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Chapter Text

It hadn't even been five hours, and Dean already missed his mom and wished he was back home with her, preparing lunch; probably barbequing some hotdogs on the patio while music carried itself outside through the kitchen window. And he would be, should have been, were there anything more of their old home remaining than its charred, blackened shell – were Mary still alive. Had she not gone upstairs when the fire started to rescue Dean's newborn baby brother, had she not been trapped in his nursery and succumbed along with Sam to the smoke before the fire fighters could reach them.

Instead, he sat in the swamping front seat of an unfamiliar car beside his dad, silence filling the space on the bench between them as they each kept their gazes fixed outside – John on the road ahead of them, Dean on the passing trees on the side of the road. The summer sun shone on them through the windshield and open windows, close to uncomfortably hot even with the air rushing in and blowing on them from outside. It was nothing compared to the flames Dean had been witness to early that morning, and at the thought he clenched his fists in the pouch of his hoodie and turned his head more towards the side of the road, hoping to hide his face so that his father wouldn't be able to see the tears that threatened to fall from his stinging eyes, still sore from the drying heat of the flames.

None fell, but as the car followed a turn in the road the sound of the engine, never ending though quiet, was slowly building to a crescendo in Dean's ears in time with his heart. Coupled with the vibration, jarring in Dean's seat and slightly off-beat from the tempo running and now accelerating in his head, Dean began to suddenly sweat profusely on his face, the back of his neck, and under his hoodie. He felt that he needed to get up, to move around, to breathe, to cool down now, to get down on his knees on the ground after running and tell the world to stop. Everything.

Before his thoughts could progress any further the sound of the engine changed, the car decelerating on an unassuming, straight stretch of road. The trees were quite close to the pavement, no fences in sight, the shoulder narrow to non-existent. The turn in the road had moved Dean out of sunlight, but instead of helping, the change in temperature made him feel even hotter.

The car had slowed to something above a crawl by the time it turned into the trees, bringing into view a straight, clear path that was slightly wider than the car and looked to lead deep into the forest. The temperature of the air coming in through the windows dropped another degree or two once they were off the road and out of the sun completely, and it was enough of a change to help Dean, who straightened in his seat to shake out the wet back of his hoodie and tshirt and unstick them from his skin. He shifted slightly before leaning back again, keeping the bottom of his back off the back of the seat and stretching some of his stiff muscles in the process. He was still tense and antsy and needed out, but now that the heat was less stifling he didn't feel that he might act out before being alone.

Outside, the dirt under the wheels was smooth, or even enough that the tires and suspension covered for any dips or holes that they ran over; the tree trunks were narrow, but the foliage up high was thick enough to dim the sun's light to a glow in all but a few places, where thin direct beams shone straight to the forest floor. After about a minute of steady travel the clear path through the trees that the road consisted of came to an end, several trees blocking their progress further. The car jerked slightly as the brakes were applied to bring it to a stop, the engine allowed to idle for several seconds before Dean's father reached down and switched off the ignition, pulling the keys out and putting them in the right pocket of his large leather jacket.

He reached back after opening the driver's side door to grab the bag full of new clothes for Dean from the backseat, pulling it up over the front seat to sit halfway on his legs. As he turned back he caught Dean's eyes, and motioned for him to get out of the car before doing so himself on his side. A beat passed before Dean did as he was told, pushing his door open carefully with two hands and stepping out gingerly, then focusing intently on closing the door, again using two hands. His father had already started to walk, following the same direction into the forest as the road had been bringing them. Dean jogged slightly to catch up, then kept half a step behind as they moved over the flat, bare ground.

Close to a minute later a building came into sight ahead of them and slightly to the right, the outside made of wood much darker than that of the surrounding trees – but in the shade of the forest it didn't look out of place. They angled their course towards the cabin, and John led Dean up the steps to the only door, putting his hand in his pocket to grab his keyring again to unlock it. Once the door was unlocked he pushed it open and stepped inside first, the door and stairs leading up to it too narrow for two people to stand on side by side, and held the door open for Dean. Dean climbed the last couple of steps then went inside, his dad allowing the door to swing shut behind Dean of its own accord, causing a loud, bare wood-on-wood slam. Dean flinched at the sudden, sharp sound, but his father had already turned around and didn't notice.

He looked at the closed door for a couple of moments before following his father further inside.

Four years later

Dean shifted on the flat rock surface he was sitting on as he looked out at the water, colored yellow and orange by the rising sun. He swung his legs where they were dangling over the edge, flicking his heel on the vertical rock surface as he looked down at the water below, some dust falling from where his foot had dislodged it and floating the fifty or so feet down to the lightly rippling water lapping against the rocky cliffside.

The birds were loud above him, their songs slightly irritating, but familiar. There was less than a breath of wind right now, but it was sure to pick up later in the day. It certainly wasn't enough to deter the bugs, though they mostly left Dean alone.

When the colors of the sky faded to nothing more than yellow and blue, Dean lifted his legs back up onto the rocks and scooted over to where his shoes lay a few feet away. He didn't like wearing them and preferred not to, but he had cut his foot several days before on a clam while swimming, and he needed the boots to keep the cut clean. So it was with clumsy fingers that he did the laces up before standing, casting a final glance backwards at the water before he shifted his focus to the forest and started along the familiar path home.

His father wasn't there when he arrived back at the cabin – Dean hadn't heard him come in the night before, so he might not have come home at all. Sometimes he had to hunt through the night, and other times it was easier to just camp near a job rather than drive all the way to the cabin and then back the next morning. Either way it meant that, as usual, Dean was on his own for breakfast.

He took his time making food, nothing else lined up for the day. He sat down at the table once it was all done and set out on his plate, then ate slowly, meticulously cutting everything into equal-sized pieces. After he finished he cleaned up the kitchen, drying all the dishes and returning everything to its place before setting his attention outside again. The sky was still blue through the trees' branches and leaves, and he could make out a couple of very small puffy white clouds.

It would be a nice day, and it probably wouldn't get overly warm. Dean didn't discard his flannel shirt as he walked to the door to put his boots back on, as the morning chill wouldn't burn off inside the forest for some time yet. Once outside he stretched, putting his arms high above his head, his tshirt riding up slightly on his stomach as he did so. Not that it mattered – there was no one else around for at least a mile and a half in any direction. Probably more, since Dean knew well that the houses on either side of his father's property were empty and, for all intents and purposes, abandoned.

Early on, when he'd first come across the houses in his exploration of the forest, he'd asked his dad about them when he'd gotten home from a hunt later that week, asking if the people that lived there would be back soon. His father had told him that none of the property owners within a dozen miles had visited for years, the places left to fall into disrepair against the area's regularly intense weather. Even so, Dean never strayed all that far from home now, preferring to remain within the part of the forest he'd come to know as well as the weather patterns or how to make a honking noise with the flat grass blades that grew a little ways along the shoreline from his rocks.

Dean swung his arms back and forth a bit, itching to use them for something. He decided to find a tree to climb, and started to walk back towards the water, veering left so that when he reached the water he'd be in a spot with good climbing trees.

Only the trees along the edge of the forest could be climbed; those in the forest were bare except for at the very top, and the branches there were thin and too weak to put a load on. He'd climbed them anyway, once, having found two trees that were close enough together that he could support his weight on both trunks to make his way up. He nearly fell several times, especially when he was trying to get down, and when he realized that there would be nothing to break his fall he almost collapsed in panic. Needless to say he'd never tried that again, and had stuck to climbing trees by the water since.

At the forest's edge were a number of pine trees, which were Dean's favorite for climbing – the layers of branches around the trunk made for an easy and generally predictable path, especially compared to the random sprouting pattern of most of the other trees. His path had brought him fairly close to the rocks where he normally swam and sat, but he knew that there was a very large white pine a little further to the left, so he continued in that direction, staying left of the trees that were on the border of the forest. For the most part there was enough space between the trunks, the branches, and the abrupt drop-off down to the water, but Dean didn't like being that close to the edge when he wasn't planning on swimming. Just seeing the length of the drop in his periphery made his chest and throat tighten, and he knew that the water below was shallow – too shallow to break a fall.

It was mid-morning when he reached the tree he'd had in mind and started to climb. A fair amount of sunlight made it in through the tree's branches, but it made for a pleasant temperature when combined with the surrounding air. Dean enjoyed the exertion of pulling himself up the tree one branch layer at a time, sometimes circling the trunk by stepping on each branch that made up that level. A few times he had to jump up a bit to reach the next branch, or walk out from the trunk a ways to get access to a branch that wasn't too big around for him to grip and climb, but doing so didn't feel dangerous: just fun in a subdued, detached sort of way.

Three-quarters of the way up the tree he stopped climbing. By that point the branches were getting too close together, not to mention thin, and he knew from experience that climbing further wasn't enjoyable. They were thick and close together enough, however, that Dean could lie down along several of them at a right angle without fear of falling, which was what he did on the sunward side of the trunk. Lying on tree branches was relaxing, at least at first – eventually the pressure would stop being pleasant and would get slightly painful. This didn't happen before Dean dozed off, and wasn't enough to wake him.

Dean was woken later by the wind, which had picked up considerably as predicted. He could feel the up and down, back and forth movement of the branches beneath his body as they swayed under the force of the moving air. He rolled over on his side, towards the trunk, and allowed feeling to come back to the parts of his body that had been pressing against the bark for several hours now – a quick glance at the sun's position showed that it was almost midday. Dean's stomach felt solidly empty, so it wasn't rumbling and hunger wasn't a pressing urgence yet, but he decided to go back to the cabin anyway to have lunch.

Climbing down the tree was slower going and not quite as fun as climbing; lowering his body down each branch, hanging above the branch below, occasionally having to drop up to a foot to the next level down – it sometimes felt as if his heart was in his throat. It made him wish again that he didn't have to wear his boots, as being able to feel the wood directly beneath his feet when he landed made getting his balance easier and less frightening. As it was he made it back down to the ground without incident, and started through the forest towards the cabin.

A deep, choppy, mechanical rumble caught Dean's attention as he walked – over the sounds of the wind, trees, and birds he could hear the distant sound of a truck. This was not altogether unusual, as sometimes trucks used the road that ran along the back of the property, but what had Dean's focus now was the location of the truck. Instead of being somewhere ahead of him, driving down the road, it sounded like it was off to his left and not moving. Dean's pace slowed, but he kept on his path to the cabin as he considered the sound and tried to glean more information from it. By the time he reached the cabin the truck hadn't moved, but had been shut off; which meant that it was still in the forest and hadn't gone back out to the road. Dean stopped a few feet away from the cabin steps, considering – then made a decision and walked around the building to head towards where the sound had been coming from.

It had sounded like the truck was just road-side of the house on the property to the right of Dean's father's. He didn't go over there much – the forest floor by it was littered with fallen leaves, trees, pine needles, rocks, moss, and branches, which weren't pleasant for Dean to walk on when he was barefoot. There were some clearings without trees, but those didn't hold much interest for him, nor did the house itself – two floors with a tall, slopping roof, dirty, plastic white walls with oddly intact painted blue trim, a screened-in porch around the door on the side of the house facing the lake, and an uncovered wooden porch in front of the road-side door. The door to the screened-in porch was unlocked, as Dean had found out when he'd first come across the place, but both doors leading into the building itself were locked and deadbolted. He'd used the porch as shelter once, when he'd been caught in the middle of the forest when it started to rain, back before he'd learned the clouds and weather patterns. All of the windows were too high off the ground for Dean to see in through, even after his growth spurt, and the siding of the building couldn't be scaled. To Dean the house was nothing more than a useless, permanent fixture of the forest, much like the trees he couldn't climb.

Not being intimately familiar with the forest in that direction, Dean had to tread carefully while keeping oriented with where he'd heard the truck, the density of trees thickening slightly as he went. He was thankful that he had his boots on, because he didn't have to worry about his footing and what he was stepping on once he reached the part of the forest where the floor was covered with debris.

A couple of minutes later he could see the clearing with the house through the trees – enough sunlight reached them there for the trees on the edge and in slightly to have branches down to the lower levels, though most hadn't been thick enough for climbing the last time Dean had been by. The white of the house stood out against the otherwise dark colors of the forest, even in the blinding sunlight, as did the white sides of the long, large truck that was parked on the straight, rocky stretch of ground that was meant to be the driveway, but was mostly overgrown with grass, moss, and weeds.

Approaching the clearing slowly, staying where the leaves and branches were thick and now cursing his loud, clumsy boots, he could hear more sounds: the squeak of windows being opened, a door with a storm closer closing, boots like his own stomping about on hard, unnatural flooring, and a car crunching rocks underneath its tires as it drove up around the truck and stopped in the shade of the trees close to where Dean was still advancing, watching. The car was white, whiter and cleaner than the house, and small like his mother's car had been. It was quite similar to his mom's, in fact, and he hastened closer, stepping around the tree he'd been behind and trying to see the name of the car model on the trunk over the branches in his way.

The car's front passenger-side door opened, and a woman stepped out. Dean automatically turned his head at the noise, and his eyes met the woman's. All he noticed about her was that she was a few inches shorter than him, with short, cropped dark hair, before she was screaming.

Dean was pretty sure she was saying something – words, not just senseless screaming in terror like in the movies he used to watch – but he couldn't tell what, couldn't latch on to any of it, and the shock and sudden volume of her voice had him falling several steps backwards into the branches of a tree behind him, only just saving himself from falling over. His arms started shaking, and his knees felt weak. His body felt heavy and wasn't responding to his demands to run, run, run as the woman continued to shriek at him. Another car door opened, this one the back seat door closest to Dean. Inside he saw a boy, who when he stepped out was about Dean's height, maybe slightly taller, with dark hair as well and blue eyes that glowed even in the shade of the trees. Dean met his eyes and then his body finally responded, stumbling over his own legs to turn away from the house and cars and screaming and people, and ran.

The woman's screams faded to loud talking, and then stopped as he tuned them out and got farther away. He almost fell several times, either from his boots catching in the underbrush, from the general clunkiness of his boots, or from his body not properly obeying his instructions. He couldn't feel his legs, it felt like he was running on air, his legs made of air themselves; his heart hammered in his chest, and his throat was tight even though his breathing wasn't heavy.

But then his breathing was heavy, and he finally did stumble on nothing and fall. He was shaking, shudders running through his body and choking his lungs as he struggled to breath through his closing throat. His fingers scrabbled for something to hold onto, but the forest floor was bare here but for dirt and he was half a dozen feet away from the nearest tree – too far.

He closed his eyes, but opened them again when the action brought on a fresh wave of panic. He stayed on his hands and knees, clearing his mind but for the beat of long-forgotten notes. Focusing solely on them, and then on the vague mumbles that were meant to be words that meant something, his throat slowly opened and he was gasping for air, trying to fill too-small lungs. As he failed to get the air he felt he needed he started to cry, which only served to close his throat right back up again and drive his panic to a whole new level.

By the time he was able to push himself weakly to his feet Dean was shivering with sweat under his tshirt and flannel. His balance was shot, and he could barely walk forward in the right direction, light-headed from crying and exhaustion. He stumbled many times, using the trees for support and to stop himself from ending up in the dirt again.

It took him longer than it should have to get back to the cabin, and it was with weak arms that he finally pushed the door open. His stomach was crying for food, yet everything Dean tried to eat made him feel like he would puke, so he ended up not having much of anything. Feeling sick and cold, he decided to have a warm shower. He stripped down in the bathroom and stepped into the rarely-used shower stall, setting the water temperature before sitting down on the floor and allowing the water to run over him for an indeterminate amount of time, lowering the water temperature a few times as his body started to cool down. When his eyelids started to feel heavy he finally got up, clearing the circle of dirt he'd left behind on the shower floor with his foot – not being able to go swimming every day because of the cut on his foot was annoying.

Quickly finishing rinsing himself off, he eventually stumbled naked into his bedroom, dropping his clothes to the floor and closing the door behind him before he let himself fall onto his bed, eyes closing happily immediately. He barely had the strength to manoeuvre himself under the covers, but he did so and it wasn't long before he was asleep.

The faint sound of the truck starting woke him, and he listened to the quiet roar of the engine before it faded away to nothing as it left. He hadn't so much as opened his eyes and he fell back to sleep soon after. He was woken again by the front door slamming shut with a clack, his father having returned from his hunt. Dean stayed where he was, both because his eyes were too heavy to open, and also because if he so much as moved his head or forehead muscles his brain would erupt with pain that gave his closed eyes stars. As he listened to his father putter about the cabin some of the abrupt sounds made his forehead and eyelids flinch – the closing of a cupboard, the slap of boxes being stacked on top of each other in the freezer – and that caused more pain to flare in his head. He somehow managed to fall back asleep despite the headache some time after his father had retired to his own room, the cabin once again silent save for the forest noises that leaked in from outside.

Dean woke up feeling fully awake, though his headache hadn't abated at all. He kept his head down and tried not to move it as he got dressed and walked to the bathroom for medicine, but it still stung like hell when he blinked, twisted his head, or made any movement that wasn't standing still. He sat on the toilet seat for a long time while waiting for the medicine to take effect, and eventually it decreased to a constant pressure that only moderately stung when he changed his head's position.

Outside, the forest was completely dark, the air void of the sound of birds – late rather than early, then. It made sense, since it had only been late afternoon when he'd reached the cabin. This thought reminded him of the woman though, and her screams, and Dean had to close his eyes as he stood in the middle of the kitchen, chanting “You're okay” to himself in a whisper until the tense feeling of fear and being attacked passed. He opened his eyes again once he'd calmed down, turning on the light on the kitchen ceiling and considering what to have to eat. When he'd been awake earlier it had sounded like his father had brought home more food, and Dean opened the fridge – it was fuller than before. He spotted some pizza slices in a bag – probably leftovers from his dad's dinner – and grabbed them, pushing the door shut behind him as he placed the bag on the counter to remove the twist tie that kept it shut. After he ate, he shut the light off and returned to his room.

Picking up his Rubik’s cube from the top of the shelving unit by the door, he started to mix it from its solved state, but after only a few twists put it on the nightstand beside his bed, feeling restless and therefore unable to concentrate on it. He ended up getting lost in his own head for a few hours before he felt tired again and fell back asleep.

The next few days passed uneventfully. He didn't see his father at all, even on days when Dean got up before the sun rose – he was always already gone. He kept to most of his usual activities to pass the time, but he wouldn't go any further right towards the white and blue house than the back wall of his father's cabin; not in the forest, not down at the water. Just thinking about going any closer scared him, afraid the woman would come out from behind a tree and start to yell at him.

One night he went stargazing outside, carrying a pile of all the blankets from his room and the den to the rocks by the water and making a nest out of them, curling up in their warmth and getting lost in the stars, only occasionally obscured by low, thin, puffy clouds that passed quickly in the light breeze. He woke up to the rising sun and tweeting birds the next morning, blankets damp all the way through from the dew and fog sitting over the water below him.

That day he deemed the cut on his foot healed enough to go swimming with, and he happily donned his bathing suit that afternoon and his father's pair of flipflops (Dean's own were too small now, and he didn't want to risk walking through the forest to the water without some kind of protection on his feet). He didn't take a towel – one of his favorite parts of going swimming was laying on the hot rocks afterwards and allowing the light of the sun to dry him off as he watched the clouds that were almost always present in the sky on hot summer afternoons – though he did grab his goggles off their hook on the wall in his room.

At the top of the rocks he discarded the flipflops, opting to scale the rocks barefoot, as the risk of his feet slipping or being unable to feel loose rocks underfoot made keeping them on for the climb a hazard. The goggles were stored safely in one of his pockets. He padded over to the edge, crouching to ease himself down to the first rock on the familiar path required to reach the water many feet below. Two of the large rocks had become unsteady since his last swim, perhaps from the strange way he'd had to climb up after cutting his foot, but he stabilized them with other, non-crucial stones.

The water was cold on his skin when he put his feet in, the loose sand giving under his feet and between his toes but equally cold. He felt the temperature seep in deeper than skin-level, and then his body was comfortable with the temperature and he was able to progress deeper and submerge himself further. He walked out away from shore, the sandy floor sloping gently downwards the farther he progressed. The water at the very surface was warmer than underneath, but it wasn't deep enough or noticeable enough to help him along or to prove otherwise significant. Stopping once when the water was at hip level to spit in, rinse, and put on his goggles, and then again a second time when the water came to just below his shoulders, he made quick work of accustoming the rest of his body to the water's temperature. He dropped down and submerged his shoulders quickly, keeping his head and most of his neck above water, then, jumping up off the lake floor slightly a few times before doing so, dove under the water.

Popping his ears under the pressure as he pushed himself down to the bottom, he skimmed just above the lake floor as he pumped forward expertly through the even colder water at depth. After several strokes he chest started to feel tight in a good way, and he pushed off the sand with one of his feet to propel himself upwards, exhaling bubbles as he ascended so that he was able to inhale as soon as he broke the surface. Now much farther out that he had been before and unable to touch the bottom while still keeping his head above water, he moved onto his back, floating carefully at the top of the water and looking up at the sky, sun lighting the clouds above and making their edges glow brightly. He liked not having tinted goggles, which his last pair had been – when the strap had broken on them he'd asked his father to get him a new pair with clear lenses. Dean didn't like colors being altered, even if they were just made darker.

The sunlight did little to warm Dean as he was carried slowly back towards shore by the movement of the water, but he felt the chill on his face when it was blocked by a thick white cloud passing overhead. He swam around for a while, staying in front of the rocks even though he wanted to go to the beach down the shore – but it was in the direction of the white and blue house, and even in the safety of the water he didn't want to go near it.

Climbing the rocks when he got out of the water got a fair amount of dirt and sand on the soles of his feet, so when he got to the top of the rocks he wiped his feet off over the edge, sending the grains back down to the water and keeping the flat rock surface at the top clean – he liked keeping his spot clean. Dean spread himself out, the rock surface initially almost burning hot from absorbing the sun's radiation, but fading to a comfortable and pleasant heat after a minute and some wiggling about on his part. With warmth seeping into him from below, a light wind to move the clouds along and occasionally block the sun from shining in his eyes, Dean fell into a light doze.

The sound of an engine woke him. The sun was behind a stretch of clouds and lower in the sky, and Dean was slightly chilled in the cooler air, goosebumps erupting over his arms, exposed chest, and legs as a shiver of cold moved through his body. He sat up slowly, head spinning initially from the blood rush, and tried to identify the engine he was hearing. He knew that he couldn't hear any of the truck or car engines this far from the road, and certainly not over the waves rippling against the bottom of the cliff – not that it sounded like a car or truck engine in the first place. It was a higher, faster sound, almost rounder. Dean hadn't heard the like before.

It was coming from behind him, in the direction of the white and blue house. He spun on his butt to face that way, hoping to see whatever was making the noise he was hearing. The shore curved inwards in that direction, so his view of the shoreline and beach was cut off by trees at the edge of the water. He continued to concentrate on the sound, which intensified after about a minute, getting louder and faster again and bringing more sounds with it: the splashing of water, a further grind, and waves hitting the shore that didn't sound quite right – too big and fast for the wind conditions. After a moment the object moved into Dean's line of sight, a flash of shiny white that grew into an elongated shape moving away from shore.

Dean had never seen or heard a boat on the lake before. As far as he and his father could tell they were the only people that lived on the lake; it remained otherwise unused except by wildlife, and sometimes waterbombing planes in the summer. But then that was no longer entirely true, since as he'd seen several days before, there were people around now. And apparently those people had a boat, loud and breaking through and fighting against the water, unnaturally white against the calm dark colors of the water and the opposite shoreline. He could see people on the boat, but from where he was they looked like nothing more than small stains on the white shine.

He watched the boat for several moments before standing up abruptly, stooping down to pick up his goggles and then walking over to and stepping into his fathers sandals before quickly retreating into the cover of the forest. It was still warm under the canopy of leaves and needles, though a little too humid for the day's conditions; Dean began to sweat. He didn't like the noise of the boat's engine, which he could still hear, and he didn't like walking through the forest while his feet slipped about on a pair of too-big shoes, didn't like the heat while exerting himself, didn't like the way his heart was starting to pound or the feeling he was getting in his head – that he needed to do everything and nothing, that the world had to freeze but also go away and disappear.

Breathing through his mouth and clenching his fists into balls wasn't helping the feelings bubbling up inside of him, but he could just see the cabin hidden in the dark shade of the forest. On sunny days it was hard for his eyes to fully adjust to the darkness under the trees, because the rays that did manage to make it through to the forest floor kept his eyes from adjusting to the otherwise lightless conditions. He concentrated on the cabin, on making it there before he broke down over nothing; he increased his pace, though doing so was a little difficult in the shoes he was wearing, and his feet shifted around uncomfortably, adding to the agitation he was being overwhelmed by.

Sixty feet and a number of thin-trunked trees separated him from the cabin now. His breathing slowed slightly – he was almost there, he could get inside, cool down, drink water, eat something, find something for his hands to play with, calm down.

But then his eyes caught sight of something out of place; there was something just around the far corner of the cabin. He couldn't see enough to tell what, but there was something there. And then that something was stepping out, and it was a person – the boy from before, the one that had exited the white car while the woman was screaming. Their eyes met and the boy opened his mouth as if about to speak, but Dean was choking and his chest was constricted, and it was all too much. He bent his head down and pushed his hands against his temples, exerting solid pressure on his skull to try and ground himself, spinning away from the boy and the cabin, stomping his feet deliberately as he started to walk in a moderately tight circle – not tight enough to make him dizzy, but small enough that no tree trunks were in his path – and hum the now wordless melody that had been his lifeline since his mother had found out about his problems and had taken him to a nice lady doctor for help.

He almost lost the melody at the thought of his mother, a flash of orange momentarily blocking out everything else in his mind, and then his head wanted to drift to a different song at the memory of her; but that wouldn't help his current situation, which grew alarmingly worse when he rounded his pacing circle back towards the cabin and saw in his periphery that the boy had approached him and was now only a dozen feet away. He seemed to be staying where he was, expression blank but intense, his body frozen in place except for his too-bright eyes, which were watching Dean intently.

Dean increased the volume of his humming as he continued to walk, having stopped his stomping. He was about to move his hands to plug his ears, the sound of the wind through the tree branches above so wrong at that moment, but then he heard it.

The boy was humming.

And not just humming, singing. Quietly singing the long-lost words Dean thought he would never get back. He stopped his own humming and pacing, his back to the boy as he listened to the words, them and their meaning coming back to him as Dean started to mouth along with the boy, releasing the pressure on the sides of his head but keeping his hands where they were, closing his eyes as he concentrated on the words. It felt as if he body was filling with cool, beautiful calm, more and more sweeping through with every word that came back to him a second before the boy said them. He felt the muscles in his shoulders relax, and then those in his back and arms; his chest loosened and he could breathe properly again. His legs felt weak as they relaxed as well, but he remained upright.

The singing lasted for several minutes, the boy humming the instrumental parts in between verses as he made his way through the whole song. Dean had long ago forgotten exactly how it went, when which parts repeated and how things fit together, but he knew that the boy was doing it exactly right. As he reached the end of the song Dean was relaxed and breathing normally, no longer frightened or stressed. The now audible sounds of the forest were a little jarring, but he tuned them out without too much trouble.

“Are you alright?” the other boy asked after several moments. His voice was deep and rough, as if something was caught in his throat, but he spoke slowly enough that Dean was able to grasp words he hadn't heard in a long time. Dean became conscious of the fact that he was shirtless, and slowly lowered his arms to his sides and turned them in towards his body. He turned around to face the boy; his eyebrows had lowered a bit, his expression questioning or concerned.

“Yeah,” Dean croaked with a little difficulty, his throat and voice stiff from being rarely used. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and said a little clearer, “Yeah.” He watched the boy, and the boy watched him. He cleared his throat again after a few beats. “Th-thanks. For uh, that.”

