Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

i.

Dean is quiet. 

It’s not his first time watching his brother lost in his own head, but it doesn’t happen often enough for Sam to not be worried this time around. His head is tilted away from the road ahead, leaning against the glass. Dean is here, but he’s not here . Sam can tell. 

Things are gonna be fine— Dean is gonna be fine. It’s not like there is another way around it. He’s seen his brother bounce back from literal hell. Sam won’t ever tell him this, but it’s those times when he’d watch Dean set his jaw and walk right into the middle of whatever shit show life has been throwing at them…it’s when Sam would let himself hope, because with Dean around, he knows he’ll be alright. It’s what his brother always did, and Sam sometimes hates him for it—for letting everyone else lean on his shoulder while barely holding himself up. He loves him a lot for it too, because only Dean could pull that off. 

“You want to stop at a motel for the night?” Sam asks, his voice barely making it out of his throat without breaking at the seams. 

It’s just something, anything , to break the silence. He knows it’s what Dean would've done if their circumstances were flipped. Sam’s just following his lead here, because every moment that passes by with Dean quietly going away to wherever his head is at right now, Sam starts to get a bit more terrified. He desperately wants to fix this—wants to do something . Maybe pick up his phone and call Cas, or mom. Jack even. He’ll do pretty much anything right now to stop feeling like there’s a blunt chainsaw dragging against his ribs. 

“No,” Dean croaks, the single syllable sounding fractured. He clears his throat, ducks his head, mouth molding around a word, but the sound never comes out. Sam doesn’t miss the shame on Dean's face before he turns away to peer out at the darkness whizzing past them. Dean doesn’t even offer to drive. 

Sam nods. “Okay.”

Sam knows a thing or two about what it’s like to have a supernatural entity having your mind in a chokehold. He’s lived it and hated it. He would’ve given his life to protect another person from going through what he did. Yet, here he is, with Dean not having said a word since they’d found him at that church after Michael had left his body. It’s something of a cosmic joke—at least it feels like it. He has a vague memory of the angels saying something about them ending up here no matter what choices they make. It makes what’s ahead of them a lot more terrifying. 

They make a pit stop at the gas station. Baby doesn’t really need any gas, but another moment in the car would send Sam spiraling, if he already isn’t. Besides they’ve got another three hours of drive left back to the bunker and they’ll need to stretch now. He slips out of the door without turning to look at Dean. He doesn't know what to say. It's a little funny because Sam is the guy who ' does the talking' , or at least that's what Dean always says. He doesn't have any words this time.

He walks around the front of the car to Dean's side and braces a hand against the top of the door. "You wanna pick up anything from the store?"

Dean doesn't respond, and Sam doesn't know why he expected him to. 

Sam sighs, rubs a hand over his mouth, and waits by Dean’s side of the door for a few seconds. He doesn’t know why, he just does. His phone is going off somewhere in his coat pocket, and he knows it’s gonna be mostly Cas. Sam just—he’s not sure what he’s gonna tell Cas. He’s not sure how Jack’s gonna feel when he rushes in for a hug but Dean won’t hug back. He sneaks a glance at his brother, still staring into space, before rounding over to the driver’s side and slipping back in. 

He drives. 

There is no music or their good old back and forth jabs for the rest of the ride. Sam’s tired, he wishes Dean would drive. Baby’s wheel feels too heavy in his grip. Through the corner of his eyes, he sees Dean curl his fingers into a fist and then stretch it back out, over and over and over , like he’s relearning how to will his body into moving. It’s almost too much to watch. The words ‘ are you okay?’ are at the tip of his tongue—he rolls it around in his mouth a million different times, never finding it in him to say it out loud. He’s asked those words to his brother more times than he can count, and it’s always the same response— I’m fine, Sammy —like clockwork, and Sam would roll his eyes, seeing the lie for what it was. This time though, something in him instinctively tells him that’s not what Dean’s going to say—if he says anything at all. 

“Jack is in his dinosaur phase,” Sam says, huffing a quiet laugh. It fills the silence, painfully so. “He even ordered a giant triceratops cut out from Amazon. It’s his favorite kind.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, but his hand freezes mid curl, and that’s— it’s something. 

“Cas didn’t want him to watch the movies, because apparently it’s too violent,” he chuckles, resolutely ignoring the way Dean fingers curl back into a fist, hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “Jack said he’d wait until you came back and gave the tie breaker vote.”

“Dean will know if it’s appropriate for me to watch,” Jack had said. “He knows more about movies than you do.”

Dean’s fists are clenched in his lap. Hard .

Sam swallows down the lump in his throat. “You can sleep if you want. We’ll be back home in an hour.”

He’s not surprised when Dean doesn’t move a muscle. 

Sam knows the next few days are going to be hell for Dean, and everyone else, and all he’s hoping is, this once, he’ll be good enough to take care of his brother—just like how Dean had looked out for him his entire life. 

And then, once Dean is okay, he’s gonna find Michael. He doesn’t know when or how—but he’s gonna find Michael and rip him apart. 

The concept of time is something that has always felt insignificant to Castiel. It’s strange to him how humans count every passing minute with such reverence, for he has seen centuries pass by within the blink of an eye. 

Yet, yet , here he is, waiting by the door, listening in for the rumble of an engine. Here he is, counting every second and then some. 

Sam had sent a single message a few hours ago. He’s okay, it had said. Castiel thinks Sam meant it in a broad sense, because things are never that easy for them. Castiel can sense it— an intuition perhaps, or it could be his paranoia; but he can feel an ache in the core of his grace, quite surely a ricochet of the ache Dean must be holding in. He doesn’t truly understand the extent of his profound bond with Dean—it’s real, it’s what brings them back together no matter how far they get pulled apart. Castiel's orbit is held up by Dean. He’s the sun, and the sun is burning bright. The sun is aching with each flare, too. 

“Are they here?” Jack asks, for what might be the twelfth time. 

Cas sighs, “Not yet, Jack. You need to keep your composure,” he answers, for what is surely more than the twelfth time. 

He is not sure regarding Dean’s condition as of now. Even as an angel, possession—it had taken quite a toll on Castiel himself. Though Castiel had been possessed by the devil himself, Michael is nothing different. The hatred and violence that courses through the being of archangels aren’t essentially different. It tells him enough about how torn Dean might be feeling right now. He knows Dean like he knew the first blade of grass to grow on this earth, and Cas knows Dean will need time and space, and an unwavering disinterest from everyone around him when it comes to talking about his trauma. 

Jack had said, with a nervous laugh, that maybe they should hide all the lamps in the bunker so that Dean doesn’t break any in his bouts of fury. But, Castiel hadn’t missed the shake in his voice. 

It’s another hour and twenty three minutes before the familiar rumble of the Impala’s engine echoes from the garage. Castiel doesn’t move from his chair on the map table—he resolutely refrains from casting his eyes towards the door. Jack is trying too, he can see that, his eyes searching around the room, looking anywhere but at the door. Sam is the first to walk in, and he looks a lot worn out than he did when he had left. His soul is troubled and frayed around the edges, the outward projection of it visible in the way his shoulders curve inward. 

The few seconds he can manage to spare to be worried about Sam ends when Dean walks in through the door. 

It’s ache that Castiel first feels, crashing into his borrowed heart like tidal waves against the cliff—destructive and all encompassing. Dean’s soul is still radiant—so, so blindingly bright—but it’s hurting in a way that Castiel remembers as the same beacon of light he held in his arms as he fought his way out of hell. Dean’s eyes stay trained to the floor, each twist and pull of his body stiff and unyielding as Cas watches him walk down the stairs. 

“Hey guys,” Sam greets, dropping his bag at the foot of the table. 

Jack is the first to rush in, and Castiel grabs him by the arm before he can move any farther than a few steps. Something in him knows Dean wouldn’t respond well to the enthusiastic welcome Jack has in mind. 

“Sam,” Cas says, keeping his tone as neutral as he can. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean’s soul has always responded pleasantly to Castiel, and it wasn’t surprising. A part of himself always resided in Dean, and they are destined to recognize each other. Except now, Dean’s soul emits fear alongside the recognition. His body remains unmoving, but there it is—the frantic stutter of Dean’s soul, like a cornered prey searching for a way out. Looking for a means of defense. Castiel feels his chest crumble with the weight of the thought that Dean had been hurt enough to fear him.

“We ordered pizza” Jack says, the edge of caution in his tone evident, “if you’re hungry.”

Castiel can’t bring himself to take his eyes off the way Dean’s palm curls into fists at his side, knuckles white and pressing in hard enough that it will probably leave bruises. 

“I’m gonna—” Dean says, the words frazzled. His brows furrow and his chin wobbles as he stares down at the floor and clears his throat. “Shower,” he finishes. 

Before Castiel can understand the extent of Dean’s torment or figure out the right words to console him with, Dean is walking away, his steps unnaturally steady and hurried. Sam slumps against the map table, running a hand through his hair. 

“That’s four words he’s said since I found him,” Sam says, before Cas can ask anything. “He’s— I don’t know, Cas. I don’t know what Michael did to him, and I don’t know what’s wrong with—”

“Sam,” Cas places a hand on his shoulder. “Dean went through something traumatic, and he’s going to need space and time to recover. Moreover, he’s going to need us to keep our composure.”

“I thought the pizza would make him happy,” Jack says, feeble and defeated. 

Cas smiles, meeting his son’s gaze. “It’s not that he’s not happy, Jack. He will need some time to come back to himself after what he has been through. What we need to do is provide him with the support he needs,” he says. “Now, go reheat that pizza before it gets too cold.”

Sam huffs a laugh, watching Jack stumble down the hallway to the kitchen. “At least one of us has our head in the right place,” he sighs. “I’m gonna get some sleep while I can. Dean will probably have nightmares.”

“I will be awake, Sam. Don’t worry about Dean,” Castiel assures.  

Castiel doubts Dean would appreciate his presence right now, or at least that is what he has deciphered from his earlier reaction to him. Yet, he knows his peace lies within Dean’s well being. Cas wouldn’t be able to rest as long as Dean is in agony, and he knows, no matter how hard it gets or how battered down his family has been, they can get through it all. He will make sure they do. 

It’s been two days,  and Sam can tell the nightmares aren’t getting any better. 

Dean has gone from strained eyes to full on raccoon territory, and the silence isn’t comforting either. Sam thinks he gets it—he’s read in Dad’s journal about how Dean stopped talking for a while after their mom… And yeah, if he thinks hard enough back to the Psychology classes he took in Junior year of college, he’ll find something about trauma response and coping mechanisms, but he just— he misses his brother. It’s fucking awful of him to even think that way when he can’t even begin to imagine what Dean must’ve been through. Sam just wants to fix this, and normally he’d be turning to Dean but that’s not an option now. 

“Dee, I’m gonna go on a supply run. You want anything?” Sam asks, aiming—and probably failing—for nonchalance. He peeks over the top of his laptop to see Dean hold up the milk carton, his back turned away where he’s making breakfast at the stove.

Sam nods, even if Dean can’t see him. “You got it.”

That’s one thing Dean’s kept up—cooking. He does it more so than usual, even has stolen Sam’s iPad enough times that he’s got bakingmad.com bookmarked next to Greek translator and Latin thesaurus. It makes him smile every time because that about sums up the Winchester version of normal. The downside is that Jack is hopped up on so much sugar, Sam’s worried he’s gonna crash through the bunker walls one of these days, which is why Cas is out on a walk with him right now. 

Sam has never been more grateful for the angel’s decision to stick around, because he’s seen how Dean is on a normal day when Cas is off doing whatever he’s usually doing. Cas leaving the bunker is usually Sam’s cue to stay the hell out of Dean’s way. He’s glad Cas hasn’t left yet, because he’s not sure what that’d do to Dean right now. Since he’s back, Dean hasn’t been that stuck to Cas’s side as he normally is, but he has seen how Dean goes ramrod still anytime Cas so much as walks a little close to the bunker door. It’s okay because Cas seems to get it. He gives Dean space and pretends everything is normal enough that Dean’s shoulders are a little less hunched in when the angel is around—and Cas is around when it counts. That's all that matters. 

Truth be told, Sam used to be a little jealous, back in the day. He had always kept up faith, and Dean used to be the one to recoil at the sight of a church, and it pissed him off a bit that Dean had an angel practically on his shoulder. Hindsight is a fantastic thing, so he’s not complaining anymore. He gets why Dean and Cas are the way they are—as much as he tries to look away from the obvious, it’s hard when some things are shoved right into his face. Well, whatever makes them happy. 

The news feed Sam is scrolling through are mostly filled with regular old B&E and storefront robbery, but a small column in the corner makes him pause. 

Father of two found dead in his car parked in his garage. Cause: drowning; authorities left baffled. 

Yeah, definitely a case. 

Sam braces himself. “There’s a case, a drowning. Sounds like us,” he says, very, very measured out. “I’ll see if Mom’s free.”

Dean’s hand clutches at the kitchen counter, knuckles white. Shit. 

“I’ve got some angel tracking spells to translate,” he adds. “’Sides, my shoulder hasn’t healed yet from the last hunt.”

He’s pretty sure he’s making the situation worse by talking too much, but being subtle is pretty difficult when your brother is a human patronization detector. He snaps his mouth shut when Dean drops a spoon into the sink with more force than needed, the shrill sound of metal against metal echoing in the bunker. Sam’s brain is scrambling into damage control mode, because they both know Dean’s not fully ready to hunt. Sam might’ve been to Satan’s sandbox, but a Dean Winchester who feels weak and useless is the lesser known eleventh circle of hell. He needs to say something to fix this before—

“—and then Adora screams “is that a mouse?” and Catra goes “what?” and her tail shakes,” Jack comes in, chatting away at inhuman speeds, followed by Cas who looks as zoned out as a suburban mom at the grocery store. Nearly all of Jack’s narration is drowned out by his own laughter, but Cas is nodding along anyways. Sam bites down a smile, and a relieved sigh. 

Jack bundles down the stairs and drops down on the chair next to him, brows pulling into a frown as his eyes fall on the screen. “That looks like a case,” he says, leaning closer to read. 

Sam spares a glance at Cas over his shoulder, who tilts his head asking Should I go? or at least that’s what Sam thinks he’s asking. Sam shakes his head so fast he feels a muscle twinge on the back of his neck. Cas nods, a slow, barely there tilt of his head and yeah, they’re all processing a lot at once. 

“Oh, that’s definitely a case,” Jack sits back in his chair. “You guys have fun, Dean and I are staying back.”

“You are?” Cas asks, sounding as confused as Sam feels. 

There’s a crash at the sink and he turns to look at his brother, who’s gone so still that Sam has half the mind to go over and shake him back to earth. This is spiraling out of control. Right now, Dean is made of glass and Jack has a boulder in his hands, and someone’s about to—

“Yes,” Jack says gleefully. “He promised to teach me how to change the oil and replace a tire. Right, Dean?”

Sam sees the exact moment the fight drains out of Dean’s body. He shuts the water and pulls a rag off the oven’s handle, turning to scrub at the counter like he’s got a personal vendetta against it. He nods though, even if he doesn’t meet Jack’s eyes, but Jack is fine with it because he beams the same way he does when Dean gives him express permission to drive the Impala. 

Dean even smiles a little when Jack speeds down the hallway mumbling about how much fun it’s going to be. Sam is trying his best not to hover and micromanage—he knows how much Dean hates it—but everytime Dean’s movements stutter in a way that feels so unlike his brother, something in Sam’s chest cracks. He’s just glad Dean is not out and about with pitchforks trying to hunt down Michael, because that wouldn’t end well for anyone. They need to figure out everything Michael had been up to until he let Dean go, and the only way is to break into Dean’s memories. He’d give anything for Dean to not have to relive all that, but if their lives are anything, it’s not fair . Cas might be able to ease the memories out of him—it’s the one thing Sam is counting on—but Dean is a spooked horse right now. Sam knows, even in his state, Dean would try to power through and let Cas poke around in his head, but the amount of damage Michael must’ve left on him is not the hornet's nest Sam can afford to prod at with a stick. 

Dean doesn’t stick around any longer, inching his way down the hallway, as if no one might notice him if he doesn’t make any sudden movements. It’s so goddamn jarring—Dean is the kind of guy who makes sure everyone in the room knows of his presence. He knows Cas sees it too, from the concerned frown etching his brows as he tries not to stare at Dean as his brother walks away. 

“He seems to be doing better,” Cas says once it’s just the two of them, and Sam is reminded of the night he said yes to Lucifer during the first apocalypse. Cas had tried to lie then, and he’s gotten better at it by now, but it’s still a white lie. 

“Just tell me if something’s wrong with him, Cas,” Sam says, pleads . “Look, I don’t want to push him into anything but we need to know what Michael is planning—”

Cas opens his mouth but Sam pushes on. 

“But, I don’t want you to crack open his memories if it’ll hurt him,” he adds. It grates him a bit wrong that Cas would even think he’d risk his own brother, but they’ve all been through a lot, and he knows how Dean saying yes to Michael is a fear Cas has been carrying with him since he pulled Dean out of hell. “Cas…if Dean’s not safe, it’s not happening. So, I need you to tell me how deep the damage is.”

Cas’s face twists into an expression that’s not at all comforting, and he’s glad Dean’s not here. “From what I can tell, Dean’s soul has taken most of the damage,” he says. “It makes sense, Michael is…strategic.”

“What do you mean?”

“When Raphael left his true vessel, the man was left with everlasting physical and physiological damage,” Cas says. “Michael is not careless that way, he needs Dean to be present enough to surface as and when needed. The bond between an Archangel and his true vessel is unlike any other. While mortal vessels are just receptacles for angels, archangels can draw power from the souls alongside which they reside.”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, a vague idea of where this path is leading to becoming vivid in his head. “So you’re saying, Michael used Dean’s soul as his on hand battery for an extra boost?”

