Prayers and Confessions

This was ridiculous.

Dean changed his mind eight times on the way, and nearly did so again as he pulled his ‘67 Chevy Impala into the small church parking lot, a few spaces from a silver Kia Forte. He groaned in annoyance because not only was he about to shed some of his dignity, but his beloved Impala, his baby, had to be in close proximity to a fucking Kia while he’s at it. That, coupled with everything else that’s ever gone wrong in Dean’s life, well, it’s almost enough to bring the poor man to tears. He briefly wondered if he should be worried about the presence of another car, but really? Fuck it. He’s just going to go in, do his thing, then come right back out.

Two years ago, if you’d told Dean Winchester that angels were real, he’d have laughed at you, saying it was nice that you could believe such utter horseshit. Especially since God is obviously such a stand up guy.

Then Dean went to Hell and Castiel, angel of the Lord, raised his fine ass from perdition. Dean almost wishes he were still down there, in that place where his humanity shriveled and his bitterness thrived, if it meant that none of this would have happened. If he’d only held out for a few more years, or if he weren't such a stubborn little bitch and agreed to be Michael’s vessel then maybe Lucifer wouldn't be using his little brother as a meat-suit. Maybe Bobby would still have his legs, maybe the apocalypse could have been averted for just a bit longer, or gone down without taking everyone he’s ever loved with it.

And then there’s Cas, probably the closest thing that Dean’s ever had to a best friend, and wasn't that sad?

Dean needs to factor his feathery ass in a bit more because the dude was a fucking enigma. To be honest, Dean was fully prepared to say yes to Michael, had every intention to save everyone by sucking up his pride and just going with it when he’d gone into that warehouse and summoned Zachariah, but then Cas, the bastard, beat him up in an alleyway and told Dean that he had had faith in him - faith in him, of all people - and if Dean said yes to Michael then all was for naught. And really, who was Dean to give Castiel so much hope and put him through so much shit if he were only going to throw it all back into the angel’s face?

Dean was the one that taught Cas about free will.
Dean was the one that that refused Michael time and time again, even as Zachariah broke his ribs and shoveled regret down his throat like the bread and wine of the Messiah.
Dean was the one that let Sammy, his little brother with that stupid hair and lopsided grin, fall into the hands of Lucifer and become his walking puppet, all the while aware of the hurt, oh, the hurt Satan was causing and not having the cognitive abilities to stop any of it.
Dean was the one who let everyone and the world down.

He closed his eyes, shutting them with such an abrupt violence it startled even him; sighing, as though he could let out his entire heart in weary exhalation, and banging his head against his steering wheel for lack of a better way to get rid of his tension, his frustration, his fucking conscience that held the weight of the world.

Dean was Atlas, and he was determined to shrug.

Eventually, he finally got out of the Impala and made his way through the parking lot and to the doors of the church. Dean hesitated. He could still back out. This was beyond ridiculous, so it’s not like there’s actually a point to it at all.

Except there is.

It was like admitting something after realizing that lies would get you nowhere, just like that his tough guy exterior defense crumbled down to ruin. Sam was AWOL, Cas was God knows where, and tomorrow was the end of the world.

Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one rebellious angel, and a drop out with a GED and a give ‘em hell attitude who thought they could beat destiny. So much for that plan.

The first thing Dean saw as he opened the heavy church doors was the large, heavy, holy crucifix at the front of the room. His lower lip trembled slightly at the sight of it and he clamped his teeth over the pink flesh in a vain attempt to still the movement. He was not going to go all chick-flick with this, he was not going to go all chick-flick with this.

He began towards to cross, barely heeding the shadowed pews as his feet stumbled and his hands reached out blindly.

He should have brought a flashlight. The Moon wasn't getting points anytime soon with that shit job of natural lighting.

Vaguely, as he reached the front podium and dropped to his knees on the steps before the crucifix, he thought that he may have felt a wetness on his cheeks. Preposterous! Dean Winchester only cried manly tears of pain when he was broken or helpless or lost, or when someone he cared about died, or when Sammy was so far off the reservation that he couldn't even be reached anymore.

