Archive of Our Own

“Maine.”

“Yeah.”

“You want to go to Maine.” Sam closes his book with a heavy thump. “In the middle of December.”

“It’s for a case,” Dean says, but the words sound weak even to him. “Come on, it’ll do us good. We haven’t had anything in weeks.”

“Yeah, because there hasn’t been anything. Things are quiet, for once. I don’t know about you, Dean, but I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.” Sam starts to get up, starts to leave the war room, but Dean stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“C’mon, man. It’s just a hunt. In and out, salt and burn. Three days, tops.”

“There’s nothing there.”

“There could be. Newspapers say weird deaths. Cold spots.”

“It’s December, Dean. Maine is one big cold spot. And people die, okay? It’s, like, Yeti territory up there. That’s not our business.”

Dean lets his hands fall. “Really? I thought our business was saving lives, Sammy.”

The line works; Sam turns. “Dean-”

“Look, I just.” Dean swallows, looks away. He feels the Mark burning, burning hot against the inside of his arm, angry blood pumping in his veins. “I know I did some bad stuff. Now I have the chance to make up for it. Maybe it’s just a dusty old spirit in Lubec, Maine. But it’s what I have, okay?”

Sam takes a step forward, then stops. “We can call somebody else. Jody, or Garth. Tracy. You’re still-”

“If you say ‘still recovering,’ I’m gonna shove a Christmas tree up your-”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re all better. Version 2.0.” Sam sighs. He gives Dean a long, hard look, then sits back down. “Fine. But I’m calling Cas; you’ll need backup.”

“Wait, who said anything about- what?”

“Dude, it’s not like I can go.”

“Why not?”

“You do realize I have the flu, right?”

And okay, maybe Sam has been more sniffly than usual lately. But, “The flu?”

“Yeah. You know, fever, vomiting- you haven’t noticed any of that? I’m too sick to hold a gun, let alone go to Maine.”

He clenches his fists. “Okay. Fine. We’ll just, you know, wait until you’re feeling better. Case isn’t going anywhere.”

But now Sam has this strange scheming smile. “No, no, it’s okay, Dean. You’re right. I don’t want someone to die because I was too sick for a hunt, okay? I’m sure Cas is-”

“No!” Dean snaps, too quickly and he knows it. He sees Sam’s eyes flare. “I mean, it’s just that. He’s probably busy with that angel chick of his.”

“You don’t want to see him? But Dean, it’s the holidays. You’re supposed to spend time with the people who l-”

“Sam,” Dean says, and he prods a finger in his brother’s face, “I’m warning you.”

But Sam is springing to his feet, too spryly for an invalid, and tapping away on his phone. Dean scrambles for it, nearly tripping over a chair, but Sam moves away.

“Sammy,” Dean says, scrabbling around the table to catch him, “this isn’t funny.”

The phone is ringing now, Dean can hear it, empty ringing, and he thinks the only thing worse than Cas answering would be Cas not answering. Cas being too busy with that girl. Hannah.

He makes a pass for the phone, but Sam lifts it out of reach, and Dean ends up crashing into him instead. They grapple for the phone, but Dean gets the upper hand – literally – and wrenches the phone away. He hits end call just as he hears Cas pick up and say, “Sam?”

For a moment they stand there, panting and staring at each other, and then Sam snatches his phone back. “Dean. I’m gonna be serious for about fifteen seconds here, and I want you to be too.”

Dean purses his lips, but waits.

“Why are you so reluctant to take a road trip with Cas?”

“I’m not-” Dean stops. He imagines what it would be like, for a fleeting moment. To be on the road, just the two of them. These days, even when they stand in the same room there’s distance between them. Cas is dying, something Dean’s been trying really hard not to think about. And he still has the Mark, pressing like an infection into his mind, into his muscles. He and Cas aren’t – can’t be – anything. Their edges are too rough to meet.

Sam is looking at him with calculating eyes. “Dean,” he says, quietly, carefully.

He swallows. “I don’t- I can’t-”

“That’s a load of crap, Dean. And you wanted to go on this hunt.”

“Yeah, but Cas and me, we’re…” Sam is still staring at him and Dean flounders. He waves his hands aimlessly.

At that moment, the phone in Sam’s hands rings. He shoves it at Dean and says, “Answer it. Come on.”

Dean holds the buzzing phone, lets the vibrations run down his forearms. He stares dumbly at the glowing screen, at Cas’s name. Sam’s even put in photo ID, some dumb picture taken from the passenger seat of a car. The lighting’s bad and Cas is squinting and frowning, but it’s. Dean swallows. He hits the green accept button.

“Sam?” Cas’s voice is rougher than usual over the crackly phone line, and Dean feels his chest tighten.

“No, uh,” he says, “Dean. This is Dean.”

“Oh,” Cas says, and there’s a shift in his voice. “Hello, Dean. Did you just call me?”

“No. I mean, yes. Sam did. He, uh.” Dean imagines Cas sitting in a motel room, on the edge of a bed with an ugly floral spread. Waiting on the other side of a wavering phone line.

Maybe Hannah’s in the room too – that’s her name, right? Maybe there are two queens, or maybe just one king, and- crap, he can’t do this.

“Never mind,” Dean says. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam start. “It’s dumb.”

Sam pulls the phone from his hands, and he doesn’t even fight it. “Yeah, Cas? Hey, this is Sam now. Mhm. No, it’s fine, he’s just being an idiot. Yeah, he’s fine. He actually wants your help with something.”

“Sam,” Dean says, trying for threatening and coming out pitiful.

“Fine, okay, I want your help. See, Dean really stubbornly wants to go on this hunt in Maine, and he won’t shut up about it. But I’m sick. So I was thinking, well, maybe you could go with him. Serve as backup. Yeah. No, only for a couple of days. Hannah? She can stay here, I guess. I wouldn’t mind. Angels don’t get the flu, do they? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we’ll see you tomorrow morning. Thanks, Cas.” And then he’s dropping the phone on the table, sitting down with his book again, casual as ever. And Dean is standing there, staring at nothing, mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“There a problem, Dean?” Too innocent. What an asshole.

Dean grumbles something crude and goes to clean and prep the guns.

***

Cas appears on their doorstep the next morning, with one stiff and stubborn angel in tow.

“You remember Hannah,” he says.

Dean stares. And stares. “Yeah, I remember Hannah. From when she ordered you to kill me.”

“Circumstances change,” Hannah says, but she’s got steel in her eyes. She holds her chin high.

And what can Dean do? He takes them inside. He and Cas clomp down to the main level, heavy boots on hollow stairs. Hannah, however, hovers on the balcony level, hands on the railing.

“You can come in,” Dean says, though he doesn’t look at her. “We figure this is the best place for you to stay, just until Cas and I get back from Maine.”

She doesn’t move. Whatever suits her, Dean supposes, though they’ll be gone three days at the least and standing still gets boring after a while. Do angels get bored? God, he can’t remember – it’s been years since Cas was angel enough to behave like one.

