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The first sign that anything was wrong in heaven was the snuffling noise coming from underneath the kitchen table.
"Sam, you hear that?" Sam sighed deeply, but paused in his rabbit food—who willingly ate rabbit food in heaven, anyway—to listen. A tilt of his head and a narrowing of his eyes said he'd heard it too.
"Yeah, sounds like a mouse or something. Do you get mice here?"
"How the hell would I know?"
"Jeez, I don't know, because you've been living here?" Sam sighed again as he pulled his chair back and looked under the table.
"I've been busy!"
"Doing what?"
"Uh. Driving around."
"For forty years. Right." Sam got down onto his knees and folded himself under the table. It definitely wasn't designed for someone as tall as Sam to fit under. It would have been funny if Sam hadn't immediately followed up with, "you didn't even give Cas a call?"
He had. Tried praying to him a bunch of times. He was damn sure Cas had heard him but there was no sign of the feathery asshole. It was bad enough that his brother was bringing it up. It'd be even worse if he found out Cas was leaving him on the angelic equivalent of read.
"Shut your mouth."
"Oh, here's your problem." A panicked squeak made Dean try to look under the table, only to see nothing but Sam's legs. The hell was under there? "Take it." Despite his concern, he held his hands out, let Sam place something warm and furry into them before he scrambled back up to his feet.
"The hell is that?"
"I believe it's called a guinea pig."
"Yeah I know that, genius. I mean what's it doing in my house?" Sam pushed himself back into his chair, shrugged as he picked up his fork again.
"It's your house, Dean. That makes it your problem." Dean considered the guinea pig in his hands. It looked fancy, white with spots of dark brown on it and long, flowing well-groomed hair, as it tried to wriggle its way out of his grip. It looked like someone's pet. Someone, out there, had lost their pig.
"Man, who loses their guinea pig in heaven?"
"Well, they're probably looking for it. Might as well keep it until they come for it." Dean scoffed.
"I'm not looking after a guinea pig."
"You want to upset the kid who lost it? No, you need to hold it close to your chest, or it's gonna keep trying to escape."
"What is it, a baby?" Dean held it close to his chest anyway, which seemed to calm it down. "Hey, it's probably hungry. Wanna split your lunch? I'm sure it'll enjoy it more." Sam rolled his eyes but picked up some of the lettuce from his plate anyway and pushed it towards Dean.
"I think they need to be free to eat." Dean tried that theory out, placing the guinea pig down on the table and letting it go. It went straight for the lettuce.
"See, if you'd gone for a burger, it wouldn't be eating your lunch."
"Shut up." There was no fire in it though, and the guinea pig did look happy with the lettuce. Dean met Sam's eyes, just a little smug about it, and it hit him again just how glad he was to have his brother back with him too.
Now if only Cas wasn't ignoring his calls, it'd be perfect.
Nobody came for the guinea pig. Despite waiting for the inevitable knock on the door from some kid, or maybe from some angel that wasn't as much of a prick as the rest of them were and willing to help a kid praying for help out (okay, he was thinking of Cas), nobody appeared.
Or at least, no human appeared. Just more guinea pigs.
The first guinea pig was thrilled with the company. Dean was significantly less so as his house became a guinea pig refuge. Even when he'd tried to throw them out, more of them kept appearing.
"Where are they even coming from?"
"Maybe there's a rift."
"A rift. What, according to the lore there's a dimension full of the furry little bastards?" Feeding them wasn't a problem, he could just throw the vegetables he stole from Sam's fridge next door on the floor and they'd be happy. Sam had insisted on leaving hay too after reading about it somewhere. It made Dean feel like he was living in a barn but whatever, it seemed to make them happy. No, it was the pooping and the squeaking late at night that he was getting real tired of. Sam looked up at him, sitting next to and petting a particular enthusiastic black and white guinea pig on the couch, before taking a swig from his beer.
"Do guinea pigs have a heaven? Maybe something's up there."
"They don't have a heaven. Imagine angelic guinea pigs, though. Guingels."
