Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The drive to Cicero, Indiana has clear blue skies, an empty highway, good music and Dean’s favorite Zeppelin mixtape on the radio. His eye is throbbing dully from the memory of a healed bruise, but he’s still got blood on his collar—Castiel didn’t zap that away. Dean’s thinking about redoing the detail on his car, where he wants to start, he’s picturing running his hands over Baby’s exterior. He doesn’t think about why she’s got dents in the first place. He doesn’t think about the empty passenger seat to his right.

Then, when he can’t go over car repairs in his mind anymore, he thinks about Lisa. He wonders how she’ll react when he shows up on her doorstep; he wonders if she’ll be angry with him. He can picture her slamming the door on his face and telling him, in no uncertain terms, to get the fuck away from her and her kid; he can picture her breaking out in a smile and inviting him inside. She might throw her arms around him, relieved that he’s alive at all. She might shove him backwards down the steps. Maybe if he cracks his head open on the sidewalk then she’ll feel bad enough to at least let him put his feet up for an hour or two while she cleans up his wounds. Maybe if he’s hurt badly enough, he could stay the night and put this whole day out of his head until tomorrow.

The night comes on faster than expected: It’s like he blinks and looks up and there’s the darkened sky, right where the sunlight was just blinding him through the front windshield. His hand is cramping, he realizes. He doesn’t know for how long. His back hurts from sitting upright in the same position for so long. His stomach aches, from not enough food or not enough drink or more phantom pains, maybe, from the graveyard. From the—Fuck.

He scrubs at his eyes. Checks his maps again the next time he passes a road sign. Just ten miles left, he tells himself. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes until he can turn off the car and stretch his legs and—get something to eat, maybe, he could—He wonders what Lisa has in her fridge. He wonders what Ben looks like now. He wonders if Cicero is as hot this time of year as the outside of Baby was, baking in the afternoon heat all day; like Hell to the touch. Like—

The side street comes out of nowhere, same as the dark. Dean pulls up to an empty spot on the curb and kills the engine and then just looks over to where the lights on the house are blinking through the front windows. His fingers flex on the steering wheel, still tense from the long drive.

For a moment he can’t make himself climb out of the car. What if she lets him in? Suddenly the thought is just as terrifying as it was comforting. Dean doesn’t know how to live in the suburbs. He doesn’t know how to drive Ben to school or sleep in the same bed as a woman more than two nights in a row or get through a whole day without thinking about Sam. Today he hasn’t even managed to last through one hour.

The streetlight on the curb flickers overhead when he steps over the curb. Lisa’s front porch is dark.

Dean takes two breaths to himself—they sound more like choking—and raises his fist to her front door, twice.

“Hey, Lisa.”

When she opens the front door, he’s struck by how she’s more beautiful than he remembers. She’s more vibrant. Her hair looks silky and for a second all Dean wants is to run his fingers through it, but then the impulse flickers out and the rest of the day floods back in, and he chokes on his next words.

“Dean,” she says, surprised. She sounds just like he thought she would. “Oh, thank god! Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” He closes his eyes for a second when he hears his voice breaking. “If it's not too late, I...think I'd like to take you up on that beer.”

Lisa’s expression cracks down the middle, and she says, “It’s never too late,” and her voice is overloaded with something that Dean can’t take too close a look at.

“It’s okay,” Lisa whispers, and Dean realizes that he’s jolted forward and into her arms. They come around him easy, and he clutches back and realizes he’s crying. God, this is not sexy. This is not what he was picturing at all. “It’s gonna be okay.”

It takes him awhile, but eventually she ushers him out of the doorway. He collapses listlessly on an armchair, unseeing, unmoving. He doesn’t register the front door closing, though it must have; he only notices that she shoves a glass in his hand because the ice leeched the warmth from it already, and it shocks him half-awake. He gulps down whatever it is blindly, and finds the whiskey soothing. Lisa pours him more and leaves the bottle.

“There’s dinner in an hour,” she says in a soft voice, as one might use to avoid spooking a horse. “Ben will be home soon. He’s studying at a friend’s place. I’m sure he’d love to see you before you go.”

“Go?” he echoes. He looks up for the first time and finds her hovering closer than he thought she’d be. He sways to refocus on her. “Oh.”

Her brows come together.

“I just assumed…”

She clears her throat and sits down in the chair on the other side of the end table. Lisa runs her hands over her thighs when she’s nervous. Her mouth twists funny, and her nose twitches just so. Dean knows the tells even though he doesn’t really know her. Lisa doesn’t know how to hide things or lie.

“I just assumed you’d be on the road again soon. Like always,” she adds, cracking a tentative smile. Dean tries to shoot one back but just ends up kind of huffing at her, looking at his knees. “Dean, I...Is Sam with you?”

“No. No, I—” he says, too fast. Clearing his throat, he says, “Sammy, uh...Sam’s not coming back. He’s…”

In the pit. In the cage . Burning in Hell, tortured, with Lucifer and Michael and—

Lisa’s arms are around him, then. She’s petting his hair; she’s shushing him in his ear. They’re kind of—rocking together, and when she sits on the arm of his chair, he clutches at her sleeve and feels like a little child.

“Sam’s dead,” he moans. “He—He let the Devil in, and now my brother is—”

“Shh, shh. Oh, Dean. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Lisa’s telling him, right in his ear—all the usual bullshit people say when somebody’s upset at their feet. All of it just batters at his armor and falls right down to the floor, cracked in half straight down the middle. Dean gasps and claws at her, mindless, for a while.

Lisa’s put the whiskey on the table: That’s the first thing Dean notices when he’s calmed down enough to notice anything at all. He still can’t see past the thin layer of tears clouding up his vision but he can feel that the glass isn’t balanced on his knees, and he can’t imagine she would let it tumble and spill all over her rug. Lisa thinks ahead like that. Lisa is good at making sense of things.

“And he’s not coming back,” he concludes.

Dean swallows. The tears ebb enough that he can catch his breath.

“Oh, honey,” she murmurs. She wipes his face dry like he’s a child, even when he grabs her wrists to make it stop. Dean looks up at her. She gives him a smile that says, I’m gonna be brave for you. “You can stay here as long as you want, Dean. You know that, right?”

He can’t say anything, so he nods. As soon as he does, he’s crying again. Lisa pulls him back against her chest.

“Will Ben—?” he asks minutes later.

Lisa pulls away enough to look at him, one firm hand rubbing his back. Dean’s suddenly—not shy, really, but he can’t make the words come out. He presses his mouth shut, glancing at his feet for just a second, but it’s long enough. Lisa’s brow is drawn again when he looks back up, her mouth in a line.

“Dean,” she says carefully, and the hope in his chest closes up like a big metal door sliding in front of his heart. Dean doesn’t have any room for more disappointment, not tonight, so he just nods.

“Yeah,” he whispers to his lap.

“Dean,” she says more firmly. When he looks up, she smiles sadly at him and her hand comes up to run through his hair. “Dean, you’ve been through a lot. Maybe more than you can even admit. You don’t have to talk to me, and—and look, you show up here, and from what you’ve told me I assume you just up and saved the world again. I expect you to have a couple of issues. But—”

“But I can’t stay here,” he says, jaw clicking shut. “Right.”

“Did I say that?” she demands. “Look, Dean, all I’m saying is...Ben isn’t looking for a dad, alright? And I barely know you. So you can stay here, as long as you need. I told you, you can stay here forever if that’s what you really want, but—”

“But what?” He manages to crack a smile when he lifts his head. “I’ll be staying in the guest room?”

Lisa has perfected that sad little smile. She’s still stroking his hair, though, so it doesn’t really cut like it should.

“I’ll have it made up before you even pry yourself off my chair,” she promises. “I like you, Dean. And I’m here for you. Besides, I’m pretty sure we owe you for—well, whatever it is you did today.”

“I get it,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse, but he wants her to know it: She’s got a point, after all, she and Dean don’t know each other besides a few earth-shattering secrets and a couple days twisted up in bed. She has a life. He has one—had one—too. “I’m not asking you for anything, Lisa.”

They look at each other for a long minute. He wishes he could parse the look on her face.

“I need to finish making dinner,” she says finally. “Will you be okay?”

Dean’s nodding before she even finishes.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles. “I’m not gonna lose it if you leave me alone for a couple of minutes. Go.”

It makes her smile and roll her eyes. Dean’s reaching for the whiskey the second she’s off his lap. Lisa pauses in the doorway, one hand on the jamb, but Dean does his best to smile reassuringly and she seems to accept that, because she goes.

Lisa’s living room is quiet and dark. Her lamp isn’t very strong; most of the light in the house is coming from the kitchen, where he can hear dinner sizzling and a Youtube chef doling out instructions and the hum of the refrigerator. The rest of the whiskey goes down easy, then Dean puts his head in his hands and he stays there until the front door opens and Ben barrels through it, laughing uproariously about something. He listens to Ben rush to the kitchen. He’s telling a story at first, but his loud voice cuts off suddenly, and then Dean can hear hushed, strained voices, the scrape of a chair and then silence. Dean takes a deep breath before getting to his feet.

Ben is confused to see him, and dinner is quiet. Lisa keeps both of their glasses topped up and everybody’s plate full. She’s bringing some corn-based side dish over when she pauses at Dean’s shoulder.

“You okay?” she asks quietly, touching him.

Dean glances at her.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he tells mostly to his glass of whiskey.

The night ends, just like it always does.

Dean wakes up in a twin bed, one that’s not as uncomfortable as the motels that he’s used to. The sunlight is hitting him right in the face. The covers rode up in the night, exposing his bare feet—Wherever he is, it’s very cold. Why didn’t he draw the curtain last night?

He rolls over with a groan. His headache is very specifically concentrated in his left temple, which signals a hangover from the kind of bottom-shelf shit he’d only buy to stock in the first aid kit for sterilizing wounds—nothing he’d pour down his throat, that’s for sure. Not willingly.

Dean musters the energy to throw a pillow blindly to the side. It hits its mark with a dull thud.

“Sammy,” he grunts. “I told you to stop buying cheap whiskey.”

There’s no answer, and Dean raises his head. He’s in a small room with faded blue and green wallpaper. The bed’s the most substantial thing in the room; his tossed pillow’s lying slumped against the bare wall near the door. All at once, Dean’s throat closes up as he remembers where he is.

“Ah,” he groans quietly.

It takes awhile to get downstairs. He finds a shirt that doesn’t smell too musty from the backseat of the car and spends a long time rubbing soap into his cheeks in the bathroom. Some old fling once berated him, horrified, when they saw him do the same with motel soap and gave an entire seminar about how it would make him break out, but skincare was the one area where Dean had always had phenomenally good luck. Besides, he didn’t have time to shower last night and he probably smelled like graveyard dirt and blood, maybe ozone—Sam always said it lingered on him for two straight days whenever Cas healed his wounds, tendrils of his grace, his essence washing through Dean to stitch his body back together. After a big one like yesterday, he’d bet on an even three days at least before the ozone smell went away. Sam had really fucked him up—well, Satan had, wearing his brother’s face.

Shit. Dean splashes more water on his face to get rid of the new tears tracking down.

There’s bacon and eggs on the stove and toast on the table; Ben’s digging into a slice overloaded with butter and scribbling in a math workbook. Dean glances at it as he passes by and wrinkles his nose. Long division—Gross.

“Good morning,” Lisa says. He pretends not to notice how her smile seems a little forced. “Are you hungry?”

“Starved,” he says, and is surprised to find that’s true. He wouldn’t have thought—Well. Maybe he thought that something should be different, but his body was his body was his body that liked carbs. “Is there coffee?”

“In the pot,” she says, nodding at it nestled in the corner near the fridge. She smiles more genuinely and turns back to poking at the bacon.

A little TV in the corner buzzes with the news on low, turned up just enough for him to catch snippets while he butters more toast for Ben and divvies up the bacon and eggs into thirds. A few towns over, seventh graders just won the National Spelling Bee. Ben laughs at something on his phone so suddenly that it starts Dean back to the table.

In the afternoon, he starts working on the car. It wasn’t too damaged, but he was right about the touch-ups she needs before she’s back to flashy. He goes to bed buzzed but content, having made good progress that day.

It isn’t long before the days slip into a rhythm. Family breakfast and the news; Ben goes to school or a friend’s house on weekends, and Dean works on the car unless they’re attending one of Ben’s soccer games; he and Lisa have a drink and chat most nights before splitting up for bed, after mostly silent afternoons. He’s sleeping six to eight hours these days, double what he’s had in years.

In the morning, the news. Breakfast. Fix Baby’s tail lights. Tell Lisa about Death in Chicago. A cemetery got broken into and the cops found joints and an unopened condom wrapper there. Hash browns and eggs. Tweak the horn back to full volume. Lisa’s Sunday yoga has her finally flattening her palms to the floor when she bends over, a feat she’s very proud of. A kidnapped woman found alive. Fruit—cereal for Ben. Touch up the paint job where Dean got thrown into the door. Explain what a hellhound is. Local animal shelter hosting a fundraiser that weekend, looking for people to adopt their overflow of huskies. Blueberry pancakes. Replace the car’s oil. Reminisce on their weekend ten years ago over a bottle of sherry (it’s okay, because he shows her another good CD while they talk). Amnesiac woman kills her husband by dragging him behind their car. Sausage, egg and cheese.

Wait.

“Amnesiac woman kills her husband…” Dean mutters, jolting forward in his chair. Lisa turns around, and he gestures behind at the TV. “Lis, can you turn that up?”

She glances between him and the screen, then wipes her hands on her jeans and turns up the volume. She knocks a hip against the counter to watch it with him.

The story’s clearcut: Two days ago Mrs. Olsen of Arcadia, Indiana woke up just like every other Wednesday morning. Her husband went to work while she tended to their garden. She read a book; she made dinner. When her husband came home, they had a nice meal. He cleaned up after them. Then while he was loading up the dishwasher, Mrs. Olsen clobbered him over the head with a golf club, dragged him to the front yard, hitched him to the back of their station wagon and drove in circles over their gravel driveway for twenty-eight and a half minutes. Then she backed over him—twice. She took a shower and went to bed like it never happened.

When Mrs. Olsen woke up, she swore she didn’t remember anything.

“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters under his breath. “Lis, how far is Arcadia from here?”

Lisa turns around with a large crease in her forehead.

“Why?” Her eyebrows raise toward her hairline. “Dean. You’re not thinking of going, are you?”

“What do you mean?” Dean asks. “I—Of course I am.”

“But Dean—”

“Lisa, there’s clearly a case.”

“You don’t know that,” she says. She’s still forcing herself to be calm, it’s obvious in her voice, but her hand’s clenched into a fist on the table. “I just think that it’s only been—You’ve only been here for a week and a half.”

“I know,” he says, trying to breathe. He watches his hands on the kitchen table. “But I didn’t go looking for this, it came to me.”

“No it didn’t,” she insists. “Anyone could have seen this story, Dean!”

“But now I did! And I can’t just let it go.”

“This isn’t going to heal you!” She sighs. “Dean, I think you should focus on getting better.”

“ Working will make me feel better,” he says, scowling. “This is what I do, Lisa. It’s who I am.”

Lisa turns away, drumming her fingers on the counter. She paces the kitchen without looking at him, twice—back and forth and back. When she gets back to him, she hesitates—then pulls out a chair and drops into it in one swift move.

“I just want you to be safe,” she says, her eyes big and shining. “Okay? And that means ground rules.”

Dean rolls his eyes, rocking away from her. “Lisa—”

“No,” she says, hard. “This isn’t a negotiation. If you want to stay here, then I need to know that my son is safe.”

“I always protect Ben! I’m ready to protect him.”

“So do I! And I need to feel sane in my own home,” Lisa says. “Grounds rules, Dean. That’s all I’m asking. And then you can do whatever the hell you want when you’re on the job.”

They glare at each other for a minute, steady. A strange, light feeling raises in his chest like a filling balloon and it’s—easier, Dean realizes. It’s an argument about something besides Gods and Devils and the fucking Apocalypse. Dean breathes out. He leans back in his chair.

“Fine,” he says, folding his hands. It’s so easy to just give in and make Lisa happy. It’s bizarrely easy, he’s not used to the feeling. “What—”

Before they can broker a clear-cut agreement, they hear Ben clamoring down the stairs.

“Mom!” he shouts. “I’m late, I’m late!”

Lisa’s gaze lingers on him for a second—just a beat, barely noticeable at all.

“I’ll drive. Grab your stuff and meet me outside in five,” she calls back to Ben. To Dean, she waves a finger in his face. “I have to go, but we’ll talk about this when I get home.”

“When I get home,” he counters, getting to his feet. “I’ll do this job and then come back and we’ll talk.”

Lisa breathes out noisily. It ruffles her bangs around.

“Fine,” she conceded. “Be safe, okay?”

She touches his cheek. He leans into it for a second, so shortly that she might not notice at all.

“You too,” he says. “I’ve seen school dropoff lines, it’s a jungle out there.”

Lisa laughs and drops her touch. With a nod, she disappears out the door, her keys jangling in her hand. As soon as the car pulls away, Dean drops back into his seat with a sigh. He finishes breakfast and dresses out of pajamas for the first time in nearly a fortnight, and then he loads up Baby, finds Arcadia’s nearest motel on his maps app, and hits the road.

It’s a ghost possession case, the kind that stains his nailbeds with ectoplasm for a week no matter how hard he scrubs at them in the shower. Dean gets through it without any major life-threatening scares, but he does get knocked in the head and the bitch slashes at his shoulder, so that’s bleeding into his jacket while his ears ring the whole way home. His bum shoulder gets zapped with a lightning flash of pain every time he jiggles the wheel just so; it’s only ten minutes back to Lisa’s, but it sucks major ass.

He’s been gone just three days. It’s eleven when he drops his bag by the front door, and all the lights are out. He almost stops by Lisa’s room on his way to bed, but then thinks twice and goes to his own room instead. In the morning, Lisa gives him a warm smile over breakfast and breathes out his name as soon as she sees him, all relief.

“I didn’t know how long you’d be gone,” she tells him. Ben’s loading up his backpack in the living room. “We planned to go to this concert tonight because...well, Ben was worried about you. Will you be alright on your own?”

“What, me? Yeah, go, go. You should enjoy yourself. I’m just going to be getting some work done around the house today anyway…”

Lisa kisses him on the cheek when she leaves for work today, whether because she’s glad that he’s home safe or because she won’t see him until late, he doesn’t know. He really is trying to give what he can because he doesn’t like feeling like a freeloader: He spends the morning out in the yard, pulling up Lisa’s failed garden and replanting it with bulbs he found when he was clearing out the garage last week; Lisa knew he got nervous leaving Baby out on the curb all the time in those first few days.

First, Dean stops by the nearest CVS. After rummaging through Lisa’s frankly pathetic first aid collection, he decided to stock up on useful shit at the drugstore—and not just because his shoulder really hurt something fierce this morning, but also because he needs to refill what he keeps in the trunk.

He checks for sturdier bandages first, the good kind that won’t slip off in a fight. He doesn’t want cops showing up and scaring Ben, so he fights the urge to pocket a few boxes and resigns to using what little cash he has left on him, whistling dolefully when he scans the prices and calculates what a five-finger discount would save him. He thumbs through a few different size sewing needles. Humming Rock of Ages under his breath, Dean turns the corner to skim for rubbing alcohol too.

The overhead speakers are playing some baby-talking woman singing about boys, so Dean blames that on why he doesn’t hear the familiar sound of air shifting; he’s scanning for a good-sized bottle, humming a little louder to drown out the pop.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Jesus Christ!” Dean jumps so hard that his stack of boxes topple to the floor. He spins around and then breathes out, all at once. “Cas, damn it.”

Cas is watching him from approximately three inches away. Dressed like a kid playing in his father’s closet as usual, he just stares while Dean gathers up all his new first aid stuff off the ground.

“What are you doing?” Cas asks as though Dean’s the one out of place in this six-row CVS in Bumfuck, Indiana. Dean was born in first aid aisles at the drugstore. He grew up pocketing this shit.

“I’m playing my favorite game. Doctor,” Dean says. He reshuffles his boxes to lay more securely in his arms. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m just checking to see how you were doing,” Cas says, stepping closer. He cocks his head in the other direction, considering him wholly.

“I’m fine, Cas,” he says, turning his face away. “I barely even think about—”

It’s awkward for a beat. Cas clears his throat, and his voice is lower when he says, “I wasn’t talking about the cage, Dean.”

Dean flinches and then shoulders away from Cas, putting some space between them. Cas always stands too fucking close. It’s suffocating. It’s fucking ridiculous, that’s what it is. And he’s still standing too close, muscling back into Dean’s space to get near and hiss in his ear.

“I heard that you hunted,” Cas says.

He looks up and finds Cas scowling. It’s such a ridiculous look on him—usually he’s just blank, or curious, or confused or even laughing occasionally if Dean’s around—that for a second, Dean nearly breaks. He stifles down the laugh threatening to bubble out.

“Oh you heard , did you?” Dean says, forcing himself to be dismissive. Rolling his eyes, he steps around Cas to get at the thread, glancing over his shoulder to ask, “Have you been spying on me again?”

“It’s not spying,” Cas says irritably, shuffling up close to him in the checkout line. “I was watching over you. After what happened in that graveyard—”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” he snaps, barely turning his head. This is so not the place. “And I don’t need a fucking babysitter.”

Cas is frowning again.

“Don’t you?” he demands, and touches Dean’s shoulder. Dean winces, flinching away. “You are not indestructible.”

“I’m handling it!” Dean snaps.

“I am just...worried about you,” Cas says, taking deep, audible breaths. “You have a tendency to rush into things half-cocked, especially when you’re upset.”

“I’m fine, Cas!” His jaw clenches shut. “It was just a stupid hunt, basically a milk run for me.”

Cas shoves him in his bad shoulder again. Dean jerks it away.

“Ow! Stop doing that,” he snarls. “Don’t you have a regime change to mastermind?”

Cas’s eyes widen when he looks at him, like he’s seriously shocked by that jibe. Dean barely has time to widen his eyes before Cas’s expression hardens, and he huffs at him, his jacket rustling when he tugs on the lapels. Then in a whirl of feathers, Cas disappears.

The line ahead of him shuffles out of the way. Dean dumps his armful on the counter.

“Fucking angels,” he mutters. He glances up to see if the checkout girl heard him.

“Cash or credit?” she drawls.

Dean beams. Go small town teenagers, always good for apathy when you need it.

Dean patches up his shoulder before Lisa or Ben ever notices there’s something wrong—spends the first half of the afternoon with his teeth clenched and that bad whiskey in the bathroom, and the second clearing up the living room from when they all had a movie marathon last night.

Dean has afternoons where he doesn’t talk a whole lot, and they often leave him alone but sometimes they just crowd around him and do something else in the same room so he can tune in if he wants to. Today, Lisa compliments the yard when she gets home, and he helps Ben with his homework for an hour before he goes out to check on Baby, right on schedule. 

When he sleeps these days, he dreams about a lot of things, most of them not very good. He was just beginning to get over his nightmares about Hell when all of the—when all this went down anyway, and since that first night he averages more sleep than he used to but still not nearly enough.

Some nights he dreams he’s back in the graveyard, only it’s midnight and he’s saying all the right things. Some nights he plays back the last night before Sam jumped, the last night they were all together, which blends into the last night before Jo died so he’s saying goodbye to his brother and nearly kissing his friend and hugging his mom and thinking on a lot of other last nights too, like a rubberband ball of disappointing farewells all rolled up in one godawful subconscious. One night, the first night, he dreamed it was the Fourth of July and he was lighting off fireworks with Sam in an open field, and he’d been hoping to get that dream back ever since.

Tonight, though, it’s an old nightmare—nothing special or noteworthy. He’s in the room, that beautiful room. Ruby’s body is on the floor. He claws at the carpet and the wood floor and wonders if this horrible woman will be the last thing he ever sees, but it isn’t—it hadn’t been. Sam was. When Dean died, the hellhounds didn’t last very long: Getting ripped to shreds sucked ass but all too soon he was down there on the rack, and then rabid shadow dogs were nothing. They don’t dream in Hell, but Dean used to think endlessly about being back in that room. He’d stare at Sam’s face behind his eyelids and imagine he could feel claws tearing into his chest, bloody and agonizing and alive . In the nightmare, though, the hellhounds don’t stop. Dean screams and screams and mauls the floor until his nails are bloody, until he finally wakes up.

Tonight the hellhounds only have him for a few minutes before there’s a blinding white light in the front room. Dean turns his head. Huh. That doesn’t usually happen.

The door bangs open, but Sam’s jeans are in the way so he can’t see who’s just come in. Sam jumps out of the way and then just—turns and books it down the hall. That’s weird, too. Dean looks up just as two large hands come down and wrap around the air near where Dean could feel the great beasts breathing as they ripped into him.

The hellhounds materialize as smoke then flicker and die with an ear-piercing howl. Dean flinches, throwing his arms up to cover his eyes. The howls fade away as a waning death wail; Dean lowers his arms slowly to find Castiel standing over his body, studying his face.

“So,” Cas says. “This is what you dream about?”

He reaches down to help Dean to his feet. He doesn’t bother fixing Dean’s wounds or clothes, but suddenly Dean finds that the claw marks don't really hurt anymore. He and Cas sit on the couch together.

“What are you doing here?” Dean asks. It’s easier to hold in his guts and glare than he would have thought. “I thought I made myself clear at the drugstore.”

“You’re much less irritating in your dreams,” Cas observes. “I have more power here. For instance, I can change the dream just as much as you can.”

“If you’re implying that you want to shut my mouth for me, then I’m pretty sure you can do that back on Earth,” he points out.

“I find you less grating when we’re on an even playing field.”

“Great. Thanks.” He tosses his hands in the air, but letting go of his stomach makes him start to bleed on his jeans, so he stops. “Why are you in my lucid dreams, then?”

“It wasn’t a lucid dream until I came here. It was a nightmare,” Cas says. “That’s...actually why I’m here. You were saying my name while you slept.”

Dean arches one eyebrow. “So Heaven’s at my beck and call whenever I mumble for help in my fucking sleep ?”

“I’m not here to magic your nightmares into good dreams, Dean,” he says severely. “I’m an angel of the lord. We can hear all prayers that you humans address to us.”

Dean looks around the room. “OK, but I’m not praying!”

“It doesn’t have to be...words,” Cas says. “Even just a feeling, or a...longing will do. You wanted my help, so I heard it.”

“What do you want me to do? Wear a fucking muzzle?”

“You’re not a dog, Dean.” He rolls his eyes—a very human gesture. Dean would be more worried if he didn’t spend all his time in his old stomping grounds, rubbing shoulders with Heaven’s baddest war criminals. “I’m just here to ask you to keep it down while I’m out there handling my business.”

Dean watches him for a minute, then says, “You realize that that sounded dirty, right?” Cas rolls his eyes and gets up. “Oh, come on! Cas, wait. Wait.”

Cas moves toward the door in frustration, like he’s going to storm out like some angry heroine in a Brontë novel. Dean grabs his arm and yanks him around.

“Stop calling for me. I’m busy,” Cas says furiously, sticking one finger in Dean’s face. Then he disappears in a flurry of wings.

“Damn it,” Dean mutters. To the room at large, he yells, “Thanks for the deus ex machina with the hellhounds!” and kicks at Ruby’s corpse to let off steam.

In the morning, Ben comments tentatively that he heard screaming coming from the guest room last night. Dean shakes his head and tries to smile normally when he claps Ben on the back.

“It was just a nightmare, kid. It wasn’t real.”

“Oh yeah? What was it about?”

Dean only hesitates for a second.

“I’ve got this friend,” he says finally. “Real weird guy, and I mean— really weird. And I dreamt that he was stalking me and showing up wherever I went,” says Dean.

“Why was he stalking you?” Ben asks.

“Because he likes picking fights,” Dean says gruffly.

Ben rolls his eyes. He says, “If he wants to see you so bad, he can knock on the front door like everyone else.”

Dean leans over to ruffle his hair. This time when he smiles, he means it.

He spends the day repainting the side of the house, where all the paint’s chipped off from Ben’s soccer practice when he mostly just kicks the ball into the siding again and again and again. They moved fairly recently, within the last couple of years, and he’s already taken a good chunk off the first paint job.

Dean fixes up all the bare spots, but it’s not as late as he thought by the time he gets done—he still has nearly two hours before Lisa gets home. Ben’s going to study at a friend’s tonight, so it’ll be just the two of them after dinner; Dean should make a nice dessert to surprise her. He should find good music and a movie on TV.

In the end, he just showers and ends up picking up a couple of steaks from the grocery store to throw on the grill. Lisa seems happy when she sees what he’s doing, patting his shoulder and laughing. She has to clean up from her after-work pit stop at the gym, and Ben’s still not home from practice when the steaks are nearly done, so Dean leaves them with just enough red in the middle to warrant a five-minute nuke right before serving and he heads upstairs to take a nap. He woke up early and disgruntled from his argument with Cas, and working all day has left him tired, so he slips into bed to catch a few minutes while they wait for Ben and Lisa makes the salad.

It’s a short nap, just a little under an hour. But it’s enough for Dean to dream.

It’s the same one as usual this time. He and Sam are sharing a beer in Bobby’s kitchen. Dean would’ve thought he’d ache more for this place, but he doesn’t really in his waking hours—maybe something about visiting it so often at night. He’s waiting for the moment he can have a regular dream-visit here and spend all night wandering through the rows of cars. He’d like to work on Baby uninterrupted just once, like when he rebuilt her from the ground up after they lost Dad. He’d like to feel the dust from Bobby’s yard on his face and drink the beers he’d stock in the fridge, a brand you can only get in South Dakota. 

But for now, Dean and Sam are drinking those beers and trading stories about their childhoods. Sam likes the one where Dean ditched him all afternoon, acted like a dick and long story short he ended up apologizing and telling him it was them together, them always. They carved their initials into the car that day, just kids. Dean likes that story too, but it’s too sappy to take top spot for him and he always ends it by telling Sam to shut up and when’s he going to change into his skirt, anyway?

It’s not their first time rehashing the past. Then Jo’s there, appearing in the window. She waves enthusiastically and they gesture her inside.

“Jo!” Sam says, gathering her in his arms first before passing her on. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to say goodbye,” she says, smiling at him.

And then all at once, her smile gets sad. Dean’s heart drops when he looks at her, Sammy and the beer both forgotten. Jo touches Dean’s face. He can’t move, froze solid, when she leans up on her toes and kisses him: Once on the forehead, once on the lips. She strokes his face, frowning.

Dean doesn’t want to say it but he has to. He always has to.

“I'll see you on the other side,” he tells her. “Probably sooner than later.”

Jo watches him. Here’s where she starts to cry...

“Make it later.”

And then Cas is there: Not the one who came to see him in his dream last night but a different one, colder. He isn’t looking at Dean; his eyes are fixed on Jo instead.

“I’m supposed to take you away,” Cas tells her.

She smiles at him. “I’m ready to go away.”

Cas watches her for a long moment. He slowly shakes his head.

“I can’t. I can’t take you away.” He looks at Dean now, right? Yes, he’s— “This is your fault. You’re the reason that I’m no longer welcome in so much of Heaven!”

“I didn’t ask you to do that, Cas,” he says, each syllable deliberate. His hands are raised defensively. He takes a step back. “I didn’t ask you to fall.”

“But you made me,” Cas says, and Dean’s heart is in his throat, suddenly. What’s he supposed to say to that? “I asked you once, which you would rather have: Peace or freedom. Well, I used to want to choose peace.”

And then it’s not just him: It’s Mom, and his dad, and Bobby too, and then others—all of the people he should have but didn’t save. Who he let die for him instead. They start closing in on him, just oozing out of the walls and reaching for him, reaching—He covers his eyes, and this is probably where he starts saying Cas’s name aloud in his sleep, but in the dream he just cowers and—

“Dean!”

He jolts completely upright in his bed to find Ben hovering in the guest doorway, one hand on the knob and his eyes enormous. Dean sweeps his hand through his hair. He can feel his sweaty t-shirt sticking to his back, shit.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks.

“I’m fine, Ben.” His hand’s shaking. Shit . He hides it underneath the blanket and pretends to be gathering it closer. “Just—What do you need?”

“I was just coming to tell you that dinner’s ready,” Ben says carefully, still watching him with those huge eyes. “You were shaking and saying—”

“I’ll be down in a minute!” Dean growls, and Ben slams the door shut.

Dean instantly feels terrible: He draws his knees up to wrap his arms around them, burying his face in the blanket with a groan. Fuck. He yelled at Ben. Lisa’s gonna be so pissed, and besides he—he didn’t mean to scare him. He doesn’t want Ben scared of him.

It takes a long minute for him to get up. He doesn’t have time for a full shower but he rinses, just enough to be presentable at a rekindled friend’s dinner table. A rekindled friendship which involved taking him in off the streets after he—

Jesus Christ.

“Goddamn it,” he mutters, hustling down the stairs.

Neither of them say anything when he gets there, but Ben won’t quite look at him either. Lisa clears her throat while he spreads a napkin over his lap. She’s finished the steaks for him, and made a side dish, too, on top of the salad.

“Good evening, boys,” she says with a big, deliberate smile, and picks up her silverware.

Dean sighs and starts eating too. After a brief hesitation, Ben launches into a story about his upcoming science fair; he’s doing a diorama about the solar system, real generic crap but Dean leans in and listens intently anyway, steepling his fingers and everything. Lisa seems a little less tense by the time he’s finished.

