Archive of Our Own ^beta

It was Sam who noticed it first. 

They had failed to trap Chuck– God, Castiel’s Holy Father. Castiel had failed. 

Now, they were licking their wounds back at the Bunker, a tense silence lingering in every corner as they tried to find a new plan. Now, Dean was reading– not a lore book, not a heavy tome, but a relatively thin paperback.

Castiel hadn’t even registered it until Sam said something, but whatever it was, it seemed important to Dean. There was an uncapped pen in his hand, spinning lazily between his fingers, occasionally being used to mark up the pages. 

“Since when do you know how to read?”

“Bitch,” Dean said, not looking up from the book. 

“Jerk,” Sam fired back. Not for the first time, Cas envied their easy relationship. Sam leaned over Dean’s shoulder, trying to read the book. “Wait, is this one of the Supernatural books?”

The Winchester Gospels. Chuck’s books depicting the lives of the Winchesters in full, prophetic detail, up until the Apocalypse that failed to happen. 

“Chuck wrote them, didn’t he?” Dean said, closing the book shut and setting it aside, away from Sam’s prying eyes. 

Sam stepped back, expression flickering from teasing to curious. “Are you saying you think there’s something in there that will help us?”

“Figured it wouldn’t hurt to check. Unless you have any other great ideas,” Dean said. He didn’t pick up the book again. 

Cas found out the real truth that night. It was late in the Bunker, with Sam having gone to bed not long before, hiding a yawn behind his hand. The Bunker was quiet, save for that ever-present low hum of machinery and electricity. Dean was nursing a drink in the map room, one of the books beside him. 

“Have you found anything?” Cas asked from the doorway, not wanting to intrude. 

Dean looked up, evaluating him. Cas straightened, and he must have passed Dean’s test, because Dean slid the book towards him like an offering. Cas entered the room, fingers gently turning the book closer to him, as if being any more firm would cause Dean’s work to crumble away. There was a kind of tension in the air that made Cas wonder what Dean was really giving him.

He reverently opened the book to the page where a stray receipt had been crammed in. As he’d noticed, it wasn’t just the empty black text of the book that greeted him, but Dean’s own words, scrawled out in green text. 

Dean’s own handwriting. His own thoughts. 

Cas’s finger hovered over his own name, Castiel , replacing the words “an angel of the Lord”. They had been crossed out so harshly, so thoroughly, that Dean’s pen had poked a hole through the delicate page. 

“I used to think Chuck was just a shit writer. Or lazy.” Dean’s voice was quiet but heavy. “There was so much he missed. Now I’m starting to wonder if he was leaving things out on purpose.”

Dean wasn’t looking for any kind of solution to stop Chuck. Not physically, at least. 

“You’re adding your real thoughts in,” Cas murmured, turning back another page, eyes latching onto green lettering.

“I know it’s stupid.” Dean swallowed. “But I can’t…it’s not his story. It’s mine. Ours.”

The thing was that Cas didn’t think it was stupid at all. He understood it perfectly.

He was intimately familiar with how he was portrayed in the Winchester Gospels. There were nights, in the early years of him knowing the Winchesters, where Cas would retreat into them when everyone else was asleep. 

He was feeling a lot of things for the first time, back then. He didn’t understand it, but he understood enough to know that he shouldn’t have been feeling any of it. Dean was always so good at navigating the harsh and choppy waters of human emotion; there were days when Castiel feared that Dean would take one look at him and discover all those pesky human feelings Castiel had been trying to hide. 

So he’d read the books those nights, wanting to know what Dean thought of him. If Dean could see right through him. 

He learned that he was never “Cas” in the books. He was merely described as being a nameless angel of the Lord when he supposed his presence didn’t change the story Chuck wanted to tell. He was “Castiel” in the narration, all seven letters clear and unmistakable, in an impersonal serif font. He was “Cass” on rare occasions in Dean’s dialogue, when Dean was injured or in pain or otherwise incapable of speaking his full angelic name. 

