#it was all sunburned & sad but now it's very green!!! & happier!! i think i need to water it today

[raiiny-bay]

wip

[whelvenwings]

Castiel's grace is missing, and Dean's frustrated - instead of looking for it, all Castiel wants to do is grow his flowers. Eventually, the two of them have to talk about it.

Read it below or here on AO3! Tags: Canon Divergent, Gardener!Cas, Cas' Grace

This fic was inspired by this wonderful art by saminzat, and written as part of the @spnreverse-promptchallenge!

It’s not Heaven. It’s not even close. It’s just a garden, where Castiel is growing things.

If it were Heaven, Castiel thinks, then Dean would be looking a lot happier, those wrinkles around his eyes all eased away. If it were Heaven, there would have been a break in the clouds overhead when Dean arrived.

If it were Heaven, the peach rose would be in bloom, not straggling all green and leggy and ungainly through the picket fence that Castiel had put up to help it grow.

Castiel puts down the secateurs he’s been using to prune the forsythia, and takes off his gardening gloves. He walks over to Dean, acutely aware of the fact that he’s wearing enough sunscreen to make his skin shine, the worn-thin, oversized blue t-shirt he found at a Goodwill that says Thyme to Garden, and a very large sunhat to protect the back of his neck.

Sunburn, he reminds himself, is more uncomfortable than the growing look of mixed amusement and judgement in Dean’s eyes. Even on a cloudy day, his skin will burn if he’s outside for a long time. Something he learned the hard way after becoming human.

“I thought you were researching a case,” Castiel says to Dean as he approaches.

“Done. Thought I’d come say hi.” Dean raises an eyebrow and a half-smile at him in greeting. “So, hi.”

Castiel stops a few feet from him and tips his hat a little further back on his head, so that Dean can clearly see his face.

“Hello,” he says. Dean takes in the hat, the t-shirt, the full gardening ensemble, with one sweeping gaze.

“Looking good,” Dean says.

Castiel looks down at himself, and then solemnly back to Dean.

“Thank you,” he says, with just enough irony in his tone to get Dean to smile. Or it would have been, usually, but today Dean’s expression is sinking back into hard lines. The greyish, muted light seems to lie heavy on him, putting a coldness in his eyes.

Castiel searches his face. Just as he’s about to say something more, Dean breaks their stare, glancing around at the plants nearest him as a light breeze ruffles at them.

“They’ve grown since last time you showed me,” Dean says. He’s holding himself strangely, his fists clenched. Castiel tilts his head to one side, and then looks around with Dean at the garden.

He feels the familiar spark of happiness as he surveys his handiwork. Once, the place had been a sad little patch of chalky, lump-filled earth. Now the flowers drip off their stems like dewdrops, and the soil smells rich, and the leaves tremble their creaky little paths to follow the sun each day. Even the blossomless peach rose has strong roots.

Castiel glances back to Dean, and feels the warmth in his chest sputter out. Dean’s eyeing the plantlife with an expression that doesn’t seem impressed.

“It’s been a while since last time,” Castiel says.

“Yeah. Well, you know.” Dean looks distracted, frowning down at a squat little succulent plant. There’s something bothering him, obviously, and Castiel isn’t sure whether Dean wants to be asked about it or have it be left alone.

“You’re always welcome,” Castiel tries quietly. Dean seems to catch himself, shifting his expression to something more neutral as he turns back to Castiel.

“Yeah,” he says, not as though he particularly believes it, and – in a way that almost manages to seem genuine – not as though he particularly cares.

“You can stay,” Castiel says. “If you want. There’s plenty to do. If you’re not busy.”

Dean puts his hands into his pockets and looks around the garden again, this time with his eyes a little less sharp.

“Nah,” he says. “Nah, I don’t wanna spoil the fun.”

Spoil the fun? Castiel gives Dean a look that he hopes is eloquent, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“I dunno, man,” he says. “Anyway, it’s not really me, is it.”

He looks tired, Castiel thinks.

“Didn’t think it was you, either,” Dean adds after a half-beat. He reaches up unselfconsciously, and then seems to realise what he’s doing at the last moment, and awkwardly flicks the brim of Castiel’s hat with the back of one finger before taking a step away. “Didn’t think you’d ever go in for… you know. Whatever this is.”

Castiel can easily read that expression on Dean’s face. He’s seen it before, in other times, other places. The mixture of bravado and hurt and confusion had made sense when lives had been at stake and grand lies had been unfolding, but this – here, today, in among his roses and sunflowers, Castiel hadn’t expected it. Dean looks betrayed.

And Castiel doesn’t know what to say. He reaches up to his hat, just brushing the brim with the tips of his fingers in the same place Dean touched it.

“I need the hat,” he says. “To keep the sun off my neck.”

“Right,” Dean says. “Yeah.” He looks up at the sky, which is still an overcast grey.