They’re digging into their first bites of cornbread when a knock sounds at the front door. Dean and Lisa look at each other.

“I’ll get it,” he says before she can, and shoves his chair back with a loud and horrible scrape. Literally anything that will get him out of this dinner, away from the kitchen and this indescribably terrible conversation.

He yanks the front door open with unnecessary aggression, and then he sees the only thing that could zap him right out of his frustration.

“Cas?”

“Hello, Dean.” For a second, they just blink at each other. Cas fidgets, glancing behind him. “Uh, may I come in?”

“What?” Dean looks behind him to the hallway like he’ll see something else, something more celestial and important there. Dean’s never even asked to go to Heaven, he usually just bitches and fights his way there. Cas seems bent on the pleasantries of visiting his...home. “Seriously?”

“Yes.” Cas frowns. “I hear it’s polite. And it’s cold out here.”

“You don’t even—You know what, just come in.”

He ushers him inside, looking around up and down the street to see if anyone’s watching before he shuts the door. Once they’re alone, Cas turns around and walks into the living room.

Confused, Dean follows. For a minute he just watches Cas walk up and down the room, looking stiff, his hands folded behind his back.

“This is a nice...place you’ve got here,” he says. Dean rolls his eyes.

“Uh...Thanks, Cas.” He spreads his hands. “So what’s up? Do you need help with Heaven or something?”

“No offense, but you really couldn’t sway my holy war one way or the other,” Cas says, glancing at the chotchkies on the mantle. That’s the kind of shit that hits the worst, the kind he says matter-of-factly. Dean sneers while it smarts. Cas’s eyes slide back over to him. “I just came to bring you this.”

He reaches out and drops into Dean’s hand...a sleep mask and a big bottle of melatonin. Dean stares at it like Cas just handed him a large, ugly slug.

“Is this—?”

“It’s to help you with your nightmares,” Cas says, inclining his head.

Dean groans, turning away from him. “Oh, God, was I talking in my sleep again?!”

“I just thought that...it would help.”

Dean drops the gifts to the couch in horror.

“I don’t need a babysitter!” he roars.

“I’m only trying to help.”

Cas bows his head, mouth twisting. Before Dean can say anything else, Lisa rounds the corner and skids to a halt, still gripping the archway. She looks between them with her eyes narrowed.

“How’s it going in here, boys?” she asks carefully.

“We’re fine, Lis, we’re fine. Uh—This is my friend Cas.”

“Oh,” she says, straightening. “You’re—The angel.”

He nods. “Yes.”

“That’s—Um.” She presses her lips together. “Are you staying for dinner, Castiel?”

He looks at Dean. Lisa hesitates, then she does too. Dean wants to tell him no, wants to tell her that Cas has got somewhere more cosmically significant to be. He raises a hand as though to gesture for the door—but then he catches a look at Cas’s face, drawn in irritation and something more, and he finds himself instead—

“Of course he is,” he says, throwing his arm around Cas’s shoulder. “He can’t resist a good homecooked meal.”

There’s very few things that Dean finds more awkward than family dinner plus cheap imitation, especially since he’s not sure who’s supposed to be who. He ends up scooping salad into his mouth every time someone asks him a direct question, the better to avoid giving a long and involved answer.

“I got an eighty-five on my science test,” Ben offers after yet another extremely uncomfortable silence.

Lisa leans over and rubs his shoulder. “That’s great, Ben.”

“That’s actually suboptimal,” Cas says. “I don’t know about—Where did you say we were, Dean? Bumfuck, Indiana—but most humans consider an ‘A’ to be a—”

“Okay, that’s great input, buddy,” Dean laughs, trying his hardest not to turn red. Lisa gives him this looks like, Really?

“Why don’t you tell us why you came to town?” Lisa says, overly polite. Oh, Dean is so in trouble later. He doesn’t want Cas to field this one either, though.

“I don’t think—” he starts.

“Dean keeps having these truly horrific nightmares,” Cas informs her gravely. “I was bringing him something to help with that.”

“Oh.” Lisa blinks hard. “That’s...nice of you.”

“I thought so.” Cas slides him a look. “Dean threw it on the ground.”

“Dean!” Ben hisses, hitting his arm with the back of his hand.

“I—No I did not,” Dean says, holding his finger in the air. “It was on the couch, Cas! And second of all, don’t you start telling them about me—”

“Why not?” he demands, sticking his face in Dean’s just to tilt his head like that. They watch each other for a minute, and then Dean swallows and looks away.

“Get out of my face,” he grumbles, pushing him back into his chair. Cas stabs his next bite of dinner unnecessarily hard.

“You need something to keep your nightmares in line,” Lisa butts in. “You wake up every single night screaming —”

“He’s been screaming?” Cas demands.

He leans over the table as though he needs to see her better, or like he does sometimes when he read minds. He says he doesn’t need to look people in the eye to accomplish it, but he usually does anyway—probably as part of his crusade to make Dean feel as uncomfortable as humanly possible. Call it years of practice, but Cas is very good at that particular game.

“OK, that’s enough!” Dean shouts, waving his hands to block both their views. “Come on! I’m not some—some—”

“Science project?” Ben says, scoffing.

“Yes! Exactly.” Dean throws his arms out, then pauses. His brow furrows. “I think.”

“Does this have anything to do with the hunt that you went on earlier this week?” Ben asks. Dean and Lisa both turn to stare.

“How do you know about that? How does he know about that?” Dean demands, first to him, then to his mother.

“Ben, Dean went away to spend time with some family,” Lisa says carefully.

“No,” Ben says matter-of-factly. “You took your go-bag. And you were only gone three days, your only family is half a day’s drive from here. What, did you drive straight there and hang out for two days without any sleep?”

“Me and Bobby get sick of each other,” says Dean. “We talked...uh, the whole time.”

Ben raises his eyebrows. “In the middle of the week?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you!”

“Dean,” Lisa and Cas both say, sharply and slightly exasperated, respectively, and then Lisa closes her eyes, breathes out, and tells Ben, “We didn’t want to worry you.”

“By keeping me in the dark?”

“Dean and I are still working out the details,” she says, this time cutting him a glare for some reason. Dean stares back, bemused. “Don’t worry about it, OK? We’re not gonna let anything happen to you.”

“I’m not worried about me!” Ben stands up with a loud scrape of his chair against the hardwood floor. “What if something happens to him when he’s out there all alone?”

Ouch. Dean’s hand is shaking again when he reaches for more steak sauce, so he hides it in his lap.

“I’m not going after anything huge, alright?” Dean tells him, kinder. “And I’m not going looking for trouble. I just...if trouble finds me , I ain’t gonna just walk away. OK?” He looks at Lisa. “OK?”

The Braedens look at each other, seeming to communicate something that Dean can’t hear. After a minute, Lisa’s expression hardens in resolve. Dean and Cas share a glance.

“OK,” Lisa says on an exhale. She’s shaking her head, but— “We can live with that.”

“What, really?” he asks, incredulous. It’s good, it’s what he wanted, he just can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t think we’re gonna be able to stop you,” says Lisa, shaking her head. “Dean, I get it. You want to help people. But it’s dangerous, so you can’t—just use us as a home base.”

His brow furrows. “Lis, I don’t think—”

“I know,” she says, stopping him with one hand. “But if you’re staying here, you have to stay here. If you have to go every now and again, then go. Just make sure you come back every time you do.”

He put his hand over hers on the table.

“I will. Always,” he promises.

They look at each other for a minute. Then Dean clears his throat, and Lisa pulls her hand away to get back to eating. 

Cas clears his throat.

“I’d like you to call me next time you’re going on a hunt too,” he announces.

Dean chokes for a second on his steak.

“What? No, I’m not—” He glances around the table for backup that doesn’t come. “What did I say about you doing the ‘angel on my shoulder’ routine?”

“I’m not trying to hunt with you,” he says gravely. Dean hates babysitting nearly as much as being babysat. “But you don’t have to suffer when you do it, either.”

Before Dean can ask what the hell he’s talking about, Cas reaches out and grabs his hurt shoulder, his fingers digging into the muscle, Dean’s makeshift stitches protesting the grip. Before he can do more than cry out wordlessly, sky-blue grace slithers up his arm, wrapping around Dean’s shoulder and binding the skin back together like cool mint stitches. He shudders when the celestial light licks through him, trying not to look too windswept in front of Lisa and the kid.

“Thanks,” Dean says when he can talk again, jerking his sleeve out of Cas’s grasp. “If I wanted an angelic doctor, I would have asked.”

The bandage feels stupid under his t-shirt now that he doesn’t need it. He itches to rip it off.

Cas is scowling at him again. He seems to only really have two expressions when Dean’s around, this and—Well.

“You don’t have to do penance,” Cas tells him. “I’d rather you asked me.”

“I’m not—”

“I know what guilt looks like, Dean,” he says all haughty, going back to his dinner. “Mmm. Mm! Lisa, this meat is...very good.”

“Actually, Dean made it.”

Cas looks at him, nodding his head once.

“Thank you, Dean,” he says seriously.

“I...You’re welcome,” he says, wrong-footed. Sometimes Cas holds grudges for months; sometimes his mood swings fly by in a minute. It’s hard to wrap his head around. It’s hard to keep up. He decides to just start eating again too, and say as casually as he can, “I thought you told me not to call you.”

Cas cuts him a look.

“I don’t want you to. I’m very busy, Dean, and I have more important things to do than come flying down here every time you stub your toe.” Staring right at him, Cas spears another cut of steak on his fork, eats it. “But if I’m already here, then there’s no shame in asking me for my help.”

“I don’t need it.”

“I didn’t say you did,” Cas counters. They stare at each other again, waiting for the other to break first.

Ben clears his throat and says, “Mom, I’m all done eating. Can I go to Jacob’s now?”

It’s awkward and obvious, but it does its job breaking the tension. Ben’s excused, and the adults finish their dinners with few additional emotional hazards. When they’re done, Cas asks Dean to walk him out.

“Go,” Lisa tells him, gathering water glasses. “But then I know you don’t expect me to clean up all by myself.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, and follows Cas out to the front steps where he was standing just a fortnight ago, asking for Lisa to let him in. Him and the Apocalypse clinging to his back.

It’s dark out tonight, plenty of stars but almost no moon. The streetlamp on the curb is the only flickering light, and it’s been on the fritz lately: It washes Cas’s face in light, then he’s hidden again. The shifting shadows change the lines and angles of his face, over and over turns him into someone new.

“You stay safe up there,” Dean says finally. He grips Cas’s shoulder, thumb brushing his collar. “Call me. If you need anything.”

Cas shifts half a step closer.

“You too, Dean,” he says seriously. He touches Dean’s sleeve, and then he’s gone.

All’s quiet on the homefront for a long time. He’s settling in alright at Lisa’s, once they get into a steady rhythm. They watch the news over breakfast, although some days Lisa trades it in for her favorite soap opera instead. She watches Days of Our Lives religiously but only recently started making Dean and Ben deal with it too. Dean knows why, but he doesn’t feel like delving into all of it so he just lets it happen. Then Ben leaves for school and Lisa for work; Dean tries to pull his weight around the house with chores, yardwork, looking for jobs too—he can’t crash there rent-free forever. Ben goes to his room for homework after practice, and Lisa comes home shortly thereafter and gets started on dinner. Dean should probably take over that job for her.

After they eat they watch TV together, or Ben goes to a friend’s while Dean and Lisa have drinks and chat, or Dean sits in the yard and thinks out into the dark night while Ben and Lisa sit inside talking at the dining table, their heads together and mugs of tea in their hands. Dean has a nightmare, or he doesn’t; either way Cas doesn’t visit him at night anymore. Dean doesn’t think about that, either.

Two months after Dean moves into Lisa’s, he gets a job: Four days a week on a construction crew, mostly fixing up poolhouses or adding on units over on the rich side of town. Three weeks after that, Dean celebrates his fourth nightmare-free sleep in a row. He thinks that drinking a large glass of whiskey before bed is his lucky charm.

There’s a ghoul case forty-five minutes away the week after that. Dean was driving out further and further, expanding the radius of the cases he was willing to take on until Lisa laid into him last month after he drove four straight hours with a knife wound in his thigh. They set a statewide limit on his extracurricular activities after that.

Clearly she’d been conspiring with Cas, because he showed up soon afterwards and shoved him up against Lisa’s shed, got all up in his face the way he did. Under threat of death, Cas told him to stop going where he couldn’t come straight home to heal up perfectly—unless he wanted to let Cas fix him up after a hunt. Dean shoved him away after that.

“Don’t have a heavenly aneurysm, you’ll probably blow the power out on half the block,” Dean snarled. “Lisa already banned me from leaving Indiana. We’re good.”

“Are we good?” Cas said. “Then why haven’t you been answering any of my texts?”

Being best friends with someone who could fly over in a second to air out their grievances kind of sucked.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” said Dean, turning his head.

The ghoul is a nasty sonofabitch…for an amateur, but Dean’s got some big notches in his belt and he kills the sucker no problem. His biggest causality is getting covered in sewer sludge from head-to-toe. He spends forty-five minutes in the shower that night, scrubbing himself clean.

Most monsters aren’t crafty. Ghouls in particular Dean finds remarkably stupid, even for a bunch of freaks—but he should have remembered Adam and his mother. They could be crafty when it came to family.

Dean’s drumming on the steering wheel along with the last song on his second-favorite road trip cassette as he pulls into the driveway. His gaze trails on the side mirror as he puts it in park and while he’s hauling the garage door shut. It snags on the gate to the yard, too, as Dean lets himself in and shuts the door behind him; he makes himself a sandwich, slicing clean through a baguette that Lisa’s had on top of the fridge for a week in change and tearing through some deli beef he found with the other sandwich stuff in the drawer.

He makes himself a glass of water. Then he sets it on the counter, spins around, catches the ghoul by the throat and slams it back against the opposite counter. Dean shoves the knife against its neck.

“Do you think you can just follow me home ?” he says. “Come into my house ? Where my family lives?!”

The ghoul bares its teeth, its blonde hair fanning when it tosses its head. “You killed my girlfriend!”

Dean laughs. “Oh, would you look at that. Lesbian ghouls. Who says we’ve seen everything?”

He runs the ghoul back into the opposite counter, up against the kitchen island. The creature swipes his arm out to grab Dean’s chin, twisting his head away but throwing everything on the counter to the floor first, and a stack of plates shatter. Two mugs break and pieces go rolling all the way under the fridge. Dean glances at the mess, then back at the ghoul.

“Those were Lisa’s favorite dinner plates, you—You’re dead,” says Dean.

The ghoul throws Dean through the back door and sends him tumbling out into the grass headfirst. Dean rolls back up to his feet and throws two punches: The first goes sailing past the ghoul’s head, the second gives it the leverage it needs to grab Dean and throw him into the back wall. He hits it with the curve of his spine just so, he’s definitely going to need a hot bath and glass of whiskey and maybe he can convince Lisa to give him a massage if he asks really nice.

As it is, he gets up as fast as he can and slashes the knife, but it doesn’t even make the thing flinch. The ghoul snarls and tackles Dean flat on his back—they hit the grass, rolling around, tussling over the knife when it gets knocked out of his hand. Dean gets a grip on the handle right as the ghoul snags his shirt, dragging him back and underneath it. Dean flips over to find the ghoul snarling and snapping at his face, throws them both sideways and gets his knees bracketing the thing’s ribs and shoves the kitchen knife to its throat, pushes until the blade cuts right through.

The head rolls off a foot or so away. It’s leaking ghoul juice all over Lisa’s pristine green grass.

Dean sits up, tossing his arm over his knee and breathing harder. His mind’s spinning, tumbling forward into all the things that just got added to his to-do list. He needs to get this ghoul out of here before Lisa and Ben get home. He needs to get his breath back and his back cracked. He needs a drink.

“Fucking monsters,” Dean mutters.

He heaves himself up and starts going through the motions; at this point, it’s not so hard to just let his body do what his mind is all too familiar with. He doesn’t even have to think about it anymore: Get the ghoul in his trunk. Drive out to the middle of nowhere, or the closest woods. Dig a hole. Burn the motherfucker. Go home and clean—

When Dean pulls into the driveway, Lisa’s car is already crowding up the garage.

“Ah, shit,” he mutters as he cuts the engine.

The kitchen looks like even more of a wreck than he feared—in the heat of a fight, sometimes it all goes dark except for the parts of his brain that kill, survive and protect. Sometimes one flares brighter than the others.

“Dean!” Lisa shouts, and throws herself across the room to strangle him.

Oh, wait. That’s just her arms really tight around his neck. After a brief moment where he stands frozen, Dean hugs her back.

“Hey Lis. I’m fine,” he says. He cringes when she presses on his bruised spine.

“What the hell happened?” Lisa demands, pushing him suddenly back. “I saw the kitchen and the yard, and I thought—”

“It’s not…” Dean shakes his head, sighs. “A ghoul followed me home.”

“A ghoul?”

“Yeah, just some pathetic not-woman mourning the loss of her girl,” Dean says, shrugging out of his jacket.

“What?” Her jaw’s clenched. Dean frowns, tilting his head to look at her.

“It was no big deal,” says Dean. He drapes his coat over the back of a chair and bends down, despite his cracking knees, to grab some big shards of broken plates off the ground. “I already sliced its head off and buried its corpse in the woods.”

“Dean,” she says.

“I’ve got the plates,” he tells her. “I’ll clean up the mess in the backyard too.”

When he passes her to toss the broken glass, she grabs his shoulder and pushes him, turns him around to look at her.

“Dean!” she says, sharper. “Do you really think that’s what I’m mad about? A little bit of broken glass?”

That makes him pause. “It’s not?”

“What if Ben had been here when it attacked you?” says Lisa. “Or me, for that matter?”

“If either of you were here, then I would have protected you,” he says, hard but nonplussed. He steps closer. “I’ll always protect you.”

“Yeah? And what if you weren’t here?” she says. “Dean, plates, a broken door—All of that can be replaced. But we can’t.”

“Hey, hey.” Dean gets closer, moves to touch her face, but Lisa steps back directly out of orbit. “I will never let anything happen to you. To either of you.”

Lisa closes her eyes. She takes a deep breath.

“Dean, when you started hunting again, you promised that nothing would happen.”

“Yeah! And nothing happened!” he shouts. “I had that thing made before I even got out of the car.”

“But you chose to destroy my house instead. That’s really awesome.”

She scoffs, crosses her arms and turns away from him. Dean’s heart thumps.

“Lisa…”

“I’m sorry,” she says, putting up her hands, “but this isn’t working anymore, Dean. Monsters can’t just start showing up at my house. I can’t handle that.”

“So what are you saying?”

Lisa sighs. She sets her hands on her hips, shaking her head. Dean’s heart drops into his stomach.

“You can stay here while you sort some things out,” she tells him, “but starting today, you need to start looking for somewhere else to live.”

Chapter Text

“You know I’m always here for you, right?” says Lisa.

She’s hovering behind him with her hand on his lower back, right over the bruise in his spine that’s been aching nonstop in the weeks since the ghoul incident. Dean heaves the bag in his arms into a more comfortable position.

“I know, Lisa,” he says.

“Just because I’m...asking you to leave, doesn’t mean—”

“Listen.” He tosses the guns in the back and slams the trunk shut. When he turns around, Lisa’s head is perfectly tilted for him to cup his hand around the side of her neck. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. And it goes both ways, you know. If you need me, you call me. Any time.”

Lisa just smiles at him for a minute, a little sadly.

“Take care, Dean,” she says, and pulls him into a hug. He squeezes her around the middle tight. “Call me when you get there.”

It’s a long drive to Indianapolis; just forty minutes, which a few months ago would’ve been a trip to the grocery store, but it feels like forever driving away from Lisa’s street and putting Cicero in the rearview mirror. Dean’s little plot of land has patchy green grass and a long driveway, but otherwise there’s nothing there but an old ramshackle shed in the back corner of the property, a few feet of green on either side before the fence, and mosquitos.

Dean traded up to the main office at work, so now he’s only ten minutes from his clock-in spot every day. He has the same hours, but the pay bumped up a half dollar. All Dean’s got, besides the bags of hunter shit in his car, is a twin size mattress in the shed and all the tools he uses for work.

Usually, he goes in on Wednesday through Friday plus Monday. On the weekends, he puts together another house: His own.

The week after Dean first arrives, he’s lying awake staring at the cracks spidering up the inside of the shed’s far wall. He bought a padlock to keep the door, at least, staying relatively safe while he’s living off takeout and what little he can cook on a hotplate from Dollar Tree; but the walls would probably cave in no problem if someone huffed and puffed just a little too hard. He’s glad it isn’t winter, at least, when the draft will likely grow to be unbearable. He can survive for now huddled beneath his favorite coat and a thick blanket that Lisa made him take as a parting gift, although her real present was a bottle of his favorite whiskey. In the months they lived together, Lisa got to know him pretty damn well.

A spider web crisscrosses its way up the corner of the shed. Dean’s watching one of its inhabitants crawl its way up the netting, unnerved by its movements but only just, and then somehow he’s dreaming, drifting along before he realizes it’s happening.

It’s a good dream for once. He and Sam are tracking a werewolf through Memphis when they catch wind of a demon attack the next state over; they finish off the cub quickly and head on over, only to find Cas already dealing with it. They help him finish off the last couple of demons swarming the safehouse, each of them wielding a copy of Ruby’s knife, and then get takeout and watch a movie at the random motel they find off the freeway. That’s the part of the dream Dean lingers on, when the three of them are shower-warm and laughing with nowhere else to be.

He’s only got a fraction of the time he wants before there’s a crash, and he wakes up with a start.

“Dean! Calm down.”

Dean realizes he’s waving his gun around before his eyes have remotely adjusted to the dark. He recognizes that voice though; rubbing at his eyes, Dean lets the weapon fall to the mattress.

“Cas?”

The first thing he sees, when he can again, is Cas cutting him a look right before he turns away.

“Guns don’t work on me,” he reminds Dean as though he didn’t learn that lesson the very night they met.

He rolls his eyes. “Thank you, Captain Obvious. I didn’t know it was you!”

“Pleasant dreams?” Cas asks, looking around the room. He walks along the wall a little, examining it. Dean sees his eyes catch on the same spider.

“Yes, actually.” Dean throws his legs off the bed. The floor’s cold to the touch. “Why didn’t you just meet me there?”

Cas looks at him sideways, a curious smile curling his mouth.

“I like to keep things interesting,” he says drily.

“Right. Sure,” Dean says, putting his face in his hands. His voice comes out muffled when he says, “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” he says in that voice like he’s tipping his head to look at him better.

“It’s the middle of the night, Cas,” he says, looking up to find Cas exactly as expected. “I was actually sleeping for once.”

“I can make you sleep again,” Cas offers, stepping forward with his hand raised.

“No! No,” says Dean, because when Cas knocks him out, it—it works, but he has weird dreams and never feels refreshed when he wakes up.

“Oh.” Cas lowers his arm, looking disappointed. “I just came to see how you were doing.”

“I’m freaking fantastic,” Dean says. “Look at me. I’m thriving.”

“You did manage to find a place of your own,” says Cas, glancing around, gaze lingering on the hotplate.

“This is a shed, Cas,” he tells him. “I’m not…living here permanently, just while I build the main house.”

He gestures out the door. If Cas uses his x-ray vision, Superman style, then he can see the collection of wood beams and partially-constructed walls scattered around the plot with his workbenches and tools.

“That’s very admirable, Dean.”

“Uh...Thanks, I guess.” He pauses, feeling like the air is thick with something that's making this uncomfortable. Like there’s something that he should say but he doesn’t know what it is. “How’s the war effort going?”

“It’s good. We’re making progress swaying more and more factions over to our side.” Cas inclines his head. “I should get going soon. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming here, and they’ll start looking for me soon.”

“OK.” Dean looks him over. “OK. Well…Don’t wait so long to come back this time, you hear?”

With the war going on up there, he didn’t like not knowing if Cas was alive for such long stretches at a time, especially while the Heavenly battles could still go either way.

“If you want me to, sure,” Cas says, and then he disappears.

Dean looks around, his eyes adjusting to the sudden emptiness. It was easier to see in the dark. There’s the bottle of melatonin at his bedside that wasn’t there before—he’d left it rattling around in the first aid kit beside all the ibuprofen and vicodin, but there it is, steady beside his bottle of holy water.

Dean rolls his eyes when he sees it. He doesn’t take any, but he leaves it on the floor there and rolls over to go back to sleep.

The next week is slow, the one after that even slower; Dean passes out as soon as he gets home at the end of it, barely even hanging up on Lisa before he faceplants straight into bed. He plans on spending the day working on the house tomorrow, and right now he’s worried that he’ll never be able to move again.

But the sun dawns, same as it always does. Dean went to bed so early last night that he’s up as soon as it rises, and not just because the birds are really, really loud from out here. Dean opens the padlock on the door and steps out into the early morning sun.

Cas is standing by the workbench with his face tipped up toward the sky.

“It’s fascinating to see my home from your point of view,” Cas says without turning around.

“Yeah, it really, uh, puts the cosmos in perspective,” says Dean. “Give me a second before you get all existential on me.”

He had a port-a-potty rigged up in the yard, and a membership at the local YMCA for showers. It guarantees  he works out regularly too, keep in fighting shape for when cases do pop up. It’s just embarrassing to get a gym membership there and then not even touch the weights.

“So that’s three weekends in a row that you grace me with your presence,” Dean says, smiling to himself at the little pun. “Is your army doing that well?”

“It’s not my army, Dean,” Cas says. He doesn’t quite roll his eyes, but he manages to look exasperated as he turns his gaze on him. “But yes, I suppose it is.”

“Cool. That’s—That’s great.”

He clears his throat, feeling unnecessarily awkward again. You’d think a guy pulling you out of Hell would make you instantly impervious to discomfort around him, yet somehow, despite Alistair, despite you are not the burnt and broken shell of a man that I believed you to be, despite everything in between, Dean couldn’t think of one thing to say here, staring up at the pale blue morning, side by side in the aftermath of it all.

They just stand there instead until Dean’s stomach growls. Cas looks at him in concern.

“You’re hungry,” he deduces, geniusly.

“And I need coffee,” Dean agrees.

That’s how they end up knocking feet beneath the table at the closest iHop, Dean digging into a huge stack of pancakes while Cas stares and picks at his bacon and stares. It used to be impossible to eat in front of the guy, but he’s used to the big blue eyes routine by now.

“So what do you do up there besides fight your holy battles?” Dean asks. He pauses. “ Do you do anything besides fight Raphael and his gang of mooks?”

“Not really,” says Cas. He reaches over to pick more bacon off Dean’s plate, and a small smile comes over his face. “Sometimes I take a break and walk through the garden.”

“Of Eden?”

“It’s just the garden,” says Cas, which in Dean’s opinion isn’t really an answer either way. The waitress comes by to top off their coffees—mostly Dean’s since Cas is barely drinking his own, the mug cooling slowly in his hand. “I enjoy the flowers there.”

“Lots of daisies?”

“I prefer marigold,” Cas says serenely. “And the bees there. They’re fascinating.”

“So you sit and watch bees?” Dean asks. “Man, Heaven really needs to get hooked up with cable.”

Cas just smiles at him.

“How’s your work?” he asks. “You seem to be doing better. Fewer sore muscles than last week.”

“You know I find it creepy when you full body scan me like that,” Dean complains.

“I know,” says Cas. This time he steals a big half piece of bacon, grinning like a naughty child. Dean kicks him underneath the table but there’s no heat in it.

“Look who grew a sense of humor,” he commends. He looks down, watching his fork slice through the stack of pancakes. “And timing.”

Cas’s head is doing that thing again, finding its angle. Its ‘Dean’ angle.

“What do you mean?”

Dean glances up, brows furrowing together.

“Nothing. You just finally learned how to keep a date,” Dean says, and Cas’s forehead crease deepens. Dean waves his fork around, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling. “You’ve been pretty regular on your weekend visits, Cas. This is, what, the fourth Saturday in a row?”

“The third. In a row,” Cas corrects him. With a little smile, he adds, “Yes, I guess I have.”

The waitress comes back with a bloody mary for Dean, who’s decided to indulge since he’s been cutting back just slightly the past couple of weeks, disliking the roiling discomfort of hangovers without all the amenities of home, like a fridge for cold water and a bathroom sink that doesn’t put him face-to-face with the dark night. Having to puke in a port-a-potty or public YMCA shower sucks too.

“Things must, uh…” Dean pauses. His fork stabbed jagged perforations through his breakfast, raking around in a cascade of maple syrup. “Things must be really going well for you up there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you’re taking a lot of time off these days,” Dean says with his eyes carefully fixed on his plate.

“Well, it’s not that big of a deal, Dean,” Cas says, shrugging. He drinks more coffee, a few big swallows that Dean watches go down, throat moving. “Heaven won’t break down if I’m not there to lead every single faction, all the time.”

“Oh, it won’t?”

“No,” says Cas, nonplussed, blinking at him. “We’re single-minded units, Dean, not an organized army. And I’m not a general. We’re all just soldiers working towards a common goal.”

“Yeah? That sounds like an army to me.”

“Well, it’s not,” Cas snaps. He pauses, frowning at Dean. “Do you want me to leave?”

Dean puts down his fork and it clatters. “No. Why would you say that?”

“Because you’re picking fights with me like you do,” says Cas.

“What? I’m not picking fights—”

“So what’s the problem?” He sits back, crossing his arms. “You’re angry with me.”

“I’m not angry,” Dean scowls.

“Fine! Fine,” Cas mutters, throwing his hands in the air. It’s a very human thing to do.

They go back to eating in slightly more bitter silence. Dean frowns into three more bites of breakfast and half a mug of coffee. Cas glares one inch to the right of Dean’s head the entire time with his mouth set and expression unwavering. When Dean’s spreading more butter on the rest of his pancakes, Cas seems to tire of their silence.

“Do you—?” he starts.

“Just shut up, Cas,” Dean says, shaking his head.

If looks could kill—and Cas’s can when he really wants—Dean would be a pile of maple-scented ash on this diner floor already. Instead Cas is silent for about five long, uncomfortable minutes; it makes Dean itch underneath the collar, even though Cas is probably just relishing in the environment he’s creating in this little diner booth between them. That knowledge does nothing to soothe the awkward feeling in his gut. Meanwhile Dean can feel the seconds ticking by like each individual one is crawling down his skin while he sits there, and Cas is a marble statue on the other side of the booth.

And then, apropos nothing, Cas disappears. Dean stares at his empty seat for a few seconds, unable to believe it.

“That’s awesome,” he mutters finally. “That’s really freaking awesome.”

Dean finishes his food quickly after that and throws a couple bills onto the table. The waitress looks at him as he goes, heading toward the far side of the parking lot where he left his car. Maybe he’ll take the long road home. He can roll down all the windows, turn the radio up to eleven and explore some of the scenic back streets he’s been meaning to drive down slowly in this new city. He’s been to Indianapolis three or four times that he can remember, north, south, east, west; avoiding anywhere they’ve been before each time he arrives. He’s never been so close to the heart of it, though: The closest they got was when he was fourteen, and his dad threw a fit for some reason or another—Dean can’t remember why anymore, it was probably something stupid—and turned them around and took off the night before a rock concert in the center of the city that he’d promised to take them to. Dean’s got a lot left he’d like to see.

But he doesn’t make it to his car. He gets just around the side of the building before nearly running into Cas, who appears suddenly in front of him on the pavement. Dean trips back a step instead of running headlong into him. He’s done that before; it hurts. Cas is remarkably solid.

“What—?” Dean coughs, crosses his arms. Schools his expression into something harder. “I’m surprised to see you here. Didn’t think I’d be graced with the honor of your presence for at least another month ‘til you cooled off. Or isn’t that how you usually roll?”

“I did leave.” Cas frowns at the brick backside of the building for a long moment, then amends, “I tried. But you...distracted me.”

“I distracted you?” he echoes, surprised enough to jolt out of his mood for a fraction of a second.

“Yes.” His gaze slides back to Dean’s face, but he doesn’t look any happier.

“How?” Dean demands. “I barely walked five feet, and I definitely wasn’t praying.”

Cas watches him just a little too closely, gives him The Full Cas: The squint, the head tilt, standing so close it’s hard to take a breath without getting a little bit of him too. In the very beginning—the very, very , literally the first night they met only kind of beginning—Cas smelled like Jimmy Novak’s cologne, but now he just smells like ozone and himself. Sometimes Dean catches whiffs of that same brand Jimmy wore when he passes guys on the street. One time during that first year after Dean crawled out of his grave, Sam got him a bottle of that as a gift. He laughed his ass off about how Dean spent so long staring at this one random cologne every time he saw it in a storefront window that he could ‘have fun with it’ now on his own time. They agreed to throw it out after Dean stunk up the Impala with ten spritzes before they got in, drove them forty miles before he consented to find a motel so they could wait out the worst of the stench. It took nearly two weeks before the whole car stopped smelling like that. Dean was only embarrassed about it when Cas dropped by.

“Are you angry that I have business up there?” Cas asks him now.

Dean glances up and down the parking lot with a sigh. There are a few cars back here, but the lot is otherwise devoid of people.

