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It happens unexpectedly.
They’re at the farmers market, the canvas bag over Castiel’s shoulder stuffed full of carefully placed plums and pears and apples. Trailing behind a few feet walks Dean, his eyes wandering over the stands and catching on homemade breads and handcrafted tchotchkes. If asked, Dean will say that it is Castiel who drags out their trips to the farmers market, but Castiel has it on good authority (his own) that this is false. More often than not, Castiel will find himself speaking with a stand-owner about their product, only to turn around to find Dean missing, lost in the stands and haggling with some poor soul over the price of yellow onions, which Castiel knows full well will end up caramelized that night in whatever meal they share for dinner.
It is the florist stand that catches Castiel’s eye. The owner of the stand, an elderly woman named Pari, only comes around once every two months. Her potted plants practically spill over the side of the stand, most of them taking up space behind the counter in clustered bursts of color that Castiel can spot from all the way down the row. Castiel reaches automatically—his hand wraps around Dean’s, their palms fitting together easily. Dean long ago got over his nervousness about holding hands in public, and this is hardly the first time Castiel has initiated this sort of contact himself.
But it is what happens next that makes Castiel’s gut pitch in a sudden, horrible motion: the tugging of hands, Castiel advancing toward the florist stand, the other hand refusing to budge, a calloused palm digging into soft skin, a grip tight enough to inform the receiver that they are not going anywhere, mostly attributed to the human propensity to be stubborn and not move when looking at something that one does not want to stop looking at quite yet. Dean refuses to move.
Castiel’s stomach lists in a dangerous way, and his chest tightens as if it is his lungs being squeezed rather than his hand.
Castiel suddenly finds himself on a dusty expanse of road, feet straddling the furrow of a wheel. No—multiple wheels. The rut is deep and permanent looking, something only formed after hundreds of wheels have trailed along it, one after the other.
His feet are moving forward. The long, fluid steps seem to conflict with the unevenly packed dirt of the road, but he follows the wheel rut anyway, the sound of tinkling bells from a donkey ahead of him and a wicked, reverberating knell behind. The mounting noise emanating from behind him shakes the earth, makes the surrounding barley stalks undulate like a great wave across the plain, and shoots its way up through this body—his body—until its molars are vibrating.
Suddenly, Castiel stops. He knows he cannot—should not. But there is something tugging backward . . .
There, by his side, a woman. This body’s hand dwarfs her small one, but her grip is strong and her palms are rough. A vague thought races its way through Castiel’s mind, that she works with her hands. That she lives an active life. But now, she stands still, her body unyielding and her eyes hard and scared and pleading. Has he been tugging her forward this entire time? He must have been. He did not notice. This body isn’t well-adjusted yet.
He pulls. She stumbles forward a bit, then plants her feet again. Headstrong, she clenches his hand more firmly, a panicked, wide-eyed desperation on her face. Being this close to a human is enough to pick up tingles of its emotional state, but the skin-to-skin contact of their touching hands makes Castiel dizzy with the flood of stress hormones that seem to drown her. The emotions swirl together too fast and too wild for Castiel to place them, like powdery grains of pigmented spices spilling together: a bewildering mess of color that bleeds into one hue with enough disturbance.
A vicious and creeping mass forms at the pit of Castiel’s stomach, a mass that is entirely his own and not transposed by the outpour of emotion from the woman. It surges in time with the mounting uproar behind them. With sickening clarity, Castiel puts a label on the feeling: dread, the humans call it. A feeling they tell stories about and sing songs in the name of. Castiel has heard many of these narrative tales before, though at the time, he processed the thematic messages as if viewing a scene from a distance. The matter-of-fact realization of Dread—how it fits so easily within him, like it is only natural to be there—is enough to make him stagger. To put a stop to their movement, just for a moment.
But a moment is all she needs. That, of course, is what evoked dread in the first place. Castiel has watched humanity for a very long time; he knows well the look in a person’s eyes when they make a split-second decision, the air of the Hero the moment they commit to an impulsive act. It’s the stuff people whisper about amongst themselves around the hearth. It’s the stuff that will be remembered, when all is said and done.
