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Winter is the best season there is.
Dean remembers the first time he played in the snow. He has no clue how old he’d been at the time, but he does remember loving the way it crunched under his feet, the way he and his mother could draw designs in it that would stay behind so much better than the shapes they tried in the sand box. But then Mom had gone, and Dad just wasn’t as interested in the snow as Mom had been.
The snow still makes him think of her sometimes, and while it had been painful for the first few years, the sharp edges have dulled over time, and it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.
He can’t help but wish for a little bit of snow right now, just so that he can feel like Mom’s still around, watching over him. But it’s May, and snow would make no fucking sense at this time of year. Just… he’s so alone, and it for some reason never occurred to him—well okay he’s thought about it before but it never really hit him like it’s hitting him now—just how lonely he would be without Cas around, which basically just proves that he’s an idiot.
The past two winters were awesome. The cold weather meant long days spent inside, either at Cas’s place or Dean’s, playing video games or watching TV, cooking dinner for two—or four whenever Sam and Jess decided to join them.
And it was easier to convince Cas to cuddle together under a blanket when it was cold out, because Dean gives off heat like a furnace all year round, and no matter how much Cas denies it, Dean knows he appreciates it.
Now, though, knowing what he does about Cas’s feelings, he wonders how the hell Cas managed it. Sam said that he’d noticed at least a year before Dean and Cas started fucking, and Dean just can’t imagine having to keep his feelings under wraps for such a long time. Not that he’s ever actually loved anyone—or at least, not that he’d ever admit it, because sometimes when he thinks back on it, he wonders if, given a few more years, he would have been able to marry Anna, after all.
But that’s beside the point now, because well, Cas.
Will they ever be normal friends again? Can they be? Dean doesn’t think he can do it. Not now that he knows about the way Cas feels, god.
He stares out the window at the dark night and remembers their conversation from this afternoon.
“Cas, you fucker,” he mutters under his breath.
But it’s not even fair, him blaming this on Cas. Because if anything, this is Dean’s fault. He couldn’t think, too birdbrained to come up with anything on the way to seeing Cas, and it went pretty much in the worst way possible. He doesn’t even know what happened. It was like seeing Cas right there, right in front of him, turned him into a complete idiot.
After the disaster with Cas, Dean drove out for a couple of hours just to clear his mind, but he was still too keyed-up when he got back into town, so he went to a bar with some half-assed notion of getting revenge on Cas. He’d even picked up this gorgeous, leggy blonde, but he just couldn’t do it. Couldn’t invite her home, couldn’t even stand kissing her for more than a few seconds. He wanted blue eyes, wanted short, thick, dark hair. Wanted Cas.
Fuck, Cas has broken him, hasn’t he? It wasn’t even this bad after Anna, and he’d thought that was bad.
He closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the glass, and it’s not as cold as he wants it to be. Not cold enough for there to be snow outside.
Dean gets that Balthazar’s “old money,” that his family is probably way richer than Dean’s. Cas doesn’t care about these things though, so that never would have been a concern. Dean and Cas don’t share that many interests, but that was never an issue either. Maybe Dean hadn’t admitted this to himself at the time, but he’d expected everything to work out. After all, Cas… Cas loved him. How would Dean ever lose to Balthazar with that on his side?
And then Cas had to go and bring out the big guns, the most important difference between Dean and Balthazar. Balthazar loves him. It hurt so much to hear Cas say that with such certainty, like there wasn’t even a shadow of a doubt that it was true. And Dean wanted so much to shut him up with something like well I love you, too!
But Dean hasn’t said that before, not to anyone since Mom died. With Cas, he can’t say that, because he doesn’t even know if that’s what he feels. All he knows is that he’s experiencing this gnawing, unrelenting pain. It feels like something’s gone and hollowed out his insides, carved out a chunk of him and left a gaping hole behind, and just… if this is love, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want any part of it.
Dean gets up and wanders aimlessly through the halls, and they’re so empty that it hurts. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, scrolling down until he reaches Cas. He does it without thinking, doesn’t even realize what he’s about to do until his thumb’s hovering over the green “call” button. Swallowing hard, he clenches his jaw and puts his phone back in his pocket.
He sinks down onto the couch in the first floor sitting room and grabs the remote, turns on the TV. But his mind won’t stay focused on the images crossing the screen in front of him—he registers that it’s probably a sitcom because of the laugh tracks, but he doesn’t get much more than that.
Dean’s hands twitch, like he should be holding onto something, like sitting down on this couch is triggering some sort of sense memory of Cas being here, folded into his arms. He can’t help but think back to the stretch of time when Cas had had to stay here, and Dean’s never been so thankful for a storm as he was when that power outage happened in Cas’s neighborhood. They spent more than one lazy afternoon curled up together on this couch, reading, or watching TV, or talking.
And that’s something he really, really should not be thinking about, because now his arms feel empty too, just like how this house is always empty, and fuck, Dean’s life is empty.
He needs a distraction, quick. He briefly considers going into the shop, but it’s already eight in the evening, and if he shows up now, Bobby’s gonna know that something’s wrong, and he won’t let Dean anywhere near the cars until they’ve had a talk. Bobby never lets him get away with anything.
So the shop is out of the question. He’s already tried going out to a bar and picking someone up—that didn’t fly. Though… he didn’t really drink while he was there.
Yeah, maybe he should get so slobbering drunk that he won’t even be able to remember his own name, let alone Cas’s. A niggling voice in the back of his mind tells him that this won’t help at all, that he’ll feel just as awful tomorrow, except it’ll be worse because he’ll have a hangover.
And that voice has a good point. Dean’s liver doesn’t need a workout, at any rate.
But as Dean leans back into the cushions, it occurs to him that this winter, whether or not he and Cas remain friends, it won’t be the same anymore. Cas won’t be spending half as much time here, won’t let Dean put his hands on him, won’t be… won’t be Dean’s anymore. Not the way he was the past two winters that they spent together.
Dean takes a deep, shuddering breath before getting to his feet and wandering into the kitchen. He needs to stop thinking about this, consequences bedamned. He’ll take the hangover over this… over these awful thoughts.
Winter this year is gonna suck.