“Even through clouds,” Castiel offers.

“Uh huh. Okay.”

Castiel squints at him.

“You seem angry,” he says. No more dancing around it. Predictably, Dean makes a face, as though the suggestion were ridiculous.

“Nah.”

“Dean.” Castiel fixes him with a look, and Dean shrugs.

“Whatever, man.”

“If something is wrong…” Castiel says.

“Listen, if coming out here and growing your little flowers and everything helps, then that’s fine,” he says. “It’s fine.”

There’s a but coming, and Castiel knows enough to wait for it. Dean looks aimlessly around at the burgeoning plants. His eyes trace the tangle of a buddleia, until he glances back to Castiel, who raises an eyebrow.

Dean’s front drops, the stiffness going out of his shoulders, his hands unclenching.

“But your grace, man,” he says. Castiel looks down at the ground. He should have expected this, he knew. But somehow hearing the words still takes him by surprise.

“What about it,” he says, in a tone that doesn’t really want an answer, but knows it’s going to get one.

Dean’s hands come up, palms facing out, asking a question without words at first.

“Seriously,” he manages after a moment. “What about it? It’s your grace, Cas.”

“I know,” Castiel says.

“It’s gone,” Dean says.

“I know.”

“It’s been months.”

“I…” Castiel sighs. “Yes.”

“You told me it was just gone,” Dean says, ducking his chin slightly to catch Castiel’s eyes. “Like it was no big deal. And now all you do is spend time up here, planting flowers. Not even trying to look for it. I don’t get it, man. And whenever I try to bring it up, you just say –”

“It’s taken care of,” Castiel says, at the same time as Dean mouths the words along with him, his expression exasperated with a spiderweb of hurt threaded through.

“It’s your grace.”

“I know,” Castiel says. “I know it is. But it’s taken care of, Dean. I don’t want…”

He cuts himself off before he says too much, pressing his lips together.

Dean shakes his head. Castiel can see him battling with himself, trying to decide whether he wants to push harder. Castiel keeps his face neutral, hoping Dean will drop it.

“Don’t want what?” Dean says, though, and Castiel feels his heart sink. “You’re human, now. And you’re stuck that way until you get your grace back, but you won’t even…” Dean seems to run out of words. Castiel tries to think of something to say to divert the conversation, take them down a different track.

“I’m doing better at shaving,” he says. “And I’ve learned not to brush my teeth before drinking orange juice.”

Castiel can see the slight smile on Dean’s face, but it’s almost completely buried under the worry and the anger.

“Right,” Dean says.

“Dean…”

“I just don’t get it. The grace… if it’s lost, I can help with that. If it’s destroyed, I can try to help too, or… we’ll figure something out. Or if it’s safe, why won’t you tell me what happened with it?” The strain in Dean’s voice tells Castiel that they’re at the heart of it now, at the reason for the tight shoulders and the clipped answers and the judgemental eyes on his catmint and cosmos. “Why won’t you just tell me?”

Castiel stares at him helplessly. The answers are in the back of his throat, ready to be said, but he can’t open his mouth – can’t get them out. He feels his heart thudding, his human heart. He doesn’t know if he likes that feeling, if he wants it – perhaps not, no more than he wants sunburn, or the taste of orange juice after toothpaste, or blood on his palms when he catches himself on that peach rose’s thorns.

But there’s something he does want. And any chance at – at that – any chance at all, it’s worth the weight of being human. He made a choice and he knows he’d make it, the same one, over and over again.

He thinks it all, but he can’t say it. Dean watches him, angry and confused. Overhead, the clouds lumber their heavy bellies across the sky.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Dean says. Castiel looks away, and Dean takes a step closer. “Cas,” he says. “I swear to god.”

Castiel looks up at him, knowing his own tiredness is right there to be seen on his face – and his sadness, his hurt. Dean’s expression shifts, and he comes even closer.

“What did you do, man? Is it that bad?”

It’s easy to see Dean’s mind working, trying to piece everything together. He’s probably thinking demons, and deals, and treachery, all the things that they’ve been through before. Castiel doesn’t know how to explain to him that he’s wrong without telling him the whole truth. And he can’t tell the whole truth.

“Look,” Dean says, “we’ll figure it out. If you just tell me – tell me where it is, or what happened. Did someone do this? And what… what does all of this have to do with it…” He looks around again at the garden. Castiel closes his eyes for a second, lets the familiar feeling of being here fill him as much as he can let it – the warmth in his chest, the spark.

He knows he should try to talk about it, but he can’t. He can’t.

When he opens his eyes, Dean’s waiting, watching him. Castiel opens his mouth – but nothing comes out.

Dean’s face tightens again.

“Okay,” he says. “So it’s like that. Great, Cas.”