“He could have, he tried ,” Cas bites out, anger and distaste like venom in his tone. “He must not have been able to draw any significant power from Dean’s soul because—” the angel cuts himself off, a strange set of emotions flicker past him features—it’s intense, the kind of look he usually aims Dean’s way, and Sam wonders how his brother manages to take it in stride—and somewhere in there, he sees Cas trying to bite down a smile. 

“What, man?” he prompts. 

“You see, when I pulled Dean out of hell, I had— my grace had laid it’s claim on Dean’s soul—”

Sam nods, “The hand print. Yeah.”

“That—” Cas pauses, his eyes widening as if he just had a revelation. “Sam, that is just a physical manifestation of my claim. My grace has been infused with Dean's soul to a much deeper extent.”

Jesus . Cas wasn’t kidding about the profound bond. 

Another day, Sam would’ve loved to know more about the mechanics of how that works, but right now they’ve got bigger problems at hand. He shakes himself out of the thought, “Okay, so your grace protected Dean’s soul?”

“In essence, yes,” the angel nods. “Dean’s soul resisted the advances of Michael’s grace, even when it’s supposed to be a force his soul should recognize. It’s because my grace has already made its home in Dean’s soul, so anything new is considered as an unwelcome intrusion.”

“First come first serve, then,” Sam huffs a laugh. “So, Michael aimed hard, but it didn’t stick?”

“I suppose, yes. And it’s evident that Michael wished to preserve Dean’s mental stability, possibly to make him watch the things he used Dean’s hands for,” Cas lets out a resigned sigh. “Unlike Raphael, Michael is cunning, resourceful . Perhaps, he realized protecting Dean’s psychological integrity would only make him stronger.”

“Thank fuck for small mercies,” Sam sighs. He remembers Dean talking about that case—there were a lot of things Dean had omitted out, and Sam’s got a hunch that it had to do with the angel sitting opposite to him—and from what he remembered, Raphael’s vessel had been left a broken drooling mess. He shudders at the thought. “Maybe, that’s why Michael let him go. He couldn’t get as much of a boost as he wanted from Dean, so he—”

“It doesn’t seem like a sufficient enough reason to abandon a true vessel,” Cas cuts in. “Even with the resistance, Michael is tenfold stronger with Dean than with possibly any other vessel.”

“Well, Dean’s here now. He’s safe,” Sam presses the back of his knuckles to his eyes, as if he can physically push back the headache he knows is coming. “We’ll have to find a way to make sure it stays that way. Maybe, there’s a spell, or something that works against angel possession.”

“I will try and see what I can find out,” Cas says, leaning forward in his chair with two fingers in the air. “Here, let me.”

It’s never been pleasant, getting healed by an angel. It’s not exactly bad either—like a static shock that is just a little on the uncomfortable side. He’d always wondered why Dean let himself lean into Cas’s touch with his eyes falling shut and blinking back open like he hadn’t meant to do it, but knowing what he knows now about their profound bond or grace infusion or whatever…yeah, some things are better left unanswered. Seriously, whatever floats their boat. 

Sam dips his head in thanks, “I’ll hit the books as soon as I can. You just keep an eye on Dean, make sure he’s good…well, as good as he can be.”

“I don’t think he will respond very kindly to me,” Cas says, and somewhere between the understanding in his tone, there’s a tinge of sadness. “I know he knows that I’m safe, but his soul seems to be confused at the moment, trying to discern which ‘angel mojo’ is safe, and which is not.”

“Hey, he’ll come around,” Sam offers, putting more gusto into his voice than he really feels. “It’s Dean. He can’t stay away from you for too long.”

“I hope so,” Cas says, and it’s so sincere, it breaks his heart a little. 

Sam hopes so too, he really really does, because hope is all he has left to hold onto. 

Chapter Text

ii.

The first two days go by faster than usual, but Dean doesn’t even remember half of it. He goes through the motions—he eats when he’s supposed to, and manages to keep some of the meals down. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t even try to. It’s hard to fall asleep sober, with nothing to stop him from reliving the beats of his own grief.  

The withdrawal kicks in on the third day, and it does so in all its nauseating glory. 

He’s been down this road before—cutting back on hunters’ helper every few months, thinking this is the one . Dean knows he could never give up drinking for good, but he’s wanted to cut back on it, and every time he comes close enough, the world scoots a bit closer to the flames, and Dean finds his way back to the nearest bottle—the easiest fix to all his problems. 

This time around though, it’s not his call to make. Sure, a few drinks wouldn’t do him any harm, but there’s always a snowball’s chance of drinking too much and losing his grip on reality. Dean’s walking a thin line right now—counting every step he takes and watching every shift and pull of the air around him, all in a desperate attempt to convince himself that the nightmare is over. He needs to know this is real, that he’s real, and the possibility of waking up back in the hellscape of his own mind is the last thing he needs. He’s in control when he’s sober, he’s here—just plain old Dean and no one else, and if shaking like a leaf in the wind and oozing out his body weight in sweat is the way to keep himself alert and on the move, then that’s what Dean’s gonna do. 

Right now, sitting curled up in the bathtub with his head between his knees, Dean’s starting to regret the whole thing. 

“Goddamn fucking shit!” he grits out, not at anyone in particular, while rocking back and forth on his ass to keep himself from shaking. 

“Dean,” Sam says, from somewhere close to him—he thinks it’s from the door to the communal showers—but, Dean’s not sure where exactly. “I can’t see anything in here, let me turn the lights on just for a second.”

“No,” he snaps, lifting his head enough for Sam to hear him. “No.”

“I’ve some pills, Dean,” Sam sighs. “They’ll help.”

“Sam, hand them over to me,” comes another voice, the deep rumble washing over Dean in a way the darkness around him can’t. “My vision is not affected by the lack of light. I will get the medication to him.”

Cas’s footsteps echo through the empty room, nothing but the tap tap tap of his shoes filling the air. Dean had tried to downgrade Cas from his shoes down to his socks while in the bunker, but the guy had this weird thing about his feet touching the floor—might be an angel thing, or a Cas thing—and Dean had given up after that. Even with his head tucked between his knees, Dean can feel Cas getting closer to him, and not just his body—but the string standing taut between them and keeping them too far away to reach, loosening as the distance separating them fades away. 

He feels the hand coming up to his shoulder and tries not to flinch, but when Cas’s palm presses against his shoulder, Dean does anyway. Cas has been holding back ever since Dean got home—holding back on the touches, on their effortless song and dance when they fall into each other's orbits, like it’s the only way they know how to exist. At least, it’s how things are from Dean’s side. It’s always been easy for him to brush his shoulder against Cas as they walk past each other, or pat him on the back when the rest of the eyes in the room are turned away from them. Dean spent his days counting the seconds before he could feel Cas close to him again, and Cas had always—knowingly or not—indulged him. 

Except now, Cas has been holding back and there’s a chasm in Dean’s gut that aches and twists and bleeds everytime Cas reaches out, pulling back before Dean can feel the warmth of his skin. 

“Dean, here. Take this,” Cas says, his voice barely a whisper. “It will make you feel better.” 

Dean remembers this version of Cas after Jack got his first good old human cold, sans nephilim grace. Sure, Cas would heal most of it, but sometimes, after a hunt, the angelic tank would be low, and Cas had sat by Jack’s bed and murmured softly until the kid had unglued himself from the covers enough to take his pills along with a few spoons of soup. Dean had stood by the doorway and watched under the guise of checking on Jack—that was a reason too, but Cas had covered it for both of them—and Cas had smiled up at him in triumph when Jack managed to get some liquid food in him without throwing up. 

Cas could heal him right now, and Dean wouldn’t even feel it, but the angel keeps the unspoken promise between them. He’d never told Cas about his newfound fear of anything angelic going into him, but Cas somehow just knew. He never asked, never offered , and Dean is so goddamn thankful for it ’cause he hasn’t learned how to say no to Cas yet. 

Dean lifts his head, squinting against the soft phosphorus glow coming from somewhere in the hallway. The light casts shadow against Cas’s features in the right way, leaving a faint illusion of a halo shining behind him. It’s in moments like these that Dean remembers his dorky best friend—who voluntarily drinks Chamomile tea and arranges the books on the shelf from tallest to shortest just because—is nothing short of the cosmos poured into a jar, like water in his palm, the static air around him rivaled by the gentleness in his touch. Even under the clutch of his withdrawal, Dean is floating and drifting in it, like the purest form of psychedelic to exist pumped into his veins. 

With his mind way too muddled to catch up with his actions, Dean opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out, pointedly looking at a spot on the wall behind Cas’s right shoulder. He sees the exact moment Cas’s features drift away from careful concern to the kind of amused smile Dean rarely gets to see, and the warmth of it has him shuddering, the cold marble of the tub grating against his skin. 

Cas’s hand reaches out, the aspirin pinched between his thumb and forefinger—and maybe Dean didn't think this through. He’s pretty sure this is going to come slamming into him later in the day, but right now Dean’s frozen behind a glass, the world around him zeroing in on Cas pressing the pill flat on his tongue, all while that small amused smile stays on his lips. Jesus Christ , Dean wants to kiss him so bad, he can feel the aching pull of his want digging its hook into his chest and yanking him in. Cas doesn’t stop there though—he brings the glass of water to Dean’s lips, his free hand reaching out behind his head; not touching, just hovering close, and Dean has half the mind to lean back into the touch like a damn cat. He’d start purring if Cas wanted him to. 

“’m fine,” he mumbles, but it comes out in a grunt. Dean knows the headache isn’t gonna let up for another few hours, and the shaking a few more. 

“Can you get out of the bathtub now?” Cas asks softly, the crease between his brows begging to be smoothed out by Dean’s fingers, or maybe his lips. “I assure you, you’re going to be much more comfortable in your bed.”

Dean peers over Cas shoulder towards the hallway, cringing at the light pouring down the crack in the bathroom door. He swallows, afraid of something he can’t even wrap his finger around, and ducks his head down, his eyes falling shut on its own accord. 

“Light’s too bright,” he prays in his head, hoping Cas would hear him. 

From the flash of confusion that flickers across Cas’s face—as if he’s trying to figure out if Dean really did pray to him—it’s obvious that the memo has reached where it’s supposed to. He holds Cas’s eyes long enough to drive the point home, curling in on himself just as fast, shame twisting and laying its heavy weight right there in the pit of his gut. He’s Dean freakin’ Winchester—he’s killed Hitler and Death; a goddamn withdrawal shouldn’t be kicking his ass six ways to Sunday. But, Dean feels it down to his bones—that strange weariness; the one he’d usually squash down with the heel of his boot before grabbing a drink in one hand and his gun in the other on his way to a hunt. This time around, there’s nowhere to go, nothing to turn to, and it’s weirdly comforting. He doesn’t have to run when there’s nowhere to run to, and bottom of the ninth, Dean doesn’t have it in him to run any longer. 

“I think I have an idea,” Cas says, in the tone Dean knows means he’s definitely got a battle plan charted out. He holds out both his hands, the back of his knuckles knocking against Dean’s knees where it’s curled up close to his chest. “Come with me.” 

A strange sense of something strikes Dean, maybe a deja vu. Staring at Cas’s outstretched hands—safe and protective, real —waiting for Dean to step into them like a bird with a broken leg would curl into the warmth of it’s savior’s skin. And, god, Dean wants to fold into himself until he’s small enough to be enveloped in the sanctuary of Cas’s palm. It makes him wonder if Cas could really carry him around, in his true form of course—hold Dean in the hollow of his palms and tuck him into the divet of Cas’s ribs, glowing and brimming with all the power the angel holds. Dean wants to be that insignificant spot in the canvas that is Castiel—so bad to the point where the ache has turned physical. 

He’s gripping on to Cas’s hands like a raft in the flood even before his mind registers doing it. There ain’t no surprise there—they both know Dean would follow him to the ends of the goddamn earth. Cas helps him out of the tub, not batting an eye at the sweaty and shuddering mess Dean’s turned into. If Dean had any hope left in wooing the guy, it’s going down the drain by the minute, ’cause he’s never felt so un-sexy in his life.

“Close your eyes,” Cas murmurs, still holding onto his hands. Dean lifts a brow at that, his half-assed protest snuffling out when Cas’s grip on his hand tightens. “Do you trust me?”

On any other day, Dean would’ve laughed. There’s no one—besides Sammy—that Dean trusts with his life more than Cas. He shuts his eyes in answer, holding onto Cas for dear life as Cas pulls him along. With his eyes shut, the air around him is too loud—at some point Dean thinks he hears the lights hum. He pushes the world around him away from the forefront of his head, instead feeling the warmth of Cas’s hands against his—skin on skin, solid and grounding . 

By the time Cas shuts the door of Dean’s room behind them, Dean’s ready to conk out—the kind of bone weary exhaustion that comes after adrenaline pumping through his veins for days on end.

“You can open your eyes,” Cas says. 

Dean blinks, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. He has enough presence of mind left to peel off his sweaty t-shirt and grab his robe from where it’s permanently draped over his desk chair. 

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean prays, the flutter in his chest giddy enough to make him smile. It’s safe this way, in the dark, when he knows Cas can see enough of him to know he means it.     

“You’re welcome, Dean,” Cas replies, his fingers wrapping around Dean’s wrist. 

He’s putty in Cas’s hands, just feeling himself being guided to his bed in the darkness—it’s smudged, like watching himself through a soap bubble—and the familiar press of his memory foam mattress under his weight is enough to chase away what’s left of his consciousness. But, something jagged is wedged in his throat, fighting it’s way out, and Dean feels it rear its ugly head the moment Cas’s hand pulls away from his skin. 

Dean reaches out and snags the closest part of Cas he can get hold of, his fingers curling into the sleeve of the angel’s coat. He feels Cas stiffen at the touch, going stalk still in a way that reminds Dean of the Cas— Castiel —who walked into that barn all those years ago, piercing eyes and lightning crackling underneath his feet. 

“Stay,” Dean prays, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would soften the blow. “Please.”

He’s not sure why he expects a few bulbs to blow up or the ceiling to come crashing down. Though none of that happens, it still feels monumental—something Dean wouldn’t have worked up the nerve to ask with words. Dean has been stringing his own noose this whole time, pushing Cas away ’cause the thought of his best friend staying for once had always felt like a pipe dream. Cas came back to him, he always did—even with all the skeletons in their closets—and maybe that should’ve been enough. But, Dean hasn’t learned to keep a handle on his need to have Cas in his line of vision every waking moment. 

It had been Michael’s best bargaining chip—those moments he’d pull Dean out of the quicksand to remind him how he’d rip Cas apart and make Dean watch his own hands do the deed. 

“Are you sure?” Cas asks, the rumble of his voice like warm whiskey down his throat. 

Dean doesn’t bother answering, just scoots to the other end of the bed, leaving room for Cas. There’s a split second where Dean thinks he’s pushed past the invisible line they’ve carefully drawn between them, but the mattress next to him dips, followed by the familiar weight of Cas landing right next to him, sitting up leaning against the headboard. Dean sighs, dropping back on the mattress and staring up at the ceiling in the dark. 

“You should have eased into it, Dean,” Cas says softly. “Perhaps, it would’ve been wiser to reduce the amount of your alcohol consumption rather than going ‘cold chicken’.”

“Turkey, Cas,” Dean mumbles, not bothering to bite down his smile. Here, in the dark, it's safe.

“It makes no sense either way,” Cas mutters, and he might as well be pouting. “My point being, with your level of usual drinking, it can be quite dangerous for you to give up all at once. Maybe, you can—”

“I’m quitting,” Dean snaps, too loud even in his own head. “I gotta do this.”

Cas is quiet for a long while that Dean would’ve thought he fell asleep, except he knows Cas is a permanent resident of the land of the living. He chances a glance up at the angel, only to see Cas looking down at him. Dean’s eyes haven’t adjusted to the darkness enough to see what’s going through Cas’s head. 

“I’m proud of you, Dean,” Cas murmurs, reaching out and squeezing Dean’s hand where he’d left it on his chest. 

The noise that escapes his throat is something Dean will take to his grave. 

It takes everything in Dean not to curl into the angel’s chest, knowing Cas wouldn’t pity him for the way he has come unstuck—wouldn’t blame him for jumping into what he knew was hell fire. There’s that shame back again, coiling like a serpent in his gut—Cas had given up everything to protect him from this fate, from Michael, and all Dean could give him back was this cracked mold. He remembers Cas apologizing to him, close to a decade ago— you’re not the burnt and broken shell of a man I believed you to be. There’s a part of Dean that desperately wants to believe Cas still holds onto that sentiment, when in retrospect there’s nothing in him to show for it. 

“You can sleep now, Dean,” Cas says, softly. “I will watch over you.”

There’s this schedule Dean has made for himself—it’s mostly out of self-preservation. He counts the seconds each time his eyes fall on Cas, making it a point to look away before the invisible line between them blurs—it’s a whole thing. He’s crunched the numbers in his head for how long he can hug Cas or how many fleeting touches he can steal in a day. It’s a thing they do, and Dean’s not sure if Cas can see through it, but he never says anything. Cas never pulls away when Dean hugs him—he never looks away first, as if he’s edging closer to the line for Dean’s benefit. 

This—it’s one of those things. Dean’s a hunter who can’t sleep without his gun under his pillow. He’s a man who can’t sleep while there’s eyes on him. Dean has to be the last one standing—making sure his family is safe out of reach of anything that goes bump in the night. It hasn’t changed much since they moved into the bunker. Back when they were burning away their nights in sleazy motel rooms, Dean would wake up with Cas’s eyes on him—’cause he’s never the one to pull Dean out of his sleep. Dean would pretend to be annoyed; he’d put up a show mostly for his own benefit. Because, John Winchester had one rule—shoot first, ask questions later. To wake up in the middle of the night with eyes on him shouldn't feel safe. It shouldn’t . But, Dean did anyway—because it had been Cas. 

Don’t let your guard down, boy— John’s voice rings in his head, because in a lot of ways he’s still that boy who had to learn to hate the good things life threw at him. There’s always a price; no one watches over you while you sleep unless they want your head on a pike—it’s all Dean had known for the most part of his life. Dean wasn’t meant to have good things, he still isn’t . It’s something Dean knows in the base of his spine—the earth revolves around the sun, Baby’s the best car in the world, good things don’t happen. That’s just how it used to be. 

