Note: National Novel Writing Month 2013

“Dean, I’m putting your leftovers in the front hall!”

“Okay!” he called back, careful not to pull his hand away from Meghan’s in the cozy light of the living room. “Thanks Mom!”

Meghan giggled, tugging the knotted spiral cord off his wrist to finish tying it. “She’s my mom,” she reminded him. “Not yours, silly.”

“Oh, right.” Dean grinned as Meghan’s mom poked her head into the room. “Well, then, can I share her? She makes awesome pumpkin pie.”

“Yes,” Meghan decided, even as her mother smirked back at Dean. He figured his brother’s fiance’s sister’s kid was basically his niece, and he could share her family if he wanted to. “She can be your mom too.”

“Thanks,” Dean told her. “That’s very generous of you.”

“Uh-huh,” Meghan agreed. “Here, your bracelet is ready. Do you want me to help you put it on?”

He eyed the knots in the colored cord she was holding out. If there was a way to put it on without tying another one, he couldn’t see it. “Yeah, I think that’d be a good idea.”

“Dean, are you taking your presents with you?” Sam came in the other door, arms full of stockings and headed for the tree. “Some of them? Any of them?”

“Aw, come on,” Dean protested. “We don’t hang stockings before Christmas Eve, Sam!”

“We don’t hang them on Halloween, either,” Sam said. “We compromised on the day after Thanksgiving. Suck it up. Unless you want to take yours with you.”

“I’m taking leftovers with me and that’s it.” Dean looked down when Meghan patted his wrist and added, “And this cool bracelet. Who even buys presents before Thanksgiving, anyway?”

“It’s the day after Thanksgiving,” Sam repeated. “We had an all night wrapping party on Christmas Eve last year, and I’m not doing that again. We wrap everything as we buy it.”

“You should take your presents with you,” Meghan said, twisting his arm so she could see what she was doing. “That way you have more time to guess what they are.”

“No shaking them,” Sam warned.

“I’m not taking anything with me,” Dean said. “Forget it.”

“Why not?” Meghan wanted to know. “There. Your bracelet looks nice.”

“Yeah, Dean,” Sam said, holding a stocking with a reindeer on it up against the floor-to-ceiling cupboards in the corner. “Why not?”

Dean held out his hand and inspected the colored cord wrapped around his wrist. It would probably stay under his sleeve if he couldn’t figure out how to get it off. “Looks great, Meghan. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, scrambling off the couch. “Where’s my stocking? Can mine be in the middle?”

The phone in Dean’s pocket vibrated. He glanced into the kitchen automatically, but Jess and Ariel were both standing over boxes chatting. Bringing out more Christmas decorations, no doubt. If they were both in view, and Sam and Meghan were with him, there was only one person who would be calling this phone.

He pulled it out, but it wasn’t Castiel’s name on the display.

Dean frowned, putting the phone to his ear. “Hey, it’s Dean,” he said. Carefully, in case it really was Dani calling him. He’d never seen her use her phone except to send him her number the day after they’d met.

“Hi Dean,” Dani’s voice said.

And that was it. He waited, but she didn’t say anything else, so he asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said.

There was another long pause.

“Is everyone else okay?” he asked at last. Sam was watching him from the other side of the room. Meghan was playing with the pompoms on her stocking, and Dean tried to remember that his kids didn’t babble the way she did.

“I think so,” Dani said.

“Okay,” Dean said, because none of the kids had ever called him on his “weekends” before. Castiel had called once, to ask if he could come back early in exchange for an extra day the next week, but most of the time his days off were totally angel-free.

“Do you need something?” he asked.

“No,” Dani replied.

Dean didn’t sigh, because they were harder to read over the phone than they were in person. At least when he could see what they looked like he could guess how serious it was. “Dani,” he said, “why did you call me?”

“Father told me I should ask you if you’re coming back tonight,” Dani said.

That didn’t make any sense. “Of course I am,” he said, glancing over at Meghan when he heard her ask Sam who Dani was. Kids heard everything. “I’ll be there when you get up tomorrow morning, okay?”

There was a pause that was different than the other pauses. “Okay,” she repeated.

“Dani,” Dean said, as patiently as he could. “Why would you think I’m not coming back?”

He saw Sam look at him out of the corner of his eye, and he caught his brother’s gaze for a moment. He shrugged without moving, and Sam made a sympathetic face. The rest of Castiel’s family went around killing each other, so maybe they were just worried about him.

“I know you’re coming back,” Dani said. “You said, ‘see you Saturday.’”

“Right,” Dean agreed, when that was all she said. “So I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “Bye, Dean.”

He didn’t have a good feeling about this, but he said good night anyway and hung up because he had no idea how to get anything else out of her. Sam was trying to tell Meghan how old each of the kids was, and he paused long enough to ask, “Everything okay?”

“Not sure,” Dean said slowly. “Dani called to see if I’m coming back.”

“She say why?” Sam asked.

Dean shook his head. “No.”

“Sam says Dani is my age,” Meghan said. “Can she come with you next time? I can get her a present so she has something to open on Christmas.”

He had to smile. Dani’s father had more money than he had kids, and with seven of them that was saying something. He was pretty sure Dani could have whatever she wanted for Christmas.

“That’s real nice of you,” he told Meghan. “I’ll see what her dad says, okay?”

Castiel had to be coaxed into letting his teenage children go to human sleepovers. Together. Dean didn’t think his youngest would be allowed to visit a heavily supernatural-involved family by herself. But hey, she’d never asked, so who knew.

“Okay,” Meghan agreed. “If you and Sam come he won’t mind. My mom says you’re the best protectors.”

Dean caught Sam’s eye again. “Oh she does, does she? Where did she get that idea?”

“It’s true,” Meghan insisted. “Sam says you take care of all of Dani’s family. And Sam takes care of everyone.”

“Sam takes care of everyone?” Dean repeated. “You know what Sam does, right?”

