And here it is - the final chapter! An extra long one, too, with plenty of fluff, comfort and snuggling. Have a happy, snuggly Sunday, everyone!
Cas was safe, his cheeks pink with warmth, dozing beneath the blankets that were tucked all the way up around his shoulders.
Dean picked up the plastic shopping bag and tipped the contents out onto the stained formica-topped table.
"Huh." He smiled as he picked up a box. "Good old Eazi-Mash".
When he'd made his dash around the convenience store, Dean hadn't really been paying much attention to what he'd grabbed. His auto-pilot seemed to have kicked-in, though - everything was just right for an exhausted, battered angel, or, at one time, would have been what Dean had given his little brother if he was tired or scared or just generally whiny.
Dean followed the old familiar sequence, hoping it would work as well on Cas as it used to on little Sammy. First came the hot chocolate, made nice and strong - a kick-starter of calories and comfort. Dean dumped generously heaped spoonfuls of powder into a mug, topped it up with milk and set it to heat in the microwave. No need to stir in all those bergs of unmixed powder - they'd just mix in when the milk was hot.
While that was heating he opened the jar of hot dogs, broke them up into pieces and tumbled them into a bowl. Then he set the coffee maker to heat some water, tore open the pack of Eazi-Mash (actually Eazi-cheezi-mash, which had been Sammy's favourite) and tipped a load on top of the hot dog chunks. Gourmet cuisine it was not, but when you needed something hot and friendly to shovel down a hungry throat? It was pretty damn perfect.
The microwave pinged. But Dean's clothes were still damp from the shower.
He stripped off his shirt, then his jeans, swearing as the damp denim clung stiffly to his legs and bunched up around his ankles until he wrenched them off inside out. Then he pulled on a pair of sweats and a soft, old shirt - and immediately felt some of the day's tension drain out of his shoulders. He'd found Cas. He'd found him and he was okay. And Dean wouldn't be letting the newly humanised angel out of his sight again any time ever.
Soft snoring sounds came from the bed. Cas had slumped to one side and his relaxed lips pooched out on every breath. But there were shadows under his eyes and he'd lost a few pounds and that was just unacceptable.
Dean opened the microwave and took out the mug. He stirred in the remaining lumps of undissolved powder and took a sip - warm, but not too hot.
Setting the mug down on the nightstand, he perched on the side of the bed.
"Hey, Cas. Hey. Time to wake up."
Cas sighed and his head rolled away from Dean.
"Come on, angel." Dean patted the side of his face until the thick, dark lashes fluttered and slivers of blue appeared.
"G'way."
"No. Come on, grumpy. Wake up." Dean picked up the gently steaming mug. He passed it back and forth beneath Cas's nose. "Smell that. Mmm. You want some?"
The eyes opened wider, the chapped lips parted and closed, his throat bobbed as he swallowed.
"Yeah, that's it - wakey, wakey."
Cas's shoulders straightened up and the blankets wriggled and rustled until his hands emerged and reached out for the mug, fingers opening and closing eagerly.
"You gonna be able to hold that without spilling it?"
He growled.
"Okay then, here you go." Dean made sure his friend had a firm grip on the handle and his other hand was curled around the mug as well. "Got it?" He let go as Cas drew the hot chocolate toward him.
The angel took a tentative sip, hummed his approval and then began guzzling the sweet liquid, slurping and smacking his lips and barely taking a break to breathe.
"You like that a little bit?"
Cas ignored him and continued to drink until he had to tip the mug right back and let the thick, concentrated gloop that always gathered at the bottom of hot chocolate drain slowly into his mouth. He grumbled when it was gone and looked down into the mug as if willing more to appear.
"I'll make you something to eat now, yeah?"
Cas grumbled wordlessly again. He had a fine chocolate moustache.
Dean took the mug from him and the angel immediately slumped to one side, his eyes closing, his tongue flicking out to chase the chocolate from around his lips.
"Okay," said Dean. "Let's try round two." His own stomach then reminded him of its status and Dean couldn't remember whether he'd eaten at all since a hastily snatched bowl of cereal back at the bunker. "Huh. Looks like I'll be joining you."
The coffee machine was burbling away. He made himself an identical bowl to the one he'd already prepared and poured water on both, stirring them around until he'd got the right kind of fluffy, mashy consistency, studded with chunks of hot dog.
"Nice," he said. And was glad his autopilot brain had remembered ketchup. It was okay without the ketchup, but not the same.
