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Cas has nightmares.
Dean knows this because he can hear him screaming through the walls.
The first night it happens he just lies there, the chickenshit coward that he is, head buried under his pillow desperately hoping that it will stop so that he can reclaim the sleep he was so abruptly interrupted from.
(Spoiler alert: he doesn't. Not until Cas's whimpers finally cease about an hour before dawn.)
When it happens again the next night, and the night after that, it's almost unbearable. So the fourth time that yells and sobs wake Dean in the early hours, he takes Cas a glass of water and rouses him before heading back to bed. It's quiet after that.
This goes on for a week. Water, shoulder-shake, quiet. Rinse and repeat.
Until Dean starts sitting on the bed and actually staying a while. They don't talk; mainly because what the fuck do you say when a Fallen Angel is having unimaginable night terrors? But eventually Cas will fall asleep again, or pretend to for Dean's sake, and Dean slips back into his own bed comforted by the peaceful silence.
One night, Dean bites the metaphorical bullet and asks if Cas wants to talk about it.
Cas says no.
So they don't.
But Dean does something really stupid then and takes Cas's hand. It's ridiculous, and he feels like a girl when he tangles their fingers together, and he most definitely does not notice how warm and soft Cas's palms are because oh god, what is he, gay now?
Only then he sees the small smile on Cas's face, just a miniscule quirk of his lips, and, huh, maybe it wasn't that stupid after all.
Dean could tell you what would be stupid though; getting under the covers. Now there's a boundary he is certainly never going to cross.
Except for when he does, two nights later.
By this point, Dean has started to question his sanity. Clearly something has been knocked loose in his brain, because he's about one step away from cuddling (fucking cuddling, Jesus Christ) his sort-of-maybe-best-friend. He'd be tempted to blame witches or some other monster, only they've not been on a hunt since before the, y'know, Heaven cracking at the seams thing. Which only really leaves one viable option:
This is somehow all Sam's fault.
Dean doesn't know how, but it is. All his "because it's Cas" bullshit, like Dean is supposed to know what that means. Anyhow, he's gonna pound on his little brother just as soon as Sam's better (because goddammit he is going to get better, and there was definitely improvement today in that he managed to eat a meal—and god, when did Dean become the only fully-functioning one of the three of them?)
So yeah, back to the point. And the point is this: Dean's so busy having a big feelings freak-out that he decides not to go to Cas on night sixteen (and… 'go to Cas'? Where the hell did that come from? They're not Romeo and freaking Juliet) and reverts back to his original, highly ineffective let's-hide-under-the-pillow-like-the-asshole-that- I-am.
Which is going really well until, y'know, he hears the sobbing. Only this time it's different. This is awake sobbing. Now, Dean isn't so much of a jackass that he presumes Cas is crying over his absence—but it does occur to him in that moment that while he's lying there in the midst of some pathetic emotional crisis, Cas is really hurting, and he'd be an even bigger bastard than he already is if he didn't do something like, right now.
He's in Cas's room before he realises it, bare feet padding across the cold floor, slipping under the sheets (boundaries be damned) and—yep, that's his arm reaching around Cas's waist, who the hell gave it permission to do that?
So apparently they're spooning now. Two heterosexual men spooning like there's no tomorrow (and hell, this is them so no tomorrow is an entirely real possibility). And oh god, he's going to wake up with his morning wood pressed into Cas's back, isn't he? Because that won't be awkward at all.
Oh well, Dean figures it could be worse. At least he's the big spoon, and his raging masculinity hasn't been deflated entirely.
Cas shudders in Dean's arms, all clammy and shaky, and Dean probably whispers something stupid like 'I'm so sorry, Cas' and Cas probably responds by drawing patterns on Dean's forearm with his fingertip, and that probably sends Dean to sleep.
He wakes up the next morning alone in Cas's empty bed and for a second feels a sting of rejection (seriously, now he's a clingy one-night stand?) but when he finds Cas (and wait—is that? Yep, sonofabitch is wearing one of Dean's favourite shirts even though Dean had strictly limited him to cast-offs and no-longer-fits) and Sam in the kitchen eating pancakes and smiling about something, a small traitorous part of him thinks that maybe he could get used to this.
It must be that same small traitorous part that makes him repeat the process every night for the next week, too, only this time he stops going to his own bed first. And if, one night, hypothetically, Dean's arm should end up under Cas's t-shirt, hand splayed across his chest because he feels closer like that and, hypothetically, Cas sleeps soundly with no nightmares at all—well, that doesn't mean anything.
