Fic: Last One Out Hits The Lights 3/4

[entangled_now]

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4

They decide to keep moving, to keep trailing the outbreaks. Packing up their guns and books and papers and loading them into the Impala and the truck. They move on in the morning. As soon as the sun's high enough and bright enough to give them good visibility. Good enough to see there isn't a dead thing for miles.

They drive until night falls, avoiding the big cities, the clusters of panicked people that the surviving infrastructure have crushed in together 'for their own safety.' Because they draw in the dead like screaming, panicking buffets. Until the gatherings of dead are larger, more dangerous, swarming into the population centres like a walking disease. They drive until Castiel tells them there isn't a hint of death magic around them.

They end up in an empty hotel in a small town. It's full of smashed storefronts and burnt out cars. A town that looks like it was emptied by panic and not by death. By people trying to escape who didn't understand what they were escaping from or where they were supposed to go. The hotel stairs are broken. Which is a bonus as far as Dean's concerned. Unless zombies have learned to climb the walls and, hell, if they can do that Dean doesn't want to fucking know about it.

There are enough rooms in the hotel that they can sleep pretty much wherever they like, though they end up spread between three rooms, someone on watch at all times. Being jumped when you're inside once is bad enough. It won't be happening again. This place may have a dozen exits with all the smashed windows, but that means a dozen entrances too, any number of ways for some dead thing to creep inside when they're not looking. It only takes one when you're not paying attention, just one.

Dean's stretched out on one of the queen sized beds, staring up into the darkness. He's fairly sure sleep is the last thing his body wants. But he thinks maybe it needs it too badly to pretend any more.

Castiel is reading through the papers they salvaged from Chuck's again, trying to find something there that they missed the first time, the second time, the third. Dean wonders whether that's thoroughness or desperation now. That seems pretty unangelic, but hey, Cas has been around them long enough to have picked up a few things. Maybe not always the best things, maybe not always the right things.

Maybe they're all a little desperate.

"They're not going to change, y'know," he offers.

"Sometimes things of importance can only be recognised once you have the right information," Castiel says quietly, without looking up.

Dean sighs at the ceiling, listens to the shift-slide of paper until it becomes both hypnotic and impossible to live with.

"Cas, will you come over here and just rest for a minute."

There must be something in his voice, something Castiel listens to, because the noise stops and the angel stands up, the shift of his coat quiet and strange.

After a long minute the bed moves, and the next time Dean rolls his head to the side he finds the angel watching him from a foot away. Dean grunts and pulls him down by an elbow. Castiel doesn't resist, though Dean's willing to bet he's never had cause to lie down before. Never had the opportunity to put his human suit of clothes horizontal.

"Listening to you go through that stuff again is driving me mad," Dean complains at the ceiling.

"I could take them to another room," Castiel offers. Though he doesn't seem in any great rush to leave.

"No, seriously, just take a minute. You don't have to be on the go all the time. You'll burn out."

"I don't need rest, Dean."

Dean's fairly sure that started off as angelic superiority . Now it almost sounds like Castiel is apologising for having some sort of horrible disability.

"Everyone needs rest," Dean tells him, and he tries for that tone that says he's right and it's not up for discussion.

The room's cold, they must have spent a fortune heating it when there were actual people still around to stay in hotels. Castiel doesn't give off heat like a real person. But even with the cold there's a strange companionable feel to his tiredness now. Though the silence is as impossible to ignore as Castiel's paper-shifting in its own way. Dean thinks he manages to relax into it, even if Castiel is still strangely inhuman in his perfect stillness.

"Are you going to sleep or not?" Dean eventually asks. Because the 'laying very still and staring at the ceiling' doesn't even look like sleep and it's fooling no one.

"I don't sleep," Castiel reminds him again, soft but pointed. As if it's something Dean should have known already. Though whether that's a 'don't' or a 'can't' he's not entirely sure.

"Yeah, what is that about?"

Castiel turns his head in the dark and Dean doesn't even know how he can still see his eyes, but he can. They should have looked blurry and coloured out in the darkness, but he can still tell that they're blue. Castiel's quiet, but it's a focused quiet, like he's considering something. So Dean waits.

"Imagine being able to control, in some small part, the forces of creation and destruction on this plane. Of being able to change the properties of a thing and its place in time. Imagine all this being under your careful control. Of being aware of it in every part of you."

Dean blinks at him.

"Now imagine if you fell asleep," Castiel says meaningfully.

Dean's quiet for a long moment, because he's trying to work out what that would mean, what that means about everything Castiel has ever done.

"Do you understand now?" Castiel asks. There's a softness there, like maybe he really wants him to. Like he wants Dean to know.

"Yeah," Dean says, one soft word that escapes on a breath, and something in him is quietly stunned at the implications. "Yeah, I think I understand."

He maybe understands more than Cas thinks.

"An angel could fall asleep and dream up the whole damn world," he says.

"That's blasphemy," Castiel says quietly, gently.

Dean snorts laughter, because he gets that. But he doesn't say what he's thinking; he doesn't say that maybe Cas could dream up a better one.

"I didn't think you had all your angel powers any more," he says instead. "I thought you started losing some of them when you decided to throw in with us."

"Some of them, not all," Castiel counters quietly. "Though I still don't think I'd want to chance attempting to remove what you would consider my consciousness from this plane."

Dean snorts.

"You make that sound really dramatic. It's just sleep."

"It's just sleep for you, for me the concept is -"

"Disturbing?" Dean guesses.

"Frightening," Castiel admits.

He stays quiet while Dean thinks about it. But he's too human to try and imagine never sleeping, never needing to or understanding it. Never even wondering what it would be like. Dean moves his arm, just a little. He can feel the back of Castiel's hand, warm against his own. He should move away, stop touching. But it's comforting in a way he can't quite explain. That reminder that Castiel is alive, warm, real.

