Chapter Text
Cas' blood is still dried on the back of the dungeon's door. Dean isn't sure why he thought it would be gone, but it's still there. Just like the bloody handprint is still on the shoulder of that jacket in his room. He refuses to sleep in there, even though he's the one that put the jacket there in the first place. He tries not to sleep at all, really. But usually he just passes out on the floor of the library now, several drinks in.
He knows it's bad. He knows he's making the other two worry, and that he should try harder for Jack and for Sam, but after all of it... he just can't.
But they finally beat Chuck. Jack did, mostly. And now he says he might be able to save Cas. So Dean sits on the floor of the one place he swore he'd never step foot in again, waiting. This time with a dangerous flame of hope in his chest because Cas has come back every damn time before, and it seems beyond cruel of this universe to throw everything it has at Dean and leave this being the one time he can't get him back. Wouldn't that be the icing on the cake? God's dead? Check. Free-will? Check. Cas out of the empty? Now, hold your horses...
That's where the universe says "Ah, sorry kiddo, you can't get everything you ever wanted, where's the fairness in that?" And then Dean would have to sit and live out the rest of eternity with Cas alone and dead in the empty because of him.
Dean hasn't told Sam or Jack the whole story. They probably deserve to know. Maybe Jack already knows now since he's all-knowing or whatever, but it's different for Dean to say the words himself. It makes it more real. And then he'd have to see the look on Sam's face. That knowing look. That look that says all the things that Dean's been trying so hard to keep buttoned down for weeks. That look that Sam gets every time Cas is dead and Dean completely loses it. Except it'd be worse this time because Cas was in love with him and then Sam would know and he'd look at him like... something.
It might just break him completely this time.
If this doesn't work...
The door can burn. This whole room can burn. The whole bunker. Dean doesn't care. If this doesn't work he doesn't think he can stay here anymore, knowing his best friend died just down the hall after telling him he was in love with him. This place is cursed. He gets now why John never turned back after Lawrence. Not that losing Cas is the same thing as John losing their mom. It's different, but it's just... the comparison is there. It makes sense to compare. Since Cas is family and all...
Dean hears a wet, slopping, gooey movement coming from the wall. He stands immediately, nearly stumbling over his own feet, and just stares at the black sludge stir and spit out two figures. It disappears just as quick as it came, leaving no trace.
The first thing that happens is a body shaped like Cas collapses on the floor next to Jack, wearing that same tan trenchcoat that disappeared in the middle of the room weeks ago. The next thing that happens is that body jolts to life and gulps in a deep breath of stale dungeon air. The last thing that happens is Dean forgets to breathe until the person in the middle of the room finally turns around and looks at him. Those blue eyes send a jolt through his spine. They see Dean sitting in the same spot as last time, likely wearing that same stupid look on his face as last time that basically says this isn't happening. But just like last time, Dean can't move. He gulps in a shocked breath, finally, when the person matches that deep gravelly voice and says, "Dean."
"Cas." It's just a single breath out, and he's moving.
Sam is saying things. Jack is saying things. Dean isn't ashamed to admit he doesn't give a flying fuck about what kinds of things either person is saying. He gets up and stumbles across the room, colliding with a solid-mass of trenchcoat and angel. Living. Breathing. Warm. Alive. Cas.
Dean circles his arms around Cas' neck, hands clutching fists-full of that stupid tan coat, face buried in Cas' shoulder. Cas clutches back just as tightly.
"How many times am I gonna have to tell you not to do that again?" Dean aims for a joke but his voice cracks halfway through, words muffled by Cas' hair.
"I'm sorry, Dean."
Dean just grips him tighter. He doesn't know what else to say. There isn't anything more to say. Not right now. He can't just forgive him right then and there after all that, even though he does. Despite everything, he always seems to forgive Cas. And he can't say anything about the rest of what happened in the dungeon that day... That's a conversation for later-Dean and later-Cas. Because they get to have that now. A later.
Reluctantly, Dean shoves himself off of Cas maybe a little too roughly, and grunts out, "Good to have you back, man."
Sitting alone in his room for the first time in weeks, every bone in Dean's body wants to get up and go to Cas' room if for no other reason than to just make sure he's still there. But he can't do that because then he'd be alone with Cas again. And he'd have to talk to him and he'd have to... what? What is he gonna do? What is he gonna say? What does someone even say to something like that? Telling Dean all the good things that he saw in him and spilling his entire heart out on the floor with threat of imminent death approaching... Did he expect Dean to say something? Was he sitting in the empty wondering why Dean just stood there in shock? Did he think Dean would say something back in those .5 seconds before being shoved into the ground and watching black snot shoot from the wall and swallow his best friend into eternal darkness?
