Title: Your Soul is Beautiful
Author: apokteino
Rating: R
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Genre: drama, angst, hurt/comfort
Spoilers: up to season five
Warnings: attempted suicide, thoughts of suicide, character death (not Dean or Castiel)
Word Count: 6,200
Summary: Dean and Castiel meet in a different way, pre-series.
A/N: I tweaked certain ages and facts in this story, but I don't think it's too confusing.

Feedback is loved!

Dean's sitting in his car, hands on the wheel, like he's about to set her loose and go, but instead he does nothing. He sits and stares out into the darkness, pitch black save for a sliver of moon, on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, some bare trees reaching for the sky here and there, but mostly, there's just weeds and nothing. Nothing and nothing, Dean breathing fast, and isn't that fitting?

Sam is gone, and Dad doesn't even want to look at him, he's such a complete fuck-up. So basically, yeah, nothing. That's what Dean has. That's what Dean is.

Dad always kept a Glock under the seat. Kind of dangerous, an easy place to look if the cops ever pulled him over, but hell, what was in the trunk was a lot worse, false bottom aside, so Dad called it insurance and drove the speed limit. Dean's kept up on it, figures what worked for his father for almost twenty years should work for him just fine. So he reaches down and takes the gun out of its hiding place, feels the groove along the side, the slight bumps to ease a normal grip, forefinger flat and not curled into the trigger. He stares at it for long moments, lean lines of light reflecting off the edges as he moves it, finger curling inwards, settling against the trigger.

Then he turns it towards himself, wrist vaguely protesting, looking down the barrel, but this isn't for inspection, for cleaning. It's loaded.

He has a sudden thought of the mess he's going to leave behind, blood and brain matter splattered all over his baby. Dad gave him this car when he turned eighteen, went and got the truck and made that his own, the Impala used for driving Sam to school, then letting Sam go away, so he wouldn't have to hitch a ride to the bus station, acceptance letter in hand, glassy stare that never met Dean's eyes.

Fuck it. She's his, now, might as well leave one last indelible mark.

He places the gun under his chin, and there's a quiet click.

Then there's a hand over his, impossibly strong and Dean resists for a second, but the dark figure that's suddenly appeared to his right plucks it out of his hand with all the difficulty of an adult taking candy from a baby. (Not that babies aren't damn hard at clutching, when it comes to it.)

Dean jumps about a mile. "Jesus fucking Christ!" He flails, trying to grab for the gun, but the stranger calmly tosses it out the window, and Dean's left staring and panting, dimly seeing sharply inclined cheekbones, the dark patch of an eye socket.

The thing frowns. "Jesus did not have intercourse with himself."

"You didn't open the door," Dean states blankly.

"No," the thing says calmly.

"What are you?" Dean can't think of anything that would save someone else's life that can do that. Unless the thing wants to take Dean for himself. Not waiting for an answer, he tries the door, but it won't budge, and after a second of panicked breathing, Dean stills. "Gonna answer the question?"

"I don't find it relevant," the stranger replies. "You may call me Cas -" And he stops. "Cas," he repeats. He leans forward, tilting his head, a scant two feet from Dean. "Why did you try to harm yourself?"

"Why did you stop me, asshole?"

"You do not deserve to die."

"And you would know that how?" Think that how, if he knows Dean at all.

He sees a glint of blue - blue eyes, intense and piercing and strangely inhuman, considering. The figure seems to solidify to Dean's eyes, become a man in a trenchcoat, staring at Dean. "Your soul is beautiful."

Dean blinks, and he's looking at empty space.

"Fuck."

It's a pukwudgie (all Dean think of is wedgie monster) next. Dean kind of wants to take the motherfucker out while he goes, but can't seem to think of a way to accomplish that, so he's not actually trying to die when the thing almost throws Dean over a cliff in the dead of a night in a place no one on God's green earth should know Dean to be.

Cas is there, hand clasped in Dean's, pulling him from the edge. Literally, this time.