The corners of the boy's lips pulled upwards in a small, loose smile, but with how his eyes brightened and shone at Dean's words it was as if he were actually grinning wide. “You're welcome,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

At that point Dean was finally able to focus enough to take in the boy's appearance. The hair surrounding his not tanned, but not pale face was dark and messy, contrasting with the vivid blue eyes that held Dean transfixed. Over a black tshirt with a spindly, faded dark grey pattern covering the whole front he wore a sand-colored trenchcoat that hung a little big in the shoulders and loose over his body. Underneath the trenchcoat he had on a pair of very dark blue jeans and blindingly white, probably brand new running shoes that didn't seem to have picked up a single speck of dirt, not even right at the soles.

That thought sparked a question in Dean's mind, and he looked back up at the boy's face from his quick glance downwards to ask, “You aren't on the boat?” He hadn't tried to count how many people were on board when he saw it, but he'd assumed that both the woman and the boy would be on it.

“No, I wanted to come find you,” the boy said.

It took Dean a moment to formulate a reply. “Why?”

“My mother's screaming scared you and I wanted to make sure you were alright,” he said, tilting his head forwards slightly.

“Oh,” Dean said. “How'd you, know where I was?” he said slowly.

“I didn't, I just – hoped I'd find you by walking in the direction you ran,” he said, eyes dislodging from Dean's own as he looked elsewhere, past Dean's head.

Dean thought about it for a moment. “You veered pretty far off track-” he went to add another word, but stopped himself. Buddy, pal, man? He didn't know the boy's name. But could he call him those? His old internet friends had been fine with them, but his classmates hadn't. What if the boy got mad at him for saying something like that? Dean clenched his jaw a bit in worry after closing his mouth on the word that never came. Then he continued, the boy's eyes back on him. “You're pretty far left of the way I went. Were you trying to find the cabin or did you get lost?”

“I didn't know it was here,” the boy said, taking a hand out of his trenchcoat pocket to gesture behind him at the cabin. A pause. “And I don't know how to get back. Is it that way?” he pointed behind the cabin, but almost straight towards the road. Dean shook his head, and the half-smile on the boy's open mouth fell, as did his arm. “Does that mean I'm lost?”

“Umm, maybe. I think so? But I can, I could show you the way back,” Dean offered. He started to rub his right hand against the side of his bathing suit, playing with the material with his finger. The boy was doing the same with the fabric of his trenchcoat with the hand that wasn't still in a pocket.

The boy smiled his small yet huge smile, face calm and eyes shining. “Okay,” then, as an afterthought, “Thank you.”

Dean went to step forward but then shifted his weight back, glancing down at himself. “I'll just. Uhh. Go change. First.”

The boy stayed where he was, still smiling. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Dean said, then cleared his throat slightly. He straightened his back, still slightly hunched over from before, and walked around the boy, giving him a berth of several feet, and towards the cabin door. He heard the boy turn around behind him, but not move to follow, staying standing silently where he was. When Dean saw him out of the corner of his eye when he turned to climb the steps to the door, he saw that he was absentmindedly playing with the edges of his trenchcoat with both hands now, head turned upwards as he gazed up and around at the trees. “D'you want to come in?” he asked, the volume of his voice surprising him with how easily it came; the boy lowered his head slowly to look at Dean.

“Okay,” he said again, lowering his head further and walking towards the steps. Once he saw that the boy was coming Dean stepped up to the top step and opened the door, entering the warm cabin and flicking off his sandals while he held the door open for the boy, not wanting to hear the flinch-inducing slam that would otherwise result from the door closing of its own accord.

The boy climbed the narrow steps slowly and carefully, head down as he concentrated on his feet, left hand held straight out towards the doorframe, even when it was out of reach and wouldn't have helped him break a fall. When he reached the top step and had his hand on the doorframe he looked up, meeting Dean's eyes again as he stepped inside. Closer to each other than they'd been yet, from this distance the sensation of sharing the boy's gaze was suddenly too much and Dean felt his face heat up; he dropped his own gaze immediately and shuffled away from the boy, letting go of the door in the process. He tensed in anticipation of the slam when he realized what he'd done, but it didn't come – a quick glance sideways up from the floor revealed that the boy had leaned over slightly and caught the door as it closed, and was turning away from Dean to ease it shut with a just-audible tick.

Dean returned his eyes to the floor and turned away from the door, walking down the entryway hall and around the corner and towards his bedroom door. He slipped inside and pushed the door shut behind him with one hand, tensing very briefly from the clack of the door latch flicking outwards and closing his eyes for a moment as he gathered himself, willing himself to keep the calm he'd acquired from hearing his song in full for the first time in – a long time; he'd been here through four winters, the easiest season to keep track of, so four years. He opened his eyes and reached with his left hand for the light switch on his wall, the single incandescent bulb illuminating all but the shadows of his room.

Stripping out of his bathing suit and leaving it on the floor beside the door, he walked across the room and looked through his drawer of jeans, selecting a dark pair he rarely wore. They were almost as dark as the boy's, and Dean liked the color; he usually opted for his softer, lighter pairs, but that was because they were more comfortable. But today he felt like wearing this pair, so he put them on after also selecting a dark tshirt and dark brown flannel to go over top.

Now dressed, Dean sat on the edge of his bed as he fumbled over the knots to do up his boots. The blood rush to his head from bending over, coupled with the heat in the house, was working him up and his eyes felt wet; he sat up and wiped the tears away, closing his eyes as he angled his head upwards, trying to forget the feeling as a small amount of mucus dripped down the back of his throat painfully. He just had to do the laces on his right boot, the left boot was already done. Just one more to do. Undo what he'd tried and failed, then redo it. “Shit,” he breathed, eyes still closed. He really didn't want to have to do up his laces, he sucked at it. It was frustrating.

A new wave of heat rolled over him, and Dean stood up to exit his room, the lightbulb on his ceiling adding to the room's temperature and causing it to exceed what Dean could bear in his current state. He opened his bedroom door with force, trying to expel whatever had been building up inside of him since he'd heard and seen the boat on the lake, and hobbled awkwardly over in one lose boot to the kitchen table, pulling out a chair to sit on. The cool wooden surface helped him a bit, and with a deep breath he bent back down and pulled frantically at the bad knot in his laces. His fingers burned as he used his nails to try and loosen what just seemed to be getting worse and worse, and he closed his eyes and exhaled loudly through his mouth, engaging his vocal chords such that the sound the came out was something between a grunted and an pained moan. He lifted himself up so that he could put his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees, beginning to hum into his hands.

Like a cautious animal the boy walked lightly forward away from the door, leaning his body over slightly to peek around the corner, rounding it when he saw Dean looking sad. Picking up on where Dean was in his humming, he joined along, walking closer, stopping a few feet away from Dean's seated form and pausing his humming to ask, “Are you alright?”

Dean stopped humming as well to speak, though he kept his hands over his face. His words came out slightly muffled, but understandable. “Can't do up my laces. Not used to doing 'em. Up.”

The boy glanced downwards, then bent down to squat at Dean's feet, reaching forward with both hands to work at the knots of Dean's right boot, resuming his humming as he worked. Dean couldn't bring himself to start humming again, but he found himself swaying slightly in time with the boy's quiet song; he didn't do the lyrics as he had before, but that was alright. The melody was enough to keep him centred as he pulled the parts of himself that were leaking outwards back inside. Or tried to, at any rate.

He felt the pressure of the boy's hands around his ankle through his boot, and he lowered his fingers and curled them into his fist to look down at the boy's face, only a foot away. When their eyes met the boy said, “All done,” and stood up, putting a hand on the edge of the kitchen table to help support himself so that he didn't enter Dean's space or hit the other boy's face as he rose to his feet. Dean lowered his hands as the boy did so, and once the other boy had stepped away he stood up as well, turning to tuck the chair he'd been sitting on back under the table.

Dean moved towards the door, saying, “Come on,” with a bright grin as he passed beside the boy, who remained a step behind Dean as they walked to the door, then followed him down the stairs and shut the door carefully and quietly behind them. They walked around the side of the cabin, then started into the trees, walking side-by-side, Dean trying to lead them in the right direction between trees that they could both fit through – easily possible on this side of the forest. When they passed into the messy area of the forest the tree spacing became more erratic and variable, and that, combined with the debris underfoot that they sometimes had to manoeuvre around or over, made it difficult to always remain together; but they always moved right back towards each other afterwards if they had to separate.

They both noticed the sound of the boat's engine as it became audible and then got louder. Dean looked over at the boy but his expression hadn't changed, so he didn't seem bothered by the noise. The rumble got louder and then quieter, and stayed quiet for about a minute before shutting off completely; Dean stopped, realizing what the boat's return meant: the screaming woman was back. The boy only took one more step himself before he noticed that Dean wasn't moving and paused as well, turning his body slightly and looking over at Dean, asking, “What's wrong?”

Dean shook his head, eyes wide and he scanned their surroundings. No sign of the woman. “Nothing,” he said, resuming their trek. As long as he kept his eye out and stayed away from the car, he should be able to avoid the woman.

Another minute of walking brought them into sight of the clearing and the white and blue house, it and the trees behind it lit in a golden light from the falling sun. The house's siding looked cleaner with that lighting, though the only change to its appearance from what Dean had known was that all the windows were open. It was dark inside though, so it was still impossible to see within it, even if there hadn't been trees and brush in the way. The tops of the trees swayed slightly in the breeze that had picked up, and a bird took off from within the leaves of one of the trees across the clearing, the flaps of its dark-feathered wings audible from where they stood as it flew overhead, skimming the tips of the forest trees' branches and foliage.

Both Dean and the boy had raised their heads to track the bird's flight, turning their bodies in synch to watch it as it flew overhead and then off in the direction of Dean's cabin. Then they heard a sound from in front of them, the bending of twigs underfoot as weight was lightly put on them. They both turned at the sound, Dean more jarred than the boy by the presence of another boy standing a few feet away from them. He was very slim and about Dean's height, maybe a hair taller, with short, dirty blond hair.

“Cas, there you are, I've been looking everywhere for you,” he said in a soft voice. He spoke differently than the other boy did, stressing the words in different places and giving the vowels slightly different sounds. “Did you actually run off to look for that boy? Or is he trespassing again? I'll get rid of him for you if you like.”

The other boy – Dean was still processing the words the blond had said, but he thought he might have addressed him as Cas – took a step forward, putting himself between Dean and the other boy and holding one arm out and slightly to the side, as if shielding Dean's body with his own. “No.”

“No to what Cas?” There it was again, Cas. It must be the boy's name; Dean liked it, and he liked the boy as well. No one had ever defended him before, not even the teachers at school.

“He showed me the way back. I was lost,” Cas said to the boy, standing up straighter as he spoke.

The other boy frowned slightly. “Well I think he should run along back to his Mummy now, our own mum will be on her way up from the dock soon. And I don't know about you two but I'd rather not have my eardrums blown out again. Come on Cas.”

Cas looked over his shoulder sadly at Dean, who had just processed what the boy had said and was frowning himself at the mention of his mother. He forgot about her when Cas spoke. “I should go.”

“Oh,” Dean said, his face falling further.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” he said with a nod that seemed to be more to himself than to Dean, before he turned to follow the other boy between the trees and out of the forest.

He heard the boy ask Cas, “Who was that?”, to which Cas replied, “My friend.” Dean realized then that he hadn't told Cas his name. It hadn't seemed important though, at the time – they had been with each other and the only people around, so what did names matter?

Remembering what the boy had said about their mother – probably the woman from before, it would make sense – coming back up from the lake, Dean turned away from watching Cas and started to walk hurriedly back to the cabin, not slowing his pace until his boots hit the dirt of what he now thought of as his part of the forest.

Once back at the cabin he undid the laces of his boots easily, barely giving them any thought as he pulled them off his feet and dropped them against the wall by the door. It was still warm inside, the heat having built up throughout the day, so he slid the window on the door open and went into the kitchen to open the windows in there as well, shedding his flannel and tossing it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

Hungry after his swim, Dean set about preparing himself dinner. He opted for something that didn't need the oven, not wanting to further increase the temperature in the cabin; there wasn't much air movement into the house, but what there was was only a hair cooler and Dean didn't want to worsen the situation.

Dean changed into a thin pair of sweatpants after he ate, turning off his bedroom light and leaving the door open when he left it to go into the den, lying down and stretching out along the cool length of the long leather couch. Not much light reached the room from the front door, especially as the sun would soon set fully, but for now it was just enough for Dean to see by.

Not that he used it – he closed his eyes, putting his arms behind his head as he thought back on the day. He felt clean, good, and happy from his swim; he'd missed it a lot. A quick check of his foot had shown that the cut had held up fine, so he'd be able to go swimming again tomorrow as long as it didn't storm out, which he thought it might. He should also be okay to go outside without boots or sandals in another couple of days, which was an exciting prospect. Boots were cumbersome and annoying, their laces frustrating.

He lay on the couch for a long time, stayed there long after the sun had set and the temperature within the cabin had dropped appreciably. His back was warm against the leather, and he didn't mind the slight chill on his front. After letting his mind wander he finally sat up, taking a minute to get used to the new position following the blood rush before sliding over to one end of the couch and feeling carefully for the lamp on the table beside it, turning it on once his fingers found the switch. He had to close his eyes and then blink a few times at the brightness, allowing them to adjust; once he had he got up off the couch and stepped over to the small bookcase that was pushed against the wall in the corner, slipping between it and the small table and crouching down so that he could see the titles.

Dean didn't read much anymore; he used to, before the fire, when he had a computer and internet and online friends to discuss things with, and then also when he'd first arrived at the cabin and had found it difficult to fill his days when he didn't have the distractions he had grown up with to occupy him. But since then he'd read all the books his father had a number of times, and didn't find them interesting or engaging enough to go back to very often; most were textbook-like volumes about mythological creatures and urban and ancient legends that used to belong to his grandfather. There was also one on woodland survival, and a couple of very old manuals on car repair.

His favorite books on the shelf were the only works of fiction present: the five Hitchhiker's novels. They were also the smallest, easily dwarfed by the massive hardcover tomes that also occupied the bookcase, but Dean enjoyed reading them sometimes. He knew they were supposed to be funny, but he was pretty sure that most of the jokes went over his head; what he liked most about them was the randomness. Things, strange things would appear out of nowhere, no explanation or justification given, but that seemed right for the universe. Dean always followed along easily; it felt like reading an extension of his brain sometimes, which was comforting when he didn't have the company of others to keep him centred.

Dean got halfway through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy before his eyes began to feel heavy. Leaving the other four books out on the large table in front of the couch for later he got up and took the book with him into his room, putting it down on the bedside table after noting his page number. After putting his clothes away he opened his bedroom door so that his room would stay cool like the rest of the house; he much preferred sleeping when it was cold out than when the air was stifling hot and humid, and the air was currently cool and slightly humid – Dean was even more certain that they'd get at least one storm pass through the next day – but it was comfortable. He'd ended up pulling a thin blanket over himself back in the den, but under the covers of his bed the combination of temperatures felt perfect. His mind turned busy when he closed his eyes, thinking back through the day a second time, and it took him at least an hour to fall asleep.

He woke up some time after sunrise, the light outside very dull through a layer of flat overcast cloud. It was very humid out now, and Dean rushed to close the windows and door screen before the heat caught up. He stayed in pyjamas while he made breakfast, and kept them on while he continued reading his book at the kitchen table. When Marvin fell asleep he stopped, a small smile on his face from reading about his favorite character even though now he wouldn't be back for the rest of the book. Dean stood up, going to his room to change into jeans and a tshirt. He brought a flannel back out with him but didn't put it on, placing it on the table beside his book instead.

With the clouds in the way it was almost impossible for Dean to tell what time it was, the brightness outside only serving him so far, though it felt to be slightly before lunchtime. He was a little hungry already, so he grabbed something from the fridge and put it in the microwave, pulling his flannel on as the food warmed up. Once the microwave beeped he slid out the cutlery drawer for a fork, then opened the microwave and pulled out his food. After making sure it was warm all the way through he walked to the door, placing his food on the small wooden table in the entryway while he did up his boots with only some difficulty. Then he picked his food up again, took a bite, and went outside.

It was quiet as Dean walked down to the water, the birds mostly silent and the air heavy with humidity. The clouds were more white than dark, so Dean knew he wouldn't get rained on, at least not yet, so he took his time through the forest, soon sweating under his flannel and tshirt. He rolled up the sleeves of his flannel one side at a time, transferring the food container from one hand to the other to do so. There was still a little bit of food left, but he finished it off by the time he reached the water.

The water was even calmer than it had been the day before, surface glassy save for small patches of miniscule ripples in a few spots; the same spots always had ripples when the water was calm, so Dean was pretty sure there was something under the water that caused the ripples. They were too far out for Dean to investigate though, even on days where he was feeling ambitious.

There was no sign of the boat, which Dean had been hoping for – he wanted to see Cas again. He'd barely talked to anyone since he'd first come out here; the only chances he'd had had been when his father had driven him to the nearest town (which was a good hour and a half's drive away) a few times when Dean had needed new clothes. But even then he'd only really refused the salesperson's help at the store, and then done small talk with the cashier while his father paid. Before the fire even that amount of talking with strangers would have been terrifying to Dean, but when it was all he'd had in a year he drank it in. He'd always wished for silence before, but once he had it he found it hard to deal with and impossible to escape.

Investigating in the direction of Cas's house was still a stressful concept, so Dean opted to head back to the cabin and wait there for Cas. Once back inside he did the dishes, then settled in with his book to wait. He read slower than before, less hungry for the words than he had been before – even so he was well into The Restaurant at the End of the Universe when he stopped to make and eat dinner. It occurred to him as he was cleaning up afterwards that his father hadn't come home again the night before – his current hunt must be quite involved. Dean wondered if he'd be back that night, or if he'd be spending the night alone in the cabin again.

Sunlight was always dimmed by clouds, and it made the end of the day all the more noticeable as what little light there was disappeared rapidly. As Dean sat at the kitchen table he was acutely aware of the diminishing light as he read and started to jiggle his leg up and down, wondering where Cas was. He'd said they see each other tomorrow, which was today, so why hadn't he come by?

The obvious answer was that he couldn't get away from his mother – like when Kevin's mom had grounded him from the internet, or when Benny wasn't on for a weekend because he was on a trip with his family – but Dean couldn't help but wonder if it might be something else. Maybe Cas hadn't liked him and didn't actually want to see and talk to him again?

Dean mentally went through everything that he could remember about their interactions the day before, trying to look at them through Cas's eyes. He thought about how weird he must have seemed to Cas, suddenly breaking down at the sight of the other boy and walking in a circle and humming to himself loudly like an insane person, like the people in the crazy hospitals in movies. Then there were the words they'd exchanged: Dean's speech had been so choppy and rough, every thought stunted as he tried to get it through his brain and out of his mouth, not used to the process after being alone in the forest for so long. Cas probably thought he was stupid, just like everyone at school had. He knew in the back of his mind that Cas had been more off than him, his thoughts and phrases odd and disjointed, but all that Dean could concentrate on were his own shortcoming in their brief exchanges.

He clenched his fist, putting the book that was still in his hands down even though he hadn't read a word on the page in at least five minutes. His hands went to his forehead as he put his elbows on the table and leaned against it, starting to hum but then stopping when it felt wrong and made him feel worse. He rolled his hands into fists again, pushing the bottom of his palms against his forehead as he fought back tears and tried not to think about how inadequate he'd been and how he'd probably screwed up his only chance at making a friend now that there were finally, finally other people living nearby. He breathed out his mouth, then cursed out loud. “God dammit.”

Chapter Text

Letting out another loud breath, Dean stood up from the table, gripping the edge tightly in both hands as he closed his eyes, scrunching his eyebrows in anger at himself. “Shit,” he said, opening his eyes, and pushing the chair away as he marched determinately over to the bathroom, turning on the light, and then hesitating over whether or not to close the door. The bathroom could get quite hot from the heat generated by the lightbulb, so he decided to leave it open. There was no one around to see, anyway.

He pressed the mirror to pop open the door to the medicine cabinet that lay behind it. Not that it contained all that much medicine; the shelves mostly held boxes of bandaids, a few bottles of disinfectants, razors and shaving cream, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss. There was one bottle of headache pills, but that was all.

Dean reached up for one of his razors – a new one, one he hadn't used on his face – and held it tightly in his right fist as he closed the medicine cabinet again with his left index finger, the click of the magnet and spring mechanism loud in the otherwise silent cabin.

His sleeves were still rolled up above his elbows from when he'd been walking in the forest, exposing the mat of scars that completely covered the skin of both his inner forearms. He hadn't cut himself in about two weeks, so there were no unhealed wounds. His body become hot as he scanned the surface of his left arm with his eyes, trying to decide where to make his first cut.

He lowered the razor to a spot just below the middle of his forearm and slightly to the left, the metal feeling cool on his skin for the instant after it made contact. It quickly warmed up as he exhaled, mind beautifully clear and empty as he pulled the razor sideways, pushing down lightly. For a moment he was frozen in time, watching as the skin gathered and wrinkled, resisting the sharp edge before it gave, releasing as it snapped back into place. He felt it like a rip as the blade broke the skin, cutting through it and spreading it apart, leaving a cut in its wake that began to fill with blood; first droplets slipping their way out one by one, then lumping together to flood the cut like a river in a valley. The pain was sharp like the blade, but it embodied everything he was feeling: anger at himself, his inadequacy, his loneliness. As the wave of feeling travelled up his arm and surrounded the cut he revelled in it, revelled in the sensation, bottling it up and telling himself that was his punishment, his penance for not being perfect, for not being enough.

His whole body was tense, all his muscles clenched as he lifted the razor half an inch off his skin after finishing the cut, fist gripping tight to the handle of the razor; he watched the blood with hooded eyes as it pooled over the cut and began to run down the side of his arm. He was barely breathing, breaths shallow but coming fast; he closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing and the stinging pain in his arm, before opening them again and moving the razor to make another cut, about half an inch below the first.

This time Dean concentrated on just one feeling, focusing solely on it as he pressed the razor back to his skin, pushing, sliding. The pain, the sting, the tear, the blood, it was all for the awkwardness, it was what he deserved for fucking up. Because that was what he'd done: he'd fucked up. Cas considered him worthless and useless and weird and stupid, just like everyone else that he'd ever met had. That's what he was, that's what he would always be. There was no escaping it, but he could punish himself for it, since no one else would.

One cut for his panic attack, one for talking, one for caring, a second one for caring, and then a third. There were tears in his eyes, frustration bleeding out from there because he was so focused on expelling his other emotions through the swipe of the razor, the catch, rip of his skin beneath its bite. A tear fell from his face and landed in the crook of his elbow, the skin there untouched by blood or scar tissue. He swiped at it with the plastic edge of the razor, but didn't move to make a cut there. His focus had shifted to the drop of water, now a thin puddle, a small damp patch of skin. And then it was gone, either evaporated or absorbed by his skin, and the rest of his arm was hurting, stinging, in pain, and Dean felt like throwing something but he had nothing to throw but the razor in his hand, so instead he turned on the bathroom faucet, rinsing the blade off under the flow of water, then turning it off and setting the razor down carefully on the side of the sink.

Cleanup took a few minutes, wiping and pressure and testing to make sure that each cut had stopped bleeding completely and wasn't so deep that it would need a bandage or extra care. By then Dean had taken a seat on the toilet, standing too much for him as exhaustion filled the gaps left when the last of the tension from cutting receded. When he stood up to put the razor away and leave the bathroom it was on weak, shaky legs, and he took small, quick steps to his room, leaving his book on the kitchen table.

Tears returned as he turned to close his bedroom door behind him, and continued to fall as he undressed and changed. He stood beside his kleenex box and used several to blow his nose and dry his face, but more tears kept appearing to replace the ones he wiped away. Eventually he gave up and picked up the kleenex box and garbage can, carrying them over to the side of his bed before slipping his legs under the covers, remaining sitting up so that he didn't muck up his pillow.

He cried over the same things he'd cut for; it happened, sometimes, an unstoppable crying session following his cutting. The first time he'd done it the tears had persisted for over an hour, and he'd been fortunate that he'd waited for a day when his mother was out all afternoon. By the time she'd returned he'd been able to pull himself together enough to deal with all the evidence of what he'd done and to put back on the front he wore around her and everyone else. If she'd noticed his puffy eyelids that day she hadn't said anything, thinking perhaps that he'd watched a sad movie while she'd been out; he'd been just starting The Fellowship of the Ring when she'd come home with dinner.

Chapter Text

When all his tears were dried up and spent he found himself with a headache, which was to be expected. He didn't want get up but he did anyway, pouring himself a glass of cold water in the kitchen as he considered going into the bathroom to get a couple of headache pills – but he didn't feel that he could go back in there for a while, so he forced himself to sip at another half glass of water as he ate a few containers of applesauce from the fridge.

His face felt gross and sticky on his pillowcase when he finally lay down in bed, all the lights in the cabin off. He shifted his head around, trying to get comfortable or at least used to the unpleasant sensation; eventually he just gave up and let his face warm the pillow where it was, closing his eyes and willing the headache that sat just behind his forehead and eyes to go away, or to at least not get any worse.

Of course when he was woken up later by thunder it was worse, the water and food not having helped at all it seemed. He ducked into the bathroom quickly to pee and grab the bottle of pills, doing his best not to focus on or think about the other things in the cabinet as he did so. Once back in the kitchen he shook out two pills, swallowing them with another glass of water. Rain was pouring outside, giant drops falling to the ground after having gathered on the branches above. There was another roll of distant thunder; he must have slept through the worst of the storm as it passed overhead. It was still completely dark out, so he went back to bed and fell asleep after a while, head stinging with every movement of his head.

His body felt heavy when he woke up again, left arm hot and sore, the rest of him just heavy with something he couldn't identify. Even though he still felt tired he got up, stepping out of his room and into the kitchen groggily to sift through the fridge in the morning light, the sun out and shining bright in the cool, clean air that followed the nocturnal thunderstorm. Dean opened the kitchen window; the air was easy to breathe after a storm, and he wanted to enjoy it before the heat of the day burned it away.

The urge to do nothing was strong. Dean couldn't decide what to make or eat; the action of lifting his hand to move things around in the fridge was too tiring, and he ended up closing the fridge without taking anything out. Sitting down at the kitchen table felt weird and uncomfortable; continuing to read unthinkable when even picking up the book was too much. Yet once he was seated he didn't want to move, didn't want to engage a single muscle. He just sat there, staring without focusing at the kitchen counter across the table from him, mind blank.

Eventually he went back to bed, thinking that he was probably just too tired to start the day, but laying down felt wrong too; doing anything felt wrong. Existing felt wrong. Dean considered cutting again briefly, but he knew that it would feel wrong too. He usually knew when cutting would help and when it wouldn't, and this morning was a wouldn't time.

He stayed in bed for several hours, constantly tossing and turning, no position feeling right, most completely uncomfortable but he stayed in them anyway, thinking that time might change his discomfort; it didn't. He got up when his bladder's pretesting was too strong, dragging himself to the bathroom to relieve himself and then dragging himself right back out again. Every step, every thought was a struggle.

The day had progressed while Dean had been in his room, and through the window he hadn't closed before he could feel that the air was warm, but not too warm, and windy. The sway and rustling of the treetops could be heard, blending with the rush of the wind up high. Suddenly Dean needed the wind on his face. He wanted more, needed more and nothing at all, but that was the only desire he could identify. And the sooner he got it the better.

