The Laws of Falling

The Laws Of Falling

Day 1,
It has been two full weeks since the night in the church. Sam is doing much better, thankfully. Dean and I encouraged and successfully got him to eat two whole scrambled eggs this morning. Dean suggested that I start writing all of my “feelings” out, and he bought me this journal to do so. His conditions for allowing me to do this were “Just don’t start it out each day with ‘Dear Diary’, and don’t you even think about writing your name out with somebody else’s tacked on to the end of it like some teenage girl, okay, man?”
Also, this morning I woke up from a rather disconcerting dream. It involved Dean and Sam floating through a dark river, lifeless and weighted down with concrete blocks. On the bank of the river, there were six demons laughing and pointing at them with looks of pure pride on their revolting faces. I haven’t told Dean about this yet, and I imagine that he will brush it off and say “I know it sucks, man. I have nightmares all the damn time. Just don’t worry about it.”
Day 2,
I had another nightmare last night. Same thing, only the brothers were floating in a stream of their own blood. The gore was a little too much for my newly human (and borrowed) body. I awoke crying.
I fear for Sam, of course. He is doing very well in his recovery, and I am nothing but grateful for it. Dean worries constantly. I wish desperately to be able to heal Sam like I would if I hadn’t trusted Metatron. If I could, Dean would be content and I would be, as well.
I do not know how to put this except for the most common way, I suppose…I love Dean. I believe that I should say I am in love with him.
“Holy crap,” Dean mutters. He stops reading, right there, because he just can’t keep reading. He shouldn’t have started reading in the first place. This is Cas’ diary for Christ’s sake. He is invading Cas’ personal privacy. He’s also just kind of freaking out, just a little bit.
Dean reads the last line again, unbelieving. His brain suddenly jerks its train of thought towards Cas’ room, where he is currently sitting on his bed, trying to catch his weirdly rapid breath. Where, ten minutes ago, Dean was just innocently looking around the room, looking for dirty laundry to bring to the laundry room, when his eyes fell upon Cas’ journal, sitting on the desk in the corner, closed but with a bookmark about a quarter of the way through. Opting to instead to search the journal for anything particularly interesting about him, anything really meant ‘anything that might show that maybe Cas feels the same way about him that he feels about Cas’, only Dean’s too prideful to ever say so.
He figured out quite a while ago that he loved Cas. He remembers the exact moment that he realized it. They were sitting on the hood of the Impala, watching the stars with Sam leaning against the passenger door, and the brothers were listening to Castiel, who was naming the all the constellations from memory and pointing out the ones they could see at this point of the year. Cas had looked at Dean suddenly, just a little sidelong glance, but Dean had caught his gaze and held it. Thank God, Sam was still stargazing, oblivious to their admittedly kind of passionate look.
After about forty-five seconds of that, Cas had looked away, and Dean had just caught the little tint of a blush on his cheeks. Dean barely resisted the urge to giggle like a freaking fourteen year old girl. I love that guy. I really love him, Dean had thought. And that was it, no firework explosion or anything super pop song-y like that. Just a simple, quick thought seemingly loaded with C-4 that hadn’t detonated until about five minutes ago.
Dean hears footsteps coming down the hallway, towards Cas’ room. He quickly shuts the journal, tossing it back onto the desk just a few feet away from him. It thankfully lands almost exactly right where Dean picked it up, closing itself with a soft thud. Dean is bent over, picking up a dirty T-shirt he found on the floor, when Cas walks into the room, slightly startled, but not really surprised, to find Dean in his room. He’s used to Dean’s order of absolute cleanliness around the Batcave, which usually means laundry checks every two days.
“Hello, Dean.” Dean jumps a little, pretending to be startled that Cas is there, and he falls for it. He turns around straightening up, and tries, he really freaking tries not to notice the way that Cas’ shirt- which is really Sam’s shirt, equaling way too big and very hangy – drapes off his shoulders and the way that the V reaches right in between his pecs.
