Dean awoke on the couch in the living room, an ice pack on his face. Cas was seated across the room, in the loveseat.
"I'm sorry I put you to sleep." He said morosely. "I did not think I was still that strong. I didn't think I had it in me after the pickles."
"Well, apparently you've still got some super strength. At least when it comes to kicking the crap out of me." Dean muttered, sitting up.
"I apologize. If it makes you feel any better, I had to load you into the car in order to get you back to the house." Cas said weakly.
"It doesn't matter." Dean mumbled.
The right side of his face felt like it had been pummeled with a brick. Clearly Cas wasn't totally out of juice yet.
"Why would you do that, Dean? Why would you summon Crowley? We have Sam and Adam in our grasp… we just have to wait a bit longer... and you summon Crowley, even though you know what he wants to do to me." Cas said.
"I don't know, Cas. I have no idea. It was stupid of me. I just can't stand waiting any more. I don't trust the angels, not after what they've done to us." Dean said weakly.
"He wants to take me to Hell, Dean. He wants to torture me for all eternity. He wants to feed me to demons that would do worse things to me than you can even imagine. Why would you risk that?" Cas asked again, his voice rising.
"Cas, he couldn't just take you. You'd have to make a deal. They can't take a righteous man to Hell without a deal."
"I'm hardly a man! What has happened to me, it's unprecedented! I didn't die, I became human! You don't know what he could do. He's the goddamn King of Hell, Dean!" Cas yelled, standing up from the loveseat..
"He wants your soul bad, Cas. If he could just take it, he would have done it by now. He sure as shit wouldn't trade me Adam and Sam for you." Dean said.
"You're a fool, Dean. Thinking that demons are the path, even after Gabriel came to us on his own volition and swore to get Sam out. You always do this; sacrifice everything for your brother. Except now, you're not just sacrificing yourself, you're sacrificing me. You're sacrificing me, even though you don't have to do so. Do I mean so little to you?" Cas asked.
Dean felt his heart go cold. How could Cas think that? He was the one who had nearly killed Cas for trying to make that very same deal. How could Cas think that Dean would ever consider that? He felt like dying again. He couldn't handle that Cas thought that about him.
"You trust me that little?" Dean whispered.
"I thought I trusted you with my life, my body, heart, and soul. But after that… after seeing Crowley standing in our barn, you pleading for yet another deal, despite everything finally coming together for us after all of that shit, I just don't know." Cas said, shaking his head.
Dean stood up and went over to Cas. He reached for him, but Cas tore away from him and stormed out of the room. Dean thought about chasing after him, but he'd come to realize that sometimes Cas just needed time alone.
"He'll be back." Dean muttered. "He always comes back."
Cas left that afternoon in one of the cars Dean had been working on since they'd moved into Bobby's house. He'd fixed it up so Cas could drive it to and from work and they wouldn't always have to share the Impala. Dean was suddenly regretting that. Cas having a driver's license was nearly as bad as him being able to teleport.
Cas didn't come back for hours. Finally, Dean surrendered and went into town to look for him. Cas had his haunts. He was particularly fond of the library, the park, and the Salvation Army thrift store, where he had purchased three new trench coats. Unfortunately for Dean, Cas wasn't in any of those places. Dean called his cell phone multiple times and got no answer and Dean began to worry. What if Cas had been right about his soul? What if Dean had been wrong and Crowley had gotten angry enough to send demons after him?
Finally, around 11:00 pm, Dean got a text message from Cas. All it said was "Drnku at the Irish Bar. Getting a motel. Im okay. Dont come for me. I need time."
For the first time in months, Dean slept alone and it was horrible. The nightmares were back, and they were there in HD, full-color, almost 3-D. He woke up every hour screaming his head off and Cas wasn't there to convince him that none of it was real. Around 4am, he gave up. He stumbled downstairs to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of whiskey from the liquor cabinet. He sat down at the kitchen table, where he and Cas always ate dinner and had recently engaged in a bout of spontaneous lovemaking, and poured himself a stiff drink.
