40. Something Left to Save

The office seems smaller and lifeless without Dean. 

Though the omega has only been in it twice, Castiel has already grown used to his presence in the pitifully boring room. He misses Dean’s warmth, his gentle scent. Misses the surprising degree of security he feels when the man is nearby. His workspace feels sterile in his absence. 

Sighing, he rubs at his face and stares at the computer screen in front of him. He’d meant to finish up approvals on a list of requests that Jody had put together for him, but the numbers are blurring together. Dean had asked him to sleep earlier… but with his lap full of the omega, soft and warm and calm, there was simply no way he could have realistically managed it. He’d been too busy enjoying the sensation of being trusted to want to waste it on sleep. 

Maybe he should have, though. He’s had precious few undisturbed hours over the last few days, and it’s finally catching up to him. Of course he doesn’t mind that Dean woke him this morning – in fact, he’s grateful that he had – but the truth is that he had only just managed to drift off.

Still, he is used to running on fumes. There was a time in his life where Castiel got very little sleep at all, especially in those strange, fog-like months before he met Balthazar and after his father had died. Having the center, having something to focus on and work on and pour his effort into – it had helped. He’d fallen into bed at the end of every day exhausted, and so his insomniatic nights had dwindled to the point where he would tentatively label himself as functional (though Pamela would, and has, vehemently disagreed). 

Since Dean has moved in, though, he’s struggled. It’s no fault of the omega’s, and he holds no resentment toward him. He’ll trade sleep for Dean’s presence any time. But it doesn’t change the result – he’s exhausted, and staring at tiny, flickering numbers in tiny, flickering boxes is quickly becoming impossible. 

It doesn’t help that what tiny percentages of his mind that are actually functioning are, as usual, orbiting around Dean. 

Right now, the omega is alone. He’d asked to be alone, had put his foot down and insisted that Castiel let him fight this battle by himself. And, while Castiel had been more than a little reluctant, he had been able to find no justifiable reason to ignore his request. 

He’s proud of Dean, honestly. Even if he wants to be there with him, he knows that it is better he isn’t. It is likely only his… alpha brain. His primal urges that are telling him he should be at Dean’s side through something that is bound to make him uncomfortable or nervous. Instinct is insisting that he seek out the omega, insisting that he hold him and scent him and keep him calm. 

He hadn’t understood, at first, but when Balthazar had breezed past his office earlier, he’d snickered and told him to stop his knot-headed fretting, and that Dean would be fine. 

As unsettling as it still is to be under the influence of his instincts, knowing that the urge is at least somewhat biological in nature makes it much easier to ignore it. To pause and remind himself that Benny knows what he’s doing, and that he would never put Dean through anything that would damage him. 

He presses his fingertips to his eyes and takes a long, slow breath. 

There’s another issue, of course, that is keeping him from settling. One that he desperately wants to address, but has no idea how to tackle. 

As glad as he is that Dean has finally decided to try out therapy, Castiel is concerned about his motivations. He thinks he understands, to an extent, how the man’s brain works – understands that Dean is far more easily motivated to do things for other people than he is to do them for himself. But hearing him state it so plainly – that he was only willing to go because it would be helping Castiel, would be helping his brother… it had hit hard. 

Castiel does not want Dean’s recovery to be on Castiel’s terms. He’ll likely never recover, if it is. He can’t help but wonder if Dean’s younger brother would feel the same way. 

He doesn’t know, really. He knows almost nothing about Sam Winchester – nothing other than what Dean has let slip now and again, and those moments have been few and far between. He only knows that Dean loves his brother desperately, far more than Castiel has ever been loved by any of his own family. 

It makes his heart twist fiercely in his chest, thinking of what Dean had given up. For the millionth time, he wonders what could have forced Dean away from someone he so clearly still cares for. Someone who, based on what Dean has told him, so clearly cared for him. 

Sam would have been a child, when Dean left. A mere twelve years old when Dean had signed himself into the trade. And now, he’s spent nearly the same amount of time without Dean in his life at all.  

