Chapter Text
September
There’s a crocotta in Texas.
Well. There’s probably a crocotta in Texas. It’s either that or a roach infestation on steroids—and if it’s a choice between the two, Dean would honestly prefer the crocotta, because at least that’s a problem he can solve. Either way, Conroe city council voted five-to-one last Friday in favor of demolishing the condemned townhouse on its southwestern flank. There’s an IN MEMORIAM banner plastered under the article’s headline, along with some high school yearbook photos: Peggy O’Dell, Karen Swenson, and Billy Miles. Exterminators found their bodies in the attic.
They’ll need to haul ass over there before the house is demolished. Only thing worse than a regular crocotta is a hungry crocotta that needs food and a place to crash. Dean scrubs a hand across his eyes, ready to look up routes and drive times—but Sam’s laptop chooses that moment to fritz out on him, and the screen goes dark with an ominous click.
“Fuck,” Dean mutters.
He smacks the keyboard, tapping the power button again and again with his other hand. Sam’s stupid, know-it-all voice rings forebodingly in his ear: you have to plug it in, Dean, you have to check the battery, Dean, don’t use my stuff if you’re not gonna look after it—
The ceiling light buzzes dully. It’s way too bright for four in the morning. Dean makes a low, frustrated noise, stretching his legs under the table, his jaw clicking around a yawn—and as he does, something rustles in the doorway. The lights sputter out.
Dean ducks his head. In the dark, it feels safe enough to grin.
“Quit sneaking up on me,” he murmurs.
“I thought you’d be asleep. It’s very late.” Cas pauses, contemplative. “Or early. I’m never sure which one is appropriate.”
“Early if you get up, late if you stay up.” Dean reaches his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders ‘til he hears them click. “That make sense?”
Cas nods. Dean’s sort of hoping he’ll start it, ‘cus he can usually rely on Cas to give in first—but Cas apparently has other ideas, and his ideas involve being a dick, because he only moves close enough to close the distance halfway.
“Which is it for you?”
Dean shrugs.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he admits. He jerks his head at the laptop on the table, scratching the back of his neck. “Found us a hunt, at least. Looks like a crocotta.”
“Dean.”
Dean rolls his eyes.
“I said I found a hunt, not that I’m about to—”
“I know what you said,” Cas says, stepping closer ‘til he’s directly in Dean’s orbit. He’s dressed old school tonight: trench, wrinkled slacks, white collared shirt and tie. First time he’d stayed over, Dean had talked him into borrowing some sweats and an old Black Sabbath shirt, but he hasn’t seen either of them since. Cas just keeps showing up like this, all suited up like he’s ready to stop an apocalypse. He’s even got his tie on backwards.
“Smartass,” Dean mutters, and then Cas kisses him, and he stops talking.
Everyone’s careful with Dean, these days. If it’s not Sam’s puppy eyes watching him limp around the bunker or the sympathetic glances from strangers at the grocery store, it’s the package that showed up at their PO box in Lebanon about a week ago, no return address but Jody’s neat block capitals on the front: some socks, two packs of prescription painkillers, and a lumpy sheet cake wrapped in foil, with the words Sorry You Got Stabbed! cheerily emblazoned on top in pink frosting. (Sam hadn’t found the cake thing funny. Dean’s already sent Claire a thank you note.) His point is: the past two weeks have been a helluva lot easier than getting sutured up in a motel bathroom and spending the next thousand miles grimacing in silence, and they’ve definitely not been hard, but Dean kinda wants someone to throw a punch at him, just to prove he isn’t dreaming. He wants something to go wrong.
Cas kisses him slow and matter-of-fact. He lets Dean tug him closer with two hands fisted in the front of his shirt, muffling the noise that escapes Dean’s mouth so the rest of the world can’t hear it. Cas settles one hand on his back, not bothering the bandages there but not avoiding them, either; he lets Dean stand between his legs and wind his arms around Cas’s neck with a sigh so quiet it barely carries, even in the kitchen’s hushed silence, broad shouldered enough to take Dean’s weight—and yeah, shit, maybe Dean’s missed him a little. So what?
“You’re looking better,” Cas murmurs against his mouth.
“Yeah, sorta.” Cas’s free hand starts carding his hair. Dean leans into it, eyes closed. “How’s the kid?”
“Jack has good instincts. We’re making quick progress.”
Dean pulls away, eyebrows raised.
“But…?”
“No buts,” Cas says. “He’s happy, I think. He’s doing well.” His hand slips to Dean’s shoulder, squeezing lightly, only once, before he smooths out a wrinkle in Dean’s shirt with his thumb. “You should sleep, Dean.”
Dean clears his throat. He shrugs off Cas’s hand, glancing back at the messy spread of research notes on the table.
“Yeah,” he mutters. “Look, lemme finish up, then I’ll—”
In one swift motion, Cas cuts in front of him and shuts the laptop lid.
