A/N: This fic (in its entirety, that is) is the longest continuous story I have ever written. Wow. What is my life. From the AO3 posting:

This whole thing came out of a discussion with blueMinuet about how horrible it would be if the writers put Cas in a female vessel. I said I would only be okay with it if it was temporary, but we both agreed we wouldn't really trust the writers to handle that well. And then the idea for this fic just popped into my head. Somewhere along the line a woman with deer hooves became involved. Whoops. Thanks to blueMinuet for being an amazing beta reader, an inspiration for me to keep writing, and the best palewife a girl could ask for. This is for you. Thanks as well to ittybittytoostormy and to my boyfriend, who read the story before anyone else and who encouraged me to finish it. Thank you so much. You are both majestic and wonderful and lovely. And lastly, thank you to my mother, who does not ship Destiel but still puts up with me. I don't know how she does it, but I wish she would teach me. The putting up with me part, that is, not the not-shipping-Destiel part. This takes place sometime in season 9. I make no reference to the Metatron plot, the Abaddon plot, or the Mark of Cain plot, though, so where is your guess. I didn't want to have to retcon anything in if something major happened, so I just decided to leave it all out. Also, the title is from a worship song. The lyrics are kind of relevant for Dean and Cas, but mostly I wanted to make a deer reference because I sometimes think I'm funny.

Please enjoy! :)

Somewhere between Castiel's fourth drink and Dean's third double-entendre directed towards a stranger, Castiel realized for the 6,752nd (ish) time that he was a lousy angel.

I mean, the rebelling against Heaven, slaughtering hundreds of his brethren, and bringing the Leviathan back to Earth were bad enough. He'd done some truly amazingly stupid things in his immortal life (lives? He'd died quite a few times now). But one of the stupidest was falling in love with Dean Winchester.

Castiel, Dean, and Sam were at yet another dive bar in yet another run-down town on yet another hunt (angry nature spirit or pagan god seemed to be the best lead). The angel had been running around with the Winchesters for about three days now. It was the longest consecutive amount of time he'd been around them in quite a while. It was very refreshing in a lot of ways—it was good to have constant backup, to have the assurance of a place to sleep, to have this feeling of solidarity and friendship. Sam was a warm and comforting presence in his life, and Dean…well, what wasn't Dean to Castiel.

In other ways, however, becoming a temporary hunter was horribly repetitive and monotonous. Every motel began to look the same after a while, Dean played the same 5 cassette tapes over and over in the Impala, the brothers got in the same fights time and again, and every diner seemed to make the same unsatisfying cheeseburgers. And of course, at every location they visited, Castiel had to watch Dean flirting shamelessly with anyone who caught his eye.

"Another drink for my friend here," Dean called out as he saw Castiel put down his empty mug. The bartender nodded in his direction with a smile. Castiel watched the hunter give the bartender a once-over. She was athletically built, but with soft curves. Dark hair. Big, dark eyes framed by long, thick lashes. Just Dean's type, Castiel thought gloomily as she made her way over after fixing the new drink.

"Anything else?" she asked, setting the mug down in front of Castiel. Even her voice was pleasant. Not too high-pitched or nasal, but not too husky or masculine either.

"Yes," Dean answered. "How about a drink for you?" He gave her a winning smile, a smile with a mischievous twinkle in those green eyes and a quirk of his mouth, the kind of smile that usually had women falling all over him within minutes.

To her credit, the bartender merely laughed incredulously. "Not the most original line I've heard, but I get off in fifteen. Sound good?"

"You bet," said Dean, his grin widening.

"Until then, gotta earn my paycheck," she excused herself briskly, and moved further down the bar to attend to someone else requesting another round. Castiel pointedly did not watch Dean crane his neck to watch her walk away. He thought to himself for the umpteenth time, with an unpleasant jolt that was no less painful in its familiarity, that Dean would never give him that smile. Or watch him walk away. Castiel felt a bizarre desire to laugh at the thought. He stared into his beer instead.

