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Why miss the sunny days when my head feels clearer in a hurricane?
"Dean, I do not understand why you insist on driving in this weather when it would be much easier, not to mention safer, if I were to fly us back to the bunker."
Dean rolled his eyes and prepared to have the same conversation they had three minutes ago. And three minutes before that. And three minutes before that. And so on and so on since the rain had picked up.
"Cas, you know that you're low on grace. You wouldn't be able to get the Impala back and I will not abandon Baby on the side of the road."
"Dean," Castiel started, but Dean was already preoccupied. The wind had picked up and was splattering rain all over the windshield, obstructing Dean's view of the road. He turned up the radio just enough to hear the weather alert that had cut onto every station.
"This is a National Weather Service Alert. A hurricane is coming through Glasborough County. If you are currently in the area please stay away from windows and glass objects. If you are on the road pull over at the nearest possible time."
Dean grumbled and Cas stared expectantly at him. "Now will you let me fly us back?"
Dean glared in the angel's direction. "I already told you. I'm not abandoning Baby, especially in a hurricane! We'll find a place to camp out until the storm passes."
Castiel grumbled once more, but didn't deign to start the argument once more.
It took Dean another 8 minutes of blind driving in the wind and rain before he spied a rest-stop off the vacant highway they had been traveling. He pulled into the lot, careful not to park near any poles or wires. There were no sign of life in the small, probably locked rest-stop. They were stuck in the car.
Dean pulled out his phone to call Sam, who was laid up back at the bunker with a broken leg courtesy of a bitch of a witch. He found no signal in their discreet location and cursed under his breath, throwing the useless device onto the dashboard.
Growing more and more frustrated with the weather, Dean grumbled half-heatedly, "You don't think this is something freaky, do you?"
Castiel shrugged and peered out the window at the sheets of rain. "It is unlikely. Sometimes Mother Earth is just in a mood."
Dean nodded, but paused and slowly turned his head back to the angel, who didn't even bat an eyelash in his direction. "There isn't actually a Mother Earth, right?"
The angel's amused silence was answer enough for Dean. 'Well shit.'
Dean put this new piece of information in the part of his brain labeled Not Now and settled in for a long night of waiting between the raindrops.
♡DOS♡
Dean stared up at the sky. They had spent the past hour in silence, staring out their own respective windows at the hurricane that had yet to lessen its onslaught. He groaned loudly into the silence of the car. "This sucks. I can't even remember being caught in a storm this big."
Castiel opened his mouth but was cut off from responding when lightning flashed and crackled outide. Dean stared out the window in surprise. "Damn! Lightning! That's really rare in a hurricane, right Cas?" There was no response. "Cas?"
Dean glanced over at where Cas was sitting in the passenger seat, petrified. He looked more afraid than Dean had ever seen him and the horrified expression seemed strikingly out of place on the face of an angel warrior. "Shit, Cas, what's going on?"
The angel did not reply but blanched when another bolt shook the sky. Dean experienced a quick moment of worry that the angel would fly off without him, but doubted it.
Stammering out through clenched teeth, Cas whispered, "It- it fe-els like- like-"
He stopped when another bolt came with a loud clap of thunder, but that was all Dean bad needed to know what Castiel meant. He was talking about the fall.
The lightning, so much like the vision of burning wings hurtling to the earth at breakneck speed. The thunder, like the echo of millions of falling warriors creating craters in the ground. They were trapped in a hurricane but the real storm was in the car.
"Cas, it's okay," Dean said soothingly, moving his hands to the angel's shoulders. "It's okay. It's just the storm. You're fine, everything is fine."
"Dean," the angel whispered weakly.
Dean moved his hands higher up to the angel's neck, turning his head gently to train those electric eyes on his own. Blue and green clashed and the sky shook. "Cas, you have to calm down. You're fine. The storm can't hurt you in here."
"My fault, all my fault," the angel whispered, his voice quivering and breaking. Dean had never seen him so fragile before.
"It's not your fault Cas, it never was. It was Metatron, all Metatron."
Dean felt Cas slip backwards into his mind. "I'm sorry, Dean, I'm sorry. I couldn't stop him."
"Cas-"
"I couldn't save you."
Dean got it then, really got it. Castiel had moved past just reliving the fall, and was spiraling downwards through it all. Every mess up, every failure, every time he had convinced himself he was worthless.
"You did save me Cas. You did. You helped Sam get me back, you helped cure me. You helped me get out of Purgatory, you helped me kill Dick. You helped me fight Lucifer, you helped me fight those dick angles. Damn, Cas, you pulled me out of Hell."
Dean saw his words were doing nothing to quell the pain and suffering inside of the angel. Quietly, he admitted, "I remember that. I remember you pulling me out of Hell. I didn't at first, but it started to come back to me after Purgatory. After I failed you."
Castiel's harsh breathing quieted slightly, just enough for Dean to continue. "I was scared at first, when you came to get me. I didn't know who you were or what you wanted from me. I thought you were just a hallucination or a trick to bring me to someplace more painful.
"But you weren't. You were my savior, my guardian angel. I knew that as soon as you reached out and touched my shoulder. I remember being pulled out. Back when I couldn't remember, I had thought it would be painful. But now I remember. It didn't hurt. It was the most peaceful I had ever felt. I was never as whole as I was when you were piecing me back together."
"I felt the same," Castiel admitted quietly. "Putting you back together was the best thing I've ever done. I felt more powerful than I ever have, even when I was God."
"See? You've saved me so much."
Lightning stuck and Castiel watched it out the window, but he didn't flinch or pale this time. Dean took that as a good sign. He pulled his hands away from the angel's neck, but let one trail down his arm to intertwine their fingers without question. "Come on."
He gently tugged Castiel across the bench seat and swung open the door, stepping out of their safety and into the storm and pulling Castiel with him. The angel didn't protest or pull away, but his grip on Dean's hand tightened into a vice. Dean didn't mind the iron hold. He would gladly be Castiel's anchor.
They stepped away from the car and ventured further into the hurricane until it was just them and empty parking lot and the craze.
They stood facing eachother with their hands intertwined and breathed in the storm. Dean brought his other hand up to cup Castiel's head and pulled him in for a soft, reassuring, healing kiss. The angel blinked when he pulled away, but brought his hand up to cover Dean's and they met again, more passionate and heated this time.
That's where they stood, admist the chaos. It made perfect sense. They ate, breathed and lived in chaos, it was the only way they did anything. They had saved the world in chaos, they had lost in the chaos, they had won in the chaos, they had met in the chaos.
They didn't need peace and quiet. They didn't need normal-apple-pie. They didn't need the calm or the eye.
They just needed each other.