Dean went to walk to the door, then registered how extremely hungry he was; but he'd already eaten everything that was already cooked in the fridge, and taking even a couple of minutes to microwave something before he left was too long to wait. He continued out of the cabin, pyjamas and all, no boots on over his bare feet. His foot was mostly healed, and there was no one around to see anyway, Cas wasn't going to come over. And dirt washed off. Not that any of that mattered anyway, in the grand scheme of things.

The trip to the water was quick, Dean getting an immediate burst of energy as soon as he was out the door of the cabin. He walked quickly, jogging or skipping slightly sometimes, wishing he could run a bit, just run all out in a straight line until his legs fell out from under him. He missed running in gym class, even though he'd been slower than everyone else even when he was going all out.

When Dean reached the rocks he wiped off the bottom of his feet quickly on his pyjama pant legs, then walked to the middle of the flat surface and sat down, cross-legged, looking out over the water. The wind was strong over his face, and he was cold; the sun was behind a thick, puffy greyish-white cloud, one of many that dotted the sky in clumps: an extensive line over the other side of the lake, a smaller line over the far-off right-hand shore, then the ones that were gathered in Dean's vicinity. It was clear over the lake for now, at least until the wind blew the clouds across the lake over it.

He sat on the rocks, eyes closed, breathing, revelling in the cold wind on his skin, seeping down and chilling to a deep layer. His left forearm, hot and feverish from the cuts, felt especially assuaged, though the cool couldn't permeate all the way through to the lowest point of inner fire.

It wasn't cold enough to cause Dean to start shivering, and the occasional bouts of direct sunlight between the clouds helped to warm him a bit and provide a contrast which kept him awake but not alert. The night was still catching up to him, exhaustion heavy as his head lolled forward, his headache from before still a threat under the surface, and he uncrossed his legs and stretched them out straight in front of him, losing a good amount of heat in the process. His toes chilled quickly and he lost full feeling in them, not getting it back even when they were in the sun.

The day wore on; how long Dean stayed out on the rocks he didn't know, his eyes having fallen and remained closed. He fell asleep at one point, and was woken by the sun shining right in his face later through a gap between two clouds. He went to open his eyes against the light, but stopped and closed them again when he found the glare of the sun to be too bright.

“What were you dreaming about?” a voice asked from Dean's right.

And Dean's eyes snapped open despite Dean being partially blinded by the sun directly in his field of view, and his upper body shot up. He turned his head to look at the source of the sound – behind him sat Cas, in jeans and a trenchcoat again, sitting cross-legged a few feet from where Dean's head and shoulders had been. It felt like Dean's heart was against the side of his throat as it pumped fast and thick from the surprise of Cas's appearance. “Shit. Fucking shit. What the hell?”

“You were sleeping. What did you dream about?”

“Nothing man I'm- were you watching me sleep?” Dean said, speaking a little too slow, cringing inwardly at his stunted sentences.

“I didn't want to wake you.”

“Geez,” Dean said, rubbing at his eyes with his fingers. He turned on his butt to face towards Cas, wind cold on his back through his thin sleeping shirt. He crossed his legs, tucking his feet under his legs and into the crook of his knees to warm them up; it had gotten colder out, the warmest part of the day now past but the wind still blowing strong off the lake. Then he changed his mind, bringing his legs up to his chest and hugging them for warmth. Cas watched him without a word. “Well? What d'you want?” Dean asked, thinking back on the day before, then trying not to remember it and what had happened.

Instead Cas asked, “Are you cold?”

A shiver ran through Dean's upper body then, so he couldn't deny it. “Mm yeah. A bit. I-”

But Castiel was already moving, struggling to remove his trenchcoat without standing up. He pushed it off his shoulders but then couldn't get it down his arms at all because the bottom edge was caught under his butt, so he had to lift himself partially off the ground and pull the cloth out from under him before trying again and succeeding. Then he folded the garment in half and held it out for Dean with a smile. “Here,” he said, an offer.

“No, dude, you'll get cold,” Dean said, then flinched slightly at his use of the word 'dude.' He still wasn't sure if Cas would be okay with it, and he tensed, preparing himself for a verbal onslaught.

Instead Cas only frowned, but it seemed to be more to himself than to Dean. He titled his head minutely to one side. “Oh.” He lifted his eyes to one side, thinking for another moment. “That's alright, I'm warm now.” He looked back at Dean and held the trenchcoat a little higher up off the ground, motioning for Dean to take it, eyes wide and open as they watched him and waited for his reaction.

Dean watched Cas's face for a moment as well, before he decided to just take the damn thing. He was conscious of the scars on his skin as he unwrapped his arms from around his legs and reached out, pulling the trenchcoat gently from Cas's outstretched hands, then unfolding it and flipping it a few times until he found the armholes and had it set up so that he wouldn't put it on upside down (he'd done that before at school when he was younger, to the amusement of his classmates when he subsequently got stuck in the jacket). He lifted it up and around his shoulders, pushing his arms into the sleeves, still warm from Cas's body but cooling immediately on contact with Dean's cold skin; once his hands were all the way through he used them to adjust the back of the coat, wrapping it around his midsection and over parts of his thighs to block the wind. The material shielded him from the wind completely, and provided a decent amount of warmth once the top layer of chill had worn off. His feet were still a little cold on the rock surface, but that was manageable. Once he had the trenchcoat on he pulled his legs back to his chest, feeling comforted by the position.

Cas had been watching him the whole time, and Dean lifted his eyes to meet the other boy's. They watched each other for several moments before Dean remembered an old social convention. “Thanks. Cas.”

Cas's face lit up noticeably at the use of his name, smile going beyond the closed-mouth lifting of the corners to a small grin, showing teeth. “You know my name,” he said.

“Yeah umm. The guy from yesterday? He said it,” Dean said, feeling his face heat up and flush from embarrassment.

Cas said nothing for a beat. “Balthazar,” he said.

“What?” Dean asked, furrowing his eyebrows. He had no idea what Cas had just said.

“Balthazar,” Cas said again. “He's my brother.”

“Balthazar?” Dean repeated, tongue twisting and tumbling over the syllables, and Cas nodded.

“He knows my name.”

“...Yeah,” Dean said, caught slightly off-guard by the statement, not knowing how to react or reply to it. He didn't say anything for a few moments, waiting to see if Cas would say anything else; he didn't, so they ended up just looking at each other before Dean spoke again. “What're you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you,” Cas replied instantly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

You said you'd see me yesterday. “But how'd ya' find me?”

“My mother suggested that I go exploring on the beach,” Cas said, looking up at the clouds for a few moments. “But I wanted to find a path so that I didn't get lost again.”

It was the most consecutive words Dean had heard Cas speak, and the longest thought that had been passed between them. When Dean finished absorbing the words he blurted out, “What about yesterday?” without thinking – which was an improvement over having to think about how to articulate himself, but he wanted to take the question back. He'd let his hurt show in his voice, something he never did; people used your weaknesses against you, even people you trusted.

“It was supposed to rain, so I wasn't allowed outside.” He looked down at his arms, bare to the wind and covered in goosebumps under his tshirt. “I'm cold,” he stated, showing neither surprise or annoyance through his voice of that fact. He looked back up at Dean. “We should go inside.”

Dean still couldn't feel his feet, so he agreed with the idea. “Okay. But uh –?” he started, but Cas had already pushed himself to his feet and was holding his hands out to help Dean up; Dean unwrapped his arms from around his legs and took them without hesitation. When Dean was upright Cas only let go of his right hand, keeping his grip on his left even as Dean tried to release both, and turned around and tugged to get Dean to follow him along the edge of the rocks in the direction of the beach. Dean was pulled slightly off balance from not having been expecting it, upper body bending over as his feet struggled to catch up and restore his balance, but once he had he held his ground, pulling on Cas's arm to stop him. Cas turned his body slightly so that he could look over at Dean.

Dean motioned with his head towards the forest. “This way's faster,” he said, walking towards the forest edge and pulling gently on Cas's arm, waiting for him to start walking before continuing forward.

At first they could still feel the wind through the trees, the branches of the trees that got sunlight not thick enough to shield the inside of the forest, but it soon weakened to nothing as they got deeper. Once out of the wind the temperature in the forest felt comfortable, so after a minute Dean said, “D'you want your coat?” not wanting to hog what wasn't his, even though he was enjoying wearing it.

Cas shook his head. “Keep it until we're inside.”

A minute later they arrived at Dean's cabin, but when Dean started to head for the steps Cas was trying to move in the opposite direction, towards his house. Their hands had stayed joined, and when they realized that they were pulling on their arms they stopped walking, moving closer together to relax the pressure on their arms and looking over at each other.

“The door's there,” Dean said, pointing towards the cabin door.

“I – thought we were going to my house,” Cas said, uncertain.

“Oh,” Dean said. After a moment he nodded, adding, “Okay.” Cas smiled wide again, bounding with energy as they started to walk. Dean, however, realized then what he'd agreed to. “Your mom's not there though, right?” Dean asked.

“Of course she is,” Cas replied, looking over at Dean, a confused look on his face. “Why wouldn't she be?”

“I don't want to get yelled at again.”

Cas still looked confused. “Why would she yell at you?”

Dean thought about it for a few moments. “I...dunno,” he said. “But she did last time.”

“I'll tell her not to,” Cas said, nodding to himself.

Dean's chest was still tightening from nervousness. “Did she say I could come over?”

Cas's expression didn't change. “No.”

Dean's pace slowed. “Maybe I shouldn't go-”

Cas's face fell completely – Dean thought he could see each muscle collapse. “But I want you to see my room,” he said.

Dean thought for a moment as they continued walking, trying to come up with a plan that would keep him from getting the woman mad again. “When we get there can you ask? If I'm allowed?”

“Of course,” Cas said, nodding.

They passed the rest of the walk in silence, keeping their hands joined and their shoulders close as they manoeuvred between trees, even though there was lots of space. Dean had the front of the trenchcoat pulled tightly around himself, his right arm crossed over the front to keep it closed as well as to preserve some heat and help him ease some of the nervousness that was swelling up inside of him. The coat itself was very comfortable: a little stiff in places, but soft. It was big on Dean, though the large size was actually comforting in a way Dean hadn't experienced in a long, long time.

As they approached the white and blue house from the side Dean was reminded of how dirty the outside was; without the setting sun to light it favorably, the exterior of the house showed the amount of time it had gone uncared for for. Dean wouldn't have known that anyone had been around at all if it weren't for several of the windows being open, and the car that was parked where it had been two days before.

Cas led them out of the trees and across the clearing, over dirt and leaves and patchy grass towards the road-side porch of the house. They climbed the steps together and then crossed over the slatted wooden boards of the porch to the door, which Cas let go of Dean's hand to push open, entering first and holding the door for Dean. Dean followed him inside before realizing that he should have stayed outside, keeping the escape route open in case things went awry with Cas's mother.

They now stood in a kitchen: over Cas's shoulder Dean could see that there was a table and chairs to their right behind the door, a fridge against the wall beside it and a large window beside that, cabinets and a counter running along the right wall and then coming out of it at a right angle. The kitchen colors were dull but the rest of the house was dark, the walls, ceiling, and floors made of stained wood of a shade only slightly lighter than that of the wood in Dean's cabin.

The light let in through the open windows lit almost everything, leaving very few areas of shadow; there were no artificial lights on. Just past the kitchen were several steps leading down a half-level to an open sitting area with a few sofas and chairs placed around a large TV, the fireplace ignored. There was also a door which led out to the screened-in porch on the other side of the house. The ceiling was high, the stained wooden supports for the slanted roof visible.

To their left was a cutout in the wall, the large opening leading into a hallway with at least one door on the furthest visible left wall, any more blocked from view by the cutout giving way back to a solid wall a few feet before the stairs began. The flat wall that extended above it to the peak of the ceiling had a few hung decorations, large embroidery pieces and faded rugs depicting mountains, trees, birds, and the sky.

“Castiel!” came the woman's voice – Dean could remember it surprisingly clearly, and though it was lower than it had been when Dean had first heard it it still sounded somewhat aggressive. Dean tensed. “Why don't you have your coat on?” Dean heard footsteps, and then he saw her emerge from the far part of the hallway that was hidden from view. She was frowning at them, expression hard and body straight and rigid as she looked at Dean, frown deepening.

Before she could say anything, Cas – Castiel? – said, “I want to show him my room.”

“And who's 'him?'” she asked, walking towards them, stopping several feet away, eyes on Dean, looking him up and down.

It was then that Dean remembered that he was still in his pyjamas under Cas's coat and, when her eyes paused by the floor, that he was barefoot. He knew he'd thought going barefoot was weird before he'd come out to the forest, and was suddenly afraid of what she might be thinking of him, or that she might take it upon herself to discipline him or yell at him for it. Dean watched her with wide, fearful eyes, frozen in place.

“My friend,” Cas said from beside Dean. Dean glanced over at him briefly before returning his gaze to the woman, who was looking at his face now.

“And what is your friend's name?” she said with what Dean could tell was fake patience.

“D-Dean,” Dean said, voice catching in his throat, coming out barely above a whisper. He went to say it again, clearer hopefully, but the woman was already speaking again, addressing Cas.

“And why is Dean wearing your coat? The one you're not supposed to take off when you're outside?”

“Dean was cold,” Cas replied.

The woman sighed tightly out her nose, gaze flicking over to Dean for an instant before returning to Cas. “We'll talk about this later,” she said, then looked pointedly down at Dean's feet. “If you're bringing him inside then go get him a pair of your socks, he's not walking in the house with dirty feet.”

Dean didn't like the way she talked about him like he wasn't standing right in front of her, or the tone of her voice; he became even more petrified when Cas pulled off his shoes and bolted from Dean's side and into the left hallway, but turned left instead of right and disappeared – unless there was a door behind the few feet of wall before the cutout he'd have run into a dead end, but instead Dean heard loud footsteps going upwards; a staircase, then. The woman crossed her arms and kept her eyes trained on Dean without blinking as Dean heard feet moving about above him, and then stomping footsteps descending the staircase again, Cas reappearing from around the corner, a pair of bundled up white socks clutched in his fist, which he held out to Dean. He was conscious of the woman's eyes on him as he kept his feet on the rough twine mat that was just inside the door as he sat down on it and unfolded the socks quickly, pulling them on as fast as he could as he felt his face and neck heating under the woman's unwavering scrutiny. Once the socks were on he jumped to his feet, casting one very quick glance back at the woman before looking at Cas, who beckoned him to follow. He did so gladly.

Around the corner of the hallway cutout there was in fact a staircase, a tight spiral made of wood that ascended upwards through a small hole in the floor above, just big enough for an adult to fit through though clearly meant for children. He followed Cas up the stairs a few steps behind the other boy. The steps were small and steep, the staircase only turning one and a bit times between the two floors; the ratio made Dean almost dizzy as they climbed, Cas far ahead of him but feeling only inches away because of the height and narrowness of the steps. Having nothing to either side of him except the railing and centre pole that the stairs wound around made Dean feel that he was continuously losing his balance. Both boys had duck their heads awkwardly as they approached the top of the staircase, holding their heads in the opening while they turned their bodies to climb the last few steps and onto the second floor.

The room they'd entered was long, spanning the length of the house; there were two beds, each with its heads against the left wall, and there was about four feet of clearance between the foot of the beds and the right wall, which came up right beside the staircase opening. The carpet was burgundy and thick, squishing down under and around Dean's socked feet. Wainscoting covered the walls: the bottom few feet covered with pale panelled wood, with drywall above it painted the lightest shade of blue that could be found in the sky. On the white ceiling, just past the bed and splitting the room in half, was a track, the pale pink curtain hanging from it gathered and pushed back against the left wall out of the way, allowing the whole room to be seen. There were two large windows, one in each half of the room over the beds, and some light coming in from the top of the slanted ceiling; Dean couldn't see the window from where he stood in the back right corner.

There were two wooden dressers between the beds on either side of the pink curtain, both painted white, the paint chipping badly in some places. A computer desk made of plastic, artificial wood sat pushed into the far left corner of the room, barely any space between it and the second bed. The desk had nothing on it; there was a large box on the bed beside it, probably holding the computer the desk was meant for. There were also a few boxes along the middle of the right wall, one with some of the flaps opened, a single book sitting on top and keeping it closed. The decoration on the wall there was white, and with a few steps to the side Dean could see that there was a patterned carved bookcase built into the wall with a built-in ladder running through the middle, leading up to a window seat near the ceiling. The bookcase was currently empty. Pushed into the corner to Dean's left between the closest bed and the wall was a pile of bean bag chairs.

From behind him Cas said, “Do you like my room?”

Dean crossed his arms as he looked around, wrapping and tightening the trenchcoat around himself without thinking. “Yeah,” he said, his eyes drifting over to the desk again. “You haven't set your computer up yet?”

Cas stepped up beside him and looked over at the desk as well. “No. Balthazar hasn't helped me.”

“I could. Set it up for you. If you want,” Dean offered, cringing at how awkward and incompetent he sounded when he spoke.

But Cas didn't seem bothered at all, looking over at Dean with wide eyes and a smile. “Yes please,” he said.

Dean grinned back before walking around the beds and towards the computer desk and box. On the floor on the far side of the bed, between him and the computer desk, was another box, long and flat, with a sticker on it denoting a computer desk and chair set. He didn't see a chair anywhere, so he assumed the chair must still be in the box; he lifted one edge of the box up and leaned it against the bed so that it would be out of his way while he worked.

The first thing Dean did was to look for a power outlet. There weren't any along the wall, and when he pulled the desk out he couldn't see one behind it either. “We need a plug.”

Cas, who had been standing behind Dean, crawled over the bed and started to search for one on the wall with windows. “Here,” he said, holding the pink curtain aside and pointing down between the two dressers.

Dean looked over, then stood up to open the computer box and look inside. He grabbed a handful of the mess of cables inside, the packing job not being very neat, and pulled them out to sort through on the bed's surface. After a quick scan he picked up a thick power cable, tugging it to disentangle it from the other cables. Holding it up in the air the end didn't even touch the bed's surface – far too short to reach the power outlet Cas had found. He looked from the cable back down to the bed, thinking. He bent back to peek at the bed's legs, which weren't wheeled but weren't attached to the floor either. “Let's move the bed,” he said, tapping the frame with his leg. Cas looked a little uncertain. “Come on, we can move it ourselves,” Dean said, grabbing the cables and dropping them back into the computer box, which he then lifted off the bed and onto the floor before pushing the computer desk's box off the edge of the bed and back onto the floor. He looked around the room, trying to figure out where to put the bed – there wasn't much empty space. “Let's push it. Against the wall,” he said, pointing to the wall with the bookcase; doing so would leave enough space to slide the desk closer to the outlet.

Cas nodded, and he and Dean both bent down, grabbing onto the bottom of the bedframe and lifting it just enough that they could move the bed over to the other wall before putting it down. They then both walked over the desk and easily lifted its awkward shape over to beside the dresser, which they then also opted to move aside so that the desk could be right beside the outlet. Once they'd placed the desk Cas sat down on the edge of the bed they'd moved while Dean walked over to bring the computer box over. As he kneeled down in front of the desk and put the box on the floor he realized that he still had Cas's trenchcoat on, and he was starting to feel a little hot under it after the exertion of moving the bed. He pulled at the sleeves, his arms behind his back, and slipped the coat off. He bundled it up and held it out to Cas, who stood up to take it. “Thanks Cas,” he said.

“You're welcome Dean,” Cas said with a small smile before turning around to lay the trenchcoat out on the bed beside him and sitting down again.

Dean started to unpack the computer, pulling out the contents of the box and placing everything in order in a semicircle around him and the desk. He unwrapped the monitor from its own smaller box, setting it down backwards on top of the desk so that he could attach the power and input cables before threading them down the back of the desk and turning the monitor the right way around. Dean also put the speakers on the desk's surface, then began to plug things into the back of the computer tower while Cas watched quietly.

When Dean glanced over and up at Cas he saw that the other boy's eyes were on his arms, and it was only then that Dean realized that by taking Cas's coat off he had left his scars fully visible. He froze, eyes wide as he watched Cas.

Cas looked up at Dean's face a few seconds after Dean stopped moving, giving him a closed-lip smile, eyes open and – accepting? He wasn't saying anything, and he didn't look mad, but Dean's heart had started to pound hard in his chest and he was waiting for Cas's expression to change – but it didn't, even as he titled his head and opened his mouth to say, “Are you alright?”

Dean started, jumping slightly as the words shook him out of his paralysis. “Y-yeah,” he said quickly, throat catching but the word still coming out comprehensible. He looked back down at the computer and continued to plug the last few cables in, hands shaking even as he willed them to be steady.

Looking up at Cas out of the corner of his eyes, Dean saw that he was no longer looking at Dean's arms, but at Dean's hands and the computer. He looked calm and happy, and Dean's head was reeling at that as he tightened the monitor's cable attachments. Cas had seen his scars and hadn't reacted, hadn't been mad, wasn't mad – he wasn't in trouble. Dean repeated this to himself as he checked over his work to make sure everything looked right, then finally turned his attention to the last remaining cable.

He picked up the ethernet cable and looked over at Cas, maintaining eye contact much easier than he thought it would be. “Do you know where this goes?”

Cas nodded brightly. “Yes,” he said, standing up off the bed and walking around Dean to stand beside the dresser they hadn't moved, which he pushed aside several inches until it was right against the bed, revealing a jack for the cable in the wall. “They set up the internet yesterday.”

Dean's eyes widened as he lifted his eyes to look at Cas. “You have internet?”

“Yes,” Cas said, nodding. He paused. “Is that – good?”

Dean let out a breathy laugh. “Yeah. Yeah that's, good,” he said, smile on his face as he plugged in both ends of the ethernet cable. He stuck his head in under the desk to look at the front side of the computer tower, and reached around to press the power button, the fans whirring to life when he did. He crawled out from underneath the desk and stood up, picking up the keyboard and mouse and setting them up on the desk before turning the monitor on as well. He looked behind him as the computer continued to boot up, realizing that he hadn't set up the chair.

Cas stood up, and motioned with one hand to the bed. “We could sit on the bed,” he said, bouncing up once on the balls of his feet, putting his hands behind his back.

Dean nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said, walking around to the far side of the bed as Cas also got into position to pick the bed up again and move it.

With small steps they carried the bed over so that the head was right against the computer desk and Cas was almost trapped between the edges of the two beds. Once they put it down Cas climbed onto the bed, moving the pillow aside to make room for him and Dean to sit down in front of the now booted-up computer. Dean crawled around Cas and dropped down in front of the keyboard and mouse, Cas taking a seat to Dean's right.

Starting up the browser was surreal for Dean, watching the progress bar with bated breath as he thought about the fact that he was finally getting on the internet, finally using a computer after four years without either. The smile from before never left his face as he and Cas discussed what to do.

When Dean heard footsteps coming up the stairs he turned his forearms down and rested them along his legs, concealing his scars. A man, Cas's father apparently, crested the steps carefully and brought Dean and Cas sandwiches and carrots and celery with dip. He looked around the room with a frown on his face but didn't say anything, leaving the boys alone again once Cas had taken the tray of food and set it out on the computer desk. Once he had left the room Dean relaxed, lifting his hand to take a sandwich from the tray, and he and Cas turned their attentions back to the video they were watching.

They were in the middle of a video of a concert when Cas's mother came up to see them. “I think it's time for Dean to go home, we're having dinner soon-” she said, eyes taking in the new layout of the room. She turned to Dean and Cas, frowning. “Why aren't you using the beanbag chairs Castiel?”

“They're too low,” Cas said. “And there's only one computer chair.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, looking around the room again before letting out a huff of breath and returning her attention to Dean and Cas. “But as I said, Dean needs to go home. It's going to get dark soon.”

Dean looked up and out of the high window seat window – Cas's mom was right, it was starting to get late, and if he had to walk over the hazardous forest floor barefoot he would rather do it in daylight. He and Cas were in the middle of a video though, and he frowned himself and he dropped his gaze from the window and turned it back to the computer screen.

“We're in the middle of a video,” Cas said, looking over Dean's shoulder at his mother.

“I don't care. Come downstairs,” she said before turning around and leaving them alone.

Dean reached out and pressed the spacebar, eyes on the screen as he paused the video. “We could uh. Keep going later?”

“Tomorrow,” Cas replied, looking over at Dean's face.

“Can I come over again tomorrow?” Dean asked, turning his head as well, and Cas nodded, eyes lighting up.

They got off opposite sides of the bed, then walked over to the staircase, Dean leading the way. He was a little intimidated by it, looking down the small hole and seeing the distance down to the floor below, the lack of railing or support until he was several steps down making his head spin and his balance feel precarious. He managed to descend the stairs without falling, but the whole way down he felt like he was on the edge of a plunge and he didn't like it.

Cas's mother was waiting for them by the door, arms crossed as she watched Dean and Cas round the corner that hid the staircase and enter the kitchen. Dean stepped onto the rough twine mat in front of the door before bending down to remove the socks Cas had lent him; not knowing where to put them he just put them on the floor beside the mat, conscious of the woman's eyes on him as he straightened, keeping his arms close to his sides.

“What do you say Castiel?” she said in a bored and exasperated tone, but keeping her eyes on Dean, arms crossed.

“Thank you for coming over,” Cas said in such a way that it sounded sincere yet also implied indignation. Dean knew that it wasn't directed at him, though, which almost made him smile.

Realizing that he was expected to speak, Dean stammered out a “Th-anks. For uh. Having me,” he said, suddenly becoming aware of the fact that he was still in pyjamas and was standing with two people that were dressed normally. He felt his face starting to heat up, so he turned around abruptly, reaching out for and turning the door handle.

The air that rushed in with the open door was cool, raising goosebumps on Dean's exposed arms. “It's cold,” Dean said without thinking.

“I'll get you my coat,” Cas said, making to move back towards the stairs to fetch it.

“No. No, Castiel, don't give him your coat. We'll get him another one,” his mother said, and walked off herself down to the far end of the hallway, returning in under a minute with the collar of a dark brown leather jacket clenched in one fist, which she held out to Dean once she was closer. “Here.”

Dean took it, saying, “Thank you,” before opening it and pushing one arm into the sleeve, and then the other. It was large and loose on him, but provided protection against the chill that was still coming in through the open door behind him. He looked outside over his shoulder before looking back inside. “Uh, bye,” he said awkwardly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, lifting his right hand to rub at the back of his neck as he lowered his eyes to the floor. Then he looked back up at Cas and said, “See you tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Cas said with a nod and small smile.

“Okay. Great. Bye?” Dean said, looking from Cas to his mom and then back again before turning around and walking out the door quickly, only just remembering to reach back and close it behind him.

Dean took quick steps towards the trees, heart heavy in his chest as he cringed and tensed his muscles at how awkwardly he'd acted while saying goodbye. He kept that pace into the trees, hands in the pockets of the borrowed jacket, and did his best to relax his muscles, forcing himself to stop mulling over his words and actions. The sun was providing enough light for him to see by that he was able to avoid stepping on or hitting his foot on anything, so he was grudgingly grateful to Cas's mom for sending him home when she did. Maybe next time he could bring a flashlight, then they wouldn't have to worry about the amount of daylight left...

Because Cas wanted him to come over again. That fact swirled around in Dean's head as he walked home: Cas liked him! Or maybe he just wanted company, and Dean was the only person around that wasn't his family. Or he was just being polite – people said stuff like that to be polite right? But Cas had seemed to enjoy watching Dean set up his computer and looking at videos with him. They had common tastes and interests, so maybe he really did want to be friends?

Dean had worked himself up over it quite a bit by the time he opened the door to the cabin, but was quickly distracted by the thought of food, the small meal at Cas's having barely tided him over, but he'd been too scared to ask for more. He left the jacket on as he went straight to the kitchen, opening the fridge and pondering what to make.