"Wasn't it you who said we need to 'eliminate distractions' just, like, a week ago?" Sam said suddenly, leaning forward to see his brother past Castiel. Castiel felt a brief surge of guilt. He was the poster boy for letting things distract him when he had a job to do. "Things" usually meaning "the Winchesters." Especially Dean. "Call me crazy," Sam continued, "but you seem more distracted by ogling women than I ever was by that book you yelled at me for reading during my downtime."

"First of all, who the hell reads Moby Dick for fun?" Dean challenged, mirroring Sam's position. Castiel leaned backward on his stool a bit so the two could see each other more clearly. "And secondly, we don't have downtime, Sam."

"Apparently we have enough downtime for you to score though," Sam reasoned, and drained his own mug. He set it down gently. "Well, I'm kind of tired of seeing this routine, so I'm gonna go make myself useful." His eyes darted over to the pool table.

"Don't lose," Dean advised as Sam made his way in that direction. Privately, Castiel very much agreed with Sam and was about to maybe excuse himself to observe Sam's hustling skills when Dean elbowed him affectionately. "Guess that leaves more ladies for us," he said.

Castiel forced a smile. He wished he had chosen a female vessel when he first came to earth. Perhaps circumstances would be different then. "You are…interested in this woman?" He gave the bartender another glance. She had a very beautiful soul, he observed, only a little resentfully.

"Well," Dean said dismissively, "Not really. I mean, sometimes I just gotta keep in practice, you know? I don't really plan on anything more than a quick drink with her. We should get out of here soon anyway."

"Oh," Castiel said, not managing entirely to keep the happiness out of his voice. Unexpectedly, he felt a bit bad for the woman now. The way she kept glancing over at Dean indicated that she really was quite interested in him (that was hardly unusual, though), her soul flaring minutely every time she laid eyes on him. Castiel found himself looking at her soul whenever she glimpsed Dean, curious about her. There was something strange about her, something he couldn't put his finger on.

It was during one of these glances that she suddenly hissed and pressed a hand to her eyes, shielding them from the light and pressing her fingers into her brow, massaging it. She sat down on a stool behind the bar, rubbing at the back of her neck with one hand now. Her soul was flickering, pain making the edges dim and spark in waves. Castiel suddenly recognized what was so distinctive about her: she was going to die.

Castiel waited for Dean to be in the restroom before he made his move: he quietly cleared his throat while the bartender was washing up a glass. She looked up at him expectantly, but odds were she was not expecting what came out of Castiel's mouth next.

"How long have you known about the aneurysm?" he asked, with no preamble.

The bartender nearly dropped the glass, her big hazel eyes growing even wider. She fumbled with the glass a bit before deciding to just set it down before it came to any harm. Castiel surmised that he had been correct in his assumption. By his prediction, she only had a few weeks left—the aneurysm was getting progressively worse. She gaped at him a moment. Castiel gazed back steadily. Seeming to decide he wasn't joking, the woman composed herself and smoothed down her red top (which was unnecessary, because it was already quite smooth). "A while," she finally answered vaguely. "How could you tell?"

Castiel debated fabricating a story about having known someone with the condition before, but then decided against it. He was, as Sam had once said, terrible at lying. "Do you believe in angels?" he said, folding his hands in front of him and squinting at her. He already knew the answer—he could see in her shining, pure soul that she was a person of great faith— but he felt he should ask anyway.

She smiled, a brief, wry quirk of one corner of her mouth, and pulled a silver cross pendant from under her shirt collar for Castiel to see. "You tell me," she replied simply.

Castiel nodded thoughtfully. "Would you believe me if I told you I was one?" he asked.

The bartender stared at him. "No," she decided.

Castiel grabbed his empty mug. He extended his arm to the side, and looked back at the bartender to make sure she was watching (and that nobody else was). He then dropped the heavy glass, and it shattered loudly all over the worn wooden floor. The bartender looked at him like he was a maniac. "What the hell did you do that for?!"

"Watch," he said simply. He flicked his wrist gracefully, and suddenly his glass was whole again, sitting on the bar innocently.

