43. Broom People

They do, of course, eventually go upstairs. 

Trailing behind and watching the alpha’s strong, muscled back, Dean thinks he might start floating if he doesn’t keep a hand wrapped around the banister. His brain is a little foggy and sorta stupid after a couple of hours sitting next to Cas like that – breathing in his scent uninterrupted, feeling the man’s touch on his shoulders and his hair. He can’t say he minds all that much. He hasn’t minded much of anything that had happened tonight, honestly. 

For once, they don’t read to one another – neither feels the need, after all of that. Cas clicks on the lamp anyway. He flops down on his mattress, stretching out like some sort of jungle cat, all smooth lines and dark hair. 

For all that he hadn’t wanted Dean to sit beneath him, it seems like he’s feeling pretty damn good as well; relaxed and at ease in a way that seems criminally rare. Dean thinks that might have more to do with how tickled pink he must smell than with anything else, but still. It makes him feel a hell of a lot less guilty about the whole thing. 

He leans on the doorway for a moment, smiling as he looks at the alpha. Cas draws the covers over himself and sighs, the noise soft and content, and looks back at him with half hooded eyes. There’s a gentle smile on his face, one that makes something flutter in Dean’s chest.

“Be right back,” Dean says softly. Cas just hums in response, already half asleep. 

He brushes his teeth slowly, spitting out popcorn kernels and grinning like a fool as he does it. It’s not like the clothes he wears around the house are that far from pyjamas anyway, but he does change from sweats to actual sleeping pants, a pair that he’s been a little more careful to leave in here after his last emergency shower. Dean very firmly does not allow himself to think about that and scrubs at his face ardently, relishing the feel of the fresh, cool water on his flushed skin. 

By the time he’s done piddling around and goes back to his room, Cas is already out cold. Dean grins at the sight of him; all sprawled out, belly down as usual. One arm stuffed under a pillow, the other folded in a neat little triangle around his face, palm resting on the crown of his head. As stiff as he usually is in the daytime, Cas is always languid when he sleeps. Open. Comfortable. 

Dean himself curls down into his bed, scooching pillows and blankets around until he’s satisfied. Lately, he’s been wanting to squirrel away more quilts and sheets and things – he’d even found himself contemplating stealing a stack of towels from the laundry. He doesn’t get it, and he hasn’t given in to the urge anyway. Not yet. 

Your Body and You would probably be able to tell him all about it. 

Dean grimaces at the thought. The second he’d stepped out of Benny’s office, the book had been immediately stuffed into the inner pocket of his jacket, and then crammed under the mattress when they got home. It’s not like Cas hasn’t seen him do embarrassing shit before, but Dean draws the line at letting the alpha know he’s been sent home with what equates to homework for exceptionally remedial students. 

He holds back a sigh. Considers digging the book out from underneath him, and scanning through the table of contents until he gets to the section that might explain why he’s developed a pressing interest in stealing everything soft in the house so he can pile it around his bed like castle walls. 

Huffing at the mental image, he rolls over until he finds a comfortable spot, and closes his eyes. 

And… he doesn’t fall asleep. 

It seems like he should be knocked out cold already – after all, he’d spent the entirety of the movie nearly comatose with how relaxed he’d felt, and he knows he drifted off. But real sleep, for whatever reason, refuses to come. Instead, it stays just out of his grasp, close enough to be frustrating and far enough away to be fruitless. 

Dean presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, and takes in a breath. Then another. Wishes, with everything he has, that he could stop thinking for one fucking second. That he could just… have this. 

But he can’t. 

The syrupy calm that he’d shared with Cas all night is quickly fading. In its place, a nauseating sort of surety that something isn’t right creeps into the cracks of him, expanding until he feels like he might choke on it.

He rolls back onto his back, staring up at the lamp-lit ceiling, eyes tracking the slowly rotating fan above him. And when he can’t stand a second more of stillness and quiet, he gets up.

