Archive of Our Own ^beta

None of them knows for sure where the Empty is going to spit them out. Sam figures if Cas got dumped in the field where Dean spread his ashes all those years ago, it’ll dump them the last place they were on Earth: the Bunker’s dungeon. Still, no one has ever been ripped out of it before, and Sam had refused to let Dean go without a back-up plan.

Not that it had mattered to Dean—he wasn’t coming back without Cas.

So Sam got their bases covered: Bobby was on alert in South Dakota, Jody and Donna in Minnesota. Claire and Kaia were in California, and Garth was ready if they popped up in Wisconsin. Eileen stayed in Kansas, but on the far side just in case. Charlie was in Florida anyway, setting up shop with Stevie, and Alex and Patience manned the phones, ready to get the word out. They weren’t going to let the Empty have Cas. Not when he was the reason they all had their happy endings.

To no one’s surprise, Sam’s right. When Dean and Cas finally tumble through the wall, they crash through the spell materials still littering the dungeon floor and startle Sam from his dozing. It’s been days since Dean went through the portal, but Sam hasn’t left his post.

Sam bursts into the room to find Dean and Cas panting hard on the floor in a tangled heap. A thick coat of oil-slick blackness covers them both at the end of a trail leading back to the once-again solid brick wall. Sam jerks to a stop before he trips right over them. He can’t tell who’s who or where one starts and the other ends. Just a pile of grasping limbs, breathing hard. They hold each other too tightly, and Sam sinks back on his heels, relaxing when he realizes their sobs are of relief, not pain.

Dean doesn’t quite know how he ended up here, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest under the steady, warm water of the Bunker’s communal showers. He distantly remembers Sam scooping him up, detaching him from Cas, and ushering them under the scalding streams, fully-clothed. The water does little to wash away the black muck that covers him, clinging to his clothes and his hair, buried under his fingernails and tangled in his eyelashes. He pulls his knees in tighter, shivering despite the water turned as hot as it’ll go.

“Cas?” Dean’s voice cracks with the effort, but he doesn’t know where he is. He must be on the other side of the partition. He can hear another shower running. But the panic stabs at his stomach worse than the time he drank a quart of spoilt milk. “Cas, you hear me?”

For a moment that stretches longer than Dean can stand, the only sounds that fill the shower room are the splashes of water on the backs of the shaking, dirty men and the groan of the pipes, overworking to keep the water hot. He’s about to shake out of his skin before he gets an answer.

“I’m here, Dean.”

Dean presses his eyes into his knees, letting out a sob of relief that even he can hear ricochet off the tile walls. He takes in a shuddering breath, too relieved to be jealous of the way Cas’s voice is steady and even as ever.

“I’m here,” Cas repeats in the midst of Dean’s sobs, mixing with the steam. “I can hear you.”

Castiel leans against the partition. It means the water doesn’t soak past his slacks and loafers and what’s left of his trench coat, but this way, he can stay close to Dean. As close as he can allow himself. He seems to have more of his wits about him now. The time before, he was lost. Scared. Alone. Like a nightmare he wasn’t sure he’d ever wake up from.

Castiel has no idea how long he was actually there. Time wasn’t the same as on Earth, or in Hell, or even in Heaven. He’s not really sure it even existed there, not in the way humans perceive it. But by the time Dean found him, he had to spend most of his time convincing Castiel he wasn’t part of one of the elaborate tortures the Entity had set up for him. Regrets were something Castiel had in spades, so there were no shortage of choices: the Novaks, Mary Winchester, Rowena, the lack of angels in Heaven, Kelly Kline. Jack.

Jack.

Or spending ten years falling in love with Dean Winchester, assuming he could never feel the same way, not noticing the love reflected in his eyes until it was too late to matter.

So when Dean showed up in the Empty, begging him to come home with him, that of course he loved him too, of course he did, it wasn’t unreasonable for Castiel to mistrust his senses.

But Dean buried his hands in Castiel’s trench coat, pulling him so close Cas could feel Dean’s heart beating hard against his own chest, his breath warm against his ear—real—and the next thing he knew, the was tumbling onto the floor of the dungeon, and Sam had to pry Cas out of Dean’s shaking arms.