“Hey, Cas. How’s Sam?” He tries to make his voice not-so-breathy, but, with Winchester luck it doesn’t, and Castiel looks at him quizzically, wondering what is wrong.
“He’s alright. He fell asleep after he ate the soup you made for him,” Cas answers, slightly worried, because Dean kind of looks like he’s going to pass out. “Are you okay, Dean? You look a little pale.”
Dean breathes in and out slowly, praying for color to return to his cheeks to get that look off of Cas’s face, because it’s kind of distracting, because he keeps thinking that Cas really cares, and this is all just way too much for ten in the morning. He nods, unable to trust his voice, and obviously, that does not work, because Castiel is still looking at him like that and Dean just can’t take it.
“I love you.” He blurts it out, unable to stop his mouth from betraying him, and he automatically clamps a hand over his mouth, but it’s too late, and Cas draws in a sharp breath and goddamnit he blushes. He freaking blushes. Dean looks quickly away, looking past Cas into the doorframe and tries to think of a way to escape before the floor reaches up and drowns him.
He is just about to step past Cas to walk swiftly, maybe even sprint down the hallway to his room and lock the door forever and never come out when Cas says back, “I love you too, Dean.”
Dean stands there, frozen, eyes wide and unable to move from Cas’ face. Cas reaches down and self-consciously straightens his shirt, and that’s it for Dean. He damn near pounces on Cas, grabbing his face with quick but gentle hands and tugging his face up, up, up because he’s so damn short and places his lips on Dean’s. Dean licks his way into Cas’ mouth, which isn’t unresponsive, and he’s grateful. He slides his hands down, onto the fallen angel’s hips, and pulls him close, right up next to him, and slows his mouth’s movements, making them gentler and much more soft as he cradles the angel’s body in his hands.
Seconds later, when they have to pull up for air, Dean leans his forehead down against Cas’. He breathes in deeply, pulling in his scent and appreciating every damn molecule of it. Or some geeky shit like that, some shit that Sam would say, and just where the hell did that come from. Also, what the hell ‘cause his heart will not slow down, and that was not a normal kiss, not like one that he’s ever experienced, and he knows that he should probably tell his brain to shut up, but he can’t-
And then Cas is pulling away, and all the life just goes out of him, and he’s suddenly really damn nervous. He’s worried that maybe he shouldn’t have done that, and maybe Cas doesn’t like him anymore, not even as a friend. But then Cas is grabbing Dean’s hand and pulling it up to rest against his own chest. His heart is pounding, and he just squeezes Dean’s hand tighter before bringing it up to his lips, kissing the knuckles each in turn. Dean’s breath is suddenly taken away again, and he slips his hand out of Cas’ grip slowly. Before he can say anything, Cas beats him to it.
“I’ve been waiting for that to happen for a very long time. Years, even,” he breathes out. And then Dean is seriously out of breath because really? they could have spent years doing that?
“Me, too.” He somehow finds the words to speak, and everything is okay again.
“Dean,” comes the soft whimper, almost a question, from the doorway, and Dean whips around, taking in the sight of Sam leaning quite unsteadily against the frame. Dean automatically rushes forward to him, taking him by the shoulders, and he thinks that Sam should definitely not be walking around the house just yet.
“You guys are together now. I knew it,” Sam manages to breathe out, letting loose a soft huff of laughter, a smile, no a goddamn smirk ghosting the corners of his mouth.
“Well, we didn’t want to give you a heart attack, but yeah. I guess you know now.” Dean looks to Cas for confirmation, and Cas just nods, a quaint little tilt of his head forward, and Dean falls in love with him all over again, and he really needs to stop being so goddamn girly because Sam just laughs again.
“Well, I’m okay with it, just so you guys know,” he manages to get out before a harsh round of coughing take over and he doubles in on himself.
“Come on, buddy, back to bed for you,” Dean says, helping to his feet. Cas goes forward, ready to help. His hand lands on Sam’s shoulder, and his gaze finds Dean’s. Dean gives him a little wink, mouths a ‘later’ to him. Cas blushes, ducking his head down.
And HELL YES, Sam saw it all.