Archive of Our Own

            There’s a soft summer rain falling when Cas steps out of the bunker in the late morning, a tattered copy of Watership Down dangling from his hand. It’s the morning rains that Cas has found he likes in his short tenure as a human, where he can see sheets of mist curl over the expanses of Kansas greenery from the vantage point of the bunker. There’s something quiet, almost unobtrusive about morning rain, he thinks.

            Cas settles on the front step in the shelter of the overhang, curling his bare toes in from a puddle starting to pool in one of the crevices of the sidewalk. His toes are already starting to prune like they do when he stays in a warm shower for a bit too long. A distant roll of thunder hums in the quiet, a soft tremble that Cas feels more than hears.

            He props open the book and his eyes skim over the text on the page, but he finds that no matter how many times he reads the words, his mind won’t retain them. That’s also a novel, human thing. His attention is constantly tugged in different directions, like his brain is made up of a patchwork of threads that a new thought is always snagging on. It’s very distracting. He often can’t even remember where he’s placed a sock after setting it down only moments prior.

            He reads the words a few more times and retains the first paragraph, but nothing else. He’s…otherwise preoccupied.

            It’s been three weeks, four days, and seven and a half hours since Cas fell from heaven and crash-landed in Spain. He’d hitchhiked with considerable difficulty to the nearest city and phoned Dean, as his number was admittedly the only one he knew by heart. While there had been more than a handful of times in his existence when Cas had been relieved to hear Dean’s voice, no other instance had quite made his knees buckle like Dean’s resounding, urgent, “Hello?” through the greasy receiver in a small phone booth in the south of Córdoba.

            Dean had wired him money for a plane ticket and after hours more of hitchhiking in old pickup trucks, getting jostled by rude strangers and skeptical security guards in airports, and enduring uncomfortable, claustrophobic, sleepless plane travel, Cas had stumbled off his flight at KCI with a fistful of unused euros and the trenchcoat on his back, grayed with the dust from the highway. He hadn’t shaved in days and his beard scratched infuriatingly, prickling with sweat.

            For a long time Cas had stood in the terminal with his knees trembling as he scanned the shuffling crowds for Dean, and for a gripping, panicking moment, he’d thought, This is it. This is the time where Dean doesn’t come, doesn’t show up. He’d found it strange, the way his human heart seemed to twist up in knots at that thought.

            This, he remembers thinking, is what it’s like to be left. He’d felt oddly hollow, like his bones had been whittled empty, and there was a tremor in his hands that wouldn’t still.

            Minutes seemed to drag into hours before, finally, the crowd thinned and broke and Cas had spotted Dean with a swooping sensation in his chest; he tried to call out but his voice abandoned him suddenly, so he just made a sort of choked, aborted noise in his throat and his arms had dangled uselessly at his sides.

            After a moment of intent scanning, Dean’s eyes landed on Cas. In an instant, the taut worry melted from his face, and his mouth split in a wide, relieved grin.

            Cas had taken a step forward, caught in the strange and nauseous grip of whiplash (“jetlag,” Dean told him later), but Dean beat him to it and Cas found himself gathered up in tight, warm arms, the smell of car leather and cheap soap in his nose.

            “Cas,” Dean had said, and Cas wasn’t entirely sure he was supposed to, but after a reeling moment, he dropped his forehead onto Dean’s shoulder and stayed like that much longer than he was certain he was allowed, but Dean just let him, just kept hanging onto him as Cas took in deep, measured breaths. He could understand now, the primal need for touch, the famine for it, because although nothing was alright, nothing was going to be alright, there was something absurdly profound in this tactile reassurance. He felt his pulse slow, the cords of muscles in his shoulders that had been strained for days uncoil.

            “Guess you don’t have anything from baggage claim,” Dean had said to break the silence, stepping away and smiling broadly, but his eyes were worried, sweeping over Cas’ haggard form with concern.

            “No,” Cas croaked, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Thank you. For coming for me.”

            A slight furrow formed in Dean’s brow. “’course, Cas.”

            Despite the warm, even tender welcome that Cas had received in the airport, he and Dean haven’t talked much after that. Dean seems constantly preoccupied and keeps himself closed off in his room most days, as do Sam and Kevin. Cas barely even sees Sam, as he’s still healing from the trials, although he often spots Dean whisking off to deliver some sort of chicken noodle soup or crossword puzzle. Cas usually wanders the bunker alone and barefoot, exploring the libraries and the archives. He doesn’t mind too much. There’s new, vacant space in his head since the fall, and it’s practically swarming with dark, ugly things waiting to be weeded out in the sanctuary of his own solitude.

            Sometimes, when Cas falls asleep, he can still see falling lights behind his eyes, streaking the sky like golden teardrops.

            The bunker’s front door opens suddenly with a loud groan and Cas jumps, then promptly feels ridiculous for reacting so strongly.

            Dean pokes his head out, his hair rumpled and his eyelids heavy with sleep. He’s still wearing a dark gray bathrobe.

            “Hey,” Dean says, then squints out in confusion at the falling rain. “Uh, what are you doing?”

            “I like the rain,” Cas says, then bends the front cover of his book behind the back uneasily. There’s something about Dean that makes him….nervous, these days. He can sense the festering, building weight of things that they haven’t talked about yet, and he suspects Dean is avoiding these things for his own sake. It puts him on edge, to say the least.

            “Yeah, well, you’re human now,” Dean says, and Cas finds himself irritated at the reminder. “And humans catch pneumonia.”

            “I’m fine.”

            “And I mean, you don’t have any immune system built up—”

            “I’m fine,” Cas repeats, and it falls awkwardly quiet between them, broken only by the patter of rain on the bunker’s roof.

            Dean shuffles outside, wincing in disgust at the rainwater that sloshes over his bare feet, and Cas notices for the first time that he’s carrying a mug of coffee, the steam curling up thinly from the brim.

            “I, uh, brewed you some,” Dean says, then hands it to him.

            “Thank you, Dean,” Cas says, much more softly, and sets his book down on his lap to take it, letting the mug warm his hands.

            Again, the excruciating silence—had their silences always been so insufferable before the fall?—before Dean clears his throat and says, “Hey, listen, Cas, uh….”

            Cas listens, watching as Dean fumbles for the right words.

            Dean must fail to find them, because he finally squints out at the rain and sighs. “I just. Want to make sure you’re doing okay, I guess.”

            Cas forces a light shrug in the way he’s seen the Winchesters do when they’re playing off some sort of issue, and he knows Dean sees right through it by the way his eyes track him suspiciously. “I’m good. Really, Dean.”

            Dean’s eyes narrow fractionally in his direction. “Somehow I don’t believe you.”

            “Why wouldn’t I be fine?” Cas asks, taking a sip of coffee and instantly regretting it. The liquid scalds his mouth and leaves his tongue tingling.

            “Uh, did you want that alphabetically or chronologically?”

            Cas glares at him over the brim of his coffee.

            “Because first, well, there was the God stuff. Are we past that, I guess? Then there was, y’know, the dying and the resurrecting and the forgetting and the purgatory. Then, oh yeah, there was the Naomi mind-whammy, and the crypt, and then there was the trials and the grace and angels falling. You really want to look me in the eye right now and tell me that everything’s good? There’s nothing you want to get off your chest? That you’re fine?”

            Cas looks at him dully, feeling his lips tighten as he draws himself in. “I said I’m fine, Dean.”

            Dean looks at him incredulously for another full three seconds before he gives a sort of pshh sound with his mouth and shrugs. “Okay. Sure. Whatever you say. I guess just let me know when any of that shit hits the fan.” With that, he ducks back inside, shaking his head.

            Cas spends a long time after that trying to take in the words on the page in front of him, but fails utterly. Eventually, he sighs and closes the book, drawing his knees closer to his chest.

            What exactly is he supposed to say to Dean? That he’s miserable and self-pitying and hopeless, that the loss of his grace feels like Metatron had carved out a rib and left a sharp, aching space behind? That he can still hear the bloodcurdling screams of his siblings as they’d plummeted from the skies, their agonized cries as he’d slaughtered them in the narcotic haze of Leviathan bloodthirst?

            The Winchesters have enough ugliness and despair on their plates without his share.

            He won’t talk to Dean about it if he can help it. Not about this.

---

            Dean avoids Cas for the rest of the day.

            It’s not even like it’s a conscious thing. Dean’s got a thousand other things to worry about without the added stress of post-angel, twice-as-sullen close friend brooding in the rain and reciting different languages quietly under his breath as he goes by so he won’t forget them.

            It’s not like Dean also has a younger brother on the brink of death and more than willing to not just fall, but leap headfirst off the precipice of martyrdom. Or that there are a bunch of pissed-off angels as competent as large, hairy infants ravaging the earth. Or that he’s housing a pubescent, caffeine-addicted, insomniac prophet of the Lord who’s in need of constant protection. Or that, God forbid, Dean has his own issues, like the empty whiskey bottles starting to clink under his bed as he adds one more—just one more—to the pile, or the shit from purgatory and everything else before, and everything else after.

            Cas should be the least of his worries.

            But, of course, he’s not. He never is. Cas is never the least of his worries. And that, Dean reflects, is probably part of his fucking problem.

            He’s headed down the hallway to deliver Sam some dinner when he passes by Cas’ bedroom door; it’s slightly ajar, a thin seam of light spilling out into the hallway. Dean pauses for a moment, vacillating, before he nudges the door open with his shoulder and peeks in, completely against his better judgment.

            Cas is curled up on his side dead to the world, an open paperback book pressed against his cheek and the bedside light still on. A thread of drool from his open mouth is already starting to soak the pages.

            Dean can’t help but grin as he comes forward, setting Sam’s food on Cas’ dresser, and he reaches over to shake Cas awake, maybe get him to change out of his jeans, but before he touches his shoulder, he freezes and hovers over him, suddenly uncertain. He finds himself unwillingly transfixed by just how...well, human Cas looks, one leg curled up to his chest and the other close to dangling off the bed. Dean tries to synthesize his mental picture of Castiel, the stone-cold, brutal, static-in-his-wake, thunder-in-his-voice warrior, and this Cas, the one who’s snoring quietly and drooling with his fingers absently curling and uncurling into the sheets.

            He can’t quite reconcile it.

            Dean sighs and concedes, tugging off one of Cas’ shoes and then the other.

            “If I told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, Cas,” Dean grumbles, pulling up the bunched sheets at the end of the bed and tossing them over Cas. “Humans get sick.”

More often than not these past weeks, Cas wakes up with a runny nose due to sleeping without blankets. The bunker gets practically arctic at night. But Cas, as always, is a stubborn bastard. Dean finds himself much more annoyed than endeared by that quality these days.

            “Dean,” Cas replies, so clearly that Dean goes still, sure he’s been caught, but Cas just sighs deeply and pitches over onto his other side, sending his paperback crumpling onto the floor.

            Dean stares at Cas’ back for another moment, his breath held, before he reaches over hesitantly to flick out the light. Quietly picking up Sam’s dinner, he opens the door and just as silently slides back into the hallway, leaving the door ajar.

            He’s found, over the years, that it’s just…easier to skip categorizing his feelings about Cas beyond the simple affection that his companionship brings. Things got...well, messy, to say the least, when he and Cas had fallen out over the search for purgatory all those years ago. Dean isn’t often a self-reflective man, as he does what he can to avoid spiraling into a swamp of guilt and self-loathing (out of sheer self-preservation, thanks a lot), so he’s lumped his feelings toward Cas as somewhere between his feelings toward Sam and Kevin—fierce protectiveness and loyalty for a brother—and something else entirely, an unnamed something that’s terrified of losing him again. Not simply terrified because of the act of losing Cas himself, but the terror of not knowing who he’ll be without him. He’s come to be both resigned and resentful of that reliance he has on Cas, but it’s not something he can exactly root out.

            It’s also not something Dean likes to think about, so he, conveniently, doesn’t. It’s worked well enough so far.

            Dean’s surprised to see Sam’s light is also on. He knocks twice, tentatively, and Sam croaks back, “Come in.”

            Dean shoulders the door open. Sam’s perched upright on his bed, his eyes glued to his laptop screen and his huge shoulders bowed inward over the keyboard. He has deep, puffy shadows under his eyes, and his skin is pale and clammy, but all in all he looks way better than he had a few weeks ago.

            “What are you doing up?” Dean asks, wavering in the doorway. “You should be sleeping.”

            Sam flicks a distracted look in his direction. “I’m...uh, researching.”

            Dean shakes his head and tsks. “It’s an illness, Sam. An illness.”

            Sam scowls. “You’re ill.”

            Dean wags his head again, almost sadly. “Pitiful.”

            “Did you come in here to bitch at me or give me food?”

            “Don’t see why I can’t do both.” Dean carefully sets down the bowl of soup on Sam’s bedside table. It’s probably cold now, due to his detour. “What are you researching? Angel stuff?”

            “No,” Sam says absently, and reaches over to chug a full glass of water with impressive speed. Dean waits with infinite patience, arms crossed. Sam clunks his glass down with finesse and continues, his eyes back on the monitor, “Well, kind of. I’m looking up cases.”

            Dean goes still. “Cases? You freaking nuts? You can barely take a piss by yourself, let alone fire a gun or fight—”

            “Dean,” Sam interrupts him, irritated. “Not cases for me. Obviously. Cases for you and Cas.”

            Dean blinks twice. “Come again?”

            Sam sighs, stares blankly at the wall for a moment as though mustering patience from deep within, and closes his laptop halfway. “You heard what I said. You and Cas need to get out of here for a bit instead of sulking around with your thumbs up your asses. It’s not doing anyone any good.”

            Dean’s already shaking his head. “Nope. Not while you’re on the mend and need me here.”

            “I don’t,” Sam stresses, “need you here. I mean. Shit. That sounded bad.” He takes a deep, flustered breath and tries again. “You know what I mean. I’m healing. I’m not dying. Meanwhile, Metatron is getting stronger and there are angels fucking up the planet. We have no clue where the hell Abaddon is. Crowley is literally living in our basement. We can’t just...stay holed up in here.”

            “The angels can wait another week,” Dean argues, “until you’re better.”

            Sam glances at him, annoyed. “You can’t keep mother-henning me, Dean. Cas has shit he needs sorted out. You could, I dunno, look for his grace. Kill a wendigo, kill five wendigos, I don’t care. Anything but sitting around here moping and using me being sick as an excuse not to do anything.”

            “That’s not what I’m doing,” Dean says.

            Sam just squints rheumy eyes at him, all skepticism.

            “And besides,” Dean continues, dropping his voice, “I can’t hunt with Cas. We’d need backup. He doesn’t have any powers and he’s not even trained.”

            Sam says, dryly now, “Then he needs to learn. He’s not going to learn any skills sitting around here sinking into depression.”

            “He’s not depressed.”

            “Dean, he was reading Watership Down by himself. A book about colonized rabbits. In the rain.”

            “Fair point.”

            “Besides,” Sam says, his voice brightening. “Kevin will look after me.”

            “No he won’t,” Kevin calls as he passes by outside the door.

            Sam makes an affronted face in Kevin’s general direction and turns back to his laptop. “Anyway, I’ve got two leads I think are worth checking out. One’s about couples that have been disappearing on the east coast. The other I think is a lead on what might have happened to Cas’ grace.”

            A sudden, tight lump of foreboding forms in Dean’s throat. “What kind of lead?”

            “Well, I can’t find any traceable link between the missing couples. They’re different races, ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexualities—”

            “No,” Dean says impatiently, “on Cas’ grace.”

            Sam slowly glances at him in appraisal before he says, “I mean, it’s nothing for certain. But in Nevada, um, a garden sprang up overnight?”

            “So? That could be anything.”

            “No,” Sam says, more emphatically, “like, a huge garden. All types of flowers, plants, trees. Near the desert. It should be downright impossible. People are calling it the Miracle Garden. Hell, some commenters on this feed are calling it the Garden of Eden.”

            Dean is silent for several moments while Sam watches him, clearly trying to parse out his reaction.

            “Cas can’t know about this,” Dean finally says.

            Sam straightens off the pillows, indignant. “What? Don’t you think he has a right to know?”

            “He’s not ready,” Dean says. “And if we tell him, he’ll get, y’know, fixated on it. You know how he is. I don’t want him to do anything stupid, especially if he goes off on some great hero crusade to fight Metatron and get it back.”

            Sam, sinking back into the pillows, is staring at him incredulously now. “Dean. It’s his grace. That was stolen from him. He has a right to know.”

            “We can tell him when he’s ready to hear it, Sam. And right now? I seriously don’t think he is.”

            Sam’s eyes slowly narrow into slits. “Weren’t we going to try to stop lying to people?”

            Dean, just as slowly, raises one eyebrow. “You really want to read me the riot act on lying right now?”

            Sam opens his mouth as if to retaliate, then he swallows and his jaw clicks shut. He gives a single, grudging nod. “Fair.”

            “And I’m not lying to him.” As he says it, he resolutely ignores the tiny obnoxious mental voice that tells him otherwise. “I’m holding on the truth until I think he’s in a good enough place to hear it.”

            Sam seems to calibrate that for a second, blinking at Dean with a blank expression, before he purses his lips and shuts his laptop entirely.

            Fantastic, Dean thinks.

            “Dean,” Sam says, starting off in that slow, pensive way he has. “I know you have good intentions, alright? I know you’re trying to do what you think is best for Cas. But you have to let him make his own choices.”

            “Yeah,” Dean hisses, dropping his voice into an angry whisper. “And look where that’s gotten him before.”

            “Dean,” Sam repeats, a reprimand in his voice.

            “He’s not ready to take on Metatron, nowhere close to it. Just….” Dean closes his eyes and pinches the skin between his eyes, feeling the definite throb of an impending migraine. “Just focus on getting better, alright? Let me deal with Cas.”

            Sam watches him for another few moments, expression ambivalent, before he shrugs and cracks open his laptop again. “Fine, Dean. I sure as hell hope you know what you’re doing.”

            “I’m just…” Dean pauses, then sighs, deflating. “I’m trying to keep all my bases covered, alright? I just got the both of you back. I’d really like to keep it that way.”

            Sam instantly softens, which already has Dean scowling at him in some parts chagrin, some parts irritation. “I get that, Dean. Really, I do. But you can’t protect Cas, not from this. This is his fight, not yours, and it’s coming to him whether you like it or not.”

            “Just give me some time, alright? I’ll tell him once he’s gotten adjusted to his water wings.” Dean closes his eyes again; he gets these moments, more frequently these days, where it feels like the earth is spinning like a whirling dervish beneath his feet. “Get some sleep. Cas and I will look for leads on the couples case tomorrow. Good?”

            Sam hesitates, then gives a single nod. “Yeah, okay. Good.”

            Dean takes his leave, sighing in the direction of Sam’s untouched food—it’s not like he’d worked hard on that or anything—and shuts the door behind him.

            He’s mentally calculating ways to break the news to Cas when Cas’ cracked bedroom door catches his attention again. Already hating himself for it, Dean halts in his tracks and slowly pushes open the door further with a soft creak. Cas is still sleeping, burrowed down into the sheets like a small nest, and Dean feels a soft, painful pang of affection.

            Dean shuts the door behind him, steeling his resolve. He won’t talk to Cas about the grace, not if it means dangling him over the jaws of death again. His stomach churns uncomfortably at the thought of tiptoeing around Cas, but this, he thinks, heading for his bedroom door and the safe haven of warm sheets and memory foam, is for the best.

---

            Cas wakes up in the morning stiflingly hot, and when he struggles, he realizes he’s twisted in a thick tangle of sheets.

            Grumbling in irritation, he kicks the sheets off his legs and grimaces at the feeling of cold air against the clammy sweat on his skin. He glances down at his arm, noting in interest the way it’s reddened with the heat, the way his skin glistens just slightly with perspiration. Human chemicals, he thinks, have never seemed quite so visceral.

            Cas follows the smell of slightly burnt bacon to the kitchen, rubbing small grains of sleep out of his eyes the entire way down the hallway. He encounters Dean cooking at the end of it, clad in a thin white t-shirt and faded gray boxers.

            Dean glances up at Cas’ entry and cracks a tentative smile as Cas plops down at the table.

            “Morning, Cas,” Dean says over the sizzle of the frying pan. “You’re up early.”

            Cas grumbles something incoherent and drops his forehead on his forearms.

            “Not an early bird, eh?” Dean teases, pushing at Cas’ shoulder as he goes by on his way to the sink.

            Cas’ reply is muffled. “I am not partial to mornings, no.”

            “It’s good you’re up,” Dean says as he runs water over his hands. “We’re looking at cases today.”

            Cas perks his head up in interest, more alert now. “Cases for you and Sam?”

            “No,” Dean replies, whisking back by him and plopping a mug of black coffee in front of Cas as he goes. Cas takes it wordlessly in both hands and smiles down at it. “Cases for you and me.”

            Cas, who had been bringing the rim of the mug up to his lips, pauses mid-sip. “Me? What use would I be?”

            “It’ll be good for you. You know, stretch your wings a bit.”

            Cas glowers.

            “Aha. Sorry.”

            “What’s the case about?” Cas asks, then instantly sits up straighter, hope taking root in his chest. “Have you heard any word about my grace?”

            “Oh. Uh...no,” Dean says, sounding very much like he’s mincing words, perhaps to avoid hurting Cas’ feelings. “Sam said there are couples missing out east.”

            Cas frowns, disappointed. “Ah. That’s odd.”

            “Yeah, he thought so. Also, he wants us to like, bond or something.” Dean glares down at the frying pan as if it’s personally slighted him.

            “We’ve already done a good deal of bonding in the past,” Cas points out, blankly.

            “Uh, yeah.” Dean forces a laugh. “I know. It’s, um, he doesn’t want us sulking around the bunker.”

            “I’m not sulking.”

            Dean casts him a skeptical look peripherally.

            Cas deigns to ignore it. “Besides,” he continues, sipping his coffee, which has already gone somewhat cold from sitting out. “Like I said, I’ll be useless. My combat skills will be considerably less adroit now that I’m mortal.”

            “You won’t be useless,” Dean counters. “You’re a good strategist. And, um…you can shoot a gun, right?”

            Cas sighs.

            “You’ll be fine, seriously. It’ll be a learning experience. Besides, you should get used to being human sooner rather than later. You know?”

            Cas feels a frown tug at his brow. “I suppose, but I don’t intend to stay human, Dean.”

            Dean’s quiet at that, perhaps waiting for elaboration.

            “Once I’ve improved my fighting skills and restored my energy, I plan on hunting Metatron and retrieving my grace,” Cas continues. Then I won’t be a burden to you and Sam anymore, he adds mentally, but thinks voicing it would be unwise.

            “Yeah,” Dean says, “yeah, I figured. But the bunker’s got plenty of space for you, so. Don’t, uh, feel rushed or anything into angeling up again.”

            “I’ll be out of your and Sam’s space as soon as I’m able,” Cas says firmly.

            “Really, Cas,” Dean says, almost uncomfortably as he scoops bacon onto paper plates. “It’s not a big deal. We don’t mind having you here.”

            “I’m a magnet,” Cas says, tracing a spiral in the wooden grain of the kitchen table with his fingernail. “I’ve got fallen angels calling for my blood, Dean. It’s already bad enough that I’ve endangered you and Sam by staying here.”

            Dean looks as if he wants to say something, then he clamps his jaw shut and turns off the stove with a forcible click.

            “Breakfast,” he says, flatly, and sets the plate in front of Cas before leaving the kitchen.

---

            Cas doesn’t see Dean after that for several hours. He thinks that Dean might be annoyed with him, but he isn’t exactly certain why. Irritated or not, Dean hunts him down later that evening, cornering him in the library and setting down his laptop on the table in front of the sofa with a grunt.

            “We have to look at cases,” he says, not meeting Cas’ eyes.

            Cas nods wordlessly and dog-ears the book page that he’s on. Dean frowns at the book for a moment before snatching it from him and unfolding the dog-ear.

            “Don’t do that,” he mutters, smoothing the page out. “Ruins the book.”

            “Sorry.”

            “Okay.” Dean clears his throat and settles on the couch closer to Cas so he can see the monitor. Dean’s leg brushes against his, just briefly, but Cas’ body reacts strangely, like he’s encountered some sort of static electricity. Cas leans away from him, nonplussed by the sensation. It isn’t a bad feeling, but he isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

            Still, being close to Dean has always been like being near a bonfire in the fall, something heady and warm and comforting, so Cas finds himself leaning back in quite against his will, ignoring the soft edge of discomfort he feels as he skims the webpage.

            Dean taps his shoe on the floor, causing the laptop to jiggle slightly in his lap. “Alright. Sam’s pulled up articles about four sets of couples that have gone missing in the last two weeks. All of them along the east coast, all starting from the south and making their way up north. There’s no rhyme or reason to the victims, though.”

            Cas frowns, leaning in to peer closer. His skin prickles as he feels Dean’s gaze on the side of his face, and he’s suddenly excruciatingly self-aware of himself in a way he never had been as an angel. It’s a strange sensation, given the body that he resides in is not strictly his to be proud or ashamed of, despite Jimmy Novak’s long absence from it.

            Cas forces himself to focus, despite Dean being distracting. “Where did the kidnappings happen? What settings?”

            “The first was on a couples’ counseling retreat in Florida,” Dean says, clicking on the appropriate article and narrowing his eyes. “And….it looks like the second was from their townhouse in Baypoint, North Carolina. The third were nabbed from a wilderness camping trip, and the most recent ones were like, famous. They were on a country music tour.” Dean makes a humming, frustrated noise deep in his throat. “Some black, some white, some Asian, some Hispanic. Ages twenty-four to sixty. No pattern.”

            “Did you say the first couple was on a couples’ retreat?” Cas asks, touching the screen for the appropriate article.

            “It’s not a touch-screen, Cas. And yeah, couples’ retreat, but not the fun kind. The sort-out-your-marriage-shit kind...” Dean trails off, eyebrows raising slowly in revelation, before he clicks a new tab and pounds into the search-bar, “Harry and Jia Wells divorce affair,” and clicks enter.

            “That’s the second couple, right?” Cas affirms.

            “Right, the couple from Baypoint. Shit, look.” Dean clicks on the first result, and he and Cas both speed-read the article.

            “She filed for divorce.”

            “Yeah. Says here Harry Wells was running for mayor. Campaign started to collapse when reports of a DUI got leaked. Suspicion of alcohol-related domestic abuse, too….then Jia filed for divorce.” Dean twists his lips thoughtfully before he types in “Tate and Jewel Kensington divorce affair abuse.”

            “The two country stars,” Dean clarifies to Cas with a small smile. “I thought Jewel Kensington rang a bell. Look, says here she cheated on her husband with another chick.” Dean pauses, then raises his eyebrows. “I mean….”

            “So all the couples have infidelity in common,” Cas says. “Assuming the camping couple also matches up.”

            “Not necessarily infidelity,” Dean corrects. “Just...plain issues, I think. Unless Harry Wells was cheating on his wife. And who knows what shit the first couple was hashing out.”

            “So the next step is...figure out what the creature is,” Cas guesses.

            “Bigger priority,” Dean says, opening another new tab. “Where it’ll be next.”

            Dean pauses for a moment, slitting his eyes in thought, before he types out, “couples event northeast,” then groans as dozens of results crop up in the search engine.

            “I’m gonna need a beer for this,” Dean mutters, displacing the laptop and standing up to stretch. His shirt rides up a bit over his belly and hips as he yawns, and Cas jerks his gaze away, feeling a ridiculous flush of heat rise to color his cheeks.

            “Yeah,” he says, “er, me too.”

            What on earth is wrong with you, he thinks to himself, mortified as Dean gives him a strange look and heads out of the library. Cas buries his head in his hands and wills his absurd human hormones to reorder themselves, but his palms are still sweaty and his pulse is thudding much more quickly in his ears.

            Dean returns moments later with an opened six-pack, and he tosses a beer at Cas, which he almost fumbles and drops in his clumsiness.

            “Now I know you’re a bit of a lightweight,” Dean teases as he resumes his spot next to Cas on the library’s sofa. “So don’t get drunk on the case.”

            “I won’t,” Cas grumbles, struggling with the beer cap. Dean sighs and takes it from him, cracking it open with a quick crunch against the silver ring on his finger.

            Despite Cas’ promise, after it’s been an hour and a half and Cas has moved onto his third beer, he’s starting to feel it more than a little. Everything seems slower, somehow, and his tongue feels lighter, looser.

            “Alright,” Dean mutters, sounding a little sleepy himself, and he stifles a yawn. “So we’ve got it narrowed down to...seven places.”

            “Yes,” Cas says, nodding in agreement, his eyes drifting shut.

            “I think our best bet is this one right here.” Dean clicks something; Cas can hear that much. “Looks like there’s a couples cruise from Virginia to Florida. It’s only 30 miles north of the last kidnapping and it looks like it’s supposed to be pretty….” Cas can practically hear Dean pull a face. “Gushy. Ugh. They’ve got candlelit dinners and everything. Gross. Bound to draw a love guru monster out from the shadows, don’t you think? There’s got to be plenty of couples with some kind of issues on board.”

            “When does the cruise leave,” Cas asks without opening his eyes.

            “Three days’ time. So if we leave tomorrow we should be able to make it there and sneak on, maybe do some investigating for primary suspects. You know, the typical EMF run-through. Then we can hop off before the ship leaves. If we don’t find anything there, we can head down south a ways and investigate where the last couple went missing. Maybe someone saw something.”

            “Mm,” Cas murmurs in assent, sliding sideways, and he realizes sleepily that his cheek is pressed against Dean’s shoulder and that Dean’s gone very stiff beneath him.

            “Cas,” Dean says, quietly, almost as though Cas is asleep.

            “Mhm,” Cas replies.

            “I think you’ve had a bit too much.”

            “I hav’nt.”

            Dean’s quiet laugh thrums under him, half-fond, half-uneasy. “Sure.”

            Cas lets out a heavy breath, the feeling a weightless relief in his chest, and he tilts his head slightly so his forehead is resting against Dean’s shoulder. Dean is firm, and warm. And smells nice.

            “Cas,” Dean says again, his voice strained now.

            “Yes.”

            Dean breathes in deeply. Cas can feel the way the breath fills his body, and he rocks slightly into it. Dean’s voice is so soft when he speaks that Cas thinks he mishears it. “Don’t do this.”

            Cas doesn’t move his head, but frowns against Dean’s shirt in confusion.

            “We can’t...do this,” Dean says.

            “I’m not doing anything,” Cas mumbles, already half-asleep.

            “Goddammit, Cas, yes you are,” Dean snaps, going taut as a drawn bow beneath him, and Dean’s shoulder is rolling out from under him and Cas is blinking up at him in confusion, too sluggish to react quick enough from slumping over.

            Dean is staring at him in a way that should be sharp, that should be a glare, but his expression is broken somehow, an unarticulated plea.

            Cas’ voice is a whisper when he speaks, rasping in his throat. “I don’t understand.”

            Dean’s eyebrows pull together in a frown, and he seems angry now, or hurt. “Yeah, you wouldn’t, would you.”

            “I’m not doing anything intentionally,” Cas says, still perplexed. “I’m...sorry.”

            “We can’t be how we were,” Dean says through clenched teeth. “In purgatory, or before you were God. I can’t get close to you, do you see?”

            Cas simply stares, uncomprehending.

            “Last time we got close we both got fucked up over it,” Dean says, yanking his eyes away, twisting his hands together. “I’d rather avoid the collateral damage. Given you were willing to cast your lot into heaven and lock the door without a look behind you barely a month ago.”

            “Dean,” Cas tries to speak, but Dean interrupts him angrily.

            “No, Cas, I don’t want to hear you talk, okay? I don’t want to hear your bullshit excuses. I can’t…” Dean balls his hands into fists, cocks his jaw, stares off a moment before speaking again. “I can’t go through the same shit that I went through after the Leviathan, alright? Or the crypt or anything else. I can’t….” Dean’s voice splinters. “I can’t trust you. I just can’t.”

            “Then why are you taking me on a hunt with you?” Cas says. He doesn’t mean for it to sound like a challenge.

            “Because Sam wants me to and I figure we both could use time away from the bunker. I just…” Dean takes a deep, steady breath through his nose, his shoulders slumping. “You’re family, Cas, alright? But I’d rather just make this easier for the both of us. Keep this strictly business. Understand?”

            Feeling cold, aching all over, Cas nods. There’s a ball of something tight and dry in his throat, and after Dean’s gone, the chill doesn’t leave him for the rest of the night.

---

            Cas doesn’t say a word the entire time Dean’s packing up the car the next morning, or while he’s giving careful instructions to Kevin about Sam, between protests of, “I know how to cook ramen, jeez,” and “I’m not a pet dog you’re leaving on vacation, Dean,” respectively. Dean should maybe be worried about Cas’ silence—it’s not stony, yeah, but it’s definitely not warm either—even after he’s started the car, but to ask about it would be to invite more unwelcome conversation.

            They set off on the road sometime around 8 a.m. Cas has got a thermos of coffee bracketed between his kneecaps, which are pulled up to his chest as he stares sleepy-eyed at the midwestern scenery rolling by. Dean cranks up the music to fill the silence; he’s not expecting Cas to say anything, and isn’t surprised when he still hasn’t hours into the trip. A few times when Dean glances over, Cas is slumped over sideways dozing, but every time he glances back again, Cas is awake and alert again, his fingertips drumming on the windowsill.

            Their interaction is limited to Dean swatting Cas' hand away when he tries to mess with the radio dial, and Dean is okay with that, strangely enough. He's okay with not talking to Cas. He's a little afraid of what he might say if he does.

            Dean sings along to various songs on the radio—a life on the road has granted him the knowledge of almost every one-hit wonder or pop ballad the stations may dole out—and is still humming REO Speedwagon under his breath when he stops the Impala at a lonely, bleached-looking gas station somewhere in the east end of Missouri. Cas, who'd been napping, his cheek slipping down the window, wakes with a squinty-eyed jolt when Dean shuts the car off, leaving the engine to tick in the stifling quiet.

            "Are we there yet?" Cas asks, peering around in disorientation, and Dean huffs a laugh.

            "Not even close. We're just stopping for gas."

            Cas grumbles and thunks his forehead against the window-glass again.

            "Aw, buck up, Cas. We've only got, like, thirteen more hours."

            Cas fogs his breath on the window and moodily draws an Enochian symbol in the residue that looks suspiciously like a banishing sigil.

