Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

What is a day in the life of Steve?

He thought the question over, still chewing this mixture of bread, cheese, and meat.

There were things he could say, something close to what Elen called a “convenient lie” just so the blameless question could be answered and out of the way. But he was still sitting right here. And the longer he sat on that vinyl pizzeria bench, that question would just echo right into the nerves progressively louder.

That much hotter anger was sinking in all over again.

Dean chose what he did because of Sam; Dean would always choose family first!

A sigh came out loud and unashamed.

It was strange how such a simple, matter-of-fact question could conjure up so much emotion. He almost wanted to hate himself. 

"Steve works as many shifts at the Gas n Sip that he can, although now a high school student was just hired part time so Steve has some time off. The change does not feel right to him. He eats at diners," and a hand lifted the pizza to his mouth, the tops of his pupils noticing Dean grinning.

Army green-colored shoulders hunched towards his plate, both arms on either side of it and there was an even brighter smile more towards himself.

He hadn’t seen it since before Metatron took his grace, the faintest hope lingering in the back of those eyes however cynical Dean’s grin. With tears in his eyes, he looked at his plate, noticing how bright it and his food looked underneath the bright lights. Nerves zinged even hotter with the combination of Ephraim's words and everything that had happened since Nora came home. Dean's grinning really wasn't much help either!

And the mouth still seemed to be chewing.

"Steve goes to the park just to sit and watch people when he can, sometimes he will go to a diner just to drink coffee and people-watch, he r-reads," his voice quickly shook, shocked those last two words came out. He hated to think of Dean asking about what kinds of books, imagining the amusement on his face considering the two incredibly sage volumes Elen already offered him in the past week.  

Shoulder blades were already squirming up against the bright red bench before he even realized it, the vinyl squealing from all angles. Another exhale breathed far too much like a sigh, sending both of his pupils just over Dean’s head. The alternating pattern of tiles surrounding the square fluorescent light had a beautiful familiarity to it.  

“Steve” never felt so real than right now.

And “Steve” really did enjoy reading.

Fingertips gently press the anterior of the pizza crust before folding it in half. 

An unreadable huff escaped from the opposite side of the table as another bite entered his mouth.

His mouth.

The ex-angel “Kah-stee-ell" as she pronounced it.

Shock waves coursed somewhere underneath skin, something strangely affirming somewhere inside of this.   

"And despite attempting to be inconspicuous among humans, Steve has made a friend—" 

"Yeah he did!”

Dean’s hand that wasn’t glazed with pizza grease was slapping his forearm from across the booth table. That old action used to conjure up something like hope and perhaps even trust in the now-crackling spaces underneath skin.

But Dean shattered that trust, all of that tempting enthusiasm wanting to bubble right out but not as brightly as it used to.

It was weird to not immediately jump into that emotional response.

Dean made his choice, and those eyebrows were shooting up his forehead like they do whenever he implies sex, that one side of his mouth quirking right up.

“You go, tiger! Nora is hot!” 

If he had corrected Dean, everything would have escalated into something else. 

Dean Winchester would never completely know about Elen, knowing he would have a field day making fun of their conversations and especially when talking about the man himself. 

He breathed a deep pizza-scented exhale, looking over Dean's shoulder at the vast graveyard of empty red and blue striped tables and chairs. Somehow sadness and assertiveness hovered over his, the, Jimmy’s, his body all at the same time, this achingly human paradox never feeling more oddly cheerful and cleansed in all of these muscles and veins.    

Leave it to a rit zien, and one who once looked up to him, to be the first angel he would encounter in human form and so susceptible to dying. Somehow, it was easy to understand that Ephraim should have killed him. He wouldn’t have blamed the war medic angel, but those words an equivalent of death itself.

They still existed under skin, all those paradoxes thick and tempting to rise out of flesh, but hopefully not into his mouth.

But he wasn't the only one at this table often threatened by his brothers and sisters.

Dean knew the feeling.

Nerves jumped for the millionth time since everything happened, something in the chest shattering just at the memory of Ephraim’s disappointed face.

How did assertiveness even attempt to exist alongside all of this?

The longer Ephraim stewed in those deep places, the more that shattering began to physically hurt inside his chest. Something had to be done, but he was not ready.

Not just yet.

This second book Elen let him borrow was titled Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton and was already worthy of a note card quote.  

"There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center, I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.”

Those endless pools between hazel-green irises smiled into his, almost taunting him.

Her lips began to smile a different shade, gradually lifting until his own smiled back.

The quote seemed to speak for itself.

And that was the end of that topic, Elen’s short fingers passing the small paperback across that cushion still messy with mini candy bar wrappers.  

He was eager to read this.

He wanted to find a fascination in being alone but not lonely.

He even wanted to spend more time with Elen over coffee or food talking about everything. Perhaps she could even introduce him to more films. 

But Ephraim’s vessel’s disappointed eyes were still right there and something sharp ran through the base of every single muscle underneath this body. It still felt selfish, despite being blameless.  

The last quarter of his slice of pepperoni pizza slid back into his mouth. 

“So...” Dean spoke clearer and just a tad higher, hunching against his planked elbows on either side of an almost empty plate, his shoulders rising into a small shrug. “What?”

They lifted even higher, those eyelids narrowing around green-gold.

“You’re really not gonna ask her out? Dude, you’re hopeless.” 

"There's no point in that, Dean. We both assumed too quickly what Nora wanted out of me tonight. If I had time to ask for a female perspective—" 

Lips tighten against one another.  

At least he stopped himself. 

Thankfully there weren't even any questions about "a female perspective," watching Dean’s smile grow progressively even more pleased with itself as he grabbed his soft drink.

It had to be better this way. 

Those whitish-gray ceiling panels formed a perfectly square-like ring around a single lighting unit. It really was like the Garden Café's black and beige tiled table last week, all of those calming and layered textures within textures. Ephraim’s vessel’s eyes appeared somewhere in that matrix, so angry and hurt all at the same time.

That spot in the chest was beginning to hurt all over again, that cleansing assertiveness hovering in its own layer just above that pain. But this was just how it was going to be. It did not last, but the paradoxical pain remained.

Loud slurping straw noises and ice clicks were even louder from the opposite side of the booth.   

“Yeah, buddy, you’re hopeless but at least the chicks think you’re pretty.” 

Dean was trying too hard, his forced chuckle suffocating his last few words.

It really did not help.

Did Dean really think he had the same personality he had as an angel?

Did he still have the same personality he had as an angel?

Dean couldn't blame him for not wanting to talk too much as the shitty chain of events that was this awful night was painfully slowly coming to a close. Nothing could have been more ideal than somehow sneaking into the Gas n Sip’s back room before the security cameras came on for the night. This would have involved blowing up his air mattress, and reading at least a chapter or two. That newly thick book-induced repose would make all of today feel like it never even happened by tomorrow morning. 

Dean clapped his forearm repeatedly, his eyes darting down towards a white wrist cuff.

He fell back against the red vinyl seat still chuckling, but it was slowly fading into a sigh and grin.

It was the grin he could still feel tingling from, a soulful tingling that practically radiated right out of the Righteous Man the moment his grace formed into a hand to touch that shoulder. This was Dean smiling completely without pretension or cynicism and he still was not immune to it.

Golden glints entered those green eyes which must have realized the silence had gone on for too long. They were already narrowing, a hand reaching up into his short brown hair looking faintly blond under the fluorescent tile.  

Even so, that smile did happen, and enthusiasm suffused every organ and system with just the humbleness of a smile. 

After all, Dean Winchester was there for him earlier at Nora’s house.

For him.

But for every “for him” there was a choked syllable of “you just can’t stay here.”

An exhale hollowed through the back of his throat without much of a sigh.

It was never easy dealing with the Winchester brothers.

Pupils wanted to look over that scratched scalp and right into the meditative insides of the ceiling tiles.  

"Well then..." Dean shifted as the vinyl around him groaned on the opposite booth bench, ruffling his eyebrows before shoving the rest of his fifth stuffed crust into his mouth. His square chin bobbed slightly towards the empty plate looking close to ecstasy over his own food.

It seemed too much like him.

Enthusiasm really was tempted all over again, but this time he just couldn’t.

He just couldn’t.

Dean Winchester really did mess up his trust.

A deep inhale was echoing between bites and Dean actually looked uncomfortable, the bench making that squeaky sound all over again. A coat-dressed forearm was laying on one side of his plate.

"How about we box up these leftovers and go watch a movie? I should probably get a motel room somewhere around here—" 

He had wanted nothing more than to extend Dean's visit, gripping the opportunity perhaps a bit too tightly despite all the feelings that smile and those eyes were conjuring, especially against the exhaustion of being kicked around by a rit zien.

He never felt more like one of those tiles overhead or even that outdoor café table, layers of complicated layers and textures on top of different textures. Dean Winchester and he needed a little more time together, but not at the same time. This really was the price of tipping a Winchester off on a possible case, but this last part of this awful night could not have been more difficult to get out of. He really could have been safe on his air mattress sleeping or reading!  

But Elen was still up. 

The idea of randomly showing up on her back porch needing to vent or just simply exist in that quiet, empathetic air wouldn't have been very fair to her! However, he currently had five dollars in his wallet. A tub of ice cream could be bought with this. Elen did describe herself as being part iced coffee and part ice cream. 

"I really just want to go to sleep right now, Dean." 

There went the ice cream idea, but sleep also sounded just as pleasant. 

Golden-green irises squinted so hard the color almost completely disappeared, nothing else remaining but that forever piercing worry. 

“Are you sure?” 

"Yes, Dean. Between dealing with a newborn and getting my ass kicked by a rit zien, I  am  exhausted." 

"Fair enough, buddy. So," Dean barely looked rejected as he breathed hard against that final word. He actually lit up as both ends of a smile shot right up, thin eyelashes finally flickering a little wider. “Where’s home?” 

He really wasn’t getting to Elen’s apartment tonight. 

An army-green sleeved arm shot up towards a waiter, Dean's faint stubble flicking up as if signaling for a to-go box. Dean really wasn’t going to like this answer, but did he need to like it? 

“I ... I have an air mattress...” He closed his eyes, sighing, “in the Gas n Sip’s back room.”

Breath couldn’t stop itself from sighing any louder, exhaling in the direction of his own empty plate. Dean didn’t have the right to know. Did Dean have the right to find out any of this?

“No one knows I live there," he almost whispered, that usually scratchy tone sounding even smoother at the lower volume. 

The last slice thumped right down into the large box fit for the size of pizza Dean ordered. 

“Nope, not acceptable!” 

Eyes opened back onto Dean's and they could barely be looked into.

Heavier eyelids were already narrowing around green eyes without much of that gold in them. Dean’s mouth slightly opened not entirely pouting but entirely furious. The pizza box hissed shut unnecessarily loudly, the noise as confusing as a gently huffing cocked grin.  

"OK..." Dean nodded deeply, placing his elbows on either side of the card and pointing over at him on the other side of this booth, looking way too much like he did when methodically planning out a hunt before everything turned to shit. “Here’s the plan. I'm going to get you a motel room until the end of the week. You should have a place by then, right?" 

"Dean..." 

"I can't you're still homeless! Shouldn't another good-looking non-reaper chick be taking you in?" 

“Dean!” His blood ran faster saying that name in the softest tone possible.

The pizza box was already in Dean’s hand as it sat back down on the table, the soft thump almost an even louder assault against eardrums.

He even felt even more like “Castiel” using that tone, but this really was a kind of rebirth.

How would Steve approach anger knowing all that he knew before?

His eyebrows practically fell to the tops of both of his eyelids. There was no telling how to be firm yet caring at the same time towards a once-deserving individual.  

Dean actually looked stunned, thin eyebrows shooting right up onto that broad forehead.  

An elbow finally sat on the table, both of those certain fingers naturally reaching for that place on the bridge of his nose. Breath fell out far more a sigh than just a laborious exhale.  

"Considering how well you communicated your reasons for not letting me stay in the bunker,” came out much too slowly as fingers remained right there, hoping it would somehow enter Dean’s stubborn skull, “it’s not your place to interfere with how Steve or I live. We have done fairly well here in Rexford.”

Palm lines were still somewhat lit in the darkness under his one hand, fingers continuing to hold the face at least right there. It was unfair to talk to his fingers rather than directly to Dean. If anything else could make him feel more like a coward, but that hand was holding back every Dean Winchester-related conversation he ever had with Elen.

“It may not be legal to live on that air mattress and all the measures I take when I don’t have a night shift, but right now I cannot bring myself to think ahead. Sometimes..."

The echo of fingers dropping down against the beige speckled table made its way into his eardrums, both of his pupils following the noise.

Temples almost rocked with the slightest thud.

"I ... I can't even get off the air mattress most mornings."  

“But w-what we can do...” That familiar enthusiasm was coming out of this throat from a distance and yet he could not have felt more like the old “Castiel” for a quick second.

He was not quite ready to let go of that opportunistic grip just yet.

But a simple, softly spoken “where to?” was something close to a compromise to at least spend a few more hours of the night with Dean. If he was lucky, he could somehow sneak past the security cameras into the back room for a quick power nap before opening tomorrow morning.

And Dean’s eyebrows were almost touching his eyelashes, his familiar square jaw angrily clenching but not angry enough to snap.

"W-we can just drive around like what the Impala was meant to do." 

