Well … that had been … an ordeal.

Lucifer flying off to jump up the ass of fuck-knows-who. The rock star Sam had been fawning all over dead. Having to work with Crowley. Not something Dean tended to enjoy but he couldn't deny he'd been useful. And working with Cas …

Yeah. That was a thing that had happened.

Cas. Offering himself up as bait as if he wasn't worth a thing. Again. As fucking usual. It had been weeks since Dean had seen Cas in person, and the first time they get face to face again after that morning Cas had left, the morning after … then Cas offers himself up as some kind of fucking sacrifice? Like what the shit? Seriously. Fuck that.

At least they'd all come out the other end relatively unharmed. Or like, not physically mutilated. That was a plus.

Another plus was Cas agreeing to spend a few days unwinding at the bunker before he zipped off with Crowley again.

'What, the angel gets to hang around but I don't?' Crowley had scoffed, adding a stupid little demonic puppy dog face at the end that just made Dean want to puke, punch him and then puke again. But Dean's look and Sam's look and Cas's look had done the work better than words, so Crowley put up his hands and surrendered, giving Cas a 'you have my number. And if you wont use it, I have yours.'

'You should get a new number,' Dean advised once Crowley was gone.

'I heard that,' snapped the pretentious dick, appearing again for a moment before vanishing again.

They waited a solid few seconds before they spoke again … just in case.

'I won't be changing my number,' Castiel informed Sam and Dean in response to Dean's comment with a sigh. 'The situation may not be ideal, but Crowley can be useful.'

'Don't tell me he's growing on you,' said Sam, giving Cas a look with raised eyebrows, although he was making what was clearly a joke.

'Unless the word "growing" is prefacing the rest of the sentence, "more and more insufferable by the minute" … then no, Sam. Crowley is not growing on me. However, he has sources and people in a lot of places making it easier for him to get intel on Lucifer and on the people he possesses. He's like … an anti-biotic.'

'A what now?' asked Dean, on behalf of both him and Sam, the verbal question Sam's eyebrow raise asked.

'An anti-biotic,' Castiel shrugged. 'An anti-biotic is infamous for being foul-tasting, yet it cures whatever illness the person taking it has.'

'Oh, I get it,' Dean nodded. 'Crowley's a foul mountain of dicks, but he's useful.'

'Basically.'

'Good on you for enduring him,' Sam encouraged.

'Thank you,' Castiel replied sincerely. 'And Dean?'

'Yeah?'

'Please don't insult dicks by comparing them to Crowley.'

'Sorry, sorry. I know you're into those. I'll lay off them.'

You're. The word and implication was in Cas's glare, a glare which made Dean stare back at him and Sam fight hard to resist the urge to almost-laugh. Almost laugh. He knew he shouldn't be laughing in the face of everything that had just happened, but … come on. Those two were like watching a sitcom. A very gay sitcom. A very gay sitcom where the two leads were totally fucking in love with each other and wouldn't admit it andd I know you like dick too, Dean, so don't even bother trying to hide it.

Sam was completely horrified when he realized Dean and Cas were staring at him and for a fleeting moment Sam was certain he'd said it all out loud.

Then he realized they were just staring because he'd been zoned out and staring into space for about a minute.

'You okay there, Sammy?' Dean asked, raising his eyebrows in a fashion that made it look as though Sam's zoning out was genuinely worrying him.

'Yeah,' Sam answered, clearing his throat. 'We should … we should go … and … we should go.'

And so they had gone, and the car journey had been pleasant. Some teasing Dean about his guitar playing back in Lucifer's … whatever the fuck. Lair? Pad? Temporary place of residence while inhabiting a rockstar? And some teasing him about him looking in the pizza box accompanied by a, 'you weren't seriously going to eat the Satan pizza if there was anything in that box, were you?'

'Maybe,' Dean shrugged in response to Sam's question.

'That's disgusting,' Castiel replied.

'You thought breakfast was a spell,' Dean retorted, 'Agent Beyoncé.'

Mother fucking Beyoncé. It was years ago that Cas had mentioned that godforsaken code name as an agent to him but Dean had never thought he'd actually use it. Boy was he unfortunately and painfully wrong.

Cas had a comeback in mind, but he couldn't say it in front of Sam. So instead he just glared, and Dean looked smug, and Sam looked amused and then went quiet and sighed as if disappointed. And then they moved on and Dean started bitching about Cas calling him a lumberjack and Cas sassed his fucking ass off every time Dean said 'not that I care' by pointing out that evidently he did care because he and Sam had both changed clothes.

'It was for the case,' Dean snapped.

'No, no it wasn't!' Sam piped up. 'We didn't have to change. I said we'd have a better chance if we went as ourselves and didn't ham up on the douchey rockstar persona. But Dean insisted. Have you any idea how much he made us spend on these stupid jackets?'

'Hey, they're not stupid,' Dean complained. 'In fact, I'm gonna go right ahead and say I look pretty hot.'

'You look ten years too old to be wearing it.'

'He has a point,' Castiel muttered, smirking slightly to himself.

'Shut the fuck up the two of you,' Dean grumbled, glaring at the road as he kept his eyes on it, driving on.

Dean was secretly very much liking Cas's attitude, though. He found himself hoping Cas would come at him, a feeling he'd had once before a million years ago about the queens at that drag show he and Cas went to. He wanted Cas to make fun of him because it meant he got to hear Cas being snarky. And it meant that on some level about some aspect of him, Cas cared.