When Dean stumbling but on his feet, he lets go, turns and moves two feet to the left, and touches the giant pukwudgie - seven feet tall with gray skin, luring victims into the woods with balls of light - and it disintegrates. Cas stands there for a second, staring at it.

"What the fuck?" Dean shouts, reaction weirdly delayed.

Cas turns to him, frowning, and Dean can see his face more clearly this time. Angular, those same intense blue eyes, full lips, an ordinary nose. He certainly looks human, 'cept for all the inhuman things like making Dean's gun magically not fire (he'd checked; it should have fired) and the whole appearing/disappearing disintegrating monsters thing.

"You going to disappear again?" Dean asks, pulling himself together.

"You are safe," Cas observes. (No clue on the name; Dean's looked high and wide, with a diligence that would've made Sam proud.)

Dean takes the gun he didn't manage to use out of his waistband, and points the barrel under his chin.

Cas flickers - that's all Dean can think of to describe it - and is there, snatching it away, actually looking angry this time. "Don't do that."

"Why? Why? I killed my little brother, Cas!" Dean's fingers ache, the gun ripped from them with such force.

"No, you didn't," Cas says. He reaches out, touches Dean's forehead, and suddenly they're somewhere else. It looks bizarrely unfamiliar for a long second, then he realizes it's his hotel room, cast in the darkness, the plastic bull horns above the full bed looking like something out of Aliens.

Dean sinks onto the lumpy bed, slowly, never taking his eyes from Cas. From the thing that seems determined to save him. "Yeah, I did," he croaks, throat hurting.

Cas's fingers twitch for a long moment, then he moves forward, taking even steps closer, Dean watching and tensing, before he settles next to Dean on the bed. Cas begins, quietly, "You are beautiful, strong, and worthy of love."

"What are you - what."

Cas shifts to face him fully, places one hand on the side of Dean's face, and Dean flinches back, 'cause whoa, creepy inappropriate touching. Cas just follows the flinch, effortless, and he says, "Yes."

Somehow, suddenly, a surge of peace and calm works through Dean, utterly alien to a mind that's known little like it in years of taking care of Sammy and hunting and trying to prove himself to Dad and fucking up. He tries to fight it for one long second, then gives in completely, tenseness oozing out of his muscles, and he slumps over onto Cas, who awkwardly grips him, then lays him down like a child, careful and sure.

Cas carefully moves him, even - God, is he plumping Dean's pillow? - and for some odd reason, the bed seems more comfortable than it should. Cas lays next to Dean, shifts an arm under Dean's head, and the calmness that had seemed for an instance to be easing off returns, powerful and external.

Dean falls asleep.

He wakes up lying on his side, body comfortable in that way where you never want to get up, and he lazily opens his eyes.

Cas is there, eyes closed. Dean realizes he can still feel Cas's arm under Dean's pillow, but otherwise they aren't touching. Dean knows he should be reacting, going for a gun, doing something other than lying half-in the arms of something he knows for a fact isn't human. Instead, he does nothing. He waits, and after a few second Cas's eyes flutter open.

"I was not asleep," he apparently feels compelled to inform Dean.

"Wasn't asking," Dean retorts.

Cas's eyes crinkle, and he gives an odd, awkward half-smile, like his face isn't accustomed to moving that way. "I believe 'good morning' is customary."

"Usually it's fucking, when two people sleep in the same bed," Dean replies, and then winces.

Cas does not reply, but looks vaguely confused by the remark.

"Cas isn't your name, is it?" Dean asks, still not moving, still feeling the same calmness from the night before, and selfishly, he wants it to last.

"Castiel," Cas replies after a second.

Dean doesn't recognize it. "Huh."

They stare at each other. "I'm glad you rested," Cas - Castiel says. Then he disappears, the warm weight beneath Dean's pillow vanishing.