“Dean, it’s –”

“No, it’s fine,” Dean says, his tone taut with bitterness, but his face carefully unbothered. “That’s fine. Deal with it by yourself. That’s always gone so well. And meanwhile, me, I’ll just, what? Wait for you to give me the bad news, I guess. That’s great, Cas. Really. You know, you –”

“Stop,” Castiel asks.

And a little of the fight leaves Dean again. He looks as though he wants to say something else, but doesn’t know what. His face is half apology and half anger.

“It just…” he says. And then waves his hand, like it doesn’t matter anyway.

And it’s the simplicity of the hurt in that gesture that has Castiel throwing all his caution to the wind and saying,

“I don’t want it back.”

Dean stops moving. His eyes fix on Castiel.

“What?” Dean asks.

Castiel’s jaw is tight, but he manages to say again,

“I don’t want it back. My grace. I know where it is. But I don’t want it back.”

All of Dean’s carefully placed anger is gone, suddenly, in his shock. There’s no performance, no strategy, in the way that he steps closer and looks utterly bewildered.

“You don’t?” he says.

“No. I…” Castiel hesitates, and then says, “I took it out myself.”

“You what?”

Castiel lifts one shoulder, a little diffidently. It had been necessary, so he’d done it. As simple as that.

“Cas,” Dean says, and then seems to be at a loss. Castiel doesn’t say anything. There isn’t anything to say, so far as he can see.

He’s made his choice. And if he ever regrets it, if he ever wishes things could be different, all he has to do is look at Dean and it pales to nothing.

“Cas… why?” Dean manages eventually, and Castiel breathes out.

He looks at Dean.

Dean stares right back at him, not understanding.

“Did someone make you?” Dean demands. “We can go and look for them, we can –”

“No,” Castiel says. “No. I chose to do it.”

“But Cas…”

“It’s –” Castiel presses his lips together again, trying not to let the expression look pained, even though there’s a flash of hurt through his chest at the thought of trying to say any of it aloud. Saying it would push the two of them, Dean and Castiel, towards a tipping point. A no-takebacks, no room for misunderstanding point. Sharp as a thorn.

And it’s the last thing Castiel wants.

Until they talk about it, anything seems possible. It almost feels real enough. But if they talk, it’ll all be over. Dean will tell him to take back his grace, and Castiel will have to leave. It’ll be over.

“You took it out. What would you do that for,” Dean says. When Castiel doesn’t reply, he reaches out and puts a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says, the word harsh enough to compensate for the touch.

“It’s nothing,” Castiel says.

“Cas.”

“Really, it’s…” Castiel stops. The denial dies in his mouth. He swallows, his eyes on Dean, before he looked down. “I just want to be able to stay with you.”

The last two words are too much – all of it is too much – but they’re out his mouth before he can stop them. Castiel breathes out and waits to feel Dean’s hand loosen its grip, drop away in shock at the unwanted intensity. It’s too much. Castiel knows it’s too much.

But Dean’s hand is still on his shoulder.

“You want to be able to stay?” Dean says.

“Yes.” Castiel says it bluntly, to try to shave off the emotion, make it easier to talk about. Dean’s hand still doesn’t move. Castiel can feel each place Dean’s fingers are digging in slightly through the thin material of his t-shirt. His heart is pounding and he wants to be able to turn it off, quiet it down, hear Dean’s heart instead in the way he could when he had his grace. He wants it with a sudden acuteness, a pang of loss.

“But – you can,” Dean says. “Why would you think you needed to do this?”

Castiel can’t look back up at him.

“Cas,” Dean says.

There’s a band of pain squeezing tightly around Castiel’s chest. He can’t quite seem to get his breath, suddenly.

“I just thought I’d fit better this way,” he says.

“Fit better?” Now Dean moves his hand, pulls back, though he doesn’t go far. “What do you mean?”

“You’re human,” Castiel says. He looks up, meets Dean’s eyes. “Now I am too. I thought, maybe…”

He trails off. He can’t say more. He can’t talk about what he hopes for, what he wants. He can’t.

Dean’s hand is back on his shoulder and the touch is different, now, less insistent. Softer. Castiel can see the gentleness in Dean’s eyes, shy and uncertain, allowed to show just for a few moments.

“We don’t have to be the same,” Dean says.

Castiel doesn’t know how to answer.

“We’ve never been the same,” Dean says. “But we’re still good. Right?”

There are no words in Castiel’s mind, or none that make sense – or none that he can say aloud. He wishes he could give Dean the way that he feels, just drop it into Dean’s mind, show him without having to explain it. The feeling is yes, good, of course we’re good, but there’s more – there’s different things, things I want to be to you, ways I want to be with you. And not telling you feels more and more like lying with every passing day but I don’t know how to tell you without you being suddenly aware that I’ve been wanting you in a different way to how you want me for a very long time, and will you hate me for that? Will you think I’m a liar? Will you send me away? Could I bear that? Could I bear it? If you hated me, how could I bear it?

