Archive of Our Own

The five seconds before Dean's fully awake are the best moments of his day. In that quiet space between sleep and wakefulness, when dreams are still clinging to the edges of his mind and all he feels is the soft mattress and the warm sheets, he can pretend that everything is fine. That when he opens his eyes and stretches himself awake—joints popping, bones cracking—there'll be someone waiting for him in the kitchen with a hot cup of coffee and an off-center smile.

It's only five seconds. A handful of heartbeats. One painful inhalation and exhale. The blink of grit from his eyes.

Not nearly enough time before it hits him all over again. He breathes, waits for it to pass.

He gets up.

He makes his bed with precision. Tucks the top sheet in tightly, just like his father taught him, before smoothing out the blankets. The pillow, tilted up at the head of the bed, centered. Alone.

The shower is scalding, but he doesn't notice the sting. He washes his hair and his body, each motion cursory, perfunctory. When he brushes over his left shoulder, he doesn't pause as his fingers pass over the raised scar. His touch doesn't linger. Soap, rinse, water turned off.

He doesn't think.

Boxers, jeans, T-shirt, flannel. No boots. The concrete floor of the bunker isn't cold enough to sap the heat from his sock-clad feet, and it hasn't been smooth enough to slide across for years now. Too many footsteps across its gray surface. Too many fights.

The kitchen is empty.

Everything aches.

He makes his coffee, starts to get two mugs out of the cabinet before he stops himself. Head bowed, he bites back a curse, eyes shut tight, teeth gritted, everything balanced precariously as he tries to hold it all in, hold it all together.

He pours himself a cup, and when he takes a sip, it burns.

He doesn't know how long it's been since they defeated Chuck. It's not like time has stopped or slowed or gone weird on them. It's still ticking away, steady and unending as ever. It's only in the aftermath, when everyone (almost everyone) is coming back, that he and Sam realize it’s been three months since Jack pulled godhood from Chuck like a rotten tooth and reset the world. Three months and some change since… 

He never manages to get a solid grasp on what day it is once he starts paying attention to the calendar again. Sam doesn’t know, either. He’s too caught up in Eileen when she finally returns to try and figure it out, and by then, no one really cares. It’s April, maybe, or early May. Dean circles a date on the calendar, declares it good enough for government work, and that’s where they start counting from. 

May 14th, 2020.

It’s a Thursday. 

They have a dog now. Miracle, because that’s what he felt like running across the broken tarmac. Miracle, because Dean wasn’t allowed them.

Miracle, because as much as Dean loves the feel of the dog pressed against him in bed, the wet-dirt-sweat smell of him in Dean’s nose as he buries his face in the dog’s scruff, he hates Miracle, just a bit. Not because of what he is, but because of what he isn’t. 

Dean feeds the dog after he finishes his first cup of coffee. Miracle’s nails click on the floor, his tags clinking quietly as he eats. Dean makes toast, spreads grape jelly on it, chews it mechanically without tasting much of anything. His mouth stings. He ignores it.

Sam and Eileen are out on a hunt. Not for monsters—those have yet to appear since the world started back up again—but for friends, hunters, people from before. 

Jack hadn’t been precise with his power. Probably a side effect of suddenly becoming God. They couldn’t have expected him to be perfect at it right off the bat. Eileen came back in the middle of Yosemite National Park, hundreds of miles from where she disappeared. Her retelling of her hike back to civilization keeps Dean on the edge of his seat and Sam knee-to-knee with her. Dean recognizes the desperation in his brother's eyes, the way his hands open and close, how they reach before pulling back, only to repeat the pattern again and again. Dean did the same thing, years ago when he thought everything that was lost was finally returned. A familiar silhouette next to a pay phone and limned in street light, Dean's hands clenched into fists so he didn't hold on too tight.

That night, he left Sam and Eileen at the table, went to his room, slipped between the cool sheets, and drank himself to sleep.

With the dog fed and the kitchen tidied, Dean goes back to cataloguing. They've never had this much downtime before, and with nothing to do but hurry up and wait, Dean's tasked himself with digging through the Bunker and figuring out what all of the crap here actually is. 

He's not starting from scratch. There are plenty of notes laying around with scrawled details in the margins. The Men of Letters were dedicated to writing everything down. They took their jobs seriously. But the filing system for it all? That's a disaster. As far as Dean can tell, there were two different archivists with competing systems. His biggest hint is the handwriting in the card catalogue. One guy—he writes everything in capital letters with efficient, uniform strokes—seems to be working alphabetically while the other—a cursive that's nearly indecipherable but Dean's getting used to slowly—is by category. Either way, it's a giant fucking mess, one that gives him a headache most days, but it keeps him busy.

It keeps him focused.

There's lore on vamps, ghouls, kitsune, werewolves, ghosts, poltergeists, nymphs—woodland and water—and everything else in between. Most of it is in English, but there are other languages mixed in. He's able to fudge his way through the Spanish and French, but all of the Cyrillic languages are a bust, same with the Arabic and Japanese. He sets those to the side, saving them for whenever Sam and Eileen get back or another hunter comes by, someone with better language skills than Dean has. He knows there's one guy out of Topeka, Barry or something like that, who has a handle on most of the Slavic languages, and there's Kumiko out in California who speaks Japanese fluently, along with a smattering of Korean and Chinese. The way things have been going, they'll be here eventually, and then they can help him figure this out.

He pulls out the next drawer in the catalogue. The wood, worn smooth by years of use, slides out easily, and he sets it on top of the cabinet with a sigh. His lower back is aching, and he figures he'll get started on this one before calling it a day.

He pulls the first card out without really thinking about it. He recognizes the characters of this language, knows the thick and thin lines of it, the curves and twists. Hell, he could've written the damn thing himself.

Fingers numb, he shoves the card back home, the Enochian only partially hidden by his shaking hand.

He turns and leaves, unable to look at the drawer long enough to put it back.

"Are we ever going to talk about it?" Sam asks four days later, his feet up on the table, a beer cradled between his too large hands. 

The library is barely lit, only a handful of lamps turned on along the edges of the room. It's late. Dean can taste the night air, even underground. That early summer sweet-coolness on his tongue, hinting at the chill of a clear night sky dusted with stars. He breathes it in, lets it mix with the leather-dust-iron of the Bunker in his lungs, holds it close before letting it go.

Eileen left for bed fifteen minutes ago, her hand on Sam's shoulder lingering the same way her smile did. Dean looked away, drank slowly, waited for her footsteps to fade. Now, it's just him and Sam in the golden half-light of ancient incandescent bulbs, beers half-finished, a conversation that Dean doesn't want to have half-started.

Dean puts the beer bottle to his lips, tips it back, swallows. "Not much to talk about."

"C'mon, Dean."

"I don't know what you're getting at, Sammy."

"I'm not going to be the first one to say it."

Dean laughs. The sound twists and echoes in the library. He wishes he could take it back. It tells too much.

He tries for an ease he doesn't feel. "What do you want me to say, Sam? There's nothing we can do. If Jack couldn't, then…" He takes another sip, drowns the words trapped in his throat. "So why talk about it? It's not going to change anything."

"Dean." Sam leans forward, his hand reaching, settling over the crudely carved lines on the table top. "You haven't even said his name since he—"

Dean's bottle clatters against the table when he sets it down. "That's enough soul searching for me. I'mma head to bed." He touches two fingers to his forehead, salutes. "Night, Sammy."

"Dean, you can't—"

His footsteps beat down Sam's words. They're steady, simple. Left, right, left, right. The door to his room shuts neatly behind him. Dean locks it, leaves the light off. The alarm clock's red numbers guide him to his bed. He pulls his socks off, then his jeans, then his shirt. He crawls into the cool sheets, leans back on the one, centered pillow, closes his eyes.

He pretends to sleep, until he does.

He's about an hour outside of Lebanon by the time the sun rises. Dean's not entirely sure where he's going. It was still dark when he slid into the driver's seat and turned around on the one-lane gravel road outside the bunker. US-36 stretched out into the slowly pinkening horizon, and Dean followed it. Squinting into the east now, Dean wishes Baby had better sun visors. He digs into the divot where the bench seat meets the back, feeling around for a pair of sunglasses he knows he lost in here six weeks ago. He finds a quarter, some crumbs, a broken rubber band. There's a shell casing in there, too, though he can't get a grip on the smooth metal. He's gonna have to detail the damned car to get it out, and that's what he's thinking about—removing the seats and the floor mats, and getting into the nooks and crannies—when he sees the field.

It's just a field. A bit of empty nothingness in the middle of the larger nothing of Kansas. But there's a single oak in the middle of it. A great, old gnarled thing with branches that grasp at the rosy sky, green leaves so dark with summer growth they look black, all of them twisting to soak up whatever sun they can find.

Dean's turning off the highway, turning back around, before he's even fully aware of what he's doing. There’s a frontage road, and he bounces along it carefully. The tree grows in the distance, branches stretching toward him while gravel pings against Baby’s skid plate. The sun rises behind him, already warming the air and burning off what little dew remains on the long grass.

He parks as close to the tree as he can get. There are two ruts in the ground leading away from the road to the tree, but Dean knows the undercarriage won’t clear the ridge between them. He slots his feet into the wheel treads like a deer path made by man and machine. The dust clings to his boots and his nose. It's a sharp tang, iron and blood in the back of his mouth. He swallows down the familiar taste.

Stepping into the shade of the tree feels like a deep breath. It’s cooler there. It’s gonna be a hot day, but under the dark leaves, evening lingers. Light drips through like falling stars that dance and shift as a breeze rustles through them.

Dean closes his eyes, tilts his head back. He breathes. 