Dean sits up, and realizes that at some time during the night, Cas-Castiel replaced the bed with one that could've been from a four-star hotel, mattress plump and full and firm and sheets 600 Egyptian count, no question.

He debates taking the sheets with him and finding some place to stuff them in the car, decides he's being girly and scratchy motel sheets have always been fine before, then gets up and showers.

As the water pours over him, it occurs to him that the violation of his emotions should piss him off, but it doesn't. The relief, even as brief as it was, the old emotions rising as the smell of Cas fades, had been ... good.

He does not call Dad.

He hasn't spoken to Dad since, well, since. Let's leave it at that.

He looks up the name Castiel. Castiel, angel of Thursday, supposedly looks after travelers. He finds it strange a supernatural creature would name itself after an angel, and the thought Castiel might actually be, you know, Castiel was just too weird to contemplate. Nevertheless, he contemplates it. Dean is, you could say, a traveler. Frequently, actually, though not born on a Thursday. But angels aren't real - there's no such thing, no hunter's ever seen one. Demons, yes, angels, no. Though he supposes if you were going to be technical and asking Pastor Jim, if one exists, so must the other.

Dean quickly gets a headache, and starts looking for the next hunt instead of analyzing the really fucking weird.

Click, click, click.

The noise is faintly familiar, but Dean can't think about that right now. It's the click of claws, lightly sounding on the road. It's night, because this one appears only at night, and, well, Dean's armed, might as well not get himself arrested by waving a weapon in broad daylight.

The deaths were spaced out over months, and Dean figures the black dog was initially attached to a witch as a familiar, and then got loose somehow, because the deaths are so recent but the tale goes back a significant amount of time. A quick run to the library and he's here, thinking about the black dog, looking around, thinking about the black dog and nothing else at all. Really.

Dean holds his breath for a long second, waiting again for the sound.

Click.

Like it's right behind. He whirls, and it's there, and it slashes into his chest. Dean cries out, pain flaring, but he keeps his grip on his gun and fires, and fires, bright flashes of light in the remote dark.

It wails for a long second as it dies, lying on its side and looking like nothing more than a Labrador with black hair, before it kind of twists in on itself and turns to dust, flashes of red on its claws fading as it does.

Dean thinks, Cas, and collapses.

He's warm and he's not hurting. He's lying on his back, and he can hear someone breathing near him, even inhales and exhales, matching his own. He stops breathing for a second, and so does his companion; he opens his eyes, and of course it's Cas, head propped up on one hand, blue eyes intently meeting Dean's. They're in Dean's hotel room, on the single queen bed, garish red lighting from the sixties lighting Cas's face weirdly, making him seem alien. Unlike before, he doesn't feel the same calm. He feels calm, but it's not complete, and he guesses Cas eased up on the effect.

"Hello," Cas says, serene.

"Hey," Dean replies, suddenly at a loss for words. So he blurts, "Are you really an angel?"

Cas's expression does not change. "Yes."

"Then why did you let my brother die?" It comes out plaintive, and Dean didn't want that. He wants to be pissed, furious, but he can't summon the emotion. Instead, it's just sadness and grief, and he stares at Cas, looking, looking.

"It wasn't my decision to make," Cas answers carefully, face softening somehow.

"That's not enough," Dean snaps.

"No," and Cas looks sad. "I suppose it isn't."

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but it doesn't come out.

Instead, he rolls over, Cas to his back, and he shouldn't expose himself this way but he can't help himself, because it's coming, and coming, like the times before. Grief and regret fall like a torrent, and there's no Cas there now, just the feeling, overwhelming, and Dean wishes he had his gun in his hand so he could try, at least, even if Cas stopped him. He curls into a ball, arms around his knees, and tries to hold on.

He starts at a gentle touch to his back, breath hitching from sobs, and the touch transforms into a hand on his shoulder, not rubbing, not doing anything like how a human would comfort another, just being there, a presence.

The emotions are wrenched out of Dean for an indeterminable amount of time before they stop, Cas's hand a heavy weight.

