Archive of Our Own

It’s really weird to think about how bodies seem to notice changes in their environment and react accordingly without any actual insight from the conscious brain. How some people can feel a storm coming a day off because their knees start aching, or whatever Pavlov was researching with the dogs and the bell and the food, until a human being could hear the same alarm tone that signals their lunch break every day, and it makes their stomach grumble without their permission. Not that Dean’s ever really known about a life of office jobs with paid lunch breaks, but he can use his imagination.

Maybe it’d be a little more appropriate for him to contemplate the nervous system’s reaction to those moments where there isn’t any safety at all, and your body feels the strain of keeping you alive in ways it was never programmed to. Up every night, up every day, eyes peeled and one loud noise from reaching for a gun that’s never too far from your anxious twitchy fingers.

Or, Dean thinks as he buries his face into the nest of his crossed arms on top of the library table, maybe the exact opposite, too. If the body can sense the harm in the air and the trauma in the brain, somehow it must be able to sense the safety in equal measures.

The hallways of the Bunker are quiet as a Sunday morning when there is no challenge to greet you, just a pastel sun making its lazy way up into the sky. It’s sturdy the way a home should be. And the heavy concrete of it that used to act as a fort has become a little moot at this point, considering there’s not a single threat to come busting down the walls or to even come knocking politely on the big front door. What was once a fallout shelter is now suburbia. The string of relentless tragedy that was once Dean’s daily is now nothing but a memory.

His body thrives under the settling tectonic plates. The hollows of his cheeks fill in even though his diet hasn’t changed and the arthritis in his knuckles doesn’t bother him so much anymore. He stopped getting stress ulcers on the insides of his mouth. Because it’s quiet in the Bunker now, but it’s not silent. Not when his family is here walking around with their socked feet to combat the chill of the floors.

The whole family. Everyone.

It wouldn’t take a genius or someone with more than a GED to figure out that the day when they got Cas back, when they got Jack back, was the day Dean’s body decided that all was right with the world. Nothing to do with his conscious happiness or total and utter relief, even though there was that, too (Dean doesn’t want to admit that he cried when he saw the two of them standing there just under the massive steel staircase), but a reaction deep in his molecules telling him that the fight was finally over. Well and truly.

That next day after Cas and Jack’s arrival, he’d taken a nap for the first time in what felt like years.

But one nap turned into two turned into three. And Dean knew what exhaustion was better than most, but with the panic of survival seeping out of his pores like a detox, the tiredness that had run him ragged for years on end had turned into something… sleepy. He was so sleepy. Until he found himself nodding off in just about every room in the Bunker, in every position imaginable. Curled up in one of the leather library chairs or hunched over one of the many wooden tables. Slumped haphazardly on the metal cart of the kitchen so that when he wakes up he bangs his head on pots and pans. Sprawled back over the couch they bought for the Dean Cave now that they have a full house and the recliners won’t accommodate all the bodies. Hell, one time he woke up and he was on the floor of the Map Room. If he had to guess he’d say his body’s trying to make up for all of the lost rest in his life, hours upon hours that build into full days as far as the eye can see. It pulls at him in random intervals, whenever it pleases, and Dean accommodates it happily.

It’s actually pretty nice, all this napping stuff. Makes him feel like an overgrown housecat.

He smacks his lips together as another doze comes on in a fog that settles across him. His eyelids are velvet heavy, shushing him under into a dream that isn’t horrific at all, maybe just a little strange. Last nap he took, he dreamt about trees with gentle hands that lifted him into their branches so that he could talk to the birds singing there. He wonders distantly if he’ll get to have another chat with Mr. Sparrow this time around when he hears footsteps coming from down the hall and turning the corner. Dean doesn’t even bother looking up from the dark nook of his arms.

“So what’s up with- Dude, again?” Sam’s voice rings through the room incredulously.

Dean grunts in response.

“You can’t possibly still be tired. Like, I feel like this should be physically impossible.”

“Tell that to my melatonin levels.”

“How do you know what melatonin is?”

Dean does his best to roll his eyes under the cover of his eyelids. “Jesus, Sam, I’m not an idiot. Will you shut up so I can sleep?”

He hears Sam huff. “Ya know, if you wanted to nap, you could always use that thing you have called a bed.”

“Not the same,” Dean grumbles. His body doesn’t get all loose when he’s laying in his bed watching horror movies. The synapses that slow their firing contentedly seem to be wired to that same invisible bodily response of the outside world, and apparently being in the openness of his family’s space turns his brain into mush. It’s not about the act of napping, Sam, it’s about the location. “Now unless someone’s dying, I’m beggin’ you to shut up.”

“No one’s dying, you’re just annoying. Enjoy your nap, Sleeping Beauty.”

“Oh, I will,” Dean responds to what he assumes is empty air as the stairs creak under the weight of Sam exiting the room. As expected, he gets no reply.

The library lights buzz above him in lovely white noise. The table under his nose smells like solid oak, good and sturdy, even with the layer of varnish on it. The fabric of his flannel is soft against his cheek. He kicks his feet around a little bit underneath the table to get his ankles into a comfortable position, one hooked over the other, and then his body gives him an easy push into a fuzzy vision full of doves flying in intricate patterns to knit a blanket with the yarn tied to their ankles.

When Dean comes to after an indeterminable amount of time there’s drool down his chin. He makes a face, sits up a little more fully to wipe it off on his sleeve. The movement makes his shoulders raise, and the shrug of it shifts something heavy on his back. He twitches in surprise, eyes blinking away crust much more readily, only to find that the weight had been from his knitted afghan, the one he keeps in the Dean Cave, that has now rather miraculously found a new home spread out over his back. The little flaps of its corners hang down to either side of him, and he reaches to pinch the blue yarn in between his fingers. Huffs a laugh that simmers into a pleased and bashful smile. There’s no point to it, but he looks back and forth around the empty library anyway, like maybe the walls of books will hold a clue on how the blanket ended up here.

Dean doesn’t even really need the nonexistent clues from the bookshelves, though, because he already has his suspicions about who wrapped the afghan around his sleeping shoulders.

…

The making of dinner comes and goes under Dean’s watchful eyes, guiding Jack through the strenuous process of browning and flipping the perfect grilled cheese. Together they warm up some Campbell’s tomato soup to go alongside the sandwiches, and Jack serves each member of the family their own steaming plate with an air of pride. They had to get an extra chair to put at the short end of the table now that Eileen’s around more often than not, so that the edges of their plates and bowls clink together, cramped on the table's surface, but dinner is all the more enjoyable for it.

When Dean finally joins the tight sitting quarters, he has to scooch onto his stool from the awkward positioning of bodies. Cas is to his right, up against the wall, and their elbows knock when Dean reaches for a spoon. It makes him look over on instinct so that their eyes meet and hold. Cas gives him a little smile that reaches all the way up to the wrinkles of his crow’s feet. Dean hasn’t ever seen anything sweeter, anything that makes him feel shy like this, that turns his cheeks rosy not from embarrassment but from the innocent pleasure of it. He smiles right back and it feels like they’re having a conversation with just these small expressions, where they don’t need words or prayers to say that they’re thankful, or that they’re lucky to be able to have this.

We could have even more, Dean thinks. We could be… something. I don’t know what exactly, but something that involves holding hands and kissing, maybe. Dean wants to kiss him. It’s old news at this point, a discovery twelve years in the making that reached its final conclusion when Cas died right in front of him. A conclusion that Dean sat with for three shallow, disastrous weeks until the fateful day of Cas and Jack’s arrival. But the thing about old news is that sometimes it gets passed over until so much time removes it from the present that there’s no good way to bring it up.

How is Dean supposed to bring up a goddamn deathbed love confession to his best friend? Now that everything has settled, now that everything is okay again. He’s gonna rock that boat for, what exactly? Being able to kiss Cas? To sleep next to him, maybe, to come up behind him in a hug… To stand close and teach Cas’s clumsy limbs how to slow dance while Faithfully by Journey plays off of the speaker of his cell phone… Cas would step on his toes at first, and then he’d step on Cas’s, and it’d be a little awkward ‘cause it’s them. But Cas would let Dean lead eventually. They’d end up not really dancing much at all, just holding each other and swaying under the yellow light of the Bunker. Maybe it’d happen right here in the kitchen. Maybe Dean would lay his head on Cas’s shoulder, press his face into the warm skin of Cas’s neck. Maybe Dean would take a nap there, just like that, fall asleep while Cas and all of his angelic strength keeps Dean upright.

“Dean?” Cas asks just loud enough for Dean to hear, and it’s then that he realizes he’s been staring. The smile has left Cas’s face to make way for a confused and worried frown.

