#weirdly im not even sick of it even if i've read it more times than any other things i've ever written

[dcforts]

[Steve and I]

5.9k. S09E06 fanfiction gap but Cas has a flat. Domestic, light angst. theirprofoundbond - thank you for all the work that you've done to help me with this one and all the kind words and you gifted me with. Read on ao3

Steve signed the lease a little over a month ago. It’s a second-story one-bedroom, in a building that is just two narrow flights of stairs, flickering ceiling lights and dirty carpets.

Cas doesn’t tell Dean that, he just gives him directions and points to a parking space out front. When the Impala quiets down, Dean doesn’t ask any questions and Cas is grateful for that. He fishes his keys from his pocket and leads him inside.

He says, “It’s a good neighborhood,” as they climb up, because that’s what you’re supposed to say. It’s what his landlady said when she led him up the first time, maybe to distract him from the cracks in the walls and the smell of laundry detergents coming from the laundromat next door.

He says that, even if Dean knows better than anyone that you can’t really be safe, no matter where you are, and even if it wouldn’t really make a difference for Cas who, grace or not, could still kill a man in the blink of an eye.

Dean follows him inside, past the little entryway and into the living room.

Cas turns on the lights and walks across the dusty carpet and around the coffee table to get to the window and open it. The cold evening air brings in noises from the street and allows him to breathe more easily. For a moment, in the dark and the musty air, it felt like being underwater.

Dean says, “Hey, it’s not bad,” only a beat too late. He looks around, nodding to himself. “Yeah. Nice, uh, couch.”

It’s a simply distributed space; if one drew it from above, it would resemble a square, divided up into uneven boxes facing each other in pairs. On one side the living room and the bedroom, and on the opposite one, the kitchen and the bathroom. Dean could tour the whole thing in fifteen steps or fewer if he so wished.

It seems even smaller with him in it now.

“Everything here came with the apartment,” Cas says.

It’s not exactly true. In the kitchen, on the wall just behind the fridge, there’s a complimentary calendar that he got from a shipment of energy drinks. Cas brought it home and hung it there, because Steve needs to pay attention to what month it is and what day it is—he has rent to pay, shifts at work, bills and deadlines.

Cas painted wards and sigils on walls and floors; Steve covered them up with dull paintings and soft carpets.

Nora gave Steve a succulent that sits on the windowsill of his bedroom. Cas only remembers to check on it when he is in bed, and he turns on his side. Most of the time, he’s too tired to get up again, says to himself he’ll do it in the morning, then he forgets again.

Cas doesn’t care about furniture; he doesn’t care about things. About the old couch that groans when you sit on it, about the low batteries in the TV remote. He doesn’t care about the dust in the empty flower vase on the shelf or the light in the bathroom that goes out sometimes.

Steve does. When he comes home after a ten-hour shift, the couch does not help his stiff and aching back. When he gets up at night to go to the bathroom, he has to be careful not to trip over things in the dark. Steve minds about furniture, about having hot water, a working washing machine and a window that opens all the way.

Cas doesn’t care about having a home, but Steve does, so now Cas has an address and a mailbox.

Steve needs so many things, some days Cas can barely keep up.

Dean is still standing there and seems unsure what to do. Cas can’t bear the sight of him in the apartment. This wasn’t something he’d ever planned on seeing, but nothing had gone according to his plans today.

He puts down the keys he realizes he’s still clenching and goes back toward the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?” he says, because that’s what you’re supposed to say when you have people over at your apartment. He’s seen it on TV plenty of times.

He stands in front of the open fridge and scans the shelves—the carton of eggs, the half-eaten burrito, the jar of grape jelly—and says, “I only have water.”

“Water is fine,” Dean says, his voice a little strained.

This entire situation must make him as uncomfortable as Cas is. He’d followed him to the threshold of the kitchen and it looks like he’s feeling larger than he is, one shoulder pressing against the door frame. His gaze wanders over the surroundings: the beige walls, the bowl of bananas and oranges on the table and the teaspoon on the edge of the sink. 