Castiel’s eyes lock onto those of the woman. They are brown, and damp, and surrounded by wrinkles. Her shawl has slipped down onto her forehead and her mouth twists in anguish. As her wool skirts flutter in the harsh wind—a force that tells them to move forward, keep going—she re-shoulders the mass in her arms. It's an ewe. The animal wriggles under the wide segment of cloth that is strapped to her chest.
And then the woman looks back. Only her head turns. Only her neck cranes. But it is enough.
It happens faster than Castiel anticipates. He wants to say something. No, maybe. Stop. Wait. He knows he should not beg. An angel should not beg. But the roaring in his ears and the shuddering of the ground and the way her eyes shine against the luminous glare of grace makes him forget that.
Perhaps he does say those things out loud. He forgets that, too.
Instead, his focus is entirely overcome by the delicate crackling of skin that somehow outclasses the screams and thunderclaps issuing from the city behind them. Castiel watches as the woman’s body becomes crystalline. Dried skin pulls apart like mudcracks in the desert, and a pattern appears like a lattice in the same manner that soil is plowed, lines emerging in violent succession. Sinews of muscle snap as they harden. With a final crack that rips through the air, the pattern aligns itself and stops.
Fixed in the middle of the road is a clothed pillar of salt. It defaces the natural landscape, a synthetic spire that emerges from the earth like the raised webbing of protruding scar tissue. Each plane of its glittering surface reflects the far-off light of soot-fire and holy power.
Castiel has witnessed instances of smiting sickness before. Never first-hand. Certainly never so close. He thinks, if he were human, he would throw up.
Dragging his eyes away from the clothed pillar, Castiel forces himself to look back as well. There, on the horizon, is Sodom: a smoldering mess razed to the ground, wooden structures incinerated, and mudbrick houses baked and turned to dust. The fields of barley directly encompassing the city are flattened and scorched, a pinwheel of barrenness that radiates off of a desolated focus. A bird in flight would recognize the pinwheel as panopticon. That is, of course, if there were any birds left to serve as witness.
The residual energy of the completed smiting branches out over the vast landscape and hits Castiel in waves. Each ripple douses him like ice water, uniquely different from the expected warmth that grace usually involves, but Castiel knows this bitter chill is actually devastating heat, so scalding it burns like frostbite. As he absorbs the scene before him, now eerily quiet, he has just enough thought to push his vessel’s psyche down—deep down—as a means of protection.
Castiel sways before the image of a city destroyed. He takes a deep breath, smells the sharp tang of smoke, and swallows down the beautiful terror.
He turns to proceed down the road again. He needs to catch up to his brother and this woman’s husband and her two daughters and explain what happened, why it went wrong, how it is fine, how it will be fine, when his hand catches on rough crystal. A salty mass clasps his palm, wrapping its way around the meaty part of his thumb. His reaction is automatic: to pull away.
The sound of splitting salt echoes across the valley.
Castiel freezes, but it is too late. As frozen fingers release him, crevices fork like veins of lightning up the palm, circumscribe the stalk of the wrist, and disappear into the folds of fabric that wrap the arm. The pillar splinters. Each echoing crack is synonymous with the sound of a bone breaking underneath the heel of a boot. Shuddering in bursts, the form teeters dangerously, and the only thing Castiel can think is the ewe before the whole mass crumbles to the ground.
He lurches forward, knees skidding against dirt just in time to catch the wool sling before it can smack against the earth. The ewe wriggles in her cloth cage, and Castiel presses her small body against his chest to keep her from hurting herself.
The fleece of her coat is dusted in chalky powder. Salt. Castiel lifts the pads of a few fingers to his eyes. Dull, white dust curls its way around his fingerprints and makes its home in the shallow lines of his palm.
He is unclean.
Castiel looks down at the rut in the road where his knees straddle, the dirt furrow filled with lumps of salt. His palm line and the wheel rut, identical.
“Brother?”
Castiel lifts his head to find his brother standing before him. In the distance are three people with animals, each person dutifully facing toward the mountain a long ways off. None of the humans turn around. They know better.
