Chapter Text
Cas hadn’t been strapped onto the bed all the way, and he hit the ground hard just a few feet from Dean. Reeling from the shock and pain of the sudden fall, Dean checked quickly on Sam—who was pushing himself up beside him—then half-lurched, half-crawled to Cas and dropped to his knees beside him. The angel was groaning, conscious but clearly out of it. Dean cupped his face in his hand, then looked around for help.
Kirk appeared beside him, holding his shoulder but apparently otherwise fine after the fall. McCoy and the other nurses also seemed to be picking themselves up. Spock was suspended to the bed on the ceiling, looking down at them all with frustrated puzzlement. It might’ve been funny had the situation not seemed so dire.
“You said there’s a way to get rid of this thing,” Kirk said in a sharp tone. “What is it?”
“An exorcism,” Dean said as Sam joined them. Cas groaned again and it took all of his willpower to keep his mind on the task. “Something this big, we might need… you have a PA system on this thing?”
Kirk nodded tightly, then pointed to a small box near the door to Sickbay—which was now several feet out of reach. “If we can get to that, we can force the demons out?”
“Probably,” Sam said. “Dean, get up on my shoulders. I bet you can reach.”
There was a loud buzz of electricity and sparks flew throughout the dark room, as if several things had shorted out at once.
“Or maybe not,” Dean muttered.
“Captain,” Spock called down from the ceiling. “I can sense these creatures. If the message needs to reach them, I believe I can…reach into their minds, and amplify it.”
“Do it,” Kirk said.
The floor beneath them was beginning to shake, and sparks flew again. A warning klaxon started blaring, then cut out as suddenly. Dean hugged Cas to his chest.
“Gentleman, if you will say the words…” Spock said, looking down at them.
Dean and Sam met each other’s eyes, then started the exorcism. As they chanted the shaking intensified, the floor bucking beneath them like it was alive. Smoke filled the room as sparks flew from all the equipment, shelves crashed down with a mighty noise, and Dean held Cas tight and kept chanting. Above them, Spock’s eyes were closed in concentration, his features tight with the effort.
And then, there was nothing.
The shaking stopped, the sparks stopped, and even the upside-down gravity eased, everything floating gently back into the air. Dean kept his grip on Cas, who was now looking up at him dazedly.
“It’s over,” Dean murmured.
Cas’s eyes closed again.
-
Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for everything to get put back in order. The Enterprise’s crew was, as Sam explained it to him, supposed to be the best in the fleet, and it was currently living up to its reputation. The gravity had been repaired early, Sickbay was up and running, and—after Sam had given him a seriously dude it’s a starship how can you not glare—Dean had acquiesced to leave Cas’s side long enough to take a short tour of the ship which showed that pretty much everything else was back in order too.
Both Cas and Spock were resting, the bed still pumping out Spock’s heartbeat and doing nothing for Cas, which had concerned Dean greatly before he’d remembered that angels probably didn’t have heartbeats. According to McCoy, they were both going to be fine. Thanks to the weird future medical technology, their physical wounds had apparently been the easiest to set right, and even Cas’s mangled hand was supposed to be good as new within the week. (McCoy had whirred something over Dean’s stab wound as well, then sprayed it with something, and wrapped a sort of shiny bandage around it. It felt about a thousand times better.) The energy drains caused by Cas’s phaser wound and Spock’s channeling of the exorcism, McCoy said, would take a little longer…like two weeks.
While Sam wandered around the ship looking at things, his little nerd brain about as excited as could possibly be, Dean had mostly settled in by Cas’s bedside to wait. He found that as the hours drew on, his most frequent companion turned out to be Kirk, who seemed to leave his bridge duties as often as possible to take a seat by Spock and watch him sleep.
“Dean,” Kirk said, one of the times. “There was something you said back there, in the basement. That I’m a vessel. What did you mean by that?”
“It means if any dick blobs of light come wanting to share real estate, you say no,” Dean said. When Kirk’s curiosity deepened to utter confusion, Dean sighed and explained all he knew about vessels and bloodlines and archangels and the apocalypse.
“The ‘Star Trek’ books that Sam was talking about,” Kirk said. “Are they gospel, too? Like your Supernatural books? I’ve been trying to understand how books about us could have existed two hundred and fifty years in the past.”
“Must be,” Dean shrugged. It made a certain kind of sense.