Then he pointed out to himself that yeah, this was definitely one of those times.

“Forgive me, for I have sinned,” he confessed haltingly, feeling reasonably awkward. He wasn't even sure who he was confessing to. God? Even the angels had no concrete proof that the head honcho existed, and boy, he sure was putting a lot of effort to save the world, wasn't he? What a great dude.

Dean opened his mouth to begin again, but closed it as soon as he realized he had no idea where to even start. He figured he could get away with skipping the small stuff, like when he was ten and stole a football to give to Sam for his Christmas present. That was technically for a good cause anyway, right?

Dean took a deep breath, deciding that it would be best to start out with things that actually made him feel like a bad person and then work his way up to the (literally) earth-shattering, monumental fuck ups. “When Sammy got his first girlfriend, she came on to me and I fucked her behind the football pitch during prom night...”

It was going to be a long night.

~()()()~

“... And here’s the big kahuna, the one sin that puts all the rest to shame - even taking the bait in Hell and breaking the first seal... I-I let ‘em all down. My dad, my mom, Jo, Ellen, Bobby. Sam and Cas. I've let them all down, they’re going to go through the repercussions because I couldn't do shit to save them. I-....”

Dean scrubbed his face dejectedly. His initial tears had dried a while ago and he’d shifted from kneeling to a more comfortable sitting position, but the bitter aching in his chest just seemed to get thicker and heavier with each vowel and consonant pattern of heresy that escaped his lips. “And - and that doesn't even count all of the poor bastards all over the fuckin’ world that are going to die or suffer or any other crappy thing because of me... I’m just tired. I’m so, so tired, and I don’t know what to do anymore and-”

“It’s not your fault, Dean.” Dean froze, but quickly relaxed, not bothering to look up. Really, he shouldn’t be surprised. He sighed that world-weary exhalation again.

“How long have you been here, Cas?”

“Long enough,” came the reply, and Dean thought that he really missed that deep, gravelly voice. “It’s not your fault,” the angel said again, more sternly if it was possible.

Dean only chuckled darkly before muttering, mostly to himself, “When isn't it my fault?” It was more of a statement than a question, and each syllable reeked of self-hatred and guilt. Dean has never been his own number one fan, hell, he’s not even sure if he has any fans, but he had to admit that all of his self-loathing was pathetic.

Suddenly, dress shoes were right beside him and Dean could see Cas’ billowing tan trench coat in his peripheral vision. “Don’t you ever think that this is your fault, Dean Winchester. It’s never your fault. You are the Righteous Man, and you've done all you could with what you've been given.”

Dean wanted to believe Cas, he wanted to believe that he couldn't have done more to save everyone and everything and not let it get so bad so fast. He knew better, though. He was the Righteous Man, and the Righteous Man broke the first seal. It’s always Dean’s fault, but before he could object to the angel, Cas continued.

“You can’t see it, but your soul... It’s so beautiful and good. When I found you there, in Hell, even as a broken man your soul was still so bright that I couldn't help but stop and stare for a moment. You were like a lantern lighting up a night raid...

“I nearly missed my chance to save you due to my folly. Even with your hidden scars and all of that pain that you shield from the rest of us. You can’t see it, but your soul is so bright and so good and there isn't anything in this world that I've seen in all my years quite like it.”

Dean, embarrassed, just glared at his feet, resting his elbows on his knees, crossing his wrists, and not replying for a long while. Then he scoffed. “Is there a point to this?”

Cas shot him a look, one of the are-you-really-this-stupid-and-emotionally-constipated expressions, something he probably learned from Sam.

“My point, Dean,” he paused, either for effect or out of irritation for having to explain, Dean didn't know. “My point is that when we first met on the physical plane in that barn and you stabbed me with that annoying demon knife of yours, you didn't believe that you deserved to be saved. You still don’t,” he frowned, deep and morose and tense. “Now, listen closely because this next part is important.”