“Sorry,” Dean says, “spaced out for a sec.”

The furrow of Cas’s brow relaxes a little bit, even as he asks, “Is everything alright?”

Better than alright. Better than fantastic. Better than anything has ever been in Dean’s life.

“All good. Just- it’s nice to have everyone here for dinner.”

Cas must read the underlying emotion in his voice, because he looks around the table at everyone’s faces before meeting Dean’s gaze again, nodding solemnly. “Yes, it’s very nice.”

With that, they both turn back down to their soups.

“And the owner said I could pet the dog! So I did, and it was awesome. But it got even better, wanna guess how?” Jack asks Sam and Eileen excitedly.

“Was there a second dog?” Eileen offers up.

“No, but that’s a great guess, Eileen! That would have been very cool. The more dogs the better, right?”

“Absolutely,” she says and signs, bringing her pointer finger to her bottom lip and then spreading her fingers out to cover the other hand she has balled into a fist.

Jack squirms in his seat, a wide grin on his face. “The dog shook my hand! Or- I shook his paw. Either way, the dog was really smart. Like I said, it was awesome.”

“That does sound awesome, Jack,” Cas pipes in.

And Dean is contented by it all. He thinks he wouldn’t mind sinking to the floor in ease, his body soft and malleable, or even melting into the tabletop itself so that he could watch this moment forever through the rounded cracks between the clutter of plates and bowls. Looking up at the faces of his family and knowing that they’re all around him.

The softness brings on that drowsy feeling in its wake. But Dean knows from experience that Sam’ll bitch at him if he falls asleep at dinner again, after the last two times that it happened, so he very purposefully keeps his eyes attentive. Every once in a while he adds to the unraveling conversation about the best dog breeds which turns into a debate over cats versus dogs which turns into Cas and Jack talking a little too excitedly about the prospect of adopting a kitten for the Bunker. But mostly he just watches, just listens. Doesn’t bother biting down his genuine smiles these days.

Eventually, the talking pitters out into a natural sort of finish. There’s shuffling as the plates are gathered and taken over to the sink where Dean will end up washing them. It’s a badge that Dean wears proudly, the way that he can take care of his family. He would insist every night after dinner that dishwashing was his job even if he was the one who cooked, until it became apparent that he was more than happy to do it. At first, Eileen had offered to help, then Jack, then Cas, then Sam last because he’s a douchey little brother, but every single time Dean would shoo them away. They don’t bother asking anymore, and Dean can’t really explain the way his chest gets tight with love whenever he sees the emptied plates stacked in the sink.

“Alright, I’m on cleanup duty,” he announces as though it isn’t obvious at this point.

“Do you want us to wait for you to start Tangled?” Jack asks.

Dean shakes his head as he stands from the table. “Go ahead without me, squirt. I’ve seen it a few times already. Promise I won’t miss too much from a late arrival.”

“Okay!” Jack agrees easily, and then he’s trailing out the door behind Cas and Eileen, chattering on about how dog paws smell weirdly like Fritos chips.

Dean turns to head towards the sink even as Sam lingers in the now empty room behind him. “You’re gonna conk out in here, aren’t you?” Sam’s voice asks.

Not bothering to look up from the dish soap he’s reaching to grab, Dean responds, “Ah-yup.”

He can feel the weight of Sam’s incredulous stare. “I really, really do not get it, man.” His words are judgemental but his tone is fond, teasing. “Have at it, I guess. We’ll be in the library if you need us.”

“Roger.”

“Try not to sleep through the whole thing. Jack’ll get sad if you miss the lantern scene and you know it.”

Dean smiles as he runs hot water over the dirty dishes. “Double Roger.”

With that, Sam leaves Dean in peace.

He watches his own hands as he takes the washrag and lathers it up, getting it foamy to rub easy circles on the ceramic plate. This one was Sam’s, Dean can tell because of the little leftover patch of mayonnaise that Sam likes to dip his grilled cheese’s into. And Dean might not meditate, but he thinks this is close enough, when he tries to use these moments to remind himself just how lucky he is. Thinks about Sam while he washes the mayonnaise down the drain. That baby that grew into a little boy into a teenager into a man right in front of Dean’s eyes. Who’s still here. Still here. Watching a Disney movie with the loved ones they’ve accumulated through the years until it wasn’t just the two of them anymore.

The rag goes round and round counterclockwise, a hypnotic rhythm until each swipe has a little bit of fondness in it. I helped my family make this dinner, the first wipe holds. I ate this dinner with my family, on the next. I get to take care of my family. Until these clunky, scarred fingers are better than just how they know their way around a gun. He thinks he likes them like this.

Setting the first plate upright in the drying rack, Dean starts in on the second. This one is Eileen’s, ‘cause she likes the one plate they have with a little pattern of a leafy vine around its edges so she always eats off of it. He thinks about having a sister. How much he cherishes her presence in this Bunker and in his life, not just as Sammy’s girl, but as Dean’s friend. They got close so fast after Cas and Jack left Dean feeling like an empty Russian Doll of himself. Eileen was there for him as much as Sam was.

These days they comfort each other against all of the big things that stacked up over the years. Until Eileen still has nightmares about Hell that’ll probably never fully go away, and sometimes she doesn’t want Sam to see her like that, so she’ll creak open Dean’s bedroom door and peer through the frame with big, swollen eyes. She’ll call his name real quiet until he wakes up, ‘cause he’s a little harder to wake up now than he used to be. But once he’s up, he’ll blink over his shoulder at her, and it just takes one look at that face for him to know what happened. He’ll lift the top corner of his comforter up in invitation, and she’ll shuffle her way over to his bed, curl up against his body there in the pool of residual warmth he left in the sheets. Sometimes they just sleep side by side, and sometimes he holds her, rubs a hand over her back and wonders how something so awful could happen to a person like Eileen.

She’ll sneak out in the morning, either to the kitchen for coffee or back to Sam’s room. Dean’s pretty sure Sam’s caught on to what’s been happening, because he hugs Eileen a little tighter, a little longer, the next day.

Dean puts her plate aside in the drying rack to reveal Jack’s plate in the sink. There’s tomato soup all over it, even though there was a separate bowl specifically for the tomato soup so that that wouldn’t happen. The kid’s smarter than all get out, but Dean’s not entirely sure Jack understands the concept of a bowl versus a plate.

And ya know what, Dean fought it for so long, the idea of having a kid. Of… of having a son. Because that meant there was a chance he could fuck this parenting thing up irreparably, make a carbon copy of himself in the shape of a child that’ll wreak havoc on this world the same way Dean did. Teach the kid how to hate himself the way Dean does- used to. All valid concerns, considering Dean definitely fucked up, over and over. But it was never irreparably. Not when he had Sam and Cas to help, still has them to carry some of the load, and Eileen now, too, until they’re a sitcom family living in a fallout Bunker after the fallout already happened.

Dean is happy to have a son. Dean loves his son. It doesn’t matter that his son clearly does not know how to keep soup in a bowl.

With a smile that’s too fond to be actually annoyed, Dean puts Jack’s plate on the drying rack. Now, there’s one last plate in the sink alongside the bowls. The plate in question is completely clean because it only had a grilled cheese on it for the single minute it took Sam to finish his own before he nabbed Cas’s right out from under him.

The plate is clean, but Dean washes it anyway.

He cradles the ceramic in his hands and takes care to move the rag slowly. So what if he pretends it’s an extension of Cas in some weird way, and that Cas can feel how tenderly Dean handles it? God, this whole thing is so complicated. Even more complicated because it’s so not that Dean doesn’t know how to handle it. After all of this time and all this dancing around each other, it’s finally out in the open, and all Dean has to do is reach out and- and cup Cas’s face in his hand the way he’s holding this damn plate. Cas loves him, he even said it himself. All the things that were holding Dean back vanished into thin air at Cas’s confession. He just doesn’t know how to say it back.

I love you, too, he says with the soap suds on the washrag. I love you, I love you, I love you, and I can feel it in my chest so I know it’s real, but I just- I just can’t get the words out. I’m really sorry, Cas.

Are they gonna stay in this limbo forever? When they could- When they could have- If Dean weren’t so-

He clenches his eyes shut and breathes through his nose, then opens his eyes again to look at this plate in his hands that’s Cas’s even though Cas doesn’t eat and tries to convince himself that he can do this.

“I-” and it gets stuck. He has to start over, clears his throat. “C’mon, Winchester. C’mon, Dean. Okay,” he says lowly to the ceramic. “Cas… I mean, Cas, I- I l-”

The emotion is there, but the words of it suffocate out like a gasping flame in his throat until there’s no fire left, just the smoke. He tries to find the depth of Cas’s blue eyes in the white plate and he thinks he succeeds, and maybe that’s the push he needs to even get the words out in private.

