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Cas learns rapidly that trusting no one, aside from Dean and Sam, is the best way to be. He calls Dean every night because that’s what Dean tells him to do. When everything with Sam is finally calmed down a little, when Dean sounds exhausted and weary, but like he can finally breathe again, he tells Cas to get to the nearest Minit Mart with a sign that reads Western Union on it, and he wires Cas money. “That’ll get you home,” Dean says gruffly.
“Is that where you are going?” Cas asks him.
There’s a long pause where Dean seems to be hesitating, trying to decide whether or not to tell Cas something. “I made a big mistake, Cas,” Dean says heavily. Castiel can picture Dean scrubbing at his face, sighing, before placing his head in his hand and resting his elbow on his knee and trying to hold himself together. Cas wishes he were there to place a hand on Dean’s shoulder and tell him it will be okay.
“We can fix it,” Castiel replies.
Dean laughs but it sounds shaky and something runs cold along Cas’ spine. Cas isn’t used to feeling these human emotions so strongly – when it comes to Dean he’s always felt them, faint and distant, almost like background music, until they would strike down upon him strongly, lashing out and keeping him grounded. But now they’re constant, exciting him when his phone rings at precisely nine o’ clock every night, scaring him every time Dean says they’ve had a run in with a demon or an angry angel, angering him when Dean tells him how Abaddon is hunting them down. There’s something else too, something fierce and burning: the need to protect. Cas needs to be by Dean’s side to protect him. He and Sam both.
“There ain’t no goin’ back now,” Dean mumbles, and Cas feels a chill shudder through him.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, chewing on his bottom lip. It’s a nervous tic; he’d looked it up in the library while he was passing through Missouri after his lip had started bleeding he’d chewed on it so much. He’d tried putting a stop to it, but he’s learning there are some things to being human that he just can’t adjust to quite yet. One of them is being cold all the time. He wraps the motel blankets tighter around him. He’s stopped for the night. Two more nights, maybe, and he’ll be back in Kansas, back to the bunker. Home, Dean says.
Dean and Sammy are still three days out.
Dean blows out a sigh on the other side of the line. “Ezekiel is in Sammy.”
Cas pauses. Something about the entire sentence sounds wrecked, perverse, and just wrong. Surely after everything they’ve done to get here, Sammy hadn’t said yes to a mere angel, - and not even an archangel, at that. Cas feels around in his mouth for the right words to say, but his tongue feels thick, and Dean keeps talking. “And Sammy doesn’t know.”
A surge of overprotectiveness for his friend, and anger spreads through Cas like a bolt of lightning at the fact that Sam doesn’t know. “What?” he asks.
“Cas – I – he couldn’t fix him.” Dean sounds broken. “The machines kept sounding off, and I was panicking – Ezekiel said if he could get inside him, if I could get Sammy to say yes, he could work from the inside out to get Sammy right. And after all this time, after all we’ve done to get here, you think I was just gonna – there was no way I was gonna just let him go. You have no idea how close he was to walking away, and I just – I took the best option.”
Dean says, “Please don’t be mad at me, too,” like he knows everyone is going to judge him for his decision. Like he knows from the start it was the wrong decision, but he’s so selfish, so dependent on Sammy he can’t fathom the thought of making it through the day without him. “He doesn’t know – Sammy doesn’t know Ezekiel is inside him, Cas.” Dean swallows, breathes out, waits for Cas’ response.
Cas pauses, tightens his fingers around the blankets he’s wrapped in. He’s so very cold, two states away from the bunker, so close to being back to the bunker, so close to being near Dean again, and there’s this feeling in the pit of his stomach, one that makes him almost nauseous every time he thinks about Dean’s laugh and Dean’s smile and Dean’s eyes and Dean’s voice and how far away from it he is. Homesickness, something in the back of his mind echoes. It won’t go away until he is near Dean again. He closes his eyes. “I am not… mad at you,” he struggles to say. “I’m just worried.”
“Me, too,” Dean says quietly. “All this shit – goddamn. It never ends, Cas.”
“We can fix it,” Cas says again.
“Can we?” Dean asks him, sounding serious.
Cas thinks about that.
They have made it through quite a lot. Angels and demons and leviathans and apocalypses – all to end up here, locked out of heaven, graceless, with an angel still inside of Sam, still thousands of miles apart from one another, when the one thing they want to be is reunited. Cas doesn’t answer. Instead he says, “I wish I were there. I could keep an eye on Sam, at the least.”