He was really going to regret this. 

Chapter Text

“🎶 Now you can squeeze my lemon 'til the juice run down my/'Til the juice run down my leg, baby, you know what I'm talkin' about. 🎶” 

Dean’s thumb then pinky finger rocked back and forth on the Impala’s steering wheel keeping the rhythm of his favorite “Traveling Riverside Blues.” He still looked so comfortable in that driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel and fully relaxing back into the chair. Dean looked so content, it was enough to want to apologize for absolutely nothing and yet everything all at the same time.

When the Led Zeppelin song came on the radio, Dean's free hand, which usually rests on his jeans-clad thigh, shot right out to crank the volume louder.

The muscles twitched in amazement. 

He really did prefer the quiet sounds of a café courtyard with all of its avian creatures to songs like this. The feeling of affirmation was wonderful, a self-generated excitement just for himself. There was a tiny temptation to text Elen but fingers dared to reach towards the wide knob instead.  

“Dean, it’s 10:00 in the middle of the week in a small town,” came out in that commanding softness like at the pizza place.  

He was getting better at this.  

“Fair enough.” 

Dean finished loudly tapping the last of the rhythms, but he kept singing along quietly, looking out the Impala's windows at the familiar vista of Rexford. Now there was no imagining what a calm-looking Dean was thinking about behind the wheel of the Impala he loved.  

He felt a stronger impulse to text Elen the longer he sat here, and even his phone started to feel heavier in his one jeans pocket.

There were so many ways to message her in so many different tones, but since sliding onto Sam’s honored spot that was the passenger seat, he knew he just couldn’t send any of them.

Somehow the Impala felt even more suffocating than he remembered.

It also didn’t help that Dean’s face kept coming in and out of view just off the cusp of a pupil, the faintly created wind almost prickling goosebumps down the left side of the, his, body. Dean wouldn’t stop randomly looking at him, his available pair of eyelids wincing and the single pupil could not have appeared more worried even in the darkness of his “Baby.”

It was fair, even if a tiny bit paranoid, to not text Elen until he opened the passenger door wherever the night was taking him. It was totally logical that Dean would try to look at it somehow, resorting to writing everything down in his mind.

‘You’re not going to believe who I’m with right now.’ 

‘I’m with Dean right now and I feel like I’m being watched a little too carefully.’ 

‘If I weren’t here, believe me, I’d be bringing a tub of ice cream to your place right now.’  

The ends of lips quirked at that one the most.  

‘My night really, really sucks.’ 

That last one sounded too much like Dean and everything just felt heavy on top of his, the body all over again. If Dean wasn’t here right now, he would have indulged in that ice cream and sat on that small couch venting about everything that happened tonight.

But then tonight happened because Dean was in Rexford, because he asked him to take the case!

Either way, Ephraim would have found him under any other circumstance, but at least a little baby wouldn’t have had a fever! The rhythm of Tanya’s scream still faintly rattled the backs of eardrums. If Dean didn’t come to Rexford, he wouldn't have given a second thought towards Nora’s baby-sitting intentions.

He only hoped his job wasn’t jeopardized by letting Dean into his head.  

This must have been what it felt like to be the supporting character during a hunting case, ardently believing and helping the Winchesters yet staying behind and cleaning up all of their messes. But that’s what Dean did best, blowing in and out of a town without dealing with the consequences of any of his actions as long as he got as quickly back out onto “an” open road “with” his “Baby” and Sam.

The back of his neck dropped back against Sam’s usual spot on the neck rest, eyes slowly closing.  

His night really, really did suck and somehow, he deserved it.

He was the one to bring the case to the Winchesters! 

All of Elen’s empathetic help became almost as much of a mangled mess just from a single shitty chain of events in a single night, knowing what Dean was going to leave him with in the morning. 

"Now what are you doing? Burying your head in the sand. Right when your kind needs you the most." 

Ephraim’s eyes grew wide, those towering pupils between them so disappointed. 

Dying by a medical hand would either be a mercy or too good of an angelic torture. 

Temples going progressively lighter and the air around them violently waving, and the thoughts between them screaming Tanya's name over and over.

"You say you want to live. But you can't see what I see. By choosing a human life, you've already given up. You … chose … death." 

“Within failure there is acceptance in some form.” 

"I used to admire you. You failed more often than you succeeded. But at least you played big." 

“We are all allowed [...] even if it looks cowardly or selfish to other people.” 

“Cass...”

His neck shot off the back of the passenger seat.

He wasn’t being called Steve, but something leapt up as the spine straightened.

His fingers scrambled for the bridge of the nose; the tops of his cheeks were wet. Panic settled in helplessly at the moisture on his face.

There was no memory of this happening until now.

There was even less knowing if Dean had noticed any of it or not.

An already hinged index finger and thumb quickly wiped each side of the nose before returning to his bridge. The less emotionally aware Winchester would never even know. He didn’t deserve it anyway and not just because of the time spent at that bunker table.  

“Look, buddy, even the man behind this gorgeous lady,” Dean passed a streetlight and was less swallowed up in the night at least for a moment. One side of his mouth quirked into a grin before disappearing into the dark, the shadow of his arm reaching up towards the dashboard to rub at his “Baby,” “needs his beauty rest. Let’s just get a motel room.” 

“Can you promise not to hold it for the rest of the week like what you mentioned at the pizza place?” 

But his voice sounded a bit broken in the middle of that soft commanding tone. The words "Dean" and "promises" either went a little too well and/or a little too disastrously.

“Shit, for a regular guy now, you sure are bossy!” Dean’s smile was completely discernible in the dark, but the wind that blew out of what had to be a classic Dean Winchester grin laughed towards the passenger seat.

Passing another street light, pupils turned toward a wide smile that wasn't trying so hard, but still wasn't entirely humble. But it was nearly impossible to miss the worry in or around those eyes, Dean not looking as suffocating as he had been.

He just didn’t care, turning to look ahead through the windshield and into his familiar Rexford.

His spine was about to slump back a little more lazily onto the passenger seat, but something hard and solid was slapping his chest. The only thing to do was stare down at a slightly too well-dressed shirt meant for a misinterpreted date, discovering that square something was Dean's phone.

“Beam me up a cheap motel?” 

The motel on main street was up to the Winchester standard, inexpensive with employees that didn’t ask questions.

He stayed in the Impala as Dean checked into his room, not really wanting to move anywhere else.

Eyes even closed remembering all of the times he spent in the Impala Dean loved so much.

There were all of the fortunate or unfortunate smells that men in their late 20s and early 30s could accumulate in such a small place, never really appreciating or having the courtesy to fully dislike any of their more mobile habits. It was that nostalgia of rediscovery all over again, but without any of that suffocating pain that often comes along with it.

A heavy exhale breathed out, catching something that smelled like dirty socks.

Dean would when Sam wasn’t driving with him.  

He only hoped the younger Winchester was doing well, a mild buzzing headache alleviating from one brother to the next. Dean told him Sam was currently back at the bunker with Kevin trying to translate the tablets, but Dean looked like something every time he mentioned his name. And his eyelids would wince so tightly together they were practically closing like they had across that bunker table, barely able to provide a legitimate reason why he couldn’t just stay there.  

The middle of a white shirt was still vibrating right where Dean pressed his phone towards, the color looking pale gray between the parking lot lights and whatever time it was at the moment. It almost hurt a little as well.

Regretting tonight was becoming a broad understatement.

If things did end up differently, if Dean showed just a smidgen of compassion at the bunker, there was still no way to help Sam and Kevin. The only two languages he knew were Jimmy's stateside throat and Enochian, the latter feeling almost like a distant memory.  

His old favorite word came out like an exhale, the back of his head dropping back against the neck rest. Leather tickled the nape just below the hairline. 

It meant hyacinth or “of hyacinth,” something so earthy against all of the loud garish and mighty all-or-nothing terminology. It rolled out slowly once then twice, relishing each letter change, syllable from syllable although rather weird coming out of a human mouth. It felt like home, at least the home inside of a grace living somewhere that didn’t feel like a home as much as when he was first created. The final "na-hath" almost sighed happily, eyes closing all over again. Behind closed eyelids, everything still felt heavy just over the top of skin.  

Something was knocking on the window. 

Everything shot off the head rest all over again.  

But of course it was Dean as he pointed towards the back seat, shaking fingers reaching for the door handle. The older Winchester brother was already in the backseat when he opened the passenger door. There was an even lesser tremor in the muscles of both legs once standing against parking lot concrete as the firm slam of a car door reverberated in eardrums. 

“Dude, you’re too jumpy...”

Feet managed to turn towards the Impala, Dean shouting from the depths of the backseat. There wasn’t much to see other than long denim legs stretching into the Impala just to grab his overnight bag on the driver’s seat side.

“Ouch,” grumbled out into the dead quiet of the parking lot.

A few crickets were even starting up somewhere.

“For a guy who doesn't talk much," Dean groaned loudly, getting out of the back seat and finally standing up straight. One hand grabbed at his green jacket covering his lower back as he bent backwards. A loud crack echoed off of him, followed by another groan at the back of his throat. “You need to make more friends, and not just that cute, little baby from earlier.” 

“I sang her The Greatest American theme song,” came out sounding so flat. 

But something moved in front of closed eyes and it smelled like the way Dean always smells. He would always be somewhere between sweat and cheap hotel soap and of course that mortal salt. But there was never enough time to truly breathe in the details if identifying uniqueness within a human shell was so essential.

The chin lifted again, and the eyelids opened to see a better-lit Dean towering over him from a safe distance, a smile spreading widely across his face.

A delayed cringe wormed through muscles.

That really had to be said?!

“Ha! "That's my boy!" The familiar palm clapped the back of his neck.

Nerves jumped more at the touch than at the surprise, enthusiasm bubbling up just beneath skin. It was beginning to rise the longer it remained there.

But his own legs were thoughtlessly following alongside Dean’s longer, sleepier looking strides, that familiar palm still at the back of the neck like he was being guided.

There really was nowhere else to be. The outside Gas n Sip security cameras were officially activated for the night. Even getting in with his keys would alert the store that someone was intruding, and Dean's fingers were already climbing the back of his head.

They mussed at hair and affectionately pushed his shoulder, making him almost feel like the Winchester he supposedly was. And he was tripping over his feet a little bit sideways, but he quickly regained his footing.

“I have taught you well, young Padawan.” 

The double bed motel room still smelled musty even underneath whatever the heavily fake lemon cleaning product was. But that too was also on the list of the Winchester standard.

The middle of his chest, previously punctuated by Dean's cell phone, shook at something in the heavy-scented cleanliness. It was always motel rooms like these, being cramped in the Impala then room, then room to Impala all over again.

Dean barreled through the door, tossing the keys on a low dresser so nonchalant about all of this.

He felt almost paralyzed when he saw the feet of the two double beds.

A much smoother and warm feeling penetrated that ache in the chest this time, softly tingling in the memory. He still didn’t know why he felt that way when standing over beds like these, looking into Dean’s dreams. For a quick second, he almost missed the hem of that trench coat blowing against shins.  

Dean’s overnight bag dropped on the foot of the mattress closest to the bathroom, and the door didn’t slam as loudly as it usually would. A few bed springs still squeaked after the initial impact.

There really was no telling if his consistent silence was wearing on the elder Winchester brother. It always used to. Was angel silence different from human silence? But legs still stood in the middle of the doorway. While he could have escaped right then and there, there was nowhere else to retreat to.  

“Don’t worry, Steve, Juliet will close and both of us will rest easy tonight, hopefully,” Nora teased her new part-time employee before he left her house earlier tonight.

His boss really didn’t know where he would rest easy. But it would probably be better to be here than being arrested for being homeless and breaking into a gas station where he technically worked! It would completely expose everything about him and he just couldn’t lose this job! There really was nowhere else to go but to stay with Dean at least for tonight.

Relief finally hummed through a denim pocket, fingers finally pulling out that phone. 

Legs finally moved from the partition, and stepped into the cool Idaho night.

It was a bit brisker than it had been in front of Nora’s house, human goosebumps prickling around the bare spots of an upper chest. Toes stood just an inch away from the end of the elevated concrete path not too far away from one of the columns holding up the roof above him.

He really did walk outside just so he could text Elen while Dean was in the bathroom.

But that man was not leaving the shower any time soon, Dean clearly looking near dead in his exhaustion. Sam did explain once how his older brother operated, how he would walk slower after a case and would usually spend at least ten minutes in a long steaming hot shower. He could understand that level of debilitation now, although not necessarily needing a shower or sleep as much as he needed a book or television to occupy his mind.  

"You're not going to believe the night..."

But fingers folded the flip phone together without sending it, the jeans pocket feeling relieved as it slid back in.  

A sigh shook out of him.

His hand lifted sideways and even higher than that usual spot on the bridge of a nose, starting above his eyebrows and cascading down every bump and crevice. Two doors away really did feel infinitely safer than while in the Impala, but something still wouldn’t let him finish the text. But Elen would hear about this at some point. The Gas n Sip keys weighed even heavier in that same pocket at that moment, almost like they were taunting him.

In Winchester-speak, Dean really did screw everything up when it came to tonight.

A foot was already stepping in the direction of the door.  

