I

This was familiar.

The plates were new; they were heavier than what she'd had before, and Dean was glad for the TV trays that they pulled up to the couch, as holding his plate one-handed would have proved to be tiring after too long. But everything else – the microfiber of the couch, the faint smell of books and eucalyptus, the shadows cast on the walls by the lamps – stirred something close to an ache in Dean's chest.

He tried to focus on the food, or on Cassie's words, on anything but the fact that he was back here, and that the melancholic nostalgia threatened to draw him under like quicksand.

"And so he throws the syringe at me," Cassie said, miming throwing her fork. "Like it's my fault it broke?"

"Dr. Novak once threw a blood clot at me," Dean said reflectively, shoveling a forkful of pastry crust into his mouth.

"A blood clot?" Cassie asked in amused disbelief.

Dean nodded. "A small one," he said around his mouthful, before chewing hastily and swallowing. "It was a difficult case, and he'd finally gotten to the endarterectomy part, and I wasn't ready with the basin, and so…" Dean shrugged. "I'm sure he didn't mean for it to land on my face. Blood clots are notoriously hard to aim."

Cassie shook her head. "He's horrible. I don't know why you put up with him."

"Hey." Dean let his fork clatter to his plate. "He's not horrible. He's just – he's high-strung. Outside the OR, he's probably the nicest guy I've ever met."

"I'll take your word for it," Cassie dismissed. "Thank God you're in love with him, because I doubt he'd ever find anyone else."

Dean froze, a flash of something like electricity shooting through to the ends of his fingers. "What?" He asked, trying to sound casual.

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Please. I didn't have anything to do but hold that freaking bowel out of the way. I saw the way you were looking at him." She smirked and looked down at her plate. "I know that look. You used to look at me like that."

Dean's tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth; he took a long swig from his bottle of beer just to work enough moisture back into it to swallow. "It's a – don't bring the L word into this," he said finally, surprising himself by not denying what she was saying.

Cassie's eyes widened slightly. "You mean you're not already –"

"No!" Dean interrupted forcefully. "He's – I'm his tech. And since that whole snafu when HR found out you and I were dating –"

"Dean," Cassie interrupted, holding up a hand, "as fantastic an excuse as it makes, HR didn't get pissed that we were dating. They got pissed because they thought you were sleeping with me to get the job."

"It doesn't matter," Dean interjected.

"You bet your ass it matters," Cassie countered. "He doesn't have any say in your hiring decisions like I did. He doesn't even have any input in your yearly reviews like I did. You are so far in the clear that the only reason you're not already riding that –"

"He's a surgeon!" Dean blurted, only partly to stop her from completing her sentence.

"So?"

"So?" Dean repeated, leaning back into the couch. He ran a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes with forefinger and thumb and ending pinching the bridge of his nose. "Cassie…I didn't even get my GED until I was nearly thirty. I'm basically a thug that took a medical terminology course. I'm a tech. There's nothing wrong with that, but…" Dean pursed his lips in frustration. "'Out of my league' doesn't even begin to describe it."

Cassie sighed heavily. "Dean," she said, pushing her TV tray to the side and shifting on the couch so she was facing him, "I'm going to lay down some facts for you, and so help me if you don't stop wallowing in self-pity long enough to listen."

She held up a finger. "You are by far the hottest guy to ever step foot in Summit Surgical Center. Possibly all of Kansas – I'd need to do research. And if he hasn't noticed that, then he's required to hand in his gay card." She paused. "He is gay, right? You're not pining after a straight man?"

"I don't even know why we're having this conversation," Dean said flatly, "but yes, he is."

"Good." Cassie held up another finger. "You're smart. Not just book smart – anyone can do that – but you're smart. You see conclusions I couldn't come to with the cliff notes and a Complete Idiot's Guide to Whatever. And you remember everything. Every little detail, every nuance, and then you can put it all into a bigger picture. That makes you an amazing tech. I've told you this before. You're a better tech than I was, and I'd been doing it for ten years before I precepted you."

Dean said nothing, which Cassie took as an invitation for her to continue. She held up another finger.

"I've seen you without your shirt on." Cassie turned her three fingers into a thumbs up.

"You already said that," Dean mumbled.