He thinks about that for a bit. There’s something in Hannah, something in the way she holds herself, that reminds Dean of early-days Castiel.

They stop in the library. Dean’s got his bags packed, his guns checked. Sam is still fast asleep.

“Can we trust her?” Dean asks. “I mean, Sam’s not at his best and she’s- she’s an angel, Cas, she could-”

“We can trust her,” Cas says. “Don’t worry about Sam.”

Dean stuffs his hands in his pockets. Cas should know better than to say that. “Yeah,” he huffs. “Whatever. They’ll probably, I don’t know, bond over some old lore or something. Do research together. I bet she likes that kind of thing; she wears sweater vests.”

“Hannah is an excellent warrior. She’s best in battle, not in a library,” says Cas.

“Right.” Dean pauses. He looks Cas up and down. “You look good. I mean. It’s been a while. Haven’t seen you since, uh.” And no, they’re not going there.

Cas’s hands do this weird swinging thing, like they want to go somewhere but aren’t sure where. He says, “As do you. You look better.”

Dean laughs, kind of, but it rattles fake. “Yeah, well. Lost the black eyes.”

“You’re hunting again.”

“It helps,” he says. “With the- you know.”

Cas looks sad. He’s got more lines in his forehead than he used to. “I know,” he says. “You asked me here because you needed help on the hunt. Was that true?”

“Yes,” Dean says. “No. I don’t know. I could do it on my own. Sam thinks I shouldn’t.” I miss you, he almost says. Except, with Cas, it’s like Dean misses him more when he’s here.

“Hannah and I can go,” Cas offers, and shit, he’s really gonna make Dean ask for this.

He hates that about Cas. He hates that Cas pushes him, because lately he’s been feeling brittle. Like peanut brittle, maybe, the kind that Sam likes from that place in Vermont. Like he could snap.

He doesn’t want to hurt Cas. He thinks he could. It terrifies him. It wakes him up in the middle of the night, it drives at the back of thoughts. This, this thing, it isn’t just hurting Dean. He couldn’t care less about that. But it could hurt Sam, it could hurt Cas. They’ve done enough for him.

“I,” he says, and goes nowhere with it.

“Okay,” Cas says, picks up his duffel and his shotgun, and starts walking.

Dean stumbles to catch up. “Things are okay, in Heaven? I mean, me pulling you away, it won’t- it won’t mess things up, will it?”

“I haven’t been to Heaven in some time, Dean.”

Dean stops, only for half a beat, but he loses pace with Cas. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Cas says, and Dean sees his hand clench on the grip of the duffel, “I’ve been staying on Earth. Hannah and I are... on the road together. Like you and Sam.”

Dean doesn’t dare voice what he’s thinking. He waits.

“I don’t think I can go back,” Cas continues, “not permanently. Not after all that I’ve done in Heaven.”

“Right,” Dean says.

“But I don’t know that I’d want to, anyway.” Cas looks at him, long and hard. Dean pretends he is wearing armor, and Cas’s words are bouncing off like pebbles. He doesn’t want to think about what that could mean.

They’ve reached the main room now, and Christ, Hannah is still by the door. “I hope Sam can coax her down,” Dean says.

“She likes seeing things from up high,” Cas says. Was that a joke?

Dean shakes it off. Clears his throat. “We’re going now,” he says to Hannah. “Uh. Take care. Don’t kill my brother, don’t burn the Bunker down, and don’t. You know. Do anything stupid.”

Hannah tips her head to the side. “My intelligence quotient far exceeds yours, Dean Winchester. I don’t understand why you think I would ‘do anything stupid.’”

Dean swallows. Three days. Three days and the open road. Cas said they could trust Hannah.

Can Dean trust Cas? He thinks about it. He thinks about Cas standing in his bedroom, not too long ago, with those eyes and that smile.

Three days. It’ll be fine.

***

They get snowed in.

Day three and they wake up to two feet of snow and thick ice.

They’re in a bed-and-breakfast in a fishing town in southeastern Maine, for God’s sake. It turns out there was a case, but now the ghost is dead, bones burned, and Dean had been so ready to head out of town this morning.

Until.

Well, the bed-and-breakfast is a long story. The population of this town is, like, thirty people - not enough for a motel, but apparently enough for a vengeful spirit. Out of all the cases Dean could have picked…

Cas doesn’t seem that upset. He’s been taking coffee early with the owners of the place, which is, like, weird and disturbing, but none of Dean’s business. The ladies who run the bed-and-breakfast are about eighty years old, and they knit a lot. A lot. Like, Dean’s been here three days and he already has a new scarf. Two, actually. Cas didn’t want his, said something about it making his neck warm. Which is, like, the point of a scarf. Dean tried to explain that but-

Anyway. Not the point.

So they’re stuck in Nowhere, Maine, and Dean is stomping around the house with smoke coming out of his ears. Cas is sitting at the breakfast table with his hands around a mug, his eyes tracking Dean back and forth, back and forth. He doesn’t say anything. His mug says “World’s Greatest Dad” on it, which is of course ironic because they both had shitty dads, and his hair is ruffled up like he actually slept.

Which, Christ, maybe he did. Dean stops in his pacing, turns back to stare at Cas. “You’re sleeping again?”

Cas takes a sip of his coffee.

“And eating again.”

“Let’s have this conversation another time,” Cas says. “When you’re less angry.”

“I’m not angry,” Dean snaps.

“Dean.”

Fuck. Maybe it’s the Mark, maybe it’s just him. He can’t tell the difference anymore. “Okay. Fine. Rain check, but don’t think you’re getting out of this. Maybe I am angry, but I still care about-”

About. About. Dean’s brain stops working, rewinds two or three words. Gets caught like a busted cassette. “About your health,” he finishes. Throws his hands in the air and starts pacing again.

Cas gets up. “Gladys asked if I would help her with breakfast.”

“Gladys. You’re friends with someone named Gladys.”

“She’s very nice,” Cas says. “She told me aliens are real, and that all that, ah, ‘mumbo-jumbo’ in the Bible about angels is really talking about aliens. From outer space. Neptune, she said.”

Dean laughs, once. “So you’re telling me you’re not from Neptune?” He plays along because Cas wants to see him recovered and happy and put-back-together.

Except, the Mark.

Cas is good at distracting him. He really is. Once upon a time, that might’ve done the trick. But they’re stuck in a snowstorm in fucking Maine because Dean’s an idiot, and the reception is too spotty to call Sam, and Dean’s angry for no reason.

Cas gets up, folds his coffee mug into Dean’s hands. “It’ll help,” he promises. He leaves his hands on Dean’s for way too long, no mistaking it.

“Cas,” Dean says.

“I’m going to help Gladys with breakfast, and you’re going to drink the rest of my coffee and calm down. This is not the end of the world, and you know it.”

Dean drops his head to his chest.