“No,” Dean relents, rubbing his chin. He catches sight of Cas’s expression. “I mean it, I’m not! Seriously.” He shakes his head, almost thinks better of it, but then he doesn’t. “You just didn’t seem to have a lot of time for me after everything that happened, but now—”

“So I’m supposed to come down and babysit you through your trauma? Little human?” Cas says, in that dark and serious voice he uses that Dean pretends doesn’t zap his spine straight. Cas steps forward, and Dean trips closer to the wall. “I’m not your therapist, Dean. I tried to help you. And you said no.”

“I don’t want you to baby me, Cas,” he says, quieter. Dean licks his lips. “But...it might’ve been nice to see a familiar face.”

In the ensuing quiet, Dean can’t look him in the eye: He glances at the pavement, then the back wall, then the car. Then back at Cas’s face. He’s just watching Dean. He should get that confused look tattooed on his face, Dean thinks with relish.

“So…” Cas says, weighing each word. “You’re mad at me...because I wasn’t visiting enough ?”

Dean needs a minute to find his scoff, the one that sounds appropriately convincing. He’s glancing around the parking lot again while he searches.

“I adjusted just fine without you,” he says finally.

“Really?” Cas demands, stepping forward again. “I—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Dean says, suddenly sure that he can’t deal with this at all. He puts his hands up and steps around him, shrugging away from the insane intensity of his stare. “I don’t need you, Cas.”

“Dean—”

“You know what? Just leave me alone.”

“Dean, I didn’t want it to be weird,” he says loudly.

Dean’s angry storm-off staggers to a halt. Cas clears his throat.

“For me to, uh...show up uninvited,” he explains, stepping back in his eyeline and right into his space.

“Yeah, well, that never seems to stop you,” Dean mutters. Cas’s expression statics out for a second, and he gets that look that he gets right before he disappears. “Wait! I didn’t, uh…” Dean rubs the back of his neck. “Why would it be weird for you to visit? It’s not like you’ve never showed up at Lisa’s before. Hell, you sat down and had dinner with us right after I got there.”

“I know.” Cas looks at his feet, uncharacteristically awkward. Well, the dude’s always awkward—just usually minus the shame, or whatever it is that’s flickering over his face now. “I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Dean frowns. He ducks his head to catch Cas’s eye.

“Hey. You aren’t intruding. Ever,” Dean tells him. “You’re my best friend, Cas.”

“That’s a sad testament to the rest of your relationships.” Cas squints to the right, toward nothing but highway and trees. “Besides, it wasn’t friends that I was worried about.”

Dean just stares at him, trying to fathom what that means. It isn’t until Cas’s head swings back in his direction that it clicks.

“What, me and—?” Dean busts out laughing. “No way, Cas, it wasn’t like that! It—Lisa and I are just friends .”

Cas narrows his eyes. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” Dean says. He looks around—the only other person in the parking lot is a blonde in a business suit that’s yelling into her phone and walking briskly in the other direction—and wrestles his voice back to normal. “She—She wanted it that way.”

“Oh.” Cas crosses his arms as he thinks about this. “Still, it would have been...crowded, if I just showed up there.”

“Jesus, Cas.” Dean scrubs his hand over his face. “I can have more than one friend, you know.”

Cas stiffens. “I know that.”

“ Do you?”

They glare at each other for a minute.

“Well, forgive me for being confused,” Cas says, throwing his hands in the air. “I’ve only ever seen you retain one. Me.”

“I have friends!”

“ Alive friends?”

They’re glaring again. Dean’s hand curls into a fist at his side, and he wonders—not for the first time—why it is that Cas can spark this in him. He wants to punch him in the face. He wants to walk away, and not just because he’s swung on Cas before and all it got him was a couple broken knuckles. He wants to shake Cas until he explains what he meant by crowded .

Dean’s flexing his fingers, wondering which of the three he’ll end up giving into, when Cas interrupts his heated internal debate.

“I need a ride home now,” he announces.

Dean rears back, effectively stymied.

“A ride? Can’t you just—?”

He mimes the flapping of wings with his hands. Cas bristles.

“I’d rather make sure that you actually go home now instead of running off to do something stupid,” he says with a dirty look. “Like you seem to do often, and for no reason except to spite me.”

The ride is quiet. Their goodbye has a lot of staring. Same old, same old.

But Cas is back the next weekend, timely as an atomic clock. This time he manages to line up right with Dean’s lunch break; Dean prefers to believe it’s a coincidence, rather than that he was spying.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cas announces from one foot behind Dean, which is apparently how he thinks it’s appropriate to introduce himself.

Dean’s managed to tamp down the heart attacks when this happens, but some of his coworkers aren’t so desensitized; he catches the nearest of them staggering back a step when they notice Cas appear out of thin air, looking haggard and stranger than usual in his suit out here in the heat, especially next to Dean who’s stripped down to a wife beater. Dean gestures him away from prying ears, finds a place perched on a stone wall apart from the others who are also taking lunch.

“So?” Dean prompts when he’s settled in with food. He’s getting real sick of prepackaged sandwiches from 7-11, but it’s better than granola, which is what Sam would probably bring. “What is this big, pressing matter you’ve been thinking about?”

“I didn’t say it was big. I said I’d been thinking,” he points out. He reaches into his coat and pulls out a newspaper that he passes to Dean. Dean scans the paper, expecting to find a case, and sees it’s already flipped open to an ad circled in red marker. “You should move into a motel for the time being.”

Dean looks at the paper, then back at Cas.

“I’m building a house, Cas,” he says, just in case this has somehow slipped his notice. Most things don’t, but nobody can bat a thousand, right? Dean hopes to one day find out that that’s true. It would be nice to find out that Cas has at least one flaw that isn’t intrinsically annoying, like using his free will on civil wars nobody cares about and being unflinchingly good at his whole ‘watch over Dean’ shtick. Heaven lay in tatters nowadays but that was one order that Cas seems hellbent on following through. Literally.

“Right. But that won’t be done for awhile, and that shed is...I believe you would call it a ‘shithole.’”

“C’mon.” Dean tosses the paper to the side. “It’s not that bad.”

“You defecate in a plastic box outside.”

“I’m eating, man,” Dean complains. “Why do you care where I go to the bathroom?”

Cas pulls a face.

“You also shower less than you should.” Cas informs him of this as delicately as he does everything else, which is to say, he drops a lead weight on Dean’s foot without apology. “And you have more nightmares when you sleep uncomfortably.”

“Hey, I’ve been doing good on the nightmare front lately, pal.”

“But you could be doing better.” Cas magicks the paper back into his hand and shoves it at Dean’s chest. “Go to the motel. Rent a room. Relax. ” He pauses, notices Dean looking at him. “What?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he murmurs, shaking out the paper to read the ad. “Just didn’t know you knew the meaning of the word.”

“I know every word,” Cas tells him, exasperated again.

“I know you do. It’s—Never mind.”

“So you’ll think about it?” Cas says. He sounds monotone as ever, but Dean thinks he detects a note of anxiety somewhere in his voice anyway. Huh.

“Alright,” Dean says, and then when the permanently tense line of Cas’s shoulders starts to droop: “ If you come out with me tonight. Come on, movie, drinking. We can meet some hot ladies.”

Dean waggles his eyebrows. Cas rolls his eyes.

“Movie,” he counters. “I don’t have time to watch you run through all your worst pickup lines with every poor woman at the bar.”

But Dean gets him to settle for dinner and a movie, just like he knew he could.

He wonders if Cas could simply think a house into being on his behalf. He’s curious, because right now Cas seems just as content to do the heavy lifting with his hands: Dean watches him heave a wall into place for Dean to drill together with the other side.

This morning, on his day off, Dean slept in until 9AM. He heated up a breakfast burrito and ate it on the drive to the property five minutes away; Cas picked a convenient motel, Dean has to give him that. Cas appeared shortly afterwards.

“Hey,” Dean called when he looked up and saw him across the yard. “You’re late.”

“We didn’t have plans,” Cas said. His hands were in his pockets as he crossed the yard.

Dean watched him come closer with a serene feeling blooming in his chest. The sun was warm on his face, beading sweat along his hairline.

“I just meant that you missed Saturday,” Dean said, ducking his head to remeasure the plank of wood on the worktable. He wanted to put a saw through this by ten. “You should really call if you’re gonna stand me up.”

“I’ll...keep that in mind,” Cas said.

Dean glanced up and saw he was smiling, a rare joke; Dean watched indulgently as he circled around to this side of the workbench. Casual as anything, Cas touched the plank to steady it while Dean sliced along the penciled line.

“Your house is coming along,” he complimented, inclining his head as he stepped back.

“Thanks.” Dean put the wood over in a pile and grabbed another plank. Cas helped cut it, same as before. When it was split, Dean paused for a water break. “Did you come down here just to check up on me?”

“I’m not on official business,” he said.

Dean had no idea what that meant. Was he breaking the rules and didn’t want Dean making it any harder by asking questions? Was he doing something else on Earth that he didn’t want Dean to know about, something he needed to be talked down from? Maybe he just knew that Dean didn’t like to be called ‘business.’ Maybe he didn’t trust Dean with a house.

He turned around, wiping his sleeve across his chin to clean off the excess water, and found Cas watching him. Dean arched an eyebrow and got back in position over the wood.

“OK...Whatever that means,” he muttered.

Cas waited until they’d cut up the wood and Dean was grabbing another from the pile, a brief respite from the noise of the power saw.

“I admit...I don’t understand the ins and outs of what you’re doing here,” Cas said. “But I find the idea that it will somehow become a house…fascinating.”

“What do you mean?” Dean glanced up from rearranging the pile.

“God made all of this...the trees, the metal, all the raw materials.” Cas looked around at everything gathered in Dean’s yard, the tools and workshop materials and the bare patch of land where Dean planned on erecting a two-bedroom from the green ground up. “And humans turned it into...this. You use your talents, your God-given abilities and the nature that He gave you and turn it into something incredible...and then you consider it so mundane, so troublesome .”

“I don’t find it ‘troublesome,’” said Dean, hauling another, bigger log up onto the bench. He swiped sweat from his forehead. “I enjoy hard work. Getting my hands dirty, you know.”

“I know,” said Cas, smiling at the ground. “Just—the daily pestilences of life. Bills, traffic, making your own coffee. You hate it. But really, it’s a miracle.”

Dean glanced up with a smile midway through penciling on a new line. Cas was just watching him, not moving at the other end of the plank, his hands hovering over the wood and ready to help. Dean considered him for a minute, long enough that Cas looked up with a small crease in his brow.

Dean jerked his head. “Come here,” he said.

“What?”

Dean reached a hand out, and after shooting him a look, Cas came around to his side. Dean grabbed his jacket to pull him closer when he came in range. He put Cas’s hand on the saw where it would be safe—“Not that a power saw could hurt you, right?” Dean asked, half-hoping Cas would confirm whether that was true just to satisfy his curiosity—and the other steadying the plank; Dean touched his back when he moved around to show him how to guide the wood. Cas kept glancing at him every couple of seconds, which made him a pretty shitty student. He didn’t wait long enough for Dean to step back or pull his safety goggles off the top of his head, and Dean ended up jumping out of the way, spitting out sawdust. He didn’t have time to steady the wood, either; Cas cut a big jagged line clean through the best log they had.

Cas turned off the saw with a flick of his wrist. It would’ve been funny to see him use his grace for mundane shit for once, rather than underworld end-times drama, but Dean was too busy laughing at the look on Cas’s face .

He was standing over the plank with a perplexed, frustrated expression, frowning at the stupid cut pole like he was trying to read its damn mind. What started out as a chuckle quickly became hysterics instead, until Dean was doubled over and Cas was frowning at him rather than the plank.

“What?” Cas said. He shook Dean’s shoulder. “Dean. What? ” He kicked the ground. “I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Aw, no. It’s not, man,” said Dean. He struggled to get his laughter under control, clapping Cas on the back. “It’s fine. Come on, let’s do another one. And this time—Let’s just take it slow.”

Cas thought this over for a second.

“Slow?” he repeated. He mimed running the saw over the wood again, but it was like his hand was pushing through molasses.

“No, slow like actually listen to me this time,” Dean said. He rummaged his spare pair of safety goggles out of his bag and slipped them over Cas’s head, even though Cas went cross-eyed in protest when he did it. “First step, don’t get your eyes poked out.”

“I can heal a punctured eye, Dean.”

Dean paused, watching the side of his face.

“I know,” he said. “I’d just...rather you didn’t have to. Grab the saw like I showed you.”

Cas’s second cut went better than the first. It’s not perfect but it’s much less shaky. Dean shut the power saw the manual way and jostled Cas’s shoulder.

“Not bad, man. Not bad at all.”

“It’s not?” Cas scanned his work seriously. “Yours was much...straighter.”

“We can sand it down later,” Dean assured him.

“Sand,” Cas repeated, as though previously unacquainted with the word.

“Yeah, it’s—”

“Hey, Winchester!”

They both looked up. At the end of Dean’s driveway, one of the guys he recognized from around the neighborhood beckoned high above his head to get their attention. Dean waved back.

“Hey Neal,” he called. The guy broke out smiling, which meant that Dean guessed his name right; he jogged up Dean’s drive in response.

“What’s up? You’re up and at it early today,” Neal said.

“Yeah, just thought I’d get a headstart today,” Dean said, slapping the workbench.

Unfortunately it made Neal look down, which is about when Dean remembered that Cas had fucked up the piece on the table. Neal frowned at the wood.

“Not gonna make much progress on the house with unstable support like that,” Neal commented, running his finger down the jagged line.

“Yeah, I’m, uh—” Dean slung his arm around Cas’s shoulder, pulling him tight to his side. “I was just teaching my friend here a few things about building a house.”

“That so? Well, you’ve got a great teacher, my friend.”

Dean wasn’t beaming with appreciation. He was just in a good mood, that was all.

“Neal, this is Castiel. Cas, Neal.”

“Cas…Cas.” Neal snapped his fingers. “This the same Cas who convinced you to move out of that shed that was falling apart?”

“Yes,” Cas said. “That place was an abomination.”

“Look at you,” said Neal, stepping back to give him a proper once-over. “I hear you’re quite the character.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Dean talks quite a lot about you.”

“That’s not…” Dean interjected.

“That’s so interesting,” Cas said, sincerely, like a jackass. “He has never mentioned you.”

“Dude!”

“No, that’s OK. I know how private you are,” Neal said. He was jerking his thumb at Dean, but said to Cas, “It took me three weeks of stubbornly hassling this guy before he would even tell me where he worked. How do you get him to talk to you?”

“He doesn’t,” Cas confided. “I have held his soul in my hands, though. That does tend to create a profound bond.”

“Alright, alright.” Dean held up his hands. “That’s enough. Don’t gang up on me.”

Neal whistled. “You were right, Dean, this guy is hilarious! Tell me you’re bringing him along to the barbecue.”

Dean shook his head.

“I don’t think he’d—”

“I would love to,” said Cas, who appeared to be having far too much fun.

“Great! It’s next Sunday at four. I hope to see you there,” Neal said. “I gotta run, gotta pick my daughter up from gymnastics. Dean, I’ll catch you later?”

“Later.”

“OK. Bye!”

Neal half-jogged back down the driveway, still waving at them over his shoulder. Dean rounded on Cas as soon as his balding head disappeared around the bend.

“What the hell was that?” Dean demanded. “Since when did angels develop a sense of humor?”

“I was merely being nice to your friends, Dean,” said Cas, levelling him a look. “You don’t go out nearly enough.”

“Yeah? Well that’s my call to make,” said Dean. Truth was, he hadn’t felt like going anywhere that wasn’t strictly necessary, like work and the supermarket, for a very long time. Jesus Christ, he had a regular supermarket . Everything had been going to shit since Sam died.

“Apparently it’s mine too,” Cas told him smugly. “Now, what do we do with all this cut wood?”

“OK first of all, we aren’t doing anything until we get you a change of clothes.” Dean looked him up and down. “You look suspicious as hell doing anything in that getup. In this heat?”

Cas frowned, lifting one of his lapels. “I don’t have any other clothes.”

“Lucky for you, I got a spare bag in my shed.” Dean beamed at him, feeling smug, because he had a shed.

Now, Cas easily fits the second piece of wall (or the bare bones for one, anyway) against the first, dressed in a plain white undershirt and a pair of jeans that need a belt to stay up. Dean finishes drilling and steps back to assess.

“Hey,” he calls.

He snaps to get Cas’s attention but it isn’t necessary; Cas is already looking over at the sound of Dean's voice and studying their wall.

“Could you just, like, make a house appear?” Dean asks. “If you really wanted to, I mean.”

“Yes,” Cas frowns at him, “probably. Or I could make you think you were in a house. Remember Zachariah’s room? But I was under the impression that you placed the value in the work itself, not the final product.”

This gives him pause.

“I do,” he says at last. He shrugs. “I was just wondering. Come on, let’s get the other side.”

They break for lunch late, around two. Dean’s stomach is loud as they get in the car and it doesn’t shut up all the way to his preferred diner. They drop by the motel so he can shower, and then Cindy’s is just twenty minutes away but it’s long enough for Cas to get on his nerves with the radio and for his wet hair to get cold from the rolled-down windows. Cas is enjoying the front seat; he’s very curious when he’s got the time and no inclinations.

The wait for a table is short, for food is long. Dean downs two lunch-appropriate cocktails before the meal comes, and his stomach is just empty enough that he can feel the buzz in the tips of his fingers, nowhere else.

“So,” Dean says when he’s finally digging into a massive BLT. “What exactly do you plan on doing at a barbecue, man? Seriously, why did you agree to go to that thing?”

Cas shrugs. For some reason, the long pause he takes next makes Dean suspicious, though his face remains relatively impassive. Cas is a boarded up house, but Dean’s been tossing in flashlights for awhile, so he can sometimes see through the cracks.

“Because he’s your friend, Dean,” he says. “Besides, Heaven is very quiet these days. Mostly minor skirmishes.”

“Really?”

Cas spreads his hands. “Either the other side is gearing up for a massive attack, or they’re finally getting ready to admit defeat.”

“Oh.” Dean wipes his mouth and frowns, “Well I gotta be honest, Cas, I don’t like those odds.”

“I have time to myself, is all I mean.” Cas pauses. “I’ve never really had that before.”

“And you’re choosing to spend it in Indiana?” Dean whistles. “Remind me to take you on a vacation someday.”

“I was here when the earth was created and I’ve watched over it ever since,” Cas says, which Dean ignores because remembering all the millennia that Cas sat on his ass while the planet ran wild pisses him off, and Dean doesn’t want to deal with it right now. “I very much doubt you could take me somewhere that would surprise me.”

“We’re talking about you, right? Weren’t you just marveling at the grass and a couple of pieces of wood?” Dean shakes his head. “Dude, I could take you a few states over and you’d be shitting yourself at the mountain ranges there. You know what, never mind. If you’re coming to the picnic, then you need to bring something too.”

“Bring something?” Cas says, mystified.

“Human custom, Mr. Worldwide.” Dean beams at him. “I suggest something with potatoes.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone likes potatoes,” Dean says. This seems obvious. “It’s an instant winner.”

They work on the house until it gets dark. Dean finds a flannel as his sweat cools and the chill sets in, but Cas rides shotgun on the way home with the windows down and his arms bare, totally unbothered. They pick up tacos from a food truck and circle back around to the motel.

Dean pulls up to his regular spot. The room’s warm and stagnant until the night air rushes in, tipping the scales in the other direction. Dean doesn’t relish getting in the shower now but after dinner, he flicks on the heater and hopes for the best.

It’s not bad, mostly because he changes into sweatpants as soon as he gets out. He can feel Cas hovering in the room, though he expected him to make himself scarce awhile ago. Cas never usually lingers this long; and Dean doesn’t want to ask about that in case it makes him go. He licks his lips, glad that Cas is busy pretending to read the old newspaper so he can get dressed because it gives him a little time to get his thoughts together.

“Cas,” he asks eventually.

“Do you want to play poker?” Cas asks, glancing over his shoulder at him. He notes Dean’s state of half-undress and looks away.

“Poker?” Dean echoes.

“Yes. I’ve never played,” Cas informs him. Now Dean does pull on a shirt, and Cas turns around fully to face him. “Will you teach me?”

“I...Sure,” says Dean, taken aback.

Cas cleans himself up while Dean orders some dessert and digs the playing cards out of one of his spare bags. He used to get bored on the road a lot while Sam would be off reading one of his geeky books or, like, texting the rare girl he met on the road or something equally worth mocking him over, but truth was Dean couldn't wait for him to get back. He really didn’t have shit to do besides drink or read lore, and both those things got old on occasion. Besides, it was good practice to stay sharp between those card games that paid for their dinner.

It’s also the most at home that Dean’s felt in months, the minute he hunkers down with pie and cards on a dirty motel carpet. Cas picks up his hand confusedly, glancing up at Dean’s face for approval.

“What’s weighing on you, Dean?” Cas asks awhile into their game. Dean looks up.

“Nothing,” he says.

“You’re lying. You don’t want to play anymore?”

“No, no,” he says hurriedly. He doesn’t feel like talking but the idea that Cas thinks this is about him is…just wrong , somehow. “It’s not that. It’s…” He sighs. “I just, I could be anywhere right now. The motel, the diner food, playing games to pass the time. It’s almost like...old times.”

“Ah.” Cas deals them out again, having swept the floor with Dean on the last two games. How did he pick this up so quickly? He’s probably using angel magic. Cas acts all sanctimonious, but he is such a cheater. “You’re missing your brother.”

“Every day,” Dean agrees, nodding. “Every goddamn minute of every goddamn day.”

Cas’s brow creases just so when he’s thinking about what to say. Dean fights the urge to tell him to spit it out, because all that’s likely to get him is Cas zapping out of here before he finishes the thought. Dean used to be able to brush that stuff off, but it’s lonelier out here with nobody around. Living with Lisa and Ben was a classic case of not knowing how good he had it ‘til it was gone. Now he just looks at Cas’s constipated expression and tries to find a port of patience in a veritable hurricane.

“Is it getting any easier?” Cas says.

“Easier?”

Whatever’s dark in Dean’s voice clearly startles him, because his eyes get huge and blue. His face gets impossibly stoic when he’s trying to hide something, except for the eyes. Maybe it’s just the fluorescents.

“Time heals all wounds, Dean,” Cas says. “I know it’s difficult right now, but you already seem to be doing better. The job, the house, friends—”

“‘Doing better?’” Dean asks. “ Doing better ? Cas, I’m not doing better, alright? I’m coping. That’s all, I’m just—I’m barely hanging in there, day after day after day, and...it doesn’t ever get better.” Dean’s voice is gruff, but he realizes now that his chin has started wobbling, too. It’s too late. “Ever. It’s all I think about, it’s all I dream about. I can’t sleep. I can’t...Cas. I can’t do anything. I’m just going through the motions. I’m just trying to hold on.”

“I’m...sorry, Dean,” Cas says, sounding as though he’s weighing the generic words with undeserved care.

Dean covers his eyes with one shaking hand.

“I miss him, Cas,” he admits. “I promised him that I wouldn’t go after him, but every second of every day I have to force myself not to. Not to think about the ways I could save him, or even where I should start looking or—or try to buy my way into that goddamn cage myself! But I don’t do it. You know why? Because I promised Sam that I wouldn’t. So instead I go against every instinct I have in my body, and I make myself go to work. I make myself come here, and work on that house, and I…I go through the motions. Because I promised him. And because...I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do with all this dark...emptiness that I have inside me now. So don’t lecture me…”

“I’m sorry, Dean,” he says again, different. He reaches out and puts his hand on Dean’s knee. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were over your brother’s death.”

Dean’s fist is shaky when it clenches, hidden, by his side.

“Good. Don’t ever talk about it like that again. Ever.”

“I won’t.” Cas wears contrite well. He seems smaller in his coat, and he glances up and down like a child. It makes Dean relent before he wants to; it makes him want to reach out, although he doesn’t know what he could possibly do.

“OK. That’s great.” But Dean throws his cards down and rubs his face with both hands. Muffled, he says, “I think maybe you should go.”

There’s a pause.

“If that’s what you want,” says Cas, sounding as though it isn’t what he wants.

As soon as he says it, it occurs to Dean that he wants Castiel to stay, but he doesn’t say anything. There’s a slight ruffle in the air, but it could just be the sway of the curtains from the heater below the window. Either way when Dean looks up, Cas is gone. The hand of cards he was holding is splayed all over the floor.

A lead weight lives in Dean’s chest most of the time now, but it feels heavier tonight for some reason. The air is still and a little stuffy now, so Dean gets up and flips off the heater that he wanted so bad when they came in. He tries to find a few different sources of entertainment: From a show about a teenage medium (definitely fake, and the kid talks funny) on a higher channel to the whiskey stashed in the fridge to internet porn, Dean still ends up bored as fuck by eleven and not nearly tired enough to sleep.

He cleans up the cardgame and the takeout and ends up sliding into bed to watch the stupid medium show until he passes out. He takes the whiskey bottle to bed with him, where it fits perfectly on the bedside table with the alarm clock and little notepad and the bible that Dean took out of the drawer to make room for a stash of midnight snacks.

The beginning is fuzzy; one minute Dean’s watching some irritating blond lie about rich schmucks' dead dogs and the next blends seamlessly into a fuzzy green haze. Dean looks around, and it jerks the hook in his left shoulder. Dean groans and cringes away. It wasn't necessary to look around, honestly, because he couldn’t forget this view no matter how many years he put between it and himself. Not if he lived for one hundred back on earth, in this second chance that Cas gave him.

Alistair touches his knee. Dean knows it’s Alistair without looking at him, because who else would it be? Alistair’s favorite hellhound is here too, her claws already lodged deep in Dean’s chest. He cries out when she digs at him like she’s hidden her favorite bone nestled between his ribs.

When the light came, Dean wasn’t on the rack; he was in a red room with a blade in his hand. He doesn’t really remember the details anymore, in truth, because that was Before he knew Castiel, and because he’s worked very hard to block Hell out of his mind completely. But in the dream he’s lying there splayed on the rack while Alistair and Alistair’s mutt cut into him, and voices he recognizes as Sam, his parents, Jo, Ellen, everyone is whispering to him that he’s nothing, that he’s lost, that he’s done the kind of unforgivable things that even angels can’t look past. He can’t remember why he might want them to. Dean’s crying, but it’s hard to focus on details like that when having your kneecaps bludgeoned for the foreseeable rest of eternity. 

Then, a blinding white: In the corner of the green sky, a light is descending. It falls slowly at first, but then faster and faster the farther down it travels, and the closer it gets, the more Dean’s eyes and ears begin to hurt. It starts off as a dull ringing but then it’s piercing, it’s bloody. The light comes right to him and he’s screaming worse than when Alistair cut into him, because he’s on fire, his eyes are on fire, his body is—This is what they always said was Hell, right…? Then the heat gets, impossibly, more searing—but just on his left shoulder. It burns so hot that it turns cool to the touch. Dean shuts up and lets the light take him.

Then he jolts completely upright in bed in a dark, stuffy motel room, breathing so hard that it’s making him dizzy. It takes a few rounds of deep breaths to realize that his cheeks are wet once again.

The second thing he notices, when his eyes have adjusted to the dark, is that Cas is sitting on the loveseat watching him. Dean doesn’t even jump this time, just grunts and rubs his eye with one fist.

“What are you doing here?” Dean asks around a yawn.

He throws the covers off himself and goes to rinse his mouth from the gummy sleep feeling, splash water on his face to erase the tear tracks that are drying faster than the nightmare can slip away from his conscious memory.

“You were crying out in your sleep again,” says Cas, leaning forward on his knees.

Dean finds a shirt to pull on, stretching, turning around. He ruffles his bedhead into something passable, he hopes.

“So?” he asks, shrugging one shoulder.

“I thought,” says Cas, getting heavily to his feet, “that you were doing better.”

“I was,” says Dean. He shakes his head. “I mean, I am.”

“Really?” Cas is in front of him, quiet as a rumor as quick as one, too. He studies Dean silently, maybe a little judgmentally. “So you’ve been taking the melatonin?”

“Jesus Christ.” Dean rolls his eyes, turning away from him. “Don’t go all Doctor Sexy on me now.”

“Doctor who?”

“Doctor—” Dean double-takes as he fills up a cup with water from the tap. “You know how I’ve been bugging you about doing a pop culture marathon to get you up to speed? We need to do that for real, man. Soon.”

“That’s not what I came to talk about,” he says gravely.

Dean waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Nightmares. Praying in my sleep. Distracting you from war, I got it. I got it.”

“So you’ve been listening to the meditation tapes I gave you?” Cas asks suspiciously, sticking his face in to squint. Like this motherfucker could suss out a liar by sheer force of will, ha. Even angels couldn’t make him tell the truth. How many of them had Dean tricked, now?

“Hey, I don’t like sleep aids, alright? They knock me out cold.”

“That’s a good thing, Dean.”

“And if a monster comes knocking at my door?”

“It doesn’t incapacitate you,” Cas says, pacing away from him like he’s going to bolt out the front door. Instead he just whirls around. “You’re not in a coma.”

“Yeah, if only.”

Cas gets closer to him. Man, if there’s one party trick Dean’s got, it’s making him tilt his head just so. That and shooting straight, in various senses of the phrase.

“I already told you, you’re not a coward,” Cas says, but it sounds like more of a command in his way. “So stop acting like one.”

“Just leave me alone.”

“Make me.”

Cas sits down heavily on the couch and absolutely glares at him. Stubborn, prickly sonofabitch—

Dean curses and paces from the bed to the bathroom and back a couple of times until his blood pressure cools off. Man, it’s hard to stay mad when the memory of Hell is still clinging to his back. Dean takes a few deep breaths and makes himself shrug.

“If you won’t leave, I’m going back to bed anyway,” he says. “I’m not letting your weird, psycho-warden crap keep me from my six hours.”

And so he turns off the lamp again and crawls back into bed.

He sits up again five minutes later.

“Are you really going to just sit there and watch me sleep?” Dean demands, glaring into the dark where he knows Cas is sitting. “Hey, what are you doing?”

Cas has found his laptop, it seems. He’s opened it and hacked the password already too. Dean should probably change it from the name of his favorite pornstar but, you know, Cas could probably just pluck the information out of his mind anyway.

“I do have better things to do than watch over you while you take care of your...human needs,” says Cas, tripping delicately over the word human like it’s an abasement, being normal.

“So you’re, what? Gonna watch movies all night?”

“I have research to do that I believe would help my cause,” he says, giving Dean a withering look.

“Huh. OK.” Dean lowers himself back down. “Don’t watch internet porn while I’m in the room.”

“I don’t need to touch myself to achieve orgasm as a stress reliever like you do.”

“Gross, Cas. That’s gross.”

Cas dismissively turns his head and just starts typing away like he owns the computer. Dean rolls his eyes and turns over, pulling the blankets with him.

In the dream, the ornate room with the hellhounds is bigger. Disproportionately bigger. Dean feels in his bones like he could sprint the room and beat them to safety, and then tenses to try it—but before he can, the lights flicker. The first scratch of the hellhounds’ paws sounds beneath the door.

Dean cringes from the familiar noise, shrinking back against the couch. He won’t scream. Ruby/Lilith tells him, “I don’t have to listen to puppy chow.”

The pain is the same, every time. It’s the worst heartache he’s ever experienced; it’s the most bloody wound he’s ever had. He writhes against the floor while the hellhounds cut into his leg, his chest. He screams and screams, and Lilith smiles, and Sam screams too.

“Stop it!” Sam shouts. “No! Stop it. No.”

Dean yells and yells and yells and—

Wakes up in his bed, prone.

He blinks at the ceiling, and then sits up suddenly, unsure what’s going on. He’s breathing hard into the quiet room, but—

“Dean?”

—but he’s not alone. Dean breathes hard, eyes casting around in the dark.

“Cas?” he croaks.

“I’m here, I’m here.” Cas’s hand is on his shoulder, pushing him back into bed. “Dean, I’m right here.”

Dean breathes hard and looks up into the dark.

“Cas?”

“Yes.”

“Did you…” Dean swallows, and it awakens him enough to be embarrassed about having his second nightmare in a row. God, Cas is never going to fucking leave him alone about the sleep aids now. He pushes Cas’s hand off of him anyway and frowns. “What are you doing?”

“You were screaming,” says Cas, “in your sleep.”

A wash of relief rolls over him when he hears Cas’s voice like balm for the hellhound gouges, but he pushes it down, down. Dean swallows and tries to wade through his muddy, muddy thoughts.

“I don’t need your help,” he grunts.

“Dean,” Cas says. The look in his eye is familiar, and just as hurtful as he recalls. Dean’s chest clenches against it. His throat hurts, and Cas’s hand is warm. He thinks he could go to sleep with only that as a cover if Cas just left it there.

Cas looks at him. Dean looks at Cas. Finally, Cas takes his hand off of Dean’s arm and then looks at his own palm like he’s expecting to find a message written there. With his hands up, he backs up toward the couch again. Dean lets himself lay back to the bed, forces each limb to relax. Cas sits down.

“I’m fine,” Dean insists.

But Cas doesn’t get back to his research. Dean goes back to sleep, although slower. He can feel Cas’s eyes on him the whole time from the other side of the room.

The Sunday morning sun hides behind the clouds; the music is loud from down the street, if not generic and boring and radio-heavy. Dean sighs and adjusts the meat pie in his hands.

He’s never made chicken pot pie before, but it seems applicable for a barbecue; Jenny squeals when she hugs him and Neal whispers that Dean’s in the good books when he pats him on the back in hello. Cas is a marble statue by Dean’s side, awkward and immobile.

