Four days. It had been four days since Dean had last seen Cas' piercing blue eyes off the reflection of something shiny in the bunker. Four days since he had smelled Cas' familiar scent, which always smelled for some reason slightly of aftershave and something familiar that he just couldn't place, like his old worn leather jacket. Something that smelled of home, and yet entirely new at the same time.

Dean sat up and stretched out the creaks in his neck. His eyes darted around the darkness of the room in his bunker out of habit before settling down on the glowing neon-green letters of his alarm clock. 2:46 AM. He closed one eye and scratched the top of his head, idly staring at the doorway. It wasn't like him to get up in the middle of the night. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out 'til morning. Or evening, depending on when exactly his head hit the pillow.

He slid the legs off the side of the bed and stood up in no particular hurry. Maybe go to the kitchen, grab a snack. His feet started to move out of his bedroom, towards the kitchen, but his mind was elsewhere. Sam still up? Nose in a book? Maybe, that kid could read night and day. But no, he's probably asleep. At this time of night? Definitely asleep. Sam's not a kid anymore. His college days-

-long behind him. Dean shook his head. It wasn't that the particular thought of Sam at college that bothered him. It was Sam away. Sam, off on his own, somewhere off where he couldn't protect him. Lazily, he pulled open the refrigerator door and let his eyes wander over the random assortment of beer bottles to condiments- why did they need three different kinds of freaking mustard?- to the cold cuts and eggs. Man, he wanted a burger. Maybe some fries. Sam had bought those cheap red bags of frozen potatoes to make in the bunker but that oven-baked shit had nothing on a really good deep crispy golden-brown fry.

Dean blinked, not sure if his hunter senses were tingling or what. He thought he heard something? Saw something out of his peripheral? Smelled something? That was the thing about being a hunter, you practically became a bird of prey, senses constant and persistent. He shut the refrigerator door and looked around. The bunker stood eerily silent around him, its safety almost mocking. He frowned, his eyes darting from right to left. No, something was off. There was a…a smell. Yes, he definitely smelled something. Something like…something old and, and a bit of must…and something almost like…aftershave?

As soon as the realization clicked, Cas came fluttering into view in front of him, crashing into him as if falling from the sky. Dean blinked and held out his arms as Cas nearly knocked him backwards into the cold steel door.

"Dean." Cas' breathing was labored, although his eyes were blue. Bluer than blue. They were bright again. Over the last few months they had looked so dull, so tired-

"Cas, are you back?" The words almost leapt out of his chest with a burst of anxious excitement.

"Dean." Cas seemed to hover for a moment, uncertain of his footing, before he collapsed forward into Dean's arms.

"Hey, hey, hey." Dean grimaced with Cas' sudden weight, although he couldn't deny the strange sensation that rose within him as he felt Cas' stubbled cheek brush against his own. "Let's get you down, huh?"

Without thinking, Dean helped Cas into his room, took his trenchcoat off and set him down on his bed. Cas laid down at once, eyelids half shut and flickering slightly, like someone with a high fever. Dean watched him for a moment, eyes alert and nervous. He scanned his body quickly but there didn't seem to be any blood or sign of injury. Good. Metatron was gone, but that wasn't really on Dean's radar right now. If Cas really did get his grace back, then he should be at full power, right? Maybe he was. He had teleported back to the bunker, after all. And yet?

He looked down at Cas' flickering eyelids and looked away. It reminded him of that bad winter of '89, when his dad was out hunting – what was it? A rougarou? – and Sam had come down with a bad fever. Dean had stayed at his bedside all night, watching the way his eyelids flickered as he dreamt, murmuring to himself between fits of bad dreams.

But did Cas have a fever? Could angels even get fevers?

Quickly assuming maybe Cas still needed time for his angel-batteries to fully recharge, Dean sat down on the bed beside him to check. He leaned above him, gently putting his hand on Cas' forehead. It was hot to the touch and a bit sweaty, but had he been running before he teleported? Was he in danger? Why didn't he check in more often?

Suddenly Cas reached up and grabbed Dean's wrist with surprising quickness, and his eyes shot open with supernatural speed. He glanced around, eyes searching, frantic and alert, before they finally settled on Dean's face. "Cas, hey buddy, you okay? You with me?"

Cas' grip on Dean's wrist loosened but did not release. For a moment he appeared not to be breathing until his chest finally puffed out with a long sigh and his eyelids fluttered closed. Dean sat for a moment in a state of half-panic, half-shock, listening to the soft snore of Cas' nostrils and watching his chest rise and fall in a soft, steady rhythm.

