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Requested by adorkablejensen

Prompt: (#4 - INSOMNIA) Suffering from a bout of insomnia, Castiel and Dean find themselves having a long overdue conversation.

Somewhere during the night, it started to rain. It came down heavy, the sound echoing loudly around the bunker despite the thick walls and roof. Maybe it was sensitive angel hearing, or maybe it was the fact that he didn’t quite feel at home there that had Castiel tossing and turning. He’d stayed here before, a while ago, and then more recently had been told he couldn’t stay. Even though he doubted the brothers would make him leave again, Castiel still felt on edge.

Almost like a guest. Someone that would sooner or later outstay their welcome and have to leave. Castiel was acutely aware that he had nowhere to go. An angel among humans, probably unwelcome in Heaven after everything he’d done. But would Heaven even feel like home anymore? He used to feel at peace there, but now? Now, he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to go back and feel as he used to. Belong the way he had for millennia.

Sometimes too much had happened to ever look back.

Castiel felt like he was choking with grief at the thought of never having a home. Dean and Sam would go on with their lives and he would have nothing and nobody. There was no chance of an apple pie life for him. He just wanted to be an angel, but an angel couldn’t be that way for long without Heaven. So it would be a matter of time before he fell, and from experience he knew that he could never truly be satisfied with a human life.

Not alone.

Sliding out of bed, Castiel grabbed a robe. Getting up wasn’t going to help his insomnia, but he couldn’t stay in that room any more. His bedroom door squeaked as he opened it, making him pause. Just because he couldn’t sleep, that didn’t mean he wanted to disturb Sam and Dean’s rest. They barely got enough of it as it was, and they needed the downtime.

Quietly, Castiel padded down the hall to the kitchen, intent on getting something to drink. He knew hot chocolate was supposedly good for insomnia, but he doubted that would be a fix for his problem. Liquor was out of the question too. Even with his waning powers, he was unlikely to find enough liquor in the bunker to make him fall asleep.

He quickly found himself nursing a cup of tea, sitting in the dark and staring at the hot liquid, warming his hands on the mug. Castiel felt… strangely desolate at everything that was preying on his mind. At the thought of letting go of his friends, watching them leave him behind. At the beginning, he’d prepared himself for the thought of leaving them behind. He’d never prepared for this. In particular, the thought of never seeing Dean again made him ache in a way that was almost unbearable.

Before he knew it, his shoulders were shaking with grief and he buried his head in his hands at the same time as the kitchen was flooded with light. He straightened up again immediately.

“Woah, shit! Cas, what are you doing sitting in the dark? There’s a wonderful modern invention, these things called light switches. You should try one sometime.” Dean muttered as he walked into the kitchen, clad in just a t-shirt and boxers. His hair was sticking up on end, but he was too alert to have just woken up.

“I find the dark to be… peaceful.” Peaceful was the wrong word because there was no peace to be found tonight, but the darkness helped somewhat. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Dean shrugged, heading straight to the whiskey bottle. Castiel knew he would and despite the sadness it should have instilled, that Dean needed liquor to even get through the night, there was some kind of comfort in the familiarity of it all. “Not really. You?”

Castiel shook his head. “I find it difficult when I have so many things that I can’t stop myself from thinking about. Things that … pain me to deliberate, but is necessary.”

“You want to talk about it?” Dean asked, settling himself down next to Castiel at the table, a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. “I can do the sharing and caring thing just as well as Sam. What’s on your mind, Cas?”

Taking a few minutes to deliberate, Castiel shook his head. “You have problems of your own to concern yourself with, Dean. I’ll be fine.”

This was usually the point in the conversation where Dean would shrug and they’d talk about trivial things, make small talk before one of them left for bed. Castiel prepared himself for talking about the latest case, maybe mention how Claire was doing, when Dean spoke up again.

“You sure? ‘Cause you know, I haven’t always done right by you, buddy. I mean, there are decisions I’ve made that I should have handled differently. But if there’s something you need to get off your chest, I’m… right here.”