“You can handle this, Dean. I know you can.”

This is it, Dean knows. This is why he didn’t want Cas to come along. Cas sees the best in him when all Dean wants to see is the worst.

Cas’s hands are still covering Dean’s. They’re warm, and rough, and not at all like an angel’s hands should be. Dean is worried about Cas too. God, that’s all they ever do, isn’t it? Worry about each other.

They don’t have time to be- to be something, whatever Sam thinks they should be. Happy, maybe. No, there’s no time for that. Cas has Heaven, and Dean has the Mark. They have to get back to their real lives.

“Wait until the snow melts,” Cas says, like he can still read Dean’s thoughts. Maybe he can. Maybe Dean should be worrying about that, too. “Dean, wait until the snow melts. We can’t go anywhere.”

“Sam-”

“Will be fine. So will you.”

Dean feels the Mark quieting, fading from a burn to an ache. “Go make breakfast,” he says. They take their hands back, and Cas moves away.

Dean stands at the window for a long time, sipping coffee and staring out at the bright white snow. It could be worse, he supposes. It could always be worse.

***

So, the bed-and-breakfast. It’s really something. Dean is used to ratty motels and microwaved tacos, but this is. This is different. The walls are painted light blue and the old ladies cook warm meals for all the guests and it feels like a home. The first three days, they’d been so busy with the case, leaving early and coming back late. The snow changes that. Now Dean wanders the house, looking through the books on the shelves. He does some paperwork at the kitchen table, research for Sam.

Good God. He’s so bored he’s doing research now. Maybe Cas was wrong, maybe the world really is ending.

The owners are named Gladys and Agatha and Doris and Ruth. No, seriously. Dean’s pretty sure this can’t be real life, this has to be an episode of the Golden Girls, or something. No way in hell he and Cas are sharing a snowy Christmas with four old ladies, a couple on their honeymoon, and a white-picket-fence family of four. It’s actually so awful. Sam will never let him live this down.

The cell towers are still out – apparently this is, like, the biggest snowstorm of the season. Agatha keeps worrying after her hellebores, which Dean thinks might be flowers. Whatever, they’re probably fine, flowers are resilient. But there is a lot of snow. Dean tried getting out the front door, just to get into town, but the door barely even budged. Calls to Sam aren’t going through.

But Cas. Cas just stays calm, unshakably so. He sits in their shared room and reads a paperback for the entire freaking day.

“Tom Sawyer,” Dean says. He stands in the doorway for a long moment. Rubs his hands together. Cas doesn’t look up from his book. “Uh. ‘S a good book. I was supposed to read it for class at this one school, but then Dad needed backup, and. Uh. You like it?”

“Yes,” says Cas. “Are you just going to stand there, or are you coming in?”

So Dean does. Sits down on his own bed, faces Cas in the armchair. These rooms have armchairs. Shit, they should stay in bed-and-breakfasts more often. “You know what other angel liked Tom Sawyer?”

“Clarence,” Cas says, “from It’s a Wonderful Life. I know. Metatron-”

“Right, right, the pop culture thing.” Dean waves Cas’s words away with a hand. “But then, you know how that book goes too.”

“I wanted to read it for myself. It’s different.”

“Sure, sure.” And Cas keeps reading his book, and Dean sits there in the awkward silence, not sure why he came in here in the first place.

“You’re bored.” Cas sighs, closes his book.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Dean says, too quickly. “I mean. Maybe a little. We were supposed to be done here.”

“Dean, Christmas is two days away. You could use a break,” Cas says.

Dean shakes his head. Sam said the same thing, but they’ve never been big on the holidays. Why start now? “What, and read paperbacks? Drink hot chocolate? Maybe I’ll find some tinsel and-”

“Dean,” Cas says.

He’s been mean lately, just plain mean. To Cas and to Sam and even to Hannah. Maybe it’s the Mark, but maybe he’s just getting old and grumpy. Yeah, he could see that, could see himself becoming the crazy old dude who yells at kids to get off the lawn.

Or. Or he could grow old like Gladys and Agatha and Doris and Ruth. He could worry over flowers. He could read paperback novels and knit scarves and, and.

He looks at Cas, at the battered Tom Sawyer in his hands. Cas is more like Clarence than he knows. Dean remembers watching the movie, on some crappy TV in some crappy motel one cold Christmas. Dear George: remember no man is a failure who has friends. Thanks for the wings. Love, Clarence.

“Fine,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

It can’t be that bad. He’ll call Sam, when the storm lets up, and tell him they’ll be stuck for a few more days. The ghost is dead, Sam is fine, and Cas is here. A couple of days can’t hurt. He rubs absently at the Mark.

Cas opens up his book again, but not before Dean says, “You don’t mind?”

“Hm?”

“That is, uh. You don’t mind being here, with me. For Christmas. That’s kind of a big event in Heaven, isn’t it?”

Cas laughs. Dean likes the sound. “I suppose. But as this will be my last one, I’d rather prefer to spend it here, with you.”

“Your last one? Cas, you don’t mean-”

“I have no intention to live on borrowed grace any longer, Dean. Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”

He knew. But knowing and accepting are two different things. “Stop. This is not gonna be your last Christmas. We’ll figure something out.”

“You keep saying that,” Cas says, and his smile is small and sad and no, no, Dean doesn’t like the look of that smile.

“Cas,” Dean says. “No. You’re not dying on me.”

“There’s little you can do to stop it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you said about the Apocalypse.”

Cas looks at him for a long moment, and then opens his book again.

Shit. Dean rubs his face with both hands. He feels helpless, like he’s trying to stop a car crash that’s already happened.

“No,” he says. “No. I’ve lost too many people, Cas. I won’t- I can’t- shit. Cas. If you go over the edge, I’m gonna. I’m gonna follow you over. You know that?”

Cas’s hand stills halfway through the turn of a page.

“If you want to save me, and God knows why you do, then you have to save yourself first. Okay?” Dean stares at his hands. There’s a sharp pain in his chest.

Cas doesn’t say anything, so he gets to his feet and stomps out. It’s easier than staying.

***

They see each other again at dinner, with the whole house. It’s the first time Dean’s had to interact with the other guests, and that’s not a good thing.

“So you’re the ones who keep going up and down the stairs in the middle of the night,” says one of the honeymooners – George, maybe? Dean didn’t really pay attention during introductions.

“Uh, yeah, that was probably us.” Dean rubs at his forehead. Hunting ghosts means keeping weird hours, but he’s not used to staying in a place where that matters. Motels are always loud. “Sorry.”

“You’re very elusive,” says the wife. Mary, that was her name. Late twenties, pretty. Shame she’s got that new wedding ring on. “George and I thought maybe you were recluses.”

“Just busy,” Cas says.

“Shame about the snow, then,” says George. “Guess you’re stuck with us, huh?” He laughs at his own words. God, Dean hates people who do that. He stabs at his pot roast with increased aggression.

