#hate being up late it automatically makes anything I spat out after midnight feel incoherent and I’m self conscious about that

[salvia-plathitudes]

Not season 12 finale divergent.

"You, me, and Sam. We're just better together." Dean said it with such confidence, a surety like no other. When Dean believed something was settled he followed that ethos until it's illusion was shattered, and then he usually found it again some time later when he forgot to learn his lesson.

If a man doesn't have principles to live by and fall back to, he is aimless and can't define himself. Long term evolution has nothing on a hard head or beating heart that abides to strict decision.

Dean believed this. He also believed pop culture was that or this, and he delivered this say-so on what was cool and what was lame and what was an absurdly stupid action or phrase if anyone were doing it, but when Cas was doing it there was slightly less derision for the fact that Dean loved him. Doubtless Sam, Dean, and Castiel would exist until the end of time if that's what they wanted to do, because Dean believed them infinite to Sam's reluctant worry that they would end up dead or worse some day, overdue on cosmic repercussions as they were. No one had asked Castiel's opinion on the matter. He had one, of course. Not a single being mulled over in his head as much as Cas ran himself in circles, a creature of limited sleep and excellent coffee making abilities.

Cas thought he was going to die. He wanted to live, generally.

But on a regular basis Cas prepared to die. He made peace with it. He forgave himself for having any regrets in life and accepted that was just how it was going to be. He loved, and it was good, and he helped sme people where he was able, and let his rigidity and explosions of anger ruin or justify plans and he forgave himself for that, too. Unlike Sam who dreamed of a life worth living by dying a martyr sacrifice, Castiel imagined his own sacrifice would be purely selfish. In the end no one would have him to thank. The people of the earth would wake up, run late to work, and interact with people they'd rather run from or fall into and make coffee that might be better than Castiel ever made in his life.

Castiel has never had a caramel macchiato.

If there was anything that Cas wanted to die for most of all, it was to ensure Dean or Sam kept going. They'd given him a lot, and were hard not to love. It was an abstract, unimaginable event the night Cas spent the night alone. He could have been anywhere. If they'd been in another town... caught wind of a happening in a town nearby to somewhere else... maybe they would have stayed there for two weeks. Gone to a local coffee shop that served the best cinnamon rolls Dean had ever tasted. And so it goes, where depending on the news that filters in and catches the eye, consequently a month away from home until the day it is finally returned to. Then the closets are supplied and Sam turns two chairs into a makeshift couch for his long body to rest comfortably while he uses his tablet while he waits for Dean to shower or sleep.

They were in Ames, Iowa. They were heading back home and didn't find anything else to run to on the way. Sam bought cinnamon cocoa for himself and his family to celebrate the Equinox in a small building that had only four tables. Leaves were browning on the outside pavement, immobile until the winds would pick up the next morning, drifting lazily with the promise of crisp-tasting atmosphere. It wasn't serene inside. There had been bumping elbows and nervous grinning at the proximity and lack of conversation. Sam's face pores were impeccably detailed, perfect to the last oily stretch, a creation his Father should be proud of, and Cas took the time to drink in the details of the shop and his companion and the lacking outdoor scene with rigorous wonder just as Dean brushed his shoulder insistently against Cas' and held it there. After they paid they walked out, separately aware of the cooling weather. Two men holding hands passed them to enter the building. Not one of the three men bothered to track their movement, but Sam took two larger steps to get ahead of Dean and Cas to lead the way to the meter.

When they eventually found the underground bunker, unpacked the little they carried, and followed the ritual, a lot of time had passed since the cocoa. Dean was done showering. Cas loitered outside of Dean's bedroom. He knocked and waited for a response. Dean didn't answer, but he looked up with a grin as Cas brushed the door open some.

The man Castiel loved was soft sometimes. Hence the abstract and unimaginable.

He was lying restless-- in his own bed-- the inner machinations working so hard that when he turned his head he heard the audible creak in his forehead that usually happened when he was trying too hard to not get turned on. Too much focus. And the truth was, he'd much rather be turned on. He'd much rather Dean be kissing him than the traitorous thoughts he was compiling against the man sleeping two doors down. He didn't get to kiss him at all tonight or during the duration of the trip. Sam didn't know. Dean didn't even know. And if Dean didn't know, how the hell was Cas supposed to know? He measured everything against what Dean wanted, so how the hell was Castiel supposed to presume? He remembered the still concrete world outside of the little building and the two men holding hands who walked up to inhabit it.

Castiel remembered every single slight he'd felt in the past couple of days, whenever they'd been out of the car. He remembered old slights. He remembered pieces of pop culture he'd been made aware of. Of the promises he'd made Meg. Of the existence he'd led Before, when he was just like an impenetrable marble carving in the Galleria dell'Accademia museum to anyone who mattered. When Hell was the worst culmination of wretchedness in all of the time since its first fiercely blinding droplet was forged. When he wasn't anyone at all, to the people he mattered to, before he walked into their lives. When he wasn't anyone at all to his Host or maybe even God, who had been churning out celestial dominions as a broker shuffling cards, which is to say He gave attention to the results of the game rather than the impressively performed, but random riffle he broke to start it all. A game He abandoned rather than face up to accidentally including a Joker. Everyone he encountered insisted Castiel was the Joker. "Whenever you have to pick between us or them... you pick the Winchesters."