Night twenty-four is when it all goes to hell. And it was bound to eventually, wasn't it? Because hello, this is Dean Winchester, and Dean Winchester is a master at royally screwing things up.
It all starts when he wakes up at the ass-crack of dawn and realises that at some point during the night, he became the little spoon. Alarm bells start ringing obnoxiously because, woah dude, no. And yet it's the weirdest damn thing—he can't seem to bring himself to move.
He does, however, roll over in Cas's arms (in Cas's arms—god, how is this his life now?) and that, that one movement, is how he ruins everything.
Cas is awake, you see, and his stupid blue eyes are big and round and shining with what can only be described as affection. And that scares the shit out of Dean. Because there is no way he should on the receiving end of that look, thankyouverymuch.
"Dean."
Okay, how does Cas do that? How, for the love of God, does he say Dean's name and make it sound … like that? How does he look at Dean like he hung the fucking moon and say his name with all the reverence of a prayer?
It's been a long time since Dean was the Righteous Man and he deserves the title even less now than he did then.
And hey, three guesses what Dean decides to do next? That's right, he bolts. He's out of that room faster than he's moved in weeks, and is across the hall in his own bedroom (a place he's not exactly frequented much recently) before Cas can so much as blink.
Dean pretty much sulks all day, only emerging from his room for snacks and drinks (of the alcoholic kind, naturally). He's perfectly civil to both Sam and Cas, but the elephant in the room is so big it tramples over everything, so he doesn't talk to them for long.
By the time darkness falls, he's restless and antsy, pacing his room. If he's waiting for something, he won't admit it. Partly because he's not really sure what he's waiting for. Those screams to start again; screams he hasn't heard in so long now? Perhaps. Maybe he's simply waiting for himself to grow a fucking pair and go over there and apologise. Or (and this option is his favourite) he could just be waiting for the considerable amount of alcohol he's consumed today to carry him off into a stupor.
As it turns out, he gets none of those things.
It's late, God knows what the time is, when there's a knock on his door. Dean starts, stock-still to prevent the rustle of sheets, because there's no way Cas is knocking on his bedroom door right now.
Oh, except, way, because the door opens and there he is. Looking all bastardly attractive (and Dean did not just call Cas attractive, Jesus) with his ruffled hair standing every which way and his ratty old t-shirt that used to be Dean's, and his big baby blues—which are shining with anger and frustration and, oh God, Dean has seen that look before and it usually preempts smiting.
"You, Dean," Cas says now, snapping the door closed sharply behind him, "really are a complete and utter idiot. You have an infuriating habit of self-deprecation, coupled with a ridiculous sense of nobility. I find myself unable to decide whether I want to hit you or kiss you."
And Dean squeaks at that, full-on squeaks, because a squeak is a perfectly acceptable response to a once Angel of the Lord declaring that they want to kiss you, okay?
Cas is standing by the side of the bed now, and if Dean didn't know better he'd think that he still has some Angel Mojo left in him because he did not see Cas move, and Dean can't do anything but stare at him (which makes a change from it being the other way round, let's be honest) because what the fuck do you say to that?
Apparently though, Cas isn't finished. "Did you ever stop to consider this morning, before you so bravely ran away, that this is equally terrifying for me, too? I'm still learning how to be human, Dean. There may be certain things I do not get, like how much milk is too much milk with my Lucky Charms and why I have to shave every day, but this I understand. And the comprehension is frightening."
Well, if Cas could clue Dean in that would be real fucking handy right now, because Dean has no damn idea what this is (except where he does, and he thinks in some screwed-up way he perhaps is in love with Cas or something and Cas might be saying it back here).
If Cas's impatient huff is anything to go by, he's clearly fed up of waiting for Dean to figure it all out (Dean can't say he blames him). "Move your ass," Cas says, gesturing wildly with a hand that Dean interprets as 'pick a side of a bed and stick to it rather than sprawling out in the middle, you asshole', but Dean is too busy smirking to even consider not obeying.
"Snarky son of a bitch," he murmurs, but shifts over and then wow, hello, there's six-feet of soft warm ex-nerd-angel pressed to his back and dammit, how did he end up being the little spoon again?
Cas's voice is low and throaty and dangerously close to Dean's ear when he says, "Let me be there for you, now," and Dean figures that there's more to that sentiment than repaying three weeks of nightmare protection.
And when Cas's lips (dear God, Cas's lips) somehow end up firmly attached to his own, and they're kissing like drowning men desperate for air—all tongue and teeth and heady exhilaration, Dean decides that yeah, all right, he's pretty okay with that.