When Dean slides, warm and drowsy, back into consciousness, they've shifted. Dean is on his back, one arm tucked under his pillow, the other tingling and cold because Cas is cutting off his circulation. He shifts, groaning, feeling the prickling sensation of his fingers waking up.

Cas, for his part, is sitting up, one hand on Dean's collarbone, the other slung across the headboard. The hand on Dean's chest tickles a bit, sending tingles of a different sort across Dean's skin.

"Good morning," says Castiel. He doesn't sleep, but by the feel of him, he's still completely nude, which is as good as confirmation that he spent the night watching Dean sleep. Dean doesn't chance opening his eyes yet. Just the thought of it makes his cheeks burn. He turns his head towards Cas, and Dean's forehead comes to rest against bare skin.

"Hey," Dean says, his voice rough and cracking. He shifts again, tightening his arm around Cas's midsection and hugging him closer.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah," Dean says, muffled by the press of his lips to Castiel's sternum. Better than he has in months, if he's honest. Maybe years. Cas brushes soft fingertips over Dean's brow.

"Good," Cas says. There's a hint of smugness to it. Dean wonders if Cas did some mojo on him in his sleep. If he did, Dean doesn't care. He can abuse his angelic powers as much as he wants if it means Dean gets to wake up feeling this awesome.

Now that he's more present, he's noticing another thing that's perking up, like Cas didn't talk him through the most emotionally exhausting orgasm of his life just a few hours ago. It's been a long time since Dean was with anyone, and longer still since he woke up next to someone. That someone being Cas makes it practically dreamlike. The only thing separating it from a fantasy is that Dean's mouth tastes stale with sleep, and he's still got pins and needles up to his shoulder. Cas's thigh moves, nudging the beginnings of a pretty insistent hard-on, and Dean breathes out sharply against Cas's skin.

"We should, uh… We should probably have more of a," Dean murmurs, swallowing a sound when their bodies move again. "A conversation. Right?"

"We can discuss whatever you'd like," Cas says, but he's not helping the situation at all by skimming his fingers over Dean's hipbones, where the blankets have bunched up at their waists.

Dean wets his lips. His eyes blink open slowly. Cas must have turned the light out while Dean was sleeping; everything has a hazy, monochrome quality to it in the darkness, but he can make out enough to tell that he's basically face-level with Castiel's breasts. Yeah, there are definitely worse ways to wake up in Dean Winchester's book.

"Said a lot of stuff last night, a'course," Dean mumbles, letting his mouth press against Castiel more deliberately. Cas sighs faintly above him, and his arms wrap more closely around him, which has the very positive side effect of pressing his breasts against Dean's cheek. "I might need to, uh…" Dean turns his head to press a lazy kiss to one hardening nipple. "...wake up a little more, first."

"Whatever you need." Cas's voice is a low rumble, and it vibrates in his chest where Dean's ear rests. Just that sound is enough to take Dean from hazy desire to full, heady arousal. His hips move in helpless little circles, trying to get some friction. One of Castiel's hands ghosts down his back, tracing his spine, then lower, dipping down to— Oh, fuck.

"Cas," Dean groans, face burning. "That's— um. I don't..."

Cas's hand stills, then vanishes, which is a relief and a disappointment in equal parts.

"No?"

"Don't get me wrong, I, uh— I mean. Jesus." He's thought about it. He's definitely thought about it. Maybe once he's had a chance to prepare a little. "Later. Definitely. Uh, rain check."

"All right," Cas says, and Dean feels him press a kiss to the crown of his head. "Another time."

That makes Dean's stomach do a little flip, because there's going to be another time. Provided he manages not to screw this up again. His head spins at the thought of more mornings like this, letting himself be held by Cas, his best friend, who looks at him like the sun shines out of his ass. He wonders how the hell they got here, and that question wars with another in his mind: how the hell have they not been doing this for years? Dean knows how, of course, but now that he's got it, he doesn't want to give it up again. He feels like an idiot for not getting here sooner.

"Yeah, definitely another time," Dean mutters, then tries to distract himself from the way his heart is racing by getting himself another mouthful of tit. So maybe he's got kind of an oral fixation, sue him.

Cas shimmies down a little, and Dean's mouth travels as he does, over Cas's collarbone and up the curve of his neck. Cas is the one who dips in to kiss Dean's mouth, sweet and smiling. If he cares that Dean's got morning breath, he sure doesn't act like it. Then Cas slings a leg over Dean's hip and hitches himself up so that Dean's sliding against his wet heat, and Dean groans long and loud and shocked. He tries to muffle the sound into Castiel's shoulder.

"Fuck, what time is it," Dean huffs. He grinds against Cas, feeling the head of his dick nudging at Cas's clit, and his leg tightens where it's wrapped around Dean's, a heel digging into the back of his thigh to pull him closer.

"Almost eight," Cas grunts.

Okay, so he needs to keep it down if he doesn't want to alert the entire bunker. Got it. Not that it's easy when Castiel's rolling his hips like he's trying to start a fire or something. Then Cas is reaching down between them, taking Dean in hand, holding still long enough to get him lined up so that he can slide inside. Cas breathes in sharply when Dean bites down on his shoulder to muffle the sound that threatens to spill out of him. The gasp turns into an unabashedly loud groan as Dean sinks in deep.

"Oh." Cas holds Dean utterly still. He's so hot, gripped tight around his cock, and Dean screws his eyes shut, trying to keep from moving. "That's…"

"You okay, buddy?" Dean grits out.

"Yes," Cas says, breathless. "Yes, I'm… okay. Thank you for asking."

"Yeah, no problem." Dean breathes deeply, stroking Castiel's back while he adjusts. Then Cas is moving again, rolling his hips forward, and Dean follows his lead.

The first thrust is slow, and the next few almost exploratory. Cas cradles Dean's head to his shoulder, leisurely rocking against him. Then his hands slide back down, gripping Dean's ass in two firm handfuls, and Dean surges forward in shock, hitting harder and deeper and god, it's so good. Cas seems reluctant to let him go too far, keeping Dean buried inside him with unearthly strength. Dean keeps kissing Castiel's pulse point, letting his tongue soothe the bite mark he left behind earlier, and soon, Cas's arms relax enough for Dean to move in longer, steadier strokes. Then Cas is holding his face again, fingers splaying over his cheeks, pulling him up to be kissed.

