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1.
The Lebanon post office is the sort of place where people stop to talk. There’s the banks of P.O. boxes; the counter where people sort through their junk mail; the stamps display; the line for service. Weathered farmers with their hats pulled down low commiserate over the state of the roads. Kids cling to their mothers’ pant legs. Women compliment each other on haircuts and ask after families’ health — No, Herb’s still in the hospital.
It’s the sort of town where everyone knows everyone’s business. They know when Clive’s ordered a sample of that fancy new feed from out of state; they know when Edna needs a new walker. They know who’s got a kid’s birthday coming up and who’s refurnishing a living room, and so when there’s a big IKEA box sitting behind the counter for several days unclaimed, it’s naturally the talk of the town. Or at least the package counter.
Dean’s not even planning to stop by the desk that day. Normally he would — to check in with Marta, make some noise about the weather — but he’s in kind of a hurry. The P.O. box is mostly empty. And Cas is waiting in the car.
It’s a new thing, him and Cas, and he doesn’t want to fuck it up. Doesn’t want to take the guy for granted. So: they’re going on a date. Dean’s first date in — shit, he doesn’t know; years.
It’s Cas’s first date in — maybe ever. Dean remembers getting him ready for that thing in Idaho, with Nora, but that fell through. He’s not sure if any of the other shit counts.
He’s lost in thought, almost out the door, when he hears his name.
Marta says it with the air of someone who knows she’s timing a dramatic moment. “Dean Winchester!”
Dean turns.
Marta pats the box behind the desk. “Package for you.”
It catches him wrong-footed. He doesn’t remember ordering anything; maybe Sam did. “Oh, uh.” He shifts his envelopes to his other arm, shuffles to the front of the line. “Thanks.”
“What is it?” asks the woman beside him, brightly; he thinks Helen is her name.
“I’m not sure, actually.” Dean tests its weight by tipping it; it won’t be hard to carry out to the Impala. Whatever’s inside is pretty light. He checks the side, and yep: that his name there. Not Cas’s, not Sam’s.
“Open it.”
Dean turns and finds Clive right there leaning over his shoulder, tobacco-stained teeth bared in a guileless grin. The rest of the line have pressed closer too, curiosity etched in all their faces.
“Well. Uh.” Dean fumbles in his pocket for his keys. Splits the packing tape.
The moment they’re free, the cardboard flaps spring outward, released from some kind of pressure from within. Dean glances around nervously. If this is a cursed object or something — all these people —
Cautiously, he pulls aside the cardboard flap.
The thing inside is a shark.
An enormous, blunt-nosed, soft plush shark. Its embroidered eye regards Dean trustingly. Its fabric teeth gape.
And it comes rushing back to him — that evening with Charlie. Online shopping; her demonstration that their credit card would work.
“Oh!” says Clive from behind him. “Like the meme.”
He pronounces it me-me. Dean blinks. This is too much information for him to take in at once.
“Hello, Blåhaj,” he murmurs. He collects his mail and his giant stuffed shark and smiles his way to the door.
2.
There are a lot of reasons Cas is the greatest. One of them is that Dean can come out of the post office with a three-and-a-half-foot-long stuffed shark and he won’t really blink twice over it.
“Charlie got him for us,” Dean tells him, which is technically true. “His name’s Blåhaj.”
“Oh. Yes. I remember.” Cas loops an arm over the back of the seat to study the shark. “Hello, Blåhaj.”
Dean grins into his collar. Cas turns forward again and uses the opportunity to stretch his arm along the seatback — thumb brushing the fine hair at the nape of Dean’s neck. Dean shivers pleasantly.
They’re going to the wood-fired pizza place in Smith Center, because it’s kind of the only nice joint in a half hour’s drive, and also because it cracks Dean up whenever Cas talks about the pizza man. He’s pretty sure Cas will give him at least three-quarters of the pie they order, too. That’s another reason Cas is the best.
Sometimes Dean really feels like he’s cheating. Like this barely socialized half-fallen angel happened to imprint on him, when he could’ve had anyone, and Dean — Dean’s reaping the rewards for it.
He feels a little guilty about it. Not guilty enough to stop.
“What is — IKEA, anyway?” Cas asks over their menus, a little while later. He pronounces it correctly, but slowly, like he hasn’t said it before. “I’ve seen it referenced in several TV shows.”
