Dean settled himself against his pillow, on his back, a hand behind his head. He closed his eyes, set for sleep. This bed was more comfortable the second time around, and was more comfortable than he had initially assumed it would be. He wondered if Cas's bed was comfortable and he hoped it was. He hoped it was comfortable enough for Cas to sit in, curled up in his blanket, reading late into the night if he wanted to, on nights where it wasn't past midnight when he went to bed.

He really was worried about tomorrow, though. What they'd do. He assumed Cas would be busy some of the morning whether it was before Dean was awake or after, so that was good for him and Dean was thankful it wouldn't inconvenience him at all; he didn't mind spending a while in his sleeping attire after waking up if he didn't have anything big to do that day. He was glad that the mornings and nights didn't seem to be hard, so far, although they'd only been through one morning and two nights.

Maybe tomorrow he'd do some laundry. He had a few things that needed washing. Socks and underwear and clothes he'd worn two or three times now. And bringing up salt and a few weapons for just in case, that was another thing. They still had one free under-worktop cupboard. And … he could bring up some of his tapes, from the car, to listen to music. Of course, they didn't have a stereo, and a lot of those these days didn't come with slots for tapes …

Aha. He had an iPod, though. He used it back at the bunker to listen through music through headphones in his room, or to block out noises in motels. It had all of his favorite playlists from his tapes. Maybe he could look for one of those speaker things that could connect to it and play the music, so he could listen to it without having to carry around a thing in his pocket with headphones that, when too loud, stopped him from being able to hear things in the background, like if Cas talked to him or something while he was listening.

So now he had an excuse to go out. Cas could come if he wanted to, but if not, that was cool. Dean could bring him back some subway for lunch if he didn't come, or they could go to subway if he did. Dean had spotted a subway when out today.

Good, this was good. He was figuring out things to do now that he knew Cas was down for whatever. He was becoming less worried about a dull day of nothingness.

But there was always the day after.

And the day after that.

And even the day after that.

The ghost took month long breaks between appearances. Dean had accepted that when they'd come, prepared to be here for that length … but maybe he should do some more research, go back on those websites and dig a little deeper. He'd do it tomorrow, when Cas was done with his laptop. There was no rush – not until he ran out of things to do. It's not like the ghost was going to show up tonight or tomorrow.

Everything was going to be fine. It's not like he was trying to get away from being here with Cas, he liked that part, it was just the occupying his time that was so–

Bang bang bang.

Dean sat up straight in bed, looking towards the door. He jumped to his feet automatically when he heard a similarly violent banging a little farther away. It was definitely somewhere outside the door, seemingly moving down the hall.

'Dean?'

Dean turned, seeing Cas had emerged behind him.

'It was out there,' Dean explained, knowing that Cas was questioning.

'Should we …?'

'Probably,' Dean nodded, heading over to the light switch to switch it on. He looked back at Cas worriedly, then remembered the sofa bed. 'If anyone sees and asks, we were both sleeping in that.'

'Got it,' Castiel nodded, confirming he understood as he joined Dean by the door.

There were some footsteps outside and the sound of another door opening as Dean unlocked and then opened the door.

There was no one there. But on the door, there was a black, gooey handprint.

The same black goo was on the floor, heading down in a line along the hallway. They could see they weren't alone, every one of the tenants who lived along this hallway was peeking out of their doors cautiously.

'MY SLIPPERS!' came a cry from down the hallway, someone evidentially having stepped in the goo.

'Dean,' Cas said quietly, leaning close to him so only he would hear, 'it's ectoplasm.'

'Looks like it,' Dean breathed back. 'Go get some tissue. I have a kit in the car we can use to analyze that stuff if I can figure out how to work it.'

Castiel nodded and slipped back inside while Dean took another step out into the hallway, avoiding the goo. Everyone who lived on that hallway seemed to look lost, and Dean was lost with them. Maybe if they all went inside, he and Cas could have a go at searching around … damn the inconvenience.

'Do we call the building manager?' Dean heard someone down the hall ask. 'Or the janitorial staff?'

'The building manager, I reckon,' said Dave, the bear, their next door neighbor. 'Looks like someone playing a prank.'

'I'll go,' Dalia volunteered from a few doors down, as Cas appeared at Dean's side again and slipped him the tissue unnoticed. 'We're good friends.'

'Tell her someone was knocking on our back wall,' someone encouraged.

Knocking. Dean glanced at Cas, who raised her eyebrows.

'Yeah, someone was knocking on our wall too,' Dean added. 'Not our back wall, the one across from the bedroom.'

'The hollow wall?' Dalia asked, stepping out farther, to be able to face Dean from several feet away.

'That's hollow?'

'Oh yes. There's lots of hollow space on every floor, only in the end apartments, for storage they said, but they never got round to building any of it so it's just hollow pathways around the entire building and spaces by the end apartments.'

'That would explain … something,' Castiel muttered, stepping closer to Dean again so no one else could pick up on what he was saying.

'Then yeah,' Dean confirmed, giving Cas a miniscule nod while acting as though he was still addressing only Dalia. 'Someone was doing that.'

'But how did they get in the walls?' Dave asked.

'There's a door in the parking structure,' someone else explained. 'A long stairway, leads right up into the walls of the building and goes the whole way round. I asked, once. They said the door was locked up but if someone found a way to break in …'

Or float through the wall, Dean thought.

'I'll go,' Dalia decided. 'I'll go now, I'll tell her. Won't be long.'

Dalia headed down the hallway, avoiding the goo, and everyone watched her until she was out of sight.

The two unknown voices – a couple presumably, from 4-A – came farther out into the hallway and bent to the floor, examining the stuff on the ground. While Dave wandered over to that couple, Dean bent down and dipped the tissue in the black goo. It looked like ectoplasm, and certainly felt like it. He took the stuff inside and placed it on the kitchen table, while Cas waited for him in the hallway. As Cas waited, Dave made his way over.

'Was there really knocking on the wall?' he asked curiously.

'At four last night,' Castiel confirmed. 'It stopped when we banged on the wall.'

'That's so weird. Not the best impression to get of this place for your first night here. Or your second,' he added as an afterthought.

'I've experienced worse,' Castiel answered truthfully, then untruthfully added, 'we moved from a bad area. This … is nothing compared to that.'

'Gun shots, people getting stabbed on street corners,' Dean listed off imaginary problems with where they'd once lived. 'The occasional scream.'

'Any murders, though?' asked one of the tenants from 4-A. She was a young woman, possibly late twenties or early thirties, with one side of her hair cropped short and the other combed over and long, like a side mullet.

'A few,' Dean nodded.

'There was an alleyway next to the building,' Castiel invented. 'A lot of people were killed there.'

'Cops at the door every night,' Dean added. 'Our window overlooked the alley.'

'It was always a crime scene. We had to walk past that every day.'

'Started to feel like FBI agents after a while, visiting a crime scene day in and day out,' Dean joked, sharing a knowing glance with Cas in jest of the impersonating FBI agents that came with the job.

'Oh boy,' muttered the other unknown tenant, whose hair was violently blue with messy curls on top that fell across her forehead, and shaved sides. Dean started to gain a new appreciation for the eccentric West Hollywood style. 'Then this must seem like a treat compared to that.'

'It's practically a vacation,' Dean confirmed.

'Oh, god,' they heard a familiar voice, a new arrival groan. 'This … I'm so, so sorry, all of you.'

