Our Lavish Post-Apocalyptic Lifestyle (Dean/Castiel, PG-13)
Title: Our Lavish Post-Apocalyptic Lifestyle
Author: exmanhater
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: all of season five, particularly 5X22
Warnings: none
Word count: 3,840
Summary: Dean’s not a damsel, and the whole rescue + immediate disappearing act Castiel’s been using lately doesn’t do a thing for him. Not at all. (Or, the one where Sam and Castiel have a Dean-Stalkers Anonymous group).
A/N: Originally posted here
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this story, and will not profit from it
The first time it happens, when Castiel appears out of nowhere (trench coat flapping and hair sticking up all over the place like the good old days, Dean pointedly does not think) and burns the demon currently choking Dean up against a wall back to hell and then disappears again almost instantly, Dean is understandably confused, with a side of grateful.
As he pants, rubbing a hand over his sore throat, he tries to remember how long it’s been since he last saw Cas. At least six months, maybe longer. It’s only been three months that he’s been hunting again, pushed out of Lisa’s quiet house half by her refusal to let him drink himself to death in peace and half by his own intense restlessness. He misses her, and Ben, but he always knew it was only a stopgap measure, a desperate attempt to keep a promise to Sam. She knew it too, said so when she gave him the choice to stay or go, both of them perfectly aware that he would go. Now he’s drinking less, but only because he’s found a strange peace in his solitary work, going after monsters that seem much smaller than before he knew about angels and demons and the end of the world. It’s lonely and tiring and he knows that sooner or later he’ll miscalculate and get himself killed, and he tries not to dwell on the fact that he’s looking forward to that final mistake.
By now he’s trained himself not to look for Sam or Castiel, or even Bobby. He’s just fine on his own, thank you very much, and an angel-rescue is the last thing he wants anyway. Dicks with wings, that’s all they are.
He picks himself up from the dirty ground and has a bad night back at the motel, goes through a bottle of whiskey and thinks too hard about the past until he passes out.
The next day the whole thing seems like a dream and he lets it fall away like one.
***
The second time Cas saves his bacon without being asked, Dean is pretty fucking pissed off at the whole world in general, and Sam in particular.
(“Look,” says Sam when Dean’s finished with the barrage of “so you’re back from the dead! Are you really you or some kind of creature?” tests and satisfied that it really is his stupid-ass brother who stumbled into Dean’s campsite looking almost exactly as he had the last time Dean had seen him. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you right away. I wanted to give you a chance at being something other than my big brother.”
Shows what he knows is Dean’s only thought, and before he can really rip into Sam for being alive for seven months without letting him know about it, puppy-eyes be damned, the wendigo he’s been tracking attacks and he puts his anger into good use.)
The rage doesn’t really work like it should, though, and before he knows it Sam is down for the count and the wendigo has Dean slung over its back. Through blurred vision, Dean sees Cas appear right behind the wendigo and his only coherent thought is to wonder how the hell Cas even knows where they are.
Castiel brushes a hand through the air and reality twists, along with Dean’s stomach, and when the world comes back into focus the wendigo is gone and Dean and Sam are back at Dean’s crap motel room, the impala parked carefully outside, and Cas is nowhere to be seen.
After making sure Sam’s okay, Dean gets down to business.
“Did he know you were alive? Did you two make some kind of weird creeper club where you stalk me and then swap sick stories?”
“What? Dean, I haven’t seen Castiel since Lucifer blew his head open. I didn’t even know he was still alive.”
“Yeah,” Dean replies, slightly annoyed to have his ridiculous theory disproved. It had made a twisted kind of sense, and would have made for some awesome teasing. “God brought him back, all juiced up, and he fixed Bobby, then flapped off to heaven to boss everyone around.”
“And you haven’t seen him again until now?” Sam asks skeptically. “Weren’t you like his only friend left in heaven and on earth?”
“He seemed pretty glad to be rid of us mud monkeys back then,” Dean insists. He doesn’t know how well he hides his feelings about that, just tries to keep his voice steady and low. “But a few months ago I was after this demon and Cas showed up and took care of it in two seconds and disappeared again right away, just like this time.”
“Well, he’s looking out for you, so I guess he’s not all the way back on Team Angel.”
Dean ignores the tiny flare of warmth that pushes through him at the thought. Sam hadn’t seen Castiel at the end, weird vibrations of power thrumming in the air around him, his stare cold and distant like Dean hadn’t really remembered it could be.
“Let’s focus on the important thing here, Sammy. Where the hell have you been and how the hell did you get back?”
Sam sighs. “I’d tell you if I could, man. The last thing I remembered was pulling Michael into the pit behind me. Then I woke up in the parking lot of a Denny’s by the dumpster with a duffle bag of my stuff and a hangover.”
