28. From Distant Stars

Castiel is not there when Dean wakes up. 

It seems to be the only thought in his head. The one concrete thing he can wrap his mind around. And that’s… strange. Cas ain’t ever there when he gets up in the morning, so that shouldn’t even be pinging on his radar. He’s in his bed, and that should be alarming, but it isn’t. There’s a weird sort of fog in his brain – something making him a little slower. A little heavier.

It’s not unpleasant, somehow. It’s… warm. He’s comfortable.

But it strikes him as wrong, that he should be so content. It’s not like it happens very often. So, in spite of his desire to stay pleasantly blank, he starts yanking on the pull-start of his brain, faster and faster, till it kicks and coughs to life. And, in bits and bites, little flashes start to come back. 

He groans, turns over, puts a pillow over his head without even opening his eyes. He has no idea what time it is, no idea how long he’s been asleep. No idea why he’s in his bed, or why he’s apparently okay with being in his bed, instead of in his usual little nest on the floor. 

It trickles in that his face is stiff with dried tears. That his throat is sore. 

From crying. From yelling.

Oh, God. 

He yelled.  

At Cas.  

The idea is so insane that he thinks, for a moment, it must have been a nightmare. Thinks he must have imagined himself tearing the alpha a new one for the terrible crime of being too nice.

Because that’s not something he would ever do, right? Dig his own grave?

He snorts. Right. No self-destruction here, no sir. That’s not a Dean Winchester specialty. 

He lays there for a while and lets the memories slide back into place, wincing every time he recalls another fucked up thing he shouted at the alpha. Jesus – he’d gone completely off the rails. He was supposed to be apologizing. Supposed to make Cas believe him when he said he could be better. Instead, he’d dug in his heels, and made everything worse. 

Dean used to turn himself off when he felt like that. Used to shut that shit down before he cried, or screamed – before he showed any emotion at all. In fact, not long ago, those moments had been... frequent. To the point where Dean is willing to bet he spent just as much time feeling nothing as he did feeling anything – even fear. Even dread. Even grief. 

But that feels like a lifetime ago. 

Fact of the matter is, he knows he’d done that as a defense mechanism, knows that he’d shut everything down because the alternative had inevitably been bad. Nothing worse than crying for an alpha who got off on your pain, or your fear. Dean had found that going blank was a sick sort of protection, both for his brain and for his body. And he'd gotten so good at it that he thought it had just become a part of him, another ugly scar on his soul.

Except, he can’t think of a scenario where he’d be able to hide anything he’s feeling from Cas. With or without a scent bond. And that's... okay. Because he doesn't need to hide from him.

As twisted as it might be, Dean figures that crying like a bitch last night, yelling… that means he trusts the dude beyond what he thought he could trust just about anyone. Dean trusted that he could do that without risk of being backhanded, or whipped, or gagged for his insolence. 

He’s so far past the idea that Cas could ever do something like that that it’s laughable to even consider it. So, of course Dean had felt safe taking shit out on him. Of course he’d lashed out and pretended his own cowardice had anything to do with the alpha at all. 

What a piss poor excuse for gratitude. 

Dean needs to apologize right the fuck now, and not because he thinks that doing so will make Cas want to keep him. His head is screwed on straight, now – he’s calmer. He knows Cas won’t drop him back off at auction, collar or no collar, obedience or no obedience. God, even the idea of it feels patently insane; he’s got no clue how he actually believed that before. He knows better. 

No, he should apologize because Cas deserves it.

He wipes the tears off his face angrily. It’s good, actually, that Cas isn’t here to see this. He’d definitely gotten enough of this shit last night. It’s good. 

Really. 

He kinda sorta wishes Cas was still here with him, actually. Now that he thinks about it. And the longer he lays there and sniffles, the more he realizes something even worse: 

He doesn’t really remember what had happened after he yelled. 

Dean frowns. Sits up in his bed, glances around the dark room. There’s no light coming in from the window, so it’s got to be really early. Puzzled, he touches the blanket next to him, turns around to glance at his pillow. 