He squirted a big dollop in the middle of his own bowl and then decorated Cas's, just like he used to for Sam. And it was a shame that Sam wouldn't eat stuff like this anymore, because maybe it wasn't all that great in terms of nutritional value, but it was fun and it was comforting and, in their line of work, they deserved any little scrap of comfort they could get. Not that Dean would say it out loud like that, but he'd grown up having to be the provider and comforter, and he'd learned that very often you could get the most mileage out of the simplest things - like hot chocolate and instant mashed potato.
He grabbed a couple of forks and stuck them, upright, into the fluffy lumpiness.
"Hey." The angel was fast asleep again. "Hey, come on. Wake up. Time for the main event." No reaction.
Dean put the bowls down on the nightstand and, kneeling on the edge of the bed, he hauled Cas upright, careful not to touch his injured shoulder.
"Mmf. Wha? Deeean."
"You need to eat, Cas. Come on. Up an' at 'em."
The angel glared at him. And Dean had to try hard not to laugh. His hair was sticking up like a fluffy black birds' nest, and although the scrape on his cheek and the shadows under his eyes weren't funny, the sulky, pouty mouth and bristling, lowered eyebrows definitely were.
"I know. I'm a big, bad meanie." He stifled a yawn. "But you need to eat."
The blue eyes narrowed. Cas cleared his throat and whispered, "So do you."
"I'm gonna eat." Dean waved toward the nightstand. "See - two bowls." His rubbed eyes full of grit, and the weight of the last few days' frantic search for his lost angel dragged at his shoulders.
Cas's intense gaze flickered toward the food, then he looked at Dean and said. "Get in."
"What?"
"Bed. Get in."
"Uh." Dean rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I figured I'd take the couch."
"There's room for two."
Dean laughed, nervously. The hotel specialised in rooms with just one king size bed, charging by the hour - it was that kind of area. And he'd been trying to ignore the noises from the rooms either side, but it sounded like they were being used as intended.
"Get in, Dean."
Cas didn't need any blue fire in his eyes. And although Dean had defied that glare before, he was tired. And the bed did look a lot more comfortable than the couch.
"Okay - no need to go all Angel of the Lord on me. Shit. Sorry, Cas. I'm sorry."
Cas's glare had dissolved into loss and confusion, his eyes were suddenly glassy, his lower lip trembling.
Dean flung back the covers, got in, gathered his friend up and held him tight. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Cas."
The thick, dark hair was fluffy and tickly against his cheek and his friend - that he'd lost and then found - was shaking. And suddenly it seemed natural to Dean to turn his head just a little and place a kiss amongst the messy nest and then rub his face against it and then kiss it again.
"I've gotcha now, angel. You're safe now."
Cas's body trembled in his arms. But then he squirmed and pulled away and, fuck, what was Dean thinking of - comforting was one thing, kissing was another completely different thing, which Cas would not want. They were friends for fuck's sake. Nothing else. He shouldn't have let his guard down, shouldn't have let the last few days' desperate worry get to him like that, so that the relief made him careless and stupid and he'd ruined everything now.
But then he was being drawn in, grasped firmly around his back and shoulders and pulled down - and messy, sloppy kisses were landing on his neck and his face and a couple landed half on his mouth, half on his chin. So Dean kissed back, because what the hell else was he gonna do?
"Dean."
"Cas. Cas, I-"
"Shut up, Dean."
Then he was being kissed again, square on the lips this time, wet and urgent and salty with tears that might've been Cas's, or, to be fair, might've been his own.
It was awkward, because he had one hand braced on the headboard and he wanted to get the other arm around Cas - any part of him would do - but he was being dragged down by a fierce, claiming grip and his face was being smothered by Cas's lips and he had to smack the other hand onto the mattress to stop himself collapsing completely.
Then suddenly he was free and Cas's face was inches from his own - wet, pink cheeks and wet, pink mouth and a gaze as intense as blue angel grace had ever been. Cas swallowed hard and looked into Dean's eyes. Dean gulped and wanted to look away but couldn't. What was happening here? Was a declaration coming? Would Cas expect Dean to say something back already? And he could. He could say something - but no actually he probably couldn't because Dean didn't say stuff like that. The words would stick in his throat and his Dad's face would appear in front of him and start saying things. Fuck, was he going to panic? Was he going to jump up and go hide in the bathroom?
Cas's lips parted. His brows crinkled into a frown.
"I'm hungry," he said.
"What?"
"Hungry," said Cas. "Food."
"Oh." Dean huffed a breath of relief and then grinned. "Yeah. Good thinking, uh… Batman." He laughed as he reached for the bowls of what tiny-Sammy had referred to as 'Doggy-mash.' "Here you go. That'll fill a coupla gaps."
Dean's stomach reminded him of its emptiness again and insisted he stoke it up immediately. Cas, however, stared down into his bowl.