That morning Steve had used it to stir his coffee and then forgot to wash it. He was distracted because he was checking his mail. He collects it at night, but sometimes he’s too tired to look at it before bed and he leaves it for the morning.

Dean doesn’t comment on any of it. “Are you alright?” he asks, as Cas hands him a tall glass with his bandaged hand.

“It’s just a cut.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Dean says.

Cas walks past him. “I’m fine.”

He goes back to the entryway to take off his shoes and put them away and he feels Dean watching him from around the corner. He senses that he has no intention of letting go of the conversation.

“That angel—he came for you, didn’t he?”

Cas sucks in a breath. He’d known the question was coming; he’d spent the silent journey over dreading it and wondering how much Dean had heard of his conversation with Ephraim. He really doesn’t want to talk about what he said; he doesn’t even want to think about it.

“Because you’re in pain,” Dean adds.

Cas keeps his eyes on the ground and wonders if Dean is thinking about that night not that long ago, when he’d confessed how much guilt he was carrying. I might kill myself.

“He was mistaken.”

Dean doesn’t buy it. “So you’re fine. We’re gonna leave it at that?” he insists.

Cas fixes his eyes on the pea-green wallpaper in front of him. “Ephraim is gone and I’m tired. I’ve got work in the morning.”

“Right, yeah,” Dean says, sounding weird again. He shifts on the spot, looks down at his water. “I should, uh—” 

Cas doesn’t meet his eyes but he says, “You can stay. The couch is a pull-out.”

Dean says okay, then, even though there’s a motel room already paid for with all his stuff in it. He says okay, even though the living room window doesn’t have blinds or curtains to keep the light out and Cas has no spare pillow.

Cas goes over to the couch and starts removing the cushions. 

“You don’t need to do that,” Dean says, but Cas doesn’t stop maneuvering the coffee table out of the way.

“You have a long drive tomorrow.”

And there’s that.

There’s a big blinking neon sign on the other side of the street that paints Cas’ bedroom walls in red and pink and purple. Cas rarely bothers with turning on the lights in this room. The landlady promised to get Steve some heavy curtains, but she hasn’t come back yet. Cas doesn’t mind. One night the sign was down for maintenance, and he had trouble falling asleep without its constant shifting colors.

He’s looking for clean sheets while Dean uses his little bathroom, and then all of a sudden he’s standing in the doorway, as if hesitant to come in for some reason. He’s only in his jeans.

“Do you have a T-shirt I could borrow?”

Cas goes to the dresser where Steve keeps his T-shirts—he’d paid ten dollars for a pack of three—and picks a dark one for Dean. He smells of the shower gel with the tropical fruit on the bottle.

Cas got it because the ads say it will nourish and soften his skin and Steve’s skin gets dry when it’s windy. He also has shaving cream in the cabinet, a razor, a toothbrush, a box of bandaids. Sometimes Cas stops and looks at Steve in the mirror and asks himself if he’ll ever get used to it, to being this, just this. Sometimes he lies in bed and watches the ceiling change colors and wonders how long he will need to wait before he stops feeling fragile.

“Do you want me to take a look at that?” Dean asks, gesturing with his chin to his bandaged hand.

“I’ll do it,” Cas says and he knows this rejection will unnerve Dean more than his refusal to talk. He reminds Cas of a bug bumping against a window, but Cas isn’t ready for him to take a look inside yet, let alone come in. 

Dean clenches his jaw for just a moment, then lets it go. Cas follows him to the living room with clean sheets in his arms and makes the pull-out bed while Dean pokes around in his kitchen, with the excuse of getting another glass of water. Cas hears him open cabinets and pull out drawers. It seems like it didn’t take him long to make himself at home.

Cas isn’t sure he likes that.

Maybe it’s because it still hurts. When he got to the bunker, he’d thought that he had nothing to worry about anymore, and what he had gone through since the fall had just been a rocky journey to get back home. He wasn’t alone, he had simply been misplaced, but now he could rest.

He’d been naive. Dean had made it clear that he didn’t belong there, and it was a confusing truth he had to learn to accept. And yet, it still hurts. He’d thought it didn’t anymore; he’d thought the bitterness had left him but maybe it doesn’t happen like that. Maybe it lingers and lingers. You think it’s gone, but it’s not. Maybe he won’t ever be rid of it.