They… smell like Cas. 

There’s no fear at that realization. Maybe there should be, because for Dean, waking up smelling like an alpha with a hole in his memory has only ever meant one thing. But there’s no soreness between his legs, no headache to speak of. No lingering tang of lust in the air. No false heat burning his insides to ash.

Those things are proof he doesn't even need, anyway. Cas would never hurt him like that. 

So there has to be another explanation. He wracks his brain, frowns in the darkness as he tries to piece together how exactly he’d stopped yelling at Cas, how exactly he’d woken up in his bed with nothing but a lingering feeling of warmth and contentment to show for all that bullshit yesterday. 

One minute he’d been pissed, so unbelievably furious at himself, at the world, and at the alpha. He remembers yelling his damn fool head off. Remembers Cas coming into the room. Remembers the gentle warmth and weight on the mattress next to him. 

He glances at the floor and notices his cellphone, and a little more of the night trickles back. Right. He’d abruptly returned to his senses and had dropped down to the floor. Probably to beg for forgiveness, like he should have been doing in the first place. He only feels a distant sort of shame at that – Cas deserves his obedience, Dean knows. He should have been apologizing, and the only appropriate way for him to do that would have been on his knees. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and keeps digging. Cas… forgave him? He must have, because he remembers Cas’s hand in his hair, on his cheek…  

But he has this niggling little doubt. This seed of something, a flash of the alpha’s face. 

He’d looked… devastated. 

He’s not sure why that would be the case. Dean certainly feels good, his embarrassment aside – whatever burdens he’d felt yesterday have faded into something manageable rather than something soul destroying. He’s positive that’s got everything to do with Cas, so he’s not sure what the alpha might have to feel guilty or upset about. 

From what he can recall, Cas just fixed him like he always has. He must have scented him or something. But the troubling thing is that he can’t remember, can’t call up the image of Cas holding him in his arms like he can with every other time that’s happened. And it’s not because Dean was panicking – he’s done that often enough, and still, those moments with Cas are crystal fucking clear, high definition memories of safety and security that he’s gonna treasure for the rest of his life. 

But this time, there are only soft impressions in his mind, outlines of sounds and shapes and colors. It scares him, at first, that gap in his memory, the fuzzy feeling of the alpha’s touch and rumbling words. Frustrated, he rubs a hand on his face, on the back of his neck, and – 

Oh.

Even alone in his room, with no one to see, he shrinks into himself. 

Cas had... brought him down.

Dean had asked him to. 

His jaw clenches, hands reach up to wrap around the back of his neck almost instinctively – but he covers his ears instead when he starts to hear them.

Needy slut. 

He’s begging for it. 

He wants it, look at him. 

Hisses and jeers from a hundred different alphas, poisoned daggers. They echo in his head, ringing undeniably true for the first time. 

He’s never asked for anything like that before. Never wanted an alpha to touch him – not anywhere, and especially not there. No matter what anyone had said – no matter what anyone thinks, Dean has never desired to be hurt. 

Not true, some insidious little voice inside of him whispers. Not true. Did you forget? 

Dean feels his stomach turn. Of course he’d asked for it then. But the heats… they don’t fucking count. For his sanity's sake, they can't.

But he can’t even use that as an excuse anymore, because, without drugs or heat sickness, he’d basically begged for Castiel to dominate him. Begged to be taken out of his own head, to let his issues become someone else’s responsibility for once, to be able to forget about the million things that are wrong with him. Just for a little while. 

He squeezes his eyes shut. 

Fuck. 

The details of the event itself are still faint. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but there are feelings – splotchy, formless clouds, ghosts in his memory. Castiel’s smell, his warmth, the rumble of his voice. A grounding and steadying pressure on his neck, somehow not terrifying. The pure exhaustion he’d felt, bone deep, and the satisfying drift into sleep afterwards. 

He presses his hands to his eyes and takes in a slow, shaky breath.

