The Reign of the Dead

by A.Diamond

Once a year, the dead of Lawrence Township rise from the grave and claim the streets from dusk to dawn. It's a night when laws of man and God have no meaning, and the living spend it hiding behind barred doors and shuttered windows. But when the love of Dean's life dies unexpectedly and well before his time, Dean braves the supernatural chaos for a chance to see Castiel again.

The Reign of the Dead had overrun Lawrence Township one night a year for Dean's entire life. True, that was less than a full score of years, but it had also been going on for his father's entire life, and his grandfather's, and his grandfather's grandfather's. That was about as far back as anyone's personal histories went, but if stories were to be believed it had always been so, all over the land.

And oh, there were stories. The spirits ran amok in the streets, shrieking their hatred of all things living, trying to claw their way into the shuttered houses and slaughter the families sheltered inside. Any animal that wasn't penned or hitched ran for the hills, stars winked out one by one, and rivers ran backwards.

But the stories were all old, from ancestors past, because no one sane dared to venture out after the sky started to color with sunset. The townspeople hid themselves away in their homes and barred their doors, not even lighting candles or speaking above a hushed whisper for fear of bringing the dead down upon them. Anyone who'd been foolish or mad enough to set foot in the streets—and there had been a few—had never been seen or heard from again, and could tell no new stories.

Dean had more personal experience than anyone else alive, as far as he knew, and that wasn't much. He'd been small, six or seven—old enough to be curious, young enough to disregard the warnings. His mother had caught him with the door half open and yanked him back inside, but not before he'd seen a group of spirits passing by. Surrounded by globes of pale fire, they'd leapt and twirled in fantastic outfits. The colorful fabrics had only brought out the whiteness of their bloodless skin. A dead boy not much older than Dean, with wavy blond hair and eyes that glowed like firelight, had turned to watch the door slam shut.

Dean's father had never laid a hand on him before or since, but as soon as the sun rose that morning he'd gotten the lashing of a lifetime.

"I'm very angry with you, Dean," his friend Castiel had said afterwards in the straightforward manner of offended young children, even as he'd soothed Dean's pained sniffles. "You can't do that ever again. Don't provoke the dead."

"I'm sorry, Cas. I won't, I promise."

He'd kept that promise for years, waiting out the Reign in silent darkness; at first huddled with his family in the center of their kitchen, then, when they were older, holding Cas tight in the bed they'd come to share.

He was about to break it.

Cas—beautiful, wonderful, kind, loving Cas—had been dead since summer, killed in a barn fire. Dean couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't breathe for missing him. So when autumn overtook Lawrence, sweeping red and gold over the leaves and chilling Dean's already too-cold bed, he knew what he was going to do. The Reign of the Dead would be upon them soon, and with the rest of the spirits would come Cas.

Dean would be there to meet them.

Whatever happened, whatever the cost, he was going to find Cas again.

He'd told his parents and Sammy that he would stay in Benny's house for the night—couldn't bear to face it without Cas, not yet—and they'd believed him. Benny, of course, thought Dean would be in his family home as he'd always been. He'd waited out the constable's last patrol for stragglers in the hollowed-out tree where he and Cas had kissed for the first time, young and shy in their infatuation. Dean thought maybe he'd wait out the sunset there, too, drowning himself in fond, bittersweet memories.

His spot inside the tree also gave him a good vantage of the west side of town, where he could watch the sun sink below the horizon and be replaced by hundreds of gleaming specks. Not the stars, which didn't so much wink out as fail to appear at all, but rather sparks catching in the air above the graveyard. With the cemetery just down the hill from him, Dean could watch them form at the head of each grave, growing from the flicker of a firefly to the radiance of a candle, bright enough to illuminate the pale forms rising up out of the ground.

He couldn't see Cas's grave, though, and he didn't want to be caught in the hollowed carcass of a decaying tree when the time came, so he crawled out and stood, brushing himself off. Then he set off downhill, towards the graveyard. It seemed like his best hope at finding Cas quickly.

The air grew icier as he approached the arched gateway that marked the line between the realms of the living and the dead on all other nights; tonight, it was all theirs. The spirits had already coalesced when he reached it, looking as solid as real bodies but unbelievably pale in their bold colors. They milled about, not yet descending on the township; it sounded like they were talking, though he couldn't make out any individual voices.