After making several things – his stomach felt bottomless – he cleaned up, not yet tired. Once the basic dishes were taken care of he still had energy, so he moved on to cleaning the kitchen itself: wiping down the stovetop and burners, cleaning the inside of the oven, sorting the contents of the cupboards where they'd gotten messy and unorganized from him and his father tossing things back in without much care. He found a strange multitool on the counter as he was cleaning up, one he couldn't remember seeing before. He figured it was probably his dad's, so he left it out.

He tackled the fridge next, going through its contents, checking the fresh vegetables he hadn't used that night to make sure they hadn't gone bad; he threw some out, and left others on top to be used in the next day or two, switched bags for a few, and stored the rest back in the drawers. Sorting the rest of the fridge proved to be quick work, and soon Dean found himself with nothing left to clean.

It was long past dark and Dean felt awake and alert, but he decided to get ready for bed anyway, mostly out of habit. On the heels of the excitement of using a computer again, with music and internet, the few entertaining things in the cabin seemed like the most boring objects in the world; not even the Hitchhiker's books were appealing. Dean thought back to the boxes by the bookcase in Cas's room, and wondered if they were all full of books and if so what sort of books they were, hoping that they weren't mythology books like his dad's – he wanted to read something different, to learn about other things. Hopefully Cas would let him borrow them. Dean wouldn't have much to offer in return, but maybe they would be enough.

Dean was suddenly desperate for all the new, stimulating things he'd been exposed to that afternoon, ones he'd forgotten about in the years since being brought out to the forest. Thinking back he couldn't comprehend how he'd gone four years with only what he had, without music or a computer or new books or games or – TV, they'd had a TV! It hadn't been on when Dean had been there, but if they had internet then surely they'd be getting TV channels as well? And movies, Dean missed movies, Star Wars and Back to the Future and...

The prospects were amazing as they raced through his head as he changed for bed. He still felt a little tense and hollowly full from his mood earlier, but his short exposure to some of his old favorite things had him feeling strangely normal and light; it was a feeling of natural peace that he'd never associated with his time in the cabin, that he wasn't sure he'd ever had even before the fire. It was while swimming in these thoughts and sensations that he fell asleep easily.

The next morning dawned cool and bright, sunlight coming in through Dean's open door and waking him up, eyes stinging from the intensity. Squinting through just-open eyelids he staggered out of the warmth of his bed to close the door before falling back into bed without having stood up straight. He stayed in bed and tried to fall back asleep, not feeling like he'd gotten enough, but his body wouldn't cooperate and after an hour or two he was fully awake and any hope of falling back asleep that morning was gone.

He finally got out of bed, going to the bathroom before perusing the kitchen for more food. His stomach was a little sore from how much he'd eaten the night before, but it was empty now and begging for more. Not knowing at what time he should go over to Cas's, he made another meal, taking his time preparing and consuming it, and cleaned up afterwards. He noticed that the multitool was gone, so his dad must have seen it and realized he'd forgotten it and put it back wherever it belonged.

Dean got his Rubik's cube out of his room, then sat down at the kitchen table and played around with for a while, time passing by in a smooth flow as he turned, turned, turned, solved, mixed, chose a new color, and turned some more, the clack of the pieces moving filling the cabin as Dean turned the rows quickly, not even thinking about it as he lined up color after color until every piece was where it needed to be. Every action was done on autopilot, his mind free of everything while he was lost in the puzzle in his hands that wasn't a puzzle to him.

When Dean went to turn a row without having fully lined up another a corner piece went flying, hitting the window above the sink and ricocheting off down to the counter, then skidding off to land on the floor under one of the other kitchen table chairs. The suddenness of it jerked Dean out of his trance and he stopped moving, just staring at the cube in his hands for several long moments. He blinked slowly, looking up at the window where he'd heard the first bounce of the missing piece. Then he leaned back in his chair and tilted his body to the side to look under the table, eyes finding the black of the plastic against the dark brown of the floor. He sat up and absently straightened the sides of the cube as he stood up, pushing inwards so that the rest of the cube didn't fall apart without the support of the corner piece. He put it down on the table before bending down to retrieve the piece from the floor, and looked out the window. It looked like it was shortly before noon, and he suddenly wondered if he should go over to Cas's now. He didn't know if Cas was going to come and get him or if he was expected to make his own way over; he wished he'd thought to ask Cas that before Cas's mom had sent him home.

After checking the orientation of the piece he snapped it back into place, then went into his room to grab a pair of socks and put them and his boots on, sitting with his butt on the floor as he struggled with the laces. After a minute he just tucked the ends of the laces of the second boot inside the lip, too frustrated to continue trying to do them up. He stood, putting the jacket he'd been lent the night before on over his flannel and pocketing the flashlight that was on in his bedside table drawer before leaving the cabin.

His boots clopped about around his feet as he walked, uncomfortable, but Dean didn't want the woman to have to watch him again while Cas got him something to wear on his feet. He wanted to be competent so that she didn't have to tell him anything. She wasn't like his mom, who, even when she had told him what to do, had always at least tried to do it nicely. Cas's mom was just stern and didn't seem to care about the effect every one of her actions had on Dean. Or maybe Dean was just good at hiding it. He wished he wasn't, because then he might get some sympathy from her.

Dean was glad when he reached the clearing, leaving the trees eagerly to cross the empty land to the porch, jumping up the steps two at a time in his excitement to reach the door and knock. He'd just lowered his fist to his side when he heard noises from inside, loud footsteps coming from above and then moving down the stairs that he knew were to his left, then a few more thumps before Cas was opening the door wide for him, trenchcoat spread out behind him, still in motion from his fast movement before it swished down and came to rest. Cas straightened and brightened when he saw Dean on the other side of the door.

“Hey Cas,” Dean said, mirroring his expression.

“Oh let the boy in already, you'll let all the heat out,” a voice from inside said, which Dean recognized as Balthazar's. Cas turned away from the door to face inside, giving Dean enough room to step inside and bend down to take off his boots. Once Dean had his boots off and had pushed them to the side to sit with the other shoes that were beside the mat he reached for the door and closed it himself, it having been abandoned by Cas, who was now staring hard at Balthazar, back turned as he poured milk into a bowl of cereal in the kitchen.

“Don't call him that,” Cas said, voice hard. Dean raised his eyebrows, surprised at the tone.

“Whatever,” Balthazar replied, putting the milk back in the fridge and pushing the cereal box against the wall beside the other cereal boxes that were lined up there. “If mum asks I'm in the basement.”

“Where are you going?” Cas asked, tone normal now, his back slightly more relaxed.

“Oh no I actually am going to be in the basement this time,” Balthazar said with a wave of the spoon he'd just gotten out of the cutlery drawer. “Have fun with your friend.”

“His name's Dean,” Cas said, serious again, but Balthazar was already walking away and didn't reply, lifting a spoonful of cereal to his mouth as he walked through the cutout and down the hallway, out of sight.

“Your brother's a dick,” Dean said without thinking. Cas turned to look at him.

“Sometimes,” he agreed, tilting his head slightly to one side. “Do you want to go upstairs?”

“Sure,” Dean said.

Upon clearing the floor Dean saw that the layout of the furniture in the room had been changed since he'd left the evening before: the bedframe of the bed on the other side of the room had been dismantled, the mattress pushed up on its edge and now leaning against the far wall. The computer desk had been pushed a little further down the room in that direction, as much as the power cable lengths allowed, which kept it clear of the hanging pink curtain, still present. The beanbags that had been piled in the corner closest to the one where the staircase came up were now in the empty space cleared by moving the second bed, and both dressers had been moved to the corner they'd vacated, now both standing side-by-side against the wall without the windows. The bed closest to the staircase had been pushed a couple of feet towards the empty side of the room to give access to the drawers. In front of the computer sat a single foldable chair with sparse padding.

They decided to stack a couple of the beanbag chairs on top of each other to make a makeshift seat for Cas (who insisted that Dean take the normal chair), which seemed to work well. Cas laid his trenchcoat out on his bed before sitting down, and Dean took his jacket off as well and placed it beside the trenchcoat before taking a seat in the chair.

After finishing their video from the night before they continued to watch more until they got talking about acoustic versions of songs, and then Cas took control of the mouse to open up his music folder. While Dean scrolled through the artists Cas got up and walked around Dean's chair and over to his bed, lifting the pillow and picking up a pair of headphones from underneath, bringing them back over to the computer and plugging them into the speakers before offering one earbud to Dean.

At the first clear note of a guitar through the earbud Dean felt all his muscles relax and he closed his eyes, focusing all his sense and focus on the music. He'd always loved how good things sounded through headphones, and Cas had really nice ones. His speakers were good too, but this was better.

Cas's mother interrupted them when they were only a few songs into their exploration of Cas's musical library. “Why don't you two go outside?” she said, and while she posed it as a question both boys could tell that is was a very strong suggestion. Dean let his hand fall from where it had been hovering over the pause key on the keyboard, turning his head around to look at Cas beside him, who was still looking at his mother.

“Okay,” Cas said, carefully uncrossing his legs and lowering them to the floor, trying not to throw the pile of chairs off balance. He pulled himself to his feet using the desk as an anchor to clear the pile, then looked down at Dean, who then dropped his eyes to the floor as he pushed his chair backwards and stood up as well.

“Don't forget your jackets,” she said before descending the staircase and leaving the two boys alone.

Cas slid between the narrow space between Dean's chair and the beanbags and stepped up beside his bed, picking up his trenchcoat and putting it on. Dean followed suit and grabbed his own jacket (which Cas's mom had made sound like it was his, though he wasn't entirely sure on that), putting his arms in the sleeves as he followed Cas over to the staircase.

Once they had their shoes on and were outside they followed the path down to the water. Every tree along the right-hand edge of the path had a short, sharp line of bright white spraypaint on its trunk below Dean's eyelevel. When he asked Cas about them the other boy replied that his parents had done it earlier after his mother claimed that the path was too hard to follow.

When they reached the water Dean saw that a small dock had been set up straight out from the path, a few steps up off the beach leading up to the plastic and metal structure. Beside the dock's end was a boat lift holding the large white boat Dean had seen earlier out of the water.

The waves on the lake were small, barely there, the water coming up and down on the sand with each small wave that came into shore. Dean looked both ways down the beach, putting his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The beach disappeared to their left around a bend, and he knew that the sand only continued on for a few dozen feet more before the land started to rise gradually, the sand replaced by rocks. On the right the beach continued for a good distance, the tall trees overhanging the next bend a distant landmark; the sand band continued far beyond that.

Dean pointed down towards that end of the beach. “Wanna go walk?” he asked.

“Okay,” Cas said, nodding.

Dean bent down to take off his boots and socks; Cas watched until he caught on to what Dean was doing, then sat down on the edge of the sand and forest to do the same with his sneakers. He lined up his shoes neatly beside a tree, and once Dean had his boots and socks off he brought them over and put his beside Cas's. He then held a hand out to help Cas stand up.

As they started walking Dean dug his feet deliberately into the sand on eat step, not having been on the beach for several weeks and enjoying the feeling of the dry, gritty sand in contrast with what he was used to, which was sand when it was underwater: sharp, but light. Cas chose to walk closer to the water, his right foot moving on dry sand, his left on the wet, hard sand touched by the waves as they lapped against and receded from the shore.

The leather jacket was warm; so warm that Dean was sweating a little but underneath it, but it was keeping him at a comfortable temperature, so he decided to leave it on, especially since taking it off would expose him to the light breeze and he thought that that might leave him too cold. His feet were a little chilled though, the sand not being all that warm underneath the topmost sun-warmed layer.

He barely noticed it as they rounded the corner that had obstructed the rest of the beach from the dock, it being in reality little more than a small protrusion in a slight jagged but mostly straight shoreline. He only realized when his eyes caught sight of the end of the beach, and the ferns and bushes that climbed up and hid the steep rocks that bordered on the sand. Suddenly excited at being able to share a secret with Cas Dean quickened his pace, stepping lightly over the sand.

Dean sensed Cas perking his head up at Dean's change in speed, but he increased his as well to catch up and then keep up with him. He was walking with both feet on wet sand now and was holding up the left leg of his jeans, his foot in shallow water on almost every step.

It took them some time to reach the end of the beach; they were about two miles away from Cas's dock by Dean's estimate. The walk was easy though, and Dean could see a small smile on Cas's face as Cas watched his feet stepping in the water and over the sand, which made Dean smile as well.

Cas slowed as they approached the wall of bush and rock, stopping and looking up at it as he wiggled his toes into the cool, wet sand. Dean stopped as well, his eyes scanning the surface and leaves more purposefully. Cas stayed where he was as Dean stepped forward, watching as he bent down to move some large low leaves aside, placing his feet carefully onto the ground at the bottom of the rock, moving along the edge and towards the water slowly. Cas followed after a few moments, recording Dean's steps carefully in his head so that he'd step in the same places his friend had.

He looked down to check his footing, and when he looked back up Dean had disappeared. Cas's face stayed relaxed as he continued to follow Dean's steps. A moment later Dean came back into sight, leaning with his head sticking out from between some large fern leaves, a big grin on his face as he looked at Cas and stuck one arm out to grip at Cas's sleeve and guide him along and into the mouth of the cave.

Because that's what Dean had disappeared into, a cave in the rocks hidden from sight by overgrown brush leaves. Cas blinked several times at the sudden decrease in light, only the first several feet inside being lit directly by the sun through the leaves and the light also making the sides of the cave visible for a dozen or so feet in. He turned around to look out of the mouth, the breeze feeling stronger even though the leaves should logically be dissipating the strength of the wind. It was noticeably cooler in the cave, the temperature drop from outside perceptible even through his trenchcoat.

Dean was watching Cas's reaction to the cave. It had taken him a long time to find the caves; he'd found the first one two years ago in late winter, when the ice was thick but a short thaw had reduced the amount of snow on the ground. Before then he'd thought that these rocks were solid, like the ones by his dad's cabin, but when he'd been walking on the ice he'd noticed that there was a large black gap where there wasn't snow piled, and had approached to investigate. It had turned out to be the mouth of the largest cave, and once he knew what to look for he was able to locate three more of varying sizes, and once the snow melted he was able to find a few more, though all but one of those were too small to go into.

He'd found the caves to be very interesting, even though he'd only stood in the mouth of one that day: the interiors were warm, or at least warmer than the winter cold. Compared to the average temperatures of summer the caves were cool, but they were always about the same temperature inside. Dean had used this to his advantage during many summer heat waves, when the temperature didn't even drop appreciably during the night and there was no way to cool the cabin down for weeks on end. He'd carry a blanket to one of the caves and sit in it during the day, enjoying the contrast of the cool cave air and the warm air that blew in off the lake.

Cas turned to look back into the depths of the cave, then started to walk deeper into it. Dean took a step forward and grabbed onto his sleeve when he realized what Cas was doing, holding him back even as Cas stopped walking immediately. He looked at Dean over his shoulder. “What's wrong?”

“Don't go in!” Dean said. “You could get lost.”

“Oh,” Cas said, looking into the rest of the cave dejectedly.

Dean's fell as well. “But we could,” he said, remembering what he'd done when he'd first found the caves. “Uh. Get some rope and flashlights and then. Look around another time?” he finished off weakly.

But Cas was no longer looking dispirited as he held Dean's eyes in the low light of the cave. “Okay,” he said, nodding.

“Okay. Great,” Dean said, and tugged on Cas's sleeve again, trying to get him closer to the cave mouth again. He didn't like how far away they stood from it; it made him nervous.

When Dean mentioned that there were other caves Cas asked to see them as well. Dean showed him a couple of the smaller ones, but the other big ones couldn't be reached by walking along the rock face, so they had to roll up their pant legs and take to the water. Cas insisted on going inside every one of them, even though they never went further than a few feet in. After Cas had seen all the caves they decided to head back to Cas's house, their stomachs rumbling.

Cas hadn't held up his trenchcoat while he and Dean had been walking in the water, so the bottom of it was soaked; he took it off once they were back on the beach, and held it folded over one of his arms as they walked back. They stopped to sit down and put their socks and shoes back on when they arrived where they'd left them, then found the path to the clearing and followed it back. When they got there both of Cas's parents were outside, so the boys helped themselves to some snacks in the kitchen and took them upstairs to eat while they used Cas's computer.

Later on in the evening Cas's mom came up to send Dean home again before dark, and that's when Dean remembered that he'd had a flashlight in his pocket the whole time. He'd have made the same call about not going into the caves without rope if he had remembered, but he still hoped that Cas wouldn't notice the discrepancy. Dean was internally cursing himself for revealing the flashlight once Cas's mother left, even though he was glad that he was able to stay longer, because he was nervous that Cas would call him out on it or was secretly thinking badly of him for it. But Cas gave no indication or mention of the flashlight or the caves, though it didn't stop Dean from worrying as they continued to watch videos. A little while later Cas's mom brought up two plates of food, but said that if they wanted drinks they'd have to come downstairs and then bring them up themselves. They both agreed that they were fine, but then got thirsty a few minutes later and went down. Dean left a few hours after dark, the stars hidden by the clouds but the halo of the moon's light visible through the layer.

Chapter Text

Every day after that Dean would go over to Cas's house at some point around noon, and would spend the day with his friend. They wouldn't always stay inside, though they both very much enjoyed spending time in Cas's room, using his computer, watching movies on it (or sometimes in the basement, when Balthazar would relinquish the TV down there for their use), listening to music long forgotten by Dean. Cas would watch Dean attentively when they found an old artist or song Dean said sounded familiar. Dean would have the headphones on and his eyes closed as he let the music and words wash over him, let the notes come back to him like old friends. They also spent a lot of time reading.

Dean got to help Cas empty his boxes of books and organize them on the shelves in his room. They'd both get distracted reading the back covers or starting in on the first chapter of interesting ones, so unpacking them all took a day and a half. Once they were done there was a small pile of books on an otherwise empty shelf that they'd decided they wanted to read first.

They quickly realized, however, that trying to read together didn't go very well. Dean read much slower than Cas, and would sometimes have to reread things because he didn't understand them the first time through. Most of Cas's books were paperbacks, which made it very difficult for Cas to skip ahead while Dean kept reading his page. And neither of them liked being on different parts anyway, because then if there was something funny or confusing they weren't there at the same time.

A couple of chapters into their first book Dean was getting frustrated and sat up on Cas's bed; they'd both been laying on their stomachs, arms and heads over the edge and the book resting on the floor, both their hands keeping it open. The attic was a little too warm, which wasn't helping with Dean's patience or control. “Sorry Cas, I'm not very good at reading,” he said, wiping at his forehead where he'd started to sweat after sitting up.

Cas sat up as well, turning towards Dean and crossing his legs, resting the book in the crook where his legs crossed, a finger inside keeping their page. He looked down at the book's front cover. “I don't like reading silently,” Cas said.

“But you have lots of books!” Dean said. He didn't understand why someone who didn't like reading would have so many.

Cas shook his head, looking up at Dean. “I enjoy reading, but not in my head. I'd rather read out loud, but I thought it would bother you. Maybe we should do something else.”

They both looked at each other, Cas waiting, Dean thinking. He really wanted to read books, but the idea of reading books alone felt weird and thick in Dean's head, like it couldn't grasp the concept and think it through any further even though he'd been doing it since he was small. “You could read to me,” Dean said absentmindedly, then straightened as he actually registered the thought and saw how good it was. Cas liked reading out loud, and Dean wasn't good at reading written words. He was okay at listening, or maybe he was better than okay – he thought he might be getting better at understanding what Cas was saying, even though he sometimes missed things when one of Cas's family members was talking.

Cas's expression didn't change, but after a few moments he nodded, then returned Dean's smile. “That's a good idea,” Cas said, and Dean felt a sudden brief flood of fullness in his chest at the words – but then it was gone, and his body felt normal again. He didn't think much of it, because Cas was getting off the bed, book still held closed in one hand. “We can sit on the beanbags,” he said.

“Yeah,” Dean said, smiling again and getting up as well. He picked up two of the beanbags from in front of the computer and moved them over to the empty side of the room, putting them down a few feet away from each other. Cas had followed Dean, and sat down in one of them; Dean sunk into the other, grinning at how comfortable it was. He'd always wanted a beanbag chair for his room, but his mom had never gotten him one.

Dean immediately found that he liked listening to Cas read. He spoke clearly and not too fast, voice quiet enough that it wasn't jarring to Dean's ears. He didn't do different voices for each character like they did in audiobooks, but Dean still liked Cas's reading better. He'd stop reading when he laughed, or Dean laughed, or when he thought something interesting was going to happen and wanted to share his prediction with Dean. Sometimes Dean would interrupt with commentary, and Cas didn't seem to mind that. They did at least some reading every day after that.

When Dean knocked on Cas's door one afternoon it was opened almost immediately, Cas smiling at him as he held the door open for Dean and bounced excitedly. Dean stepped inside, returning Cas's smile with a small one of his own, and when Cas closed the door after him Dean saw that there was a board game set up on the kitchen table. Cas stood by the table, waiting for Dean to take off his shoes excitedly. “My parents found it in a cupboard,” he explained while Dean pulled at his laces. “Balthazar's playing with us.”

When Dean sat down at the table and took in the board set out on the table, he saw that not only was it Monopoly, but it was a different version of Monopoly than he'd played at school – there was an image of a snowboarder in the middle of the board, and the properties had different names and colored pictures on all the spaces. The money and card decks were also different, as were the plastic houses and hotels in a plastic bag held closed with an elastic band.

Cas pointed to the pewter playing pieces that were off to the side beside the box. “I'm the glove,” he said, picking up the piece with the tips of his fingers. “What do you want to be?”

Dean surveyed the available pieces – a helmet, what looked like an electric drill, a snowboarder, goggles, and a boot. He was just reaching forward when a voice from off to his left said, “Don't! Take, the snowboarder. That one's mine.” Balthazar rounded the corner of the cutout coming from the basement, walking briskly to the table and reaching over it to snatch up his piece.

“Wasn't going to,” Dean said, sending a sideways glare up at Balthazar before selecting the goggles from the remaining pieces. “I'll be these,” he said, holding them up for Cas to see. He smiled at Dean.

Balthazar had already put his snowboarder down on the Go space and taken his seat at the end of the table, so Dean placed his down as well. Cas reached over the board from across from Dean and put his piece just over top of the goggles, the fingers of the glove sitting and fitting perfectly over the goggle's strap. Cas had a small smile on his face as he sat back down in his chair, pleased with himself. Dean reached forward and wiggled the glove around a bit, seeing how well the two pieces fit together, dragging them back and forth a bit; Cas watched his experimentation and when Dean looked up they both grinned at each other. Balthazar brought their attention back to the task at hand, making them all roll to decide who would go first.

Whenever Dean and Cas ended up the same space, they hooked their pieces together until one of them had to move. They played all through the afternoon, and had to carefully carry the board down to the living room and set it on a table there so that there was space for everyone to sit down and eat when it was time for dinner. After the meal Dean and Cas wanted to keep playing, but Balthazar said he was too tired to keep going and retreated to the basement with a big bowl of popcorn. Dean and Cas climbed the stairs to the attic, and Cas read to Dean for a few hours until his parents said it was time for Cas to go to bed and sent Dean home.

The board remained in the living room, and they continued to play it for another two days, at which point Balthazar went bankrupt. He seemed relieved about it though, and relinquished control of the bank to the other boys so that he could go do other things. Dean and Cas continued to play the game on and off for over a week, at which point they determined that neither of them was going to win, so they packed it up and kept it upstairs in case they wanted to play it again later on.

Early one morning, almost three weeks after Cas's family's arrival, Dean was eating breakfast when he was startled by a knock on the door, followed by the sound of it opening and footsteps walking down the hall towards the kitchen. Cas rounded the hallway corner and stepped into the kitchen before stopping, dressed in his usual jeans, shirt, trenchcoat, and running shoes. “I thought you were never up before lunch,” Dean said immediately around his current mouthful, a little surprised to see Cas there. Not only did Dean always go over to Cas's house, but the one time he had gone over before eleven he'd found out that visiting before lunch made for a tired and grumpy Cas. Dean didn't like it when Cas wasn't feeling good, which apparently happened if he had to get up much before the sun reached its highest point in the sky. That fact didn't make sense with what Dean was seeing now, which was a wide awake and dressed Cas when the dew outside probably still hadn't evaporated.

“My family's left for the city to pick up some things we need,” Cas said, looking around the kitchen and not at Dean. “They took a small truck and left the car with me, and I thought we could go into town for the day.”

Dean hadn't been to town in over a year, his clothes from the last trip having been bought big enough that they still fit him now. The prospect, while somewhat daunting with his father because Dean was responsible for all the talking, was extremely appealing with Cas. “Sure. Okay,” Dean said, smiling at Cas when he met Dean's eyes.

Cas pulled out the other chair at the table and sat down, planning to wait for Dean to finish eating so that they could walk back to his house together. Dean got up though, leaving his plate at his place and pulled another one down from a cupboard, filling it with the leftovers of what he'd made. Cas looked up at him as he placed the plate and cutlery in front of him. “Saw you eyeing my food,” Dean said, venturing a quick wink before he turned and sat down in his chair, returning to his food, keeping his head down as he felt his face and neck heat up. Why had he done that? Cas probably thought it was weird and awkward and wouldn't want to take him into town after all and Dean would have nothing to do that day and no one to talk to-

“Thank you Dean,” Cas said, and Dean took a quick glance upwards and saw Cas pick up his cutlery and begin to eat slowly, a few hums of appreciation coming out as he ate; Dean slowed down his own eating so that he didn't finish way before Cas.

When they were both done Cas put his cutlery down and said, “That was very good Dean.”

“Uh, thanks,” Dean said, a little surprised at the praise and not knowing how to react to it. Instead of dragging out the moment he stood up, maybe a little too fast and abruptly, and cleared their dishes off the table and stacked them on the counter beside the sink. Cas stood up as well, and Dean turned to him, gesturing towards his room. “Just gotta go grab my coat and some socks, then we can go.” Cas's mom had told him he could keep the brown leather jacket, since it had been in one of the closets when they'd arrived and it didn't fit anyone else. Now he almost never left the cabin without it.

Cas nodded, and once Dean had his socks on and had slipped into his jacket and boots Cas bent down to do the boots up for him. He'd been thinking about asking Cas to do it, then gone back on it and said to himself that he should be able to do it alone, but Cas had taken it into his own hands and done it without prompting. When he was done he smiled at Dean as he stood up, and then they left the cabin.

The walk over was passed in a comfortable silence. By now Cas was becoming familiar with the path from his house to Dean's, but he still followed Dean's lead, trailing him a partial step behind. The air in the forest was a little damp and just this side of warm; looking up through the trees Dean couldn't see any white in the sky, so he was pretty sure it would be a nice day out. When they reached the clearing Dean saw that the car was on the side of the clearing closest to them, parked in the shade of the trees in almost the exact same place it had been in on the day Cas's family had arrived. Dean's shoulders tensed at the memory, standing up straighter before consciously relaxing his back again – Cas said his parents were gone for the day, so there was no danger. He repeated that to himself several times.

Cas left Dean standing beside the car as he ran inside the house to grab a few things, reemerging with a pile of CD cases held between his hands and a keyring hanging down from around one finger. He approached Dean and the passenger side of the car and handed the CDs to Dean before flipping the keyring up and into his palm and pressing a button with the index finger of his other hand, at which the car emitted two consecutive mid-range kalucks. Cas opened the car door for Dean, who got in with the CD cases still held infront of his chest. He put them down on his lap and turned his head slightly at the movement of Cas pushing the door closed. Unlike his dad's car, it seemed that this car's doors didn't need to be slammed hard in order to close properly – Cas had only given it a light push but it had closed all the way. It also closed with a nicer, deeper sound than the metal-on-metal slam of the other car, the rubber sealing softening the strike. Cas walked around the back of the car then opened his door, getting in and closing it softly as well. He then took the CD cases from Dean, turning the pile sideways and half sliding, half dropping it into the top opening of the glovebox between his and Dean's seats.

