I was writing the end of this chapter and suddenly found myself writing the end of the whole story, which wasn't actually what I was intending - I do have quite a lot more ideas for it - but actually, it seemed like the right way to go. So, this is the final chapter. But there will be additional timestamps - there are more flowers to bloom, after all. But I think I need to free myself up a bit, write a few different things and write more for my Secret Flowers setting when the inspiration strikes.

I hope you enjoy this final chapter.

Chapter 33

"Are you sure?" Dean stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at Cas, who was crouching on the floor.

"Am I sure what, Dean?" Cas pushed more hay into the cardboard box, sliding his hand around the small, twitching guinea pig.

"Are you sure there won't be guinea pig poop everywhere? Cause that's not how I want our house to be. And things chewed - cables and stuff."

Cas glared over his shoulder. "I told you, Dean. I've already explained those things to Piggly. And it was you who bought her. It's a little late to be considering the practicalities now, don't you think?"

"Hey, I thought they lived in cages or something - not free range!"

"Piggly Wiggly is a member of our family. We don't cage family members."

"We do if they're really off the rails. You know - Bobby's old panic room…"

"Yes, well, we don't cage family members under normal circumstances," said Cas. "Piggly Wiggly will have several small stations throughout the house where she can retreat when she feels the need."

"Cardboard boxes stuffed with hay."

"Precisely."

"And you'll, uh… clean 'em out?"

Cas sat back on his heels, his eyes rolling. "Yes. Or you will. Piggly Wiggly will no doubt inform us when there is anything to dispose of."

Dean scratched his chin. He'd never had a pet. Much less a pet that was likely to cut him out of the conversation with his angel pretty often. Oh well. He'd just have to get used to it. And the little fuzz-ball had given Cas's thoughts a new direction, so… that was a good job done, then, wasn't it?

Piggly sniffed experimentally at Dean's socked toe and then looked at him, wheek-wheeking, while stretching up on her tiny feet.

"Hey, I just showered - those are fresh-as-a-daisy."

"She's asking you to pick her up, Dean."

"Oh. Okay, then."

Dean leant down and held out his hand and Piggly climbed onto it. He curved his other hand over the top so she was in a little cave, and then he stood up. The guinea pig regarded him with calm, brown eyes and suddenly Dean was reminded of his brother and wasn't sure why. Sammy sometimes twitched a disapproving nose in Dean's direction, yeah - but it wasn't that. The little animal was tiny, light - barely there in his gentle grasp. Sammy had never been light. Dean remembered his brother's warm, wiggling weight dragging at his arms and making his back ache in the time before those chubby little legs had been able to get Sammy moving under his own steam.

It had been a good excuse - having to carry his brother. An excuse to cling on, to be anchored to life - because Sammy couldn't walk, so Dean had to carry him, didn't he? And then when the kid learnt to walk, Dean had to chase him and catch him or he'd get into trouble, wouldn't he? And nobody needed to know that Dean needed Sammy to carry him and rescue him from trouble just by being the only thing he could really rely on, even though Dean told himself he still had Dad. That had always been a lie - just one that Dean had only recently admitted to.

"Dean?"

He pulled his gaze away from the small, brown eyes. "Huh? Yeah?"

"Did she hypnotise you? I didn't know guinea pigs practised mind control. Put her down - I've made sandwiches."

Dean crouched and Piggly scurried out of his grasp and burrowed into the hay-filled cardboard box that Cas had wedged into a gap between the kitchen units. Busy nibbling sounds started up.

"Dean. Sit. Eat."

He slid into the chair opposite his angel. The big, brown china teapot crouched in the middle of the table, flanked by two mugs and a half empty bottle of milk, provided by the cows that you could sometimes see from the orchard.

And there was a big plate of sandwiches, which Dean recognised as 'everything sandwiches,' a phenomenon which occurred when they were using up all the stuff in the fridge before restocking. Everything sandwiches were occasionally amazing, often interesting, or - mercifully rarely - absototalutely freaking terrible. Although Dean stood by his opinion that the marshmallow, pickle and oatmeal sandwiches had been the stuff on which growing hunters would thrive - solid, spicy and good for use as a projectile weapon in an emergency.

"What have we got in here?" He lifted a corner of his sandwich. "Huh. Is that pasta? And…" He flicked at a yellow bit, which fell out onto his plate. "That's corn." He took a sniff. "Is that bacon? I didn't know there was any bacon left."

