shake it. Going from one eye to the other, Dean musters all the sincerity he feels to whisper, “I’m sorry.”
Castiel just shakes his head and looks away. As Dean is staring at him, through the cuts of light from the lampposts, Dean thinks he sees a heavy glint in Cas’ eyes. He tilts his head to get a better look, but Castiel turns his head further away and his face gets swept up by the darkness.
Cas opens his mouth to say something, closes it, then opens it again, before eventually sealing his lips and swallowing everything he had on his chest.
The urge to be Castiel’s friend pulls at Dean, tempting him to put on a new skin and be there for Castiel because Dean Winchester cannot. With different hands, he wants to piece back together the face that is crumbling. With a new voice, he wants to speak the words he himself is too ashamed, so scared to say. With different eyes, he wants to look at Cas with a gaze that’ll tell him everything will be okay.
But he is Dean Winchester. He has his hands, and his voice, and his eyes.
Silently, Dean watches as Castiel turns and walks to the edge of the alleyway.
He has something to say. The words claw from inside his throat.
Dean blinks.
And Cas is gone.