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Legs touch under the table. Dean feels his whole body pressing closer, his hand balled into a fist on the wooden surface. He lifts it and brings it down lightly once, twice, then his knuckles are against Cas’s sleeve. He can’t resist the pull for more contact. He slides his hand, open palmed, across the angel’s left arm. Cas, staring straight ahead, brings his right hand down on top of Dean’s with a rough movement, adjusting them until he’s cradling Dean’s trembling hand in both of his. Cas’s eyes flutter shut and then his head drops forward. He folds, with a noise a little too rough for a sigh, and presses his forehead to the back of his own hand where it covers Dean’s. In his right hand’s steady grasp, the fingers of his left spread out and Dean slips his in the gaps like something unhinged shakily falling into place.
“You okay?” Dean asks dumbly. His voice is unsteady, breath hitching at the effort of it all.
Cas makes a choking noise, clears his throat. “Tired,” he rasps, “just tired.” He doesn’t lift his head from the pile of their hands on the table.
“Yeah,” Dean sighs, relaxing his shoulders a fraction. His skin is burning. “Me too. You think you can sleep?”
Cas’s head lolls from side to side. It’s not a ‘no’, it’s an ‘I don’t know, I don’t remember the last time I tried’.
Dean takes a deep breath that doesn’t help steadying him at all. His whole body is on edge.
“We should get some rest,” he reiterates, “go sleep,” and Cas twitches. He sits back, but doesn’t loosen his grip on Dean’s hand.
Calmly, and close to expressionless, Cas asks, “Together?”
He blinks at Dean.
“Cas, I-”
“No, I know,” Dean is interrupted, and fuck, no, he doesn’t .
“I mean,” Cas clears his throat again before Dean can say anything, again, and squeezes Dean’s hand. “Can I stay?”
The rage wants to unfurl within Dean. Instead, through gritted teeth, he replies, “Of course,” and he is so exhausted. Of course I do, of course I do , his own voice chants in the back of his head.
Cas slowly and deliberately falls forward again, forehead meeting their hands. Dean’s free one comes to rest at the nape of Cas’s neck, pulled in by a gravity Dean has never been closer to naming. There is a small humming noise somewhere between a whine and a grunt, and Dean wants to punch something. Or scream. What he does feels far more violent:
“Cas, listen to me.” Dean is half convinced he can feel the hairs standing up on Cas’s neck where his palm covers warm skin. He tightens his grip in a sorry attempt at making the gesture seem less intimate, thereby only tightening the knot in his own throat.
“I didn’t really have the time to make myself clear there, did I?”
A small, breathless laugh shakes Cas.
With all the strength he has left, Dean tugs at Cas, hands and neck, saying, “Hey, why don’t you look at me this time.”
One deep breath later, after Dean has ripped away his hand from the back of his neck, Cas straightens up. His right hand still covers where his other is holding Dean’s and Dean is glad for it, still doesn’t feel quite ready to face it directly.
Apprehension is plastered all over Cas’s features like a waxen mask. Dean swallows, his brows knitting together because he doesn’t get it, because he’s the one opening up. Cas isn’t saying anything. Dean gives himself another second to observe Cas’s expression before continuing.
“It’s not just... when things go bad. It’s that I get angry when, when...” Dean’s head is spinning. He doesn’t know how to organise his words, he stammers, he feels completely off balance and lets his eyes roam the whole room in search of appropriate phrases.
“It’s… I…” But then he looks at Cas. “It’s you.”
They both tighten their grip on each other’s hands to an almost painful degree while huffing out excess air at the same time. A smile tugs at Cas’s mouth and Dean drops his gaze, shaking his head to himself in disbelief.
“I’m not saying you make me angry,” he follows up, and now the words are just spilling out of him chaotically, “I just… I can’t stand it, you know? Losing you. Over and over again, it’s… too much. And this anger, I’m not-” he pinches the bridge of his nose, “I get angry at myself, man, not you, okay? It makes me feel so fucking stupid, and, and-” his eyes search and find Cas again, “it makes me feel so god damn weak .”
Cas brings their hands up to his face, and for a moment, Dean thinks he’s gonna press his lips to Dean’s fingers and Dean’s heart stops, he’s not ready for something so tender, but Cas only touches them to his forehead again. That brief shock is enough to compel Dean’s free hand to reach out and join, pulling them back down onto the table.
“Dean,” Cas starts, and the apprehension he first saw on Cas’s face is evident in his voice as well.
So, Dean intersects, “I wasn’t finished.” He is met with a defeated smile. His stomach tightens angrily.
“I can handle… betrayal.” Dean recoils at the taste of the word, it feels unfitting. “Or, or, mistakes. I get that we all make mistakes, like, really stupid decisions sometimes. I can forgive that, hell, I’ve forgiven Sam a thousand times for that. But when you ...” He stares at their hands. He mindlessly strokes a thumb back and forth over Cas’s skin. A shiver ripples through Dean as he goes on.
“I feel like I’m going crazy, man. I feel like, even before I really knew you, I trusted you more than anyone else in my life. I don’t know, I guess, in a way, I rely on you to stay sane. So when it’s you, when you’re disappearing or messing up for some reason, I just lose it. It’s like the bottom dropping out from underneath me. And that… That is terrifying. Do you understand?”
They sit in tense silence for a long time. They breathe through it. Finally, Cas seems to have collected himself enough to quietly reply, “I understand.”
Dean doesn’t know what comes next. He doesn’t have to. Cas’s face is starting to soften, the angel’s eyes fixed on their hands on the table while Dean observes every line time has carved into Cas’s face. Slowly, his eyes lift to meet Dean’s. They look at each other openly through nothing but pure saltwater.
Cas gathers a deep breath and then says, “You’re not the only one weakened by the gravity of this thing between us.” And a light bulb flickers and bursts somewhere in the distance. And Cas says, “I feel like I might die from it. I know I’ve been brought back for it.”