Theirs.

He leaves it where it is.

"Don't let me end up like them." Dean's voice sounds too desperate in the darkness. But he can't hold on to that any more. He can't leave it like rot in the back of his head.

"You won't," Castiel says simply.

"I mean it -"

"You won't end up like that," Castiel assures him, and there's iron certainty in his voice. Enough of it to quell the creeping horror that wants to claw its way up the back of Dean's throat.

"Sam, too?"

The pause is longer this time.

"Sam, too," Castiel says eventually, but just as intent, just as certain as before. It's a promise.

"Thank you."

Dean breathes into the silence for a long minute and Castiel makes no attempt to move away.

"You going to stay and fake sleep for the rest of the night?"

Cloth rustles in the dark, suggesting Castiel has just turned his head to look at him again.

"Do you want me to?"

Dean can't quite make himself say yes, it's not the sort of thing a guy can ask another guy, not after the age of twelve anyway. But when one guy is an angel and one guy is trying his best to hold back the sudden rise of dead that can't stay in the fucking ground. Maybe all the rules can go hang -

He still can't say it though.

Castiel seems to get it anyway, though, because there's the quiet sound of his head moving back and then nothing.

~~~~~

Chuck's fidgeting. He's an endless series of tiny shifting, twitching movements and unhappy breath noises that Sam thinks he might just maybe kill him for, because he's really, really tired. He needs sleep like he needs to breathe at the minute. Needs it to shove away some of the mental images in his head, to shut down, reboot and start again tomorrow. But he can't. Because of Chuck. He would have picked a double room if there'd been any on this floor without smashed out windows. But he'd figured the bed was big enough. God knows, Sam's slept in worse places.

But Chuck fidgets, really, ludicrously insane fidgeting that just goes on and on. Like he has to wear out all the adrenaline he managed to store up in the day. Sam's a breath away from just lifting a foot and kicking him out of the damn bed. Either that or he's just going to roll over and suffocate him, which is starting to sound more and more attractive by the minute.

"Chuck, God damn it, will you please just stop," Sam grumbles into the darkness.

Chuck is blissfully still.

It's quiet for a long moment, quiet enough that Sam thinks maybe he falls asleep, not for long, but long enough to register that his mouth his dry and awful and that a muscle in his neck aches. Though now he's the one that can't get comfortable. Legs stiff wherever he puts them, not enough space for his arms, which are suddenly too long and too numb, in the hotel bed. There's a draft coming from somewhere. A trail of cold air which skids along Sam's back. It digs just underneath the skin and it's enough to push him out of the edge of sleep; to leave him shifting every few minutes, trying to find a position where it can't get to him. Then he'll fall under for another brief, uncomfortable stretch.

He wakes with his face in hair, soft against the edge of his cheek and he's confused about that because he's fairly sure that Ruby is dead, that they killed her. He's too tired to feel any guilt about that, but tired enough to be confused. He curls closer, folds into the warm length of back, face turned into skin, hand catching the too-soft edge of a jacket.

The body stiffens where he's pressed into it, then very carefully nudges him in the ribs with a surprisingly sharp elbow. Sam's briefly annoyed about that; because it's cold and it's not like they've never - until he remembers the broken staircases and the towering floors of a hotel, cold marble floors and big windows and - Chuck.

Crap.

He grunts an apology and untangles himself, shoves his arm under the pillow and searches for a comfortable position.

Jesus, it's cold. He settles for curling his other arm around himself and attempting to conserve as much body heat as possible. His leg twitches and the bed jumps when his knee slams into the mattress. Chuck grumbles complaint at Sam's threat to drag him all the way out of sleep. Which isn't fair, because clearly Sam deserves more room and Dean's sharing with someone that doesn't even need to sleep, so he'll have the bed all to himself.

He sleeps again for a while. Then wakes up with his face pressed into the pillow.

His arm hurts. He thinks for a second he's laying on it but then the sensation goes tight, digs deeper and he realises it's fingers.

He turns his head towards the other side of the bed. Chuck's on his back, one arm flung out like he was trying to pull Sam somewhere in his sleep. Or trying to pull himself out. Chuck's fingers are pushed so tightly into Sam's skin that it hurts, and he's making quiet broken noises in his throat.

"Chuck?"

Sam lifts his other hand to shake him and then stops abruptly, fingers hovering in the darkness. Because there's enough light coming through the window to see the wet trail of blood curling its way across Chuck's cheek. His nose is bleeding.

Not an ordinary nightmare, then.

Sam remembers well enough how unpleasant his visions were to start with. But he's fairly sure he never had to deal with anything like this. He never had to see anything like this. Never had to watch the world get eaten, piece by piece.

He lays a hand on Chuck's shoulder, undecided about whether he should wake him or not. It certainly doesn’t look fun, whatever it is. But there's always a chance he could see something that could help them, something useful for once. Because so far the prophet hasn't exactly come through with any prophecies other than 'we're all going to die.' Over and over.

He likes Chuck, he does, but the frustration is making everyone tight as a wire. If there's a chance that whatever power Chuck has can lead them to an end then Sam's not going to chance it. But then Chuck twitches like someone slapped him and when Sam looks at his face Chuck's eyes are open, staring at the ceiling, wide and glassy and strange.

"Chuck?"

It takes a long second for him to focus on Sam, and when he does he looks startled, like he'd forgotten he was there.

Chuck heaves a breath that sounds as if it hurts, and his fingers very slowly uncurl from Sam's arm, leaving it numb and stiff.

"Chuck, what did you see?"

~~~~~

Dean's up way before any sane man has a right to be, trying to decide if he has any clean clothes left in the whole world and if it actually matters or not. Castiel is hovering, because he has some weird sixth sense that tells him when Dean's awake, and if he's going to make a habit of this then Dean's going to train him to bring him a cup of coffee at least.

