[ It's difficult to hurt an angel - really, truly hurt an angel where they are no longer their vessel's flesh and bone, but themselves. The wings are part of Castiel's true form, part of everything that is angel about him. Like Dean's arms or legs, perhaps, but also more.
It makes them sensitive, one of many reasons they're usually safely tucked away, kept immaterial. There, and able to cast shadows as soon as he pulls them forwards just a little. To have them be physical like this is to have them be vulnerable.
It's to be vulnerable.
And Castiel doesn't care for it.
He's tense when Dean begins his gruelling work, and what would be intense and too private to even suggest now becomes something horrid and endlessly painful. He's a soldier - so Castiel grits his teeth, and holds himself still, chocked off grunts of pain the only sounds he allows to undercut Dean's soft voice. And it's a saving grace, that. Like a prayer in itself, and it's foolish because that path of thinking has already led him wrong, has already ruined everything. Yet it's a balm, it's what makes this experience one of healing rather than an extension of the torture inflicted upon him.
Dean's hands cause him great comfort and great pain alike, but it's of the good kind. Of the kind that fixes and heals and soothes, despite everything. And when Dean is done, when the song has faded and Castiel can feel the timbre of Dean's voice having slide from that melody straight into the very fabric of his grace, Castiel doesn't move. He just sits there, hunched forwards, immense tension in his body, head hanging low.
His voice sounds like it's being dragged over gravel. ]
No. But it will.
[ It's not the most grateful thing to say, but Castiel knows Dean understands it. That sometimes it hurts to fix something and let it heal and get better. That sometimes things have to cut deep and deeper still before they improve.
There's a tremble in the wings right when Dean pulls his hand away, like an involuntary shiver at the loss of warmth and contact that these appendagers shouldn't have encountered. And if there is the softest hitch to Castiel's breath, no one needs to know.
And if he keeps his head down while a single tear tracks down his cheeck unbidden, no one needs to know either.
He doesn't cry. He doesn't weep.
But as always, Castiel feels, and too much of it at that. ]
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It makes them sensitive, one of many reasons they're usually safely tucked away, kept immaterial. There, and able to cast shadows as soon as he pulls them forwards just a little. To have them be physical like this is to have them be vulnerable.
It's to be vulnerable.
And Castiel doesn't care for it.
He's tense when Dean begins his gruelling work, and what would be intense and too private to even suggest now becomes something horrid and endlessly painful. He's a soldier - so Castiel grits his teeth, and holds himself still, chocked off grunts of pain the only sounds he allows to undercut Dean's soft voice. And it's a saving grace, that. Like a prayer in itself, and it's foolish because that path of thinking has already led him wrong, has already ruined everything. Yet it's a balm, it's what makes this experience one of healing rather than an extension of the torture inflicted upon him.
Dean's hands cause him great comfort and great pain alike, but it's of the good kind. Of the kind that fixes and heals and soothes, despite everything. And when Dean is done, when the song has faded and Castiel can feel the timbre of Dean's voice having slide from that melody straight into the very fabric of his grace, Castiel doesn't move. He just sits there, hunched forwards, immense tension in his body, head hanging low.
His voice sounds like it's being dragged over gravel. ]
No. But it will.
[ It's not the most grateful thing to say, but Castiel knows Dean understands it. That sometimes it hurts to fix something and let it heal and get better. That sometimes things have to cut deep and deeper still before they improve.
There's a tremble in the wings right when Dean pulls his hand away, like an involuntary shiver at the loss of warmth and contact that these appendagers shouldn't have encountered. And if there is the softest hitch to Castiel's breath, no one needs to know.
And if he keeps his head down while a single tear tracks down his cheeck unbidden, no one needs to know either.
He doesn't cry. He doesn't weep.
But as always, Castiel feels, and too much of it at that. ]