Close your eyes, dream alone (When you arise, you will be home)
Title: Close your eyes, dream alone (When you arise, you will be home)
Author: ivesia19
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: pre Dean/Castiel
POV: 3rd limited
Summary: What he sees in the dreams doesn’t paint a full picture of anything, but he still looks.
Disclaimer: Fiction. Fabrication. False. Other “f” words. The characters belong to Eric Kripke and the C.W. The title belongs to Brendon Urie, Spencer Smith, Pete Wentz and FBR.
Beta: habezweikatzen
Author Notes: I’m still working my way into Supernatural fandom (hello, Supernatural fans!) and don’t know many people here, but I’d like to, so say ‘hello’! I don’t bite! *insert clichéd ‘biting’ comment here*
The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is. - C.G. Jung
The first time Castiel dreams, it’s all bright colors and confusion. The images that sift through his mind are a tangled mess of so many things, and his all-too-human mind bleeds the memories of heaven together with those of his life now to make it more bearable.
When he wakes - disoriented and tangled up in cheap, scratchy motel sheets - he can only remember bits and pieces of the dream.
He remembers the incandescent light of the Host, the warmth of Revelation, but it only takes a couple of seconds for those memories to slip through his grasp. (It seems that lately everything is gone far too fast).
Without the ethereal influence, the only memory of the dream is the way the window of the Impala felt against the skin of his cheek (cool and vibrating ever so slightly from the road) and how Dean’s eyes caught his own in the rear-view mirror.
He can’t remember where they were driving to or why he was in the backseat when Sam wasn’t in the car, but Castiel knows that dreams don’t need to add up to anything bigger than what they are. There doesn’t need to be a hidden message in the loosely stitched together stream of images that minds make.
Still, as Castiel blinks the sleep and last wisps of his dream from his eyes, he tries to find Dean in the still dark motel room.
He’s sleeping, curled up on the couch, since Sam is far too large for such sleeping arrangements and Dean had insisted that Castiel take the other bed. (There’s plenty of room on the bed that Castiel is now laying in - a large cool space next to him - but he knows that sharing a bed with Dean wouldn’t be an option, though he doesn’t really understand why).
Castiel wants to go over and shake Dean awake; he wants to see the eyes that shone so brightly in his dreams. Lately, in waking life, Dean’s eyes have seemed so dull.
He can’t remember the last time he has seen Dean laugh, at least not self-deprecatingly. It might have been at the brothel, back when Castiel had felt his first hint of that feeling that now lingers constantly now. The one that he doesn’t have words for.
Castiel sits up on the bed, and the springs from the old frame squeak slightly. Dean shifts on the couch from the noise, and Castiel shifts again on the bed until the headboard knocks lightly against the wall.
A soft, annoyed sort of grunt sounds from the couch, and then a low “Cas?” breaks the mostly-silent motel room, and Dean’s sleep-laden voice carries easily across the small room.
It’s too dark for Castiel to make any of Dean’s features out distinctly, but he can tell that Dean’s looking at him. Castiel can always tell when Dean is looking at him, and even now after all that has happened, his barely-there grace reaches toward Dean.
“Everything alright?” Dean asks. Now there’s a trace of worry in his voice, but it’s still quiet - ever mindful of Sam.
Castiel doesn’t answer - at the sound of Dean’s voice, a couple more glimpses from his dream become clear: the way Dean’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel of the Impala; the way Dean’s mark - the one left by Castiel and hellfire - peaked out from the sleeve of his well-worn t-shirt; the way Dean’s eyes had caught his own eyes in the rear-view mirror as he had said, “Do you think this is what God had in mind?”.
“Cas?” Dean asks again, and now his voice is a little louder - a little more concerned. There’s a hint of something else there, too, but Castiel doesn’t know enough about the subtleties of human voice or emotions to know what it is. “What’s going on?”
It isn’t difficult for Castiel to differentiate between dreams and reality. It’s his first dream, true, but no part of him is confused about what it was. Reality lacks the shimmer of dreams - a shimmer so much like that of Heaven. Reality is all that Castiel has left now: he cannot alter it more than the next soul bound to this Earth.
“I’m fine, Dean,” he says, and his eyes must have adapted, because he can just make out the concerned purse of Dean’s mouth. “It was just a dream.”
