Archive of Our Own

In Dean’s defense, he doesn’t realize he’s being a huge asshole until he’s wrist deep turning himself into a muppet.

“Did you die?”

Dean crankily opens one eye just to glare at Claire's sandy mop of hair hovering above him. There’s an awful ugly blue-greenish tinge to the back of it that sort of reminds him of chlorinated water, a faded holdover from a lazy box-hair-dye, and he very seriously considers giving her shit about it. And also the stick-and-poke behind her ear, christ.

“I did not die, you ungrateful child,” he huffs instead. “Just gimme a minute. I’m resting.”

She wrinkles her nose and calls out, “Kaia—”

“Here,” Kaia says, and there’s a second, darker mop of hair hovering over him. “Got you an ice pack, Dean.” 

Dean grunts his thanks and carefully tucks the “ice pack,” a frozen sponge wrapped in dish towels, behind his lower back from where he’s starfished on the floor. Still twinges like a motherfucker.

Claire gets a complicated look on her face staring down at him. 

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he cracks.

Her eyebrow twitches with annoyance, but Kaia barks a laugh. You know, he’s always liked Kaia best. 

“You didn’t have to carry the bed frame up by yourself. You should have just asked if you needed our help,” Claire says, which is frankly hilarious coming from her. “I didn’t even want to buy the stupid thing in the first place.”

“I’ll be back,” Kaia murmurs to Claire, kissing her on the cheek, and then wisely bounces when Dean winds up to a full force lecture about his savior-of-the-world, the-man-who-dethroned-God, and all-around-badass-hunter bonafides. 

Eventually Claire tries walking away from him, but he just starts yelling louder so she can hear him from the other side of the apartment.

“Do you want a beer, or not!” she screams back at him.

Dean clicks his jaw shut on a particularly good line about that time he stabbed Death. “Uh, yes please?”

She walks back into the living room and cracks a bottle open with her thumb ring. Dean recognizes the move as something he used to do as a cocky twenty-three-year-old. She didn’t pick it up from him, he stopped wearing mom’s rings long before they spent any real time together, and can’t help but make a dopey face at her. Time is just… cyclical. She narrows her eyes suspiciously, but gives him an answering smile back even if she doesn’t know exactly why he’s grinning like an idiot.

“Don’t spill on the rug or Patience will kill you. Also,” she pulls a sparkly purple crazy straw out from behind her back and puts it in the bottle before setting it down by his head, “have fun.”

Dean tucks the straw between his teeth and only slightly garbles, “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite?” 

“Mine’s Sam,” she says, and then ditches him to go back to her room to finish setting up the bed frame.

Dean pouts and sips through the curly straw. Decent beer.

The front door opens, and Dean hears two sets of feet approaching. He tries to tilt his head back and he sucks in a sharp breath when pain lances through his back.

“Over here,” Kaia says in a low voice. “We took it into our room, but he hasn’t been able to get up yet.”

There’s a low, deep hum, and then Cas pops into Dean’s field of vision.

“Hey,” Dean says, super eloquently. Cas’s frowning down at him, stubble irregular and patchy, and the trench tickles Dean’s arm where it trails. ‘Course Cas rolled the coat up to his elbows, which he keeps doing no matter how many times Dean tells him it looks ridiculous. 

“Do I need to take you to a hospital?” he asks, all serious. It’s late afternoon by now, but Dean can still smell the smoky, woodsy cologne he’s taken to wearing now that he can appreciate the limited human olfactory system. Subtle though, not too crazy—strong smells like candles and hand sanitizer tend to give the guy headaches.

Dean narrows his eyes. “Don’t you dare.” His poor bruised ego can’t survive being finally done in by a large IKEA box. “I’m fine.”

Cas hums again. 

“Dude, are you laughing at me?”

“Of course not,” Cas says, but he absolutely fucking is.

“Cas,” Dean whines. 

“Let’s head back to the motel,” Cas carefully moves Dean’s beer out of the way, “since you’re fine.”

Dean refuses to laugh, because fuck this guy, and also, well, it hurts to be jostled. Somehow Dean gets vertical and then he gets down the three flights of stairs and then he gets rudely shoved into the passenger seat.

“Could you please relax, I know how to drive in a city,” Cas lies, and Dean keeps his eyes closed so he doesn’t have to see Cas get his baby into a fender-bender.

At least until Cas starts singing along to the radio under his breath, and then Dean can’t help but stare at him, late summer sunshine dancing across his face as he dutifully keeps his hands textbook-9-and-3-o’clock positions on the steering wheel and stomps way too friggin hard on the breaks.

Cas tilts his head and gives him a questioning look, so Dean grunts, “Eyes on the road, dumbass,” and tries to only watch Cas surreptitiously through the corner of his eye. An angel of the dickhead-previous-lord, untethered and fully mortal, back from the dead and happily playing chauffeur for him, and all Dean can do is bark at him. Literally there’s no reason for Cas to still be sticking around, but fuck it, here the guy is.

It’s just—retirement, man. Doing his goddamn head in.

Basically, after it was all said and done and Jack helpfully plucked up Cas from the Empty to deposit him gently on Earth as a regular-degular human, then came the next steps. Which frankly felt more like that moment when you thought there was gonna be another literal step on a literal staircase and you stumble feeling out of sorts. Cas, the bastard, didn’t even warn him about the eradication of monsters for nearly a week—like, sure, the complete page one rewrite of the planet didn’t warrant a mention.

To be honest, Dean didn’t really get it. Doesn’t really get it. Apparently the souls in Purgatory (save Leviathans, but Dean’s got a hunch they only stayed locked up because Cas hates ‘em and Jack’s still young enough to be photocopying his dad’s political leanings) got their golden tickets to either Heaven or Hell, just like humans, and anyone still on Earth got reverted to being human as well. Apparently Jack was giving the afterlife a spruce-up, but he was keeping the details need-to-know, and neither Dean nor Sam were on that list. In fact, the only reason Dean and Sam got clued in on the changes so fast in the first place—neither of them went looking for a hunt, not so soon after Chuck—was because Garth and his wife gave them a courtesy call about their new strictly vegetarian diet. 

Spirits and ghosts and curses just sort of… dissipated, or something. Cas and Sam loved chatting on and on about it while Dean checked out. Doesn’t really matter, does it? Hunting seasons’ over. No point arguing semantics over energy and souls and powering the universe or whatever. Dean’s not living in some fucked up magical girl anime. He’s just some guy now. It’s a good thing. No more creepy crawlies going bump in the night. It’s good. It’s gotta be a good thing.

Jack’s doing well, at least. Or, Dean assumes he is. Jack tried to give them a party line about becoming one with the universe, but Cas put his big hand on Jack’s shoulder and leveled him with the most powerful, earnest look he’s got, and said something along the lines of, “Jack, it’s not selfish to be happy with the ones you love and for them to love you in return,” or something. Dean’s not really crystal clear on the specifics because he blacked out as soon as he heard Cas wrap his mouth around the word “happy.” Again. But essentially Jack promised to come back in a year to discuss his future in a physical instead of metaphysical sense. Until then, he’s keeping radio silence reworking Heaven and the larger fabric and tapestry of the universe. Well, radio silence with the exception of jumping into Cas’s dreams every once in a while to brainstorm their brave new world, but Dean didn’t know that at first, and he’s getting a little ahead of himself.

Because—then there was Cas. 

Exhausted, freshly human Cas, lookin’ at Dean like he expected Dean was just gonna shove him out the door. Which, alright, happened once before. But Dean’s hand was forced, it’s not like Dean’s– mad or anything at him. Not for– for giving Dean the nicest, sweetest, worst fucking speech he’s ever heard. 

It wasn’t the shortest Cas’s ever been dead, but not the longest either, so Dean took the win as is without too much griping. He only let his fingers trail over the back of Cas’s trench coat once, when he was certain the fabric hung too heavy for him to feel it.

Eventually Cas pulled Dean aside to have what Dean’s internally referring to as The Talk. And Dean would still be mentally poring over every second of The Talk if he could remember a single fucking word of it, but all he honestly remembers is the small friction in his boot from a hole that formed in the heel of his sock, and the way Cas glinted in the fading orange-pink sunlight, because being human means the heat of his ridiculous fucking coat actually makes him sweat a little across his brow. He knows he grunted something sappy at Cas, and it worked, because Cas smiled and said something hokey in return and let Dean drag him all the way back to the bunker. 

Dean stole looks at him from the rear view mirror the whole ride back, but Cas never seemed to catch his eye, too busy gossiping up a storm with Sam in the front seat.

Dean also didn’t spill anything to Sam about Cas’s– thing about him or whatever, he’s not that much of a dick, but then Cas didn’t seem to want to tell Sam anything either. Not that Cas ever fucking tells them anything anyways. 

He let his eyes flick over to Sam and then forced himself to concentrate back on the road. Just their fucking luck Dean would wrap them around a tree after finally defeating the biggest of the bads. Sammy—he was no less tired than Cas, and he looked no less tired than Dean did in the rear-view mirror. It was more than the usual adrenaline crash, that buzzy, bone deep ache that normally settles in Dean after a hunt. Sam smiled through his exhaustion, happy that Cas had said fuck you to certain death yet again, happy that Eileen was able to send him an I’m alive x2! email from her laptop since Sam still had her cell.

Dean’s rushing the recap a little, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? They won. They won the big one.

But when they parked in the bunker garage, Sam squeezed Dean on the shoulder and he might’ve been grinning but there was nothing but grief in his eyes and Dean got it. He fucking got it. All this– all this pain, all this suffering that’s touched not just them but every fucking person they’ve ever met, just because God was bored and found it entertaining. It’s– it’s unforgivable. It’s senseless, the kind of evil Dean can’t wrap his brain around. It’s not the clean, easy brutality of Purgatory or the purposeful violence of Hell’s Pit. It was boredom. And now it’s just… over.

He also got why Sammy wanted to take a little vacation halfway ‘cross the world with his girlfriend about a month or so later. 

It’s not like they've been doing much other than twiddle their thumbs or stick them up their asses for a crazy Friday night thrill. The monsters really are just… gone, and Cas confirmed it after one of his Jack dreams. (He tried to explain it to Dean, but he and the kid converse in a series of angelic lights, shapes, and textures, so the jokes don’t exactly translate. Kinda have to be there, apparently.) 

Collectively none of them had any frequent flyer miles, and Dean nearly passed out checking out the price tag on the two first class tickets Sam picked out for him and Eileen to go to Cork, Ireland to reconnect with some of her extended family. But again, Dean got it. Now that the credits were rolling on hunting, he understood the impulse for those two crazy kids to fly into the sky like it’s the end of Grease. And while the idea of sitting down in one of those metal deathtraps gnawed a fierce kinda nausea in the pit of his stomach, even Dean could admit that if he hopped a plane with a smoking hot girlfriend and a couple hours later could just pop up on the beaches of… let's say Maui, or Tahiti, he’d think, Hell, Sammy who? Sam even kindly offered to fly outta Chicago, so the four of them could at least dig their toes into the “sand” of Lake Michigan for a couple days before he and Eileen ditched. 

But still, when Sam first told him about their plan, Dean grinned through a locked jaw and made up some excuse to go for a nice long drive so he didn’t do something crazy like bite them or scream that he’s their family, or something sickeningly needy like that.

And that was all before Sam dropped the bomb that he was planning on taking Miracle with them. Dean loves that dog.

He only knew something was up with Cas, too, when he made noises about driving his piece of shit truck up to Chicago to wave them off, even though there was plenty of space to drive all four of them and their luggage in the Impala. Eileen was planning on keeping her Valiant in the bunker’s garage for free storage, and it didn’t make any fucking sense for Cas to drive up alone and force Dean to drive back to the bunker alone, either.

“Well I was thinking of spending some time in Minneapolis on the way back,” Cas finally admitted after Dean trailed his heels all afternoon.

“Dude, where’s the friggin fire? Bunker’s great for R&R, just relax for a bit,” Dean argued, very reasonably. He unclenched his jaw just to prove how fucking relaxing the bunker was. “The warding sigils might not work anymore, but that’s because there ain’t any creepy crawlies either, and besides, the water pressure is gonna be miles better than wherever you’re moving to. If you want a vacation that bad I’ll take you to Six Flags on the drive back.”

“Am I supposed to know which ‘six flags,’ or am I supposed to guess,” Cas grumbled. He tossed a pair of friggin cabrillo sandals in his duffle. Dean wasn’t sure if he found them in the bunker or bought them, and he was a little scared to learn the answer either way. “It’s not a vacation and I’m not moving out of the bunker. I’ll be back in a couple weeks. Patience is finishing up her Chemical Engineering degree at the University of Minnesota, and Claire and Kaia will be subletting her old roommate’s room for at least a semester.” Cas intones all of that like he’s memorized it on a three by five card, eyes half glazed over. “That’s the plan, at least. I promised Sheriff Mills I’d help them get set up in the new city.” 

“Huh.”

“It won’t be long, Dean.”

“You could’ve asked me to come with you,” he countered. Cas wouldn’t look at him, yanking a full rack of clothes on their hangers unceremoniously from the closet and onto his bed. Now that he couldn’t angelically control his temperature anymore, the guy decided to branch into layering in order to achieve optimal body temp at all times. Dean stared at the back of Cas’s messy hair, trying not to fidget with the dread threatening to creep up over him. “Unless… am I missing something?” Countless reasons why the girls wouldn’t want Dean’s large head popping up uninvited. Or maybe Cas just wants to get away from him, again—

“No, no,” Cas hurried to say, finally spinning around. Dean slouched against the doorframe, trying to look casual and relaxed. “I just– I figured you’d want to come straight home after they get on their flight.” He skittered a wide-eyed look across Dean’s face before turning his attention back on his duffle. His hair really was a mess; the dumbass tried to trim his own newly Rogaine-quick-growing human hair over the sink before Dean wrestled away the clippers and tried to repair the damage himself. “I know Sam travelling without you will be difficult. It’ll be the longest you two have willingly spent time apart since you were in your late teens.”

“Yeah,” Dean said with a mocking laugh, swallowing through bitter acid in his throat, “knocking around here alone sounds way more fun.”

Cas tilted his head. “This is your home,” he repeated, like that was somehow supposed to mean something to him.

“It’s just a place.” Well, it is his home. Best damn one he’s had since he came up to John’s knee. Even Bobby’s was still—Bobby’s. Not Dean’s to fuck around with. Bobby never made him feel unwelcome, but no sir Dean’s not gonna spill a full bottle of barbeque sauce on Bobby’s kitchen floor. Not like he can in the bunker’s kitchen, only consequence being a shrug, a mop, and an extra trip to the grocery store.

So he said, “It’d be weird as hell taggin’ along on their little shamrock couples retreat,” which was the truth, and then tacked on, “not that I’d want to anyways,” which was a lie, but Cas didn’t question either. He just squinted and went, “All right,” with that deep voice of his and the next time Dean grasped hold of the plot, it was about a week later, he was still picking sand from his boots, Sam and Eileen were on a red eye to the mother country, and he was somehow in fucking Minneapolis picking up a dusty looking mid century dresser from some guy on Craigslist because it looked “so cute” but the seller seemed “so skeevy.”

So, since Dean’s a fucking freak and nervous energy’s been building like crazy under his skin because he hasn’t killed anything in over two months, he finally cracks. Dean cannot believe how friggin long Claire and Kaia dragged their feet before buying that stupid heavy frame because “what’s wrong with a mattress on the floor,” the goddamn cheapskates, and he tries not to kill himself flopping over and studying Cas on the motel bed beside his.

“Hey, Cas,” he says with a self-conscious cough.

Cas sighs—so fucking heavily Dean can almost see sawdust puffing out of him—and mutes the television with a loaded look. “Dean, I really did warn you to lift it with your knees. If your back still hurts tomorrow, we’ll find a chiropractor who takes cash instead of insurance.”

“I’ll consider it if I’m also in the mood for a happy ending.”

Cas rolls his eyes hard enough to strain them as he unmutes the television. And then he turns up the volume of the Burn Notice rerun uncomfortably loud to prove his unamused point, the priss. His goodwill toward Dean’s whining and misery ran out real quick on the drive over.

“Cas,” he repeats, louder this time to be heard over Jeffrey Donovan explaining some dumbfuck way to break into a safe using a brass pen knife and a cup of club soda, “are you happy here?”

He lowers the volume again. “I– yes?”

“I mean, would you? Be happy here?” Dean hates how they both kept twisting their words into questions. “Spending time with the girls. You seem to enjoy the city.”

“Tourist traps are entertaining, and Patience has been to the Arboretum many times, so it was an informative afternoon—”

“Yeah, but,” Dean says, gently cutting off what could only be described as babbling from Cas. He tries to sit up, but—nope. He really did fuck up his back, crap. Next time he’s making the damn kids carry their own furniture up the three floors, the spry little shits. “You like it better than Lebanon, at least.”

“It was my intention to stay with you,” Cas says, fiddling with the scratchy motel blanket, that awful tan fuzzy thing that Dean always rips off and throws on the floor on autopilot. His words are heavy, dropping like rocks. The two of them aren’t exactly dancing that subtle around The Talk right now. Cas’s– speech rings out unsaid between them. Dean can’t– he can’t be that, god he fucking wishes he could be that guy for Cas, be the kinda man who’d dip him down into a movie star kiss and then bend him over a barrel with a smirk like a different kinda film actor.

But in the moment, all Dean can feel is the ache in his back and the clamminess of his palms. 

“That don’t gotta change,” he grunts, dropping his voice down low. There’s a shootout now on the screen, tinny and annoying in the otherwise silent room. Cas has to breathe these days or he’ll pass out, but right now he’s sitting as still and stiff as his old angelic statuesque self used to. “Ever,” he continues, hoping to Jack that Cas understands him, just this once. 

Sam’s gone, hunting’s no longer on the forecast, and without– without Cas staking him into the ground, Dean’ll shrivel up to nothing more than a paper napkin and fly off into empty, cold air with nothing else to show for it. Every time Cas wanders out of his sight lines, Dean feels like he’s going crazy. Like he’s gonna vibrate out of his skin if he doesn’t have one eye on Cas at all times. Which, fuck, it’s ugly, selfish clinging this hard to Cas’s coattails. Practically begging the guy to accept all Dean’s got to offer, when all he’s got is squat. He’d, dunno, even offer to give the classic closed-eyed reach-around if he thought that was something Cas wanted, but so far Cas hadn’t made any kinda move on him. Hadn’t even done the lean-and-look through his lashes, which is pretty much the clincher in Dean’s experience. When you’re just testing the waters, picking up on the vibes without actually making a move. But—nada. Cas just isn’t interested in getting biblical with him, ironic enough. And Dean’s not gonna offer, obviously. Even if he wanted to crank Cas’s ex-angelic hog, he couldn’t just ask him if he wanted to. Not when there’s been no weirdness between the two of them, at least not then, not yet. Dean’s proverbial and literal balls are in Cas’s court, and so on. 

Dean clears his throat, repeats once again, “The bunker’s just a place.” It’s just a fucking place.

Cas thankfully doesn’t seem to hear the bullshit swirling in Dean’s brain, because he just gives one hesitant little nod.. “I… could enjoy being in a city. The last time I think I lived in one, it might’ve been during the Khmer Dynasty? It’s a little hard to recall the details, I’m guessing the majority of those memories were removed by Naomi.”

Sometimes– sometimes it’s easy to look at Cas’s kind, sad eyes half-hidden behind his eyebags and forget he’s practically an alien creature, and the time he’s spent and will spend on Earth with Dean makes up for no more than a sneeze of his lifetime.

“Let’s roll the dice, then.” Dean settles into a more comfortable position, taking the opportunity to hide his burning face into his pillow. He’s such a selfish bastard. “Twin Cities, here we come.”

Really, Dean should have clued in after they found a nice, two bedroom apartment that made them sign a year lease. It’s in a neighborhood Claire would also describe as “cute,” but far enough away that he won’t run into the girls on a milk run. Still, the price tag makes Dean want to stretch the collar of his shirt even though they aren’t exactly spending his money to begin with. Newly human Cas is a princess, however, so of course the guy needs a spot with a back terrace, hookups for in-unit washer/dryer, and a dishwasher that the manager gushes over but Dean can’t help but eye the cheap chrome finish suspiciously. Dean’s scammed enough stays in furnished apartments to know that newer appliances don’t always mean better.

Despite being the most extravagant set up Dean’s ever sprung for—hell, he’d be happy with a shoe box as long as it came with a mini fridge—Cas is as subtle as a tossed brick when he points out the above-decent oven range and sighs happily at the crunchy co-op grocery up the street, so. Whatever. It’s easy to pull the trigger and hand over their phony social security numbers and cooked credit scores. If the apartment falls through, there’s always the bunker. That knowledge helps quiet the little voice in the back of Dean’s mind screaming bloody murder at whatever the fuck kind of playing-house game he’s pulling with Cas.

Cas seems happy with the move. He whined and moped about leaving both his truck and his ugly pimpmobile behind in Kansas, but that stopped as soon as he got a seller lined up for an even uglier car. Dean nearly cries looking at a picture of the, god help him, 2010 Toyota Yaris— in purple— but Cas is one of the most unrelentingly stubborn men Dean’s ever met. Purchasing-a-used-car screaming match aside, Dean likes to think Cas had a pep in his step all through packing up the rest of their things, not that either of them ever traveled that heavy. 

Since their life is still the world’s funniest cosmic joke, the best and least burnt alias they’ve got on hand for Cas is one that his-Charlie made years ago, and Dean struggles to keep a straight face every time the manager calls Cas “Mr. Constantine,” all through the viewing and until it’s time to physically sign the lease.

So yeah. Dean should’ve gotten the goddamn message when he celebrates the open, happy look on Cas’s face when he signs his John Hancock on the lease, neat and tidy under Cas’s fake-ass name, by sneaking out to some seedy bar and fucking the first woman to flash him a smile back.

He doesn’t mean for it to become a habit. 

Dean used to be able to count on one hand the number of times he’s had a successful lay since he was giving anyone who wanted one a twirl during his black-eyed-demon-days, except now he’s apparently counting with two and a toe. He’s got this itch in the seat of his spine to get out and get busy, and there’s gotta be something wrong with him. 