The bartender—her name was Kelsey, Castiel determined with another close look at her soul—flapped her mouth like a beached fish. "How—how—what are you?" she breathed.

"I've told you," he responded seriously, his gaze solemn.

She looked at him for a long moment. "Okay, you're an angel," she hissed suddenly, leaning on her elbows over the bar to whisper to him. Someone down the bar looked as if he were trying to get her attention, but it was entirely focused on Castiel now. "So what do you want from me?"

"It is you who has something to gain from me," he explained. When she only blinked at him, he clarified. "I can heal you." Kelsey's mouth fell open again, but Castiel continued before she could say anything else. "There is, however, something I would ask you in return." He'd been thinking it through for the past few minutes and was almost certain she would agree if he explained it just right.

She eyed him suspiciously. "And what would that be?"

He hesitated. What did he have to lose? He'd lost any pride he'd had a long time ago. And this was kind of his only chance if he ever wanted to move on. "I am in love with the man who was sitting next to me," he admitted finally.

"The tall one?"

"No, the other one."

She nodded approvingly. "Does he know?"

"No," Castiel sighed. "And even if he did, he is not capable of returning my feelings. I am a genderless being, but for as long as he has known me, I have been in this vessel. This male-bodied vessel."

"Oh," she said simply, looking at him with something like pity. "Well, I can't blame you for liking him. He seems like a catch."

"Dean is the most amazing human being I have ever met, and I have lived since the dawn of time," he said resolutely.

Kelsey blinked at him, taken aback by this pronouncement. "Wow." She finally saw the man trying to get her attention, and excused herself momentarily to go fix a drink.

"You find Dean desirable, yes?" Castiel asked when she returned, deciding to get to the point.

"Uh, well," she said awkwardly, picking imaginary lint off her top, "I, I didn't—I mean, I didn't know you were interested in—or in love with—"

"I am not upset," he cut her off before she could stammer an apology. "This is actually quite serendipitous. It makes what I am about to request of you much less morally questionable. And I believe you possess some qualities which Dean finds aesthetically pleasing."

"Do you sweet-talk all the ladies like that?" Kelsey asked with a raise of one finely-arched brow.

"No," he answered, deadpan.

She sighed , shaking her head. "So okay. Ask away."

He regarded her seriously. Finally making up his mind, he asked: "May I borrow you?"

"I'm sorry, what?" she said after a short pause.

"Your body," he clarified. "If you let me in, I can heal you from the inside."

"If anyone else had said that to me, I'd punch them in the face," Kelsey said. She heaved a sigh, as if she couldn't believe she was listening to this. "Okay, let's assume you can actually do that. What's in it for you?" She leaned one hip against the bar.

"I want to kiss Dean. Just once," the angel said.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Just once?" she said, with a tone that indicated she thought limiting oneself to one kiss was inadvisable.

"Just once," he confirmed.

"And you think he'd be okay with it because I'm—"

"—Female, yes," Castiel finished, a note of sadness in his voice.

"But..." she said and bit her lower lip. She had slightly larger front teeth, but they were straight and white and looked attractive on her. "He won't know it's you. Right?"

"That's correct," he said quietly. "I do not want to burden Dean with my feelings." If he could just see what it was like, just once, he was certain he could put it all behind him. "I want to allow myself this one human folly before I let go of these unnecessary feelings."

"No feelings are unnecessary," Kelsey said firmly, crossing her arms.

"They are for an angel," he said morosely.

She looked at him for a long moment. Castiel picked at a bit of the peeling paint on the bar, fidgeting in a remarkably human manner. "You don't ever want to tell him how you feel?" Kelsey said eventually, sounding sad.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Dean has enough to deal with as it is." He looked up and met her gaze. "I promise I will heal you if you do this for me. I keep my word. You will have a long life."

"So you want to jump ship for a minute, use my body to kiss that hot guy, and heal me from my terminal brain condition," she summarized.

"That is correct."

"Sign me up," she said, smiling. She had a beautiful smile. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, like Dean's did.

"Thank you, Kelsey," he said earnestly, grasping her hands between his own and moving them up and down in a human gesture of gratefulness.

