Chapter Text
The sky is overcast but the air is hot, the humidity clinging to Dean’s skin in a sheen of sweat.
It’s doing the same to Cas. Dean can see the sleeves of his t-shirt sticking to the shape of his arms, the curls where the back of his hair has gotten too long plastered to his neck and his forehead and his temples. And he keeps—he’s messing with it. Pushing it back like it bothers him, distracted restless movements, a quick swipe of his hand.
Dean’s not really thinking when he speaks. When he says, “I could trim it for you.”
Cas looks up. He’s sitting on a low stool beneath their tent, knitting to pass the time between customers. Dean’s not sure what he’s making. A hat, maybe? He gets too distracted watching him do it. Gets too caught up by the sure movements of his hands.
“Trim what?” Cas asks, and his hands come to rest in his lap, taking the bundle of yarn and needles with them.
“Your…” Dean’s own hands twitch like he’s gonna touch, but he stops them. Shoves them into his pockets. “Your hair. Looks like it’s bothering you.”
Cas’s solemn confusion slips into a smile. “I didn’t know you could do that,” he says. “Cut hair.”
“Oh, sure, well.” Dean shrugs. Dean looks away from the soft interrogation of Cas’s gaze. It’s been like that since Sam went home: Dean walking around like a nervous kid, and Cas staring at him as if he can see his heart beating beneath his skin. “I mean I cut my own, and I always cut Sammy’s too, when we were kids. He didn’t like John to do it, ‘cuz John always just buzzed it all away.”
“But you didn’t,” Cas says quietly.
“Well, no,” Dean says. He shrugs again. “I didn’t.”
He thinks about the fights they used to get into, Sam yelling every time John came toward him with the razor, stomping his feet and carrying on and. And John’s big hand on the back of Sammy’s little neck. Holding him still even while he was crying. Holding him still and getting so mad that by the time it was Dean’s turn John wasn’t careful anymore, and shaved Dean’s hair in jagged, uneven lines, his fingers digging into Dean’s jaw, all his harsh words directed down at him.
Dean still cuts his own with a razor, and he thinks of his father every time he does it. The loud tinny roar of the little motor, and a louder voice.
“I’d like that,” Cas says, leading Dean out of the tangle of his own thoughts. “Thank you, Dean.”
“No problem,” Dean says. He can feel Cas looking, and looking. And god, it’s hot out here, the air sitting heavy in Dean’s lungs. “We’ll do it when we get home.”
*
He sits Cas down in a chair on the back porch, with a bedsheet tied around his shoulders so he doesn’t get hair clippings all over his clothes.
Jack’s running around the backyard as the sun sets. His knees are dirty and grass-stained already, but Dean knows he’ll tire himself out doing this, and won’t protest too much when Dean makes him take a bath before bed. Dean’ll throw these clothes in the wash, but he makes a mental note to take Jack and Cas shopping sometime soon—the three of them can’t all wear the same wardrobe until the end of time, even if the thought makes Dean feel bizarrely soft and protective to think about.
He turns back to Cas, who is looking at him like he knows the thoughts running through Dean’s head. Maybe he does.
“Alright,” Dean says, cutting his eyes down to the scissors in his hands. He wipes them on the edge of his t-shirt just for something to do, and then crosses to stand before Cas. He smiles at him, as confident as he can manage, and tries not to let the weight of Cas’s regard light the heart in Dean’s chest up supernova. “You sure about this, buddy?”
Dean thinks this was probably a bad idea. He’s gonna have his hands in Cas’s hair, in the soft darkness of it, at his temples at the nape of his neck—places Dean has only touched in times of desperation. Purgatory, and in death, and in agonized reunion. When he almost killed him. When he kissed him.
Cas says, “I trust you.”
The words sink in like blade, soft and solid through layers of tissue. Dean’s breath wavers. Dean nods.
“Ok,” he says, gruff. “But don’t blame me if you come out lookin’ like your hair lost a fight with a lawn mower.”