The screen door squeaks a little when he pushes it open, and the noise makes his heart rate jump even higher than it’d been before. Logically, he knows he won’t get in trouble for this – Cas doesn’t care if he comes out here. Hell, he’s already been caught doing this without permission once, and the alpha hadn’t said a word about it. The nervous sort of doubt that’s creeping through him as he folds himself down on the porch step makes no real sense, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling it. 

His breath travels out of him in little vaporous puffs, dissipating into the night air in slow, spiraling patterns. It is incredibly quiet. Peaceful. 

But it’s also cold. He doesn’t like that – has never liked it. Freezing air and snow have never brought him anything but misery. But he tells himself it’s okay, because he has the privilege of a soft, thick blanket to hitch around his shoulders. Has clothes to keep him warm. 

And, most importantly, the door is unlocked behind him.

He leans his head against a column next to the staircase, eyes slightly unfocused as he takes in the rustling leaves and the waving grass in the yard. It’s unkempt, a little wild, and he likes the sight of it – imperfect and haphazard. There is still a thin layer of snow over parts of the yard, but it has melted and grayed to the point where he knows that spring has long since arrived. 

It’s the end of April. 

He hadn’t even consciously thought about it, not until Cas had brought up that stupid Christmas movie. But it’s the end of April.  

Sam’s birthday is in two days.

The familiar guilt slams into him like a wave – only this time, Dean doesn’t hold onto anything to keep himself steady. He just… lets go, and allows it to sweep him away, allows it to drag him further out to sea than he thinks he can swim back from. 

He’s been here for three months. Three months. And in all that time, he hasn’t tried one damn time to find his family. For the first time in over a decade, he could feasibly reach out to Sam and Bobby, could let them know that he’s okay. 

Well. Not okay. But alive.  

He has no real excuse that is worth a damn. Sure, he’s tried to justify himself, but he knows his words have rung hollow. The ugly, inescapable truth is that he’s just scared.

For one thing, he’s terrified of what they’ll think of him. Terrified of them seeing how low he’s been brought, just how bad he’s been broken. He doesn’t want to see pity in their eyes, doesn’t want to see the moment when he ceases to be Sam’s older brother, ceases to be Bobby’s right hand man, and instead becomes a tragedy. And he’s not ready to be treated like an abused little animal by people he used to try his damnedest to protect. 

More than that, though, he’s sick with fear over what might have happened once he’d left. 

There has always been a part of him that whispered that Crowley had reneged on his bargain and had gone back for his family anyway. A part of him that has always hissed that, even if he hadn’t, John would have found some other way to get himself put in jail or a hospital or worse, that Dean had only prolonged the inevitable. A part of him that knew that Sam ended up hurt anyway – only, because of what Dean had done, he’d had no one to pick him off the floor and clean him up. No one to protect him from the shit the world would put him through. No one to keep him safe.

He’s not ready to find out that ten years of suffering have been for nothing at all. 

He can’t. If Sam… If he…

Curled over into himself, arms wrapped around his knees, he breaks down. Sobs like a little kid, like Sam really is dead, like he is already grieving for his baby brother. All it would take is a google search. All it would take is a phone call to Singer Salvage, if it even still exists, and Dean would know. 

But he can’t fucking do it. He’s too much of a coward to do it. 

He sits outside for far longer than he should, far past the point where his shivers have become uncontrollable. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, because Dean doesn’t deserve warmth, doesn’t deserve to sit in comfort when he can’t even let his baby brother know that he’s alive. 

So he sits in the cold, and he punishes himself. 

No one else is going to. 

By the time he pulls himself up off the wooden porch, his fingers have gone numb and he’s shaking violently. It takes him a couple of tries to get the door open, a couple of tries to lock it behind him. When he reaches out to hold the banister on the way up the stairs, his entire body is trembling – he’s not even sure if he’s gonna make it. 

He does, by some miracle. Cas doesn’t stir when he pushes open the door, even at the slight squeak of the hinges. He stumbles toward his bed, drops down into it with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, still shaking like an earthquake. His hands are freezing where he folds them under his arms. It sends a jolt through him – and no matter how much he shivers, he can’t seem to shake away the cold.

He can’t get warm. He can’t get warm. 

