It started in an ordinary motel room on a routine hunt. Cas had fallen in the door with a fluttering of wings. No words, he just collapsed, crumpling into a heap. Dean joked about it at first but it wasn't until they lifted him that Sam found blood on his hands. Wound from an angel blade.

Dean was worried. He thought Cas seemed all right and seemed happy to stay for a while with Fred and yet here he was with a very dangerous looking wound. The thought that Cas might have done it to himself scared him more than the angel dying. That couldn't be real. He couldn't even bring himself to tell Sam, not when he could barely deal with the idea himself.

Castiel's expression looked serene as he simply just lay on his back on the bed. Dean just watched him quietly as Sam did some research on the monster they were hunting. The gentle sound of a keyboard disappeared into the background. Angelic. That's what he looked like. Even with his large blue eyes closed, the power was still there. Wouldn't Cas have made sure of it? Thoughts like that slipped through every now and then catching him unawares. Maybe he had. Cas was bandaged but still unconscious. There was nothing he could do to stop it. How would he know if his angel was really dead?

He had to try and get some sleep now. He looked at Cas one more time and for some reason, something, the normality, the serenity or the fact that he had now forgiven Cas but he had no idea how to get the angel to forgive himself, made him do it.

Sam looked up from the computer to check that his brother had gone to sleep. What he saw looked like a scene from a fairytale except the characters were all wrong. It was Dean, leaning over Cas, giving him a gentle kiss on the lips. Castiel didn't stir.

Dean didn't even notice what he had done at first. One minute he was just watching him breathe. Did angels even need to breathe? Then the next he was giving a kiss to wake the sleeping beauty. The realisation made him look up quickly but he could still hear Sam in the kitchen tapping away on the keyboard.

That night Dean prayed. Prayed to Cas to wake up, told him to stop hiding his feathery arse. After the danger and the battles the angel couldn't die like this. Dean doesn't know how he will cope if the angel has done it to himself.

When he recovered Castiel either wouldn't or couldn't tell.

Dean wondered what he could do for Cas. He had no idea what to say to the sad blue eyes, the head tilt or the way he looked right through him. He started to call the angel more often despite not needing him for anything in particular, just to see him. He had some dim hope for making up for simply using Cas much of the time. Gradually Cas seemed to perk up a little, showed interest in the hunts they were on. Although he was amazingly helpful, Dean tried not to take him for granted, the gentle teasing never serious. Sometimes Cas hung out with them, just for fun, like a family. It was weird for Dean, to be just with Sam and Cas and to feel so complete, to feel less guilt himself for getting everyone he ever knew killed.

Sam liked having him around, and he seemed to be letting Dean cheer him up. Cas could be fun with his deadpan literalness or sudden perceptiveness. Sam couldn't help noticing the little things now, since that moment which he had almost forgotten as Dean was so out of character. He saw the long stares that lasted a moment or two too long, the way they made each other smile, the way there eyes moved over each other, slipped down their faces to lips, to neck, to waist. He might have noticed more in the past if he hadn't been so wrapped up in his own troubles. He had no idea what to do about it.

Halfway through chatting with Cas in a diner while on a hunt Dean realised he was flirting. Not flirting in the sense of barely disguised innuendo but an almost playful conversation. It was the secretive smile the waitress gave him that did it. The thought of it scared him. They were just having lunch and he felt himself listening, teasing and chatting. Cas was responding by being almost cheerful himself and letting the brooding angel guard down a touch. Then Dean noticed the way they held each others gaze. Another strange thought crossed his mind. Do I always act this way with Cas? Then the fear kicked in. Cas is a guy. And Dean squashed that one as fast as he could think it. Cas is an angel. The happy cloud Dean was on, where he was content with his life and he was safe, evaporated.

Cas noticed and asked what was wrong. Dean made excuses; he was tired, time to turn in. Dean had started to find himself getting lost in Castiel's eyes, his messy hair, his stance, his lopsided tie.

It was dark. They were waiting for Sam to buy some food from a gas station. Dean had finished filling the impala with fuel and Cas was standing, leaning his back against the car looking out at the stars. He seemed lost in his thoughts and Dean looked to his face. He looks so serene. It reminds him of the sleeping beauty moment all those months ago.

Dean cracked open a cool drink, "stargazing Cas?"

Cas turned to look at the hunter. "Just lost in thought," he says.

They were a long way from the nearest town and the sky was full of sparkling, twinkling stars. It made even Castiel seem small. Then Castiel pulled his disarming smile, and Dean gets that urge again, to keep Cas here forever and make him real. Then suddenly he realises he is kissing Cas, kissing Cas for realthis time.

And Cas is kissing him back.

It is only later, when he and Sam have to get a single hotel room each, that it goes any further. Dean knows it is weird, this is a guy, this is an angel, this is his friend and he tries but the labels seem to fall away when it comes to Cas. It's not until he is dropping Cas onto the bead, pulling off the trenchcoat, tearing away the tie with Cas's tongue in his mouth that he realises that the most terrifying realisation is that he has wanted this a very long time.