“We made that,” says Cas, and everybody in the doorway looks at him. Dean tries subtly to put his elbow through Cas’s ribs.

“They can see that,” Dean says, smiling blandly around the room. “Because I just gave it to them.”

The backyard is smallish and currently housing twenty or so people, so Dean instantly shifts into charmer mode. Cas seems to feel the exact opposite way if how he hovers close to Dean’s back is any indication, but then, Dean was always good at playing to a crowd. Together they drift toward the barbecue so Dean can make himself useful to the chef. Cas gets pulled into an extremely awkward game of frisbee with the kids.

The above-ground pool is heated, so the children dive in and the adults who came prepared wade into the shallows with beers in hand. Cas looks even more petrified when Dean ditches him for the water, laughing and splashing at him when he sees Cas’s expression.

“Come on,” Dean says. “The water’s fine.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“What? Can’t you swim?”

“Yes,” Cas says, staring straight ahead with that face like when Dean introduced him to a stripper for the first time. Cas casts him an upset look, then he drifts away toward the crackers and cheese.

“Trouble with the missus?” one of the others from the cul de sac asks, slithering up beside him. He’s looking toward the way Cas left, where he’s now chatting with one of the mothers with a screaming baby clinging to her hip. Cas reaches out with one finger and touches his forehead, and the baby quietens.

“Nothing a good game can’t fix,” Dean says determinedly.

It takes two hours, a lot of watermelon juice spiked with vodka and a promise to do all the grilling today, but Dean organizes a game. He slicks back his hair, but his swim trunks are still dripping onto the grass when he takes Cas’s ugly puffy vest and explains the rules of touch football. It’s not even cold out, Jesus Christ. Why did he give this guy his fake credit card and a ride to Goodwill? Some kid’s mom turns the sprinkler on, and Neal’s Pomeranian does jumps through the water, much to the children’s joy.

Nobody wants to be on his and Cas’s team, but Dean cajoles a few guys into taking the hit. He’s almost good enough to make up for how much Cas sucks in the beginning, but then he seems to pick up on it angel-style and starts running circles around them. Their opponents are pissed—at Dean, for some reason, who holds his hands up and swears he just taught Cas the ropes, like, thirty minutes ago. Then the kids want to play capture the flag, and the argument dissolves as Cas starts sucking at a new game.

“You’re supposed to run,” Dean informs him over a water break.

Cas frowns.

“I’m an angel of the lord. I don’t run.”

“See, you almost had me until you started lying,” says Dean. “You ran to catch a bus when you helped us out with Pestilence, remember? And you ran pretty damn fast when I introduced you to that stripper.”

“You didn’t introduce me, you...pimped me out, would be a more accurate description,” says Cas. “Let’s just play flag capture.”

“It’s capture the flag .”

They throw a game in the younger ones’ favor first, then a few parents corral the kids over to the other side of the yard so the adults can go head-to-head, full contact. Dean’s team wins by a landslide, mostly because of a killer takedown when Cas somehow gets his hands on the flag, promptly panics and freezes in place, and Dean tackles him all the way into the bushes.

“Payback,” Dean announces, jumping to his feet. Cas sits up, rubbing his head and glaring. His hair is all messy from hitting Jenny and Neal’s picket fence. “For what you did in the alley.”

“What alley?” asks Cas. He takes the hand Dean offers to pull him up.

“ ‘I gave everything for you ,’” Dean quotes, dropping his voice down to Cas’s usual gravel.

It all seems much funnier in the bright Indianapolis sunlight, although one year ago he wouldn’t have been able to imagine himself grinning about it like this. Cas rolls his eyes and makes sure to bump into Dean’s shoulder when he passes, hard.

“Well, I did,” Cas says carelessly over his shoulder. Dean really hates shit like that, the casual throwaway comments that make his heart skip a beat. Call that an unfair advantage in any given argument.

What do you do with the weight of somebody else’s rebellion on your shoulders? In Dean’s case, he cracks Cas a beer and sneaks one of his disgusting veggie burgers onto the grill, even though Cas doesn’t need to eat and it frankly taints the entire tradition of barbecues to even put vegetables in Dean’s presence, but.

Dean reties the string on the fraying Kiss the Cook! apron around his waist that Jenny got from her kitchen. It won’t stay together and the ends keep getting in the food.

“Cas! Hey, just in time. Can you get me that bag of buns over there? My hands are kinda full.”

“I was just coming to ask you a favor,” Cas says.

He puts the hamburger buns on a spare spot on the grill, his eyes on the side of Dean’s face.

“OK. Shoot.”

“Some of the other soldiers believe there’s a weapon nearby, a weapon that will help our side in the war,” Cas says, low. Dean goes still, not expecting him to talk business here but instantly on high alert. Ingrained instincts die hard. “One of the lieutenants, Hannah. She’s a good friend of mine. She believes that she’s found its location after many months of fruitless searching.”

“That’s good news, right?” says Dean. Heart sinking, he makes himself tack on, “Do you have to head out and, you know, deal with it?”

“No.” Cas puts his hand beside the extra condiments, crowding Dean closer to the grill. “I was hoping that you could help us.”

“Me?” Dean arranges some buns on a platter to stall for time. He bites his cheek. “I don’t know, Heavenly holy wars are a little bit above my paygrade. What can I even really do?”

“The weapon’s guarded by a siren, a particularly nasty one who’s teamed up with a witch,” says Cas. “They warded the place against angels. We can’t go near it.”

“So, what? You need me to go in and retrieve it for you?”

“That’s an extremely powerful weapon, Dean. No, it would probably kill you to touch it for even a second,” Cas says matter-of-factly. “We just need you to go in, kill the siren and break the sigils that are blocking our entry. Then we can kill the witch ourselves. I hate to ask, but it’s nearby and—and you’re the best one for the job.”

Dean frowns. His eyes are on the burgers he’s flipping when he asks, “What, the angels’ personal lapdog?”

“No. You’re the best hunter I know, Dean.” Cas leans in, raising his eyebrows. Dean stops. He intones, “And I suggested it, so technically you’re just my lapdog.”

Dean completely forgets what he’s doing with the grill. He actually steps back, splitting into a huge grin as he looks Cas over.

“You actually made a good joke,” Dean marvels. He brandishes the tongs. “It’s not true, but that was good.”

He loads burgers onto buns, and without a word, Cas swaps out for an empty platter when the first one is full. He catches the back of Dean’s apron as he’s passing around him, deftly retying it tight enough to stay knotted.

“So you’ll do it?” Cas insists anxiously, hovering close again.

“Um, obviously, dude,” Dean chuckles. Was there ever a doubt? Cas asked, so Dean will help in any way that he can. He kind of owes the guy a million times over, and anyway—Well, anyway. It’s Cas .  “Should we leave now?”

“No. The witch is there now, you’ll be slaughtered. And we need to wait for the full moon anyway to get the weapon powered up, so we can do the whole rescue mission then.”

“When’s the next full moon?”

“Three days.”

“Great. It’s a date, then,” says Dean, patting Cas’s shoulder and pushing a full platter into his hands at the same time. “Take these over to the picnic tables, I’ll be right over with the salads.”

Cas says nothing for long enough that Dean glances up, only to find him just standing there looking at him.

“What?” he asks.

“You’ve taken to this life quite rapidly, Dean,” Cas informs him—fondly, he thinks. “It’s very nice to see you happy.”

“Oh. Thanks, Cas.” Dean blinks at him, because he isn’t sure what else to do. Cas smiles serenely, in that way he gets as though he could do it for a very long time without moving. “Uh...Can you bring over these burgers now?”

“Of course,” he says, and he does.

But Cas glances over his shoulder right when Dean looks up from arranging plastic cutlery on a tray and catches his eye. The sunlight is landing on his hair just so, and he looks like a completely different person in a t-shirt with a beach on it and big, cartoonish letters reading Surf's Up, California! in bright red and yellow. It’s exactly the kind of ugly thing that Dean should’ve gone into Goodwill and vetoed for him. He can’t really be seen out in public with him like this. In front of the neighbors?

Cas smiles at him, warm as the noon sun. Dean smiles back and gets going with the salads.

Chapter Text

The map splays out across the motel’s dull wood table where Dean usually takes his morning coffee and does a healthy scan of a few local news sites just to be safe. He’s not sure what kind of traps the siren will have set, but they’re probably all juiced up with witch power—Dean scoffed a little when Cas tried to impress on him, for the tenth time at least, that maybe Dean didn’t take witches very seriously but Cas has met a few very, very powerful ones in the past millennia including Crowley’s long lost bitch of a mother, and Dean takes Crowley seriously, so he finally took Cas seriously and agreed to do his homework before this little soiree. He doesn’t want to get back in business with the king of the crossroads. What a slimy little dick.

The siren’s compound is more like a cabin in the woods, but that’s just too fucking easy. It’s definitely got wards up the wazoo, and not just the anti-angel kind. Dean scans all the potential entryways and exits, memorizing them down pat. He never realized how much he relied on Cas to zap his ass out of harm’s way until the possibility was off the table: At least with a siren there’s no chance they’ll accidentally swap spit (again), so he’ll be safe from the most irritating aspects of monster fighting i.e. uneven supernatural powers. There were a few fights where you shouldn’t bring only a gun.

The sun goes down late as the year creeps toward the summer. It’s just gone seven when he looks up from organizing his weapons on the table and sees Cas through the gap in the curtains, staring at him from across the parking lot. Dean freezes. When he’s sure he’s got Dean’s attention, Cas nods, once. Then he disappears.

What a cryptic, flighty motherfucker. Dean’s tossing around a few curse word portmanteaus he wants to try out the next time he sees Cas, all pretty tame compared to his usual brand of vitriol, as he tosses his favorite bag of guns into the trunk and climbs in. Cas offered to magic him there, but there’s a reason Dean prefers the car. It doesn’t fuck up his bowels for weeks afterwards when he drives places, for starters. Secondly, Indiana isn’t that big and sometimes he only feels himself when he gets in and drives.

The cabin is pretty deep in the woods about an hour out from home base, and Dean manages to drive up pretty close to it. He’ll have to walk maybe twenty, thirty minutes to get the rest of the way there. 

In the woods, in the dark.

“Sure, no problem, Cas,” Dean mutters to himself as he trips over yet another branch crawling its way along the path. “I’ll just go on a nighttime hike. This flashlight will definitely be enough to stop me from breaking my damn ankles. And then when I do, we can celebrate by feeding my ass to a siren and a witch . You owe me a drink when I get out of here. You owe me a whole damn night out.”

The last of the trees break a little less than ten minutes later. It’s nearly nine now, so the witch has definitely made itself scarce; Cas didn’t say what it was, but he promised Hannah had set up a surefire distraction to keep the witch far, far away from here tonight.

Inside the cabin, all of the lights are on. The curtains are drawn but Dean can see the colors flickering against the fabric from what’s most likely a TV on inside. The front door seems unguarded, but that’s way too obvious and Dean already knows about three other ways inside. He decides not to go with the roof or backdoor and opts for the secret passageway instead; more grimy but most likely less warded.

The doorway’s hidden under some leaves beneath a marked tree, which he has to look around a bit for because the angels were a bit cryptic (read: completely fucking useless) with the exact location. Debris litters the floor and greenery climbs the walls inside the underground tunnel, and it’s dark but Dean doesn’t want to risk a flashlight shining through the crack at the end of the passage. He uses the weak glow of his phone screen to make sure he’s not going to trip or run headlong into a monster but it’s still a relief when he sees the other door come up on him around a curve. He can hear the TV more clearly now too.

“Huh,” Dean murmurs to himself. “Dude’s watching Frasier .”

When he eases the door open, gun at the ready and blood-dipped bronze dagger in the other hand, he mercifully doesn’t come out in the siren’s eyesight. Although he did forget about the mind-reading.

“Hello, Dean,” the siren says without turning around. His voice sounds bored. “Oh, no. Are you here to kill me?”

Dean gets to his feet. He cracks his neck.

“Sorry about that,” Dean says, flipping his knife around to grip it more securely. “It’s not personal. Really. I’m just running an errand for a friend.”

“Oh great.” The siren gets to his feet and slowly turns around. He’s taller than Dean, which is saying something, and dressed like pretty much everybody Dean’s ever met at the farmer’s market that Cas has dragged him to a couple of times when he happens to wake up in time on Saturdays. Finding out his best friend was a closet granolahead had really sucked; fucking 2014 seems alarmingly possible now. Hippie stoner attitude and dubious orgies and absinthe, oh my. This siren is nearly as nauseating to look at. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to go five miles down the road to the nearest Kroger?”

“Sorry.” Dean pulls a face. “I don’t think they stock up on heavenly bombshells in the homegoods aisle.”

“That’s too bad,” the siren agrees.

He lunges first, but Dean’s got better reflexes; he steps sideways and shoves the siren forward, making him trip over a stack of sewing supplies and faceplant. Dean goes for him instantly, brandishing both of his weapons, but the siren rolls over just in time and delivers a swift kick to his midriff that propels Dean in a semi-circle over his head and sends him flying. He hits the wall with a thud, right where he bruised his spine in the fight with the ghoul.

“Oh, fuck,” Dean groans.

He’s waving the gun as he staggers up, only to find the siren getting back on its feet at the same time. This time it’s not smiling anymore—it snarls. The siren runs at him with its arms outstretched, and it grabs him by either shoulder and runs Dean back into the wall. Dean knees it in the groin—usually a safe bet, regardless of species—then hooks his foot around the back of its knees to knock it off-balance, but it’s still got a tight hold on him. It slams Dean into the wall again, this time banging his head pretty hard against the window frame. While he’s reeling from that, vision blurring, the siren throws him sideways and he slides along the floor and crashes into the far wall.

“Goddamn it!”

Dean gets a hand underneath himself to push up, ready to leap back to his feet. His gun’s close by, and Dean grabs it and aims—the siren dives for cover but Dean gets it in the leg. The siren screams and drops to his good knee, and Dean tightens his grip on the bronze blade; he’s nearly ready to launch himself across the room but the door slams open before he can do it. Dean and the siren both look up.

A middle-aged woman with a shock of blue hair is standing in the doorway with her hands open by her sides, poised as though ready to strike. A thrill of terror runs down Dean’s spine, although he doesn’t consciously know why.

“Ah,” Dean announces with more confidence than he feels. “You must be the witch.”

Her eyes snap to him. An awful smile curls her mouth, but Dean’s sneer doesn’t waver.

“So, you’re the one that Heaven sent to do their bitch work?” she returns.

Dean’s head jerks. “No. My friend Cas asked me to come pick something up for him.”

“Did your ‘Cas’ tell you about me?” she asks.

She reaches into her pocket and tosses something across the room. Dean catches it without thinking and opens his hand: Hex bag.

In the same second, Dean’s throat feels like it’s closing up. He gasps, hands flying to his neck so quickly that he loses his balance and falls sideways, landing hard on his elbow. The witch smiles.

“Enjoy that,” she says brightly.

She promptly turns her attention to the siren. As she steps over the scattered sewing supplies, she clasps the sides of the siren’s face and frowns, her thumb running over his cheek. All at once, Dean understands why the hell a siren would agree to sit around and guard a safehouse when there’s nothing tangible to gain.

With his eyes on the both of them, Dean reaches one hand behind himself, and rubs his jacket against the wall. If his aim’s right, there should be a sigil just between his shoulder blades.

“ Cas! ” he gasps.

The lightning crackles down with a sound like a brutal gunshot beside the ear. The witch’s head snaps up to the window, and then she’s standing over Dean, glowering.

“What did you do?” she demands. She drops to her knees and grabs Dean’s shirt with both fists, yanking him upright. He gasps unattractively in her face. “ What did you do ?!”

The front door slams open. Dean’s vision is beginning to go hazy, but he thinks he recognizes that particular shade of khaki.

The witch drops him on his ass and whirls around, but she’s too late: Castiel is a mask of pure fury above her. He grabs her face with one hand and she screams, a light burning from inside her outwards. The witch slumps to the floor with her eyes blackened craters. Dean looks up, and when Cas catches his eye his expression cracks right down the middle.

“Dean!” he says, dropping to his knees. Behind him, a stream of angels are filing inside and swarming the siren, but then Cas’s face is in his and Dean can’t see anything else at all. Cas grabs his shoulders, looking him over frantically. “Dean? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

“Hex...bag,” Dean gasps.

He fumbles around on the floor where he dropped it, but his stupid fingers refuse to find the fabric. Cas snatches the hex bag from beside his leg and sets it aflame before Dean’s failing eyes, like a burning bush in the palm of his upturned hand. Instantly, Dean can breathe again; he sucks in air, gasping, clutching at Cas’s sleeve. His eyes find Cas’s slowly.

“Thank you,” he says.

Cas breaks out in a very relieved smile. Then he drops Dean’s shoulder and swiftly rearranges his face back into a glare.

“I told you not to tangle with a witch!” he growls. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that your bestie over there promised me a clear shot at the siren,” Dean says. He hauls himself up to a seated position, because he doesn’t think he’s very intimidating slumped on the floor. “That’s her, I assume that’s Hannah?”

“Yes.”

For some reason, Cas’s jaw is set and he looks pissed . Hannah in question is currently nose-to-nose with the siren, arguing about something, but she’d be hard to miss anyway in her smart suit that just screams Head desk job! Cas’s face goes stony and he gets up, pushes her aside and slams the siren back against the wall.

“Please!” the siren gasps. “I can help you!”

“We don’t give second chances to monsters,” Cas announces in a low, furious sizzle. “We don’t even look at them twice.”

“Look, man, I was just doing what my girlfriend asked!” the siren says, his voice high with panic. “She’s a psycho, man, but she’s a firecracker in bed! And she met my kids...”

“And she hurt my friend,” Cas growls.

He’s luminescent when he burns the siren out of his own body. Maybe Dean’s brain is still cooked from the hex bag, but it’s all he can see when Cas puts his hand to the siren’s forehead and looks down his nose the entire time the thing’s dying. The siren’s body lights up from the inside out, but Cas seems to glow in comparison; he seems bigger, nearly takes up the whole room like he’s become the embodiment of his own wings. Even Cas’s stony expression is hard and powerful and fucking striking, Dean can’t breathe again. Maybe his brain really is damaged from oxygen deprivation, did the angels get here too late? He should get that checked out by a doctor.

Hannah isn’t watching Cas. Instead she’s scanning the room, her face all business again. She points to one of the sewing boxes that’s slid halfway beneath the couch.

“There,” she announces, whirling on the others behind her. “That’s the weapon.”

Hannah nods and the angels converge on the box. Cas glances at the weapon, and then back at Dean.

“Go, Cas,” he urges.

Cas wrestles between him and Hannah for another long handful of seconds. Hannah’s watching him now, her face indecipherable.

“No,” Cas says finally. He passes the rest of the angels to come stand in front of Dean, as though guarding him from view. His chin lifts. “Dean came through for us today.”

“He didn’t even kill the siren,” Hannah says, shaking her head.

“We got the weapon.” Cas glances at Dean on the floor. “I’ll be back as soon as I’m sure that Dean is safe.”

“But we need to get started immediately, and you’re critical—”

“I’ll be back,” Cas repeats, harder, “when Dean is safe.”

He and Hannah size each other up; then she nods, once. With a glance at the other angels and a jerk of her head, the rest of Cas’s army files out of the cabin. Maybe he decided not to be their fearless leader, but it’s clear his opinion still carries some weight. Hopefully that will be enough for now.

When it’s clear, Cas spins around and drops back to his knees. His hands are on the side of the Dean’s neck, his eyes are restless on his face.

“Are you alright?” Cas demands.

“I’m fine.” But he has to take a few deep breaths, just to remind himself that he can again. “Thanks for the rescue.”

Cas’s brow furrows. Dean worries what he’ll pay for that little display with the angels later.

But Cas says solemnly, “Always, Dean.”

Cas helps him to his feet. It’s a long walk back to the car, but at least he can use his flashlight again. Cas is back in his usual overcoat and it keeps getting snagged on twigs, but he refuses to just take it off for some reason. Honestly, Dean is pretty sure the guy is more caught up on honoring Jimmy than he likes to admit.

“Does it bother you?” Dean asks as Cas lifts him over a branch he didn’t notice, with one hand on his elbow. “That Jimmy’s dead? He’s dead, right? He’s not still attached to you like a burning comet?”

“He didn’t survive, Dean,” Cas says, and Dean’s heart goes cold. Not for Jimmy: He knows what words Cas is dancing around, what surrounding circumstances led to Jimmy’s demise. “What Lucifer did, it was on an atomic level. I think...I believe God brought me back—”

“Alright, alright.”

It’s not fucking fair. Dean wouldn’t trade Cas’s life for anything, but if God can do him—Why not Sam? Dean’s stomach is hurting again, a dull and empty ache. He focuses on being the flashlight for awhile instead. They have to be getting close to the car now, right? He wonders when Cas will leave, thinking how he’d like to be alone but also very much that Cas’s familiar, overbearing presence is comforting in its way. It’s normal. It’s the only normal thing left.

“What did Hannah mean when she said you were critical to the mission?”

Cas glances up from the ground to look at him. He pauses for long enough that Dean suspects he’s debating honesty.

“Nothing,” Cas says finally. Dean raises one eyebrow, and he relents. “She thinks that I’ve...spent a lot of time down here, that’s all. It’s made me more human in some ways...I’m beginning to care about things. People.” Cas glances at Dean’s face again. “Humanity as a whole is special to me now.”

“I thought you were all humanity’s keepers.”

“Yes, that is our rallying cry,” he says wryly, cracking a smile. “But it’s different for me. I’ve been at it longer...and it’s not just an abstract concept for me anymore. It’s tangible.”

“OK...What does that mean?”

“I don’t just care about humanity in general, Dean,” he says, guiding him around a large rock in the path.

Dean catches his eye for a second, but it burns in his throat and he swiftly looks away.

“What does that have to do with the weapon?”

“It doesn’t work without the full moon, but it actually gains its power from draining lives,” Cas explains. “But what I’m...feeling, who I’m becoming. Hannah believes I’m human enough to juice it up, so to speak, enough to fulfill our purpose.”

“What happens to you?” Dean asks, alarmed.

“Nothing.” Cas squeezes his arm. “It’s not so great a part of me that I won’t be able to heal the damage that it will cause.”

“But you’re not up there helping them now.”

“No,” Cas agrees. Were he somebody else, perhaps this would be the part where he smiles. But it’s Cas, so instead he says, “Much of the time, I’d rather be here.”

“What, Indiana?” Dean asks to calm the sudden rushing in his ears.

Cas gives him a look and leads them on.

Cas talks an awful lot about God. It’s one of his more annoying hobbies. He also plays bad music while they work on the house, stares too much, obsessively talks about every new emotion that he grows and is somehow part of the most boring war ever waged in all of existence. His trenchcoat is overplayed. He lies to Dean, says things like he’s a worthy man. He rarely smiles.

Dean opens the passenger door for him, watching the side of his face as he climbs in.

“Are you staying for movie night?” Dean asks when he’s finding an appropriate radio station for the drive.

Cas says, “I don’t know, maybe,” but he does. They watch two Star Wars movies over one big box of chicken lo mein.

Dean nearly falls asleep on the couch. One minute he’s engaged in a lengthy backstory about Harrison Ford, although he’s yawning through it, and the next he blinks and Leia’s in a completely different outfit. Dean sits up straighter, rubbing his eyes.

“You should go to bed,” says Cas, resting his hand on Dean’s shoulder.

Getting ready for bed is such a chore when you’re tired, so Dean speedruns it so he can climb in and immediately curl up under the covers. Across the room, he hears Cas murmur goodnight, but when Dean looks he’s already alone.

This time in his dreams, Sam and Dean track a wendigo for six miles before killing it in a truly epic blaze of glory. Except Dean splits off when Sam is in the shower to pick them up food, and Cas appears in the passenger seat on the way to the Mexican place that had the best Yelp reviews nearby. It’s a real place in Boca Raton, they’ve been there a couple of times through the years.

Dean jerks the steering wheel, nearly driving them into oncoming traffic. Cas is a serene statue, open palms resting on his thighs. He looks over, his eyes just drifting from the open road to the driver’s side.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey. What are you doing here?”

He expects Cas to bring some holy business down on their heads—but no, Cas is smiling out the front windshield again, and his hand drifts to the radio, turns down the volume low enough for them to talk.

“I thought I would join you for dinner,” he says.

And in the dream, Dean forgets about Sam for more than just a couple of minutes. He and Cas end up dining in at the Mexican place, and Dean doesn’t think about leaving Sam behind in that motel at all. Cas makes him laugh over a couple of extra strong margaritas, so hard he nearly faceplants into his burritos. Cas keeps grinning, way more than he does in real life—it’s strange to see him all lit up like that, strange but very welcome.

He has another, similar dream after that: He and Sam and Cas are sprawled on a beach in matching hawaiian button-ups, sipping on tropical cocktails and making fun of a nearby game of volleyball where the guys keep ruining their shot at a win because they’re too busy flexing and showing off for a handful of co-eds gathered on the sidelines. Sam’s in the middle of retelling, for Cas’s amusement, a very lengthy and embarrassing story of Dean’s worst first date ever (he was fifteen and went out with the prettiest cheerleader from the high school he was enrolled in at the time, down in Austin) while Dean tries fruitlessly to tune them out. Cas keeps grinning directly at him, making it very difficult to pretend like he can’t hear their conversation.

And then another variation of his Hell nightmare, this time centered around his last ten years in the Pit. He’s in the cabin where the siren lived but it’s not the siren’s anymore; outside, the sky is blood red from a burning sun. Inside the walls are painted the same color as the clouds, the same color as the knife Dean’s gripping tight. There’s more than one screaming body on the floor. In the beginning, Dean used to wish that Hell’s souls could die if only to put a stop to all that noise . But then Dean realized it was much more efficient to just cut out their voice boxes first.

Unlike in Hell, Sam is here. He’s crouched against the couch with his hands up, shaking his head.

“Don’t kill me again, Dean,” he begs. “Please, don’t murder me again—”

Dean’s knife is relentless, stabbing him in the chest. Sam’s crying but it turns into a horrible, vicious laughter. Blood bubbles from the corners of his mouth.

“You left me down there!” Sam snarls right in his face. “I’m already down here rotting with Lucifer and you still can’t seem to stop killing me! Do you hate me that much?”

“Shut up!” He stabs him again, and again, trying to make him stop… “Just shut up!”

The first thing Dean understands, when he jerks awake in his dark bedroom, is that his hands are shaking something fierce. The second thing is that there’s a warm touch on his chest that’s getting more and more familiar every single day.

“Dean…”

“Sorry, I’m—Sorry,” Dean gasps before he can say anything else. Cas frowns, leaning away, but he’s sitting on the other side of the bed so he can’t go very far. Dean runs a trembling hand over his face and finds the strength to sit up a little bit more. “Were you busy this time?”

“You didn’t call out for me, Dean.”

Strangely, Cas’s eyes are on the sheets between them.

“Oh...Oh, okay.” Dean’s thoughts are still moving a little bit slowly, not quite out of dreamland yet. “Well, do you have another job for me or something?”

“No.”

“Well then no offense, Cas, but…” He glances around the room. “Why are you still here?”

“You didn’t call out for me, but you were still having bad dreams, Dean,” Cas tells him gravely. “What was—?”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Dean snarls. “So what, you thought I’d need someone to stay up and talk about it over coffee?”

“No, I counted the melatonin and know that you haven’t been taking them,” says Cas. “And your meditation CDs are actively gathering dust.”

“Leave me alone with that crap,” Dean complains, although it’s not nearly as forceful as usual, and he blames that on the very, very recent jolt back to reality. He waves his hand at Cas to shut him up. “I can handle a few bad dreams.”

“And I’m trying to make sure that you don’t have to,” Cas says, sounding extraordinarily frustrated.

“You can’t control it!”

“All the same, you seem to do better after I come to stay.” Cas studies his face, although what he sees there, Dean has no clue; he honestly has no idea what his own expression looks like after a steadfast declaration like that.

“So you’re just gonna sit there and watch me sleep?” he demands.

“Would you prefer I stay invisible so you don’t know that I’m here?” Cas asks curiously.

“No! No. That would be...infinitely worse.” Dean runs his hand through his hair. Clearly he’s not going to win this argument. Even if he managed to convince Cas to leave, he’d be up all night panicked that Cas was doing his invisible man routine in secret or at least checking in on him throughout the night. No, it was better to know where he was. “Just...If you’re going to stay here with me, then at least pretend to act like a normal guy? Change into pajamas, act like you’re getting ready for bed. I can’t sleep if you’re staring at me and dressed like you’ve got a court date.”

Cas’s expression is bordering on hilarious: He looks simultaneously like the entirety of the English language dropped straight out of his vocabulary and like he’s never wanted anything more than to spend the night in ratty sweatpants pretending not to watch a guy sleep.

“You are so weird,” Dean says, shaking his head.

“What?”

“Nothing. We’ll book another room tomorrow.”

Dean digs up some old clothes for Cas to relax in, including another Goodwill t-shirt, this time a baby blue number that says THIS VIEW WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY ALMIGHTY GOD! in comic sans, and has nothing else on it except the barest outline of a mountain range. Dean finds Cas sitting cross-legged on the made-up half of the bed when he comes back from grabbing some Cheez-Its from the vending machine.

“Do you want to watch TV?” Cas asks. He gestures at the screen with the remote. “ Tombstone is on. You’ve been bugging me to watch it.”

“ Tombstone ? Oh hell yes!” Dean shuts the door, crosses the room in three easy strides and jumps into his place in the bed. “Scoot over, man. This movie is so awesome.”

He looks over and finds Cas smiling at him, but Cas almost immediately looks away and flips the TV to the right channel. Dean offers him a couple of Cheez-Its from the bag, which Cas seems to like better than he likes the movie—he eats more than half, but during one of the commercial breaks, he turns to Dean and declares, “This movie has too many guns and too much tuberculosis.”

“ That’s what you’re hung up on?” Dean says in disbelief. “This movie is badass, dude! It’s Kurt Russell!”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“ The Strongest Man in the World?”

“Robert Callahan Jr.,” Cas answers immediately. He looks at Dean. “He lives in Clifden.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean demands.

“He’s the strongest man in the world. It used to be an Arab man until 2007 when—”

“I don’t care about some random strongmen that I’ve never even heard of,” Dean tells him. “I just can’t believe that you’ve never heard of Kurt Russell.”

“I’ve heard of him. He was in the opening credits.” Cas glances at the bedspread, then almost tentatively back at Dean’s face. “Perhaps you could show me the rest of his work sometime.”

“Are you serious?” Dean lights up. “Hell yes! So you’re ready to get educated now? Maybe next weekend we can take a break from building the house, order in, we’ll make a whole movie night out of it. What do you think?”

Comparatively, Cas’s voice is low and steady. He even blinks slower, inclining his head in Dean’s direction.

“Sure, Dean,” he says. “I would like that very much.”

It’s in the last and very familiar twenty minutes of the movie when Dean’s eyes begin getting too heavy to hold up. He’s already nestled his way back to nearly prone, so he’s propped up on the pillow and back beneath the covers too. He sees Cas glance at him out of the corner of his eye, and then Cas raises his hand and strokes his fingers in one line through the air; at the same time, the lights in the room dim to nearly nothing. Dean sighs, turning his cheek into the pillow.

The movie’s still playing, low and flickering in the background. Dean falls asleep listening to gunshots and the distant sound of Kurt Russell kicking extraordinary amounts of ass.

He wakes up groggy, but something in Dean’s internal clock is telling him that it’s later than he usually rises. He cracks open one eye and gropes around for his phone charging beside the pillow. 10:14AM. He groans, rubbing his face against the sun.

“Good morning, Dean.”

Dean flips over, his eyes flying open. Cas is sitting propped up on the other side of the bed right where Dean left him, reading a newspaper that’s fanned out on his lap, a closed laptop on the bedside table that he was probably up on all night. Dean jolts upright.

“Have you been sitting there all night?” Dean asks, pushing himself more seated. The blankets pool around his waist as he stretches out the cramped muscles in his shoulders, cracks away the kinks in his neck.

“Most of it,” Cas tells him serenely. He nods across the room. “I did step out briefly to pick up breakfast. Do you like everything bagels?”

“Cas,” Dean says, throwing him a look as he practically catapults out of bed. “Everybody loves everything bagels. And if they don’t, then they’re stupid.”

He smiles at this logic and, also, because Cas has left a cup from a locally-owned coffee shop up the road and it’s got Dean’s name on it in little red sharpie.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cas says in that genuine way that he says most everything. He picks up the remote—the TV’s been on mute—and turns up the news then.

It’s a slow news day on all the relevant state channels, which more or less means that there’s nothing particularly funky going on within Indiana’s borders. They’re watching a politician lay out his new clean water initiative while Dean finishes eating, and Cas gets dressed; he throws on a pair of jeans and leaves on the shirt printed with Schrödinger’s irony along with the only non-dress shoes he owns.

“What are you doing?” Dean asks when he turns off the TV to go toss his garbage.

“Aren’t we...going to the property?”

“It’s Thursday.” Dean claps him on the back. “I have to go to work.”

“Oh,” Cas says, the corners of his mouth turning down. “I guess I should check in on the rest of my garrison.”

“It’s not too late to power up the weapon, right?” Dean asks, trying to gather up all of his work stuff which has somehow scattered all around the motel room since yesterday afternoon.

