Chapter Text
Dean pounded on the door. Fear had chased him up the stairs, away from the warm bedroom tucked up in the back of the house. He felt ridiculous, running to his little brother, but Sam was the only person who might understand.
“Dean?” Sam answered the door with a yawn.
“Sammy.”
“What’s going on?” Gabriel emerged from the direction of the bedroom wearing way less than Dean ever wanted to see him in.
“The Snorks?” Dean lifted an eyebrow at the too small t-shirt. “Seriously? Total Smurf ripoff.”
Gabriel gave him the finger which Dean accepted as his right.
“Dean. What?”
“Can we talk alone?” He glanced over at Gabriel who was still surveying him with annoyance. “Family business.”
“What? Is it Dad?” Sam asked, apparently picking up on Dean’s nerves. “Is he still lost?”
“Huh? Oh. No. Turns out that the road was haunted. Killed the ghost. They should get here right on time tomorrow.” Dean rubbed the back of his head. “It’s just....”
“Just what?” Sam’s eyes were widening. “A hunt?”
“Sam.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Cold feet. Which means you owe me twenty bucks.”
“You don’t even need money!” Sam protested. “Go back to bed.”
“Then I’ll take it out in trade!” Gabriel decreed, but he did, thankfully, vanish back into their room. Or into another dimension. One never knew with Gabriel.
“Are you really freaking out about tomorrow?” Sam flopped down onto one side of the battered sofa that once lived in their shared apartment.
The downstairs living room was equipped with an actual never before used, firsthand couch. Dean had gone to a store, sat on a hundred couches until he found one he liked, bought it and brought it home. The entire experience had an aura of surreality. In fact, the entire house with its new decent furniture, matching dollar store dish towels and sheets that had only ever known his and Castiel’s bodies was surreal. Sometimes he went out into the driveway and climbed behind the wheel of the Impala to assert some normalcy back into his life.
“I’m not freaking out.” He sat down on the other side of the couch, burying his face in his hands.
“Really?” Sam poked him in the ribs with his stupidly long monkey toes.
“I’ve got totally legitimate concerns.”
“That you had to express to me in the middle of the night, a few short hours before you get married?”
“Yes!” Dean bit off.
“I just want you to know that if you leave Cas at the altar? No one is ever going to talk to you again. Including me.”
“That’s cold.” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t do that to him. And there’s no altar.”
“Stair. Whatever. Not the point.” Sam poked him again. “What are your big concerns?”
“Quit it.” Dean smacked at Sam’s foot. “What if this doesn’t work out? What if we start hating each other?”
“Why would that happen?” Sam snorted. “You guys have been inseparable for this long. Not like you’re going to wake up in a year and find a different person or something. You know him. He knows you.”
Dean bit his lip. His gut churned. It was too cold in Sam’s apartment. Castiel always kept the heat cranked high downstairs, wrapping himself in ridiculous cardigans and blankets when Dean protested the sauna conditions. Usually that was enough for Dean to start feeling like shit. He’d sneak off and push the thermostat up again until he was sweating.
“Hello? Earth to Dean?” Sam waved a hand in front of his face.
“Mom and Dad fought a lot.” The words welled out of him and he wished as soon as they were spoken that he could shove them back down.
“What?” Sam’s hand dropped away.
“I was supposed to be asleep.” He swallowed against the hard lump in his chest. “Their bedroom was down the hall and they kept the door shut. But I heard them. And then Dad would go away. Not long. A day or two. He stopped doing that when you were born, I think. It’s blurry now.”
“I thought Mom was....” Sam trailed off. Because Mom was perfect. That’s how Dean and Dad remembered her. That’s how they talked about her. They gave Sam a perfect mother, even if she was gone. “I thought Dad was crazy about her.”
“Guess he was.” Dean shrugged. “That’s...I mean. You can love someone and still fuck it up. There’s no guarantee. If Dad could do it-”
“You’re not Dad.” Sam said firmly, no room for argument. “Not when it comes to stuff like this.”
“I could be though. It’s all there. I can feel it under my skin.” He rubbed his fingers together. “It’s Cas. I can’t make a mess of that.”
“Then don’t.” Sam put his arm around Dean’s shoulders, knocking his head against Dean’s like they were still three feet tall and scrapping in the backseat. “I’ve watched you guys be stupidly, stomach turningly in love forever. Even at your sleaziest worst, Cas still thinks you’re a hero. And even when he’s being a pretentious bossy little shit, you look at him like he’s the messiah. “
“I’m telling him you called him that.”
“Go ahead.” Sam rolled his eyes.
“What about Gabriel?”
“What about him?”
“He going to make an honest man out of you one of these days?” Dean asked. “Cause I was hoping you’d be able to wear a white dress, but I’m guessing he’s already put his Snorkle in your virtue.”