“Oh,” Dean mumbles through a mouthful of tortilla chips — great thing about small-town restaurants, they see no reason not to serve fancy pizza and also tortilla chips. He swallows. “It’s, uh — Swedish furniture store. Giant place. Sell all their stuff like, flat-packed, so you assemble it yourself.”
Cas frowns. “The shark came from Sweden?”
“Well, it’s probably — it’s a chain. They’re all over the US. I think there’s one in Kansas City.” He grins. “It’s like a Scandinavian theme park, man. Couches you can test-sit as far as the eye can see. And the food — Swedish meatballs. Lingonberries. You’d like it, Cas.”
“We should go,” Cas agrees.
Dean laughs. “There’s a date night idea. Saturday evening at IKEA.”
Cas squints. “Will it be open?”
That catches Dean wrong-footed. “I meant, like — someday. I wasn’t saying now.”
But as their meat lover’s pizza arrives, he keeps thinking: why not?
They’ve been pretty sedentary lately. He misses taking his Baby on long drives. He misses taking Cas on long drives — Cas is always the best road-trip companion. And that was before they were — well.
Besides, he’s got Charlie’s cards; it wouldn't hurt to live a little. He should treat Cas to a night in a hotel. A real one, away from echoing bunker hallways and Sam’s unfortunate ears. Not just some shitty roadside motel.
It’s late already; IKEA will be closed. But it’ll open tomorrow. And Dean can do a four-hour drive in his sleep. Cas doesn’t even need sleep.
“Hey, uh,” he says, knee jittering, as the waiter takes the check. “What d’you say? Wanna take a ride to Kansas City?”
Dean keeps thinking at some point he’ll cross some invisible line. Expect too much. Need too much. But Cas tilts his head at him and says, like he always says, “Yes.”
3.
The Impala blows a tire about three miles past Topeka.
Dean gets her off the road and spends several minutes swearing. Thing is, he doesn’t carry a spare on his girl; it would take up too much space they need for gear and other things. He’s got a tire repair kit and an air pump, and who fucking blows a sidewall on the interstate, anyway?
Cas crouches beside him in the dry grass and watches Dean work. There’s nothing to do but put a plug in and get to a tire place in the morning; sidewall repairs are unreliable at best. By the time they’re ready to limp the few miles to the nearest motel, Dean’s sweaty and foul-tempered, dirty smears across his forehead where he keeps wiping sweat away.
This was supposed to be a goddamn night out. An escape; not a retread of Dean’s anger issues. Of a thousand shitty evenings in a thousand shitty motels.
At some point while Dean was feeling sorry for himself, Cas has gotten Blåhaj out of his box. He’s sitting in the front seat between them now, inanimate face disarmingly vacant; his fabric is really soft. Cas doesn’t talk over the course of the short drive. Doesn’t talk while they check in.
It’s a single-story motel, linoleum floors with a draft coming under the door. They park in front of the room and Cas carries Blåhaj inside. He sets him on one of the chairs and says, “We’re not far from Stull.”
Dean goes still. He hadn’t even thought about that. “Or Lawrence,” he acknowledges, then: “you okay?”
Cas died in Stull. Exploded into bloody bits. Dean lost his brother here, yeah, but Cas —
“I’m fine,” says Cas. “Are you?”
He’s got a penetrating look on his face. And Dean could scoff, could shrug it off; it’s what he always did before. But things are different now.
He sinks onto the chair, feeling the remains of his anger ebb out of him. He half-sits on Blåhaj’s tail, so he readjusts, sinking his fingers again into soft plush. “I’m — I dunno, Cas. I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t deserve this. You. And I’m just fucking it up the more I try.”
Cas hesitates.
A sick feeling builds in Dean’s gut; behind his eyes. Cas can’t deny it, and he knows it. He’s gonna have to admit Dean’s right.
Instead, Cas says, “Do you remember the first night we spent in a motel room like this?”
Dean blinks. It’s a lot to cast his mind back over. “You mean the time you shattered a mirror on me, or —?”
“No. When you and Sam were separated. After Lucifer rose, the first time.”
Yeah, Dean remembers.
He remembers Cas popping up right behind him at that sink; all up in his personal space. He remembers it feeling weird, another body that close, after days of life-without-Sam. His instincts didn’t know what to do with it. Fight. Get closer. All the way close; turn himself inside out with need.
