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Cas made the mistake of washing his hands in the motel sink, which took all of a minute – plenty enough time for Sam and Dean to start arguing again.
"You're not going," Sam was saying as Cas exited the bathroom.
"Like hell I'm not." Dean had put his boots back on and was reaching for his barn jacket.
Sam stood as tall as Cas had ever seen him do, using his height to loom over his brother not quite threateningly, but not quite benignly either. "Stay here and rest. There's no reason for you to become this monster's snack. Jack and I can handle it."
Jack, bless him, was already standing at the door. Dean glanced around Sam for a second. Jack gave him a timid wave.
Dean glared back up at Sam. "You think just 'cause my memory's fucked up I don't remember how to shoot a gun or wield a machete? Or stab something? I'm fine." He tried to plow past Sam and Sam blocked him.
"We. Will. Handle. It," Sam said, face stony. "You're not coming with us." He pointed at Cas. "He's in charge until we're back."
With that, he stalked out the door, Dean's keys in hand. Jack looked to Cas; Cas gave him a quick nod and the worry in Jack's expression lifted slightly as he squared his shoulders and followed Sam.
Dean kicked one leg of the small table near the window and scrubbed his hand through his hair. "Guess it should be comforting to know he's still a bitch."
"Sam is not–"
"I know, I know." Dean flopped onto one of the beds and glared at the water stains on the ceiling. "Seems like most witches have continued to be a whole pain in the ass, so that's fun."
"He may not be as worried about your memory loss issues as he is the part where you were recently tossed down a flight of stairs," Cas mentioned.
Dean winced, as if he'd forgotten about his skinned elbow and the giant bruise on his hip, and maybe he had. He didn't seem to have any retention of memories since around the time Sam and Lucifer fell into the abyss with Adam and Michael to the point where their errant witch in question had hit him with a spell less than a day ago. On the bright side, Dean seemed to know himself generally; to hear Sam tell it, their last run-in with a memory obliterating witch had been somewhat more horrific, though of course Dean couldn't recall that either. He kept glancing at Cas with an expression of surprise, disbelief, and unfettered happiness, a combination Cas found somewhat inscrutable.
It also just…made Cas's heart heavy.
He took off his trench coat, slung it over the back of a chair, and perched beside Dean on the bed. "Wouldn't hurt you to try to sleep a little. It's been a very long couple of days."
Dean made a grouchy, unwilling noise.
"We should know if Sam and Jack were successful almost immediately. That may take a while, regardless." Cas looked over and caught Dean staring at him with another of those difficult to parse expressions.
"Yeah, yeah." Dean looked away, a mild flush across the tops of his cheeks. Several minutes passed with only the sounds of traffic passing on the nearby highway to keep them company. "You ever learn anything about the Three Stooges?" Dean asked out of nowhere.
Cas quirked an eyebrow at him. "Only what you've shown me. There was one where three women pretending to be widows bashed them over the heads with champagne bottles."
Dean grinned with the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth. "Classic. The local access channel's gonna show a good one tonight – it's one with Shemp, so your mileage may vary, but there's a skeleton in it."
"Does the skeleton elevate the humor?" Cas squinted.
"Yes," Dean said definitively, bouncing off the bed to grab the remote and turn on the room's rather dinged-up television.
The skeleton didn't make the Three Stooges funnier as far as Cas was concerned. He was about to voice this opinion, only to discover Dean had eased down onto a pillow and was asleep next to him on the mattress. In the tv's flickering blue light Dean's eyelashes were black and delicate as spider silk. Cas didn't trust himself not to touch him if he didn't curl his hands closed to keep them still.
He made himself watch the rest of the programming, until the channel's midnight sign off, complete with waving American flag. He clicked off the television and sat in the relative darkness, listening to Dean breathe and increasingly anxious that they'd heard nothing from Sam or Jack.
He flinched when Dean gasped. No – Dean sobbed. Cas looked down and was about to brush Dean's shoulder, but Dean woke up first, sitting up like he'd been flung out of a nightmare. His wide eyes met Cas's and he gasped again.
"Did it work?" Cas asked, thinking the witch's spell must have been lifted. "Do you remember?"
Dean's face crumpled. He was off the bed and into the bathroom, door slammed behind him, before Cas could utter another syllable.
In a minute, Dean opened the door and crept back out. He landed on the edge of the bed taking tremulous breaths.