Castiel cannot lie to himself. He knows Sam Winchester will not, by the simple virtue of the passage of time, be the same sweet child that Dean remembers. By now, Sam is in his early twenties… and he is an alpha. 

And there is a risk – not an inconsiderable one – that he has, in Dean’s absence, become the exact type of alpha that men like Dean have to fear. 

He prays that isn’t the case. Prays that Sam is as compassionate and wonderful and fiercely loving as his elder brother, prays that the years Dean spent raising him – because that is clearly what he had done – were enough to dissuade him from believing that omegas are somehow lesser or deserving of mistreatment. But he doesn’t know, and the idea that Dean might drag himself through his recovery for him, only to find out that Sam would reject him or think less of him for the things he has been through… 

It angers him just thinking about it. Makes him so furious that he turns cold, gripping the desk under his hands until the wood creaks in protest. That is the last thing, after years of sacrifice and pain, that Dean deserves. 

The problem is, of course, that they won’t know until Dean tries to reach out. And the omega has, thus far, shown no interest in doing so. In fact, he has aggressively rejected the idea of searching for his family for reasons that Castiel can only partially understand. 

Of course, nothing is stopping Castiel from doing that research. Nothing is stopping him from looking for Sam, from finding out whether or not Sam is worthy of being part of Dean’s life. Nothing is stopping him at all. His fingertips have typed Sam Winchester into the search bar of his browser before he realizes what he’s doing, his pinky hovering above the enter button, giddy with anticipation even though he knows it’s unlikely that a simple google search will find anything. 

Then, of course, there is a knock on his door. 

With a guilty start, Castiel snaps his hands off the keyboard as if burned, and fumbles to close the window without looking at the results. 

The fact that his heart is racing tells him more than his own logic managed to. Of course there’s nothing stopping him from looking up Sam – nothing aside from the fact that it would be an extreme violation of Dean’s privacy and boundaries, ones he has made very clear. Due to his own impatience and selfish curiosity, he has very nearly betrayed Dean’s hard won trust on a lark. 

Whoever is at his door knocks again, clearing their throat this time. “Uh, Mr. Novak? Are you in there?”

The voice is unfamiliar, but young and earnest, and with a sigh Castiel rubs his face with his hand. “Yes. Come on in,” he says loudly, trying to arrange his face into something more professional than caught red handed. 

The door swings open slowly, and the kid that pokes his head in is young, hardly out of high school by the looks of him. He shuffles nervously by the door, his dark brown eyes flicking around the room like he’s sure there’s a large, hungry tiger hiding somewhere amongst the sparse furniture. 

Castiel cocks his head to the side. “How can I help you, Mr…” 

The young man starts, swinging his eyes back to Castiel like a pair of headlights. “Oh! Oh, sorry. I’m Kevin. Just Kevin. I, uh –” he stumbles over his words, steps in and out of the door frame like he hasn’t decided if it’s safe to enter. “Mr. Balthazar hired me a couple days ago, and I, um. I just wanted to…” 

He trails off, clearly too jittery to continue. 

Castiel smiles slightly at him, hoping the expression isn’t too strained. He remembers his friend mentioning the young man, come to think of it – he’s fairly certain he’d started here as a volunteer and had done so well that Balthazar had decided to hire him on. 

“Come in, Kevin. Have a seat.” 

Kevin flits into his office, chewing on his lip as he takes in the bare walls and Castiel himself, still sitting behind his desk. The young beta takes a hesitant seat on the couch, his hands twisted together in his lap. 

“I just wanted to apologize,” he blurts, before Castiel has a chance to ask what’s on his mind. 

Castiel furrows his brow. “Apologize for what, precisely?”

“I–” The kid falters, biting his lip. “I feel like I kinda put my foot in my mouth, with Dean? He… I said something wrong, I think. It freaked him out. I told Mr. Balthazar, and he said not to worry about it, but…” 

Castiel really does have to suppress a smile now. The young man looks so painfully earnest, sitting in front of him – he so clearly wants to do the right thing. 

