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It’s like a goodbye kiss.
Except that it’s not a kiss at all, nor is Cas in any romantic position to kiss him.
But the routine: that makes it feel like one. Whenever Dean and Sam leave for a hunt, Cas grasps Dean by the wrist, holding him back as Sam walks up the bunker’s metal stairs. And every time, he says:
“Dean, don’t forget an umbrella.”
He says it while holding the umbrella innocently in front of him, a gesture for Dean to take it.
It’s a ratty and red umbrella that Cas found at a dollar store when Dean took him shopping for some new shirts. He bought it because the bunker lacked one; because he thought Dean needed one.
“Cas, I don’t need an umbrella,” is Dean’s grunted response every time. He explains that it’s unnecessary because it’s summer, and Kansas is in the middle of one of its worst dry spells since the 1950s. There is a zero-percent chance of rain.
Cas never listens. He just smiles and puts the umbrella right into Dean’s hand, patting his arm. “You might need it.”
For weeks, it’s the same; Dean and Sam leave for a hunt while Cas stays behind to do research and tend to his potted plants blooming optimistically in the bunker’s conservatory. Being newly human, Cas finds his time better spent this way. Dean knows that it's depression, a form of it; the fact that Cas doesn't seem to think he can do much as a human. That he's a little useless. But every time, when Dean leaves, Cas hands him the damn umbrella with a wide smile on his face.
“Dean, don’t forget an umbrella.”
“It’s even got holes in it,” Dean complains to Sam one day as he guns the Impala down an open highway. “It wouldn’t even do jack-shit in the rain. If it ever rained. Which it hasn’t, since he started this dumb tradition.”
Sam shrugs while studying the case notes on his lap. “I dunno, maybe he’s just looking for ways to take care of you,” he says offhandedly.
Dean sputters, “Take care of me? I’ve been human longer than him, he’s the one that needs to be taken care of!”
“I don’t know, man, it’s just a thought.”
The frequency of times that Cas hands him this damn umbrella increases. Now Dean can’t even go to the grocery store without Cas intercepting his path, umbrella in hand. Dean begins to resent the umbrella’s existence. It’s not like he doesn’t love Cas in a way that is the opposite way in which he loves Sam. He hates that he loves the tradition, but wishes that something more romantic was happening in its place.
Then, there is a day that the Kansas heat spell breaks into rain.
It’s a day that Cas is upset. Neither of the Winchester brothers can coax the reason why out of him. Cas spends the day walking slowly among the halls of the bunker, staring into space over his plate of eggs and bacon during breakfast, hastily wiping away stray tears when Dean walks into the war room as he’s reading a book.
Cas decides that he needs a walk, to clear his mind. He tells the brothers as such. Cas begins to turn toward the bunker’s entrance, shrugging on his old trench coat. Without much of a thought, Dean grabs the umbrella that is sitting on a nearby chair, jogging to catch up with Cas.
“Cas, wait.”
Cas turns around, looking at Dean expectantly.
Dean’s brain catches up to what his heart is doing. It throws his heart straight out the window. “Uh….never mind,” he mutters, tucking the umbrella behind his back. “Just call if you need anything.”
He catches an expression on Cas’s face that looks like crumpled paper. “All right,” he says. A few moments later the bunker door slams shut.
Dean returns to the table where Sam sits, pointedly ignoring the incredulous ’You idiot’ look on his face.
A few hours pass with no word from Cas. Dean shoves his phone into his pocket after a tenth call to Cas going to voicemail, angrily scooping up his keys from the table. “I’m going to find him,” he tells Sam. He looks at the umbrella, innocently lying on the floor, as he passes; after a moment of consideration he snatches it up and takes it with him.
He finds Cas on the side of the road, arms crossed and shivering, walking determinedly against the sheets of torrential rain.
Dean stops the Impala behind Cas and cranks open the window. He shouts Cas’s name, but the former angel can’t hear him above the rain’s white noise.
Grunting out a curse, Dean grabs the ratty and red umbrella from the seat next to him and runs out of the car. Snapping open the umbrella for the first time since Cas began giving it to him, Dean jogs toward Cas’s retreating back, clasping him on the shoulder and whirling him around.
“Dean,” he sees Cas’s lips say, but can’t hear over the relentless beating of the rain. Cas looks up at the umbrella, tattered and riddled with holes above him. When he meets Dean’s eyes again, his smile is wide. And catching, too; Dean can’t help but smile back.
He pulls Cas in close, arm around his waist. “You forgot your umbrella,” he says into his ear. Dean sees the surprise in Cas’s eyes that is soon replaced by a soft adoration. It’s the last thing he sees before he pulls Cas in close, their lips meeting hesitantly, as the rain beats down on the umbrella above them.
Dean had been wrong; Cas giving him an umbrella every time he left isn’t a goodbye kiss. It is a gesture that says ‘take care of yourself’. It tells Dean to stay safe, so Cas can see him again.
It’s like a kiss that invites him back home.