“I’m keepin’ an eye on him,” Dean says, getting defensive.
“I would know when Ezekiel was there instead of Sam, perhaps,” Cas reminds him gently. He isn’t really sure. Maybe he lost that talent along with all of his powers. Maybe all of his training was lost with all of his powers. An overwhelming sense of sadness washes over him at this, and he consoles himself with the thought that maybe once they’re all back at the bunker, Dean could teach him new things.
There’s a pause and then Dean says, “I wish you were here too,” somewhat gruffly.
Cas isn’t aware of it happening, but a giant smile spreads across his face.
++
It begins in Kansas when they’re all together again.
It begins with Dean’s arms wrapping around Cas’ frail form, pulling away and saying, “Jesus Christ Cas, gotta get some meat on them bones, don’t we?”
Cas is staring up at him, blinking, because there’s a pool of warmth spreading through his stomach and a whirlwind of realization in his mind. His lips part. Dean arches a brow. “You alright, man?” Behind him, Sammy shoves him and finally wraps his arms around Cas. Cas feels warm when Sammy hugs him, but not that same fiery, electric warmth.
“Good to see you, Cas,” Sammy grins at him.
He’s almost like the Sammy that Cas has seen in Dean’s dreams, before they turned dark and dirty and gritty, before Cas had to intercept them, before Sammy turned into a red eyed, fiery monster. The little Sammy who smiled up at Dean and Cas and asked Dean to light up the fireworks, or teach him to ride his bike, or help him with his math homework, before Dean could no longer help Sammy with his homework. He smiles and his eyes are alight with warmth and happiness. Like his soul is cleansed and not filled with guilt.
Maybe hiding it from Sammy isn’t the worst thing, Cas thinks.
They sit down in the control room and Dean hands Cas a beer. Cas doesn’t really like the taste in human form, much more prefers the sickly sweet taste of soda or apple juice, sometimes orange juice or milk in the mornings if the motel he’s in has a complimentary breakfast. He also takes his coffee with lots of creamer and sugar, he’s learned. A sweet tooth, Dean had laughed over the phone. Cas had been telling him about how he’d gagged the first time a woman had bought him a beer at a bar he’d gone to kill time passing through Idaho.
He’d liked the woman. Her name was Katherine and she had a laugh that was deep and she told dirty jokes just to watch Cas blush. At the end of the night she took Cas home and when Cas admitted he didn’t much know what he was doing, she didn’t laugh at him then. She smiled softly and told him they didn’t have to do anything at all. Cas had felt relieved because he hadn’t much felt like doing anything, anyway.
“So,” Dean clasps his shoulder, pins him with his green eyes. “How are you?”
Cas falls still, fingers clutching at the cold beer. He no longer feels that unbearable, constant cold; suddenly he feels warm, all over. “I’m okay,” he says, clearing his throat. If you call travelling with no money for the first week of being a human okay. If you call feeling unbearable thirst and hunger okay. If you call running from the people you once called your brothers and sisters okay, because they believe you betrayed them – because you did betray them, Cas thinks. He’s killed so many people in the last three weeks, so many brothers and sisters that he’d tried to reason with, tried to explain the situation to, but they’re even angrier with him than he is at himself.
Somewhere in the middle of week two he’d called Dean, unable to breathe, and said, they’re not my brothers and sisters anymore. And Dean’d had to calm him down, tell him to breathe in and out slowly, wrap the blankets around him tight, just like he liked, get warm and cozy and listen to Dean’s voice as he told a story about Sammy learning to drive when he was fifteen in Iowa. “He drove through a corn field, man,” Dean had said, and Cas had slowly regained his breath.
“What was that?” he asked when he could talk again.
“Panic attack,” Dean had said, sounding so casual. “I uh – they’re not a big deal. I mean. They are. But. I brought you out of yours, so, you’re okay.”
“Do you get them, too?” Cas had asked.
There had been a pause. “Sometimes, after you brought me back, before you started interfering with my nightmares I would wake up and – but it’s not a big deal,” Dean interrupts himself. “We’re okay. You’re okay, Cas. And look. Maybe you don’t got all those angel dicks as brothers and sisters or whatever, but you’re one of us. You got us. Me and Sammy.”
Cas had just sniffled. “Will you stay on the phone with me?”
Dean sounded softer when he answered. “Yeah, of course.”
Now, Dean clears his throat. “You sure? No vital, lasting injuries?”