“Dean is doing just fine,” he reassures him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Kevin stares up at him hopefully. “I didn’t? Only, he sorta… he flipped, man,” he says, shaking his head. Then, eyes widening, he freezes. “I mean– not man. I mean Mr. Novak. I mean–”

“Kevin,” Castiel says gently, interrupting his nervous spiraling. “I am not your boss. Just Castiel is fine.” 

Kevin gives him a wide eyed, incredulous look. “Oh. But… I mean, you kinda are my boss, because–” 

Castiel shakes his head. “Please don’t misunderstand. I provide a portion of the funding for the center, and for the most part, I handle the accounting. But Balthazar hired you, and it is only Balthazar that could fire you. He’d skin me alive if I ever tried to do anything like that, anyway,” he says with a slight smile. 

Rather than being reassured, as Castiel had hoped, Kevin only looks more bushwhacked by that. He blinks a few times, opens and then closes his mouth. “That’s… I mean, Mr. Castiel, that’s really something. That’s so progressive, you’ve got no idea – I mean, I knew you were progressive. I’d heard you were, anyway. That’s why I wanted to work here. But you’re, like, a genuinely good dude,” he babbles – as though he just can’t stop himself – and then he flushes bright scarlet, clamping his mouth shut with an audible snap. 

Castiel’s mouth twitches at the corners. He can see why Balthazar likes the kid – he is extremely honest about his intentions, if a little nervous. He reminds Castiel of himself, sort of, back when he’d first been trying to earn Balthazar’s trust. He’d been nervous, too, and probably just as unsure of himself. 

“You did not misstep in your conversation with Dean,” he says calmly, passing over the young man’s praise of his progressive ideals. Castiel doesn’t view them that way, and he likely never will – he can only see it as the way things should be done. “The only thing that happened was that I failed to adequately prepare him, and you happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Kevin stares at him, his mouth slightly agape. “Oh. He didn’t know…?”

Sighing, Castiel shakes his head. “No. Up until that day, he’d been solely at my home due to the capacity limits. I… failed to mention it.” He swallows the still very present guilt at that, and clears his throat. “So, that was on me. Please don’t take it upon yourself.” 

Kevin’s shoulders fall as he deflates, a rush of air leaving him. “Oh, thank God. I thought I fucked up so bad – not that you fucked up!” he adds in a rush, looking up at Castiel with a wild expression. “That’s not what I meant!”

Castiel really can’t help the small smile, at this point. “I believe that I did. But thank you for saying so.” 

Kevin looks like he’d like to say more on that subject, but when the clock strikes three and rings out, he jumps about a mile into the air. Alarmed, he checks his own watch, leaping up as soon as he does so. “Oh – shit. I’m sorry, I have to go. That’s the end of my break, and I can’t be late.” He’s already halfway out the door when he turns back around, an earnest, bright smile on his face. “Thanks for talking to me, though.”

Castiel waves him off. “Any time, Kevin, and I mean that.” 

Another, still slightly nervous smile, and then Kevin whirls away, racing off to wherever he’s needed. Castiel watches him go with a slight twist in his heart, wondering why it is that the man looks so young. Wondering when he got to be so old. 

When he turns back to the computer, the search bar blinking back at him is empty. 

He leaves it that way. 

“Work, I can do.”

The statement hangs in the air with a surprising amount of vehemence, on Dean’s part. A few months ago, Dean wouldn’t have said he could do much of anything at all. 

But it’s true, isn’t it? Dean can work hard. He’s been working hard since he was four years old. The level of success he’s had is debatable, but he can sure as hell try. 

He swallows, keeping his head up high. Doesn’t slither off the couch like he still very much wants to. Slowly, the therapist gives him a smile, though there’s something a little sad in his expression. Something Dean doesn’t think he understands. 

“I believe that.” 