The thought is like a bucket of ice over his already freezing body – he can feel his chest starting to constrict, can feel his fingers digging into his palms. Panic – sharp, biting, and clear – starts to well up inside of him, a spool of razor wire that’s ever tightening. He hates being cold. Hates it. Hates the memories of nights spent shivering, every muscle in his body exhausted and aching the morning after. 

He’s inside now, and he’s safe, but it doesn’t really matter, because all he can feel is the phantom bite of freezing air in starving lungs and an ache in his fingertips like he’s still out in the snow.

It’s not really a conscious decision, when he makes it. 

Cas’s mattress is only a few feet from his, but it feels miles away when he stumbles across the no-man’s land that he’s never been brave enough to cross. By the time he’s standing over the alpha, his numb sort of panic has snowballed into something a lot closer to actual fear. He kneels down next to the bed. Reaches out and tugs at Cas’s sleeve. 

“Cas,” he whispers, his heart in his throat. “Cas, can I–” 

The alpha shifts a little under his blankets, his expression tightening a little as he slowly starts to wake. His eyes don’t open, but his nose does wrinkle, probably picking up on whatever stupid fear scent Dean is pumping out right now. And the thought of him actually waking up – of him sending Dean back to his bed, all reasonable and kind – makes him panic. 

So he does something incredibly stupid. 

Moving as slowly as he can manage with how bad he’s shaking – careful not to actually touch Cas, careful to stay off of the covers so he doesn’t tug them – he ignores the screaming voice in his head and lies himself down at the very edge of the mattress. 

He isn’t breathing. He’s too busy praying to whatever god might listen that he can keep holding his breath for the rest of the night so he doesn’t wake Cas up. So he can keep soaking up the minute traces of warmth he can feel from a few inches away, the most he will allow himself. 

Except the alpha is already moving. 

Dean stiffens, heart rate skyrocketing, as Cas makes a faint, confused noise. He keeps his eyes wide open and fixed on the ceiling, keeps his arms pressed close to his sides. Makes himself as small and as quiet as possible and hopes that means he’ll somehow be allowed to stay.

But Cas rolls over. He rolls over, and his warmth goes away, and Dean could fucking cry he’s so cold – 

The alpha’s hand lands on his chest. Dean’s breath catches in his throat.  

“Dean?”

Cas’s voice is rough. Half awake, if even that. Dean hardly dares to breathe, doesn’t dare to speak. 

“You’re… cold,” he mumbles – Dean can practically hear his frown. He tugs sluggishly at Dean’s shirt, gentle but insistent. “C’mere.”

Dean screws his eyes shut. Takes in a quick little pant of air. And, God help him – he does.

Rolling to the side, he scoots until his back is flat against Cas’s chest, as close as he can get to the man’s scent without turning around to look him in the eye. The alpha wraps around him, maneuvers until his arm is snug around his ribs. With a small sigh, he drags his quilt over the both of them, and it settles over Dean slowly. 

Dean hardly feels it, because Cas – 

Cas is. Spooning him. 

There’s no other way to put it. No other way to describe the press of the alpha’s body to his, the way his warmth is soaking into Dean, spreading to his very bones, chasing out the hateful cold. He keeps his eyes screwed shut because he’s afraid he’ll start crying if he doesn’t. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, ashamed. He doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. 

Cas makes a low, dismissive noise. And if he’d just done that, Dean might have been able to do the right thing. He might have been able to pull himself away and go back to his own bed like a grownup, instead of clinging like a kid with a nightmare. Might have been able to push Cas – who doesn’t even know what he’s doing, what Dean is taking from him – away. 

But the gentle, warm press of lips on his nape blanks out those thoughts like a flashbang. 

The shivering just… stops. He’s warm, instantly. Filled with a liquid heat that spreads from his nape down to his fingertips and toes. The breath he’d been holding in his chest whooshes out of him, and he goes boneless, every muscle in his body relaxing at once. He can’t help the faint, bewildered noise that presses out of him when Cas kisses him there; once, twice, the gentle pressure and warmth on the sensitive spot emptying out his brain.  