If Dean didn’t know better, he’d say that was a warning. Hell, maybe it was a warning. There’s a definite frown tugging on the corners of Cas's mouth. Dean digs his heels in and braces for a fight to kick off in earnest; but in the end, all Cas does is reach for him again. His hand finds Dean’s shoulder and rests there like it did before. His thumb moves in small, slow circles.
“Tell me about the crocotta,” Cas prompts.
Dean stares at him. He opens his mouth, then closes it.
At first, he tries to figure out—through the weird shoulder touching or the unreadable expression on Cas’s face—whether he said that out of interest or pity, but if Cas feels sorry for him, he doesn’t let it show. He just meets Dean’s eyes and holds his gaze, steady and expectant.
“It’s, uh. It’s in Texas.” Dean clears his throat, scuffing the floor with his sock. “Montgomery County. Fucker’s holed up in an abandoned house grabbing high schoolers, they only found the nest ‘cuz the city sent an exterminator in.”
“How many?”
“Three,” Dean says. Cas’s thumb is keeping its rhythm, tracing circles over the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
“Any survivors?”
“There was one kid...” Dean swallows with a click. “The third one, they got her to a hospital, but she wasn’t—”
“It had already fed,” Cas deduces. His thumb dips lower, circling Dean’s collarbone. Want skitters around in Dean’s chest; he keeps his cool, doesn’t lean into it, but it’s a close thing. Real close.
“Yeah,” he says thickly. “Exactly.”
Cas goes quiet, the way he does when he’s got a point to make. Dean beats him to it before he can get started.
“They’re demolishing the house,” he blurts out. “We’ve gotta figure something out, Cas, or that thing’s gonna—”
“We will.” Cas sounds quiet and assured. His palm slides from Dean’s shoulder to his neck, thumb skating under his chin ‘til Dean looks at him. His eyes are very steady and very blue. They don’t stray anywhere else. “In the morning, once you’ve slept.”
“I…” Dean starts, then stops.
But it’s still there, that’s what he wants to say. Out in the dark, seven hundred miles west, something with sharp teeth and a body count is alive and waiting. They don’t have time to be talking like this, and Dean doesn’t have time to sleep—he should be dragging Sam out of bed and into the passenger seat, he should be loading a gun and packing his bag.
“Rest isn’t a failure,” Cas points out. His fingers slip to the back of Dean’s neck, stroking the short hairs there. “You’re allowed to need things, Dean.”
Cas has cold palms. Dean knew that already from all the times he’s had two fingertips pressed to his forehead, but… whatever. It’s not all that unpleasant. Eyes, ears, nose, throat, his dad used to say, glancing at Dean’s reflection in the rearview—which was Dean’s cue to recite back, always watch your weak spots, sir. Cas’s fingers are still stroking through his hair, hitting all the right places. Dean shuts his eyes with a slow, shuddering breath. He’s abruptly glad that the lights are out. At least Cas can’t see his face.
“Any, uh,” Dean says. He clears his throat. “Any idea when you’ll be able to stick around?”
Cas sighs.
“Soon.” His fingers keep carding slowly through Dean’s hair. “Hopefully. I—”
“You have a plan,” Dean mutters, pulling away. Cas lets him go. “Yeah, I know.”
“I’m sorry,” Cas says, too regretful and too honest for comfort. Dean shakes his head, waving him off.
“No, it’s good,” he insists, and he actually sorta means it. “I’m glad you’re helping call the shots up there, man. Seriously. Makes me think we stand a chance of getting it right this time.”
“Thank you,” Cas says softly. He’s smiling again. Dean feels his cheeks heat up.
“I should, uh…”
He jerks his head at the door.
“Yes,” Cas agrees.
Neither of them move.
Dean stares at him, taking in the outline of Cas’s body as he swallows around the lump in his throat. Even here, in a dark kitchen, Cas’s eyes glint with something he can’t parse. His coat is rumpled and his hair’s a mess, the way Dean remembers from those early days; he’s probably all ruffled because he flew here. Now he’s flying out again, the same way he always does. Some things never change.
Cas’s eyes land on his. Dean meets his gaze automatically, fingers twitching by his sides. He realizes, with a sudden, sickening rush of clarity, that he’s waiting for Cas to follow him.
“Sleep well, Dean,” Cas murmurs.
“Night,” Dean croaks, with the hoarseness of someone who just downed half a bottle of scotch in one pull. Cas disappears. The lights flicker back on.
“Does this look like a pattern?”
Sam pauses, his smoothie halfway to his mouth. He stares at the map being brandished under his nose.
“No,” he says, slowly. “Holy shit, you need a hobby.”
“Look, red is for cattle mutilation…” Sam makes a rapid beeline for the door, so Dean chases after him, talking as he goes— “Green means break-ins, and the blue crosses, those are—”
“Not a pattern,” Sam finishes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. I got it.”