"Ah, Cas." 

He wants to catch the words in his hands and put them back as soon as they're free. He needs to hold those syllables close to his chest. They don’t hurt as much while burning a hole through his ribs as they do floating away on a sun-dappled wind. He’s got so little to hold onto this time. He doesn’t want to risk letting any of it out of his grasp. 

There's no body to prepare, no pyre to burn, no ashes to scatter. There's no field full of wild flowers and grass, no quiet place where he can listen to the hum of bees and find peace. 

He doesn't even have a torn and dirty trench coat to carry with him, car to car, as if the weight of heavy cotton can replace the weight of a gaze on Dean's back, a hand on his shoulder, a gravel-strewn voice in his ears.

He has a name, the memory of a face, the bits and pieces of a life left behind. 

It’s not enough. It's never going to be enough.

Dean touches his hand to the rough bark of the tree. It catches on his calluses as he curls his fingers into his palm. His skin is no softer than the oak’s when he rests his forehead against his fist, eyes shut. Teeth gritted, he fights for breath and lets the early morning sunlight scatter warmth across his shoulders and back.

Dean had fucking told him to not do it. To stop. Whatever Billie had planned for Dean, whatever fate he'd been staring straight down the barrel of, it couldn't have been worse than this. There's an ache in his chest that won't go away. It's like every other time, only Dean knows there's no going back this time. There's no getting him back this time.

Anger fills his churning gut like acid. He curls over the burn and waits for it to subside, to shove it down where he can't feel it anymore.

He's thinking too much.

The wind catches leaves in a whisper, and Dean breathes, breathes, breathes.

Gravel pings on the skid plate. The blinker ticks a quiet rhythm like a heartbeat. The road sings beneath rubber.

Dean goes home.

Sam doesn't say anything when Dean comes in smelling like sweat and the road. He doesn't say anything when Dean stumbles down the stairs with whiskey clinging to him like a lover. He doesn't even look at him when Dean blearily brews coffee and eats dry toast and fights to keep it all down.

Sometimes, Dean wishes Sam would speak the fuck up already.

Hunters come and go through the bunker. Some of them are from the Apocalypse world, others have just heard the rumors. Wherever they're from, Dean and Sam set up one of the spare rooms, make space at their table, and share whatever knowledge they have.

It's two months after they start counting again when someone finally asks about the hole they pretend isn't there.

"So," the man—Jeff or Jim or John, Dean doesn't care to remember—says. "I thought y'all had an angel running around with you. What was his name again?" He turns to his partner, a twenty-something woman whose expression says she knows he shouldn't be talking right now. "Castiel, right?"

Ice fills Dean's veins. Everything in him freezes. If anyone were to look at him, he'd crack.

Sam's quick to draw Jake's attention. "He, uh…" A quiet cough, eyes downturned. "He didn't make it."

"Oh, shit." Jacob shifts uncomfortably in his chair. "Sorry 'bout that. Sounded like a useful guy to have around."

"You can either shut your fucking mouth, or you can get the hell out of my house."

He's on his feet before they can finish turning to look at him. Ice splinters through him, jagged edges digging into his vascular system, bleeding him out.

"Hey, no disrespect." The fucking idiot whose name starts with J holds his hands up. "Sorry."

"You're about to be." Dean glares at Sam. "Get them out of my fucking face."

He brushes past Sam on his way out, and flinches when Sam's fingers brush against his wrist. He doesn't want to be stopped. He wants to get away.

There's nowhere to go in the bunker, though. The hallways echo with unfamiliar voices. The spare rooms are filled with people he doesn't know. There's only one place where he can be alone, and he can't go there, not with the memories still littering the floor next to the devil's trap.

He stops outside the closed door to the storage room, places his fist against it. One quick knock that would be a punch if it had any force beside grief behind it, and then he walks away.

The bunker is made up of hard edges and high ceilings. There's nothing soft about the place. No rugs to muffle footsteps. No curtains to catch raised voices. Just concrete and wood and steel. The books absorb as much sound as they can, but they're already full up with words, no space for any more. What remains washes through everything. Conversations are muted and muffled, twisted into unrecognizable syllables as they hurry down hallways and through cracked open doors.

Dean lives with echoes and the way they warp words, bend voices. He shouldn't be surprised the first time he thinks he hears Cas's voice, but there's a gravel roll of thunder that rips through him, and he's out of the galley and into the war room, chasing the memory of it.

Sam turns from talking to an old, grizzled hunter that Dean's never seen before, eyebrows raised. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," Dean says as his heart pounds. "Yeah, it's fine. I thought I heard…"

"This is Dan," Sam says, gesturing to the man.

He holds his hand out. "Nice to meet you, Dean. I heard good things about you boys and thought I'd drop by."

It's nearly the same. The bass is just as low, the way it rumbles through Dean's chest like an engine humming, but the tone is wrong. This is a voice made rough from too many cigarettes and too much whiskey. It's not the same, just close.

It still wrenches Dean's heart when it speaks his name.

It's just… It's fucking hard to forget someone who has lived in your pocket for over a decade. They weren't joined at the hip. They lived independent, intersecting lives. It's just that… Well, before, Cas was a call away. Dean could shoot him a text or give him a quick ring, could close his eyes and send out a prayer.

Whenever Dean called, Cas answered.

Now, though…

Dean doesn't mean to pray to Cas. It's only that when Dean's laying in his bed, staring into the darkness and the ceiling he knows is there but can't see, he can't help it. They aren't even fully formed messages, more vague thoughts that Dean can't put his finger on (except that they all hurt like a broken bone poorly healed). They're quiet. They should be easy.

There's never any answer. It should make him stop, but all it does is make the mess in him worse, makes it grow and tangle around him like the sheets around his legs late at night.

He doesn't sleep very much these days.

Eleven weeks after they start counting days again, his thumb slips when he goes to call Sam. Cas's name is on the screen, and it's ringing. His phone was in his pocket when he was taken, and though Dean knows that it's never going to connect, there's never going to be an answer on the other end of the line, just like Dean's prayers are going to go unanswered for the rest of his goddamned life, he lets it ring.

"This is my voicemail. Make your voice… a mail."

Click.

Dean hangs up.

He dials again.

His first hunt after (almost) everyone comes back is outside of Indianapolis. There's a nest of vamps hiding out in some rundown rural community, picking off the few people who live there one by one. The way they're going, the whole town'll be gone before the month is out. Dean's working it with two local hunters, a man named Riley and his girlfriend, Andrea.

"Call me Andi," she says when they meet. Her handshake is firm and full of calluses. Her smile is warm, but guarded, and Dean likes her immediately. It doesn't hurt that her eyes are a deep brown, her lips ruby-red and pillowy. She's just a bit shorter than Dean, though her legs are long and well-muscled. Riley catches Dean watching, and shoots him a grin filled with masculine pride. It's a good look on him. Dean doesn't let his eyes linger the same way they had on Andi, but they look.

They see.

Riley leads the way to the nest. The entrance is hidden in a half-collapsed barn along the edges of a dying town. Moonlight streams through holes in the roof. Everything smells like mildewed straw and rotten wood. When Dean pushes his way through the doorway, the frame comes away in crumbling bits beneath his hand. 

"Lovely place you've got here," he says as Riley and Andi join him inside the barn. "Now, where are these assholes so we can get out before the roof collapses?"

Turns out they can't get out before the roof falls in around them, along with a half-dozen vamps who were hiding in the loft. Dean gets knocked to the floor along with his breath. His mouth is open and gasping, lungs doing their damnedest to remember how to work, and there's a vamp, leaning in close. Her breath smells like blood and decay, and her teeth glint in the moonlight.

He always knew he'd go out swinging. Didn't figure it would be to vamps in a barn, though.

Riley's machete cuts through the vamp's neck cleanly. Dean's showered in blood and relief, but there's no time to worry about either because there's another one on him a moment later. He sucks in a breath, swings with calm precision, and does his job.

Saving people, hunting things.

It's familiar. It eases the sting.

When they're done, there are eight bodies on the ground around them, and one tied to a post in the center of the barn. Dean kneels down before the vamp and runs the edge of his bloodstained machete along his neck.

"You want to tell me where the rest of your nest is, or do you want to do this the hard way?"

The vamp spits blood in Dean's face, and as Dean wipes it away, he feels weary. He's so damned tired.

"Hard way, then," he says before letting Alastair's training snap back into place as if it had never left.

It's familiar. It eases the sting.

They find the rest of the nest, catch them by surprise. By the end of it, they have to burn an entire barn to hide the bodies. Dean pours kerosene on the corpses, lights the fire with an ease that comes from years of arson. As the golden flames leap into the sky, he stands and watches, reminded of a different pyre, and breathes in deep the smokey-sweet smell of flesh burning.

They end up in a bar. Andi and Riley ply Dean with cheap whiskey, and he lets them get him drunk. There's a low buzz in his blood, brought on by alcohol and a fight. His survival instinct, singing to the primordial part of his brain, reminding him that he's alive, alive, alive.

When Andi leans in close, her hand on Dean's thigh, and asks if he wants to have a drink back at her place, Dean looks at Riley. The other man is leaned back in his chair, legs spread wide, eyes dark. He looks at Dean from under his lashes, and his smile is a hot, sharp dagger in Dean's gut.

"You sure your boyfriend's okay with that?" Dean manages past the sudden fire in his blood.

Andi looks at Riley looking at them and grins. Riley's hand slides from the top of his thigh to the inside. It cups the growing ridge of his dick through his jeans, adjusts.

"I think," she says, her lips brushing the shell of Dean's ear, "he'll be just fine."