Or maybe the horniness is just a byproduct of all the healthy Vitamin D he’s been getting since moving to a place with real windows. Or the lack of hunts means there’s nothing to sap his energy anymore. Who knows.

He wishes Sam were around still, when does he not, even if he’s loathe to discuss his sex life with his little brother. But at least Sam would’ve called him on the shit he’s pulling. Cas doesn’t, that’s for sure. The little enabler never asks why Dean heads out after dinner and doesn’t come crawling back home to take a shower until deep into the night.

Dean gets the perverse urge to stay out until well into the morning so Cas catches his walk of shame, but Dean’s too chicken-shit to pull a stunt like that. Not when they’re weirdly getting along.

No blow ups, no fights. Well, other than a near screaming match over Cas letting their wooden spoons sit overnight in a pot of water to “soak” like he somehow loves the taste of bacteria. Or when Dean accidentally— accidentally —throws one of Cas’s fancy dry-clean-only sweaters into the washer and felts the damn thing. But no betrayals, no secrets, no lies. No more withholding of pertinent information. 

It’s going so smoothly that Dean barely even freaks out when Sam texts that he’s extending his stay in Ireland another couple months, now that they stumbled onto the Irish Men of Letters and have to explain how exactly their kid made the Letters’ whole line of work redundant.

Well, he freaks out enough that Cas shouts at him a little for being an ass, but he still queues up a movie marathon for just the two of them. Dean closes his eyes, pretending to be asleep so he can drop his head to the back of the couch and lean his shoulder against Cas’s, exhausted in other ways, before he conks out for real. Dean wakes up around 11pm, the living room lights off and a blanket tucked up and around his ears. Cas nowhere to be seen.

Even after Dean does the bare minimum of brushing his teeth and climbing into bed, he can feel the warm, gentle weight around shoulders until he falls asleep for real.

The next morning, he downloads Tinder.

“Yo, Cas. Yo-Yo Ma,” Dean sings-songs, approaching Cas’s work bench. It’s Cas’s first week at work at the hardware store, and the little peppy orange vest is giving Dean some serious Gas-N-Sip flashbacks. But instead of mixing ICEEs, they’ve got him mixing up cans of paint.

Cas frowns at him over the spinning machinery. “The cellist? Where?”

“No– Cas, it was a joke.”

“Oh,” Cas says with an annoyed sigh. “The beginning of a ‘your mama’ joke. I’ve heard several and none have been funny.”

The machine beeps, and Cas retrieves a freshly mixed can of paint. He cracks it open, inspecting the color and adding a small dot to the lid, before he turns to the next can in his queue. He’s methodical. 

Dean spends a humiliatingly long amount of time watching Cas work with practically his chin in his hands and cartoon birds braiding his hair before Dean startles back into the present, flush rising hot on the back of his neck.

“I gotta grab some pads for the bottom of the chairs, I’ll be back,” Dean grunts. Cas claims he prefers taking public transportation to work, but Dean’s dead convinced he just feels too squashed in his tea-cup sized car. He fucking told him not to buy it. But it’s no skin off his back to pick the guy up, especially since it’s been pouring cats and dogs since before lunch and Cas went and forgot an umbrella.

Cas looks up just long enough to nod. “My shift ends at the end of the hour.”

So about ten minutes, give or take. “Alright, don’t have too much fun without me,” he says, then rushes away before Cas can frown and solemnly ask why not.

Dean hesitates by the chair leg protectors, almost swayed into buying little socks that look like cat paws before selecting a more practical sticky black felt. And then, on fourth thought, picks up a pack of the paws for the girls’ place. Little assholes are probably scuffing up their floors—serves them right if they never get their security deposit back.

Wandering the aisles back to Cas, he hears, oh jesus christ, some lady crying.

He peeks his head around, and sure enough there’s a woman sobbing by the ceiling mouldings.

Grimacing, he edges closer. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

“Oh, god, no that’s alright. Sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes quick and careful not to smudge her mascara any more. She’s pretty, about his age. Hair dark and fine pulled back in a quick ponytail. There’s a red sheen to it, like she recently got it freshened up and dyed.

“Really, it’s alright. I get emotional over a nice cherry finish too.”

She laughs, deeper and throatier than he expected from someone who only comes up to his sternum.

“I was thinking a basic ivory coat, but good to know. I’m really not usually this much of a mess, I’ve just got one too many home renovations I need to finish.” She brushes herself off and stands. Two bright spots of pink rest on her cheeks, just a touch of lingering embarrassment, but she smiles at him all the same. She rolls her eyes, but inclines her head to whisper faux-conspiratorially. “Turns out all the cliches about divorce are true.” And her eyes dip to his mouth—yeah, Dean can work with this.

He grins, his lucky penny grin that got him outta trouble and into worse trouble since he was a kid. “Really? Such as?”

“Oh you know, fast cars, good wine, cheap thrills. Cursing out your ex for sleeping with the hostess at the restaurant you always go to for your anniversary.”

“Hm, well, speaking for myself, I’ve got a pretty damn fast car… although I have always been more of a beer than a wine guy. Then again, I never married.” He lets her see him checking her out. Nothing too crazy, but he’s running out of time to get back to Cas and needs to get this show on the road. “But I do love a cheap thrill.”

“Rebecca,” she says, extending her hand.

“Hi Rebecca, I’m Dean, real nice to meet you.” He takes her hand, gentle, but lets her feel the coarseness of his calluses. “How can I turn your day around?”

Dean finds Cas pouting by the front, but watches in real time as it’s replaced by a sunny look as soon as Cas catches him approaching.

“There you are, man. I was waiting for you back by the paint,” Dean lies. He can’t meet Cas’s fond expresion head on. “Let’s hit the road.”

Cas looks at him funny when he pulls up at home rather than pulling into their tandem parking spot in the garage. 

Dean scratches under his jaw. “Hey, uh. I gotta few errands to run. But I’ll be back later tonight.”

Cas’s expression is unreadable. “Alright.” He gets out of the car.

“I won’t be that late,” Dean calls, leaning over the passenger seat to yell out the window. “I’ll be back for dinner, and we should watch something after.”

“Alright.”

“I mean it,” Dean repeats, obstinate for no goddamn reason. 

“ Dean, you’re wasting time,” Cas says with a huff, finally turning his back on him and patting down every one of his pockets to find his keys. It’s only drizzling now, but Dean can see the shoulders of his trench slowly darkening with water. Dean waits to make sure he’s got them and safely gets into the lobby. Without him.

“Alright,” Dean says to the empty car.

“Oh, hell, I needed that,” Rebecca says after she falls on the floor beside him. “My ex didn’t believe in fucking anywhere but in a bed.”

Internally, Dean can’t help but agree with the guy. Rebecca’s got a tasteful jute rug that really does open up the room, but it itches to kingdom come against his naked back and it’s thin enough that his tailbone aches like a motherfucker from the hard floor.

Rebecca trashes the condom somewhere and he says something flirtatious on autopilot, mind floating away from him as he looks at the pale green—pistachio? mint?—colored walls. Does Cas get an employee discount at the store? All the walls in their place are a mind numbing white. Maybe they could paint the walls together over the next long weekend. Though, it’d be a pain to white wash over when they end up moving out.

She turns her head and grins at him. “You hungry? I have gnocchi and made fresh pesto yesterday.”

Dean nearly groans, it’s been ages since he’s had some. And he likes her. He likes her throaty laugh, her self deprecating jokes that hide real confidence in the bedroom (or living room, whatever). He likes the simple nude-colored bra she threw clear across the room and how it didn’t match the cool teal of her panties. He likes how she’s looking at him and seeing a handsome stranger rescuing her from the humdrum of divorce, rather than the forty-one-year-old dead-end fuck up he is.

“I should go, I promised my roommate I’d grab dinner.” He gives her a kiss before ducking away to figure out where he threw his socks. “He doesn’t have a car,” he lies.

“Well aren’t you sweet.” Wild enough, she says it like she believes it.

“As sugar.” He spares her a grin as retrieves sock one, then sock two. “Listen, I was telling the truth about not being married, I am single, but I also—”

She raises a single eyebrow which, damn, cool. “Dean, I don’t know your last name. I think I can somehow handle this being a one night stand.”

He laughs self-consciously, tugging on his jeans. “Got it.” He quickly checks the time and, ouch, yeah it’s later than he thought. Fuck. 

She rolls onto the rug and then winces. “Christ almighty, your back must be torn up.”

“I’ve had worse.” It stings and rubs uncomfortably against his shirt. He pays it no mind; compared to his usual bouts of torture it’s practically a papercut. “Listen, for what it’s worth…” He gives her one last dirty kiss, and gently redirects her hands when she tries to pull him back down again. “That moulding would look great in here.”

“ Thank you,” she says with fierce conviction.

Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel and then gives up, giving Cas a ring while he’s still on the road. 

“Who is this,” Cas snaps, suspicious. Fucker hates robocallers more than anyone Dean’s ever met.

Dean snorts. “Just me, dude. I’m almost done. Did you eat yet?”

“No, you said you’d be back, so I waited. I am hungry, though,” he grumbles. “We have a frozen pizza I can heat up.”

Dean grimaces. That feels— wrong, somehow. He’s had a good night, got an itch scratched. They should be having fun together, not chowing down on some freezer-burned Red Baron. He remembers the half-truth he told Rebecca and an idea slowly starts to dawn on him. Dean tries to squash the impulse of a smile so Cas can’t hear it in his voice.

“Just wanted to check in, let you know I’m hitting a bit of traffic.” Dean turns on his blinkers, headed now to a bit west of home for his new destination. “Why don’t I give a ring when I’m ten minutes out so you can start preheating the oven then?”

“Sure,” Cas says, already sounding bored and distracted, “but could you please remember to unblock your number.”

“Hi honey, I’m home!” Dean croons.

“Dean, you were supposed to—,” Cas jumps up from the couch, nearly tripping over the Snuggie he still hasn’t realized Eileen bought him as a joke. Dean can also see the moment Cas takes a deep inhale and notices the savory scented containers Dean’s carrying. “Thai? But...”

“Dude, did you really think I wouldn’t want to celebrate your first week on the job?” Dean rushes past him to set up on the kitchen counter, flush creeping up his neck. “Look at you, working for that 401k.”

Cas trails into the kitchen after him. “I don’t think I get a 401k in this—”

Dean nudges him to get some serving spoons. “Cas, say, ‘Thank you, Dean.’”

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says sweetly, oh so fucking sweetly, grinning ear to ear.

“And, ‘I’m happy you brought me dinner.’” Dean feels like his chest could both burst and implode inward at the same time. Damn, he’s having a good night.

“I’m happy you brought me dinner,” Cas dutifully repeats, laying a warm palm against his wrist, “and I’m happy to be eating it with you.”

Dean feels looser, feels sillier than he has in weeks. 

He doesn’t actually like Thai all that much, not a huge fan of peanut sauce, but Cas goes ballistic over it and eats a frankly terrifying amount of spring rolls. But it doesn’t matter what Dean’s eating because dinner is fucking amazing. Coupled with leftover endorphins from dear Rebecca, Dean feels high as a kite for the rest of the night. He bullies Cas onto the couch, shoving his legs onto Cas’s lap and queuing up a Daybreakers movie rewatch. Cas blinks at him before carefully putting back on the Snuggie so as not to displace Dean’s sprawled limbs. 

In the back of his head, Dean gets it. He’s being a little much. Usually he needs a beer or two before bothering Cas like this. His back stings from earlier in the night, which is annoying and distracting instead of a fun, sore-sex kinda thing. But Cas smiles at him and keeps a dry, warm grip over Dean’s ankle for the whole movie and it’s so nice. A couple of times Cas even absent-mindedly gives his ankle a little squeeze.

It’s only after he’s showered and laying clean in his sheets that Dean starts to put two and two together. He could do this. He could spend his evenings knocking boots wherever, but still get to spend the rest of the day living with Cas. He could do this for a long time, even after Sam gets back on American soil.

For the first time in nearly two decades, Dean carefully turns one eye to consider the shape of the rest of his life and likes what he sees.

Dean still hasn’t bothered getting a job, so he’s got all the time in the world to be at Claire’s beck and call, if you think about it.

“Claire,” he groans into his cell, “it’s so early, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Dude, you said I should call you if I ever needed anything else.”

“Can’t you need me after 10am?” He scowls at his clock and then rolls over to hide under his comforter. “It’s my day off and you woke me up.”

“Again, you’re unemployed, so every day is your day off.”

“Fuck you.”

She sighs. “Dean, come on. I’ve already missed surge pricing this morning, and I’ve been on hold with Triple A for nearly an hour on the other line.”

“Fine,” he says with a long sigh, already shrugging off the sheet. “You better start a pot for me or I’m not staying.”

“Your first call should be me, and then Triple-A,” he jokes as soon as he arrives at her place, but it isn’t really a joke. He grabs her proffered thermos of coffee and all but inhales it with a quick thanks. “I’m a cheaper and way better mechanic.”

“Big words from someone who answered the phone with ‘don’t call me,’” Claire snorts. Her teeth chatter a bit too; she’s underdressed in a t-shirt and pajama pants.

“Whatever, serves you right for getting a lame Subaru ,” he says, just to piss her off. He toys with making a lesbian joke, but that would likely tip her from playfully annoyed to outright stabbing him. “Throw on a ratty jacket and closed toed shoes, you’re gonna be my sous chef today.”

Claire grumbles ‘bout its mileage, but she returns with two more thermoses of java and sharp eagle eyes as he pops the hood. 

After a minute he picks up that she's interested in the guts of the old clunker, so he walks her through the engine and its components. He doesn’t tell her this, hell no, but he’s impressed. Even if he nearly banishes her back inside when she starts blasting shitty teeny-bopper music from her phone speakers.

“So why didn’t you just fix it yourself?” he asks eventually, once she points out the head gasket issue before he even has the chance to say it. “You’ve got a good handle on this.”

Claire shrugs and passes him an oil rag. “My car and health insurance are shit, and Alex made me promise I’d get a second opinion until I get officially trained, or whatever. Having a paranoid nurse in the family sucks.”

“Trained? You’re interested in becoming a mechanic?” Dean’s head spins. He feels like that moment you realize you stopped relating to Ariel and started relating to her old as fuck father. One of these days Dean’s gonna start wearing a crappy old baseball cap like Bobby and have a heart attack lookin’ in the mirror.

“Dunno, maybe. It’d be useful, more than just a job. Applicable skill set and all.” She fiddles with his toolbox, pulling things out and putting them back in their place. Reminds him of how he likes to clean and reload the Colt when the antsy energy under his skin starts rattling too loud. “Who knows. Ridesharing blows and is fucking hell on my car, but it pays the bills. I’ve been looking into a welding trade school, so we’ll see.”

“I don’t know jack shit about welding, but I miss my flamethrower.”

“You had a– no, I really shouldn’t be surprised. Sam said you set off a bazooka in the bunker.”

“Ha! I did, I totally did that. It was awesome.” Dean’s not hating retirement exactly, but dear lord does he miss having an excuse to use that damn bazooka. “I hear arson’s frowned upon by polite society, though.”

“Yeah, well we didn’t really used to deal with polite society that much. Bigger shit on our plates.”

Dean agrees, nods. Doesn’t want to hash it all out, though. “You staying busy these days otherwise?” She takes too long to respond, and when he glances back, she’s got a weird little look on her face like she’s biting her tongue. “What, what is it?”

“Nothing! It’s nothing. Just… you know, speaking of fire, I’ve been taking this glass blowing course.” She makes a derisive snorting noise. “Just for fun, nothing serious.”

“Holy crap, are you kidding? That’s awesome.”

Claire pinks up. “Birthday present from Donna. She pulled up all these random classes and said I had to pick something that was fun and completely, totally frivolous.” She smiles. Quick and bright, like a silver fish flitting to the surface of a lake before retreating like it was never there. “It was that or blacksmithing, but I’ve already got a sword.”

“Heh, you ever been to a renn faire?”

“Uh, no, I’m actually kind of cool.”

“Oh, fuck you,” he says without any real heat. “Charlie had this ex who ran the blacksmith booth at Moondor and, hell, that woman had biceps bigger than your tiny little doll-sized head. Try mouthing off to her next, I dare you. Hey, pass me the wrench, will you?”

“Charlie Bradbury?” There’s a hesitant tinge to her voice as she passes it to him.

“Yeah but—my Charlie.” Dean focuses on the engine rather than looking at her. “New Charlie’s alright, but I dunno if she still goes to things like that. We don’t talk that often.”

“Castiel’s mentioned her before.” He probably told Claire what she meant to Dean, judging by the softness of her voice.  “Old one, mostly. She sounded cool, I wish I could’ve met her.”

Dean grunts. “Yeah, well. They were sort of friends. Probably could’ve become really good ones, too, but.” She would have– she deserved this world they were living in. Charlie would’ve been able to slot into the post-monster life in a snap, and she still would’ve been able to make a difference, a real difference with her whitehat hacking, too. He can practically see her bullying her way into his apartment, forcing him to host one of her DnD games, before scampering off to continue saving lives or funding stem cell research. She’d have known how to appreciate retirement a helluva lot better than he is. “Anyways, it’s a fun scene. And I’ve seen you fight—you’d sweep up in the hand-to-hand combat tournie.”

Claire laughs. “I can literally feel a pocket protector manifesting in my shirt pocket.”

“I can literally feel myself stealing your hubcaps.”

They work for a bit in meditative silence, ruined only by her Spotify playlist spitting out an ad every once in a while. Donna was on the right track, but he needs to get the girl an actual record player for her next birthday.

“So how do you like it? Retirement in the Twin Cities?” she asks, breaking the silence.

“I’m not retired,” he gripes. “And it’s fine, I guess. Not sold on living with all you city-slickers.”

“You guess.” Her voice is weird, stiff.

“Yeah.” He glances back when she doesn’t say anything, and she’s got this stormy look across her face. “What? What’d I say this time?”

“Cas said you liked the city and asked him to stay,” she says, words dripping with heavy significance.

Dean’s so lost the plot. He goes to rub the back of his neck, uncomfortable, and stops himself just in time to keep from getting motor oil onto his skin. “I mean, sure, but—”

“Did he move here for me?” she bites, jaw clenched. “I told him– you’re not my family. Jody’s been there for me more than you ever have.”

“Whoa, Claire, I know. Cas knows,” he rushes, close to a panic. God, this is why Dean didn’t want to deal with her so early in the morning. “But we could be. We’d like to be, if that’s something you’d be interested in.” Fuck, he sounds so corny, and it’s all gonna be his fault if she takes this fight to Cas. Of course, if Cas had just warned him that this was an emotional landmine– whatever. “It’s– we’re not looking to replace anyone.”

She’s never looked this much like Cas, glaring at him with drawn brows, saying, “I don’t need you.” 

“Yeah, I know you don’t need us,” he snaps. She looks at him in shock. “That’s not—” Dean gives a little nervous laugh. “That came out wrong. I’m not trying to guilt trip you. But Cas and me, we’re a part of the card carrying orphan club too. Family’s not– it’s not blood, and it’s not guaranteed, but we’re gonna want to look after whoever's still kicking.” 

She still looks uncomfortable, but not as upset, less likely to bolt. Dean takes the opportunity to drink some more coffee while he tries to get his words in order. 

He clears his throat. “If us being here is too much, just tell us, alright? And Cas… listen, tough shit, but he ain’t never gonna stop caring about you, ever. But that doesn't mean you have to consider him a part of your life. You tell him to go, he’ll stay gone, but he will come running if you tell him you want that instead.” Dean laughs awkwardly, gesturing at the engine. “Me too, if being guts deep in your shitty car for free isn’t obvious enough.”

Claire ducks her head, giving her car a pat on the flank. “Don’t listen to him, Roscoe.”

“Whaddya just call her?”

Claire turns a startling beet red in a blink. “Shut up.” Dean raises both his eyebrows, totally confused, but she avoids eye contact and mutters, “Forget it, seriously.” Maybe it’s an embarrassing BTS thing, not that he’d admit to her that he recognizes them currently playing over the tinny speakers of her phone.

“Listen, he wasn’t lying. That is how it went down.” God, he’s exhausted. “I dunno, kid, I just didn’t want to be in the bunker alone, and I figured I could trick him into splitting a lease with me. This city could’ve been anywhere,” he finishes lamely but more honestly than he intended.

Claire hums a carefully neutral tone.

Dean waggles the wrench at her. “If anything, you’re a drawback.”

She rolls her eyes, mouth twitching. “Alright, quit kissing up to me.”

“Too bad, I was gonna palm you fifty bucks,” he says with a heavy sigh, turning back to the car.

“Holy shit, seriously?”

“Well no, not anymore.”

Day or two later, Cas practically skips getting home. 

“I’m making fajitas,” Cas grandly declares, throwing his jacket at the hanger. Dean sits up from where he’s slouched on the couch. Cas loves his careful Mr. Rogers routine undressing from outerwear to smoking jacket or cardigan, or whatever, but he’s zipping right on past those steps and barges straight into the kitchen.

“You’re in a mood,” Dean calls, abandoning his ratty Dean Koontz paperback to the coffee table. It’s pretty boring, but it was sitting free out on the curb, and he was just killing time waiting for Cas to get home anyways. The apartment is nice, especially now that they’re all moved in, but it’s too quiet without Cas. Too lifeless with just Dean cluttering up the furniture. Not that he has any other friends in town to invite over. And the idea of bringing a woman back– fat fucking chance. 

Cas hums loudly from the kitchen, poking his head out only a moment later. “Want to see something?”

“Sure,” Dean starts, but Cas’s already crossing over to shove his phone in Dean’s face.

“Look.” Cas’s smug grin turns into a frown when Dean takes too long figuring out what the hell mess of color he’s supposed to be looking at. “It’s a paper weight.”

“Okay…?”

“Claire made it.” Cas snatches his phone back with an even deeper frown. But when he glances down at the poorly shot photo of a lump of glass on his phone, his mouth softens into the barest hint of a smile. “She said I could have it if I treated her to brunch this weekend. Also, I’m going to chop up the rest of the bell peppers.” With that, he leaves.

Dean stands slowly, taking his time to wipe the grin off his face. But not too much time, he’s gotta take over dinner before Cas burns the building down.

