The following morning brought forth some setbacks. Dean woke up to see Cas ogling at him from across the room. His gaze was so intense that Dean actually flushed. The angel quickly looked away and busied himself with something in a duffel bag.

Meanwhile, Sam was already showered and dressed, looking far too enthusiastic for seven in the morning.

"Coffee," Dean grumbled, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "We're not going anywhere until I get my coffee."

Sam rolled his eyes at his older brother, even as he handed Dean a hot cup of the requested beverage.

"You might look a bit strange going to Disneyland dressed like that," Sam said to Cas, who still wouldn't make eye contact with Dean. "The trench coat and suit might seem a little odd to the Hawaiian-shirt wearing families and their children dressed up as Elsa and Mickey Mouse."

"Oh," Cas said, a puzzled look crossing his face. "I don't have any other clothing, though."

"He looks fine," Dean said dismissively. "Don't listen to 'im, Cas. You look great."

Dean gave the angel a teasing wink, which caused Cas to stumble backwards a little bit. Dean pretended to not notice.

Sam cleared his throat, apparently sensing the tension in the air. "So... traffic is gonna get pretty bad in a few hours, so I figured we should probably leave soon if we wanna get to the Parks before lunchtime."

"Hmph," Dean groaned, hoisting himself out of bed. "Gimme ten minutes and I'll be ready."

He gulped down the rest of his coffee and trudged into the small bathroom. By the time he was done showering and dressed in clean clothes, Sam and Cas were already outside waiting in the Impala.

"Shouldn't we get breakfast on the way?" Dean said as he hopped into the driver's seat.

"Um, sure," Sam answered distractedly, typing away on his iPhone. "There's a McDonald's on the way."

Dean pulled out of the motel's parking lot and caught Cas staring at him again.

"Cas, you're being weird again," Dean commented.

In response, the angel quickly turned his attention to the view outside the window. "Sorry..." he muttered under his breath.

Dean shook his head and sighed. If Cas had something to say, why wouldn't he just say it? What could possibly be making him so awkward around Dean? Well, more awkward than usual.

"I just texted Eileen and she said she's in the area," Sam said a few minutes later. "She's gonna meet us just inside the Park."

"Ah, great. The more the merrier," Dean said sarcastically.

"She says there's a place right by the entrance that serves great Mediterranean food. We should eat there for lunch."

"Um, no," Dean said, giving his brother a dirty look. "I want a bacon cheeseburger and fries, just as God intended. None of this weird, ethnic healthy food."

Sam rolled his eyes, "Fine, whatever. You and Cas can find somewhere else to eat."

"I don't actually require food," Cas reminded them from the back seat. "Though I could use a few drinks—preferably strong ones."

Dean exchanged a glance with his brother, but Sam just shrugged.

"All right," Dean said. "You can take your girlfriend and I'll take the angel and we'll meet back up after lunch."

"She's not my girlfriend," Sam said, sounding a little defensive.

"Pssh, yeah sure. I take all my friends out on dates."

"We went out to dinner one time, Dean. One time," Sam huffed, crossing his arms.

"Hey, I'm happy for ya, man. I just wish you'd allow yourself to be happy with her."

"That's rich, coming from you," Sam scoffed.

"And that means... what, exactly?" Dean said, raising an eyebrow at his brother.

Sam gave him a meaningful look and nodded slightly toward the backseat. Dean felt his face heat up involuntarily and gripped the steering wheel harder to distract himself from any oncoming emotions.

"How about some music," Dean said, turning his attention to the radio. "What's a road-trip without music?"

For the rest of the car ride everyone was quiet. Dean glanced back a couple times to see Cas still staring out the window blankly. Sam was still tapping away on his phone, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. Dean was focused solely on the road ahead of him, unwilling to unpack what his brother had said half an hour ago.

A few miles before the exit to Disneyland Dean saw a McDonald's sign. He pulled into the lot and drove up to the drive-thru.

"What do you want?" he asked Sam.

"Uh, just a black coffee. Oh, and a blueberry muffin if they have any."

"Do you want anything, Cas?"

Dean knew the angel didn't need to eat, as he himself had mentioned earlier, but Dean felt it'd be rude to not at least ask.

"Oh, no thanks," Cas said, his voice sounding distant.

And so, Dean ordered a black coffee and blueberry muffin for Sam and a sausage-biscuit meal with a large orange juice for himself. He also ordered an extra hash-brown and a fruit parfait.