She tastes like rotgut and ashes, but her lips are soft and know what they're doing. Dean falls into it the same way he falls into a bottle, lets pleasure wash over him until there's nothing else in his body and blood but the buzz. Her first touch under the hem of his shirt is hesitant, but then it grows confident, steady. She eases the hem up, lets her hands linger over the still firm rise of his stomach, up until they find his nipples and he hisses in a breath.

"He likes that," Riley says from the edge of the bed, his eyes bright even though the room is dark. "Do it again."

Laughing, Andi does. Dean arches into the touch. His hips rise from the bed, searching for something to push against.

Andi's weight across his thighs holds him down.

Her shirt is the first one off. As Dean molds her breasts in his hands, brings the heavy globes together before licking along the edge of her bra, she throws her head back and unbuttons his flannel with her eyes closed.

He only lets go long enough to slip the worn cotton from his wrists, and then he's holding her hips, guiding her as she grinds against him. He's hard and aching, desperate for the warm heat of her wrapped around his cock. Her fingers ghost over the fastening of his jeans, teasing at the button and zipper.

God, it feels good.

Riley's hand on Dean's neck is a surprise. So's the way he leans in to capture Dean's mouth.

So's the way it lances through Dean like lightning. It sizzles and sparks, then blows him wide open.

He pulls back.

Riley's eyes are so goddamned blue, they nearly glow.

There's a brief moment where it's fine, where the desire in his blood is pointed in the right direction, finally, instead of where it can no longer go. But then Riley leans in again, and his cheekbones aren't right, and the shadowed stubble along his jaw isn't right, and though his eyes are bright blue, they aren't hallowed and smudged dark beneath, and suddenly, everything is all wrong.

Dean scrambles out from under Andi's weight, throws himself in the direction of the bathroom they passed on their way to the bedroom. He misses the lightswitch, falls to his knees in front of the toilet, and throws up so hard, he feels a vessel pop in his eye.

There's silence from the bedroom.

He doesn't say anything, just gathers his clothes and leaves.

The road home is black and is full of bile, his left eye aching the entire way.

Dean's in the shower twenty-three weeks after they start counting again. The water is scalding and pounds over his back. The joys of living in a bunker meant for fifteen but only housing two; there's a massive hot water heater and water pressure high enough to strip paint.

Today, though, it does nothing to ease the ache under his skin. He's crawling with it. It sits low in his gut, deep in the hollow of his hips, a heat that grows and grows with every day that he tries to ignore it.

It's been so long, he thinks. Long enough for it to be safe.

Taking himself in hand, he closes his eyes and blanks his mind. His fist is tight, though the water makes his strokes rougher than he'd like. He fumbles for the body wash, fills his palm, hisses at the cold touch. But then he's slip-sliding into his fist, his cock pumping through the cage of his fingers with ease.

It feels so fucking good.

It's been too fucking long.

Praying his muffled groans will be covered by the water, he lets himself languish in the sensation. Pleasure grows. He sucks in a breath on the upstroke, hisses when he twists his wrist at the head. The glide back down has him tilting his head back. Water spills over his face and into his mouth, and he pushes it out as he pushes in. He puts his bent arm against the cold tile wall, leans into it as he gets closer and closer to orgasm.

A name falls from his lips like spilling water.

He comes, but there's no pleasure in it. It's all wrenched from him as he sees blue eyes and brown hair, broad shoulders. Dean's name echoes in his mind, said in a boulder-rough voice in a million different ways, a million different times, each one a treasure Dean failed to notice until it was too late.

Dean comes, and all of the thoughts he's held at bay come pouring out of him like a dam breaking. 

And just like the town at the bottom of that river valley, unaware of what's coming, Dean drowns.

Catalogue cards are strewn across the table. Sam, the wind that scattered them, shifts the mess around into some semblance of organization.

Dean offers him a bottle "What're you working on?"

"Thanks," Sam says, reaching out until Dean places the cold brown glass into his palm. "Just trying to figure something out."

Close enough to see the cards clearly, Dean swallows. "That's a lot of Enochian."

"Yeah." Sam takes a sip, sets the bottle down, moves another card from one side of the table to another. "Yeah, I figured that's where we should start. It's just… I can't make heads or tails of how this is all organized."

"There are two systems." Dean's stomach churns. "The neater handwriting is alphabetical, other one is by category."

Sam frowns down at the cards and curses before he starts reorganizing them again. "Well, there's an hour wasted. Anyway, I figure if there's anything about angels and their lore, it'll be here. It's not the first time we've learned about a creature's afterlife from books, right? Angels can't be that different, not in those basic ways. If we can find out more about what the Empty is, and how it works, then we'll—"

"Sam. Stop."

Sam looks up, his hair falling into his eyes. His mouth is still open from speaking, his eyes wide, but it only takes a moment for his lips to press together into a tight line.

"Dean, I'm not going to do this with you again."

"Do what?"

"Fight." Sam stands up and crosses his arms. "If you don't want to look for a way to get him back, that's on you. But he's my best friend, too, and I'm not going to… to abandon him because it's hard."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

Sam's eyebrow arches up. "Really? You want to try that again?"

Dean looks away. He can't say it.

"That's what I thought. Look, Dean. I understand, okay? When Eileen,"—Sam's voice breaks like glass as it trips over her name, and he coughs to cover up the rattling sound—"when she disappeared, I thought… I mean, you were there. You saw. I wanted to give up. It… it hurt to hope, you know? But I couldn't stop myself from hoping, from wanting to find a way to get her back, to get them all back."

"Well, they're here now." Dean gestures with his bottle around the bunker. "Congratulations."

"We can get Cas back, Dean."

"Don't." He can't breathe. He can't fucking breathe with that name mixing in the air with the oxygen.

"Dean."

"You don't… I can't keep doing this, Sam. I can't keep… He's gone, okay?" Dean cracks through the middle. "He's gone, and he's not coming back. And I need to… I need to figure out how to move past that, okay? So, you can't give me hope. It's… It'll kill me, Sammy."

His next swallow of beer is tainted with salt.

Sam's soft voice scrapes like sandpaper over his skin. "Okay, Dean. I get it."

"Yeah. So, y'know. Don't tell me if you're…"

Sam nods, quick and cutting. "How'd that vamp hunt in Indy go?"

Dean laughs, harsh and free. "It was good. Real good."

He keeps going back to the oak. It's not a far drive from the bunker, only an hour. It gives him time to lose himself to the quiet sound of tires on tarmac, window down and wind whipping thoughts from his mind. There're no weird twists or turns, just a straight shot along the highway and then the oak is there on the horizon, waiting with its arms outstretched in welcome.

Some days, Dean brings lunch with him, leans his back up against the great bulk of the tree and lets the residual heat seep into his skin. He drinks cool water, eats simple sandwiches. It's fulfilling in an easy way, one that doesn't require him to think about it too much. He's thirsty, so he drinks. He's hungry, so he eats. When he's tired, he tips his head against the rough bark, lets his hair catch in the cracks, closes his eyes.

Stolen droplets of light trickle across his eyelids. The world is dappled red and distant. Wind rustles the leaves. Cars and trucks drive past. The low sounds blend together into a pleasant nothing.

It's the closest to peace he's had since they started counting days.

He stays until the sun begins to sink below the horizon. The warmth of the day fades. He turns his head to the side and watches as the sun finishes disappearing out of sight. The sky shifts from rose gold to bruise purple. Stars litter the black. Idly, Dean traces lines between the pinpoints of light, stitching his own constellations into the fabric of the night sky.

He finds the spread of wings. They arch, all encompassing, across the expanse. He touches them with his eyes, tip to tip.

Cygnus, he thinks. The Swan.

There isn't a constellation for angels.

Dean's cataloguing again, though it's more of a habit at this point than anything productive. He's been at it for months now, and while he's getting closer to knowing what all is in the bunker, there's still a shit ton of stuff to get through. At his current pace, he'll be at it for years.

He tries to be disappointed at the prospect, rather than relieved.

The storage room is the worst part of the system. Labels that were clear and easy to read at one point in time have faded into indecipherability. Now, it's a matter of squinting at yellowing strips of paper and hoping that the lines connect into something like letters.

Somewhere on the shelf that Dean's digging through is a stake made of yew wood and sanctified by a druid priestess on the night of a new moon. They need to ship it out to some guy in Oregon, and according to the damned catalogue, it should be right fucking here. But when Dean opens the locked and warded box, it's empty.

Which is why Dean is now on his hands and knees at the base of said shelf, peering into the gap between the bottom of it and the floor and cursing himself for not bringing a goddamned flashlight.

There's enough space for him to wiggle his hand into the space, though. He brushes against dust and the weightless crackle of desiccated insect corpses, and he grimaces. He's gonna have to get the Swiffer out later to try and get this shit cleaned up, but in the meantime, he's just hoping to feel the smooth warmth of wood so he can be done with it. His knees are too old for this shit.

Instead, he bumps into something cold and metallic.

He rolls his eyes, then pushes his hand deeper into the gloom. There's just enough space for him to get a solid grasp on whatever it is, and when he pulls his hand back, he's holding a flask.

Unlike most of the stuff in the bunker, this is simple. No ornamentation, no wardings, no sigils. Just bare metal, slightly tarnished in places but otherwise polished to a high sheen. He flips it over, checks the back, then lets out a quiet huff.

He'd been meaning to get a new flask.

He unscrews the cap. Who knows how long this thing has been lost in here. He's probably going to have to bleach the shit out of it before he can use it, but it doesn't hurt to check.

As soon as the lid's off, he stops.

Whatever is inside, it glows.

It glows blue-white.

It glows familiar.

"Cas?"