Dean eventually folds like a house of cards. He thought Cas looked dorky in his little worker bee vest, but it’s nothing compared to the apron he’s gotta wear at the co-op.

He tried looking up mechanic gigs in the city, half-inspired and half-guilted from his chats with Claire, but he’d been out of the game too long. He knows how to restore vintage and your classic clunker, but he’s a bit shaky with all these newer models. 

He could ask Apocalypse World Charlie to help fortify his new online identity, but they haven’t exactly talked for months and he doesn’t think she’d ever want to again, so. Yeah. And the idea of building up a brand new reputation for himself—especially after forty, since when has he become friggin Father Time—sounds exhausting. But the idea that he might now actually live long enough to do it for real fills him with fucking panic, so in the end he just stammered out that he was looking for job while he was picking up some bok choy for Cas, and they took down the Help Wanted sign then and there.

It’s not like he’s looking for long term employment, it’s just a part time gig to keep him from rattling around the apartment all week, but with his fresh new employee discount he no longer winces at the receipt when he buys the weird bible bread.

“It’s not bible bread, Dean,” Sam sighs over the phone. “It’s just a biblical reference. And I’ve literally been saying that sprouted bread is better for you for years.”

“Bread that has to be frozen shouldn’t count as bread. I don’t know why we ever turned our backs on good, all American, white bread. That shit lasts forever.” 

“I’m not having this argument with you, dude. Yell at Cas.”

“Can’t, I’m the douche who bought it.” He finishes putting away his groceries and switches over to a video call so he can give his brother a flat look directly. “I’m just saying.”

Sammy looks good, if pretty pixelated. All that fresh air probably agrees with him, that or he’s back to being a bookworm and having a blast with the Irish Men of Letters.

“Huh,” Sam says, distracted. 

“What?”

“Nothing, just binging the company.”

“Quit it. You’re supposed to be showering me with attention, not researching,” Dean jokes, even if he also kinda, sorta means it. His hands feel dusty from handling the receipt, so he quickly washes his hands before grabbing his phone and flipping the camera. “What do you think of the new space?”

Sam visibly closes his tab and refocuses on his webcam. “It looks nice, man!” 

“It does, doesn’t it?” He puffs up and spins in a slow circle so he can get the 360 view, even if Sam’s obviously just placating him. “Cas wanted to get all this weird furniture from IKEA because it was easy picking it up for the girls, but that shit’s basically just cardboard. I didn’t say this, but Cas’s job rules. He picked up all this varnish they were just gonna toss and I was able to refurbish our media cabinet for next to nothing. Looks friggin new. Just, you know, head’s up when you get back to the bunker, I raided it for extra furniture like a couple weeks ago. Or,” he babbles, “whenever you visit.”

“Dean,” Sam hedges.

“Sam,” Dean says, equally slow and mockingly serious.

“I’m not, you know,” Sam huffs a frustrated little sigh, “ gone or whatever. I’m coming back.”

“Dude, I’m not trying to give you a hard time.” Dean flips the camera again so his face fills the screen. He’s annoyed, yeah, that Sam’s response to having monster down-time means he wants a full ocean between them, but he’s not actually his keeper. “You’re my brother. I just miss you, man.”

“Yeah, I miss you too,” Sam earnestly says back. 

Dean breathes calm, steady. Pastes on a grin. “Ireland must be awesome, I’m sure the pub crawls with Eileen are epic.”

Sam shugs. “I dunno. It’s okay. The Irish Men of Letters have some crazy fucking stories, but it’s exhausting.” Sam scoffs sharply, and it sounds bitter. “Can’t help but envy you a little kicking back with Cas.”

“Okay.” Dean doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to that.

“I can’t...” Sam trails off, visibly agitated, and Dean hates how it makes his own hackles rise.

“I’m not getting weird, I’m not! But if you’re homesick, just come back. Or come here. There might be another unit opening up—”

“Dean, I– I can’t.” His voice cracks in the middle.

Dean sits on the armchair of the couch, fingers numb from gipping his phone case. “Sammy, just tell me what the hell’s actually going on.”

“It’s just– it’s beautiful here, don’t get me wrong, and I love Eileen. But,” Sam takes a shaky breath, “yeah, alright. I miss home. It feels– wrong, being here. I am trying to keep busy, but I have no clue what I’m supposed to do. I’ve got Rowena’s spellbooks, but I have no idea if any of the magic still works, and I can’t bring myself to open them if it turns out her literal life’s legacy is just useless words. I have like… no plan. I wanted to be free of, of everything for so long, and now it’s like I’m just wasting my life.”

Each word stabs another sharp bolt of anxiety right to the center of his chest.

But Sam can still see him, so Dean keeps his face kind but neutral. “Have you talked about this with Eileen?” He’s sweating like crazy, but his wifi is shitty enough that he probably just looks like a blob to Sam anyways. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and more importantly, she’s there with him.

“Some.”

“Do you need me to get a ticket? Or get you one?” Dean makes it casual, dropping his voice down low enough he can feel the rumble of it in his throat. “You’ve always got a home here.”

“Yeah, I know, but– don’t come out here, man. That’s– that’s sort of the point.” Sam doesn’t rub at his eyes, but it’s easy to see even through the poor connection how glassy they are. “The farthest I ever got from our bullshit was Stanford. Not you, or however you’re taking that,” Sam adds, annoyance creeping into his voice and Dean has to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes. “I just wanted to get away from dad, at that age. A little bit away from mom, too, or at least the idea of her.” 

Dean nods mutely, but he can’t be certain Sam sees the motion through the screen. They haven’t– they haven’t talked about either of them since they had their post-Chuck beer in the bunker library while Cas and Eileen were giving them space from the kitchen.

Sam swallows, but it doesn’t help, because his voice is thick when he continues. “And then of course after I came back, everything just started to pile up, just more and more– pain, and responsibility. Chuck—,” he cuts himself off, voice breaking. “Stanford was never an escape. It was just a backstory. Made me more interesting to be the prodigal son.”

“Hey, you chose to do that,” he says, words forced out of him like someone gave him a roundhouse kick to his chest. Sam twists his mouth, but fuck him, he’s not gonna just sit here and listen to Sammy’s bullshit when he’s too far away for Dean to rattle some sense into him. “No, hear me out, alright? You were a kid, just some bratty, headstrong, smart as a whip little beanpole, and you said fuck you, I’m gonna do my own thing, and… dude, you did. You succeeded, man.” Dean’s trying to do the stern, tough love routine, but he’s sounding all mushy, even to himself. “Chuck didn’t study for you, didn’t hit the books for you. You did that. Just you. Stanford was yours.” And then Dean took it from him. Oh well. 

Suddenly Dean’s sixteen again and Sam’s just been pity-invited as the new kid to a sleepover birthday party. Dean knows that Sam’s not supposed to go overnight anywhere, and Sam knows that Dean knows that, but John ain’t there and most of their food money is gone, and Dean’s a selfish little shit because Sam having two big meals at the Clarks meant that Dean could eat his share back at the motel. He puts the fear of god in the kid warning him not to say anything weird to those apple-pie parents, and then sweetly butters them up when he drops off Sam, like, “Well gee, you sure have a pretty home, and I’ll be picking him up tomorrow, too, because my pops needs to wait for the cable guy,” and so on.

Dean doubled back to hide in the bushes and watch Sammy through the window. Not too long, Sam knew to call the motel phone if he wanted to leave early, which he would, obviously, it was the kid’s first sleepover. Poor little geek was just awkwardly sitting off to the side, not talking with any of the other boys.

‘Cept Dean stayed up the whole night glaring at that damn phone, and it didn’t ring. And when he picked up Sam, he came running out of that house all hopped up on leftover birthday cake and, sure, happy to see Dean, but also happy that he spent the whole night without him. Whole night on his own, something to prove.

Sam snorts, dismissive, but through a limp smile goes, “Thanks, Dean.”

“I mean it, alright? Hell with Ireland, go study fucking tortoises in the Galapagos for the next decade if that’s your truth. When you’re ready to come back, we’ll be here.” Or Dean’ll get blackout drunk and board the plane himself, fuck if Sam wants to let him.

“I really am fine, I promise. I just need some more time. To prove I have the choice.” Sam’s grin blooms to the point it actually starts looking real. “And the pubs are insane.”

“Attaboy.”

Sam blows air through his nose and flaps his hand at the camera. “Okay. Enough about that, I know you want to show off your shelf.”

“Dude, it’s a media cabinet.”

They shoot the shit for the next half hour or so, until Sam’s all calm again, but then Cas’s coming back home from work and Sam’s begging off to go to bed after a quick wave hello.

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Dean asks Cas as soon as he hangs up. Dean feels restless from the video call, especially now that it’s over. And especially since he doesn’t want to think about how much longer Sam’s gonna be gone. He looks around the room, trying to see what Sammy saw though the pixelated little window on his laptop. Dean’s not an interior decorator, the dining room probably has terrible feng shui, but the natural light from the windows means they can try their hand with a ficus in the corner of the room and it won’t die within a fortnight.

Cas hums—a neutral, non-committal noise.

“What the hell, man?” Dean nudges a placemat on the table. He’s fucking Joanna Eberhart, fussing over a placemat they picked up from Big Lots for a buck ninety-nine. “We finally finished fixing the place up and you want to go back to the bunker?”

“No, of course not, don’t be ridiculous. Our apartment is nice, it’s just different.”

“Like…?”

Cas sighs, momentarily at a loss, and then flaps his hand across their living room. “I guess sometimes I still miss the kitchen in the bunker.”

“The kitchen? Dude you barely ever ate there,” Dean scoffs, then feels shitty about it. 

“I... found it comforting. A space I could be with everyone during the day, and when everyone else was asleep, it was calming and quiet. Peaceful.”

“We could always go back.” Dean tries to casually lean on his media cabinet. “For a weekend, or even longer.”

“No, you were right.” Cas carefully takes off his outer jacket, and then slips on a sweater vest he had haphazardly tossed over the arm of the couch. After a moment's pause, he goes to shrug on a thick-knit cardigan he had hanging on the coat rack. “The bunker is just a place.” 

“Sure, but if you miss it—”

“Dean.” Cas gives him a look, the one that says you’re an idiot, but in a fond kinda way. Says something about the two of them that not only does Cas have a variety of ways to call him an idiot, Dean’s able to correctly interpret them too. “It was the company, not the counter space.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, running his fingertips against the cool varnish. Cas’s a little stuck in his sweater, and he’s close enough that Dean could reach out and help him. He doesn't. “I get that.”

Later that night when he’s waiting for—Vanessa? she definitely she said her name was Vanessa, but she also didn’t ask for Dean’s name and took him to a motel, so who knows if that’s her real name—for the lady to finish up gussying up in the bathroom, he wastes time scrolling through his phone to see if there’s a wheeled kitchen island on sale anywhere. Wasn’t what Cas meant, but they could use some extra counter space in the kitchen.

Hilariously, when Dean gets back home, he walks in on Cas trying to unstick himself from an entirely different sweater. He helps Cas out, obviously, and can’t help sneaking a pinch against his side. Cas glares, offronted, but after Dean sneaks off for a shower, he let’s Dean pull him to the couch and queue up some HGTV home improvement show.

Dean tilts over to lean against Cas’s shoulder, not faking how tired he feels. From dear “Vanessa,” from his conversation with Sammy. It’s still whirring in his head, the churning worry of his kid brother on the other side of the world. This helps, though. Cas shifts his shoulder a little, accommodating, so it’s the perfect height for him to rest his eyes.

Dean’s in a good goddamn mood. He loves going home with moms– not in a weird way, christ, just that they’re on the level. They never want him to spend the night, know what they want, and, okay, this might be a bit weird, but they’ve also got good snacks. Last week he was sent packing with a juice box. A literal box of apple juice. He laughed so hard his stomach hurt, and spent the rest of the night nudging into Cas’s personal space. Cas gave him a toothy smile and… yeah, that was a good night, too.

Speaking of, he’s got two frozen otter pops halfway melted in his glove box. He couldn’t remember if Cas’s ever had one before, so he grabbed two on his way out the door. Sorry to her kids, or whatever. One red, one blue. Dean’s kicking himself for not getting a purple grape one, but to be honest the fake grape flavoring always gave him a headache as a kid. Cas, the freak, would probably prefer it.

His mood deflates somewhat when he lets himself into the apartment and the lights are out in the living room. But he spots the light leaking out under Cas’s door and blusters his way in.

“Okay, Cas, blue or red tongue.”

Cas blinks owlishly up at him. He’s bundled up in bed with a large crossword book, laptop playing something on his lap. Cute, Dean’s brain unhelpfully supplies. Cas’s a man—a stocky, craggy looking dude. But his hair is also sticking every which way and his body is barely visible over the blankets he’s got all twisted and curled around him because he doesn't believe in making your bed in the morning. He looks so stupid it circles all the way around the globe and comes back to being endearing.

He doesn’t startle at Dean’s intrusion, but Cas does pause his show with a confused smile.

“You’re back early,” Cas says. Dean glances at the clock and—huh, he is. Guess he rushed out the door kinda quick, but he was feeling itchy to get home. Cas tilts his head thoughtfully and continues, “I guess if I had to choose, red would be less jarring.”

“No– dude.” Dean huffs a laugh and holds out the two frozen pops. “These stain your mouth like crazy, pick one.”

“Oh,” he says slowly, like the word is pulling his teeth, glancing balefully at his nice new duvet cover practically wrapped around him like a shawl, “they stain?”

Alright, Dean can take a hint, but he doesn’t let it deflate him. “Yeah, but. They’re pretty slushy right now, it’ll be better if I stick ‘em in a freezer and we can have them tomorrow.”

Cas relaxes. “Okay, thank you.” He’s still all tangled up in his sheets, obviously comfortable, but makes moves like he’s gonna get up and it's so tragic it nearly breaks Dean’s heart. It’s like tucking a puppy into bed and then kicking them out a minute later. “Let me move into the living room.”

“Nah, man. You look cozy, don’t worry about it.”

“But you’re in a good mood,” Cas grumbles. He makes to get up, which—no. 

“Seriously, stop. I’ll just join you in here. Want more water?”

“Um.” Cas eyes widen, and then gratefully flick to the nearly empty Nalgene bottle on his side table. “Sure.”

“Cool. Gimme a minute.”

Dean grabs the water bottle and refuses to freak out through puttering around the kitchen, putting the pops in the freezer, filling up the bottle with more tap water and sticking in two ice cubes like Cas likes, quickly brushing his teeth instead of just coasting on the mouthwash he stole earlier in the night. 

He lets himself freak out for a couple seconds in his bedroom, after he changes into a t-shirt and sweatpants and mouths what the fuck a couple times in the mirror. This feels—dangerous. Borderline, borderline something.  

Fuck that, though. He’s in a good goddamn mood. Even Cas picked up on it. So he changes into sweats, does a quick pits-and-tits wash in the bathroom sink, and makes his way back to Cas’s room. 

He obnoxiously pulls at the covers to straighten them, and then flops on top. “What’re we watching?”

Cas angles the screen at him, moving the laptop between their legs. They’re also keeping a good couple inches between their bodies, even if Cas’s bed is only a queen. 

Dean looks and snorts. “ The Good Wife? Seriously? Sammy used to watch that.” 

He gives a one shouldered shrug. “It’s alright, but her family is very annoying.”

“The lesbian investigator chick is hot, though.”

“She’s not a lesbian,” Cas grumbles, but he clicks play. He’s only five minutes into the episode,  but doesn’t even offer to restart it, dick.

Unfazed, Dean hums. “Still hot. Hey, thirty-eight across is ‘silo.’”

Cas huffs, annoyed, but pens it into the crossword anyways. And then he angles the book so Dean can see the clues better. Dean bites back a grin. Pushover. 

Dean shuffles over far enough that his arm presses up hot against Cas’s bare skin. Spends the rest of the night in Cas’s space, griping at him for fucking up a clue or mocking Sam while he’s not here to defend himself. He leaves close after 2am, exhausted and tripping over his feet, yelling out a half-hearted threat over his shoulder to get Cas to make his bed.

Part of him wishes he had just faked falling asleep again so he wouldn’t have to move. Cas wouldn’t shove him off the bed to wake him up. Probably.

It sets a bad precedent. 

It’s good, no doubt it’s good, Dean’s having a good time, but it is a bad precedent. He was always a bit more tactile on the nights he went out, residual endorphins and all, but now even if they start on the couch, Dean finds an excuse to follow Cas into his room.

He doesn’t pull this shit most nights, of course. He’s got some self restraint. But it’s so hard not to when he’s already feeling loose and floaty and sore. 

And he thinks—he doesn’t know, but he abstractly let’s himself think—that maybe Cas likes it too. Likes their time together, but likes it better when Dean’s only smothering him every once in a while. Likes having the odd evening alone to take a bubble bath or light a candle or whatever it is the guy does when Dean’s not hassling him. 

Evidence being, Dean gets a little bored of going out for a couple weeks (okay, it’s mostly that it’s starting to get cold out and he doesn’t want to freeze his ass off flirting in some scummy pool house when he could be hanging out at home with Cas), and by week three Cas is all but shoving Dean out the door so the guy can have some well earned solitary me-time in the apartment. 

Cas must have been going stir crazy with how Dean was hovering over him, because now whenever Dean comes back from a date, more often than not he finds Cas and bundled up in bed, all smiley and sweet and happy to greet him with a movie playing on his laptop or a book in his lap. Part of Dean feels like he’s being rude interrupting Cas’s attempt at sans-Dean relaxation, but Dean gets so clingy after dates that it never stops him from barrelling into Cas’s room at the end of the evening anyways.

Dean almost left the first time he saw Cas reading on his goofy little knock-off Kindle, that ain’t a duo activity, but something inside him made him open his big goddamn mouth and go, “Mind if I join you? My room’s cold as fuck.” Which was only half a lie, Cas keeps the temperature down chillingly low because he’s a big believer in sweater-weather, even inside, but Cas nodded without hesitation, and Dean found himself finally reading his previously ignored copy of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay until around midnight. Turns out reading together is way nicer than it has any right to be.

There was no special reason the first time he fell asleep. He didn’t fake resting his eyes or anything like that. One minute he’s reading about Kavalier being sent to Antartica and Clay spitting into some guy’s mouth—side note, but what the fuck?—and the next he’s opening his eyes to a pitch black room, Cas snoring gently by his ear. The guy’s totally conked out, his fuck-off blackout curtains are no joke, and Dean’s immediately wide awake and paralyzed. 

He was right. Cas didn’t shove him off of the bed.

Dean thinks about sneaking out because—this is a line crossed. But then Cas makes a weird snuffle noise and flips over. Dean can only just barely make him out among the shadows of the room and the red glow of the clock, but he goes prey-still, not even breathing. His pulse thunders so loud in his ears it’s fucking crazy that Cas doesn’t wake up from the heavy pounding in the calm, quiet of the room.

But. Okay, there’s not actually a reason he has to leave. Cas let him fall asleep, and—wait, maybe even tucked him in? Dean doesn’t remember getting under all of these blankets, and he doesn’t think he would have been able to untangle all of them himself. Plus, if he gets up now, he might wake Cas up, which would be more rude. 

So he relaxes his muscles one by one, and matches the pace of his breathing with Cas’s.

But now that the seal’s broken, it gets harder and harder for Dean to stay awake, especially as winter gets colder and colder and Cas’s bed gets cozier and cozier. He’s not a young man anymore, either, and while he’s only part time at work, it’s still eight hours per shift. He gets tired. He can’t pull all nighters anymore. And it’s not like they cuddle or anything, even if they might brush up against each other. It’s not like Cas has a fuck-off Alaskan King sized mattress, Dean’s bound to get a knee tucked up behind his every once in a while.

Dean finishes the book and places A Wizard of Earthsea on Cas’s side table to read next. 

“Ow, fuck,” Dean curses. He’s dazed more than actually hurt, and waves his hand in apology at a sour-looking dad for cussing while the guy’s two giggly kids pass him by.

Cas comes to a choppy stop beside him, gripping onto the railing with what would be white-knuckles under his thick ugly gloves. “Dean, did you just break your ass?”

Dean scowls. “My ass is fine, dickhead.”

“Then stand up before someone skates over your fingers.” Cas ineffectually makes grabby hands at his coat, but Dean’s perfectly fine staying on the ice on his very much unbroken ass, thank you very much, and glares with resentment at the little ten year old girl practicing spins in the center of the rink. She obviously thinks she’s gonna be the next Michelle Kwan, but really she’s just a little show off.

“It’s just the goddamn ice, the friction is messing with my rhythm.” He moves his glare up to Cas, who by now stopped looking at him with concern and is now looking at him with something close to amusement. Dean can feel the beginning of an answering smile start to twitch on his face and he stomps it down. “I was a goddamn king in the roller rink, dude.”

“When, in the fifties?” Claire snorts, pulling up next to them. Kaia skids to a slightly wobbly stop behind her, and Patience finally reaches them crawling along the wall like Cas.

Kaia nervously looks around. “You really should get up, Dean.”

With a sigh, Dean stops dead-weighting and lets Cas yank him to his feet. Which—damn, he needs to stop being surprised every time Cas puts his freakish upper arm strength to good use. Cas got this used weight set off of a Facebook exchange group, and does squats with them in their living room every morning like a freak. 

His hip does smart, though. Probably going to have a gross greenish yellow bruise to prod at for the next couple weeks.

“It’s the skates, they don’t fit right,” Dean lies. “Pinching my toes.”

“Great, I’ll come with you,” Patience says. Relief colors her voice as she slowly hobbles ahead along the railing. “I want hot chocolate.”

Dean grumbles, all the drinks are overpriced, but follows her slow crawl out of the rink. For show he pretends the line’s too long for new shoes, and stomps along after Patience to the snack station for a hot chocolate for her and a small black coffee for him.

“No offense, but I’ve never really gotten the point of ice-skating,” Patience says with a sigh. “Hated doing it at birthday parties as a kid. You just go in a circle. At least at a bowling alley you can drink cheap Long Island Ice Teas at the same time.”

“You drank Long Island Ice Teas as a kid?” Dean spits his faintly burnt coffee back into his cup. He’s not actually shocked by her words, it’s just a shitty brew.

She huffs a small laugh. “Fine, back then it was the euphoric high of cheap pizza.”

