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Life isn’t fair, Dean gets that. Dean's got that since he was four years old, cradling his baby brother in his arms and running out of a burning house. He got that on the road, watching the fire that killed his mother slowly consume his father. He got that as he knelt on a corner of the street in some town, firmly fixing his mind on Sammy finally getting a hot meal in him for the first time in a week, and ignoring how his fingers were deftly undoing the belt of another faceless john.
Still, he wishes the world would let him off easy for once.
The bunker makes a kickass home base. For the first time in decades, he has his own room to house his own stuff. There’s something liberating about having a space to finally call his own. Not even the Impala was truly his; it was theirs. His and Sam’s, and before that, John’s too.
Not that sharing with Sam didn’t have its good side. Sleeping in the same room for so many years meant that Sam was very good about waking him up before a nightmare took hold, and vice-versa. Now, five days out of seven, he finds himself jerking awake in the middle of the night with a shout, breathing hard and drenched in sweat, trying to convince himself that Sammy’s okay, Cas is okay, we’re all still alive.
It takes a very long time to fall back asleep after, and sometimes he doesn’t.
Hell, these days he’d even take Cas’s nighttime staring. He’d never admit it, but after getting over the initial shock of being perved on by an Angel of the Lord, he found it comforting. It was almost nice, having someone make sure that he and Sam were safe after a day of running from Heaven and Hell. The nightmares were bad but never got out of hand, not like they do now.
Funny how he spent so much time bitching about Cas being a total creeper, and now that he finally has his own space, he wants the company. It doesn’t make sense, and it just isn’t fair.
Not fair to Cas either, who has his own angelic business to do nowadays. Dean doesn’t know what that is because Cas always evades the questions and Dean learns not to push, or Cas will push back. But at least he checks in every few days to let Dean and Sam know that he’s still alive and kicking. They worry for him. Cas is on every angel’s shit list because of that stunt he pulled with the souls in Purgatory, and while he might be all angeled up now and strong as he’s ever been, Dean worries.
He’s had enough of not knowing if Cas is okay, of the slow dread that creeps over him on some nights and convinces him that Cas is gone for good this time. That’s what it was like in Purgatory. But Purgatory, being what it was, dulled the emotions and the cutting edge of blind panic so that Dean could tamp it all down and do what needed to be done. Swing the blade, watch Benny’s back, find the angel.
Purgatory was easier by far. In Purgatory, he was running to Cas.
The unceasing tug of worry that pulls at his chest is familiar as breathing. It’s what fueled his protectiveness of Sam since he was four, and it’s only magnified over the years. But at least he knows that Sam isn’t going to run off one day and never return. He knows that Sam isn’t going to bleed out in a blaze of light because his psychotic siblings tore him apart.
Dean worries about his best friend. Dean misses him.
(Dean pines.)
He wishes Cas would come back to them. To him.
He wishes Cas would stay.