The light pulses, and Dean freezes.

Fuck.

Fuck.

It's some of… He swallows, stares.

It can't be.

Dean shuts the flask, wrenches it shut as tightly as he can. Flipping it over, he finds a line of runes along the bottom. A simple enchantment meant to keep whatever it contains fresh forever.

He remembers Cas slumped in a chair in the library, Jack's fingers wrapped around smooth metal.

Fuck.

It's Cas's grace.

He doesn't realize he's falling to the floor until he's already on it. There'll be a bruise in the morning; concrete isn't very forgiving to human flesh. But all Dean can do is cradle the silver flask in his hands and try to breathe.

He doesn't know what to do with it. Part of him wants to stuff it back under the shelf where he can pretend it doesn't exist. Another part of him wants to hold it so close, it becomes part of him, so he can cradle this last remnant deep within his chest, warm and safe next to Dean's own beating heart.

It's all he has left.

He leans forward, touches his forehead to the cool metal. His breath fogs the sheen. His thumb brushes it away, leaves it clean.

"Fuck, Cas," he whispers, eyes closing. "I'm… I fucked up. I didn't know. I swear, I didn't know. If I did…" He swallows down a sob. "I'm just… I miss you. I really fucking miss you."

Breath unsteady, Dean lets his lips brush the curve of the flask. He presses them against the metal and pretends that he can feel the warmth of Cas's grace through it like skin.

Thirty-two weeks after they start counting again, Dean cries.

Dean doesn't see the shapeshifter until it's too late. It hits him low in the back and sends him crashing to the ground. The forest is dark and choked with underbrush, and Dean's silver knife goes flying out of his hand and into the weeds. He can't even see the glint of it with what little moonlight trickles through the thick canopy.

"Sam!"

He doesn't hear any response. The shifter's breath is too loud in Dean's ear.

"I'm gonna have fun killing you, Winchester," it hisses. Its breath against the nape of his neck reminds Dean of Billie stumbling down a hallway, her scythe casting sparks against the wall.

The shifter pushes Dean's face into the dirt. Pine needles cut his lips and coat his tongue with their flavor. He tries to twist away, but all it does is shove the detritus deeper into his mouth and nose. Dean can't breathe. He chokes on the forest floor, the shifter laughing above him.

Somehow, he manages to roll onto his back. Either the creature lets him, or Dean unseats it enough to move on his own. But as he spits dirt and debris from his mouth, snorts it from his nose, the shifter is back on him, its teeth sharp and brutal where they tear into the meat of Dean's shoulder.

He screams.

He bleeds.

Sam finds him ten, long minutes later. Dean's vision is graying at the edges. The leaves above him are glowing with silver light. It'd be beautiful if he weren't bleeding out in the middle of a Montana forest.

The gun shot should startle him. He doesn't have the energy for it.

The shifter slumps forward. Its blood mixes with Deans. Everything smells of iron and pine. He wonders if it'll hurt, when it's all done. If he'll end up back in Hell. If it'll be easier than being on Earth.

"Dean, you gotta stay with me." Sam's hands are warm on his face.

"Gotta…" Dean's head lolls on his neck. He tries to focus on his brother, but Sam goes blurry a moment later. "You gotta get Cas…"

The flask is under the driver's seat of the Impala. If Dean's going out like this, he wants Cas with him.

"C'mon, Dean." Sharp pain along his cheek where Sam slaps him. "You're gonna be okay. Just stay with me."

"I need… You gotta get him, Sam."

"I'll get him. I promise, Dean, I'll get him, but you've gotta hold on so I can get you to a hospital first."

Dean passes out.

When he comes to, he's got a blistering headache, his neck and shoulder feel hot and tight, and there's an incessant beeping coming from his left side. He rolls his head on the pillow and stares at the I.V. stand. The pump is blinking and beeping, and Dean shuts his eyes before blindly grasping for the page button for the nurse. His thumb feels heavy and slow when he pushes it down. A moment later, a pleasant voice comes over a speaker.

"Mr. Smith, how can I help you?"

"I.V.," he croaks. He's surprised at the roughness of his voice. "It's beeping."

"Of course. Your nurse'll be right in."

He doesn't say thank you, just chucks the button down onto the bed. Everything hurts less when his eyes are closed.

The door opens.

"It won't stop." It sounds like he's whining, but he's not whining. Dean Winchester doesn't whine.

A chair scrapes across the floor. "The nurse'll get it," Sam says. Dean cracks one of his eyes open. "How're you feeling?"

"You look like shit."

Sam's hair is a mess. It's wet, which means he's had a chance to shower, but there's a huge section of it that's shorter than the rest. He's got scratches along the side of his throat, and a bandage peeking out from the neck of his T-shirt.

"What happened?"

"Bastard had a flamethrower."

"A what?"

Sam runs his hand through his shorter hair and grimaces. "Eileen's gonna be furious. I don't want to talk about it. How're you feeling?"

"Peachy." Dean shuts his eye. "Like a million bucks."

They fall silent as the nurse comes in. It takes more effort than Dean's used to to open both of his eyes at the same time. The nurse is an older woman that looks enough like Mrs. Butters to make Dean feel both unsettled and comforted at the same time. Smiling at him, she resets the I.V. pump.

"You should be feeling better shortly, Mr. Smith. Is there anything else I can get you?"

"Water?" He licks his lips and still tastes dying pine.

Eyes wrinkled with her smile, she pats his uninjured shoulder gently. "Of course. I'll be right back."

The silence lingers. Dean settles into it as whatever narcotics are flowing through his I.V. settle into his bones. The pain transforms into something he can ignore. He floats.

"You, uh…" Sam trails off.

Slowly, so slowly, Dean opens his eyes. "I'm okay, Sam. That shifter wasn't gonna be the end of me."

"Nearly was."

"Nearly." He slurs the word, though there aren't any syllables to slur. Still, it drags out of his mouth like taffy, sticking to his tongue and lips. He licks them again, expecting sugar and getting pine. "M'fine."

"Right." Sam laughs. "What… What do you remember?"

"Eating dirt." His mouth is so dry. "Where's that water?"

"Right here, sweetheart."

He opens his eyes and smiles at Mrs. Butters. "I liked you," he says as she offers him a straw. He chases it around the edge of the cup for a second before she catches it and holds it for him. "You were nice. You made the best sandwiches."

"Of course I did." She sets the small cup of water on Dean's bedside table. "Those'd be the drugs," she says to Sam. "He'll probably sleep through most of it, but don't be surprised if he's a bit loopy when he's awake."

"It's not the first time." They share a smile that Dean doesn't like. He thinks they might be making fun of him, but he can't be sure. Everything's foggy. "We'll page if he needs anything else."

"Of course, dear. Have a good night."

"Liked her," Dean says as he shifts more comfortably in the bed. His shoulder twinges, and he forgets for a moment how that happened before it comes back. "Hate shifters."

"Get some sleep, Dean," Sam says, fond and exhausted.

Dean sleeps.

Forty-one weeks after they start counting, Dean cleans up Cas's room.

It's not really Cas's room. He never stayed in the bunker long enough to make this his space, not the same way that Dean and Sam made their rooms their own. But it was always where Cas stayed, where he hung up his coat during the brief moments when he could. Dean hasn't let anyone else use it, not even when they ran out of beds and had to put a hunter from Georgia up on the couch in the Dean Cave.

When he pushes the door open and stands outside the threshold, he's surprised at how normal it all looks.

The bed is made. The chair at the desk is pushed in, the lamp off. There's dust everywhere. When he steps inside, his boots leave tread marks on the floor.

It's been too long.

Dean carefully strips the bed. He bundles the blankets up, pulls the sheets from around the mattress. They smell old and musty. He thought they might still hold a bit of… But no, it's been too long for that.

The dresser is empty, but there are a few books in the desk that Dean recognizes as Cas's. There's one about setting up an apiary, another on engine maintenance. There's a romance novel stuffed into the bottom drawer, its pages dog-eared and its spine cracked to hell and back. Dean smiles at that one, laughs at the overly muscular man on the cover, then has to bite back a sob.

Of course Cas'd buy into that shit. Into happily-ever-afters.

He makes a tidy pile of it all, then bundles it into his arms. The linens get thrown in an open washer, and the books get set on top of the card catalogue. He knows it well enough by now that he'll be able to file them away later. For now, it's a reminder.

It's something to hold onto.

He sweeps and mops, dusts and polishes. He replaces the bulbs in the lights, cleans out the dead bugs stuck in the lamp shades. By the time he's done, the room smells like chlorine and lemon. It's fresh. A spring breeze tickling through oak leaves, a splash of sunlight on a bent back.

It's a goodbye.

Dean tucks the flask into his interior jacket pocket. It settles there easily, comfortable after being carried around for so long against his side. The metal warms quickly, and Dean pats it softly before buckling in and pulling out of the bunker garage.

The road is empty. The sky is dark. Sunrise is still a few hours out, but Dean wants the remains of night wrapped around him while he does this. He doesn't think he can do it in the pure light of a rising morning.

The oak looms. In the barely visible light of the still rising sun, it's like someone's taken a knife to the night and cut blackness from it. It's jagged and unkempt, terrifying in its greatness. Dean stares at the black of it all, as it draws closer, as he stills at its feet.

His shoulder aches. It's been weeks since Montana, but it twinges and shifts uneasily as he pulls the shovel from the trunk.

The earth gives way. It rained two days before, and the soil is soft and heavy with it. He's careful of the roots. 

In the end, the hole he digs isn't that big. He could place both of his hands in the depression and only just brush the edges of it. It's deep, though. Not six feet, but two, maybe three. He wants it to be safe. He wants it to be undisturbed. He wants the oak to wrap its roots around metal, to hold it tight and steady, to keep it safe.

