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Thump goes his heart, a fragile little thing nesting between broken ribs
a desperate flutter, unable to escape its ever small enclosure.
Thump goes that loosely clenched fist as it fights against the covers –
he’s alone (always so alone) in a room that he’s oh so desperately tried to make his own.
But it will never be his…not really.
That tiny bird of heart sings for a companion, one that is just thirty steps down the hall
and a few realities away.
Thump goes the screen of a laptop as it is closed, and the room loses its light,
a broken kind of sigh escaping chapped lips, he rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands
as if pressure and darkness can make the anxieties fade away.
Thump goes a knock at the door.
A sparrow sings, a tune quiet and peaceful – fitting, for a night like this.
The other man – does he even count as a man at all? - walks into the room
with the aura of someone who used to be much more than this,
who deserves much more than this.
Yet, he dwells here, choosing to ride the dirty waves of humanity.
Dean can’t quite figure out why on earth he would do that.
He doesn’t ask questions.
(When he asks questions, he gets honest answers and poor ol’ Dean has never been one for
true honesty. He enjoys being lied to, played by a game he thinks he invented.
So he keeps his questions to himself and the world goes on.)
Castiel, the entity who has been everything but cannot get a grip on how to be a human, comes bearing gifts.
Which is strange, seeing as there were no presents for Dean underneath the Christmas tree earlier.
(“You said he didn’t have to get you anything. He takes things literally.”
“Shut up, Sam.”)
He’s not bitter. Mostly.
However, Castiel is here, an halo of soft fairy lights surrounding his head, as if he were angel again.
“May I come in.” His voice the soft timbre of shyness.
He doesn’t have to say anything, he never really has to say anything.
Cas walks forward, water splashing over the basin in his hands, dampening the towels on his forearms.
He kneels at the edge of the bed and looks up at Dean.
Thump goes his heart again, something more like rabid tigers than soft birds raging inside his chest.
Cas strips Dean’s feet of old socks and of his dignity.
It’s the temperature of the fingers working down his legs that make him yelp and not that there is a certain someone on his knees in front of him.
Zero dirty thoughts present in this moment.
Pinky promise.
The water in the basin is warm, a strange sensation that spreads over his body
(maybe Castiel is still part angel and this is what remains of his grace, a flicker of a fire
buried underneath miles of human skin and bone)
Something like a prayer begins to escape the lips of the man beneath him,
a cacophony of words he’s never been able to understand
like three or seven languages strung together to create a something he faintly remembers from years filled with
red red red blood
“You are made of dust and light. You are made of
celestial wind and chipped earth. You are made of
the suns rays and the moons tides. You are made of
holy ground and I have been baptized in your blood.”
(Dean isn’t tearing up, the steam from the water is just building up on his face)
A feather light touch runs up and down his calf
a check-in. An are you alright?
All dean can do is sit and nod, speechless and hapless.
There is no proper response for anything that is happening right now.
Briefly, a moment shorter than any other before, Dean wonders what it would have been like to live
a life where Castiel never came to his aid, but someone else had instead.
And he thinks to himself that is not a life worth having.
The thought, like many things, fly away in an instant.
It’s not something he wants to think about for more than he has to.
He looks down, at a man drying his feet, with care and adoration laced in every movement
It’s a new prayer this time, definitely in a language he doesn’t understand –
Enochian.
He doesn’t know what Castiel is saying, at the tail end of his task,
but it washes over him in waves, like these are words of a song he once knew or maybe
the lines of a poem he had to memorize once.
He can feel each word coming to him just a moment before it is said.
“You’ve said that to me before”
Barely an accusation. Cas flinches.
He finishes his job, Dean’s feet no different than they were a few minutes ago. Perhaps a little damp.
That wasn’t the point though, Dean knows that.
An absolute.
Unquestionable.
There is a point. But he’s not sure he’s ready to know what the reason behind this is.
“Every sinew in your body, every muscle and every bone, I know all of them.
I did this to humble myself before you in the only way I know how.
I did this for you, mostly, but also for me.”
Thump Thump Thump goes his crazy heart.
He knows, deep in the core of his being and in his bones, he knows what this means.
It’s the way Dean has taught him to be, to show things rather than say them.
Of all the human gestures to pick up, self-doubt is the one Castiel carries close.
He moves to stand, as if this is the end. He has made his point and will retreat to the safety of his own room, away from this discordance of emotions he opened on this own.
Dean places a hand on his shoulder. How fitting.
One. Two. Three. Four.
The seconds tick by and nothing happens. Nothing.
Five. Six. Seven.
Castiel stares at him, waiting for something, anything.
Eight. Nine.
It’s been ten years of this and he is done waiting and wondering and hoping and losing.
Someone falls forward (maybe both of them do).
Maybe time and distance grew to be too much and two bodies just fell together
as they were always meant to be.
Their lips entangle, hungry
starving things who have denied themselves the only thing the other needed.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.
Twenty. One hundred. Three thousand.
A million.
More and more they beg of one another.
In this cold, cold night where nothing else matters except that they finally jumped over that last hurdle,
The one thing that was telling them no.
Dean laughs, his lips kiss-bruised and his hands entangled in black hair
“Merry Christmas”
Thump goes his heart, a fragile little thing nesting between healed ribs