"No."
"Come on, you know you want to."
"I'm not saying that." Man, Sam could be such a buzz kill. Dean pushed his chair back and ignored the barrage of shuffling and squeaking it caused. Guinea pigs didn't have a heaven, he was ninety nine percent sure of that, but perhaps there was some other divine intervention involved.
"Jack?" Sam considered it then shook his head.
"I don't think so."
"Why would anyone want so many guinea pigs anyway?" That was the true mystery at the heart of this situation. That and why they were dumping them all in his house.
"If we can find the source, then we can stop it." A hunt. A hunt, somehow, right in heaven, for the source of an invasion of guinea pigs. Well, why not? It'd been too long. Peace was nice but it got old. It was time for action. Dean drained the last of the beer from the bottle and slammed it down on the table.
"Let's go."
The research, the lore and the undercover work (aka asking the neighbors) all led to one conclusion: the source of the guinea pig breach was at Dean's house.
"So we have the where and I think I have the how. But no why."
"I don't care man, I just want them gone." Dean leaned back on the couch, heard the scratching of feet and shut his eyes with a sigh as a guinea pig clambered on top of his head. If he took it off, another one would come up and replace them. It didn't stop the stink eye he gave Sam for laughing at him though.
"They seem to like you. Are you sure you want them gone?"
"Yes! I'm sick of cleaning up after them, and the smell!" Dean picked the one on top of his head up anyway, plopped it down onto his thigh to stop it messing up his hair. "You said you had a plan. Tell me."
"I did a test on one, and it showed it's not from this dimension. It might be an overlapping dimension, or something else that's close to that. So, if we open up a portal in the back yard to their original dimension, then according to this book, it'll suck them all back up again." Dean scooped up the guinea pig on his thigh into his hands to join Sam for a closer look at the book. Even by medieval standards, the illustration next to the text was incompetently done.
"Those don't look like guinea pigs. Maybe rabbits? Or pigs."
"The word actually translates as cats—"
"Nah, those don't look like any cat I've seen."
"But I think it should work with any small mammal."
"Only one way to find out!" With a clap of his hand on Sam's shoulder, stealthily depositing the guinea pig on top of Sam's head before he could protest, Dean cricked his neck and cracked his knuckles. "What do we need?"
"Ready?" Dean took one last look over their provisions, set up and ready on the table that they'd dragged out to the center of the yard. It wasn't clear how magic worked in heaven or if it'd even work at all. It hadn't been something they'd attempted before, though it'd been unexpectedly easy to find the materials for this spell. Heaven really seemed to have everything now.
At least they hadn't had to kill one of the guinea pigs for it. Knowing their luck, it probably would have turned out that the one they picked really was someone's pet.
"Ready as I'll ever be." Dean swallowed, joined Sam at the table and took the mortar to start crushing the ingredients in the pestle. There was always this moment, the calm before the storm, before whatever monster was causing havoc arrived. The clouds—when had those clouds shown up, anyway—overhead grew darker as Sam started the chant. It felt ominous.
But not as ominous as the flash of light that blew them both onto their backs.
"No, no, no, stop! Stop!" They jumped up, only to find a harried looking woman standing by them.
"But the guinea pigs—" the woman stopped and glanced around her at the mass of guinea pigs around her, still placidly eating Dean's back yard up. She let out a breath of relief.
"Oh, it's that? I thought you two were trying to—anyway, if you need to go upstairs, you can just pray. Don't try to rip chunks out of heaven!" Dean looked over at Sam who looked like he was having the same thought as Dean was. They probably should have tried praying in the first place, seeing as this was, after all, heaven. Yup, that would have been smarter, even if Cas was ignoring him. Someone else might have picked up the call.
"Who the hell are you, anyway?"
"I'm an angel."
"I thought you guys were basically...extinct."
"Our father's fixing that. Come."
"Not the—" Too late, the damn navel jerk and dragged off by an angel sensation pulled them up, suddenly arriving in the stark whiteness of the angels' part of heaven. "Damn it, don't do that!"