“I lov-” but he’s incapable of it. So he presses his lips together in an upset line instead. Stares at the plate. Finally, Dean manages out, “Me, too.” His thumb strokes gently across the ceramic plane and he pretends it’s some part of Cas, that Cas can feel that softness of touch from where he’s watching a movie down the hallway. “What you said, me too.”

With one last hard look, he sets the plate on the drying rack with a defeated sigh. He washes the tomato soup bowls in silence and doesn’t think about anything, especially not how pathetic it is that he can’t even say I love you out loud to a piece of dinnerware. One by one the bowls join the clean plates off to the side of the sink. Once the last bowl has been thoroughly ridded of tomato soup, Dean finds himself leaning his weight against the edge of the sink on locked elbows. He watches the lingering suds circle around the drain. Shakes his head as he throws Cas’s plate a final glance that makes his throat bob.

He turns on his heel to make his way back to the dining table, now clean and empty and ready for him to nap at. Sitting down on his stool, he reaches into his back pocket to pull out his phone, setting a timer for thirty minutes because Sammy had a point about the lantern scene, and Dean can already imagine Jack’s puppy eyes in full force. He buries his head into his crossed arms and lets the last dredges of drowsiness still leftover from dinner take him.

And when his timer wakes him up exactly thirty minutes later, it’s from a dream about spoons with little heart-shaped handles that burn his hands when he tries to hold them.

…

It’s been a lazy sort of day, the kind where the most exciting thing that’s happened so far is the new French toast casserole recipe Dean used for breakfast. The early afternoon is coming on now, and Dean feels his eyelids droop as he leans over the Map Table. It’s just the right side of cool in the room, the kind that makes you want to bundle up and huddle down. He’s got white fuzzy socks on his feet that he borrowed from Eileen once when he was freezing and then never gave back because they’re too damn comfortable. Showered and clean with his hair still damp and the dead man robe pulled tight over his shoulders, it’s like the universe is just begging him to go to sleep.

Especially when he can hear Eileen and Cas puttering around just down the hall, probably doing something incredibly dangerous that’ll burn the whole place down or at least make it smell like smoke for the next two days. But that’s good, too. That they’re around to do stupid shit in the first place. He smiles contented and wiggles around in the chair before promptly passing the fuck out even though it’s only three o’clock.

When the dream takes him, he finds himself in a canoe on a stream through the mountains. They’re big, hulking, beautiful things that creep up to the sky in sharp crests and gray craft paper planes so that the entire scene looks like it’s right off of the front of a Swiss Miss box. It’s not winter though, not even close, where the forest around him is green and lively with the sounds of animals. Everything is clean here, pure in the good way of steady oxygen. And Dean lets his canoe drift for hours.

He reaches a hand over the edge of the little boat to touch the water. It ripples under his fingers in wedding rings that bloom outwards and reveal koi fish swimming below him.

As their scales glint in living pattern, the mountains around Dean start to rumble. It’s weird, ‘cause it’s not a shaking like an earthquake, but instead a vibration of tone that makes it sound more like a voice than a structural fault. The humming goes on in a conversation between the mountains and the forest trees that Dean is just eavesdropping on. He stares up at the overcast sky and tries to make out the words.

“…Tired these days,” they say lowly. “It’s alright to be tired. You’ve been through unimaginable things. Sleep is the least that you deserve…”

Dean smiles and blinks lazily. Yeah, he could use a nap. The mountains are right. So he closes his eyes to the rocking of his canoe and drifts off cozy in the supporting wood of the boat.

Consciousness creeps up on him, fluttering eyelids giving way to the sight of the Map Room. Sighing a long breath, he pushes his forehead down against the cool table, back and forth, remembering the gentle giant mountains with something warm lingering just out of reach in his brain.

When he sits up fully, the blue afghan from the Dean Cave that has appeared from seemingly thin air slips down further over his shoulders.

…

“Are you sure he’s okay? I’ve never seen him sleep this much before in my life.”

Dean wakes to the sound of Sam’s voice and just barely contains a snort of amusement. Leave it to Sam’s nosey ass to gossip about Dean literally right beside him just because he’s unconscious. What a douche, bitching about Dean’s sleeping habits as if Sam isn’t the one with every annoying, health-kick tendency in the book. He keeps his eyes shut for now, his breathing even, and pretends to keep sleeping as he waits for the rest of Sam’s rant. Maybe Dean’ll jump up all of a sudden and scream, make Sammy shit his britches.

But it’s not Sam that keeps talking, it’s Cas.

“I promise you that he’s fine, Sam. If anything were wrong with him, I’d be able to detect it. His body just enjoys resting, now that there’s much less to worry about, I would guess. It’s a good sign. He deserves to rest.”

The way Cas says the words makes Dean’s insides turn to lavender. He hears Sam sigh.

“Yeah, he does. As long as you’re sure it’s not something he should see a doctor about…”

“My grace is more thorough than any medical machine available on planet Earth. If there was cause for concern, I’d be the first to know.”

“Alright, man, I believe you,” Sam says placatingly. “Thanks for checking anyway.”

“Of course.”

With that, two sets of footsteps shuffle out of the Dean Cave. Dean just keeps on breathing, in that lazy space where he could get up or just fall right back to sleep. He sits there thinking about what Cas had said. That Dean deserves to rest. And the thing is, Dean might actually believe it, that if there was ever a time in his life for this lethargy, it’s right now. It’s right here in the safety of his home. And maybe after all of these goddamn years, after everything he’s done for this world, he deserves as many naps as he pleases.

He’s about to let the easy drowsiness take him back under when he hears someone approaching him again. It sounds like Cas, from the pacing of the steps and the weight of them. Dean doesn’t open his eyes to confirm or deny his suspicion though, doesn’t need to with the way the air seems to buzz with Cas’s newfound powerful grace. That familiar static makes the air vibrate until there is no question of who is in the library with Dean right now. Again, he feigns sleep.

Cas gets closer and closer so that he must be standing right over Dean’s seat on the couch. It’s only years of practice and training on how to play possum that keep Dean from twitching under what he knows in his gut is a watchful gaze. Maybe there’s even a little bit of love in it, too.

“I’m glad that you’re resting,” Cas says quietly. Even Dean’s sharp ears strain to hear it. “However, I don’t understand your inability to make yourself more comfortable.” With that, fabric rustles, and then Cas is ever so gently laying a blanket, almost certainly the blue afghan, across Dean’s body. Somehow, impossibly even gentler, Cas tucks the fabric down between Dean’s shoulders and the couch. Dean knows that if he would have actually been asleep, the movement wouldn’t have woken him.

But he is awake now, and the care of the act, the sweetness of it, that someone would even think to do that for Dean, makes his throat tighten up. Those hands that have helped and hurt so many, just like Dean’s. Those hands that can heal, and they tuck a blanket down over him, because he’s sleeping and he doesn’t know how to make himself more comfortable so Cas has taken the task upon himself. Until Dean is cradled. Until Dean imagines looking up the line of his own eyelashes and seeing someone dote on him in a way he’s never had before.

“I’m sure that you know that it’s me bringing the blanket to you,” Cas continues, and Dean feels his breath freeze in his lungs. “You haven’t mentioned it to me, though, so I haven’t mentioned it either.” There’s a pause that Dean can’t decipher the meaning of, until Cas says, “There seem to be a lot of things like that, between you and I.”

Oh, God. It’s not like Dean didn’t know that Cas knew that he knew, but the confirmation of it is something entirely different. To acknowledge that any of this is happening, the confession hanging in the air between them in tension yet to be disturbed. The molecules of words unspoken bounce together until they get so heavy they fall to the ground like dead weight. Hardened pellets of glances that mean more than they should and represent a fundamental shift in their positions in relation to each other until Dean is terrified.

“Perhaps they don’t need to be talked about. Perhaps it’s enough to just be here with your family. I see the way you look at them, Dean, at all of us. I feel the same. This is such a blessing that it feels wrong to be greedy. To me, this is even more than I could have hoped for. I couldn’t ask for more.” At that, Cas sighs.

He could ask for more, Dean thinks. He’d give it to him. He just- He doesn’t even know where to start, hasn’t done this with anyone in so long, and hasn’t done it with anyone as important as Cas ever. Until that emotion is so big there’s no way it doesn’t get stuck in Dean’s throat on the way out. He chokes, every time.

“I’m glad that you’re finally getting the rest you deserve,” Cas changes the subject abruptly, as though he’s following his own stream of thought that Dean isn’t privy to because this is barely an actual conversation at all. “Sam worries about you, but… to me, it seems obvious. This body has been denied sleep for so long. In moments of peace, it welcomes the exhaustion.”

