Tell me where we go from here 2/?
Chapter 2
Like he'd said, Sam got Dean a bunch of junk food. Never before had he been happier watching Dean stuffing his face with cholesterol. Grinning like an idiot Sam skipped the alcohol he'd intended to drink afterwards and went straight to bed instead. He only managed to kick off his shoes before he collapsed on top of his bed with the intention to stay like that for at least a week.
When he woke up thirteen hours later he was only wearing a t-shirt and his underwear and was under the covers without recalling how any of that had happened.
Dean was back. With that thought in mind Sam crawled out of bed. His first way, though, was over to Dean's room just to make sure he was really back. Or still there. Or whatever. Just to make sure.
"Dean?" Sam knocked but there was no answer. There was no sound coming from the room either and an uneasy feeling settled in Sam's stomach.
"Dean?" He repeated, louder now. Still no answer. Sam opened the door.
Dean had been here, that much was obvious, however, he wasn't here anymore. There was no note on the bed or anywhere else and that was the only reason Sam didn't instantly fell into panic mode.
The bunker was big, Dean could be everywhere. Probably in the garage cleaning up his car or in the kitchen preparing dinner.
No need to worry, Sam told himself but couldn't help but wonder if the ritual had really worked. Dean hadn't been a run-of-the-mill demon and the one time Sam had tried the ritual before he'd never finished it. So there was no proof that it actually worked.
But Dean had been fine. Sam had seen him coming back. Cas had said he was human again and he would know, right?
The ritual worked, Dean is fine, Sam repeated for the hundredth time in his mind because there was no alternative. The Mark was still there and they needed to find a solution for that but at the moment Dean was human and Sam just had to believe that.
On his way to the kitchen, it was the nearest option he could think of, Sam passed one of the empty rooms and found the door slightly ajar. There was movement inside the room.
"Dean?" Wondering what his brother might be doing in there, Sam nudged the door open. It wasn't Dean standing at the bed with his back to the door. "Cas?"
Sam had expected Cas to be long gone by now, the angel never hung around for long, so it was quite a surprise to still find him here.
"What are you doing?" Sam stepped into the room, trying to figure out why Cas was in here all by himself. Dean wasn't with him so that mystery was still unsolved.
Hearing Sam's voice Cas turned around, an almost guilty expression on his face.
"Sam." He greeted him and dropped a shirt he had been folding on the bed, an open bag with more of his clothes next to him.
"Dean asked me to stay. He said I could use this room." He paused for a second, clearly waiting for Sam's reaction.
"I hope you don't mind." He added when Sam failed to come up with a response. His mind was still too sluggish to follow that train of thought.
"Sure." He finally answered. "You're always welcome here, you know that."
"Thank you."
There was a moment of silence.
"I was looking for Dean, have you seen him?" By now Sam was pretty sure that Dean wasn't on a killing spree through the country, however, he would feel better if he knew where his stray brother was.
"He said I need a new mattress." Cas frowned. "One that will remember me."
"Memory foam." Sam chuckled at that. "Dean loves his mattress, he would marry that thing if he could." The way Dean talked about his mattress Sam didn't want to think of the things it remembered about Dean, though.
Dean was back a while later, not only with the new mattress for Cas but with bags full of stuff to make Cas' room more his and not only a temporarily thing. And he'd done the groceries as well, something Sam hadn't really bothered with over the last few weeks.
"What did you eat while I was gone?" Dean asked while he put away the food. For somebody who could live off junk food for weeks Dean had always been utterly concerned about Sam's eating habits. He made fun about Sam's healthy food, yes, but on the other hand he made sure that Sam ate on a regular basis when Sam was too engrossed in something to care about such ordinary things like food.
"I was busy looking for you." Sam shrugged. As expected that shut Dean up rather quickly, suddenly he was very interested in some pasta.
"So." Sam changed the topic. "You asked Cas to stay for a while."
Out of the corner of his eye he watched Dean's reaction. Sam wasn't blind and even if he were, the way his brother and the angel were circling around each other for years now was hard to miss. So Dean asking him to stay could be a step in the right direction. Or not. Sam had given up hope that they would ever get past this pining phase long ago but there was something in the way Dean avoided his eyes and focused on the package of pasta in his hand.
