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Dean hadn’t even meant to find Castiel. Not yet anyway. He hadn’t really even decided to look for him yet. Cas had made it clear he didn’t want to see him, and anyway, Dean wouldn’t have had any idea where to even begin looking for him. Before yesterday, he hadn’t even known what state Cas was in.
But here he is, first stop after arriving in town and checking out the crime scene and checking into the motel. He’s stopped at the Gas’N’Sip, getting gas for the impala. And there he is. Like a string had been tugging Dean toward the former angel all along.
Dean stands, leaning against Baby’s roof, with his phone pressed to his ear and a coffee cup that he’d grabbed from the motel before he left in his other hand, only half listening and responding to Sam, while the rest of him watches Cas standing behind a cash register. He looks so unbearably human. Dean’s stomach flips at the sight of it. The angel of the lord that gripped him tight and raised him from perdition counting change back to a middle aged man buying a pack of cigarettes.
“That sounds like a real case. Dean, I should be there.”
Dean’s attention is pulled back into his conversation with Sam. He isn’t sure why, but he doesn’t want Sam to come here.
“Naw, man. That's – That's uh ... not necessary. No, I, uh – I got this one covered.”
When Dean hangs up with Sam, his attention gravitates back to Castiel, now bagging a purchase for another customer. He’s wearing a white long sleeve, collared shirt and a bright blue work vest. Rolled sleeves reveal tanned forearms. He’s wearing jeans. Dean has never seen Castiel in jeans before now. Not this Castiel anyway, not his Cas.
Everything about what he’s seeing feels wrong.
Dean taps his phone softly on the hood of the impala before pushing away from the car and stuffing the phone in his pocket.
It’s not like he can avoid talking to him now.
Dean slips into the Gas’N’Sip without Castiel noticing him. It’s the same as any of the millions of gas station stores that Dean’s been in before. Rows of items stacked up on shelves, coolers full of beer and soda, the smell of burnt taquitos wafting in the air. But nothing about it feels familiar. His heart races, nerves bubbling to the surface.
The last time he saw Cas, he was wearing a red hoodie and eating a burrito. He was happy, relieved to be at the bunker, to be back with Dean and Sam. Dean was struck then too, by how human Cas was, how fragile. Dean was relieved he was alive.
But then, Dean was telling him he had to leave and he watched that easygoing smile drop from his face. It was Dean’s fault, that his happiness turned to confusion and then quickly to hurt. Dean couldn’t make it better, all he could do was make sure that Cas left before Sam realized that he was making him leave. He’d had to pick, and Dean had picked Sam.
Dean walks down one of the aisles to the back of the store. He’s not sure why he doesn’t go straight to the counter, but he waits, listening. Trying to will his thudding heart to slow. It’s just Cas. It’s fine, he’ll forgive him.
He hears Castiel wishing someone a nice day, and for some reason Dean thinks he wouldn’t have expected for his voice to sound the same, now that he’s human. But it’s still deep and gravely as ever. He still sounds like Castiel: Angel of the Lord. If Dean closed his eyes and just listened, it could almost feel like nothing had changed.
Finally, Dean decides he just needs to stop making such a big deal out of it. Just act like everything is fine, and it will be.
He gets in line behind a middle aged woman who’s buying a lottery ticket. Cas still hasn’t noticed him.
“Good day, ma’am. And good luck!” Castiel gives the woman a thumbs up, and it still feels like he’s still pretending at being human rather than actually being human.
The woman walks away and Dean’s stomach flips again but now that Cas is turning away from the woman to look up at him, he schools his face into something that feels casual and charming.
“I’ll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols.” Dean gives Cas his best smile.
The smile drops from Castiel’s face and he looks down, away from dean.
“What are you doing here?” he asks and if Dean hadn’t been sure that Cas didn’t want to see him before, he is now. He tries not to let it show that that hurts.
“Gee, it's nice to see you, too, Cas.”
“It's … Steve now.” He leans forward and gestures to his employee name tag, “And... uh, you know you surprised me.” He looks away, refusing to meet Dean’s eyes.
“Well, the feeling is mutual. I mean, I knew you had to lay low from the angel threat, but, uh, wow. This is some cover.” It’s not wrong exactly, Cas doesn’t belong here. He’s better than this. But, Dean hears the words as they come out of his mouth, feels his eyebrows raise mockingly and he doesn’t know why he says it that way.
