I posted this on ao3 yesterday and then almost immediately deleted it because a) I've sort of become disenchanted by that place and b) I want all my spn madness here. Anyway! If you want a small fic where Cas is forbidden from touching Dean, here it is:
“And when you are near him, you must stand apart from him,” says Naomi, “You must not touch him.”
You remain silent, head bent and eyes down.
“Should the skin of your vessel meet his, he will spread corruption.”
This frightens you. You feel the fear behind your ribs like a mustard seed sprouting. To be corrupted is to be a demon. You would not be welcome in Heaven anymore.
“I must not touch him,” you say. You hope that the wetness in your eyes will go unnoticed. When she lifts her hand, you flinch, but she cups your face with her palm and wipes the tears away. Her kindness weakens the fear, blessing-soft, and she tells you she will give you a sword.
“Do the other angels know this about him?” you ask.
“They have seen it.”
“Then it has happened before?” An angel fell in this way? Sadness fills you.
When she sends you back, you are standing in a parking lot, waiting for Sam. Yellow leaves cover the asphalt, and Dean is beside you, talking. You take a step away from him, unsure why.
While the prophet works to translate the demon tablet, the Winchesters decide to use their time to help people. It is always on their minds: helping people, except when they are sleeping. Once they become aware that you have been listening to their dreams, they give you stern instructions to never do so again. You are glad to abide Sam; his dreams are dark and unpleasant, but you will miss Dean’s.
“Just, read a book if you get bored, or try to sleep.”
“I don’t need-”
“I know, I know,” Dean groans, rolling his eyes. “Let’s get some breakfast.”
In the diner, Sam and Dean take opposite sides of the booth. You stand at the head of the table, tilting slightly, eyes shifting between the two empty spaces.
Dean pats the space beside him. “Come on,” he says. His brow is raised. “Cas? You okay?”
You feel the backs of your eyes prickle and a sprouting sensation behind your ribs. I’m afraid, you realise. Quickly, you take the space beside Sam. The brothers share a look.
“Okay,” Dean says. “I’m not offended at all.”
Sam snorts.
You clasp your hands. The fear has gone, and you wonder where it came from, and why it found you, and why you are now unhappy. I wanted to sit beside him. What a strange thought. Angels want, sometimes. It is not against their design to want, but their wanting begins and ends with their father’s plan. They want what He wants.
This is yet another sign that you are broken.
Sam is driving, and Dean has fallen to sleep. His neck has a slight burn from the sun and before you can stop yourself, you are reaching to heal it. A hairsbreadth, and you would have touched him. You wrench your hand back and hold it to your chest, gasping, bent double.
“Castiel?” concern makes Sam’s voice softer, though it is always soft as the Magdalene who washed the boy’s feet.
Dean shakes awake. “What?” he says and takes in his surroundings. He twists around to look at you, panic clear as a knife. “Cas, talk to me, what’s happening?”
You can’t seem to make your voice work.
Finally, you say that it is nothing, but neither of them are appeased, and Dean is angry with you for lying.
“I thought we were done with this, Cas.”
“If I knew, I would tell you,” you assure him. He looks you over, anger turning to concern. You have counted the freckles on his face before and you think you would like to do so again. Instead, you move to the seat behind Sam’s and you look out of the window. It is not such a new sensation, the resolve to keep away from him, though the fear that courses through your vessel’s veins is unfamiliar.
“Take the next left,” Dean says to Sam while he looks over the map in his lap. He is frowning. While they talk of the witch they are hunting, you watch the passing trees, a blur of green. This world is beautiful.
In another motel room you sit by the window while Dean washes blood from his hands. Sam hisses on the edge of the bed. He has a broken thumb. As Dean leaves the bathroom, you reach out and brush Sam’s hand with your own.
“Thanks,” he says, rotating the bone.
“Hey, could you do me, too. I look like an extra from the Thriller video and I’d like to go and get us some food without giving someone a heart attack.”
Dean never asks to be healed. He does not need to, yet you know that if it was necessary to ask, he would not. He hates to be needful. But he is asking now. He sits in the chair opposite you, pushing Sam’s research papers aside.
