Chapter 95.

Sitting under the trees with Anael, Dean felt calmer than he had in a while. She was easier to talk to than he had expected her to be and he was finding their relationship less confusing. She even understood his relationship with his father, which was not always easy, even for him.

Down below, they were probably talking about him. He had no doubt they discussed the relationship a lot and that felt … what? He couldn't figure out whether he felt they were invading his privacy or supporting him in every way he would allow. He felt irritated, but also oddly loved, the same way he had always felt when Bobby breezed past all his bluster and let him know his weaknesses were showing.

Life as a Winchester … this Winchester, anyway, was like that. He had all the bad-tempered defensiveness to be a determined lone wolf, but he needed his pack around him. He wanted them to approve his partnership with Anael, without thinking about it, debating it or even acknowledging it. He wanted them to tell him he was making all the right decisions without letting him know, by word or sign, that they knew he cared about their views.

Anael was looking into his eyes with the disturbingly direct start natural to angels, but to no-one else. He felt naked and not in the fun way. Angel crap and intimacy crap vied with self-loathing to be the reason to break eye contact, but there was a new player in the game. Part of him didn't want to break it.

Instead, he returned her gaze and said, "I always had a thing for redheads."

She smiled uncertainly and he remembered how strongly he had once underlined the difference between angel and vessel. He'd made it clear he saw them as separate entities and though he had pulled back from that position since then, she wouldn't be human if she didn't wonder about his current feelings. She wasn't. She wasn't human, but somehow his mind always defaulted to thinking of her that way.

"What I mean is, you're hot." he said.

This time, the smile seemed more convincing and convinced. "So are you." she said.

He drew her closer, his fingers under her chin and he kissed her. It was a sweet kiss, rather than a passionate one and was as much to give himself courage as it was to show her affection. Releasing her, he said, "They all have opinions, but what matters is ours."

"Yes, of course." she said. He could feel her refusing to let herself ask what his was. He could understand her fear. He had changed his mind too often and when he felt unsure, he always managed to sound defiantly certain. It was when he truly believed what he was saying that his voice shook and his eyes darted around.

"I'm not saying I don't care what they think and I'm definitely not saying they think anything bad … They're behind us, one hundred percent." He knew he was babbling, feeding her insecurities with the oxygen of his and he knew that was bad. He tried to correct his course. "I mean that what we have doesn't need anyone else's opinion to make it real and worthwhile."

"No." she said, slipping into celestial inscrutability. Inscrutable to anyone who hadn't seen an angel scared before. He was an expert and he wasn't proud of the way he had acquired that knowledge.

"I love you." he said.

"I love you too." she said, still with that thrice-cursed poker face that was anything but.

"You do believe me?" he said.

"I believe you."

"It's hard to talk about it, because this stuff has never gone well for me and I really need not to screw it up."

She smirked a little.

"This is funny to you?" he said, but he was starting to smile himself, because it was.

"I can relate." she said, "I can't do any of this right and that wouldn't matter if you were anyone else, but if I get this wrong, I lose you. I don't want that to happen."

"Trust me, losing me would take some effort." he said. Or one action, that of becoming human, but it wasn't the time to bring that up. He tried to smile convincingly. "The future's gonna be rough. I'm not saying it isn't. You picked the worst possible guy. You picked a friggin' Winchester. I'll say and do all the wrong things. I'll mess with your head because life has messed with mine. Every terrible thing Sarah said about me is true."

"Sarah never said anything terrible about you." she said, "Why do you hear everything as negative?"

"Like I said, messed up head." he said. He was trying to remember what Sarah had said. He'd bee sure she'd called him needy and closed-off and impossible to talk to but couldn't remember her using any of those words. "She warned you about my issues." he said.

"No, she told me what you'd need from me and what you could give to me." She seemed certain.

"I don't remember that."

"One angel power I can't turn off is perfect recall." she reminded him.

"I'm not gonna win a lot of fights against you, am I?" he said.

She seemed about to laugh, but angels rarely did that. "The recent history of this planet would be very different if Dean Winchester ever lost a fight against an angel."

"Oh, I've lost plenty." he said.

"Pretty famous for being impossible to push around."

"You can lead me by the nose any time you like."

"I might enjoy that." she said.

"Maybe that's why I never saw the trap."

"You saw the trap. You doubted me. You just felt you had no choice. Neither of us could see another option."

"Well, let's not talk about that. Only causes fights."

"I need to make a list of all the things we can't talk about."

"What happened to that perfect recall?"

"Touché." she said.

"Not that I don't love fighting with you. In fact, I think that's how we got here. You spark off a lot more than anger in me."

She seemed relieved. "Good. I thought I was weird."

"You are weird. You like me. That's pretty weird."

"Sweet talker."

"But we're both the same kind of weird. So were my mom and dad and they were good together." But then they weren't and they died and that was not something he needed to focus on right now. He stopped talking.

"You saw them today, Dean." she said, thinking that would be comforting. It should have been.

"Yeah, I know." he said.

"But you lost them both in traumatic ways. I get that seeing them now doesn't fix that."

"Do you?" he said, surprised.

"I know you think I can't."

"No. No. I'm learning that you can. You've come a long way, sugar."

"You think so?"

"Hell, yeah. You're getting good at understanding people. You're getting even better at understanding me and that was never easy."

"I don't need easy. I just need motivation. It doesn't bother you, does it?"

"It would have. once, but not now. It's good not to have to find a way to explain, although I hope you know, I do try to do that."

"You do. I've noticed."

"I'm trying with all of you. I mean, I know I seem pretty shut down, but it's nothing to how I used to be. Change is hard and it's slow, but I am trying to change."

"I don't know how you were before we met, but how you are now doesn't need to change a lot. I'm trying too. I really am."

"Yeah, I know you are and you've changed a lot and all for the better. You remind me of Cas."

"Except I tried to kill you."

"So has he."

"Under Heaven's orders? Because that doesn't count. It can't. He had no choice."

"He had a choice. He chose not to kill me. He turned out to be stronger than Naomi."

"You don't hold it against him at all, do you?"

"No. How could I? I've tried to kill him a few times."

"None of your relationships are simple, are they?"

He chuckled. "No, they're not, but the people I have around me now, my family, I believe in them and I trust them and knowing that I can feels good, after years … decades of fear and doubt. There is no-one in this bunker I wouldn't trust with my life."

"Does that include me."

"You're living in this bunker, aren't you?"

"You've come a long way too, haven't you?"

He gave a slight smile and nodded. "Yeah, I guess I have."