(Requies.)

Okay, so. Cas could make answering “how do you want your eggs” sound like he was the guy in that old song, trying to work out how close to Scylla’s cliff he had sail to avoid toppling ass over ears into Charybdis. Clearly, he needed to laugh more.

Leontes: What fine Chisell
Could euer yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
For I will kisse her.
Paulina: Good my Lord, forbeare:
The ruddinesse vpon her Lippe is wet:
You’le marre it, if you kisse it; stayne your owne
With Oyly Painting.
A Winter’s Tale, William Shakespeare, c. 1610. (Statue scene.)

There was this thing Dean wanted to do.

These last six days, since Sam and Cas had come back, had been insane, and exhilarating, and freaking exhausting. Everyone was talking round and round in circles, everyone had an opinion (and dragged out years-old grudges to support it), everyone was passionate, a lot of people were still grieving. Everyone had something to argue about, and it was the most alive the town had felt in years.

And then, on the other hand, there was Cas, lying still and quiet in his bed. Sleeping almost solidly, eating voraciously whenever he was awake before dropping straight off again. Dean had already spent too many hours leaning in the door of the room watching him sleep, whenever he could steal any time from all the work that needed doing outside. It was July, after all, and shearing and hay-baling and so on wouldn’t just wait on his pleasure.

Dean didn’t know quite what to make of it all. It felt like something out of a storybook. And though he kept that thought firmly to himself, once it had lifted its head it wouldn’t go away. Because, after all – what kind of a storybook? What story were they in?

It felt... epic. Enormous and life-changing, not for one person but for the course of history. And at the same time, there were all these messy little details, like the argument outside the smithy being turned around completely by the way Gordon tripped over the mangy cat darting out from under the woodpile and stubbed his toe, and the strings of curses and personal accusations that had followed that, especially involving the stiffness in Samuel Colt’s knee since he’d broken it years ago, and the incongruous realisation that came out of the conversation of just what it would mean to have allies around the place who could heal, heal anything – not just dramatic gaping battle wounds, but all those little niggling problems that were just part of everyday life, and the drudgeries of age.

There was one topic of conversation in the town, and it raged back and forth fierce as a blaze, and erratic as a litter of kittens with a straw doll.

So, whatever story this was, it wasn’t just about Dean any more (if it ever had been). And he was sure – almost sure – that it wasn’t a monster story. Not one of those ones you heard late at night, with the peaceful farmer who starts acting strange, just when his neighbours start turning to mangled corpses on the full moon. Dean was pretty sure he wasn’t the monster now. Weird and messed up, maybe, but nothing distorted or infected. He knew what it felt like now to have a monster in him, and nothing he’d ever felt before was anything like that. He was pretty clear now on what was him and what wasn’t. Even if the warm fluttery hope in his belly every time he thought about Cas wasn’t what anyone could consider normal.

And the angels weren’t monsters, so it wasn’t the story of the beautiful stranger (or strangers) who appear at the inn and charm everyone around them until the whole town is under their thrall and then they show their fangs. If anything, this had been the other way around. The angels had passed through the Gate known as monsters, and the longer they stayed – the more Anna ventured out into the town with Sam and Gwen and Ash and (increasingly) Charlie, earnestly delighted with everything she saw and greeting everyone like all the deaths were just theoretical facts, not something she felt – the more like people they looked.

Not a story with monsters, then. So that left all those stories about people, people fighting other people. And much as he’d love to be in a story where it was just him and Cas and Sam riding around being knights slaying nice simple evil things, this wasn’t about that. There was more than just them to think about: Cas had people to look out for, and Dean was part of a whole town that he couldn’t just leave in the dust. Which pretty much only left the “warring families who’re never going to stop shooting at each other even if a couple of people on either side do their best to sort things out” story, and the “glorious but ultimately pointless war in which we respect our opponents but are going to keep on stabbing them in the face anyway” story.

None of the stories were that promising. And it was only a few days until they were meant to be meeting Gabriel to fix Bobby’s legs. Castiel (in those brief little moments when he was awake) had insisted that the archangel was the only one of them powerful enough to heal an injury so delicate, particularly when the body had already healed around it, so Gabriel it was.

Somehow, by general undiscussed consensus, that had become the deadline: the occasion on which a decision would be made, on which formal words would be spoken. Only they didn’t know what they were going to say, how they were going to make this into something that meant reconciliation or what exactly reconciliation meant anyway. And also Dean still hadn’t quite persuaded Bobby to come outside the walls when he couldn’t even walk and put himself at the mercy of an angel, no matter how much Sam argued about it being a symbolic gesture of unity for the future.

Bobby wasn’t big on being a symbol. He preferred to be alive.

Anyway. Dean couldn’t think of any kind of a story in which this stupid truce meeting thing could possibly end well.

Which was possibly why Dean was feeling very rebellious about stories just now.

It didn’t fit into any story, what Dean wanted to do. If there was no story where the meeting went down well, there was definitely no story in which Dean got to quietly hang out with Cas for a while, just to talk. Especially if it might clear up some misunderstandings. Grand plot denouements were built on festering misunderstandings, after all.

But screw it. Dean wasn’t going to hang around like some damsel and wait for things to happen around him. He wanted a chance to figure Cas out. He wanted to do something just for himself, for once, and that something was to hear Cas talk, like he’d never got a chance to yet.

It had been just his story for years, only his. Then it had been his and Cas’, and Sam’s too. Now, suddenly, it was everyone’s story: all over the town, discussed openly like there was no shame or secret in it, everything that Dean had hid for years. Everyone got to have an opinion.

Which was awesome, sure, Dean knew that. It made no sense to be… jealous. Or whatever. Like something had been taken away from him, like suddenly he’d lost the reins. And it didn’t help that everything in him was urging him, every hour of every day, to go talk to Cas, and Cas just kept right on sleeping.

He wanted to work out how to make Cas smile.

Just to spend a day outside of the story, outside of time.

Which was why, a week after the angels had turned up, Dean found himself climbing the stairs toward Cas’ bedroom with a basket of food slung over one arm, thinking frantically over all the things he wanted to say to Cas, and unable to decide on any of them.

