Chapter Text
Adrenaline carries Dean deeper into the forest than he meant to go. He ends up trudging through woods for nearly twenty minutes, through sunken, wild glades and dense trees that stretch toward the sun and drink down its rays before they can reach the underbrush. The inevitable crash from the anxious high is almost worse than the attack itself, leaving Dean shaky and a little disoriented as he staggers to the top of a ridge overlooking the cemetery and the distant city beyond. There’s a fallen oak nearby and it makes a decent resting place.
The view is a little too urban gothic for Dean’s tastes, but it helps to have a focal point worth looking at. He pulls the pine-scented air deep into his lungs, blowing it out until it aches and tallying the heartbeats in between. Eventually, his legs stop shaking, the harshness of his breathing evened out into something approaching normal.
It feels stupid in retrospect, such a disproportionate reaction to something as simple as the connection between two thoughts, but, given the context, Dean feels comfortable cutting himself a bit of slack.
After all, it’s not every day you realize you’ve stumbled into some kind of common law-style marriage with your formerly Angelic, not-entirely-platonic best friend of more than a decade.
Or, somehow worse than even that atomic emotional bombshell, that you like it.
***
Night falls like a blanket, ushering in temperatures far above average for the area. Dean wipes a bead of sweat from his temple and peels his jacket from tacky skin, tossing it over one shoulder as he weaves through town, making his way back to the motel. There’s a business card burning a hole in his pocket, a determination in his stride that carries him through the door of their room and drives him to haul Cas to his feet without preamble.
“Where are you going?” Sam demands even as he slides the Impala’s keys across the table.
Dean pockets them. “We’ve got an appointment.”
Cas asks, “We do?” but allows himself to be manhandled toward the exit.
Shoving him through it, Dean calls, “Don’t wait up,” and slams the door on three thoroughly perplexed expressions.
***
“Is this what I think it is?”
Dean gnaws his bottom lip, squinting up at the sign reflecting off Cas’ eyes. It’s shaped like a pirate’s ship, glowing neon shades of pink, purple, and blue.
“That depends.”
Cas turns toward him, arms crossed over his chest, unmoved. “On?”
Employing all the charm at his disposal, Dean grins and pulls the glass door open, once more leading Castiel into temptation. “Whether or not you’re down.”
***
He’s never thought of himself as someone with a tattoo fetish.
Skin art is sexy, no doubt about it, but it’s not something Dean’s thought much about outside of either utility or aesthetic. Being beside Castiel when he goes under the needle, though…
It awakens something in Dean he’s been trying hard to keep sleeping.
***
“You good, guy?”
Dean lifts his head to find a woman sitting beside him, her dark-lined eyes dragging lazily down his body. She’s maybe a few years older than Claire, covered hairline to sole in ink, and Dean wonders when he stopped noticing that he had the attention of people in his orbit.
“Sorry?”
The woman smiles, ruby red lips curling up beneath a dainty gold septum piercing. “You look like you're about to yak. First time?”
“Uh… No,” Dean says, gaze skipping back to where Cas is speaking animatedly with his artist. “But I’m not here for me.”
Red follows his line of sight and this time when she smiles it’s with a glimmer of knowing in her eye. “He getting your name or something?”
Hello darkness, my old friend…
“Wh- what? No,” Dean stammers, praying to whoever is listening that the fresh wave of panic isn’t nearly as visible as it feels. “It’s, uh… It’s not like that.”
“I don’t think your face knows that, my dude,” Red tells him delicately, like she’s breaking bad news.
Cas returns before Dean can articulate a response, offering Red a small smile, and points down the hallway to Dean’s right. “Room 6. Do you want to…?”
He nods goodbye to Red and follows Castiel down the hall to a small studio with a copper-colored curtain for a door. In the middle of the space is a hybrid masseuse table/phlebotomy chair made of red leather and dark wood, as well as a stainless steel medical cart. The walls are plastered in band posters and gig flyers, a few framed art pieces hung sporadically. Cas lingers over a print of a black cat wearing glittery pink headphones, and Dean’s downright annoyed by how endearing he finds it.
“Mr. Winchester?” They both turn to find the artist Dean booked with smiling warmly at Cas. “Are you ready?”
“Of course,” he answers before Dean can reboot, rolling up his sleeves. “How do you want me?”
Dean almost swallows his tongue.
“Whatever’s most comfortable,” the artist tells him, pushing the steel cart over to where their supplies are. They collect what they need, talking while they work, “It shouldn’t take more than an hour, hour and a half, so whatever position you think you can hold for that long. Just make sure I’ve got a clear shot at your wrist.”