He takes another sip of the weird green concoction he’s decanted into a water bottle, leaning against the door jamb with an expression Dean doesn’t like—pursed lips, furrowed brow, eyes narrowed to slits. It’s the same look he gets when he’s translating something. The back of Dean’s neck prickles.
“Are you sleeping?” Sam demands. Dean tips his head back with a groan.
“Come on, dude—”
“Dean, it’s a simple question.” Sam’s gone all out and put on his Lawyer Voice, like he thinks that’s gonna make a difference. “Did you sleep at all last night, yes or no?”
“Yes, ” Dean says loudly. He jerks his head at the smoothie bottle in Sam’s hands. “Now lemme know when you’re done with that and I’ll make us some real breakfast, all right?”
Sam glares at him. Dean rolls his eyes and heads for the coffeemaker, aiming a loose kick at Sam’s ankles on the way.
“Anyway. The cow thing.” Dean shakes some grounds out of the bag. “Get this—three per month, every month, all year, all in the same zip code—”
Sam makes an odd, strangled sort of sound. Dean nods appreciatively, leaning back against the counter while the coffeemaker does its thing.
“Right? And that’s not even—”
“Dean, you literally died.” Sam puts his juice down so he can massage his temples. “Like… two weeks ago.”
Dean wrinkles his nose.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know that. And now I’m not dead. Cas fixed me up, I’m fine.”
“You—” Sam does that thing, the one that means Dean has got on his nerves without even trying; shutting his eyes and tilting his head back, breathing heavily like a spooked horse. “Sure, okay. Whatever. You’re fine. I’m just saying, maybe the cows can wait, all right? Take a breather, get some rest. You’ve had one hell of a month.”
“Take a breather,” Dean echoes.
“Yes,” Sam says. His voice is painfully slow. “A breather. As in, a break.”
“Why the hell would I wanna do that?”
The coffee pot clicks. Dean shuffles through the sheaf of papers he’s holding, frowning at them: the article printouts he’s been going square-eyed over, the map of Arizona he sketched himself. The case. Goddamnit, he just wants to talk about the case.
Sam sighs. He plucks the papers out Dean’s grip.
“Because this isn’t a hunt,” he says apologetically. Then, green juice and Dean’s hard-earned research in tow, he lumbers off down the corridor.
“I was right about Texas, you little dick!” Dean yells after him.
“Go to bed,” Sam shouts back. His bedroom door slams shut.
There’s heavy rain coming down outside. Dean can hear it thudding on the bunker’s main door when he kicks a chair out from the library table and flops into it, coffee in tow. He takes a swig too fast, grimaces when it burns his tongue, but keeps drinking anyway. He’s gonna need the caffeine boost if he wants to keep Sam fooled.
Sticking to the truth has been easier without the usual yearly apocalypse breathing down his neck. Dean’s been trying to wean himself off the habit of lying on the fly, and most of the time he does an okay job—but there are some instincts, in his opinion, you can’t outrun. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, pay-per-view is never worth the hassle, and if Sam asks how he is, Dean’s gonna say he’s fine.
He’s been sleeping four hours a night for as long as he can remember. Nobody said they had to be consecutive. It’s not like he’s doing anything strenuous: Sam’s banned him from the garage indefinitely and his eyes bug out if Dean so much as lifts a pan by himself. His plans for today involve sweatpants, his dead guy robe, some bacon, some loud music, and lying horizontally on a couch. You don’t need eight hours in the bank for that.
Dean’s halfway through his coffee, teetering on the brink of becoming fully conscious, when Sam power-walks around the corner and stops by his table.
“Hey,” he says, dropping into the chair opposite Dean. He says it weirdly, stretched into two syllables: he-ey. Dean narrows his eyes.
“What did you break?”
“What?” Sam blinks, startled. “Nothing. Listen—”
“That’s your guilty voice,” Dean insists. “Was it the car? ‘Cause I’ll forgive you for anything but the car.” He leans back in his chair, considering. “Or the coffee maker.”
“Dean,” Sam snaps.
“All right, all right,” Dean mutters, waving him off. “Take it easy and spit it out.”
As though steeling himself for something—for round one with a bitchy spirit, maybe, or the opening lines of an exorcism—Sam exhales through his nose.
“I’m going out of town,” he says, carefully. “For a few days. Alone.”
Dean’s face cracks into a grin.
“Smooth, Sammy,” he crows, clapping him on the shoulder. “Who is she?”
For a second, Sam stares at him like he’s grown another head.
“It’s Sam,” he says, on autopilot. “And… uh. Eileen?”
Dean swigs the last of his coffee, nodding to himself. Yeah, that tracks. It’s been three months, give or take, since Jack globally reset the router, and he’s been waiting for Sam to get his ass in gear since the moment he got that text a few weeks ago, the one that had him freeze up in the middle of their Alien marathon and haul his ass out the room like someone lit a fire under it.
“We’re just friends,” Sam blurts out. “It’s not what you think, Dean, seriously, we’re not—”
“No, I get it,” Dean insists. “All the crap that’s gone down this year, you guys wanna, y’know. Take things slow. I get that.”