Cas thought he had been hurt before. For sure, he had felt sorrow and disappointment.

But the open wound inside his chest is a crater, and it’s swallowed him, and he has to make his way back out and he’s not sure he’s there yet.

He’s exhausted though, especially tonight, with the things Ephraim said still ringing, true and inevitable, in his ears.

Dean pops his head through the kitchen door. “Do you cook?”

“Occasionally.”

“Really?” He sounds surprised. “What d’you make?”

“Eggs.”

Steve likes eggs in the morning, with coffee—two sugars. But not orange juice. It makes his stomach burn for hours. He breaks and scrambles one egg in a pan with butter and pepper. Some days, Steve is so tired the eggshell breaks in small pieces and the kitchen gets dirty, and sometimes he wakes up late and rushes through the door. He eats a donut at work—but only the pink kind. The chocolate ones have a weird aftertaste.

“That it?”

“I have lunch at work, and I buy something for dinner on the way home.”

And if he’s too tired to stand in line or doesn’t feel like eating anything, there’s always peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Dean nods thoughtfully.

Cas thinks he’s passed some sort of test, but maybe not with the highest of grades, because Dean adds, “You— I mean, you’re eating enough, right?”

Oh, so he does worry.

Cas thinks of that time he’d had expired food and stayed awake the whole night:  his stomach cramping, face pressed against the cool surface of his bathroom tiles, dreading the next wave of nausea, thinking he was going to die, his thumb hovering over Dean’s name in his contacts more times than he feels comfortable remembering. Wishing to hear his voice.

Not calling.

“I think so,” Cas says.

Dean slips out of his jeans and sits on the edge of the bed that groans under his weight.

Cas should go and take care of his hand. Steve needs to sleep; he has tomorrow’s opening shift. New products to shelve and customers to serve. Usually at this time of night, Steve has already turned in.

But when he starts for the bathroom, Dean says, “Hey, wait,” and Cas has no choice but to stop, because Dean is here now, in the middle of his living room, and Dean unbalances everything.

“You don’t wanna talk about it—that’s fine. I just wanna say that whatever Ephraim told you, you don’t need to listen to him. You got a good thing going here. You got a job, you got a place for yourself. You got a chance to get out. Like, really get out.”

Something colors Dean’s voice that makes Cas suspicious. He doesn’t want to start a conversation, but he can recognize when Dean’s trying to say something without saying it.

“I have a responsibility toward my kind. Even if I can’t do much, I should try.”

“I know,” he says, but he’s fidgeting. “It’s just too dangerous out there right now. You said it yourself: after what happened with Metatron, angels are all over, looking for you.”

Cas holds his gaze and doesn’t say anything. Dean blinks one too many times. There’s something he’s not telling him, Cas knows.

“I’m just saying,” he starts again, and goes on as if he’s choosing his words carefully. “I get that you want to make things right, but maybe you can wait a little longer?”

His words hang in the air. Cas studies the way Dean’s eyebrows arch over his eyes, the tight lines around his mouth. He’s still convinced he can hide things from Cas, maybe now more than ever, but Cas sees him. Dean always forgets that.

“What is it?” Cas finally asks, fixing his gaze on Dean.

That’s all it takes. Dean sighs and it’s as much as a confession.

“Crowley said there’s no reversing the spell,” he says then, and he looks like he’s bracing himself for Cas’ reaction.

Somehow though, it doesn’t come as a blow. It doesn’t hurt him, it doesn’t shake his world. Cas registers Dean’s words and he surprises himself by thinking that he’s not broken by them.

He never expected that it would be easy for things to go back to they were.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t go back,” he reasons. “We can still find a way.”

“So you wanna go back.”

Cas is taken by surprise, not so much by his words, but by the way Dean blurts them out, almost as if they had escaped before he could control them—urgent, as if he could be directly affected by his choice. Cas can’t understand what difference it makes to Dean if Cas is on Earth or not, when he’s the one who sent him away in the first place.

