Chapter Text
Dean awoke from a dark and dreamless sleep with a racing heart. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes to soothe the dizzying rush of blood in his ears. All around, the bunker was quiet except for the deep and distant rattle of the old pipes protesting the midnight drop in temperature.
There was a howling windy sound too. Thinking back to the weather forecast, which had predicted more snow, Dean wondered if he was hearing a storm outside. Though the bunker was typically sound-proof, the worst of Kansas storms were often audible through the thick layers of concrete, insulation, and dirt.
Flicking on his phone, he squinted through one eye to check for updates from the weather channel, and came to find, by all accounts, that it was a clear and chilly night.
“Well, shit,” he thought, grabbing his gun and getting half dressed. In his groggy logic, Dean thought the least he could do was preserve some dignity by meeting the mysterious intruder without any chance of his extremities flying out of a flap in his underpants. He'd learned that lesson the hard way.
Tiptoeing down the hall in his wool socks, he passed Sam's room. His brother was safe and asleep. Not wanting to disrupt Sam from a rare night of restfulness, he resigned to taking care of the threat himself.
Dean's brain was racing to identify the sound. With each step, the odd howls got a bit louder, clearer. They sounded like laughter, but who would be in the Winchester’s bunker at the crack of dawn laughing hysterically?
He traced the sound to the library. Adjusting his grip on his gun one final time, Dean turned the corner.
The room was dark. All of the lights were off except for one lamp glowing dull and yellow by the red chair in the far corner. Peering over the shelves, Dean made out the scruff of brunette hair.
Face in hands, Castiel was crying.
Dean froze up. He hardly wanted to stand there watching someone in secret during such a vulnerable moment, but his fingers wouldn't respond to his commands. Blinking through his groggy haze, he pieced the sight together.
Cas had shown up on their doorstep sopping wet and painted in mud. After the angel had passed the Winchester special—silver, salt, holy water—his brain had become a feedback loop. Cas is back! He's alive! Once Cas was warm, clean, dry, and fed; the news finally had time to settle. Castiel had returned from the dead as a human rather than an angel.
At the time, Dean had been too busy making sure that Cas was still full from peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches. He hadn't thought much of the tense hesitation in Cas’ demeanor. Sure, over the previous days, he'd noticed some insecurity, but nothing too out of the norm considering what Cas was going through.
Dean watched, frozen in time, as Cas wept into his hands. New layers fixed themselves to his memories of the last few days.
“Hi,” Dean said, grateful that he'd finally found it in himself to blurt something out.
Castiel jumped up from his chair, backing up against the nearest wall, and knocking about ten things over in the process. A lamp cord was wrapped around his ankle.
As Cas approached to scorn him, Dean didn't have time to shout a warning. With a loud crash, the glass base and little lightbulb shattered.
Utterly stunned, Cas sank into a heap onto the floor next to the glass fragments, face in his hands again.
“Now look at what I did. I swear, I can't take another day of this,” the angel cursed wetly into his palms.
Maternal instincts blaring in Dean like red alert sirens on the Enterprise, he pulled Cas upright by the forearm in one swift motion.
“Careful, buddy. I don't want to embarrass you, but glass is no joke for humans. I know angels live to break glass, but we can get seriously screwed up in a bunch of different ways from the stuff. Hell, you can even breathe it in, perforate a lung, and die,” Dean rambled too fast, halting mid-thought when Cas’ eyes went wide as an owl's.
“I mean, it's cool. But just follow me. Step here. Yes, like that. I'm gonna go get a broom. Why don't you sit at the table for now, okay?”
Castiel didn't nod. He sank down into the wooden seat at the table.
Rushing out of the room, Dean reflected on the events as he navigated the cold stony halls to the cleaning closet by the kitchen.
So Castiel was panicking about being human more than he'd initially let on. Dean thought hard about this.
After a while, he concluded one thing for certain. If Dean, heaven forbid, had suddenly turned into an angel, as much as he hated to admit it, he'd want Cas at his side baby-sitting him—in a way that made him retain his manhood, of course. The flying would be exciting, the teleporting, the time travel, invincibility, invisibility, etc. Shit, being an angel would be badass, actually.
Dean rolled his shoulders into place, re-centering himself.
What if he had started off as an angel and turned human? Were there cool things that humans had that could even compare to what angels had? Food. Definitely, food. Women. He had half an idea that angels got pretty envious of that point if Nephalim were any proof. Drinking and actually getting drunk.
On his way back, Dean made a mental list of all the things he enjoyed about being human. Humming, broom and dustpan swinging in his hands, Dean's plan formed quickly in his mind.