“Dean,” Sam warned.

Sam puts everyone in danger by trying to rehabilitate monsters, Dean wanted to say. But he didn’t, because Sam was glaring at him. And also because he didn’t hate Sam’s latest project, or the one before that, which was enough of a change that he was willing to look the other way.

He told himself it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that Sam hadn’t brought up Nick in months.

“He helps everyone live together,” Meghan declared. “Like me and Dani. Can I call her? Can you call her for me? We can talk on your phone.”

“Hey, Meghan,” Sam said, in his most obvious trying-to-distract-a-five-year-old voice, “are you sure you want your stocking in the middle? You won’t be able to reach it unless we put it on the side.”

“I can reach it!” She put her hand up against the cupboard as high as it would go. “See!”

Dean pointed at his phone and jerked his head toward the front hall. Sam nodded, holding the stocking just out of Meghan’s reach. “I don’t think you can,” Sam told her. He lifted it higher when she jumped, and Dean rolled his eyes.

He stepped out of the room before Meghan could start climbing Sam, because he was pretty sure that was next. He found Cas’ number and called it. The phone didn’t even pretend to ring before a voice said, “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey, Cas.” He looked over his shoulder like just talking to Cas could give him away somehow. That was when he realized he was smiling, and he tried to stop. “Just got a call from Dani. Everything okay?”

"No," Castiel replied, which Dean had learned didn't necessarily mean immediate disaster. "But the children are well."

"How about you?" Dean asked. "How are you doing?"

There was a noticeable pause, but Castiel answered, "I am impatient," and that was progress. They were totally sometimes communicating with each other. Sam would be proud.

"About what?" Dean wanted to know.

"Dani has repeatedly asked me when you will return," Castiel admitted. "As I am unable to supply an adequate estimate for her, it is… frustrating that she continues to pose the question."

"I'm coming back tonight," Dean said. "I told you I'd be back Friday night. Why is everyone confused about this?" It wasn't like he'd never been gone for two days in a row.

"That is insufficient," Castiel told him. "Dani wants to know the hour of your return. I believe her concern lies in whether she will see you before her bedtime or not."

Dean could have kicked himself. Of course she did; why hadn't he guessed that? The kids had an across the board bedtime of twelve, which was weird but Dean tried not to fight more parenting battles than he had to. They weren't actually his kids, after all.

"Right," he said aloud. "Should've figured that out myself. Sorry. It's only, what?" He tilted his watch toward the light in the hall. "Eight-thirty. I can totally be home before midnight."

"Dean," Castiel said. "You are under no obligation to return before the end of the day. I have assured Dani that you will be here tomorrow morning, and that should be enough." But it isn't went unspoken.

"No, it's fine," Dean said. "I'm tired anyway; I should be hitting the road. Tell her I'll be home by eleven, how's that?"

"It's unnecessary," Castiel said, because Dean had asked him a question and he answered literally. Then he added, "But your presence will be most welcome."

"Yeah?" Dean couldn't keep himself from smiling this time. "You miss me, Cas?"

"Yes," Castiel replied. "I fear that anything else I say, I will say wrong. But I do miss you."

Dean didn't push, because Cas had a remarkable tendency to put his foot in his mouth and Dean couldn't be upset with him for trying to avoid that. It was easier to figure out where Cas was going with stuff, why he was saying things that sounded stupid or terrible or ungrateful, when Dean was with him. He wouldn't try to make Cas sound more human than he was over the phone.

"Me too," Dean said. No one in the house with him could possibly know what he was responding to even if they were listening. And living with Cas and the kids had made him uncomfortably aware that he was modeling appropriate emotional expression every time he talked to them.

"You don't say that often," Castiel remarked, and damn it. Leave it to Cas to call him on the one thing he was most uncomfortable about. "Is it inappropriate to admit such a thing?"

"No," Dean muttered. "It's just--" There was nothing he could say that wouldn't give him away, and nothing he could not-say that would be enough. It was a choice between being weird to Cas and being embarrassed in front of Sam, who probably wasn't even--

Well. Who was Dean kidding. Of course Sam was listening.

"Can we talk about it later?" he said at last.

"Of course," Castiel said. "I will assume it is an inappropriate topic of conversation until and unless you tell me otherwise."

The thing was, Dean was almost sure Cas didn't do it on purpose. He thought he was letting Dean know that he understood. And if it happened to come out sounding like, it's fine that you can't say nice things about me when other people are listening, then that was just Dean reading too much into it.

"It's not inappropriate," Dean said with a sigh. "It's just that my brother is gonna make fun of me forever when he hears me say I miss the guy I'm dating."

"Why?" Castiel wanted to know. "If it's not inappropriate?"

"Because brothers are annoying that way," Dean said. Except that didn't really tell him anything, so he tried again. "I don't talk a lot about my feelings, okay? So Sam thinks it's funny to embarrass me when I do."

"I see," Castiel said. He obviously didn't, but Dean was distracted by Sam appearing in the doorway to the living room so he wasn't much help.

"Why do you assume I'm eavesdropping on every conversation you have?" Sam demanded. "Give me the phone; I can explain it much better."

"I'm not giving you the phone!" Dean glared at him. "This is my conversation; go away."

"You're just confusing him," Sam said. "Cas, it's not because he doesn't talk about his feelings; it's because he makes fun of other people for talking about theirs. So when he does it, we have to get back at him."

"Ah," Castiel said. Because of course he could hear Sam no matter how far from the phone he was. "It's a sort of equal give and take. The human concept of obligation, or a favor returned."

"Did that help?" Sam asked.

"No," Dean told him.

"Yes," Castiel said in his ear. "Sam does it to you because you've done it to him in the past; is that correct?"

"No," Dean repeated, "he does it to me because he's a jerk. Sam, go away."

Sam smirked at him. "Tell Cas he's welcome, and he shouldn't worry about it. None of the rest of us understand you either."

