Interlude

"Sammmoooo."

"Wow." Sam scoffs. "Did you get drunk or did you get roofied? Jesus."

"Fuck." Dean says, apropos of nothing. "Is it Nofemder third yet?" He slurs.

All the humor falls out of Sam's face. "Forty minutes, man. Not much longer."

Dean nods lazily. He feels something heavy on his chest and realizes belatedly that Sam is tucking him into bed - he allows it, but keeps his grip on the bottle of cheap scotch clutched in his left fist. He tries to muster a frown in what he thinks is probably Sam's general direction for trying to take it. The wall looks strange.

"Shit." Dean says to himself, sitting up in bed and throwing his feet down onto the sand. "CAS. HEY. CAS. C'mon dude I know you can hear me." He shouts to nothing. "Why didn't you tell me how much easier this is when I'm drunk?"

"What did you think?" Cas' face, suddenly present, is a portrait of irritation. "That I would advise you to consume more alcohol?"

"Whoa." Dean's mouth drops into a drunken smile. "Haha dude, look at you, being all emotional and shit."

"Did you believe that I was devoid of feelings?" The muscles in his jaw twitch. He looks like a man interrupted mid-dinner by an especially persistent telemarketer. "Because I assure you that I am perfectly capable of both annoyance and disappointment."

"Hey, man." Dean starts to tip backwards and tries to play it off like he meant all along to sit down on the sand really hard. "Don't be a dick."

"Drinking will not improve your skills." Castiel points out.

"Fuck you, you know that?" Dean drops his head between his knees, examining individual grains. "Do you even know what today is?"

"I don't see... It's November Sec-" He stops, having just discreetly plucked the thought out of the sea air. Cas' voice drops to a mutter as he shuffles in his shoes through the sand toward Dean. He picks up the last bit, "...Inventing an arbitrary calendar and then using it as an excuse to poison yourselves..."

Cas reaches down, but Dean sees where he's going with this instantly and crabwalks backwards. "Uh-uh." Dean negates. "No way man. You're not taking this from me."

"Dean, just let me..." He takes another step, but when Dean imagines the sand shifting beneath his feet, Cas isn't quick enough to catch himself before he tumbles forward to his hands and knees on the beach. Anger flashes through him, real anger, and everything in him wants to scold Dean, to frighten him, to remind him who he is talking to.

But he doesn't.

"Yo. You touch me, my blood alcohol content drops to zero, I feel stuff." Dean explains, seemingly oblivious. "If I wanted to feel stuff I wouldn't have drunk all that shit in the first place."

"I would like to remind you that I am not some kind of repository for your complaints, and, nor am I obliged to come running every time you want an audience for a drunken fit." Cas' voice is steady as he stands and dusts the sand from his slacks, taking a moment to collect himself.

Dean smells something in the air, like ozone, and he knows what it means. "No no no don't go don't go." He leans forward from his position on the ground and grabs Cas' hand, tugging on it but not trying to stand. Warm. "You can... sober me or whatever."

Despite the fact that Cas has no need to breathe at all, he huffs out a sigh. He thinks of something his brother once told him, an echo of their father, some memory of a memory, a dark and distant clutch at something inside him, a reminder: The moment when they are the least deserving of our love is the moment when they need it most.

In one fluid motion, Cas deposits himself cross-legged on the sand. Tentatively, he reaches out to Dean's forehead and watches him wince as his hand makes contact.

Dean drops his head low and at first, Cas thinks he is coughing, but then he sees it - the tear that wets the shore beneath it.

Dean is crying. "Sammy doesn't-" His breath hitches. "He was too young. He doesn't remember things. He doesn't know, you know, that moment when you realize you're never gonna see them again. Never gonna hear her humming along with the radio when she's mashing potatoes, never gonna come home on your bike and see her in the garden wearing those stupid flower pants and straw hat, never gonna have somebody to... to talk to again. Somebody who'll just listen."

Cas has to search the whirl of thoughts and memories to realize that somebody who'll listen is a contrast to his father - associations of fear and judgment stick firmly to thoughts of him.

"I'm sorry." Dean takes a deep breath. Get a hold of yourself, he thinks. The things this dude has probably seen, why would he give a shit about some guy's dead mom? He swallows the lump in his throat. "You're right. I shouldn't be complaining to you. I don't know what the hell you guys think I'm gonna be good for." I'm a fucking idiot.

The tide has come in, and the ocean has nearly reached the place where they're sitting.

"I am not trying to be intrusive." Cas says, "But some of your thoughts are very loud."

"Oh yeah?" The idea earns a little laugh from Dean. He almost doesn't care - how much worse could it get than what he'd said aloud?

"You are not an idiot."

"Now I wish I still was drunk." Dean says, trying to shake off the touchy-feelies. "At least I'd have an excuse."

"What do you need to excuse?" Cas has difficulty parsing this.

Dean isn't sure if Cas is being polite, or if his years of practice at keeping his poker face have paid off. He looks up to find Cas searching his face. Dean isn't sure when he started searching back, but at some point the ocean of his dream has changed colors - no longer tinged with tropical green, but a rich crystal blue, sort of like... stop.

"You don't need to stay here." Dean mutters, looking out at the waves.

"No, I don't." Cas shifts his weight to sit next to Dean and watch the tide with him, so unapologetically close that their legs nearly touch.

Dean almost tells him to back off. Almost tells him it's not normal, that two dudes don't sit like this. Almost, but not quite - the warmth at his side is an unexpected comfort that holds his broken parts together far better than the tenuous glue of cheap scotch.

"To be honest," Dean says, "I feel like I'm off the edge of the map here."

"I am not sure if this will make you feel any better," Cas qualifies, "but you aren't alone."

"Hey drunky." Sam is nudging his shoulder - he is showered and dressed and packed already. "Wake up. We gotta check out."

"I'm up, I'm up." Dean groans.

"How bad is it?" Sam ventures. He had slept uneasily himself and woke several times in the night to make sure Dean was breathing.

In fact, Dean is not hungover, not even sore. He would even go so far as to say he feels better than on an average morning. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to have this conversation with Sam right now though, with regards to why, so he just grunts noncommitally as he gathers his things.

In the coming weeks when Castiel does not visit Dean's dreams, he will try not to be disappointed. He will try not to give in to prayer, but he will fail, and when he receives no answer still, he will remind himself that this is how it has always been, that it shouldn't hurt any more than it always has.

Shoulds and shouldn'ts will offer him little comfort, however, and by the time he and Sam venture to Concrete, Washington, he will be drinking every night before he sleeps, in hopes that Castiel will show up at least to lecture him.

It will make Castiel feel no better, to distance himself, but he recognizes the danger in what had crept into the little space between them on the beach, and the tired ache that grows like a seed inside him when he hears his name and cannot answer will only confirm to him that he is making the right decision. There is too much at stake to take risks.