“I just,” Castiel says, “I just want to be able to stay.” It’s the only part of it that will come out of his mouth.

“You can,” Dean says. “You don’t need… damnit, Cas, you didn’t have to take your own grace out just to be able to stay.”

Castiel nods mutely. Dean’s hand squeezes Castiel’s shoulder.

“So you can put it back, right?” he says. “The grace. You can go get it and put it back?”

“I could.” It comes out more direct and harsh than Castiel intended, and Dean’s grip tightens.

“So…?” he says.

Castiel can’t meet his eyes. He looks to the side, around the garden that he’s created. The flowers that have unfurled for him, trusting, unfussy about what deep love and secrets he’s hiding. The leaves and shoots that grow steadily under the care of his hands, no matter who else those hands wish they could hold.

“Cas,” Dean says again, and gives another squeeze, and then lets go. “Your grace is you, man. All these months, it’s not like you’ve had a good time being human, is it?”

“It’s worth it.”

“Worth it?” Dean echoes.

“If it means we’re the same,” Castiel says. And his reasoning isn’t even clear to Castiel himself, now. It just feels as though if they’re both human, if they both are the same thing, there’s a chance they could both feel the same way, too – it makes no sense, and yet Castiel can’t imagine letting go of the thought.

“We don’t need to be the same,” Dean says, repeating himself with a look that’s crossed between confusion and concern.

“But I…”

Castiel stops talking, cuts himself off. Dean’s eyes search his face.

“You want to be?” Dean says, cautious, hazarding a guess. And when Castiel’s expression tells Dean he’s right, his face goes even more soft with surprise. “Why?”

There isn’t anything that Castiel can say in answer. No explanations he can give that will make sense outside his own mind. All he finds himself doing is looking at Dean – looking at him more openly than he has done in a long time, half tight-lipped and wanting the conversation to end, half hoping that Dean will finally piece it all together. He allows himself to stare, frankly and directly, pushing away the guilt and shame that push at him and tell him to look down, step away, move back, leave. He stares like he once used to all the time, letting down the walls.

There’s Dean, he thinks. There he is. Sometimes the feelings in Castiel grow so big and overwhelming that he forgets the shape of the man at the heart of them. The way Dean cares. The way Dean looks at him right back, matches him – when it comes down to it, never pretends it doesn’t matter to him when it does.

Dean’s mouth opens to form words, but he seems to stop himself. Castiel watches Dean swallow, and feels the familiar swoop and ache in his chest as all his crushing sky-sized love focuses into the smallness of the place on Dean’s throat that he wants to touch.

Dean goes to say something, and then stops.

Castiel looks down at Dean’s lips, and then back up again.

Is it wrong, how much he wants to kiss Dean? The feeling is pressing, immediate, alive. It’s in Castiel’s blood, in his bones. If Dean doesn’t want him too, in the same way, does that make the feeling wrong? Or would it just be acting on it, making Dean aware of it, that would be wrong? But the feeling is a background hum in everything Castiel does. He acts on it even when Dean isn’t with him. He acts on it all the time.

Every passing moment changes the gaze between them. Dean’s waiting for him to talk, not filling in the space with any words this time, but his face keeps sinking further into something that looks dangerously like realisation.

“I don’t know,” Castiel says. If how he feels, or what he’s doing, is wrong, then he should look away. He should go away, leave Dean alone, find somewhere else to be. But he couldn’t, he can’t, not until he knows for sure that Dean doesn’t feel even slightly the same way – and he can’t ask, because as soon as he knows Dean doesn’t feel the same way, he’ll have to leave. The thoughts chase their tails in Castiel’s head and he stares and he stares at Dean and he hurts so much that he wants to hit his own chest just for the distraction of a simpler pain.

“You don’t know what?”

“I just don’t know, Dean.”

Dean is watching him carefully, his mouth slightly open, as though trying to figure out how to phrase something he wants to say. There’s a slight tinge of colour to his cheeks, too, Castiel notices.

“Uh,” Dean says. His mouth shapes a ‘w’ like the start of a question, and then closes again, and he frowns – but he doesn’t look away.

He almost knows, Castiel thinks. He’s almost understood. And as soon as Dean understands, it’s over. Unless he feels the same way, which he doesn’t. He can’t. We’re not the same. No matter how hard I try and how much I change, we’re not ever the same.

He needs to cauterise this conversation like a wound, stop all this from happening, but he can’t find the words. Dean’s still watching him. Castiel’s heart is thunder in his head, drowning out his thoughts.

“You look like the whole world’s falling apart,” Dean says eventually. “Not an exaggeration. ‘Cause I’ve seen your face when the world was actually falling apart.” Dean points vaguely with one finger towards Castiel’s face. “And it looked like that.”

Castiel nods mutely, and Dean sighs and glances sharply away, and then back again.

