SPN FIC - A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever
An idea popped into my head a couple months ago: what if Dean walked into the motel room and found Castiel reading Busty Asian Beauties? It started out kind of goofy, and then evolved into something a bit different: Dean and Cas, and the question of free will.
With a dismissive gesture Dean takes a step toward the kitchenette, intending to score himself a beer out of the fridge - and some serious woe is gonna befall Sam if he drank the last one - but the knee he bashed when the freakin' spirit bounced him off the wall locks on him and he stumbles. Years of practice (and, dammit, years of being bounced off walls) have taught him how to recover before he falls, and he covers the rest of the distance to the fridge without incident.
CHARACTERS: Dean and Castiel
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG, for language
SPOILERS: Minor reference to Heaven and Hell
LENGTH: 3121 words
A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER
By Carol Davis
Finding Castiel in the motel room isn't the surprise. Which isn't to say that it's any kind of a treat; after the day he's had, Dean would much rather find the room completely unpopulated. Or, if that's too much of a stretch, he'd settle for finding it populated by Sam.
Or. You know. Heidi Klum.
Either way, his luck's been shit on a paper plate lately, so no Sam, no Heidi, and no empty. Instead, he's got Castiel. And not for the first time. It's only been a few months, but Dean's long since lost track of how many times he's turned around or opened a door or opened his eyes and BOOM! There's Cas.
So, nothing new there. Unfortunately.
But here's the weird part.
Cas is sitting on the couch. Reading a copy of Busty Asian Beauties.
The fuck? Dean thinks, and for a horrifying second he's pretty sure God's about to bust him for almost twenty years' worth of porn. He figures the Big Dude Upstairs has told Cas to swing by, wave some evidence in Dean's face, and then smite the shit out of him, because he should have been spending his valuable downtime reading Shakespeare or Hemingway or Time or U.S. News and World Report. Or. You know. The Bible.
"Um -" he says.
Cas just goes on reading. Or looking at the pictures, anyway, because nobody with two functioning brain cells actually reads Busty Asian Beauties.
Not that there's actually anything in there to read, other than captions.
Dean takes a cautious step into the room, letting go of the door in the process, and it wheezes shut behind him, a remarkable match for the way Dean is breathing. The closer he gets to Cas, the more this whole thing weirds him out, because…well, hell. There's an angel sitting on the couch looking at a skin mag, and he's got that same idiotic look Sammy had the first time he got hold of a magazine Dean hadn't hidden well enough in between the mattress and the box springs. Sammy was only a kid, and Castiel's certainly not that, but…
Well. Hello. Angel?
"Dude," Dean says. "Inappropriate?"
Finally, Cas looks up. "Oh. Hello, Dean." And damn if he doesn't go right back to making that funky face at the magazine. Like he can't figure it out.
They're screwing with him, Dean thinks. The angels.
He so does not need this right now.
After a moment, Cas lays the magazine - open to the centerfold - on the coffee table, where Dean thinks he remembers leaving it last night. Cas ponders it that way, from that little bit of distance, then peers at Dean and says, "I am…curious about something."
That figures. So was Sammy.
"Hit me," Dean says, but it's kind of short on enthusiasm.
"The women in these photographs."
"Yeah?"
"Their -" Cas pauses. "Lactational apparatus. Is noticeably out of proportion to the rest of their bodies."
"Lacta what, now?"
"Lactational apparatus."
Parsing that out takes a minute. For some reason, lactose intolerant springs into Dean's head, and he knows that's got something to do with milk.
Milk?
"You mean they've got big hooters?" he grimaces.
"Hooters?"
Dean gestures.
"Oh," Cas says. "Yes."
It's been a long day. And a long week. And a long freakin' eight months. The last thing Dean wants to do right now is explain breast implants to a freakin' Angel of the Lord.
He's being punished, he thinks. For all that porn. That's the only possible explanation for this, because this is - well, it's like the Divine version of Punk'd.