They turned to see Harri had arrived, Dalia at her side, Dalia looking disappointed in the state of the ground and Harri looking horrified by it.

'See anyone around, Harri?' asked blue hair.

'No one but Indie Ass in the lobby coming back from a gig, so I doubt it was her,' Harri muttered, tutting as she walked along the hallway.

Dean resisted the urge to laugh at the name "Indie Ass" and how much it sounded like "in the ass."

'We asked Indie if she'd seen anyone,' Dalia chipped in. 'But she'd only just arrived when we left Harri's apartment. Late gig. Broke a heel, so if she had seen anyone she would have been too preoccupied to notice.'

'We'll find the culprit,' Harri promised. 'We'll … install cameras if we have to, after all these incidents it's about time we did. I'll talk to the board. And I'll have this mess and all of your doors cleaned up by the time you wake up – I'm sorry for all of this. Please, all of you, go back to bed … except you two, if you don't mind. And Piper, Dani, you might want to stay up a little longer. I'll be wanting to talk to you two, too. But first …'

She was talking about Dean and Cas, of course, gesturing the two of them.

The rest of the tenants thanked her and wished her a goodnight, the two now-named from 4-A promising they'd be up, and they disappeared.

'Dalia told you about the knocking?' Dean asked.

If there was something in the walls, it was best everyone know for their own safety, which is why he'd asked Dalia to tell Harri in the first place.

'She did,' Harri confirmed. 'We'll be having the door down in the parking lot checked and relocked if necessary. Do you mind showing me where exactly the knocking was?'

'Sure, sure,' Dean nodded.

Dean gestured inside, allowing Harri in first. He followed, glancing back at Cas warily as they did so.

'No bed yet?' Harri assumed, noting the sofa bed open.

'No, we go that,' Dean told her, 'we just got a little … occupied out here tonight.'

Fuck. That sounded like they'd started fucking on the couch.

'Movie night,' Castiel added.

Thank goodness for Cas.

'Ah, clever,' Harri grinned. 'Prepared for anything, I see. You've settled in well.'

'Well, we worked hard to get everything set up,' Dean shrugged.

'The knocking was just there,' Castiel pointed out, as they approached the stretch of wall.

'Here?'

'Right about where you're touching,' Dean told her, nodding at where her hand was. 'It stopped when Cas banged on the wall and then I asked for whoever it was to stop. We assumed it was a neighbor, but if it's hollow there …'

'Maybe Dave next door was getting up to something?' Harri suggested, Dean impressed by how she seemed to know everyone in the building. Then again, that was her job.

'That's what we thought,' Dean told her, 'but it couldn't have been. Whoever it was, they apologized. And it sounded female, not like Dave at all.'

'And whoever it was was whistling, too,' Castiel added.

'Oh yeah,' Dean agreed, 'I forgot that part.'

A whistling, knocking, apologizing ghost. Huh … well, Dean had come across weirder hauntings in his time. And poltergeists usually did some strange things … so, if it was a poltergeist who turned vengeful upon seeing something it didn't agree with … that seemed about right.

'We'll definitely check it out,' Harri promised. 'And keep an eye out for a female – though you never do know in this building. I'm sorry your night's been disturbed.'

'It's fine,' Dean assured her.

'We were up later last night anyway,' Castiel furthered. 'And we're self-employed so if we sleep late it won't matter.'

'Lucky,' Harri laughed. 'Tomorrow I'll be exhausted, but that's the price I have to pay to keep everyone happy. I'll leave you to your cozy little set up now.'

'I'll walk you out,' Dean offered.

She bid both of them goodnight at the door, Cas not quite going the whole way to the exit with her and Dean, and then the door was shut and locked and it was just the two of them again, Dean groaning as he went over to his bed and sat down. Castiel, assuming they weren't done, stayed where he was, lingering by the wall, near the passage which contained the other two doors.

'So, this thing is getting active,' Dean put out there, not liking where this was going, worrying for the safety of others in the building.

'Is there any way we can trap it without it being blatantly obvious?'

'The only way we could is with salt traps throughout the building. In the walls too or something. I think that'd be a giveaway.'

'It seems to be targeting us,' Castiel pointed out, walking farther into the room with his arms folded. 'It knocked on our wall. It banged on our door first, then targeted the rest of those in our part of the building. So we may be on the right track, if it's selected us as its next victims.'

'We may be here for a shorter time than we thought we would if that's the case,' Dean agreed with him. Dean noticed his hovering and gestured for him to come closer. 'But at the same time that means the thing's speeding up. Not good, if we fail at stopping it. It could move on to someone else pretty quickly, maybe even someone else on our floor.'

'I don't want that to happen,' Castiel groaned, going to stand near where Dean was sitting, not stepping up onto the raised platform until prompted, then sitting next to Dean when gestured for him to do that, too. 'So far, I like everyone who lives on this hallway. And I really like that woman's hair.'

'Side mullet or blue curls?' Dean asked.

'Blue curls,' Castiel replied. 'Very bright. The majority of humans I've encountered seem so dull compared to her, with her expressive hair.'

'Are you calling me dull?' Dean challenged, folding his arms and looking at Cas with the most offended look he could muster.

'Of course not,' Castiel insisted. 'That's not what I meant. What I'm saying is, these people seem nice, good, undeserving of this. And the one with the side mullet was wearing slippers which got ectoplasm all over them, which is unfair enough. They don't need a ghost adding to their problems.'

'No, no one needs that,' Dean agreed. 'Not them, not anyone else, not this "Indie Ass" person they were talking about. That thing should just come at us. We'll be ready for it. I've got two sacks of salt in the car and I'll bring up one of them tomorrow when I go to get that kit to test the ectoplasm, just to make sure it's what it looks like or see how high it rates on the scale.'

'What scale?' Castiel asked curiously.

'Basically the higher it rates, the stronger the thing is,' Dean told him. 'Like, the more manifested and dangerous it is. It's like an EMF reading. If it's a fifty, there might be something in the corner but it might just be a powerline outside. If it's a hundred, then there's something right next to you.'

'What about an EMF reader?' Castiel decided suddenly. 'We could attempt to track a reading.'

'We could,' Dean nodded, 'but it'd have to be at night, so we don't look suspicious.'

'And it would have to be soon, before the possible impending cameras are installed.'

'So … tomorrow night?' Dean asked.

'That sounds like a plan,' Castiel agreed.

'I've got a new EVP reader too,' Dean told him, 'that picks up on random words any spiritual entities around us are trying to communicate with. Kinda creepy, could be helpful. Maybe it'll say something that could link us to an object or a person it's here because of.'

'If you think that'll help, I think we should try,' Castiel decided, sounding determined, and more like a hunter with each passing breath, which made Dean proud of his progress. Another thing that Dean was glad of, was a certain plan, a plan of action, a step towards getting rid of this thing or at least finding out more about it.

'We should keep an eye out too,' Dean muttered, sighing, sounding tired. 'For anything weird. Vanishing human-like things. Mist. Lights flickering.'

'Cold spots,' Castiel added.

'That too,' Dean agreed. 'You know, typical haunting stuff even though this place doesn't look like your typical haunting spot.'

'It seems too bright for a haunting,' Castiel frowned. 'Too … happy. Everyone I've met here seems to be either very perky, very friendly or have very bright hair.'

'Not to mention the slippers,' Dean reminded him.

'The destroyed slippers,' Castiel pointed out.'

