"Where to, Cas?"
Dean watched him open the door and slide into the Impala: silent, his injured wrist curled tight against his body. It was as though Cas were seeking refuge within the massive steel frame, ducking his head beneath the roof and drawing himself up tight like a turtle in its shell. Well, Dean could certainly understand that.
But it was gutting to see Cas so passive. The body he had worn like a suit of armor when it still held his Grace hung awkwardly on him now. If anything, his time on earth had made him smaller, thinner, but he dragged himself around as though the weight of his body were immense and insupportable without wings.
Dean climbed behind the wheel and started the engine. There was no sense in asking if Cas wanted to go home: whatever that word meant to him at the moment, it was probably not a place Dean could get to by driving. He'd seen a motel not far from the police station that would probably do for the night, but he had a sudden premonition that if he took Cas someplace warm, with a couple of beds and a shower and a coffeemaker and a vending machine, thatmight become home, for both of them. So he drove.
There was decent music on the radio, and the night was clear. Dean stopped at a drugstore and picked up some Ace bandages and a cheap brace for Cas' wrist. He grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen and a six-pack of some crap beer, and went back to the car, where Cas sat motionless, wide-eyed, staring through the windshield at the chipped paint of a cinderblock wall. Dean set the bag on the seat between them and drove toward the highway.
"Are we going somewhere?" There was irritation in Cas' voice, but also also a note of thickly veiled hope, as though he wanted one answer but expected another.
"I saw a rest stop on my way into town. We can get some food and I'll take a look at that wrist."
"I'm not hungry." Dean glanced over at Cas in his loose clothes and said nothing. "I'm pretty sure my arm's broken."
"Nah. You'd be doing a lot more whimpering if it's broken."
Cas looked out the window at the unfamiliar night. "I have a high tolerance for pain."
"I'm sure you do, Tough Guy." Dean steered the Impala off I-20, into a parking lot shared by a Biggerson's and a Del Taco.
He checked Cas' wrist and was pretty sure there were no broken bones — or at least nothing so far gone that it would need setting. Dean put the brace against Cas' palm and wrapped the bandage up his arm, wishing they still used those little metal hooks to close it with, not trusting the "self-adhesive" webbing to self-adhere for long. He fished around in the glove box until he found a safety pin to hold it in place, just to be safe.
Cas didn't say much besides, "yes," and "no" as Dean bent his hand and arm, testing for pain. Dean handed him some painkillers and a bottle of beer, which Cas used to chase the pills and then simply held onto until it was warm and flat and the rest of the bottles were empty and chucked out the window. After a time, Cas closed his eyes and Dean gently pulled the bottle out of his grip. He watched Cas through the night, dozing off and on, and checking to make sure there wasn't enough swelling to cut off the circulation to Cas' hand. When the sun came up, Cas opened his eyes to find they were already driving again, heading back into Rexford.
"Good morning, Sunshine. Time to button up and pull your vest on."
If Cas was surprised for find himself delivered to the Gas-n-Sip, it didn't show. He pulled himself a little more upright and slipped himself into the blue vest. Dean watched as Cas patted his hair into place rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks; he made a face and stuck his tongue out of his mouth.
"Do you ever get used to the taste of your own mouth in the morning?"
"Keep a glass of water on your bedside table. Better yet: bourbon."
"I don't have a bed, Dean, much less a bedside table."
Cas didn't want to be cheered up. He didn't want to be consoled, or given advice, or helped. At least not by Dean.
Dean ground his teeth together, the muscles of his jaw working, useless. There were ways to fix this, things he could say that would bring Cas back to the optimistic, burrito-loving pro-humanity dork he'd kicked out of the bunker. He could explain about Sam and Zeke. He could tell him how much he missed having him around, how much even this awful, gnarled silence between them was better than being apart. He could just keep driving past the Gas-n-Sip and get back on the highway and take him home; he wouldn't have to say anything at all. But he couldn't put Sam at risk, or Cas, for that matter. He didn't think he was willing to put himself through any of that heart-to-heart bullshit, either, when it came right down to it. He rolled to a stop in front of the store.
"Listen, Cas. Back at the bunker, I, uh… Sorry I told you to go. I know it's been hard on you, on your own. Well, you're adapting. I'm proud of you." He tried not to think about the half-truths that filled his mouth.
"Thank you, Dean." Cas looked anything but grateful. He looked bitter. He looked tired. Hell, he looked most of his thousands of years old right then, and Dean knew Cas could still see right through him, angel or not. He tried to smile but felt it wither on his face as he looked away.
"But there's something Ephraim said. The angels, they need help. Can I really sit this out? Shouldn't I be searching for a way to get them home?" As he spoke, there was a growing enthusiasm in his voice. It rose above a mumble for the first time all night, and it made Dean's chest ache with the knowledge that putting the angels back in Heaven was an impossible quest. Even if Cas had his mojo back, there was nothing he could do to put that right. But that was just another thing he couldn't say.
"Me and Sam will take care of the angels." And Dean knew it was going to have to be the bloody way, but Cas didn't need to know that.
Cas raised his chin as though he were going to argue. He was right on the brink, on the threshold of being the Cas Dean knew, stubborn and battle-ready. But he wasn't that Cas, anymore, and this Cas, the one in the blue vest and the sloppy jeans, this Cas was going to have what Dean didn't: a chance.
"You're human now." Dean watched the accusation strike Cas like a blow, and followed it up with another, quickly. "It's not your problem anymore."
Dean watched as Cas stumbled away from whatever hope he'd been reaching for, and found he could not say another word. There had been things he wanted to add: the part about how there was dignity in the life Cas was trying to lead, how it was honest and that was more than Dean had ever been able to say about how he lived his life; how the human part of Cas had been there all along and was the part that made it impossible for him to be a hunter. How it was the best part, and Dean didn't want to be the one who burned it out of him.
Not another word would come, and so he waved. He waved, and watched the light leave Cas as they stared at one another across the two or three feet that made it impossible for him to do anything more. Dean set his jaw and his tight smile and watched Cas unlock the door of the Gas-n-Sip so awkwardly with his right hand that he wondered if Cas had been left-handed all along or if even turning a key was too much to manage without his Grace. He felt like every hard lesson he'd learned about living on the road and doing the job was rising into his throat until he was choking on something ugly that had his father's voice. He turned the radio on, loud, and put his hands on the wheel.
He was heading East again long before Cas remembered to turn on the lights.