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Dean never picks up guys in bars—that’s rule number one.
In the sort of backwater, rural bars he and Sam often find themselves wandering into, trying to pick up a guy is asking for a fight. Hell, trying to pick up a woman in one of those bars can mean risking your neck if you didn’t see her red-faced and overly-muscled brother or boyfriend. He may be a high school dropout, but he’s not an idiot.
He doesn’t mess around with guys he meets on a case, either. In his line of work, attachments are dangerous and he just doesn’t have the time to deal with someone who wants to bond over a near-death experience. They might say they just want to fuck, but it always ends with Dean answering a million questions and driving back to the motel with blue balls.
He also doesn’t pay for sex—from either men or women. Too many rough back alley blowjobs that left him hoarse and bruised have turned him off the whole system, though he does try to hand a little cash to working girls when he sees one. If he can spare her one of those johns who just wants to fuck her and fuck her up and leave her, he’ll do it.
Other hunters are out, too. John Winchester may be a contender for worst father ever but occasionally he gave some halfway decent advice. He was right about always carrying extra holy water and he was doubly right when he said “you don’t shit where you eat.” Plus, most of them—the ones that survive anyway—are more like a network of crazy uncles and cousins than a potential dating pool. The green ones, the ones who aren’t cut out for the work—well, they’re not even worth the effort.
He has these rules for damn good reasons, but on nights like tonight, he really wishes they didn’t eliminate just about every good-looking man he’s bound to meet.
Dean never picks up guys in bars—but if the man on the end didn’t stop staring at him with a hungry look in his eyes and a flirtatious smile turning up one corner of his mouth, Dean might have to change his rules.
Or at least amend this one: No picking up guys in bars, unless you are for once in your goddamned life in a city where you won’t get shot for kissing another man.
There. That’s workable. Especially since this man’s big blue eyes aren’t quite the right shade, but in the dim light, they’re not that far off. His hair’s too long, too, but Dean can pretend—it wouldn’t be the first time.
Dean makes up his mind and takes a long, final drag of his cigarette before putting it out in the ashtray at his elbow. He leaves the crooked tombstone behind, but grabs his beer and pushes slowly, but steadily, through the crowd.
There’s a football game on the TV and they’re three-deep at the bar—the game must be important, but when you live on the road, you give up trying to keep up with those sorts of things. Football games and award shows and back-to-school sales all mark changing seasons, and when your job only cares whether or not there’s a full moon out, you gotta let those markers slip away. Otherwise, you’ll realize a whole nother year has gone by, and you’re in the same place you were before. Maybe you have a few extra scars and maybe a few more of your friends are dead, but you aren’t any different.
“Hey,” Dean says, leaning in close to the man. He’s taller than Dean, but a lot younger than he looked across the bar. Dean scowls. He’s not looking for someone ‘experimenting’ tonight; he needs someone who will take him out of his head for a few hours. Maybe if this one doesn’t pan out, he’ll try for the leggy brunette hustling the pocket change off a flock of frat boys in the corner. She certainly knows her way around a pool cue.
Dean smirks at his own innuendo, but hides it behind a swallow of beer.
“Hey,” the guy replies, his voice smooth and high, despite his best attempt to sound sultry.
Dean tries not to frown too much. The voice, so different than the one he expected, than the one he wanted, jars his senses.
“You wanna get out of here?” the young man asks, his long slender fingers caressing his beer bottle in an obvious suggestion. If Dean were ten years younger, the blatant display would’ve had him throwing the man over his shoulder caveman style and running out the door. Now, thirty-six and world-weary, he just wants to laugh at the boy.
He looks over at the brunette. She’s smiling genuinely and leaning her ass into the crotch of guy who doesn’t look too different from Dean—a little blue-collar and rough around the edges. He’s laughing with her and Dean figures that chance is blown.
Dean turns back to the man to see him frowning.
“I said—”
“Nah, I think I’ll pass,” Dean says, cutting him off, “I think you’re a bit young for me.” Some quick mental math tells Dean it’s not impossible for him to be old enough to be the kid’s dad.
“I’m legal!” He says indignantly and Dean rolls his eyes as he habitually pats down his pockets. Keys—check. Wallet—check. Cigarettes—check. Pocket knife, small vial of holy water, gun with silver bullets—check, check, check.
The young man scoffs as Dean waves goodbye, but he can’t muster up enough empathy to give a shit about a put out eighteen-year-old with a fake ID and daddy’s platinum AMEX. He does however count the cash he relieved the kid of—a couple hundred, not bad—before tucking into a hidden pocket in his coat. He can’t make it too easy if the kid realizes the money’s gone before Dean is.
He’s in the parking lot when something like guilt washes over him. He can see those blue eyes—big, round and wrong—when he closes his eyes and the cash burns where it lays against his chest.
This is why he has rules. This is why he can’t change them for blue eyes and dark hair and a man who actually wants him.
Dean pulls out of the parking lot before the man knows what hit him, and heads toward the cheap motel on the edge of town. Sam’s waiting—probably asleep by now—with their duffels packed and salt rounds reloaded. They’ll head back to the bunker in the morning. They’ll find another case and hit the road again. Maybe they’ll need some angelic assistance, but Dean never knows if that means he’s lucky or unlucky.
Angels—or really, one newly-repowered angel in particular—make Dean anxious. He jiggles his left leg involuntarily at a stop light and taps on the dashboard. He pulls another cigarette from his pack and lights it, his wrists still on the steering wheel. He inhales deep and blows a cloud of smoke out the window—the jiggling stops but the void in his chest yawns wider.
---
Sam flips the switch when they walk into the bunker, but nothing happens. He flips the switch up and down a few more times for good measure, but the lights stubbornly remain off. Dean sighs—great, a blown fuse.
