A/N: Inspired by a friend who asked for Dean/Cas, a little rough, and the Impala as a guest star. Just a warning: welcome to angst-city. If you're looking for fluffy happy Dean and Cas, this is probably not where you'll find it. Okay, they get significantly happier throughout the fic, but it takes a good long while to get there!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

It was never supposed to be this way.

That's what Dean thinks as he pulls the Impala into Lisa's driveway, already half-buzzed, and half-hard, too. He'll be halfway to happy town by the time he wants another drink, and probably too drunk to get it up the next time he wants to screw.

Sex and liquor. Those seem to be the only things that drive away the pain for any substantial length of time, and he uses one to fend off the other. Just one more drink, just that one, and he won't have to lose himself in Lisa, won't have to see the way her eyes go shuttered and dark when he rolls away after, when he skulks back to the couch in spite of her invitations.

It works the other way, too. One more fuck, one more hot, sweet night with her, and then Dean won't need another drink, won't need the slow burn down his chest that tells him he's still breathing, he's still hanging on.

That's what he tells himself, anyway.

Tonight, he picks sex. The bar was crowded and too-warm and it reeked of sweat and the sour-sweet smell of second-hand booze. The women wore too much makeup, too much perfume, too much desperation. Why stick around for an overpriced shot of Jack and nothing to look forward to but a raging hangover when he's got Lisa waiting at home?

Lisa, Dean thinks, as he lets the car idle in front of the closed garage door, Lisa is a fuckin' saint. She oughtta be canonized, or whatever the hell it is they call it when they make someone a saint. Sammy'd know, Dean is sure. And Sammy wouldn't hesitate to correct him if he got it wrong.

Shit. Dean pulls out his hip flask, lips wrapped around the cool metal neck before can even think of what he's doing. He broke his own cardinal rule, and if that isn't reason enough to take a shot or two, he doesn't know what is.

Never think of Sammy. Dean tells himself this, but it's like the proverbial elephant - trying not to think of it makes it the only thing he possibly can think of. Images of Sammy - six years old, missing his front tooth - crowd his mind - crying on the backyard swing in the eighth grade when Sarah McAlister ditched him to go out with Logan Marsh - and that's all there is - laughing in the Impala, windows down, sun streaming in and nothing but asphalt and freedom in front of them - and Dean can't breathe.

He can't fucking breathe, and he takes another pull on his flask, sputters and swears when it gets caught in his throat, burning his nose and bringing tears to his eyes. He screws the cap back on, wipes a hand over his face, and shuts off the car, wondering if the hell inside is any more bearable than the hell out here.

Lisa's watching TV on the living room couch, feet tucked under Dean's pillow, wrapped up in the stiff velour blanket he's been using every night.

"You're home early," she says, pleasantly surprised, and then Dean leans down to give her a kiss on the cheek, and her smile slips when she smells the liquor on his breath. "Have a good time?"

The words are stiff like the blanket, choked off and aching like an infected tooth, but polite. Lisa is always polite. She's always concerned, always overlooking his flaws, always so quick to see the best in him.

Dean hates it.

He hates it because there is no best for Lisa to see. There's nothing in him but rot and decay and the stink of futility, and Lisa, goddamn her, can't see it. Or won't see it. Either way, it only serves to make Dean all the more aware of it, all the more attuned to the emptiness in his gut, to the raw, yawning cavern where his heart used to be.

He doesn't answer her. Instead, he presses his lips to hers, hard and unforgiving, pushing her back onto the couch, climbing over the arm and moving on top of her like he has a hundred or a thousand times before.

She doesn't try to stop him, doesn't make a sound, and Dean takes that as tacit permission. She never says no, and Dean doesn't fool himself that it's because he's that good a lover. Lisa is trying to save him, and if sex is what will bring him back, that is something she can and will give.