Dean’s expression looked intensely guarded as his eyes fixed on the tumbler, Castiel found himself blindsided. Still, there was something in the words that didn’t sit right in his stomach. It sounded too… rehearsed.

“You sound like you’ve given this a lot of thought,” he spoke slowly, quietly, watching Dean’s face carefully. A single twitch, and he suddenly knew he had hit the nail right on the head. “Is that why you can’t sleep, Dean? You’re mulling over things that you should have done differently?”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “Well, wouldn’t you do things differently if you could go back? I mean, it’s not like things haven’t gone to hell for you since you pulled me out of the pit, Cas.”

“I would do things differently,” Castiel admitted quietly, and he saw Dean’s face fall at the words. He continued swiftly. “But not all of it. I would have talked to you more, opened up. I’d have asked for your help with the civil war in Heaven. Then the whole Leviathan and Purgatory mess wouldn’t have happened. Everything that happened has been down to me.”

A small, sad smile spread across Dean’s face, pulling at the pink lips that drained the glass of whiskey. He poured himself another.

“Not everything. Go back a little further. Would you rebel and bust me out of that room to stop the Apocalypse? Would you let another angel pull me out of the pit?”

“Never.”

Castiel’s words were sharp and without hesitation, as if he couldn’t believe Dean would even ask him that. That he could even consider that it was possible for Castiel to regret their friendship, their bond, everything they’d done.

“Everything we’ve been through together, every mistake we’ve made… I would never go back and change something that meant we couldn’t have this. The small moments where I’m not just an angel that stuck by your side, but instead your family. Your friend. You’ve shown me much since we met, Dean, but the greatest was free will. I wouldn’t go back to being another soldier, another puppet. Whatever paths I’ve chosen, our bond is the one consequence I will never regret.”

Dean’s face lost a little of its tension and he cleared his throat. “Good. Me either, buddy. Kind of like having you around.”

“So you’re not going to… to ask me to leave?” Castiel asked quietly, daring to let a small amount of hope into his tone. “I don’t want to be just an angel that you once fought alongside, that overstayed his welcome.”

The tension returned, guilt flooding Dean’s face, but it was quickly pushed aside by determination. Castiel knew that look, and was wary of what Dean was about to say. That look usually meant stubbornness, an inability to listen to reason.

“You’re staying, Cas. Even if I have to surround this bunker with holy fire. You don’t get to walk out on me, uh… us again.” Dean told him firmly, before draining whatever was left in his glass.

Castiel felt his insides fill with warmth, relief taking over. Dean wasn’t going to ask him to leave. He wanted him to stay. The thought of having a home was amazing in itself but no words could do justice to the elation Castiel felt at having a home with Dean. Everything he’d done, and he still had a place alongside the man whose soul shone brighter than any Castiel had ever seen.

Reaching out, his fingers curled around the rim of Dean’s tumbler and he gently tugged it out of his grasp, sliding it out of reach. Before Dean had a chance to object, however, he replaced it with his own hand, interlocking his fingers with Dean loosely. He wanted the gesture to be one of comfort, solidarity, affection. Castiel didn’t expect him to return the gesture, nor their entwined hands to be lifted to Dean’s lips. But it happened anyway.

His eyes were wide as he watched the hunter lightly brush his lips over Castiel’s knuckles and he squeezed his hand in response as he stared into the forest green eyes.

“We should go to bed,” Dean said eventually, giving Castiel a rare, but warm smile. “Early start tomorrow.”

He rose, but didn’t let go of Castiel’s hand. Even when they passed the angel’s bedroom, he didn’t let go. Just continued walking with purpose, directing them both to his own bedroom.

Castiel followed dutifully. He didn’t know when the rain had stopped, but he could no longer hear it. All he could hear was the thumping of his heart as he realised it didn’t matter if Heaven didn’t welcome him back. It wasn’t his home any more. Home wasn’t a place he could put a name to.

Home was Dean.

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