Dean can feel the air move as Cas leans in closer, though how close, Dean isn’t sure.

“You’re safe now, Dean,” Cas whispers, “it’s alright to let go. It’s alright to rest. Take as much time as you need. I’ll bring you a blanket whenever I have the chance… considering that getting it yourself somehow seems to be an impossibility for you.”

There’s a nervous, barking laugh stuck in Dean’s throat, overlapping with the watery lump that’s stuck there, too. Because he doesn’t deserve that kindness, but Cas believes that he does, talks like he does. Dean wants to hole up in that warm burrow of words and rumbling tone, turn Cas’s voice into a physical thing that he could nap inside of. Or, at the very least, wrap himself around Cas’s sturdy body.

But he can’t. He’s his own downfall to his own wants. He’s the speeding adrenaline car whistling down asphalt and he’s the big brick wall at the end of the road that’s going to send him to the junkyard.

He doesn’t want to be a car. Cars can’t reach out and hold Cas’s hand. Not that it matters, because Dean can’t seem to, either.

After a long pause of silence, Cas finally moves away, the sound of footsteps accompanying his exit from the little room.

Eyes wet under the hiding spot of his eyelids, Dean breathes on.

…

It’s just about noon when Dean starts wandering around the Bunker looking for a good napping spot. Sometimes certain rooms call to him, and he’ll get in different moods for kitchen naps, for couch naps, for family bonding naps (a.k.a. wherever the majority has gathered for the night), so that either his body takes him down first or he takes his body to where it’s gonna crash. Either way, he gets a good fucking nap out of it.

Today though, that drowsy feeling is humming at the back of his brain with no known location in sight. Which means he has options. To the kitchen first, but one glance into the space leaves him shaking his head and moving on. The Dean Cave next, but when he tiptoes by, Sam and Eileen are curled up together watching the Great British Baking Show while Jack sits on the floor working on a jigsaw puzzle, tongue poking out in concentration. Sam’s the only one who notices Dean’s ghostly presence looking in, and he meets Dean’s gaze with raised eyebrows of invitation. This could be it, but it’s just not. Maybe… he needs to find Cas first. That’ll give him an answer. Somewhere in the Bunker, Cas’s presence is cinnamon baking warm in an oven, and the aroma is calling out to Dean in siren song. And maybe Dean was never looking for a place, but a person. So he gives Sam a smirk even as he shakes his head to decline the welcome.

Just as he’s about to step away with his new mission in mind, his eyes land on the blue afghan draped over the back of the couch behind Sam and Eileen’s bodies. He juts his chin out at it so that Sam follows his line of sight. Confused, Sam turns around to look before rolling his eyes, grabbing the blanket into his hands and wading it up before tossing it Dean’s way. The exchange gets Eileen’s attention, and she looks to Dean in the doorway.

Naptime? she signs without speaking, pointer and middle fingers extended on both hands that she intersects before covering her face with her palm, pulling her fingers inwards and closing her eyes with the motion.

You bet, bringing his index finger to his temple and then down to his chin.

With that, she blows him a kiss that he pretends to catch and hold to his chest, pushing it into his heart. As if she's saying Goodnight, love you.

“Stop trying to steal my girlfriend,” Sam whines.

“I’m not trying, Sammy, I’m succeeding.”

“Dean is very handsome,” Eileen agrees, shooting Dean an ornery smile.

“You guys are so annoying.” Sam’s got a pout on his face now that Eileen raises a hand to thumb at.

“Poor baby,” she mocks, even as she leans in to kiss Sam’s cheek. “I love you.”

“And I love you! And you, too, Eileen! And you, too, Dean!” Jack adds from the floor.

Sam huffs a laugh and says, “We love you, too, Jack.”

Yeah, we do, Dean thinks. He doesn’t say it, though. He’s not even sure the whole I Love You Debacle is specific to Cas or if those words are just impossibilities at this point in his life. He can think it all he wants, obsessively round and round in his head with the circles his hands make when washing the dishes after dinner, but thinking something… Thinking something is not the same as vocalizing something with tangibility. Something that others can scrutinize or take- take away. Take away his family- Love his family and get them killed- Everything he loves out loud becomes a bargaining chip and- God, he’s seen so much blood and-

“Dean?” Eileen asks in this downy tone.

When he blinks back to reality, it’s to the sight of three pairs of big, worried eyes watching him. Before everything settled, that sort of look would have made him storm off, lock himself in his room to stare at the ceiling and wonder why he’s so cruel to the people who care about him. Now, he understands. He is not being patronized when they worry about him like this. He is being loved.

So he swallows around the grizzly memories that luckily seem to plague him with less and less frequency these days, and he doesn’t fake a smile for anyone else’s sake the way he used to. Just pushes his lips out in a bittersweet frown and says, “Sorry, I’m back now. Just- uh- gonna go do my thing,” motioning to the door with the blanket in hand.

Understanding settles into the lines of both Sam and Eileen’s faces, while it seems that Jack is content to refocus on his puzzle. Eileen holds up her hand with an extended thumb, pointer finger, and pinkie, like she’s Spider-Man about to shoot a web. I love you.

This, maybe, Dean can do.

I love you, too, he signs back. And with that, he turns from the doorway. Through the Map Room (no Cas) and around the corner to the library, wrapping the afghan around his shoulders as he goes.

And yes, here between the shelves in one of the cushioned chairs. Cas. He looks warm, like time-softened leather, like ivy growing up towards the sun. He’s got a paperback book with a blue cover open in his hands and there’s a confused narrowing of his eyes where they move back and forth across the words. Just looking at him is enough to flip the easy switches of Dean’s body from alert to tired. Nap here, his mushy brain tells him. This is the nap spot. Cas is here looking cozier than any fall sweater.

Right now, Dean just wants to be with him.

So he hitches the blue afghan higher onto his shoulder and walks up the few creaky steps into the library. Cas’s eyes raise from the book at the noise, and they settle on Dean’s face before flicking down to take in the blanket he has wrapped around himself. They linger on it for just a second.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets quietly. “I’m assuming it’s time for your nap?”

“You’re assuming right.”

Cas starts shifting in the chair. “I’ll give you your seat back then.”

But before Cas can stand, Dean says, “No. Uh- you’re good. You can stay there.” His heart is beating faster in nervousness at the puzzled tilt of Cas’s head, a staccato rhythm as he shuffles further into the room until he’s standing right in front of Cas. And Cas just looks up at him like he has no idea what’s going on.

With clammy hands and a sort of first-degree embarrassment already loaded in the barrel of his body, Dean plops down onto the wooden floor in the open space between Cas’s legs, so that his back is pressed against the bottom seat of the chair and Cas’s knees are to either side of his shoulders. Every muscle is tensed up as he stares at the bookcase in front of him. Hyperaware of his own skin and how close it is to Cas. Oh my god, what the fuck is he doing?

“Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable on the floor?” Cas asks from above him so earnestly, like this isn’t super bizarre behavior on Dean’s part, and Dean can’t help but melt into the knitting of his blanket, leaning more of his weight against the chair.

“‘M sure, Cas.”

“If you say so,” Cas responds dubiously. It makes Dean smile.

Already the foggy morning feeling is creeping across his brain. He breathes out and shuts his eyes. Cas is right here with him. This feeling that maybe Dean has been chasing for years and somehow didn’t even realize it, this need to be close and familiar in Cas’s orbit. It feels so safe, so content, how could Dean not doze off?

“Whatcha reading up there?” he mumbles.

Cas moves around a little in the seat and sighs. “It’s a children’s book called The Phantom Tollbooth. Jack is enormed with it but… it’s very confusing.” Dean can hear the annoyed frown in his voice.

“How come?”

“It is almost entirely written in wordplay that’s intrinsic to the plot. Some of it I understand, some of it I don’t. How children are supposed to garner anything from this is a mystery to me. But I think I’m getting a better grasp the further that I read.”

“Mmm,” is all Dean can think to respond with. His head is getting loose on his shoulders now, looser at the sound of Cas’s deep voice. It leans to the side a little bit until it hits purchase on what Dean realizes is Cas’s knee. He hopes that’s okay with Cas. “I’m sure-” he cuts himself off with a big yawn. When his mouth closes, he tries again. “I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

And it’s a testament to how lazy his body is right now when he doesn’t even startle at the feeling of Cas’s hand coming to rest gently on the crown of his head with the slightest of pressure. A weight like the blue afghan that holds Dean down comfortably.