Cas rolls his eyes magnanimously. He is leaned back in his chair like he has nothing to worry about, his broad shoulders relaxed, his chin tilted up so he can meet Dean’s gaze. And he smiles a little at Dean, a lilting tease.
It’s nice to be trusted by Cas for something like this. Not to stop a war and not to save the world—just to cut his hair. Just to put his hands on the bare tender parts of his neck.
Dean moves around to the back of Cas’s chair. He looks at the way Cas’s hair curls against his neck like ferns, the way it brushes his collar, and he runs his fingers through those curls, tugging gently so they stretch out straight. And then he cuts.
Cas’s hair is warm from his skin, from the sun. It’s soft, too: Dean knows he uses the shampoo and conditioner Dean keeps in the shower, the real good handmade stuff Dean gets from the market, and on Cas it smells like sun warmed honey.
As he snips, he releases the tufts of Cas’s hair into the wind, letting them flutter down to the yard where they’ll be blown down into the fields or picked up by intrepid birds, wound into the weaves of their nests. Dean likes that idea. A cast off part of Cas, a way for him to take care of God’s littlest creatures even though he’s no longer an angel. Giving them a home.
The back of Cas’s neck is pale. The sun hasn’t been able to reach this skin. Dean wants to kiss him there. Kiss him, and kiss him, his bright human skin.
“Mmm,” Cas hums out, low.
Oh, god. The weight of Cas’s head in Dean’s palms.
“That feel good?” Dean asks, his throat dry.
“Yes,” says Cas quietly. Dean can see a sliver of his face from this angle, see his eyes closed against cheeks that are pinker than usual as Dean sifts his fingers through graying curls. “You have very careful hands.”
And he—and the thing is that Dean doesn’t. They are big and heavy and punishing. They break. They’ve broken Cas before, beat him until his blood seeped down into Dean’s cuticles and stained them rusty. They shake when he’s hurting. They hurt things when he’s not, and when he wants to not be.
But Cas says it like a fact. Like there’s no question.
Dean can’t answer. But he makes sure that his touch is easy, that he doesn’t leave Cas’s head shorn and exposed. That that little smile stays on Cas’s face, ghosting there in the lines at the corners of his mouth.
Mary used to cut John’s hair. Dean remembers it. The snick of the scissors. The way she’d tilt his head down with her small palms to get at the back. And Dean, watching from the lip of the bathtub. Watching the image of them, the tableau, in fluorescent bathroom lighting.
Dean touches Cas’s temple with three fingers, tipping his head slightly toward his shoulder.
“It still strikes me, sometimes,” Cas murmurs eventually.
Jack’s laying out in the middle of the yard now and the dying rays of sun illuminate him. Little golden boy, his chest rising and falling rhythmically as he catches his breath. Looking at him makes Dean wanna cry in a sweet kinda way.
“What does?” he asks Cas, knowing that he’s smiling now, too.
Cas’s eyes are still closed. Dean has guided his head back up straight, and Cas has let him. “How gentle you are.”
Dean’s hands go still on the slope of Cas’s neck, right in that warm spot where it meets his shoulders. He sets the scissors down. He brushes through the tangle he sees above Cas’s left ear, the hair so much blunter and shorter now that he’s trimmed it, and his heart is beating, and Cas trusts him. God help him, he does.
“Cas,” he rasps. He thinks about the dream he had. Cas’s throat under his hands. And he thinks about crushing his face in beneath his fists, and nearly stabbing him when he had the Mark, and stabbing him when they met, and he—and he thinks about you’re dead to me, and watching him walk away, over and over and over again. And he thinks about loving him. Like a weapon.
The sun is red in the sky.
“That ain’t true,” he gets out.
Cas turns around in his chair. Dean’s hands fall away.
Cas is looking at him in that way he does, eyes deep and dusky. He looks handsome with his hair shorter, but then, he always does. Always looks like a goddamn dream.
He reaches up and he touches the place beneath Dean’s shirt where the vial of his grace rests—so close to touching Dean himself, but not quite. Not quite.
