Dean stared at the spot where Castiel had been mere seconds ago. His phone buzzed again and he shook his head to clear it, opening his phone in frustration. Charlie's words lit up the screen. Everything work out okay?

He really couldn't deal with this right now. Not really. I'll call you later. He sent the message and flipped the phone shut.

"Dean?"

Dean turned to look at Sam, who was eyeing him with one of those expressions on his face, not quite concerned but almost there, clearly wondering what was wrong. "You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Dean answered tersely.

Sam nodded, seeming to accept the answer, for which Dean was extremely grateful. "Cas left?"

"Yeah."

"He say why?"

"No."

Sam clearly grasped that Dean was aggravated and didn't press the issue. Cas hadn't cleaned him up like he had with Dean, and Sam was a mess, blood smeared down his shirt.

"C'mon, Sammy. Let's get back home and get you cleaned up."

They drove silently for most of the ride, and Dean was thankful for the quiet. It did nothing to distract him, but at least he didn't have to try to come up with answers he didn't have.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's not call Cas for any more cases for a while, okay?"

Even without looking, Dean could tell Sam was smiling, could see the quirk of his lips out of the corner of his eye, could hear it in his voice as he answered "no promises."

Dean's grip on the steering wheel tightened, but he said nothing for the rest of the ride back to the bunker.

For the next few weeks, shooting at the range or working a case were the only things that could keep Dean distracted, and even then not completely.

Sam didn't keep his promise of not calling Cas for a while. True, he HAD said "no promises", but Dean thought he would have held back for more than one case, the bastard. And Cas also seemed to stay mad at him. The angel didn't come as quickly when Dean called him, waiting several minutes almost as if out of spite, and when he DID appear it was with that same air of irritation he had shown at the hotel. There was something else there as well. Castiel's eyes always raked over Dean, looking him up and down as though to ensure he were fully clothed and not engaging in any sort of sexual shenanigans. Once he had confirmed that Dean's clothes were indeed intact, a look of almost relieved satisfaction would come over his face and he would turn to the matter at hand. However these days, he usually asked Sam what the problem was, rather than turning to Dean as he always did previously. Whatever had pissed him off, it was clearly still eating away at him.

Annoyingly enough, the entire situation seemed to amuse Sam to no end. Whenever Cas was giving Dean a once-over, or when Dean would interrupt while Sam and Cas talked and Cas would turn that withering stare in his direction (oh how Dean flinched beneath that look), Sam would stifle a laugh, as if he knew something the others didn't. It was driving Dean CRAZY.

He had trouble concentrating anytime Cas was around, and now even when he wasn't. Dean didn't know if he had always had feelings for Cas or if they had just been bricked up behind a wall but he thought it might have been the latter. It was as if that night with Charlie had broken something in his head. Once he realized who those blue eyes belonged to, some sort of barrier in his brain had come down, and now he could think of nothing but Cas Cas Cas. It was incredibly frustrating, made all the worse by the fact that Cas clearly didn't feel the same, if the way the angel looked at him was any indication. Dean still didn't know what had changed between them, but these days, Cas' eyes were always cold and narrowed. Dean missed the way Castiel used to look at him, so warm and soft that he wanted to just wrap himself in that blue and never leave. And yeah okay, maybe he'd had this big gay crush for a lot longer than he'd realized.

Shaking his head, he shucked his jacket, tossing it over the back of a chair. Sam and Cas were still outside talking. It had been perfectly clear from the expression on Cas' face that Dean wasn't welcome, so he had left, but he was aching to return, to see Cas, even if it meant seeing that look on the angel's face, the irritation in those eyes he loved so much.

Dean stepped back out into the crisp night air and both men turned to look at him. There it was: that expression he was so quickly becoming used to. It wasn't really a full look of irritation. No, Cas reserved that for when he initially arrived, when he was giving Dean that strange looking-over. But it still wasn't an entirely pleasant expression. Sam, on the other hand, had that utterly annoying look of thinly veiled amusement on his face.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. "Hey, guys. What're we talking about?"

Naturally it was Sam who answered. "Nothing much. Just the job."

"Ah." Dean nodded as though he understood, though there really wasn't anything TO understand. The answer was simple enough. The job itself had been simple as well. Once again, nothing they had needed Castiel for, but Sam had insisted. This time, however, the angel had actually agreed to ride in the impala. Dean had been shocked.

He realized Cas was staring at him, head cocked.

"Aren't you cold?" Cas asked. Dean realized that he was in just his t-shirt; he had used the removal of his jacket as an excuse to disappear inside for a few minutes, to escape the awkwardness of Castiel's obvious testiness.

He shrugged. "Nah, I'm fine." Though honestly, he WAS a bit cold, goosebumps all along his arms. He just didn't want to return inside for his jacket, not when Cas was talking to him in a manner actually resembling their normal relationship.

Cas nodded. "Well. I'll go, then."

"Wait!" Dean realized how desperate he sounded and flushed. "Don't you…..do you want to come inside for a while?"

For a moment it looked as though Castiel was actually considering it; then he shook his head. "No, thank you." He simply looked at Dean, who felt as though those blue eyes would bore right through him. "I'll see you soon." And he was gone.

Dean felt a strange feeling, a combination of a sinking in his chest and then a sort of elation. He hated to see Cas go, yet he had almost stayed. Almost. That was better than things had been lately. It was an improvement. Maybe he could still fix things.

He felt Sam's hand on his shoulder. "I'm going inside."

"Yeah. Yeah, me too." Dean turned to follow, then stopped short. "Oh. Forgot my phone in the car. You go ahead, I'll be in in a minute." Sam continued into the bunker and Dean headed to the impala, opening the door, but he froze immediately.

There on the seat was one single black feather. Cas' feather. What it was doing there, Dean had no idea. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen Cas' wings. True, Cas had been in the car that day but how the hell did he lose one of his feathers?

Dean picked it up gingerly, as if he expected it to shatter. He ran a fingertip along it, reveling in the feel of it. It was unbelievably soft. It seemed almost wrong to touch it. And somehow he knew that he wasn't letting this feather go. Not for anything.

Sam was sitting at the main table when Dean entered the bunker. "Took you long enough…" but he stopped when he saw what Dean held in his hands. "…..is that one of Cas' feathers?" Dean nodded. "What…..where'd you find it?"

"The car."

"How the heck did he lose a feather? He didn't have his wings out."

"Don't ask me. I have no idea." It looked as if Sam was going to ask another question, his mouth open, but Dean didn't stop walking. "I'm going to bed, Sammy. See you tomorrow."

Once in his room, Dean moved straight to his bed, sitting down, the feather still in his hands. Carefully, he set it down on the bedside table, right beside the photo of his mother. That photo was the most precious thing he had in the world. Now he had the feather. Had to keep the precious things together.

Kicking off his pants, Dean turned off the lights and crawled under the covers, staring at the photo and the feather until he fell into an unsettled but happy slumber.

~tbc~