The figure in front of him wrinkles its brow at the disorder, its gaze piercing into Castiel. Castiel swallows. Unconscious of the move, he shifts his weight from knee to knee on the mound of fabric and salt, and a deafening crunch fills up the valley until the air feels so heavy the sky will surely fall.
“I—”
He does not know what to say. In his arms, the ewe lets out a soft bleat. Castiel involuntarily brings his sullied hand up to her shivering chest and slips his fingers beneath the cloth sling-bag to comfort her. A wild heartbeat greets him.
He does not know what to say.
____________
“Dude, you good?” Dean’s eyes waver across Castiel’s face, and he playfully tugs at Castiel’s hand.
In a sudden motion, Castiel jerks backward and wrenches his hand away. His body collides with something behind him, a wooden post connected to a cheese stand, and he flinches at the contact as he staggers forward again. Dean catches him by the shoulders. Concern flashes in his eyes.
“Cas?”
The tightness in Castiel’s throat threatens to suffocate him. He sucks in an erratic breath, his mind blaring in alarm at the shallowness of the air. The human body should breathe in about 1.5 liters of oxygen per minute; any less, and the side effects of low oxygen consumption start setting in, and when that happens, cognitive function begins to diminish, and the body’s rate of cellular respiration slows, and then not enough adenosine triphosphate is produced, and—
A calloused hand plants itself gently on Castiel’s cheek. Castiel blinks up to find Dean staring at him, the space between his brows dimpled with worry and his mouth half-opened in question. Castiel opens his own to say something—anything—but the words stick in his throat.
He does not know what to say.
“Sweetheart, you okay?” Dean asks again. He keeps his voice low, like he’s speaking to a spooked animal.
Castiel nods. He is nodding. His head moves up and down. “I’m fine.” Then, tacked on: “Thank you, Dean.”
Dean does not look convinced, not in the slightest. In fact, he looks more apprehensive now than before. But he lets Castiel remove Dean's hand from his face and step away.
“Okay,” Dean says. “Okay—um.” He looks past Castiel in the direction Castiel was originally facing. “The—uh—the flower stand? Do you—want to go? Or we can go home?”
Castiel blinks. Right. Yes. The florist who is only here every two months, whose presence Castiel marks, without fault, every time, with a star next to the words “Farmers Market” on the National Geographic calendar they keep in the kitchen to distinguish these farmers market trips from the others, even if Dean tells him he doesn’t have to keep putting “Farmers Market” on the calendar in the first place since they go here every Saturday anyway. The florist who probably has asters, which Castiel has been planning to introduce to their backyard garden on account of the popularity of the flower among honeybees. He has to plant them soon before the spring ends or else they won’t be well established enough before their bloom time in late summer.
“I need asters,” Castiel blurts out. The words rip out of him, too loud and earnest. He cringes, but it’s true. He needs asters. He needs them now because if he waits it will be too late. He needs asters.
Dean nods a bit too enthusiastically. “Okay. Okay, yeah. Let’s get you some asters.”
He reaches down to take Castiel’s hand, but before he can, Castiel slips his hands in the pockets of his cardigan. He has three other cardigans just like this one at home in different colors because he likes the way they fit and he likes that they have pockets. Years spoiled by a pocket-ridden trench coat will do that to a person.
As he sets off toward the florist stand, his canvas bag begins the slow process of slipping off his shoulder, the weight of the produce dragging the straps down toward the ground as if the fresh fruit housed inside wants to return to the earth from which it came. Castiel does not dare remove his hands from his pockets to adjust the bag.
____________
According to author Ursula K. Le Guin, the first tool made and used by mankind was the bag. Any vessel counts: a cupped leaf, a hollowed gourd, a braided net, a woven pouch. There is something inherently human about it, to want to hold something close, to want to hold something so close so badly that you use those dexterous fingers you’ve been blessed with to modify your environment, unknowingly propelling your species toward a future of other tools: the hammer, the spear, the knife, the arrow, the sword. The gun. The locomotive. The radio. The television. And, if you are lucky, you will be born on the cosmic timeline during that tiny period—that tiny blip—where you can turn on one of those big, beautiful, human televisions and watch Jeopardy.
