Take Care of My Baby

"I'm still upset with you," Castiel informs Dean as soon as they sit down. "Actually, I believe that would be an understatement."

"Yeah, well. Don't blame you."

"I'm sorry about your lip, by the way."

"It's skin. It'll heal."

Cas has shown Dean to his favorite coffee shop after finding that the restaurant he wanted to go to was closed on Sundays. It's a quaint, hole-in-the-wall place with a surprisingly comforting atmosphere. It doesn't look like much, but Cas swears by their coffee, so Dean isn't going to complain.

Hell, Cas could take him skydiving right now and Dean wouldn't utter one word of dissent.

They order their coffees, and Dean is surprised to find that, now, they both take it black.

"You never used to take it black before," Dean points out when the waiter walks away.

"Hmm. Things change," Cas hums softly, looking out the window. The rain still pours, and the man just looks so pensive, like he's harboring a deep sadness within him that comes out when the weather turns gray.

"Yeah, um... would you mind filling me in?" Dean asks, trying his best to sound like he's not being demanding. "Actually, y'know what? Hold off on that for a minute. Cas, I owe you the world's biggest freakin' apology. It was selfish of me to leave, and I'm gonna admit that straight off. I fucked up. Out of all the crap that's happened in my life, that's the one damn thing I'd change. I... I left because I was worried about what people would think of me. How they'd look at me. I saw you die for Christ's sake, and I thought it was it." Dean rubs his face and shakes his head. "I should have just stuck around."

"You saw-" Just as Cas makes to speak, the chipper waiter sets their coffees down on the table for them.

"Here you are! Two black coffees!" he exclaims with a bright grin. "And, um, refills are on the house, Mr. Novak."

Cas gives him a soft smile. "Thank you, Samandriel."

Dean waits until the waiter walks away when he asks, "Samandriel?"

"He's something of a protégé of mine," Cas explains.

"Well, I see he got the whole crazy name memo," Dean mutters as he takes a sip of his coffee.

"It appears that naming children after obscure angels is far more common than one would think," he says softly, taking a drink. Then, he clears his throat. "Anyway, as I was saying. You saw me die?"

"Yeah, I... Sam came and checked me out of the hospital, and when we were leaving..." Dean shivers at the memory. It still seems so fresh in his mind, but, then again, he's seen it in his dreams almost every night. "They said they lost you, Cas. I didn't stick around. There, uh... there wasn't anything left for me there with you gone."

Castiel falls silent for a moment and returns to staring out the window for a while with a brow furrowed in concentration. Every few moments, he'll sip at his drink. Dean keeps his eyes on the man, even though it's probably making Cas feel uncomfortable. He just can't get over Cas. He's adding to the mental picture of the man that he's kept in his head all these years. He draws in the fine lines, the wild hair, the dark jeans and loose long sleeve sweater, the stubble that looks as though it makes frequent appearances. It seems so different than the man who only dressed down per Dean's request, who cared about how he looked. That's not to say that this 'new' Cas isn't a good one, though. Dean's finding that, despite the years of hurt, he still loves the man with all of his pathetic little heart.

"That certainly puts a few things into perspective," Cas murmurs softly.

"What things?"

"Well, the reason why you left." Cas turns his piercing gaze to Dean again, and the man forgot just how naked it makes him feel, like his whole soul is bared. "You never told anyone why you disappeared. Sam didn't even know. I simply inferred that you had yet learned how to act responsibly when dealing with the consequences of a tragedy."

"Cas, if I'd have known-"

"-then you would have stayed. I understand. I don't forgive you for leaving without even calling your own brother, but I do understand."

Dean nods and looks down at the table, because, even though he'd been expecting it, the words still sting. He wants things to be like they were way back then, when he and Cas were close to careless. Dean knows he fucked up, and he doesn't even know why Cas is taking time out of his day to humor him now.

"I suppose you'd like to hear what I've done these past eight years?" Cas inquires as he sets his cup down. He almost sounds a little tired, a little callous.

"Yeah, um. Yeah."

Cas takes a deep breath and nods. "I believe the worst thing about the accident was waking up to find that you were gone. I waited for you to come back for months, Dean. It took a very long time for me to accept that you weren't going to return. Reading and writing became a crutch for me then. It let me live in a world where I didn't have to think about you.

"Things were very difficult at first. I wasn't quite sure how to function without you. The simplest tasks felt harder. When Sam brought me home, I couldn't face it, and I simply moved in with the two of them until I could get back on my feet."

Cas pauses, studying the grain of wood in the table as Dean watches him.