“I don’t want to be trapped,” he says, a kind way out of a reply, and he feels his good hand close in a fist. This is not where he was supposed to be, where he was born to be.

Of course, he doesn’t want to leave Earth—not forever. Even back when he’d thought he was closing the Gates of Heaven, he was leaving because he had no other choice, and coming to terms with that was one of the hardest things Cas had ever done.

Dean acts as if he doesn’t know that, and maybe he really doesn’t. But Cas is still in pain and won’t clear that up for him; he won’t show himself needy of his company and his time.

“Yeah, no, I get that,” Dean says, but he sounds like he got the opposite of what Cas was trying to say. Cas won’t correct his misunderstandings. Not tonight. He’s feeling weak enough.

Cas leaves the room; there is not much else to say.

The springs of the mattress Dean is sleeping on groan whenever he moves.

Cas hears him from his bedroom. They groan and groan and groan. It makes it impossible for Cas to relax enough to fall asleep, even though he’s exhausted and the wound on his hand has started throbbing again.

He’d disinfected it and wrapped it in clean bandages, but he doesn’t have any painkillers, so he grinds his teeth and hopes it’ll be morning before he realizes.

The mattress groans and groans and then, when Cas resigns himself to the fact that he won’t get any sleep, the sound suddenly stops. Dean could have managed to fall asleep but somehow Cas doesn’t think that’s the case. The hair on the back of his neck stands up when he hears Dean’s footsteps coming toward his bedroom.

There’s a moment of silence and Cas doesn’t dare turn around. Then the bathroom door shuts and he lets out a breath.

The toilet flushes a few moments later, the door opens, and again, silence.

Cas frowns, rolls onto his back to find Dean standing there, just a dark silhouette in the door in the purple light—still behind that invisible wall that won’t let him cross the threshold.

“Dean?”

“Oh, you’re awake,” he says, “Sorry, uh, I can’t sleep on that bed so…”

The neon blinks in pink and Cas notices Dean’s wearing his jeans again. The thought of him slipping into the night, and Cas finding nothing but an empty apartment in the morning, has his heart pounding in his chest.

“You can sleep in here,” he says, and his voice sounds broken and loud.

“Uh, you don’t ha— I’ll be fine on the floor with just an extra blanket or something.”

The color in the room changes again. Dean wasn’t going to leave. Cas is confused by his emotions; his heart won’t behave, his ears start ringing, his insides burning. He didn’t want him here in the first place, so why does the thought of him going away hurt so much?

“I don’t have an extra blanket,” he says in the end, and then scoots over and gives him his back. “It’s late,” he adds and hopes it’s enough to end the conversation.

“Alright,” comes Dean’s voice, and then there is the sound of footsteps, his jeans hitting the floor and then the comforter is lifting, the mattress sinking.

Cas still can’t relax. Not when he can feel the tension in the room, Dean’s body rigid on the bed and his intakes of breath telling him that he’s getting ready to speak.

He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Cas?” 

Cas had thought he wanted an apology from Dean more than anything.

He thought about it at night, imagined what he would say if he called, if he wrote it in a text message, if he showed up at his door. But when Dean says, “I’m sorry,” right there and then, Cas realizes he doesn’t need it anymore. He has forgiven him already.

“I know I let you down,” Dean says, “I should be here for you.”

And Cas had thought about what to say to him a million times. To make him feel worse, to spike his guilt, to reject him completely.

He can’t do it. He’s never wanted to be one of the things Dean blames himself for. He won’t be one of them tonight, either.

There’s an open wound inside his chest, but telling Dean how much he’d hurt him would only make it deeper.

He says the only thing that feels true. He says, “I’m not mad.”

“You’re not okay though, are you?”

Cas doesn’t know if he can find the right words to explain how he feels. 

He rolls onto his back, fixes his eyes on the ceiling and watches it as it changes: red, purple, pink, and red again.

He tries, “I’m not myself.”

Dean shifts on his spot and now he’s looking at him. Cas can feel his gaze and knows Dean is frowning.

“What do you mean?” It comes as a whisper, worry bracketing each of his words.

“I don’t know who I am.”

“You’re Cas,” Dean says with a familiar high note of stubbornness and confusion.