"Who are you talking to?" Meghan wanted to know. She slipped under Sam's arm to lean out into the hall, like she knew she wasn't supposed to be there and she might get in less trouble if she didn't go any farther than Sam had.

"I'm talking to Cas," Dean said.

At the same moment Sam said, "He's talking to his boyfriend, Meghan. You should say hi; I bet Cas would like to hear from you."

"Hi!" Meghan said loudly. Then she said, "Is he Dani's dad? Can I meet Dani?"

"Okay, I'm gonna go," Dean told the phone. "I'll see you later, all right?"

"That is acceptable," Castiel agreed. He sounded amused, even over the phone, which was pretty impressive for him. "Please convey my greeting to Sam and Meghan."

"Yeah, they say hi back," Dean told him. "See you."

He hung up before Sam could actually steal it from him. "Cas says hi," he said. "To both of you. I don't," he added. "In fact, I'm saying the opposite. Where's my pie?"

"Are you leaving, Dean?" Ariel looked into the hall from the kitchen side like she hadn't been listening to the entire conversation. "We have some extra cookie dough if you want to take it back to the kids."

"Hey, I'm never gonna turn down cookie dough." Jess' sister definitely knew how to get on his good side. "But yeah, I think I'm gonna head out. I guess the kids are driving Cas crazy."

"Really?" Sam looked skeptical, but Ariel made a sympathetic face.

"Well, promise them cookies if they go to bed on time," she said. "It works with Meghan."

"Can I have cookies?" Meghan asked.

"Tomorrow," her mother told her. "Did you help Sam hang up the stockings?"

"Yup! Mine's next to the window so I can see it from outside!"

"She was a big help," Sam said. "Here, I'll let Jess know you're leaving."

"I'm coming!" Jess called from the kitchen. "I'm just putting the cookie dough in a container!"

"Dean's probably going to need a bag," Ariel said, looking at the pile of leftovers on the hall table. "I'll get one."

Dean was getting his jacket out of the coat closet, because Sam had a coat closet and for the first time Dean hadn't even thought about it. When he'd arrived, he'd hung up his jacket without someone having to pick it up from where he'd tossed it. He only noticed now because Sam had crossed his arms and was grinning at him when he turned around.

"What?" Dean asked defensively, but he already knew. He had manners now. Or something like.

"Nothing," Sam said. "Sure you don't want to take your stocking with you?"

"I'll be back for Christmas, Sammy." He said it every year, and most years he even managed it.

This time all Sam said was, "You should bring Cas. And the kids. It'd be fun."

Dean scoffed. "We'd overrun your house. You can barely fit me in here with Ariel and Meghan too."

"We can always fit you," Sam said firmly. "And we could make it work with Cas. You should think about it, let us know."

"I'm sure they have some crazy Christmas tradition of their own," Dean said. "They're--" He stopped just short of saying "angels," reminded himself not to substitute "fucking religious" in front of Meghan, and went with, "kind of old-fashioned that way."

"You think?" Sam was giving him an odd look, and it made Dean nervous. "You might want to check with Cas on that. I always got the impression that Christmas wasn't a big deal for… uh. Them."

Jess' sister knew what Sam did, and she knew who Dean was working for. If her kid knew, though, then Meghan hadn't blurted it out all weekend. Dean had assumed they weren't talking about it for her benefit. He didn't know for sure, but this wasn't the first time Sam had danced around something that would spell it out.

"Okay," Jess said, bringing a canvas bag into the hallway. "I think we can get everything in here without spilling any of it."

Ariel was right there too, and she helped Jess stack the dishes from the table into the bag, hopefully on top of the cookie dough. "No problem," she said, and Jess put the handles together and handed it to Dean with a flourish.

"Thanks," he said. "Thanks for dinner, and… you know. Everything."

Jess stepped into him, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "We'll see you for Christmas, right?"

"You bet," he agreed. "You better send me a Christmas list, though, or you're all getting food."

"Sounds good to me," Ariel said, moving in for her hug. "Good to see you, Dean."

"You too." He smiled at her when she pulled away, then reached down to ruffle Meghan's hair. "Happy Thanksgiving, kiddo."

"Happy Thanksgiving to you!" She held up her arms, and he rolled his eyes. He never should have thrown her when she was little.

Setting down the bag of food, he shoved his keys back in his pocket and picked her up. "You're too big to throw," he said, just in case she got any ideas. "See you later, Megs."

"Bye Dean," she said, hugging him happily.

When he put her down, Sam held out his hand. Dean grabbed it and they pulled each other in, because it wasn't really a hug if they pounded each other on the back. It was just what they did.

"Drive safe," Sam said when they let each other go. "Tell Cas hi for us."

"Yeah," Dean said, picking up his food again. "I think he got the message."

He looked back at the house when he finally made it to his car: the four of them were all clustered around the storm door, Meghan's hands pressed up against the glass while Ariel tried to pull her back. Sam and Jess were saying something to each other, the tallest people in the door, and Dean thought all they needed was a dog or something and they would be ridiculously perfect. He still wasn't sure why they put up with him crashing their holidays.

He turned the key and the headlights came on. Suddenly everyone was waving, and he had to wave back. Like they could even see him, right? Sam had once said they could, when Dean asked, but he flicked the headlights anyway.

The road was darker than he wanted it to be, and it took him most of the way home to figure out why. When it finally came to him, he really hoped he was just tired. Because angels glowed, right? Did chauffeuring the kids around make it seem less like night outside?

He turned on the radio, but they were playing Christmas music already and wow, he'd really had enough of that today. He put in a tape instead. It wasn't even going to be eleven by the time he got there, but the road still seemed too long.

That should worry him more than it did. He was tired, right? He liked road trips, he liked being out here for days at a time. He liked sleeping in his car, not having to answer to anyone. When this job was over, he'd get right back into it.

When this job was over.