Those calm, sure words send Dean’s brain stumbling backward. To have someone believe in him, just like that, is… different. He’s gotten very used to being looked down upon, gotten very used to people assuming that he is weak or stupid or small. Even Cas, who so firmly reminded him that he was strong not even a few hours ago, had wanted to hold his hand and accompany him here as if Dean was not capable of doing it on his own. 

Dean has faced down men with knives. He can handle this. And, slowly, a little of his anxiety trickles away.  

The therapist settles back in his chair, folds his hands in his lap. “How about we set some goals? I’m sure you’ve got a lot of different battles you’re trying to fight – a lot you’d like to change, I mean,” he amends, when Dean bristles. “But let’s start with one thing. Something important to you that you want to change, or work toward changing. You choose.”

Dean squints. “Shouldn’t you be the one telling me how to fix my shit?”

Benny just smiles at him, infuriatingly unruffled by Dean’s accusatory tone. He doesn’t respond, which is somehow worse than if he had started barking orders. 

Dean huffs, crossing his arms. The last thing he wants to do is expose the myriad of problems he’s got to this stranger, but he also gets the feeling that Benny ain’t going to be surprised by anything he’s got to say. And he’s pretty sure he’s not going to get away with sitting here for the rest of the hour in silence, especially now that he gave in and started talking. 

So he sits there, and he thinks about it. 

There are a million things he hates about himself. A million things inside him that are broken. But right now, there’s one big, flashing problem that is forced to the forefront of his mind what feels like a hundred times a day. 

He thinks about Cas’s horrified face when he’d found out he’d been sleeping on the ground. Thinks about his stricken expression when Dean had finally snapped out of his nightmare. Thinks about the little pinch of unhappiness he sometimes catches on Cas’s face when Dean finds a seat on the ground instead of the couch, or the chair, or the bed. 

He thinks about how he’s literally sweating, just sitting here in front of this man, who he logically knows does not want to hurt him and probably expects him to sit on the couch like a person – not the other way around.

“I want to stop sitting on the floor.” 

Benny cocks his head to the side. “You aren’t sitting on the floor,” he points out, gesturing to the couch.

Dean grits his teeth. “You know what I mean,” he snaps, angry that he’s having to put it into words. “I’m – I’m tired of this,” he growls, gesturing at himself, at his tense posture. “Cas hates it. And I – I fucking hate disappointing him.”

It’s only when Benny’s eyebrows shoot up above his glasses that Dean realizes just how much he gave away with those words. He flushes, cocking his jaw to the side – but he also refuses to recant. 

“Dean,” Benny says carefully. “I asked what you would like to change first. Not what Castiel would like to see you change.” 

Dean closes his eyes. “What the hell is the difference?” he pleads, frustrated and tired. “He wants me to be more comfortable on the furniture, and I – I also want that,” he fumbles, wondering why the hell it feels like he’s lying when he knows he isn’t. Because he does want that – he wants to be more like a person. And the thought of Sam seeing him sitting on the fucking floor like a dog because he can’t stomach the thought of being in a chair…

Still, Benny is staring at him like he’s supposed to be understanding something earth-shattering about himself. 

“Do you want that, though?”

Dean’s heart pounds in his chest. “Of course I do. You think I wanna sit on the floor?”

Benny says nothing, patiently waiting him out. And, while Dean has spent a lot of time perfecting his own silence, he can’t seem to keep a lid on himself now. “I – I don’t. And I hate that Cas sits down there, too. He doesn’t deserve that. He’s not–”

Benny raises his eyebrows. “He’s not what?”

“He’s not like me!” Dean bursts out, his fists clenched at his sides. “He’s not – He’s not an omega, he’s not a fucking slave! He shouldn’t have to do that.”

The therapist’s mouth twists a little. “You shouldn’t have to do that either, Dean.”

At this point, Dean is fuming. “You don’t think I know that?” he shouts, throwing his hands up. “You don’t think I know it’s fucking pathetic that I – that I can’t stop? That I can’t even sleep in a bed like a normal person, even though I want to more than anything?”