            Dean steps out of the car with a creak of the hinges and finds it difficult to breathe through the smothering heat, as well as the wheaten dust that curls thickly off the highway. He can already feel the back of his neck prickling unpleasantly with sweat as he plugs the nozzle into the Impala and waits with the back of his foot braced on the back tire, watching as the numbers tick up on the pump.

            Cas stumbles out of the car a moment later and to Dean's surprise, leans back against the car in the same position, folding his arms across his chest.

            "I'm not all that fond of road trips," Cas says, maybe for something to say.

            Dean closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. If there's anything more unpleasant than talking out shit with Cas, it's small-talking with Cas.

            "Yeah," Dean replies, and it sounds forced. "But you get used to it."

            Again, an uncomfortable quiet falls between them, ruptured only by the tinny buzzing of flies and the ticking of the gas pump. Cas opens his mouth as though to say something, even swiveling his body sideways, before his mouth closes resolutely again. He spends another quiet handful of moments gazing out at the surrounding fields, the sticky silence disturbed only by an intermittent car guttering by, before he ducks back in the car, shutting the door behind him.

            "Good talk," Dean mutters under his breath, and unclicks the gas nozzle from the car.

            Cas mercifully doesn't try to make any more conversation for the rest of the day, alternating between sleeping and window-gazing. They don't speak even after they stop at a motel later that night, and as Dean waits for their key, he glances over at Cas peeling a piece of chewed gum off of his duffel and thinks, dully, Bonding time. Right.

            Not that this had been his idea.

            Dean doesn't bother to see if Cas is following him as he counts down the door numbers to their correct motel room. He shoulders the door open upon finding it and plunks his bag at the foot of the bed before collapsing spread-eagle on his stomach across the stiff mattress. He hears Cas trail in quietly after him, the door clicking shut, and in and out of a sleep-impending haze, he hears Cas tinkering around in the bathroom. He closes his eyes and sees a moving highway imprinted on the backs of his eyelids, as he usually does when he's spent long hours driving.

            The next thing he knows, he's awake again, blinking his eyes rapidly as his contacts shift dryly with the motion, and he squints at the clock. It reads 2:16, which Dean assumes is a.m., and the bedside light's still on, illuminating the room.

            Dean twists over on his other side and squints in the harsh glare of the lamplight. Cas is propped up under the covers on the other bed, his drooping eyes fixed downward on the pages of his book. His thumb toys absently with the corner of the cover before he licks it and gently turns the page; the action seems slightly contrived, as though Cas had picked it up from a movie and mirrored it because he thought he should.

            "Cas?" Dean says hoarsely, still wincing. "The hell are you doing awake?"

            Cas glances up in surprise, and Dean notices for the first time the dark, crescent shadows that hang under his eyes. Maybe it's just the lighting.

            Cas wets his lips uncomfortably and drops his eyes back to his book. "Couldn't sleep. You should go back to bed, Dean."

            "Can't really do that when the light is on, can I?" Dean grumbles, contorting his body so that he's back on his other side, facing away from the light. "Try to get some shut-eye, Cas. We've got a long day on the road tomorrow."

            There's a long moment's hesitation, in which Dean is already half-asleep again under the assumption that he's been ignored, before Cas says, in a raw whisper, "It's the nightmares. They keep me awake."

            Dean's eyes crack open again.

            "It's always the same thing," Cas murmurs, but doesn't elaborate further.

            Dean sighs, torn halfway between his exhaustion and his reluctant sympathy toward Cas before he settles on, "It'll be worse if you try to stake it out. Turn off the light, try to get some sleep, alright? Nightmares suck, I know, but they get worse the longer you don't sleep."

            Cas hesitates again, and a moment later, he hears the quiet rustle of pages shifting and then the light flicks out.

            "Good night, Dean."

            "Mhm."

            For a long moment, in which Dean is hanging on the edge of sleep again and the only sound is the soft whir of crickets outside, he thinks Cas has dropped off. Then Cas whispers, very much awake, "Dean."

            "Mhm?"

            Dean hears the dry click of Cas' throat as he swallows. "I just wanted to say that I know our relationship has been strained, since—"

            Dean groans low through his teeth, interrupting him mid-sentence. "Dude. I'm not doing this right now. Alright? It's two thirty in the frigging morning. At least hash shit out with me when I'm quasi-awake."

            "Sorry," Cas whispers, which makes Dean, of course, feel like an asshole, and there's another long silence where Dean's more awake and debating on whether or not he should say something or apologize or do something even more colossally stupid, before Cas says, quietly again, "Dean—"

            "Alright, just shut up and get over here, alright?"

            Cas sounds more perplexed when he answers. "I don't—"

            "You heard me. Offer's only open once." Without looking, Dean reaches behind him to lift up the comforter in silent invitation; he knows Cas sees it. "Going once…going twice…"

            There's a loud hush of sheets being pushed back and shifted, a tentative pause, and then the mattress dips with Cas' weight. Dean squirms toward the very edge of the bed, grumbling under his breath as Cas pulls the sheets over himself.

            "We don't speak of this," Dean says in a low mutter a few minutes later. "Got it?"

            "Of course, Dean," Cas says with a soft, contented hum in his throat.

            Dean thinks he might hate himself a little bit for this in the morning, as Cas twists onto his side and curls his knees up to his chest—he thinks he might hate himself for waking up next to Cas looking sleep-ruffled and warm, and he might hate himself a little further for sliding backwards, back toward Cas when he swore to himself he wouldn’t.

            But for now, three blinks away from sleep, he thinks he can lie to himself.

            "Don't hog the sheets either. Night, Cas.”

            That time, at least, is for real.

---

            “And how exactly do you plan on breaking into that?” Cas asks, his tone desert-dry as Dean puts the car in idle and just kind of stares at the gleaming white cruise ship not a football field’s length in front of them.

            “I’m working on that part.”

            “We probably should’ve done some planning ahead.”

            “Yeah, you think? It’s not like I live the life of luxury where I know how cruise ships work,” Dean grumbles, and turns off the car.

            For a moment, they sweat in the sweltering silence of the car and sit there, staring at the long line of people getting their reservations checked on the pier.

            “It’s not as big as it could be,” Cas allows, perhaps trying for optimism.

            “Yeah, that’s ‘cause it’s exclusive or something. I don’t know. Boat leaves in two hours, though, so we’ve only got a little bit of time to look around.” Dean clambers out of the car, sucking in a surprised breath at the taste of the salt in the air. Something in him has always secretly liked the ocean, even though he grew up nowhere near one. When he and Sam had been buffeted about on their dad’s hunts as kids, he’d walk the beach for hours picking out shells that weren’t fragmented while Sam built sand castles or dug deep trenches that filled with water.

            Dean smiles to himself briefly at the simplicity of it, in retrospect, and follows after Cas toward the cruise ship.

            “There should be a crew entrance somewhere,” Cas is muttering to himself, already strategizing. “We could get on that way, at least, and then talk to some of the staff members if they’ve seen anything suspicious.”

            “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.”

            They veer away from the main line of people who are slowly filing onto the boat, but Cas stops in his tracks immediately and frowns.

            “What?”

            “There’s going to be no way to get on from here,” Cas says, pointing along the length of the ship. “Only one entryway onto the boat is connected to the pier. So unless we want to swim, we can’t access any other part of the ship.”

            “Shit,” Dean mutters. “Well, I’ve got badges in the car? We could always pull the FBI stunt, do a little digging.”

            Cas frowns at him, the wind off the sea ruffling his hair and parting it in two places. “Digging on what? It’ll look extremely suspicious. Nothing has happened.”

            “Yet,” Dean adds. “We could say we got a tip or something. I don’t know. I’m just spitballing here.”

            “Excuse me,” a woman says from behind them, and they both whirl to find a lady dressed in stewardess attire with a threatening-looking clipboard glaring at them haughtily. “Can I help you with something?”

            Cas opens his mouth to reply, but a collage of all of Cas’ past attempts in speaking to strangers flashes in a nightmarish display behind Dean’s eyes and he quickly butts in with an amiable, “Gosh, I’m sorry, ma’am. We got a little bit turned around and we’re just trying to get on the ship on time.”

            The woman’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “Do you have a reservation? If not, you can’t park in this parking lot and I’m afraid I’ll have to escort you out.”

            “We have a reservation,” Cas says, and Dean almost swallows his own tongue.

            The woman nods and glances down at her clipboard. “Perfect. Last name?”

            “S….Smith.” Cas’ voice tilts up at the end in question.

            “I have two Smiths listed here...a Trevor and a Rachel, and a Ryan and an Alex.” She smiles up at them, much more warmly now than before. “I assume you’re Ryan and Alex.”

            “Yes,” Cas says, nodding, “that’s us.”

            “I’ll show you your room, sirs. Do you have things you need to retrieve?”

            “Uh, yeah,” Dean says, dumbly. “Just let us grab our bags from the car.”

            “I’ll wait.”

            Dean stalks over to the Impala with Cas close behind, and the moment they’re out of immediate eyesight, Dean turns on him.

            “Are you nuts?” he hisses while Cas unlocks the trunk and roots around for his duffel. “We can’t pretend to be a couple!”

            Cas gives him some crazy eyes. “Why not?”

            “Because it’s…” And you know, Dean really can’t come up with a good excuse for why not and his mouth kind of hangs open. Because it’s just faking. It’s just a means to an end. It’s just for a case. That’s the kind of confused, wide-eyed look Cas is giving him now, because it shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t even warrant a reaction, and Dean is being an idiot because they have a way in now, thanks to Cas, and. And.

            “Fine,” Dean mutters, grabbing his bag and slamming the trunk shut, “but I’m not holding your stupid hand.”

            “Right this way, please,” the woman calls to them, and she trots onto the wooden pier as Dean and Cas scramble to catch up with her.

            “This is such a dumb idea,” Dean grumbles to himself, already feeling a blush rise in his cheeks, and he straightens his jacket self-consciously when people turn to stare.

            “It’s the only dumb idea that was going to get us on board,” Cas says reasonably, lowering his voice as the clipboard lady tosses another appraising look over her shoulder. “And we can leave the moment we have the information we need.”

            “Sooner the better.”

            The woman slows to fall into step with them as they near the boat, hushing her voice in a way Dean assumes is supposed to be consoling. “And just so you know, we are an LGBT-friendly boat so you shouldn’t receive any harassment. If you do, please report it because we want this to be a place of healing for you.”

            Dean turns to Cas when the lady turns back around and mouths, mockingly, healing.

            The woman leads them up the platform past the line of people and onto the main deck of the boat. Dean whistles lowly under his breath at the large pool and the hot tub on the lower deck, and he elbows Cas in the ribs and mutters, “Check it out.”

            Cas half-frowns, half-squints at the pool as if affronted by its decadence. “Someone else is paying a lot of money for this.”

            “You can say that again. This is like the life I never could’ve had even in another life, you know?”

            “You two are on the first floor,” the woman says, leading them through a door and into a long, indoor hallway. “I hope you’ll find everything is to your standards.” She hooks a sudden left and keys open the door before handing it to Dean. “Enjoy your stay.”

            Dean smiles at her, shoulders open the door, and promptly recoils.

            “Ma’am,” he calls weakly after her, already shaking his head but unable to look away, “ma’am—” But she’s already walked off, the hallway door slamming behind her with a bang.

            Dean turns to look speechlessly at Cas, who’s adopted a semi-constipated expression.

            “It’s festive,” Cas says.

            “It’s disgusting,” Dean disagrees.

            What it is is a giant, king-sized bed adorned with heart-shaped pillows, completed by a purple, satiny comforter. The walls are lined with black and white pictures of posing, happy couples. There are unlit, scented candles on basically every flat surface.

            Cas steps inside to survey the room more closely, heading to the window to curiously examine the view, while Dean tries to recuperate.

            “This is horrifying,” is what he eventually comes up with.

            “It’s not all that bad.”

            “Even if it wasn’t you I was supposed to be staying with, this would be horrifying. Look, there’s—” Dean plucks up an unfamiliar DVD from the shelf closest to the door, adjacent to a large, flat-screen TV. “Their choice of movies is Love Actually and 27 Dresses. That’s it. That’s it.”

            “I think you’re being a bit overdramatic,” Cas says absently, wandering toward the bathroom to explore it.

            “You’re being overdramatic.” Dean follows after Cas and lets the door click shut behind him, taking a moment to plop on the giant bed, testing the bounciness of the mattress and floofing the comforter. “This is like a horror movie about Valentine’s Day brought to life.”

            “We did work a case both with errant cupids and people’s exploding cartoon hearts,” Cas reminisces from the bathroom; he appears to be scoping out the shower.

            “Oh yeah, grand times.”

            “They weren’t bad times.” Cas’ voice is soft, almost fond as he rejoins Dean in the main room. He casts Dean an odd look slantwise, nearly affectionate. “Not for me.”

            “Yeah, well, you have a fucked up view of fun. Let’s get out of here and start investigating, I’m about to break out in hives.” Dean propels himself—a bit reluctantly, because although he’s not gonna admit it, the bed is like sitting on a giant marshmallow—off the mattress, breezing past Cas toward the door and pulling on the knob.

            Dean doesn’t know quite what he expected, but the doorknob doesn’t give.

            “What the fuck,” he says, twisting it harder and yanking.

            “Let me try,” Cas says, too close to him, a pulse of warmth by his ear, and Dean flinches at the proximity.

            “I got it,” he snaps, unsettled for some reason he can’t quite articulate to himself, and he plants a foot on the door and yanks, grunting with exertion as the door refuses to yield. “Son of a bitch.”

            “Someone’s locked us in here,” Cas says, clearly disconcerted, and his eyes sweep the room, his shoulders stiff with tension.

            “Yeah, no shit, Einstein.”

            “I do believe,” Cas says, his gaze meeting Dean’s evenly, “that we’re the ones being hunted now.”

            Dean pauses in his attempts to jimmy the door open, a bit slack-jawed, before he says again, more in amazement this time, “Son of a bitch.”

            “This was a trap and we walked right into it,” Cas mutters, bypassing the bed and going straight for the window. “Perhaps we can get out through the window.”

            “Yeah, sixty feet down into the ocean? No thanks, Shamu.”

            The boat gives an ominous lurch beneath them, something like a generator humming to life through the floor.

            “Dean,” Cas says in a semi-strangled voice, his hands planted on either side of the window. “The boat is leaving.”

            “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

            “I am not kidding you.”

            “It’s not supposed to leave for another two hours.” Dean rests his forehead against the door and hits it there with a hollow thud, twice. “This cannot be happening.”

            “It’s not the worst thing that could happen,” Cas concedes, but the optimism sounds very much forced. “The creature could have killed us right off. At least we have some time to configure a plan.”

            “No, this is exactly what it wants,” Dean says through gritted teeth, his forehead still braced on his arm. “It’s playing games with us. And we don’t even have a clue what it might be, what it looks like—it could be hiding as anyone on this ship. This whole thing is awesome, really, couldn’t be better.”

            “Dean,” Cas says quietly, moving back to his side and placing a placating hand on his shoulder. Dean thwarts the childish urge to shrug it off. “We have found ourselves against worse foes, and in more dire situations. We’ll have returned to Sam before you know it.”

            “I really freaking hope so, because I honestly don’t think Kevin could keep a guinea pig alive at this point—”

            Three knocks tap on the door, almost daintily. Dean just stares at the doorknob for a moment in disbelief before he reaches out to twist it slowly. It turns as easy as butter.

            “Good afternoon,” an unfamiliar woman greets them cheerfully from the other side of the door. She has bleach-blond, straightened hair, and eyes that seem harshly bright with colored blue contacts. “I’ve come to fetch you for orientation. I hope you find everything has been to your liking—”

            “Look, lady,” Dean says, swinging the door open fully and glaring at her, “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but we’re not doing your little monkey dance, alright?”

            The woman blinks at him, her pink lips frozen in an uncomfortable smile.

            “Dean, I don’t think she knows anything,” Cas murmurs next to him.

            “Yeah, don’t be so sure.” Dean takes a deep, calming breath, and starts over. “Look, ma’am, is there any way you can turn the boat around? I know it’s not the most convenient timing but I’ve got a really sick brother I need to get back to—”

            “I’m afraid the ship doesn’t change destination once it’s set sail,” the woman says, her lips puckering in a sympathetic line. “Now if you’d like to join me with Group A on the main deck, my name is Zoe and I’ll be your healing guide. Please bring your most positive attitude and a willingness to grow.” And with that she whisks away, trailing pungent perfume in her wake.

            “I think I’m gonna be sick.” Dean pauses, placing a hand on his stomach and frowning in concentration. “Yup, definitely gonna be sick.”

            Cas sighs in his direction, maybe exasperated, and starts to follow after Zoe, but Dean grabs his wrist and pulls him back. “What the hell are you doing?”

            “I’m going to the activity,” Cas tells him with a slightly scrunched expression. He raises his eyebrows and jerks his head toward the hallway door in a snotty mannerism he surely picked up from Sam. “You know, blending in.”

            “Okay, well,” Dean imitates his head motion, doubling the snarky expression, “we don’t have a plan yet.”

            “Don’t you think it’ll look more suspicious if we don’t at least show up? We don’t have to participate.”

            Dean gusts out a large, irritated sigh. The migraine has returned full force, like someone’s steadily grinding a screw into his skull. “Fine. But don’t trust anyone, alright? It could be anyone on here. Anyone, hear me?”

            Cas nods impatiently and pulls his hand out of Dean’s grasp; Dean hadn’t even realized he’d still been holding onto him, and he shoves his hand quickly into his jacket pocket, feeling angry and flustered and not knowing why.

            They head out onto the main deck, and Dean squints painfully into the bright sunlight before groaning at the sight of, firstly, an entire ocean without sight of land surrounding them, save for a rapidly receding pier in the distance (leave it to him to get literally stranded on a boat with Cas in the middle of the fucking Atlantic), and, secondly, what can only be classified as a sharing circle of chairs on the main deck, populated by a bunch of people staring at him. Dean gazes wistfully at the pool on the lower deck and follows after Cas to the two vacant chairs, ignoring the way Zoe’s bright, fixated look makes his skin crawl.

            “Welcome,” Zoe chirps, and then prompts, “Group?” to which everyone in the group mutters, like it’s being dragged from them, “Welcome.”

            Dean sits down with a grimace, at least satisfied that half of the people in the group look about as eager to participate as he feels.

            “We were just about to introduce our stories,” Zoe says. “A few of our couples have already shared theirs. There’s something very cathartic about sharing with a group, don’t you guys think?”

            This receives a reluctant, annoyed titter. Dean snorts under his breath.

            As if she can hear him from across the circle, Zoe laser-fastens bright, aqua-colored contacts on him, her brittle eyelashes batting rapidly. “Let’s welcome our newcomers. Go on, introduce yourselves!”

            Cas shifts uncomfortably next to him, readjusting his hands in his lap. Dean just stares at Zoe blankly.

            “Uh, hi,” Dean says eventually. “I’m Dean. This is my….” He struggles. “Friend, Cas.”

            “You don’t have to use false terminology here,” Zoe tells him confidentially. “You can call him what he is when you’re with us. This is a safe space.”

            Cas bites on his lip and gazes at Dean sideways innocently, perhaps fighting a small smile.

            “Life-partner,” Dean grits out, scowling at Cas.

            “Good,” Zoe says, elongating the word like a preschool teacher would. “And what’s your story, Dean?”

            Dean short-circuits a bit at that one. He keeps staring at Zoe, his mouth slightly ajar.

            “Story?” he echoes. He can feel every single pair of eyes on him, and he can feel his skin getting warmer under the weight of their judgment.

            Zoe’s eyelashes bat more vigorously, fuchsia lips stretching wider into a teeth-baring smile. “I’m just looking for a brief summary, sweetheart. How you met, what your…” She places one cupped hand on the side of her mouth and stage-whispers, “issues are. Why are you with us today?”

            Dean just stares at her, dumbfounded.

            “We met when I saved Dean from hell,” Cas says next to him.

            Dean swivels slowly, very slowly, to glare at him.

            Amazingly, all the other couples in the surrounding group nod as if they understand.

            “Many couples start out their early days in very dark places,” Zoe says sagaciously. “Mhm. Yes.”

            “It was difficult at first,” Cas goes on, and yeah, Dean’s mouth is definitely catching flies now. “Dean and I had our…political differences, and my family didn’t like him very much.”

            “Dean didn’t have their stamp of approval,” Zoe clarifies with a knowing nod.

            Cas’ mouth quirks at the corner, clearly enjoying himself immensely, and Dean’s glaring doubles in intensity. “You could say that. But I eventually had to discard my family’s opinions to make my own choices.”

            The whole group is nodding now, some sympathetically. Dean’s still four steps behind. Or like, ten.

            “Dean?” Zoe prompts, as if sensing the fact that he’s floundering and zeroing in on it. “Would you like to continue?”

            Dean stares at her for a long moment, then turns to look blankly at Cas, who’s watching him impassively, waiting as the rest of the group is.

            “Well,” Dean says after a long silence. “We went through some real shit for a bit there.” He deliberately cheeses up his next words, mainly to spite Cas. “At times, actually, it felt like the world was ending.”

            Other couples nod in accord while he receives an unappreciative look from Cas.

            “Then….” Dean tries to keep the bitterness from his voice, he really does, but the old wound from a memory of a particular ring of fire splits open and smarts. “Cas tried playing God.”

            An uneasy silence descends upon the group. Some of the glazed, wandering gazes refocus and rivet on him.

            “It was almost like, uh, he was possessed by something. I don’t know what.” Dean can’t meet Cas’ eyes now, although he can feel that Cas is focused on him with excruciating awareness. “He hurt my younger brother. And then...he left.”

            The group murmurs, some people shifting restlessly in their seats. They’re invested now.

            “He left for a year. I...I thought he was dead, you know. Didn’t hear one word from him. Then, uh, when he came back. It was like he’d forgotten who he was.”

            Every single pair of eyes is fastened on him now. Cas’ gaze is the heaviest.

            “It was almost like he….” Dean struggles to avoid the usage of the term was plagued by hallucinations of Lucifer for the general consideration of the audience. “...had a break from reality. He came back around eventually, but when he did, he went missing. I...called him everyday to try to get a hold of him but he didn’t answer. When I found him, he said it was to protect me, or something. Then when I left...uh, town, I tried to take him with me, where I was going, but he stayed behind because...because he didn’t think he deserved a second chance.” Talking is easier now, strangely enough. “But he came back again, and I thought everything was good, for once. But then his sister found him and things got ugly. She was controlling him; fucked around with his head, you know? And he left again—oh, after he beat me up and left without a word. And now here we are.” Dean claps his hands once and rubs them together, smiling without a trace of mirth. “Any questions?”

            The entire group is silent. Everyone is staring at him. Zoe’s face has gone slightly wooden, looking like an android that’s been powered down.

            Dean chances an even glance at Cas; he’s staring down at his folded hands in his lap, his fingers clenching and unclenching in some unreadable emotion.

            “Well,” Zoe says to break the horrible silence, her voice falsely bright. “It sounds like you have plenty of material to work with. Emotional manipulation, abuse, abandonment. It’s….it’s good you’re here. It’s really good. Here, you can begin the healing process.”

            Dean makes a scoffing noise in his throat, folds his arms across his chest, and leans back in his chair. Cas still won’t look at him.

            “Okay,” Zoe says, clapping her hands together lightly. “We’re going to save the rest of the stories for later in the evening while we take a little break and recover some good vibes. Okay? Alright, everyone? There are snacks over at the bar, please feel free to help yourself. We’ve got low-fat options for our lovely ladies!”

            “Dean,” Cas says immediately, reaching out a hand toward him, but Dean shrugs away.

            “I really don’t want to hear it, Cas.”

            “I’m—”

            “Please,” Dean says, closing his eyes and lifting one hand to rub at his temple. “Please don’t say you’re sorry. I get it, you’re sorry, Cas, alright? I wish the word ‘sorry’ took all the bad shit away, I really do. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier. But it just doesn’t, alright?”

            Dean sucks in a deep, unsteady breath, and levels a glance at Cas. His eyes are huge, contrite—so fucking blue.

            “I understand,” Cas says, nodding and swallowing with some visual difficulty. “Of course, I understand.” He stands stiffly, almost tripping over the chair leg, and heads to the bar, ducking his head, his shoulders inclined inward in what can only be dejection. Dean sighs after him, rubbing at his eyes again.

            One middle-aged woman with ginger, powdery-looking hair taps on his shoulder. Dean glances up at her.

            “It’s incredible that you two are still together after that tragic story,” the woman tells him. “You must love him a lot.”

            Dean just scowls at her before he stands to follow Cas’ general direction to the bar, where clusters of people from his group are hovering around the snack bowls. Some are staring at him and muttering under their breath, and Dean is annoyed with himself for feeling actually self-conscious about it. Like he cares what a bunch of people who willingly paid for a hell cruise with their significant other think about him.

            Cas has vanished somewhere, and Dean doesn’t have the heart to look for him, so he leans against the bar and roots around in the bowl of Chex mix, squinting off the boat to see if he can make out any land on the horizon, but he’s surrounded—quite literally—by a huge sea of nothing.

            “That’s a pretty messed-up story you’ve got going,” says a girl next to him, and he turns instinctively to the speaker. The girl smiles at him, not unkindly. Her hair, pulled up in a high and messy bun, is pitch-black and streaked with teal, creating a weird combination of edgy and welcoming. She’s looking at him through thick-lashed, dark eyes, and she’s gotta be late twenties, maybe younger.

            “Yeah, well,” Dean says, smiling as charmingly as he can manage through his dark mood, “I have plenty of those.”

            “I’m Shay, by the way,” she says, holding out a slim hand. “Shay Mendoza.”

            “You’re shy?”

            “Nah, it’s just pronounced that way.”

            “Dean.” He shakes her hand before quickly wiping off the Chex crumbs from his jacket.  “Winchester.”

            Shay smiles. “Nice to meet you, Dean Winchester.”

            For a moment, they fall silent, both uncertain what to say, before Dean ventures, “So, uh, just curious. What are you in for?”

            Shay’s mouth curls up in a small smile, and she toys with her hair as if suddenly embarrassed. “See her, over there?”

            Dean follows her gesture and spots a thin, tall, African-American woman still seated; he nods.

            “That’s Thea. My girlfriend.” Shay smiles ruefully. “She cheated on me. So here we are.”

            Dean raises his eyebrows, his eyes still fixed on Thea’s unmoving figure. “Wow. That sucks, I’m sorry. Cheating is like...the worst thing you can do.”

            “Yeah, I agree,” Shay says. “But I punched a hole in our wall, so I probably have shit to work out too.”

            “Yeah, maybe,” Dean concedes with a grudging smile. “But hey, I’ve punched a few walls a few times, and I’m still functional.”

            Shay casts him a skeptical look. “Are you though?”

            Dean grins briefly, then glances out at the ocean again. “Nah. Not really.” He’s not sure if he ever was.

            “Still, I’m hoping that we can work things out. I love her, you know? I love her so fucking much. She’s the love of my life. I’d do anything to fix things with her.” Shay digs around in the silver bowl on the bar for a pretzel, then chomps on it morosely. “Relationships suck, you know?”

            “Got that straight,” Dean mutters, popping a Chex nut in his mouth.

            “And what are you hoping to get out of this, Dean?”

            Dean freezes mid-chew for a moment, caught off-guard by the question, before he swallows and answers, carefully, “Uh...I, um. Cas and I have been pretty fucked up for a while. It’ll be good to get away from things, I guess.”

            Shay’s eyes search his, flicking across his face. “You’re not here to fix things?”

            Dean laughs. It sounds humorless even to his own ears. “Not exactly. It’s just...there’s only so many times you can try before you work with what you have. And you know, maybe it’s a little broken, or fucked up, or awful, but um…” He swallows again, dropping his eyes to the calluses on his hands. “You know, when you care about someone, you take the good with the ugly. Even if there’s a whole lot of ugly.”

            “Hmm,” Shay says, nodding, her gaze sliding sideways. “Speaking of whole lot of ugly, your boyfriend is puking his guts out right now.”

            “What? Oh, shit.” Dean’s finally spotted Cas, who’s hunched over the side of the boat with one hand clutched around his middle, one hand white-knuckled on the railing. He abandons Shay with a quick apology and jogs across the deck over to Cas’ side, pausing to place a bracing hand on his back. Cas’ shirt is soaked through with sweat and sticks to Dean’s palm.

            “Cas? You okay?”

            “Fine,” Cas says in a voice like death. His forehead is braced on his arm, his back trembling under Dean’s hand, and Dean thoughtlessly starts to rub his hand in soothing circles, figuring it won’t look out of place if he does it. It was always what his mom had done for him when he’d thrown up as a kid, anyway.

            “Need to find your sea legs, eh?” Dean cracks with a small, satisfied grin at his own joke.

            “Please shut up, Dean.”

            “Alright.”

            Cas seizes up again before he goes another round off the side of the boat, spitting in disgust after to wash out the taste.

            “I didn’t know people got seasick on cruises,” Dean muses to himself.

            “Ungh,” Cas groans. “I hate this.”

            “Boats?”

            “Being human.”

            “Yeah, well, tough luck. Everyone throws up. It’ll pass soon.”

            “Excuse me,” says an imperious voice behind Dean, and Dean rotates in place while Cas tiredly lifts his head. It’s the woman with the powdered ginger hair from earlier, and she’s glaring blackly at Cas like her gaze could smite him off the earth. Which is kinda funny, given who she’s looking at.

            “Can I help you?” Dean says. “We’re a little busy, if you can’t tell.”

            The woman ignores him, pointing her attention at Cas. “You should be ashamed of yourself for what you’ve done. Abandoning and abusing your poor husband. People like you should rot in hell.”

            “Back off, lady,” Dean snaps, bracing a hand on Cas’ back again. Cas has turned his attention away from the woman, looking like he’s focusing very hard on not throwing up again.

            “If you were smart, you would leave his sorry ass,” the woman says to Dean now, wagging her head angrily so her giant gold earrings clang.

            “Well, I guess I’m a dumbass, then,” Dean says just to be contrary, taking some real satisfaction as the woman harrumphs and stalks back to her very confused-looking husband sitting in his seat in the sharing circle.

            “Thank you for protecting the honor of our fake relationship, Dean,” Cas says to the ocean. “It means a lot to me.”

            “Hey, shut up. I’m still mad at you.”

            Cas casts him a filmy, pathetic stare before throwing up again.

            “This is a fucking mess,” Dean says, more to himself than to Cas. “How did this even happen? We come here to hunt, we end up the ones being hunted.”

            Cas makes a noncommittal noise in his throat.

            “This never happens with Sam,” Dean accuses, and Cas replies, dryly, “Sorry for the bad karma.”

            He straightens up, wobbling uncertainly, and Dean plants a firm hand on his shoulder to steady him. Cas takes a deep breath, wincing in either nausea or aftertaste, and nods a thank you in Dean’s direction.

            “I think I may go lay down,” Cas says, and he’s still got a slightly greenish tinge to his skin.

            “Do you want me to come with you?” Dean asks, then quickly corrects, “Not to lay down, I mean, just, are you going to be sick again—”

            “I’ll be fine.” Cas’ eyes slide past Dean and refocus over his right shoulder. “I saw you talking to that girl. You should try to get information from her.”

            “Oh. Yeah, good idea.” Duh. They’re investigating; he should probably investigate people. “Although if I’ve got bets, it’s on that creepy Zoe chick.”

            Cas glances at him, maybe amused but mostly tired, and Dean notices the soft gathering of wrinkles around his eyes for the first time and it strikes him suddenly, strangely: Cas is aging. Cas is going to die. Maybe sooner rather than later.

            “Uh, go get some rest,” Dean says, and his voice sounds off, even to him. “The throwing up thing, it always passes. Just imagine you’re on solid ground.”

            Cas nods and heads off toward the room without a glance backward. Dean turns, but Shay has already left the bar. She’s seated next to Thea again, and neither of them is speaking to the other, their bodies angled similarly but at a distance from each other.

            Dean takes a step in Shay’s direction, then pauses, and glances toward the pool on the lower deck longingly. He spends another moment hesitating, torn, before he bases his decision, as he often does, on a resounding, fuck it.

            He heads toward the pool, already peeling off his shirt.

---

            Cas jolts out of sleep lost for breath and drenched in sweat, the sheets pasted to his skin. For a wild, disorienting moment, he has no idea where he is, and he casts his eyes around the room for something familiar before it falls on Dean’s duffel bag at the foot of the bed. He can feel the grip of a nightmare receding from memory, and his heart is racing with adrenaline, thundering in his ears. He can still feel the dry, gouging slice of Metatron’s knife cutting through his trachea as clearly as he had when strapped to Naomi’s chair, and he gulps for breath, the harsh air dry in his lungs.

            He stumbles from the bed, flailing for a moment to swim his way out of the sheets, before he launches himself at the bathroom and promptly throws up in the toilet. His whole body is trembling in shock from the nightmare, fatigue from throwing up, and probable dehydration. Every inch of his skin feels sticky.

            For a long moment he remains hunched over the toilet bowl, breathing in raggedly as he rests his forehead on the brace of his arms. Then he stands shakily to his feet and flushes the toilet.

            Cas takes another deep breath, squares his shoulders, and plants either hand on the sink to peer at himself in the mirror. His cheeks are splotched with dark patches of pink, his hair tousled in matted sheaves from sleep and crusted in some places with what he suspects is sweat or saliva. His eyes—not Jimmy’s eyes, his eyes—are heavy and watery with exhaustion.

            Cas experimentally runs a hand over the bristle of his jaw, over the straight, gentle slope of his nose; he pulls at the skin of his cheeks, gently touches his own dry lips. There are wrinkles etched in the corners of his eyes, in his forehead, just softly around the edges of his mouth.

            Cas leans forward over the sink until his nose is nearly pressing the glass, searching his own gaze. He isn’t quite sure what he’s looking for, but he hopes he’ll know it when he sees it.

            He isn’t expecting to find anything, but is still oddly disappointed when he doesn’t.

            He steps back with a long sigh, peeling his shirt off his body before dropping his pants and boxers. For a long moment, he stares at his naked body in the long mirror, twisting to observe different angles, prodding at ribs that protrude just slightly, running a hand over a firm, wiry calf. Jimmy was neither particularly muscular nor particularly slight, but built somewhere in the middle. Cas wonders how much of this muscle he built on his own, how many of these dark freckles along his torso belong to him and him alone.

            After a few more moments of assessing, he abandons the exploration and fiddles with the shower, yelping softly when the water that pelts his bare skin is ice-cold. After a moment, though, he sighs into it; the cool water feels like a salve on his flushed, hot skin, as though traces of chemicals, of dirt and grime and blood and corruption, are swirling away in gray streaks down the drain.