Before he could pass through the archway, twin bursts of yellow fire ignited at the center of it. They were small, a lantern's flame, but quickly followed by a spirit child who claimed them as eyes as he materialized into view around them. The dead boy tilted his head up to look at Dean and said, "You're alive."

All the rest of the activity in the graveyard stopped in an instant as all of the dead turned to stare. Two women appeared on either side of the boy. Not slowly, as the boy had done; they were there the very instant after they weren't, startling Dean back a step. One had eyes of red fire, the other pale purple.

"Can I have him?" the red-eyed woman asked.

"Ask him what he wants first," argued purple-eyes.

The boy held up his hand and they both fell silent and slipped backwards, smoother than walking though their feet seemed to be on the ground.

"I've seen you before," the boy said, and Dean remembered his own boyish folly, the dead child who'd looked back as he peered out the door of his parents' house. "That's very interesting. I like interesting things, so I won't let Meg play with you just yet. But I'm also wondering what you want so badly that it brought you here. This is much dumber than just spying on us out your mommy's window."

Dean glanced around again, but all the other spirits seemed to be deferring to this boy. It was disconcerting, seeing so much power resting in someone so small—then again, he'd looked no younger when Dean had first seen him all those years ago. There was no telling how old the boy really was; or, rather, how long ago he'd died.

The boy was still waiting for an answer, so Dean said, "I'm looking for someone."

For a dead thing without real eyes, the boy did a remarkable impression of widening them in surprise. "Someone dead."

Dean clenched his teeth against the remembered taste of smoke, the sound of the roof collapsing while Cas was still inside, and agreed, "Yes."

The boy inched closer in an effortless glide, even though it meant craning his neck further back to keep his blazing eyes on Dean's face. "Someone newly dead?"

"Yes."

"They must be very important to you for you to be doing this. Not a parent." He whirled a circle around Dean, who had to spin to keep track of him. "Not a child. Maybe a sibling? You would, I think, but no. A lover."

Dean's eyes, stinging with tears he couldn't fight, sought out Cas's grave. There was nothing there, no spirit waiting, and for a terrible moment he thought he'd taken the risk for nothing. Maybe it took years for the dead to show up at the Reign, it wasn't like anyone had thought—or dared—to find out. He tried to look over the cemetery, to see if Cas was somewhere out there, but the boy popped up to block his view.

Floating now, with his face level to Dean's, the boy asked, "What's your name?"

"Dean."

"I have a very important question for you, Dean." The boy's voice had lost its playful edge and his eyes seemed to blaze even brighter. Dean struggled not to flinch away. "You know that dead is dead, right? Whatever you do, whether you find your lover or not, they're going to stay dead. I'm probably the most powerful thing you'll ever meet, and even I can't restore life.

"You've got balls, so I'm going to give you a chance here. You can turn around and scurry back to your home, lock yourself in tonight and every year after this, and you'll be safe. We'll let you go. If you stay, well. Meg's not the only one looking for something fun to do. Death changes people. Could be that the lover you're looking for would be the one to peel all your flesh away and make your skeleton dance."

The cheerful way he offered that possibility sent a shiver of ice down Dean's spine—a spine that he very much wanted to keep covered in skin and muscle. He didn't really think Cas would do that, no matter how much death had changed him, but the stories about the terrors of the Reign had to come from somewhere. The spirits responsible couldn't all have been awful when they were alive; Lawrence was a quiet, peaceful township.

"So what'll it be, Dean? Is it worth it to see them again if they rip your heart right out of your chest as soon as they see you?"

Dean met the boy's fiery gaze and didn't feel the need to flinch back. "That's your question?"

"That's my question."

"Yeah. He's worth it."

The hushed gathering of the dead erupted into a furor at that. Instead of silencing them, the boy flashed a sharp grin at Dean. "Then I hope you find him before sunrise."

The spirits all blinked out of existence at once, leaving the graveyard empty and black as pitch. He heard a ruckus start up in the streets of Lawrence behind him, the dead claiming their domain for the night. The boy's voice drifted back to him: "And you should hope that he's happy to see you."

Then Dean was entirely alone in the darkness.

He spun, allowing himself a moment of stunned inaction as he watched the ghost lights dance through town. Cas was out there somewhere, if the boy could be believed. He could have lied about it, just to amuse himself, but he also could've killed Dean in any number of horrific ways and he hadn't done that. Just as he had when disregarding safety to meet the Reign of the Dead, Dean would have to take a chance and see what happened. It was his only hope of reuniting with Cas, however briefly.

