Okay, so I'm not sure how I came up with this. Except maybe the fact that if there is anyone that I've liked longer than Jensen Ackles, it would be Josh Duhamel. Started liking him when he first started on All My Children and have ever since and I've been watching old episodes of Las Vegas on one of those cable channels that only plays reruns. It kind of rekindled the obsession I used to have with that show, at least for a little bit.

This is slash, established relationship set during the season two premier of Las Vegas and some time at the beginning of the fifth season of Supernatural. I like weird crossovers and I know that Danny is supposed to be proposing to Mary at this point but eh, I like slash too…

I don't own anything…

Dean stood, leaning against the wall and facing the bed, watching Danny sleep. Danny's boss was asleep in the chair in the other side of the bed. Dean had been itching to try and do something…anything since he'd shown up in the city and had seen Danny again.

Dean had known something was seriously wrong as soon as Danny had called him to tell him he'd been discharged. Their relationship had always been on the casual side, at least to outward appearance. Neither of them had ever been the type to get sappy or emotional and besides that, they hardly got to see each other anymore. Dean had started to expect a phone call from Danny telling him that he'd moved on to one of the girls he hung out with all the time at the casino.

He kept coming back. He couldn't seem to do anything else. That meant something, something profound that neither he nor Danny could ever seem to admit out loud…no matter how bad it got. However, this time was different.

Danny had been clingy, desperate. He'd said all those things that he'd never been able to say before. Even asked Dean to stay. Dean had known he wasn't sleeping…and he'd recognized what was happening.

He'd had the same urges after he'd crawled his way out of his own grave. Besides the feelings of shame at what he'd done in Hell, he'd had that too. He also hadn't been able to sleep without a generous amount of booze to help him along.

"He will need to be protected as well."

The voice startled Dean and he jerked his head to the side to see Cas standing next to him. Dean glared at the angel.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He whispered fiercely. Cas frowned and glanced at the two sleeping men.

"They will not hear us. I thought you asked for my help in protecting him now that Lucifer has been freed."

"Can you protect him?" Dean asked, rubbing hand tiredly across his face. He didn't want to be thinking about this now, not when Danny was in the shape he was in, not when he'd had to rely on another man just to get Danny to sleep. He glanced at the older man in the chair. That man was to Danny what Bobby was to him…

"I have already taken steps to assure his safety." Cas tilted his head as he studied Danny. "His sleep is troubled."

"Really?" Dean asked with a hint of sarcasm. Cas turned his gaze on Dean.

"It is dangerous for you to be here."

"I know," Dean said with a sigh. "But I couldn't not be here." Dangerous. It had always been dangerous for him to come here. Now it was just twice as bad. Now that the angels as well as the demons were after him. He gave a small, humorless smile. Things were already bad with Sam…he couldn't seem to force himself to break the connection he had with Danny.

"He is a…soldier? That is the problem?"

"Well, it's why he wasn't sleeping." It was all Dean was willing to say. He still had problems discussing his somewhat strange relationship with Danny with Sam. He did not want to be here, talking to Cas about it. He doubted Cas would understand it. It was kind of dysfunctional. He didn't want to talk about how it took something truly horrible to happen for either of them to admit that it was something more than a casual thing they had. And discussing the way that Danny had been acting since he came back? That wasn't an option.

Sam had forced out of him what had happened in Hell. Cas already knew. If he'd had it his way, he probably never would have told anyone. He wasn't about to spill Danny's secrets to someone he didn't know.

"You love him." Cas broke him out of his thoughts with the statement. Dean frowned at him before turning his gaze back to Danny.

"I love you, alright? I'm sorry, I should have said it. I love you."

He hadn't been able to say it back. He'd only been worried. Worried because Danny had never said it before, because Danny had never clung to him like that before. Not even when he'd come back from the dead, from Hell.

"Yeah, I guess I do." The smile that crossed his face was real. Maybe he'd tell Danny when he woke up.