“Come on, Cas, jesus. Something’s up, so whatever it is, just tell me.” He looks at Castiel for a long time, and then he says it again. In a different voice, quieter, with a little rise at the end as though of hope or something equally as stupid for Castiel to consider. “Tell me.”

It’s said in a way that makes Castiel want to believe he’s asking for all the things Castiel wants to give.

Dean’s eyes are wide, too. Like he can’t quite believe what he’s asking.

And Castiel’s human heart is pounding at that tone in his voice, that look on his face, because it feels as though – tentatively – they could be talking about the same thing. The longer Castiel watches Dean’s face, the more he sees it. There are the little flickers of denial, uncertainty, in the way Dean’s eyes narrow for a half-moment. And then there again is the rise of hope in the depth of Dean’s gaze, the openness.

It’s so small and barely-there that Castiel can’t trust it. He can’t know how this ends. It’s a rope thrown into down into his well, though, and with no idea what waits for him at the top, he still puts his hand on it and wonders if he’s strong enough to begin to climb.

“I, um.” He starts to speak, and his voice is low and rough. When he pauses almost immediately, Dean shifts his weight from one foot to the other, licks his lips. Castiel searches for the words. “I tried staking that peach rose. But it didn’t do any good.”

Dean looks confused. He doesn’t even bother to look down at the rose, just keeps his eyes on Castiel.

“What…” he says.

“It just grew that way,” Castiel says. He can feel a lump in his throat. “Naturally. It wanted to grow that way.”

“Okay,” Dean says, as though slightly concerned for Castiel’s sanity.

“I think sometimes it’s just like that,” Castiel says. He meets Dean’s eyes. “You can try planting them in the place you want them. Cut them back. Put a stake through them.” He resists the sudden, unexpected urge to reach up and touch the place on his chest where, years ago, Dean buried a knife in his heart. He swallows. “But sometimes there are things you can’t control. And even if it’s not… not healthy, or pretty, or the way it’s supposed to go… that’s how they’ll grow. Just towards the place they want to be.”

Dean’s listening intently, but his eyes are clouded with confusion. He looks like he wants to say something, and then stops himself. Castiel can’t blame him for not understanding, when half the point is that he’s talking without getting to the point. He doesn’t want to get to that sharp-split point when his life takes one of two courses, when Dean says one of two things.

“Dean, I…” Castiel says, and his hand reaches out. Unconsciously, awkwardly, the straggling limb of a plant that has never grown the way it should have done. And Castiel goes to catch himself, to stop letting his fingers trail through the air reaching for a place they can’t go – but then Dean takes his hand.

Dean takes his hand, and holds onto it. Not sweetly, not softly. Hard. Like they’re at the top of a cliff and Dean’s afraid of losing his grip and having to watch Castiel fall alone.

Castiel can barely breathe. Against the odds his hand is being held by Dean. Against the way that his words desert him, against the thousands of reasons that the two of them shouldn’t have ever even met, let alone be standing here together in a garden. Against all of it, Castiel’s hand is squeezed tight in Dean’s.

There’s a part of Castiel that’s trying to pinch itself, that’s shaking its head in denial, but Dean’s grip is warm and real.

“Cas,” Dean says. “Do you…”

The question has no ending, but it’s Dean, so the answer is yes. Castiel nods.

Dean’s expression seems, with just the smallest of looks in his eyes, to break apart. He holds onto Castiel’s hand and says nothing, doesn’t move.

“And…” Castiel says, but his throat goes dry. He can do this. He has to do this. If he doesn’t now, he never will. He tries again. “And… you?”

Dean looks momentarily bewildered.

“Yeah, Cas,” he says.

Castiel feels himself go light, so suddenly his stomach flips.

Yeah, Cas, he hears in his head. Yeah, Cas.

On another day, when Castiel hadn’t just told Dean how he feels through a series of oblique angles – when Castiel’s hand wasn’t still being held in the rough warmth of Dean’s – Castiel might have been indignant at that tone in Dean’s voice. As though it had been obvious, when yes, half the time Dean was staring at him like he actually mattered, was ready to die for him – but the rest of the time Dean couldn’t look at him, was ready to die for anything.

Their hands swing a little between them. Just their arm muscles getting a little tired, and their hands moving together. Such a very little thing to happen, Castiel thinks. So very small. After all this time it’s just one hand in another, and it means absolutely crushingly everything, in the way that he’d known it would.

It’s happening, he thinks. It’s happening. We’re the same. We’re the same.

A little clutch of fear that he might change, one day. Wake up and be something else, unexpectedly. Grow again, in a direction Dean doesn’t –

Castiel breathes. It’s alright. He’s torn out his grace for this. He can be the person Dean needs. He can change himself again. Over and over, if needs be.

He holds Dean’s hand. Tight. He can always change again. He can make them the same again. Whatever it takes. For this, for the feeling of Dean's hand in his, it would be worth it, anything would be worth it. But –

Dean’s grip goes slack in his own.