Again, there’s no fear. No worry that Cas took advantage, no suspicion that he did it without Dean’s say-so. The one and only time Cas actually made him do something – that night, ages ago, where he’d ordered Dean to scent him – had made the alpha guilty for days. And that had been harmless. Hell, Cas won’t even hold his hand without Dean’s permission. There’s just no reality in which the alpha did something so intensely intimate and personal without Dean asking for it – or, at the very least, agreeing to it. 

And, God help him, it had worked. Aside from his embarrassment, aside from his growing sense of guilt and shame at needing that sort of thing at all, Dean feels more peaceful than he has in a long time. He’s laying in his bed with no anxiety to speak of, when he couldn’t even consider doing that a day ago. Can inhale and feel a deep well of peace inside his chest, a balance he’d been missing before. 

Even the caustic memory of that alpha in the parking garage has faded. Instead of the man’s sour lust, Dean can only remember Castiel’s gentle honey and rain scent. Instead of bruising claws on his arm, Dean can only feel the soft touch of his alpha.  

He owes Cas so much more than an apology. 

Checking the clock is something he dreads, along with the knowledge that he will have to go downstairs and face Cas after all of that at some point. His stomach twists with shame. But he can’t hide up here forever, can’t pretend like it didn’t happen, as much as he’d like to. It’s all he’s going to be able to think about until he brings it up, and Dean’s had enough of shit like this sitting between them, building up into unmanageable mountains of anxiety and stress when they’d started off as molehills of discomfort. 

It’s four AM. The little green numbers almost look hateful. There’s not nearly enough time between now and the morning, not enough time for him to be ready. 

But there probably never will be.

He throws the covers off of himself. Goes to the bathroom, brushes his teeth. Looks at his reflection and sees how much softer his face looks, how the dark circles under his eyes have faded just with one night of rest. He showers for a long time, even though he doesn’t need one – he’d showered for almost two hours yesterday, just trying to get the alpha stink off of him. But he wants one to wake him up anyway. 

When he starts to get really guilty about the amount of hot water he’s wasting, he shuts the stream off. Stands in the clear glass box, completely exposed, and shivers. Closes his eyes. 

He feels the rapidly cooling water drip down his legs and pool at his feet, feels a trickle of it slide down his neck exactly where Cas had touched him so gently. His hand brushes the spot experimentally, fingers trembling a little. Not from the cold. 

Dean has come so friggin’ far. His first night here had been... terrifying. He’d hardly been able to stand up in this shower, both because of his exhaustion and his fear. For a moment, he wishes he could go back. Could grab his past self by the shoulders and look into those terrified eyes and tell him everything was gonna be okay. 

That Dean wouldn’t have believed it for a second, but right now, he can’t believe anything but. 

God, Cas did that. 

Cas has made Dean feel safe in the first time in years – well and truly safe, not some temporary reprieve or comparative lessening of pain. Not just with what had happened a few hours ago – with everything he’s done. And he did it all for Dean. Cas is… 

He’s a good man. 

Nothing proves that more than what he’d done yesterday. He’d brought Dean down. Had shouldered the responsibility of Dean’s feelings and fears, had allowed him the incredible gift of letting go. Not because he was trying to get something out of it, not because he wanted to take from Dean like so many people have done in the past. He’d just done it because Dean wanted him to. Because he’d asked – not in so many words, but Dean’s smart enough to know that’s what both his brain and his body wanted, even if he hadn’t understood at the time. 

And he can’t deny that it felt right. Like the first two puzzle pieces clicking together after spending ages flipping them all in the right direction, finding the edges, and lining up the corners. 

His stomach does a weird little flutter. So does his heart.  

The stairs creak a little as he picks his way downstairs. He’s not sure exactly why he’s going. Dean just knows that he doesn’t want to be alone in his room anymore, that the idea of sitting on the cool tile near the kitchen table sounds strangely grounding and appealing. And, insomnia or no insomnia, Cas probably won’t be awake – Dean can’t hear the TV. So he’ll be able to sift through his thoughts, will be able to come up with a gameplan on how he’s supposed to properly apologize to Cas. How he’s supposed to even begin to thank and repay him for everything he’s done. Alone time will be good.  