Cas stares at his own hands, steady and solid as stone. Distantly, he wonders if he should be trembling and what it means that he isn’t.

Dean’s still shaking when Sam reappears. The only way he’s really sure the water is even hot at all is the way the entire bathroom has filled with steam, making it harder to breathe than it already is. The muck of the Empty still clings to every inch of him that wasn’t clutching Cas when they fell through the portal, and he can’t feel the heat of the water through it. He hasn’t even seen Cas yet. He can’t bring himself to go to him.

He's not sure why.

“Here,” Sam says, holding out a Costco-sized bottle of dish soap. “They use this to clean the ducks caught in oil spills. Maybe it’ll work on the Empty ooze.”

Dean looks up from where his face was still buried in his knees, way up to his brother standing over him, his face lined with worry like he hasn’t seen since his plan to bury himself alive at the bottom of the ocean for the rest of eternity. His face falls further, and Dean’s stomach follows. He must look really fucked up. Still, he reaches for the bottle.

“Thanks, Sam.” The rasp of his voice jerks him back, and Dean shakes his head. “It’s all right. I promise. There was just—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Sam says, cutting him off. “I can only imagine what you had to go through there.” He places the bottle at the opening of the shower stall. “Look, you can probably just trash the clothes. I’ll bring you some fresh ones.” He pauses, his head tipping briefly towards the adjacent stall. “For both of you.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Dean says again, even though he doesn’t reach for the soap this time. Sam’s right to not ask what Dean had to do to find Cas. The screaming—that was the least of it. Though he once told Sam that guilt is who he is, even he wasn’t prepared for the parade of regrets the Entity had waiting for him. When he finally found Cas, he wasn’t even sure if he’d found the right one after cycling through so many battered and bloodied versions of all the times he’d failed him, over and over and—

Dean breathes deep, the steam taking up too much room, and Sam spins above him.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice is muddied, like he’s not quite actually there, and Dean’s stomach squeezes violently.

He lurches forwards to his hands and knees, gagging on bile that can’t make it up but burns just the same. Sam kneels beside him, gripping his shoulder tightly and rubbing his back. He sees him. But he can’t feel it. He can’t feel anything.

“You’re not real,” Dean whispers in between heaves. “This isn’t real. It’s just another trick.” He pushes his brother down, easily tipping him off his heels, and Sam lands hard on the tile. “I couldn’t save him.” Dean’s eyelashes stick together, a tight mix of tears and ooze, and he can’t see. His chest tightens to burning. He can’t see. “This is all a trick. I failed him. I failed him again.”

“Dean, I—” Sam stops suddenly, a blurry figure appearing beside him on the floor, and Dean searches his pockets for something to defend himself with.

“It’s okay,” the man says with a voice even deeper than Dean’s torn up throat, like it was dragged behind the Impala through broken glass and grave dirt. “I’ll take care of it. Some fresh clothes would be very helpful.”

Dean lets the figment of Sam climb to his feet and pass by him out the bathroom. It’s not that Sam doesn’t feature prominently in several choice regrets chosen by the Entity, it’s just that Dean knows Sam’s never the point. Dean’s not sure that he actually regrets much about his relationship with his brother. He can’t say the same about what the choices he made because of it did to the people he loves.

“You’re not Cas.” Even saying his name tastes of all the blood he’s spilt and whiskey he drowned in.

All of it for nothing.

Cas approaches Dean like he would one of Bobby’s old junkyard dogs, cornered and confused and ready to fight. He puts his arms out so Dean can see there’s nothing in his hands, and he moves to close the gap achingly slowly. He craves to grip Dean in his arms the way Dean did when he found him, the way Cas did when he found him in Hell, in front of the rack with a blade in his bloodied hands and still the most radiant soul he’d ever seen.

“Dean,” he starts. “It’s me. I’m here.”

Dean’s hands shake at his sides, his eyes wild and unfocused, even as he tries to blink them open. “How?” He breathes ragged and shallow. “How are you here?”

“You.” Cas creeps closer, and slowly, Dean’s jagged breathing shifts from panic to hitching sobs. “You did it, Dean. You got me out. I promise.” Finally, he’s right in front of him, though Dean remains ramrod straight. “You saved me.”