He learned that his feelings weren’t there at all. His guilt, his shame, his doubt…those were there. Perhaps paler than Cas remembered them being, but they were there , stark on the page. 

But his feelings for Dean? Invisible. His love had been softened, his desire erased. The happiness he’d found in having had been dashed on the rocks, drowned by the ink of Chuck’s pen. They were unworthy of gracing Chuck’s page, as unsympathetic and unnatural as Sam’s addiction to drinking demon blood. 

So, yes, Cas understood Dean staring at the pages and wanting to scream that he was there , and that Chuck was wrong, and that it wasn’t Chuck’s story to write. It was theirs. It was Cas’s. 

“I don’t think it’s stupid at all,” Cas said, passing the book back to Dean.

Dean’s eyes were grateful when they met Cas’s. 

Across the next few weeks-- months-- Dean kept reading. Cas wondered about those little green annotations, but Dean never offered again, and Cas didn’t pry. They were Dean’s thoughts, after all. They weren’t Cas’s to know. 

It didn’t stop Cas from wondering. If Dean ever figured it out. If Dean would reread the pages when he was gone and pick up on all those little tells that Castiel had once been so scared of him figuring out.

Then Cas said he loved Dean, and the world went black, and there was nothing else to wonder about.

Except it didn’t last, the blackness promised by his deal. The absolution that came along with it. 

Appearing in the Bunker, staring down a hopeful Jack, a stunned Dean, and a relieved Sam, Cas wondered why he ever thought the deal would last. He was a Winchester now. His name had been scratched into the table and everything.

Dean was the one who did it. Cas’s fingers trailed over the rough letters, thinking of green pen on off-white pages.

Dean knew now. He hadn’t said much to Cas. He was glad to have Cas back. They’d hugged when Cas first returned. They hadn’t spoken once in the eleven hours since. 

Castiel tensed as he felt Dean’s presence behind him. He removed his hand from the table as if it had burned him. 

“About what you said…” Dean started.

Cas could sense the weight on Dean’s shoulders. It was the opposite of what he wanted. “We don’t have to discuss it.”

Dean snorted a laugh that was more exhausted than amused. “Figured you’d say that. I just…Jesus, Cas. You made it sound like I don't…you know.”

“I don't know,” Cas said shortly. He didn't dare turn around, his eyes locked on the table. “For the longest time, Dean, the books were my only source of information. And we both know that they didn't always think highly of me.”

Baby in a trenchcoat, one passage had read, uncontested by any of Chuck’s narration of Dean’s inner thoughts. Weak and useless.

“We both know those books are full of shit.”

“You never told me any differently,” Cas said. He brushed past Dean, still not looking him in the eyes. “Goodnight.”

Dean didn't stop him.

He did, however, communicate in a different way. When Cas emerged from his bedroom the next morning, there was a piece of paper wedged underneath the door. Confused, he picked it up, gently unfolding it.

It was a page from one of Chuck's books– ripped out, judging by the jagged edge on one side. It was one of the pages Dean had annotated.

Cas tilted his head as he read the text, then the short annotation beside it. 

In the text, Castiel was slamming Dean up against a wall, pinning him there with angelic strength. HOT , the annotation read.

Cas didn't understand it. He was a full angel back then; he would not have been exuding body heat like a human would. If anything, it should have been cold.

He wondered why Dean had given it to him at all.

Cas tried to catch Dean's eye, catch him alone, in the following days. Dean stayed out of his way. It was infuriating.

Three days later, the next letter arrived, slipped under Cas's door when he wasn't around to see Dean do it.

This time, it was the suffix of Castiel's name– iel , of God– that Dean had crossed out. Another hole in another page.

This time, Cas understood perfectly. Dean had let the confession go unanswered, but that was okay. Cas hadn't expected anything different. But these letters, these little annotated passages, green markings sullying God's Holy words…they were Dean's answer to what he thought about Cas. Chuck was wrong, and Dean was telling Cas so. He was answering Cas's prayer.

