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Castiel falls into the pit, arms drawn taut at his sides, wings folded against his back as he drops straight towards the cord of the soul he seeks. He can see, feel, touch, taste this soul, knows it almost as intimately as he own awareness, so deeply has it been ingrained into him.
Dean is energy in compressed space, roughly human shaped shadow-smoke and light; golden at the core, black pulsing thickly at his edges, the faintest tint of red flickering like a halo.
It begins the moment Castiel sees him, awareness blurring, dividing, merging as Castiel’s consciousnesses overlaps Dean’s.
Castiel experiences it just as Dean does. He sees everything through Dean’s eyes; it is the way after all. To take and give life; this power must be understood through the soul’s perception.
One must experience what has been taken and given back to appreciate its worth.
*
Smoke, pain, death and the screams of the dead and dying. The true artistic beauty of a blood spatter, the story that it tells; the perfect slice of a blade into flesh. The intricacy of the human nervous system, the way veins and nerves flow beneath the skin, the way sheer agony can be induced with just the barest cut. All of these things Dean has seen and known, as giver and receiver. But he has never known anything like this.
This being is made of light, shimmering gold forced into the shape of a man. “Dean.” His voice rises above the sound of Hell’s inhuman wailing, a sound like all things neat and ordered, sharp with precision, carefully weighed and perfectly measured. Like honey, thick and rich. White-tipped flame dances over him, licking at his cheeks and leaping from his edges, crackling with whispered secrets and ancient power. His face is even more beautiful than his voice, and Dean squints, turns his face away, fighting the urge to fall his knees.
“Who are you?”
“I am the one who has come to raise you from perdition.” The being puts his hand to Dean’s shoulder, flames flickering against Dean’s skin. It burns. It burns like nothing ever has, so deep that the tortures of hell can’t touch it. He feels it to his bones, deeper than the shadow of his soul. Skin and blood boil away, mouth dissolving in screaming agony as his body is shucked and peeled down to bone, marrow disintegrating; shape collapsing.
*
Blackness. Nothing. It’s endless, the finality of rest.
And then…
*
Dean is only dimly aware of pain, of rising, body wafting on heat waves. His bones grow anew, eyes forming, pushing from long bloody cords. He can feel as much as see the muscle climbing over pearly white like pink snakes, biting deep, taking hold. Dark blue veins and nerves spread like a tide to fill the empty space, climbing over muscle and locking in, leeching and growing, throbbing with the beat of the muscle expanding in his chest. Skin comes, like a reaction to his nakedness, spreading pale and complete.
It’s only then that he realizes. Only then that he feels the arms and wings wrapped tight around him, the face pressed close against his, cheekbone to cheekbone, mouths too close.
“What… what happened?” he asks with his new tongue. “Did I… did I die?”
“To be reborn, what was must die. The evil Hell seeded in you had to be burned through the fires of purification.”
Dean stares with his newborn eyes, vision slowly clearing, sharpening.
“All that you were, you are again. And so you will return to Earth.”
“Will I remember? What I did here?”
“Yes,” the creature breathes. “You won’t remember this part. Birth is never remembered. But everything else…”
Dean can feel every cell inside his body, multiplying and thriving, blood pumping through his veins, the weight and grace of the thing against him. He can feel the flutter of wings all around, carrying them from the fires of Hell.
“I’ll remember hell… everything I did?”
“You are strong enough to bear it, or I would not have been sent to bring you forth.” They burn as they rise, feathers raining down around them like ash.
“There is no forgiveness for what I’ve done,” Dean whispers.
*
Dean cannot see how beautiful he is, now. Soul a deep orange glow fading to pale yellow at his edges, body wrapped tight around Castiel’s with urgency and fear. Castiel knows Dean won’t remember, but in this moment, he wants only to comfort the soul in his arms.
*
“God forgives you, Dean. God loves you.” That shining face turns towards him, mouth touching his with lightness and promise, a thousand sparks that shatter into the stillness around them.
Dean understands then. Understands retribution, penance, salvation; everything he thought he was beyond.