He watches him drift around the room, finding all the places he's left clothes and ammunition, watches him pick up the pieces of his life. He's only half listening to the angel. It's too early for that gravel roll of voice.

"We can only take one day at a time, Cas, we can't do anything else at the minute, we don't have the resources."

And today, today all they had planned was to not get eaten, that was it.

"If we don't stop it..." Dean shrugs stiffly and looks at Castiel. He always seems strangely small when you put him in a room, surround him with walls and ceilings. It makes him seem more human. Dean isn't sure why that's so unnerving, he just knows that it is. That he needs Castiel to be something more, something vast and impossible. Because if they're going to win this they're going to need something like that, something that's not human, something stronger than that. Stronger than them.

"You're stronger than you think."

Dean lets his bag sag open on the bed.

"You tell me that, but the world's doing a pretty good job of proving you wrong. And secondly, I've told you about the mind reading thing. You can't just look at that stuff whenever you feel like it."

He tosses yesterdays jeans in wherever they'll fit and doesn't look up.

"Nothing you think has ever made me think less of you." Castiel makes it sound so clean. But Dean knows what a nasty little bitch his mind can be, especially when he's drunk.

"Sometimes it makes me think less of me," Dean explains. "I don't need a reminder that you can hear all that crap too."

"Sometimes you need to be told you're wrong."

Dean snorts.

"I gotta tell you, I've had better pep talks before I gear up for a big fight."

"I don't intend to make you doubt yourself, I'm simply reminding you what you're capable of," Castiel says, drifting close when Dean looks away to find his other jeans. The ones that may or may not be clean.

"You know what I'm capable of, huh?" Dean throws a look at him.

"More than you think," Castiel says seriously. Dean thinks he busts out the serious face on purpose whenever Dean's trying to be evasive. He always makes him feel bad about not living up to other people's standards. "The people who love you have great faith in you. They believe in you, even when you do not. Even when you punish yourself. Sam, Bobby, Ellen, Jo and I."

"You love me, huh?" Dean says through a grin. Because that is such an angel thing to say.

"Yes," Castiel says simply.

Dean stops packing his clothes in his bag.

"More than I should," Castiel adds quietly, reluctantly. Then tenses like he knows perhaps he shouldn't. Or maybe just that he shouldn't have said it. Shouldn't have admitted it. Still learning about the acceptable and unacceptable when it came to human beings. Or Winchesters at least.

Dean looks at him, really looks at him. But Castiel has closed his face completely. It's soft and angel-blank, as if he's already accepted the inevitable consequences of admitting to feelings that aren't returned.

What the hell were you supposed to do when an angel confesses they love you at the end of the world. How can Dean just go on after he's admitted to that? He's not going to freak about it. He's seen enough of this fucked up life to know that sometimes love is the only thing you have. Doesn't matter where it comes from. He thinks maybe everyone needs it. And maybe Castiel knows how to do it better than most.

Dean's not sure he deserves it, not sure he's done anything to deserve it. Much as it still surprises him sometimes, he trusts Castiel. He needs him ways he didn't even realise, needs him maybe just to stay sane. Especially now. But he doesn’t know if he loves him like that. If he can love anyone like that. But knowing it, knowing that it's something Castiel thought was worth telling him. It knocks all the damn air out of him.

It feels insane having some sort of ridiculous epiphany over a pile of dirty clothes and a few crumpled boxes of ammunition. Because that seems like a pretty fair summing up of his whole life.

"I'm going to get everyone killed," he says faintly.

"I don't believe that. I don't believe you would allow it," Castiel offers. Dean wonders again what the hell he ever did to deserve him. What kind of messed up world would give him that much faith in him.

He lets the bag go, turns around and looks at him. Because he should at least have the guts to do that.

Castiel hasn't moved. He's watching him quietly, calmly.

"My best isn't always good enough, you already know that."

Castiel says nothing. It's like he's waiting for Dean to come to some decision. Or waiting for him to refuse to make one. There's no judgment there. Just the sense that he'll accept anything Dean decides to do, anything at all.

Castiel's coat is cold under Dean's hands, cold in his fists when he squeezes it tight. He uses it to get close, closer than he should, closer even than Castiel keeps straying every time he forgets about personal space. It's easy to lean in, to change everything with just one warm, strange press of mouth.

It's one of the briefest kisses Dean's ever given in his life, not even a breath long. But the weight of it, the weight of it is something he's not entirely sure what to do with.

Castiel is still just watching him carefully.

"I've never done that," Dean admits.

Castiel frowns confusion.

"Kissed a dude," Dean explains, which sounds ridiculous.

"Technically I'm not," Castiel says quietly. "Though I understand."

He moves slowly out of Dean's personal space and Dean reaches out and catches his coat, stops him, and eases them close again.

"I didn't say I didn't -" he stops, because there's really no good way to finish that. He takes a breath and decides to finish it anyway. "I didn't say I didn't want to."

Castiel watches him curiously.

Dean sighs, fingers shifting in the material of his coat sleeve.

"I just - this is weird, ok, give me a minute." Because it is weird. There's a fine steady thrum of something, warm and heavy. But Dean's not entirely sure that isn't just the kissing. Because he likes the kissing. The connection they have, he's not entirely sure if this is a part of it. Or if this is just Dean, being incapable of having someone mean something to him without this being a part of it. Without making this a part of it.

"I won't be offended if you don't want this," Castiel says quietly. "The fact that I love you shouldn't make you feel compelled to give anything in exchange."

"Maybe I want to," Dean says shakily. It's a rough burst of strange honesty. One of the hard-edged things he makes a habit of not admitting to. Of never speaking about. He knows what he means, knows what he wants to give, maybe, to this angel who dragged him all the way up out of hell and never left. Who stayed and tried to understand him. Who chose him above everything else.

Whether he deserves the attention or not.