Once the food was ready, Dean parked in the lot so he and Sam could eat. Well, mostly so he could eat.

"You okay, Cas?" Dean said, looking back to see the angel blankly staring outside. "You seem a little... out of it."

"Ah, I'm fine," the angel answered, eyes turning forward once more but not meeting Dean's gaze. "I'm just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself," Dean joked, hoping to get Cas to smile a little or at least roll his eyes in annoyance.

"Right."

The angel looked down at his hands and in that moment he suddenly seemed so lost and sad that Dean felt a pang of... what? Longing? Heartbreak?

But why?

Deep down he knew, of course. But could he really say it? He knew what Cas was waiting to hear, and he wanted to say it. He just... didn't know how.

But seeing the angel like that was almost too much for him. He wanted to take Cas's hands in his and say, "I feel it too. I feel the same way. I want you. I need you... I love you."

Dean couldn't say those things, though. As much as he wanted to, he just... couldn't. He'd never quite been able to get the words out. There was always something stopping him. Some voice at the back of his head saying, "Don't do this. It'll backfire. He doesn't really feel that way about you."

He doesn't really love you because no one can ever really love someone like you.

Dean lost his appetite at that thought.

"You done?" he asked Sam, more sharply than he intended.

His brother gave him a look and then handed him the trash from the muffin and coffee. Dean collected the rest of the garbage and shoved it in a mostly full trash can a few feet from the car. His mood had suddenly soured and he knew Sam and Cas could tell, but he didn't care.

The three remaining miles to Disneyland proved to be torturous. Rush-hour traffic was worse than Dean expected, causing what should've been a five to ten minute drive to nearly take another whole hour. Dean spent most of that time swearing at the cars in front of him and almost got out a couple times to engage in what Sam referred to as "road rage".

"I can walk faster than these morons can drive!" Dean shouted angrily, slamming his fist against the steering wheel for emphasis.

"Dude, calm down," Sam said, too calm for Dean's liking, given the current circumstances.

"I'll be calm when these idiots learn how to drive!" Dean yelled.

"Sam's right," Cas commented quietly from the backseat. "You should probably try to calm down."

Dean shot the angel a dirty look and immediately felt bad when Cas shrank away from him.

Why was Dean acting like this? He knew he was being an asshole for no real reason. He was just... angry with himself, he supposed.

"I'm sorry..." Dean mumbled under his breath.

"I might be able to help, actually," Cas said suddenly. "To calm you down, I mean. Sadly I can't fix the traffic problem."

Dean looked at the miles of backed up trucks and SUVs and cars and then back at the angel. "Okay... how?"

Cas reached out a hand and put it on Dean's shoulder. At first he didn't feel anything, but then a sense of peace washed over him. It was... refreshing.

"One of my new abilities, I guess," Cas said, answering Dean's unspoken question.

Dean's mouth twitched up in the slightest hint of a smile. "Thanks, Cas."

Cas gave a nervous smile and then looked away. Dean felt a surge of affection for the awkward little angel in that moment. His momentary distraction was stopped with the honk of a car behind him, however. It appeared that the long line of traffic was finally starting to surge forward again.

The whole thing—whatever it was—between Dean and Cas was seemingly completely missed by Sam, who was still texting on his phone. Dean was actually a bit glad his brother wasn't paying attention. Sam knew him better than anyone and he'd know in an instant what Dean was thinking.

And that was something he didn't want Cas to get wind of. At least not yet.

It took another forty-five minutes to get checked into the Park. Dean reluctantly allowed a valet service to park his Impala in a lot a few blocks away. The line to get into the Park was already extremely long and it wasn't even ten in the morning yet. Cas offered to zap them all in, but Dean thought that might not be the best idea.

"This is Disney, Cas. They've probably got cameras everywhere. The last thing we need is the Mickey Mouse police coming after us. We gotta stay under the radar."

And so the two Winchesters and the angel waited in the stifling California heat to get their passes into the Park. People kept giving Cas weird looks, what with his attire. He was completely oblivious to this attention, though, and seemed much more focused on avoiding Dean.

At one point Dean got pushed by the person standing behind him in line, causing him to bump right into the angel, who was standing in front of him. In response, Cas practically jumped away.

"Okay, what's going on?" Dean said, turning the angel around to face him. "Why are you being so skittish all of a sudden?"

