Title: Lover I Don't Have To Love

Song: Lover I Don't Have To Love by Bright Eyes – Lifted, or The Story is in the Soil (album)

Warnings: Drinking, drugs, allusions to sex while drunk/high, self-destructive tendencies

Pairing/Characters: Castiel/female, Castiel/male, Dean/Castiel, Sam

Rating: M (to be safe)

Spoilers: Everything through the end of season 5, especially for "The End" episode 5x04.

Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural, CW and Kripke do. I don't own the Song " Lover I Don't Have To Love " it is owned by Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst.

A/N: Tried so hard to do something light hearted, but I was shuffling through the tracks I've selected for this series and this one just grabbed me. Also…really sorry I've been gone so long. Life has been weird and season 6 of this show has not inspired my writing like season 5 did.

This story takes place sometime after Castiel lost the rest of his grace and before the end of the world. Let's just pretend that those last 3 episodes took a month instead of days and Human!Cas had some time to play. I've got no cities in mind for the setting, but it could be any big city with a seedy club area.

Castiel made his way to the other side of the crowded bar, never noticing the way Dean restrained himself from following him and stopping him from talking to the woman who had been eyeing the former angel all evening.

The woman was blonde haired and beautiful, her violet eyes had locked onto his suited figure moments after he and the Winchester brothers walked in and Castiel couldn't deny his attraction. He was human now and the world was ending, why not have a little fun. That's what Dean would do right?

"Hi" the woman said as soon as he was close enough to hear her over the noise of the music and laughter in the room. "How are you tonight?"

"As well as can be expected" he answered and when he realized that had come out rather short he tacked on something that he thought Dean might say to a woman. "You've been watching me all night."

"You noticed?" she laughed.

"Yes, you have lovely eyes." He cast about for another compliment, because Dean had told him that women loved them. "I like your shoes" he said awkwardly. She laughed again at that and stood up.

"Come on, there is a lounge upstairs where we can get to know each other better." She pointed toward the stairs. "I'll follow you." He held her hand and pushed across the room to the stairs.

She ordered a bottle of wine and brought it to a table, Cas followed with the wine glasses. She kicked off the shoes that he had complimented and stretched her long legs out in front of her, tight jeans showcasing her long, lean legs. Cas could barely take his eyes off her to open the wine and pour a glass for each of them. He handed her a glass.

"I'm Cas, what's your name?"

"Do you have the time?" She accepted the glass with a smile and side-stepped the question.

"1 O'clock." Cas let her.

Time passed, wine flowed and eventually the bar tender let them know that the club was closing. The unnamed woman walked down the stairs with Cas and exited the club with the floods of other people. He had completely forgotten about Dean and Sam, but that was okay, because they had already left for their motel. Castiel just followed the woman, the way she had followed him up the stairs.

A block up the street and she was pinning him against the old brick of the warehouse district, her jeans pressing hard against his suit pants, hands all over him and tongue in his mouth. She wasn't interested in hearing when or if he had ever done this before, she just wanted to have him for now and he was willing to let her. She dragged him down the block to her car and shoved him into the backseat, climbing in on top of him and shutting the door.

It was the end of the world, he didn't want to love anyone. She wasn't looking to fall in love. It worked perfectly. They lay, gasping, the chilled air in the car causing goose bumps to appear on their skin. She shifted and he groaned as she brushed against him.

"That was good, but it could feel even better." She said to him. His eyebrow rose in disbelief.

"How?"

"There's this kid I know, he has some stuff that will blow your mind Cas. You got money?"

"Yeah, some."

"Then I got time to show you what his stuff can do." She pulled herself into the front seat. "He's usually out by the train tracks, he said he'd meet me there tonight…I think." She put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot, weaving a bit as she was certainly not sober yet.

They met the kid by the tracks, kid was right…he looked half of Dean's age, but he sold Cas a bag and the woman showed him what to do with it and he fucked her against the metal support of the train tracks that shook as the train ran by above them.

When they climaxed he nearly passed out and when the darkness cleared from his mind she was giggling vacantly and neither of them could remember where her car was parked. The stumbled messily up the stairs to the train stop and got on. Castiel would find the boys in the morning, for now he would keep following her.

Morning shed light on the bed in her apartment, she still didn't have a name and Cas couldn't bring himself to care. This was easy, this didn't hurt and he finally thought he understood Dean's obsession with leaving before things got complicated. Love wasn't necessary, love just complicated things. It didn't matter if you loved someone, they would still always leave you behind. Love didn't mean anything. This meant something, Castiel wasn't sure what, but the fast, dirty sex with a nameless woman as his cellphone rang with Dean's ringtone in his discarded pants pocket, this meant something.