Cas turns and walks a few paces away. Dean follows, the counter still separates them.
“My Grace is gone. What did you expect? Do you have any idea how hard it was? When I fell to earth, I didn't just lose my powers. I – I had nothing.” The words feel like a punch to Dean’s gut, but he frowns. He didn’t have nothing, he had—he has—Dean still, even if he couldn’t stay at the bunker.
“Now... I'm a sales associate,” he says, proudly and finally Cas looks up into Dean’s eyes. Another thing that Dean would have expected to change, now that he’s no longer an angel. But no, they’re still endlessly, deep blue. There’s an edge of defiance there, daring Dean to contradict him.
“A sales associate?” Dean asks, incredulous.
Before Cas can respond, a man walks up and interrupts, handing Cas a clipboard.
“Hey, Steve. Sign here?”
Dean licks his lips, waits.
“I’m responsible for inventory, sales, customer service. I keep this place—” Castiel signs and hands the clipboard back to the delivery man. “—clean and presentable. And when my manager's busy, I even prepare the food.”
Dean wants to shake him. He wants to grab him and drag him back to the bunker with him. Instead, he says “Wow. So you went from fighting … heavenly battles to nuking taquitos?” Dean knows that he sounds like a jerk, but it’s like he can’t stop himself.
Castiel nods, and it’s as if he hasn’t noticed or doesn’t care that Dean is mocking him. “Nachos too.”
***
Cas has a date.
They’re at a new crime scene now, outside of a high school. Another victim vaporized, a spray of pink on the side of a school bus. If it weren’t for the smell, it would look like paint.
This one is different than the others, this one was a kid, and not even particularly sad like all the others had been. It doesn’t make any sense.
And yet, Dean can’t stop thinking about the fact that Cas has date with his boss at the Gas’N’Sip tonight.
The last time he’d had a date, she’d turned out to be a reaper planning to kill him. And she had killed him, buried an angel blade into his chest while Dean had been unable to do anything but watch. Even if he’d still been an angel Cas wouldn’t have survived that.
But before April had killed him, first she’d had sex with him. How could he be sure this date wouldn’t just turn out to be more of the same? Another person taking advantage of Cas, who even though he’s been alive for longer than Dean can even begin to imagine, doesn’t seem to understand that people will always deceive you if you let them. It’s just what they do.
The teenage girl in front of him is explaining what “kinda bummed” means between tears and Dean wishes there were something he could do or say to make her feel better. But there’s nothing he can say to fix this. All he can do is stop it from happening again.
Dean turns to look back to the bus where he’d left Cas, but finds he’s no longer there, no longer anywhere that Dean can see.
“Excuse me,” Dean turns away from the girl and the officer he’d been talking to and glances around again for him. When Dean had left him, he’d been standing in front of the bus, looking at the remnants of what had been a teenage girl just a few hours ago.
Dean is just starting to feel the edges of panic crawling in when he rounds the bus and finds Cas leaning on the impala from it’s side, hands braced on the trunk and head down as if in prayer. But Dean knows better than to believe he’s praying.
“Cas, what’s wrong?” Dean asks, striding up next to him, letting one hand rest just inches from Cas’s.
He lifts his head but doesn’t look over at Dean.
“I’ve seen this before,” he’s breathing heavy in a way that’s foreign to Dean. It’s as if he’s afraid, another thing Dean’s never seen from him before. An icy spike of adrenalin courses through Dean’s veins, setting him on alert.
“What? Where?” He glances around like whatever it is could be coming up on them at any moment.
“In heaven.”
“What, you’re saying an angel did this?” Why would an angel do something like this? How could they.
“It’s no ordinary angel.” Cas shakes his head, finally looks over at him, “Dean, this is bad. This is very bad.”
They’re sitting in the impala while Castiel explains who the Rit Zien are, their ability to smite so quick and total. It explains the pink spray of blood and meat and everything else that had made up the victims that’s been found at all of the crime scenes.
“The Rit Zien home in on pain, it's like a beacon to them. So, when this angel fell to earth, he heard the victims' cries, and their anguish, same as he'd hear an angel's in heaven.” Cas leans toward Dean, talking faster now like he’s figured it all out.
“He's continuing his heavenly work down here. One suffering human at a time.”
