InsaneJournal

Dean had mostly kept to himself since coming back.

He didn't seem hurt, but he seemed tired. There was a lot of process: the differences between him and his brother, getting to see his mother again, and then that... whole thing with Cas. (He was actively trying not to process that, actually.) He ended up staying late at work to make up for the day he'd missed hopping through weird alternate realities. Staying elbow deep in car parts -- especially during winter, when people needed repairs more than ever -- was preferable to confronting things head on.

By the time he came home that night, it was well after dark. Working on other cars always made him homesick for the Impala, but who knew what horrible things would happen to her here? It might be better this way, with her home in the bunker's garage instead of hanging out in a different reality, subject to the whims of a magic portal. Leaving his boots and his jacket by the door, Dean went straight up to the bathroom to wash the grease off his hands. Sam and Adam could feed themselves tonight. They were grown ass men.

“Hello, Dean.”

Suddenly, Castiel was right behind him, clearly visible in the bathroom mirror. Brow furrowed, he looked down at Dean’s hands, then back up to look at his face in the reflection.

Dean was used to it by now, and he kind of wished that he wasn't. He looked up to meet Cas's eyes and almost immediately looked back down. "Come on, man, we've talked about this bathroom thing." It came out harsher than he meant it to, it was to cover up some badly hidden embarrassment.

Cas staring at him in the mirror was making it really difficult for him to continue his plan of blatantly ignoring what had happened in his so-called heaven. This was real life Castiel, still an angel, awkward and out of place, not an alternate Cas who wore reindeer sweaters and smiled when he…

...did a thing that Dean was never going to think about ever. again.

Castiel hesitated, and then he took one step back. He fumbled a little, not entirely sure how to approach the subject. He knew that Dean and Sam had disappeared, that they’d stepped through a portal (and gone without him), and they’d come back after facing what seemed to be their personal Heavens and their personal Hells. He didn’t have the details, and when he’d attempted to ask Dean about it he’d gotten no answers, and Dean had stopped praying.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said gruffly.

"...Yeah. I have." Sue him, Dean wasn't great at lying to Cas. He had barely been making it through important lies even back home. "Just wanted some time alone," he added, privately wincing. No. No, that had been exactly the wrong thing to say, as if Cas didn't already feel alone here.

Cas lifted his chin slightly. “Oh.” He nodded, clearing his throat, and turned to go.

Dean almost let him go, but he followed at the last second. "No, hey. I said that bad, I'm sorry."

When Cas turned to face him again, they ended up practically wedged in the doorway together. It didn’t occur to Cas to fix this. “Are you hurt?” he asked, his eyes flickering from Dean’s face to the rest of him, doing a quick and calculating sweep of his body. “What happened? You should have taken me.”

At a point where Castiel didn’t have a separate war to fight, he sat at home and did nothing if the Winchesters weren’t taking him somewhere.

Dean was temporarily distracted by the edge of Castiel's mouth, the line of his jaw. Then he cleared his throat and took a step back, putting a little distance between them. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I told you what happened. It was just a big… fake fantasy Christmas thing, after all the other crap. I don't know what you want."

“I…” What did Cas want? When presented with the question, he had no idea how to answer. Dean and Sam had gone investigating the missing vampire without him, but that wasn’t unusual. Going through the portals had been an accident, and it wasn’t like they could have called him in for backup they didn’t need.

It wasn’t really an answer, but the only thing he said was, “You stopped praying.”

Dean fidgeted like he was going to move, but the only way to go was to squeeze through the doorway. Instead, he decided to lean against the counter. "Weren't you getting sick of it? It was just the same shit every night. Maybe it's time to… stop." Before Dean told him something he really didn't want Cas to know just because it felt natural and safe.

Castiel’s expression barely flickered, but for someone who knew Cas, it was like Dean had plunged a knife through his heart. He wasn’t getting sick of it. “Angel radio” was silent, and Cas had gotten used to listening to Dean talk in ways that he never could in person. But Dean was right, it was superfluous, considering they lived in the same house and Cas wasn’t actually going anywhere. Dean didn’t need to ask him for favors anymore, or talk to him when there was no one else to hear.

“All right.”

What had Dean seen? What changed?

It was the exact opposite of what Dean had wanted. His hands tightened on the edge of the counter. As if Dean didn't already break everything he touched, he just insisted on making it worse, didn't he?

"Cas." He swallowed hard. "Talk to me."

Castiel folded his arms and adjusted his stance to try and shake off what he was feeling. “The vampire’s been found,” he said. “I don’t know who got to her first but she was posting on the network.”

"Great. You know that wasn't what I meant."

They’d known each other long enough that misunderstandings weren’t nearly as common, and Castiel couldn’t get away with feigning ignorance. “In that case, Dean, I don’t have anything to say.” And he didn’t. He couldn’t identify why it hurt that Dean was pulling away, particularly when he didn’t know why. He had to wonder if his betrayal had finally caught up to him and Dean had stopped forgiving.

"Yeah, man, you do." Dean folded his arms. He couldn't talk about himself, but he wasn't going to let Cas wander off again without talking about Cas's feelings. Sorry, buddy. "If you don't want me to stop, I won't," he said impulsively, knowing it was going to bite him in the ass later. "You can tell me when something's wrong, Cas. You know that, right?"

“Yes, I know.” Castiel just culturally didn’t understand it. Angels did what they were told; they didn’t complain. Even after rebelling and breaking away he couldn’t completely change who he was. “What happened, Dean. What did I do?”

"Nothing," Dean promised. "You didn't do anything wrong. It was…" He gestured, feeling stupid. "---I'm still processing what happened, in the… portal thing. Everyone was alive and safe, it was all this unrealistic fantasy shit, but it's still… getting to me, I guess."

He looked over at Cas again before an overwhelming feeling of self hatred his his stomach like a brick. All the weirdness aside, did Dean have the right to stand in the same room as his friend after what he'd done? In some fantasy land, maybe, but that didn't mean it had felt any less real. Cas was talking to Dean without knowing where his hands had been just the other day, the things that he'd said, the way that Dean had seen his body. He didn't know if Cas would care or if he'd think of it the same way, but it made him feel dirty. Invasive. Like he'd lied to take advantage of someone he cared about and couldn't even be bothered to fess up when he had the chance.

Castiel nodded, and was relatively certain he wasn’t going to get any information beyond that. “All right. I’ll give you space.” He’d been trying to hang around Dean and Sam too closely anyway.

Before Dean could protest, the next time Dean blinked there was the sound of wingbeats and Castiel was gone.