Dean woke with a headache he couldn't shake, and a vague feeling that he'd slept longer, and more deeply, than he'd meant to.

"It's because you slept in the sun," Cas said quietly, when Dean complained of the headache. He seemed subdued; nothing in him like the brilliant creature Dean had coaxed a smile out of. Beside him, Sam was sitting, straight-backed and watchful, like a sentinel on the hill. Dean looked at Sam, who was sitting in the light, noonday light and shouldn't it be later than that? Sitting in the light until his brown hair was ringed with red-gold, like a fiery crown. "Sam," he said, uneasily. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't worry about it," Sam said, in a harsh tone. It didn't sound like Sammy's voice. There was something more to it; something different, but what particularly, Dean couldn't place. Of course it was Sam's voice. "Nothing is wrong," Sam added, in a slightly warmer tone.

He was right, of course. Sam was the first to get worried if something was wrong, and he would know if something was wrong. But beside him, Cas sat and looked so hangdog that it was hard for Dean to believe nothing was wrong. He looked between Cas and his brother, and struggled for words.

"This place," he said to Sam. "The curse. It's got something to do with the hill." Sam nodded. He knew that, of course. They all knew that. "But I've been having these weird dreams, too," Dean said, feeling unsettled by something he couldn't name. Sam was sitting so stilly, in the light. Dean sat up, his head spinning as he did, and found that he had pressed closer to Cas. Watching Sam like he'd watch a wild animal, one he wasn't sure meant him ill but would certainly kill him without a thought. Weird. Nothing was wrong. Sammy had said so.

Still, he sat close to Cas, and that made him feel better. With Sam sitting so still and silent, and Cas sitting so hunched over and silent, twisting his hands over each other fretfully, Dean didn't know what to do. He grabbed the thermos of tea that had landed beside him, and poured the rest of it into a cup. Held it out. Sam and Cas both shook their heads, so Dean drank it, feeling nauseous. Maybe Cas was right. Maybe he had a touch of sunstroke.

He felt better as soon as he'd drank the tea, so that was probably what it was.

Still, it was uncommonly hard to pull together his thoughts. Something to do with Sam, sitting watchfully there, and Cas; and the way there was more there than that; like intangible creatures. "I was just telling Cas we have to leave Dunwich," Dean said at last, with a tongue that seemed heavy in his mouth.

"We don't have to leave Dunwich," Sam said.

"...Oh," Dean said. He blinked. The ring of fire on Sam's hair wavered, and he thought for a moment he saw a crown of gold; eyes looking almost reddish in the sunlight. Looking red. Really red. Then it was gone.

"I thought we had to leave," Dean said, feeling uncommonly tentative about the matter.

"No," Sam said.

So that was it, then. Dean almost said that he'd rather like to leave, but bit his tongue. This wasn't the argument to have right next to Cas; next to an outsider. Not that Cas felt like an outsider. Not that this felt like an argument. He told himself he would bring it up later tonight, when they were alone, without the Light Bringer around.

It was very hot, and yet he shivered; so that when Cas brought a hand over his shoulder, rubbed soothing circles into his back, he felt the warmth of that through his shirt with a relief that felt almost desperate. There was something very solid and real about Cas' hand. Something corporeal. It was a hand; a human hand or something very like it.

He wished Sam would look at him; and at the same time he feared his brother's gaze.

/

They were staying until Halloween after all. Sam informed Dean of that when they all walked into the Kline house to find their duffles at the foot of the stairs. It was important that they stayed until Halloween. Until then, Dean was free to do as he would.

It was a funny thing, but the images of the Klines' sickly, dead-eyed cattle flashed before him; and there was a smirk on Sam's lips like he'd seen what Dean was thinking of.

Cas' hand was tight around Dean's arm. He didn't seem to like Sam any more than Dean did, which was more than anything else in the world, of course. But Dean wanted to get away, and let out a breath of relief when Sam slung the bags over his shoulders and walked up the stairs.

"Let's go outside," Cas said then. "There's fields that need harvesting. I'll make some tea before we go."

/

The walk seemed to clear some of Dean's faculties; that, and the distance from the thing that wasn't Sam. By the time they'd gotten to the fields, and Dean had poured himself a steaming cup of tea, he had the presence of mind to say, "look, man. How you doing?"

"Fine," Cas said stiffly.

Dean took a sip of his tea. He gazed at Cas, unimpressed.

Cas let out a slow breath. "I really am fine," he said. "It's just my brother. He has a way of winding me up."

"Who?"

Cas flinched, and his gaze moved shiftily around, as he opened his mouth, looking for words. Finally, he spoke in the really convincing tone. "Your brother, Sam. He's my brother too."