If Dean didn't have to breathe, he's pretty sure Cas wouldn't let him, with the way he's desperately clinging to him, sealing his mouth to Dean's and pressing himself tight against Dean's chest. When Dean does break away to breathe, Cas just presses heated kisses to his jaw and whispers his name like a chant.

It's both tender and tense, the air between them crackling with heat. Dean gets to have this, and he can't imagine that he's earned it, but the proof of Cas molded against him is incontrovertible. When he comes, shuddering, it's with Cas's legs holding him deep inside while he groans into Cas's open mouth. Cas holds him there for a long time, letting him catch his breath. Light kisses on his forehead leave spots that cool in the open air. When he slips out of Cas, gone soft and oversensitive, Cas sighs like he's disappointed.

Dean tilts Cas gently aside, sliding a hand down his stomach and carding through the coarse curls between his thighs.

"You need a little more?"

Cas sighs again, spreading his legs for Dean. "I just like having you that close." Dean slots himself up against Cas's back, stroking his chest and belly with one hand while the other dips down to where Cas is still soaked with arousal and Dean's come. Cas shivers. Dean spreads him open with his thumb and ring finger, dipping inside him and spreading wetness up towards his clit. "In my true form, I could hold you inside myself easily."

"Not that I'm not... up for just about anything with you, but I also like having eyes," Dean says, laughing as he rubs circles with his forefingers.

"I don't want to hurt you, no," Cas says, low and dejected. "But I like—mmm—being with you this way, too, it… it definitely has its—ah!—its good qualities…"

"I, um. I had a dream about you," Dean says, his lips brushing Castiel's ear. "You looking like, y'know. An angel. No vessel."

"You did?"

"Yeah, it… I dunno if it was what you really look like or not, but either way… you were really something else, Cas."

"Oh?" Cas shivers faintly against Dean's chest while Dean's fingers slide into him, teasing around his entrance.

"Yeah. Yeah, you were fuckin' gorgeous."

Cas cranes his head back to look at him, his eyes hazy with pleasure, with parted lips that Dean can't help but kiss.

Eventually, Dean gets into a rhythm that seems to work for Cas, fucking him with his fingers while Cas grinds against the firm base of his palm. The only problem is that Cas is turning out to be… kind of fucking loud in bed, and while Dean can definitely appreciate the appeal of that, he has no desire to broadcast everything they're doing to their entire family. With that in mind, he cups his palm over Cas's mouth, whispering hushed sounds in his ear until he's shaking and coming in Dean's hands.

As soon as he's present again, Cas twists back around to hug Dean's front, cradling Dean's head to his chest. They stay that way for a while, just breathing into each other, letting their sweat cool. Dean's sticky with more than just sweat, but he's not about to pull away before Cas is ready to let him go. Hell, if Cas wants to stay in here all day, he might be convinced to give up food and water for the privilege, though he's realizing he's going to need to use the bathroom soon.

Eventually, he huffs, reluctantly mumbling, "M'gonna need to shower and stuff in a minute here."

"Mmm. No," Cas says, and kisses his forehead. Ice cold grace spreads out from his brow, taking away the unclean sheen of sweat and everything else that had been clinging to him. Dean snorts, pulling back from Cas to stare down at him.

"Nearly-unlimited angelic powers, and you're using them like a sex towel."

"Hardly unlimited," Cas says gravely, and Dean just laughs and dips in to kiss the frown from his lips.

"We gotta leave sometime, Cas. I have to eat," Dean says. "I have to piss."

"Urination is the Sisyphean curse of humanity," Cas says with a withering glare at Dean's crotch, and that makes him laugh even harder, tucking his face into the crook of Cas's shoulder. Okay, maybe he can put off leaving for a few more minutes. He relaxes against the bed, letting Cas hold him a little longer.

After a bit, Dean asks, "How'd your hunt with Claire go?"

Cas hums, the sound vibrating. "It was… nice. She's become a very capable young woman. But she's also very sensitive. She's a lot like you, in that way."

"And not just because we're both 'troubled teens'?" Dean says, snorting a laugh. Cas taps him on the head to quiet him.

"She was on her way out of town to handle a ghoul infestation, and she very kindly allowed me to assist. I… wasn't sure how she might react to my new vessel."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. She… well, I thought she might be happy I didn't look like her father anymore."

Dean pulls back to watch Castiel's face while he talks, thumb skimming over his ribs.

"That's actually one of the reasons I went to her. I felt I owed her a… conversation, about her father, now that I'm no longer… occupying his body."

"How'd that go?" Dean says gently.

"She really surprised me," Cas says, eyes distant.

"What d'you mean?" Dean nudges Castiel's nose with his, trying to get him to look directly at him.

"I… feel an attachment I didn't expect to my former appearance. I know it's not my true face, I know it doesn't really belong to me," Cas says. "But it's the form I took when I met you. The face I wore when I underwent the most meaningful changes of my existence. I lived as a human in that body. I've learned more about myself in these few years than I ever could have imagined. I've built a family. I've been an angel, and I've been a human, and I think where I really belong in the end must be… somewhere in between."

"Here," Dean says, not intending to sound as hopeful as he does. But Cas just smiles at him, with absolute certainty.

"Yes. Here. I didn't want to ask Claire if she'd allow me to take that form again. I didn't think I had any right, after everything she'd been through. But she understood what I was feeling. What I wanted. Now… I'm not sure I want it anymore. Perhaps it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did."

Dean studies his face for a minute, trying to decipher it. He doesn't look like he used to, but he's still Cas under there. Dean can feel him holding something back.

"I think it does matter, though," Dean says. "Whatever you wanna do, I'm here, man, I swear. But I feel like it matters to you. Did Claire tell you no?"

"No," Cas says. "That's part of what surprised me. She… What she actually said was that she thinks of me like a 'really weird uncle'. Which is… more than I deserve. But she also told me my appearance wouldn't change things between us."

"So what's the hangup?"

Castiel's eyes drift down, his brow creasing.

"Cas?"

"Wouldn't it be easier to just stay as I am?"

"Well, sure, I guess, but… You told me you weren't happy. Your new face dredges up all that bad shit with Ishim, right?"

"I've done much more terrible things, objectively speaking, in Jimmy Novak's body. I killed so many people, so many angels. However much I might have changed for the better, I also made so many… unforgivable mistakes."

"Who says they're unforgivable? Hey," Dean says, taking Cas's chin and holding him still. "I forgive you, Cas. You think I haven't made just as many mistakes as you have? You ever think I don't wanna be me sometimes, too?"