“And an epic case of stupidity that led you to believe I wouldn’t want to know you were alive,” Dean points out sarcastically. “Thanks for that.”
“Can we not… can we not fight about it?” Sam asks tiredly, twisting his hand through his hair in a gesture so familiar to Dean that it makes his chest ache. “I really just wanted to do the right thing for you for once, the unselfish thing. I thought a lot about what you said, about only being my brother and nothing else. There’s way more Lucifer in me than I want, and I don’t want to keep going down that path.”
The honest confession sort of takes the oomph out of Dean’s righteous fury.
“And then I saw you at Lisa’s,” Sam continues. “And you looked… peaceful. So I just let you go and checked up now and then to make sure you were okay.”
“So you were stalking me,” Dean says, ignoring everything else to focus on that crucial detail. “That’s classy and not at all creepy in the slightest.”
Sam’s face wrinkles into a familiar bitchy look. “Dean.”
“Sam.” It’s the only reply that particular look warrants. The knowledge that Sam is back, really actually back, chooses that moment to sink in, of course, and before he knows what’s happening, Dean’s hugging his brother as tightly as he can. He only pulls away when he feels his face getting suspiciously wet.
The tightness around Dean’s eyes eases after that, and he and Sam fall back into their old rhythms. He doesn’t even give Sam too much grief about following Dean around like a lost puppy and not ever letting Dean know about it. They avoid talking about the mystery of Sam’s return to life, but they are both more at peace each day, and if Dean spends an excessive amount of time looking expectantly around for a flash of blue eyes or a trench coat during their hunts, Sam doesn’t mention it.
***
When it happens for the third time two months later, Dean doesn’t really have an opinion right away because he’s unconscious for the whole rescue. Well, Sam calls it that. Dean prefers to think of it as an unnecessary angelic assist.
They’re after a nasty poltergeist, which isn’t even in the top twenty list of the most dangerous hunts Dean’s been on, but the stupid thing gets the drop on him in the dilapidated old farm house where it lives and knocks him out cold with a giant grandfather clock. It’s not his finest moment.
He wakes up groggy and extremely exhausted but without the throbbing headache he should have, which is his first clue that something unusual has happened. That had been a huge fucking clock. He’s lying in bed and he can hear Sam talking from the other side of the room. He can’t really force his eyes open, so he just listens, trying to make sense of what’s going on.
“- him,” Sam insists. “He’ll never say it, but he misses you.”
Dean has the vague thought that Sam had better not be talking about him before another voice replies.
“I have my reasons,” it says, low and gravelly, and no, it can’t be. It can, though, he remembers. It’s happened twice already, even if Cas hasn’t stayed around after the action before now. He misses Sam’s reply, lost in his thoughts, trying to get his throat to work so that he can insist that he doesn’t miss Cas at all.
“-ard to get,” Castiel says, and Sam lets out a bark of surprised laughter.
“Seriously?” he asks. “Oh man, I am never going to let either of you live this down.”
Dean pushes at the blanket covering his body and manages a grunt that’s meant to be Sam’s name but sounds more like the last cry of a dying animal, breaking up the conversation he’s sure is very inappropriate, and opens his eyes.
Sam’s face is hovering close, and behind him is Castiel, unruffled and still there.
“Hello, Dean,” he says, staying on the other side of the room.
“You okay?” Sam asks. “Got hit pretty hard.”
Dean shakes his head slowly. “’m fine. Why is Cas here?”
Sam sniggers and looks over at Cas, causing Dean’s suspicion to grow. Clearly Sam and Cas shouldn’t be left alone together anymore. Dean follows Sam’s gaze and rests his eyes on Castiel’s tie, messy and hanging in a loose knot around his neck. Dean can’t bring himself to look any further up.
“I came to help you out with the poltergeist, and I stayed to tell you how Sam was restored, so that you would not worry needlessly and possibly get into unnecessary trouble,” Castiel says. “It was God - when he restored me he also pulled Sam’s soul from the pit and fashioned a new body to place it in.”
“God,” Dean snorts derisively, to cover his relief at knowing for sure that Sam won’t be suddenly snatched back into hell.
“You should no longer have any trouble with demonic inclinations,” Cas continues, focusing on Sam. “You have been cleansed of Azazel’s taint.”
Dean can see Sam’s mixed feelings about that, thankfulness and fear both present in his tense look.
“Good,” Dean says firmly. “Always wanted a normal little brother. Did you fix his awful taste in music too, Cas?” He takes his first look directly at Cas’s face as he speaks.
“It was not me, Dean. It was God.” Castiel’s eyes don’t let Dean know anything he might be thinking or feeling, but the surety in his voice makes Dean feel a little better. Castiel without faith was wrong, nothing but a reminder of a future Dean wants to forget.
Sam is still pretending to be indignant about Dean’s music joke and Dean forces himself to look away, breaks the hold Cas has on him. He’s afraid to think about what it means too much.