Hell, he would have settled for opening the door and finding Ashton Kutcher in here. And he freakin' hates Ashton Kutcher. Which is mostly because, how did that skinny, weird-ass kid from That 70's Show end up banging Demi Moore? But anyway. What's up next? Sure as shit, Cas is gonna unwind some big lecture on the beauty of the Father's creations and how He got it right the first time and people just shouldn't mess with…
"Free will, man," Dean blurts out. "Okay?"
Before Cas can go all righteous on him, he plucks the magazine up off the table and flips it closed. He's about to stash it somewhere when he notices Cas's eyes tracking the thing, like he's not gonna be done with this little avenue of scientific investigation for a while. Which, yeah, again, no surprise, because Sammy didn't let it go even after Dean threatened to paste him if he didn't shut up. He had questions about body parts for years.
That's not gonna happen here, right? Because Cas is…
"Does this do anything for you?" Dean asks, frowning.
"In what sense?" Castiel responds.
That's a human body Cas is hiking around in. His "true form" (whatever that is - Dean's still not clear on that, and isn't sure he ever wants to be) might be junkless, but the guy in the trench coat isn't. At least, Dean figures he isn't. Cas hasn't done any show-and-tell.
Thank God.
"Does it -" Dean begins, surprised at how flustered he feels. "Get your motor running."
"Am I sexually aroused?"
"Dude."
"No."
"Huh," Dean says.
"They are all the Father's creations. And have their own unique beauty. I can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the human form."
"But not -"
"No."
"Well," Dean says. He didn't expect to, but he's feeling bad for Cas. Pretty much the same kind of bad he used to feel every time Dad told Sammy he couldn't have something he had a serious jones for. A computer. A dog. Dinner at Chuck E Cheese.
Good thing Sam never bothered asking Dad if it was okay to have sex.
"All business, all the time, then, is that it?" he says with a grimace. "Dude, you got freakin' shortchanged. I mean - God created that whole sideshow, right? The horizontal tango. And…the rest of it. The lacta…whatevers."
"Lactational apparatus."
"Yeah."
"I am here for a purpose, Dean. Not to entertain myself by exploring the human experience."
Dean glances down at the magazine and snorts. "Yeah. Obviously."
"Curiosity is one thing. Acting on that curiosity is entirely another."
"Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say."
With a dismissive gesture Dean takes a step toward the kitchenette, intending to score himself a beer out of the fridge - and some serious woe is gonna befall Sam if he drank the last one - but the knee he bashed when the freakin' spirit bounced him off the wall locks on him and he stumbles. Years of practice (and, dammit, years of being bounced off walls) have taught him how to recover before he falls, and he covers the rest of the distance to the fridge without incident.
Almost.
"You've injured yourself," Cas observes.
Beer. Open. Drink. It's good and cold going down. It's not gonna do much to offset the headache that's blooming between Dean's ears, though.
"Are you badly hurt?"
"Dude," Dean sighs.
To his dismay Cas gets up from the couch and…circles him. Studying him up and down, with that frown he wears that makes Dean feel like he's fucked something up when he knows he hasn't.
"What?"
"Perhaps you should -"
"Should what?" Dean replies, and it comes out a little shrill. "It's a rough line of work. Have you not figured that out before now?"
"I was merely going to suggest that you -"
"What? Be more careful?"
"Yes."
"Jeeeeeeesus," Dean squeals, and yes, he expects Cas to flinch, but Cas doesn't. Nothing makes Cas flinch. He's unflinchable, and yet another reminder of that makes Dean's blossoming headache threaten to go low-level nuclear. "Could you," he says, flailing the beer bottle, "could you just save whatever news flash you came here to deliver for…sometime much later? Like maybe never? I had a bad night, man. I want to get some sleep. I do not want to stand here and be your lab rat for figuring out the 'human experience.' Unless that Touched By An Angel shit you do is good for curing headaches, in which case bring it on. Then you could get the hell out."
Right now? He misses Sam's emo bullshit. Sam would tell Dean to kiss his ass, then storm out of here. But Sam's -
Who the hell knows where Sam is, any more.
"I -" Cas begins.
The bed looks really good right now. It looks freaking awesome, in fact, although Dean knows from a night spent contorting himself from one position to another, none of them comfortable, that the only honestly good thing about that bed is that it's horizontal. But that's enough of a plus to make the crowd go wild. For two cents he'd faceplant on it and let Cas stand there and be…whatever the hell it is he's being.
