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This is what they’ve been fighting for.
Metatron, bleeding from a head wound sustained by a rogue angel blade, is staggering, hand on his temple, blood gushing through his fingers. Dangling from the same hand, swinging on a delicate silver chain, is Castiel’s grace.
Across the warehouse (because it’s always a creepy, abandoned warehouse, Dean had complained earlier) Cas catches Dean’s eye. They’ve both seen Metatron get injured, they’ve both seen the jar containing Cas’ grace. Dean’s face is a complicated mix of emotions, shifting across his face like fast moving storm clouds, and neither of them have time to waste by having an extended, wordless conversation. Cas doesn’t need permission, but he waits until the overwhelming expression on Dean’s face is, go, proceed, do it, before launching into a full tilt sprint across the floor to a still-dazed Metatron.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dean turn back to fight off one of Metatron’s allies (a human, since Metatron, unsurprisingly, didn’t have a lot of luck recruiting soldiers once he realized he would have to fight Castiel and the Winchesters on earth). Sam is on the other side of the room, holding off three humans at once, one woman and two men. Luckily for them, all of Metatron’s soldiers are of the overzealous, churchgoing kind, meaning conservative thinking and generally slow moving; easy to subdue without harming.
Cas slams into Metatron’s side, feels the warmth and stickiness of recently shed blood. They end up on the floor, grappling, but Metatron may as well be a kitten pawing at his face, because he’s weak and delirious. The angel blade must have penetrated further than Cas originally thought, because he manages to pluck his grace from Metatron’s hand more easily than if the angel had handed it over himself.
Metatron doesn’t deserve death, but maybe he deserves nothingness, and Cas is glad to know that’s what he’s able to provide. He’s not wasting time. Cas plunges his own angel blade into Metatron’s heart, hopes that Dean and Sam realize what’s happening and protect their eyes, because there’s no way they could hear him yell over the din. It’s an absurd, ecstatic thought, but Cas wishes that Metatron’s grace wasn’t the same color as his own. It’s all blinding blues and whites that he can still see through his closed eyelids, and maybe it’s memories overlapping with reality, he’ll never be completely sure.
All he knows is that when it’s over, there’s a ringing silence in the warehouse and he’s holding his grace in his palm again. The glass is protected by some kind of magic, obviously, and Cas chastises himself for thinking it would feel different than any other jar. He’s been watching too many movies with Dean full of symbolism and parallels and plots that come full circle. He’s been educated on the suspension of disbelief too many times to be disappointed by something as inconsequential as this.
The silence behind him tells him that the fight has ended, either because everyone is dead or knocked out or now blinded, and yet he can’t bring himself to turn around. He clutches his grace in his palm and sort of crumples to the cold concrete floor, suddenly, horrifically unsure.
A warm hand curls around his shoulder, and he knows without looking up that it’s Dean.
“We managed to knock them all out before you killed him,” Sam informs Cas, sounding like he’s nearby, but still far enough away to provide any needed space. “They’ll be fine.”
Cas nods, but he’s not focused on that right now. The glass sits heavily in his hand.
“Are you alright?” he asks Dean, and expects him to answer for both Winchesters. The hand on his shoulder tightens.
“A few scrapes. Nothing to worry about.”
Cas doesn’t acknowledge what Dean’s said, but instead says, “I thought it would feel different.”
It’s silent for a moment.
“After Sam jumped in the pit, everything disappeared. I was alone in a field. I was staring at a hole in the ground that wasn’t there anymore. It’s underwhelming, huh?”
Cas runs the chain through his fingers, watches it undulate in his palm, watches it sinuously slither from one hand to the other.
“He’s gone,” Cas states, flat, “And I have my grace back.”
The hand leaves Cas’ shoulder, there’s a shuffling, and then Dean is sitting beside him, close enough that their shoulders are touching.
“So what’s the plan?” Dean asks.
