"Now?!" Alistar shouted at the woman. She nodded, worriedly and then glanced to Dean.

Dean noticed, and then felt Frank's eyes on him so he looked, Franks looked at Derino, Dean copying, but Derino was looking at Alistair who was looking at the wall. "Alistair?" Dean chanced. "What the hell is going on?"

"He doesn't know?!" Franks almost shouted.

"Shut the fuck up." Derino punched Franks right across the face in a panic who then fell against the wall before catching himself. He looked up to see the woman looking at him as he brought his right hand up to wipe the blood from his lip. "Alistair." Alistair looked up to him then nodded. Derino turned to the woman in the doorway. "Get the guys, tell 'em it's go time." She nodded and disappeared.

"What is going on?!" Dean tried again, walking towards the room door in order to follow the woman for no other reason than to see where she was going.

Suddenly he was grabbed from behind and thrown against the wall. His forehead hit the brick as he heard Alistair speak. "Get rid of her." Dean's ears were ringing, from the collision or from the shock of it, he couldn't be sure.

As Dean turned Derino and Franks raised their dominant hands, Franks being a lefty, there was a flash of light from the table and an agonising scream rang out, echoed and disappeared. Dean was thrown against the table, his hands coming out to catch the surface. "On the table."

"What?" Dean turned his head and Alistair used that moment to head-butt him. Dean's head shot back and he left out a groan as he straightened up again. The pain that was there before had just doubled. He didn't understand what was happening, he felt as if he was a few frames behind and he could barely hear anything over his own blood coursing through his ears and on his forehead. "What the hell?" His right hand came up to touch the rapidly appearing bump before they heard a commotion outside the room.

Dean turned his head as the doorway filled with people. "What do we know?" Derino asked the crowd.

"A lot of them." A young man, physically he looked in his mid to late twenties but his voice was that of a middled aged man.

"And it's definitely them?" Alistair asked. Dean's eyes fell onto his face. His torturer turned colleague and mentor's face. Worry, there was genuine worry there.

"Oh, it's them alright." An older woman, grey hair and cardigan which was beige except for the blood stains, spoke from the side of the doorway, popping her head out to talk. "No mistake."

Alistair suddenly grabbed Dean's face, under the chin, in his hands. He angled Dean's face upwards, the force of the pull and grasp made it so that Dean's feet lifted ever so sligthly from the floor, he stumbled around trying to find balance and his hands lifted from the table, being just out of reach. Alistair brought his face to Dean's and exhaled his words, Dean's eyes moved all over his face in fear and confusion. "Listen to me very carefully." He grasped tighter and Dean let out little moans of pain and discomfort as he felt the bruising on his skin already. "I want you to get on that table," he turned Dean's face to look at it, "you're going to stay there, a little refreshers course." Dean whimpered and shook his head as he was allowed to look back to Alistair. "No?" Dean inhaled, remembering he shouldn't be disagreeing. Alistair turned Dean's face in his to look at the rack again. "Alright then, I can think of," he touched his nose to Dean's cheek, "plenty of other things we could do with our time." He brought his lips right against Dean's cheek so that they dragged as he spoke, Dean's eyes closed and his brow knitted in anguish. "Would you like that?" Dean shook his head as emphatically as he could in the demon's grasp. "No?" Dean did it again. "Rack then?" Dean nodded. "Glad we could come an understanding." He pushed Dean's face away, towards the rack, as he let go. Dean caught himself on the table as he fell and looked at Derino, who was standing a little behind Dean the whole time, and then looked to the floor.

A woman pushed through the crowd and held out the handle of something to Alistair. "I thought you might need this."

Dean turned back to see that blade again. Polished and good as new.

Ready.

Dean shot up in his bed. He was breathing hard and could instantly feel the sweat pouring from him. He took a couple of breaths before the bed moved and his head shot to the right.

"You're okay." Cas' sleepy voice drawled into the darkness that Dean's unfocused sight threw up.

"Cas." Dean breathed out as if in pain and his hands scrambled to the right. He needed to touch Cas, to prove to himself that he was okay, that it was real. But more than that, he needed to make sure Cas wasn't gone. His hand softly grabbed Cas' thigh but it didn't ease Dean. He knew that his mind was not infallible, it was capable of being manipulated and tricked. He moved his hand up further, grabbing random bits of fabric - the sheets and then Cas' boxers - before he searched further up. He needed one thing before he could calm down.

He felt Cas' left hand grab his and he stopped, exhaled and closed his eyes.

"Hey." Cas used his other hand to push himself to sitting and then used it to cover Dean's hand. "I'm here." He moved the hand away and Dean felt its warmth appear under his jawline. "Breathe." Dean nodded and forced out an audible breath and then took a deep inhale before resuming normal breathing. "Are you okay?"