Problem is, he isn’t alone. 

The alpha is right there at the table in his usual spot, his head in his hands. There’s a cup of coffee in front of him, no longer steaming. Dean thinks that means he’s been here for a while. His shoulders are slumped, and even though Dean can’t see his face, he knows Cas is exhausted. 

Dean bats away the urge to flee right back up the stairs, and takes a slow, deep breath instead. He’s intent on steeling himself for this conversation, on finding the words to apologize for the patently crazy way he’s been acting, for the burden he’s become, but… 

Castiel smells… sad. 

Guilty. 

Scared. 

Dean bites his lip. Hesitates in the doorway. None of that is what he expected. Sure, he thought Cas might be upset. Dean’s been blatantly disrespectful in about a million different ways the last few days, after all. But these emotions from the alpha that so closely mirror what he himself was feeling… he doesn’t understand.

Is Cas feeling those things because of… because of him? Is he down here, unable to sleep, brooding over his slave’s problems? 

Or… does he feel guilty, somehow, for giving in to what Dean asked of him? 

Dean thinks back to what Cas has said about his instincts before, thinks about all the things he’s done to make Dean comfortable here that have involved suppressing his own needs. How often he’s been guilty about reactions he didn’t really have much control over, how often he’s apologized for his behavior. The dark circles under his eyes; his constant, unrelenting judgment of himself and how he’s taken care of Dean. 

How hesitant he’d been, last night, even when Dean was literally throwing himself at his feet. That devastation he remembers on the alpha’s face is starting to make a whole lot of sense. 

Cas… doesn’t like being an alpha. 

The realization probably shouldn’t rock him like it does. But the very idea that someone like Cas could be ashamed of himself for any reason blows his mind – let alone that reason being something he can’t even control. 

Alphas have been on the top of the food chain since the dawn of mankind, and Dean’s never met one that doesn’t seem to know that, who doesn’t seem to think he’s a God amongst men just because he’s got a friggin’ knot. 

But Cas ain’t like that. 

He’s the quietest alpha Dean has ever met. He has never flaunted himself or his strength, hasn’t bullied people using that cold steel tone that would chill a room below freezing if he wanted it to. Cas is thoughtful, he’s kind. He listens. He’s friends with omegas and betas, he’s never once looked down his nose at someone because of their gender. And he’s never taken advantage of Dean, even though the law and society both tell him he has every right to do so. 

Sure, he’s checked Dean a few times. Been a little harsh with his words now and again. But God knows Dean needs it, and he honestly deserves a lot worse. He hears again what Cas had shouted at him in the parking garage, but this time, he just winces and ignores it. Swallows the knee-jerk hurt and tells himself the alpha was right, because he always is.

Because Cas is about as far from the type of alpha who should be ashamed of themselves as he can get. 

The only time he has seen any sort of “stereotypical” alpha behavior from the man was when it involved keeping Dean safe. So Dean cannot wrap his head around why that, of all things, would make Cas feel guilty. The only way he’s used his power is for good. Every. Single. Time. 

Yet, here the man is, drowning in what looks a whole hell of a lot like self-incrimination. Dean’s practically an expert on that – he knows what it looks like. Cas shouldn’t be, though. He’s been so, so careful with Dean. He knows that. Knows Cas wouldn’t ever intentionally hurt him, down to his bones. 

Dean’s ashamed of himself for how he’s treated Cas. He’s angry at his inability to take care of his own problems. He’s frustrated that he’s unable to show gratitude the way he should. 

But he’s not scared.

He steps tentatively into the kitchen. Cas jerks his head up at the sound of Dean’s steps on the tile, and he’s blinking moisture out of his red-rimmed eyes, instantly trying to reassemble a mask of calm so that Dean can’t see he’s hurting. Dean’s heart aches for the alpha in that instant, twisting in his chest as he watches the man wipe his cheeks quickly with the back of his hand and clear his throat. 