They both know the answer to that. The plan was for Cas to kill Metatron and smash that bottle as soon as he got his hands on it. Assuming he got it back before the battle was over, his regained mojo was supposed to tip the balance in their favor. If not, well then, he still got it back. Just like he wanted. Just like they wanted, Dean had insisted, face insisting something else entirely.
He thinks back over the past months, the initial weeks; full of sullen silences and a painful, hollow aching in his chest. Thinking he was nothing without his grace, useless, a broken tool. Even worse, a broken toy. Then there was the day, stupid as it seems, he managed to make toast without burning it. It hadn’t meant anything at the time. He’d spread butter on it and sat at the table, eating it only because he now had to. Then Dean had come in, spotted the toast, and asked him who had made it. Cas said, “I did,”, and Dean didn’t say anything else. Just sat down opposite him and snagged a bite.
That had been the turning point. After that, there had been movies and cooking and driving fast and baths and fabric softener.
There were hunts as well, but those started to feel like the interim. Cas had started looking forward to getting back to the bunker to watch television with Dean or help Sam make sense of the Men of Letters cataloguing system. The first time he called the bunker home, Dean’s eyes had gone soft and he had clapped Cas on the shoulder, hand lingering long enough that even Cas knew it was excessive.
And here he sits, staring at his grace in his hand, and he thinks about home.
He tucks the bottle into the pocket of his jeans, and stands up, offering a hand to Dean.
“Let’s go home,” he says.
***
They stop on a dusty backroad right on the Kansas border, and Cas buries the bottle.
He hopes a tree will grow.
***
They watch old reruns of The X Files that night, and Cas is content. He dozes on Dean’s shoulder.
He wakes up the next morning, and realizes that he feels the same, even without the threat of Metatron or his grace or the other angels hanging over his head. He knows that when he killed Metatron, the spell was broken, and the angels were able to return to heaven. His brothers and sisters are reunited and back home. He doesn’t envy them, because he is home as well. He is happy for them.
***
Life continues much as it always has at the bunker, minus furious research sessions and frustrated silences on how to deal with Metatron.
Kevin teaches Cas how to play video games, and Cas is surprisingly good at them. He still can’t beat Kevin, but he can wipe the floor with Dean and Sam. However, Charlie comes over one day, and she obliterates all of them.
Cas likes Charlie a lot, and Charlie seems to return the sentiment.
“Yup. Definitely dreamy,” is the first thing she’d ever said to him. Dean had crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, but there was a definite smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Sometime in the fall, they drive up to the northeast coast. Dean and Sam want to show Cas what Maine looks like in October, and no one is disappointed. They pick apples and hike and Cas even manages to convince everyone to go on a hay ride.
Of course, the last time Dean and Cas had been in Maine, they hadn’t exactly had time to admire the scenery. There had been archangels to question and sexual frustration to misdirect.
It’s on the last day of the trip that Dean kisses Cas for the first time. They’re standing at the end of a dock, early morning, and the lake reflects all the reds and yellows and browns of the dying trees on its bank.
Cas says, “thank you, Dean,” and he might be saying it for the trip, but he thinks both he and Dean know that’s not the case.
Dean just says, “You stayed, and I’m not gonna thank you for that, because god I hope you didn’t make that decision without wanting it for yourself. But I’m fucking happy you did, Cas. So goddam happy.”
And then their mouths are meeting and Cas thinks he’s pretty goddam happy as well.
***
No one is surprised that it happened, except for Cas and Dean, apparently.
Sam seems relieved, like he’d been waiting for it for a long time, Kevin just rolls his eyes, and Charlie proclaims she knew all along.
They fall into routine easily. Cas thought it would be difficult, what with the two of them having less than normal pasts, but everything slots together seemingly. It’s almost unnerving.
***
Cas wakes up one morning with an itch. He scratches at it all day, but it refuses to go away.
***
He’s on the roof of the bunker one day, and he watches a bird leisurely fly by. Before he knows it, he’s on the edge of the roof and he’s so focused on the flight of the bird that he almost steps off completely, but he’s saved at the last minute by Dean roughly pulling him back with a terrified, “What the hell, man?”