Until one day, Castiel—angel of the goddamn Lord—waltzed in through that barn door, looked him in the eye and called his bluff. Until Cas took a sledgehammer to all the walls he’d so carefully crafted throughout the years and taught him there’s more to his sorry existence than just getting through another day. Until Dean learned what pain and loss can do to a guy—the flimsy lace curtains at Kelly’s house still a ghost on his skin as he'd wrapped Cas’s lifeless body in it. 

Until there had been something good enough in Dean’s life to call his win. And, Cas was— is his goddamn win, come hell or high water. 

It’s why he’s letting his eyes fall shut without needing to double check his gun or the bottle of holy water under his bed, because he knows Cas is here to watch over him. He’s still here, always finding his way back to Dean as if it isn’t even a question—because it isn’t. Cas is Dean’s—he can say that in his mind. 

A hand finds its way into Dean’s hair—unsure, almost as if he’s waiting for Dean to jerk away. Maybe he should have, because this—the touches that aren’t part of either one of them bloody and crumpled on the floor—is not something they do. They’re hunters; Cas is electric and immovable—he’s the eye of a storm. Cas sits through Westerns with him and lets Sam talk his ear off for hours on end about inaccuracies of spell translations from Aramaic to Greek. Cas allows Jack to win at Jenga just to see the kid smile—and even then, Cas is a ceramic vase Dean wants to smother in bubble wrap, because honestly, it’s the most invaluable thing he’s ever held in his arms. 

And now, Cas is unsure about his fingers in Dean’s hair, and that won’t do. 

He might wake up the next morning to never forgive himself for crossing the lines, but right now, Sammy’s alive and well, Jack’s probably on his way to the kitchen for his midnight snack, and Cas is in one piece, right next to Dean on his bed. Dean’s hands are still shaky and his head hurts like a bitch, but the feeling of Cas’s fingers combing through his hair is the closest he’s felt to being the version of himself that he’s good with—proud, even. 

“Cas,” Dean prays, hoping Cas knows what he means to Dean. 

“I have you, Dean,” Cas says, like it’s the easiest thing in the goddamn world. “Sleep well.” 

And well does Dean sleep, with a smile on his face. It’s the safest he’s felt in his own mind, with Cas right by his side. 

It's no surprise—Dean has been Cas’s even before he belonged to himself. 

In good old Winchester fashion—they don’t talk about it. 

They don’t talk about Dean waking up with his arm thrown across Cas’s thigh like it’s his goddamn birth right, just like they don’t talk about Dean shutting himself in his room for the next two days wondering if he’ll ever know what it’s like to want without guilt eating up at him. They don’t talk about how Dean flinches when Cas gets close, or how the arm length of distance between them has become twofold. They don’t talk about the way Dean can barely meet the angel’s eyes, and how he flees the scene as soon as it’s just him and Cas alone in a room. They don’t talk about a lot of it, and Dean hates himself a little more everyday.

Cas, for the most part of it, follows Dean’s lead and accepts the role of the dirty secret Dean’s too much of a pussy to share to the world. Except, Jesus , Dean would shout it out from the rooftops if he could, because Cas is the best goddamn thing to happen to him. And that’s exactly why Dean locks that part of him away in a box in his mind with a caution sticker on it—the part of him that wants and craves and aches to fall into Cas’s arms and stay right there. It’s one thing to live with the absence of something he so desperately wants, but to have it all and lose it would crack something in Dean in a way that would be irreparable—Dean knows it. He’s done blaming Cas for it—for leaving, for dying, whatever. It’s what their lives are; there’s no guarantee all of them would be standing by the end of the night, and it’s another day of life or death all over again. Cas doesn’t owe him shit, Dean knows—he knows . 

It should be easy for him, Dean’s supposed to be good at it—to cut out everything and everyone in his life that ain’t Sammy, or doesn’t involve keeping Sam safe. He should remember all those years of training—to parse out what keeps him alive and what doesn’t, and cut out everything else. He’s supposed to be good at pretending to be sated—well fed—with his booze and girls and bullets. Except, Dean hasn’t bothered to spare nothing more than a few seconds worth of glances at girls in a long while. And, the first day he'd felt a little better after his hangover, Dean had quietly emptied the bottles of Whiskey leftover at the bunker down the sink—Jack had looked so goddamn happy, Dean had let the kid hug him for longer than usual. He’s not itching to go on a hunt for the first time in a long time either. Somewhere along the line, Dean’s turned into the man his twenty four year old self would have laughed at. He is fine with it—that kid was a stuck up son of a bitch anyway. 

He’s stupid for Cas, there’s no creeping around it anymore. One night next to Cas on the bed where half of it was spent sleeping, and Dean’s hooked. It’s so pathetic that it’s almost funny. 

“Ground control to Major Tom.”

Shit. Right. 

Dean presses the back of his knuckles to his eyes, “Hmm?”

He doesn’t have to look up at Sam to see the assessing look he’s getting right now. Dean doesn’t blame him—Sam’s been patient for the most part of it, and as much as a well rounded man Sammy’s grown up to be, he’s too much of a little brother sometimes, and that means hovering and poking at Dean until he gets the answers he's looking for. The kid’s always been that way—persistent in a way that’s hard to stay annoyed at. He’s just worried, Dean knows. It’s always been the other way around, Dean knows Sammy’s tells—knows when he’s lying about being fine, knows when he needs help. There’s no one he trusts to have his back the way Sammy does, but the kid’s a bit out of loop when it comes to being tactical. 

“I said we’re going out to eat,” Sam says, signing along with the words. It's something they've been doing, and Dean was shit at picking up the words in the beginning, but he's found it a lot better than having to pull sounds down from his throat. Sam pulls up the chair opposite to Dean and plants his ass there in a way Dean knows is the build up to an inquisition. 

Dean presses his pointer finger to his lips and moves it forward, “Sure.”

“You’ve been cooped up here for so long. It won’t be long before you start clawing at the walls,” Sam adds, as if Dean hadn’t already agreed with him. 

It’s true. This is the first time in around four days that Dean has had enough presence of mind to haul his sorry ass out of his room. It’s mostly ’cause Cas is off on a hunt with Jack—which has brought up a part of Dean that’s reaching for his phone every few minutes like some military wife. Cas can hold his own, Dean knows, but it does nothing to ease the knot resting heavy in his gut. It’s freakin’ crazy—he can barely look at Cas when he’s around but as soon as Cas steps away from his line of vision, Dean is reeling . He can’t catch a fucking break. 

Dean kicks his legs up onto the map table, downing the last of his Dr. Pepper and glaring at Sam over the rim of the can. He’s been expanding his palette—grape soda, Jack’s carpi sun juice boxes, freakin’ Kombucha, which honestly, what the fuck . It hasn't even been close to easy in the past few days, when all he'd wanted was a fucking drink. It took him a while to get his head screwed on straight—to crack that part of him that kept thinking it was pointless to clean up his act; pointless to get better ’cause there’s no getting better in his life. 

There have been nights when Dean had found himself with his hand curled tight at his sides, prancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light talking himself down from the ledge. He hadn't been alone for long; either Sam or Cas would come around—they’ve come far enough to not throw a pity party, but Sam would hover enough to make Dean want to clock him, but he knows the kid’s just worried. They’d sit and talk, just the two of them—though Dean makes a shit conversation partner these days—and it’s nice to talk about something other than death, world-ending disasters, and more death. Yeah, there’s an Archangel in the wind and everytime Dean is hit with flashbacks of what Michael did, what he had Dean do, the chasm in Dean’s gut pushes open a bit more. Still, those few hours in the middle of the night are good.

Cas is usually just Cas , who’d offer Dean some of his tea, even when he knows Dean would just glare at him. He wont mention how Dean would be practically shaking with the need for some whiskey, won't give some meaningless long winded speech about how Dean’s a warrior and how it’s all going to get better. They both know it’s out of their hands, considering the kind of life they’re living. But, it’s still nice to have Cas sit with him and go on ramblin’ about some rodent he followed back when the first dinosaur eggs were hatching, or the bird he and Jack spotted last week. Cas talks about his continental the with the same kind of reverence and undeterred attention with which he talks about the birth of the freakin’ universe. It’s just so Cas, Dean sometimes forgets to breathe, too busy watching every twitch and pull of Cas’s mouth and the way his eyes twinkle. 

Dean misses Cas, even if he’s just out on a hunt. Misses the weight of his palm on his shoulder, misses the way Cas would look at him—like there’s something good worth looking at. He just misses Cas, and maybe there’s something wrong with his head after being taken on a spin by an archangel, but he just wants Cas in his line of vision. He might be too afraid to reach out and touch; too chickenshit to seek out what he so desperately wants, but having Cas close and safe has to do for now. 

He’s not sure why, but Dean sends out a prayer, just to ease the growing knot in his chest. 

Cas, hey. Just checking in, buddy. Hope you and the kid are okay. Call me when you get a chance. 

It makes him feel stupid, but thinking about Cas listening to his prayer and answering with that small smile of his is a good enough reason to push away any shame. 

With that out of the way, he goes back to his book. It’s an old, tattered copy of Vonnegut’s Mother Night. Dean remembers where he’d gotten it from—it was a gift from the mom of the first and only girlfriend who’d taken him home to her parents. Her name was Faith, and her mom Mrs. Bouchard was his English teacher. It’d been one of those times when Dad had set them up at one place long enough to get through two whole terms without a hitch. Dean had been more stoked on Sam’s behalf—the kid was on top of the class even while being dragged around the country, and Dean knew he would kick ass with something a little more stable in his corner.  

Except, Dean had found himself under his English teacher’s radar on his first day itself. Usually, that’d piss him off, but Mrs. Bouchard was nice enough to not give him the stink eye after seeing his track record, and even after she’d seen her daughter with him. 

“You’ll like Vonnegut,” she had said, quietly handing her copy to him, and it was the nicest a teacher had ever been to him. 

He’d hid the book, along with Sammy’s progress reports, in a shoe box and stuffed it under Baby’s passenger seat. 

Dean gets pulled out of his head when the creak of the bunker’s heavy metal door echoes through the war room. He’s sitting up in his chair and reaching for something —his gun, the realization washing over him like cold water—even before whoever is on the other side makes their way in. 

“Dean, it’s okay,” Sam says softly, reaching out to pat him on the arm. “Just Cas and Jack.”

Sure enough, he sees the kid first, bounding down the stairs with a huge grin and tracking mud behind him. Dean sighs, rolling his eyes as Jack draws in a breath, ready to narrate the details of his adventure until either he gets tired or Sam cleverly distracts him with something else. Dean nods along, only half listening as his eyes track the angel following Jack down the stairs. The knot in his gut that had been almost all the way undone ties right back up when he spots the red blotch on Cas’s chest and the slash across his cheek dripping with red. 

The distance between them is crossed in three long strides, Dean’s body only half aware of it. His hands shake, shake hard, as he tangles his fingers in the lapels of Cas’s coat, swallowing past the splinter wedged in his throat. Cas has the gall to look confused, blue eyes squinting up at Dean as if he’s the one soaked in blood. 

“Dean, what—” Cas pauses, probably feeling the gash on his cheek pull. Dean watches in real time as the lines between the angel’s brows smooth out, eyes turning so goddamn fond, Dean feels it at the base of his spine. He watches it all happen, a bit smudged—like he’s looking at himself through a snow globe. 

“Cas,” Dean says, his voice cracking between the single syllable. He’s not sure what he’s looking for, asking for, but Cas just seems to get it.

“I’m fine, Dean,” he says softly. “I had to heal Jack and exhausted my grace enough to slow my own healing process,” his eyes shift over Dean’s shoulder to their kid. “I’m okay.”

Well, okay won't cut it. 

Dean pulls one hand away from where it’s clutching Cas’s coat and touches the red blotch on his chest over the shirt, right over where his heart is. Technically, he knows even with his tank running low, any regular blade or gun wouldn’t be enough to kill him—but Cas’s shirt is soaked red underneath Dean’s palm and all logic flies out of the window. He grabs Cas by the hand and pulls him along, resolutely ignoring the look he knows Sam is throwing his way. It doesn’t help at all when Cas lets Dean pull him along wherever and whenever Dean feels like it. The immovable Chrysler building sized celestial intent, made of lightning and space dust and what not, now sways into Dean’s space at the slightest touch—and that feeling is nothing short of addicting. 

He pushes open the communal shower door with his free hand, letting go of Cas to dig under the sink for their first aid kit. They’re long overdue for a restock, and Dean had been planning for an extensive supply run—all their usual emergencies, letting Sam pick some of that over-priced organic rabbit food he longingly stares at every time they’re out on a supply run. Maybe, some more clothes for Jack. He knows the kid ain’t exactly growing but it wouldn’t hurt to buy him something nice once in a while. Something else he’d had on his mind was to get a few trinkets for Cas, just about anything that would make the angel’s room look more lived in, now that the Cas was staying with them more often than not. At least he’d been hoping that would be enough to make Cas stay. 

Dean had it all planned out, but shit hit the fan around then. He’ll just have to remedy it soon. 

Right now, Dean has a single task at hand—to patch up Cas. The angel in question is inspecting his face in the mirror when Dean surfaces with the first aid kit. Logically, give it a few hours and Dean knows there won’t even be a memory of a scar left, but it’s not like he’s some kind of monster who’d let Cas sit there bleeding until then. He soaks a cotton ball in some alcohol—the proper rubbing kind and not whiskey, for once—and tugs Cas away from the mirror by the shoulder, reaching out to pull his fingers away from the cut. The last thing they need is an infection. 

“My grace is at its lowest point these days,” Cas says softly, leaning closer. “There is only enough to sustain my vessel and prevent any lethal injuries. Healing can take its toll.”

Dean hates it, hates it so much —the kicked puppy look on Cas’s face, and how Cas must be feeling useless every time he’s not able to help as much as he used to. Dean hates it, ’cause Cas doesn’t know how Dean thanks all of his lucky stars just for Cas being alive and in one piece. He couldn’t give two shits about grace or healing or whatever—they’ve made it this far without magic patch ups, he’s sure they can manage. As long as Cas is okay, everything else can wait. 

“S’okay,” Dean mumbles, meeting his eyes long enough to let him know he means it, and touches his fingers to Cas’s chin. 

Cas winces at the first touch of the alcohol soaked cotton—a little human, then. Dean shushes him, holding Cas’s chin up with a bit more confidence, resolutely ignoring the way his hands shake. Cas makes his job easy by pulling an accurate imitation of a marble bust—steady and unmoving—the only indication he hasn’t checked out yet being his lashes fanning softly against his cheeks. The cut ain’t deep enough to warrant stitches, so Dean resorts to butterfly bandages, carefully sticking two across the cut. He can’t help letting out a chuckle—it’s like trying to nail down the ocean with a box nail. If only butterfly bandages could fix everything. 

Cas tilts his head, leaning back a little, “What’s so funny?” 

Dean shakes his head, turning to the sink while Cas peers back into the mirror, trailing his fingers along the bandages. Dean catches his eyes though the mirror, cuing up a prayer in his head. “Don’t worry, you’re still pretty.”

“You think I’m pretty?” Cas asks, grinning like the bastard he is. 

Dean smacks him on the shoulder, pointedly diverting attention from the flush creeping up his neck, “Stop fishing.”

“You were the one to mention it,” Cas shrugs, his shoulders moving in a way that’s a little too stiff to be natural—a borrowed gesture, probably something he picked up from Sam. It’s adorable. 

He rolls his eyes and tugs at Cas’s coat, pushing it over his shoulders until the angel gets the message and pushes the rest of it down his arms. It pools around his feet on the bathroom floor and Dean has an itch in the back of his neck that won’t be scratched until he picks up the damn thing and folds it up. He’s done it before—back at the reservoir, and then when Cas came back with no memory. It feels like ages ago, but the reminder of it still sends a shudder down his spine. 

Dean pulls himself out of his thoughts and reaches out to pluck at the buttons on Cas’s shirt, hands shaking in a way that’s a bit too difficult to hide. There’s a joke at the tip of his tongue, and Cas must see it too, ’cause he smiles and says, “You should buy me a drink first.”

That gets him.

Dean laughs, harder than he’s laughed in a long while. He folds forward, tucking his head into the crook of Cas’s neck and laughs until his chest hurts. He absently registers Cas’s arms coming up around him, but Dean’s busy laughing and laughing until something in his chest loosens, and suddenly he’s not laughing anymore. The first sob wracks its way out of his chest like a punch, followed by many more, and he hides it all against Cas’s skin. There’s a pit in Dean’s gut and the tears won’t stop coming—he’s fucking weeping into Cas’s dress shirt, clutching the fabric in his fists like a lifeline—and he doesn’t even know why. 

“Oh, Dean,” Cas says, his arms around Dean tightening. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Maybe Dean is okay. Maybe, just maybe, this is what it feels like to let go. 

It takes him a minute to rein himself in and get a hold on the water works, but Cas just holds him through all of it with that same unmoving reverence. He presses closer to Cas just for another second, breathing in the scent of open road and the crackle of the air before a storm—a scent that seems to follow Cas around. It’s too close to power, to grace , and that’s all the kick Dean needs to pull away. He hates it, hates his head for being afraid of the safest place he can possibly imagine. It’s Cas—his best friend, who he trusts more than he trusts his own skin to hold him up. The fear still grips him by the neck every time Cas is at his reach. 

“Was my joke that terrible, it made you cry?” Cas asks when he pulls away, and Dean can see the concern in his eyes. 

Fuck , Dean loves him so much, he doesn’t know what to do with it all. 