They fish out their flashlights from their duffel bags and Dean carefully makes his way down the twisting metal steps to the war room. He picks his way over to the fusebox and replaces the blown fuse with a dusty one from a cardboard box on the floor.
“Try it again,” he calls up to Sam. A click echoes through the room, followed by an electric hum and the lights slowly wink back on. The smell of ozone wafts over to him, followed by a bitter odor of plastic burning and something foul Dean can’t identify. The hair on his arms stands on end.
“Dean,” Sam calls and Dean reaches up to shut the fusebox. As soon as he touches the metal door, a static shock jolts between his fingertips and the door.
“Ow, fuck,” Dean curses as he shakes his hand. He slams the door with probably a little more force than necessary, but the door deserved it.
“Dean!” Sam shouts and Dean finally turns around.
There are scorch marks in a circle on the war room table covering North and South America and stretching into the Atlantic. Ashy remnants of something are scattered over Africa and on the floor, and there’s the blackened husk of something that looks frighteningly like a human femur.
“I’m guessing this isn’t your handiwork?” Dean asks flippantly as Sam hurries down the steps, open-mouthed.
“No!” Sam says indignantly. Sam leans over the table and sniffs an oily red globule over Baja California, while Dean came around to the other side, already reaching for the gun strapped to his waist.
The wet slap of footsteps echoes down the hall to Dean’s right and Sam grabs his knife from his duffel. Sam sends Dean a curt nod as he moves toward the doorway, while Dean goes for the master power switches. Sam nods once, quick and precise, and Dean flips them both at the same time.
Dean slows his breathing, inhaling and exhaling in time to the footsteps growing louder and louder. He clears his mind too—he can’t distract himself wondering whether or not their wards failed and how whatever it is got in. He just has to focus on ganking this threat. Then he can look into his home security problem.
The beam of a flashlight swings back and forth through the hallway, briefly shining on Sam’s boots before sliding over the war room table. The figure approaches and Dean flips the switches back on as soon as it fills the doorway.
“AHH!” she shouts and drops a shower caddy, a fragrant shampoo toppling out and rolling over to bump into Dean’s boot.
“Goddamit Charlie!” Dean shouts and tucks his gun back in his waistband. “You coulda told us you were back in town.”
“I didn’t want our communication to be intercepted,” she says as Sam wraps her up in a hug.
Dean sighs and grabs her as soon as she’s free, tucking her under his chin. She smells clean and she feels like home and he’s thrilled it was her in the bunker. He tries not to think of all the nasty fuckers they’ve dealt with over the years and one of them slipping through the bunker’s defenses.
And to know she’s alive—not knowing if she was okay had kept him up at night and sent him down to the bottom of more than a few bottles. They’d agreed not to have any communication after she faked her death so she could evade the last few Stynes scattered around the US, but that hadn’t made it any easier saying goodbye.
“So,” Sam says, pointing to the war room table, “this was you?”
“Yeaaaah,” Charlie says sheepishly, “I was trying to perfect my body duplication spell and it went a little wonky, as in, it blew up in my face. When I was in the shower, the power went out, too and well …” Charlie looks down at her stormtrooper robe and rainbow-colored shower shoes.
Part of Dean wants to laugh at the craziness of the situation and part of him wants to scream. Practicing witchcraft—alone—is an excellent way to get yourself killed, or worse. He grumbles and tells her as much as she picks up the blackened femur from the floor.
She rolls her eyes and waves him off. He hates that he did this to her—hates himself for taking away any chance for her life to be normal again. She should be LARPing in the woods or hacking into … whatever she hacked into before. Not perfecting spells.
She leaves to change into real clothes and Sam follows her down the hall, probably to head to his room. Dean could go with them, could unpack his duffel and start a load of laundry, clean his guns and reorganize his stuff.
Instead he walks back up the steps and out the door of the bunker. He can’t shake the need to go, go, go, so he paces the length of the clearing in front. All he can think about is all the people he’s dragged into the life and corrupted over the years: Sam, Jo, Jody, Donna, Charlie, Cas. He nearly runs into the Impala on the way back, but a reflection off the bumper stops him.
He should move Baby. It’s the time of year when the local trees drop pollen all over everything, and he doesn’t want her to be covered in the stuff. Plus, the garage is just a better place for her—it’s her home.
He reaches into his pocket and his keys jangle against his wallet. Good. He doesn’t have to go back in. He’s also got his cellphone for when Sam figures out he’s gone, and a half-crumpled, mostly empty pack of cigarettes. He pulls out the pack and stares at it in the palm of his hand. He really should just throw it away—along with the handle of Jack in his room and case of beer in the fridge—but he’ll do that after he moves Baby.
And just one more can’t hurt—he’s damned as it is.
---
The Men of Letters really knew how to build a bunker. It was built to be secure, fairly indestructible as far as Dean could tell, well-stocked, and remote—somewhere meant for holing up when the apocalypse came. And Dean likes most of those things; but there were times when he wished they weren’t out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
The nearest Wal-Mart is seventy miles away and it’s at least a three-hour drive to anywhere that approaches a big city.
So, instead, he drives down US-36 without worrying about a destination. The road is straight and the terrain is flat, and sparse stocky prairie trees whip by. He has to slow down near Mankato—a cow got loose and decided it liked the grass growing through the cement of the highway—but after that delay, he floors it.
Maybe he’ll go to Concordia. There’s a woman there he has an ‘arrangement’ with—he cleans her gutters and mows her lawn and fixes whatever needs fixing around the house and they spend the evening together. Though she may not appreciate being dropped in on without any warning.
He could go all the way to Topeka. Manhattan has something like a gay bar, but really he has to go all the way to Topeka if he wants to ensure that he’ll follow someone home. It’s breaking his number one rule, but truth be told, he can’t get that last encounter in the bar out of his head. Not because the kid was anything special, but his body had been ready for that potential, and he’d been out of sorts ever since.