Dean spins Cas around, captures him by putting one hand on either shoulder.
“Cas, what the hell were you doing? You weren’t- you didn’t- you weren’t going to…?”
Cas shakes his head as soon as he realizes what Dean means.
“Dean, I just got caught up watching the bird. It was foolish, I know.”
Dean pulls a hand off Cas’ shoulder only to put it over his eyes.
“Fuck, Cas,” he says, and yanks him into a hug.
Grounding him.
***
As time goes on, they start to argue.
Not about anything important, really, but there’s an undercurrent to their fights that always leaves Cas with a bad taste in his mouth. They can be arguing about a show, a hunt, the best way to cook a burger, but it always feels like they’re fighting about something else.
Sam tells him not to worry, that all couples fight. But when Cas tells Sam the next part, he goes suspiciously quiet.
“It’ll be fine, Cas,” Sam says, with something of a forced smile. He pads out of the room, and Cas sighs.
***
One night, Dean is playing some old record in the library, something from the mid- 50’s. As Cas walks by his chair, Dean grabs his hand, pulls him close, and suddenly they’re dancing.
Dean chuckles.
“You suck at dancing, dude.”
“Are you judging me on an objective level, or based off your own abilities? Because I think there’s a difference.”
“Fuck you. I’m a great dancer.” To prove his point, Dean drops Cas into a playful dip, and kisses him, languid, lingering, before pulling him back up.
Later on, Dean is back in his chair, and Cas drops a bottle of Advil into his lap.
“What’s this for?” Dean asks, picking up the bottle.
“I’m six feet tall, Dean. You can’t dip me without inevitably hurting yourself.”
Dean looks like he’s ready to argue, but Cas just raises an eyebrow at him until he shuts up and takes a couple pills.
“Fuck you,” Dean says for the second time that night, and Cas laughs.
Dean’s sore back doesn’t stop the great sex that night, that’s for sure.
***
Dean’s drinking one night, for one reason or another. Cas is fairly sure he can’t remember anymore.
Dean’s been pretty light on the alcohol lately, but tonight he’s sloppy and limbless, clinging to Cas like he’s the last thing on earth.
“L’ve you,” he slurs, words clumsy, and Cas sighs. It’s the first time either one of them has voiced the sentiment.
“I’m jus’ scared,” Dean continues, tightening his grip on Cas’ lapels. He’s breathing harshly into Cas’ neck, and smells like cheap whiskey, which meant he actually went through the trouble of going out and buying it, since the Men of Letters only ever kept the good stuff around. “Cause y’r gonna leave again. You always leave.”
Cas doesn’t answer, feels his jaw click shut tight. He doesn’t want to lie. There’s always a chance. He doesn’t say anything about the itch.
Dean, however, takes it as gospel in his drunken state. His hands come off Cas, and he stares hard, accusing, the alcohol clouding his eyes.
“Fuck you,” he says, and this time, it’s not a joke. “Why would you even- why did we start- fuck you, Cas.”
And he shoves Cas, but it’s the strength of the defeated inebriated, and Cas hardly stumbles.
They stare at each other for a moment, and then Dean’s hands are on his face and his mouth is crashing into Cas’, harsh and toothy and clashing.
“What do I have t’do?” he murmurs between kisses, voice fragmented and hoarse, “How do I get you to stay?”
Cas reciprocates at first because he wants to, and then because he doesn’t want to answer Dean’s questions. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that there’s nothing he can do.
Dean wraps his arms around Cas, like if he squeezes him tight enough, he won’t want to leave.
And it’s not Dean’s fault that Cas feels trapped in the cage of his arms. After all, Cas hugs back.
They remain like that for a long while, suspended in time, a moment stretched and distorted and desperate and bittersweet all at the same time. Eventually, Cas pulls away, kisses Dean on the forehead, and brings him to bed.