The interior of Cas's family's car was similar to that of Dean's mom's and very different from that of his dad's, and as Cas turned the key and the engine started up he decided that he liked this one best. He liked that there wasn't a bench, which meant that he wouldn't slide around on tight turns; he and Cas had individual seats, and they were nicely padded and comfy, the material soft to the touch: much more comfortable and inviting than the hard, sticky seats of his dad's vehicle. With the doors closed the engine was barely audible, and the vibrations could barely be felt. As Cas turned the car around and started to drive down the driveway towards the road the rocks crunched under the tires, but that sound too was dulled greatly and Dean found that it didn't bother him. Once they were on the main road the car took the bumps in the road better than the other cars as well, the disturbances barely perceptible as the wheels thunked smoothly and lightly over dips and raises in the paved surface.

When Cas asked him if he wanted the radio on, Dean was able to confirm what he already knew: that there were no radio stations out where they were. Dean had convinced his dad to buy him a small radio the second time he'd taken him into town, but upon turning it on at the cabin he'd been unable to tune into anything, not even succeeding in finding a band with faint voices. The car radio didn't have better luck, so Dean turned it off after going through all the frequencies twice and returning it to the one it had been set to before. Cas said they could listen to a CD instead, and he let Dean pick one out and slide it into the car's CD player. They kept the volume low as they drove on in companionable silence.

Driving to the nearest town took a good hour and a half, and they were just finishing the second album (Cas's choice this time, but Dean liked it as well) when the view on the sides of the road gave way to more buildings than trees. The town was small; a few streets of small businesses, a grungy outlet of a bigger name grocery store, some houses, a museum about an obscure topic that no one would expect a museum to exist for. Probably the most interesting thing in the town was a park – which was also small so as to be to scale with the rest of the town – with a monument to a famous test pilot who'd been born there.

They stopped in front of the monument first, the metal airplane attached to a tall rock catching Cas's attention. Dean's dad had never stopped at it with him, even when he'd asked the first few times they'd visited, so Dean was interested as well, though not as much as Cas seemed to be. Standing side-by-side in front of the information board beside the monument rock, Cas read it out loud quietly to Dean as Dean looked at the pictures scattered around the borders of the board. There was no one else around, just people in cars on the road, but Cas still kept his voice low, only for Dean's ears. Dean couldn't register what Cas was actually saying, but he didn't mind. The pictures, though blurry, were cool enough on their own, and Dean didn't want to annoy Cas by asking him to repeat things or to speak slower.

Once Cas had finished reading they returned to the car, and Cas drove them to one of the main shopping roads and parked the car in an empty space. They got out and perused some of the shops for a while, poking at and playing with the odd trinkets that they found inside them. Cas bought himself a pewter pin of the plane the test pilot had flown, but that was all that they purchased at the shops. Dean didn't have any money, but Cas said that he had some of his parents' money, which they could use for food later.

It was shortly after noon when they returned to the car, both of the boys having become hungry and decided unanimously that it was time for lunch. There was a chip truck parked in a small lot a street over, so Cas pulled in there and they got out to look at the menu. After they ordered and Cas had paid they retreated to one of the picnic tables on the grass to sit down and wait for their food. When the man called them over to get their food they both got up, and then balanced their respective containers on the small ledge on the side of the truck as they dressed their fries before returning to their table to eat. They both agreed that the food was very good, Dean moreso even though he didn't say – no one except Dean's mom had ever bought him food, and he thought that his burger and fries tasted extra good because they were a gift from Cas.

While they ate Dean noticed an ice cream shop across the street from where they were seated, and pointed it out to Cas; but Cas replied that he had a better idea for dessert. Once they'd both finished their meals and had thrown out their garbage they returned once again to the car, and Cas drove them to the grocery outlet. Dean looked over at Cas as he worked on parking the car, not really understanding how a grocery store could replace an ice cream shop as a dessert destination. After the car was in park and turned off Cas looked over at Dean, and smiled wide at the other boy's perplexed expression. “Come on,” he said, pulling the keys out of the ignition and putting them in one of the pockets of his trenchcoat before turning in his seat to open his door. Dean did the same, now both confused and a little excited, since Cas seemed to have a plan.

Dean followed Cas across the small parking lot towards the grocery store, stopping just outside the single automatic door to allow a lady pushing a buggy full of groceries and a toddler in the seat to go through first. She smiled at them and said a quiet “Thanks,” and Cas replied with a calm smile of his own and a “You're welcome,” while Dean stayed frozen, unable to react to the pleasantry. Cas noticed his hesitation, and looked over at him once the lady had passed.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly, using the same volume he'd used while reading at the airplane monument board.

Dean stuck his hands in his pockets quickly, clenching them as he swallowed hard, recovering from the unexpected interaction. “Y-yeah,” he said, giving Cas a small, shaky smile and dipping his head in a nod once. Cas watched him in concern for another beat before turning and stepping in front of the mostly closed door, reactivating the motion sensor and causing it to swing open all the way again. Dean stepped behind him, following him into the air conditioned interior of the store.

Just inside the entrance was a wire container holding a pile of plastic hand baskets, and Cas pulled one up off the pile, handing it to Dean before taking one for himself. Immediately to their right was the produce section, but they forwent that as Cas took them to the candy aisle and started to pluck select bags off the hooks and toss them into his basket. Dean stood and watched, scanning the brightly colored bags but knowing nothing about what was inside them. After some prompting from Cas and admitting that he didn't eat candy – his dad never brought it home to the cabin – Cas pointed out a few things for Dean to add to his basket, the only one of which Dean recognized were M&M's. The candy where he used to live with his mom had been different, but the M&M's were the same, though their colors looked wrong. He also saw a non-red package of Skittles, but steered clear of it at Cas's suggestion.

Next came the snacks aisle, and Dean knew what he wanted there, having sampled different types and flavors of chips while over at Cas's house since his family had varying tastes in snacks. After that they skipped a few aisles until they found an ice cream scoop, a box of ice cream cones, and then finally the freezer section and actual ice cream.

There were several door-widths worth of ice cream to choose from, but Cas went right in front of the section for one company, the same type from his freezer at home. There were over a dozen different flavors displayed on the shelves, and they spent several minutes discussing which to get. Once decided they each put one container into their now almost-full baskets, and Cas lead them towards the checkout.

Besides the express lane there was only one other cash open, so they lined up behind an old lady who was bagging the last of her considerable number of groceries and started to empty their baskets onto the belt, which the cashier advanced for them while she dealt with the woman in front of them. Once the old lady had paid and was moving her cart away the cashier turned and looked up at them with a smile. “Hi there,” she said with a slight accent. “How are you guys today?”

“We're, good,” Cas replied easily, watching the cashier's hands and she started to scan their items and push them down to the belt on her other side. After a pause he added, “How are you?”

“I'm good too thanks,” she said, looking up to meet Cas's eyes quickly before returning her gaze to the items she still had to scan. Dean stood slightly behind Cas and to his side, trying not to look at the cashier so that she wouldn't talk to him. He was glad that Cas was doing most of the talking today, because even though he'd had to do it while with his dad he didn't like talking to strangers much, especially not when pretty much everything said was pointless small talk. The small exchanges had always seemed foreign to him, and had served to exacerbate his social awkwardness to his peers when he'd been at school.

“Your total is 58.37,” the cashier said, pushing a few buttons on the register system. “How do you want to pay?”

“I have money,” Cas declared, reaching into one of his trenchcoat pockets and pulling out a handful of crumpled bills, which he placed on the counter in front of the cashier. She looked from him, down to the money, and then back up at him oddly, before picking up the money to flatten and count. Dean fisted his hand at his side, telling himself that she wasn't looking at him weird, but at Cas – but that didn't help, because he didn't want Cas to be looked at that way either.

“You don't have enough here,” she said after several moments, looking up at both boys, the expression from before gone from her face. “You only gave me thirty five dollars.”

Cas was looking down at the money in the woman's hands, a frown on his face as she looked from him to Dean. “I don't understand,” Cas said.

Dean felt his face heating up, embarrassed for himself and for Cas. He saw the cashier's face reddening as well, reaching up with one hand to push some of her dyed dark red hair behind her ear nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “We'll just have to buy less,” Dean said, reaching up to hold Cas's arm and guide him over to stand in front of their pile of items on the belt. His eyes scanned the ensemble and he picked up two bags of candy that they had doubles of. “Do we need two of these?”

Cas was still frowning. “No...”

“Great,” Dean said, and passed them to the cashier, who scanned them again to cancel them, then put them on the shelf under her counter. Cas's head turned to follow the path of the items, but he returned his attention to their other things when Dean pointed to the two containers of ice cream. “We should probably only get one of these,” he said, reaching forward to grab the ice cream he'd picked out for himself. Cas opened his mouth to say something, but Dean had already handed the container back to the cashier to scan.

Dean put his hands on the box of ice cream cones and the ice cream scoop, looking over at Cas, who was watching him. “If we can get some spoons we can eat it right out of the container right?” he said, motioning down with his head towards the remaining ice cream container. Cas nodded slowly, to which Dean smiled encouragingly before pushing the two items up the belt towards the cashier, who reached forward to take them from him. “How we doing?” he asked her.

She tapped a button after scanning the ice cream cone box. “46.02,” she said, looking over at him from her display screen, shuffling on her feet again.

Dean looked back over at Cas. “You still got some chips at home right? Which ones?”

Cas reached out and picked up two of the bags by their top seams, lifting them just above the rest of the items and looking from them back to Dean, moving his arm to hold them out to Dean.

“Alright,” Dean said with a reassuring smile, taking the bags lightly at the base and handing them over to the cashier. Dean was pretty sure they'd still need to get rid of another bag of candy, so he asked Cas, “There any candy you don't really want Cas? We're almost there.”

Cas's eyes moved slowly over the items, and he pointed to a bright yellow package, which Dean picked up for him. Once the cashier had scanned it he asked, “How 'bout now?”

She nodded. “You're good now,” she said, pressing a few more buttons and causing the cash to open, and she took the bills that Cas had given her and started to put them into their proper slots, then quickly counted out their change and hip checked the drawer closed. “Here's your change,” she said, handing it to Dean, who gave it to Cas to pocket. “Do you guys want help bagging you stuff?” she asked, no one behind the boys in line.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Dean said, his nervousness returning after it had evaporated while working on the money problem. He nudged at Cas's shoulder to make the other boy move down the aisle a bit so that they could both reach the stand of plastic bags.

Once they had all of their stuff bagged they said goodbye to the cashier, who wished them a good day, and carried the bags out to the car. Cas had to put one of his bags down on the pavement so that he could search his pocket for the remote to unlock the car. They loaded the bags onto the back seat of the car, then took their own seats at the front.

Cas drove them back to the park, and they took the grocery bags out to one of a couple of picnic tables in the shade of some willow trees, emptying the contents and spreading them out on the wooden table. They opened the ice cream first, setting it between them on the bench as they ate with plastic spoons from the car's glovebox. After they finished it Dean got up to throw the container into a nearby garbage can while Cas rebagged their remaining purchases, the boys having decided to save the rest of the food for the drive back.

On the way home they kept the bags of candy and chips up front at Dean's feet – Dean kind of missed the legroom, but he was almost too distracted by the food to care. He'd forgotten how much he missed candy, and he was eating some of everything, finishing the packages of candies that Cas said he didn't like and that they'd bought just for Dean. About halfway home Dean started to feel sick; it had started after the ice cream, and the candy had calmed it at first, but now it was worse. A few minutes later he told Cas to pull over, and when the car stopped Dean was out like a shot, heaving out the contents of his stomach half a dozen feet away from the car. Cas watched with surprise and wide eyes, and didn't try to hide it when Dean finished and turned around to get back in the car, face pale and arms and hands shaking slightly over his stomach.

Dean didn't touch any of the candy for the rest of the way home. He nibbled on some chips, which helped for a little while but then began to threaten to escalate into whatever had happened before, so he stopped. Cas wasn't able to eat while he drove but he kept sending sad, guilty sideways looks at Dean.

When they pulled up in front of Cas's house there was still no one else home. They collected the garbage and uneaten bags of food from the front seat of the car and brought everything inside, Cas sorting through and throwing out the empty packages and the candy that neither of them liked, tying up the opened packages so that the contents didn't go stale, while Dean went to the bathroom and only just managed to not throw up again. Cas was nibbling on a package of his candy when Dean emerged, saying that he was still feeling sick and shitty. Since the candy seemed to make Dean ill, Cas got up and muddled through the fridge, pulling out leftovers from dinner a few nights before that Dean had eaten as well – without getting sick. Dean ate it cold in small bites while they both lay spread out on the couches in the living area, the stairs up to Cas's attic not an attractive prospect to Dean's upset stomach.

Dean ended up falling asleep on the couch, but he was woken up by noise when the rest of Cas's family got home. Nothing was amiss as they unloaded some things from the truck, and Dean and Cas stayed on their couches quietly, watching the show Cas had flipped to while Dean had been asleep. But then when Cas's mother carried a large freezer bag into the kitchen she was suddenly angry, looking down at Dean and Cas from the kitchen and asking where all the food on the counter had come from. Dean looked at her with wide eyes as Cas answered her, telling her that they'd gone into town and had been to the grocery store. She seemed flabbergasted for a moment, then started speaking again, louder now, talking about the car and the money; Dean didn't really understand because he couldn't latch onto her words, and he was afraid even though she wasn't looking at him. He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up and over behind the couch to see Cas's father standing behind him, box held under one arm, telling him that it was late and that he should probably head home. It was barely dinner time but Dean didn't want to stay, panic escalating as Cas's mom continued to talk loudly and angrily, so he jumped up and climbed the steps to the kitchen, put his shoes back on, grabbed his jacket from where he'd left it over one of the chairs, and practically ran out the door without even putting the jacket on or saying goodbye to Cas, who was still getting yelled at by his mother.

Dean felt hot all over his skin, but inside he felt empty and cold. He was sweating though, so he decided not to put his jacket on, carrying it over his crossed arms as he walked quickly through the trees towards his cabin, trying to use the speed and movement to escape from Cas's mom's harsh tone, the memory of which chased him through the trees faster and faster. By the time he reached the cabin he was speed walking and breathing fast, but not from the exertion. He rushed up the steps and pushed open the door, closing it hurriedly behind him. It didn't make him feel any safer or calmer.

There was building pressure in his head, but his stomach felt solid and empty still, like it had after he'd thrown up on the side of the road. He didn't want to risk eating anything else now, so he started to get ready for bed right away.

He still felt like shit the next morning, sleep having not come easily and his stomach feeling like it was on the edge of sickness again. By the afternoon he was feeling better, and went over to Cas's house to see if Cas wanted to go swimming down to the caves. Cas's father answered the door though, and told Dean that Cas was grounded for a few days and wasn't allowed to hang out with Dean. Dean immediately felt deflated and left to go back to the cabin, the idea of swimming alone no longer an exciting prospect after planning to go with Cas and knowing how much more fun it would be with him.

Without Cas around, Dean was very bored by the time evening came around. The book he and Cas were currently reading was in Cas's attic, since that's where they always read, along with all of Dean's Hitchhiker's books, which he'd taken over after telling Cas about them. Dean didn't have a computer of his own, or anything to play music on; the only sounds in the cabin were those that came in from outside, and the sizzle of Dean's dinner in the pan as it cooked. They were the same sounds that filled the cabin every night when he got home from Cas's and every morning before he left, but it seemed worse now. Irritating. Stressful. Deafening. Suffocating.

Too much, all those small sounds were too much. Which didn't make sense, because Dean had become used to more noise: the wind in through the attic window, Cas's parents walking around and talking downstairs, loud music from Balthazar's speakers in the basement. But now all these small, quiet, repetitive sounds that Dean used to be able to handle most days were drilling into and grating against every nerve in his brain.

He turned the burner off with a snap, abandoning the food as he stalked away from the stove, hands over his ears and eyes closed as he tried to block the feeling that was seeping into him from all sides, trying to invade his body and threatening to take it over completely if he couldn't fight it off now. He tried humming, filling his ears with it and concentrating on the vibration as he made the sounds in the back of his throat, but it wasn't quite right, didn't hit the chord inside his head that it needed to and he felt himself lose the battle, the liquid tension filling his body. He tensed all over, jaw clenching, applying pressure with the bottoms of his palms to his temples, trying to expel the feeling, but he couldn't get it out now that it was inside of him. He was stuck with it now, at least for a little while. He dropped to his knees on the floor in the middle of the room, putting his forehead to the wooden floorboards, eyes still closed as he tried to concentrate on his breathing, which was coming short, hard, and fast. Trying to slow it made him feel like he was choking, and the sensation aggravated what was going on inside of him. He made short, pained whines as he breathed in . Tears threatened to come out from behind his closed eyelids.

The blood was starting to rush uncomfortably to his head, so he sat up and pushed himself over to the wall a few feet away, leaning his back and head against it, legs bent up loosely in front of him. He sat like that for a while, mind busy and full with something that felt like pudding, yet also empty at the same time, any thoughts he tried to have halted and shaken away within moments, every attempt sparking a clench of his chest or whole body. Pushing himself to his feet was hard work and felt wrong, every step felt out of place, his limbs hot, stiff, and heavy, but he moved anyway, putting together the mostly cooled pieces of his dinner and eating them at the counter, barely able to stay upright but not wanting to sit down. He left the dishes where they were, didn't even bother to rinse them, and went into his room, shutting the door behind him. It was still early, the sun not set, but it was dark in his room as he changed under the light of the single bulb and turned it off, crawling on his hands and knees up his bed and then under the covers. He was tired without actually being tired, and it took him some time to fall asleep, but he had no inclination to do anything else anyway.

The heavy fog in his mind and body hadn't left by the time he woke up, though moving around was easier, and he was able to make himself breakfast and clean up from the night before without much problem. He felt starving and ended up eating several leftovers from the fridge in addition to what he'd made fresh, and his stomach hurt from being too full before he felt satisfied. Remembering two days before he stopped eating anyway, lying down on the couch in the den while he waited for his stomach's pain to go away. He ate a lot at lunch as well, ignoring the lingering pain from being too full until just before it became too much. Leaving all the dishes where they were he returned to the couch, pulling the small plastic paper bin from the corner over to right beside his head, not sure if he'd be sick from all the food he'd eaten.

As he lay there he wished that Cas was there with him, sitting on the other end of the couch or in one of the chairs, reading to him. He could keep his eyes closed and just listen to Cas talk, forget everything except Cas's voice and the story – forget the pain of his stomach, the feeling in his head.

Chapter Text

Dean was tightly wound, the pressure inside high and squeezing in on itself. He wiggled his fingers, then rolled onto his side, facing away from the back of the couch, and brought his knees up to his chest. He lowered them halfway after a moment, but kept his legs bent and at a ninety degree angle to his upper body.

He wanted to cut, the idea entering his mind without warning, and it seemed like a good one; there was so much inside of him, and he'd feel better after letting it all out.

But then he had another thought: maybe he could not cut. His throat tightened momentarily in surprise at the thought and he almost coughed. He tensed both of his arms and grabbed onto his kneecaps tightly to support the pressure, and tried to figure out what was going on, shutting his eyes tight against the rest of the room. His breathing grew to big, deep, uncontrolled breaths in seconds.

Ever since Cas had seen his scars Dean hadn't been worrying about hiding them from him. Cas already knew they were there and he hadn't done or said anything like Dean's mom had, so why would Dean worry? He still made sure none of Cas's family saw, kept his flannel's sleeves rolled down when they were around or turned his arms inwards when they came upstairs, but if he and Cas were alone at the water, or the attic was getting hot while they used the computer, Dean didn't hesitate to roll his sleeves up (or, in the case of swimming, remove the shirt entirely). And Cas never said anything, his gaze only passing over the scars if he was already looking at Dean's hands because he was gesturing or holding something interesting, but there was never anything in his eyes when he did – no anger at what Dean had done, nothing.

Dean only hid his scars because he knew that people weren't supposed to hurt themselves, and was afraid he'd get in trouble for doing it. This had been proven when his mom had seen, but Dean had been reevaluating that since Cas hadn't said anything, which meant that Cas was okay with it. He accepted Dean and what he'd done, something Dean thought no one would. But even if Cas was okay with it maybe didn't actually want Dean to hurt himself – he'd shown great concern when Dean had cut his shin on a branch while they'd been exploring the shoreline, even though it hadn't been deep or severe. So maybe he shouldn't cut himself.

But cutting would feel good, would let out everything that was building up inside of him. He was full, close to bursting; everything was pushing up against the inside of his skin, trying to get out, and he didn't know how to handle it. He wanted to lash out but he couldn't move, his hands still locked in place on his kneecaps and arms immobile from tension. His breathing had quickened, and each breath took effort to pull in through his tight throat.

If Cas saw that there were no new marks on Dean's arms, that he hadn't done it, maybe Cas would be proud of him. But the feeling of cutting himself would be good too – Dean imagined the cool razor over his skin, the catch and gather of the skin before it broke under the blade, the sting, the release of blood and the wetness of it as it ran over his skin, how good the pain would feel, how relaxed and beautifully empty he would be inside after doing it and letting everything out. He made to get off the couch, to go to the bathroom and the medicine cabinet, but aborted the movement after moving only an inch.

The side of his body that was against the couch was too hot; a flash of heat passed through the rest of him, and he broke out in a sweat. He rolled and threw his body up into a sitting position, his head spinning and legs feeling lighter than air as he tried to cross them – but that felt wrong, the pass of skin against skin wasn't right, and he kicked his legs off over the edge of the couch, the cold of the wooden floor on the soles of his feet the only part of his body that he was aware of. His hands were still clenched, in fists now, tight with knuckles straining, arms taut. He let out a whine, a short sound from the back of his throat as he exhaled a little bit of air, just from the top of his lungs, enough that his lungs weren't bursting along with the rest of him. He held his breath, stopped breathing, clenched his jaw tight. After a moment he had to let the breath out in a whoosh, and started to breathe heavily again, throat spasming as air passed through it – he was crying, tears wet in his eyes and gathering together before falling down his face onto his hands or chin. He was barely conscious of not getting enough air.

Maybe not cutting himself would feel okay though. This didn't feel okay, whatever was happening right now, but maybe managing not to cut would feel better than the bad consuming his body. It could be worth it, but he wouldn't know if he got up and got the razor. He decided to stay where he was, to not get up, resist the urge. His arms shook with effort to not stand up.

Everything was still pushing on his skin, the pressure high, and he slid backwards on the couch a bit, not enough for his back to touch the back of the couch but enough that he didn't need to rest most of his weight on his feet. He relaxed the muscles in his arms for a moment, until his mind turned to wondering if not cutting was a good idea, and then he was tensed fully again, and he told himself he would stay, stay, stay. And it felt like he could stay, that he could do this. The urge to get up had disappeared, just like that.

His mind was blank, body numb, but he felt a little looser, emptier. The very feeling that he'd wanted to expel had gone down a bit on its own, but it was still there, hard and intense, all-consuming and suffocating, and Dean wondered suddenly if it was worth not cutting. He wanted to curl in on himself, stop his brain from thinking. He didn't want to think.

He tried not to think, to keep his head clear; he'd succeed for short bouts, but then he'd start questioning himself again, just short, simple thoughts making him doubt himself. Every time he had a thought he'd tense, but once it was gone he'd gradually relax a bit. After about a minute he realized that the pressure wasn't painful anymore; it had stopped pushing, and as he sat there in silence the last of it fell away quickly, leaving him empty.

Dean stared straight ahead, mind blank, body numb. He started to rub over his thighs with the pads of his fingers, winding over them and tracing patterns, arms still tight but not tense.

He stayed there like that for a long time – he didn't know for how long, but it felt like somewhere over an hour. By then he was starting to feel a little tired, the numbness giving way to a strange kind of exhaustion, and after a few more breaths he decided to get up and go to his room to sleep.

Hands dropping to the edge of the couch, Dean pushed himself to his feet. He bare feet padded lightly over the wooden floor, skin sticking slightly as he left the den and took the few steps down the hallway that would lead him into the kitchen and towards his room.

The door to the bathroom was halfway open, and when Dean glanced at it he couldn't help but think that the razors were in there, that he could still do it. But then he stopped the thought, and it obeyed. He kept walking, concentrating briefly on not thinking until his mind felt numb again. Once he was in his room he closed his door, not even turning on the light before crawling into bed and settling in quickly under the covers. He didn't fall asleep right away, but it happened without him noticing.

Chapter Text

When he woke up the next morning he didn't want to get out of bed, didn't want to have to do anything that involved his body or his head, but he'd decided the afternoon before that he needed to go over and ask Cas's parents how long Cas would be grounded for, since Cas's dad hadn't said. While he was walking over he wondered if maybe if he came over again so soon Cas's parents would realize that Dean was lonely, and then decide to unground Cas – but for some reason Dean didn't want that to happen. He couldn't understand why, the feeling didn't make sense, but he wanted Cas to still be grounded, and for Dean not to have any responsibility in them not hanging out. He wanted for them to not spend the day together, but not by Dean's own choice or power. Last night all he'd wanted was for Cas to be there with him, but today he was dreading the possibility of having to interact with him.

Cas's mom answered the door this time, and Dean thought she was about to yell at him until he quickly said he was just wondering how long Cas was grounded for. She deflated a bit at this question, her shoulders going down, and answered that he would be grounded that day and the two after it as well. Dean felt relief wash through him in a strange way, a strange smoothness falling over and through his body as if a bucket of it had been dumped on his head, removing all contaminants and filling every nook and cranny of his insides. Then Cas's mother closed the door, not quite slamming it shut but coming close, not even so much as letting Dean thank her or say goodbye.

This made Dean's head uncomfortable, his body turning from empty and calm to warm and sweating even though the morning was cold. He stalked through the forest back to the cabin, breath fast and shallow as he tried to fight off the feeling of agitation and panic that Cas's mom would follow after him to yell at him for something he wasn't aware he'd done.

Once back at the cabin he decided to go for a swim, hoping the water would cool him down as well as calm him. He got changed into his bathing suit quickly and, not wanting to count on the sun, still low in the sky, to dry him off, he brought a towel with him down to the water.

There was a light breeze coming off the lake, enough to disturb the surface of the water and for Dean feel a little cool as he climbed down the rocks and into the water. Dean's core was still warm, too warm, but the surface of his skin was becoming chilled, though he didn't know whether the contrast was a good feeling or not. He just wanted to be comfortable, and the heat at his centre definitely wasn't.

The water, however, proved not to be comfortable either. Dean's leg was covered with goosebumps within moments of him placing his foot in it, a shiver travelling up his body at the same time. He put his other foot in anyway, crossing his arms to retain a bit of the surface heat in his upper body as he stood still, waiting for his body to adjust to the cold.

He walked deeper slowly, stopping whenever the cold became uncomfortable. By the time he was past his knees his feet were actually feeling warm against the lake floor, and the wind chilled his legs where the small waves on the surface had wet the unsubmerged skin. He managed to quicken his progress after that, though at his first dive underwater the skin of his head felt like it was tightening around his skull, about to shrivel up and break and leave the contents of his head loose in the water. His lungs were clenching as well, trying to expel the air he'd taken in. Both sensations were so painful that he couldn't get down to swim along the sand floor, and he resurfaced right away, gasping air into his tight lungs. He stayed where he was, everything but his head under the water, wind on wet skin just a bit colder than the water itself. When he tried to go under a second time he was able to handle the cold, but he didn't have the initial velocity he'd had the first time, so he only got a few strokes in at the bottom before he had to push off and come up for air.

