Chapter Text
Dean opts to just keep on the borrowed shirt, but put back on yesterday's jeans. On those there's only an artistic spattering of blood that can easily be dismissed by any passerby, unlike his other shirt which is completely soiled and would make him look like an ax murderer. He splashes water on his face, steals a shot of mouthwash from the medicine cabinet, and wets down the tufts of his hair that swish in different directions from being pressed against Cas all night.
Claire, Donna, Sam and Eileen headed out immediately after breakfast, so Dean is pretty much the last one out the door. Cas is leaning against the impala when he gets outside, his eyes closed and head tilted towards the sun. He hears Dean's boots crunch on the gravel and lowers his gaze, settling into a cool smile.
"Beautiful day to burn some corpses!" Dean beams, hopping into the driver's seat.
Cas follows, "Not quite my first thought."
"And what was?" Dean places his arm on the backrest, backing down the driveway. When he straightens out he leaves his hand on the seatback between them.
"There are many sensations you don't realize until their absence. A breeze, the sun, even this," He pats the leather of the Impala's seat, "Feeling this, touching it. Everything around us is a constant reminder of life."
Dean's been trying not to think about Cas' recent three week siesta in nothingness. And he's been trying very hard to avoid asking what he knows he needs to. He fixes his eyes on the road, "So, uh, the empty... that's all handled now right? You won't-"
"I can no longer return to the empty." Cas says easily, "Jack made sure of it. I'm more trouble than it's worth, it turns out."
"Just like that?"
Cas nods, the corner of his mouth quirking to a smile as he watches the sunlight flicker across his hand, "Yes. When I die, I'll go to heaven now. Like you."
Dean lets out a harsh breath, and says, mostly to himself, "No strings attached win, huh?"
This should make him less anxious, but somehow he's even more worried. Every time things seem calm in their lives, there's something brewing around the next bend. Someone or something always coming and someone they love caught in the crosshairs.
Cas takes Dean's hand from the seatback and threads their fingers together. With a squeeze, he brings his hand up to plant a soft peck on Dean's knuckles. Some of the tension starts to leave his shoulders again.
"Hey, uh, why don't you pick out some tunes?" Dean nods at the box of cassettes at Cas' feet, if for no other reason than to swiftly leave this topic on the road behind them.
"I thought driver picks the music?" Cas asks, but tugs the box into his lap anyway and starts rifling through.
"That doesn't apply to you anymore. Don't tell Sammy." He winks, squeezing Cas' hand.
"Why am I an exception?" Cas dusts off an old Skynyrd tape Legends and pops it in the player.
"Because..." Dean shifts nervously, "I've always let girls pick the music and... and since we're..." He nods between them and raises their joined hand, "We're... Christ, I feel like a teenage girl asking this but... what are we, Cas?"
"I don't understand?" He looks at Dean blankly, in the way that he definitely knows what Dean is talking about but likes to pretend he's not just to see Dean fumble with it.
Dean groans, "Come on, man. Throw me a bone, here. You know what I mean."
"Are you asking me to be your boyfriend, Dean?" The corner of Cas' mouth quirks in a suppressed smile, his voice even.
"Shut up." Dean mutters, still watching the road, tightening his one hand's grip on the wheel.
"So that's a no, then?" He grins wide.
"It's a yes. It's obviously-" He drops Cas' hand. "You know what, nevermind, I revoke your music-picking privileges."
"That's no way to treat your boyfriend, Dean."
Dean peeks over at him and can't help but smile, too. He fixes his eyes back on the road, face hot, "Shut up."
Cas takes back Dean's hand with both of his own, tracing his finger across the lines of his palm. "Where are we going?"
"I have a place in mind."
"You have a usual body disposal site?"
"In Sioux Falls? You bet your ass."
Dean hasn't been to the old Singer Salvage Yard in years. They're only on the road another couple of minutes before rolling up to the front, and based on the look of the place no one else has been around either. Bobby never did keep it completely weedwacked and shiny as a penny, but it used to at least look lived in. Now there's patches of grass where there used to be dirt, and full grown shrubbery inhabit the rustbuckets they used to use for parts. The house is little more than a ruin, the wilds already taking that back as well, with vines covering what used to be charred stairs.
"I didn't realize this was still here," Cas says incredulously, almost to himself.
"Yeah," Dean scoffs, "Bobby left us the whole lot in his will. House was probably still standing when he wrote it up..."
Cas is looking at him with that confused head tilt when Dean pulls up to a stop in what looks like a good enough grassy patch to start a fire.
"Why haven't you done anything with it?" He follows Dean to the back of the Impala.
Dean shrugs, unlocking the trunk, "We could've sold the land, I guess. Didn't feel right, though. Then I think with everything that kept happening, it kinda got tossed aside."