"It merits repeating." Cassie held up her fingers again, this time adding a fourth. "You said 'outside the OR.' That means you've spent time with him outside the OR. Privately?"

"Well, in a bar," Dean admitted.

"When have you ever known a surgeon to do that?" Cassie asked shrewdly. "Aside from company functions, when have you ever known a surgeon to spend time outside of work with their tech?"

Dean swallowed. "Never."

"Exactly." Cassie leaned back, apparently satisfied. "Dean, he doesn't see you as a thug with a CST. You didn't see his face light up when he walked in today and saw you setting up." She raised her eyebrows. "Until about five minutes ago, I assumed you'd been sleeping together for at least a week."

It was useless trying to hide the astonishment on Dean's face. "Is it that obvious?"

Cassie's smile had a bittersweet cast to it. "Dean, I know you. And you're terrible at hiding what you feel, especially when you forget that in our line of work, we learn to read everything in a person's eyes."

II

He should have left three hours ago.

No, that wasn't quite accurate; he should never have come in the first place. He should have told her that he would take a rain check. He should have done anything but agree to come.

Her hair still smelled exactly as he remembered it. She shifted his arm on her shoulder to snuggle more tightly against his side and he found himself unconsciously rubbing her upper arm, softly, with a lazy rhythm totally incongruent to the scene of total destruction on the television in front of them.

It felt like he had never left. It would be so easy to just flow with it, let the familiarity lull him into a trance and just let everything unfold.

"Why is it always New York that gets obliterated?" Cassie asked in a sleepy voice. "There are other cities."

"Gotham gets it pretty bad sometimes," Dean replied. "And they kind of had to be in New York. Stark Tower and all that."

"Psssh. Plot." Cassie flipped a hand at the screen and settled more firmly against his side, head on his shoulder.

Dean took a slow, deep breath. Uneasy as he was, he was unable to deny that this was…nice. The companionship, the closeness, the warm feeling of another amiable body pressed against his. The amount of comfort he was drawing from it alarmed him just slightly.

The soundtrack of the movie swelled dramatically. Dean ceased paying attention, staring ahead blankly at the moving lights and turning his thoughts inward.

He shouldn't have come. If he hadn't, he wouldn't be here in this situation, wouldn't feel himself slowly being convinced that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing, after all.

Almost as though the him from two years ago was taking control, he turned his head to look down, and as if on cue, Cassie looked back up at him.

He shouldn't. He knew that look, and he shouldn't still be such a slave to it, but if there was one thing he'd never been able to resist, even now…

He was just lonely, he reasoned frantically with himself as her lips caught against his, slightly chapped and warm and unfolding something deep within his chest, like a key turning in a rusty lock. Lonely and starved for some kind of human interaction and she wasn't Dr. Novak and she definitely didn't even have the equipment but…he had been happy with that, once.

If just for a night, maybe he could figure out what exactly "not straight" and "it's complicated" meant, and then tomorrow, go back to being friends.

III

Her hair fanned out over the pale yellow of her pillowcase as she turned over. Dean's mouth quirked in a small smile.

The glass of water on her nightstand stood next to two Tylenol tablets. With luck, if she awoke tonight, she'd see the water and drink it. She'd need it.

His mind wandered back to earlier that evening. "I'm sorry," she'd mumbled as Dean broke away. "I know – I'm sorry."

"Cassie," Dean had said seriously, "The 'it's not you' excuse is stupid, but…it really isn't."

"No, I…" Cassie sat straight up, gathering her hair into a bunch that she ran through her hands in consternation. He remembered that idiosyncrasy of hers well. "I need a drink," she'd declared, twirling the throw blanket over her shoulders as she stalked off to the kitchen.

He hadn't followed her, had simply leaned back into the couch, palms pressed against his eyes hard enough to see sparks of light. It had been so long since he'd done something stupid. Clearly he had needed to break that streak.

Cassie made a small, unsettling noise in her almost-sleep, and Dean sat down on the edge of her bed. If she was going to be sick, he wanted to make sure she didn't choke on it.

It wasn't whiskey she'd plunked gracelessly in front of him, but it had the same golden color. He'd looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a honey liqueur," she said shortly. "Only hard stuff I have."

"You don't want to do this," he'd started, but Cassie had taken a long sip and downed half her glass before glaring at him.