Instead, he turns around in Scandia with a sigh. It’s a tiny speck of a town, but it’s still bigger than Lebanon—it has a high school and everything. He stops at the stop sign—no stop lights in this town—in front of the Post Office and looks around. No one’s on the road, so he has thirty seconds to stop and pull out a cigarette.
He puts it in his mouth and for a moment thinks about not lighting it. He could just throw it out the window and drive away—and leave the worst parts of himself with it. But the longer the butt sits against his lips, the more the need burns.
“Fuck,” he says around the cigarette and pulls his lighter out of the glove compartment.
“Fuck!” He pulls his hands through his hair.
“FUCK!” He bangs his hands on the steering wheel. Ash falls on his jeans and the vinyl seats.
He can’t save the people he loves. He can’t keep them from being dragged down with him. He’s never going to be more than who he is right now—a fuckup, an addict, a killer, a monster.
A truck pulls up behind him. It’s bumper doesn’t match the rest of the vehicle and it’s mostly rust anyway. Dean watches in the rearview mirror as the driver cross his arms impatiently. He goes to honk his horn, but Dean doesn’t let him have the satisfaction. He puts the car in drive and moseys out of that little town and back onto the highway.
He puts Baby in the garage and wipes off the worst of the dust of the road. He’s back in the bunker and cleaned off the Impala before anyone realized he was even gone.
---
Castiel is back, sitting in the kitchen, talking to Sam, nibbling on toast with peanut butter. They have a moldy piece of vellum laid out between them—great, now Dean’s gonna have to bleach every surface in the room—with open books spread over it. Their yellowed-pages are falling apart from age, leaving a cloud of yellow dust and cobwebs on the table.
Castiel’s wearing his usual angel uniform, rumpled coat and loose tie. Sam’s in jeans and flannel, already dressed despite the early hour. Dean’s in cotton boxer briefs and one of his holey-er henleys.
He feels naked. But the last thing he wants is for Sam to know it bothers him. He can’t go out and throw on a robe now.
To keep his legs from shaking, he strides over to the coffee maker with more confidence than he feels and fixes himself a cup. He’s stirring in a spoonful of sugar when he catches the tail end of Cas’ description.
“ … it works its way in hard and comes on fast. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Dean snorts into his coffee. “I’ve known a few men like that,” Dean says, more to himself and the cabinets than to them, and smirks, “It kinda ruins the mood.”
“Gross, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean can hear the eyeroll in his brother’s voice. Dean turns to look at them, his coffee just sweet enough, and the weight of Cas’ stare settles on him like a two-ton barbell.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas says and it lights a fire in Dean’s body. It hasn’t been too long since the last time they’d talked, but somehow Dean always forgets what Cas’ voice does to him. It’s just two fucking words and a simple look, but Dean’s knees threaten to give out under him.
“Heya, Cas.” Dean’s voice cracks, but he smiles, “”s been a while.”
Cas gets up from the table, a mug in hand, and joins Dean at the coffee maker. He reaches behind Dean, the sleeve of his coat brushing the small of Dean’s back and top of Dean’s ass. Dean shivers.
“It’s only been a month,” Cas counters. Yeah, Dean thinks, a month and three days but who’s counting?
Dean wants to tell Cas that a month is too long anyway. Part of him considers begging Cas to stay in the bunker—to stay with him—but he doesn’t want to force Cas to do something he doesn’t want to do. Cas wanted freedom, and now he has it. He still has to worry about Metatron out in the world, but it’s not like he has an army to take care of anymore. Dean can’t ask him to give that up.
“Any news on the Metatron front?”
Cas furrows his brows as he sips his coffee. Such human behaviors. Dean can almost forget that he’s 100% angel again. “A couple leads that went nowhere, and one that led me to that spell—” Castiel gestures to the table with his mug. “It was in a spot popular with teenagers for having sex in cars. One such couple set off Metatron’s trap.”
“Figures Metatron’d mess with some kids tryin’ to have a good time,” Dean says, shaking his head, “He’s probably never been laid in his whole long-ass life.”
The corner of Cas’ mouth lifts for an instant and Cas’ eyes laugh when they meet his. But then a dark look crosses his face. “No matter Metatron’s experience, it was a brutal spell and it’s unfortunate that anyone triggered it.”
Dean nods solemnly before cocking his head toward the table. “How’d you get ahold of that?”
“Hannah,” Cas says and the pleasant warmth of being near Castiel turns into burning. Dean’s heart is an inferno, stealing the air from his lungs and blackening the inside of his ribs. Dean grips his mug tighter and takes a big gulp of coffee, hoping to put out the blaze. “I was hoping the Men of Letters had some information on it so we could figure out how Metatron found it. If we know where he’s coming from, we might be able to figure out where he’s going.”
The logic seems wobbly at best. Metatron is as slippery as he is unpredictable, and Dean doubts anything useful will be in the bunker, even if they figure out the spell. But Dean can’t complain too much. Cas is here and it looks like he’ll be around a bit before running back off to do angel business with Hannah.
Always with Hannah.
Now that Cas is back to being a real angel again, they’ll have millenia after Dean’s dead to be together. Dean will burn for an eternity in Hell, and Cas will get to ride off into the proverbial sunset, lover in tow.
Dean thinks about pouring whisky in his coffee. He goes to reach for his cigarettes, but stops when he remembers he doesn’t have any pockets. He needs something to dull the ache.
“So, anyone want pancakes?” Dean asks and starts pulling ingredients. It’s not booze and it’s not nicotine, but it will keep his hands busy and his mind occupied.
Sam shakes his head and goes back to reading. Cas doesn’t need to eat anymore, but he asks for a short stack. Again, it’s so human that Dean can almost pretend they’re just two normal guys eating breakfast together instead of what they really are—a human disaster and his guardian angel.