He remembers telling Cas to back off. Setting him up with a girl two nights later. Trying to deal with it without dealing with it. The Dean Winchester way.
“You insisted on driving from Pennsylvania to Maine,” says Cas. “You told me that the last time I zapped you somewhere, you didn’t poop for a week.”
Dean snorts.
“I remember being perplexed by that,” Cas adds. “I hadn’t realized the human physiology was so delicate. I conducted a brief analysis of your gastrointestinal tract and found that you were correct.”
Great. So that’s Cas’s association with Dean and motel rooms — literal shit. Good for him to know.
“So we stayed there that night. And the next day you drove me to Maine.”
Dean actually does remember that: their first road trip together. Remembers trying to explain music to Cas. Playing him his favorite cassette tapes.
“That’s the day I realized I was in love with you,” says Cas.
Dean’s just taking a breath — to say something dumb. You’re lucky I still liked you after you made fun of Zeppelin IV. He chokes on his own inhale.
It takes him a few minutes to finish coughing. By the time his chest is done spasming, his eyes are watering, and Cas is standing right there. He reaches out for Dean’s hand, and Dean offers it without thinking; then Cas draws him to his feet.
“Dean Winchester,” he says, “I have loved you in a thousand crappy motel rooms. And I mean to love you in a thousand more.”
Dean shivers. He never can help himself, with Cas standing this close; with Cas looking at him like that.
“You know,” he says, “we don’t stay as much in motels anymore. That might take you a while.”
Cas says, gravely, “I know.”
Dean’s body feels warm all over. Like Cas’s gaze is a physical thing. Feels it drop to his lips, his shoulders; feels it skate over his chest. He swallows.
“You gonna put your money where your mouth is?” His voice comes out rough.
Cas takes a moment to answer. To finish his survey of Dean. Then he says, “I am.”
They trip toward the bed. Before Dean loses himself in Cas, he remembers to turn Blåhaj so he’s facing away.
4.
IKEA, when they get there, does not disappoint.
They sit on all the couches. Imagine their lives into all the furnished rooms. Dean loves finding the shortcuts, the double-backs between the sections — learning the cheat codes. Cas loves staring at things and trying to figure out how they’re put together.
It shouldn’t surprise Dean that Cas’s favorite section of the store is the warehouse. Boxes stacked to the ceiling, men with forklifts driving around; Cas seems to take a particular pleasure in furrowing his brow at a given box and using his X-ray vision or whatever to assemble its contents in his head.
They find Blåhaj’s cousins. Dean declares that none of them have as much personality of their own.
They visit the cafeteria twice. Each time, Cas scoots his tray over to Dean’s side of the table as soon as Dean’s polished off his own meatballs. The second time, Dean asks, “Come on — don’t you want to at least try them?”
Cas hesitates. Then he does. His face shows concentration, then surprise. He swallows. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, it is,” says Dean. “Come on. We’ll get Sam some of those lingonberry preserves. He loves that shit.”
On their last pass through the warehouse, Cas lingers in the dresser section. “Do you think,” he says after a moment. “I’ve been spending so much time in your room —”
He looks suddenly uncertain. Like he doesn’t know how to ask.
And something cracks inside Dean. A reluctance he didn’t know he still had. The thing bubbling up from under it is giddy, effervescent; a smile that uses his whole face. “Yeah, Cas,” he says. “We can get you a dresser.”
They leave with a box Cas is already tilting his head at to analyze. They cram it into the backseat, next to Blåhaj. Dean texts Sam, Got you 5 berry things. Last chance to ask for anything useful.
On the drive back, they roll the windows down. Dean half-shouts along to his favorite Metallica songs. Cas knows a surprising amount of the words.
Halfway back, Dean pulls off the highway at a rest stop. He doesn’t need the bathroom; he doesn’t need anything. He just needs to lean across the seat, to take Cas by the lapels of his coat and kiss him like he means it.
They hit the gas again with Dean’s face burning and Cas’s lips curved in a pleased, startled, helpless sort of smile.
5.
“There is something,” says Cas, the words dragging reluctant from his throat, “that I haven’t been telling you.”
Dean looks up from the road. The sun is sinking. Cas squints against it; his face looks beautiful lit in gold.
“When I brought Jack back from Heaven,” Cas says, “I made a deal.”
The story spills out of him. His confrontation of the Empty; the promise it made. When you finally give yourself permission to be happy — and let the sun shine on your face. That’s when I’ll come.