Dean broke into a run.

He bypassed the hill, because it was steep and he could get to the center of town faster on the path that curved around it. The market square seemed to be where most of the spirits' fiery eyes had gathered, so maybe he'd find Cas there. If not, he'd try the area around their houses before coming up with another plan.

As he rounded the bend just beyond the hill, heading towards the market, he nearly tripped, momentum carrying him forwards as he tried to stop. . The spirit woman from the graveyard, the one with the purple fire for eyes, stood in the center of the road like she was waiting for him.

She didn't speak or move at all as Dean paused, watching her warily, but her blazing gaze was fixed on him. The sparks of light seemed to be dispersing; Dean needed to hurry. Hesitantly, he took a step forward. Nothing happened. He took another step, to the side of the path, and she still didn't move. Slowly, always keeping a cautious eye on her, he kept moving until he'd made it past her and all the while, she didn't even move her head to keep sight of him.

Only when he'd finally turned back towards the town and taken a few steps did she speak. "Dean."

He spun around, heart hammering in his chest, expecting an attack, but she was still facing away from him and looking down the path.

She went on, "Don't think too poorly of Gabriel. He died too young to have any kind of decent manners, and he was alone here for a long time before Lawrence was settled."

Considering how old Lawrence Township was, that was an awfully long time to be dead. It confirmed Dean's suspicions about why the boy had been acting like the leader of the dead, but that also didn't really matter to him.

"Okay," Dean agreed. "I'll keep that in mind. Thanks."

She turned to face him, a slight smirk on her ghostly lips, and recognition caught Dean entirely by surprise. It wasn't like he hadn't seen her earlier, in the graveyard and just then on the road, but it was the expression that finally made her familiar. "Pamela?"

She'd been a friend and sometimes apprentice of his mother's, but had died years ago from a painful wasting sickness. The last time he'd seen her, just before her death, she'd been gaunt and fragile, almost as pale as the spirit she was now. But other than that, and her burning eyes, she looked more like the woman he remembered from before her illness. She'd always been feisty—that had been his mother's favorite word for her. Younger than Dean's parents, but older than him and Cas, she'd grown up in Lawrence but drifted in and out of town with the seasons until she got sick.

"Hey, kid."

Dean's chest ached with all the things he wanted to say; he didn't even know where to start. That he missed her, because the two of them had never spent much time together but his mother loved seeing her. That he was sorry she'd died, especially in such a painful and drawn out way. That he was so scared he wouldn't find Cas; that he thought he'd rather be torn apart by the dead than spend a whole year without another chance to see the love of his life.

Before he could say any one of those things, or a dozen other thoughts that sprang to mind, she flapped her hand, hurrying him along. "We'll catch up next year," she told him with unnerving confidence. Either she expected him to be dead by then, or she had reason to believe that he was going to do something stupid again. "I know you've got something important to do. Just be careful, honey. Not everyone's as sweet as me, or even little Gabe."

Looking at the streets and seeing the spirits well and truly spread out, their star-bright eyes and glowing orbs scattered throughout the town, Dean began beseechingly, "Can you tell me—"

"No can do, darling. But don't worry, you'll find him. The two of you aren't meant to be apart." With a wave, she vanished.

He hoped she was right about that, because although he agreed that he and Cas should never be separated, he also had the agonizing evidence of months of mourning that proved they could be. Picking up speed, he raced towards Cas's childhood home. Cas had started living with Dean and his family when they'd been old enough, but it was on the way; it only made sense to check there first.

At the edge of the market square, he had a choice: through the pavilion or around. Through would be normally be faster, but a large, ghostly figure loomed in the center and Dean didn't want to know what it might like to do to him with the curved blade it was brandishing. The fish alley was his best option, which was definitely not something he'd been able to say about the fish alley before.

Maybe the dead were just as put off by the smell as the living, because he didn't encounter any spirits on his way.

He didn't find Cas, either. Not in the fish alley—not that he'd expected to—not at Cas's parents' house, and not anywhere around their part of town. His progress was slowed by trying to duck and hide every time someone dead came into sight. He didn't even know if it helped; it seemed pretty likely that spirits could just sense him or something like that, given how Gabriel and Pam had found him. But since he'd seen more than one wielding a weapon of some sort, he decided not to risk it. On the other hand, he wanted to be able to catch a glimpse of the passing spirits in case Cas was among them.