Dean watches the batter bubble on the griddle distantly. Castiel is back at the table, translating something for Sam. Dean flips one pancake mechanically, then another and another, until all he sees are golden brown circles.
He plates a few for Castiel with a precision usually reserved for detailing Baby and shooting monsters between the eyes. He takes out syrup and butter and fresh fruit and whipped cream, and lays them all in front of Castiel.
For his own stack, he throws a few on a plate and smothers them in maple syrup. He stands at the counter, cutting off big hunks of dough with the edge of his fork and watches Cas try a bite with whipped cream.
Cas’ tongue darts out to taste the concoction before it hits his mouth, and makes a considering face. It’s so simple and meaningless, but Dean’s mind fills with better uses for Cas’ tongue. He regrets not leaving to get thicker pants.
Cas chews and frowns, but Dean doesn’t take it personally. Cas’ taster hasn’t been the same since stealing that other angel’s grace, and Dean wonders why Cas even bothers. He doesn’t enjoy the taste or the chewing sensation, but he still does it again and again, even if just in small doses.
He keeps eating and compliments Dean on the meal, trying out a new topping with each bite.
Dean reaches up to scratch his nose and realizes he’s smiling. Watching Cas discover anything human has always been entertaining, but Dean’s gotta admit that he likes it best when he’s the one to introduce something to Cas.
It doesn’t feel so much like the corruption Dean knows it is. He can pretend he’s just sharing something he loves with the man he lo—
“Earth to Dean,” Charlie says and waves a hand in front of Dean’s face. Dean jumps and nearly spills his pancakes on Charlie. She looks at Cas and looks back at him like the cat who got the cream, and Dean feels his face heat up.
“What?” He protests, but he’s never been good at lying to Charlie. Damn girl knows more than she should.
“Nothing,” she says innocently, “Got any more pancakes?”
Dean puts his plate—mostly empty—on the counter. He grabs the batter bowl to make a few more pancakes and drops the first one on the griddle.
“Dude,” Charlie hisses, “There is a hole on your ass.”
“What?!” Dean looks over his shoulder and twists the back of his boxers to the side. Sure enough, there’s a dime sized rip just under the band.
“You can make your own damn pancakes,” he says, shoving the spatula into Charlie’s hand, “I gotta take a shower.”
Cas looks up from his breakfast, and a surprising heat simmers in his eyes. Dean is pinned under Cas’ gaze, and all the fire from Cas’ eyes travels straight to Dean’s groin. Dean walks out and tries to maintain his dignity as best he can, but concealing a semi in boxer briefs is no walk in the park.
By the time he’s back in his room, rifling through a pile of clean clothes, he’s convinced himself that he imagined the look from Cas. Cas doesn’t want him—he’s never given Dean even the slightest hint that Dean’s special to him and Dean doesn’t need to start pretending an errant look means more than it does.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to jerk off to the thought of Cas’ tongue on his dick in the shower and then feel guilty about it afterwards. After all, today is a day that ends in ‘y.’
---
Dean has a hard time resisting a woman who knows what she wants.
She’s short and lithe, but she has Dean on his back as soon as he’s in her bedroom. She pulls his shirts off in one motion and throws them on her dresser. She scratches her nails down his bare chest and he hisses. She cups him through his jeans with one hand and twists his nipple with the other. God, it feels good.
He puts his hands on her knees, rubbing circles on her thighs with his thumbs. Her thighs are strong and taut as they grip his hips, and he feels them tremble slightly as he slides one hand up her leg.
She pushes away his hands and draws her dress up and off. It clings to her as it goes, pulling up her breasts and dropping them as soon as it’s gone. Dean can’t help but smirk—no bra, no underwear.
“See something you like, cowboy?” she asks with a wink. She brings up his hands to cup her breasts, and he’s pretty sure he can handle that.
She moves again before too long, sliding up along Dean’s body to straddle his face.
“You okay with this?” she drawls and Dean nods enthusiastically. He would speak, but his mouth has gone completely dry.
She lowers herself onto his face and he surges up to meet her, gripping her thighs as licks into her. She moans and her whole body tightens in anticipation.
A hand grabs his dick and strokes fast. He turns and pants into her thigh, moaning as the hand moves to cup his balls. Her other hand threads her fingers in his hair and turns him none too gently back to the business. He’s only happy to help.
She comes with a shout and doubles over his head. He takes a nipple in his mouth and bites down gently, and she shakes with pleasure.
He gets his arms under her knees and lifts her up, sitting up and placing her on her back. She rolls a condom on before he can wonder where one came from, and she pulls him into her.
---
The early morning light filters through her gauzy curtains and the world looks fuzzy and grey. She turns toward him and smiles, and he runs a hand through her black hair, not much longer than Dean’s own. Her blue eyes shine with intelligence, but maybe look more green than blue now.
She slips under the blankets with a wink and wraps him up in her mouth. He can see the top of her head if he lifts the blanket just so, and can pretend she’s someone else.
He looks away, screws his eyes shut. He feels nauseous. He is not a good man.
He shuts his brain off the best he can and lets her finish him off. He barely feels his orgasm and he’s out the door ten minutes later. He was supposed to meet Sam at the public records office an hour ago anyway.
---
Cas is still in the bunker when they get back. He’s still focused on that damn spell, and he’s taken almost half the books off the shelves and laid them in big heaps on the tables in the library.
Dammit, Cas. Now they’d have to reshelve everything.
“I take it the you got rid of the ghost?” Cas asks, looking up from translating something written on a scroll.
Sam shrugs. “It was a pretty standard salt and burn—no big deal.” Sam pulls a small packet out of his pocket and hands it to Castiel. “And this is for your collection.”
Dean balks. “Collection?”