"It's not enough," Dean repeats hoarsely, wiping his face, fingers wet.

"Then what is?" Cas asks, and the tone to his voice suggests it's an honest question, one asking for an answer.

"Nothing. I failed them, Cas, and that's all I've ever been worth, to be useful to my family." He failed his one task.

"You are more than an extension of them," Cas answers, voice rough.

Dean turns over to face him. "This isn't about that," he says. It's so much more complicated.

Cas frowns, the expression twisting his face into something more human, more feeling than that sea of calm he usually sees. "Some things are meant to happen," Cas says at last. "Your death is not one of them, not yet."

Dean sits up, staring at this thing, this thing with so much power. "What if I want to make a trade?"

Cas's eyes narrow, as if he's insulted. "I'm not a demon, Dean. I don't make deals." He blinks for a long second, then adds, "I am here for you, not him."

But, Dean thinks. What about my brother? "Then why do you give a fuck? I mean, you don't do shit to help humanity, no one but total lunatics has ever seen angels, and somehow I don't think you've been carefully picking out people in mental hospitals to speak to!" It starts even, ends harsh.

"We have no orders to act," Cas says. "So we do nothing."

"That - this - " he lifts his shirt, bloody and stained, but the skin beneath is unmarked, "then what is this?"

Cas's eyes flicker down, before running up Dean's body to his face. "I acted without orders."

"Why?"

"Because your soul is beautiful, and I wished to save you."

"Simple as that?"

"Yes. I - that we don't act makes me doubt. You make me doubt - why shouldn't I help you? You deserved to be saved from yourself." Cas's gaze flickers from point to point on Dean's face, studying, analyzing. Dean has no idea what he sees.

"And my brother wasn't deserving?"

"It was his time. Not yours, and I cannot bring him back."

Dean snorts and gets up. "Yeah, right."

Cas looks suspicious for a second, before his expression clears and he says, "I'm not lying."

"Didn't say you were," though obviously angels appear to lunatics because they're lunatics themselves. Dean's a good person? A supposed angel thinks Dean is a good person? "Seriously. Are you really an angel?"

"You may give me any test you like," Cas says. He sits up as well, trenchcoat wrinkled, making no effort to look presentable. "I will not react like any monster you have ever seen. Salt does nothing to me, holy water is merely holy, and the marks you know do nothing to prevent my entry anywhere I wish to go."

For some reason, Dean has the sudden feeling he does not want to put Cas to the test. He chooses not to examine why. "Did you hear me?" he asks finally.

"I heard your prayer to me, yes."

"I didn't pray," Dean snaps. "I was doing just fine."

Cas looks at him mildly without answering.

"Well, whatever," Dean blusters on. "Why did you even come?"

"Is your self-worth so low that you do not think you deserve to be saved?" Cas tilts his head, looking honestly puzzled.

"Oh, spare me your psychobabble," Dean says, but it's without heat. He gets up, rubs his face, looks back at Cas, still sitting on the bed. "So, are you going to leave?" he prompts, not sure what answer Cas will give.

"I will always hear you," Cas says, and disappears.

I will always hear you. What the fuck does that mean, anyway? That he'll hear when Dean talks to him? How does that even work? Even psychics can't do that. But, well, Cas obviously is a hell of a lot more than a psychic. He runs a hand over his stomach. No scars, not even a twinge of pain, and he lets out a breath suddenly, and drops his hand to his side.

It doesn t matter. His brother is still dead, it's still Dean's fault. Nothing has changed, not really. Cas obviously won't let Dean die, but that doesn't mean Dean has to live.

He lying in bed, very, very carefully thinking about nothing, limbs heavy, when there's a rustle, a shift in the air. It occurs to Dean this is the first time he's heard Cas appear. He opens his eyes to a stained ceiling, then moves his gaze to Cas, who is standing near the dark television set. He glances around the room before settling on Dean, walking forward to the bed.