By the time Dean made it to his own street —having only had to double back once to avoid a particularly malevolent-sounding cackle —he guessed that at least a few hours had passed. With no stars and no moon, he couldn't be sure, but he did know he was exhausted.

He'd been up most of the night before too, restless with nerves and anticipation about his plans for the night of the Reign of the Dead. He'd left a letter to his parents, in case he didn't make it back, explaining what he'd done and why. If he made it through the night, he'd burn it and they never had to know, but he wasn't holding out hope. He didn't care, though. As long as he could see Cas, it would be worth it.

But he couldn't find Cas anywhere around the house they'd lived in together, either. Not around the front door or the back, not on the roads they took to visit friends, not in the arched nook along the outer wall where they hid from Sam when he was being especially annoying.

Of course it was here, backed into a corner with no means of escape, that Dean encountered his first real trouble from the Reign. He heard the spirits before he saw them, heralded by the grating shriek of metal across cobblestones, but by then it was already too late to get away. They closed in from all sides, trapping him in the recess: one from each direction on the road and the third appearing mere feet in front of Dean.

Even the shortest of them loomed nearly half a head over Dean, with flaming eyes that ranged from yellow to green and nasty, twisted smiles. Heavy iron chains wrapped around each of them, trailing behind in long tails that scraped and clattered over the stone road as the ghosts slid closer.

"Dangerous night to be out and about," the one in the center drawled. His eyes, burning with the bright colour of new leaves, swept over Dean. "Did you really think you'd be safe? Gabriel might have let you go, but he didn't promise anything about the rest of us."

All three of them laughed, loud and harsh, and a sinking feeling in the pit of Dean's stomach told him it was the end. He was prepared for death, and he'd given it his best try, but he hated that it hadn't been enough; he hadn't found Cas.

If these spirits killed him, he might not get a chance until the next Reign, when he would be among the dead. The actual workings of death—whether he'd join the Reign that very night or have to wait until the next year, whether the dead congregated somewhere unseen in the graveyard during the time between—remained even more of a mystery than the Reign itself, since no one who might have tried to get an explanation from the dead had ever been able to pass along the lesson.

"Are you ready to join the Reign of the Dead?" another of them taunted, but it wasn't particularly effective as a threat.

"Would I?" Dean asked, and he could hear his own eagerness. He didn't bother trying to hide it. Maybe he had a chance after all. "I mean, if I died right now, would my spirit join you all before the end of the night?"

He clearly hadn't been expecting that answer, stammering out a few meaningless syllables and ending with, "Uh."

"Would you... want to?" asked the first spirit, his tone no longer the least bit menacing. He was looking Dean over in an entirely new manner, brows furrowed and a confused twist of a grimace replacing his vicious grin.

"I mean, yeah. Not that I particularly want to die—I don't mean any offense, I'm sure being dead is great for you guys, I'm just not really ready. But if I am gonna die in the near future, which seems pretty unavoidable at this point, I'd really like it to happen quickly so I can keep trying to find Cas before the Reign's over."

The main ghost leaned back. When he crossed his arms, the chains draped over him rattled and shook. "That's more important to you than your life?"

"Yeah." Dean shrugged. "That's why I'm here."

"Awwww," the third spirit spoke up for the first time. Dean glanced over, wary, but he seemed entirely sincere. "Come on, Eli, he's too sweet. We gotta help him out, I just couldn't bear it if we messed up his chance."

The leader, apparently Eli, sighed fondly. "You big softie. Yeah, yeah. We've held you up long enough, kid," he told Dean. "No dying here, just a little harmless fun. We get bored, you know?"

Even as they drifted back to give him space to leave, Dean found it hard to believe. "Really?"

"Really. So quit wasting time and go find him!" Eli's eyes flared and his chains vanished, leaving a man in vivid red clothes with black flowers embroidered over his chest. "You really ought to know where to go. There's not much time left, so no more of this wandering around aimlessly. Go, go!"

With all three of them urging him on, Dean had to obey—even though he still didn't really know where he was going. They waved him back in the direction he'd come, so he started that way as he thought it over. They were right that time was short; he stopped bothering with discretion and ran as fast as he could.

He reached the house again and paused, both for breath and to try and collect his scattered ideas. If not here...

His eyes jerked to the west almost of their own accord. He couldn't see the hill with their tree from where he was, but all the same he knew. The rightness of it settled into his body, leaving him as refreshed and energetic as if he'd just woken from a full night's sleep. Cas was waiting for him and all Dean had to do was get to him.