She smiled at him a moment before blinking in confusion. "Wait, I never told you my n—"

Just then, Dean returned to the bar, sliding into place beside Castiel. He did a double take, gave Cas's and Kelsey's hands an odd sort of glance, frowning, and then moved one shoulder in a half-shrug and smiled. "Having fun, Cas?" he said easily, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

"Your name is Cas?" Kelsey asked as the angel finally released her hands.

"Sure is!" Dean answered for him, giving the trenchcoated shoulder a familiar shake before pulling away. "Don't be fooled by his nerdy exterior. Guy's a tiger," he told Kelsey with a wink.

"I am not a tiger, Dean," Castiel said uncomprehendingly.

The bartender looked as if she was suppressing a laugh. "I'm sure he is," she said instead, though, bless her.

Dean gave a small chuckle. His laughter, his smiles came so easily around strangers, Castiel mused. It was fake emotion, forced reactions, but still nice to see and hear sometimes. "Well," he said, hopping off his barstool again, "I'm gonna check in with Sammy. We'll probably be heading out soon," he added. "So if you need to, uh..." He raised both eyebrows pointedly. "...exchange numbers, or whatever, better do it now."

"Okay, Dean," Castiel said simply as the hunter turned to find his brother.

"Did he just try to set us up?" Kelsey said once he was gone. "I don't know whether to be upset that he apparently forgot he was going to buy me a drink, or flattered that he thinks I'm good enough for you."

"Both," Castiel suggested. "Are you ready to let me in?"

"Kind of blunt, aren't you?" Kelsey grumbled, pushing a strand of dark hair behind one ear. "All right, Cas, I'm ready. My shift ended three minutes ago. But what about your, uh..." she snapped a few times, looking for the word. "Vessel?" she remembered, pointing.

Castiel blinked. He'd actually forgotten about that. Since Jimmy Novak was long dead, he'd thought of this body as more his own than that of a human. "I will store it somewhere safe," he assured her. He thought he could probably zap an empty shell somewhere discreetly.

She nodded. She was remarkably trusting, the angel mused, despite having a difficult life. Castiel liked her immensely.

"Okay," Castiel said, touching his index and middle fingers to both of her temples. "When you feel my Grace—"

"Your what?" she interrupted.

"My Grace; it's—it's kind of like an angelic soul," he explained quickly. "When you feel my Grace pushing against you, yield to it and let me in."

"I have no idea how to do that, but okay."

The angel closed his eyes and "jumped ship."

Jimmy Novak's body was something Castiel was used to. He was used to looking at things from Jimmy Novak's height, holding things in Jimmy Novak's hands, looking in the mirror and seeing Jimmy Novak's face looking back. So when he opened his (now hazel) eyes and was met with the sight of Jimmy Novak's body slumped over the bar, it felt...odd. Extremely odd. Castiel touched his (her?) vessel's forehead with two delicate fingers. Kelsey had painted her nails. They were sparkly and a muted pink. The male vessel disappeared from the bar (Castiel had stored him in a nearby hotel room for a few minutes), and if anyone noticed, they didn't react.

The angel could feel Kelsey's consciousness underneath his Grace, small and meek compared to the immovable mass of power that was Castiel. A pink sparkly finger was pressed to Kelsey's forehead, and Castiel felt the infirmity there healed instantly. Kelsey's soul thrummed happily, the joy pure and somehow familiar. She was doing remarkably well, containing him like this. Her body did not even seem to be under any stress from it.

Dean returned to the bar, Sam on his heels. Sam was wearing a satisfied smile—he'd won the pool game, no doubt. Castiel knew he didn't have much time if he was going to do this before the boys became suspicious about his whereabouts. He made his way out from behind the bar and approached Dean, who stopped short at seeing a person in his path.

"Hi, uh...I didn't get your—" he started, shifting a bit, but Castiel didn't want to tell him another person's name.

"Hello, Dean," he said, unable to help letting the phrase slip out, his voice coming out in a smooth alto. He grabbed the back of Dean's neck and crushed his (Kelsey's) soft mouth against Dean's.