"Dean." Cas looks so sad it makes Dean's chest ache. "Thank you. But I don't want to cause any more trouble for you."

"Trouble for me? What trouble?" Dean stares at him, puzzling. When he puts it together, it's like a cold knife through his gut. "Cas, don't tell me you're staying like this for me."

Cas stares at his throat, breathing too evenly. "Would that be so terrible?"

Dean balks. "Do you really think I'm that big a coward?"

"Of course not!" Cas looks up again, alarmed. "Of course I don't."

"Then why don't you let me handle that on my own? That's not your shit to deal with. You don't need to take that on for me."

Dean can hear the way Cas's breath starts to grow ragged. He holds Cas's face in his hands, steeling his jaw.

"Listen to me, Cas. I'm in this, no matter what you look like. I want you either way. And I want you to do what you wanna do, not… whatever you think is gonna be easier for me. Jesus." Dean swipes his thumb over Castiel's cheek. "Did you not hear me earlier? I was into you when I pictured you as, like, this ball of fire with wings and eyeballs and shit. And if you really wanted to look like that, then okay! I can put on some fucking sunglasses! You get me?"

Cas laughs a bit, a wet little cough. Dean's thumb catches a tear beginning to trail down his cheek, and Dean kisses him once, firm and definitive.

"Are you hearing me right now?"

"Yes," Cas says, voice unsteady. "Yes, I hear you, Dean."

"Okay. Good." Dean kisses him again, lingering a moment this time, and Cas sighs into it, letting himself be held.

—

It's much later in the morning than Dean had intended when he finally admits defeat in the war against his bladder and Cas lets him slip away to flip the lights on and dress in fresh clothes. He sort of wants to offer Cas another one of his shirts to dress in, mainly because he thinks it would add infinitely to Dean's overall quality of life, but he also knows that Sam's gonna be giving him enough funny looks when they finally come out, and he doesn't need to court any more of those.

Cas dresses in his own clothes. While the rest of him looks put together, his hair is still an impressive nest. Dean smiles, carding his fingers through it, trying to sort it back into a state of relative tidiness, with limited success. Cas takes the opportunity to lean in, slipping his arms around Dean's midsection and stealing another lingering kiss.

"Never gonna make it out of here at this rate," Dean says quietly.

"Mm." Cas seems unbothered, and kisses him again, groping the soft skin of his sides under his shirt once before releasing him. Dean has apparently unleashed some kind of ravenous horndog monster. But Cas does, in his benevolence, eventually let him slink away into the bathroom.

When Dean walks into the library, he is alarmed to find Jack and Rowena seated across from one another at the table in some kind of magic standoff. Jack's eyes glow gold, Rowena's violet, two pencils hovering before them, wobbling precariously in the air. Both of them are frowning in concentration while Sam and Cas look on.

"Is this a carnival game now?" Dean's entrance breaks Jack's concentration, and his pencil clatters to the table. "Whoever floats their pencil highest wins a prize?"

"I know what I'd like to win," Rowena says, her pencil settling down to the table with a gentle click. She smirks across the table at Sam, who immediately turns his attention to Dean.

"Hey, you're up," he says, looking harried. Dean gives him an Are you seeing this? look, to which Sam merely shrugs helplessly. Dean had thought they were trying to keep Jack's situation low key, given Rowena's hate-on for Lucifer, but apparently that's gone right out the window.

"Don't worry your wee head about it," Rowena says, picking up on the silent exchange. "Did you really think I hadn't figured out who Jack is by now? I know you're not the brightest Winchester, but honestly. Jack's nothing like his father. He's a good, honest little boy, aren't you Jack?"

Jack, dejected, is gazing at his pencil, but he smiles faintly when addressed. "Rowena's told me a lot about Lucifer."

"Have you," Dean says suspiciously.

"Only how lucky he is to have a far superior male role model in his life now," Rowena says, batting her eyelashes.

Dean narrows his eyes, looking at Cas. Rowena shakes her head incrementally. Dean frowns in confusion.

"Um. Thank you?"

"I meant Samuel." She winks at Sam, who seems determined to address literally anyone else in the room apart from her.

"They decided to show Cas how much control Jack's gaining, since he got back in this morning," Sam says pointedly.

"Right," Dean says, and looks across to catch Cas's eye again. Cas, straight-faced and silent, doesn't correct him. He's giving Dean an out, to pretend everything's normal a while longer. Dean's chest aches.

"I can do it better than that," Jack says, frowning at the pencil. "I just have to focus." The pencil slices through the air, zipping straight up to smash into the ceiling. Wood chips litter the table, scattered across the tops of Jack and Rowena's heads. Rowena shakes out her chin-length curls with a grimace. Jack's eyes are round and alarmed. "I'm sorry…"

"Jack, you're doing just fine," Cas says, brushing the detritus out of Jack's hair with an encouraging smile. "There's no rush." He looks up, locking eyes with Dean. His smile falters just a fraction.

"Uh, hey, Jack, Rowena, could you… help me find the dustbuster?" Dean can hear the stupid face Sam is making without looking.

Jack goes to him without hesitation. Rowena stares at Sam like he's announced he's going to be running for President.

"I think I left it in the basement somewhere, but I forget where," Sam says, raising his eyebrows at her.

"Sam, drop the Amelia Bedelia act." Dean crosses his arms. "It's okay."

"Uh," Sam says, round-eyed and guilty.

"It's okay," Dean repeats, and sidles up to Cas, nudging his shoulder with his. "Yeah?" Cas breaks into a soft smile that makes Dean's face go hot. How's he supposed to get anything done with Cas just smiling at him like that all the time?

Sam's eyes dart between the two of them, his shoulders relaxing. Then he's the one smiling, and Dean has to duck his head, clearing his throat.

"Is there coffee?" He dips away towards the kitchen, ears burning.

And then, things are just… normal. Dean's body doesn't know how to relax into it. He's been in his head about this for such a long time— weeks? Depending on how you count it, years; maybe even since he was old enough to know to be worried.

