Dean blinked as he woke up, the sun streaming through the open curtains harsh on his bleary eyes.
"Sam?" he croaked, kicking over empty beer bottles as he stumbled out of bed. "Cas?" he tried, when Sam didn't answer. But there was no reply from Cas, either. A quick glance out the front window told him that the Impala was gone, so the two of them were probably out getting supplies.
He grabbed a quick shower, not bothering to wrap a towel around his waist when he came out of the bathroom for there was nobody there to see him, and it was only when he moved to pick up his watch from the nightstand that he saw the sweet lying there.
Best mate.
Dean huffed a quiet laugh to himself. Trust Cas to reduce things to their simplest form. For it had to be Cas – Sam would just have complained about the amount of beer he'd drunk and possibly punched him for behaving like a dick.
"You're my best mate too, Cas," he said to the empty room, smiling. "Except for Sam, of course."
There was a soft flutter of wings, and then, "Of course."
Dean spun around to see Cas standing between him and the bathroom door.
"I'm glad, Dean. I do not like it when we do not talk. Though I don't always understand what you're saying, I have grown accustomed to our conversations."
Dean looked rather embarrassed. "Look, no matter what I say, Cas, you'll always be a Winchester to me. To us!" he corrected himself quickly. "Me and Sam – we'll always see you as another Winchester. You've been with us through thick and thin."
Castiel smiled. "I know how fiercely you guard your family, Dean, and it honours me that you would look upon me in this way."
"Fuck, Cas..." Dean trailed off, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.
Castiel was staring at him in that alien way only he could – expressionless and unblinking – and Dean was about to open his mouth and say something stupid when Sam walked in.
"Oh, hey Cas," Sam said. "You're back, then. I take it Dean pulled his head out of his ass and called you down?"
Castiel turned back to Dean and looked him up and down. "I presume Sam is not referring to your incredible flexibility?" he asked deadpan, the twitching at the corners of his mouth the only indication that he was joking.
Dean rolled his eyes.
"But get this," Sam started, "There's an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town, only it's not so abandoned."
Dean perked up.
"I drove by and checked it out, and—"
"The nest?" Dean interrupted.
Sam nodded.
"So let's go. Cas, you in?"
"Of course," Castiel confirmed.
Fourteen dead vampires later Dean strode back into their motel room and tossed his bag on Sam's bed. Cas followed him in, tenser than usual if that was even possible, though his hands wouldn't stop moving by his sides.
"I'm sorry, Dean. I do not know what happened – one minute I was fighting by your side and then... I have never lost my focus like that before."
Dean had noticed that Castiel's hands had been clenching and unclenching all the way back in the car, and he saw that they were now hanging at his sides, with his fingers drumming absently against his legs.
"Cas, don't worry about it." Dean pulled a beer out of the little fridge in the corner and offered one to Cas, who shook his head. Shrugging, he twisted the lid off and downed half the bottle at once.
"You could have died, Dean."
"But I didn't. You saved me."
"You wouldn't have needed saving if I had been keeping a better eye on you—"
"Hey! Now you listen to me: I have been hunting things damn near all my life; I don't need an angel I've known a handful of years going all mother hen on me."
Castiel frowned. "I don't understand—"
"I am not a child, Cas. You don't have to look after me. I am not your responsibility."
Castiel bristled. "I was the one charged with pulling you from Hell. I was the one who cradled your broken soul in my arms. I was the one instructed to aid you during the Apocalypse—"
"And look how well that turned out. Cas, you're not the same angel you were back then. You orders have changed. Hell, you don't even take orders from Heaven any more. Not all the time, anyway. You're more... freelance."
Castiel placed his hands in his lap and stared resolutely at the wall. Dean shook his head. For an angel that had been around for millennia, sometimes he was no better behaved than a stroppy child. Dean dug his hand into his pocket and tore a strip off the packet of sweets just enough that he could pull out the next sugary disc. Out of habit he flipped it over to read it before he tossed it in his mouth, but he stopped.
My angel.
The thing is, he was, wasn't he? Castiel was Dean's angel. He always came when Dean called. He rebelled against Heaven for Dean. He'd died for Dean.
"Here," he said, passing it to Cas.
"Thank you, Dean, but I have my own."