“The residual effects of the full moon’s power will continue for twelve hours in either direction,” says Cas. He glances down at his shirt, plucking at the mountain range. “I suppose I should change into something a little more professional.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. You look great.” Dean shoots him a grin. “See you later. Lock up before you, uh, Apparate on out of here.”

“I don’t…”

“I’d be more embarrassed I made that reference,” Dean says thoughtfully, “if there was anyone here to make fun of me for it.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cas tells him.

Four months after he averts the Apocalypse, Dean singlehandedly takes down a small nest of vampires a few miles outside the city.  They’re living in a compound which seems awfully elaborate for such a sparse group, so Dean makes sure to do a thorough sweep just in case they’re hiding anything massive behind the scenes. He doesn’t find anything until he scoots through a very narrow gap in the basement wall and discovers a whole secret room, which when he flips on the lights is—

Covered top to bottom in bloody sigils. In the dead center of the room, a strapping man in ripped jeans and a peacoat is strapped to a chair. When the light flips on, he hisses and shows Dean all of his rows of teeth.

Dean staggers back a step. It’s not because of the vampire, but because there are four other people in the room surrounding him, making quite a contrasting picture in fine unblemished business suits. Dean doesn’t know, at first glance, what they are—just that they look put-together and bloodthirsty.

“Well,” Dean says, holding up his hands. “I guess this is my lucky day. Five of you bottom-feeding sons of bitches all in one. What did I do to deserve such a warm welcome?”

“I hope you’re here to make my day,” the vampire says, barely lifting his head enough to spit out some blood.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Dean says. He jerks his head, meandering further into the room. One of the others raises a knife, and Dean stops. “What are a couple of hardworking professionals like you doing torturing one measly vampire bitch?”

“That’s really none of your business,” one of them says, stepping in front of the vampire.

“And we really don’t like trespassers,” another agrees. She looks strangely familiar…

“Wait a minute. I know you...You’re Hannah,” Dean says. “Cas’s new BFF.”

“Yes, and you’re his old one,” Hannah says. For some reason, that makes Dean rankle.

“Oh, so this is Castiel’s human pet?” the first angel says, glancing at Hannah for confirmation. “I’ve been meaning to pay you a visit.”

“Really, I’ve made the angels’ to-do list?” says Dean, spreading his arms. “Keep saying stuff like that, I just might get a big head.”

“More like we’re trying to realign his focus,” the angel sneers. “He’s been blowing off his duties a lot recently.”

“That’s enough, Ishim,” Hannah snaps, throwing her arm out to block his advance. “We don’t harm Dean Winchester.”

Dean doesn’t bother trying to temper down the grin he throws at Ishim, who snarls in reply.

“Dean didn’t see anything here,” says Hannah, nodding at him. “He finished his sweep of the compound, and he was just leaving.”

Something about her tone of voice gives him doubt. Dean’s grip tightens on the gun, and he shifts his feet to strengthen his stance.

“Yeah…” he says, glancing between all of the angels, trying to judge the best angle of attack to give him a shot at walking out of here. “I just have a few questions I wanna ask you first, you understand. I’m sure Cas would be fine with his friend asking another friend some questions?”

“Unfortunately, Castiel doesn’t run this show,” Ishim snarls.

He jolts forward again, and Hannah’s arm around his chest is barely restraining him now. Dean considers his odds against four angels and decides to take the L.

“Maybe I will take you up on that hasty escape,” Dean tells Hannah, backing up toward the door.

“Don’t leave me here with them,” the vampire blurts out. “I ain’t like the rest of the nest, I came here to get back my woman and got jumped by these motherfucking fly people, they keep calling themselves angels! You can kill me if you just get me out of here first—”

“Sorry pal,” Dean says, inclining his head. “I don’t agree with their ittle operation here, but I ain’t losing sleep or my head over some bloodsucker either.”

“Go, Dean,” Hannah says darkly.

“Hannah,” Ishim hisses. “It’s one human.”

“I said—”

Three things happen in quick succession: Dean bolts for the door, Ishim rips free of Hannah’s slack arms, and Ishim roars, “No !” and throws Dean across the room with one flick of his wrist. Dean hits the dungeon wall and crumples. In the same second, the door flies open with a deafening crash.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” Cas announces darkly.

An angel blade drops out of his sleeve, and he’s halfway across the room before anybody else even reacts. Dean’s beginning to see why other people keep insisting that they need Cas for VIP missions, even when he doesn’t want to go; he’s a hell of a fighter. He dodges around Hannah and goes right for Ishim’s neck, backing him into a corner in seconds. Cas swipes up to cut his throat, knocks Ishim’s blade into the air, grabs it in his free hand and spins around to plunge the left one into one of the other’s chest all in one sinuous move. He blocks the third angel with his free blade as he’s yanking the other out.

Seeing his opening, Dean slides across the floor and cuts one of his pocket knives through the vampire’s leg restraints. Dean pauses, catching his eye; the vampire nods, and Dean slices away at his hand bindings too.

“You’d better wait outside for me to cut your head off,” Dean warns him, even though he knows that he won’t.

Cas is still sparring, but then Hannah shouts, “Castiel, stop!” and she plants herself between Cas and his last attacker, blocking one’s forearm and the other’s knife. Hannah’s hair flies around her face in fury, and her blue eyes are very bright.

“Let’s call a truce,” she says, and it isn’t a question. Cas squints, wary. “We’ll all go our separate ways. This doesn’t have to get worse—it doesn’t have to leave this room. Too many of our kind have died already, and this will only cause unrest among our side.”

Cas considers this. He looks down at the fallen angels with a scowl, then back up at Hannah. He nods, raises his weapon, and steps back. The motion subtly plants him between them and Dean.

“Go,” Cas says.

Hannah watches him for a long moment. Then she and the other one disappear.

Cas bursts out into the cold night air first, but Dean is hot on his heels. He grabs Cas to turn him around and shoves him back.

“What the hell was that? Huh?” he demands. “What are a couple of angels doing torturing vamps in the basement?”

Cas crosses his arms and looks away.

“Don’t give me the silent treatment,” Dean demands, pushing him again.

“It’s none of your business,” Cas snaps when he’s pushed a third time, knocking Dean’s arms out of the way, yanking him in by the jacket and slamming him into the wall hard enough to knock out his breath. “What are you doing going up against angels without me?”

“I didn’t know they’d be down there! I thought it was just a regular old nest!”

“And since when did you start letting monsters go ?” Cas plows on as though he didn’t hear him at all.

“They were torturing him, Cas,” he says, trying in vain to pry Cas’s hands off him. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Heaven’s work is none of your business.”

“Yeah? Well it is when it’s yours,” Dean argues. “That was your unit in there, wasn’t it? Why the hell are you torturing monsters?”

“I’m not!”

“Well your people are !”

“Dean! You have no idea what you’re meddling with!” Cas yanks him forward and slams him back again. “Leave celestial affairs alone. I mean it.”

He leans in an inch closer, presumably to drive home his glare. Then he blips out. Dean slumps against the wall, breathing harder, as soon as the grip on his lapels vanishes.

He takes a minute to get his bearings back before he heads for the car. As he’s approaching the Impala, out of the corner of the parking lot underneath a flickering street lamp, a stocky figure in a peacoat looms out of the dark.

“Lover’s quarrel?” calls the vampire.

Dean glances up and clocks his position, readjusts his grip on his machete, and pivots his stance to face the monster head-on.

“When I told you to stick around, I didn’t think you’d actually be stupid enough to do it,” Dean shouts, not unkindly.

“I came to ask you for a favor,” the vampire returns amicably.

“Another one?” 

Dean shifts around the car, getting into a better position to attack. The vampire comes up to the other side of the trunk, hands up but face weary.

“What I told you in the basement. That was true,” the monster starts. “My nest tried to kill me years ago for running off with a woman. They killed her. Or at least, I thought that they did. Turns out they just turned her as one last fuck you to me. I found out and came here to get her back.”

“Heartwarming,” Dean says. “Why should I care?”

“Because she sided with them. When you were raiding this nest, did you find one vampire in the parlor room already dead? Beautiful woman, one sleek braid down her side?”

“Yeah.”

“That was her.”

He gives Dean a meaningful look. Dean frowns, relaxing his stance slightly to size him up.

“And you’re saying you did that?” Dean asks. “So I’m just, what? Supposed to believe you? It could have just as easily been the angels who did that.”

“The angels wouldn’t bother cutting off her head. Give me a chance to prove it to you,” says the vampire. “I’ll tell you where I’ll be. You catch even one hint of a slip-up in the area, and I’ll surrender myself to you in an instant. All I want is to be given a second chance. I wasted my first one thinking about her.”

Dean’s already shaking his head.

“I’m sorry, man,” he says, and he almost kind of means it. “I just can’t risk it.”

“I came back here when I didn’t have to,” the vampire reminds him. “I could be halfway to the state border by now.”

Dean thinks this over. The vampire raises his hands, reaches into his inner coat pocket slowly and pulls out a piece of paper. With eyes on Dean, he slides it across the trunk of the car.

“That’s my number. If you’re worried about keeping tabs on me, don’t be.”

Dean tries to hold the vampire’s stare, but his curiosity overwhelms him. He glances between the vampire and his number, if that’s what it is, and then reaches out to grab it with his machete still aloft.

Benny , the paper reads. 463-555 ...

“Do we have a deal?” Benny asks.

Dean frowns.

“What did the angels want?” he asks. “Why were they torturing you?”

“I never reckoned that Heaven was real,” Benny says, “but if I had, I never would’ve thought that they’d give two shits about monsters. Even the ancient ones.”

“Ancient ones?”

“There are rumors about the first of our kind. The angels wanted the location, but it’s just a rumor. We evolved the same as everybody else.” Benny puts his hands down. “That’s all I know, hunter, I swear it. Now...you’ll let me go?”

Dean sizes him up one last time. Maybe he’s going completely senile in his semi-retirement, but Dean wants to believe him. Benny’s right, he didn’t have to come back, and he didn’t have to tell Dean about the angels’ plans either. This could have just as easily ended in a fight. Dean wrestles with himself about it, and then he laughs disbelievingly, shaking his head.

“Man, you’re either crazy hopeful or the dumbest son of a gun I’ve ever met,” Dean says.

Benny spreads his hands, breaking out in a bright, incredulous smile.

“Call me an ex-romantic,” he says.

That makes Dean smile. He folds the paper in half and slips it into his pocket, and Benny starts backing up with his hands still in the air. When he’s far enough away, he turns to run, freezes, and looks back over his shoulder.

“Thank you, brother,” Benny says.

“I ain’t your brother. And if you ever put so much as a toe out of line, I will hunt you down like the killer you are.”

But he watches Benny break into a run at the edge of the parking lot and disappear into darkness. Against his nature, Dean doesn’t chase after him.

Dean doesn’t see Cas for a month. There’s no word, there’s no sign of him. After two weeks, Dean stops expecting to look up and find him hovering in the doorway. He fills his time with the house, with work, with Neal and Jenny from next door. He keeps his eye on a medium-sized radius around the address Benny gave him, but he never hears about anything that sounds like a vampire attack, not there or anywhere else in the whole state.

Dean’s house is coming along. It’s only been three months, and he doesn’t have a second set of hands anymore, but he dedicates most of his free time to it and that’s starting to show: The whole front room is coming together, and pieces of what will be the bedroom is half-constructed too. Dean’s drilling when he notices movement right on the other side of the table and startles, looks up, and nearly puts a screw through them both.

Cas’s face is furious, drawn and serious and stony.

“We need to talk,” he commands.

Dean puts the drill down and his safety goggles up so he can see him better. He looks him up and down with one eyebrow raised.

“Well hello to you too,” Dean says at last. “How have I been doing, you ask? Well thank you very much for checking in on me! I’m good, except my best friend keeps going super-ghost on me for months at a time—”

“I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings,” Cas sneers. “Time works differently for us. When you’ve been around as long as I have, a month seems—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re above all this human shit, right?” Dean turns away from him. “So why are you here, then, if you didn’t come to apologize? Just taking a snack break in between all that torture?”

“I told you, I don’t torture them!” Cas says. He grabs Dean’s shoulder and spins him around. “When I found out what they were doing to find the Alphas, I was furious with them.”

“So it’s true then?” Dean asks. “Yeah, yeah. I heard all about your little experiments . You’re torturing to find out information on the first monsters, right? The first of their kind?”

Now it makes more sense why Benny called them the ancient ones . If Dean’s right, then they really are old as Hell. Probably literally.

“We want the location of the Alphas, yes, but I didn’t realize that that was what Hannah met by reconnaissance.” Cas sounds exasperated. “Dean, look at me!”

Dean sighs and stops pacing away from him. He comes back slower and stops right in front of Cas, just out of arm’s reach. He doesn’t stop scowling.

“I promise you, the second I got back to Heaven that night, I told them to stop what they were doing,” Cas intones. “You have to believe me.”

Looking at him up close, Dean wants to. He’s seen Cas try to manipulate people, it doesn’t work. He’s very blunt. With Dean, very unapologetic. If he wanted to torture monsters, he’d try to make Dean understand first—or just tell him to piss off, in his own lily-white, rude but proper way.

“Why do they want with these...Alphas anyway?” Dean asks finally.

Cas’s mouth gets small when he’s mad. Or upset, or cagey, and sometimes when he’s guilty and lashing out, or if he’s just thinking really hard about something. Cas always has a justification.

“The same reason I do everything,” Cas says. His eyes roll back to Dean. “The war.”

“So you keep saying, but what does that really mean ?” Dean demands. “What the hell do Alpha vamps have to do with your new order?”

Cas tugs on the lapels of his trenchcoat, which no matter how often Dean tries to get him to ditch it for new thrift store finds, nonetheless appears on his shoulders each new time he visits. Dean doesn’t mind. He’s good at playing a long game; it took four years, but when he was fifteen he finally convinced his dad that he could be trusted enough to leave some beer in the fridge while John was out on a job, which guaranteed that he and Sam could sneak a can or two whenever they were left alone up until Dean turned legal. Cas lays his hand on the wall of the house and surreptitiously tightens one of the screws.

“We’re preparing to mount our final attack,” Cas says all at once, spinning back to face him.  “Alpha blood is a critical component to our plan. They were just trying to get the location of the first vampire, and our intel led us there.”

“How’s that, more torture?”

Cas breathes through his nose.

“I didn’t know,” he grits out. “I thought Hannah understood that we’ll get further using more subtle methods.”

“And how’s that going for you, Cas?”

His jaw works.

“Not well,” he admits. He sighs. It sounds genuine enough that Dean looks up for the first time. “Dean, I told you that I’m not in charge of my garrison, and that was true. I can’t tell them what to do! I may have been promoted to seraph, but I declined being the leader of this army. I don’t want it!”

“You don’t want to teach other born-again angels how to think for themselves?” Dean asks, half-teasing, half-grim.

“No,” Cas says solemnly.

“Why not?” He doesn’t know why he’s picking a fight about this. It just rises up in him, void of reason and impervious to will. “That seems right up your alley.”

Cas tips his head and steps right up into Dean’s space.

“And what about my free will, Dean?” he challenges.

This startles him. “Is there something that you want?”

“No.” Cas glances at the floor. “The Alpha blood and the weapon we got—It’s all connected. Our side is going to do something. We’re building a spell...If we can pull this off, the effects to the opposing side would be catastrophic.”

“Big enough to take down Raphael?”

“And then some,” Cas says grimly. Dean gives him a look, and he relents. “We’re going to...put him away somewhere safe. Somewhere he can’t incite anymore havoc up there.”

“Like Lucifer’s cage?” Dean asks, alarmed.

“Do not compare us to Hell,” he says, eyes getting all squinty again. “We’re trying to put things back straight. Create a better world order.”

Dean crosses his arms. “How long have you been planning all this?”

Cas doesn’t seem to expect this. He steps back, blinking bemusedly.

“Months, I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“So the whole time you were telling me that Raphael was going to lay down arms,” Dean says, his hands beginning to animate, “you knew that you were launching some high stakes, long con backup plan at the same time?”

“Well...Yes,” he says, glancing around as if for answers to Dean’s rising tone. “We’d never just hope and not have a plan.”

“You mean like prayer?”

“Dean,” he admonishes. Dean puts up his hands in surrender. “It’s what we need to win this. Then we can finally go our separate ways.”

“‘We’ as in…?”

“Angels. My unit.”

“Right.”

Dean clears his throat. The word hangs thin in the air between them, and seems meaner the longer that it lingers. He reaches out and fiddles with the wood he was drilling before, hears it make an unpleasant sound in the loose hinge. He should fix that, make it tighter. The thought barely appears before Cas twists his wrist just so and screws it together.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Cas blurts out. “I should have told you the full scope of what we’re doing.”

Dean scowls while he decides how to feel and react to this. He’s still thinking it over when his stomach growls, loudly; he thinks he catches Cas cracking a smile when he glances up, just a flash before it disappears.

Cindy’s is reliably sparse. They’re already well on their way to some chicken-based dish on the daily specials menu when Dean figures it’s as good a time as any.

“Why are you telling me all this stuff with the angels now?” he asks. “Why come back here at all?”

Cas looks down at the table. The menus have some word puzzle for children on the back, and Cas is tracing the boxes with one finger. The waitress comes and brings their food before he breaks his silence.

“When I first began visiting you here, after the Apocalypse came and went,” Cas begins, which Dean wishes was a stranger sentence to him, “I felt that I owed you a debt. Some sort of penance for what Heaven put you through—for what I began.”

“Hey, if you’re looking to apologize for yanking me out of Hell, look somewhere else, pal. I ain’t complaining.”

“All the same, it ultimately caused you a great deal of pain,” Cas says. “And... We also owed you, all of us. For saving the world. For allowing us the chance to build a better one.”

The compliment sits hot and strange in his chest, like fizzling electric wire. It threatens his voice too, so Dean focuses instead on the bitterness: About Sam, about how hard being normal is, about everything. He brings it up to the surface like it’s fresh and feeds off it so he doesn’t do something stupid, like cry, or say thanks.

“So, what?” Dean asks, stabbing at his food. “You felt bad enough to make me a pet, so you could get a second chance at playing guardian angel?”

He expects pushback at this, but Cas merely draws his brows together. He folds his hands on the empty table in front of him, save for a half-empty glass of fruit juice that he insisted on trying.

“No,” he says, looking up at Dean again. “In the beginning, that is what I told myself. But I’ve realized lately that I have other...motives for coming here.”

“Motives?” he echoes. His heart rate speeds just slightly.

“When I’m down here with you...working on the house, doing research, even coming to the diner to eat. I...like it,” Cas says. He smiles. “I’m happy down here, Dean. Seeing my Father’s creations up close, it’s...changed me. I care about this world.”

Dean should probably break his stare at some point, right? This is probably getting weird.

“What?” he makes himself joke. “Movie marathons and takeout and hard labor, that’s worth giving up Heaven to you?”

“I never said anything about giving it up completely,” Cas says. “But...Yes. Being around you has changed me these past few years, Dean. Knowing you...It’s allowed me to see the beauty in the world.”

“ This looks like beauty to you?”

“Yes,” Cas says, smiling serenely again. “You care about all of this. Seeing that...it’s made me care about it too.”

This goes down like an extremely large spoonful of honey—painfully large and sweet, it sits in his chest next and burns and burns. That’s how Cas sees him? He’s got a seriously skewed savior complex.

“I don’t...care about stuff, Cas, I was just trying to save Sam. Like usual,” he adds, rolling his eyes. So much damage from such a noble goal, he thinks. Good thing he gave up on God and benevolent forces a long time ago, because he doesn’t deserve points for trying. “It all just went...haywire.”

“Yes. Usually.”

It’s not funny, but he laughs anyway. Then that makes Cas laugh, and then they’re doing it harder, and Dean’s bent over the table trying to get a grip on himself if only to stop his ribs from hurting.

“If it’s any consolation,” he says when he can control himself, tipping his water glass to look inside, “I know I didn’t really say it before, but—I was mad when I was staying with Lisa and you stayed up there. Ever since he…died, I’ve been going a little crazy stuck down here...I didn’t have anyone.”

“But your friends…?”

“They’re not the same,” Dean says in a low voice, glancing around the nearby tables. “As having you around. You know that.”

Cas looks at him for a long time.

“Yes,” he finally agrees, with a nod. “I think I’m beginning to.”

And then Cas keeps looking at him, as though having a small revelation; and the waitress comes over to ask if they want a refill on their drinks, and they both accept. Dean remembers he has food on his plate. On the walk to the car, Dean puts his arm around Cas’s shoulders. Cas walks closer as a result.

Cas stays over that night, and the one after that; and then Dean has to go back to work. Cas lingers in the doorway while Dean’s getting dressed for the day.

“I could come back tomorrow,” he offers, the first word he’s said in nearly ten minutes.

Dean grabs his keys, double-checks he’s got everything he needs. Cas silently passes him the flask he was looking for.

“Thanks,” he says. “Um, sure, Cas, we can hang out tomorrow. What did you have in mind?”

“I...don’t know,” he says, studying the floor as though he hadn’t expected to get this far. “What do you usually do on Tuesdays?”

“Work on the house.” He jerks his head. “We could take the day off, I guess. Maybe head into the city? They got a sale on tickets for that museum you’ve been bugging me to see.”

This makes Cas smile in that slow, thoughtful way that he does.

“I would like that,” Cas tells him, “very much.”

Dean’s a normal, human man with normal, human romantic feelings for other normal human beings—but if he could manifest this house into a living, breathing woman and marry her, he’d do it in an instant. Hell, he’d take her out to Vegas for a honeymoon and try to win them millions on the slots.

She’s beautiful, even when she’s only half-finished. He moved into it last week after getting the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom all done—or constructed, anyway, he’s still sleeping boxed in by bare wood walls and a very flimsy temporary roof. At least there’s running water now. All the things he needs to call it a verifiable home, although it needs paint, more electrical work, gas, furniture and the entire living room. Whatever. This is his new baby. Man, he hopes the car doesn’t get jealous.

Dean gets more ice for the next round of whiskey, which he’s been putting back for the better part of an hour. He recently got the fridge up and running after finishing up the kitchen’s wiring a week and a half ago, but it took awhile to get all the equipment delivered. Call this a celebration of sorts, for finally getting the house good enough to live in while he finishes up the rest—although perhaps that would require some guests and something besides a couple strong drinks and classic rock playing from the speakers Dean bought last month to make building work more interesting.

He skips the next song on the mixtape, a Zepp track he’s heard one too many times as of late. The spare seconds of silence between songs makes the rustle of air more obvious than it would otherwise have been. Without turning around, Dean says, “Hey, Cas, what do you— Woah ,” because then he does turn around.

Castiel is a mess. His hair’s matted down with blood, and he’s got red seeping through his suit which Dean can see in glimpses underneath the trenchcoat. This state isn’t a new occurrence, but he’s never dripped blood on any floor that Dean made with hard work and his own two hands. Is this how Cas feels when he gets hurt? Like he’s desecrating something sacred—sacred because he made it?

Dean lurches forward and catches him right before Cas’s legs give out.

“Woah!” He heaves him upright. “Woah, there, I got ya. Easy, tiger.”

Only Cas could raise his head that slowly, look that beaten up and still give Dean an unimpressed glare.

“I could...use a drink,” Cas says, and promptly goes deadweight again.

After a shower and a change of clothes, he looks a little less like he’s on Death’s doorstep. Dean wraps the wounds on his side while he demands answers, two birds with one stone. More war effort, blah blah blah. They got the last ingredient they needed for the spell, but Cas got his ass kicked on the way out. The other angels fled. He chose to take cover here.

“Yes, and used up the last of my grace to do it,” Cas says, sucking in a sharp breath when sitting up straighter tugs at his lacerated ribcage. “Not that I could heal this anyway. These are cuts from an angel blade.”

“Fucking cowardly sons of motherfucking bitches ,” Dean seethes. Hands hovering anxiously by Cas’s side, he adds, “But you will get better, right?”

“Yes. With time,” Cas says, lowering the borrowed t-shirt. It’s simple and green but makes his eyes look bluer than usual. “But my battery is drained.”

“Well, nothing a little R&R can’t fix,” Dean says, clapping him on the back.

He sounds surer and more casual than he feels. He doesn’t like this—this feeling he’s got in him. The way he felt when he saw Cas appear bloody and beaten up out of thin air, it’s— bad . And it’s bad that it feels so bad, because Dean’s seen a lot of gore in his day. Worrying about Sam’s death felt like this, only...different. And he doesn’t like that it’s different. A word is tugging on the corner of his mind, but Dean pushes it away.

“I don’t want to R&R, Dean,” Cas says, gritting his teeth. “I want to go back and help my army—”

“Yeah, well unfortunately wanting something doesn’t make it so,” Dean says with more bite than he intends. He takes a moment, closing his eyes, doing deep breaths like Sam used to bug him to try. “Just...just stay here until you’re better, OK? No running off and doing something stupid. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

Cas frowns, but he doesn’t argue. Dean takes this as a win. He gets so few of those these days.

It takes some cajoling, but he convinces Cas to get out of his funk and try to share in Dean’s revelry. Even Cas telling him how premature and pathetic this is for a housewarming can’t dull Dean’s good mood, which is getting better all the time; he catches Cas bopping his head minutely to a couple of songs, and that’s good, that means he’s getting cultured. He even recognizes some of the words.

It makes Dean wonder if he can culture Cas about other things.

“I still don’t see the difference,” Cas says, tilting his head in the other direction. “They taste the exact same to me.”

“How could you say that?” Dean demands. If he wasn’t physically incapable of it after Cas remolded Dean’s body with his bare angelic hands, he’d be so scandalized right now, but some things make you incapable of being shocked at somebody’s audacity. “This is a 1953—”

“It’s alcohol,” Cas says. “I suppose on a molecular level I can tell the difference between these whiskeys, but it’s a means to an end. Isn’t that why you drink?”

“Well...Yes. But it’s important to only get the good stuff so it tastes how it feels.”

“I suppose you’ll just have to teach me, then.”

He’s serious, so Dean knocks their elbows together and agrees; and then he gets up to get them another round of his preferred fare with more ice. He pours Cas a double, although frankly he’ll never catch up to Dean. Last time he went on a bender it took a whole liquor store to keep him hammered—literally. Oh, how the mighty have settled.

“I prefer this carpeting for the bedroom,” says Cas, pointing out of the swatches splayed and pushed aside on the table. Bare minimum furniture suffices for now; they’re currently sitting on lawn chairs. Dean’s never bought furniture before so he’s a little at a loss. Cas’s attention drifts to the magazine thrown haphazardly by the swatches. “But only with this pillow set.”

Dean stares at him as he comes back to the table.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Dean tips his drink at him. “You’re giving me interior decorating advice?”

Cas shrugs. “You have a bad eye for these things, Dean. Besides, you said yourself that you don’t want to do any of this part of the work.”

“And what do you think Heaven would say if they could see you slumming it down here with me, picking out China patterns?”

Cas genuinely thinks this over, because of course he does.

“I think...they would probably try to teach me a lesson again, like they have before,” says Cas in that voice that sounds the way rolling his eyes looks. “So I guess it’s a very good thing that I’m dismantling the power structure in Heaven instead.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.” Dean pauses. “You like this cream color, huh?”

“With the soft carpet. Yes.”

“OK. Done.” Cracking his neck, he adds, “All this decorating crap is making me feel like a chick, can we watch TV or something instead? I need to get my testosterone on.”

Cas gives him a look like he thinks Dean’s being a neanderthal.

“Yes, Dean,” he sighs exasperatedly. “I suppose.”

Although the living room is just four walls connected and not even blocked off from the kitchen, Dean’s well aware that he needs bad cartoons to stay sane. He hooked a TV up in the middle of the room and just ran an extension cord from the closest outlet, and dragged in a couch that he found curbside a few streets away. Dean sprawls out in the middle of the ratty old thing, forcing Cas to crowd into a corner.

Lost Boys is good, but Dean’s glad he’s seen it a thousand times already. This time around he’s distracted. The couch is falling apart and clearly used to belong to somebody with a cat, but the main obstacle right now is that it’s very small .

Since the diner, things have been...different. It’s in the little things, and Dean can practically lie to himself for a living but he can’t lie that the tides have turned: Nothing overt, but it’s in the way Cas inclines his head nearer when they sit on adjacent sides of the table; the brush of Dean’s hand against the small of his back when he lets Cas through a door first; it’s in their arms brushing when they walk, how Cas brings him the right coffee whenever he visits now, the excruciating five-act play Dean sat through last month because Cas never saw a show in all his years walking the earth. Dean’s arm around the back of the couch, and how Cas’s far shoulder is still close enough for his hand to brush.

It’s natural, and that’s the distracting part; that, and how this close, uninterrupted and mainlined, he can smell Cas underneath the faint, lingering ozone. Cas seems to love the movie, although at one point he jumps hard and grabs Dean’s flannel in reflex. Dean warms from his chest outwards all the way to his fingertips. He rubs his thumb against Cas’s shoulder, comforting and slow.

Midway through the movie, Dean tries, unsuccessfully, to convince Cas to get up and get him more whiskey and a snack. He scrounges some jerky from an otherwise empty pantry and grabs the whole bottle, but the phone rings just as he’s hitting the light.

“Hello?” he says, muffled around the stick of jerky he just stuck in his mouth.

“Dean?”

He freezes. Sets the whiskey bottle down. That’s a voice that he hasn’t heard in a very, very long time.

“Bobby?” he asks. “I haven’t heard from you in…”

“Three months, yeah, since I sent you off on that demon case in Fort Wayne,” Bobby says. “It’s...it’s good to hear your voice, son.”

Dean pauses to ingest this before answering. His eyes are mysteriously wet, now. After a moment, he finds the strength to clear his throat.

“So what’s this about, Bobby?” he asks finally.

There’s a sound on the other line, like the rustling of some paper. Probably research notes, or maybe a penned confession. No, Bobby’s not that outwardly sentimental.

“You asked me to look into anything vampy happening in and around northwest Indianapolis,” Bobby starts.

“Yeah, I did,” Dean says, his spine going straighter. Business, he can do. “What happened?”

“Now this isn’t a clear-cut vamp case, Dean, I want you to understand that,” Bobby cautions. “But there might be something...Couple of college kids went missing last week. Then three nights ago, one of them turned up missing a good chunk of his neck. His body was moved, so it’s hard to tell—”

“Was he mysteriously missing all of his blood ?” he asks impatiently.

“Yeah. But like I just said, his body was moved , boy,” Bobby snaps, “so it’s impossible to tell what exactly it was that did it.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve gone farther for less,” Dean sighs. “Thanks, Bobby.”

“Dean, wait!” he calls out. Dean puts the phone back to his ear and waits. Bobby clears his throat. “How you doing, boy?”

“What? Oh, uh...I’m great.”

Bobby scoffs. “How are you really doing?”

“Like I said, I’m awesome,” Dean says sharply. “My house is really coming together, and I’ve got a steady job. It’s exactly what I was picturing, Bobby, it’s freaking perfect.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he says in that dismissive voice like he thinks Dean is just so full of shit. Gentler, he says, “I haven’t heard from you six months, and I’d like it if—”

“You know what, Bobby,” Dean says loudly. “I’d love to catch up, but I’ve actually gotta run. Massive, uh, water leak on the homefront. Thanks for the heads up on the vampires, I’ll take care of it.”

“Wait. Dean—”

He snaps his phone shut before he can finish.

It’s not that Dean doesn’t miss Bobby. It’s that he does . Nobody knew him better; and nobody still does, save Cas. Bobby loves him well enough to miss . And Bobby knows, he knows what today is, which is exactly why Dean doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to talk to anybody who remembers .

And more than that, Dean really doesn’t want to talk about today . He suspects already that he sat on this vampire news—three days ago? Bobby isn’t usually that slow. He waited, he waited until the anniversary so he could—What? Have an excuse to bring it up? See how Dean’s doing? Try to reunite under the guise of shared grief?

Today, all Dean wanted was to celebrate the partial house with whiskey and TV with Cas, maybe order a couple of pizzas and enjoy the classics. All he wants is to distract himself from where he was six months ago, on this day, at this time, because if he tries to remember then he’ll obsess over it. He’ll wonder if at this minute, six months ago, the world was almost ending; or if at this minute it already had. He’ll turn it over in his hands until his palms are bloody as the day it happened, the day Sam died. His little brother. The brother he raised.

Dean throws the jerky on the couch, slams the bottle on the floor and smacks the side of Cas’s knee.

“Come on,” he says.

Cas is already sitting up, studying Dean’s frown.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“Bloodsuckers,” Dean says. “Twenty miles that way. Are you in or are you out?”

Chapter Text

“So you see, brother,” Benny grips his beer tighter, “I looked into the case already. I look into every case that could be a vampire in these parts. I don’t want anybody else hunting on my territory.”

“Your territory?” Dean quotes, his eyebrows slanting downwards.

“My home,” he clarifies. “I don’t want anybody here stirring up trouble and pointing the local authorities over to me.”

“Right,” Cas says loudly. Dean shuts his mouth, glaring sideways at where he’s sitting on the closed side of the booth. “So it’s a coincidence that you appeared back here and within two months, there are six mysterious disappearances and two confirmed deaths?”

“I was just as confused, and probably twice as angry,” Benny tells him. His voice has got this ringing sincerity to it that’s hard to ignore, but Dean forces himself to listen to his deeply-ingrained doubt. “Listen...I got some notes I’ve been amassing on the subject. How about we link up and work this one together?”