“Sleep,” he suggests, even though he doesn’t really have to, because Dean’s eyes are already closed. He pulls Dean’s boots off and leaves him a glass of water and their favorite bottle of pills on the nightstand. Once he’s sure Dean’s going to be as comfortable as possible for the rest of the night, Cas makes his way up to the roof.
He lays on the stone, feels the slight autumn breeze ruffle the edges of his shirt and the tips of his hair. It’s kind of like flying- as close as he can get, anyway.
It’s strange, because as an angel, he doesn’t remember feeling so claustrophobic. Cramped, maybe, but the feeling never made him want to pull his own skin off. Of course, as an angel, he always had the option of leaving. As a human, leaving means preparations. And funds. And a plan. Cas has none of these things.
As it is, he has Sam and Dean, and that’s supposed to be enough.
***
They try skydiving.
Dean almost wets his pants, Sam thinks it’s great, and Cas just feels a horrendous tug in chest that he identifies as grief. He tries to be enthusiastic afterwards, thanks Dean for his sacrifice and Sam for his participation, but he spends the rest of the day in a cloud of quiet, inner lamentation.
He lays on the roof again that night, but it does little to ease his agitation. There’s no breeze tonight, so he’s not even given the illusion of flight.
Skydiving was just more falling. Being up here is just more of the plateau.
He’s aware of the fact that trying to find a substitute for what he once was means he’ll never be able to fully acclimatize to humanity; to Dean. He’s also aware of the fact that the whole reason he’s in this position in the first place is because he loves Dean.
He doesn’t regret choosing to stay with Dean. He just regrets everything else.
***
It’s amazing, Cas thinks, just how much he enjoyed humanity when he expected it to be a short term commitment. There were bumps along the road, sure, but in the end, he counted it as a success.
A vacation, he’s pretty sure. That’s what he viewed it as. He’s been around humans long enough to know that many people vacation in places where they know they could never live. It’s for the experience, for the novelty. And then they go back to their old lives, discontented, but still unwilling to make any sort of permanent change.
Perhaps Cas is more like humans than he originally thought.
At the same time, he doesn’t exactly miss heaven, or even the majority of his brothers and sisters. He just misses… movement. He misses dimensions that can’t be perceived by humans on earth. He misses the appendages of his true form and the fluidity of his uncovered grace. Ironically, he had a kind of freedom as an angel that he’s not granted as a human. In an unwise decision, he voices that thought to Dean one night, who looks at him like he just suggested potatoes should be the new currency of the United States. He backpedals, sighs out a nevermind, and tries not to feel resentful. It’s not Dean’s fault that he doesn’t understand. There is absolutely no way Dean could comprehend something like that unless he’s experienced it.
Loathe as he is to admit it, Cas misses the ease of being an angel as well. Never having to question, always sure in his duty. Now, he’s faced with multiple choices every day, all ranging in importance, from, which color socks should I wear today, to, should I ever tell Dean any of this.
Choice is exhausting. Choice around people he cares about is even harder.
He had doubts as an angel- many of them manifesting after he met Dean. He has doubts as a human, but these ones come from a much more organic place, and that in itself is terrifying. He doesn’t believe in god anymore. Who does he turn to for absolution? Who will tell him which way is the correct way?
He goes to Sam about it, like he often does. He’s often of the mind that Dean will scoff… but that’s not the real reason. It’s what he tells Sam, what he tries to convince himself is the truth.
No, truthfully, Cas is afraid of hurting Dean again. Of course, he figures his lingering silences hurt as well, figures Dean can sense that he’s not happy.
Not for the first time, he’s had to choose the lesser of two evils.
Sam tries to be reasonable about it.
“You had doubts as an angel, Cas. It can’t be that different.”
“It is,” Cas insists, with no further explanation.
Sam runs his hand through his hair.
“This is gonna be invasive, but do you love Dean?”
“Yes,” Cas answers, like it’s not invasive at all.
“Well then you’ve got to push through,” Sam says, and his words are heavy, with years of experience to back them up. Cas knows about Amelia, knows that Sam loved her and lost her. Knows that she loved Sam and lost him as well. This is Sam telling him to learn from someone else’s mistakes.