He kept the swim short, not really enjoying himself. The very very inside of his body still felt too warm, but the rest of him was painfully cold. He did some strokes back and forth in front of the rocks, but the wind made his exposed wet skin too cold. Diving under now felt warmer, but it wasn't pleasant or relaxing, so before he'd been in the water ten minutes he was pulling himself out, climbing the rocks quickly to get to his towel and dry off, the wind causing the layer of water on his skin to feel like ice.

Once he had his towel in hand and the soles of his feet dried he retreated into the treeline, ducking behind a wide trunk to block the worst of the wind as he towelled his body down. When he was no longer dripping wet he started in towards the cabin, eager to change and get into warm, dry clothes.

Dean passed the next few days in a daze. He wandered around the cabin, only feeling half awake, his senses dulled from tiredness. He slept more during the night than he had since he'd started to spend time with Cas, and yet worse, never feeling rested afterwards; but the extra sleep helped to use up the hours as he waited for Cas to be ungrounded. Swimming, exploring, and tree climbing weren't appealing to Dean's heavy body, so he didn't leave the cabin at all. He made a lot of food during the day just for something to do but ate very little of it, putting most of it in the fridge or freezer for later.

He usually sat in the kitchen or den, put was only able to play with his Rubik's cube on the first day; after that it didn't help, he was too impatient to work on it even though he had nothing else to fill his time with. He considered rereading one of his dad's books, but the words swam in front of his eyes when he opened one. He left it open on the coffee table in the den, but never went back to it.

On the second day, Dean wondered what Cas was doing. Were his parents letting him use his computer? Could he still read his books, or was he as bored as Dean was? Was he allowed to go swimming to cool off? The attic was sure to be hot from the sun and the heat, so maybe he was in the basement with Balthazar. He imagined that he was down there with them, rewatching Star Wars. Once it was done he and Cas would go upstairs for food, and eat in the attic while on the computer. Then maybe they'd sit on the beanbag chairs and Cas would read from their current book while Dean watched and listened. Dean really liked their current book, and was excited to find out what was going to happen next. The main character had just figured out how to teleport between the real world and the world of her favorite videogame, and had found that a baby dragon had come over with her.

Which gave Dean an idea: what would it be like if he were in his favorite game? Or movie? Or book? He thought back on the last book he and Cas had finished, a fantasy book about the lives of a large group of heroes before they grew up. He imagined himself play-fighting with the warriors-to-be, learning how to use a sword; talking to the lonely boy studying to be a wizard, playing the chess-like Wizards and Warriors with him; crossing the rope bridges that connected the town's trees to get from his house to the Inn that was build around the trunk of the biggest tree in the treetop town.

Cas would be there, listening to a kender's story while he waited for Dean. They'd meet up with the other boys, and climb down to the ladders to the ground and walk down to the lake, where the dwarf blacksmith would take them fishing. The clumsiest boy would tip the boat over by accident probably, but Dean and Cas would just laugh once they surfaced even though their clothes were now wet and the boat was upturned.

Dean was smiling at the thought, and lay down on the couch, closing his eyes as he kept thinking about that world, and him and Cas joining the group on their trip into the trading town, sitting around a warm campfire at night and joking around before deciding who would take first watch, curling up in his sleeping bag beside Cas, looking up at the starry sky as he waited for sleep to come...

He thought about that world often over the next two days, as well as several of the other worlds from his favorite books so far, imagining him and Cas in them. Sometimes he'd run out of ideas and would have to take a break from daydreaming, but when that happened he usually used it as a cue to make food or go to the bathroom. The time still passed very slowly, but the stories kept him from being bored.

Dean woke up late in the morning on the day that Cas was no longer grounded, and was antsy as he made food, constantly looking out the open window at the sun, willing it to get higher in the sky so that he could go over to Cas's. He was excited, but also nervous – what if Cas's parents had changed their minds, and decided to ground Cas for longer? Dean didn't want to have to sit around in the cabin alone all day. After he ate he got dressed, then walked through the forest quickly to Cas's house. Balthazar opened the door for him when he knocked, turning around and throwing over his shoulder that Cas was upstairs before he had his head in the fridge, looking through it for something.

Dean pulled his boots off, then climbed the stairs excitedly, barely bothered by the lack of support near the top as his head cleared the floor and he was able to see Cas, seated in front of his computer, already looking over at Dean, face covered with a large smile which Dean returned as he reached the top of the stairs. The air in the attic was warm, even with the windows open, so Dean started to pull off his jacket as he walked over to Cas, throwing it down onto the bed beside Cas's own coat as Cas moved off the main computer chair and onto his pile of beanbags, still set up where it had been several days before. Dean sat down in the chair, and started to scroll through the video search Cas had up.

When the boys went down in the kitchen later to get snacks Cas's dad told Dean that they were going to have a bonfire that night to burn up some brush, and invited him to stay late and join them. Dean didn't know what to say, not liking the idea for a reason he couldn't immediately identify, but Cas was looking at him so hopefully and Cas's dad seemed sincere in wanting him to join them, so Dean conceded. Through the rest of the day though he was constantly thinking about it, regretting agreeing once he realized why'd he'd been immediately uncomfortable. He could only equate fire with destruction, danger, and death. It was big, hot, bright, uncontrollable, scary. That was why he was nervous.

He didn't think about the fire often, having figured out that thinking about it made him agitated and the memory could leave him on the cusp of a panic attack, or get his heart full and racing on its own and make his hands useless. Dean hadn't seen fire since that day years ago; his dad never had fires, didn't even have a fire pit, and the wood stove in the den had never been used while Dean was there, even in winter. He knew that the waterbombing planes that sometimes frequented the lake in the summer months were fighting big forest fires, but none of the fires were close enough that he saw so much as a wisp of smoke from them.

As it got darker outside and the air cooled down Dean worry grew until he was clenching his fists tightly between his legs while he and Cas watched a movie on Cas's computer. Cas glanced down at one point when Dean shifted in his seat and saw Dean's arms strained, and he reached over with one hand to grasp Dean's right forearm gently, pulling slightly to tell Dean to lift it out from between his legs.

But all that Dean could feel was Cas's fingers as they rubbed ever so slightly over the scars on the inside of his arms. Dean breathed in sharply but let Cas take his arm after a moment, closing his eyes and lowering his head as he felt Cas run his fingers along the tight muscles, pressing lightly. Dean was holding his breath along with his grip, then let it out in a whoosh; his fist loosened, which also relaxed his arm. He opened his eyes, turning his head just enough so that he could see Cas's face – eyes trained on Dean's arm, still running his fingers over Dean's skin, both the unmarked and the pink. Dean's eyes lowered to follow the movement of Cas's fingers, skin feeling like it had goosebumps even though it didn't. The movie they'd been watching played on quietly in front of them, ignored by the two boys.

Cas's hand went over Dean's skin one more time, running up the scars and towards Dean's hand. He ran four fingers over Dean's palm, pressing down slightly, then slid his fingers in between Dean's own. He bent his fingers, holding Dean's hand loosely, not lowering his palm and its weight until Dean returned the grip. Dean kept his eyes on their joined hands and where they rested on Cas's leg. He felt Cas tighten his grip slightly, which made Dean look up at his face. He was watching Dean, expression and small smile relaxed. Dean was only able to return it with the corners of his mouth, submerged in a strange, unnameable feeling, but Cas's eyes and face still brightened at the reply. Cas turned his attention to the computer, and Dean watched him, computer screen light reflected on his skin and eyes, for several moments before he did the same.

Dean and Cas ate dinner with Balthazar at the kitchen table, while Cas's parents ate in front of the TV in the living room. Balthazar didn't usually speak to them unless bored or provoked and Dean and Cas were silent, so the only sounds in the room were those of everyone eating and the speech of television characters. Once Dean and Cas finished eating Cas's dad told them that they'd be going out in about half an hour, and they'd need warm clothes. Cas said Dean could borrow some of his.

They went outside with Cas's dad at dusk, both with an extra sweater on under their coats to keep warm against the chill. As they helped carry the wood over to the new fire pit they were constantly swatting at mosquitoes, shaking their heads as they heard them buzzing by their ears. Cas's dad gave them a bug wipe to use on their hands and face, but it didn't seem to help much. Dean was particularly bothered by the ones coming near his ears; he was already rattled from being warm under his jacket from the exertion of carrying wood. Cas's dad seemed to notice that both boys were already miserable, and told them to leave the wood where it was and to come inside with him while they waited for the bugs to go to sleep. They shed their jackets and watched a couple of episodes of a show and then went back outside to try again. It was a little cooler out, but the bugs were gone.

Dean and Cas stood close together by the fire pit, Dean's arms crossed and Cas's hands in his trenchcoat pockets, their shoulders touching, while Cas's dad set up the wood to start the fire. Dean shivered and pushed against Cas a little more, their hips and upper legs meeting before he rocked back to upright, the brief touch warming his skin at the points of contact even through their jeans. His eyes were on Cas's dad's hands, pulling out a long match, sliding the box shut and turning it around to reveal the sandpaper piece attached to the bottom. He ran the tip of the match against it with a quick stroke, a rough scratch preceding the light and flame.

He lowered his hand, setting the lit tip in underneath the branches and leaves that were at the centre of wood he'd set up. They caught quickly, the dry leaves curling in on themselves almost instantaneously as the fire moved quickly through the spidery network, the flames lighting up the ground around the fire pit.

The fire rose higher, the flames stretching up and above the highest logs as they consumed the interior. Cas's dad was adding small branches now, thicker than the ones he had started off with but still fairly small. They caught easily, the fire moving up and along them but not eating them away instantly.

Dean watched the fire from where he stood, just able to feel the warmth through his jeans. Cas's dad threw the last of the leaves on, and the flames shot up a couple of feet higher for a few moments, the heat intensifying as well before they fell back down to where they'd been before, just licking the top of the highest logs.

Cas took a step forward towards the fire, and Dean tensed, waiting for the flames to grow and jump out and catch on Cas's coat. But they didn't – they stayed down where they were, moving along the wood in the fire, up and down, sizzle-pop-pop.

Cas's dad added a small log, and a few moments later the fire brightened a bit as a new flame wrapped itself around the wood, but then it fell and blended in with the oranges and yellows that already existed. It didn't get big, only flaring up a few inches above the log's surface before it shrank.

Cas was closer again now, and the distance made Dean feel isolated, so he stepped closer to the fire as well, trying to keep his body behind Cas's just in case. But the fire stayed down, controlled, the warmth nice at this distance and not burning like Dean remembered. He stepped sideways so that he could see the fire around Cas, wary but not seeing any threat from it.

Both he and Cas watched from where they stood, Dean several feet behind Cas, as the fire continued to burn. Cas's dad had walked to the edge of the trees to get a few moves logs and branches from his pile of things to burn, and other than the sound of the fire and a cricket the clearing was still and silent.

As Dean breathed in through his nose he could smell the fire, smell the smoke that came off of it. He didn't recognize it immediately, but he liked it, breathing in deeply again after he'd exhaled. It was a sweet smell, pleasant, relaxing, filling his lungs and making him close his eyes for a moment as he appreciated it. It was a different smell than he remembered fire having; he couldn't recall the smell while he'd been inside, but he knew what it had smelled like as he'd stood at the end of the long driveway and watched his house burn. It had been a solid smell, just there, not nice but not pleasant either, inescapable – even when he'd been moved away from his lawn he'd still been able to smell it, the smoke hanging low along the whole street and dimming the sun, acting like a low cloud layer and thin, dry fog.

Dean was brought back to the present when Cas moved, turning so that he was looking back at Dean. He could feel that Cas wanted him to come closer so he did, arms still crossed over his chest even as the air warmed up considerably once he was beside Cas. “It's very pretty,” Cas said, looking away from Dean and down at the fire several feet away.

Pretty. Dean hadn't thought about that. He looked at the pile of wood as a whole: yellow flames around darkening wood, orange and black embers glowing and varying in brightness quietly. It was pretty; entrancing. The flames moved about, random but predictable, smooth in their movements. The warmth given off wasn't overwhelming, easily fighting off the chill of the night outside of its little bubble of warmth without making Dean uncomfortably hot. Dean nodded, not wanting to take his eyes off the fire to look over at Cas and reply.

Cas didn't say anything else, and once Cas's dad came back over he gave Dean and Cas each a large log to sit on before adding some smaller ones to the fire. Dean watched him do so, but when he saw that the flames went upwards and not sideways at all he sat down slowly on his log beside Cas, eyes still held transfixed by the flames.

They stayed out there for some time, and Cas's dad gave both boys each a long stick with which to poke the fire, stir embers, push at logs. Dean found this enjoyable, being able to create more flames by manipulating the fuel and existing fire. Cas got up at one point to help his dad carry the last of the wood over while Dean stayed seated on his log, playing with the fire.

But then it was brighter, hotter, the flames shooting up and out and widening and Dean fell back in his surprise, scrambling away from the heat and the noise, the snap-pops reminding him of things and they were too loud, he could still feel the heat and he was in danger, he couldn't breathe-

Dean felt the ground shake beneath him, several thumps and footsteps before a heavy thud and the presence of someone in front of him. But Dean was blinded by tears, fighting for breath, hands over his ears as he tried to shut everything out, he was the one who was going to die this time, follow after Sam and Mary.

There was something around his wrists, exerting force on them, but Dean couldn't move, resisting with his body's paralysis. Eventually his arms were pried down, and even though Dean's ears weren't protected everything was quiet and far away, muffled as if he were swimming underwater.

He could just make out Cas's voice, but it took him some time to actually register it, Cas's chorus of Dean's name repeated over and over again. Dean tried to focus on it but he couldn't, he couldn't get anything in his mind in order, and he shook his head, more tears leaking from his stinging eyes. Even though they were wet they felt dry, stinging like they had after the real fire.

Dean didn't know how much time had passed before the humming started. It broke through the mud of his mind and hearing clearly though, and while quieter than it should have been he could focus on it, listen to it, hear it. When Cas got to the lyrics he sang those, low and quiet as Dean became aware of Cas's hands on his shoulders. He repeated the Ominous, I'm in us on loop when he reached it, humming the music that followed it before going back and saying it again. The first time Cas went back to it Dean felt like he was broken out of a trance, the change from what he expected pulling his mind up from wherever it had been. Partway through one of Cas's repeats Dean started to mouth along and then whisper along with the words, at which point Cas stopped adding the music at the end and just repeated the four words over and over again. Dean's tears stopped, and his sense returned – he could hear the fire again, the cricket, a loon call in the distance. His breathing eased.

Dean had lifted his hands to hold onto Cas's forearms near his elbows at one point, he wasn't sure when, but Cas's skin was warm and grounding even through the trenchcoat and the hoodie underneath. When he looked at his hands he realized that his grip was deathly tight, tendons visible on the backs. He released his hold, dropping his hands onto where his and Cas's knees were touching, but found he still needed the pressure so he clenched them again, nails digging into his palms uncomfortably.

“Are you alright?” Cas asked quietly, looking down at Dean's clenched fists.

Dean breathed out harshly and let his hands go, stretching the fingers out, pads running over the material of his and Cas's jeans. “I think so,” Dean said, voice catchy and rough. He was thirsty.

“I want ice cream. Do you want ice cream Dean?”

Dean looked up at Cas, the other boy's eyes open and curious; an honest question. Dean nodded, wiping at his eyes and face with his fingers. He felt Cas stand up in front of him, and Dean stood up after him, still rubbing at his eyes, probably doing more harm than good by that point but for some reason it felt like he hadn't been rubbing them for long enough. It took him a few more seconds of rubbing before he was able to stop, blinking hard a few times as he lowered his hands to his sides. Cas was still beside him, waiting for him, head tilted upward and eyes moving over the sky – a thin layer of high clouds obscured the stars, but it was thin enough that the light of the moon could just be seen. Dean touched Cas's arm, and Cas returned his attention to Dean, giving him a warm, closed-mouth smile before taking his hand and leading him around the fire pit and towards the house. Dean's eyes skipped right over the bright light, now much smaller than before. He noticed that Cas's father was still standing beside it, and he didn't make to follow Dean and Cas inside.

Cas told Dean to sit down while he served them their bowls, and Dean took a seat at the kitchen table gladly, his legs weak and empty at the top, but feeling heavy down by his feet even after he'd removed his boots. Cas brought Dean over a full bowl and spoon then went back to make his own bowl, but Dean waited until Cas was seated with him before he started to eat, even though his ice cream melted a bit in that time. They ate in silence and Dean's eyes were starting to feel heavy, his head light and off-balance, and once they were done he told Cas that he was feeling weird and wanted to go home to sleep. Cas nodded and Dean slipped on his shoes, not even bothering with the laces before he was out the door and pulling his flashlight out of his pocket, turning it on once he was out of the reach of the light from Cas's house.

When he got back to the cabin he had a few bites of leftover pasta and sauce from the fridge, stomach gapingly empty even though he'd just had ice cream, before quickly getting ready for bed and gratefully climbing under the covers in the darkness of his room. Sleep took a long time to come, and he woke with a headache before sunrise. He took some headache pills and guzzled down several glasses of water before going back to bed and sleeping for a few more hours.

Sometimes, like on that second day where they'd first gone to the caves, Cas's mother would insist they go outside. One such day was very hot, so they went down to the water, the attic uncomfortable even with all the windows open. They dunked their bodies in the water to cool off a bit before walking barefoot over the sand and dirt to Dean's rocks, and then even further down the shoreline to his patch of favorite climbing trees. When Cas couldn't even follow Dean up to the first layer of branches on a pine they decided to keep moving along. A little ways past the trees the water got deeper right against the rocky cliffs, the perfect place for jumping into the water. Cas was all for it, jumping right in when Dean pointed the water depth out to him, which was before Dean could add that they should keep going a little longer until they reached the spot where the rocks could actually be scaled to get back up the small cliff, as there was no way to get back up besides going all the way back to Dean's rocks. So Castiel had to swim quite a ways in the deep water, unable to rest, while Dean walked along the top, keeping his eyes peeled for the right spot.

By the time they reached it Cas was very tired from swimming such a long distance, so after Dean guided him up – and pulled him up the last little bit – Dean took one jump for himself before climbing back up and sitting with Cas, their backs against a large tree trunk as they rested in the sun, the light and heat drying them off. When they'd been drying for a while they started to get a little too hot, so they both took another jump; Cas landed painfully in the water the second time, which further soured his mood. Coupled with the heat and his sore feet from going barefoot, he was more than ready for their excursion to be over.

They stopped at Dean's cabin on the way home and had a late lunch. Dean liked having Cas sitting at the kitchen table and keeping him company while he made food for them both, Cas claiming to know nothing about preparing food that couldn't be eaten straight out of the package. As they ate Cas asked about the books on the shelf in the den. Dean told him that they were his dad's, but most of them had apparently been his grandfather's originally before he disappeared when his dad was a little kid. Cas had nodded, and had looked at them when Dean insisted that he could clean up the dishes himself. Once he was done putting them and the leftovers away they went to over Cas's house.

For the rest of the afternoon and evening they stayed in the attic, Cas lying on his bed, sore from the long day, while Dean used the computer, playing music and watching videos, turning the screen so that Cas could watch the funny ones too. Cas's dad brought them up some food for dinner, which they ate while sitting cross-legged on the floor, the large plate between them. When they finished dinner they went down to the kitchen for ice cream from the fridge freezer and served themselves both big bowls, finishing up the container. They took their bowls back upstairs and ate them while sitting side-by-side on Cas's bed, Dean talking between spoonfuls about his favorite videos and some of the stuff he'd learned while looking up musical artists.

Dean left long after dark that night, after he and Cas had joined Balthazar in the basement to watch one of the old VHS's from a box that had been in the basement when they family had arrived: Titanic. Dean could remember having seen it before with his mom at one point, but even so some parts of the story were confusing for him. He was able to follow along for the most part though, and was sad when Jack died and Rose didn't get to start her new life with him.

As the credits began to roll, Balthazar spoke. “When I have the power to time travel, and I assure you someday I will, the very first thing I'm going to do is unsink the Titanic.”

“Why?” Cas asked, looking over his shoulder at his brother, eyebrows furrowed. Dean looked over his shoulder as well to watch the exchange and listen.

“Because Cas, if the ship never sinks they'll never make that torturous movie, and the damn bloody song won't exist either.”

“Which song?” during the beat that followed the credits continued to play, the notes and lyrics of My Heart Will Go On filling the otherwise silent basement. “My Heart Will Go On? Dude it's not that bad.”

“Maybe not to your human ears, but mine have been bleeding since the second it played,” he said. With a slight groan he stretched the length of the couch to grab a remote off the lamp table beside it, stopping the VHS and silencing the music. He then got up to remove the VHS from the machine, putting it into another machine beside the first and pressing down, a moderately-pitched whir emanating from it as the front was lit a dull orange – a rewinder.

It didn't rain at all over the next several weeks, and the heat didn't lift either. Dean and Cas swam almost every day, sometimes several times in a day, and often went down to Dean's caves with rope Cas's dad had gotten for them so that they could explore. He'd taught them a few knots to use to attach the rope to a tree outside, and had given them a headlamp and good flashlight to use as well. Dean liked the caves because the air inside them was cold, allowing him to cool down from the overwhelming heat outside, and Cas enjoyed the patterns of the walls and collecting as many rocks as he could carry back. Sometimes Dean would help him carry his finds so that he didn't have to leave any behind. He built up quite a collection, and displayed it on an empty shelf in the bookcase in his room.

They were both thankful that Cas's parents had picked up an air conditioner while they'd been in the city, as it kept the interior of the house liveable. It didn't help Cas's room much though, the attic still heating up to unbearable by the afternoon, and uncomfortable at best at other times. They usually ended up going down to the basement with Balthazar, who was generally annoyed at their presence.

“Can't you go do something somewhere else?” he snapped at them one afternoon when they followed him downstairs after lunch.

Dean flinched at the tone, but Cas spoke first. “It's too hot upstairs.”

“That's hardly my problem, you were offered the basement. Now go play with your boyfriend elsewhere.”

Cas opened his mouth to retaliate, but Dean tugged on his sleeve before he could speak. He didn't want to be down here now anyway after hearing the way Balthazar had spoken to them. Cas looked over at Dean, his full attention redirected. “Come on Cas, let's go. Milkshakes?” he asked hopefully.

Cas's face softened, Balthazar's attack forgotten. “Okay,” he said, and they turned around to go back upstairs.

They could hear banging in the kitchen as they climbed the stairs, and once out of the hallway they saw that Cas's mother was still there, moving the last of the dishes from lunch from the sink into the dishwasher. When she spotted them waiting by the edge of the kitchen she asked, “Do you need something?”

“We're making milkshakes,” Cas said.

His mother stood up, bringing the dishwasher door up along with her before closing and locking it, then pulled at the fabric of her tank top and flapping it a few times to try and cool herself. “Alright,” she said, turning the knobs on the dishwasher. “But clean up all the dishes yourselves.” She started the dishwasher, then breezed by the two boys and down the hallway towards her room.

Dean went for the fridge for the ingredients while Cas squatted down to get the blender and measuring cups. They worked together seamlessly, barely having to exchange words. Once the milkshakes were poured into tall glasses and put in the fridge to stay cold they cleaned the dishes and put everything away, then got some straws and took their drinks out of the fridge. There was some wind that day so they decided to go down to the water and sit in the shade.

They finished their drinks some time later, and Dean had just suggested going back to the house to change into their bathing suits (Dean had taken to leaving his bathing suit and goggles at Cas's house several weeks ago) when they both heard the sound of an unfamiliar engine. They perked up, eyes searching for the source; it wasn't the boat, and Dean couldn't see anything else on the lake, but it couldn't be a car or truck either because the sound was wrong and too loud...

Cas was the one who spotted it first, pointing upwards just as a plane flew a few hundred feet overhead, out towards the middle of the lake. The lake was large, about three miles across at most points according to Dean's father, and they almost lost sight of the plane before it turned to the left and started to flying in that direction. They picked up on the sound of a second plane, which came from the same direction as the first had, but off to their left, flying towards where the first plane was now turning over the left shore, descending towards the water.

The shape of the plane was small but easy to see as it came down and started skimming over the wavy surface of the water, a wake and spray coming up behind it as flew. After about fifteen seconds it pulled up off the water and started to climb; the second plane was still heading towards the shore on that side of the lake.

“I love airplanes,” Cas said from beside Dean. He looked over at Cas, who was watching the plane that was climbing out with rapt attention.

“They're scary,” Dean said, eyes flicking over to the second plane, which was beginning its approach.

Cas frowned, looking at Dean. “Why?” he asked, but couldn't seem to keep his eyes off the planes for long – he looked back over at the first plane, which was flying towards their shore but far off to their right. The engines of both planes were still easy to hear despite the distance.

“They can crash,” Dean said, tightening his right fist at the memory. “One did once. One of those,” he said, pointing out at the plane that had just touched down on the water. “Came in a few years ago and flipped over.”

Cas's eyes widened, but he didn't look away from the second plane as his eyes tracked its path over the water. “Really?”

“Yeah. And it was a calm day too, no wind nothin'.” They both watched the plane as it lifted off the water and started its climbout. “A bunch of other planes came in, and then a big helicopter came and lifted the plane out of the water.” He paused. “That was kind of cool.”

Cas nodded, and they watched the second plane until it was out of sight, blocked from view by the trees. “I want to fly them,” Cas said once the sound of the engines had faded.

Dean's head whipped around to look at Cas. “You can't!”

“Why not?”

“It – it's dangerous that's why!” Dean said, raising his voice and his arms to emphasize his point.

“So?”

“So it's scary and you could – you could die! Or somethin'!” Dean replied, mouth and brain scrambling to articulate his thoughts and fears for his friend.

“I'm not afraid,” Cas said, sitting up straighter. It didn't do much, not like at the beginning of the summer – he and Dean were almost exactly the same height now, the winner depending on the day.

Then I'll be afraid for you, Dean thought, but didn't say out loud. Instead he said, “They'll probably be back. You wanna stay and watch?”

Cas nodded, then looked from Dean back out to the lake. “You don't have to stay if you don't want to. You can go back to the house and do something else.” He glanced back over at Dean.

Dean took the bottom seam of his flannel between his fingers, rubbing it and rolling it. “I'll stay here,” he said quietly, looking down at the ground in front of them. He said it partially out of fear and shyness of being in the house alone with Cas's family, but mostly because he liked being with Cas.

The planes came and went many times over the course of the afternoon, joined on their third run, much to Cas's delight, by a very large and loud yellow plane. After loading up it flew in their direction, and Dean had to cover his ears when it flew overhead at less than two thousand feet above ground, able to feel the vibrations in the air from the engines; Cas meanwhile looked up at it, enraptured, toothy smile on his face as he craned his neck back to watch it before it passed behind the treetops. In between runs Dean picked at twigs, loosening the bendy ones and tying them into a mess of knots until they finally broke limply, while Cas just played with the tips of his fingers in the dirt. They'd both stop at the first sound of an engine, and look up to watch the planes for as long as they were visible.

When it was starting to get dark and the planes hadn't come around for the length of two runs Dean and Cas decided it was time to head back to the house, both of their stomachs rumbling; they picked themselves up off the ground stiffly, retrieved their milkshake glasses, and hiked back to Cas's house. They entered through the kitchen door, since Cas's mom didn't like it when they came in dirty and then walked through the living room. The first thing Dean noticed after taking in the location of Cas's family – both of his parents and Balthazar sitting around the TV, the latter fidgeting as if there unwillingly, but there all the same – was that there was only one plate of food left out on the table. Cas's mom had explained to him the week before while Cas was in the bathroom what that meant: they wanted time as a family, and Dean should go home to the cabin and not hang around.