The flask fits perfectly.

It's bright against the dark earth, a star fallen to earth. Even with the grace within it still contained, still fastened tight, it glows. Dean knows he'll remember this forever, the way that barely tarnished silver glinted in the morning light, surrounded by rich soil.

"I…" His voice sounds strange to his ears, but he keeps talking. "There were a lot of things I meant to tell you. I figured… Even with everything, I figured we'd have time for it. Guess that makes me an idiot. Still…" He puts his hand over the empty pocket. "I thought there'd be time. 

"I should've… When you said it, I should've said it back. I don't think I realized… It wasn't… I should've said it back. I would've meant it. I do mean it. But I'm not going to say it now. It doesn't matter. You can't hear it, so what's the point? For you, it was in the saying. For me… Well, I guess we're just different like that. Maybe one day I'll be past it, but… 

"I hope you like it here. I hope you're not… I hope the Empty isn't… Fuck. I don't know how to do this, man. I don't know how to say any of this shit. But I gotta say it. I gotta or it's just going to…" He tucks his chin, shuts his eyes, pushes through. "Goodbye, Cas. Just… I'm gonna miss you, man, but I gotta… You know what I'm saying. You know what I mean. You always did… or at least I hope you did."

He takes the shovel in his shaking hands. He stabs it into the loose dirt, lifts it, sets it gently over top of the flask. Silver winks through.

He does it again, and again, and again, until all he can see is black dirt and cracked wood.

As the sun rises, Dean throws the shovel into the trunk. He gets behind the wheel.

He lets go.

May 14th, 2021 is a Friday.

Cas comes back on the 13th.

Dean's rocketed out of a dead sleep by sirens. The emergency light in his room is flashing red, and he falls out of bed with his sheets tangled around his legs and his hand reaching for his gun. 

He gets to his feet, shoulder aching, knees snapping, and wrenches his door open. The hallway lights are dimmed and red, the sirens louder now that he's in the hall. He'd yell for Sam if he thought he'd be heard, but there's no way he can shout over the racket.

Hurrying down the hall, he pulls the slide back, loads the chamber, flips the safety off. They don't have any hunters staying with them right now, and there's no way Dean would shoot Sam. Well, no way he'd do it now, but that's not important. When he gets to Sam's room, the door is open, the bed made.

He finds the problem when he gets to the library.

Someone has ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe. Air is whipping through the tear, scattering papers and cards around until they get pulled into the expansive blackness that fills the middle of the room. Sam, his body anchored by a rope tied to one of the support pillars in the room, is reaching through it.

Dean, however, isn't tethered to anything.

The wind drags him inexorably closer, his bare feet sliding against the cool concrete.

"Sam!" Dean grabs at the closest table, loses his grip. "The fuck did you do?"

"Not now, Dean!" Sam reaches deeper, his teeth gritted. "I'm nearly there!"

Dean wraps his fingers around the edge of another table and holds on. His shoulder aches. "What the hell are you doing?"

Sam doesn't respond, just sticks the entire top half of his body into the abyss while Dean feels the table shift against the floor. A book comes flying toward him, a well-worn romance novel, and he watches as it gets sucked into the tear alongside Sam's body.

Dean doesn't know if Sam can hear him, but he shouts, "You've got to close it!" anyway.

A moment later, Sam pulls his body from the tear. He's sweating, his body straining under the pressure.

There's a hand wrapped around his forearm.

Sam pulls.

As soon as he falls back, the split in the universe lets out a scream of anger, then seals itself shut with a thunderous crack. It shatters every bulb in the room, throwing the library into utter darkness.

The sirens scream on.

Dean's fingers creak as he loosens them from the table. His knees are weak, but he stumbles in the direction his brother had been.

"Sam?" His voice echoes. "Sammy?"

"I'm here." A cough, one that turns into a laugh. "I'm here, Dean."

"Fuck, I can't see for shit. You got a light?"

A moment later, Sam's lit up by the flashlight on his phone. Illuminated from below, his smile seems manic. 

"I did it," he says, laughing, turning toward the dark. "Dean, I did it."

"Did what?" falls out of Dean's mouth as Sam twists his light toward the other figure in the room.

Castiel stares at Dean, his blue eyes wide and lost.

Everything slows. Dean's lungs fill with air. His heart beats.

"Cas?"

"What…" Cas looks at Dean like a starving man looks at food. Like a man dying of thirst looks at an oasis. Like a martyr looks at their God. "How?"

Sam laughs. His face is split with joy, his eyes bright and flashing. He grabs Cas's shoulders—Dean only vaguely notes that Cas is naked—and draws him in for a hug. Sam can't hold back his joy, lets it trip and dance from his mouth into the echoing cavern of the library.

All Dean can think is,

I let you go. I finally let you go.

Dean doesn't ask Sam for details on how he did it. He doesn't want to know. Even the little snippets he overhears are more information than he wants. He catches them like fireflies, bright lights cupped delicately between his palms. He wants to press them into nothingness, to leave a smear of phosphorescence behind.

Three days after Cas comes back, Dean tears into Sam.

"I can't believe you…" His fingers catch in his hair. He wishes the pain were enough to dull his anger. "I told you to stop."

"No, you didn't," Sam says, voice filled with betrayal. "You told me to bring him back. You told me to get him."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes," Sam says through gritted teeth, "you did. When we were in Montana."

"I didn't say shit!"

"You did!" Sam looks like he wants to throw something, but instead he stomps around the galley, his arms wheeling about. "I thought you were going to fucking die, Dean, and the last goddamned thing you did before you passed out was ask me to get Cas!"

"I didn't mean—" He groans and presses the heels of his palms into his eyes hard enough to sting. "That's not what I meant, Sam!"

"Well, what the fuck did you mean, then? What the hell else is 'bring him back' supposed to mean?"

"I just… I had a bit of his grace, okay?" 

Sam stills, stops. "What?"

"It's…" Dean can't look at his brother. "I found a flask in one of the storage rooms, and there was… It…"

"You had his grace?" Sam sputters. "You had his grace? What the hell, Dean?"

"What was I supposed to do with it? It's not like I could give it back!"

"No, but you could've told me you had it! Christ, man, we could've done something with it, used it to find him or…. I mean, what the fuck?"

Dean takes a deep breath and lets it go. "It doesn't matter, okay? I had it when we were in Montana, and I wanted… It doesn't fucking matter anymore. I buried it. Just… a few weeks ago, I put it in the ground."

"You…" Sam clenches his fists, then stops. His eyes are wide, his mouth open as he sucks in a breath. "You buried it. Shit."

"Yeah."

"Shit, Dean." Sam runs a hand through his hair, still shorter than he usually wears it, still different after their run in with the shifters. Eileen hates it. "I didn't know."

"Yeah, I'm fucking aware."

"Don't be an ass."

"Well, what would you like me to be?"

"Happy, maybe?" Sam throws his arms open. "Cas is back, Dean. He's here. I thought you'd be… I don't know, at least a little pleased."

"I am happy."

"You've got a hell of a way of showing it."

"Hey, fuck you."

"No, Dean," Sam says, crowding into Dean's space. "No, you listen to me. You were a goddamned wreck this past year. I thought you were…" He looks away, but not before Dean catches the flash of worry in Sam's eyes. "It doesn't matter what I thought. You were fucking miserable, and I have been fighting to keep you off the ledge every goddamned day. I thought this was… Hell, call me an idiot, but I thought this was what you wanted."

The funny thing is, it is. It is what Dean wants. More than anything in the world, he wants Cas back with them. The guy's somewhere nearby, sleeping off his escape from the Empty. He's graceless, sure, but he's alive and in the bunker, and if Dean wanted, he could reach out and touch him. He could.

But Dean's also fucking furious about it.

He fought for his acceptance, goddamn it. He pushed himself past grief, past anger, past doubt. He finally was at a place where he could move on with his fucking life, and now it's all thrown to hell and back again. 

Cas is fucking here, and Dean doesn't know what that means.

He only just learned what it meant for Cas to be gone.

Dean laughs, mirthless. "Thank you, I guess." 

"You're welcome," has never sounded angrier. Sam looks like he wants to punch Dean. "What're you going to say to him?"

Dean laughs so hard, he chokes.

He never answers Sam.

Cas is in the kitchen. There are two coffee mugs sitting on the table. His hands are wrapped around one, the other pushed to the empty seat across from him. He looks up when Dean walks in, and he smiles, tired and sore. His T-shirt hangs loose around his shoulders. He's lost weight since the last time he was here. Cheeks hollowed, bags under his eyes dark as bruises, he still draws Dean like light to a black hole.

"Hello, Dean."

"Cas."

Dean walks to the cabinet, nearly takes a mug out before he stops. He leaves it on the shelf, shuts the cabinet door. Dean feels Cas watching him when he turns to the table and takes the second mug from its surface. It's hot, but doesn't burn. He drinks deep.

"I haven't said thank you," Cas says. He looks into his mug. He doesn't look back up at Dean. "For pulling me out of the Empty."

"That was all Sam." Dean considers sitting. He stays standing. "You should thank him."

"I have."

"Good."

Silence, as painful and echoing as it's ever been. Dean sips his coffee. He wishes it hurt.

"I… There are things that we should discuss."

"Probably."

"About what I said—" 

"We don't need to talk about it, Cas." Dean sets his mug down. "You said enough when the Empty… Look, it's fine. It's okay."

He should say something.

He chokes on the words.