He turned up the music, because if there was one thing Sam got right about him, other than everything, it was the fact that he was deliberately self-destructive. He'd gotten better at recognizing it since he met Castiel, who was exactly the same way. Dean was learning when to stop thinking and just let the mood pass.

It would have been easier with alcohol, but working with kids didn't give him a lot of opportunity. Probably why Sam had set him up with Castiel in the first place. His stubborn brother was as obnoxious about fixing humans as he was about helping monsters, and Dean tried not to be one of his projects but some days it was harder than others.

The lights were on when he pulled into the driveway. A lot of lights were on. He could identify every window in the house now, and most of the kids' rooms were lit up. They weren't the only ones, though: the downstairs was unnecessarily bright, and all the outdoor lights were on.

Cas left those on for him, he knew. Dean had once made a joke about "leaving the lights on," and then he'd had to try to convince Cas that it wasn't supposed to be all the lights a person owned. They'd managed to compromise on all of the outside lights. Dean still wasn't thrilled about it, because it meant that anyone who knew how to read the signs could tell when he wasn't home. But it was better than lighting up the entire place, and sometimes he turned on all the outdoor lights himself just to confuse things.

He hit the garage door opener--he had a garage door opener now, go figure--and the door was rolling open for him by the time he reached it. He didn't know where Cas got his money and he didn't ask, but anyone who could afford a garage that fit both a giant Hummer and classic Impala was…

Well. The kind of man who could hire a full-time bodyguard for his seven privately-schooled children. Dean wondered sometimes how Cas and Sam had met, but Sam always said they knew each other from school and Cas occasionally mentioned a class they'd shared or research they'd done together, so Dean thought maybe he was better off not knowing.

The interior garage lights were on too, but they came on whenever someone used the remote. Dean rolled into his usual place on the far side of Castiel's huge kid transport and turned the car off. He grabbed his bag and got out, and by the time he'd made it to the door it was already open.

"Hey," Dean called, and he saw Castiel smile. Those wings were blue and gold and overwhelming. He couldn't look directly at them, so he held up the bag instead. "Jess sent leftovers," he said. "Want to help me eat dessert later?"

"Yes," Castiel said, holding out his hand.

Dean pushed past it, wrapping his free arm around Cas and feeling that hand curl around his back. "Hey," he repeated, more softly. "You have a good weekend?"

It was only half the long weekend, but he got two days off a week and most of the time Dean was afraid to leave them alone longer than that anyway. He might be human but they definitely weren't. They sucked at blending in. And their murderous war-torn family was, for some reason, scared of Dean.

"Not particularly," Castiel said. He didn't lower his voice but he rested his forehead against Dean's and added, "It would have been better if you were here."

"Yeah, well." Dean didn't know why he said it; he thought better of it even as the words were coming out of his mouth, but it was way too late by then. "Sam wants you all to come for Christmas, so."

"To his house?" Castiel seemed more amused than surprised. "I'm not certain we would fit comfortably."

"That's what I told him," Dean agreed.

"He should come here," Castiel continued. "I have invited him and Jessica before, but I'm afraid they were not convinced of my sincerity. Perhaps you could help me to change that."

"It's not just them," Dean said, and why was he even going along with this? Why was he pretending it was a real thing, an actual option they had? He couldn't have his brother over for Christmas at Castiel's place. "They've got Ariel and Meghan too. Jess' sister and her daughter."

"We would hardly be overcome by their numbers," Castiel said.

Dean had to smile, because Cas was better at sarcasm than Dean gave him credit for sometimes. It came out of nowhere in his otherwise overly literal approach. "It's a nice idea," he said. He wanted to kiss Cas. He wasn't sure it had even occurred to Cas, though, and repeated experience had taught him that nothing ruined the moment faster than getting that wrong.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked, like he'd just thought of it, and Cas huffed out a little breath of something. Amusement, surprise, who knew. His eyes were very close when he lifted them to Dean's.

"Please do," Castiel said.

Dean pressed his nose alongside Castiel's and felt their mouths meet: easily, softly, like they did it every day. And they did, almost. As close to every day as he could manage. Cas seemed perfectly happy to play boyfriends with him, and Dean would take it if it meant he got to keep this crazy family a little while longer.

Hi Dean, he heard in his head, and he pulled away from Cas quickly.

"Hi Dani," he said aloud. He smiled at Cas, who only tilted his head in return. Dean let go of him, waiting for Cas to release him in return before he edged around him into the house.

He had to walk through Cas' wings to do it, and he tried to pretend he didn't notice. He thought Cas put them in his way on purpose sometimes. He hadn't been able to get much more about the wings than 1)they could fly, 2)they were like mood rings, and 3)other people would know if Dean touched them. It was the last part he was least clear on, since Cas said it was okay to touch the kids' wings but barely ever talked about his own.

Dani was sitting on the bottom stair in the middle of the house atrium. She was wearing his flannel shirt again, which he'd tried to keep her from doing by making sure she had flannel shirts of her own, but she'd never given his back and he wasn't about to ask. "I made you a present," she said out loud.

"Yeah?" He put the canvas bag down by the first table he passed and went to sit next to her on the stairs. "That's real nice of you. What is it?"

She held out a little brown piece of paper, and he recognized the shape right away. "It's a turkey," he said, because he knew this one. Mrs. Knowles had gotten all the kids involved in turkey crafts--harvest crafts, she called them--in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. His kids didn't really seem to get it, but they'd traced their hands along with everyone else and colored in the fingers.

Except this one wasn't just colored in. Dean looked at it more closely, because it was solid and it had a lot of shadows: paper overlays, he realized. This wasn't just a hand cutout; this was a hand cutout covered in tiny feathers.

"Wow," he said, because shit, even he didn't have that kind of hand-eye coordination. Or the patience to cut out that many baby turkey feathers just so they could cover each other up, brown on brown, on top of another sheet of paper. "Did you make this in school?"