Dean huffed, but Cas ignored him.

“Dean Winchester, you deserve salvation. Not only that, but you deserve so much more. You deserve to be happy and well with Samuel and a family.”

He could feel Cas’ too blue eyes on him, his dark eyebrows furrowed together in earnest. Dean shuffled nervously. “You deserve everything that the life you lead won’t let you have.”

“Cas...” Dean didn't choke. He was not close to tears, and he was not hoping that the angel was a liar just so he could brush this off as some form of manipulation or something equally as negate. “I-...”

Angels lie, Dean knew, or at least they don’t tell the whole truth. Cas wasn't an exception to this. Angels were dicks, Dean knew, even Anna. Cas, though, eventually came around. Angels were shallow, Dean knew, and conceited. Cas was a timid little freakazoid and probably had an inferiority complex - except when he didn't.

He could feel the angel’s measuring gaze and knew that he was doing that weird staring thing he always did. It took him a bit, but after what seemed like hours, Dean gathered enough courage to look back at Castiel, into his freaky soul-searching stare that Dean shouldn't be so used to.

“Cas...” he began again, not sure at all what he was going to say, but knowing he needed to say it.

Then he felt surprisingly soft chapped lips against his and at first he wasn't sure who had made the first move until he felt the lips suddenly start kissing back and had a sneaking suspicion that it was him.

As their lips slotted together, he felt Cas sigh into the kiss and Dean smiled for the first time in what felt like (and easily could have been) years. It was odd at first. The chapped lips, stubble scraping his skin, and the blatant inexperience of a multi-millennial old celestial virgin. Dean quickly decided that he liked it though because this was Cas, his Cas, and fuck, what he lacked in inexperience he certainly made up for in eagerness.

Dean swiped his tongue along Cas’ bottom lip, silently asking for entrance. The angel stilled for a brief moment before unsurely parting his lips, allowing the hunter to lick his way inside the cavern of his mouth and explore it as if it was the most curious thing he’d ever encountered. In Dean’s line of business, Cas thought, that was highly unlikely.

Cas moaned softly as Dean nipped his lip and the sound went straight down to the hunter’s dick.

“Fuck, Cas,” Dean said, awed, as he pulled away for a breath, and found that their bodies were suddenly a hell of a lot closer than they’d been before, which was saying quite a bit considering Cas had no sense of personal space.

The angel only stared up at him with wide eyes and breathed, “Dean,” as if he couldn't believe that Dean Winchester, hunter extraordinaire and vessel to the archangel Michael, Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man who would sacrifice anything and everything to save his family, Dean Winchester, the man with the too bright soul and heavy heart, Dean Winchester, the man who saved everyone but didn't believe he deserved anything in return, had just shoved his tongue down Castiel’s throat. It’s very possible that Cas took the Lord’s name in vain right then - immediately asking forgiveness, of course.

Dean shook his head at him, chuckling softly, like he could hear the thoughts rushing through Castiel’s head. Then he dipped his head and captured Cas’ lips again, molding them into his own and threading a single hand through the angel’s dark, mussed hair. Cas reciprocated and gripped the lapels of Dean’s leather jacket tightly as he sucked the hunter’s lower lip between his teeth and nibbled. Dean hissed in appreciation, then growled, pulling his mouth away from Cas, who whimpered at the loss of contact, before reattaching them to the angel’s neck, biting and sucking and smoothing it all over with slow drags of his tongue. Cas’ breath hitched and he pulled Dean flush against his body, and the hunter grunted in response.

Dean deftly pushed Castiel’s trench coat off of his shoulders, taking his suit jacket with it, then moved on to the angel’s dark blue tie, dividing his attention between Cas’ neck, the airy little sounds he was making, and surprisingly difficult task of undressing him. “Dean,” Cas said in alarm, but was quickly hushed by Dean’s lips on his own again.