“This is wonderful, Gladys,” Cas says.

“Thank you, Castiel. I used an old bottle of sherry for flavoring, you know.”

Dean can’t believe this is his life.

“We can all spend Christmas together,” says one of the other old ladies. “It’ll be wonderful. I make an excellent black forest ham.”

“No you don’t, Ruth. You burn it every year.”

Dean glares at Cas across the table, like it’s somehow his fault that this is so out of his comfort zone.

“What was your name again, young man?” asks the lady next to him. Doris, it must be. He’s sandwiched between her and one of the kids from the family of four. Kid’s probably about ten, and he keeps kicking his brother under the table.

“Uh, Dean.” He clears his throat.

“Dan! What a nice name.”

“No, it’s-”

“My first husband was named Dan, you know. My second was Harold, though, and that’s a much better name if you don’t mind my saying so.” And then she just keeps going, talking about her third, fourth, fifth, sixth husband. Dean sends Cas another look, but Cas is deep in conversation with Ruth and Gladys. What the fuck.

The ten-year-old rescues him. “Are you with the FBI? That’s what my mom says.”

“Tommy!” The mother snaps.

“It’s fine,” Dean says to her. He looks at Tommy. God, the kid looks like Sam. “Yes, yes I am. That there’s my partner, Cas.”

“That’s so cool. Do you get to carry a gun? Are you carrying one now?”

“Tommy,” the mother says, louder now. “That’s not appropriate dinner conversation. Now let the nice young man eat his food.”

Dean ignores her, because he so does not want to go back to a conversation with Doris. “I do have a gun, Tommy, though I don’t have it with me.” He shifts in his seat, feels the press of cold metal against his hip. So much for that.

“Do you get to catch bad guys?”

“Sometimes, yeah.”

“So why are you in Maine?”

“Uh,” Dean says, “that’s classified information.”

“That is so awesome.” Tommy gets on his knees on his chair and leans over the table to grab the salt. “When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”

Dean laughs. “Trust me, kid, you don’t.”

The mother’s moved on now to chastising her other son. Dean watches with fondness – which is weird, maybe, but he never got to be chastised by his mother for holding his fork the wrong way. Maybe, if things had been different, this would have been their life. He and Sam kicking each other under the table. Maybe Dad would have been a real businessman, like this father, checking his phone every other minute. Huh. Dean wonders what John would have been like if he’d carried a pager instead of a gun.

Cas catches his eye and smiles. They haven’t talked since earlier, and they’re across the table from one another now, but he thinks they’re okay.

And then Tommy says, “What’s that on your arm?”

Dean flinches away from Cas’s gaze. He follows Tommy’s, to the Mark. “Nothing,” he says, and rolls down his sleeve.

“Did you get burned?” Tommy asks. “That looks like it hurts.”

“It does.” The muscles in his shoulders tighten. Cas is still looking at him.

“Did a bad guy hurt you?”

“No,” Dean says. “It was my fault. I made a bad decision, that’s all.”

It feels like the whole table has eyes on him. He dares to glance back at Cas. Oh, God, he can’t do this.

“Excuse me,” he says, and gets to his feet. “Dinner was delicious, uh, Gladys.” He folds his napkin and pushes in his chair and bolts.

As he hits the stairs, he hears from the room behind him Cas’s voice, and then the scrape of another chair. He hurries up, into their room, and slams the door closed behind him. He sinks down to lean against it.

“Dean,” Cas says, knocks on the door. “Dean, let me in.”

“Gimme a minute,” Dean says into his hands.

There’s silence, long enough that he thinks maybe Cas went back downstairs. Then, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Dean clenches his right hand into a fist. The Mark is thrumming with energy. “Cas, I killed people. A lot of people.”

“I know.”

“I could have – I knew what I was getting into, with Cain.”

“Open the door, Dean.”

Cas is quiet and kind and so goddamned well-intentioned. Dean tips his head back against the door and sucks in deep breaths. He can’t do this anymore.

“Dean, please.”

“I didn’t want you to come on this hunt.” It trips out of his mouth, unexpected and unwanted.

“I know,” Cas says.

“Sam insisted.”

“I know that, too.”

“Do you care?”

“No. You need me here.”

“We can’t do this, Cas. You and me and Maine.” He digs his fingers into the Mark. “I could hurt you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Not when you’re dying. Cas, this isn’t the time.”

He hears, through the door, the sound of Cas slumping to the floor. Dean stares up at the ceiling, rests his elbows on his knees. This isn’t going anywhere.

“That kid, he said, he said.” He swallows. “He wanted to be like me. Jesus Christ, Cas. I’m a train wreck.”

It’s a long time before he opens the door. Cas stares at him, mouth pressed into a thin line. He gets to his feet and pushes past Dean into the room.

“After Christmas,” Cas says, “we’ll fix this.”

After Christmas. Dean tries to imagine it, he and Sam and Cas and Hannah all working together. Sam has his brain, and his optimism, and Cas has his dogged determination, and Hannah has the full force of Heaven at her back. Shit, maybe they could do this.

Cas strips off his coat, then his suit jacket. He toes off his shoes. Dean watches until it sinks in. “So you are sleeping now. You’re going to bed.”

“Yes,” Cas says. Dean nods mechanically.

The last few days, they’ve worked late and then crashed. Dean never noticed that Cas is- “Sleeping in that?”

Cas looks at him, then looks down at his snow white button-down and slacks. “This is all I have.” He turns his voice up at the end, like a question.

“Here.” Dean reaches into his own duffel and comes out with a balled-up t-shirt. “But if you’re sleeping now, and eating and everything, we could. If you wanted. Clothes, I mean, like you had when you were-” Human. Yeah, that.

They look at each other and the silence is flat and uncomfortable. Dean hands Cas the shirt, then stomps into the bathroom. He means to slam the door but he chickens out at the last second and closes it softly. He takes a long, hot shower. The heat turns his skin pink and raw, like the Mark on the inside of his arm.

Dean sees so much red these days, but Cas’s eyes are blue. That, at least, is a comfort.

When he comes back into the bedroom, Cas is pretending to be asleep, his breathing a little too even to convince Dean. But Dean appreciates the courtesy. He hovers, for just barely a moment, at the foot of Cas’s bed, then moves on. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. A day for being with the people who, the people who… The people who love him.

He thinks about that. He falls asleep thinking about that.

***

God, Dean can’t remember the last time he slept in. Maybe it’s this place, the sleepy snow and the sleepy town. When he wakes, he lies in bed for a long time staring at the ceiling. There’s this white morning light from the window and things are just… Nice. Dean’s mind is never this quiet. There’s always another hunt, another problem, another nightmare. But today, in this bed with the forget-me-not blue patchwork quilt, Dean feels strangely at peace. After everything last night, he could use a little peace.

He rolls onto his side, facing Cas. Dean could wake him, or he could. Not. Just let things be, just for a while.