Sam sobers quickly and turns to Castiel. “Just. Thank you, Cas, or thank God for me or something. I didn’t deserve it, but I’m really grateful.”
Castiel just stands there being stoic, nods in reply, then twitches noticeably. “Forgive me,” he says. “There are events in heaven which require my attention.”
Before Dean can even begin to protest, Cas is gone.
“He seriously sucks at this hello and goodbye thing,” Sam sighs. “At least his timing’s good when it comes to rescues.”
That starts the argument about rescues versus unneeded angelic interference and once Sam brings up Dean’s habit of swooning in Castiel’s arms, it’s on. Pretty soon Sam and Dean are both having too much fun sniping at each other about nothing at all to bother with rehashing the news Castiel gave them and what it might mean.
Dean’s pretty clear in his own mind that it’s better to enjoy what he has now than to worry about when it might be taken away or to think about what was still missing, anyway.
Damn staring freak of an angel, he huffs quietly every now and then to himself.
***
By the time Castiel plays superhero for the fourth time, Dean has decided on a course of action, so he’s prepared when he’s suddenly released from the grip of a nasty vampire who probably used to be a pro-football player judging by his size.
Dean gets to his feet right away and zeros in on Cas, who has just decapitated the huge vampire as well as the two others who had been attacking Sam all without touching any of them, and yells before Castiel can disappear.
“Hey, Cas!”
He turns and walks over to Dean, staring steadily.
Dean swallows. This had seemed easier in his head. “So you’re in charge up there now, huh? How’s that going?”
“Oh, god,” he hears Sam mumble in the background. “Seriously?”
He doesn’t spare a glance for anything but Castiel, who looks… pleased, like he’s never been asked about his day before. Maybe he hasn’t.
“It has been difficult to get the remaining angels to listen to reason,” Cas replies. “Even with the obvious proof of God’s favor, there have been many of my brothers who refuse to believe that the earth and humanity should be preserved.”
“Sounds rough,” Dean says inanely. Like he knows anything about ruling a vast metaphysical kingdom of angels? Wait, was it metaphysical? But Cas doesn’t seem to think it’s a stupid thing to say.
“It was at first. But I have learned many useful things on earth,” and Dean has trouble keeping himself from going weak-kneed (seriously, he says to himself. Seriously?) at the sneaky grin Cas can’t keep from his face.
His face must be making its own look because Cas elaborates without being asked, moving a step closer.
“Once you have been one of four people working to stop the apocalypse, you have little patience for petty arguments. I leaned very heavily on the threat of righteous smiting at first, and after I had bested all of the loudest complainers, the rest fell in line.” Cas smiles in satisfaction, and damn, that’s a good look for him. “It’s not perfect,” Cas adds hastily. “There are still many changes that need to be made, but I believe the bulk of the work has been accomplished, or at least started in most cases.”
“So, you don’t need to stay in heaven all the time anymore?” Dean moves closer in, trying to get a read on Cas’s thoughts.
Castiel purses his lips and nods. “I believe I may have more free time than I first believed I would,” he says.
“Well, you know, the backseat’s always free,” he stumbles on the words. “Uh, I mean, you can always drop by you know. Not just for fights and stuff.” Oh god, he thinks. This is serious if I’ve been reduced to my twelve-year-old self’s vocabulary.
Castiel drops his gaze and then looks back up. “You have my phone number,” he says quietly.
Dean becomes aware of how vastly his personal space is being violated then, because Sam coughs loudly. He jumps back awkwardly, missing the annoyed glance Cas sends in Sam’s direction. The moment’s long gone anyway, and when Castiel makes his “must go, terribly busy and important” face, Dean doesn’t stop him.
He does smack Sam on the side of the head as they walk back to the impala, just for fun, and soundly refuses to acknowledge any of his brother’s taunts about angel boyfriends. But he doesn’t deny it, either.
***
The fifth time isn’t strictly an assist (rescue, Sam insists, every time, that fucker). Dean feels fairly confident, after the previous incident of unneeded-yet-still-sort-of-enjoyable angelic interference, that Cas won’t mind coming for a less than urgent visit. Taking the chance that Castiel meant what he said about his cell phone, or least had some kind of angelic Winchester monitoring service set up, he texts a simple message to a number he’s kept himself from trying for the last twelve months.
Five minutes later, Castiel appears next to the small dinette table with a delicious-smelling pizza box in one hand and a six-pack in the other.
“Dude,” Dean says. “You fucking rock.”
Cas sets the pizza and beer down on the table and twitches his shoulders in a tiny shrug.
“Your text indicated that it was an emergency,” he replies. “I didn’t want to be held responsible if Sam came back to find you dead from starvation. And Jophiel had just thrown a tantrum requiring an extensive clean-up crew all throughout Australia, so I needed a break.”
