InsaneJournal

As much as Castiel wanted to make sure he was always searching for Dean, he'd accepted that Dean didn't want to be found. There was no trail of bodies, no hint that Dean had suddenly gotten violent, and wherever he was he'd at least checked in with Benny. And possibly Crowley.

Cas didn't like it, but it was something.

So life had to go on. He had responsibilities. He had work at the homeless shelter, which was suddenly all the more relevant now that he had memories of living in one. Losing his grace, becoming mortal, not having anything to his name----and then being kicked out of the bunker by Dean. Scraping by, hitchhiking, relying on the kindness of strangers, landing a job at a Gas-N-Sip and living in the back room. If things hadn't changed, he wondered if he'd still be there now, mortal and making meager paychecks to pay for the food and maintenance his body had required.

It meant that now he was more willing to open up about his history when people asked him why he was there, now that he had a story to tell that people could relate to. It meant he was comfortable in changing his clothes, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt to serve meals rather than his usual suit and trenchcoat. Even if he didn't know where Dean was, he found comfort in what he did, and found new meaning in helping others who couldn't help themselves. Simple. Helpful. Bloodless.

After leaving, he continued the search for Dean for several hours (which was useless), then went to a 24-hour gas station to pick up some necessities for Sam and Adam. He bought a small boxed pie, too. Just in case.

It was half past one in the morning when he finally came back, teleporting into the kitchen with his hands full of plastic bags.

Dean had been home for hours by then, and after a tense conversation with Sam, he'd even been allowed back inside the house. With everyone else in bed and Dean literally unable to sleep now, he'd been stuck wandering around the house, reluctant to leave lest Sam or Adam wake up and find him gone again. He should have tried to contact Cas before, but it was… it was complicated. The last year that he suddenly remembered was complicated.

He was leaning against the kitchen counter, just out of Castiel's sight when he popped in, and greeted him with an entirely-too-casual, "Hey, angel."

Cas dropped the bags he was holding. It wasn't easy to startle an angel, but Dean's presence was so unexpected that Dean actually managed it. "Dean."

"Did you miss me?" Dean gestured by spreading his arms, and he grinned with a devil-may-care sort of attitude. In some respects, it was like he'd aged in reverse, re-adopting some of the bravado that he'd used to survive almost ten years ago.

For a few seconds, Cas was dangerously quiet. Dean seemed upbeat, cheerful, and every bit like himself----except for the fact that from an angel's perspective he looked like a twisted, abhorrent black void in addition to his human body.

"You son of a bitch." Cas stepped over his bags and moved so fast that it was almost like he'd bothered to teleport a few feet. But instead of shoving Dean against the counter or grabbing him by the collar with a threat, he tugged him forward by the shirt into a hard, demanding kiss.

Dean kissed back, cradling the back of Cas's neck in both hands. It was a better reception than he expected, even if Cas did remember the same things that Dean did. Most days he'd have been at least minorly paranoid that someone would walk in on him, but right now he just didn't seem to care.

Cas pulled back slowly, resting his forehead against Dean's. His voice was a low, threatening rumble. "Don't ever do that again."

"Couldn't help it." Dean tugged on Cas's sweatshirt, almost surprised at the change. "Did you get new memories, too, or were you so heartbroken that you finally changed your clothes?"

"New memories," Castiel confirmed. He didn't touch, but he was incredibly close, and it seemed sometimes that for Cas it was the same thing. "Metatron told me you were dead." His brow furrowed, and he didn't know what to think about all this. "He's not … completely wrong."

Dean sighed and leaned back up against the counter again, folding his arms. "As far as he knows, he ain't wrong. And I certainly don't feel dead." He was unmistakably alive, even if it was weird and painful and complicated. Crowley didn't seem to have the same issues with that nice burning sensation, so Dean was forced to chalk it up to the… unique circumstances he found himself in.

Castiel frowned, tilting his head slightly. "How do you feel?"

"Alive," Dean said, with an accompanying smirk that said, yes, he was aware that answer was redundant. "Ready to be home and stop talking about it, all right? I'm here. I'll be fine. Things don't even have to change that much. I already went through a whole thing with Sam, I just want to be here. Okay?"

