Castiel had learned in a TV show (Oprah) that the best way to relax your mind and come up with a solution to a problem was to make a mental list of facts. You could do it to form a comparison between two different things, like say… an iPhone vs any other phone. The sole purpose of the list is to know which one is better; or the alternative which is to realize that you really don't give a flying fuck and you are getting the first one because it comes in rose gold and it's cuter. That's it, that's why it helps.
Cas had never tried this small mental exercise in his long life. He had never been forced to over analyze situations that were not battle related. He trusted his superiors and that was it.
Right now he could barely trust himself.
He was either dreaming thanks to a Djinn or he was finally going crazy because his human brain couldn't cope with his actual age. With that thought in mind, he started to form his mental list in chronological order.
-He had been hunting a Djinn.
-He found several Djinns in an abandoned warehouse with several victims.
-He fought said Djinns and lost.
-A Djinn kicked him and broke his ribs.
-Cas didn't feel any pain… neither did he have bruises of any kind.
-A Djinn used it's mojo on him. He remembered that as if it had been a couple of seconds ago. The problem was that he either doesn't truly remember his dream or he is in a dream.
-He saw a college girl in the next bed and then she disappeared. Dean mentioned having similar hallucinations when trapped in the Djinn's dream and explained them as "peeks into reality".
-Dean is being extra nice to him.
The physical contact wasn't something that had never happened before. The only thing Dean was doing differently was touching his chin and lips. Cas felt his skin tingle in response to the memories and cursed his human body silently.
Being human meant being able to appreciate beauty in the deepest sense of the word. As an angel he had appreciated the simple things in life like bees, music, and animals in general. As an angel, he had just known that Dean was pleasing to look at, like his whole body had been handcrafted to be the most beautiful thing in creation. He had never actually reacted to that.
Now he was hyper aware of how beautiful Dean was, how deep his voice was and how he loved to hear him sing, how his smile was something rare and that he cursed himself for not being able to see it more. He knew that Dean's skin was soft to the touch and how his body was covered by freckles that just added to Dean's beauty. He felt compelled to look at Dean's eyes more than he used to do. They were such a delightful color, it was this warm green that called to him. With his grace, he would have never been able to call a color "warm".
It was not just sexual attraction, he knew what that was thanks to April and that hooker that Dean got for him. Sexual attraction was superficial and not that big of a deal.
He craned his neck to look at the bathroom door and sobered up.
This Dean was starting to look happier, he smiled more, and acted nicer towards him.
All right state the facts. What's not so different?
-Most of his body language hadn't changed, except for the fingers in his face. Dean had always liked to grab his shoulder or hold his knee, Cas didn't mind.
-Dean looked exactly like Dean, but that could be because it's his subconscious. Maybe if he thought real hard about changing Dean's physical appearance it would happen just because it was a dream.
With that thought in mind Cas closed his eyes and focused. He looked up and basically jumped in surprise when Dean walked in nothing but his towel tied around his waist.
Cas gasped, he couldn't help that he looked like a fish out of water. It wasn't because he hadn't seen Dean shirtless before, the last time had been when Sam had forced them to jog with him at 6 am.
Dean had taken a step into the bunker and was already stripping his hoodie and shirt while complaining loudly.
"What's the purpose of taking off your clothes?" Cas asked with a frown, "They are already sweaty and generally in a gross state after doing exercise, so I don't see why it would help. Your body heat will not change abruptly just because you took off a cotton shirt." Cas attempted not to stare, Dean always complained.
He couldn't help it, Dean looked gorgeous shirtless and sweaty. His muscles shining and his skin begging to be touched. Cas' throat had gone dry, and so he had turned his attention to an amused Sam. Cas' frown deepened.
"Because they are gross Cas." Dean snapped, "I don't like how a sweaty shirt feels on my body."
"Then why do you exercise with a shirt?' Cas returned his stare to Dean and tilted his head with a frown of confusion. Dean blushed and his eyes widened.
"Because it's decent to do so, Cas!" Dean snapped again.
Cas had again tried not to stare at Dean's abdomen. He wasn't built like him or Sam. His body wider and stronger looking despite the extra fatty tissue that made his body look soft and approachable.
Approachable? Uhh... what?
Cas shrugged and took off to the showers without a word.
"Who cares about being decent these days?" Cas murmured while he walked away.
Dean let out an exasperated groan and Sam had laughed and clapped Dean on the shoulder.
That had been 2 days before the boys took off.
No one could get a six pack so fast without selling their soul to a demon.