He knew she hadn't; he'd been with her in school all week. He stayed with the younger kids most of the time, taking an afternoon here or a morning there to haunt the older kids' classes. He was more of a distraction there, ironically, so he mostly caught up on what they were doing and made sure they weren't being attacked before he went back to the lower grades.

"No," she said. "It doesn't look like the other kids' turkeys."

"Yeah, understatement," Dean said. "It's way better." He probably wasn't supposed to say things like that. It was a waldorf school; they didn't even get grades. Parents probably weren't supposed to tell their kids they were better than the other students.

But hey, he wasn't a parent, right?

"Dani," he said, "this is the single best paper turkey I've ever seen. When did you make it?"

"While you were with Sam," she said. "You said Thanksgiving was about turkey. So I made you a turkey."

She looked a little more pleased now, less solemn, and she'd just strung together three sentences in a row so that was pretty impressive. He ran his finger over the feathers in the tail: each feather was a solid color but the layers were shaded from front to back, and he'd love to know how she stuck them all down without getting glue everywhere.

"It's great," he told her. "We should hang it up somewhere so everyone can see it." Except he knew, even as he said it, that she hadn't shown it to anyone else. Castiel was as surprised by the paper turkey as he was, which, oops. He probably should have told him about the kids' crafts at school.

"And," Dean added, "so we can see it all the time. What do you think?"

She did seem to think about it, which was why he laughed when she said, "You're in the kitchen a lot. I think you should put it in the kitchen."

"I think that's a great idea," he said, grinning. "Should we go do it now?"

"Yes," Dani agreed. "So that you can see it again in the morning."

"Oh," Dean said, putting his hands under her arms and lifting her to her feet, "I think I'll see it before then." He had to put the food away, after all. And bless Ariel and Jess for the cookie dough, because all the kids were going to ask him what was in the bag.

"Are you going to eat something now?" Dani asked. They were all fascinated by what he ate and when, and he tried not to let it make him self-conscious. Sam had already warned him not to raise the kids on french fries and milkshakes.

"Nah," Dean said. "But Sam sent some food back with me, so I'm gonna put that in the refrigerator." The refrigerator. Why hadn't he thought of that? Wasn't that where all kids' artwork went?

"What kind of food?" Dani wanted to know. Dean caught Castiel's eye and smiled, because Cas was just standing there watching and he looked about as happy as Dani sounded. Like the day had finally started, just because Dean was there.

Dean tried not to think about things like that, so he told Dani, "Cookie dough. Jess and Ariel made dough so they can all make cookies tomorrow, and they thought you guys might like some."

He wasn't surprised when Maia and Maru followed them into the kitchen. He'd been ready for all of the kids to appear, but the fact that some of them were doing something more interesting than following him around was reassuring. He didn't have to look back to know that Cas was lingering in the doorway.

"Is that what's in your bag?" Maia asked.

They still weren't good at hello and goodbye, but he'd gotten used to it. He figured if they could psychically sense where anyone in the family was at any given time, it made sense that they didn't have much concept of separation.

"Sure is," Dean said. "That and a few other things. We'll do cookies tomorrow, if you want."

"I do," Dani said, surprising him. "I like cookies."

"Yeah?" Dean grinned down at her. She was testing out "like" and "don't like," and she had a good role model in Saph. The next youngest angel had embraced "liking" and "not liking" things whole-heartedly. Dani had tentatively followed her example.

The rest of them weren't on board, but at least Maribel didn't look at him weirdly when he asked if she wanted something these days. She didn't say yes or no either, but she did answer. Most of the time.

"Well, I like cookies too," Dean said. "And I'm pretty sure anything the ladies make is going to be great, so we'll make sure everyone gets some."

At first he'd tried to avoid naming all of Sam's people in front of the kids, but that had lasted about ten minutes. They never forgot anything, so if he said it once they could pull it out at a moment's notice. And if he didn't say it, they assumed they weren't supposed to know, which made him feel bad and he ended up telling them anyway.

"Can I help make them?" Maru asked.

"Yeah, of course," Dean said. "Anyone who wants to help can. They already made the dough, so I don't think there's gonna be too many steps. I think the point is to decorate them before you put them in the oven."

"I can do that," Maru said.

"Yeah, we'll split up the dough," Dean said. "So everyone can decorate their own cookie." He was putting the leftovers into the refrigerator, and he couldn't help but notice that it looked the same as it always did.

He held up the cookie dough anyway, pointing to it before he put it away. "Delicious cookie dough," he said. "Almost ready for eating."

"Can you eat it before you put it in the oven?" Maia asked. He didn't know if she got that from him, from the way he said it, maybe, or if she'd just overheard people talking about it somewhere.

"Sure," Dean said. "But if you eat it first, you can't make cookies with it."

She nodded like he'd given some important explanation, and he wondered, not for the first time, what the hell he was doing here. He treated them like kids. They acted like kids, sometimes. But they didn't bat an eye when their house caught on fire, and when their dad went off to fight they picked up their swords and taught Dean to use them. They could probably recite entire encyclopedias worth of knowledge, and here they were asking him about eating cookie dough before it was cooked.

Dani pointed at the refrigerator after he closed it. She didn't say anything, though, so he pointed too. "Refrigerator?" he said.

She shook her head. No.

He held up her paper turkey. "Turkey?"

She nodded, and he tried not to smile. Castiel had introduced him to Dani by saying, Sometimes she doesn't speak. I don't know why. When Dean found out what she was, he'd assumed Castiel meant, sometimes she didn't speak out loud. She seemed to like angel-speak more than any of her brothers and sisters--or she pretended to--but even after Dean could hear her in his head, sometimes there was nothing.

She literally didn't speak. Just like Cas had said. Dean didn't get it either, but her teacher at school didn't seem alarmed, so maybe it wasn't that weird?

"Great place for the turkey," Dean agreed. "You have any magnets?"

Dani nodded, but Maru was the one to get them. He handed Dean a row of black rectangular magnets, stuck together but easily detached. Dean had Dani hold her turkey up against the refrigerator door while he put one of the black bars in the middle of it. Her hand was so small that the magnet took up half the length of the turkey.