“I wouldn’t have trusted just anyone with this,” Cas says.
Cas’s hand is big hovering over Dean’s sternum like that. Tan from helping Dean out in the garden and sitting outside reading during the hot part of the morning when the sun is blazing the dew away, and broad, and steady. Careful, like he’d said of Dean. Gentle.
Dean wants—sometimes all Dean wants is to have those hands on him. In his hair maybe, against his cheeks, or his shoulders, or his thighs. Bearing down on him. Touching him tender, or pressing and pressing and squeezing until Dean’s skin bruises with it. He wants Cas to pummel him like beating the air out of dough. He wants Cas to mold him into something smooth and soft and small that he can keep with him always, down in the cracks and crevices of his palms.
“Dean,” Cas says again, startling Dean’s eyes back up to his. “My—Dean. Can I talk to you later? After Jack has gone to bed?”
Cas’s hand is gone, back to resting in his lap. And Dean’s heart rate is up again. Jesus, Cas is gonna send him to an earlier grave than the one he’s already destined for.
“Yeah,” he says. “Um. Why? Nothing… bad?”
“No,” Cas says immediately. Dean knows he’s not lying, because Cas isn’t the sort of man to lie. And because even now he’s smiling at Dean. “Nothing bad.”
“Ok,” Dean says again. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the strands of Cas’s snipped hair blowing across their yard, but in front of him, Cas sits as broad and solid and real as he has ever been. “Ok.”
*
Cas said nothing bad, but Dean’s nervous all through the rest of the evening anyway. He picks at his dinner and pretends to eat his green beans when Jack is looking because when it comes to that specific vegetable where you give the kid an inch he takes a mile. He’s glad when Jack asks for Cas to help him get ready to sleep that night. He’s too in his head right now.
Dean goes and sits on the front porch steps to wait for Castiel. His hands in his lap, and the farm around him hazy purple, and the fireflies pulsing in and out of existence in front of him, too quick to really focus on, just bright spots of gold.
He wonders what Cas wants to talk to him about. It ain’t bad, can’t be, Cas wouldn’t… wouldn’t string him along like this. But then what? What’s so important that he’d hafta wait until the end of the day? Cas isn’t exactly a subtle guy, it’s not like he’s known for his overwhelming tact; if he’s gotta say something, most of the time he just says it. So what could—
Dean stops himself before he spirals. Stops, and breathes.
Whatever it is, well. Dean figures they’ll be alright. They can work through it. They’ve worked through God and through the devil, through the end of the world and through death and resurrection and death again. They’ve worked through fire and fighting and betrayal. They’ve worked through a kiss.
They have a life together—a damn good one. A home, and a kid. Fuckin’ pets. Maybe Dean has abandonment issues out his ass, and maybe they’re still not good at communicating, but they’ll be alright. They will. They will.
It doesn’t matter that Cas isn’t in love with him. Dean would rather be single forever than lose this thing he and Cas have. It’s so special to him. It’s more than he ever thought he’d get. And he’s not about to be ungrateful.
*
Cas comes through the front door quietly, and settles himself on the steps next to Dean, just a half a foot away.
It’s like electricity, like a summer storm, how very tangible the distance between them has always felt to Dean. He could measure it now without so much as looking, and has always been able to, ever since that very first day. Cas was a shooting star blowing into that barn, and Dean could feel the heat of him.
But it’s less tumultuous now. Now it’s just Cas and Dean, and the ache of how much Dean misses him even though he’s sitting right there.
“Hey there,” Dean says after a minute.
He’s staring down at his own knees, the denim thin and faded over the knobby bone, because to look at Cas would be to confess something. And Dean has done more than enough of that lately. So he isn’t looking at Cas, he isn’t looking—but he hears him.
Hears the shiver of Cas’s breath in his throat. The way it stutters, nervous. Like Dean is.
Dean whips his head up a beat too late, misses the avid blaze of Cas’s blue eyes on the side of his face. Sees instead the way he gazes out over the front yard, his chin at an angle. Sees the resolve in the set of his jaw, and the apprehensiveness in the line of his mouth.