He loses track of time, and those weeks are the best. He can't say for sure how long he's been here, living in Lisa's home, eating her food, losing himself inside her body, and that's how he wants it. If he knew, if he had any idea how long it's been that he's existed like this, he'd drive the Impala to the old highway overpass, where the road ends abruptly forty feet in the air, crumbling cement skittering onto the closed exit ramp below, and he'd keep on going, he'd drive and drive, and then he'd fly, and then it'd all be over.

But he doesn't. He doesn't, and he's not sure why, except maybe he loves Ben a little bit, and maybe he loves Lisa, too, and maybe the idea of hurting them the way he's been hurt is enough to keep him here for now. Barely, but still, enough.

Lisa doesn't cry when Dean makes love to her anymore, not like those early days when Dean would shudder and whisper other names, names that were not Lisa. She gasps and moans and opens her legs and arms and everything else to him, and she says all the right things. Never his name, never an endearment, just fuck and yes and please and I'm coming. And she does. Dean makes sure of it. He takes and takes and takes, but he can give her that much, at least.

It's taking Dean a little longer than usual tonight, because of the alcohol, but Lisa already knows this, so she pushes him onto his back and climbs on top of him, a sad, serious look on her face, and then reaches down to guide him inside her. Her eyes flicker shut as she begins to move, and so do Dean's. A soft, broken sigh escapes her lips, and she puts her hands on Dean's chest, fingernails biting hard into his skin. Dean moans because it's good, that pain, and he wants more of it.

Lisa is tight and hot and Dean isn't sure why, but she still gets so wet for him, and he wonders if she ever thinks of her body as a traitor. She rides him hard, because she knows he doesn't like it gentle, hands in his hair clenching and tugging hard, and fuck it hurts, and fuck he wants it even harder. He comes with a strangled, rattling breath, and he doesn't say Lisa's name or anyone else's. She goes still, waiting while he softens inside her, the only sounds in the living room their heavy breathing and the soft, monotonous hum of the TV.

She gets up quickly and picks up her clothes, and Dean gets rid of the condom. Lisa goes for a drink of water while Dean makes up the sofa, and she flicks off the light before heading upstairs. She doesn't say goodnight, and Dean doesn't blame her. They've done the same thing every night this week, or maybe the last two weeks, and Dean wonders when or if he's going to start to feel something.

He wonders why Lisa puts up with this, but not enough to ask her. He thinks he probably doesn't want to know the answer, or maybe he already knows it. He's seen how guarded she is when he's around Ben, the way she never lets them alone together, and he's heard the way she talks about him to her friends, pleasant, boring anecdotes and explanations, all of them lies. He knows he's breaking her, and he doesn't know how to stop. Doesn't know if he wants to.

The drink and the sex have worn him out, and he gets under the blanket quick, afraid to miss his window into sleep. He feels empty, numb and cold, and it's the closest to heaven he's ever going to get again, so he takes it, wraps himself up in it, and after a while, he lets go and sinks into unconsciousness.

It's dark still when he wakes up, dark and impossibly quiet, but he knows he's not alone. He doesn't have his knife anymore, doesn't have a weapon of any sort, and he doesn't really care. He's not even really sure he'll put up much of a fight, unless instinct kicks in.

He lays there, almost peaceful, wondering idly what big baddie is going to be the one to finish him off. Vampire? Werewolf? Satan? God himself? Doesn't matter, really, in the end, because however he goes out, he's headin' in the same direction, and he's been hanging on to that one-way ticket for a long time now.

The minutes tick by, and Dean's gotten real good at waiting, but he's so close to relief, so nearly at rest that he can't stand it anymore, and he opens his eyes and sits up fast, hoping to provoke a response from whatever-it-is.

"You're awake," says a voice in the darkness, and Dean fights back a wave of nausea.

"No," he says, hoarse with sleep and fear and hate. "It isn't -"

"I'm sorry I've been away."

"Fuck you," he whispers, bringing his knees to his chest and curling his arms around them. He presses himself back into the couch cushions, as far away and small as he can make himself, and he won't look up, he won't, won't look at that face, those eyes, that mouth, or… fuck.

