Author's Note: Sorry it took me so long to post this, I've been working a lot this week so my fanfictioning hours were significantly reduced. Hopefully a lot less time will pass between now and the next chapter!

Thank you, as always, for all your reviews and subscriptions, and if anyone here is interested, I post artwork for each chapter over on my tumblr-you'll find a link to it on my profile page :)

~ Imogen

Insert obligatory disclaimer re: non ownership of characters. These lovelies are all Kripke's, all the time.

By half past one in the morning Castiels hiccoughs had subsided, the bottle was empty, and Dean was sufficiently caught up in the intoxication department. The two of them sat, half slumped in their seats at the table, speaking fervently about some topic one moment, then falling into slow-blinking silence as their sluggish, whiskey-soaked minds tried to remember what it was that they had been discussing. After one of these silences, Dean leaned back in his chair and eyed Castiel with a frown of concentration. When he spoke, his voice was loud and more than a little slurred.

"Cas."

"Hrrmph?"

"What was it like? Before."

He crossed his arms and stared at Castiel, who opened one eye to look back at him in confusion. He was fairly certain that Dean had missed out the majority of the question he had been meaning to ask.

"What?"

"You know. With Jimmy."

Dean stared back at him as if this explained everything.

"What?"

"Well, he's gone, right?"

Castiel sat up a little straighter to meet Dean's eyes and nodded.

"For quite a while."

"Well when he was still, you know... in there," Dean gestured vaguely in Castiels direction, "What was it like?"

"What do you mean?"

"Could you talk to him? Could he talk to you? How does that work exactly?"

Castiel thought, trying to find the best way to explain the feeling of two beings taking up the same space. It wasn't exactly pleasant for the vessels original occupant, but he didn't want to tell Dean that. He chewed his lip a little as he thought, and felt Dean's eyes on him. After a moment, he just shrugged.

"It depends," he raised his glass to his lips, found it empty, and put it back down with disappointment as he continued, "Some angels allow their vessels soul to be present, watching through their own eyes as the angel uses their body."

He noticed Dean sit up a little straighter, a look of distaste flickering over his groggy features. Castiel scrambled to explain lest he judge him too harshly.

"But I never liked to do that. It's too much like demonic possession. Most souls find that unsettling," he saw Dean relax again, and continued, "For the most part, Jimmy existed in a dream state. I could talk to him by entering that dream state myself. Like those times I entered your dreams."

Castiel looked down at the table, turning his empty glass in his hand as Dean nodded in understanding, then quite abruptly, he stopped, turning his head as if trying to remember something. He leaned across the table a little.

"Wait. Times? As in plural?"

Dean's face went red very quickly, and Castiel tried not to smirk at the blush that crept down the hunters neck. He nodded.

"What was the other one?"

Castiel leaned toward him, studying the hunters face, wondering what exactly had brought on this particular reaction. Dean averted his eyes.

"I have visited your dreams twice. Once, you were fishing at a lake. The other time was not long after we first met. I think I may have been a little unfriendly. It was in Bobby's house. In the kitchen."

Dean's relief was immediate, though he tried to disguise it. Castiel found the whole display very strange, but figured it was just a side effect of the alcohol and his own lack of knowledge of the many nuances of human behaviour.

"Oh, that. Right. I wasn't sure if that... Alright. Just those two times? Okay. That's okay then."

Dean tapped his fingers on the table and stared out the window. The rambling, nervous talk was very unusual. Castiel was curious, and a big part of him wanted to just ask Dean what he was suddenly so embarrassed about, but the hunter's flushed neck and cheeks distracted him so much that he was beyond words. He stared, drinking in the sight, perhaps a little greedily. Dean, with his face turned to the window, was-thankfully-oblivious to this. After a moment, he cleared his throat. Castiel tore his eyes away just in time for Dean to look back at him, a strained smile on his face.

"Okay. Well, I'm beat. Better try to get a couple hours sleep."

He stood up and half-staggered across the room, stopping to drop the empty bottle into the trash before disappearing into the bathroom. A few minutes later he emerged, shirtless and drying his face on a towel. He threw it back into the bathroom over his shoulder and fell, face down, onto the bed closest to the door. His voice was muffled by the pillow.

"Night, Cas."

Castiel just stared at him. He wanted to reply, but somehow the sight of the hunters bare back, his well-toned shoulders sprinkled with freckles, almost glowing in the dim light from the parking lot outside, left him without the luxury of language.

After his basic brain function had come back, he found himself desperately wanting to crawl onto the bed beside the hunter and curl up beneath the blankets.

He may have half-mumbled something to this effect, but as luck would have it, Dean was already asleep.

Outside, the rain showed no sign of easing up.

The steady sound of rushing water on the motels roof should have sent him to sleep in no time, but he had been laying awake for hours. He had stumbled to his own bed around two. Now it was well after four, and somehow, despite the heavy rain, all he could hear was Dean breathing. Slow and deep. Calm. He rolled over to his other side to look at the hunter and found him laying on his back, one arm raised up over his head on the pillow, the other tangled in the sheets beneath him. At some point he had pulled a blanket over himself, and it covered two thirds of his chest. What little was still visible drew Castiel's attention, and he felt his tongue dart out over his suddenly dry lips as he stared. He could see a tiny pulse in the skin at Dean's throat, and raised two fingers to feel his own racing heartbeat.

It may have been a side effect of the alcohol, but quite suddenly, he knew that more than anything, that right now this second all he wanted was to hear Dean's pulse. To feel the warmth of that freckled skin. He wanted to trace the pattern of the anti-possession tattoo on Dean's chest with his fingertips. With his lips- But that, definitely that, he was fairly certain, would be inappropriate. He also had a sinking suspicion that thinking about doing any of those things while staring at his sleeping friend would fall under that umbrella, too, but his self control only went so far. He rolled onto his back and tried hard to think of something else, but he couldn't get Dean out of his head.

He sat up and lowered his head into his hands, breathing deeply and rubbing his eyes, trying to force the images from his minds eye. When they refused to go away he tried to imagine touching someone else, anyoneelse, but in his mind all faces flickered and reformed into Deans. He wondered if perhaps it was just proximity to the hunter that was making his inebriated mind unable to focus on anyone else.

He turned to look back at the sleeping form, watching the steady rise and fall of breath. The look of peace on Dean's face was one he hadn't seen since... well, ever. The sleeping hunter let out a half-moan in his sleep and rolled over, wrapping both arms around a pillow and pressing his face into it with a sigh, the motion causing his blanket to spill over the edge of the bed. Without thinking, Castiel stumbled to his feet and picked the blanket up. It was warm with residual body heat. The thought sent a tiny thrill through him, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek as he draped it back over Dean's shoulders. The hunter let out a little sound of simple pleasure at the welcome warmth, and nuzzled into the pillow, gripping it more tightly. Castiel felt his own breath catch in his throat as he stared at the hollow of Dean's throat. The need to touch him was all encompassing, an ache beyond anything he could remember. He imagined closing the distance, about allowing himself this one small touch, but he knew that it would not end well.

Eventually, he dragged himself away from Dean and made his way to the table by the window. He sat with his back to the wall and closed his eyes, willing the tension to break.

It refused.