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There was a time—long before Castiel realized he was the human embodiment of a pothole (annoying, unnecessary; a crumbling thing that needs to be smoothed over, and once it is, people rejoice)— that he could have thought he was mildly attractive. Sure, the perpetually messy hair was somewhat annoying, but he had striking blue eyes and full lips, and of course the pale skin that refused to tan but for some reason loved to burn was off-putting, but it seemed to compliment his dark hair in a way that worked for him.
There was a time—before his mother died and his father began to drink—that Castiel Novak believed he was worth something. That if he was ever kidnapped, he would be at least worth the ransom his parents would be forced to pay. But that was before he learned to hate his own skin, and that was before he realized it would just save everyone a lot of trouble if they left him to die with his kidnapper.
There was a time—before he was riddled with night terrors, vicious enough for him to give up on sleeping altogether—that Castiel would be able to take Dean’s teasing in stride, and throw something back as easily as breathing. But after his realization that he was worth nothing, even the slightest mention of the dark bruises under his eyes or his always-messy hair or the fact that “It’s been a while since I saw you eat, buddy,” he was sent reeling. Castiel’s eyes would itch with unshed tears and the scabs under his sleeves would burn and he shrank into his baggy hoodie until he was sure no one could see him. He was convinced that if he lived through high school like this, after it was over, he could float away and no one would notice.
Except he knew that was bullshit, because at least one person would notice. Dean would notice. Really, it was the only reason he was hanging on now. Dean would blame himself, and Castiel couldn’t deal with that. So he hang on. Sometimes his fingers slipped in the process of holding on, and his forearm ran red with blood he knew he knew he shouldn’t shed; but it felt like escaping. For a moment, he could pretend the cuts were enough to kill him. And for a moment, Castiel would smile.
A knock would come at his door, and he would be forced to pull his sleeve down and stand on shaking legs, pretending he couldn’t feel a warm liquid soaking through the fabric of his sleeve, and like he couldn’t identify the warm liquid in the first place.
Dean noticed. He noticed too much. He saw how skinny Cas was getting, and how the dark circles under his eyes only ever got darker. He noticed how Cas’ wardrobe started to only consist of hoodies that hid his body and skinny jeans that—despite the fact that they were skinny jeans—were still baggy, and still hung off his hips (which now jutted out, too sharp not to be sick).
It wasn’t that Dean hadn’t seen skinny people before. He knew there were people who just couldn’t help it; that ate like animals but remained at a weight that seemed unhealthy. But this was different, because he hadn’t witnessed Cas put a single morsel of food in his mouth within the last few months.
Dean noticed everything, and didn’t say a word. He justified it by telling himself that Cas was just in the grieving process. His mom had died not too long ago, and eventually he would get better. Dean was proven wrong, though, when months more passed and Cas hadn’t improved by an inch, much less a mile.
There were things Dean ignored—mostly because he was certain they were just his imagination—but he was becoming more and more suspicious.
Eventually, one day, one of Cas’ sleeves rode up and Dean saw everything he had been denying to himself. Scars and fresh cuts, lacing up Cas’ pale arm and under the sleeve, proving there was more that Dean couldn’t see. When Dean got up and fled to the bathroom to get sick, Cas looked worried, but when Dean shook his head (face bleached of color and eyes clouded with white spots), Cas let it be.
Dean didn’t know what to do. Cas and he had been friends for God knows how long. He had never expected… Cas had never been that sad before this. Perhaps Dean really had underestimated how bad life at home was for the young Novak. By a shitload.
When he got alone, he put his head between his knees and swallowed down the knot in his throat. He was the shittiest friend alive. He had ignored things for too long, let things get too bad, and now—now Cas was hurting himself. “This is not supposed to happen,” he whispered to himself, refusing to allow any tears to leak out of his eyes.
When he had calmed himself down enough to think rationally, he still had no fucking clue what to do.