Dean bristles, points out the obvious, “Yeah, but this last victim was not suffering. She was just a normal, moody kid.” He holds one hand out to emphasize how ridiculous this is.
“But he just got here. The ebb and flow of human emotion—Dean, I’ve been on earth for a few years, and I’ve only just begun to grasp it. To him, pain is pain.”
Dean wants to focus on the part where Cas is beginning to understand human emotion, but instead he says, “So everybody’s fair game?”
Cas nods, eyebrows pinched together and Dean scoffs turning away.
“Hands of mercy” Dean’s ass. This isn’t mercy at all. People are sad all the time, if an angel is vaporizing sad people, Cas is right, this is bad.
“All right, well, we got to stop him.” Dean looks forward, fixing his jacket. Now that Cas is human, he would blast all the damn angels from the face of the earth if he could. Once Zeke is done healing Sam, of course.
“You have to stop him.” Cas says, looking away from him.
This makes Dean pause, taken back. Cas has never abandoned him before, why would he start now? He turns to look at Cas who’s looking down at his hands in his own lap now, ashamed, and immediately Dean understands.
“You’re scared.” He hears his own voice, softer than he expects from himself.
“It’s different now, Dean. Everything feels different.”
Dean absolutely does not focus on the way Cas says everything.
“You’re right.”
He keeps forgetting that Cas is fragile now. That he’s not the avenging angel that Dean’s always known him as anymore.
Everything feels different.
Dean nods once, quickly, and then moves on, “All right, I’ll track down this, uh, Kevorkian wannabe, and I’ll put him down.”
Castiel sighs and he looks conflicted.
“Okay.”
“You stay safe. Go on that date, all right? Go live a normal life” Without Dean.
He’s still not sure that he trusts this date, but Cas deserves to have something nice.
Another long pause from Cas, and then, “Okay.”
Dean starts the impala.
“Well?” he asks.
Cas looks over at Dean, confused.
“I need a ride,” he says and at that Dean smiles, nods, looks away.
“Right.” He shifts baby into drive and tries not to look put out. Of course Cas wants Dean to drop him off for his date.
***
The sun has set and the sky is dark and full of stars when they pull up to the house. Dean parks by the curb, shuts off the engine. Inexplicably, he wants to tell Cas not to go on the date.
But he’s not going to do that so instead he says, “Okay,” letting the last syllable drag out on his tongue.
Castiel looks over at Dean and then quickly away. “Thank’s Dean,” he says and starts to open the door to get out.
“Cas. Wait,” he feels a little breathless, “I can’t let you do this.” Dean closes his eyes for a beat and then opens them as he turns to Cas who has closed the door and settled back in his seat. He is watching Dean now in a way that feels so familiar.
“What?” he asks, and he sounds confused.
Dean sighs, looks over at Cas, his eyes dragging down and then back up. He eyes the blue Gas’N’Sip vest, the STEVE name tag still pinned just over Cas’s heart and then he pushes whatever he’s feeling deep, deep down.
“You’re gonna wear that, on a date?” Dean says it like an accusation, a little mean but mostly in the playful way he uses when Cas doesn’t understand some human thing.
Cas looks down at himself and then up again and then he looks around around the car, worried and clearly realizing he’s missed some unspoken human thing.
“This is all I have Dean,” he says, and it isn’t an accusation, but it feels like one.
“Okay.” Dean looks him over again and yeah okay apparently now he’s really going to, to help Cas with his date.
“Uh, lose the vest,” he says, and he nods a couple times because of course it’s obvious. But also, of course Cas was planning on wearing his bright blue work vest that smells like burnt taquitos and has a bright red slushy stain towards the seem at the bottom, on his date.
“What are you—”
“Lose the vest, come on.” Dean interrupts Cas letting a little annoyance edge in his voice, but mostly he’s still just being playful about it.
Cas stops, unbuttons the vest and takes it off. He hand it to Dean, who throws it in the back seat.
“That’s a little better. All right. There we go. All right”
For just a second Dean considers switching clothes with Cas, but then when he thinks about both of them undressing in the impala, he shoves that thought quickly away, like he would throw something that had burned him.
Without really thinking about it, because he still hasn’t fully recovered from that last thought, he says, “And do the buttons – why don't you unbutton it?”
Castiel’s fingers go to the buttons on his shirt and again Dean desperately tries to not to think about them undressing in the impala.
