omg I actually finished something I started writing ack you have no idea how many times I've started to write something and then ended up scrapping it ugh
anyway this one shot is based off of an rp I'm having with queendestiel and it's a cYBORG!CAS AND MECHANIC'S SON!DEAN AU itS GREAT I just don't know if I did it justice though rip
and the song in the description is Halsey because I'm in love with her bye
(on another random note I saw Finding Neverland on a trip to NYC with my school the other day and across from the theatre was tHE THEATRE THAT SHOWS HAMILTON I SCREAMED ON THE BUS IDNSKSNS anyway enough of my strange tendencies lmao)
****************
Castiel's whole world was filled with mechanical whirls, clanking cogs, and whirring, tangled up wires. But the thing is, most of those mechanisms made Castiel who he was. He would simply be some spare parts and random coding if it wasn't for John Winchester, the man who programmed him.
He may not have learned much, but he learned enough of what he needed to. Firstly, everything was made for a reason, as a small part of a whole to help a greater cause. And also, he was created to help the humans, just like the rest of his "family," or the other cyborgs like him. The others weren't as closely associated with them, but Castiel was. Especially the mechanic's son, Dean.
Castiel had human parts, of course, but he wasn't fully human. The people at the marketplace where he and Dean would run errands definitely reminded him of it. Yet he still saw Castiel in a way that no one else did. Instead of seeing the silicon eyes and mechanical smile, he saw sparkling blue eyes and a soft, pink mouth. Dean made Castiel feel human, even if he wasn't so. Then again, out of all of the human organs that he contained, he didn't have a real heart. So how was he supposed to know how he felt?
Dean had unplugged Castiel from his charging socket that night, requesting for his company. When the cyborg had asked where he was needed, he had simply smiled and said that it was a surprise. So Castiel had resorted to following him down the halls, towards an area that he had never been to before. A clear glass elevator was waiting for them at the end of the dim hallway.
"Where are we going?" Castiel asked, tilting his head confusedly.
Dean turned his head towards him just as he had typed a passcode into the elevator, the glass sliding open as a grin was on his face. "It's a surprise. You'll see."
Castiel's curiosity was overwhelming him as he stepped into the elevator, right next to Dean. Their arms brushed together momentarily as they moved a bit so that they were facing each other. Dean pressed a single button on the dashboard, and they zoomed upwards.
Castiel looked up, his eyes fixated on the way that the end of the elevator's path was a gaping hole, open to the outside. "I've never been here before."
The mechanic's son adjusted himself a bit, his smile still on his face. "Yeah, there's no work to be done here. I just think this would be nice for a change." The elevator stopped moving, and Castiel saw that they were outside. The glass door slid open, and Dean walked out, beckoning the cyborg to follow him. Castiel looked around in wonder as he realized that they were on the roof, and the night air was blowing around them. He only went outside if he needed to go on a run for parts with Dean, and it was always in the daytime. But the night had to be his favorite, the moon shining brightly and stars twinkling above them. He was so mesmerized by the sight that he hadn't noticed Dean clearing his throat.
"You can sit down if you want," he smiled, patting the place next to him. The cyborg settled himself down on the shingles of the roof, his eyes still fixated on the sky. "Beautiful, isn't it?"
He nodded. "Yes." Castiel looked over at Dean, and the light of the moon was reflected in his eyes, causing his brilliant green eyes to have a heavenly glow.
Dean leaned back on his hands, stretching his legs out ahead of him. "I don't tell people about this place other than Sam. He usually gets bored coming here, though." Castiel smiled softly at him, hugging his knees to his chest.
"I'm glad that I can be one of the select few who comes here with you," said the cyborg, staring up at the moon that seemed so close yet so far away. 230,100 miles away, according to his database. While the rooftop seemed lonely, he noticed that it gave the two of them a sense of security and secrecy. No one had to know that they were up there. He sighed, glancing down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them and feeling his inner mechanisms working with every movement he made. He was not human. He would never be human. But his every cog and coil told him that he could trust the mechanic's son. "Dean... I think there's something wrong with me."