He knows, distantly, that he should probably be panicking about this. Knows that the last time an alpha had him like this – defenseless – he was fighting tooth and nail to get away. Fighting with everything he had.  

But this is Cas. And the last thing Dean wants to do is run. 

Oblivious and very nearly asleep, Cas tightens his hold around him. With a satisfied sigh, he tugs Dean a little closer and tucks his chin over the top of Dean’s head. His soft breathing evens out until it’s a slow, steady rhythm, one that Dean finds himself unconsciously matching. 

And with the alpha wrapped around him, palm warm on his ribs and chest firm against his back, Dean finally drifts off.

There is the weight of another in his bed. 

It is exactly as it should be. Limbs tangled. The rhythm of their breath so close that it's become one inhale. One exhale. 

Castiel presses down because it feels right, and it draws out a soft, breathless groan – confirmation that this is wanted. Needed. 

The hands running down his chest are warm. Electric. He shivers, exhales shakily, feels his body tremble with desire. He wants. And, for the first time, he knows he’s free to take.

He curls his fingers. Tugs gently at soft brown hair, coaxes out a shiver that satisfies something deep within him. Watches with avid fascination as lips part. As eyelashes flutter. The pale expanse of naked, freckled skin is his to touch. His to love.  

He trails his fingers down ribs and over hips, slow and sure. His paths are familiar roads, and so he can wander. Take his time. He knows the curves, knows the turns. Has made his own map to follow.

The hands on his chest curve over his shoulders. They tug him closer, pull him down. A kiss, pressed to the sensitive skin of his neck, forces his breath out in a shaky exhale – he dips down and kisses back. Lingers. Coaxes out matching pants, hitching breaths. 

One word. One pleading whisper. His name, quivering and desperate in the darkness. He answers in the only way he can; with the press of his lips, the press of his touch. 

A warm, trembling hand reaches down. Wraps around him where he’s already aching. The question is clear, the answer even more so. 

He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t make him wait a second more. Castiel leans forward, presses his lips to the omega’s neck, grins as he pulls a soft, pleased noise from him. He wants to taste him, so he does. Wants to touch him, so he does. 

And Dean bends for him. Opens for him. Gasps, as though he has been waiting to do so all along. 

He feels the promise of wet heat. Feels himself aching to close the distance. He rolls his hips forward with a groan, holds him close, buries his nose in velvety skin and breathes in that perfect scent. Apples and sugar and pastries, intoxicating and all encompassing, so close he can taste it. 

And when Castiel opens his eyes, he can see exactly why. 

Dean is. There. Dean is right there. 

His soft brown hair. His slight, strong, warm body. It’s touching him, Castiel is touching him, he has his arms wrapped around him, has his hips pressed against him–

Oh, God.  

Castiel acts on pure instinct. He knows nothing except that he has to put distance between them right now, because if he doesn’t, the omega is going to wake up to the scent of a worked up alpha and the press of an erection. 

Castiel would quite literally shoot himself dead before he scared Dean like that. 

Unfortunately, his brain is not awake enough to come up with a plan that goes farther than MOVE RIGHT NOW. His hands shoot forward without his permission, and Dean lands on the floor next to the bed with a confused, half awake yelp of surprise. 

Castiel scrambles up, stumbles back out of the bed, and promptly trips on the end of the sheet that’s still tucked under the mattress – he pinwheels and lands on his ass in an ungainly heap.  

Blearily, Dean sits up from the floor, still mostly wrapped in Castiel’s quilt. His hair is sticking up in the back, green eyes soft and unfocused and beautiful when they land on him – and Castiel can feel his face light on fire. 

“I– Dean. Are you– I didn’t–” 

He can’t get the fucking sentence out of his mouth – his heart is beating too hard, crawling up into his throat, and Dean isn’t helping, because he just turns his head to the side like a puppy and furrows his eyebrows together. He looks so open, so trusting, and Castiel feels that all the way down to his gut – 

No. No. 