Dean forked in and swallowed a giant mouthful and then wiped away the ketchup at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "You okay, Cas?"
The bowl tilted toward him and Cas smiled softly. "You drew a face."
Dean shrugged. "Quite an artist, ain't I? Ketchup portraits a specialty."
"Who is it?"
"Who d'you want it to be?"
Cas stared down into his bowl, his head tilting to one side. "Gabriel," he said. "He would like a portrait in ketchup. And I miss him."
"Gabriel it is, then," said Dean. "Now eat up your brother, yeah?"
Cas smiled and took a small forkful - a chunk of hotdog with a little curl of mash, tipped with a dab of ketchup. The fork went in his mouth, he closed his eyes and his lips pursed thoughtfully. He swallowed. Then he dug in began shovelling food into his mouth with every bit as much enthusiasm and lack of table manners as Dean - and they weren't eating at a table were they, so who the fuck needed table manners anyway?
"'S good," said Cas. "I can taste… things." He shoved in another overflowing forkful and added, messily, "Wonderful things."
"Nothin' like a bowl of mash 'n' dogs when you've been out in the cold," said Dean.
They both ate silently and Dean wasn't sure whether he wanted to slow down his meal or speed up, because what would happen when they'd finished? Would there be more kissing? Would anything else happen? Was Cas just experimenting a bit because he was, in effect, human now? Would he have kissed anyone who'd given him a warm bed and some food? No. No, he wouldn't. That was a stupid thing to think.
Dean scraped the last of the mash out of his bowl and licked it off the fork.
Cas had finished already and was watching him. Dean smirked half-heartedly and let his eyes fall to the patterned bedspread. He took Cas's bowl as well as his own and slid out of the bed to carry them over to the kitchen area. He'd wash up now or it'd all get stuck on like cement by the morning. He turned on the tap and waited for the water to come through hot.
"Come back here," said Cas.
Dean stayed facing the sink, one hand under the stream of water.
"Dean."
"I'm just gonna tidy up here."
"No. You're tired. It can wait."
He shut off the tap. It dripped into the sink.
"Dean."
He turned around. Cas was covered with the blankets, all except his face and one arm, stretched out, his fingers splayed, reaching toward Dean.
There were so many things he could say. So many things they both could, and probably should say. Dean licked his lips and took a breath. There must be some words somewhere. But he didn't know what he wanted to say even if he could find them.
Did Cas really want this? Did Cas want him? And, if he did - why? Cas was - had been - an angel. Dean was just… Dean. Just a guy - a guy who sometimes made a difference in the right direction and sometimes messed up.
The carpet beneath his bare feet was worn away - worn down to greasy threads. Dean had grown up in places like this. It was where he belonged - down in the mire, not with a creature of light.
He'd sleep on the couch.
"Dean."
The softness in Cas's voice pulled Dean's eyes up from the dirty, beaten-down carpet, just as the strength of his angelic grace had pulled Dean from hell.
He looked at the fallen angel.
He looked at his bird's nest hair and his over-thin arm, reaching out. And Dean looked at Cas's face - at his gently smiling mouth, the tilt of his head, the wide, soft blue of his eyes.
And he saw that he'd been wrong. He didn't need words and neither did Cas. Everything that needed to be said was all there already, in the way his angel spoke his name and in the way he looked at Dean.
"Okay," said Dean. "Okay, yeah."
He wiped his hands on a cloth and left the kitchenette in a mess and got back into bed with Cas, where, apparently, he belonged.
Cas shoved some of the stacked pillows at him and he rearranged them so they both had some. And they lay down, facing each other.
Cas squirmed closer and his octopus arms slid around Dean's body and pulled him in so that Dean's face was mashed against his chest. And Dean, putting his own arms around his angel, decided that this, at least for the moment, was something he was allowed to have.
Cas sighed.
"Dean," he said again.
And, yes, it was definitely all there. All there in that one syllable that he'd heard over and over all his life, spoken with harshness or disappointment or anger; with sharp command, or with exasperation, or ridicule.
But when Cas said his name it was different.
Dean had lost his angel over and over, in one way and another, and got him back over and over. But it had taken losing him and finding him one more time, on this rainy night in the dark and dirty alleys and backstreets, for Dean to realise something.
When Cas said his name, all that was there was love.
"Cas," he whispered, into the shared warmth.
"Dean." The words tickled his hair.
And Dean smiled.
I hope you enjoyed that and that those of you desperately in need of some fluffy comfort are satisfied. I've just started another story, which is a post-season fifteen fix-it, even though I've only got as far as season fourteen. I know what's coming and you can't start too soon with such things! So, look out for 'Secret Flowers' in the next couple of weeks.