Title: Souvenirs

Author: Sparkle Itamashii

Souvenirs

The first scar Castiel receives as a human never even bleeds. Pale, pink, raw, it is a mirrored pair of starbursts where his wings should have connected to his back. They are sensitive and Casitel is sensitive about them, so neither of the boys breathe a word of question. Dean just helps the Fallen angel to his feet and Sam brings him borrowed clothes so they can drive home. Casitel's eyes stay riveted to the clear, blue sky above for the entire ride, and Dean thinks maybe there are more scars than the ones on his friend's skin.

Castiel's second scar comes from cooking. More specifically, Dean assumes that Castiel will be okay to stand and chop vegetables for stew unsupervised, and Dean is wrong. Somewhere between the carrots and the potatoes, Castiel manages to sink the paring knife into the skin of his thumb, and it is several minutes before Dean notices the mess Castiel is making and stops him. When he asks why Castiel didn't stop or at least say something, Castiel stares at the wound as if being injured is a completely foreign concept. "It's not healing," he says, like it should be, and Dean thinks maybe it is a foreign concept to a creature who used to heal fatal wounds as easily as breathing. Dean butterfly bandages the cut and Cas sits to watch him finish making dinner.

The third scar is less surprising and comes when Castiel is shaving with Dean's razor. He is distracted, thinking about how he will need to begin to acquire objects of his own soon, because he cannot borrow from the Winchesters forever, even if both brothers constantly assure him it is fine. Castiel is not good at leaning on others for support and having fallen from Grace hasn't changed that. So when he nicks his jaw nice and deep with the razor, he rinses it off and patches it up with bandages he finds beneath the sink. It heals into a tiny triangle that Dean's fingers later always seem to find as they kiss.

The fourth and fifth come together on a hunt, and they very nearly remove Castiel from existence. The first bullet lodges in his scapula but the second slips between two ribs and should be what kills him. The doctors pull Dean aside at the hospital with that tiny clear plastic cup, two lumps of misshapen lead clunking together in the bottom, and tell him Castiel will live. That is the moment Dean admits to himself that his chest hasn't been in knots because Castiel is just a friend.

The sixth no one remembers Castiel earning, although Dean suspects that Castiel just doesn't want to say. He suspects it has to do with building the beehives out behind the cabin and Dean has his guesses about which sharp tool was the culprit judging by the cut of the raised, pink flesh along the edge of Castiel's palm. When he asks, Castiel stares at the scar for a long moment, and then shrugs. "This body is more fragile than I assumed," is his only comment. Dean doesn't ask again.

By the seventh, Castiel isn't surprised anymore that his body doesn't heal itself as fast as he thinks it should. It's a stupid scar to have, he thinks. He barks his shin on a piece of furniture in a house that doesn't belong to them, in the middle of a night where flashlights might get them killed. It bleeds through his new jeans before they are finished with the hunt, and Dean and Sam both heckle him for it with grins and shoulder slaps afterward, though that night Sam teaches him how to get bloodstains out of fabric. Castiel likes the thump-thump the washing machine makes as it works, and Dean has to retrieve him from where he falls asleep listening to it.

Dean traces the eighth every night with his fingers, even in the dark of their room, because he blames himself. Sometimes Castiel thinks it was Dean's fault, but he'd never say that to Dean and he doesn't blame him for it anyway. Mistakes happen, and they both know it. That doesn't stop Dean from apologizing with soft fingertips on Castiel's chest over the lines of the sigil and whispers into the curve of his neck. Forgiveness is the curl of Castiel's fingers into Dean's hair, the press of his lips to Dean's temple. Castiel survived, and he will gladly pay a new pattern on his skin if it means Dean is alive beside him.

The ninth is not really a scar, not by regular human standards, but Castiel argues that a tattoo is a permanent mark sewn into his skin with blood and ink, so it counts. Dean can see it's Important, so he doesn't argue when Castiel presses the Polaroid photo into the palm of the artist. The girl raises a pierced eyebrow at Dean, who only shrugs helplessly because he can no more explain to her why Castiel wants the D.W. from Baby's backseat carved into his skin any more than he can explain Castiel's chosen location for it. "Just do it," Dean tells her, and in two weeks when it's healed, he'll discover how much he enjoys the heady rush of possessiveness that courses through him when he brushes his thumb over the jut of Castiel's hip, branded with his initials.

The tenth is a new sort of scar, a burn to his hands that demonstrates why humans use oven mitts to reach into ovens to retrieve pie. Sam comes running when he hears Castiel shout, only to find Castiel on his knees beside a puddle of crust and cinnamon-apple goo, gaping at his hands. Even from across the room Sam can see the angry, red welts forming, and he makes Castiel run his hands under cold water for fifteen minutes before they dig out aloe and bandages. It is the first time Sam has ever seen Castiel cry and it's unnerving for them both. Castiel is less upset about having burned off his fingerprints for a year than he is about ruining the pie, and he says as much to Sam. They bake another together, and when Dean gets home he clasps Castiel's bandaged hands between his own and tells Castiel to please be more careful because he loves him more than pie. Castiel smiles and thinks that sometimes it feels like every new scar on his outside works to heal one left on his inside, and that if it means he gets to hear Dean say those words, then maybe being human isn't so bad after all.