-~-+-~-+-~-
Castiel is there with Dean when he wakes to darkness, to complete silence, lungs straining to draw breath.
There’s a lighter in his pocket, and he doesn’t know why, just knows that it’s exactly what he needs right now.
He pulls himself free of his grave; crawling through cheap wood and then earth, then to his feet. He sways under the early light of the sun and stares at the devastation around him; trees laid flat in every direction.
He… was in Hell, right? He remembers dying. He remembers Hell—can remember each agonizing slice into his skin until he broke; every gleeful twist and shove of the blade that followed by his own hand. But he can’t remember how he got here.
He closes his eyes and breathes out hard against the chill of the dawn.
He’s alive. He’s not in Hell anymore. And somewhere out there, Sam is waiting for him.
*
Castiel does not understand why his awareness did not peel back from Dean’s when they broke free of Hell.
Castiel tries to speak to him, experiences the sheer pain and fear and raw nerves as Dean tries to protect himself from the sound of Castiel’s voice.
Castiel cannot understand it. Castiel can still hear and see and feel everything that Dean experiences.
It seems cruel that Dean can no longer hear him.
-~-+-~-+-~-
Castiel can feel Dean there, just beneath the surface of his new vessel’s skin. He can see himself through Dean’s eyes as he steps inside the concrete room, bullets catching his body through the chest, lights flashing and sparking overhead. He can feel the awe and terror in Dean’s heart, the blood pounding through his veins.
Castiel feels the knife through his heart less than the lack of recognition in Dean’s soul when he looks upon him.
Birth is never remembered, he thinks, and closes his eyes for a moment before he begins to speak with his human mouth.
-~-+-~-+-~-
Castiel is not like Zachariah; he does not know by right and rote every thought and deed committed by Dean in his lifetime. He knows only what he learns by the connection they share.
Castiel is there for every moment. For every decision Dean makes, every time Sam’s distance hits him like a blow worse than anything he suffered in Hell, for every moment of fond and protective love between Dean and his brother that is unlike anything Castiel has ever experienced.
That Dean is weak is surely true. He loves his brother too much, loves everything too much, for a man who so desperately tries to pretend he does not care about anything. Such a fleeting span of time given to humans; barely the blink of an eye for one who has known eternity, and yet Dean lives with such fullness and passion. He is alive in every sense of the word, beautiful and tragic, in so much pain that Castiel can see it (feel it) like a weight upon his shoulders. Castiel marvels that it does not stop him, that with all his human flaws and fragility, he refuses to fall down and lie still beneath the burdens heaped upon him.
It’s not Castiel’s place to ponder God’s wisdom, but sometimes, he thinks he understands why God chose Dean Winchester.
-~-+-~-+-~-
Most nights, Dean dreams of Alistair’s rasping voice and cool, precise hands; the flash of blades, the way they sang like fire against his skin. The way he screamed while Alistair listened with that tilt of his head like he was hearing the melody of a particularly pleasing song. Sometimes he dreams of his own face standing above him, knives cutting into him with wild abandon. The nights when he dreams of the ones he tortured are the worst; the pleading whites of their eyes, the blood and viscera laid out before him like art, bringing savage joy to his heart.
But some nights, Dean dreams of wings beating against blistering air. Of a hand on his shoulder and fiery feathers falling all around him; sparking, burning cinders of pain until they’re ash, curling black against new skin.
Always, when he wakes from this dream, Dean reaches for his upper left arm and peels the sleeve back.
The handprint is still a red, angry weal that rises from his skin.
“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”
*
Those nights are the hardest for Castiel. The nights when he knows he must take a step back from this human and maintain his perspective. That some part of Dean remembers what they shared, that some part of Dean still feels what they share…
Pride is a sin. He knows this.
He prays fervently to God for forgiveness on those nights.
-~-+-~-+-~-
“Some nights, I dream about you,” Dean tells him. “About how you raised me from Hell.”
Those green eyes focus on Castiel with such intensity that Castiel has to look away. He can feel Dean’s confusion, his disappointment; see himself too stiff and drawn within the confines of his overcoat. He can feel so much of Dean—feel everything to the core of his being.