"Your brother is a great person, Dean. I can't express enough gratitude for what he did for me. I'm not sure I would have been able to cope anywhere else. There was a period where I could do nothing more than lie in bed and stare at the wall, and those two showed me more kindness than I thought humanly possible."

"Yeah, Sammy's a great kid," Dean whispers, mainly to show that he's listening. It causes Cas to lift his head again, to lock eyes with Dean as he continues to speak.

"I couldn't leave the house often, because when I did, I was threatened for being a 'faggot'. Dean, we were supposed to weather that storm together, and I had to cope alone. Do you understand what that was like?" Cas asks him intently. The deep-rooted anger tints his voice with a ferocity that hadn't presented itself before.

"No," Dean mumbles, feeling like a complete and utter asshole. He got to see the best sides of everyone, because everyone loved him. They weren't going to fuck with Dean Winchester, and they wouldn't fuck with anyone close to him, either. But if he was gone...

"It hurt, Dean. It hurt when I woke up in that hospital alone to find that you abandoned me. It hurt when the people I considered my friends spit on me as I walked down the street. I lost count of how many times I was attacked, called names, or harassed, Dean. Sam and Jess were sympathetic, but the fact of the matter was that you weren't there, and I found that people simply didn't care for me much when I wasn't by your side.

"Even my own family, Dean. Michael and Zachariah wouldn't allow me to set foot in their home, and they cut off all contact that I could have with Anna, Gabriel, and Lucius."

Cas pauses here, takes a drink. He doesn't let Dean come to terms with what he just said before he continues again. "I almost considered allowing myself to die. It could be easy, if I walked out in the street at the wrong time of night and didn't fight back. But instead, I took refuge in the stories of the beats. It gave me hope that there were places where people like me could be accepted without comment. And when I was healthy enough, I hitchhiked to San Francisco.

"The first person I met there was Crowley. He was... well, there isn't a particular word to describe Crowley. He was the first person to show me attention that wasn't familial or negative. He was the one who helped me understand that I didn't have to continue living in the emptiness of someone who wasn't there."

Cas takes a deep breath in through his nose and then takes another drink. His gaze is trained outside once more. It's one thing that Dean finds a little unsettling, the fact that Cas won't look at him like he used to. Hell, eight years ago, Cas rarely had a conversation where he wasn't peering into Dean's very essence, even if it was about needing to take out the trash. And now, Cas rarely does it.

He wonders if it's just the fact that it's him, that he left and now Cas can't look at him the same way, or if it has something to do with the way people alway seem to cut Cas down when he's at his best.

"So, Crowley?" Dean asks softly. "He's still... with you?"

Cas smiles, and it's humorless. "Something like that, yes." He pushes his coffee off to the side. "We never had a conventional relationship by any means. In the beginning... we did try. I simply wasn't ready for it, and he certainly isn't the type of person that I'd want to spend more time than necessary with."

"It seems like you two are close, though. He's here now, after all," the older man points out, and goddammit, he can't keep the jealousy out of his voice.

"Yes, well. We do live together. It's more of a... 'friends with benefits', if you will." God help the poor bastard; he actually used air quotes. "I suppose we've grown fond of each other in a rather begrudging way. It's... complicated."

Their conversation halts as Samandriel returns to refill their coffee. The kid seems to understand that something serious is going on, so he offers nothing more than a smile and a simple nod to Cas before he's off.

Dean can't help but watch as Cas swallows down more coffee, and he wonders when the man became so attached to the drink. It seems like it became a usual thing for him in all those years of Dean's absence.

Finally, the younger man asks, "What about you, Dean? Did you find someone?"

"No. Um... well... how about you tell me your story and then I'll tell you mine, huh?" Best postpone that story until the last possible moment.

Cas eyes him with careful scrutiny, but he does nod in agreement. "Very well," he says. "So I left off with Crowley."

"And you're still in San Francisco," Dean adds.

"Mmm, yes. Well, we stayed there for quite some time, and I found that Crowley's friends had no interest in me aside from getting me into trouble, so I decided it was time to move here, to New York. Crowley just happened to be enamored enough to follow.

"The rest isn't particularly interesting," Cas says with a shrug, still not meeting Dean's gaze. "I picked up writing seriously somewhere along the way, and people tell me that I'm controversial, but it seems as though some do like me.

"Well," the younger man says with a shrug, "it's your turn, is it not?"

Dean has a thousand questions that he wants to ask. He wants to know, in detail, everything that happened to Cas. He wants to experience it like he was there, right next to Cas. But he doesn't, not yet, because now isn't the time to pry. He's heard what Cas is willing to divulge, and he won't push the man any farther.