They drove pretty much non-stop excluding reststops to the bunker, wanting to get there faster. There were three of them so they drove in shifts and Cas was useful in the fact that he didn't sleep, meaning he could take over when both Sam and Dean were too tired at the same time.

Sam and Dean were both physically and mentally tired when they reached the bunker. Cas was just severely mentally drained, but he was sure it would pass once he got out of the car and could stretch his legs and think of more than just what seemed like an endless journey, although it wasn't very endless at all. He'd made a similar journey twice before with Dean, to LA and back … to be driving away from LA with him again felt weird. Because it had been such a different situation that there was literally no reason whatsoever to mention their first time there.

Damn those cases were so vastly different. Both involving angels. Both basically insane angels. Yet the circumstance, the severity, the people involved so different … though the location still stuck with Cas. And the fact that they'd been at a concert both times albeit in different situations. And there'd been something to do with pizza boxes both times. And both times there had been pink panties involved.

Shit, Cas had felt like there was a red light flashing and pointing at both him and Dean when they both handled those panties. Cas wondered if Dean still had those. He'd almost snapped that at him in the car as his comeback to Dean picking on him. Maybe he'd ask … eventually. Although now was not the time.

'I'm going to go sleep in something that isn't moving,' Sam decided as soon as they got there.

'Ditto, brother,' Dean agreed with a weary sigh.

'What are you going to do?' Sam asked Cas, looking at him with eyes tired but mildly curious.

'Pick a room. Read. Watch TV,' Castiel shrugged. 'You two … go. Don't worry about me.'

Sam grinned.

'Night,' he offered, friendly as ever as he and Dean went off in the same direction to their rooms, leaving Cas behind.

'Don't let the bed-bugs bite,' Dean added. 'Seriously. Besides mine and Sam's rooms these mattresses are old as fuck. They probably have fleas.'

'I'll keep that in mind,' Cas said wearily, watching the two of them go.

And then he sighed.

And he was alone.

Alone, alone.

Alooooone.

For several minutes, until Dean reappeared.

'Hey, Cas?' Dean asked.

He didn't need to say another word. Five minutes later, Cas had Dean pinned beneath him, more alert than he'd been in hours, and he was whispering filthy things about pink panties and the works, and a half hour after that, Dean was asleep with his head on Cas's bare chest. Cas didn't move a muscle until Dean woke up, and he didn't want to.

They didn't talk about it.

They didn't talk about the fact that they were "sleeping" together again. Or that the first reprise of that activity had come after a fight and had been one night of Dean begging Cas not to leave, and the second time the two of them were getting along perfectly fine besides mutual bitchiness and sassiness and teasing and an all-round good time.

Cas didn't leave the next day like he had last time, and he spent a portion of the morning chatting to Sam while Dean showered, the two of them drinking coffee and talking about nothing in particular. Cas vented about Crowley's annoying habits. Sam vented about Dean's. They threw around some new vessel for Lucifer ideas. They threw around some plans for stopping Lucifer. All of the Lucifer stuff led nowhere but in a circle, so they dropped it and Cas asked Sam about the last time he and Dean had been in LA, which had been ten years ago or something or whatever Dean had said.

It hurt slightly that Dean hadn't mentioned being there not too many years ago on that case in that apartment building but he didn't think on it. The last time Sam and Dean had been there together, that's what he'd been talking about. Not the last time he'd been without Sam and with someone else.

And of course their last LA visit hadn't been pleasant which Dean was eager to chip in on when he arrived hungry and in need of caffeine, yet his mouth already power boating complaints about the last trip and about that whole era of their lives with yellow eyes and Meg in her first (presumably) meatsuit and so on and so forth.

The bunker was quiet during the day. Calm, even. The brothers did their own separate things. Cas did his own thing. Occasionally he did things with either brother, or the three of them did something together, or Sam and Dean did something together, but it was a boring and domestic life if they excluded the Lucifer research parts of it all.

Cas stayed for two more days in the end, and each night he and Dean shared a bed. They didn't even have sex. They just shared a bed, and Dean slept on Cas's chest and Cas lay with his arms wrapped around Dean, lost in thoughts that pained him, wondering if this meant that he and Dean were sort of … together again, or if Dean even still loved him like he once claimed to have.

Cas tried not to dwell on that. He tried not to ask questions, of himself or of Dean. He just tried to roll with it and take things how they were going with him and Dean until he got a call from Crowley asking for help following up on a lead.

Of course Sam and Dean offered to accompany them. Dean more than Sam.

'It's fine,' Castiel insisted. 'I got this.'

'You sure?' Dean asked, a final challenge to see if Cas would relent.

'I'm certain,' Castiel confirmed. 'I can take on the mountain of dicks alone.'

'Hey, don't insult dicks,' Dean complained.

'Sorry,' Castiel replied, with a look that said, I know you're into those.

Before Cas left, Dean took him aside away from Sam and he didn't say goodbye. He kissed him once without explanation, so Cas took it to mean don't do that with anyone else while you're gone. Or at least that's what he hoped it meant, because he wasn't going to. Kiss anyone else that was. He didn't want to. He didn't care.

All Cas wanted to do was venture out and find Lucifer's new vessel and kill the thing inside, or trap it, or whatever, and then get back so he and Dean could be together again. He hoped that for once, nothing dumb would arise and get in his way.