winchester.

And you won't. Despite how devastatingly close Castiel had come to losing Dean, despite how any number of things could break that vow for him at any given moment... it still lowered his shoulders a fraction. There was no other way this could have gone, that meant they both could walk away. God may have been watching, and brought him back once. Spared their lives once. But day by day, Castiel was convinced he was only brought back for Dean. To keep his watch over the righteous man. But he didn't trust fortune enough to hope that his Father would have reached down and undo that mess. He might have sent another, more capable angel that Dean would never accept. Castiel knew him well enough to be sure of that, he would refuse a replacement. Violently.

The fact that Dean was well enough to protest sound logic in his usual dramatic manner? That lifted several more weights from the Seraph's body and mind. Even his ire was endearing, because it was Dean's. No matter what state, if he was even the slightest bit lucid, and his vocal cords were unhindered, he would complain. For a second, Castiel was thrown all the way back to 2005, invisible in the body of a hematologist, listening to Dean crack jokes from a hospital bed he was meant to die in. Dragging himself back to Sam, because he could not perish where the nursing staff was unattractive. He wasn't dying now, he was free to complain unrestricted, and Castiel couldn't be more grateful.

The Seraph stepped forward, and he felt the brace of Dean's muscles in preparation, but he didn't grab his shoulder and take off. Castiel wrapped his arms under Dean's, and pulled him into an embrace, anchoring him flush to his chest. For a moment, he just let his eyes shut and took comfort in the closeness. The pulse he could feel and hear. "... Unlock your muscles. You know I've got you. It may be easier on your body if you relax." He waited until Dean at least made an attempt before the sound of massive wings stole them both from that razed ruin.

unlock your muscles. easier said than done, mister billions years old angel guy! dean doesn't unlock his muscles. they only get worse as he pinches his eyes tightly together and balls up his fists. teeth bared and cinched. and then? you know i've got you. castiel's voice is reassuring and soft. deep. weirdly soothing in a way that it seeps into dean's bones and muscles--that relax. slowly melting as he hands over trust that he barely yields to anyone on this level. face going slack, his frame is encompassed by arms he lets pull him in as he wraps his around shoulders wondering if that's an okay place to hold..

cas doesn't move them, so he figures it is..

the hunter is still like that when they land. holding on. legs buckling just slightly before he finds his footing again--he leans firmly against the seraph's chest until he comes around. queasy? yeah. manageable? he'll tell in just a second.. a shade or two of green colors his skin. but he doesn't bend over and throw up right away. call that progress? huh?

once he's steady. breathing normally--the hunter steps back. the light scent of rain isn't foreign to him now. he knows it is tangled up in cas's power. a long inhale lets the air settle into his chest. upon his shoulder? nerve endings tingle and dance. dean seems to debate whether or not he's prepared to hand his keys over. he's driven in worse shape than he is now. bloodied, broken, damn near half dead. made it to where he needed to be more than once. on sheer determination, road grease, and the refusal to die.

It's not his finest moment. Looking at a complete stranger and seeing that face. Of all the faces in the world, it had to be that one, the one that haunts his dreams, that's scarred his soul for the rest of eternity. He tries to hard to forget it, every day, every night, running away from it, but it's never enough. Momentary reprieves help, but it's never enough, those features still find him again, they always do.

He can't blame this guy for it, it's not like he's chosen to wear that face just to slight the pilot. Although, if he did, it was certainly the perfect one for someone to choose. Fuck, he hates how much Soldier Boy still gets to him. He hasn't seen him in decades, yet even the thought of him still hurts. He doesn't even want to think about him as Ben. No, Ben died the day the blonde walked away, maybe even before that. All that remained had been Soldier Boy.

"Yeah..." Robbie nods his head, having heard of the song. He kept to himself, kept his head down, but he still heard things. He wasn't always a complete hermit -- - mostly. Though mainly rearing his head to find another fix from certain supes who supplied to him. Not that he knew that said supe was the spitting image of this man's younger brother. A fun fact for another time, perhaps.

relief. dean looks relieved. triggering a horrid memory is shit to do to anyone. he's been down that road before. wishes he could do anything to not be the source of it for someone else. the guy looks harmless. a good guy. someone who doesn't deserve to have a face turn around that made him look at dean the way he did. or how his body language reads that there's so much more to the story that dean knows he probably shouldn't ask.

maybe it'll come out on a bender. liquor and loose lips? can't say that's an uncommon thing. people talk when they're lit. only the pros know how to steer their brains towards harmless chatter. while others? cough up secrets they wouldn't tell their therapist. unfortunately for dean? sometimes he lapses in being the first option and falls right into the blabber-mouthed second one.

not wanting to do any more damage than his face did, he doesn't offer a hand or a touch to guide him like he might if it were sam. (maybe he just let him down. maybe robbie was hoping he was someone else. maybe he's reading too much into this. bad habits die hard. who knows?)

