Chapter Text
Dean lies on his side and hopes he doesn’t dream. The hunt had been no more exhausting than usual, but Cas had been pinned down at one point. His blade had fallen out of his hand, and he’d looked over at Dean for help.
Dean had helped him, of course. Killed the wolf, shoved its corpse off of Cas. He’d pulled Cas up by the waist, supporting him with an arm while Sam finished checking the house. He’d left his arm there even as Sam motioned for them to leave and Cas told Dean that he was fine.
Cas was probably lying down in one of the bunker’s spare rooms already. His powers had been sort of in and out, so he’d been crashing in the guest room for a few days. Maybe sleeping. Dean wasn’t sure if he did that now.
Dean leaves a light on and turns over in his bed so he’s facing the door before he shuts his eyes. It’s not going to be an easy night. It never is, not after a hunt where someone almost got hurt.
The dream is worse than he’d expected. Cas, held down again, making the same desperate eye contact with Dean. Cas's attacker warps, from the wolf to Lucifer to Dean himself, Cain’s mark blistering on his arm. Dean tries to force himself to look away or wake up. He yells for help.
“Hello,” Cas’s voice says, and it’s not the Cas on the floor. His voice is cutting through the dream. From somewhere else. Another dream, maybe. It sounds like it’s over a loudspeaker. Dean looks around but can’t see him. “Dean, can I help you?”
“Yes,” Dean blurts out, and he blinks his eyes. Whatever part of his subconscious is offering him assistance, it’s worth a shot. He’s still in a dream when he opens them, a different one, where he’s back in his own memory foam bed. Cas is standing next to him, perfectly safe.
“Hi,” Dean says cautiously, waiting for any sign of this dream going south too. Of Cas falling away behind a Purgatory portal or a ring of fire. “What are you doing here?”
Cas tilts his head, and Dean remembers. No point in asking why in a dream. He should just take what he can get. If his subconscious decided it was going to show him this instead of Cas dying, he won’t complain. Cas just lies down next to him on the bed, over the blankets.
If it was real, Dean would crack a joke about their closeness and roll the other way. It’s not. It’s a dream, and Dean reminds himself of that before he turns to the side so he’s curled around Cas. Their bodies are still separated by the covers, so it’s deniable. Maybe he won’t even remember it when he wakes up.
“Don’t say anything, dude. I just want to sleep,” Dean tells him, and wraps an arm around Cas’s front. It’s difficult, through the blanket, but he manages by basically dragging Cas into the tangle of the covers. Cas doesn’t move, just lets him. He can’t imagine doing this in real life, but he doesn’t have to. This is just – something to stop the nightmares for as long as he can make it last.
“Of course.” Dean feels Cas’s voice rumble as much as he hears it. He’s staring right at the back of Cas’s head.
Dean isn’t entirely sure what to make of it, of the sensation of his body comfortably wrapped around his friend’s. It’s warm, mostly. He can hear Cas breathe. His face is pressed into Cas’s hair. He can smell the cheap shampoo Cas had been using. It’s making his hair dry. Dean didn’t know people could have dry hair in dreams.
Dean breathes in, and he does sleep well, even in the dream.
—
Dean doesn’t remember any dreams after that when he wakes. He rubs his eyes and tries to hold on to the memory of the second half of the dream. Not the part where Cas had been hurt. The part where Dean had been relaxed, for once in his life. Like always, details of the dream fade away pretty quickly. He thinks Cas had been in the dream, but he doesn’t remember anything else about it. He’s usually grateful to forget.
This time is different. This time he wishes he could have any idea how he slept through the night. For more than his usual four hours, too. He’d made it almost seven.
Sam and Cas are already set up at the table by the time Dean forces himself out of bed. Sam is chowing down on some kind of breakfast sandwich. Cas is sitting across from him, staring into space over a mug of coffee. He looks tired, though, like Sam had dragged him out of bed. He has an empty plate with a smear of sauce, so Dean knows he’s at least been eating something. Both are already dressed.
“Heya, Cas, Sam.” Dean looks between them. “We have somewhere to go?”
“Yes,” Sam says. “We’re getting Cas set up with stuff for his own room today.” He stares at Dean, almost challenging. Dean avoids eye contact and goes to get coffee.