“Go to sleep, Dean,” Cas says full of affection that would have made Dean uncomfortable not even a year ago because he would’ve liked it too much even though he wasn’t supposed to. Now he just likes it.

So Dean drifts off to the sound of matte pages being turned, Cas’s fingers leaving his head for that brief second before returning again to absentmindedly and ever so slightly ruffle his hair.

He dreams about driving in Baby on a long stretch of highway that he somehow knows is going to lead to a beach. The whole family is packed into the car, Sam in the passenger seat, Cas, Jack, and Eileen cramped up in the back. Even sardined together, they’re all smiling. The cassette in the radio is playing Taylor Swift’s 1989 album that these days Dean knows by heart the same way he knows AC/DC’s Back in Black.

“We’re a crooked love in a straight line down! Makes you wanna run and hide but it makes you turn right back around!” They all sing off-key together. All of the windows are rolled down, and the wind carries their voices out into the world.

The soundwaves of their singing turn physical and glint in the summer sun, iridescent and beautiful until the joy of the moment is visible. Dean watches the way they float up into the blue sky like kite ribbons.

The song fades softly into the white noise the way that movie soundtracks do as Cas starts speaking from the backseat.

“I really enjoyed this part,” he says easily. “It reminds me of your napping habits. There’s an unusually tall man who conducts an orchestra, but instead of the instruments playing music they play the colors of the world. Here, they’re playing the sunset. I’ll read you the end of this chapter.”

It’s just the two of them in the Impala now, Cas up in the front seat beside Dean. The sun shines golden through the windshield. Cas’s voice turns steadier as he begins to recite something, though Dean isn’t entirely sure what.

“‘You see what a dull place the world would be without color?’ he said, bowing until his chin almost touched the ground. ‘But what pleasure to lead my violins in a serenade of spring green or hear my trumpets blare out the blue sea and then watch the oboes tint it all in warm yellow sunshine. And rainbows are best of all—and blazing neon signs, and taxicabs with stripes, and the soft, muted tones of a foggy day. We play them all.’

As Chroma spoke, Milo sat with his eyes open wide, and Alec, Tock, and the Humbug looked on in wonder.

‘Now I really must get some sleep.’ Chroma yawned. ‘We've had lightning, fireworks, and parades for the last few nights, and I've had to be up to conduct them. But tonight is sure to be quiet.’ Then, putting his large hand on Milo's shoulder, he said, ‘Be a good fellow and watch my orchestra till morning, will you? And be sure to wake me at 5:23 for the sunrise. Good night, good night, Good night.’”

Dean can feel something in him tugging, bringing him up towards the tension of a surface that he can’t see but can feel, until he becomes aware of his body on the hardwood floor of the Bunker library. Embarrassingly, he realizes his head is fully leaned against Cas’s left knee in lieu of a pillow, and his left arm has wound itself around Cas’s calf in a lax hold. The weight of Cas’s hand still rests on his head.

“With that he leaped lightly from the podium and, in three long steps, vanished into the forest.” Cas reads aloud, hushed. It suits the gravel of his voice well, Dean can’t help but think sleepily. “‘That's a good idea,’ said Tock, making himself comfortable in the grass as the bug grumbled himself quickly to sleep and Alec stretched out in mid-air. And Milo, full of thoughts and questions, curled up on the pages of tomorrow's music and eagerly awaited the dawn.”

Cas gives a pensive hum as he stops reading. “The idea of falling asleep on giant sheet music sounds strangely comfortable, don’t you think?” Cas doesn’t wait for any sort of answer, asking the question out into the open air instead of in conversation. “Considering you just fell asleep on the floor, I’m sure you’d agree with me.”

That makes Dean grumble a complaint, teasingly scrunching his nose where Cas can’t see. But the noise of annoyance makes Cas freeze for a second before he takes his hand off of Dean’s head. Which is not at all what Dean wanted, but now he doesn’t know how to ask for it back.

“Did I wake you?” he asks anxiously from above Dean.

“A little,” Dean grunts. “No biggie.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-”

“Less apologizing, more reading.” Dean shimmies in his spot and pulls the afghan tighter around his shoulders. “Don’t leave me hangin’ on this sunrise fiasco.”

His words are met by a prolonged moment of silence, broken when Cas finally says, “Right,” in a hesitant sort of way. “I wouldn’t want to… leave you hanging.”

Dean smacks his lips together and shuts his eyes again. Reinstates his position of using Cas’s knee as a makeshift pillow. “Good.”

It’s warm against his temple through the fabric of dress pants, and Dean imagines what the skin looks like underneath. The way the muscles would lengthen, stretch, as Cas takes his walks in the morning. The wisps of dark hair that would thin the higher up you got on the leg. Dean’s never really thought much about leg hair, his own or anyone else’s, but right now he imagines seeing it as something more than just a bodily response that mammals have to the cold, and instead as an indication that Cas is wearing literally anything shorter than these goddamn slacks.

Maybe just his underwear. Maybe crawling out of bed in the morning after he’d laid beside Dean all night, not sleeping of course, but just lingering in the comfort. Maybe Cas would spend that time binge-watching shitty reality TV shows on his phone, so that when Dean would wake up Cas would relay every detail with so much care that Dean wouldn’t even have to watch the series to understand every social complexity of who’s cheating on who. Maybe Dean would roll over onto his side to find Cas’s eyes glued to the screen with earbuds in, and after he noticed Dean watching him he’d ask, “Have you ever seen Burlesque? Christina Aguilera is quite the multifaceted performer.”

Maybe Dean would get to see the hair above Cas’s kneecaps if he could- if he could just-

“One by one,” Cas starts in his rich soil voice, “the hours passed, and at exactly 5:22 (by Tock's very accurate clock) Milo carefully opened one eye and, in a moment, the other. Everything was still purple, dark blue, and black, yet scarcely a minute remained to the long, quiet night.”

Self-loathing might be one of Dean’s greatest talents, but it prunes up as Cas’s voice pulls him under like a lullaby. Maybe for now, just for this second, nothing is too much of his fault. Not when his family, minus a few members out in Sioux Falls, is safe and sound under one roof. This is a reminder to himself of the fact.

And getting those words out… Well, Dean’ll just have to keep practicing with the dinnerware.

He nods back off to the rhythm of Cas reading, “He stretched lazily, rubbed his eyelids, scratched his head, and shivered once as a greeting to the early-morning mist…”

…

Dean’s got a new guilty pleasure show, and it’s definitely not Say Yes to the Dress.

“I’m Brittany, and I’m from Houston, Texas. Me and my fiance have been waiting a long time for this, so we really want it to be perfect. We’ve been engaged for five years now, but both of us wanted to be more stable in our jobs before we, ya know, took the plunge! Now, I’ve got a budget of a thousand dollars and I’m finally ready to find my dream dress!” the bride-to-be on the TV says.

“A thousand bucks? What’s that gonna buy you, a veil? Get real, sister. I know delusional when I see it.” Dean sips around the yellow plastic straw of one of Jack’s Capri Suns that surprisingly isn’t half bad. It claims to be the flavor of Tropical Tide, but he just thinks it tastes like sugar and what kids imagine fruit tastes like. Like he said, it’s not half bad.

He watches as Randy echoes Dean’s sentiment to the bride, and Dean can’t help but say, “That’s what I’m telling you.”

The segment progresses as the bride tries on more and more gowns, just to land on a three thousand dollar bombshell that she can’t afford. Go figure. Of course, her bridesmaid’s come through with a collective effort to make up the difference, so that Brittany the Bride can have her perfect day. It’s all good and heartwarming as Dean slurps down the rest of the Capri Sun so that the thin aluminum vacuums in on itself. He throws it to his right, onto the side table, because he’s a domestic son of a bitch who owns things like side tables these days.

As the next bride, a brunette woman named Meredith, starts on about her personal story, Dean hears footsteps approaching the Cave. His whole body tenses as he snatches up the remote in a panic. Starts clicking at random buttons until the screen changes to something that looks like some sort of D-Grade Made for Television movie. Good enough.

It’s Cas who ends up peeking in through the door frame, and for that split second of recognition Dean’s heart beats double time.

“Hey,” Cas says. Dean doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to the casualness that Cas speaks with these days, mixed in with the most sincere and stunted sentences you’ve ever heard. Proof of his many years of one foot in Heaven and one foot on Earth. “Am I interrupting anything?”

Dean motions around to the room. “Just what you see.”

“Is it alright if I join you, then?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” He scooches to the far end of the couch and picks up the throw pillow nestled into the corner that Eileen had bought so he can take its spot. He pulls it into his lap and wraps his arms around it like it's a teddy bear.

As expected, Cas sits down on the other end of the couch so that the middle cushion is open between them. Just the remote still resting there.

