Chapter Text
On Thursday night, Death is in Dean’s kitchen.
Six months of domesticity haven’t got shit on three decades of hunter reflexes, and Dean knows there’s something in the apartment before his keys hit the coffee table. The lights are out, for one, and not in the some asshole didn’t pay the electric bill way. Shattered glass crunches underfoot with every step he takes, the air cold around him, and Dean swears that underneath it he can smell purgatory, the stagnant water and rotting vines.
Death is waiting for him when he steps onto the linoleum, and the gun in Dean’s hand seems to amuse him. He has a mug in front of him and his cane perched delicately against their kitchen table; he’s got a brown paper bag and an unconcerned expression, and the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stands on end.
“Your coffee could be better.” He stirs it as though Dean has disappointed him somehow.
“Yeah, well.” Dean toggles the safety and slides his pistol into the back of his jeans. “Wasn’t expecting company.” The air around him feels thick, damp and heavy in his lungs. There’s a weight behind it that keeps Dean rooted in the doorway, staring at his own coffee table, the impeccable, thin figure wrapping bony fingers around a cheap ceramic mug. “You wanna cut the crap and tell me what you want here?”
It’s a long moment before Death looks up from his coffee. “I admire this about your kind. You have no idea how small you are. You see Heaven and Hell on earth and call it unseasonable weather. So dedicated to the belief that you’re at the top of your fabricated food chain.” A corner of his mouth curls in what might be amusement. “And you. You’re a pain in my side, yet I find myself pitying your struggles.”
Dean digs his fingernails into his palms until it hurts, clenches his jaw. “I don’t need your pity. Get the hell out of my kitchen.”
Death ignores him entirely, far more interested in a biscotti he’s pulling out of a brown paper package. He gestures, offering one to Dean. “From a shop in Sedona. You should take one, Dean.” Death looks him up and down, appraising. “I see you aren’t consuming anything that doesn’t come in a shot glass. Do you plan on embalming yourself entirely, or just partially?”
Dean grabs the biscuit and takes a step back; Death rolls his eyes with what might be fondness.
“Your problem, Dean, is stubbornness. There are things that rest on your shoulders -- not by my wishes, of course, I can’t help but find you a little...unstable. But you’ve seen how it is. One soul stays, a chain reaction takes another hundred lives.” Death tsks. “It gets messy.”
Dean closes his eyes, willing away the memory -- twelve years old, he thinks, and when he opens them again, Death is still staring at him, head tilted in fascination like Dean is pressed behind glass. “So, what, you here to kill me?” He waves a hand. “Gonna get to it?”
“Oh come on, you’re quicker than that. Would I be sitting here with your sorry excuse for Americano if I was here to take you off to the great beyond? More to the point, wouldn’t there be something here that could actually kill you? Unless you had some ideas yourself.” Death slides his chair back, silver-tipped cane clicking on the cheap linoleum as he pushes himself up and across the kitchen in a deceptively smooth movement. Nothing at all like the other horsemen -- old, older than anything Dean’s ever hunted, but the room hums with power and Dean clenches up against it. He’s not scared for himself but he knows that he should be; it’s the emptiness he feels, the twisted curl of hope at the thought of Death’s touch that makes his shoulders tense as the figure himself draws near.
Death stops short, giving him a smile that looks almost like empathy. “Ah, Dean. That’s just the problem. You understand better than most, the cost of an impulse.”
“If this is about hunting, Sammy and me--”
“Yes, yes, the Winchesters make good, so I’ve heard. You play house because you won’t let your baby brother down. I’m here about your plans after that. When you’ve convinced yourself he’ll be fine without you, that he’s got that neat little manicured life you want for him.” Death raises an eyebrow. “I’m here about that gun under your pillow.”
“You want the Colt?” Dean’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth to protest. It’s the Colt. Gates closed or not, he’s not taking that chance--
Death looks at him as though he’s a particularly obtuse toddler. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t lie to Death, Dean, any more than you can cheat me.” He lifts his hands, twisting carefully at his ring. “Now. Would you like to see what I’ve brought you?”