“What if I can’t?” Cas asks, and he sees Sam internally wince. “What if Dean can’t?”
“You can,” Sam says, confident. “You will. You’ve been through too much not to make it.”
Maybe that’s the problem.
***
The closest, Cas thinks, is driving. All the windows down, going over a hundred. It’s only in the car that he can feel movement. Minute dips in the road; a pothole. Anything that can tell him he’s not stationary. He has this constant vibration under his skin- movement in itself, maybe, but only an enabler, not a solution. He taps fingers, staccato, on his denim clad knees. He clenches and unclenches his fists. He whistles. He talks to himself. He runs. He wiggles his toes. Anything at all so that he won’t be doing nothing.
Biologically, Cas can’t actually be doing nothing. There will always be a heart beating in his chest and blood running through his veins. But inherent bodily functions are different than conscious movement of choice. And because of that, Cas likes to run. When he runs, not only is he moving, but he can feel the blood pumping through him, can feel his heartbeat, hummingbird’s wings in his chest, on his neck, under the thin skin of his wrist.
He needs to move, because if he doesn’t, it will be too quiet.
Dean seems to understand that Cas is happiest when driving, because he often suggests day long trips, and even teaches Cas how to drive the Impala while he fusses with the music in the passenger’s seat. It’s all backroads and highways- any long stretch of asphalt, really. So long as they can go fast. So long as the road hasn’t been paved in the last ten years.
Sometimes Dean keeps the music off, and they listen to the roar of the engine and the whipping of the wind through the interior instead, and Cas feels it all, lets it fill him up like Dean always fills up the Impala with gas- eager, ready, greedy.
The highs lead to the lows, however. As they crunch down the driveway to the bunker, roll to a stop, engine still idling, car still rumbling, Cas will kiss Dean, desperate. Because he wants Dean to be enough. He hopes that this time- this time- Dean will be enough. Will be enough to keep the hollowness at bay, will be enough to lessen the fear that nothing will ever be enough.
But when their mouths part, when they’re both breathing hard and red faced with dilated pupils, hearts beating in tandem, Cas can feel it, the water being sucked away from the beach, and he knows, with a cold, cut clarity, that it’s not going to work, that as soon as he steps out of this car, he’s going to be swept away by the black again, by the crushing pressure of concrete above his head and below his feet and pushing in from all sides.
He feels his definition of ‘home’ shifting again. First was heaven, his brothers and sisters. Then, Sam and Dean and Kevin and Charlie and the bunker. But now, he’s thinking his true definition of home may be a much less permanent thing. Perhaps nonexistent.
Rolling hills and damp, mildewy forests. Sparkling blue oceans and white sandy beaches, coastal routes and sun bleached pavement. Deep canyons and crevices and ravines. Desolate deserts and rocky tundra. Plains and dips and hills and an unreachable horizon. So long as it’s never the same place.
These things are impossible to disappoint, grand and forever, and, most importantly, hold no claim over him. These things are nameless, are wonderful and without walls. Without obligation. Without binds. He is not tethered to these beautiful things. They are beautiful things that he can move between. Destinations on a journey that has none.
He’s not sure if that can be a home. He’s not sure if it wants to be, but he thinks it is, regardless.
***
“Are you happy?” Dean asks one night, seemingly out of the blue. They’re washing dishes in the kitchen by hand, Dean scrubbing and Cas drying. Dean puts down the plate he’s been trying to scrape lasagne off, leans forward over the sink, hands gripping the lip of the counter, staring at Cas. Cas continues to methodically dry the lasagne pan, probably with much more attention to detail than is needed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Dean nod, resigned. He stares into the sink for a moment, and then sighs.
“What can I do?” He asks, and Cas knows Dean would bring him the moon if he asked him to.
“Nothing,” Cas says, and because it sounds too curt, he adds, “I’m sorry.”
Dean scrubs a hand over his face, probably getting dish soap in his eyes, because they’re all watery.