Dean tries for an apology, but the words never make their way out of his throat—still, Cas smiles at him like he already knows what Dean is not able to say. He plucks at Cas’s shirt down to the third button, eyes falling on the gash across his chest. Another day, he’d have taken his time to admire the smooth expanse of skin he’s getting to work with, but right now there’s too much blood for his liking. Dean cleans up the wounds, swallowing down the violent tug in his chest when Cas winces and pouts like a goddamn kid whose candy was stolen. The cut won’t be needing stitches either, and that’s a relief—those damn things always hurt like a bitch, and Dean can’t sit though Cas pouting for another minute. He knows Sammy’s puppy eyes is a trick—a trick he falls for every single time like the idiot he is—but with Cas, Dean can never tell. Maybe, he’s figured it out too—how with just enough puppy eyes and pouting, Dean’s just a puppet in his family’s hands. 

He’s lulled by the familiar routine of cleaning and patching up when Cas says, “Dean?”

“Hmm?” Dean pauses to look up at him. 

“Will you tell me when you’re ready to be healed?”

Shit. 

It takes him a few tries to swallow past the lump in his throat but he manages. “Yeah.”

“I’m not trying to force onto you anything you don’t wish, but I would like to elevate at least some of the damage,” Cas says. “You have the right to make choices regarding your own body, and I will fully respect that. But there are things I can help with, only as long as you’re willing.”

He knows Michael did a number on him, hell it’s obvious, but he’s not sure how deep the cuts run. If Cas is concerned enough to press the issue, then there’s probably something that needs quick attention. Dean knows the only way out is through, but he’s fucking terrified for reasons he can’t wrap his head around. There’s also the part where Cas is supposed to go elbow deep in his brain, looking for memories Michael might have buried in there. It should be his priority—their lives shouldn’t be put on hold just ’cause he wants to throw a bitch fit. It’s just—Dean feels like he’s on a tightrope, and a small nudge is enough to tip him over the edge from where he might never be able to climb back up. 

“I– soon,” Dean drops the last wet wipe into the sink to be cleaned up later. He presses his palm over Cas’s chest, feeling the pulse of his heart beat under the warm skin. He can’t hold back a smile—he doesn’t want to. 

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas murmurs, and Dean knows he’s not being thanked just for patching him up. 

Cas’s hand comes up to cover Dean’s own, borrowing their skins closer to each other. It lights Dean up from the inside—makes him feel alive—in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. There are things that feel familiar—there are things, feelings , the burrow themselves in the wedge between Dean’s ribs. This, this feels like none of those. 

The word home knocks around somewhere in the back of his head, and Dean knows he’ll have to find the courage to say it out loud at some point. Until then, he curls his fingers and squeezes Cas’s palm—one, two, three. Cas, knowing or not, smiles in a way that sets his eyes burning like the brightest star in the sky. 

For now, it’s enough. 

Chapter Text

iii. 

For the eighth night in a row Dean’s awake, staring at the bleary green LED light of his bedside clock blinking ten minutes past three, then eleven, twelve, thirteen... and it ain’t no surprise. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want to sleep. Hell, he’d give anything to just get knocked the fuck out of the land of the living and stay under for a while. There’s a part of Dean’s mind—a distant quiet part of his mind he has shoved down hard enough that it’s barely whole—tells him it’s pretty normal to feel like death warmed over. It’s a no-brainer, really—he spent the past few weeks being the next worst thing to a dead guy. Come to think of it, eternal rest up there in La La Land doesn’t sound that bad either, except Billie had said they’d get tossed to the empty, and Dean doesn’t know much about the place but he’s pretty damn sure it can’t be much worse than sitting shotgun to an archangel who'd might have driven them both into a ditch at any given second. He’d have to ask Cas about the Empty, maybe after Dean finally manages to say Cas and empty in the same sentence without choking on his own spit. 

First, he’s gotta work himself up to just look at Cas without feeling his insides burn. 

Don’t get him wrong, Dean loves his brother, but Sammy doesn’t know when to stop hovering and the last thing Dean wants is for the first whole sentence he tells Sam to be something that’d hurt him. Cas, though—he knows. He’s not sure if it’s an angel thing or a Cas thing, but the guy’s always more than willing to sit around without making Dean feel the need to fill the silence just ’cause he has to. It’s not awkward or unfamiliar, and Cas doesn’t take anyone’s shit if they try to prove him wrong because the custom of small talk is ingenuine and frankly exasperating, Dean. It always has been so goddamn easy with Cas, except now he can barely look at his best friend, and Dean’s sure it has something to do with—with the angel grace. 

Dean swallows, raps his knuckles against the polished wood of his desk—once, twice—like he’s been doing for the past two hours when the silence in the room got too loud. 

There is a quiet thump against his door. It’s barely a knock—the way you’d put your hand on a spooked horse. Dean tries to say something— come on in, or maybe go away , but his brain to mouth coordination is on the fritz. 

“Dean?” Cas calls, the tail end of the syllable followed by a head poking from behind the door. “I saw the light from underneath your door. I wanted to see if you— fell asleep with the lights on.” If you're okay.

It helps that Cas is a terrible liar, but Dean spots the quick save anyway. I’m fine, Dean lies to himself, then rolls the words around on his tongue until the lie starts to taste good enough to bypass Cas’s good old head tilt and squint eyes, except the words never leave his mouth. 

Dean is fragile—like the silence that has made home in his throat. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, when it’s just him and his cold, dark and empty room, Dean would reach up and feel his own face—a baseless need to make sure he hasn’t turned into mist or whatever. It’s not that Dean’s lost his voice or anything—he can feel it down in his throat, though it’s rattling in his chest, stuck and unmoving. Every time he tries to speak, the weight of each word presses down on his chest until he feels his ribs ache, like he’s having compressions done on him and his bones are starting to cave under the pressure. There’s something vaguely familiar about this feeling—an urge to make himself as small as he can until he sinks into the walls. Everything around him feels out of place, and a size bigger—the bunker, his room, his own skin—with too many empty spaces like an ill fitting suit. He could pull a few words out of his throat if he pushes hard enough, but Dean’s so goddamn exhausted. 

Even when he feels like a shadow of who he used to be, Cas is still the one thing that makes him feel more alive than his own burdened beating heart. 

It’s why he breathes out a sigh and nods his head for Cas to come in.

It’s a weird mix of relief and ache that fills Dean when Cas doesn’t pull up the chair closer to Dean. He just sits down where Dean had left the chair by the wall, and it makes Dean want to throw up. It’s just Cas —the only person who Dean would trust his life with besides Sammy. It’s his best friend. And, Dean can’t even look at him without feeling nails clawing at his insides. Dean knows the kind of juice that’s running through Cas’s veins is the same kind of stuff he’s— Michael’s made of. But, Cas has never used it to hurt him. Sure, they’ve beat each other up enough over the years, but Cas has never used his grace for anything other than patching him up. 

He can’t push Cas away, not right now—not when the guy’s already a flight risk without Dean having to be a dick.  

“I just finished cleaning the kitchen,” Cas says, as if Dean trying to re-learn his ABCs isn’t bothering him at all. “There was quite a lot of mess left over from this morning.”

Dean sneaks a glance at him, barely holding his gaze long enough to raise a brow in question. 

“Jack was a little…on edge, and Sam introduced him to “stress baking”,” Cas says, and fuck , he missed the goddamn air quotes. “So, while you were resting, Jack spent his time baking for when you would be up.”

Dean cracks a smile at that. It’s a bit of a chore—he has to remind his muscles to move the right way, and it still feels foreign and uncomfortable and wrong . But, Cas smiles back at him and it’s suddenly a little less shitty. 

“He wanted to make peanut butter brownies and cinnamon shortbread cookies,” Cas chuckles. “We were able to salvage a few cookies and a little over half of the brownies.”   

Dean nods, digging his nails into his palm, pushing down on the impression of the crescents that’s already on his skin. It’s all he can do to distract himself from the burn in the back of his eyes. He’s not sure what the hell he’s crying about—the world hasn’t ended yet and all of his family is alive at the same time for probably the first time in years, and that’s a blessing on its own. People have been through worse. Hell, Dean’s been through much worse. 

None of that logic seems to be registering in his head right now. 

“Dean?” Cas calls, his voice jolting Dean back to reality. He pries his eyes open, not even remembering closing it. “I can leave if you would prefer—

Dean snaps upright in his chair, throat closing up as he stares at Cas and shakes his head as hard as he can. He doesn’t want Cas to go, even when everything in him is screaming to hide behind the walls, Dean’s sure he’ll crumble even more if he has to watch Cas walk away. Dean’s never hated this screwed up head of his more than he does now. Panic coils in his gut, the air around him dropping a few degrees down as he claws at the armrest of his chair to— just to—

“Dean,” a hand rests on his knee and all Dean can remember is to blink down at Cas who’s crouching down in front of him, looking up at him with so much concern in his eyes. 

There are alarms blaring in his head, telling him to pull away and defend—he doesn’t have a single clue against what, ’cause it’s just Cas, and Dean’s in the bunker for crying out loud. The hand on his knee makes him want to flinch away, but staring down at Cas, all Dean wants to do is sway into his space and stay there forever and all of it just makes his head spin. He’s fucking terrified to look Cas in the eye and see disappointment there, or worse, pity . Dean knows, after everything, that’ll be what makes him come undone. Cas has seen him, known him, inside out, but this is must be a new low even for him to see Dean tear apart at the seams like a pathetic shadow of the hunter he used to be, and Dean won’t blame Cas if he’d rather walk out of the door than spend—

“Do you want to watch a movie, Dean?”

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Cas has managed to knock him off his kilter. 

Dean blinks down at him, fingers itching to grab Cas’s hand, still warm against his knee. Cas smiles, and it’s a rare sight—one that doesn’t send Dean’s world crashing down. Nope, not at all. Slowly, slowly, Dean gives him a nod, scared to move too much and disturb whatever fever dream this is. 

“You can set it up while I make some popcorn for us,” Cas says, standing upright on his feet, only to pause. 

Dean looks up at him, wondering what’s wrong, only to stop along the way to see his own fingers tangled in the sleeve of Cas’s coat. Dean doesn’t even remember grabbing it. He pulls his hand back and looks away, heat climbing up his neck and the slow pound of his heart growing faster and louder by the minute. Cas’s hand falls in his line of vision, almost coming up to his face, only to drop to his shoulder at the last second. It takes everything in Dean not to flinch away.   

“I will be back in a minute, Dean. I promise,” Cas says, voice like honey, and Dean wants to lock that promise away in his chest, where nothing can break it. Not even Cas himself. 

The few minutes that Cas is gone, Dean is sure he’s been through at least fifteen days of isolation, and he would know what that's like. Dean busies himself with setting up the laptop which takes about three seconds and fluffing the pillow at different angles for the rest of the time with blood roaring so loud in his ears, he’s sure his brain’s about to melt out of his pores any moment, and then the familiar fall of footsteps echo closer and closer. It’s only when his lungs burn that Dean remembers he’s been lacking in the breathing department for some time now. 

Dean hovers next to his own bed like a goddamn fifteen year old feeling out of place at prom, waiting to just blend into the background. Cas doesn't mind though—he just peels the covers back and props up two pillows against the headboard, the mattress not making a peep when he drops down on his— one side. Memory foam is the next best thing since sliced bread.

"What are we watching?" he asks, and then drops the large bowl of popcorn in the middle of the bed to peek at the screen as if he knew Dean wouldn't be answering. "Oh, can we watch Inception? I've heard it's a must-watch"

Dean bites down a smile, 'cause he knows Cas has watched it before with Sam. Dean had been off on a case with Mom and he'd moped for two whole days because he wanted to watch it with Cas—Dean would've bet dollars on donuts that the guy would've had something interesting to say about it, and besides movie nights are their thing—except his asshat brother had to hijack his best friend while Dean had been off getting his ass kicked by a bunch of vamps. 

Cas is watching him like a bug in a glass case, so Dean shrugs and sits down, folding his legs underneath him. His knees are gonna be screaming bloody murder in a few minutes, but Cas's right thigh is pressed against his kneecap right now and that's nice. 

It's easy this way, to pretend Dean's not counting every breath and feeling every twitch and pull of his muscle, waiting for his control to slip and sink back into the dark waters. He doesn't even wanna blink and miss his own hands going from buried in a popcorn bowl to buried in some poor bastard's guts. He wishes he'd had his own goddamn totem to spin to know he's not elbow deep in a dream—a nightmare—where he'd wake up with his own body slipping out of his control. 

Dean looks down at his hand, sitting right next to Cas's hand in the foot or two space between them. He could stretch his pinky out to hook it around Cas’s. Huh, that came out of nowhere—or maybe, maybe, it didn’t. 

Look, Dean might be a dumbass but he’s not an idiot. There’s a reason Dean hasn’t spared a glance longer than few seconds at any pretty waitresses or hot bartenders, and there’s even a bigger reason why he’d find himself in the kitchen on a Saturday night looking up recipes for macaroons (cause he could’ve sworn Jack had teared up when he’d said he wanted to try it—and Dean wasn’t gonna let his kid have the three day old version off of some downtown bakery’s shelf) rather than be out and about at some bar prowling for a warm body that’d somehow leave him feeling emptier in the morning. He’d seen a lot in his time—had tasted loss in the back of his throat like the flames that licked up all the pyres he’s burned in his lifetime—and that gives a guy the kind of perspective nothing else can. Dean doesn’t remember exactly when he went from picking up a pretty face at a bar to bile rising in his throat at the thought of it—he thinks it’s somewhere between purgatory and watching the silver tip of the blade poke out of Cas’s chest at Kelly’s house. 

So, yeah. Maybe Dean wants to hold the guy’s damn hand and that’s that. 

He can’t bring himself to do anything more than trace his pinky down the edge of Cas’s palm—which he doesn’t remember actually doing, but now he can’t stop—not just because he’s scared shitless of how Cas might react, but he knows where his hands have been and what they’ve done. Cas is—he’s divine, angelic, pious, whatever the fuck. He’s so goddamn good, always been, and that ain’t Dean. He’s torn up and stained dark down to the core and that’s enough reason for Cas to bolt right out of the door, except, by some fucking miracle, he hasn’t yet . Dean’s not gonna go looking the gift horse in the mouth but he ain’t gonna bite off more than he can chew either, so might as well let the feel of Cas’s skin underneath his finger send him reeling, foot on the gas and brake lines cut. 

Dean traces the bat signal on Cas’s skin, smiling at the way Cas’s pinky twitches, like he’s trying to trace something back. His breath leaves his chest in one quick whoosh when Cas turns his hand, leaving his palm facing the ceiling like a canvas for Dean to paint over. The angel’s got nice hands—not as calloused as Dean’s but the imprint of a soldier’s life still on his skin. His fingers are long and the urge to press kisses to Cas’s fingertips hits Dean so hard, he feels the back of his eyes burn. 

Dean swallows, whispering a fuck it to himself in his head, and traces a circle in the center of Cas’s palm with his pointer finger. Cas’s hand twitches a little. He writes his own name then, which he realizes is kinda bit too out there only when he’s done tracing the N , but Cas’s lips are tipped up at the corner so it’s no harm done. He moves on to trace Cas’s name, C-A-S-T-I-E-L . Sure, Dean might be biased but Cas lucked out in that department. It’s a pretty name. He finishes tracing the L —the tail end of the letter ending at the webbing between Cas’s middle and ring finger—and looks up at Cas. His smile is a bit brighter, even when his eyes are trained on the screen. Dean really fucking hopes he’s not smiling about Tom Hardy in a suit. 

“It’s quite unbelievable that they all have managed to remain sane for so long,” Cas says, eyes still on the screen. “When you skirt the line between dream and reality to this depth, it’s bound to drive you insane.”

It’s just a movie, Dean wants to say. He thinks about Michael in his own head and the words die on his tongue. Maybe Dean too will go insane soon enough. 

He digs his knuckles into Cas’s palm. He's safe, he's home. 

“Perhaps it is the resilience of the human mind,” Cas says, turning to look at Dean, “some more than others’, that keeps them sane.”

Except Mal did go insane and jumped off the ledge. Dean really doesn’t wanna be Mal. 

“Dean, do you want to watch something else?”

Cas’s voice is more gentle than he’s ever heard from the angel. Dean shakes his head, drawing in a breath and tracing numbers on Cas’s palm absently while he looks back at the screen. He’s Dean fucking Winchester and he can sit through an action thriller without being a baby about it, thank you very much. 

His fingers don't pause though— 5, 6, 7...  

By the end of the movie, Dean has crescent shaped nail marks on the palm of his free hand but Cas does have a lot of thoughts about the movie—and Dean forgets to hate himself for a little while. 

Dean clicks the pen once, the noise a bit too loud in the empty room. He knows he has pissed off more supernatural entities than he can count on both hands but this has gotta be a different brand of torture. 

He clicks the pen one more time, and then another, the click click click somehow easing the knot wedged in his throat. 

Dear Diary, he writes, then laughs at his own joke and scratches the words out. 

Dear Diary

This is stupid.

Not sure how writing down my feelings is gonna help me, but Cas wanted me to have a go at it. Don’t know where Cas is getting these million dollar ideas from ’cause the guy ain’t exactly a shrink. Maybe it’s from all the parenting books he’s read for Jack. Teenager 101 or whatever, and now I have to do homework about my emotions. Whatever makes the guy angel happy, I guess. Cas hasn’t taken off in a while, so he must be doing okay. Kinda funny how after everything, things came back to me saying yes to Mich . Must’ve been hard for Cas ’cause it’s what he gave up everything for. I’d really thought that would be the final straw — me saying yes. I had to, I hope he knows that. There was no other way around it. He hasn’t yelled at me for it yet. No one has. It’s been all kid-gloves treatment for a while now, but someone’s bound to explode any time now and my bets are on Sam. Sammy’s gonna be pissed when he snaps, and it’s okay. Not my first rodeo. Cas ain’t gonna be pissed though, he’s gonna be disappointed. I know it. He’s gonna look at me all sad and I’m gonna snap at him and he’s gonna leave. That’s how it goes. Wish I didn’t get so angry but something always takes over and Cas is at the other end of it pretty much every single time. 