Dean thinks Castiel deserves the honesty.

Castiel tilts his head, curious and surprised.

"Do you?"

"Maybe I should be asking you that," Dean counters. Because it occurs to him that just because Castiel says he loves him doesn't mean he wants this. He's an angel and there's that sense of remoteness, of asexuality. Dean doesn't know if he wants t be kissed like this, to be touched, hell, he doesn't even know if angels are even capable of this. Or if he's allowed. If Dean wanted to -

"Dean." Castiel's voice is careful. As if he's noticed the tension, the uncertainty. "I never meant to push you into anything."

"If you didn't love me like that you wouldn't have kissed me back," Dean points out, or maybe accuses, and his pulse is going too fast for quiet words.

"I'd always assumed it was only polite to be part of a kiss," Castiel says sensibly. But Dean thinks the pause is too long.

"You wouldn't have kissed me back," Dean says again, softer.

Castiel shuts his mouth, eyes sliding away, just a little, and Dean knows he's right.

"I'm aware that things are more complicated than that."

Dean exhales flat laughter.

"The world's full of zombies and we're about to saddle up again and try and stop it from becoming a wasteland of the dead. I'd say that's the complicated part. The rest of it suddenly seems pretty damn easy." He takes a step and Castiel has to look up, just a fraction. Dean folds his fingers in the crisp fabric of his coat and holds him there, as if he thinks the angel might slither away. Then he leans in and kisses him again.

He doesn't break away this time. He touches Castiel's face, the warm, rough skin of his cheeks and jaw, and he stays when Castiel's mouth opens just a little. It's one shaky moment of breathing and uncertainty. Then they're kissing, really kissing, pushing at each other's mouth, open and wet and reckless, and Dean's hands slide up into Castiel's hair. He keeps him there, right there. And it's good, and he thinks he was wrong. Because maybe he does want this, maybe he needs this -

"Dean - "

He jerks back.

Sam's in the doorframe behind Castiel, and Dean still has his hands pushed into the angel's hair.

He pulls away abruptly.

Sam looks completely thrown, and Dean's in that horrible shaky space somewhere between embarrassed, angry and confused all to hell.

"What?" he demands. He knows there's no good reason to be angry at Sam, but it's loud and hard.

"Jesus, I'm sorry, I just -" Sam shakes his head. "Chuck's seen something, he's seen something big."

~~~~~

Chuck's in Bobby's room, sat on one of the expensive couches, drinking coffee out of a cracked mug that someone found - God knows where. Hove's watching from the doorway.

Bobby looks tired, shirt creased like he fell asleep in it. Or maybe he just put it on and then never took it off.

"I don't know," Chuck repeats again. "I don't know, it was just different."

He looks pale as hell, as if Sam dragged him out of somewhere worse than sleep, shaking hands curled round his mug. He's looking between all of them like he's expecting them to do something horrible to him. Sam's hovering behind him, like some sort of protective giant. Which Dean is completely unsurprised about. He's learned by now that if you make Sam feel responsible for anyone he's pretty much there for the duration.

Chuck rubs a hand over his face.

"God, umm, there was a red room, a red room with a body in the middle of it, all -" Chuck pushes a hand through his hair, mouth pulling down like he's unwilling to remember something horrible. "- all torn open with things - or maybe something trying to crawl out of the middle of it."

"Jesus," Dean says thinly.

Bobby looks a question at him.

"Me and Sam put down something a hell of a lot like that about a month or so before all this started. Something trying to tear its way out of hell. We put it down hard."

Chuck clears his throat.

"It was in a huge building surrounded by the dead, they were literally crawling over each other, pulling each other apart to get close to it. I didn't - the floor was vibrating and the whole place was cracking open, and I'm fairly sure we would have heard if the sky had gone red and it started raining fire, so I'm guessing that's a future that's coming; not that's happening right now. That's what you wanted, right? something you could change." He looks up at the both of them.

Sam's giving him that look, the look that's all enthusiasm and optimism and hope. Dean can't smack that face down for the life of him, because he hasn't seen it for far too long. And this is the first lead - the first clue, the first goddamn anything they've had.

He tosses Chuck a pen.

"Write down the whole thing, every single thing you saw. We'll try and work out where it is and we'll load up everything and everyone we have, and take it on."

He looks up at Bobby.

"Can you get hold of anyone else if we need them?"

Bobby gives a stiff nod.

"You can bet your ass I'll try," he says roughly.

Dean nods.

"If we find out where this thing's going to happen. If we can get there before it does and stop it maybe we can end this whole thing."

"You don't think it's too big now to just be shut down by cutting off the head?" Hove says quietly, from where he's leant against the sink.

Dean shakes his head.

"At this stage I don't freakin' care. I'm going to be happy just as long as we're cutting and doing it where it hurts."

Bobby grunts agreement.

"I'm going to need more coffee," Chuck says quietly from the table. He has one hand pressed to the bridge of his nose like his whole skull hurts. "And my glasses."

~~~~~

Dean has brought three bottles up from the bar downstairs. They sit glinting in the artificial light but he hasn't touched any of them. He isn't entirely sure why they're even there. He knows now isn't a good time to drink. Or maybe now is the best time to drink.

Either way he doesn't touch them until Castiel appears behind him. One rough, flapping tear of sound and it's like the room is suddenly full of angel.

Dean unscrews the bottle's lid and fills two glasses.

Castiel gives him a look when he holds it out.

"Don't make me drink alone, Cas," he chastises, and the angel seems to think this is a good enough point, stretching out a hand uncertainly to grip the fine rim of the glass.

When Dean lets go he raises it and carefully tips it to his mouth. He seems undecided about whether to sip it or drink it all. He seems to settle for a taste.

Dean's less polite in his drinking habits.

"Can you even taste that?" he asks, when he's half emptied his own glass.

"Yes," Castiel says, voice just as rough as before.

