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The first time it happened, Dean thought it was just Cas being, well, Cas.
The fifth time it happened, Dean thought maybe it was some freaky angel thing.
By the time Dean lost count of how many times Cas climbed the stairs to the bunker’s front door, stepped outside just long enough to sniff the air, then returned wordlessly, Dean wanted an explanation.
He followed Cas into the library, where Sam was concentrating on his laptop. “Hey, Cas, what’s with the sniffing routine, huh?”
Cas turned and gave him a confused look. “Sniffing?”
“Yeah, you know. You go outside, sniff the air, and come back in. You sniffing out new hunts on the breeze or something?”
Cas sighed and came closer, taking Dean by the elbow. “Come with me,” he said, leading Dean back toward the stairs. After ascending the steps, Cas opened the bunker door and gently pushed Dean outside in front of him. “What do you smell?”
“Come on, Cas. Really?”
Dropping his hand, Cas raised an eyebrow. “You asked.”
“Fine.” Dean rolled his eyes and then closed them, sniffing hard at the air. “I dunno. It smells cold.”
“Relax, Dean. Breathe in gently through your nose.” Cas’ voice seemed to be getting closer and softer. “Now tell me what you smell.”
Dean inhaled slowly, trying to identify scents. He shrugged. “Maybe, like, mold. Wet leaves? Dead grass?”
“Anything else?” Cas’ low voice was right next to his ear, his breath warm against Dean’s skin.
Trying again, Dean couldn’t focus, too aware of the warm body next to him. “Nah. Nothing else.”
The warmth disappeared in an instant and Dean heard the bunker door open. “You can come back in, Dean.” As he returned inside, Cas added, “Remember what you smelled.”
The weird sniffing behavior went on for another two weeks, except for the few days when Dean and Sam had left to deal with a small vampire nest in Missouri, until one morning when Cas didn’t immediately return inside. When he finally did, he skipped down the steps with a lightness that Dean hadn’t seen in…well, a long time. He came straight for Dean, again taking him by the elbow and tugging him toward the door.
“Okay, Cas, I’m coming,” Dean protested, not really wanting to be dragged up the steps. He followed outside and suddenly Cas’ hands were over his eyes.
“What do you smell, Dean?”
Dean almost started to argue and then resigned himself to answering. He inhaled gently like he’d done before. “I still kinda smell the mold. Smells wet. I don’t know, Cas; I don’t know what you’re looking for here.”
“Just describe what you smell.”
Nodding, he tried again. “It smells a little warmer, I guess. Maybe grassy. Kind of… You know what it really smells like? It smells like those first few shovelfuls of dirt on a salt-and-burn. Earthy. Cas, don’t tell me you dug a grave out here, ‘cause that’s just wrong.”
Cas dropped his hands and Dean turned around to face him, noting a hint of a smile on the angel’s face. Maybe even hope. “No graves, Dean. Do you know what this means?”
“Dude, you’re gonna have to be more specific. Do I know what what means?”
“Hey guys,” Sam said from the front door. “I think I found—” He paused, looking at them. “Do you need a moment, or…?”
Dean took a step backwards, away from Cas. “He wants me to smell the air. Don’t ask me why.”
Sam glanced at Cas, inhaled through his nose, then smiled. “It smells like spring.”
“What are you talking about, Sammy? Spring doesn’t have a smell.”
“Sure it does, Dean,” Sam argued. “You don’t think there are a million candles and airsprays and dryer sheets with ‘spring’ in the name?”
“That’s just marketing. Seasons don’t smell.”
Sam gave a short laugh. “Yeah, Dean, they do. When the frost line melts, the water displaces all the built-up geosmin, which is what gives it that earthy smell.”
“Geo what? English, Sam.”
“That is English, Dean.”
“Yeowsmi,” Cas interjected. “It’s Greek. Means ‘earth smell.’”
“Thank you, Bill Nye,” Dean retorted, feeling very left out.
“It’s a bacteria, if I remember correctly,” Sam said, looking at Cas for confirmation.
“An organic compound produced by bacteria, yes,” Cas said. “The compound C-twelve, H-twenty-two, O.”
“It’s related to petrichor too, isn’t it?” Sam asked.
“One of two compounds that make up the scent of petrichor,” Cas confirmed with a nod.