True happiness... that had to be an exaggeration, right? It was more like just a happy thing... of the many happy things a person can experience in life. Not like the peak of happiness... right? Because if he's Cas' idea of happiness then Dean has gotta treat that guy to some better times. Dean is just not it. He can't be. It makes no sense. Cas doesn't know what he's talking about.
That stupid angel and his stupid feelings. Which he learned all from Dean, apparently.
Dean passes out for the first time in a long time without a drop of alcohol on his lips, and with thoughts of Cas swirling through his mind.
Dean has no idea how to act around Cas now and it shows. It starts at breakfast when he stomps in at the crack of dawn where everyone else is already awake for God knows what reason, and here Dean shows up in the same clothes as yesterday with rampant morning breath.
What in the hell does Cas love about this? Dean is smelly and he's rude and he's mad all the time and snaps at people in the morning before he gets his coffee and... why him? Does Cas get all hot and bothered when he looks at him? Can he? Dean has found these thoughts crossing his mind a lot more now that he's actually started letting himself think about Cas at all rather than trying to drink himself into unconsciousness. And it's as he's considering what other things about him that Cas loves, and while pouring himself a large cup of lukewarm coffee, that Cas sneaks up next to him and corners him with his stupid puppydog blues and messy bedhead and... pajamas? Since when does Cas wear pajamas? He might as well be naked without the eight layers he usually has piled on every second of every day. He's downright indecent right now. The guy is showing forearm for Christ's sake and Dean just stares down at him like a horny englishmen in the 1800s seeing a flash of ankle.
Wait, no. Not horny. Not like that. That's just-
Oh, whatever.
It's Deans confusion at this entire image and the fact that he just thought the words "horny" and "Cas" in the same sentence that he lets Cas stand there for so long just looking at him. Or did he say something?
"What?" Dean grumbles, hip colliding with the counter as he tries backing up from Cas and only succeeds in keeping himself cornered.
"I-uh, was wondering if you wanted help at the store today." Cas asks with direct and complete eye contact, which Dean evades the first chance he can by focusing his entire attention on his coffee.
"I'm going to the store today?" Dean raises his voice, asking the room. Eileen and Sam sit at the table with coffee, Jack seated across from them.
"Your girlfriend didn't just come back from the dead, so yeah you're going to the store." Sam grins over his mug. Dean glares murder over his own cup, but Sam just continues, "Eileen had the idea that we should get some of the hunters together, have a type of freedom celebration. So I hit up Jody, she and the girls are in. She's gonna spread the word."
"And you volunteered our house for the block party?" Dean pointedly avoids looking at Cas at all as he moves away from him, taking the seat at the table next to Jack. In the corner. Where Cas can't follow. Because Dean's a coward like that.
Eileen grins, "Hosting means gifts and gifts from hunters means more alcohol."
She has a point. He purses his lips in faux consideration, nods, and raises his cup. "Come one, come all."
Sam grins and Eileen smiles up at him. Their stools are basically on top of each other and she has both arms wrapped around one of Sam's, one leg resting over his lap. Sam's eyes catch hers and he looks down, all sheepish. Sam, the big lug, all six-foot-something of him and he still blushes when his girlfriend looks at him. Dean can't help but smile. He's glad Sam gets to have a happy, sappy start at life with Eileen.
Dean catches Cas looking at them, too, from the end of the table. Does Cas want that with Dean? To be all soft and snuggly and in love? He hides his face in his mug and avoids looking at anyone at all. He should be carefree and happy like the rest of them, but that little conversation that Dean had already allotted for a later-Dean with later-Cas is creeping up on him and he still has no idea what to say or do about it. He doesn't want to hurt Cas when he just got him back. And when Dean and Cas start inevitably being weird around each other, Sam's gonna wanna talk about it. And he'll tell Eileen about it. And someone will tell Jack. And everyone will just... know. He doesn't wanna face any of it.
"Sam said we can make s'mores! I've never had them before!" Jack grins, scooping up a mouth-full of cookie crisp.
"I made a list, if you and Cas want to-" Sam starts.
"No, I can take the kid." Dean chugs down a last gulp of coffee and slams the empty mug on the table.
"Okay... are you sure?"
"Yeah!" Dean grins and slaps Jack on the back. "A little one on one bonding, huh?"
Jack smiles and nods, looking a bit confused but not commenting on it.
Dean knows Sam is looking at him with his what the hell is that about? confusion face. The face where if Dean were to actually look at his brother, they'd start a silent conversation just with looks across the table. Another conversation Dean really just doesn't want to start.
But he does look at Cas. God knows why. Maybe just because he has to look somewhere while he stands up to leave, or maybe to shoot himself in the foot because Cas is just looking down at his mug with no expression at all, which means he's probably trying very hard to look that way, which means he's upset too.
Dean's halfway down the hall when he calls over his shoulder, "Jack, put on your shoes we're leaving in ten."