Dean closes his mouth, heart thudding, and nods.
* * *
The bulbs are blown in the hallway, too. Without the artificial light the apartment seems particularly small, long shadows and dark gaps between them making Dean wish, irrationally, that Sam would get home. Death leads them to Dean’s bedroom door and stops, tapping his cane on the molding.
“I took the liberty of assuming this was your bedroom. Your brother’s collection of personal memorabilia is markedly more tasteful.” Death smirks, and great, Dean’s day is gonna end with Death itself judging his lifestyle choices.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
Dean pushes the door open. It takes everything he has not to turn back around and punch Death itself in the face.
There’s a body sprawled out on Dean’s bed -- a living body, filthy, naked but for the bed sheet pulled over narrow hips. That’s not what Dean is focusing on, though. Dean’s focus is on the figure’s back, on the heavy latticework of new scars and old blood across bruised shoulder blades and ribs, damage that looks one hell of a lot like a bird with its wings torn out. The man on the bed is turned onto his side but Dean doesn’t need to get closer. He stares at the all too familiar body and remembers cold skin, drags his eyes over the span of a ribcage he had tried desperately, vainly, to hold together, to keep from bleeding out in the back of the Impala.
Dean doesn’t close his eyes anymore without seeing Castiel, wrapped in the trench coat and his arms and still slipping away too fast to stop him. He recognizes him instantly and nearly trips over his own feet, backpedaling into the hallway.
“What in the hell is this.”
“This is your proverbial carrot.” Death steps closer to the bed, beckoning Dean to follow.
It hurts, to look down. He wants it to be true so damn bad but nothing, nothing like this comes free. With his thighs pressed against the mattress Dean can see the hitch of Castiel’s throat, the rise and fall of his chest. The skin covering his ribcage is smooth and whole, and Dean’s hands twitch at his side against the nearly painful urge to reach out and touch, to see if his eyes are lying to him.
“It’s been months.” Dean feels dizzy. He has a hundred questions, but the first one out is, “where’d they take him?”
“Purgatory.” Death says the word as though he finds it especially distasteful.
Dean can’t stop staring; he’s afraid to take his eyes off the figure on the bed, as though if he turns his head, blinks too long, Castiel will disappear again. “What’s the catch?”
And that’s the question that makes Death laugh - actually laugh -- leaning on his cane and shaking his head like he’s talking to a child. “I do enjoy our conversations. Your attachment is the ‘catch,’ if you care to put it that way. With him here, you won’t be taking my job into your hands a second time, will you?”
Every fiber of Dean’s body is fighting the urge to reach out, touch and prove to himself this isn’t a hallucination, another all-too-lucid nightmare. “So you’re...bribing me?”
“I don’t make bargains, Dean. And most would cower in gratitude by now.” Death looks down at the head of his cane and Dean is suddenly struck by his own stupidity, is nearly brought to his knees by the weight of the piercing cold and the static energy of the otherworldly echoing around him.
“I didn’t--” Dean stammers, but Death just waves a hand, rolling his eyes as if watching a favored puppy chew on his shoes.
“I said ‘most,’” he says, and there’s a smirk in the sound.
Dean reaches out tentatively, fingers spanning the mottled bruises along Castiel’s back. He shivers and curls into himself, and Dean takes his hand away like he’s burnt it -- alive, Dean’s brain is screaming, but he clamps down on it and turns back to Death. “He’s human.”
Death arches an eyebrow, noncommittal. “The gates to heaven and hell are sealed. All angels who still walk this earth are cut off from the host. But that was your handiwork, wasn’t it?” Death taps his cane on the floor. “Well done, by the way. It makes my job much easier.” He twists his wrist to check a gleaming black Rolex. “And now Dean Winchester, I am afraid you have taken far too much of my time already. I trust that I will not see you again for a very long while.” He lifts his cane, tapping Dean’s chest with it, and the cold that seeps into Dean’s body is something deeper than bone-chill. He searches for a comeback, any kind of bravado, but there’s nothing -- just fear, the presence of something old, and dark, and infinite. “There are others, you must know. They want him, and what he has hidden.”