Dean grunts, then sits down on the bed.

"This thing Chuck's seen, if it really is the same thing me and Sam put down in Greenburg, then at least we know that it can be killed." Though God knows that thing they'd killed hadn't exactly been easy, and Dean's not even close to enthusiastic about going after something bigger, something nastier. It seems like that sort of thing could get you killed.

But then it wouldn't be the first time.

He looks up, trying to gauge what Castiel's thinking, but there's nothing there. He's staring curiously into his empty glass like he's never had the chance to just hold one before. He looks strangely perfect and untouchable standing there. Like no one could ever get deep enough to rattle him. Like he's something old and strange, just wearing a man to pass the time. Dean doesn't like the thought.

He's gotten used to Cas being Cas.

Dean wants to get up close, wants to make him look rough and messy, wants to rattle his perfect calm. God, maybe he just wants to touch him. It feels as if one interrupted kiss has messed up the way he sees completely. Turned the way he thought he'd felt about the angel sideways.

It isn't wrong. It's weird and complicated and different, but not wrong. The world's too messed up for something like this to be wrong. He just...doesn't quite know how to deal with this new and unexpected want. Doesn't know if he should deal with it. Or even if he's allowed to have it.

He empties his glass and stares into it, debates whether he wants more. Whether he just wants to fill a hole inside him with something.

He stands, gets as far as the table before he changes his mind, sets the glass down and then slips into Castiel's space, close enough, closer than he always used to complain about.

He takes the glass from him, sets it down.

Castiel watches him and he's really not sure how to ask. Whether he should just -

But he can't. Not without something like permission.

"Can I?" he asks.

Castiel frowns ever so slightly, like he doesn't understand. Dean's hand shifts, catches in the cold fabric of his coat and pulls him, just a fraction. Castiel tilts his head, face suddenly softer.

"Yes," he says, without hesitation.

Dean barely waits for the word to slip free. Fingers sliding up into the softness of his hair. He draws them close together, finds Castiel's mouth.

The kiss is slow and shaky but Dean's brave enough - or maybe just needs it enough - to make it deep. To need the slow, curious push of Castiel's mouth. In the quiet of the room the rest of the world doesn't exist and he can have this. Because, strange or not, Castiel fills a space in him that's spent so long hollowed out that sometimes it hurts.

But that just makes him want it more, and he doesn't have a clue how the hell that happened when yesterday he didn't even know.

But they've come a long way together. From the depths of hell all the way to the end of the world. The fact that he's an angel, that he's a man, or as close to one as he can be, messed up though it sounds. That doesn't even matter. It'll definitely matter at some point. It'll matter eventually and make everything different, make everything complicated. But now...Dean just wants to kiss him. So he does, fingers sliding back to hold, and it's lazy and fucking indulgent. In a way he could never get away with with anyone else. There are no questions and no expectations, just Dean deciding that he could get used to this.

For however long the world has left.

But that's just him, and Dean refuses to be selfish, refuses to take without knowing if they're allowed. Without knowing if Castiel really wants this. He tips away, lets their noses drag together and Castiel's eyes are soft and close, the angel's fingers are dug in Dean's shirt. A silent refusal to let him go, whether he understands this or not.

"What is this, Cas?" he asks, words brushing the angel's mouth, because he doesn't know. He doesn't have a clue. But if he doesn't ask he's not sure he will, and he refuses to take this somewhere greedy. To not find out for sure.

"This is whatever you want it to be," Castiel tells him, watching him from so damn close through eyes that are so blue it's unnatural. The way he says it, it's like there was never going to be any other answer.

"Tell me you want it too." Dean insists. It comes out with an edge he doesn't like, an edge that sounds like something he doesn't want to be. But he needs it.

"You know I do," Castiel assures him, quiet and rough. Like admitting to it is so damn easy for him.

"Tell me that's not a bad thing."

"Why would you think it would ever be bad?" Castiel murmurs, voice low and gravel-rough.

Dean doesn't answer, shakes out an exhale instead, touching the warmth of Castiel's jaw and throat.

"I love you," Castiel says firmly. "Whatever you want to feel for me. Whatever you want to do with it. It's yours, freely."

Dean's hand tightens in his hair.

"Cas, I don't want to make this something I have to give a name, to make it something complicated. Maybe I just want it to be us." He sounds desperate and raw and he honestly doesn't even know what he means, he just knows he has to try and say it.

Castiel's mouth softens, opens. Dean doesn't know why but he's afraid of what Castiel's going to say. Afraid of talking about this, of turning this into words.

He wants, but he wants Castiel to want it too.

"Kiss me like you want this," Dean says quietly, voice shaky but hard.

Castiel slides a warm hand round the back of his neck, thumb pushing into muscle and pulls him in.