“Okay,” Dean broke in, annoyed. “If I wanted a science lesson, I would have paid attention in school.”
“Come on, Dean,” Sam said, apparently on board with the whole let’s-make-Dean-feel-like-an-idiot game, “it’s interesting.”
“Yeah, well I’m not interested. You two can go blind each other with science. Have fun.” He turned on his heel, wrenched the front door open, and went inside, hearing the door slam with a satisfying sound behind him.
A beer was not going to cut it this time. Dean grabbed the closest bottle of whiskey, discarded the idea of a glass after a half-second of deliberation, and closed himself in his room. Headphones, Black Sabbath streaming loud and almost indecipherable on his laptop, and Dean could pretend that there weren’t thoughts and emotions and memories clawing their way to the surface.
He took another swallow from the bottle, feeling the fiery burn as it went down, half escape, half punishment, and whispered along with the song, “Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry.” It wasn’t until the song abruptly stopped after, “And so as you hear these words,” that Dean opened his eyes and lowered his headphones, ready to curse the bunker’s wifi.
Instead, he had six feet of surly angel staring down at him.
“What do you want, Cas?”
“I wanted to share something beautiful with you, Dean. I had hoped to do that without you acting like a petulant child.”
“You know what? If you’re gonna call me names, you can get out now.” Dean started to put his headphones back on.
Cas closed the laptop and set it farther away on the bed, then sat down on the edge. “I don’t understand, Dean. What happened?”
“You know what happened. You and Sam started geeking out, leaving me to feel like the class dunce.”
Cas stared at him, stared through him, doing that squinty thing as if he could see behind every wall Dean had ever constructed. “No,” he finally said. “When you feel demeaned, you lash out. This,” he indicated the bottle and the laptop with his hand, “is something different.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Cas.”
“You never want to talk. But something about this set you off.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Did you know that the olfactory sense is the only human sense to bypass the rational mind? Scent, no matter how subtle, is the most powerful method to bring up memories. It brought up memories for you, didn't it, Dean? Talk to me; I want to understand.”
Dean stared at the wall displaying his favorite firearms. “You can’t understand.” He felt fingers gently grasp his chin and turn his head until he met Cas’ eyes and saw something like compassion.
“Try me.”
Cas wasn’t going to let him out of this, that much was clear, and no matter how much Dean argued, he’d eventually wind up telling Cas anyway. Better just get it over with now and save everyone a lot of drama. Taking the headphones off and setting them on the bed, Dean nodded and felt the fingers drop from his chin, his skin suddenly aching for the touch. “My mom had a rose garden. She loved roses. Red and pink, sometimes yellow. She’d cut them and bring them in the house. Vases all over. I remember her telling me not to touch ‘cause of the thorns.”
He let out a short laugh. “My dad asked her once why she didn’t choose flowers that were safe, you know, with little kids in the house. And she said she respected roses ‘cause they could fight back.” Dean swiped his hand over his face. “In retrospect, knowing now that she was a hunter, that makes sense.”
Cas adjusted his position on the bed, turning more fully toward Dean. “Go on.”
“It was just…every spring, she’d get excited about her roses blooming. Spring meant color. It meant life. And then she was gone.” Dean sat up a little straighter on the bed and looked at the display of guns again. “Death follows me, man. I kill. I kill and I torture and everyone around me dies.” He looked back at Cas. “At least once. Spring…Spring just reminds me of what I can’t have. And Mom’s alive again, but she’s still not back. She’s not the mom I remember. She’s not the mom with the roses.”
Without a word, Cas stood up and extended his hand. “Come with me.”
Dean started to get up from the bed and reached out to take Cas’ hand, then paused. “You’re not gonna zap me somewhere, right? We’re just going to walk somewhere like normal people?”
“We’ll just walk,” Cas assured him.
Dean accepted his hand and stood, following him out of the room and wondering why he was holding Cas’ hand when he didn’t need to.
Cas led him through the garage and out into the fields surrounding the bunker, finally letting go of his hand. They walked for a good ten minutes, over lumps of mostly melted snow and through squishy depressions of mud. A gentle breeze blew across the plains.
“You gonna tell me what this is about?” Dean eventually asked.
“No.”