Dean nodded again. "Yeah." He tightened the grasp on Cas' hand. "I am now." he leaned into Cas' touch. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologising?" Dean opened his eyes again and it flashed black for a second before the outline of Cas slowly appeared.

"You must be gettin' sick of being woken up." Dean spoke soft and low. He hated feeling like a burden, especially to Cas. The man had shouldered the weights of the world for a long time and yet the Cas back then seemed to do everything effortlessly compared to now. He walked swifter, acted quicker and spoke with more certainty. Now, he just looked heavy and older. He seemed to have aged to Dean. Because of Dean.

"No." Cas shook his head and rubbed his thumb along Dean's cheekbone.

"Cas," Dean felt the burn in his throat before it seeped up and behind his eyes, "you've gotten older since we met."

Even though the darkness had eventually offered Dean sight a lot of things stayed hidden. But Dean would recognise that head tilt a million miles away and he didn't have to be able to see them to know that Cas' eyes were narrowed. "Of course I have aged Dean, it has been quite some years since we met?"

Dean shook his head. "No." He shuffled on the bed and Cas' hand fell away from his face. Dean lifted his own left to Cas' jaw, his right still gripping onto Cas' left. "I can see it, behind your eyes. You've aged inside, like everything has harmed you, changed you in some way." He pressed his forehead gently to Cas' and closed his eyes. "Was it me, did I do that? Did I hurt you?" Dean brow tightened, deep down he knew he needed to ask but he didn't want to hear the answer - to have it confirmed. He didn't want to hear the man who saved him admit that Dean had destroyed him in the process.

"No." Cas whispered, his free hand rising to tip Dean's head back to look at him. "If I've changed or aged it's been because I've matured. Seeing the world from Heaven, everything is from a point of view of humanity as a whole. Since I met you I've been forced to think differently."

Dean nodded harshly. "So I did do that to you." He felt something shift and crack inside him. As if the certain knowledge broken his very foundations. He couldn't keep doing that, not to Cas. He needed to get as far away from Dean as possible and save himself but Dean knew he never would so Dean should be the one to go. To leave Cas alone, to live and to survive. To be happy.

He tried to pull his head away and Cas reached out to stop him. "Dean, wait."

"I am..." Dean stopped and looked at Cas, even in the darkness Cas could see the tears in Dean's eyes. "I am so sorry, Cas." He pushed away and scrabbled from the other side of the bed.

As he stood and walked towards the door of Cas' room Cas spun around and stood facing Dean's retreating form. "Dean, would you please stop!" Dean was frozen to the spot with the crack that tore through Cas' sentence. It was something he had not heard from Cas. Ever. It was raw emotion, pain and bubbling. It was someone pleading with sorrow. "Stop trying to run away from me." Cas whispered that time but the crack tore that in two as well. "Please." Cas lowered his head to the floor and Dean hesitated. "Stay."

Dean's head whipped to to look at Cas and the word hit him like a bullet. He had said those words before, in hushed breaths to Cas. Dean had pleaded this man in his most vulnerable times, had told him in one word that never in all of their time together had Dean needed him more. And now, that man, who had responded to that need with action, was asking the same. In that one word Dean heard a thousand. Stop running. Stop pushing me away. Stop looking for reasons to leave. Stop looking for confirmation that I'll leave.

Stop hurting me.

Dean turned the last few inches and took the few steps around the bed, Cas turned as they came face to face. "I'm going nowhere."

Cas nodded and then sniffed. "In Heaven I was always looking down and I saw a population looking up. When I first got here I looked up too. And then I met you." A little sob escaped his mouth and Dean instinctively reached out for his hand. He wanted to hug him to his chest, as tight as he could, and never let go but he wanted to hear Cas out too. "I met you and Sam. You two taught me to stop looking up and look around. I hadn't truly lived until I met you. That's what you see behind my eyes, Dean. Not pain or hurt or age. Life. And it's because of you."

Dean exhaled and snaked his arms around Cas' middle who reached up and wrapped his arms around Dean's neck, Dean felt Cas' fingers run through his hair and felt the warmth of Cas' tears on his neck. "I'm sorry, Cas." Dean kissed his forehead and then pulled him tighter against him. "I'm done runnin'." He sighed to himself. "I'm done pushing you away."

.

Dean walked into the main room to see Cas standing by one of the bookshelves looking in a book he had in his hands. His head was bowed and he was biting his lip as if concentrating. The book looked old and heavy but of course Dean didn't notice that he just felt the smile on his lips when he saw Cas there in just an old t-shirt and jeans. He looked down at the boots on Cas feet and remembered him putting them on earlier as Dean had popped in to ask if Cas wanted coffee. He hadn't registered until now that after Cas had showered and gotten dressed he had put his shoes on. Like a hunter. He even had a watch on. Wow.