He ends up falling back asleep like that, face turned towards Cas, mind sweet and empty.

When he wakes up again, it’s later, the light turned to a midday gold. He rubs at both eyes and rolls onto his back. Cas is sitting upright in his bed, scrolling on-

“Is that my phone?”

“Yes,” Cas says, without looking up.

Dean yawns. “What are you doing with my phone?” He reaches under his pillow to feel for the gun there. It’s just an old habit, a comfort, just to touch the metal with his fingers and know nothing’s changed.

“I have a circulation problem,” Cas says, “in my feet and my hands. They feel very cold. According to a website called WebMD, I have something called hypothyroidism. That can be a reason for poor circulation. It sounds very dangerous. Perhaps we should-”

“Dude, no. You don’t have a thyroid problem.”

“But-”

“Cas, come on, it’s early, my brain is still waking up, and you do not have a thyroid problem.”

Cas thinks about that for a bit. “Can angels even have, ah, thyroid problems?”

Dean laughs, a little. He sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “You’re fine. Cold hands, cold feet, that’s normal. It’s winter, and we’re in Maine. Sometimes it just happens, Cas.”

Cas looks at the phone, then sets it aside. “Humans are so strange.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“That website was not very helpful, Dean.”

Dean gets up and stretches his arms over his head. “I can’t believe you used WebMD. Everybody knows that site is bogus.”

“How does everybody know? Do they teach these things in school?”

“No, it’s just...” Dean looks at Cas, looks at his earnest expression, and just. He laughs. “Whatever, come on. There’s probably a woodfire downstairs, we’ll warm up your hands and feet.” As he digs through his duffel, he laughs again. Hypothyroidism. Jesus Christ.

There is in fact a woodfire in the living room. The family of four is already there, which makes Dean a little uncomfortable, but he slumps down in an open chair anyway. Cas brings him coffee.

“Oh, you’re the best,” Dean says, taking it with both hands. This is what it could be like, he thinks. If Cas had stayed human, had stayed in the Bunker. If they had, if they had.

No. That kind of thinking leads him places he doesn’t want to go. Can’t go.

Cas sits on the couch, as close to the fireplace as possible. The two kids are on the couch too, playing a game together on an iPad. God, whatever happened to old-fashioned books? Maybe Dean’s getting old.

Just because they’re snowed in doesn’t mean they can’t do work. Dean likes to follow up on completed cases, make sure the bodies stay buried and people they save stay safe. He brought some paperwork along on this case, so he spreads it out in front of him and starts going through it. He opens up his computer. Cas comes over, later, and starts leafing through some old police reports too.

When Dean looks up, he sees Tommy, the kid, watching. He’d positioned himself so none of the civvies could see over his shoulder, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. He winks, says, “The less glamorous side of the job.”

So they do paperwork until late in the afternoon. It’s kind of a nice day, a slow day. Dean’s gone through a lot of mood swings in the past few days, from distraught to optimistic, from angry to calm. Probably the Mark’s fault. It all feels disjointed, like his life is a jigsaw puzzle he can’t put together. He hates that he’s taking it out on Cas.

But today, today is okay. He works and he drinks coffee and even eggnog, he makes small talk with the civilians and he even smiles at Cas from time to time. The Mark stays dormant, hidden under long sleeves. It’s actually a pretty good Christmas Eve.

Around five, Agatha pops her head in and says, “One of you strapping young men, come help me with my garden.”

Dean looks at Cas. Cas looks at Dean.

“Fine,” Dean says, hands his computer over, and follows Agatha out. She bundles him up in mittens and scarves and heavy winter coats until he’s suffocating. Dean forces the door open and kicks some snow out of the way to clear a path for the octogenarian.

“You see,” Agatha says, and points to – holy shit, is that a greenhouse? “The snow is putting pressure on the roof. I can’t get up there to clear it off. It’s a sturdy thing, but I don’t want to take any risks with my flowers.”

A greenhouse in Maine. Dean shakes his head, remembers what Cas said this morning. Humans are strange. Strange, and wonderful. This is what he was fighting for, Dean decides. Old ladies with greenhouses in December.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “Do you have a ladder I can use?”

So he gets on a ladder and starts clearing snow, and Agatha stands at the base and does absolutely nothing useful.

Except she says, “You two are hunters, aren’t you?” and Dean nearly falls off the ladder.

“Uh,” he says, “I guess we shoot some wild game every now and again.”

“Don’t you lie to me, boy. I’ve been around for a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of things.”

He looks down at her. Her nut-brown eyes are sharp, too sharp for her age. “Fine,” he says, “we’re hunters.”

“Not FBI agents.”

“Not FBI agents.”

“You were stopping those disappearances?”

“Yeah. Vengeful spirit.”

“Good. You took care of it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Agatha nods. “You said your name was Dean, hmm. Are you Dean Winchester?”

This time, Dean does fall off the ladder.

“You’ve heard of me?”

“Boy, everyone’s heard of you.”

Dean gets to his feet, dusts snow off his legs to avoid her gaze. “And, uh, what have you heard?”

“That you’ve done a lot of good things, and some bad things. That you saved the world, more than once.”

“Uh.”

“Well, did you?”

“Uh.”

She stares at him until he stares back, and she’s a foot and a half shorter but damn if she doesn’t scare the hell out of him.

“I’m gonna finish the roof,” he says, and gets back on the ladder.

She says, “I got into wicca a few years ago. Mostly because of my flowers. Hellebores, you know, they’re good for summoning demons.”

“You don’t-”

“No, I don’t, I’m not that stupid. But the folks in this life, they gossip like old ladies.”

“Well, Agatha, I hate to break it to you, but you’re kind of an old lady yourself.”

“You keep working, young man,” she snaps.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Anyway,” she says, “I hear things. Rumors. Now, I don’t want to know what’s going on. I’m happy here with my flowers and my friends. But you’re not here to mess things up, are you?”

“No, no. We’ll be out of here as soon as the snow clears, I swear.”

Agatha nods, sternly. “Good. Now, listen, Gladys was thinking of making roast beef for Christmas dinner tomorrow, and she wants to know if you want in.”

“If I want- what?”

“Well, are you going to help her?”

“Uh,” Dean says, his brain working double-time to catch up with hers, “sure? But what does that have to do with-”

“I’ll tell her. She thinks you’re the bee’s knees, you know. We all do. Doris likes you especially.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s, uh, that’s very kind of you to say.” He reaches, swiping the last clumps of snow off the greenhouse. “All right. I think that’s the last of it. Do you need anything else?”

“Well, do you want to see my flowers?”

Dean goes back down the ladder. “Sorry, what?”

“You’ve done all that work, you probably want to see my flowers, huh?”

“Um, okay.” So he follows Agatha into her greenhouse. He almost hits his head on the doorframe, and then has to duck because of the low ceiling. Oh- oh, God, there are flowers everywhere.