Cas stared hard, the muscles on Dean's abdomen looked just perfect. He didn't quite look like a bodybuilder, just the perfect amount of muscle and fat on his abdomen. Too perfect, he had always liked Dean the way he was.
"Hey Cas, do you have a T-shirt I could borrow?" Dean asked with raised eyebrows and Cas pointed at his duffel bag sitting next to a small pile of dirty clothes.
Dean turned around, his back and arm muscles flexing with the movement. Cas gulped and kept staring as Dean fished a black oversized T-shirt
"Dean, how long was I out?" Cas asked while Dean rummaged through his stuff.
"Uhh… I'm not sure." Dean shrugged, the muscles on his back flexing beautifully. "A month? Or more… like forty days. I don't know man." Dean turned around as if to give Cas a look at his abdomen.
It was back to its normal state, with its usual softness and less marked muscles. Cas blinked, what the hell just happened?
Dean raised an eyebrow when he was half dressed again. Cas just stared.
"Dude stop staring so much, we've talked about this. It's creepy." Cas nodded but couldn't find it in himself to stop.
Dean huffed and went back to the bathroom.
Ok, he had focused hard enough to change a thing about the dream. Turns out he is not in complete control because his head hurt with the effort and he had no idea how he did it.
It doesn't look like a nightmare yet. Unless Dean abruptly died in the shower. Cas stared at the bathroom door for any signs of sudden death, but didn't hear anything.
This must be a dream then... but why such a normal setting? Dean had dreamed of a completely different life where his mom and Jess lived and Sam was a lawyer. Charlie had dreamed that she was in some sort of horror video game and couldn't wake up because it was a nightmare.
Dean had woken up by killing himself. If Cas was wrong about this and did actually killed himself, well... Cas was too curious about the dream to stop it anyway. He supposed not much time could have gone by on the real world and shrugged. He wanted to know what the Djinn saw as his perfect world. Maybe some angels were alive! He clearly doesn't have his grace back, but it doesn't matter.
Dean came back to the room in black boxers and the borrowed shirt. "Your turn buddy."
Cas took a shower and dressed himself in Dean's old AC/DC shirt and black pants. He found Dean standing next to the coffee table with the maps. His shoulders looked tense and so he brushed his fingers against his shoulder in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.
Dean jumped and turned around to look at Cas from head to toe. His lip formed a cocky grin and his tongue darted out to lick his lips.
"Heh, you look good in my clothes Cas." Dean grinned at Cas who frowned.
"I know it's polite to say 'thank you' after getting a compliment, but uhh yes... thanks Dean." Cas cleared his throat and took a step forward to stand besides Dean. "What are you looking at?"
"I was just thinking that you are really good at this." Dean looked at the maps and printed records and pictures of missing people. "You managed to separate the supernatural disappearances with the others. How much time did you spend on this?"
"I spent a week doing research at the bunker and then took off. I found the Djinns in two days." Cas pointed at the university and the places where other victims disappeared from, "It was easy to find the right warehouse once I connected the victims to certain places." He pointed at the warehouses he checked and then the one where Dean had found him in. "I was going to call you when I found this one, but I was reckless and got attacked by a large group of Djinns." Dean nodded in understanding and placed a hand on Castiel's shoulders.
"Happens to the best of us." Cas nodded half-heartedly and shifted his stance to look at Dean.
Dean looked tired and worried. Cas wondered how much Dean wasn't telling him. He guessed that Dean hadn't been sleeping much during the time he spent looking for him. Cas wanted to say something, anything.
"I'm sorry," well not that, but it was something. Wasn't this a dream? Weren't you supposed be able to control dreams? Oh right this is not his dream, it was the Djinn's dream and he was just the main character.
Cas felt his knees buckle under him with the effort of standing up for too long. He was feeling slightly dizzy and felt like he was about to fall unconscious any second now. Dean didn't let him fall, instead he placed Cas' head on his shoulder and took hold of his waist to keep him standing up. Cas didn't have it in himself to protest.
"Let's get you to bed, huh sleeping beauty?" Dean winked at Cas who frowned.
"I don't understand that reference and you've said it twice... but I'm too tired to care enough to ask you to elaborate," Cas mumbled as Dean slowly walked them to one of the beds.
Dean laughed and Cas was able to feel his laugh in the way his chest moved, how his arms had tightened and how the hot breath on his neck hit him in sharp bursts of laughter.
Dean helped Cas under the covers a little clumsily. He placed a hand on Cas' forehead and ruffled his hair.
"Night Cas." Dean patted his hair and smiled sadly at Cas.
"Good night Dean." Dean ruffled his hair once more and Cas fell asleep right away.