Castiel blushes and gently unwraps his gift. It’s a silver souvenir spoon, no longer than Dean’s index finger with a fancy handle.
“Thank you, Sam,” Cas says and Sam waves as if to say No problem.
Dean sits down next to Cas and picks the spoon out of his hands. He turns it over and examines the underside. “That’s a spoon. It’s just a spoon.”
“How very astute of you, Dean,” Cas says and takes the spoon back, “It’s good to know your advancing years aren’t affecting your eyesight.” Cas smiles at his joke and it’s damn infectious.
“Fuck you,” Dean says without any malice behind it, “I’m not that old. If anyone’s the old one, it’s you.” Dean punches Cas’ shoulder playfully. “You’re the one who’s literally older than dirt.”
Cas laughs at his joke and Dean fights to keep a grin off his face. He loves it when Cas is happy—the way a smile blossoms on his face and his nose crinkles.
“So, Dean says when their laughter dies down, “What’s with the collectibles? How long’s that been going on?
Cas ducks his head “A while now. Just after we got Gadreel out of Sam’s head and you … And it was just me and Sam for a few weeks."
It’s Dean’s turn to look away. The Mark might be long gone from his arm, but he doubts he’ll ever shake the lingering effects. He nearly killed a man in Lexington. If Sam hadn’t … Cas can never know.
Dean can’t think of that right now. Adrenaline pumps through him and his legs shakes under the table. Just focus on talking to Cas, he thinks to himself. “But why spoons?”
Cas shrugs. “It’s a thing people collect. You can get them almost anywhere and I like them.”
Dean thinks they’re hokey and probably belong in an old crazy cat lady’s home, but he bites his tongue. If it makes Cas happy, who’s he to judge?
“I don’t even know where Sam bought that,” Dean says, trying for nonchalant. He doesn’t know when Sam bought it either, or when one of them was going to tell him about this little ritual. Or why he never noticed.
“Looks like it’s from Louisville,” Cas says and points to the name of the city in cursive along the handle. Cas frowns, eyeing Dean suspiciously. “I thought you were going to Tennessee.”
“We did go to Tennessee,” Dean says, holding up his hands innocently, “Ganked the ghost, visited Graceland, and then cruised up to Kentucky when we got wind of a nest of vamps. Turned out it was just two guys trying to attract out-of-towners to their shitty tourist trap around Lexington. We drove through Louisville on the way back.”
Cas’ frown relaxes, mollified for now. He still says in a quiet voice, “I wish you’d told me.”
“We didn’t know if it was anything and it didn’t even put us a day off schedule.”
“Still …” Cas starts but doesn’t finish his sentence. He looks back at his piles of books and sighs.
“I can’t fly, Dean,” Cas says to the pile closest to him, “If you need me, I’m useless.”
Dean wants to comfort him, but it’s true. Cas can smite the shit out of someone if he can see the guy, but he really can’t do much tucked away in the bunker thousands of miles away.
Guilt burns through Dean’s veins like acid. It eats away at him, devouring his organs as his heart pumps out the poison faster.
“Sorry,” Dean says, fighting to be heard over the ringing in his ears, “Next time, I’ll call. I didn’t know you’d wanna know.” Dean finishes lamely and coughs.
Cas looks surprised. He cocks his head. “Of course I want to know. Why wouldn’t I want to know?”
Cas’ eyes burn holes in the side of Dean’s head, but Dean can’t look up. Instead, he picks at a loose thread on his shirt—if he keeps pulling, the button will come off and he’ll have to sew it back on. He shrugs at Cas as he wraps the thread around the button and knots it—a temporary fix, but he doesn’t know what more he can do.
Cas reaches across the space between them and gently touches Dean’s arm. Dean whips his head up—Castiel isn’t touchy unless he’s smiting or healing or beating the crap out of Dean. Dean’s heart aches with the memory of every time Castiel hit him—of every blow that crashed into him like a freight train—brainwashed or otherwise.
He can’t let himself think about the times he hit Cas—after all, Dean’d never been reprogrammed.
Cas opens his mouth to speak again, but Sam walks in before he can get a word out. Cas retracts his hand—or really, yanks it back like Dean’s skin’s made of lava—and turns to help Sam with whatever he’s carrying.
“I found reference to something in the archives that could be useful,” Sam says as he shows Cas a file, “There’s this book in artifact storage—”
Dean stands up and his chair scrapes across the hardwood floor. “I am not going into artifact storage.” He points at both of them meaningfully, and walks out of the library. He’s never going to go searching for something in that poorly-organized death-trap labyrinth—especially not after last time.
---
It turns out the book isn’t too harmful. It just spontaneously bursts into flames unless constantly kept in a low temperature environment—no biggie. At least Sam now has a good reason to get a haircut, even if it’s just to even things up.
Dean’s just glad it wasn’t him this time around. Artifact storage is a crapshoot of barely-managed and unpredictably lethal magic junk. The Men of Letters just threw the stuff they couldn’t figure out in there and made a file explaining all the things they couldn’t figure out—that’s bureaucracy for you.
Dean leans against the giant pecan tree he’s been sitting under for the better part of an hour. He takes another drag from his cigarette and considers the green fruit slowing growing above his head. It’s still a month or two before the nuts will be ready to pick, and Dean’s already thinking about the tweaks he wants to make to his pecan pie recipe.
He’s not surprised when he hears the crunch of boots on gravel. He knew someone would come find him before too long. He’s just a little surprised to see it’s Sam.
“Hey,” Sam says. His hair’s pulled back in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, but Dean can still see a few singed ends. “Been out here long?”
Sam sits down next to Dean and Dean puts out his cigarette. Sam’s never liked that habit.
“Nah,” Dean replies, “How’s the burning book?”
Sam sighs. “Not burning anymore. Cas got it back in cold storage and he’s reading it right now. It helps having an angel around sometimes, you know?”