Cas had slipped his shoes off and taken both his and Dean's glasses over to the sink to rinse them and put them in the dishwasher, but Dean left his shoes on, preparing to say goodnight to Cas and then leave. But Cas didn't seem fazed at all by the single plate, taking two forks and two knives out of the cutlery drawer before picking up the plate and stepping up beside Dean, motioning with his head towards the hallway. Dean glanced behind Cas and saw Cas's mother watching them out of the corner of her eye, her main focus appearing to be on the TV, but Dean knew better. She didn't make any move to stop them, however, and after looking back to Cas's face – eyes wide, patient but expectant – he too toed off his shoes, and followed Cas into the hallway and then right to the basement stairs.

Dean sat down on the couch, while Cas put the plate and cutlery on the table and went across the room to set the TV up for a movie. Rather than a VHS, like they'd mostly been watching, Cas put a DVD into the machine. When it loaded and Cas had skipped all the trailers the menu came up: Top Gun. Cas pressed play then stood up, quickly moving out from in front of the screen and towards the couch.

“This is my favorite movie,” Cas said as he sat down beside Dean. At his words Dean realized that over the past month or so they'd only been watching his old favorite movies – and a few of Balthazar's choices, when the younger boy wouldn't relinquish control of his entertainment station – but none of Cas's choices. He felt extremely bad about his mistake, and started to grab at his hands as Cas pulled the table in front of them right up to their legs, and then brought the plate closer to them. As the music started he took a fork and split each item on the plate in half – some for him and some for Dean. Dean focused on him doing that until the screen changed, going from color to black, words appearing, at which point he shifted his eyes up to the screen and what was on it.

Dean didn't understand a lot of the dialogue in the movie; it was full of unfamiliar terms in unfamiliar contexts flying back and forth too quickly for him to be able to interpolate their meanings. It was moving along so fast that he couldn't even ask Cas about the words before there was more happening and Dean was trying to at least keep up with the visuals, which were slightly slower moving than in modern movies even though there were a lot of fast airplanes and airplane fights. The names were confusing too, but he was able to keep track of faces.

Throughout the movie Cas watched Dean more than he watched the screen. At first it made Dean nervous, and he played with his hands in his lap as he tried not to look over at Cas. But when Dean laughed along with the characters when they took a picture while flying inverted over the enemy he saw Cas smile as well, which made Dean realize that Cas was watching him for reactions, just like he did for Cas during his movies. After that he made sure to look over at Cas periodically and smile at him to show that he was enjoying the movie; Cas would smile back, then watch the movie himself for a short amount of time before his eyes made their way back to Dean's face. Partway through the movie they both took off their jackets and sweaters, now too warm in the cool basement.

Out of everything, the music stood out the most to Dean. He didn't know what it was about it, but he would sway in his seat along with many of the songs, especially the wordless theme music. It didn't matter that about half of the plot was lost on him – he still liked the movie a lot, and it held his attention.

Dean felt light when he stood up after the movie ended, grabbing his jacket and walking over to the wall to turn on the lights while Cas took the DVD out of the player and returned it to its case, reshelving it. He then walked over to the table in front of the couch and picked up the empty plate and their cutlery, then joined Dean by the stairs.

The lights were off on the main floor, so Dean stepped around Cas to feel for the hallway light switch. He found it after a little bit of searching, and once they were in the kitchen they turned the hallway light back off in favor of the brighter, overhead kitchen light. Both lights had caused the boys to blink hard at their intensity, but after a few moments they were fairly well adjusted to the brightness.

The living room and kitchen windows were all open, letting in the night air and the sound of crickets. Dean could feel the breeze on his front, refreshing as it came in through the window by the table as he stood out of Cas's way while he rinsed the plate. The dishwasher door was locked, so he left the plate and cutlery in the sink for morning. He turned around to face Dean. “Would you like a snack?”

Dean had been expecting Cas to just say goodnight to him, so he straightened his back on impulse, mind processing the question. “Popsicles?” he questioned.

Cas smiled wide at him and Dean smiled back as Cas turned away to open the freezer, pulling the cardboard box of popsicles out before shutting the freezer door again. Dean put his jacket down on the kitchen table before stepping up beside Cas as he emptied the remaining popsicles out on the counter so that they could figure out which flavors were available. Dean took two white-wrapped popsicles and held them up above his head and towards the kitchen light, evaluating their color. He held one of them out to Cas. “Orange,” he said. Cas smiled at Dean, taking the offered item and starting to pull at the wrapper. Dean pushed the other popsicle he'd picked up – purple – into the empty box, and picked up two more popsicles to check. They were both red, so he set one aside for himself and boxed the rest and put them back in the freezer. When he turned around Cas had his popsicle held firmly in his mouth while he worked on opening the wrapper of Dean's popsicle. He held out the opened package to Dean proudly when he succeeded. “Thanks Cas,” Dean said, taking it and pulling out his treat as Cas reached up and removed his own popsicle from his mouth.

They stood side by side in the kitchen as they ate their popsicles, stopping occasionally due to brain freeze, watching the other one eat while they waited for the pain to subside. Once they were finished Dean opened the cupboard door under the sink, and he and Cas threw their sticks into the almost-full garbage before Dean carefully closed the spring-loaded door quietly. He looked up to see Cas watching him again.

“I should probably head home,” Dean said, putting his hands in his jean pockets.

Cas's calm smile only fell slightly at the words. “Alright,” he said.

“I'll be back tomorrow,” Dean said quickly, trying to brighten Cas's mood. “Then we can start that new book.”

Cas did perk up at that, smile widening to match Dean's. “Yes.”

Dean put his jacket on, then sat down on the twine mat by the door and pulled his boots onto his feet and tightened the laces. He was just about to start on the first knot when Cas bent to his knees in front of him and moved Dean's fingers off the laces gently, hands warm before he let go to take the laces himself and do them up. “Cas you don't gotta do that-”

“I don't mind,” he said in reply, looking up at him as he tightened the first knot and moved on to the second. Dean sat in silence while he did up the second boot, and Cas rose to his feet first, holding his hand out to help Dean up. “I'll see you tomorrow Dean,” Cas said, smile calm.

“Yeah,” Dean said as he reached out and turned the doorknob, tugging the door open, rubber seals squeaking loudly in the otherwise silent air. “Bye.”

Chapter Text

The next morning dawned cool and bright, and Dean woke confused when he felt chilled under the single sheet he'd slept under. He scrambled forward to the end of his bed to pull his comforter up and over himself before settling back under the blanket and quickly falling back to sleep.

It was still cold out when Dean was preparing to walk to Cas's house, so he put his leather jacket on over top of his shirt and flannel, grateful for the extra warmth it provided. It kept him comfortable on his way over, and when he got there he and Cas immediately retreated to the attic to start on their book. Dean was pleased to find that the attic was warmer than the rest of the house, and he didn't need to keep his jacket on. Cas said that his parents had started the heaters downstairs but they weren't very good so the rest of the house still hadn't warmed up. He also said that they couldn't use the wood stove in the corner of the living room because it hadn't been cleaned yet.

Other than going down to the water explore a few times, they spent most of the next several days inside the heated comfort of Cas's house. They started a new game of Monopoly between them, Balthazar declining the offer to join them. When they weren't playing that they mostly read, both very involved and interested in their current book. The only thing that stopped them from finishing it as soon as they could was Cas's voice getting tired after a awhile, so they were only a little over halfway through.

“As they looked through the open portals into all the parallel universes, Taylor pointed at the ones right in front of them,” Cas read late one afternoon. “'Look. Every me loves every you.'

“And they could both see that this was true; for in every window there was a different version of them, together: smiling at each other, laughing, talking, always with the same looks in their eyes.”

The characters entered one of the parallel universes, and were entranced by how much brighter the Milky Way looked from Earth than it did in their home universe, some of the stars visible during the day.

“Can you see the Milky Way from Earth?” Cas asked, looking up from the book and meeting Dean's eyes.

“Yeah. Well, at night you can, when there's no clouds,” Dean answered. “You've never seen it?” Cas shook his head, perplexed. “But it's always up there! Haven't you been outside at night before?”

“In the city. But there aren't many stars, and they're hard to see.”

Dean frowned in confusion, but then figured it out. “The city's probably too bright at night.”

Cas nodded. “Is it – pretty?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dean said. They were silent for a few moments, then Dean said, “We should go stargazing.”

“Okay,” Cas said, nodding again. “We should go tonight.”

Dean looked out the window – there were no clouds at the moment. “Sure.”

When they went downstairs for snacks Cas told his parents their plan, and they said it was alright for them to go. It was still light out when they had dinner, but they decided to go out right away so that they could set up while there was still a bit of light. They went around the house, gathering the extra blankets from the linen closet and taking the blanket off of Cas's bed, bunching and rolling them up as best they could so that they'd be easier to carry. Cas put on a hoodie under his trenchcoat, and changed from jeans into thick sweatpants.

While Dean was waiting downstairs for Cas to change into warmer clothes Cas's mother came into the kitchen, fixing him with a solid stare. “If he starts shivering or it gets too cold get him inside,” she said.

“O-okay?” Dean said uncertainly, but apparently that was enough for her because she nodded before turning back into the hallway.

When Cas came downstairs Cas's dad gave them another extra flashlight on top of Dean's normal one and their two spelunking lights, and told them to have fun. Cas was grinning an excited, gummy smile as they put on their shoes and collected their armfuls of blankets from where they'd left them on the kitchen table. Outside he half-skipped, half-ran across the clearing ahead of Dean, but waited for him at the edge of the trees. The sun was still setting, but when Dean looked up he could see that one planet was already visible in the darkening glow. The sky that he could see was still clear, and he hoped that it would stay that way.

Dean led them through the forest and straight to his rocks, where they deposited all their blankets. Once in a small pile in front of them they realized how few they really had, and Dean said they should go get blankets from his place too. Cas smiled over at him, nodding.

They walked down the path close together, arms brushing. Dean's hands were cold, but his pockets didn't offer much warmth. When the cold skin of his left hand brushed over the warm skin of Cas's right, Dean reached for it without thinking. Cas turned his head slightly to glance over at him, and they both gave each other small smiles before looking back at the path ahead of them.

At the foot of the steps leading up to the cabin's door Dean stopped walking. “We gotta be quiet,” he said, voice low. “My dad might be home and sleeping.”

Cas nodded, showing his understanding. Dean climbed the steps first, opening the door slowly and moving inside. Cas followed after him, steps light on the wooden boards. Once he was inside Dean shut the door carefully, the silence and darkness creating a sense that any fast movement would seem out of place. Dean glanced down at his feet before walking down the hallway, lifting and letting his boots down softly, trying to be as quiet as possible, Cas staying where he was by the door while Dean walked forward. The kitchen was empty when Dean passed the corner, and the door to his dad's room was closed and the light was off, so he either wasn't home or was already in bed. Dean motioned for Cas to come forward, and he stepped slowly as well, imitating Dean's walk as he stepped off the mat and over the floor towards Dean room. He stopped at the bedroom door, Dean pulling the blanket off his bed and twisting his body to hold one end out for Cas to take.

They each took two corners of the blanket, and folded it in half several times. Once it was small enough to be carried Cas held it against his body with one arm, while Dean got a few other blankets, already folded, first out of his room and then out of the den. Then a thought occurred to him, and he told Cas to wait while he changed into warmer clothes too. He put on sweatpants as well, changed from a tshirt into a long-sleeved henley, put a lose flannel over that and then his coat. Emerging back into the kitchen he and Cas split the blankets they'd collected and left the cabin quietly, walking back to the rocks. It was almost completely dark out now, and Dean got his flashlight turned on with a little manoeuvring around the blankets clutched in front of his chest, aiming the light ahead of them. Their footing wasn't a concern on this side of the forest, for which Dean was grateful.

With blankets from both Dean and Cas's houses their pile was decently large, and Dean started to sort through their selection, figuring out which ones they should sit on and which ones to cover themselves with. Cas stood off to the side of the pile, head craned back as he looked up at the sky. There were some stars visible now, but with some ambient light still coming from the horizon where the sun had set, most were invisible. Cas was entranced nevertheless, and didn't move until Dean called his name after setting up a nest of sorts for them to sit in.

Dean sat with his feet over the edge of the nest, pulling at the laces of his boots to remove them. Cas lowered himself down close beside him and did the same, their arms brushing as they pulled their shoes off. They spun on their butts so that they could put their socked feet down on the blanket that was the top layer, facing out towards the lake. There was a light wind coming off it and blowing on them, but it didn't penetrate their jackets. The waves were small and they could hear them lapping against the bottom of the cliff many feet below, soft and steady.

Directly behind them Dean had rolled up a blanket to create a sort of pillow for them to rest their heads on, so they scooted forwards so that when they'd lie down their heads would end up on it. Where their feet would go Dean had folded back several blankets, and had used a few intermediate layers to create a shield from the wind by folding some blankets in half, part going under the blankets they were laying on, the top part to fold over their feet. Others weren't folded underneath the base, their full length needed so that they'd be able to be pulled up to the boys' shoulders.

Cas didn't lie down immediately, so neither did Dean. He did pull the blankets forward though, and covered their crossed legs with them. The blankets initially felt cold through his pants, but they soon warmed up from contact.

The moon wasn't out, so the only thing lighting their view of the lake was the very last of the sun's glow, quickly disappearing as the sky across the lake and to the left darkened down further from a dark dark blue. They sat in silence, not moving, and soon all evidence of the sun was gone. Both the sky and the earth were solid black, lit only by the soft light of the stars.

And there were many, many stars. In between the brightest and most obvious stars fainter ones could be seen, taking up almost all the empty space. Straight across the lake was the Big Dipper, spanning large above most of the lake and at a slightly angle over the horizon. Later on it would straighten out, and then curve upwards as the night went on.

Looking up, Dean's eyes immediately found Cassiopeia, and behind it, the band of the Milky Way, which ran directly overhead, the leftmost part cut off from view by the treeline. He looked down and over at Cas, who was staring straight up, lips slightly parted. Dean watched him as he turned his head, lowered his head, trying to take in the whole sky at once.

“I didn't know there were this many stars,” Cas said quietly, head still up.

“Yeah,” Dean said. After another few moments he looked away from Cas, eyes running across the sky again, just taking it all in.

Out of the corner of his vision he thought he saw movement, but by the time his eyes had moved and focused it was gone. But he was pretty sure he knew what it had been.

Cas appeared to have seen it too, lifting his arm to point behind Dean towards where he'd seen it. “There was a shooting star,” he said, awed.

Dean nodded, taking in the sky again quickly, looking for another. He was afraid to look away in case he missed the next one, but looked over Cas anyway. “Yeah, I saw it too,” he said. “There's gonna be more, there always are 'round now.” Dean had forgotten that the meteor showers would have started by now, otherwise he would have been coming out to stargaze a lot more. He left Cas's house after dark but only ever glanced up at the sky while in the clearing, which hadn't give him much opportunity to be reminded since even there the view of the stars was limited by the treetops.

“We should make a wish,” Cas said, looking down from the sky to Dean even as Dean looked up at the sky again.

A frown pulled at the corners of Dean's lips and he pressed them together, trying not to show any emotion on his face at Cas's suggestion. He didn't know how to tell Cas that he didn't believe in shooting star wishes, not after his first year at the cabin where he'd wished on every shooting star, asking for his mom and brother and house and everything back, to be able to leave the forest and go back to what he'd had before.

He'd changed to asking each star for one thing after a while, for his mom, for his brother, thinking that maybe asking for everything was too big a wish for one star. But still nothing had changed, and he'd given up in a fit of rage and tears, hitting and kicking the trees by his rocks, rubbing his arms against the roughest bark, managing to scratch some skin off but unable to release and pay for the feelings inside of him. He hadn't wished on shooting stars after that, except for sometimes asking to see another one before he fell asleep. That was the only wish they seemed capable of granting.

“We should wish for a lot of ice cream. What do you think Dean?” Cas asked, still looking at Dean, who was trying to hold back tears at the memory of his hope in the wishes.

But he thought that maybe he should go along with Cas, who did seem to believe in the shooting stars. It didn't make sense to make Cas sad when it was Dean they'd let down – and who knew, maybe they would listen when Cas was helping to wish. “Sure,” Dean said, his voice catching, tears threatening to fall. He looked away from Cas, off to the side, and wiped at his eyes. He could still feel the tears pushing though, just under his eyes.

“We wish for lots of ice cream,” Cas said, which made Dean turn his head to look at him. His back was straight and he was looking out towards the lake, head up a bit as if addressing the stars.

“You don't say it out loud Cas,” he said. “Just think it.”

“Oh,” Cas said, face falling a bit as he looked over at Dean, suddenly worried.

“It's okay,” Dean quickly said. “You didn't know. Just for next time.”

Cas smiled a bit and nodded. “Okay.” He raised his head and looked up again, and Dean did the same.

They saw several more shooting stars over the next little while, and Cas came up with a wish for each: for it to not get super hot out again; for them to find cool music, see a concert, get new books and games; for Balthazar to let them use his TV without being annoying about it.

“My neck hurts,” Cas said eventually, lowering his chin down to his chest before looking back up at the stars again.

That reminded Dean of the rest of the nest. “We can lie down,” he said, turned his upper body to motion back at the blanket space behind them and the improvised pillow that ran along the edge of the nest.

Cas looked over his shoulder, eyes widening as he remembered. “That's a good idea,” he said, and uncrossed his legs, lowering his back to the blankets, pushing himself up and down a bit until his head rested on the pillow-blanket in the right spot.

Dean watched him settle in before pulling his jacket off quickly and lying down, bringing the edge of the blankets that had been covering their legs up to cover the rest of their bodies. After a few moments Dean lifted his body up off the ground to pull his open jacket underneath him, wanting the extra insulation and cushioning from the cold rocks beneath them. Then he lay back and moved his head around a bit to get comfortable, stretching his neck muscles out as he did so before stilling.

He could just see the trees at the top of his field of view, but other than that all he could see was stars, stars, stars: their sky, their galaxy, the universe. There was another shooting star, straight up and just off to the right, but Cas didn't say anything at first. Dean turned his head to look over at him, wondering why he wasn't suggesting a wish for the two of them to make.

But Cas was already looking over at Dean, the blue of his eyes barely visible in the darkness, a closed-mouth, content smile on his face.

“There was a shooting star Cas,” Dean said, even quieter than they'd been speaking before. It felt necessary. “What we gonna wish for?”

“I didn't see it. You make a wish.”

And Dean frowned a bit at that. He was okay with making a wish with Cas, but he didn't want to make one on his own – when it was just him they didn't come true, but he didn't know yet whether making them together made wishes come true.

But Cas was watching him, waiting, and Dean could just say he'd made a wish but not do it, but that would feel like lying. So he closed his eyes and thought the first thing that came to mind: Let me keep Cas forever. And he opened his eyes and started to panic, worrying that because he made that wish, it definitely wouldn't come true. But Cas was still looking at him, not the stars, him, and Dean thought that maybe the stars wouldn't have control over that.

The panic subsided and Dean looked back up at the stars, not saying anything. Cas remained quiet as well, but didn't roll his head back up to the stars. Dean started to fidget, his fingertips worrying at each other over his chest under the blankets. He felt the blankets move, and then one of Cas's hands was over Dean's hands, resting over them, stilling them. Dean looked over at him as he scooted a bit closer, the distance between them making it a bit of a stretch for Cas to keep his hand where it was. Once he was closer and had settled his head in on the pillow-blanket while looking straight up he turned his head to the side to look at Dean again, eyes holding Dean's gaze for several long moments. Then Cas pressed down a bit, locating Dean's right hand and taking hold of it, resting their joined hands between them and against Dean's side before looking back up at the stars.

Dean's back was a little cold, the chill of the rocks making it through the many blankets Dean and Cas were on. Dean shifted his back around a little bit, but only succeeded in moving over onto a cold spot, making a shiver run through his body even though the surface area was no more than a sliver.

It was colder out than it usually was when he stargazed alone, but the extra blankets at his back weren't enough to compensate for it. The warmth of his front contrasted with the cold on his back, and he wanted to roll over on his side, curl up in a ball of warmth with the warm top blankets pulled around him like a cocoon.

This desire was obviously complicated by Cas's presence, and the fact that he would be left without any blankets if Dean rolled himself up in all of them. Another shiver went through him, his chest feeling cold, as if the blankets were sucking up all of his warmth and giving nothing back. Dean's grip on Cas's hand tightened a bit compulsively as the shiver happened, and he both heard and felt Cas move closer to him until the lengths of their arms were pressed together. The surface of Cas's trenchcoat was cold at first, giving Dean's arm goosebumps, but he could feel a bit of warmth through all of the layers between them. He pressed against it consciously, wanting the warmth.

Dean considered putting his jacket back on, wondering if that was why Cas wasn't complaining about the cold, but then he thought about how much heat would escape the blankets if he did that, and also that he'd be starting from nothing and so would probably still be chilled. Instead he just shifted over so that their arms were pressed even tighter together, and their legs were touching as well. Dean moved their joined hands slightly underneath his back, keeping them warm.

They stayed silent for several minutes, unmoving except for the up and down of their stomachs as they breathed slowly. The only thing that alerted Dean to Cas moving was the warm air he felt passing over his neck, his own head turned the other way to look at the stars in the southwestern sky. “You're very warm,” Cas said, and Dean was sure he could feel the changes in airflow as Cas articulated the different syllables.

Dean shook his head, turning and dropping his head to face Cas, their faces not even a foot apart. “No I'm not, I'm cold,” he said, pulling the blankets more snugly around his neck and shoulders with his free hand.

“Well you feel warm,” Cas said, and tightened his grip on Dean's hand almost imperceptibly.

But Dean really wasn't, and he was soon more concerned with how cold he was than with watching for more shooting stars. After a particularly violent shiver made him realize he wasn't having fun anymore, he spoke up. “I need to go inside Cas, I'm too cold.”

“Do you need my coat?” Cas asked, looking around at him.

“I don't think that'll be enough,” Dean said, voice tight as he tried to repress another shiver.

“Okay,” Cas said, sliding his fingers out from between Dean's and raising his hand to hold the cold skin of Dean's wrist. “I'm tired anyway.”

Dean smiled over at Cas gratefully, then braced himself as he realized he was going to be up in the open air once he got out from under the blankets, which, while they weren't helping much, were still less harsh than the outside air.

Cas let go of his hand, and slid away from Dean and out from under the blankets at the edge of the nest, not disturbing the tension on the blankets tucked around Dean's neck and body. Dean took a deep breath and held it as he sat up, pulling his coat out from under his butt and rushing to put it on and do up the front. It covered him momentarily with solid warmth before it cooled, temperature dropping to not much different than that of his skin. When he stood up and the blankets fell off his legs he felt the last of the warmth leave his body, and he shivered.

Once Dean had stepped into his shoes and off the blankets Cas rolled them up into a long tube; he stood at one end once he was done and bent down, and Dean did the same at his end. They picked up the mass of fabric, hefting it up and wrapping their arms all the way around it to keep the blankets together and prevent the tube from unwinding.

They carried it through the forest like that, stopping a few times when one of them lost their grip to readjust their hold. Dean led them to Cas's house, flashlight lighting the path ahead as they approached the now dark building, He pointed it down at the porch steps as he climbed them, tightening his arms around the blankets to support the increased weight of holding his end above Cas until Cas was also able to get up onto the porch. Dean passed the flashlight to his left hand, then used his right to turn the doorknob and push the door open, warmth spilling out and over him like an unexpected whitecap.

He followed the door into the house, then kept his feet on the mat while he guided his end of the blankets down onto the kitchen table as Cas walked his end in. Once Cas was inside the blankets lay across the table lengthwise and the boys let go of it, but Dean had to stick his hand out to stop them when they started to unroll and almost ended up falling over the edge of the table. Cas closed the door as Dean tried to guide the blankets into submission, but ended up having to push the far edge across the table and letting it unroll most of the way before the top of the chair back was able to stop it from spilling over.

The overhead kitchen light turned on, Cas having taken off his shoes and gone over to the wall to hit the switch. Dean bent down and undid his own boots, toeing them off once the laces were undone and stepping off the mat. His feet, legs, whole body still felt cold, but he could feel the warmth of the house starting to work at digging out the cold.

Cas had walked over to Dean's side, and once Dean had his shoes off said, “We should go upstairs.”

Dean nodded, shoulders up a bit and arms crossed as he followed Cas over to the hallway and stairs, hitting the light switch back off when they passed it. They had to climb the stairs in the dark, which Dean didn't like. He climbed slowly until Cas reached the top and was able to turn on the lights in his bedroom, at which point Dean was able to climb the last few steps more confidently. Cas was beside his bed, moving the mat that usually sat beside it and putting it at the end of his bed instead. He looked over at Dean once he'd reached the top of the stairs, and pointed at the second mattress on the other side of the room, still up against the wall. “You can sleep on that.”

Dean felt his body jump a bit, having thought that he'd go back to his house once Cas was ready for bed. But now that Cas had suggested it Dean really liked the idea – he wouldn't have to go back outside, and he didn't know how warm the cabin would be when he got back. Plus, it was a sleepover with Cas. Dean was suddenly excited as he nodded, crossing the room with Cas to lower the mattress and bring it to the floor beside Cas's bed.

Once they'd placed it and stepped back Cas looked from his bed down to Dean's mattress, then back again. “We don't have blankets.”

“Yeah, we'll need to get 'em from downstairs,” Dean said. He turned to descend the stairs, and Cas followed behind him.

Down on the main floor Cas turned the light back on, and looked over at Dean. “Do you want something to eat?” he asked.

“Uh okay,” Dean said. Then added, “But not ice cream. Or popsicles. I'm still cold.”

Cas walked towards the fridge, while Dean stopped beside the kitchen table, pulling up on the top few blankets to separate them from the rest. This caused the remaining ones to fall off the edge and onto the floor, but it no longer seemed like as big of a deal as it had before. Cas closed the fridge, but when Dean looked over at him he had nothing in his hands. He raised his eyebrows, just about to ask a question, but Cas spoke first. “We can warm up pie.”

“Pie?' Dean asked, mouth falling open slightly before he spoke again. “Your parents have pie?” Cas nodded, and Dean smiled. “That sounds great Cas.”

Cas smiled back at Dean, then bent down to open the fridge again and pull out the plastic container that held the pie. He put it on the counter then closed the fridge door, and Dean walked up to look at the label's instructions with Cas. It said to take the pie out of the packaging, and warm it in the oven for fifteen minutes. Cas lifted one hand and turned the temperature dial on the stove's controls, but the oven didn't turn on. Dean reached forward and flicked the element control on, and they both heard the oven start up. Cas started to pull at the packaging, tearing at the paper sticker label that kept the container closed and then popping the lid off. The pie was in a metal tin inside the larger plastic carrying container, and with a bit of tilting and lifting he was able to get it out, placing the pie down on one of the burners and taking the plastic container pieces over to the recycling bin. Dean opened the oven and slid the pie tin onto the rack carefully, even though the oven wasn't hot yet.

He leaned his back against the counter beside the oven, and Cas joined him on the far side. Cas was warm, and Dean was still kind of cold, so he moved closer to Cas so that their shoulders and arms were touching, taking in the warmth that came off the other boy's body.

They didn't talk as they waited for the pie to warm up, and once fifteen minutes had passed Dean took the oven mitt off its hook and removed the pie from the oven, putting it down on the stovetop and turning off the elements. Cas had the cutlery drawer open and handed Dean two forks and a knife, then closed it and got two plates. Dean cut into the solid crust carefully, trying not to crush the flaked surface. He cut the pie in half, and then one of the halves in half again, serving himself and Cas each a quarter of the small pie. As he slid the second piece onto the second plate Cas took the tray with the other half of the pie and put it away in the fridge, before coming back over to pick up his plate and fork. Dean had already started to eat, piercing the crust of the pie with the spears of his fork and then cutting and pushing with the edge to separate it from the larger piece. The filling was only lukewarm, probably because they hadn't let the oven preheat, but it still served to help warm Dean up, and he and Cas ate quickly.