Unruffled by his shouting, Benny just looks at him appraisingly, like he’s considering his words rather than his tone. “You see the impulse as pathetic,” he repeats, no inflection in his voice. 

Dean flushes even harder, revulsion climbing up his throat. “Of course I do. It is,” he whispers, aiming for ferocity and landing squarely on misery instead. “And that’s why I want to stop.” 

Benny takes a long, deep breath. He chews on his words for a moment – it seems like this man never says anything without thinking it through, first. Dean should try that sometime, he thinks. 

“That is a good goal, Dean. Please don’t misunderstand me – I think it’s a great idea. Desensitizing yourself to furniture again is a great first step into reclaiming your space as a person.” 

He smiles, just a little, and Dean swallows, waiting for the but. “I’m about to tell you something you’re not gonna want to hear, though.”

Defiant, Dean juts out his chin, and Benny laughs. “There’s that fighting spirit. That’s a good look on you, Dean.” As he speaks, the therapist stretches his arms above his head and takes a breath, popping his neck back and forth slowly. 

Tense, Dean follows the movement with his eyes, hardly hearing what the man is saying. “What you’re doing right now is on the right track,” he continues, rising from his office chair, Dean’s blood pressure rising with him, “don’t get me wrong.” 

He meanders around the desk until he’s in front of it, and leans back. “You’re facing your fear head on and trying to tackle it. But all you’re accomplishing at this moment is wearing yourself out,” he explains. “You said yourself that you’re dealing with a great deal of anxiety, right now.”

As he speaks, he slowly, purposefully folds himself onto the carpet, leaning against his own desk comfortably as if what he’s doing is not a certifiably insane thing for a free person to do. He jots something down on his clipboard, unphased with Dean’s stunned silence. 

Wide eyed, Dean stares at him, something awful and sick crawling around under his skin, burrowing and chewing at his insides. The… the man is on the floor. He’s sitting on the floor. And Dean isn’t. 

When his brain comes back online and he understands what he’s doing, Dean can’t help the jolt forward, the instinctual desire to drop to his knees overwhelming in its intensity. At the last second, he grips the couch and wrenches himself back into place, heart in his mouth as he struggles to breathe around the physical force of his own fear. 

“Run me through what’s happening in your brain, Dean.”

The words from the therapist are calm, collected. He’s resting his forearms on his knees, comfortable – almost like he’s sat like this before. Dean swallows, forces his eyes away. His voice is shaking when he finds it. “I don’t know, man. My head is nothing but static right now.”

“Look a little deeper. Really dig at it.”

Dean closes his eyes, his heart thumping in his chest. He’s afraid. Afraid of more than just what he’s doing right now – afraid of doing what Benny has asked of him. He’s terrified that if he opens up that box he’s not going to be able to close it. 

“Deep breaths, in and out. You’re alright. Inhale through your nose, out through your mouth.”

Dean does so automatically, following the gentle suggestion like it’s an order. It doesn’t help in the slightest. He does his damn best to look calm, though, because he thinks that’s what Benny was angling for. In that moment, he’s incredibly grateful that the man is a beta and can’t sniff out the truth – grateful that Benny has no idea that staring at him on the ground, while Dean is above him, is making him so scared that his body had gone cold. 

Benny waits a few more seconds – waits for Dean to fall still. Then he nods his head forward, gesturing loosely for Dean to go ahead. “Now, dig.”

“I’m scared,” he blurts, and it feels good and bad to get that off of his chest. “I don’t know why.”

“I do. You do, too, you just don’t want to think about it.”

Dean swallows. “Let’s start there,” Benny says, leaning forward. “Back in Hell – when did you find yourself on the furniture instead of on the floor?”

“When I was working,” Dean grits out, suddenly angry – angry at his weakness, angry at Benny for making him relive it. “When else would I be?”

The therapist raises an eyebrow. “‘Working.’ Is that what they called it?”

Dean grits his teeth. “That’s what it was.”