“Oh,” Dean could certainly think of ways to be an asshole about this. He decides to be only slightly petty. “He’ll be moving his two whole outfits out of my closet?”
“Yes,” Cas doesn’t sound enthusiastic. He blinks and sort of yawns, like he’s trying to stop himself. “I’ve already picked out the room.”
“Oh,” Dean says again, just a little peeved at the thought of Cas’s old work vest not being in his closet anymore. But, no. This is good. It means Cas is staying, establishing a permanent residence with them. He wishes Cas would be more excited about it. Maybe he’s just tired.
Sam shrugs. “Figured it’s about time he gets his own bed. We can’t just leave him on a spare mattress every time he gets hurt or low on grace.”
“You can,” Cas says. “I don’t need-”
He doesn’t want to move in. Dean brushes past that.
“You going to pick out wallpaper?” Dean asks. He thinks of a motel they’d stayed at once that got HGTV. They’d made it look easy. He starts in on a bowl of sugary cereal that he’d gotten when Sam wasn’t looking.
“Wallpaper?” Cas looks puzzled. “I don’t have to decorate it.”
“Well, you know, it’s a bunker. Not exactly Property Brothers worthy as it is,” Dean tells him. Cas blinks at him and tilts his head. “We could get some, uh, nice light fixtures in there. One of those, like, storage carts.”
“Dean, you mostly just put up a bunch of guns on your wall,” Sam points out.
“A rug,” Dean continues, ignoring his brother and looking at Cas over his spoon. “Do you want a rug? How about a bean bag chair?”
“It won’t be my permanent dwelling,” Cas says. He stands up and takes his plate to the sink. “Just for recovery and research. I don’t need… amenities.”
That stings. Dean shrugs it off. “You sure you don’t want to put up some fake vines? A corkboard for all your vacation photos?”
“I’ve never had a vacation,” Cas tells him, and Dean knows that. He can’t imagine the angels were big on paid time off. And Cas has never been around Sam and Dean during a good time where they weren’t all fighting for their lives. Sam glares at Dean.
“Maybe one of these days,” Dean says. “You ever been kayaking?” He directs the question at Cas.
“I think you can guess that I have not,” Cas tells him, and yeah, Dean kind of figured. But Dean wasn’t asking him a question as much as giving him a proposition, one that he knew Cas wouldn’t go for and tried anyway.
“Huh. I’ll take you next time.” Dean neglects to mention that he’s never been kayaking either. It would be nice, though. Real time off. Not necessarily the actual physical labor. But just getting to exist with Cas without an urgent threat to their existence. He’d like that.
Cas stands up, puts his plate on the counter without saying anything. He sits back down. Dean’s the only one still eating.
“And we can head to the store whenever you’re ready,” Sam tells him.
Dean takes longer than he has to when he changes out of the dead guy robe, just to spite Sam. Cas goes out to the car first.
Dean looks at Sam across the kitchen. “You told him to move in?”
“Yes, because he’s always getting hurt. Besides, his powers are pretty weakened right now. And it might be permanent. And he leaves his research on the kitchen table anyway. This place is huge, Dean. You might not even run into him. He picked a room pretty far away from ours.”
Dean feels his face shift into a frown. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know. Ask him, not me. We’ve saved enough on motels since we’ve been living here that I thought it wouldn’t be an issue for him to get some new things.”
“It’s not an issue,” Dean tells him truthfully, and it’s not. Cas deserves a permanent place with them. Dean just doesn’t know if he’s actually going to stay or if he’ll take off again as soon as he gets his powers back or a better offer.
“So we can go pick out stuff for him? And you’re going to be nice and make it clear that he’s welcome here?”
"Yeah, sure,” Dean says, like he’s not entirely desperate for Cas to stay in the bunker. Where Dean can watch him, make sure he doesn’t get hurt. Try to get him to sit through western movies as often as Cas can get away from whatever he’s usually off doing. "You want me to go along?”
“Do you have something better to do?” Sam asks, challenging him.
Dean could think of something else to do. If he tried, he could probably think of many things to do. Cas would buy most of them as excuses, if he told him. Sam wouldn’t.