"Just eat the sandwich, Dean." Cas splashed tea messily into the mugs. Then milk went in - mostly.

Dean shot Cas a swift sidelong glance, running one finger through the trail of spilt milk. "What's got your halo in a knot?"

"I don't have a-" Cas broke off, put down the milk bottle and let out a long breath through tightly pursed lips. "I'm sorry. I don't know. I-" He broke off again and shook his head. "I just don't know. I'm sorry."

Dean put a hand over Cas's and squeezed. "Hey, stop apologising. You don't have to do that."

"Yes, I do! I should! You've gone to all this trouble, you've been so thoughtful, you've even given me a new family member! I should say thank you and sorry and I should be okay for more than five fucking minutes together - shouldn't I?"

Cas rarely swore. And when he did, he didn't usually observe the conventions. A casually correct mid-sentence fuck was a danger sign.

"Cas…"

"Seriously, Dean, I don't understand. And I'm sick of not understanding… how to live in my own head - how to be. Sometimes I don't know how to exist as me - as this human individual." He flapped a hand toward himself. "When all these thoughts… feelings - anger, sadness, grief, things I can't even name - all these things are crowded into me, packed into my head. I should know how my own head works, shouldn't I? I should be able to deal with it and know how to process and organise my thoughts and feelings and I should-"

"Cas, will you stop with the should!" Dean half stood up and leant over the table, putting his hands on Cas's shoulders, squeezing the curve of trembling muscle.

"What?"

"Should this, should that - who the fuck cares about should? Who's giving you a target to hit made out of all those shoulds?"

Cas stared and blinked. He swallowed, his mouth trembling. "It used to be God."

A soft breath hissed out between Dean's teeth and his chest ached. Was this what it felt like to be prayed to? Eyes looking up at you, lips dripping with desperate, pleading words? A human soul crying out to be understood and to understand itself - looking for answers to the big questions? Dean was fucked if he had any answers. Maybe that's why Chuck had pissed off in the first place - because he couldn't take all the whys and hows and what fors. Well, Dean would do his crappy human best to come up with some kind of answers, because he didn't give up on the people he loved.

"Yeah," he said softly. "It used to be good old Chuck, didn't it?" Dean released Cas's shoulders. His chair scraped noisily on the floorboards as he dragged it around the table, settling it close up to Cas. He sat down facing his angel, pulling Cas around to face him and clasping their hands together, to rest them on his knees.

Dean was no God. And Cas was no angel, not any more. They were just two guys, sitting in their kitchen, letting the tea go cold.

"Look, Cas." The blue eyes held an ocean's depth of confusion and Dean was swimming in the dark. "There's all kinds of shit I could come out with. There's people out there who'll tell you what to think and how to feel - they'll give you their version of what's right and what's wrong and how to live your life - give you a plan for every minute of the day and give you rules to follow and, you know - fuck you up so you don't know who you are anymore. But that's the point - it's not about what you should think and feel. It's about living with all the crap that's going on in your head just as it is. And maybe making some sense of it sometimes. Or maybe just being you and muddling along, fucking shit up, having a laugh as often as you can."

It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. Cas's gaze was fixed on their joined hands, his lips twitching, his breath hitching and huffing as if he couldn't find the right words. How could Dean help? How could he teach an ancient being of power and mystery how to be a dirt-common human? Except Cas would never be dirt-common.

Cas huffed again. "Fucking shit up? Having a laugh?"

"Yeah. Well, I mean." Dean shrugged. God, he was crap at this. "Doing your best. Getting it wrong as much as right. You know."

"Yes," said Cas wearily. "I do know." He looked up and his smile was soft. "I have a hard act to follow, though."

"What?" The ex-angel stared at Dean. "What, me? Huh. I guess you'd struggle to fuck up as much as I have."

Suddenly his fingers were squeezed painfully tight

"No! That's not what I meant, Dean. I mean I'd struggle to do as well as you have - to wrestle with the hard decisions, to make those calls. To always be guided by your conscience."

"I haven't always, Cas. I've made the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons, over and over."

"In the end you've done the right thing. Always."

There was so much faith in his angel's eyes. So much belief - belief in Dean. He'd never believed in himself that much. He wasn't sure he could. But maybe Cas's faith in him was what he needed. And there was no one who did faith like an angel. Unless you gave him a reason to rebel, and Dean would make sure he never did.