“No way,” Cas says, practically before he’s done speaking.

“Cas…”

Cas slaps the table so hard it reverberates against their beers.

“You don’t even know him, Dean.”

“I'm not saying we should make friendship bracelets, I’m just saying that we should hear him out!”

Benny sticks his head in over the table.

“Why don’t I grab us another round and let you gentlemen talk?” he offers.

He slips out of the booth, tips his hat and goes. Dean watches him reach the bar, and then he and Cas immediately turn on each other.

“What the hell are you doing, Dean? Trusting a vampire?”

“He hasn’t screwed us over so far,” Dean points out. “He’s here, ain’t he?”

“Yes, which reminds me,” Cas says, growing less disbelieving and more furious, “I still can’t believe you trusted a vampire enough to let him go.”

“I was keeping tabs on him,” Dean says, which is  kind of true. He drove by that part of the city now and then. He read the papers.

“You don’t know him!”

“Look Cas, he stayed in the parking lot when I set him free in the dungeon, and he’s here now. If we just listen to him, then maybe he can lead us to the real killer!”

“And maybe he is the killer.”

“Then we’ll gank the bastard and skip merrily off into the sunset,” Dean says, throwing his arms out. “I didn’t even know if you were ready to be here, Cas! You’re still healing up.”

“I told you, I can handle vampires. And you’re the one who asked me to come.”

“Well now I’m not sure it is vampires. Maybe Benny’s telling the truth. Right now he’s the best lead we’ve got!”

“Then I’m still in,” Cas says, and it’s hard as steel. “If only to be there when he inevitably turns on you.”

Benny slides back into the booth, and Cas grabs one of the beers dangling from his fingers and downs half of it in one go. Benny and Dean look at each other.

“So,” Benny says. “What’s the verdict?”

“We’re in,” Dean says, holding out a hand for Benny to shake while Cas glowers at the side of his face. “But we’ve got our eye on you.”

Benny’s grip is firm, his smile pleased, his expression unbothered.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Benny already snuck into the crime scene, but they make him take them out there again anyway to check it out for themselves. That combined with a bit of recon leads them to a demon cannibal who’s super fun and not at all child-nightmarish: The guy’s got a couple tied up in his garage when they get there, young and pretty and probably out camping if the cannibal’s MO stays true.

Benny unties the couple while Dean and Cas fan out to hold the perimeter. The cannibal demon finds them minutes later (“Which came first?” Dean jokes while they’re dodging a series of psychic attacks with the goal of getting Cas close enough to burn the motherfucker out of his body, “The freak or the freakier?” Cas does not find this amusing.) and puts up a hell of a fight. Every time Cas feints, Dean sees him clutch a hand to his lacerated ribs. The demon teases Dean about missing him at the A-list parties down in Hell and while he’s getting his jabs in, laughing at the stricken look on Dean’s face, Benny tackles him from behind and slices his head clean off. While the decapitated demon is gasping on the floor, Cas stalks over and puts his hand to the vessel’s face. When he’s done, there are two large black holes where his eye sockets used to be.

“Not complaining about the rescue,” Dean says as they meander out of the shed, “but just once, I’d like to save the poor possessed son of a bitch.”

“You’re angry that I killed a demon?” Cas asks.

“No, I’m not angry, there’s just...gotta be another way.”

“Of course. Like Sam found another way?”

“Don’t,” Dean snaps. “Alright, Cas? Just don’t.”

Bringing up Sam is a low blow, and Cas knows it. Dean stalks over to where Benny’s leaning on a tree a little ways away from the two victims, who are huddled together waiting for an ambulance to arrive. Dean claps Benny on the shoulder and rests on the trunk too.

“Thanks for having my back in there,” Dean starts.

“Don’t even bother,” Benny insists. “That was my reputation on the line. I believe you were doing me the favor.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean ducks his head, bashful. “You could’ve let that son of a bitch slaughter me, and you stepped in. That puts you in my good books.”

“I appreciate that, brother.” Benny grips his shoulder, and they share a look, barely a smile. It’s more than Dean would have thought he’d share with him when he found him tied up in the basement. Benny’s eyes drift over and affix on something just to the right of his head. “Although I don’t think your angel friend over there plans on letting anything happen to you.”

“I don’t,” Cas calls. Dean glances over in time to see Cas shrug off the side of the shed and come join them by the treeline. He shakes his head, then sticks out his hand to Benny. “I suppose I owe you an apology. I still believe that you’re an untrustworthy, bloodsucking abomination who should be eradicated from the face of this earth—but you saved Dean’s life today. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Benny says slowly. Even slower, he grips Cas’s hand and shakes, but it’s to Dean that he asks, “Is he always like this?”

“Yep. Warm and fuzzy, that’s my Cas.”

He slings an arm around Cas’s shoulders and brings him, stumbling, closer; Benny watches them a minute before he nods.

“So you’re going home now?” Dean asks.

Benny grips his hand tight when he shakes it.

“You know where to find me if anything hinky happens around here,” he promises.

It’s chilly, even this late in the season. Dean fiddles with the heater and radio station until he finds one strong enough to follow them out of the woods. It’s a quiet drive back to the main road, although ‘main road’ is a bit of an overstatement in the middle of the night when it’s pitch black, with no street lamps or other cars in sight.

“Driving is...very boring,” Cas comments, glancing out the side window. “There’s not much to do.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The radio’s fritzing again this far out in the boondocks; Dean flips it off.

“We could...talk,” Cas suggests, sounding extremely uncomfortable at the thought. He folds his hands in his lap.

“Sure, let’s talk. Made any good investments lately?” Dean asks. Cas looks at him. “Let’s keep trying the radio.”

They bump up over onto a more populated road, one with no trees and a lot more cars. Cas is nearly pressed to the window, watching the neon store signs go by.

“You know, Cas,” he says after another couple of miles pass, and he turns down the radio again, “there actually is something I’ve been thinking about.”

“What is it, Dean?”

Even though he brought it up, he takes a minute now to organize his thoughts.

“This...tonight...It was good, right?” He glances at Cas in the shotgun side, whose eyebrows are pulling together again. “I mean, we make a good team. We solved this demon cannibal case no problem—”

“Yeah, with help,” Cas mutters, as though he doesn’t care much for their ‘help’ at all.

“—and we didn’t even get tossed around the room this time. Cas, your stitches didn’t get jacked up at all,” Dean points out. He shrugs. “We don’t get a lot of easy wins. I forgot how... nice it feels.”

“Nice,” Cas repeats as though merely tasting the word, not really eating it. “So you want…?”

“After we wrap up all this Heaven business, I think I’m out.”

Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel to focus on something besides not looking at Cas, but he can’t help sneaking a glance or two in that direction. Cas is entirely still on the passenger side.

“Out,” Cas says slowly. “As in, out of the hunting game?”

“Well, not completely.” Dean shrugs one shoulder. “But out of the big stuff. I just think Heavenly wars, angels—It’s all a bit...big for me nowadays.”

“I never asked you to get involved, Dean,” he says with an edge to his voice.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says fiercely. They pause, each taking a breath; or at least, Dean breathes and Cas glares out the side window again. Dean taps along to the second half of the song fading out on the radio and reorders his thoughts, piece by piece by goddamn Jenga piece. As the music decrescendos, he sighs. “And for the record, I can’t give up hunting either. I don’t think I’d even know how, I mean, not completely. It’s my life . It’s always been my life.”

He stares off into the middle-distance—watching the road but not really seeing it. The car bumbles over the line into the next town, and Cas blows out a big breath.

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” Cas tells him finally, frustrated, like he always gets when he thinks Dean’s talking in circles on purpose. Sometimes Dean just really doesn’t know how to translate his heart to his mouth.

“I want to stick to jobs like this from now on. Milk runs,” Dean says. “You know—demons, ghouls, ghosts. I can handle that. But I don’t want to be involved in the big leagues anymore. I’m—resigning from all of that angel crap, the Heaven stuff...I paid my dues to the grand scheme of things. From now on, I’m demoting myself back to the minor leagues.”

He realizes how angry he sounds only because of how comparatively quiet Cas falls. Dean sneaks sideways glances and sees him folds his hands on his lap, and then he bows his head for a very long time. If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d almost think that Cas was praying—but he hopes that Cas has better common sense than that, so maybe it just makes Dean sorry to see him disappoint himself in fruitless pursuits for an absent father. Been there, done that.

“You’re right,” Cas says, and Dean looks at him again in surprise. “You’ve paid your debts, Dean, more than what you owed. If you want this...I cannot begrudge you retirement. I will not.”

“Well, I didn’t say anything about retirement,” Dean says. “I can still do these kinds of jobs, Cas. I want to keep doing it. It keeps me sharp.”

“I understand, Dean,” he says fervently. “I won’t ask you for any more help.”

“What?”

“What?” Cas echoes, less angry than he. “I’ll leave you out of my affairs. That’s what you just said that you wanted.”

“I’m not letting you launch this massive kamikaze shot on your own,” Dean says. “No way, fuck that noise. I’m helping you finish this.”

"But what about your demotion?”

“That comes after Raphael stops trying to smite your ass.” Dean looks him over. “I’ve grown kind of fond of it.”

Cas nods thoughtfully to this. He turns the radio a little bit louder, and Dean cranks down a window to breathe in the fresh air as they cross the invisible line into his part of the city. The wind must do something funky to his hair, because a moment later he feels Cas touch the back of his head. Dean goes still for a fraction of a second: and then he closes his eyes, and Cas’s fingers stretch out and run through the hair just above his neck.

“Thank you, Dean,” he says, brushing it down flatter. Dean doesn’t turn to look but he can feel Cas’s steady gaze intent on the side of his face. “I suppose we should get a move on with it, then. So we can get you out of the game for good.”

Dean sneaks a look at him.

“Yeah.”

Cas’s hand stays in his hair for a time, and then it drifts to his shoulder. After awhile he folds it back in his lap, but Dean feels the phantom weight of it brushing across his skull the whole rest of the drive home.

The property is dark when they arrive. Cas disappears from the car as soon as Dean puts it in park, and a second later the lights flip on in the house. Dean rolls his eyes and follows in after him.

Cas takes one look at him in the kitchen—raises his eyebrows—and blips out again. Then the TV turns on in the bedroom, loud.

“Oh what is this, some messed up scavenger hunt?” Dean calls, spreading his arms.

Cas’s laughter is the only thing more robust than his silence.

Dean makes Cas wait while he reheats some leftovers, showers and gets ready for bed. He puts on a pair of sweats he’s seen Cas lounge around in now and again. He’s got good taste: It’s the most comfy pair Dean owns.

They get through the rest of Kurt Russell’s reel that night, the remainder of the decent picks that Cas hasn’t yet seen. They both lay with their legs splayed, and as Dean tires more, he slumps further down the bed and lays his head on Cas’s shoulder, his eyelids heavy. Cas’s cheek nudges the top of his head every now and then when he talks.

Dean tires as they’re finishing a third movie. It’s very late by now, and he’s yawning every couple of minutes. Dean shuts the TV when the credits roll, patting Cas’s thigh as he gets up.

“Alright, I am beat .” A huge yawn cracks through him at just the right moment. “We can get started on Harrison Ford tomorrow. Can you get the light in the kitchen? I forgot to turn it off.”

When he gets back from the bathroom, Cas is sitting cross-legged by his pillow in a green t-shirt covered by one of Dean’s softer flannels.

“Hello, Dean,” he says, nodding minutely. “The kitchen light has been dealt with.”

“Dealt with?” he echoes. “It’s not a demon, Cas, it’s a light switch.”

Cas is giving him that look again. That What in God’s name are you trying to say? look. Dean shakes his head and climbs into the empty side of the bed, touching the bedside lamp to turn it off. He expects Cas to disappear now, or at least go to the other room and entertain himself all night. Instead, he hears clothes rustling together. The other side of the mattress shifts. A gentle touch lands on his left shoulder.

Dean starts to turn over, but the grip tightens as Cas uses it to leverage himself down to the bed, too. Dean can feel him, still half-propped like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to relax. The touch loosens, and without thinking, Dean claps his hand over Cas’s on his arm before he can move too far away.

Cas eases further down the bed so they’re level, now. Dean forcibly blows out the breath he’s been holding and shifts back just slightly on the mattress. It’s hardly even an open door but it sends Dean’s heart hammering in his chest anyway—he realizes his eyes are open now, darting all over the wall he’s facing in the dark. Jesus Christ, is it supposed to feel like this? It was so easy the few other times he’s tried, with Cassie, with Carmen in that one djinn dream. Now his body feels like it’s on fire, and Dean makes himself move another inch. He’s done way more debasing, vulnerable and sexual things: Trying shouldn’t burn so badly in comparison.

And then, like always, Cas takes the inch Dean can stomach extending and gives him back a mile. He settles in behind Dean, over the blankets, back partially to chest; and Dean touches his hand another second before he gets comfortable again.

For a rare change, that night Dean doesn’t dream at all. It’s not concrete evidence, but it’s a damn good start.

The morning dawns bright and warm, perhaps because of the thick blanket he’s been hauling around since the shed and maybe because of the passenger in his bed. Cas has rolled off of him, though he’s still lying close and...using Dean’s phone.

Dean sits up.

“What are you doing? Are you snooping on my—?”

“I’m playing Snake,” Cas says without looking up. “Your internet was very slow on the computer.”

“I...haven’t boosted the router yet,” he says dazedly, still not quite awake enough to comprehend what’s happening. Half-sarcastic, he adds, “I’ll put it on my to-do list.”

“Good. You should do that,” Cas says sincerely.

“OK. Great.” Rolling his eyes, Dean throws the covers off. “I’m making eggs. Do you want any?”

“I don’t need to eat, Dean,” Cas reminds him in a voice that’s half-bored, half-aggrieved with this conversation.

Dean does not deign to answer. He puts coffee on too, enough for two since Cas likes the taste when it’s got a little caramel in it. He doesn’t have the gas hooked up so it’s hotplate eggs and half-burnt toast again (never steal a toaster from a roadside motel), but he happens to have jam he took from the ‘continental breakfast.’ Cas must have gotten good at Snake over the long night, because it takes him awhile to follow Dean out to the kitchen.

“I’m thinking we go to this nature walk I read about, up north,” Dean says. “It’s a three hour drive, but it’s early, right? If we leave in, say, an hour—”

“I can’t go to a national park, Dean. I have to check back in.” He reaches out to steal a bit of Dean’s toast like this is an acceptable thing to do. Dean, frowning at him, yanks his plate out of reach. “What?”

“You can’t check back in, dumbass,” he says indignantly. “You’ve just been stabbed! Like, a lot stabbed.”

“It’s my duty to—”

“Don’t ‘my duty’ me,” Dean snaps. “I hate that shit. Look, we don’t have to go to the mountains, alright, but you’re staying here. We’ll...play cards or something, and have a little more of that whiskey. But you are not going back to fight their war until you’ve healed back to perfect.”

Cas puts up his hands. “Alright, relax. You win.”

Dean convinces (or possibly commands depending on what angle you look at it) Cas to stay there for five days, even when Dean has to go to work. On the sixth day he loses the battle, and finds Cas already in the kitchen when he wakes up, dressed in that ugly puffy vest and belted jeans. He still doesn’t have any other casual shoes.

“I’m fine,” he says for the millionth time. “Look!”

He yanks his shirt to the side and, sure enough, the once-deep wounds are just pink scars now. He’s healing slower than usual.

“They don’t need you,” Dean says. “You were gonna help me wall off the living room today.”

“It’s time,” he says, this time with a frustrated edge to this voice. He paces away across the kitchen, then turns abruptly. “I’ll be back as soon as I know things are still in order.”

“So you have some other plan to find the Alphas?” Dean demands.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Cas gets closer to him again, and this time, he brushes his hand against Dean’s cheek. It makes Dean freeze, neither pushing away nor leaning in. Cas gives him this complicated smile. “But you don’t have to worry about it.”

Dean snorts.

“I’ll get right on that,” he says, but it’s in his stare, the way he finally relents: Cas relaxes, his hand dropping to Dean’s shoulder. “You know me.”

He doesn’t think about it, how he leans in and knocks their foreheads together. He can’t decide if Cas looking at him is creepier or just more intense up close, crowding some feeling into a knot around his heart and yanking tight.

“I’ll be back soon,” Cas promises.

In the meantime, Dean’s house blooms. It gets its first coat of paint a little under a month later; it’s a dark, respectable stain that Dean thinks gives it a lot of character. He hustles pool for the money to trick out his router like he promised Cas, and those earnings leave a little bit left over for furniture too. A decent paycheck plus bar scams is still not particularly sufficient to cover all of his renovations, but he’s making progress piece by piece.

In the warm afternoon heat, Dean strips down to a grey undershirt and hauls the large glass pane into place. It’s heavy without an extra set of hands but sweat’s been blooming along his hairline for hours already, so Dean barely notices the discomfort at this point. The sun stripes through the living room windows, freshly installed, and paints him all over with searing hellfire and fresh energy. If he can finish the living room today, he’ll be nearly done with the structural part of building. All that’ll be left is more wiring, furniture and paint.

He’s just getting the last of the glass affixed to the framing when Cas startles him with his usual greeting.

“Jesus,” Dean says, spinning around.

Cas is standing by the opposite wall in his puffy vest and jeans that actually fit, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“Close relation,” he says wryly, coming closer.

“Ha, ha.”

Dean wipes his forehead and goes for the cooler, which—Cas is already reaching into, pulling up a water bottle from the icy depths and tossing it across the room for him to chug, gratefully.

“Any news from the battlefront?” Dean asks.

Cas tips his head. “We’re nearing our endgame.”

“Great. So same old, same old.” Dean jerks his head. “Come help me with the porchlight while you’re filling me in.”

“So we’re done gathering all the ingredients, but there’s still the matter of timing,” Cas is telling him, and Dean glances down the ladder to where Cas is holding the bottom steady, “and in the meantime Hannah’s leveraging a series of attacks to subdue the outer circles of their main base of operations.”

“Oh. Awesome.”

He focuses more closely on screwing in the light. Cas helps him down with a hand on his elbow when he’s done, and Dean hauls the ladder over to install the lights along the front lawn that will go on automatically when they detect motion. They go down the row together, shuffling the ladder along the line.

“They won’t need me for another couple of days at least,” Cas says as Dean’s putting in the last one. “I don’t know if you had any plans…”

“Nope. No plans,” he says. “So if you can fit me into your busy schedule…”

“I don’t think of it like that,” Cas says, tilting his head. “Making time for you matters. You’re important to me, Dean.”

This gives him pause, though only for a moment. Then Dean shakes his head and turns away.

“You’re such a hypocrite, you know that?”

“Excuse me?”

“You come down here, and you—you tell me that most of the time, you wanna be here. With me,” says Dean. “But then you keep running off to play soldier again—”

“I’m not playing, Dean,” Cas says, stepping dangerously closer. “They’re my family.”

“Yeah? Then what am I?”

Cas actually pauses and looks him over. Fuck, Cas doesn’t need Superman x-ray vision: That piercing, unwavering gaze feels like it goes right through Dean without even trying. He studies Dean like he’s stripping him back to the flayed soul he found in a Kansas hole in the ground, except—Except Cas never looks at him like he’s a red, bloody thing. That’s the part that Dean doesn’t understand.

“You know, I don’t understand you,” Dean says, shaking his head at the floor. Cas acts like he sees him, but how can he? The things he says just don’t match up. How can somebody rebuild you from the bare bones up and still look at you like he’s seeing some goodness? A righteousness that you know doesn’t have a place between your ribs?

“That makes two of us,” Cas sneers.

“Excuse me?”

“You tell me that you want to spend more time together, and how upset you get when I go away,” Cas says.

Dean flinches. “Don’t put it like that,” he complains.

Cas plows on as though he doesn’t hear him.

“Yet when I try to make time for you, you get mad,” Cas finishes.

“Well I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience to you,” Dean sneers. “Taking time out of your precious schedule—”

“I never said that you were inconvenient, Dean!”

“No, you would just rather spend all your time running headlong into Heavenly firing squads!”

“Why are you so hellbent on disbelieving me?” Cas demands.

He steps closer in one fluid motion, and it’s enough to box Dean in against the side of the house. Dean glances at his face and then away, scowling. Cas tips his head in just such a way to press even further into Dean’s headspace.

“You think I’m lying to you?” Cas guesses. “Or...you think I want to be in Heaven, for any stretch of time?”

Dean won’t look at him. Both of Cas’s hands are on his shoulders, keeping him slumped against the house.

“I don’t, Dean,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “Not anymore. Not for one second. When I chose free will…”

“Just—Stop!” Dean shouts—louder than he means to, but he feels so boxed in here, and he pushes Cas back with both hands on his chest and paces away from him on that big green lawn.

“Dean,” he says, and Dean thinks that only Cas can say his name like this: Like an admonishment and warning and so, so heartbroken at the same time.

“It’s not easy for me like it is for you!” Dean bursts, spinning around to face him. “I don’t...I don’t know how to do this. With you.”

“You think,” Cas says in a voice like crackling lightning, “that this is easy for me?”

Sometimes Cas is so very much—just, his Cas . It’s easy to forget that up until two years ago he was just a gun for the angels’ war. Holy shotgun who let Dean hitch a ride out of the pit just because somebody with a worse attitude told him to do it. But as Cas stalks closer so they’re nose to nose, it’s impossible to forget. Cas’s inhumanness ripples out of him like he’s a live wire, which makes Dean some poor son of a bitch about five seconds from landing himself in the hospital.

“I just…” Dean swipes a hand over his face. “I don’t know what you want from me. I can’t…”

“You can’t ? You can’t?” Too quick to step away, Cas grabs him by the shirt and yanks him close. He’s practically growling when he says, “Up until I met you, I spent millennia doing what I was told. Believing I was better than humanity; that what I was doing was for the greater good. And then I pulled you out of Hell…” His eyes dart to Dean’s face and away. “I began to question—”

“Your loyalties, yeah. Yeah.” Dean rolls his eyes and hopes it covers how fast his heart has started to hammer. He tries to pry Cas’s fingers off his shirt, to no avail.

“No,” says Cas. “Well—yes. But I began to...feel things…”

“You told me,” Dean reminds him. This time when he tries to loosen Cas’s grip on his shirt, Cas lets him pull free. But his hands linger, covering Cas’s, for a few precious seconds. “You’re becoming human.”

“It’s not just that,” Cas says. Even though Dean ripped free of his hold, he’s standing too close. Dean can see every micromovement of his eyes darting between each of Dean’s. “I’ve done what I was told from the dawn of creation. But then I met you, and I had to be...realigned.”

Dean’s throat is suddenly very, very dry.

“Realigned?” he repeats, because it’s better than the other word he can feel sticking in the back of his throat.

“It didn’t take,” Cas says quietly, looking at the grass. “Maybe for a moment…but then you called out for my help again, and it’s like I fell even quicker than I had before. Like they only had a tenuous hold over me, but you broke through…”

“ I broke through it?” Dean asks. “What the hell did I do?”

Cas glances up with a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Jesus, this guy’s mood swings. Dean’s going to prematurely gray. Fuck the Apocalypse; that was childs’ play compared to knowing Castiel. Ask any angel in Heaven, Dean’s sure they’d all agree.

“I know how you see yourself, Dean,” he says quietly. “You think you’re….destructive, and you’re angry and you’re broken. You think hate and anger, that’s what drives you, that’s who you are. But it’s not.” He reaches out and touches Dean’s shoulder, and Dean’s too shocked to pull away fast enough. “You’re selfless, Dean. You’re the most caring...You’re the most selfless and loving human being I have ever known. And I’ve watched the Earth grow and change since the first man grew legs to walk it.”

“Cas…”

“And then I met you. And for the first time,” he says as though he can’t hear Dean at all, “I began to care too. About the world, sure…but also about you. Because I met you, you changed me...For the first time, I had the capacity to care.”

“So what?” Dean asks, trying for levity; he chokes out a laugh, dry and bare and blatant once it’s out in the open. “You just defaulted to the first guy you saw? Like a duck?”

Cas frowns.

“I’m not a duck, Dean,” he says, pulling his hand off of Dean’s shoulder. He squints at the ground for a long moment as though gathering his thoughts; and when he looks back at Dean, it’s hard and unyielding as the stone Dean once thought that angels were made of. He watches Cas shake off the clay with clear, earnest eyes.  “You taught me what love was . Is it really so incomprehensible that I would fall in love with you? Don’t insult me. It’s because of who you are , not because I don’t know any better.”

Dean can’t breathe. He can feel it all in a ball of wind in his throat. Cas is half-furious, half-open: So much contained in such a big, blue stare. Dean swallows hard and tries to think of something to say, but there’s nothing in his head except Cas’s face. Cas’s open, serious face. The only lifeline Dean has left…

He used to think that made it...not real, somehow. He defaulted to Cas because Cas was there , and the only relic from the life he’d always known that he could still reliably grab onto without catapulting at fifty miles an hour down the road of bad memories. Cas—stubborn, persistent Castiel, who refused to back down and get out of his life the way Dean pushed away everybody else he knew before . Before the Stull Cemetery, before Sam.

“You told me once,” Dean says, hearing his own breathing picking up, “that good things do happen. Sometimes.”

Cas’s eyes are steady and sure. Stormy, but resolute.

“I love you,” Cas says.

Before he can think himself out of it, Dean takes the sides of his face in either hand—he’s still standing close enough that he barely has to reach out—brings Cas close, and kisses him. Cas is warm and resolute against him, his mouth firm, his hands grasping. He keeps stroking the sides of Dean’s face, leaning all of his weight into him and touching him the way Dean imagines he did the first time Cas put him back together: Reverent, greedy, sure.

Dean breaks away first, half-gasping against his mouth when he leans his forehead against Cas’s, and his eyes are open, and it should make him want to back away but it doesn’t. Instead Dean strokes his thumb just beneath Cas’s ear and feels him smooth his own down the front of Dean’s t-shirt.

“I didn’t know you could...”

“Shhh.”

It takes a long time, with the sun beating down on them, before either one of them move. Eventually Cas rubs his hand along the back of Dean’s neck.

“You’re going to burn,” he murmurs.

Dean moves back and slowly opens his eyes. Cas is watching him with a patient, blank expression.

“You can’t…” Dean stops. He licks his lips and tries again. “You can’t just say that and then go right back to ditching me.”

“I won’t,” Cas promises. “I can stay here, not just visit. I’ll check in there regularly, of course—”

“But this will be your home base,” Dean says thoughtfully, testing out the words. Cas dropping by there for hours at a time and then coming home, instead of the other way around. “Yeah, OK. Let’s try it out.”

Cas doesn’t smile often, but Dean’s really glad when he does.

Dean leans against the driver’s side door and tilts his face up toward the sun.

“No, we’re heading out soon,” Dean says. “It’s about a two and a half hour drive—Lisa, who do you think you’re talking to? Yeah, Cas is glued to the weather report every morning. I know…”

“OK, OK, I’ll stop giving you trouble,” Lisa laughs, warm and familiar in his ear. “Give Castiel my love too.”

“You met him once, Lis.”

“And whose fault is that?” she asks. “You talk about him often enough. When are you guys going to come back to Cicero and visit?”

Dean sucks in a breath. “Ah, you know how busy I am…”

“Ben’s got a really important soccer game this weekend,” Lisa says, brighter. “Maybe you guys could come down and see it?”

The front door opens just then, and Cas squints back into the house as he shuts the door, then up at the sky, then to Dean. Cas tilts his head, and Dean gives him a thumbs up.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” he promises. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you soon...Yeah. Yeah. I’ll let you know about Saturday. OK. Bye, Lisa.”

Cas comes over and sets his weight against the hood next to him.

“How’s Lisa?” he asks.

“Great.” Dean claps his shoulder, and then he hesitates. His palm drifts to cradle Cas’s cheek: This is all still very new to him. “Ready to go?”

“Very ready,” Cas declares. And like it’s nothing, he steps closer and kisses Dean softly under the morning sun.

Cas is wearing his THIS VIEW WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY ALMIGHTY GOD! shirt again, a tee that’s evidently becoming a favorite of his, along with one that made Dean double up laughing in the store because it shows two beer mugs snapping pencils and the words “education is important, but cold beer’s importanter!” arching overhead. Dean can’t decide if the view makes him want to laugh or kiss him again, so he does both, smiling as he brings Cas back close.

They reverse out of the lot minutes later, after they’re done arguing about which playlist to put on for the long ride. Cas’s hand settles in its new favorite place at the back of Dean’s neck.

It’s a long drive, even with Dean’s tendency to push the speed limit, but it’s worth it to see the look on Cas’s face when they finally see Indiana Dunes National Park cresting over the horizon. Cas leans toward the front windshield, hungrily drinking in the view.

Dean never really understood exercise for exercise’s sake, but Cas was so damn excited when Dean brought up hiking that he didn’t have it in him to renege. It’s an increasingly tempting concept as he watches Cas fasten a fanny pack that he’s stuffed with granola bars for Dean and buy water from a cart at the entrance.

“Jesus Christ, just throw me back in Hell already,” Dean mutters, while Cas nods at a family passing on the trail. This incline is insane. Give him a few rounds with a demon any day over this.

Except—Cas reaches a hand out to pull Dean up the last part of the hill, and then a gorgeous panoramic view spills across the horizon below. Cas’s hand is warm and firm in his own, swinging like a breeze at their waists.

After they finish the five mile round trail, Cas finds a bar with a good wings special with his free hand while the other traps Dean’s over the gearshift. Dean downs three rum and cokes while he’s eating, and then they hit the remainder of the road.

They get home around ten. The house is warm with one of the high windows open, so Dean shuts it and turns on the air. Cas reorders the kitchen in silence without being asked; he gets this focused look on his face when he does menial tasks, and he told Dean once that he most marvels at the smallest aspects of life. Cleaning, cooking, watching the bees. Talking to Dean, maybe, falls into that same category. Dean watches him unload his new dishwasher for a minute or so before dispatching himself to get ready for bed.

Cas is, as usual, there when he returns to his room— their room four or five days out of the week. Now Cas sits beneath the blankets, not on top of it, but otherwise it’s the same sight as usual: smile warm, TV on and the space closest to the door left empty for him.

“What movie are we watching tonight?” he asks.

Cas frowns at the TV guide. “I’m not sure yet. What is Brokeback Mountain about?”

He resolves to put Cas on a classic horror flick marathon next and settles in. Afterwards Cas steals his phone to play Snake and probably text with this woman he met on the Internet (no matter how much Dean tries to impress on him that he shouldn’t trust strangers that he meets online, Cas is adamant that he’s simply making friends and anyway, no old creep stands a chance against an angel of the lord. Although Dean doesn’t like it any better, this is a very difficult point to refute). Dean curls up on his half of the bed, listening to the clicking of keys beneath Cas’s thumbs and the sound of cicadas on the lawn outside.

Dean opens his eyes in the dark. He’s walking, although he doesn’t know where. There’s just a deep yearning sense within that propels him further along this invisible path. Then, in the distance, he hears a woman calling. No, he realizes as he gets closer, not calling: Screaming . 

Dean breaks out first in a jog toward the sound of her voice, and then a run. He still can’t see, and he’s tripping over his feet, but the woman’s plea is loud and unbroken and it’s impossible to deviate off-course no matter how many times he stumbles. The closer he runs full-tilt in her direction, the high-pitched shout gets clearer and clearer, until it coalesces into a distinct yell. Subconsciously Dean recognizes that the words are staggered, that she’s saying something, it’s not all nonsense; but when he tries to focus, he can’t make anything out.

Then Anna Milton’s face looms suddenly out of the dark. She appears so suddenly that Dean sways, pulling up short.

“Dean Winchester,” she says, clear and precise and right in his face, “is saved.”

And Dean sits upright in his bed, breathing hard in the silent small hours. Then Cas is beside him, shaking at his shoulder.

“Dean. Dean ,” Cas implores. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m…” Dean shakes his head. “It wasn’t...I wasn’t even having a bad dream.”

“Well what happened?”

“I was running...I saw Anna —-”

“Shh, shh.”

Cas arms slide around him, one over his shoulder, the other on his waist. He feels Cas kiss his shoulder, nuzzle his forehead into his back.

“Cas…”

“It’s OK, Dean,” he murmurs, nose brushing, meandering up toward Dean’s neck. “You’re OK, you’re awake now. You’re here with me.”

Dean sways further into his arms, and Cas pauses for a fraction of a second. Then he squeezes Dean tighter, and presses another deliberate kiss just behind his collarbone. Cas’s first two fingers find his chin, and he turns Dean’s face toward him, leaning in, mouth just hovering near; and it’s Dean who reaches to grab the side of his neck and pull him in the rest of the way.

Dean murmurs his name as he lowers them both down to the bed. Cas curls closer, nose nudging his, crowding into his space. Dean’s hands find the warm skin beneath his thin t-shirt, the solid muscles there. He just feels at first: Touching, caressing, and then his hands spread out and he uses the grip to pull Cas closer. His mouth opens beneath Dean’s with a gasp.

“I...have fallen,” Cas whispers as Dean’s kissing down his jaw, down his neck. His hands slide, pushing up Cas’s t-shirt. “In... every way imaginable…”

It is warm and stuffy underneath their sheets, and Cas is a heavy, clinging weight beside him, on beneath him, on top of him...Dean has rarely done this before, but Cas makes it easy for him: All he has to do is follow the sweet sound of his voice and the encouraging twists of his body, and Dean’s already got a two year head start on that.