He's prepared for the next hit, the reason it can't go right, the interrogations, but in the few weeks that follow, none of them ever come. He makes dinner most nights, and Sam and Rowena bicker in a way Dean is shocked to describe as "companionable." Rowena delivers surprisingly non-objectionable sermons to Jack about avoiding abuses of power and appreciating your gifts, none of which Dean is ready to believe she lives by herself, but hey. Cas and Jack have barely-comprehensible conversations about metaphysical questions that alternately make Dean's head hurt or unsettle him so badly he has to excuse himself from the room. Sam doesn't force him to talk, and Dean isn't forthcoming, but when Dean slides his hand into Cas's in the safety of a dimly-lit TV room on what's becoming their weekly movie night, nobody says a word about it. Almost like it's actually okay.

The thing that really gets to Dean is how much things between him and Cas don't change at all. He's been in very few actual, long-term relationships, but he remembers it feeling a lot like getting under the hood of a car. There's the shiny, enticing exterior, and then there's the actual inner workings, and all the potential for grease and rust and backbreaking work that goes along with it. Maybe it's work you enjoy doing, maybe it's a waste of time. Maybe you waste a whole lot of your life trying to fix something that's never gonna run. Or maybe you put in the work, and you get a daydream like his Baby.

What he's realizing about him and Cas is that they've gone through a lot of the work already. Years of knowing a person, you get a pretty good idea of what makes them tick. There's more to uncover, Dean's sure, but Cas has seen the worst parts of him. Same goes for Dean. The main difference now is that when Dean finds himself a hunt and says he's going to go it alone so Sam can stay and watch Rowena and Jack, and Cas calls him a reckless idiot, and Dean calls him a hypocrite in turn, at the end of the day, when the corpses are salted and burned and they kiss and make up, there's a lot more actual kissing involved.

When Dean pauses long enough to really look at what his life is right now, to think about the things he used to think weren't meant for people like him, he's forced to admit that maybe those things just didn't look the way he thought they did. That didn't mean he didn't have them.

He thinks about Mom, putting away her knives and putting on a sundress, unwrapping a store-bought apple pie and presenting it to a child who couldn't tell them apart from the ones he saw on TV and would spend the rest of his life watching screens for guidance on what life should be like. He thinks about Dad, about the photos left behind in a box in the basement of a house that devours people whole. How he pasted over their mother with polaroids so he could tell them stories about an angel.

Dean's met angels, and they're nothing like the stories either.

Then he thinks about angels watching over him, just like Mom used to tell him. He thinks about angels, pulling strings, shooting arrows, penning his parents in together like you'd breed animals. And then he thinks about Castiel, tearing the whole rotten operation down with a touch.

At night, Cas kisses him until his mind quiets, and touches him with hands that unraveled God's will just to see him at peace, and Dean tries to trust it.

—

"I've a list of ingredients for you," Rowena says, presenting Castiel with a sheet torn off a yellow legal pad. Her hair is almost back to its former glory, red and lustrous and finally touching her shoulders. It's grown more than seems natural for such a short span of time. Dean guesses she's been testing her strength on glamours for herself before she pulls out the big guns for Cas.

Dean peeks over Cas's shoulder at her flowing scrawl. "Six eggs? What is he, a custard pie?"

"Embryonic components are vital to the spell," Rowena explains. "It's part transformation, part time magic. We're reversing time on Castiel's form, but since he doesn't age naturally, it's more like…"

"Hitting the undo button until he's him again?"

"I suppose," Rowena says with a flick of her eyebrows. "If that helps you understand it. What matters is that I'm certain it will work, as long as you other little Winchesters cooperate."

"What do you need?" Dean says without hesitation. Maybe he should be more wary of putting their fates in Rowena's hands, but he's starting to get used to having her around, like an annoying roommate. Also he quietly suspects that Sam's screwing her behind his back, which… Like, okay, he's got some critiques about Sam's taste, but Dean can't exactly criticize when he looks at his own history.

He can feel Cas watching him, and maybe that softens his mistrust a little, too.

"Castiel has a strong image of himself, but the physical projection needs to be ironclad to make sure it shapes correctly while preserving his current mental state. And one way to do that is to… shore it up, using the psychic bonds he's formed with those closest to him."

"My family," Castiel says, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Dean's hand brushes his back.

"So, I can help?" Jack sits up straight, energized.

"Jack never saw you in person before, though, right, Cas?" asks Sam.

"We still communicated," Cas says. "More directly than speaking, even." Cas takes Dean's hand, squeezing it gently. Despite being surrounded by people, Dean doesn't flinch away from it. "You wouldn't remember it now, but it's not unlike the day we met."

"When you blew every fuse in that barn, or when you were breaking windows and turning on radios at me?" Dean asks with a chuckle.

"No," Castiel says. "Before that." And Dean shuts his mouth, because what can he even say? "I've touched all of your souls, at one point or another. I can't think of anyone who knows me better."

"In mind, in body, in spirit," Rowena says. "All the food groups!"

Some of the components are things Rowena can send for, but others have to be ordered from weird places on the internet that even Dean, who would probably have blown the laptop to Hell with pop-ups had he not finally been shown the magic of a robust adblocker, is a little nervous about. But in the end, all they have to do is wait for everything to arrive and… that's it. The rest is in Rowena's well-manicured hands.

In the meantime, Dean and Sam pick up another hunting job, something that seems likely to be a vampire on the move heading up towards Montana. Sam and Cas put up a united front to convince Dean it's okay to leave, that Cas has things well in hand back at the bunker. Dean still asks Sam to text them while he's busy driving, just to make sure nobody blew the place up or accidentally opened any more portals to other universes, and he calls Cas as soon as they check into their room that night.

"You've been gone for twelve hours," Cas says, irritation bleeding through. "I promise I'm not so incompetent I can't occupy my son and one witch for one day."

"No, I know that," Dean groans. "I'm just— I dunno." He paces in the empty room, anxiously peeking out the window to see if Sam's back with dinner yet. Dean's never been one to complain about fast food, but if he's honest, he's gotten kind of used to cooking for himself. It's been… well, nice, not to have to eat stuff that came out of a bag all the time. It makes him feel accomplished when something comes out just the way he imagined it. It feels like a job well done, keeping his family fed. "It's not— I trust you, Cas, of course I do."

"I know," Cas says, sighing softly. They lapse into silence, just the sound of Dean's feet on the carpet and Castiel's breath through the receiver. It makes Dean wish Cas was here with him, and that makes him feel a little bit like a fourteen year old girl mooning over a crush. He's a grown ass adult, he can be away from Cas for a few days. He's done it often enough. But of course, whether he can and whether he wants to are two different things, aren't they?

