It’s been three days, and for the first time in longer than Dean cares to remember, his bed is actually cold.
Cas is lost. Or missing. Or some other thing that is haunting his every waking moment. Waking, because he’s not slept since Cas’ phone went dead and he stopped answering his prayers.
There has been no word. No signs of The Bad Things Coming. No strange portents or killings, or anything out of the ordinary that would explain his absence. So naturally, Dean is flitting between thinking the worst and believing he’s somehow done something wrong, and that’s why Cas hasn’t come back.
They hadn’t been arguing before he left, Dean comforts himself with, although his memory is still cruel. Fragmented images of Cas’ skin against his, of his lips working a trail down his stomach, and the angle of them, well, together, repeats to Dean, tormenting him with thoughts he knows better than to allow surface. Like maybe that’s the last he’ll ever see of him.
He can clearly picture the last time he did see him, and, he tells himself, it really wasn’t so very long ago. Far too soon to be worrying. Far too early to be anywhere near the level of frantic that he currently is.
Cas was stood at the foot of their bed, facing him as he dressed, because Cas knows just how much Dean enjoys watching that, and all the while, he was leaning in for kisses that served as interlude to his reassuring Dean his ‘trip upstairs’ was nothing but the regular kind, and nothing to be concerned about at all.
Dean;s chest pulls at the memory, trying and failing not to feel the fear that something is very, very wrong here.
Which is of course when Cas arrives.
Dean freezes in place for all of two seconds, somewhere between shocked with relief and unsure if his eyes are actually deceiving him. And then he’s up, catching Cas as he falls forward head first.
Cas has clearly been fighting from the looks of the dried blood, split lip and bruises to his face. His trenchcoat is crooked and ripped, and the overall expression he gives is of utter defeat.
Dean won’t ask questions now. He carefully helps Cas out of his jackets, unbuttons his shirt, bends to help him remove his shoes. He pulls back the cover on Cas’ side of the bed, gently guides him on to his back, and kisses him, resting his forehead against Cas’ in sheer relief.
Cas’ breathing is uneven; Dean places a hand on his chest to get some reassurance that it’s at least still rising and falling. When he’s sure Cas won’t move, he leaves to collect a cloth to wash his face with since there’s no point trying to heal an angel who is clearly already healing himself before Dean’s very eyes.
But he has to do something.
When Dean has gently washed Cas’ face, Cas opens his eyes, and captures Dean with his stare. Without a single word, Cas opens his arms, and Dean goes to him, heavily breathing in the scent of Cas at his neck and melting against him.
Dean’s bed is cold, because it hasn’t been slept in for weeks.
It’s cold, because even the bunker is cold, with no one treading even a single footstep through it in the longest time since it has become a home.
The job that was supposed to be an overnighter has taken over a month now, and the only comfort they have is that finally, finally, there is an end in sight.
Motel beds have been used in place of Dean’s bed; lumpy, uncomfortable things that either barely contain them, or are next to Sam, or are rarely used long enough to even sleep in, let alone do any of the usual activities in that normally keep them toasty and warm. The most activity motel beds are seeing is them slumping down on to them and groaning out whatever agony has befallen them that particular day.
But Cas and Dean, they still need things from each other. They still have needs. And so they have resorted to being creative, and quick. Shared showers that Sam pretends he doesn’t hear. Long toilet breaks that they return from simultaneously with smirks in their eyes and red in their cheeks. Sam might actually be missing them having their own bed and their own room more than they do, for those very reasons.
Which is why the final night of the kill goes through with near military-like precision. Slices and cuts and punches in all the right places followed by the lighting of matches and swirling plumes of smoke. And it’s done. And Sam glances skywards and thanks whoever is watching over them that finally, finally, he’ll be spared being in close proximity with them.
Seriously. Why did he ever think that seeing them happy and very much together was cute?
They should really go to another motel. It’s three in the morning, they’re freezing and exhausted. But Sam can’t take another night of sleeping with his fingers in his ears as Dean and Cas end their evening with soft laughter and goodnight kisses. The sound of which drifts over to him and paints images behind his closed eyelids that aren’t ever coming out.
And so, they head home, to where Dean’s cold bed awaits.
“Huh?” Dean doesn’t look up from his cereal when Sam asks him a question.
“I said. ‘Is the bed cold’?”
Now Dean does look up, asking his own question with confusion evident on his face. “What bed?”
“My bed? Why would my bed be cold?”
Sam looks ridiculously pleased with himself. “Cas.”
Dean’s brow furrows and he stares at Sam as though he is something unidentifiable or someone very stupid. Perhaps both. “Cas. What’s he got to do with my bed being cold?”
“You know. When he stays. With you,” Sam’s face splits into a mocking grin.
Dean slowly puts down the cup of coffee he was about to take a sip from and continues to stare. “And why would my bed be cold from Cas staying over?” He asks in a tone that Sam really by now should recognise as one of warning.
“You know. Not human and all that.”
“He’s an angel, Sam. Not Edward freakin’-Cullen,”
Which Sam finds all too many shades of hilarious for Dean not to want to wipe the grin off his face. The question is simply how.
“If you’re that concerned about the temperature between my sheets, then let me tell you, Sammy,” and he leans forward, eyes filled with a glint, “My bed’s never been so warm. In fact, Cas’ got to be the hottest-”
“Okay-” Sam throws his hands up but it’s too late.
“And his hands, god let me tell you about his hands-” Dean leans back in his chair letting out a sigh of utter satisfaction.
Sam’s eyes grow wider, and wider, and he’s very much stuck in headlights. “Dean-”
“Oh and his tongue.” Dean’s eyes actually roll into the back of his head before he sits forward again and fixes Sam with a look that is going to scar him for life. “He does this thing with his tongue where-”
Which is when Sam decides the conversation is over, scrapes his chair across the floor with a wince, and stomps off out of the room.
Dean leans back in his chair again, smirking to himself, both in memory and of making Sam squirm.
Cold bed my ass, he thinks, and prays an invitation to Cas.
germansingergirl
blakekathryn
2087
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