“Dean. I didn’t think you’d… I thought you’d sleep through till tomorrow.”

Dean just shakes his head. Cas looks at him, at his wet hair and fresh clothes, and grimaces. His eyes flicker away. “I’d like to apologize.”

Dean cocks his head to the side. “Why?”

“For… so many reasons,” he says, looking down. He slowly wraps his hand around the coffee mug as if it is going to help stabilize him. “For yesterday. For what happened a few hours ago. I… you were not in your right mind,” he says haltingly, “and I feel that I may have… overstepped.”

Dean takes in a slow, deep breath. He walks over to the table, takes Castiel’s cup out of his loose, unresisting grip. It is cold. Dumping the contents in the sink, he tries to ignore the prickle of Cas’s eyes on his back, tracking him silently. 

The coffee pot is still on, so he fills up the mug. Adds what he’s pretty sure is the right amount of sugar – he’s seen Cas do it enough times. Then, feeling daring, like he has something to prove, he fills up a cup of his own without asking, and his hands only shake a little as he feels the phantom weight of the alpha’s gaze on him.

He turns around. Keeps his eyes on the pair of mugs. “Can we, uh. Sit in the living room?”

He means for the question to come out strong, but instead, his voice is closer to a whisper. It’s hard for him to ask for things, even now. Even from Cas. 

Cas blinks up at him, stupefied, and for a horrible moment Dean is afraid he’s going to say no. Instead, he nods, the movement a little jerky, and stands up from the chair. He’s clearly been sitting there for a while, because he stumbles a little as he follows Dean into the living room, grimacing when he folds himself down on the carpet. 

He isn’t made to be on his knees. Not like Dean is. 

Handing Cas his mug, he takes a sip from his own. The smell is a jolt; it reminds him of his first night here. It feels like years ago, but really, it's only been a little over two months. Not much time at all, in the grand scheme of things. 

Still. That’s weeks of kindness and healing, even though he hadn’t believed that’s what it was. So much more than Dean has ever had. 

The alpha sits there with him in silence, sad still seeping out of him, plenty of guilt mixed in. There’s even a little apprehension, like Cas is nervous about what Dean is about to say. The thought would make him laugh if it wasn’t so likely to be true. 

The reminder that his opinion matters that much to the alpha is enough to jumpstart him into talking. “You didn’t overstep.”

Cas blinks at him. “I… I took you down. I’m not sure… now that I’m thinking clearly,” he explains haltingly, stopping and starting, “I’m not certain you actually asked for that.”

“I did.” 

Dean says it simply, plainly. Because even though he doesn’t want to admit that he needed an alpha to help shoulder his problems, the alternative is that Cas blames himself and thinks he took advantage of Dean. “I don’t remember everything, but I remember that, Cas. I asked. Not, uh, not with words, exactly. But it’s what I needed.” He swallows, corrects himself. “Wanted.”

Cas doesn’t really look reassured by that – maybe because he’s nervous that Dean’s memory is porous at all. He wants to reassure the alpha that he trusts him, wants to let him know that he, not even for a second, believed Cas had done anything bad to him when he was in that vulnerable state. 

But he hesitates, tries to find the right words to explain. The right words to make Cas believe him. 

When alphas from his previous life had forced him into submission, he’d only ever remembered terrifying flashes, choking smells and pain. Cas, though - Cas hadn't forced him anywhere. What he'd done hadn't been the same. It hadn't even been close. It had been something Dean hadn’t even known he was missing till he had it. It’d felt…

Like coming home. It had felt like home. 

Cas doesn’t seem to see that, though, because while Dean’s chewing on his words, he’s staring down at his coffee cup like he’s contemplating drowning himself in it. 

“It wasn’t… It was good," Dean says slowly, working through it himself even as he tries to explain it to Cas. “… Different than it’s been before.” 

The alpha doesn’t speak. He just lets Dean talk, lets him ramble like his words mean something. To him, they do, and Dean knows that now. “It felt right, Cas,” he says. 