“Great.” Dean kept walking, looking around at a bunch of nothing. “Just great.”
Five minutes later, as they approached a cottonwood tree, Cas stopped. “Here,” he said.
“Okay.” Dean let his eyes travel over the ground, covered with grass and weeds of varying heights, looking for some sort of clue or sign or something. He turned and checked in all directions, not seeing any roads or buildings other than the WPA power plant over the bunker. “You’re gonna have to give me something more to go on here, Cas.”
Cas squatted down and ran his hand gently over one of the taller weeds, maybe eight inches high, with wide green leaves and red veins and stem. He cocked his head toward the tree. “That’s a female cottonwood. This is a cottonwood seedling.”
“Dude, I don’t even wanna know how you know that’s a female tree.”
With a stern look, Cas said, “Only the female cottonwoods produce seeds.”
“Oh. Okay, so that’s a baby tree. What about it?”
“A year from now, this tree will be taller than you, Dean. It grew from a seed that no one planted. A few short months from now, there will be wildflowers and tall grasses in this field. It will be home to insects and small mammals. In fact,” Cas paused as if listening, “a pair of prairie voles is going to mate shortly, in a burrow beneath where you’re standing.”
Dean immediately stepped back and stared at the ground. “What, like right now?”
“Not yet.” Cas gave him a hint of a smile. “He is trying to prove his strength and prowess, but she is so far unimpressed.”
“Okay, so I’ve got the Wild Kingdom lowdown. Why did you bring me out here?”
“This is going on all around you, Dean. Cycles of birth and death and rebirth, of cells growing and splitting, of the abundance of life. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, what you think you are, this tree will still grow, those voles will—” he paused for a moment, “now definitely mate, and this field will come alive with new life. Short of burning it down or bulldozing it, nothing you do will kill this field. And if you did burn it down, it would grow anew next year.”
“I’m still not clear on the nature connection. What does this have to do with what I do, what we do? I’m a hunter; you’re a warrior. We kill things. And if we’re really, really lucky, maybe we save a few lives.”
“Yes, this is true,” Cas said, taking a step closer. “In order to save some lives, we take others. Insects will eat some of the leaves of this cottonwood. Those voles—or their offspring—may become another animal’s meal. The roses your mother cut would eventually wilt and die. But I didn’t bring you out here to see the death, Dean. You see that all by yourself. What you don’t see is the life, and how it always finds a way to come back after death.”
Cas came even closer and Dean’s heart began to beat faster. All this space around them, and Cas has to stand this close? “When your mother brought the flowers inside, what did you think?” he asked quietly.
Dean shrugged. “They were colorful, pretty. They smelled nice. I touched a petal when she wasn’t looking; it was soft like nothing I’d ever felt before.”
“Do you think she brought them in so she could watch them die? To rejoice as they wilted and dropped their petals?”
“No, man. That’s kind of twisted.”
Cas stepped forward again, prompting Dean to take a small step back. “What did you think, Dean?”
“I…uh…” Dean took another step back. “She liked the way they looked. She made sure they were watered. Sometimes she put some powder or something in the water to make them last longer.” He stepped back again as Cas slowly advanced.
“She let them in, Dean. She saw life and she let it in. She knew what it meant to be a hunter, what it meant to kill. And she chose to bring signs and symbols of life and beauty into her home, into her family. Life is everywhere around you. You only need to let it in. Let it color your life. Let it remind you that there is more than pain and death. There is also endurance and beauty and strength.”
Dean took one more step back and found himself backed up against the cottonwood tree trunk. “So you want me to bring flowers in the bunker?”
Cas’ face was close—too close—his blue eyes too intense, and Dean felt trapped, a prey boxed in by a predator. “No. I want you to let life in again, in whatever form it needs to take for you.”
“Isn’t that a little too touchy-feely for a warrior, Cas?”
“Is it?” Cas’ voice dropped even lower. “I was created to protect humanity, to protect life. Death is a tool. Life is the purpose.”
“O-okay,” Dean said, hating that he couldn’t seem to form words correctly anymore. Or thoughts. “Let life in. Check. Can we, uh…are we…was that all?”
“The rose petal was soft?” Cas asked.
“Yeah…uh…soft and strong. You know what a…a rose petal feels like, right?”
“I do. And you’ve never felt anything that soft since?”