“Work implies you’re getting paid. That you applied for the job.” He looks over his glasses at Dean, expressionless. “That you can quit. So, what were you actually doing?”

He snarls at no one, too fucking afraid to face Benny head on. “I was getting fucked. That what you wanted to hear?”

But Benny shakes his head. “Close.” He leans back against the chair again. “‘Cept, that’s not all it was. You were raped.”

The word stings like a whip. He knows what happened. What had happened over and over and over again. But he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to admit that something had been taken from him against his will. He can feel tears stinging in the back of his eyes, but he pushes them away, Alastair’s words spinning through his head like a cyclone. 

“Slaves don’t get raped,” he bites, but his voice breaks. 

Benny stares hard at him. “That’s horseshit, and you know it.” 

The words should surprise him. Most people don’t think like Benny does – in the eyes of the law, he’s property. If he belongs to someone, they have the right to treat him however they want. If his master wants to fuck him, or let someone fuck him, then he will – there is no consent, there is no saying no. If he does, he’s defective, and he just gets fixed until he starts to say yes. 

The thing is, though, that he’s spent too much time with Cas to be surprised that the therapist he hired doesn’t agree with that. He doesn’t find it strange that Benny is acting like he’s a person instead of a thing, and even though he can’t agree, it still makes his chest ache to have someone look at him like he’s worth something. Like he’s been wronged, to be treated as he has. 

Benny tips his head to the side when Dean stays silent. “We don’t need to talk about that right now, if you don’t want to.”

Dean shakes his head, jaw clenched. Benny slowly inclines his, bowing out. “That’s okay, Dean. We’re going to do this at your pace. Do me a favor, though?”

He nods at Dean’s clenched hands on the edge of the couch, at the way he’s holding his breath. “Get down here, brother, for God’s sake. You’re keyed up enough without that on top of it.”

Dean lets loose a breath and does just that, slipping to the floor and curling up immediately, hands around his knees. He presses his face into his legs and tries not to let the burning pressure in the back of his eyes turn into tears. Tries not to hate himself for the relief that’s flooding over him, for the fact that he can suddenly breathe.  

Benny gives him a long time to get himself together before he speaks. “Why do you think that sitting on the couch makes you feel like that?”

“Because…” he trails off. The rush of adrenaline has left him weary. “Because I was trained not to, I guess.” 

“Right. And you were conditioned that way because making someone feel that they aren’t worthy of sitting anywhere but the ground is an excellent way to break down their spirit.”

The words sting, but Dean can’t say that he’s wrong. It was one of the first things he was taught – kneel, bow, don’t rise above your master ever. It took awhile for that one to stick, but when it did, it became part of him. Inextricable from his body or his mind – or at least it seems that way.

But he’s safe now. Cas doesn’t want him to kneel or even sit on the floor, and if nothing else, he should be used to following an alpha’s wishes. Why is this something he can’t seem to do?

His frustration must show on his face, because Benny switches gears. “What would have happened to you if you’d defied that particular order? Because I’m willing to bet you did. More than once.”

Dean shudders. 

Benny makes a low, sympathetic noise. “Right. So, to put it as simply as I can, your body learned that A equals B. Sitting where you aren’t supposed to leads to pain. That happens enough times, and your body isn’t going to know the difference between a situation where that equation is true and one where it isn’t.” 

He pushes forward when Dean says nothing. “Logically, you’re aware you’re in a different place – but physically, it feels the same, and that sets off all your warning bells.” He gives Dean a knowing look. “It’s the same thing with the bed. Being in one has not been a good thing for you in a long, long time. Your body has learned to try and protect you from that.”

Dean feels something inside of him unclench just enough for him to breathe again. “When you put it like that, I don’t sound so fucking crazy.”

“That’s because you aren’t crazy, brother. You’re hurting. And that’s okay. People have done their level best to hurt you.”

He frowns down at his hands. “Is it gonna be this way forever? I don’t want… I feel like I’m disappointing him,” he says quietly. He doesn’t have to explain who. “He’s done so much for me, and the look on his face when he found out I’ve been sleeping on the floor was…”

Benny eyes him. “You doing this for him, or for you?”