"How else am I supposed to get you up here, you ass? You know, I really expected more from you." The angel vanished with a beat of wings, before Dean could ask who'd been giving her lofty expectations of him.
Oh. It was probably Cas. He pushed that thought out of his head.
"Wonder who's been giving her high expectations of you." Sam sounded unbearably smug, like he'd read his mind, and Dean rolled his eyes before picking a direction to walk in. Any direction that'd get him away from this particular conversation would do.
"Come on, we need to find out who's dumping guinea pigs in my house and kick their ass." With so many blank, identical corridors, it was hard to tell if he'd picked the right or wrong direction. Or where they were.
"It'd be useful to have a guide, huh. If only we had a guide. If only we'd had someone willing to help us, someone you hadn't pissed off."
"Shut it."
"All I'm saying, Dean—" a vague noise caught Dean's attention and he raised a hand to cut Sam's bitching off mid-flow.
"Wait." Despite the pissy expression on his face, Sam shut up. They waited. After days of continuous exposure, Dean recognized the sound. The slightly panicky squeaking.
Behind the door next to them was a guinea pig. The two of them turned around, rested their shoulders against the door. Dean raised three fingers to count them down.
Three.
Two.
One.
It looked cool. The door didn't need that much force to open it, in fact a small breeze might have done it, but it made an awesome entrance into the room. The Winchester brothers, challenging heaven once again as they stormed into the room and found the guinea pig.
Found Cas too, holding the guinea pig close to his chest, protecting it from the approaching threat. Cas, Mr. Mystery, king of freaking disappearing without a single word, who he hadn't seen since the Empty stole him away, was staring at him like a deer caught in headlights and clutching a guinea pig to his chest.
He didn't actually need to breathe now, but it was reflexive. The way his breath stuck in his chest didn't hurt, not really, but he could still feel it, still felt like it would have hurt once as their eyes met. Cas looked surprised. Dean wasn't sure what he looked like. He hoped he didn't look like how he felt about Cas ditching him.
The banging noises coming from the desk, like something was trying to break free from it, broke the moment.
"Uh. This isn't what it looks like, I can explain."
"Can you?" Cas looked at Sam in shock, like he hadn't noticed him walk into the room, before wetting his lips. Dean refused to be distracted by it, or by the way Cas was no longer meeting his eyes.
"Uh...no." Cas didn't get any further in his failed attempt to explain before the bottom drawer of his desk burst open, and out of it rushed more guinea pigs.
"You did this!"
"Did what?"
"My house is filled with guinea pigs because of you." Cas tilted his head, with the little furrow in his brow that Dean had suspected he'd never see again as he considered it, before it smoothed out.
"Ohhh. I wondered where they kept going. They are prodigious breeders, I had to make a pocket dimension for them. It has a lot of enrichment in it, they're very happy." Cas sounded almost proud of this fact, of having such a severe guinea pig hoarding problem that he had to use divine intervention to fix it.
"A pocket dimension that leads to Dean's house." Cas didn't reply, lifted the guinea pig up from off his chest, held it up in front of his face to look at it before putting it on his shoulder. The guinea pig was calm, relaxed as it nuzzled up against his neck. It was the kind of attention Cas used to give to him, before he came up here and Cas had once again vanished.
No, he was not jealous, even as Sam gave him a look that disbelievingly asked, 'are you seriously jealous of a guinea pig?'. Dean scowled in an attempt to get Sam to stop.
"Why did you even need a pocket dimension?" Sam asked, genuinely curious, as if it was a very interesting question instead of the answer just being 'because Cas is hoarding small furry animals'. He'd point it out if the sight of Cas almost glowing while surrounded by guinea pigs, after last seeing him getting dragged away forever, wasn't throwing him for such a loop.
"There were a lot of them. The other angels were starting to ask questions."
"Questions?"
"About why there were guinea pigs in their offices."
"Yeah well, I can't blame them for that. Why'd you dump them all in my house?"