Dean sprinted for all he was worth, only vaguely aware of the spirits cavorting in the streets around him. They seemed to be moving out of his way, and he thought he heard more than one urging him on—but he could have been mistaken, because he really wasn't paying attention. All his focus was consumed by putting one foot in front of the other as he raced along the shortest route he could think of towards the tree.

By the time he reached the crest of the hill, finally able to see the hollowed out trunk, his lungs and legs burned with exertion so fiercely that he could hardly stand. He didn't care.

Cas was there.

He looked so much like himself that it wiped clean the lingering image of his charred corpse that had haunted Dean's dreams for months. Paler, yes, and his blue eyes burned instead of shining, but he was Cas. He wore his favorite shirt—which was only his favorite because it was Dean's favorite—but the formerly sky blue fabric was awash in rich golden hues instead. Like the rest of the dead's outfits, it drained the color away from his bloodless skin so that he couldn't be mistaken for a living man even at a glance; but he was no less beautiful than he'd always been.

Dean took a step towards him, then another, but faltered on the third. Cas watched his approach silently with an unreadable expression on his face.

Dean had always been able to read Cas, ever since they were kids. Finding himself faced with a blank slate, unfamiliar and stoic, rocked him to the core and made him doubt the wave of recognition that had comforted him just moments before. He didn't know what he'd do if Gabriel had been right, if it turned out that Cas had changed so much in death that he was a danger to Dean.

Die, probably. It seemed pretty likely that he'd die if that were the case. If not by Cas's ghostly hand, then by Gabe's or Meg's or some other vengeful spirit of the dead. So be it.

He covered the rest of the distance to Cas in an instant, all but throwing himself in front of his love. Though Cas's body and head moved to track him, the terrifying stillness of his features held and his blue-fire eyes seemed to stare straight through Dean. Letting his nerves get the best of him, Dean hesitated again. When Cas neither ripped his head off nor embraced him, he ventured a quiet, "Cas?"

The flicker of Cas's eyes blazed brighter for a moment, but he otherwise didn't react.

It was time for a decision. Dean had made the choice to venture out into the Reign of the Dead, he'd stood up to Gabriel's questioning and insisted he was willing to follow through no matter what, but subconsciously he'd still expected to find Cas unchanged by dying. Encountering a dull shade who looked like Cas but acted like—like his corpse wasn't something Dean was prepared for. All his previous conviction had fled and he had to muster up his courage anew.

For a chance at Cas, any version of Cas, he could do that.

He reached out and brushed his fingers across Cas's cheek; it was cold, as cold as the night air around them, but solid and gave a little beneath his touch just like flesh. Cas didn't seem to notice. With a sob he couldn't hold back any longer, Dean cupped Cas's face in his hand, closed his eyes, and leaned in to press their lips together. He could steal one last kiss without regard to the consequences. If it was all he'd have, it would be enough.

Though his lips were as cold as his skin, Cas's eyes radiated warmth like the candle flames they resembled. The heat wasn't enough to burn Dean, even in such close proximity; it was actually nice, soothing in the chill pre-dawn.

Dean started to pull back on a sigh, but Cas's arms wrapped around him and held him close. Eyes shooting open in surprise, Dean broke away slightly to try and speak but Cas took advantage of his parted lips and deepened the kiss. The coolness of Cas's tongue and the stillness of his breathless mouth were like nothing Dean had ever experienced, but he still kissed like Cas had always kissed him: tender and claiming at once, like he never wanted to let go of Dean again.

Dean was perfectly fine with never letting go. Everything he'd risked was paying off because he had Cas, his Cas, in his arms again. He let his eyes slip closed, partly to shield them from the brightness of Cas's fire and mostly to savor the moment for as long as it lasted.

It lasted a long time indeed, but unlike Cas, Dean did still need to breath. Cas let him go this time, not that Dean got very far away. When he blinked his eyes open to look at Cas, he could somehow tell the burning points of Cas's gaze were finally focused back on him. Even better, Cas's mouth stretched wide in his happiest smile, the one Dean had fallen in love with when they were barely more than boys.

"Cas," he whispered, and his voice nearly broke from elation. "Cas, Cas, Cas."

He was wasting time they barely had, but he couldn't seem to do anything other than cling to Cas and chant his name. Then it was Cas's turn to raise a hand and stroke Dean's face lovingly, cold but so solid and present that it eased Dean out of his semi-panic.