Dean needed someone to believe in him. What did Cas need? What could Dean give an ex-angel that would help him to live in a human head?

…they want to be the one to find the fix. So they get to feel good.

"Oh."

"Dean?"

"I'm sorry, Cas." Dean breathed a soft, rueful laugh. "I'm doing exactly what I said I wouldn't - making it about me. About what I can do to fix you."

"It's what you do, Dean - fix things, help people, save them."

"Yeah, but sometimes that's not what's needed. You're not a monster to be ganked or a car to be fixed. You're not a problem to be solved. You're a person. To be loved."

Dean slid one hand out of Cas's and trailed his fingers down the side of his angel's face, traced the outline of his jaw, the column of his neck and then curled his fingers around his shoulder.

"Tell me again, Cas. Tell me what's going on inside your head."

Cas blinked, and cleared his throat. "It's a mess, Dean. It's regret. It's guilt. It's anger. There's happiness too, for what we have here, and so, so much love, for you, for my life. But that makes the guilt worse - because I have this wonderful life now, when there were so many people I couldn't save. And so many people I killed when I had a choice - when it wasn't other people forcing me and I could've said no, I could've made different choices and I didn't. I didn't." Cas blinked again and tears spilled over and ran down his cheeks. "I wish I didn't remember. I wish I could pick and choose what to remember and what to forget. But I can't do that, and I don't even deserve to do that, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do now, or even how Jack could give me this life, this gift, when I don't deserve it. I don't… It's so hard."

He broke off and pulled his hands away from Dean's to cover his face. His shoulders shook.

Dean put his arms around Cas and held him tight.

"You're right, Cas. It is. It is hard." Dean rocked his sobbing angel and pressed kisses into his hair. "It's hard and it's a mess. You're right."

That's what he needed. Not a fix, not a magic solution. Not to have Dean say, "Don't worry," or "Don't feel guilty," or even, "Don't cry." Because that would be denying Cas's feelings - contradicting them, when Cas needed to have them acknowledged. He needed to be heard and to be understood.

"I'm here for you, Cas. I'm here and I'll listen as much as you need me to."

Cas's arms slid around Dean's waist and he sobbed even harder. And Dean let him. He held him and let his angel cry and let the tea go even colder and let the sandwiches wait, and if the bread started to go a bit dry around the edges, well then he could toast them, couldn't he?

At last, Cas sniffed and sat up. His eyes were red. His mouth drooped.

Dean kissed his forehead, letting his lips linger, pressing the kiss into Cas's skin to make his love go right in and make his angel warm again.

"Jack wanted you to have this life," said Dean gently. His lips brushed over his angel's wrinkled brow. "He knew - he knows - what's going on in your head. He knows it's hard for you. He knows all the things you've done and that you're gonna struggle. And he understands, because he's done bad stuff and struggled with it himself. But he wants you to be happy, Cas. In the end, he wants you to be happy."

Cas sniffed and nodded. His mouth twitched up at one corner in a pathetic attempt at a smile.

"And I'm sorry it's so hard for you, honey. Because I don't really know what it was like being an angel, but I think you guys were made to be like machines or computers - so God could go 'smite this' or 'destroy that' or 'scare the motherfucking crap out of that guy.' And you'd just do it without question. And now, yeah - I get that being human must seem like… I don't know, like you've got too many choices, like when Sammy set us up with that Spotify crap."

"You love Spotify, Dean."

Cas's voice was still all trembly and hitchy. Dean placed another soft kiss on his brow.

"I do now. But it took a lot of getting used to, and it's still nice to shove a tape in and let the whole thing play through and not have to think about whether to click on the little heart or what playlist to listen to or why it doesn't play Ramble On enough when it seems to come up with Night Flight all the time. Anyway…" Dean took a deep breath. "Fuck. I can't remember what the hell point I was trying to make."

"No, it's okay." Cas sniffed and cleared his throat. "I get it Dean. And I think you're saying being human is like the everything sandwiches. Sometimes there's too much going on - too many flavours and textures, and it doesn't work. But sometimes it does - and you still don't know why."

"That sounds like I'm telling you 'tough shit'."

"No! No, I think you're finding ways of explaining what I'm going through. So that I can understand. So that I'll be able to work through how I feel."

"By telling you the human brain's a fucking mess."