"Oh." Cas twists his coffee mug on the table, spinning the handle from one hand to another. The ceramic bottom grates on the metal table. It makes Dean's head ache. "That's good, then. I wouldn't want for things to become uncomfortable between us."

"Of course not."

"I was worried, when Sam pulled me out, that it would be uncomfortable."

"It isn't."

"That's good. I would hate for things to be—"

"If you say uncomfortable again, I'm going to…"

More silence.

"We're fine, Cas."

"Of course." Cas picks his mug up, puts it down. "It's just… It seems like you're mad at me."

"Why would I be mad?"

"I didn't… I never expected there to be an after."

Dean smiles, but only just. "Well, here it is."

"Yes, here it is."

Dean finishes his coffee, puts his mug in the sink.

"I'll see you later," he says as he leaves.

Cas doesn't say anything.

That night, Dean lies awake and fights sleep the same way he fights monsters. No holds barred, tooth-and-nail, clinging to every bit of an advantage he can find. Dean beats it back, holds it at bay, keeps sleep on its back foot until he's confident that it won't best him, not tonight.

He's afraid of sleep, the same way he's afraid of fighting monsters.

There's too much truth in his dreams these days. Too much of the vulnerability and hurt and wretched hope that he refuses to acknowledge while he's awake. If he were to sleep, he'd be haunted by that damned speech, by those blue eyes, by that watery, soft smile swallowed up by darkness.

Knowing that Cas is back, is asleep in the room that was his but now isn't, and that Dean is here, laying awake, fighting to not relive that night… 

Dean won't do it. He refuses to go over it again, to think about what he could have, should have said. It's been long enough, now. It's not… There's no point to whatever it was he wanted to say, whatever words he couldn't confess to a nearly empty flask of silver months after the fact. He buried those swallowed syllables just like he buried Cas's grace, precious things given over to the gentle hands of the earth and oak.

Hope, forsaken.

He wishes he could be happy. He wishes it was enough for him to just know. Instead, the knowledge—the desire—eats at him, caustic, through to the marrow of his bones.

If he were the kind of man to let himself look back on the things he did in his life and relive them, rework them, if he were the kind of man who knew how to let himself regret. If he were.

But he isn't.

Cas leaves a few days later.

His coffee mug is in the sink. His book, half-finished, is on the library table. There's a pile of clothes in the washing machine that Dean moves to the dryer, the damp mess a tangle of Cas's shirts and pants from the last week.

Dean never figured he'd have to teach an angel how to sort and separate his whites from his darks, but then again, Dean never figured angels were real, so this is really par for the course.

He thought he would know if (when) Cas finally left. He thought he would feel it.

Instead, it's four and a half hours later, and Sam has to tell him.

"He's just running some errands," he says, not looking up from the research he's working on. There's a tricky bit of spell work that Eileen needs for a hunt in Nebraska, and Sam's been elbow-deep in it for the last week. "Said he'd be back soon."

"He bring his phone with him?"

"Yeah, probably." Sam turns another page, tucks his hair behind his ear, frowns at the runes scattered across the page. "That doesn't make any…" His eyes widen. "Oh, shit. Oh, shit, I have to call Eileen."

He stands up, his chair skidding across the floor with a wretched screech. It's the first time he's taken his eyes from the page, and something about Dean's expression makes Sam still.

"You okay?"

Dean turns on his heel, waving a hand dismissively, though he feels anything but. "I'm fine. Go call your girl."

When Dean goes to the garage, the Triumph Bonneville is missing. He didn't know it was running, much less where the keys were. Apparently, with all of the time that Cas has been using to make sure things aren't uncomfortable, he's managed to find them and get the bike working. Maybe it'd been working the whole time.

Dean isn't pissed about it.

Instead, he starts going through the garage. He methodically notes all of the cars and bikes, their makes and models and, when he knows it, the year of manufacture. When he doesn't know it, he makes a best guess and a note to research it later.

It keeps him busy.

He doesn't hear his phone ring the first time, but the second knocks him out of whatever daze he's been working in.

"Cas, where the hell are you?" he answers, setting aside his notepad angrily.

"Dean," Cas replies, "Dean, I'm hurt."

It's so familiar. He heard the same words a year ago, the same rough-hewn voice whispering across the phone line.

Just like the last time, he goes.

"Tell me where you are," he says, keys in his hand before he realizes he's reaching for them. "I'm on my way."

Cas is sitting on the side of the road, the bike laid next to him. Its gas tank is scratched and dented, the front forks bent so that the wheel is pressing against them, the thin spokes of the tire broken away from the rim in multiple places. The back tire is flat, the rear exhaust pressed into the rubber tire.

Cas doesn't look much better.

There’s a black helmet laying nearby. The right side is so heavily damaged that the bare plastic shows through the paint. Cas is wearing a leather jacket, though it’s just as battered as the helmet and the bike. The right arm and shoulder, especially, are barely holding together. Dean can see Cas’s shirt through the tears. His jeans are remarkably intact, which Dean knows is a miracle. Cas’s boots, a heavy black leather pair Dean vaguely recognizes from one of the storerooms, are scuffed with the sole coming away from the leather.

Dean parks Baby, throws the hazards on, and then scrambles from the driver's seat and over to the shoulder.

"The hell did you do?" he asks, falling to the ground next to Cas, who ducks his head and turns it away. There's blood trickling down the side of his face. It's a solid line of liquid red that clings to the curve of his jaw before falling to the ground. Dean can’t see the cut in Cas’s scalp through his matted hair.

All Dean can see is blood. 

"Goddamnit, Cas!" Dean grabs his shoulders, clocks the shiver of pain that ratchets its way through Cas’s body. "The hell were you thinking? You can‘t be out joy riding on some old ass motorcycle like a... like a fucking kid with a death wish! You’re lucky you’re just banged up! Christ, man, you could’ve di—"

Dean‘s throat tightens. For a moment, he can’t breathe. 

"There was a coyote," Cas starts, but Dean cuts him off.

"I don’t care about a fucking coyote! If you can’t ride one of these things safely, you’re not riding at all!"

"Should I have taken the Impala instead?" Cas asks, his voice sharp with pain and irritation. 

Dean scoffs. "If it keeps you out of the hospital, hell yes!"

"And here I thought you didn’t care."

"Well, I fucking do!" Dean pants heavily after the admission, his heart racing from something other than the sickening fear that Cas’s too red—too human—blood puts in his gut. "I do. We just got you back, man. We can’t… I can’t…"

"Well," Cas turns away again. He swipes at the blood caked above his eye, and another scrape on his brow starts oozing. "You won’t. I’m fine."

"You’re not—" Dean fights down a growl, stops himself from throwing his hands up and storming off. "Get in the damned car."

"What about the bike?"

"I’ll send Sam out with a truck later. Just… get in the car, Cas."

When he stands, Cas groans like an old floor about to give way. He stumbles a bit, his right leg buckling at the knee, but Dean catches him before he can fall. His heavy weight against Dean’s side shouldn’t be as much of a comfort as it is, not with Cas hurt.

It still is.

They walk to the car. Cas leans against Dean until Dean fumbles the passenger door open and Cas falls inside. Then, he throws Dean's arm away like it burns, like Dean's touch causes him pain. 

It probably does.

Dean walks around the front of the car, then gets in when he confirms there’s no traffic coming. He slams the door shut and wraps his hands around the steering wheel. He wants to tear the ragged remains of the leather jacket from Cas’s shoulders, wants to catalogue every bruise and scrape, every twisted joint and aching muscle, the same way he catalogues the cursed objects in the Bunker. 

Dean knows better than to touch the things in the Bunker.

Instead, he starts the engine. He puts the car into gear.

He takes Cas home.

There's a note from Sam waiting on the map table, a hastily scrawled thing about going to help Eileen. Dean only skims it as he and Cas shuffle past. He doesn't care about the details, all he cares about is getting Cas to the infirmary and figuring out how bad he's hurt.

The walk is awkward and not just because Cas's right leg has stiffened up from the car ride and his gait is stilted and slow. They didn't speak the entire ride home, and the silence continues, trailing after them like an unwanted guest. Dean feels its weight across his shoulders and pretends it's just the heaviness of Cas's arm.

As gently as he can, Dean settles Cas on the first bed. It's still not enough. Cas winces as his weight settles onto the old mattress, his teeth gritted against the pain.

"Let me…" Dean says, reaching for Cas's ragged boots. Cas doesn't pull away, but Dean can tell he wants to.

Fingers suddenly unsteady, Dean fumbles with the laces before wrestling the knot free. He eases first one boot, then the other, off of Cas's feet, takes his socks after. Carefully, he runs his fingers over Cas's ankle, feeling the joint as he moves Cas's foot. There's no crack, no catch. Cas flinches a bit when Dean presses against a hint of a bruise, and Dean whispers an apology before setting Cas's foot carefully on the bed.

"No breaks down here," he says, throat tight. "Let's get you out of that jacket."

Cas leans forward, but he has to have Dean ease the torn right sleeve from his arm. It sticks at the shoulder, and as Dean carefully threads Cas's arm free, he sees why. Cas's arm is abraded and red, and as the fabric pulls away and Cas sucks in a sharp breath, it starts to bleed.

Dean helps Cas out his shirt and winces at the purpling bruises all along Cas's right side. When Dean presses his fingers against Cas's ribs, Cas curses.

"Please don't," he says as he shifts his body away.

Dean backs up, but can't bring himself to take his fingers from Cas's mottled skin. "You've probably cracked a rib. You've at least bruised the hell out of them."

"I am aware, Dean. I may no longer have my grace, but I am still familiar with my own anatomy and what these aches and pains mean."