He suddenly became aware of the thudding in his chest and cleared his throat hoarsely in an attempt to slow his pulse. Lips pressed firmly shut, he took a deep, lingering breath inwards before pressing it out through the spaces in his gritted teeth. He hadn't realized he had relaxed his hand so that now their fingers were touching, just barely intertwined. He could feel his heart catch in his throat as he delicately moved his fingers along the lines of Cas' palm. A blush rose to his cheeks, and a mix of guilt and confusion seemed to wrestle inside of him. He had just dared himself to brush Cas' sweaty bangs off his forehead when he thought he heard the sound of footfalls in the hallway.

"Dean?" Sam's voice, soaked in a half-sleepy state. He was already in the doorway.

Dean was on his feet in an instant, breath caught in his throat. He was wearing a white tee and boxers to bed, but somehow he felt naked, like he should be covering himself. For a moment he thought that maybe the tip of his erection was poking through the hole in his boxers, but a quick shift of his posture assured him that it was tucked stiff against his thigh. He could still feel the sticky wet beads from Cas' sweaty hair on his palm.

"Cas, uh, Cas is back," Dean glanced behind him at the bed, where Cas lay, snoring gently. "He's, uh, got his groove back."

"Oh." Sam rubbed at one eye with the back of his palm. Just like he did when he was a kid, Dean thought idly. He blinked a few times, letting his eyes adjust to the bright lights Dean didn't honestly remember turning on. His eyes settled on Cas in Dean's bed, then drifted over to Dean in his pajamas. His brow furrowed for a moment, and something tugged at the corner of his mouth. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then shut it again, as if he thought better of it.

"Oh, Cas, he uh, well-"

"It's okay, Dean." Sam's voice was eerily soft. Almost, resigned, in a way.

It's okay? What's okay?

"I've known for a while."

Known? Known what?

Dean blinked stupidly for a moment before he looked back at Cas and then down at himself and made the realization. "Oh, no, Sam-"

"No, Dean, it's all right." Sam was fully awake now, and at the peak of his political correctness. "You're my brother, and I love you no matter what. You know that. I just-" He sighed and seemed to search inside himself for the right words. "I just wish you had told me sooner. That I didn't have to walk in on you two-" He cocked his head to one side. "-together."

Dean's jaw dropped and then clicked shut again with such force it hurt his cheeks. "Dude, it's not-"

"It's okay, Dean," Sam continued. "You're my brother. I don't care if you like girls or boys, or, or both." Sam narrowed his eyes as if he was trying to recall something from the depth of his memory and Dean realized with mounting horror that Sam had been working on this speech for quite some time.

"What did Cas tell you?" It was a stupid thing to come out of his mouth. What did Cas tell you sounded nothing like Cas and I aren't together, you big idiot!

"He didn't have to." Again, that soft, gentle voice of Sam's was back. Then, with seriousness, "I can see the way you look at each other, Dean."

"Pssssh." Dean smirked and turned away, smirking in denial, but he didn't actually say anything because he was trying to find the words. Sam had all the words and he had been practicing them and rolling them around his head trying to put them together to make a sentence to make a thought to make them have meaning and Dean just…didn't. He didn't say anything. One way or the other, he never said anything. Maybe that was the whole problem.

"Anyway," Sam's eyes drifted to Dean's clock. They now read 3:36 AM. Almost a full hour had passed since Dean had wandered into the kitchen to get a quarter-to-three-AM-snack. "It's late. We can talk more in the morning." He turned to go. Dean stood stock still, trying to figure out which defense tactic he could use, what snarky comment he could use to defuse the implication.

Sam turned back. "Dean, it really is okay, okay? I'm not going to, to judge you or think anything less of you. I mean, I think…I know why you'd want to hide this and it's okay, that I understand, but, but I'm your brother, Dean, and after all we've been through? You don't have to hide this from me."

Dean just nodded, like he was accepting it. Like he was accepting it. Like the part of him that liked Cas was a feeling outside of himself that he needed to slowly integrate into his being. But to be fair, this was a new feeling because he didn't just like Cas, and he didn't just love him either. He knew what love was. He loved his brother. He would- and had – died for him, traded his soul for his in an instant. But this love for Cas, it was different from that. It was secret in a way he couldn't describe, as if he was happier almost denying it to himself. He loved Cas in a way that was almost selfish, in a needy sort of way that was totally unlike Dean Winchester. Because while Dean needed his brother, he had a different need for Cas that wasn't totally only sexually motivated either. How many times had he laid in bed at night wishing Cas was there? Wishing he knew where Cas was? Wondering if Cas was safe?