Dean tries not to grimace. Hell, he’s not one to turn down either, but the bacteria in those places? He temped at one for a couple weeks when he was old enough to pass as eighteen, and the owners let Sammy study in the breakroom during his shifts, so it was a great gig, but it’s a bit too close to learning how they make sausage. 

Still, he agrees he doesn’t exactly get the appeal of ice skating either, except that Cas said he never tried it and it was either weep or take the guy out for an afternoon. There’s all this shit he’s never done with Cas, either because they were dealing with a big bad crisis or because he was too much of an asshole to take him anywhere but the bunker den. He’s got no excuse not to now.

Now that he knows what he’s getting, the second gulp of coffee goes down much easier. They make more small talk, nothing too crazy, and find seats where they can watch Claire pretend she knows what she’s doing to impress Cas and Kaia. She eats it, naturally, tripping on a poorly timed spin, and Dean can’t help but laugh.

“So,” he says, nodding at Claire brushing herself off. They’re on the opposite side of the rink, so he can’t hear them, but it’s unmistakable how Cas and Kaia coo over her. “Claire says you’re curing cancer.”

Patience lets out a gusty sigh through her nose. “God she’s so annoying, I swear I tell her about my lab like twice a day and she gets it wrong every time just to piss me off.” She then rattles off a series of sentences Dean politely nods to and spends no effort trying to figure out what the hell she’s talking about. 

“Sounds interesting,” he says, trying not to let it show how desperately he’s grasping at straws.

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll probably get a co-author on the paper, which is cool. But selfish academia reasons aside, if my advisor’s study pans out, theoretically, it’ll mean the detection of certain types of lymphoma will be easier to—”

“Wait, hold up,” Dean says, now actually choking on his bitter motor-oil coffee for real. He glances upward for, ironically, patience. “Is– are you hearing yourself right now?”

“Okay but I’m not curing cancer, I’m just—” She stops herself, and when he makes another ‘are you kidding me?’ gesture, she rolls her eyes for good measure. But she also ducks her head too, equally pleased as she is embarrassed. “Yeah, yeah, alright, fine. I’m single handedly saving the world and I’ll get a Nobel Prize by thirty and I can bless babies just by holding them.”

Dean shrugs. “Why not?”

“But—okay. Fair.” She takes another sip of her hot chocolate. “Crazier stuff really has happened to us.”

“Listen, Patience.” He fiddles with the edge of his cup, peeling back the layers of the cardboard cup sleeve. “I know I haven’t exactly been that… present.”

She takes a moment to just stare at him. “Uh, Claire said you’ve been giving her mechanic lessons like every other week.”

“I don’t remember your name being ‘Claire,’” he says with a laugh. Patience smiles to make him feel better about the lame joke, but she still looks at him like he’s being crazy. “I’m keeping an eye out for her, but that’s who Missouri was for me. Your grandmother, she was there for me and my brother when we needed her, and she asked us to look after you. I haven’t forgotten that.” He feels himself start to flush, so he clears his throat and says into his cup, “You’ve got my number, and you should use it.”

“Sure,” she says, and to Dean’s surprise there’s laughter in her voice. 

“What? What’s so funny?”

“It’s just…” She waves between them. “Not to make this weird, but this was actually my last vision.”

He gapes, and then shuts his mouth. “Like here? Right now on this bench?”

“I got the vision awhile ago, but yeah, it was predicting this moment and the only one that hadn’t happened yet.” She picks at her nails. “I haven’t actually had any new ones since Chuck was defeated.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. I know there’s still some magic floating around, but I guess I never thought what that would mean for psychics.” Damn, good for her. Dean shoves his hand not gripping his coffee cup into pocket and glances at her out of the corner of his eye. “This is good, right? Them going away is what you wanted?”

To his horror, her eyes well up with tears and she starts furiously blinking them back.

“I don’t know– fuck. Sorry, I didn’t mean to get this emotional,” she says with a wry, watery voice. Dean nervously pats down his pockets and finds a wad of tissue-thin napkins he grabbed on instinct from the snack counter and passes them over. “I mean sure, I hated it at first. All of the sudden my estranged grandmother dies and I’m thrust into this– this nightmare, and I can’t stop seeing all these horrible images in my head and I can’t stop them from coming true, either.”

“But things changed?”

“Look at them.” She jerks her head at Claire and Kaia on the ice, being young idiots together. “They’re my sisters. I always wanted a sibling growing up, I was just so lonely all the time as a kid, and now I’ve got more sisters than I frankly want. Our shower clogs up once a month because they’re too lazy to fish their hair out of the drain.” Dean snorts. He felt the same those first couple months getting Sam back after Stanford, equally disgusted as he was giddy to find hair left in the tub if Sam got first dibs on motel showers. “If I never got my visions, they both would be dead right now.” 

Dean nods, not sure what else to say. She’s probably right.

Patience incorrectly takes his silence as disagreement. “Kaia, obviously because she would’ve died from those weird tentacle faced assholes from another dimension, but Claire too. She—” Patience’s voice cracks, and she blinks again, too fast. Dean takes a moment to just watch her drink her hot chocolate, because she’s just a damn kid too, dealing with all types of heavy crap they never should have had to. “Back when I was still helping her and Jody with their hunts, nothing too crazy, just research when she was on the road, she’d go radio silent. For days. Not checking in, just stupidly throwing herself at bigger and bigger monsters to prove, I don’t know. Something stupid.”

“You don’t gotta explain stupid to me.”

“But I was right there. She wouldn’t let me help, or she would scream if Jody tried to help, or worse, she’d act all smug and cocky like she never needed us at all. I’d dread I’d get another vision and this time it really would be her dying. But after Kaia… not only did she have a partner watching her back, but she’d actually check in when she said she would. She’d call Jody for advice, or just to confirm a gut feeling the two of them had on a case. I can think of two separate times she would have died on a hunt if she kept at it solo.” 

Dean nudges her with his shoulder. “They’re alive though, ain’t they? You all got out. Maybe you haven’t got another vision ‘cause you don’t need ‘em anymore.”

She shakes her head, gearing up again. “Yeah maybe, but Dean, think about it. I’ve talked it over with Jody and my dad, too. I got a vision, Claire saved Kaia, Kaia swapped places with other-Kaia—who ultimately helped you defeat that angel, right?”

“Michael.” He busies his hands by drinking more of his god-awful coffee.

“Right, that guy. It was the only way that Jack got his grace back. And then our Kaia said she had a heart-to-heart with Jack near the end. Look, I don’t really know him, but who knows if he needed to hear that in order to take down Chuck. Whatever the case, you’re right. We survived and now there’s no more monsters coming after any of us.” She fixes him with a stern look and, damn, that one’s all her grandmother. He feels twenty-six with a cowlick again. “Listen, I don’t always… understand the cause and effect of the things that I see, but a couple years ago I started getting visions, and now we’re all together alive and happy.” She looks across the rink softly, and then she makes a bitter face. “For the longest time I thought it was a curse, or a burden, maybe I would call it a ‘power’ when I was feeling generous. But as soon as I started thinking what I have is a gift, of course it goes away.”

“I’m sorry.” He’s… out of his depth on this one. Broken record, but Sam should be here with him tapping in.

She sighs and pastes on a grin. “It’s– it’s fine. It’s nothing to be sorry about. It was a part of me, and now it’s not.”

He nods dumbly. “Well, then I’m glad you’re, uh, doing well. Living a normal life.”

“You always wanted one for me.” She gives him a considering look as she finishes the rest of her hot chocolate.

Dean huffs, because that wasn’t the moral of the story. “I always wanted you to have a choice. The life we had, there wasn’t one. Once hunting gets a hold of you, it doesn’t ever really let you get out.”

“But you can.” She elbows him gently in the side. “Now, at least.”

“Yeah.” He chugs the rest of his coffee, and then offers her the empty cup as a mini-trash can. “Sure.”

Patience puts her garbage in the proffered cup, but as she opens her mouth to say something else, they’re interrupted by the loud, hollow slam of Cas crashing into the railing in front of them.

“Haven’t figured out how to stop yet, pal?” Dean laughs.

Cas huffs. “Like you know how. Stop sulking and come back.”

Dean can feel Patience’s eyes boring into the side of his head.

“Sir, yes sir,” he mocks playfully, shoving their conversation to the back of his head. His ass throbs when he stands. 

SantaCon is possibly the stupidest pub crawl Dean’s ever degraded himself into attending, and over the course of his life, he’s set that bar distressingly high. Still, Cas’s busy that evening and Dean looks damn good in red, so he dons the least stained Santa Claus costume he can get at the last minute, and hits the streets downtown. Unfortunately he doesn’t find a Mrs. Claus, but he does find a woman with a big, busty laugh and a fake beard dressed as good ole Saint Nick, and somehow neither of them get busted for public indecency when she drags him off into an alley. It’s quite frankly a pre-Christmas miracle. 

He spends the next day moaning in pain and hungover on the couch, but since it’s Cas’s day off and he’s so cool and awesome, he brings Dean a fully-loaded sausage breakfast burrito.

“Stop,” Cas grumbles, cheeks tinged pink. “It’s no trouble.”

“No, never. You’re still my guardian angel,” Dean coos. He feels like reheated death and he’s sweating in all sorts of nooks ‘n crannies he didn’t even know he had, but even the oppressive pulse of his headache can’t keep him from being whiny for Cas’s attention. 

Cas sighs heavily, faux-aggrieved, but Dean can spot the truth. “Do you want tea?”

“Eh, couldn’t hurt.”

Dean takes a couple bites while Cas is in the kitchen fighting with the electric tea kettle. It’s good, but his empty stomach still roils. He settles back on the couch, miserable.

The sharp scent of peach ginger tea hits his nose first, but Dean keeps his eyes closed. “Cas, pour all our beer down the sink.”

He hears Cas finish his walk over, and then the tiny click as Cas places the mug on the coffee table. Dean fights back an eyebrow twitch. Yes, the coffee table has a glass top, but dude. Use a coaster. Why is he so allergic to using them. 

There’s the faint noise of fabric rustling, and then cool, dry fingers rest against Dean’s brow. Dean sighs, keeps his eyes closed. They’re a balm on his flushed skin, and even though he knows he must be gross right now, he’d given anything to hang suspended in this moment.

The fingers move, trailing lightly down the bridge of his nose—

Dean’s eyes fly open.

“Cas, are you… pinching my nose right now?”

“Mm,” Cas hums, a small little smile playing on his lips. Cas fills up the entirety of his vision, blocking out enough of the light that Dean doesn’t have to squint to see him. But it’s a little too close and blurry to see how he’s firmly pressing the bridge of Dean’s nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I read online this helps relieve headaches.”

“Yes,” Dean says automatically. It does help, slightly, tension withdrawing slightly. He thinks about Saint Nick from last night, and how her hands were too light. Made him feel too ticklish.

Cas lets go with an expectant Now Your Turn look, and Dean pinches his nose to play along.

But the smile only evaporates from Cas’s face. “I can’t heal you.”

“‘M not asking you to.” There’s another wave of nausea. “Nothing a bit of ibuprofen can’t fix.”

That doesn’t help. Cas still looks upset, distracted.

Dean clears his throat. “Can you turn off the light?”

“Sure.” Cas jerkily steps away. 

“Wait, man, please come back,” he whines before he can stop himself. “I’m literally dying right now.”

Cas glares at him for being annoying, but at least he looks more present than that awful empty, guilty shell version of himself. “I can’t baby you and stand here.” Dickhead, acting like he doesn’t know what Dean means just to be difficult.

“Just pick something I’ve seen before and then hang out for a bit. I’ll listen and keep my eyes closed,” Dean continues. As Cas shakes his head and goes to futz with the DVDs, Dean pulls his legs up so Cas’ll sit on the couch when he’s done. ‘Cause after Cas gets settled, he’d probably let Dean stretch out and put his feet in his lap if he continues looking miserable enough. He’d probably do the ankle squeeze thing again. “And seriously, Cas, don’t actually pour out our beer.”

Dean feels a little out of sorts the next day, even if his hangover is all but gone. Usually he feels better whenever they hang out after he’s… “hung out” with someone else beforehand. But the botched post-SantaCon hangover was, dunno, weird. Unsettled.

Cas finds him the next day pulling some of their boxes out of their apartment's extra storage unit in the garage.

“Thanks dude, love the teamwork,” Dean groans sarcastically when Cas just watches him like a lazy bastard.

“I thought we unpacked everything…?”

“Not decorations and stuff, though,” he says with a huff.

Cas finally drags his ass over, but instead of taking the damn thing out of his hands, Cas rests a warm palm against Dean’s lower back. Dean freezes, stock still.

“You have to raise with your legs, Dean,” Cas murmurs, a soft scolding. Dean adjusts his posture on instinct, not looking at him, and not even a breath later Cas removes his hand.

Dean stops being a dumbass and blusters on a couple steps ahead, back of his neck feeling hot. “The only trees left are probably sad little Charlie Brown twigs, but we can at least dust off some light strings.” He pauses by the door of the storage space. “Or not. We’re going up to Jody’s, we don’t actually have to—”

Cas foists up the other box like it’s packed with styrofoam, the meathead. “No, just tell me what goes where.”

“Yeah man, alright, that’s the holiday spirit.”

It’s quick with the two of them, only a couple boxes to lug upstairs, and Dean has fun pulling out his neglected box cutter to start the party. The first box is stuffed full of fake plastic gourds which, woops, sorry ghost of Thanksgiving past for forgetting. 

Cas starts chattering about a squash recipe he wants Dean to try making while Dean makes himself useful cranking open box number two. He doesn’t remember what extra shit they put in there, and has to pull out a massive wad of fake spider webbing before he hits a garland of fake holly, and there’s a shiny brass something at the bottom of the—

“Hey,” Dean croaks. He grabs hold and pulls out the hanukiah. 

Cas’s face drains of any color. “I’m sorry, I– I forgot I placed that in there. I meant to ask you, but the rest of the packing went so quickly—”

“You don’t gotta apologize, man,” he says, but it comes out a bit too tight. A bit too sharp. He runs his finger across the base. One of the few things of mom’s that survived the fire, not that John ever really took it out of storage. It’s slightly greasy, and has that faint lit-candle-smell, even though he honestly has no memory of using it for years, decades even. Maybe mom did? Who knows, she was on a hunt during Hanukkah last year. Or she forgot entirely, too. Dean only knew because Sam had downloaded the Jewish calendar onto his phone for a spell he was practicing. 

“I found it in one of the kitchen cabinets,” Cas says, still agonized like Dean’s gonna rip into him over it.

“Cas,” he says, and this time it comes kinder, less strained. “It’s fine.” He shoots him a half-cocked grin. “You were friends. She wouldn’t have wanted her stuff locked up like a shrine. Drove her crazy enough the first time.”

Whenever she stayed in the bunker, not that it ultimately happened a lot while Dean was under its roof as well, she had trouble adjusting to a normal sleep schedule. Death does that to you, as does a lack of natural light during the day. Dean would hear them at night, mom and Cas, talking in low voices with just the light from the oven range bathing them in a soft glow. God, he knows, objectively, they would have welcomed him into their conversation, but he couldn’t shatter their peace like that. It felt like it was one of the few times he didn’t catch mom looking around for the nearest exit. Still has no idea what they actually talked about.

“You can talk to me about her. I might not be able to talk back about it, but I don’t want you to think you're not allowed.” Dean swallows, unable to keep a hold of his grin any longer. It feels like he took a bite of raw onion, sharp and acidic and nauseating against the base of his throat, and he cannot keep having this conversation with Cas if all they do is talk past each other. “I need you to believe me when I say I don’t blame you.”

Cas knuckles are white where he’s clutching the edge of the box. Even when he sighs heavily, Dean can’t look anywhere else other than those damn knuckles.

“What about Jack?” he says with a pained voice.

Dean rears back. 

“I...” He'd rather Cas just hit him.

“Right.” Cas averts his eyes, lips pursed. He’s tense, like he’s gonna just get up and bolt if Dean doesn't—

“Wait. Please, just wait a minute for me.” Dean’s heartbeat is clambering in his ribcage, making it hard to concentrate. “He killed her. I know it’s not his fault, and I know it never would’ve happened if Chuck hadn’t kept setting up those dominos. I don’t blame him, not anymore. Even without that crap, I know what it’s like to lose your soul and hurt someone you love. Jack– it was only an accident, I get it. The truly bad shit I did without a soul, the way I hurt my family, I did on purpose.”

The shit Dean did when he’s human, too. Raising the gun against Jack was sickenly easy, even though he knew it was gonna take him out too. Maybe it was because of that. He has to swallow a couple times to finish, “But he still killed her.”

Cas’s eyes are shiny-wet when he fixes him to the floor with a frustrated look. “Dean, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I dunno,” he mumbles. 

“I want him to come back, and I want to live with him,” he says, stubborn as ever. Dean can’t look at him head on.

“I do too.” It’s weak, but earnest.

Cas runs his hand jerkily through his hair. “You– you can’t, just because of me. I can’t be the reason—”

“No, aside from you. I promise.” He means it. He can’t lie to himself, he’s scared shitless by the idea of having Jack back, having to face how he treated the kid. But he still misses him. Dean can shoulder the guilt if it means having him back in arms reach. An easy trade he’s made countless times before.

“I needed you to parent him when I wasn’t around, and you didn’t.” Cas’s voice sounds rawer than ever, just torn to shreds. But it’s less mad than Dean was bracing himself for. “ Before he lost his soul.”

And why the fuck weren’t you around? Dean nearly bites out, but he forces his mouth shut. It’s not fair, Cas mostly wasn’t even alive then, but it still feels like the truth through the sharp sting of resentment. Whatever. They can’t change the past either way.

“I know,” Dean says instead on a slow, shaky exhale. “I’m sorry.”

“The way you are with the girls, I need you to be like that with him.”

Dean sputters a wet laugh. “Cas, I ain’t a saint with them either.”

“You make an effort.” And there it is again, that mullish stubborn attitude when Dean wants to hear it the least. “That’s all I need.”

“I need you to need more from me.” His jaw fucking aches from how hard it’s clenched. He still can’t meet Cas in the eye. But he can’t be that kinda man again, either. That kinda father, sorry excuse or not.

“Okay.” Cas hesitates, and then reaches over the box to rest his hand hesitantly against Dean’s shoulder, like he expects Dean’s gonna shrug him off, and nods at the hanukiah still limply held in his hands. “Would you like to light it this year? I can get candles.”

“Eh, I dunno. Maybe.” Dean leans into Cas’s palm, using it to ground him. “Christmas– it’s not real, you know? It’s a thing you do on TV, or some bullshit party I’d scrounge together for Sammy when he was a kid. No kid can say no to presents. It’s supposed to be fun, it don’t gotta mean anything.” He sighs. He should know by now that holidays stop being easy the moment you stop being a kid. “Using my mom’s menorah, I dunno, man. It’s gonna mean something. I haven’t sung any of the prayers since I was like four, and it feels weird to try without Sam back yet.” Dean finally glances up, meeting Cas’s gaze. Awfully, he’s looking at Dean all soft. “Ask me again next year.”

Cas blinks, and then squeezes him once on the shoulder before letting go. “Next year, I will.”

Somehow, Christmas goes smoothly with Jody, Donna, and the girls, save Patience who flew out to visit her dad. After the awkward week leading up to the trip, with Dean and Cas walking on eggshells like the other is on a hair trigger, which is as annoying as it’s likely true, he expected a big blow out between them. If this were the old days, they’d be at each other's throats.

Instead, something in Dean sighs and relaxes as soon as they hit the highway. It’s like he didn’t realize how claustrophobic the cities were until he’s on the road with Zepp playing on the stereo. It’s one of Dean's tapes, not the one he made Cas. At this point he’s convinced Cas went and lost it in the glove compartment of his old truck or the bunker; he hasn’t seen the damn thing in a million years. Just as well, Dean was second guessing a song pick or two. He should’ve made Cas a second for Christmas instead of, fuck, a boring electric heating pad.

The lowering of hackles isn’t just a Dean thing, either. Even Cas seems to mellow out with each mile they put between them and the apartment.

Christmas itself goes alright, too. Dean puts Sam and Eileen on a video call for a little bit so everyone can say hi, which is as nice as it is annoying to deal with the lag. Sammy’s been seeming good, seeming better lately. Dean’s not sure if he actually is feeling better or he’s just getting better at lying to Dean, but for his sanity he chooses to believe the former.

There’s a moment whipping up a couple popcorn garlands that feels so June Cleaver, Dean’s shocked he’s not wearing a pearl necklace (and he does not appreciate how hard Kaia laughed when he said that out loud, mind in the friggin gutter). But it also twinges a weird, off-kilter hitch when he hangs them around the tree. He can’t help but think about that menorah sitting in its box back home, left behind, while he’s here faking some picture perfect All American Apple Pie family.

But then Cas gets so completely, royally trashed on eggnog that Dean pulls another 180 and decides that, hold up, the holidays rule. 

“That cannot be true,” Cas practically yells, aghast and too drunk to know how to modulate his volume. Dean commandeered the recliner, back a little cranky from the long drive, and just leans back to watch as he picks at his mostly-crumb blueberry cobbler plate.

“No, it is, I totally swear.” Claire’s practically vibrating with excitement from where she’s seated on the edge of the couch next to Cas. Kaia’s on the ground in front of her, hair halfway braided before Claire got distracted telling Cas all sorts of bullshit. “How do you not know this?”

“What could possibly compel an angel to learn about gelatin, let alone eat it? To what holy or glorious purpose would it serve a soldier of God?” Cas blearily seeks out his gaze from across the room. “Dean, have I had Jell-o before?”

“Uh, no buddy, I don’t think so. Not with me, at least. I made you vanilla pudding, once.” 

“Vanilla? Gross,” Claire mutters. Jody’s not even bothering to hide how she’s laughing at all them. 

“I loved it. Dean made it for me.” Cas turns to glare at Claire. “He did not make me anything out of horse hooves.”

“Dude, just remind me and I’ll get the mix next grocery trip,” Dean says, but Cas’s already distracted by the girls and doesn’t pay any attention to him. He pulls out his phone to tap out a quick reminder for himself to get the red kind, not that gross green shit Sam loved.