Dean pulls away. "I'm not saying you aren't, just that… I'm going to get some bandages for your ribs, and we'll get that road rash taken care of. You need anything for the pain?"

Cas shakes his head. He doesn't look at Dean.

It's only a matter of minutes for Dean to gather up the necessary supplies. He's spent the last year organizing this place; he knows where everything is. After closing the cabinet, his arms full, Dean turns and is caught off-guard by Cas leaning back in the bed.

His eyes are closed. The ever-present circles under them seem darker than normal. His mouth is parted, and his face tightens with every shifting breath. Lying by his sides, his hands are half-clenched into fists, the knuckles bruised and scratched up.

He wasn't wearing gloves.

It hits Dean that it could have been so much worse. The bike could've ended up behind Cas instead of in front. He could've slid into oncoming traffic instead of the gravel-strewn shoulder. There could've been a fence or a tree or a fucking sign.

Dean could've lost Cas all over again.

The fear grabs him by the throat. A gut-wrenching, mind-numbing terror that he'll never see Cas again, that Dean will never have a chance to say what needs to be said.

If it weren't for all of the supplies he's holding onto like a lifeline, his hands would be shaking.

He does his best to hide it as he cleans Cas up. His hands are steady as he carefully tweezes dirt and gravel from Cas's abrasions. The water he pours over the wounds is luke-warm and clean, though it runs red and brown into the bowl carefully placed beneath Cas's arm. Dean dabs a wet towel against Cas's face, gently wiping the blood away until he can see the cuts hidden by it. He places a butterfly bandage over Cas's cheekbone and doesn't linger as he does it.

Wrapping Cas's ribs is a struggle. He hisses and curses with every loop of bandage. Dean goes as quickly as he can, but it's still an agonizing handful of minutes—his arms around Cas, Cas's head nearly tucked into the curve of Dean's shoulder, his breath a hot staccato against Dean's skin—before he's done.

"There," Dean says as he pulls away, the tail end of the bandage carefully tucked into the wrappings. "Good as new."

Cas looks up at him, his blue eyes dark as the night sky. The expression on his face isn't one Dean's seen before. He can't tell if it's relieved or sad or waiting. All he knows is that he can't stop himself from touching it, from putting his hand against Cas's face, his thumb beneath the butterfly bandage, his fingers resting delicately across blossoming bruises.

He can't stop himself from leaning in.

He touches his forehead to Cas's, closes his eyes. It's too much. It's been too long. Everything pours over him like a cold spring rain, washing his sense away in cool, cold realization.

He can't lose Cas.

Not when Dean's never really had him at all.

"Dean." Like a spell, his name drags his eyes open. Cas's gaze is wide, his mouth parted. "What are you doing?"

It's easier to kiss Cas than to answer him.

The bunker is never truly silent. There's always some kind of hum from the machines, or quiet conversations trickling through the hallways. There's the whisper of pages turning, the heartbeat of footsteps across the floor. And there's the ever present narration in Dean's mind, the quiet internal voice that talks to him throughout the day, the one he can never shut off, the one he never listens to.

When Dean presses his mouth against Castiel's for the first time, everything goes quiet.

It all stops. There are no echoes, no voices, no faint, indistinct sounds. There's nothing. Nothing but the press of lips against lips. The sipped taste of Cas's parted mouth. The scrape of his stubble beneath Dean's palm. The sudden clench of Cas's hand in Dean's shirt.

Dean thinks he's going to be pulled in. He hopes.

Cas shoves him away.

Dean stumbles back, his balance unsteady as his knee falls from the mattress, as Cas falls back against the pillow.

"What are you doing?" Cas asks before wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

"I…"

Cas glares at him.

"I… I don't know. I'm…" Dean takes another step back, toward the door. He's not running, not yet. "I shouldn't have done that."

"No," Cas growls, "that's not… Damn it, Dean." He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, curses under his breath. He sounds exhausted when he asks, "What do you want?"

"I don't—"

"No." Cas's voice is filled with anger, with desperation. "Tell me what you want." He presses his fingers to his mouth, drags them down so that his lower lip catches, so that Dean sees a flash of white teeth and red tongue. "Tell me."

"You."

It hurts to finally say it. It tears through him like a shapeshifter's teeth, like vamp fangs, like a knife between the ribs. He's weak and he's bleeding, and all he wants is for Cas to hold him together, to make it stop. But like a dam breaking, Dean can't stop a fucking thing.

"I thought I got over it," he says. "I thought I moved on. I said goodbye, Cas. And then you're back, and I can't think straight. I can't do anything without it hurting, and fuck, I thought… All I do is think, and it's all about you. I can't decide if I'm happy you're back or pissed." His eyes burn. "I said goodbye. I let you go."

"Dean."

Cas eases his legs from the bed, though it clearly hurts him to move. Cursing, Dean rushes back to his side. He puts his hand on Cas's knee, holds him still.

"Don't do that, man," Dean says as he lifts one leg, then the other, back onto the bed. "You need to rest."

He brushes tears from his eyes, feeling ten different kinds of stupid.

"Please," Cas says softly. "Sit."

Dean, helpless as the tide pulled by the rising moon, sits.

"Why did you kiss me?"

The knife twists. Dean fights for an answer but can't find one. He doesn't have the words for it.

Cas waits.

Dean chokes the words out. "Because I nearly lost you."

"You've lost me before."

His eyes slam shut, but he feels the tear roll down his cheek anyway. Too slow, too late. Always too late.

"Well, I couldn't do it again." The words are thick in his throat. "I can't do it again."

"Why, Dean?"

He can't say it. He can't think it. This is too hard. It's too much.

It's been too long.

"Because I love you."

The mattress shifts. Dean keeps his eyes closed.

Cas's hand on Dean's face is a surprise. His thumb brushes away wetness, waits until Dean opens his eyes.

Cas is smiling. "It would be rather upsetting if you didn't, since I love you, too."

Cas kisses Dean like a revelation, like a psalm. His mouth moves across Dean's with whispered prayers, and Dean answers back with groaning praise.

Mindful of Cas's injuries, even as he feels mindless, Dean captures Cas's jaw between his hands, holds him still and steady as Dean shifts his mouth just so, until all thought disappears in the volcanic rush of desire that overwhelms him.

He's wanted this for so long, and now he has it.

Cas's hands are firm and greedy, pulling Dean closer. He slots his knee between Cas's legs, leans in until their chests are touching. Cas is pressed against the head of the bed, and the metal must be digging into his back, but he doesn't stop pulling Dean in, doesn't stop his hands from tangling in the fabric of Dean's shirt, desperate and grasping.

Dean tilts Cas's head back and drags his mouth to the hinge of Cas's jaw, the line of his neck. He tongues at Cas's racing pulse, feels his heartbeat beneath the corded strength of his neck. Burying his nose in the hollow of Cas's throat, Dean bites at the ridge of Cas's collarbone, licks at the dip of flesh there, presses his face into the curve between Cas's neck and his shoulder. He wraps his arms around the breadth of Cas's chest, and oh so gently, holds him.

Dean desires. He aches.

The breath against his ear is steady.

"I'm here," it whispers. "I won't leave you. I love you."

Rough, jagged words spill from a rough, jagged man. 

"I love you, too. 

"Goddamnit, I love you, too."

Dean stays with Cas until he falls asleep. Then he carefully tucks Cas in, makes sure there are painkillers alongside a glass of water on the table next to the bed. He leaves the bedside light on, but turns off the rest. Standing in the doorway, his arm resting against the frame, he watches Cas breathe for a long time.

Eventually, Dean leaves.

He goes to his room.

It's not late, but Dean lays down on his bed anyway. He doesn't bother to get undressed or to pull the blankets back. Instead, he spreads himself across the comforter, closes his eyes, and, before he knows it, falls asleep.

His dreams are filled with sunlight slipping through leaves and the smell of sap and earth.

It takes a month for Cas's injuries to heal. His road rash scabs over, then goes pale pink and tender. He has scars on his shoulder, thin scratches left by the rough gravel roadside that Dean touches through Cas's shirts.

They do a lot of that, idle touches through the deceptive armor of clothing. Hands against shoulders, fingers trailing along arms, palms pressed into the small of a back. The heat builds between them quickly, a rolling thunderstorm lingering on the horizon and cracking the sky with lightning. Dean remembers the taste of Cas's mouth, the feel of his hands pressed hard and desperate against Dean's body. But though they both desire, both want, they both hold back, waiting.

Once Cas stops breathing like it hurts, Dean takes him for a ride.

Cas is shifty when he settles into the passenger seat of the Impala. Back wedged into the corner of the seat and the door, his long legs stretched toward Dean, his blue eyes stay locked on Dean's face even as Dean carefully pulls out of the garage and onto the road.

"Where are we going?"

Dean turns onto the highway and stays focused on the road, though he can't help the occasional glance at Cas.

"There's something I want to show you." He can feel himself flushing under Cas's gaze. "It's a surprise."

"I'm not sure I like surprises." Cas shifts, his hand resting on the bucket seat by Dean's thigh. They don't touch, but Dean can feel the heat of Cas's skin anyway. "They usually result in one of us getting stabbed."

Dean wants to laugh, but he's too keyed up. There's still twenty minutes until they get where they're going. "No stabbing this time," he says before flipping on the tape deck. "Promise."

Zeppelin fills the cab, and Cas doesn't talk over Immigrant Song or Stairway as they speed down the empty road.

Minutes later, the oak rises from the horizon, dark and waiting.

When Dean pulls off the highway and starts rumbling closer, Cas finally speaks.

"This is what you wanted me to see?"

Dean nods. His hands tighten on the steering wheel. Falling silent, Cas leans forward, his hand on the dash as he stares up into the heavy canopy of the tree.