Dean staggers backwards, away from the cane and the crippling cold. “Other what? What do they want? What the hell are you telling me?”
“The memories he’s lost were taken before I retrieved him. He may not remember, but they will. When the gates were sealed, there were others left behind. They want back in. This poor creature would seem an ideal opportunity.” He fixes Dean with a glare that leaves him frozen, so still not even he knows if he’s still breathing. “I don’t like purgatory much. It loses its charm awfully quickly. I won’t bring your angel back a second time if you botch up this one.”
And then Death is gone, the sudden lifted weight in the room the only suggestion he was ever there.
Well, that, and Castiel. Christ. Dean sits down on the bed next to the angel’s still form. “Cas, you hear me buddy?”
Castiel groans. He rolls over, grimacing when his back hits the comforter, and Dean slides a hand under his head, coaxes him to sit, slumped but awake, eyes tracking Dean’s hands as they pat down his ribs and stomach. Dean narrows his eyes, pressing his hand down over Castiel’s ribs. There’s--nothing, no scars, no evidence he’s ever been anything but whole.
Dean fights the urge to hug him, remembering the wounds on his back. “Cas.”
“Dean.” He smiles, foggy around the edges, the cosmic equivalent of morphine. Dean wonders how he’ll feel when it starts to wear off. “What are you doing here?”
Dean blinks at him before laughing, because--Jesus, Cas. “You’re the asshole that crash landed in my room without knocking first.” With Castiel sagging like he is, Dean can just see over his shoulder to the edges of the scabbed wounds. They don’t look infected, but they’re ugly all the same, curved pink and smeared across his skin in unsettling finger paints. He’s torn between getting up to get the first aid kit out of the bathroom and staying where he is, scared Castiel will disappear if he stops looking at him. In the end he’s selfish and splits the difference, getting a careful arm around Castiel’s waist and coaxing him to wrap his arm around Dean’s shoulders. “Up, c’mon, we gotta get that mess on your back checked out.”
He cranes his neck, frowning. “I don’t remember taking injury.”
Dean’s mouth sets in a tight line as he wonders, dumbly, just how much Castiel doesn’t remember. He shakes it off though, grateful Castiel is too busy focusing on walking straight to pay attention to his expression.
“Yeah, it’s okay, we’ll get all the details filled in later. Back first.”
Dean shuffles them to the bathroom across the hall, perches Castiel on the closed toilet and sits on the bathtub’s edge, examining the wounds more closely. He hisses in sympathy. Whether Castiel remembers getting them or not, they look nasty. About a half-foot long each at the base of his shoulder-blades, sliced clean like someone curled a bowie knife straight under the bone. They’re a couple weeks old, dried through and beginning to scar. He’s afraid to do much to them if they’ve healed this far on their own, though, settles for grabbing alcohol and soft gauze from under the sink. Almost as an afterthought, he grabs a towel off the rack and spreads it carefully over Castiel’s naked lap. It takes away a tension that Dean hates acknowledging he felt.
He cleans the dried blood away with more care than probably necessary, careful not to disrupt new skin.
“You okay in there?”
Castiel makes a noise that barely sounds human and nods his head. “I feel different. I don’t remember losing my grace, but it’s gone, isn’t it?”
Crap, Dean thinks. He wonders if Castiel has just noticed his wings are gone, too. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. This doesn’t feel like something he should have to tell him. “You lost it when we closed the gates, remember?”
“I don’t.” Castiel sounds genuinely apologetic. “I wish I did.”