            He understands why humans like showers so much. They’re...therapeutic, solitary. Like a quiet space for his thoughts to breathe, but not gasp into the silence of his own mind. The din of the water, like rain all around him, drums out the silence that still aches where his grace was ripped, thrumming, from his being.

            Cas has just finished soaping himself off and has punched off the water when the door to the room slams. Dean’s back.

            “Cas?” Dean asks to the empty room, sounding confused.

            “One second.” Cas reaches out one hand from the shower curtain to grapple for a clean towel hanging on the shower rack. While he wouldn’t mind if Dean saw his nudity, given it’s not exactly his (it is his, he reminds himself), he figures Dean would be rather scandalized by it.

            “Dude, shut the door when you shower,” Dean says, his voice coming closer, echoing in the bathroom now, although he doesn’t sound truly annoyed. “Otherwise it lets all the steam into the room.”

            “I took a cold shower,” Cas says irritably, wrapping a towel securely around his hips and stepping out onto the cold, wet tile. “No steam.”

            For a moment, they lock eyes, and it’s inexplicably uncomfortable, although Cas isn’t sure why. Maybe it’s to do with the way Dean’s eyes sweep up his body before he glances quickly away, or maybe it’s the way Cas flushes, at the mercy again of his fickle human hormones. Either way, there’s a horrific moment where neither of them speak and Cas feels extremely exposed for reasons that have little—well, so he tells himself—to do with human physicality.

            “Yeah, well, it’s human decency,” Dean eventually comes up with. His eyes safely land on Cas’ face and remain there, even as Cas moves toward the sink. “Do you feel better?”

            “Much,” Cas replies, rooting around in his bag of toiletries for shaving cream. “Any luck on the case?”

            “No.” Dean sounds chagrined. “I, ah, took a little R&R.”

            Cas squints more closely at him. He’d thought Dean looked a shade tanner.

            “Sorry,” Dean says sheepishly.

            “You deserve some rest time,” Cas says with a shrug, squirting some shaving cream into his hand. “Nothing to apologize for.”

            Dean clears his throat and rests his shoulder against the doorframe of the bathroom, as if he isn’t quite sure where to place himself. “Yeah. Right. Okay. They’re summoning us for another activity—” Cas can hear the eye roll in his voice. “—so once you get clothes on, we have to head out toward the main deck.”

            “I was thinking I could go in this,” Cas says, spreading the cream along the bristles of his cheeks.

            “You’re making a joke,” Dean says, half-uncertainly.

            “Yes, Dean.”

            “Ha. Well, I mean, you could. Maybe it’d get us thrown off the ship faster.”

            “You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” Cas murmurs, not quite paying attention to what he’s saying before realizing how it can be construed, if Dean stiffening slightly in the doorway is anything to go by.

            Cas recovers without blinking. “The faster we get off the boat, the faster we get back to Sam, after all.”

            Dean relaxes in his peripheral vision. “Yeah. I’m starting to miss that nerd. I haven’t checked if they have cell service yet.”

            “And the faster we can start looking for my grace,” Cas says, more to himself than Dean as he places the razor’s blade at the edge of his cheekbone, and Dean clears his throat and quietly excuses himself from the bathroom.

            Cas finishes shaving and shuts the door to get changed, at Dean’s muttered request, and when he steps out Dean is perched on the large purple comforter with his hands in his lap and an expression that’s somewhat lost.

            Dean stands up without a word and heads toward the door, pausing and swiveling as if he’s going to say something, then the bolt of his jaw clenches and he shrugs his way out of the room. Cas follows after, shuffling his fingers experimentally through his damp hair, strangely unsettled.

            It’s sunset on the main deck, and Cas takes a moment to admire the sight, despite the nauseous roll his stomach gives at the sight of water all around them. Dean pauses to wait for him, jiggling his hand against his leg uncertainly and gazing out at the way the darkening sun glances off the water, and Cas finds after a few moments that he’s been staring at Dean for much longer than is strictly appropriate, fixated on the way the reddish light of the sinking sun casts shadows on Dean’s profile.

            “You coming or what?” Dean says, thankfully taking no notice of Cas staring, and Cas mentally shakes himself and follows after Dean across the deck.

            “Welcome, welcome,” Zoe trills when they cross toward the circle of chairs, and Dean grumbles something under his breath that sounds suspiciously derogatory. Shay, the girl Dean had been speaking to earlier, waves at them from across the circle with a small smile, which Cas tentatively returns.

            “For tonight’s activity we’re going to work in partners,” Zoe says, crossing and uncrossing her legs, cupping her hands primly on her knees. “It will be the first step of the healing process, and will give you a chance to really know where your partner is emotionally. It’s called ‘Flying Colors.’ Ooh, let’s see for our guinea pigs. Let’s try Frank and Georgia first.” Zoe swivels to the couple seated beside her, who are plied apart as far as could comfortably be.

            Zoe holds out a small, black bag and says, “Draw a color.”

            The woman, Georgia, dips her hand in with a reluctant expression and draws a green card.

            “Green: something you regret,” Georgia reads off the card, and Cas’ heart seems to skip a beat.

            “Now, Frank, look in Georgia’s eyes and tell her something you genuinely, truly regret,” Zoe says emphatically, angling her body in a way that Cas assumes is supposed to be assuaging but appears somewhat hawkish.

            Frank looks at Georgia uncomfortably. “I, uh, regret cheating on you, Georgia.”

            Georgia’s eyes narrow. “No fucking shit, Frank.”

            “Alright, alright,” Zoe interrupts with fluty, nervous laughter, “you all get the gist, right? This is a good place to start! Pass around these bags, one for each couple.”

            “I’m not playing this stupid game,” Dean says in a low aside to Cas, snatching up a bag from the couple seated beside them and passing the next four along down the line.

            “Participation is required,” Zoe says, tilting her head, birdlike, and blinking.

            “Fucking freaky super hearing, I swear,” Dean whispers. “This lady is like Batman.”

            “And begin,” Zoe says, standing and leveling a deathly look in Dean’s direction.

            “You first, Cas,” Dean says with a faux sweet smile, handing the bag to him.

            “You do realize me drawing first means that you go first,” Cas says, sticking his hand into the bag.

            Dean’s smug smile drops.

            “Red: what are you feeling?” Cas reads aloud, and looks to Dean for an answer.

            Dean shrugs, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms defensively. “I’m a little hungry, I guess.”

            Cas swallows around the dry lump in his throat, working up the nerve. “In all seriousness, Dean. I’d like to know.”

            Dean flares a sharp look at him, calculating for a moment. There’s nothing but silence strung tight between them for a few moments, broken only by the murmured chatter of surrounding couples.

            “What do you want me to say, Cas?” Dean says, lifting one hand from its folded position and then dropping it. “Seriously. What do you want me to say?”

            “The truth.”

            “The truth? Fine.” Dean squares his jaw, and fixes Cas with a steely look again. “I’m angry.”

            “Yes.”

            “I’m pissed. At you.”

            “Go on.”

            “I mean, seriously,” Dean snaps, straightening with a sudden jolt, “screw you, Cas. First the whole God and Crowley shit, which I won’t even get into, but then the purgatory crap you pulled? I—” Dean’s voice cracks, and he seems to struggle for a moment, glancing off in the opposite direction. Cas is frozen in place, his hand locked on the red card.

            Dean’s gaze swings back to him, a cross of hostile and hurt, and he drops his voice. “Every night, Cas. Every fucking night I called you and you couldn’t even let me know you were alive? That you weren’t dead? I prayed, I begged, I bargained, I kept talking to you long after I assumed you’d bit it. You heard all of that, you heard every God-forsaken word, and what, it just—it didn’t mean anything to you?”

            “It was to protect you,” Cas insists, “Dean—”

            “And hey, that doesn’t cover jack-shit for the months that you flapped off to Narnia and didn’t say a word. I mean, really? And then there was the crypt. You—remember this?—beat me shitless and left without a word.” Dean’s voice edges on a growl. “I still prayed to you, kept the window open or whatever, and you didn’t bother coming around until you needed me for something. Right, because you didn’t trust me. Because I’ve done so little to earn your trust, especially when it comes to something as stupid as a frigging tablet.”

            Cas’ eyes feel hot and dry; he can feel the sharp digging of Naomi’s drill, tearing into his eye-duct. “Dean, I’m sorry.”

            “Yeah, you were sorry after God. You were sorry after purgatory. You’re always sorry.” Dean takes a deep, jagged breath, and almost without meaning to, it seems, he says, “When are you going to stop leaving?”

            For a moment, they’re locked into place, staring at each other, dangling on the edge of something raw, something dangerous.

            “I don’t want to leave,” Cas says. “I never—I never want to leave. It’s circumstance that tears me away.”

            “It’s not circumstance, goddammit, Cas. It’s choice. And I get it, you know—I’m not your first priority. I’m not asking to be that. But I’m your friend; I mean, at least, I thought I was. We were family, even. You don’t abandon family, no matter what your circumstances are. And you know, maybe you didn’t feel the same way, that’s fine, why would you, you’re an angel. Or you were. But I thought—” Dean’s voice seems to dry out, and he clears his throat and tries again. “I thought that—that Sam and I—meant more to you than that. But we don’t. And that hurts, Cas. It hurts like a bitch.”

            Cas feels strangely dizzy, his breath caught tightly in his throat. This is the most Dean’s said to him that’s more than trivialities in months, and when it’s here, in front of him like a doormat laid out, when he has a chance to respond, he doesn’t have a clue what to say.

            “Dean,” he says, his voice quiet.

            Dean snatches the bag from him, his head ducked, his cheeks a shade darker. “My turn.”

            “Dean,” Cas tries again.

            “Blue,” Dean reads off. “Something you’re afraid of.”

            Cas gives a hollow laugh, still reeling. “What I’m afraid of?”

            Dean nods, not looking at him. His hand is trembling, just slightly, on the card.

            “I’m afraid of myself,” Cas says quietly.

            “Because of the stuff that happened in heaven,” Dean guesses, narrowing his eyes.

            “No.” Cas shakes his head. “Well, I mean, yes. I suppose that is a small part of it. But I’m more terrified of what I would give for you.”

            Dean’s lips freeze around whatever he’s going to say next. He looks at Cas as though he’s been slapped.

            Cas’ next words are stumbled, rushed. “I would destroy entire planets if you were in danger and I wouldn’t think twice about it. And what’s scarier?” He swallows, unable to look Dean in the eye. “I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t change that about myself, not if it meant protecting you. I couldn’t change it, even if I wanted to. That, I think, is what scares me the most.”

            Dean’s mouth opens, then closes again, stricken.

            “That’s…not a good thing, Cas,” he says finally, his voice weak.

            “I know. That’s why I’m afraid of it.” Cas pries the bag back from Dean’s fingers, from where they’re still frozen in place.

            Cas draws, ignoring the way his heartbeat is thrumming like hummingbird wings in his ears. “Yellow,” he says. “Something that makes you happy.”

            “Oh,” Dean says, some of the tightness uncreasing from around his eyes; he’d tensed for the next question. “Um, that one’s easy. Long car rides. Rock music. Good burgers. Good sex. Homemade pie.” His mouth etches in a small, reluctant smile as he plays with the ring on his finger. “Watching basketball games on TV with Sam. Dark beer. Black coffee. The bunker. Charlie and Kevin. Sam.” His voice wears thin for a moment, a mix of embarrassment and sincerity. “You, when you’re not being a little shit.”

            Dean’s eyes flit up to meet Cas’, and Cas can feel the small smile mirrored on his own face, melting the cold that had started to seep through him, and for a moment, the pressure between them breathes, dissipates. Then it snaps back into place, like a rubber band retracting, and Dean frowns and he takes the bag back from Cas.

            “Blue,” he says after he draws. “Something you’re afraid of. Oh, wait, you already—”

            “I’m afraid I don’t have a soul.” The words are out before Cas has even thought them through. Dean goes still in surprise, as does Cas. He hadn’t expected to say that. It hadn’t even been on his mind. Had it been on his mind?

            Dean blinks at Cas, looking bushwhacked. “What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t you have a soul?”

            “I was an angel,” Cas says. The reasoning, too, is unprecipitated. “My grace was taken. There’s nothing left of me. Just a shell.”

            “Cas.” Dean leans forward, setting the bag of cards on the ground. He’s slipped into his thoughtless, natural caretaker role, and Cas wants to protest it, wants to refocus on Dean, not himself, especially not on this, but Dean says, “Hey. Cas.”

            Cas meets his eyes, evenly. His hands, stupidly, shake.

            “You have a soul,” Dean says. His eyes are gentler now. “We’d know if you didn’t.”

            “I can’t,” Cas says. “It doesn’t make...sense, metaphysically. My grace is gone. There’s nothing left behind.”

            “What if you grew a soul?” Dean asks.

            It’s a reasonable question, but Cas shakes his head. “Souls are like….they’re like energy, Dean. They’re pure energy. Energy is conserved; it can’t be created or destroyed, it just exists.”

            “Remember Sam when he was soulless, yeah? Remember how he was? You’d be acting like that if you didn’t have one.”

            Cas takes a deep, unsteady breath. “It’s stupid, really. I don’t know why it matters to me.”

            “Hey, it’s fine. You’re afraid you won’t go anywhere when you die?”

            Cas laughs at that, albeit reluctantly. “No. I’d rather sleep eternal than see what the afterlife has in store for me.”

            Dean frowns, as if in objection.

            “I’m afraid of being...empty,” Cas confesses. He doesn’t look at Dean when he says it. He lowers his gaze to his hands, Jimmy’s tanned, smooth, slender hands. “When I was an angel, Jimmy was like an encasement. Like a bottle that I was trapped inside.” Cas chuckles without a trace of humor. “Well, it was more like pouring a sun through the eye of a needle. My grace, it was...well, the way your soul is to you. It is, inherently, you. It’s what makes you who you are, it’s the beating heart of your existence.” Cas’ throat closes, blocking it painfully. “Metatron took that from me. I don’t know what I am anymore.” He gestures to himself, smoothing a hand over his sleeve, tracing the skeletal structure like he had during Jimmy’s adherence to him, all those years ago. “This body, I’m connected to it, fond of it, for all that we’ve been through together. I wouldn’t choose another. But it’s not me.”

            Dean doesn’t say anything for several moments, and when Cas finally steels himself to look up, he discovers with a jolt that Dean is staring at him. Cas feels flustered, glances down, looks back up—Dean is still looking at him. Then his mouth tips up in a tiny, satisfied smile.

            “What?” Cas demands.

            “Nothing. It’s just that this is the part in the conversation where you’d wing off if you were still an angel. You have no idea what to do right now, do you?”

            Cas scowls at him. “I’m glad that my discomfort is so amusing to you.”

            Dean quits smiling. “I’m just messing with you, Cas. Look, I don’t really know how to psychoanalyze an angel, okay? It’s not really my...area. I mean, uh, I can’t really relate to being a skyscraper-sized thing inside a human body, you know? But I can try my hand in some Cas-counseling, I guess.”

            Dean rubs his hands together while Cas peers up at him through his eyelashes suspiciously.

            “Cas,” Dean says, seriously. “I’m sorry Metatron is such a colossal dickbag. What he did to you was sick, it was violating, it was cruel. You have a right to be pissed off at everything because life isn’t fucking fair. But whether or not you have a soul, or whatever? It doesn’t matter, not really.”

            “It matters to me,” Cas says. “Although I’m not sure why.”

            “Well, it doesn’t to me,” Dean says. “You’re still Cas.”

            Cas smiles mirthlessly, his gaze on his fidgeting fingers. “At least when I was an angel I had the power to help people, to fix my wrongdoings, to make something of myself. I could fill in pieces of good in the places where I’ve destroyed, razed, slaughtered. Now, what can I do? What can I possibly do to right my own wrongs, helpless as I am? I’m useless. I’m better off dead.”

            Dean’s gone deathly still in his seat. “You don’t mean that.”

            “I do mean it,” Cas says through clenched teeth, his own anger, his decaying self-righteousness swelling up inside him like toxic waste. “I should’ve killed myself in purgatory when I had the chance, before I caused more suffering in heaven. To you.”

            “Cas,” Dean snaps, then wearily rubs a hand over the length of his face, his shoulders bowing inward heavily. “Don’t...don’t worry about me, alright? Yeah, you put me through some shit, but at the end of the day I can take it. I’ve been through worse.”

            “You shouldn’t have to take it. I’m supposed to protect you.”

            “That’s not your job. No one gave you that job.”

            “I gave it to myself,” Cas counters, heatedly, “when I raised you from hell. The mark on your soul is from my grace. I claimed your living soul as mine to heal, mine to protect.” He looks upwards, where stars are beginning to dot the darkening sky. “Some guardian I am.”

            “Jesus, Cas,” Dean says.

            “What?”

            “Nothing.” Dean gives a tired shake of his head, closing his eyes. “Nothing. We’re just…we’re pretty fucked up, you realize that?”

            Cas tilts his head sideways, contemplative. “We’re a little less fucked up when we’re together.”

            Dean laughs once, flatly. “I don’t think that’s true.”

            “No?”

            “No. I think we’re a mutually armed bomb waiting to happen.” Dean’s mouth curls up; it doesn’t touch his eyes. “But I’m too much of a fucking masochist to defuse it.”

            Cas’ breath deflates from him, his shoulders sagging. “Dean.”

            Dean gazes at him, shrouded in the dusky blue of twilight, looking sadder and older than Cas has ever seen him. “Maybe if you had offed yourself in purgatory or whatever, you could’ve saved heaven a lot of trouble. But so what, Cas? What’s heaven ever done for you? There are people on earth who need you, and maybe I’m selfish, but you alive in front of me right now is a lot more important to me than your brothers and sisters throwing tantrums because Metatron pissed in their cereal.”

            “It’s my home,” Cas murmurs, “my family.”

            “Sam and I are your family,” Dean says.

            “This is true. Heaven knows that well enough. I’ve made my priorities abundantly clear.” Cas sighs, then looks at Dean consideringly, teasingly. “It’s no wonder they resent me. Putting two lousy humans over the entirety of the celestial sphere.”

            “Hey, watch who you’re calling lousy.”

            Cas’ responding smile is genuine this time, a warm burst in the center of his chest, and Dean is smiling too, and it’s strange and new, for them. Cas feels like a crane has hefted some great weight from his chest, perhaps where it’s been slowly stacking for ages.

            “This is weird,” Dean says, as though on cue. “Us. Talking.”

            “Good things do happen,” Cas replies, and Dean smiles widely, warmly in recognition, templing his hands and resting his chin on them. He hums in his throat and closes his eyes.

            “It’s been a long time since I’ve been okay, Cas,” he says, seemingly without preamble, his eyes still shut. “I’m sometimes scared that I’m never gonna be okay again.”

            “You will be,” Cas says firmly. “But, for what it’s worth, I often feel the same.”

            Dean says, sadly, “I guess you don’t save the world a few times and live to tell a happy tale, huh?”

            “That’s not usually how the hero’s story ends, no,” Cas answers, mirroring Dean’s position.

            “Hollywood lied to me then,” Dean grumbles, and Zoe interrupts with a loud clap of her hands and a bell-like laugh.

            “Alright, group up! Come on, pull in your chairs.”

            Cas glances around and notices that other couples are as reluctant to leave their conversations as he is, which seems to add an extra bounce to Zoe’s step.

            “Our session is now over, as it’s 9 o’clock, but please feel free to use our bar, our pool, our hot tub, and our indoor spa. Our drinks on tap are 50% off. I’ll see you all tomorrow morning.” Zoe is quickly pulled away by Georgia, who speaks to her in a low, urgent voice, looking as though she’s been crying.

            “What do you say, Cas?” Dean asks, twisting to face him and waggling his eyebrows. “You up for a drink?”

            “I actually think I’m going to go to bed,” Cas says carefully, standing to stretch his arms over his head with a soft crack of his joints.

            “What? Seriously?” Dean’s eyes, barely visible in the dim light of dusk, track him. “You slept the whole day away.”

            “I still don’t feel all that well,” Cas replies. “And I feel as though I’ve never had enough sleep.”

            Dean shrugs, turning away from him. “Suit yourself. Leave it to you to be a buzzkill on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise.”

            Cas rolls his eyes and drops a brief hand on Dean’s shoulder as he goes past. Dean flinches at the touch, and something about that tiny, unconscious motion twists, knife-like, in Cas’ stomach.

            He doesn’t think about it though; he’s not quite sure he has further emotional capacity for that. Instead, he shuffles back to the room, flops into the bed, and is out within moments.

            Cas stirs only later due to the near-stifling feeling of warmth enveloped around him. After a few disorienting moments, he realizes it’s Dean, wrapped around him from behind, one leg slid over Cas’ hip as he breathes quietly into his shoulder-blade. Dean’s mouth is parted against his skin, his warm, measured breath searing through Cas’ thin shirt.

            Dean is practically dead to the world, Cas realizes, completely unconscious as he murmurs something indiscernible and pulls Cas into the curve of his body.

            Cas blinks for a moment in shock, very much awake, before he curls back further into Dean, picking up his hand where it’s resting on the mattress and intertwining their fingers experimentally. This, he imagines, is how human couples sleep, and for a moment he’s knocked breathless at the prospect; how bizarre it is, he thinks, the way his stomach clenches and his heart stutters in its beats, for this. He thinks he’ll have to make himself forget this in the morning, forget the way his chest seems to fill with this sourceless, pounding ache, this odd and cloying nostalgia like he’s known Dean for his entire existence. He’ll forget, Cas thinks, drowsing toward sleep, he has to forget.

            Dean smells like alcohol, so surely, mercifully, he too will forget.

            Cas, human, selfish, needy, touch-hungry as he is, squeezes Dean’s hand tighter before he lets go, and sleeps.

---

            When Dean is woken up at 3 a.m., he’s still half-drunk, fucking exhausted, and is inexplicably octopus-tangled around Cas.

            “The fuck,” he mumbles, and as he says it, he’s not sure he’s responding to the drunkenness, the cuddling situation, or the loud, urgent banging on their door. He instantly props himself up on his elbow and twists away, the world lurching threateningly for a moment, and Cas, still asleep, tries to follow him, rolling halfway over and mumbling something unintelligible. Dean blinks for a moment, his eyes dry with tiredness, and decides he’ll mentally unscramble that one later. “That one” being the Cas thing.

            He stumbles to the door and cracks it open.

            “What?” he demands, squinting out into the harsh light of the hallway.

            It’s Zoe, looking as fresh and brightly primped as the morning fucking dew. “Surprise! For your first night orientation, we have a nighttime activity planned for all of our groups.”

            Dean scowls, sure that his eyes are bloodshot and that he reeks of whiskey. “Isn’t that hazing?”

            “Oh, I know it doesn’t seem like it’ll be fun, but at least give it a shot? For me?” Zoe juts out her lower lip and bats her eyes at him, which has the utter opposite of any sort of appeal.

            “I’m not going, sorry,” Dean says. “My vacation, my sleep.”

            “Let’s see if Cas wants to go. Cas!” she practically barks, and Cas shoots up from the pillows, twisting himself further in sheets, frowning half-lidded and sleepy at the door with his hair spiked up.

            “Wha—?”

            “We have an activity for you and Dean,” she says brightly, and Cas groans and buries his head back in the pillow.

            Dean has enough bearings to smile smugly at her. “There’s his answer.”

            But when he turns, he’s dismayed to find Cas rolling to his feet, staggering toward the arm chair in the room’s corner to retrieve the jeans draped over the back of it.

            “Cas, c’mon, we don’t have to—”

            “If you’ll excuse us for a minute, Zoe,” Cas says in a gravel-deep sleep voice, squinting at the door, and Zoe nods and shuts the door behind them.

            “Dude,” Dean says, watching as Cas struggles with the button on his jeans. “I want to sleep.”

            “We’ve already been here a day and we haven’t gotten any further on the couples case,” Cas argues, running a hand through his hair to mat it down, but it sticks up hopelessly at odd angles. He’s still got pillow creases pressed into his cheek. “This is an opportunity. All the groups will be there, I’m sure the counselors will be too, so we can look for anyone acting strangely. In the day we’re divided up so it’s harder to observe everyone.”

            “That’s…” Dean can’t really argue with that one. “Fine. Fine, that’s fine. But I’m not doing anything tomorrow, got it?”

            Cas nods in agreement and heads toward the door.

            “And Cas? Stay on your side of the bed. Seriously, man.”

            Cas throws a disbelieving, annoyed look over his shoulder as he opens the door. “Spoke the big spoon.”

            “Hey,” Dean protests, following him out. “I didn’t—I was not—how do you even know what spooning is, by the way? Never mind. Shut up.”

            They run into Shay in the hallway, who’s got the zombie gaze of death about her, the look completed by pink pinstriped pajama pants. Her half-black, half-blue hair resembles a disheveled crow’s nest.

            “Morning, sunshine,” Dean says with a shit-eating grin.

            Shay’s dead eyes fixate on him. “I will end you.”

            “Where’s Thea?”

            “She’s outside already.” Shay rolls her eyes and crosses her arms across her chest self-consciously. “She was still awake Skyping someone when I woke up. Super promising, right?”

            They head out onto the main deck, and Shay groans at the sight of a plethora of unhappy campers teeming around in search of their camp counselors. “I’m going to jump this fucking ship.”

            “I’ll follow you,” Dean volunteers. “They have to have a lifeboat around here somewhere.”

            Shay surveys him teasingly, her eyes sliding to Cas. “You wouldn’t leave without Cas.”

            “Yeah, I would. It’ll be like the Titanic.” Dean nudges Cas’ shoulder with his; Cas has fallen asleep standing up. “I’ll make my getaway, you’ll drown in the icy deep.”

            Cas, eyes still closed, answers crossly, “I don’t think you’re doing us any favors comparing our relationship to the Titanic, Dean.”

            “He’s got you on that one,” Shay says with a shrug, and shuffles off to find Thea.

            “Movie’s not that shitty,” Dean mutters to himself, feeling weirdly embarrassed. “I never got with the whole Leo thing, though. Kate Winslet I can dig.”

            Cas has gone very still next to him, suddenly alert. “Dean.”

            “I mean, usually I’m not super into gingers, but hell, I’d make an exception—”

            “Dean,” Cas repeats, and Dean follows his sharp gaze across the deck where it’s fixated on a willowy blond woman. “Is that…?”

            “Shit,” Dean breathes, all the air suddenly punched out of him. “That’s...that’s Jewel Kensington.”

            Cas has already taken off, beelining determinedly in her direction, but Dean grabs him by the crook of his elbow and swings him around. “Whoa, whoa. You can’t just go up to her and start grilling her, it’ll freak her out. We have to do this…y’know, subtly.”

            Cas blinks at him, wide-eyed in disbelief. “Dean, she was kidnapped. She’s been missing for days. You don’t think we can, I don’t know, mention that in passing?”

            “I don’t know. I just—” Dean takes a deep breath, his eyes shadowing Jewel as she moves along the rail and stops beside who Dean assumes is her husband Tate. She takes his elbow and whispers something in his ear. “We have to be careful in how we go about this. We don’t want to mess it up.”

            “My priority isn’t being tactful, Dean,” Cas says testily.

            “As per freaking usual.”

            “Dean!” Zoe singsongs, trotting up to him, and Dean lets go of Cas’ arm. He glances back to the far side of the deck, where Jewel had been standing, but she’s disappeared. “I’m so glad you two decided to come. Head this way, we’re about to start our activity.”

            “Where did she go?” Dean hisses at Cas, who’s craned his neck up like some sort of baby bird and is swiveling around owlishly.

            “I’m trying to figure that out,” Cas snaps, with exactly the bitchiness Dean would expect from him at three in the morning.

            Dean’s eyes feel gritty from sleepiness, but he manages to refocus on where Zoe’s leading them, which is the rail along the perimeter of the boat. Secured to every other rung of the boat’s rail, there are boards braced that extend over the edge of the ship, out over the ocean several feet below, and Dean’s stomach gives a funny, sickening little flip. He can see other couples lining up in front of the boards, and he stops instantly, drawing back from the rail.

            “Dean?” Cas asks, pausing next to him in concern.

            “Zoe, what’s this activity?” Dean says, tracking her as she stoops to pick up what looks like a bungee cord with a clip fastened to it.

            “It’s a little thing we like to call ‘Trust Fall,’” Zoe says with a wink, crossing to Cas and tying the bungee cord around his waist. Cas flinches in surprise, trying to squirm away, but Zoe leads him with a gentle hand on the small of his back to the rail’s edge.

            “I don’t like the sound of that,” Dean says through gritted teeth, watching with increasing trepidation as other members of the surrounding couples mount the boards.

            “It’s called ‘Walk the Plank’ in other camps,” Zoe continues, ignoring Dean readily. “The concept is quite simple. Cas gets up on this board, and like a pirate is making him walk the plank, he walks to the edge as if he’s in his final moments. You then tell him all you’d say if it were actuallyhis final moments.”

            The nausea returns full force, bile bubbling up in Dean’s throat. “That’s fucking sick.”

            “It’s quite therapeutic,” Zoe disagrees, turning to gaze at him with doe-eyed confusion. “It tends to be our campers’ favorite activity.”

            “Listen, lady, I have a lawyer brother, alright? He’ll sue your ass for this, I swear he will—”

            “Dean,” Cas says, “I’ll be fine.” His voice is calm, but Dean notices he’s eyeing the plank with an edge of nervousness, his hands clasping and unclasping on the rail.

            “It’s completely safe,” Zoe says. “It’s been tested and approved countless times, Dean. You have nothing to be worried about.”

            “That’s not reassuring.”

            “Participation is not optional,” Zoe says, her voice steeling the slightest bit as she pushes a hand more insistently on Cas’ back.

            “You can’t force either of us to do anything,” Dean says in a low voice, taking a threatening step forward. Zoe takes an answering, skittering step back.

            “It’s my job as your counselor to ensure that you begin on your road to healing,” she says, more uncertainly, “and often that requires tasks you wouldn’t do on your own.”

            “Well, sorry, no dice.”

            Zoe gives Cas another small shove, and Dean watches Cas take a deep breath and step onto the plank, his arms shooting out on either side to balance himself.

            “Cas,” Dean says, hearing the panic clear as a bell in his voice and hating himself for it. “Get off there, you’re going to kill yourself.”

            “No, I won’t.” Cas’ voice wavers with effort as he edges along the board. “I’ll be fine, Dean.”

            “You don’t have to prove anything, seriously—”

            Cas steadies himself. Dean can see in the moonlight the way his shoulders fluctuate with his fast breath, his arms still poised on either side in a balancing stance.

            “Go ahead, Dean,” Zoe encourages, and Dean shoots her a glare so poisonous that she actually flinches.

            “I won’t do this,” Dean says, and his voice gives a treacherous quaver. He clears his throat, trying to reign himself in. “Do you think this is a fucking game? You have no idea the people I’ve lost, the friends I’ve had die in front of me.” He can feel his hands trembling as memories creep up from some place deeply embedded in him, a dark cavern that he usually keeps tightly lidded—memories of Sam, Cas, Benny, Bobby, Jo and Ellen, his parents, all their corpses swimming before his eyes in a sickening deluge. “This isn’t a joke, this isn’t a hypothetical situation for me.”

            “Then you can confront those memories,” Zoe says, earnestly. “I’m trying to help you, Dean.”

            “Dean,” Cas says; he seems to sense Dean’s mounting anxiety, and worry is a sharp note in his raised voice when he turns. He swivels slowly, presumably to walk back to Dean, but his foot slips with the shift in weight. The board wobbles and Cas lurches with the imbalance, sucking in a gasp, and all Dean sees is red.

            “Cas!” His hoarse shout is so loud, so sudden, that several couples turn to witness the commotion.

            “I’m fine,” Cas assures him through heavy breathing as he resteadies himself, his eyes wide, nearly white in the moonlight, “I’m fine.”

            “Jesus Christ,” Dean breathes, running both hands through his hair, sweating profusely. “Just get off, please get off.”

            “Cas,” Zoe says in a strained voice, but Cas balances himself on the rail, letting himself down carefully and going to Dean’s side. Dean feels strong, bracing hands on either of his shoulders, grounding him.

            “Dean,” Cas says, “it’s alright, you’re alright.”

            “I can’t do this,” Dean whispers; he doesn’t elaborate but Cas gets it, he always gets it, and Dean is shocked, numb to the feeling of being pulled into a tight embrace, Cas’ arms winding around his back, drawing him in.

            “Don’t do that again,” Dean says, his voice still shot to hell, muffled by Cas’ shirt.

            “I’m sorry,” Cas murmurs, rocking slightly in place, low enough for Zoe not to hear. “I’m sorry.”

            Dean isn’t quite sure what he’s apologizing for, if it covers the last five minutes ago or the last five years, and he doesn’t really care. His heartbeat is still flying in his throat, his muscles like lead in his exhaustion. He counts his breaths, taking Cas in with his inhalations.

            “Leave it me to have a panic attack over nothing,” Dean says in a thin attempt at bravado, but it falls miserably flat. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his forehead against Cas’ shoulder in a moment of weakness. “Stupid. You weren’t going to fall or anything.”

            “I might’ve,” Cas says, his breath warm on the side of Dean’s neck. “I could have.”

            Dean pulls back, his skin prickling and itchy-hot at the realization that several people are watching him nearly have a meltdown on Cas’ shoulder. Zoe has vanished, mercifully. “I’m not cut out for counseling. I’ve been telling Sam for years.”

            Cas smiles sadly, his hands slowly tightening on Dean’s shoulders. His thumbs are rubbing in slow, soft circles on Dean’s jacket, and Dean tries very hard not to focus on the sensation.

            “This is all so dumb,” Dean says, attempting a laugh and failing. It comes out strangled-sounding. “This was just supposed to be a hunt.”

            “It can still be just a hunt,” Cas says, his eyebrows lifting in question, “if that’s what you want.”

            “I just want to be back in the bunker.” Dean gazes up, catching his breath in his throat, searching for familiar constellations in the night sky that he and Sam used to pick out as kids. “You, me, and Sam. Kevin and Charlie too.”

            “We’ll be back soon,” Cas says, his hands slipping from Dean’s shoulders. “But for now, there’s a monster on board and we’re trapped with it. We have to cut our way out fighting.”

            “What will you do when we get back?” Dean asks, still fixed skyward.

            Cas sounds somewhat thrown when he answers. “I’m not sure yet. I think I’ll probably begin hunting for my grace, to get revenge on Metatron. To restore the balance in heaven.”