If Dean were more awake, Castiel knows he would make some remark - possibly something crude or flippant, but for now, he’s too tired. Dean just makes a rumbled noise of understanding and flops back down on the couch, sleep pulling him under once more.
Castiel doesn’t sleep again that night - not when he has so much on his mind and sleep is still foreign to him (foreign and a waste of time) - and when Dean wakes up in the morning, sun flooding in through the holes in the tattered old curtains of the motel, he doesn’t seem to remember waking up the night before, and doesn’t ask Castiel about his dream. Part of Castiel is thankful for this, because playing the images over again and again in his head had made nothing clearer; if anything, it had made the dream more confusing - blurrier.
When morning comes, most of Castiel’s dream has vanished, slipping back down to the depths of dreams, and the only image that remains is the bright green of Dean’s eyes and the way his lips formed around a question that Castiel doesn’t have an answer to.
----
When Castiel gets re-instated, that is, when the world doesn’t end and Castiel suddenly finds himself back and whole and right again, he doesn’t think much about what he’ll be leaving behind from his brief life as almost-human.
He does think about the people he’s leaving behind. Thinks about Bobby and how his first startled breath had sounded as Castiel willed life back into him. Thinks about Sam stuck in hell for an eternity and what that all means. But more than anyone else, Castiel thinks about Dean.
He thinks about the way that Dean had looked up at him after the end, when he had placed two fingers to his forehead and healed it. The look in Dean’s eyes was one of awe - one close to that of devotion that Castiel had only seen in a dream once. It’s a dream that Castiel has tried to forget, though at times, even now, he can remember the way that even though he was sleeping, he could almost taste the salt of Dean’s skin, could almost feel the tightening of stomach muscles and the feel of a hand in his hair.
Now, though, Castiel doesn’t dream. He is ever watchful, and that’s what he does: watch.
Dean had asked for more of the same, and that’s what Castiel sees every day on Earth. He sees Dean with a drink in his hand, his eyes almost blank without the fire that they once held.
Castiel wants to help (and it’s funny, that even after all this, after being “new and improved”, Castiel still wants). He wants to make Dean smile again, wants to make him laugh and sing off-key and flush red with embarrassment, but he doesn’t.
He just watches, looking down from above, being everything that Dean always hated about angels, but Castiel has never been like the other angels. He still bends the rules. He still wants, and so, one night, Castiel finds himself falling into one of Dean’s dreams.
Castiel had been watching him, huddled in his blankets in the guest bedroom of Lisa’s house, his eyes moving rapidly under the thin skin of his eyelids, and he couldn’t help himself from breaking the barrier and meeting Dean again in his dream.
The last time Castiel had been inside Dean’s mind, a tranquil lake had greeted him. This time, Castiel isn’t welcomed by the serenity of a lazy afternoon. He’s dropped into the back of the Impala, which is racing down the street.
Rain is coming down in oppressive sheets all around, and the night is darker than Castiel had thought possible, with the dim headlights of the Impala barely lighting the way as Dean drives fast fast fast.
Dean doesn’t turn around as Castiel appears in the backseat, but his shoulders tense. “I’ve been wondering when you would stop by,” he says. His voice is gruff, but it’s barely audible over the loud pounding of the rain against the car and the pavement. “Knew you couldn’t stop yourself from being a pain in my ass, Cas.”
The backseat of the Impala looks different from what it is in waking life, but the most obvious change in the car’s appearance is that there isn’t a passenger’s seat, just a blank space that is quickly growing damper as rain comes in through the almost miniscule crack left open by the window.
“I wish to talk to you, Dean,” Castiel says, and even though he knows that they’re in a dream, Castiel feels trapped by the Impala, so he reaches forward and places a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Before Dean can turn around at the touch, they’re standing on the dock again with the muted colors of the sunrise replacing the bitter dark of the rainy highway.
“What did I tell you about doing that?” Dean asks angrily. “You know I hate it when you zap us places.”
“It’s just in a dream,” Castiel says. “It won’t have any physical-”
“Yeah, my dream,” Dean interrupts. “What the hell, Cas? I can’t even dream my own fucking surroundings now?”
Castiel doesn’t reply to that. He’s treading carefully. He won’t mention the lack of seat in Dean’s Impala and how it made something in Castiel hurt even though he shouldn’t be able to feel anything anymore, and he won’t say that the thought of Dean driving reckless and aimless makes him feel the same way he did when he had to go after Anna.