“Fuck you.” Sam pushed him off the couch, but he laughed along with Dean and wound up on the floor beside him. “Hey. You want to sleep up here tonight? Not see the bride. Heard that’s tradition.”
“Nah. Tradition sucks and the couch is lumpy.” Dean glanced at Sam’s flushed face. “Seriously though. You and him...you’re ok?”
“Yeah.” Sam shrugged. “We’re not the getting married kind, I think. But we’re good.”
“Good.”
“If you’re not staying, you should go.” Sam cracked a yawn. “Got to look all pretty tomorrow for the photos.”
“Shut your face.” But Dean rolled over enough to give Sam a one armed hug, then pushed off the floor.
The walk back down the stairs was far calmer than his tense flight upwards. The refrigerator hummed as he entered the kitchen. Castiel sat at the table with a full glass of water in front of him. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the light.
“Hey.” Dean stood behind him, settled his hands over Castiel’s rounded shoulders. “Sorry, did I wake you getting up?”
“No.” Castiel sighed, leaning his head back to pillow on Dean’s stomach. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Cold feet?” Dean asked, the lump in his chest reforming.
“Not the way you mean. I’m nervous, but that doesn’t make me less certain.”
Even in the dark, Dean could make out pale irises and the sincere straight line of Castiel’s lips. If all the world were to plummet into darkness, Dean thought he’d still know Castiel’s body under his, each square inch familiar to his fingertips, nose and mouth.
“I love you.” Dean told him. He had said it before, but never like this. Never in the quiet of their own home, without danger or fear pushing it out of him. Without sex making everything easier and unclouded. Just the words settled between them, certain and unremarkable.
“Love you too.” Castiel’s lips broke their steady line to curl into the smile that Dean had grown used to seeing there since Castiel fell.
They didn’t go back to bed right away. Dean sat down beside him at the table, sharing the glass of water between them. The square of light from the window slid away before they finally rose and went down the hall.
The morning was pure chaos. Dean woke to an empty bed, a knotted stomach and the commotion of too many voices in their house.
“Boy, what are you still doing asleep?” John barked from the doorway and every well trained fiber in Dean’s body jumped. He was on his feet, knife in hand before he could register that there was no emergency and no early morning drills to be run.
“Shit.” He coughed and rubbed the grit from his eyes.
“Heh.” John shook his head, a grin lurking at the corner of his mouth. “Still got it.”
“Fire!” Sam shouted from the kitchen. “Cas, where the hell is the fire extinguisher?”
“Under the sink!” Dean yelled back.
“Nice boxers.” Adam smirked, looking over John’s shoulder. “What are those things?”
Dean looked down at himself and groaned.
“Snorks. Son of a bitch. GABRIEL!”
By the time Bobby, Ellen, Ash and Jo showed up, the entire house had taken on the tone of a barely controlled riot.
“You, shower.” Ellen ordered, pointing to Dean. “The rest of you, kitchen. This is a wedding, not an exorcism!”
“Yes, m’am.” Sam said sullenly, something that might have been cake batter dripping off his nose.
Dean slunk off to the shower. He found Castiel already in the steam filled bathroom, a towel slung loosely around his waist.
“Hey.” Dean dropped a kiss onto Castiel’s shoulder. “You ok?”
“Mmhm.” Castiel studied himself in the mirror.
“Getting vain on me, princess?” Dean jerked on the hot water.
“Should I shave?” Castiel asked, instead of rising to the jibe.
“If you want.” Dean glanced over his shoulder, taking in the fine stubble over Castiel’s jaw and the mussed state of your hair. “I like you scruffy. Reminds me of when we were kids.”
“I didn’t have stubble then.” Castiel scratched idly at his chin.
“Nah, but you always looked a little messy.”
The shower was warm enough now, so Dean ducked under the spray. Castiel clicked on the radio as he left, filling the small room with the exuberant shouts of the oldies station,
Do you love me? Are you in the mood?
Do you love me? Are you in the groove?
Do you love me? Now that I can dance...
“Aw, c’mon! Don’t I deserve some Led today?” Dean bitched, but wound up singing along. He brushed his teeth, ran a comb over his head and shaved.
They’d debated wearing suits, but the idea of dressing in his FBI special for his own wedding turned Dean’s stomach. In the end, they’d agreed to wear new, but comfortable everyday stuff thus ending the longest conversation Dean had ever had about an outfit.
“You can’t just wear jeans and a t-shirt.” Sam had protested when he’d heard the outcome.
“Watch me, bitch.”
“...fine. But at least they should be decent.”