“Can’t it be both?” he asks miserably. Of course he doesn’t want to sit on the floor forever – he probably has a little pride left in him somewhere. But he has to admit he didn’t really see a problem with it anymore until Cas did. 

“Dean, Castiel is a good man – a great one, if I’m being honest. That being said, he’s not an experienced fosterer. If he was, he never would have put you in that position in the first place. You’d have a pallet on the floor and he’d be sitting on the furniture without a word about it.”

Dean’s face burns. He hates that he’s a charity case. Fuck, even when he’d had to starve to feed Sam, he’d never taken anyone’s charity. He doesn’t really have a choice now, though. 

“So what am I supposed to do? That ain’t working,” he admits, throwing a thumb back at the couch behind him, “and I… I fucking hate seeing him on the floor. He shouldn’t have to do that.”

Benny studies him. “We’re gonna come back to that last comment,” he promises – and just like that, Dean knows he’s coming back whether he likes it or not – but he moves on. “I’d suggest starting with a floor cushion.”

Dean snorts, but Benny doesn’t laugh with him. “I’m serious, kid. You’re biting off more than you can chew right now. Logically, you know you’re safe, but when people are in the room with you, your body is still on high alert. Right?”

He nods. It’s a little easier when he’s alone – when he knows that he’ll stay alone, without some prior warning. 

“So you need to work your way up to it. Start by giving yourself some comfort, however small – but stay on the floor. That way, your body isn’t setting off the fire alarm, and you can start to relax. Then you can start with the table – that’s a nice neutral area. Alone first, then with Castiel when you’re ready. Then the couch. And on from there.”

The way Benny says it sounds so… reasonable. But Dean can’t help but burn with shame at the thought of asking Castiel for a floor cushion. “And that works?” he asks skeptically. 

“It’s worked well enough for the other people I’ve counseled.” 

Dean takes a breath. Crosses his arms, and feels his ribcage under his hands. Firmly ignores the little voice inside of him that is still screaming that he’s an unforgivable coward for coming here in the first place, and tries his best to remember who he’s doing this for. 

“… Okay.” 

Benny goes the rest of the session without bringing up anything serious – he sticks to shooting the shit about old movies Dean remembers and new music that he thinks Dean might enjoy. It’s a pretty transparent way to get his hackles down after tackling something he’s so obviously defensive about, but it works, and by the time he takes his leave Dean has to grudgingly admit to himself that he likes him more than he planned to. 

Cas is pensive on the drive home, quiet, pressing into the steering wheel like he thinks it might come flying off the dashboard if he doesn’t. Dean can tell he’s holding back questions. 

He’d like to say he wants to answer them. He really would, and he’d give up the details of his session in a heartbeat if Cas actually came out and asked him to. But the conversation with Benny feels like the only real private thing he’s had in years, and he wants to hold onto that novel feeling for a little while longer. Maybe that’s selfish, or ungrateful. But he does it anyway, and Cas makes it easy, because he never pushes. 

Dean lets Cas make him a large dinner without protest, lets Cas gently push him out of the kitchen so that he can “go rest.” But he isn’t willing to be babied for long, especially when the alpha himself looks like he’s about to keel over. 

So he needles. He drops increasingly less subtle hints about Cas taking a nap, more and more often for a few solid hours after they finish eating. Eventually, he stops trying to beat around the bush and just says, “Take a fucking nap, Cas,” and though it’s a dangerous thing, to order his alpha around, Cas doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, it only takes him staring the alpha down for a few seconds before he gives in with a long-suffering sigh. 

He is still resistant, at first – flat on his back on the cushions, his mouth a thin line. Draping the blanket over himself like he’s a body in the damn morgue, he pulls it up until it’s right under his neck and lays, stiff as a board, with his arms straight against his sides. 

“I’m not even tired,” the alpha insists, frowning up at the ceiling. “You’re the one that should be resting.” 