Alex huffs loudly. “Stop lying to him, they don’t.” She waggles her phone even as Claire scoffs. “See, it’s a myth. According to Huffpo—,” several louder scoffs, “— according to Huffpo, it’s not made out of hooves.”

“Oh, good,” Cas says with a generous sigh. He sinks down into the cushions, and then sits up so he can reach his eggnog mug. “Well, there you go.”

“But, they boil the bones and hides of cows and pigs in order to harvest collagen, which makes the gelatin,” Alex continues.

Cas exclaims his horror loudly, which, real fucking precious coming from a guy who ate Leviathans and existed before the invention of pasteurization and sliced bread. If Cas keeps making a big scene, Dean’s gonna show him exactly what’s inside the bargain brand hot dogs he prefers.

From the ground, Kaia pipes up, “Should I tell him about horse glue factories?”

“Now I know you’re fucking with me,” Cas snaps.

Conversation goes downhill from there, but Dean just keeps on leaning back and relaxing. Jody and Donna are in their own little world gossiping, and he’s happy to let the girls take over keeping Cas entertained for once. Plus, Cas is basking in their attention, and it’s a good look on him. His hair, which he had meticulously combed this morning, is all messed up again, and there’s an embarrassingly large damp spot on his slacks from where he spilled the water Donna fetched for him. But he’s grinning widely and unself-consciousnessly. It clicks for Dean, how much Cas tries to hold himself together, even in the years leading up to now. S’good to see him cut loose.

Cas even friggin giggle-snorts at one point, flopping half off the couch when Kaia plays embarrassing videos of Claire for him on her cell. Claire’s beet-red, hiding her face behind her hands, groaning loud and obnoxious.

“If I did that, she’d stab me,” Alex says with a faux-heavy sigh as she stands to start clearing dessert plates back to the kitchen.

“Night’s still young. Hey,” he says, standing unsteadily with a too-full stomach, “lemme help with that.”

Jody makes all the right noises about how they’re guests and shouldn’t be cleaning blah blah blah, and makes absolutely no move to get her ass up. Kitchen’s not too bad of a mess, but he demotes Alex to drying-duty and gets his elbow grease working by washing the rest of the dirty dishes in the sink.

Alex is a bit tipsy as well, happy splotches of pink high up on her cheek as she quietly hums next to him.

“You’re in a good mood this year,” he teases, nudging her gently with an elbow. “Jody said you’re thinking about moving in with your boyfriend.”

She blushes a bit pinker. “Eh, we’ll see. Apartments are expensive. The only reason my generation dates is to split rent.”

“Thrifty.” Hell, that’s actually a great idea. Wouldn’t ever make sense for him, but damn, if it could, he’d be less disgusted signing that rent check once a month. “Glad it’s going well enough, though.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she says, but her happy tone and the way a smile lingers on her lips tips her hand.

Her good mood starts to infect him until he’s fighting down a small small of his own. “Seriously, I’m glad you’re happy. You seem in a good place this year.”

“I mean, yeah. Not just him, though.” She carefully wipes down the rim of a wine glass. “It’s just... it's been a good year.” Alex chews on her bottom lip, but it keeps curling up. “I’m– listen, I know that bad shit still happens. It’s not like the emergency room is any quieter now. But now it’s like I can finally… breathe again.” He knows exactly what she’s talking about, a knot tightening in his chest, and he nearly lets a dirty casserole dish slip through his fingers. “Every single vampire is gone. Just—gone, and not a single person had to die to make it happen.”

Dean’s not a dick, not gonna bring up every person who did die in order to take Chuck down. Not worth taking this win away from her. He hums pleasantly.

She reads something on his face, but whatever it is, he knows it wasn’t what he wanted it to say when it makes her wince. “Sorry. Claire hates when I get like this, and I’m trying not to piss her off this year, especially since she usually throws a big fit by now. I know hunting was different for you, something you two chose.” 

“Maybe.” Dean shrugs. He must be tipsier than he thought himself, tongue a little loose and his brain slower than normal, so he slips out, “It’s something we wanted, dunno about choosing it.”

“How so?”

He takes a second before answering, trying to line the words up in his head like fridge magnets. There’s another loud squawk from the other room, and then the bass rumble of Cas’s laugh.

“Just, for kids like Claire, her life imploded, yeah? One minute she had, you know, this,” he nods his head to indicate the fucking adoring parents, white picket fence, civilian stability, “and the next she had Heaven fucking with her dad and a demon in her living room. You know. After something like that...” He peters off, and then gives a quiet little laugh. Of course Alex knows what it’s like having your childhood ripped away from you, replaced with something alien and cold and violent. He waits for her to chime in, but she doesn’t. Her cheeks are still pink from drink, but she’s drying all somberly now, if that’s a thing. “I dunno. If you don’t want the life, it’s just something that happened to you. It’ll drive you crazy. But if you do want it, you either die, or, you get good at hunting, real good, and then bam. It’s all been worth something.”

She nods, still quiet. A little small.

Ah, crap. He didn’t say all that to get on her case. It’s her right to gripe about her quasi-sister being all melodramatic.

“You, though. You should be proud. You made the choice, a hard one, to get out,” he stammers to add. “And hell, look at you. You’re the only one among us who’s still saving lives.”

“Dean—,” she finally says, brows furrowed, just as Cas calls his name from the other room, too.

“Yeah, buddy?” Dean shouts back over his shoulder.

“ Dean!” Cas calls again, louder.

Dean rolls his eyes at Alex, who gives him a small quirk of her lips, even if it doesn’t reach her eyes, and he quickly rinses off his sudsy hands.

“You rang?” he huffs, making his way into the other room. 

Cas looks up at him from the couch, rumpled and pathetic like a tragic looking rat-dog.

“I’m warm,” Cas grumbles.

“Okay, man.” Dean huffs and picks at his chunky pullover with his pointer finger and thumb. “Take off your sweater.”

Cas’s face hardens and he slouches down into the couch out of Dean’s reach. “No. Go fix the thermostat.”

“One, this is not our house.” He’s momentarily distracted by the flushed sheen on Cas’s face. Dude really must be overheating. “B, literally could no one else in this room do that? I was busy.”

Donna, the only person under this roof more trashed than Cas, throws a slipper at him. Misses Dean by a mile. “Do what the man asked!”

“Not your house either, Hanscum.” 

But Jody shrugs at his questioning look, so he goes and adjusts the damn thermostat.

Eventually he has to drag Cas to the guest room by 10pm. Cas passes out immediately, snoring way louder than normal, and Dean can’t help but chuckle at him when he pulls out the futon to crash out on the floor. Cas’s gonna throw a shitfit in the morning that Dean didn’t force him to brush his teeth, but he doesn’t have the heart to wake the guy back up.

Still, unsettled by the strange and lumpy futon, Dean sleeps restlessly until he finally gets out of bed a few minutes after dawn. It’s cold as fuck in the house, obviously no one remembered to turn the temp back up last night, but he still shivers his way into a hoodie and some socks and tiptoes downstairs to get started on breakfast before the rest of the house wakes up. Jody’s a decent cook, but no one else is touching the damn bacon but him.

To his surprise, the kitchen light is already on, and he finds Kaia eating leftover stuffing over the trash.

She looks at him, caught, cheeks chipmunk-full.

He snorts. “I’m whipping up something fresh if you’re not too hungry.”

She shrugs, sheepish, and puts the leftovers back in the fridge. “Sure, why not.”

For want of something better to fill the dead air, he asks, “You liking Christmas at Mills so far?”

“Sure, I guess.” She snaps the lid back on the tupperware. “Didn’t really celebrate growing up, but Claire and Patience get into the whole magic of the season, or whatever. Can’t really escape it either way.”

Dean clears his throat, not wanting to get into it too much. “And how is Claire? She holding up?”

“Yeah…” Kaia wipes at her face. “I think. I dunno, I thought the holidays would be tougher for her, but she says she’s alright.” She shrugs, uncomfortable. “Sorry, feel weird talking about her when she’s not here. You should ask her yourself.”

He grimaces. “Uh, fair, but. Yeah, probably not a good idea for me to do that.”

It’s her turn to snort.

Dean continues his breakfast prep in meditative silence, seeing what kinda grub he can pull together. There’s plenty of eggs and some pancake mix in the cupboard, so he gets started on the basics. 

Kaia disappears into the pantry, and then comes out with a jumbo sized bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

“Like the way you think, Nieves.” 

She curiously looks around him to the counter. “Can I help?”

“Nah, just make a pot of coffee and keep me company.”

They chat a little, nothing too serious or memorable, but once he gets started on the pancakes she perks up. Well, more like aggressively micromanages him to get the optimal chocolate chip placement.

Dean lightly slaps her hand away before she gets too crazy on the one he’s got cooking. “Heh, you know, I used to make ‘em into smiley faces all the time when I was younger.”

“Did you have iHop growing up?” she says, and then steals a couple chips to secretly munch on. Like he cares. Not his groceries—sorry, Jody.

“How old do you think I am? Don’t,” he threateningly points the spatula at her, “answer that.”

She grins, a little sharp, and then her face softens. “My parents used to take me when I was a kid, like really young. They had this funny-face option on the kids menu with whip-cream.” She shrugs, and turns her back on him to fiddle with the coffee pot. “Tried to get some after I came back, but either my taste buds changed or they changed the recipe.”

“When’s your birthday? I’ll make you a full spread. Man, the last,” he starts, and then has to stop and catch his breath when a laugh bubbles out of him. “Sorry, it’s really not that funny of a story, but when my brother Sam was like thirteen, maybe fourteen, he was all cranky as hell from growing-pains and decided that it was going to be my problem, too. So I, the world’s best brother, decided, you know what, why don’t I do something a little special this year for his birthday? Why don’t I make him some smiley-face pancakes like I used to when he was just a kid?”

Hell, he forgot all about this. Dean grins and ladles another scoop of pancake mix to the pan.

“I make him one and plate it for him like I’m friggin Bourdain, a little mint sprig I stole from god-knows-whose garden to complete the look, and instead of kissing the ground at my feet, Sammy goes ballistic, all mad and huffy. You know, your classic foot stomping and ‘stop treating me like a kid!’ teen angst. And I’m like, ‘Okay, okay, I hear you, man, no need to shout and get us kicked out of the room,’ until he calms down and eats it.” Dean pokes at the pancake, but it’s still not bubbling enough. ”So for the next one, I made him a frowny-face and he tried to strangle me—swear to god my life flashed-before my eyes.” 

Alright, Sam didn’t actually try to strangle him, but he made such a stink Dean actually was worried about getting kicked out. The motel didn’t have a kitchenette, obviously, and if the manager knocked on his door and saw his hotplate, which was at least several shades of fire code hazards, they would have been on the curb in fifteen minutes or less.

Kaia sneaks another chip and shakes her head with a teasing tsk. “I can’t believe you ruined his birthday.”

“ Hey, like I said, I was being the world’s best brother. Not my fault.”

Eh, probably didn’t help that eventually Dean got fed up and started yelling back at him. He gets, now at least, that Sam was just upset John was on a hunt and hadn’t called to check in, and mad ‘cause he thought Dean wasn’t taking his frustrations seriously. And it wasn’t like they both weren’t already sick to death of pancakes, seeing as Dean had been making them every day that week; there was a sale on the mix and he wasn’t getting a paycheck until the following Tuesday. Sam was still too young for Dean to leave him alone at night to hustle some townies.

Still stung getting it thrown back in his face, though. Especially when John returned a couple days later with a present, a nice hardbound journal, and Sam couldn’t be bothered to pretend to be grateful. And… whatever. Dean was a self-centered little asshole back then, too busy licking his wounds that John didn’t get him anything for his fourteenth birthday to see how Sammy was hurting. John was John, and Dean was Dean, and there’s no changing any of that. 

“How’re you gonna make the eggs?” she asks, pulling him back up to present.

“Scrambled, I’m thinking. Easier portion control.” He shrugs. “You know how to make ‘em?”

“You just put them in the pan, right?”

“Grab a bowl, you’re gonna whisk in some milk first. And start off with eight eggs.”

She raises her eyebrows, but gets to work.

“Don’t make a lot of scrambles?”

“Nah, not really. Never was that much of a breakfast girl.” She rolls her eyes at him when he mockingly gets a heart attack. “I’m pretty good at poaching them in the microwave, though.”

Dean fully turns to look at her directly. “Excuse me?”

“Yup.”

“Uh, no you cannot. They explode. I know, from personal and terrible experience.” Nearly took scalding yolk to the eye.

Kaia gets the smuggest look he’s ever seen. “You just don’t have the touch.”

Dean flips the latest pancake onto a plate, a little underdone, but whatever, and shoves the pan off the heat. “Prove it.”

In awe, Dean watches Kaia click through the settings, turning the microwave down to half power, cooking it for a minute, and then continuing in little bursts of eight seconds until the white is hard and the yolk is just a shade between hard and runny, exactly like he likes.

“ Kaia,” Claire groans from the entryway. She sleepily rubs her eyes, and then starts making a ridiculous amount of racket getting a kettle going for tea. “It’s so gross when you do that.”

“Hey, you’re watching a genius at work,” Dean says with all earnestness, and then gapes as Claire proceeds to slam every single cabinet to get out a tea bag and mug. “Damn, kid, what’re you doing, starting a one man percussion-band?”

Claire gives him a sly grin. “Jody says whole house has to be awake before opening presents.”

Her scheme works. Couple minutes later Donna ambles in from the pull-out in the sitting room, and then Jody shortly after. Dean scowls, but eventually passes Jody the bacon tongs so he can run upstairs to entice Cas with a mug of coffee. That or they’ll all have to wait until early afternoon for him to get up on his own.

He’s still out like a light, on his back like a corpse. Dean knows, from experience, there’s no waking him easy. He peels back the comforter to expose Cas’s body to the frigid air, and then lifts Cas’s leg up two feet before letting it drop. 

Cas makes a sharp noise and sits straight up.

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” Dean places the mug on the end table where Cas won’t accidentally knock it over when he’s beating Dean to death for waking him. “Time to get up.”

He glares at Dean with betrayal and confusion, only his lizard brain operating as scheduled, and croaks out, “What?”

“It’s time to get up,” Dean repeats, enunciating clearly. Cas looks slightly less likely to throttle him, so he carefully passes Cas the mug of coffee, keeping hold of it until he’s certain Cas won’t let it fall through slack fingers.

“I’m,” Cas begins. He blinks down at his body, scowls, and tugs the comforter back over him. “Did you do the leg thing again? I hate the leg thing.”

Dean wants to, dunno, pinch his cheeks or something. Or poke him, just to lessen the overwhelming need to touch him, like he’s just rubbed a rubber balloon and it’s the only way to shock the static electricity out of his body. 

Instead he rips the comforter off of Cas’s lap again. “Sorry pal, it’s breakfast time.”

Cas takes a sip of coffee, and then whips his head up to glare at him full force, terrifyingly lucid. Immediately Dean feels like an ant that’s about to get squashed, but not… in a bad way, exactly.

“I went to bed without brushing my teeth last night,” Cas bites out, both an accusation and a threat, and Dean stammers out an excuse about being needed in the kitchen before Cas seriously does kill him.

And the gift exchange goes alright, all things considered, as soon as Claire loses her patience and bangs on Alex’s door. Cas gets misty-eyed over the electric blanket, the sap. For some fucking reason Dean gets a lot of socks and two separate leather wallets, though Donna gets him a dorky headset so he can take hands-free calls on the road. At least Claire appreciates the record player, even if he thinks the starter records Patience contributed suck. Dean actually gets a special lumpy glass dolphin from Claire, which is both sweet and unexpected, and pretends not to see that she gave Cas a way less lumpy glass pipe.

The real present, Dean learns later in the morning from a whispered conversation with Jody, is that Claire asked Cas if he’d like to enroll in a beginners pottery course with her and Kaia next semester.

Dean thumbs the leather wallet Cas got him. It’s nice, a good, solid weight to it. He likes the one Jody got him a little better, it has his initials embossed on the side, but he’ll probably switch over to Cas’s once he gets home.

“Sorry,” Cas murmurs to him at one point. He shoots Dean an embarrassed smile. “I asked what she was getting Claire, I should’ve checked with her about you, too.”

“Nah, mine’s held together with duct-tape, can’t hurt having another spare lying around, too.” Cas still looks uncomfortable, so Dean leans forward with a fake glare and a wag of his finger. “But if you think a new wallet means I’m gonna be flashing it around and footing your bills more often now...”

“Well I wouldn’t say no if you did,” Cas jokes, but then he sighs and his forehead gets all wrinkly again. “I did want to get you something you’d like, but you already buy what you want, and this was the highest rated item on the featured Gift For Men list on Etsy, but—”

“Cas,” he says, gently cutting him off. Dean wants to put his palm to Cas’s furrowed brow to even it out. Or thwack some sense gently back into his skull. “I love the wallet, man. Stop stressing.”

The guys shrugs helplessly. “I just don’t know how to do… this. Gifts.”

“Well you did great,” Dean says, and then punches Cas on the arm when he starts to finally lighten up. “Hey, don’t look so smug or Jody’ll figure out you won.”

The girls only start getting a little prickly and oversocialized after lunch, which is when Dean and Cas throw in the towel and head back home. Dean hesitates by the door, but doubles back to give Jody a crushing hug. 

She rocks him, gently, and for some reason the movement makes his eyes prickle. 

“Don’t wait nearly a full year before visiting next time,” she scolds warmly. When he pulls away, he’s struck by how her hair is almost completely silver now. 

Cas conks out again on the drive, still zonked from a mild hangover, face smashed up against the glass. It shouldn’t be, but it’s sweet.

Dean gets tense automatically when they come home to the lights still strung up around the apartment. No tree, because he didn’t bother to get one so late in the season.

“Going out?” Cas asks, pulling him back to the present.

“Nah, tired.” He’s antsy for it, though. To go out. Find someone, work through the restless energy that being back in this apartment gives him. “Order in?”

Cas gives an amicable, if jerky, nod. Dean makes sure to act like a choir boy for the rest of the day, keeping an appropriate couple inches between them when they eat Chinese on the couch or when he moves his cards to the new wallet.

Listen… Dean doesn't always score when he goes out, he is not actually a sex god and he is actually forty. Most of the time when he goes out he just flirts up a storm and the boost to his ego gives him what he needs. Still, when the ladies offer, he sure as hell doesn’t say no. He’s still horny like crazy; hasn’t felt this on fire stince, hell, his early twenties. Being with Cassie, maybe. 

He only goes out twice between Christmas and New Years. Strikes out the first night, but finds a girl to fool around with a little on the second. 

It should be enough. Hell, just last year he’d be crowing about it to Sam for months. But now it just leaves him itching for another night on the town.

It’s insane. He feels insane. No idea what’s changed, but he and Cas are back to normal again. He also feels good most of the time, and since he’s trying this newfangled thing where he lets himself feel good and doesn't spiral to kingdom come about it, he’ll take it day by day. 

For New Year’s Eve, the girls are still in Sioux Falls with Jody (he knows this because Donna keeps sending him Snap chats even though she knows that he hates the damn app). But he's so pent up with restless energy that he begs Cas to keep him company at a dive bar close to their place.

Dean caves and orders them a car when Cas pouts too hard at the slushy weather outside. It was that or Cas threatened to be the D.D. if either of them drove themselves, and since the whole point was to have fun with the guy painting the town red, that’s not a real option.

Dean gets two beers, a shot for Cas, and a double for himself as soon as they get to the bar, relatively packed even for a place like this, while Cas uses his freaky staring intimidation to rustle up a small table off to the side.

He downs ‘em quickly when he’s back with Cas, letting his motormouth run wild. It’s a bit of a sausage party in the bar, and Dean’s not looking to lock eyes or tonsils with anyone else, so it’ll probably be weird when the ball drops.

“So,” Dean says, interrupting himself mid-bullshit about something or another. He has to physically stop his leg from jiggling in order to keep it from running off without him. “Still planning on quitting?”

Cas looks a little thrown, but shrugs good-naturedly. “I guess, as soon as the holiday rush calms down. I let Leandra have some of my shifts, but I also don’t want to leave her overworked with someone untrained.”

“That’s kind of you.” Cas’s been grumbling about leaving for a couple weeks, the high of feeling productive nowhere near the lows of actually having to speak to customers. “Still, any idea what to do next?”

“I think I would enjoy working in an office setting, but no, not really. I suppose translating papers has been rewarding. Other than speaking Ukrainian with our downstairs neighbor, it’s been nice having the opportunity to speak languages other than English.”

“Heh, I like the idea of that. We can get you those little professor armbands for rolling up your sleeves, or a nice fountain pen while you translate ancient tomes or the Next Great American Novel.”

Cas shakes his head with a snort. “It really is mostly just academic papers. I’d have to actually enroll if I wanted access to anything that ancient in the university archives.” Cas starts playing with the wrapping around his bottle, a gesture so utterly human it makes Dean’s head spin. He gets the urge to press his fingers down on top of Cas’s hand to settle his fidgeting. “I think my style may be a bit too literal if I tried to translate a novel. Too many idioms.”

“I dunno, they’d be lucky to have you. And if it was historical fiction, you’d point at all their shitty work and go,” Dean drops his voice down into Cas’s rasp, “‘Actually, I was there when they invented that alphabet, dickhead.’”

“ Regardless, Sam also told me it’s easier to get a new job while you still have the old one,” Cas says with a roll of his eyes, but he also blushes, pleased as pie. 

Dean hides a grin behind his own bottle and scoffs. “Since when has Sam ever worked retail? Dude has the soft hands of a Victorian dandy.” 

“Sam’s hands are quite callused.”

“What, have you held them?”

“I guess not recently.”

Dean starts, foot kicking out unconsciously. “Recently? Wait, when—”

“Hey, Santa, I thought that was you,” a faintly familiar voice cuts him off, a hand gently placed on his shoulder.

Dean whips his head around, and standing next to him is the– the woman from SantaCon.

“Uh, hey, hi,” Dean stammers. She’s grinning flirtatiously at him, just as pretty as before, although he can see her face better now without the fake beard. It feels wrong, having her here at the table. Completely fucking surreal. He cuts his eyes over to Cas, who’s watching the entire exchange with a neutral, curious look. God, Cas ain’t stupid. He’s gotta know what they did. Or, didn’t do; it’s not like they ran through that many bases with him freezing his balls off outside, down an alley, next to a dumpster. Still, unsteady from having her pop out of thin air, Dean blurts, “How’d you find me?” 