He slowed his pace as he entered the room, not wanting to overwhelm Cas. While he swept, Castiel rested his head on the table.
After all the glass was in the bin, Dean scooted a wooden chair close to Castiel.
“Wanna talk about it?” He asked first.
Wiping at his eyes, Cas shook his head. “Not particularly.”
“Is it about what I think it's about?”
Cas laughed with no emotion.
“Anything I can do to help?” Dean tried, struggling to share his plan.
“I doubt it, since last I checked, you're not God.”
“What if I told you, unlike God, I actually have a plan that will guarantee your happiness?”
“Dean, I'm not in the mood to be a punchline of one of your sardonic jokes.” Cas folded his arms indignantly. At least the tears were gone.
“I'm not making a sardine joke or whatever. I'm one hundred percent serious, Cas. Now are you interested?”
Castiel's grip on his elbows loosed as he shifted a little closer to Dean.
“Fine, what's your ‘plan,’ Dean?” Cas shook his head mockingly, using one of his hands to imitate quotation signs in the air.
“I was thinking…” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. “If this whole thing was reversed and I became an angel… or I mean, if I was an angel and you were a human, and then I became human...”
Castiel twisted his lips to one side, the hope draining from his eyes.
“Wait, I'm not explaining it well. Just hold on. I would miss being a human if I became an angel. I'd want you around to show me the ropes, so I can see that it's not so bad. I mean it when I say that I'd miss being human…”
“Why?” Cas said in an overly controlled voice. He's interested, Dean realized.
“I mean, flying is cool, and being invincible has got to be exciting, but I can tell by the way that most angels act that you guys are missing something that we humans have.”
“Like?” Cas was still frowning, but Dean took his curiosity as a good sign.
“Women, booze…”
Cas groaned, locking his posture up again.
“Wait!” Dean cried out, tugging on his friend’s sleeve. “There's more than that… There's the little stuff that angels definitely miss because your lives move at a different speed.”
Dean drifted back to days before his life had boiled down to protecting his brother. For so long, he'd only found small bursts of personal joy in the occasional drunken hook-up with good-looking women he was sure to never see again—even if he wanted to.
“The little stuff is what makes everything worth it. Like... like... like when you learn how to skip rocks. It's hard at first, but if you're patient, you get the hang of it. And it's so much fun to look for the perfect rock. And you never know what will happen with each try.”
Dean hoped that he wasn't coming across as completely crazy, but Cas' eyes were the softest he'd seen all night. Dean continued describing the little things.
“As much as I don't want to admit this, taste buds are good for more than a nice burger. Sometimes in the summer, we pass farmer's markets. We've been to every state under the sun. You wouldn't believe how many fruits there are, and a lot of them taste really friggin’ good. This stays between you and me, by the way. Sam will never let me hear the end of it if he finds out that I secretly like all the fruits he's made me try.”
Castiel inched closer, tilting his head to one side.
“A stormy day, with nothing to do, and something from Sam's secret stash of romance novels… kicking back after a good hunt with family, drinking beer, eating good food, and playing poker… the first sunny day after a long winter… and, this is also a secret, so no telling Sam… love is alright, too. When falling in love with someone ain't just the best sex of your life.”
Cas gulped loudly. Only a foot or two away, Dean could hear his shallow breaths.
“When it's the kind of love,” Dean continued, “where you both just stay up all night talking about everything, and you don't even realize that the time is flying by. When you respect them, and everything they do is amazing, and it feels exhilarating just knowing that someone so amazing wants nothing more than to spend their days and nights with you.”
Cas scowled, biting a fingernail.
“For humans, since our days are numbered, it is a sincere compliment when you spend your time with someone.”
“I see,” Cas mumbled. “Thank you then… for your time. I still feel unsure. I mean, these sound like things that most humans experience in their early development. I don't know what foods I like, I barely remember how to play poker, I only ever look at nonfiction books from the bunker library if a case calls for it, and I have my doubts about love. I still feel underdeveloped as a human.”
“Learning all that stuff IS the fun part Cas. You can experiment and find what foods you like, what your favorite genres are, what your favorite weather is…” he trailed off, stopping when Cas slumped down again.
“No offense, Dean, but I doubt that any of these things will compare to flying.”
“Wanna bet on it?” Dean's heart was in his throat.
“What?’
“Wanna bet? Let me show you all of my favorite things and then if none of them even comes close to flying, you win, and you can sulk in the library all day. But until then, let me show you the perks of being human.”