He kisses Dean like he plans to never let him go. Until Dean's mouth is numb and stinging and he's breathing Castiel on every breath.

~~~~~

When Sam gets out of the shower Chuck's still at the table. Mug at his elbow, though it's not coffee, the wet glint of amber suggests someone went on a raid for alcohol, probably Dean. His brother's nowhere to be seen, but the low hum of voices tells him maybe he's next door with Bobby.

Chuck looks like crap, more so than usual. One hand is dug in his hair, the other scratching a pen against paper. There's an unhappy paleness to his skin, hair curling damp on his neck. Sam thinks maybe the wet towel flung a foot away had been pressed there for a while.

"Are you ok?" Sam asks him. Because with Chuck you can't really tell. He has that ability to complain and panic his way through situations that would break anyone else. But Sam thinks even this is a lot to ask for. He knows Chuck's been mostly trying to forcibly block this stuff out since the dead starting eating the living.

Chuck pulls a face at him, something dishevelled and mocking.

"Yeah, I know that's kind of a stupid question," Sam admits.

He sits down on the other side of the table and looks at the paper Chuck's writing - no, apparently drawing - on.

Sam raises an eyebrow at what looks like a wonkily filled in skyline.

"He's making me draw it," Chuck complains. "Apparently my descriptive passages weren't good enough. If I'd have known it would be important I might have concentrated more on what the city looked like, rather than the streams of walking dead and the sky being eaten up by fire."

He moves his arm so Sam can get a good look at the picture.

At some point the pen ran out so it's half blue and half black, smudged in places, buildings not entirely three dimensional.

Sam makes a face.

"It's...uh...."

Chuck snorts.

"Yeah, art really isn't my strong point. Which is why Supernatural wasn't a comic strip or a graphic novel." Chuck sighs and scribbles a handful of windows. "It would have been a fantastic graphic novel," he adds under his breath.

"Everything helps," Sam says quietly.

"Yeah," the pen scratches harder on the paper than before. "Yeah, I get that, Winchesters, believe me I really do get that." There's a tight unhappiness in the way he's drawing now. The buildings shakier and less straight than before.

"Chuck," Sam says softly. "We're going to do everything we can."

"Maybe it's too late for that," he says without looking up.

"You really believe that?" Sam asks.

"Sam, I wrote about most of the crap you guys have been through, but this...this is so far beyond all of that I can't even see it all at once. This isn't about you. This isn't you and your brother against the forces of evil. This is global. This is hell trying to tear the world apart just because it can."

The pen lists sideways and Chuck rubs both hands over his face.

"So, what, you think we should just give up?"

Chuck makes a face.

"I never said that, and seriously, like you guys ever would. It's just - it's so fucking big, y'know?"

Sam sighs.

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

He steals Chuck's mug, drags it over to the other side of the table and he was right, the liquid burns all the way down.

"Dean and Cas are upstairs trying to work out how we stop this thing, right now," Sam says slowly. At least he assumes that's what they're doing. He'd thought about going to check earlier but he still kind of doesn't know what to think about the last time. When he'd walked in on them kissing. Because it's Dean and - God - that had been kind of unexpected, and surreal. "You know Cas is going to do everything he can, we have an angel on our side - that has to mean something."

Chuck sighs, like he's aware of the truth of that.

"And we're all in this to the end."

"I'm going to be eaten by zombies," Chuck complains, and though it's thrown out, something that wants to be a joke. It's also hard and shaky. Sam thinks maybe they're getting to the heart of what Chuck's afraid of.

"Chuck, I'm not going to let you get eaten by zombies," Sam tells him.

Chuck grunts something unimpressed and steals his mug back.

"You're just saying that because you're a Winchester."

Sam picks up the pen and hands it back to him.

"Yeah, I'm a Winchester and we tend to come out the other side of these things."

"It's no fun when you're not in charge of writing the endings, y'know," Chuck complains. But he very carefully starts adding buildings to the background.

~~~~~

Sam slides the paper down in front of Dean, pushes it between the trail of shotgun cartridges and a half full glass of something stronger than coffee.

He jabs a finger down on what looks like a messy drawing of a plinth and a figure holding its arms out, holding what looks like a sun.

"What does that look like to you?"

The cloth pauses and draws free from the shotgun's barrel.

"It looks like Detroit," Dean says quietly.

Sam nods.

"We've got a ground zero," he says calmly.

Dean sets the gun down carefully

"Have you told Bobby yet?"

"Not yet, he went out with Hove to pick up some supplies. I was going to make a start on packing up while we waited."

Dean looks up at him sharply.

"You ready to go kill this thing again?"

"More than ready," Sam says thickly. "So much more than ready."

"It's going to be a fucking mess."

"We've done worse," Sam says easily, and it's a lie. It's such a blatant lie and Dean huffs amusement like he knows it.

Dean leans back in the chair, head tipped back into the light, and Sam catches the bruised red edge to his mouth for the first time.

"Did you get hit?" Sam asks curiously. Because he doesn't remember anything catching Dean across the face.

Dean frowns.

"No, why?"

Sam gestures at the corner of Dean's mouth, at that messy brightness. Dean looks confused for a second, and then abruptly something clicks and he looks away. He shakes his head, but doesn't say anything else. Sam's left completely bewildered, and he's about to ask about it when he gets it, suddenly and clearly. He can't for the life of him work out how to backtrack and pretend he'd never asked. Because he'd thought maybe the whole kissing thing was a moment of madness on Dean's part. He's really good at doing stupid things like that. But the fact that it's clearly a thing, that maybe it's something they've been doing since then. The fact that Dean's actually letting it happen. Sam's not exactly sure what that means for them. That it isn't some embarrassing consequence of Dean's ridiculous libido. That it might actually be something real.

"Forget about it," he tries. "I'm just -"

"It's complicated," Dean says quietly.

Which Sam's a little bit surprised about. Because he would have bet money on Dean at least pretending nothing was going on. This is practically talking about it. Though Sam doesn't think it's half as complicated as Dean thinks it is.

"It's ok," Sam says easily, and then discovers he doesn't have anything else. That they don't need anything else.