            Dean’s eyes slowly drift shut. He wants to sleep for days.

            “You’ll get yourself killed,” he says, his eyes still closed.

            “Maybe I will,” Cas replies, and he too sounds tired, so tired, a strain wearing his voice ragged. Dean opens his eyes, and Cas seems so small yet so defiant under his gaze. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

            “Is it really that bad being human?” Dean asks. He doesn’t want to ask it but it’s perched on the end of his tongue, acidic. “With Sam and me?”

            Cas’ whole being seems to soften. “On the contrary, I imagine you are the best person to be human with.”

            “But it’s not enough.” Dean’s so goddamned weak. He’s always been weak, weaker than Sam, weaker than Cas, like a blind, needy infant crying in the dark. As if he’s ever gonna stop hating himself for that.

            “It’s not about being enough,” Cas says firmly, reaching out his hand in an aborted movement toward Dean before dropping it and letting it hang awkwardly at his side. “You will always be enough and more, Dean.”

            “That’s not what I meant,” Dean begins, feeling a hot blush crawl up his neck, but Cas interrupts him with, “This is not about me, or about you. This is about heaven and earth. It’s bigger than us. Someone needs to put it right.”

            Dean can’t keep the sneer from curling his lip, bitterly. “And you think that’s you, do you?”

            Cas’ tired gaze falls on him heavily, and Dean is reminded of how ancient he is, how alien. “It has to be someone willing to make the sacrifice.”

            “Yeah, well, I’m a little over the whole ‘sacrificing’ thing,” Dean says. “All I’ve ever done is sacrifice expecting to meet some distant means to an end. The more you give, the more the universe asks to take. You don’t owe heaven or earth jack-squat. They’ll never give you anything in return. Actually, more likely, you’ll get killed for your trouble. So tell me where’s the heroism in all of that, Cas.”

            “I’m not asking to be a hero,” Cas retorts, just as agitated, shifting from foot to foot. He looks as though he’s ruffling out some invisible feathers. “And I’m not focused on the consequences for myself. What happens to me doesn’t matter.”

            “Well, that’s not how I see it.”

            “We see things differently, then.”

            “What if it were me?” Dean asks, and he knows it’s a low blow by the way Cas’ eyes seem to tighten, the way he draws himself inward. “No, seriously, tell me, Cas. What if I stood here, stood across from you, looked at you straight-on and told you that I was going to nuke myself so that a bunch of angels with sticks up their asses could go home to Daddy. What would you say to me?”

            “I wouldn’t let you,” Cas says, his mouth pulling into a taut, stubborn line.

            Dean throws his hands up in exasperation. “So how is this any different?”

            “It’s not your fight, Dean. It’s not your fault. This one is entirely on me, and I’m the only one who can still fix it.”

            “Broken record, Cas.”

            “Excuse me,” a woman’s voice intervenes, and when Dean and Cas both turn on her heatedly she flinches back. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but—”

            Dean makes a sweeping, sarcastic hand gesture toward Cas. “Please do interrupt. I was just leaving.”

            The woman’s eyes fleet between them nervously, and Dean’s suddenly struck by her familiarity, although he’s unsure where he’s seen her before. She’s slightly plump, middle-aged, and Japanese, with a softly appealing face. “I just wanted to make sure you two were alright. I noticed you seemed upset by the board activity, and, well, I found it quite demoralizing as well—”

            “Pardon me for interrupting,” Cas says from next to Dean, taking an interrogative step forward, “but is your name Jia Wells?”

            Jia straightens up, frowning at him and readjusting the flaps of her robe so they cross over her chest. “Yes, that’s my name.” Her voice frosts over with her next words. “I assume you know me through my husband Harry.”

            Dean and Cas exchange earnest looks; the tension of the argument still coils between them, waiting to snap, but their priorities have been redirected. Dean’s still got a bad taste in his mouth, in any case.

            “We just have a few questions for you,” Cas says, gentling his voice, and Dean wants to laugh, bizarrely, at the familiarity of the inquiry.

            Jia folds her arms, instantly defensive. “What kind of questions?”

            “We saw recently in the news that you and your husband went missing,” Dean says, carefully monitoring her reaction. “We just wanted to know if you were alright.”

            Jia stills, her hands dropping to her sides. “Missing? As in kidnapped?”

            “Yes, ma’am,” Cas answers.

            Jia’s eyes have gone wide now, some of the blood draining slowly from her face. “We weren’t kidnapped. I…” She frowns, trailing off as she seems to mentally calculate something. “I…Jesus, I don’t know how I got here. I thought I remembered, but it’s like—it’s like there’s—oh my God.” Jia’s mouth falls slightly open, her face pale with shock. “Harry...Harry hasn’t abducted me, has he?”

            “No, no,” Dean assures her quickly. “It’s happened to other couples too. Mysterious disappearances of people that were struggling with, y’know, marital issues, and then a loss of, er, memory. That’s what brought us here.”

            Jia, still looking shaken, has the composure to arch a dark, skeptical eyebrow. “You’re telling me you guys are...what, Mulder and Scully?”

            Dean’s responding smile is flat. “Something like that.”

            She shakes her head, the curlers in her hair bobbing with the motion. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I don’t...I don’t know if I was drugged, or, or if I just don’t remember, but.” She shuffles in her slippers, glancing around nervously before she leans in toward them. “I’m almost certain that, whatever it is, Harry doesn’t know a thing either.”

            “You’ll be fine, Mrs. Wells,” Dean says soothingly. “The cruise will be over in a few days and this will all be behind you. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, alright?”

            Jia’s eyes flicker back and forth between them and narrow slightly. “I’m not sure if I trust you. But I guess I trust you more than I trust anyone else on the ship, including my husband.”

            “If you see anything suspicious,” Cas says, “or if you remember anything of how you got here, find us and tell us.”

            “But be sneaky about it,” Dean adds. “We don’t know what’s going on any more than you do.”

            Jia gives a reluctant nod. “Fine. If I’m boarding the crazy train, I might as well have allies. And you are?”

            “Dean,” Dean fills in, and then out of sheer pettiness cuts Cas off with, “and Cas.”

            Jia nods. “You’ll hear from me.” With that, she glances around furtively before she turns with a flicker of her satin robe and shuffles off, presumably in search of her husband.

            “Well, that’s a start,” Dean mutters, chewing down on his lip. He can feel Cas’ gaze like a hot coal on his face, blistering into his skin, and he turns away quickly from his perusal. “I’d say that earns a good four hours of sleep.”

            “Dean,” Cas says, jogging to keep in step with him as Dean heads into the hallway toward their room. “We weren’t finished.”

            “Finished with what?” Dean asks in exasperation, then says in mock cheer, “Oh, right, the whole discussion about possibly killing yourself for heaven.”

            “Dean—”

            Dean waves a tired hand in Cas’ direction. “Do what you want, Cas. Seriously. I gave you my two-cents. I should know by now that whatever I say isn’t going to put a dent in whatever crazy, self-destructive schemes you cook up.”

            Cas expels a sharp breath and claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder, reeling him back with surprising strength. “I don’t want to leave you.”

            “Then don’t,” Dean shoots back, rotating his shoulder out of Cas’ grip. “It’s pretty simple logic, Cas.”

            “You’re asking me to choose you or heaven.” Cas’ voice has broken off into a near-whisper, and he gazes at Dean with open distress. His blue eyes seem gray and hollow in the backdrop of the drab hallway walls.

            “I’m asking you to choose life. It’s hardly a selfish request.” But maybe it is. Dean feels wrung out. He’s so tired that his bones feel old and creaking, like the worn-out wooden staircase in Bobby’s old house. Dean is full of empty houses, it seems.

            “This isn’t about what I want,” Cas says. “You know what my choice would be, if that were the only factor.”

            Dean’s shoulders droop and he stalls with his hand on the doorknob to their room, because he’s pissed and stung but yeah, he gets it. He gets the sacrificial duty thing. It’s a quality he despises in himself, which gives him little patience for it in Cas.

            That swooping, dizzy feeling of helplessness subsumes him again, making him nauseous.

            “Can this just be a hunt,” he says, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the door with a soft thunk. “Can we please just keep this a hunt.”

            “Yes,” Cas answers, quietly. “That’s what I want too.”

            They go to sleep moments later in the same bed, stretched on opposite sides, and don’t say a word to each other.

---

            Cas is roused from sleep the next morning by the sound of Dean talking in a low voice on the phone. He blinks, flipping over to squint at the light that filters in through the window—it’s surely late morning by this point. Cas pokes his head up, searching for Dean, and finds him half-clothed, his back turned to him, one foot in the bathroom as he brushes his teeth and talks into his cell phone at the same time.

            “No, sherioushly, it’s all taken care uh—” Dean spits into the sink and resurfaces, cleaning off his toothbrush in the faucet. “Just focus on healing, alright? Hold down the fort. Cas and I will be back soon.” His voice drops lower, and Cas’ eyes trace along the firm shape of his bare shoulders and lower back, feeling something uncomfortable and warm stirring in his stomach. “No, he doesn’t know. I’m still waiting on it, alright?”

            “You said, Dean,” Cas hears Sam’s annoyed voice just barely through the other end of the line, “you said in a few weeks—”

            “I get it, I get it,” Dean grumbles, toweling off his wet hair and tossing it over the top part of the shower. “Just wanted to check in. We’re alive and stuck here—yeah, yeah, it’s frigging hilarious, ha ha ha, fuck you.”

            Sam’s laughing through the line now.

            “Go fuck a tree, Sam.”

            “Hey, that’s not nice. But you know the bunker’s address if you need to send a wedding invite—”

            Dean hangs up with a grumbled, “Bitch,” under his breath and tosses the cell phone toward the bed, locking eyes with Cas for the first time.

            “Oh, hey,” Dean says with a small smile, then clears his throat and steps into the bathroom out of sight. “Get some beauty sleep?”

            “Was that Sam?” Cas asks, curious about what he’d heard.

            “Yeah. He’s having a real good time with this whole thing.” Dean scoffs, sounding a little more sulky when he speaks again. “Not one ounce of sympathy.”

            “What were you two talking about?”

            Dean pauses for a full three seconds in the bathroom before answering, which has Cas’ suspicion already in full flourish by the time he speaks. “We’re gonna get Kev a new car so he can go into town and stuff. It’s not fair that he has to stay holed up in the bunker, you know? We were gonna wait for his birthday but Sam wants to give it to him sooner.”

            “Ah,” Cas says, feeling relieved. He rolls onto his back, tucking in his chin and watching his chest rise and fall with his breath. “What’s on the agenda today?”

            “Remember when I said we were doing nothing?” Cas is startled by the feeling of rough fabric smacking his face, and he grunts in a completely undignified way, shooting up from the bed. “Packed an extra swimsuit. We’re on a giant-ass cruise, so we’re gonna do some giant-ass cruise things.”

            Cas raises his eyebrows and holds out the swim trunks in appraisal. “Don’t you think we should focus on hunting?”

            Dean steps out of the bathroom, adjusting the drawstring on his own trunks, eyebrows drawn together in a small frown. “I mean, yeah. I figured we could look for leads while we’re getting drunk at the pool.”

            Cas carefully decides to sidestep last night’s conversation, seeing as Dean is clearly trying very hard to avoid mentioning it, so he clambers out of bed and heads toward the bathroom, brushing his shoulder against Dean’s.

            “I thought we could do some investigating later tonight though,” Dean suggests, pawing around for something in his duffel.

            Cas steps into the bathroom out of sight and drops his boxers, frowning when he pulls up the trunks and tries to adjust them on his waist—Dean’s perhaps a half-size bigger than he is, so they keep slumping down, riding low on his hips.

            “What do you mean by that?” he asks, half-distracted as he yanks the drawstring taut and fumbles with knotting it.

            “I mean that we’re gonna do a little surveillance on Zoe’s room tonight.”

            Cas pokes his head out of the bathroom, halfway out of his shirt. “That sounds like a very poor idea.”

            “What, you’ve got something better? It’s pretty obvious that it’s her, given her—” Dean’s fingers come up in sarcastic air quotes, “‘interest’ in us, and her sketchy behavior last night.”

            “She could just be a typical counselor, Dean.”

            “Dude, she tried to pitch you off the boat. And then she was all…” Dean’s voice drops into a silky, somewhat poor impersonation, “‘talk about your problems, Dean.’ That’s, like, sketchy behavior tip-off number one in my long list of sketchy behavior tip-offs. Not to mention, she conveniently was right outside our room when we got locked in here. You don’t think any of that seems suspicious?”

            Cas steps out of the bathroom, hitching up the swim trunks on his hips and cautioning, “I’m just saying we shouldn’t jump the gun when we could be wrong.”

            Dean’s eyes flicker over him in assessment before he frowns, stepping forward. “Those a little big?”

            “I think so, yes.”

            “Well, you tied the drawstring wrong, dipshit. Here, c’mere.” He tugs Cas forward by the waistband of the swim trunks and goes about reknotting the string, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. “Baby in a trenchcoat. Baby in a swimsuit.”

            Cas finds it suddenly, unexplainably, difficult to speak; his mouth opens in retort, one he knows Dean is expecting, given their usual banter, but his throat seems to have closed up. He’s laser-focused on Dean’s nimble fingers near his hips, drawing the string tight and tying it in a double knot. He feels uncomfortably warm, his face prickling with heat.

            “There,” Dean says once he’s finished, slapping Cas’ stomach playfully. “It’s not my fault you’re a twig.”

            “Am not,” Cas manages, his voice faltering.

            “We can’t all be built like the Rock,” Dean says, placing a falsely placating hand on Cas’ shoulder. He doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss, so Cas, as usual, must be getting flustered over nothing.

            “I recall the Rock having more abdominal muscles,” Cas replies, recovering himself.

            Dean places a hand on his belly, affronted. “That is so rude.”

            Cas manages a semi-smug smile and heads toward the door with a jauntier step.

            “Asshole,” Dean grumbles, following after him and snagging a towel from where it’s draped on a coat-hanger.

            Cas rolls his shoulders into the sudden blast of air-conditioning from the hallway; he can feel the peculiar sensation of goosebumps rippling across his bare skin, and he shivers.

            Dean pokes one of his shoulder-blades from behind, then the other, and Cas twitches at the contact. “Not to bring up an, er, touchy subject, but is this where your wings were?”

            “Not...exactly,” Cas replies as they head out onto the main deck. “What you call ‘wings’ weren’t even technically wings. That’s just how they manifest on the mortal plane, manipulated by mortal vision. It’s so your eyes don’t bubble out of your sockets, you see.”

            “Ah,” Dean says, delicately. “Which, you know, thanks.”

            “But my wings weren’t ‘wings’ as much as they were…” Cas struggles to explain, running his tongue over his teeth. “They were certainly how I was able to transport myself, but it was a means for displacing spatial matter. I could rearrange the fabric of reality to get to places I needed. I suppose they look somewhat like bird wings, in their true form.” He can feel the hollow echo of their weight against his back, curled into him; he can still taste the ozone on his tongue when he would stretch them full-span in flight. He sighs, stricken suddenly by their absence. “I miss them. I feel empty without them.”

            Dean clears his throat guiltily. “I, uh. Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to—”

            “No, it’s fine. I imagine I’ll be human for further time yet, so I might as well readjust myself to living without them.”

            Dean leads them over toward the bar, diverting from the pool, and he pats the stool next to him for Cas to sit on. All around them, people in swimsuits and bikinis are flirting in the pool, soaking in the hot tub, or sunning themselves on lounge chairs. Dean looks around, a small, genuine smile on his lips, and he looks so happy here, so natural, that something in Cas gives a funny, inexplicable torque.

            “What do you want to drink, Cas?” Dean asks, turning to elbow him in the ribs.

            “I don’t know. Don’t you usually just get whiskey?”

            Dean screws his face in a contemplative expression and gives a half-hearted shrug. “Eh. I’m on vacation. I’m gonna get one of those fruity, girly drinks. You know?”

            Cas ducks his head to hide a smile.

            “What?” Dean demands.

            “Nothing. I’ll get one too.”

            Dean orders them two raspberry cocktails, and the bartender doesn’t bat an eye as she heads off to prepare them.

            “This is my retirement plan right here, Cas,” Dean says, the crow’s feet around his eyes deepening with his smile. “Hell, I’ve earned it, don’t you think?”

            “Yes, you have,” Cas murmurs.

            “Hey, you could join me if you want. If you’re not, y’know, doing big-shot heaven stuff. We could be really old and wrinkly and still order stupid margaritas.” Dean shrugs and glances at him sideways, his green eyes bright at the prospect. “I wouldn’t mind that, if we make it that far. If you were with me, I mean.”

            It suddenly occurs to Cas, gazing back at him, that he’s in love with Dean. It’s not an incredible revelation; he feels no different from yesterday, or the day before, or even the year before, but he has a strange moment of some inner imbalance realigning into place with a click of clarity.

            Dean breaks the long, shared gaze, his eyes flicking down to examine the bartop, but Cas is still staring, fascinated by his revelation.

            There’s such an odd, human connotation to being in love, he thinks. While his care and compassion for Dean are obvious to both of them, it would most likely terrify or infuriate Dean if he were to tell him, simply, that he loves him. They’re just words, placed in the right order, that describe more aptly how Cas feels; that he loves Dean to the base of his soul, the best parts of him and the worst, and that the happiest he can imagine himself is being with Dean for the rest of his precarious existence. It’s actually quite a relief for him that he can categorize that distinct feeling into something decidedly human, and perhaps relatable.

            That would also explain the disheartening, sinking feeling he experiences in his chest when Dean winks at the bartender and his eyes track her suggestively for several moments, and Cas remembers with a sudden, inward crash the unfortunate part of the loving someone. Inevitably, there are only two outcomes: when love is given, it’s either received in equal capacity or it’s not, and while he knows Dean cares about him, he wouldn’t expect in any realistic universe for Dean to return his feelings. It’s not hurt or anger but resignation he feels. He and Dean were doomed from the start, pried apart by the fingers of fate itself, and that isn’t something he can blame either of them for.

            He, however, isn’t quite sure whether falling in love with Dean was an asterisk in some master plan, or a fluke carved out by a long path of choices and mistakes.

            The bartender plops two drinks on the bar and smiles at both of them, her eyes lingering coyly on Dean. “Two cocktails for the two handsome young men.”

            “Thanks, sweetheart,” Dean drawls in the way that he does when he’s flirting, and Cas sighs and plucks up his drink, heading for one of the lounge chairs in the sun.

            “Hey, c’mon, Cas, don’t be grumpy,” Dean says once they’re out of earshot, following after him. “I’d let you have a go at her if you wanted.”

            Cas rolls his eyes before he closes them, sitting to recline on one of the lounge chairs on the deck and stretching to feel the sunlight seep into his skin. “I’m not currently interested in women, Dean.”

            “Dude, don’t lie to yourself. I get that your priority is hunting, but—”

            “I don’t have a sexuality, Dean,” Cas tells him, irked beyond measure for a reason he can’t explain.

            “What?” Dean says, perplexed.

            “I’ve been around since the birth of the earth,” Cas says, his eyes still shut. “You really think I define my interest in others based on their genitalia?”

            “Jeez, sorry. Take it easy, Cas.”

            Cas grits his teeth and reaches blindly for his drink, sitting up to take a long drink from it.

            “So what you’re saying is you’re not interested in sex?” Dean probes, but he sounds like he’s speaking carefully, maybe to avoid setting Cas off again.

            Cas shrugs, settling his bare shoulders against the warm, plastic material of the chair and taking a deep breath. “Not really. If it were somebody that I truly cared about, perhaps. I’m not incapable of sexual desire. Quite more prone to it, actually, now that I’m rooted to a human body. But I imagine the act would be far more about emotional intimacy. Sex is not a necessity for my happiness.”

            “Sex is great, though,” Dean protests. “It’s like an out-of-body experience. Hey, man, don’t knock it till you try it.”

            “I’ll let you know,” Cas says flatly, and Dean falls silent, seeming as though he’s digesting something.

            As Cas expects, Dean doesn’t let it drop. “What if it were a guy, though? Would you have sex with dudes?”

            “It’s not about gender,” Cas says with a frown. “It’s about the person.”

            Dean sighs, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Yeah, this is a conversation you need to have with Sam. I get what you’re trying to say but I’m not up to snuff on the, uh, labeling like he is—”

            “I am not human, Dean,” Cas replies. “Not really. I don’t necessarily fall into human labels.”

            “That’s okay,” Dean says, much more softly. “I’m not asking you to.”

            Cas rolls his head sideways to squint at Dean through the near-blinding sun. Dean’s got his fingers interlaced between his knees and he’s gazing back at Cas with an earnest expression, and Cas realizes with a strange jolt the magnitude of that statement from Dean, beyond even their current conversation topic.

            Cas swallows, his throat dry, and tilts his head back toward the sunlight with his eyes closed. “Thank you, Dean.”

            “Yeah.”

            Dean doesn’t say anything else after that, which Cas is quietly grateful for, and he lets the sun soak into him until he feels, appropriately, like the husk of a person, his skin dried out and warm.

            He doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until Dean is tapping him urgently, and when he opens his eyes, the sun has moved down a notch in the sky.

            “Dude,” Dean mutters. “4 o’clock.”

            “It’s already 4 o’clock?”

            “What? No, just. Ugh. Look, that way.” Dean tilts his head sideways, keeping his gaze fixed out on the sea to not draw attention.

            Cas spots Zoe making her way across the deck, standing out rather conspicuously in gator-skin heels as she clocks across the boarded floor and toward the staff hallway. She has her head raised high, a large, suspicious-looking brown bag tucked under her arm.

            Dean rolls out of his chair, making a gesture at Cas to follow, and Cas winces as he stands up, his skin peeling painfully from where it’s stuck with sweat to the plastic chair.

            “Hurry, we’re gonna lose her,” Dean says, picking up his pace, and Cas scrambles after him.

            They’re almost across the deck and into the staff hallway entry without being seen, which Cas thinks is an accomplishment in and of itself, when Shay suddenly materializes next to them.

            “Jesus,” Dean says in a soft yelp, giving a jump and bracing himself with a hand on the hallway door. “Don’t do that. I’ve had enough of that from him.” A thumb is jabbed in Cas’ general direction.

            Shay folds her arms across her chest, raising her eyebrows. “What are you two doing?”

            Dean gives an easy laugh that still manages to sound nervous. “Uh, nothing?”

            “You’re standing in front of the staff hallway stalking our counselor looking like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar,” Shay says slowly, tapping her fingers impatiently along her forearm. “And you’re...not up to anything suspicious.”

            “Nope. Great talk.” Dean ducks into the hallway, cursing when he sees Zoe has vanished from sight. “Son of a bitch.”

            “Dean, what’s going on?” Shay sounds uncertain now, slipping into the hallway after Cas and shutting the door behind her.

            “Keep your voice down,” Dean hisses.

            “Fine. Voice is lowered. What the hell’s happening.”

            “It’s not really something you want to be involved in,” Dean says impatiently. “Trust me.”

            “Dude, I’m stuck on a cruise of annoying rich judgmental straight people, saddled with a moody girlfriend who cheated on me with a different dude,” Shay says. “I’d actually really like to be involved in this. I’m not kidding about jumping ship.”

            Dean sighs, low through his teeth. “Fine. You can come along if you’re quiet and not annoying. And don’t screw anything up.”

            “What’s happening?” Shay asks again, her eyes slowly widening, perhaps spooked by the severity in Dean’s voice. “Are we in danger?”

            “Don’t know yet.”

            “Does Zoe have something to do with it?”

            “Also don’t know yet. Shush.”

            “Hi, Cas.”

            “Hello, Shay.”

            “Shh,” Dean hisses again.

            “Well, if it’s Zoe you’re after,” Shay says in a low voice, one dark eyebrow slowly curving upward. “Then you can find her room right there.” She points to the fourth room down on the right.

            “How did you know that?” Cas asks, impressed.

            “Well, I came and talked to her last night because I was upset about Thea.” She shrugs self-consciously when Dean turns an incredulous gaze on her. “What? I was kind of depressed. Also, it like...says their names on their doors?” She gestures to the door directly next to them, which has “Matthew” scrawled in sloppy handwriting on a sticker.

            “Oh,” Dean says. “Sweet.”

            “So what’s the plan here?” Shay wisely drops her voice to a whisper at Dean’s dark look. “You just gonna kick her door down?”

            “Pretty much.”

            “That’s stupid,” Cas and Shay say at the same time.

            “Alright, fine, I’ll pick the lock.” Dean sulks. “Sam lets me kick doors in.”

            “You told Sam to fornicate with a tree this morning,” Cas reminds him.

            Shay manages to look mildly impressed. “You guys into poly stuff?”

            “Ugh,” Dean says, making his way toward the door and digging around in his back swimsuit pocket for a lock pick before he kneels to fiddle with the lock.

            Tongue poking through his teeth in concentration, Dean slips a hand into his swimsuit and pulls out a small silver pocketknife, his gaze still focused on the door lock.

            “I don’t even want to know where you were stashing that,” Shay says in a mutter.

            “No, you don’t. Yahtzee,” Dean says softly when the lock clicks open. “Alright, Cas, back me up here.”

            “I’m unarmed.”

            “You have arms.”

            Cas scowls at the back of his head.

            “Shay, can you fight?”

            Shay’s expression twists into a questioning wince. “I, uh, did martial arts in middle school?”

            “Good enough. On my mark. One,” Dean whispers. “Two.” He snaps open the door, raising his knife as he bursts through.

            Zoe freezes in place where she’s hovering over the bed holding the brown, opened paper bag, her bright blue eyes bulging in surprise. Stuffed in her mouth is a handful of raw fish, where she’s gone rigid mid-chew.

            “Eugh,” Dean complains, scrunching his face and lowering his knife. “Gross.”

            Long claws slide out of Zoe’s fingernails and a rattling hiss bubbles from her chest. Her teeth sharpen into individual points as her eyes flash a scintillating blue, flaring through the color contacts. Behind them, Cas hears Shay give a soft cry of shock.

            “What are you doing in here?” Zoe demands, her fluty voice distorted through her teeth. “Explain before I gut you.”

            “Well, that’s direct,” Dean says, raising his knife again. “And I think you know why we’re here.”

            Zoe’s eyes, blazing as they are, narrow in incomprehension. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “Don’t play dumb.” Dean tilts his chin up, narrowing his eyes in confrontation as he waves the knife in a round motion. “We want to know why you’ve been bagging couples.”

            Zoe’s nails retract an inch, and she straightens in surprise, her irises dimming. “Bagging couples?”

            “Yeah, yeah, drop the act. Couples have been vanishing all over the east coast, and two of those couples happen to be aboard your ship,” Dean says. “So either you explain, or we’re gonna have ourselves a little fish-fry.”

            “Cute,” Zoe remarks dryly, her teeth sliding back into a human-looking semblance.

            “What are you?” Cas asks, stepping forward to flank Dean.

            “Dead, in a couple of minutes,” Dean says, “if the shoe fits.”

            “Listen to me,” Zoe says in a swift change of tactic, ignoring Cas’ question; her gaze is focused nervously on Dean’s twitching knife. “I’m not the one kidnapping people. You have to believe me on that.”

            Dean makes a scoffing noise in his throat. “We just walked in on you eating fish guts. Tell me why it is exactly that we’re supposed to believe you.”

            “Dean,” Zoe insists, advancing toward them, and Dean takes a protective step back in front of Shay, his lip curling.

            “Stay exactly where you are.”

            Zoe hovers in place, her hands wringing together anxiously. “I know how it looks, but I promise you, I’m innocent. There’s something much bigger, much darker on my ship than me. I don’t know what it is, but…” Her voice trails into a whisper, her hands dropping by her sides. “I’m scared of it. I don’t know what it wants. I just know that it’s something much more powerful than I am.”

            Cas watches as Dean’s lips purse skeptically. “Do you feed on humans?”

            “No, no,” Zoe says, quickly. “Never. I’m a pescatarian, you could say. I only feed on crustaceans and fish.”

            “What are you?” Cas echoes his earlier question, more out of curiosity than any prioritizing case-related reason.

            “I’m a nereid,” Zoe says, fixing brilliant blue eyes on him, and Cas wonders how he didn’t notice the age in them before. “Sea nymph, if you prefer. My true name is Thoe, but ‘Zoe’ floats better nowadays. I’ve been aboard ships like this for centuries, to grant safe passage to my passengers. I swear, that’s my only motive. I haven’t hurt or taken anyone.”

            Dean snorts, and Zoe relaxes when he drops his knife. “How’d you end up being a couples counselor? That blows.”

            “I find it enjoyable,” Zoe says coldly, tossing in a shrug. “Especially when I get to fix problem cases.”

            “Yeah, nice therapy last night, almost throwing Cas into the ocean,” Dean says irritably. “Real constructive.”

            “He wouldn’t have fallen in.” Zoe rolls her eyes. “And if he had, I would’ve rescued him.”

           “Thank you,” Cas says, deadpan.

            “So what’s this giant thing after?” Shay speaks up impatiently from behind them, and all three swivel to look at her in surprise. She gives a sarcastic, exasperated wave. “Yeah, hi, I’m still here.”

            “I’m not sure,” Zoe answers, “but I want it off my ship.”

            “Whatever it is, it’s interested in us,” Cas reminds Dean, then says to Zoe, “We think it may have locked us on here our first day when we were investigating.”

            Zoe looks at them blankly. “You mean you didn’t have a reservation?”

            “Nice,” Dean says. “Good call, Cas.” He pauses to double-take in Cas’ direction. “Dude. You’re burnt.”

            Cas glances down at his bare shoulders and chest, which have darkened to an angry lobster color.

            Dean whistles out a breath through his teeth in sympathy, his eyes sweeping slowly along Cas’ torso. “That’s gotta hurt.”

            “Am I the only one somewhat put off by the fact that we’re standing in the same room as an ancient sea creature?” Shay asks to the room, as if not expecting an answer.

            “Oh,” Dean says. “Sorry. Uh, not to be rude, but I kind of keep forgetting you’re here.”

            Shay’s eyes squint into slits. “Cool, Dean.”

            “Sunscreen, Cas,” Dean stresses. “I could’ve sworn I told you on the way out.”

            “You most certainly did not.”

            “I definitely did, it’s not my fault you have an optional listening disorder—”

            “Both of you, quit it,” Shay says with a loud, exasperated sigh. “Freaking married couples, I swear.”

            “Oh, about that,” Dean interjects. “Um. So. We’re kind of…not actually together.”

            Shay pauses, seeming thrown off-guard, before she says, uncertainly, “I’m…calling bullshit? That’s bullshit. Right?”

            “No, seriously, we aren’t. We faked it to get on here.” Dean shoots a half-hearted, contrite glance in Zoe’s direction, who looks rather unbothered, all things considered. “Sorry.”

            “There’s no way you’re not a couple,” Shay says, sounding genuinely amazed. “Like. Be real.”

            Dean frowns at her, clearly nonplussed in a way that instills a sense of discomfort on the room. Cas locates an interesting pattern in the carpet suddenly worthy of his attention. “No, like. Honestly. I’m not into dudes. Let alone Cas.”

            Shay raises her eyebrows consideringly and tucks her lower lip under her teeth. “I mean, I didn’t know I liked girls until I was at least out of college—”

            “I’m not—” Dean begins, flustered, then tries again with, “I don’t have a thing for guys.”

            “Young Harrison Ford,” Cas disagrees without glancing up.

            “I’m never telling you anything again,” Dean says, sounding hideously betrayed.

            Zoe blows out a sharp, irritated breath to interrupt them. “Now that you’ve intruded on my privacy and harassed me without reason, you have permission to leave. I trust nothing like this will happen again, or Cas might find himself in the ocean after all.” She levels a cool, narrow glance in Cas’ direction. “I hope you can swim.”

            Dean stills at that, and his following words are frigid. “You’re not really in the position to be making threats right now.”

            Zoe’s lip curls at the challenge, advancing a step forward. She manages to look quite threatening, for being in four-inch heels and ten pounds of fake jewelry. “I may be innocent, but I’m still powerful. Far more powerful than the likes of you.”

            “Yeah, you just try something, fish-brain. Take one step near him and—”

            “Guys.” Shay’s voice sounds suddenly and forebodingly shaky from behind them, her next words a near-whisper. “Not to freak anyone out, but I...I think there’s someone outside the door.”

            Everyone goes very still.

            “What makes you say that?” Dean says in a calm, neutral voice, but Cas watches as his body tenses like a strung wire, his knuckles whitening on the hilt of his knife.

            Shay’s lips have tightened into a pale, bloodless line. All the color has drained from her face, fear making her eyes luminous.

            “I can hear,” she says in a slow, steady whisper, “someone breathing.”

            Cas watches, peripherally, as Zoe curls her lip back in a snarl, her claws sliding out again.

            Dean goes for Cas’ wrist to get his attention, taking it and squeezing tightly before he lets go.

            “We jump him on the count of three,” Dean says through unmoving lips. “One. Two.” On the third count, he whirls and crashes through the door, Cas blindly charging after him, and Cas hears Shay cry out, “Dean!” before the lights go out around them.

---

            When Dean comes to, it’s pitch-black and his feet are definitely immobilized, which is. Yeah, annoying.

            He blinks hard, trying to discern anything in the darkness, and while the discomfort and fear of being kidnapped and put in small dark spaces are familiar sentiments, they never get any more pleasant over the years of his occupational hazards.

            “Cas?” he attempts without hope, and is surprised when he receives a dazed, quiet, “I’m here,” in reply.

            Dean takes a shaky breath, trying to pull his feet free, but it feels like they’re bolted to the ground, somehow. “I take it you didn’t see what nabbed us?”

            “It took us from behind,” Cas says, and Dean tries to gauge where he is and concludes he’s probably about ten feet away.

            Dean sighs and tilts his head back, trying to fight the clawing feeling of claustrophobia. “Dude, if we die on a couples cruise I’m never gonna forgive us.”

            “Here, at the end of all things,” comes Cas’ voice from the dark.

            “So not necessary right now.”

            “I thought it was quite fitting.”

            Dean groans quietly as his head gives a short, vicious throb; whatever it was that had taken them had at least ensured he was concussed, considerately.

            Cas’ voice goes sharp at the sound, cutting in its concern. “Are you hurt?”

            “I’m fine,” Dean says. “Head hurts like a bitch. You?”

            “Fine.” Cas clears his throat uncomfortably. “My sunburn is painful though.”

            “Sunscreen, man, I’m telling you—”

            Blinding lights flash up around them, excruciatingly bright, and Dean’s hands fly up to shield himself instinctively.