"Do all angels wear trenchcoats?" Dean asks inanely, not able to summon the energy for anything more.

Cas looks down at what he's wearing, hands awkwardly grasping and then letting go. "I copied the first thing I saw a human wearing. Is this not appropriate?"

"Well, I guess you're not naked."

Cas's eyes move up. "I know what happened to your brother, Dean, and you were not at fault."

"He shouldn't have been on a hunt, he had no training," Dean whispers. "Of course it's my fault."

Step forward, and he's suddenly kneeling on the bed, watching Dean carefully. "He came of his own free will, against the orders of your father. You tried to protect him from his own ignorance and youthful pride while trying to end the hunt."

"Adam's still dead," Dean replies dully, staring the garish bedspread. "And how do you know what happened, anyway?"

"I can see the past, when I wish. He's in heaven, Dean. I checked."

"You think that helps?" Except it does, in a weird way. Assuming Cas is who he says he is. Blue eyes blink in response, and Dean adds, "Can't you go and save him? Bring him back?"

"No, Dean, I'm sorry."

"But you helped me." Dean states it flatly.

"I had no orders against interfering in your case," Cas says. "There is a standing order not to interfere in the matters of reapers."

"So if you had orders to let me die, you would?"

Cas's mouth opens and closes, and for the first time, the serene facade cracks. "I - I'm not sure." He blinks rapidly this time, says, "My actions have ... confused my family."

Dean half-smiles. "I've destroyed mine."

"You think that?"

"I know that."

"I can remain unseen, if I wish," Cas begins, hesitantly. "I visited your father. He is searching for you, and I see nothing but grief in him."

"Looking for me?" Dean snorts. "If Dad wanted to find me, he would."

"I did not think you wanted to be found. And such a confrontation, it seemed to me, would only cause you harm - I didn't know what he would do, not for certain." Cas is looking away, breaking that intense stare, and Dean realizes it's shades of guilt he sees.

Dean inhales sharply. Cas has been hiding him? "You should have told me that."

"Should I let him find you?"

Dean chokes. "No."

Cas just nods, and waits.

Dean raises his hand to his throat, where it is suddenly tight and hurting. Dad - Dad is searching for him. He's angry, Dean doesn't doubt that, when Dean ran away as soon as the doctor told them Adam didn't make it. Adam - he was so young, younger than Sam. Dean was shocked to learn he had another brother, one not trained in the life. He didn't even get the chance to ask Dad why, why he didn't, when he took Dean and Sammy's childhood, he left Adam's intact.

Not that ignorance saved Adam.

Dean closes his eyes, doesn't feel the heavy weight on his chest lift. He shifts his attention to Cas. Cas is watching him back, staring at Dean as if he trying to figure out some mystery.

"Your father did not train him as he did you," Cas says. "Perhaps that is his failing, if there is any failing in your brother's death."

Dean shakes his head, breathing oddly. "Leave me alone."

Cas is gone, Dean shaking.

Dean hunts.

The silence and inactivity of before grate, now. The urge to hunt has returned, to save others even if he couldn't save Adam. He sees Cas in his mind, Cas's complete faith in him, if that's what it could be called. He sees it and sees it, and can't unsee it. It won't stop, Cas there.

He crisscrosses most of the mid-west, taking out a ghost here, a monster there. He lives in the car. He doesn't feel up to hustling, so he picks the pockets of jerks he finds for food and gas. He figures they can spare the money. He's like this, pulled over far to the side of the road, night falling, when he hears that familiar rustle.

Dean doesn't look over, but he doesn't protest, either.

Instead, he drifts off to sleep.

Dean opens his eyes. "I should be trying to kill you."

"Why?" Cas, in the passenger seat, tilts his head. It's almost adorable, like a confused bird. Dean decides not to say that out loud.

"Because you're obviously not human."

"Am I evil for only that?"

Dean slumps even further, closes his eyes again to the sunrise. Dad would probably say yes. "I guess not. Don't you have anything better to do than babysit me?"

