Sammy was already sleeping. Dean could tell because the rise and fall of his chest faltered like a candle failing to blow out. That's what Sammy was.
A flame that never died.
Dean observed him in sleep the way he couldn't quite manage when Sam was awake. Awake and judgmental.
Dean just wanted to understand. Before Cas came into his- their, into their lives, Dean had only ever been truly close to one person. But there was always that barricade that Dean had built to prevent Sammy fully crossing the bridge that meant Dean could really open up to him.
Sam's forehead creased, the flame hitched, and the streetlamps cast elongated furniture shadows along the walls and bathroom door.
Dean wanted to sleep too. He really did. He wished he knew why he never could.
He wished he knew a lot of things.
Like how Sammy could cry in his sleep and never know and did that mean that he did that too?
Their relationship, so increasingly hard to define, felt more and more estranged each day. Dean didn't want to drag Sam along with him. If Dean was broken then Sam was fixed, and if Dean was irreparable then Sam was unbreakable. Dean didn't know how to move forward knowing that.
So instead, he rolled over, facing the peeling yellow ceiling. There was a mattress lump directly under his left hip, and he fixated on the awkward angle of his body. Neck twisted, body turned, with an arm half unsupported by the bed. Dean knew it was a distraction. His whole life felt like one big distraction. Each breath a painful way to pass the time until his last, until he would be free.
Dean hated it when he got this way. When the nights ached by like someone dreading giving bad news. He wished he could burn down his barricade and let Sammy in, even just to ask for help.
But he knew that he never would. Sammy would burn him, take him down. When Dean did finally go down, he wasn't going to let Sam see. Sam wouldn't...couldn't know that Dean was held together with little more than scotch tape. How could he understand, when his soul burned so strong, while Dean's was merely a fading ember.
As always on nights like this, the normal motel sounds muted against Dean's lethargic breathing. No one was shouting beyond their room. No one driving past or pulling into the parking lot stumbling for a bed. There were no distractions because Dean wanted a distraction. He attempted to pair his breathing with Sam, but with each intake, Dean's breathing hitched, his resolve crumbling piece by piece.
What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn't he just sleep? Why couldn't he just be more like Sammy, or Cas?
It was easier to think about Sammy than Cas. Sammy was a familiar pain, a comparison well worn. But Cas… If Sam was fire then what did that make Cas?
Cas was water.
Yes, that made sense. He was there one moment and gone the next. Like a tide coming in only when called. Did that make Dean the moon? Dean was intrusive enough but nowhere near bright enough. No, Cas was his own moon.
He could effortlessly illuminate anything he shined his light on, except for Dean. Dean was an icicle left behind to melt when the seasons changed. He had no choice with what he turned into. All his choices formed by those around him. What did the moon care about melted ice?
Maybe he once had potential but it was gone in comparison to the heat of the flames or the stare of the moon.
Dean took it back, Cas wasn't water, he was most definitely the moon. Always present even when you couldn't see him, always watching over Dean. Always above him in every regard.
Dean wished for equality. Wished that he wasn't always so below the world around him. In some ways, sometimes, it felt as though he had left a part of him in Hell. A part of him that even Cas didn't know how to retrieve.
He closed his eyes tightly, fighting the moisture that seared in them, and closed his throat. It hit him then, that tonight was another sleepless night. There was no point in avoiding sleep that wouldn't come.
So Dean got up and laced up his boots. He shucked on his leather jacket and grabbed the keys to his baby. As silently as possible, he closed the motel door.
Only once he was behind the wheel did he feel like he could breathe again. The smell of old leather, the familiar curve of the seat that had long ago molded to his body. It was the only thing Dean had that was just his.
He sat there, with the engine off, panting. Trying to get his breathing under control felt like he was fighting his instincts. As though he had just run a mile and was pretending not to be out of breath. A part of him wished to be alone, but a stronger, louder part of him desired someone to care for him in moments like this. He could never ask though. To ask for company felt pathetic, weak. Dean wasn't actually above that. He knew he was weak, but he had an image to keep for his little brother. Maybe, maybe for Cas too.
The rustle of cloth to his right was his only warning that his silent wish was granted.
Really, Dean thought, I should've known. Cas had always shown up when Dean wanted him, even when Dean himself didn't know that he wanted...needed him.
"Hello Dean," came the gravelly voice. Right on cue.
"Hey Cas."
Dean sighed. He wanted Cas. Oh, boy did he. But to have Cas see him now. Dean hadn't had a proper chance to prepare. He didn't have a chance to hide his eyes.
You can't hide from the moon.
They sat in silence for a moment. Cas, ever so neglectful with social cues, seemed to always read Dean perfectly. Dean was given a silent companion while he fought to keep his face and breathing under control.
When Sammy was sleeping, he moved from forest fire to candle. When Sammy was awake, he was alert, judgmental. Cas didn't sleep, but when he was simply just there, Dean felt accompanied, safe, and accepted.
He could never seem to remember that when he wasn't actually around him. When Cas left, Dean felt shame. Cas didn't deserve someone like that in his life. Cas deserved the stars to his moon, not a puddle of, well, Dean. But when he returned, as much as Dean tried to deny it, he always returned, Dean would remember.
He would remember how to hold on.
How to breathe.
The scent of him filled the car. Replacing the old leather of Dean's home with the living embodiment of it. Rain, and honey. The scent of safety. The scent of Dean's heart.
The silence wasn't heavy. It wasn't uncomfortable. It was golden. With it, Dean was able to slow down enough to turn to his left.
The affection on Cas's face told Dean not to ask why he'd come. He did it anyway.
Cas smiled. "I thought you could use a friend."
Dean tried not to flinch at the word "friend". His resolve appeared as a man who stared straight ahead, pretending everything was normal. So that man was who Dean had to become. For that night.