            “Welcome!” booms a loud, nasal voice, and Dean blinks so quickly that his eyes water, looking around quickly to grasp his bearings. He tries to move forward, but a glance down confirms his feet are locked into the ground by some metal contraption.

            Dean looks over to Cas, who’s trapped in the same position. A trickle of blood oozes from his lower lip and his temple, and he returns Dean’s look with equally watery-eyed disorientation.

            “You’re bleeding,” Dean says.

            “I’m fine.” Cas looks around, squinting under the harsh lights, and Dean follows the path of his gaze. It looks like they’re in some sort of studio, both situated behind podiums stocked with a black Sharpie and a large pad of paper in front of them.

            A ray of light flares up in front of them, revealing a tall, thin, older man in a blue pinstriped suit, his silver hair perfectly quaffed, his smile pointed and predatory.

            “What the shitting fuck,” Dean says.

            “Welcome,” the man declares again, spreading his thin, bony hands wide in a gesture of greeting. “I see you’ve been acquainted with my ship.”

            It occurs to Dean suddenly, belatedly, that they’re in the exact set-up of a game show.

            “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dean groans. “What are you, a trickster? Like we need any more of you clowns.”

            “Not a trickster,” the man counters. “I’m actually rather surprised my dear Castiel hasn’t recognized me.”

            Dean looks to Cas for clarification, who’s focused on the man in bewildered concentration.

            “Really, brother,” the man says, his lips parting to reveal perfectly straight, white teeth. “Has it been that long?”

            “Schliel,” Cas says, straightening at the revelation.

            “Exactly what we need,” Dean grumbles to himself. “More dicks with wings. Or, sorry—sans wings.”

            “Watch your tone with me, boy.” Schliel’s voice edges on a thunderous growl with his threat, so piercing that Dean almost—almost—flinches. “I don’t have nearly the patience or tolerance for you that my brother has.” Schliel sniffs and flicks a speck of lint off his suit-jacket primly. “Never got the heavenly hype around you, anyway. I always preferred Sam.”

            “Yeah, yeah, story of my life.” Dean shifts his feet, attempting with a small grunt to free them, but the bolts hold steadfast. “So you’re the one kidnapping couples, eh?”

            Schliel spreads his hands again in an inviting, confirming gesture, bowing his head as if in humility.

            “Usually this is the part where people gloat and reveal their evil motive, so, uh.” Dean nods once in his direction. “I’ll leave you to it.”

            “Schliel is—was—the angel of love and partnership, before the fall,” Cas informs him, his words directed toward Dean but his eyes hovering on Schliel in equal parts hostility and suspicion.

            “Still am,” Schliel corrects, smiling.

            “That’s not possible,” Cas says. “All the angels except Metatron lost their powers in the fall. The fact that you’ve constructed a scheme such as this should be impossible.”

            “You think Metatron rose to power in heaven without allies?” Schliel arches one perfectly plucked eyebrow, wrinkling the Botoxed skin on his forehead. “I was...appropriately rewarded.”

            Cas’ voice trembles with rage when he speaks again. “What, so you murdered our siblings for their grace?”

            “That’s precisely what I did.” Schliel sniffs again. “And don’t give me that look, Castiel. You don’t actually expect me to feel any sort of compunction toward a group of squalling children that have been bickering since Jesus was born in a pigpen.”

            “They’re our family,” Cas growls, lurching forward without success, his hands balling into fists.

            “You have a right to talk about family,” Schliel says disdainfully. “When over half of them are dead, thanks to you.”

            Cas’ mouth pops open to reply, but no sound comes out.

            “That’s what I thought,” Schliel says, smug smile intact. “You can’t really blame me for taking advantage of this situation, can you?”

            “So what does that have to do with couples?” Dean says. “Sorry, I’m trying to make this semi-relevant.”

            “Such a mouth you have,” Schliel says, tilting his head in a small motion that reminds Dean eerily of Lucifer. “Little ape.”

            “Ouch,” Dean says, flatly, then says to Cas, “Seriously, do angels have like a patented book of lame insults they recycle?”

            “The couples were simply a means to an end,” Schliel says with a shrug, ignoring Dean. “I had to draw you and Castiel here somehow. While couples may have been my specialty in heaven, I have no particular interest in them on earth. Although it is somewhat fun, watching them squabble about their unimportant issues.”

            Dean frowns, suspicious. “What do you want with me and Cas?”

            “Well, one was for my own amusement,” Schliel says. “Seriously, you two are heaven’s Brangelina. But secondly, more prioritizingly, I need your help with something.”

            Dean actually laughs at that one.

            “Dean, listen to him,” Cas murmurs in a low aside, and Schliel’s glinting eyes turn on Dean superciliously.

            “What? Hell the fuck no, we’re not helping him.”

            “Schliel is powerful,” Cas says, his eyes fixed with Dean’s in a way that instantly lets him know he’s kissing ass for a motive. “And acquiescence is the only means for our escape.”

            “You’re not entirely stupid as your current reputation led me to believe, Castiel,” Schliel says.

            “What is it you require from us?” Cas asks, and Dean keeps his mouth shut, following Cas’ lead.

            “Oh, no, no,” Schliel says, wagging his finger at Cas. “We’re doing this my way. I have a very sound structure in place. We’re going to have some fun with you two first.”

            Dean and Cas exchange foreboding looks, which makes Schliel laugh. Dean glares at him and imagines stabbing something sharp and pointed through his skull.

            “Have you two ever heard of the Newlywed Game?” Schliel asks, stepping away from his podium and crossing to stand in front of them with his hands twined together. “It’s quite entertaining. One of my favorite trivialities of humanity, actually.”

            “What’s the Newlywed Game?” Cas asks, bewildered, and Dean fights the urge to head-desk.

            “The concept is very simple. I ask a question, such as, say…” Schliel makes a slow, contemplative hand gesture. “What’s your favorite candy. You then have to write down the answer for the other person. If you both write the same answer, you gain points. However, I’m raising the stakes a bit.” Schliel begins to slowly pace, his hands clasped behind his back; Dean and Cas watch him circle spitefully. “If you get three questions right, you win the game. I let you go. However, if you get three questions wrong, I kill you on the spot. Actually….” Schliel’s eyes float thoughtfully to Dean. “I need Castiel. Dean will be killed on the spot, if you get three strikes.”

            “Naturally,” Dean says, just as Cas snarls out, “No.”

            “No, no, this is good,” Schliel says, giving a self-satisfied nod to himself. “Equal punishment for both. Dean killed, Castiel having to live with Dean being dead. I like that double-edged sword. Now, you see the pad in front of you, correct? You’ll write your answer on there. I’ll be the judge of what counts for points.”

            “That won’t be skewed at all,” Dean says sarcastically, even as his pulse gives a little jump of adrenaline.

            “I promise to be objective,” Schliel says, equally sardonic. “You now have your rules. Are we ready to begin?” He points a hand as though to an audience without glancing, and the hanging sign that reads “OFF-AIR” flicks to a neon-green “LIVE.” “Let’s get started!”

            “Dean—” Cas tries to say, but his voice gets drowned out in the roaring of an invisible audience. Dean looks around in bewilderment, but sees nothing except a lot of empty space and Schliel looking way too pleased with himself.

            “Question number one,” Schliel says after a moment of deliberated pacing, spinning on his heel to face Dean and Cas with a shark-like grin. “How many times did Dean pray to Castiel in purgatory?”

            Dean stares at Schliel slack-jawed, drawing a total blank, and watches in slow-mounting horror as the clock from 10 seconds begins to tick down.

            Shit, he doesn’t know. How many times had he—? He’d been in purgatory for a little over a year, 365 days—

            “5, 4, 3…” the audience chants. Schliel stands very still and smiles, his focus trained on Dean.

            Dean shoots him a venomous look and scribbles down a random estimate, 375, as the buzzer runs out.

            “Answers up,” Schliel says.

            Both Dean and Cas hold up their notepads. Cas has scrawled out the number 742.

            The audience boos.

            “One strike,” Schliel says in mock-sadness, shaking his head. “With Castiel correct and Dean...well, not.”

            “You counted?” Dean shouts at Cas, scandalized.

            Cas shrugs defensively, holding up the hand with the Sharpie in it in a helpless gesture.

            “Unbelievable,” Dean says, ripping off the top page of the notepad. “742, Cas, I’m gonna fucking remember that. 742 mental phone dials and you were too busy—”

            “Dean,” Cas snaps back, exasperated, “I was trying to keep Leviathan from taking your head—”

            “Second question,” Schliel calls out, and the invisible audience titters. Dean scowls at him with all the hatred he can muster, which Schliel receives with a grin. “What was the day that Castiel raised Dean from hell? Date and year both.”

            Cas has already written out his answer, and Dean’s pulse picks up into a flying thrum as he racks his memory. September...he closes his eyes, blocking out the chanting, jeering crowd as he calls back the date on the newspaper he’d picked up in an abandoned gas station, the burning sensation of the raw new mark branded into his shoulder.

            He writes out 09/18/2008 as the buzzer rings out shrilly.

            “Notepads.”

            Dean holds up his, as does Cas, where he’s written out “September 18, 2008.”

            Schliel frowns as the audience cheers. “Fine,” he says. “Five points to the unhappy couple.”

            Dean throws Cas a weak thumbs-up, to which Cas frowns before he tentatively returns the motion.

            “I think we’ll have to up the stakes a little bit.” Schliel kicks up a slow pace again, rubbing his chin in thought. “Hmm. Moving on to our third question. Which….oh, let’s see. Which of Castiel’s many and infinite misdoings does he feel the most staggering guilt for? That’s a good one.”

            Cas seems to freeze for a moment, before he drops his marker to paper and begins to write something out. Dean chews on the Sharpie cap as the clock runs down; he eventually writes out “Sam’s wall/God,” trying not to fixate on the fact that they’re two strikes away from him being angel-melted on the spot.

            “Notepads up,” Schliel says as the buzzer runs out, and Dean cranes his neck to see where Cas has written out, in immaculate handwriting, “Opening purgatory/Sam’s wall.”

            “Well, well, well,” Schliel muses as a huge sigh of relief pours out of Dean, one he didn’t realize he’d been keeping contained. “Ten points, then.”

            Cas sags forward in relief, tearing off the top sheet of paper. He looks like a nervous wreck, and the look is strangely new on him.

            “Ohh,” Schliel simpers, one corner of his mouth turning up in a snide grin. “Looks like our poor Castiel is starting to break a sweat.”

            Cas glares at Schliel in a way that brings to mind a formidable list of past smitings.

            “Fifteen points to win the game, right?” Dean taunts Schliel, and Schliel fixes fiery angel eyes on him that promise a slow death.

            “Those are the rules I set in place, yes,” Schliel says through gritted teeth. “But the game’s not over yet, boy. Fourth question.”

            The audience stirs as the tension slowly builds in the room. Dean and Cas are both keenly focused now, their hands gripped vice-like on their Sharpies.

            Schliel grins, fixing his eyes maliciously on Dean. “How many copies of Dean was Castiel trained to kill under Naomi’s control in heaven?”

            Dean stares, then slowly transfers his gaze to Cas, who’s already scribbling something out. “The hell is he talking about?”

            Cas keeps his head down, capping the Sharpie.

            “Cas, what the hell is he talking about?”

            The audience counts down from five, but Dean lets the buzzer run to zero, too dumbstruck to assemble an answer.

            “Notepads up,” Schliel says. Cas holds his up, where the number 1,119 is inked in neat writing, while Dean holds up a blank notepad, still staring at Cas.

            “Two strikes,” Schliel says, clucking and shaking his head. Cas still won’t meet Dean’s eyes, ripping off the top sheet of the notepad.

            “If we survive this, we’re having a discussion,” Dean warns him.

            “I would rather not.”

            “And here it is, our final question,” Schliel says, drumming one finger against his lower lip in calculation. “Get it correct, you win the game. I set you free. Get it wrong and I liquefy Dean Winchester where he stands.”

            Cas’ fists slowly tighten into helpless knots in Dean’s peripheral vision. Dean’s pulse starts to jackhammer in his ears.

            “Let’s see….” Schliel says, still slowly pacing. His eyes go slightly glassy, as if he’s watching a movie play out behind his eyes, before he nods to himself and asks, with ringing finality, “What broke Naomi’s connection to Castiel in the crypt?”

            Cas is already writing, and Dean knows this, he knows the answer as the buzzer runs down for a final time. He scribbles out “angel tablet,” but a sensory memory flickers to life in him like a candle being lit, Cas’ eyes huge and soft as he’d grazed a hand across his cheekbone, gently cupping his head as he’d healed him, and Dean takes a risk.

            He scribbles out “angel tablet” and writes out, in large letters, “me.”

            “Time!” Schliel calls, his voice ringing through the studio. “Notepads where I can see them.”

            Dean takes a huge, jagged breath, holding up the notepad in sweaty hands, and glances over to Cas. Cas is glowering at Schliel, and his notepad reads, “Dean.”

            The invisible crowd breaks out into smattering of applause, cheers, and booing, before Schliel swipes a hand sideways and the noise disappears altogether, leaving the studio eerily quiet. Dean and Cas exchange silent, nervous looks. Schliel gives a small, cold smile and brings his hand together in three sarcastic claps.

            “Congratulations,” Schliel says. “You’ve surprised me. I don’t expect it to happen again.” He snaps his fingers, and Dean feels some of the painful pressure in his feet give instantly. He looks down to find the metal bolts keeping his feet locked into place have been busted open, and he steps out with a small groan of relief, his toes tingling painfully as the blood rushes back to them.

            “I’ll be in touch,” Schliel says, and the room goes black again.

            Dean blinks into the darkness, coughing on a sudden influx of dust.

            “Cas?” he calls, then curses when he stubs his bare toe on what feels like a heavy box. “Shit.”

            “Found the light,” Cas says weakly, and flicks it on with a small click. Dean’s eyes readjust and he finds they’re standing cramped in a small storage room, probably in the lower level of the ship.

            “Holy shit,” Dean says.

            “I know,” Cas breathes out, and when Dean looks over, he sees that the trickle of blood has dried along the side of his face. Cas stumbles toward him, taking his arm in a firm, warm squeeze, and Dean grabs back. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

            “Yeah,” Dean says shakily. “Thought I was gonna be vaporized there for a second.”

            “I would’ve stopped him,” Cas vows, but Dean notices he looks unnerved.

            “How?” Dean asks, crooking an eyebrow, but Cas doesn’t answer, just turns and half-crashes his way through the maze of boxes toward the storage room door.

            It takes them a bit more of cursing and stumbling to find the staircase leading to the main deck, and on their way up the steps, Dean says, “You think Shay’s okay, right? Like…Schliel wouldn’t have touched her?”

            Cas hums thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t imagine so. Shay is virtually useless.”

            Dean frowns.

            “Not in that way,” Cas clarifies. “But Schliel has no need for her.”

            When they resurface on the main deck, it’s already nighttime and the swaying lights along the boat’s railings have been lit. Dean’s midway to their hallway with Cas in tow when they—pretty literally—collide into Thea, who’s headed in the opposite direction with a drink in her hand.

            Thea gasps as her drink sloshes over the glass’ brim, spilling down her arm. “Watch it!”

            “Thea,” Dean says in surprise, and Thea frowns and opens her mouth to ask a question but he interrupts with a quick, “Hey, have you seen Shay recently?”

            Thea’s staring at him in disbelief, margarita still running down her arm. “She was in our room like, fifteen minutes ago. Uh, not to be rude, but do I know you or something?”

            “Not really,” Dean says with a lame, weak smile, feeling his shoulders instantly sink with relief. “Just er, had a question about one of our activities.”

            “Okay,” Thea says, her eyebrows still raised in a weird expression, and then adds, with a slow gesture at Cas, “Um….you know your guy’s bleeding, right?”

            “Oh. Uh, yeah, he’s—he’s fine.” Couple. They’re supposed to be a couple. Dean on an impulse rubs one hand across Cas’ bare back, who flinches in surprise at the contact, and says, “Klutz fell and hit his head. He’s good, seriously.”

            Thea just blinks at him and says, “Yeah, excuse me,” and brushes past them.

            “Awesome,” Dean says, almost giddily clapping a hand on Cas’ sunburnt shoulder, who jumps and hisses in pain. “No one died today because of us. Man, that’s the best feeling.”

            “I’m glad Shay’s alright,” Cas says, and shrugs out of Dean’s grasp with a wince.

            When they get back to their room, Dean sits Cas on the bed and roots around in his duffel for the emergency kit amidst Cas’ protests of, “Dean, honestly, I feel fine—”

            “Do you even know how many times I’ve thought I was fine and then something somewhere got infected? Here, sit still.”

            Cas hunches his shoulders and clasps his hands together between his kneecaps, looking like a sulky child.

            Dean dips a cotton ball in a small bottle of rubbing alcohol and crouches down to dab it against Cas’ temple, who flinches and hisses at the unexpected sting, and Dean murmurs an apology and wipes gently at the dry blood in the corner of Cas’ lower lip. He studiously ignores the way Cas’ eyes probing his face makes him feel like he’s about to combust.

            “All done,” Dean says, banishing any nervousness to the back of his brain and quickly stepping back to toss the cotton ball in the trashcan. “You want a shirt?”

            “No,” Cas says with a wince, shifting in discomfort on the mattress. “My skin is still...sensitive. It feels like I’m very, very hot.”

            “Yeah, duh. That’s what a sunburn is. I might have some aloe, sit tight.” He ducks to rustle through his duffel again when a new addition on the bedside table catches his eye. He frowns, abandoning his quest, and crosses to pick up a bottle of champagne that looks suspiciously expensive. A small note is tied to the neck, words printed in impeccable calligraphy.

            “Dean and Castiel – You’ve won this round. Congratulations. Enjoy. Much love, Schliel. P.S. Check the fridge. xx”

            Dean frowns and plunks the champagne back on the table, and he can feel Cas’ gaze following him curiously as he heads to the mini-fridge and swings it open.

            “Dude,” he says in awe; every shelf is stocked with an assortment of hard alcohol. “This guy wants us to get wasted.”

            “It’s probably poisoned,” Cas mutters.

            “Don’t be such a cynic.” Dean picks up two clean champagne glasses and a bottle-opener from the counter above the mini-fridge and goes back to the bottle of champagne with a small grin. “Besides, it’s probably good we have alcohol if we’re going to have some sort of serious discussion.”

            From the corner of his eye, Dean sees Cas tense up. “Discussion about what?”

            Dean looks at Cas sideways, keeping his expression ambivalent. “You know exactly what.” He sits next to Cas on the bed, who scoots slightly away from him but takes the glass of champagne where Dean offers it. “Look, I get this kind of thing is about as fun as an acid bath. Which, trust me, that’s mutual. But you have to level with me. Schliel mentioned...the, uh, killing me thing?” Dean tries to catch Cas’ eyes, as he usually finds that’s the most surefire way to parse out whatever’s on his mind, but Cas seems to sense this and keeps his gaze averted. “Something to do with Naomi?”

            Cas takes a deep breath and suddenly brings the glass to his lips, and Dean watches with his mouth somewhat ajar as Cas takes four swift chugs and downs the entire glass in one go. He meets Dean’s eyes in a weary challenge, licking his lips free of champagne, as Dean watches in dawning disbelief.

            “We need to get drunk for this,” Cas says.

            Dean slowly places a hand on Cas’ bare shoulder, and Cas starts at the touch, clearly expecting a rebuttal.

            Instead, Dean grins. “Cas. Dude. That’s literally the best thing you’ve said all night.”

---

            They get really drunk. As in…unfortunately drunk.

            Cas winds up lying on his back against the pillows, watching through half-lidded eyes as Dean retells some story from his childhood, something about Sam trying to take flight off a roof, and he’s using a lot of slurring and grand hand gestures to do it, occasionally pausing to laugh and occasionally mentioning that he wishes there were somehow weed involved in this because, “seriously, Cas, I’m gonna get you fucking baked one of these days.”

            “I’d like that,” Cas says with an uncertain smile, and Dean snorts and moves over so that he’s lying on his back in a mirror of Cas’ position, their sides touching as Dean steeples his hands on his chest.

            “Man,” he says with a throaty hum. “It’s been ages since I’ve been drunk for fun. Drunk with another person. Intentionally drunk.”

            “Don’t say that,” Cas murmurs, swiveling his head sideways to peer at Dean in concern.

            Dean’s eyelashes flutter then close, tiredly, and he offers a weary smile. “I’ve got issues, Cas. No use pussyfooting around them. It’s like, just when you think the pile of shit can’t get any higher, someone takes another dump on you.”

            “You didn’t tell me you were a poet.”

            Dean’s grin warms and softens into something more genuine, his eyes still closed. “They told me not to hide my talents in a bushel-basket.”

            Cas squirms down a little further on the bed so that his shoulder is touching Dean’s on an equal level. It feels cool against his overheated, raw skin.

            “But seriously,” Dean says hoarsely, taking a deep breath in through his nose. “My mom. My dad. Hell. The apocalypse. Purgatory. The shit I’ve got with you and the shit I’ve got with Sam have their own separate piles.” He laughs, but it’s a thin, nervous sound. Dean lowers his eyes to his templed hands, and Cas is suddenly stricken, as he sometimes is, by the childlike vulnerability in Dean that he often stifles or masks. “I sometimes wonder how much more I can take before the levee breaks. You know?”

            “There’s a resilience in you humans,” Cas murmurs. “Humanity is admirably unbreakable; your spirits are like elastic, created to endure the strain of so much. Angels, we crack under such little applied pressure. A flaw in our design, if you ask me.”

            “Hey, you’ve held out pretty long. You know, for an angel.”

            “I don’t know what I am,” Cas confesses. “Angel. Human. Something in between. I don’t know.”

            “Well, what do you want to be?” Dean tilts his chin to look at Cas as he asks it. Cas is so close to him that he can see the dark red fissure in Dean’s lower lip from where it’d been split open from their struggle earlier, and surely it’s the copious alcohol that makes him wonder what exactly Dean’s mouth would taste like if he were to lean forward. His eyes flit up to meet Dean’s. Dean’s gazing back at him with hooded, sleepy eyes, his mouth curved in a shadow of a close-lipped smile, and Cas feels a spark of heat flare up in his gut again. He looks quickly away, his face burning.

            “I’d like to be an angel,” Cas says, swallowing dryly. “But I don’t know if that’s in the cards for me anymore.”

            “We’ll find your grace, Cas,” Dean says quietly, and shifts, tipping his chin toward the ceiling. “You’ll have your wings and halo back in top notch before you know it.”

            “I don’t know how much it’ll remedy if I do get them back,” Cas says, more to himself than to Dean. There’s something in him that feels warm, loose, sated. The world is a little bit fuzzy, in a pleasant way. He reaches over to take another sip of whiskey.

            “Hey, slow it down,” Dean warns. “You’ll feel that in the morning.”

            “What matters is that I don’t feel it tonight,” Cas mutters.

            “Shucks, Cas. You could be a country songwriter.”

            “My true aspiration.”

            “The American dream.”

            Cas smiles reluctantly and sets the glass back on the table.

            “But honestly, Cas,” Dean says, seeming uncertain, and Cas knows what he’s going to ask—he expects it but still braces himself when Dean continues, “What did Schliel mean in the game? Thousand copies of what?”

            Cas lets out a breath slowly through his teeth, watching his chest decompress as the sensory memories dredge up, ghosting in painful bursts, like phantom-limbs of sensation. “You remember the months I was missing, right? After I…killed Samandriel.”

            “Yeah,” Dean says slowly. “Naomi was controlling you.”

            “Correct. Well, more like she was conditioning me.”

            “What…?” Cas waits while it sinks in, watches Dean go curiously stiff. “Torture?”

            “Torture was the start of it,” Cas says. “She...went into my hard drive, I guess you could say, and crossed some my wires. I was a...difficult patient for her, I think. It was harder to manipulate me than it was to manipulate others she’s reconditioned in her methods.” Cas can feel nausea curling up uncomfortably in his stomach. “After the torture was the training. For weeks, she…” He trails off for so long that Dean gives him a soft nudge.

            “What, Cas?”

            “She manufactured thousands of copies of you, and I—” Cas decides to take the abridged version, for his own sake. He forces a shrug, as if it’s something casual that can be played off. “She had me kill them so that I’d be prepared for the real thing, when it inevitably came.” He doesn’t mention that the first 523 he couldn’t kill, that it wasn’t until 524 that he could watch Dean’s blood gutter out onto his hands, clinging by the barest thread to the consolation that it wasn’t real, none of it was real, Dean was with Sam, safe on earth, asleep, praying—

            “Jesus,” Dean whispers, sounding sick. “And you never told me?”

            “What good would it’ve done?” Cas says with a hopeless shrug. “What happened happened. I failed. I hurt you. I couldn’t resist her, in the end.”

            “Well, you didn’t kill me,” Dean points out in disbelief. “There’s that.”

            “Don’t defend me.” Cas hears the grind of his own teeth, deep in his skull. “I beat you to a bloody pulp.”

            “Yeah, and if you haven’t noticed, I’m fine now.”

            “It’s not fine. Please don’t indulge my feelings on this, Dean. I don’t have room for any more bile in my stomach.”

            “But—”

            “It’s why I never told you. And it shouldn’t be something that excuses what happened.”

            “But—”

            “Dean,” Cas says sharply, shutting his eyes. “Drop it. Please.”

            “Hey, sit up.” The command is so sudden, such a sharp change in current, that Cas’s eyes flick open in surprise. Dean’s already pulled himself into a seated position, focused determinedly on Cas, swaying slightly in place.

            “Why?”

            “Just do it, okay?” Cas can tell by the softly slurred words, the slight glaze in Dean’s eyes, that he’s pretty far gone on the alcohol front, which increases Cas’ foreboding as he follows the directions and sits across from Dean cross-legged, prepared to be unprepared.

            Dean copies his position, sitting Indian-style and locking his eyes with Cas’ with that same stubborn, fixed look about him that makes Cas’ stomach do a funny little flip.

            “Dean,” Cas says uncertainly. “What are you—”

            Suddenly Dean leans forward and places a hand on either side of Cas’ face. Cas instantly locks up, all the blood rushing to his head.

            “Dean, what—?” he tries again, his pulse sprinting out of control as Dean leans closer, still with that focused, uncanny look.

            “Stay very still,” Dean murmurs, and his eyes flick over Cas’ probingly, as though he’s searching for something. Cas is effectively paralyzed, the places where Dean’s hands are braced sparking up as if he’s about to go up in flame.

            “What are you doing?” Cas means to ask it strongly, demandingly, but it comes out choked and hoarse, weakened by every further second of Dean’s proximity.

            Dean takes several more seconds to answer, his fixed intensity unwavering, eyes still locked with Cas’. “I’m looking for your soul.”

            Cas goes slack at that, caught somewhere between relief and ridiculous embarrassment, and tries to pull away from Dean’s grasp. “Dean, you’re drunk. Besides, you’re not going to find anything.”

            Dean’s soft, callused hands tighten on Cas’ face, and he can feel his cheeks squishing forward with the firm grasp.

            “Dean,” he says, impatiently and as clearly as he can through his cheeks being smushed.

            “I know you have one,” Dean says in whispered earnestness that can only come as a direct result of intoxication. “You said you don’t think you do, right?”

            “I know I don’t. Like I said, it’s not physically possible.”

            “It’s possible to have grace and a soul at once, right?” Dean asks, looking uncertain.

            “I don’t know. I’d assume not.”

            Dean’s hands loosen slightly on his face, allowing Cas to breathe easier. His hands stay, though, and his palms rasp over Cas’ stubble. One of his hands drops to the top of Cas’ bicep, just below the socket of his bare shoulder, and he squeezes gently, then grins in affection when he pulls his hand away, leaving a white handprint against the sunburn that slowly fades.

            “Familiar?” Dean jokes, but Cas is staring at him wide-eyed and the attempt at levity falls flat. The light air of teasing, as it so often does, dissolves within seconds, replaced by unspoken, palpable tension; it’s an air pressure, an edge that Cas has always felt near Dean but could never explain or rationalize. It has a raw, untapped power on its own, like the electricity could send a lightbulb sparking to life.

            “Cas,” Dean says as both a statement and a question, both certain and uncertain, and Cas is again struck with the dumb but consuming thought that had plagued him earlier, I’m in love with you, and he almost voices it but he doesn’t, he can’t. He won’t. He’s sick with it, lost by it.

            Dean leans forward and the hand that’s already resting on his cheek slides back to curl gently around the shell of his ear, shifting Cas into his gravity as he always has—Castiel’s curse, pulled down from flight to the ground Dean stands on, like Cas is tied to him by kite-string, and Cas is angry and hopeless and resigned and insatiably addicted; he lets himself be pulled in. Dean tugs him forward ever so softly so that their foreheads are pressed together, slick with warmth and sweat, their noses bumping. Cas’ whole body is resonating like a live wire, alight, inflamed.

            “Dean,” Cas says in a whisper, meaning to frame a question, stupidly dizzy, caught in a tailspin. Dean murmurs his name back, just as quietly. Cas is blinded by the pure, raw, human need to reel him in, to fill every small space keeping them apart, but he holds himself on the edge of the precipice, terrified.

            A loud fusillade of knocks rings out on the door and Dean springs back as though he’s been burned, his dilated pupils contracting, and for a moment he and Cas just stare at each other speechlessly, jolted from whatever hypnosis they’d lulled themselves into, and then Dean, red-faced, is scrambling toward the door. Parts of Cas’ face flare even more sharply than the sunburn across his body, and he takes a moment to reign himself in as the world spins around him.

            Dean throws open the door and Shay cries out, “Dean,” and hurls herself at him, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Holy hell, where have you been? Oh my God, I thought you were dead. And Cas, thank God, I was worried sick. I’ve been by your room like every few hours to—” Shay pauses mid-sentence, her nose wrinkling in recognition. “Are you drunk?”

            “As a skunk,” Dean supplies helpfully, swaying on his feet.

            “Oh, for the love of Christ. Sit down.” She leads Dean by his arm to the bed and plops him down into a precarious sitting position. She fixes her eyes imploringly on Cas. “What happened? Zoe and I have been out of our heads looking for you.”

            “We were kidnapped,” Cas says. He wonders if the incriminating evidence from what had just transpired—had almost just transpired—is written all over his face, because he certainly feels like he’s given them away like a beacon.

            “That was quickly deduced. I meant what happened after the kidnapping.”

            Cas opens his mouth to reply but hesitates, imagining for a moment of trying to explain angels—and the entire supernatural universe, really—to this girl in front of him, and he can’t quite envision it.

            “Shay,” he opts for. “This isn’t something you want to be involved in. Trust me.”

            “I’m already involved.”

            “Well, you don’t want to be.”

            Shay’s lips part in an argument but Dean interrupts her with a slightly slurred, “He’s right, Shay. Look, if you really want to know, I’ll explain it to you when we’re out of the thick of things. But I can’t afford to have you in danger, alright?”

            “Dean—” Shay protests, gearing up for a fight, but Dean interrupts firmly, with all the authority of a father, “I said no, Shay. It’s for your own good.”

            “I’m not defenseless, Dean,” Shay says. “I want to help.”

            “I get that, but you can’t. Not on this one. Okay?”

            Shay’s jaw clenches in frustration, but she gives a reluctant, singular nod. “Alright. Fine.”

            Dean exhales audibly with relief. Cas notices he’s sweating through the back of his shirt, and wonders if it’s due to what happened between them moments before.

            “But I won’t drop this,” Shay warns, bringing up one finger to point it menacingly at either of them. “I’ll stick my nose out of your business for now, because I won’t stay where I’m clearly not wanted, but you’re forgetting that I’m trapped on board with this thing every inch the same as you two are. I deserve to know.” She picks up her purse from where she’d dropped it on the bed and heads out, shutting the door behind her.

            “That was the right thing,” Cas murmurs.

            “I’m not dragging anyone else into this trench with us,” Dean says, agreeing. “Kevin. Charlie. Sammy, even. No one’s dying on my watch.” He gives a slight sway in place, and Cas leaps up to help him lie down. “Not you either, okay?”

            “Okay, Dean,” Cas answers, not really paying attention to what he’s agreeing to. Dean twists onto his side and sighs heavily into the pillow, his eyes drifting shut.

            Cas concludes it’s best to just forget everything that had happened, knowing full well Dean’s reaction in the morning, if he has one at all. It’s good for both of them to pretend this had never occurred.

            Ideal, really.

            It doesn’t stop him from replaying those moments in a mental circuit, long after the lights are out.

---

            Dean’s fucked up.

            Again.

            Naturally.

            Which, to be fair to himself, is kind of a weekly thing. Sometimes it’s a daily thing. But if you’d told him a few years ago that his latest, colossal fuck-up would be to get himself a giant, unmanly, hard-on crush for Cas, Castiel, grouchy, stubborn, semi-asshole, clueless ex-celestial creature of heaven, Dean probably would’ve laughed a lot. Or maybe thrown a drink in your face.

            But he’s facing that grim, terrifying reality when he finds himself the next morning propped up on his elbow, like an utter moron, watching Cas slobber into his pillow and frantically rehashing the previous night’s events in fast-motion, then slow-motion, then fast again. He’s extremely preoccupied with the fact that he’d wanted to put his mouth on Cas’, and is even further preoccupied with the fact that he still wants to put his mouth on Cas’ without a trace of alcohol in his system.

            He thinks that, like most things, he can compact this latest chronicle of misery into his trash-heap of other miseries.

            And, of course, is quickly proven wrong.

            “I like men,” he blurts out over breakfast, “and women.”

            Cas freezes mid-pancake, blinking at him for a moment, his hair fucked up in all the right places, and then he says, “Okay,” and goes back to drizzling his food in a cavity-inducing amount of syrup, as if Dean isn’t sweating through his clothes or experiencing a quarter-life crisis.

            “Don’t tell Sam,” are his next words.

            “Okay,” Cas says again, and attempts to cram an entire pancake in his mouth. This, Dean thinks, abjectly, is who he’s chosen as his object of desire. It’s tragic.

            Later that day when they’re at the bar and Cas leaves to go to the bathroom, Dean thinks for a few delusional moments that he can do it, he can just tell Cas how he feels, fuck it, fuck everything. Dean spends Cas’ absence near-maniacally messing with his mom’s ring on his finger and constructing an intricate (and eloquent) inner monologue, but the thought of saying anything remotely or even in the smallest sense semi-romantic to Cas’ face is….horrifying, really.

            When Cas returns to the bar, Dean stands up abruptly—why the fuck is he standing?—and promptly knocks over Cas’ drink.