“Find you? We’ve been here since nine forty-five.” She gestures to the back, where there’s a semi-loud group with a couple of pitchers on the table. “If anything, you found me.”

“Sorry, just thrown. Small world. Uh,” he wipes a sweaty palm against his jeans and gestures across the table, “this is Cas, my buddy, and Cas, this is—”

“Meredith,” she interrupts again, still teasing. 

“Now, I was going to say that.” He adds a flirty grin of his own. Cas still isn’t reacting with anything other than polite indifference. Dean angles his body a bit more to face her properly.

“Really?” Meredith taps her finger against her lip. “I sure as hell don’t remember your name.” 

It startles a real laugh out of him, so he holds out his hand. “Dean Winchester.”

“Well, Dean, I just wanted to thank you for the early Christmas present, but I lost you when my friends went to the next pub.” She’s slow to let go of the handshake. 

Dean fakes a pout. “My carriage was going to turn into a pumpkin.”

“Well in case that happens again, I could leave you with my number this time?”

Damn, she’s bold. Not surprising given her previous ease in flagrante delicto. And normally he likes that, but right now he hesitates, not sure if it would be douchey to say yes or to say no, since he’s out with Cas. But he’s not out out with Cas, so—

“Sure, that sounds like a good plan.” He unlocks his phone and passes it to her so she can text herself. Fuck—he immediately he regrets the choice. Cas is tapping away on his own cell himself, totally disinterested.

“Here,” she says, pulling back his attention with his phone. He flirts with her some more, letting his hand fall lightly on her waist. She’s definitely interested, leaning back into his palm.

His head’s spinning just a bit from his buzz, but he’s not drunk, nowhere near close to that level. After what feels like an eternity, her friends call her name, and she returns to them with one last squeeze to Dean’s bicep and a playful roll of her eyes.

And then there were two.

Cas slowly finishes up his text, pocketing his phone in his winter coat. Dean hates the fucking thing. His trench coat’s been hanging in the hall closet since mid-November, too thin for the harsh winter wind, and it feels wrong to see Cas bundled up in a shiny black North Face. He could be just anyone, dressed up like that.

He waits for Cas to say something first, to break their little staring contest. Call Dean out for being an asshole, for ignoring him after Dean dragged him here.

Dean’s cell lights up with text. 

He snatches it up and opens it to read ‘cause, yup, another message from Meredith.

Before he can delete the entire fucking text chain, Cas grips his wrist and tilts it so he can read the screen. For the life of him, Dean can’t read the blank, flat expression on Cas’s face. 

A cold sweat breaks out across the back of his neck.

“I’m not gonna...” Dean mumbles, embarrassed. He doesn’t know how he was planning on ending that sentence.

Cas hums, still expressionless, and keeps his grip firm on Dean’s wrist so he can tap out a quick reply. 

Dean sucks in a breath, he can’t help it, he can’t read the screen from this angle either, lightheaded all of the sudden—Cas wouldn’t. They haven’t– they haven’t talked about the speech, at all, since the beginning. But now, is he– is he drawing a line? Telling her to fuck off? Does—

“Here,” Cas says, finally letting go of his wrist.

Dean blinks dumbly at him, and then looks down at his phone.

Dean Winchester
10:39p:  meredith

+6125553410
10:47p:  glad to run into you again. we should hang out next week :)

Dean Winchester
10:49p:  no need to wait. Wanna meet in the bathroom in 2? ;)

“What?” Dean chokes. He takes a nervous drink of his beer, just to soothe his dry fucking throat. He can’t stop sneaking looks at that goddamn winky-face and absentmindedly rubbing his wrist.

“You should go,” Cas says, his face still blank, “in about a minute and a half, unless you want to be rude.”

“Dude, what the fuck.” Dean can’t– he can’t seem to breathe right. “I’m not– I’m not gonna just, I dunno, leave you here for some chick—”

Cas has the gall to scowl at him. “You shouldn’t refer to that woman as ‘some chick,’ Dean.”

“Yeah well she sure ain’t a friend, either. This text– man, it sounds like I’m gonna have sex with her.” 

“I know,” Cas says deliberately. Dean freezes, pinned by his eyes and the heavy clunk of the words.

Shit, Dean thinks hysterically, he knows.  

The cell vibrates, startling him. 

+6125553410
10:50p:  little early for a nye kiss but I’ll be there 💋

Dean looks at him with barely contained panic. “Cas.”

Cas holds up his own cell, wiggling it at him. “I have emails I need to draft, I don’t mind waiting.”

“Do you really think I’m that– damnit, do you think that I think with my dick or something? I didn’t follow you to Minneapolis just to run off with someone else.”

“It was your idea to move here, actually, and do you think I expected you to become celibate?” Cas looks away for a moment, just a moment, before focusing back on Dean with considerate, soft eyes. “I never asked you to do that, Dean. I’m sorry if you thought that’s what I wanted.”

“If I– if I go, I’m going to come back.” Dean needs him to hear this, staring at him without blinking like he can telepathically shoot the message through his thick skull. “Cas, I’m– I’d come back.”

“Good.” Cas doesn’t quit looking back at him with that soft look, and then, of all moves, pats Dean on the hand like he’s his grandpa. “I would like it if you would.” Dean chokes back, Are you actually happy with this? and Cas breaks their staring contest to give him a little frown at the phone. “It’s been longer than two minutes.”

“Right,” Dean says, startling. He kills the rest of the bottle to stall a couple extra seconds while his mind whirls. “Yeah, okay.”

The path back to the bathrooms feels—surreal. Like there’s not enough air, but also the room’s too big. Too empty. Too many eyes on him, knowing what he’s gonna do, shame licking down into his belly even though he’s done a lot worse in a lot more public places.

The lighting in the back could generously be called “dim.” There’s a single occupant handicapped room next to the women’s restroom, locked, and when he gives Meredith a text, he hears a phone chime from the other side of the door. The lock clicks open, and then Meredith’s blinking up at him through the open door, face lit up a crystal blue from the glare of her phone. 

Just like grace, Dean thinks nonsensically. 

“Hey sailor,” she quips, putting her phone to sleep. Dean steps into the room, locks the door behind him. He can still hear the bar, and the back of his neck prickles uncomfortably knowing everyone’s out there. “Took you long enough. I thought this was the part of the night where I get mugged and left for dead.”

Dean falls back on an easy smile, like riding a bike. “My friend was being a little chatty, hard to slip away.” He toys with his bottom lip, and lets the back of his fingers trail along her upper arm. Like riding a bike.

He must still have it, because she tries and fails to hide a grin as a pout as she hops up on the sink counter, letting her legs fall slightly open. She’s wearing a flowy dress, and Dean’s no textile expert but it’s silky where he lightly dances his fingertips across her waist. He throws a couple paper towels on the thankfully dry floor.

Later—one-happy-customer and one anxiety-inducing knock on the door later—she offers to return the favor, but beyond the impending threat of getting caught, all he can think about is Cas sitting at their table, alone. 

Waiting for him. 

Dean hesitates—going back too soon, what does that say? About him? Like, is Cas gonna think he rushed on his account? Or is– would he think that it meant Dean’s good at it, a real good-time-girl? Or that he blew it early?

His reluctance makes his mind up for him, because she gives him a weird look and he just laughs sheepishly and tugs on the bottom of her braid. “Appreciate it, but made the mistake of drinking too much whiskey.”

“Well, you still got my number.” 

“Oh yeah, I’ve got it,” he flirts and gives her one last dirty kiss to distract her. He’s got it, not that he’s ever gonna use it again or anything. It’s still too– too much, knowing that she knows Cas. He lets her go out of the bathroom first, and stays a minute behind. Staring at his tired, mean looking mug in the mirror. He rinses out his mouth a couple of times with tap water.

It’s a bit embarrassing walking past her table of friends, who all kind of raise their eyebrows at him in a way that makes his cheeks flush, but name of the game and all that. Even though he was kneeling on paper towels, he still feels like if he didn’t like these jeans so bad, he’d bleach them.

He steels himself to go back to their table.

Cas is still sitting by himself, prim and proper, typing slowly on his phone with his big thumbs. The light shining up from his phone isn’t grace-blue, an orange glow instead, which makes the peach-pit in Dean’s chest ache with something close to nostalgia. Not that he’d expect it to be cool-toned. Cas complained so often about getting headaches, weeks ago Dean huffed and ripped his phone away to default it to Night Shift mode 24/7.

He must sense Dean looking at him, because he glances up from his phone with a slow blink and locks eyes with Dean from across the bar.

Cheeks definitely burning bright, Dean saunters over and takes hold of a fresh beer bottle on the table. Cas must’ve gotten it for him when he was– he must have gotten it for Dean in his absence.

Cas raises an eyebrow at him, a touch sardonically, and Dean coughs a laugh outta embarrassment.

“Quit lookin’ at me like that,” Dean mutters, taking a sip. He knocks his knee into Cas’s in thanks, though, and since Cas gently pushes his own knee into the contact, Dean sees no reason to pull away himself for the rest of the night.

Still jumpy and feeling like everyone’s eyes are still on him, Dean asks Cas if they can head home early. Honestly, he just doesn’t want Meredith to come back to their table to ask for that real midnight kiss, and as a bonus, he and Cas are stuck in the Lyft and completely miss the ball dropping.

“Ryan Seacrest is no Dick Clark,” Dean says with a shrug when they get home and glance at the clock on the microwave. He’s only had a midnight New Years Eve kiss four, maybe five times in his life. This year’s no different.

Later, after Dean’s scrubbed himself raw in the shower and brushed his teeth hard enough that his toothpaste foam goes pink in the sink, he crawls into bed with Cas. Brings his own pillow, too, because he knows Cas hates it something awful if he gets one of Cas’s precious bamboo pillowcases damp as well.

Dean’s a fucking coward, waiting late into the night until he thinks Cas’s asleep, tail between legs. He keeps his back to Cas, staring at the incriminating red glare of the alarm clock on the bedside table.

Cas shifts, fabric rustling as loud as an engine over the quick thump of Dean’s pulse.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” Dean chokes. Humiliatingly, his eyes burn hot when he says it. He watches the clock go blurry and distorted through the tears half forming.

The fabric rustles more, and a hot, large hand settles just over Dean’s waist.

“Did you enjoy tonight?” Cas murmurs, both quieter and closer to Dean’s ear than he was expecting.

He waits perhaps a beat too long. “Sure.” He thinks he sells the delivery anyway.

Cas’s hand squeezes just a little bit tighter. “And are you going to be here in the morning? And then the night after that?”

Dean finally shuts his eyes, and forces out a raw, “Yes.” He breathes in, out. “‘M not going anywhere.”

“Good.” 

With another shudder and only half-consciously, Dean grips Cas’s hand and tugs it up to the center of his chest. Cradled.

Cas’s pressed up so close, he can feel more than hear Cas relaxing out into real sleep while Dean watches the clock slowly tick up. Stomach twisting, Dean lets go of Cas’s hand to grab his cell, deleting their conversation and then going as far as to block Meredith’s number while he’s at it. His stomach curdles at being such a douchebag to her, but. Happy friggin new year.

Fuck Cas. It’s different going out now. Now it really feels like he’s going out on the “prowl,” like some kinda sleazeball doing a casting call for Girls Gone Wild. 

It messes up his game. Makes him distractible, disconnected.

It’s not even that he’s less horny. If anything, it’s gotten worse. He hasn’t been jerking it in his room this often, trying to stay as quiet as possible, since he was sixteen.

And the longer he tries to stay at home, the harsher the itch builds in his veins. Dean spends an entire day avoiding Cas, irritable as all hell, feeling like he’s seconds from biting Cas’s head off if he so much as breathes in his direction. He walks in on Cas with his sleeves rolled up washing dishes—poorly, he might add, Dean alway has to rewash them—and walks out of the kitchen with his jaw clenched hard enough to make his teeth creak.

It’s just that Cas is always there in the apartment now, finally giving his notice at the hardware store and writing up commissioned translations from the dining room table. And Dean’s still only working part-time himself. Dean normally would assume he’s come down with cabin fever, except as soon as he’s out the door he’s just so bored and wants to come back to pester Cas into a movie night. Which he can’t even handle anymore.

He tries hanging out with the girls because, pathetic as it is, those teenagers are Dean’s only actual friends within city limits. But even they kick him to the curb for being too annoying. 

Eventually Dean has to suck it up, go back out to bars every weekend even if it’s still cold as a witch’s tit out. But again, it’s weird. Different. Now Dean knows that Cas knows, and knows that Cas wants him to leave. Not so Cas can have some alone time, but so Dean can—you know.

Cas never says anything about it, but like Dean, he gets a little more touchy-feely whenever Dean comes back and immediately showers. Like he can sniff it out on him when he’s successful, when he’s not. And it’s not just the close proximity when they watch tv, or whatever, Cas is also sweet about helping him cook a late dinner together. Indulges more of Dean’s rambling. And Dean swears— swears— that Cas more purposefully crowds into Dean’s space when they sleep. But that’s theoretical; Dean can't bring himself to sleep over on nights when he hasn’t gone out.

Dean tries to adjust to their new normal, he does, but then instead of Cas carefully sitting six inches away from him on the couch, the night Dean does come home smelling like someone else’s perfume with a bag Chinese takeout in his hand, Cas all but pulls Dean flush beside on the couch, and... Dean goes crazy again.

And it’s not a fun kinda crazy anymore. He’s so damn wound up, Dean’s been unable to find anyone for the past couple weeks, and he just wants to finish his damn book in Cas’s room, but it feels like they have—rules? Do they friggin have rules for this now? ‘Cause even if they don’t, Dean’s way too keyed up to even consider crawling into Cas’s bed, which, fuck, does not sound the way he means it. But Dean’s just so frustrated he almost wants to cry, and, since he knows that this should work, he drives downtown, walks into a jarringly well-lit Sephora, and sprays himself with a thick-smelling perfume sample before he realizes exactly what he’s done.

He sits in Baby for a good long while after, just staring at the steering wheel.

Eventually he drives himself home, drained.

Cas greets him by the door, and the way his nostrils flare means he can smell the cloying scent of gardenias on his skin.

“Have you eaten yet?” Cas asks. Dean stares at him blanky before rousing and shaking his head. He feels… out of sorts. A couple of months ago, Dean would have been the one bringing Cas home a hot meal, trying to weasel into his good graces for sneaking out behind his back. Except apparently there was no need for that, because Cas already knew. Already approved.  

Cas hums, gently nudging Dean down the hall with an indulgent smile. “I’ll heat up some meatloaf—take a shower and it’ll be ready.”

For a couple day old leftovers, the meatloaf actually tastes pretty good. Cas is as cool as a cucumber for most of dinner, but then once they move to the couch, Cas’s telling a story about one of his grad student commissioners that makes the two of them laugh until they cry. It’s not even that great of a story, you definitely had to be there, but Cas’s rumbly, quiet laugh is outright infectious and Dean gets a painful stitch in his side.

All in all, it turns out to be a good night.

Gets easier going back to normal after that.

Listen, he enjoys a good night’s sleep with Cas’s quiet snoring as a free white noise machine. He grew up with tissue-thin motel walls and radiators that sounded like they were chock-full of wasps. It’s way easier conking out next to Cas than the ringing emptiness of his own room, not to mention how cold it gets in there. But it’s not like treating Cas like a whale song album or a hot water bottle is some perfect sleep aid. Dean still only gets a generous five hours a night, maybe four uninterrupted.

And despite how Cas grumbles, he’s the one that sleeps like a damn log, not Dean. Dean’s not sure if it’s a Cas quirk or muscle memory from Jimmy, but unless he does the leg thing, Cas could sleep straight through the Philharmonic playing a concert in his bedroom.

Either way, the nearly-silent sound of Cas waking up with a sharp inhale does the trick waking Dean up as well.

He glances at the clock, registers it’s just a bit after 4am. Dean waits for Cas to sigh and roll over into a more comfortable position, maybe stand to take a piss or grab a glass of water. Who knows. Dean’s thinking a little sluggish at the moment, so sue him for not having a better handle on Cas’s hydration level.

But Cas doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t shift, just holds himself perfectly still. He’s awake, and Dean can’t even hear him breathing—

“Cas?” Dean mumbles, and he’s being ridiculous. The guy only woke up; Dean knows the sound of a death rattle and that ain’t it.

In the dark, Dean hears the faint noise of Cas’s throat clicking. 

“Go back to sleep,” Cas finally says, but his voice is scratchy and clogged.

Dean clicks on the bedside lamp, just to its lowest, soft amber setting, and Cas winces and tries to hide his tear streaked face into his pillow.

“Cas,” he repeats, throat closing around the ridiculous impulse to call him ‘sweetheart,’ “buddy, what’s going on?” Dean feels threatening, suddenly. Hovering over Cas and barking at him. He lays his head down on his pillow, trying to force his heart to slow down, but Cas just turns away so all Dean can see is his broad back and the soft-cotton grey t-shirt he bought bulk from Sam’s Club. He hedges, “Bad dream?” 

“No.” Cas’s shoulders are tight, and he talks slow and careful like he’s trying to hide the sound of tears in his voice. “It was actually pretty nice.”

Dean curses himself for turning on a light—he could’ve used the mask of darkness to wrap him up from behind in a sloppy impersonation of a hug. “Yeah? Didja fly? Live in a house made out of marshmallows?”

Cas coughs a quiet laugh. “No, that would be unsanitary.” He sighs, and then rolls over so they’re face-to-face. His eyes are wet and red-rimmed, gleaming in the low light, and he gives Dean a familiar watery smile that punches the air out of Dean’s chest. Panic licks from his throat all the way to his finger tips, but he forces himself to breathe through it. “I spoke with Jack.”

And, there goes the panic ratcheting up to eleven again.

“How’s the kid?”

“He’s good.” Cas’s eyes are still quietly leaking tears, getting his precious pillowcase wet like he hates. “I just miss him.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“He appreciates your prayers. He particularly liked the story about Patience’s new betta fish.”

“Oh.” Dean worms his way further under the covers. He doesn’t pray a lot, just on Saturdays. At first it made him chuckle darkly to pray at home on the couch instead of going to a service. Why go through a middle man when he’s got a direct dial upstairs. Then it just became a habit, less of a prayer and more like the reports he used to give to John. Who’s where, what projects they’re working on, etc. ‘Cept instead of tracking Sam’s speed disarming a frontal knife attack, it’s what ugly misshapen mug Kaia’s dumped on Cas last. “Wasn’t sure he was getting them.”

“Mm. He’s trying to respect our free will and remain hands off, but he didn’t want you to think he was ignoring you.” A complicated look washes over his face. “The choices he’s making… I’m very proud of him.”

“S’okay, Cas. You don’t gotta tell me about his renovations for the universe’s kitchen.” The room feels small, curled up under the covers, gossiping with Cas like a teen girl’s sleepover. He softens his voice unconsciously, until he’s talking no louder than a murmur.

Cas frowns, but it’s a touch teasing, voice equally intimate. “You hate when I don’t tell you things.”

“Yeah, stuff that matters, like deals with the devil or when we run out of orange juice. But most of the human race don’t know where we go when we check out. No reason I should get a special peek inside the envelope.” Dean huffs a quiet laugh, then sobers. “Plus, you said it was important to him to keep us little guys out of the planning committee.”

Cas nods his head solemnly. Makes a quiet rustle noise as his stubble rubs up against the bed linens. “It is.”

“And, you know. You saying you’re proud of his choices... I trust you.” Dean hesitates, and then he can’t help stretching his hand out under the cover. Not far enough to touch him, even though the bed really is only a queen, just to– just to reach out. “I trust him.”

“I just wish he was here,” Cas whispers, like it’s some kinda confession.

The worst, most selfish part of Dean is that he doesn’t. 

Of course he misses Jack, and it’s not just cowardice and embarrassment making him want to tuck tail and hide from the kid. Though that is part of it. He fucked up as a guardian, definitely fucked up as a... dad. It’s easier spending time with Claire. She’s like a cat—all he has to do is leave slices of ham on the table and ignore her and they're golden. And the rest of the girls, too. He’s been an ass to them all, individually, one time or another, but that baggage wasn’t as heavy. He was only some guy passing through their lives, and they’re just now starting to know mellow retirement Dean longer than they ever knew killer hunter Dean.

But Dean meant something to Jack. Every little thing he did, the kid would magnify back at him. Like Dean’s some kinda role model when he’s lived his whole life either trying to copy a shadow on the wall or do his fucking best to invert it. He’s got no actual substance to him, and Jack, bless and curse him, had the dumbass idea that Dean was the guy to be. The photocopy to photocopy. 

And… listen. Jack’s not just a kid. Dealing with him was like walking on eggshells, except Dean didn’t know how to lighten the heavy tread of his steel toed boots. He still fucking doesn’t know how to do that. Instead of worrying about letting a curse word slip, if Jack picked up any of Dean’s worst traits, and it's not like he don’t have those in spades, Jack could’ve taken out most of the Bible Belt with an eyelid twitch. 

The world’s different now, though. And cross his rough, semi-arthritic fingers, but Dean is a little different now, too. He’s got fucking sprouted bread in his freezer and oranges in his fruit bowl so he won’t accidentally give God scurvy. Their home is free of cursed objects, and Jack’s old enough now not to stick his finger in any un-baby-proofed sockets. If Jack comes back, for real, and Dean doesn’t immediately get booted to the curb, he thinks his head is screwed on tight enough this time ‘round that he could treat the kid right. 

Or, if he can’t– can’t be a father, if that part of him is too fucked and charred beyond fixing, if Jack can’t actually be his kid, he can support Cas. Be Cas’s shoulder if he needs to complain about his son going through angelic puberty and stealing his awful Yaris car keys. Or take Jack fishing for the long weekends. He could try his hand at being Uncle Dean this time, settled with the knowledge that Jack’s actual father is sticking around to stay. That Dean’s not gonna be all on his own this time, not knowing what the fuck to do with a baby again. 

All that’s sorta shitty of him, but reasonable. A man has the right to feel some doubts over his shortcomings. But honestly, Dean just doesn’t want Jack back yet because he doesn’t know how he gets to keep this. Sleeping in Cas’s bed, breathing deep and even together in the quiet of night, safe and alone in their home.