Maybe while you are watching, a statement will pop up on the screen that says, “The first known tool used by mankind.”
Maybe a fellow in a mustard button-down who is sweating rather profusely under the stage-lights and even more profusely under the gaze of millions of Americans will press his buzzer and answer, quite confidently, “What is the rock?”
Maybe his answer will be marked correct. (Archaeologists and anthropologists like to butt heads about this topic.) But don’t worry about their academic quarrels, and certainly don’t worry about American late-night gameshow television. The answer is bag.
The point of Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay on Paleolithic bags has less to do with the type of bag itself and more to do with the fact that humans made bags in the first place. After all, how can a rock or a spear be of use to a species before a bag? It is a question of preliminary and secondary. With a rock you may grind the stem of a stocky plant to eat, and with a spear you may stab and kill a wild animal for your next meal. But how will you bring these stocky plants and these wild animals back to your community? You are foraging, after all. How will you carry water with you over long distances? How will you keep your baby close to you as you bend over while you work?
This is the point of the bag. The bottle. The sling. They are all receptacles, all holders.
Castiel can corroborate Ursula K. Le Guin's carrier bag theory. (He was there.)
Like her, Castiel also thinks that what makes humans human is that they like to hold things. (This is plainly observable.)
They hold onto memories, onto heirlooms, and onto beliefs. They hold hands when they are happy and hold one another in their arms when they are sad. They hold each other up. They weave blankets to wrap around their shaking shoulders to hold them tightly when no one else is there to do it. They sew pockets into jackets to hold all of their treasures. They build houses to hold their families. They film movies about brooding men in cowboy hats who like to hold up banks. And, of course, they put all of their ingenuity together a very long time ago and made the bag.
The irony is not lost on Castiel that the moment he was marked for downfall was when he held a man’s soul in his hands. He remembers it with acute precision: searing energy giving way to blissful illumination, the way its warmth lapped at him, so brilliant and captivating and easy to fall into, so worthy of falling into, falling over, falling for—but he was on a mission to go up up up, and so he did. He deposited the soul into its body, its holder. That body was held inside of a coffin, which in turn was held inside of the cool, calm earth.
Castiel did fall, eventually. But that is a different story. (There was, at least, a place held for him at the family table when it happened.)
Now, years later, he is trying to hold himself together.
Castiel sits cross-legged on their couch with a cracked-open book perched on a pillow laying in his lap. It is a proposed historical account of the naval tragedy depicted in Théodore Gércault’s 1819 painting of the shipwrecked Medusa. He picked the book up at a second-hand bookstore in New Haven two months ago and has only now gotten around to reading it, his stack of books accumulating faster than he can get through them. He usually manages two or three per week, but he picks up more, stealing them from Dean, sneaking them into the check-out lane at the grocery store—(“They sell books here?” Dean asked incredulously once)—filling his arms until they overflow with novels from the $1 bins that always seem to be at yard sales, and on, and on, and on. He is best friends with the old ladies at the library.
His books range from mystery-thrillers to political manifestos to airport romances to poetry anthologies to random illegally downloaded PDFs Sam likes to send him. Occasionally, there is a children's book or a comic book that Dean points out because he has fond memories of them.
Castiel reads any language, any time.
Although he knows almost every story in human existence thanks to Metatron, experiencing them in real time is viscerally different. What Metatron did to him was like reading a synopsis of a film instead of actually watching it. Metatron stamped the words into his brain in one single go, and now Castiel is actively undoing his superficial work, making all the stories stretch out like one long, delicious meal. He may already know the flavors, but savoring something is so much more fulfilling.
In the other room, Dean is making dinner. Castiel can smell onions caramelizing in the pan, can hear them sizzling over the rolling sound of k. d. lang’s voice. He chews the inside of his bottom lip and tries to read the words in front of him, but can’t.
After an indeterminate amount of time, there’s a sudden thump against his shoulder. Castiel starts and immediately snaps out of his reverie. Above his shoulder stands Dean, who shrinks away at Castiel’s clear surprise, guilt momentarily crossing his face.