Fingers finally caught the stubble around his jaw and chin before falling right off Jimmy’s face. But a fist shot back up and punched the large white column, not even caring about the intense pain. Each knuckle spread wide from one another as a palm was pressed against it, a little red blushing across the base of each finger.

Ephraim’s look was still seared into his pupils, but this wasn’t about that and neither was it about blaming Dean for anything specifically about tonight.  

“If I could help him with one thing that heavily weighs on him whether it is his past, being the Righteous Man, anything. But all of the help I have offered in the past has been knowledge about heaven, and every case I've taken on with them has been more..." He mumbled his last word, trying to come up with one with a simple shake of the head, but nothing came to him.

“Tactile? Tangible?” 

“Tactile,” he repeated with a grin, feeling the weight of his words peel back to that lightness on his chest all over again. “But as far as I know he has put the experience behind him, but he will never talk about it and yet I am always ready to help him through anything.”

“I’m sorry for what he has internally put you through,” cut through the continuing birdsongs in the trees, a party of three people taking the table behind Elen.

His body almost shifted against the metal chair back, afraid that someone or some previous angel would overhear him. After all, he was technically in hiding.

“But I get it. It’s easy to...” an exhale fell out of her lips before covering them up with another sip of her coffee. “It’s easy to see the good in people and you can talk with them, reason with the less shattered parts of them, offer them all the patience in the world, but it all comes down to their personal relationships with themselves...."

“By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up,” whispered even softer. 

His thumb and index finger rose to the middle of burning closed eyelids, his chin dropping practically to the concrete underneath him. A few tears slid past the blackness in front of his pupils. Although it wasn't surprising that Dean didn't acknowledge his crying in the Impala, more erratic emotions are something that Winchesters experience during a hunt or when dealing with their or loved ones' deaths.  

He really could have walked off right then.

Maybe the five-minute walk towards the park and Elen’s neighborhood would calm him down, even without a tub of ice cream. But there really was nowhere else to be, and the door had a gentle creak somewhere in its hinge as it closed behind him.

Fingers clicked the lock, resigning to their own fate.  

Dean was already walking out of a gently steaming bathroom wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist, his skin looking pink enough for that hot shower. Muscles were naturally flexing in his thick upper arms as they reached for his knapsack sitting at the end of the bed.

An exhausted Winchester rubbed his hand down his face, dragging it all the way to his chin. His fingers lifted to move around his 5 o'clock shadow surrounding his lips, grabbing at the nook in his stubbled chin.

Eyelids were already open and a gentle groan was already falling out.

Dean turned on his bare feet, looking directly at him.

“Where were you?” sounded accusatory, yet in a classic Dean Winchester kind of way.

The truth would only bring forth more questions he had no desire to answer. 

He silently moved towards the chair in the corner, knowing exactly how this was going to look.

A deep satisfied groan fell right out, curling up against the soft lumps as his knees practically met his chest. He fell to one side, looking up at the door. This was what humans call the fetal position. And maybe it did look like the definition of defeated. He couldn't bring himself to completely care, even if someone currently watching him would just misinterpret all of this anyway.

A cheek met the upper half of the chair’s back cushion.

His eyes automatically closed at the soft impact.

An inhale casually passed across the vocal cords, smelling nothing incredibly disgusting than what was happening in the Impala.  

This could have been just as comfortable as an air mattress. But between the May Sarton book and his H.D. Thoreau note cards, his illegal home was beginning to feel something like a home. It felt like what the bunker could have been, what the Winchesters were beginning to be. Whatever weighed against him while in the Impala was even heavier now, even while lying sideways. 

“What?” half-provoked him all over again. 

Footsteps walked in different directions, multiple textures of fabrics folding then unfolding, a soft drop of something heavy onto thin motel carpet.  

A spot on the floor squeaked.  

“Jesus Christ, when did you become such a drama queen?” 

Eyelashes pushed down against the tops of his cheeks, that heavy weight pushing even closer to this vessel's skin.  

“We are all allowed even if it looks cowardly or selfish to other people.”  

The words flashed far more than the memory of brightly lit auburn-red hair or the white bowl of chocolate covered blueberries on that overly detailed outdoor table.

Dean really saw this differently because it existed in Dean’s experience learning how to communicate. His personal and forever unworthy relationship with himself. All of that rough affection and pop culture reference humor and all of the family honor underneath that in-the-moment "crappy judgment." But that was Dean. No wonder it felt so alluring over time, that gaping wound but not-wound in the middle of his chest watching Dean’s dreams just to understand him. How could it be possible to understand someone and yet not all at the same time? 

“Go to sleep, Dean” pulsed off the cushion, smelling his exhales of soda and pizza at every blow.  

The Winchester would rest easier than he would.

It was easy to become so used to the Gas n Sip’s back room, attempting to will his body to just fall asleep without the unwinding entertainment beforehand. Somewhere beneath closed eyelids, something else softly tingled like a kind of electrical energy. Softer footsteps kept walking across thin carpet, zippers zipping back and forth.

Maybe a deeper quiet could compel the body to complete silence, but was that even possible with Dean Winchester in the room?

It was difficult enough to lie in this fetal position, knowing it would be misinterpreted in the hunter’s direction. If Dean didn’t come across so exhausted, he definitely would have poked and probed at what had to have looked like suspicious behavior. The consistent silence since the pizza place had to have been wearing him down and attempting to sleep in a motel room with an impatient Winchester was going to be really difficult.  

The pressure of one arm pinning the other down into the back cushion didn’t hurt too much, a faint buzz vibrating just over the tops of his wrists. The ends almost swayed right down underneath shirt cuffs, the movement feeling like a swinging cartoon pendulum slowly climbing up both arms.

He felt sleepier now, but he still wasn’t entirely alert.

The television was being turned on up against that same wall, nerves and muscles not even jumping at any of the sounds of changing channel after changing channel. That familiar thin sleep he was finally able to kind of get rid of loomed right there above all of this strange buzzing. It crept up into his shoulders, down the back, and made its way into all of the crevices of his legs.

A pizza box hummed open, the scent of lukewarm pizza wafting up into nostrils.  

“Cass...” Dean half-whined out, smacking his lips multiple times as a gentle thump cut through the momentary silence. “Cass, I know you’re not sleeping.” 

Those swaying ends felt even hotter just over the top of clothes.  

“Cass, come on. I got double beds for a reason.” 

Even if he wanted to move to the opposite bed, he almost didn't want to.

There was something about this position and all of its vibrations that felt so comfortable and safe all at the same time. He almost felt like that large slate-gray dog lounging outside of the Gas n Sip’s glass doors before its head and large ears shot right up. He actually left his post as its teenage female owner was happy to allow him to say hello to the very friendly dog. Eddie the pit bull promptly and happily slobbered all over his fingers, even jumping up on both knees. It felt like the dog almost didn’t want “Steve” to leave his side and he finally understood. This was what it felt like for a pet-like animal to identify a human and it was an amazing feeling.

Television channels flipped from one to another until finally landing on something unidentifiable.

That thin sleep hovered above this tingling as if it were waiting for something.  

“Ever since Scott and I got back from Miami, we probably see each other every of couple days. I think it’s important that Scott sees Mason whenever he wants. Scott has definitely been making some great steps towards bettering himself. He’s been sober since Miami.” 

“Hi buddy.” 

“I’m also selling my condo right now and I’ve decided that it’s best that I live with Khloe for now, where Rob’s there, Khloe’s there, Lamar’s there. There’s plenty of extra hands to help me out with Mason."  

The monotonous voices and taps and clicks on the television were something close to unwinding with one of Elen’s books.

Everything buzzed progressively softer until finally stilling, unable to tell when it officially stopped.

His cheek gently twitched, the top of the chair cushion softly coarse. Its texture felt just like Elen’s couch, feet away from the opposite back cushion where her softly grinning face was reclining. 

"Physical affection honestly cannot save everyone. Sometimes it depends on the type of person. You and I are in that hypersensitive club and Dean is obviously an abuse survivor who hides behind an alpha male discomfort."

One pair of eyelashes quickly flickered as she leaned against the headrest, the television light bright against her already glowing face resting against the light brown and white stitches.

"I ... I hope I'm not being presumptuous. You are, were, are friends with him and know him better than I ever will." 

"Somehow I can believe that. But there is a vulnerability that appears every so often that makes me..." The head shook against a slowly bunched-up hoodie before meeting her gaze. Lying on one side of his face as Elen had and closer to the low light of the television, there was a little green in her irises. "Believe that there is a part of him he won't allow anyone to witness. Sam might see small aspects of it, and obviously, I saw even less of it until it appeared in his eyes during a moment of desperation." 

"You love him for being broken like that, and as an angel you were drawn to the broken."

He looked down at the pile of candy wrappers with a shaky breath, feeling tears fall out of his eyes.

He raised a hand to his dry face, making sure it wouldn't happen again but feeling a surge of awareness running along the length of his arm. But something felt wrong, but he forgot what it was as palms met again. If anything made Dean believe he wasn't asleep.

Dean.  

Just beyond closed eyelids, a pizza-scented hissing was breathing even closer than it had been. 

The television continued in that monotonous tone. 

“Jesus, Cass, stop being such a little bitch and just sleep in a bed like a normal person!” 

Dean would have deserved to be snapped at and yet not all at the same time. He could still feel that desperate pain behind the Winchester's eyes, his choked words just as painful, even though he "just can't stay here." It would always be easier to see small things like that in hindsight, without human shock attacking the vessel, his body.  

Breath almost fell across vocal cords close to sighing, attempting to return to that deep, swaying place even as Dean Winchester was feet away from him laying on a bed eating yet another slice of pizza. He was beginning to lose hope, a little of that vibration tingling somewhere in his lower back.  

"Come in!” 

“Hey Kim, this is absolutely gorgeous!” 

“Thank you! Do you like it?” 

“This is amazing!” 

“So a lot has gone on in the past month or so since Miami. Reggie and I broke up and at first it was really tough living your life so public, seeing your relationship play out in all the tabloids. But now I’m over it. I’m single and I am absolutely loving life.” …  

Sleep eventually came just a little bit thicker than what was already lying over the top of him. 

Sharp heat was radiating behind each eye socket, almost feeling like a headache.

Fingers were ready to press against each lid at any moment. However, there was no knowing if pressing against them would really help, and he was starting to wake up in a more upright position. He resisted wanting to hiss the strain out, feeling the body wanting to twitch in acknowledgement. But he really was sleeping in a chair. 

He was sleeping in a motel chair in the corner, and everything from earlier really did happen. 

It’s so strange how a person can forget things after sleeping for so long. 

How long had he been sleeping? 

A hum inhaled then exhaled through his vocal cords, the faint sound deep and scratching. The outtake smelled like mortal salt. A heaving, warm salt that must have been his, and the dying scent of simple soap. 

It’s also strange how a person can identify shapes in front of them even when their eyes are closed. Either the side of his face or the air above it was tingling like there was someone or something standing steps away from him.  

Ephraim.  

Every inch of the body clenched hard.  

No, no. Ephraim was dead. That weight gave up its hold over his vessel, the body surrounding him right now and all that disappointment sank back in.  

But something heavy was still hovering nearby, looming and breathing in his direction.

Was he supposed to feel unsettled?

Was it another rit zien?

How many were really after him?

An inhale trapped itself in both lungs.

If anything had felt like post trauma, that tangible something not really breathing in the short distance between it and his chair. The motel chair in the corner. Had Dean ever felt like this while he was deep enough in sleep to dream his life and all of those abstract nightmares that made no sense to the casual angelic viewer? 

Dean. 

He forgot. 

A person can really forget the whole early evening of a truly horrible night with just a few hours of sleep. Everything came back even sharper and perhaps even more vividly.  

Eyes ducts were already burning with a tearing sensation. There were so many accidental drops in the Impala, cool and smooth drops against the warmer surface of skin where the face would be. It’s also strange how a person barely perceives their outer body in the seconds before officially waking up. Knuckles still burned, faintly bearing the weight of a motel column. Something was sliding down that face but not-face all over again. 

Fuck. 

His body wasn’t even willing to acknowledge this. 

Arms and hands wanted to physically acknowledge this. 

His leg pinched hard, but it wasn't as painful as whatever was in the back of closed eyes. He still couldn’t entirely regret falling asleep with some distance between a pizza grease-scented bed and Dean.  

“Sometimes detaching has to be the only option.”  

Elen. 

The pain in both eye sockets almost subsided at the thought of her, some panic even slipping away from that heavily weighted disappointment that was all of tonight.

Falling asleep in the chair could not have looked more like an attempt to detach, however petulant it looked from another perspective! Elen would have approved, having done something like that at some point in her life. He still could not understand how someone as young as the goddess-renamed redhead could so easily verbalize something like that. 

Elen really did have the ability to sound like a fortune cookie.  

He almost ruffled his lips, wishing he could write that down so he would remember it when he saw her next. But then Elen always knew how to find him at the weirdest times, not even planning for anything that past Saturday full of pumpkin macaroni and cheese and the movie “Clue”!

He was still curious about her continuing story of a random phone number she received from a Garden Café employee. It didn’t seem right for someone as young-looking as her to be so surprised by something that shouldn’t be an oddity in anyone’s life. Amidst the disappointment and whatever else was a few inches away from this chair, it was still easy to be so interested in a woman who wasn't born with the name she presented herself with.  

But the television was off. 