Dean shakes his head, like he doesn’t believe him. “I can’t—” His breath skips, and he takes a half step back. “It doesn’t feel real. Sam—” His Adam’s apple bounces heavy in his throat as he tries to find the words. Cas waits. “When he touched me. I couldn’t—” Dean turns his face away.

But Cas understands. The first time he was sent back from the Empty, it took some time to adjust to being a corporeal being again. He’d tipped his face up to the sun, grateful for the warmth he knew was there and would feel again soon.

“You’re in shock,” Cas says. “The Empty isn’t—it isn’t like Heaven or Hell or any other place you’ve been.” Cas closes the gap again that Dean created. “You just need some time.”

“Why are you okay?” Dean asks, still not looking up.

Cas huffs a laugh. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s not the first time I’ve been reconstituted. Perhaps one gets used to it after a while.”

Dean licks his lips. “But it’s really you?”

“It’s really me.” Cas strips off his trench coat and dampens the sleeve under the still-running shower. He reaches out tentatively. “May I?”

Dean doesn’t say anything, just nods.

Cas closes the rest of the gap and slots his hand over Dean’s cheek. Dean’s shaking breath stops as Cas tilts his head up and uses his thumb on the other side of his jaw to steady him. The ooze still hopelessly tangles his eyelashes together, and Dean squints to see through them. But as Cas raises his sleeve to his face, Dean closes his eyes and lets Cas gently wipe the fabric over them, clearing away the muck and the tears and the years of confusion. It takes some time, but eventually, Cas gets it all, and Dean opens his eyes to meet Cas’s. The green is bright as ever in the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom, and his lashes flutter over the freckles that dust his cheeks and nose, and Cas could kiss him. He should kiss him. Instead, Cas waits.

Dean takes a sharp breath in through his nose. “It is you.” There’s a quiet wonder in his voice, like he didn’t really believe it until just now with his eyes clear.

“How can you be so sure?” Cas asks, his curiosity overcoming whatever relief swells within him.

“In all the months we spent planning your rescue and all the years I spent convincing myself I couldn’t want this—that I couldn’t want you—I would’ve never let myself imagine something like this.” Dean grips one of the lapels of Cas’s suit jacket. “I couldn’t have imagined something so. . .” His words lose their momentum. “I wouldn’t’ve known how.”

Cas can barely whisper his name before Dean pulls him by the lapel in his fist, and when their lips finally meet after a dozen years of yearning and sacrifice and repression, Cas is the one who has to remind himself he’s not dreaming.

Sam knocks on the door frame leading to the showers, like he’s nervous about what he’s going to walk into, but the tension fades from his face when Dean waves him in.

“Sorry about that, man,” Dean mumbles. “It, uh—”

“Yeah, been a big day, I get it.” He smiles tightly, then lays a pile of sweats, shirts, socks, and everything else on a bench that’s still dry. “I’m just glad you’re back.”

“Thanks,” Dean mumbles. He doesn’t look at Sam, or at Cas, who’s standing even closer than usual. He never told Sam what Cas said before the Empty took him, nor did they talk about Dean’s near-suicidal fervour in saving Cas, but Dean figures Sam’s gotta know by now. They’ve spent more than a decade sacrificing themselves for each other and atrophying when they couldn’t. It was plain as day except to the other, because the risk of being wrong would kill them worse than living in the safety of the status quo forever.

“I’ll leave you guys to it,” Sam says, mercifully throwing Dean a life preserver. The conversation can’t be far off, if only because he’ll want to share the good news with Sam and Eileen, but he’s grateful to have the opportunity to think it through first.

And, you know, talk to Cas.

Sam pats Dean gently on the shoulder as he heads back out, and it’s just him and Cas, staring at each other through too much steam and time. Dean wishes he knew what to say. After Cas’s big speech, he deserves to hear some great, eloquent confession of devotion in return. In the months after Cas got taken, no matter how much Dean turned it over and over in his head, he always came up blank. He hoped when the time came, the words would too.

“You always were shit at goodbyes,” Dean finally manages, forcing out the words as he stares at Cas’s collarbone, his white shirt transparent and clinging.

Cas’s face softens, the tension melting away from his forehead and jaw. “Yes, I believe you’ve mentioned this before.” He tries to smile, but it’s like his mouth has forgotten how, and that sucker punches Dean square in the chest again. “It wasn’t my intention to cause you pain.”

