It's nearly 2 a.m. by the time Dean finds Cas and calms him enough to get him to the bed - not an easy feat, and not without sacrifice, Dean thinks and he shakes his empty flask and tosses it toward the corner where both their shoes and Cas's coat are heaped in a pile. He's only seen Cas sleep once before, though he's woken up countless times to find Cas watching over him, and Dean wonders if the protective feeling he has right now is any indication of what Cas might've felt at those times.
Making one last patrol around the house, turning off lights and shutting doors, Dean catches their father's journal as it slips out of Sam's fingers and takes care to bookmark the page as he sets it on the desk. Instinctively, he knows that the silence is not benign. "We're in the eye of the storm, Sammy," he murmurs, turning off the light.
Outside, the sky is dark but there's a thickness in the air like the residue of awe and danger after a fireworks show on New Year's Eve. Only these fireworks were a rain of blazing angels hurtling down from the heavens like meteors.
Two socks and a plaid button-down shirt join the shoes and the coat in the corner, though he keeps his jeans on, aware of how small the distance is between him and Cas as he stretches out on top of the covers. Dean shivers despite the warmth he feels radiating from the fallen angel's back. Gradually, the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears fades until all that's left is the blessed silence of delta waves slowly lapping the shores of a ragged mindscape.
It's an unfamiliar sound that brings Dean halfway back to consciousness and an elbow in his side that brings him all the way back to the room. He feels the sound as an icicle deep in his chest and it's the only thing that holds back the reflex to lash out in the direction of the jab. As the fog of sleep dissipates, it dawns on Dean that the chilling sound and the pain in his ribs are both coming from the angel by his side, thrashing in his sleep, his guttural moaning punctuated with sobs. Dean realizes that Cas is having his first nightmare.
He blocks the next elbow 2 inches from his nose and reaches out to catch the fist propelled in the opposite direction, toward his alarm clock. "Cas, wake up!" Taking the other fist in his other hand, he wraps his arms around Cas, holding both fists still against the other man's body, an instinctive move to restrain him and protect both his friend and his alarm clock. "Castiel!" he shouts, more insistently this time.
Cas's body stiffens, jerks, and then the struggling stops. "Dean -" he gasps, recognizing the voice that he can feel rumbling through his back.
Realizing that he's lying in bed with his arms around another man, Dean lets go and pushes himself into a sitting position, stammering stupidly, "Uh, this… this isn't what it looks like…"
Cas sits up with his back against the headboard and looks around the room, bewildered. He hadn't meant to teleport into Hell, where he'd found himself surrounded by his burning brothers and sisters, and he hadn't heard Dean summoning him back, yet he'd suddenly found himself back in the room in Dean's embrace. Reaching to wipe the blood from his cheek, Cas blinks, then stares blankly at his hand for a moment. "Water?"
"Tears, Cas. You had a nightmare."
The recognition that both tears and nightmares are human phenomena brings another round of tears, silent this time. Without hesitation, Dean reaches out and wraps his arms around Cas, pulls him to his chest and holds him while he shakes.
On the other side of the wall, Sam sits very still in the darkness, shocked into silence. There had always been tension between Dean and Cas, though he'd never expected things to go in this direction. But he'd heard it with his own ears - the bed springs creaking, a hand or foot pounding against the wall, the angel moaning, and Cas's name shouted in Dean's voice at the height of it before everything fell quiet again. And in the silence, reeling from what he's just heard and knowing he'll have to confront them in the morning, Sam whispers, "It's the eye of the fucking storm."