Dean is developing an extremely strong dependency on his morning routine. He was never one for a set schedule, because he tends to get bored without enough variety, but Dean is quickly becoming accustomed to this: Waking up to find Cas in the kitchen, sometimes shirtless, sometimes dressed even less, and sometimes cozy in a bathrobe Dean found at Bed Bath & Beyond which has caused a minor but ongoing tiff between them about who gets to lay claim to it.

Dean warmly kisses him good morning and fixes them coffee while Cas finishes up breakfast. Dean had to convince him that just because Cas liked the smell of toast didn’t mean that Dean wanted to eat toast every single morning for the rest of his life, so they were on a trial basis with Cas branching out his culinary attempts.

He’s not a good cook, that's the thing of it. Most of the time Dean wakes up because something starts burning. Cas isn’t allowed on lunch or dinner duty; he’s mostly allowed to experiment in the mornings because it’s Dean’s least favorite meal of the day, unless there’s bacon. Cas often makes bacon.

The UPS guy dropped off a new couch this morning. They’ve already argued about moving the TV into the living room now that it’s finished—argued about it a shitload of times.

“What the hell else am I supposed to do before bed?” Dean demanded.

That made Cas smile, and his hands landed on the tie Dean was wearing. Classic fake-reporter getup for an akurra case they worked last week near the northern state border.

“In your words,” Cas said, twisting the tie around his fingers and using it to pull him closer. “I believe we can find something to pass the time…”

“Yeah, and what about when you’re gone?” Dean said, although he let Cas back him up against the car door.

“Dean, stop talking.”

Now, because Cas has a newfound ability for winning minor arguments, they bring the couch in from the driveway and set it up in the living room, across from the TV they hauled out here. Cas found a wooden coffee table inset with glass which they set up between the couch and TV, and now Dean sets two beers on it and sits down underneath Cas’s arm.

“Are you ready to rumble?”

Cas frowns at him. “Um. No.”

“Just...watch a sport for once in your life,” Dean sighs.

He cannot believe he let this guy live in his house without ever watching a wrestling match. He wants to take him to watch a real one someday, maybe when Gunner Lawless is back in the nearby circuits. Cas should only see the best of the best. But at least Dean can pop his cherry with some classic reruns.

Cas enjoys sports. Although Dean strongly suspects that he chose his favorite wrestler based mostly on costume and gravitas, and he refuses to change his mind regardless of how determinedly Dean tries to sway him to the contrary, it’s funny to watch Cas comment on the match in that grave voice of his. Dean shouts and swings his arms when he cheers on his player, but Cas just brushes his lips against Dean’s temple and says, “I’m glad I chose The Mountain as my preferred wrestler.” Sometimes he shouts or groans when the guy Dean’s backing pulls off a spectacular move.

There’s a commercial break when Cas sits up suddenly, and Dean’s very comfortable cushion slips out from beneath his head. Dean looks up at him.

“What?”

“It’s the angels,” Cas says. “It’s time.”

Ice spikes through Dean’s stomach. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Cas can win, but he doesn’t like the thought of Cas going off and losing his humanity, either. The weapon is just going to suck it right up, and who will Cas be then? Will he be the cold angel that yanked Dean off the rack? Maybe the distant seraph who abandoned him in Cicero for months on end as payment for the worst afternoon of Dean’s life?

Dean sits up so they’re eye to eye when he reaches out and caresses Cas’s cheek, his thumb running along the bone. Cas touches his arm.

“OK,” Dean says when he’s looked his fill. “Let’s go.”

Here’s the part that Cas was fighting so fiercely against: Dean swallows a bottle of sleeping pills and lays down on their bed with his arms splayed out. Cas sits by his side while Dean’s falling asleep.

This time, when he gets to Heaven, he follows the road with Cas’s voice flickering on the radio again but it goes smoother without anyone on his tail. He takes a hard left when Cas says he’s come to the appropriate turnoff and Cas knows, then, where to find him: He appears in that holy tax accountant getup and takes Dean’s elbow, and then they’re out of Dean’s personal Heaven and over in corporate instead. In Cas’s line of work, corporate is a dense forest with a deep fog encroaching in from all sides of the encampment where Cas has brought them right inside the inner limits. In the distance, a mansion lit up dark purples and blues rises up out of the fog.

“We’re just outside Raphael’s home base. We have moles,” Cas says. He takes Dean’s hand and leads him around a few different tents that are all lit up golden from the inside-out. Dean is too startled to do anything but let it happen. “This is going to be the best angle of attack. It’s good to be as close as possible for when we perform the spell.”

Cas drops his hand as he leads the way into what must be the head honchos’ tent. There’s a map spread out on a table with tacks clustered by color, which six angels are surrounding and talking in low, urgent voices, with Hannah recognizable among them. Cas comes to stand at a space at the head of the table.

“Good evening,” he says, inclining his head at everybody.

Several of the angels are scowling, and a few have their arms crossed.

“What did you bring the human here for?” one asks.

“Buddy, just try to keep me out of a good bomb-making group project,” Dean laughs, shaking his head. Then he looks around at them all and sobers. “Look, where he goes, I go. I’m not letting Cas get half-dead for a blood spell without somebody around watching his back.”

“Castiel has us,” Hannah intones.

Dean snorts. He crosses his arms and looks away.

“Let’s just do the spell,” Cas says, glancing between the both of them.

The angels have a range of artifacts on the table, from a long golden blade that Dean suspects used to live in a sewing box to a bone about the size of Dean’s hand—but it’s a funky blue color, not human. Cas looks around at the table, takes a deep breath and reaches for the blade.

Dean’s never seen advanced spellwork up close. He’s never seen anyone work magic like this: He’s not sure what he expected, since most of the witches he’s tangled with play with low-level party tricks. But Cas slices through the palm of his hand. All together, the angels begin to chant.

At the same time, the ground starts shaking. Dean’s eyes shoot there, then to the roof as lightning crackles.

“Tell me you put up defenses on this place,” Dean says, but the angels don’t answer: They just keep chanting. Dean grabs Cas’s shoulder. “Cas, tell me what warding to check!”

Cas rips his shoulder free. His hand is still bleeding into the bowl.

“Cas!”

Nothing. A frustrated growl ripping from his chest, Dean claws his way out of the tent and grabs the first angel he sees, some scrawny little goof. He yanks him in by the front of his shirt and glares, nose to nose with the kid.

“Tell me what I gotta do to lock this place down,” Dean snarls.

As they run, Dean snags two angel blades off a table that’s boasting a few other weapons Dean wouldn’t begin to know how to work but absolutely wants Cas to teach him to fire off. Raphael’s own turncoats are slipping out of hiding around camp, holding knives to angels’ necks. Dean slices two of them as he passes by and gets caught in a tussle with three others who close ranks around him. Dean disarms them with his two blades and cuts open their necks, then slips by before the last one even hits the floor.

The angel he’s following, Samandriel, guides Dean to the camp’s perimeter and points out the places he has to draw extra sigils in the dirt. He teaches Dean three basic symbols and sends him off to the left; Samandriel heads right, to meet him in the middle on the other side of camp.

The lightning strikes again, hitting a tree just beyond the perimeter in front of Dean’s face. He jumps back, landing ass-first in the dirt.

“Shit,” he mutters to himself, “shit, shit, shit—-”

One of Raphael’s goons jumps out before he lands on his feet. Dean snarls with renewed fervor, fueled by his fury at the interruption, and presses his opponent back to the perimeter in seconds. He stabs him three times just to be safe.

Dean draws as fast as he can without smudging the sigils beyond usefulness. When he reaches the second corner, he hears a scream ring out from the center of the encampment—where Cas’s boss tent is standing now.

Dean starts rushing his handiwork. The sky’s a veritable laser light show, crackling between purple and pink and cyan almost every other second. He spots Samandriel round the corner ahead; Dean scribbles a few more sigils and glances up at the angel again.

“Samandriel!” he shouts, when the anxiety starts spiking all the way to his hands and he can’t control his need to run anymore. “I have to go see what that was! Can you finish these sigils?”

“They’re already finding breaches!” Samandriel yells back. “They’re trying to break our warding completely!”

Dean grunts. But he doesn’t have a choice: He only pauses for a few seconds before he’s back scribbling into the dirt. Another scream rips through the camp, and then a different sound: Lower, just as loud as the first. This one seems to come from the bowels of the earth—or whatever it is they’re standing on.

He finally, mercifully, meets Samandriel in the middle. The angel barely touches his shoulder, muttering, “Go, Dean!” before Dean takes off running for the center of camp.

When Dean ducks inside, the room’s overflowing with blinding light. One angel is standing beside Cas, gripping his arm to keep him upright while he bleeds over the bowl and muttering their spell with him too. Everybody else has abandoned the table. They’re taking defensive blows, all facing the big bundle of light glowing sunshine-golden in the far corner of the room.

“How much longer?” Dean demands of Hannah, who’s nearest.

“Not long,” she says. “It’s working!”

“Wait is that—Raphael? What the hell are you doing to him?”

“We’re caging him,” Hannah says. “Go! You’re only getting in the way.”

“What, are you kidding me?”

Dean grabs Cas’s other side to help the woman supporting him, who looks like she’s straining after all this time. She glances at Dean’s face and starts muttering faster.

Then finally, Cas says, “Hael, now,” clenches his fist, and steps back while the woman throws a vial into the ingredient bowl. Cas tosses in the golden blade for good measure, and the light in the barn explodes.

Dean hits the floor with his hand still clenched in Cas’s trenchcoat. The room spins above his head, and then something smacks into him so hard that everything goes black for a couple of seconds: Dean tries to breathe, and fails. He’s sure he’s dead for five, ten seconds before he blinks and the tent’s ceiling swims into focus. His eyes burn as they adjust to the sudden darkness, to the sudden vision. Beside him, somebody’s stirring.

“Cas,” he says. “What happens if you die in Heaven?”

“Luckily, you don’t have to find out.”

Cas helps him to his feet and together they stumble over to lean against the table. He lays his hand on Dean’s cheek, and the new bruises he felt darkening from the crown of his head down to the base of his spine all heal at once under a burning blue glow. Dean clutches his sleeve, just drinking in his closeness. Man, he’s glad they’re alive.

Before Dean can do something about it, one of the angels watching them speaks up.

“Is this how you’ll be spending your retirement, Castiel? Playing doctor to this human?” he asks. Then he adds something else in a language Dean can’t understand, and turns away.

Whatever it is makes Hannah hiss at him and unsubtly step on his foot.

“What was that last part?” Dean says, tilting his ear up.

Cas is frowning.

“It’s Enochian. It means something...not very nice,” Cas tells him. He steps back so Dean can stand on his own weight, at a distance.

“Because their retirement plan is so much better?” Dean asks.

“We’re not retiring,” Hannah says, turning on Dean—accusatorily, he thinks.

“Neither am I,” Cas interrupts with an edge.

“Close enough,” Dean and Hannah say at the same time. They whip around to glare at each other; Cas, for his part, scowls.

“Don’t get all up in his business, sister,” Dean says. “It’s better than you guys picking pointless fights for all of eternity because you don’t have anything else to do.”

“Our work is not meaningless,” Hannah snaps.

“You—”

“Dean,” Cas says. “Go wait outside.”

“You’re not the boss of me!”

“You are acting like an ill-mannered child.” Cas holds his gaze. In a gentler voice, he urges, “Dean. Go.”

Scowling, he does head outside.

“You are acting like an ill-mannered child,” he mutters in a low, mocking voice. He perks up when sees Samandriel pass. “Hey pipsqueak! Do you have any angelic food around here?”

“We’re angels, Dean, not savages.”

Cas’s business takes a long time. Dean eats, teaches Samandriel and three of his friends a gambling game, and goes back for seconds before he gets too bored and pokes his head into the top dogs’ tent.

“Are you almost done here, Cas?” Dean asks. “I’m getting antsy being away from my body for so long. What if the autopsy guy starts doing stuff to it?”

Cas nods, says something else to Hannah, and follows Dean out of the tent.

“You’re sure you’re good to go?” Dean asks.

“I’ll come back later,” Cas assures him. “They have a lot to set back in order first before I can be of any use.”

Cas grips him by the jacket and flies them home to Earth.

“So Raphael’s caged now?” Dean asks. “And the rest of his angels…”

“Dead, mostly. Our army will round up the remainder of the rebellious factions.”

“Huh. And here I thought you were all about rebellion.”

Under the dim reddish lights of the bar, Dean signals for another round of drinks. One of the pretty waitresses circling the floor grabs their empties for her tray. Cas nudges closer to him.

“When it’s for something worthwhile,” he says, voice pitched low.

Dean quirks one eyebrow at him and then leans down to sink another two balls in a row into the same corner pocket. Teaching Cas how to play pool is a slow-going affair. He hopes that, eventually, they can both hustle at the same time to double their rewards per night. Cas seems very determined to stay the freeloading trophy boyfriend.

Now he readies himself to take a shot, saying something about physics and certain angles. Dean silently moves Cas’s arm higher. Cas takes, and makes, his first shot all game.

“Hannah and the others should be able to handle most of that on their own,” Cas concludes.

“So what happens to you now?” Dean asks. He’s still holding onto Cas’s elbow as though worried that without it, he’ll fly away. As though he couldn’t if he wanted to anyway. “The human part of you’s been burnt out, right? So what, you’re a full-on angel again?”

Cas hesitates before he puts down his pool cue, and turns around in Dean’s arms. They’re standing so close that their noses are almost brushing. Cas grips the front of Dean’s jacket and pulls him in.

“Yes, the human part of me is gone. That’s true,” Cas murmurs—thoughtfully, he thinks. His big blue eyes find Dean’s and settle. His fingers clench even tighter. “But you showed me the path to righteousness before, Dean. I’m confident you can do it again.”

And while Dean’s mouth is open, floundering for a reply, Cas uses the hold he has on Dean’s jacket to yank him forward, and he melts into the kiss. Dean’s thumb strokes his cheek in steady, small circles.

“Magic spell or not,” he breathes, pressing their foreheads together, “you still seem like regular old Cas to me.”

Chapter Text

“You still have a go-bag,” Cas observes, watching Dean from the middle of their bedroom. Dean glances up from throwing the last few essentials into the duffle that he keeps stocked with his weapons roll in the closet. “Do you plan on picking up and leaving again sometime soon?”

“Don’t start a thing about this right now,” Dean pleads. “Have you seen my Swiss army knife?”

Cas rolls his eyes and grabs it from the end table on Dean’s side of the bed. He’s in a mood because Dean said they couldn’t stop at the World’s Largest Ball of Twine on their way, mostly because he’s already seen it a hundred thousand times, and no amount of alternative tourist traps or giving Cas some input on the playlist will appease him now. 

“Come on,” Dean wheedles, when he’s packed for him and Cas and still barely made a dent in Cas’s expression. “We’ll stop for snacks first thing. You can pick out whatever you want.”

Cas thinks this over.

“ Everything I want?” he asks.

Dean sighs. His wallet never fares well against Cas’s celestial appetite and petty revenge purchases.

“Fine,” he says. Cas brightens. “You need to get a job.”

“Why?”

The early autumn is chilly enough that his car isn’t baking in the sun, despite how long it’s sat out underneath it. Dean throws their stuff in the trunk and holds Cas’s door open for him, because he still looks smug and happy every time he slides into shotgun and Dean kind of likes seeing that up close.

He was worried that becoming a full-on angel again would make Cas ghost him or go cold again, but even if Cas is faking the feelings underneath it all, he sure likes their new principle of doing whatever they want, whenever they want. They’ve earned their free will, after all. As far as Dean can tell, Cas likes kissing. And baking. And tending to the garden he planted out back, and browsing nearby pet adoption websites (so far, Dean has not folded on his pleas to get a dog), and watching Dean work after he visits him for lunch sometimes, and arguing with him about what’s on the radio while they fly down the highway to the other side of the city. Dean wins this particular round and chooses the first mixtape they listen to, and despite his tangible, prickling irritation, Cas’s fingertips drum out the beat on Dean’s jeans when he reaches over to hold onto his knee.

The sun’s high when they pull into the lot backed up with pick-up trucks and big old semis; the transient nature of the bar isn’t lost on Dean but he opts to go in with his head held high—something he wishes Cas would do, but instead he’s hanging close by Dean’s side and turning his nose up at every sign he sees to indicate that nobody would miss any of these patrons if they were to go mysteriously missing in the dead of night. Dean throws open the doors to the bar.

“Benny!” he booms.

“Winchester!”

Benny’s arms come around him in a bear hug that’s so tight, he and Dean automatically sway to the left. Clapping Dean on the shoulder with one big hand when he pulls away, he shakes Cas’s with the other so enthusiastically that Cas looks a little bit alarmed. Ruffling up Cas’s hair in the back, Dean gestures them over to the booth he saw Benny in before. Cas doesn’t move over that much when he slides in, so Dean has to press up against him just to fit in the same side of the booth.

“What’s the news, brother?” Benny asks, sliding them both beers. A third is already sitting half-finished in front of him. “You don’t usually come up here strapped and loaded.”

He nods at Dean’s coat where he’s clearly clocked the gun in his inner pocket; Cas frowns, scanning him too to see what Benny’s looking at. Dean chuckles and tugs on his jacket to curtain the gun from view.

“We’re making a bit of a road trip,” Dean concedes. “I get antsy going out of state when I’m not packing any heat.”

“You bring several knives to the grocery store,” Cas points out, shaking his head, and it makes Benny laugh. No matter how much Dean wants to start bickering, he’s just happy that they’re getting along, so he leaves that one be.

“Alright, alright.”

“Where’s this little leave of absence taking you boys?” Benny asks.

“Up north to see a friend,” Dean says, glancing at Cas. “Then we’re detouring over to Kansas. Just for a day—we’re actually planning to spend the weekend in Sioux Falls before heading on back. It’s just a few days round trip.”

“That sounds like just the vacation you need,” Benny says wisely. “Every time you call, you seem to have some kind of work disaster on your hands.”

“Hey, better than the blood bag emergencies you keep ringing me up about,” Dean says. Benny gives him a sheepish grin.

“All the same, I’m glad you’re getting a little R & R,” Benny says. “Right, Castiel?”

“I doubt he’ll be doing much relaxing,” Cas says wryly. He hesitates, but then he does, eventually, share a smile with Benny. Dean’s so ecstatic that he buys them all a second round.

“I did hear about this thing from Jody that sounds like it could be a Mothman case—”

“Dean,” Cas warns him. “For the last time: There is no such thing as Mothman.”

Dean packs away a lot of bar food while Cas and Benny look on with not-so-sly glances of disgust, although since Benny is discretely drinking blood out of a flask, he doesn’t have much room to judge. He keeps turning away to sip it in the corner like it’s not really fucking weird for someone to be drinking out of a hip flask while they’re sitting in a bar.

After they eat, they stay and watch the game on TV and have more beer. They’re not expected in Cicero until it’s time for an early dinner, so Dean orders mid-afternoon nachos when happy hour rolls over them and even convinces Cas to get into them too. Human or something even better, you can’t go wrong with ground beef and melted cheese. Cas apparently has a massive liking for jalapenos.

“Your man really is something else, isn’t he?” Benny asks, watching Cas chug his nearly-full beer to the dregs without taking a single breath.

Dean shakes his head.

“You have no idea,” he says, equally engrossed.

Cas puts down the mug. “What?”

It’s starting to drizzle by the time Benny walks them out to the car just past four-thirty. At the back end of the Impala, Benny pulls Dean into a hug.

“I’m awful sorry about all this,” Benny grunts, low and close to his ear. “When you’re paying your respects, I’ll be over here pouring one out for him, too.”

Dean pulls back, but he holds Benny at arm’s length for a couple of seconds, just looking him over.

“I appreciate that. I really do,” Dean says.

“Good to see you again, brother,” Benny mumbles as he hugs Cas goodbye too. Cas pats him on the back with both hands, looking marginally less uncomfortable than usual.

The clouds are greying out the sky when they turn back onto the highway and leave Indianapolis in the rearview mirror. When Dean glances back at the edge of the parking lot, Benny’s already gone back inside.

When Lisa answers the door, a cannonball of shaggy black hair ducks underneath her arm and barrels into Dean’s chest at approximately ten miles an hour, strong enough to knock him back and nearly off the top step if Cas didn’t catch him with a subtle hand on the small of his back.

“Hiya, Ben.”

“Dean,” Ben says warmly, squeezing him tighter around the middle.

Dean pats his back and then Lisa is saying, “Alright, alright. My turn,” and taking Ben’s place in his arms. Ben and Cas nod awkwardly at each other. Cas shifts minutely closer to Dean’s side.

“It’s good to see you again, Cas,” Lisa tells him—quite earnestly, to her credit. “Come in, you guys, come in.”

Lisa has a tray of various drinks already set up in the living room. Dean picks up the whiskey decanter and pours himself a strong glass but Cas touches his wrist when he goes to put it down. He nods, and when Dean pours him some too, Cas grabs his forearm and lets the touch linger.

“Wow, Dean,” Lisa says, watching Cas down his whiskey in one swallow and pour himself a double. “You finally found someone who can drink as much as you do.”

“Cas is...special,” Dean offers. He touches Cas’s leg. “Not to mention being very rude right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas says, putting down his glass. He looks between Dean and Lisa. “Was I not supposed to chug it?”

Dean coughs. “No.”

“But when we were playing strip poker the other night—”

“Cas!”

“You were right, Dean, he is funny,” Ben says.

“We’ve met several times before,” Cas informs him. “I was at your soccer game two months ago.”

“He remembers,” Lisa stage-whispers, patting Cas’s knee. While he’s just looking at her, furrowing his brow, a loud beep goes off in the kitchen. Lisa brightens. “I hope you guys are hungry, I made a lot of meatloaf.”

“I’m starving,” Dean promises, relieved to break up this conversation.

“Me too,” Ben says.

For his part, the kid seems really psyched that Dean’s there at all. He sits right next to him at the table, edging out Castiel, who shoots Ben little glares while he’s sighing his way around to sit across from him instead. Dean nudges Cas’s foot when he sits down.

Lisa tells him about what’s new with her while they eat, and that keeps them busy for a good half of the meal. She asks him about the house, wants to see it in all its glory now that it’s finished up and painted, and he promises to have her over for drinks with the neighbors sometime after they get back. Dean helps her clean up the dishes afterwards, bumping elbows and sharing little smiles while Ben takes Cas back to the living room for a nightcap.

“Is he old enough to drink yet?” Dean asks. “Kid’s growing like a weed.”

“No, not yet,” says Lisa, laughing. She pauses. “Wait. You don’t think Cas would actually give him any alcohol?”

“No! No, no way. You got nothing to worry about,” Dean says. They look at each other. “Maybe we should go check on them.”

They drop the dirty dishes in the sink and trip over each other to get to their respective boys first. Dean rounds the corner with Lisa just on his heels, but then they both pull up short: Cas and Ben are sitting on opposite sides of the coffee table, playing some complicated game of cards that seems to require a lot of counting, if Cas mouthing numbers very obviously is any indication. They both look up when Dean and Lisa sway in the doorway together.

“What’s up, Mom?”

“Nothing. We just finished clearing the table,” Lisa says, smiling brightly. She tries to act natural when she eases into the room, not like they ran in to make sure that her weird friend’s awkward immortal boyfriend isn’t sharing any of his whiskey with her average teenage son. “What are you boys playing?”

She sits down next to Ben and peers down at his cards with him; Cas looks up at him and Dean relents, scooting up close to him on the couch.

“I don’t understand this game,” Cas says. “Why is this ace a losing move? Usually when we play, it’s a trump card.”

“Sometimes aces are low,” Dean explains, putting his arm around Cas’s shoulders and shifting nearer when he leans in. “Put down that one. Uh-huh, I’m sure.”

Despite Dean’s helpful suggestions, the kid kicks their ass—twice. Cas insisted on bringing a cake for the Braedens, which he didn’t take out of the box he bought it in, but Lisa looks genuinely happy when she cracks it open half an hour later for everybody to dig in. Cas took Dean’s hand sometime after Lisa put on Dean’s favorite record, but Dean shakes him off so he can give the cake his full attention. Unbothered, Cas strokes his hair instead like he does when they’re driving.

“It’s chocolate cake,” Dean confides in her. “Sorry. I told Cas you preferred lemon meringue.”

“This is more traditional,” Cas says. He frowns, now. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s delicious,” Lisa assures him, cutting Dean a glare. Under her breath, she adds, “There’s a freaking angel in my living room right now, feeding me dessert. Pretty much nothing could bring me down, OK?”

“Give him five minutes. He’ll have you believing miracles are curses,” Dean says.

“Coming from the man who has a crisis of faith every other day with an angel of the lord sharing his bed with him,” Cas says, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t say that!”

“I think you guys are sweet,” Ben pipes up. Dean makes a face, and Ben sticks his tongue out right back.

As soon as they finish dessert, Dean starts making his excuses. Cas, perhaps as punishment for Dean convincing him to wear a nice blazer for the occasion, hasn’t taken off his jacket the entire evening; but he does hold out Dean’s coat for him to shrug into at the door. Lisa’s frowning.

“Are you sure you can’t stay another hour?” Lisa says, glancing up at the night sky. “I think it’s supposed to rain soon.”

“We can’t. We’re already running behind, and if we want to reach Kansas before it gets dark tomorrow then we really gotta make headway tonight.”

“Oh. Of course,” Lisa says, glancing down and then back at his face. “I know we didn’t talk much about it tonight, Dean, but—Are you doing OK? With the one year anniversary and everything, I just want to make sure you’re in a good place.”

“I am, I...I’m good,” he says. “Look, Lisa...I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me this year. I don’t think I could have made it this far without you, so...thank you.”

Lisa presses her lips together, looking him over; then she shrugs off the door and envelopes him in a warm, tight hug. Dean’s startled at first, but then he wraps his arm around her back and squeezes her to his body. It goes on for longer than is perhaps customary at the end of a dinner party. Lisa smiles when she steps back and cups his cheek in one hand.

“Call me when you get back,” she says. “Maybe this time we can all go out for lunch.”

“That sounds great,” Dean says.

He drops to one knee to say goodbye to Ben, although he’s tall enough now that he’s heads above Dean from the floor. Dean hugs the kid to his chest, and whispers, “Call me if you need anything.”

“I will,” Ben says, squeezing him just as tight. “Dean.”

He holds Dean’s shoulders when he pulls away, making him look at him. Dean’s brows pull together.

“I’m really sorry about your brother,” Ben tells him. “We’ll be thinking about you tomorrow, all day. I mean it.”

Dean’s throat is suddenly clogged; trying vainly to swallow, he claps Ben’s shoulder, once, twice. He pushes himself to his feet and automatically sways into Cas’s space, who touches his arm. Then Lisa tells them to drive safe, and she holds Ben in her arms and watches them from the doorway all the way to the car.

When they climb in, Dean doesn’t immediately pull off the curb. Key in the ignition, they sit in the dark for a moment and listen to the radio playing on low. Dean looks at the steering wheel. Cas looks at Dean. He seems to know that Dean’s thoughts are especially loud, because after awhile of the same love song playing quietly on the radio, Cas cups his far cheek in one hand and coaxes him closer, and he presses his lips to Dean’s temple. He lingers there, sweet.

Dean catches his wrist as he’s pulling away, keeps Cas close enough that he can turn his head just so and kiss him for real. Cas leans his forehead against the side of Dean’s. He kisses his cheek and slides back into the passenger seat, and Dean shifts into drive.

Too tired to argue, Dean lets Cas choose a radio station and acquiesces to pop music that plays all the way through Champaign before he forces them to listen to something more bearable.

“You’re upset because you’re beginning to appreciate what Taylor Swift has to say,” Cas surmises, and won’t be dissuaded from this horrifying train of thought.

They stop off on the outskirts of Springfield at five minutes to midnight. It frustrates him to quit driving, especially because twelve hours used to be nothing to him and he should be comfortable going on all night, but there’s no point in traveling any further. He won’t be able to get in until six tomorrow anyway, and it’s getting late; the sooner he goes to sleep, the earlier they can leave in the morning.

But unsurprisingly, Dean can’t quite get there. Cas props his chin on Dean’s chest and tries alternatively to talk to him until he succeeds in drifting off and to stroke his arm until he’s sufficiently lulled into some kind of restorative state, even if it can’t be sleep. Dean just blinks at the ceiling in the dark for over an hour before he’s fed up.

Pushing Cas off of him, Dean gets up and unearths the booze out of the back of the fridge.

“Dean,” he says from the bed. Neon signs from the parking lot peek through the curtains and flicker across the sheets. Cas’s hair is all mussed on one side, comically so; and his eyes are wide. “That’s for tomorrow.”

“It’s to honor his memory, isn’t it?” Dean mutters, almost to himself. He throws back what’s left in the glass and splashes in more, a healthy amount this time. “I’m remembering. Besides, I’m pretty sure there’ll be liquor stores open tomorrow.”

Cas doesn’t protest again. Dean glowers into a corner and drinks, and after a second glass that burns in his stomach, Cas climbs out of bed and comes over to him.

At first, he just knocks his hip into the table and pushes his hand through Dean’s hair, stroking it gently. Then he leans down and kisses Dean on the cheek, warm—catches his face in both hands and finds his lips instead. He lets him go, pours Dean another glass of whiskey, and flicks on the ancient TV set over on the far wall.

“Mind if I join you?” Cas asks, appearing at his shoulder with an empty glass in hand.

By some coincidence, Cas found that show about the young, annoying medium that Dean passed out to many months ago in a similar-looking motel room, feeling very much like he does today. Dean grins into his drink when he sees what’s on. Cas doesn’t look at him, just watches the show with his face in that patented squint, looking as though he has a thousand and one criticisms in mind. Dean doesn’t say anything either, mostly watches Cas and pretends that he isn’t.

They go back to bed around four in the morning. Cas acts like he isn’t following Dean’s lead, so he waits a couple of minutes to shut off the TV as well as the lights. And Dean, who feels like he can’t protect anyone worthwhile most of the time, holds out his arms for Cas to curl into them on top of his chest.

Dean sleeps poorly, but at least he finally sleeps. Even though Cas doesn’t, Dean finds him nearly identical to how he left him last night, lying on Dean’s chest with his face close and blank. Cas keeps watching him for a long time after he wakes up, running his finger down Dean’s cheek.

“Good morning, Dean,” he says quietly.

They leave a few minutes before nine. In the interest of establishing a new socialist Heaven, Cas disappears when they’re midway through Missouri all the way until he’s riding Baby through Kansas City. Dean doesn’t realize he’s tense with nerves until Cas reappears in the passenger seat and he can relax again; when he shoots a glare that way, Cas squeezes his hand.

The graveyard is still when they pull up to the gates. The grass is just as prickly and half-dead as Dean remembers, and the wind is blowing between the gravestones with a low whistle. Dean shuts the car and squints into the pale middle-distance for a long time, trying to find his nerve—although maybe bravado would be a more useful fit.

One year ago when Dean stood here on this spot, it was sunny. The warmth glinted off the windows of the car so Sam almost didn’t see himself in the reflection. For moments, when Dean squinted up with his eyes swollen, that brightness was all that he could see, touching all across the earth like one last, great cosmic joke. But today it’s cold, windy and feels as though it’s going to rain. The sky is an off-blue layer of clouds.

It’s fitting, Dean thinks. He hopes that when the sky inevitably opens up, the hurricane soaks him to the bone. He hopes it’s chilly, he hopes it’s torrential. It’s not even a fraction of what Sam’s been through since Dean let him jump one year ago to the day.

Dean puts his hands in his pockets. Cas is watching him, he can feel it—and from about six inches away too, Dean wants to shoo him away on the wind. But if Cas goes now, he won’t be around to sober drive Dean home later. Plus he needs a sounding board for all his drunken shit; he owes big tips when he spills it to the bartender instead. Cas rarely knows what to say but at least he’s always there to say it.

“How much time,” Dean asks him, “have I spent out of this year with you?”

“Two months, twenty-four days, sixteen hours,” Cas says. “I can give you the exact amount of minutes if you want. Why?”

“That’s nearly three months,” he says in a shaking voice, “of absolute, unbelievable happiness. It was so good that...I almost didn’t think about anything else.”

He pauses.

“Dean…”

“That is three months that he spent rotting,” Dean says, and looks up with his eyes narrowed. “Thirty years in Hell. That I spent happy . Not to mention the other ninety years that he’s been—”

He stutters to a halt, breaking off with a disjointed gasp. Swiping his hand over his mouth, he blinks into the distance. God, he likes the quiet. He wants Cas to stay quiet.

And by some miracle, he does. Something cold nudges Dean’s hand a minute later, and he looks down to see Cas pushing a bottle of scotch they picked up on the way. Sam liked the expensive shit. Dean thinks he got the right spot last year when he put down the grave marker, although of course it’s impossible to be sure; the ground sealed itself right back up afterwards as though there was never a bare knuckles cage match between his little brother and the Devil here at all, top prize: planet Earth. Dean had plywood in the back of the car just in case it went that way, so he’s pretty sure he returned to the right place. It’s in front of the small, makeshift gravemarker that he pours out the scotch and watches it sink into the dirt, where it stains wet and leaves a longer lasting impression than Sam’s eternal resting place ever did.