Cas shrugs. “No. I am… weaker. I don’t have my powers.”
“We can train you,” Sam says, smiling at him. Cas nods at him, grateful. Dean nods in agreement.
“We have a lot to do,” Sam continues. “There’s Abaddon, and of course we still have Crowley to try and figure out what to do with. But Dean and I are making a lot of headway with him, so we might figure out how to defeat Abaddon now that we’re back at the bunker – there could be some stuff in the library that I could dig up on how to deal with her.”
“I can help, of course,” Cas says hurriedly, standing up. He doesn’t want to feel useless.
“Whoa, Cas, buddy, take a breath, sit down,” Dean catches him by the sweatshirt sleeve. Cas notices a smudge of dirt on the sleeve. His clothes are dirty again. Clothes need to be washed much more when you’re human. Cas doesn’t like it. “You’ve been on the go for three weeks tryin’ to get back here and hidin’ from psychopath ex-angels and angels alike. Let’s just have a night off.”
Sam shrugs. “I just meant in general, Castiel. We definitely don’t have to get started right now.”
“Yes, but it’s important.”
“There’s always something important,” Dean says gently, hand still clasping Cas’ wrist. “Sit down, drink that beer. You might not like the taste but it’ll unwind you a little, alright? You’ll sleep better tonight.”
He tugs until Cas is sitting back down, and then he pushes the beer bottle into Cas’ hands. Cas wraps his fingers around the neck and pulls it towards his lips, taking a drink.
It tastes better when Dean is next to him.
++
In the morning Dean hands him a mug of coffee, and Cas looks at it skeptically before taking a sip.
It’s just sweet enough. Dean gives him a boyish grin before leading him to a room where Sam is already buried under stacks and stacks of books. “So I thought maybe you guys could read some while I go and work on Baby some,” he said, looking at Cas, and then narrowing his eyes and swiveling them towards Sam as subtly as he can. Sam isn’t even paying attention.
Cas catches on quickly though. “That’s fine,” he says.
“Great,” Dean says, darting forward and patting Cas on the shoulder. Cas feels each touch like an electric jolt, but doesn’t let on.
Cas sits down as Dean makes his way out of the bunker. He picks up a book, and Sam slides a notebook and pencil towards him. “For notes,” Sam says simply. “In case you find something interesting.”
“Right,” Cas says, blinking. Before, when he’d had his grace, all he’d had to do was commit a page to memory and he’d remember it. He supposes that wouldn’t work so well now. All his memories of his thousands of years are starting to fade. He’s starting to forget faces, sometimes even names, if they’re not recent. It scares him, though he’d never tell anyone. The things he doesn’t want to lose most are the stories, the stories of God, of God’s children, passed down to him from angels much older and wiser than him. That’s most important to him.
But he’s not sure how much longer he can hold on to them. He stares down at the notebook and pencil. “Sam,” he clears his throat. “What if I – wrote stories down. My – my stories. From, from when I was an angel. They could – would they help.”
Sam looks up, staring at him for a long moment.
“How much have you forgotten, Cas?” he asks softly.
Cas takes a deep breath. It’s shaky.
“I feel like every time I go to sleep I lose more. I feel like it’s slipping through my fingers,” it rushes out of him like a breath. Sam waits for him to continue. “The memories – I’ll be sad to lose them. The stories… it’s unbearable to think about losing them, Sam.”
“I don’t remember anything about my mom,” Sam says finally. “Just – just what Dean says. And I have one picture of her and me and Dean. My dad took it. It sits in my wallet; I never even pull it out because it hurts to look at it, but I know that if I lost it, I would just kind of. Crumple. And Dean – Dean can’t even think about losing me. He goes to the ends of the earth every time I die or almost die to stop it from happening. He goes against the natural order, stops heaven and hell, pleads and bargains. We all have our crutch, Cas.”
Cas chews on his lip. “How have you been, Sam? Since… the hospital?”
“You mean since Dean went against everything to save me again?” Sam asks dryly.
Cas almost bites clean through his lip. Does Sam know? he wonders. The answer is clear when he looks up. Sam is smiling gently at him. “My soul has never felt this clean, Cas. Not even during the trials. Nothing has ever cleansed me. Not to mention there’s this constant… niggling in the back of my brain. Ezekiel tries to stay silent but I think any living being gets restless sitting around doing nothing. He takes over at night. Sometimes I wake up while he does. He’s wiped my memory but it’s like both you and Dean forgot that I’m actually pretty intelligent. You seem to think I have the IQ of a sponge.”