“You made the wrong decision,” Dean says quietly, reserved. “Or you made the right decision for the wrong reasons, whatever. I don’t know.”
Cas thinks about the cold little bottle lying buried under a state line not too far from them.
“I’m not sure,” is all he can think to say. He finishes drying the pan, looking to Dean expectantly. Dean starts to wash again, and they’re silent for the rest of the night.
***
Cas doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.
He doesn’t know if he misses being an angel, if he misses faith, or prayer, or power. It was so easy, as an angel, being righteous. Now he’s fairly certain he knows how Dean felt about being the righteous man. Lost, confused. Horrendously uncertain.
Not that he hasn’t been the victim of these feelings before. But now it feels less like he’s on a clearly marked, recently paved highway, more like trawling down some backcountry pothole riddled mess of a road.
He doesn’t know when his life became so dominated by maps that he couldn’t decipher.
***
Cas stayed.
He’s not bitter about it, except for when he is.
He doesn’t blame Dean for it, except for when he does.
He blames himself for falling in love with Dean more than anything, however.
It was a spur of the moment decision made in (directly after) the heat of battle, and had Castiel been more pragmatic about the situation (which had never been a problem before this) the ‘happily ever after’ that various movies and fairy tales had promised him may have been more, well, happy.
But the thing of it was- is –that Castiel has discovered loving someone often rearranges priorities and practicalities surprisingly deftly. On a daily basis, he’s uncomfortably reminded of all he’s given up for Dean- of what he’s given up, of who. The enormity of what he’s willing to do for Dean is a frightening thing.
And yet there are days when Cas can’t imagine anything else. He wakes up, Dean warm at his side, warmer in his thoughts, and he understands contentedness more completely than he ever realized it could be felt. Sometimes Dean will look at him, and that’s all it takes for Cas to remember why he stayed in the first place.
***
“You know,” Sam says casually, one afternoon when Dean’s out on a grocery run and Kevin is dead to the world in his bedroom, “I haven’t seen many couples with more abandonment issues than you and Dean.”
They’re in the library, sitting across from each other, doing nothing important. Cas taps a finger on the table, wiggles his toes in his shoes.
“With good reason,” Cas replies, monotone. Reasonable.
“But the point of actually being in a relationship now,” Sam stresses, “is that you’re supposed to work on these issues.”
Cas doesn’t feel like explaining there’s no point in working on issues that are still ongoing.
“Dean and I- mostly I- have a bad habit of breaking any sort of trust built up between us,” he explains, even though Sam definitely doesn’t need any kind of explanation. He knows, has had to deal with the mess Cas has left behind more than once.
“Well then stop it,” Sam says simply. “Because I can see, like, these weird little moments you two have. You catch each other’s eye and it’s like there’s no one else in the entire world. Like no one else exists. And you know what? Frankly, it’s gross. But you both just emanate this ridiculous fucking joy for hours afterwards, and I refuse to believe that you can’t work it out,” Sam has a hand out now, flinging it around for emphasis, like he’s finally going to level with him, “Cas, dude. You pulled my brother out of hell. You’ve come back from the dead, and against all the fucking odds, you two have found each other again. We may not deal in fate anymore, but I’m pretty sure there’s someone, somewhere, with a lot of tenure, rooting for you two.”
Cas is quiet, but nods his acknowledgement.
“Thank you, Sam.”
Sam half rolls his eyes.
“Just- I have faith in you guys, and I don’t have faith in a lot of things anymore, okay?”
“Okay.”
Sam goes back to his book, and Cas mulls over his advice. Really, it’s something that he could have figured out for himself, but he’s found, since becoming human, that sometimes the best course of action is having someone else put even the most obvious things in perspective for him. Someone astride the situation, maybe, but not directly involved in it. Sam’s advice, while not always followed, has been welcomed.
Dean comes home about an hour later, brown paper bag filled with groceries in each arm. There’s potato chips sticking out the top of one and carrots sticking out of the other, and he almost drops the both of them when Cas leans in between the two to kiss him, full on the mouth.