So Sam had dragged him out of Walmart and to a local mall. The jeans were a dark wash and Sam managed to argue him into a dark green button down shirt. Dean put it on now with a frown, then rolled up the sleeves over his forearms.
“You ready?” Bobby ducked his head around the door. “Everyone’s just waiting on you, boy.”
“Yeah, guess I am.” Dean toed into his boots, tying them up.
“Good, cause I saw your boy heading behind the woodshed with Ash. Sooner we roust them out of there the better.”
The house had a generous back porch with a few steps leading down into a small, but serviceable backyard. The handful of remaining Winchesters, Balthazar, Gabriel, Ellen, Jo and Ash stood a few feet back from the steps. Some enterprising soul had wound white ribbon around the banisters as the sole decoration for the day.
There was no aisle to walk down. Castiel was already standing on the bottom stair. He wore a ridiculous loose baby blue shirt that could have hung proudly in any hippie’s wardrobe and a new pair of khakis that he’d already managed to wrinkle. When Dean emerged from inside, Castiel looked up with a relaxed grin. Dean joined him, aware that he was smiling back like a loon. Then he caught a whiff of something pungent.
“Are you high?” He whispered urgently.
“No.” Castiel blinked once slowly. “Just one toke. Enough to calm down.”
“I can’t believe you got stoned for our wedding.” He groaned.
“Your breath smells like whiskey.” Castiel’s grin didn’t dim. “Shot from Bobby’s flask?”
“Totally different. That’s medicinal.”
“You boys ready to get this started?’ Bobby had taken his hat off for the occasion, tucking it in his back pocket.
“Sure thing.” Dean stood a little straighter.
“If I might interrupt.” A woman spoke, soft and infinitely kind.
She emerged through the kitchen, coming to stand next to Bobby on the step above them. Her hair was long, mostly a deep red with thick streaks of silver twining through. The lines in her face were many and her lips little more than pale lines. Yet her eyes were youthful, wide blue things that rivaled Castiel’s for luminosity. She wore a thin sundress in faded purple tie dye and her feet were bare.
“Brigit.” Dean breathed out ragged. When they’d last met he’d thought she was just an odd psychic, but he knew Castiel put stock in her being far more. “Hi.”
“Hello, Dean.” Her smile was a brilliant wide thing, all her teeth neat even pearls in the crumpled fabric of her face.
“Everyone,” Dean waved at the crowd behind him, unable to take his eyes from her hers, “this is Brigit. Brigit, this is...everyone. Especially Castiel.”
“Hello.” Castiel stared at her as well. “I...thank you.”
“What for?” She reached out and stroked a hand through Castiel’s hair, sending it into dishevelment. “Child, you did it all yourself.”
“Nice to meet you, m’am.” Bobby inclined his head. “But we were just about to be getting on with something.”
“I know it.” She turned her smile on Bobby, who flushed and shuffled his feet. “Robert Singer, I ask only for a momentary indulgence. Would you allow me to bless this couple?”
“Sure. Yeah.” He took a step backwards, ceding her the stage such as it was.
“Children,” She lay her hands on their heads and something cool poured over Dean’s scalp, fresh water without a trace of moisture, “There are many roads left for you to travel, but as long as you walk them together no evil can truly touch you. If you are seperated, may you always find your way back to each other with ready words of forgiveness on your lips. ”
Dean’s eyelids had slid shut without his permission. The water poured over his whole body, leached into his skin, beat through his veins and settled into his bones. When he opened his eyes again, Brigit was gone and Castiel stared back at him with wide-eyed bemusement.
“What just happened?” It was John who asked, rough into the silence that had fallen over the crowd.
“You can throw out Shakespeare's 130.” Gabriel looked a little dazed himself. “Because you just saw a goddess go.”
“Right.” Bobby rolled his shoulders forward. “We going to do this or not?”
After Brigit’s blessing, the rest of the affair should have been only a blur, but Dean remembered every second of it with bright clarity for the rest of his life. The ceremony was a mess of traditions, mostly cooked up by Bobby and sounding more like a safehouse built of words than a wedding. He reached the end before long then and then got to the important part,
“Do you take this man to spend the rest of your life with, angel?” Boddy asked at last, shutting the book he held with a soft thump. “I’d advise you to give it a moment’s thought.”
“I do.” Castiel took Dean’s hand. The ring wasn’t special or engraved, just a band of plain white gold plucked from a row of them in some forgotten chain store. It sat on his finger where his father’s ring once did.
“And do you Dean want to spend the rest of your life with this angel?”
Dean’s face hurt from smiling,
“I do.”
“Right. I pronounce you married then.” Bobby clapped them both on the back. “Kiss if you gotta.”
