So, after much begging and demanding I've gotten the first chapter of this one out earlier than I thought I would. This story was planned for a while, but I needed a platform to launch it off and First Kiss provided that. It's not absolutely necessary to have read that before reading this, the basics will be covered, but it will help a great deal. Season six spoilers within, obviously. Also, Sera Gamble's hubris has made me very angry this week.

Disclaimer: I'm not Sera Gamble and therefore I haven't totally screwed up Castiel (who is most certainly not a redundant storyline thank you very much). I'm just borrowing the boys so that I can make it better until she screws us over again. I'll give them back later, when my fic is finished and I've fixed them enough to satisfy me a little. It will be reluctantly done but I will.

First Love.

"I'm not an angel any more. I'm your new god, a better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your lord, or I shall destroy you."

Dean listens to Castiel's words with increasing horror, sees the way that his brother's face twists with a similar concern and fear. Beside him he knows that Bobby is reacting the same way. This is not what Dean had expected to happen, but this is exactly what he had feared would happen. The power that Castiel has absorbed is too much, too tempting, and he fears that he has lost his friend entirely.

"You don't want this, Cas," he tries to reason with the angel again, even though his entire being is screaming at him to run or to fall to his knees. He has to try, however, he has to make a final attempt to get Cas back, to find awkward angel that he knows and cares about.

"You can't tell me what I want, Dean," Castiel's tone is completely calm, almost peaceful even, but Dean knows that there is an anger and resentment boiling just beneath the surface. For the first time he asks himself why he did not listen to the angel's explanations. For the first time he wonders if things would have been different had he not been so stubborn.

It is too late now, though, too late to apologise and too late to make Castiel understand.

"You're right, I can't," Dean admits, "but I'm not just saying this. It has nothing to do with you winning or losing. You were right, the souls have given you everything you needed to beat Raph. I just don't want the cost to be my friend. I'm not thinking about everyone else, Cas, I'm thinking about you."

"No, Dean, you're not," there is still that eery calm to his face, a peace that is all an illusion. "You're thinking about you. Everything has become about you and what you want, Dean. Your selfish desires and your need for all others to follow where you lead."

The resentment in his friend's voice makes all the hope in Dean shatter. His angel, his friend, his saviour is gone; replaced by a high powered being with a serious god complex. The weight of everything is now beginning to crash in on him. It is a mass of emotions and lies, betrayals and hurt feelings, love and anger and loss and agony, all starkly brilliant and all overwhelming.

He had called Castiel 'friend', called him 'family' and both sentiments were the absolute truth, but he had also called the angel 'brother' and that was the biggest lie of them all. It is true enough that Dean loves Cas, but it is most certainly not a familial love. It is a love strong enough to fulfil the promise of a kiss in breaking a curse.

It is a true love.

The very idea of feeling such a love has been terrifying to Dean since he first realised that love is not an emotion that his nomadic life can completely protect him from. His life has been one of pain and loss since the death of his mother and the thought of loving that deeply only to have it ripped away from him, as so much that he has cared about has been, is something that he has been trying to avoid for his whole life. He supposes that it should not come as a complete surprise that the one to slip into his heart that way is his friend. It is something that makes this whole transformation that much more heartbreaking.

There are words between them, three words that have been thought but remain unsaid other than when they are uttered in the dead of night when neither can hear or acknowledge them. These are words jealously guarded for fear of being hurt, kept as the deepest of secrets so that it could never be used against either party. There has been too little time to talk about what this means for them, too much uncertainty to take the risk. There is too much unspoken but too many actions taken and too little consideration for the feelings on either side.

On reflection Dean will conclude that he should have made Castiel aware of his real feelings instead of throwing words like brother and family around. Perhaps instead of threatening the angel he should have acknowledged his true fears, should have told Cas that he is so frightened of losing him it keeps him awake some nights. Instead he has hidden behind lies to protect himself, just as he always has. Still, he cannot bow down in worship of Castiel because that is not something he can believe that his friend would want. The angel he cares so much about could never want that.

"You doubt me still," Castiel says softly after a moment, the serenity back in his voice and his face once again deceptively calm. It is a lie, the image of what the angel seems to feel a god should be. "After everything you have seen today, everything that I have done for you, Dean, you still allow doubt to rule over your heart." The hunter does not trust himself to respond to that, holds his tongue rather than risk angering the volatile creature in front of him. "I can see your soul now more than ever before. I see the way that it shines and I can see your love for me there. Trust in it and kneel before me in the love and devotion befitting your lord."

"It's not you," Dean blurts, "not this you with all the juice and the evil locked in there. It's the angel that belongs to, Cas, my angel, not whatever you are now."

"I am your god," the anger is beginning to show again but Dean cannot allow himself to fear it any longer. It is time to challenge his friend properly, time to try and make him see sense.

"No you're not," he insists, grief and frustration bringing the threat of tears to his eyes. He is starting to worry that his friend really is completely lost to him, that even if Castiel relinquishes this power now he will never get the real angel back and be left with a resentful shell instead. "God's a douchebag who abandoned everyone. He doesn't need replacing because we've proved that we don't need him. You don't have to do this." He takes a step forward, wincing as cracked ribs shift and send bright sparks of pain through him. "You frighten me like this, Cas, and that's not love. Please. I'm not kidding when I say that I've lost everything I ever cared about, I can't lose you too."

"You haven't lost me," Castiel's voice is almost loving and it makes Dean shudder. "I'm still here, it's simply that you cannot see."

"You're right, Cas, I can't," he argues and he can feel Bobby tense behind him. This is getting more and more dangerous with every second that they spend arguing. Castiel slaughtered Raphael with little more than a snap of his fingers. It would take less to put an end to the objections of the Winchesters but Dean cannot stop, will not stop. "I don't even know if this is really you talking. You've got so many souls inside you, that has to influence you somehow."

Castiel raises his hand at that, fingers poised as though to snap them all into oblivion. Then he halts, tilts his head and lowers his hand. The passive calm is firmly back in place, blue eyes sedate even as blinding fire rolls behind them.

"I forgive you, Dean," Castiel says. "Out of my love for you and the friendship we once shared, I forgive you your doubts. I will give you time to consider, to arrive at the right choice on your own. Given time, I know, you will open your heart and your mind to me, your loving lord."

Dean fervently wishes that could be the case, he wishes that he could so easily fall in worship of Castiel without the feeling of wrongness behind it. That is not the case. He has no desire to trade the friend he loves so dearly for a powerful and dangerous being. As Castiel snaps his fingers and the three men appear in Bobby's front room Dean knows that this is only the first step on a very long and very dangerous road. It is a path that he will have to follow, a course he will have to stay, if he is to have any hope of saving his friend.

"Just what the hell did you do, boy?" Bobby demands of him.

It is time for the absolute truth, and it is not going to be a truth that is easily shared.

Artemis