“Hello you to you, too,” Dean says with a quirked brow, and Cas can hear the real confusion under the greeting.
Cas says nothing, just relieves Dean of one of the bags and heads to the kitchen. He plops the bag on the table, and then he’s pulling out onions and potatoes and broccoli, Pringles and fruit roll ups and Dunkaroos. An amalgamation of a life on the road, a childhood never lived, a warm and cozy hole in the ground.
“I was thinking stew for dinner tonight,” Dean suggests, leaving the groceries for a moment to dig through the cupboards for their slow cooker, “You know, hearty, beefy, mustachioed stew. All American stew.”
“Sounds good,” Cas decides, “Though preferably without the facial hair.”
Dean locates the slow cooker and yanks it out from under the counter with a clang. He straightens up and puts it on the stove, throwing a grin over his shoulder at Cas.
“If you insist. It really adds a certain je ne sais quoi, though.”
Cas hums, pulling the last of the groceries out of the bag.
“I’m sure the burn on your inner thighs can recall that I can grow facial hair well enough on my own, thank you.”
Dean’s about to answer when Sam’s quickly receding voice echoes from the hallway.
“Ah, fuck you guys. You’re making dinner on your own tonight.”
Dean leans against the counter, snorts laughter.
“We need to make a rule. No more beard burn talk in the kitchen.”
“No more beard burn talk when Sam is in earshot,” Cas amends.
“So does that mean you want to talk about it more?” Dean asks, smirking.
“I fear no dinner will ever be made if we continue down that path,” Cas admits, taking a step toward Dean, who reaches out and pulls Cas in by the belt loops of his jeans.
“Yeah?” Dean challenges, hands threading under his shirt, pads of his thumbs skimming over Cas’ hip bones.
Cas has his hands on either side of Dean, gripping the counter, crowding him in. He leans in, slots his mouth against Dean’s, warm.
It hits him, mid-kiss, that there is no itch. This scene; putting groceries away, discussing dinner, the banter, it’s all so incredibly, predictably domestic. Comfortable, which never used to be a word in Cas’ vocabulary.
This is exactly the kind of thing that should send Cas reeling. Exactly the kind of thing that should make his blood run cold and his hands shake, because there’s a possibility that this is it for him. That for the rest of his life, he’ll be putting groceries away and cooking dinner and sleeping. Comfortable.
But he’s not freaking out. He’s reveling.
Dean’s kissing him through a smile, obviously more than glad Cas is having a good day.
For the record, the stew gets made. It’s just a late supper.
Cas wakes up in the middle of the night, and he’d like to blame the stew for it, but he hardly ate any. He feels empty again, hollow. He’d like to blame the lack of stew for that, but he thinks it’s less than half the problem.
He thinks of spending time with Dean this afternoon, cutting vegetables side by side, occasionally trading playful elbow jabs, but under the cover of night, he aches for the ability to fly somewhere, anywhere, where the sun is waiting for him.
As it is, he spends the rest of the night on the roof, and waits eagerly for the sun to rise.
***
It was ‘the power of love’ that saved them, Dean likes to joke. The kiss that set the world on fire, he once said with a wry twist of the mouth. Or, he had amended, the kiss that put it out.
When Cas pointed out that their relationship had little to do with their defeating Metatron, Dean had just rolled his eyes and told Cas to go hang out on tvtropes for a couple hours.
Dean jokes a lot, jokes about things that maybe shouldn’t be joked about. Sam calls it being politically incorrect. Cas realizes now, that maybe some part of Dean, whether it be the majority of him or not, had doubts from the beginning, and these jibes were just their way of manifesting.
Cas came into this fairly naïve on what a relationship entails. Dean came into it hard and jaded. Opposites attract, Cas has heard, but he’s also heard that like attracts like. He and Dean are both opposite and alike, and maybe that’s why they’ve found themselves in this barren tundra of a middle ground, where neither one of them can find their footing and they’re always cold.
Maybe Cas’ early assessment that all this was just so easy needs a little reforming.
