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The cup of coffee you were holding shatters as it hits the ground, and the dregs of it pool around your toes - luckily it's been cold for some time now. From where your heart resides, somewhere between your throat and the pit of your stomach, you feel a curious tingling sensation spreading.
He stands there and watches you.
He looks like shit. Wearing clothes that he probably nicked from some poor homeless guy, hair greasy and tangled, a light and uneven peach fuzz covering the bottom half of his face. You think that he looks like he did in purgatory. Though there's a small scar on his cheekbone, and you've never seen him with something as mundane as a scar before.
When you were a kid you'd stick your head out the window of the car just to annoy your father. You'd try to yell something, but the wind would catch in your mouth so you couldn't so much as breathe. Your lungs feel like that now. You can't speak, can't breathe.
Still, he watches you.
Then he speaks.
"Dean?"
And oh, god, you're undone. You thought you could handle this, but you can feel every wall you've been constructing start to crack at its foundation. His voice is even more gravelly than usual, like he hasn't used it in a while. It sends shivers down your backbone.
You don't know when you started breathing again, but you say, "Cas." He blinks and his Adam's apple bobs as he swallows.
Probably summoned by the sound of breaking dishes, the lurching footsteps of your sleep-deprived brother come down the hall.
"Dean? What's going-"
A heartbeat.
"Cas?"
The stranger on your doorstep smiles the same way you open your eyes in the morning when they've been crusted with sleep, or how you lick your lips when your mouth is dry anyway. "Hello, Sam."
You step back numbly as Sam pulls open the door wider. "Hey, man, come in."
The wreck steps over the threshold, invited in like a vampire. He's almost immediately dragged into a bone-crushing hug from the bunker's resident alces alces. To his credit, he tries to reciprocate, but his arms are pinned.
When your brother lets go, he steps back and then seems to notice that you haven't said anything yet. He thinks you don't notice his eyes flicker back and forth between the two of you.
"I'll go grab you some clothes and food, okay?" Sam blurts out. He lingers for a moment, then disappears. You have a feeling he won't be coming back until you give the word.
You're not sure what to do, now that you're alone. You think about punching him, but you don't want to fight, not now, you're too tired for that. Bone-weary and laden with all the compressed worry of these past few months. He hasn't called since a week before your birthday. You remember holding on to the slightest hope that he'd remember, but of course that was childish and stupid and who would take the time to congratulate you for not dying this year, when they're just barely surviving themselves?
And now you're face to face and you don't want to yell. You're still pondering what to do when he drops his gaze and turns away, shuffling after your brother.
You watch him go and you can't believe it. You didn't want to fight, but you thought it would be more dramatic than that. Just a staring contest and a sigh of defeat.
Later, he comes out of the bathroom clean shaven and wearing Sam's shirt and your sweatpants. You drink in the sight of him like morphine.
The day passes without more incident, and you still haven't spoken any more to him. He's been mostly sitting in the kitchen with Sam, eating a little, talking less. Mostly listening.
You're in your bedroom that night, somewhere around 10. You lean against your headboard and stare blankly at the opposing wall. You've been wearing that expression all day, thinking about months ago. Before he disappeared. That last night, when the angels fell, when you prayed to him that last time and told him you loved him. What a stupid thing to do. You still don't know if he heard you, or if it was already too late. All you'd known at the time was that Sam was dying, the sky was burning, everything was going to shit. And you couldn't be alone. You couldn't bear it, not again. In hindsight, though, "Cas, find me, shit, please - god, I love you, god-" hadn't been the most well-thought out call for help.
He comes in. Christ, you don't know why he has such a stupid need to apologize for everything, but before he can even open his mouth, you cut him off.
"Shut up."
Standing at your door, wearing your clothes, he looks taken aback.
"Cas, just-" You falter. You turn your full attention onto him. "Just don't."
He says nothing and you breath out.
Slowly, like he's walking in a minefield, he pads over to the edge of your bed and gingerly sits down.
"Cas." Your voice cracks like a goddamn pubescent kid, but you couldn't be bothered to care.
"Dean, I'm-"
"Don't," you whisper fiercely, like its a taboo.
So he doesn't. And you don't. And nothing happens, until he gets up and leaves like he's walking out on a lover.
The next morning you expect him to have left in the night, to have gotten fed up with you, but he's still there, sitting at the table sipping coffee.
Another day passes, and then a week, and he's still there, slotted seamlessly into your daily routine. You don't talk. Sam notices but doesn't say anything. It's because, you think, he understands. Neither of you so much as look at each other (at least not when the other is looking). At night you can hear his footsteps pass your room and pause a bit by your door, but he never comes in. You think, sometimes, about the first phone call you got from him after the fall. Heart hammering, wondering when he'd mention it - your fear-drunk confession. But it was always just status updates. Every couple days without fail. Then radio silence.
A week since he's been back and you still haven't talked to him, and you think Sam is getting impatient. Just to please him, you enter the library as Cas sits among the shelves, but once you see him, with his fucking hand-me-downs and freshly cut hair and fading scar, you can't, you just can't.
It takes another day for you to try again.
It's 11 this time and this time you go into his room. It's down the hall from yours and similarly laid out. You don't knock, but stand at the door until he turns around from where he's been meticulously folding clean shirts.
He meets your eyes and you don't know when you started being so fragile that you can barely hold your ground against a look from him.
"Hello, Dean," he croaks.
Again, you unravel. You take two strides toward him and again are torn between hugging him and punching him and so you compromise by grabbing his face and pressing your lips together.
It's quick enough that you can't tell if he kissed back. You take a step away from him and set your jaw. "Next time you decide to stop calling for months, punch yourself in the face for me," you spit without realizing how much it's been itching to come out.
He doesn't say anything. He looks at you and for once you can't read his face. He starts to say something ("I'm sorry"? "I love you too"?) when you spin on your heel and leave.
At one in the morning, your door creaks open and he comes in. You're awake instantly and you turn over, resting on your elbows to look at him.
"I've... been having nightmares," he whispers stiltedly, like its a dirty secret.
You slide out of the bed and take a step to bridge the gap between you and him. You lay your fingers over his hand gently and guide him back to your bed, moving over so he has room to slide in.
It's uncomfortable at first and you're not sure if you should be touching or not. Then he curls around so he's facing you, body arched like a parenthesis. You mirror him, and your foreheads are pressed together while your feet hover close to each other's.
Neither one of you talks, and you fall asleep like that, curled inward towards each other.
You're not sure how it happened, but by the time you wake up, your fingers are touching and your legs are tangled, and you think for the first time that maybe, if you stayed like this, you could be okay.