Once they were done they put their plates into the sink, ran some water over them, then got the blankets Dean had pulled up from off the table and carried them upstairs. Dean dropped the blankets he'd carried down onto his mattress, while Cas shook out his normal comforter and spread it out on top of his sheets. Dean stood by and watched as Cas flattened the blanket out, stepping and bouncing over the bare mattress to reach the end of his bed. He bobbed up and down when he straightened, looking over at Dean and smiling. “This bed is fun,” he said, walking back to Dean, body moving up and down with each step he took. He stepped off the mattress than walked around his bed to open one of his dresser drawers, lifting a pair of long, thin light blue pyjamas pants out along with a plain white tshirt. He turned and held them out to Dean, who took a few steps over to take them. “Here,” Cas said as he passed them over. “You can sleep in these.” Cas then pulled out a similar set for himself, though the pants were light green instead of blue. “I'm going to go downstairs to change and brush my teeth. You can stay up here.” Dean nodded, and Cas smiled at him before closing the open drawer and heading over to the stairs.

Once Dean heard the bathroom door latch closed he got changed quickly, folding his clothes in half over the back of the computer chair as he undressed. His body had warmed up, thanks to the house and the pie, and he felt warm all over as he slipped into the light clothes he'd been lent. Cas was still in the bathroom, so Dean bent down with his knees on the edge of the mattress and spread one of the blankets out over the mattress, then found the long ends of the other two and set them up so that he could pull them over himself once he was in the bed. He noticed that he didn't have a pillow, but Cas had a spare one tucked in the corner between by the head of his bed and one of the dressers, so Dean stood up and stepped onto the mattress to walk across it so that he could then crawl over Cas's bed and reach for the pillow. The springs of the mattress shifted and slid around under his feet and he smiled at the feeling, bouncing a bit once he had both feet down on the mattress. He took a few steps forward to get over to Cas's bed, foot hitting the bottom of the mattress when he lifted the other one off. Cas's bed was less fun since he was on his hands and knees.

Cas reached the top of the stairs just as Dean was setting down the pillow on the mattress and straightening the blankets around it. He put the clothes in his hand on top of the dresser closest to him, then walked across the room to close the drapes over the far window. Then he pulled the long cord that hung in front of the bookcase to close the blinds on the window seat that his parents had installed at the beginning of the summer to keep the room dark for Cas. Dean sat cross-legged on the mattress, watching Cas and waiting for him. When Cas finally flicked the light switch off Dean lay down, and Cas climbed onto his bed from the foot, closing the drapes over his bed before lying down as well.

The room was very dimly lit by a nightlight plugged in across the room, and with its light Dean was able to see Cas's shape on his bed as he settled under this blankets. Then he scooted closer to the edge towards Dean, pulling his pillow over too so that when he put his head on it he and Dean could see each other's faces.

“Good night Dean,” Cas said.

“'Night Cas,” Dean replied, but neither of them looked away or closed their eyes; they kept watching each other, small smiles on their faces as they enjoyed the silence of the house and each other's company. They weren't aware of falling asleep, and neither knew who fell asleep first.

When Dean arrived at Cas's house one afternoon a week later Cas's mom was across the clearing, digging up the compacted dirt around her, an array of tools piled off to the side. She paid him no mind when he left the cover of the trees and walked up to the house, slipping inside quickly when he realized she wasn't looking at him, hoping to continue to avoid her attention.

Inside he found Cas standing next to the kitchen table, a heavy-looking green metal box beside him. “My father wants to take us fishing,” he said before Dean could bend down to undo his boot laces.

“...Okay,” Dean said after a short moment of hesitation. Cas's family had used the boat a few times since that first day, and it didn't bug him as long as he wasn't already feeling stressed. He was feeling fine today, so he was pretty sure he'd be fine, even though the engine would be louder if he was actually on the boat. Then he realized they'd actually be out on the water, and he started to feel excited – he'd never seen the lake from the middle. It might be really cool.

He heard Cas's dad climbing the stairs up from the basement, and when he appeared he had an undone life jacket on over a tshirt and shorts and two other life jackets hanging off his arm. He smiled tightly when he saw Dean, and handed him one of the jackets before passing the second one to Cas. They both put the life jackets on over their shoulders like Cas's father had as he disappeared back downstairs.

“Have you ever been fishing before Dean?” Cas asked while they waited.

Dean shook his head. “My dad doesn't have a boat.”

“Our boat's loud. I think we'll scare the fish away.”

“Maybe,” Dean said with a shrug. They heard Cas's dad climbing the stairs again, and he walked into the kitchen carrying three retracted fishing rods. He handed one to Dean and then the other two to Cas, then reached around his son for the black handle of the box on the table. “Let's go!” he said, grabbing hold of the empty bucket that was outside the door before leading the boys down to the water.

Dean and Cas waited on the dock while Cas's dad lowered the boat into the water, then helped both boys step on before lowering it the rest of the way and getting in himself to guide the boat out of the lift. Once they were clear of it he started the engine – Dean jumped a little bit even though he'd been expecting it – and they headed out for deeper water.

Cas had pulled Dean over to sit beside him on the bench at the very front of the boat, and now they had the wind on their faces – a combination of the day's breeze and their movement over the water – and a bit of water spray as well, which kept getting in Dean's eyes. If he'd known there would be spray while on the boat he might have brought his goggles along.

Dean looked behind them, partially so that the spray would stop getting in his face, and partially to look back at the shore. He'd seen it before from this angle, kind of – swimming out deep away from shore had given him a limited idea of what it would look like from far out, but as they sped further away more of the shore came into view – his rocks, the best climbing trees, and the jumping rocks to the right; the rest of the beach, the bushes that hid the caves, and the little river to the left; they were all getting smaller the further out they went. Then he abruptly lost focus, and the shoreline became almost grainy, the colors still there but the features no longer distinguishable or familiar. He frowned, but decided to ignore it, turning back to look ahead of them.

After several minutes Cas's dad cut the engine, allowing the boat to glide forward and then slow to a relative rest on the water – the wind, waves, and current would still cause them to move, but slowly. The lake was so large that they wouldn't drift ashore for a long time.

Cas's dad called them back to the middle of the boat, sitting them down to show them how to set up the fishing rods. Once all three rods were set up they stood up and he demonstrated how to cast. Dean and Cas both had trouble with it at first, but once they figured out the timing they started to manage longer distances. When Cas's dad tried to make them stop so that they could bait their lines properly he was unsuccessful, as the boys had started to compete over who could cast the furthest each time. Seeing that they were having fun just with that, he retreated (carefully – the teenagers didn't check behind them before casting again) to the stern and set up his line on the opposite side of the boat, hoping that the fish over there wouldn't be chased off by the antics on the other side. He doubted it.

The two boys quieted down after a while, stopping their competition when their arms and shoulders got tired; they put their rods down along the edge of the boat and lay down, Dean with his feet towards the bow and Cas's towards the stern, heads close beside each other's, and watched the sky, the clouds white and puffy as they were blown about by the upper winds. They didn't talk much as far as Cas's father could hear, but sometimes he'd see one of them lift an arm to point at something – a seagull or a cloud – and he'd hear the other one's quiet “Yeah,” or hum of acknowledgement. He smiled to himself as he watched his float bob about and break the surface of the water. There had been what felt like a few bites, but nothing that he could react to.

An hour and a half passed before Cas's father was just considering calling it quits and heading back to shore – he'd noticed Dean starting to get fidgety and restless – when he finally got a bite. Cas was at his side almost immediately, even though he'd only just stood up and started to reel the line in. Dean followed a moment later, eyes watching the water and bending rod attentively.

The fish that came up was the length of two hands, and a dark, pale grey. It tail flapped about frantically as it swung in the air until Cas's dad got it and took it off the line, putting it into the bucket that he had filled with water when he'd first set up his line.

Cas stood over the bucket, looking down at the fish swimming in tight circles inside. “We're going to kill it?” he asked. Cas's father couldn't discern the emotion in his son's voice, his face hidden from view as he looked down, but he saw Dean move closer to Cas and bump his shoulder against the other boy's in what seemed like comfort.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He saw Dean look up at him. “Wouldn't do that; big plans for that fish, Castiel. We'll put it back now, and we can tell Mom and Balthazar that we at least caught something today.” He bent down to pick up the plastic bucket, heavy with water. “That okay?”

Cas looked up and nodded, and both he and Dean watched as the bucket was lifted over the side of the boat then lowered as far down over the edge as Cas's father could reach before the water was poured out and the fish released back into the lake.

After shaking the bucket dry Cas's father brought it back over the side of the boat and stood up, stretching his arms high over his head before telling to boys to sit down while he restarted the boat and took them back to shore. They sat at the front of the boat again, Dean on the left and Cas on the right, shoulders touching. Dean was less bothered by the water spray this time, and didn't have to turn around to avoid it. He watched with Cas as the features of their shore became more and more distinguishable the closer they got.

They both helped guide the boat into the lift once the engine was off, grabbing onto opposite sides and helping to straighten and pull the boat in so that Cas's father could get on the dock and turn the wheel to lift the boat up. Once it was steady and out of the water he helped Dean and Cas out, then told them to head up to the house for a snack and to let him deal with the gear.

The kitchen was empty when they got inside, and they decided to make sandwiches because they were both feeling hungry. Once their sandwiches were set out on plates and they had drinks they went upstairs to eat, turning on Cas's computer and watching videos while they ate. They played a bit of Monopoly after that, then read until they were told that dinner was ready. When they got down to the kitchen, however, there were only four places set at the table. This wasn't the first time it had happened, but Dean was still sad that he couldn't stay longer. Cas's dad climbed up the stairs from the living room, apologizing to Dean but saying that tonight they wanted to have a family dinner. Dean tried not to look sad as he put his shoes on, knowing that him looking sad would make Cas sad too. Cas still bent down and did up Dean's laces before saying goodbye, and Dean returned to the cabin in daylight to make dinner for himself.

Dean wasn't tired, as it was still fairly early by the time he was done eating and cleaning up the kitchen. He decided to do what he'd started doing in the mornings before going over to Cas's, which was to daydream like he had while Cas was grounded, imagining him and Cas in different stories, usually as characters in their current book or another one they had read. Sometimes they replaced the main characters in the adventure, or they'd work together with them to defeat whatever evil threatened the book's universe. Either way he and Cas were always the heroes, and always awesome.

At first Dean sat at the kitchen table, leaning back in one of the chairs and absentmindedly running his fingers back and forth over the table in front of him, tracing out invisible patterns, tapping and lifting the fingers up in time with a silent song playing in his head. The sun set, and the cabin darkened and cooled down. Dean stopped daydreaming once he shivered, and got up to get ready for bed. He kept daydreaming once he was in bed, and fell asleep without realizing it.

When Dean woke up it was sunny out but still cold, and after eating breakfast Dean decided to go down to the water for a while. He got up and got changed, pulling on his jacket but staying barefoot, since he would be coming back to the cabin to eat before going over to Cas's house for the afternoon. When he stepped down off the bottom step he enjoyed the cool, slightly damp dirt under his feet, and concentrated more on the feeling and temperature than on the walk itself as his legs carried him through forest to the shore. The treetops swayed noticeably above him, bending and shaking and tangling with the trees and branches beside them.

The wind was biting through Dean's jacket even before he left the cover of the trees at the edge of the forest. He could hear the waves below, could see the whitecaps of the waves as they moved towards the shore and crashed in over themselves. He wiped his feet then sat down in the middle of the flat rock surface, the cold initially uncomfortable but the sunlight serving to warm him where the wind blew the heat off the rocks.

The waves kept crashing against the rocks, over and over again, the splash and roar almost tangible to Dean, the waves the only thing he could hear, too loud, too rough, wrong. The sound was stressing him out, but he was frozen in place, unable to escape it. The pressure of the wind on his skin was too much, but he didn't know how to stop the wind, or the tension in his head that was building in time with each wave.

Dean didn't know how long he had been sitting there when Cas appeared behind him, the sound of his approach covered by the water. Dean had been planning to force himself up, to go back to the cabin and the quiet to make food and calm down before he went to see Cas. But Cas was here now, and Dean stayed where he was and watched Cas sit down close beside him, their knees touching as Cas crossed his legs as well and looked out at the lake. Dean turned his eyes to it as well, trying to centre himself on the point of contact between their bodies rather than on the sound of the waves, trying to tune them out and concentrate on the warmth and light pressure on his knee, which was the only pressure that he could handle. He started to play with the bottom hem of his jeans, rubbing and bending the fabric.

They sat without talking for some time until Cas broke the silence. “My parents said that we're leaving soon.”

Dean looked over at Cas, but Cas wasn't looking at him, his eyes still out on the lake. “You going with them into town for food?” Dean asked.

Cas shook his head, turning it to look over at Dean. “No, back to our home in the city.”

City. Dean didn't know which city that was, but he knew that the nearest one was far. He was filled with sudden dread. “For how long?” he asked. If it was just for the day, or a couple of days, then it would be okay. Manageable.

“They said until next summer.” And Dean felt as if he were down at the water, feeling every wave push at his chest with intense force, push at his whole body, cutting off all sensation, all air. He felt like he was falling, head light and tight, his muscles protesting every ounce of effort it was taking to keep him upright.

Dean's mind was racing, processing the implication of Cas's words. Cas must have only been here for summer vacation, which meant the next vacation wouldn't start for about ten months. He'd only been here for two months at the most, but it didn't feel like that. Dean tried to imagine going five times as long again without Cas there. Back to being alone, back to the silence of the forest, no one to talk to but himself in his own head.

“Don't.”

Cas cocked his head to the side in question. “Don't what?”

“Don't go man,” Dean said, his throat tight, eye stinging. Tears were threatening to come up as Dean came to realize all that losing Cas would mean for him. To him. He wiped at his eyes preemptively with his fingers, but that seemed to loosen whatever was keeping his eyes dry, and he felt them start to get wet. He was terrified of being alone again, panic filling his body, pushing and pulling at everything.

Cas was looking at him, face and eyes sad. His eyes were tracing over Dean's face, as if trying to figure out what Dean was feeling and how to fix. But he seemed to come up empty, because he didn't say anything, just continued to watch Dean.

Dean tried to find words to explain what he was feeling so that Cas could fix it, but he didn't know how, didn't know what to say. He knew that he wanted nothing more than for them to always be together, that he needed Cas to stay. Cas made everything okay, and Dean didn't know how he'd be able to go back to living in the forest without Cas's company. “I – I need you,” he squeezed through his tight throat. Here. Always. Forever.

Cas's expression changed slightly, but Dean couldn't tell what it meant about Cas's thoughts. Dean's breaths were coming short as his panic grew. He swallowed, the back of his throat stinging from sudden dryness like it sometimes got after swimming, and it felt like his spit hadn't gone down at all. He tried again, and it hurt again but it seemed to actually work the second time around.

Dean felt like he was going to explode, like his insides were going to pop through his skin at any moment and leave him bare on the rocks. His hands were clenched into fists in his lap, and he wanted to lash out, punch something, wave his arms, but if he did that right now he'd hit Cas. He stood up fast and abruptly, but then he didn't know what to do with his arms – he wanted to throw them as far away as they would go, toss them with all his might.

“Where are you going?” Cas asked, still sitting on the ground, looking up at Dean.

“Food,” Dean said, not able to elaborate any further than that.

“Are you alright?” Cas asked quietly, lowering his eyes and turning his head away from Dean.

Dean didn't know how to answer, not trusting his voice any more, but after a few moments Cas lifted himself to his feet beside him, and Dean spun around towards the forest, walking with hard, fast steps towards the trees, trying to expel the energy that was trying to get out through his arms out through his legs instead.

Cas had to jog to catch up with Dean's unexpectedly fast start, but once he had Dean slowed down, and they stayed close together as they walked side-by-side towards Dean's cabin. Dean was still tense but he was trying to reign himself in, will it all away, think clearly about what Cas had told him. But the thoughts in his head were a jumbled illogical mess, so Dean stopped trying for the moment.

As they approached the cabin from the side Dean got the sense that something was wrong. He shortened and slowed his steps and straightened his back, eyes scanning everything in sight to figure out what wasn't right. His eyes settled on the wood next to the door, where he could just see something bright and beige at what would be eye-level when standing on the top step. He glanced over at Cas, who had slowed along with Dean, wondering if he'd noticed the beige thing too. Cas was already looking at Dean, and seemed to also be alert to something being off around them. They looked away from each other at the same time, starting to walk towards the cabin slowly.

They were just reaching the far edge of the cabin when the wooden screen door was pushed open, and a short woman stepped out onto the top step. She caught sight of them after only a moment, and started slightly before pasting on a smile as she descended the steps, not looking away from the boys as she did so. Two men followed her out of the cabin, but Dean's focus was on the woman, who had taken a few steps towards him and Cas before stopping.

“Dean Winchester?” she said in a lilted but clipped voice.

Dean stared at her with wide eyes, and after a few moments realized that she was waiting for an answer. “Y-y-yeah...?” he managed to get out.

She smiled at him in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring, but just looked fake. Dean glanced over at Cas, but he seemed as lost as Dean as to who the woman was and what she and the men were doing here. He looked back at the woman when she spoke. “I'm sorry I have to tell you this Dean, but your father's dead, and his property is being repossessed. I'm here to take you into Social Services since you're not eighteen yet.”

Your father's dead. Dean's face was slack as he processed the lady's words. He kept moving through the sentence, but he didn't know what repossessed meant. A quick peek at Cas's face showed that the other boy was just as confused as Dean was. Cas's body was tense beside his own, and he felt the boy move minutely closer to him, the sleeves of their jackets brushing.

“Do you understand honey?” the woman asked.

Dean didn't, but his breathing was speeding up, he could feel tears swelling up beneath and in his eyes and he couldn't contain his limbs anymore, he was flailing; his legs failed and he fell to the ground, clutching his head, palms flat, fingers in his hair, pressure varying as his bent arms moved up and down, unknown energy taking control and trying to escape a vessel with no outlet.

Tears were falling, the ones that had started to build down at the water coming up at full strength, and there was noise – he was screaming, barely audible cries coming from his throat as he expelled what little air he was able to inhale, struggling to breathe any more in. He felt like his whole body was going to fail, like he would fall to the ground completely and curl up so tight into himself that he would cease to exist, that he would be tensed so tightly that the whole universe would start to spin around him.

There was something on his shoulder: a hand, but not Cas's hand. It was gripping and pulling at him, the pressure pushing down on his skin, and like a balloon the pressure was distributed, displaced to his arms, and they shot out. He snapped again, thrashing out wildly, trying to get away. His left arm hit something as he tried to roll away and escape the hand, but even throwing his whole weight to one side didn't free him. His eyes were closed but he felt hyper-aware, even though all his senses were low and muddled, as if he was underwater. He put his hands back on his head, trying to control everything that was happening.

Another foreign hand closed over his other upper arm, and Dean couldn't so much as twist away. His hands came off his head, pushing at the arms that held him, throwing his legs out from under him to try and use them to get away as well, but it all did nothing. The warmth coming off the body that was holding him was too much and he fought back more. He couldn't breathe, he needed Cas, Cas needed to help him and free him and save him and protect him and keep him safe because Dean couldn't do it on his own. Dean called his name, but nothing happened, Cas didn't come, and he was being pulled up to his feet.

He tried to open his eyes but he couldn't see, and the last thing he heard was the wind blowing through the treetops before everything stopped.

When he woke up he was lying on something unfamiliar, a bed that was far too hard. The lights on the ceiling were bright, but he forced his eyes open, only managing to squint. When he tried to move his body further he felt something on his wrists, large, flat, and smooth, and when he tried to move his legs he found them to be similarly restrained. He started to panic again, breaths coming in gasps, distressed sounds escaping his mouth as the memory of being grabbed came back, of being held and Cas wasn't here where was he...

Someone came up beside Dean's bed but he couldn't see them, his eyes closed as he thrashed about on the bed, fighting against what was holding him, trying to curl up and contain the panic that had built up in his body in instants, shield himself from anything that could attack him while he was so vulnerable. His cries increased in volume, wordless and pained and then he was crying, sobs replacing his screams as he began to fight for each breath.

He heard a voice, distant, but it was too quiet to hear, he couldn't make out what it was saying and he didn't care, all he could think about was that he couldn't move and couldn't breathe. Then there was something on his upper arm, another restraint but warm, an unfamiliar hand. And then a sharp prick, pain going down into his arm and he was struggling again, trying to get away from whatever was physically invading his body, but the bonds were stronger than him and he couldn't move away. The pain stayed and the voice continued and Dean kept trying to escape but eventually his eyes started to fall of their own volition and his muscles felt weak and heavy and stopped responding to his commands. When his eyes were closed but just before he lost consciousness again something was put over his mouth, a mask, but he couldn't move his head away. He couldn't do anything.

The next time he woke up he still felt drowsy, eyes opening slowly, his brain foggy, seeing things but not processing them. After several minutes he was conscious enough to sit up slowly, head heavy and spinning, stomach empty and on the verge of sickness. The room was small, lit only by light coming in through the window above the bed, and empty except for the bed he was on, a bedside table, a small dresser to his left, and a plain chair across the room; there was a door on the far wall in the right corner, heavy and metal, a small, wired window showing a farther wall of the same bland beige as the room, but lit by much brighter, artificial light, and another open doorway, a toilet visible inside that room.

Dean wiped at his eyes with his fists, bending forward more than ninety degrees as his stomach gave a surge of protest. He glanced around the room again hurriedly, looking for a waste basket he could use if he threw up; there was one tucked under the bedside table, but when he moved sideways towards it his nausea increased and he stilled, staying immobile as he fought to keep his stomach contents down.

Once the queasiness passed and Dean had the bucket in front of him he finally realized that he didn't know where he was. He looked over his shoulder and out the window carefully, but all that he could see was a high cloudy sky; he lifted himself to his knees, balancing with a hand on the window ledge as he looked down at the ground, a story below. A large grass yard stretched away from the building, ending with a thick row of trees with a break around a paved driveway to Dean's left which lead up towards the building. By the end of the driveway, in the bend between the driveway and the road it broke off of, Dean could see a sign that said Connor Beverly Behavioral Medicine Center.

He heard a noise behind him, the turning of a lock; he dropped back down to the bed, turning to face the door as it was pushed open, the woman standing there pulling a key out of the lock and pocketing the thick keyring as she entered the room, allowing the door to fall shut quickly behind her with a thick clin-fack, which made Dean flinch. She turned on the lights, the brightness of which made Dean flinch again.

The woman sat down in the chair, opening a folding clipboard on her lap and pulling a thin pen out of its holder. She looked up at Dean, who was watching her with wide, fearful eyes, memories of the strangers at the cabin running through his head. “Good afternoon Dean,” she said. “I'm going to be your doctor during your stay here.”

She asked Dean many questions, but she spoke over him whenever he tried to tack a question of his own onto the end of his answers. Once she was done with her questions she told Dean that he was here to be evaluated and treated after his outburst outside his house, and that they were going to help him get better but he would need to cooperate with them. She flipped back to one of the pages she'd already written on, and said that there would be some pills for him to take along with the meal that would be brought in for him shortly, and to have them first with a glass of water while the nurse was still in the room. Dean asked her where Cas was, but she just shook her head and told him not to worry about that right now. Dean still felt sick and in a daze, so he couldn't come up with anything else to ask her before she left the room, using a key to open the door, which closed heavily behind her.

He barely noticed the nurse that came into the room, eyes zeroed in on the tray they carried. There were two glasses on it, a tall, sweating glass of water and a much smaller one of juice, and a thin sandwich on a plate. When the nurse put the tray down in front of where Dean still sat on top of his bed Dean saw that there was a small shallow bowl with a number of pills in the centre. They didn't look like any of the pills he'd ever taken when sick while growing up, and he finally wondered why he was expected to take them, what they would do. But when he asked the nurse this they didn't give an answer, just told him to swallow them down with water from the tall glass. He did as he was told, the pills leaving an unpleasant taste on his tongue. Once he'd finished the glass of water the nurse left, even as Dean felt like he would throw up after drinking too quickly.

The sandwich was dry and bland, hard to swallow even if he chewed each bite extensively. Not long after finishing the sandwich and juice (which was far too sweet for Dean's taste) he felt tired, so he put the tray down on the floor beside his bed and pulled up the tight covers on the bed, crawling under them and hiding his face in his arm so that he could sleep without the overhead lights bothering him.

The days blended together after that, filled with a random array of visits from different people, always asking him questions, questions, questions, more questions, nothing but questions, never letting him speak for himself. Every time someone brought him something to eat he had to take pills; the number grew as time passed. They changed sometimes, some disappearing and being replaced by others, just as gross-tasting as the last.

Dean was always tired, never alert – it felt like he never slept, even though he slept a lot. He could barely think, barely move his mouth to answer the questions people asked. Time felt frozen.

One day one of the doctors asked him if he had any family, if his father had had any friends. It had taken the doctor repeating herself a few times before Dean replied in the negative. He asked for Cas again, but wasn't acknowledged. A few days later the same doctor told him that even though he would soon be eighteen they wouldn't be allowing him to leave unless someone came and took responsibility for him.

Dean didn't understand why they wouldn't let him leave, or why they kept him here in the first place. He'd lived practically on his own for years, so why couldn't he just keep doing that? He didn't like it here, he wanted out; he'd realized that the doctors were treating him like he was broken, which he wasn't. They were the ones breaking him, making him weird and dull with all the pills they gave him. He'd tried to not take them once, to hide them in his hand instead of swallowing them, but he'd been caught and reprimanded. He'd tried to cut his arms with the knife he'd been given to eat with, body bursting after getting in trouble and being yelled at by the nurse, but then several people had run into his room and stopped him, taking the knife away. They'd taken him to a different room after that, similar to his previous one but on a different floor, and his window now looked out on a solid light brown brick wall rather than the yard. They also now brought out of his room to eat with other people in a large cafeteria, but he didn't talk to anyone, and no one talked to him. He couldn't hide his scars because he didn't have any sweaters here, just tshirts, but he stopped caring because no one ever mentioned them. But no one outright accepted them either.

He still wanted to cut, so he snuck a knife out of the cafeteria. He waited until night, until after the last room check, then stood in the middle of his room so that he didn't risk getting any blood on his bedsheets.

The knife was harder to cut with than his razors had been, so he pushed harder, trying to draw more blood, needing to see the red, feel the pain after so long without. He watched the blood flow heavily down his arm with hooded eyes, both warm and cold all at once as he breathed heavily, gripping the knife's handle tight.

Dean saw rather than felt movement in front of him. Lifting his head, he saw Cas standing a few feet away, a small smile on his face, head tilted slightly to the side. “Hello Dean,” he said.

“Cas!” Dean said, surprised and excited. He hadn't heard the door open or the boy walk in. A thought dawned on him. “Are you here to take me home?”

“The forest is gone.”

“What?”

Cas was nodding. “After you left they came with machines and cut the trees down.”

Dean's face fell. “Who?”

“I – don't know, there were loud machines.”

“Like in that video?” he could just remember a video they'd watched during the summer, where special machines had gone through and cut down a forest.

Cas's face brightened and he nodded. “Yes. Then they planted new trees in rows.”

He saw Cas's eyes fall to Dean's arm, and his face turned – sad?

“Are you alright?” Cas asked.

Dean looked down as well as he became aware again of the warm blood flowing down his arm. He saw some drop from his bent elbow down to the beige floor beside his bare foot. He looked up again, but Cas was gone.

Dean didn't know.