Maybe they have too much history. Maybe they’ve scarred each other- literally or not- too many times to pursue this any further. Maybe they should just cut their losses and part ways right now. (Cas doubts that will happen, if only because they have quite a track record of not being able to stay separated for long.)
Cas pulls when Dean pulls, and Dean pushes when Cas pushes. They’ve always been in the same story, but never on the same page. Maybe, within the confines of this tale, that’s why they’re always able to find each other again, against all odds. Maybe, unlike Sam’s theory, there’s no outside force governing their reunions- after all, they both stopped believing in fate and god a long time ago, Dean because he wanted to, because disillusionment is a painful thing, because he learned how to write his own story, Cas, because he couldn’t stand the disappointment anymore, because he found other, more tangible things to believe in.
Cas could probably write a manifesto on why he and Dean shouldn’t be together. A million reasons with sub reasons and sub sub reasons.
And yet.
And yet.
They are.
Most of the time, there’s a vague sort of disquiet that plagues Cas, a trickle of uncertainty that brings him down.
But some of the time, (usually when he’s accompanied by Dean), he’ll forget that the discomfort even exists. Dean will say something, do something- namely, he’ll be himself. And that will make things easier.
Or, Cas will see a dog playing fetch, hear a street performer playing the guitar, take a bite of something that makes his taste buds sing. Carnivals, autumn, hikes, bbqs, oversized sweaters. It all chips away at the sadness, like a stonemason carving their masterpiece, like maybe this cloud he’s been walking around in for months is nothing more than a shell that needs to be peeled away.
He’s interested, if not apprehensive, at what the finished model will look like. He’s always likened himself to stone, anyway.
***
One night, long after the rest of the bunker is asleep, Cas goes rooting around the storage rooms for a suitcase, just in case.
He finally finds one, an old, beaten up thing. He opens it up, and it’s empty, like it’s been waiting for him. It smells musty, aged, like its best before date has come and gone. He sits in front of it for a straight hour, knees pulled up to his chin and arms wrapped around himself, staring.
He thinks about what he’d put in it- clothes, money, a gun. A toothbrush, a cell phone. What any runaway worth their salt would.
And then he realizes that he’s casting around for something of Dean’s to take with him. Mentally going through a checklist of Dean’s belongings, what he would and wouldn’t miss. Something he could take that wouldn’t be “creepy as shit, jesus, Cas”. Something he could hold on the nights he didn’t have anything else to hold. The nights he knows he’ll miss what he has here.
Cas shuts the suitcase and locks it quietly, sliding it back across the room to the corner it came from.
He pads down the multiple hallways back to the room he and Dean share, slides under the covers, buries his nose at the back of Dean’s neck. Dean, half asleep, casts an arm back, searching out Cas’ hand. When he finds it, he pulls it over himself, a blanket.
“Y’re freezin’, Cas,” he mumbles, scooting backwards into Cas’ space regardless. “You go to the fuckin’ north pole or sm’thin?”
Cas doesn’t say anything, just presses his lips to the back of Dean’s neck.
“Go back to sleep, Dean,” he says quietly. Then, after Dean’s breath has evened out, asleep again, “I love you.”
***
Cas wakes up the next morning to Dean barging into the room, breakfast tray in hand. There’s a giant, steaming mug of coffee, eggs, bacon, toast, hash browns, pancakes, an incredible assortment of food all around. Cas even spies some fruit hidden under the bacon.
Cas just raises an eyebrow, hopefully conveying the question without actually having to ask it.
Dean places the tray across Cas’ lap with a worrying rattle of dishes, and sits down next to him, bed dipping with his weight. Cas watches his orange juice succumb to gravity and lean towards Dean. Dean kisses him, hand in his hair, and he looks half-worried, half in love.
“I just want you to have a good day today,” he says quietly.
Cas picks up a strip of bacon, eyes it carefully before taking a bite. He holds it out to Dean, who also takes a bite.
“I think I will,” he says.
And he does.