"Dean?" Cas asked, as calmly as he could.
"No," Dean said in a miserable tone. "Memory's not improved."
Cas sagged. "I'm sorry."
Dean rubbed his face with both hands. "Yeah. Me too."
"We could call Sam."
"Like you said. It's probably just taking longer than expected. Ain't that always the way."
"Almost always," Cas said, smiling small as Dean smiled small too. His anxiety ratcheted up a notch as Dean seemed to deliberately drop his gaze. "Are you all right?"
"Sure," Dean lied.
Cas waited.
Dean blinked a few times, like his eyes were burning. "Hey, um. I know I'm missing a few, several, years. But could you… I dreamt something." He glanced at Cas and away again quickly. "I'd driven out a two-lane country road. What else is new, right? I get to this field with a lot of wildflowers blooming. Real pretty. There's an old windmill by a creek."
Dean was trembling, just a little.
"I think. In the dream." Dean swallowed. "I think it may have been a memory? The palms of my hands were covered with ashes." He looked up at Cas, eyes glossy with unshed tears. "Could you tell me who died?" he whispered. "'Cause I think…I think someone I loved must've died."
Cas's throat had closed, sorrow choking him like a garrote.
Dean said, "Please, man. Just. Please."
It took Cas a moment to find words. "Your dream, the drive to that field, may have been from when I was dead."
"You mean after the, um, what did Sam call them? The Leviathan?" Dean frowned.
"Lucifer killed me, again, several months ago," Cas said slowly. "And I was asleep in the Empty. Jack woke me up."
Dean shook his head, clearly not understanding. Thing was, Cas didn't know how to explain it to him – so much time had passed since Sam went to the cage. They'd all endured so much pain and loss and trauma. Cas just barely understood how Jack's powers had manifested, or why, to wake Cas; he was grateful, of course, to be alive, but living with grief was trickier, and he had a terrible, sinking realization that Dean had perhaps grieved his last death far more than he'd imagined.
When Cas didn't say anything else, Dean shook his head again and wiped his eyes. "You're okay now, right? Jack brought you back and you're all healed up?"
Cas found that his chest hurt right where Lucifer's angel blade had pierced through, some dull echo of the murder, but he said, "Yes. All better."
Dean chuffed a watery laugh. "Well. Good. Good for Jack." He looked away, lips pressed together like he was trying to keep from crying more. He took a couple of long, shaky breaths and stared at the wall. "I think," he started. Pressed his fist against his mouth. "I think I missed you something awful."
He didn't look at Cas. A few tears raced down his face.
Cas thought suddenly, for the first time in many years, of Anna, and of her telling him that feeling would get worse. He'd experienced that truth over and over, and yet at this moment, his emotions were so much more enormous than he'd ever believed possible – as huge as his angelic form, brimming with so much blinding light that felt like it might pour out of him if he as much as moved an inch in any direction.
I love him, he thought, looking at Dean. I am in love with him: a startling distinction, equally true.
"Dean," he started to say.
Dean collapsed into the space between the bed and the wall.
Cas reached him in a millisecond, mind white with fear. "Dean."
"Ow." Dean let himself be sat up into Cas's arms. "How'd we… Why'm I on the floor?"
"You fainted." Cas helped him back up onto the bed.
Dean rotated his arm around. "Gonna break this fucking elbow one way or the other, I guess." He saw Cas sitting practically atop him and blinked. "Hey. Remember that time we watched twelve westerns in one weekend?"
Cas gawped at him. "Do you remember that?"
"Yep." Dean rubbed at his hip and grimaced. "That reminds me, we need to buy you a real cowboy hat some day."
"Do we," Cas said.
Dean nodded. He hadn't moved away, but something shy came into his expression. "I think the spell's been lifted." He seemed transfixed by whatever he saw on Cas's face. "But you probably guessed that."
This must be whiplash, Cas thought. His whole body ached with it. "We should call Jack and Sam, see if they're okay." He knew that was the proper thing to suggest; his eyes stung.
"Yeah," Dean's voice was quiet and near and he made no move to go fetch either of their phones. He did, however, raise his hand to Cas's jaw, to rub his thumb back and forth beneath Cas's eye softly. "Hi, Cas."
Hello, Cas thought; it's me. It's you. We're here. He couldn't speak any of it. But Dean's mouth was on his then, gentle and warm; Cas kissed him back and hoped that said it all.