There are no words (to be spoken of this)

Chapter Two

"Dean?"

Cas looked up from the book he was reading, brow furrowed at the sudden intrusion.

"Dean, is everything alr-"

Dean could see the exact moment Cas' eyes fell on the crumpled paper in his hand. He could feel it like an anvil hanging around his neck, as if this thin sheet of paper somehow weighed as heavily in his hand as its contents weighed on his heart. It anchored him to the spot, kept him rooted here in Cas' room, under Cas' gaze.

The angel squinted for a second, then his eyes went wide, his lips parting - Cas' hand darted to the inside of his coat, his suddenly frantic gaze flitting back and forth between Dean's face and his fist.

It was the spark of recognition in Cas' eyes that finally sealed the deal for Dean.

There could have been no doubt what this was, of course, but his head hadn't fully believed what his heart had already known. Not until right now.

His grip tightened, fingers closing impossibly firmly around the little ball in his hand. As if the paper was a bomb that might explode any second if he released it from his grasp.

Spilling secrets that could never be unseen, damage that could never be undone.

Red wine stains on a crisp white shirt.

"Dean, what is that?", Cas asked slowly, carefully. The book fell shut, forgotten where the angel placed it carelessly on the bed, getting up without ever taking his eyes off Dean. "Where did-" Cas paused, taking a measured step towards him. "Where did you get this?"

"Cas", Dean heard himself say, his voice raw and broken to his own ears.

He couldn't get his thoughts to shut up.

Cas, what is this?

Cas, did you really write this?

Cas, tell me this isn't real, tell me it's just a joke.

Cas, please, tell me you mean it, tell me I'm not going insane, oh please, please-

"No, I-" Cas didn't answer any of the questions swirling in Dean's mind. He just stared at Dean's fist, curled around that fatal piece of paper. "But I...how-"

"Found it on the floor next to the war table", Dean said. "You must've dropped it or something-"

He watched as Cas swallowed hard, his gaze ripping away from Dean's hand to meet his eyes dead on, intense blue boring into green.

"Did you read it?"

~oOo~

"Did you read it?", Cas asked.

He knew the answer, but he had to ask anyway.

Dean didn't respond but the look on his face said it all.

Cas' knees felt weak, like the air had been sucked out of the room and he couldn't breathe.

"No..."

He gulped in a mouthful of air he didn't need, wishing for something to hold onto to steady himself.

All was lost. Everything was out, everything he had kept and nourished so carefully, hidden away from prying eyes where it was safe and sacred.

How could he have been so stupid? So reckless and careless?

Losing a page from his notebook, this page-

Cas flexed his fingers where they had gone stiff by his side, his body tense and rigid so it wouldn't just crumble like the cursed paper in Dean's hand.

"Cas..."

"This was-" Cas squeezed his eyes shut. He felt sick. "This was private", he pressed out between clenched teeth. "You weren't supposed to-"

Weren't supposed to see.

Weren't supposed to know.

Not like this. Definitely not like this.

"I know", Dean said and yes, Cas' brain screamed hysterically, Dean knew, Dean knew, and he could never take that knowledge back-

"I know I shouldn't have read it", Dean finished his sentence, "but when I realized what it was, I-"

Dean trailed off and Cas was glad for it. He wasn't convinced he wanted to hear the end of that sentence.

Too much depended on the end of that sentence. Everything depended on the end of that sentence.

Cas had spent innumerable hours imagining ways how Dean might react if he ever learned the truth. He had wondered if he would scream, if he would look at Cas in disgust, if he would send him away never to return. He had dreamed of a smile forming on Dean's face, of Dean's arms encircling him, of lips meeting his own.

What he saw right now was neither of those things, just a hollow mask of emotionlessness that had settled over Dean, somehow so much worse than even anger or disgust.

Perhaps Cas had been wrong all this time. Perhaps Dean didn't even care enough to be angry with him.

He felt tired all of a sudden, utterly exhausted when realization settled in. The realization that everything would change now. The realization that nothing would be as it was between them, that Dean would never look at him the same way - would maybe never be able to look at him at all.

"I apologize." Cas lowered his eyes to stare at his own hands, couldn't stand another second of that empty expression on Dean's face, couldn't bring himself to meet Dean's eyes. "If you wanted me to go, I'd understand."

"W-What?"

Cas sighed.

"I'm just saying that if you wanted me to leave, all you have to do is say so."

"No." Cas dared to look up at that, relieved to find that mask broken, Dean's brows drawn together as he shook his head. "Cas, no, I-" He broke off, and Cas saw his fingers twitching where they held onto the paper, suffocating Cas' words written within.

"D-Do you wanna go?", Dean asked then, and wasn't that a question to be asked.

He didn't. He did.

Cas never wanted to leave Dean's side. But right now, his wings were itching to take flight, to carry him as far away as possible, away from this room and those eyes and that letter he could never unwrite.

"I don't know", Cas confessed truthfully. "I think...I need some time, Dean."

"Okay." Dean swallowed, and there was that hollowness to his voice again, that dull veil of nothingness clouding his eyes. Cas hated it, hated himself for feeling so much, while apparently Dean could make himself feel so little. "Yeah, okay."

"I'm sorry." Cas wanted to reach out, wanted to unravel Dean's clasped fingers and steal his words back, those words that had never been spoken but somehow found their way into the light of day nevertheless. He wished he could take them back and hide them away in their drawer where they belonged, where they were safe and beloved and beautiful. Out here in the open, those soft words of comfort suddenly showed their sharp edges, cutting both of them alike.

They had been so lovely, tucked away in Cas' head and his heart and his book. He could almost have forgotten the damage they were capable of doing.

"I never meant for you to..." To find out like this. To find out at all.

But it was too late now. Too late.

"Yeah." Dean gave him a curt nod. "Course not."

It was just a mumble. Of course it was. How foolish of Cas to hope that Dean might give him more than that.

"I'm sorry, Dean", he said again, because apparently, that was all that was left to say. "Please forgive me."

And with that, he stretched his wings and took flight, far far away from his room and his home and the man his heart had never wanted to leave behind again.