That’s probably what does it. Cas’ lips start trembling, his eyes prickling. There’s a sudden lump in his throat, his chest starts hurting, and then there are hot tears spilling from the corners of his eyes, rolling down his temples and disappearing into his hair. The tickling sensation on his skin and in his nose is not entirely unpleasant, but he has to keep swallowing and can’t bring himself to talk.

Dean sees all of it. He stays absolutely still but when he speaks, every word is soaked in a softness that makes him feel even closer than he is.

“You’re still an angel. Without grace, okay, but that doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change who you are,” he says, and he sounds like he knows for sure.

Cas knows this is hard on Dean. To see his tears and to know that this time he can’t say what he usually says: I’ll take care of it, I’ll figure something out, Let me handle this. Because tomorrow he’ll be gone. He’ll hop in his car and drive away, and nothing will change that. So he can’t take Cas' burden now, like he always tries to do, like he does with everyone else.

“You’re still you,” he keeps going. “And you know, I really meant what I said earlier. You are doing one hell of a job, managing all this on your own. Being human sucks. Like, truly, sucks. Of course you hate it.”

Dean’s words have a tentative lightness to them and Cas knows he’s trying to cheer him up so he makes an effort to smile. He takes a deep breath and glances at him.

“I don’t hate it,” he says, his voice still a little broken. “I just…  want my grace back. I want to feel like myself again.”

Cas doesn’t look away from him and doesn’t move a muscle, not even when Dean says, “Okay,” and reaches out with one hand to rub away a tear on his temple. The touch is unexpected, and Cas eyes’ close on their own for a moment. Dean is serious now. “We’ll get it back.”

In Dean’s eyes Cas finds something that, incredibly, resembles understanding. Does he understand? Is he comparing Cas’ grace being ripped from him with the bite of the Hellhounds tearing him apart? Is he thinking of Hell consuming his soul? Is he thinking of losing Sam?

Cas doesn’t know, but somehow the understanding is there, and there’s no need for him to say more. 

“I’ll start looking as soon as I get back, okay?” Dean says.

Cas nods and his tears are replaced with a calm certainty: that Dean is here, that he himself is not completely lost, that there’s a possibility to feel whole again. He doesn’t even remember how he could have thought everything was so hopeless.

“Okay,” he says, and worries that he will feel silly and ashamed once Dean turns around again, and the moment will be gone. But Dean stays where he is. He settles down on his side with his head on his arm because the only pillow is too small for the both of them.

“You’ll be alright,” he says, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing once. Next to Dean, Cas believes it.

Slowly, Dean’s breathing evens out. The rhythm is so familiar that Cas' body relaxes to it. He has lost count of how many hours he spent in a dark room with this sound, back when he used to watch over him while he slept.

Cas lets out a deep breath and closes his eyes. Then he feels it—a touch on his shoulder again, Dean’s fingertips on the fabric of his sleeve, then the same featherlight touch of a knee against his bare thigh, right below the hem of his boxer shorts. No real pressure, just a light contact, but it starts a gentle prickle that travels through Cas’ body and fills his chest and limbs. He’s never felt anything like it.

Cas keeps his eyes closed and his body still and he falls asleep like that, thinking that Dean has never been close to him like this before. Whether it’s chemistry or instinct, maybe it’s now and it’s here, because somehow humanity makes him more accessible, more recognizable to Dean: the warmth of his skin, the smell of his body, the beating of his heart.

And so maybe there is, at last, something Cas can be grateful to Steve for.

It’s not quite morning when Cas wakes up. He doesn’t need an alarm. Even when Steve gets a day off, Cas still wakes up very early.

He doesn’t like lingering in bed for too long, because his mind gets busy with thoughts and memories, and he has to occupy his hands to make them go away. But Steve needs his rest on his days off, so Cas stays under the blanket until his bladder or his stomach start complaining.

This morning, his limbs feel heavy and his nose is stuffy, and he can’t remember why. 

He reaches out to grab his phone and check the time, and it’s the hand with the bandage that reminds him what happened the day before.

