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On nights spent at the bunker, when the rest of his family is sleeping in their beds, Cas tends to mill about. He’d spend the time looking for a case, familiarizing himself with the shelves of enchanted ingredients in the bunker’s storerooms, or continuing the research that the others had finally lost the battle against their sleepy eyes to do. Still other times Cas would simply wait, resting in the library’s dim lamp light and comfortable chairs, feeling faintly the souls of his sleeping family down the halls. This is not the worst way to spend time. Even he, formerly among the fiercest warriors of heaven’s ranks, recognizes the necessity of rest, sleep or no.
It’s become something of a ritual, on nights like tonight, settled into his favorite nook in the library, knowing that tomorrow morning he would set out again and wouldn’t have the security in knowing his vessel would be perfectly safe if he’s gone for just a little while, to go for a stretch. It’s not that he’s ungrateful, but being in a human vessel, even one to himself unlike most angels or other times he’s had one, is constricting. Not claustrophobic or cloying, but altogether different than moving about freely. It’s still not the same as when he could fly wherever in the universe he pleased in the blink of an eye, but it’s a full-throated shout after whispering for days on end.
His grace is never truly folded perfectly into the living shape of the body, rather an overflowing aura tacked to the physical like gravity attaching one to the earth, pulling down into it. There’s nothing like removing the pin.
Tonight, Cas sheds human senses and fills the spanning room of books and artifacts instead. He stretches and swoops through the space, squeezed amongst wooden shelves, glass jars, and warded cases instead of organs, flesh, and skin.
He goes beyond the walls and layers of soil and rock, into the cool night outside the bunker and takes a full breath with lungs he doesn’t have or need. His wings stretch and beat impotently through and above the trees, to no effect but the delight of exertion. Light waves imperceptible to the few wakeful souls in Lebanon gleam through the landscape in spectrums of color that have no pronounceable names. Jaws snap; a great many teeth clack rhythmically. Glittering and unbound, Cas beholds the sky, reaching and gliding up toward its shining heavenly bodies bigger and brighter than himself.
The twinkling calm of the town beneath him suddenly shifts. The sleepy quiet is punctured by a despairing pain. Concern spikes through Cas, and his awareness spreads thinly across the expanse of the landscape, searching for danger and sensing nothing out of place, as he rushes to return to the body.
Cas tethers himself to his vessel and feels his head restrained, warmth on his cheeks, before opening his eyelids to see through human eyes again. Watery green eyes meet his, wide and flickering fervently across his face. The intensity of feeling is the sun burning against his skin.
Dean kneels before him, features stricken, holding Cas’s face between both of his hands. Dean’s chest shudders breathing uneven and too fast, and his lips are parted, wincing, with his brows drawn tightly. He falters to speak, and confusion and despair bleed together over his countenance.
“Dean,” Cas whispers.
Fury flashes over Dean’s face to blend with the pain there, and his fingers dig into the sides of Cas’s head and neck. “You were –,” he starts strained and high pitched. He clears his throat over a strangled breath. “I thought you were gone,” he says.
At the same moment Dean moves one hand around to the place between his shoulder blades and the other to the back of Cas’s head and pulls him harshly into himself, chest to chest. Dean presses his cheek to Cas’s, lips mere inches from his ear.
The force of the embrace pulls the breath from Cas’s lungs. He begins apologetically. “I’m not. I’m here. I was just – out for some fresh air,” he settles on.
This gets a huff from Dean in what might have been a laugh if his breathing weren’t so labored. Cas feels warm moisture between their faces, and he realizes that Dean is crying.
Guilt spurs him on, speaking quietly and slowly near Dean’s ear. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just stepped away for a moment to stretch. A vessel can be a bit cramped, even when otherwise empty. It’s kind of like riding in the car too long. It’s fine at first, but after so long it’s nice to pull over and take a walk. Stretch your legs. My wings needed a stretch. That was all.”
He knows he’s rambling, but Dean’s breath is finally beginning to slow down to match his own, their chests pressed together and finding a similar rhythm. He notices now that his hands still rest empty beside his thighs while Dean, kneeling between his legs, holds him so tightly against himself, his fingers lightly twitching through Cas’s hair. Cas can just barely feel Dean’s jaw clenching and expression shifting against his cheek.
He raises his hands and hesitantly rests them on Dean’s sides. A shiver wracks Dean’s body, and the offending hands only stay for another moment before Dean slinks backward away from them. His hands stay in place until he can’t move farther without letting go, but they don’t stop touching Cas. They ghost down the lapels of his coat and down his legs until they stop and rest on his knees.
Dean sits back on his feet, legs folded under him, clothed in pajama pants with cartoon characters printed on them – two bears Cas is sure he could name if he could think. Dean turns his head sharply and wipes his face against the shoulder of his t-shirt. Something bubbles in Cas’s chest to see the man, hair mussed from his pillow, soft, and puffy-eyed kneeling at his feet.
Dean clears his throat again with a dismissive noise. The anger that played across his face is almost entirely gone presenting as a light annoyance, and a softness replaces the despair that pulled at his brow.
Their eyes meet again, Cas sitting forward where he was pulled from the back of the chair peering down at Dean between his shoes. Through lashes, Dean’s gaze flits across his face again.
The two are used to one another’s silence accented by stares. Long car rides stippled with yellow lines and glances across the bench seat. Conversation that waxes and wanes with the streetlamps that eclipse freckled light in the sky, never in need of more than they have. But now the silence layers over itself thickly, and the air feels staticky.
Dean’s hands slide off Cas’s knees and plop down onto his own. “You can’t –” he stops, and his hands come up to scrub at his face, wiping away the last of the moisture clinging to his cheeks.
“It’s – maybe next time you could leave a note or… something,” Dean finally says with an accusatory tone that falls through at the last word and meets Cas’s gaze again only when the words are out.
“Yeah. Yes, okay, I can do that.” Cas responds hoarsely.
“Okay,” Dean whispers, gives a tight nod, and presses off the floor to stand, not touching Cas or the chair again despite being so close. He turns to retreat from the dim library.
Several strides across the room, he twists to look over his shoulder, slowing his gate slightly but not stopping. His gaze once more glides over Cas leaned forward in his seat. When he faces forward, he gives a lazy wave backward and says, “G’night.”
“Goodnight, Dean,” Cas replies just as Dean rounds the corner into the hall.
Cas leaves Lebanon in the morning.