“If there’s going to be another apocalypse,” Kirk went on, clearly struggling to process the information. “Michael or Lucifer may want to be…in…me. That’s…some news.”
“Tell me about it,” Dean shrugged.
Kirk looked thoughtful, then worried. “You said they possess people in a bloodline. I don’t have any family left, just a young nephew. A child. Are you saying the other archangel would try to take him?”
“Nah,” Dean said. “They can resurrect people, easy. They like doing brothers, far as we can tell.”
Kirk’s eyes widened. “I had a brother. Sam.”
For a few moments, Dean said nothing, the absurdity of it washing over him. Of course he had a friggin’ brother Sam. It only made sense. Then he started chuckling, and couldn’t stop, even as Kirk stared at him in utter confusion. Finally Dean took a deep breath. “Guess history really does repeat itself, huh?”
“I…guess,” Kirk said doubtfully, squinting at Dean a little suspiciously, as if he still couldn’t figure out what was funny. (Truth be told, Dean wasn’t so sure himself.) “You’re part of this bloodline too, aren’t you?” Kirk asked.
Dean’s mirth fled as quickly as it had come. “Yeah. I think so. Gotta be Sam’s great-great-great-whatevers, though. I mean, the chances that I’d…” he shrugged, thinking of Lisa and Ben and weirdly finding himself trying to avoid glancing at the sleeping Cas.
“We could check,” Kirk offered. “The Enterprise has access to Earth records from your time. I’d be happy to show you.”
“No,” Dean said quickly. He was sure, with a conviction he didn’t entirely understand, that he didn’t want to know. “And don’t tell Sam either, okay?”
“If that’s what you want,” Kirk said.
They fell into silence, each watching their respective patient. Then Dean asked something that had been nagging at him for a while.
“So you and him,” Dean said, nodding at Spock. “Are you actually, uh, you know? Like Chekov said?”
“No,” Kirk said, a smirk creeping across his face. “The demon, and, ah, possibly Chekov, were…misinformed. Spock and I are friends. I expect we always will be. I wouldn’t change that for the world.”
“Oh,” Dean said, feeling oddly disappointed. It had seemed that he and Cas had so much in common with Kirk and Spock, and a small part of him—small part—had thought that maybe if Kirk and Spock could make it work, he and Cas could too. He shook himself slightly to avail himself of the thought. It was stupid. He and Cas were…friends too. That was all. He realized he was holding Cas’s hand, still, but couldn’t quite make himself let go.
“I take it you and Cas have a somewhat different relationship?” Kirk asked lightly.
“What? No. Of course not,” Dean said quickly, worried he’d given away too much on his face. He shouldn’t even be thinking these things at all. “I mean, it’s not like we’ve ever, you know, done anything. And, he’s an angel. We’re friends.”
Kirk’s smile was gentle. “You don’t sound so sure.”
“I don’t?” Dean said, temporarily lost for words.
“I’ve never had any doubts about my relationship with Spock,” Kirk said warmly. “About what I’d like it to be. That’s why, I imagine, it’s as easy to describe to you as it is. He’s simply the best friend I’ve ever had. Can you say the same?”
Dean found his face was scrunching in mixed disbelief that Kirk would even go there, and doubt because he really wasn’t sure what the answer was. He forced himself to smooth out his features. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Course I can.”
“Of course,” Kirk echoed diplomatically. The intercom on the wall had started whistling, and a woman’s voice called, Bridge to Captain Kirk. Kirk stood up and headed over to it. “Excuse me.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Dean mumbled.
As it turned out, Kirk was needed on the bridge, which left Dean alone in Sickbay with two unconscious guys and his thoughts. Absentmindedly, he found himself rubbing his thumb gently along the skin of Cas’s good hand, and wondering. Was it possible to have what Kirk had been talking about? Sure, he had some serious doubts that he’d ever really be happy just being friends with Cas, but was the alternative even an option? Cas was an angel, after all. Cas didn’t do any of that love or relationship stuff, as far as Dean knew (the reaper he’d banged as a human, Dean had long since decided, didn’t really count). And even if he did, there was no knowing that he’d want to do it with Dean. If Dean brought it up and Cas wasn’t into it, it could totally mess up what they did have. Which would be about the worst thing he could imagine. When it came down to a choice between Dean not being totally happy with just being friends, versus losing everything they did have, the answer seemed pretty obvious. Of course he shouldn’t tell Cas how he felt.