“Oh—sorry, man. I didn’t mean to . . .” His voice trails off as Castiel waves his hand.
“It’s fine, Dean.”
Dean raises an eyebrow. “Well, you said you were fine earlier today, too.”
“I did.” Castiel sends him a withering glare. “And I am.”
Dean looks like he’s about to make a retort but must think better of it. His expression softens. “Dinner’s ready, is all. Shepherd’s pie.”
Castiel still feels sick from whatever memory relapse he had earlier, but he already skipped lunch today by isolating himself away from Dean all afternoon in the garden to plant the asters they picked up. He chose a spot near his three bee boxes, which Dean refuses to approach.
Now, though, Castiel realizes he can’t invent a good enough reason to turn down shepherd’s pie; Dean knows it’s one of his favorites. The churning of his stomach mixes with something like anger, and Castiel wants to snap at Dean that he is perfectly aware that Dean is trying to—to—to butter him up, or whatever. But if Castiel admits this fact, then Dean will know for certain that something is wrong.
Shepherd’s pie and k. d. lang. He should have noticed sooner.
Castiel folds the corner of his book, sets it on the side-table next to him, and is about to remove the pillow from his lap to get up when Dean taps the top of the couch cushion with an air of finality and says, “You know what? Let’s eat in here tonight, yeah? I’m kinda feelin’ tired. That good with you?”
Before Castiel can reply, Dean is already heading into the kitchen to grab their plates and utensils. Soon enough, there is a plate of shepherd’s pie laying on the pillow that sits in Castiel’s lap and a man crawling onto the couch beside him. Dean leans his back easily against the far armrest and unceremoniously shoves his socked feet underneath Castiel’s legs with a sweet grin, the one that Castiel usually melts over.
Castiel knows what Dean is trying to do. But much to Dean’s not-yet-realized chagrin, Castiel does not want to feel better. He can’t. He just—
He hears the crackling of salt in the back of his mind. He remembers the feeling of sharp crystals beneath his knees. He thinks of the way his brother gazed at him, like it was he who was broken and not the woman.
“Whatcha reading?” Dean asks through a mouthful of shepherd’s pie.
Castiel looks over at the cover. “The Wreck of the Medusa by Jonathan Miles. I think it used to belong to a student, if the overly-excessive underlining is anything to go off of.”
Dean snorts at that, and he prods at Castiel’s leg with his toes. “Says the guy who defaces books like it’s an Olympic sport.”
“I don’t deface them. I personalize them.”
“Uh-huh,” Dean says, drawing out the sound. “You write your name in them, sure. But you underline shit, too. Fold the pages all weird. Spill coffee on them. Write to-do lists in the margins. Smear the covers with take-out grease. Tear out the pages and roll ‘em.”
Castiel can’t really deny those things, though the successive laundry list from more normal to more depraved makes him smile a bit. “Only if the pages are thin enough,” he replies.
Snorting, Dean shovels another bite of food into his mouth and wags his empty fork at Castiel in mock approval.
Castiel looks down at his own meal, still warm and neatly cut. For Dean’s sake more than his own, he picks up his fork and collects a piece with a little bit of everything on it: some ground beef, some mashed potatoes, some cheese, some of the caramelized onion garnish. When he puts it in his mouth, it warms him up and gives him a physical sensation to latch into. It's in stark contrast to the numbness in his body he has felt since the farmers market. The subtle spices ground him, tugging him back home.
After chewing and swallowing, he adjusts his position to better face Dean while keeping his plate steady on the pillow. “This is very good, Dean. Thank you.”
Dean shrugs sheepishly but accepts the compliment. He’s getting better at that.
They share the remainder of their meal in comfortable silence, save k. d. lang’s light cords in the background emanating from the record player that sits next to their pair of bookshelves on the far wall. The deep mahogany shelves are filled with books, of course, but many of the bottom ones are also dedicated to DVDs and VHS tapes and old albums. There is a stack of library books on the floor at the base of the left shelf that Castiel put there as a reminder to return them soon. The top book, a Toni Morrison, looks close to tipping over onto where the empty, worn cover of the k. d. lang album leans against the nearby record stand.