Eventually he called Dean back and gave him an address to pick him up at. Dean was pissed and made no attempt to hide it, but Castiel wasn't sure why. After all, hadn't Dean done this same thing time and time again over the years? He was distracted from his thoughts by the woman dropping into his lap and taking the phone from him.

"One more for the road, sugar?"

Half an hour later Dean banged on the door for the fourth time.

"Cas! Sammy and I are leaving, if you are coming then get your ass downstairs!" The woman laughed and shoved Castiel to the door.

"It was fun, call me if you're ever back in town." She shoved a folded scrap of paper with her number on it into the pocket of his shirt and opened the door to shove him into the hall. Castiel hurried to catch up with Dean's retreating form, not sure what he had done to upset Dean, but not wanting to be left behind.

The woman was the first, but not the last time he found himself in the arms of a stranger. There were other cities, more women, and men, more drugs. He was losing his meaning, his sense of self and every time he tried to find it with another woman or man or drug, it just slipped away.

He occasionally heard Dean and Sam arguing about him, but most of it made little sense to him.

"Dammit Sam, this was what I was trying to stop. This is how he was when I saw him before!"

"In the future?"

"Yes, I didn't want that for him, but I can't seem to stop it from happening again."

"I don't know that you can."

"I can't just stop trying, I care about him Sammy."

"Why don't you tell him that."

He heard that through the wall as a nameless man shared his drug of choice with Castiel and fucked him in the motel bed. He left when they were done and Castiel was left to wonder what it would be like to have some meaning again, to love someone again…even if it would only end up hurting.

He woke up in the bed, covered with a blanket that he didn't remember pulling over himself. He rolled over and the crinkling of paper alerted him to the presence of a sheet of paper on the bed next to him. He picked it up and began to decipher Dean's chicken-scratch.

Cas,

Sammy and I have gone out for breakfast. Read this and think it over. We'll bring you something from the diner.

I should have said all of this a long time ago, maybe you wouldn't be so fucked up now if I had.

I care about you. Not like Sammy, not like Bobby, like…a lover. I'm not good with emotions, but I don't want to lie to you. I love you and it kills me to see what you are doing to yourself. It's worse than watching Sammy drink demon blood, worse than knowing my dad gave his life to hell to save me, worse than hearing that Bobby would never walk again. I would rather die than watch you kill yourself slowly day by day.

I know all of this hurts, but it doesn't have to be this way. Life isn't a storybook and sometimes love hurts, but sometimes it heals. Besides, if you're going to be hurt anyway, wouldn't you prefer it was from love?

Castiel re-read that note at least 10 times before he got up and locked himself in the bathroom.

When Dean opened the door to the motel room an hour later he was shoved against a wall by a freshly showered, shaved and, most importantly, sober Castiel who kissed him and then leaned his forehead onto Dean's shoulders, tears dampening the flannel shirt. He was repeating the same phrase over and over and it took a minute for Dean to understand the quiet words. He wrapped his arms around Castiel and held him as he whispered.

"Hurt me, hurt me. Please."

I picked you out
Of a crowd and talked to you
Said I liked your shoes
You said "Thanks, can I follow you?"
So it's up the stairs
And out of view, no prying eyes
I poured some wine
I asked your name
You asked the time

Now it's two o'clock
The club is closed, we're up the block
Your hands on me
Pressing hard against your jeans
Your tongue in my mouth
Trying to keep the words from coming out
You didn't care to know
Who else may have been you before

I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a girl who's too sad to give a fuck
Yeah, where's the kid with the chemicals?
I thought he said he'd meet me here but I'm not sure
I got the money if you got the time
You said, "It feels good"
I said, "I'll give it a try"

Then my mind went dark
We both forgot where your car was parked
Let's just take the train
I'll meet up with the band in the morning

Bad actors with bad habits
Some sad singers
They just play tragic
And the phone's ringing
And the van's leaving
Let's just keep touching
Let's just keep keep, keep singing

I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk
Yeah, where's the kid with the chemicals
I got a hunger and I can't seem to get full

I need some meaning I can memorize
The kind I have always seems to slip my mind

But you, but you
You write such pretty words
But life's no storybook
Love's an excuse to get hurt
And to hurt
Do you like to hurt?
I do, I do
Then hurt me