“Well…um…” Dean faltered, again not sure what Cas was after. “Maybe, but…uh…I might have been occupied. You know…not really paying attention to…um…softness or…whatever.”
“Maybe,” Cas said, tilting his head slightly to the side, “you should pay attention now.”
And before Dean could move, or even think about it, Cas’ lips were on his, and all he could think about was how they always looked chapped but they really were quite soft. Maybe not quite like a rose petal, but he couldn’t entirely be sure.
Then they were gone, a couple of inches too far away. Cas licked his lips with the tip of his tongue and Dean’s thoughts immediately began to question whether Cas’ tongue might be as soft as a rose petal, or maybe softer because it was wet and hot and… Dean lunged forward, closing his eyes and pressing his lips to Cas’ again, moving them and feeling their softness, and then they were open a little and Dean licked into the space, feeling heat and an unidentifiable tingle.
Their tongues met in the middle, and yes, it was definitely soft, and Dean found himself thinking of roses blooming in time-lapse photography, of something colorful and beautiful and strong unfurling within him. He raised his hands to cup either side of Cas’ face, then felt the back of his own head up against the tree trunk again as Cas deepened the kiss.
Cas’ hands were at his hips, then rose, one resting over the old handprint scar, the other reaching around his shoulder to entwine in his hair, fingertips lightly scratching his scalp. Dean felt a distinct warmth along his sides and against his arms, almost a feeling of light pressure, and he broke the kiss for a moment to glance to either side, seeing nothing that would account for the sensation. Cas took that opportunity to latch on at his throat, nuzzling and licking, and as Dean felt teeth graze over his neck, the warm pressure against his arms increased.
For a moment, his brain resisted, sputtering out a litany of What the fuck am I doing? What am I doing with Cas? I’m kissing a dude and this is not oka— and then he felt a wave of dizziness overtake him. Cas pressed closer, keeping him upright and against the tree, and again, the warm pressure of something kept him from tilting to either side, and suddenly Dean just knew: wings.
“Relax,” Cas said, his mouth at Dean’s ear. “Don’t overthink it. Just let it in.”
Dean managed a nod and forced himself to relax, reminded himself that Cas would take care of him, had always taken care of him. When Dean allowed it.
With that thought, the image of the blooming rose made sense: he was opening himself to life, to new experiences. And, if he was honest with himself about what he felt every time Cas was close, maybe he was opening himself to love.
He sought out Cas’ lips again, letting the feelings wash over him without being classified as masculine or feminine. The way he felt around Cas was just…it was freeing. He could be himself. Cas had already seen him at his very worst and still chose him. Something like gratitude and humility and respect and love all rolled together gathered in his chest and threatened to burst out. He broke the kiss and buried his face in Cas’ neck, hugging him close, then tasting Cas’ jaw, his throat.
“Dean,” Cas growled, pressing his hips into Dean’s and earning a reciprocal push and groan. “So beautiful. So bright. So strong. So brave.”
“You’re gonna…” Dean said between kisses, “give me…a complex…here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Cas said as he shifted slightly to one side. “It’s true.” He rolled his body into Dean’s in such a way that it created waves of pleasure and Dean gasped. “I rebuilt this body for you, Dean,” Cas murmured in his ear. “And I would—I believe the phrase is—‘take you apart’ in a very different and enjoyable way.”
“Yeah?” Dean could hear his own voice, low and raspy in a way he’d never heard when he’d been with female partners. “What’s stopping you?”
Cas drew back and Dean felt a cool breeze across his skin, his body wanting to reach out for Cas but pinned to the tree trunk. “Are you inviting me in?”
“You’ve always had the key, Cas.”
“That’s not the same as being invited, Dean, and you know it.”
“I want…”
Cas came a little closer again, his warmth a whisper against Dean’s body. “What do you want, Dean?” he breathed against Dean’s ear.
“You. Damn it, I want you.”
“In what way?”
Dean groaned, trying again to get closer to Cas. “In every way.”
Surging up to meet his lips, Cas kissed him until his lips felt numb. “Very well. Let’s move this to somewhere more comfortable.”
“Uh…what are we gonna tell Sam?”
Cas’ smile was half-smirk and half-predatory. “We’ll tell him spring is in the air.”