“It feels close,” Cas admits quietly. “It feels — closer than I thought it could get. But I have an idea.”
Dean swallows the dread building in his throat. “Tell me what it is.”
“I —” Cas stops. “Will you trust me?”
Always. Yes. Dean’s eyes prickle hot. “If it takes you when I’m not there —”
Cas’s eyes are steady on him. There are tears on Dean’s cheeks, spilling unfettered down his face.
“It can’t take me while you’re not there,” Cas says softly. “My happiness lives where you are.”
God damn him. Dean nods, hates it; dashes the tears from his eyes.
6.
On the fourth day after Cas leaves, Sam walks into Dean’s room and wrinkles his nose.
“Okay,” he says. “I get the whole — grieving war widow thing you’ve got going on here, but you smell like four-day-old pizza and sweat. That shark smells like four-day-old pizza and sweat.”
Dean glares at him. He tucks Blåhaj closer to his side. “Don’t listen to him," he says.
There’s something oddly comforting about a giant stuffed shark, in times such as these. The look on Blåhaj’s face — the one Dean used to find vacant — now looks wise. Accepting. Like Blåhaj knows there’s nothing you can do but watch Netflix and wait to see what happens.
“O-kay,” says Sam. Then, with a painful kindness, “Wouldn’t it help to be — doing something? I could help you put together that dresser.”
He gestures at the box propped in the corner of the room. “No,” Dean snaps, and Sam raises his hands, backs off. Leaves Dean to his misery.
He and Blåhaj watch Brooklyn 99 together. They watch Schitt’s Creek. Then they watch it again, because it’s a perfect TV show; then, eventually, Dean takes a shower.
He knows he’s being a little superstitious. In a weird way. The inverse of Cas’s own deal, almost; like if he acts for even one second like he’d be okay in a world without Cas, the universe will take him at his word.
It’s a reaction to the thing that scares him: Cas not coming back. But it’s also a reaction to something else, something deeper, something that scares Dean more than anything else he’s ever felt. Something at the core of him. His very heart of hearts.
7.
Cas gets home on a Thursday.
He looks tired. There are shadows under his eyes, and his hair is sticking up, messy; there’s dirt in there. Maybe a twig. His trenchcoat is filthy, though none of the stains look like blood.
When he appears in the door to Dean’s room, Dean’s lounging on his back, using Blåhaj as a pillow. He sits up like he’s seen an apparition. “Cas?”
Cas gives him a tired smile. He wavers where he stands. “Hello, Dean.”
And Dean’s across the room. He’s got his hands on Cas, over his trenchcoat, under it; he’s got his face buried in Cas’s hair. He probably smells disgusting, but that’s okay, because Cas kind of does too, and —
He pulls back. “Cas?” he says again.
Cas’s mouth is still creased with a smile; his eyes dimple with it too. “I fell, Dean,” he says, in a tone half-pride half-wonder. “I gave up my grace and I fell. I’m human.”
“You’re,” Dean echoes. He feels a little dizzy. Implications spinning out around him; the Empty can’t take Cas if he’s human. Cas can die if he’s human. Not that he couldn’t as an angel, but he can age; he can — Dean can't steal his food anymore, he’ll need that —
What comes out of his mouth is, “You’re gonna have to figure out IKEA furniture like the rest of us.”
Cas laughs, slumping into him. His mouth lands on the corner of Dean’s, breath ghosting over his skin; then he’s murmuring, “I’m so — tired. I forgot how tired you get, being human.”
That, at least, Dean knows what to do about.
“C’mere,” he says. They stumble backward together; he helps Cas out of his coat. Fights his tie, the buttons on his shirt. Cas is gonna need more clothes if he sweats now. A dresser full, maybe.
“You know,” he murmurs. “Something we forgot. At IKEA. Another pillow for the bed.”
Cas presses his forehead to Dean’s shoulder, then raises his head to peer over it. “Right now I could sleep on a — on an actual shark.”
Later, Dean watches him sleep, cheek pillowed on Blåhaj’s back. From close range, he can see the lines on Cas’s face. Can hear the faintest starts of a snore in the back of Cas’s throat.
He whispers, for the first time in his life maybe, the first time since he was four years old: “I knew you’d come back.”
Cas’s snore hitches, then continues. But Dean can see the corner of his eye crinkle. Can see his lips lift in a smile.