They take awhile stacking the bodies in a small pile in the grass. Dean takes a jug of gasoline from the backseat and spreads it over the mass, pulls out a lighter, flicks it, tosses it to blaze up. He just stares at the fire a minute, thinking of the murderous rampage he nearly went on because of these few stupid vampires and their attempt on Cas' life. The person he turns into in those times is when he most sees John in himself. It's those times where he most understands his father, too, and what that type of loss does to a person. He gets it because as much as he'd like to think otherwise, the man Dean turns into when he loses Cas or loses Sam, isn't Dean anymore. Just like the John Winchester that raised this kid into a man far too young, wasn't the real John Winchester.
That still never made it okay. It doesn't make it okay when Dean is that man, either. Maybe that's the difference between he and his father, though... John never recognized that in himself, but Dean does. He sees it, he just doesn't know how to stop it, because they're everything to him and that scares the crap out of him.
"You should fix this place up. Build something here." Cas says after awhile, squinting at Dean.
Dean scoffs, kicking a rock into the fire, "Yeah? Like what?"
"Do you remember that place Michael had you trapped in? In your head."
"That crappy old bar? Hard to forget."
"There must've been at least some truth to the dream, I imagine."
Dean shrugs, absently kicking at the grass at his feet, "Yeah, I mean... yeah. Roadhouse pitstop for hunters. Karaoke machine. Surly old regulars. Juke with just the classics..." He lights up at the thought, but shakes it off, shrugging again, "But yeah... it's just a dream."
"Why should it stay one?"
"You think I should open up a bar? Here? Cas I don't know the first two things about running a business."
"Since when should that stop you? What is it you've always said to me? 'We figure it out together.'" Cas bumps his shoulder against Dean's, tilting his head.
Dean chuckles, falling into a sad smile, "I should quit the life, that's what you're saying."
"Why not? Sam is. It's finally quiet out there... it might be time." Cas pauses, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder and catching his gaze, "The choice is yours. Like I said, I'm by your side no matter what. I just want you to be happy, Dean, and I don't want you to settle for a hunter's life just because you think that's all you are and all you can be."
"I know that..." Dean's voice is small, and he looks at Cas, really looks at him, because surely he doesn't deserve someone like the angel in front of him.
And he starts to think the most dangerous thing a man like him can think. Maybe... maybe he could have that. Maybe that's the best way to keep that John Winchester side at bay... live the life he's always wanted. The type of life John led before he, too, turned into a monster.
"Besides, I have a lot of downtime while you all sleep. After we broke you out of Michael's control, I read several dozen books along the topic of running a business. I've learned quite a bit." Cas just smiles at him like it's a passing thing. No big deal. Like it's not one of the most thoughtful things anyone has ever done. And he did it as a 'just in case.' In case Dean ever wanted to, or ever thought that maybe he could have something like that made-up life in his head.
Eyes glistening, "Why do you like me so much, Cas?"
Cas grazes a thumb across the stubble on Dean's cheek, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on the corner of Dean's eye, his nose, the corner of his mouth, and then finally the softest brush of lips on his own. Still there, he whispers, "I like you because on Halloween twelve years ago, you chose to save the town." He brings his lips back to Dean's temple, ""I like you because you fought against me for the greater good, when I was an agent of heaven and could've killed you without hardly a thought."
He leans away, still lightly holding onto Dean's jaw, and continues, looking into his eyes, "Once, you told me I was already dead. It was just a passing thing, dismissing me after an argument... and you were right. I was nothing. Just a mindless soldier before you came along. And now I can be here, have choices, foods I like, music I like. I'm a father and a friend. And you can say a movie I like is stupid and I can say the same to one of yours. You make references to things I still don't understand half the time, but you think they're funny so I do too. I like you because you've never had anything yet you fight for everything. The smallest things make you happy. To see your entire face brighten at the sight of a single piece of pie makes me happier than I felt once in hundreds of years."
Dean's heart is hammering in his chest, unable to stop holding his eyes with Cas' because Cas is doing it again... showing Dean how completely in love with him he is. And for how long, too. He remembers that time all those years ago when they were barely friends yet, but still somehow so important to each other. They've always been like this. Dean pulling Cas to his feet and Cas pulling Dean. Because he liked him then too.
Can I tell you something if you promise not to tell another soul?
Okay.
I'm not a hammer, as you say. I have questions. I have doubts.
Cas pauses in thought, then looks down at Dean's chest, placing a hand firmly in front of his heart. "Do you know I can still see your soul? If I try to."
Dean looks down at his chest as though he's gonna see something too, but it's just shirt there beneath an angel's hand.
"This mangled old thing?" Dean jokes, but Cas ignores him.
He continues, "A human's soul is very telling of their character. Everything they're made up of. What they show the world and what they keep inside. Even in Hell, your soul was so incredibly bright when it should've been far more tainted. It was beautiful. Perhaps that's why I gripped you so tightly. I wanted to protect you, even then.
"The dimmest I ever saw it was when you had the mark. That's how I knew something was wrong. Something dark was scarring you." He lets his hand drop, staring at Dean's chest a moment more before looking back to his face with a curious expression, "These past couple of days it's brighter than its been in a long time... maybe because..." He tilts his head, "Are you happy, Dean?"
Dean places his hand on Cas' chest this time, still meeting his eye, "Closer than I've been in a long time."