"Lemme give you the short version," Dean says, figuring Cas is still contemplating surgically enhanced hooters. It's only been a couple of minutes, and yeah, Sam pondered the whole situation for days.
The idea of Cas hanging around here for days fretting about lactational apparatuses makes Dean want to fling himself out a ten-story window. Which is unfortunately not possible because the room's on the ground floor. "People are never satisfied," he sputters. "Period. End of story."
Cas is silent for about six eternities. Then he asks, "Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Satisfied."
"With…what?"
"The form the Father created for you."
Seriously? Ashton freaking Kutcher's gotta be around here someplace. There's a hidden camera in this room.
"Should I not be?" Dean moans.
Maybe he could smack his head into the wall hard enough to knock himself out. With any luck he'd be out long enough that Cas would get bored and leave.
But it's been eight months. And Dean's starting to believe that there is no stretch of time long enough to allow Cas to become bored. He's new at this, after all. Hasn't been kicking around Earth for a couple thousand years, like Anna.
He'd like Vegas, Dean thinks. All kinds of weird shit going on there. Maybe…
"I have something to confess," Castiel announces.
Dean tightens his grip on the bottle. Confess, in his experience, is never a promising lead-in. It's like We need to talk.
And beyond that - an angel? Confessing to him?
This won't be good.
If this situation was happening with Sam, he'd go lock himself in the bathroom. Or maybe go the other direction: take his baby and drive, crank the music up loud, put some miles between himself and the problem. But sure as there's little green apples Cas would just pop into the freakin' shotgun seat, totally unannounced and ready to rock 'n' roll. There's no walking away from Cas. Or driving. Or running. The best Dean can do is walk past him, trying ferociously not to look at him, and sink down onto the couch, beer in hand.
He closes his eyes. And waits.
"I was given instructions," Castiel says.
"Fabulous."
There could still be some smiting on the day's program. In fact, there probably is. Because of the porn. And his attitude.
If smiting involves a long period of unconsciousness, that'd be good.
Eyes still closed, Dean takes a sip of his beer. It's nice, going down. The next few sips are even better. And the couch is kind of comfortable. Slowly he lets himself slouch down into the cushions and pillows his head on the backrest. He belches softly and snuffles, like a dog settling in for a nap. If there were a sunbeam involved here, a nice warm sunbeam that would lay warm and soft against his face, life would be good.
It's the little things, he thinks.
He feels the cushions shift as Castiel sits down at the other end of the couch.
"I was instructed to bring you back," the angel says. "To raise you from Hell and restore you to your Earthly form."
"Swell."
Little things. If he can focus on the little things…
"But the instructions were somewhat non-specific. And I -" There's a pause. "Interpreted."
Dean cranks open one eye.
Interpreted? he thinks. Because seriously, what the fuck? Interpreted? Cas has a weird look on his face, a big-time mea culpa look, like Sammy used to get every time he did something heinous that he wanted Dean to take the fall for because he pretty much knew Dean would. But that was Sam. And this is…not Sam.
Interpreted?
It makes the beer slosh around in Dean's belly and threaten a return engagement.
He's still got what God gave him. Looked at it less than an hour ago, when he stopped by the side of the road to take a leak.
His mouth forms the word What?
He doesn't dare try to speak. He'd end up sounding like a girl.
A…
"You were very grievously injured," Castiel goes on, sounding like Tom Brokaw, like this is the evening news and he's reading off a TelePrompter. "And some time had passed. Your mortal body was not in acceptable condition. I was instructed to restore you to a condition that would be…functional." He glances around, as if he's picked up on Dean's fears and he's starting to agree that yeah, maybe Ashton's in the building. Behind the shower curtain.
His junk's still there, Dean thinks. He freakin' saw it.
"Spit it out!" he shrills.
His eyes are open now. He's got a pretty tight grip on the bottle and he wonders what the penalty would be for beating the shit out of an angel. Well, an angel's vessel, anyway. Maybe nothing would happen, maybe the vessel wouldn't even bruise, but it'd be worth a try. Because there are things you do and there are things you don't do.