Cas took a piece of tape and fastened both pages to the wall just above his dresser. A little temple of his own that he could see from his bed.

Dean didn't mention the letters, so Cas didn’t, either. But he'd stopped avoiding Cas. They'd started going on hunts again, too.

It was nice, the routine. Sam would find a case and they'd all pile into the Impala, Jack included. Dean would turn up the volume on the radio until Sam complained. Jack would sit next to Cas at the little diners on the way, with Dean sitting opposite Cas, his boot a solid weight pressing against Cas's shoe under the table. Cas ordered the same burger Dean did, and would nibble on the corner of a fry until Dean swapped his empty plate with Cas’s full one. When they got into town, they’d get a motel room in a new state and Dean would collapse on one of the beds, book and pen in hand.

No one asked what he was reading. Cas would have, but he didn’t think Dean wanted him to. So instead, Cas just watched the pen twirling in his hand and hoped another page would find its way under his door.

The hunts themselves were easy, almost refreshingly so. Vampires and ghosts and werewolves that were wrapped up in a handful of days. They were saving people. And when they'd get back to the Bunker, when Cas went to bed, he would be rewarded with a new letter from Dean.

They were even addressed to him, now.

Cas had threatened Dean with that very idea, back in the early days of their relationship. Perhaps Dean never realized it, but it hadn't been true, even back then. Not even God himself could have convinced Castiel to throw the Righteous Man back into the pits of Hell.

A letter deserved a reply, Cas thought. Especially one of this nature.

They still didn't talk about the letters, but Dean awkwardly hovered in the doorway of Cas's bedroom one day after a hunt. Cas was sure he could see the letters all strung up, pathetically given a place of honor. 

“I was out working on Baby,” Dean started, eyes darting everywhere but Cas. “And I figured I'd fix up your truck while I was out there, in case you wanted to leave.”

Cas hesitated, looking back at the letters, at all the little things he'd decorated his bedroom with over the years. Not just the letters, but other trinkets, souvenirs collected from his time on the road. A grumpy-looking bee Claire had given him once, resting on the dresser. The cowboy hat Dean gave him, resting on the otherwise empty shelves of his closet. The framed photo of himself and Jack, standing outside the amusement park they went to for Jack’s birthday. 

He knew things were wrong between them; he just didn't think they were this wrong. Did Dean really expect him to be able to leave all of this behind?

“Do you want me to leave?” Cas asked finally, resigned. 

“No, of course not!” Dean said quickly. Cas’s head shot up. “I just didn't want you to be trapped here, is all. If you wanted to run out somewhere, visit Claire or whatever, now you've got a way to get there safe.”

Oh. “Thank you, Dean. I appreciate it.”

“Course,” Dean said. He cleared his throat, on the verge of saying something else, but left silently.

Cas did end up using his car to visit Claire. She looked happy to see him, even if she tried to hide it. He took Jack, who was even more eager to meet Claire, along with him. They got along well. It was nice to see.

When he left, Claire gave him a tight hug and a hissed warning to not go dying on her again. Cas promised he wouldn't. 

When he returned, Sam and Dean were gearing up for another hunt, and he had another little letter waiting under his door.

“Salt and burn down in Oklahoma,” Dean told them, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. “I know you just got back, but you're welcome to come. Should only take a few days.”

I want you to come, Dean's eyes were saying, and how could Cas refuse that?

“Of course I will,” Cas said.

Jack jumped to his feet, a fountain of endless energy. “Let's go!”

Cas slipped Dean's latest letter into his pocket, intent on reading it in the car. But he found that he couldn't. He didn't want anyone to ask what he was reading; Dean's words were for him, and him alone, and he was worried that exposing the letters to the light of day– or prying eyes– would ruin them, stop them from continuing.

He read it that night, when even Jack was asleep.

Of course Cas was letting him go. The ugly burn on Dean's shoulder was nothing more than a reminder of all the weight he'd been forced to carry. Dean belonged to himself, and Lisa and Ben; he didn't belong to Hell anymore, nor Heaven, and he certainly didn't belong to Cas in any way that would allow Cas to mark him so permanently.