Time stood still and an eternal torment later, sounds emerged with the rising sun.
The impala's occupants kept the night close in their silent rejection of the world opening up around them. Dean didn't want the night to end. He dreaded going back into the motel room. He dreaded facing Sam. He dreaded losing sight of the moon.
Cas wordlessly joined Dean in delaying the inevitable.
A knock on the window made Dean jump.
Sam.
A glow from the sun auraing his silhouette. He was already hard to look at as it was.
His presence melted Dean back into the shape he was around Sam. Back into his cold icicle. Sam walked around and got into the passenger seat.
Cas was gone. When had he left? Dean didn't notice.
He frowned. He wanted Cas to stay. He wanted Cas to- He wanted Cas.
Sam took over Cas's seat, staring at Dean with the exact expression that Cas would never use.
Dean chose to observe a morning jogger passing the motel parking lot instead.
"What are you going up so early?"
Dean didn't want to answer. But he knew delaying would speak louder than any lie he could tell, so he settled.
"I just woke up half an hour ago. Didn't want to disturb your beauty-sleep over there, seeing as how much you need it."
Sam rolled his eyes and grunted in response. "Fine, don't tell me."
How did he know? Did Dean wake him when he had opened the door? He could feel the dichotomy between the Dean of three in the morning state of mind and the Dean now of six-thirty in the morning. He expected the Dean of now to be foggy from lack of sleep, but it never happened.
"Might as well get some coffee and breakfast seeing as we're both in the car already."
And dressed. Dean was wearing the same clothes from yesterday, maybe that's what tipped off Sam, and Sam was fully dressed and cleaned. How early did he get up then? Did this mean they were both allergic to sleep?
Dean wished he knew a lot of things.
Starting with Cas. Why had he taken off when he saw Sam? How could he know how hard Dean's brain fought in that split second. Stay or go. And it wasn't just a question about Cas. The moon was gone, and the sun stood out sharply, like an edge slowly revealing itself into a full knife.
After breakfast things settled down a bit. They spent the day searching for a new hunt, without success. They drove a single town overlooking for inspiration but ending up with a new motel instead.
That night, Dean begged for sleep. Begged on bended knee… in his mind. He was above praying because there was no one to pray to who would care. Or rather, who would care the way Dean needed him too.
Without waiting as long as the night before, Dean crept out to the car once again. This time as he exited, he paid close attention to Sam's movements as he slid the door shut without even a creek. Sam didn't budge.
Back in the car, back in his seat, back in his head. Dean looked up at the moon. It was full again tonight. The moon was so much better than a tide. Water wasn't always around, but nighttime wasn't only Dean's time to come out. Cas appeared again.
Dean prayed he would. It was a silent prayer, in his heart that he knew better to assume only he could hear.
Dean smiled. When he pictured this moment all day, okay more like when he longed all day for night to come, his mind refused to imagine the realized state Cas's presence would bring. All he could picture without the intoxication of Cas's presence was an awkward and unending state of blabbering to cover up the real him just below the flat surface.
Cas could see through him. Dean wished he knew how much. It's not as though there was a lot to see.
Dean didn't want to lose this night like the last. He wanted-needed to make something of it. This time he faced Cas. Here was his angel eclipsing his darkness, and Dean surrendered to his light.
"Thank you."
He poured his meaning into small words. The tiny words. Forever too tiny to express the burning that Dean could do only around Cas. He could be like Sam, only around Cas. But around Cas, the burning wasn't mimicking. It was his own genuine soul coming back to life bit by bit.
"Dean..."
Here it comes. His secrets to be spilled out of those lips, to form shapes in reality with that tongue. Maybe Dean could handle it if that was how his secrets were to be giving life.
"Why do you keep looking at the moon?"
Had he been? He thought he was looking at Cas.
The last thing he expected was his own voice to take out his betrayal. He neglected to remember the stronghold Cas's presence remodeled him to.
"It reminds me of you." Said a voice that sounded like Dean's. A voice braver than Dean's. A sound that knew things that Dean wished he knew.
Cas cocked his head. The downright adorable way that he did. There were zero other words that would fit besides adorable. Cas wore that word like so many others. Cas, Moon, Soul, Brave, Heart, Need, Sex, Compassion, Faith, Whole. Dean could spend his life working on such a list.
On very few occasions, like tonight. Tonight with its hollow sounds, and wooden winds, holding together a perfect serenity. Stars blinked, visible through the small towns that still could see beyond the big pictures of cities. Smells that drifted lazily through the window to Dean's nose. Like they simply had nothing better to do. Crickets that held their song the night before, blew out their symphony just for them.
How could anyone resist? On the rare occasion that was tonight, Dean had nothing left to lose. Sam had burned the rest down. He was left to die. Left to stay dead. And Cas was his. Cas heard his prayers in purgatory. And he still heard them when he was belched free into a world that made less sense. Once again they were back together, sown into the chaos. Sown together under the moonlight. Cas had heard so much of it before.
"Because you are the moon. You were missing in Purgatory. But you're back. Always looking out for me, always -"
He stopped. Just like those times before. A before of Dean covered in more guts than clothes, more spite than spirit, and one single motivation left. Monster hearts weren't the only thing spilled in purgatory. Dean's guts might have shown a little too, but thankfully without leaving his body.
Cas cupped his cheek with a thumb.
It ignited him. Cas had warmth, while Dean was partially in hibernation.
"If I am the moon Dean, it's only because you are my sun."
Dean had never heard anything more beautiful.
On very rare occasions like that night, they opened a door only opened once before. The door they opened in purgatory, became where they walked through again on a night like that night. A door leading to Dean's heart, tonight laid more bare than his soul was in hell. Where their bodies together formed a shape all their own.