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Dean doesn't think too hard most days. He tells himself he's the kind of guy who follows his instinct, who sleeps when he's tried, eats when he's hungry, and locks himself into a room with a pretty person when the itch arises. He hunts demons because when he was young, his dad said it was the right thing to do. He takes care of Sam because family always comes first, no matter what they do, no matter how long they leave, Dean knows to never turn his back on family. Just Sam, really.
And Cas.
"You're quiet tonight," comes the soft voice from behind Dean, as though Castiel is still an angel who will come when Dean calls.
"I'm always quiet," Dean says, finding himself smiling. "It's always the other person who has trouble keeping their voice down."
Cas laughs. "I don't know why, but I believe you," he says.
"Cas," Dean says, grinning, looking over his left shoulder to get a glimpse of Castiel's dark hair. "I didn't know you watched."
"I always watch you," Castiel says.
It's impossible to tell if he's joking, but Dean is the kind of guy who listens to his instinct and he knows Castiel is not lying. Dean says nothing as he turns back to stare out at the empty parking lot. He hears Castiel's quiet tread on the gravel floor, and even the rustling of leaves from the trees across the little road can't silence the loud beating of Dean's heart.
In moments like these, Dean and Castiel understand each other. Torment and sorrow shine bright in the heavy silence between them. It's as though their early moments replay in the space between Dean's left side and Castiel's right, both of them leaning on the Impala's hood, both of them remembering the white light and searing pain of Castiel's palm on Dean's shoulder.
I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition, Castiel had said.
"So," Dean says now, jumping up to sit on the hood of the Impala. He lets his legs hang over the edge, spread wide enough for Dean to be comfortable, wide enough for Cas to fit in the space in front of Dean and hug him.
"So," Castiel answers, unmoving, his own eyes fixed on some point in the distance.
They haven't talked about God or how shitty it was that Castiel has given everything he has ever had, and even things he didn't, for a father who can't even remember he has more than one son. They haven't talked about how Dean was prepared to die, has always and will always be the first to line up. Or how every time, no matter the circumstance, Dean's last thoughts are always in the form of a prayer.
Please, God, please don't let anything happen to Sam when I'm gone. Please, don't let anything happen to Cas.
As though there is still someone to hear Dean, as though he still believes in something when he and Cas both know that what's there is disappointing.
Maybe Dean prays to his mom.
"You're still alive," Castiel says.
Dean hums his agreement, the chilly night air blowing through his hair, over his face. Castiel shifts against the hood of the Impala, pulling his trench coat closer.
"You cold, Cas?" Dean asks.
Castiel shrugs and Dean scoots closer along the hood, until his left arm is pressed against Castiel's right, until Dean's thigh slides right along the side of Castiel's waist. They sit in silence for a moment, Dean fixed on the flickering bulb in the motel's red and white sign. He's painfully aware of time passing, each minute out here in the quiet, one minute closer to when he'll have to go back to the motel room. Sam is asleep upstairs, room 255, directly behind Dean, one sprint and a tricky door handle away. Sam is a light sleeper and he'll notice Dean is gone, soon.
"What are you thinking?" Castiel asks.
Dean turns to blink at him slowly. His smile is lazy when he answers. "Oh, you know," Dean says. "Chicks. Dudes. The waitress at the diner. Have you noticed, Cas, how there's always one waitress in at least one diner?"
Castiel's smile is genuine this time. "I may have noticed, yes."
Across the road from their motel, the bell jingles above the little gas station in the corner. The man who walks out has the same walk as Dean. He's the right height, wearing the same dark clothes, plaid over a t-shirt, under a dark jacket. The man is too far away for his combat boots to make much noise as he gets to the corner and heads down the road away from Dean and Castiel. The air of desperation is unmistakeable though. Dean and Castiel both know that the brown bag in the man's hands hides a bottle of cheap whiskey.
"His hair isn't the right color," Castiel says.
Dean shrugs. "At least he has good tastes in clothes."
The flask under the driver's side of the Impala might as well be burning a hole through the floor.
"You can tell me, you know," Castiel says, matter of fact. "Whatever you need to. What you can't tell Sam."
Castiel is never careful when it comes to serious matters. He wasn't careful when he looked Dean in the eyes and said, "you don't think you deserved to be saved. As though it was a fact and not a question. As though he hadn't shattered Dean's carefully constructed glass tower of denial.
"I wanted it to be done," Dean says.
He pauses to look at the half moon, the halo of white light surrounding it. In the absence of city lights, it looks bigger than normal, it's dark gray craters driving home that the vastness of space is real, out of Dean's reach, out of his control. The sun lives on behind the moon and Dean would laugh, if he weren't so tired.
"When the sun was dying," Dean says, remembering the cold beer he'd pulled from the fridge. The weight gone, finally, because there was finally nothing left for him to do. No one else expected anything. No one else thought he could be doing more. For those few brief moments, before Castiel and Sam came back with a solution, Dean had felt peace for the first time in his life.