Sam smirks, but Dean’s not sure having Cas around is good. Especially since he won’t be around long.
“He think there’ll be anything good in it?” Dean asks. He feels antsy so he stands up and starts walking.
“We won’t know until he finishes reading.” Sam joins him and they start down a trail deeper into the forest. In this part of the state, the area around the bunker appears to be the last patch of wilderness not swallowed up by farmland.
“So, what’s up with you, man?” Sam asks and Dean isn’t prepared for the question, “You’ve been a little …” Sam gestures something, but Dean only sees it out of the corner of his eye, “since you lost the Mark, and …”
Dean shuts his mouth tight. He doesn’t want to talk about it—about the Mark, about him, about any of it.
Sam sighs and whispers fine before shoving his hands in his jeans pockets.
Dean feels guilty, but it’s not any different from how he feels on a day to day basis. Sam’s just another in a long line of people he’s let down. Sam might even be in the front of the line—Dean’s definitely let him down the most.
They pick their way along the rough path in silence, until the forest overtakes their way and they have to turn around.
“I feel a lot of things now. All those emotions I shoulda had when I had the Mark keep hitting me now that it’s gone and I don’t want to feel them anymore.”
Dean barely whispers the words but they echo in the quiet of the forest. Sam doesn’t say anything to reply but nods his head.
“I’m damned. I’m guilty of the worst things imaginable. I’ve killed. I’ve tortured. And I’ve dragged everyone important down with me.”
Sam starts to protest but Dean holds up a hand.
“Whatever you wanna say won’t make me feel better. It won’t change the past and it won’t take the blood off my hands.”
Sam blows out a lungful of air. He grins, but there’s no joy to it. “So, where do we go from here?”
Dean wants to say they have a job to do. He wants to tell Sam they keep going—keep fighting ‘til they can’t fight anymore. He wants to reassure Sam that he’ll be fine one day.
But he knows that’s not true. He won’t be fine and he doesn’t know how much longer he can keep going.
So, for once, he decides to be honest. “I don’t know.”
---
There’s a gentleness to sex with Cas. He always knows how to touch Dean in all of Dean’s favorite ways. He always knows just how hard to press and where to leave featherlight kisses. He always cradles Dean in his arms and holds him with such a tenderness Dean’s never known before.
And when he’s inside Dean, Dean can barely feel him.
That’s when Dean figures out he’s dreaming—every time. He’s fucked and been fucked by plenty of guys in his life, and there’s always a little discomfort, a momentary twinge at some point in the prep. He never feels that when he’s dreaming.
Once he realizes it’s just a dream, the sex loses some of its appeal. It feels mechanical and rote, and even his perfect idealized version of Cas can’t get him off.
He wakes up with a huff of frustration. He’s hard, but his erection starts to flag the more he re-enters consciousness.
Still, it doesn’t take long for him to come. Even his rough, dry hand provides enough sensation to bring him to an orgasm. He rubs his sticky hand on his boxers and decides he should probably get up and shower if he doesn’t want to be glued to his underwear for the rest of the day.
He passes Cas on the way to the showers and says good morning like everything is normal.
---
Metatron is dead. Dean’s only halfway there.
His right hand is mangled. The bones are smashed and what skin is left is charred and blistered.
His ribs are broken. Probably most of them along his right side, but it’s not like they’re gonna get an x-ray.
His face hurts, but he’s afraid to reach up and touch it. He doesn’t think he can deal with that right now.
“Dean!” Cas yells, and runs over to pull some concrete rubble off Dean’s legs. He’s bleeding from a cut on the side of his head and one arm hangs at an odd angle, but otherwise he looks a lot better off than Dean.
Especially since he went through the same blast as Dean—without his grace.
“Looks like it worked, didn’t it?” Dean laughs but a pain shoots through his side. Dean was shocked when Cas announced Charlie’d not only figured out Metatron’s plan, but also where he was going to try to execute it, all from a moldy old spell and a translation from burning book. She and Cas toiled away for weeks, experimentally testing and tweaking a whole host of spells until they found one that would work.
He was even more shocked when, barely two hours before they were set to interfere with Metatron’s plans, Cas announced that his grace was the last ingredient needed to put a wrench in the spell.
And Dean volunteered to throw that wrench.
“You could’ve died,” Cas shouts and it rings in Dean’s ears, “you reckless, self-sacrificing, foolhardy ...”
“Hero?” Dean winks and Cas’ face turns to stone.
“I was going to say ‘dumbass with a deathwish’,” he says deadpan.
“They’re over here!” Sam shouts, and even from however far away Sam is, it’s still too loud for Dean’s head.
Sam and Hannah appear behind Cas’ head, blurry blobs he can barely make out. And it could be the massive brain trauma, but it looks like Hannah's in a male vessel.
She reaches out to Dean’s head, and places her hand on his forehead in a familiar two-finger touch.
Warmth rushes through him, pushing out the pain. It’s less that a second, but he feels his ribs pop back into place, the shattered bones of his fingers remake themselves, and the burned skin all along his right side regrow a healthy new layer.
It’s a heady feeling, and he bets if he could smoke it or drink it, he’d be addicted to it.
Hannah touches Cas next, but it’s more intimate. She cups his jaw lovingly and he closes his eyes as he’s healed. There’s still a track of blood down the side of his face, but he can move his left arm again, and he uses it to shake her hand.
She steps back to talk to Sam—and Charlie too now that she’s come out of hiding—and then it’s just Dean and Cas.
Cas helps Dean up and out of the rubble. He picks a few pebbles from Dean’s hair absently and Dean lightly grabs his wrist.
“I’m sorry for makin’ you worry,” Dean says, “But someone had to do it, and it might as well’ve been me.”