"Take the damn candy, Cas!"
Narrowing his eyes at Dean, Castiel took the offered sweet and glanced at the message. "Yes, Dean," he said.
Dean paused for a moment, unsure whether Cas was saying yes, fine, Ill take the sweet or yes, I'm your angel. But then he decided he didn't want to think about the answer because if it was the second then give the dreams he'd been having lately it might make him—
Not gay. He was very definitely not gay.
But when Castiel smiled and Dean had to ignore the tingling feeling in his stomach he reminded himself that Cas was a genderless angel and just because he was in a guy's body didn't make him a man.
There wasn't even a label for that, he realised, and he chuckled.
"I don't see that there is anything humorous about your near-death experience," Castiel chided him.
"It wasn't a near-death experience, Cas," Dean dismissed his concern with a wave of his hand, and he winced.
"How are you healing?"
"Fine." When Castiel's eyes narrowed slightly, assessing how truthful he was being, Dean rolled his eyes. "Do you want to check?"
"Do I need to?" Castiel replied, daring Dean to lie to him.
Dean sighed and put his beer down, before hauling his t-shirt over his head. "Just get on with it."
He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling it dip as Castiel knelt behind him. Cool fingers ghosted across wounds that would undoubtedly scar when they were fully healed.
"You know, I rebuilt your body piece by piece when I raised you out of Hell," Castiel growled, almost possessively. "You should take better care of it."
Dean shuddered involuntarily beneath Castiel's hands. The last time Castiel had spoken to him like that he'd demanded Dean treat him with respect and threatened to hand him back over to Alastair, and he couldn't help the ripple of fear that flowed through him.
"I'm sorry," Castiel murmured, his touch becoming impossibly lighter. "It was not my intention to hurt you."
"'S okay, Cas," Dean assured him. "Just hurry up, will you? I'm getting cold."
Castiel resumed his investigation of Dean's healing injuries, and when he was finished could not resist letting his fingers trail over the area that caused Dean to tense and chuckle.
"Cas..." Dean warned him.
But then fingers dug into his ribs and he collapsed back against Castiel, laughing louder than Cas had ever heard him. It made him smile, to watch the tension ease out of the hunter's body, and it felt good to see him so relaxed.
"Shit, Cas! Uncle. Uncle!" he cried, sighing in relief when Castiel stopped.
"Why did you call me 'uncle'?" Cas asked.
"What?"
"You said—"
"It's just what you say when you want someone to stop."
"Oh." Castiel thought about this for second. "So like a safe word?"
"Yeah, exactly like— Wait, what?" Dean stood up and spun to face Castiel so quickly he felt dizzy. "How do you know about safe words?"
"I have watched humanity develop and grow over thousands of years," he shrugged.
"You sound like a Peeping Tom!" laughed Dean.
Castiel huffed. "I can assure you, I receive no sexual gratification in watching humans fornicate. Unlike you."
"What? I..." Dean spluttered.
"There really is little difference between 'peeping' as you call it, and watching pornographic material, other than the participants' knowledge of the fact."
Dean snorted. "Well you sure as hell managed to get it up for the pizza man!" he joked.
"We do not talk about that, Dean," Castiel informed him in all seriousness.
Dean opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out as he found himself staring at Cas, and his tongue subconsciously licked his lower lip as he drank in the intensity of Castiel's eyes which stared back at him. He often wondered what Castiel was seeing when he stared at Dean like that, because he wasn't that interesting, really. His brother was so used to him that they could have entire conversations without Sam taking his eyes off his computer screen, but when Castiel was with Dean - and especially when they were alone - Castiel looked at him like he was the most important thing in the world and that freaked Dean out. He might have been, once, and only to the angels, but now? They'd stopped the apocalypse, and now Dean was just Dean again. Not an angel vessel. Just Dean. He was just the brawn to Sam's brain.
He blinked, and cleared his throat.
"Uh, well I'm going to turn in for the night," he told Cas, and when did his voice get so husky?
Castiel nodded. "I understand. You need your 'four hours'."
Dean smiled. "Yeah, something like that."
"I shall return tomorrow."
"Good night, Cas," Dean said.
"Good night, Dean."
And with a soft flutter, Castiel left Dean alone.