Dean’s jittery mood couldn’t last, with Cas sprawled inelegantly on his stomach over the bed, and the room heavy with the sweet smell of sleepy angel, and the sun streaming glorious through the open window. The cornflowers were out, and someone had put a little vase of them on Cas’ windowsill. The colour of his eyes. The air felt like summer, smelled like it, lazy and warm and sweet, and Dean was here waiting on Cas with all the day ahead of them like he hadn’t been able to do since he’d been a kid. Even the birds sounded cheerful.

He stacked the fire up in the grate without bothering to be quiet, taking his time, drawing it out slow against the shimmering knot of anticipation in his gut. Cas – Castiel – had agreed Dean could “stop by for a bit” this afternoon, now he was staying awake for more than five minutes at a time. Dean had no idea what that permission really meant, or what Castiel wanted or thought. He did know that he’d named Castiel aloud (and vehemently) as his friend more often in the past week than he’d mentioned him at all since he’d been a kid. And sure, it was weird, talking about him openly, even if he was steering pretty damn clear of the whole feelings shit. Talking about getting along with angels was one thing. Talking about Castiel was another thing altogether, and Dean was kind of surprised his brain hadn’t dribbled out of his ears yet in confusion.

On the other hand – well. Pretty much everything since the Trickster had popped his wings had been weird as hell, so maybe Dean was just getting an immunity. And at least this weirdness – digging in his heels and saying loud as he could that Cas was his friend, that he wasn’t raising a hand against another angel ever again, sticking to his guns on that – this felt good. Damn good. Like burning out a leech.

And even better, he wasn’t alone. He hadn’t really had time to notice it in the madhouse of the last week, but up here, with just the background murmur of life drifting in through the window, he let himself think it: he had people in his corner now. The sun was warm as syrup over his cheek and neck and hands, the first eager tongues of flame were catching at the dry wood, Castiel was stirring and making sleepy little grumbling noises on the bed behind him, and for the first time in years everything wasn’t looking completely hopeless.

Yep. Definitely surreal. Definitely an interlude, outside the story, whatever the story was. Even if all he got was one day, Dean could damn well make the most of it.

Dean dragged the hot plate and its tripod into the grate to heat up over the flames, rubbed butter on it, set the young eggplants and the tomatoes that he’d picked that morning on top of it whole to char-grill a bit, laid out the strips of bacon and set aside the eggs in their bowl. He hummed a bit as he did it, kind of self-conscious, so that between that and the crackle of the fire as it got going there wasn’t any chance of Cas missing that he was here.

So when Dean heard the creak of bedsprings and rustle of sheets behind him he just looked back over his shoulder and grinned and waved the spatula in greeting, all cocky.

“Morning, feathers. Welcome to the Dean Winchester indoor picnic. Fried or poached?”

Castiel went very quiet and still, all at once. Like there was some glowing centre in the depths of him that Dean had just reached out and touched.

Was that wrong?

“Um,” Dean came up with, in the face of a hundred-yards blue stare. “Or boiled. I could do boiled, I guess. Only I’d have to borrow a pot off Ellen, and it’d take a while to get to boiling, so...”

Dean Winchester, playing it cool. Castiel was going to inform him earnestly that it was actually afternoon, wasn’t he?

Castiel’s head tilted over to one side, and he gave Dean one of his quiet, frustrated looks, like humanity was a problem he had to solve.

“Fried?” he offered cautiously.

Dean shoved the bowl of eggs across the bedspread at him and grinned his best shit-eating grin. “Great. Your job, dude. Get on it.”

Turned out, when you gave the task of Frying Eggs to the guy who’d spent most of his adult life at war and trying to keep people from dying, he set about it with the kind of intense precision Dean sort of associated with stitching up gushing wounds. Dean would never have put that much frowning effort into marshalling each egg into a perfect disc on the hot plate – in fact, he kind of liked the burnt crunchy bits you got when the egg went everywhere and the grease from the bacon trickled over to join the party – but he was hardly about to argue. There was a little rivulet of sweat creeping down Cas’ temple from crouching too close to the fire, and the hair at the nape of his neck and in front of his ears was crinkling up into damp little curls, and his knee was pressing in against Dean’s where they were both playing the game of hover-gingerly-over-the-flames-and-poke-at-hot-things, and there was an irritated little moue at the corner of his mouth like disobedient eggs were the most important thing in the world right now.

In fact, Cas was pouting. And, lord help him, Dean Winchester thought it was kind of adorable.

Dean snagged the last of the eggplants just before it split its skin, halved it, and sprinkled salt and oregano on it like the others. Then he rescued the third of the bread rolls he’d brought from passing “nicely toasted” and heading into “charcoal crispy,” bundled it up in his discarded shirt with the other hot rolls to keep it warm, and leaned over to poke at the edge of one of Castiel’s eggs with the tip of his knife. A sad little clear trickle made a break for freedom, and promptly got frozen into crispy white goo.

Castiel made a quietly wounded noise, like Dean had stolen his cookie.

Dean nudged him.

“It’s just eggs, man. Loosen up.”

Castiel fixed him with a cool blue stare, that disapproving look that Dean secretly suspected meant he was trying not to smile. Dean smirked at him, daringly trying out happiness, and thumbed a smear of charcoal over Cas’ cheek. “Nothing matters today, ‘kay?”

Castiel’s hand, halfway (maybe) to doing something childish (playful?) like batting Dean’s away, froze half-risen. Dean’s eyes flickered down to it – then they suddenly did that thing they sometimes did on hunts where they narrowed right in on really tiny details, the ones that always turned out to be important, though they sometimes didn’t look like much at first.

Like right now, the angle of Castiel’s fingers, half-crooked, midway between loose and tense, and the promise of strength in that.

The fine dusting of hair across the backs of the first joints, and the shiny smear of bacon grease over the knuckle and under the thumb.

The broken edge of the third nail, and the little mess of white under the first where he’d been nudging at the half-cooked eggs.

Dean’s tongue caught dry on the edge of his lip.

Then Castiel’s fingers closed firm and long around his wrist, and Dean’s hand was turned over in an unarguable sort of way to rest open in Castiel’s. Castiel dragged one fingertip whisper-soft across the centre of Dean’s palm, thoughtful like he was checking for something; and Dean lost all the air in his body in a rush.