He didn’t think all these things bloomed in December, but maybe Agatha is working some wiccan magic on them, because there are just all these colors. Reds and indigos, canary yellow and tangerine orange. Pale, pale green. Tiny flowers with light pink petals and rich, pungent red roses. Ivy on the walls and morning glories on the windows. Boxes bursting with buttercups. Holy shit.

The greenhouse is small, but overwhelming, and for a long time all Dean can do is stare. Agatha waters a few flowers, weeds a few others. She takes the head of a rose between her fingers and says, “You see these roses? Thornless. The lore says thornless roses mean ‘love at first sight.’ Beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Y- yeah,” Dean says.

She nods. “All right, that’s enough for today. Don’t want to track too much snow in here. Your man is probably missing you, anyway.”

“He’s not my-”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up.” Agatha swats him on her way by. She takes his mittens and scarves and winter coats back when they go inside, and Dean rejoins the others in the living room.

Cas looks up at him. “Your nose is very pink,” he says. Then, without missing a beat, “I think I found something from that vampire nest you and Sam cleared out last month,” and there they go, back to work.

***

Dinner is a little weird again. Ruth keeps forgetting Cas’s name and calling him Josiah. Nobody can find the salad dressing. The family of four is loud and too friendly. And Agatha keeps giving Dean knowing looks when he steals food off Cas’s plate.

Also, Christmas. Is like, tomorrow. George and Mary went trekking out in the snow to find a Christmas tree. Dean isn’t really in a celebratory mood, but he’s agreed to do Christmas dinner.

The businessman father – Harry, that’s his name, Dean finally figured it out (by asking Cas) – starts talking about his family’s Jewish traditions, and how they choose to celebrate a modest Christmas, and he hopes the rest of them will understand. Yeah, Dean understands, that’s great, that’s how he likes it.

Then Cas and Harry get into this in-depth conversation about something called a Talmud? Dean can’t really follow it, but Harry and his wife Annie seem really excited about whatever Cas is saying. The conversation goes for a long time, so Dean helps Gladys and George out with the dishes in the meantime. Then George mentions something about the cell towers going back up, and Dean more or less runs for his phone.

Three rings, and then a tired, sick, “Hello?”

“Sam? That’s you?”

“Yeah, Dean, what’s up?”

“You’re okay, right? Hannah’s not-”

“We’re fine. Cas?”

“Fine, he’s fine. I meant to call sooner, but the cell towers were down because of the-”

“Snowstorm, I know.”

“You know?”

“I read the news, Dean. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. Cool.” Dean’s back in the bedroom now, pacing between the beds. “So there was a case, by the way. Vengeful spirit. Small fry.”

“Awesome. And the snow, is it gonna let up?”

“Yeah, they’re saying tomorrow or the next day. I’ll let you know when we’re headed back.”

“Cas isn’t worried?”

“Doesn’t seem like it. Actually, he seems kind of- content.”

There’s a pause, like Sam is deciding if he should say something. Unfortunately, he decides to. “Dean. Are things okay between you and Cas? I know I kind of forced this, but-”

“It’s fine, Sammy. Peachy.”

“Dean-”

“We’re fine.”

Another pause. “Okay. Sure. Hannah and I were talking about it, you know.”

There’s a sudden pressure on his chest, like an anvil or something. “Right. Hannah, because she and Cas. They.” He’d forgotten about that, for three good days. He and Cas were busy holding coffee cups together and talking about thyroid problems and, and, and Dean forgot about Hannah. Forgot about the “road trip” they’re on, like that’s some kind of euphemism for-

“Dude,” Sam says, “you know they’re not together, right?”

“Um. What?” Dean’s thoughts stop in their tracks.

“Angels, they’re like brother and sister, right? Not literally, but- you do know that, right?”

“Sure,” Dean says, “I knew that. Yeah.”

“Oh my God,” Sam says. “You thought they were- and that’s why you- oh my God, Dean, you’re such an idiot-”

So that’s when Dean hangs up.

Cas comes up a little bit later. He’s wearing Dean’s clothes today too, one of Dean’s flannels rolled up to the elbows. Oh, God. Dean is so, so screwed.

“Hey,” he says, trying so hard to sound casual.

“I think we should go to midnight mass,” Cas says.

“Um- what?”

“Apparently the town has a large Catholic population. Ruth and Gladys are going. I thought we might go with.”

Dean’s still scatterbrained from the conversation with Sam, so it takes a while before he realizes Cas is expecting an answer. “Oh. Oh, yeah, uh. Okay.”

“Okay.” Cas is still looking at Dean like he’s being unpredictable. Which he has been, this whole week. Maybe he should say sorry or something.

He blinks a couple of times. “So, midnight. Cool. I’m gonna do some more work, then.”

“The phone lines are up again, by the way.”

“Yeah. I know, I called Sam.”

Cas nods. “He’s well?”

“Still sick, by the sound of it. But yeah. And Hannah’s good too.”

“I should call her.” Cas rummages for his phone, one of those old Nokia things from, like, 2001. He squints at the screen and God, that’s so adorable.

Cas talks to Hannah for a while, and Dean pretends not to listen. Cas was right, about that vampire nest case. Someone’s still dropping bodies. Dean’s the best there is at what he does, and maybe what he does best isn’t very nice, but he takes pride in it. He finishes cases. He saves people. He doesn’t let shit like this slide by.

He calls Garth to let him know, because the problem’s in Utah and they’re in Maine. The sooner Garth can get a hunter on the case, the better. By the time he hangs up, Cas is off the phone too. They stare at each other for a minute, phones in hand, Dean sitting on the edge of his bed and Cas standing by the door. Cas sighs, and the tension goes out of his shoulders.

“Hannah okay?”

“Yeah. She and Sam are… getting along. I talked to him briefly, too. He says she’s very knowledgeable.”

“S’good. I,” Dean says, thinks over his words, “I like her. Besides the time she tried to kill me. I mean, I think. I think she’s good for you, and for Heaven.” He laughs. “To be honest, she was right. About me being dangerous. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Cas smiles this tired little smile. “She’s strong. And good, and honorable. Everything an angel should be.” He sits down on his own bed, facing Dean. “Naomi once said I had a crack in my chassis, and she was right. I’m not meant to be a leader. But Hannah is.”

Dean rubs his hands on the knees of his jeans. “If she goes back to Heaven, to lead things, will you- I mean, will you follow too? I know what you said about Heaven before.”

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like the place for me anymore.”

Dean feels his heart beat a little faster, and he’s not sure he can say this, not sure he can deal with the answer. “So where is your place, then?”

“Here,” Cas says, and he doesn’t elaborate.

The room feels stifling, suddenly, and Dean’s face is too warm. He gets up. “Let’s go back downstairs.” Downstairs is safe, downstairs has people. And it’s almost midnight.

They leave for mass at eleven, Dean and Cas and Ruth and Gladys. The snow has melted somewhat, but the ice is still bad, so Ruth and Gladys insist on taking Dean’s arms and using him as support.