"It was just the end, Cas," Dean tries to explain now. "Period. Done. No more. I could've--We..."
"We could have all been free," Castiel finishes for him.
Dean snorts. "Woah, slow down there, Frozen."
"Elsa."
Dean raises his eyebrow. "Elsa?" he asks.
"The queen," Castiel tells him. "The one who wanted to be free. I'm surprised you don't know. It was a very popular children's movie."
"Been a bit busy saving the world, Cas," Dean says.
A lone car passes them to the left, down the same dark road the man from earlier had walked down. It's too dark to tell the color, but it's headlights cut through the darkness, just a few brief seconds where Dean can see down the dark road before the car moves on and there's nothing. It's just him and Castiel again, under a cheap motel sign, one lamp lighting up most of the parking lot.
"Heaven's not much different," Castiel says, leaning his weight on Dean's side so that Dean has to put a hand on the hood of the Impala to keep upright. "Except no one knows where angels go when they die."
Dean is a man of instinct. He likes to think he acts and reacts because there are some things just so ingrained that they require no thought, no planning, nothing to make them go wrong. And if they do go wrong, nowhere to put the blame, because instinct took over and there was nothing Dean could do about it.
Lately, though, Dean finds that he's ruled not so much by instinct, but by a deep gnawing hunger that burns like gunpowder and hurts far worse than a shot. It's a yawning, endless chasm that fills briefly when Sam and Castiel are near and safe. It quiets when Sam and Dean take a morning off to go see a movie, or have drinks at a bar. When Castiel leans against his side and Dean can feel the heat of him through his coat, along his side, when Dean can hear the quiet breaths in the empty parking lot of whatever shitty motel they're staying at.
It's not instinct and it never quiets for more than a few seconds. Never longer than when Dean thought the world was ending and he was finally going to get a good night's sleep.
"You have always cared far more than you let yourself believe you do," Castiel says.
"We were talking about existential crap," Dean says, nudging Castiel until he straightens up. "You know, that whole, where do dead things go junk."
Dean holds up a hand before Castiel can speak.
"In the ground," Dean says. "I know."
Castiel's mouth twitches.
"Or hell, or purgatory, or heaven, or the freaking sun," Dean says, rolling his eyes. "I get it."
Dean falls silent again as he lets his eyes focus on the leaves on the branches of the trees across the road. He can't see each individual leaf in the dark, but he squints and tries anyway. Anything to occupy space in his head so that he doesn't have to think about how he never really talks about his feelings, even when he does. How there are things he tells Castiel because he can't tell Sam, because Sam always wants them to live, because Sam always wants to believe there's another way, a better way.
Dean leans back on the hood of the Impala until the back of his legs catch against the front and stop him. "Come here, Cas," he says.
Castiel turns and steps into the space in front of Dean. His clothes are cool against Dean's hands as they hug each other. A pause where Dean inhales the scent of Castiel's hair and his arms get accustomed to the feel of Castiel.
They kiss.
Just a moment where everything is a pleasant buzz, a shock and then just the quiet parking lot once more. Dean kisses Castiel again, and again, and again, until the buzz is a hum and the world explodes into light behind Dean's eyes. He holds on tighter, imagining that his own hand leaves a mark on Castiel's shoulders, anything to stay if Dean goes, to say that Dean mattered, if only here in this one moment.
Just a private apology because there are things Dean can't tell Sam, things Dean can't tell Castiel, and things he can't tell either of them. Some things he keeps to himself, locked so far back even he can't reach them. Things that went quiet on the day the world was supposed to end, that go quiet now with Castiel's mouth on his.
They separate, Castiel's smile gentle like his hands on Dean's face. Dean's heart thundering in his chest as he winks, cocky and almost himself again.
The thought briefly crosses Dean's mind: No one knows where angels go when they die. Then, he tucks it away with the rest of the things he doesn't think about, and looks out over the shining lights of the gas station at the corner.
"Let's go, Dean," Castiel says.
"But, Cas," Dean answers, leaning back on his hands, his smile mischievous and disarming. "There's no one out here."
Castiel rolls his eyes. "I see you're back to being yourself."
Dean shakes his head in hopes of getting rid of the rest of it, the doubt, the pain, the desperate desire to pass the responsibility onto someone else, someone who doesn't run on instinct, who can think and plan and keep everyone safe.
"I'm always myself, Cas," Dean says, feeling it all on the inhale and letting it go on the exhale. "Always my charming beautiful self."
Castiel takes his hand and Dean thinks about pushing it a little, being just a bit obnoxious until Castiel rolls his eyes and walks away. So that Dean will groan and complain, but go after him, a bit of familiarity to ground Dean again and bring him back from himself. But Castiel is still standing in front of Dean and Dean's lips are still warm, and it's all right.
Everything is okay for now.