It’s so unexpected that Dean’s own nerves melt away. “Cas,” he says, and this he can do. He knows how to comfort someone he loves. “Hey, what’s wrong man?”
“Dean, I…” he looks at Dean again, and. Oh, god. His eyes are wet like they were before he—and he’s smiling, but there’s something else there. Soft, he says, “I’ve been so foolish.”
It’s so far from where Dean thought any of this might be going that he’s stunned into silence for a moment, just staring at the curve of Cas’s waterline.
His words come back to him. “What do you mean?” Dean wants to touch him, comfort him somehow: he presses his knee to Cas’s. Gives him something to lean on. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Cas, I bet you didn’t do anything wrong.”
Cas’s eyebrows are arched all soft at him where he looks at Dean, his arms circling his legs and clasped at the wrist. They only have the porch light out here to illuminate them, and Cas wears that half-light well. He’s dreamlike here after dusk. Dean might not think he was real if he wasn’t touching him.
“Maybe not… wrong,” Cas says, quiet. “I’ve had good intentions. But I’ve been trying so hard not to hurt you that I’m afraid I just hurt you more.”
Dean wants to say you haven’t, you’ve never hurt me, but that wouldn’t be true—’course he has. They’ve hurt each other, over and over, in big ways and small. So he just says, “Cas,” breathless, wishing he could—wanting to crawl into the circle his arms make. Wanting to hold onto him.
“I didn’t think,” says Cas, his voice falling into a whisper and his eyes so wide, “that you could love me back the way I love you. And I had made my peace with that long before my deal, as much as I could. I didn’t think loving you was selfish, because you deserve more love than this whole world has to offer—but wanting you back was. And when I confessed, and when the Empty rose up to take me, I mourned being on this earth to love you longer, but I did not think there was any possibility that you loved me in that way, too. That you ever could.”
Dean can’t breathe.
His chest aches, and aches, and his heart is racing, and he can barely hear Cas over the rush of blood in his ears. He can barely—he can’t—“Cas,” he says, or he thinks he does, hands shaking too hard to reach out to him. “Cas—”
“When you kissed me—” Cas’s voice is shaking. There are tears in his eyes, and he said that he loved Dean, and. And. “I thought you were just giving me what I so clearly wanted. You’re so sweet, Dean, you are so kind, and I thought you were sacrificing your own happiness to make me happy in return. And that is the last thing I want. I would be perfectly happy to live out the rest of my days with you as the best friend I have ever had, and nothing more, as long as that is the part of yourself you wish to give to me. I thought I was doing the right thing by rebuking you. Believe me, Dean, I did.”
Dean can feel that his own cheeks are wet, and each breath he takes rips hot through his lungs. He feels miles behind where Cas is, feels like he’s sprinting to catch up. Feels like he’s gonna dissolve into a hot puff of dust.
“But then you came out to me. And things began to fall into place. I don’t want to force an answer upon you, Dean, I don’t want to…” Cas stops. Stops, his eyes trained on Dean’s face like he can’t look away, and shakes his head helplessly. “Dean, I love you. More than I have words for. I have for a decade, and I’ll continue until I die, and that will remain unchanged no matter what. I know I said it once, but you didn’t get the chance to answer. If nothing else, I wanted to give you that chance.”
Dean is raw all over.
The words are stuck in his chest, tangled up incomprehensible like they were the first time Cas said he loved him—Jesus Christ, Cas loves him—but he has to speak. He has to say something, has to say it back, because that’s where he fucked up last time, isn’t it? He was too late. He was too quiet. He was stunned into himself, his words stolen along with his air.
Dean is crying, he realizes, too hard to really see Cas. He presses his palms to his eyes, bends his head. Breathes ragged into his own hands. Speak, he thinks, speak. I love you. I love you—
“Cas,” he gasps.
And Cas’s hand falls gentle and tender to the nape of Dean’s neck. Dean lets himself be pulled in.