"Dean? Are you -"

"Why are you here?" Dean asks, and there are tears choking his voice, raw and stinging in his throat, and he hates himself more than he ever has.

But he hates Cas even more than that.

"I wanted to check in on you," Cas says, looking down at the carpet. He's still wearing his goddamn trench coat, and his tie is as pitifully crooked as always. Dean wants to choke him with it.

"Check in on me," Dean repeats, mustering up a little of the old sarcasm to infuse into his voice. "After all this… and you want… motherfucker. Outside."

Cas tilts his head, throwing shadows over his face, bathing his features in the murky haze of predawn. "Outside? Why?"

Dean pulls himself up to his full height and looks down at Cas, calm and cold as a fuckin' iceberg.

"I want you outside because Ben is asleep," he says slowly, inching closer to Cas until the angel's eyes start to cross from looking up at him, "and I don't want him to wake up when I beat the shit out of you."

Cas blinks, eyes inky midnight blue in the dark. "You're.. what?"

"I'm going to hurt you, Cas." Dean leans in, so close their noses almost brush, and he can hear Cas's heartbeat, going a mile a minute. "I'm going to hurt you the way you hurt me, and I'm going to enjoy it. I'm going to make you scream, you fucking prick."

Cas doesn't pull away, but his breath is coming faster, and Dean can feel it, ghosting warm and damp against his lips.

"Outside," Dean growls. "Now."

Cas vanishes in a flutter of invisible wings, but Dean knows he isn't gone for good. He pulls on his jeans and creeps outside, bare-chested, shivering a little in the cool fall air. Cas is waiting by the Impala, a pained but determined look on his face.

"You will not be able to hurt me, Dean," Cas says, standing stiffly, arms behind his back, leaving his front wide open and vulnerable. "You'll only hurt yourself in the process."

"Maybe," Dean says, walking a wide circle around Cas, moving in slow like a hunter ready to make the kill. "But it'll feel good enough I don't think I'll care. Besides," he says, moving into Cas, backing him up against the side of the car and leaning his face down so his lips are right next to the angel's ear, "I think you're gonna let me hurt you."

"What?" Cas says, but it comes out as more of a strangled gasp, and Dean smiles, wolfish, in the graying half-light.

"I said," Dean whispers, pressing himself against Cas, pinning him against the metal, "that you are going to let me hurt you. You're going to take it, because you know what you've done to me, and it's eating you up inside."

Cas swallows, audible in the early morning quiet, and he turns his face away. "What have I… I haven't done anything to you."

"No," Dean agrees, nuzzling his nose into Cas's hair, breathing in his scent of ozone and rain and light. "You weren't here to do anything to me, you fucker."

"Dean, I couldn't… you know I couldn't."

"I thought you were coming to kill me," Dean says, conversationally, pushing away from Cas and sauntering a few feet away. The angel slumps against the Impala, one hand to his stomach, as if he might be sick. Dean smiles, ghoulish and predatory, and Cas looks away. "I didn't care. I thought you were coming to kill me, and I didn't care. What's your Father got to say about that, huh?"

"My father is no longer in heaven," Cas says quietly, casting his eyes back up at Dean, searching and sad. "He isn't… anywhere."

"What?" Dean says, a little thrown by the answer.

"He's gone. Or maybe he never really existed at all. I don't know, and it doesn't matter anymore. I got pulled into a battle I never wanted to have to fight, and I fought it. I fought it for you, Dean. I fought it for this world you seem so keen to leave."

Dean snorts. "What's keepin' me in it? There's nobody here to cry over me."

"Lisa," Cas says softly, looking back up at the house. "Ben."

"Better off without me."

Cas nods, keeps his eyes firmly on the front door, squints a little in the dark. "Me."

"Bullshit," Dean says, without really even thinking about it. "You been gone for months, man."

"Doesn't mean I wouldn't miss you," Cas says, crossing his arms over his chest. "Doesn't mean I haven't."

"You missed me, huh?" Dean laughs, bitter as wormwood in his mouth. "You got a funny way of showing it."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe I knew you wouldn't be thrilled with the idea of seeing me?"