Sam relaxes slightly.
“Right,” he agrees, sounding more sure of himself. “Yeah. Exactly.”
“When are you heading out?”
“Uh…” Sam scratches the back of his neck. “Now?”
Dean snorts.
“Pretty eager for a chick who’s just a friend, Sam,” he says lightly, knocking back the last of his coffee. Sam scowls, right on cue.
“God, shut up. Are you sure you’re okay with this? Do you need any—”
“Dude.” Dean flicks his elbow. “Get outta here and go get her already.”
Sam’s scowl darkens. Dean beams and pushes himself to his feet, ruffling Sam’s hair on his way to the door.
Despite the rain, Sam’s true to his word—gone within the hour, headed out in a Jeep from the garage’s car stash that vaguely reminds Dean of the ones in Jurassic Park. Dean doesn’t wave him off, since he’s not a lonely widow or a woman over sixty, but he does make himself another coffee and lean back against the war room table, trying to ignore the silence and the ache in his back.
He can handle quiet. He can handle being alone. The difficulty, in Dean’s experience, comes when all that stuff collides. It’s echoey enough in the bunker when there’s two people living in it, but every noise carries tenfold without Sam as a buffer—even the TV sounds wrong. It’s too much like desperation, like Dean’s trying to make a dent in the silence. In the end, there’s only one pastime that doesn’t make his skin crawl: pulling out his tape collection and humming along to Houses of The Holy, his head ducked under the Impala’s propped hood.
“You should go upstairs,” Cas says. “You’ll pull your stitches.”
Dean spins around, heart hammering, and smacks his head on the bonnet.
“Jesus, Cas, give a guy some warning—”
“You were warned.” Cas points out. “I assumed Sam told you.”
“Told me what?” Dean mutters, rubbing the sore spot on his temple. Without hesitating, Cas closes the remaining distance and cups Dean’s face in his palm. The ache behind his forehead eases. Dean’s heart heaves unsteadily in his chest.
“I’m staying here while he’s in Arizona,” Cas says.
Dean’s initial feeling is a bright, giddy rush of adrenaline. His second is shock. The third feeling, slamming into his chest like a gunshot, is also shock.
“...Sam’s in Arizona?”
“You stupid,” Dean shouts, “idiotic, moronic, stupid sonofabitch—”
“You said stupid twice,” Sam says patiently.
“Because you’re stupid,” Dean hisses, pacing in tight circles across the garage’s concrete floor. “The hell are you trying to do out there, get yourself killed?”
“I think we should stick to one death between us per year,” Sam says. He sounds riled, like he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. “Dean, just listen to me—”
“I knew you looked guilty,” Dean mutters to the ceiling. “I knew it the second you walked in.”
“I didn’t lie!” Sam insists. “I told you I was going out of town for a few days, which I am, I told you I was meeting Eileen, which I am—”
“You’ll have a partner?” Dean interrupts, pausing midstep. Sam’s sigh crackles down the phone line.
“Yes. I’m not an idiot.”
The knot in Dean’s chest loosens by an inch.
“Why didn’t you just tell me all this crap to start with?” he mutters, scrubbing a hand across his face. Sam makes this disbelieving, incredulous scoff of a sound that gets on his nerves.
“What, like you wouldn’t have flipped out? Because you would have, Dean, exactly like you’re doing right now—”
“You don’t know that!”
“Yeah, I do.” Sam’s voice is beyond flat. Dean can hear the eyeroll. “You would’ve flipped out, insisted on coming with me, and then… I don’t know, dude, got yourself chewed by a rugaru or something.”
“I would not get chewed by rugarus,” Dean warns. “I’m a tough guy. The rugaru would get chewed up by me.”
“Oh my god,” Sam mutters. “Are you done posturing? Can you put Cas on, please?”
“Oh, sure,” Dean says. “Absolutely.”
He hangs up, turns his phone off, shoves it deep into his pocket—and then he tips his head back, eyes closed and breathing hard.
“I assumed you knew.”
Cas’s voice is quiet. He doesn’t get any closer, which Dean’s thankful for. He doesn’t trust himself when his skin starts buzzing like this. A lingering gift from those years with the Mark.
“It’s fine.”
Cas exhales.
“Dean—”
“I said it’s fine,” Dean bites out, teeth gritted. He tips his head down and stares blankly at Baby’s engine, trying to remember if there’s anything that needs putting back before he leaves or whether he can head straight upstairs to lick his wounds. Jesus, Sam’s on his way to a hunt right now and this is what Dean gets as a consolation prize: high blood pressure and a babysitter.
“How the hell did I miss this?” he growls, slamming the hood shut. There’s a sigh from behind him, then a rustle. He’d bet the last ten bucks in his wallet Cas just crossed his arms.
“You have a remarkable aptitude for impulsivity,” Cas says. “Maybe you… failed to think things through.”