“No. And I’m not letting you come back with any ugly-ass rugs. I’ll be in the car in five. I’m driving.”
Dean exiles Sam to the backseat, saying that Cas is the special passenger for the day, since they’re shopping for him. Sam glares as he smacks his head on the roof. Dean doesn’t think Sam should be complaining, because he did tell Dean to make Cas feel welcome.
Cas doesn’t seem to care very much about the promotion to the front seat. He looks out the window for most of the ride, which he usually does in the backseat anyway. He doesn’t complain about the music or Dean’s driving, though, so that’s an improvement. Dean looks over at him every few seconds of the drive.
Dean parks. He’s never really been furniture shopping before. He’d been so excited to move into the bunker and get his own room, but he’d never actually thought about a full remodel, even though the place is 50 years out of date.
But this trip is about Cas. Dean turns away from the kitchen cabinet organizers and drags the other two into the bedding section. Sam wanted to take more time, look at everything. Dean pulls him along.
Cas, as it turns out, does not have many opinions on bedding. Sam’s only opinion is that it has to be easy to clean blood out of. Usually, Dean would be the one insisting on that. But it’s Cas. He deserves better than the minimum. Especially if it might keep him from leaving if he gets his powers back all the way.
Dean vetoes Sam’s suggestion of red, saying they’d need to at least be able to tell if Cas was bleeding, and promptly picks out a tan set that looks like it wouldn’t even fit in their washing machine.
“It’s like a scaled-up version of his jacket,” he argues, and puts it into the cart over Sam’s objections. “It’ll be, you know, comforting,” and Sam eventually sighs and stops trying to take it out. Dean also grabs a lamp. Cas had seemed particularly enamored with the animal face printed on it and how it changes colors.
“Do you want a mirror for your room?” Dean asks, looking into a mirror, and then looking away quickly so he’s not seeing his own face for too long.
Cas stares into it too, then pats down his hair. “Do you think I need a mirror?”
“Uh, no. You – you look fine,” Dean says. And it’s true. Cas looks the same pretty much every day, but it’s a reliable look that’s worked for him so far with no bedroom mirror.
Dean uses a fake card. They shouldn’t need to return, and they’re far enough away from the bunker that they’re unlikely to be recognized. Cas picks up a copy of a coupon for the store on his way out.
“Coupons, huh?” Dean says. “That’s how they get you on their damn email lists.”
Dean’s questioning his use of the fake card. Maybe Cas will want to come back after all.
Cas looks over the coupon. “I don’t need a discount on… patio furniture.”
He just reads the fine print on the coupon on the drive home, still in his front seat promoted position.
The three of them carry everything into the main room. Cas carefully sets the otter light on the table, moving pages of Enochian translations out of the way. Dean dumps the bag on the floor.
“Let me see the room you picked out before we start moving stuff,” Dean says, and Cas nods.
Cas shows Dean all the way to the far corner of the bunker. It’s the complete opposite side from where Dean and Sam’s rooms are.
The room seems nice enough. It’s pretty typical for an abandoned room in the bunker. It already has a bed frame and dresser from the deceased previous occupant. Old, but stable. Dean throws open the closet. Cas hasn’t started moving any of his stuff in yet. It’s so far away from the other bedrooms Dean and Sam use. It’d be like they didn’t even live together.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be closer?” Dean asks. “In case there’s an emergency, or you need help at all?” He doesn’t want Cas that far away. Cas has been far away most of the time they’ve known him.
“I don’t want to bother you. It’ll be more like we’re roommates. You won’t even have to see me if you’re busy, since I might or might not be joining you for meals, depending on whether or not my powers are restored.”
Dean’s stomach sinks. Of course Cas sees it as an arrangement of convenience. The guy has one wing out the door at all times. “No, Cas, you’re – are you sure you don’t want to be across the hall from me? There’s another empty room there. It’ll be a lot easier to carry everything to that room. This is, you know, way out in the dumps."
Cas doesn’t look convinced, turning away and raising an eyebrow. Dean vows to try another approach. Cas – he helps them. Whenever they ask. He probably still thinks they’re important to fate or whatever. Dean can use that.