Dean takes one of the rickety motel chairs and turns it around and sits, leaning forward with his arms around the back. He cracks open a beer and motions to the other chair.
“You gonna sit and have some pizza?” he asks, watching Cas carefully.
Castiel moves smoothly, tucking the trench coat under his legs as he sits, drawing Dean’s eyes down to his slim hips before they disappear under the table.
This is getting ridiculous, Dean thinks. He hadn’t let himself acknowledge how stupidly attracted he was until Cas, the guy who had defied heaven and exploded himself for Dean three times, stayed away long enough to make Dean unable to ignore how much he missed him when he wasn’t there. Like a really clichéd romance novel.
A light bulb clicks and he can’t stop himself from blurting it out.
“Hard to get, you told Sam you were playing hard to get!”
Castiel looks up sharply, and stares searchingly at Dean. He must find what he’s looking for because he nods, resting his arms on the table in front of him.
“I really did have quite a lot to do in heaven,” he says. “But I admit that when I realized how much I missed… being here, with you, I wanted to find out if you felt the same way. So I watched, and never stayed as long as I wanted to whenever I did see you in person.”
Dean shakes his head. “You and Sam, seriously, such creepy stalkers.” His tone is playful, and he likes that a year in heaven hasn’t removed Castiel’s sense of humor, likes the smile Cas gives him. Everything’s pretty clear in that moment, and he feels the gravity pulling them together. He moves his hand across the table to grab Cas’s, then stands, dragging Cas up as well. They stand close, and Dean moves his face closer and then they meet halfway, coming together in a pretty damn good first kiss.
It would have gotten even better, he’s sure, if not for Sam coming into the room at that precise moment.
“My eyes!” Sam exclaims as he drops his bag to cover his face with his hands, as if he’s the one with a right to be upset.
Dean pulls away from Cas, keeping a firm grip on his hand.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow,” he tells Sam accusingly.
“Bobby had to leave for a hunt, and I’d finished looking at that book anyway, so I came back,” Sam protests. “If I’d known you were in the middle of some serious blasphemy, I would’ve called ahead!”
“I’m always in the middle of serious blasphemy,” Dean replies at the same time that Castiel says, “Our current actions are in no way blasphemous in the new heavenly order, Sam.”
Dean smirks. “Benefits of sleeping with the boss,” he leers at Sam.
“God, that’s it! I’m getting another room,” Sam says. “A room far away from this one.” He picks up the bag he’d dropped earlier and turns to give Dean a look, one that says this is not over and I will make your life hell until you spill all the juicy details.
Dean can live with that if it means a night alone with Cas. Once Sam closes the door behind himself, Dean moves right back into Cas’s arms. They kiss again, and Dean is really glad this isn’t against the rules, because he’d do it even then, but it might be bad for Cas.
He pushes his lips against Cas’s mouth, feels the eternal stubble rub against his cheek, then pulls away just barely far enough to speak.
“You are staying the night, aren’t you?” he asks confidently.
Cas smiles again, god he loves that smile.
“Of course. I did not do all of this work only to let you get away with a few kisses.” Cas looks down. “I will need to return to heaven in the morning,” he says quietly.
Dean sighs, fingers fiddling with Cas’s tie. “I kind of figured. It’s okay, you know? When… when can you visit again after that?” He tries not to look as disappointed as he feels.
“Most likely tomorrow night or the night after, I imagine,” Cas replies, and Dean’s really going to smack him, after the awesome sex of course.
“You did that on purpose,” he complains. “Is Sam giving you lessons?”
Castiel doesn’t answer in words, and Sam is pretty much the last thing on Dean’s mind for the rest of the night.
***
“Wait,” Dean says, halting Castiel’s hand on its way down his chest and stomach as they lounge in the bed the next morning. “How the hell did you keep finding me? I thought those Enochian sigils were fail-proof. You shouldn’t have been able to find me.”
Cas has the grace to look slightly ashamed. “Sam’s body is completely new, without the carvings he had before he died. I could find him easily.”
It takes a second for Dean to realize what’s wrong with that answer, and by the time he asks again Cas has almost succeeded in distracting him with his mouth. Dean pushes Castiel’s head away insistently.
“You’re getting better at lying, but you’re not that good,” he pants. “The first time, before Sam. You knew where I was, and you shouldn’t have.”
Castiel smirks and shrugs his shoulders casually, and Dean almost says to hell with it and pulls him back down.
“I made a… change, to the wording of the sigils on your ribs before I returned to heaven,” he admits, sounding not at all sorry. “A loophole to let me, just me, find you when I wanted. I had more than enough power to accomplish a simple word addition.”
Dean’s almost impressed. “You sneaky bastard,” he says fondly, and yanks Cas’s head down for a kiss.
It took more than a year, but Dean’s pretty happy with his post-apocalyptic life.