“What are you watching?” Cas asks with his head tilted as he regards the TV screen, where some sort of zombie apocalypse seems to have broken out.

“Uhhh, ya know, I’m not even sure. Just put it on in the background,” Dean lies.

“If you’re not invested, do you mind if I change the channel?”

“Go for it.”

So Cas reaches to grab the remote from the empty middle cushion and his eyebrows tighten in concentration as he looks down at the number pad. Types in a specific channel with his thumb so that the TV turns to-

“-and this gown fits you like it was made for you!” Randy says.

“I’ve been extremely invested in this show,” Cas says seriously. “I believe they’re having some sort of marathon. I’m not even sure if I like it… But I can’t stop watching it.”

Dean sorta wants to laugh so hard that he pukes, because of course. Of course. He finds himself relaxing back into the couch cushions with a smile on his face as he replies, “I’m not gonna lie, Cas, I think I’m stuck in the same boat.”

Cas looks over at him. “You’ve also been ‘binging’ Say Yes to the Dress?”

He nods, and then the movement turns into the shake of his head. “To be honest with you, man, I’m not even really sure how I got here. I think Eileen was watching it the other day? Some of these people are crazy.”

“It’s endlessly entertaining, isn’t it?” Cas sighs like he’s also judging himself a little bit for partaking in the ludicrousy of a wedding dress reality TV show.

That’s how they end up watching another full episode of Say Yes to the Dress, occasionally making commentary on the dresses or how obviously jealous the Maid of Honor is that she’s not the one getting married. The whole thing is triggering that drowsy feeling in Dean’s brain. Cas, all the goodness in the room, and the low volume of the television are just begging him to cast sideways onto the couch with a thwump. Lay down and go to sleep all comfortable.

As the next episode starts after a commercial break, Dean can feel himself slipping. His head is getting heavier as it droops to the side… and he drifts- He sits up with a jolt as his head falls all the way down without his awakened muscles to hold it steady anymore.

“Dean, did you want to lay down?”

When he looks over, Cas is watching him softly. It tugs at Dean deep and all he wants to say is yes, yes, I’d love to nap here with you. Instead, he says, “I don’t wanna steal your spot.”

“That’s not necessary,” Cas responds. Dean isn’t entirely sure what he even means by that until Cas is reaching back behind himself to grab the throw pillow that was on his end of the couch and placing it in his lap. Is that- Does he want Dean to- He must, because he looks so absolutely nervous when he glances back at Dean again like he’s not even sure if he’s allowed to make this suggestion at all.

But Dean’s insides are mush at the same time that they’re tickling the insides of his throat. “Yeah, yeah- okay.”

He tosses the throw pillow he’s been holding down onto the floor and he pulls his legs up onto the couch sluggishly with hyperawareness of every movement, every limb. Then he’s scooching all the way vertical and his head rests on the pillow in Cas’s lap. Gazing ahead at the TV, he doesn’t even see it. Too focused on the closeness of Cas’s body, and that those thighs are under this pillow, under those dress slacks.

It’s almost frightening to think of what he looks like right now. That Cas can just look down at him right here and see everything. Every wrinkle, every emotion, the exposed skin of his neck that makes him feel naked even though he’s fully clothed. And oh, oh, Cas is pulling the blue afghan down from the back of the couch to drape it across Dean. He’s held and comforted and he doesn’t know what to do about any of it.

Half of the episode passes with every muscle in Dean’s body tensed even as his sleepy brain wants nothing more than to relax. His right shoulder is starting to twinge from the angle because it’s a delicate little flower after the hell that Dean’s put the dominant side of his body through. It’s not exactly comfortable but he can’t fathom giving this moment up, letting it pass him by because his arm hurts a little. Not when he has no idea when the next time something like this will happen and allow him to be so near to Cas. Near enough to smell the scent of cedar from the first trees that grew on this planet, which seems to perpetually cling to Cas’s skin and clothes.

He’s so lost in thought that he almost startles when Cas says, “You’re very tense,” from above him.

Dean decides to respond with a half-truth. “My right shoulder’s just doing weird stuff. ‘S tight.”

“Would you be more comfortable if you turned over?” Cas asks.

The answer is yes, but Cas asks that question like the end result wouldn’t be Dean facing towards Cas’s body, towards his stomach. If even this right here feels intimate for them, Dean can’t even imagine- The existing so near one another- The not-touching but so close to touching until it’s almost more than skin-on-skin contact could be-

Dean is so scared. He wants it so badly.

“Yeah, probably,” he says, and he has no idea how he keeps his voice steady. Then he’s shuffling, awkward turning that makes him shift his weight for a second before he settles in again. Cas’s stomach is right in front of him.

“Is that better?” Cas asks like he really means it.

“Yeah,” Dean chokes, “better.”

With the pillow under his head, and Cas’s thighs under the pillow, Dean is closer than he’s ever been. To Cas, to the things he wants, to saying those words that expand to capacity in his throat so that he’s left swollen by them. He feels swollen right now, tender, as he stares unfocused at the wrinkles of Cas’s dress shirt just inches from his nose. And that’s Cas’s stomach under the fabric, moving so slightly with the breaths he doesn’t even really need to take.

They’re good breaths, too, Dean thinks. In and out, a sweet and slow pace of life. Proof of air going into Cas’s lungs with an easy rhythm like sleep. Dean knows all about sleep.

Speaking of which, he can feel his eyelids getting heavier under the trance of Cas’s hypnotic breathing.

I love you, breathing. I love you, lungs. I love you, stomach, with your in and out movement under the white shirt that I love, too. Dean is fragile. Swollen and tender and red-

“Why is her mother-in-law being so rude? That dress fits the bride well, and it’s within her budget. I think the mother-in-law has priorities she needs to sort out before the wedding,” Cas insults the TV.

It bursts Dean’s tension like a balloon. He huffs a laugh that’s all warm breath and thinks about how Cas is funnier than Dean, even when he doesn’t mean to be. Especially when Cas doesn’t mean to be. It’s all love and weddings and Bridezillas with their equally horrendous mother-in-laws, Cas’s critical tone and redwood smell. The cradle of Cas’s lap, the shelter of his presence. Home is a place and home is an angel in the shape of a person that makes Dean feel like- like- he can breathe again. Like he can sleep again, close his eyes and turn off his brain and know he’ll wake up on the other side of it just as secure as when he nodded off. Dean’s covered by the blue afghan. He is yarn-cocoon wrapped and lazy, so much safety in the air that it may as well be oxygen, may as well be a miracle. Cas’s stomach breathes in. Cas’s stomach breathes out.

It hurts more than it should, words that would be easy for anyone else, easy for a goddamn toddler, that latch into Dean’s tonsils instead. They’re trying to nest in the darkness there. They can’t hurt him if he doesn’t say them. They can’t hurt Cas if he doesn’t say them.

But maybe love is only as good as the person knowing that you love them, and maybe Cas had a point about just saying it. Just letting that person… that person that you cradle so near to your heart in hands softer than you thought you were even capable of, because you never want anything to hurt them, and they’re so fragile, and so precious- and letting them know that you think those things at all.

Internal like this, Dean’s love just festers. It’s a sturdy, worthy love, and it doesn’t even get to see the sun. A tragedy in twelve parts, twelve years that have killed both of them more times than Romeo or Juliet could ever dream of. Pale skin and sunken eyes and purple veins showing through and craving a warm beach with an afternoon glare that would put any electric lightbulb to shame. That’s where his love wants to be.

So, swollen and tender and quaking, he opens his mouth to the light.

“Cas-” Dean’s says in radio static, the way it rasps in fragility. “Cas, I love you.”

The room holds its breath, an inhale of sharp waiting. The bride on the TV screen talks about her dream wedding dress, something between a ballroom gown and a princess fairytale. In front of Dean’s nose, Cas’s stomach stops moving.

“You…” Cas says flatly, dazedly. He doesn’t finish the thought.

“I love you,” Dean chokes out.

Cas’s hand comes to rest gently at Dean’s hairline, half of Cas’s palm warm against his forehead and half muted by his hair. It’s the sort of touch that’s so intimate in its uncommonness that it makes Dean’s skin break out in goosebumps. He clenches his jaw and closes his eyes under it.

“Well,” Cas’s voice is as unsteady as Dean feels, “I love you, too.”

And hearing those words again while he’s safe here is something so outside of what he thought he’d ever get. Years ago, he would’ve pushed them away. Wouldn’t have let them close because anything like that affection would have ended in disaster and destruction for both of them.