            Cas sighs at him in exasperation, eyeing him oddly as Dean fumbles and apologizes and acts like a pretty much all-around idiot.

            “You’re acting strangely,” Cas notes, squinting his eyes in suspicion.

            “Aha, yeah. Uh, about that—”

            “Dean,” Cas says, his mouth thinning into a firm line as he pulls himself up straighter. “I know this is about last night, and I understand your discomfort. Please don’t feel as though you have to spare my feelings. I’ll save us both the trouble by saying I know the incident was entirely alcohol-induced. You don’t have to worry about it happening twice.” Then he grabs Dean’s drink and marches toward one of the lounge chairs, leaving Dean completely addled.

            Trash-heap. Trash-heap, another thing to add to the trash-heap.

            Maybe Dean is the trash.

            He’s pretty miserable for the rest of the day, which Cas notices with rising concern, but Dean stows it for the sake of hunting Schliel, who once again is completely out of their grasp.

            Zoe hunts them down later that afternoon near the pool (where Dean had been unsuccessfully grilling Harry Wells, who’s stomped off in a huff) with an affable, “Yay, my two favorite campers!” and a tackle-hug.

            “I hope you two are planning on coming to the candelit dinner tonight,” Zoe gushes, and Dean and Cas are just blinking at her, deer-in-headlights-like. “It’ll be a great opportunity for our couples to enjoy a more romantic break from all of the grueling emotional work, I know it can be kind of tough on you guys—”

            Dean raises his hand. “Yeah, excuse me? I guess we’re pretending that you’re our actual camp counselor now, or something?”

            Zoe blinks at him, her expression going dangerously stiff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “Uh...wow, okay. I mean, unless you forgot, you kind of went Loch Ness on us yesterday—you know, before we were abducted—because I definitely remember that. Cas, you remember that, don’t you? Did I hallucinate that?”

            “Keep your voice down,” Zoe hisses, her eyes flashing feral and bright through her fake eyelashes. “I’m not about to lose my job over you two goons trying to muck up things on my ship. Here, on my boat, you are a couple with a reservation, I am your couples’ counselor, and you will treat me as such. Understood?”

            “Don’t you care what happened to us?” Cas asks, looking properly offended.

            Zoe sighs impatiently and taps her heel against the boards of the deck. “I can’t afford to care about what this thing is targeting, alright? It’s nothing personal, but I’ve survived this long under Darwinist principles. If whatever this wants is you, it’s not my problem, nor my couples’. Take care of it yourself.” Her voice brightens instantly, clapping her hands together so her array of silver bracelets jangle. “I hope to see you at dinner tonight with the rest of our lovely couples.”

            “What’s on the menu tonight?” Dean calls after her, fake-amiably. “Seafood?”

            Zoe shoots a baking scowl over her left shoulder as she whisks off, which Dean answers with a sarcastic grin and a waggle of his fingers.

            “You’re going to get us killed,” Cas mutters under his breath.

            “Yeah, killed by a giant fish. I can add that on to my growing list of ‘cruel and unusual deaths.’”

            “What about the dinner tonight, though?” Cas asks.

            “What about it?”

            “Are we going?”

            Dean’s heart climbs to his throat and starts to drum out a frantic, steady beat. “What, like a date?”

            Cas’ brows draw together, perhaps irritated. “It wouldn’t have to be a date.”

            “Okay,” Dean says, hoping his face isn’t as fiery as it feels. “We can go, as long as you don’t make it couples-y and weird. You know. As long as it’s not a date.”

            Cas pitches another one of his calculating looks sideways, clearly appraising Dean’s weird behavior, and Dean has one of his many moments where he feels like escaping into the ocean, if it means crawling out from under the weight of Cas’ searching gaze.

            “You don’t have to worry about anything from me,” Cas says, almost coldly, and stalks off toward the resident hallway, once again leaving Dean windswept in his wake.

            Cas vanishes for the rest of the day, which is probably a good thing for Dean; when he goes back to the room around two, after he’s spent a good hour killing time at the bar avoiding him, Cas is nowhere to be found.

            Dean slams the door behind him and lies out spread-eagle on the mattress. He closes his eyes and thinks.

            Obviously, the reason Cas is acting cagey with him is because he’s put off by what happened the previous night. Or, what didn’t happen. What almost happened. Dean—who’s still nursing one hell of a hangover, by the way—only remembers blurry snatches, but if he remembers correctly, he was quite touchy and Cas was in equal measures…not. Dean blushes just thinking about it, because honestly, leave it to him to come onto Cas when he was drunk, after not even realizing he had a thing for Cas.

            Does he have a thing for Cas?

            Dean would be blatantly lying to himself if he said he hadn’t had...okay, certain thoughts about Cas over the years. But it’s not like he actually expected anything to come out of it. He’d reacted to most of those thoughts, images, dreams by ruthlessly squashing them, and it had worked almost flawlessly, up until now. Dean’s been telling himself for years that he doesn’t like dudes; actually, the thought wouldn’t have even crossed his conscious mind while his dad was still kicking. But it’s not like it’s anything he has to discuss, or even think about. It’s something that only he knows—well, except for Cas, now. And Charlie, thanks to a drunken, post-convention bar crawl. Dean can play it cool on this. He doesn’t have to wear a sign on his back that says “I’m bi, kick me!” He has that consolation, at least.

            Dean presses the heels of his palms over his eyes and groans out slowly, digging in until bursts of color flare up in the darkness behind his closed eyelids.

            He absolutely can’t like Cas, for an infinite multitude of reasons. The first being, of course, that they’re far too dysfunctional as it is, barely clinging on to friendship in the most rudimentary sense; the second reason is that Cas plans on leaving, probably for good, and even if he isn’t planning on it, he inevitably will take off some way, somehow, and Dean will be a vanishing speck in the rearview mirror. It’s a familiar feeling but it never stops feeling like gravel caught in his lungs, sharp and painful and lodged in all the wrong places.

            Obviously, Dean reasons, he alone isn’t a strong enough motivating factor for...well, anyone to stay grounded in one place. He doesn’t really blame Cas for it. He’s just one guy, one person out of millions, and not much of a person, that said. But he’s now caught in a vicious catch-22 where he’s terrified to ask Cas to stay, in the inevitability that he’ll say no, but sick at the thought of letting Cas leave without at least an attempt at keeping him.

            But Dean would hate himself if he guilted Cas into staying for his own selfish motives. Namely, that he needs Cas. Always, in any capacity, irrevocably.

            “Stupid,” Dean mutters, clenching his teeth until pain jags through his skull. The whole thing is stupid. He honestly thinks this is why he and Cas skirt and tango and dance their way around real conversations. Because here’s Dean, under the full realization now that Cas cares about him to a terrifying extent, but it’s still not enough to make a difference. Cas is probably, now more than ever, aware of what Dean feels for him, at least to a certain degree, and it too isn’t enough to change a damn thing. They’re caught in a helpless whirlpool that rips them apart, over and over again, and that’s honestly why Dean would rather just sidestep this whole ugly mess. The whole potential, romantic feelings thing. His relationship with Cas is already twisted in a hopeless number of knots; it’d be downright masochistic to tangle it further.

            Dean flips onto one of his sides, then the other. Then back to the other side again, trying to wiggle down into the comforter to get more comfortable, but he fails utterly, his eyes still peeled open, focused on Cas’ duffel splayed open at the foot of the bed like a shining frigging beacon of domesticity.

            This wasn’t supposed to happen. Like, really. Even now, as he tries to rack through the scattered timeline of their (sometimes fucked-up, usually painful, always unarticulated) history, Dean can’t put a thumb on one moment where he looked at Cas sideways and thought, I want you with me always. He tries but he can’t; it’s like he and Cas exist in the space of before and after. He thinks, objectively, that he can recall what it felt like to not have feelings for Cas, but now that he’s in the whole “feelings” camp, he can’t remember feeling another way.

            Which, again, not his fault that he and Cas have some freaky spiritual connection, thanks to the hell thing. And everything after. Dean reflects, rather dejectedly, that he was a goner right from the start and didn’t even realize it. He was going to be gone on Cas all along, from the moment he’d burst through those barn doors in a shower of sparks, but he never would’ve seen it coming.

            Everything sucks, basically. Not like that’s a new thing.

            Cas walks in sometime later and shuts the door loudly. It’s only then that Dean realizes he’s dozed off because he jolts up in a half-asleep fog, and his first leftover, articulate thoughts are, resentfully, Why couldn’t you have been ugly. It would’ve made this whole deal a hell of a lot easier.

            “Where’ve you been?” Dean asks, his voice groggy with sleep, and when Cas flicks on the light, Dean blinks several times. Cas is completely spiffed up in a suit jacket and dress pants, and when Dean stares, he self-consciously straightens his tie.

            “I was hunting for Schliel,” Cas says, plumbing a hand through his hair with a trace of nervousness. “Exploring different areas of the ship, interrogating couples.”

            Dean’s still stuck on the suit. “Did, uh, did you find anything?” Without waiting for an answer, Dean redirects to his actual priority. “Where’d you get the tux?”

            “I packed one in case we had to commit governmental fraudulence,” Cas says blankly. “I assume you did too.”

            Dean opens his mouth, and says nothing.

            “It’s not a date thing,” Cas says, heated and defensive and completely misreading whatever it was Dean was going to say. “I’m just trying to blend in, as everyone else is going to be dressed nicely.”

            “No, no,” Dean says quickly, rubbing his eyes and scrambling for the right thing to say. “Uh...you look good. Really.”

            Cas softens a bit at that, dropping his eyes to the floor and fighting a smile, probably at Dean’s expense.

            Fuck me, Dean thinks, and flops back onto the pillows.

            “I suggest you get ready,” Cas says, heading toward the bathroom. “They’re already in the middle of karaoke.”

            “You’re joking, right?”

            “Some people are making drunken fools of themselves,” Cas says, while pissing. “It’s quite entertaining, actually.”

            “Dude, pee with the door closed.”

            He can practically hear Cas roll his eyes, and a moment later, the door slams.

            Dean takes those few moments to roll out of bed and root through his duffel. He eventually locates his suit, folded in plastic wrap where he’d last had it dry cleaned, and he unpeels the outer covering and lays it out on the bed, pausing to consider his two ties.

            For a ridiculous and horrifying moment, he finds himself idly trying to color-coordinate with whatever the tie it was Cas had been wearing, before he returns to himself and chooses the tie through a short and decisive round of “Eenie-Meenie-Miney-Mo.”

            He’s mostly dressed when Cas emerges from the bathroom smelling cleanly of aftershave, and Dean rolls his eyes when he notices that, of course, Cas’ tie is backwards, and knotted wrong.

            “C’mere, dork,” Dean says, stepping forward without thinking to adjust the tie, and then realizes three seconds later that what he’s done was forward, too direct, too affectionate. Cas is suddenly in his space and gazing at him with intent as Dean reworks his tie into the proper placement. Dean’s mouth is unusually dry.

            “Thank you, Dean,” Cas says. His voice sounds a notch more gravelly than usual; Dean thinks, weakly, that it must be his imagination.

            “Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, clearing his throat. “Don’t want you to look like you were raised in a barn.”

            “I wasn’t raised anywhere,” Cas points out, with all his usual aptitude.

            “Fairly noted.”

            Cas’ gaze roves over him—clinically, Dean thinks to himself, dumbly flustered, in obviously a clinical way—and he says, “You look nice, Dean.”

            “Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbles, straightening his tie and trying not to appear as flummoxed as he feels. “I’m Johnny freaking Suave. Are you ready to go?”

            “When you are,” Cas replies.

            Dean plunges forward and out the door, not bothering to check if Cas is following him, and heads out to the main deck.

            He catches his breath when he gets there; the entire deck has been transformed into what looks like an outdoor-style patio, with golden lantern-lights strung up along the perimeter of the ship. There’s a stage set up near the bar, where staff members are already striking the karaoke set. The tables, each designed for two, are adorned with white tablecloths that flutter gently in the sea breeze, topped by lit candles. Many of the seated couples are already engaged deep in conversation, leaning toward each other intimately. A quiet murmur mingles with the night breeze, mixed with short bursts of laughter and the clink of plates and wineglasses.

            Dean experiences a moment of panic and turns on his heel to check for Cas, who’s standing directly behind him and is gazing at him in soft concern.

            “We don’t have to go,” Cas says quietly, reaching out as though to place a hand on the small of Dean’s back and then thinking better of it.

            “I’m fine,” Dean says, weakly. “It’s just dinner.” Not a date.

            “Hello,” one of the staff-members says, approaching them with an easy, amicable smile. “What’s the name on your reservation?”

            Shit. Aliases.

            “Uh. It’s, um. Ryan...and, uh…”

            “They’re with me, Travis,” Zoe says smoothly from out of nowhere, and Dean jumps and swears under his breath.

            “Oh, of course,” the host says with another bright smile, and lopes off to seat another couple.

            “Look at that,” Zoe says, taking Dean and Cas by either elbow and forcibly leading them toward a table on the far end of the set-up. “Saving your bacon again.”

            “Uh,” Dean says in an incredulous voice, letting himself be dragged, “there was no saving of any bacon yesterday.”

            “Consider this an apology favor then,” Zoe replies, and lets them be seated. She smiles dazzlingly, her sparkly blue dress catching in multiple, glittering facets in the low light of the surrounding, swaying lanterns. “Enjoy your meal.”

            “Thanks,” Dean mutters after her, but she’s already gone, off in a flutter of thin fabric to socialize with another of her couples.

            A waiter stops by to drop some bread and pour some water and then he’s gone, leaving Dean and Cas to stare at each other via candlelight.

            “So, uh,” Dean says, clasping his hands together awkwardly. Would it be this awkward usually, or is Dean making it weird? Cas tilts his head slightly sideways, waiting for Dean’s next words. “What’s new?”

            Cas looks disappointed at the question, as though he’d been expecting something else, and takes a moment before answering. “I searched for Schliel today while you were sleeping, as I said, but found nothing. It makes me nervous, that he could be anywhere, watching us from any place—”

            Dean holds up a hand to truncate him and sighs, wearily rubbing his eyes with his other hand. “Can we...not talk about the case for like, an hour? Let’s do this: dinner is our excuse to not talk about anything hunting-related, alright?”

            Cas hesitates, seeming as though he’s about to contradict him, before he nods slowly. “Fair enough.”

            Dean nods in relief and takes a moment to crack open the menu.

            “Holy shit,” he mutters, boggling at some of the prices. “Good thing someone else is paying for this.”

            Cas hums in consideration, perusing his menu and biting down on his lower lip. “Perhaps we should order an appetizer to optimize on that.”

            Dean glances up and is hit by the conscious revelation of where he is, the reality of his current predicament. Cas is across from him in a tuxedo, frowning down at the menu, illuminated by candlelight. They’re on a cruise ship, a romantic cruise, and Dean Winchester is on a goddamned date with the guy, and he’s struck even further by the realization that he wants to be here, in this moment, where he is with Cas. He wouldn’t have it any other way if he could choose.

            Holy shit.

            He opens his mouth (like he’s actually gonna say so, yeah right) but ends up just staring at Cas with his mouth hanging open.

            Cas, sensing his gaze, looks up at him and says, with endearing solemnity, “I think I might order the calamari,” and that’s all he says, that’s literally all he says, but Dean is so screwed.

            “Waiter,” he calls feebly as one comes by. “Drinks menu, please.”

---

            Cas isn’t under any illusions. This is a date, whether Dean acknowledges it or not. Even if Dean is disgusted or perplexed by the idea of being on a date with him, Cas can at least secretly consider it as one. When he dies, most likely sooner rather than later, he can die thinking, with a good iota of satisfaction, I went on a date with Dean Winchester, and there’s nothing Dean can do to take that away from him.

            Which, dating is a silly, trite human thing to fixate on; Cas knows this. It seems somewhat comical that the depth of his relationship with Dean transcends dimensions and he’s wrapped up in the semantics of going out to dinner with him, in a potentially romantic connotation. But Dean has a way of making him reconsider perspectives, in any sense.

            Dean orders them red wine, which Cas quite likes, and they, to put it in human terms, chitchat. It’s somewhat macabre, Cas thinks, like a last supper: talking about trivialities over a candlelit dinner when most likely Schliel is plotting some mass murder revenge tactic against them.

            “Live in the moment, Cas,” Dean says disapprovingly when he voices this thought. “And dude, I just said—no case talk.”

            Maybe it’s some of the wine talking, but Cas leans forward and says, in quite a subject change, “What do you want, Dean?”

            Dean, who’s scanning the menu, replies absently, “Eh, I was thinking the steak, but I might order some of this salmon just to spite Zoe if she stops by again.”

            Cas presses his lips together against a reluctant smile. “No. I meant out of life.”

            Dean’s eyes slowly flicker up from the menu. “Come again?”

            “I’m asking you, what do you want?”

            Dean blinks at him for a moment before he frowns, dropping his gaze back to the menu before he shuts it and folds it on the table. “I don’t know. What do you want, Cas?”

            “We’ve already talked about what I want, remember?” Cas swirls the contents of his wine in the glass, watching the way the crimson catches the candlelight and swallows it. “I want my grace back. I want to kill Metatron. Then, ideally, I’d be with you and Sam again. I’m asking what you want.”

            Dean laughs hollowly and keeps his gaze down. “Well, I think that train left the station a long time ago.”

            “Doesn’t make it any less valid.”

            Dean purses his lips and taps his fingers nervously on the menu. He doesn’t say anything for a few moments and Cas watches him, the slow flick of his lashes, the way the light of the lanterns imbues his eyes with a golden hue, the way his tongue pokes out between his teeth after he takes a sip of wine. He doesn’t want to lose any of this, any of Dean.

            “I wanted a family,” Dean says, still averting his gaze, “but that was never gonna happen, not for me.”

            Cas frowns. “Why not?”

            “Wasn’t born for that kind of life.”

            “The life you could have and the life your father inflicted on you are not the same, Dean.”

            “Nah, honestly, Cas. It’s not realistic. I can’t do apple-pie stuff, not with the shit I’ve got in my closet. Maybe a while ago, I wanted kids, a wife, whatever. But.” Dean shrugs, his lower lip jutting out. “I’m fine with what I got. I’ve got more than a lot of people.”

            “You’ve lost so much,” Cas murmurs. “I wish I met you sooner. I could’ve protected you, somehow.”

            Dean smiles fondly, but his eyes are tired, sad.

            “No,” he says. “No, Cas, you couldn’t have. I appreciate it though.”

            Dean’s hands are folded together on the table, his knuckles curled into the cup of his palm. Cas, taking a risk, reaches out one hand and gently sets his own on top of his. Dean flinches in surprise at the contact, but doesn’t pull away, even when Cas’ grip slowly tightens.

            “You deserve more than what you settle for, Dean,” Cas says.

            “Ha,” Dean says. “Well, we don’t see eye-to-eye on that one. We don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, actually. We fight over the dumbest shit, you realize that? Like, some of the stuff we fight over we probably should fight over, but honestly, the last time we got in a fight over the shower shampoo I felt like kind of an asshole, I probably should’ve apologized—”

            “I’m in love with you,” Cas says, entirely without meaning to, but as soon as the words have left his mouth he can’t find it in his heart to regret saying them, even as Dean goes stiff like he’s been hit.

            Dean’s mouth works for several moments, and Cas patiently lets him calibrate, reboot, and calibrate again while he waits.

            Finally, Dean manages, hoarsely, “What.”

            “Good evening, sirs,” says their waiter, stopping beside them with a large, beaming smile as he pulls out a small notepad. “What can I get for you this fine night?”

            “I’ll have the calamari with the side of potatoes,” Cas says, but his heart is sprinting double-time in his ears. He keeps his eyes focused on the waiter but he can still feel Dean fixed on him in a debatable state of shock.

            “And for you, sir?” the waiter asks, turning to Dean with a smile.

            Dean’s got a glazed look on his face now. He’s still staring at Cas in horror, as though the waiter hasn’t even spoken.

            “He’ll have the steak, medium-well,” Cas says. “And we’ll take the rest of that bottle of wine now, thanks.”

            The waiter nods, gives Dean a suspicious look, and heads off without another word.

            “Dean,” Cas says, taking a deep breath, experiencing the mixed sensations of his pulse speeding up and his heart sinking at the same time. “Say something. Please.”

            Dean’s mouth gapes open like a fish’s, then snaps shut again.

            “Unbelievable,” Cas mutters, downing the rest of his wine in one go. “You always have to have the last word—you can’t keep your mouth shut, God forbid, when it’ll possibly impel us out of life-threatening situations—and now you’re rendered speechless.”

            “What do you want me to say?” Dean says, and his voice cracks twice. “Is this like…one of your bad jokes? Am I supposed to pretend I didn’t hear that?”

            “You’re supposed to respond like a mature adult discussing feelings,” Cas says, annoyed.

            “I can’t,” Dean says, then tries again, “We’re not,” then makes a helpless gesture between the two of them, and then tries once more with a, “Are you—” then cuts himself off and takes a lot of deep breaths, looking as though he’s pulled an internal muscle.

            The waiter plunks the rest of the bottle on their table. Cas immediately grabs it and starts pouring it into their glasses.

            “I’m sorry,” he says, placidly, “that my feelings make you uncomfortable, as I knew they would. Perhaps I’m selfish for having told you. I understand completely and fully the feelings are not returned in the same nature. But I thought you had to know.”

            “Why would you,” Dean says in a near-whisper, then promptly starts chugging wine, practically cross-eyed.

            “I’ve watched you reject the love that’s been given to you for years, Dean,” Cas says. “Love that you deserve but you don’t find yourself worthy of. I refuse to allow that to happen between you and me, with all due respect. I will love you fiercely until I burn out of existence, and I won’t allow any miscommunication to hinder you from your own self-actualization. Not on my behalf.”

            “Cas,” Dean says in a choked voice, wide-eyed and terrified. “You can’t.”

            “Can’t what?”

            “You can’t—” Dean makes a flailing hand gesture, his face bright red, refusing to meet Cas’ eyes. “You can’t have feelings for me. You just can’t, okay? It’s too much; it’s too complicated. It won’t work. I’ll fuck it up. You’ll get hurt. Please don’t put that on me, I—I can’t do that.”

            “I understand that it...complicates the nature of our relationship,” Cas says carefully. “And I understand if you won’t want me around, as a result. I won’t begrudge you that, Dean, not in any capacity. You could ask me to leave the moment we’re finished with this case, and I would go and understand. I know the nature of human relationships is fragile, and the chemistry of their balance is convoluted when the factor of romance is incorporated—”

            “Stop,” Dean says weakly, throwing up a hand. “Please stop. You sound like you’re reading from a textbook.”

            “I...am a little out of my depth here,” Cas confesses, twisting his hands together. “Probably as much as you are.”

            “Cas.” Dean exhales the word on a sigh, and he drops his head into his hands for several moments without moving. “Of course I’m not going to ask you to leave, I—I could never do that, especially not over something like this, alright? I’m actually a little insulted.”

            “I was under the impression it would be considerably more difficult to live with me, given what I’ve told you.”

            Dean’s mouth crooks up reluctantly. “Worse things have happened to us.”

            “This is true,” Cas concedes, and he can feel his body unwinding, calming down from the state of high stress he hadn’t realized he’d worked himself into.

            “I guess I just don’t….get it,” Dean finally says, and his eyes flit up to lock with Cas’. Cas is instantly soothed by the contact, as he always is in conversations with Dean. “Why? Like, not to be a fucking downer, uh, or anything, but I’m, like...the worst.”

            Cas rolls his eyes. “Dean.”

            “No, seriously, I am. I’ve slaughtered, I’ve tortured, I’ve killed people, and I’ve liked it. I’m selfish, and fucked up, and needy, and dependent.” Dean’s voice slowly heightens in volume as he gets more worked up, his fists tightening on the tablecloth. “I’m dishonest, and manipulative, and I’ll probably get you killed at the end of this, so please enlighten me why you’re even wasting your time.”

            Cas stares at him, then slowly begins to tick off in his fingers in an irritated voice. “I’ve slaughtered, tortured, killed; I’m selfish, fucked up, dishonest, manipulative, and I will also, probably somehow, get you killed one day. Equally suited, wouldn’t you agree?”

            Dean blinks for several moments, stunned, before he snorts—actually snorts, and then laughs, high-pitched in disbelief. “Wow. We really are, aren’t we? Son of a bitch.”

            “Those aren’t things I’m proud of, Dean. I’m just making a point.”

            “I’m not—”

            “That said, you’re wrong,” Cas interrupts. “You, Dean Winchester, are the best human being I’ve ever known, and I’ve known many in my long history. I’ve…” He takes a deep, shaky breath, ignoring the way Dean’s wide eyes are fixed on him. “I’ve felt this way for a long time, and it’s important for me to have you know that you are worthy of this.”

            “Cas—” Dean begins, mortified, but Cas continues with, “Please listen to me when I say this. You are the most important thing to me, always. You can scorn it all you want, Dean, but you can’t fault me for feeling the way I do about you.”

            Dean’s head goes back in his hands. “Shitting Christ.”

            The waiter chooses that convenient moment to serve their food. Dean doesn’t say a word the entire time they eat, and going off of his stormy, closed expression, Cas is grateful for once that he can’t read whatever it is that’s rustling around inside him. He has a feeling he wouldn’t want to know anyway.

            The waiter offers dessert, but doesn’t push it, seeming to sense the tension between them before he heads off. Cas sets down his fork carefully.

            “So what’s next?” he says. “Are we both going to pretend I didn’t say what I did?”

            “Yeah,” Dean says. “That’s looking like the plan.”

            Cas feels his jaw cock in frustration. “I understand non-mutual feelings, Dean. I didn’t expect reciprocation from you. I also understand that it’s most likely uncomfortable for you, to have a man who you see as a friend consider you romantically.” He wants to add that he’s male only in body, and genderless in every other aspect, but figures it would be unwise. “I wouldn’t ask you for anything in return. But I do request that you don’t entirely invalidate how I feel. It’s…insulting.”

            Dean scowls down at the remnants of his steak. There’s a high flush in his cheeks, and he once again keeps his eyes downcast. “Yeah, you’re right, it’s uncomfortable. And no offense, but I’m going to deal with this in any way that I can.”

            Cas’ voice is quieter now, trying to keep the hurt from his words and not quite succeeding. “Is it really that repulsive to you? What I feel?”

            Dean buries his head in his hands and doesn’t say anything for several moments, which Cas takes as a silent confirmation.

            Cas tosses his napkin down on the table and stands to go, feeling suddenly trapped, like it’s difficult to breathe.

            “Where are you going?” Dean asks, his head jerking up at the sound of the chair scraping along the deck.

            “Away from this,” Cas says, making a vague, sweeping hand gesture toward the table. “If that’s alright.” He hears Dean call after him but he doesn’t turn around; his ears are burning and he feels hot all over, something tight and uncomfortable in his throat. His hands are shaking uncontrollably.

            “Cas!” Zoe trills at the sight of him, but she stops a few feet away at the sight of his expression. “What’s happened?”

            “Not now, Zoe,” Cas says through clenched teeth, trying not to be rude as he brushes past her on his way to the hallway. He’s already peeling his suit jacket off by the time he gets into the room, and after he slams the door, he begins stripping off clothes from his sweaty, flushed skin, shivering at the bite of air conditioning on every inch he exposes. He heads instantly to the shower, not bothering to check himself in the mirror, afraid of what he might find.

            He turns the shower dial to the hottest setting and steps inside, wincing at the scald on his back but relishing the ferocity of the temperature. Steam curls up from his reddened skin, searing against his sunburn, and he inhales a thin, shaky breath.

            He hadn’t been expecting Dean to return his feelings, of course not. That would be assumptive and impractical—and ridiculous, given the ordeals he’s made Dean endure. But he supposed he hadn’t been prepared for...that reaction. He hadn’t been prepared to offer Dean a piece of himself, a deeply integral piece of himself, only to have it mercilessly stomped on. That’s what hurts. He’d anticipated, if he ever told Dean, perhaps initial discomfort and then understanding, and they’d move on. Cas would slowly work through his feelings, which would probably be quickly aided by the retrieval of his grace, and they could put it behind them.

            Now, of course, Cas realizes it was foolish to think he could ever “move past” Dean. He suspects those feelings are entrenched at the core of him and will take very meticulous, painstaking time to root out. As for now, he’s trapped in a small hell of his own making, still caught in the whiplash of his desire for Dean, admittedly crushed at the reception of that exact desire.

            He tips his head back and lets the rivulets soak through his hair, coursing down his back, pooling around his toes. He’s still got a sharp stinging in his eyes that feels suspiciously like impending tears, but he refuses to cry. Not over this, when it was his own masochism and utter lack of self-preservation that put him here in the first place.

            None of this was supposed to happen, he reminds himself glumly. This was supposed to be a quick hunt-and-kill. He can’t imagine being more woefully sidetracked.

            The bathroom door slams open with a bang and Cas jumps, his heart lurching into his throat.

            Schliel, he thinks, panicked, and instantly whips around in search of a weapon to defend himself, but finds only the shampoo rack. He instantly begins prying at it in hopes it’ll detach from the wall, adrenaline singing in his ears, making his hands even slicker than they already are with the shower water.

            The shower curtain suddenly rips back and Cas whirls, balling his fists to fight, and is shocked to see not Schliel, or any other kind of monstrous creature, but Dean.

            “What the hell are you doing?” he shouts, blinking through the water raining down on his head, but Dean’s already moving forward, his dress shoes sloshing in the excess water on the shower floor, and his trembling hands come up to cradle either side of Cas’ face in a firm grasp. Cas is breathing wildly, staring at him wide-eyed, his heartbeat thudding frantically to the beat of the shower water.

            “Tell me no,” Dean says, almost a plea, and kisses him, forcibly pushing him back against the shower wall. Cas flounders for a moment, his mouth moving on instinct into a rhythm with Dean’s, and his hands come to rest on the shoulder-pads of Dean’s suit jacket, his fingers sinking in to hold on for dear life.

            Cas gasps for breath when their mouths part, and he manages to get out, with a valiant amount of self-control, “You’re still dressed.”

            “Yeah,” Dean says breathlessly, his teeth grazing Cas’ lower lip.

            “You’re completely soaked.” His hands come up to curl in Dean’s wet hair, tightening experimentally, and Dean tilts his head back and groans in a way that makes all of the blood in Cas’ body swiftly change direction.

            Cas is panting now, head throbbing as he pushes himself back into the kiss. Dean seems to light up at the challenge, forcing Cas back into the wall again, his hand cupped on the side of Cas’ neck where his pulse is jumping wildly against his heated skin.

            “Does this mean,” Cas says through heavy gasps, lightheaded with disbelief, “that you…?”

            “God, Cas,” Dean says, helplessly, and his hands roam everywhere, as if he isn’t sure where to touch first. “You’ve been driving me crazy for days.”

            “You could’ve just said so,” Cas says, and Dean laughs, half-crazed, at the irritated tone, or maybe the craziness of the whole thing, before he leans back in, much more gently, to kiss Cas again. Cas is dizzy with it, catching Dean’s lower lip between his, and they breathe warmly into each other. It’s sweet and achingly affectionate, and Cas has got this feeling like he’s tangled in some current of breathless, unspoken gravity, like everything he’s ever known been leading to this, this shared, desperate, dizzying moment of human need for another person, for Dean. He can feel the sparks from busted barn-lights sizzling into his human flesh, all those years ago, with a sudden and vivid clarity; he wonders if he, then, could have fathomed this. If he would have been bewildered or terrified at the knowledge that this is where he would be.

            Or hopeful. He feels as though there’s a small bird trapped in the cage of his ribs, frenzying with every prolonged second of Dean’s proximity.

            “Is this okay?” Dean says when he pulls back, his pupil-dark eyes wide and terrified, his hair matted down endearingly with shower-water and poking out in tufts over his ears. “I’ve never—I mean, you’re—I know you said you didn’t want sex, so tell me no if it’s just me who wants this, because I don’t want to do anything that’s—God, I don’t really know how to—”

            Cas fastens his hands in the lapels of Dean’s suit jacket, tugging him forward, and Dean goes, lets himself be pulled in. Cas catches Dean’s eyes with his, imploring him to understand, somehow. “I want this. With you. Only you.”

            “Oh,” Dean says, his swollen lips slack with the realization, and the focus of his eyes has already dropped to hover on Cas’ mouth again, traveling lower to take in the rest of him. Cas lets him look, his hands moving back to brace against the wall, his chest heaving.

            “I don’t want to mess things up,” Dean whispers, taking a quick step back and shaking his head. He looks like he’s drowning in suit-clothes. “I can’t, I can’t afford to lose you, Cas, especially not over something like this, so you have to tell me if—if I do something wrong, you have to let me know—”

            “Dean,” Cas snaps. “Stop talking. Why are you still dressed.”

            Dean gives him that wide-eyed, glazed look again, then says, “Good point,” and peels off his sopping suit jacket, leaving it to soak on the shower floor. His white dress-shirt is soaked through and clinging to every angle of him, and the second it hits the ground in a wet slap, Cas reels him in greedily, his mouth already moving to explore the pulse-point on Dean’s neck, and Dean gives a small jump beneath him, like a skittish horse.

            “Jesus, Cas,” Dean whispers, his nose gliding against the shell of Cas’ ear. “I had no idea, I had no fucking clue—”

            Cas moves his mouth back to Dean’s to shut him up, and Dean whimpers into it, sliding his hands along Cas’ wet shoulders when Cas thumbs at the bolt of his jaw, rough with new stubble. Cas’ own hands slide down the length of Dean’s body, along the ladder of his ribs, across the soft give of his torso and pausing at his belt buckle. Dean gives a strained little noise when Cas starts to work at the buckle, attempting to keep their mouths in contact as he struggles to undo it.

            “You’re starved for this, aren’t you,” Dean teases when he pulls back, his voice dark with suggestion as he nips at Cas’ earlobe.

            “Don’t taunt me, Dean,” Cas grumbles, breaking away to frown down at the slick belt buckle. Dean’s fingers move down to assist him, and Cas can feel Dean’s eyes are heated, burning into him as the buckle slides free.

            “I can’t believe you’ve never done this before,” Dean says, sounding awed, maybe a little touched.

            “Never had occasion, before now,” Cas says with a small smile, blinking at Dean through the spray of shower-water, and Dean just stares at him like he’s looking into the sun. Cas has that ignited, incandescent feeling he’d experienced the night before, and he wonders if only Dean is capable of sparking that sensation.