The end.
Sequel!
Author: exmanhater
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Castiel
Spoilers: all of season five, particularly 5X22
Warnings: none
Word count: 3,840
Summary: Dean’s not a damsel, and the whole rescue + immediate disappearing act Castiel’s been using lately doesn’t do a thing for him. Not at all. (Or, the one where Sam and Castiel have a Dean-Stalkers Anonymous group).
A/N: Originally posted here
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this story, and will not profit from it
The first time it happens, when Castiel appears out of nowhere (trench coat flapping and hair sticking up all over the place like the good old days, Dean pointedly does not think) and burns the demon currently choking Dean up against a wall back to hell and then disappears again almost instantly, Dean is understandably confused, with a side of grateful.
As he pants, rubbing a hand over his sore throat, he tries to remember how long it’s been since he last saw Cas. At least six months, maybe longer. It’s only been three months that he’s been hunting again, pushed out of Lisa’s quiet house half by her refusal to let him drink himself to death in peace and half by his own intense restlessness. He misses her, and Ben, but he always knew it was only a stopgap measure, a desperate attempt to keep a promise to Sam. She knew it too, said so when she gave him the choice to stay or go, both of them perfectly aware that he would go. Now he’s drinking less, but only because he’s found a strange peace in his solitary work, going after monsters that seem much smaller than before he knew about angels and demons and the end of the world. It’s lonely and tiring and he knows that sooner or later he’ll miscalculate and get himself killed, and he tries not to dwell on the fact that he’s looking forward to that final mistake.
By now he’s trained himself not to look for Sam or Castiel, or even Bobby. He’s just fine on his own, thank you very much, and an angel-rescue is the last thing he wants anyway. Dicks with wings, that’s all they are.
He picks himself up from the dirty ground and has a bad night back at the motel, goes through a bottle of whiskey and thinks too hard about the past until he passes out.
The next day the whole thing seems like a dream and he lets it fall away like one.
***
The second time Cas saves his bacon without being asked, Dean is pretty fucking pissed off at the whole world in general, and Sam in particular.
(“Look,” says Sam when Dean’s finished with the barrage of “so you’re back from the dead! Are you really you or some kind of creature?” tests and satisfied that it really is his stupid-ass brother who stumbled into Dean’s campsite looking almost exactly as he had the last time Dean had seen him. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you right away. I wanted to give you a chance at being something other than my big brother.”
Shows what he knows is Dean’s only thought, and before he can really rip into Sam for being alive for seven months without letting him know about it, puppy-eyes be damned, the wendigo he’s been tracking attacks and he puts his anger into good use.)
The rage doesn’t really work like it should, though, and before he knows it Sam is down for the count and the wendigo has Dean slung over its back. Through blurred vision, Dean sees Cas appear right behind the wendigo and his only coherent thought is to wonder how the hell Cas even knows where they are.
Castiel brushes a hand through the air and reality twists, along with Dean’s stomach, and when the world comes back into focus the wendigo is gone and Dean and Sam are back at Dean’s crap motel room, the impala parked carefully outside, and Cas is nowhere to be seen.
After making sure Sam’s okay, Dean gets down to business.
“Did he know you were alive? Did you two make some kind of weird creeper club where you stalk me and then swap sick stories?”
“What? Dean, I haven’t seen Castiel since Lucifer blew his head open. I didn’t even know he was still alive.”
“Yeah,” Dean replies, slightly annoyed to have his ridiculous theory disproved. It had made a twisted kind of sense, and would have made for some awesome teasing. “God brought him back, all juiced up, and he fixed Bobby, then flapped off to heaven to boss everyone around.”
“And you haven’t seen him again until now?” Sam asks skeptically. “Weren’t you like his only friend left in heaven and on earth?”
“He seemed pretty glad to be rid of us mud monkeys back then,” Dean insists. He doesn’t know how well he hides his feelings about that, just tries to keep his voice steady and low. “But a few months ago I was after this demon and Cas showed up and took care of it in two seconds and disappeared again right away, just like this time.”
“Well, he’s looking out for you, so I guess he’s not all the way back on Team Angel.”
Dean ignores the tiny flare of warmth that pushes through him at the thought. Sam hadn’t seen Castiel at the end, weird vibrations of power thrumming in the air around him, his stare cold and distant like Dean hadn’t really remembered it could be.
“Let’s focus on the important thing here, Sammy. Where the hell have you been and how the hell did you get back?”
Sam sighs. “I’d tell you if I could, man. The last thing I remembered was pulling Michael into the pit behind me. Then I woke up in the parking lot of a Denny’s by the dumpster with a duffle bag of my stuff and a hangover.”
“And an epic case of stupidity that led you to believe I wouldn’t want to know you were alive,” Dean points out sarcastically. “Thanks for that.”