If silence felt uncomfortable, silence felt uncomfortable. 

And heavy. 

The medium-sized motel room was somehow even smaller behind eyelids as he laid perfectly still and yet felt like the room was moving through a very narrow tunnel at the same time. Something at the end of that tunnel was faintly breathing. 

Dean. 

If everything was returning into focus after having slept that heavily, anger was even sharper and the lower half of his stomach was already burning. Dean Winchester really didn’t deserve him being there but there was no other option! It was all just too stupidly unfair.  

Unfair yet blameless all at the same time. 

Yes and no. 

Yet another human paradox.  

A sleepier yet husky exhale blew past the vocal cords in this awake but not-quite awake place, like it was trying to wash all of this away. Sleep was right there and yet not as it knocked down from just above the shell of skin. Maybe he could have a few more hours like this before leaving for the Gas n Sip by himself in time to open. He should have scheduled an alarm on his phone, but even with the pinch in his leg, there was very little desire to slide out of this “yet not” half of exhaustion in order to make one.  

“Cass.” 

Dean didn’t yell or whisper, but merely spoke, like he thought he was faking being asleep.  

An inhale swept through just as gruff, Dean’s salted human skin and his earlier shower expanding down into both lungs. But even that reaction could have looked like nothing else but stubbornness that wasn’t even entirely about the Winchester! 

“For fuck’s sake.”  

That squeak under the thin motel carpet was flexing, a few crickets singing outside the window. 

“Cass!” boomed at a moderately high pitch.

He knew that tone so, so well.

It was the one that struggled for control, mad but gently furious as only Dean Winchester knew how.  

Eyelids flicked open. 

Disappointment ran right back into that socket pain, but then humans do flinch when it comes to boisterous noises much like Dean Winchester’s commanding voice.

The white wall in front of him was more of a dark gray in the darkness of whatever time it was, the corner of a deep brown window frame hovering just at the top cusp of an eye. Its textured color never looked more solid or substantial and it was suddenly even easier to remember his, this physical body. The suit shirt underneath his touch was soft, both hands resting on the opposite hip. He must look like he was hugging himself. 

“Cass.” 

A pupil shifted slightly to its side, but he still didn’t completely look back at the elder Winchester brother. It was really Dean standing just feet away from him.

Light poured across his right side and created a half silhouette around the thick curves of a white tank top and plaid boxers of some kind of color combination. But there was no way to see his face from this angle. It wasn’t too difficult to guess that those thin eyebrows were helplessly furrowing so deeply that the sides of his brow bones were slightly jutting out of his tall forehead.  

“Dude, talk to me!” 

“Would it solve anything?”  

Eyes closed all over again. 

An inhale ran sharp. That really had to come out pitching like a mortal human’s would in the minutes after waking up. A throat swallowed that fracture, the gathering of spit and breath loud in both of his eardrums. It was only a matter of time until Dean Winchester actually confronted him, but did Dean Winchester deserve all of the confrontation from his direction? No matter how close a friend or family member is to him, Dean never takes hard truths about himself too well.

Pupils opened back onto that dark brown window frame full of its tactile existence.  

“You saw what happened earlier. Imagine how you would feel in the same situation. I don’t feel like talking or do I need to talk to you about it.” 

It tried to be ambiguous, but probably came across as rather accusing. 

An argument was finally brewing, but he was hardly prepared for it. 

One foot finally dropped to the floor, the cramp in his right leg pinching all the way down to the thin carpet. Palms planted themselves down on that soft but rough cushion against his seat, and he was right. Dean Winchester's brows were furrowing in the light and shadow on either side of his face.

Temples swayed a second after moving upright, the heat creating a head rush all on its own.

He really knew Dean too well.

But pupils were glaring, the heavy density tugging at that headache behind both eyes. There was a certain something about this that made him feel a tiny bit more like “Castiel” all over again.  

Dean’s bare forearms crossed over a shaded, white tank top, a deep exhale pushing against the crisscross.  

“Look...” Dean’s hand lifted and sliced through the air. “I get why you’re moping, man. I’d feel like crap if a rit zien busted a cap up my ass.” 

“It’s more than just a rit zien busting a cap up my ass, Dean!”

And he shot off the chair, not being bothered to emulate quotation marks.

Blue-green eyes were wincing in the weak, dim lamp-light, and he couldn't help but adjust the weight beneath his feet.

Of course, a hunter would perceive sudden movement as something that had to be physically confronted. The heat of a palm was already rising to hover across the top of his cheekbone.

“D-did you not think..." fingers fanned down in that personal space, “That the last time I saw you would indicate any of my emotions right now?” 

“You’re fine now, aren’t you? You have the gas station, Nora, and a solid babysitting job if you ever need extra cash...” 

“Actually, no, Dean. I’m not fine!” weakly yelled right back. 

“OK...”

He took a deep breath and pressed into his forehead, taking a step backward as if his heel were trying to find refuge an inch closer to where that vibrating sleep had existed. The quick massage ran finger pads even further up onto the forehead, lifting just beyond the hair line. Somehow his scalp managed to be greasy already after having just washed it in the Gas n Sip’s bathroom sink hours ago. 

“I’m healing. I’m. Healing. Dean. I’m healing because I actually and explicitly needed you,” an index finger ached to point directly onto Dean’s chest, but when angry words and actions intersect around a Winchester... “And you threw me out! You think that wouldn’t affect me, Dean? I shouldn’t have been surprised. I finally got to a place where I needed to be as Steve—” 

“YOU CALLED ME!” bellowed into the dead silence. 

“Yes, but you didn’t need to do everything else. "Solve the case by yourself, but then treat me like every other person who doesn't happen to be Sam that you help out of your own freewill, and only leave them cleaning up your mess as you..." shaking his head made everything even more lightheaded, weakly waving over at the hotel door and possibly even towards the Impala itself, "Blow out of town! That’s what you do best."

And his finger pointed over at Dean without tapping his chest.

“It might not solve anything but in a way, you’re at fault for a little girl being in range of a homicidal rit zien! If things played out differently, he could have got to El—I—Y-you put it in my head that Nora wanted something else out of me because that’s the only way you can look at women! For all I know, you might have jeopardized my job...” 

“I didn’t think," Dean quietly murmured, sheepishly looking down at the carpet.

The half-repenting image didn't make him feel any better.

Eyelids closed around a depleting breath, an exhale hollowing out the back of the throat.

Pupils weren't burning anymore, but they did feel heavy just behind that thin darkness as they tilted down towards his still dressed feet.  

“No. No, you didn’t.” 

Both hands rubbed up both downcast temples, a short, sharp inhale running across his vocal cords. Tears were so close to foaming out onto lower lashes.  

But agreeing with Dean wouldn’t make things any better, and neither would yelling. Both situations would eventually end in some kind of shouting match. He should have known.

Talking with Elen about all of this barely prepared him for whatever was happening right now, but behind closed eyes, that usual frustration felt different. It felt strangely more organized, as if there was a much deeper fire existing somewhere around the bones and sparking right up into the nerves. 

The heat finally melted away some of that sleep. 

But all of this just couldn’t be trifled with, not even knowing what kind of words would come out or what a hunter’s natural reaction would be to even an iota of what was being talked about. 

“Dean...” came out in that soft, commanding voice again.  

At least a small part of that fire could be channeled into being convinced to help the elder Winchester brother with the case. That couldn’t have been an ideal situation for someone who was healing because of the same man! 

Dean looked up from his own toes, the muscles around his pouting mouth clenching then releasing. It still felt kind of strange to glare at a face he hadn’t seen in almost a month. But he could still read Dean so easily, how the twitches in his face struggled so hard for control, tall, quirking eyebrows looking faintly helpless or confused or both while submerged in light and dark.

“I have been thinking about you so much lately and where our friendship is now. You seriously didn’t think I would be mad or resentful after everything that happened in the Men of Letters bunker? That I would be grateful to see if you would take a case here in Idaho? I hadn't planned to see you anyway! Dean, I’m—” 

“I’m working on it...” Dean sighed down towards his shoes this time, grinding his teeth together and his jaw delicately twitching against the weight. He could not have looked so oddly distraught, and yet he just couldn’t stay in the bunker.  

“And, of course...” he huffed with an exhale, looking up to the ceiling with barely any lightheadedness, “I can’t help because if you’re not a Winchester or demon or King of Hell, you’re pretty much defunct.” 

“You’re not defunct, Cass,” whispered weakly.

“No, I'm healing," came out in that authoritative voice once more. 

That fire even felt slightly soothed by that tone in his voice, discovering that comforting blue-green color as it rose off the carpet. Their dark centers really did look so hurt, Dean’s mouth clenching in a certain straight line.  

“And I’m not just recovering from being stripped of my grace. I’m healing from what this friendship has turned into,” a different kind of heat was rising in pupils, his eyelids wincing around it.

An inhale staggered through opened lips, some of that fire, however microscopic, pouring right out, “I’m healing from everything you have ever put in my head; I’m healing from everything I have ever felt around and because of you.”

His finger finally shot out into the open air, feeling eyelids angrily spread away from the hot whites of his eyes.

“I’m done with this, Dean. If any other case comes up around here, I will call you and Sam. I know your number by heart," His head shook, and his temples were much more steady despite all that strangely organized fire. Pupils elaborately rolled towards the vicinity of Dean’s face, not even wanting to look at him anymore. “But this is me setting boundaries."

“Well, then you didn’t have to come here with me.” 

“THE GAS N SIP AUTOMATIC SECURITY TURNS ON AFTER CLOSE, DEAN!” 

Blood rushed even faster.

He yelled.

He actually yelled, but even that didn’t make anything feel better.

It would only feel good for now, but the pheromones and speeding veins said something vastly different. That heaviness that loomed over him grew lighter than it had been for weeks. Was yelling at Dean enough to get this out of him? The inhale was even smoother than usual, dropping his hands to his sides.  

There really was no other option now but to go to Elen’s, but if she was sleeping... 

The digital clock’s red glow was soft from a distance, illuminated by the one source of light in the whole room. Jimmy’s pupils may have been starting to really deteriorate lately and wincing wasn’t likely to help make the time magically appear. Maybe Elen would help him pick out some reading frames, being someone who wore glasses and would have known more than he did. But gliding temples felt like they were traveling through that small tunnel all over again, like this night was never going to end.  

He had never felt more homeless. 

His eyelids closed for what felt like the millionth time during this never-ending night, the tips of his lower lashes wet against cheeks. There was officially no caring in letting Dean see him cry.

An inhale swayed and a depleting exhale hollowed through the back of a swallowing throat, the two fluctuating directions echoing into those places between the ears. It could not have sounded more like defeat.

The toes of one foot started to rotate towards the bathroom, what humans call a charley horse charging up the back of a leg. Suddenly, something touched the top of his shoulder and he froze, his heart rate skyrocketing even higher.   

But there was no telling if it was another rit zien or another kind of angel. There was always the risk of being around a Winchester right now. That same foot started to slide back to where it was standing before and of course there was no one else here but Dean and himself except for a possibly popcorn-chewing Metatron watching his every move.  

"Cass" Dean shook even softer, resting his hand against his shoulder. "I'm sorry." 

Heat was practically blowing off Dean's hand as it lifted to the back of the neck, softly rough wrist and fingers naturally curling around. Even that hand still felt the same or maybe he still felt the same from that hand. There was still nothing but that usual mix of comfort and confusion as to why humans need touch so much. But he could understand that a little now as paranoia and defeat and yet a little assertion took over that confusion.  

The charley horse sharply pinched, making him gasp and stiffly turn back around towards the half-lit Wincester. Dean kept cupping his neck, both of those pupils inches above his so hurt before they fell back towards his shoes with a loud sigh.  

“I’m sorry, man, I—” 

“For now.”  

Dean’s warm palm and fingers dropped from his neck, a vibration taking over in their absence.

And something in the air between them shifted into something to be worried about.

The freedom from giving up restraining crying felt weird, but there was no stopping the wet sensation at the top of both cheeks. Dean brushed his hand through his own hair, pausing to scratch just above his ear. Eyebrows hung so low to those eyelashes; those familiar jutting brow bones ruffled right up the center of his forehead. A brightly lit blue-green iris continued to shine although faintly swallowed up by its lid.  

These really were the same eyes he used to stare into hoping to find that soul he evacuated from hell.

Something even colder slid further down from the top of his cheek.

But now there was no telling what he was actually seeing other than the environment surrounding them. He just couldn’t afford to look at those pupils anymore. He really knew Dean Winchester too well.

Half-lit and shaded blue-green began to wince more confused.

“You’re sorry because it’s the only way to cope when someone is actually standing up to you right now ” he slowly nodded, compensating for that affirming index finger, feeling a bit more like "Castiel" against that softly commanding tone.

“You’re sorry because in order to make me feel a tiny bit better, you’re retreating into your own self-hatred and unworthiness. You’re sorry...” an index finger pointed back at Dean Winchester, hearing his low, rough syllables rattle out of the depths of his throat. “Because carrying my mark over or under your skin must constitute an apology for some reason! You’re as much of a profound bond victim as I am, but at least I have the fucking courage to finally say something. At least becoming human has given me that!” 

“When did you become Doctor Phil?” 

At least he understood that reference with all the daytime television playing at the Gas n Sip. 

Dean would like to know.  

An exhale huffed down to his sneakers.