I just want, want to be here with you, she sings. Not bracing for what comes next.
After a while, Dean says, “Hey, Cas?”
They have both finished by now, their plates deposited on their respective side tables with Castiel’s balanced on his book. Castiel braces for what comes next.
“Yes, Dean?”
“You know you can—you know—talk to me. About stuff.”
Castiel nods stiffly and does not meet Dean’s eyes. “I know.”
If he thought the conversation would end, he was wrong. Dean scoots across the couch so he’s nearer to Castiel, and he leans his elbow against the back cushions and rests his head on his propped-up hand. Dean looks like he wants to reach out and touch Castiel, but he’s been antsy about it ever since the incident at the farmers market. Castiel’s heart clenches at the sentiment, that Dean is afraid he might push Castiel away.
No, Castiel wants to insist. That’s not what is wrong. Don’t put this blame on yourself.
It’s Castiel, of course. He’s the thing that always seems to be wrong.
“Talk to me,” Dean says. When Castiel doesn’t reply, Dean ducks his head toward Castiel and catches his eyes. “Talk to me, man.”
Castiel can’t look away. Those eyes . . . Castiel cannot see into Dean’s soul anymore, but it hardly matters. Dean’s eyes are just as intense and vivid and beautiful and earnest—well, stubborn might be a better word than earnest. Regardless, Castiel supposes Shakespeare was right after all.
Breaking away and sighing, Castiel ponders how he should go about doing this. How far does he go back? How much does he explain? How much can he explain?
“Do you remember when Naomi brainwashed me?” Castiel ventures.
Dean blinks in surprise and freezes. Of course he remembers. One doesn’t exactly forget being beaten within an inch of their life easily.
Recovering quickly, Dean nods and gives Castiel a cue to continue.
“At the time . . .” Castiel hunts through his memories, now organized in a non-linear, very human jumble. He searches for the right words. “At the time, I had a suspicion that it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. Sometimes I find there are blips in my memory—a few hours, a few days. I think that’s why it took me a little while to introduce myself to you, after raising you. Because of the mark I put on you. The accidental claim. I must have been . . . punished.”
At this, Dean’s mouth goes slack. They don’t talk about Hell often.
Castiel moves on quickly, not wanting Dean to linger on painful memories. “Then there was the time when Sam and Lilith were in that motel room, and I told you about prophets being protected by archangels.”
Castiel watches as Dean’s eyes go up and away, trying to access the memory: the pink backwash of the neon motel sign, the chilly night air, the just so you understand why I can’t help. Then, he watches as Dean connects that memory to another: I learned my lesson when I was away, Dean. I serve Heaven. I don’t serve man. And I certainly don’t serve you.
“Oh,” is all Dean says.
Castiel gives a short nod. “But there were instances before that, I believe. Bigger ones. I obviously couldn’t remember, but something in my gut told me it was true.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Dean asks, his voice a bit angry, but mostly just concerned.
Castiel raises his hands in a shrug. "It never seemed important, I suppose. I hadn't even considered it until after Naomi, and then there were so many other things we had to deal with. It never presented itself as a problem." He steadies himself before continuing. "Then, there was today. At the farmers market."
He goes on to explain the memory, keeping it clean, systematic. He talks about the tugging on his hand. He talks about Sodom, and his brother, and that poor woman. He talks about the ewe, and the cloth sling-bag that held her. He talks about the horrible feeling inside of him when his brother looked down at the mess he had made. He talks about the realization and understanding that there was something very wrong with him. He thinks, aloud, that this was the first time.
They sit in heavy silence after Castiel ends the story.
Finally, after what feels like forever, Dean says, “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
Castiel looks at him in the dying daylight streaming through the living room windows and tilts his head. “What?”
“She didn’t do anything wrong, when she looked back.” Dean rubs his nose with his hand and glances at the ceiling as if reading something that’s written there. He is unhurried with the words, taking care to make sure they are correct. “‘And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. She was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.’”
