A/N: This is going to be a series of encounters they have off screen in season 12 and if they don't get together at the end of the god damn season I will WRITE. THEM. A NEW. SEASON. ENDING!

For the first time, the bunker truly felt like a place people lived.

Sam and Dean had been living in it for what? Four years now or something? Dean had lost count. But it had always been like a ghost town with the occasional drifter. Kevin had been here, and he'd died. Charlie had visited every so often, and she'd died. Cas had come for a time, and left. And then he'd come back and been blasted away. And now he was back again.

It wasn't just Cas that was back. It was Mary, too. Except she wasn't back. She was just … here. For the first time. Sam's room was occupied, Dean's room was occupied, the room Cas had once spent a few weeks in watching TV and recovering from a spell was occupied, and now a whole new room was occupied, too. Or … sort of. It had been, earlier, but Dean was having a restless night and every time he awoke he heard footsteps wandering around and he knew they weren't Cas's. He knew what Cas's footsteps sounded like.

He supposed it was natural for his mother to be wandering around. First night in a new place. First night back from the dead, post-Sam-rescue at least. It worried him a little, but he figured he'd get over it.

He wasn't worried when he heard the second set of footsteps chime in with their wandering, because that was just Cas, and Cas didn't need to sleep. The guy had probably gotten bored and decided to wander around, and Dean wondered if Cas would come across Mary and maybe the two could chat or something. He could convince her to go back to bed. Because he could rely on Cas, right?

Dean had only just drifted off again when he was awoken by a knock on his bedroom door that was familiar. It was Cas's knock, and Dean glanced at the time wondering what he wanted: three. In the morning. Ugh. He was gonna be tired tomorrow, but he'd get over it. He was used to it.

He got out of bed and looked around for his robe when he realized he'd given it to his mom. Eh, whatever. He didn't need it. It was just Cas, Cas had seen him in his underwear and a shirt before. Cas had seen him in much less. But that was years ago, long forgotten now, probably never even crossed Cas's mind anymore. It barely even crossed Dean's, apart from the times he and Cas say … went out to eat (or Dean eat, Cas not) somewhere alone together, or other times they were alone and it was relatively calm.

Like now, when he opened the door to the angel in the trenchcoat looking … not at him, until the door opened, the light from the hallway spilling into Dean's room and illuminating him.

'Hey, Cas,' Dean replied with a dry throat.

'Dean,' Castiel greeted. Looking at the ground. No "hello." Huh.

'What's up?'

Castiel shrugged.

'I, uh … ran out of ways to occupy my time so I decided to walk around for a while. I talked to your mother. She's … adjusting. I'm not. It's … I don't feel as though I belong here, Dean.'

Dean blinked a few times, clearing the sleep from his eyes and wondering if he'd heard Cas right.

'Don't leave,' Dean stated blankly, the first thing he thought of, the first worry that hit him.

'I won't,' Castiel told him flatly. 'I don't know where else I would go.'

Another few seconds passed. Dean stepped back, opening the door wider.

'Come in,' he requested. 'Get the lights. Not all the way.'

Castiel turned on the lights once he'd entered, keeping them dim, Dean closing the door behind him. Dean walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge of it, elbows on his knees and his hands folded between them, as Cas went to sit on the chair Dean always kept facing his bed for … well, for instances such as this, he guessed. He'd never really known why he kept a chair facing okay well no that was a lie, it was in case Cas came in and wanted to just … that, he didn't actually know. Sit or something.

'What do you mean you don't feel like you belong here?' Dean questioned seriously, fixing Cas with a hard stare.

Castiel shrugged. Again.

'It's like I'm out of place,' he stated. 'You, Sam, your mother … you three are a family. And I'm not. And I have no one outside of … here. Or inside of here, as it comes down to it.'

'Cas, you do have someone in here,' Dean corrected him. 'I told you … what? Not even a week ago? Before the Sam-napping and the mom coming back thing? That you're family. We're family.'

'I know,' Castiel nodded. Flat. Blank. 'You said … I'm like … your brother.'

'You are,' Dean confirmed. 'Like a brother to Sam … and like … like a brother …'

'To you?'

'If you like.'

Another pause. There were a lot of pauses tonight. Ones that were not comfortable.

'No, Dean,' Castiel replied delicately. Sharply. 'I don't like.'

Dean raised his eyebrows, a little taken aback.

'Okay, okay, easy,' Dean attempted to calm. 'Alright. Up to you. Not brothers, I get it.'

Good. Honestly, Dean hadn't known what the fuck he was thinking in calling Cas his brother in the first place. Brothers weren't … like them. And brothers … weren't in love with their brothers, because Dean was very much in love with Cas. Cas had been in love with Dean once. Dean wondered when that had faded away.