Instead, Castiel says, “Dean, you’re not happy,” and Dean just blinks at him.
A harsh laugh breaks out of Dean’s throat, and that’s what it sounds like: breaking. “Of course I’m not happy. My brother is in a hole, trapped in Hell.”
Castiel’s hand reaches toward Dean. They’re standing close together - not as close as they once did, but Castiel knows that personal space would be an issue here if either party really cared. Still, Dean backs away from the touch.
“Cas, I can’t deal with this right now,” he says, which doesn’t make any sense, because Castiel hadn’t said anything, and off of his silence, Dean says, “Just go back to Heaven. Leave if you’re going to leave, and-”
But this time Castiel cuts him off. It’s with the hand, still outstretched, and he places it against Dean’s mouth instead of his shoulder. He’s seen people doing this before as a way to stop others from talking, but Castiel feels ridiculous doing this. The feeling that follows is unexpected, though. Dean’s soft lips, dry but warm, brush against Castiel’s palm, and Castiel feels as though he’s going to lose his balance, so he takes a step forward, closer to Dean.
“Have faith,” he says, and Dean’s eyes blaze, but he’s silent against Castiel’s palm. The spark in Dean’s eyes is nice, and Castiel almost smiles. He almost says “The plan is just”, but Castiel can’t go back - can only move forward, so he doesn’t say anything and takes his hand back. He can still feel the slightest bit of moisture on his palm, even in this dream world.
Dean is looking at him, a million different emotions in his eyes, and Castiel knows that he could pick out each one of them. He could extend his grace and unravel the mysteries of Dean, but he doesn’t. Because Dean doesn’t deserve that.
Finally, after a couple of long moments of silence, Dean says, “Come see me when I’m awake. Stop prowling through my dreams like a creepy stalker.” There’s a smile then, a small one, but a smile, nonetheless.
And Castiel does visit Dean when he’s awake. He stops by, but they spend most of their time in silence, staring out into the dark night or looking up at the stars.
Dean rarely sleeps, but when he does, Castiel makes sure that they’re peaceful.
----
After Sam comes back - and how, Castiel still doesn’t know - he finds himself a visitor in another Winchester’s dream. This time, Castiel hadn’t willed himself to be there, but he’s there, all the same, standing next to Sam in his dream, looking at Bobby’s battered collection of cars and parts.
“How did you bring me here?” Castiel asks. Only seconds before, he was upstairs in Bobby’s house, looking over at Dean from across the room as the hunter slept.
Sam shrugs, huge shoulders moving up and down, but he answers, saying, “I wanted to talk to you someplace safe.”
“And you can bring me into your dreams?”
“Seems like it,” Sam says.
He has come back changed in ways that make Castiel uneasy, but he hasn’t mentioned it to Dean yet, who is wary of Sam for his own reasons.
Sam looks the same - still as large as ever with hair that falls in front of his face, and against the backdrop of twisted metal and half restored cars, Sam looks somehow brighter in a way that makes Castiel think of Lucifer.
“I thought this would be a good setting,” Sam says, and Castiel looks past the broken cars and sees that one is set up on blocks - it looks like the Impala, but it’s a little rusted, a little worse-for-wear. Feet are sticking out from underneath - familiar feet - and Castiel sees Dean slide out from under the car, wiping an oil-smudged arm against his forehead as he catches his breath.
“What do you want, Sam?” Castiel asks. He’s guarded around Sam now. The tentative camaraderie that had taken so long to form between him and the younger Winchester has now all but vanished, and Castiel feels as though they are meeting again for the first time: an angel and a boy to be used by evil.
“I want to know what happened while I was gone,” Sam says, looking at Dean, who is drinking a beer and leaning against the Impala. He doesn’t see Castiel or Sam and goes about his business as though he were totally alone, and Castiel supposes that he probably is. Dreams don’t have to make sense, after all.
There are moments when Castiel can see little sparks of the Sam that he knew before Lucifer, and now is one of those moments. Sam’s voice is vulnerable as it always used to be when he spoke about his brother.
“I don’t know what you want to know,” Castiel admits. “A lot happened.” He chooses his words very carefully, because it’s Dean that he’s talking about. “Losing you was very hard on Dean.”