Besides, Dean's had easy for too long. He deserves a little complicated. Something that matters, no matter what shape it is. He doesn't say anything at all. He watches Dean sit tense and uncomfortable on the other side of the table. Until he picks up his cloth again, starts cleaning. Sam doesn't even realise he's smiling at the craziness of it all until Dean pulls a face at him. Like Sam's damaged in some sort of important way. He doesn't give up on the smile though. He doesn't think there'll be many of them tomorrow.

~~~~~

The world is completely empty. Everything is gone, the landscape an unending grey. Even the dead have stopped walking, stopped moving between the buildings and along the roads. Everything is dead.

Dean's seeing it from inside, through the glass of a window.

Warm hands drag him away from the glass, fingers on the side of his face turning him away from the nothingness outside.

There's nothing but Castiel's hands, Castiel's mouth. The furious hunger of him, fingers too strong, mouth too hot.

But Dean wants it, wants Castiel to pull him away from that formless grey void that the world has become. He wants to break apart under his hands.

He pulls his mouth to the side, leaves the angel's mouth open on his cheek.

"Cas, I want this," he admits, swallows roughly and says everything. "I want this. I want you, anything you want, anything."

The angel makes a noise against his skin and Dean wants it to be acceptance, wants it to say yes.

"I have to go, Dean," Castiel's voice is flat against his skin. "I can't stay with you."

Dean goes cold.

"Cas?" he manages, and then he's pushing his way out of Castiel's arms.

He's pushing him back, stomach hollow, taut and shaking.

"No," Dean says simply. "You can't, you can't go."

Castiel's expression is sad but firm.

"I have to go." There's a rigid honestly in his voice. Like there's no arguing, no protesting. Like it's simply the truth. Dean catches at him, somewhere between panic and furious anger.

"You can't. You promised, you fucking promised. Don't you dare tell me that."

"Dean." Castiel's voice is too soft, too close to apology.

"I need you," he tells him, the words small and faint and broken where they fall. Like Dean's afraid of them.

"I have to," Castiel insists.

"I need you," Dean says roughly, brokenly, because he can. Because there's no one left, there's nothing left. He digs his fingers into the angel's arms, into the unbreakable skin at the back of his neck. "You can't go, you son of a bitch, I -"

But Castiel is already fading, skin softening, slipping between his fingers, until the angel's made of nothing but wet smoke and Dean's breathing it in, choking and swallowing and demanding he come back, because there's nothing else left. There's nothing, nothing at all -

Something touches his arm, drags him roughly all the way conscious.

The shape in the dark, pale and still above him, is Castiel.

God, Castiel, and Dean ignores the way his heart's thumping because this is the real world, not a fucking dream, and he knows what being woken in the middle of the night usually means.

"What? What is it, Cas?" Dean's awake, more than awake, already halfway to a sit, heart thumping. But Castiel's expression isn't tight, it's quieter. It's somewhere between hard and lost.

"You were dreaming," he says thickly. Like he knows. Like he saw.

Dean doesn't have to ask, doesn't have to wait for Castiel to speak. He's sliding out of the warm sheets, catching Castiel's arm and drawing him down, drawing him in with rough careless movements.

His mouth is cold, like he's been outside. But he relaxes into the kiss, breathes soft and slow against Dean's face, turning his mouth up when Dean fists a hand in his hair to make it easier, to make it deeper.

"Is this what you need?" Dean breathes into him, heavy shake to the words. "Is this what you came for?" He holds him there so he can see him, so he can watch the way his eyes go dark. The way they catch and hold his own.

Dean wants it, he wants it and he's not ashamed of it, not one fucking bit. It's not what he ever thought he'd want, hell it's not even close, but this, Castiel's hands on him, Castiel's skin under his fingers, that's what he wants. Now, not later, not at some point in the future when he's got the balls to admit to it out loud. He wants it now.

"Is it?" he demands.

"Yes," Castiel says roughly, one snapped out broken word and he pulls like he wants more, needs more. Like he's discovered this thing and now he's not sure he can get enough of it.

Dean shoves at his coat and jacket, lets them fall, and Castiel is pushing at his shoes while the buttons of his shirt scatter. The angel tugs the blankets away, one quick jerk of movement and then he's pressing Dean into the warmth of the sheets, possessive, almost angry. Dean didn't expect to like that so much, didn't expect to need it so much.

The slow greedy thump of arousal works its way low and deep. It flares hot when he realises Castiel is hard, pressed in tight against him like he finds the sensation addictive. He pushes himself harder into Dean's skin and makes noises into his mouth that Dean never thought he'd ever make. Like he wants to own him. Like he wants to press him down and spread him open and slide inside him.

God, fuck, Dean would have always said he never wanted anything like that. But the thought of it, here, now, the thought of it breaks something in him. The way Castiel doesn’t say please, doesn't even ask. The way he just kisses him like he can't get enough.

Dean drags his head up, watches Castiel's mouth open, the wet, bright shine of his teeth, the warmth when his breath shivers out over Dean's face.

"Cas, do you want -"

"Yes," Castiel says firmly, before he's even finished, quick and desperate. "Please, Dean." And Dean wonders if he can even stop himself from reading his mind when they're pressed so close together. When Dean wants with a fierce, almost angry, ache. Stupid rush of lust that's taking him somewhere new, too desperate to be nervous. To want to wait.

"Jesus, Cas." His voice is a mess, but he doesn’t say no. He doesn't protest when Castiel kneels beside the bed, a curve of naked flesh in the darkness that looks like something no one's meant to touch.

"Cas?"

He catches Dean's outstretched hand and lets himself be pulled back onto the bed, small bottle of oil held in his other hand. Which makes it real somehow. That he's going to say yes to that.

"Should I be worried that you know what you're doing?" Dean says roughly, and arousal has stolen any hint of sensible calm in his voice.

"I'm very old," Castiel says quietly, and there's a curl of amusement under the rough, throaty, tremor of want. "I have watched humanity. I have watched you."

That shouldn't make Dean groan out a breath, shouldn't make his fingers pull at Castiel's skin. But it does, greedy to have him there, to have him in the bed again. When Castiel touches him this time his hands are warm and slow and sure. Dean thinks the noises he's making in his throat are permission, the way he gives under every slide of Castiel's fingers where they find the curve of his waist and hips, the hard push of his cock and the soft, heavy ache of his balls.

Dean's hands aren't so kind, fingers quick and greedy and desperate. Because he's never done this, not from this end, not when it was real, with his own body and his own flesh. A little experimentation with adventurous girls isn't the same and Castiel's fingers are verging on too hard where they dig in now. He's strong and heavy, everything about him masculine, for all that he's angel instead.

That's a lot of power, a lot of strength to control, and Dean knows it won't be fun for him if Castiel can't handle it, if he pushes too hard. But he trusts Castiel, maybe more than he should, but he does.

He slides over in the sheets, gets his knees under him and Castiel runs shaky hands over his back and thighs.

"Dean." His name shakes in Castiel's voice. One last desperate plea for permission to have him. Which, Jesus, Dean has no frame of reference for. But it's Castiel, it's Castiel, and that's all that matters.

"Yeah, it's ok. I'm ok, do it."

The press of slick fingers into him, rushed but careful, is uncomfortable and Dean breathes through it, breathes and lets Castiel open him, touch him in slow greedy slides. The push of his fingers deep enough to find the place that makes his breath catch and his thighs tremble. To leave him dizzy-drunk for the promise of more, whether he can take it or not.

Castiel finger fucks him, slow and deep for so long, so damn long that he's shaking on the edge, twisting, shifting and so ready it hurts.

"Cas," he says desperately.

There's a short, ragged inhale. Castiel's fingers slide free and Dean hears it when Castiel slides a hand over himself. Before he catches Dean's hips and holds him still while he presses himself against, and then into, him. A hard push that aches all the way through.

"Fuck," Dean whispers. "Easy, Cas, easy."

"I'm sorry." Castiel's voice catches in his throat but he slows, pushes more gently, lets Dean take him in one slow, uncomfortable slide.

What he's doing, what they're doing. The rough, dirty, too intimate push of Castiel's dick into him in a way that's so utterly unangelic he thinks it's going to break him. Under the heavy thud of need it almost hurts, and it's too much. But there's a low broken noise from the angel. Something that sounds honest and desperate. He digs his fingers into Dean's skin and fights to make it slow and easy. Dean moans into the pillow and feels everything.

Dean thinks maybe he corrupted the angel, brought him down to this, though he never meant to. But he breathes and winces and murmurs quiet encouragement, fingers dug hard into the sheets. Until Castiel is balls deep, hands curled where waist becomes thigh, fingers digging in like he wants nothing else but to push and push.

Dean lets Castiel have what he wants. The angel who's never wanted anything. Dean lets him have this. Rough, graceless pushes that aren't always nice. But Dean's lost too, completely lost, held down by the heat, the weight, the fierce desperation of Castiel. Grounded and broken and right here. There's hot breath flaring against the back of his neck and rough half-words that stream out and stop, shocked and shaken.

He feels it when Castiel comes. A sharp, broken thrust, and another, desperate. Then a breath, hard and stunned, and stillness. There's a flare of heat and liquid warmth inside him. Obscene and strange and good. Dean feels bruised and wrung out. Taken apart and used and he could sob with how much he needs, never knew he did but - God. Castiel curls a hand round him and touches him. A quick, hot-tight catch of fingers that he shoves into, gasps and lets Cas pull him all the way over the edge.

Castiel holds him while he shakes, blind and breathless, through his own release. With the angel still a solid ache inside him.

The ache stays when he slides free, when he smoothes his hands up Dean's back. It's gentle, careful. It feels strangely like quiet worship. When Dean slithers round, Castiel's fingers tug his mouth open, and he kisses him. Slow, shaky presses of mouth. The warm softness of his cock slides against his skin and Dean pulls him down, presses him down in a way that's soft and close and human. Until they're tangled up together, hot and messy and Dean's so willing to fucking stay that way it almost scares him.

"Dean," Castiel says quietly. Like his name is something vital.

Dean throws an arm out, damp against Castiel's warm skin. He leaves it there, fingers loose across the angel's chest. So there's no conversation, no asking him to stay. There's just the both of them under the sheets, and it's been so long since Dean's had something warm, something that's his.

Something he's maybe a little in love with.

And the fact that it's the end of the world hurts in a way that's unfair.

"I love you," Castiel whispers against his skin, breath warm. "I would never leave you, I could never leave you."

Dean tightens the arm he has thrown round the angel. Throat shut too tight to speak. Because it's the end of the world and, damn it, no one should make promises they can't keep.

