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Dean’s last head injury may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. After he’d been knocked out cold on some damp forest floor, Sam had managed to finish off the wendigo hunt and drag him back to the Impala in the freezing cold. That in itself was equally a testament to Sam’s strength as the amount of force behind the rock that slammed into Dean’s skull, but eventually they were in the car and warming up. When Dean woke up on the leather backseat of a moving car, he wasn’t sure how he got there. Actually, he wasn’t very sure of anything aside from the bruise on the back of his head.
“Ugghhh…… how’d I get ‘ere.” He groaned, slowly sitting up.
“Dean!” Sam glanced back the moment he heard movement, incredibly relieved to hear his brother’s voice again. The silence had been unsettling, considering that Dean didn’t stop talking very often.
“...Who the fuck’s Dean? I’m—“ Dean paused for an agonizingly long minute, trying to get the thoughts in his head to connect in a way that made sense. “Oh... Am I Dean?” He tried to remember his name, any name, where they were, what they were doing, and it all came up blank.
Sam sighed, worried and disappointed at the same time. Every time they’d had head injuries, it was nothing more than a quick concussion. They take it easy for a couple days and get back out on the case. But amnesia? That was an entirely different beast. This wasn’t the work of some witch with a hex bag. “Yeah, Dean Winchester. That’s your name… do you know who I am?” He glanced back in the rear view mirror, where Dean was sitting up and rubbing his head.
“No idea, dude. Are we friends?”
“Brothers,” Sam corrected. “Just… take it easy. In the backpack on the floor there should be some painkillers if you need ‘em. I’ll find a way to fix this.”
It turns out that even without a functioning memory, Dean’s was still quintessentially himself, which meant he was chatting up a storm from the back seat. He had questions about everything, and wasn’t giving Sam a lot of room to come up with the least scarring answer. “What were we doing in the woods? Is that a gun on the floor? Were we going hunting? Did we catch anything?”
Sam ended up giving him the basics. The whole monsters are real spiel and then explaining that they hunt them. Without his memories, Dean wasn’t stupid. Any lies would never work out for long and he couldn’t risk his trust right now. “I know you wanna know everything, but we have a friend who’s gonna be able to fix you. So chances are, you’ll have all your memories and answers in a couple of hours, cool?” He smiled a bit when he saw Dean nod from the rearview mirror. There was only so many times Sam could rehash the general clusterfuck that was their lives before he wanted to scream. Not that it was Dean’s fault, but still.
“I guess I can wait… but we’re really monster hunters? That’s pretty cool.” Dean has the incredible ability to take everything in stride, which was better than a freak out that no one was equipped to handle. “Hey, uh… how much farther until we’re at the motel?”
Sam looked ahead at the neon sign. “Coincidentally, right now,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot. He hovered a little over Dean as he got out of the car, watching him to make sure he was steady on his feet as they got into the room. “You just lay down and rest, I’ll get Cas to come and see what he can do.”
Dean did lay down, but he didn’t get a lot of rest. Mostly he just watched with mild interest as Sam made a few calls on his phone. He left message after message until bringing out what he could only imagine were the big guns. His brother drew chalk circles on the floor and got out candles and a bunch of other things that he didn’t know the names of, but it was ultimately in vain. The moment Sam started to recite some words that were decidedly not English, there was a knock on the door.
Sam put his book down and looked through the peephole before swinging open the door. “You’re here!” He stepped back to let Cas in and closed the door behind him.
Dean looked over at the guy walking through the door, unable to stop a grin from appearing on his face. Something about him was familiar, even more than his own brother, and gave him a warm feeling in his chest. “Hey, I know you!” The name wasn’t coming to him but the emotions bubbling up were all the proof he needed. It was stronger than just about anything else, it had to be love. “He’s my boyfriend, right Sam?” He looked at his brother for confirmation, but he had his head in his hands and the guy in the coat just looked surprised. Had he gotten it wrong? Because he was so sure. “Uh… do I have the wrong idea here?”
Sam lifted his head and looked pointedly at Castiel. “You’re gonna fix his brain and then you two are gonna talk about your feelings for as long as it takes for you both to properly admit your love or whatever and I literally do not care if I have to trap you with holy oil for this to happen because I can’t watch you torture yourselves with pining anymore.” He took a deep breath. “You’re fine, Dean, I’m gonna go get another room. Cas, fix him and talk.” He shot one last sharp look at the angel before grabbing his wallet and leaving the room.
Dean wasn’t able to get a word in before Sam was gone, leaving him alone with ‘Cas’. From what he could tell, they weren’t boyfriends. But it was clear there was something going on between them from the soft look on the angel’s face. “So… hey, Cas,” he tried to alleviate his personal awkwardness, but he didn’t think it was working as well as he hoped.
“Hello, Dean,” the angel smiled and moved to sit next to Dean on the bed. “I think we’ll have plenty of time to talk after you have your memories… Can I touch your head?” Cas’ hand was already raised in preparation, but the question put Dean more at ease.
“Sure, do whatever you’ve gotta do.” Dean nodded. Castiel’s hand was on his forehead and he felt a chill before something in his mind slid back into place, as if it was never gone. “Whoa.” He blinked, a look of surprise flashing across his face before it was replaced by a gentler expression. “That’s a lot to remember at once,” he joked, a contrast to the more serious expression that Cas now wore. “What’s with the face?”
“Dean... Sam was right.” He went from looking into Dean’s eyes to nervously looking down. “It is… clear to me… that I have had emotions that I’ve been… unsure on how to act on.” At some point Cas had taken Dean’s hand, setting off a million sirens in his head because holy shit Cas was holding his hand and everything about that felt so right.
“Oh, we’re doing this now.” Dean hadn’t mean to say that out loud, but Cas looking up at him with his trademark cute confused expression made it slightly more okay. ”I’ve also had the uh… emotions. And I know I’m like really really emotionally constipated and I’ve been wanting to get better at that since I’m not like some dumb teenager—okay actually forget the whole speech thing—Cas, I love you. And I should have said it a lot sooner than this but I’m stupid so I’m at least gonna say it now. Oh god, but if I’m like totally off the mark and you were about to let me down easy then—hmmph!!” Dean’s monologue was cut off by a kiss from one angel of the lord, and after the surprise wore off he kissed back just as intensely until he had to part for air.
Castiel was blushing to the point that it must rival how red Dean’s face felt. “I apologize, I was… impatient. And you were beginning to freak yourself out.” He cracked a smile and squeezed the hand he was still holding. “I love you, too.” They were both quiet for a minute, taking in the reality of their new relationship, or whatever was going on here, before Dean broke the silence.
“I know you don’t sleep but… do you want to stay here tonight? If you weren’t busy before I had that whole amnesia thing.” Dean wanted as much time as possible with Cas, and this was the first time he’d seen him in at least a week.
“Of course… though I think we should notify your brother first.” Cas leaned over to kiss Dean’s cheek.
“Yeah, the suspense is probably killing him. But to be fair, it was killing me too.” Dean stood up, pulling Castiel with him. They walked out the door hand in hand, both the happiest they had ever been.