"Were you paying attention when I tried to seduce my gay ex-boyfriend?" she asked grimly. "Of course I want to do this."

Dean had not even corrected her with "not straight;" he'd simply shaken his head and swirled the liquid in the glass. On the screen the credits to the movie began to roll, casting the room into semi-darkness as the screen changed to white text on a black background.

"I really thought I was over it."

"You seemed over it," Dean offered.

"I was. I really was." Cassie finished the rest of her drink with a quick swallow. Dean doubted she was even tasting it. "You…" She shook her head. "Are you even going to drink that?" she had demanded.

"I know what comes next," Dean had said grimly. "One of us should stay sober for it."

Five minutes had passed in the darkness of the bedroom; Cassie was breathing the deep, even cadences of very sound sleep. Carefully, he rose, trying not to rock the bed, and padded out of the bedroom, leaving the door open.

He paused at the doorway, his shadow stretching across the small bedroom to land as a gray silhouette on her comforter.

"There's not a day that goes by I don't wish you didn't have to get hurt," he said to the darkness. "But I did right by you. Then and now."

The couch was still familiar; the blankets were still in the linen closet where he recalled, more threadbare now and with some new additions. He pulled two out and settled on the couch, spreading them over him and sighing deeply through his nose as he closed his eyes.

IV

There is always an element of awkwardness to the morning after, no matter what happened – or failed to happen – the night before.

Dean had not enjoyed the rest that Cassie had; too many times he'd awakened from his fitful doze to walk quietly to her door and watch, making sure he saw her chest rise and fall at least twice before heading back to his resting place on the couch. By five-thirty he'd given up on sleep entirely, his internal clock telling him it was past time to wake up and go to work, and he settled on sprawling on the couch with a book.

Cassie had clearly forgotten to turn off her alarm; at a quarter to six he heard the local news radio click on in her room and a loud groan before it was silenced.

Several minutes passed before he heard her call hesitantly, "Are you still here?"

He considered staying silent to scare her before deciding that it would be more cruel than funny. "Out here," he called back.

Moments later she appeared in the living room, still looking closer to asleep than awake. "You are so noble it makes my teeth hurt," she declared before shambling into the kitchen.

"That might just be the hangover," Dean supplied as he put the book to the side and followed her.

She had jammed a cup into her single-serve coffee machine and jabbed at the button with rather more force than was necessary, and was now staring at the stream of coffee with obvious impatience.

"Water would be better," Dean suggested.

"No talking before coffee," she said without any real conviction.

He got her a glass anyway, forcing it into her hand. She put it down to reach for the steaming mug of coffee; with the much faster reflexes of the hale and not hungover, Dean grabbed it first and held it out of her reach, pressing the water into her hand.

"Water first. Then coffee."

"I hate you," Cassie muttered as she brought the glass to her lips.

"I know." Dean watched her drink the glass in its entirety before he let her snatch the mug from him.

"No, I really hate you," she said after a long steady sip that left Dean wondering if she'd burned all feeling from her tongue years before. "We were the cutest fucking couple ever and then you had to go and be gay but still love me and so we tried to make it work because we were young and stupid and…" She shook her head. "Did I not get all of this out of my system last night?" she demanded.

"You kind of passed out," Dean pointed out. "But you'd started to repeat yourself, so I'd assumed you were done."

"Obviously not." Cassie rubbed one eye. "But yes. I hate you. We'll leave it at that."

Dean nodded, taking the glass to the sink and filling it again. "If it helps, I hate me, too," he offered as he held out the glass again.

"Nope. Not allowed." Cassie took the glass without a fight, leaning back against the counter and sighing. "God. How did we get so fucked up?"

Dean shook his head. "Can we just…not do this?" he asked plaintively. "Personally, I've had my fill."

"I know." Cassie pushed her mug back into the coffee machine and loaded it with another pod of coffee. "I have too. But you're in my kitchen and I can't seem to come up with another topic of conversation."

"I can go," Dean offered. "Now that you're up and not dying."

Cassie stared at him. "You are insufferable." Her second cup of coffee was already to her lips.

Dean raised his hands in defeat. "I'm sorry I stayed last night to make sure you were all right. Obviously I should have left."

