Chapter Text
It’s good being on the road again, having Sam back.
He’s holding up with the wall Death put up in his mind and that’s all that’s important. They’ll deal with the fall-out when it comes. Meanwhile, Dean is just happy to lean back and enjoy the sun, even the sky looks different, bluer, with Sam alive.
Shinier, beautiful. There’s a tepid wind blowing through the parking lot, fresh and autumnal. It smells like dirt and life slowly falling asleep.
Sun beats down on his neck as he’s bent down over the opened hood of the impala to give her a check-up. She needs some love, poor girl. He hasn’t really been keeping her top shape this past year. Too caught up in his own grief and inadequacy to care for anything but playing the part for Lisa and Ben. Playing house. Oh, he cared. Way too much. Still does.
It still felt like being crammed into a box not fit for him. Just this side of too tight. All with Lisa’s soft loving eyes and expectations. Ben wasn’t much different than caring for Sammy, he knew that part. Keep the kid fed, clean, healthy and in school. That, he knew, understood. But he was too used to casualness to fully be at ease in Lisa’s life. Never exactly sure what she kept him for, what his purpose was.
He didn’t regret his time with Lisa, sweet sweet girl, who deserves better. Lisa and Ben, he’ll miss them that’s for sure but it’s for the best. His and theirs. It wouldn't have been fair to stay —even if Sammy hadn’t played a catalyst role in his detachment and Lisa’s anger— when deep down he may just not be wired for this civilian life.
They’ll fix Sammy, put Heaven and Hell back in their pretty boxes and swallow the key, and all in all, his nights may be riddled with nightmares and loneliness hard to bear, his life may not be good by a long shot but it could be worse.
Dean eases the hood down, his baby all pampered up and wipes his hand on a dirty rag.
The motel room is empty, Sam somewhere in town, away from his big brother, brooding and scratching at corners of his mind he shouldn’t scratch at, to know what he doesn’t need to know. They fight, they argue but in the end there’s not much Dean can do but wait and prepare for when shit is going to hit the fan because it will.
He bets his left nut that Sam is holed up at the local library.
He’s scrubbing his hands in the bathroom sink, working out the grease on his joints and from under his short nails. He barely winces when he looks up and Cas looks back at him through the mirror as patient as ever, and just as caught in Dean’s orbit as he used to be. It sparks a brief memory of a similar encounter, long ago. Dean doesn’t lecture Castiel on personal space, not that much anymore anyway, part of him having sort of given up on that front. He merely smirks and the angel gives him that curious tilt of head.
“Hello, Dean."
"Hey buddy.” He greets him with affection and turns the tap off, drying his hands on a clean towel hanged on the wall. It’s not settling down easy on him, the way Castiel never showed up, never fucking answered, a whole damn year. You were happy. Happy?
Turning to face him in the small space, Dean frowns, heart suddenly heavy, unsure what to say, what to do. “Sam is out, if you wanted to see him.” He says instead of everything that burns his tongue and sours in his chest. Castiel gives him a puzzled look but nods anyway, the crow feet around his ageless blue eyes wrinkling tenderly, sadly. “I wanted to see you. Before you go home."
"Home?” Dean repeats uncomprehendingly, stiff lines of his mouth and eyes not unfriendly.
“To your family."
"My fa... my family is here.” It takes Dean a moment, watching fleeting shadows pass over the angel’s face before he recognizes a familiar emotion; grief. And Castiel’s sorrow is frightening, much more gut-wrenchingly terrifying than any make-believe Dean might have had with Lisa. It's so much more real. Lisa. “Oh. Hmm, yeah no, it’s over. Lisa called me. She said not to come back.” He says lamely. It doesn’t soothe the pain on the angel’s expression only shifts it toward something akin to guilt. “I’m not leaving.” Dean continues when his words doesn't have the wanted effect, as if Cas didn't understand him the first time. Castiel nods stiffly, “I’m sorry.”
Taking an hesitant step forward then two, Dean's hand is on the nape of Cas’s neck before he can think it through, angling the angel’s face up gently. “Nothing to blame yourself for Cas, come on.” He chastises good naturedly, pats the angel's neck once. Frozen in place, the seraph doesn’t blink and Dean just can’t bare to look at the angel’s pain anymore. “It was fun while it lasted but it's just… It wasn't me, you know?”
Shrugging unapologetically, Dean gently squeezes Cas's shoulder. “Want a beer or something? Watch some crappy movie?” Dean smiles, his attention quickly zeroing in on the fact that he doesn't feel compelled to let go of the guy just yet. That he likes the give of skin under his fingertips, and it should be weird. It is.
Cas's gaze saddens, the weight of unsaid words on his mind palpable in the air between them. Dean tries being patient, wait for Cas to man up and spill but it's never been his forte when he could just ask and pry an answer out of the guy. “What is it?”
And for better or worse, Castiel doesn't know how to censure himself and answers, “I want to kiss you.” He looks crossed by it, weighed down.
The proximity is made that much more obvious. A few inches, Cas could lean in and they'd be kissing. Dean has no idea how he feels about that. Not disgusted, uncomfortable maybe, nervous for certain. “Hmm, Cas. I don't… Men aren't my thing, sorry. I'm not… attracted to…” Dean makes a vague hand gesture that means everything and nothing at the same time.
Cas averts his eyes, frowning.
“I don't… I am not attracted to you."
"Then I don't follow.”
His hand on Castiel’s neck is pushed down, suddenly replaced by the angel's own arm around his shoulders holding him loosely. This is getting out of hands, Dean thinks. It's counter intuitive and plain weird. It's less flight triggering than Dean has always pictured that sort of unfortunate encounter going though.
“Do humans only kiss when they want to have sex?” The angel asks and Dean is past the point where he would blurt jokes to defuse the tension. “Most of the time, yes."
"I don't want to have sex with you.” Cas states very seriously and the relief Dean is submerged in softens the rod in his back as he lets Cas crowd him for a hug.
“I apologize. I have missed you.”
It’s not lost on Dean what exactly Cas is apologizing for —ignoring him, running— and it’s both not enough and more than Dean thought he needed. He pats the angel's back in return, his hand lingering. “Missed you too, Cas.” Dean admits under his breath, not too loud in case his rapidly bruising masculinity hears him. “What does it have to do with kissing me?"
"You're my friend."
"Friends don't kiss. Especially not guy friends.”
Cas leans back his head, searching Dean's gaze. What for he's not sure. A lie? The truth?
“If you do not like it, I will not do it again.”
Dean's brain screams at him to abort, shot that beast down while he can. For Cas's sake if not his own. His heart doesn't interject and it must mean something that his first inclign is to nod, dazed, “Yeah, okay.”
Their lips meet and it doesn't feel like the first time.
Dean remembers. The taste of it, the softness of it, the reassurance of it. It’s warm and comforting, and the body pressed up to his melts into the embrace. Just a press of lips on lips, so gentle. It’s easy.
They break apart and Castiel’s smile is tender and soft, it makes Dean’s stomach do funny flips. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. Someday Dean will ask Cas about Hell, if they kissed down there.
“Thank you.”
Dean groans back, non-committal. “Sure. Beer, yes or no?"
"I can offer company."
"Good, come on.” Patting Cas on the shoulder roughly, Dean steps around him and makes a beeline for the refrigerator. His masculinity needs it.