Huh. Who knew hands could be that sensitive?

When he looked up, Castiel’s eyes were fixed on the fire, though Dean could have sworn he’d been able to feel the weight of them on his face a moment before. Then he dropped the tongs into Dean’s hand, with a smug kind of gravity that said pretty damn clearly “not even the fact that your bread is burning?”.

Dean swore and grabbed the last roll, with hands that had suddenly decided being shaky was a great idea. “Okay, no, that was your fault. This one’s your bread now.”

Castiel cut him half a look sideways, sly with the edge of a smile, the kind of look that sidled right into Dean’s head and made him feel like home. “I am a stranger to local manners, of course,” he murmured, innocently inquisitive. “Is it customary to invite a friend to dinner, burn his food, then keep all the best bits for oneself.”

“Course it is,” Dean bullshitted cheerfully, shovelling the bacon gracelessly off the hot plate and into the bowl on top of the vegetables. “And you get to wash the dishes, too. All three of them.”

Castiel nodded gravely, as if to assure Dean that he was looking forward to it, and stole Dean’s knife to slide the eggs off the plate.

There was a game they were playing here, Dean was pretty sure. He hadn’t a clue what it was, or how to play it, but it was kind of heady.

Even when he wasn’t sick, or pretending to be mute, it turned out Cas still needed coaxing to actually talk much. He was content to just sit and watch Dean babble on as they broke their bread and snagged vegetables and eggs and delicious greasy bacon from the one messy bowl. He’d drop in occasional comments and quiet additions, but mostly he replied silently, with those tiny little quirks of eyebrows and lips and the angle of his head and his wings. Dean had never before met anyone who could sass him out over his habit of talking with his mouth full and waving greasy fingers all over the place without even saying a word. Cas’ level stare of “why on earth do I put up with you,” even with that little indulgent softening at the corner of his mouth, was a hell of a lot more effective than Sam’s patented bitchface-plus-rant combination.

So he brought Castiel up to speed on the situation outside while they ate, to get that out of the way. Castiel had heard quick bits and pieces of it over the week from him and Sam and Rachel and Anna and even, occasionally, Ellen; but given he’d barely been awake most of the time it couldn’t hurt to have it all at once, in a more leisurely sort of way. Especially since Cas apparently needed a lot more of the basics explained than most people accounted for – why people might react a certain way, the illogical logic behind the way people worked, all that shit that was meant to come naturally. Castiel was kind of crap at just deducing feelings, the way most people could – needed to puzzle it all through, talk it out, get opinions on possible outcomes.

Dean gave it as his best bet that they might be able to have a kind of ceasefire and permission for the angels to hunt demons without getting shot at; that a few humans might end up liaising with angels, but he didn’t really think much of the possibilities of anything bigger, like group hunting parties or anything like that; and that there was no way anyone was going to be comfortable with angels unsupervised or armed inside the walls for a damn long time, if at all. Castiel nodded and watched the fire and his food and said very little, but he didn’t look surprised. In fact, he looked kind of... quietly pleased.

Dean thought he might be quietly pleased himself. People not dead, and Dean maybe being able to come out and see Cas fairly often, and putting down demons – all of that sounded a whole lot better than what he’d been expecting six months before. Hell, even one month. Sort of a too-good-to-be-true thing, probably, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t fight for it. Dean had fought more hopeless battles in his time.

Also it was hard to feel anything but hopeful with Castiel peacefully dripping tomato juice and bacon fat on the rug beside him.

Also... Castiel had taken his tunic off again, because the breeze was warm and the fire was hot and there was sweat and grease and juices and so on. And if there was a tempting sort of a hunger in Dean’s belly when his eyes snagged on the strong curve of shoulder into neck, the planes of his stomach and the sharp angle of a hip, the darker flush of nipples, the lithe dip of his spine... well, okay, so Dean was kind of screwed up, but it wasn’t like he was going to do anything but look. It was probably a leftover of all those confusing dreams and the way Castiel’s body had moved against his when the demon had been in him, Dean knew that, he wasn’t an idiot. Still, the feeling merged warmly at the edges with the low insistent thrum of happiness in his chest when he looked at Castiel’s face, so it didn’t feel dangerous or dirty. It just made Dean’s eyes keep crinkling up at the corners all the time, even when he was talking about things that he wouldn’t usually smile about.

Dean could keep it in hand.

He put out the fire and stretched out onto his back, belly full, to tuck messy fingers behind his head and stare at the clouds through the window.

“Okay. Talk to me, man.”

He could feel Castiel’s puzzlement, hovering like a tangible thing in the air between them.

“What about.”

“I dunno.” He rolled his shoulders luxuriously into the rug, and idly considered taking off his own tee. The plaited rags would feel pleasantly bumpy against his skin, and he was in an indulgent mood. “Whatever you wanna talk about.”

“Oh.” Castiel sounded sort of surprised, like he wasn’t used to picking conversations and found it a bit unsettling. But Dean had come to hear Cas talking, not himself, and he knew Cas was an interesting dude, and he knew he had things he wanted to say, so he just lay there and callously refused to given him an easy out. The clouds were kind of nice to watch. And the insects were all busy, zooming in and out the wisteria around the window, in and out of the room, a constant low background hum of tiny wings.

He felt Castiel set aside the bowl beside him, brush off crumbs, wipe his hands. Then the angel settled down full-length, just within arm’s reach, every movement precise like he was trying something daring and new.

“Bees,” he offered cautiously, after a minute.

Dean blinked at the ceiling. “Huh?”

“Bees... fascinate me,” Castiel murmured, deep and scratchy-rough.

“You wanna elaborate?” Dean drawled back, and his voice came out slow and indulgent and curious in his mouth.

Castiel took a minute just to breathe, soft and low, but Dean could have sworn he felt the thrum of it through the floorboards, quivering deep in his veins, every little rise and fall of his chest.

Then, as two of the brown-bodied little workers bumbled low and lazy over their faces, “Bees are... not their own creatures,” Castiel mused, like he was trying to work out how to turn long-held thoughts into words. “They are each... a part of something, not something of their own. Stitches in a tapestry. The whole community is... seamless.”