Dean really would like to know.

It was no asking him those initial questions, but in a weird way, everything really did feel like it was officially out there. That fire even died down just enough that it was content to remain unresolved. That weight even felt a little less defeated and simply sleepy. Now there was nothing else but to try to find some park bench to sleep on although he never really wanted to do that again. Humans and cops don’t really treat those types of homeless people too well though.  

“Cass, where in the hell is all of this really coming from?” 

“Seriously, Dean?!” index and middle fingers pinched the bridge of his nose.

Eyes tilted down at the brown-looking beige carpet, pinching even harder then smoothing across his eyebrows in a slight massage.

“Didn’t I just say that I’ve been thinking about you and all of this?”

A shake of his head felt even lighter and Dean’s teeth were grinding the muscles along his square jawline. But this was a face he just didn’t want to look at anymore, the shaded side of that firm, straight line of his mouth tinted with a slight gray across human skin. Stubble even had a shadow of its own, and the older Winchester was clenching his teeth tightly. The great Dean Winchester was finally trying so hard not to be offended.    

“I’ve just finally got to a place where I finally have the words to articulate everything I have ever felt for you, none of this...” and that same index digit pointed towards himself then Dean's personal space multiple times, “None of this will really change the people we naturally are, Dean. I think I know myself a bit better as Steve now. I can accept you as you are, but for Steve, this is not a healthy basis for friendship. At your worst, you’re possessive and stubborn and I may be the same way, but that's not how I want things to proceed. I have accepted that you’re never able to be anything different.” 

“For fuck’s sake, Cass.”  

Dean really could not have looked anymore hurt as both differently shaded eyes were clearly choking back tears looking down at the carpet, that dark stubble on his chin circling back up to stare into his eyes. But Dean's tears had evaporated in the seconds it took for him to look back up, burning an aggressive, fiery anger.

He couldn't entirely reciprocate.

It was difficult to care, watching yet another example of the Winchester standards of emotion. And there was that realization that he really didn't need to show his own like the brothers that came ringing through him the longer he sat at the Garden Café. Even now it still felt oddly liberating.

But an even heavier, sleepy weight pushed down on his shoulders, all of his limbs going slightly numb.  

“Are you trying to piss me off enough to just leave town? Do you want me to forget you are living here? Jesus, Cass, we’ve been through so much—” 

“It’s not how I want things to proceed...” and the softly commanding words could not have felt more assertive or true, that nostalgia and whatever that aching feeling was while looking into Dean’s dreams nipping at a few nerves. He could have almost smiled just at those cathartic ten words, that looming weight of disappointment and failure even lighter. Exhaution was his only concern right now, a wordless, sleepy something else yet to be connected with language. “If we are meant to disband tonight, tomorrow morning, then it’s meant to be.” 

Dean was showing off that silent unworthiness, as he ran his hands down his face.

And the skin or muscles against the back of his neck quietly vibrated with the absence of Dean's hand.

A long, sharp inhale escaped from somewhere just behind those fingers.

Why did Dean fight this so hard when he was the one who ordered him out of the bunker? 

Eyelids winced in that exhaustion, finding it difficult to care even from a distance.  

“Dean...” sounded sleepier than he expected, clearing his throat quickly.

"Dean," he tried his best to project that firm and gentle tone, "I’m, I ... I'm sick of fighting. There’s nothing more I want right now than to sleep somewhere warm and since I’m currently homeless, I’m not about to really get that on a park bench somewhere."

The elder Winchester slid his hand off his face, clearly opening that firm, straight line as if in protest.

“And I will not accept charity. I took a charity sandwich once and you saw how that turned out for me.” 

“I’m not fighting you, you’re fighting me, Cass!” Dean slowly started to speak even higher, like he was about to burst out of his skin at any second.

“With good reason, Dean," his eyelids sagged all over again, so tired of standing and even temples swayed as he looked back at the older Winchester brother, “C-can I just please sleep for a few hours?” 

Eyes closed tightly, that salty air and soapy scent breathing even closer in what was supposed to be personal space. A sigh exhaled all of that, pressing eyelashes against the tops of his cheeks in slight resistance.

This night or early morning was not ending any time soon, the weight of one heel shooting back towards that chair all over again. Woozy temples moved seconds after having moved. 

"I ... I'm just trying to understand all of this, Cass.” 

His lungs expelled Dean’s scent all over again. It seemed as though this night was going to last forever, sleepier tears in the corners of both eyes. 

“You’re basically mad at me for being me and because I’m currently working on something at the bunker that I can’t let you in on? Dude, trust me, it’s a Winchester thing!” 

But there was a slight pitch just underneath Dean’s dishonest but not trying to be dishonest tone. Didn’t Dean know that he knew him too well? It sounded like that inflection when the Winchesters didn’t want to lie but they had to and somehow, there was no being surprised by any of this! 

He didn’t even care about being deceived about anything else.

Dean really was never able to be anything other than who he was, that combination of a broken yet simultaneously resilient soul so oddly attractive to the casual angelic viewer.  

“I’d rather...” and eyelids fought against opening, focusing back on Dean standing even closer in what was preferred personal space. Didn’t he once call him a Winchester? "You wouldn’t simplify something that has been on and off my mind for over five years, Dean.”  

“Jesus, Cass,” Dean murmured, shaking his head back down to the brown-looking carpet in the shadow of whatever time it was. His eyes remained open, the lips between that five o’clock shadow whispering an almost soundless, “Five years.”  

Dean's alluring vulnerability started to draw him back in, and he could feel it.

A tired breath sank deep into both lungs and the weight of that heel finally stepped back towards the chair. If the air could feel like a thick blanket, the air felt like a thick blanket hanging just beyond the vessel, his body. Steve and Castiel both needed sleep and Dean wasn't helping the situation much. Maybe the only thing to do was to make final statements and just manage to get out the door although without much of a plan. 

“Dean.”  

One better lit arm crossed with the more shaded one, both of Dean’s eyebrows quirking back up.  

“I’m finally unlearning all of the toxic and aggressive things you've ever taught me and although...” his own slid upwards, the plot of actually escaping slipping down onto sleepy shoulders, “I am maniacally terrified of being watched by Metatron or the risk of fellow angels, I really do have moments of not minding being human."

"I find I appreciate different things than you do in not staying at the Men of Letters bunker and it’s fascinating to feel it inside of me. I prefer the sounds of nature over Led Zeppelin, I enjoy drinking coffee with college students when I visit Rexburg, and I enjoy reading and noticing the tingles beneath this vess-" Temples continued to shake a second later, after actually shaking. "M-my body when I realize the physical pleasure. But that’s more than what I wanted you to know and I’m just going to, as one of your idioms puts it, get out of your hair.” 

And Dean huffed through his clenched grin, his chest flexing against his crossed forearms across the shaded, white ridges of his tank top.

"So all my good work has gone to waste. Glad to know how you really think of me, Cass.” 

“What?!” eyelids winced even closer to one another, “No! What, fuck, Dean. Damn it.” 

His foot started to turn towards the door.

It was really happening now.

By the time this door closed, all of this was going to be over. Even if the older Winchester stopped for gas in the morning, he wouldn’t give a damn and would just pretend that tonight had never even happened. This really was the price of attempting to sleep in a motel room with an impatient Winchester! 

Legs finally walked towards the motel door of room 3. 

“Dude, Cass...” Dean laughed even louder from behind him. “Steve takes everything way too seriously! I was making a joke, man.” 

"At my expense when I'm trying to let you in enough to explain what Steve has really been up to," but his words echoed directly into the peephole instead, the doorknob sleek and cool under his fingers. Goosebumps prickled along the spine and exhaustion almost completely evaporated either from the heat or finally releasing all that was Dean Winchester. “But I suppose I never expected to really be a Winchester or you being anything different than who you are.” 

“Oh, come on, Cass!” his eardrums vibrated like Dean had shouted, fingers reaching up to click the lock open as quietly as possible. “That’s unfair.” 

“I’m trying to tell you my side of everything and OF COURSE YOU. DON’T. HEAR. ANY. OF. IT. DEAN!" he yelled from that raging fire, and he curled his fingers, finally opening the door.  

A shiver of a tree hissed right through veins, a faint grassy scent wafting into nostrils.

She really was rubbing off on him as one foot started its way out, but the door was already slamming right in front of his face. And he was being spun around by his shoulder, hurled back against the door hard. And Dean kept pinning him back by his right shoulder while locking the bolt again.

The low click rang loud in eardrums, glaring back into shadowed, furious blue-green eyes.

“I heard what you said, Cass, and it’s still pretty fucking unfair.” 

“There’s no way for human communication to not come across unfair, Dean!” 

“Christ, who are you  talking to on those advice radio shows?” 

He still wasn’t planning on saying a word, exhaling to the wall on the other side of the room.

“Dean, just let me go. I’m exhausted.” 

“Why? You have a bed here, hell,” Dean wildly gestured towards that once comforting corner. “You can have the chair if you really want it!” 

You're actually trying to take advantage of my homelessness right now.” 

“I’m not trying to “take advantage of your homelessness,” Cass! I’m just trying to help!” 

“IF YOU WANT TO HELP, DEAN, THEN I SUGGEST THAT YOU LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE! I know you love me in the only way you know how, Dean, but it’s not enough for this person I am becoming and I...”

He took a deep inhale, finally catching his breath.

Spit swallowed in the back of the throat, the odd quiet sounds of muscles and liquid in ears.

“I have loved your soul before I really knew you.” 

Everything fell silent, those trembling words reverberating in the air.

Eardrums still rattled from his own words as the fire in the base of Jimmy’s skeleton began to cool. Hot tears burned out of the corners of lesser exhausted eyes. There was no way to tell whether any of that made an ungraced entity or even a vessel feel better.

But pheromones and blood started racing a bit more methodically, watching a very hurt Dean look away, furrowing his eyebrows. That firm grip continued to tighten his shoulder back onto the door.

If silence could feel thick, silence felt thick. 

“Dean, I have given you a part of myself for SO LONG...” He felt his eyes widen, upper wet eyelashes tickling the base of his eyebrows. "In ways you have and never will understand. I would really love to have it back just to understand what this rebirth needs out of my old self. You humans have a quote about loving and releasing things. Let me have this. I can only promise that when or if I interact with you in the future, I will not excuse your behavior. Sam has dealt with it for so long and reasons with it just to stay on your good side.” 

Dean stared back, glaring pure fire, angry and emotional and vulnerable.

But whatever was going on with Sam was clearly choking the air between them.

“Cass, don’t you dare talk about Sammy right now!” 

“Because I’m not a Winchester, right?! I’m done with this,” defeatedly drew out, dropping his head back on the door with a soft thud. He rolled onto one temple, submerged in softly buzzing silence, staring resignedly at the window's wood frame.

“Just let me out!" fell out a little too woundedly.  

He hated himself all over again.  

“Cass—” 

And the hand on his shoulder gripped the back of the neck.

Dean finally released his touch, forming a fist and punching the Winchester right in the face with an already sore fist. There was no Leviathan this time, but just a level of uncaring he never thought possible.

Dean really would never listen in the ways he needed him to and, after all, this was a language that Dean Winchester did understand. It almost seemed to be even better than just yelling at him.  

“FUCK!”  

He staggered backwards, grabbing his face and bending over into himself.

“WHAT THE HELL, CASS?!” Dean shot back up, revealing the beginnings of faint reddish-purple bruises on the apple of his cheek.

“I’M DONE, DEAN!” 

Maybe this really was a language that Dean could only understand. 

The Winchester looked down and poked at the bruises carefully with a hiss, fingers managing to lethargically and blindly reach for the lock. They groped downwards for the latch, quickly glancing over at a very wounded-looking Dean in more ways than one taking wide strides in his direction.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, DEAN? WHAT DO Y—” 

Dean Winchester kissed him.  

Both of Dean’s hands were actually on either side of his face and kissing him. 

And a sharp hiss breathed against his closed mouth.

The ceiling was pounding. 

Something was thudding on the wall closest to the beds.

The hands on his face released him, and the kiss was over.

“WE’RE GOOD NOW, REALLY! SORRY!” Dean shouted, glancing around the room like his words could somehow appease irritated motel guests. All of that dying motel soap and human salt breathed even closer and right up into both equally stunned nostrils if nostrils could be stunned. “SORRY!” 

Dean Winchester just kissed him. 

The Righteous Man he pulled from hell just kissed him! 

He could not have stood any more still up against this motel door, but exhausted temples swayed like he had been violently thrashed. The walls and ceiling finally fell silent and the silence that followed was deafening.

The Dean Winchester that just kissed him looked off to the side to his reliable chair, a tiny, broken hiss of an exhale out of his mouth. His hand reached out to tend to his wound, the silence getting thicker. 

How did a punch actually constitute Dean’s decision to kiss him?

He was finally asserting himself in this rebirth and two warm, tingling palms practically grabbed his cheeks and Dean's mouth pressed up against his. Lips barely tingled like the back of his neck or shoulder had, but cheekbones kept fluttering like there were insects or butterflies underneath them.

There really was nothing else to do but turn towards the door all over again. Maybe silence could speak for him, but both of his legs were totally frozen.

There wasn’t much to look at over Dean's well-lit white ribbed shoulder. Of course, the pizza box was still on the more mussed up beige and white blanketed bed closer to the other wall, a small closet just beyond Dean’s well-lit nest of sustenance and the television remote.  