~~~~~

The car's too hot, because rolling the windows down fills it with the smell of smoke and rotting corpses. Dean's been driving for four hours, tense enough that he's going to regret it later. Every damn inch of him is going to ache and grind like he's sixty years old and he'll have to put up with it.

He flicks his eyes up, finds Castiel in the back, quiet and still, like he knows something they don't. Dean's fairly sure he knows a million things they don't. He's been quiet all morning, quieter than usual. Like he isn't quite sure how to deal with what happened between them. Dean's not gonna push. He's kind of...not happy exactly, but he feels...he feels less buried under it all than yesterday.

Chuck's on the other side, next to Cas. He's curled into the window picking under his nails, expression somewhere between discomfort and misery. But then he's been wearing that face for a while now.

Sam's leaning against the window too, face tense, occasionally he'll check the mirrors, as if to see if Bobby and Hove are still behind them.

They're heading east.

Heading for the end.

Dean's pretty sure they're getting one chance at this. He thinks maybe they're either stopping whatever this is from opening a way into hell or they're not making it out alive. They're going to give everything and that'll just have to be enough.

"What did Bobby say about Rufus, Ellen and the others?" Dean asks.

Sam straightens, nod turning into a frown.

"He said the phones aren't exactly reliable any more but he left as many messages as he could telling them all to meet us there if they can."

Neither of them suggest that the others, that Ellen and Jo, might be dead already.

It's not an option.

It's going to take three days to drive there, if they stop to sleep. Depending on how messed up the roads are since they passed through last.

Dean's more than happy to do the whole thing in one go but Sam's insistent, they sleep, or their reflexes will suffer, and that's not acceptable. Dean's fairly sure that letting Sam be smart when he doesn't want to be is one of the reasons they're not dead yet.