Word Count: 1,790
Tags: There was only one bed, Divorce-Era, Post-Episode: s15e09 The Trap, Complicated Relationships
Also on AO3
Dean had wanted to drive home.
After Chuck destroyed the spell he and Cas had risked their lives for, Dean had been ready to pack it in for a little while, lick his wounds with beer and bad television.
Sam was quiet. “Short version – Sammy lost hope.” Eileen looked guilty. “He’s controlling her!” And Cas…
“Cas, I need to say something.”
“You don’t have to say it.”
Dean wasn’t sure he had the bandwidth to handle a real conversation with any of them tonight, and he was grateful when both Eileen and Cas climbed into her car rather than the backseat of his. Still, he didn’t fight when Sam pointed to a motel sign, or when the little red car behind him followed.
The motel only had two rooms left, both with only one bed. Dean was ready to use it as a sign that they should just keep driving, but Eileen had said it was fine, that she and Sam needed a chance to talk privately anyways. Sam had nodded in agreement and followed.
Dean, on autopilot, let himself into the other room.
He didn’t know why he hadn’t driven himself home. It wasn’t far, just under three hours. Eileen had her car, and Sam was well-versed in hot-wiring, so Dean didn’t have to stick around for Sam’s sake, even if it’d be kinder to do so. It’d be easy enough to explain himself, easier still to just drive around all night and come back in the morning, but he couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but sit on the bed.
He was getting tired of this: being on the road, being on edge and worn down, being defeated and trapped. He’d spent his whole life constantly in motion, at the end of his rope, always expecting the worst. He’d never thought he’d even live this long, and honestly, he hadn’t. Chuck just kept bringing them both back through different means for different ends.
At the end of the day, it didn’t matter what he did, or what he wanted. He was still just the plaything of a writer.
“Mind if I hang out in here?” Castiel asked. Dean hadn’t even heard him come in. “They closed the office until morning.”
“Sure, man.”
Castiel took a seat at the table of the kitchenette at the opposite end of the room, and Dean remembered all over again how horrible it was to have lost him.
“Cas?”
The angel looked up, but not for long. Dean hesitated.
“Are we…good?”
Castiel sighed as though he was exasperated with the question.
“I’ve been asking myself that all day, and I don’t know.”
Dean had been doing the same. Sure, they had both apologized, but at the end of the day, it had all still happened. And unlike the last few times they’d had a potentially relationship-destroying betrayal of trust, this had killed people they both loved, not just them.
“I want things could go back to how they were, Cas, I really do.”
“So do I,” he admitted. “But with everything we’ve said and done, and what we haven’t done…” He shrugged.
“I wish we could just… I don’t know. Do it over. Forget it all.”
“Do you want to forget it happened?” Castiel asked, more out of curiosity than seriousness.
No. That was the problem. He couldn’t forget, whether he wanted to or not. He couldn’t just forget what Jack had done, or that Cas hadn’t told them about Jack’s soul, but part of him had already suspected it. Cas should have told him, but Dean had known, hadn’t he? He could have done something, he should have done something. He should have saved Mary, he should have saved Jack, he should have walked away to collect himself instead of chewing out Cas as cruelly as he had. He was still angry, of course he was, but that anger wasn’t directed outwards anymore.
“Dean?”
“No, but it’d make everything simpler, wouldn’t it?” Cas nodded his head once in agreement. “Do you want to forget?”
“No,” Castiel said more easily. “It’d mean forgetting Jack, and forgetting Mary.”
Dean felt something rise up in him and bit back the small part of himself that didn’t even want Cas to say her name, even though they had been friends.
“Yeah.”
It was nothing, just their names, but still more than he could handle tonight. Even if Cas could say it already, he couldn’t. Too much. Too close. Too raw.
“I can’t talk about this anymore now.”
Cas nodded from his chair and turned his attention to the window.
Dean tried to sort himself out in all that space and silence, failed, and locked himself in the bathroom.
Staring in the mirror, Dean came to some hard truths.
Ten years ago, Dean would have said that grief was a messy human thing, and that angels didn’t feel it as keenly, if they felt at all. It was easier to fall back on that, to lash out with a pain that only he felt.
He knew better now. Cas was just better at hiding it. He didn’t wear his anger so close to the skin that it came out. He didn’t show anything quite as easily as Dean did.
They were grieving the same people, they felt a similar grief, even if their relationships to each loved one were a little different. Even if Castiel was able to talk about it already.