Dean scoffs. “You are so full of—” He stops himself. There’s no point in it, this exasperated hurt masquerading again as anger. He doesn’t have the high ground here, and he made a promise back in Purgatory. Hell, if he could’ve gotten away with it, he’d probably have confessed his undying love only to be whisked away for eternity too. “Look,” Dean starts again, taking a step forward and gripping Cas’s lapels in his fists like he’s wanted to do dozens of times before. Hundreds. “All I’ve ever wanted is here.” He pulls at his jacket to emphasize the point. “So stay with me.”

Cas’s hands slip over Dean’s, warm and solid. Until now, he hasn’t noticed the water has long since turned cold. The ooze still covering them both means Cas’s movements jerk and catch, but he doesn’t care. They have all the time in the world now.

Cas can’t seem to be able to tear his eyes away from their joined hands in front of him, and he begins to tremble in earnest, his breaths turning uneven and his feet unsteady. He grips Dean’s hands tighter and laughs, almost to himself. “It seems perhaps the shock of our return was slightly delayed in my case.”

“C’mon, Cas,” Dean says, pulling him in close, and they cling to each other again. It might be the first hug they’ve shared when one of them isn’t dying, the first where they never have to let go if they don’t want to. “I got you.” Cas’s fists find Dean’s flannel, the ooze squelching at the new angle, but that just makes Dean hold on tighter. “Stay with me. I’m gonna take good care of you, okay?”

Cas nods into Dean’s shoulder, and they fall to their knees without letting each other go until their breath evens out and the trembling stops, all the while Dean whispering, “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”  

Cas doesn’t know how long they kneel there holding each other, but eventually, he pulls away from Dean and falls back on his heels. Dean doesn’t let him go, though. Just like he promised. His hands follow Cas’s face, and he wipes at his forehead, trying—unsuccessfully—to sweep his hair out of his eyes. Cas savours it.

“I think we may have run out of hot water,” Cas finally notes, and Dean laughs lightly.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Dean sweeps his hand over Cas’s hair again and he sighs as his fingers get caught, like Cas dumped a whole bottle of gel in his hair and let it dry. “And we’re still a mess.”

Cas closes his eyes, lets Dean’s calloused hands dance over his face. “Perhaps we should allow the hot water tank to refill.” The showers splash water over the tile, and Cas can feel the cold mist on his jacket and neck.

“Perhaps we should,” Dean says, pressing his lips lightly to Cas’s, and his heart jumps into his throat at the way they just fit.

Castiel hasn’t exactly had much experience when it comes to romance or sex. He’s been married more times than he’s been kissed, which in the Western tradition shouldn’t really be possible, but he still never dreamed he’d be kissed like this. With a kind of thoughtless ease, like it’s a habit they’ve always had, just never exercised. Something more muscle memory than intent.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Dean says against Cas’s lips before he rises to his feet and turns off the first faucet.

As he moves around the barrier to turn off the second, Cas settles to sit on his heels, ignoring the way the tiles dig into his knees. He doesn’t think about whether he should feel it, whether he’ll find bruises over his pale skin tomorrow morning. This body hasn’t been Jimmy’s in a very long time, but it was also never really his. It always remained a vessel, just one with fewer passengers and fewer implications to consider when he used it like it was his. Like when it—when he—craved Dean. But now, he feels. And not like the first time, back when Anna warned him it would get worse, or when Metatron stole his grace. Cas doesn’t think even Anna knew how true her words really were. How much worse the feeling would get. And now he has these sensations, these pulses of electricity running under his skin—

He stares at his open palms as Dean crouches in front of him again, lacing his fingers with his. “What’s the matter, sunshine?”

“I—” He swallows around the words, not sure how to say them. Not sure if it would change what Dean said he wants. Cas licks his lips and tries again. “I think I’m human.”

Dean’s brow furrows in that way Cas figured out long ago means he needs a second to puzzle through whatever he just heard. His green eyes flit quickly over Cas’s hands, his body, up to his face. “You don’t have any grace?”

Cas shakes his head. At least, he doesn’t think so. Everything is too real, too close. His grace always felt like a thin layer of something, like cling wrap protecting him from Earth and the humans in his charge. But now Cas can feel everything, even the gentle tremor in Dean’s grip from his heart pumping the blood around his body, keeping him alive.

