Just before he opened the door, however, he was cautious. Castiel listened to any sound from upstairs that could indicate Dean's sudden return. After focusing intently for a minute or two, Castiel turned his attention back to the door. As he turned the lock, he felt his heartbeat racing. His head was spinning. He was just about to pull the heavy door wide open when a thought went through his mind in little more than a millisecond.

I'm trespassing.

Castiel suddenly put his hand on the door and pushed it back into the frame.

He rebuilt this house-his home. I can't do this. I can't betray his trust after he took me in like this.

He locked the door and went back upstairs, hopelessly ashamed of his curiosity. As he put the key back in its rung on the row, he sat at the table in the kitchen and put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes.

Never again. Not without Dean's explicit permission.

Castiel sat upright, searching the room for something he could do to repay him, and, honestly, selfishly, to correct his own mistake. Then the answer became so blatantly obvious it could have slapped him upside the head.

He would clean up the house for Dean. It really was a mess. Transcripts overflowed from the coffee table in the living room, boxes of books were stacked in the hallway, some so dusty they looked like they hadn't been touched in the last century. There were ingredients for spells along one countertop, leaving around three feet of workspace: the sink. Dishes were piled next to a laptop, and Castiel was in for a lot of work.

By the time he'd finally established a rough organization, the hallway had been cleared of all debris. That was the first time Castiel was able to really take in the house, carefully built by Dean's own two hands. He did suppose Sam helped, but Sam never relied on Bobby as much as Dean did. Dean was always the type to look up to somebody, to have a father figure. Sam, on the other hand, didn't. Which is why he was the rebellious one, in a way. Sure, Sam looked up to Dean, but as a brother. He never needed a father in his life as much as Dean did. After John died, Bobby became Dean's surrogate father.

And when he died, Dean kept him alive by rebuilding the house. It had become his home, his safe haven.

Castiel walked through the house, noticing that the house followed the exact same layout as the original house. Some elements, however, were of Dean's personal taste. Dean set up the furniture in the study exactly the way it was previously arranged, but there was a laptop where the disheveled mess used to be. There was also a vest over the modern office chair. Bobby's old ratty vest. Dean had kept it.

As Castiel made his way upstairs, he had a sudden realization:

Houses are like people. If you live day by day,you take them for granted. Until one day you wake up and it's been forty years, and you realize how much has changed, has aged, in those years past. You can't help but to look around, hoping to find the cracks where the past shines through. The young man and the fresh paint linger in memory, but are still there, underneath the dust and the soot and the grime of age.

Castiel had never felt the sheer sorrow of being human until the moment when he crumpled at the top of the stairs, realizing how much he desired a home like Dean had always had.

Castiel tore his mind off thoughts of family ties and old houses and fresh paint and began to look for a bucket to scrub down the hallway.

Upon leaving the house, Dean stopped before turning onto the road to look backwards. He didn't know why he felt the urge to look back at the house, he just felt nervous about leaving Castiel in the place alone. Then he turned his mind back to thoughts of real food and drove on.

Cas has been making toast for three days straight. That first time he buttered both sides was sickening, but I ate it anyway, thank God he knows how to make this properly now. Christ, why does Cas have to be so nervous all the time?

Where's the friggin' pie?

Dean let his mind wander at the grocery store. He decided to buy a simple cookbook for Castiel since Dean knew how to hunt and take cases and Cas was, well, like a virgin at that sort of thing. He chose a paperback one titled Cooking For Two. It sounded corny, but it wasn't like either of them needed full-course meals three times a day. Or leftovers, for that matter.

As Dean meandered through the store, he rifled through his wallet, looking for an ID that hadn't been used in a while. Settling for Mr. Darius Bond's ID, he paid and left.

Darius Bond? Sam, you play too many games.

While Dean was loading up the car, he pulled out the book. Thinking the cover was too decorated and flowery pink, he took off the dust cover, revealing an olive green book with a blank cover.

That's more like it.

As he went to put the cart away and throw out the cover, he happened to see something out the corner of his eye. He turned, just in time to see the tall man on the sidewalk by the highway, holding a brown bag with grease stains on the bottom. The tall man put the bag down, looked directly at him, and stepped across the sidewalk towards the highway. Dean was about to yell when the tall man walked in front of a car on the highway and-

And disappeared. The driver swerved, but there was no tall man anymore.

Dean went to pick up the greasy bag. Without opening it, he started up the car and went back to Bobby's house. Dean looked over at the bag sitting on the passenger seat and crinkled his nose.

It stinks.