"I just miss you, is all," he mumbles, feeling the blush rise up his neck. Nobody can even see him, but god, he's embarrassing.

"I miss you too, Dean," Cas says. Dean can hear him smiling through the phone, and then he realizes he's smiling, hard enough to make his cheeks hurt. Someone shoot him, now.

His heart nearly launches itself out through his throat when the door swings open and Sam walks in, greasy paper bags in hand. Dean coughs, wiping his hand over his face like that'll wipe the red from his cheeks, and turns his back to the doorway, planting his hand on his hip in faux-nonchalance.

"But yeah, uh, Sam's back now, so I guess we're gonna eat and hit the sack. If we can catch up with the vamps tomorrow morning, we might be back before the day's out."

"Then let's hope you can track them efficiently," Cas says pleasantly. "I've been thinking about what I'd like to do for you next time I see you."

"I— yeah?" Dean clears his throat, glancing back at Sam, who thankfully seems occupied by shaking up a plastic tub of salad.

"Yes. Last time you let me use my fingers while we—"

"Oh, uh—"

"—and I'd like to see if I can make you—"

"Uh-huh, yeah—"

"—with that alone."

"Okay sounds great Cas gotta go bye!"

Dean hangs up. He also counts to five before he turns back around, willing his face to look normal.

"How's Cas doing?" Sam says, shoving a plastic forkful of leafy greens into his perfectly unsmiling mouth. Dean stares at him suspiciously.

"Great. Rowena didn't run off with Jack and make him murder anyone, so call that a win." Dean looks down to fire off a scandalized text to Cas before he reaches for his foil-wrapped burger, too antsy to sit down while he eats it.

"Cool," Sam says. They eat in relative silence for a while while Dean ignores the string of emojis Cas has sent him, before Sam ruins it by talking again. "You guys got everything figured out, then?"

"What?" Dean says, then, "Shut up."

"Shutting up," Sam says, tossing his hands up in surrender. A minute later he ruins it again. "I just wanna say, I think it's nice to see you—"

"Sam, I swear to every God there is—"

"—happy! Shutting up again. I will never speak another word on it. You giant baby."

"I— Okay, smart guy, you wanna be cute, what's the deal with you and Rowena?"

"Deal?" Sam says around a mouthful, and he swallows with tremendous effort. "What deal?"

"Don't give me that. One minute we're about to gank her, the next you're picking out curtains with her at Bed Bath and way fucking Beyond."

"It's not like that," Sam says, staring at his salad and spearing it with a fork in a way that says it might be kind of like that. "It's… I dunno, man, it's complicated."

"That what your Facebook status says?" Sam makes a face at him, and Dean makes one right back. "What, I don't have to have a Facebook to know what's on Facebook."

"You have a Facebook, Dean. I've seen your Facebook."

"It's just for Farmville," Dean says, and shoves the last bite of burger into his mouth. Sam rolls his eyes, his shoulders hunched over the little two-seater motel table.

"Rowena… She kinda…" Sam huffs, running his hands back through his hair. He leans back in the rickety little chair, his jaw working. "There are things about me that she… gets. That most people just kind of don't."

"A shared hatred of Satan?"

Sam snorts. "I mean, sure, that. But not just that. She… She doesn't handle me with kid gloves."

"Well, yeah, she's tried to kill you a few times."

"We've tried to kill each other a few times. It's something I've learned to overlook, I guess."

Dean scoffs, tossing his empty wrapper into the bag and sitting down heavily on the end of one of the beds. "Okay, so, how does she 'handle' you, then?"

"Ha ha," Sam sneers. "She… you know, we've both done some stuff we're not too proud of. But she's not scared of herself like—" Sam blinks rapidly, squaring his shoulders. "She wants to be better, but she's not so wrapped up in beating herself up over it that she loses herself. If anything, it just makes her fight harder. I admire that. Maybe you think that's stupid."

"I don't think it's stupid," Dean says. "I just think you could find some better role models. Probably just by walking outside and grabbing any random person off the street."

"Come on," Sam says, rolling his eyes.

Dean chews at his lip, mulling it over. "Are you really scared of yourself, Sammy?"

"Aren't you?" Sam turns to look at him, finally. Dean squirms away from it.

"You oughta give yourself more credit than that, that's all I'm saying."

"Well, Rowena gives me credit," Sam says, and Dean quiets down at that. If Sam's getting more validation from Crowley's mom than his own brother, that's on Dean, isn't it?

"I'm not tryna criticize you," Dean says. "I just wanna make sure you're… you know, okay." Worrying about Sam is what Dean does. Which is maybe part of the problem.

"Yeah, I get it, man." Sam finishes his dinner, picking at the last little bits of diced tomato in front of him distantly.

The quiet in the room is tense as Dean dresses down for bed while Sam gathers up the trash. It's only when Sam's about to put the light out and do the same that Dean asks, "You really trust her that much?"

Sam sighs, pushing his hair back. "We understand each other. It's a little different than trust." He looks up, and Dean's struck by how much older Sam looks now, how time and tragedy have carved a man out of the little kid Dean used to feed handfuls of store-brand Cheerios to. He still sees that kid looking out of Sam's eyes most of the time, but he's buried under more weight than even Dean, with his eighty years of living shoved into his nearly forty-year-old body, can wrap his head around. "But, you know… yeah. I think I do," Sam says, cradling his hands together.

"You trust her with Mom?"

Sam meets his eyes squarely. "Yeah. I do."

"Okay." Dean nods. "Well, I trust you." That's one thing Dean can do for him that their dad never did.

Sam's stern expression falls a little bit, his eyes going round, and there he is. There's that kid Dean would do anything for.

"Thanks, Dean," Sam says, his eyes falling to his hands again.

Dean reaches over to flip out the lights. "Early morning tomorrow. Get some shut-eye."

The sound of rustling motel sheets layered over the distant roars of trucks on the overpass is comfortingly familiar. With Sam breathing evenly across the room, Dean falls asleep easily.

—

The job is a total milk run, just two vamps who don't have the sense to cover their tracks better. They're in the middle of finishing off a state trooper who made the mistake of investigating a busted Toyota Corolla with blacked-out windows parked on the side of the interstate when Sam and Dean pull up. Once they've collected some heads, they set the whole bloody scene ablaze. All in a day's work.