"Okay," Dean said. Looking down at the rest of the magnets, he figured there wasn't any point in putting them away. "Can we keep these out? In case we want to hang up something else?"

No one answered, which he assumed meant yes, so he put them all on the door. They made the turkey look kind of lonely up there by itself. On an impulse, he arranged four of the bars to make a "T." Then he counted the ones that were left and asked, "Hey, you don't have any more of these, do you?"

"Yes," Maru said, turning up another pack of ten. "Is this enough?"

Dean wanted to ask how many they had, given that they apparently never used them, but he was a little afraid to find out. "Sure," he said instead. He used most of the rest of the magnets to spell out "DAY." Maru and Dani watched intently, and when he looked up, Wildfire had joined Maia in the kitchen.

"Hey, Wildfire," he said. "Where's everyone else?"

She looked around as though he might not have noticed everyone else in the kitchen with them, but all she said was, "Maribel and Adamel are doing their homework. Saph is watching TV."

Saph probably watched too much TV, but who was Dean to say. He'd complain about all of them doing too much homework first. And they would look at him like he was speaking another language, so he didn't bother.

"Okay," he said. "Great." He was at a loss then, because apparently Dani had wanted him to come home so much that she'd called him at Sam's to see what he was doing, but what was he supposed to do now that he was here? They mostly entertained themselves in the evenings.

"Anyone need anything?" Dean tried. He wouldn't mind sneaking off with Cas for a little while, or failing that just crashing in his own bed, but he had four of seven kids staring at him like just having him there in front of them was entertainment enough.

Dani tugged on his hand, which was typical for her but not very informative. He looked down anyway, and she shook her head. "Anyone want anything?" he guessed instead.

This time she nodded, and he raised his eyebrows. "Good for you," he told her, because seriously, these kids did not have enough opinions. "What is it?"

She was so quiet he almost couldn't hear her, but it's not like the other kids were drowning her out with commentary. "Do you have any pictures of Sam?" she whispered.

"Pictures of Sam?" Dean repeated. Just to make sure he'd heard her right.

Dani just looked at him. They still weren't great at guessing what was a question and what was a statement, and it was confused by their ingrained obedience. If he acted surprised, sometimes they withdrew until he told them it was all right.

"I mean," Dean said, "I have tons of pictures of Sam. You want--" He tried to make it clearer for her. "Would you like to see pictures of Sam at Thanksgiving?"

"Yes," Dani whispered.

Dean felt a grin spread across his face. "Well, let me tell you," he said. "You've asked the right person." He looked around at the rest of them, figured at least half of them would gather around with her if he pulled out his phone, and said, "Let's go set up the TV for a few minutes."

He'd done a slideshow on the TV before, after Sam made it look cool and also flipped some switch that meant it was basically about pushing a couple of buttons to make the connection. He knew from experience that seven kids did not fit around a single phone. And they seemed weirdly interested in what he took pictures of, whether it was them or places they'd been or people they'd never even met.

Every kid in the kitchen followed him out of it. Castiel stepped aside to let them pass, but he came with them too. Dean guessed maybe other people's Thanksgivings were kind of interesting. He wasn't surprised that someone had told Maribel and Adamel what was going on, but he was interested to see them both coming down the stairs to join them instead of just appearing where the TV was.

Saph, of course, was already in front of the TV. There was a giant spider on the screen, and then horrified people, and Dean blurted out, "What are you watching?"

Unlike the other kids, Saph craned her neck around immediately to see if the question was aimed at her. She beamed at him. "Hi Dean! How was your weekend?"

"Uh, it was good," he said, eyeing the screen. "How was yours?" Because he wasn't going to sabotage the manners of the only kid who seemed to have them.

"Kind of boring," she said frankly. "It's more interesting when you're here."

He glanced at Cas, but her father didn't look offended. Cas had basically said the same thing, and Dean wondered suddenly if Saph had been listening. She was a great mimic.

Two of the people on the TV were yelling suddenly, and Dean asked again, "Saph, what are you watching?"

"It's called 'Project: Fear'," she said. "It's a show about making people scared so that other people can be entertained. It's rated R," she added, because she was very proud of her ability to know which shows she was allowed to tell other kids she watched and which shows she wasn't.

"Right," Dean said. "I gotta say, I'm not excited about that show." He wasn't excited about her watching it, was what he meant, but she wasn't his kid. She wasn't even a kid at all. At least for certain definitions of "kid."

"Oh." Saph studied him carefully, and he got the sense that she was comparing his reaction to others he'd been more explicit about. "Do you not want me to watch it?"

"Well, I don't want to watch it," Dean said. "How's that? Can we use the TV to look at pictures for a few minutes?"

"Can I see the pictures too?" In any other kid, it would be bargaining. In Cas' kids, it was just absolute acceptance of adult rule. She didn't answer the question because to her, it wasn't a question. Dean was going to take over the TV, and all she wanted to know was, could she watch what he was doing with it?

"Yeah, of course," he said. "How about you set it up for my phone?"

"Okay," Saph agreed. She had the remote beside her, and she held out her hand for his phone. That hadn't been exactly what he meant, but there probably wasn't anything on there he didn't want her to see. He hoped.

He felt a hand in his, and there was Dani again. Where did you get your bracelet? she asked silently.

"Oh, do you like that?" He smiled at her. "Meghan made it for me. I guess they're a big thing at her school."

"It looks like a small thing," Maribel offered, coming around the end of the couch. She was one of the only kids who understood sarcasm well enough to use it. But like her dad, she had a deadpan expression that made it impossible to tell when she was serious and when she wasn't.

"Hello, Dean," she added, while he was still trying to decide.

"Hey," he said, reaching down to pick Dani up. She didn't protest as he swung her over the back of the couch to sit next to Saph. "Miss me?"