Stuttering, words stopping and starting and completely incoherent, Castiel kicks his legs until they’re free and hikes himself up from the floor as quickly as he can manage. He just has the presence of mind to drag the sheet up with him, holding it over his throbbing, traitorous dick. 

There is an incredibly awkward silence in the room.

“I – You. Are you – You’re okay?” Castiel finally manages, voice much higher than it ought to be, and Dean just gives him a confused, sleepy look, lips slightly parted. Cheeks flushed.

His eyes drop down to where Castiel is covering himself, and squint.

Castiel turns around so quickly it’s a wonder he doesn’t start spinning like a top. His cheeks are flaming. “I. Uh. Sh-shower. I’m gonna. Okay. Yes,” he blurts, and manages to march himself out the door without hitting the wall. 

He only realizes that he’s brought the sheet with him when he’s halfway down the stairs. It doesn’t matter, because his number one priority at this point is getting in the shower as quickly as he can. He still drops the thing like a rattlesnake. 

He makes sure the water is as cold as he can make it before he steps under the spray.

“Fuck!” 

Dean scrambles to snatch the pan off the burner before the pancake turns completely black. He’s not successful – it starts to smoke, the scent of it acrid and ugly in his nose. It’s a wonder he doesn’t set off the goddamn fire alarm. 

He resists the urge to fling the pan through the window. Closes his eyes, instead. Cocks his jaw. 

Dean used to be good at this. Now it’s just another thing he’s fucking up. 

He knows that the stinging pressure in the back of his eyes is stupid. Knows he’s overreacting. But if he looks at the burned little lump of batter in the bottom of the pan for one more second he thinks he might actually start crying. 

He scrapes his efforts into the trash. 

Right now, he can hear Cas’s shower running. The sound makes him feel slightly nauseous. The alpha is probably busy scrubbing Dean’s scent off of himself; judging by the sharp tang of panic he’d picked up on this morning, Cas hadn’t exactly been thrilled to find Dean in his bed. 

He can’t say he blames him for feeling that way. Dean wouldn’t want to wake up next to himself either. 

Pressing his eyes closed, he grabs the edge of the counter and tries to breathe slowly. Tries to keep himself from spiraling. The last thing Cas needs is to have to come out here, all guilty and nice, and calm him down like he always ends up having to. 

Dean’s the one that screwed everything up in the first place. He doesn’t deserve to have anyone hold his hand.

Guilt does not even begin to cover what he’s feeling, does not begin to describe the hole that he’s carved in his own chest. God, he doesn’t know what he’d been thinking. How the hell had he thought any of that would fly? How had he allowed himself to overstep that far, to push past what Cas had set as a very clear boundary? He’d been embarrassed before to wake up with just an arm around Dean, let alone his entire body. 

Even still, Dean can’t remember last night without a shiver, can’t think of anything except the alpha’s mouth on his nape. The very memory of the sensation makes goosebumps rise on his arms, makes his legs feel a little weak. 

But he doesn’t deserve those feelings. Cas hadn’t meant to do that. He’d been asleep, and in his sleep he’d been his ultimate caring self. Had soothed Dean’s fear in a very alpha-like way – the same way he’d have done for any omega, probably. It’s obvious that the man doesn’t actually want him. Not like that. ‘Cause he’s had plenty of opportunities to take him, and Dean’s done everything short of beg for it. 

He’s already given Dean so much. Has already compromised far more than he ever should have. And, yet, Dean can’t seem to stop demanding more. Can’t seem to stop burrowing and digging into places he isn’t wanted. Like a rat. 

He takes a deep breath. Then another. 

He can fix this. He has to fix this, actually. He has no choice, because if he doesn’t, Dean’s not sure how he’s going to live with himself. 

An apology is probably the best place to start. While he can – and will – do that with his words, he’s always been better at doing it like this. A warm breakfast, a clean kitchen; physical, useful, real things that he can accomplish. Things that mean more than his worthless words. 

He ladles more batter into the now clean pan, determined not to fuck it up again. His hands are shaking, but it still comes out mostly round, so it doesn’t matter. Mind intentionally, carefully blank, he waits for the little bubbles that tell him to flip it over. He rocks the pan with a movement that he’s distantly shocked that he remembers, after years of things like this being the furthest thing from his mind. The little disk of batter lands perfectly in the center.