So they’re talking and Dean is listening and Cas is sort of trudging a few steps behind. About halfway into the conversation, Gladys says something about “our wedding” and hang on, are these two married? Oh, that would make a lot of sense. Dean noticed they were holding hands at dinner. Huh.

He likes them, both of them. Actually, all four of the women have grown on him, even Doris with her six husbands. His experience with grandmothers has been generally negative (see: Grandma Campbell getting her neck snapped by the Yellow-Eyed Demon), so this is kind of cool. And they’re not the worst Christmas Eve company.

Despite the dark and the snow, they make it to the church on time. Ruth and Gladys sit together, and Dean and Cas sit together. Dean fumbles with the prayers and zones out during the lessons, but overall it’s not so bad. When they sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” Dean looks at Cas and just laughs and laughs.

“I’m not a herald,” Cas says, “I’m a seraph. I don’t sing.” Except he sings along to all the Christmas carols, even the obscure ones.

“Did Metatron give you Christmas carol lyrics too?” Dean asks, grinning like a fool.

There’s something really great about this, about Cas in a church. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s incognito; the priest keeps talking about angels without realizing that there’s one among the crowd.

Even Dean sings along to Silent Night. They do this candle-lighting thing, and he thinks of his mother.

At the end of the mass, Gladys and Ruth insist on mingling with their church friends. “You can find your way back, can’t you?” Gladys says.

“You’re sure? It’s dark out there, and you and Ruth-”

“Oh, we can take care of ourselves. You two go on home and get some rest. Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, “Merry Christmas.”

“Thank you for the invitation,” Cas says, all formal-like.

“Thank you for coming, Josiah,” says Ruth, and that’s it, they’re leaving.

Shit, it’s cold outside. Dean turns up the lapels of his wool coat – usually something he reserves to go with FBI suits, but in this weather he makes exceptions. Cas is wearing mittens, hand-knitted by the looks of them.

“Doris’s fault,” he explains, picking at a loose piece of yarn. The snow’s started again, tiny white flakes falling from a black sky. They catch on his eyelashes and melt on his lips.

They walk in silence, mostly, leaving tracks in the snow together. Dean makes a joke about snow angels at one point. It’s easy. He’s feeling weirdly optimistic about this Christmas. It’s almost the new year. The new year, as blank and perfect as the snow stretching out in front of them. Dean’s glad he’s trudging through it with Cas at his side.

And then he does something stupid. He stops, puts a hand on Cas’s chest. Faces him head-on. There’s impulsive blood running in Dean’s veins now. “I’m gonna kiss you,” he says. “Is that okay?”

Cas squints at him. “Yes?”

So Dean puts his hands on Cas’s face and leans in and kisses him. Curls his fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, brings him a little closer. Cas’s mouth is warm and giving and tastes like communion wine. It’s a little clumsy, and Dean feels a little weird kissing his best friend. But there’s also something that feels right about it, something that feels like finally.

Maybe Dean isn’t supposed to be the one to put together his jigsaw-puzzle life. Maybe that’s what Cas is for.

He breaks away to catch his breath, lets his hands fall to rest on Cas’s shoulders. Cas tugs at his lapel.

“So,” Cas says.

“So.” Dean laughs, feeling a little dizzy. He knocks his forehead against Cas’s shoulder. “Um. Was that okay?”

“It was passable, Dean,” Cas says dryly. Dean just laughs some more, because he laughs when he’s happy, and kisses Cas again. Shorter, this time, and sweeter. “Come on,” Cas says. “Let’s go back.”

They keep walking. Dean leaves distance between them, stuffs his hands into his pockets so he doesn’t have to, like, hold Cas’s hand or something. The air between them feels a little uncomfortable, a little timid. Like, that happened and they’re both okay with it but don’t know what to do with that.

Except, when they get back to the room and Dean takes off his coat and shoes, Cas touches him lightly on the shoulder. He says, “Hey. Do you want to-”

Dean looks at Cas’s bed, and swallows. “Yeah. Yeah.”

They’ve done this before. Twice. During the Apocalypse, both times, when everything was going to hell (except Dean, because he’d already been). It had been gritty and needy both times. But they never-

The second time, Dean said something. He doesn’t remember what it was, which is awful, because God, it was probably important. He’s supposed to remember the thing he said that made it fall apart. It was just starting, God. Two times. And then Dean said something dumb and Cas. Cas looked at him like he was a disappointment, or something. Shit. Dean can’t do this, there’s a reason this can’t happen.

Isn’t there?

Funny, because he can’t remember what that is either.

***

In the morning Dean wakes up with his face pressed into Cas’s shoulder, with his hands in Cas’s hands. No, that can’t be right, he doesn’t do the hand-holding thing. He presses his eyes closed until he sees spots, then blinks them clear.

Cas is still asleep. Dean takes his hands back and rolls away, out of the bed. He grabs his clothes off the floor and goes to take a shower.

Oh, oh God. This is bad. This is really bad. Dean’s fucking up. God, this whole Maine thing was a bad idea from the start. Fuck Sam and fuck the flu and fuck, fuck, fuck, Dean is so fucked.

(Well, yeah.)

He puts his hands on either side of the sink and stares at his reflection. Thirty-five-year-old men do not have these kind of crises. Sexuality crises, or whatever. They don’t just go kissing their friends on the way home from midnight mass, just because. That’s not Dean. That’s something out of, like, the musical about their lives. Or, god forbid, fanfiction.

Of course, having feelings for Cas isn’t new. Ugh, Dean hates that word. Feelings. It sounds like something Doris or Ruth would say, but Dean doesn’t know what else to call it.

No, that’s bullshit, he knows exactly what to call it, but he’s too scared to.

Dean can deal with that, though. He can put it away in a drawer in his mind, like everything else that scares him. He’s dealt with it just fine for the last five years. He compartmentalizes. He does his job, he works with Cas, and they sleep in separate beds. This, them, it can’t happen again. They have more important things to focus on than Dean’s happiness.

So it’s settled, then. Dean goes back into the main room. Cas is awake now, blinking sleepily up at him, and shit, there goes Dean’s conviction.

“Dean?” Cas asks, and rubs at his face. “What time is it?”

“Ten,” Dean says, and stares at a fixed point on the wall. “You should put on some clothes, Cas.”

“Do you have a problem with my current state of undress?”

Dean stares at the wall and says nothing. There’s a tangible shift in the atmosphere, and Cas sits up.

“Oh,” he says. That’s all he says.

“I’m going to put on some coffee,” Dean says, “and then we should finish up the work from yesterday.” He caves, then, and takes a quick glance back at Cas. Cas is staring at his hands and being very quiet. Dean thinks about bashing his head open on the bedframe. That would be a pleasant alternative to this conversation.

Instead, he leaves the room. Quickly.