Maribel was carrying one of the armchairs across the room to join the couch. "At times more than others," she said.

Dean grinned, and not just because she'd lifted a chair that probably weighed more than she did. Good girl, he thought, and he didn't necessarily mean for her to hear but he thought she must have when she raised an eyebrow at him.

"How did she make it?" Saph wanted to know. Her eyes were on his phone, but she had to be talking about the bracelet.

"I dunno," he admitted. "Something about tying knots. Lots of knots. She'd probably love to teach you."

"Can we meet her?" Dani asked. She was watching the TV screen, currently dark, with the words "no signal" in the top right corner.

"Funny," Dean said, patting her shoulder. "She asked the same thing about you."

That made Dani look up at him. He felt Castiel's eyes on him too, but most of the other kids were arranging themselves on furniture around the TV. They really had nothing better to do than look at his pictures of dinner?

"When you called me," Dean said. "Meghan asked who it was, so I told her about you. You're the same age--" Kind of, he wanted to say, because he wasn't really sure how old any of the kids were if it came to that-- "so she wanted to meet you."

"Is she five?" Dani asked. Dani was the only one of them who'd given a number when he asked, but she said she'd been five "for a while," and after Maribel told him they didn't celebrate birthdays he had no idea what to make of that.

"Sure is," Dean said.

"Perhaps she will join us for the Christmas holiday," Castiel said unexpectedly.

Every kid in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at him. Dean raised his eyebrows, because the only other time he'd seen them do that he'd been distracted by Castiel appearing out of nowhere to scream at him. Being forced across the room by an angry angel you kind of wanted to sleep with was unforgettable all on its own, but none of the kids had seen that fight coming either.

The memory of their fear made him bite his tongue when their gazes started to turn to him. It was Adamel who asked, "Is your family coming here for Christmas, Dean?"

"Uh, we're still talking about that," Dean managed, giving Cas a look.

"They are invited," Castiel said.

"Okay, so," Dean said, ready to change the subject if he could. "Settle an argument for me. You do celebrate Christmas, right? Sam was trying to convince me you don't."

"The children have the day off from school," Castiel said. "I understand that their classmates consider this a celebratory event."

Dean waited, but Castiel only looked at him expectantly. Like that was all he was going to say. Maia and Wildfire were squished into the chair Maribel had moved for them while Maribel stood beside it, and Adamel leaned against the other end of the couch. None of them were volunteering other Christmas traditions.

They might not do it without prompting, of course, but it still gave him a bad feeling.

"Okay," Dean repeated. He took a breath and counted to two, because if there was one thing being psychically bonded to impressionable angels was teaching him, it was anger management. "That's cool."

We should talk about that, he added, mostly to cover up anything else he might have been thinking that was clear enough for them to overhear.

"You feel that this is insufficient," Castiel said out loud. "Will gathering with family make it more festive?"

Dean took another breath. "Yeah," he said, as calmly as he could. "Family is good. Is that how you celebrated Thanksgiving?"

Castiel gave him an odd look. "You were not here on Thanksgiving."

"Didn't you celebrate without me?" Dean asked. And then he didn't know why he bothered, because why would they have? They barely even ate meals when he wasn't around to make them stuff.

"We didn't go to school," Adamel said.

"I made a turkey," Dani added in a small voice.

"Right," Dean agreed, because see? They celebrated. They were fine. This was just what Castiel's family did; it was perfectly normal for them.

He tried not to think about Sam drawing little hand turkeys on his third grade notebook and eating Thanksgiving dinner out of the microwave year after year. Hadn't hurt him, right? He'd turned out fine. Hell, he was the one with the house and the degree and the stupid holiday traditions; what was Dean worried about?

"We were all together," Maribel said. "Except for you. You said that's what Thanksgiving is about."

"And turkey," Dani whispered.

"You're totally right," Dean said. "Yup. Family and turkey. And not going to school. That's pretty much Thanksgiving in a nutshell." He knew there should have been more food in the refrigerator. "And hey, now that it's over, guess what's next?"

They all stared at him. He didn't mean to freak them out, but they got really upset when he flipped out about things. And he tried not to, he tried to keep his mouth shut and let them live their happy, minimalist, surviving-in-exile life, because it wasn't any of his business.

Except that it was. He'd made it his business the first time he volunteered himself to rescue Castiel's soldiers, not because he cared about them, but because Cas needed them to keep his kids alive. He'd been committed ever since he'd convinced Castiel not to turn himself over to the other side because they could be something. His family could be more than just alive, they could be awesome. And for some reason, none of them seemed to see it.

"Christmas," Dean said firmly. "You may not know this, but in the human world? Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving. And we are gonna celebrate the heck out of it."

When he looked at Castiel, he was smiling, and it made Dean relax a little. "Yeah," he said again. "Hey, can we get a tree? You have anything against trees?"

"I like trees," Castiel said.

"I like trees!" Saph chirped. "What kind of tree are we getting?"

"A green one," Dean told her. "I don't know; they sell evergreen Christmas trees. We should get one. And decorate it." He wanted to ask if they'd ever decorated a tree before, but he was sure the answer would just depress him.

"We have a tree at school," Maribel remarked. "It's supposed to be our fall harvest tree, but I understand it will represent the winter season as well."

"It's outside," Adamel said.

The fact that he knew this was important reminded Dean that Adamel watched TV. Maybe as much TV as Saph. And he actually talked to people. The other kids in his classes, at least.

"We're gonna have a tree inside," Dean told him. "And we're going to have Christmas food. Did you guys even eat turkey yesterday?"

He caught Maia's eye when he looked around, and she shook her head.

"We don't have any turkey," Wildfire said, which was ridiculous because they had a ghost housekeeper who would shop for anything they asked for. Her turnaround time was a matter of hours. If they'd wanted turkey, they could have had turkey.

"Uh-huh," Dean said. "Well, we're having turkey on Christmas if I have to make it myself. And no one wants that," he added. "So we'd better see if Kelly has any better ideas."