Dean considered that warily, from several angles. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that, of the fascination in Castiel’s voice. “Yeah, but, that means they don’t really have any thoughts of their own, right? Can’t want anything, or think anything new.”

“No. And that is the only reason it works.” A wistful note crept into Castiel’s voice, something like disillusion.

The buckle of Dean’s belt was pressing uncomfortably in against his stomach, fat and lazy as it was with food. He undid it, one thumb-flick at a time, and thought about bees, and dreams, and the fight in Jo’s eyes even after his hand had slashed her open.

“No hope for us, then,” he decided, around a yawn. “We think new things all the time.”

“Quite,” Castiel murmured. “But too many new thoughts, too much of the wasp who lives all alone and decides everything for itself, and we... fight. We fall apart,” he amended, distant and thoughtful. “How many thoughts are too much, before the body social breaks itself into pieces and starts fighting over the honeycomb.”

Dean turned his head so that a loose thread in the rug tickled its way into his ear, and looked at him. Castiel was settled on his back for once, wings folded neatly under him like a mattress, head pillowed on both arms to keep it level with his body, one knee crooked up.

“Huh,” he commented idly.

Castiel quirked a questioning look in his general direction. Lazy angel, warm and soft under the sun, eyes just a tempting gleam of dark blue under heavy lashes. The soft thoughtful fall of those lashes, when he blinked.

Dean swallowed, because his throat was suddenly dry. “Thought you guys couldn’t sleep on your backs.”

Castiel shifted his shoulders a bit, digging them lazily into feathers, and the wings rustled under him. “Sleeping, no. Or not for long. The blood cuts off, eventually, like sleeping on your arm. But for a while, if they’re folded right. And I’ve most of my weight on my right just now.”

Dean digested this. “Okay. But that means if you’re sleeping on your stomach pretty much all the time you’ve got this whole natural blanket effect. Which is neat in winter – although, cold feet, that’s gotta suck – but don’t you get sick of it in summer?”

Castiel hummed thoughtfully. “Have you seen hawks, on a baking hot day, sitting on a low branch and panting? Wings out, a few inches from their bodies, to lose the heat?” He rolled over, stretched his wings out (muscles shifting and rolling under skin), then let them settle loose to halfway between clenched and spread. The left one brushed shiver-light over Dean’s ribs, even with Cas as far away as he was. The dark feathers were hot, hotter than Dean’s skin, like they were collecting the sun’s force and storing it for later. “They lose more heat like this, when the sun isn’t falling full on them as now.”

“So in winter you take up less than two feet of the mattress, and in summer you’re all, like, yards and yards wide.” Dean snickered, and kept his hand curled tight against his side so it wouldn’t reach up and stroke through the long, overlapping quills resting against his hip. “Talk about personal space squabbles. Hey, so that wing-disappearing act Gabriel does, that’s really something no other angel can do?”

Castiel frowned at the earth under his hands. There was uncertainty in the way his throat leaped before he spoke. “Gabriel... is an archangel,” he said, delicate as a cat picking its way through broken glass, “and he has spent most of his adult life beyond our ken. There are many things I do not understand about him.”

That sounded like a sore spot. Dean wanted suddenly, acutely, to reach out and smooth his fingers down the pale skin of his throat, to smooth the reaction away, like that could get rid of the feelings underneath.

“Hey.” He reached up instead to shove at the wrist of Cas’ wing. It folded easily under his touch. “You know the guy thinks you poop gold and rainbows, right?”

Castiel stared flat incomprehension.

Dean sighed. “I mean he kind of idolises you. From what I’ve seen, anyway. And a couple of hints Sam dropped.”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed into sceptical little blue slits, in a way that suggested he found that idea unlikely and disturbing in equal parts.

“What?” Dean prodded. “That against some super-secret angel code or something? Archangels aren’t allowed to notice how awesome their little brothers are?”

“I imagine he will leave as soon as our business here is resolved,” Castiel returned quietly, and took up staring at the wisteria like he suspected it of stealthy rebellious wisteria plans.

“That’s it?” Dean asked curiously. “The guy’s in a snit so you’re just going to let him wander off again?” He caught the fierce little glare and rolled his eyes at it, because of course Cas didn’t know how to bicker, how to argue about anything that wasn’t life-threatening. “Look, dude. Take it from me. He’s happier on the road, fine. Let him go. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to patch things over with his little brother first, okay?”

“I have tried, Dean,” Castiel grumbled, all snitty and ruffled.

Dean didn’t even try not to grin at him, warm and easy. “Yeah, well, Sam’s a little bitch when he’s in a mood too.”

One corner of Castiel’s mouth softened a bit, a fleeting smile. “He is.” And then, more thoughtful, almost envious, “I see little pieces of you in Sam. The way you shape your days, the two of you, at home together...”

He stopped, but Dean heard the soft breath of words released unspoken fall out of his mouth.

When Castiel spoke again, it was muted, an awkward scrape of voice low in his chest. “He talks about you a lot, you know.”

“’Course he does,” Dean grunted off-handedly, because of course Sam would, when they’d never been away from each other for more than a day or two at a time before. No reason for Cas to sound all wondering and almost shy about it.

He left it at that, and settled back down to stare at the sky. After a minute Castiel yawned, muffled against skin, then shook himself like a dog, a soft heavy rustle. The warm weight settled back against the side of Dean’s stomach, and this time he let his hand slip down to brush over the silky give of feathers.

“Seriously, man,” he mumbled comfortably, half a tease. “These things must get in the way.”

“And humans take hours to pick your way over half a mile of swampy ground,” Castiel pointed out placidly, and folded his wings back in on themselves before Dean could work out how to say that he hadn’t been complaining without sounding creepy.

“Lucky for your lot,” Dean shot back.

Then he wondered how hard it would be to kick himself in the head.

Because, yes, for a couple of years that had been pretty much the only sure-fire way a hunted angel could shake them: heading straight as it could for swampy or broken or thickly wooded ground, anything that could slow the hunt down, and hoping that it didn’t get cut off by more hunters on the way.

Castiel’s head had lifted from his arms, tilted over to the side, and his eyes were fixed all piercing and I-assume-there-is-an-explanation-for-that on Dean’s face. There was a faint pinscratch on his forehead somewhere between pissed-off and puzzled. Not angry, though, and his shoulders and wings were still all loose and relaxed, mouth half parted on a question. Which was a hell of a lot better than Dean deserved for bringing up that whole “oh, by the way, I killed lots of your family” thing again.