He hasn’t told anyone, not Sam, not even Jody, about this little dance they’ve been pulling. Even without explaining the precarious balance of all the women and his nightly excursions. There’s just no… no real excuse for it. The pit in the center of Dean’s chest just wrings itself tighter. It’s selfish of him, undeniably, knowing that Cas’ll be happier having Jack back even if it means losing this weird whatever-the-fuck they’ve got. But once again, loving Dean, orbiting and prioritizing Dean on Dean’s cowardly, unsaid demand, is standing in the way of him having a life with his kid.

“Me too,” Dean says instead, because even if he doesn’t mean it, it’s also not a lie. 

Cas smiles his awful, unbearable watery smile at him again.

Dean fully reaches out in order to tweak him on the bridge of his nose. “C’mon, dude. Let’s ruin our circadian rhythms. Blow your nose and I'll start a fresh pot.”

Cas follows Dean outta bed and grabs a tissue, even if he grumbles about it. “I thought you were helping Patience today.”

“Only to mount some posters.” Dean grabs Cas’s slippers by his door and tosses them at him, the weenie. Can’t handle the feel of cold kitchen laminate against his toes. “Worst case, I take a nap before heading over.” 

Dean doesn’t end up taking a nap. But since Cas is all mopey and hangdog for the rest of the morning, he drags Cas along to the girls’ apartment. ‘Course instead of gossiping and raising his spirits, Cas’s the one who passes out on their couch almost immediately, and has the gall to glare at Dean when he uses the power drill and accidentally wakes him.

“Buddy, you knew this is what I was doing today,” Dean says with a chuckle. Even Patience hides a laugh behind her laptop, barely supervising the favor she cashed in. Dean leans over the couch, grinning all the harder at the sour crabapple look on his face. One of these days he’s gonna stop feeling so damn endeared watching Cas struggle ungraciously and petuously back to consciousness. “Go sleep in Baby.”

“No.” Cas sighs heavily and sits up, running his hand through the mop of his hair. Dean needs to take him back to Supercuts soon. “I’ll wait until we go home.”

“Sure,” he says. Dean turns away with a bob of his head, biting the inside of his cheek and trying not to make an idiot out of himself by smiling this damn hard.

Dean blames Donna’s dumb little BlueTooth headset for why he misses Cas’s texts at first.

It’s a beautiful day out, a rare brisk-but-sunny late-winter, early-spring sort of day, so he went out for a walk. A walk. And since he was already out and about, he got a disgustingly expensive cup of coffee for curiosity’s sake alone, and then gave Jody a ring for a generous dose of bullshit and gossip.

“But it’s disgusting,” she venomously says over the line when he finally comes clean about his latte order, and Dean grins into his cup. He probably looks like such a douche with his little headset and fancy drink in a compostable cup wasting the day away lazing about in a dog park, but he grudgingly enjoys being able to hear her hands free. Plus, it’s nippy out and the cold makes his knuckles ache. “Milk shouldn’t be tan.”

“Jody, they put it in coffee. It’s already gonna look tan anyways.” Some owner just arrived with a particularly mop-looking dog, and once again Dean’s misses Miracle. “Also, the whole point is that it’s not actually milk.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Dean Winchester.” She tsks and sighs heavily. “Alex tried to sneak a bottle of oat milk into my fridge and I kicked her all the way back to her apartment.”

“Make me a lasagna next time I visit and I promise I’ll finish my cup of All American cow’s milk, too, and spend the rest of the night writhing and sweating bullets on your bathroom floor.”

His headset makes a sad little low battery beeping noise, so he fishes his cell out of his jacket pocket and finally notices the stream of texts from him.

Cas
1:19p:  when
1:23p:  are yo u coming back.
1:23p:  💜 ?

Cas
1:37p:  Jurassic world is a stupid movie
1:37p:  Dinosaurs 

Cas
1:45p:  can you bring me karaage
1:46p:  🐓
1:46p:  🙇

“Lucky me,” Jody chuckles. “And enough about your bodily functions, I’m fully convinced you’re you again.”

Dean snorts, idly listening to Jody bringing up to speed on Sioux Falls’ page six news, and types out a reply to Cas.

Dean Winchester
1:48p:  Doing okay buddy?
1:48p:  just the dog park I can head home

“You even listening to me, Winchester?”

His phone buzzes in a flurry in his hand before he can respond.

Cas
1:49p:  🐺🐶🌱🐕🐙👠💖💤💥💧🐶🐶🐾
1:49p:  I’m a little high.
1:49p:  💜
1:49p:  🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓

“Yeah, sorry Jodes. Got distracted by a text.” He stands, not loving the way it makes his knees pop and crackle, and turns toward home. Well, angles himself to pass that ridiculous floppy dog to see if he can charm the owner into letting him pet it, and then he’ll turn toward home. “So tell me more about Donna’s new guy. We like him or should I dust off my shotgun?”

Dean hangs up with Jody before letting himself into the apartment, like she’ll be able to sniff out Cas smoking pot from 250 miles away or even care, but the apartment doesn’t smell any different. It only takes him like a minute to find Cas watching a movie on his laptop in his bedroom.

“Dude, you have your own computer.”

Cas ignores his pouting, just smiles sunnily at him and goes, “Deannn,” and pauses the movie.

Man, it’s too hard to stay frowning at him. Dean shuffles over to his desk and sits on it, since the bastard stole his chair and all. “You’re having fun.”

“Mm. Claire’s pipe makes me cough, so Garth told me to get these gummy bears instead.”

“Garth?” Dean blurts. Claire he understands a bit better. He’s still not invited to their little brunch dates and whatever conversations they have one-on-one, but he gets her impulse to try and get Cas to do human shit just to see if she can get away with it. Hell, that’s exactly how Dean treated him during their first couple years together. “I don’t know why I’m still surprised you two talk.”

“I tried a CBD chocolate bar and it did nothing, so I took two of these.” He scrunches up his face. “It feels weird when I swallow.”

“I bet, buddy.” Dean swallows a laugh. Classic Cas, jumping straight into the deep end all on his own when Dean is right there. “You want your chicken now or later?”

“Now.” Cas looks at him with huge, soft eyes, but he blinks slowly like he’s fighting off the urge to fall asleep mid sentence.

“Not in here you’re not, no friggin way I’m letting you eat fried chicken in my room, dude.” Dean lets himself squeeze Cas once on the shoulder. Cas’s warm and solid against his palm, and he makes no move to stand up. “Why were you in here anyways?”

It’s… off, seeing Cas in here. It’s kinda weird to think about, but Dean can’t remember the last time Cas was in here since he helped move Dean’s furniture into the room. Mentally rewinding all their evenings together, they’ve either taken place in the common areas, or Dean had barged into Cas’s space. Not Cas, though. He never crosses the invisible line, not like Dean does. Dean skitters away from thinking about what Cas would look like passing out in Dean’s bed after a night of quietly reading one of his dorky ebooks, but something buzzy and itchy lingers in his mind anyways.

Cas lazily flaps a hand at Dean’s laptop. “I had to illegally download the movie.”

“So you thought you’d get a virus on my computer instead?” Cas doesn’t even look contrite at the accusation, just grins wider. Dean sighs heavily and touches Cas’s shoulder again, this time trying to nudge him standing. “You’re just lucky you’re cute.” Dean ducks his head away and quickly adds, “Next time wait for me and I’ll join you, alright?”

Cas frowns but follows Dean into the hallway. “It’s a bad movie.”

“Okay, Ebert, then I’ll play something else. I’ll pull out my Floyd record and we’ll do the whole Dark Side of Oz.”

“Can I play music now?”

“Yeah man, go for it.”

Before Dean’s even finished with his sentence, Cas’s lumbering off to his room. Rolling his eyes—Cas can’t see him do it, but it had to be done—Dean grabs the takeout from where he left it on the counter and opens it up, grabbing a piece or two before Cas demolishes it on his own.

He’s just about done grabbing utensils and a beer for himself when Cas comes back into the living room and pops a tape into their clunky old CD and cassette player.

Dean hears the first couple chords of “Ramble On” and looks up with a surprised blink. “I thought my tape was in the car.”

“Of course not, I keep it in my room,” Cas says with a small shake of his head. And then shakes his head again, likely ‘cause he just likes the loopy-delayed feel of it.

Dean stares at the cassette box still in Cas’s hands—even from across half the room he can tell it’s the one he made for Cas, not one of Dean’s other Zeppelin albums. Dean cannot, could not, recognize it as anything else.

“Is– I didn’t realize you still had that.” Dean suddenly can’t look at him.

He can hear the frown in Cas’s voice as the guy makes his way to the table. “You said I’m supposed to keep gifts.”

“Yeah, but.” Dean breathes out a shaky laugh. He finally meets Cas’s questioning gaze, and brushes him off with a casual shrug and cheeky grin. “Sorry, I guess since I never caught you listening to it...” he trails off again.

“I don’t often.” Cas sits with a heavy thump and pulls the plate of karaage closer. “It’s annoying pulling it out of my go-bag.”

“You keep—,” Dean starts, then cuts himself off with a click of his teeth. He’s starting to sound like a child, just dumbly reacting to Cas’s words without absorbing them. Of course, of course Cas wouldn’t have just thrown it out, he’s not careless like that. It’s not even that Dean thought he did, or anything, it’s just… dunno. Didn’t think he considered it go-bag worthy, what the fuck. 

There might not be monsters left in the world, but that doesn’t mean shit won’t happen that’ll make ‘em leave in a hurry, and plus, some habits die hard. Cas methodically went through a preparedness check in list when they moved in, complete with an extra bucket for god knows what reason and huge jugs of water in the hall closet. But he also caught Cas storing his personal items in there, like a printed picture of Jack and his forged social security card, in case they ever need to get the hell out Dodge in a hurry. 

And it’s not like he was ever shocked when he never heard Cas play it, either. Dean saw the god-awful playlists Cas liked, even back before he was human. The tape was supposed to be a necessary education on good, actual music, but you can only lead a horse to water. And, okay, maybe it was supposed to mean something, too. 

Hell, this whole situation is so stupid; Dean looks at the empty mixtape box sitting imposingly on their dinner table next to a bowl filled with dumb plastic gourds and feels a twinge in his chest from how he practically twirled his hair and doodled hearts in Cas’s notebook making it. It– it shouldn’t hit this hard, feel this surprising, that maybe Cas wants to hoard little parts of Dean away, even the things he don’t like that much. 

“Do you want me to make you another one? Like, a backup? I can make you another one,” Dean rambles. He feels a little lightheaded, and thankful that Cas’s too baked to notice how Dean's flushing and how his whole body is sweating like crazy, heart on double-time. 

Let me, Dean thinks, hard and pathetic enough that if Cas still had his wings, there’s no way he wouldn’t pick up on it on angel-radio.

“Sure,” Cas easily agrees with a goofy smile, and tucks into his chicken with the worst table manners Dean’s seen since Sam was carbo-loading his growth spurts.

Dean herds Cas to the couch after he finishes eating, and queues up the 70s animated The Hobbit, not bothering to care about the rental fee, fucking money grubbing companies these days.

He also goes to get Cas a bowl of cereal when the guy turns his baleful, pleading eyes on him, but spends too long standing motionless in the kitchen with his empty brain loudly buzzing. By the time Dean comes back into the living room, Cas’s already dead asleep on the couch.

“I’m gonna to kill Caleb,” Dean declares. He throws his keys into the catch-all by the door, stomping into the kitchen. Cas’ll probably yell at him for not taking his shoes off, but he needs something to drink asap.

“You can’t kill Caleb.” Cas pulls himself from the couch and trails in after him. Sure enough, he pointedly glares at Dean’s boots. 

Dean ignores him, throwing his bag on the counter and grabbing a bottle from the fridge. “Um, I absolutely could kill Caleb. I can kill whoever I want, I literally killed Hitler.”

“Dean. Are you comparing your perfectly nice twenty year old coworker to literal Hitler.”

“No– okay, fuck you. Obviously not. You only like the kid because he under-weighs your fancy organic trail mix,” he accuses, opening the twist top with maybe more force than necessary. Cas, the fucking tramp, doesn’t twitch a muscle at all. Friggin poker face. Dean never should've taught him how to flirt with cashiers, either. “But I’ve got a two pound bag of carob nibs he saddled me with, and there’s no goddamn universe where this shit tastes like chocolate.”

Cas shrugs. “There could’ve been a universe like that. Seems like something Chuck would have done.”

“Are you really gonna give me a hard time over this?” Dean grabs the compostable bag and tosses it, making Cas clumsily catch it with an aggravated glare. “Fine by me, but you’re eating them.”

Cas grimaces, and it makes every scruffy, craggy plane on his face shift until his eyes are barely visible through his squint. “But I don’t like carob.”

Dean tries to kiss him.

He– fuck, he doesn’t mean to. But he’s been going crazy, and Cas is right there in their kitchen— their kitchen!—in his stupid two sweaters because he still doesn’t know how to handle fluctuating temperatures and he’s too much of a miser to turn up the heating. And he’s, fuck, he’s human. He’s human and a man, and he’s in their kitchen, and Dean’s sick of dancing around it and hedging his bets when he could just kiss him.

“Dean,” Cas blurts, taking a step back.

It crashes down on him. 

It’s honestly not the way Cas stiffened, clutching the stupid fucking bag of carob, of all things, but the clear-as-a-bell rejection in his voice. Dean could’ve handled confusion, could’ve handled hesitance, but it’s a ‘no.’ It’s an unmistakable no.

“Sorry, I just,” Dean stutters. Oh, he can’t be here for this. But, jesus christ. Okay. He puts the bottle down on the counter so he doesn’t do something completely unforgivable, like throw it at the wall, or humiliating, like accidentally drop it through slack fingers. “Cas, come on, man. You let me sleep in your bed.”

Cas sucks in a breath, jaw clenching. He doesn’t say anything, which is, just—

“Cas,” he says, desperation making it come out ugly. He hates how he keeps having to say his name like this. 

It’s, so fucking quiet, but Dean’s not saying anything else. He– couldn’t, even if he knew what he should say to fix this.

Stiffly, Cas finally goes, “You haven’t gone out this week yet.”

“I– excuse me? Dude, fuck, come on. If you…” It fucking chokes him, strangles him to say it. “Cas, if you asked me to have sex with you instead, you have to know I’d say yes.”

Cas looks at him, unreadable.

“I know,” he finally says.

Breath shudders through him. “Okay, so—” Dean swallows, trying to get under fucking control. “What am I doing wrong here, man?” His voice cracks.

Cas’s face falls, and under the stoic facade he looks… he looks hurt, eyes large and sad. “You’re not... Dean, you’re not doing anything wrong.”

“But you don’t want me. Like that,” he grits out.

“Dean, don’t.” Again, the mask goes up, except Dean can’t help but hear the harsh warning in Cas’s voice. “We shouldn’t.”

“Why not?” he spits. Comes out like a plea.

“Because it’s working!” Cas shouts, startling him. He’s breathing heavily, not making eye contact, and Dean takes half a step back out of shock alone. “Haven’t you realized that this is the longest consecutive time we’ve spent together without it going wrong?”

There’s a sharp pain in his ribs, a cross between a hit and heartburn.

“Yeah,” he mutters, tongue numb. Silence rings in his ears. He mutters something else, not exactly sure what he’s even saying.

“Wait, Dean—”

Dean’s halfway down the block before he realizes he left without grabbing his jacket, like a fucking idiot, that last glance at Cas’s stricken face the last thing he saw before booking it.

It’s fucking cold. Why the hell did he move here. 

Right, for Cas. No, not for Cas, not exactly. Dean pitched the move preemptively. So Cas wouldn’t have to choose. Wouldn’t have to choose between having a real life, one where Cas goes to regular pottery classes with the girls and gets to be a dad to Jack when (if) he comes back to the mortal coil, or a life stuck in a stagnant bunker with Dean doing fuck-all. Instead, Dean thought the smart move would be to hover over him and force him into their quaint little domestic goddamn apartment like he could speedrun baby-trapping the guy without either one of them noticing.

Cas’s right; this is the longest they’ve ever been on good terms. Dean has to acknowledge that. They’re never been all that… good for each other. Good to each other.

Dean’s not—he still can’t be that guy. The one to dip him into a kiss in public without sweat breaking out across the back of his knees. The father to Cas’s kid, or kids, if Claire would let Cas think of her that way. No wonder Cas doesn't want… him. Like that. He’s not a good person, no matter how Cas makes excuses for it. Who fucking cares if he’s “full of love.” So was John. Doesn’t matter when at the end of the day Dean coughs out the same excuses for being an ungrateful, overbearing asshole and never changes. He thought– he thought that maybe he was making a change this time, being a different kind of man. But he’s still forcing Cas into something he never wanted to do. 

He’s just never gonna be Cas’s guy, someone who can take care of him and keep him safe and– fuck him, happy in all the ways that matter. There’s a difference between surviving and living, and Dean’s never understood how to do the latter. Dean’s always known that the two of them can’t work, too much baggage and bullshit, except now he’s finally admitting to himself how bad he wishes they could.

“Shit,” he mutters, dropping into a crouch. He can’t– he can’t keep walking, knees weak. He doesn’t have his phone, or his wallet, so there’s no point making himself stand and walking over to a coffee or a liquor store either.

He’s so… he’s such a goddamn mess. It makes him laugh, actually. Laugh like an idiot crouched in the middle of the sidewalk freezing his ass off. Everyone passing him is probably lookin’ at him like he’s lost his mind and, hell, he probably has.

It’s just—Cas said he loved him. He hasn’t forgotten that, he couldn’t ever forget that. It was said so undeniably, so truthfully, it literally ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. He did that, for Dean, because of Dean, and it doesn’t matter. It… fuck, it doesn’t even matter. Even if maybe—god, maybe even if Cas would be willing to risk it with Dean, if Dean pulls the selfish card and wears him down and forces him to change their relationship, Cas obviously doesn’t think that the experiment would pan out as a success. Cas had to have thought about it, ‘bout being with Dean for real, and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t feasible. Wasn’t gonna work. Dean’s just not—

“Um, you all right?” 

Dean wipes his eyes with the back of his hands and glances up. There’s a kid, around fifteen, maybe sixteen, looking at him with concern. His buddies cluster behind him, staring at Dean and whispering among themselves.

“I think I just broke up?” Dean says, and then laughs wetly again. “We—” He almost says ‘We never even got to fuck each other,’ but he can’t say that to some random kid or he really will get the cops called on him. “Yeah. Yeah, we kinda broke up.”

“Oh dude,” the kid says. He shakes his head sympathetically. The gaggle of teens behind him all nod as well. It’s… really more embarrassing than it is comforting. “We’ve all been there.”

Dean sighs and stands with a stretch to his aching thighs. “I look really stupid right now, don’t I?”

The kid shrugs, but looks back at his friends like he’s ready to hightail it now that his curiosity’s been sated.

“I’m gonna,” Dean mumbles, and then just sort of walks away. He doesn’t have a real destination, just wherever will take him away from the teeny-bopper greek chorus.

It was painful, saying it out loud. That they’re… over. Sort of. It’s not exactly a breakup, they were never together to begin with, but whatever life they had together, whatever life Dean had deluded himself into believing was in the cards, Dean fucked it up. Dean doesn’t– shit, he doesn’t want to lose him. 

His arms hurt, shivering and goose-skinned in the cold air, and he lets himself say it in his head. I want him. Then, louder, I don’t want to lose him.

It’s getting funnier, actually, but he doesn’t want to laugh anymore. He’s such a goddamn child, running out into the street worried, throwing a tantrum because his crush won’t go to prom with him or something. Behaving like a melodramatic little shit. 

Okay, so if Cas is right. That it was working. Dean rubs his hands against the coarseness of his jeans, trying to get the blood flowing back in them again.

So– okay, so if it’s working, why the hell is he out here when he could be home right now? Who fucking cares if Dean’s a “good guy,” if he deserves to this happy-ever-after, whatever, he’ll just make the good choice, regardless. He won’t push Cas’s boundaries, he won’t keep trying to manipulate the guy into going steady with him. If this is all that Cas wants outta life, Dean’ll give it to him. ‘Cause what they have going—he’ll take it. He’ll fucking take what’s he’s got, which is good, it’s fan-fucking-tastic, and say thank you sir. 

Dean passes a flower store and notes a sad droopy flower just sitting on the sidewalk. It broke off high up on the stem, just the head of a small little daffodil. When he was a kid and mom’d take him on walks around Lawrence, she’d scold him for ripping up someone else’s garden, but flowers on the ground were fair game. Man, he doesn’t remember much about that age anymore, at least much he still trusts to be true, but he has no reason to believe his mind would lie about the memory of picking dirty flowers off the ground and handing them to his mom like he cheated the system to get her a nice little present. 

Dean’s not a cute little kid anymore, but the yellow’s bright as a street sign and he's got no money on him, so he surreptitiously grabs it off the sidewalk and keeps walking. He’ll come back and find a way to tip ‘em later.

Turning the flower gently over, petting the soft velvet of the petals trying not to bruise it, he lets his mind run on autopilot. Because, truthfully, he doesn’t need to be out there taking women home, which, theoretically, is still on the table if he ever wants to. He already figured out the easy cheat around it. And he’s—yeah, he’s not dealing with the idea of taking men home, either, that’s really not in the cards. 

So if Cas wants him outta his hair for the evening, fuck it, Dean’ll drive around the block for a couple hours. Or drive until he hits the interstate, let Baby cruise the open roads like she was meant to for an afternoon. They’re not over, not if Dean nuts up, goes back home, and begs on his knees for Cas to forget tonight ever happened. 

Dean follows his feet all the way back, only hesitating once he’s standing in front of the apartment. He stands there too long, probably like a lunatic, clutching his sad little daffodil as gently as he can so the head doesn’t fall apart. One of his neighbors hesitates and opens the lobby door for him, and looks at him funny when Dean shakes his head.

Despite the fix this fix this beating up against his ribcage, there’s a kind of grief weighing him down around the ankles.

Because when he goes in there, and closes the door on them, it’ll be over. All the possibilities, all the what-ifs… gone. Like they were never real options in the first place. Which they weren’t, apparently.