It reminds him that this morning is nothing like every other morning, that there’s someone lying next to him, and that someone is Dean. He can feel the heat of his body warming his back.

He sits up on his side of the bed and only then dares to look over his shoulder. Yes, Dean is still there, asleep on his stomach, one arm bent under his head, Cas’ shirt stretched over his shoulders.

Dean probably senses his gaze, because he opens his eyes and looks back at him, his signature morning pout on his lips.

Cas thinks he must make quite a sight; with the window behind his back, he must be just a silhouette against the weak morning light, his hair sticking up, his clothes wrinkled.

He wants to speak, but he’s forgotten the first thing people usually say to each other in the morning.

Dean’s brain must still be foggy because he doesn’t comment on the fact that Cas is just staring at him. After a moment, he blinks and yawns and lets out a mumbled “You got a really nice bed,” as if it isn’t just a mattress and a metal frame.

“Thank you,” Cas says, and only then remembers that what he was supposed to say was, Good morning.

It’s too late now, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

“What time is it?”

“Five-thirty.”

Dean smiles in bliss. His eyes are glassy. “I haven’t slept six hours in a long time.” He yawns again. “You getting up?”

“Yes, but you can stay longer,” Cas says. “I’m going to get dressed.”

Dean nods and rubs his face and then follows Cas with his gaze while he gathers things around the room.

“I’ll be up in a sec. I’m gonna make you eggs,” he says.

He’s pulled Steve’s pillow to his side and made himself comfortable again, stretching his legs and taking up space. Cas can’t resist turning to watch him from the door. He looks like a dream in the early morning light.

Dean’s eyes are still on him and Cas suddenly feels exposed, with his bare thighs and calves. He’s seen Dean in various states of undress plenty of times, but he’s not sure Dean’s ever seen him, and he doesn’t know what it means that he’s watching.

“Okay,” Cas agrees. After last night, it’s an easy concession to make. The corner of Dean’s mouth quirks up, and Cas feels himself mirroring him. 

Dean is a great cook. Cas has heard him boast about it in the past, but this is the first time that he’s tried his cooking.

His eggs are good, more savory and less runny than his, and they come with toast.

“I never have toast with my eggs,” Cas comments.

“What’s with all the bread, then?”

“It’s for PB&J.”

That makes Dean snort a laugh. He’d moved the bowl with the fruit to the counter next to the sink and poured coffee into two mismatched mugs. Now, he sits across from him and digs into his plate. 

He’s already dressed, shoes on too. Cas doesn’t mention that he’s still wearing the T-shirt he borrowed. He’s pretty sure the black one he had on before is still where he left it, on the hook behind his bathroom door, and he wants to keep it that way.

The time is running out and he doesn’t know how to convince himself there’s no point in wishing it could stop.

“You can use bread to do lots of things,” Dean is saying. “Ever had French toast?”

Cas shakes his head.

“Alright, I’ll make you some next time.”

“Next time?” Cas repeats, almost losing his grip on the mug he’s bringing to his lips.

Dean puts down his fork, picks it up again, avoids his gaze. “I just thought— It’s not that I want to bring the bad guys to your door, obviously, but maybe I could slip out here sometimes. I’d be careful.”

Cas' face must be asking, Why?, because Dean rushes to add, “Just, you know, to see how you’re doing.” He massages one of his thighs out of nervousness, then in a light tone, he says, “First thing, I’m buying you groceries, replacing that couch, and fixing the light in the bathroom.”

Cas puts down his coffee mug, anger rising in his chest. “No.”

Dean hadn’t expected that. His face crumbles all at once, showing hurt and confusion. “Wh—?”

“You can come here, but as a friend. I don’t want a caretaker.”

“What?” he exclaims in disbelief. “I didn’t say that.” 

“I’m serious, Dean.” Cas clenches his jaw; this is the last thing he wanted. “I don’t need your pity and I don’t need you to parent me.”

Dean’s eyes widen. “That’s not what I meant!” he says, raising his voice. He gets up and circles around his chair, taking a moment to calm down. “Jesus, Cas, I don’t wanna be your parent. I know you don’t need me, I just—” He sighs, frustrated, shakes his head. “I— I didn’t mean that,” he says, looking up at him like he does sometimes when he wants to say something but doesn’t know how.