Dean rolls his eyes, his back turned away from the alpha as he shelves the last of the books that are scattered around the living room. His little project is almost complete, and he tries not to think about what he’s going to do to occupy his time after he’s done. He knows better by now than to think he has to be productive to stay here, but it doesn’t mean that the thought of sitting around and doing nothing isn’t making his skin crawl with anxiety. 

“I slept like a rock this afternoon.” 

“Yes, but –” 

“You make a good pillow,” he interrupts, and it’s only after the words are out of his mouth that he realizes how embarrassing they are. He knows his face is bright red, so he doesn’t turn around, not even when there’s a deafening lull of silence. 

“Do I?” Cas asks faintly, his voice weak.

Yes, Dean doesn’t say. Yes, you do. You smell good, and safe, and you’re warm, and when you run your fingers through my hair I melt like a stick of friggin’ butter. 

I love you so fucking much, he doesn’t say. 

He swallows. Thinks about how he’s not sure how he’s ever going to sleep without Cas again, now that he’s gotten used to having him there. The number of times that the alpha has sat with him until he’s fallen asleep has started to get out of hand. Yet another reason he needs to be in therapy, he guesses. 

“Mmhm,” he answers instead, ducking his head. 

Cas doesn’t press him for details, thank God, so Dean can clear his throat and change the subject. “I know you didn’t nap,” he says, nudging a book so that it sits flush with the rest on the shelf. It’s definitely not an excuse to keep his back to Cas, or anything. Presentation is important. “And don’t try and tell me you did.”

There’s a pause. “You know me rather well,” the alpha replies, and there’s a faint tint of wonder in his words that tells Dean he’s one of the few. 

“Go to sleep, Cas,” he says softly. The faintest trill of nervousness warns him that he’s probably overstepping his bounds, but for once, the tingling in his fingertips feels more like excitement than fear. “I’ll wake you up in a few hours.”

There’s a small sigh behind him, but he doesn’t argue. When Dean checks over his shoulder, Cas’s eyes are pressed closed. A small smile curls the edge of the alpha’s mouth, one that makes Dean’s heart twist in his chest with fondness. With longing. He stands in place and watches as Cas’s face relaxes, as his breathing becomes more even and gentle. 

He’s asleep within a minute. 

The Cas that he’s looking at now is nothing like that cold, blank man he’d seen in his nightmares. The Cas that he’s looking at now is snoring. He’s wearing socks with little ducks on them. 

He shelves the last book in the living room, and stands back to look. The wall to wall shelving is filled with tomes, just as it’d been when he first arrived. Only, now, they’re organized by topic, and are all facing in the right directions, and none of them are dusty. 

He lets out a slow breath. He knows that nesting is a bitch thing, or whatever, but he can’t deny that looking at everything in order like this is soothing. Trailing his fingers down the spines, he smiles to himself as he rereads the titles. 

Feeling daring, he plucks one off the shelf at random. 

The Outsiders. 

The book seems familiar to him. It might have been something he was supposed to read in school. More likely, it’s something Sam had been assigned. He has a flash of the kid walking home from school with his nose buried in a book, tripping often enough that Dean had eventually just started to carry him on his shoulders, and smiles. Then he thinks of Bobby gruffly telling him to turn off the damn light and go to sleep, idjit, when he’d walked in on Sammy sneaking a book under the bed-covers again. No matter how hard John had tried to crush his brother’s enthusiasm for school, he’d never managed it. 

He misses them both so much. 

He spends a few seconds thumbing through the book before he can work up the courage to step away from the shelf with it in his hands. 

Dead to the world, Cas doesn’t have the chance to protest when Dean slides down to rest on the floor against the couch. From this close, Dean can hear the alpha’s soft breathing, can feel his breath tickle the hair around his ear. He takes a breath. Inhales the rain and honey scent that is Castiel. 

The old paperback makes a shh-shh sound in his hands when he cracks the spine and settles in to read.