The little things, the little memories that a simple dining room table evoked, made Dean feel sick with the thought of potentially losing Cas over this, or over anything. The table reminded him of how Cas was always so proud whenever he cooked something edible and how he presented even the simplest dish with grandiosity. He thought about the way his eyes rolled back whenever Dean hit that spot and how ridiculously happy he looked every time Dean walked through the door. He thought about Cas's perpetually chapped lips and five o' clock shadow, and the way he had trusted Dean more than he had trusted anyone during his millennia of existence. Dean thought about how much he loved him, how he loved him more than he thought he could possibly love anyone.
"I can't lose you, Cas. Not ever." He whispered into his glass.
He swallowed the rest of the drink back and poured himself another.
Dean finally went back to bed around 7am, drunk enough to fall into a coma. He awoke the next day, the sun streaming into the window, hurting his eyes. He glanced at his clock. It was 3pm. He glanced next to him and Cas wasn't there.
Dean ambled down the stairs, feeling particularly hungover. He hadn't been drinking heavily since they moved into Bobby's house and suddenly he missed his formerly high tolerance. He wandered into the kitchen and made coffee. As he sat down at that damn dining room table to drink it, Cas wandered into the kitchen. He looked similarly awful and he was still wearing the clothes he'd been wearing the day before. He gave Dean a dark look and went over and poured himself a cup of coffee, then sat next to Dean.
"Rough night?" Dean muttered.
"I drank Jager bombs and a particularly obnoxious blond woman spent the entire night trying to get into my pants. It was unpleasant." Cas grumbled, taking a long sip of coffee.
Dean felt a stab of jealousy, even though he wasn't even sure that Cas was into women in the slightest.
"Nothing happened with her, you moron." Cas snorted, as if he were reading Dean's mind again.
"Good." Dean said.
"Dean, you are truly one of the biggest idiots I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. You're impatient, you kill before you think, you see only in black and white, and you think that it is your job to save everyone around you." Cas said.
Dean stared at him incredulously. "Um, thanks."
"Your martyr complex is infuriating and sometimes I want to kill you." He continued.
"Wow, Cas." Dean said, feeling worse and worse by the second.
"Despite that, as I've told you dozens of times, you have one of the purest, brightest souls I have ever witnessed, and I know that your martyr complex comes from a deep place of love and compassion." He said softly.
"Cas, you know I'd never sell you out to Crowley, right? I mean, come on man, you have to know that. You have to know how I feel about you, after all this time, after everything you and I have gone through these last few months. That wasn't what I was thinking about at all yesterday. It never even occurred to me." Dean said desperately.
"I know." Cas said simply.
"I love you, Cas. Last night, not having you there next to me, knowing that you were angry beyond words with me… I couldn't stand it." He said.
"Dean, you may be an idiot, but you're my idiot." He said begrudgingly.
Dean reached over and took his hand. "And you're my angel." He said, not even caring how fucking cheesy it sounded.
Cas actually laughed a little. "I am not your angel anymore. That's something you have to realize. We're partners, equals now, and I can't save you all of the time. Like you summoning Crowley, my emotions get the best of me. I can't always understand how you think."
"You know you can't keep punching me though." Dean said, semi-seriously.
"And you can't throw lamps at me." Cas countered.
"No deals with demons." Dean finished.
Cas nodded slightly and squeezed his hand. "No deals with demons. From now on, we wait. We deal with the hand we were dealt."
Dean nodded. He wasn't happy about this, but he knew Cas was right. After all, Cas was the only one here who had been an angel and the only one here who had actually dragged someone out of Hell. Cas was also the one and he had to trust him with his life. He had to learn to trust Cas more than some of his more impulsive, ridiculous instincts.
"Then we wait." Dean murmured. "Oh, and Cas? No more making me sleep alone. I don't like it."