“Oh, I definitely fucking gotta.” Dean drew Castiel in and kissed him hard, dipping him backwards a little. When he pulled away, Castiel was smiling that old, angelic smile. The one that suggested he had secrets older than time and would give them all to Dean if he asked.
“Dean.” Castiel said once, deep and sure.
“Cas.” Dean leaned forward and kissed him again because he just had to. Then the world erupted in confetti, brilliant silver and blue gathering in their hair and piling up over their shoulders.
“Little applause for the horribly happy couple?” Gabriel suggested and a ragged cheer went up.
A cold beer was pressed into Dean’s hand and Sam’s arms went around him, then Ellen’s then Jo’s. He took sips from the can as he moved between them all and when he was finished, standing next to Cas again, another can replaced it.
They drank until the sunset and Ellen, weaving only a little, got up to boss Ash around the grill. Thick steaks, baked potatoes and hot slices of apple pie on flimsy paper plates were consumed sitting amid the confetti. No one danced, but there was a lot of laughter. One by one the guests trickled away, taking cars to hotels or taking wing to Heaven.
“You gonna clean any of this up?” Dean asked, pointing the neck of his bottle at Gabriel.
“Why would I do that?”
Sam leaned down and whispered something in Gabriel’s ear. The smirk that crossed those lips raised Dean’s hackles.
“As you wish.” Gabriel said with a laugh and a snap. The yard turned from disaster area to pristine green under the carpet of stars. “C’mon, kid. Let’s give the happy couple some space to honeymoon.”
They both disappeared in a burst of confetti.
“Son of a bitch.” Dean jumped up to brush the renewed dosing of silver dots off his shirt.
“Sit down.” Castiel commanded.
“You’re not the boss of me.” Dean told him, even as he sat down beside Castiel on the steps. “Can I ask you something?”
“You’ve never asked permission before. Should I be worried?”
“Nah. I just...you said last night you were nervous. Then today with the weed, I have to figure you were pretty fucked up to do that....why?”
Castiel took a long sip of beer then set the bottle aside. He leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the stars for a long time. Dean understood that kind of silence. He had been practicing it his whole life. He waited, following Castiel’s gaze and watching the stars emerge from the darkness, one by one.
“I don’t have a father or a mother.” Was what Castiel said when the quiet between them had matured into anticipation. “God created me, but what followed wasn’t what anyone would call parenting. Angels don’t need guidance. They take orders.”
“Which worked out swimmingly well for everyone.” Dean snorted.
“Not the point.” Castiel took Dean’s hand in his, pressing their palms together until their rings clicked dully against each other. “The point is that you changed all of it. Not Gabriel though he threw me in your path. It was you. You were my son, my brother, my father, my best friend. You shared what little you had with me. You trusted me with Sam.
“I was nervous because sometimes, I wonder,how I can ask more of you.” Castiel shrugged. “I was nervous because I’m not always I’m worthy of it.”
“Funny.” Dean used their joined hands to bring Castiel closer. He kissed the firm line of his jaw and the arch of his cheekbone. “I was kind of thinking the same thing. Different details.”
“We’ll just have to prove each other wrong then.” Castiel decided, turning his face in for another kiss.
“Hold on.” Dean said with a laugh. “Something in your hair.”
“Just leave the confetti-”
“Not paper.” It was a long blade of grass, wide and a little sticky. He had to tug at it a bit to free it from Castiel’s mussed hair. “That’s what you get for trying to arm wrestle Bobby for the last piece of pie.”
“He’s an unexpectedly tough foe.” Castiel plucked the grass from Dean’s hand. “Want to see something cool?”
“Yeah,” Dean had a feeling he knew what was coming, “show me.”
Castiel brought the grass to his lips and blew. The whistle pierced the air.
“Awesome.” Dean laughed. “Guess that means you need me, right?”
“Only a little.” Castiel agreed, standing up with a back cracking stretch. “You edge out air and food by the barest margin.”
“C’mon, Cas.” The blood and liquor rushed to Dean’s head as he stood. He staggered as he headed in towards the house, dizzy and a little delirious. “Let’s get this consummation thing started.”
“Yes, Dean.” Castiel put a hand to the small of Dean’s back and propelled them both inside.
Outside, far and away in the night, there were monsters, angels and demons. The innocent suffered, the meek ran out of patience waiting for their inheritance and children told each other stories about the things in their closets. Sammy was alone with a capricious god that could murder him on a whim. Dad was traveling with something that was his son or Satan or both. Somewhere someone was thinking of a way to make the world burn.
For once, Dean didn’t spare any of them a thought. Their bedroom was warm and dark. Their bed smelled of grass, motor oil and freshly baked bread. Castiel spread out beneath him as vast and wild as a winding highway through undiscovered country.
The world could wait until tomorrow. Tonight was for them.