“Wrist?” Dean questions, watching as Cas settles onto the table/chair contraption. He holds up his right arm, showing Dean the naked stretch of skin exposed by a turned-up cuff. “Oh.”
Cas’ mouth curls unevenly. “You’re disappointed.”
Dean scuffs the toe of his boot against shiny linoleum, shakes his head in the negative. “Nah, man, it’s not-- I just thought…”
“Dean.” He lifts his head and Cas’ expression is warm, full of understanding for words Dean didn’t even speak aloud. “You and Sam wear yours on your chests, and while I appreciate what the symbolism of me following suit would imply, I think it best for that particular tradition to remain one shared between the two of you.”
“Why?”
His smile turns hopelessly fond as he cocks his head. “You know why.”
There goes the stupid fluttering in Dean’s chest again.
The tattoo artist instructs Cas to lie back and relax, gesturing for him to hold out his arm. Dean spots a rolling stool on Cas’ other side and kicks it under him, rolling over so he can watch.
“So why the wrist, then?” he asks as the artist -- who’s sporting a name tag that declares them simply “!”, which Dean can sorta vibe with, if he’s honest -- disinfects their canvas.
“Claire,” Cas explains, sounding self-conscious. “Probably Jack too, now that he can’t protect himself. Is it… Is that strange?”
“Nah,” Dean assures, clearing his throat because a lump of soft feelings lodges there. “I think it’s… I dunno, sweet, I guess.”
Cas searches his face and Dean stares back, cracked wide open for Cas’ perusal, can feel his pulse kick up, the hum of !’s needle resonating with each beat.
The closer the needle gets to Cas’ hand, the more discomfort he seems to experience. He winces a little now and then, and Dean tries to distract him by talking about the kids. When that runs its course he switches to tales of himself and Sam as youngsters, and ultimately their parents.
It seems to do an alright job of taking his mind off things, right up until the needle hits a particularly sensitive spot and Castiel hisses a curse under his breath, tilting his chin toward the ceiling with his face twisted in pain.
“You think you can go a little longer?” ! asks, careful not to let their needle leave Cas’ skin.
Dean watches Cas’ throat bob, a muscle in his jaw twitching.
“Yes, I’m fine,” he grits out, clearly no longer accustomed to this level of pain. “Please keep going.”
There’s a sudden tightness in Dean’s jeans, a cascade of images flipping through his mind like the pages of a skin mag. He can feel heat blossoming in his gut, leaking out into his limbs, making him itch to reach out and touch. Guilt follows swiftly on frigid wings, a sobering reminder that Cas is in pain essentially because he sacrificed an integral piece of himself for Dean’s benefit. It doesn’t matter that it’s something as simple as a tattoo, that Cas consented, was enthusiastic even, once the idea settled in.
Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters
“Dean?”
“Still here,” he croaks, scooting himself up toward Cas’ head. Cas lets it loll sideways, splotchy red cheek pressed against the leather. His eyelids flutter open, gaze a little glassy and unfocused, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Dean’s hands shake so he curls them into fists against his thighs. “What can I do?”
“Just keep talking. I enjoy the sound of your voice,” Cas admits between deep inhales and slow exhales.
! is clearly listening because they smile the way most people do when they see something fluffy and adorable and can’t squeal obnoxiously about it, half-hiding it behind their violently purple hair. Dean struggles to control his blush, sure his skin is flaming.
Despite his embarrassment, he flicks once more through the catalog in his brain, trying to find a suitable distraction. There is one thing; not even worth mentioning, really. But Dean knows Cas will fixate on it, blowing it out of proportion because he’s overprotective, and that should do the trick as far as distracting him.
“The, uh, the car service we used to come get you?”
Cas’ expressions shifts rapidly from pained to perplexed, then more gradually to cautious understanding. “What about it?”
“You were gone, Cas,” Dean says, pouring every ounce of agony from that period of time into the reminder. “Everything was wrong, and suddenly there was a way to right it.”
Cas’ jaw works like he’s chewing the reprimand Dean knows he wants to give. Ultimately, though, he just nods curtly. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t.”
Were his Grace fully intact, Dean has no doubt the look Castiel levels him with would blow the doors off the place. ! keeps working, humming under their breath like that’ll drown out the bickering. Dean’s grateful for the illusion of privacy.
“I understand words are not your strong suit, Dean, but I’m going to need to insist you use more of them,” Castiel very nearly growls. “Quickly.”
Dean’s chest heaves with a sigh. “We needed you back, man. I needed you back. And your aunt wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the helpfulness, y’know?” Cas motions with his free hand for Dean to get to the point. “I tried to do things the right way, Cas, I really did,” he swears, his laugh bone dry. “I tried so fucking hard to let you go. I know that’s what you wanted, but--”
Fingers wrap around Dean’s clenched fist and when he lifts his head Cas looks devastated. “Leaving you was never what I wanted, Dean. If you believe nothing else, please believe that.”