The acerbic edge to his voice hits from the left field. Dean turns on his heel, surprise roiling unpleasantly in his gut.
“Excuse me?”
“You need rest.” Cas’s voice would sound pleading, maybe, if you took away all the fury and frustration piled on top. “You shouldn’t be pushing yourself, you’re not—”
“I’m great,” Dean cuts in loudly, shoving a hand through his hair. “Okay? I’m peachy. And I am resting. This is me resting, Cas, I don’t know how much more goddamn restful I can get unless I lay down and die—”
His mouth snaps shut. Cas’s eyes narrow, honed like flint.
Jesus, he’s been around… what, five minutes? And Dean’s already found a way to ruin things. He scrubs his face with the back of his hand, suddenly exhausted.
“Come on, man. Jack brought you back, you brought me back, no point thinking about what-ifs—”
“And if he hadn’t?” It’s the kind of low snarl that always reminds Dean of that night in Bobby’s kitchen, ten years ago; Cas’s eyes glint as he stalks forward, boxing Dean in against the Impala’s hood. “If he hadn’t brought me back, where would you be, Dean? What would’ve become of you?”
There’s a lot of shit Dean wants to say to that, and none of it’s particularly complimentary, but his back is starting to ache again, right at the base of his spine. He’s frustrated, irritated, bordering on exhausted, so if Cas doesn’t want to be here…
“You don’t have to stick around,” Dean mutters.
“I want to.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t wanna be babysat—”
“Dean,” Cas interrupts. The line of his mouth has softened, exasperated but fond. “Do you really think that’s why I’m here?”
“Maybe,” Dean mutters.
He’s too tired to weed the petulance out. Cas’s wry smile sends a bolt of warmth through his whole body, sinking right down to his toes; Dean can’t look at it for too long, so his gaze drops to Cas’s chest instead.
“Sam didn’t ask,” Cas murmurs. He reaches out and adjusts Dean’s shirt collar, smoothing a stray corner back down with his thumb. “I offered.”
The truth is, Dean fell into this the same way he’s fallen into a lot of problems: gradually, and without noticing. He didn’t always want it. Or… who knows, maybe he did, and he didn’t have the right words for it ‘til Cas said them out loud. Either way, he’s not an idiot. Dean knows what it means when someone looks at him like that. He knows he’s looking right back, his breath stuck in his throat.
“I…” Dean says. “You—”
The pain in his back flares from an ember to a spark. He grits his teeth with a tight, drawn out “fuck,” and the only thing stopping his knees from hitting the concrete is Cas’s sudden grip on his forearms, tugging him upright.
“Dean?”
“S’fine,” Dean says thickly, trying to shake him off. It only half works. “Just, uh. Moved wrong, I guess.”
“Come upstairs,” Cas tells him. It’s not a question.
“Yeah, all right,” Dean mutters. He shoots the Impala one last longing look as he limps towards the door.
The hot shower helps. So does drinking half a bottle of water in one go, chased down with painkillers and one of the rabbit food granola bars Sam keeps pointedly leaving on his nightstand. Eventually, moving stiff and slow, Dean pulls on sweats and a clean shirt and follows the hunch tugging him towards the library—where, sure enough, he finds an angel of the Lord slouched in the good armchair, drinking nuclear-strength coffee and squinting at the book in his lap.
Dean fidgets in the doorway. Cas glances at him.
“Better?”
“Eh,” Dean grunts, heaving himself down onto the couch. “Sorta.”
“I’m sorry,” Cas says quietly. “I’d do more if I could.”
There’s a lot Dean wants to say to that. It all bubbles up in his throat once. Quit apologising, jackass, you’re the reason I’m breathing, along with, you say that too much— and deep down, in the place where Dean shoves all his dumbest, stupidest thoughts, I can think of a few things you could do.
“Dean?”
Dean blinks back to the present with a jolt.
“Do you mind?” Cas asks. He’s ambling closer, hands tucked in the pockets of his coat. “If I…?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” Dean says faintly, and he barely has time to wonder what he’s got himself into before Cas is crouching next to him on his knees, what the fuck, one hand on Dean’s shoulder and the other cradling his jaw—
Dean’s not really sure what went down in the barn. His memory doesn’t have much to offer other than brief, muddy flashes. Sam doesn’t talk about it and Dean knows better than to ask. He remembers something digging into his spine and thinking with shocked, detached clarity, “this is going to hurt,” and he remembers coming to in the Impala’s backseat, facedown on the scratchy shock blanket they save for emergencies with Sam’s clammy hands clinging to his forearm. Nothing in-between but white noise.
“There’s no infection,” Cas murmurs, more to himself than Dean. “That’s good. And your lungs have almost healed entirely.”
Dean swallows. He wants… he wants to say thank you, maybe, or grow some balls and ask Cas what happened two weeks ago, but in the end, all that comes out is: “I don’t have any stitches.”
Cas glances up at him. He arches an eyebrow.