Dean is restless the whole drive home, changing the music frequently and fiddling with the dash and generally driving Sam nuts, not because he wants to find another case and keep moving like he usually might, but because he's anxious to get home. He makes himself laugh, thinking about Cas greeting him at the door like a normal… whatever he is. How was work today? Well, I hit a vampire with my car and broke into a police cruiser to steal the dashcam footage. How about you, sweetheart?

Then he realizes he just mentally called Castiel his 'sweetheart' and has to recalibrate some shit in his head for a bit.

Dean's still fighting a losing battle with the anxious fluttering in his stomach when they step into the library. He frowns, breathing in sharply through his nose when the air makes his eyes sting, and smells smoke. He hears the start of Sam raising his voice in a question just as a high-pitched scream splits the air. Time narrows around Dean; before he can tell his legs to move, he's running.

Images flash through his head: blue eyes glowing so bright they burn out. Black wings seared into the sandy ground. The last embers of a hunter's funeral. A flash of red staggers past him. The air is hazier the closer he gets to the kitchen, where dark smoke is rolling across the ceiling. In the corner is Jack, hands outstretched, Cas standing in place at the gas range, his arms engulfed in flame.

"Cas," someone shouts. Dean realizes it's him when Cas looks up, blue eyes red-rimmed and alarmed, flames a foot high eating their way up his arms, licking across his face, a nightmarish mirror of Dean's dream. He can hear yelling around him, but he can't decipher any of it, because all he can focus on is tearing off his jacket to wrap it around Cas, closing the distance with his body, trapping his burning arms between them.

"Extinguo," comes another voice, a shrill command, and the heat bearing down on the side of Dean's face is suddenly gone, leaving only smoke and echos of warmth. He doesn't let go of Cas, who is statue-still in his arms.

"Jack, it's okay, let go," someone shouts, Sam, Dean thinks. Then it's raining in the kitchen. Dean looks up slowly, his muscles not quite obeying him. The sprinkler. Right. Water soaks through his flannel and his undershirt, trickling down his nose where it's pressed to Castiel's cheek. Cas pulls back from Dean's vice grip first, hands flat on Dean's chest, his hair matted to his forehead.

"Dean," he says. "I'm sorry."

Dean makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob and kisses him.

When he pulls back, Cas looks stunned. Dean's eyes fall to his open lips, a perfectly round O, and then down to his charred overcoat, and to his hands, splayed against Dean's chest, the skin cracked and blistered. The indoor shower ceases as suddenly as it started, and Dean gathers Cas's hands up carefully, afraid to hurt him more.

"I'm okay," Cas says. The burns fade in the space of a blink. Dean only notices the exposed skin on his throat is hurting when the ache vanishes. "You're okay. I'm sorry, Dean, I didn't— We were just trying to have dinner ready for you when you got back, but the oil in the pan spilled everywhere, and then the water just made it worse—"

"You— you can't put out a grease fire with water," Sam says behind him, and the back of Dean's neck burns. He disentangles himself from Cas, leaving his sodden jacket draped over his shoulders. He glances at the stovetop, where something unrecognizable and charred is gumming up his good sauté pan.

"I'm sorry," Cas says again, despondent. "I don't know why I bothered, I know how to make nachos, but I've never prepared chicken thighs, I should have known I would just… mess it up."

"You idiot," Dean says, struggling to breathe normally.

Cas frowns, his apologetic tone fading. "I was trying to be helpful."

"You're an idiot, you're so stupid," Dean says, and shoves his embarrassment down deep so that he can pull Cas in by the back of his head, kissing him on the forehead fiercely. "I don't care about dinner! I thought something— happened to you!"

Castiel's expression softens, his eyes scanning Dean's face. He reaches up to wipe a droplet of water from Dean's stubbled chin. Dean swallows.

"Can't you, uh, poof us dry, too?" he asks.

"In a moment," Cas says, voice low, eyes focused on Dean's mouth.

Sam clears his throat loudly, and Dean spins on his heel, putting some space between him and Cas. Sam has Rowena wrapped up in a towel, her hair sodden, her makeup tracking down her cheeks in stark black lines. She looks absolutely miserable, and another day Dean might laugh at that, but he's feeling a little too flayed-open to find his sense of humor. Jack is hovering nearby, and Dean pats him on the shoulder once, gruff in his affection.

"You did good," he says. "Stopping the sprinklers like that. Fire coulda spread much further."

Jack's face shifts into a hopeful smile, which he tamps down into something contrite. "I'm sorry about the kitchen."

"I told them to just make reservations somewhere nice," says Rowena icily, "but apparently you boys live in a cultureless vacuum and the best restaurant in fifty miles is a pizza parlor."

"Pizza's good," Dean protests. Rowena looks at him with all the bedraggled hatred of a cat that fell in a bathtub. Cas comes up from behind him, and taps her on the forehead. In an instant, she's dry, her face clean and bare. She blinks owlishly.

"Angel Face, you've always been my favorite," she says, flinging off the towel, which collides with Sam's chin.

Mopping up the kitchen takes some work, and nearly every towel in the linen closet. The laundry's gonna be a bitch to get through later. They drag the smoking ruin that was Dean's favorite pan out to the dumpster and pile into the car. Dean vows to put off worrying about the laundry until after dinner, and about how to clean smoke stains off the kitchen ceiling until tomorrow morning. Shoved into a corner booth, eating a slice of sausage and pepperoni with Cas, alive and intact, pressed against him hip to hip, he can almost relax.

"I'd offer to pay for dinner as an apology," Cas says, an untouched slice with Dean's name on it sitting in front of him on the table, "but I'm afraid I don't have any money."

"I think I saw a movie that started that way once," Dean says, quiet and half-hidden by the slice folded in his hand. He grunts when Sam's boot collides with his shin under the table, but next to him, Cas is smiling.

"Which movie?" asks Jack. "Can we watch that one when we—"

"No," Sam and Dean bark.

—

The last package arrives at the post office on a Thursday. It's a sword, short and thin and straight. Assembled, all the components look to Dean like the beginnings of a really weird cake-cutting ceremony.

They all gather in the basement, preparing the spell in an empty room which Rowena selects because it's out of the way and easy to clean, the thought of which ramps Dean's anxiety up a few notches, because what's the blast radius on this thing, exactly? She draws a sigil in chalk on the floor and lights white candles that make Dean's eyes water. She also asks Cas to undress, which Dean puts his foot down about.

"I told you, nakedness doesn't bother me like it does you," Cas argues, while Rowena crushes a jarful of dried herbs into a bowl.