Dean let his head fall back to the floor with a soft thunk. “Uhm. Can we forget I said that? Tact, not really my big point.”

Cas actually snorted, a soft puff of air into his arms but definitely a snort. “I know that, Dean.”

“Okay,” Dean said, kind of dumbly. “Good.”

That was definitely good, right? Obviously Dean was a bit of a dick, everyone knew that, but if Cas knew it too and was still sticking around... yeah. Okay. So it probably wasn’t any great argument to Cas’ intelligence, but Dean could live with that.

The sun sank into his veins, syrup-slow and luxurious, and Dean let it go.

“You know what I think?” he decided after a while.

Castiel made a distant questioning noise in response.

“We’re not bees, dude,” Dean provided gravely, all profound. “I don’t know about your lot – you said something to Gabriel about how hard it was to get them to think for themselves, yeah? – but just judging by you?” He jabbed a finger firmly into the air. “Any angel that doesn’t is just being lazy.”

A smile curved the corners of Castiel’s voice. “Perhaps.”

“We like to argue things out,” Dean rambled on thoughtfully. “Usually. On a hunt, okay, or when there’s something urgent and dangerous right there, then you have to know how to hold your tongue and just do as you’re told quick as you can.” He broke off, struck by a thought. “Maybe that works on the bigger scale too, you know? People go all tell-me-what-to-do and glowery when they’re scared, yeah? Same with you guys?”

“Usually,” Castiel said distantly. “When it’s... easier.”

Dean stopped, bit his words back, and let Cas speak instead. Dean’s mouth could run on anytime, but Cas’ thoughts were given tongue more rarely, and maybe more slowly for that.

“It becomes a habit, I think,” the angel continued slowly, eyeing off a knot in the floorboard by his wrist like it had offended him personally. “Letting somebody else make the choices, take the blame. Especially when there are no good choices, and too much blame to be assigned.”

“Sounds like people,” Dean agreed easily. “Could be that’s our problem now. It’s like... we’ve never caught a break, you know? Ever since I’ve been a kid it’s just been getting worse and worse. And there’s only so many people you can lose before there’s no way back. ’Cos when the last two people who aren’t too closely related get married, that’s pretty much it. I mean, what happens to their kids? And as long as I’ve really been able to notice we’ve been heading that way, and it’s just sort of really set in these last few years that... you know, it’s going to happen. Sooner, not later. We’ve all just been kind of waiting, fighting it off as long as we can. But this... this could seriously turn things around.”

He rolled onto his side, up onto his elbow, to jab a finger earnestly at Cas. The angel was watching him, quiet and serious, eyes blue and deep and young, but Dean couldn’t stop for that, because the thoughts were welling up and spilling out of him, with an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt in months.

“You come along and offer us this – you say, the two scariest sons of bitches out there suddenly aren’t going to be a problem anymore. And maybe together we can even get rid of some of the rest. It could work. It’s hope, Cas, and I haven’t seen that in ages. It’s a whole new thought, and we’re not ready for it. And I think that scares some people shitless. I think that’s the main sticking point for a lot of folk back there. Well,” he flashed Cas a grin, “that and a whole lot of ‘you guys killed my uncle’, or daughter, or husband, or whatever.”

“There is... much to forgive,” Castiel agreed, grave and soft, cutting right through Dean’s triumphant buoyancy. “On both sides.”

Dean’s breath froze in his throat. He pushed at it and let it go, let it out, because this, this was the sort of thing he wanted to hear Cas say, knew Cas needed to say, ever since Dean had cut him off when he’d been strapping his wing for the first time. Maybe before. And Dean needed something to set in the balance against the sound of his own voice, echoing inside his head for weeks.

“And they can’t simply set in the balance against each other without pushing the balance down into the floor,” Cas murmured, almost a growl, not anger but frustration at himself, like the words wouldn’t take the form they should. “Your people, and mine... Even if I had.... had killed Sam, that would not...”

He cut himself off abruptly, as Dean dug his fingers hard into the mat, and forced down the swell of knee-jerk sick fury. Because, yeah. This wasn’t just your people and my people, this was you and me.And if someone had, no amount of revenge or hurt could ever wipe that out.

Not even killing Castiel’s brother.

“I get it,” he said, voice scraping harsh with regret. No matter what else happened between him and Cas, that thing right there was never going to go away.

Probably shouldn’t.

Cas made a small noise, something like relief, and lapsed into silence.

Dean lay there for a few minutes and glared at the ceiling, at the image of a sardonic mouth twisted into a snarl and lithe hips pinned under three dogs’ weight, of one grey wing shorn off at the elbow and blood spurting from the main vessel under the bone, as the angel – as Balthazar – had writhed and fought through his last seconds. And the blistering white-hot rage in Dean’s chest, the one that always seared through him savage and ugly when it was Sammy’s life on the line, the one that had made slashing the son of a bitch’s throat a fucking joy.

Cas... didn’t say anything. Didn’t give him anything to distract himself with.

But there had to be more. Castiel couldn’t possibly let him off that easily. Should be ranting, raging, shaking him and yelling in his face. Fighting it out.

Fuck.

“Don’t you ever get angry, Cas?” he asked abruptly, but it came out a bit forlorn.

He thought he could hear a small smile in the angel’s reply, though. “Rarely, these days. It is a luxury that has been... unwise, since I was much younger.”

“Yeah?” Dean turned his head on his arm, and managed half a cheeky grin. “Bet if you were living in my house I could fix that for you in a day or two.”

Castiel blinked at him, eyes suddenly very wide for some reason. “I have no doubt of it,” he said after a moment, serious and with something uncertain and sweet in his eyes that Dean wanted to catch and soothe away. “Sam assures me that you are... very annoying.”

Dean wriggled a little bit closer, because Cas looking uncertain was not okay. “Yeah, well,” he said, conspiratorially, “Sam walks around eating cookies and talking at the same time and leaving trails of half-chewed crumbs all over the floor, so he can bite me.”