"By empathising, Dean. Saying it is hard. It is confusing."

"Yeah. I guess. We all get confused and don't know which way is up. But you just have to keep going. Help each other out when you can. Find ways of dealing with it."

"Your ways used to be alcohol, sex and violence."

Dean laughed. "You're not wrong there. But that's not the way to go. Except maybe the sex."

Cas slumped against Dean. "I don't think I have the energy for sex right now."

"That's okay."

"Maybe we could do some snuggling, though."

"Snuggling would be good."

Cas sat up and rubbed his eyes. "The tea must be cold by now."

"Yeah, and the edges of my sandwiches have gone a bit curly."

"Oh." Cas's mouth drooped sadly.

"Don't worry, angel. I'm gonna toast them."

"Oh."

His mouth curved up, just a bit, which made Dean's mouth curve up a bit too.

Because that was one of the great things about being human. There could be all kinds of bad stuff going on, making you feel like shit on a shoe. But it didn't take much to make you feel just a little bit better. A cold beer, a burger with onions and bacon, a toasted sandwich - small things made small differences. And small differences were important.

"Take Piggly and get yourself snuggled up in the slanket, angel. I'll make some more tea and toast the sandwiches till they're nice and hot and crispy. And I'll bring it all in so we can eat in front of the fire."

"And be cosy," said Cas.

"Yeah," agreed Dean. "Cause life's hard. But we'll always have cosy."

And that right there was an actual giggle. Score, thought Dean.

Cas coaxed Piggly Wiggly out from her box and she scuttled into his hands. He carried her, murmuring soft guinea pig words, out of the kitchen.

Dean got out his favourite frying pan and lit a flame beneath it. He plopped a generous mound of butter into the pan and watched it soften and melt and begin to sizzle.

An ex-hunter and an ex-angel - plenty of people would have said their relationship was a disaster waiting to happen. Or even an apocalypse waiting to happen.

He laid the sandwiches in the pan, where they hissed gently.

But actually, in some ways he and Cas were just ordinary - just two guys dealing with their shit in the best way they knew how. Dealing with it together. And it worked. Somehow, their way worked.

Dean flipped the sandwiches over.

He and his angel would eat and then maybe they'd fall asleep in front of the fire. And then they might have sex. Or watch a movie. Or Dean would deal with the laundry situation, because he had run out of his own underwear and socks and was wearing Cas's - the situation was getting critical. But they would do ordinary stuff that ordinary humans did, all over the world. And, though Dean had spent years thinking that he wouldn't be able to live without the adrenaline rush of ganking whatever fugly crossed his bloodstained path, actually it turned out that ordinary stuff was the best stuff, when you did it with someone you loved.

Love was like a layer of honey that made everything sweet - even that brown, seedy bread that Sam liked, Dean thought. Even when Cas was hurting and they'd run out of clean underwear.

He slid the sandwiches out onto plates. The butter had made them a lovely golden brown.

Maybe he and Cas would have some honey on toast after they'd finished these.

"Love honey," muttered Dean vaguely. He put the plates on a tray with a fresh pot of tea. "Love Cas. Sweet honey, sweet Cas."

He picked up the tray, which was heavy and the stuff slid around so that he'd drop it all if he wasn't careful, if his arms weren't strong. But he was careful. And he was strong. Strong enough for anything, even an ordinary life.

"Love Cas," mumbled Dean again. "Love life." He felt his cheeks round out as a slow grin spread across his face, and he paused on the threshold of the kitchen, the tray in his hands, his angel waiting for him, snuggled into cosy folds of soft fabric, on their couch, in their Mexican-themed living room, in the house that they'd made into a home, together.

Dean looked upward, past the bannisters that he'd sanded and varnished, past the wall lights in the shape of flowers that Cas had chosen, past the cobweb in the corner where a small spider had made her home and Cas had named the spider Antoinette and refused to let Dean evict her.

He sent his thoughts further - through the ceiling and through his and Cas's bedroom and through the little attic rooms and out into the Kansas sky and beyond - far beyond.

His smile grew. And he spoke just two heartfelt words to the boy, the man, the friend who was somewhere up there, doing his thing, in charge of everything.

"Thanks, Jack," said Dean.

Thank you, friendly readers, for coming along with me on this journey. Thank you for all your support and your lovely comments. We'll meet again soon in another story! xxx