It’s bad. It’s really bad. Breakfast is painful. Cas says he’s going to walk into town, alone. Agatha stares at Dean with her shrewd eyes. Ruth and Gladys bicker about the consumerism of the holiday season, except Ruth’s sentences trail off about halfway through, and it’s just. Awful. All of it.

Dean clenches the handle of his butter knife. The Mark is an angry red today, and his whole body feels tense. Cas is upset and that makes Dean upset but he made this decision, he has to stick by it. It’ll be better for both of them.

Agatha pulls him aside after breakfast and says, “Dammit, boy, are you making a stupid decision again?” Of course she knows, of course. Are wiccans psychic too, or something?

“It’s not stupid,” he says. “I’m trying to-”

“Protect him? Pardon my French, but that’s bullshit enough to fertilize a farm.” She looks at him for a long time. “You may have done bad things, Dean Winchester, but so have I. And I have a lot more life experience than you, so you listen to me. Pushing people away will only make things worse.”

“Agatha, it’s not that easy.”

She holds up her hands. “I know. I know there are things going on that I don’t understand. You’re dealing with one of the bad things, I think. But there is one thing I understand. Castiel cares for you. Let him.”

And then she slaps him upside the head and stalks off, and did Dean really just get a talking-to from an eighty-year-old wiccan?

He goes up to the room. The bed is still unmade, still with two impressions in the mattress. Oh, God, this is twenty kinds of fucked-up.

He thinks about calling Sam, but. Well, it’s dumb, but Dean needs to figure this out on his own. It’s important that he figure this out on his own.

He sits on his own bed and rubs his hands together. Tom Sawyer is on Dean’s bedside table, not Cas’s. He picks it up, opening to where Cas left off. He’s using a sprig of some plant as a bookmark, probably one of Agatha’s. Dean twirls it in his fingers and puts it back.

And then. Opens the book again, and takes out the sprig, and stares at it. Holy shit.

He more or less sprints to the greenhouse, where he finds Agatha. He shoves the flower in her face.

“This thing, what is it?”

She takes it from him, raises an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”

“Dammit, Agatha, just-”

“It’s an arbutus.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What does it mean?”

She smiles then, soft and fond. “It means, ‘You are the only one I love.’”

No.

“Shit,” Dean says. “Shit.” There’s this thing called fucking up. Dean’s just done it.

“You know,” Agatha says, “sometimes mistakes aren’t irreparable.”

Dean and Cas have fixed a lot of mistakes over the years. But there’s one mistake Dean never thought to fix, from five years ago. He’s been too goddamned scared to try.

He doesn’t know what made him kiss Cas last night. After all this time, what made him take that chance. But he can’t change his mind once he’s jumped off the cliff. God, he just has to fall. He can be scared, he can be stubborn, but he can’t change his mind.

“Agatha,” Dean says. “I need a favor.”

***

He runs into Cas halfway between the bed-and-breakfast and town. Cas has a bag of groceries in his hands, and Dean has a bundle of flowers in his.

“Um,” Dean says.

“Dean.” Cas looks a little surprised, but mostly just closed-off.

“So, I’m an idiot.”

For maybe a splinter of a second, Cas’s face betrays something. He nods to the flowers in Dean’s hand. “Are those for me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I. They’re for you.” And then he tries to give them to Cas, except Cas is holding shopping bags, so it’s just kind of awkward for both of them.

“You don’t get to treat me that way,” Cas says.

“I know. I know, shit, I know. You deserve better than me.”

“No, that’s not what I said.” Cas sets down the groceries.

“I’m really fucking scared,” Dean says. “I’m scared I’ll say something stupid like, like last time. That you’ll be disappointed again and I’ll feel like shit and we’ll go another four years not talking about it, and I can’t, Cas, I can’t do that again.”

Cas stares at him for a while.

“You’re dying and I’ve got the Mark, so this doesn’t have much of a lifespan anyway. But I’m not gonna push you away, because you make things good, and dammit, Cas. Dammit.” He rubs at his forehead. “These flowers. Agatha helped me with them, and they- okay. So. This one’s ambrosia.” He holds it out, and Cas reluctantly takes it. “It means, it means ‘love is reciprocated.’” Even though he’s a fucking coward, he manages to hold Cas’s gaze. Cas has something different in his eyes now. “And then this one, this is a rainflower. Which means the same thing as the ambrosia sometimes, but it also means ‘I must atone for my sins.’ Which is. You know. Appropriate.” He huffs a laugh, and maybe he’s imagining it but Cas might be smiling too now. “This is boxweed, which is for constancy, and this is a star of Bethlehem, which is for reconciliation. Okay?”

“Okay,” Cas says, and yeah, that’s definitely a smile.

“And, I mean, you recognize these ones. Yellow roses. Agatha said they meant friendship or joy or something, but Wikipedia said – and I quote – ‘Friendship, jealousy, infidelity, apology, a broken heart, intense emotion, undying love, extreme betrayal.’ I thought that was kind of fitting for you and me.”

Cas laughs at that, for a long time. Dean is just happy to see him happy. Cas takes the yellow roses and presses his nose into them.

“Okay, last one,” Dean says. “White clover. It’s not very pretty, I know. Actually, it’s a weed. But it means ‘I promise.’” He holds it out, an offer.

Cas looks up from his roses, looks from the clover to Dean.

“So,” Dean says. “You know. Can we make up and go inside now? Because I can’t really feel my fingers, and-”

-And then Cas is kissing him, the flowers crushed somewhere in-between. “It’s true,” Cas says, when he pulls away, “you’re going to say stupid things. There’s no getting around that. You’re a stupid, stubborn, self-sacrificing son-of-a-bitch, and I hate you for it.”

“Thanks, Cas, tell me how you really feel.”

Cas laughs and bends down to pick up the groceries. “Come on. The snow’s almost clear, and it’s Christmas, and you have a roast beef to help with. Let’s go inside.”

“But that’s- I mean, you want to-”

“Yes, Dean, of course I want to be with you. I love you, and you know that. Now come on.”

So they walk side-by-side back to the bed-and-breakfast. Dean thinks, if Cas weren’t holding bags, that he might try to hold Cas’s hand. Or something. He’s been making a lot of stupid decisions lately; one more couldn’t hurt.

Cas takes his sweet time unloading the groceries, and Dean just hovers in his space.

“Can we, I mean, can we go upstairs?”

“Hang on,” Cas says, “I need to find a vase for your flowers.”

“Your flowers.”

“Sure.” So Cas rummages around and Dean stuffs his hands in his pockets, except wait, he already has something in his pockets.

“Oh yeah,” Dean says, “I forgot. Agatha gave me some seeds, too. So if you wanted to, I mean, if you wanted to plant some flowers at the Bunker, that would be cool. I guess. It’d give you a reason to come back, at least.”

“Oh, Dean,” Cas says. He sets down the vase and comes over. He stands on his tiptoes to press his lips to Dean’s forehead. “I already have a reason to come back.”

.