                              "OF COURSE." Castiel raises a hand, touches Dean's elbow—and they're back in the roadhouse, right in front of their TV. It's dark; with a flick of his wrist, Castiel turns on the floor lamp next to the couch. Miracle is still at Sam and Eileen's because they wanted to pick him up tomorrow after breakfast. Nobody knew that they'd be home this early. Castiel bites his lower lip as he uses his telekinesis to turn on the radiator as well. 

                               "I'm sorry your birthday ended this way." This was not supposed to happen. Castiel had it all planned out, starting from the wake-up suckjob over the award-winning pie for breakfast to the once-in-a-lifetime wrestling match in New York City. And now they're both feeling off-kilter and strange, and don't know how to deal with what they just learned. Castiel wants to make Jack bring back Zachariah just so he can kill him again. Everything could have been prevented. Heaven stole years and precious memories. Castiel feels mad and sad and everything in between. He wants to see Jack. He wants to unlearn what he heard and saw, and he wants more. It's exhausting.

dean doesn't even make a sound about the flight. hell. he's barely made a sound since leaving that closet other than to say he wants to go home. inside his gut? settles a weight that feels heavy enough to sink him into a place he isn't sure he can figure out what it is. or where it is. there was a time when he mourned losing cassie. mourned how she disappeared out of nowhere and left him when he swore that he loved her to his bones. took him a long time to move on. bed after bed trying to forget. bottle after bottle. hunt after hunt that got bloodier than it needed to be on his worst nights. but the years went by and hell came and went and with it brought castiel.

course there were a lot more years past that and a hell of a lot of water under their bridge. some crazy, some quiet. but their water. their depth. dean felt like he cleansed so many scars away from his soul the deeper they sank together. until there was a moment where--realization hit and he couldn't deny the love he felt for the angel was as deep.. and deeper than the one who got away all those years ago. now. he knows.. that falling in love with cas felt the way it did for another reason. two souls reconnecting that were destined..

stefan worries whenever they part & usually he doesn't stop until he at least gets a phone call from the other. he knows this is dean's job, something he has to do, something he's skilled at by this point. & yet, he's still human. if something were to happen to him when the vampire wasn't around he wouldn't know what to do. how to handle it. when did the hunter become someone he didn't want to lose ? a twist knots in his stomach at the thought. the thought of losing him as well as the realization of how much he means to him. his hand stays put, not wanting him to look away. matching green eyes focused on each other, almost like nothing else is around them. it's just them & the night sky above them.

he doesn't shift when dean nods his head, only uses this as a way to brush his thumb against his jaw. a delicate touch, reassurance as a way to show he was listening, he was there. " don't promise me things you can't, babe. " he says quietly, not in a harsh way. in a way that says he doesn't want to get either of their hopes up. however, the movement makes him freeze, breath catching in his throat. it makes his cheeks tint to a light pink. " dean. " stefan whispers, " kiss me. "

stefan calls him out in more ways than dean has the willpower to make him understand. why do that and ruin the time they have together? stefan will only freak out, launch into some hunt like sam's on--trying to save him from a fate that he can't be saved from. nah. he'd rather take the time he's got with the vampire at his side and enjoy it. cling to a good memory. maybe it'll be one of the ones that flash before his eyes right before.. you know? it all goes black. morbid of a thought as it is? there's some sort've peace dean finds in that. unable to look into those emerald eyes for a moment--he swallows around the lump in his throat. forces the taste of anxiety off his tongue by sweeping it across the top of his mouth and plasters on a smile before he glances back up.

That face. For a moment, it sends him right back to a time he's tried so desperately to forget. Not because it had been painful back then, but because it hadn't. Young, fresh, they'd both been new to the world of supes, they all had, and then blue eyes had cascaded upon those green, taking in that pretty face and he'd been hooked. He'd never forget it, he couldn't, and there it was, like a carbon copy standing in front of him.

