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Dean let out a sigh as he sat down on the rough wood. His hand automatically went to his chest, fingers grasping for comfort from the amulet that was no longer there. Disappointments weren't in short supply these days. His eyes took in the room, looking but not seeing anything as his mind wandered back to the events of the day. It was supposed to be a simple mission. Go out. Get the things. Walk away without anyone dead.
He knew better than to expect everything to go perfectly, but it still stung. He hated that he could read the symptoms before the virus took root, hated that he had gotten so used to it all, that putting a bullet into someone he had been talking to a minute before barely fazed him anymore. Outwardly anyway. He always lost sleep over it, turned it over in his mind over and over again till it started seeming like something he had witnessed rather than done, something unfamiliar. He had nightmares, daydreams, thoughts, but he could let none of them show because the people around him didn't need his crap bothering them any more than the apocalypse already was.
He slept in the shack mostly, even though it reminded him too much of the barn he first met Cas at for him to be truly comfortable. It wasn't home, it was just a place to crash after a long day of doing something he failed at over and over again despite it being all he has ever known. Keeping the people he cared about safe. Every day, he let himself fall into a light sleep just enough to keep him going the next day.
Not today, no. Today he can't breathe.
He opens his mouth, tries to talk to himself, or even just get some air in. No sound comes out. He can't breathe. He knows what kind of night it is going to be, so he gets up and knocks on the door of the only person who would listen.
It is midnight, the air is cold, and the silence does nothing for his panicked mind.
He doesn't speak when he sees Cas, just grips him by the lapels of the shirt he was wearing, his shirt, and presses his mouth against the latter's. His lips taste like smoke, and something else he is sure isn't legal. None of them say anything, not until they are on the couch, lips red and breath coming out in short gasps. He still can't breathe. Cas knows it.
"Breathe with me.", he says in that gravelly voice of his that for now sounds to Dean like it's coming from under water, "breathe, that's it."
Cas doesn't need to breathe, he remembers, he's just doing it to calm Dean down, but he follows along with that fake-breathing anyway. It helps, but he still can't focus.
"Dean."
He blinks. Once. Twice. He blinks until the shape in front of him becomes clear again. It's Cas.
"Cas?"
"It's me, breathe," he repeats, hands cupping Dean's face like there's nowhere he'd rather be. He moves them to Dean's thighs, pressing lightly. And because it's Cas, he knows not to move them any higher, it's just to ground him. It works. He blinks again, then closes his eyes, he can feel that faint thrumming of Cas's grace, or what's left of it, even through the denim, and it's comforting in a way few things in his life are.
Cas puts one hand on his holster, and asks, "May I?"
He doesn't need to, they both know it, but it is a habit at this point. Dean nods, not much he can do anyway, he just breathes in and lets himself go. Cas starts with the holster, moves onto his boots, removing the weight and caressing his skin where he knows Dean needs him to until he is down to his boxers and shirt, then steps away after pressing a kiss to his forehead.
A decade ago he would have laughed if he saw how he was now, with someone he loved, in his underwear but doing nothing. Sex wasn't the same as before. Before it was, good. Not great, not a necessity, but good. It made his body feel good, it gave him a distraction, one of the few his dad allowed him to have. The experiences he had with it weren't all good, not by a long shot, but he could still repress those enough to enjoy an occasional hookup.
Now, it was different. He wasn't sure when it had changed, or if it had always been this way. Now, he couldn't go through a particularly intense make out session without feeling sick because it always led to wandering hands where he didn't want them. It wasn't for the lack of trying, he had tried, God knows he had. It didn't work. He tried it once. He threw up immediately. The girl slapped him and went away. He told Cas about it that night. They laughed, and they drank, and Dean never tried again.
He thinks maybe it is because he had to see his brother be worn by an archangel like a meat suit that made him this way, the very thought of vulnerability and having to give up some control of his body making him uncomfortable, but somehow, he knows that is not the only reason.
With Cas it is different, the familiarity, the trust he has with him makes him comfortable in the fact that Cas would never push him beyond what he could handle. His touch doesn't burn, it heals. It feels safe, it feels like home.
His eyes are still closed when Cas returns and presses the glass of water to his lips, he opens them as he drinks slowly, all too tempted to close them again once Cas cards a hand into his hair, touching him like he is made of glass.
"How do you feel?"
"Better," he rasps out, letting out a small groan at the feel of Cas's cold ring clad fingers against his warm skin. He doesn't deserve it, he thinks. This care, this affection. He thinks back to all that has happened. So many dead. His brother, lost.
Everybody he loved. Everybody he tried to love.
Cassie.
Lisa.
Anna.
Cas.
Cas.
Cas, who is barely holding on, barely himself.
His thoughts must show on his face by the way Cas is looking at him. A ghost of a humorless smile on his face, eyes content yet curious. He looks Dean up and down once and then sits beside him, moving him so he can pull him in a hug.
"Who?", he asks. Of course he does.
"Risa."
"I'm sorry."
Dean doesn't realize he is crying until he feels a tear drop on his hand. He wipes it away unhurriedly, Cas has seen him in way worse situations.
"Me too."
It isn't exactly healthy, what they have going on, he knows. A shrink would tell him to end it, had one around been alive, or sane enough to consult.
"It wasn't your fault," Cas says, his lips are pressing kisses to his face and hands are holding on to Dean as if he would disappear if he let go, "none of it."
"Sure as hell doesn't feel like it," he sighs as he returns the kiss to his lips, "doesn't make it easier."
"I know."
"I'm sorry." Dean says after a while.
"For what?"
"Everything. You should be up in heaven or wherever it is your dicks of angel brothers are hiding, not-"
"Not?" Cas asks, turning Dean to face him and a genuine smile on his face, like he had heard a joke he already knew the punchline to.
"Not here, stuck in our mess."
"Can you say that again?"
"What?"
"Say it again."
"Not here, stuck in our mess."
"Our mess." he says with a snort, "I did not drop into a heap of mortality by accident, Dean, I fell. I did it for you, but more importantly, I did it for me, because what I learned, because of all that's happened, none of that is on you, and I would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant I got to be with you here like this, if I got to take care of you the way you always have for me."
Dean looks at Cas the way he always does. With unabashed adoration and awe, he lets him pull him closer, clings on like a child when Cas pulls him up and takes them to bed, and presses his face to his neck when they fall asleep together, the last thing he hears before his eyes close is Cas's words, whispered against his hair with all the love in the world,
"I always knew you were my ruination, Dean Winchester, I just didn't realize how much I would relish putting back each and every part of that broken thing back together. Rest now, angel."