“Shh, baby, I've got you,” Dean urged gently once he’d slipped the tie from around Cas’ neck, and edged his hands to the angel’s waistband to untuck his white dress shirt. He huffed a laugh, something he couldn't remember when he last did. “Damn, you wear as many layers as I do.”

Castiel chuckled quietly.

Once Cas’ torso was adequately bare, Dean clambered on top of him and began to trail kisses from his scruffy jaw down to his chest. He was a bit on the pale side, lean with wiry muscle cording through him, and bony hips protruded from the top of his slacks.

“Dean, we’re in a house of God!” Cas protested weakly, and Dean snorted.

“Relax, Cas, I doubt your dad will mind,” he said, bending down to resume his trail of kisses.

“Dean!” Cas frowned in consternation. “Give me a moment.”

“Wha-” Dean started, but then felt the tell-tale action of his molecules being separated, then pulled back together in a matter of seconds. “Dammit, Cas, you know I hate that,” he groused, observing that the angel had flown them to the motel room Dean had rented for the night. More specifically, to the bed of said motel room.

“Sorry,” Cas apologized half-heartedly before rolling them over so Dean was beneath him. “You’re remarkable,” the he whispered, ghosting his lips over Dean’s.

The hunter’s cheeks colored and he mumbled something along the lines of “Am not.”

Cas only smiled, slowly sliding his hands down the length of Dean’s torso, slender fingers gently pushing his leather jacket out of the way and dancing along the fabric of his open plaid button-up and the plain white tee underneath. Dean sighed, a content rush of air befalling his slicked lips, and wrapped his arms around Cas’ neck. The angel came down upon him like a revelation.

They pressed their foreheads together, trading oxygen and mingling the endless ocean blue of Castiel’s eyes with Dean’s August green, all previous heat dissipating in favor of a slow build-up. They've both wanted this for such a long time and with the world ending in mere hours they could afford to be desperate enough to map out the universes of each others’ bodies.

“Cas,” Dean said, breath tickling Cas’ kiss-swollen lips. The angel grinned and swallowed Dean’s next words in a firm lock of lips.

“Dean,” he replied, face serious and voice oddly somber, and kissed the hunter, again silencing his words. “You talk too much.” Dean laughed at that, outright and loud, then hummed in agreement.

Cas grinned again and began placing an obscene amount of butterfly kisses across Dean’s face.

“Cas!” Dean giggled, and woah, that was strange. Manly men like Dean don’t giggle. “What are you doing?”

Cas paused and gave Dean his this-is-a-very-serious-situation-Dean-stop-being-ludicrous look, which he probably also learned from Sam. “I am kissing your freckles into existence, Dean,” he said, as if this action was of grave importance, and Dean let out a startled laugh.

“What?!”

Castiel rolled his eyes, another thing he probably learned from Sam, the little bitch. “It is a well-known fact that freckles are angels’ kisses. I am merely leaving my mark.”

“Oh, my God,” Dean said. “You’re ridiculous. Where’d my original freckles come from then?”

Cas pouted and said reproachfully, “Don’t blaspheme, Dean. It’s unbecoming,” then matter-of-factly, as if it should have been obvious, “Those freckles are also from me.”

Dean howled with laughter, something he knew for a fact he hadn’t done in years, and rambled out an insincere apology somewhere among his good-natured wheezes. Cas’ eyes glinted with amusement.

Cas promptly left a chaste kiss upon Dean’s lips before trailing his mouth down the hunter’s jawline and languidly began sliding his tongue in calculated movements over Dean’s adam’s apple. Dean’s laughter soon evolved into breathy gasps and Cas’ hands wandered down the hunter’s torso again, this time rucking the shirts up. He averted his attentions from Dean’s clavicle to his chest and stomach, leaving warm, open-mouthed kisses and licking intricate patterns over the sun-kissed skin, paying special attention to the freckle just above his right nipple and tearing pretty moans from Dean’s throat.