Castiel dropped his eyes to the grass for a moment, and when he lifted them again there was something complicated and far-reaching and hopeful lurking in them that Dean’s brain flat-out refused to comprehend.

“You would... like that?” he asked, all awkwardness and resolve.

“Um. Sam biting me?” Dean shot back, too quickly; and Castiel gave him a very level look that said unmistakeably, don’t mess with me on this one, Dean Winchester.

Okay then. Not Sam.

Cas. Cas, living in his house. The home he spoke of so wistfully. Not just “hey, want to stay in my house for a few days until we take Bobby to get his legs fixed,” but something that somehow meant more than that. And why was Dean’s mind jumping to that whole Lunete conversation with Charlie?

All the important bits of a marriage, anyway.

Dean was suddenly struck with the image of Castiel, waking up on a winter morning, just the slits of sleepy blue eyes and a mess of dark hair poking above the blankets, all warmth and lazy limbs underneath, half-heartedly peevish at being woken up.

It hit him like a punch to the gut, sliced through all the confusions and bits and pieces of half-known emotions that had been tangling him up for days, for weeks, for hours. He found he was flat on his back again and staring at the ceiling and breathing too quickly, halfway to panic. Because he wanted, wanted that, and how could he ever...

Just for a moment, Dean flashed back to a decision he’d made, way back before this had started, before the Trickster had driven through that Gates with his easy grin and his snide words and his hidden wings.

No, Dean wanted to believe, suddenly and vehemently. No, I don’t want you in my house. Because he couldn’t pin Cas down, couldn’t make him stay, any more than he could Sammy. It was Dean’s house, and if Dean was the one who was going to be stuck there unmarried and child-like all his days, well, so be it, but he didn’t have the right (who the hell was he) to drag anyone else into that?

“Dean?” Castiel asked, guarded and careful, too careful.

And, screw it. Dean had had enough of hiding and covering up. He might not get it – probably wouldn’t – but he could be honest about wanting it. He could be selfish, for once, because Cas wasn’t Sam, and he had the weird feeling that Cas might appreciate it.

“Already asked you, didn’t I? Yes,” he gritted out, because he was sure about that at least. “I mean, I know it’s all kinds of impossible, but... Yeah. I want that.”

He heard the breath hiss out of Castiel’s body like the slow release of pain, and the soft shift and rustle of feathers over wood as he moved, then silence. He didn’t look, just kept his eyes fixed on the rafters and his shoulders knotted up hard against the mat, waiting.

Castiel didn’t say anything. He just left Dean there in the terrifying, intoxicating little bubble of his own confession.

I want. How long was it since Dean had let himself think that, about something bigger than the next meal or for Sam to clean up his mess after him? For something that wasn’t for Sam, or for Bobby, or for the town? just for himself?

A laugh bubbled its way out of his chest suddenly. “Hey,” he croaked, and then again, because right now this struck him as ridiculously, hilariously apt. “Hey. Rachel said you need to cut yourself a slice of selfish pie.”

Even from a couple of yards away, he felt Castiel go still. Then, “Did she,” he growled, low and thrumming with intent, like he’d just received an all-passes invitation that Dean hadn’t understood, and Dean’s heart kicked against his breastbone even before Castiel moved. He was there, suddenly, achingly close, so that Dean could feel the heat of his breath on his cheek and the cool of his shadow where he blocked out the sun, and his eyes were impossibly dark, hungry and hopeful.

Dean pressed his hands hard and flat against the the cords of the mat, and fought back the urge to touch again. “Cas,” he heard himself hiss, and he was pretty sure it was a question but had no idea what the question was.

The blood was hot under his skin, itching and restless and far too sensitive, and he felt it when Castiel’s hand came up and hovered low over his chest, just shy of touching, like a hunting dragonfly over water.

“Dean,” he asked, low and so very focussed like he was planning a siege, and Dean throbbed shamefully hard against the buttons of his pants. “May I.”

Yes. That was the question.

Dean felt the dry click of his throat as he swallowed. It seemed to take a very long time to peel his fingers from the floor, to lift his hand and slide it into place over the top of Castiel’s, but if Castiel felt the same strange need to touch as Dean did...

He pressed Castiel’s hand down against his chest, and felt the heat of it through the thin material like a brand. Castiel’s eyes went wide and very bright, then he was leaning (or maybe kind of tumbling) in towards Dean and his mouth was there, a sudden clumsy press against the side of Dean’s mouth.

Dean’s brain kind of went into shock, though it was no more than they’d done already; but his body decided to take over and go for what it wanted, to tilt his head just enough to fit lips against slightly parted lips, to breathe against Castiel’s mouth.

They hovered there for a moment, still and almost awkward, with the sharp line of Castiel’s bare shoulders a dark silhouette against the window and his hand warm and earnestly alive under Dean’s, pinned against where his heart was thudding its anticipation and its confusion. Castiel’s nose was brushing against Dean’s cheekbone, and it was such an odd thing, having someone else’s face right there, so close that he could see every eyelash and feel the dryness of his lips and -

Then Castiel pressed forward, pressed in, and his mouth was opening dark and sweet against Dean’s, and Dean made a noise he’d never known he could make before and lifted his other hand to tangle it deep into Castiel’s hair, to keep him right the hell where he was, because that, that was perfect.

Castiel’s fingers pressed into his chest, sharp enough to bruise, like he’d forgotten how much more strength he had than Dean’s body could ever withstand, but Dean wasn’t about to object. He arched up into it, curled his fingers around Castiel’s hand, and kept that where it was too. Nothing about this moment was allowed to change: not the edge of pain in Castiel’s touch, not the soft-slick press of his tongue, almost shy against the edge of Dean’s lips, not the sounds he made when Dean tentatively opened his own mouth and let him in, just the flicker of him on the inside of Dean’s lower lip. He was damn well going to keep this for as long as he could.

Castiel’s hand slid higher, careful and unstoppable, and Dean was about to moan a protest at the loss except that it was interesting, the brush of it over new parts of him, the sudden hot flash where the material of his shirt (had it always so that coarse?) dragged against a nipple. He sucked in breath around Castiel’s touch, the air suddenly crisp and cool on the hot skin inside his lips, and Castiel took advantage of the shift to slide his tongue carefully against the tip of Dean’s, which, just yes. Dean made a soft sound of invitation and very carefully turned it back on him, pushing gently back against Castiel’s tongue, flickering at the edge of Castiel’s mouth.