Now, Dean lets Cas’s love stretch its searching fingers into him, then deeper, through the stubborn cracks of walls long since built and fortified. Flowers in a hostile environment, Cas is even more hard-headed than those walls could hope to be, insistent on getting to Dean on the other side. So, as Cas’s affection makes a red-string nest for Dean’s heart, he nods against the pillow in acceptance, and his eyes well up until a tear slides down his temple and soaks into the pillowcase.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

Cas’s hand pets his bangs back in a slow motion before returning to its original resting place. He doesn’t ask Dean why he’s crying. In some ways, Dean barely gets why he’s crying. Just another unconscious response to the environment, maybe. If it’s safe enough to sleep, it’s safe enough to cry.

“And it’s alright?” he asks, because he needs to know. “That I- it’s okay?” He’s never had to question whether things were okay in his life because the answer has always been no, regardless of the situation. Now… Now he asks because he’s pretty sure the answer is-

“Yes, Dean. It’s okay. I love you as well.”

His trembling lips press into a thin line and his eyes squeeze harder with the way that he crumbles at the edges. Because he loves Cas, and Cas loves him. He hears himself sniffle more than he feels it happening. Eyebrows pulled together so tight that his whole face pinches, that his head almost hurts.

“So-” it’s barely a breath of a thing. Dean swallows and tries again. His lips won’t stop shaking with the urge to cry harder, to bawl in fat tears and ugly sobs of relief. “So, we love each other, huh?”

“It certainly sounds that way,” Cas says, broken in identical lines to Dean’s own cracks. Watery and hopeful and calm and so Cas. Home in a voice box.

“Fuck. Jesus fuck, Cas.” And then Dean really is letting all those emotions out, banging on the doors of his lungs and the hinges of his eyelids. Gasping for air, Dean pushes his face into that still unmoving stomach that he loves through the white shirt that he loves until his nose is buried in starched fabric. “Fuck!” he cries against it. “We- We love each other. Cas, we-” The words are gobbled up by his own stunted breathing. Cas’s hand is warm in Dean’s hair, the same way it had been that day Cas had read to him, and it soothes through the strands.

“We do. We can,” he hears Cas whisper. There’s a personal disbelief there, too, like Cas is saying the words just as much for himself as he is for Dean. “I know. We’re safe now, Dean.”

There’s very little Dean can do in response to those words other than keep crying, and Cas doesn’t seem to mind that his dress shirt is slowly but surely becoming a used tissue, so Dean just keeps letting it go. He lets go of the fear; those parts of his insides that were terrorized for so long that terror became their stasis, or John’s voice in his ears telling him what a real man should be, how a real man should act. He lets go of the past, of thinking he’d never get this, of thinking he’d never have a family because everything he touches dies in misery like a fucking lame dog shot in the street- but not this, not now. Quiet Sunday mornings are every morning and he has Sam and he has a not-sister-sister and he has a not-son-son and he has- he has a Castiel. Better than Heaven. Better than a Zepplin song. Better than 1989.

As safe as a Zepplin song. As safe as 1989.

The coming down takes a long time, little reprieves broken by another fresh wave of tears. But eventually they subside their ripples and leave him soggy on the other side. He sniffles in deep.

“I never- Ya know, I never really believed that I’d get any of this. I’d joke about it. Retiring with my toes in the sand, sipping a margarita, and watching girls hula dance. But I knew I wasn’t tellin’ the truth. Sorta just seemed like the right thing to say sometimes.” Dean isn’t really sure where all of this is spilling out from, probably a reservoir with the faucet on since the day Cas rescued him from Hell, and Dean just wanted someone to confide in. Wanted someone to give a shit about him. Cas gives more than a shit about him. And Cas doesn’t interrupt either, just keeps up that steady motion of his hand. “It was a nice thought, but I-I didn’t even have a real place to live until I was thirty-four, how the fuck was I gonna go on vacation? Or settle down, or have a kid, or get a real job? That was- that was just the stuff I told Sammy to keep him from worrying too much.”

When Dean pauses to draw in a weak breath, Cas emphasizes his own use of wording back to him. “Was. As in, not anymore.”

“Well, it’s the truth now, ain’t it?”

“That you’ve… settled down?”

“Yeah,” Dean sighs, and he doesn’t mean to sound so content, but he does. “I didn’t- Things are good, man. Really friggin’ good. I don’t even know what to do with it, actually,” he confesses.

Cas hums, then, “I think you’re already on the appropriate track with your naps.”

“You do?”

“You’ve had a lifetime of doing things. Now is the time to do nothing. We’ve all earned a little nothingness.”

Nothing sounds real nice. Nicer still coming out of Cas’s mouth like some sort of permission. Dean can be okay, like this, where taking naps is easy and the world won’t end if he doesn’t hold it up with brute force and his own bloody shoulders. Not anymore. Still, maybe there’re certain situations where nothingness has been the status quo for too long, and Dean wants something. More than something. To dance with Cas in the yellow light of the kitchen, to see the soft, sparse hair on his thighs.

“And what about- this?” he asks. Us, he means. But there’s only so much bravery one man can take in a single day, and Dean’s pretty sure he spent this entire week’s worth on that I Love You card.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

God, Dean wills Cas to get it with his mind, even though he’s pretty sure that’s gonna be a fat chance. Now that the buildup is over and the words, the emotions, are out, he’s not so sure how to put wheels on them. How does he look at them and do something about them now that Cas knows how he feels? Aren't they just supposed to- kiss? That’s how this works right?

But Cas is looking down at him with his eyes squinted, head tilted in confusion, and definitely not kissing Dean. Waiting for an answer that Dean can barely form. Just that he wants in a way that he’s never wanted out loud before. Never in the light.

It’s terrifying, terrifying, terrifying in rapid pace with his churning stomach, until Cas’s fingers play in his hair like some weird reminder that it’s only Cas. Just like that. A single finger, maybe the pointer, maybe the middle, twirling a chunk of the longer strands around in a little circle until it becomes a meditative act. Like Cas is just… thinking. No judgment or expectation. That’s why Dean can even get half an idea spoken with real people words.

“Now that we- ya know- we’re both- feeling stuff. We feel stuff. So… what do we do now?” He meets Cas’s eyes, completely aware that he’s not making any sense. And at first, that confused crease is still there between Cas’s brows, only to flatten out in softness at whatever Cas sees on Dean’s face.

It makes Dean hyperaware that he’s being seen, out in this light. It makes him want to hide again. But he can’t, not when he’s so close- Not when Cas would never make him-

“Well, I enjoy just being with you. Doing this,” Cas says like it’s not groundbreaking for Dean to hear. Soft and sweet.

“This?” Dean asks even though he knows exactly what Cas means. He just can’t get his brain working all the way, and one word seems like a safe conversational option.

“Holding you,” Cas responds, petting through Dean’s hair again as though in demonstration.

Okay. Okay. Every part of him feels raw from disuse, unaccustomed to this affection and the shape it takes under Castiel’s hands. Cas’s lap under his head and Cas’s stomach beside his cheek. And Cas’s blue eyes watching him warm and full like Dean’s never seen before, until he knows that Cas is telling the truth. This, just this holding, would be enough for him.

It’s not enough for Dean.

“What about other couple stuff?” He can’t believe the words came out of his mouth, and he finds himself babbling on in a panic at Cas’s surprised expression. “Not that we’re a couple or anything. But maybe we could- uh- we could do that stuff- the holding h-” What the fuck is he saying? “No!” Cas jolts at the exclamation, eyes wide, stunned into silence at Dean’s trainwreck of a proposition. “I mean, yes, I wanna hold hands, obviously. Or kiss. But only if you want to. I don’t know how this angel stuff works, or if angels even kiss people. I mean, Anna and I kissed but she wasn’t-”

“Dean-”

“Was she an angel when that happened? Or was she still human? Or- I can’t remember, that shit was so long ago. That doesn’t mean we have to, though, just that we could, see. Or at least I might- I really want to-”

“Dean!” There’s a tug at his hair that makes his legs kick a little, like a dying fish. It brings his chattering to a halt, makes him focus back on Cas’s expression that has melted into something between annoyance and ecstasy. “I’d like to kiss you.”

Dean swallows. “Right.”

“Is that… okay?”

“Uh- yeah, I mean- yeah, I- You could. You can. Kiss me, I mean.”

“Right now?”

And of course, Dean means right now, and of course, they want to kiss each other, but maybe Cas is just as scared as Dean to have this thing that only months ago felt as impossible as getting out from under Chuck’s thumb. Twelve years don’t disappear under three words, not even when you say them out loud. Until wanting something so much almost makes you afraid to have it, almost too anxious to bear it. The fear doesn’t stop the wanting though.

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, looking up into the glory of Cas’s face, and he means it. “Right now.”