“You think we left it back in the Empty?” Dean asks, quiet.

“I don’t know,” Cas answers back, quieter.

Dean settles onto the tile, not even bothering with the fact that he’s sitting directly in a puddle pooling around one of the drains in the floor. “Maybe,” he starts, his fingertips tracing the underside of Cas’s wrist, daring to disappear just a little underneath his suit jacket. “Maybe it just needs to recharge like our hot water tank here.” Dean tips his head towards the shower stalls. Cas finally looks at him and finds absolutely nothing has changed. He smiles a little at Cas, an attempt at comfort when neither of them knows what this might mean, and Cas drops the rest of the way onto the floor.

“You don’t care?” Cas asks, a little bewildered. Dean didn’t have any use for him when Metatron stole his grace, and he didn’t make a very good human on his own. He knows why Dean did it—and he understands, he does—but he also knows his usefulness will run much thinner without the powers of Heaven behind him.

Dean laughs. He actually laughs. Before answering, he takes Cas’s face in his hands again and kisses him hard. Hard enough that their teeth press up behind their lips. “No, Cas,” he says when he pulls away. “Only as much as it matters to you. But I’m all in, angel or not. All right?” He doesn’t let Cas’s face go, doesn’t let him drop his gaze or shrink away. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

This time, Dean doesn’t have to pull Cas towards him. Cas meets him halfway.  

“I’ll admit, this wasn’t exactly the way I pictured this happening for the first time,” Dean says as he peels Cas’s suit jacket off him, still sopping wet and starting to harden.

Cas gets stuck in one arm, the ooze having hardened over him like a cast. “You’ve pictured this before?”

Dean’s ears burn hot. He shouldn’t be embarrassed admitting that he wants to undress the guy he’s just spent the last twenty minutes making out with. The guy he’s spent the last several months planning to either save from oblivion or die trying. But he still finds it there, bubbling under his skin. “Yeah, I guess I have.”

Cas helps Dean rip at his jacket and chip at the blackness quickly sucking up all the humidity in the room. “I’m surprised you knew what to expect when you pulled me from the Empty.”

Dean laughs, letting go of Cas’s clothes and dropping back onto the tile. Cas stares at him like he just told him the answers to the riddle of the sphinx or something.

Dean’s smile only grows wider as Cas’s frown deepens. “That wasn’t what I meant, Cas.” After sitting, the ooze has already hardened over his jeans, and he finds himself stuck to the tiles. “I was actually talking about finally seeing what’s under all those layers.”

Cas’s eyes grow wide as a dark flush creeps up his neck to the tips of his ears. “Oh.”

 “Yeah, oh,” Dean says, peeling his own flannel off before it becomes a turtle shell he can’t wiggle out of. “Seems like we might wanna speed things up too.” He gestures to his legs. “I have become one with the bathroom tile.”

Cas releases a breath, seemingly grateful for the change of topic. “Let me help.” Before Dean knows it, Cas is unbuckling Dean’s belt and using it to shimmy Dean out of his jeans.

“Where did you learn to do this?” Dean asks, trying to be careful even though it’s obvious the jeans are ruined. “You undress a lot of dudes stuck to their pants?”

Cas gives Dean a withering look he can’t help but laugh at. “I’ll have you know, this is a technique used for military operations.”

“Ah.” Dean suddenly feels chastised, but he’s not sure why. “Sorry. Dumb joke.” He dumps himself onto the floor since his jeans won’t come with him, and they’re inside out and ripped and still hopelessly fused to the tiles. Dean rubs at his calves. “Fuck, I think some of my leg hair went with it. Damn.”

Cas grimaces. “Apologies. The technique makes for quite a tight fit.”

“It’s all right.” Dean stands, realizing too late it’s only in his boxers, socks, and half ripped t-shirt. “It grows back. I assume.”

“It should, yes.” Cas stands as well, his arm still helpless in his suit jacket, but his slacks are still wet enough to be flexible. He stares past Dean, like he’s focused on his ear, and doesn’t make a move.

“Here,” Dean says, stepping closer. Cas lets him, but he stiffens just the same. “You okay, sunshine?”