—
They were alone—Dean and Castiel—in the Novak’s room when Dean said it. He looked over at Castiel, who was sketching something lightly on the back of a scrap piece of paper (if Dean had looked hard enough, he would have seen it was his own mouth, stretched wide in a grin), when he noticed it. Castiel was beautiful. Even so shrunken, so shattered, Castiel was breathtaking. And without making a single thought, he voiced his opinion. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered breathlessly, and Castiel immediately stopped sketching, his pencil halting mid-stroke.
Dean blushed furiously, half-expecting Cas to ask him to repeat himself, but instead there was a long silence where Castiel stared hard at his drawing, and began to near-imperceptibly tremble. Dean noticed him trembling, though. Dean noticed everything—and this time, God help him, he was going to say something.
“No I’m not,” Castiel whispered, still staring intensely at his drawing.
This time it was Dean’s turn to still; because Cas was so full of shit. He was ridiculously beautiful, and just because it had taken him this long to get punched in the stomach with the fact didn’t mean he had never noticed it before. “What the fuck, Cas?” Dean asked incredulously.
Castiel flinched, dropping his head low and pushing the things off his lap and onto the floor, where they were both seated, backs against the bed.
Dean wet his lips and reached out to take Cas’ chin between his forefinger and thumb, turning his head to look at him and softening his voice. “Yeah, Cas, you are. You… You’re really beautiful,” he admitted, ignoring the way his cheeks heated at the words.
Castiel huffed out a mirthless laugh, ripping his chin from Dean’s fingers and looking forward, staring at the wall directly in front of him. “No, Dean, I’m not. I’m… I’m too broken to be beautiful.”
The last words were so quiet, Dean wasn’t really sure if he had heard them or not. But it was then that some fact popped into his head—something that Sammy or told him or that he had read on the internet or learned at school—and before he could stop himself, the words were spurting out of his mouth.
“You know, Cas, there’s this—Chinese? I’m going to say Chinese—tradition. It’s pretty ancient.” He added I think, in his head. “A clay bowl is made and painted—beautiful, perfect. But once the bowl breaks—because everyone knows it will—they glue it back together with melted gold, and it becomes even more beautiful than it was before. And every time it breaks, they do the same thing.
“It would have been beautiful without it being broken,” Dean explained, getting to the point, “but the fact that it is doesn’t make it less valuable. In fact, in this case, it makes it more valuable; and in this case, it makes it even more beautiful.” He swallowed once before adding, “While the last statement may not be true for humans, the first is. And it definitely is for you. Just because your broken doesn’t make you less beautiful. You’re still as beautiful as you’ve always been, and nothing you can say will change my mind.”
“Kintsungi,” Cas murmured quietly, turning his gaze to Dean’s.
Dean raised one eyebrow. “Gesundheit.”
Cas bore the closest semblance to a smile that Dean had seen on his face in ages. “No,” he explained, “it’s called kintsungi. And it’s an ancient Japanese tradition, not Chinese.”
Dean nearly threw his hands in the air, because of course Cas knew more about this subject than Dean. But if proving Dean wrong is the only thing that can make him smile, Dean would make mistakes all day. But instead of throwing his hands in the air like he was so tempted to do, Dean leaned forward and pressed a warm kiss into the corner of Cas’ lips, causing him to jump. When Dean pulled away a little, Cas actually looked scared of losing the moment, threading his fingers into Dean's hair and pulling him close again, pressing his lips to Dean’s in a needy kiss.
They remained kissing without moving from their position, despite the awkwardness of it and the fact that Cas’ hips were starting to scream in protest. Dean licked into Cas’ mouth, and a shattered whimper rose from the back of the shorter boy’s throat. Eventually, Dean was the one to pull back, a lazy smile on his face (that stretched into the kind of grin Castiel had been drawing when he saw that Castiel’s face mirrored his).
“Kintsungi?” Dean whispered, and despite the odd vowels in his mouth, the foreign word on Dean’s tongue had such an inflection behind it that it sounded much more like “I love you,” than anything else.
Castiel’s eyes sparked a blue flame—the kind that Dean had loved to see before they had dulled, and he gave a broken smile (which was on the verge of repairing itself) before replying, “Kintsungi.”