"Dean." Cas sounded no less affected by their reunion, his voice soft and longing. He said, "I'm so very angry with you," but there was no force to it.

Dean knew what he meant anyway. "I'm not sorry. I'd do it again. I will do it again, again and again, every year, if that's the only way we can be together."

"Well then, thank God it's not." They turned to find young-but-ancient Gabriel standing a few feet away, a smirk narrowing the fire of his eyes to embers. "Or thank me, actually, since I'm the one helping you out."

"What—" Dean started to ask, but Cas hushed him with a hand against the small of his back. It was a common gesture, or had been until a few months before, since Dean had a bad habit of speaking out of turn. He felt a small pang at missing the warmth of Cas's hand against him, but the pressure was there all the same, reassuring and steadying. He fell silent and let Cas talk.

"Does that mean I can stay?"

"It means you're closer to staying. Dean passed my test, but he still has to agree to the rest of it."

Quieting hand or no quieting hand, Dean wasn't about to sit this conversation out. "What test? What 'rest of it'?"

"You're not exactly the first person to come to us chasing someone. People have loved and lost for as long as the Reign of the Dead has been around. But it gets complicated after that."

Gabriel slid closer. "See, sometimes they'd get scared off by our little party. Or how their sweetheart's cheeks don't glow rosy anymore, and their eyes have a terrifying tendency to burn without closing. And then there's the cold. Near everyone who made it this far before has been put off by the cold. The whole lifeless thing, you know? They think they're prepared for it until they actually have to face it."

Dean had reached for Cas's hand at 'lifeless,' reassured when cool fingers slipped between his and held fast. Maybe Cas wasn't alive anymore, but he wasn't lifeless. He moved and talked and kissed—but he hadn't, when Dean had first found him. That must have been the test, but...

"I still don't get it. Why put us through that?"

"Like I said, it gets complicated." Gabriel sighed, setting the fire of his eyes flickering; a candle in a draft. "The thing is, what you want? Your love back in your arms, with you for the rest of your life? It's mostly possible. I can tie his spirit to you, instead of the graveyard, and he won't have to come back with us at the end of the night."

Heart soaring, Dean looked over at Cas. Instead of sharing his elation, Cas's expression curled uncertainly as he met Dean's eyes. "Cas?"

"I'll still be like this," Cas said. "A spirit. I won't be alive, but I will be with you. The last time Gabriel let someone stay, his wife couldn't take it for much more than a year. She left him and sought out a new lover, a living one."

"And the poor dead sap was still stuck with her until she died," Gabriel concluded. "Because that's how it works. Your soul would be what anchors him here, instead of in his grave. I can't undo it, no matter how much either of you regrets it. You're together until you die, then you're together in death. So, yeah, I have pretty high standards."

Dean gripped Cas's hand tighter. "Okay, so what else do I need to do to prove myself to you?"

Gabriel looked away, his gaze skimming out over the town to the east. The fires of the dead drifted back towards the cemetery, leaving the streets calm and empty. "Sunrise soon," he said instead of answering.

Despite his impatience, Dean waited out the thoughtfulness that made Gabriel look much older than his boyish body. It was worth it when Gabriel turned back to them and said, "Yeah, okay. You have to visit, though. Every year, every Reign of the Dead, you both better meet us at the graveyard at sunset. I'll make you regret it if you don't."

'He was alone for a long time,' Pamela had said, and Dean could see the echoing vulnerability of a lonely child in his threat.

"Every year," Dean promised.

Beaming, then remembering himself and toning down the sincerity into a smirk, Gabriel raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Then he disappeared.

"What, what?" Dean checked around, but it was just him and Cas, and Cas looked equally confused. "What was that? Was that it?"

"Have a good year!" Gabriel's voice echoed on the wind, which Dean took to mean yes.

It was done; Cas was his again. He spun, ready to express his joy, but Cas beat him to it, and Dean found himself pressed against the rough bark of the hollow tree and kissed thoroughly. The chill of Cas's skin leeching some of his warmth away might take a bit of getting used to, but it wasn't even unpleasant; just new and a little strange. If it meant a few more logs in the stove every night to keep Dean's room heated enough, that was just fine.

They kissed and cuddled until the sun came up and Lawrence Township stirred back to life, then joined hands and walked down the path that led to the rest of their life, together.