Dean shuddered as Cas seemed to kiss every square inch of his body, every press of mouth to flesh like a benediction. He was being revered in a way that he’d never been before, Dean realized. Cas was treating his body like it was more than a vessel could ever hope to be, like the body holding the hunter together was something to be loved, something to be believed in.

Dean was being worshiped.

“Cas, what the fuck?! Stop treating me like a china doll!” It was like an epiphany, if a violent one. Dean jerked slightly and nearly pushed the angel off of him. No, no, no, no. Dean Winchester wasn't anything special. Nobody should be treating him as if he were worthy of anything, let alone an angel of the fucking Lord. Cas looked up to meet Dean’s eyes, as if he knew how Dean felt. But he didn't, he couldn't.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he shouldn't be doing this. He was corrupting an angel, for fuck’s sake! And Cas? Cas was letting him! That had to be at least nine kinds of crazy!

Cas didn't stop. Instead, he met Dean’s blown green eyes with a level gaze and continued to kiss every piece of skin within reach, even going to far as moving his hands to Dean’s belt and beginning to unbuckle it without ever breaking eye contact.

“Goddammit, Cas, stop!” Dean growled, though he actually really wanted Cas to do the opposite. Goddammit, Cas, I need you. “Get off me.” Don't leave me. He hoped that Cas could hear the undercurrent of his words, but not even Sammy could do that.

He tried to ignore the flash of hurt on the angel’s face before his expression became impassive. Cas sat up. “You wish for me to get off of you?” And damn it all if Dean didn't know Cas well enough to hear the way he carefully masked any emotion in his voice, making it scarily professional given the circumstances.

Dean didn't answer. What was there to say?

Then Cas wasn't on top of him anymore and Dean’s body felt cold and lonely at the loss. He fucked another thing up and the world was going to end and when the shit hit the fan he would probably be drunk and alone and miserable. He couldn't help his mother, he couldn't help his father, he couldn't help Bobby or Ellen or Jo or Ash or Pamela. He couldn't help Sammy. He couldn't help Cas. He can’t even help himself.

He wasn't worth Cas’ faith.

Dean would have cried if he hadn't felt so numb from the constant pain of being a loathsome failure with self-esteem issues to the max.

Then there was a heat next to him, a body pressed against his, pulling him out if his own personalized pit of self-hatred and disgust, raising him from emotional perdition.

It was Cas.
It was always Cas.

Dean shifted, allowing Cas to burrow further into him, burying his face into the nook between Dean’s neck and shoulder, and squeezing his vessel tight against the hunter on the small motel bed. The angel was murmuring apologies and tracing Enochian prayers onto Dean’s exposed chest, every now and then stopping to caress the tattoo over his heart as if the inked symbol functioned as a form of punctuation for his ethereal language. The hunter felt a warmth spread over him, nothing like the white-hot heat of arousal or even like the grace-filled angel tucked beside him.

“I’m sorry, Cas,” he said, meaning it with his entire being. The angel gave him a small smile and Dean couldn't help but return it, pressing a hesitant kiss to his temple.

“Go to sleep,” Castiel said, the oceans of his eyes shining like the glint of sunlight striking steady waves, and just before the hunter was overcome with his dreamscape, he heard the angel murmur soft words that followed him into sleep, followed by a gentle press of dry lips against his each of his eyelids, then his forehead, and finally his own bowed lips.

“I could form entire religions based on the expanse of your freckles or the summer green grass of your eyes or that weight in your chest that has no right to be there, covering up a heart that can feel so much.” A shallow breath, a shuddering inhalation filled with enough emotion to make up for every time Cas had behaved like he had none. “You’re worth any faith, Dean Winchester. It’s a shame you don’t believe it, too.”

By then, the Sun was getting ready to rise for a new day. The world was scheduled to end in only a few hours, but for now the birds outside were chirping as if nothing could wrong. An angel and a human were in love and they deserved to rejoice in the feeling for as long as they could before they were all wiped out and the slate was clean.

Neither Dean nor Cas could find in themselves to mind too much anymore. They've always wanted a clean slate.