So Sam does know, Cas thinks. A part of him feels relieved at this, at not having to hide this secret from Sam.
“I don’t think you’re a sponge,” Cas says, offended.
Sam just rolls his eyes.
“It’s okay,” Sam says quietly, after a few long, awkward moments pass. “He’s – gentle. He’s healing me. Mind and body.”
“He’s a good angel,” Cas allows.
Sam looks up at him and smiles, and it’s not just Sam smiling.
++
When Dean gets back he waits until Sam leaves the room and grabs Cas by the arm, pulling him close. Heat spreads along Cas’ spine. Love, his mind screams, and Cas wants to grab the other man by the neck and kiss him until his senses are full of nothing but Dean’s scent, taste.
So that’s what this warmth is, he thinks. Love.
“Is he okay? Is he Sammy?”
Cas smiles. Dean’s pressed up against him, peering into his face, anxious green eyes blinking down into Cas’ own, waiting for a response. Something bubbles up out of Cas’ esophagus, and spills out between them. Dean frowns at him. “Why are you laughing?” he huffs.
Cas has never laughed before.
“Because you make me laugh,” Cas says, wondrously.
Dean frowns. “I didn’t even say anything funny.”
“I was remembering,” Cas says.
“Remembering,” Dean says, flatly.
“You make me remember,” Cas says. “You make me do a lot of things.”
“Cas – what are you –” Dean cuts himself off as Cas reaches up and brushes a finger along his cheekbone. He inhales sharply.
“I’m not cold when I’m here with you,” Cas whispers. “I get so warm when I’m near you. Sam was talking about how we all have our crutches. He thought mine were my stories but – I think you’re mine.”
“What,” Dean murmurs, closing his eyes as Cas cups his face in his palm, thumb brushing along his lip. Cas chews on his bottom lip.
“I’m human,” he says. “I don’t know how to be human most of the time. But when I’m near you it’s just – instinct. Like breathing.”
Dean blinks slowly, opening his eyes half-mast, parting his lips and barely breathing. “I’ll screw it up,” Dean says, and it sounds kind of like a whimper.
“I think I love you,” Cas replies.
Dean’s eyelids flutter.
Cas notices little things now, tiny details he never bothered with when he was an angel because nearly all humans had seemed the same to him; bodies that sometimes had different hair colors or eye colors, different heights or builds. But right here, right now, he notices the gold flecks in Dean’s eyes when he opens them, notices how long and perfectly curled Dean’s lashes are when he blinks; how they brush against his cheek bones before coming back up to rest against the skin of his lids as he stares at Cas, waiting for him to continue. “That’s what this feeling is, right?” Cas says, peeling at the loose skin of his bottom lip with his teeth, tasting blood spilling out onto his tongue as a tidal wave of nervousness washes over him, “This feeling where I’m warm when I’m near you and sick when I’m not. Where I want to kill anyone who hurts you. Where I love Sam because you love him, where I want to protect him because you want to.”
“Yeah,” Dean rasps.
“Where you make me laugh when I think about things like the strip club or the western outfit –”
“That was perfectly acceptable –”
“ – and I want to cry when I think about how you have your mom’s smile because it makes you want to cry,” Cas finishes, and Dean stops. He reaches up to where Cas’ hand is still on his cheek, pulls it down and tangles his fingers with Cas’.
“How is Sammy?” he finally asks again.
“Dean,” Cas says.
“Cas,” he replies.
“He’s Sam,” Cas shrugs, because that’s all he can say. It’s not a lie, because in retrospect, Cas thinks, Dean should have known. Sam is smart. He is strong. He would have figured it out no matter what, sooner or later. They have bigger fish to fry than an angel healing Sam and Sam pretending not to know for Dean’s sake.
A look of relief washes over Dean’s face.
“He’s Sam,” he repeats softly, and squeezes Cas’ fingers. They stand there in the middle of the bunker staring at one another. “Hey,” he says after a minute, seeming to change the subject. “I got you somethin’.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Cas says hurriedly, but Dean is pulling away, disappearing to his room for a moment before returning with what looks to Cas like a shopping bag. He shoves it against Cas’ chest. Cas notices that the warmth that usually seems to spread across his own skin when he’s around Dean is spreading across Dean’s cheeks. Dean is avoiding his gaze. “Just open it,” he tells him.