With his hand still in Dean’s hair, Cas leans down so that he has to curl up on himself to align his face with Dean’s, head tilted at the odd angle of their perpendicular bodies. Closer and closer as Dean’s stomach writhes and his breathing picks up into a stunted thing, lips barely parted. The tip of Cas’s nose brushes his. For a moment, they stay still like that. Even this is almost too much, after all of the distance between them.

Then Cas presses his lips to Dean’s in one soft touch before pulling away again.

Oh, surely Dean’s heart will burst.

His hand clutches the blue yarn of the afghan, his fingers poking through the little gaps in its loose weaving. Cas just kissed him. A real physical sensation that was not imagined, that was not a fantasy or a what-if. The feeling of warm skin and the pinpoint scratch of stubble against his. So that he kissed a person who was a man who was Cas, and it leaves his lips penny-shiny like he’s never been kissed before this exact moment.

“I hope that was alright,” Cas says in earnesty, eyes big and brows pulled together.

“Again,” Dean manages.

Cas’s face blooms open. He’s leaning down for that same careful press that puts so many butterflies into Dean’s stomach he’s convinced they’ve worked their way into his bloodstream. Lips on lips, Cas’s lips on his lips. Warm, then gone. No tongue, no wetness. It’s so much more because it’s so much less.

“Again.” And he’s grinning like an ass, but it doesn’t matter because so is Cas when he curls in for another gentle kiss.

“Again.”

“Again.”

Dean is pulled apart at the seams with white stuffing leaking out, a well-loved plush animal, a fragile wisp of cotton. When Cas pulls away this time, Dean says, “This is so fucking nuts.”

“Yes,” Cas agrees with the brightest eyes Dean has ever seen, like maybe they’re glowing in the dimly lit room. Leans in close for another peck but stops inches away to respond, “This is- quite fucking nuts.”

He can’t help the way that he bursts out laughing right into Cas’s face. “You said fucking nuts.”

“Well, so did you.”

“Yeah, but that’s me. I say stuff like that all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say ‘fuck’ before, like, right now.”

“Fuck,” Cas deadpans, right up close.

“Ya know, you’re a smartass, anyone ever tell you that?”

“I’m very old, Dean, I don’t know how you expect me to remember.”

“Alright, now you’re just doing it on purpose.” Dean extracts his fingers from the afghan to reach up to pull at Cas’s earlobe. The sensation makes Cas frown this grumpy thing that shouldn’t be cute- and Dean shouldn’t think anything is cute- but if the shoe fits, well. He’s allowed to think stuff like that now. So he’ll goddamn think it.

Maybe this time of rest has softened him. All the napping and the unconscious release of burdens that make life a little easier to live. Maybe all of the family Disney movie nights have made his brain leak all sorts of sappy stuff, because his hand moves from Cas’s ear down to hold his cheek instead, and Dean breathes, “Look at you, huh?”

Cas blinks at him like a cartoon character, three times so deliberate Dean can practically hear the plink, plink, plink of his eyelids. And of all the years Dean has known him, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Cas blush before. Now, though, there’s no mistaking the happy pinkness spreading high on his cheeks. Despite Castiel’s comment on being very old, Dean can’t help but think that he looks so young, so human. Very handsome.

“Me?”

He doesn’t bother answering Cas’s questioning tone. Instead, he pushes up those last few inches in a way that makes his back and ab muscles twinge a little, his neck stretched out so that he can touch Cas’s lips with his. Gentle, so gentle, that the first brush is more air than skin. Nosing in, they breathe together so that each inhale and exhale is shared for that second of time. Another catch of chapped lips. Dean’s insides are red velvet and blue ribbon and green fleece until he’s the entire fabric store.

Finally, he kisses Cas square on. Moves the way he knows how to, where to nip, when to apply the pressure that turns into a wet tongue getting a little bit curious. Cas’s hand tightens in his hair and that feels good, too.

They’re lazy draws in complete opposition to the turbulent rocking of Dean’s gut that seems to know, in its unconscious way, that this is not normal. That these aren’t just any lips on any face. A wanting so long in the making that now that it’s finally sprouted it immediately flowers under an imaginary afternoon glare. They grow up and out of Dean, caress at Cas’s face and eyebrows, all the places Dean’s hand isn’t touching, and they give Cas their own little kisses. Little adoring mouths and yellow puffball dandelion petals.

Cas moans then, a contented rumble. Dean moans back. They are vibrating together in love.

What an interesting type of lullaby. There’s no friggin way, but- His eyes are closed and he’s resting back against a pillow and Cas is all around him. That buzz of sleep has never been so tempting or held on so tightly. Naptime, it says. Everything feels so good.

He ignores it for as long as he can in favor of running his tongue over Cas’s canine teeth. But even the prick of their sharp edges can’t seem to cut through Dean’s drowsiness. He can feel himself slowing against his will, more and more until Cas is basically just kissing him and Dean is barely kissing back, lips parted to let Cas do his thing. Not that Dean minds. It’s nice to be a lazy son of a bitch sometimes. He should probably say something though, or else he’s gonna fall asleep with Cas licking at his gums.

God, his life is awesome.

Turning his head to the side just enough to break the kiss, Dean mumbles, “Hey, this is probably gonna sound bad, but, uh- I’m about to fall asleep.”

“Really?” Cas asks. Dean can hear the amused smile in his voice even though he can’t see it.

“I can’t help it, man. I’m too damn comfortable.”

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?” Cas pecks Dean’s lips one last time before sitting upright again. His hand hasn’t left Dean’s hair this entire time, and now it pets back through the strands in a syrup motion. Dean’s about to be out in point two seconds. “In fact, I consider it a compliment.”

Dean snorts. “What, that I’m taking a siesta mid-makeout session? I’m pretty sure that most people would think the exact opposite, Cas.”

“Most people wouldn’t know that you seem to nap when you’re happy.”

It sorta feels like those are dots Dean should’ve connected on his own a while ago, but hearing Cas say it out loud brings the big picture into clarity. Because Cas is right, and Cas noticed the connection of these dots at all because he loves Dean.

“Huh,” Dean says, “ya know, I never even thought about that.”

“It seems a little obvious.”

“Okay, Albert Einstein. Everyone come look, this man is a genius. We’ve got a genius in our midst-”

“Will you just take your nap already?” Cas’s tone is annoyed but the look on his face gives him away bad. There’s this little smile he’s fighting down that makes his eyes crinkle up, and something in him seems to be permanently lit golden, so that his skin becomes the cover for a nightlight.

“I’ll take my nap, but not ‘cause you told me to. ‘Cause I want to, alright? This is all me.”

Cas peers down at him through knitted brown eyelashes, thick and wonderful, and there’s love on his face. His petting hand stops at the crown of Dean’s head as he leans back in. Oh. To press a kiss to Dean’s forehead. Dean can feel himself reform under the affection. The ancient bones of his body are new and his heart has never known what it means to have been hurt before. Healed up. There is no grace, but Cas heals him with the touch.

When Cas pulls away, he hovers close. They hold eyes long and thoughtful like they used to back in the old days, and once again the act becomes a payoff of wanting that’s been years in the making for both of them. The room is silent while they look at each other with too-warm affection. Finally, Cas’s hand starts its petting again.

“Rest, Dean.”

All that Dean can respond with is, “‘Kay.”

He watches up the line of Cas’s nose as he sits upright fully again to turn his attention back to the TV screen. It’s a terrible angle but it’s great ‘cause he’s looking at Cas. With a deep breath, he shuffles around to face towards Cas’s stomach again, and he doesn’t hesitate to bury his face in the (still slightly damp) dress shirt. It blocks out the already dim light of the room and it smells like ancient forests.

On the TV a woman’s voice says, “I’m not so sure how I feel about this one, Rachel.”

“What’s the dress look like?” Dean mumbles.

“It’s very vertical. Free-flowing skirt with beading on the corset meant to look like butterflies,” Cas answers from above him.

“That sounds hideous.”

“It is hideous.”

“Ugh,” is all Dean bothers to respond with. His brain is getting heavy in a way that he can’t fight and doesn’t have to fight, so he lets it weigh him down in comfort. Cas’s hand is lovely where his fingers move through the strands of Dean’s hair. “I’m- I’m ‘bout to-“ he slurs.

“Shhhh,” Cas soothes, and it sounds so good. It makes Dean’s skin tingle. “Shh, sleep now. I’ll be here. We have all the time we need.” A pause, then, “Not to mention the Say Yes to the Dress marathon is on all day.”

Dean giggles deliriously and he thinks he says something, but maybe not, as that sweet lethargy takes him under again. Cas was right, he thinks on his way out. He is very happy.