Dean presses the heel of his hand to his eyes, huffing out a laugh. It was supposed to be his ten dollar therapy, but all he’s writing about is Cas. Next thing he knows, Dean will be scratching a heart around Cas’s name like a twelve year old with a crush. He already wants to burn the damn book, but something about the scratch of the pen on paper settles the ache in his chest. 

Anyways. I don’t know what I’m doing here or if it’s working but, for once in my life, I want to get better. Things had been good for a while, until it wasn’t, and I wanna get that back. So if journaling is the way to it then—

Maybe it’s hunters’ instinct or his own goddamn paranoia, but Dean hears the footsteps down the hall early enough for him to toss the pen back in the drawer and shove the diary— the book, it’s just a book, not a fucking diary, fuck you very much—under a bunch of skin mags he hasn’t opened in weeks. From the weight of the footfall, Dean knows it’s Sam even before the door creaks open and his brother pokes his head in. 

“Oh, you’re up,” Sam grimaces. “I didn’t knock ’cause I thought you were sleeping and I didn’t wanna—”

Dean waves his hand, shifting in his chair to face Sam. He knows Sam has half the mind to throw some sleeping pills into his water and some days Dean wishes he would, except he knows there ain’t no magic in them to keep the nightmares at bay. Dean  probably looks like Rip Van Winkle’s beardless first cousin by now, even if he can’t really tell ’cause mirrors have been something he’s been avoiding like a plague since he got back. It’s still a bit too easy to imagine himself in front of a mirror and watching the reflection looking back at him be someone else. 

“Wanted to let you know Claire called. She said she’d stop by here this weekend,” he says. “Just giving you a heads up.” 

Dean frowns. It’s been a while since he’s seen the kid, and turns out even Jody barely gets a call. After what happened to Kaia, Claire’s been a wreck. Except, Dean knows what that means all too well. Claire’s a lot like him for her own good, and wreck for him translates to reckless, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Claire’s out there diving head first into danger like her life is worth jack shit. Maybe Dean should’ve been the one to set an example for the kid, but he remembers throwing his own life at Billie’s feet after Cas was—after Cas had been gone. So yeah, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and every call from Jody makes his heart stutter for a beat with worry. 

“She’s chasing the tail of a Canid to Arkansas and wanted to stop by,” Sam shrugs. “Something about her car making a thumping noise. I would’ve offered to check it out but…”

Dean snorts. Yeah, that’d be fun to watch. 

That gets a bitchface from Sam, “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, jerk.”

“Bitch,” Dean mutters, blinking down at himself when his brain catches up. It had been almost involuntary, like his tongue couldn’t just hold it in, and the way Sam’s eyes brighten for a split second before he schools his expression is enough for Dean to want to try harder to hold on. He clears his throat, “I’ll, um, I’ll teach you,” he chokes out, and then adds, “Sammy.”

There’s a second where Sam looks like he’s about to break into tears, Je sus, but bless the kid, he just rubs a hand over his mouth and grins, “It’s fine, you’re the family grease monkey,” he chuckles. “And you should be proud of it.”

Dean rolls his eyes and flips Sam off, grabbing his phone and twirling it between his fingers. 

“Dean?” 

He looks up at Sam, who presses the tip of his open palm to his chin and moves it forward, “Thank you,” he says, signing along, “No you have no reason to not be thanking me.”

Dean rolls his eyes, throwing a finger over his shoulder. Dickhead. 

"Love you too," Sammy grins for a second before his features school into something more serious. "Dean, I know you probably don't wanna relive any of— that. But if you wanna talk, you know I'm here. It's just... I don't know if I'm doing enough for you. There's a lot I don't know how to make right, but I can be there for you—"

"Sammy," Dean cuts in, looking at his brother and seeing too much of the twelve year old kid with wide eyes and way too many questions he once used to be. "It's- it's okay."

And there it is, the fucking water works. Dean wants to call Rowena and ask for a spell to sew his tear ducts shut ’cause it’s getting out of hand. It’s not like he’s ashamed or anything about the whole thing—men can cry, whatever , he knows. It’s probably all the years of conditioning and all the other twisted crap in his head that’s enough to drive any local shrink up the walls—but to cry on someone’s shoulder...Dean’s just not there yet. 

"Okay," Sam nods, looking a bit placated. "I'll uh, let you rest."

Long after Sam leaves, Dean is still at his desk—an empty page in front of him and too many words in his head he doesn't know how to put into a paper. He'll get there one day.

Dean really really needs a drink right now. 

He has been counting the days—not to sulk over all the drinking he could’ve done, but to see how long he actually lasts this time around. It’s been a little over two weeks, and with not even a pint of whiskey to lull him to sleep, the nightmares are back in full force. Dean knows it will pass, but right now, the urge to feel his palm closed around the cold neck of a bottle is the only thing he can hear and feel. It’s why he’s stumbling into the library in the dead of the night, to make sure he doesn’t let himself brood long enough to seek refuge at the bottom of some old Johnnie lying around. Sam had made sure to keep the bunker clean of all the hard stuff, and what’s left of the beer is padlocked in a cooler, the key left somewhere undisclosed, but Dean knows it’s with Cas. Sammy isn’t as slick as he thinks he is. 

It’d have pissed him off any other day—his family micromanaging his drinking—but Dean’s grateful this time around. He can guess how much of a pain in the ass he must’ve been to deal with during his withdrawal, and to see Sammy and Cas, and even Jack, stay by his side through it really had Dean choked up more times than he had liked. 

Dean usually expects Cas to be hanging around the library this time of the night, except he's off in Nevada helping Mom on a case. Turns out, Dean still has company ’cause Sammy’s at the table, scrolling through his phone with a cup of what looks like Cas’s hocus pocus sleepytime tea by his side. 

“Oh, hey man,” Sam says when he spots him. “What’s up?”

Dean rubs a hand across his mouth to hide a grin. What’s up , Sammy asks, as if they’re not roaming the halls in the middle of the night like a bunch of weirdos. Instead, he shrugs and pulls the chair opposite to Sam out, planting his ass there. He reaches over and drags Sam’s tea closer, lifting the cup to take a sip. Jesus, it feels like he snorted a botanical garden. 

“Don’t make that face, it’s good for you,” Sam quips. “Seriously. Really helps with sleep.”

Dean hasn’t really needed any liquid courage to fall asleep, but he’s needed it to knock him out deep under—far enough to keep the nightmares at bay. Sammy’s always been the insomniac, tossing and turning late into the night. He’s been that way since he was little, needing at least three rounds of turning in circles before he would finally go under. Sammy had a good pair of lungs on him as a baby, but that’s nothing compared to how cranky he’d be after a bad night’s sleep when he was around four or five. There’s a memory floating around in the back of Dean’s mind, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls his phone out, opening his text chain with Sam. 

Want me to carry you around on my back until you conk out? He clicks send. 

Sam’s brows pull into a frown as he reaches for his own phone, eyes widening when he reads the message, “What?”

Dean grins and types out, I used to do that when you were pint sized. Sometimes dad would drive you around for a while before you fell asleep. When he was out, I’d give you piggyback rides up and down the motel hallway. 

“Really?” Sam blinks back at him. “Dude, I don’t even remember that.”

Well, you were barely four or five. 

Sam frowns, “You were eight.”

Yeah, and you thought I invented the sun and personally went out to rise it every morning, he types out. Sometimes you’d even throw fits just to get the piggyback ride. It was the only time you wouldn't ask questions about what dad was doing that late at night instead of being with us. 

“Jesus, Dee,” Sam huffs a laugh, pushing his hair back from his eyes. “That was a dick move from my side.”

Well kids are dicks like that, Dean shrugs. 

“Still, y’know,” Sam lets out a frustrated sigh, as if he’s searching for the right words. “With everything that’s happened… how far we’ve come, I kinda forget the crap you had to put yourself through. Between raising me when you were barely any older and having to deal with dad…”

“Sammy,” Dean warns. 

“No, just– I know you don’t think it’s a big deal, but you’ve done so much for me,” Sam says. “Look, I know I can be an ass sometimes, but I’m really grateful for–”

Dean groans. He should’ve stayed in his room. 

“–you being there for me… for raising me,” Sam presses on. “So, yeah. Thanks.”

Jesus, this is why he finds the closest exit anytime someone even touches the can of worms that is his childhood. Yeah, it was mostly shit, and sometimes it wasn’t—it’s whatever. They made it this far in one piece, and it was supposed to play out this way no matter what road they had chosen. There’s a distant part of Dean’s mind that’s ringing alarm bells at his need to defend this idea—the one where their dad did his best. Dean ain’t stupid, he knows it wasn’t exactly children’s blog material, but he’s locked away that part of his awareness in a box in the far corner of his mind and labelled it miscellaneous. Not much of their lives have been kind to them, and Dean has learned to ignore what’s said and done in favor of parsing out what’s necessary to keep himself alive—what keeps his family safe and protected. His family has gone from Sammy and Baby to a literal angel and his half-angel kid, and Jody and the girls, and now Mom. At least, that’s all that’s left alive. Still, the goal stays the same—keep them out of harm’s way. And, if he had to put up with some shit in his early years—well, it’s whatever. It really is. 

“Dean, I can practically hear you building up a defense in your head,” Sam scoffs. “It’s fine to admit our lives weren’t always ideal.”

Sure, it’s fine , but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. He’s still got some fucked up sense of loyalty to his old man—enough to defend what doesn’t deserve to be defended. There’s no other way around it. 

“I get that we’ve been heaven and hell’s sock puppets for a good part of our lives,” Sam says, probably knowing Dean is snuffed out of arguments, “but, we were kids , Dean. We deserved to feel protected.” By our dad. Sam doesn’t say it, but Dean hears it anyway. 

And that’s Dean’s cue to exit, stage left. 

"Dean—" Sam calls, but the rest of it is drowned out by distance. He doesn't need this right now. 

It’s a fitful night’s sleep from then on, and Dean pretends he doesn't hear the words we deserved to feel protected in his head, just like how he pretends he doesn’t hate his father even one bit. 

After all, the show must go on—and what is Dean’s entire existence, if not a shit-show. 

Chapter Text

iv. 

Claire shows up with a gash on her forehead and a sprained shoulder that gives Dean a heart attack and makes Jack tear up because he can’t heal her anymore. Turns out Claire and Jack have been buddies lately, and it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows ’cause she'd been unsettled to see someone who looks like her father gush over another kid while she had that luxury ripped away from her way too young. Except Jack is a walking and talking ball of glitter and sparkles, and it doesn’t help that he hangs onto every word falling out of Claire’s mouth as if it's the gospel. They’re both good kids and it makes sense that they get along. 

Cas had looked so worn down talking about this stuff that Dean had braved himself into squeezing Cas’s shoulder in silent solidarity. And if something in Dean had uncurled when Cas had smiled up at him, then it was no one’s business but his.

Things between Cas and Claire have been going well too—even if mostly through texts and phone calls—and that’s why Cas is rushing over to her right now with two fingers already in the air. Claire huffs but doesn’t pull back while Cas heals her. It’s a funny little glaring contest from there on, and as much as a tough crowd Claire is, Cas holds the ever-rolling trophy for the most stubborn son of a bitch to walk this earth, so Claire ends up bitching and moaning her way through a hug while Dean tries to stop his knees from giving out right there. He’s not sure what it is, but something about Cas fussing over the kids have Dean feeling the kind of things that could be considered well into the territory of blasphemy. 

“I’m not hugging you, old man,” Claire mutters, practically shoving Cas away and sauntering over to Dean, her hands in her jacket pocket. She tosses her keys in the air in his general direction. “Go fix my car,” she says over her shoulder and disappears down the hallway. 

Dean grumbles his protest which isn’t really a protest. He’d like to think it’s ’cause he’s crossed over to the part of his life where 'Love, Actually' makes him cry—Jesus Christ, he needs to get a grip—but Dean's too soft these days. Though, he's always been that way with kids. There’s Jack, and how Dean had been with him will always be a pang of nagging guilt in the back of his head, but all he can do now is try to be better with the kid. He thinks back to the time when Cas was— gone , and how he’d taken every single dark and churning ache deep down in his gut and toss it at Jack. Dean wants to pretend that he'd have done things differently if he could go back in time, but he really can’t promise. Dean’s always been like that—wrecking everything around him with his rage, too careless with his grief. 

It’s mostly drained out of him by now—don’t get him wrong, Dean’s barely going by a day without smashing everything he can get his hands on, but he can’t watch himself do that anymore. Dean can’t watch his family pick up the broken pieces on the floor and weld it back together only for Dean to shatter them again. He still remembers being twenty-two and angry, walking away from back alley fights with bruised knuckles and rage thrumming in his blood. He remembers curling up in Baby, waiting for a call, or a text—just anything —from John. He remembers holding his phone with his finger hovering over Sam’s number, thinking how the kid he had raised—the kid he had given up everything for—didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. 

It’s different now—Sammy’s turned out to be better than Dean could’ve ever imagined, and the kid is so goddamn resilient. Something deep inside of him stutters and cracks when he remembers everything his little brother went through—from Lucifer to Gadreel—all that pain and fear…it’s so much worse than the few weeks Dean spent with Michael drowning him in his own head. Sam still didn’t break, and Dean hates that he thinks John would’ve been proud of Sam for holding his own after all that torture. It’s even worse to know John would’ve looked at Dean with the same withered eyes that Dean spent years pretending like it didn’t make him feel worthless—the look of disappointment and resignation. The kind of look a father should never aim in his son’s direction, no matter what. With kids of his own, Dean knows that now, but John’s eyes are still burned into the back of his mind. 

His train of thought pauses just as he feels his hands pause. He doesn’t remember when or how he ended up in front of Claire’s ’93 Subaru Loyale with the hood popped open. There’s a chance his brain must’ve dropped back online to remind him to do his damn job, whatever. Dean shakes his limbs out and ducks under the hood. From there on it's mostly muscle memory. He does a routine check—brakes, radiator, and the list kept building from there. She’s overall in a good condition, but the thumping from the engine warrants a tune-up. 

Dean gets to work, his hands taking over the familiar motions. It’s quiet in the garage, but Dean can hear the noise of people puttering around from somewhere deep in the bunker. It’s a bit of work to run back and forth between tweaking where things need a tweak and walking back to fire the engine up, but he manages. It gets quieter after a while, and with his hands busy, it takes Dean a while to hear the noise. 

It’s a quiet drip drip drip, and somewhere in the back of his head, Dean knows it’s the sound of the oil atop the heads draining back into the sump, but something deep down in his chest doesn’t get the memo. He climbs out from the drivers’ seat and shakes his head, trying to send the rhythmic drip drip drip blending into the background, but all it does is get louder and louder. He wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans, smearing the grease on the denim, except his hands feel different—cold and wet, the air filling with the metallic stench of blood. He can feel it flow down his fingers and splatter on the floor, drip drip drip, but Dean doesn’t dare look. He shuts his eyes and leans back against the backdoor, clenching his fists until he can feel the press of his own nails into his skin. 

It’s when his lungs start to burn that Dean figures it’s about time he tried to breathe, but Dean can’t. He just can’t. This is it, Dean thinks, and on any other day, he’d have laughed because he’s Dean fucking Winchester, and dying from whatever the hell is happening to him right now would make a big dent in his street cred. His head spins and his knees give out before long, and Dean drops to the floor, landing on his ass, and somewhere in the background he hears a stretched-out and faint, but panicked, “Dean!” 

A hand lands on his shoulder—it’s firm in a way that doesn’t make him feel the need to flinch away. 

“Dean, what the fuck?” the voice calls. “Are you okay, dude?”

“Claire,” Dean tries to say, but all that comes out is a choked-out sob. He’s half hoping the ground would split open and swallow him whole ’cause anything’s better than to be crying on the floor with a twenty-two-year-old kid holding him up. 

“Woah, there,” Claire’s arms come around his shoulder, and this time Dean flinches a bit and hopes she didn’t catch the movement. Claire pats him on the back, a strangled sound of distress punching out of her. “Shit, should I get Sam?”

Dean shakes his head against her shoulder, and he’s not even sure why. Sam’s definitely a better option than his kind-of kid, but his brother is a bigger worrier and Dean’s not sure he can deal with that right now. He shuts his eyes tighter for a second before pulling back and leaning against the car, his head hitting the metal with the thump . 

“I came to check on your progress,” Claire says, sitting back on her heels. “Seriously, Dean, should I be calling 911? It’d suck if you died on my watch.” 

Dean snorts, feeling his own heartbeat throbbing in his head. He can sense the numbness fading away and his throat feels like someone took a cheese grater to it, but he can remember how to breathe again. Thank fuck for the small mercies. This time he hears the footfall on the stairs, and from the weight of it, Dean knows who it is.  

“Claire, are you—” Cas’s cuts himself off, and Dean doesn’t chance a look. There are still tears pricking his eyes. Cas clears his throat, a deep rumble in the empty room and Dean wants to curl into that sound and borrow himself there. “You were gone for quite a while. Is everything okay?”

Claire rolls her eyes louder than the laugh that punches out of Dean’s chest. Damn, is all of his family so goddamn nosey?

“I think Dean was having a heart attack,” Claire mumbles, and Dean knows she’s aiming for a joke, but he hears the shake in her voice anyways. 

“Dean?” Cas is rushing forward even before the words are out of Claire's mouth, and Dean glares at her before turning to look up at Cas. He shakes his head and lifts a hand to give Cas a thumbs up, but Cas drops to his knees next to him anyways. A hand comes up to his chest, pausing right before it presses down. 

“May I?” Cas asks, blue eyes filled with so much concern. "No grace. I just want to feel your pulse." Dean has the urge to pull him into a hug. Jesus, Winchester. 

Dean nods, not sure what Cas is asking for but knowing he won’t be able to deny the guy anything right now, or ever. The angel’s got him in a goddamn chokehold ever since day one, and Dean’s past the point of getting freaked out by it. 