'Because when mysterious black goo appears outside of your door in the middle of the night, the first thing you wanna do is worry about your slippers,' Dean joked. 'Because priorities.'

'To be fair, they were shaped and modelled after dogs.'

'Oh, well if dogs are involved,' Dean fake-gasped, pretending to be horrified. He sighed. 'Look, there's nothing else we can do right now. Nothing we can do until tomorrow night. So until then we should just continue as if nothing strange happened.'

'Alright.' Castiel sighed at the thought, getting to his feet. 'In that case I should go back to bed.'

'Yeah, me too,' Dean agreed, then remembering his bed he suddenly recalled, 'and nice save with that whole mentioning the movie thing as a reason for this bed being out.'

'It's fine,' Castiel shrugged. 'I was able to think fast. I could tell that you thought what you said sounded inappropriate so I had to chip in.'

'Well, thank you.'

'You're welcome. Now goodnight.'

'Night.'

Cas headed back towards his bedroom, beginning to feel tired again after feeling so alert in the face of a possible emergency that had started with banging and ended with more progress towards their goal here. He had to admit he was a little disappointed by how quickly things were going in the sense that they'd be here for a shorter time, but he couldn't be selfish in that way. It was definitely a good thing. The progress would get them out of here faster, getting everyone else out of danger more quickly.

Less danger was better for everyone.

Dean waited until he heard Cas's door close to relax and fall back into bed, throwing the covers over himself once again. He fathomed the thought that Harri still probably thought they'd been fucking. Why else would they be staying in the bed in the living room? Why not move to the bedroom when the movies ended, unless they got preoccupied and fell asleep afterwards?

He wondered briefly whether Cas was a top or a bottom, or if he even knew what that meant. He'd be a top, surely. He was this … this badass, commanding, and when he got dominant he got scary, and to imagine him applying the dominance he had when he took charge to a sexual situation …

Despite his tiredness, Dean felt his dick twitch into attention, just once, not enough to alarm him, but enough to make him remember this wasn't the first time that had happened today. He glanced towards Cas's bedroom door, swallowing hard.

Or, not hard. Trying not to get hard. But he definitely wasn't soft.

He should not be thinking about Cas like this. But he was.

It's not like … it meant … he had a thing for him. Things constituted feelings, which he most certainly did not have for his friend. An attraction towards, purely circumstantially, purely physical …

No, he couldn't. He didn't.

He did.

Okay, but he could deal with that. It's not like he wanted Cas to fuck him, or anything. He just … was aroused by … certain thoughts. That he could make go away if he just …

One time. Just one time.

But it was almost one in the morning.

But still, his lube was in his third bag, with his other personal material belongings, and he kept that bag flattened as much as he could flatten it and slid under the sofa. He'd told Cas it just contained a few pictures and a few spare chargers and phones and the money, but it also contained his lube, and some other things that he really didn't need to have brought, but out of habit he did.

Dean sighed.

He would give in one time. He would be was quick and as quiet as he possibly could. He would lock himself in the small bathroom. And then he would forget this incident ever happened.

Just to get it out of his system.

Dean was at the bathroom door by the time he remembered Cas was just across a narrow stretch of floor, behind another closed door, sleeping or not sleeping or whatever he was doing.

Very quiet. And very quick …

When Dean woke in the morning, it was to silence. It was late morning, light attempting to penetrate through the black curtains. He groaned, stretching as he lay, pushing his hands above his head, arching his back and he collapsed back down feeling better. Then, with another groan, he pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, supposing he'd better get up and get the bed tucked away before Cas got up.

Cas …

He started to have a guilty feeling about his activities last night. Two days. He had lasted two days living with Cas before violating the thought of him. Returning to the scene of the crime to use the bathroom – perfectly innocently, no funny business – almost made him shudder as he thought about what he'd done. He refused to think about the good aspect of it, because then he might do it again, and he couldn't let that happen.

To try and make up for it, he'd make Cas breakfast. Good breakfast. They'd bought multiple boxes of different cereal, but Dean had also grabbed things to make a decent breakfast if he wanted it. He had bacon and he had eggs, so he made a start at frying those and set up the coffee maker to make a pot. If Cas wasn't up before the stuff cooled, he could reheat the food and make a fresh pot of coffee no problem.

Castiel emerged when Dean turned off the hob, sliding the frying pan onto the one next to it to avoid burning the food. Dean could barely look at him, but he forced himself to look up and smile in greeting as he crept out, looking as though he were checking if it was safe, still in his night things with his robe hanging loosely off of him, a shirt underneath it this time though.

'You're up,' Castiel stated, confirming Dean's checking-suspicion. 'I wasn't sure.'

'Yeah,' Dean confirmed, 'and I made breakfast. Feel like bacon and eggs? The toast'll be done in a minute.'

'Sure,' Castiel nodded. He didn't seem to sense that Dean had done what he'd done last night before falling asleep, falling asleep quite easily afterwards actually. 'I've been awake for a while too. I finished with your laptop. I'll go get it and bring it out.'

'Breakfast will be on the table when you get back out here,' Dean promised, Castiel giving him a tight-lipped smile of thanks as he turned to return to his room.

Interaction number one post-sinful-act had gone smoothly.

Not the act in itself was something be ashamed of, hell, Dean did it all the time and didn't care who knew, it was the thinking about Cas part that made him momentarily wish he'd been born without a dick. Of course, that wish went away seconds later, but still … it was the thought that counted. The thought that showed how sorry he was for doing that to Cas … though Cas had no idea.

Behind his back, a thought in Dean's head hissed. Even worse.

Dean couldn't figure out what aspect of it all was bothering him so much. Cas would never know. It should be forgotten, one moment of weakness.

This would be the last time he thought about Cas while doing that for sure this time. He knew he said that every time he'd done this in the past, but this time he meant it.

Cas came back before Dean even had time to back and pour them some coffee after he put the plates of bacon and eggs on the table.

'You can leave it on the table,' Dean told him as he approached. 'I'm going to use it later. More research on the building site.'

Castiel nodded in understanding and set the laptop down on the table, a good distance between it and the plate Dean gestured, which already had a knife and fork next to it. Cas sat down where Dean had gestured, looking back at Dean as he began to pour coffee.

'So it's true,' he stated. 'You can cook.'

'You think I'd lie to you?' Dean asked, eyebrows raised, then he remembered well … yeah.

'You have before,' Castiel pointed out. 'You lie frequently. To everyone.'

'Yeah, I realized that just after I asked the question,' Dean mumbled, trying not to think about the various times he'd lied to Cas or to Sam or both, or to other people, or even to himself. 'But while we're here I'm doing this thing where I'm trying not to lie to you.'

He put their coffee on the table and then headed back over to the toaster, which had just popped and demanded his attention.

'While here, you're avoiding lying to me but spending the entire time lying to Sam. Got it.'

'Hey, I don't like lying to Sam,' Dean frowned at him when returning with a plate of several slices or buttered toast, which he placed between them, 'but I have to. It's sort of the reason for my survival following the end of this. I'm hoping you don't actually want me to be tortured completely ruthlessly by Sam for the foreseeable future, do you?'

Castiel paused, frowning, He took a deep breath and took a drink of his coffee, delicately picking up his fork afterwards.

'How foreseeable?' he asked.

Dean glared at him. He knew he was joking, he always knew when he was joking, he always appreciated his jokes because they were so new and so rare and so precious except for what the fuck, he just used the word "precious" to describe something Cas did and wanted to shoot himself in the face.