“Can we not… can we not fight about it?” Sam asks tiredly, twisting his hand through his hair in a gesture so familiar to Dean that it makes his chest ache. “I really just wanted to do the right thing for you for once, the unselfish thing. I thought a lot about what you said, about only being my brother and nothing else. There’s way more Lucifer in me than I want, and I don’t want to keep going down that path.”
The honest confession sort of takes the oomph out of Dean’s righteous fury.
“And then I saw you at Lisa’s,” Sam continues. “And you looked… peaceful. So I just let you go and checked up now and then to make sure you were okay.”
“So you were stalking me,” Dean says, ignoring everything else to focus on that crucial detail. “That’s classy and not at all creepy in the slightest.”
Sam’s face wrinkles into a familiar bitchy look. “Dean.”
“Sam.” It’s the only reply that particular look warrants. The knowledge that Sam is back, really actually back, chooses that moment to sink in, of course, and before he knows what’s happening, Dean’s hugging his brother as tightly as he can. He only pulls away when he feels his face getting suspiciously wet.
The tightness around Dean’s eyes eases after that, and he and Sam fall back into their old rhythms. He doesn’t even give Sam too much grief about following Dean around like a lost puppy and not ever letting Dean know about it. They avoid talking about the mystery of Sam’s return to life, but they are both more at peace each day, and if Dean spends an excessive amount of time looking expectantly around for a flash of blue eyes or a trench coat during their hunts, Sam doesn’t mention it.
***
When it happens for the third time two months later, Dean doesn’t really have an opinion right away because he’s unconscious for the whole rescue. Well, Sam calls it that. Dean prefers to think of it as an unnecessary angelic assist.
They’re after a nasty poltergeist, which isn’t even in the top twenty list of the most dangerous hunts Dean’s been on, but the stupid thing gets the drop on him in the dilapidated old farm house where it lives and knocks him out cold with a giant grandfather clock. It’s not his finest moment.
He wakes up groggy and extremely exhausted but without the throbbing headache he should have, which is his first clue that something unusual has happened. That had been a huge fucking clock. He’s lying in bed and he can hear Sam talking from the other side of the room. He can’t really force his eyes open, so he just listens, trying to make sense of what’s going on.
“- him,” Sam insists. “He’ll never say it, but he misses you.”
Dean has the vague thought that Sam had better not be talking about him before another voice replies.
“I have my reasons,” it says, low and gravelly, and no, it can’t be. It can, though, he remembers. It’s happened twice already, even if Cas hasn’t stayed around after the action before now. He misses Sam’s reply, lost in his thoughts, trying to get his throat to work so that he can insist that he doesn’t miss Cas at all.
“-ard to get,” Castiel says, and Sam lets out a bark of surprised laughter.
“Seriously?” he asks. “Oh man, I am never going to let either of you live this down.”
Dean pushes at the blanket covering his body and manages a grunt that’s meant to be Sam’s name but sounds more like the last cry of a dying animal, breaking up the conversation he’s sure is very inappropriate, and opens his eyes.
Sam’s face is hovering close, and behind him is Castiel, unruffled and still there.
“Hello, Dean,” he says, staying on the other side of the room.
“You okay?” Sam asks. “Got hit pretty hard.”
Dean shakes his head slowly. “’m fine. Why is Cas here?”
Sam sniggers and looks over at Cas, causing Dean’s suspicion to grow. Clearly Sam and Cas shouldn’t be left alone together anymore. Dean follows Sam’s gaze and rests his eyes on Castiel’s tie, messy and hanging in a loose knot around his neck. Dean can’t bring himself to look any further up.
“I came to help you out with the poltergeist, and I stayed to tell you how Sam was restored, so that you would not worry needlessly and possibly get into unnecessary trouble,” Castiel says. “It was God - when he restored me he also pulled Sam’s soul from the pit and fashioned a new body to place it in.”
“God,” Dean snorts derisively, to cover his relief at knowing for sure that Sam won’t be suddenly snatched back into hell.
“You should no longer have any trouble with demonic inclinations,” Cas continues, focusing on Sam. “You have been cleansed of Azazel’s taint.”
Dean can see Sam’s mixed feelings about that, thankfulness and fear both present in his tense look.
“Good,” Dean says firmly. “Always wanted a normal little brother. Did you fix his awful taste in music too, Cas?” He takes his first look directly at Cas’s face as he speaks.
“It was not me, Dean. It was God.” Castiel’s eyes don’t let Dean know anything he might be thinking or feeling, but the surety in his voice makes Dean feel a little better. Castiel without faith was wrong, nothing but a reminder of a future Dean wants to forget.
Sam is still pretending to be indignant about Dean’s music joke and Dean forces himself to look away, breaks the hold Cas has on him. He’s afraid to think about what it means too much.