Dean had spent his whole life mourning his mother, hadn’t he? So much time mourning and memorizing John’s stories, and so little of that time knowing her as a person, as she was. At the end of the day, hadn’t Cas known her just as well? Had he known her – the real her, free of martyrdom and a child’s memories of his mother – better? When Jack told him what happened, surely Cas had felt this gnawing pain, too.
Jack… he had been everyone’s kid. He had been everyone’s responsibility. And when things got bad, as they always did, Cas had managed to look past his grief, see his scared kid, and step up. Dean hadn’t, not until the very last second.
Chuck had killed him, but Dean hadn’t fought hard enough. He hadn’t realized he was being played until it was too late, because he was too angry and too lost. And even if Chuck had been controlling them both every step of the way, they both had made those decisions, and now they both had to live with it.
Dean was a little surprised to still see Castiel there when he came back. Cas didn’t look back, and Dean let the silence sit with them.
Finally, he asked, “Can we be okay? Just for tonight, and figure it all out later?”
Castiel smiled a little in that worn down way he did.
“We’re okay tonight.”
And just like that, Dean felt some of the weight in his chest lighten. He had his best friend back in spite of everything, at least for tonight.
Cautiously, he asked, “With Chuck MIA, what will you be doing?”
“I’m going to Heaven. I need to see if anyone knows where he is now.”
“Oh.”
“Once I’m back, maybe we return to this conversation?”
“Sure. Maybe.”
Castiel gave him a somewhat strained smile, and left it at that.
“What will you and Sam do now?”
“More of the same, probably. Keep hunting, saving who we can until we figure out our next move.”
“Glad to hear nothing’s changed, then.”
“Yeah?”
“You’ve got a pretty good track record with that approach. Seems to work better than most.”
“If you say so.”
They fell silent again, and Dean watched Castiel’s shoulders slump as he pressed his fingers to his eyes.
“You seem tired.”
Castiel shrugged.
“You okay? Other than…?”
“Other than everything?” Castiel asked wryly. A little quieter, he said, “My grace is working about as well as it ever does anymore. Not as bad as it was a few years ago, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” He looked to where his hands rested on the table. “Tired comes with the territory.”
“You could come lay down if you want.”
Castiel cocked an eyebrow.
“I thought Sam would be coming back.”
“If he was coming back, he’d’ve been back already,” Dean said, gesturing to the clock. “And I imagine he and Eileen are having a conversation like we are.”
“Do you think they’re ‘good’?” Castiel asked, quoting the word with his fingers.
“I hope so. They’re good for each other.”
They didn’t talk about Eileen having been a puppet for Chuck. She hadn’t known. It wasn’t her fault.
Did it make what she and Sam had any less real?
Castiel stifled a yawn and Dean sighed.
“Come on, Cas. Who knows the next time you’re going to be able to rest up.”
“An unfortunately good point,” Cas admitted as he rose and joined Dean, shrugging off his trenchcoat as he walked.
Dean would be lying if he said he didn’t stare, especially when Cas took off the suit jacket as well.
“I said lay down, not strip down.”
Castiel rolled his eyes but stopped after losing a button on his shirt. Dean distracted himself by turning away and untying his boots. He swallowed hard around a new lump in his throat, made worse when he felt the bed sink slightly, and by the quiet thump of Cas’ own shoes hitting the floor.
When he had the strength to look over, Castiel was lying flat on his back, eyes closed and arms draped loosely over his torso.
“Do you sleep now?”
“No, I just close my eyes for a little while.”
Dean chuckled quietly.
“What?”
“Have you not heard about dads and resting their… You know what, never mind. Do you not want to get under the covers or anything?”
“No,” Cas sighed. “I’m alright like this. You should though.”
Dean nodded, mostly for his own benefit, and tentatively stripped down to his boxers and shirt before climbing into bed.
It felt strange, this level of intimacy between them, when only hours ago they were barely speaking.
Dean caught himself staring unabashedly at Cas in the dim light, making up for lost time and preparing himself for the next long stretch of losing him again.
“You don’t have to say it. I heard your prayer.”
“You should get some rest,” Castiel said quietly, breaking the silence that had fallen over them and Dean’s resolve to ask what he’d meant earlier.
Instead, he nodded, mumbling a quick “g’night” and turning away.
Dean didn’t know what the morning would bring, but ultimately it didn’t matter. Tonight, he was just grateful for Cas.
when cas doesn't have his angel powers, he still automatically put his fingers to dean's temple to heal him if he's hurt. and even though it doesn't work, dean will quietly murmur, "all better, nice and healed," and he takes cas' fingers from his forehead and places a soft kiss to cas' fingertips just to reassure his angel that he's okay