It doesn’t help that Cas just keeps unbuttoning buttons, first one, then a second. Dean speaks up when he sees him starting on the third. “Okay. Th- that's far enough, Tony Manero.” And then, he laughs a little, trying to hide the feeling of heat climbing up his cheeks.
“Um…” Dean gives Cas another a once-over and gives a nod of approval. “Yeah. Good. All right. Listen to me. Always open the door for her, okay? Ask a lot of questions. They like that.”
Wait, is he giving Cas advice now? Why is he doing that? Wait, no, why wouldn’t he do that?
“And, uh... Oh, if she says she's happy to go Dutch … she's lying. All right?”
Something about this entire mostly one sided conversation has left Dean feeling completely unnerved.
Castiel nods, but he looks even more confused than he had before, as if Dean had been speaking gibberish to him.
Dean slaps Cas on the shoulder, man-to-man style, and gives him an encouraging smile.
“Go get 'em, tiger.”
***
Dean shouldn’t have been surprised when he’d realized that Cas might be danger. Of course he was in danger. Dean had known from the start that the date—which turned out not to be a date—was a bad idea, he just hadn’t been able to pinpoint why.
As he waits for Cas to say goodbye to Nora and join him at the impala, Dean can’t get past what happened tonight. Because, obviously, it was all his fault. Ephraim went to Castiel because he’s sad and Castiel is sad because Dean kicked him to the curb. As if Cas hadn’t spent the last six years giving up his entire world for them. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Now, he leans his back against the passenger side of the impala and holds his phone to his ear. He’s listening to Sam talk about what they got out of Crowley’s help with the translation, but he’s also letting the guilt tumble around inside his head while they talk because hey, he can multitask.
Over and over again he sees Cas helpless, on his knees in front of Ephraim, the fear so clear in his eyes as Ephraim raised his pink glowing palm to his forehead. He hears Ephraim telling him, “By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up.” And then, he pictures the way that Cas had grabbed the angel blade that Dean slid across the floor to him. The way he picked it up and swiftly thrust it deep into the angels chest. The way Cas had looked just like the warrior he’d been as an angel while doing it. The utter relief Dean had felt watching Ephraim’s vessel, empty now, drop to the ground.
On the phone, Sam delivers yet another piece of bad news.
“Look, Metatron built the spell to withstand any attempt to reverse it. There is no putting the angels back in Heaven. It's done.”
Dean feels his jaw clench. He closes his eyes and slowly takes a deep breath.
“Are you gonna tell Cas?” Sam asks.
Behind him, Dean hears the door open and he turns to look back at the house as Cas and Nora stop to talk on the porch. He turns back and looks up at the sky. This news will crush Cas.
“No. No, I’m not gonna tell him.” Dean says and then before Sam can respond, “I got to go.”
Dean hangs up, turns around at the sound of footsteps approaching.
“Where to Cas?” he asks.
Castiel looks at him, looks away, looks back at him. There is something meaningful and sad that Dean can’t quite understand in the way that Cas looks at him. He doesn’t say anything, just pulls open the passenger door and gets in.
No, Dean’s not going to tell Cas about heaven because he’ll find a way to fix it himself.
Dean gets in but he doesn’t push the key into the ignition yet. He can tell that Cas is working up to saying something and even though he feels impatient for him to just get it out already, Dean waits. He waits and wonders if Cas is about to tell him what he already knows, that tonight was all his fault.
When Cas finally speaks though his soft words surprise Dean.
“I don’t have anywhere to go, Dean.”
Dean frowns, looks over, and sees Castiel sitting there, shoulders hunched, looking down at his hands. He looks kinda small sitting there like that.
But then he looks up, right into Dean’s eyes and that’s worse. He looks so sad.
“What do you mean, you don’t have anywhere to go?” Dean asks.
“Well, I’ve been sleeping at the Gas’N’Sip but, Nora, she found out today so I don’t think I should do that anymore.” Cas explains it so evenly, like he just said the most normal thing in the world and not that he’s been sleeping at the shitty place where he works.
“You’ve been—wait you don’t have anywhere to go?”
Dean is such an idiot. Of course he doesn’t have anywhere to go. Dean kicked him out and even though he has a job he probably has no idea how to even find a place to live. And there’s no way that he’s making enough money at the Gas’N’Sip to pay for a motel every night. It should have been the first thing that Dean had asked about. Actually, no, Dean should have helped him find somewhere to go as soon as he’d told him he couldn’t stay at the bunker.