He pulls a face at the stupid flower, its garish yellow feeling loud and tacky in the open air. Plus, it’s just one sad little thing. Maybe if he had his wallet he’d go for roses—no. Too on the nose. But there’s something about the daffodil that weirdly reminds him of Looney Tunes and he has no idea why.

Plus… fuck. He’s supposed to be prepping for the friendzone. Who gets flowers for a friend.

They would’ve been a mess together, but it could’ve been good. It could’ve been so good. Dean’s been half-dating Cas for months. Imagine how it could’ve been if he was allowed to turn it up to an eleven. At the very least Dean’ll have to start sleeping in his room again no matter how this talk goes, maybe for a couple weeks to smooth this bump over. He likes sharing a bed, just for sleep, and he thinks Cas likes it too. Waking up with someone. Cas will probably want that again, at some point. For the odd night, here or there.

Unless—unless Cas wants to start seeing other people. He lets that thought sit and fester in his chest for a moment, even if he kinda doubts that Cas would be interested in that. Feels perversely good to imagine it, though, like thumbing a nasty bruise. Dean doesn’t need his dick getting wet to be happy living with Cas, but seeing some guy walking out of the guy’s bedroom would probably make Dean take a nosedive off the balcony. Not that he would ever tell Cas that, ever.

Taking a deep breath, Dean waits for the next person to hold the door open for him, the Ukrainian neighbor Cas likes, and gives her the damn daffodil. Without looking back, he quickly crosses through the lobby and continues directly to climb up the stairs. 

He reaches out to knock on the door, since he forgot his damn keys, but the door rips open.

Cas stares at him, wide-eyed. Worried. A hint of pissed thrown in for spice. Sometime between leaving and coming back, Cas managed to ditch the hippie rabbit food and switched into an entirely different sweater.

“Hey,” Dean croaks. All the words dry up in his throat. Cas’s hair sticks in all directions, like it does when he gets stressed and tugs on it, and his stubble is a little patchy on the left because he’s still not that good at shaving like a human, and he’s so beautiful it takes his breath away. 

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Cas rasps. Cas reaches out with a hand, but doesn’t touch him.

Dean’s head spins. “I wouldn’t do that.” 

Cas only says, “Good.”

Dean struggles to open his mouth, to say something, to say anything, but lookin’ at Cas in the door frame—he just takes two steps forward and throws his arms around Cas’s broad shoulders. 

“Dean,” Cas croaks, arms coming up automatically. His voice doesn't sound like ‘no’ anymore. It sounds terrible, heartbroken. Needy. Dean hears the door fall shut behind them.

“Can you shut up, and,” Dean chokes on it, “just hold me for a second?”

Cas takes a sharp intake of breath, but squeezes him tight. “I can hold you for longer than that.”

“Yeah– okay,” Dean says with a laugh, gripping the pedantic friggin bastard back even harder. “Do that.”

Christ, he was supposed to feed him a line. He needs to let go, do the whole kneel and beg routine. Tell Cas whatever crap he told him months ago, fresh outta the Empty, back when Dean was still holding himself stiff at an arm’s length. ‘Cause, damnit, it worked, whatever the fuck he told him about remaining best friends worked and this has been maybe the best year of his sorry excuse for a life. Dean could die right now and he wouldn’t even notice. His Heaven’s greatest hits would just be this past year on a loop, not that Dean will likely still be getting the ticket upstairs when he finally dropkicks that bucket.

“You deserve a good life, Dean,” Cas stutters eventually into Dean’s neck, lips so close they brush against his pulse every other word. Dean gets a lump in his throat, hating and loving and hating-how-he-loves how awful Cas sounds. “I don’t know how to give one to you.”

“You are, man.” Dean sags, strings fully cut, but Cas keeps holding him upright and steady, even if Cas’s also shaking a little.

“I can’t be the one to ruin it,” he whispers, and Dean can feel Cas’s fingers gripping him tighter through the thin fabric of his shirt, but there’s… there’s a something else in his voice. A hesitance.

He’s so– Cas’s so difficult sometimes, for no good fucking reason. 

Dean doesn’t know what he should say, he just doesn’t, so he drags his cheek against Cas’s, enjoying the almost painful way their stubble rubs together against the grain, and shuts him up with a kiss.

Cas freezes, and then the bastard melts and finally lets Dean do this.

Hell, it’s– good, it’s so fucking good. They might be a mess together, but he didn’t doubt they’d be able to pull this part off and, fuck, he was right.

Cas’s warm and solid around him, beneath his arms. Instead of pulling back he’s pushing forward, and forward, until Dean’s a little surprised but not that shocked when his back hits the door and Cas just keeps pushing.

Dean can feel it, tingly up and all the way down to his toes, and. Fuck. This is what he was missing. Cas even smells amazing like this, in his personal space, hot against his mouth, and his big pushy hands all over him.

The doorknob’s digging into Dean’s side, and he wouldn’t care ‘cept it’s getting distracting, so he moves a little out of the way. Cas gets the wrong idea, thinks Dean’s fooling around, so he just shoves him back against the door, hand snaking around to grip Dean’s hair—

Christ on a cracker. Dean knew he liked shit like that, hell, he’s not exactly hiding it, but fuck yeah, yes that punches the air outta him like he’s been socked in the gut. It’s been—fuck, years since being with someone made him feel this dizzy.

They’re basically the same height, but Dean shifts his weight, dropping himself down a couple extra inches until it feels like Cas’s got a bit of an advantage on him. If anything, it makes Cas meaner, which then also makes Dean’s life a little more difficult—it’s frankly impossible to kiss Cas while wearing a giddy, wide grin.

But then Cas does get the right hint, pulling at Dean’s hair sharply to the side so he can lean down and bite where Dean’s neck meets his shoulder. Oh fuck, Dean mouths, trying to tamp down on the groan and the way that zips a hot line right down to his dick as Cas just keeps on gnawing at him, like he’s a damn slab of meat. Normally Dean likes to give encouragement, some verbal cheerleading because he’s a real helpful guy like that, but he doesn’t wanna make any noise and accidentally shock Cas out of this– this whatever he’s doing right now.

Hell, whatever it is, Dean’s not complaining. Cas can keep on keeping on, especially when he tugs Dean’s head the other direction and gets started on the other side of his neck. Methodical, like he’s working off some horny checklist Dean ain’t privy to, and, well. Dean’s losing the ability to think in a straight line and, christ, Cas can definitely set the minutes for today’s agenda. Trying not to pant to obnoxiously in Cas’s ear, Dean runs his fingers down Cas’s side, then slips just his fingertips on the hem, seeking out Cas’s skin—

Cas yelps, makes a little high pitch eep! noise that startles both of them back and staring at each other in the face. Cas’s wild behind his still heavy eye-bags, a touch shy. It’s cute. He’s cute, a faint blush darkening across his cheeks in real time.

“Excuse me?” Dean says, a laugh bubbling light and airy in his throat.

Cas frowns, dropping the shyness like a hot potato. “Your hands are extremely cold.” But Cas keeps his firm grip on Dean.

Grinning, Dean shoves his palm fully under Cas’s shirt to paw at his side. Cas winces and twitches away, but doesn’t make that sound again.

“Such an asshole,” Cas grumbles, but then he just grabs Dean by the back of the neck and it’s zero-to-goddamn-sixty again, holy hell. Cas feels like a furnace and Dean wouldn’t be shocked if he himself spontaneously combusted right about now. Instead of pushing, Cas’s yanking this time, and Dean’s incapable of not just going along with wherever Cas pulls him. If Dean was still a cartoon, his heart would be jack-rabbiting out of his chest with a little awooga! awooga! noise. 

Cas continues trying to map out his tonsils with his tongue, and Dean’s blaming that distraction for why it takes him so long to realize he’s somehow been led halfway down the hall.

“Are you– herding me?”

Irony completely lost on him, Cas has the gall to look sheepish. “You’re still very cold.” And then he pushes him fully into the bathroom.

Dean sputters a laugh and lets Cas continue to tug him around. “‘Gee, Dean, those jeans would look so much better on my bathroom floor,’” Dean mocks, copying Cas’s voice. Cas starts stripping him neatly, single mindedly, not giving into his nonsense. Dean drops the act and stills Cas’s hands. Ignores that his own still have fine tremors. “Cas, I can do this myself. I’m not really gonna die of hypothermia.”

“Oh, I—,” Cas looks away, but then he steels himself, looking back with crisp intensity. “Yes. You could’ve, but I wanted to undress you.”

“Cas,” Dean starts. He takes a breath, letting his forehead fall against Cas’s. “This… this means something to me.”

“I’m not an idiot, Dean, you put your tongue very aggressively into my mouth,” Cas says with exasperation. Which– hey. Dean might have kick-started this dog and pony show, but Cas’s the pushy one outta the two of them. But Cas gentles his words by sweetly brushing the back of knuckles against Dean’s jaw, so Dean lets it slide. “I don’t always understand you, but I’m aware enough to know you weren’t just giving me a friendly hello.” 

Cheeks hot, Dean teases, “So what I’m hearing is less tongue?”

“Yes, preferably.”

“Hey!” Dean squawks.

Cas ignores him and finishes stripping him with almost military precision, and then shoves him into the shower. He’s not looking at Little Dean, which Big Dean appreciates until he gets warmed up a little, but both Deans want to keep this party going. When Cas reaches past him to turn on the warm water, Dean yanks him in.

Cas stumbles, slightly, but instead of glaring he rakes his eyes up and down Dean. Fully this time, his eyes stuttering over the goods. Dean tries not to shiver.

“Cas,” he murmurs. “Take yours off.”

The man complies, throwing his now mostly wet shirt and slacks fall to the bathroom floor with a loud thwap. Dean nonsensically thinks, I really did score for Girls Gone Wild, and steam all but leaks from his ears as more and more Cas gets exposed. Christ, he knows how built Cas got these past couple years, but he’s usually hidden under so many layers that it’s shocking Dean stupid to have to deal with all of– him, all at once.

The two of them take a beat, staring at each other, and then Dean shuffles them under the now fully-warmed up water, angling for another kiss.

Cas complies, and Dean takes the note to scale back on the tongue-action, letting their lips glide together until Dean’s warmed up from the water but still shaking for a whole other reason. Cas keeps making these little half-groans in the back of his throat, and Dean’s trying to stay in the moment instead of getting smug. Cas grips Dean tight, body tense, and Dean’s convinced that if Cas weren’t trying to keep ‘em both under the water, he’d be bullying Dean into the wall again. 

Eventually Cas pulls back, a hand gently pushing Dean against his sternum.

“My experience is limited.” Cas looks utterly distraught, voice a scratchy type of grief, but Dean’s finding it hard to take him all that seriously when he looks like a half-drowned cat under the spray of the showerhead. “I can’t provide what they can.” 

“Giving head isn’t rocket science, Cas.” He wraps one hand loosely around Cas’s wrist against his chest, and lets his other hand skim fingers against the outside of Cas’s thigh. He’s so hairy everywhere, far higher up the thigh than it grows on Dean, and he can’t quit looking at him. In a bit of a fugue state, Dean tries plucking at a leg hair.

Cas tugs his wrist free and slaps Dean's offending hand away with a bitchy, “Well have you tried it?”

“I’d be willing,” he crossly responds, rubbing at his smarting hand. Which—wait, since when the fuck has Cas been out there going down on guys? He said limited, not nonexistent, which means he actually—

Okay, maybe– maybe a touch hypocritical taking a look at Dean’s bedpost notches these past couple months, but he was literally in Cas’s bed—unarmed, unprotected. Literally lying there half naked, and he sure as hell wasn’t keeping an aspirin pressed tight between his knees. How many times did Dean sneak home when Cas was out and about himself? If Cas was that goddamn horny, he should have just rolled over instead of cruising the gay scene of Minneapolis by himself. 

“I’m happy, Dean. I’ve—,” Cas clenches his jaw, looking at the tiles to the left of Dean’s head like they’re feeding him his next lines. “You know how I felt, but we have a good life now. Waking up next to you, spending days by your side, caring for the family we’ve built together—this time last year, I couldn’t even conceptualize that this was a possibility. I don’t need anything else. I don’t need you to be anything else.”

Dean swallows. “Yeah but do you want it?” Because he doesn’t actually know how Cas feels, he still hasn’t said it, not directly. Not in a way Dean’s been able to hear through all his bullshit.

Cas flicks his eyes down Dean’s body—holy shit. “Yes. I want you.” Dean can feel heat build across the back of his neck, matching the heat in Cas’s voice. Cas is interested alright, the full enchilada. “I’m– I can be somewhat possessive.”

“Then why the hell am I sleeping with anyone else?” He grabs a hold of Cas’s hips, not caring if it’s rude or whatever. He’s literally standing naked in front of the guy, and Cas wants him, so why the hell not. It’s just—

Fuck it.

Dean starts to lower himself down, but Cas grips him tight on the shoulder and tugs him standing. Dean tries not to let his disappointment show, because Cas gives him a quick peck and murmurs into his mouth, “I can’t heal us anymore if we fall.” Cas winces. “Our bodies are not that young, or flexible.”

There’s a bead of water trembling, just waiting to fall down Cas’s brow. He wants to lick it off. Then Dean blinks at him, taking a second to register his words.

“Oh, fuck you, dude.” He reaches past Cas to shut off the water. Which, bonus, presses him up against Cas, who let’s in a short gasp and—yeah, Cas wants. “Either leave me for a bendy twenty-something yoga instructor or play nice.”

He pushes open the stupid glass doors that he’s gotta polish clear of soap scum this weekend, and tosses a towel on the counter before tugging Cas along. 

Cas of course wacks his knee against the shelf before Dean pulls him up, so he’s scowling bitterly and rubbing it when Dean goes to stand between his legs, half-assed trying to dry them both off with a second towel. Dean tries not to get too excited, too clumsy with how bad he wants to touch him. He slips Cas some tongue (again, not too much) to distract him and get the party started again, because Dean might not have the most experience either with certain types of equipment, but he knows this. 

He knows a quick bite on Cas’s jaw, he knows teasing him with just the suggestion of tongue, of the slow sensation of kissing. He knows gripping him by the hips and tugging them flush against each other, letting skin on skin do its thing.

Cas pulls away again, hands framing Dean’s head.

“I’m– I’m sorry,” he rasps, eyes ghosting across Dean’s face without finding purchase. His expression is finally open, face cracked raw and vulnerable, chest jumping trying to catch his breath. Dean refuses to sneak a peek at his own reflection in the mirror behind Cas’s head. “I miss too many of your words, and your– your actions trying to be ‘realistic.’ I need you to tell me, please.” Dean watches the bob of his throat. His register is so deep, Dean can feel the gravel of it on his skin. “I’m sorry for making you say it.”

Dean’s heart threatens to plummet through the floor, but he grabs it as fucking tight as he can and yanks it up to keep it in place, letting it beat as hard and fast as it wants. “Cas, sweetheart—quit it, alright? I’m the only one who should feel sorry for being the kinda guy who makes you question it.” He abandons the towel between them and wraps his hands around Cas’s, keeping them tight around his face until Cas fills the whole of his vision. “I want you. I want to be with you. It’s gotta be you, just you.” Cas still can’t seem to catch his breath, but that’s alright, because neither can he. 

Dean pulls himself closer to him, like pressing up against him can make Cas fucking see inside him like he used to be able to, like Cas could just absorb him into the meat of his being. Until Cas is just overflowing with him. Dean leans his hard dick against Cas too, because he’s no damn prude and so Cas can’t keep questioning that either, and murmurs, “This is only part of it.”

But of course he still can’t say the most important part, even if the next words pressing up against his teeth are true, even after Cas asked him to. It almost chokes him. He knows– he knows Cas loves him, from what Cas’s said before to the way he’s lookin’ at Dean now. Cas just loves him, despite everything, despite Dean’s inability to meet him in the middle, despite whatever it is Cas thinks he’s made out of, so he tosses the towel on the ground because maybe they are a little old and the tile is gonna be fucking murder on his knees. But he drops down on ‘em anyways, ‘cause at least he can do this, and gets busy learning rocket science before Cas can stop him.

Dean watches the clock flip over to 3:00am, and pulls up his phone as dim as it goes, being careful to angle the light away from Cas’s sleeping face. 

Other than the time he finally got Baby put back together, Dean never got the whole “beautiful enough to bring you to tears” thing, but he gets it now. He fucking gets it. He steals another look at Cas’s dark hair spilled across his needlessly expensive hypoallergenic sheets, snoring quietly and regularly enough that Dean doesn’t have to check in on his breathing in the middle of the night with a finger under his nose. 

His craggy face is relaxed in a way that makes Dean want to bundle him up and take him to a glasses kiosk in the mall, because that squint of his might not be a quirk, might actually be a symptom of eye strain now that he's thinking about it. Dean’s run his body hard and ragged over the years, and he’s not gonna spend whatever time he’s got left on planet Earth watching Cas go blind.

Which is— fuck. Dean rubs the center of his chest with the heel of his hand, trying not to freak out. It’s not like tonight changed his plans any, not materially. He’s still planning on giving this life crap a go with Cas by his side as his unapologetic plus one. And it’s not like the yawning, unfiltered, no deadline future stretching out in front of him makes him feel anything less than the fucking overwhelming dread it gave him yesterday.

But Cas wasn’t wrong that this kinda thing they’ve got going now—it sure as hell wasn’t on Dean’s bingo card either. In a way, it almost settles the itching paranoia and confirms that Jack really has taken over the keys to the God kingdom. Fat fucking chance Chuck would have let them get this far, even if he was still planning on yanking it away.

Speaking of which: end of Jack’s one year sabbatical is coming up quick, as is their one year lease before it kicks over month-to-month. Dean’s warming up on the neighborhood, even if being in a city kinda sucks, plus all that whole wheat fiber from work is making him as regular as a Swiss watch. Unless Cas wants to go back to the bunker or move into a bigger space in the near future, Dean’ll just crash in Cas’s bed full time and turn his old room into Jack’s new one.

Jack—okay. He’s gonna think about how he’s gonna fix that another night.

Dean switches his phone over to Do Not Disturb preemptively so it won’t buzz, and shoots Sam a quick message through the dumb international app he made him download. It’s just after 9am his time, so he should already be up jogging and drinking a green smoothie and tilting cows or whatever it is he’s still doing over there.

Dean Winchester
3:06a:  I’ve done something a little sutpid.

Sam Winchester
3:08a:  sutpid

Dean Winchester
3:08a:  fuck you 

Sam Winchester
3:08a:  Dude why are you even awake right now go to sleep
3:09a:  listen whatever it is, you’ll feel better in the morning

Dean Winchester
3:09a:  slept with cas

He doesn’t bother watching the “someone’s typing...” blink in and out on his phone and spends his time better served watching Cas breath in and out instead, ignoring the flare of hot acid in the bottom of his throat waiting for his brother to—

Sam Winchester
3:14a:  Okay well sure these things happen sometimes!

Dean winces at the forced cheer of the exclamation mark, but before he can respond, Sam follows it up quick with another message.

Sam Winchester
3:14a:  do you regret it?

Dean Winchester
3:15a:  No of course not

Sam Winchester
3:16a:  Okay
3:16a:  Mistakes do happen sometimes 

Dean Winchester
3:16a:  not a mistake. i just said I dont regret it.
3:17a:  Still stupid tho

Sam Winchester
3:18a:  okay

Dean rolls his eyes.

Sam Winchester
3:18a:  do you want to talk about it? Call?

Dean Winchester
3:19a:  no i’m still in bed with him

Sam Winchester
3:19a:  Dean wtf turn off your phone

Dean Winchester
3:19a:  he’s out liek a light it’s fine
3:19a:  not the first time ive slept over
3:20a:  And i swear if you say okay again i’m going to swim to ireland and break your fucking kneecaps

Sam Winchester
3:21a:  OKAY.

Dean Winchester
3:23a:  Talk later though?

Sam Winchester
3:23a:  Yeah of course!

Dean Winchester
3:23a:  Alright calm down samantha
3:24a:  If your sure, i know its expesive

Sam Winchester
3:24a:  I’ll just send you a zoom link tonight no big deal
3:24a:  also I’m pretty sure we could afford one long distance phone call haha 

Dean Winchester
3:25a:  whatever you say big roller

Sam Winchester
3:26a:  Get some rest. Stop freaking out. We’ll talk this evening

Dean Winchester
3:27a:  Im not freaking out

Sam Winchester
3:27a:  sure.

Dean considers telling Sam he’s probably in love with the guy, but chickens out. Well, not so much chickens out as wisely course-corrects. Cas should probably hear it from the source first, as soon as he figures out how to say it. Instead he just carefully, quietly, opens up the drawer in the side table and places his phone inside so he won’t be tempted to check it. 

He lies down as smoothly as he can, a sort of reverse-sneaking-out move. His foot nudges against Cas’s electric blanket, kicked down the bottom of the bed, but it’s alright. Dean splurged for a fancy one with an automatic timer so Cas wouldn’t burn the apartment down by accident trying to stay warm. Speaking of, the geek actually put on socks before bodily throwing Dean into his bed last night—though it’s a bit of a rocks-in-glass-houses situation, ‘cause for some damn reason the goofy look made Dean’s blood run hot and thick. Ah hell, Cas’s gonna be such a nightmare during the muggy hot summers when there’s no fix for cooling off once you’re down to your birthday suit. Maybe they should just sublet the apartment, and Dean’ll load Cas and Jack into his car and drive them to the best of the milder climates year round.

For now, Cas is still conked out like a lead sheet. Dean risks laying his fingers on top of Cas’s exposed wrist, pressing only hard enough to feel his pulse thumping on along. He lets himself grin, no one watching him and no need to hide it.

Dean gets that feeling like watching a baby sleep, wanting to jiggle their fat little leg to wake them up and get them to pay attention to you, even though you know they’ll scream bloody murder if you do. In Cas’s case, dude’s built like a retired linebacker. He’d strangle Dean to death, which, all things considered, wouldn’t be the worst way either of them have died over the years. Maybe when Dean’s finally sick of keeping his heart beating he’ll ask Cas to use his meaty thighs to take him out.

But, since he’s only a minor asshole, Dean sneaks his still semi-damp hair onto Cas’s pillow and closes his eyes, breathing Cas in, and finally goes to sleep.