The Things We Left Behind
Set during 8x07 A Little Slice of Kevin.
The cold water hit Dean’s face like an answered prayer. Pretending to be actually listening to Sam had become more and more difficult with each passing day as his mind seemed determined to wander back to Purgatory, to Cas, and to what happened just before he left. He reached for one of the towels hanging next to the sink and dragged it across his skin roughly as if he could wipe away the thoughts that were plaguing him.
He froze however, when he rose back up to find those blue eyes fixed on him in the reflection of the mirror before whipping around, half expecting the figure to disappear. What he didn’t expect was the low, familiar voice of the Angel saying that same greeting of ‘Hello, Dean.’
His eyes looked up and down, wide and disbelieving, and still somewhat waiting for the man before him to vanish- prove to be nothing more than his mind playing tricks on him.
Instead, Sam appeared over the Angel’s shoulder, looking just as shocked as Dean.
“Cas?” Dean’s voice came out broken and rough and his hand started to reach out without him even realizing, “You’re real?”
“Yes, Dean,” Cas’ eyes darkened with what looked like regret, and it caused Dean to pull back his hand as if it had been burned.
He regretted it.
“Cas..?” Sam’s confused voice spoke up from behind, and the Angel turned to sweep passed him.
Sam’s gaze fell on Dean, but the elder Winchester couldn’t meet his eye, looking at the ground instead and fighting the tears that threatened to well up.
When he failed to connect with either of the other two, Sam followed into the other room, taking his previous spot at the table there, and Dean soon followed.
He hovered uncertainly, choosing to stay on his feet and just stare at the returned celestial.
“Unbelievable, man,” Sam spoke after an awkward moment of silence, “I-I cannot believe it. You’re actually here.”
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to reach out, but for whatever reason, I wasn’t at full power,” Cas’ eyes shifted toward Dean, “So I couldn’t connect with you.”
“That must have been why you kept seeing him,” Sam also looked to Dean who shifted under the attention, “I mean, you think?”
“Yeah… Yeah, uh, I got to be honest. I-I’m thinking, how the hell did you make it out? I mean, I… I was there. I… I know that place. I know how we had to scratch and claw and kill and bleed to find that portal and make it through it, and it almost finished me… So, I,” Dean let out a huff, uncertainty threatening to turn into anger, “So how exactly are you sitting here with us right now?”
“Dean, everything you just said is completely true… and that’s the strange part. I have no idea,” Cas seemed to have forgotten to even pretend to include Sam in their conversation, his attention now unyieldingly glued to the older of the two brothers, “I remember endlessly running and hiding from Leviathan, and then I was on the side of the road in Illinois, and… that was it.”
“And that- that was it?” the meaning behind Dean’s words seemed to go over Cas’ head and the hunter didn’t know whether to be thankful for or broken by it.
“Yes,” Cas answered definitively.
Broken it is.
The Angel’s eyes darted toward Sam before settling yet again onto Dean.
“I’m… dirty,” he noticed suddenly.
That or he was using it as a way out of the real conversation Dean was trying to have.
“Yeah, well, purgatory will do that to you,” he couldn’t help himself but say in response.
Cas yet again swept by him and it took everything in him not to stop the other man.
With the sudden quiet of the room, Dean’s mind filled with memories of the last time he’d seen Cas, and it wasn’t until his brother’s voice pulled him from his thoughts enough realize he was staring at the bathroom door where Cas had disappeared moments before.
“Huh?” Dean’s eyes dropped, and his guard went up again.
“You alright?” Sam repeated.
Dean brushed his hands on his jeans in a purely self-soothing way as he turned to take the chair Cas had abandoned.
“You do see something severely wrong here, right?” he asked his younger brother, a slightly hysterical look to his eyes that had the other man sitting up straighter in his own seat, “Sammy, I remember every second of leaving that place… I mean, I remember the heat, the stink, the pain, the fear… I have that whole ugly mess right here,” he pointed to his temple for emphasis, “And he says he has no idea how he got out? I…” flashes of the moment that was plaguing him threatened to enter his mind, but he fought them back, “I’m just not buying it.”
He looked over as the water turned on in the bathroom, every sound seeming to be too loud to him all at once.
“So you think he’s lying?” Sam asked with a knitted brow.
“I’m saying something else happened,” Dean spoke the words before the truth of that statement hit him.
Something else definitely happened, and what that meant was practically driving Dean up the wall.
“I saw the shape that he was in,” Dean recovered, “I mean, there was no way he was fighting his ass out alone… No way.”
“Alright, so who…” Sam seemed to consider, “Or what got him out?”
All Dean could think was ‘Not me,’ but he settled on a quick, “Exactly.”
Then the water turned off and the sound of footsteps cut off his line of thinking completely as he looked up in time to see the Angel, fixed up and clad in his suit and coat once again, stepping out of the motel bathroom.
Everything stopped as their eyes met, and Dean’s physical reaction surprised even himself. He covered his lap with his hands to conceal what was happening and panicked eyes cut toward Sam before returning masochistically to the other.
“Better?” Cas asked looking far too pleased with himself, and Dean couldn’t do it anymore.
One confused look from his brother reminded him to control his expression a little too late as a goofy smile had already made home on his face.
“Outside,” was all his voice could produce before he was stomping out and leaning against the wall between the window and door of the room.
He took a deep breath to steady his shaking hands, but as soon as Cas exited the room and the door clicked shut behind him, Dean pinned him against the outside wall.
“Are you seriously gonna tell me you don’t remember anything?” his green eyes bore into Cas’ own.
A hand reached up to grip the wrist that held him in place, “I don’t remember how I left Purgatory, no… But Dean… If you’re asking if I remember…”
He trailed off, scared to say the wrong thing, and looked pleadingly at the hunter before him.
“Yeah, I’m asking that…” he assured the Angel in his grasp.
“Of course I remember…” was his simple reply.
“Do you regret it?” Dean couldn’t help but ask.
“…Do you?” the Angel returned his words.
“I… I don’t…” Dean steeled himself, “No.”
It clearly wasn’t the answer Cas had expected and a huff of air pushed from his chest as his thumb began to rub circles on Dean’s wrist.
“I don’t…” Dean repeated, his nerves clearly getting the best of him.
“Can I..?” Cas reached up toward the hunter’s face, and all Dean could do was nod.
But as soon as Cas’ hand gripped his jaw and tugged forward, Dean gave into the momentum with no hesitation.
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@spuffy-destiel
The Things We Left Behind Part 2 [Part 2] Sam feels left out as Cas and Dean’s behavior gets strange even for them. A/N: Naomi gets a bit