To people.
Castiel's gaze shifts to the magazine, then back to Dean. His head is bowed a little. He looks kinda…penitent.
"I was aware -"
"What did you do?"
"If you could let me speak."
"It depends on what you're gonna say."
"Dean," Cas says, using the bossy voice he likes to whip out when he's feeling all omnipotent and shit.
Dean counts to ten. Or starts to, at least. He gets to six.
"A number of broken bones. Some of them did not heal properly. Your left shoulder was also problematic."
"I got shot."
"Your circulatory system had begun to degrade. And, of course, there were the injuries inflicted by the hellhounds. And stress," Castiel adds, as if he's a freaking guest on Oprah! "The medical community is perfectly correct about the harmful effects of stress on the human body." Before Dean can even attempt to respond, Castiel waves him into silence and goes forging ahead. "I did not think that a human in your condition would be capable of properly managing the assignments relative to -"
"I don't think I got out of hell," Dean says. "I think this is a different hell. Where you shred my brain until I'm freaking insane."
"I healed you."
"Yeah. I got that."
"No," Castiel replies. "I healed you."
He looks sort of…pleased.
Dean considers his hand, curled around the brown glass of the beer bottle. Remembers the finger that used to stick up a little, wouldn't curve like the rest.
Remembers the almost-constant ache in his left shoulder.
And the scars.
God, there were so many scars. He'd grown accustomed to them, over the years, and once in a while, if he was drunk enough, he kind of admired them. Was proud of them, because they were symbols of a job well done. Or done, at least. And they got some attention from the ladies. So they weren't a bad thing, provided he didn't spend much time pondering the pain that'd been involved with those gashes and slices and stabs.
But they're gone now. All of 'em. He's added a couple new ones lately, but back in September he was unmarked.
Healed.
"They didn't tell you to fix me up like that?" he frowns.
"They did not."
"So you kinda took it on yourself to -"
"It seemed sensible."
"Can you fix the knee?"
For no reason Dean can pin down, Cas seems affronted by that. "I am not Mr. Windshield, Dean. My assignment does not involve following you around to undo your unending series of minor injuries."
"How do you know it's minor? I could have…torn cartilage, or some shit like that."
"Then perhaps you should be more careful."
"I'm messing up your handiwork, is that the problem?"
Castiel is silent for a minute, fingering the frayed hem of the trench coat he's been wearing for eight months. "You are not 'my handiwork,'" he says finally. "You are the Father's creation. I simply… restored you."
"So I could do the job."
"Yes."
"And you needed to confess this to me."
Cas shrugs.
"Why?"
But the conversation seems to be over. Castiel stands up, glancing down at the coat as the fabric settles around him.
"Look," Dean says. "I appreciate it. What you did."
"Do you?"
"Free will, Cas. I got a job to do. Yeah, there's whatever's going on with the whole apocalypse thing. But I got my job. I saved some people last night. You know about that? Some people are okay now, and if I got banged up in the process, I guess that's the price."
It's weird, he thinks. All this. He used to walk into motel rooms and find nobody but Sam. Or Dad.
Or nobody.
"It's my job," he says quietly.
Castiel considers that for a moment, then reaches down to pick up the magazine and holds it out to Dean.
"You do it well," the angel says.
Then he's gone.
The magazine flutters to the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Frowning, Dean picks it up and lays it where it was, where he left it last night before he went out to hunt down the spirit that flung him up against that wall. The one that busted up his knee. He touches the knee gingerly, probes it, finds it puffy and tender. It'll heal, more than likely, but he's probably got a couple of days of limping ahead of him.
Nothing new there.
But there's beer to get him over the hump. A whole six he didn't realize was in there. Maybe that's Sam's doing, and maybe it's Castiel's; right now, Dean doesn't much care. The job's done, he's got some down time, he's got beer, and - yeah. He's got Busty Asian Beauties.
Healed, he thinks.
That's some wacky shit, right there.
"Thanks, man," he says quietly.