Even with the really convincing tone, Dean had to take a moment to process that. "I didn't think Sam was your brother," he said, though even as he spoke he realized that it made sense, the way Sam and Cas had seemed, under that tree, as like with like.

Cas looked even more miserable as Dean rationalized this, and when Dean said at last, "cool. So we're brothers, too?" Cas only made a blank little brow-furrowed expression, something lost in his eyes, before nodding.

/

Dean spent most of the summer outdoors with Cas. Indoors was their brother, and there was something about Sam's presence that was hard for Dean to bear. When he had to, his headaches always grew worse, and invariably, either Cas or Sam would blame it on the sun. But the clean sun outdoors never did unsettle him as much.

Niggling thoughts like that aside, he still felt more peaceful in Dunwich than he had anywhere else except for the boys' home, where he had also worried about Sam, who wasn't there. He occupied most of his thoughts with farming, and the rest of them with tinkering on Baby. He always meant to take her out for a drive, or maybe out through the main road and away from Dunwich forever, but he never quite got around to it.

He named the hens Plant, Page, Bonham and Jones. It had been a whim, only at some point it became reassuring to know they were still there, and alive. Funny thing, they thought they were on top of the world. Grazing across the lawns far from the cattle. They didn't seem to notice that their freedom was an illusion. He was humming the words of the song; "communication breakdown, it's always the same, I'm having a nervous breakdown, drive me insane."

Nothing particularly notable happened until Halloween. He and Cas made out a couple more times, but, Cas explained, he wasn't actually interested in the rest of sex; as hard as that was to believe. Funnily enough, he didn't even use his really convincing tone, and it was that, more than anything, that convinced Dean he meant it; instead they hashed it out over a number of conversations, while Dean asked how it was to not want sex and if he was bothering Cas at all with the kissing and then Cas would say—very drily—do I look bothered? Which would usually lead into kissing again, and Dean would usually get off and feel flustered about it, when he remembered he couldn't make Cas feel good the same way too. So he got good, instead, at holding hands the way Cas liked, and pressing his lips to the back of Cas' neck; of scratching his fingers in the hair at Cas' scalp and sometimes, occasionally, when Cas would let him, massaging the tightness in Cas' back. He noticed the scars, of course; but Cas didn't mention them and so Dean didn't either.

Dean stopped walking into town as much as he had been, and didn't even miss the beer too much. It would be hard to drink beer, anyway, with how much Cas plied him with tea. And since the tea stopped the headaches, Dean let it slide.

It became easier, in increments, to stand in the same room with Sam again, though there was always something uncomfortable about it. The discomfort, however, migrated—from a kind of nauseous horror to a sad, dark little spot in his chest whenever Sam didn't remember their old jokes and codes. Sam always remembered the ones he shared with Cas; as though they had grown up together. While Dean knew, conversely, that he and Sam had been as close as—as close as—

He missed him.

/

The only thing that really bothered Dean were the dreams.

In the dreams, Dean was always in the Kline house. This wasn't so odd, since his bedroom was in the Kline house; one door down from the old man and one door down from Sam; but in the dreams he was seeing it from the inside, and he didn't like it. Maybe it was some trick of the frowning lintels, or the way the floors creaked under him. Maybe it was the habit his bed had of crawling out the window with him on it, until he ended up on the lawn on Sentinel Hill again. He always woke up from the dreams with pounding headaches that only the tea could ease; as though his brain had been stretched beyond his limits. Dean figured that was only a side-effect, because the giants on the hill never seemed very interested in his brain, but kept their perusal to his body. The hands had gotten better at picking him up, and now when the fingers or probiscos trailed down his spine he knew where to bend and open. It wasn't real, but just practice. Dean knew this, even in the dream, and he used it to reassure himself when he would suddenly, in the middle of it all, feel like crying, which happened more and more. In the dream, his tears were always red and sticky, like blood. Maybe it was blood. Wouldn't even be the weirdest thing that happened.

The only good part about the dreams was Cas. Cas would always be there; blurred around the edges maybe but very real; and he would make sure to touch Dean somewhere innocuous when he could and ground him. Sometimes, Dean was even able to catch his eyes, and Cas would whisper, as though afraid someone else might hear, "good, Dean. You're doing fine." (At that moment there might be a catch in Cas' voice, as though the angel was fighting back tears too, but it didn't matter.) "They aren't important. This isn't back then. Dean, look at me."

And Dean, who would sometimes feel very small and insignificant in and among the giants, would always feel safe when he looked at Cas; when he looked, and could sometimes whisper, when he was able to make his voice obey him, "Cas, you're beautiful. Hey, sweetheart, don't worry. It's going to be fine." (Communication breakdown, I want you to love me all night; communication breakdown, I want you to love—)

.

.

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