Chapter 30.

Dean touched the talisman he was wearing. Cas noticed the gesture and tried not to feel affronted. Of course Dean was glad to have his mind back under his control. It was natural and understandable. Hadn't Cas himself always said that stopping the mind curse had to be the priority? But now that it was stopped, he couldn't help resenting how happy Dean seemed to be, after all the talk of no barriers, to slam the door shut against him.

"Who do you suppose Rhydian was?" said Dean.

"No idea." said Cas.

"And you're not curious?"

"Not really. All that matters is that he came up with a solution to our problem before the problem existed."

"Which makes me wonder about him even more." said Dean.

"Well, the name is Welsh in origin," said Cas, "But we could be looking at some kind of Celtic Twilight affectation."

"Irish vampires?" said Dean.

"What?" said Cas.

For a moment, they looked at each other in confusion. Then Dean said, "Talking to me must be a lot like talking to a bucket of mud. No wonder you enjoy talking to Sam."

"You should stop that." said Cas, "Please stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Talking as if you're stupid. You never were."

"Not stupid, just not Sam. I'm not book smart. I'm not educated."

"You have a broad knowledge base, a large vocabulary and a capacity for abstract thought that sometimes astounds me."

"Yeah, for a bucket of mud." said Dean.

"Shut up, Winchester."

Dean smiled. "Do I detect some hostility?"

"Take the talisman off and find out." said Cas.

"I'm thinking of soldering the catch shut, so I can never take it off." said Dean.

"For now, we should keep all our options open." said Cas, knowing that if Dean decided to keep it on forever, that was precisely what he would do.

"Admit it. You want it to be permanent as much as I do."

"I want the thing stopped, but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have it available in case we ever needed it."

"What for? In case I ever want to burn your brain with all this hellfire? I've done enough damage to you."

Cas was worried about more than just losing the connection with Dean. His friend looked tired and stressed and unhappy and he knew he had no way of fixing any of it. Dean must have felt under siege for as long as the connection had existed and the effects still lingered. Cas felt selfish and heartless, thinking of his own loss when that loss was essential to Dean's peace of mind.

"Have you eaten anything?" he said. The emotional and spiritual stuff felt too dangerous an issue to broach, but the physical stuff seemed safe enough.

"I'm not hungry." said Dean. That felt like reason for concern.

"You should eat." he said, "If only for the sake of the others. If you aren't eating, they'll think something is wrong."

"Look at you, appointing yourself morale officer. Sam will be so proud." said Dean. Cas knew he didn't intend to sound so dismissive and mocking, but it hurt anyway.

He stood up to leave.

"Cas, I'm sorry." said Dean.

"It's fine." said Cas, hating the fact that Dean could hear in his voice that it wasn't.

"Don't go off and sulk." said Dean.

"I'm not going to sulk." said Cas, a shamefully obvious lie.

"I mean stay here." said Dean.

"What for?" said Cas. It was the wrong thing to say. He could feel the fight building between them and he knew he should say something to slow the escalation, not push Dean towards the brink of anger. He was hurt and he was anxious and he was acting like a human.

"Do what you like." said Dean, "I don't care." There was a childish note to it all, a scared kid trying to tell the world he didn't need them.

Cas could feel his own angry words rushing through his throat, anxious to make the same stupid false claim, that he was strong enough not to care what anyone thought of him, but one of them had to pull up from the nosedive. "Dean," he said, "I need your help."

Instantly, the tension dropped. "What help?" said Dean, "What do you need?"

"I messed up." said Cas, "I argued with my best friend. I said things that made him angry."

"Been there, done that." said Dean a faint smile was on his lips and there was a twinkle in his eye.

"And now I don't know how to fix it before things get worse." said Cas.

"If your friend's worth anything, he'll understand and forgive." said Dean.

"He's worth everything, but sometimes I feel like all I do is make him angry."

Dean stood up. "That isn't true, Cas. It's just ... It's like we've forgotten how to talk to each other. We've had to be so careful and now everything feels dangerous."

But talking was dangerous. Cas knew he couldn't just say every thought in his head when the thought on the top of his head was that he wanted the connection to continue and wanted Dean to want that too. He knew how needy and unreasonable that would sound to Dean, who hated the mind curse and didn't miss the closeness at all.

He tried to think of something safe to say, but he couldn't. He just wanted not to be fighting, not to be giving Dean any reason to want more distance between them.

"Cas, please talk to me." said Dean.

"I want to." said Cas.

"I know I don't make it easy. My mouth is always in the way."

"I never say the right thing either." said Cas.

"How did we ever become friends?"

"I think we fairly quickly developed a strategy of not really listening." said Cas.

Dean grinned. "I'm glad you can ignore the dumb things I say."

"You ignore the dumber things I come out with." said Cas.

"And it doesn't hurt that we've faced a lot of final scenes together. When everyone else around you is dead, clinging to what's left becomes easier."

"Sometimes, I've been one of the dead things." said Cas.

Dean seemed to flinch from the memory. "Truth is, Cas, dead or alive, you're important to me. If I ever seem to forget that, whack me across the head."

"Yeah, not planning to throw the first punch in any fight with a Winchester. You take down gods."

Dean smiled. "Only when they're asking for it. Now that the curse is gone, we can fix everything. We just have to remember that the stuff we both say is nothing. What matters is what we are, what we do. We say things to protect ourselves. Doesn't mean we mean any of it."

"I try to remember that. But some of the things you say ... "

"I know. It's a brother thing. I say things to you and Sam and assume you know I don't mean them. I should know better by now."

"And I should know you don't mean them. I do know that. Sometimes I just don't feel it. And then I say things to you that are exactly the wrong things to say."

"And I should know that's the last thing you want to do." said Dean.

"Why aren't you hungry?" said Cas.

Dean suddenly looked into his eyes with a nervous, haunted look.

"Sorry." he said, "Unfair question."

"No. No, it's okay. I just don't have an easy answer."

"Angel." said Cas, "I could probably grasp the hard ones, if I concentrated."

"The mind curse shook everything up." said Dean, "A lot of mixed feelings. That fear you picked up on ... "

Cas could tell that Dean was about to say something significant, but at that moment, Bobby came in and Dean instantly clammed up.

"Dean, something weird is going on." said Bobby.

"Weird how?" said Dean.

"Fang weird. I was tracking some disappearances in Wichita. I'm not an expert on your vampires, but I thought they were pretty much out of action thanks to your British friends. In Wichita, they seem organised and effective and their numbers are higher than I expected."

"Do they know you're interested?" said Dean.

"No. When I could tell how well set up they are, I decided to get back here without engaging with them. I'm no coward, but there's no point fighting an enemy that's far too well-prepared. We need to work together."

"You made the right call." said Dean.

Cas could see that Dean's mind was entirely on Bobby's news now. He decided to leave them to talk. As he reached the doorway, Dean said, "We'll talk later, Cas, okay?"

"Yes." said Cas, knowing that the moment had gone and that Dean would be unlikely to tell him whatever he had been about to say, "Get something to eat."