It seems unfair to him that Dean is so exposed to him, laid bare when he himself is not. Dean must not ever know. The betrayal Dean would feel…
If he holds himself too carefully, too tightly, when he is in Dean’s presence, it is for this reason.
-~-+-~-+-~-
It rises from the subtleties of Dean’s expressions as time passes; the trust that is growing in him. It burns when Dean looks at him, looks inside him and Castiel feels them connect like a feedback loop.
It is in the moments he stands in the shower, water beating hard and hot against his skin, streaking it red, hands braced on either side of the shower head, remembering the way they’d encircled each other, the shatter of sparks between their mouths. It is in those moments with water beading down his back that he grows weak and his hand falls to touch himself, Dean’s face burning inside his mind.
This human body is corrupting him.
-~-+-~-+-~-
It isn’t until after Dean lies broken by Alistair’s hands that Castiel understands. God did not choose Dean Winchester; it was Dean that chose himself by breaking the first seal.
He wonders that it doesn’t matter more to him. Wonders more for the lack of shame in his heart that he still believes God should have chosen Dean as his champion. And that either way, he believes Dean will end the breaking of the seals and save them all.
“I can’t do it,” Dean whispers, hoarse. “Find someone else.”
Castiel can feel the breaking clench of Dean’s heart with a clarity that leaves him breathless.
“You must.” The words do not leave Castiel with the strength he wishes they would.
Dean is silent for so long, so very long that Castiel would worry for his health could he not feel Dean inside him; his heartbeat, his pain and confusion, his sense of utter failure in himself.
“Give me something to believe in,” Dean finally pleads, eyes as earnest as they’ve ever been.
“What would you have me give you?” Castiel asks.
“Heaven,” he finally says. “Show me heaven.”
Castiel sees himself through Dean’s eyes as he looks down and turns his face away, shadows playing along the edge of his jaw. “It’s not meant for mortal eyes to see.”
“I need to know what I’m part of.”
“You have to know you’re already part of it, Dean. It’s called ‘faith’.”
Dean shakes his head, eyes holding steady. “I don’t believe in faith.”
Castiel tilts his head, cutting his eyes at Dean from the side. “You don’t believe your feelings are real?” The question is as much directed towards Dean as himself.
“Oh, they’re real.” The brief chuckle in Dean’s chest is bitter. “But they can’t be trusted.”
Castiel nods, feeling the tinge of bitterness in his own chest. “Then what can?”
“What I see, what I hear, taste, touch, smell. That’s what I ‘have faith’ in.”
Castiel hates himself for remaining silent. Lessons; so many lessons he must teach when he wants no part of teaching lessons—when all he wants is to reach out, touch Dean’s bruised face and tell him how much he understands everything that Dean feels. How sadly his own faith is lacking in everything but the man lying pale and broken on the bed before him.
“What else is there?” Dean asks. He can feel Dean’s inexplicable anger; hear Dean’s voice so loud, too demanding. Castiel doesn’t answer—does not want to. He feels Dean’s control slip another notch, Dean’s hands tightening into fists.
He will do what he must. He will speak the words. That they will be nothing of what either of them is truly seeking should be inconsequential.
“Is the love you feel for your brother real?” Castiel finally asks.
He can feel Dean recoil; feel the surprise and rage curdle in his veins. “Of course it is.”
Castiel runs his tongue over his lips, wetting them before he speaks again. “Why is it real?”
Dean’s answer is as immediate as it is defiant and sure; pouring straight from his heart. “Because he’s my brother. I’ve spent my whole life with him. I grew up with him, took care of him. He’s real.”
Castiel forces himself to raise his head, meet Dean’s angry gaze. “But how can you trust that your love for him is real?”
Dean doesn’t hesitate. “Because I know it is,” Dean throws the words like he’s throwing a punch.
Castiel nods, solemn. “That’s faith.”