Sam sobers quickly and turns to Castiel. “Just. Thank you, Cas, or thank God for me or something. I didn’t deserve it, but I’m really grateful.”
Castiel just stands there being stoic, nods in reply, then twitches noticeably. “Forgive me,” he says. “There are events in heaven which require my attention.”
Before Dean can even begin to protest, Cas is gone.
“He seriously sucks at this hello and goodbye thing,” Sam sighs. “At least his timing’s good when it comes to rescues.”
That starts the argument about rescues versus unneeded angelic interference and once Sam brings up Dean’s habit of swooning in Castiel’s arms, it’s on. Pretty soon Sam and Dean are both having too much fun sniping at each other about nothing at all to bother with rehashing the news Castiel gave them and what it might mean.
Dean’s pretty clear in his own mind that it’s better to enjoy what he has now than to worry about when it might be taken away or to think about what was still missing, anyway.
Damn staring freak of an angel, he huffs quietly every now and then to himself.
***
By the time Castiel plays superhero for the fourth time, Dean has decided on a course of action, so he’s prepared when he’s suddenly released from the grip of a nasty vampire who probably used to be a pro-football player judging by his size.
Dean gets to his feet right away and zeros in on Cas, who has just decapitated the huge vampire as well as the two others who had been attacking Sam all without touching any of them, and yells before Castiel can disappear.
“Hey, Cas!”
He turns and walks over to Dean, staring steadily.
Dean swallows. This had seemed easier in his head. “So you’re in charge up there now, huh? How’s that going?”
“Oh, god,” he hears Sam mumble in the background. “Seriously?”
He doesn’t spare a glance for anything but Castiel, who looks… pleased, like he’s never been asked about his day before. Maybe he hasn’t.
“It has been difficult to get the remaining angels to listen to reason,” Cas replies. “Even with the obvious proof of God’s favor, there have been many of my brothers who refuse to believe that the earth and humanity should be preserved.”
“Sounds rough,” Dean says inanely. Like he knows anything about ruling a vast metaphysical kingdom of angels? Wait, was it metaphysical? But Cas doesn’t seem to think it’s a stupid thing to say.
“It was at first. But I have learned many useful things on earth,” and Dean has trouble keeping himself from going weak-kneed (seriously, he says to himself. Seriously?) at the sneaky grin Cas can’t keep from his face.
His face must be making its own look because Cas elaborates without being asked, moving a step closer.
“Once you have been one of four people working to stop the apocalypse, you have little patience for petty arguments. I leaned very heavily on the threat of righteous smiting at first, and after I had bested all of the loudest complainers, the rest fell in line.” Cas smiles in satisfaction, and damn, that’s a good look for him. “It’s not perfect,” Cas adds hastily. “There are still many changes that need to be made, but I believe the bulk of the work has been accomplished, or at least started in most cases.”
“So, you don’t need to stay in heaven all the time anymore?” Dean moves closer in, trying to get a read on Cas’s thoughts.
Castiel purses his lips and nods. “I believe I may have more free time than I first believed I would,” he says.
“Well, you know, the backseat’s always free,” he stumbles on the words. “Uh, I mean, you can always drop by you know. Not just for fights and stuff.” Oh god, he thinks. This is serious if I’ve been reduced to my twelve-year-old self’s vocabulary.
Castiel drops his gaze and then looks back up. “You have my phone number,” he says quietly.
Dean becomes aware of how vastly his personal space is being violated then, because Sam coughs loudly. He jumps back awkwardly, missing the annoyed glance Cas sends in Sam’s direction. The moment’s long gone anyway, and when Castiel makes his “must go, terribly busy and important” face, Dean doesn’t stop him.
He does smack Sam on the side of the head as they walk back to the impala, just for fun, and soundly refuses to acknowledge any of his brother’s taunts about angel boyfriends. But he doesn’t deny it, either.
***
The fifth time isn’t strictly an assist (rescue, Sam insists, every time, that fucker). Dean feels fairly confident, after the previous incident of unneeded-yet-still-sort-of-enjoyable angelic interference, that Cas won’t mind coming for a less than urgent visit. Taking the chance that Castiel meant what he said about his cell phone, or least had some kind of angelic Winchester monitoring service set up, he texts a simple message to a number he’s kept himself from trying for the last twelve months.
Five minutes later, Castiel appears next to the small dinette table with a delicious-smelling pizza box in one hand and a six-pack in the other.
“Dude,” Dean says. “You fucking rock.”
Cas sets the pizza and beer down on the table and twitches his shoulders in a tiny shrug.
“Your text indicated that it was an emergency,” he replies. “I didn’t want to be held responsible if Sam came back to find you dead from starvation. And Jophiel had just thrown a tantrum requiring an extensive clean-up crew all throughout Australia, so I needed a break.”
Dean takes one of the rickety motel chairs and turns it around and sits, leaning forward with his arms around the back. He cracks open a beer and motions to the other chair.