"I didn't mean to—"
"You never mean to but somehow, it always happens Cas!" Sam held his hand up, cut off Dean before he could continue.
"Okay, look, stop. Shouldn't we just get the guinea pigs back to where they belong and then the two of you can have this stupid fight you've both been stewing over for however many years." Sam, acting as the goddamn voice of reason and making them both look like idiots. Dean sighed, gave Cas a look that said they'd be talking about this later, even if he knew they probably wouldn't, that Cas would ditch him again at the first chance he got.
"So what do we do?"
"Firstly I need to find how they're falling through their dimension into Dean's house."
"How come they're falling into Dean's house, anyway?" Sam asked like it was a perfectly innocent question, like he wasn't getting at something with it. Dean wasn't fooled for a second, gave him a look to tell him to quit it. He knew Sam was getting at something, something he didn't like, even as Sam shrugged and pushed away a stray strand of hair from his face. He glanced back at Cas, saw Cas struggling with something before it vanished, smoothed over to be replaced with the face of an absolute goddamn liar.
"I don't know."
"Is your office over Dean's house?" Dean watched Cas intensely. Cas resolutely and absolutely, did not meet his eyes. Bingo. Sam was right.
"Your office is over my house? What the fuck, man? You couldn't even be bothered to call me when your office is over my goddamn house and you decided to—breed guinea pigs instead?" Dean gestured angrily at the guinea pigs surrounding them, who were content to ignore him, unlike the angel responsible for them. Cas looked guilty, which he refused to feel bad about in the slightest. Cas should feel guilty for ignoring him. For not listening when he poured his heart out to him via angel radio after he'd had a little too much to drink, when he aired out that even in the place where he was supposed to have everything, there was something missing. Someone missing.
"Dean—" Whatever stupid excuse Cas was about to give him, he didn't want to hear it. Not even with that pleading tone in his voice, like he needed Dean's forgiveness.
"Forget it. Let's just get the guinea pigs out of my house." He didn't miss the discomfort on Sam's face as he went over to the desk—good, it was his fault for bringing it up—and pulled the bottom drawer out. At first it just looked like a normal drawer, nothing unusual about it. Dean crouched down, gently nudging a guinea pig away from his foot as he did. No, there was something off about it. The bottom of it didn't quite fit, like it was an illusion and not a solid thing. Dean poked at it. Nothing. Maybe it only worked with guinea pigs. He picked one up that was next to him, placed it down into the drawer and it vanished. One moment it was there and then, gone.
"So that's how it works?"
"Yes. They can come and go as they please."
"How do we get in there?"
"You can't. I'll fix it." Dean shook his head as he got up. He didn't trust Cas to go off and fix things on his own without making a hash of it. Didn't have a great track record with that. It might only be guinea pigs, but Cas might end up making them rain from the sky or something.
"Nope. If we're fixing this, we're doing it together so you don't screw it up." Cas looked at him like he was being particularly dense, and just a little hurt by the implication he couldn't fix it.
"It's not up to you, Dean. You can't go in there, it's not for humans. It's just for them." It didn't hurt that Cas had taken the time to design a dimension, one that he specifically couldn't access, while he was ignoring him. It didn't hurt at all, so when he ignored Cas offering him a hand to take them both back to his house, Sam taking his other hand without question, he ignored both the hurt on Cas' face and the 'are you fucking kidding me?' look on Sam's. It was not because he was hurt. It was because he hated getting jerked around by angels and getting pulled around from place to place.
He didn't feel the hand on his shoulder like it was burning through his jacket, as it rested on the exact same spot where Cas had last held onto him, either.
Cas didn't say much after arriving. Dean didn't even get a 'hey, you've done a great job with the place' from him, which he had. There hadn't been much to do, admittedly, the house had been nearly finished when he'd arrived. Just a few things, fixings to be attached, a final pair of curtains needing to be hung. Still, it would have been a normal thing to say, which was why Cas looked around, ignored his excellent work and said, "there's more guinea pigs here than I expected" in a dead serious voice like it was a matter of life or death instead.