Sam nods, and Castiel watches as his hair moves, slower than it would in waking life, but this is a dream. “I know,” he says. “I remember what it’s like to lose a brother.” He clears his throat. “But that’s not what I was talking about. I didn’t want to ask in front of Dean, or ask Dean, since he gets weird about this stuff,” Sam says.
Castiel frowns, because Sam is talking quickly now, as if embarrassed, and this is a form of Sam Winchester, babbling and small smile quirking, that he hadn’t thought he would see again. Not after all that happened.
He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts that Castiel misses most of what Sam asks, but he catches “…and I figured that something must have happened between the two of you,” and it doesn’t make any sense.
“What?” he asks.
“You and Dean,” Sam repeats. “You’re closer now.”
Castiel knows the basics of relationship. He knows that people grow closer and they grow apart. Rarely does anything in this world stay the same, but he doesn’t think that this answer will be satisfactory to Sam.
“Dean is special,” is what Castiel settles on. “Even now, I feel responsible for him,” he says. It’s the only word that he can think of that sums up what he can’t describe, but he’s aware that he’s echoing words that his superiors had used back when Castiel was given his mission, was told to save the righteous man.
“Right,” Sam says. He doesn’t look like he got the answer he was looking for, but he doesn’t say anything else. Castiel wonders if this is his cue to leave, which he could with a thought, but he stays, standing next to Sam and watching as Dean finishes his drink and goes back to work.
---
“Don’t you ever get bored?” Dean asks. They’re driving in the Impala and the road is smooth underneath the tires that Dean had changed last time they were at Bobby’s. Sam is riding with Bobby in his car, since they all decided to tag along to check out the latest gossip of a haunt together, so Castiel is sitting in the front of the Impala, even though he could get to Chattanooga far faster if he flew.
“Bored of what?” Castiel asks. There is much of Earth that one could tire of, but Castiel can’t think of a single thing that comes to mind now, not when he’s with Dean.
Dean reaches out and turns down the music, Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Simple Man” quieted to a low hum. He gestures around. “All this? I mean, you don’t even sleep, Cas. Doesn’t it get boring?”
Castiel thinks about how at night, when Dean and Sam are sleeping, he is still wide-awake. Sometimes, he returns to the Host to make sure that chaos hasn’t taken over. He is not the sheriff or anything else that Dean had joked about, but he doesn’t want Heaven to turn into something foreign again, so he checks up every so often.
Most nights, though, Castiel just sits. He sits in the room with Sam and Dean and waits: listens to their breathing, watches the raise and fall of their chests, and sometimes, he takes a peak into their dreams.
He’s covert about it now, neither Winchester suspecting a thing, and Castiel can’t force himself to feel any guilt about it. Now that things are back to normal - back to before, not normal, never normal when it comes to them - Dean and Sam never talk about what happened. Emotions are worn close to the chest, hidden almost, and sometimes Castiel gets curious.
What he sees in the dreams doesn’t paint a full picture of anything, but he still looks. He watches Sam with people who are long dead: his father, Jessica, Adam, but Sam rarely talks in dreams, just drifts around, feet barely touching the ground as though detached.
Sam’s dreams are muted in color and sound, but Dean’s are full of confusion. Scenes bleed together and people morph into others. Castiel has seen himself a few times in Dean’s mind, but whenever he thinks he has a hold on whatever it is he’s supposed to be doing, Dean’s mind shifts to something else.
Sometimes, in the morning when they wake, Dean and Sam will talk about their dreams, laughing. They never share the dreams that leave them with a sense of loss or anything that could remotely be considered weak. All the dreams they share seem to revolve around the ridiculous.
He doesn’t expect them to share what they’re really feeling with each other or themselves, so he doesn’t worry about analyzing much of what they say, but one morning, Dean wakes up and blinks sleepily at him.
“You didn’t visit me last night in my dream, did you?” he asks, and he’s looking at Castiel with something different, something new in his eyes, something that looks like the dream isn’t the only thing that he’s awaking up from.
“I visited the Garrison last night,” Castiel says, and Dean nods. “Why?”
“You were in my dream, that’s all,” Dean says, but that’s all he talks about the matter, shifting the conversation to where they’ll eat breakfast, and Castiel is left wondering just what is was that Dean had seen.