“You gonna sit and have some pizza?” he asks, watching Cas carefully.
Castiel moves smoothly, tucking the trench coat under his legs as he sits, drawing Dean’s eyes down to his slim hips before they disappear under the table.
This is getting ridiculous, Dean thinks. He hadn’t let himself acknowledge how stupidly attracted he was until Cas, the guy who had defied heaven and exploded himself for Dean three times, stayed away long enough to make Dean unable to ignore how much he missed him when he wasn’t there. Like a really clichéd romance novel.
A light bulb clicks and he can’t stop himself from blurting it out.
“Hard to get, you told Sam you were playing hard to get!”
Castiel looks up sharply, and stares searchingly at Dean. He must find what he’s looking for because he nods, resting his arms on the table in front of him.
“I really did have quite a lot to do in heaven,” he says. “But I admit that when I realized how much I missed… being here, with you, I wanted to find out if you felt the same way. So I watched, and never stayed as long as I wanted to whenever I did see you in person.”
Dean shakes his head. “You and Sam, seriously, such creepy stalkers.” His tone is playful, and he likes that a year in heaven hasn’t removed Castiel’s sense of humor, likes the smile Cas gives him. Everything’s pretty clear in that moment, and he feels the gravity pulling them together. He moves his hand across the table to grab Cas’s, then stands, dragging Cas up as well. They stand close, and Dean moves his face closer and then they meet halfway, coming together in a pretty damn good first kiss.
It would have gotten even better, he’s sure, if not for Sam coming into the room at that precise moment.
“My eyes!” Sam exclaims as he drops his bag to cover his face with his hands, as if he’s the one with a right to be upset.
Dean pulls away from Cas, keeping a firm grip on his hand.
“You weren’t supposed to be back until tomorrow,” he tells Sam accusingly.
“Bobby had to leave for a hunt, and I’d finished looking at that book anyway, so I came back,” Sam protests. “If I’d known you were in the middle of some serious blasphemy, I would’ve called ahead!”
“I’m always in the middle of serious blasphemy,” Dean replies at the same time that Castiel says, “Our current actions are in no way blasphemous in the new heavenly order, Sam.”
Dean smirks. “Benefits of sleeping with the boss,” he leers at Sam.
“God, that’s it! I’m getting another room,” Sam says. “A room far away from this one.” He picks up the bag he’d dropped earlier and turns to give Dean a look, one that says this is not over and I will make your life hell until you spill all the juicy details.
Dean can live with that if it means a night alone with Cas. Once Sam closes the door behind himself, Dean moves right back into Cas’s arms. They kiss again, and Dean is really glad this isn’t against the rules, because he’d do it even then, but it might be bad for Cas.
He pushes his lips against Cas’s mouth, feels the eternal stubble rub against his cheek, then pulls away just barely far enough to speak.
“You are staying the night, aren’t you?” he asks confidently.
Cas smiles again, god he loves that smile.
“Of course. I did not do all of this work only to let you get away with a few kisses.” Cas looks down. “I will need to return to heaven in the morning,” he says quietly.
Dean sighs, fingers fiddling with Cas’s tie. “I kind of figured. It’s okay, you know? When… when can you visit again after that?” He tries not to look as disappointed as he feels.
“Most likely tomorrow night or the night after, I imagine,” Cas replies, and Dean’s really going to smack him, after the awesome sex of course.
“You did that on purpose,” he complains. “Is Sam giving you lessons?”
Castiel doesn’t answer in words, and Sam is pretty much the last thing on Dean’s mind for the rest of the night.
***
“Wait,” Dean says, halting Castiel’s hand on its way down his chest and stomach as they lounge in the bed the next morning. “How the hell did you keep finding me? I thought those Enochian sigils were fail-proof. You shouldn’t have been able to find me.”
Cas has the grace to look slightly ashamed. “Sam’s body is completely new, without the carvings he had before he died. I could find him easily.”
It takes a second for Dean to realize what’s wrong with that answer, and by the time he asks again Cas has almost succeeded in distracting him with his mouth. Dean pushes Castiel’s head away insistently.
“You’re getting better at lying, but you’re not that good,” he pants. “The first time, before Sam. You knew where I was, and you shouldn’t have.”
Castiel smirks and shrugs his shoulders casually, and Dean almost says to hell with it and pulls him back down.
“I made a… change, to the wording of the sigils on your ribs before I returned to heaven,” he admits, sounding not at all sorry. “A loophole to let me, just me, find you when I wanted. I had more than enough power to accomplish a simple word addition.”
Dean’s almost impressed. “You sneaky bastard,” he says fondly, and yanks Cas’s head down for a kiss.
It took more than a year, but Dean’s pretty happy with his post-apocalyptic life.
The end.
Sequel!