"I choose to do this."

"I'm not worth it," Dean says with complete honesty.

"I say you are."

"Even with no orders to tell you so?" Dean gives him a hard look.

Cas doesn't hesitate. "Yes."

And so Cas comes, without orders, to Dean's side. Dean doesn't ask, but Cas sometimes talks into the silences Dean leaves, stories of how beautiful heaven is, what angels are like, the battles that have been waged between angels and demons. He even talks, briefly, about Lucifer. Dean isn't sure he believes it, but he knows he wants to believe it, because the person Cas speaks through, the point of view he holds when he tells Dean's these things, all say that Cas is real. That what he says is true.

And so Dean wants to believe.

Cas pops in at least once a week, sometimes more than that, especially when Dean chooses dangerous hunts. Cas doesn't always have to save him, but he often hovers just out of sight, making the hotel lights flicker, until Dean tells him to just show up and stop burning out all the light bulbs. Granted, Dean uses false names and doesn't actually pay for the damages, but it's the principle of the thing.

Surprisingly, Cas doesn't take over the hunts. So far, he's been able to kill anything Dean's set him against, but he seems to know that Dean doesn't appreciate the interference unless it's really necessary.

Cas never leaves without telling Dean beforehand. He always comes when Dean calls, even if it's just to have someone else in the room, breathing.

Cas stays.

The TV's on, but muted, so lights flash across Cas's face in interesting ways as they sit there in silence. There's two double beds, though Cas was insistent he didn't need one, not requiring sleep or any kind of rest. Seeing Cas stand or sit all night makes Dean feel inexplicably guilty, though, so he ignores those kinds of comments whenever Cas makes them, and eventually Cas stops making them, a tiny smile appearing when he sees two beds.

It's almost like a ritual, established like stone in months, Dean alone and all the other traveled roads abandoned, Sam and Dad gone.

Dean puts down the remote without un-muting the television. "What is it about me you find so interesting? I mean, what you made stop me to begin with?"

Cas tilts his head in that familiar way. "Your soul, as I said, though now I don't think it was just that. I don't know. You just are, to me, like no being I have ever known. I have watched much of your history, the good you do for others. I - admire it."

The words soothe something deep in Dean he didn't know was there, and his breathing hitches for a second. Cas is turning him into a girl. "Really?" and that's not what he intended to say at all.

Cas nods. "Yes." Unequivocal.

Dean isn't sure how he feels about that, so he says, "Um, okay." He represses the sad smile that wants to come.

Dean sits in the car, flashlight held in his mouth so he can see the map spread across his legs. It'd had taken him some time, Cas a silent presence nearby, to figure out just what was causing the deaths. There'd been reports of some of the victims adopting or playing with random animals, and that was what led Dean to the Jumbie, a shadow-figure. Breaking the bond of the Jumbie to its victims kills it, so a direct confrontation isn't strictly necessary, instead all the victims need to be blessed.

Fortunately, this Jumbie is new, or Dean would have a hell of time tracking them all down, and would have to resort to a temporary binding.

He doesn't ask Cas if he can kill it. He doesn't want to find out if the answer is no, if Cas is, well, Dean isn't going to go there. Cas just is.

He looks up, takes the flashlight out of his mouth, notes it's really getting dark now, the sun beneath the horizon. "You ready?" he asks Cas.

"Always," is Cas's steady answer.

It's a small town, with a small cemetery. Dean stays lookout for the most part, letting Cas do a lot of the digging - Cas doesn't tire, after all, and Dean's given up some of his posturing in the few months he's known Cas. Cas doesn't look down on him for being less physically strong, or anything else.

Still, it takes both of them by surprise with the Jumbie appears and swipes at Dean, a dark shadow in the night, light bending around it, clawing him badly. Pain overwhelms Dean, black spots dancing in front of his eyes, and the ground suddenly tilts to meet him. He dimly sees a flash of light, and has a moment of panic for Cas, a moment of fear, and then Cas is there, standing over him, falling to his knees.