"How long does this take? Are we just gonna be staring at Cas's ass for an hour?"

"I didn't think you'd object to that," Rowena says, lilting an eyebrow. Dean swallows an angry retort. "But it is necessary. And if all goes according to plan, his clothes won't fit when it's done, anyway." Dean swears under his breath, storming out and returning with his robe, which he thrusts at Cas.

"At least— Just, you can put this on when— you know."

Cas takes it from him begrudgingly, like he's humoring a child throwing a tantrum, and walks out of the room with it while Rowena continues her work. When he returns, he's barefoot and undressed, positively swimming in Dean's robe, jaw taut.

"Are you happy?"

Dean rolls his eyes then looks back at what Rowena's doing, arms crossed. He's nervous is what he is. What if it doesn't work? What if something goes wrong? What if, at the end of it, Cas isn't happy? They don't usually mess with this kind of magic, and Dean's seen the hundreds of ways spells can go wrong. It itches under his skin. He wants Cas to do what's right for him, but he and Cas aren't always so great at knowing what's right for them, are they?

"I'll need a drop of blood from each of you," Rowena says, twirling the sword a little. Dean's throat constricts, and he looks at Cas in alarm.

"Blood wasn't on the list."

"Just a drop!" Rowena beckons him closer. Dean stays put. Cas grabs his bicep and squeezes.

"I know what she can do with 'just a drop,'" Dean says under his breath.

"This is how it has to be done. Dean, please," Cas says, eyes large. The 'I need you' goes unspoken.

Dean looks down at his feet, taking a tense and unsteady breath. "Aren't you scared?"

Cas gives a weak laugh. "Of course I am. But I'd like to do it anyway."

Sam steps up to squeeze Cas's shoulder, offering a little smile. "We've got your back."

"This is going to help Cas?" Jack says, approaching Rowena and her bowl. Rowena smiles, winking in Cas's direction.

"You don't have to participate if you're uncomfortable, Jack," Cas says. Jack looks back, eyes lowering in thought before he meets his eyes again.

"I love you. I want you to be happy. If this can help you, I want to do it."

Dean's chest aches. Next to him, Cas sucks in a sharp breath and goes to Jack, taking his face in his hands before pulling him into a tight hug. Dean watches them a moment, suffocated, before he breathes in deep, coming up behind them, afraid to break the moment, but needing Cas to know what he means. When Cas pulls away from Jack, he looks up at Dean with wet, hopeful eyes. Dean nods. It doesn't feel like enough, but Cas smiles like Dean's given him a gift anyway. Then Sam's there too, a brief hand on the back of Dean and Castiel's necks.

"Okay," Dean says. "Let's do this."

Sam goes first, offering his hand to Rowena, who accepts it with a grin. She holds the point of the sword aloft, bringing it down towards his finger delicately, blood welling on the tip. Then she holds his hand over the bowl, squeezing down, milking it until the blood drips daintily into the well she's made. When Sam walks away, finger in his mouth, Jack steps up, holding his hand straight out as though Rowena might want to shake it. She takes a drop from him as well; into the bowl it goes.

Dean approaches last, hand at his side, eyes boring into her.

"Yes, yes, I understand," Rowena says. "If I hurt your family, la-di-da, stabby stab-stab. Just let me give you a wee little prick, and it's all over."

He frowns. Rowena's eyebrows lift, her eyes dancing with silent laughter. Dean offers his hand.

He doesn't flinch at the sting. One drop and it's over, just as she said. Then Rowena directs them all to sit in a crescent on the floor at key spots on the chalk drawing, and to hold hands. Jack sits between Sam and Dean, and he looks to each of them in turn with an anxious smile. Dean squeezes his hand once, trying to return it.

Rowena sits at the head of the chalk circle. She cracks the eggs into the bowl, one after the other, and drops the shells in after, crushing the whole wet, crunching mess into a paste with a pestle.

"All right, Castiel, now's the time," Rowena says. Castiel slips out of the robe, folding it and setting it on the ground. She directs him to sit in the center of the circle, facing away from Jack, in front of the bowl. "When I recite the incantation, I'll need you to turn the bowl over on your head, just like I told you."

"All that shit's going on his head?" Dean says in mild horror.

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Rowena snipes. "Now. Are you ready, dear?"

He sees Castiel's chest rise and fall slowly once before he nods, face stern, steeling himself. Then, after a pause, Rowena begins to chant.

The candles flicker, as if stirred by a draft. Cas takes the bowl in his hands and upturns it in the air, letting the murky contents ooze out onto the crown of his head. It slides wetly through his hair, over his cheeks, creeping down his neck and over his arms. Cas shuts his eyes, setting the bowl back down on the floor.

Dean's not sure how long it goes on for. It feels agonizingly slow, but Dean can't look away, can hardly blink, watching the concoction swallow Castiel up, bit by bit. It spreads itself over his eyelids, clinging to his chin and slipping down over the length of his throat, down over his sharp shoulders and stretching wet fingers down his arms until the whole naked form of him is completely engulfed. Rowena keeps chanting, and the candles flicker again, burning brighter for one tense second before dimming again, making the room seem darker than it is.

Then, so slowly he almost doesn't notice until it's done, the color of his form changes. The wet mess grows shinier, lighter, until it's matte and shell-like. Cas is utterly still underneath it. Dean stares hard, trying to find evidence that he's even breathing under there. His mouth is closed, and he can't tell if his nose is obstructed by the shell or not.

Rowena's eyes slide open, ringed in electric violet. Her chanting grows urgent. She reaches out, snatching Sam's hand, then Dean's, her grip firm and relentless. Dean keeps his eyes on Cas, willing him to make it through this, to come out the other side in one piece. It's a little like praying, so he does that too, silent but insistent: You're gonna be all right, Cas. You're gonna be fine. I need you, too. You have to know by now. I'll do whatever I have to, just, please, be okay.

Dean startles when the sound of cracking fills the air, and his hand tightens on Jack's. The pale shell encasing Cas begins to split, long fissures snaking over his arms, over his chest. The shell expands, the sounds growing louder and more frequent. Light, green and gold and blue, spills out, dancing on the concrete walls, shining into Dean's eyes and making him squint away. He tries not to close them.

The light grows too bright to see anything underneath, glowing and expanding until it's like the sun is sitting right there in the center of their circle. Pieces of shell begin to fall away in shards, littering the ground around them, little sounds like snowfall in the winter.