Cas does. Inside is a thick flannel, teal and black plaid. Cas takes it out of the bag, unfolding it and staring at it for a long moment, just running his fingers along the fabric. “You uh – you lost your trench coat,” Dean scratches at the back of his neck. “Kind of your… defining thing, I know. But I thought maybe… maybe you could use a new Thing. A new image. And this is – you complain about being cold. This’ll keep you warm. Because it’s winter and you need to be warm when we’re out there.”
“Thank you,” Cas whispers, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. There’s something stuck at the back of his throat and he keeps swallowing, but it doesn’t go away.
“You should try it on,” Dean says. Cas pulls his hoodie off and slips the flannel over his shoulders, buttoning it up. It’s a little loose, but it’s warm, thick, just like Dean said, and he likes it very much. He can’t help but beam at Dean.
“Thank you,” he says again.
Dean smiles back, reaching out and brushing invisible lint off Cas’ shoulder. “You’re welcome,” he says. “We uh, should get to bed, I guess.”
“Okay,” Cas murmurs, still wrapped up in the flannel jacket. Dean starts towards his room, but stops, back still turned to Cas.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, clearing his throat, “I think I love you, too.”
++
Cas spends weeks training with the boys. Sam spends weeks pretending he doesn’t know there’s an angel inside of him, fixing him, and Dean spends weeks pretending he didn’t tell Sam to say yes to an angel, and he didn’t tell Cas he loved him, all while he teaches Cas the ins and outs of guns and knives moving targets.
When Cas isn’t training with Sam and Dean, he’s writing down his stories, in the library with Sam next to him, reading. Sometimes they talk, and sometimes they don’t, comfortable silence spreading between them as they work.
The one thing Cas doesn’t do is talk to Dean again about their conversation, which makes him uneasy every time he sees him, something fluttering inside his stomach, urging him to figure out where the line is drawn, where their new boundaries are. But Dean doesn’t approach it, so neither does Cas, and life goes on.
++
After Cas is stronger and Dean has trained him in how to use all the weapons they own, and how to fight physically (though Cas seemed to have retained most of that knowledge) they decide to set out on the road again. The night before, they sit around the table in the bunker, drinking and laughing, Sam happier than Cas has ever seen him, Dean cracking raunchy jokes, telling Cas embarrassing stories about Sam, and Sam telling embarrassing stories about Dean in turn. “You know we once had to change schools because Dean hit on a teacher thinking she was a student?” Sam blurts, after draining his third Scotch. Cas shakes his head, and Dean roars in outrage.
“She should have been complimented,” he says. Sam rolls his eyes.
“She was appalled by your flirting skills, as anyone should have been in those days, up until the last couple of years,” Sam tells him.
Cas has to agree. He remembers some of the awful lines Dean has dropped with women. He’s always treated them with respect, but he’s always been extremely cheesy, too. Something hot surges through him and it’s not a pleasant feeling. It’s jealousy, Cas realizes. That all those women before him got to have Dean, and Cas still has yet to have anything more than an, I think I love you, too, and a flannel jacket.
He doesn’t necessarily want or need sex, he just wants Dean to want him like he’d wanted all those pretty women throughout the years.
Maybe that’s the point, though. Cas isn’t a woman, so Dean won’t ever want him. Dean will just love him from a distance.
Cas gets quiet after that, just listening to the brothers swap stories; Dean talks about how he doesn’t have any feeling in three fingers on his left hand and when it rains his right knee cracks when he walks, and sometimes he can’t unbend it trying to get out of bed if it’s already raining in the morning – he has to take Advil and wait for it to kick in. Sam talks about how two of his toes are permanently crooked and his elbow does the same thing Dean’s knee does, and sometimes his wrist aches, constant, throughout the night, keeping him awake unless he drinks some tea with a little whiskey. Cas hears it, in that muffled-background-noise type of way, distant and rushing, but he’s far away, in another world, imagining what it would be like if Dean would just choose him.
Cas has already chosen him, can’t Dean see that?
He stands up. “I think I’m going to go to bed,” he says. The boys fall quiet, and Sam slowly nods.
“Sure thing, Cas. Goodnight.” He offers a smile, and Cas nods back at him. Dean doesn’t say anything. Cas shuts his bedroom door behind him, leans against it and takes deep breaths. His fingers are shaking. He stares down at it, chewing on his lip. He tastes the metallic tang of blood and closes his eyes, head resting against the door.
There’s a knock on the door. “Cas,” Dean says. “Lemme in.”