And on the table in front of him, the pages of Busty Asian Beauties flutter a little, as if there's a breeze.
Or as if they're wings.
* * * * *
With a dismissive gesture Dean takes a step toward the kitchenette, intending to score himself a beer out of the fridge - and some serious woe is gonna befall Sam if he drank the last one - but the knee he bashed when the freakin' spirit bounced him off the wall locks on him and he stumbles. Years of practice (and, dammit, years of being bounced off walls) have taught him how to recover before he falls, and he covers the rest of the distance to the fridge without incident.
CHARACTERS: Dean and Castiel
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG, for language
SPOILERS: Minor reference to Heaven and Hell
LENGTH: 3121 words
A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER
By Carol Davis
Finding Castiel in the motel room isn't the surprise. Which isn't to say that it's any kind of a treat; after the day he's had, Dean would much rather find the room completely unpopulated. Or, if that's too much of a stretch, he'd settle for finding it populated by Sam.
Or. You know. Heidi Klum.
Either way, his luck's been shit on a paper plate lately, so no Sam, no Heidi, and no empty. Instead, he's got Castiel. And not for the first time. It's only been a few months, but Dean's long since lost track of how many times he's turned around or opened a door or opened his eyes and BOOM! There's Cas.
So, nothing new there. Unfortunately.
But here's the weird part.
Cas is sitting on the couch. Reading a copy of Busty Asian Beauties.
The fuck? Dean thinks, and for a horrifying second he's pretty sure God's about to bust him for almost twenty years' worth of porn. He figures the Big Dude Upstairs has told Cas to swing by, wave some evidence in Dean's face, and then smite the shit out of him, because he should have been spending his valuable downtime reading Shakespeare or Hemingway or Time or U.S. News and World Report. Or. You know. The Bible.
"Um -" he says.
Cas just goes on reading. Or looking at the pictures, anyway, because nobody with two functioning brain cells actually reads Busty Asian Beauties.
Not that there's actually anything in there to read, other than captions.
Dean takes a cautious step into the room, letting go of the door in the process, and it wheezes shut behind him, a remarkable match for the way Dean is breathing. The closer he gets to Cas, the more this whole thing weirds him out, because…well, hell. There's an angel sitting on the couch looking at a skin mag, and he's got that same idiotic look Sammy had the first time he got hold of a magazine Dean hadn't hidden well enough in between the mattress and the box springs. Sammy was only a kid, and Castiel's certainly not that, but…
Well. Hello. Angel?
"Dude," Dean says. "Inappropriate?"
Finally, Cas looks up. "Oh. Hello, Dean." And damn if he doesn't go right back to making that funky face at the magazine. Like he can't figure it out.
They're screwing with him, Dean thinks. The angels.
He so does not need this right now.
After a moment, Cas lays the magazine - open to the centerfold - on the coffee table, where Dean thinks he remembers leaving it last night. Cas ponders it that way, from that little bit of distance, then peers at Dean and says, "I am…curious about something."
That figures. So was Sammy.
"Hit me," Dean says, but it's kind of short on enthusiasm.
"The women in these photographs."
"Yeah?"
"Their -" Cas pauses. "Lactational apparatus. Is noticeably out of proportion to the rest of their bodies."
"Lacta what, now?"
"Lactational apparatus."
Parsing that out takes a minute. For some reason, lactose intolerant springs into Dean's head, and he knows that's got something to do with milk.
Milk?
"You mean they've got big hooters?" he grimaces.
"Hooters?"
Dean gestures.
"Oh," Cas says. "Yes."
It's been a long day. And a long week. And a long freakin' eight months. The last thing Dean wants to do right now is explain breast implants to a freakin' Angel of the Lord.
He's being punished, he thinks. For all that porn. That's the only possible explanation for this, because this is - well, it's like the Divine version of Punk'd.
Hell, he would have settled for opening the door and finding Ashton Kutcher in here. And he freakin' hates Ashton Kutcher. Which is mostly because, how did that skinny, weird-ass kid from That 70's Show end up banging Demi Moore? But anyway. What's up next? Sure as shit, Cas is gonna unwind some big lecture on the beauty of the Father's creations and how He got it right the first time and people just shouldn't mess with…
"Free will, man," Dean blurts out. "Okay?"