Dean went through "a whole thing" with Sam, as if that somehow made up for leaving Cas like that, for contacting the vampire ahead of him. Dean owed Cas "a whole thing", too, but there was something about the way Dean said it that Cas relented. He was exhausted from worrying about it, and he was the sort who would sit and observe suspiciously rather than argue and push like Sam.

"Okay." Vague. Skeptical.

"Everything's going to be fine," Dean reiterated, tugging Cas in by the front of his sweatshirt and dragging down the zipper. He was acutely aware now that Cas was in a vessel; he could see the light of Castiel's grace, but not the full force of it (the whole reason for having a vessel, in fact), and between them there was a spark, almost like static electricity where it brushed over the ruins of Dean's soul.

It was kind of hot, actually.

Cas allowed Dean to touch, and didn't do anything to deter him from playing with his sweatshirt, but he was still stern. "Dean, this is not 'fine.'" Dean was beyond damaged. He needed to be helped and he needed it soon, and Cas felt bad for feeling that crackling spark of energy between them and liking it. He hadn't felt that kind of a clash since kissing Meg.

Dean wasn't sure how it felt to Cas, but that humming warmth of energy felt good to him. It wasn't even deflection so much now (although it was still deflection at its core) as much as it was just being straight up distracted. The idea of having impulse control just didn't occur to him right here; Cas was his boyfriend, they had just mentally spent almost a year apart, and Cas needed to be reassured that Dean wasn't dead. That Dean could feel Castiel's grace -- his own, unstolen grace that wouldn't burn out -- only helped the situation.

"We'll deal with it. It could be a hell of a lot worse." Dean slipped his hand underneath the sweater and wrapped it around Cas's waist. "You missed me, though, right?"

Castiel's gaze flickered from Dean's eyes to his mouth. As still as he was, there was a definite shift in behavior. It wasn't acceptance of the situation, but it was an interest in Dean's touch, a certain heat in the way he looked at him, like Dean was his prey and he was biding his time before he pounced. He had two timelines in his head: one where he'd only been gone from Dean for a few days, and another where they'd spent most of their time apart for a year, where Cas had thought Dean was dead, where the stakes were too high to focus on anything else but the battles at hand.

"I did miss you," he said, his voice soft.

Dean's posture was deliberately relaxed, as if daring Cas to come at him with his guard so low. "So. Let it be what it is." Easing his fingers up underneath Cas's t-shirt, Dean let a shiver go up his spine as he got closer to Cas's grace. The only thing between them was a relatively thin layer of skin and bone, not so solid or significant now as Dean had thought of it before. "Is this my shirt?"

Castiel was so close that his nose almost touched Dean's. He didn't kiss, but it was almost like he threatened to. "I borrowed it." What are you going to do about it.

Dean gradually eased up his shirt, brushing the backs of his fingers over the vulnerable skin of Cas's belly. "Do you feel that, too, or is it just me?" He still didn't know how alike his soul and Castiel's grace were now, if Cas could feel it too, or if it was cold or painful instead of warm.

Castiel was conservative in the way he touched, and now he reached out. The backs of his fingers brushed against the fabric of Dean's jeans before hooking in the belt loop and tugging. "You have to be more specific."

"That, ah…" Dean rubbed his fingers together, trying to find something that didn't sound ridiculous or cheesy. Instead, he dragged his fingertips over Castiel's cheek. "That. You know what I mean, don't you?"

Cas leaned slightly into the touch. He knew what he meant. Dean felt cold and wrong, and to Dean Castiel probably felt hot and violent, and when they touched there was something between them. A crackle, a clash, and it wasn't gentle. "I do," he said quietly, his eyes flickering back to Dean's face. It was almost like seeing him twice, on two planes of existence, in a way that a human couldn't perceive -- the human body and the demon inside. If they weren't flirting seeing Dean like this would have broken him.

It was easier to wonder what that would make sex feel like than to let Cas pay too much attention to his new face. If they kept talking, they would eventually get around to what had gone so wrong, and even after talking it out with Sam, it meant something so different with Cas that Dean wasn't sure if he was ready for it.

So he took a fist full of Castiel's shirt and tugged him in for a harsh, painful kiss.

They could talk later.