The cradle of Cas’s neck and shoulder is warm and safe and soft. Cas’s skin is pressed against Dean’s cheek, Dean’s mouth, Dean’s weeping eyes; Cas loves him. He does. He loves him, the only real miracle on this godforsaken earth, and he’s holding Dean so tightly that Dean thinks they might meld into each other like liquid glass, make some permanent and winding and brilliant shape.
“I love you too,” Dean whispers. He feels Cas’s whole body hitch when he breathes in at that, so he kisses the slope of his neck. So he locks his hands tight at the small of Cas’s back, body angled strangely on the steps, the whole world surrounding them. “I thought you… I couldn’t say it at first. And then you came back and I thought you were mad, and then I thought you meant it like family maybe, like you love Sam or Eileen, and…”
He stops. It doesn’t matter what he thought. He was wrong, and Cas was wrong. Cas loves him.
And Dean loves him back.
“I’m sorry,” Cas murmurs, running his hand through the hair at the back of Dean’s head.
“No—” Dean pulls back just enough to see Cas looking down at him with what Dean knows is love now, unwavering and overwhelming, but not enough to dislodge Cas’s hold on any part of him. “Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. I know now.”
Cas is gazing at him like he can see straight on through to Dean’s soul. All that fervent concentration, those dark eyelashes and the soft flush on his cheekbones.
He’s so beautiful. He is Dean’s love.
“I’ll tell you every day to make up for it,” Castiel says. His voice is low and round like this, a gift he’s giving Dean. He is wiping Dean’s tears away with the pad of his thumb, and Dean’s never been touched this way before. Gently just to be gentle. “Forever, if you’ll let me.”
This love in Dean is so large that it nearly feels like grief. He’s split open with it. He’s something small and fragile and bursting, like the soft spot in a peach.
He says, “Cas,” again, his confession, the only word he knows. And he’s trembling down to the tips of his fingers. Fingers that Cas said were careful, gentle. Fingers that Cas loves. And he tips his head up, and he finds Cas’s mouth with his, and he kisses him.
Cas hums into Dean’s touch, sweet and so pleased that Dean feels his whole body flush from the knowledge that he’s the one Cas is pleased with, out here in the velvet-bruise dark. He’s the one bundled up in Cas’s strong, heavy arms, and he’s the one who Cas is kissing, slow and lingering. Because Cas wants to. Because Cas loves him.
Cas’s stubble is rough against Dean’s face, his hand pressing so hard to the back of Dean’s neck that Dean can feel every finger.
Dean wants to crawl into his lap. Dean wants to slip inside that shirt he’s wearing and be all up against his skin, feel every inch of him. He wants to live inside his heartbeat. Wants to make a nest between his ribs.
He’s breathing too hard, and maybe Cas can feel it. But that’s ok, because when he pulls back he nuzzles his nose against Dean’s temple, his hairline, and he’s panting too.
The peepers down in the lake are singing, and the wind whispers through the trees.
“I’m so glad you came here, Cas,” Dean says, quiet, eyes shut as Cas settles with his mouth against Dean’s cheek.
He can hear Cas’s heart beating, steady and reassuring like the resonant beat of a drum.
“You are my home,” Cas says simply. “Of course I returned to you.”
“God,” Dean chokes. He’s holding Cas’s shirt in tight fists, not even trying to let go. Not even trying to do anything other than cling to him. “You romantic fucker.”
Cas laughs. It’s quiet, too, but joyous in a way that Dean’s body echoes to the bone.
Dean doesn’t know how long they sit there like that, just that his back and his bad knee are starting to ache by the time he blinks his eyes open again. His eyes aren’t used to the dark anymore and the porch light barely touches the two of them, so Cas is just a familiar shape in his arms. Dean smiles at him anyway. Tips his head up to kiss along the edge of his jaw, heart fluttering like a bird because he’s allowed to do that now. Allowed to touch him without guilt. To love him without shame.
“Wanna go inside, sweetheart?” he murmurs.
“Yes,” Cas says. Squeezes Dean’s waist once more, the nape of his neck. “I do.”