He took a deep, steadying breath, and tried to process the fact that he’d even just considered telling Cas how he really felt. Hell, he was pretty sure he hadn’t even admitted to himself what he really felt until the possibility had been there.
And I can’t fight this feeling anymore…
The crappy song he’d been belting out on their way to Riverside drifted through his mind and he had to swallow back a stupid wave of emotion. He was going to fight it, because that was the only damn way he could have Cas in his life.
He didn’t let go of Cas’s hand, though.
They were still sitting like that a few minutes later when Cas opened his eyes and blinked at Dean a few times. Dean had been so lost in his own thoughts he almost hadn’t noticed, but as soon as he did he jolted into action.
“Cas? Hey! How do you feel? Are you okay? I’m sorry, man, I’m so…sorry.”
Cas cleared his throat, looking around at the instruments and the various futuristic medical devices attached to him. “Hi…Dean,” he said hoarsely. “I see…we survived?”
“Yeah, we did,” Dean said, finally letting go of Cas’s hand, which he was sure Cas wouldn’t want him holding anymore. “Exorcised those sonsabitches right out of the starship, which, by the way, is freaking huge.”
Cas nodded slightly. His face still had a pinched, painful look.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Dean asked, then remembered that Cas had never actually answered that question. “They said the physical stuff will heal soon. The…everything I did to you. You just have to get your energy back, okay? And, and really, Cas…I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Dean,” Cas said, finding Dean’s hand again and giving it a slight squeeze. Dean felt his skin prickle at the touch but forced himself to ignore it. He’d never had this problem before…or had he? It was all very confusing.
“Yeah. I do,” Dean said. “I messed you up. Real bad. I wanted to hurt you, so I could save you, yeah, but I wanted to do it.”
“I understand,” Cas said, then gave a small, sad smile. “Dean, do you remember what we were talking about in the car outside the farmhouse, before Kirk and Spock arrived?”
Dean thought back. Cas had been about to say something, which had been interrupted. “You said you had PTSD, from the attack dog spell,” he recalled. “What, you’re trying to say we’re even now?”
“Not quite.” Cas sounded mildly wistful. “I said that I was having flashbacks, and feelings, from when I hurt you.”
Dean shrugged. Tomato, tomahto.
“Dean, what I had been about to say,” Cas plowed on, his eyes squinting slightly at Dean’s lack of reaction, “is that I’d come to understand why hurting you had affected me so much.”
“And?”
“And,” Cas sighed, as if it were exceptionally hard to get out the next few words. “And, Dean, I believe it’s because I love you.”
Cas stopped there, but Dean’s mouth was too busy hanging open to form a coherent answer. Or even a coherent thought. Cas couldn’t love him. It just couldn’t be. Because it meant… it meant…
“I hadn’t really understood the emotion at first,” Cas went on, when Dean didn’t say anything for several seconds. “I certainly knew that I felt something for you, but I assumed that it was the sort of familial love that you and Sam have for each other, or perhaps deep friendship, since I had also never experienced either of those for a human before.” He looked at Dean warily, as if unsure whether to go on, then added, “But I think this is different. And my point… my point is, you don’t have to apologize. I love you, and I will always forgive—”
He was cut off, because Dean had finally realized what do to with his mouth. He leaned down and kissed Cas right on the lips. As he did, their fingers entwined again, and it occurred to Dean why it had been so easy to forgive Cas too—why talking about what Cas had done hardly seemed worth the time.
He thought about what Kirk had said, how he’d been so sure of what he wanted his and Spock’s relationship to be, and how easy that had made it. As it turned out, Dean was pretty damn sure too.
They broke apart, Cas looking about as shocked as Dean had been at Cas’s proclamation.
Dean smiled, finding it somehow amazingly easy. “And I can’t fight this feeling anymore,” he half-murmured, half-sang.
“Dean?” Cas asked, confusing tinged with worry settling over his features again.
“I…I…I love you too,” Dean said, and once the words were out it was light a weight had lifted from his chest, a weight that had been there so long he hadn’t even noticed it. When Cas looked like he still hardly believed it himself, Dean leaned down and kissed him again.
And that was how, when he looked back on that week many years later, getting captured and exorcizing two demons from a friggin’ giant starship from the future with the help of its maybe-his-great-grandson-slash-coming-apocalypse-vessel-captain and his alien friend would still be only the second thing that came to mind.