"He needed a place to crash for a while." Dean answered with a delay and Sam didn't press the issue, he knew better than that. But he wondered …
Things were quiet for now, no new shadow rising in the east, so to speak. They could use a few quiet days, to heal and recharge, and that was what they were doing. Well, Sam tried to do that. Dean and Cas tried to pretend they were just hanging out but they were as sneaky as horny teenagers when it came to their real intentions. It was quite amusing.
Sam just wondered how long it would take them to officially tell him that there was finally something going on between them. As far as he could tell, and he really didn't want to investigate farther into this, they had slept in their own rooms every night. Once or twice Sam walked into a room just to find them in opposite corners with mussy hair and wet lips and forced blank expressions on their faces. One time he had to bite his own bottom lip to not laugh at Dean's pathetic attempt to hide his boner. Making an excuse that he'd forgotten something at the other end of the bunker, Sam backed off. Maybe he should start wearing a bell.
Before he was out of earshot he heard Dean whispering: "Think he noticed?"
Sam was tempted to yell: "He did!" but kept his mouth shut. They would tell him when they were ready.
In the meantime he made sure to give them every hint he could think of that he was okay with them being together, the last thing he wanted was for them to feel that they had to hide this from him.
He guessed they were still figuring this out for themselves and didn't want to make it official before they were sure that this was really something and that was okay. As far as Sam was concerned they could take all the time they needed to come to terms with their new relationship but he didn't want them to be afraid of coming out to him.
When he'd come back from Stanford Sam had suspected that not all Dean's hook-ups where women and over the years he had found proof that Dean was interested in men as well. It had never really come up between them so Sam didn't know if Dean knew he knew, his head started to ache from that kind of thinking, but to Sam it had never really mattered. Dean was Dean, his big brother, his childhood idol but when it came to the bedroom Sam didn't want to know what was going on behind closed doors. He wouldn't want Dean to know in detail about his love life either.
As if I have a love life, Sam thought and closed the book he wasn't reading anyway. Base line, he was happy for Dean and Cas and it was entertaining as hell to see them sneaking around.
This went on for almost a week before Dean became restless. He never liked being stuck in one place for too long, that was nothing new, but with the new thing between his brother and Cas, Sam had expected this to last for a little while longer.
"Find us something to do." Dean whined over breakfast one morning. They had coffee and Sam his bowl of cereals while Dean and Cas stuffed themselves with scrambled eggs and sausages. How somebody could eat that greasy stuff early in the morning was beyond Sam and what baffled him the most was that Cas was actually eating. Since he'd moved in he was sleeping and eating and experiencing every other human body function Sam didn't want to think about over breakfast.
Cas was still running on borrowed grace and just like the one before that, it was fading. Cas still had time but they had to find a solution to that at one point. And for the Mark of Cain.
Sam drank the last puddle of milk directly out of the bowl and then set it in the sink. Before they tackled the big problems, and he still had no clue where to even start, they should get back in the saddle. He doubted Cas wanted to sit this out and stay at the bunker all alone and if he was honest, an angel in the team was a big plus even if it was a weakened one. So they were three now and they needed to find their rhythm. And this would be Dean's first hunt after his whole demon episode as well. Sam wasn't sure if Dean was ready for the job just yet but there was only one way to find out.
"I'll look into it." Sam promised. He turned around, butt resting on the edge of the counter, and watched his brother and his angel. Cas had always this problem with respecting Dean's personal space, and only Dean's, but this was ridiculous. Their chairs were so close they almost touched and Dean could barely lift his right arm without poking Cas in the rips with his elbow. Somehow they managed, though. It was kinda adorable. Sam wondered if they would feed each other little bits if he weren't around. Probably not, that wasn't Dean.
After breakfast Sam went over to the library and opened his laptop to find them a case.
A while later Dean joined him and there was clearly something on his mind but for a while he was just there, fiddling around with a magazine, just being his usual annoying distracting self.
Sam could guess what was coming and for a moment he wondered if he should let Dean off the hook and tell him upfront that he knew. On the other hand, he was the little brother, it was in the job description to let your big brother struggle.
"So." Dean cleared his throat, finally ready to say what he wanted to say. "Me and Cas."
Sam looked up from the screen. Dean looked like a deer in the headlights, as if he expected Sam to react badly to this revelation. Was Dean really worried that he might not be okay with this? It stung a little, Sam had to admit.
"We're trying this out. Being together." He looked everywhere but Sam.
"Finally." Sam returned his attention back to the screen. "Took you two long enough to figure it out."
Chapter 3
Masterpost