Cas didn't remember Dean moving to his own bed, he was afraid of waking up (or not waking up for that matter) and not being in the motel room.
He opened his eyes and looked at the adjacent motel bed. He saw Dean asleep on top of the covers, he was cuddling a pillow between his legs and stomach and held the other to his face in a choke hold. It was still nighttime and so he didn't want to wake Dean up, he looked like he hadn't slept in a while. Cas stood up to fetch a cheeseburger and brought it back to his bed. He wolfed it down and covered only his legs with the covers.
So much movement woke Dean up. He mumbled something terribly incoherent and squinted in the dark until he saw Cas sitting on his bed.
"Cas, buddy, what's up?" Dean frowned at the red numbers of the alarm clock and groaned at the number 2 in it.
"Nothing, go back to sleep." Cas threw away the paper from his cold burger and it magically hit the trashcan.
"Nuh uh, something's up with you, Cas." Dean shoved the pillows from his bed away and half crawled to Cas' bed to sit next to him on top of the covers. "And I'm not leavin' 'til you tell me." Dean grabbed the pillow next to Cas and held it in his arms.
"Nothing, Dean. I'm fine." Cas shifted his sitting position to lay down on his back and stare at the ceiling.
"Are you doin' that to dismiss me? Well I've got bad news for your stubborn ass, buddy." Dean shifted so that he was laying on his side and looking at Cas with the pillow clutched to his chest. "I'm a stubborn ass, too."
"So you accept that you are an ass?" Cas asked with a smile.
"Fucking smartass, I can't believe it..." Dean hit his face with his palm and groaned. Cas chuckled.
"I'm okay, Dean," Cas mumbled.
"You know what's not okay, Cas?" Dean raised an eyebrow and pointed at the bed, "This is. Two grown ass men sharing a bed in a motel when there's another one perfectly empty in the same room. You better tell me what's eating you man so I can leave." Dean did his "or else" face which didn't work because Cas laughed.
"I was an angel of the Lord, I think I know what's wrong or right; and this is not so wrong." Cas shrugged, and Dean scoffed.
"Says the guy who opened up Purgatory." Dean deadpanned.
"Says the man who jump started the apocalypse." Cas shot back with a smug grin.
"Fuck you, Cas." Dean groaned and hit his forehead against Cas' shoulder. He was actually shaking from laughter and not letting out more than a small chuckle. They laid there for a while just resting. Dean was about to fall asleep, but he didn't want to sleep on the same bed as Cas, it was just wrong to do so.
"Are you telling me why you are up?" Dean propped himself on an elbow and looked at Cas in the dark.
"I, uhh, I was hungry." Cas lied, tensing up in attempts to hide it. Dean of course felt his shoulder tense.
"Bullshit." Dean mumbled, he sounded so tired that Cas didn't want to keep him awake for more time.
"Dean go to sleep, I'm fine." Cas gently pushed his shoulder with his hand to coerce him to go to his own bed. Dean didn't move. Cas' heart wasn't in it anyway.
"Nope, I'm not leaving until you tell me what's up." Dean snorted and closed his eyes with a sigh. His nose itched and, instead of using his hand, he nuzzled Cas' shoulder. Cas closed his eyes and tried his best not to lean his head towards Dean.
"Dean-" Cas started to complain.
"Cas, I'm tired, just tell what's up." Dean half snapped half mumbled into his arm (in a completely platonic way according to Dean).
"Why do you care Dean?" Cas grumbled getting annoyed by Dean's stubbornness and feeling exhausted.
"'Cause you are family Cas." Dean propped his chin in Cas' shoulder closer to look into his blue eyes. They couldn't see each other well in the darkness, but it was enough to make Cas give up entirely. He sighed loudly and Dean placed his forehead back in Cas' shoulder.
"I was afraid that I would wake up alone in that warehouse with a Djinn forcing me to sleep." Which was practically the truth. He just didn't want to wake up outside of his dream.
"Hey, I'm here, Cas." Dean mumbled in Cas' shoulder. He wasn't cuddling Cas, ok? Dean Winchester was not a cuddler. He was just pressing his forehead against Castiel's shoulder. It was perfectly manly. Plus, it didn't count as sharing a bed unless the two of them were under the covers in Dean's book.
There was nothing he could have said in that moment. Cas was utterly confused and awed by that comment. He didn't quite know what Dean meant, but he couldn't find it in himself to care anyway. Dean never attempted to remove his head from his shoulder and Cas didn't attempt to make Dean leave his bed.
Neither of them realized when the other fell asleep. Dean's body in an awkward position in attempts to keep some personal space, pillow tucked between their bodies as an extra barrier to keep them separated.