But it's not him, it can't be, he realises that now. Too much time has passed, too much history, he doesn't see the same bitterness, doesn't hear the same acrid tone in his voice that he remembers from the last time he set eyes upon the man he thought this was. It's not Ben, and even better, it's not Soldier Boy either.

fingers reach up to comb through the hair atop his head then pause once he cups the back. forest hued eyes watch the stranger curiously. no harm, no foul in mixing him up with someone else. hey, they say you got a twin or two out there in the world.. right? he's seen monsters take on his appearance for crying out loud, so yeah, that could happen. though--he hopes the reason why this guy thinks he knew him isn't the latter. always hard to try and explain away that he wasn't the monster who made your family's or your life a living hell. or worse. just.. a creepy crawly from under the bed kind of nightmare wearing his face.

yeah. let's not have to do that.

"think that was a song sometime a few years back, wasn't it? m'tellin' ya if you plan on sendin' some friends to collect your records or whatever? they're mine now. got 'em in the divorce. fair and square." his attempt to lighten the situation because there's something in the man's expression that makes the pit of his stomach heavy. he gets that when he looks in the eyes of someone who has the same gaze as he does in the mirror sometimes. though the divorce part of his own attempt ends up dusting some color across freckled cheeks? his hand swings from his neck and out on the way down. "don't worry about it. m'sorry this mug brings up any bad joujou for you." definitely not the first.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤYOU ARE GOING TO LOVE MY SHOW

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤBELOATHED BY FAUST!

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤCARRD || RULES || VERSES

' i never said you were helpless. ' castiel answers, walking beside him along the sidewalk ; posture almost comically steady compared to dean's unbalanced sway. gravel crunches softly beneath boots, dean stumbles slightly over it ─ and the angel stays close in case he needs to grab him, though far enough not to make it completely obvious he's doing exactly that. balance falters again, though not entirely, castiel watches the way his palm drags against another parked car just to remain upright.

this isn't the first time he'd witnessed dean succumb to the bottle.

most of the time, dean never even realized he was being observed. concealed by grace, castiel has found himself silent in dark motel rooms while dean drank himself numb behind drawn curtains. head hovering over stained bathroom porcelain with a drink still in hand. seen him sitting behind the wheel of the impala long after hunts were over, silver flask resting within easy reach ; always ready to dull the pain. dean isn't helpless. he's capable of enduring. god knows he's endured nearly all his life. but enduring something doesn't mean he deserves it, and it doesn't mean he deserves to endure in his lonesome.

dean nearly walks directly into a streetlamp in his haze. quickly, castiel catches his shoulder to steer him aside before impact. however dean doesn't appear particularly appreciative. done this hundreds of times before . . . since i was a kid. he says it casually, like it's the most ordinary thing in the world ; like learning how to poison yourself before adulthood is simply another survival skill.

castiel's head turns to look at him, blues lingering on that slack, flushed face. ' that doesn't make it less concerning. ' he says quietly, careful not to sound like a reprimand. they pass beneath another flickering streetlight, gold washing across their faces before swallowed by shadow again. ' familiarity and safety are not necessarily the same thing. you surviving something repeatedly doesn't mean it has stopped harming you. '

"good, cause i'---i'm not," with emphasis on the 't'. hand lifts from the light post it traced while passing to swing a pointed pointer right at the angel beside him just to drive that 't' home even harder. staggering along. "m'jus havin' one of them nights where.." where are they? voice trails off as dean realizes he's lost.. then, in a delayed reaction to the point that castiel was making that he totally just skipped past within a few steps he deliberately took after just so he could avoid the truth behind those words? the look of studious whatever it is in those eyes.

it's hard to tell. sometimes he wonders if castiel gives every single shit he could possibly fathom about him. or at least the purpose he can serve him and heaven and everywhere in between. or very little at all.

others? feels like pity. might not be. but that's what it feels like.

dean doesn't want pity. he wants... he doesn't know what he wants.

the hunter hates not being able to read people. or hates the fact that he's figuring out how to read him and isn't able to wrap his mind around all the ideas he's come up with what the angel's thinking. feeling. wondering. not just about him.. but mostly. call it selfish but he wants to pick it apart. analyze it down to the bones because everything about this is so fucking twisted up that it makes his head spin worse than the booze. god damn it okay! back to what he continues to walk past. mosey past. wobble past. yeah that one.

"that's all i got.. n' it doesn't matter if it hurts me or not. all i'm allowed to do is survive it. doesn't matter what it is. doesn't matter that i should've stayed---," the words are still on his tongue but he stops himself. moment of clarity seeps through the drunken haze. his features sober. as if his wirings so fucked it actually catches itself sometimes. regret. he shows regret. that conversation's never went well with anyone. and the shit he feels like when it's over? isn't worth it. then--a huff of a smile and it's gone. gratitude fills the void. and he steps closer. both arms lift, hands grip castiel's shoulders. then pat. pat. thank you, gets mouthed--not said.

12x23 | All Along the Watchtower