Cas nods slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I find myself anxious that after all this time you’ve imagined what’s ‘under these layers,’ as you put it, you’ll find yourself disappointed.”

Dean’s been naked in front of more people than he cares to try and count—both willingly and not so much—that he forgets to be embarrassed. Under there, it is what it is, and no one’s seemed too upset about it yet. Besides, Cas rebuilt him back when his body was half-starved and beat to shit. Cas knows his body better than he knows it himself. But Cas. Well. Dean’s not sure he even considered the possibility that angels might have body issues. Or vessel issues? But this body, it’s been Cas for over a decade now. Any cells that were ever Jimmy’s have long since been recycled or remade. Everything left is all Cas, and Dean wants every inch, no matter what’s under there.

Dean doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t go for his belt or his tie. He rests his forehead to Cas’s, wanting him to feel Dean’s words as much as hear them. “I can’t be disappointed, Cas.” His voice seems to echo through the bathroom even louder, and Cas’s forehead presses back against Dean’s. “I meant it. I’m gonna take good care of you.” Dean lifts his hands to Cas’s mucked hair and passes them over it. “I will wash your hair at night and dry it off with care.” Cas’s breath hitches, leaning harder into Dean as he relaxes, and Dean lets his hands explore. “I will see your body bare, and still I will live here.”

“Dean,” Cas whispers, breathless, as Dean unknots his tie and lets it fall to the floor.

“There’s no need to be brave.” Dean kisses Cas’s cheek, then jaw, then moves to his neck, his hands unbuttoning Cas’s shirt down to his slacks, then working on his belt. “Stay with me.”

“Always,” Cas whispers. “Dean.” His voice trembles. “All I want—” He breathes in sharply when Dean finally gets this belt free, and it clanks against the floor, his slacks going with it. “It’s you. It’s always you.”

They get down to just their underwear, and they shiver from the cold of the bathroom air and the water covering the tile, but Dean gets to taste the nervous sweat at Cas’s collarbone and the salt his tears left on his cheeks, and he knows he’s never going to get used to this.

Cas grips Dean’s forearms, stopping him from threading his hands into Cas’s waistband. “Dean,” he whispers, and the trembling of his voice is different from the words singing in Dean’s head from earlier: He wants Dean. Here. To stay. But the anxiety has crept back in.

Dean pauses, tries to pull back, but Cas won’t let him. He brings his head up from the map he was creating over Cas’s shoulders to look at him again, those blue eyes tinged with a fear Dean’s never seen in them, not even when facing their Biggest Bad. There’s no way Dean’s gonna risk tainting this by making Cas move too fast. He’s waited half his adult life for this; he can stand to wait a little longer.

They’ve got all the time in the world now.  

“Yeah, sunshine?” His voice is still rough, but he tries to make it soft anyway, the way his hands will never be, no matter how he tries to be gentle. “We can stop if you—”

“No,” Cas says, quickly cutting him off, pulling Dean flush against him again, and Dean can feel exactly how ready Cas is. “I just think that the water tank may have filled up by now. If we wanted to—” He clears his throat as a blush creeps up his neck, and he can’t look at Dean again. “Get cleaned up. And warm.”

Dean smiles wider than he has since he teased Cas about the Occultum. “You always were the smart one in this relationship.”

Cas leans back against Dean’s chest, his legs bracketing Cas’s torso, as Dean works the dish soap through Cas’s matted hair. He tried to object, to tell Dean that it was always Cas’s job to watch over him, not the other way around, but he insisted that “the guy in the Empty the longest gets his hair washed first,” and he found himself disinclined to make a counterargument.

He doesn’t know where to put his hands, so Cas pulls his own knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. He feels small in a way he never thought possible. Small, yet protected. Kept safe and held—all of him, broken as he is—despite the fact he may be of little use from now on. Maybe his grace will return, maybe it won’t. He will never again be the warrior who once boasted that his size rivalled a Manhattan skyscraper.  

And yet.