His eyes prickle and the urge to punch the sky flares white-hot in his brain.
“The… number, for the service?” Dean makes himself continue, looking away because he can’t bear to see disappointment once again staring back at him from Cas’ eyes. “It just showed up -- tucked under one of Baby’s wiper blades two days after you left.”
“And you used it?”
Oh, he’s mad. Big mad. Pissed, even.
“Worked, didn’t it?” Dean mutters defensively.
! shoots him a sympathetic look, which he appreciates, but then quickly carries on shading in the anti-possession sigil rapidly taking shape on Cas’ wrist, very purposefully ignoring everything else.
“That’s not the point,” Cas practically snaps, glaring up at the ceiling like if he looks at Dean right now he’ll be forced to throttle him.
The only sound in the small studio for a long moment is the hum of the tattoo needle. Dean fights the urge to fidget, chewing the inside of his cheek.
“Technically Gabe used it,” he blurts when the tension becomes too much.
Cas is unpersuaded, maintaining his stoic staring contest with the drop tiles. Dean cards a frustrated hand through his hair, choking down the flippant one-liners all too eager to trip from his lips.
“I’m not sorry,” he says instead, because it’s the truth. He isn’t sorry. Given the chance to do it over again, he would chart the exact same course as the first go-round and not lose a wink of sleep over it.
“I’m not asking you to be sorry,” Cas says eventually, careful and deliberate, like he’s selecting his words with the utmost consideration. “I would never ask you for something I know you can’t give.”
Dean flinches as though he’s been struck.
The noise from the needle goes quiet. ! cleans, then wraps the fresh ink in studious muteness, conjuring memories of the days after, when the loop in Dean’s head was a constant, violent warring between I love you and ringing silence.
***
Neither of them breaks their stalemate on the ride back to the motel. It’s quick but fraught, and when Dean flicks his directional to make the turn, Cas braces like he’s planning to bolt before they even come to a complete stop.
“Cas, wait,” Dean relents, swinging Baby into the spot directly across from their door. Without killing the engine, he turns toward Cas on the bench, one knee bent in the space between them on the seat. “If you don’t want to talk to me right now, that’s fine. I understand. But will you just… just listen for a second, okay?”
The rigid line of Cas’ shoulders doesn’t smooth out, but he takes his hand off the door handle and puts it back in his lap, eyes stubbornly forward. Dean was only half-expecting that to work, so it takes him a beat to work out exactly what he wants to say.
More specifically, what he’s capable of articulating verbally.
There’s an entire encyclopedic archive between what Dean says and what he means, and that’s on his best day. On days like this, when all his pages feel like they’re straining urgently against their bindings, desperate to be read, to be seen, that archive is reduced to the razor-thin margin between letters on a page.
What Dean has to say here is too important to be lost in the kerning.
“I’m sorry.” Castiel’s gaze snaps to his, wary and guarded. “Not for using the spell, because I stand by that.”
“Dean--”
“I’m sorry that I let you die thinking I didn’t… That I didn’t.”
Cas inhales a sharp breath, lips parting softly in surprise.
Dean beats back a surge of anxiety, his thumb jammed into the meat of his thigh to keep himself grounded. Too many times he’s teetered on the edge of this precipice, succumbing to fear when he should’ve had faith in what he knows in his marrow to be true.
“Look, I know that this thing hasn’t always been easy,” Dean acknowledges right off the bat. “We’ve both made mistakes. Said and done worse than anyone should be asked to forgive. But that’s what family means, right? Forgiving the shit no one else possibly could?”
“Some shit shouldn’t be forgiven, Dean,” Cas mutters absently, confusion naked in his expression. “If this is meant to be an apology, might I suggest you begin elsewhere?”
Dean makes a growling sound low in his chest, frustrated that he’s already put his foot in his mouth.
“That night,” he starts again, “When Billie… You sacrificed everything just to tell me that you love me.”
Cas nods, tentative. “That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but I’m following.”
Dean’s throat aches when he swallows, shame and regret a scorching elixir. “I let you go.”
Understanding dawns on Cas’ face like sunrise, tinged in pink and steadily increasing in warmth. “You couldn’t have stopped what happened that night even if you wanted to.”
“I did, though,” Dean admits, and a little piece of the puzzle inside him lights up like he touched it. “I wanted to keep you with me, Cas.”
Turning away as though he can’t meet Dean’s eye, Cas asks, “Because I’m useful?”