“You… earlier,” Dean finishes, lamely. He can feel his cheeks going red. “You said I’d mess ‘em up, but I don’t have any. I thought that was the whole point of, you know. Angel healing.”
Cas hums thoughtfully. His fingers skate across Dean’s jaw.
“Physically, no. But trauma as severe as the kind you sustained…”
He pauses, like he’s looking for the right words. Dean looks down at him, feeling awkwardly frozen in place—and he’s stuck by that, all of a sudden. How Cas, who’s older than everything in this room, including the dirt it’s built on, always takes the time to do this. He’ll choose his words carefully in a language that isn’t his, so Dean can understand him.
“The process isn’t dissimilar to stitches,” Cas says, eventually. “I did what I could, but injuries like this have ties to the soul, not just the body. What remains needs to be healed by you. My grace is… filling in the gaps, so to speak, to make that process easier.”
“Huh,” Dean says.
Cas smiles back at him, wry and crooked.
“You’re welcome.”
Maybe it’s psychosomatic, maybe not—but Dean swears he can actually feel it, now he knows what to look for. A warm, transient otherness in the center of his back, sewn behind his ribs. He clears his throat.
“So… what, your mojo’s the only thing keeping me in one piece?”
“Not entirely.” Cas’s mouth brushes his forehead, lightning quick, before he gets to his feet. “I believe Sam’s stubbornness also plays a part.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dean mutters. He watches, curious and bleary eyed, as Cas walks over to the armchair, picking up his mug and the battered copy of Timequake that normally sits on the shelf above Dean’s bed. He settles on the other side of the couch with the book on his lap like they’ve done this a hundred times before, and like he’s definitely not freaked out about it. Dean sneaks a glance at him out the corner of his eye, and another, until finally he decides to screw it and take the plunge, shuffling closer ‘til their knees knock together, feeling his cheeks flush. He waits for Cas to politely push him back, or freeze up, or yell, or… something.
Cas glances at him. He smiles, soft and kinda dopey, honestly, like he’s seen something good on Dean’s face. It’s one of the ones he picked up somewhere during his stints of being human. Dean wants to know what made him smile like that the first time, so he can track it down and give it to him again. He shuts his eyes for a second—and he’s hazy on the details of how, but Cas’s book-free hand ends up in his hair, scratching gently, and it feels so good that Dean leans into it without really thinking too hard, hooking his chin on Cas’s shoulder and nosing his throat.
“You can sleep, if you want,” Cas says quietly. “I’ll wake you when the dressing needs changing.”
“Mhm,” Dean mumbles. Cas doesn’t ask him to move, and he doesn’t move his hand. He shifts slightly, adjusting to Dean’s weight, and turns the page.
Later that night, once the rain’s given way to a storm, Dean heats up the leftover pizza that’s been taking up space in the fridge and eats it over some paper towel at the kitchen table, drumming a beat on his thigh and listening to Cas give a crash course on Imperial Amaraic as thunder rolls in.
“...which means they share a function,” Cas is saying, leaning against the counter and frowning thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Depending on the context, some consonants correspond with vowels.” He pauses. Dean hears the faint tinny echo of Sam’s voice over the phone. “Yes, exactly, although Hebrew is more forgiving. There are some books on the subject that could be useful—”
“They found the witch yet?” Dean asks, wiping his hands off with the paper towel and chucking it in the trash.
“No,” Cas says, meeting his eyes. “But they have the book he was using.”
Dean shrugs, leaning back in his chair.
“Better than nothing, right?”
Cas’s mouth quirks at the corners.
“That’s exactly what Sam said.”
In the end, from what Dean can tell, the two of them get half a page of something translated between them. Cas scrawls a curved, claw-like alphabet on a series of post-its before sending Sam a photo of each letter, and Dean finds himself oddly captivated by it: the smooth, deft movements of his hand, the way he never hesitates. It’s the perfect distraction right up until he hears Cas say quietly, “I understand. Be careful, both of you,” and end the call.
There’s a part of Dean that will never, no matter what, stop looking over his shoulder to check Sam’s safe behind him. It rears its head after Cas hangs up, sinking sharp claws into his stomach.
“Are they gonna—”
“Not yet,” Cas says, looking up from his post-it collection as he gathers them together. “But they’re getting closer. Sam thinks they’ll have a name by Friday.”
Dean stares at the table top. He bounces one knee up and down underneath it in tiny, jerky movements, trying to get rid of the restlessness that’s making his legs itch. Letting Sam walk unprotected into the line of fire goes against every instinct he has; the more he tries to stifle the urge to fix it, the stronger it gets.
“He’s not alone,” Cas points out. Thunder rumbles in the distance, far above their heads.
“Yeah,” Dean mutters.
The rest of that sentence stays lodged in his throat, ‘cause it’s a dickish thing to say. If he’s not with me, he’s alone. Sam’s his own person, for chrissakes, he handles witches better than Dean does and Eileen’s out there with him—if he had to choose between two legacy hunters and some jackass with an ego trip, Dean knows which one he’d put money on.