A few minutes later, there’s a stack of steaming, golden pancakes on a plate next to the stove. 

And the shower is still running. 

Swallowing down the bitter taste of rejection, Dean finds something else to do before he can think about how much that hurts.

He fires up the coffee pot. Sets the table with a plate and syrup and a fork and a knife. Wipes down counters that are already clean. Washes and dries and puts away the pan and the spatula, the bowl, the spoon, like he’s hiding the evidence of a crime. 

It’s not working – he still feels a creeping sort of dread, a surety that he’s not doing enough. 

He’s standing in the middle of the kitchen with his hands clenched into fists at his sides when he hears Cas behind him. 

He stiffens. Feels his shoulder blades draw together, like he’s expecting a lash. He isn’t – not a physical one, at least. Cas would never do that to him. But he’s bracing himself anyway, because he’s pretty sure that whatever Cas is about to say to him is gonna hurt a lot more than a whip. 

The hand on his shoulder makes him jump; he flinches forward, a gasp caught in his throat. He hadn’t expected Cas to touch him. Hadn’t thought that the alpha would even want to. But when he turns around, Cas really is reaching for him – and he’s frozen. His hand is held out still, hovering in place. 

And he looks... hurt. 

He blinks and the expression is hidden away, put aside. He lets his hand drop. 

For a moment, they just stand there. Stare at each other. Dean can hardly meet the alpha’s eyes. He can feel a flush starting to crawl up his neck, mortification making him feel small and worthless, like a bug on the floor. 

“I’m sorry–”

“I didn’t mean–”

They speak at the same time. Dean grinds himself to a halt, his apology stuck in his throat – the alpha does the same. They stare at each other for half a second more before Cas breaks the silence, his brow furrowing. 

“Why are you apologizing?”

Dean closes his eyes. He really can’t do this right now – can’t explain that Cas is allowed to be mad at him. He fucked up, and he knows it. He wishes the alpha wouldn’t pretend otherwise, ‘cause it’s just gonna make it harder on both of them. 

“I.” He swallows. Drops his eyes. “I shouldn’t have, uh. Done that.” 

“Done… what?”

He sounds so earnestly confused that Dean barely manages to avoid an audible groan. “I shouldn’t've crawled into your fuckin’ bed, Cas,” he says, misery digging its claws into him – he twists his hand around his wrist, squeezes like the shackles used to just so he’ll stay grounded. “That was… I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. And I’m sorry.”

He can’t look up. Can’t chance it, because if there’s no forgiveness in Cas’s eyes, he’s just not sure what the hell he’s gonna do. So he doesn’t see the alpha reach back out, doesn’t have a clue until he feels Cas’s hand wrap around his own. He tugs it away from his wrist. 

“Why did you?” he asks, and his voice is somehow as gentle as it always is. There’s not a hint of anger there, not a hint of irritation. There is only concern. 

He closes his eyes, wondering why the hell his throat is so tight all of a sudden. “I. I was – um. I couldn’t sleep, and I went outside, and I.” He presses his mouth together. Feels his lips form one small, trembling line. “I got to thinking. ‘Bout S-sammy. And.” 

The words choke and die in his throat before he can get them out. He swallows the bodies. “And I couldn’t get warm.”

Cas’s eyes are dangerously soft when Dean looks up into them. Dangerously free of any sort of accusation. 

“I’m glad you reached out,” he says gently. “And that I could help, in some small way.”

Dammit. He’s tearing up – he promised himself he wasn’t going to cry, but he finds himself blinking back moisture anyway. “You did. You did help – I slept like fuckin’ baby. But–” 

He struggles. Forces the words out. “But I didn’t actually ask. I mean, I kinda did, but I knew you weren’t awake, so I shouldn’t’ve… I…” 

There’s a hand on his face, wiping away a tear he hadn’t meant to let escape. He can’t help but lean into the touch, even though it makes his stomach twist with guilt to do so. 