He neatly tucked his response into the Dean's jacket pocket. He never saw Dean read it, but Cas knew he must've, because he felt Dean slipping the letter into the pocket of Cas's trench coat a few hours after he woke up.

If Sam or Jack noticed the tactile trade-off, they didn't say anything. Cas appreciated that. He couldn't stop thinking about the way Dean smelled as he leaned in close to Cas's space, fingers deftly skimming against the side of the thin beige fabric of the coat. He still felt the heat of Dean's hand where it had been placed on Cas's lower back.

Another object for his altar, Cas thought. 

They still didn't talk about the letters. There was a whole week of silence– no letters, that was. But Dean and Cas were still talking, and Cas couldn't have asked for anything more.

The tension was fading, Cas dared to think. Dean stopped tensing when he walked in the room. He started meeting his eyes again. He started inviting– no, not invitations, demands that Cas was more than happy to comply with– Cas to movie nights. They'd curl up in the armchairs of the Dean Cave and watch cowboy movies and laugh and Cas let Dean put a cowboy hat on his head, setting it at a jaunty angle and ruffling Cas's hair when he took it off. 

Cas was happy. He was in love. Dean looked happy then, too.

It was the morning after one such movie night when the silence was broken, and Cas found another letter waiting for him under his door.

He was grinning widely as he opened it. He couldn't help himself.

Cas's smile faltered. Dean had finally done it. He'd read the books and seen right through Castiel's pitiful facade. He knew Dean knew, but seeing it was something else, unlocking a little primal beast in Cas's chest that was now rampaging, anxious and scared, through Cas's mind.

The thing he'd tried to keep hidden for so long was finally exposed. The thing they didn't discuss was right out in the open, in shaky green letters on delicate, off-white paper.

Except it wasn't an accusation, Cas realized. Dean was asking him a question. A question deserved an answer.

He got into his truck, the one Dean had so lovingly fixed up for him. He knew there was a bookstore nearby. There was a kind elderly employee there who was more eager to help him, once he'd explained the book he was looking for.

Cas wrote his own letter. Marked up the page in blue and tore it out of the book.

The letter sat perched on Cas's dresser for far longer than it should have. He had to commend Dean for his bravery in dropping off the letters so often. 

He finally built up the courage to deliver it. He told himself that it wasn't a secret Dean didn't already know, but Dean's last letter had proved that, no , he didn't know. 

With shaking hands, Cas slipped the letter under Dean's bed. He would wake up to find it, Cas knew. Open the door and see it sitting there. Cas hoped Dean wouldn't accidentally step on it.

Dean read it right when he woke up.

Cas knew this because in the early hours of the morning, he heard someone running to his room, then saw Dean in the doorway, holding the page in his hand and looking at Cas with an expression he couldn't describe.

“Back then?” Dean asked, a little out of breath. “You– all the way back then?”

Angels existed outside of space and time. From the moment Cas met Dean in Hell, Cas was his, forever. Before that, even.

“From the moment I met you,” Cas replied. “Always. I love you, Dean.”

“Oh, you stupid son of a–”

Whatever insult Dean planned to throw his way was ultimately lost when Dean jumped forward, grabbing hold of Cas's shoulders and pulling Cas in until their lips crashed together.

It took a second for Castiel to register what was happening, but when he did, he kissed back just as fiercely and desperately, his hands on Dean's body, pulling him as close as he could, chasing after Dean's lips when Dean started to pull away.

It was intoxicating. Better than all the wonders of Heaven. Perhaps that was a blasphemous thing to say, but as far as Cas was concerned, he hadn't been “of God” in twelve years.

When the kiss was finally broken, Dean rested his forehead against Cas's, still keeping him close.

“I love you, too,” Dean said softly. “I know I didn't make that clear, but I do.”

“I know,” Cas said.

The next morning, there were two new post-it notes added to the wall of letters.