inonebasket | (no subject)

Sigh. Knew it. Dean sits up.

"Okay, when kids, human kids, go to the beach they get these shells, okay? Big ones. Some kind of snail thing. You hold the shell up to your ear, and you can hear the ocean."

He lies back down again, hands behind his head.

"Sam told me it's actually the echo of your blood or something. Honestly, I don't really get it, I just know that you hold up a shell and you hear waves."

"Perhaps because when you find the shell, you're already at the beach."

DUH.

"You take them home with you, Cas! You don't hold them to your ear while you're there, it's so you can remember the damn waves when you're gone!"

DUH.

"Why wouldn't they remember without the aide of a shell? Are their memories being altered?" What the heck are parents doing to their kids these days.

Dean covers his face with his hands.

"It's just a...y'know what, never mind. Forget it." Why does he ever try to explain humanity to Cas?

Why indeed.

Castiel returns his attention to the sky, hands on his stomach, and crosses his ankles. After a moment he sits up, shucks off his jacket and reaches over to drape it over Dean's chest before laying back down, as if it were the most normal thing to do.

Oh for--

Dean chucks the jacket back at Cas.

"Dude, I've got at least 20 pounds of muscle on you. You're gonna freeze before I do."

"You were complaining about the cold earlier." Castiel gently chucks it back. Don't be a bitch, Dean. Take the jacket.

"Look, I just found you again after I thought you'd freaking drowned, okay? Forgive me if I don't wanna see you freeze." Dean chucks it back--again--and scoots back toward the edge of the roof.

"I'm going back in. Don't you dare stay up here all night."

Castiel sits up, holding his jacket and feeling as if he'd just done something wrong. Frowning, he slips it back on and follows Dean off of the roof to head back inside. "I'm done."

"Nah, man, you stay up there. You looked like you were enjoying the view."

It isn't that Cas has done anything wrong. Not exactly. It's just Dean being his usual gruff, concerned self, doing that thing where he worries about people but pretends nothing's the matter. He scoots back in through the window and heads back to his bed.

Castiel is already off of the roof by the time Dean tells him to forget about it, but instead of climbing in through the window he leans his elbows against the sill, clasping his hands. The curtains ruffle slightly in the breeze, brushing against his sleeves and knuckles. "Dean."

Cas stops, takes a deep breath and plows forward. There's something intimate about discussions in the dark, just the sliver of moonlight falling over his shoulder to illuminate the room. "You need to tell me what you need me to do. I don't-" He tilts his head in a familiar gestures, attempting to find the correct words. "I'm trying to be something...different. Something you can more easily relate to."

Dean's busy stripping off his damp socks and crawling back into bed when Cas pipes up again and it takes him a minute to process the words.

"Cas, if I wanted something different, I'd shack up with a Leviathan, okay?" This is Dean, trying to be reassuring. "Look. I know we don't always get each other. Human angel disconnect or whatever it is. And sometimes you piss me off but good. But I've seen your 'something different' and I ain't interested in seeing it again. You just be you, alright?"

"I'm not an angel anymore."

Get it, Dean? He can't be him anymore, not entirely. He just hasn't given himself any time to try and figure it out, between hunting Leviathan and trying to survive. The introduction of Dean back into his life reminded Cas of his budding humanity and he's just...not quite sure what to do with all these obnoxious, distracting, annoying feelings scrambling around inside.

"Yeah. Yeah, I get that. You already told me that bit."

Squash those feelings, Cas. Squash them before Dean starts having feelings, too.

"What I'm saying, Cas, is that you don't have to try to be something different, okay? Just be yourself, whatever yourself is right now." Hello, Dean, sounding a bit like an after school special here, aren't we? "Y'know. You with the whole not getting humanity and missing the jokes thing. It works for you, man. It's what I'm used to. Keep it."

Well. Well, all right.

Cas climbs in the window, even though the door is right there and unlocked. He closes the window, pulls the drapes, locks the door and is about to circle around to his bed when he spots the bag of food still on the table. Two burgers and two pies.

...he's still starving.

Well hey, Dean did get extra food for a reason. Cas is looking a bit scrawny. Or...scrawnier than usual, anyway.

He rolls over, face down into the pillow, gun safely (hah) stashed beneath it again. "Gotta admit, I'm glad you can't poof anymore. Less chance of heart attack."

How the heck is Cas supposed to know that food is for him. ...okay so it's a reasonable conclusion to reach, but he's still in that semi-awkward stage of 'does he actually want me around' where he's still feeling out the edges of Dean's hospitality. It's a curiously complicated thing for someone still relatively new to humanity.

Cas pulls open the edge of the bag; the paper makes a too-loud crinkling sound in the dark. "I miss flying."

Good job, Dean. Just shove your whole foot in your mouth, why doncha? He clears his throat and rolls onto his side, squinting in the darkness at Cas. "Yeah, I uh. I guess you would--why don't you turn on a light, man? Make it easier to see."

"The loss of my wings isn't equal to half of what I owe to you and this world." Castiel ignores the suggestion to turn on the light and instead decides that he's just hungry enough to ignore this new human need for manners. He digs a burger out of the bag, unwraps it and starts to eat.

"It's still a limb, man." He'll just ignore the munching noises. "That's gotta hurt."

You should probably also ignore the sounds of him removing one of the little plastic containers of pie, too. Because he is doing that.

"Not in a physical way." So not in an important way.

Hey, he got two pieces for a reason. As long as Cas only takes one, they're good.

"Yeah, but it still hurts. Trust me on this one, Cas, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the physical stuff is sometimes the least important. Everything with Sammy? You? Yeah, I got beat to hell but...but when you walked into that reservoir, that was...that was something."

That's the third time Dean has mentioned the reservoir in one day.

He slows his chewing, swallows his mouthful of food and sets the burger down on the table. Crossing the room, stopping at the foot of Dean's bed and tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Cas watches Dean with that sad, tired, anciently-old look in his eyes. One that tells of a thing that's watched civilizations fall, watched millions die in wars and of disease and still can't think of anything more unfair than Dean suffering hardship.

No it isn't! It can't be! That would imply that Dean's been...obsessing.

Dean's eyes are closed, but that doesn't mean he isn't aware of his surroundings. "You got something to say, you spit it out."