“I’d rather not,” Cas says tightly.
There’s a pause, and then Dean says, “Please,” in the softest tone Cas has ever heard him use, and Cas melts like butter, can’t resist him. He pulls away from the door, turns the knob and comes face to face with Dean. Dean’s eyes are filled with the type of worry he normally only reserves for Sam. “What’sa matter?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Cas shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest, looking somewhere over Dean’s shoulder. “It’s nothing, Dean.”
“It’s somethin’, Cas. Come on. You can tell me anything, you know that.”
“I did tell you,” Cas snaps, quick, rageful, accusatory. Something like surprise flashes across Dean’s face. “I told you I loved you, and that was it. We never talked about it again.”
“Cas,” Dean starts, but Cas shakes his head.
“We should go to bed,” he says.
“I said I loved you,” Dean sounds helpless. He shrugs in a what-more-can-you-want type of way, and Cas scrubs at his face, fighting the urge to laugh for some reason he doesn’t understand. He thinks it might be what Sam calls sarcasm. “I’m bad at this, Cas,” Dean sighs. “I’m trying, okay. I – all those things you said – I feel them too. But you have to bear with me. My best relationship fell down the drain because I chose my brother over her and then had you erase their memories.”
“They were in danger,” Cas reasons, because when he thinks of Lisa that surge of jealousy spreads even further up his throat and makes him clench his fists, even though Lisa is miles from here, clueless. Dean laughs, but it falls flat. He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up, and Cas wants to reach out and fix it for him.
So he does. Dean freezes for a moment, before he leans into it, resting against the doorframe and eyes closing as Cas is smoothing his hair back down. Even when it’s fixed, Cas continues, and Dean kind of hums in the back of his throat. “I don’t mind taking it slow,” Cas finally offers into the silence. “I’m pretty new to this human thing. I don’t exactly know what I’m doing. I just – thought you didn’t want me at all.”
Dean’s eyes flash open and his hands snatch out, grasping Cas’ wrists, tugging him closer. “That is – the complete opposite of what I want. I want you too much,” Dean says. “It’s – it’s incredible and terrifying and probably dangerous, how much I want you. I watch you, how you train, how you cope with learning to be human, how you cope with losing your grace – that one thing that was so important to you, and I admire you and I love you even more, and I want you and love you so much with every minute.”
Cas’ bottom lip is cracked and bleeding, but he splits into a grin, reaching up and pulling Dean into a kiss instinctively, and Dean doesn’t freeze – he kisses back. It’s not long or drawn out, just enough to show that Cas agrees, Cas is right there on the same level, and it’s enough for sparks to fly between them, and Dean to wrap both hands on Cas’ waist, and pull him closer, resting his forehead against Cas’ own and look him in the eyes. “You and me, alright?” he says. “We’re gonna fix this.”
“You and me and Sam,” Cas corrects, and Dean breaks into his own grin.
++
It starts in Kansas, much like anything with the Winchester boys.
But in the morning, Cas packs what little clothes he owns into the duffel bag Dean bought him, dresses and pulls on his boots, straps a knife against his ankle like Dean taught him, and packs a 9mm Ruger into the side of his duffel, closest to his right side, within reach of him in the backseat, because that’s how Dean taught him. When he’s dressed, he pulls on the flannel jacket.
It feels like he’s wearing home on his shoulders.
He walks out of the bunker, towards the Impala and Dean offers him a warm smile, reaches out and brushes a finger across his lip. “Lookin’ good.”
Cas smiles back. He wants to say, you look perfect, but those types of things make Dean uncomfortable, they always have, so Cas just murmurs a thank you. “Much better than the accountant look, anyway,” Dean continues, taking Cas’ bag and putting it in the back seat. “Although – I wouldn’t have minded gettin’ you outta that tie and using it for other things.”
He winks.
Cas feels his mouth go dry, a wave of emotions he’s never felt washing over him. Dean laughs.
Sam pokes his head out of the car. “Can we just get going, or are you going to stand around flirting all day now that you two have things ‘figured out’ or whatever your fucked up sense of talking is called?” He sounds harassed. Cas wonders if Ezekiel is giving him a hard time, and reminds himself to ask about it the next time they’re alone.
Dean rolls his eyes. “Alright, alright, Sammy. Get in, Cas. Once we get on the road I’ll start thinkin’ about teaching you to drive.”
It starts in Kansas.
They have much to fix, Cas thinks. But like always, with the Winchesters, it continues on the road.