Other Stories
Author: ivesia19
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: pre Dean/Castiel
POV: 3rd limited
Summary: What he sees in the dreams doesn’t paint a full picture of anything, but he still looks.
Disclaimer: Fiction. Fabrication. False. Other “f” words. The characters belong to Eric Kripke and the C.W. The title belongs to Brendon Urie, Spencer Smith, Pete Wentz and FBR.
Beta: habezweikatzen
Author Notes: I’m still working my way into Supernatural fandom (hello, Supernatural fans!) and don’t know many people here, but I’d like to, so say ‘hello’! I don’t bite! *insert clichéd ‘biting’ comment here*
The dream shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is. - C.G. Jung
The first time Castiel dreams, it’s all bright colors and confusion. The images that sift through his mind are a tangled mess of so many things, and his all-too-human mind bleeds the memories of heaven together with those of his life now to make it more bearable.
When he wakes - disoriented and tangled up in cheap, scratchy motel sheets - he can only remember bits and pieces of the dream.
He remembers the incandescent light of the Host, the warmth of Revelation, but it only takes a couple of seconds for those memories to slip through his grasp. (It seems that lately everything is gone far too fast).
Without the ethereal influence, the only memory of the dream is the way the window of the Impala felt against the skin of his cheek (cool and vibrating ever so slightly from the road) and how Dean’s eyes caught his own in the rear-view mirror.
He can’t remember where they were driving to or why he was in the backseat when Sam wasn’t in the car, but Castiel knows that dreams don’t need to add up to anything bigger than what they are. There doesn’t need to be a hidden message in the loosely stitched together stream of images that minds make.
Still, as Castiel blinks the sleep and last wisps of his dream from his eyes, he tries to find Dean in the still dark motel room.
He’s sleeping, curled up on the couch, since Sam is far too large for such sleeping arrangements and Dean had insisted that Castiel take the other bed. (There’s plenty of room on the bed that Castiel is now laying in - a large cool space next to him - but he knows that sharing a bed with Dean wouldn’t be an option, though he doesn’t really understand why).
Castiel wants to go over and shake Dean awake; he wants to see the eyes that shone so brightly in his dreams. Lately, in waking life, Dean’s eyes have seemed so dull.
He can’t remember the last time he has seen Dean laugh, at least not self-deprecatingly. It might have been at the brothel, back when Castiel had felt his first hint of that feeling that now lingers constantly now. The one that he doesn’t have words for.
Castiel sits up on the bed, and the springs from the old frame squeak slightly. Dean shifts on the couch from the noise, and Castiel shifts again on the bed until the headboard knocks lightly against the wall.
A soft, annoyed sort of grunt sounds from the couch, and then a low “Cas?” breaks the mostly-silent motel room, and Dean’s sleep-laden voice carries easily across the small room.
It’s too dark for Castiel to make any of Dean’s features out distinctly, but he can tell that Dean’s looking at him. Castiel can always tell when Dean is looking at him, and even now after all that has happened, his barely-there grace reaches toward Dean.
“Everything alright?” Dean asks. Now there’s a trace of worry in his voice, but it’s still quiet - ever mindful of Sam.
Castiel doesn’t answer - at the sound of Dean’s voice, a couple more glimpses from his dream become clear: the way Dean’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel of the Impala; the way Dean’s mark - the one left by Castiel and hellfire - peaked out from the sleeve of his well-worn t-shirt; the way Dean’s eyes had caught his own eyes in the rear-view mirror as he had said, “Do you think this is what God had in mind?”.
“Cas?” Dean asks again, and now his voice is a little louder - a little more concerned. There’s a hint of something else there, too, but Castiel doesn’t know enough about the subtleties of human voice or emotions to know what it is. “What’s going on?”
It isn’t difficult for Castiel to differentiate between dreams and reality. It’s his first dream, true, but no part of him is confused about what it was. Reality lacks the shimmer of dreams - a shimmer so much like that of Heaven. Reality is all that Castiel has left now: he cannot alter it more than the next soul bound to this Earth.
“I’m fine, Dean,” he says, and his eyes must have adapted, because he can just make out the concerned purse of Dean’s mouth. “It was just a dream.”