But… hey. He’s a rational guy. Doesn’t mean he’s any good at following his own advice.
Just this once (“extenuating circumstances,” he tells Cas, to get that disapproving frown off his face), Dean decides to forgo his nightly dose of painkillers in favor of opening the rum he picked up at some kitschy pick-your-own orchard in Maryland a few years back; the one Sam had forced him to leave the highway for. Oak aged and apple spiced, according to the label. The first two sips taste like a mouthful of potpourri, but the third goes down better, smoothing the frayed edges of his nerves into something easier to breathe around. He’s still too wound up to sleep, and Cas is too stubborn to let him wallow the way he wants—which is how Dean finds himself wide awake at 2 in the morning, cursing under his breath and shuffling cards.
“I can’t help it, Dean. It happens automatically.”
Cas is a quick learner. He has a petty competitive streak a mile wide and a pretty decent poker face, except for when he frowns. He is also, to Dean’s surprise, a dirty, card-counting cheat.
“Sure it does, Rain Man.” Dean’s still sorta laughing; not drunk, just happy, glowing warmly from the inside out thanks to the lingering taste of spiced rum. “Just another angel perk, huh?”
Cas smirks at him, inclining his head.
“Something like that,” he murmurs. His voice is low enough to make Dean’s stomach flip. “Check.”
Dean rap his knuckles on the table in agreement and lays the fourth card down. Another king—hearts, this time, not spades. He glances at his hand, at the table, and back again, watching Cas do the same thing out the corner of his eye. He’s already frowning.
Dean grins.
“Now, if I was trying to hustle you,” he says, “this is where I’d start.”
Cas looks up from his hand.
“Why?”
“You’re gonna check,” Dean explains, sliding a new card off the stack sat between them. “Which means you either don’t want those cards, or you don’t want ‘em yet. You’ve already paid your blinds twice, so that’s twenty bucks on the table. If I raise the stakes and you match me, that’s another twenty five. If I raise you again after the next card comes down, I’m gonna bet you’ll back out—or you’ll match me, then back out when I raise you double. Either way, I’m winning the hand.” He lays the ten of spades down on the table, meeting Cas’s eyes with a grin. “And you’ve paid for my motel room.”
“How kind of me,” Cas says dryly.
He stills checks. Probably ‘cause he’s still counting cards like an asshole. Dean rolls his eyes and looks away before his cheeks have a chance to flush.
“I always liked playing one on one,” he admits, picking his thumbnail. “Never got the hang of group games, that was Sam’s thing. Smug sonofabitch won us tickets to an Ozzy concert once.”
“Do you miss it?”
Dean goes still, midway through tossing a green chip towards the pot.
“You askin’ for a reason?”
“Not particularly,” Cas says. “But… it sounds like you do.”
Dean lets that statement hang in the air as he mulls it over. Yeah, he decides. Maybe he does. A little. But he misses his Dad too, some days—doesn’t mean he wants the guy to walk through the door tomorrow morning.
“Me and Sammy, back then…” Dean traces a groove on the table with the tip of his finger. His mouth curves up fondly. “We were always on the move, you know? Running from something, into something, you name it, and it was a blast, sometimes, don’t get me wrong, but… I dunno, man. I’ve had my fill of that. There’s other stuff I want.”
He figures it’s the rum that gives him the courage to do it; the rum, or how late it is. Dean sneaks a glance across the table, throat dry, before looking back down. Hell, maybe it’s the way Cas looks in his clothes. Soft and approachable, like he belongs here.
“Did you ever miss your wings?” Dean blurts out. “When you were. Uh.”
There’s a long pause.
“I'll take freedom without wings over being under someone’s thumb,” Cas says honestly, meeting his eyes. “Always.”
Dean breathes out, relaxing a little. No divine wrath, then. False alarm.
“But I'm glad to have them back,” Cas murmurs, tracing the edge of a card with his finger. “I always hated how frustrating it was.”
Dean snorts.
“What, that you couldn’t run off all the time?”
Cas glances up.
“That I couldn’t find you.” His eyes flit to his cards, then back up. “Check.”
The truth is, Dean’s never had many chances to look at his feelings head-on. Even if he’d wanted to, there was always something higher up on the priorities list: food money, gas money, room fees, laundry; blood to mop up, a busted carburetor, a hunt popping up two states over—and always, underneath it all, some kind of high stakes threat lurking in the rearview. Dean has lived, since he was four years old, with dread underpinning his life like a sinister, thrumming heartbeat. At a certain point, he’d figured playing dumb was just self preservation. No point wanting anything when your back’s against the wall.
He glances across the table again and manages to catch Cas in profile: slouched in his chair by the reading lamp, haloed in the light. His dark hair is curling behind his ears. Dean’s shirt pulls slightly taut over the broad expanse of his shoulders, just enough to pull the dip below his collarbones into view.