Cas knows that look. It takes all the fight out of him. Without the anger, all that’s left is the knowledge that Dean might come back and this might not be the only morning they spend in this kitchen. It’s an unbearable thought, difficult to grasp—almost as difficult as it had been to imagine Dean here before yesterday. “Well then, in that case, it’s fine, I’d like that,” Cas says, and Dean deflates in front of him like a balloon. 

Cas takes the dishes to the sink, gives them a quick wash. He wonders what happens now.

“Are you leaving right away?” he asks, sneaking a glance over his shoulder.

“Nah, I can give you a ride to work,” Dean says casually. And then, in a different tone, he adds, “Go on, go brush your teeth and get your jacket.”

Cas throws him a look, his mouth already open in protest, but Dean is grinning at him. “Just kidding.”

Cas rolls his eyes.

The ride is quiet and the closer they get, the sadder Cas feels.

It’s a dull pain that presses down the corners of his mouth and makes him clench a fist, irrationally resenting green lights and empty roads, pedestrians that wait on the sidewalk instead of crossing and slowing them down.

Dean talks about getting Cas a car and doesn’t seem to mind or notice that Cas barely responds. He’s probably just doing it to fill the silence. He stops in front of the entrance, and Cas doesn’t expect him to, but he turns off the engine and gets out to say goodbye.

He lingers in front of Cas, his eyes wandering from him to the Gas-n-Sip windows, to the gas pump, down to the asphalt, up to Cas again.

Cas is no fool; he knows that it could be a long time before they see each other again.

“Let me know if you see any of the angels,” Cas says to stop that line of thought. “They may despise me, but they know we need to work together.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean says, a wrinkle in between his eyebrows.

“Say hello to Sam for me.”

Dean sets his jaw and doesn’t say anything, and Cas feels there’s something there he doesn’t know. But they’ve run out of time. He takes a step forward and hugs him.

Hugging him as a human is different. It’s warmer, for one thing. Cas feels his own breath pushing his chest against Dean’s, his heart picking up the pace. And then there’s the scent of him. Cas can’t resist leaning his head into the crook of Dean’s neck, to feel his warm skin against his cheek, breathe him in.

Dean’s hands come up after only a moment to rest under his shoulder blades. He lets Cas hold him for longer than he thought he would.

“Hey,” he says then. “You can call me anytime—you know that, right?”

Cas nods, takes a breath, and steps away.

Dean seems sad now. He flashes a smile, but it’s not genuine. He looks like he’s about to say I’m sorry again. Cas wishes he wouldn’t, and thankfully he doesn’t. 

Instead he says, “I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you.” Cas tries to smile, too, but he thinks it comes out all wrong. “I’ll see you soon.”

"Yeah,” Dean says, now walking backward. “Buy me a pillow, will you?” He points and flashes another of his fake smiles. He gets to the car door. “Toothbrush, too.”

“Okay,” Cas says.

The door opens with a creak.

Dean looks at him over the roof.

“Have a good day at work.”

“Have a safe drive.”

Dean gets in and Cas bends to look at him through the passenger window.

Dean’s not smiling anymore. He’s sighing, and when he notices Cas, he leans over to roll the window down.

“I’ll be back.”

Cas knows Dean believes it. “You know where I live.”

Dean’s lips stretch in a grin that doesn’t show in his eyes.

The Impala starts rumbling and vibrating under Cas’ fingers still on the window frame. He holds up one hand in an aborted wave, Dean does the same. Cas lets go of the car and the wheels start rolling.

In a moment, he’s gone.

And Cas would stand there to watch the car disappear from his view, but Steve needs to open the store, turn on the cash register, make a few calls, start the coffee machine.

And on any other day, Steve would do that without thinking about Dean. Steve wouldn’t ache for him, wouldn’t long for him.

Cas isn’t sure he can do that anymore—shut himself away. As he wipes the counter and organizes the coins, he almost doesn’t remember how he did it before. 

He knows then that there is no going back, because Cas and Steve have something in common now.

They’re both in love with Dean.