It’s urgent to him that Cas doesn’t beat himself up over this, doesn’t feel like he took something away from Dean. As embarrassed as he is about begging for the alpha’s touch, he can still admit that it was helpful. That Castiel was gentle with him, kind to him, just like he always is. He can admit – maybe just to himself – that he’s really fucking glad he did it. 

Cas blows a long breath out of his mouth, lips pursed. He puts his coffee down on the floor next to him. “I’ve never taken an omega down.”

“Wouldn’t know it,” Dean jokes. It sort of falls flat in the seriousness of the atmosphere. “You made me feel safe. Fuck, I mean. You blasted all the shit that was messing up my brain into the atmosphere. I haven't been that calm in…” 

His voice cracks a little; there goes that cool and collected thing he was going for.  "I don’t think I’ve ever been that calm, actually. Felt like I was high.”

Terrified of how Cas must be looking at him right now, Dean stares down at the coffee in his hands. He’s gonna show a lot of his cards with this next question. But he thinks he needs to, in order to convince Cas that Dean doesn’t think he’s anything like the masters he’s had before. 

“Is that… is it supposed to be like that?”

“I think so,” Cas replies, his brow furrowed. “My experience is limited with this sort of thing, but yes. I believe feelings of contentment and euphoria are fairly… typical.” The obvious question on his face goes unspoken – doesn’t Dean already know that? Hasn’t he felt it before? 

“Ain’t normal for me,” Dean croaks, and he just has to hope that Cas understands. The alpha looks at him blankly. “It’s… it’s never been like that.”

“You’ve never…”

“No.” Dean half laughs, rubbing the edge of his thumb along the seam of his pants so he doesn’t have to examine the horror blooming across Castiel’s face. “I mean. I didn’t even really know what that spot was until I was already, uh, in the trade. And, A-Alastair, he–” 

His breath catches in his chest. 

He pushes past it, because Cas deserves to hear it, deserves to know that he’s nothing like the alphas he seems to be afraid he is. “He just used it to hurt me. Hurt worse than anything,” he tacks on, blinking hard. 

Dean looks up, gives Cas a shaky little smile, trying his best to hold it together. If only for the alpha’s sake. “You’re the first person I’ve ever asked. The first person I… that I wanted to do that with.” He feels his eyes get wet. “First time I liked it.”

And Cas seems to understand just how much that cost him to admit, because his face crumples like a wet paper bag. 

“I’m so sorry,” the alpha says, and because Dean doesn’t know if he’s talking about what’s happened to him in the past, or what he did just hours ago, he grabs the alpha’s palm in his own and holds it, resting their hands in Dean’s lap. Cas is the one blinking back tears now.

“I trust you,” Dean repeats quietly, emphatically, and Cas’s hand tightens around his own. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t trust you. Believe me.”

“I do,” Cas says, and for a moment Dean relaxes because he thinks that it’s finally sunk in. 

But the alpha swallows. Looks away. 

“I’m not worthy,” he whispers, “of your trust. I have… hurt you.”

He blinks. Cocks his head to the side. “You’ve never hurt me, Cas,” Dean corrects him slowly. The alpha doesn’t look up. “You haven’t.”

Before his eyes, the alpha’s shoulders tense back up, his fists clench. He looks so fucking guilty when he meets Dean’s eyes. 

“Dean,” he says, taking in a breath. He speaks slowly, like he’s spelling something out. “I have.”

Dean’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“What I said to you in that garage,” he answers, staring at Dean like it should be obvious. But when he says nothing, Cas’s eyebrows knit together. “That was… completely unacceptable.” 

Dean’s stomach does a weird little lurch that he doesn’t want to think about. He slowly pulls his hand away, and his words come out oddly flat. “I deserved what you said to me. And more.”

“No, you didn’t,” the alpha growls, sitting up straighter. And, God, does that fuck with Dean’s brain – it’s discordant, jarring. Like so much of what Cas does, it shakes him to his core, makes him question the way he’s looking at things. Makes him wonder if the way he rolled over with his tail between his legs and took what Cas said to him like a kick to the ribs was… 

Wrong. Makes him wonder if… Cas was wrong, to say what he had. 