Dean grimaces. You really don’t, he thinks, but doesn’t say it, doesn’t even know where to begin. God knows this isn’t his first resurrection rodeo, but there’s always been something between him and the emotions part: the apocalypse, or crazy angels, or, crazier angels with a reboot switch. It’s never occurred to him until now just how rarely Castiel’s ever belonged to himself. He thinks, sometimes, about what Castiel said once, how he wished things were different; Dean had been pissed off at the time, shoved it off as just another excuse from someone who couldn’t wait to leave him. But it wasn’t will, or want, keeping Castiel away. It was biology, celestial hardwiring. Angels weren’t meant to die for anything but the holy. Dean would have died for his family, but Castiel never had that option; he kept coming back long after he wanted to, another Prometheus bound by one dick of a god.
Dean would be pissed off, but then, here he is sitting in his bathroom, the life that was more than he even dared to hope for and Castiel all gift-wrapped and Lazarused all over again. Instead he throws the dirtied gauze away, tips Castiel’s head forward carefully so he can take one last look at the pink scars that grimace across his back. Knife, he thinks again. There’s no way they were anything but deliberately applied, and his gut goes cold at the thought.
There are, after all, demons in purgatory. He’s sure by now someone’s managed to smoke one or two of the fuckers he helped create.
Dean rubs the muscles along Castiel’s shoulders carefully, mindful of his injuries even as he stares. “Talk to me, Cas.”
From this angle, Dean can’t see Castiel’s face -- just the line of his back as he slouches heavily against the toilet seat. “I don’t hear anything.”
“No angel radio?”
Castiel shakes his head, looking crestfallen. “No.” He hesitates, and Dean scoots forward enough to catch his expression. He’s thinking, trying to work through words like they’re in a foreign tongue. Technically, Dean remembers, they are. “I believe this is,” Castiel says finally, “the first time I’ve been entirely alone in my head.”
Dean has no idea what to say to that. “Is it lonely in there?”
“I don’t know yet.” He leans over to look at Dean, expression softening. “It’s very quiet.”
Dean smiles at that. “Well you let me know if you wanna get a radio going or something. We can turn on some Limbaugh, recreate the whole feathery nutjob experience.” Castiel tilts his head, and Dean waves off the inevitable request to explain, lifting himself off the edge of the tub. “You want to get cleaned up, make you feel better?”
Castiel looks up at Dean, completely trusting. “If you think it will help, then yes, I’d like to try that.”
Jeez. Dean rubs the back of his neck, suddenly feeling a ridiculous amount of pressure. “Well it’s no magic bullet but yeah, here you go.” He plugs the drain and turns on the hot water, content when steam begins to rise from the graying ceramic tub. He helps Castiel to the edge of it, tucking the towel in around his hips.
“Don’t get in yet. Just..... stay here, I’ll be back in a second.”
In his room, he grabs sweatpants and boxers and one of his old concert t-shirts, a long- sleeved Metallica thing he and Sam got at a festival for which they drove fifteen hundred miles straight into Cooperstown in one weekend, then grabs his phone and hesitates before hitting Sam’s number. He knows he’s on the back edge of barely keeping this together, because it’s Castiel and he’s alive and Dean has no idea what to do with this, is fighting every instinct to just get in the car and drive, as far and fast as he can until he outruns the feeling twisting his gut on a rack. He leans his forehead against the wall and gasps down sucking breaths, focusing on keeping his breathing even until the feeling fades.
Dean hates text message, but leaving a voicemail is a good way to scare the shit out of his brother and he doesn’t need Sam running out on his job halfway through a shift. As much as he might really want Sam there, he also really likes being able to pay for groceries, especially now that it looks like they’re going to be feeding a third, probably useless, indefinite house guest.
Sammy got a thing came up get your ass home quick.
He thinks about it and adds.
could use some help
He tries to decide if the overall effect is too dramatic -- which strikes him as a vaguely absurd thought to have, given there’s a dead man using their bathtub -- but short of an emergency codeword, Dean’s text messages barely rate a one on Sam’s give a shit-o-meter. He hits send, then tosses the phone on his pillow and heads back into the bathroom.