Cas’s palm presses down on his chest and Dean unclenches his fist, wincing at the way his nails peel away from where it has been digging into his palm. He doesn’t even remember doing it. There’s no white glow of light or tingling spikes down his chest, but Cas is staring down at his own palm where it’s pressed to Dean’s chest with so much concentration, he’s sure the angel’s about to pull up flowcharts and a laser pointer any moment now. 

“What’s the verdict, doc?” Claire asks, and Dean wants to laugh ’cause it’s like she’s in his head. He doesn’t though, not wanting the movement to make Cas pull away. 

“I don’t sense any signs of a cardiac arrest, though his heart rate is more elevated than normal, and from what I can sense...” Cas hums, “Dean, it seems like you had a panic attack.”

Dean huffs a laugh and shakes Cas’s hands off him. He knows it outta be true, that doesn’t mean Cas has to know that. He sure as hell ain’t gonna admit to losing his marbles over practically nothing, thank you very much. Dean bets someone out on Saturn can hear Cas’s resigned sigh, but he enjoys pushing his buttons more than he probably should. 

“Do you have any idea what triggered it?” Cas asks. Dean rolls his eyes but shakes his head negative dutifully, and Cas opens his mouth to say something but Claire cuts in. 

“Cas, can you give us a minute?” she asks. “We’ll be back down soon.”

Cas narrows his eyes, and to Claire’s credit, the kid just sends a withering look back at Cas until the angel backs down with a nod. Dean’s glad he’s not feeling chatty right now or else the strangled whine that gets lodged in his throat as he watches Cas walk away might have slipped out. 

“Here,” Claire holds out a beer she seems to have pulled out of thin air. 

Dean shakes his head, surprising himself and from the look on Claire’s face, her too. Normally, this would be pretty much the perfect time for Dean to be wandering around the bunker, scouring for the strongest whiskey they’ve got like a raccoon let loose in a dumpster. Except, the need to drown out the pots and pans clunking in his head is trumped by the need to stay alert. He feels like he’s tearing apart at the seams, and a little slip—a single drink—would be enough to lose control and fall back into the never ending abyss in his own head. He can’t drown anymore without sinking to the bottomless pit full of darkness, Dean knows that much. 

“Suit yourself,” Claire shrugs, sliding back to lean against the car next to Dean. 

She's quiet, sipping her beer and tapping her foot on the floor. Dean knows the tell tale signs of a flight risk—courtesy of Castiel—and he can practically hear Claire cooking up threads of dead end thoughts in her head—how the Canid must be getting away each minute she spends sitting around, and how every second she wastes is setting her back on her plan to get revenge for Kaia’s death. Maybe a few years back, Dean would’ve tried to talk her out of it. He’s seen what loss, and the need to spill blood can do to your head. He’s seen it in his dad ever since he can remember, and he's seen it in Sam after Jess. 

That's the thing with loss, it latches onto the part of you that you can wreck you the most and yanks . Dean remembers being on his knees next to Cas’s body, feeling hollowed out—a numbness that hadn't left him until he had Cas in his arms again. Dean hadn’t wanted revenge back then, ’cause all he could find to blame when he looked around was himself. Sure, he’d taken it out on Jack, but Dean knew the kid had nothing to do with any of that. He’d been a nightmare to the kid anyway, because he’s an asshole like that. 

He sees that same helplessness in Claire right now, the need to scream and split skin against something, and chasing a ghost is always the easiest way to go about it. He doesn't bother talking her down or giving out words of wisdom that mean jack shit. All he can do right now is keep an eye on the kid while she gets through this and comes out the other side on her own. 

“Alex has nightmares sometimes,” Claire says abruptly. “She goes real quiet afterwards, so I just sit by the foot of her bed and talk.”

Dean nods, nudging his foot against hers.

“Mostly about the hunts I’ve been on or the bar fights I get in,” she chuckles. Dean pauses, rearing back to scowl at her, which does nothing more than make her roll her eyes. 

“Sometimes we share our headphones and listen to sad Taylor Swift songs,” she turns her head to grin at him. “It’s easy to listen to a break up song or two when you know there are worse things that could happen to you.”

The beer bottle dangles from her hand, half empty. She’s gone quiet again, and Dean nudges his shoulder against hers. Sam has always been better at this, but Claire’s language is the kind that Dean knows better. She huffs and pushes herself off the floor. 

“Come on,” she holds out a hand. “Don’t want your boyfriend to start worrying again.”

Dean reaches to grab her hand, but not before flipping her off. He expects her to drop him on his ass but the kid’s not the regular Regina George she pretends to be around everyone else. He wraps his arm around her shoulder in a quick hug before pulling away and leaving for the stairs, but Dean doesn’t have to turn to see the small smile tugging at her mouth. 

Cas is the first one out of his chair when he bounds down the stairs, and Dean has half the mind to take a detour back to his room to wait out until everyone’s worried eyes are off of him. He doesn't though, not when there's people at the table he wants to feed. It’s the one thing Dean can do—make sure his family's stomachs are full—and he doesn't even know when they're gonna get to see Claire again. 

Dean catches Cas’s eyes and throws him a smile, watching the way Cas’s shoulders visibly slump in relief, before heading over to the cabinets to pull out what’s left to scrape up some dinner. 

It's not that Dean didn't know, but this constant reminder of how much Cas just cares —for him, Sam, Claire and Jack, and just every goddamn blade of grass under his shoe, is so goddamn surreal. He remembers Cas when they first met— Castiel, angel of the freakin’ Lord, tearing down that barn door and waltzing in like he owned the damn place. That Cas—it’s easy to think he didn't give a rat’s ass about anyone, but even back then Dean knew there was something different about the angel. In this life, trusting the wrong guy sends you into an early grave, but—call it hunter’s instinct—Dean could see Cas cared. 

Almost a decade later, Dean looks at Cas and all he can see is someone who’s made of love, handing it out to anyone at his reach. So full of love, it’s flowing over the brim. Cas cares and cares and is willing to throw himself in the line of fire over it. He sees Cas smooth down the collar of Jack’s shirt, and fight Dean in the middle of the goddamn produce section because Sam likes baby tomatoes in his salad and Dean, for the life of him, doesn’t understand the difference, but he’s glad Cas is there to fight for Sam’s hippie-ism. Dean looks at Cas—this version of Cas that’s so tangible, and comforting, and safe —and he knows he’d rip his own heart out and hand it over on a silver platter if Cas asked him with that soft smile Dean likes to think is reserved for him alone. 

“Dean?” Jack’s voice calls, right next to Dean’s ear, and it takes all of his remaining dignity to not screech and jump in the air like an alley cat. It’s about time they got a bell on both the squirt and his dad. 

He uncurls his hand from around the edge of the baking tray, wincing at the indentation it leaves behind on his palm, and turns to Jack. 

Jack blinks up at him, wide and hopeful eyes. “Can I help?”

Dean doesn’t have to turn and look at his family huddled around the table to feel the calculated silence in the room. This has been going on for a while now—the dishes in the sink miraculously cleaned up and just the whole bunker more spotless than it has ever been. Dean’s got an idea of what this is all about, and he’s grateful for everyone pitching in, but it’s really not needed. He likes the weight he pulls around the house, be it the cooking or the cleaning, ’cause it’s rare that he gets to indulge in these things. Sammy has always been more of a survivalist than Dean—maybe it’s all his good memories from living off Campbell’s soup and stale pizza back at Stanford, but Sam just about works with whatever they’ve got. 

Dean likes his routines, even between the fuss of one apocalypse ending at the mouth of another. He likes his days where he wakes up at ass o’clock in the morning, not because of the marine internal clock John had beaten into him since before he could string out a compound sentence, but to make pancakes from scratch and even throw in Sam his gross ass egg white omelet with spinach on a pan before Sammy’s off for his early morning run—and if it gets him some alone time with Cas to talk about nothing and everything while he cooks, no one has to know. 

After Michael it’s a lot different now, where mornings and nights blend together and sleep comes in the form of passing out with his head on his arms on the map table when his eyelids get too heavy. He’s trying to get back to how it used to be, even with the all-encompassing emptiness in the base of Dean’s spine that keeps telling him there’s something permanently fractured within him. 

He ducks into the fridge and grabs a few bell peppers, setting it on the table with the bluntest knife they’ve got, just in case. Jack nods at him like Dean just briefed him with the battle plan and gets on it with a crinkle of concentration between his brows, and it reminds him so much of Cas, Dean has to turn and look at the angel where he’s engrossed in a conversation with Claire. As if he can feel Dean’s eyes on him, Cas looks up and catches his gaze, the corners of his mouth tugging up into a smile before he turns back to Claire. It happens so quickly; quick enough that Dean knows no one else caught it, but something settles within the deep inside the hollow divots of Dean’s chest—a scared little creature he’s used to stomping down with the heel of his boots finally finding peace. 

Dean spends the rest of the night and the hours leading up to the next morning replaying that smile in his head over and over, wishing he could borrow into the warmth of it and curl up there until the weight of his own skin feels like a distant memory. 

I’m a lot like you, though in every way except where it counts. Dean writes into his journal– notebook. Dammit.

It feels like he’s writing a letter, and Dean hadn’t meant to let it get to this point. But, what can he say—it’s kinda nice. He has been finding himself a concerning number of times at his desk with the book open in front of him, writing down some of the crap that’s been bouncing around in his head. Most of it is better off left where it is buried so deep, Dean can barely dig it out, but some of it—they can stay etched to a paper. It’s not just all dear diary in there—everything, from grocery lists to random sketches of faces from his memories and nightmares goes in the book. As much as he hates to admit it, even when it’s not some miracle cure-it-all, writing shit down helps. Well, fuck, he owes all the worlds’ therapists an apology. 

Right now, Dean’s not here to jot down the grocery list. 

Earlier, in the morning, Jack had asked Dean about John. The kid doesn’t know Dean’s old man personally—thank fuck for that—and he’d wanted to know what John Winchester was like. Dean’s first instinct had been to snap at Jack—but thankfully he didn’t. Jack is finally getting comfortable talking to Dean (at least he thinks so) without his shoulders drawn all the way up to his ears like some kind of armor, and Dean snapping at the kid would’ve sent them back to square one. But, Dean’s anger had been soon overrun by the intense need to protect —to shield Jack from… Well, Dean doesn’t know. Or maybe, he’s pretending he doesn’t. 

John’s memories can’t hurt Jack, but if Dean feels the need to protect his kid from them, then there’s gotta be something in there worth confronting. 

Dean wants to laugh—this is all so fucking stupid even by his standards. 

Yet, here he is. So, Dean writes. 

Yeah, I’ve spent a good part of my life trying to be just like you. I guess that’s what happens when you half-ass things. I was a lot like mom—you said it yourself. Except, I didn’t get to be fully like her cause I barely knew her. And I added you into the mix, trying to be you and ending up with a half-empty instruction manual for a brain. I’m a mess, and it’s not even sad anymore, it’s just amusing to me. Still, I somehow took after you when it comes to getting angry and shattering everything I touch. I took after you with the number of empty bottles of booze under my name. 

Somewhere in the bunker, a door opens and closes. From the weight and pace of the footfall, he thinks it’s Cas. 

I know you did your best. You protected me as much as you could, and you taught me everything I know. You taught me how to keep Sammy safe. You did your best, dad. But your best just wasn’t good enough.

I remember how you would put a hand on my back—your big warm hand that felt like the safest thing in the whole goddamn world for a five-year-old me—while I shook awake from a nightmare. I remember how you’d let me sleep with my head on your lap with Sammy tucked safely against my little chest when we were too short on cash and had to sleep in Baby for the night. You were my hero on those nights.

I also remember nights when you’d come home reeking of booze and blood, and just my existence would piss you off. You’d kick down chairs and slam your fists against the wall, and I’d wonder what I did wrong. I’d wonder why I wasn’t good enough and when those fists would turn against me. 

It’s happened a few times—after the Shtriga, when you grabbed me by the elbow and slammed my back against the wall. After that shifter case in Des Moines when you slapped me cause I missed a shot. After Flagstaff. The hits didn’t hurt—not as much as looking up at your face and hoping to see even a moment’s worth of regret, only to see how angry you were. How disappointed I made you. I hated you on those nights—at least I tried to. But, you were still my dad. 

So yeah, you taught me everything I know. But, the one thing that stuck with me the most was how you taught me to hate myself. 

It’s when he notices the blotch of distorted ink on the paper, Dean realizes he’s crying. For fuck’s sake. 

I tell myself you tried your best with us, but you could’ve tried harder, dad. You could’ve done more, y’know? Even now, there’s guilt gnawing at me for asking you for more, but I know I’m not asking for much. Sure, most of our lives were planned and packaged by the holy squad upstairs—whatever. This is how it was always gonna be. But you didn’t know all that back then. You could’ve tried to give us a better life, dad. Heaven wanted the perfect soldiers, and you made their job easy. You could’ve let go of mom’s ghost and chosen to stay in our corner instead. You could’ve chosen to raise us—give us at least a shadow of the apple pie life we deserved. Instead, you gave heaven its two soldiers prepped and ready to go, just how they wanted. 

You threw me a road map of my future and told me this—hunting, revenge—was all there was for me. When Sammy chose a different road, you kicked him out. Seriously, what kind of a father disowns his kid for getting a full ride to Stanford? You were so far drowning in your anger and grief, everything else around you seemed pointless. Me and Sammy included. You protected us cause you wanted us to grow and join your fight. If you really wanted to keep us safe, you wouldn’t have left Sammy n’ me alone for weeks on end when I could barely wrap my hand around a gun. You wouldn’t have used me as bait when I was a kid in the name of teaching me a lesson. Your idea of me and Sam had you asking so much of us. And I tried, dad—I hope you know that. I tried to give you everything, but it just wasn’t enough for you. 

Fuck, Dean’s really going at it now with the waterworks. He wipes his eyes on the back of his palm and leans back in his chair, willing the knot in his chest to loosen. 

It’s alright now, dad. I’d like to think I’ve done okay for myself. Sammy’s still here, and I hope I did right by him. It’s the one thing I’m proud of—the kid turned out great. He’s my pride and joy, you gotta know that. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, but Sam turned out to be a tough son of a bitch, even when he had to learn it the hard way a few times. There’s still so much I couldn’t protect him from, but the kid’s got a head as big as yours and the need to keep giving and giving until he wears himself out. You’d be so proud of him, and I hate that. You’d be proud of him ’cause he’s still hunting and he’s saved so many lives—and that’s just too painful to think about. I used to dream about attending Sammy’s graduation and crying like a baby when he got his hotshot lawyer pass. I couldn’t picture you being proud even in that pipe dream. It is what it is, I guess. Still, Sammy’s the most well-rounded person I know, and that’s a lot considering the shit show his life has been. 

I’ve got others to call family too. I’ve got Cas and Jack. I can bet dollars on donuts that wouldn’t end well if you were around. You’d have hated Cas—he’s not exactly human and that’d have you pull a gun on him. Something tells me Cas too would’ve had a few bones to pick with you. Jesus, can’t imagine how that’d go. Same goes for Jack too. Lucifer’s son—you’d have lost your mind. But they’re my family now, and I’d die and kill for them. Done it a few times. So, you can hate them as much as you want, dad, but they’re staying. Because you’ve been gone—you left a weight on me that I still carry with me. You told me to save Sam, and then you said if I couldn’t I had to kill him. It felt like you set me up for failure—and then you just left. Guess what? I did save him. I trusted him and I stood by his side. You wouldn’t know what that’s like, would you? Cause all you ever did was take off on us. 

Well, this time, you can stay gone, dad. 

Jesus Christ, I miss you so much sometimes, and I hate you and I love you and I wish you had tried harder, dad. You’ve been gone for so long and I still feel like I’m running from you. I’d rather shoot myself in the foot than put my kid through that. I wanna do better by Jack, and I dunno how that’ll turn out, but I’ll try my best and then some. I let myself be you for a while—with my head so far up my ass, drowning in my grief when Cas was gone. I let myself lash out at the kid, and I hope he’ll forgive me. But, I know I gotta earn it. 

So yeah, I’m gonna paint a good picture of you and hang it up on the wall in my head. I don’t need the memory of you anymore. I’m not you, and it ain’t just empty words. You deserve peace and I hope you’re getting it.

I’ll see you one day, dad. 

In the end, he doesn’t feel a lot different. Dean’s fingers still itch to close around a bottle and there’s still that nasty voice in the back of his head telling him he’s wasting away, broken and no use to anyone while he’s sitting on his ass. Dean knows he could fix this if he wants to. Well, Sam or Cas wouldn’t call it fixing, but Dean has got plenty of ideas on how to just shove aside his problems and keep on keepin’ on. He’s been doing it his entire life, so what’s one more time? 

Truth is, Dean is scared. He’d take it with him to his grave, but he’s terrified what might end up happening if he goes out on the field, guns blazin’ and all. It wouldn’t just be his own life he’d be putting in the line of fire, but the lives of the people he’s supposed to save. Dean has enough self awareness left to realize what that kind of guilt on his conscience will do to him. It’s not like Sam and Cas are gonna let him out anyways. They’ve been working on something—which generally, a very bad idea. On his own, Sam is sharp as a whip, and Cas has the entire knowledge of the whole goddamn universe hardwired into his brain. And somehow, the combination of those two ends with the whole place burning to the ground. It’s kinda funny, even when it gives Dean heart palpitations. So, until whatever the hell Sam and Cas are working on is settled, Dean is the bench warmer. Whatever, it’s hell of a lot better than ending up in a wheelchair. 