Before Cas can go all righteous on him, he plucks the magazine up off the table and flips it closed. He's about to stash it somewhere when he notices Cas's eyes tracking the thing, like he's not gonna be done with this little avenue of scientific investigation for a while. Which, yeah, again, no surprise, because Sammy didn't let it go even after Dean threatened to paste him if he didn't shut up. He had questions about body parts for years.
That's not gonna happen here, right? Because Cas is…
"Does this do anything for you?" Dean asks, frowning.
"In what sense?" Castiel responds.
That's a human body Cas is hiking around in. His "true form" (whatever that is - Dean's still not clear on that, and isn't sure he ever wants to be) might be junkless, but the guy in the trench coat isn't. At least, Dean figures he isn't. Cas hasn't done any show-and-tell.
Thank God.
"Does it -" Dean begins, surprised at how flustered he feels. "Get your motor running."
"Am I sexually aroused?"
"Dude."
"No."
"Huh," Dean says.
"They are all the Father's creations. And have their own unique beauty. I can appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the human form."
"But not -"
"No."
"Well," Dean says. He didn't expect to, but he's feeling bad for Cas. Pretty much the same kind of bad he used to feel every time Dad told Sammy he couldn't have something he had a serious jones for. A computer. A dog. Dinner at Chuck E Cheese.
Good thing Sam never bothered asking Dad if it was okay to have sex.
"All business, all the time, then, is that it?" he says with a grimace. "Dude, you got freakin' shortchanged. I mean - God created that whole sideshow, right? The horizontal tango. And…the rest of it. The lacta…whatevers."
"Lactational apparatus."
"Yeah."
"I am here for a purpose, Dean. Not to entertain myself by exploring the human experience."
Dean glances down at the magazine and snorts. "Yeah. Obviously."
"Curiosity is one thing. Acting on that curiosity is entirely another."
"Yeah. Okay. Whatever you say."
With a dismissive gesture Dean takes a step toward the kitchenette, intending to score himself a beer out of the fridge - and some serious woe is gonna befall Sam if he drank the last one - but the knee he bashed when the freakin' spirit bounced him off the wall locks on him and he stumbles. Years of practice (and, dammit, years of being bounced off walls) have taught him how to recover before he falls, and he covers the rest of the distance to the fridge without incident.
Almost.
"You've injured yourself," Cas observes.
Beer. Open. Drink. It's good and cold going down. It's not gonna do much to offset the headache that's blooming between Dean's ears, though.
"Are you badly hurt?"
"Dude," Dean sighs.
To his dismay Cas gets up from the couch and…circles him. Studying him up and down, with that frown he wears that makes Dean feel like he's fucked something up when he knows he hasn't.
"What?"
"Perhaps you should -"
"Should what?" Dean replies, and it comes out a little shrill. "It's a rough line of work. Have you not figured that out before now?"
"I was merely going to suggest that you -"
"What? Be more careful?"
"Yes."
"Jeeeeeeesus," Dean squeals, and yes, he expects Cas to flinch, but Cas doesn't. Nothing makes Cas flinch. He's unflinchable, and yet another reminder of that makes Dean's blossoming headache threaten to go low-level nuclear. "Could you," he says, flailing the beer bottle, "could you just save whatever news flash you came here to deliver for…sometime much later? Like maybe never? I had a bad night, man. I want to get some sleep. I do not want to stand here and be your lab rat for figuring out the 'human experience.' Unless that Touched By An Angel shit you do is good for curing headaches, in which case bring it on. Then you could get the hell out."
Right now? He misses Sam's emo bullshit. Sam would tell Dean to kiss his ass, then storm out of here. But Sam's -
Who the hell knows where Sam is, any more.
"I -" Cas begins.
The bed looks really good right now. It looks freaking awesome, in fact, although Dean knows from a night spent contorting himself from one position to another, none of them comfortable, that the only honestly good thing about that bed is that it's horizontal. But that's enough of a plus to make the crowd go wild. For two cents he'd faceplant on it and let Cas stand there and be…whatever the hell it is he's being.