Instead, he offers up his own account of what happened these past eight years. While Cas's story touched briefly on many things, Dean's is simply uninteresting. Not much has happened to him. He's done nothing more than work for the past few years, and the only break from that routine was Benny, and Dean tells Cas about that, too. They share a laugh over the man's uncanny appearance in Dean's life once again, though Cas sobers up quite a bit when the nature of Benny's relationship with Dean becomes clearer. He's not sure if he imagines the look of envy that sparks and is quelled quickly in Cas's eye.

And, once Dean is finished, they both sit there, unwilling to look at one another. Tension sits heavily in the air. What, exactly, is one supposed to say after eight years? How, exactly, is one supposed to breach all the subjects that they're no longer entitled to have any knowledge about? How, exactly, do they delve into those emotions that they've buried so deep inside themselves, that they never actually expected to unearth again?

It's hard to even look at Cas when he's not listening to the man talk, because it just feels like it's something he shouldn't do. He doesn't know if Cas wants him watching. Sure, they've already kissed, but Dean knows that the man was just overwhelmed.

He clears his throat and breaches the subject anyway. "So," he says, then clears his throat again. "Where, uh... is everything..." Frustrated, he rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head. "I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, where do we stand?"

He can feel Cas's eyes burning into him, and he can't resist the temptation to look. He's expecting anger, sadness, amusement, something that isn't the conflict playing out across the man's features. He looks like he's being ripped apart at the very seams and the flood of emotions he's been holding back is threatening to pour through. And that's another new thing; he seems to be so much more in touch with those emotions. Previously, Cas had simply always dealt with feelings with a sense of detachment. Must be a writer thing.

"Dean..." he whispers, and it's such a broken sound that Dean just doesn't know what to do with it. He doesn't know which hurt it stems from, but whatever it is, he caused it, and he was stupid to think that Cas would actually want to be around him for more than one afternoon after he shows up for the first time in eight years.

"Actually, y'know what? Forget I said anything, that was stupid," Dean mutters to himself. He pulls a few bills out of his pocket and dumps them on the table, grabs his jacket, and slides out of the booth in one fluid motion. "It was good seein' you, Cas. I hope the writing thing pans out." The only thing running through his mind is that he probably just fucked Cas's life up even more than he had already done before. Who gave him the right to show up here and just-

But before he move more than one step away from the table, he feels a grip on his arm. His eyes go wide, and he looks down to see Cas staring pleadingly up at him.

"Please," he whispers softly as he lets go of Dean's arm, "stay."

"Okay," Dean agrees almost automatically. He had been hoping for that response, even if he'd also kind of expected Cas to let him go just because throwing temper tauntrums at 31 is spectacularly uncool. He throws his jacket back into the corner of the booth and sits down, eyes on Cas the whole time.

"I don't... words cannot define where we stand, Dean," Cas mumurs softly. "I'm angry at you, and every part of my body rages at you for what you did. A part of me still wants to hate you, and I suppose some of me still does, but you're here, and that means you had enough sense to come find me.

"I can't blame you for thinking I was dead, but I can blame you for shutting everyone out of your life, because one phone call would have been enough to have avoided this.

"But..." Cas says softly, his eyes flickering down to the table, "I prayed for you to come back until I lost faith in God. Then, I simply hoped you would turn up again, and things could go back to normal."

It breaks Dean's heart that Cas lost faith in God because of him, but he still musters up enough gumption to whisper, "I guess it's a little too late for things to go back to normal, huh?"

Cas smiles sadly. "Eight years is a long time."

Dean lets out a humorless huff of a laugh and nods his head in bitter disappointment. He knew he was fighting a losing battle.

"Stop beating yourself up, Dean." Cas reaches over and places his hand atop Dean's, surprising the both of them. They've craved physical contact with one another for so long that neither of them can do much about it. "Eight years is a long time, and we've both changed. I used to know you like the back of my hand, and I'm sure now there are things that I would be surprised to discover. That goes both ways.

"But, Dean, I've always belonged to you." Cas's lips quirk up at the corners, and Dean understands what he means immediately, because he's quoting the song that Dean has never been able to listen to again but has heard thousands of times over in his mind.

"Cas..." He's smiling now; he can't help it, even if he subdues it to the tiniest one he can manage.

"I would like to try again, Dean. Neither of us are emotionally stable, I should say, and it wouldn't be healthy to pursue something intense so soon. And we didn't exactly have a conventional relationship before," the younger man says. He's starting to ramble a bit, and Dean can tell that he's nervous, so he squeezes Cas's hand.