If Dean were more awake, Castiel knows he would make some remark - possibly something crude or flippant, but for now, he’s too tired. Dean just makes a rumbled noise of understanding and flops back down on the couch, sleep pulling him under once more.
Castiel doesn’t sleep again that night - not when he has so much on his mind and sleep is still foreign to him (foreign and a waste of time) - and when Dean wakes up in the morning, sun flooding in through the holes in the tattered old curtains of the motel, he doesn’t seem to remember waking up the night before, and doesn’t ask Castiel about his dream. Part of Castiel is thankful for this, because playing the images over again and again in his head had made nothing clearer; if anything, it had made the dream more confusing - blurrier.
When morning comes, most of Castiel’s dream has vanished, slipping back down to the depths of dreams, and the only image that remains is the bright green of Dean’s eyes and the way his lips formed around a question that Castiel doesn’t have an answer to.
----
When Castiel gets re-instated, that is, when the world doesn’t end and Castiel suddenly finds himself back and whole and right again, he doesn’t think much about what he’ll be leaving behind from his brief life as almost-human.
He does think about the people he’s leaving behind. Thinks about Bobby and how his first startled breath had sounded as Castiel willed life back into him. Thinks about Sam stuck in hell for an eternity and what that all means. But more than anyone else, Castiel thinks about Dean.
He thinks about the way that Dean had looked up at him after the end, when he had placed two fingers to his forehead and healed it. The look in Dean’s eyes was one of awe - one close to that of devotion that Castiel had only seen in a dream once. It’s a dream that Castiel has tried to forget, though at times, even now, he can remember the way that even though he was sleeping, he could almost taste the salt of Dean’s skin, could almost feel the tightening of stomach muscles and the feel of a hand in his hair.
Now, though, Castiel doesn’t dream. He is ever watchful, and that’s what he does: watch.
Dean had asked for more of the same, and that’s what Castiel sees every day on Earth. He sees Dean with a drink in his hand, his eyes almost blank without the fire that they once held.
Castiel wants to help (and it’s funny, that even after all this, after being “new and improved”, Castiel still wants). He wants to make Dean smile again, wants to make him laugh and sing off-key and flush red with embarrassment, but he doesn’t.
He just watches, looking down from above, being everything that Dean always hated about angels, but Castiel has never been like the other angels. He still bends the rules. He still wants, and so, one night, Castiel finds himself falling into one of Dean’s dreams.
Castiel had been watching him, huddled in his blankets in the guest bedroom of Lisa’s house, his eyes moving rapidly under the thin skin of his eyelids, and he couldn’t help himself from breaking the barrier and meeting Dean again in his dream.
The last time Castiel had been inside Dean’s mind, a tranquil lake had greeted him. This time, Castiel isn’t welcomed by the serenity of a lazy afternoon. He’s dropped into the back of the Impala, which is racing down the street.
Rain is coming down in oppressive sheets all around, and the night is darker than Castiel had thought possible, with the dim headlights of the Impala barely lighting the way as Dean drives fast fast fast.
Dean doesn’t turn around as Castiel appears in the backseat, but his shoulders tense. “I’ve been wondering when you would stop by,” he says. His voice is gruff, but it’s barely audible over the loud pounding of the rain against the car and the pavement. “Knew you couldn’t stop yourself from being a pain in my ass, Cas.”
The backseat of the Impala looks different from what it is in waking life, but the most obvious change in the car’s appearance is that there isn’t a passenger’s seat, just a blank space that is quickly growing damper as rain comes in through the almost miniscule crack left open by the window.
“I wish to talk to you, Dean,” Castiel says, and even though he knows that they’re in a dream, Castiel feels trapped by the Impala, so he reaches forward and places a hand on Dean’s shoulder. Before Dean can turn around at the touch, they’re standing on the dock again with the muted colors of the sunrise replacing the bitter dark of the rainy highway.
“What did I tell you about doing that?” Dean asks angrily. “You know I hate it when you zap us places.”
“It’s just in a dream,” Castiel says. “It won’t have any physical-”
“Yeah, my dream,” Dean interrupts. “What the hell, Cas? I can’t even dream my own fucking surroundings now?”
Castiel doesn’t reply to that. He’s treading carefully. He won’t mention the lack of seat in Dean’s Impala and how it made something in Castiel hurt even though he shouldn’t be able to feel anything anymore, and he won’t say that the thought of Dean driving reckless and aimless makes him feel the same way he did when he had to go after Anna.
