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When he woke up, he knew. Dates weren’t important anymore, the only constant measure of time being the changing of the seasons and the rise and fall of the sun. No one kept a calendar at the end of the world; there were more important things to worry about. Like not catching the virus, keeping your loved ones safe, and not dying.
But he knew, before he even opened his eyes. It was like there was some small part of him, buried deep in his chest, that kept track of all the days that passed until this one.
The twenty-fourth of January. His birthday.
It wasn’t that the day had ever been significant when he’d been growing up in motel rooms, but there was something about a birthday that said ‘I’m alive’, in the very core of him. He’d made it another year, managed to get by without being gutted by a wendigo. For a second, while he was still warm and lying in bed with his eyes closed, he could almost imagine that he was in an unremarkable motel room. He could almost hear Sammy snoring across the room.
He let himself stay in the illusion for a few minutes longer, the sun warm on his face, but he knew that he couldn’t stay there forever. Eventually, it came time to open his eyes, and when he did, he saw exactly what he always wanted to forget.
Cas, lying in bed next to him. There was a time when waking up next to the (fallen) angel was all that he wanted, but now they were a broken pair. Broken pieces that didn’t quite fit together, their edges worn and frayed. But still they clung together, because what else are you to do when you’re lost at sea? You hold on to what you need, what needs you. And that’s what they did; clung together desperately. Dean thought it might have been better if they’d drowned; let the ocean drag them away, let themselves be forgotten to history. It would have been better.
Dean sat up in bed and watched the fallen angel sleep. The view hadn’t changed much over the years. Yes, the man had grown a little more scruff on his jaw, and his face had hollowed slightly, but it was still Cas. Dean was okay with this, waking up early and watching the other man. It let him forget what was going on outside their cabin door. Made him forget that they were in the middle of an apocalypse.
A small voice in the back of his mind told him that he shouldn’t be seeing this. By all counts, he should have died years ago, but he never stayed dead. Something kept bringing him back, and there were bad days when he wished that it hadn’t. Then maybe Sammy would have a life, with a girl and two-point-five kids and a white picket fence. Maybe Cas would still be an angel. Maybe a lot of things.
The core of it was that he didn’t think he deserved to have a birthday, to celebrate anything. He didn’t deserve to celebrate, be happy. Not when everything was going to shit and it was his fault, not when he was being trusted to kill the devil. Not when the devil was his own brother, and his lover was a fallen angel. Love, happiness, they were the last things on his mind when he shot someone he knew between the eyes to keep them from spreading the infection.
Cas started to stir, yawning and stretching like a cat, and Dean let himself look. Let himself indulge in seeing the dip in Cas’ hip and the curve of his ribs, because why not? At the end of the world, staring wasn’t the worst thing you could suffer.
Cas gave him a strange look, eyes unclouded. This was another reason why Dean liked being up first; he got a few precious moments with a sober angel.
“What’re you looking at?” the blue eyed man slurred, voice still thick with sleep. He smacked his lips together a few times, trying to moisten them, and curled onto his side, looking up at Dean with questioning eyes.
The gaze wasn’t as intense as it once was; it had turned more familiar, after he’d discovered all there was to know about Dean. His eyes had grown softer over the years, no longer in a rush to see everything at once.
Dean shrugged. “You,” he answered honestly. There was no more room for lies left; the drawers and cabinets of the cabin where already filled to their breaking point. There was no point in keeping things to himself.
Cas just nodded in response and let his eyes flutter closed. He moved in closer to the centre of the bed and rested his forehead on the side of Dean’s hip. He flung an arm over the hunters’ legs and let out a contented hum. “I’m going to go back to sleep now,” he announced.
The corner of Dean’s mouth turned up, and he reached out a hand to flatten the angel’s hair. “I’ll be here.”
There was another hum from the angel, almost a purr, and then he was asleep again and Dean was free to watch the rise and fall of his bare back. He ran his hand along the man’s bony spine, leaving goose bumps in his wake.
The cold air from outside was starting to seep in through the walls; the sun no longer providing enough heat. Dean shivered and wished that he could pull the blanket up, or maybe burrow back down into it, but that would mean he’d have to disturb Cas.
He knows he doesn’t deserve this. The warmth against his side, the chill of the air, the old mattress underneath him. He doesn’t deserve anything. Not another year, not even another day.
Having died a few times, he liked to think that he understood it. First, there’s nothing, and then there’s heaven or hell. There’s a certainty in it – one that isn’t in living. The one you loved most of all can become someone you never met, your brother can let the devil in, you can kill someone in cold blood. There is nothing certain about life, but Dean knew that there was only one thing to do. He had to keep on living, see another birthday, because until he iced the devil he didn’t deserve certainty.
But he’d allow himself this, just for a moment. The cool quiet of another forgotten morning, with the sun rising in the East and shining through their dirty window and thin curtains, and the angel sleeping against his side. He could allow himself that, if only for a moment, for his birthday. Even if he was the only one who’d ever know.