The wind has long since turned his whole body ice cold and he hasn’t felt his face in hours by the time he’s stood his fill at the edge of where a pit to Hell once opened up the earth. Sam’s name is stark as ever in rugged pocket knife scratches he drew over with permanent marker, and Dean can’t imagine it will ever get easier to come back to this place, although he knows Cas thinks it will (he never voices this, to his credit). It’s common sentiment that time heals all wounds, but most people don’t know what he knows.

When they’re climbing into the car again, around dusk touching the first edges of the earth, Cas turns to him with his serious face on.

“I assume I don’t have to tell you, your brother would want you to be happy,” Cas says.

Dean looks at him. “So?”

“I’m just reminding you that it’s OK to keep living your life, Dean,” Cas says, buckling his seatbelt as though not looking at him will make the words burn any less. “That’s why he did this. So that everyone could move on.”

“Yeah? Well I don’t care about everyone right now,” he answers without heat. It is what it is what it is.

Cas sighs and looks out the window. Dean propels them well down the highway and then over for drive-thru Jack in the Box before Cas so much as looks at him again, and only then because Dean offers him half the fries. They talk quietly while they eat in the parking lot and hold hands on the way to the motel.

It feels much later than it is when they arrive. It’s barely turning nine. Dean feels caked in dirt for no real reason and claims the first, very hot shower, but then he just leans on the tiles gripping his hair for awhile while steam fills the room. When he gets out, the room is choked with fog, and out there Cas has set out two glasses and the rest of last night’s whiskey.

“I thought we could have a drink to him,” Cas says, and it chokes Dean up so he can’t answer. He takes the empty seat. Cas’s knee nudges his underneath the table, bony and solid against his own.

Dean pours himself rather a lot and holds it aloft for Cas to touch.

“To Sam. The bravest…and the best of us.”

“To Sam,” Cas murmurs.

There’s not much whiskey left, and they finish it in silence. They play a half-hearted card game afterwards, and Dean fiddles with a Queen while he talks Cas into a detour to see an arboretum about an hour and a half west, if they shift their plans with Bobby a little later tomorrow. He figures Cas would like that, and Dean just feels like seeing him smile. If he can’t do much right, at least he can still do that.

When he’s yawning more than playing the game, they go to bed. This time Cas follows him down, no pretense. He lays an inch away in the dark motel with just the alarm clock for illumination and feels Cas touch the side of his face, but again he can’t sleep.

Cas’s face is different in the shifting light from the streetlamp at the corner and the flickering NO VACANCIES sign erected beside where Dean parked the car. It illuminates his cheek, his jaw, his pretty eyes as the moon shifts in and out from between the clouds, and Dean is caught up briefly in how blue they look—like diamonds, shining. He knows it’s just a trick of the light but he can’t help pulling Cas’s shoulder until he shuffles in, close enough for them to share breath on the dingy double bed in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, USA. Dean used to be such a man of the road. Truck stop America just isn’t his home anymore, but he’s starting to learn that home can still be a moving target. The trick is learning how to go wherever it goes.

Cas’s panting is soft, but his heart is rabbiting; Dean can feel it where his fingers lay against his throat. He touches Cas’s cheek, stroking the rough stubble there. Cas grips his shirt and just holds it there tightly in his fist while Dean looks at his mouth, looks at his messy hair and thinks about getting his hands in it, looks at his bright eyes and back at his mouth again.

Cas seems to sense it right before Dean kisses him, because when Dean pulls him in, Cas is already surging toward him with a gasp. Cas is pulling his shirt so tight that the neck is going to stretch out; Dean touches the backs of his knuckles to get him to loosen his grip, and Cas does, relinquishing his hands to Dean instead. He takes one but wraps the other around Cas’s lower back, yanking him in until he arches toward Dean with a soft gasp against his parted mouth.

“Dean,” he rumbles. His voice seems lower, maybe just because Dean’s ear is right against his throat when he kisses underneath Cas’s jaw like this.

Outside, the few lights striping their bed all crack and spark out, one by one by one. Cas’s hands are clenching in Dean’s shirt again, like he’s itching to rip it right off. Dean pulls back and tugs it over his head since it doesn’t seem like Cas will really pull the trigger, ducking back down as soon as his face is free to recapture his mouth; but Cas stops, smoothing his hands over Dean’s bare chest. Dean smiles, loose and crooked.

“You’re not gonna start talking about how beautiful God’s creations are and shit, are you?” Dean asks.

“Just one,” Cas promises. He sits up and pulls Dean to him by the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” Dean murmurs against his lips. “I don’t think God gets the credit for this little piece of handiwork anymore.”

But when Dean lays them down, Cas wraps his arms around Dean’s neck and molds his body to his, and they kiss for awhile. Dean would normally keep trying to go farther but it seems an impossible task when Cas has his arms fastened around Dean’s neck, when he’s making soft happy sounds into Dean’s open mouth. It doesn’t seem worth it to try; what could he want other than this?

Cas sighs, small and content. Dean strokes his hands down Cas’s thighs where they’re spread over his lap and looks at the ceiling and breathes while Cas puts his mouth on Dean’s neck; he shouldn’t be thinking of things like dead brothers and whether or not he’s got graveyard dirt caked beneath his nails when he’s got Cas moaning into every kiss and half-naked on top of him, but it’s hard to screw his head on straight tonight. The room feels like it’s spinning. He shouldn’t have had so much whiskey, but then, he didn’t expect the night to go like this either.

Cas kisses him again, and then he pauses, his fingers stroking along Dean’s jaw and chin.

“Are you OK?” he asks.

“Yeah. Yeah,” Dean says, blinking—and then says it again with more conviction. He touches Cas’s lower lip with two fingers. “I’m here. With you. Come here.”

He coaxes Cas down to him with hands on his waist, pushed up beneath the wash-worn t-shirt he’s wearing, and then their legs are tangling up together as Dean rolls them onto their sides. He catches Cas’s lips again, once, twice; he pulls back, just touching his face—his collarbone—the dip between his ribs, and back to the hollow of his throat.

“What is it?” Cas asks, his eyes flickering over Dean’s face. “Something’s on your mind.”

But Dean doesn’t know how to say the words lodged in his throat. He just knows that he wants Cas to stay here, laying in his arms, and he wants him to keep looking at Dean like that . And he doesn’t want him to pull away, the way Dean can feel he’s seconds from doing if Dean doesn’t assure him that everything’s OK.

Because they are OK. And it’s obvious, suddenly, the thing Dean has to say to let Cas know it.

“I love you, Cas,” Dean says, inches away from him in the dark and shifting moonlight. “I’m in love with you. And I’ve got it—so fucking bad.”

Cas looks at him for the longest handful of seconds that Dean’s ever experienced in his entire life. Then he leans in and kisses Dean with a fever like he’s still waiting for the Apocalypse to pass, and he rolls Dean onto his back for the second time that night. Dean’s hands touch his waist, his hair. He closes his eyes, because touch is enough, and because Cas is the only real thing in the whole entire world.

The morning is a pulsing, yellowy thing. Dean groans and turns away from the sunlight, burying his face into the warmth he can feel radiating right beside him.

For a moment he basks in the sudden, comforting dark; then a quiet, deep laugh sounds from above, and Dean looks up from Cas’s naked chest to glare at his face.

“Good morning,” Cas says, smiling at him.

“Hmnf,” Dean replies. He drops his head back down, then peeks one eye open a second later. “Coffee?”

“I brewed a pot while you were sleeping,” Cas says, brushing his hand through Dean’s hair, and he kisses the top of his head. “Do you want breakfast?”

“Are you going to be my bitch now because we finally had sex?” Dean asks.

Cas’s laugh is sweet as nectar, and the only thing that propels him to his feet and across the room to glorious caffeine.

Cas, presumably to be a gigantic asshole, details the specifics of the alleged Mothman case while critiquing their route up to Bobby’s with the forecasted traffic. Dean tries approximately five times to get him to fold and go check the Mothman thing out, but Cas has that patented Catholic guilt down pat and then some when he considers blowing off their plans to go chase what Cas delicately calls Dean’s ‘ultimate hunting wet dream.’ Ironic, considering the way he kisses Dean against the car before they get in and head north for South Dakota. Dean’s just glad to put the motel in his rearview mirror before cleaning service checks the room and sees that they’ve shattered the bathroom looking glass to splinters. It’s not their fault, just a byproduct of getting down and dirty with someone who packs that much of a punch, but still would be difficult to explain in conjunction with the noises they were making all last night.

The weather stays clear the whole drive north. Dean swerves around a few junkers parked sideways on the lot and parallel parks close to the main house.

“Bobby!” he calls, climbing out of the car.

Bobby appears at the door with a woman in shadow at his back. Dean breaks out into a grin, strides forward and pulls his old friend into a big hug.

“Hiya, Dean. Cas,” he says, waving at him too. Dean gets the sense that Bobby blames Cas more than Dean does, for what happened last year. But he’s playing nice.

“Good to see you, Bobby,” he says, and nods over his shoulder. “As I live and breathe, that can’t be Jody Mills? You look fantastic!”

He pulls Cas along beneath his arm as they meet, not for the first time, Bobby’s sheriff friend. She hugs Dean and then casts him an alarmed look when Cas pulls her in too, after their initial handshake.

“It’s a byproduct of falling in love,” Bobby teases, and breaks out laughing when she smacks him on the shoulder.

Although Dean ribs her and Bobby initially about getting together, he learns that Jody’s actually found herself a girlfriend and an adopted daughter since Dean last saw her over a year ago.

(“I didn’t even know you were bi,” Dean says as they’re pushing around some of Bobby’s furniture to make room to accommodate more guests for pre-dinner beers.

“I didn’t know you were, either,” Jody says, eyeballing Cas across the room.

He’s over at Bobby’s record player apparently trying to figure out how to make it work. Dean watches him try and fail to get music going for a solid minute.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters, and goes to rescue his man from the mind-boggling human phenomenon that is an Elvis Presley record.)

Jody seems happy, chatting about her Alex’s goth phase and how great it is that the kid’s skipping class to smoke weed because at least she’s not still part of some weird psycho vampire cult. Dean really doesn’t know where he finds these people.

Jody keeps exchanging these looks with Cas that make Dean want to leave the house altogether, except Cas hasn’t stopped touching him since they arrived and it makes it a little easier to breathe, especially today. He doesn’t take this for granted; yesterday’s wounds are still fresh and Dean’s itching to go for a drive. Only Cas’s hand on his back could make him feel more calm and at home than taking off with his other baby.

They build a fire in the yard, all four of them. Jody calls her woman and asks her to bring over more logs when she arrives, which she does half an hour later—bouncing out of the car all smiles and perky and blonde, not what Dean would have pictured for Jody at all. He whistles when he meets Donna, poking fun at Jody’s more serious nature next to her bubbly excitement at meeting Jody’s friends, and kisses Cas on the cheek when he gets Dean more beer because he’s amongst loved ones and it suddenly feels very easy to do it. Bobby’s looking at him, but he doesn’t say jack.

Alex is a grumpy but clearly bright young woman who mostly sits by the fire and uses her phone rapid-fire without looking at any of the adults. Donna goes to occupy her after awhile, pretending she doesn’t notice that Alex dumped all the soda out of the can she’s holding and filled it up with beer instead. Dean hears the girl ask if she can take off early to go meet up with a couple of friends. Jody and Bobby are sitting on the other side of the flames, huddled close together beneath a thick blanket and talking in low voices. Dean realizes that he hasn’t seen Cas in awhile; he finds him in the kitchen, picking at a nicely arranged platter of cheese and crackers.

“We should have brought food,” Cas surmises, not turning around.

“It’s fine. It’s Bobby. We’ll pick him up a bottle when we go into town tomorrow.” Dean concludes. “Hey.”

He gathers Cas’s wrists and pulls him around to face him.

“Are you alright?” he asks, letting Dean take his hands but just standing there, studying his face. “How are you holding up?”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Better when people don’t ask me stuff like that,” he mutters.

He drops Cas’s wrists, sighing. Bobby’s added a couple of ugly art pieces to his wall since the last time Dean was here, which Dean really wishes he was around to talk him out of. Well, this weekend is all about mending old fences and righting ancient mistakes.

“I’m going to bring this tray out,” Cas finally says.

Dean just stands there when he grabs the cheese plate and pushes past. Until then, it didn’t feel like he was boxing Cas against the counter but suddenly he’s upset with himself for crowding him by accident. Frowning, he grabs a fresh beer from the fridge and goes to make himself useful by taking over most of the cooking.

The problem is that Dean’s not sure if they’re fighting or not. Cas is silent and doesn’t look at him as he helps Dean load his plate with side dishes, and he does sit by him at the big dinner table with their (Dean’s—Bobby’s—quickly becoming universal) friends. Mostly Cas gets on surprisingly well with the angsty teenage girl, possibly because they’re both the most morbid and borderline unhinged people that Dean has ever met.

“So you’ve like, been to Hell before?” she asks, shoveling rare steak into her mouth without breaking her stare.

“Several times,” Cas says, inclining his head. “That’s where Dean and I met.”

“How romantic,” she sneers.

“In the tragic, literary sense of the word, yes, I agree,” Cas says. He looks at Dean. “Although with a much happier ending.”

Dean considers bashing his head into the wall until he passes out but settles for drinking more beer. He lays a hand on the back of Cas’s neck, pleased when he doesn’t get shaken off, and squeezes.

“Oh my God,” Alex says, thus cluing Dean in that he’s not the only one staring at Cas.

“I’m fairly sure my Father has abandoned us,” Cas says without looking away from Dean.

“Seriously? I knew it!” she says. She smacks Jody on the arm. Jody shouts, “ Ow !” and turns around, frowning. “Mom, great news. God’s dead!”

Jody gapes at her for a few seconds before raising her incredulous stare to the men at the end of the table.

“What exactly are you telling my daughter?” Jody demands.

“The truth,” Cas says with a frown, at the same time that Dean insists, “He’s just messing with her. Cas has a very...weird sense of humor,” and then Cas turns that frown on him.

Score one for being in a fight, then.

But when it gets darker, after they’ve cleared away their dinners, everybody sits around the fire eating apple pie. Cas lingers near the seat Dean’s settled into beside Bobby until he eventually can’t avoid Alex beckoning him over eagerly, probably to fill her head with more cosmic injustices and truths too fucked up for most people to handle. Then again this girl was apparently rescued from a vampire cult who used her as a free buffet for many years, Stockholm Syndrome thrown in for free, so maybe she’s the best person for Cas to latch onto here; she’s the least likely to suffer a mental breakdown under his absolute intensity.

He doesn’t get to really talk to Cas again until after they all finish trading ghost stories around the fire and getting appropriately drunk for this reunion, growing more raucous as the night goes on. Cas has enough beers to roll up his sleeves, which is a win because Dean never had hopes of getting an angel smashed tonight so at least he’s getting somewhere, anywhere at all.

Dean feels a little more clear-headed after splashing water on his face while he’s getting ready for bed. By the time he shuts the door on the guest room they’re sharing (the women, with Alex sober driving, finally went home around ten-thirty) he’s been trying and failing to come up with something to say for ten minutes, but he still doesn’t have anything worthwhile on lock. Cas is sitting on the bed, frowning at his phone that Dean finally bought him after he got sick of Cas’s weird internet friends calling him in the middle of the day and his phone bill constantly running high because Cas opens the internet to check the police blotter every other hour, but he looks up when the lock clicks.

“I can...crash on the floor,” Dean says.

Cas frowns.

“Why would you do that?” he asks slowly, putting his phone down and getting to his feet. Dean likes that phone, it’s better than when Cas used to buy burners and Dean never had a number for him. Sometimes it’s so hard to remember he’s an all-powerful celestial being when he does things like text or pad across the room like this, barefoot and messy-haired from a long day of travel and revelry. He’s just Cas . Just Dean’s funny, weird, wonderful best friend. “Come here.”

He takes Dean's hands and pulls him back across the room, and it strikes Dean how very much he’s changed from the Cas he first met, the one who would stare at him silently and never say what he was thinking. Plus the personal space thing is less of an issue when they’re—when he’s someone Dean can cross those lines with. He’s not sure what that makes them, but it’s turning out to be something really incredible.

“I thought you were mad at me,” Dean says.

Cas thinks this over for a moment, and nods.

“I’m just happy...that you’re still here,” he responds carefully. He studies Dean’s face. “Also that strange teenager said she would sell me marijuana, and I’m very much looking forward to trying it with you.”

A horrifying vision of Cas from 2014 appears in Dean’s mind. He’s already this close to buying a drug rug every time they go to Walmart.

“No weed!” Dean snaps, although by Cas’s look of alarm this is definitely going to be a battle that they revisit later. “Uh, I’m glad we’re not fighting either, by the way. Just for the record.”

“Oh? Really?”

“ Yes ,” he laughs, and cups Cas’s face in his hands.

Sometime this weekend, he’s going to find an opening to torment Bobby about the fact that he’s had sex in his house. Who’s more fun to tease about that than a surrogate father, anyway? Though Dean’s pretty sure it will get back around to Jody, and probably by extension her kid, and Dean’s not sure he wants to be responsible for explaining what gay sex is to the girl who grew up tortured and brainwashed and hidden away. He doesn’t need to be responsible for bringing that side of her into the light, that’s some future co-ed’s drama.

Regardless, Bobby guesses immediately when they go downstairs for breakfast the next morning. He takes one look at Dean’s face and his own screws right up in horror.

“Tell me you didn’t knock out my good lamps,” Bobby complains.

Dean beams, swiping bacon off the plate in his hands. Cas pauses at the foot of the stairs.

“We will buy you more lamps,” Cas says gravely. “Though perhaps we should wait until the end of the weekend.”

“Oh, gross. Dean, would you do something with him?”

“Alright, come on, Cas. We’ll grab ourselves some coffee in town today.” Dean pauses. “I’m taking one of these egg sandwiches to go.”

It’s a nice day out, so they find an easy parking spot a few blocks away from the center of things and walk with the sun shining down and almost warming them on the otherwise chilly day. Dean has his arm around Cas’s shoulders, which is fortunate because he gets distracted by flower shops, pet stores (he freed an entire room in Beech Grove once), magic shops, and Best Buy, where he likes to play the video games they have out on display. Dean refuses to let him go buy any unnecessary things except for in one shop that appears to just be walls and walls of free bread with different oils and spreads to dip them in. Cas buys a big jar of something rich and strangely addictive from an elderly woman with huge, bedazzled glasses.

They’re technically here to pick up coffee, buy rum for Bobby and get a chicken for tonight (Bobby’s promised to make them his ex-wife’s famous recipe) but they take their time with it, detouring down all the pretty side streets and gazing up at the turning leaves. It’s mostly for Cas’s benefit, but Dean begins to see the value in it too: Why sacrifice so much to protect this world and then not even admire the beauty of the thing you saved? In flashes, Dean understands how it is that Cas came to love him with complete and total clarity, but then the knowledge is gone again the very next instant. It’s still an impossible thing to carry sometimes, someone else’s affections. Cas sees everything about him.

After a local movie theater grabs Cas’s attention with some film about animals, they double back to get the car so he can store his jar and ditch their weapons in case the theater has metal detectors inside the doors.

“You know what,” Dean whispers, while Cas is squeezing his hand and eagerly learning trivia about snow leopards, “maybe you would make a good stoner. Put a joint in your mouth and this is basically every date I ever had with Rebecca Hayes.”

“Who?” he asks, still absolutely riveted by what’s on screen.

“A hot sorority chick I dated when I was twenty,” Dean says. “She dealt hash to pay for her coke addiction.”

“Shhh,” Cas admonishes. “I’ll celebrate my victory later. You can teach me how to make pot brownies.”

Dean starts drifting off halfway through the movie, because these bunnies they’re following are boring as shit.

“Hey Cas.”

“Dean. It’s rude to talk during a movie.”

Thankfully the film picks up after that because they switch to footage of sharks tearing into a bunch of different species of prey, and it’s all fairly gorey. Cas is bubbling with new facts by the time they step out into the harsh afternoon: The wind has turned frigid in the intervening hours, and Dean’s very glad they moved the car.

“They make fuzzy penguins now, Dean. Evolution is incredible.”

“Aren’t you Bible thumpers supposed to be creationists, too?”

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Cas says, annoyed, “I am not a choirboy.”

“I’m just teasing,” Dean says, putting up his hands. He grabs Cas’s elbow and yanks him closer. “Come on, you think I’m hilarious.”

“I don’t remember ever saying that,” Cas says seriously. “And I have a flawless memory.”

“Remember that time you told me you loved me?”

Cas appraises him with one eyebrow raised. He looks vaguely amused.

“Look who can joke about it now,” Cas says, turning back around. “At the time I thought you were going to vomit.”

Dean’s mouth drops open, and he tugs on Cas’s elbow, still in his grip. With the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile, Cas twists out of his hold so he can take Dean’s hand.

“I just needed a minute to process,” he grumbles. “You can hardly blame me.”

“Don’t worry, Dean, I think it’s cute when I make you speechless,” Cas says. If Dean thought he’d die young because Cas said whatever came to mind before they knew what this thing was between them, he’s twice as hard to handle when he’s flirting on purpose . Cas gained permission, not a filter.

The side street where he left the Impala is coming up, but ahead, someone it takes a second to recognize is rounding the corner already.

“Neal!” Dean calls, and his neighbor looks up. His wife comes out of the side street behind him, talking to their two young daughters. “Jenny!”

“Dean! Castiel,” Neal says, and Jenny smiles in greeting. “What a small world.”

“What are you guys all doing here?”

“Jen’s sister is getting married, so we’re all up here for the rehearsal dinner.”

“Oh, tell her congratulations from the both of us.”

“We will,” Jenny promises. “What are you two getting up to all the way out in South Dakota?”

“We’ve got a—family friend,” Dean says, first glancing at Cas, then putting his arm around him. “We fell out with him a little while ago, so this weekend is kinda like a reunion. So...”

“Hey, it’s always good to reconnect with old friends,” Neal agrees. “Never know what could happen tomorrow.”

“Oh yeah. And with my rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle?”

They chat for another few minutes before the family makes their excuses and everybody promises to hang out for real once they’re all back in Indiana. When they’re walking again down the picturesque residential side street, Cas turns and looks at him up close.

“What?” Dean asks.

“Nothing,” he says.

He touches Dean’s hand where it’s draped over his chest, tugs on it twice then lets him go. Dean studies the side of his face and slips off his shoulders.

“Does it...bother you?” The thought has honestly never occurred to him. Can angels feel shame? It’s not like Cas has anything left to fear from Heaven. “When I...You know.” The way Cas is looking at him suggests that no, he doesn’t. Dean sighs. “When I touch you like that. In public. Or...like this.”

He hooks Cas by the waist suddenly, making him trip closer and catch himself on Dean’s chest. For the first time, Cas cracks a smile.

“No, of course I don’t mind,” he says, though he does pry himself far enough away that he can walk. Dean’s hand slips down to find his again, touching his wrist, asking for permission. Cas takes it. “I like being yours.”

Dean stammers for something to say, and eventually manages, “That’s pretty archaic thinking there, Cas.”

Cas, in his indelicate way, ignores him.

Bobby’s is quieter tonight. It’s just the three of them and they take dinner in front of the TV, everyone going in for second helpings—Karen’s famous chicken recipe is very good. They turn in pretty early too, making plans to find a diner for breakfast tomorrow. Dean’s trying to introduce Cas to all manner of human experiences, including how to cure a hangover with cheap food that takes all morning to eat.

Previous to meeting Cas, he didn’t think it was possible to file ‘crazy kinky monster sex’ under the same category as ‘making love,’ mostly because he’s spent his entire life shying away from both of those things. Regardless, it turns out Cas can make his angel wings manifest on this plane of existence if he wants to, and just because Dean can’t see them doesn’t mean he can’t feel them. Cas can also do some pretty freaky things with his grace. It doesn’t hurt that he can read Dean’s mind while they’re going at it either.

Still, the really weird part for Dean is how emotional he feels about it. He heard the stories, of course, but he didn’t know sex actually felt like that when you were in love with somebody. If you were willingly vulnerable with someone, and not just in the biblical sense.

They sizzle the overhead light to nothing and crack Dean’s phone screen right down the middle where it’s sitting a little too close on the bedside table. Afterwards, when he’s feeling boneless and satisfied and like Cas is the most important not-a-person in the entire world, Dean curls around him and kisses him for another twenty minutes just because he can.

“I think I finally get why everybody wants to worship angels so much,” Dean says, which makes Cas laugh and scratch affectionately at his back where his fingers are already laying.

“Are you saying that was a religious experience?”

“Yeah. My church has better perks than most, though.”

“Most churches have wine,” Cas muses.

“So did mine, like, two and a half hours ago.”

Cas shakes his head, smiling. He musses Dean’s hair and pulls him back down to kiss again. Dean gets really committed to the worship for awhile, still glowing with the knowledge that most people have to pray and build statues and shit to worship their angels, and they don’t get jack shit in return for it ninety-nine percent of the time. Dean doesn’t have to pray and he still gets an angel making husky, half-turned on noises and twisting toward his every touch, plus his version of piety is way more entertaining. More people should really consider trading Grindr in for Hell.

“Cas?” he asks, kind of lazily kissing his jaw, kind of just lying there and watching his fingers trace the bumps of Cas’s ribs underneath his bared skin.

Cas’s hand is making soothing trails through his hair; thankfully this doesn’t make them stop. “Yes?”

Dean’s quiet for a minute, watching his fingers trace invisible patterns and trying to gather his thoughts. He knows what’s been nagging at him for a couple of days now, but it’s hard to put it into words.

“What made you finally say it?” Dean finally asks. “When you told me...when you said what you said, and we started doing...this.”

“When I told you that I was in love with you,” Cas clarifies.

Something twitches in Dean’s chest. He can’t decide if it’s a good or bad kind of painful.

“Yes,” he says, his eyes closing briefly. “Why then? What changed? I mean, why that day?”

Cas hums softly. “It just came up, I suppose.”

This isn’t what Dean was expecting. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but definitely not that. His hand freezes and he splays it out on Cas’s chest, using it to push himself up so he can stare down at him.

“Really? That’s it?” Dean demands. “So what, if I never brought up your falling then you just never would have said anything?”

Cas frowns. He props himself up on his elbows, forcing Dean to move to his own side of the bed, into his own space where it’s colder.

“No.” Cas shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean, Cas? ‘Cause I’m starting to think that you didn’t think this through at all .”

“Of course I thought it through,” Cas says. “I am not stupid, Dean. Do you think I didn’t notice why I was beginning to make all these new choices? Why I would give up Heaven over and over again so I could be down here with you?”

“Your friends were nice enough to spell it out,” Dean snorts.

“That too,” Cas says. It’s incredible that his I’m-so-fucking-ancient-and-powerful-and-don’t-you-forget-it voice still packs a punch when he’s naked in bed with messy, messy hair, but there it is, landing somewhere low and deep in Dean’s gut. “But Dean, I thought about it every time I saw you. When you would say my name or—or reach out and pray to me, I felt it burning through me like a fire. I knew that wasn’t...normal.”

He shifts closer to Dean on the bed, and now he’s the one leaning over Dean; his hand hesitates over Dean’s heart before landing hard beside his shoulder. Dean swallows. Without thinking, he reaches up and pushes his fingers through Cas’s hair.

“So loving me is a bit like being a vessel, huh?” Dean asks. “Like I’m strapping you to a comet?”

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Cas murmurs, leaning down to shut him up.

Dean gets lost in the kissing for a little while. He deserves this, maybe, a little bit of a break from overthinking, and Cas’s hands on his waist and the edge of his jaw, and the quiet rasp of Cas’s stubble on his cheeks. Dean pulls him in closer until Cas lays down, bare chest touching bare chest.

“You know, you still didn’t really answer my question,” Dean says a few minutes later, when Cas is turning his head to kiss him another way.

Cas’s hand, covering Dean’s and pushed into the pillows, clenches twice. His lips brush Dean’s chin when he raises his head.

“There was only so long I could take it,” Cas says quietly, his eyelids heavy. “Dropping by here, spending time with you...There was only so long I could hold onto that feeling, to keep it inside. It was bound to burst out eventually. I thought it every time you smiled, every time I spent the night in your bed, every time I brought you lunch at work. That day just happened to be the day I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Dean watches him for a long moment. His thumb traces circles behind Cas’s ear, and he memorizes the way he looks right now, with the bright South Dakota moon painting his dark face with pale light. For once, Cas looks as eternal and powerful as he really is, and Dean can’t fathom why it is something like him would ever choose to stay here and give up paradise for this .

But it’s also the first time that Cas doesn’t seem like he’s fading away. He always had one foot out the door, before. He’ll be here long after Dean’s gone, that’s true; but it presses on him very heavily, all of a sudden, the weight of someone choosing him over eternal Heaven. The knowledge of it settles over his bones like a thick homemade blanket, or a sudden wildfire throughout his body. Dean pulls Cas’s mouth down to his, because Cas is warm and heavy and very, very real .

“What about you?” Cas asks, between more sweet kisses.

“Me?”

“Yeah.” Cas pauses. He’s pulled Dean on top of him, but now he just watches the movement of his hands smoothing up Dean’s thighs and then back down, gentle and deliberate but unhurried so Dean can feel every second of it. “Why did you say it finally? After the—In the motel?”

Cas’s big eyes flick up to look at him again, wide and blue even in the dark. He doesn’t smell like Jimmy Novak’s cologne anymore, but he does smell like Dean’s aftershave and his own favorite brand of citrus and honey bar soap that he packed for the road trip. It makes for an interesting blend. His cheeks are flushed, Dean can see it now that Cas is out of direct moonlight.

“Me too, I guess,” Dean says. “Like you said, one day I just looked up and realized what had always been there. And I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”

Sometimes it’s better when things end with a whimper.

“Dean,” Cas says around when they’re passing the state line back into Indiana. It’s late, edging from Sunday night over into Monday morning. “May I suggest something? I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.”

“Are you finally learning to run it by me first before you do something stupid?” Dean asks. He glances over and sees Cas’s face, then does a double-take. “What’s wrong? You’re acting weird. Well, weirder than usual.”

Cas is quiet for a long time, staring at his hands twisting in his lap.

“I want to go and see Jimmy Novak’s family,” he says. “I believe...I owe it to them to inform them of Jimmy’s death. And...I want to make sure they’re alright.”

Dean glances between Cas’s profile and the road.

“You’re serious,” he realizes. “Of course, baby, we can drop in on anybody you want.”

“What about my friend Mana? She lives in Guam.”

“Within reason, Cas.”

It’s been a long day in the car, and although Dean has missed hitting the road with Baby for longer drives, he and Cas started getting on each other’s nerves around hour number five and that was all the way back at sunset. It’s long been dark when he pulls the car up the driveway, and the house is cold. Dean goes right to the thermostat when he gets in and Cas takes the opportunity to snag first shower.

It’s very late then, but they sprawl out on the couch together once they’re cozy and ready for bed. Dean needs snacks after driving all day anyway. Cas was watching infomercials raptly when Dean stepped out of the shower, but they’ve settled on a survivalist show since then. Dean’s drifting, half-asleep, holding Cas warm and close underneath one arm.

Eventually Cas coaxes him to go to bed since he has to be up bright and early tomorrow morning. He sees what time it is already and dreads the thought of a long day at work. He also needs to buy shatterproof glass on his way home and figure out an alternative to traditional lightbulbs, because inviting an angel into your bed is worth the stress of finding creative solutions to an unconventional problem. It’ll be a long day before he can come home to Cas again, though.

Cas isn’t on his phone for once when Dean wakes up in the morning. He’s lying stretched out more or less where Dean left him, watching him sleep. It’s less creepy than it used to be, especially when, as soon as Dean rolls over and opens his eyes, Cas leans in to brush their lips together.

“Good morning, Dean,” he murmurs, fingers stroking the pillow marks Dean can feel indented on his cheek.

Cas kisses him one last time and throws the covers off his half of the bed. By the time Dean crawls out of his warm blanket cocoon minutes later, the house smells like pancakes.

Dean finds Cas in the kitchen, wearing his favorite robe. Dean kisses his cheek and steals all the good pancakes for himself.

“You should get going. You have work soon,” Cas says, although he just sits there and watches Dean drench his plate in maple syrup with a small, fond smile on his face.

“Let me enjoy my food here, would you?” Dean shakes his head. “ Angel .”

“I have stuff to do too, you know,” Cas says. “The police chief called. She mentioned another local investigation that’s giving her some trouble.”

“You don’t have to consult on regular human cases, you know.”

“I’m very good at it, though,” Cas says, which is not true, Dean’s good at it and Cas has a tendency to take his work home, that’s all.

But Dean doesn’t bother disabusing him of this notion. He can insist all he wants that Cas stop dragging Dean into his hobbies, but he knows damn well he’ll sit up reading over case files with him tonight anyway. He’s late to work because they’re busy laughing over breakfast, and when Dean finally gets up and dumps his plate in the sink, Cas is already rising from the table to meet him before Dean yanks him in by the tie on his bathrobe and kisses him long enough to get him through his shift.

“Have a good day at work, Dean,” Cas says, thumb on his cheek like usual.

“You too,” Dean says, breaking out in a smile.

With one last kiss, Dean grabs his lunch off the counter and hurries out the door into the bright Indiana sunlight. When he looks back, Cas is standing in the doorway barefoot and lazy, waving him goodbye.

x