He sees a man behind Cas, an old man in a suit, pale wrinkled skin and alien eyes.

There's a gentle touch to Dean's forehead, and the man wavers and disappears as the pain does. Dean suddenly gasps, and that's when he realizes he wasn't breathing.

Cas makes a small, hurt sound. "Dean."

"I'm okay," Dean says hoarsely. He glances down, sees a lot of blood, but he knows there's nothing beneath it, the mark of Cas's power. "I'm okay," he says again to the lingering fear in Cas's eyes.

Cas lets go of him, glances over his shoulder before helping Dean to his feet. "Who was that?" Dean asks.

"What?" Cas looks puzzled.

"The old man in the suit who disappeared."

Cas freezes for a long second, then gives their surroundings a careful look. "A reaper, I would guess."

"Oh," and for some reason, the thought scares him, even though he'd been the one looking for just that for so long. Not so much with Cas around, but, well, he'd given this a lot of thought and somehow he never thought much about reapers. He'd just thought there'd be a bullet and then the end. Nothing more, Cas's tales of otherwise aside.

"I will take you back to the motel," Cas says hurriedly, still looking worried.

"And the car," Dean adds, wondering if Cas can carry something that heavy.

"And the car," Cas confirms.

He touches Dean's shoulder, and they're back in the hotel, two double beds and furnished with multiple mounted heads. (Dean hates motels in Texas.) Cas flickers out almost as soon as they appear, gone for almost two seconds before he returns again.

"Are you okay?" are the first words out of Dean's mouth, stepping closer to Cas, within feet of him.

Cas clenches his fists, then purposefully relaxes them. Dean is honestly worried - he's never seen Cas react to anything like this before, this strongly. "I can't take you if a reaper reaches you first. Please, Dean, don't be so reckless again."

Dean chooses not to address the fact he wasn't being reckless. "What? You think you wouldn't be able to visit me in heaven?"

"You can do good here. You can stay with your family, here, right now. Heaven will be your place eventually, but it would pain me for you to leave this plane like this." He breathes for a long second, and somehow Dean knows he isn't finished, that there's something to confess. "They don't know I'm still visiting you. If you died - I don't, I can't," and Cas has never babbled like this, so Dean puts a hand over his mouth to make him stop.

"You saved me," Dean says slowly. "That's all that matters."

He can feel Cas's lips part, soft and warm against his hand, but Cas says nothing, only warm breath against Dean's palm.

Awkwardly, Dean takes his hand back.

"Do you still want to die?" Cas asks, small and quiet.

Dean jerks back. "What kind of question is that?" He thought Cas understood understood Dean didn't want to talk about it.

Cas frowns, studying Dean's face, searching for something. Then he pushes Dean until the back of his knees hit the bed, and he's forced to sit, chin up so he can look Cas in the eye.

"There are good things for you here, and there is good in the world," Cas says, insists. "Life is worth living. This life that humans - that you - are given is precious, a world that is your own that you can shape and change."

"I'm not so sure I can believe that, believe in that, after all the fucked up things I've seen, the things I've done," Dean says tiredly.

Cas nods, a small movement. Then he closes his eyes, and wings appear, light and power flaring in the room, wings stretched far enough to fill the hotel room, not fully extended, but the tips of the huge white wings touching either side of the hotel walls, arched slightly, glowing yet not. The feathers are sharp, almost like living razor blades, glinting in the light, dangerous and beautiful. They cast no shadow, almost look unreal.

"Holy shit," Dean whispers.

"Holy," Cas replies, with a little smile.

Dean laughs. "Why ... ?" He almost gets up, wants to touch, and holy shit Cas is an angel. A motherfucking angel with powers and perfection and holy shit, Dean cannot wrap his mind around this. Everything - it was all true. He's staring at an angel, this angel who told him Adam's in heaven and life is worth living, and fuck, here he is.