Last night had really fucked him up.

'The rest of my life foreseeable,' he answered, trying to forget his thoughts.

'So, not long then.' Castiel commented, looking at Dean smugly from under his lashes, only for a second as he was cutting some bacon and seemed to be more interested in that.

Dean's automatic response to someone, to anyone else would be "I hate you" but with Cas, he held his tongue. As far as he could tell Cas didn't have the highest opinion of himself, so for Dean to say those words to him certainly wouldn't help him. He might even think they were true, even if Dean made sure to mention he was joking, that he didn't mean it, that frankly he did the opposite of hating Cas whatever that was.

'You're hilarious,' Dean stated in a dead voice.

'But in actuality,' Cas said, switching back to his normal, not sarcastically-joking self, 'you know I respect your wishes and anything said or done here will never get back to Sam. At least not through me.'

'Yeah,' Dean nodded, 'I know.'

Castiel smiled encouragingly, a smile Dean knew he could trust.

'You really can cook,' Castiel repeated. 'You can cook well. Thank you for this, Dean.'

Dean grinned lazily across at him, glad to see Cas enjoying something of his creation.

'Just don't expect it every day,' he warned. 'Today is just … a day we'll need good breakfast on if we're going to spend tonight ghost hunting and shit.'

'That sounds like a good reason for this,' Castiel replied. 'But don't worry. I won't get used to it. We got several different brands of cereal and I plan on trying all of them.'

'Good,' Dean replied with a curt nod, but broke out into a small smile afterwards. 'Maybe we can make this a Sunday thing.'

'That sounds like a good weekly tradition to have.'

'Then it's settled. We'll do it.'

Dean wondered if suggesting that he cook breakfast every Sunday was a little too domestic, but it was a good thing to do if a casual conversation ever came up with a neighbor about little rituals in their relationship. Of course, it was also something that could easily be made up in a situation like that, if a situation like that were ever to come up (which Dean honestly doubted) but … damn it, he liked seeing Cas enjoying himself and he liked being the reason for Cas's enjoyment, and that wasn't weird because friends like making friends happy, a perfectly normal part of friendship …

As the meal between friends progressed, Dean discovered he was able to think less and less of last night, focusing more on how Cas was now. He seemed to be pretty relaxed this morning, his movements easy and fluid without some of the stiffness that was often in his movements. He also seemed to be observant, watching Dean's movements sometimes, but Cas was often observant, and Dean never minded being the subject of his curious gaze. Though Cas usually stared pretty openly … today, whenever Dean caught him looking, Cas flickered his eyes away.

And then Dean realized he was staring, and looked away too.

Dean had noticed Cas's slow progression into comfort over the past few days. First there was talking more. Then there was smiling more. And now, there was more free-seeming movement. He wondered what the next step was, or if this was the finishing line.

After breakfast, Dean decided to open the curtains and do the dishes including yesterday's mugs and the glasses from the day before and of course the spoons they'd used for ice cream and frozen yogurt over the past two days. That gave Cas time to go get dressed and ready for the day, emerging again fully dressed and smelling of deodorant when Dean was drying everything and putting it all away, from the frying pan right down to the last spoon.

'Reading, huh?' Dean asked, noticing Cas was holding a book when he came out and trying not to let Cas know that he also noticed his top two buttons of his casual greyish flannel weren't done up.

'I thought I'd go outside and see what it's like out there at this time of day,' Castiel told him. 'I was going to bring back Dalia's basket first thing today, but I don't know whether she'd be up after last night, so I'll do it later. She mentioned the bakery is closed on Sundays so she'll probably be home.'

'Good idea,' Dean nodded, watching his movements as he seemed to look sort of just … casual. But more casual casual than Cas casual. There was something different about him and something more different creeping in each day yet he couldn't pinpoint it. 'How far are you in the book?'

'Joffrey is showing his true colors,' Castiel replied with some distaste. 'And Arya's friend is dead.'

'Yikes,' Dean flinched, recalling that it was only going to get worse for everyone. 'Good luck. And enjoy … if you can.'

'I think I can manage to get some enjoyment out of it,' Castiel replied, heading towards the doors. As Dean watched his back, he noted how well Cas's clothes suited him. 'So long as I don't get attached to any minor characters. Like Sansa and Arya's direwolves.'

He said the last word bitterly and Dean suddenly remembered that the book hadn't been too kind to the animals in it.

'It's completely cool if thousands of humans die in books,' Dean sighed overdramatically, 'but when they touch the pets it's just not fair.'

'Sansa's wolf was innocent.'

'I know.'

'And Arya's was only trying to protect her.'

'I know.'

Castiel groaned.

'It's going to get worse, isn't it?'

Any other day Dean would have responded sympathetically, but today, with the little dynamic they had going here, he grinned at him with somewhat evil tendencies and replied, 'oh yeah.'

Castiel's eyes rolled upwards in announce as he turned back towards the doors, turned the key and went outside closing the door behind him. Dean grinned at his back, watching him walk over to the edge and look out into the distance, and turned just as Cas turned back to walk towards the seating.

In the bedroom after Dean got dressed, he gathered up his things he was going to throw in a wash and remembered fuck, we need a laundry basket. Every single time he went to do anything, there always something creeping up on him that he'd forgotten. He was beginning to think that by the time they'd finally gotten absolutely everything they needed, the case would be over and it'd be time to go. Then again, it was only day three.

He left the stuff he was going to wash in a pile by his shoes in the closet and headed out to the balcony, where Cas looked up at him in greeting with a little smile. Cas didn't usually greet by smiling and it sent a little jolt of happiness through Dean, compelling him to smile back.

'I need to go out,' Dean told him, forgoing a hello. 'We need a laundry basket. And there's some other things I need to get. Feel like coming or would you rather stay in?'

'I'd rather stay in,' Castiel admitted. 'I'm reading now and I was thinking about using your laptop again. There's something I'd like to … double check.'

'Want me to grab anything while I'm out?' Dean asked.

'Do you know how to clean shoes?' Castiel asked.

'Laundry detergent and water,' Dean answered him. 'Rub them out with a cloth.'

'Then I need a cloth.'

'Done. Anything else?'

Cas seemed to consider something, looking away like he was about to get lost in thought. When he looked back up he requested, 'headphones.'

'Is that all?'

'That's everything,' Cas verified. Then he hesitated again before speaking. 'If I'm not here when you get back, it might be because I remembered something else and went out to get it in a nearby store.'

'Don't get lost,' Dean joked, a reprise from yesterday.

'I'll try not to. Will you be gone long?'

'Maybe like an hour?' Dean assumed, shrugging. 'I know it hasn't been long since breakfast, but I was thinking I could pick us up something from subway on the way back. Lunch, y'know.'

'What's Subway?'

'They do like … long sandwiches. Six inch or twelve inch with meat and salads and sauces and stuff.'

'Then yes,' Castiel nodded eagerly, 'get that.'

'Anything in particular you want on yours?'

'Whatever you think is best for a first order at that place.'

Dean nodded in understanding, lingering longer than he needed to while looking at Cas, who looked back at him almost the entire time, his eyes flickering downwards away from his once or twice.

'See you later, then.'

'Yes. See you.'

Dean went back inside and closed the door behind him, thinking it was weird that he was leaving to do stuff, more stuff than just getting takeout menus, and he was leaving Cas behind and when he got Cas would be there, or not, because maybe Cas had things he wanted to do, then Cas would get back to him being there … it hadn't seemed so weird after his brief outing yesterday, but today it hit him hard.