“I would’ve said yes,” Cas says, tone impossibly kind, “if you’d asked.” 

Dean can’t help but laugh at that, the noise a little strangled. “You shoved me outta bed as soon as you were awake enough to know I was there,” he points out, trying not to let the bitter disappointment show. He never should have expected anything less. 

Cas’s face twists up at that, and a ridiculous curl of guilt edges back into his scent. Just like him to feel bad over putting Dean back in his place. Shoving him away was the least he should have done.

“I… wasn’t thinking straight,” he says slowly, his hand still pressed into Dean’s cheek, “and I overreacted.”

Dean scoffs. Closes his eyes. “No, you didn’t.”

“I did,” Cas corrects firmly. “Waking up, with you. It was…” 

He searches for the word, tone growing a little less sure as he goes. “I… reacted. Ph… physically. And I – I didn’t want to scare you.”

The words take a while to make sense. When they do, Dean’s eyes widen. His pulse quickens. The alpha can’t mean what Dean thinks he means – after all, when he’d woken up he’d scented no trace of desire, no hint that Cas had felt anything like that. He’d only been able to scent panic and embarrassment. 

But when he looks up into Cas’s eyes, the alpha is blushing. Red as a tomato.

Dean stomps on the little seed of traitorous hope sprouting in his chest as hard as he can. That’s the last thing either of them need right now. 

“Cas,” he says, the man’s name soft in the air. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean it.” 

He can see the alpha swallow, can see him staring at his own hand on Dean’s face. He presses a little harder, digs in to be sure Cas knows he doesn’t hold it against him. “I mean, it’s normal. Warm body next to you, sometimes it don’t matter who it is. You were asleep – you didn’t know it was me.”

But it doesn’t seem to help. Cas’s blush just deepens. Spreads to his neck. “I think I knew.”

The words hang between them. 

Dean waits for that to scare him. Waits to feel violated or upset. But he can’t, because there’s no part of him that is actually afraid of Cas, no part of him that thinks the alpha would take anything Dean didn’t want to give him. Hell, Cas won’t even take what Dean does want to give him – he obviously thinks he can’t. 

And, God. Dean can’t help but love him all the more, for that. For this blushing, stammering honesty. He can see how much this is costing him to admit. 

He puts his own hand over the alpha’s, and swallows down the surge of want. The last thing Cas needs to deal with right now is Dean’s desire, not when he’s already freaked out like he is. 

“That’s okay too,” he says, his voice as strong as he can make it. “‘Cause I know – I know you wouldn’t. Um. Wouldn’t actually…” 

He can’t say it, but Cas knows what he means. His breath leaves his body in a whoosh. “God, Dean. No. Of course not.”

That should do nothing but make Dean relieved. Instead, it sends a pang of disappointment through him. He shoves it down. Cas cares about him as a friend. It’s only natural that the alpha part of his brain would want something different – it’s only because he’s an omega, not because Cas sees anything special in Dean himself.  

He makes himself smile. “See? So. Nothin’ to worry about.”

When he looks up, Cas is staring at him like he’s… art. Like he’s a painting, or a sculpture. Something much more beautiful than what he actually is – broken bits of a person, swept into a pile. 

“You are welcome in my bed,” Cas says softly, “any time you wish, Dean. Always.” 

Dean swallows. “It’s selfish.” 

There’s something like pain in the alpha’s gaze when Dean says that. Something raw. “It isn’t. But even if it was. You deserve to be selfish, for once in your life.”

He closes his eyes so he won’t cry. Deserve. It’s such a loaded word. Dean hasn’t deserved much of anything except pain for a very long time – to hear that Cas thinks he has somehow earned this gentle sort of care… it throws him. Makes him a little dizzy, if he’s honest. It’s not true, but Cas obviously thinks it is.

Cas’s touch leaves his face, but it doesn’t stay away from him for long. He steps forward. Slowly wraps his arms around Dean, holds him to his chest, until the scent of rain and honey drives away everything else. He doesn’t repeat himself. He doesn’t need to. 

And, because he is selfish, Dean just lets himself be held.