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Cas found Dean, as he thought he would, by the lake. Dean sat at the edge of the copse, resting his elbows on his crossed legs and staring at the early morning mist that drifted steadily over the still water. The sun was rising behind grey clouds, casting indistinct shadows that murmured softly with the waking wildlife.
Dean didn’t show that he’d heard Cas arrive but he continued to stare straight ahead as the former angel sat down beside him. Cas stretched out his legs, leaning back against the thick roots.
Neither spoke for a while. The silence swam around them and settled comfortably. It was the first time in a long time that their muteness hadn’t been brimming with unspoken anger or irritation or desperation. The first time they’d just sat, and been.
It was quiet.
Cas was the one who broke the silence. “Do you reckon the fish are dead yet?”
Dean didn’t look away from the lake but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. Cas noticed. “Most of ‘em, maybe. Some might make it.”
It had only been week two at camp when they’d realised the lake was swimming with more than just fish. They’d lost four of themselves to an afternoon swim. Turned out it only takes one small cut for the water to wash in, wash out again and leave behind enough to get four Croats by morning.
They didn’t swim anymore.
They were quiet for a moment before Dean spoke. “Thought you’d be out by now. Isn’t this prime ‘post-party pass out’ time for you?”
Cas grunted in a way that was casually human. “Maybe I gave the party a miss this time.”
Dean finally turned to look at him. He took in the other mans shabby shirt and scruffy beard and slow, lazy smile. The new Cas, who wasn’t so new anymore. The one who seemed older than millennia-old being that had stood before him in that warehouse. He was rusted around the edges. Bits flaking off into brown dust.
Dean rolled his eyes. “Or maybe you ran out of weed.”
Cas’ smile bypassed his eyes. “Maybe.”
Dean scratched at his leg, where his thigh holster pressed into an old wound. “You know what I want?”
Cas didn’t reply. He assumed it was a rhetorical question. Everyone knew what Dean wanted.
“A cigarette.” At Cas’ blinked surprise Dean actually smiled, albeit a half-formed, cracked smile, like he’d forgotten how. “Right now that’s all I want. One moment and one cigarette.”
Silently Cas reached beneath his baggy overshirt. With long fingers he pulled out a small crumpled box. Dean’s eyes widened.
“How. The fuck. Did you get that?”
Cas’ grin was mischievous and triumphant. He tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “I can’t grow tobacco but I do have my sources. Cost me my last roll of toilet paper.”
Dean frowned. “We haven’t had toilet paper in over a year.”
Cas shrugged. “What can I say? I am a picture of self-restraint.”
Dean snorted. And then he watched as Cas lifted back the lid on the tiny box to reveal three perfectly formed, beige-tipped cigarettes. Carefully he extracted two. He held one out to Dean.
Dean thought about saying no. Saying it was too much. He knew how much these things counted. These little reminders of the real world. A factory-rolled, self-indulgent piece of pre-Coat suicide. He looked away from the cigarette and caught Cas’ eye.
The ex-angel was staring at him. Staring at him in that open, curious way that ripped the breath out of Dean. Because it was a look he’d not seen in years. He’d almost forgotten what Cas looked like when his brain wasn’t saturated in alcohol and meds and pot. He was clear and sharply in focus. Staring back at him with angel eyes; the ones that looked right through him and made Dean feel exposed and read and open.
He’d forgotten how blue they were.
Dean didn’t know what had prompted Cas to cut it all out, even for just a day. He didn’t know how he’d missed it when Cas had first sat down. It all seemed so startlingly apparent.
Slowly Dean reached out and took the cigarette. He fingers brushed over Cas’ knuckles.
He placed it carefully between his lips. Cas mirrored him. Dean drew out his old zippo. It was battered and scratched but the damn thing still worked every time. He held the flame up against the tip of his cigarette and closed his eyes, drawing in a long breath. The smoke swirled into his nose and down his throat and he felt it warm his chest from the inside.
He opened his eyes to see Cas’ face inches from his. He was leaning forwards, his own cigarette sharing Deans flame. His eyes were open and fixed on Deans, watching as the smoke blew softly from his nostrils.
Dean lowered the lighter but Cas didn’t lean back. Instead he removed the cigarette from his mouth and sighed. The smoke curled around his lips and Dean found himself breathing it in. Dean thought it tasted different to his own.
“That,” murmured Cas, “was worth waiting for.”
Dean didn’t reply. He hadn’t been waiting for it. He wasn’t the one who had been carrying round a crumpled box with him for over a year.
But it was a fantastic cigarette. Might even have been the best he’d had. He couldn’t remember them all so he couldn’t be sure.
Cas’ lips twitched at the corners. The corners of his eyes wrinkled and for the first time Dean noticed that some of them stayed when he stopped.
Dean opened his mouth to say something. He wasn’t sure what it was. He thought idly that it should probably be ‘thank you’. But he found that the words didn’t fit in his mouth so he put his cigarette there instead and took another drag.
They were still close. Cas blew out smoke than mixed with Deans and merged in front of them until it blended into the misty backdrop. The morning was getting lighter.
“Lie back.”
Dean was so taken aback by the order, hoarse and firm and reminiscent of another lifetime, that he complied without thinking. Dean hadn’t taken an order in years, so used to barking them out. The smoke inside his lungs must have broken something in him. Seeped through him and melted it away. He dropped his knees and his thigh holster clunked against the hard ground. He leant back and felt the dirt press into his spine.
He took another drag as Cas lay down next to him. This time the smoke rose directly above his eyes and he watched as the grey sky swallowed it.
Cas’ arm was warm next to his.
They lay there until their cigarettes burned the spaces between their fingers. They let the stump fall to the earth beside them. Neither of them bothered to stub it out.
Wordlessly Dean rolled his wrist and found Cas’ hand. He traced his fingers across his palm until they slid between Cas’. He squeezed, and after a moments startled hesitation Cas squeezed back. Cas rubbed his thumb across the back of Deans hand.
It was hard enough to pull someone back from the ledge. Harder still when you were stood there with them.
Dean gripped Cas’ hand tighter and closed his eyes.
Maybe, he thought, it wasn’t freefalling if you jumped together.