* * *
Even with the door cracked, the mirror is pretty well steamed up when Dean comes back in, tossing the clothes on the counter and turning the faucet to cold to even out the water temperature. Castiel hasn’t moved, still seated primly on the edge of the tub, towel folded carefully over his lap. Castiel still doesn’t fully understand the human aversion to nudity, but he blinked in on Dean in the shower once, years ago, and Dean’s reaction had apparently been loud enough that Castiel’s been damn well school marmish about it ever since.
In retrospect Dean feels bad about it, now, but there are so many conversations that they can never make it back around to.
Dean checks the water again, satisfied it won't scald anyone before he turns off the faucet. A thought strikes him and he looks over at Castiel, eyebrow raised. “You ever do this before?”
Castiel mimes his expression, seeming puzzled. “Bathing? Angels have no need for it. Our grace keeps our vessels unsullied.” He purses his lips, briefly lost in thought. “When I was. When I couldn’t remember, I bathed. Daphne saw to my vessel’s needs as if I were mortal.” It comes out so neutral, and Dean is struck by the sudden, nearly overpowering urge to ask just what mortal behavior entailed. It wasn’t appropriate then and it’s damn well not now, though, so instead he just nods, glancing away.
“Right." He straightens, reaching out to brush Castiel's shoulder. "Look, just -- here, swing your legs over and slide in.”
Castiel does as he’s told, handing the towel to Dean. He takes it, rolling the terrycloth into an awkward ball and trying to look anywhere but Castiel’s cock. Dude’s been back among the living for less than an hour -- Dean’s pretty sure there’s no appropriate time to perv on an angel, fallen or not, but even if there were, this ain’t it. Sam’s got a couple of hand towels hanging from a rack behind the toilet -- for accent purposes, how is this Dean’s life now -- and Dean wets one and lathers it up with something citrusy and overbearing. Castiel wrinkles his nose but says nothing, and Dean can’t help but laugh.
“Not a fan, huh? It’ll wash off.”
Castiel ducks his head, letting Dean start carefully on his neck. “It smells like your pillowcase. I appreciate the connection.”
“Uh.” Dean has no idea how to respond to that. Somehow, he forgot about that part, how Castiel could send him completely off-guard just by being honest. He clears his throat and focuses on cleaning the grime and blood from Castiel’s neck and hair. “So the Death thing. Not that I’m not--and god, Cas, I’m glad you’re back, but why would Death go dragging people up on my account?”
Castiel’s lips curl up in a small smile. “Perhaps he likes you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like the way that sounds.”
Castiel shakes his head, water hitting Dean in droplets. “You should be honored. You have the favor of the most powerful being in the whole of creation.” He sounds slightly awed, and there’s a long moment of thoughtful silence before he goes serious again, something in him still intense and soul-charring enough that Dean can’t help but freeze to meet his gaze. “Dean. I’m incredibly dangerous to this new balance. When I...died...I was the only one who knew the location of the second tablet.”
“The angel one.”
Castiel nods, face screwed up with guilt. “It could threaten the peace you and Sam have found.”
Not moving ain’t the same as getting peace, Dean thinks, sharp and acrid in his stomach. He swallows the words down, swiping the washcloth along Castiel’s spine, across his ribcage. “Whatever’s out there’s gonna be just as human as you are. We’ve ganked worse.” He hears bravado he doesn’t feel, hopes Castiel is buying at least some of what he’s selling. “Won’t even be a fair fight.”
Castiel nods, arching his neck to look up at the ceiling and Dean reaches out and ghosts a knuckle over his adam’s apple, barely touching soft skin. It’s just enough to get Castiel’s attention and Dean hands him the wash cloth, nods awkwardly in the direction of the milky water. “Rest is you, man.”
Castiel looks confused for a second, then his eyes widen in understanding and he takes the cloth. Dean averts his gaze, pushing himself off the ground with a grimace. He’s getting old, a thousand injuries that never healed quite right clamoring for a mute-button adrenaline hit.