'Why would you even say that in the first place?' Castiel snapped, startling Dean. 'We're not brothers, Dean. We could never be brothers.'

'I don't know, man, I just thought –'

'You didn't think,' Castiel replied sourly. 'You only thought about what you thought I wanted to hear which yes, is technically thinking, but if you'll excuse my contradiction I'd be grateful because it would be more than you've done for me lately.'

Now that, that hurt. Dean's cool and collected and slightly sympathetic face fell away and it fell into a hard, stony mask of anger and disbelief.

'What the fuck is that supposed to mean?'

'It means what it means,' Castiel shrugged. 'And it's the truth. I wasn't thinking about it. I was pushing those thoughts away like I do with most things. But when I talked to your mother and she talked about not belonging here and I found I could relate, I … I can't, Dean. I can't ignore it. The only thing you've done for me in … in months is … not die.'

'Oh yeah?' Dean asked, raising his eyebrows challengingly, and feeling the sinking feeling that it was true. 'Well, maybe I should've died. You might be happier then.'

'No,' Castiel growled.

'I don't understand what you want from me, Cas.'

'I don't know, Dean!' Castiel half-shouted, getting to his feet and looking down at him. 'I don't know what I want from you. This was pointless. I'm leaving.'

'No, Cas,' Dean begged, jumping up and grabbing Cas after he'd turned away. 'You said it yourself. You have nowhere else to go.'

'Yes, that's true,' Castiel replied, pulling out of Dean's grip, 'and I wouldn't leave without saying goodbye to Sam in any case. I meant I'm leaving … this conversation. I don't even know why I came here. I was stupid to think that … that I'd get anything out of this.'

'Please,' Dean said quietly. 'Don't leave. Stay. I just … talk to me, Cas. Tell me what you want.'

'I told you,' Castiel replied, quiet now, slumping in defeat, 'I don't know.'

Dean let go of Cas's shoulder and went back towards his bed, collapsing on the end of it and staring at the floor. He half expected Cas to leave and for that to be that, but felt comforted when Cas walked back to the chair. And then he felt guilty for feeling comforted, because Cas was the one he should be comforting, not the other way around.

'You were possessed,' Dean said weakly. 'You were possessed, and I tried to get you back.'

'I didn't want to come back,' Castiel countered. 'I wanted to let Lucifer take control and defeat Amara. In the end I know that's not how it happened, but at the time I thought that would be how it did.'

'I asked you to stay today,' Dean added, even more weakly. 'I even asked you to sit and talk with us. But you moped off.'

'I told you,' Castiel shrugged, 'I felt like I'd be invading your family. I didn't want to intrude.'

'You are family,' Dean told him, then repeated himself to add an extra word. 'You are my family.'

'Oh yeah?' Castiel asked, biting and bitter and glum, 'How? How do you see me as family, Dean? Because I can't figure it out.'

Dean stayed silent because he couldn't respond. He didn't know how. Well, he did, but … he couldn't respond that way, not now, not anymore. Maybe years ago, but not here. Now. Not now.

The silence was too long, and Castiel got to his feet again. They hadn't looked at each other since Cas had first tried to leave and sat down again, but he glanced at Dean before he reached the door and stopped in his tracks.

Dean heard the footsteps cease and looked up, up at Castiel's tilted, confused head, looking down on the pathetic mess that was Dean, with tears leaking out of his eyes like an overgrown infant, ridiculous and selfish and disgusting, and Castiel was going to yell at him now and he deserved every last profanity about to be thrown at him.

'I want to tell you what you want to hear,' Dean croaked, his voice breaking, 'but I don't know what that is. And I'm sorry, Cas. I'm so, so sorry. You can go if you want to.'

Castiel didn't. He moved back towards Dean, and sat next to him, keeping as much distance between them on the end of the bed as possible, and they fell into their longest silence yet.

'Have you ever seen The Bee Movie?'

Dean frowned, looking at the side of Cas's face.

'What?'

'The Bee Movie,' Castiel repeated. 'Have you ever seen it? I have. When Lucifer was in my head, it was one of the few things he allowed me to be conscious for. He watched it, and I'm … confused by it. I've long since accepted the many odd ways of humanity and stopped being confused by it. But … a bee and a human. I just … don't understand.'

Dean was almost sure he'd fallen asleep or died or something. One minute Cas was yelling and then he was bitter and now … he was talking about … bees.

'Stupid kid's movie,' Dean shrugged. 'Yeah, I've seen it. Entertaining storyline. Weird bee-human bestiality. I wouldn't think anything of it.'

'Have you ever played Crossy Road?'

'No.'