Understanding Dean’s soul was one thing, but all of the environmental factors that made up his person were another and that really just happened! 

And the thick silence began to buzz faintly.

Skin and scruff were exhaling soft sweat.

Dean kept staring at the chair, unable to discern what the tone in his left eye was saying. But its eyelid started to narrow around its color, so hurt and wounded and something else, a word a reborn Steve couldn’t quite grasp.   

“And what did that solve?” 

“I dunno, but it’s something.”  

Eyelids closed over flooding, burning tear ducts, a few already sliding down his face.

Maybe it was better not to wonder why the older Winchester was compelled to kiss him. 

He dropped the back of the head back against the door, the echo gently thudding its way up into eardrums. A sleepier exhaustion weighed even more heavily against temples in all of this darkness.

But Dean Winchester was too late.  

Even if any of that was an option, the Righteous Man was too late. 

"Have you considered that there might be something baser that you need from him? Physical affection? A hug? Possible copulation like you had with the ambiguous reaper?" 

"...But I've also wondered if I were to give him that offering, would it even be enough? Would it be enough to absolve or save or relieve all of that hell in one man?" 

His chest hammered a million miles per minute in that darkness. And the heart organ felt like it could have knocked itself right out of his chest and yet, there was no being surprised at Dean’s indifference. The things Dean Winchester does in the name of maintaining what little control he really has. An older Winchester hunter's love usually manifests itself in some form of control or service to a much greater and holy cause. 

But he really wasn't an angel anymore.  

That faint buzz was growing louder, a few crickets still chirping outside the window.  

There were a few dark colors forming against that darkness behind his eyelids. Purple, the deepest blue almost mixing with the solid black shadow.

He wasn’t really of any use to the Winchester brothers now in their quest for translating the tablets and reversing what was done to all of his equally homeless brothers and sisters. The desire to hide wouldn't last, but there would be a weak sense of hopelessness because it had happened and the feeling was blameless. The knowledge swam through veins along with failure and all of its familiar and even naturally fighting sensations.  

Remnants of pizza and toothpaste started to quickly exhale onto his face.

And Dean kept breathing like this for what felt like minutes or even seconds.  

A kiss wouldn't solve any of this. 

Did Dean really think a kiss would solve everything? 

A smooth inhale eventually grumbled through the back of Dean’s throat, both eardrums tingling at the deeper bass notes. 

Did Dean really think a kiss could get him out of all of this confrontation or even give him back some control? Dean Winchester, after all, does not take hard truths about himself from other people too well. 

“You love him for being broken.”  

Tear-slick eyelashes open.  

Dean was still staring towards the chair all over again, the side of his square jaw and the flecks and dimensions of shadowed scruff even blurrier from these ridiculous tears. A shadowed, undiscernably toned green eye was very clearly trying to contain tears, narrowing so tightly like Dean could will them from falling.

A flash of those eyes had changed the entire course of his hell-bound mission, and now they could not have appeared more wounded. He did love Dean for being broken despite that worldly environment that damages human souls so easily, what he used to know as simply “sin.”   

Dean slowly looked back at him, those burning, almost wincing eyes looking so exhausted.

And Dean’s lips really did touch his, watching them firmly press against one another in a straight line. They started to open, but quickly snapped shut.

They opened all over again, spit naturally clicking in all of this deafening silence.

But whatever Dean could have come up with right now would only come from his own "crappy" experiences and that unworthy personal relationship with himself. Shameless tears slicked the corners of his eyelids. He didn’t even want to be a part of this anymore.  

That buzz was taking over that heavy quiet. 

A loud, gruff exhale ran across vocal cords, turning to balance his temple against the door.

The window frame’s scratchy brown arches still looked just as solid from here, the wall underneath and beside it faintly gray. But none of it seemed as safe as it had been. Even the white and beige chair looked more golden from one side due to the weak lamp light, and the half-circular shape also reflected on the wall behind it. But there was no way to tell if his legs were still frozen or too exhausted to move. 

He was being sucked into all that was Dean Winchester by a single dumb and inconsequential kiss. Perhaps that was the original intention, but then the older Winchester was never going to be any different. He could excuse all of that aggressive behavior and it wouldn’t do much good. He could accept all of it and Dean would not even look at him any differently in this strange rebirth. The whole thing was a human paradox in itself. How does a person love another’s broken soul and yet hold the changes they gladly make for themselves together at the same time? 

His mind was made up, it was supposed to be made up! 

The elder Winchester brother really screwed everything up and there was no knowing to what degree until the next time the Impala would find itself in Rexburg. 

The back of his head rolled against the door as he raised both of his hands towards the face. FIngerpads were warm, hovering over the apples of cheeks as he wiped the last of his tears.

“Don’t go.” 

His fingers fanned the manmade water toward cheekbones before the sides of his wrists took over.  

Those words really shook right off Dean's usually so self-assertive chest.

His thick, muscular arms looked just as uncertain as they crossed over that white tank top still half submerged in shadow and lamp, palms pressing just underneath arm pits. Green-rimmed, dry pupils tilted down but not towards naked or clothed feet.

Eyelids naturally slid shut.

Dean really was eyeing the door knob.

Something naturally kicked in his stomach.

If anything could make him feel like some kind of a hysterical flight risk, this would be it. Nothing could feel so clear and yet hazy at the same time. 

“Cass, I ... I can’t let you go.” 

That low scratchy voice still shook. 

“Can’t or won’t?” croaked right out, opening his eyes to see Dean looking down at their feet.

Dean's gaze seemed to be slightly relaxed even within that fire. There was nothing left but that addictive human vulnerability that used to scream directly into his eardrums.

Eyelids winced around his own muted fire.

Now it all simply was. It was just the freckles of Dean’s face and shaded stubble lifting back up from the thin and shaded brown motel carpet. It was an Adam's apple bobbing one methodical, painstaking swallow after another. He knew Dean Winchester too well to know that none of this was being done on purpose or vindictively, the hunter finally appeared to be cornered.  

“No, Dean.”  

A smooth inhale came out even smoother, the rest of the body not entirely cleansed or resolved. 

His mind was supposed to be made up! 

“Come on, Cass.” 

“No,” came out so easily and clearheaded, it almost felt strange and yet not all at the same time.  

A thumb and index finger rested on the bridge of his nose.

This time there weren't even tears sliding past either of their nails, but a deep sniff wafted like it was coming from a million miles away. He honestly just needed to sleep, the weight of exhaustion slamming down hard on both shoulders. 

“I...” exhaled right out, standing even straighter against the door, “I ... I can’t keep excusing your behavior the way I have been, Dean, and accepting or letting it slide also doesn’t help you to grow as a person either.”

The eyelids were already wincing, hoping this would be the last confrontation for tonight.

“Even if I’m not completely in your life, I want that soul I fell in love with to keep growing for the better. But I do need space, Dean. There needs to be a wider separation than just walls, despite the fact that you will try so hard to fight against it.”  

"Huh," Dean inhaled, flexing his stomach underneath another crisscross of his forearms, shaking his head back towards that corner, “just what I need, more people telling me what I need.” 

Dean’s usual lamentations of “Oh my God” and “Jesus Christ” could have almost shot right out of his throat, but there was no need to bring that Galilean rebel into any of this.  

"I'm not telling you what you need Dean, I'm just telling you my side of the story," the back of his head started to shake onto its temple, wanting nothing more than to balance on it and stare directly into the window frame.

But lethargy took over only a second after the initial movement.

Dean Winchester readjusted the weight beneath his feet and rolled his eyes, and nothing could have looked more like him.

“You make it so hard for people to love you. I know you have been alone for so long. I'd like to say that you have me, but at the same time, I'm trying to figure out just what being Steve needs from me. I’ve never realized how incredibly difficult it is for humans to love others and yet not lose themselves in the process. I have lost myself to you so many times, but right now, I’m in a place where I need to be selfish.” 

“Can’t argue with you there," Dean muttered rather pacifyingly yet cornered.

Sleepy eyelids closed around that soft mumble.  

"Dean..." drew out even more sluggish, lost in the darkness behind his eyelids, “I will never stop remembering how attached I became to loving your soul like I had.” 

And that darkness barely mutated with other colors.

There was nothing else but a sensation of a tall, hovering shape exhaling pizza grease and toothpaste and mortal salt against his face. It was moving even closer into his personal space.

Soft, muscular material fell onto shoulders, a firm substance leaning against his forehead.

"Cass...." pulsed against his vessel's face, a slight draw through the vowel sounding like something like a warning, "You need to stop saying those three words, they make me want to do funny things.” 

Was kissing a funny thing? Lips weren’t even going attempt that one out loud.  

This was a new level of understanding Dean Winchester, but a Dean capable of kissing was just light years beyond his comprehension. A sharp sigh breathed outside of his closed eyes, two streams of its exhale brushing across his stubbled philitrum.

Can proclamations to a person’s soul make someone want to kiss another?

He didn’t even know kissing was an option!

Did he want the option of kissing? After all of these years, he never even tried to actively pursue something even close to the option! It would have been pretty apparent how Dean would have reacted! An eyelid was already shaking.   

“I’m exhausted, Dean.” 

Some lamp light slowly trickled through thinner skin.

And one eye cracked open and then the other, immediately widening.

Dean's face was so close to his, their foreheads balancing against one another.

The closeness felt almost as addictive as that vulnerability, something that transcended hands or lips wanting to reach out for it. Perhaps his real body always wanted something of Dean’s soul but Jimmy’s nerves, full of human and sexual need, just had to intervene as the two of them walked towards the tail end of that demon trap. The periphery just beneath his grace bounced with a mixture of fear and even something resembling attraction. 

Dean's eyes remained open, looking down into the last of their personal space.

Fingers almost wanted to reach out like that ethereal something towards the bruises in an attempt to apologize and yet not. The history was right there against finger pads, those same eyes always getting so angry or agitated every time he would offer the tiniest of condolences from Jimmy’s awkward vessel.  

Dean’s forehead gently grazed upwards, the tip of his nose faintly brushing his own.

Something hot immediately burned into nerves. That was not an undesirable touch.

Still with Dean's forehead against his, his pupils glanced up and crossed, due to human limitations.

This was a much more intense reaction than freshly human instinct while being with the reaper inside of April. Heat lingered, crackling somewhere even further down underneath the neurons making up all of these loudly reacting nerves. Was this what Jimmy hoped for with those multiple jumps he clutched onto like those cartoon cowboys on television clutching onto horses? 

“Bed or chair, Cass?” 

“Dean,” thankfully came out much firmer.

Dean's slightly crossed pupils point to the bridge of his nose, long eyelashes fluttering carefully across shadowy green and forcing him to look nowhere else. And those dark, endless pools could not look more sad and wounded.

A preparing inhale found his chest already shaking.

“Just tell me one honest thing, one honest thing from the depths of that soul inside that body. Why would you press your lips onto me just when I’m trying to move in a healthier direction? Why now?” 

"I dunno..." he mumbled almost pathetically and glanced down at the carpet between their feet with brow bones poking out softly from his skull. And long eyelashes practically exhaled a breeze against the apples of his cheeks.

“I ... I just,” murmured with a quick breath, “I c-can't lose you, Cass." 

“Dean, I’m afraid you have lost me enough.” 

Eyelids sank over the top of pupils and in that barely morphing blackness, Dean’s warm palms felt even heavier against his shoulders.  

“I ... I just wanted to know since you’re not an angel anymore, I ... I don’t know.” 

“What did you want to know, Dean?” couldn't have sounded more exhausted and frustrated behind that darkness, but there was something about a proposition between bed and chair.  

“J-just, don’t leave, Cass, I mean, for tonight anyways. Just stay here.” 

“What did you want to know now, Dean?”  

He almost hated himself for asking, goosebumps almost rising on the back of his neck just from that soft yet powerful tone. It really did feel like homesickness.

That buzz retreated somewhere in the depths of that thick and dead silence.  

It lasted for minutes or perhaps even seconds. 

He wasn’t too surprised that Dean couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the question. 

But something itched angrily underneath limbs capable of punching. And yet there just wasn’t any point in getting pissed off at a hunter who was taller and in much better shape than he was.

Eyes opened, finding Dean looking back down at what small personal space was left.

Dean's forehead moved against his with barely a nudge of his nose, hearing a tiny sigh of disappointment hollow through the back of his throat.

Even if Dean didn't say much, what he said was remarkably sincere! But so was “you just can’t stay here” even between those shaking words or the pupils that couldn't look at him across that bunker table. Dean Winchester really did shatter his trust.  

“That taking advantage of a human and incredibly vulnerable Steve would be easier than the angel you once knew?”  

“Christ, Cass, I would never take advantage of you,” shook right out of the older Winchester hunter, his syllabic breath softly brushing his philitrum. But that bone-deep fire started to bubble.  

“How can I even begin to trust you anymore, Dean?” 

Dean shot backwards like his forehead caught some of that fire, those hot palms dropping from his shoulders. And he could only stand up against the door, the space between his eyebrows a helpless tingle, the tip of the nose burning with the absence of Dean's.