Dean’s hands skillfully smooth the soap through his hair, over his scalp, his fingertips massaging section by section, until the ooze dissolves and the water runs dark grey over his shoulders and into the drain. His slow, gentle circles stir a burning in Cas’s chest that spills tears down his cheeks again, but Dean presses on. Even when Cas needs to lean his forehead to his knees, making the angle all wrong for Dean’s work, he cups his hands to gather water and, careful as anything, pours it over the section he’s unmatting. When Cas’s shoulders shake too much, Dean stops. He curls himself over Cas’s back and hooks his arms under Cas’s armpits. He rests his nose to Cas’s hairline, kisses the knot where his neck meets his shoulders, and waits.

Dean told Cas earlier that he knew it was real because it was beyond anything he could’ve imagined himself, and Cas finally understands. He would never have dared allow himself to even fantasize about this Here and this Now, even if it was something he could’ve known to wish for. As he lets himself be rocked in Dean’s arms, his lips mouthing the words to some song he can’t make out against his back, Cas lets his faith back in.

They went through another tank of hot water getting all the gunk and grime off themselves—both figuratively and literally—and decided to skip the Sam conversation in favour of a good night’s rest. Sam seemed to predict this, because the clothes he left were sweats and sleep shirts.

Now that Dean’s finally got Cas where he wants him—washed, shaven, and in his bed—he can’t do much but stare. It would be fucking stupid to say that he wouldn’t change a thing. He can think of half a dozen things he’d do over off the top of his head, and all that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” bullshit is just that. Bullshit. He’d give a lot of things for Sam and Cas—hell, even himself—to have not gone through some of the things that made them who they are now. Suffering ain’t noble, and they’ve all got the scars to prove it.

Still, the guy staring back at him from the other pillow, face flushed from the hot shower, hair in a hundred different directions ‘cause they weren’t about to put more crap in there right now, smiling soft and shy and smelling like ocean breeze or some shit. He was worth it. He is worth it. And he plans on enjoying every second of what comes After.

 “You can sleep, Dean,” Cas says, half muffled by the pillow and the blanket pulled up to his chin. “I’ll watch over you.”

His first instinct is to roll his eyes, make another sleepover joke like he did the first time Cas rifled through his toiletries bag like it was a totally normal and obvious thing to do. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to live in a world where he can wash Cas’s hair and Cas can say nerdy, obliviously romantic nothings from the other side of the pillow.

“I should warn you,” Dean starts, haltingly. Cas must know this—he kind of assumes Cas knows everything, which he doesn’t know is better or worse—but he should say it. “I get nightmares sometimes. I might not be the best bed-buddy.”

Cas’s eyes soften in that smile that’s more than a smile, then reaches past Dean to turn off the lamp. He doesn’t return to his side. Instead, he wraps his arm around Dean’s waist, inviting him to be the little spoon for maybe the first time in his whole life, and Dean ain’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

They settle in, slotted together like a lock that’s found its key, and Cas whispers into the back of Dean’s neck. “While you sleep, I’ll be scared, and by the time you wake, I’ll be brave.” He kisses the nape of Dean’s neck, and Dean’s chest opens up, letting him breathe deeper than he ever thought possible. “All the quiet nights you bear, I will hold them for you.”

“Cas,” Dean whispers. He wants to object, to tell Cas that it’s not his job to take care of him anymore. That his nightmares are his to bear alone, because if he didn’t deserve them, he wouldn’t have them in the first place, would he? But Cas hushes him before he can.

“This,” he says emphatically, squeezing Dean around his middle. “This is the one thing I wanted but thought I couldn’t have. This.” He raises his head, nuzzles into the nook of Dean’s shoulder and neck, and then says what should be obvious but Dean still needs to hear. “You.”

“I’m still who I was before,” Dean says, thankful that he can’t look at Cas’s face even if he tried. He traces his fingertips over the hills and valleys of Cas’s knuckles. “Maybe even worse after—” You died again.

Cas breathes out hard. “So am I.” He pulls Dean in closer, until he can feel every heartbeat, every breath, against his back. “We’re both works in progress. But we have time.” Cas kisses Dean under his ear. “And each other. We may not be out of the tunnel yet—”

“—But I bet you there’s an end,” Dean finishes, and he feels Cas’s smile against his shoulder, those chapped lips pulling taut with pride.

Cas doesn’t have to tell him to fall asleep a second time. After the day or whatever they’ve had, sleep creeps up on Dean easy. Even though he’s had nightmares almost every night since he can remember, this time, they never come.

.