Embers. Embers everywhere. Nostrils clogged. Skin covered. It's a volcano, dark and suffocating. Dean wakes up in a tangle of Cas' blankets, one of the couch cushions suspended nearly in mid-air, one of his legs sticking out.

Castiel is screaming in his sleep, Dean just on the other side of the door. He can hear Cas' voice, begging someone to stop doing something. A phantom. Dean scrambles to open the bedroom door and to reach the thrashing man wearing some nearly threadbare gray shirt Dean found in the back of his dresser. It's a shirt that smells like vanilla mothballs. Dean doesn't know what to think of the scent.

Castiel decks him and Dean is surprised by the strength. It'll leave a mark and Castiel will feel bad, probably berate himself. But its whatever for Dean. He's already decided that he will never let Castiel get as low as he felt when he handed his coin back to his sponsor. He will make it his mission to make Castiel better again somehow.

Dean doesn't know why he hates himself so much for feeling like he failed Cas. But it does gnaw in his gut something fierce.

"Dean!" Castiel snaps out of it the moment his fist connects. "Dean, I've hit you."

"Yeah, you got quite a sock," Dean says, trying not to stumble into Castiel's beautifully-stained chest of drawers. He nearly succeeds, displacing a gag gift baseball that Dean had actually given to him as a joke gift when they first met.

"We'll put a steak on it," Castiel says with an edge of worry to his voice.

"Hey, whoa," Dean says as Castiel tries to get out of bed and nearly drops to his knees. "You're still a little-"

"I know what I am, Dean," Cas says helplessly with a sharp edge- his impatience with his condition clear.

Man, Dean chuckles to himself, he's as much a hard ass as I was. He manages to slip under Cas and get them both to the kitchen, not too troubled by how comfortable and familiar this is all becoming. Castiel wasn't the first guy he'd been a crutch for, though arguably its with the best result this time.

Dean chooses a bag of peas to cool his shiner with this time, instead of the steak. He'd much rather have that for breakfast, truth be told, but he doesn't want to feel like a freeloader anymore. No way, no how.

Castiel begins to thumb through the Psalms on an uncomfortable looking stool as a way of calming his nerves after he has a long gulp of tap water.

"Which one ya on now?"

"52," Cas says without looking up.

Dean watches his lips move and he reads along silently. He doesn't really believe in the Bible but he admires Cas' devotion to an old text full of ancient ideas about kindness and patience. Sometimes he wishes he had the resolve for that sort of thing.

"I do not like it when you watch me read," Castiel says without bothering to look up.

HIs back is stiff as they move toward the living room, in direct opposition to Dean, who stretches himself across a small futon that has taken the place of the exercise bike while Dean is at Cas' place, helping him dry out. Castiel doesn't expect company, although Charlie and two of the girls from the group have stopped by since he gave back his coin. It's as though he wants to entertain, but he's pushing back the people who could help him achieve that goal, Dean observes. A struggle, like time. Time has an odd way of stretching and molding around an addict's life, much like bread dough being kneaded before baking begins.

"Then stop moving your lips," Dean challenges.

Castiel looks up at him, annoyed but too harried and haunted to fight back much. "It is one of my idiosyncracies. You could simply just stop watching me read. Or find your own Bible."

"Cas, you know I don't believe in that ancient gobbledy-gook."

"That ancient gobbledy-gook, as you call it, is a beautiful book that is holy to many people."

"Yeah, that and throw in the Koran and you've got enough poetry to start a war with. What's your point?"

"Dean, what is it that you believe in then that is so much better?"

Dean shrugs. He's not sure he has anything to prove. "I guess I believe in my brother."

"Your brother?"

"Well, yeah. He got the best of everything. Dad's brains, mom's kindness. His own brand of hope. And he didn't end up a screwed-up high school drop-out washup like his big brother."

"Dean-"

"It's true and you know it."

They've been going back and forth like this for the entire dry-out period. His pee has been coming out pretty clean from the drug testing kit his sponsor sent him, but Castiel's not convinced it's all through his system yet. Dean doesn't want to voice it because, for the first time, he feels necessary to someone else. And it's nice. He doesn't just feel like dead weight in Castiel's life.

He feels like the right kind of driftwood this time.

"Dean-"

"I swear to God, Cas, if you thank me or apologize one more time, I am gonna leave."

"I feel I should."

"You have nothing to be sorry about or for, Cas. I'm here because you're a friend."

"You're a good man, Dean Winchester."

Dean snorts in response. "Nice of you to say."

"You still don't think so? You could've given up on me. But you didn't."

"You're not as a bad as you think, Cas."