Anger burns in Cas’ eyes. “Why? Because you think it doesn’t matter if you die?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says softly, shaking his head, “It’d probably be better for everyone if I—”
“Stop,” Cas says and Dean recognizes Cas’ smiting tone in the word. “Sam told me you’ve been going through something since we got rid of the Mark …”
Dean laughs, but nothing is funny. “Since we got rid of the Mark? No, this is me—the monster every other monster is afraid of. I can’t help anyone I care about. I can only make them more like me—killers, monsters.”
“Dean,” Cas pleads and Dean realizes he’s been shouting. Everyone looks at him with pity and he can’t take it.
“I’ll be in the car if anyone needs me,” he says and walks out of the old warehouse. The cops should be on there soon anyway—they almost took down the building with that last spell.
His fingers shake as he fishes out a pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket—great, all crushed in the explosion. He throws the wad of paper and cotton and tobacco over his shoulder—it’s not like anyone will bust him for littering with the state of the warehouse—and he starts walking to Baby faster. There’s an emergency stash in the glove compartment …
He inhales a cloud of smoke and sighs it out as he leans against the passenger side door. He takes a sip from his flask and lets his chemical dependencies calm the storm inside him. He hears footsteps approach, but he doesn’t think much of them—everyone must be ready to go.
The cigarette is unceremoniously ripped from his mouth and the flask is yanked from his hand.
“I don’t want you to die any time soon, Dean Winchester, and I won’t let you kill yourself either,” Cas says, the divine fury of an angel crackling under his human skin. He throws the cigarette on the ground and stomps on it before opening the top of the flask and upturning it.
“Hey hey!” Dean protests and tries to reach the flask, but Cas keeps him at arm’s length, as strong and unmovable as ever.
“You need to stop, Dean,” Cas says and Dean freezes in place, “You can’t go on believing that you are the only person who has ever done something wrong on this planet. You need to stop thinking there’s no forgiveness—no redemption—for you. And you need to stop acting like none of us made our own decisions.”
Dean gasps, but it feels like there’s no air left to breathe.
“We care about you, Dean,” he says, and takes Dean’s hands in his own, “I care about you. What else do I need to do to prove it to you?”
The question shocks Dean, but for once he has an answer, even if Cas wasn’t looking for one. “Stay with me.”
---
Dean makes a deal with himself: as long as Cas stays, he won’t drink. It’s harder to committ to not smoking, but he does that, too. Maybe a monster won’t get him in a year or two, and it’d be a shame to die slowly of lung cancer.
---
Metatron is dead and Cas stays in the bunker.
Dean watches him closely, looking for signs that he’s going to pack up his small bundle of possessions and walk out.
He’s shocked when Cas isn’t out the door as soon as the withdrawal symptoms start. In the worst of it, Dean yells at everyone before barfing on the library floor. He wakes up in Cas’ arms and, as soon as the shaking stops, they go to a meeting in Concordia.
Cas drives him home, and Dean feels raw. The Continental shakes—he promises himself he’ll look at the suspension in a few days—and it only adds to his pains. He aches all over but he’s pretty sure he deserves it. He’s also sure Cas will drop Dean off and bolt. Instead, Cas helps Dean to bed and makes him tea with lemon and mint.
“You don’t have to do this,” Dean croaks, his voice sore for puking and yelling, and maybe a little crying.
“I want to, Dean,” Cas says as gently touches Dean’s cheek. “I want to stay with you.”
---
A month passes and Cas doesn’t leave. Cas helps Sam with ancient texts and Charlie teaches him target practice in their basement gun range. Claire comes to visit and Dean lets them have their space when they watch TV in Cas’ room. Cas drives her to Topeka for a day and Dean worries that Cas won’t come back until he gets a short text from Claire.
We’re on our way home, she writes and Dean’s heart melts. Home.
He throws out all the alcohol in the bunker, everything from the six pack in the fridge to the emergency whiskey he kept in a hollowed-out book in the library. He doesn’t tell Sam or Cas or Charlie, but he holds on to one pack of cigarettes. It’s one he found in the back of a drawer, squashed and old and never opened, and he keeps it as a reminder. He seals it up in a small cursebox and hides the key in Cas’ spoon collection.
Cas recruits Dean on a mission to retry every food he’s ever eaten. One day, Dean makes every sandwich he can think of, and few he’s never heard of—Cas likes finding recipes on the internet. Cas loves grilled cheese dunked in creamy tomato soup, and a reuben piled high with extra sauerkraut. Another day, they pick up every vegetable and fruit they can carry at a farmer’s market in Seattle. One weekend, Dean bakes loaf after loaf of bread until he’s covered in flour and yeast and Cas passes out on the couch in a carb coma.
Cas writes down what he likes and doesn’t like in a journal, though Dean doesn’t have to look at it to know its contents. Cas gags and pushes away the dishes he hates, and moans around half-chewed bites of the ones he loves.
Cas starts picking up annoying habits. He runs with Sam every morning they’re not on a hunt, and some mornings they are. Dean drinks his coffee and watches them sometimes. Dean flicks open and shut his Zippo lighter. The clack of metal on metal and smooth, familiar motions of his thumb are almost as soothing as that first inhale of smoke.
He hovers over Dean’s shoulder whenever Dean’s doing something. Cas wants to know how to fix cars, how to grill hamburgers, how to put the vinyl on the turntable without scratching it, how to fire a crossbow, how to make a paper football, how to mend holes in jeans. And for the things he can’t learn from Dean, he has books and books and books shipped to their P.O. Box in town.
He works himself to exhaustion as he explores knitting and origami and fantasy football and people on the internet who are wrong and open world video games.
---
Three months pass and Cas is still in the bunker.