With a heavy sigh, Cassie plunked her mug down on the counter and leaned over across the narrow galley kitchen, wrapping her arms around Dean's torso. "You deserve so much better than Novak," she said from somewhere around his collarbone. "But you're the best he's ever likely to get, so thank God for small miracles for his sake, I guess."

Dean frowned. "Are you still drunk?"

"Probably." Cassie let her arms drop as she leaned back. "You are a rare creature, Dean Winchester." She picked up her mug again and took a sip, watching him over the rim.

"I don't suppose you'd care to elaborate on that." Dean had given up on following the thread of the conversation.

Cassie gestured at him with her mostly-empty mug. "You are so worried about other people. Making them happy. Making them safe. Doing the right thing for them. Without a single thought to what you want."

"I wanted to make sure you didn't die," Dean said slowly, almost certain he was missing the point entirely. "You kind of downed half a bottle of Celtic Crossing."

Cassie shook her head. "Not just me. Everyone." Her eyes took on a shrewd cast that made it perfectly clear that she was not as hung over as she appeared. "You're holding back for a reason. And I think I've figured out what it is."

"Oh, well, good," Dean said, a tiny flare of annoyance alighting in his chest. "At least someone has."

"You remove yourself from any situation where you can't make someone happy." Cassie's voice was triumphant as she declared this.

Dean stared. "And?"

"And," Cassie continued, "you're extending it to not letting yourself even enter a situation where you think you won't make someone happy."

"Okay," Dean said, nodding. "I'm lost."

Cassie made an impatient sound. "We broke up because you were convinced I wouldn't be happy dating a gay man. Which, okay, fair assumption to make. And correct. I guess." She turned and opened the refrigerator. "And now you're convinced that a surgeon won't be happy with you. So you won't even try."

"How did this become about me?" Dean asked, bewildered.

"I started deflecting because things were getting weird. Eggs?" She looked up, eyebrows raised inquiringly. "Anyway. I think you're asking the wrong questions." She pulled out a cardboard carton. "Would you be happy with the surgeon?"

"This is less weird?" Dean closed his eyes and ran his hand over his face. Suddenly, sleeping for three years seemed like a very good idea.

"It's a simple answer, Dean," Cassie said, pausing in taking down a bowl from the cupboard. "Would you be happy?"

"I don't –"

"Yes or no."

"Cassie –"

"Yes or no."

"Fine. Yes!"

Cassie nodded, as though pleased with herself for wrenching the confession from him, and finished pulling down the bowl. "Then stop thinking of him as a surgeon. That's where you're getting caught up. He's not a surgeon, and you're not his tech. He's a dude – kinda cute, from what I could see, although the loupes really do nothing for him – and you're a dude, and you're both into dudes, and you should see what happens if you decide to try being into each other." She opened a drawer and plucked a fork from it. "And just fucking be happy for once. For you." An eggshell flew past into the garbage pail behind him. "Eggs? No eggs? Your call."

V

Ice had formed a thin shell on the windshield of Dean's car. Groaning to himself, he reached inside for the ice scraper, knowing that his defroster definitely was not up to the task.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked, leaning over to scrape at the windshield.

Cassie pulled her hoodie more closely around her. "I'll be fine," she said, her words fogging the frigid air.

"I don't just mean today," Dean said, pausing in the chore to look gravely at her.

"I know." Cassie smiled faintly. "Yeah. There'll be some times that I'm not. But that's life."

Dean nodded. He surveyed his work; it would do until the car warmed up. "Listen," he said, turning to face her. "This is…weird. And uncomfortable. Because we've still got something that won't give up." He shrugged. "But if anyone ever tries you hurt you half as much as I did…"

Cassie raised an eyebrow.

"…when you're done keelhauling him," Dean said quickly, "I'll break his kneecaps. So that he thinks twice. Because it's bad enough that you beat yourself up over us. I don't want you ever beating yourself up over some douchebag."

"You're impossible." Cassie crossed her arms. "Take care of yourself, okay?" She put a very slight emphasis on yourself, erasing any doubt as to what she meant by the statement.

"You too," Dean replied. He wrenched open the car door and slid into the seat, shivering at the cold leather.

The car roared to life, protesting only a little at the temperature, and Dean folded his arms as he waited for the engine to warm up, watching Cassie disappear up the stairs into her apartment.

He should have left thirteen hours ago, but some part of him was glad he hadn't.