“Wait,” Dean says. “Wait. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Castiel says. He holds tighter. “Nothing.”

Dean’s hand drops Castiel’s. The loosening of his grip is a slow-motion whip crack across Castiel’s chest.

“No?” Dean says, looking at Castiel, asking with the single word whether Castiel doesn’t want anything that just happened. He puts his hands up just a little way, maybe a surrender, maybe just a gesture to show he isn’t touching.

“Wait,” Castiel says, his hand still in place, still reaching. It shows, then, he thinks to himself. That sickle-curve sharpness in his chest, the fear in him that he won’t always be able to fit himself to what Dean wants, it must show. Dean can see it. Castiel lifts his chin, tries to look as though he’s feeling incredibly happy, instead of just incredibly much. “Dean, why are you –”

“Cas…” Dean’s eyes are searching his face, looking for the place where something is wrong. Castiel wants to cut in, insist that nothing is wrong. Take Dean’s hand again, reach for more – he could reach for more, he thinks, and his heart twists, and his head feels light. He could reach for more. Dean might let him. Dean was holding his hand for a moment, there, by choice, as though it really meant something. Castiel’s mouth is dry.

“What’s wrong?” Castiel tries. But his stomach is sinking, even as he’s aching with the terrifying joy of the sudden opening of all the doors he’d always thought were closed for him.

Dean can see that he’s scared. Dean is going to figure it all out. And then those doors will close again.

“I mean…” Dean says. He blinks, shakes his head just slightly. Seems to remember where exactly he is, glancing around at Castiel’s garden. It’s all slipping out of Castiel’s grasp. They’re going to pretend as though the last two minutes never happened, Castiel can feel it.

It’s unbearable. It’s unbearable. The idea of having had it for barely a few seconds, and then losing it. Castiel reaches for words, for anything – something that will show Dean how much it all means to him, how far he’ll go to make it work.

“We’re both human,” he says, almost blurts. “I took out my grace. So we can be… so I can stay.”

Took out, he thinks to himself. What a clinical way to talk about the tearing, the self-destruction, the loss.

Dean just looks at him, mouth slightly open.

This is supposed to be the part where Dean argues, Castiel realises only when it doesn’t come. This is the part where Dean asks me what the hell I was thinking. Tells me to put the grace damn well back where it came from, and to stop making terrible decisions. And then I argue back, and tell him I’ll do what I want to do with my own grace, and I made this choice for him, and I’d do it again.

But Dean isn’t saying anything. He’s just staring. And Castiel stares, too. He can’t argue back when Dean hasn’t started the fight. He can’t push back if Dean never pushed forward. So they stand in silence. The clouds overhead roll on, oblivious to the hearts frantically pounding so far beneath them.

“Cas,” Dean says, and he says it differently to how he’s supposed to – quietly, carefully, handling the name like it’s made of something delicate. “I don’t know what you want me to say, man.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Castiel says.

“But you… you did that…”

Castiel watches him mutely.

“Why?” Dean asks.

So many answers. To be like you. To be near you. To show you I can change for you. Castiel opens his mouth and tries not to say too much.

“For – this,” Castiel says, managing to stop himself saying, for you.

“This?”

“This,” Castiel says, holding Dean’s gaze.

Dean holds his gaze.

“But it – ah. Jesus, Cas, this is hard to talk about.”

Castiel nods. He doesn’t want to let it go – feels sick at the idea of Dean just dropping the subject, and heading back inside, leaving the garden and forgetting all about what they’d said to each other. Chalking it up as somewhere he’d never go again. Too much baggage, too heavy, not worth it.

Dean puffs out his cheeks, though, and breathes out sharply, and says,

“It’s just that, hell, man, you never had to take the grace out to have… you know… anything you wanted out of me.” Dean looks uncertain as he says the last part, as though a little disbelieving that Castiel could want anything from him in particular. “You know that. Right?”

His voice is so different. So gentle in a way that Castiel only barely recognises from the most private of moments they’ve shared. Castiel is suddenly so intensely aware that they’re the only two in the garden, alone with each other. No one else to see them or hear them or judge what they say to each other. It’s a thought that gives him courage.

“I’ve changed for you since the beginning,” Castiel says. Dean opens his mouth, and then closes it, his eyes troubled. Castiel watches him, thinking. “Or –” he starts, as a new thought occurs to him. “Or, changed because of you, at least.”

Dean still looks confused, as though he doesn’t really see the difference. To Castiel, though, it feels clear as day. He changed because he met Dean – without that meeting, he would still be the angel he’d always been. But when he thought about it, the person he changed for was himself. Because it had felt right. Because it felt, period, and that was what he’d wanted.

It loops round and round perfectly in Castiel’s mind. Meeting Dean, the push Castiel needed to start running. And knowing Dean, now, the pull Castiel needs to keep changing, stay with him, stay together.