"Well, you got that one right," Dean says, the fire in his belly reignited. "You selfish asshole. I wish you'd a' stayed gone."

"I can leave," Cas whispers, but he makes no move to go.

Dean clenches his jaw, so hard it hurts. "You leave again, don't you ever come back. You hear me?"

Cas looks at him then, eyes fierce and almost gleaming as the sun begins to soften the far horizon with thready veins of pink. "And if I stay?"

And Dean is on him, just like that, rushing him hard and fast, pushing him with a solid, satisfying thunk into the driver's side door. His hands are tangled in the front of Cas's coat, and he's shaking the angel, shaking him until Cas's hands wrap around his wrists, until Cas's lips are on his, sudden and clumsy, and then it's not Cas who's shaking, it's Dean. He's shaking all over, like a leaf, and he's crying, hot, messy tears that crowd up his throat and seize his chest, and Cas's arms are around him and he's so mad.

"I hate you," he chokes out, shoving halfheartedly at Cas's chest. "I fucking hate…"

"You hate yourself, Dean," Cas says, lips moving over his cheek, his jaw, and down his neck as he murmurs against warming skin. "You hate what you've become, and I hate it, too. I hate myself for letting it happen -" and then Cas's voice breaks, and Cas is broken, too, just like Dean, but it doesn't bring relief, the way Dean thought it would.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into Cas's hair. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"Stop," Cas says, pushing him away roughly. "No more of this. No more feeling sorry. No more anger, no more hate."

"What else is there to feel?" Dean asks, and for once, he genuinely thinks he might want to know the answer.

Cas lifts Dean's hand, putting it on his chest, right over his heart. "This."

Dean lets the hand trail down, moving slowly over Cas's stomach, resting lightly over the now-prominent bulge in his pants. "This?" Dean whispers, and Cas nods.

"Yes."

Dean's hand tightens, and Cas tips his head back, eyes sliding shut. Dean watches him, watches the breaking light play over his face as he arches into Dean's hand, mouth open just a little as he gasps quietly.

"Is this it?" Dean says suddenly, dropping his hand and moving back a few paces. Cas raises his head and looks up, eyebrows low and worried. "Is that what I've been… all this time? How long?"

And it doesn't make sense to Dean, but it must to Cas, because the angel smiles, just the tiniest bit, and he nods, and something in Dean's chest breaks open and the air tastes better and everything comes just a little bit sharper into focus.

"Ages," Cas says, reaching out to pull Dean back toward him. "I fought it almost as long as I've felt it."

"And now?" Dean asks, moving into him, hands carding through Cas's hair as he brings their hips in line.

"I stopped fighting."

The kiss is wild at first, raw in places that hurt and ache, but it's a sweet sort of pain, and Dean gives himself over to it after a while, so damned glad to be feeling anything at all. He licks Cas's mouth open, tastes heat and home on his lips, and he stops running. For the first time in years, he stops. And Cas stops with him, and it's so good, so perfect…

And when he thinks of Sam, all he thinks of is the grossed-out face Sam would make, catching them like this, and he laughs against Cas's mouth. And then Cas's hand is down the front of his jeans, and his laugh turns into a groan, long and drawn-out and embarrassingly loud.

Dean determines Cas is pretty damn smart, or at least more capable of rational thought than he is, when he suggests they move inside the Impala. Dean yanks open the back door and shoves Cas inside, fingers working to unbutton his shirt as he climbs in after. He stops for just a moment, to pull the door shut behind him, and then everything is lips and teeth and tongues and hands for a very, very long while.

Cas is as desperate for it as Dean is, arching and writhing against him, cock straining his pants as Dean teases over the fabric with warm fingertips and warmer breath.

"Dean, please," Cas begs, pushing his hips up toward Dean's face, one hand gripping the headrest of the front seat, the other fumbling with his fly.

"Please what?" Dean asks, smiling a little against the skin of Cas's stomach.

"I don't know," Cas says frantically, voice pleading. "I've never… Dean."