“Well, I’ve got a motel for the night, so you’ll stay with me tonight.”
Castiel is still looking at him, his eyes slightly squinting like they always do when he’s confused.
“But Dean, you know I have to sleep now. I’ll need to sleep, I can’t just watch over you from the dinette table like I used to.”
Dean sighs and smiles a little thinking about how much he’d actually hated that. How much he prefers Cas to be sleeping if they’re going to be spending the night together.
“It’s fine Cas, okay. We’ll figure it out.”
He still looks unsure about it, but Dean’s already made up his mind so he sticks the key in the ignition and starts the impala with a roar.
He looks over at Cas again and sees that he’s gently holding the wrist that Ephraim had roughly twisted back.
“But first we’ve got to stop at a CVS or something.”
The back of his head smarts a bit from where it hit the wall after he’d been thrown across the room by Ephraim. But there was no blood, no real damage done to him. Better than the end of most hunts by miles. Cas on the other hand, definitely has at least a sprained wrist. They’ll need to bandage it.
“Okay, Dean.”
***
Dean sits in a chair that he’s pulled up in front of the motel bed wrapping Castiel’s wrist with a bandage. He holds his hand gently between his own hands, slowly wrapping around his arm the way his father had taught him to when Sam had injured his wrist when they were kids. Tight enough, but not too tight.
Cas’s hands are soft, his fingers long, his palms bigger than Dean’s. Surely Dean has touched his hands before, but he can’t seem to remember when. It was almost always Castiel touching Dean with these hands. Tending to his injuries with a quick touch of two fingers to his forehead.
Dean is used to fixing up injuries after a hunt but nothing about this feels like it does with Sam.
Cas doesn’t speak, just watches him work, every few minutes taking a sip of the Root Beer that Dean bought him at the store. Dean had tried to get him to get a hot dog or something too but he’d insisted he wasn’t hungry. Even though he’s human now, Dean suspects he still doesn’t eat much. It looks like he’s lost weight since becoming human.
Dean wishes, not for the first time, that Cas could just stay at the bunker. Then at least he could make sure he was eating. Make sure he doesn’t end up homeless again. Or get taken advantage of by someone else. Make sure he doesn’t go on yet another date that almost ends with him being killed. Maybe no dates at all actually. He’s two for two so far in the dates that end with someone trying to murder him arena. And he’s so fragile and human now.
Dean finishes, softly patting the now bandaged arm and then letting it drop from his hands into Cas’s lap. He’s been trying not to think about the fact that the room only has one bed since the moment he’d decided Cas was staying with him tonight. They’ve never shared a bed before, there’s never been any reason to.
Dean clears his throat. “Cas I need you to promise me something okay.”
“Anything, Dean.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Dean’s heart stutters a bit.
“I need you to call me if you need anything okay? Just because you can’t stay at the bunker, doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to call me if you need something.”
Cas nods but his eyebrows are furrowed and he seems unsure about it.
“And we have credit cards. I can give you one, make you an ID for it. You don’t need to sleep at the Gas’N’Sip, you can stay at a motel. You probably can’t get an apartment or anything, but we stayed in motels for years, you’ll be fine.” Dean slowly rubs the back of his neck. It doesn’t feel like enough, but it’s all he can do.
Cas is still looking at him with those furrowed brows like he’s working through some kind of puzzle in his head. Like Dean’s the puzzle, and he’s getting close to solving it.
Dean stands and grabs the ice bucket. “I’m gonna go get some ice.” He heads toward the door without looking back.
He’s sitting outside on a bench when Castiel finds him.
“Are you okay, Dean?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
Cas looks at the empty ice bucket that he’s still holding.
“You don’t seem fine.”
Dean scoffs, “When did you become an expert at reading people,” he says, his tone more harsh than he’d meant for it to be.
“I’m not,” Cas admits and he leans back against the wall across from Dean. “But I’ve known you a long time now.” He smiles and looks down like he’s made a joke but for once Dean’s the one who doesn’t understand.
Cas waits and they sit there like that in silence for a few moments.
“I just—I feel bad okay.” Dean swipes a hand down his face. He does not want to have this conversation.
“Okay.” Cas says it a little bit like a question.