            Dean hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and boxers and pushes them down in one go, stepping forward again to claim Cas’ mouth again as though he’s trying to swallow him whole. Cas groans, muffled and deep in his throat, his hands sliding up slickly to capture either side of Dean’s face so he can’t pull away.

            Dean’s hands nervously draw patterns across the flat of Cas’ stomach, and without breaking away, Cas gently takes his hand and guides it lower in permission to where he’s already half-hard. He knows that’s where Dean had been headed anyway, in a roundabout way.

            Dean pulls back to take a huge, trembling breath, and Cas waits patiently, his body humming with adrenaline.

            Dean, eyes fixed downward, gives Cas’ cock a slow, experimental pump, and Cas instantly arches into it with a moan, his mouth falling open in surprise.

            “You okay?” Dean demands, stilling instantly, his other hand floating up to rest uncertainly on Cas’ shoulder.

            “Yeah,” Cas breathes. “Don’t stop.”

            Dean gives another careful stroke, picking up speed and confidence when Cas’ knees go weak and his wet back slides a portion of the way down the marble tiles of the shower wall.

            “Heh,” Dean says, managing to sound smug. “Told you it was good.”

            “Shut up,” Cas says without any real heat behind it; the force of the retort is marred, actually, by his breathless voice, tailing up in another helpless, embarrassing whimper, and Dean’s grin widens.

            “Hold on, okay?” Dean murmurs, leaning forward to press his lips to the arch of Cas’ throat, and Cas starts to ask, “Dean—” but Dean’s hand speeds up into a flying pace and the word comes out in a strangled broken sound. Cas’ hands lock onto either of Dean’s shoulders to keep himself standing, momentarily blinded by the sensation rocking through him, and Dean is murmuring nonsense words into his neck now, some sweet but mostly filthy.

            Cas would usually be downright ashamed by some of the noises pouring out of him, helpless and high-pitched and needy, or by the way he’s raking his fingernails into Dean’s bare back, but he can’t quite bring himself to care, not when Dean pulls back to look at him with that half-awed, half-dark look that threatens to consume Cas entirely.

            “Dean,” Cas says raggedly, “I’m—”

            “Shh,” Dean murmurs, pressing his lips briefly into Cas’ shoulder, moving in time to Cas’ quick gasps. “It’ll feel good, okay? I promise. I’ve got you.”

            Cas shakes his head, half-terrified and half-drunk on the sensations that rock through him, alien and new and addictive and entirely overwhelming. His hips are jerking arrhythmically in time with Dean’s fist, entirely outside his control, and when Dean’s grip tightens and twists, Cas bucks into it.

            “God,” Dean whispers, his eyes huge, cheeks flushed, and his expression entirely dazed. “God, Cas, I love you.”

            That’s what does it; the crest Cas has been peaking toward swells up in him and his body goes stiff, his hand locking painfully onto Dean’s shoulder to steady himself against the tide of pleasure that rolls through him. A loud, helpless noise escapes him, which he can barely hear through his own thundering pulse as he rides through the sensations.

            He sags instantly when he’s finished, his knees buckling, and Dean tries to grab onto him before he slips entirely. They still somehow both end up in a tangle of limbs on the shower floor, and Dean is laughing now in disbelief.

            “Dude,” Dean says with a grin. “You could say that orgasm was groundbreaking.”

            “You’re not allowed to speak,” Cas grumbles, and his whole body feels lax and strung out and electric. His chest feels full with elation, Dean’s confession still ringing through him, with effects resembling shockwaves post-earthquake. “Wow.”

            “Agreed,” Dean says, still staring at Cas, some of the smile having faded into an intent expression.

            “I didn’t know it’d be like that,” Cas murmurs, attempting to shift but his bones feel like jelly, so he fails utterly. “Thank you for showing me.”

            “Uh, my pleasure.” Dean shifts uncomfortably, and it’s when Cas refocuses on his strained, near-pained expression that he remembers himself.

            “Oh,” he says, dumbly. “This is the part where I reciprocate.”

            “No,” Dean protests, reddening. “You don’t have to, honestly—”

            “I want to,” Cas insists, scooting forward eagerly into the V of Dean’s spread knees. Dean’s in a kneeling position supported by his heels, and he shifts uncomfortably under Cas’ stare.

            “Seriously,” Dean says, and he’s still blushing fiercely. “This was about making you feel good. I like that about sex, honestly—”

            “Sex is also about mutuality, if I’m correct,” Cas says with a frown, and studies Dean for a moment, who goes bright-red and squirms under his perusal. He cups one hand experimentally around Dean’s cock, and Dean makes a soft noise at the touch, canting forward instantly. Cas almost pulls back, startled by the reaction, but Dean’s hand drops down to secure him in place.

            “No, no, it’s good,” he reassures him, his breathing already picking up. “God, this is all kinds of unsanitary.”

            Cas starts to mimic Dean’s previous hand motions, Dean’s hand shadowing his, watching in fascination as Dean breaks apart under his ministrations, his head tilting back and his hips rolling forward, mouth parted.

            “If you’d’a told me, like,” Dean pants, “yesterday that we’d be giving each other handjobs on the shower floor—”

            Cas assumes if Dean is coherent enough to form speech that he’s not doing an adequate job, so he speeds his hand up so that Dean loses all capacity to talk. He does make a series of very interesting noises, though, ones Cas stores away for further appraisal.

            “Cas,” Dean grits out a few moments later, his fingers digging into the fleshy part of his thighs and whitening the skin, “Cas—” and Cas decides instantly that this is his favorite part of sex.

            Dean was already close, so it’s only a few moments more before he hisses out a long, winding breath between his teeth and comes as if he’s trying to hold himself back, jerking forward to place one blind, bracing hand on Cas’ shoulder. Cas is mesmerized by the way Dean’s face scrunches up into a half-pained, half-blissed expression, his mouth popping open on a soundless cry, and then it’s over, Dean leaning forward bonelessly as Cas steels him by either shoulder.

            “You alright?” Cas asks gently after a moment of Dean’s heavy breathing, rubbing either thumb into the soft bridges of his shoulders.

            “Yeah,” Dean says, hoarsely, his hands sliding up Cas’ thighs to support himself. “More than alright. Dude, that was like, so many of my wet dreams come to life.”

            “Glad to be of service.”

            For a long time they sit there clutching onto each other on the shower floor, winding down, letting the shower water drum onto their backs until it runs cold. The stark contrast to the heat that had lit through Cas before makes him shiver, which Dean notices almost immediately.

            “Bed?” he suggests, and Cas nods and follows him out of the shower after switching it off. Dean grabs a towel from the rack and wraps it snugly around his waist, then snags another one for Cas. Cas reaches for it, trembling with the after-effects of the cold (and the sex, probably), but Dean snaps it out of his reach with a taunting grin.

            “Dean,” Cas says with a scowl, his teeth chattering as he crosses both arms over himself.

            Dean smirks and tosses the towel on top of Cas’ head before affectionately scrubbing his hair dry, and Cas grumbles under the ministrations, feeling like a drowned cat.

            “Better?” Dean asks with a shit-eating grin, draping the towel around Cas’ shoulders. Cas clutches it tightly, still shivering.

            “Much.”

            “It’ll be warmer in bed.” Dean places a hand on the small of Cas’ back and pushes him gently toward the bedroom door. “I’ll be out in a second.”

            Cas doesn’t bother dressing himself, just drops the towel at the foot of the bed and nestles himself under the comforter, curling his legs in on himself in satisfaction at the instant increase in warmth.

            Dean reemerges moments later smelling of mint toothpaste and flicks out the light, dropping his towel on the floor and crawling into bed next to Cas. Cas grunts in disapproval as Dean’s cold legs tangle with his warm skin, and he feels rather than hears Dean breathe a huff of laughter against his neck in the dark.

            “Is this real?” Cas asks, not quite meaning to voice it, but it seems much is out the window tonight, including any of his discretion.

            “What do you mean?” Dean’s voice has dropped into a murmur and he shifts closer, pulling Cas close to him. Cas goes willingly, curling into him. He presses his forehead to Dean’s bare chest and breathes in time to the steady thud of his heartbeat.

            “I mean, will this be here tomorrow morning? Or are we going to pretend like this didn’t happen?”

            Cas can almost hear Dean’s frown down at the top of his head. “Cas. This, uh. Was kind of a big step from me. I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t happen.”

            “What about when we get back to Lebanon?” Cas asks, splaying his fingers over the anti-possession tattoo over Dean’s heart. He knows its exact location, even in the dark, as he knows most of the nuances of Dean’s body.

            Dean squirms at the mention, and Cas hears him swallow. “That’s not something we have to think about right now.”

            Cas nods in understanding. “Will we keep it from Sam? From Kevin?”

            Dean’s voice drops low in embarrassment. “If you’d be comfortable keeping it secret until I’m ready to talk to them about it….yeah. I know sexuality is kind of like a no-big-deal upstairs, but for humans it’s like….life-changing.”

            “I understand,” Cas says, arching an eyebrow, “but I can also place bets that there isn’t anything Sam doesn’t know about you.”

            Dean tenses, then loosens under Cas with a sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t know.”

            It goes quiet so long that Cas thinks their conversation is through. He’s almost lulled himself to sleep when Dean whispers in the dark, very much awake, “I don’t want you to find your grace.”

            Cas’ eyes fly open in surprise.

            “I know it’s selfish,” Dean continues, barely audible, and Cas wonders if he would’ve said these things aloud even if Cas were asleep. “Probably the most selfish thing I could want for you. But now that I’ve got this, I sure as hell don’t want to lose it. Is that wrong?”

            Cas slowly lets his eyes shut again, burrowing himself closer into the soft heat of Dean’s body. “I know. But I hope you know that even if I do find my grace, it won’t change things. Not on my end.”

            “But it will,” Dean says, sounding more upset now. “You don’t even realize it, but it will. You’ll be called back to heaven, to war—they want you, Cas. They look up to you. That’s assuming you survive getting the grace back. Metatron is powerful as fuck now. I know you’re pissed at him, but is it really that bad just to stay human? Stay out of all the shit that’s going on?”

            Cas wants to say a multitude of things—that he’d stay human, if it meant getting to stay with Dean for as long as he’s allowed—but it simply isn’t that simple. Thousands of faces, his siblings’ faces, flicker behind his closed eyes. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. For now, let’s just...sleep.”

            Dean nods in agreement, and his lips ghost softly over the top of Cas’ head, pressing a kiss to his damp hair. It’s the last thing Cas feels before he drops off into a warm darkness.

---

            Dean is woken up unpleasantly, as he usually is these days, by someone banging obnoxiously on their bedroom door.

            Dean casts his head up, his eyes refusing to open for a moment in his exhaustion, and when he tries to move, he realizes he’s practically glued to Cas, their bodies sticking together with sweat from being bunched together under the covers. Dean takes a moment to blink down at the image of Cas curled into him, who’s still unconscious—dude sleeps like the dead these days—and decides resolutely to ignore whoever’s at the door.

            The banging increases to an almost petulant extent.

            “Dean?” Cas mumbles, stirring for the first time and blinking up at him with sleepy blue eyes. “Aren’t you going to get that?”

            “Nah,” Dean says with a small smile, suddenly struck with ridiculous affection, which impels him to drop a kiss onto Cas’ temple. It feels…shockingly natural.

            Cas tilts his head back to stare at him in his weird, semi-alien way, and Dean can feel a hot flush creeping up his neck, which of course is twice as horrible when Cas’ eyes track the blush with bemusement.

            “Sorry,” Dean says, flustered, as Cas’ sleepy eyes find his again. “It’s just. Y’know, morning-after stuff. It’s—it’s stupid.”

            Cas narrows his eyes and he hums in his throat, “Hmm.” He leans forward and presses his lips to the base of Dean’s collarbone, and Dean’s breath hitches in his throat.

            “I’m still adapting to the…human learning curve,” Cas says, dropping kisses along the arch of Dean’s throat with painstaking slowness, and Dean gusts out an embarrassing, broken sigh, and tilts his head back in accommodation.

            “Well, you’re doing fine in my book,” Dean says with a heroic effort of composure as Cas’ fingers gently touch his chin, almost in wonder.

            “Dean Winchester,” he murmurs to himself, almost as though shaping the words in his mouth. Dean’s frozen, breath trembling in anticipation as Cas’ hand glides to gently cup the side of his neck. Cas’ thumb absently smoothes against his jawbone, near-reverent, and Dean leans forward in a moment of weakness to brush his nose against Cas’, just to prove that he can, that Cas is here and not leaving, not leaving, not leaving—

            “Dean Winchester!” someone yells in an unconscious echo outside the door, and the banging increases to gunfire-increments. Dean gives a loud groan, and for a moment they remain in place, both reluctant to disturb the odd intimacy of the moment, and then he rolls himself over out of bed, leaving Cas sighing in his wake. He grapples around for a pair of boxers, which he realizes only after yanking them up over his hips belong to Cas.

            Dean throws open the door, scowling into the hall-light. “What?”

            Shay pauses mid-knock, her mouth falling open and her eyes going wide as they take him in. “Oh my God, you did it.”

            “Did what?”

            “You did the thing.”

            “What thing?”

            “You did the do. With Cas. Ace in the hole.”

            “Ugh,” Dean groans, thudding his head on the doorframe in exasperation.

            “My little bisexual protégé,” Shay says, wiping a fake tear from her cheek. “I’m so proud.”

            “Shay, what do you want? It’s seven-freaking-thirty in the morning.”

            “I’m sorry,” Shay says in a sarcastic, simpering voice, her mouth curving up in a mischievous smile. “Did I interrupt your morning spooning session?”

            She had, actually, but Dean makes a face to downplay it. “Yeah, sure. What do you need?”

            Shay’s smile drops into something much more nervous, and she pulls the sleeves of her oversized sweater over her bunched hands. “I wouldn’t come if it weren’t an emergency. I said I’d stay out of your business, but I think I might need your help with something.”

            Dean blinks some more, and stares. “Emergency? Is it...not urgent or something?”

            “I mean, it could be nothing. It’s just. Thea’s gone missing.” Shay flaps her hand in irritation to play it off, but Dean can sense the undercurrent of anxiety in her fidgeting motions. “I mean, who knows, maybe she’s off fucking some married dudebro. That’s like her latest thing. But I haven’t seen her since last night.”

            “Shit,” Dean mutters. He’d meant to stick around after dinner to do some investigating, but had been...otherwise distracted. “Okay, I’ll get Cas up and we’ll look for her. Okay? Give us one second.”

            Shay breathes out a long sigh of relief, as if she’d been keeping it reigned in. “Thank you, Dean.”

            Dean shuts the door behind him and starts fishing around in his duffel for semi-clean clothes. “Cas, come on, up and at ‘em. Duty calls.”

            Cas gives an answering, reluctant groan and nestles deeper into the sheets, throwing the comforter over his head.

            “I don’t care if you’re tired. Get up.”

            Cas growls something under his breath.

            Dean moves over to the bed and pats down the comforter, his hand moving along the shape of Cas’ thighs before he successfully locates his ass and smacks it, hard. “Seriously, get up. Thea’s missing and Shay needs us.”

            Cas sighs deeply, his head still buried in the pillow, before he rolls over to fight his way out of bed. He takes only a few moments to get dressed, mix-matching clothes with his own jeans and one of Dean’s old band shirts, and Dean opens the door to greet Shay again, who’s biting off her cuticles and anxiously scanning the hallway. “Sorry about the wait. Where did you last see Thea?”

            “Congrats on the sex,” Shay says to Cas, who makes a prudish face that’s downright comical on him, before she turns to Dean and says, “We got in kind of a tiff at dinner last night so she went back to the room early. When I came back, she wasn’t there.”

            “I doubt Schliel has anything to do with that,” Cas says.

            Shay frowns, struggling to keep in step. “Who’s Schliel?”

            “Long story.”

            “Getting real tired of hearing that.”

            “Didn’t he say he needed our help on something?” Dean asks Cas. “Do you remember that?”

            Cas nods, licking his lips pensively, and Dean tracks the motion. “He was quite adamant about that very point,” he says. “He very much wanted me alive.”

            “Well, you said it yourself,” Shay says, angrily. “Whatever shit it is that you two are involved in doesn’t involve me or my girlfriend.”

            “That’s funny,” Dean says dryly, mainly to play devil’s advocate. “Didn’t you say a few nights ago that it was your problem as much as ours?”

            “That was before Thea got fucking kidnapped,” Shay throws back. “She has nothing to do with this.”

            “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid,” Dean says, exasperated. “When other people get mixed up with people like us, this is exactly what happens, each and every time. I’m sorry Thea’s missing but you can’t say I didn’t warn you, Shay.”

            “Drag me into it all you want,” Shay says, stopping to look at Dean heatedly, her hands bunching into fists at her sides. “I can take the fight, honestly. But I want Thea out of this.”

            “If you’re in it, then Thea’s in it too. That’s just how it goes. They’ll go for the ones you love, every time. It’s been getting me killed for years.”

            “‘Getting you killed?’” Shay echoes, her brow furrowing.

            “Er, figure of speech.”

            A weird thing happens as they pass by the final room door adjacent to the hallway exit; there’s a sudden bang, and a muffled, terrified scream from behind the closed door. Dean pauses, not sure he’d heard what he thought he did, and Shay freezes only for a moment before she’s throwing herself at the door, banging and twisting the knob desperately.

            “Whoa, whoa!” Dean shouts, placing a hand on Shay’s shoulder to reel her back, but she knocks him away in a vicious swipe sideways.

            “It’s Thea,” Shay says, panic ringing in her voice. “Dean, it’s her, I know it is, oh God—”

            “Stand back,” Dean warns, bracing a hand across her chest and pushing her back. He squares one foot on the door in aim, and he hears Cas say behind him, in admonition, “Dean—” but he’s already delivered a sharp, brutal kick to the door, busting the hinge as it flies open.

            Schliel gazes up in casual surprise at the noise, refocusing from where the edge of a knife is pressed against Thea’s jugular. Thea, tied to a chair in the center of the room, squirms desperately, her lips parted with shock.

            “Ah,” Schliel says demurely. “We have guests.”

            “Let her go!” Shay’s voice breaks into a near-scream and she makes an abrupt, violent move forward, but Dean snags her by the arm and yanks her back.

            Schliel frowns, seeming genuinely confused as he gestures down at Thea. “Is this not the one you two have been running around with?”

            “Wrong one,” Dean says flatly, his hand gliding into his back pocket to grip securely around his knife.

            “Oh, I thought she looked a little unfamiliar.” Schliel shrugs and readjusts his grip on the knife, pressing the flat of the blade harder against the skin of Thea’s neck. “But it got you here regardless.”

            “Shay,” Thea whispers, her eyes bright with unshed tears, her chest heaving. “What’s going on?”

            Shay is speechless, equally teary-eyed, and she looks to Dean despairingly.

            “Alright, douchebag,” Dean says in an even voice, raising both empty hands in a gesture meant to be placating. “You got our attention, congrats. It’s us you want, right? The girl’s got nothing to do with it. Let her go.”

            “I needed some kind of leverage,” Schliel says, sullen, and he tightens his other hand in Thea’s wiry hair, pulling tight until she whimpers. “You two were being rather uncooperative.”

            Shay makes a desperate noise next to Dean.

            “As long as you comply, nothing happens to the girl,” Schliel says agreeably. “See? I can be reasonable.”

            “What are your terms?” Cas demands. “Speak plain.”

            Schliel gives a slow smile before he cants his head sideways. “I’ve got Metatron on heavenly mute right now, that way we can chat nice and proper.”

            “I thought you two were bosom-buddies?” Dean says sarcastically.

            “Metatron is a little twerp,” Schliel replies, his voice dripping with disdain. “He, too, is a means to an end. But rather inconveniently, that same little twerp has a head the size of Jupiter. He’s...overreached, you could say. He’s begun to irritate even his alliances. Locked us all out of heaven, you see.”

            “Did you ask Bruno Mars for help?” Dean asks, attempting a joke, and he receives flat, unappreciative looks from everybody in the room.

            Schliel purses his lips and ignores Dean. “This is the part where I need your help. Castiel’s grace is the only ingredient that can reopen the gates of heaven. You retrieve it for me, Metatron gets the axe, we all skip off into the sunset, holding hands. Capiche?”

            “Why would we do that?” Dean asks, snorting in disbelief.

            Schliel smiles coldly and presses the blade of the knife into the skin of Thea’s throat, close to breaking skin. Thea squeaks in terror and Shay shouts, panic-stricken, “Dean!”

            “If my sources tell me correctly, you know where Castiel’s grace has been hidden,” Schliel continues. “If you tell me where it is, I’ll take us there. And, as an added bonus, I’ll let your friends live. I see you’re about to ask: ‘but Schliel, how?’ It’s not complicated as far as plans go, really, Dean. Castiel retrieves his grace and delivers it to me; I wipe Metatron off the face of the earth like the maggot he is. I reclaim control of heaven, and you two go back to your….” Schliel makes a shooing, distasteful hand gesture with his free hand. “…interspecies canoodling.”

            “While I’m all in favor of icing Pseudo-God—” Dean begins, but Cas interrupts him with, “Your sources have told you incorrectly, Schliel. We don’t know where my grace is hidden.”

            Schliel purses his lips in mock-surprise, his eyes drifting lazily to Dean. “Is that so, Dean?”

            Dean’s stomach does this funny, bottoming-out feeling as Cas turns to face him, confusion written clear on his face.

            “Dean,” Cas says, his eyebrows cresting in bewilderment.

            Dean keeps his eyes fixed in a dark scowl on Schliel, who gives a slow, ugly grin in return.

            “And here I was thinking you two had sorted through all of your issues,” Schliel says. “He really didn’t tell you, Castiel? Tsk tsk.”

            “Dean wouldn’t lie to me,” Cas says firmly, but Dean can hear the tremor of doubt in his voice. “Not about this.”

            “No, no, he wouldn’t. Would you, Dean?” Schliel says.

            “Dean?” Cas asks again, much more uncertainly.

            Dean closes his eyes and drops his head, his throat closing up. “It wasn’t for sure, we didn’t know for sure—Sam just said he might have a lead—”

            “You knew?” Cas says, sounding stunned, and Dean inwardly cringes. “You knew how much it meant to me and you kept it from me? For—for what?”

            “It was for your own sake,” Dean says in a low voice, his eyes still shut. “Cas, I’m—shit, I’m sorry.”

            “Why?” Cas’ voice has gone stiff and quiet, and when Dean looks up quickly, Cas is glancing in the other direction, his jaw working.

            “I was trying to protect you,” Dean says, and yeah, the excuse sounds pretty fucking horrible even to his own ears. “Maybe that was stupid, in retrospect, I don’t know. I was going to tell you, Cas, I swear to God I was, but I knew you weren’t ready—”

            Cas whirls on him, his eyes bright with a spark of his old, heavenly wrath, deep-rooted anger that Dean hasn’t seen in a very long time. “That was not your call to make.”

            Schliel clucks from across the room. “Trouble in paradise?”

            “Shut up,” Dean and Cas retort at the same time, turning their scowls on him, and Schliel makes an affronted expression and holds one of his hands up in mock surrender.

            “All this time,” Cas says, clenching his hands into fists, “this entire time, when I talked about finding my grace, you were lying through your teeth. You watched me mourn losing it—”

            “I wasn’t lying,” Dean fires back, scrambling to defend himself, to make Cas understand. “You and I both know you were nowhere near ready to take on Metatron. It would’ve been a suicide mission and we both know it. I’m sorry for lying to you, alright, seriously, I am. But I’m not going to apologize for trying to keep you alive, Cas, whatever the cost.”

            “My life is not your bargaining chip,” Cas says through gritted teeth. “And that was not your information to keep from me.”

            Shay takes that convenient moment to rip the knife from where it’s dangling slack in Dean’s hand, and with a grunt of effort, she chucks it across the room at Schliel, where it embeds neatly in the center of his chest with a soft schwick noise. Thea gives a strangled scream of surprise.

            “Holy shit,” Dean chokes out, just as Schliel frowns down at the knife protruding from him and says, “Very rude.”

            “I don’t know who this Grace person is,” Shay says in a trembling voice, and Dean notices her hands are shaking in fear. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with me or my girlfriend.”

            Schliel sighs, unsticking the knife from his chest with a bored expression. “And now I’m losing my patience.” He tightens his fist and immediately Shay collapses next to Dean with a hoarse, wet gasp.

            “Shay?” Dean demands, dropping into a crouch next to her, and Shay puts a hand at her throat, her eyes bulging. She chokes, deep in her throat, and spits a spray of blood, mottling the white carpet.

            “Stop!” Dean shouts at Schliel, whose smile widens maliciously as he twists his fist. Thea is struggling against the bondage keeping her trapped, screaming at Shay.

            “I reckon she has about two minutes to live,” Schliel says, tipping his head sideways in contemplation. “Before she chokes to death on her own blood.”

            “Dean, tell him,” Cas says in a strained voice from above him. “Tell him where it is.”

            “I—”

            “Tell him,” Cas growls.

            “Fine,” Dean says, “fine, I’ll tell you,” and Shay instantly stops convulsing, sucking in wet, rasping gasps. Her lips are bright red, shining with blood, and her eyes water as she looks up to Dean, dazed.

            “You heard the boy-toy,” Schliel says. “That’s what he is now, right? Unless I was mistaken with the whole shower debacle.”

            “God, you are so creepy,” Dean says.

            Schliel shrugs.

            “It’s in Nevada,” Dean says, offering a hand to Shay gently, who takes it in a trembling grasp. He won’t meet Cas’ eyes, but he can feel his gaze on him like a physical weight. “I mean, Sam didn’t know for sure. But there’s a garden near the Mojave Desert where he’s placing bets.”

            “A garden?” Schliel says, briefly displacing the knife from Thea’s neck to twirl it slowly. “That could be anything.”

            “It sprang up overnight.” Dean helps Shay to her feet, where she leans on him for support. “In the desert. It’s the best lead we got.”

            Cas takes a deep, slow breath next to Dean, and when Dean glances sideways, his eyes are fixed on the ceiling, lips drawn tight. Dean can still feel the soft press of those lips on his, and it seems almost like a different lifetime, now. This is their reality, Dean thinks bleakly. The dishonesty, the hurt, the betrayal.

            Dean fucking things up, as he knew he would.

            Schliel, looking at Dean, bares his teeth in a gross semblance of a grin. “Oh, Castiel, take a look at his face. How much he loathes himself.”

            “Shut up,” Dean snaps, but his voice is weak, giving him away instantly.

            “Dean,” Cas says, and Dean looks over at him in his stupid, ratty Black Sabbath shirt and his unkempt hair and stubble and it’s stupid, he thinks, how much he loves this dumbass. He wants to open his mouth and tell him, in hopes that it’ll sweep all their shit resolutely under the rug, but there’s no point.

            “I’m sorry,” is what he says instead, and he kind of hates how Cas’ eyes soften at the words.

            “I…understand why you did it,” Cas says, much more quietly, his gaze on the floor now. “And that, to me, makes it more forgivable. Your intentions were pure, as they always are, Dean. I can’t fault you for that.”

            Schliel makes a noise of utter disbelief from where he’s still got a hand locked in Thea’s curls. “Are you kidding me, Castiel? It’s no wonder you keep letting yourself get bent over. One puppy dog look from Dean Winchester and you’ll phone it all in, won’t you?”

            Cas glares at Schliel half-heartedly, and Dean waits for Cas’ counterargument, but he doesn’t give any; just doesn’t say anything, as if he can’t even contradict it.

            Schliel rolls his eyes to the ceiling, making an exaggerated retching noise in his throat. “You’re so whipped. It’s gross.”

            “I’m simply reprioritizing,” Cas says icily, and manages to look threatening and smitey despite also looking like he got dragged straight from a heated round of morning sex. His voice drops into bass-growl mode. “Let the girl go. I won’t ask twice.”

            Despite all the shit that’s going down, some small, smug voice in the back of Dean’s head chimes in, I tapped that.         

            Schliel rolls his eyes but releases Thea, who instantly tries to jerk herself free of the chair.

            “Precious time is being wasted,” Schliel says, absently snapping his fingers to free Thea. With a gasp she surges up, ripping off the ropes and stumbling over to Shay. At once she takes Shay’s face between her hands and kisses her between the eyebrows. It’s such a tender, intimate moment that Dean glances away to give them privacy.

            “Garden in Nevada, you say?” Schliel says to himself, closing his eyes as if mentally Googling something.

            Cas moves closer to Dean, and Dean is surprised to feel Cas’ hand slipping into his tentatively, twining their fingers together.

            Dean looks at him in surprise, guiltily squeezing back. “You’re not pissed?”

            “I am,” Cas assures him, lifting one eyebrow. “But we may die within the next fifteen minutes, so I’m...as you say, stowing my crap.”

            “If we survive, does that mean we’re having a lot of angry hate sex?” Dean says hopefully.

            Cas purses his lips in wary amusement now. “Most definitely.”

            “Sweet.”

            “Dean,” Shay says, and when Dean turns, her hand has slipped into Thea’s, her thumb stroking along Thea’s soothingly. “You know I want to stay and fight, to see this through to the end, but—”

            “No,” Dean says, quickly. “I get it. Precious cargo and all. Seriously, get out of here, Shay.”

            Shay bites her lip hesitantly, and Thea gives her hand an urgent tug.

            “Shay, let’s go,” she whispers, her eyes focused nervously on Schliel.

            Shay lets go of Thea’s hand briefly to step forward and wrap Dean and Cas in a loose hug, her chin resting on their shoulders where they touch.

            “Please be careful,” she says, squeezing tighter, and Dean squeezes back.

            “Oh, you know me,” Dean jokes, but Shay pulls back and gives him a worried look, chewing down on her lip again.

            “I do,” Shay says. “That’s exactly why I’m afraid for you.”

            Dean swallows, opens his mouth to reply, and for a moment doesn’t know what to say other than, “We’ll be fine, Shay.”

            “Look after him, Cas,” Shay orders, raising an eyebrow in Cas’ direction, “and yourself.” She clasps Thea’s hand in hers again and pulls her toward the door, casting one look back before it closes behind them.

            “Safe travels,” Schliel singsongs after them, his thumb pressed to his chin, his eyes still closed in concentration. “Ah, yes, found it. Quite the tourist attraction, I see.”

            “And how do you know we’re not walking into a trap?” Cas says. “If my grace is there, Metatron can’t be far behind.”

            Schliel opens his eyes and grins Cheshire-like, an angel blade sliding out from his sleeve. “That, my dear Castiel, is exactly what I’m relying on. I hope you two are prepared for battle.”

            “Do we have a plan?” Dean asks skeptically. “Because right now, this whole thing is looking like a shit-show.”

            “I’m far more powerful than even Metatron realizes,” Schliel says, twirling the angel blade expertly in his hands. “I’ll take him on while you two snag the grace.”

            “How are we supposed to find it?” Dean asks with a frown.

            “I’ll know,” Cas says to Dean in a low aside.

            “You sure?”

            “Entirely.”

            Dean swallows, his palm slick as he tightens his hand on Cas’ in question. “You sure about this? No takebacks.”

            “And that grace goes directly to me, Castiel,” Schliel says. His voice is calm but his eyes are dark with threat. “If you attempt to take it back, I’ll slit your throat and take it for myself. Understood?”

            “Loud and clear,” Cas answers, just as civilly, but Dean picks out the vitriol in his voice easily.

            “We’re entering a battleground the moment we set foot in the garden,” Schliel says, kicking Thea’s chair sideways and crossing toward them with a lithe, graceful step. “I’d say now is the time to say your teary farewells.”

            Cas releases Dean’s hand and for a moment they gaze at each other uncertainly, lost for what to say. They’ve had their fair share of last-night-on-earth speeches, so to speak.

            “We’ll be fine,” Dean says with a broad smile in an attempt at reassurance, but it falls flat. He claps a hand on Cas’ shoulder, and it feels familiar, natural. Cas smiles back, just as feebly.

            “Yes,” Cas says, and fixes his eyes with Dean’s firmly. “I love you.”

            That one’s a little more unfamiliar.

            Dean’s mouth quirks up in a small, soft grin. “I know.”

            Cas’ smile drops, and his eyes narrow into something just short of a glare. “Usually a statement like that warrants some sort of reciprocation, Dean.”

            “No, no, it’s—never mind.”

            Schliel locks a hand on either of Dean and Cas’ shoulders, tightening his cold fingers in a bony grasp.

            “You already know how I feel, anyway,” Dean says, and then they’ve vanished into a bend of space and ozone.

---

            It takes a moment of closed eyes and heavy swallowing to reorder Dean’s digestive system, which seems to have shifted completely out of alignment during the flight, and to reorient himself on the solid ground under his feet. After he’s collected himself, he opens his eyes.

            Instantly he has to catch his breath, because yeah, he’d been expecting a garden, but he hadn’t been expecting this.

            It’s….huge, for one thing. There are bushes dotted with purple, bell-shaped flowers, weeping willows with long threads of leaves that sway in the wind, roses and hydrangeas and azaleas, tall oaks whose leaves whisper with the dry desert breeze. There’s a small pond fringed by lilies, the glassy water patched over with lily pads. A soft dirt path, worn and eroded by the footsteps of tourists, winds through the various trees and flora, halting at an enormous oak tree in the center of the garden that arches up symmetrically almost out of sight, the trunk twice as thick as Dean is wide.

            Dean takes a deep breath. The air is dry with desert heat, both sweet and acrid to the taste. He feels a strange flash of nostalgia for a life he never had, of childhood innocence that he’s long since lost, and is momentarily dizzy.

            “Damn,” is all he can manage as he looks around. “Your grace did all of this?”

            He glances sideways to Cas, whose eyes are glassed over with tears.

            “Hey,” he says in concern, fixing a hand on his shoulder. He’s reluctantly transfixed; he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Cas cry, or come close to it, even. “Cas?”

            “I’m sorry,” Cas says thickly, shaking his head and shutting his eyes. “I’m fine. Just…taken off-guard. I didn’t expect this.”

            “Can you feel it?” Dean asks. “Do you know where it is?”

            His eyes still shut, Cas points forward, to the giant tree in the center of the garden. “It’s there.”

            “You sure?”

            “I’ve never been more so.”

            “While you two are having a little moment,” Schliel says beside them through gritted teeth, and when Dean glances over, his thin jaw is locked with tension, his hand clenched white-knuckled around the angel blade. “Have you noticed, perhaps, the lack of anyone?”

            Dean glances around again, this time in surprise. Schliel’s right; the garden’s totally empty.

            “This isn’t right,” Schliel mutters, his fingers repositioning on his blade. “He should be here.”