Dean tasted like beer, which wasn't surprising. He also tasted like toothpaste, which was slightly more surprising. He felt solid and warm against Castiel's pressing hands. He felt like flannel and too many clothes.

Most of all, he felt like home.

The kiss only lasted for three or so seconds, but to Castiel it was simultaneously a blink of an eye and a lifetime. He couldn't ever remember having been this happy before, and his memory stretched back to before the Garden of Eden. The angel felt large hands on his soft arms, gently pushing him back. Obliging, Castiel released him and looked up at the man who meant everything to him.

"I'm sorry, I..." Dean said awkwardly, looking at Kelsey briefly before darting his eyes away. "You're really hot and all, but..." He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, glancing up at the ceiling as if searching for words there. "It's just, recently I've, uh, kind of realized..." A shadow of a wry smile flashed across his face. He cleared his throat, his green eyes meeting Kelsey's hazel. "I mean, there's someone else," he finally finished.

Castiel felt as though a giant balloon had been popped inside his chest. Which was a ridiculous (and anatomically impossible) thing to feel. He didn't say anything. He vaguely registered Sam in the background, raising his eyebrows at the proceedings.

Dean waited a few seconds for a response, but quickly realized he wasn't going to get one. He cleared his throat again and then swung his arms forward and clapped once as if to break the silence. "Welp," he said breezily. "Have you, uh, happened to see my friend? We need to head out. I take it you and he didn't work out, huh?" Dean chuckled, but his smile didn't reach his eyes.

Castiel had felt foolish many times in his life, so the sensation was not unfamiliar. It was still remarkably unpleasant, however. He felt shame trickling down through his entire body (Kelsey's entire body), like an egg cracked over his head. What had he thought would happen? What had he been hoping to gain from this? He suddenly couldn't remember anymore.

"Guess not," Dean answered himself awkwardly, looking around for an escape. "Well, I guess I'll check the bathroom. See you around!" he said quickly, then nodded to Sam. They made their way toward the restroom.

Kelsey's soul, reaching out to him hesitantly, was warm and soothing against his Grace, which felt bruised and dim. The soul hummed inside him reassuringly. She must have been able to sense what was going on, Castiel guessed. He sent a wave of gratitude through his Grace in response. It was nice of her to try, he thought, but nothing could comfort him right now.

He disappeared in a flutter of wings to pick up his vessel. Hopefully he could get to the bar's bathroom before Dean and Sam grew suspicious.

Things were quite awkward when Castiel was back in his familiar male vessel. Kelsey blinked and looked around at her surroundings. "Where are we?" she asked.

"Motel across the street," the angel answered shortly. He didn't trust himself to speak too much right now. "I trust you can find your way to wherever you need to go next from here?" he inquired, and she nodded. He turned to leave, but Kelsey's voice stopped him.

"Castiel?" she said, and he turned to face her, surprised. "Oh," she said, realizing what she'd just called him. "Sorry, I—I kind of...read it? From your Grace or whatever. It was weird," she added conversationally. "Anyway, I..." She twirled a strand of hair, the same color as dark chocolate, around her finger. "I'm sorry that didn't go the way you wanted it to," she finished in a small voice.

"You are healed," he said, ignoring her sympathy. "Thank you for assisting me."

"I should be thanking you," she pointed out, one half of her mouth raising in a small smile. He nodded in acknowledgement of her gratitude. She hesitated a second before looking up at him again. "What are you going to do now?"

"Let him go," Castiel replied simply, and turned to go again.

"Thank you again, Castiel," Kelsey said. "Really. And...for the record, you don't seem like a quitter to me."

The angel managed the smallest of smiles over his shoulder at her before vanishing in a rustling of wings.

A/N:

ACTUAL PLOT COMING UP NEXT CHAPTER

Also, for the purposes of this story, Cas can fly short distances because the Grace he stole was from an angel with not-completely-broken wings (or at least, I am saying Theo's wings weren't completely broken. Just go with it). The Grace IS still burning out though, so he's not going to be flying at all past this chapter.