“I just thought,” Castiel says, when Dean stays silent, “if I could be human like you, then maybe you’d… maybe we could be the same. And stay that way.”

“And you want that,” Dean says.

“Yes.”

“Because…”

“Because,” Castiel says, a little taken aback, “I want… this.”

“But why’d we have to be the same for that? I mean – this?” Dean frowns, as though almost losing track of what he’s trying to say. They’re trying to talk all around it without using any words that are too big.

“Why…” Castiel trails off as he considers the question.

Dean shrugs, in a way that battles to look uncaring and ends up looking heartfelt.

“But… we need to be the same,” Castiel says. He wants them to be close like two leaves on a tree. Closer, two petals on a flower. No, closer still, not even two things. Just one, one plant, growing strong. He wants them that close, that inseparable, after so long being forced apart by fate and circumstance. No would-be gods or divine powers could set them apart if they were one thing. The same.

“But we aren’t the same, Cas,” Dean says, so quietly that Castiel only just hears it over the little burst of breeze that briefly ruffles over them.

Castiel feels his chest clench.

“I’m trying…” he says.

“No, I mean – I mean we can’t be,” Dean says. “I mean, we aren’t, ‘cause we’re… you know… two different people. There it is, you know? Different people. We can’t be exactly the same.”

“But…” Castiel starts, and the word comes out sounding almost angry, so he checks himself and looks down. “But,” he starts again, “if I can just…”

“C’mon,” Dean says, the smallest of smiles softening one side of his mouth. “You wouldn’t really want two of me running around the place, would you?”

“That’s not how I meant it,” Castiel answers, his voice serious, but with a lightness in his eyes to acknowledge Dean’s brush with humour.

“Come to think of it, though,” Dean says, “I’d get a lot more work done on the car if there were two of me. And we could harmonise on Zepp tracks. Maybe you are onto something.”

“Dean,” Castiel says, though he can feel his heart lifting just seeing Dean reaching out for him, trying to make him smile.

“I wouldn’t let you share my toothbrush, though, no way.” Dean looks around the garden. “And this would have to go. Hate to break it to you, but no way are you digging around in the dirt for hours if you’re me. Not unless there’s something to salt and burn at the end of it.”

“I know,” Castiel says, and the words sound little and obstinate, but his hands relax. Dean is looking at him like he gets it – like he sees that curling fear inside Castiel, the one that can’t let them be two different and separate things that just happen by the grace of luck to be next to each other. Because luck runs out, and they both know it. The only way to be sure of staying together, the fear says, is to be so much the same as to be one thing.

But it’s impossible. Castiel can’t be Dean. And Dean’s right, too, because Castiel doesn’t really want to be. He doesn’t want to give up gardening. He doesn’t want to work on Dean’s car. He doesn’t want to share a toothbrush.

He wants to spend time growing things. He wants his own hands in the dirt. He wants – he wants Dean, in the way that he has done since meeting Dean. And he wants to keep wanting.

Even if he didn’t want it, it’s what is. They’re two plants next to each other. Hoping not to be uprooted, hoping for sun, hoping for kind hands that stake them upright and water them even when they won’t flower. Always at the mercy of whatever storms might come, however hard Castiel tries to tangle himself together with Dean, camouflage with him, become just the same.

There are plants that do that, Castiel remembers. Plants that tangle and blend with other plants. They’re weeds. They choke out the first plant, cut off all its light and food until it dies. Two things can’t become one thing without loss. And Castiel doesn’t want to lose Dean – and, he realises quite suddenly, he also doesn’t want to lose himself. There’s so much he wants to do.

Things he might be able to do.

He looks at Dean, who’s watching him piece it all together, giving him time in silence, or maybe just struggling to find more words. But either way, Dean is still here. Dean is in front of him. A moment ago, they were hand in hand.

They could be again.

“You good?” Dean asks, seeming to sense Castiel come to a conclusion.

“Yes,” Castiel says. Dean visibly relaxes, shoulders easing under his coat. Castiel wants to put his hands on those shoulders. He wants to reach out. He wants to touch. He wants, wants, wants, and it feels like still growing, it feels like still changing, it feels like being alive. Like being himself.

He wants to hear Dean’s heartbeat. He wants his grace back. With a sudden absolute certainty, Castiel feels how much he wants his grace back.

He meets Dean’s eyes, and says simply,

“It’s here.”

Dean cocks an eyebrow, catching Castiel’s mood without his meaning.

“It’s here?”

“My grace,” Castiel says. “You were asking where it was. It’s here.”

“Here?” Dean looks confused.

Castiel can feel his mood unfurling, the parts of himself that he’s pushed away and hidden – the parts that have known all along he wants his grace back – finally allowed to breathe, finally being given what they need. He turns his attention to his garden, bending down next to the peach rose that has been so wilfully refusing to blossom.