Instead, Castiel says, “Dean, you’re not happy,” and Dean just blinks at him.
A harsh laugh breaks out of Dean’s throat, and that’s what it sounds like: breaking. “Of course I’m not happy. My brother is in a hole, trapped in Hell.”
Castiel’s hand reaches toward Dean. They’re standing close together - not as close as they once did, but Castiel knows that personal space would be an issue here if either party really cared. Still, Dean backs away from the touch.
“Cas, I can’t deal with this right now,” he says, which doesn’t make any sense, because Castiel hadn’t said anything, and off of his silence, Dean says, “Just go back to Heaven. Leave if you’re going to leave, and-”
But this time Castiel cuts him off. It’s with the hand, still outstretched, and he places it against Dean’s mouth instead of his shoulder. He’s seen people doing this before as a way to stop others from talking, but Castiel feels ridiculous doing this. The feeling that follows is unexpected, though. Dean’s soft lips, dry but warm, brush against Castiel’s palm, and Castiel feels as though he’s going to lose his balance, so he takes a step forward, closer to Dean.
“Have faith,” he says, and Dean’s eyes blaze, but he’s silent against Castiel’s palm. The spark in Dean’s eyes is nice, and Castiel almost smiles. He almost says “The plan is just”, but Castiel can’t go back - can only move forward, so he doesn’t say anything and takes his hand back. He can still feel the slightest bit of moisture on his palm, even in this dream world.
Dean is looking at him, a million different emotions in his eyes, and Castiel knows that he could pick out each one of them. He could extend his grace and unravel the mysteries of Dean, but he doesn’t. Because Dean doesn’t deserve that.
Finally, after a couple of long moments of silence, Dean says, “Come see me when I’m awake. Stop prowling through my dreams like a creepy stalker.” There’s a smile then, a small one, but a smile, nonetheless.
And Castiel does visit Dean when he’s awake. He stops by, but they spend most of their time in silence, staring out into the dark night or looking up at the stars.
Dean rarely sleeps, but when he does, Castiel makes sure that they’re peaceful.
----
After Sam comes back - and how, Castiel still doesn’t know - he finds himself a visitor in another Winchester’s dream. This time, Castiel hadn’t willed himself to be there, but he’s there, all the same, standing next to Sam in his dream, looking at Bobby’s battered collection of cars and parts.
“How did you bring me here?” Castiel asks. Only seconds before, he was upstairs in Bobby’s house, looking over at Dean from across the room as the hunter slept.
Sam shrugs, huge shoulders moving up and down, but he answers, saying, “I wanted to talk to you someplace safe.”
“And you can bring me into your dreams?”
“Seems like it,” Sam says.
He has come back changed in ways that make Castiel uneasy, but he hasn’t mentioned it to Dean yet, who is wary of Sam for his own reasons.
Sam looks the same - still as large as ever with hair that falls in front of his face, and against the backdrop of twisted metal and half restored cars, Sam looks somehow brighter in a way that makes Castiel think of Lucifer.
“I thought this would be a good setting,” Sam says, and Castiel looks past the broken cars and sees that one is set up on blocks - it looks like the Impala, but it’s a little rusted, a little worse-for-wear. Feet are sticking out from underneath - familiar feet - and Castiel sees Dean slide out from under the car, wiping an oil-smudged arm against his forehead as he catches his breath.
“What do you want, Sam?” Castiel asks. He’s guarded around Sam now. The tentative camaraderie that had taken so long to form between him and the younger Winchester has now all but vanished, and Castiel feels as though they are meeting again for the first time: an angel and a boy to be used by evil.
“I want to know what happened while I was gone,” Sam says, looking at Dean, who is drinking a beer and leaning against the Impala. He doesn’t see Castiel or Sam and goes about his business as though he were totally alone, and Castiel supposes that he probably is. Dreams don’t have to make sense, after all.
There are moments when Castiel can see little sparks of the Sam that he knew before Lucifer, and now is one of those moments. Sam’s voice is vulnerable as it always used to be when he spoke about his brother.
“I don’t know what you want to know,” Castiel admits. “A lot happened.” He chooses his words very carefully, because it’s Dean that he’s talking about. “Losing you was very hard on Dean.”