Cas doesn't wait for Dean to turn off the car. Once Baby's in park, Cas is undoing his seatbelt and stepping out of the passenger side door. He lingers there, hand on the top of the door, eyes skyward, mouth parted.

"It's beautiful." He glances at Dean, then back at the tree. "And lonely."

"A bit, yeah." Dean closes his door and takes a hesitant step forward. "You coming?"

Cas follows.

Hands in his pockets, Dean ambles to the base of the tree. He's been here so often during the past year that he's worn his own path through the grass. Cas falls in behind him easily, and Dean listens to the quiet crunch of Cas's footsteps behind him.

They falter as Dean stops at the base of the tree.

"Dean." Cas's voice is heavy with confusion. "What is this?"

Dean scuffs the toe of his boot against the ground. "It's your tree. Or at least that's how I got to thinking of it."

"Why does it… I feel something…"

"It's your grace." Dean kneels down and presses his hand over the hard packed earth where he buried the tiny remnant of Cas's grace months ago. "I found it in one of the storage rooms in the bunker. I carried it around with me, for a while at least. But then… Well, it seemed as good of a place as any to put it. I figured you'd like it here, and since I couldn't…"

Dean reaches into his jacket and pulls out a small spade. Twisting so that he's facing Cas, he holds it out, offering.

"If you want it, I can dig it back up for you. It's not a lot, but you'd be… well, maybe not an angel, but something, at least."

Cas stares at the spade, at Dean kneeling at the base of the tree. His blue eyes are hidden in the shadow of broad branches and thick leaves. Dean wishes he could make out Cas's expression. He hasn't been this uncertain about something since his first fumbling attempts at fucking.

"You made a memorial for me." Cas's blue eyes flash. "This was my grave."

His arm's getting tired from holding out the spade, but he can't put it down. "I guess."

"Thank you for sharing it with me, but I believe this is one grave we should leave undisturbed."

Dean's hand drops. The spade dings quietly against the dirt. "I don't... You don't want your grace back?"

The corner of Cas's mouth twists up into a soft smile. "What would it bring me, Dean? Power? There can't be enough grace left for that or I would've felt it when we drove up. A connection to Heaven? To my winged brethren? I've no need for that. With Jack in charge, I trust that they are in better hands than mine ever were. And,"—his smile turns rueful—"I doubt they would be happy to see me back there, after all the harm I've done. No, the only thing my grace would bring me is an angel's death, and I've had more than enough of the Empty."

He grins at Dean, open and bright as the rising sun. "I have everything I want, right here, right now. My happiness lies in my humanity, and my life with you, Dean."

Fingers numb, the spade drops to the ground. Dean's knees crack as he stands, but he doesn't notice them, too wrapped up in the need to have his arms around Cas, to draw him close, to press their mouths together in a kiss that's equal parts desperate and joyous.

"Okay," Dean says against Cas's mouth. "Guess we're in it together, then."

When they walk back to the Impala, their fingers are tangled together like roots in the earth, held tight.

Dean parks the Impala and listens to the echo of the engine clicking in the garage. Cas's hand is still linked with his, and he stares down at their fingers and the way they perfectly interlock. Cas squeezes Dean's hand, then raises it to his mouth. The kiss on the back of Dean's hand is gentlemanly, full of sweet sincerity, and it makes him burn.

"C'mere," he says, voice rough, throat tight. He pulls Cas, and he flows over like water. It's smooth, easy. He settles his lips against Dean's like a gentle summer breeze. His hands on Dean's skin turn it into a rising storm.

They fumble at each other, hungry and hindered by the cramped space of the car. It's been years since Dean fooled around in here, and his age is showing when his knee pops ominously as he tries to get closer to Cas.

"There is a perfectly serviceable bed only a few minutes away," Cas pants against Dean's mouth, and Dean pretends he can't taste the laughter. "We could consider relocating."

"Maybe you can,"—Dean's nearly got the hem of Cas's shirt untucked from his pants—"but I've been thinking about this for years, man, and I don't want to wait anymore."

Cas kisses him, hard and bruising. His fingers slip inside Dean's jacket, slip into the hair at the nape of Dean's neck, pull him closer.

Something pops, and Dean curses at the sharp jolt of pain.

"Okay, fine," he says angrily in the direction of his knee. "We'll go to my room. Shit."

Laughing, Cas falls back and fumbles for the door handle. As it pops open, Dean's already half out of the car, and he's laughing when Cas comes tumbling out the other side. They meet around the front of the car, and Dean briefly considers laying Cas across the hood, aching joints be damned, but Cas kisses him, then steps back, mouth open in a smile.

"Let's go, Dean."

Dean goes.

Cas's back hits the door to Dean's room, Dean plastered along the front of him. They're both too wild with need, too uncaring of anything but the feel of the other, to pay much attention to what's happening beyond the borders of their bodies. Dean has Cas's jaw cradled in his hands so he can hold Cas steady as they kiss. Cas has his hand on the curve of Dean's ass, his knee tucked against the heavy heat of Dean's thigh. Dean ruts his hips up against Cas's, and they both groan as their dicks brush against each other.

"Do that again," Cas orders, and Dean, laughingly, complies. The laughter punches out of his gut, though, when Cas shifts his hand from over Dean's jeans to under them, his fingers easily finding the hem of his boxers and slipping beneath to touch bare skin.

Dean curses, then rests his forehead against Cas's as he lets Cas pull him closer by that hint of skin-on-skin. "Bed," he says, voice as rough as a back gravel road. 

Cas slaps at the doorknob, wraps his unsteady fingers around it, and twists it open.

They're still leaning against the door when he does.

Blue eyes wide, his mouth open in a tiny O of surprise, Cas falls backwards. Dean just manages to get his hand between the back of Cas's head and the floor before they both land on it hard enough to knock the breath out of them.

Groaning, Cas tilts his head back, and Dean winces as the motion digs his hand into the concrete.

"Fuck." He pulls it out from beneath Cas's head and shakes the sting from it. Thankfully, there's nothing broken, but he's going to have a hell of a bruise in the morning.

Cas shuts his eyes. "I was not thinking clearly. I forgot about gravity."

"You forgot."

"Yes." Cas shifts beneath Dean, his hips and still-hard dick making his point for him. "I was distracted."

"Well," Dean leans in and puts his mouth against Cas's pulse point, brushing kisses from the curve of his shoulder to the hinge of his jaw, "maybe you should pay closer attention."

Cas doesn't answer, choosing to drag Dean's shirt from his shoulders and arms instead. It tangles around his wrists, and Dean has to lean up off of Cas's body to finish taking it off. As he does, Cas grabs the hem of his shirt, lifts his body in a sinuous roll, and then he's all bare skin and dark eyes.

Dean loses track of things after that. He doesn't notice the way that the concrete floor bites into his bad knee, or the struggle to get undressed. All he feels is the heat of Cas's skin, his mouth, his body. Desperate hands and lips. Everything in him, full of want and aching with it.

Cas pulls back, his lips reddened and full, to spit in his hand. Reaching between them, he wraps his spit-slick hand around their cocks, and Dean keens at the touch. Hips jerking forward, he captures Cas's mouth again as they thrust together. It's overwhelmingly good, better than anything he's ever had before, even though it's just a rough, shared handjob on a concrete floor.

It shouldn't be this good.

It is.

Dean shivers, already too close. "Goddamnit, Cas."

"Yes, Dean." Cas's grip tightens, and Dean's vision nearly goes white with the pleasure of it. "Come for me."

And then he is. He trips into orgasm like a reckless teenager figuring it out for the first time. Panting against Cas's mouth, his arms bracketing Cas's body, his hands clenched into fists, Dean falls apart, knowing that Cas'll catch him.

Cas's hand speeds up between them, Dean's come easing the way. He's panting, and Dean tastes desperation on Cas's mouth.

"Your turn," Dean says. He kisses his way down Cas's neck, bites, then uses his tongue to ease the sting. Cas's hips lift, his back bowing, and then he's shouting Dean's name and coming. Dean feels the wet heat between them grow, and even though he's already heavy with pleasure, he feels an echoed frisson of it dance up his spine as Cas shakes and shudders beneath him.

Groaning, Dean falls to the side, sprawling out next to Cas as they both catch their breaths. He fumbles for Cas's hand, and even though it's sticky and covered in come, he threads their fingers together anyway.

"That was…"

"Very, very good."

Dean laughs. "I was going to say incredible. Earth-shattering. Life-altering."

"Yes. Very, very good."

He turns his head to the side, and stares at Cas. He's got his eyes shut, his mouth curled into a satisfied smile. It looks good on him. 

"Want to get cleaned up and go for round two?" Dean asks, even though he knows he's probably too old to make good on the promise.

Cas, still smiling, turns and meets Dean's eyes. "I could be convinced."

Dean rolls onto his side, and starts convincing.

Dean gets up. 

He makes his bed with precision. Tucks the top sheet in tightly, just like his father taught him, and straightens the pillows at the head of the bed. They're tilted up at the head of the bed, a matched set.

He takes a shower, gets dressed. Boxers, jeans, T-shirt, flannel. The concrete floor is cool, but not cold. It's nice, in a way. Comforting.

The kitchen isn't empty.

Cas is standing in front of the coffee maker. He's wearing one of Dean's shirts, the cotton worn thin with age. It's soft beneath Dean's hand as he presses it to Cas's side to draw him in.

"Morning," he says into the curve of Cas's neck before pressing a kiss there.

"Coffee's nearly done."

There are two mugs on the counter. 

When he kisses Cas with a gentle ease that feels like warm sun on his skin, Dean aches.