"I'm not?" Castiel quirks his brow. "If I were better, there would have never been a divorce. There would have never been-"

Dean shakes his head. "You're doing it again."

"I saw it in my dream again."

"It's just a dream. It's already happened. Let it go, Cas." It sounds weird coming out of Dean's mouth. And he's not too keen on hearing the story again, even if it makes him a selfish bastard. He's never cared about being a selfish bastard before.

"It's all there- the black ice, the-"

When Dean kisses Castiel, it's rough, bruising. It's more a way of shutting him up than anything. He doesn't do it based on the idea of lust. He does it to break the spell of proverbial nightmares haunting Castiel, a direct result- a line of reasoning stretching not far back towards the ice cream parlour and the night of Les Miserables.

Dean had bought the professional soundtrack soon after the performance, he listened to the shuffle nearly obsessively. He saw Castiel when he looked at it, at how proud Castiel looked at his daughter. It was a look of hope he himself had only achieved once, sitting on the trunk of the Impala with Sam watching fireworks and drinking before Sam had left for Stanford.

"Dean?" Castiel's face is a map of conflict and bewilderment. Dean knows he's the direct cause but it's better than the alternative, all things considered.

"Sorry," he mumbles, embarressed. "Guess I should've asked permission first?"

"That would have been nice."

The Bible drops to the floor, splayed out across Castiel's feet, nearly touching Dean's shoe. "You're gonna offend me, Cas. I'm supposed to be a stud, remember?"

"I'm not arguing the validity of the kiss, Dean. It was very nice. I was merely blindsided is all," Castiel says after carefully choosing his words.

"So you ain't reciprocatin', is that it?"

"You stayed because you have feelings for me beyond friendship?"

"Well shit," Deacon counters with, feeling like he's under a bright spotlight. "We could just keep asking each other questions all night and never get anywhere."

Castiel thinks for a moment. "You bought the soundtrack because of me, didn't you?"

Dean nods, unsure of why he hangs his head a little and looks slightly sheepish. "Couldn't help it."

"What is it you see when you dream?"

Dean gulps. He doesn't know if he can share. "I don't much dream, Cas. I only dream about one thing when I do and it ain't no good. Don't-"

"Dean-" Castiel's voice isn't a warning. It's soft. Like in the old days. Or what passes for old days in the AA circle of life.

Dean looks up, Castiel watching him, pools of blue locked on his tight. "My mom. She died in a fire and I was the last one out. Last one to see her. I couldn't save her cause I made a choice to get Sam. Nothing was ever the same after."

"How old were you?"

"Old enough," Dean pulls away, the room becoming unbearably hot.

"Dean-" Castiel's voice pulls him back. "Would you stay with me?"

"I already am."

"No," Castiel gulps. "I mean, closer than merely being on a couch."

"You mean, like move in?"

"Possibly as an eventuality, but more to the point- tonight, to be in my bed, to hold my hand. To provide a mutual comfort-"

"Woah, Cas, what are we talking about here?"

"This discomfort from the man who has kissed me?"

"Hell yeah, discomfort, I don't know what that was all about," Dean lies, moving around the room, straightening things up that don't need it, fidgeting.

"Dean, have you come out to yourself?"

He says it so casually that Dean breaks out in a cold sweat. "I man doesn't need to explain himself to anyone," he tosses out casually. "What he does is his own business."

"That isn't what I asked," Castiel says, the anchor of the room as he watches Dean descend into madness.

"I know," Dean growls in a loud voice and then tries to calm himself, "what you asked. I don't have an answer."

"Were you happy when my daughter thought that you and I were dating?"

"I don't know," Dean answers, trying not to do so sharply. "Is that why you fell off the wagon?"

"Yes." The answer is quick and slaps Dean like an iceberg across his cheek.

"I ain't worthy of you?" Dean asks, the weariness evidence in his voice, his hands clenched and ready to pummel a wall, a window, anything that isn't Castiel's face. The anger, the pain, they're all there- right underneath the surface.

"That's not what I said at all," Castiel rises, facing Dean. His face is serene. It does not calm Dean down. "I did not know what I felt for you then. I was so afraid. It feels so late in my life to start something new." Dean's fist shakes as Castiel lays a hand over one. "Why are we both so afraid?"

"A relationship with two addicts in it is doomed to failure," Dean says from rote- one of the only things that he's learned from any of the books or pamphlet nonsense that stuck.

"What if we're the exception?"

"Don't do this, Cas. Don't hitch up to my wagon."

"I believe it's too late for such things, Dean Winchester. Please, kiss me again."