They were living lives.

And Cas had a life too, his own thing to do. Dean frequently forgot that Cas had a life outside of him, personal things he needed or wanted to do. Cas had managed to make a life for himself after his brief stint at the bunker, albeit a low quality one. Cas did stuff. He ought to start giving him more credit for this whole humanity thing, not just being human, surviving human, but living human.

Like, Cas was a fully-fledged person with a life and likes and dislikes and wants and needs and opinions on stuff … he wasn't just that angel guy who he fought to protect and was in return protected by. He was a real, actual person that Dean was living with, and the sudden realization of that was a little if not a lot astounding.

Castiel continued to read for several minutes after Dean left. When he finished the chapter he was on, he closed the book and placed it on the table, taking a moment to walk to the edge of the balcony again and lean on the railing. He looked down, at everything below, and saw a few people walking around far below him. He looked up, and two stories above him saw the underside of another balcony, but the sky and sun still penetrated where he stood, despite the direct overhead cover.

Taking his book inside, he put it back in his bedroom, with the rest of the set, and walked back out into the main room. He was alone, completely alone, and Dean wouldn't be back for a while. Unlike the other few times he'd been left here alone, he had no task he needed to complete before he did … anything.

This morning had been good. An education of sorts. A casual little bout of research and video watching. It had been interesting, a little unpleasant at times, decent at others. He didn't see the huge appeal of pornography if all of it was so … eh. The women were false-looking and appeared to be screaming and the men were unnecessarily rough, and he didn't get any enjoyment out of it.

Experimenting was good, he doubted he'd have many means to do it once he got off of this case besides actually going out and doing it. It was good to put in at least a little research first.

He'd felt a little weird about looking up this stuff on Dean's laptop, even weirder than this morning. He didn't know why it felt so much stranger to type in "gay porn" rather than typing it without the first word this morning.

It was the same website as he'd looked at this morning, but a different selection of videos. All of them just men … with men. He scrolled through them, looking for one that didn't look too … bleh … and wasn't too long. He picked one that looked like it was decent quality, and wasn't too messy seeming or badly made, and clicked play.

This morning he'd had it on silent, but now that he was alone, he was able to have it on at a low volume. He'd asked Dean to buy him headphones, for possibly further experiments, so he could hear as well as see what was happening.

Speaking of "what was happening," what the fuck was happening here?

It had started, and they weren't having sex sex yet … but there was a man … with his face … in another man's ass. Well, that was certainly something new that Cas doubted he'd have learned about by actually going out and doing stuff for himself.

This proved to be less initially off putting and less boring than the male/female stuff. In fact, Cas found himself wanting to know what they were going to do next, leaning with his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he watched it playout.

Their faces seemed more natural than what he'd watched this morning. There was no screaming and their faces didn't look like they were screaming, they looked as though they might be getting some enjoyment out of it, but it still didn't look completely real.

It was when the guy who's ass had a face in it started whispering 'fuck me' that Cas felt his dick stand to attention, pressing against the fabric of his underwear causing an interesting and not unwelcome sensation. He tried to ignore it, continuing watching what was going on, one man whimpering and the other continuing to press his face into his ass, the camera panning closer and getting in at different angles and Cas saw that the reason the guy's face was in the mother guy's ass is because he was using his tongue on it. Cas made a note to google more on that particular action later.

It then cut rather suddenly to the actual fucking part.

The man who had been doing the licking was suddenly pushing into the other guy, and then they were off. This was definitely better than the stuff from this morning. He started feeling the urge from the other morning again, to press down on it, an urge which he gave into and was glad he did. Another minute or two later, and he paused what he was watching.

He needed to do this right, like he had in the shower the other morning. And this time he didn't have to take a shower, because he was alone, so he could spend as long as he wanted, well … wherever he wanted. But then without the water of the shower … it might not work so well. He needed some kind of lubricant to make things go better, because rubbing … sensitive areas dry didn't sound so pleasing.

So, he was going to have to go out after all. Clearly he wasn't going to use Dean's, that would be wrong on so many levels. So he closed out of the page, assuming he'd be able to find it pretty easily again, and turned off the computer. He figured a few minutes of distraction would calm him down enough to go out, so he walked around a little, trying not to think about what he'd watched, or about his nerves about the fact he was actually going out with the intention of buying lubrication to pleasure himself to homosexual pornography.

Thinking about what he was doing really didn't help the calming himself down thing. Or thinking about the fact that he wanted to do it, that didn't help either.

He tried to think of his cover. If Dean asked him if he'd gone out, he didn't want to lie, nor did he want to buy just that either. He assumed the grocery store would have it, or a drug store. He'd try the grocery store first, since it seemed like a good one and yesterday it had looked like it sold a lot of stuff one may need in any situation. And while he was there he could buy … something else. Like … a bag of pork rinds. They were out of those, he could tell Dean he'd wanted some … good cover.

Thinking about pork rinds and the task of purchasing them had gotten him calmed down, so he went into the bedroom to grab his wallet with the leftover money from the other day in it, his phone and his key to the apartment, putting them all in the pocket of his jacket which he pulled out of the closet, and then he headed out to face the streets of West Hollywood alone.

It was different here to all of the other places he'd travelled, things were more lively, the people almost happier seeming, louder, brighter, buildings and people and vehicles alike. And the crosswalk, that was the brightest of them all. He almost felt like a dark spot in this city of light when he thought about the lives of these people compared to his own.

His mission went successfully. When he returned to the apartment he left the bag of pork rinds on the table, opened them and took one just to look like he'd actually been eating them, and then he tore up the receipt and put that and the bag in the trash.

He took the lubrication into the bedroom in one hand, with the laptop in the other, and closed the door behind him. There was a lock on the door and he considered locking it, but then there was the curtains he'd have to close in case Dean got back and decided to go out onto the balcony, and he didn't want to seem suspicious. Besides, there would be an end result to this or so he presumed, that he'd want contained. In referral to the guy from the Gas 'n' Slip, Dean had mentioned using a tissue. That seemed like an idea. Or perhaps his shower towel. Dean had mentioned a laundry basket, which meant laundry, which meant it would get washed … and if he folded it right, hiding the evidence, Dean wouldn't notice when putting it in the machine.

This whole thing seemed to take a lot of planning, he thought, as he entered the bathroom and put the laptop and the lube on the closed toilet seat, trying to figure out his situation here. Maybe it would get easier with time, once he'd gotten used to doing this. Though that implied that there would be future occurrences of this … not that that was a bad thing, it was a human thing after all, a lot of people did it and there was nothing wrong with it. He shouldn't feel guilty about it, and he didn't. The guilt factor came into it only when recalling that he shared this bathroom with Dean, and this living space.

But Dean would never know.

He figured out his setup and sat down on the closed toilet lid to get back onto the site, the same video as before. As it started, he carefully balanced the laptop on the edge of the bathtub. He reached over and grabbed his towel, exactly where he'd left it, and laid it out on the floor in front of him. He undid he jeans and slid them down along with his underwear, but figured he'd better just take them off completely, remembering that it wasn't the easiest to control exactly where the spray went in the end. He kicked off his shoes too, and his socks because it was weird to wear socks but nothing else on his lower half, and he sat down on the toilet seat, cold against his bare skin.