*
“It’s not the same,” Dean says to him, days later. Dean is on his feet, and Castiel can see what Dean sees through window of the motel room; eyes focused on nothing, glare of quartz from the concrete parking lot shining in his eyes. He can feel that Dean knows Castiel is behind him. “I can touch Sam, see him.”
Castiel says nothing, and Dean whirls on him. “Show me,” Dean demands. “I don’t know why I’m here. I need to know. I need something.” Dean feels desperate, hollow ache in his chest, muscles pulled into knots, jaw, shoulders and back. “You brought me back from hell,” he says, like that’s supposed to mean something.
Castiel closes his eyes, tries to forget the image of Dean’s soul, to ignore the emotions racing through Dean right now. “Even if I had any of my own… I can’t give you faith, Dean. No one can.”
“Then what can you give me?”
Castiel knows what he’s supposed to say, the words his duty would have him speak. Knows, too, that what Dean truly wants to understand is what haunts them both.
Castiel begs forgiveness of his Lord and steps forward, puts a hand on Dean’s face, finger trailing his jaw line.
“This,” Castiel says, and kisses him.
It’s an almost chaste kiss; lips warm and dry as they brush Dean’s. He can feel the jolt of surprise run through Dean; feel too, the way it feels familiar somehow, deep down.
Dean pulls back and stares. “I would’ve called this as a sin.”
“If it were,” Castiel’s voice is strained, “would that stop you?”
Dean swallows, meets the eyes he’s been looking into for months and shakes his head. “No.”
Dean moves like fire, fluid and rough all at once. He kisses with the force of his whole body behind it, tongue pushing between Castiel’s lips, sweeping inside and touching everything, sucking, pulling, greedy. Dean pulls him deeper, and Castiel lets him, tongue twining around Dean’s, hands closing on the back of Dean’s head. It feels… as sinful as it does right, it feels good. It’s nothing like their ascent from Hell; human flesh is not made for such grace. He feels Dean’s thoughts, knows the kiss isn’t like Dean thought it might be—nothing like the vague memory that only surfaces in dreams. Dean doesn’t feel enlightened, or saved, or anything else except for Castiel’s hands on his skin.
They’re as rough as Dean’s own, as hungry for texture as Dean’s, running over every inch of skin, grabbing and catching through thick strands of hair. Dean is surprised that Castiel isn’t gentle or sweet. But then, Dean is beginning to understand as Castiel has; neither is heaven.
Dean’s weight is solid against him as they land on the mattress, warm and real as Dean grinds his hips down. Castiel feels shocks course through his body, the familiar coil of heat in his belly, between his legs, cock hardening into a thick line. Dean puts one hand in Castiel’s hair and tips his head back, kissing down into him hard and deep, other hand shoving his hip against the bed as Dean rocks into him again. Castiel’s breath leaves him in a rush, sounds he doesn’t recognize tearing from his throat.
Clothes fall away, shed as easily as all of Castiel’s vows, forgotten in the experience of skin to skin, their muscles rippling and coiling, rocking and pushing against each other.
When Dean thrusts inside him, warm and slick and hard, he feels it deeper than anything else he’s ever felt, inside and out, Dean filling his mind, his awareness, his body—everything Dean feels layered on top of his senses, intensified and blown inside out. The feedback loop is almost too much for him to stand, and he loses himself in it until Dean begins to move, fingers tightening against Castiel’s face, mouth kissing him hard.
“Knew I was good,” Dean whispers between heated bites of Castiel’s lower lip. “But damn…”
Castiel lifts a hand and touches it to Dean’s temple, lets Dean feels everything he does; the blending of their bodies, the combined sensations and awareness. Castiel feels it flood through Dean, and then feels it double back on himself, almost knocking him senseless. Dean’s head snaps back, whole body seizing, hips shuddering as they slide deep.
“Holy… fuck…” Dean rasps.
If Castiel were more coherent, he would agree. He grabs hold of Dean instead, urges him deeper, harder, faster, mouths dissolving into a hot tangle, naked bodies tattooing out a sweating rhythm against the sheets. All Castiel can do is push and pull and twist and shove, nearly senseless when Dean finally wraps a hand around his cock.