Cas loves him, in the worst and most dangerous sense of the word. Dean’s heard him say it and knows he meant it—if he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have killed him. He has no clue what they're doing, but in a few hours Cas will let Dean curl around his back like a comma, and Dean will pull him closer while he sleeps. With any luck, the world won’t end.
“Check,” Dean says thickly. He reaches for the next card.
Three days later, Sam phones ahead when he’s five hours out. Dean almost misses the call, his head pillowed on Cas’s lap and the rest of his body sprawled over the couch, gesticulating wildly as Cas scowls down at him—
“You can’t pick Janeway!” Dean insists. “Nobody picks Janeway, man. Enterprise was a bust.”
“I liked it.”
“It’s corny,” Dean says, prodding him in the ribs. “It’s weird.”
“It’s… very human,” Cas allows. “But I fail to see how that’s a flaw.”
“Yeah, you would,” Dean mutters, but whatever else he has to say about Cas’s appalling pop culture opinions dies in his throat once he feels his phone buzz near his hip.
“Hey,” Sam says, exasperated. “Jeez, finally, I’ve been calling for like twenty minutes. You all right?”
Dean clears his throat, struggling upright and away from Cas’s lap.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. Just, uh… tired.”
“Right,” Sam says slowly, drawing the word out. “Well, I just dropped Eileen off at her place. She’s in Denver, I should make it back around ten.”
Something strange happens in Dean’s chest. A nervous thread, pulled taut, goes lax with relief—but he’s barely had time to appreciate it before a dull, heavy feeling starts seeping through him like oil.
“Great,” Dean hears himself say. “That’s good.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Dean repeats, putting some exasperation behind it to seal the deal—and Sam, thank god, seems to either take the bait or back off anyway. “Seriously, you just woke me up. That’s all.”
“At five-thirty?” Dean can practically see him wrinkling his nose. “You’re napping at five-thirty? Dude, you’re never gonna—”
“I’m a grown man with a stab wound, Sam, I can take naps whenever I want.” Dean winces, leaning one hand on the couch arm as he gets to his feet. His back has some shit to say about all the sudden movements he’s making but whatever, he can deal. “You got money for gas?”
“Yeah, my card’s still working. I was gonna grab some groceries, you and Cas want anything?”
Dean opens his mouth to say no, I’m good, but someone tugs his phone out his hand, careful but firm. He hears Cas’s voice from behind him saying, “coffee would be appreciated. We opened the spare bag.”
“Cool." Faintly, Dean hears the rhythmic clicking of the Jeep’s turn signal. “Later, Cas.”
Cas says something in reply before he hangs up. Dean doesn’t know what it is because he can’t hear jackshit over the ringing in his ears, and he can’t think thanks to the pressure constricting his lungs.
“Dean,” Cas says. Dean spins unsteadily on his heel, head still buzzing with white noise, and tugs Cas forward by the hem of his shirt, which is actually Dean’s shirt, fuck—and Cas says his name again in that low, concerned voice that makes Dean want to bolt. He tips his head back, forcing himself to breathe.
“You,” he starts, scrubbing his eyes with the palm of his hand. “You’ve gotta check in upstairs now, right? That was the plan.”
There's a long, strained silence.
“I don’t have to,” Cas answers slowly. “Not yet.”
“You should,” Dean says.
“Dean—”
“Look, you said you were gonna,” Dean interrupts, shrugging, “so… y’know. You should. Don’t leave 'em hanging.”
The look on Cas’s face makes him wish he’d never said anything. In fact, he wishes today hadn’t happened at all. Dean wants to blink and go back to the beginning, warm and drowsy with Cas’s hair in his mouth and one knee wedged somehow between Cas’s legs.
“Okay,” Cas says.
Dean swallows around the lump in his throat. He coughs, trying to clear it, but it doesn’t work.
“Okay.”
“Dean.” Cas steps forward again, getting close enough to touch—and for a second, Dean looks right at him and has no idea what’s coming next. He doesn’t know anything at all, except his pulse is thrumming wildly and he wants—he wants to—
“Don’t be too hard on Sam,” Cas says quietly, resting a hand on his forearm. “He was trying to help you.”
There’s an odd, sour taste in Dean’s mouth.
“Yeah, well, I don’t want help,” he retorts, shrugging away from Cas's touch, “I want both of you to stop treating me like I’m some dumb kid, and I wanna go back to doing my job, all right? That’s it.”
He feels hot and itchy all over. Cas stays quiet, tracking Dean’s movements with an unreadable look on his face. It makes the itching worse.
“Do you want me to go?”
A noise bubbles up in Dean’s throat—this small, choked sound, bordering on a laugh. Jesus Christ.
“Just… do what you need to do,” Dean mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets and keeping his eyes fixed on the library’s scuffed floorboards. Cas doesn't say anything. A brief rustle cuts the silence, like a breeze rippling through leaves.