He’s still dreading the day Cas will have to go digging into his brain to pull out everything Michael has buried in there. He can take some probing, sure, but the thought of what might surface from his memories doesn’t fail to send a shudder up his spine. Dean doesn’t remember most of it—minus the moments he’d be pulled to the surface to watch his own hands ripping throats out. He thinks it had been Michael’s way of trying to keep him in line, ’cept Dean has seen and done a lot worse in his time downstairs. But, most of Dean’s split second moments of awareness was spent trying to stop Michael from tearing into his soul for an extra boost. Dean still remembers—clear as a bell—the unshakable sense of wrong that’d settled in what was left of his conscience when Michael so much as lifted a metaphorical arm in his direction, trying to get to his soul. Even with the archangel literally in him, it had been the most invasive Dean had felt. He'd fought tooth and nail to keep Michael's hands off his soul. It wasn't his to touch—it makes no sense, Dean is Michael's Sword—but it just wasn't. It still isn't—he might not know why or how, but it isn't. Dean had felt the distaste and anger from the archangel knocking against his own ribs every time his attempts failed. He's still not sure what it was that kept Michael from scrambling his noodles and using that window to dip his toes into the soul-pool. Hey, he’s not complaining. 

Maybe, he would’ve broken in and Dean wouldn’t even have realized. Whatever it was, Cas will be able to tell—as soon as he gets the green light. Dean knows he should hurry up—he’s working on it. All he’s hoping is that Cas would understand why he’s so goddamn terrified, enough to bid time over something this important. 

Dean drops the pen back into the pen stand and pushes himself to his feet, heading for the door—his family’s out there hanging around for him. 

Everything else can wait. 

Chapter Text

v.

He’s not drowning this time, but there are hands curled around his throat, choking the life out of him. 

It burns; from the tip of his toes up to the top of his head—everything burns, down to the last atom. Dean remembers this brand of torture from his time downstairs, it wasn’t the worst but he’d put it up there in the top five. Maybe Dean’s weaker now, both body and mind, so he breaks faster than he'd thought, only to be put back together and be broken again. Dean can see the face that’s looking back at him, choking him—it’s the same green eyes he’s used to seeing in the mirror. It reminds him of something Alaistair once said. 

No one wants to see you get torn to shreds more than yourself, Dean. If you had claws, the first thing you would do is dig them into your own heart. 

Dean grabs at his throat, trying to pry the hands away. It burns and burns and burns  until he thinks he can feel his bones—the scent of burning flesh swirling in the air. A part of him—shredded, spineless, and folding in on himself like a deck of cards—wants to give up, let go , and drown until his feet hit the bottom. It’ll be easier, Dean knows. He has spent every waking moment shouting from the rooftops about how he’s a fighter in an effort to convince himself, more than anyone else, but moments like this, Dean can see through his own walls. Maybe, Alastair was right. This is all Dean is—a receptacle for pain, a broken mold meant to be beaten into shape by his own bloody hands. 

“It’s always going to be like this, Dean,” his own voice says, lips twisting in a snarl. “There’s no peace for you at the end of the tunnel.”

His chest crumbles beneath his ribs just as the world around him shifts, the hands around his throat fading away. It’s Jack right in front of him now, and Dean’s own hands are wrapped around the kid’s neck. Dean chokes on a breath and tries to pull away, but the more he tries, the tighter it gets. Jack doesn’t writhe under his grip—just stares back at him with wide, trusting eyes. Dean tries to shout at him, jolt him back into reality, but no sound makes it past his lips. A blink of an eye later, it’s Sam underneath his hands—the twelve-year-old kid he raised; fresh-faced and so full of hope even in a life that gave him nothing to be hopeful about. The kid just smiles up at him and Dean’s heart rattles in his chest like rocks in a tin can. 

“Are you gonna kill me, Dee?” Sammy smiles. “It’s what dad wanted, and you always do what he wants.”

“Sammy,” Dean chokes out, recognizing the beats of his own grief but helpless to do anything to stop. 

“Go on, Dean,” Sam says, his voice coming out frazzled from Dean’s grip on his throat. Dean watches as the light fades out of Sam’s eyes, he sees it, helpless and hopeless. 

Dean wakes with a jolt, not much different than his usual middle-of-the-night reality checks—shirt drenched in sweat sticking to his back and sheets tangled around his legs. Something new he registers is the burn on his neck, and for a split second, he thinks he’s still dreaming. He looks down at his hands, the tips of his fingers red with blood—fresh and beginning to crust underneath his nails. 

He doesn’t get to think it over ’cause the door to his room is swinging open and Dean’s scrambling for his gun on the nightstand, or maybe the knife under his pillow—

“Dean, it’s just me,” Cas says, voice steady, and that makes Dean pause. 

His hands fall to his lap, limp and red with blood. He doesn’t look up at Cas though, just shuts his eyes and tries to make sense of everything around him. Bunker, his room, his bed. Cas at his doorway. 

It’d be stupid to protest and say he’s fine—Cas ain't dumb—so he doesn’t. It takes everything in him not to shuffle and back away to the farthest corner of his bed when Cas takes a step closer. Dean holds his gaze, curling his fingers into the sheets when Cas walks closer, holding his hands up in surrender. He’s got an idea what Cas must be seeing—a spooked animal in place of his best friend, sweaty and afraid, hands caked with blood. 

But, Cas still looks at him like Dean is something worth giving up the world for.

“Dean?”

He says his name like it’s sacred, worthwhile, redeemable .

Dean doesn’t bother stopping the first sob from spilling past his lips. It’s frazzled and shaky, broken and breathless, leaving a trail of piercing jabs to his ribs in its wake. More wracking sobs follow, and Dean hunches in on himself in a desperate effort to detach from his own skin until he’s small and unseeable; blended into the background. He wants to surrender to the hands that keep pulling him under—it’s pointless to keep on keepin’ on when all it does is send him spiraling down a hole he's never gonna climb out of.

“Oh, Dean,” Cas is closer than ever, his arms wrapping around Dean and pulling him in. Dean lets him. Lets him hold the weight Dean himself can’t carry anymore, even when every last nerve in his body is frantically looking for a way out—away from safety—to let the good things in his life burn away. Dean shoves that voice away and presses in closer to Cas's skin, who just holds him tighter, “I sensed your distress. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you earlier, I could have—"

Dean shakes his head, burrowing himself into Cas’s chest, wishing he could climb into the dips of Cas’s spine and curl up there like a spoiled house cat. He knows Cas would let him. And that’s exactly why Dean can’t lean on him for any longer than a few seconds he indulges in. Cas has been carrying both of their weights for some time now, and Dean knows the guy enough to know he’s gonna keep doing it until his knees buckle from the load. 

He pulls away, but he’s greedy in the smallest ways, so he leaves his hand curled around the lapel of Cas’s coat. Cas’s blue eyes are a refreshing splash of color against the gray walls, bottomless, and safer than the wardings keeping the bunker air-tight. Dean lets himself drown for a moment, the caged bird in his chest settling its wings and wedging itself in the space between Dean’s skin and Cas’s palm where it’s pressed to his chest. 

“Concentrate on your breathing,” Cas says. "Focus on what you can see and hear. Focus on my voice." 

Dean lets Cas take the lead, nodding along, hoping Cas wouldn't stop talking. He's Dean's anchor right now—always has been. 

"You don't have to talk about your nightmare, I know you don't prefer to," Cas murmurs. "But if you want to, you can always pray to me. You're safe right now."

“I’m okay,” he signs back—making an ‘O’ with his thumb, pointer, and middle finger, and stretching them outwards—because technically he is. No one’s dead, and no one’s dying. That's what okay means to him. 

Cas doesn't buy one bit of it, but the angel has enough decency to not call him out on it. Cas’s eyes are scanning him, and Dean feels—he feels something he doesn't have a name for. Dean watches in real-time as a crease forms between Cas’s brows, his eyes locked on Dean’s neck. Fuck, he knows he must’ve scratched at his skin from the blood on his hands, and yeah, it burns , but Dean’s not sure about the extend of the damage. He knows what comes next, and he also knows he’s gonna freak out when—

“May I?” Cas asks, reaching out with an open palm.

“Cas,” Dean chokes out, barely pushing out the whole syllable. It’s a relief when he feels his heart hammer against his chest—at least he’s not stuck in a dream. This is real; terrifying but real. 

Dean has always taken it for granted, but he knows how Cas doesn't hesitate a moment to heal away the smallest of his and Sam’s sniffles. It's almost muscle memory, to come home from a hunt and find Cas waiting, to lean into Cas’s fingers on his forehead, or his palm on Dean’s chest. It’s white light to his eyes, but every healing touch has been a drug to him—a life force—like a part of him reverberating outward, seeking a sanctuary. 

Still, Cas's healing hands to his skin have always left him feeling a combination of unease and rightness. It’s undeserving—Dean is undeserving of it, with everything his hands have done. If he bleeds, it’s penance; Cas should know that. The angel has always been the one to let himself suffer for sins that were barely his own, and he should know . Letting Cas heal him feels sacrilegious, and Dean’s afraid too—he’s terrified of earning more sins to his already overflowing list, and he’s terrified of the power an angel’s grace holds. He’s terrified his skin would rip away from his bones if that power touches him. Dean knows that stretched-out string of sanity will snap in half when Cas touches him, even when he knows it’s just Cas— Dean’s goddamn win—who’d rather die than hurt him. 

“Cas,” Dean tries again, reaching out to tangle his fingers into the hem of Cas’s sleeve. He doesn't push or pull, just holds his hand in place, hoping Cas would make sense of the words in his head; the ones Dean himself can’t pick out.

"Oh, Dean, I'm sorry," Cas's eyes wide, hand dropping to his lap, with Dean's fingers still around his wrist. "My apologies, I reached forward to heal you out of habit. Dean, I didn't mean to upset you—"

Something about Cas's panic has Dean's heart slowing down, "'S okay," Dean chokes out. "It's—" he swallows, feeling his throat scratch uncomfortably.

The evidence of his nightmare is in the air, it’s in the blood crusted underneath his nails, but Dean needs more. He lifts a hand—the one that’s not gripping the rough fabric of Cas’s sleeve like a lifeline—and reaches out to touch his own neck. He doesn’t get all the way there because Cas stops him, and all it takes is for the angel to shake his head and touch the tips of his fingers to Dean’s wrist. Dean wonders if Cas can feel the rattle of his heart under the stretched-out skin at his pulse point. 

“You’re okay,” Cas says, and Jesus Christ, Dean wants to wrap those words around him and sink underneath the weight of it. Cas lowers Dean’s hand away from his throat, the warm skin of the angel’s hand on his skin, blue eyes looking through and past Dean’s soul. “Can you walk to the bathroom with me so I can clean up the wounds?” 

Can he? Dean’s not sure. But, Cas is asking him to, and if this is what Cas wants then who’s he to object? It’s all still a bit hazy, but Dean nods, flexing his fingers against the sleeve of Cas’s coat, knowing he’ll have to let go soon. He swallows around the lump in his throat, holding three fingers of his free hand, pushing it outward from his chin. Water. 

“We will stop by the kitchen on the way,” Cas nods, reaching out with his free hand. 

Dean huffs, rolling his eyes, but his protest doesn’t hold up when he reaches out to take Cas’s hand a little too quickly. He swears he sees Cas bite down a grin, and Dean wishes he wouldn’t. It’s so goddamn rare, coaxing out a smile from Cas—it’s Jack who gets most of Cas’s fond smiles, and a few of them are for Dean, mostly right at the tail end of an eye roll, but Dean holds each of them in that far away corner of his heart, tucked among a handful of his favorite memories. 

Cas stops by the kitchen like he promised, handing him a glass of water and waiting by his side until Dean’s done gulping down the whole thing. He’s starting to feel the burn on his throat, but it’s easy to let the pain fade into the background when it’s just him and Cas standing in the hallway, dead in the night, the air around them a blanket of comfortable silence. He can almost pretend it’s just the two of them at that moment, the rest of the world blending into a wall of white noise. 

“Come on, Dean,” Cas says softly—like he’s too afraid to break whatever this is. “The sooner we are done, the faster you can go back to sleep.”

It’s the easiest thing in the world, to let Cas lead him to wherever the angel thinks he’d be the safest. With the leftover adrenaline draining from his system, all Dean can feel is the bone-weary ache and the barest of Cas’s touch pressing against his elbow. The phosphorus glow of the overhead lamps in the bathroom fades into the background as Cas sets him to stand leaning against the counter. Dean’s having the weirdest sense of deja vu—standing right here, except he was the one patching up Cas’s wounds. 

“I’m not very efficient in human first aid,” Cas brings a bit of cotton to his throat. “Forgive me if I hurt you.”

They’re close—too close—their faces just inches apart. Dean can see the lines of silver and black around the blue of Cas’s eyes, the curve of his lashes—their mouths just a breath apart. It’s getting quieter and quieter by the minute, every last creak around them fading into distance. Dean can feel his lungs fighting for air—it’s too much and too little all at once. Every atom in his body is screaming at him to close the distance between them, to find out what Cas’s lips would feel like against his, and if he hadn’t known something was wrong with his head, he’d have known by now. There’s something really, really , wrong with him ’cause all he can think of is the aching need to feel Cas’s skin underneath his hands—strong enough to ignore the voice in the back of his head telling him to run and hide and defend. 

“You won’t,” Dean prays, but something in him knows he doesn’t have to. Dean Winchester lies professionally—deception is his life’s work—but he hasn’t learned how to fake mistrust yet. Not when it’s Cas. 

“I won't,” Cas parrots, his breath ricocheting off of Dean’s lips. 

There’s a warm hand pressed to the bolt of his jaw, palm calloused and rough in a way that tells a story—one of healing and saving. Cas turns Dean’s face to the side, chin up, a little to the right. Dean lets him, lets Cas take, and probably would let the angel take from him because he knows Cas would never leave him empty. Even with the metaphorical frozen wall of glass between them, he knows Cas won’t leave him cut and dry—not as long as the angel is in front of him, just a reach away, living and breathing. Dean lets Cas mold him like he’s wet clay, hisses when Cas presses an alcohol swab to his neck; sighs when Cas rubs Neosporin on the wounds, all while hushing him with broken whispers. He lets Cas take—he takes what Cas gives him. 

It’s not enough—it’s never enough. Dean wants to relearn what it’s like to feel the electric thrum of the angel beneath his fingertips. 

Dean forgets to be scared in the heat of wanting to feel alive. 

His finger zeroes in on where he knows Cas is, the real Cas—one that’s not a person but an infinite, the Cas that pulled Dean out of hellfire. The curve of his throat is cold underneath Dean’s touch, and Cas drops his hands from where he had been patching up Dean’s wounds. It should scare Dean, it probably will on a later day, but right now Cas is alive and flowing under Dean’s fingertips. 

“Dean, what are you…” Cas trails off, unsure in a way that the angel rarely is. “Are you alright?”

“Uh, y-yeah,” Dean manages, not letting up. 

He traces his fingers over Cas’s skin, imagining the ebb and flow of grace underneath it—he wonders why he was ever scared. He knows Cas—knows him like he knows the way Sammy’s shoulders curve when he’s trying to shake himself out of a bad memory. Or the way Jack shuffles on his feet when he wants something but knows there’s gonna be resistance from at least two out of his three dads—Dean folds like a damn lawn chair every single time—and he knows Cas better than he knows himself. Cas, grace or not, would never hurt him. 

“Can you feel it?” Cas asks, quiet, a shade desperate. “I always imagined you could feel my grace… it’s a part of you, but I didn’t want to be presumptuous—”

It’s a part of you. 

“Yeah,” Dean cuts in. “Yeah, I– Cas, I–”

It’s a part of you. 

It’s overwhelming, the sudden reality of it all, it’s terrifying and exhilarating. Yeah, sure—profound bond, a brand on his soul, whatever—Dean knew it already. But, through the years, he had been filtered out through sieve after sieve. He sliced his way out of purgatory, he bore the Mark, he became a demon , and in between all of that, Dean had thought Cas’s grace that runs through him must have fizzled away—packed its shit up and booked it out of a body that was more poison than human. He has seen angels with their throats slit open—the numbing haze of blue, angel grace, shining from the cut. Cas isn’t different, except he is. Dean knows it even before he lifts his free hand and presses his palm over Cas’s beating heart, just a few layers of cloth between them. The angels—Naomi—had drilled into Cas's brain over and over, but she missed what makes Cas different. She missed his heart. And, its not just because he lets his knock-off Jimmy Novak’s organ go its course, but because Cas is made of love. All of him—it’s made of the kind of love Dean doesn’t deserve in this life, or the next seven. 

The evidence of it is right there, crusted blood and patches of skin underneath his fingernails from when he’d clawed at his own throat. It feels wrong—Dean feels like he’s committing an act of sacrilege—touching Cas with hands that have destroyed everything in their wake. He pulls his hands away, both of them, but he doesn’t get too far ’cause Cas catches his wrists in his grip. 

“You were the road to my salvation, Dean. You still are,” Cas says, kind and reverent. “Heaven told me you were righteous because you were destined to be The Sword. But, Dean… I spent the barest of time with you and learned you’re righteous because you’re you .”

Fuck. Dean’s about to fucking cry. 

“I watched you care about the world more than any of my kin ever has,” he carries on. “You’re holier than God’s first creation… you, Dean Winchester, are anything but tainted.”

There is a bird in Dean’s chest—a bird in a cage—and it’s rattling against his bones, flapping its wings weary and threatening to break out of his ribs. Jesus Christ, Dean would set the world on fire for this goddamn angel holding his hands and calling him worthy. It’s fucking insane, but Dean would. He would. There’s no conflict at this point—it’ll take him another lifetime to believe Cas’s words, but that’s fine because Dean is leaving his heart and soul in Cas’s palm. He’s handing it off to Cas for safekeeping, and as long as the angel believes, it’s all good. Still, a final desperate part of him searches Cas's face, searches for a lie or a placating smile, but Cas is all business. He looks like he means it, and Dean can’t– he can’t—

“Is it– is it still,” Dean swallows. “Cas, your grace– is it–”

It’s minute, the shift in Cas’s expression, but Dean catches it anyway—it’d be a shame if he hadn’t, considering he’d spent the last decade or so shamelessly memorizing every twitch and pull on Cas’s face. His eyes go soft, fond, in a way that has Dean struggling for air. 

“Dean, ol monons, ” the angel breathes out, the warmth in his eyes digging a hole in Dean’s chest and borrowing itself there. “Of course, it is. Heaven or hell can’t tear away that part of me from you.”