“What if I need help? Something breaks into the place and tries to kill me in my sleep. You’ll be able to hear me yell, even if you’re powered down.”
“Okay,” Cas agrees immediately. The scenario isn’t very likely, considering that whole place is warded against everything. And anything that could break in and kill Dean probably wouldn’t wait for him to yell. And Cas probably wouldn’t be able to do much to stop it. But it is technically possible, and the fearmongering worked to get Cas closer.
The empty room isn’t actually across from Dean’s room like he’d remembered. It’s next to it. Dean’s own bed is just on the other side of the wall. He and Sam put sheets and blankets on the mattress while Cas gets his few clothing items packed into the ancient dresser. The desk and chair are stable enough to use. The included mattress isn’t memory foam like Dean’s, but it’ll work for now.
Dean shakes the pillow for good measure and plugs in the lamp. He sets the lamp color to white.
“You might want to put this away if you ever bring someone to your room,” Dean says, gesturing at the otter face on the light. It’s pretty clearly intended for kids, but he couldn’t exactly tell that to Cas. Cas hadn’t even asked for it, just gazed at it long enough for Dean to pick up that he wanted it. “Kind of a mood killer."
“You’re in my room,” Cas is looking at him, with the standard head tilt of not picking up on a joke. Sam rolls his eyes at both of them.
“Like, people other than us. Girls,” Dean follows up, not sure why he’d expected Cas to understand.
“I won’t be using the room for… recreation,” Cas says, frowning slightly. “And again, I won’t be here more than necessary."
Dean smooths his hand over the sheets he’d picked out and determinedly does not think of Cas on them. Asleep, or otherwise.
“You can be here as much as you want,” Sam throws a glare at Dean like he should have said it first. He probably should have, but Sam knows he’s not good with the feelings shit. “Really, we have so much space that it can feel pretty empty.”
“Alright,” Cas says softly. He takes off his trench coat and moves it to the closet. Dean feels like he should be looking away. Or covering Sam’s eyes. Cas without the trench coat is basically the equivalent of anyone else in a Speedo. Cas takes off his tie, too. He has a couple, all dangling from a hanger and wrinkled as hell.
Dean brings a few of his own clothes over to Cas’s dresser. Sweatpants, a t-shirt or two, just enough that Cas has something that he could conceivably use as pajamas. For when he doesn’t sleep and just sits there for seven hours or whatever the hell he does at night. Or maybe he sleeps now. Dean isn’t sure. His powers have been unstable, sometimes there, sometimes not. Cas has been trying to use less grace for things he can do in a human way, so he’s been showering too. Using deodorant. Shaving in the bathroom mirror.
He brings Cas’s notes to the desk. Cas starts shuffling them into order, putting his coupon on top.
“You should. Uh. Make sure it’s comfortable,” Dean suggests. “Is there anything else you want in here?”
Cas had rejected Dean’s efforts to buy a rug, saying that he doesn’t often remove his shoes. He doesn’t say anything now, just looks at Dean.
“A minifridge? Air freshener?” Dean keeps going. He knows it probably won’t go anywhere. Cas doesn’t need those. He’s not sure if Cas can even smell.
“What I have will be sufficient,” Cas says. “Like I said, I won’t be intruding more than necessary. And I’m not yet sure how frequently I’ll be needing to eat in the future, so a refrigerator might be redundant.”
“Right,” Dean tells him. “Okay. That’s fine. Well, let me know.”
“Alright.” Cas sounds irritated, like he’s definitely not planning on letting Dean know anything. Dean picks up the coupon from where Cas had set it on the desk and tosses it into the trash. They don’t need patio furniture. They don’t even have a patio.
Cas does join Dean and Sam later for a supper of frozen pizza, but he doesn’t say or eat much. Dean watches him cut the piece with a knife and fork. He tries again to remember the dream from that morning, but he can’t. Cas cleans his plate and walks back to his room. Dean follows shortly after, not wanting to make more small talk with Sam for any longer.
Dean lies down in his own bed. Cas is on the other side of that wall. Or maybe he’d been called away on some damn angel lead. Maybe he’s sitting up, reading something about whatever crisis might be coming up next. Dean doesn’t know what Cas is doing.
But Dean dreams.