Dean wriggled a bit against the mat, feeling the tickle of loose strands with teasing clarity against the back of his neck. And shit, if his shirt felt rough that was nothing to the material of his pants. The shift and drag of too-rough cotton against overheated flesh in there was too much, not enough, not nearly enough. Not the right kind of touch, and damn, Dean had never wanted so badly just to stick his hand down his own freaking pants in company.

Castiel’s fingertips dragged up over the neckline of Dean’s tee, and settled on the delicate skin of his throat.

Something sparked, white-hot. Dean’s head jerked back and thudded into the floor, breaking the kiss.

Castiel’s eyes were blown wide and dark, and he was looking down at Dean like he was a revelation.

Dean... sort of knew how he felt.

He should probably mention that, but his mouth was tingling, and his tongue felt swollen and clumsy, and his fingers were stroking mindlessly at the side of Castiel’s neck (soft, warm, thrumming with life), so he just smiled. It felt like a dopey, stunned thing, but it brought this amazed kind of joy into Castiel’s face, so it was worth it.

Dean winked at him, riding on the smug little high of making him look like that, spread his hand brown and large over Castiel’s shoulder and collarbone, and tugged him back down. This time both mouths opened without hesitation, confident and clumsy in hunger.

Dean took a few impatient seconds to tease over the side of Castiel’s tongue before welcoming him greedily inside. Castiel purred against him, fumbling and wet and not caring, and Dean felt reaction shoot hot down his spine.

He could get used to this.

Castiel’s fingers drifted up, cupped the line of his jaw, danced carefully around the corner of it, brushed over his cheek as the skin there shifted and stretched with the movements of their mouths. His thumb rubbed almost fondly past the spot where his own nose kept brushing just under Dean’s cheekbone, and the tips of his fingers spanned the skin between there and Dean’s ear, whispered upwards to explore where the bone dipped in toward his eye, the ridge of his eyebrow, the line of his hair. It was the strangest touch, curious and very tender. Dean had never felt anything like it before, and for some reason that was what kicked his brain out of its suspended state.

This was... not brotherly.

Um. So.

Dean’s fingers skimmed up Cas’ side and onto his back, tentative and greedy for the feel of him: smooth planes of skin warm under his palm, and the folded canopy of feathers sliding velvet-dark over the backs of his fingers. The muscles shifted and pushed back into his touch like Castiel was just as eager, like he felt the same thing.

Not brotherly, but definitely loving. There was family and promise in the touch of Castiel’s fingers against his face, in the careful, fervid restraint with which he was nipping, very slowly, along the length of Dean’s lower lip. Some kind of family thing. And this wasn’t Dean channelling the demon, taking advantage. There was no question here that Castiel was enjoying it, loving it, loving Dean (impossible as that seemed) with every breath and touch, the span of his fingers across Dean’s jaw and back down to his throat, the dark growl of his breath, halfway to a groan.

Definitely not brotherly. But there was too much feeling here, too much fondness and promise, for it to be about – about the ache in Dean’s pants, about where that shameless weight of flesh was pressing up against where he’d stupidly undone his belt earlier. Sure, lying around in the sun kissing just for the sake of it was the sort of thing young lovers did, but Dean was pretty sure there were usually more bodies involved. Groins, and legs, and trying to get under each other’s clothes. That kind of thing.

Dean’s hips shifted restlessly against the floor below them, against the empty air above them, hungry for something. Except Cas was lying at this stupid angle with his feet way over there, so all of his body was out of reach except his face and his arms and his chest, and... oh. That was what Dean’s body wanted. Some kind of touch, some kind of pressure, a hot body draped over it and pressing down onto it...

His pants were far, far too tight.

Not sex. Okay. Well. Obviously not, because Castiel wasn’t a chick. And just because Dean’s body was all confused about this didn’t mean Castiel’s was. Dean was kind of messed up, he knew that, what with not being raised in a proper family like normal people. And this was about family somehow, this right here, so it must be just a case of Dean’s wires being crossed, his body thinking it wanted to be touched in the wrong ways for this situation.

(The smooth strong skin under the pads of Dean’s fingers rose and fell, one quick impatient huff against Dean’s hand. Dean pressed in against it, slid his hand up until it was snugged in against the firm stretch of bone and muscle and body heat where the wing began. Cas groaned and arched under it like an oversized cat, and Dean’s skin shivered.)

That was okay. Dean could deal with being messed up, he was used to that. All he had to do was follow Cas’ lead here, since Cas obviously knew what he was doing, and keep Cas from noticing and freaking out about it.

“Dean.” Castiel growled darkly into the line of Dean’s jaw.

Dean twitched, slid one knee up and tried to discreetly tug his undershirt down to cover the incriminating bulge. Unfortunately, it was an undershirt, which meant it didn’t go down nearly far enough.

He cleared his throat, then did it again. His “Yeah?” still came out as a bit of a gasp, but that wasn’t his fault, because Castiel’s hand had just brushed across the lower side of his chest, just above the floating ribs, and for some reason Dean was very sensitive there today.

And… elsewhere.

“Stop thinking.” Castiel answered, deep like a promise; and Dean stopped.

Not because of a supreme effort of obedience, or of controlling his own mind. It was just that Castiel’s teeth had scraped against the bone of his jaw, and who knew that could switch Dean’s brain off so well? And then the trail of his mouth in hot, damp little presses down under Dean’s chin, down and further down until he was opening his mouth gentle and inexorable and scorching against the sensitive skin under his ear, and...

Dean swore, something like a plea or a sob lurking just out of reach, and his arm tightened hard around Castiel’s back. Castiel swayed, wings flaring a little as he was pulled almost off balance, and his free hand came down with a thud on the floorboards on the other side of Dean’s body, so that just for a moment Dean was bracketed there between his elbow and his hand and the strong, poised arch of his body in between.

And it was tempting, so very tempting, to wrap arms around him and pull him down, pull him in, pull him around so that he would be lying full length against Dean, but –

Dean let go of Cas, closed his eyes and forced the breath out of his lungs, fought down the beating of his own blood. Even if this was all Dean, and not some insidious foreign influence: wanting was one thing. Taking was another.