            “Are you complaining?” Dean snaps, then gives Cas a quick rub on the shoulder. “Cas, go get your grace.”

            “I’m not sure how to extract it,” Cas says, and Dean notices that he’s recovered himself, although he still looks a bit shaky.

            “Won’t it magnetize to you? Just go over and see if you can contact it.”

            “Wait,” Schliel says in a strained voice. “This could be a trap.”

            “No shit,” Dean says. “We might as well get the grace if we’re going to walk headfirst into it. This was your stupid idea, by the way.”

            “Schliel is right, Dean,” Cas says, shifting from foot to foot uncertainly. “Metatron would guard my grace with his life. It’s the only thing keeping heaven sealed from the rest of the angels, and it’s the only thing maintaining his power.”

            “Fine,” Dean says in exasperation. “If you two are gonna stand there with your thumbs planted firmly up your asses, I’ll get it.” He takes a resolute step forward, despite Cas’ strangled, “Dean,” and Schliel’s hissed, “Wait!”

            At once, a ripple thrums through the earth under their feet, as though Dean had crossed some unseen borderline, and an ominous tinny sound begins to hum in the air, shaking the trees.

            “You fool,” Schliel snarls, and Cas takes Dean’s hand and tugs him back, unthinkingly positioning Dean behind him in a protective stance.

            The humming heightens to an uncomfortable intensity, and Schliel suddenly gives a yowl of pain and goes down next to them. Dean whirls and sees that golden shackles, apparently from nowhere, have been secured around Schliel’s wrists.

            Cas gives a soft, sudden whine from his position in front of Dean and drops to his knees, his wrists also bound.

            “Cas!” Dean instantly drops into a crouch, his fingers working to free the handcuffs, but Cas shakes his head wildly, yanking his hands from Dean’s grasp.

            “Dean, the grace,” Cas pants, his eyes wide with urgency. “Go.”

            “But—”

            “Go!”

            Dean launches himself toward the tree in a dead sprint, giving a sharp, pained shout as the buzzing intensifies to a near-deafening decibel. He clamps his hands around his ears and continues running, even though he can feel blood trickling through the slats of his fingers.

            He can feel something in him thrumming to life with his growing proximity to the tree, some sort of deep-bedded recognition, or the familiarity of returning home, even if the feeling itself is somewhat unfamiliar. He yanks out his pocket-knife, one of his hands still clamped around his ear, but the knife goes spinning from his grip and he finds himself dragged to the ground in a sharp yank. He gives a frustrated yell, struggling to free his hands from where they’ve been suddenly shackled to a protruding root from the ground. He gives a vicious tug, feeling the bite of the metal into his wrists.

            “Welcome, welcome,” booms Metatron’s familiar, obnoxious voice from the heavens, and it’s so earth-shatteringly loud that Dean groans. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

            Like something out of a shitty CGI movie, Metatron materializes in front of them, dressed in what appears to be a floor-length white robe, tied with a brown belt. He’s wearing brown leather sandals.

            “Nice toga, douchebag,” Dean snaps, still fighting to free the bonds.

            “You like?” Metatron says smugly, spinning to give the full effect. “The messiah look is in.”

            Dean’s eyes flicker to Cas, who has his head bowed, his shoulders trembling with suppressed pain. Schliel is in the same position, his chest heaving, his features twisted in anguish.

            “What did you do to them?” Dean demands, meaning to sound authoritative, but adrenaline makes his voice tremble.

            “A little weapon of my own design,” Metatron says, crossing to Cas and Schliel with a swish of his robes along the dirt ground. “Pure gold handcuffs cauterized in holy fire. It keeps naughty angels and post-angels riiiiight in their place. It’s quite handy in heaven’s prison, with which our dear Cas is very familiar. Aren’t you, Castiel?”

            “Go to hell,” Cas spits, his head still ducked.

            Metatron frowns, seeming genuinely affronted. “I don’t like your attitude very much.”

            A sudden flicker of movement catches Dean’s eye peripherally, and he cranes his neck to see. It’s a robed figure, its back turned to them, knelt in either prayer or meditation some yards away next to a small, babbling creek that courses the length of the garden.

            Dean glances quickly over to Metatron, who’s frowning in the direction of the faceless figure, clearly just as puzzled.

            “Excuse me, sir,” Metatron calls out amiably, his thrumming voice ringing in the quiet. “Visiting hours are closed for today.”

            The robed figure holds up two brown, wizened hands as if in surrender, his back still turned, and stands to go, shuffling along the creek with his head bowed until he’s out of Dean’s eyeshot.

            “We get a lot of religious kooks in here,” Metatron confides to Dean, winking. “They think this garden marks the return of God to the earth. Which…” Metatron smoothes the robe over his pudgy stomach, smiling indulgently. “They’re not wrong.”

            “Don’t you ever get tired of riding your own dick?” Dean says.

            “Keep up the sass, Dean,” Metatron replies with a wide, toothy smile. “While I enjoy your wit immensely, it also gives me a valid excuse to snap Castiel’s neck.”

            Dean goes silent at that, glaring at Metatron resentfully.

            “That’s what I thought.” Metatron turns to Cas, spreading his arms wide. “Castiel! Humor me. How’s humanity been treating you?”

            Cas glances up at his name, his hair matted with sweat, and despite the contortion of pain on his features, he manages a venomous scowl.

            “Not well, hmm?” Metatron simpers. “You know, you didn’t have to make it difficult. I told you to find a nice girl and settle down, but you…” Metatron begins to pace, his hands clasped behind his back. “You chose the Winchester route, didn’t you? I’d thought you had a stronger sense of self-preservation than that, but you proved me wrong.” He wags his head sadly, clucking in his throat. “The great Castiel and Dean Winchester, pairing of the gods. It used to be endearing, really—great story fodder. Character development and heartache in all the right places. But it’s become a tad too tiring. The song remains the same, and so on.”

            “You see,” Metatron continues, while Dean continues to wear away at the root with the cuffs, hoping it’ll snap. “Nobody wants to keep reading when the main couple gets together. People want a tragedy, they want angst, they want the juicy struggle. Red-bow endings are boring.”

            “Sorry to put you out,” Dean says with sarcasm, pausing in his ministrations when Metatron swings his head to look at Dean sharply.

            Metatron shrugs, his lower lip pushing out. “You’re not putting me out. We’ve just reached the inevitable point in the story where everyone dies.” He turns to Schliel with a small smile, bypassing Cas with a swift kick to his ribs. Cas groans and slumps over, wheezing in pain.

Dean struggles with the handcuffs more urgently, and is shocked to see two dark hands suddenly working beside his, his knife in unfamiliar nimble fingers, sawing at the root.

            Dean’s head snaps up and dark, kind eyes peer back at him. Then slowly, the man raises one finger to his lips.

            “Schliel,” Metatron says gloatingly, beginning to circle him as his blade slips from his sleeve into his hand. “My old friend.”

            “Please, Metatron,” Schliel says in a hoarse voice, his eyes trained on Metatron fearfully. “Don’t do this.”

            “You were going to stab me in the back,” Metatron says matter-of-factly. “Et tu, Brute?”

            Dean remains very quiet and very still, trying not to draw attention as the man works at the root he’s fettered to.

            “Who are you?” Dean whispers through the side of his mouth. “Do I know you?”

            “I am Joshua,” the man replies, just as quietly. “Do you not remember?”

            Dean blinks in surprise, hazy memories from his stint in heaven re-stirring. “You’re—”

            “Shh,” Joshua murmurs, and the root snaps free with a quiet crack. “I am here to help.” He works next on Dean’s handcuffs, the sharp blade of the knife grating harshly against the metal keeping him bound.

            Dean hears an agonized scream of pain, and when he and Joshua look up, Schliel’s whole body seems to be aflame, grace streaming out of his eyes and slack mouth like a combusted star. Metatron twists the knife into his chest more sharply with a cruel laugh, and Schliel slumps sideways, his eyes burnt into crisp, blackened sockets.

            Metatron stands, wiping the blood from the knife on Schliel’s pinstriped jacket, and when he turns, he and Joshua lock eyes for the first time.

            Metatron pulls himself up straighter, tilting his head, bird-like, in a way that reminds Dean strikingly of Cas. “Joshua. My dear brother. What an unexpected surprise. I know you’re not trying to help Dean Winchester escape, because that would be terribly stupid of you.”

            Joshua drops the pocketknife within inches of Dean in a gesture of surrender; when Dean glances down, he sees that the chains of the handcuffs have been entirely severed, save for one weak, remaining link, easily snapped with the right force. Dean sucks in a deep, slow breath, keeping his hands in place so it appears Joshua hadn’t finished.

            “It saddens me,” Joshua says, “that we meet under such circumstances, my old friend.”

            “I don’t want to kill you, Joshua,” Metatron says, quirking his eyebrows up in a genuinely conflicted expression. “Please. I’m giving you the chance, right now, to walk away.”

            “I’m sorry, brother,” Joshua says coldly. “But I am heaven’s gardener, and it’s my job to see that weeds are properly removed.”

            Metatron’s lip curls at that, his hand tightening on his blade. “I’ll give you a second option, then.” He kneels down next to Cas and roots a hand in his hair, yanking his chin up and digging the point of the knife into his Adam’s apple. Cas gives a choked noise of protest, and Dean makes an unintended sound in his throat, jerking forward instinctively.

            “Wait,” Joshua murmurs, without moving his lips. Dean knows only he’s heard it. Joshua’s foot moves, just barely within perceptible notice, and when Dean glances down, he sees an empty glass vial at Joshua’s foot, nudged within Dean’s reach.

            The grace, Dean realizes.

            “Either you leave now,” Metatron says, his grin widening with glee, “or I gut Castiel while you watch.”

            “Nobody has to die,” Joshua says, more earnestly now. “Metatron, please. See reason.”

            Dean’s hand closes around the sweaty hilt of his knife. He keeps his gaze fixed firmly forward, his eyes fastened, steadfast, on Cas.

            Metatron laughs maniacally, his fingers tightening in Cas’ scalp. Cas grimaces. “Nobody has to die? Nobody cared if I was left for dead, when I was cast out of heaven like a pariah, but now, now when I have reclaimed my rightful power, I’m expected to show mercy!” There’s some spittle flying from Metatron’s lips as he works himself up. Dean is poised, held in position with electric tension, waiting for the moment to move. “That’s a good joke, Josh. Best one I’ve heard in years.”

            “Now,” Joshua whispers, again without moving his mouth, and Dean surges into action. In a few swift movements, he’s snapped through the remaining chain link, his free hand closing around the vial nearby, and he stumbles to his feet and whirls, gouging the bark of the tree with the blade of his knife.

            At once, curls of white, soupy liquid sputter from the cut, and Dean places the lip of the vial to capture it, his heartbeat hammering in his throat. His body is resonating with every whorl of grace that fills the vial, like someone’s hit his bones with a tuning fork.

            He rotates sideways to meet Metatron’s eyes in a challenge, and Metatron’s lip curls in a malicious sneer in response. Then his mouth slowly curves up in a smile, one that makes Dean’s gut drop in a swooping sensation.

            With one quick, vicious stab, Metatron drives the blade into Cas’ stomach.

            Dean’s entire world tilts on its axis.

            “No!” he hears Joshua shout next to him.

            All the blood in Dean’s body seems to rush to his head, and it fills his ears to pound there like a hollow drum. It’s enough to make him sick, and he lurches sideways. His mental circuit seems to have lost all ability of rational thought—there’s a frantic chant of Cas, Cas, Cas, on repeat with his pulse, and Metatron is laughing and laughing, his knife dripping with blood, Cas is curled in on himself, his shoulders convulsing, his blood pooling out around him, dying, Cas is dying, and then—

            Dean does something incredibly fucking stupid.

            He meets Metatron’s eyes again and he shakily brings the full vial to his lips, tilting his head back to swallow the grace in one go, the searing burn in his throat sending his body into flame.

            “Dean, no!” He thinks he can hear Cas shouting at him, screaming his name, but he can’t really hear anything anymore, not really—the world goes white around him, and he’s gone.

---

            Cas is dying. But that’s not his priority. Not really.

            He’s fixed, horrified, on the way Dean collapses to the ground on his hands and knees, his shoulders shuddering in distortions as the grace eats through him, licking through his veins, swallowing him alive. Cas’ vision is fading in and out in strangely colored flashes and there’s dark blood, his blood, soaked through his shirt, into the earth around him, dripping on his hands, but he can’t feel a thing except a distant throb of pain. Adrenaline and terror bite through him, more potent than any physical anguish.

            “Dean,” he hears himself say, over and over again, and he tastes the blood bubbling on his lips as he gives a rattling cough. Dean’s whole frame is still racking, the veins in his arms illuminating in silver and blue, like fractured starlight.

            Metatron is in hysterics beside Cas, bent over so his elbows are on his knees. He’s crying with laughter. His knife is still soaked in Cas’ blood.

            “He’s an idiot,” Metatron says through giggles. “He’s an utter moron. Oh, Lord, it doesn’t really get better than this.”

            Cas is dying. He’s holding his last breaths in his lungs, his human heart is drumming out its final, frantic beats.

            The only thing he can find in him is a sick, gutting panic, directed toward the man burning up not thirty feet away in front of him. He can hear Dean’s name in screams, ringing hollowly in his ears.

            “He’ll be dead in seconds,” Metatron says with a sneer, his eyes fixed on Dean gleefully.

            But Dean surprises him. He always does, Cas thinks, as though down a long tunnel.

            Dean shakily stands to his feet, swaying sideways with his head still bowed, his hands held palms-up in front of him, his whole frame trembling. His body is still lit from the inside out, a bottled star in skin.

            Dean looks up slowly, and a chill lances through Cas to the marrow. His eyes are not their familiar green, but an ethereal, brilliant blue.

            “Behold,” Joshua says softly, and whistles lowly under his breath.

            “Behold what?” Metatron snarls, but he takes an uncertain step backward. “Winchester’s not in the bloodline. He’s going to combust.”

            “I would be afraid,” Joshua says with a small smile, his eyes focused in keen interest now on Dean.

            “Afraid of what?”

            “The soul of the righteous man has been reunited with Castiel’s grace,” Joshua says. “I would be very afraid.”

            Dean doesn’t seem to be on the conscious plane. He blindly takes a step forward and almost goes to his knees again, his mouth parting in agonized pain. More light streams out between his teeth.

            Cas’ vision is fading, blacking out in large patches, but he forces himself to focus on Dean, on the grace he can feel beating like wings in the space between them.

            Dean brings his hands together and closes his eyes in focus, and within a single blink, he’s re-materialized directly in front of Metatron, light swelling out and around him in thrumming pulses.

            “Impossible,” Metatron chokes, taking a stumbling step back in surprise, bringing his knife up in front of him defensively.

            Dean’s eyes, flaring bright with grace, flicker briefly green; he smirks. “Eat me.” He reaches out one hand and plants it firmly on Metatron’s forehead. Metatron brings up his blade in an arcing strike of attack, but Dean blocks it without batting an eye.

            Dean’s lip curls in a low snarl, something feral, animalistic, not human, and the light pours out of him in bursts now, cosmic. Metatron begins to scream. Cas dizzily ducks his head in the crook of his arm to block the worst of the blast, and then Dean goes nuclear.

            Surely the blast levels the entire garden, or the entire state—surely it incinerates Cas where he lays. It certainly feels that way, and he cries out as he burns up into ash, more blood rising in his throat. Then, just as quickly, it’s over, a painful hum ringing in Cas’ ears. He slumps back to the charred earth, panting in wet, ragged gasps.

            Cas opens his eyes, and Dean is kneeling over him, shading the sun and sending its rays splintering around him like some sort of halo, and he’s so painfully, beautifully unfamiliar, so…alien.

            “Dean,” Cas manages, reaching out one hand to clasp weakly on his kneecap.

            “I did it,” Dean says, sounding awed, and his voice seems to resonate with a lower bass hum, crackling with power. “We did it. We stopped Metatron.”

            “Dean,” Cas tries again, and spits a mouthful of blood. Dean’s hands, searingly hot, secure on his shoulders, grounding him. “You have—to g-give up the grace. It’ll kill you.”

            “He’s right, Dean,” Joshua says, crossing to them with his hands behind his back, looking entirely unaffected by the previous scene. “You’ll burn out within moments if you don’t.”

            Dean’s wide, glazed eyes, shimmering with silver, are focused, enraptured, on Cas. “I don’t—I don’t know how to give it up.”  He stares down at his palms, the way light fractures through the thin lines there. “How do I give it up?”

            “Give it to me,” Cas whispers, and Dean turns to look at him slowly, stiltedly, like he can’t quite control his limbs. “I can contain it. Please, Dean, you’ll die, I can’t—”

            Dean instead reaches out one hand to cradle Cas’ face. The touch murmurs with electricity.

            “I can see your soul,” he says in a soft, ragged voice, and his eyes have that faraway look again, sweeping over Cas’ body. “I can feel it, with mine. I can’t…describe it.” He almost curiously places one hand on Cas’ stomach and closes his eyes. Cas seizes with pain at the touch, gasping, but instantly goes slack when a cool, soothing presence, achingly familiar, washes through him, numbing the pain to the tiniest possible pinpoint before it vanishes altogether.

            Cas sags forward, breathing heavily, his hand slipping to his stomach. The skin is smooth, unmarred, as though it’d never been broken in the first place. Dean had healed him seamlessly, effortlessly.

            Dean sinks forward onto his knees, crying out in pain. His eyes are swimming with silver tears, his hands clutched on his temples.

            “Dean,” Cas says, surging up, frantically cupping either hand on the sides of Dean’s face. “You have to give it to me. Now, before it’s too late.”

            “I can’t,” Dean whimpers, shaking his head. “I don’t know how.”

            It’s a whim, really, but Cas leans forward, his palm sliding to fit the shape of Dean’s cheek, and he pulls Dean’s mouth to his, breathing him in in one quick stroke. At once, Dean sighs into him, reeling him in, and something changes, vibrating between them like the lowest roll of thunder, and for just a moment, Cas can taste the grace on Dean’s lips, surfacing from him, before he gasps in sharply and the grace floods into him at once, like a canyon filling with water.

            Cas clutches onto Dean as it wreaks through him, refilling the empty spaces in his bones, through his veins. He shakes with it, and Dean’s hands come up to clench onto his shoulders, squeezing painfully tight. Cas closes his eyes, divinity and elation and the cosmos singing through him, and when he opens them, Dean is staring back at him wide-eyed, bright green, startlingly human. The soft and familiar ebb of Dean’s soul, a tired, warm light beating in the center of his ribs, reaches for him.

            “Cas?” Dean says weakly, his voice shot, and Cas slumps forward and Dean catches him in the cradle of his arms. They breathe slowly together, in time.

---

            After a few more moments of quiet, stunned breathing, in which Dean feels like someone liquefied his insides, poured them out through his orifices, and then restuffed him like a taxidermic plaything, Cas rights himself, staring down at his own hand in fascination.

            “You’re back,” Dean says, and his voice sounds feeble even to himself. “Full-on nerd angel again.”

            Cas stands abruptly, almost stumbling, still staring at his hands, before he vanishes with a horribly familiar rustle into thin air.

            Dean slumps, feeling like something punched a hole straight through his chest, because what exactly had he been expecting? It’s not like Cas was ever gonna stick around for long, no matter what his mushy pillow-talk had led him to believe.

            Dean lays back in the dead, browning grass, still feeling like a burnt-out shell—he’s pretty sure no human is actually supposed to contain an entire Death Star version of an angel, and “chained to a comet” isn’t quite as accurate as “strapped to one and screaming like a fucking child”—and he closes his eyes, trying to ignore the stupid sting of hurt he feels at Cas’ disappearance. Like, it’s not like he isn’t used to it.

            “You’ve done good here, Dean Winchester,” Joshua says above him, and when Dean tilts his head backwards to look at him upside down, Joshua’s already walking away, pulling up the hood of his robe over his head. “I’ll be around.” And he just walks off, like nothing had happened.

            “At least someone’s grateful,” Dean says without much bite, because he’s fucking tired, more tired than he’s probably been ever.

            And you know what? He’d saved Cas, ganked Metatron, and survived it. Fuck everyone else.

            “Good job, Dean,” he tells himself, lamely reaching up to pat himself on the shoulder.

            There’s a loud rustle of wings and fabric, and when Dean pokes his head up hopefully, Cas is standing in front of him windswept, his hair tousled in a crazy amount of directions, his blue eyes bright with happiness.

            “Joy ride?” Dean asks dryly, although he finds himself instantly softening at the look of pure, honest wonder on Cas’ face.

            The next thing he knows, Cas has rematerialized practically on top of him, pinning him into the ground in a quick tumble of limbs and kissing him enthusiastically. Dean makes a muffled sound of surprise, feeling a bit besieged as Cas’ knees lock tightly around either of his hips and his hands come up to hold Dean’s face firmly in place as he more or less attacks his mouth.

            Dean makes a breathless attempt to return the kiss with the same fervor, and he’s still dazed when Cas pulls back, his lips feeling bruised.

            “The hell was that for?” Dean says, and it sounds like the wind’s been knocked straight out of him.

            “I love you,” Cas says, resting his forehead against Dean’s, closing his eyes, “so much.”

            All Dean can really say to that, even as his heart gives a warm squeeze, is a soft, “Oh.”

            Cas doesn’t move from his position, his fingers splaying on Dean’s jaw. “Shall we go home?”

            “We?” Dean says in surprise, still breathless and figuratively weak-kneed. “You’re coming with me?”

            “Of course,” Cas says, sounding as though he’s frowning. “I said that I would. My home is with you.”

            “Yeah, but.” Dean tries to prop himself on his elbow, failing miserably with the entire weight of Cas planting him into the ground. “What about heaven? It’s gonna be in shambles, now that Metatron’s dead. And you’ve got the only key to unlock it.”

            Cas pulls back, chewing down on his lip in contemplation. “That’s true.”

            “So you’re not staying,” Dean clarifies, ignoring the way his heart sinks.

            Cas’ eyes narrow at him. “I’m not, but I am.”

            “You’re giving me mixed signals.”

            “We’ll figure it out,” Cas says dismissively. “What matters is that, right now, we’re both alive. You get to see Sam again. Kevin, the bunker, the Impala.”

            Dean smiles at the thought, but he can feel the strained worry on his face. Cas disapprovingly thumbs at the frown line that’s formed between Dean’s eyebrows.

            “I want you with us,” Dean says softly, weakly. “With me.”

            “I will be,” Cas insists, his eyes wide with conviction. He tentatively holds out two fingers in a familiar gesture. “I want to take us home.”

            Dean swats his hand away, and when Cas frowns in confusion, Dean smiles back, even if he forces it. “None of that. We’re driving.”

            Which does require a modicum of angel transportation to a Virginian parking lot, but still. The ride home is much similar to the ride away from it, yet so much has changed; so much is still unspoken, but it’s a different weight that silences them.

            Instead of stopping in a motel that night, Dean flicks out the headlights and pulls the car over off the shoulder of the highway. He retrieves a ratty blanket from the trunk, and even though it’s far from ideal, he and Cas shack up in the backseat, the rear windows cracked to let in the cool night air. Crickets from the surrounding fields rasp and whir, and the smell of sweet grass and earth seems to stick to Dean’s skin. Dean’s whole body seems to hum in Cas’ proximity, perhaps pulled into the gravity of the grace he’s lost. Or maybe it’s just Cas.

            Maybe it’s always been just Cas.

            Said angel has got both arms wrapped around him to keep him from sliding off the backseat, because the Impala sure as hell isn’t built to house two fully grown men intent on reverse-spooning, and Cas ducks his head into Dean’s chest sometimes later in a strangely human mannerism and says, quietly, “Are we going to be alright?”

            “Yeah,” Dean says, tucking his chin over the top of Cas’ head. “I think so.”

            “I meant,” Cas says, “will we be the same? When we get back to Lebanon?”

            “I don’t think either of us is going to be the same,” Dean murmurs, his eyes fixed on the wide array of stars through the crack in the window. “Not after this.”

            “I’m okay with that,” Cas says. “As long as you are.”

            “I think I am,” Dean says, and they fall asleep sometime later. It’s by far one of the most uncomfortable nights of Dean’s life, but maybe one of the best.

---

            Sam rolls out the welcome wagon, so to speak. Both Dean and Cas are greeted with rib-crushing, feet-suspending embraces at the door, paired with hearty claps on the back, and they even both receive awkward one-armers from Kevin before he scampers off to the kitchen to resume stirring mac n’ cheese in a large pot, his eyes flashing between Dean and Cas as though he has a plethora of questions he’s keeping silenced for the sake of the heavy bags under Dean’s eyes.

            “Everything go okay?” Sam asks, following them eagerly into the kitchen and planting his hands on the table. “No hiccups or anything like that?”

            Dean and Cas exchange long looks, then both smile incredulously and look down.

            Sam narrows his eyes in instant suspicion, gaze darting between them. “What?”

            “Nothing,” Dean says, shaking his head tiredly. “There were a…few hiccups, so to speak. It’s a long fucking story.”

            “Give me the SparkNotes version.”

            Dean spreads his arms wide in a defeated gesture. “Welp. I was an angel for like, a hot second, Metatron’s dead, and Cas is now an angel for a full second.”

            Sam’s jaw hits the ground, metaphorically. Kevin drops his spoon with a loud clang from behind them. “What?”

            Dean decides to exclude the couples bit, even though it’s hilariously the most prevalent change that comes to mind, and heads toward the main hallway. Sam hounds them all the way to Dean’s room, peppering them with questions that mostly begin with, “Uh, what the fuck,” and, “no, seriously, Dean, what the fuck,” until Dean swivels on him and holds out a hand tiredly.

            “Sam,” Dean says. “You’re the greatest. Missed you like a bitch. I’m gonna take a nap for like three years.”

            “But—” Sam protests, his eyes threatening to bulge out of his skull.

            “No buts,” Dean says in his dad voice, which always ticks Sam off into letting things alone.

            Sam clicks his jaw shut, his eyebrows pulling together in frustration.

            “Seriously, Sam,” Dean says, softening his voice. “I’m glad you’re better. Thrilled, actually. I’m glad I’m home. But I’m dealing with some shit right now that needs a few hours of sleep to sort out. Okay?”

            Sam nods slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” He casts another curious glance at Cas before turning and heading back down the hallway, pausing once to look over his shoulder as though he’s about to frame a question, before he shakes his head and keeps going.

            “So,” Dean says in resignation, stepping into his room. “Is this the part where you leave?” He doesn’t bother to look at Cas for an answer.

            Cas’ voice is soft when he speaks, as though Dean is a fragile thing. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

            “Will you?” Dean asks, shutting his eyes and letting his duffel slip off his shoulder with a thud to the floor. “And when will you leave after that?”

            “Tomorrow. And the day after that,” Cas confesses. “But I’m not—it’s not—I can’t avoid this, Dean. I can’t run from it, even though I wish I could. I’ve got the grace to open heaven inside me. They need me.”

            “I need you,” Dean says, eyes still closed; the same old refrain.

            “It does suck…major ass,” Cas says, carefully, and Dean gives a long snort. “But I do have a proposal for you.”

            Dean cracks his eyes open warily, peering at Cas sideways. Cas is smiling. Dean is instantly suspicious.

            “I do heaven business during the day,” Cas says. “But I spend my nights here.”

            Dean blinks in surprise. “You mean, like. Every night?”

            “Yes,” Cas answers. “Like having a dayjob. I’ll go early, sort through the heaven catastrophes during the day hours, and be back by nightfall.”

            Dean tilts his head, considering. It’s…a lot better than what he’d been expecting, really.

            “Some dayjob,” he eventually mutters. “Your occupational hazard is getting slaughtered. On the daily.”

            “So is yours,” Cas counters.

            “Fair enough.” Dean frowns and squints, searching for a loophole. “What about when Sam and I are on hunts? We still do that hunting thing, you know.”

            Cas shrugs, looking unbothered. “I’ll tag along to hunt with you. I imagine I’ll be much more useful now.”

            “You were useful before,” Dean allows.

            “Barely.”

            “Okay,” Dean says, reluctantly. “Fine. Heaven by day, Earth by night. We can give it a….” He struggles for a moment. “Trial run. God, this is weird.”

            “What is?”

            “I don’t know? Is this a relationship?” Dean makes a fast hand gesture between them. “What is this? Am I your freaking army wife?”

            Cas tips his head sideways in consideration, teasingly. “I like to think of you as an earthly consort.”

            “Oh, fantastic. I’m your interdimensional booty call.”

            “If you prefer to see it that way.”

            “Okay, fine.” Dean drops into a sitting position on the bed, his ass sinking into memory foam, and he rubs a weary hand over his eyes. “Scram, or whatever. Do good out there.”

            Cas chuckles, warm in his throat, and he steps forward to place one firm hand on Dean’s shoulder, massaging it gently, and he drops a kiss on Dean’s forehead. It feels terrifyingly domestic.

            “I’m coming back,” Cas says, his forehead rested on Dean’s. “You do know that, right?”

            “Okay,” Dean says. “I trust you.” And he means it. Shit, he actually means it, for the first time in like…years.

            Cas gives his shoulder one last squeeze and then he vanishes with a soft rush of air against Dean’s face. Dean keeps his eyes closed so he won’t have to watch him go.

            Dean lays back against the pillows and places the heels of both palms firmly over his closed eyes. He already feels somewhat bereft, like each second of Cas’ absence is creating more empty spaces in him. Maybe it’s the aftermath of the grace. He feels even more weirdly connected to Cas now, having housed his other-ness inside him, and his body still gives these intermittent, thrumming twitches like he’s craving to take it back inside him.

            He’s almost drifted off when his phone gives two sharp buzzes on the bedside table. Dean cracks open his eyes, peering at it suspiciously for a moment before he grabs it and flips up the screen.

            It’s a short text from Cas. It simply reads, I’ll be home for dinner? With a question mark, like he’s asking to stay.

            Dean reads the text several times before his eyes close; there’s this warm, funny feeling in his chest, infusing his limbs rapidly. It feels suspiciously like hope.

            He types out, deletes, then types out again, I’ll be waiting, and shuts the phone, keeping it squeezed tight in his grip as he shuts his eyes again.

            Yeah, he thinks, biting down on a smile. He can get with this.

---

Epilogue

            “No,” Kevin says. “Fuck no. We’re not watching the second season of Game of Thrones for a third time.”

            “You love it,” Charlie says in a wheedling voice, crossing her pink-socked feet on the couch and plumbing through the Winchesters’ considerable DVD collection.

            “It was like, adequate—maybe—the first time I watched it, but I do not need that many naked people in my life. Alright?”

            Sam snorts when he enters the room on the tail end of conversation, propping an opened six-pack on the coffee table.

            “Naked people are never in excess, Kev,” Dean says, reaching across the couch to snag a beer.

            Charlie pokes her head up, looking at Dean with a meaningful smile through a curtain of red hair. “When’s Cas gonna be home?”

            “Eh…” Dean checks his phone nonchalantly, as though he hasn’t been monitoring the time secretly, excessively for the last half an hour. “He said five, so it should be anytime now.”

            “Sweet. Also, when do I get to meet this cute Shay friend of yours?”

            Dean looks at her warningly, where he receives a mischievous grin in answer. “Charlie, she’s taken.”

            “I mean. Kind of. There’s still a chance for me, right?”

            Dean eyes her in half-hearted exasperation, hiding his amusement. “She’s visiting next week. With her girlfriend of four years.”

            Charlie sighs in disappointment, holding up both hands. “Fine. I can bow out with grace.”

            Sam smirks at Dean peripherally and plops down at the far end of the couch, leaving the space next to Dean vacant with a knowing look.

            “Shut up,” says Dean without looking up from his phone.

            “Didn’t say anything.”

            “Didn’t have to.”

            “Can’t we just watch Star Wars?” Kevin asks, struggling with his beer cap, his lower lip jutting out in concentration.

            “I’m down,” Dean says with a shrug. “First three, though.”

            “Dean,” Sam whines. He’s always dug that Anakin Skywalker backstory shit, even as a kid. It’s been their bickering fodder for basically decades now.

            “No, Sam.”

            “It’s because he has a giant man-crush on Han Solo,” Charlie says sagely without glancing up, heading for the DVD player to mess around with it.

            “Seriously, how does everyone know about that?” Dean mutters, feeling his cheeks redden under Sam and Kevin’s jeering looks.

            The front door opens with a loud creak then slams, echoing loudly throughout the bunker. Dean instantly perks up and looks toward the main hallway, trying to be casual about it, which everyone sees immediately right through.

            “Your hubby’s home,” Kevin teases just as Cas enters the room, already peeling off his trenchcoat and laying it on the back of Kevin’s designated armchair.

            “How was work?” Dean asks with a smirk, tilting his head back over the back of the couch so Cas can lean down to kiss him briefly. Everyone groans and throws popcorn at them.

            Ignoring them, Dean holds Cas’ face secure in his hands, grinning at him upside-down. “Hi.”

            “Hi,” Cas says, smiling back just as warmly.

            Sam pelts an M&M at Dean’s ear with expert precision. “You two are fucking sick. Get a room.”

            “Get a cave,” Dean retorts, his eyes still fixed on Cas. “Tarzan.”

            “At least I’m not short,” Sam says mutinously, leaning forward to take another sip of his drink.

            “Hey, height doesn’t affect drive at all, if you know what I mean.” Dean waggles his eyebrows at Cas, still holding him in place. “Right, Cas?”

            “Don’t say it,” Sam says. “Don’t you dare say it.”

            “I’m talking about sex,” Dean says proudly.

            Everyone complains at him. More popcorn is thrown.

            Cas wiggles his way free with a short huff of laughter, heading around the corner of the couch to curl up next to Dean, his shoes toed off as he goes. Dean slings an arm around the back of the cushion, and when he looks down the length of the couch, Sam is smiling at him, so hugely it looks like his cheeks are aching, and it’s not teasing or malicious—it’s genuine happiness, and Dean smiles back, tentatively.

            Cas nudges Dean’s feet with his own socked ones as the familiar music starts up from the TV, and Charlie bounces back to her seat and smiles Dean’s way.

            Dean has a lurching moment, as he often does these days, where he fights the urge to pinch himself, like in every cliché happy movie ever. It’s…pretty gross, actually.

            And y’know, it’s not perfect. It’s never gonna be perfect. He’s not wired that way; neither is Cas, or any of them, for that matter.

            But it’s good.

            Yeah, he thinks to himself as Cas rests his head against Dean’s shoulder, their hands twining together out of sight. It’s good.