Cas actually chuckled again and leaned over and gave him a kiss.
Although Dean promised Cas he would be patient, it grew increasingly difficult as the days stretched into weeks without word from the angels. He could tell it was difficult for Cas too, who confessed that he was terrified of Hell and that he half expected Crowley to pop out and drag him to the pit. Dean now understood why he had been so angry with him. They tried to do everything as normally as they could. Cas even went to his job interview at "that store that sells the lumber" known to the rest of the world as Home Depot. They cooked dinner, Dean worked on the cars in the salvage yard, they drank a lot of bourbon and they watched a few more mobster movies. Their attempts at normalcy didn't make the waiting any less painful.
Finally, exactly two weeks after their initial encounters with Crowley and Gabriel, a familiar face appeared back in their lives. It was a face that Dean had to restrain himself from pummeling.
"Boys! How nice to see you again. A drink? Sure!" Balthazar said.
"Balthazar. How nice of you to drop by. Your last visit was so helpful!" Cas said, trying his hand at sarcasm.
Despite his clear exasperation at seeing Balthazar again, Cas reached over to bottle of bourbon that had been present since the supernatural had reappeared in their lives. He poured Balthazar a cup and handed it to him.
"You have news?" Dean asked anxiously.
That ass better have news with that cocky, presumptuous look on his face. He thought.
Balthazar shot him another look. Dean smiled nervously. He had to remember that angels could read his mind. Cas just rolled his eyes.
"Yes, I do. Although I could stop by for a drink now and then when I'm on this plane visiting Gisele." He said, with a smirk.
"Well?" Cas asked. "Don't leave us sitting here with bated breath."
"Gabriel has succeeded in his task. Dear Sammy will be back in your life soon enough, Dean." He flashed him a smile.
The emotions that came over Dean then were indescribable. He never thought it was possible to feel such an absolute mix of elation, relief and terror. All of his doubts about the angels suddenly melted away from him and he felt absolutely idiotic for summoning Crowley twice. He was a believer again.
"Thank God." He whispered, dropping his face into his hands. "Thank you Balthazar. Thank you Gabriel."
"What about Adam?" Cas asked, making sure to get all of the information out of Balthazar he could this time.
"Although Adam's way was not the way of the new regime, Gabriel, hell, all of us, felt that he was owed a debt too. We will bring back his mother, wipe their memories clean of the Ghoul attack and of their connections to you, and she will be tasked with putting back together what we cannot." Balthazar said, triumphantly, as if he were the one who had made all of this happen.
"He won't know us?" Dean asked, his heart sinking.
"No Dean, he will not. I don't think he would want to, after the literal Hell his connection to the Winchesters caused him." Balthazar said bluntly.
"He's right, Dean. That is the best thing we can all do for Adam. He doesn't need to be a part of this. He's been through enough for us already." Cas whispered to him.
"When will Sammy be back? Where do we need to go? Do we need to go to Kansas, to the cemetery?" Dean asked, standing up, ready to pack his bags or to hop on air Balthazar, or whatever.
"Relax, Dean. He will be here soon. Right here in this living room, as Gabriel promised. He will be in his old body, the same old Sammy with the demon blood that you've always loved to hate." Balthazar said.
"Gabriel is repairing him, isn't he?" Cas asked, since he knew all about rescuing Winchesters from Hell and all.
"As best he can, Castiel. It won't be an easy road for Sammy. He's been through more than any of us can imagine. I only wish I had been able to help you get him out sooner." Balthazar said, admitting to just the slightest amount of wrongdoing.
"That's all that matters, Cas." Dean interjected. "No more fighting, not with Heaven, not with Hell. This is what we have been fighting for and now it's all going to pay off."
"I like this evolution in you, Winchester. Cas, is this your doing?" Balthazar said, raising an eyebrow at him.
Cas didn't get a chance to make another attempt at a quippy comeback, because suddenly Gabriel appeared, holding the unconscious body of his brother.