"And what are you going to do about it?"
"I'm fixing it." Cas didn't look at him before he walked out to the kitchen, heading towards the back yard. Dean sighed, running his fingers through his hair before deciding to sit down on the couch. Sam was—in fact he wasn't sure where Sam was, until he heard his voice in the yard too. He should have gone to join them and help out, but he didn't. It felt weird to be sitting around, wrong to let someone else fix his problem for him, but the line of Cas' shoulders when he'd left the room said he didn't need his help and more to the point, didn't want it. Which figured. Cas wasn't going to say it, but he was avoiding him and Dean wasn't such an idiot he couldn't figure out what that meant.
It was about all the stuff Cas said before the Empty took him. All the 'I cared about the whole world because of you', 'you changed me, Dean', the...the 'I love you', Cas had finally realized that he didn't mean it. Cas thought he was leaving forever, wanted to make Dean feel loved before he was taken, and it had come out all wrong. It'd come out sounding like he was in love with Dean, which wasn't possible because he was an Angel of the Lord with all the shit that entailed, and Dean was just some far too human fuck up. It was impossible and Cas had realized that once he was back in heaven, back where he belonged despite not being a complete jack off like the other angels. That was why Cas was avoiding him, was still avoiding him even as he fixed this stupid guinea pig problem he'd caused.
Dean's eyes shut and he let his head fall with a thump against the back of the couch. Fuck. There was squeaking from next to his head that made him open his eyes again. A guinea pig. It looked like the first one who'd arrived, accidentally fallen from its enrichment, friends, the angel who loved them, into his house. The irony hit him. It hadn't been enough for him to just make Cas fall, he'd made his guinea pigs fall too.
He reached over and picked the guinea pig up, gently enough to stop it from squeaking in protest. Putting it down on his lap, it settled down, nose wiggling, whiskers quivering as Dean stroked it. Despite how sick he was of looking after them, despite the lead weight in his stomach from screwing up with Cas, again, it felt kinda nice to have the guinea pig on his lap, enjoying his company. It made him feel like he wasn't a complete failure, could at least make a guinea pig happy even if he couldn't do it for anyone else.
"So Cas has been protecting you?" he asked. The guinea pig didn't reply, it seemed more interested in the palm of Dean's hand as he rested it in front of its head. "He's good at that. He's really good at that. Got such a big heart that it gets him in trouble all the time. I mean, look at you guys. You forced him to come here." The guinea pig wasn't troubled by this revelation and stayed where it was, cupped carefully within Dean's hands as he stroked it again. "That dumbass thinks I was the one who made him like that, but I think he's finally realized that's not true." Even to the guinea pig, who wouldn't judge him, wouldn't understand him in the first place, he couldn't admit the next part. How it'd been growing inside him for longer than he'd ever realized, how long it'd taken him even after Cas was snatched away to fully understand it. How much he loved Cas. Not like a best friend, not like a brother, like how he loved Sam. It was something else.
How much it hurt that he'd got his hopes up, hoped that Cas could love him, that hadn't been some sort of last minute screw up. Stupid him. It always was some sort of cosmic mistake with him, because good things never happened to Dean Winchester. Dean scooped the guinea pig up and looked at it. It met his eyes with something that almost looked like wisdom.
"So I guess I better return you to the kid who's looking for his pig, huh. You'll be happier with him." Dean was sure of that. He'd be happier with Cas too.
"That's not true." Dean looked up, saw Cas watching them from the doorway to the kitchen. Cas sounded sincere, more sincere than the circumstances merited. Cas walked over, crouched down in front of Dean, careful to not touch his knees, as Dean lowered the guinea pig back down onto his thighs. Cas didn't look at him and focused on the guinea pig instead. "They've been very happy here. You've taken great care with them, despite not wanting to." Cas finally looked up then, the deep sincerity in his blue eyes, the look that Dean would have described as adoring if it wasn't aimed at him. "Thank you, Dean." Dean couldn't tear his eyes away, couldn't stop looking into Cas' eyes, felt that tightness across his chest that wasn't real now but he could still feel anyway. Parted his lips to say something but couldn't. Cas tilted his head. Just a little, not like he did when he was confused, but how he did when he was listening, waiting to hear what Dean was going to say. As if it was the most important thing in the world. Dean swallowed.