"Tell me," Dean says, slow and teasing, "what you want."

Cas lets out a strangled cry, frustrated and needy. "Want you… want you to…"

"So help me, Cas, if you use the word 'fornicate'…"

"Fuck me," Cas pants, raggedly. "Dean, fuck me. Please."

Dean goes still, rigid and silent as the weight of Cas's words sink in.

"Dean?" Cas says quietly, tentative.

"Stay still," Dean hushes him, voice low and urgent. "If you move, I'm gonna come in my pants like a fuckin' kid."

Cas looks up at him, and it's light enough now that Dean can see the confusion playing over his face. "Is that a bad thing?"

Dean laughs. "It is, unless you're ready for this to be over right now."

"I'm not," Cas says earnestly, and Dean is lost. He leans down, pressing a kiss to Cas's lips, trailing over to his ear.

"Good."

They move against each other slowly, learning the way their bodies fit together, memorizing paths they'll travel over and over again. Dean accustoms himself to the feel of Cas's body beneath him, the way he responds to every little touch, as quick and easy as the Impala when he's at the wheel.

His fly is open, and though he wants to make this last, he's so hard it hurts, and from the noises Cas is making, he's in the same boat. Dean reaches down, pulling his cock out, stroking his thumb over the head and letting out a hiss of pleasure. Cas makes an impatient noise, and Dean smiles down at him.

"Alright, bossy," he says, and Cass huffs, but then Dean is reaching into his pants, and pulling him out, all hard and dripping down the shaft, and the huff turns into a stifled moan.

"Yeah?" Dean says with a little smile. Cas just nods, eyes shut tight, and Dean lowers himself down, bracing his hands on either side of Cas's head for support as he drags his hips up, pushing their cocks together. The sound Cas makes is completely raw, and unbelievably hot. Dean shudders against him, trying to hold it together, but then Cas is thrusting his hips up in a frenetic rhythm, panting into Dean's shoulder, and Dean knows neither of them are going to last long.

It's slick and hot and so much more than Dean ever even knew he wanted, more than he ever imagined he could have. He pushes hard against Cas, the last few tendrils of his leftover anger dying out, replaced with something infinitely more powerful, something much bigger than him, than both of them.

And then Cas says his name, and it's no more than a whisper, barely a sigh in the quiet universe they've created inside the car, and he feels Cas come, hot and wet between them. Dean slides against him, no more than three thrusts, and then he's coming, too, shaking and panting, and it feels a little like dying.

But it feels a lot like living, too.

They're sticky and sweaty and it's starting to get uncomfortably warm in the car, and Dean's nose is filled with the scent of musk and leather and motor oil, and there's nowhere else he'd rather be. There's a lot he's going to have to face, once he opens the door that leads out of their secret, private world, and into the harsh reality beyond. It's going to hurt, telling Lisa, seeing the pain in her eyes, but he doesn't think she'll be shocked. He wonders if she'll let him continue to see Ben, and he realizes, a little surprised, that he really hopes she will.

"You didn't answer me," Cas says, a long while later, startling Dean out of his wandering thoughts.

"Hmmph?" he mumbles, sleepy-sated and pressed into Cas's chest.

"You told me if I leave, I should never come back, and I asked you, 'what if I stay?'"

"So?" Dean says, fighting back a yawn.

"So… what if I stay?"

"It's a pretty simple equation, Cas. You leave, you leave for good. Which means, if you stay…"

"I stay for good."

Dean smiles a little. "And for bad."

"Forever."

"Yeah."

"Dean?"

Dean heaves a sigh, but there's a smile on his face. "Yeah?"

"Is this a chick flick moment?"

It's bittersweet, the little ache that causes in his chest, but he nuzzles his nose up under Cas's jaw, and runs a hand down the angel's stomach. "Yeah. Guess it is."

"Dean?"

"Shut up, Cas."

And suddenly, in the soft morning light, in the warmth of a new day, with Cas pressed close against him, Dean realizes…

It was always supposed to be this way.