"This is the only proof I can offer you," Cas says, wings lifting slightly. He takes a deep breath, moves closer, wings stirring the air, and then kisses Dean, light and quick and uncertain. Faith and himself, that's what he's giving Dean.

The touch is warm, and when Cas tries to pull away, Dean brings him back, holding him close, finishing the kiss.

"I believe you," Dean whispers back, it all rushing down, the grief and the guilt and self-loathing, and then Dean leaps.

When it happens, it's not like Dean expected at all. It's gentle and sweet, and oddly playful, Cas intent and unembarrassed by the new sensations, by the power of coming for the first time, and Dean kisses him down all the way from that heaven. They curl around each other, contact and familiarity, calm and ticklish when Dean skims a hand up Castiel's hip.

Wrapped in Cas's arms, Dean decides not to die. Not yet.

What follows is almost heady happiness, Cas always there and able to calm him with a touch, without the force of his powers, Dean's personal guardian angel (Cas insists there is no such thing, but Cas's presence kind of belies that notion). Cas already knows much of Dean's past (this still slightly creeps Dean out, but he's getting over it) and Dean learns more in return of a nearly eternal span, of having seen everything and yet not understanding even most of it. (When it comes to humans it is confusing, Cas insists, the rest is quite understandable.)

Cas never lets him go.

One morning, Dean wakes to find Cas already there, sitting in the passenger seat as always, but this time he's not giving one of his 'I will stare you to death' looks directed at Dean, and is focused on the sunrise. The car is pulled off the road, Dean choosing to sleep here last night because he had the money for a hotel or gas, and he chose gas. He's going to have to start hustling again.

And Cas, well, Cas has been with Dean every day since Dean almost died, leaving him for a scant few hours here and there, doing only God knows what. Somewhat literally.

"Cas?" Dean says hoarsely. "You okay?"

Cas doesn't turn to look at him, and that makes Dean's stomach drop.

"My family - " Cas stops, hesitates. "They say there are plans for you, plans I have interfered in by saving you. You were not meant to die, but you were not meant to meet me, either."

"What?" Dean sits up straight. "Meaning?"

"I'm supposed to wipe your memory of me and to never see you again," Cas whispers.

"You can't. You can't, Cas," and the betrayal? He's supposed to do this alone?

Cas says nothing.

"And you're going to do it? This is meaningless to you, what we have?" Dean yells.

"No," Cas says, looking startled. "But my orders - "

"You haven't been obeying your orders in quite some time, Cas. You said it yourself, this world is one we shape, not like heaven." Dean's chest is tight, and he's not entirely certain he can take a deep breath, but he keeps looking at Cas, isn't going to give up. Not for this, not like when he gave up before, when he stopped fighting and Cas made him fight, and now it's reversed, and for Cas, he can do this.

"I'm not human."

"You are in the ways that matter," Dean says. "I'm not letting this go, Cas."

"I don't know what to do!" It's loud, not a shout, but loud, and Dean jumps, surprised. Cas looks just as surprised, turns away with a faint flush to his cheeks.

Dean takes a deep breath, knows what Cas will do depends on his next words. Cas isn't staring at him, but Dean knows he is focused on him absolutely regardless. "If God wanted us to obey every stupid order, why would he give us an independent mind? If God gave us a conscience, aren't we supposed to use it? He gave you all that, Cas."

"I chose," Cas says quietly, like a confirmation.

"Yeah," Dean says, more calmly. "You chose to save me. You chose to act without orders once, and you can do that again. Choose, I mean."

Cas reaches out blindly for Dean's hand, and Dean gives it to him, gently squeezing.

Castiel stops breathing for a full second. "Can I stay?" he whispers.

Dean almost laughs. Then he kisses Cas, quick and light and not meaningless at all, and sees the small smile on Cas's face when he withdraws, searching Cas's face - finding relief and love there. "Yeah." Dean smiles. "Welcome to free will."