He’s hopped up like a junkie, shaky and frayed around the edges, and he makes it as far as the hallway before his legs give up the ghost on him; he leans heavily on the wall and slides down until he’s sitting on the short nubbed carpet, pulling his knees up to his chest and squeezing his eyes closed, like there’s any chance it will make everything stop. It hasn’t worked since he was four; it sure as hell won’t start now.
He waits until Castiel announces he’s finished, awkwardly, before climbing back up to his feet and helping Castiel out of the tub, getting him to step into the boxers on his own before drying him off, because Castiel has never been human before, never understood the concept of chafing.
“C’mere,” he says, practically manhandling Castiel to get him back where he needs him. “Let’s get you bandaged up.” Castiel doesn’t look like he’s going to have much luck doing this standing, so Dean sits him down on the toilet lid, works quickly, with decades of experience.
“I don’t think those are necessary. I don’t feel any pain.”
“Yeah, well. Humor me here, okay?”
Castiel eyes him curiously, but complies, dropping his head and baring his back, body visibly loose with steam and exhaustion. Dean has a sudden, bright image of what he would’ve looked like with wings -- real wings, not shadows in empty space, all whippet-sharp and battle-scarred and raven-skin fragile. He stares down at the cotton and the empty space behind them and runs his thumb in what he hopes are comforting circles along Castiel’s vertebrae as he tapes the last bandages in place against clean skin.
“Okay.” It comes out mostly as an exhale, breath ruffling Castiel’s hair. “You did great. We’re all done. Let’s get you back to bed, okay?”
Castiel makes an unhappy sound, but sags into Dean’s side anyway.
They stagger back across the hall with no real measure of grace, Dean using the arm not wrapped around Castiel’s waist to brace himself against the drywall. Castiel is already falling asleep when he hits the bed, jerking himself awake in frustration every time he starts to drift.
“Hey, stop that.” Dean sits down on the mattress, not trusting his own legs, and brushes his hand over Castiel’s eyes. “You gotta sleep.”
“I’ve been asleep.”
Dean frowns. He gets it - he hadn’t wanted to sleep for weeks after Castiel had pulled him out of hell - but it tears at you, eventually, breaks you down from inside. Castiel looks like miles of bad road already, stretched out on the bed like he doesn’t trust the solidity of the mattress underneath him. “It’s not the same thing,” Dean tells him, pulling up the comforter and wrapping it around Castiel as tightly as he dares.
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
Castiel looks up at him and Dean notices for the first time how wide his pupils are, blown on whatever mojo got him here or maybe just old-fashioned fear. Dean reaches out and swipes at Castiel’s wet hair, lingering as long as he dares before standing.
“‘Course. Just gotta clean up the mess in the living room before Sam gets home and freaks,” he says with a smile that’s brighter than he feels; he’s gratified when Castiel at least tries to match it, edges of his mouth pulling into an unsteady smile. He feels only kind of ridiculous digging a garage sale baby monitor out from one of his dressers. When they’d first moved in, it had been the only way Dean had been able to sleep -- he kept one in the living room, volume up and waiting, jerking awake at night imagining the things that he was sure would come after them. He hasn’t needed anything but sigils and the salt they sewed under the carpets in months, but the batteries are still fresh and he turns the volume as loud as it will go, sets the device next to Castiel on the bed. “I’ll be right here if you need me.”
Castiel nods, and Dean heads toward the master bathroom to scrape up some spare lights, but not before noticing the way Castiel’s fingers slip out from under the comforter to wrap around the monitor.
When he checks in again, two bags full of bulbs pilfered from under Sam’s bathroom sink, he’s not surprised to find Castiel completely conked out. The monitor is held tightly in his hand, curled close to his cheek, and Dean finds himself patting his jacket pocket for its twin, reassured by the crackle of static and the faint sound of muted breathing.
* * *
Dean has most of the lightbulbs in the apartment replaced when Sam comes in, tossing his book bag on the floor and staring up at Dean in confusion.
“Dean, what the--” His eyes dart between the growing pile of blown-out bulbs and the baby monitor tucked into Dean’s front pocket, concern evident.