Rowena shouts, one last powerful cry, and the shell shatters, falling away. The light bursts, then dies, and the room falls into a darkness so complete Dean wonders if he's been blinded. Then things begin to take shape again, dim, gray forms Dean can almost make out.

Rowena utters a command, and the burnt-out candles relight themselves, bringing the room back into focus. Castiel sits in the center of the circle, eyes closed, bare except for the fragments of eggshell trapped in his hair. Apart from the color in his cheeks, he looks exactly as he did the day he died. Then his eyes flutter open, warm blue in the candlelight, and Dean releases a breath so sharply it almost hurts.

Cas blinks, lifting his hand slowly, like his joints have rusted from disuse. He spreads his fingers in front of him, and Dean can see his eyes widen at the broad span of them. Cas's eyes trail up his thick arms, down over the sparse hair of his chest. He stops there, and Dean looks down to follow him as he lifts his arm to find the Enochian ward tattooed across his ribs.

"Holy shit," Dean whispers. It really is like Rowena just snatched him out of time, just as he was the day Dean lost him. There's a little bit of gray at his temple that Dean hadn't noticed before, remnants of the time he spent as a human. Crows feet gather at the corners of his heavy-lidded eyes. He combs long fingers through his hair, sending bits of shell scattering to the floor, and smiles, and Dean loves him.

"Castiel," Rowena says. "Do you remember where you are?"

"Yes," Cas says, with his voice like gravel, staring in wonder at the backs of his hands. "I'm home."

Cas pushes himself to standing. Dean follows a step behind, grabbing the robe up from the ground and helping Cas into it one arm at a time. When he's decent, he turns around, holding his arms out: ta da.

"How do I look?"

"Great," Sam says cheerfully. "It's all good? You feel good?"

"You look happy," Jack says, smiling broadly.

"Yes," Cas says, and it comes out like a laugh. "Thank you." He gathers Jack in for another hug, and then Sam, too, then spins around to grin at Rowena. "Thank you." Rowena does a little curtsy for him. Then Cas's shoulders settle, and he turns to Dean again, chin tucked down, almost shy.

"Hello, Dean," he says. Dean's eyes sting.

"Hey, pal." He pulls Cas in by the shoulder and wraps his arms around him. He's a little bit shorter again, just an inch or so. Dean ducks his chin to speak softly in his ear. "It's great to hear your voice." Cas's arms tighten around his chest, his fingers spanning across Dean's shoulder blades. Dean sighs into it. When he pulls himself away, he brushes a few more shell fragments away from Cas's ear.

"Well, Cas, how do you wanna celebrate?" asks Sam, very wisely focusing on Cas instead of giving Dean a look. Cas looks at his hands again, eyes roaming over them wildly, his cheeks creased with his enduring smile.

"I'd like to take a shower."

—

Cas, an angel with all the power that entails, does not need to shower, but that's apparently no deterrent. While the others clean up after the spell, Castiel goes upstairs to indulge his desire to use up all the hot water, plus Dean's ocean breeze scented body wash. He spends a solid hour in there, and when he knocks on Dean's door his hair is still damp and tousled from the clean bath towel draped over the shoulders of Dean's robe.

"So? How was it?"

"If more angels had taken the time to enjoy a shower, I think they might have understood humanity a little better," Cas says, letting Dean close the door behind him. Now that he's there, though, his smile falters, and he falls quiet.

"You gonna need to borrow some clothes again?"

"I don't want to impose," Cas says. "Maybe I should have gotten new clothes before we started... but I was eager to see it through."

Dean clears his throat, flushing. "Look, uh, I'm not— you're not putting me out. You can borrow my clothes all you want. Mi casa, su casa, y'know?"

Cas looks at him like Dean just promised him the world rather than just a drawer in Dean's dresser. Jesus, Dean's gonna have a heart attack. He doesn't know what to do with something this good. It's been a long time.

"I dunno how many of 'em'll fit you now," Dean admits, stepping closer. He smooths a hand over the sleeve of his robe. "You're, uh, kinda… bigger than I remember."

"Am I?" His head cocks to the side, his mouth still curved in a smile.

Dean huffs, ducking his head. "Uh, yeah, dude. You got stacked at some point, I'm not really sure when." He palms Cas's side next, spanning over the stretch of skin where he's inked. "Never got a good look at this, either."

"I'd like to show you," Cas says, nudging Dean's forehead with his. Their noses brush. Water drips onto Dean's collar. The happiness Dean feels is like a physical force, ballooning inside his chest until it feels like it might burst. He doesn't know how to do this, has no precedent for it, but it hardly seems to matter.

Dean leans down, catching Cas's lips. It's nothing like the first time they kissed. He takes his time, lingering, cataloguing the way Cas molds against him, the way his rough chin scratches at Dean's, the way his voice resonates in his chest when Dean draws a pleased sound from him.

"I'll take you up on that later," Dean says, pulling back. Cas looks up at him, eyes dark but pleased, and tilts his chin up for another brief kiss.

"Later? I feel like I've already wasted so much time."

"It's not a waste," Dean says, but he brings his hands up to cup Castiel's jaw, skimming his thumbs over his bristling cheeks while he kisses him again. "You're here, right?"

"Dean," Cas breathes, and then it's a little more like their first kiss, because Cas's hands (god, his hands) are gripping his arms and spinning him around, crowding him against the door.

So, yeah, maybe it's gonna take them a few minutes to make it back out of Dean's room.

Cas doesn't fit in Dean's pants, which is— it's very distracting, is what it is, because Dean has to watch him struggle to tug them on over his thighs, and he's really never gonna leave his room again if he doesn't turn his head now. Dean has a pair of black track pants, and that's gonna have to do. He fills Dean's borrowed henley out in a way that makes Dean's throat dry. He's half tempted to force the robe on Cas again, because to his eyes, he looks indecent.

"Maybe this time we can get you an actual wardrobe," Dean says, trying not to think about the way his shirt's gonna be stretched out the next time Dean wears it. "Something besides your, y'know, uniform."

"Yes," Cas says, eyes bright and wondering at the possibilities. "I think I'd like something purple."

"Purple?" Dean snorts.

"Yes. Purple. I like purple. And blue, and green."

"We can do that. Shirts in every color. Whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?"

"Yeah, man," Dean says with a shrug. "It's your body. You get to do whatever you want with it."

"I do," Cas says, like it's a revelation. His smile lights up his face. "I can't wait."

---