He feels a faint flicker of something in his gut. It takes him a while to identify it as anger.

He chucks that away like a hand grenade with no pin, because Dean does stupid shit when he’s angry. He can’t afford to be stupid again so soon. Not after Cas has already forgiven him over and over again for the same mistake. 

Dean’s the one who fucked up, and so he absolutely deserves what Cas said. Because Cas is the good guy, and if the good guy hurts you, it means you did wrong. 

And sure, it hurt. Hurt like a bitch. But Dean Winchester knows that correction hurts, that learning hurts. He’s known that since he picked his baby brother up and carried him away from his burning home as fast as his little legs could carry him. 

You can’t learn a lesson without pain. And pain, he can handle.

Cas doesn’t take his silence as a good sign. “You didn’t deserve it. I was cruel. And it did hurt you,” Cas adds with a firm look, cutting Dean’s automatic lie off at the pass – namely, that he’s fine, that he doesn’t even really care, that he didn’t repeat those exact words like a broken record in his brain for hours after they got home. 

Or, at least, that every time he did, it didn’t feel like a knife in the ribs. Did you want to be hurt? Stab. Did you want to be hurt? Stab. 

He tries to deny it, but his chest is too full of holes for him to talk. And Cas beats him to it, anyway. “I know it did.”

“Oh, come on, Cas,” he protests weakly. He doesn’t want to think about this anymore. Doesn’t want to move backwards, because Cas literally just spent hours making him forget this exact anxiety. “So much worse shit than that has happened to me. They’re just… words.”

Cas flinches. “Pain does not have to be physical to hurt,” he says. 

Dean blinks. He knows that. Of course he fucking knows that. But if he agrees with Cas, that means he’s going to have to acknowledge that the little pit in his heart when he thinks about what Cas said to him is real. That it matters. That he can’t bury it and forget about it; a little paper-cut amongst huge, gaping wounds. 

Dean has been slapped. Punched. Kicked. He’s been burned, he’s been bruised. He’s been choked and stepped on and had fingers snapped, been starved, has had both his shoulders dislocated multiple times, has broken every rib he’s got at some point or another. He’s been whipped. He’s been fucked, fucked in every hole, fucked six ways to Sunday by countless men whose sole goal was to hurt him as much as they could without actually killing him. 

Sticks and stones, he thinks bitterly. And he almost opens his mouth to tell Cas so. But he doesn’t. The alpha is looking at him with something dangerously close to pity, mixing in with his guilt, and Dean hates that. 

“I would like to explain,” Cas starts. But he waits for permission. As usual, he waits. 

Dean makes an audible, frustrated noise. He’s supposed to be apologizing for what happened back there. Not the alpha. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if Cas feels bad about what he said, because he was right to say it. 

“Cas, it doesn’t matter.” 

“Yes,” Cas says, his tone strengthening already. “It does. And I want to.”

Dean can’t help the little laugh that leaps out of him – Cas looks up sharply. “Dude, if anyone’s supposed to be apologizing, it’s me. I remembered that as soon as you helped me get my head screwed on straight and I got some friggin’ sleep. That’s why I came down here in the first place.” 

But Cas just looks alarmed. “Why in God’s name would you apologize?”

And he asks with such ardent sincerity that Dean actually believes he doesn’t know. His stomach sinks. He’s going to have to spell this out for the alpha letter by letter, isn’t he? He’s going to have to make Cas understand how bad he was, because the alpha really doesn’t have any idea. 

It’s a good thing that he doesn’t, Dean thinks. It’s just more proof that Cas is good, that he doesn’t have an innate sense of how to dominate and subjugate. That he doesn’t already know how a slave is supposed to act. 

He never thought he’d be in a position where he’d genuinely have to explain to an alpha that a slave should follow orders. That a slave should never let anyone touch him without his master's permission. That a slave shouldn't dare to think or speak or act on his own.

But here he is.