"Lemme give you the short version," Dean says, figuring Cas is still contemplating surgically enhanced hooters. It's only been a couple of minutes, and yeah, Sam pondered the whole situation for days.
The idea of Cas hanging around here for days fretting about lactational apparatuses makes Dean want to fling himself out a ten-story window. Which is unfortunately not possible because the room's on the ground floor. "People are never satisfied," he sputters. "Period. End of story."
Cas is silent for about six eternities. Then he asks, "Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Satisfied."
"With…what?"
"The form the Father created for you."
Seriously? Ashton freaking Kutcher's gotta be around here someplace. There's a hidden camera in this room.
"Should I not be?" Dean moans.
Maybe he could smack his head into the wall hard enough to knock himself out. With any luck he'd be out long enough that Cas would get bored and leave.
But it's been eight months. And Dean's starting to believe that there is no stretch of time long enough to allow Cas to become bored. He's new at this, after all. Hasn't been kicking around Earth for a couple thousand years, like Anna.
He'd like Vegas, Dean thinks. All kinds of weird shit going on there. Maybe…
"I have something to confess," Castiel announces.
Dean tightens his grip on the bottle. Confess, in his experience, is never a promising lead-in. It's like We need to talk.
And beyond that - an angel? Confessing to him?
This won't be good.
If this situation was happening with Sam, he'd go lock himself in the bathroom. Or maybe go the other direction: take his baby and drive, crank the music up loud, put some miles between himself and the problem. But sure as there's little green apples Cas would just pop into the freakin' shotgun seat, totally unannounced and ready to rock 'n' roll. There's no walking away from Cas. Or driving. Or running. The best Dean can do is walk past him, trying ferociously not to look at him, and sink down onto the couch, beer in hand.
He closes his eyes. And waits.
"I was given instructions," Castiel says.
"Fabulous."
There could still be some smiting on the day's program. In fact, there probably is. Because of the porn. And his attitude.
If smiting involves a long period of unconsciousness, that'd be good.
Eyes still closed, Dean takes a sip of his beer. It's nice, going down. The next few sips are even better. And the couch is kind of comfortable. Slowly he lets himself slouch down into the cushions and pillows his head on the backrest. He belches softly and snuffles, like a dog settling in for a nap. If there were a sunbeam involved here, a nice warm sunbeam that would lay warm and soft against his face, life would be good.
It's the little things, he thinks.
He feels the cushions shift as Castiel sits down at the other end of the couch.
"I was instructed to bring you back," the angel says. "To raise you from Hell and restore you to your Earthly form."
"Swell."
Little things. If he can focus on the little things…
"But the instructions were somewhat non-specific. And I -" There's a pause. "Interpreted."
Dean cranks open one eye.
Interpreted? he thinks. Because seriously, what the fuck? Interpreted? Cas has a weird look on his face, a big-time mea culpa look, like Sammy used to get every time he did something heinous that he wanted Dean to take the fall for because he pretty much knew Dean would. But that was Sam. And this is…not Sam.
Interpreted?
It makes the beer slosh around in Dean's belly and threaten a return engagement.
He's still got what God gave him. Looked at it less than an hour ago, when he stopped by the side of the road to take a leak.
His mouth forms the word What?
He doesn't dare try to speak. He'd end up sounding like a girl.
A…
"You were very grievously injured," Castiel goes on, sounding like Tom Brokaw, like this is the evening news and he's reading off a TelePrompter. "And some time had passed. Your mortal body was not in acceptable condition. I was instructed to restore you to a condition that would be…functional." He glances around, as if he's picked up on Dean's fears and he's starting to agree that yeah, maybe Ashton's in the building. Behind the shower curtain.
His junk's still there, Dean thinks. He freakin' saw it.
"Spit it out!" he shrills.
His eyes are open now. He's got a pretty tight grip on the bottle and he wonders what the penalty would be for beating the shit out of an angel. Well, an angel's vessel, anyway. Maybe nothing would happen, maybe the vessel wouldn't even bruise, but it'd be worth a try. Because there are things you do and there are things you don't do.
To people.