His head snapped towards him immediately, and his eyes were shining with worry as he sat up. "Mechanically wrong? I can fix that right now if you'd like."
Castiel shook his head, hugging his knees even closer to his chest. "I-I don't know. It could be a glitch or something, or a fault." He folded his legs underneath him as Dean came closer.
He gently cupped his hands around his face, looking into his eyes and observing for any visible problems. "How do you know you have a problem, Cas?"
Castiel's steady breath hitched as Dean's hands skimmed across his control panel at the back of his head, within the curls of his hair. All of the Winchesters had worked on his control panel before, but there was always a different way that Castiel's gears worked when he was around Dean. "I'm... I'm not supposed to think these things, Dean. It's not normal for a cyborg to do so. We're... We're just made to help you from afar. We were never meant to get this close to a human."
His hands rested on his cheeks, and Castiel found himself mesmerized by the moonbeams in Dean's eyes. "What are you thinking about that makes you think there's something wrong with you?"
His voice was impossibly low and quiet, even though there was no one around them to hear. Castiel knew that if he could, he'd be blushing. "I don't know if I should say." Dean's green eyes sparkled as a smile appeared on his face. "Some of them concern you."
The corner of his eyes crinkled as his grin grew wider. "All good, I hope?" Castiel couldn't fathom how soft his voice had gotten within a span of a couple minutes.
A grin grew on his face as well. "Of course. At least... To me, they are. I don't know how you'd react if I voiced them aloud."
Dean adjusted himself slightly, sitting up straighter as his hands were still on the cyborg's face. "Maybe you do have a glitch. But I don't know if it's a bad thing." He tilted his head again in confusion again, causing Dean to laugh. "You have skin, hair, eyes, all the other crap that humans have. Why does it matter if you don't fit the social norm?"
Castiel's gaze fell. "I don't fit in with the other cyborgs. And... I'm not truly human. I'm a cyborg, a machine. I don't even have a heart. I shouldn't feel anything, let alone have this sense of free will." If he could, he knew he'd be crying or doing something equivalent to sadness.
"I don't think it matters what you are. It only matters what you choose to do," he said, but then let out a bark of laughter. "Now I sound like I'm quoting a book or something."
"What if it's wrong? What if I'm wrong?" Castiel asked. "Human emotions are already so complicated."
Dean smiled at him softly. "You just have to trust yourself, I guess." His fingers gently curled into the cyborg's hair as Castiel nearly ceased breathing. It seemed as though Dean had stopped too, or maybe everything had stopped. The city underneath them stopped bustling about, the moon stopped revolving around the earth, and the stars stopped revolving around the North Star.
"Can... Can I kiss you?" The cyborg hated how blatant it sounded, and knew that it wasn't even in his engineering to know how to kiss someone. Yet it felt right anyway, and Dean had said that he should trust himself. All he had to do was take the plunge. Before his systems could compute it, the mechanic's son filled the space in between them and his soft lips pressed against the cyborg's.
His blue eyes were wide open as he felt Dean's lips on his. Were his systems going to shut down? Was he going to short circuit? He had no idea. All that processed in Castiel's wires was that he needed to kiss him back. His hands rested on his chest as he smiled against his mouth, his eyes sliding closed.
"Was that one of the things you were thinking of?" Dean asked once he had gently separated from him.
Castiel finally grinned at him, his gears gradually returning to normal function. He nodded vigorously, and Dean's laugh was carried across the wind. "I may not be programmed to love, Dean. But I... I have the deepest regard for you."
The mechanic's son smiled brightly at the cyborg, and Castiel realized that the luminosity of all the billions of stars in the sky could not match the brightness of his smile. "I have the deepest regard for you as well, Cas."
Their lips met again, and Castiel saw the cogs fitting together and making a whole. He and Dean were intertwined cogs, pulling away yet coming together all at the same time. And while a coding error or glitch was causing him to care so deeply for Dean, he realized that he was right. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. It might as well have taught him about the most important, strongest human emotion ever felt, even by a cyborg.
Love.