Cas makes an uncharacteristic squeak, turns bright pink, and poofs.

Dean knows he can't hear him, but he lets out a teasing sort of laugh for Cas. It's not everyday that he gets to ruffle the angels feathers so thoroughly. He also knows that if he were to turn around right now, Sam would be scowling at him. Bitch faces; his baby brother has cornered the market on those. Sam has one for every occasion, and Dean is sure he's still got plenty that he hasn't seen yet.

He turns, and sure enough, Sam's got a bitch face pasted on. It's a toss-up between #45 (Really Dean? Was that really necessary?) #76 (I cannot believe you would do that, you asshat) and a new one that he's us going to affectionately deem #154 ( Dean leave Cas alone before he remembers he can smite your ass)

Yeah, he really should've stayed asleep this morning.

"What? I can't tease Cas a little? Take it easy man," he says, hands held up in surrender. He doesn't need one of Sam's lectures now. Not this early in the morning. Sam's lectures always lead to talking about feelings, no matter the topic they started off with. Dean Winchester doesn't do feelings. Feelings are for girls and people who weren't hunters as far as he's concerned. The only things he gets to feel nowadays, are shame, fear, guilt and the occasional lust thrown in for good measure. And Sam doesn't count, is the only exception to the rule in his world. Sammy is family.

Bobby too, but Bobby understands. And well, Cas falls into a category all his own. Cas is special. He can tease Cas and know that everything will be cool, because Cas doesn't really get feelings. He gets impressions of feelings. He knows loyalty. Fondness. Camaraderie. Anger. He doesn't grasp anything more complex. And Dean is more than fine with that. It's a relief actually, to not have to worry about those things with him. Although sometimes it would be nice to have someone to talk to that isn't Sam, he thinks. He frowns. That's fucking random.

Sam's face softens fractionally after a minute, and Dean knows that they're ok again. For the most part, (Sams lectures being the exception) he and Sam are mostly past words. They can communicate almost as well with looks.

"Ok, I'm gonna go dig up a job or something," Sam says eventually, and Dean nods gruffly in approval.

"I'm gonna go back to bed then. Doubt I'll get back to sleep, but it's worth a try." He muses, and Sam rolls his eyes before he goes to dig through his duffle-bag for his laptop. Dean goes to his bed, still unmade, and flops down. He sighs contentedly, and tucks his hands beneath his head. It's not often that he gets to relax. It's nice once in a while.

He lets his mind wander, closing his eyes, as he visits memories of better times. He really learned to appreciate memories when he was on the rack. They were the one thing Alistair couldn't touch, the one thing that he held onto till the very last day. When he gave in, he had felt like he'd had lost the right to those memories, and subsequently, he'd lost access to them. When Cas had pulled him up, raised him from perdition, the memories had come back too, as if plucking him out of hell weren't a present in and of itself. They were spliced in with his memories from hell, some tainted and lost, but there were still a handful of good ones left. He usually thinks about them before he drifts off, and it's become a ritual of his, to think about them when he wants to sleep.

His first kiss, with a girl whose name he no longer remembers, but whose eyes were such a vivid shade of amber they put whiskey to shame. The feeling of his first successful hunt by himself. Makeshift Christmases with stolen presents and convenience store gifts. Setting off fireworks with Sam, lighting up the night on the side of some highway. These were his selfish things, the things that he allowed himself to take a modicum of momentary pleasure in.

Eventually he finds himself thinking about Cas. Actually, it's more Cas' new vessel that he starts considering. She was a pretty thing. It's uncanny how much she had looked like Jimmy; same dark hair, messy curls, same pale skin. Same blue eyes...although he believed those were more Cas than anything. No real person had eyes that shade of impossible blue. It must be an angel thing.

He'd only been teasing Cas with the flirting, but the more he thought about it, the more he lingers on it, the less sure he is about it only being nonchalant. It's been a long time since he's even thought about sex. He has no time for it. The closest he's come to thinking about it was a couple of weeks back when he'd thought about Lisa, while in the shower. He'd beaten off to the image of her, spread out beneath him, moaning his name, but it hadn't been as satisfying as he'd wished. Since then, jerking off had become a mechanical sort of thing, there only for the modicum of stress relief it provided. It wasn't even all that pleasant anymore, and if that wasn't a fucking shame then he didn't know what was.

So it sort of surprises him that this vessel could do the trick for him. If the thought of Lisa couldn't even get him going, someone he thought he might've actually loved, why should this girl be different? Someone he just met, and yet he feels a twist of something in his stomach. Something akin to desire, or at least a strange familiarity. Comfort. Maybe he should ask Cas to give him her number after he gets Jimmy back.

Succinctly, he thinks maybe he could just fuck her now, while she's still around, instead of waiting. The other half of his brain, the half that's functioning properly still, slams on the brakes and he sits upright. WHOA WHOA WAIT WHAT THE FUCK!? Where did that come from!? Cas is in there. Cas. His friend. His guy friend, and an angel at that! Angel of The Lord. How could he even consider that!? Besides! He wasn't gay...he wasn't homophobic or anything, he just...

He was a ladies man dammit! He liked women! He always had! His reputation preceded him in some states for the love of everything sacred. He'd never been interested in a guy.

The traitorous half if his brain disagrees vehemently. It produces half a dozen examples of Dean and attraction of some sort, and lays them out for Dean to see. The siren back in Iowa, Nick, who seduced him in a way that wasn't completely...not sexual. That guy who reversed aged from 60 something to 24 again. Dean had certainly gotten an eyeful checking for a birthmark, and honestly? He hadn't really minded. Who can forget about Gabriel and his Dr. Sexy incident? Dean was a major fanboy, although he'd never admit it, and Sam sometimes still teases him about blushing.

And of course there was the whole Oberon, King of the Faeries thing. Sometimes Dean's not sure if what he remembers is dream or real, but either way, he was temporarily the Faerie Kings favourite, and for a reason.

Then his brain starts in on Cas. The Cas he knows, in his borrowed body, an all the moments that they've shared...

No. Dean shakes his head violently. He's not going there, not doing this. He swings his legs off the bed and stalks over to the fridge, grabbing a beer out if it's depths. He hesitates, before grabbing the whiskey as well, putting them on the counter. He rinses out a glass, still sticky from previous use, and pours himself two or three fingers, and downs it in one go, before pouring more. It burns down his throat, settles heavy in his stomach, and from across the room, he hears Sam grunt in disdain.

Dean doesn't grace him with an answer, or even a look. He just swallows again, the sting of the whiskey a little less pronounced than his first gulp. He caps the whiskey, cracks his beer, and sits back on the bed, the familiar warmth of alcohol suffusing him, and making his brain shut off. He plans on getting a good buzz going, enough to make him forget everything he was just thinking of.

He can't be second guessing his own personality along with everything else he's got on his plate. His sexuality isn't up for debate.

Sam looks like he wants to say something, but wisely, does not, and Dean sighs.

So much for more sleep.