The simplification of the ordeal into a four sentence quote takes Castiel aback, but it seems fitting, somehow. It gives Castiel room to breathe. “Kurt Vonnegut,” he says, remembering the words Metatron gave him. “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
Dean and Castiel share books all the time, passing them between each other in a near-constant exchange, but there are a few books they own that Dean keeps in a drawer on his side of the bed. Ones that he doesn’t let Castiel touch. Dean has never said anything about this rule, naturally, but Castiel sees how he handles them with care, so different from how Castiel usually tackles his own. Castiel knows that if he asked to read them Dean would agree immediately, but Castiel doesn’t ask. He has caught Dean reading them in bed late at night, and at the kitchen table after a rough day, and against the Impala’s hot hood in a gas station parking lot. It is always the same ones: Slaughterhouse-Five, Holes, The Princess Bride, a few others. They are old, clearly having been dragged to every corner of the United States over many decades. A couple have clear packing tape running up their spines just to hold them together.
“I’m sorry,” Dean says. Castiel must look perplexed at the apology because Dean clarifies. “When memories resurface, it’s—it’s bad. Sometimes . . .” He shrugs. "Sometimes I remember glimpses of what Michael did.”
Castiel feels a wave of guilt and secondhand pain go through him. Dean never deserved that. And Michael certainly never deserved him. “But that wasn’t you,” Castiel says. “This was me. This was on me.”
“You couldn’t have stopped it, Cas. She knew what would happen, but she did it anyway, because she was human. Because despite whatever horrible things Heaven was going to destroy that city over—which was shitty, by the way, no offense—she did it anyway because she still cared. That’s just what people do. I think I love her for that, too.”
The direct honesty hits something deep inside Castiel. It knocks something into place. He considers Dean's words for a long time, thinking about how Dean loves his father, even when the mention of the man’s name makes the blood in Castiel’s veins boil. About how Dean and Sam still love each other despite the number of times they have gone behind each other's backs. About the time Castiel betrayed them, and the way Dean paused on the way out the door to look back at Castiel, an angel left standing helpless in a ring of holy fire. About Castiel's own experience, hundreds of leviathan surging within him and his body falling apart while he stood before an open portal to Purgatory and looked back at Dean because he was sorry. He was so sorry.
Maybe Castiel was never really broken. Maybe he was just a little human.
Castiel shifts closer to Dean and leans against him, his head fitting easily in the space between Dean’s neck and shoulder, the crook augmented by Dean’s arm being slung over the back of the couch. Now given the assurance that he can touch Castiel again, Dean rests his cheek on the crown of Castiel’s head and wraps his arm around his shoulders. Dean’s free hand comes to lay on the pillow in Castiel’s lap on which his own hands rest. Dean doesn’t move his hand closer than that, but Castiel knows it’s an invitation if he is comfortable.
After a while of just relaxing into each other’s bodies, Dean kisses the top of Castiel’s head. Usually it is Castiel who does things like that—taking pleasure in doting on Dean and comforting him—but Dean can be sappy when he wants to be. Castiel buries his face into Dean’s neck, his old band t-shirt soft against Castiel’s nose.
“Dinner good?” Dean asks.
Castiel hums in assent. Dean smells of their sandalwood soap and a bit like motor oil, and Castiel breathes it in deeply. “You could stand to cook with a few vegetables, though.”
Dean scoffs. “It’s shepherd’s pie, dude. You don’t put fucking vegetables in shepherd’s pie.”
“On the side, then.”
The grounding rumble of silent laughter in Dean’s chest makes Castiel want to get closer to him, but they’re practically folded on top of each other already. Castiel makes an executive decision and slides both of his hands across the pillow to take Dean’s hand in his own.
Dean’s fingers tense up at first, but he soon catches on, looping his thumb through one of Castiel’s and rubbing circles across the skin there. Dean’s hands are calloused, yes, but they are not the sharp edge of salt. Castiel holds his hand closer, his two palms embracing it as if in prayer.
“I took the pears and stuff you got today out of the bag when we got home and put ‘em in the fruit bowl, by the way," Dean murmurs. "You know, 'case you're hungry later."
Castiel smiles. Bag to bowl, one receptacle to another.