Cas looked around at the hundreds of people also in line and then down at the ground. He mumbled something under his breath that Dean couldn't quite hear.

"Cas?" Dean prompted. "What's up?"

"Nothing," Cas finally said, though he wouldn't look up at Dean. "I just don't like big crowds."

"Cas," Dean said again, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He finally looked up, "I'm fine, Dean," he said gruffly.

But there was some kind of war going on behind Cas's blue eyes, and Dean desperately wanted to figure out what was really wrong. But of course now wasn't the right time to ask. It never seemed to be the right time.

Before Dean could say anything else, Cas turned back around.

Despite all the sudden tension between the two of them, Dean couldn't help but continually admire Cas's wings. Being stuck in line for so long gave him an opportunity to really study them up close.

They weren't fully opaque, Dean realized. And they had a slight shimmery quality about them. They were impossibly black and the feathers that they were composed of looked incredibly soft. Dean wished he could reach out and touch them, but knew his hand would end up just phasing through the celestial material.

"What purpose do your wings serve, aside from flying, I mean?" Dean blurted out a few minutes later.

So many people were talking around them that Dean wasn't too concerned about anyone over-hearing their conversation; hence his boldness to ask such a question in public.

Cas, seemingly caught off-guard by this sudden inquiry, spun around to face Dean again and gave him a puzzled look.

"I'm just curious," Dean said with a shrug.

"Um... Well, in my true form they're helpful in battle. But of course in my true form I have more than just this set of wings. These are the ones I specifically need to fly... if you wanna call it that. They offer some protection, I guess. Against other celestial beings," Cas explained, sounding a bit pleased to be able to talk about his wings.

"Do you think they're stronger now, since Jack gave you an upgrade?" Dean wondered aloud.

"It is possible. Not sure I'll ever find out, though. Since, as I mentioned, they're really only used in heavenly battles."

Dean nodded. Then said, "Well, it sucks they don't help with earthly battles, cause we sure as hell could've used some extra help all those times we were trying to stop the apocalypse."

Dean was only teasing, but Cas gave him a sympathetic look. "I did use them once to help you—when I pulled you out of Hell. I'm not sure how much you remember, but it was... there was a lot of fire. I didn't want you to get burned, so I... I wrapped them around you. I knew you'd already been through so much down there and the thought of you suffering any more just... I knew I had to protect you as much as I could. I just wish I could've saved you sooner."

Dean didn't know how to respond to that admission. He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes and wiped them away before they could fall. For his part, Cas had a sad smile on his face and also seemed to be struggling to not cry.

If the two had been anywhere else Dean might've been brave enough to say what had been on his mind since he first saw Cas's wings.

"I don't think I've ever sincerely thanked you for that," Dean eventually managed to say. "I was going through some shit at the time, so I guess I wasn't very grateful about many things in my life. But now..." he trailed off and shook his head. "Thank you, Cas."

The angel looked like he wanted to hug Dean but thought better of it when he glanced around and remembered all the people surrounding them. Instead, he squeezed Dean's shoulder and gave him a quick pat on the back with his other hand.

"Hey, guys, the line's moving," Sam said, once again oblivious to their conversation.

"I'm surprised you even noticed, given how your eyes have been glued to your phone screen all morning," Dean said accusingly, giving his brother a look.

"Oh, shut up," Sam replied, rolling his eyes at Dean.

"Did you bring your phone?" Dean asked Castiel. "In case we get separated inside the Park?"

The angel pulled an iPhone with a navy blue case out of his inner coat pocket. "Yes, I did. If you need me, you can always just pray, though. I'll hear you."

Though he said this in a matter of fact sort of way, it still pulled at Dean's heartstrings for some reason. Why was there something so adorable about Cas's complete aloofness?

Hm, Dean was becoming too sentimental. Why was he suddenly feeling all these things about someone he'd known for over a decade?

The answer was, of course, obvious.

You're in love with him, a voice in his head whispered.

"You can't be zapping around, though," Sam said to Cas. "You gotta keep a low profile."

The angel nodded understandingly.

"Everything okay, Dean?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow at his older brother.

"Yep," Dean replied, now desperately trying to ignore that voice inside his head. "Just peachy."

What he really wanted to do was pull Sam aside and say, "I think I'm in love with my best friend", but that didn't seem appropriate for the current time and place.

Still, though, it was all Dean could now think about.