"Cas," his voice cracked, he stopped. He couldn't think of how to say any of the things he wanted to say. Cas waited, infinite patience in his eyes, patience deeper and older than Dean could ever hope to understand. Words were treacherous. Dean never knew how to say the right thing, never knew the right words that would stop Cas from leaving this time.
So this time he didn't try. Instead he leaned down, cupping the guinea pig to avoid squashing it, and met Cas' lips. For a moment Cas didn't move, was still as a statue, before he responded, softening under Dean's lips. Cas' lips were dry, warm, probably could do with some chapstick, really, but they were still the lips he wanted to kiss and it felt so damn right. Cas' hand reached up to hold onto the back of his neck, fingers pressed against the base of his skull as Cas kissed him back. Earnest, sincere, if not used to this yet. Dean thought about getting used to kissing Cas, and he felt it finally slot in, the only thing that was missing from heaven. Cas.
The squeal of the guinea pig made him pull back a little and made Cas pull back too. It was objecting, wanting to roam free. Cas moved his free hand, the one whose fingers weren't sliding into his hair and gently uncurled Dean's hands from holding onto it. Cas moved a finger to rub the top of its head, calloused palm still resting on top of Dean's hand.
"This was the first one I received. He's a loyal friend." The guinea pig made a snuffling noise, like it understood Cas and the compliment. Maybe it did. Dean felt a laugh bubble up in him, certain that it was the same one who'd first appeared under his kitchen table. Of course it was.
"What's his name?" Dean couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice, had a feeling he might be able to guess what it was. Cas looked a little uncomfortable but answered it anyway.
"Dean."
"Really? His hair is way more like Sam's." He should be more annoyed that Cas decided hanging out with a guinea pig with his name was more important than seeing him. With Cas still there in front of him, looking up at him like he mattered, like he was the center of the goddamn universe, he wasn't. "Why?" Cas swallowed.
"They're company and I like guinea pigs more than angels. I called him Dean because I expected," Cas paused, focused on the guinea pig again. He moved Dean's hands so he could hold it himself as he rose back onto his feet and let go of Dean. The other Dean rested quietly against Cas' chest, against the white of his shirt. "I expected longer before you arrived." Cas glanced at the curtains behind him, the ones Dean had to hang up himself, and it clicked. Cas had made this house, worked on it by himself to make it right for Dean, to make it the kind of home Dean would want. He just hadn't had the time to do the finishing touches before Dean had got himself killed like an idiot.
"You thought I would have forgotten about it by the time I arrived."
"Maybe," Cas conceded. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."
"You know what made me uncomfortable? You ignoring my calls. What the hell, Cas? You did hear my prayers?"
"Yes."
"And you still didn't come? Did you think you knew better than me, that I didn't mean what I said? Cas, you goddamn idiot."
"I thought it was..."
"You thought I felt guilty? I did, I do, but not because," the words stuck. Still hard to say it, even now, with Cas looking at him like he was preparing for Dean to break his heart. He was just as stupid as he was, for all his millenniums of experience. "Not because I don't love you back. I didn't realize, didn't think you could—fuck, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's not something you can't have." He managed a smile, in the light of dawning realization on Cas' face, the way he was clutching onto the guinea pig for his support as much as the guinea pig needed him. "You changed me too, Cas."
"Dean..." Dean got up from the couch, checking for guinea pigs on instinct around his feet before realizing they were all gone. The final one was firmly clasped to Cas' chest, ready to go home. Cas loved them, obvious in the tender way he cared for them. Cas loved him too, suddenly obvious in the way he looked at him, how he touched him, in the way he'd laid a hand on Dean in hell and dragged him out of it, again and again, even though he was much less cute and gave Cas significantly more grief than they ever would.