It’s small and nervous, startlingly incongruous with his post-resurrection attitude thus far. Dean hesitates, only for the time it takes to berate himself for being a coward, and then he’s braving the distance between them, sliding across the seat until his knee bumps Cas’ thigh. For all the lighting around the motel lacks in security, it isn’t all that bad in the ambiance department. It spills through the window and splashes almost perfectly over one half of Cas’ face, pale yellow teasing the darker cobalt of the eye on that side into striking contrast.
Dean takes Castiel’s wide hand between both of his own, stiffly at first, until he adjusts to the weight of it, and then with more reverence. He traces a vein in Cas’ wrist with his thumb, making them both shiver.
He coughs deliberately, takes a deep breath and fixes his jaw with determination. “I want you next to me because… Because I…”
The words are there on the tip of his tongue, dangling by a thread, but they get caught somewhere between his teeth and his tastebuds, tying themselves in knots. Three more false starts and Dean’s giving genuine consideration to the idea of slamming his head in the car door, he’s so done with his own bullshit.
This isn’t supposed to be this hard.
Cas’ smile is resigned, sadness occupying the same space as Dean’s steadily growing anger.
“I said it because I needed to say it, Dean,” he explains in a quiet voice, squeezing Dean’s hands. “Not because I thought you’d say it back.”
“Why are you trying to talk me out of this?” he snaps, knowing that’s not what’s happening even as he lobs the accusation.
“If you have something you need to say to me, I’m listening,” Cas returns, annoyingly zen in the face of Dean’s ridiculousness. “As long as you understand that I never asked you for the words. I never asked for more than what you’ve already given me, Dean. Because, as I told you back at the tattoo establishment, I try not to make a habit of demanding things from you I know you’re ill-equipped to give.”
Dean drops Cas’ hand and pushes himself back to his own side of the car, offended despite himself. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“What purpose would that serve?” he asks evenly, collecting himself like he’s gearing up to leave. “You’ll inevitably get there on your own, after all. I could simply wait for the tide to turn.”
“You can be a real bastard sometimes, you know that?” Dean spits, slamming his way out of the car.
“Talk about pot meets kettle,” Cas fires back, moving to follow.
Dean rounds the bumper at the same moment Cas clears the door. He shoves it closed with more force than strictly necessary, crowding Cas back against it. “If you’d shut up for a fucking second, we’d already be done here.”
One of Castiel’s eyebrows notches high, his chin jutting out defiantly. “Really? I thought you were simply enamored with the sound of your own voice.”
Oh, that’s some bullshit.
“You’re infuriating!” Dean shouts, tossing his head back to cast it toward the sky. He forces himself to walk away, just a few steps so he can breathe without inhaling Cas with every breath. “We’re not an old married couple, we’re motor oil and fucking holy water.”
“This is revelatory?” Cas laughs, a harsh sound, more abrasive than not. “You’ve been fighting me since the moment I glued your pieces back together.”
Dean’s trembling when he bellows, “Yeah, well, maybe I’m tired of fighting!” across the parking lot.
“No you’re not,” Cas retorts with a dark laugh. “You live for the fight, Dean. It’s what makes you fearless.”
That’s at least partially true. Except Dean is usually shit-his-pants terrified, fighting just because he’s too stubborn to let it stop him.
“See, that, right there -- you gotta knock that off," he exclaims, ignoring the panicky slam of his heart against his ribs.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You got, like, love goggles or something.”
“Love goggles?” Cas asks, somehow sounding both thoroughly amused and completely bewildered.
“You love me so much you’re blind to my bullshit,” Dean accuses hysterically, feeling completely deranged. “I’m a fucking mess, Cas. In the worst possible way!
"All the stuff you said about me, about how I puke rainbows or whatever? Fine. I accept it. But you have to accept all the bad shit? It’s in here, too.”
A smile pulls up the corners of Cas’ mouth. “By ‘bad’, are you referring to the functional alcoholism?” Dean stumbles back like someone shoved him, but Cas is undeterred, taking a few slow steps forward. “Maybe you meant the deeply problematic nature of your pornography collection?”
“Hang on a sec--”
“It’s obvious to me now that, so blinding is my love for you, maybe I don't truly know you at all.”
“Cas--”
“Do you even like promiscuous sex?!”
“Alright, we’re done with you,” Dean grunts and stalks away.
Cas follows as though tethered, hovering behind Dean’s shoulder while he fights with the ancient locking mechanism on their room door. “Your predilection for cow folk -- would that be filed under ‘things Cas knows’ or ‘things Cas can’t possibly know, look at him, he’s wearing sunglasses indoors’?”
The lock finally gives and Dean ducks inside, slamming the door behind him.
“What about the undiagnosed sleep disorder,” Cas calls from the other side, loudly enough to be heard through it. “Where does that go?”