Dean comes almost the instant Castiel does, feeling his own hand wrapped around Castiel, the intense pleasure it sends singing through his body, cock twitching hard and pulsing in jagged bursts that end any coherent thought completely. Dean comes right behind him, all of Dean’s senses and sensation spilling into him and making him come even harder—and Dean feels that too.
There’s nothing after that except senseless rutting, hips jerking, hands trying to find something solid to cling to until they both collapse, breathless and shaking.
“Fuck,” Dean gasps, breath beating against Castiel’s skin. Even that feels good, nerve endings sending tiny shivers bursting all through him. “Is that… how did you…?”
Castiel’s mouth twists in a tight smile, nothing of humor in it. “I feel everything you feel, Dean. I have, ever since I found you in Hell.”
Dean stops breathing, sweat slick body going still, heart skipping a beat against Castiel’s chest.
“I…” Castiel takes a deep breath. “I try not to…”
“So you know… everything?” Dean’s voice cracks across the syllables.
Castiel turns his face to the side, pillow crinkling against his cheek.
“And you’re here?” Dean asks, and Castiel can feel the war inside him between anger and wonder.
“Yes.” It’s all Castiel can say; it encompasses everything simply enough.
Dean closes his eyes, breathes out slow and shakes his head. “Huh.”
*
Castiel knows he will be punished for this; he has been weak, given in to the pleasures of flesh. He does not tell Dean what he will suffer; does not want to burden Dean further. He will bear this on his own.
In the end, that isn’t what he’s punished for at all.
When he is sent back to Heaven, Dean’s existence extinguishes inside his mind like a candle flame.
There is pain and screaming in excess to take Dean’s place.
-~-+-~-+-~-
He can feel Dean the moment he descends to Earth. The desperation in him, the need in him to touch Castiel and make sure he’s real, even though his hands remain in his pockets, fingers twitching.
Castiel closes himself, shutters down, turns his back and starts to walk away. He shuts his eyes against the memory, pushes back the feeling.
The second Dean calls his name and looks at him with bewildered eyes, disappointment filling him with a bitter taste, Castiel understands how futile his efforts are.
Still, he holds the next time Dean calls, Dean’s voice ragged and hoarse, breaking over the syllables of Castiel’s name until Castiel can no longer bear the sound.
He extracts the promise he knows he must from Dean, but he is careful with his wording.
When Dean remains standing there, simply staring at Castiel, Castiel can feel the want running through both of them, the way the heat of it snakes through the veins of his vessel.
It takes all of Castiel’s will to turn away.
*
He does not have the will to turn away when Dean beseeches him a second time.
-~-+-~-+-~-
His garrison left behind him, forsaken on the behalf of a human, Castiel finds something like clarity.
He knows without question that by the end of all of this, he will fall from grace.
There are worse fates.
-~-+-~-+-~-
“Show me,” Dean asks again, head resting against Castiel’s chest, words breathed against sweat slick muscle. “If I have to kill Lucifer… I need to know.”
“It will not give you faith.”
“Please.”
Castiel frowns, brows drawing together.
“I can let you feel it,” he finally answers. Castiel places his hand over the mark on Dean’s arm, fingers fitting to the raised skin.
There’s fire in heaven, too. It’s made of holy flame, cleansing and retribution.
It feels like war. It feels like family.
It feels like he belongs.
Dean yanks his shoulder from Castiel’s grasp, pulls back wide-eyed.
“Now do you understand?”
Castiel looks at him with wondering eyes and Dean turns his face away.
Yes. Dean understands.
Dean felt like he belonged in Hell, too.
“I’m alone in this.” Dean’s voice is rough, as gritty and bare as Castiel’s ever heard it.
“No.” Castiel fits his hand to Dean’s shoulder, thumb tracing the edge of raised skin.
“Not alone.”
-~-+-~-+-~-
When Dean steps onto the battlefield to face Lucifer, sword of God in his hand, it’s not because of God, or faith.
It’s because it’s what’s right.
Castiel feels him heft the blade, feels certainty sing in Dean’s blood, and smiles.