Sam nods, and Castiel watches as his hair moves, slower than it would in waking life, but this is a dream. “I know,” he says. “I remember what it’s like to lose a brother.” He clears his throat. “But that’s not what I was talking about. I didn’t want to ask in front of Dean, or ask Dean, since he gets weird about this stuff,” Sam says.
Castiel frowns, because Sam is talking quickly now, as if embarrassed, and this is a form of Sam Winchester, babbling and small smile quirking, that he hadn’t thought he would see again. Not after all that happened.
He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts that Castiel misses most of what Sam asks, but he catches “…and I figured that something must have happened between the two of you,” and it doesn’t make any sense.
“What?” he asks.
“You and Dean,” Sam repeats. “You’re closer now.”
Castiel knows the basics of relationship. He knows that people grow closer and they grow apart. Rarely does anything in this world stay the same, but he doesn’t think that this answer will be satisfactory to Sam.
“Dean is special,” is what Castiel settles on. “Even now, I feel responsible for him,” he says. It’s the only word that he can think of that sums up what he can’t describe, but he’s aware that he’s echoing words that his superiors had used back when Castiel was given his mission, was told to save the righteous man.
“Right,” Sam says. He doesn’t look like he got the answer he was looking for, but he doesn’t say anything else. Castiel wonders if this is his cue to leave, which he could with a thought, but he stays, standing next to Sam and watching as Dean finishes his drink and goes back to work.
---
“Don’t you ever get bored?” Dean asks. They’re driving in the Impala and the road is smooth underneath the tires that Dean had changed last time they were at Bobby’s. Sam is riding with Bobby in his car, since they all decided to tag along to check out the latest gossip of a haunt together, so Castiel is sitting in the front of the Impala, even though he could get to Chattanooga far faster if he flew.
“Bored of what?” Castiel asks. There is much of Earth that one could tire of, but Castiel can’t think of a single thing that comes to mind now, not when he’s with Dean.
Dean reaches out and turns down the music, Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Simple Man” quieted to a low hum. He gestures around. “All this? I mean, you don’t even sleep, Cas. Doesn’t it get boring?”
Castiel thinks about how at night, when Dean and Sam are sleeping, he is still wide-awake. Sometimes, he returns to the Host to make sure that chaos hasn’t taken over. He is not the sheriff or anything else that Dean had joked about, but he doesn’t want Heaven to turn into something foreign again, so he checks up every so often.
Most nights, though, Castiel just sits. He sits in the room with Sam and Dean and waits: listens to their breathing, watches the raise and fall of their chests, and sometimes, he takes a peak into their dreams.
He’s covert about it now, neither Winchester suspecting a thing, and Castiel can’t force himself to feel any guilt about it. Now that things are back to normal - back to before, not normal, never normal when it comes to them - Dean and Sam never talk about what happened. Emotions are worn close to the chest, hidden almost, and sometimes Castiel gets curious.
What he sees in the dreams doesn’t paint a full picture of anything, but he still looks. He watches Sam with people who are long dead: his father, Jessica, Adam, but Sam rarely talks in dreams, just drifts around, feet barely touching the ground as though detached.
Sam’s dreams are muted in color and sound, but Dean’s are full of confusion. Scenes bleed together and people morph into others. Castiel has seen himself a few times in Dean’s mind, but whenever he thinks he has a hold on whatever it is he’s supposed to be doing, Dean’s mind shifts to something else.
Sometimes, in the morning when they wake, Dean and Sam will talk about their dreams, laughing. They never share the dreams that leave them with a sense of loss or anything that could remotely be considered weak. All the dreams they share seem to revolve around the ridiculous.
He doesn’t expect them to share what they’re really feeling with each other or themselves, so he doesn’t worry about analyzing much of what they say, but one morning, Dean wakes up and blinks sleepily at him.
“You didn’t visit me last night in my dream, did you?” he asks, and he’s looking at Castiel with something different, something new in his eyes, something that looks like the dream isn’t the only thing that he’s awaking up from.
“I visited the Garrison last night,” Castiel says, and Dean nods. “Why?”
“You were in my dream, that’s all,” Dean says, but that’s all he talks about the matter, shifting the conversation to where they’ll eat breakfast, and Castiel is left wondering just what is was that Dean had seen.
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