He focused on what was playing on the monitor in front of him, rolling up his sleeves. He watched the things play out, familiar now, trying to actually imagine himself doing that. It seemed disgusting at first thought, considering that area and what it was generally used for … but if it was clean, and if there was no pesky hair there, and he knew for a fact the person had showered that day … and it was someone he liked, like really liked, who he found really attractive …

Some images flashed through his mind, and he could see it, and he felt it, and he reached for the lube.

Research followed the activity and the cleanup. For researching, he moved to the bedroom, and looked up all kinds of things. Like protection, which he'd learned in his recent life did not mean his angel blade. And he looked up specifics about the penetration part. How to know who puts what in where, doesn't it hurt, how to make it not hurt by preparation. He looked up the whole liking the asshole fiasco, seeing opinions on that and techniques and other things, then decided he was done, so he returned the laptop to the table and plugged it in because the battery had gotten low, then sat down to think.

So, this morning, he'd looked up stuff with men and women, and nothing. It had seemed … okay. And he'd thought about sex with April, kissing Meg and what she'd implied she wanted from him, but there was no true desire there, to go out and search for more of that in the world once he was free to do so. And then now, with men and men, that's what had sparked his interest. An interest strong enough to take pleasure from, to try and learn more about, to actually consider experimenting with in the future if he could just figure out … how to do that. Go to a bar or something. It seemed to work for Dean.

Maybe it was just because he'd been with a woman, and now he wanted to be with a man too, to compare the two. Or maybe it was just where his interests lay. It was too overwhelming to think about all that, about what he wanted or what he was. To delve into the topic of all that … sexuality and the different ones there were.

Maybe he could ask Dean later. If Dean would be open to that, that was. Dean seemed to be touchy about his own, and Cas wanted to ask how Dean knew his own …

He guessed he could approach the subject, and turn back if things seemed to be going wrong.

He sighed, checking the time. It was approaching one, so, figuring Dalia was up by now, he grabbed the basket her muffins had come in along with the cloth had covered them and headed out, towards her apartment. He hadn't noticed when he was intent on going to the store, but Harri had kept her word and the hallway and doors were all clean of the black goo, the black goo that was still on a tissue somewhere inside.

He put a smile for Dalia when he knocked the door, as she would most likely have one on when she answered, which it turned out she did. And then she invited him in, and that was that.

When Dean got back, it was to an empty apartment. He looked around for Cas upon entering, calling out for him just to be sure, but he was certain he was alone. Figuring Cas had gone out, he put the laundry basket down on the worktop and unloaded the things he'd gotten from within it; he put Cas's headphones and his cloth down together and put them to side, then went about putting away the other things he'd gotten. He hadn't ended up getting anything to plug his iPod into because he couldn't figure out what the fuck was up with those docking station things and speakers and all sorts of things, but he had managed to find a tape player which he'd been doubting he would, so he'd brought up a few of his favorite tapes too. He put the tape player and the tapes on the ping pong table, which seemed like a good place to keep them until they got around to using the ping pong table. And then he put the small sack of salt he'd brought up in the empty cupboard, all the ghost hunting equipment in with it, to be used later.

On top of everything else, he'd picked up subway, getting his favorite steak and cheese melt, plus the same for Cas, figuring he might like that, both of which had red onions and ranch dressing on them, because that's what Dean liked and he wanted to impart his impeccable taste in food – super fucking lame pun intended – on Cas.

He noticed an open bag of pork rinds on the kitchen table and he was pretty sure they'd run out of those, which made him note that Cas had been out once already. Huh. Maybe he'd forgotten something and had to go out again. Dean figured he'd be back.

Dean grabbed his sub and the bottle of coke he'd gotten with it as part of a meal deal and headed over to the table, to his laptop, all set to kill time with some research. Maybe there were unexplored parts of that news website he was on yesterday. So when he'd turned on his laptop and opened the browser, the WiFi connecting automatically, he headed into his history to search for the site he'd recognize by name, but couldn't recall the name of.

He was almost certain he'd opened the wrong person's history.

So, Cas didn't know about clearing his history, was the first thing that sprang to mind. The second thing was something along the lines of holy shit. Cas had been doing some research of his own which all seemed to stem from a video he'd been watching of–

Fucking hell.

Gay porn. Cas had been watching gay porn. The same video. Twice. Fucking. Hell.

The thought of Cas watching gay porn, or any type of porn at all for that matter, alone … wasn't something he wanted to think about because it might bring about a relapse of what he'd been up to last night before he went to sleep, alone in the small bathroom, thinking about Cas not watching the porn, but taking part in the acts … fuck …

He swallowed harshly, scrolling farther back, coming across Cas's earlier searches. He'd watched a few straight videos, too. So … this must have been what Cas meant by experimenting, then. Which he was entitled to do. Good for him.

But he sure as hell had done more research on the gay stuff than on the straight stuff. Not a single search after any of the straight videos.

Interesting.

Dean shifted in his seat.

He most certainly would not let Cas know he'd seen this, that he knew what he'd been looking up. He wouldn't ask Cas if he'd cleared his history, he wouldn't ask Cas if he'd opened anything in a private browser, he was just going to forget that he'd ever seen this … and scroll back farther, onto the news website, the one that had the news about the parking lot being made into apartments.

A steady twenty minutes of deeper research followed, and Dean was beginning to give up hope on finding anything. He'd never found a cleaner area, no dark spots on its past, even before it was a parking lot, when it was a full park with benches and palm trees and a fence around it. There wasn't even any significance to the statue on the fountain that used to be there – two silver figures, dancing together – which is what Dean was looking up when Cas returned, licking the frosting off of a cupcake in one hand, the other hand with a perfectly untouched one in it.

'Hey,' Dean greeted him, a little stiffly, recollections of his browser history shooting through his mind against his will.

'Hi,' Castiel replied, closing the door behind him. 'I was just giving Dalia back the basket and she invited me in and gave me coffee and cake. Then she gave us these.'

He held out the untouched cupcake and Dean took it from him, looking at the top. The frosting was white, creamy looking, with a small square of caramel on top. It looked good.

Dean wondered what the hand it had been held in had been doing while the owner of that hand was researching. Then he mentally slapped himself.

'I'll thank her next time I see her,' Dean told him, getting to his feet. He picked the caramel square up with his lips and back into his mouth, chewing it, swallowing before he said, 'got you subway. My favorite order. Sorry I was a little longer than I said I'd be, I was looking for something.'

Dean gestured his purchase on the coffee table and Cas turned to look at it, licking the frosting as he went, his tongue acting as a scoop for it which Dean tried not to watch, doing the same thing to his own cupcake. It wasn't overly sweet, it was thick feeling and had a great taste. Vanilla. And good.

'You can play your tapes indoors now,' Castiel noted, a hint of a smile coming over his face.

'Exactly.'

Castiel nodded approvingly.

'So, subway?' he asked. Dean grabbed it off the counter and handed it to him, a bottle of Pepsi (which he knew Cas liked) accompanying. 'Thank you.'

'No problem.'

Castiel moved towards the table, where he sat down across from where Dean had been working. Dean, trying to stop staring at him, his casual easy movements, his friendly manor, his frosting-licking tongue, went to return to his post behind his laptop.

'So, what did you do while I was out?' he asked Cas, who had put his cupcake down to open the subway bag and investigate.

'I read for a while,' Castiel answered truthfully, then the lies crept in. 'For a long while, actually. I used your computer to look up the correct pronunciation of some names to make sure I was saying them right. Then I went out and got pork rinds. When I got back, I had some, and then went to give Dalia back her basket. She invited me in and we talked for a while.'

