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I'm sorry. I forgot about your plan -- you gonna get Sam and Cas to put you down?
Dean grips the steering wheel with one hand, rubs his tired eyes with the other.
You really think they're gonna keep that agreement? Come on.
It hadn't been real, but Dean had felt it -- all of it. He'd heard Benny's familiar drawl, smelled the stale blood and wood-rot stench of purgatory, held Benny's makeshift ax in his hand. Monsters had slipped between the dying trees like shadows, and the Mark had burned for them, for all that blood and bone and skin.
Let's say they do. You think they'd ever recover from that?
Sam is dozing in the passenger seat, his shoulder slouched against the window, his face pale and his breathing shallow. Dean studies him for a couple seconds, then looks back at the road. Memories slice through him like a knife: holding Sam's limp body in the mud at Cold Oaks, watching him collapse outside that church as the angels fell.
Standing helplessly on the bank as Cas waded into that river, as he sank below the surface.
It will ruin them.
+
They hit St. Joseph a little before ten. It's the halfway point, and Dean would normally push through with only four hours to go, but Sam is still in pretty rough shape, and Dean feels like he's been put through the wringer, like someone beat the hell out of them and then kicked him down a flight of stairs for good measure. He pulls off on the western edge of town and stops at the first motel of US 36, uses his threadbare credit card for a double with scratchy, balding carpet and a leaky bathroom sink.
The Mark is restless, a slow ache just under his skin; he wrestles Sam into bed, watching him until his breathing deepens and his pulse feels stronger, then slips back outside, where the air is fresher and a 750 of Jack is stashed in the Impala's trunk. The first shot takes the edge off, dulls the rattle on his arm. He has a second while pacing the damp, pockmarked asphalt between the Impala's nose and the rusty awning that shades the manager's office; instead of a third, he pulls out his phone.
Cas answers on the second ring, rumbles, "Hello, Dean," in a way that loosens all the tension in Dean's shoulders.
"Hey, Cas." Dean sits on the cinder-block wall guarding the vending machines, tucks the phone close to his ear. "Where are you?"
"Des Moines."
"Is everything okay? You sound kinda --"
"I'm not -- I." Cas pauses -- Dean hears gas station noise down the line, engines and tires and a tinny driveway bell -- then says, "I planned on calling you in the morning. I need --"
"It doesn't matter," Dean cuts in. He stands, grunting under his breath as his knees pop. "Whatever it is, we'll do it." Des Moines is a couple hours away; leaving now would mean losing seventy bucks on the room, but Sam could get healed, and Dean could -- he doesn't know. "Grab a motel. We'll be there soon. After midnight, but before one."
"Thank you," Cas says. "It's not urgent, but it's something I need to do." Cas pauses again and Dean hears a creak, probably the Continental's door. "Why -- what about you? Are you --"
"I just called to tell you something, but it's -- I." Dean takes a breath; he can't decide if he's losing his nerve or finding it. "I'll tell you when I get there."
+
Cas is waiting outside when they arrive, his coat bleached nearly white by the humming sodium lights, dull against his room's orange-red door. Dean parks beside the Continental, hangs back as Sam grabs his gear and shuffles inside. It's a cold night, the air sharper than it had been in St. Joseph, the wind biting as it whips through the parking lot.
"Is he all right?" Cas asks.
"He lost a lot of blood last night. Can you --"
"Of course. What about you?"
Dean starts to say, "I'm fine," but Cas steps closer, tilting his head. His hand brushes Dean's jaw, his thumb too close to the corner of Dean's mouth, and Dean grits his teeth as pulse of grace jolts through him, hot and cold at the same time. Cas pulls his hand away as the feeling ebbs, but he doesn't step back; he just stands there, his tie crooked and his hair disheveled from the wind.
Dean reaches for him, then stills, then reaches for him again; his fingers skim the curve of Cas' shoulder, bumping the collar of his coat, the stubble-rough skin just under his jaw. Cas' mouth parts a little, and he breathes out a soft noise that makes Dean shiver.
Dean kisses him. He doesn't want to waste any more time.
+
"I wanna try," Dean says, when they finally pull apart. His heart is beating like a drum. "You and me, we should -- I want --"
"Yes." Cas tugs Dean closer, his hand sliding over Dean's hip. "Yes, I would -- I want that. I have wanted it."
"Me, too. I just -- I was afraid." A burst of wind whistles past them, and the light in the parking lot dims as the vacancy sign buzzes out. "This thing --" Dean jerks his arm " -- it feels like a death sentence some days, but today I -- I realized I wanna make it. I wanna beat this thing, and live, and I, I --"
Cas kisses him, soft and slow and sweet.
+
"He's healed," Cas says, switching off the lamp beside Sam's bed. "I couldn't create new blood, I had to force his body to replace what he'd lost. He should rest tomorrow."
"Good luck telling him that."
"So should you."
"Cas, we came here to help you."
"It can wait another day," Cas says, sitting beside Dean on the bed. He leans back against the headboard and strokes his hand through Dean's hair. "I don't even know what I'm hunting, or if I'm hunting anything at all."
Dean shifts closer, resting his cheek against Cas' thigh. "We'll figure it out."
"Go to sleep," Cas says, his thumb tracing the shape of Dean's ear. "I'll be here when you wake up."