“You couldn’t even look directly into my eyes to explain why I couldn’t stay in the Men of Letters bunker. You’ve been lying to me about Sam. You persuaded me into helping you tonight and I almost got killed, however merciful! How can I ever believe anything out of your mouth when you do try to say something sincere?! YOU HAVE BROKEN MY TRUST, DEAN!"

He finally sobbed, but the insides of tear ducts were completely raw and, somehow, tears were falling onto his cheeks.

Dean furrowed his blurry-looking brows with the deepest furrow yet, his narrow and clearly pained pupils straining from behind his long, dry eyelashes.

A rough, gentle hand gripped the back of his neck, and the intersection of moisture and parched outer lip pressed against his.

Eyes remained opened. 

Even a more open-minded Steve found it a bit weird, though his mouth almost wanted to move against Dean's, even at his behest. And Dean’s smooth bottom lip tried all the harder to wedge him open this time, an approving purr wanting to worm its way into his throat. 

A soft, wet squeak sounded in that deep silence.  

It was still strange, but not entirely undesirable! 

A gruff groan fell off the back of Dean’s throat, that insisting bottom lip finally giving up.

His lips opened, allowing Dean's kiss to envelope him, but he did not return it.

Nerves couldn't stop leaping.

And the Winchester's rigid stance gradually cooled off.

Dean's eyelashes fluttered against the tops of his cheeks, humming an approving growl.

The whole thing was just too strange. 

And a rough hand cradled the back of his neck, the kiss deepening full of progressively louder, wet squeaks that rattled eardrums. Whatever it was beyond hands or lips was strangely soothed, finding something in the low noise out of Dean's lips. Still, he remained completely immobile, despite a desperate feeling coursing through his veins.

He focused on the well-lit left edge of Dean's square jaw, taking in all of the shadowed curves of freckles and stubble and nose shape in various shades.

But both of his eyes were still open.

Did a person have to close their eyes during a kiss however one-sided or reciprocal?

A soft noise whispered off the back of Dean’s throat and there was a slight tinge of tenderness to the sound. Something in both limbs softened, that hammering escalating in the depths of his heart organ. Dean’s curving lips produced another moist release. 

He almost wished he could reciprocate.  

Two alternating streams of pizza dough and mint toothpaste blew even harder on that space between nostrils and the one cupped lip. Saltier sweat entered the mixture of soap and skin.

Why was he not stopping this?

Did he really want to stop this?

An easily deceptive Dean Winchester did say he wasn’t taking advantage of him.

An inhale sounded almost wounded, the rough kiss with its wet lining and ambiguous but slightly distrusting intent finally pulled off his lips. Dean really was over-asserting in his usual hunter-like way, but was that an excuse or an admission?  

And he could feel himself shoving Dean's hand off of him and pushing the Winchester further back, but even gently forceful reinforcements didn't feel near good enough.

His fist met their respective imprints slowly forming on the hunter's face.

“Damn it, Cass!” Dean lurched backwards, staring back at him furiously as his hand leaped for his injuries. But his resolute, half-naked, hairy legs stepped back into his personal space, yanking him by his open collar off the door.

Temples swam along with a numbing, blinding pain. Hunters tend to be quick like that.

His own cheek stung with Dean's fist, and Dean’s firm mouth was on his all over again.  

Fists gripped at the thin undershirt, struggling to maintain some personal space as his legs were already and practically floating beneath him. With each step he kind of took, the temples rocked, and his blood flow continued to run wild not completely exhausted or frustrated.

But Dean didn't try to wedge his lips open.

Balled fists released the ridged cotton, slamming up against the firm chest underneath.

Suddenly, somewhere between hitting the foot of the closest twin mattress and a sob spreading across Dean's lips, he roughly kissed the Winchester right back.

Cheek nerves exhaled across a slowly opening mouth. 

And Dean hissed the same way down his throat, roughly pushing his lower lip between his.

Blood churned even hotter in thighs all over again.

The warm moist inside his mouth tasted much different from the late dinner or teeth cleaning products, a slicker kind of salt trickling against a momentarily released top lip. Dean really did taste like everything and nothing, another squeak echoing up into his eardrums. Calloused wrist and fingers grabbed at the back of the neck, a less identifiable something thickly stabbing at a thigh.  

And Dean gently squeezed the back of his neck, softly yelping in shock.

Lips tried not to pleasurably gasp, and the already rough kiss deepened.

Fingernails scratched up beneath his suit shirt that Dean insisted he untuck for Nora earlier, trying his best to refrain from making pleasurable noises. But even after April, this still felt light-years beyond him. It was Dean!

It was still Dean’s hand gripping and scratching his naked waist, a twitching stabbing against screaming thigh veins. A grunt exhaled, his breath trembling hot in Dean’s mouth.   

And he was being thrown down against something soft too fast for his temples to even think of reacting.

Eyes closed, the darkness behind them colorless.

And the firm motel mattress flexed against his spine, slightly rocking from two strong indents settling on either side of his hips followed by a warm, fleshy weight wafting onto outer thighs. One leg almost echoed the absence of that piercing something.

The back of his head sank back into the stiff mattress.

The bed flexed as Dean kissed him again, a light depression next to an ear.

He opened his eyes to the shadow of that face kissing him, hearing a sleepy scoff exhaling from somewhere off the back of the throat.

Dean was straddling his thighs, loose plaid boxers with all of their natural fabric gravity leaning off his legs. 

Another wet kiss broke through the deafening silence. 

And Dean was looking down at him, taking a deep, heavy breath, unbuttoning a few more of his white shirt buttons.

It really wasn’t such a weird thing for two men to be together, but this was more than just two men being together if it was leading to that. This was Dean.

This was Dean who broke people's trust so easily. This was 4, maybe even 5 years of something like a friendship with someone who could barely string together a full honest sentence about that very friendship!

Bluish gray returned to those green irises overhead, their black centers focused only on him, and they looked hurt.

Whether the elder Winchester liked it or not, it needed clarifying.

He really did care about the Winchester even against his better judgment, and Dean couldn't have come across more terrified to let him go. There had to be some love in that.

Dean's face started to relax, softly licking the center of his slightly parted upper lip as his eyebrows sank down to each of their lashes. And this is the look when Dean Winchester's brow bones were about to jut upwards, curious and prodding and uncaring of what would happen next.

Eyelids slid shut, feeling tears foaming at the bottom of this darkness.

It still didn’t feel entirely right but still not completely undesirable, whatever this was considering Dean’s complete lack of consideration that remained paradoxical between excuse and acceptance. 

Dean hummed through an inhale, the wafting outtake smelling like pizza grease and toothpaste across his face. Everything started to feel calmer, air moving across the bare skin between undone shirt buttons. And a soft but firm touch brushed the jawline, slowly moving upwards.

“Shit, Cass.” 

The touch glided down one cheek even softer.

If anything was evidence that Dean WInchester does have some regard for others!

Eyelashes flicked down where those fingertips had been.

There was no way of imagining what Dean’s face would look like in this moment, but his eyes fluttered open right onto him. And a soft pout was pushing his full lips out, eyebrows softly furrowing and the eyes beneath slightly narrowing, soft and yet angry all at the same time.

He could have almost kissed the Winchester if he really wanted to! The idea wasn’t as strange as the actual kissing, but would any of this really change anything for the better? He had officially fallen back into all that was Dean Winchester and all of this would only change him for the worse.

A deep breath grumbled across the back of his throat, the cool skin of a chest inhaling hard enough to meet the stitches of freed buttons. That change could only be for the negative in the wider scope of an angel-infested earth.  

Tear ducts struggled against the idea of tears. 

An inhale was beginning to shake and an exhale was just as frustrated. 

But Dean still towered over him, looking so lost inside himself.

Everything started to speed up once more.

And he could have punched him if he really wanted to as well!

But green-gold eyes had angry storm clouds rolling in as a hand reached for a pressure point on the hunter he once pointed out to him. Dean already had him by the wrist, lifting his hand over his head and pushing it against the mattress.

Lips were on his even firmer, a deep inhale grumbling across his voice.

Could a human want something so badly and yet not all at the same time?

He tried to wiggle out from underneath Dean's legs, but accidentally inducing a mysterious groan that breathed across his face. The back of the head fell back in defeat against the stiff motel mattress, a few long hair strands tickling the side of his pinned fist. 

Talking didn’t help and neither did the physical gratification of a fight. 

Dean’s pupils overhead slowly gained back some of that fire, but they only grew blurrier.  

A few tears slid down cheekbones, pooling in hot ears. 

Something started clanging strangely metallic.  

And Dean was sliding the leather strap out of his belt loop, feeling heat rush to his cheeks.

A quiet zip breezed through the air, the absence of a belt buckle making him feel even more naked as a warm, trembling hand slipped into his unzipped jeans, bluish-green eyes practically staring into what used to be his grace. Fiery pupils twitched almost sorrowfully directly into his eyes, not quite knowing how to read them or what it was they were trying to say.

Breath shakily inhaled, his eyelids wincing up into Dean's in an attempt to understand, and something faintly familiar could not have felt more achingly heavy.

A sober Dean Winchester, someone who once called him a brother, was actually doing this! 

And he couldn't stop falling back into those endless, soulful pools, hearing fabric thump and hiss from an unknown location. Electrical, lukewarm air tingled down to the tips of his toes, each and every nerve shouting the loudest they had yet as fingertips curled around him.

He gasped, tilting his gaze towards the small, white hills of shirt buttons, finding that body part thick and straining and remarkably red with human arousal. But it wasn't the kind of arousal that he had felt with April or Daphne, somehow managing to never come across as more of a better or worse idea all at the same time.

Dean Winchester was holding Jimmy’s penis and it felt wonderful yet terrifying.  

The quick sensation of the phrase even sounded strange in his head. Only with Dean could he be able to feel two different things in a single second!

Hot, defeated tears prickled the corners of both eyes, looking beyond Dean's shoulder. The grayish-white and yellow ceiling was getting even blurrier the more he looked into it, feeling a soft, tender touch sliding across his length.

Gasping even louder, he arched his back and gripped Dean's hand while balling his free fist into the duvet. A long, high-pitched hum burned in the back of the throat, resisting looking into those blue-green eyes submerged in the motel room's shadows.

Had Dean always wanted to do this to him? But how does a person ever really know another's intentions when they don't communicate as well?!

And that warm hand ran its way back up, tracing his thumb across an already gently beading crevice and sending a strong electrical current down to the tips of his toes.

Burning tears distorted the ceiling beyond a half-clothed, muscular shoulder bobbing heavily with his breath, noticing bumps against it akin to human goosebumps embedded within the geometry of yellow lamp light hugging its shape against the arching, charcoal-shaded darkness.

And the tip of a thumb softly traced laps against him, smattering human juices across the tip.

"D-Dea—ah..." he cut himself off, unable to look over into those eyes.

Eyelids closed, lost in the goosebumps running up his ribs.

Dean's warm palm took it all back into his hand, and he actually whimpered. Nothing could have felt more terrifying and yet still not entirely undesirable, feeling his heartbeat thrashing into the heat of Dean's hand pinning him down. His traitorous body shivered, an inhale shaking even harder and exhales helplessly panting. And eyes clamped shut so hard, tears foamed, slipping onto lower lashes.

The touch was beginning to feel more normal.

And Dean Winchester was even carressing up this vessel's penis like it was something precious, like he legitimately wanted to. Dean would have stopped if he hadn't wanted it or if he had fought back, but over-stimulated nerves couldn't be bothered to send adequate blood flow to his brain.

A smooth glide glided even more slowly up along his smeared juices, melting all thoughts of April or Daphne from his mind. His head dropped back, almost attempting to bury his forehead into the pillow case's lower hem, long hair brushing against his pinned fist. Then Dean stopped moving, causing him to fall against his rucked-up shirt tails. He grimaced, recognizing the heartbeat in his chest fluttering against the sudden stillness.

An index finger made its way up the underside vein, and his chest ached as he inhaled.  

“D-Dean..." he grunted softly, arching up to shift the slight, addictive friction.

And that warm hand released him once more, hoping and yet not hoping that Dean had finally come to his senses. Eyelids almost wanted to open as he felt a painfully rigid, straining weight dangling towards his, softly gasping at the squishy texture running up his length.

"Puh..." echoed wetly above him multiple times, cutting into the silence.

Dean shifted down towards his knees, igniting a fire in the depths of his testicles, causing a loud groan to escape his lips. He couldn't remember when he had wanted this touch so badly, feeling warm, alive skin leaning down on top of him.

Breath flowed heavily across the philitrum from behind closed eyes.

And his lips almost lifted to meet Dean's, knowing they were right there, inches away from his.

Quiet grunts and moans in the back of his throat were made even louder with the absence of sight, noting a dark blue passing across the collage of black and purple. The lower back shivered, goosebumps cascading up his spine. And Dean's wet hand gripped him on one side, stiffening, quivering hot creases gliding against his own.

“Agh, fuck...” was already grumbling out of his mouth, arching even further back into the motel mattress.

Dean's lips clicked open, that familiar wet heat sighing over his.

“Fuck," groaned out above him, something hard pressing against his forehead and heaving breath landing fully against parted lips.

His eyes slowly opened.

Dean leaned his forehead against him, submerged in deeper shadow as he pinched shut his eyes and scrunched up the rest of his face as if he were in pain. And his heart could not have broken into a million pieces, wanting so badly to trace those cheekbones or run a thumb across that tiny crease in his chin or dig his fingertips into that muscular back.