Castiel's gaze shifts to the magazine, then back to Dean. His head is bowed a little. He looks kinda…penitent.
"I was aware -"
"What did you do?"
"If you could let me speak."
"It depends on what you're gonna say."
"Dean," Cas says, using the bossy voice he likes to whip out when he's feeling all omnipotent and shit.
Dean counts to ten. Or starts to, at least. He gets to six.
"A number of broken bones. Some of them did not heal properly. Your left shoulder was also problematic."
"I got shot."
"Your circulatory system had begun to degrade. And, of course, there were the injuries inflicted by the hellhounds. And stress," Castiel adds, as if he's a freaking guest on Oprah! "The medical community is perfectly correct about the harmful effects of stress on the human body." Before Dean can even attempt to respond, Castiel waves him into silence and goes forging ahead. "I did not think that a human in your condition would be capable of properly managing the assignments relative to -"
"I don't think I got out of hell," Dean says. "I think this is a different hell. Where you shred my brain until I'm freaking insane."
"I healed you."
"Yeah. I got that."
"No," Castiel replies. "I healed you."
He looks sort of…pleased.
Dean considers his hand, curled around the brown glass of the beer bottle. Remembers the finger that used to stick up a little, wouldn't curve like the rest.
Remembers the almost-constant ache in his left shoulder.
And the scars.
God, there were so many scars. He'd grown accustomed to them, over the years, and once in a while, if he was drunk enough, he kind of admired them. Was proud of them, because they were symbols of a job well done. Or done, at least. And they got some attention from the ladies. So they weren't a bad thing, provided he didn't spend much time pondering the pain that'd been involved with those gashes and slices and stabs.
But they're gone now. All of 'em. He's added a couple new ones lately, but back in September he was unmarked.
Healed.
"They didn't tell you to fix me up like that?" he frowns.
"They did not."
"So you kinda took it on yourself to -"
"It seemed sensible."
"Can you fix the knee?"
For no reason Dean can pin down, Cas seems affronted by that. "I am not Mr. Windshield, Dean. My assignment does not involve following you around to undo your unending series of minor injuries."
"How do you know it's minor? I could have…torn cartilage, or some shit like that."
"Then perhaps you should be more careful."
"I'm messing up your handiwork, is that the problem?"
Castiel is silent for a minute, fingering the frayed hem of the trench coat he's been wearing for eight months. "You are not 'my handiwork,'" he says finally. "You are the Father's creation. I simply… restored you."
"So I could do the job."
"Yes."
"And you needed to confess this to me."
Cas shrugs.
"Why?"
But the conversation seems to be over. Castiel stands up, glancing down at the coat as the fabric settles around him.
"Look," Dean says. "I appreciate it. What you did."
"Do you?"
"Free will, Cas. I got a job to do. Yeah, there's whatever's going on with the whole apocalypse thing. But I got my job. I saved some people last night. You know about that? Some people are okay now, and if I got banged up in the process, I guess that's the price."
It's weird, he thinks. All this. He used to walk into motel rooms and find nobody but Sam. Or Dad.
Or nobody.
"It's my job," he says quietly.
Castiel considers that for a moment, then reaches down to pick up the magazine and holds it out to Dean.
"You do it well," the angel says.
Then he's gone.
The magazine flutters to the floor between the couch and the coffee table. Frowning, Dean picks it up and lays it where it was, where he left it last night before he went out to hunt down the spirit that flung him up against that wall. The one that busted up his knee. He touches the knee gingerly, probes it, finds it puffy and tender. It'll heal, more than likely, but he's probably got a couple of days of limping ahead of him.
Nothing new there.
But there's beer to get him over the hump. A whole six he didn't realize was in there. Maybe that's Sam's doing, and maybe it's Castiel's; right now, Dean doesn't much care. The job's done, he's got some down time, he's got beer, and - yeah. He's got Busty Asian Beauties.
Healed, he thinks.
That's some wacky shit, right there.
"Thanks, man," he says quietly.
And on the table in front of him, the pages of Busty Asian Beauties flutter a little, as if there's a breeze.
Or as if they're wings.
* * * * *