“I didn’t expect anything to grow when I buried it here,” Castiel says to Dean, over his shoulder. “But then the first flowers came, and so I bought more, and then I put in the fence, and – it helped, being able to come here.” He puts out his hand towards the peach rose, speaking meditatively, almost not quite to Dean at all.

His fingertips brush the tightly closed buds, the sharpness of the thorns. Castiel lets that want for his grace rise up in him, unafraid of the feeling now that he knows it can be acted on. He closes his eyes, and feels for his grace.

It’s right there, waiting for him.

Brilliant and electric. Fast, so fast, and all colours, colours so bright they hiss and spit as they rocket up the stem of the peach rose and through Castiel’s fingers, filling his body with a fierce familiar hum. Castiel breathes in and smells every flower in the garden at once and the breeze and the tang of sap and the rich wetness of the soil and there, behind him, Dean. He breathes out ozone, heady.

He can feel the hat on his head, the way it rests on each hair. He can feel Dean’s closeness, the way the atoms of air jumble between them.

He can feel the sunshine on his face when it finally breaks through the clouds overhead.

The world is turning beneath his feet as it should. The plants around him are creaking as they grow. Dean is breathing a little quicker than usual, and Dean’s heartbeat – there it is. That sound Castiel has missed since the day he tore out his grace. Thud thud, thud thud, thud thud. Castiel closes his eyes more tightly and focuses in on it, loses himself briefly in its rhythm.

“Cas?” Dean says. His voice has all the layers Castiel can hear as an angel. Richer, deeper. He can hear the roughness that comes from the light scarring in Dean’s throat after years of hunting, calling out warnings and yelling in shock. He can hear the exact pitch at which Dean ends the single word, the note that means it’s a question and it’s shy and it’s hopeful and Dean is trying to hide all of it.

The sun is bright when Castiel opens his eyes. There on the peach rose, at the tip of the stem through which he drew out his grace from the earth, is a full-blossom flower. Blushing petals unfurled, just waiting to be looked at, to be touched. Castiel reaches up a finger, and presses it to the velvet centre.

He stands up, and turns to Dean, who’s looking at him with something in his eyes that’s just the same. Newly unfurled, wanting touch.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel says, and Dean’s face relaxes.

“Here all along, huh.” Dean says. “Damn it, Cas. And there was me, worrying where to find it for no goddamn reason.” The words are irritable but Dean’s tone is a betrayal of them, because it’s so gentle, so serious. Serious enough that Castiel doesn’t feel silly when he takes a step forward, closer to Dean.

He meets Dean’s eyes silently, asking a question.

“You still…?” Dean says.

Still what exactly, Castiel wonders. Still want this? Still want you? Still look at you and think about how anything else I’ve tried to care about felt like trying to follow a script written for a part I was never meant to play, but with you caring grows up without me even trying like a wild rose in good earth?

The answer to all of it is yes. It’s Dean, after all. The answer is yes.

Castiel doesn’t use words to say it. Dean barely used them to ask the question, it was all in his eyes and the way he’s still holding his arms slightly out to the sides as though hoping to have a reason to put them around someone, and so Castiel gives him a reason.

The closeness – Castiel has always thought it might be jarring, if it ever happened, to be in Dean’s space like this. Something he’s wanted for so long and imagined so many times that the reality would be strange. But it’s not strange, it’s – it’s just a little slow, and hushed. It’s so quiet in the garden as they come together. Hand touching hand. Then arms reaching up. Castiel’s eyes tracing the lines of Dean’s face, finally having time to do it in as much time as he chooses, because Dean’s going a pleased shade of red under his gaze.

“I, uh,” Dean says, his voice a little hoarse. Castiel tilts his head at a slight angle. “I, uh. I don’t know how to do this. When it’s you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I – I don’t know if you want me to…” Dean’s eyes drop to Castiel’s lips. Through angel’s eyes, Castiel can see the slight tremor in him, the way he leans in just a little and then pulls back, the way his muscles are tightening in uncertainty.

“Yes,” says Castiel simply. He reaches up, and tilts his hat back.

“But you… it’s…” Dean looks at him helplessly.

And Castiel thinks perhaps he understands. This thing between them, the way that Castiel feels, it’s – it’s alive, it’s wider and deeper than the sky. It’s everything. And they’re supposed to, what, kiss about it? As though it were the end of a fairy tale? The end of a second date?

But then, they’ve done all the rest of it before. They’ve done blood and big choices. They’ve done hands grasping for each other against every rule, against all the smart money. And now there’s just this.

There’s just Castiel leaning forwards, and seeing relief and happiness break through on Dean’s face like sunshine for a second, before they kiss.

Castiel feels his wings unfurl.

It’s still not Heaven. It’s not even close. But – Castiel pulls back, and sees the expression on Dean’s face, the way his eyes are wide and unbelieving and so, so happy. But it’s a place, where Castiel is growing things.