He was good at lying. He had a good cover story for what he looked up, Dean noted. Interesting, very interesting.

'What did you two talk about?' Dean asked curiously, genuinely interested.

'About our next book,' Castiel answered. 'She asked, so I told her it's about a haunted apartment building and the chapter we're currently working on has the characters searching the building late at night for signs of ghost activity.'

'So you basically told her what we're doing tonight.'

'Yes.'

'Anything else?'

'She talked about her work for a while,' Castiel shrugged. 'It was all very … general. She said to tell you "hello" so … hello.' Then he paused, after taking another bite of his sub and said, 'this is very good.'

Dean laughed. He noted Cas had seemingly abandoned his now frosting-free cupcake in favor of what Dean had gotten him from subway and felt a jolt of pride in the fact that he'd gotten Cas something he liked.

'Glad you like it,' Dean grinned at him.

'So what did you do?'

'Bought what you can see,' Dean shrugged, gesturing the stuff. 'Your cloth is there, your headphones are there,' he swallowed, trying not to think about what Cas probably wanted them for, 'and I brought up the stuff we'll need tonight, plus a bag of salt. So we're all set.'

'And on that?' Cas asked, gesturing Dean's still open laptop in front of him.

Dean looked at the screen and sighed, then pressed the button to shut it off and closed the lid.

'Research,' he said flatly.

'And?'

'Literally nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'No hiding meaning in the fountain that used to be here. Still no sign of car accidents. And before part of it was made into a parking lot, it was a park, and no one so much as fell out of a freakin' palm tree.'

'So … the ghost is attached to a person, then,' Castiel replied thickly, Dean amused to see him talking as he ate, chewing actively, his eyes focused solely on his food. 'Like we thought yesterday.'

'Seems like it, yeah.'

Castiel sighed. Though his disappointment didn't seem to last long as he continued to focus on his food, thoroughly amusing Dean. Dean got to his feet with the wrapper from his cupcake, which he'd finished, to toss it in the trash. He looked back at Cas who by now, taking fucking enormous bites, was almost done.

'So you really like that, huh?' He watched as Castiel nodded and tried not to break out into a stupidly big smile at his enjoyment. 'Good. So,' he decided, grabbing the laundry basket, 'I'm going to do some laundry. Have you got anything you want me to wash?'

'My towel,' said Cas, swallowing. 'I used it to … uh, wipe something off my shoe that I stepped in while I was out. You shouldn't unfold it because the stuff I stepped in is on it.'

'Alright, where is it?'

'I left it folded carefully on my bed,' Cas told him. 'Don't unfold it.'

'You don't have to tell me twice,' Dean assured him, shuddering at the thought of what Cas could have stepped in.

Or what else he used that towel for, an evil menace in the back of Dean's head hissed.

He pushed that voice away. Nope. Not thinking about that.

Dean left Cas to finish his sub, not that he had much to finish, taking the basket with him. He put Cas's towel in, careful not to let it unfold. He put his stuff on top, grabbed detergent from the cupboard and went to leave.

'Wait,' Cas said quickly, standing up having just finished his food, throwing the wrappers in the trash, including the wrapper from his cupcake which he'd apparently just finished. 'Before you take the detergent, I need some. I'm going to clean my shoes now.'

Dean stopped, handing the detergent over to him, watching him soak his cloth in water and pour on some detergent, then hand the detergent back. Cas silently nodded that Dean cold go now, jerking his head towards the door. Dean nodded back and headed out, as Cas made his way to the bedroom to get his shoes.

The laundry room was empty when Dean got there, and the machines were big and fancy looking ones. He set everything on a regular cycle and made note of the time so he'd know when to come back – in approximately twenty minutes.

When Dean got back to the apartment, Cas was sitting on the couch, shoes in his lap, cloth rubbing them out. Dean went over to him, taking the seat next to him, now that he didn't have anything immediate to do. He'd take a break before deciding to check on that ectoplasm to see how high it rated on the scale in strength. He watched Cas a moment, then suddenly he was done.

'I'm leaving these outside to dry,' Castiel decided, standing up again.

Dean nodded, watching him do just that, leaving the shoes near the edge of the balcony. When he came in, he rinsed out the cloth, then took that outside to the shoes too, presumably to dry. And then he came back in, heading back over to the couch. He suddenly looked a little … well, less relaxed than he had a moment ago.

'Can I talk to you about something?' Cas asked, on route back to the couch to reclaim his seat next to Dean.

'Of course,' Dean frowned at him, wondering why he had to ask. 'What's on your mind, Cas?'

'It's … a topic you generally seem to have difficulty discussing,' Castiel admitted gingerly. 'And I wouldn't want to make you uncomfortable.'

'If you do, I'll stop you,' Dean assured him. 'Just go ahead. I'll steer you away from any dangerous territory.'

Dean watched him carefully. Watched how he took a break, steadied himself, readied himself. He had gone from easygoing to deadly serious in seconds, and Dean could tell this wasn't a spur of the moment thing, then. He swallowed, hoping it was something he could help with to the best of his abilities.

'There's something you told me,' Castiel began, eventually. 'Accidentally, yes, but you confirmed it. And we're been able to mention it a few times, even joke about it once in the sense that you're not an "outsider" here because of it. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?'

Dean felt his blood go cold and his cheeks attempt to grow hot simultaneously. Yeah, he knew what Cas was talking about, and he wondered what this had to do with anything. He was beginning to feel afraid he wouldn't be able to answer Cas's question, now, because he found this whole topic so hard to talk about. It wasn't that he hadn't accepted it about himself, because he had, but he'd also accepted that it was something he didn't talk about out loud. It was something he was, it backed up things he did, it only became relevant when he did those things, and besides that it was none of anybody's business unless he decided to share it with that somebody.

And Cas was someone he'd decided to share it will, albeit accidentally as Cas had said, but he could have banned all further mention of the incident. But he didn't, because he wanted to be as open with Cas as it was possible to be, and he knew Cas, and Cas was the only person who just … genuinely didn't care. Not in a bad way, but in a good way, like it didn't influence a single one of Cas's thoughts when it came to their interactions or activities, where with other people, it would linger on their minds in some form. He knew it was almost always on his own in certain situations.

It was hard to get used to talking about it, but if there was something Cas needed to ask, something that seemed to be important, then … he'd better get used to it, get open and get the stick out of his ass, because goodness only knew he didn't need it there after the amount of dick that had been there.

That was something he could easily think about. His past experiences with men. It was a thing he did, having sex with men.

It was the word bisexual he had trouble with. Not in his own head, but verbalizing it. But he had to say it, so he took a deep breath and tried to appear normal.

'That I'm bisexual,' Dean said carefully, already on edge. 'Yeah. What about it?'

Dean could tell Cas was treading carefully, tiptoeing around the cracks. He appreciated that, and tried to make his expression look welcoming of all questions.

'How do you … I mean, how did you realize … that …'

Oh.

So, that was probably part of the "experimenting" thing, as Dean remembered him calling it, too. And the porn today … Cas was getting into that territory, trying to figure out things about himself. And now he was coming to Dean for advice … guidance, almost … well damn, this was something he was glad to do. He would always do whatever he could to help Cas in any way possible, and it was only natural Cas thought about these things, for just in case they didn't manage to get him his grace back, if he wanted to make a life for himself, a human life, with someone

Or even if he wanted that, even if they did get his grace back …

'It's all about attraction,' Dean told him, cutting off his awkward sentence structure. 'It's like … who you're attracted to. Who you want to … y'know, have sex with.'