He has a long gash from forehead to right cheek bone that cuts like a lightening strike across his nose. Your fingers itch. Your hand rises.
You fall to your knees in front of Naomi.
“My orders are so easily forgotten,” she seethes. The edge of her sword cuts your brow, washing your face with blood as you cry out. She grasps your hair and pulls your head back, bearing your throat so that she may slash it and you wilt into the carpet, blood pooling beneath you. She leans over you, pity tugging her mouth.
“Castiel. My poor angel.” She presses her head to yours. Your blood blooms across her pale skin. Your gasps are rolling thunder in your ears.
“I…I…” you try to shape the words. She strokes your cheek. This is a touch you are unused to. “I’m sorry,” you say.
She smiles and heals you. “It is forgiven.” She helps you to your feet. “But, Castiel, you were so close to corruption.”
You are filled with a wave of gratefulness, and you thank her for saving you. Somehow you know that she will ask you to kill him, and you feel the honour she has bestowed upon you in this mission, yet you wonder why she is waiting to tell you. But you were not built to ask why.
The sun streaming through the window makes Dean glow. You blink, reaching for your neck, and look down at your hand. Why did you think it would come away bloody?
Dean is watching you, waiting. He has asked you to heal him, as he never has done before.
“Cas?”
You stutter out of the chair and the backs of your legs bump into the bed.
“I’m going to- get some air.” You have heard humans say such things. Outside, there are blackbirds searching for seeds in the grass. Blackbirds mate for life, traversing their lifespans in pairs. Their song reminds you of prayer bells. You sit on a bench in the shadow of the motel and focus on the wind scurrying around your ankles.
When you return, Sam is gone. Dean’s face is still red and cracked. How could you have let him go so long with the pain? He is hunched over the table, looking out at the trees. At the click of the lock he turns to face you and you see the wound fully. You find that it pains you, too. A miracle. Empathy you know of. Humans must feel it to grow. But an angel has no need of it.
Yet you feel it now as if his wound is yours.
“Tell me, Cas.”
He has got to his feet. Soon, he will be close enough to touch, except that he does not move further. Some of the blood on his face has become so dark it is almost black. Its presence is abominable to you, like sin.
“Sam told me what happened in the car. You were reaching for me, and then you keeled over, like you were afraid.”
One step closer.
“If I’ve…” He looks down and takes a breath. “If I’ve done something to make you afraid of…me.” He looks lost. “Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry. You said that, didn’t you, just moments ago?
“You’ve done nothing,” you say. That, you are sure of.
“Then what?”
Another step closer. You must raise your hand now and heal him. That is what you were made for. Atom, by atom, you built him anew, cradling his soul and breathing life back into his precious lungs.
Your hand shadows his face. An inch separates you. There is a ringing in your ears and you are finding it hard to make your vessel breathe.
“I can’t,” you say, “I can’t touch you.”
Horror brightens his eyes. They are always crushed gold, the amber the Romans loved.
“Why me? You touched Sam. Why not me?”
Tears burn your eyes and you see that he is as surprised by them as you are. “I don’t know why. I…I think something bad will happen if I do.”
“Castiel.”
You are in a large empty room lit unnaturally. Naomi is holding you, wiping your tears. When she moves to the side, Dean is standing there. He holds the angel tablet.
“He has broken you a thousand times. If not for me, Heaven would spit you out. You would have no family, no purpose. You would belong nowhere. This is what he wants.”
“Cas, please,” Dean says. Naomi tells you to kill him, and you do.
His blood coats your fingers and you wonder, as his body lies broken beneath you, how it is that you can touch him now.
Your fists break skin, break bone. Your knuckles brush his stomach where you clasp the hilt of the sword. Your hands press down on his throat.
You touch him a thousand times, and Naomi does not stop you.
She smiles when the iterations of his corpse litter the floor. “Now you are ready,” she says. You wonder how she cannot hear the doubt thrumming inside you.
“What will happen?” Dean asks. You can feel the warmth from his body. The sun sets behind the trees, haloing him.
Oh, you realise.
You press your hand to his face. His eyelashes graze your thumb as they flicker and the blood disappears, skin knitting together. Before you can pull away he clasps your hand in his, holding.