Cas’ room fills with clothes and trinkets and stuff that make up human existence. He proudly displays his spoon collection, and adds to it every time they’re out on a hunt. He mentions once that his collection doesn’t grow as fast as it used to, and maybe that’s a good thing.
He and Cas start a routine of sitting on vinyl folding chairs on the roof and watching the sunset. They drink Cokes from glass bottles—the cool glass and peeling paper label almost makes him forget that he’s never going to drink another beer in his life. They’re cool and sweet in a way that makes Dean’s teeth hurt, but Cas seems to love sweet things the best.
The sky turns from blue to pink to purple, and they talk. Sometimes they talk about normal people stuff—football scores and TV episodes and what they’re going to eat for the rest of the week. Cas looks at Dean like he’s something special, and Dean just blushes and looks away.
Sometimes they talk about everything they’ve been through—all the things they hadn’t told each other. Cas tells Dean about raking leaves and Naomi demanding he choose between Dean and Heaven and a million other little details.
Dean talks mostly about guilt. He apologizes for kicking Cas out of the bunker and then not letting him come back. He apologizes for every hurt he caused Cas.
Cas forgives him, even though he probably shouldn’t, and Dean feels lighter. He feels lighter every time they schlep a cooler up to the roof and a plastic Wal-Mart bag of citronella candles. It also helps that, aside from a vamp here and a shifter there, the monster population has calmed down a lot with Hell closed off and Heaven back to a policy of non-intervention. He kills less, and it helps. Cas stays, and it helps.
Time passes and dust gathers on his cursebox of old cigarettes. He stares at it longingly less and less every day.
Sam joins them from time to time on the roof, and the three of them play stupid games like who can flick a bottle cap the furthest and who can burp the longest. Dean catches Sam smiling at him knowingly when he thinks Dean isn’t looking.
---
Six months go by and Sam is gone. Well, not gone gone, but he drives up to Sioux Falls to spend some time with Jody. Dean had no idea they were together until Sam announced his trip, but in hindsight, he should’ve guessed. They talked a lot on the phone.
Charlie’s left, too, but just to make a house call for her real job. Turns out, people in rural Kansas need as much help with their electronics as people in the cities. And occasionally, when conventional repairs don’t stick, a small touch of magic does the trick. She doesn’t make too much money, but it keeps her busy.
Cas, however, has his feet tucked under him on the couch in their makeshift media room. The room used to be someone’s sleeping quarters, but after trying to cram everybody in Dean’s room to watch an episode of Game of Thrones, they decided a dedicated movie-watching-and-video-game-playing room was needed.
He talks to Hannah for their weekly check-in and when he smiles, Dean doesn’t feel his heart clench. Cas has never said anything about it, but Dean thinks Cas likes maintaining some contact with Heaven. Despite once asking Cas to kill him—and maybe because of it—Dean knows that Hannah’s an angel with her head on straight. And every day that Cas doesn’t go, he’s more and more okay with Cas having Hannah as a friend.
Cas hangs up and Dean instinctively braces for bad news—some horrible monster is on the loose, a new apocalypse is days away, Cas is leaving for good. It’s the kind of feeling that would’ve made him start patting down his pockets, looking for a cigarette.
But Cas just restarts the movie, picking up with John McClane in an airduct.
“What’d Hannah want?” Dean asks and hold his breath.
“She just wanted to make sure I’m okay,” he says, not taking his eyes off the movie.
“She doesn’t need you,” Dean starts, hesitating, “to do anything?”
Cas pauses the movie, then looks at him and frowns. “No, she doesn’t,” he says, “but even if she did …” Cas looks into Dean’s eyes and Dean squirms under the intensity of his gaze. His next words are a whisper, but spoken clearly and with conviction. Dean’s heart beats twice as fast. “I want to stay.”
Dean doesn’t know what to say to that so he just starts the movie back up. His hand brushes Cas’ every time he reaches for popcorn, and the touch feels so simple and ordinary. He can’t believe that the two of them—recovering human disaster and fallen angel—would ever get to a point even approaching normal.
Charlie texts during the credits to say she’s staying over in Wichita, rather than driving home. Dean laughs to himself as he tells her to use protection, and she sends him a small hand flipping him the bird.
Cas looks at him, a question in his eyes, and Dean shows him the conversation.
“So, I guess it’s just you and me tonight,” Dean says, stretching out and propping his feet up on the coffee table.
Cas nods and pulls off his super-soft, leopard-print blanket. He reaches over and cups Dean’s face in his hands. Dean just stares up at him, not daring to breathe.
Cas kisses him. It’s soft and tender—and okay, a little off-target—and Dean’s the happiest he can remember being in ages.
Cas pulls back and looks at Dean seriously, gauging his reaction. Dean looks back, and he’s sure his face looks stupid. “What … was that?” Dean asks distractedly.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while. Is it okay?” Cas looks nervous and Dean just smiles at him.
“Yes,” he says and kisses Cas back.
---
The first time they try to have sex, Cas nearly breaks Dean’s nose. Dean touches Cas’ cock and Cas jolts so much he knocks his forehead into Dean’s nose. It bleeds and bleeds, and will probably bruise something awful, but they laugh as Dean pinches his nose. Cas peels off Dean’s blood-stained shirt and rinses him off in the shower.
They try again as soon as bloody clothes are in the washing machine and caked blood is wiped off Dean’s face. Cas props up Dean—naked as a jaybird—on his bed to try to avoid Dean bleeding anymore, and straddles his hips.
Or, he would be straddling Dean’s hips if he didn’t overbalance and fall off the bed.
They get it right the third time, a few days later when bumps and bruises have healed. Cas is unsure but eager, and it’s better than any bar hookup and better than any dream.
Dean wakes up and Cas is still there. Sam will be back in a day or two. Charlie comes and goes, but mostly stays. Monsters are still out there, but—unless he’s having a bad day—he’s not worried that he’s one of their number.