"I love you." It didn't come out easily, but Cas needed to hear it. Deserved to hear it. He saw Cas soften around the edges before he leaned in and kissed Dean. It felt right. Cas pulled back, gave a look to the guinea pig, then to Dean, like he was torn. "You should take him home."
"You can come too. If you want."
"I thought it was just for guinea pigs." Cas shrugged, in a way that had once was just his but was now definitely Cas' too.
"I changed it." Like it was simple to do, like it was nothing to change a dimension, to change space and time just so Dean could see where Cas' guinea pigs lived. "I'd like you to see it."
"Sure." This time it was his hand on Cas' shoulder as Cas' wings beat, pulled him again through place and time.
It wasn't like his house in any way. It felt different, like seeing through the eyes of a guinea pig, seeing how they saw the world. Different focus, different emphasis, all on the here and now, not the staid eternity of heaven or the constant passing of time on earth. It was an endless green field where the sun was always shining. There were as many different plants as a guinea pig could ever wish to eat, and no predators to eat them either. It felt like a home designed by someone who didn't realize there could even be a future.
Dean lay on the grass, Cas lying next to him, body slightly pressed up against his as they watched the blue sky above. His right arm, his fingers interlaced with the fingers of Cas' left hand, lying between them. If he focused, the blue changed to a different shade to what he was used to. Perhaps it was how the guinea pigs saw it. Were they color-blind? Dogs sure were. He felt a guinea pig sniff at his arm before moving on, looking for something to eat instead. He tilted his head to look over at Cas. He was lying there, letting the sun soak into him while several guinea pigs climbed over him, exploring. One had fallen asleep on his chest. Cas looked happy. Cas looked really, really happy. Apparently the trick to make Cas truly happy had been guinea pigs all along, even if the Empty had thought it was him.
"So, this is what you do here?"
"Yes. I like to come here after dealing with angels."
"Still the same old bullshit, huh." Cas smiled, amused.
"Something like that, yes. Jack is much better than Chuck at being God, but I prefer doing anything other than dealing with them. I tend to leave that to him," he paused. "I don't think he likes doing it either." Cas sounded fond, a little indulgent, like he was still teaching Jack about the world. Maybe he was.
"You're teaching him bad habits. Shouldn't you be setting an example, you know, joining the choir invisible? Finally learning to play the harp?" Dean laughed at his own joke, trying to imagine Cas wrangling with a harp, in long flowing white robes and a halo. He couldn't see it. Cas smiled again, probably more at Dean laughing than at the joke itself. He could live with that.
"I prefer animals and humans. If I use this vessel, the guinea pigs are comfortable with me." Dean let out a hum, sort of understanding what Cas meant. If humans couldn't cope with Cas' true form, guinea pigs probably didn't stand much of a chance either. A guinea pig scaled Dean, and as Dean helped it up, he recognized it.
"Oh, it's your favorite Dean."
"No, you're my favorite Dean." Cas didn't even open his eyes to say it, didn't open them even when Dean gently plopped the other Dean down onto Cas' chest.
"Jeez, thanks. Glad to hear I rank higher than a guinea pig." He knew it was special for Cas to bring him here. He wouldn't have offered to anyone else, allowed them to see his favorite escape from heavenly crap. It made him feel fond, made him ridiculously, stupidly mushy in a way that he would have taunted if someone else dared to act it out in front of him (okay, if Sam did). He propped himself up on his left elbow, leaned over to kiss Cas and finally got him to open his eyes again too. Even here, with the different colors of this dimension, they were the same electric blue he'd know anywhere. From the day he first saw Cas in his vessel, maybe even before that. He felt like he'd seen the same blue when Cas had pulled him out of hell without one.
Those blue eyes with as much love in them as his own. Maybe even more. Someone so ancient, so massive, even in a human body, and in love with him. It could have been frightening, but it wasn't. It was different, they were still different species even with how human Cas was now, but Dean understood what it was from where he could see it. He loved Cas, and Cas loved him. And he wanted to be loved. That was it.