Dean walked towards him, Cas' head raised at the approaching footsteps and Dean put his hand out to Cas' face as he kissed him. Cas kissed him back just as gently and smiled when they parted. "Hey, where's Sam?"

"Right here." Dean turned to see Sam sitting at the table, in front of a laptop and papers. He smiled and then looked back to the screen.

Dean paused for a beat. "Oh." He then shrugged internally. He was done running, and hiding it was included. Emotionally running. See, Dean could be deep. "So uh," Dean looked back to Cas, "what you got?" His hand hadn't moved from Cas' face and he tickled it a little and smiled.

"You talking to me or the back of Cas' throat?" Sam muttered.

Dean turned around with a 'very funny' look. He relented, turned away from Cas and leaned on the chair across from Sam. "Alright, needy. You have my full attention." He gestured to Sam again. "You're surrounded by research so what's up? Crowley finally bend over?"

Sam's eyes shot to Dean's. "What?"

"Did he give you a," Dean looked to the side when Cas stood behind him and leaned over his side to place the heavy book on the table, "...name?" Cas pointed on the book and then gestured his head to the book when Dean didn't look away. "Oh!" Dean shook himself and looked down. He briefly looked back up when Sam let out a laugh. "Something funny?" He looked back down.

Sam shook his head. "No, sir."

Dean looked back up. That was something they always said to each other, and it always meant the opposite. It came from when they were kids and they had been ordered to do something they didn't want to by their father. After a screaming match, or a match of wits and stamina the boys would be hammered down to one response. Defeat. Which would usually end with whichever brother realising they had lost, not speaking any more to the sound of their father's last words on the subject.

"Do you hear me?" or "Something to add?"

To which the Dean would answer. "Yes, sir." or "No, sir."

And in time Sam learned to copy him. So when they argued as kids, Sam wondering where his dad was and, in later years, questioning his brother's unwavering dedication and just why the hell he had to do what Dean said, Sam would always use those answers as a point to Dean. He was just like Dad. But in recent years the boys used it in more of a flippant way, jokes and sarcasm.

"Wyomming?" Dean grimaced. "Couldn't have picked anything in-state, huh?" He sighed when Sam shrugged. "Alright, so what's the story. On the level?"

"Seems to be." Sam gestured to the book. "That's tax records for ten years ago." He picked up a bundle of paper and began handing them over to Dean. "That's voting records for the past five."

Dean took it and then tutted. "Republican. Figures."

"Uh," Sam looked at others before handing them over, "bank records for the past five, employment history, driver's license, gun registrations; one revolver and a shotgun, he rented an apartment downtown until two years ago where he bought this," Sam handed over more paper, "house. It's listed as his current residency but it's right next to a cop shop."

"Damn." Dean looked over them and then put them on the table in favor of the driver's license. He focused on the picture. "Looks kinda... fit." Dean looked up to Sam looking at him weirdly. "What?"

"We're there to gank him, not chat him up." Sam joked.

Dean scoffed. "Ha ha."

Cas looked between them, his brow dipped. "What does 'fit' mean?" He felt a little pebble sitting in his stomach. He couldn't think how it had got there, he hadn't swallowed, it had just popped out of nowhere at Dean's comment and Sam's reply. Why was that?

Dean turned to Cas. "It means like, pumped," he flexed his own arms and Cas looked, "like he works out."

"Do you mean, physically active?" Cas asked still pondering Sam's statement.

"Yeah," Dean nodded, "that."

"Sure." Sam quipped sarcastically.

Cas looked between them. "So why would that indicate he wished to chat him up? Whatever that means." Cas huffed, annoyed. The pebble shifted in his stomach. Dean thought the guy was fit. Cas picked up the copy of the driver's license and looked over the man, it was true, the thickness of his neck muscles alluded to the man perhaps having a regime to keep himself in a kind of physical peak.

Dean sighed and looked to Sam. "See what you did?" He turned back to Cas. "Alright, sometimes when people say that someone is 'fit' they mean they think they're attractive." Sam huffed a laugh as he watched his brother explain himself and Dean shot him a look as Cas raised his head. "When you chat someone up, you try to score." He cleared his throat. "Um, like try to flirt and shit, usually to get a number or whatever. Sam," Dean paused to glare at his brother again, "was joking by saying-"

"I understand." Cas nodded, putting everything together. He looked back down to the paper before putting it back on the table. "So what's the plan?

"You're coming?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "You didn't want to the last time."

"You said that he is most likely fit and that his house is next to a police station so you might require extra help."

Dean looked to Sam who shrugged before Dean turned back and smiled. "Awesome."

Cas smiled and slowly looked away from Dean to lean over the table to Sam before he whispered. "Shotgun."

Dean let out a laugh when Sam's face fell and Cas disappeared down the hall. "He got you." Dean pointed to Sam.

"Shut up." Sam started gathering his stuff up.