“Fuck, Dean!” nearly shouted through gritted teeth.

And a low, deep gasp fell across his face like Dean was achieving his own pleasure at the same time. His eyes wanted to turn downwards, wanting to see what was being done to him, their lips inches away from meeting less forcefully. A grunt rose towards Dean's lips as he battled a soft urge to beg to be kissed.

"Fuck..." he growled, smelling the scent pouring from the air above.

Dean's twitching length and hot hand sped up, the friction gradually drying up.

Little gusts of breath puffed into Dean's heavily breathing mouth. Toothpaste and his late-night meal smelled even hotter from his nostrils and gasps, his own hungering so desperately for a kiss.

A long, anguished gasp groaned out instead, his whole body vibrating and everything further south absolutely tingling into an even bulkier omission. Dean's hand lifted to his lips, mouth muscles shifting before spitting into his palm and returning to half-sated friction.

He could not have groaned any louder or higher.  

"Shit, D-Dean!" a rough whisper crossed the lips above his.

Dean Winchester's eyelids weren't closed, his gaze focused on his task, his lashes hovering just above his cheeks. He was still tempted but terrified to see what they looked like huddled together around Dean's large hand. Although, to be fair, he couldn't quite look down while plunging into April or Daphne either, but with Dean, everything felt so familiar and yet different all at the same time.

And the erratic, shivering breath above him hummed and groaned.

A huff escaped his lips as he realized they were tilting upwards, Dean's moist hand and penis gliding so perfectly up against him, ebbing and waning like ocean waves but even better.

"D-Dean..." tearily whispered, hoping his tone would be enough to beg for a kiss.

But the Winchester's grip slowed, his chest rattling with breath and a racing heart rate.

And it sped up all over again, something even deeper than testicles softly and slowly growling a kind of texture he had never felt with the women in his past. His whole body thrashed, hearing a faraway sob peel from the depths of his throat.

“Fuck," he exhaled, up into Dean's open, hot mouth, screwing his eyes shut.

Maybe there was no other choice but to give up on the idea of Dean kissing him.  

Tears automatically pricked their ducts, running down the front of his seemingly invisible face. And Dean was desperately trying to expel the air from his pounding chest using only his loud, groaning breath, a smooth, gentle texture running across his top lip in something like a kiss.

Dean's hand continued to move at a rapid pace, and he sobbed all over again, hating and yet loving how amazing it felt. He may have always wanted this, not knowing if it was just sex itself or sex with Dean.

“D-D-Dean...” he couldn't stop panting and moaning, sharp heat bathing and electrocuting every part of his body and something rumbling deep in the floors of both testicles.

Shaking breath puffed even harder and louder into his mouth but wordlessly.

And his lips lightly grazed his top lip, nearly crying at the tender touch.

But a glimmer of hope still waited for the full, wet heat of a kiss, and temptation started to bubble all over again as Dean started to fall apart, applying even more adequate lubrication against him.  

“Sh-shit, C-Cass. GOD DAMNIT!” slowly slid up into a new octave.

And a trembling fingertip still managed to care for his pleasure, dragging up the expanse of wildly twitching skin and sliding across a helplessly wet crease. His loud groans rose higher, unable to restrain any sound but the need for lips against lips and to be able to touch anywhere on Dean's body. But like asking for a kiss, he just couldn't.

He could only imagine what touching Dean would feel like, tracing fingertips across the anti-possession tattoo on his chest, around his trembling wrist that aligned them together, his overheated lower back and the sweat glazing the back of his neck. Instead, the ridged texture of Dean's tank top was shaking against the sliver of nakedness between his own shirt buttons.

“Fuck, Jesus Christ, Cass...” sounded even weaker from a distance, muffled across his top lip. 

"D-Dean..." and if a heartbeat could be felt in a person’s ears, his heartbeat was in both ears and it was screaming alongside his nearly impossibly shaking penis. 

He panted helplessly, perfect, sparking electricity shooting through him repeatedly.

"Dean, Dean..." he stammered in a desperate whisper, his eyes brimming with blisteringly humid tears and a gushing, hot need pouring from him. And he was toppling towards something, feeling his shaking arm lifting beyond a deeper black and carding through soft hair that wasn't his own, arching up into trembling tank top ridges.

And open, panting lips were pressing hard against Dean's.

Skin gradually became even more conscious of itself, and that he had indeed blacked out, leading to the path of no resistance. He could not have felt more naked between this and the few liberated buttons and his penis out between the zipper grooves of his jeans. But he barely felt violated but not entirely emotionally satisfied all at the same time.

He rolled onto his side, and it was a dumb idea as the vessel's penis brushed against Dean's, shooting a painful, over-stimulated arousal up the back of his ribs. His hand jerked from beneath a still trembling grip as a few zipper teeth scratched at oversensitive, flaccid skin. And Dean Winchester remained straddling him as he tucked himself back into the underwear men jokingly call tighty whities, zipping his fly back up.

He actually had sex with Dean Winchester. 

And there was literally nothing to feel.

Eyelids slid shut, unwilling to cry over some bed rock-shaking realization if he had ever wanted Dean like this, the tremors of the older Winchester brother still astride him. Instead of feeling violated or used or even raped, everything just felt empty.

Empty.

Maybe he had always wanted to feel like the spiritual counterpart to what just happened, but with all the staring into the soul behind those pupils and the lack of personal space. But as to what that could be, he had no idea.

And Dean wasn't moving off from him any time soon.

He still couldn't stop shaking, although everything below the waist felt physically sated and feather-light.

Maybe he simply wanted some kind of platonic affection, as Elen put it. But the weight of a palm on a hot, breathing shoulder or the back of his currently sweating neck couldn't entirely sate those deeper places. Dean did not talk or open up after enjoying physical pleasure such as a fight or sex, but that is not to say that he did not own up to the consequences of his honesty.

It all would end the way it did.

Hot tears streamed out onto the cheap motel comforter beneath his cheek, knowing Dean was watching him slowly cry himself to sleep.

Chapter Text

He couldn't tell if it was emotional exhaustion or just sleepiness as the Gas n Sip came into view beyond the Impala’s windshield, Dean Winchester’s “Baby” slid right up towards a parking spot. 

The memories from last night remained as exhausting, sleep weighing down on his entire body.

But he was all cried out, wiping down his unwashed, cracked, stubbled cheeks, his nerves faintly quivering as fists fell back onto thighs. And he fell back against the comforting curves of the Impala’s passenger seat, almost feeling Sam’s tall imprint against it. He almost missed this sensation.  

There was no point in thinking about whatever happened after the television was turned off last night.

Ephraim was right there at the forefront of all of this, the bitterness in his vessel's eyes without a hint of rit zien's benevolence. The fact that Ephraim once admired him hurt far more than anything Dean could ever conjure up on his already frayed nerves. Even his brothers and sisters who might have been equally fond of him must have changed their minds about him by now.

They had to matter alongside making peace with himself.

The back of his head slumped back onto the neck rest, eyes closing.

Nothing could have felt more between clarity and yet hating every part of this situation, unable to run away from it but even that could look like “burying his head in the sand.” All of that from a brother who didn't immediately condemn him for changing his mind about the slow changes in heaven! 

"Listen, Cas..."

He nearly jumped at the quiet words in a very quiet Impala.

Every grunt and moan and the squeaking noise of lips releasing was right there, against his better judgment. Everything beneath skin rang even hotter, his eardrums rattling with disappointment.

He absolutely hated himself.

"Back at the bunker, I uh … sorry I told you to go." 

He had to force a sigh to come out as an exhale.

A hunter would find it easier to talk during the day, at least what he could impart outwards. But it would be nothing but “uh”’s and pauses meant to be interpreted as awkward or half of an unbridled shouting match saying absolutely everything but nothing.

Dean Winchester was never willing to be anything other than who he was.

Perhaps a more soulfully verbose nature or connection was all that was needed last night, to actually hear whatever was circulating in Dean’s distraught and abused mind without a single environmental filter. Nothing could have felt more like a simultaneous mistake and a non-mistake.

He had to force a sigh to come out as an exhale.

"I know it's been hard on you, you know, on your own. Well, you're adapting. I'm proud of you." 

There were a million things he could have said. He wanted to cry. He wanted to yell like he did last night.

But his head was still resting on the comforting neck rest. 

“Thank you, Dean,” came out instead.

The vocal cords weren’t shaking outwards like they were in his throat, his temples swimming in anger but not-anger.

In a strange way, he actually meant it.

This was Dean saying something close to a compassionate affirmation.

“But there's something Ephraim said. The angels – they need help."

He couldn't really deny that as the head remained against the headrest, looking out towards his destiny for the day that was not yet open. He almost looked forward to cleaning the slushie machine, yelling at the unruly teenager boys once school got out, all the wry and mocking text messages he would get after an equally mockingly ominous text message back to Elen that would simply say "what's your favorite ice cream?" 

But the weight and heat of Dean’s hovering lips were still palpable.

There was also a light brush on his cheekbone as crying coaxed him to sleep.

There was waking up to find the older Winchester brother sleeping in the next bed, alongside the pizza box.

"C-can I really sit this out? Shouldn't I be searching for a way to get them home?"

He glanced ahead at the lines of the yellow diagonal parking spaces just in front of the gas station. They blurred and sharpened multiple times, still unable to look over at Dean. He hadn’t been able to look at the Winchester brother since rolling onto his side and tucking himself back into his pants.

Everything after the television was turned off became even more acute the longer he thought about it, the nerves ringing hot and destroyed.  

"The thought of your angelic siblings being confused or depressed or terrified [...] will cut deeper into you eventually."

Was this the official cut?

Maybe Dean and not Ephraim was the catalyst to all of this. 

The crown of his head shot off the neck rest, darting over at Dean, looking only into his face.

Both pupils in those ever-changing irises were officially off limits.

But this was the first time he had looked at him since last night and furious tears wanted to foam right out. Maybe it was petulant that he didn’t say anything about Elen’s sage words. But despite wanting to be selfish, this was his problem and not the Winchesters'.

This.

Was.

His.

Problem!   

"You're human now, it's not your problem anymore." 

An arm shot straight at the handle of the passenger door.

Exhausted anger hovered, fingertips resting on the outside crank.

He would never again experience this level of comfort the Impala or Dean’s supposedly aphoristic words could offer. But communication between humans is rarely fair, since there are usually omissions in translation. And yet, there was some kind of crosshairs between excusing or accepting Dean Winchester’s complete inability to communicate. 

The Impala’s passenger door opened from his own grip. 

No.

This was his problem.

Why would Dean even say something like that after everything last night?! 

He looked back at Dean, focusing everywhere but back on his eyes.

The older Winchester had thrown on his army green jacket which probably still smelled like pizza grease, his usually perfectly aligned hair slightly out of place.

A, his, hand rose in something like a wave behind the rolled-up Impala window.

Dean gestured the same way.

He never wanted to see Dean Winchester ever again.

And the 1967 Chevrolet Impala screeched out of the Gas n Sip parking lot as his eyes closed. There was a sense of acceptance behind eyelids, still hearing the shriek of the wheels in eardrums and nothing had felt more ironically emblematic.

His hand reached for the cell phone in his pocket, eyes opening as it flipped open.

The tiny text message screen came back up, almost forgetting his attempts to compose an adequate message to warn Elen of his possible decisions last night.

'You're not going to believe the ni...'

His possible decisions...

Delete button, delete button...

'You’re not going to believe who I...'

Delete button, delete button... 

'Guess who I was with all night?'

He finally pushed send.  

An exhale breathed out, forgetting he was still standing in front of the Gas n Sip's front door and the new reality of Elen and a paid job felt like a strange and rather joyous warm shower. It even solidified his feet against concrete, rattling every muscle and nerve but barely touching that certain fire down in Jimmy's skeleton.

It was amazing yet strange how much he valued Elen's opinion.

The storefront keys jingled loudly as they came out of his back pocket, unlocking the gas station's front door and ringing the small bell overhead, the light tinkle never sounded more welcoming than at this moment.

But there were still the angels.

At least he barely felt lost as the thick scent of coffee permeated the gas station.

The smell was comforting, and he would get some before customers started to trickle in for the day as he searched his pockets for enough change. He placed the cash drawer in the register, the rattling noise harsh against his exhausted hearing, turning the TV on.

"It's been weeks since the massive meteor storm, yet Idaho Falls astronomers still have unanswered questions. NASA and Washington are both continuing to study the phenomenon."  

His phone vibrated in his pocket. 

“You do know ex-angels can get charged with homicide like humans, right?” 

He could hear it so clearly in Elen’s dead-pan tone that he knew to take it as humor. A laugh rumbled low through the chest and nothing could have felt more strangely reparative. He burst out laughing and threw his head back, catching the news channel just above his eyeline.

And pupils kind of wanted to roll at the images of the continuing coverage of God's angels falling from the sky scrolling across the television screen.

Will it ever be over?

No.

For as long as true unvesseled humans sought after questions and what they perceived as truth, even if it stayed out of the media, God's creation would persist in attempting to understand what was beyond them. It was the best and worst of humanity, yet he was a part of it now. And since he was a part of it now, today he would indulge in something different, something both Elen and himself would appreciate as a step closer to taking care of his brothers and sisters. 

He switched off the television.