Dean stands takes three steps towards Cas and stops right in front of him.
“I feel bad that you’re working at the Gas’N’Sip, that you don’t have any place to go. I feel bad that you almost got killed tonight, and all of it is my fault.”
Now Cas looks really confused. “Dean,” he says shaking his head back and forth, “none of that is your fault?” This time he definitely says it like a question.
“Well, look, I just—I feel bad for not letting you stay at the bunker Cas, okay. I feel bad about all of it. If I’d let you stay none of this would have happened.”
And this, this is exactly why Dean doesn’t want to have this conversation. He needs to stop it before it gets any further. They cannot under any circumstances, talk more about Dean making him leave. Because Cas was right before, he does know Dean too well.
Slowly, Dean leans in and rests one forearm against the wall that Castiel is leaning against, near his head. His eyes fall to Cas’s lips as he sticks his tongue out and slowly licks his own.
“Dean?”
He’s not even sure what he’s doing anymore, what’s compelled him to distract Cas like this but he leans in and everything about their bodies this close together feels electric. It feels dangerous. Like maybe if they do finally touch, one or both of them might not survive it.
He’s looking back up into Cas’s eyes now searching for something. He’s not sure what. Cas stares back, and he looks at him the way that Dean’s grown accustomed to over the years. Like he’s looking at more than just Dean, like he’s looking inside of him.
Dean leans in even closer, lets his other hand rest on the wall on the other side of Cas. He hears Cas suck in a sharp breath.
Something about the moment makes Dean think of the apocalypse, the two of them in the beautiful room. When Cas had shoved him up against the wall and roughly covered his mouth with one of his hands. When Cas had given up everything for him.
Dean stops, abruptly, shoves away from the wall.
He doesn’t know why he did that. Cas wouldn’t want him to do that.
He looks back over at Cas, who’s suddenly taking quick breaths like he’d been running and he looks a little bit disappointed, like maybe he did want him to do it. But no, that’s just a human reaction, Cas is human now and he’s not used to how things feel. He wouldn’t really want him to do that though.
And it’s besides the point, because Dean doesn’t want to do it anyway.
Once he’s is done freaking out about it and Cas’s breathing has settled, Dean turns away from him and that’s that, the moment is over. Cas slowly pushes himself away from the wall and they both head silently back to the room.
Without speaking they each take turns in the bathroom.
Dean lays down on one side of the bed, stiffly gets under the covers. When Cas comes out of the bathroom wearing a pair of Dean’s sweatpants and a t-shirt, he hesitates but eventually lays down on the other side. He doesn’t get under the covers.
Dean stares up at the ceiling. It’s late, but he doesn’t feel the least bit tired.
They both spend hours fidgeting, tossing and turning, trying to find sleep. It’s a long time before Dean finally succumbs and in the morning when he wakes, the previous night feels like a dream.
***
In the morning, they wake up and they have coffee and donuts. Dean packs up his stuff and Cas changes into his clothes for a morning shift at the Gas’N’Sip. They both act like nothing happened the night before.
Dean doesn’t even think about it, not really, every time he starts to picture himself leaning in, he swipes the memory away, like dust from a shelf.
He drives Cas to work.
Now that he’s leaving, Dean needs to say one thing at least.
“Listen, Cas…Back at the bunker, I, uh…Sorry I told you to go. I know it’s been hard on you, you know, on your own. Well, you're adapting. I’m proud of you.”
Cas nods, looks at Dean eyes full of meaning. Dean knows he doesn’t deserve that look.
“Thank you Dean.” He sighs, “But there's something Ephraim said. The angels – they need help. Can I really sit this out? Shouldn't I be searching for a way to get them home?”
Dean feels guilty about a lot of things. Probably more things than he could ever list. But, Cas has his own guilt to deal with, and if Dean can help with that, he’s going to.
“Me and Sam will take care of the angels. You're human now. It's not your problem anymore.”
Cas looks like he wants to say something more, but instead he nods once, turns to open the door, and gets out of the car. Dean has no idea when he’ll see Cas again. He leans down to look back at Dean through the window. One side of Dean’s mouth quirks in a halfhearted smile and he lifts one hand to wave goodbye. Cas lifts his fingers from where his hand rests on the impala to return the wave. They watch each other for a beat, and then Cas turns away, walks to the front door.
Dean starts the impala and spares one last glance to Cas before he drives away.