Castiel turned on the light and spoke into his tablet. Voice control recorded his morning vocal chord words into typed text on imitation yellow legal pad. He spoke softly.

"I'm in love with a memory. Of another time, another place."

"I have changed so much since the angel I was. I could have changed more. Differently. But I have become a man I think I am proud of. I consider myself a man now.

"Once Sam and Dean thought I would lose my vessel. I don't know what I would do without it. I could enter into a vessel whose soul is leaving it. The Winchesters would have to accept this, as would I. Or I could accept this as a signal to move on from earthly existence. I could resume the role of a guardian, for another thousand years. It would be better to return to heaven than be tempted by this. Would that be running away from my problems? Ignoring the plight of my family?" Cas chuckled. "No. My place will always be by--"

The tablet screen went dark without a voice to pen any more.

Castiel turned it on again and started voice recording. "I have changed. Perhaps my personal growth is delayed... perhaps..." Cas remembered Dean yelling at him to not do anything stupid, dammit! "Dean and Sam have led me through life. It can be hard. There are choices... consequence. I haven't known any men like the Winchesters. I... haven't...

"... known any others at all." Gabriel, Balthazar, Anna. They knew how to interact with the world. They could weave in and out of the bulk of humanity with practiced ease, gluttonous pleasure, simple life building, love for parents and pets. Before the supernatural and hunters came and crashed the reverie. Before they were killed fighting a war that is over.

Castiel stared at the room door. Quiet surrounded him, filled him with unease. He crept up to it, and watched the handle, daring himself to open it. His hand struck forward and he turned it swiftly.

The vents usually blew gentle cool air into the hallway, a comforting sound, but the turn of the season left the underground bunker at a temperature it could indulge in.

With socks on his feet, because Dean insisted he not wear shoes to bed, he stepped out and started the trek along the floor plan. He entered the war room, paced a circle around the enormous telescope, ignored the kitchen-- too many pots and pans, the image of clanking sounds was enough to turn him away from entering in the middle of the night no matter how silly the thought of accidentally disturbing something was-- the rational part of his mind did wonder, if he made noise here in front of the book shelf, if he entered Dean's room, would he be greeted with a gun in his face? Yes to the latter.

That night, in a dawning enormity of how much growth there was left to do, Castiel made his decision. It was time to stop trying to please, to become another Winchester. Hunters had given him a good start. But Dean would never hold his hand. He would never return to the man who asked questions first and tortured only with the greatest stake on the line. Oh, how ironic that it was Castiel himself who convinced him to take his technique to Azazel's rack. Where Cas had taken slow steps to gain the advantage of humanity, Dean had let his slip away behind an exterior he wouldn't let anyone into. The last person he cared for with all of the softness he had inside had been Charlie, murdered, and before that Lisa, and Cas took her away from him, too.

Maybe Castiel was the one who broke Dean.

Maybe Dean didn't even want him. Not all the way. It is not enough to love someone, Castiel surmised while sitting at the top of the stairs mere feet from the bunker entrance in his white dress shirt and black socks. It's not enough if you can't love them right. You have to let them in. You have to be capable of being soft at any moment, not abrasive.

He returned to his bed and ignored the memory what it felt like to occasionally feel the presence of Dean's former longing from this very spot. It was a homing beacon for every instance when Cas was too far away.

Castiel slept resolute.

In the morning, he told the brothers he was leaving. For a long time. Both sensed that his stressing "for a long time" was significant, and Dean always had trouble saying goodbye at the same time he feigned nonchalance. Sam, forehead creased in concern but still grinning, said, "Careful out there, Cas." He tapped his fist on Cas' arm.

Dean stood back with his coffee. "Come back in one piece. We'll call you if we need anything."

A month later, when Castiel speaks to him on the phone, Dean says, "You, me, and Sam. We're just better together." Castiel disagrees.

He is careful to speak in these phone conversations these days, his reflection in the mirror running a hand through his hair, getting it right. "If you ever want to retire... I think civilian life would suit you."

Dean is obviously panicked about the separation. "Nah. It's Halloween. Lots of stuff to do out there. You find anything?"

"Nothing has come across my path," Castiel responds plainly. "For a long time, the town has been perfectly natural."

"Well... keep an eye out."

"I will."

They both wait for the other to speak, and when neither does, Dean continues. "Some day... when Sam trains other hunters.. and Jody's got her girls.. if the nasties are under control, some days I feel like I could retire."

Cas thinks that would be a good idea. His phone pops up with an incoming call, either a telemarketer or Reina. "I have to go. Goodbye, Dean."

"Seeya 'round, Cas."