But it was different than taking care of Sam. With Sam, he wanted to take care of Sam for Sam's sake. Sam being safe so Sam could be okay. With Cas, it was like he had to make sure that Cas was safe so that he, Dean, would be okay. It was almost stupidly selfish in a way Dean never wanted to admit, because that would be a weakness and he couldn't just accept weakness. He couldn't just accept-

But suddenly he realized Sam wasn't in the doorway anymore. Sam was back down the hall, back in his bed, probably muttering, "I fucking knew it" into his pillow as he drifted back into his dreams. And that's when Dean realized that he just nodded it off, accepted it, and that Sam's acknowledgement was like the final checkbox to admit that he did feel something for Cas, even if he would never verbally acknowledge that something to Sam.

He walked a few paces towards the light switch and flicked it off with an extended finger. His legs felt stiff underneath him. He walked towards the bed and sat down, the thudding of his heartbeat louder than ever. It was strange: he felt almost numb, but yet his heart was thumping so loudly and, and – Sam fucking thinks Cas and I are fucking and the whole thought of it was just so deliciously funny that Dean let his lips part into a wide grin, and he let himself let out a little chuckle.

He glanced back at Cas, who was still sleeping peacefully on his back. Dean let himself lay beside him, the thudding in his eardrums louder than ever. Suddenly he wondered if Cas had a heartbeat. Dean had checked for a pulse many times before, the desperate fumble for a wrist or the struggle to free someone's neck from their collar flap, but for the first time he put his ear against Cas' chest and listened. His body groaned at the awkward positioning, and so he reluctantly pulled his feet up on the bed. Cas and I are sharing a bed together. Another stupid grin.

Dean closed his eyes for a moment just to take in his smell, when suddenly he felt like he was drowning in it. What did that mean? That he liked boys now? But he liked women. He had always slept with women. He had liked Lisa, loved Lisa, thought about marrying her. Settle down. Wife, kids, white picket fence. Because that's what normal people did, right? Except he wasn't normal and this was just one more thing to drive the wedge between him and normal forever. Because it was weird, right? It was-

But Dean felt eerily calm lying against Cas' chest, feeling his chest rise and fall underneath him. It felt right in a really sick sense of the word. It felt almost guilty, that way he felt like he was finally enjoying a part of himself that he had shut off for so long. It felt good, and with that realization came another sense of rising panic because good things don't last and Cas was an angel, for Christ's sake, he was an angel, and this wasn't even Cas anyway, this was a man named Jimmy Novak who was murdered in a heavenly crusade and Cas was, and Cas was-

Dean had always wondered in the back of his mind what Cas' stubble felt like against his lips. So gingerly, softly, he picked up his head and ran the edge of his lips ever so softly against Cas' scruffy cheek. His eyelids fluttered and he was suddenly aware of the strain inside of his boxers. He pushed off all of the rising thoughts, all of the panic, and pushed it all back into a corner of his mind where it could fester with all of the other things he didn't want to think about, because as he was delicately kissing the side of Cas' face, Cas actually rolled into him, he was facing him, and before Dean realized what he was doing, he had actually put his hand on Cas' arm and pressed his lips against his and the realization shot into his mind, loud and frantic – he was kissing him! He was kissing Cas! – when suddenly Cas' lips became alive and pressed back. Dean's eyes shot open but Cas' hands only went to the back of Dean's head, holding him in place, and Dean was too tired of arguing with himself to argue with Cas. He parted his lips to let Cas' tongue enter and thought of nothing, nothing but Cas.

Sam rolled over groggily, holding a hand to the side of his head in confusion. He blinked a few times in the dim light before rolling over and checking his watch on the bedside table. It was almost 6 AM. He could still catch another hour of sleep, two even, maybe three if he was feeling indulgent.

And that was when he heard the sound of banging. That was accompanied by the sound of groaning and moaning and cursing and-

Sam threw his head back into his pillow with a dry, hollow laugh. Really? After feeling like he almost caught them in something plenty of times, he had finally let Dean know that he knew about him and Cas. And so what happens? They decide that there was no longer a need to keep it quiet? Oh, Sam knows now so we can be as loud as we want?

Sam shook his head in disbelief and turned to the opposite wall, pulling the pillows over his ears, chuckling silently to himself. Man, he was going to give Dean such a hard time about this in the morning…

He frowned. Okay, maybe not. As much as he didn't like to admit it, sometimes he just had no clue what was going on in Dean's head. Okay, sometimes probably even Dean didn't know what was going on inside his own head, but this probably wasn't something to tease Dean about. No, instead he would play the role of the dutiful little brother and support Dean one-hundred percent, just like Dean would do if the situation was reversed. Because in the back of his mind, Sam knew that Cas made Dean happy, and it was about fucking time Dean got to be happy for once.