'Lucifer has. I caught a few glances. Personally, I prefer Candy Crush although I'm not sure if that's just because you're the one who introduced me to it or not. Do you remember that?'

'Yeah,' Dean nodded, sighing softly. 'I remember. I deleted the app. Never downloaded it again, on any phone.'

'I deleted it last year,' Castiel told him. 'Last year, when I lost my car and the only possessions I had that I actually cared about. Books. Pictures. Why keep an app when I've lost everything else that reminds me of the one time I was actually happy and had a reason to go on each day?'

Dean stared hard at Cas's cheek. Almost as hard as the punch that Dean had just felt land in his chest making him want to die to escape the pain. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight before he opened them again, and noticed Cas was still just … staring off into the distance.

Books. The books Dean had gotten him.

Those pictures. Dean still had three of them, somewhere. In a box he never looked in. Except he had looked in it. And he was about to look in it again, digging up those dusty old framed pictures that had once stood on a mantle in a brightly hit apartment in a completely different world, and handing them to Cas, who finally looked up at him. He looked so, so, sad. And Dean felt so, so, bad.

'You still have these?' Castiel asked quietly.

'Why wouldn't I?' Dean shrugged.

'I didn't think you cared.'

'Of course I fucking care, Cas. What do you take me for?'

Castiel didn't answer, looking at the framed pictures in his hands. At him and at Dean, smiling, together. Awkward behind the scenes, but in the months that followed …

Dean looked at the pictures, too, and all he wanted was to be able to lean his head against Cas's shoulder and just … stay like that while he tried to keep himself together. He ached to do it, his head was pounding, his forehead craving the touch of a trenchcoated shoulder, but he held back.

'I can't believe you kept them.'

It was a whisper.

'I had to,' Dean confessed. 'They're all I have that lets me know it was real. That it actually happened. That you and me, we actually … we had some time. Some time where it wasn't like this. Some time where I made you promises and broke every single one of them and when we left we just … fell apart.'

'I didn't fall apart,' Castiel muttered. 'I was torn.'

'And it's the worst thing I've ever done.'

Castiel looked at Dean now, the real Dean, not the one in the posed pictures that prequeled the one he would come to know and realized he loved. Would always love. Still did. And he didn't say anything, even though he'd ranted and no longer needed Dean to feel bad.

But he just … couldn't say that it wasn't Dean's fault. Because it was, even if it was as much his own.

'You can leave tomorrow if you want to,' Dean said quietly. 'But tonight, can you just … stay? With me? I need you here, man. I always do. Even though most of the time I can't have you.'

Castiel moved and Dean thought he was leaving, but all he was doing was placing the pictures down and then slowly, slowly, he reached out to take hold of Dean's hand.

It was more contact than they'd had in forever, excluding the hugs from when they thought Dean was dying, and then from when Cas realized Dean wasn't dead.

They locked eyes.

'Thank you,' said Dean.

'I need it just as much as you do.'

Slow breaths, in and out. Don't let the tears fall. Dean would not cry in front of Cas again. He wouldn't do anything stupid or reckless, like nudge closer and softly kiss him, for example, and have those familiar hands on his face, feel the lapels of the trenchcoat in his grip, and then fall back onto the bed, steady hands moving down his body, and under his shirt.

Cas had so many more clothes to take off than he'd ever had in this situation before, and soon Dean's bedroom floor was littered with pieces of suit and his bed was littered with Cas, with him and Cas, together again, just like it was long ago, moving in harmony but trying not to make any noise, moans stifled with hands and breathy heaves barely concealed.

Dean would have taken anything if he was honest, but he was glad it was this. One last time.

'Don't tell Sam about this,' Dean said quietly after, Cas's face buried in his shoulder blade. 'About any of it. The talk … I can't handle him knowing.'

'I know,' Castiel replied, blinking, lashes fluttering against Dean's back. 'We've been here before. No one needs to know except us. You should sleep, Dean, I've kept you up for over an hour.'

'I'm afraid to sleep,' Dean admitted, 'because I'm afraid you'll be gone before I wake up.'

'I won't go,' Castiel swore. 'Not without telling you. I promise.'

'That's all I need to know.'

So Dean slept, and true to his word, Cas was there in the morning. He wasn't sleeping, because Dean knew angels didn't sleep, but he was laying completely still, as still as being asleep, and didn't move when Dean got up and dressed, and apparently didn't move when Dean went off to shower either, because it wasn't until he was having breakfast with Sam did Cas show up.

Castiel did leave that morning, searching for Lucifer. But for some reason, despite Dean not wanting him to, at least not alone, it was okay. Because … they'd resolved something, somehow. And Dean hoped that there was more resolving to come.