'And … how am I supposed to know that?'

'You have to think about it, I guess,' Dean shrugged. 'And figure it out. Like if you were out, right now, looking for a hookup, and a man came up to you on one side and a woman on the other … who would you pick?'

'That depends,' Castiel answered.

'On what?'

'Whether they're nice or not,' Castiel said. 'If one is a nice person and the other isn't, I'm going to pick the one who's nice.'

'But we're not basing this on who's nicest here,' Dean explained. 'It's like … who's hottest.'

'You know, I didn't have sex with April because she was hot,' Castiel replied curtly. 'Not that she wasn't. She was very pretty, and attractive in many ways, but that's not the defining factor. She was nice to me, and then she made the first move. And I went along with it.'

'Because she was nice.'

'Yes.'

'And if she hadn't made a move, would you have?'

Castiel didn't have to think long about it before answering, 'no.'

'And why not?' Dean asked bluntly.

'Because …' Castiel had begun his answer before he'd found one, but with a sigh, he continued as it came to him, 'that's not what I was compelled to do.'

Dean could see Cas didn't seem to like thinking about it, but he was just trying to help him. He went farther back, to one of the weirdest things he'd ever seen, and asked about it.

'What about that one time you kissed Meg? Were you compelled then?'

'Not particularly,' Castiel shrugged. 'I was more … curious. And I was tired of the way she kept looking at me like that so I had to do something about it.'

'So neither time you actually wanted to go up to either of these woman and just … basically, fuck them for the hell of it.'

Castiel frowned at him.

'No. I told you that before, the night we talked after … that whole thing. Last week. But when the word "attraction" comes into it, that's the part where I get … frustrated.'

'Do you know why?'

'Because,' Castiel sighed, leaning back against the couch cushions and turning his head away from Dean, 'women are attractive. It's just … a fact. The way their bodies are built, their faces, their hair whether long or short, they're attractive beings, most of them. Unless they're … not-so-attractive.'

'So you're saying there's pretty women and there's ones you don't find so pretty.'

'Yes.'

'Understandable,' Dean nodded. 'But that just means you have eyes. You can see what's attractive in your own opinion. The question is … are you attracted to what you can see is attractive?'

'Attracted to as in … do I want to go up to them and "fuck them for the hell of it?"'

'Yeah.'

Castiel sighed deeply, and thought.

His head was full of women, pretty, pretty women, here and there and everywhere. Smiling. Waving. Inviting in countless scenarios. Women he'd seen on the street, women he'd met, women he hadn't met, women he'd seen in movies and on TV. The women in the few videos he'd watched this morning, with those men. He couldn't find the desire to picture himself as one of those men, with any woman.

'I don't think so,' Castiel admitted. He sighed, yet again, turning his head to face Dean who was surveying him with a soft look on his face, a look of patience, a look of understanding.

'And that, my friend, is where you and I differ,' Dean told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. 'Now the question is …' admittedly, this was a little harder for him, since it was hard for him to talk about it in relation to himself, and he dropped his hand, '… what's your stance on men?'

'Well, clearly, you know I can tell men are attractive,' Castiel started off. 'Owing to the fact that I did in fact compliment both you and Sam on your physical appearances on the drive here.'

Dean chuckled, remembering that. He liked the fact that Cas had complimented him. It definitely gave his never-wavering self-esteem a boost, as if it needed it. The mirror was his best friend, he didn't need anyone else telling him how attractive he was … yet, he still liked it.

'Then you have to apply the thing of being attracted to women to men,' Dean said carefully, trying to avoid using the term, "do you want to fuck men?"

Cas thought about this, too. The men he'd seen. There were those incredibly attractive ones and incredibly unattractive ones out there, the same situation as with women. And he may have watched more videos of men and women, and only one with two men … he remembered the one man whimpering "fuck me" and found that he wouldn't mind being the one that the whimpering man was talking to. He remembered watching the two of them, feeling his own pleasure as that unravelled before his eyes, feeling the urge to watch it again. And again. To search for more.

He got it now. He understood.

'With men it's different,' he said, leaning forward now so his shoulders slouched and he looked away from Dean. 'I can see myself … doing … that. In the future.'

He could see himself doing it, he just didn't know how the hell he'd end up in that situation.

'Then we have that in common,' Dean replied, looking at him but not having him look back.

Dean wished, like he often did, that he could tell what Cas was thinking.

'So that would mean,' Castiel mused, frowning ahead of him in thought and concentration and what looked like some curiosity, 'that I'm gay.'

Hearing Cas say those words made Dean feel immensely proud of him, for figuring that out, for not being afraid to blatantly state the words as soon as he realized them.

'I guess you are,' Dean agreed, supportive as he could be.

Castiel looked at him again for the first time in a while. During their conversation, his eyes had been mostly focused on nothing.

'Thank you, Dean.'

'You're welcome,' Dean replied, with as much sincerity as had been in Cas's thanking him, reaching out a hand to put on Cas's shoulder, squeezing so Cas could feel his support translated through the gesture. 'I'll always do my best to help you with whatever you need. You know that, right?'

A slow smile, a big smile, one side of Cas's mouth rising faster than the other, higher, too, his teeth showing, crept onto his face, and he looked so genuinely happy. And grateful. Almost like he was admiring Dean and it caused the smile.

'I know,' Castiel confirmed, although it sounded like a promise. He knew. 'You've made that clear. And you've proved it more than once.'

'I'll prove it more times than this,' Dean said quietly, his eyes searching through Cas's, again wishing he could hear his thoughts. Because his eyes were saying so much, and not a word of it was open for translation.

'You don't need to prove it, Dean,' Castiel disproved with the hint of a frown. 'You already have.'

Like yesterday, Dean was very aware of his own hand, and the fact he had yet to remove it from Cas's shoulder.

'Well I'll follow through on it,' Dean corrected himself. His hand shifted, almost against his will, farther up along Cas's shoulder so it was right on top of it now, thumb brushing neck, just above the collar of his shirt. Had Cas been wearing a v-neck t-shirt of some kind, Dean's upper palm would likely be pressed against his collarbone. Cas's neck was warm, and smooth. 'I'll follow through on it as much as you need me to.'

'I appreciate that,' Cas replied. He said it so quietly, barely moving his lips, and then Dean saw him swallow.

Dean didn't know how to respond. He didn't want to say anything that could change the atmosphere, and he didn't want to move his hand. He liked where it was nestled. He liked how Cas was looking at him. He liked looking back at him.

He didn't like his phone buzzing in his pocket, breaking the moment. Not that there was any moment to break, Dean thought, as he removed his hand to grab his phone.

'Is it Sam?' Cas asked, after Dean had looked at his phone.

'Yeah,' Dean replied, a hefty sigh escaping him. 'Checking in on whether I've done any more research. I should call him.'

Castiel nodded, turning away, looking outside through the glass doors.

'I'm going to go out and read again,' he decided.

'I'm going to call Sam and go put the laundry in the dryer. It's been about twenty minutes.'

Castiel nodded, standing up, and silently headed into the bedroom to retrieve his book. When he got back out Dean was gone, and he was left with a feeling of intense satisfaction at his new discovery, but a dissatisfaction at the abrupt end to their conversation that was even more pronounced, and painstakingly familiar.