“Shh.” The last bulb goes bright with a turning click, spilling the living room in fluorescent lighting, and Dean gets momentary joy out of the pinched face Sam always gets at Dean’s failure to buy energy-efficient bulbs. “There we go, all fixed up.”
Sam frowns, watching Dean gather up the shattered stems of the old bulbs and dump them into the trash. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?” Dean sees Sam’s fingers twitch towards his belt, knows without having seen it that Sam still carries Ruby’s knife.
Dean raises a reassuring hand, and Sam’s wrist relaxes against his hip. “Had a friend of ours show up earlier,” Dean says, keeping his voice down in case Castiel is still asleep. “Big bling, sweet ride--” He jerks his head in the direction of the plant on the coffee table, some spider-something or other Sam is convinced keeps the air clean or some yuppie bull crap. It’s withered at the edges, leaves sliding down its potting. “One hell of a brown thumb.”
“Death?” Sam blinks at him incredulously. “What did he want?”
Dean shakes his head, gesturing Sam down the hallway back towards his bedroom. The door’s open, just barely, and the light is on -- Dean knocks on the door and a familiar voice answers, hoarse with disuse but still there.
A glance over at Sam shows wide eyes staring at Dean with disbelief. Dean turns back to the door instead, leaning heavily on the cheap wood. “You decent?”
“I...believe so?”
Dean pushes the door open to find Castiel sitting cross-legged on the mattress. He’s pulled on the shirt and sweatpants Dean gave him earlier -- they hang loose around his frame, making him look younger than his vessel, impossibly younger than the being now permanently trapped inside it. His hair is sticking out at every angle imaginable and he still looks like he went three rounds with a semi, but he smiles when he sees Sam, who looks a little like he’s going to fall over, leaning heavily against the dresser.
“Cas?” Sam looks over at Dean, back to the angel sitting in the center of the bed. “I...what...how are you here?”
“I assume you are asking how I am alive, and...intact.” Castiel lifts his arms, drops them to his sides in a parody of confusion. “I admit I don’t know. Death seems to favor Dean.”
Sam blinks. Dean is momentarily sure his brother is going to have a coronary. “Dean, can we talk? In the hall? Now?”
Sam grabs Dean’s arm and practically hauls him out of his own bedroom, far enough into the hall that it’s fair odds that Castiel can’t hear them. “You made a deal,” Sam hisses as soon as they’re out of earshot, stupid puppy eyes full of betrayal.
“Wait, what?” Righteous indignation follows, biting the heels of confusion. “Do I look like an idiot? You think I don’t know how fast that shit turns all 28 Days Later? I saw what happened with Karen, you really think I’d take the chance I’d have to blow Cas’s brains out all over the dining nook?”
“Did you just say dining nook?”
“Oh my fucking--” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “No deals, Sammy. Nothing. I swear.”
Sam stares him down, apparently trying to guilt him into revealing a dirty conscience. Dean’s conscience is just great, though, thanks for asking; he meets Sam’s glare, turning their unspoken death-match into a game of emotional chicken. Sam blinks first.
“So Death just.... brought Cas back with a bow on, for no reason.” He doesn’t sound like he believes that explanation for a second, but he does seem to buy that Dean hasn’t made any dumber than usual choices in the last twenty-four hours.
“Hell if I know. Said something about needing the guy,” Dean lies, but really, it’s only half of one. Dean needs him -- or at least, Death seems to think so, he made that part abundantly clear.
Sam still looks wary, and Dean thinks about telling him the rest of what Death said, but there’s no point in making him worry about crap that isn’t going to happen, and everything he’s saying is true anyhow. He’s interrupted by a crackle of static from the monitor in his pocket, and he fumbles to grab it.
“Dean?” The smallness in Castiel’s voice makes Dean wish, almost violently, the stupid things were two-way. “I think I'd like to not be alone.”
Dean looks back at Sam and shrugs. What can you do?