He could feel Castiel’s breath whispering against his skin, the warmth of his body and the sharp focus of his eyes, searching Dean’s face. Everything in him was urging him to open his eyes and reach up, reach out and touch, all those little details that he could see so clearly without looking. The line of his jaw. The texture of his hair, mussed and messy with sleep. To pull him down and keep him, to give in to the discovery of it, and the wonder.

“Alright?” Castiel asked after a minute, and his voice was temptation itself, rough like it had been dragged over gravel and lost pieces of itself on the way. Dean had done that to him. Dean and his hands and his mouth and...

Dean swallowed and nodded once, tightly.

Castiel’s hand came up to hover next to his cheek in the hot darkness; and Dean turned his face in against the phantom warmth and nuzzled forward until he felt it cup around him, until he could press a kiss into the palm, and let it go. It was irresistible, and relatively harmless, and apparently it was the right thing to do: he felt the tense arch of Castiel relax over him, then the angel drew back, and left him with only the warmth of the sun.

“Enough today?” Castiel suggested, a bit awkwardly; and Dean bit his lip and nodded, and breathed, and hoped like hell that Cas wasn’t looking down the length of his body or that the shadow of his knee was enough to obscure it if he did.

He mustn’t have, because all he did was brush the backs of his fingers over Dean’s cheek and move away, a little stiffly. Dean lay there a moment longer, listening to him tidying away the remains of the impromptu picnic. Then he sat up, stood up, donned his shirt and buttoned it firmly all the way down the front, took a moment to be smug about what very long shirts he wore and how useful they were, and magnanimously took their three dishes downstairs to wash.

Ellen had an old spinning wheel that needed fixing, so Dean dragged that upstairs, mostly because he was a bit of a coward and it gave them something to do with their hands, which was better than maybe having lots of awkward pauses. The wood was rotting in a few places – on one of the legs, at a couple of points on the drive wheel, one of the spokes – so Castiel saw to those with a mix of chisel-work and resin and magic, while Dean tried to work out whether to repair or replace the cracked treadle. They worked mostly in silence, a heated kind of silence filled with sideways glances and little grins that bordered on shy.

Dean found himself reaching out the extra half-yard to pass the a chisel or screw to Castiel, rather than tossing them, just to feel the spark of a touch as fingers brushed against fingers. He would raise his head and catch the tail of the angel’s gaze as he looked quickly away, as if Castiel had been watching him plane or whittle or scrub. Then he’d find himself fixated by the way the muscles in Castiel’s back shifted as he heaved up the corner of the base to rap with quick, clever fingers at the wood underneath, and the way the wings spread out a little to balance, or the way the fabric of his pants stretched over firm curves when he leaned over to gather up the broken pieces Dean had left by the door; and Castiel would look up, and Dean would almost be caught in his turn.

Castiel asked questions still, about this or that, inquisitive as always; and then he asked questions about the demon trap he’d seen the other day, the one Dean had been (briefly) caught in, because apparently angels didn’t know a thing about those. Explaining just what they did, and what parts of a demon’s power they restricted, and responding in a puzzled sort of way to Castiel’s speculations about whether there’d be an upper size limit (Dean couldn’t imagine there would be, but the larger it was surely the harder it would be to get the shape right, because you wouldn’t be able to see the whole thing at once), passed the rest of the time more quickly than he realised.

By the time they were done, the sun was starting to sink, dusk was barely half an hour off, Castiel was becoming drowsy again, certain parts of Dean’s anatomy felt chafed raw by the teasing little brushes of fabric every time his legs moved, and he really really wanted to know what the nape of Castiel’s neck tasted like.

He looked out the window, out towards where reality was waiting for him, out to the curve of the angel-proof walls.

Castiel moved up beside him, and nudged the edge of a wing against his shoulder. The low heat in Dean’s stomach stirred, and reminded him that it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. He reached out, brushed the backs of his knuckles over the soft feathers on the inside crook of the same wing, and felt it shiver under the touch.

“Will you be,” Castiel started, a little awkward. Then, sort of peremptory, “You will be among those humans who – liaise with angels. To coordinate movements,” he added hastily.

Dean grinned at him, easy and happy. “Course I will, feathers. And no matter how the rest of it goes, you and I can go hunting together, at least. Sammy too.”

Castiel tilted his head, eyes inquisitive and sort of fond. “I’d like that,” he said simply.

Dean’s grin probably looked kind of stupid, but he couldn’t wrestle it down, so he didn’t bother. “Okay then. So, it’s my turn to cook tonight but I’ll see you tomorrow. And maybe we can see then about getting you over into our house, instead of staying up here.”

Castiel blinked, like he was surprised Dean was leaving. Then he sighed a little, and nodded.

Time to go back into the world.

His wings shifted, restless or reluctant, and before he could step away Dean stepped forward and slipped his hand around the back of Castiel’s neck, pulled him in to bump their mouths together. It was dry and clumsy and the angle was all wrong at first, but Castiel’s face went light and soft and he pressed in, gentle as a breeze, to close the space between their lips. Just for a moment.

Dean lingered in his space until he felt the air between their mouths. Then he stepped back, evening breeze cool on his hot cheeks, and lifted a hand to ruffle Castiel’s hair up the wrong way. Castiel gave him an exasperated look in exchange for his cheeky grin, and didn’t look away as Dean slipped out the door.

He looked good when he was pretending to be annoyed.

Course, he also looked good sprawled out on the floor, with colour high in his cheeks and his hair a mess and his mouth half open and shiny-wet and his eyes all intense and hungry and bewildered, like he wanted without knowing how to want or take.

Dean closed his eyes and promised himself many, many indulgent thoughts when he got to the quiet of his bed.

He felt kind of shaky, and completely done in, and his nerves were worn to tatters, but there was a fierce, wrought-iron glow of jubilation inside of him that felt like the private gleam of Castiel’s eyes under dark lashes and the hint of colour ripe over his cheekbones.

Dean stored those images away carefully, not stashed out of sight behind a loose brick but on careful treasured display.

Tomorrow, they had work to do. And after that... well. Time would tell.

March-Stalkers Mighty: 16/22

(Requies.)