Dean breaks —in a way that feels like he’s being put back together. There’s nothing left to do here other than kiss Cas. So, Dean does. 

He lunges forward and presses his lips to the angel's—and that's all she wrote.

The fireworks and rose petals never come, there’s no applause or serenade. It’s mundane— Jesus Christ, it’s achingly normal. It’s everything and beyond to Dean. 

Their noses bump awkwardly and Dean clings on too hard. Cas gasps into his mouth and Dean would like to think time stopped, but if anything, it only speeds up. Cas’s hands come up to his neck, still so goddamn careful of his injuries, and Dean has to fight to choke down the sobs threatening to spill out of his throat. Dean twists his hands into the worn-out linen of Cas’s coat, as if he could hold back the storm that was his angel. Cas shuffles closer, pushing Dean back until his back hits the sink counter—and Dean doesn't feel trapped or caged. He feels protected . Fuck , how did he make it this far without knowing what this felt like? 

“Cas,” Dean gasps into his mouth, tugging him closer as if he could physically climb into the angel. 

Cas kisses just like he does everything else—headfirst and with so full of dedication and devotion. Dean has never felt more undeserving of anything in his entire goddamn life, but to hell with all that. He wants this, because the world is not his oyster anymore. It never has been. Waiting around for the right time is never a luxury he’s gonna have. Dean has seen enough—he has had his fair share of losses, felt what it’s like to lose his family and then himself. There’s an archangel on the loose and that son of a bitch could burn this mother to the ground any time now. Dean can’t wait around anymore—he won’t. Right now, nothing else in the goddamn world makes a lick of sense except Cas’s lips on his, soft and warm, just them in the middle of the night in the bathroom—with Dean’s shirt still clinging to his back as an aftermath of his nightmare, and Cas’s hard beating hard underneath his palm in a way that’d have Dean worrying if the guy wasn’t an angel. 

Cas is the first to pull away, and Dean shamelessly chases his lips, but Cas stops him, pressing their foreheads together. He doesn’t know about Cas, but Dean sure as hell needs to breathe and he’d forgotten about that part until now. Lucky for him, Cas is always looking out for Dean. It’s quiet in a way that, probably for the first time in a long time, doesn’t make Dean bristle. He remembers hunting with Dad, when the smallest noise made by the creak of a dried-up leaf underneath his shoes would have John throwing him a dirty glare over his shoulder. Dean had learned to hate silence since, and then he met Cas, who made the quietest moments feel like an escape from the end of the world that’s almost always banging at their doors. 

“Hi,” Dean says eventually, the inherent restlessness in him taking over. 

“Hello, Dean,” Cas replies, the smile in his voice louder than the words itself. “That was…”

Dean chuckles, “Yeah, I have that effect on people,” he leans forward to press a kiss to the corner of Cas’s mouth before pulling all the way back. 

“Do you–” Cas pauses, deliberate in a way that Dean knows he’s picking out the right words to keep the damage to the minimum. “Dean, do you mean… is this what you want?”

A couple of sparks fly past Dean’s neurons before the implication behind Cas’s question clicks into place. Fuck, of course. Of course, Cas would doubt if this is well and truly real or just another one of Dean’s spur-of-the-moment decisions. There’s no one but himself to blame for it. He’s been toying the line way too much lately—one step forwards fifteen steps back, and a couple of steps sideways for good measure. Yeah, Dean knows he has the habit of giving out mixed signals, especially when he really, really wants something. But, if Dean has managed to punt Cas—who knows him better than himself—way out of the field, then he must be on the top of his game. 

Dean doesn’t have the right words to paint the picture to Cas—not now, not ever. Cas has to know, he has to, after everything they’ve been through. After how Dean had almost driven himself into an early grave since North Cove, living and reliving the memory of the silver blade poking out of Cas’s chest every waking moment. Except—Cas doesn’t know. It’s the way his goddamn family works—they talk about what needs talking, and everything else gets swept under the mat. On most days, it’s Dean’s saving grace—with Sam and his questioning about his feelings or whatever—he could just divert the focus onto the first world problem of the day, and that was that. But, in moments like these Dean desperately wishes someone would have caught Cas upon Dean’s downward spiral every time Cas leaves. He'd been fucking terrified of saying too much, showing too much, that Cas might catch wind of Dean massive fucking whatever for the angel. 

“Cas– you’re–” my win. You’re it for me. Dean doesn’t say any of it though, too choked up to even get the words past the lump in his throat. Cas hasn’t taken his eyes off of him even once, waiting out Dean’s silence as he always does. The universe must be having his back this once, or else Dean would be on the floor crying his eyes out. 

Instead, he leans forward, pressing his forehead against Cas’s shoulder, leaning his weight against the angel, knowing he’s safe. Sure enough, Cas’s arms are wrapping around him without a moment of hesitation, but Dean’s quick enough to catch one of Cas’s hands in his, clumsily threading their fingers. Cas goes stiff, like Dean just threw him a curveball, and to be fair he’s not the poster boy for stable expression of feelings right now. Drawing in a breath, he brings their joined hands to the space between their chests, and squeezes Cas’s hand—one, two, three. Cas deserves the whole goddamn world and then some, Dean knows, but he’s hoping Cas gets it. He’s hoping that this is enough for now—that Dean, with all his torn and frayed pieces—is enough for now. 

Dean feels more than he hears Cas’s breath hitch—it’s a lot more human than angel and it’s enough to send Dean’s heart going haywire in his chest. 

“Dean…” Cas trails off, clutching at Dean’s hand tight enough that Dean can’t help but smile, ’cause he did that. There’s a second where Cas is quiet and Dean starts to wonder if he’s about to get shoved away and stared at in disgust, as one would naturally assume, but then Cas’s arm around his back tightens, as if he could protect Dean from all the creepies and crawlies that go bumping in the night. A part of Dean believes he could.

“I love you, too,” Cas shudders out, like it's the most obvious thing. He sounds hysterical enough that Dean has to pull back to see for himself if Cas is fully processing it. Dean sure as hell isn't, and Cas has been the one to pull most of the weight in their weird song and dance all this while. 

Cas is staring at him like Dean’s the coolest thing since sliced bread, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Dean blinks, too afraid to shatter whatever this is, “You– Cas–”

“Dean,” Cas pulls his hand away, and then it’s cupping Dean’s cheek. “Dean Winchester, how could I not love you?”

Well, fuck. Where should he start, alphabetically or chronologically?

“No, please don’t do that,” Cas says softly. “Don't shut me out. Don't convince yourself you’re unworthy of love.”

Dean really doesn't mean to laugh, but it's out of his wheelhouse here. Leave it to Cas to tell it like it is. The words find a place somewhere deep inside Dean’s chest, where famine had once laid his hands and labelled him as broken. It makes sense now—Dean doesn't know how to be whole on his own. Yeah, maybe that's unhealthy or whatever (he can practically hear Sammy’s voice in his head) but he needs his family to fill in the crevices where the life he’s lived has left him cracked—he needs Sammy and Cas and Jack in his corner to keep doing this. 

He curls his fingers around Cas’s wrist where he’s holding Dean’s face, and uses his other hand to tug Cas into a kiss by the back of his neck. It’s headier than their first—breathy sighs and quiet gasps that send a coil of heat curling deep in the pit of Dean’s gut. It’s the most alive he has felt in weeks, most brave —with Cas’s lips against his, a decade’s worth of loving and losing all zeroing in on this moment. They’ve been through hell and then some, but Dean has forgiven and forgotten a lot for Cas, and the angel has done the same for him—and that’s a lot, considering the kind of crap Dean pulls. In the life they’re living there’s no room for second chances, but even with his kind of shitty luck, Dean has managed to get where he is right now.

Dean doesn't know when Cas went from being his friend to an exception to all his principles and morale. He doesn't remember when Cas took his place by Dean’s side when he imagined a good life—usually when he’s staring down the neck of a whiskey bottle, letting himself daydream under the guise of liquor. It shouldn't have been this way—Cas was just supposed to be another angel, another memory Dean would've had to leave behind in his rat race of a life. But it doesn't matter anymore when the picture is a little clearer now—there was never going to be anything else for Dean—there was never going to be anyone else. John Winchester would be rolling in his grave—the thing is, Dean knows the guy part would get him a good ass whooping but the angel part would be what breaks his dad’s last strand of restraint. Whatever, that son of a bitch is long gone and Dean still chooses to carry the weight of what he’s put him through, and probably will for the rest of his life. But, he’s done pretty good for himself, considering everything. He’s got a brother in one piece, he’s got Cas, and hell, he even has a kid. 

That’s enough and more than Dean could've ever hoped for. 

“We were so fucking stupid,” he pulls away from the kiss, pressing his face into the crook of Cas’s neck. “Fuck, Cas. We could've had it.”

“We do now,” Cas murmurs, his hand coming up to the nape of Dean’s neck, thumb rubbing slow circles. “There is no need to rush anymore. We have time.”

Well, it's mostly a lie considering any day could be their last, but Dean gets the sentiment. It's his nature to parse out the regrets and mistakes—ruminate on what he could've done differently—but Cas is right. It's better late than never. Dean is a bit surprised at himself—he’s taking this whole thing in stride, and Dean would like nothing more than to pat himself on the back but they haven't even been… whatever for more than a few minutes. Dean Winchester is held together by dental floss and carefully crafted bravado stitched together around two decades worth of issues. It won't be long before he says or does something unabashedly stupid enough to send this whole thing crashing and burning. 

Well, he will cross that bridge when he gets to it. Until then, Dean can have this—and that’s more than he deserves. 

“We need to finish dressing your wounds,” Cas says, his hand dropping down to cradle the side of Dean’s neck. “I’m sure they will be well and truly healed in a few day’s time, and there isn’t going to be any lasting–”

“Cas,” Dean cuts in.

Cas blinks mid–ramble, gaze lifting back to his eyes, “Yes, Dean?”

Dean presses his palm on top of Cas’s on his neck. He swallows, willing his heart to stop making a run for it, “Heal me.”

Cas, like the best goddamn person he is, does a good job of hiding his surprise. Dean can still see it in the way his eyes widen a smidgen, and how he steps in a little closer, as if he can protect Dean if he’s close enough. And fuck, Dean does feel protected and shielded —and that’s just how it’s always been around Cas. He’s had enough of being touchy and jumpy at the sight and sound of anything angelic. Dean is ready. 

“Dean, are you sure?” Cas asks. “You don’t have to if you’re not ready. There is enough time for you to–”

“Cas,” Dean pushes into Cas’s touch, daring to be desperate. “Please.” 

Dean’s not really sure what happens next, but Cas’s hands are holding his face—a touch more gentle than anything he has felt in a long long time—and the angel is stretching up on his tiptoes. Dean presses his face into Cas’s touch until he feels lips on his forehead and the soft brush of grace underneath his skin. Dean is stupid. He’s so fucking stupid —this feels nothing like Michael. It doesn’t feel wrong or constricting or any of the thousand other horrible things Dean has felt in the span of a few weeks. It feels just like it always did—Dean could feel himself grow closer to his own skin. The feeling of wearing his favorite shirt, or getting pie from his favorite bakery downtown. It feels one step closer to himself—one step closer to home. 

Dean opens his eyes, not even remembering closing them, “Did you just ‘Sleeping Beauty’ me, Cas?”

“I might have,” Cas grins, and the fucker has the audacity to look all shy and cute. Fuck, Dean is in so much trouble. 

The nerves are wearing off, exhaustion taking its place, and Dean doesn’t bother making any big movements. He just leans all nice and close against Cas’s side and lets the angel lead him back to his room. He absently tosses his sweaty shirt to some corner of the room and climbs under the covers, bone-weary ache in his muscles settling a little with the press of his mattress. By some sheer dumb luck, he has enough presence of mind to reach out a hand in Cas’s general direction. 

“Coat off,” he mutters, scooting to the side to make room for Cas. 

He must’ve fallen asleep ’cause the next thing he remembers is Cas climbing into bed, stripped down to his dress shirt and slacks, holding a book in his hand. That image might send Dean spiraling any other day, but right now his brain can summon only enough energy to want to press against Cas and fall asleep. He lifts the covers to let Cas in and shuffles closer without wasting another second, pressing his forehead against the side of Cas’s thigh. He knows Cas does’t sleep but Dean wishes he’d just lie down at least. He’ll ask Cas another day. 

Dean blinks at the book in Cas's hand, "Read for me?”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas replies, and Dean can feel his smile. 

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined—

There is a child in him that surfaces in moments like these—in the middle of the night, when he can safely imagine the clock has reset. When Dean can let the armor fall, leaving behind the ghost of his memories from when he’d been smaller than the world. Dean, the child who feared skinning his knee, and not Dean Winchester, the man with a spine that holds the weight of his mistakes, the one who shreds everything he touches. 

Here Dean can pretend, just for a moment, his life is simple enough to feel safe in his defenselessness. 

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Dean presses in—closer, closer . He buries the burn behind his eyelids into Cas’s clothed skin, he feels the angel pause underneath him—feels a warm hand at the nape of his neck, sinking into his ribcage as an anchor would hold down a ship in a storm. It’s a gift, to even hope to know this kind of relief—with all of his kin safe and at a tangible distance, even if tomorrow would come with a different problem, just like the day after and the day after that. Dean can take it, it's okay, he’s okay. 

He has a lifetime’s worth of training for taking it in stride.

Cas’s hand presses in, he clears his throat.

Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

The soft baritone of the angel’s voice fills the crevices carved out in his bones—and Dean thinks, this is home , before closing his eyes and dreaming of clear blue skies. 

Chapter Text

Epilogue

They have been figuring things out

Not just him n’ Cas—though that whole thing has been going better than Dean had thought it would—but everyone in the bunker has been up and runnin', the past few weeks. It was three days ago that Sammy and Cas had their breakthrough. A spell that works like an anti-possession tattoo, like the kind Cas had carved into his ribs all those years ago. They worked with that as a base and did some tweaks here and there and made a few calls—apparently, there was some reverse engineering and intense math involved, with the grace Michael had left behind in him being the star of the show. It had been something that never crossed Dean’s mind, but Sam and Cas knew, and they were tactical about it. 

Their excuse was that if they’d told Dean, he’d have stuck the grace extraction needle into his neck first thing in the morning, and yeah, they’re not wrong—doesn’t mean Dean’s gonna tell them that. 

So, now Dean had a new set of finger painting on his ribs. Cas had been the one to get it done—holding his hand and hushing him with kisses through the whole thing, which, thinking back on it…yeah he’s not proud. He had still been a little skittish around angel mojo crawling underneath his skin, but Dean never really asked Cas to be all sweet about it. I killed Death, Dean had bit out and all Cas did was smile and press a kiss to Dean’s forehead. 

Whatever. If Cas wants to kiss him, who is he to deny the angel. 

“You seem to be deep in thought,” Cas says, the rumble of his voice reverberating against Dean’s back, where it’s pressed to his chest. “You stopped typing.”

“Just zoned out,” Dean mumbles, well, as much as he can make his internal voice mumble. 

Cas hums. “Is everything okay?”

In the grand scheme of things—not really. There’s a lot that needs fixing, starting with the archangel on loose. Though, it’s still one of the better days. It hasn’t always been smooth sailing—there were sleepless nights, and nightmare-ridden ones, and days when Dean would hole up in his room with his skin crawling at the memories of Michael, not letting himself out or letting anyone else in—the last thing he wants to do is something stupid like snapping at Jack and scaring the kid more than he already has. But, days like this—with Sammy and Jack safe and Cas wrapped around him, reading—The History of Peloponnesian War. Jesus, he’s probably looking for inaccuracies—and Dean, trying to perfectly combine the recipes of fig rolls with caramel glazing and stirred custard to make a sort of lasagna, with his head tucked against Cas’s shoulder—these are good days. 

Dean takes one hand off his phone and wraps Cas’s arm tighter around him. “Yeah, ’s all good.”

“Glad to know, ol monons, ” Cas mumbles into his hair. 

Huh, Dean still doesn’t know what that means. He had heard the words fall from Cas mouth and felt the same kind of rush up his spine as he did the first time hearing it. Dean knows it’s Enochian, but he had been too busy with much more important things to ask for a translation. 

Dean drops his head back against Cas’s shoulder, his nose pressing into the bolt of Cas’s jaw, “What does that mean?” he asks. “Ol—whatever.”

The little hitch in Cas’s breath has Dean dropping his phone on the mattress and turning in his arms to look at the angel. There’s a tint of pink on Cas’s cheeks, and his eyes are a bit on the wild side. 

“Cas,” Dean prompts, dropping his gaze to Cas’s throat, feeling nervous for—honestly, Dean has no idea. 

“You will laugh at me,” Cas says. 

Dean scoffs, fiddling with the button on Cas’s shirt, “I’ll try my best not to.”

“It’s enochian,” Cas says. “A rough translation to English would be ‘my heart’. ”

“My—” Dean snaps his eyes up, heart rate kicking up a notch. Fuck, laughing is the last thing on his mind. 

“It felt like an accurate term of endearment,” Cas carries on, as if Dean didn’t have his entire existence uprooted. “You taught me everything I know about love and devotion, and family . You gave me a place in your life, inadvertently helping me find my place in this world. In more ways than one, you are my heart.”

Yeah, Dean is about to have a full-fledged breakdown. 

He doesn’t know how Cas just says shit like this while pulling a whole word out of his own mouth is a struggle for Dean. It’s fine, Dean has always been a man of action—and he doesn’t waste a moment to prove it, surging forward and pouring everything that’s been stuck in his head into the kiss. The thud of Cas’s book dropping on the mattress is drowned out by the noise the angel pulls out of his throat when he slides his fingers into Dean’s hair—and that’s all she wrote. 

Later, lying with Cas’s arms around him and their sheets tangled around their legs, Dean takes Cas’s hand in his and squeezes three times. 

It’s gonna be a long road ahead, but for the first time in his life, Dean doesn’t see hellfire at the end of the tunnel. 

He sees light.