"That sounds great, Cas." He's grinning like mad now. Out of all the possible scenarios, this is the one that he hadn't allowed himself to dream about. He prepared for anger, for grief, for everything. He simply wasn't expecting the man to decide that this could be fixed. Still, it almost seems to good to be real. He's still waiting for the moment when Cas will laugh and say it's all been a joke, and then he'll leave and never need to see Dean again. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure, Dean," Cas tells him emphatically. "You're flawed, but you're one of the most devoted and beautiful people that I've met in my life. I thought I lost you once, and I never wish to experience that again."

"Okay," Dean whispers, nodding. He's wondering when he'll wake up, when the earth quakes and sucks him into a black hole and he realizes that this is just a dream. But as he sits there and gapes at Cas, nothing changes. The world sits, still and peaceful. And it's then that he thinks of one catch. "What about Crowley?"

"He knows who you are, Dean. I'm sure he'll be difficult, but he's seeing someone else at the moment. I'm sure he'll find a way to recover."

"Wow." He says it because it's all so hard to comprehend. Two days has not been enough time to digest this information, and it feels like he's going to perpetually walk around with a head that's ready to go into an overload.

And Cas tilts his head just a little bit in confusion. Just like he always did. And it brings a twinge to Dean's heart to see that some things never change.

"Dean, please. Good things do happen." Cas says it slowly with that intense stare that Dean remembers. And, faintly, he remembers hearing those same words from Cas's mouth before.

"Yeah, well. I have a habit of fucking them up."

Cas just glares at him with enough intensity that Dean feels so guilty he looks away. That one look lets the man know that what he said isn't going to fly, but, right now, there's not much Cas can say about it, because neither of them have a right to ask for things just yet.

And Dean feels bad enough about it that he says, "Sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, Dean," Cas says quietly, controlled. "Realize that there are ways for you to stop, as you so eloquently put it, 'fucking things up'."

They're silent for a long while. Eventually, both of their gazes fall to the hand that Cas is resting atop Dean's, the one that neither one of them is ready to move.

Cas is giving him a chance that he doesn't deserve. Dean left. He walked out on Cas when the man needed him most, and there are no excuses for what he did. But, for some reason, Cas is stupid enough to have reserved a place in his heart for Dean in the odd chance that the man might turn up again. Even after eight years, Cas held onto that hope.

Dean can't imagine what it was like. At least he had some sort of closure, even if he thought Cas was dead. But all Cas knew was that Dean drove off into the sunset and just never came back. He didn't know why. He didn't know if he'd ever see Dean again. And yet, he found a sliver of hope and weaved it into something tangible, something that he could grab onto and wrap around himself every time he felt lost.

It's amazing, the human heart. It can be broken, bruised, and battered, it can be torn up until it's completely unrecognizable. And yet, it will actively search out any crumb of hope and cling to it as it whispers, "maybe, just maybe".

Dean begins to understand that Cas is leaving the outcome of this conversation up to him. Cas himself has already stated that he's ready for this to progress in his own roundabout way, even if it does so slowly. He wants to see how Dean will react, if he's changed at all in the time that's passed.

He wants to go slow, to take this one step at a time in an environment more conducive to their relationship than the former one. Cas is willing to fall in love with Dean again, slowly and surely, to discover all the aspects of the both of them that they hadn't had the chance to before. They had been closer than most siblings when they lived together, but they missed something crucial when they skipped the dating step and went right to living together. They didn't have the slow build of anticipation that comes from having dinner every weekend and watching it move to dinner every night of the week. They didn't have the luxury, really, because the small town atmosphere didn't quite allow it. It was something that Dean had always wished he could have changed while he was still with Cas; just that one small detail.

And Dean will be damned if he doesn't try this again - doesn't try this right. He's going to earn Cas's trust and prove that he's worth letting into Cas's heart again. He's gonna take Cas out on dates and talk about the pets they had in the third grade and the shitty teacher who taught English in ninth and all the things that interest them, no matter how insignificant those things seem, and he's gonna let the whole world know that they're together, and damn the consequences, whatever they may be. He'll take on the whole fucking world if he has to, just for this one chance at redeeming what it is that he's lost.

"Cas," he begins slowly. The man in question looks up at him, and Dean clears his throat, makes a point of looking at Cas. "I'd like to take you out to dinner tomorrow night. If, um, if you want?"

Something softens the lines of Cas's face, and a little something special twinkles in his eyes, and the sun doesn't need to be shining for them to look so ungodly blue. Dean hasn't seen something so genuinely beautiful since the night they danced together. And, if he does this right, he'll get to see this over and over again.

"I would like that, Dean," Cas agrees softly, with his familiar almost-smile. "I would like that very much."