Castiel's ruffled hair, his pleading, his beautiful angel a curled up mess.

Dean falls asleep and when he wakes up Cas is gone. Dean is so far past the point of no return he has no idea how to be freaked out.

Sam notices the awkwardness, every now and then. When two people stopped meeting each other's glances when they usually struggled to tear their eyes away from each other, made it fairly obvious. That and their careful conversation. Then they would sort it out after a couple of days which made Sam wonder if he was imagining things.

Dean knew he couldn't bring it up with Cas, and he didn't know what to say but Cas seemed to understand. So here was another thing that never got mentioned and Dean could disappear into a magic world or pleasure and acceptance. The awkwardness also seemed to disappear over time.

One day Cas surpises him. Dean I want to do something with you. You just need to trust me. Dean was surprised, scared but a little intrigued. Trust me. They sat next to each other and Cas sat next to ... and then he was inside deans head and Dean felt himself be surrounded by white light like Cas was wrapping himself around him. The only sound that of wings flapping in the distance, then absolute bliss and ecstasy. Like a bubble bath for a soul. Baggage dean had hoped he was no longer carrying, or was trying to forget, slipped away and in moments he had forgotten it was even there. And then he was awake again. A residual floating feeling stayed with him for days.

What on earth was that Cas?

Otherwise life was like normal. It was rocky for a while, demons, monsters, angels and the Winchesters and Cas fighting once again. Cas fighting for free will while angels kept him on a leash. This time Dean had somehow managed it, stopped Cas doing anything he might regret later.

In the end Crowley and his demons back in hell. Forever.

It was summer. The air warm, the evening long and one minute he and Cas were going to get in the car and now Cas was talking to him. Not just talking but saying all the unsaid things. All the unsaid things. Once he started it just streamed out.

"Dean you are so important. To me. It has taken a long time but now I realise, I understand and I know why you don't say these things and I know what they are even if you try not to think them. You have helped me when I am most vulnerable and stopped me when I can't control myself. You are the only one who seeing me at my worst can still forgive me. Freedom and forgiveness Dean, I am the angel and I learnt them from you. If I give you my affection, if I tell you how you changed my life, changed me for the better, I want you to accept it. I know you don't trust these things, because for you they don't last or are ripped away, because caring inevitably hurts. But I want you to know I think that it is worth it. Because I didn't even know I was lonely until I met you."

"Cas," he breathed.Dean doesn't know what to say, too overwhelmed and shaky. Cas, so matter of fact, had just knocked down his walls and Dean had no resistance left. He darted his eyes away, searching for an answer in his head, but words slipping away. Some instinct tells him to do what Cas has asked.

"Thank you, Cas"

Sam sees them before he reaches them and hangs back. What he sees looks so unreal. There is his brother kissing Cas, Cas's back against a tree but it is so gentle, Dean looks so vulnerable, his hands holding the edges of Cas's trench coat.

True loves kiss.

Dean tries to reply with his mouth, his longing for this sort of connection, he wants to show Cas how he feels and somehow this just seems right. He has never kissed anyone like this, never this ungreedy, this patient, this gentle.

He stops and his eyes flick open onto the angels and the half smile, the eyes burning into him, he feels so small so exposed and yet so safe. For once his stupid inner voice is quiet.

Silenced.

Dean kisses him down the side of his neck, then rests his head on his shoulder. Cas's arms, that have been loose by his side wrap around him.

Sam smiles.

One day when they are old, with Cas still looking not a second older, Dean is telling stories to Sam's grandchildren who always like hearing stories of the apocalypse, of Crowley, of bobby, of angels. They have read the books of course but they like hearing it from Dean better.

They never stop hunting, but it goes back, goes back to the days where you torched the monster and that was it. The world was no longer being pulled out from under their feet.

Castiel pulled the angels into line and over time found effective ways to help. Dean had made him realise there was a little picture, so he taught angels how to start a snowball rolling. How to influence the right people to end a war, to stop conflict. To teach other people how to care, how to forgive and how to think for themselves. So the world became a better place.

When Cas walks in now he watches sadly. Something is coming that he can do nothing about. Dean will die. He has protected him to an old age but Dean had little time left. He had always known this would come and he had prepared himself, now that it came down to it, he wasn't sure. Cas also knew deep down there was no heaven or hell for Sam and Dean. No eternal sugary sweet self delusion or torture and destruction. He would make sure of that.

Goodbye Dean. Dean let out his last breath. Cas leant over him and mirrored that first kiss and then stood up and stepped backwards.

The plug had been pulled out and the world was gushing away. Tears slid down the angels cheeks.

Cas walked out to the open hillside. Out of a pocket he pulled out a bright light, it was a soul, and he grasped it and threw it into the sky.

Jimmy woke up on the front steps wife and daughter waiting, smiling. He embraces them, and tears stream down his face, he is sobbing, but he can't remember why.

The light flew up into the cloudless sky. It got smaller and smaller but never disappeared completely.

There was star where there hadn't been before.