Dani was already sliding off the sofa. "I'll put it on the list," she offered.

Dean was torn between applauding her initiative and telling her to get back on the couch, because she didn't have to do everything the second he mentioned it. He had no idea which would mess her up more. Sometimes Dean hated his dad for the legacy he'd left, and sometimes he wondered how he'd done it at all.

"I'll help you!" Saph said cheerfully, following her off the sofa and leaving the remote--and Dean's phone--behind. "I want to see your turkey!"

Which pretty much ensured that Dean wouldn't stop them, because hey, two of them were working together on something and one of them had said "I want." So, good for them. Plus now he could check his phone and make sure Saph hadn't gone too far back. He tried to keep the memory mostly clear of images that weren't kid-friendly, but sometimes he still forgot on his days off.

"We could celebrate Thanksgiving further," Castiel offered. Awkward and gentle and trying so hard to be what Dean thought he should be. Which was crazy, really, because who was Dean to say? "Now that you're back."

"Sure," Dean said, picking one of the images and glancing up at the TV. The place Sam and Jess shared appeared on the screen. "I like it; we'll do all the holidays at once. We should throw in Hanukkah and New Years' while we're at it."

"Mrs. Knowles says we're going to celebrate Solstice," Maru said.

"And Solstice," Dean agreed, scrolling forward through thumbnails to make sure he hadn't taken any pictures while they were drinking. "Great."

"Do we need another tree for that?" Maru asked.

"I think we can put everything on one tree," Dean said. The pictures looked pretty safe. Then he looked up, considering the question in the context of their overly gigantic house. "On second thought," he said. "Yeah. Maybe two trees."

"Is one of them going to be outside?" Maribel asked.

"Sure," Dean said. It wasn't until he caught Castiel's eye that he realized what he was doing. "I mean, ask your dad."

Saph appeared next to him in a swirl of blue light, and he mostly didn't jump. "Dean," she said. "Kelly wants to know what kind of turkey to get. A whole turkey or sliced turkey or--"

"Is Kelly in the kitchen right now?" he demanded. "How come you get to talk to her and I don't?" To this day, Dean hadn't met the housekeeper. He'd been assured that she was there, convinced that she somehow knew things he told the kids but didn't write down, and occasionally informed that she'd just left a room he was in. But he'd never seen her.

"Um, she was," Saph said. "But when we put 'turkey' on the list she said that was too vague."

"We don't need it for tomorrow," Dean said, and then he thought better of it. "Actually, you know what, we do need it for tomorrow. See if she'll pick up some sliced turkey for us and we'll have post-Thanksgiving sandwiches."

Saph disappeared again, and Dean didn't bother following her. He was sure that if he showed up in the kitchen, Kelly would be on some other continent or something. He only believed she was a real person and not some grocery-shopping spell because they kids swore they talked to her and whatever else they might be, they weren't liars.

"See if she can get cranberry sauce too!" Dean called after her. He didn't think he'd seen cranberry in their kitchen before. Potatoes, though. They definitely had potatoes and bread and probably some kind of gravy. He knew he'd made stuffing in there before. And they had enough vegetables to build a vegetable fort.

"Is that Meghan?" Maia asked. She was looking at the TV, and when he followed her gaze he realized he'd accidentally scrolled ahead. Touchscreens. He still wasn't good with touchscreens.

"Yeah," Dean said. "That's Ariel's kid. That's her mom in the background."

"She's small," Maia said. Which was funny, coming from a pre-teen, but it was true that Meghan was smaller than Maia.

"She's a good kid," Dean said. "Jess and Sam watch her sometimes."

"Like you watch us," Wildfire said. It was maybe a little too perceptive, and Dean tried not to read anything into it.

"Kind of," he said. "Yeah."

“Is she human?” Maru asked.

More human than you, Dean wanted to joke, but he didn’t. “Yeah,” he said again. “She and her mom are a hundred percent human. At least as far as I know. They spend a lot of time with Sam, so it’s hard to tell for sure.”

“You spend a lot of time with Sam,” Wildfire said.

“Yeah, well, he’s my brother,” Dean told her. “We’re stuck with each other.”

Dani flitted back onto the sofa, turning so she could look up at him. “Where’s Sam?” she wanted to know. Unlike Meghan, she didn’t seem to have any visual affinity for other kids. She understood that they were supposed to be like her when someone told her, but she didn’t recognize them otherwise.

It wasn’t like Dean didn’t like showing off pictures of Sam, anyway. “Here he is,” Dean said, flipping back to Thursday morning. Sam would love that he was sharing this shot with everyone. Which was why Dean had it in the first place, of course.

“He looks funny,” Dani said.

That was pretty good for an angel who didn’t sleep, Dean thought. It wasn’t like she had any experience with bedhead. “That’s what his hair looks like when he wakes up,” he told her.

Saph was sidling up to the couch the human way, standing on her tiptoes to peer over the back of it at the TV screen. She had a piece of paper in one hand when she went to rest her chin on her arms. “Kelly wrote you a note,” she said. “Sam’s hair doesn’t look like yours. Is that because he’s younger than you?”

“What? No!” Dean frowned at her, wondering where she’d gotten that idea. She just rolled her head into the crook of her elbow and stared up at him, frowning back when she saw his expression. “Maybe?” he said, embarrassed. “Why do you think being younger has anything to do with it?”

“Because babies have messy hair,” Saph said. “And Rachel always tells us to put our hair up so it doesn’t get messy, but she wears hers down sometimes so I thought maybe adults’ hair doesn’t get messy. Maribel’s doesn’t get messy,” she added, a little wistfully.

“That’s ‘cause Maribel brushes her hair,” Dean said, reaching over to pluck the paper from her fingers. “Everyone’s hair looks messy if they don’t brush it.”

It was a single sheet off the shopping pad they kept next to the refrigerator. Needs more rice.

“Yours doesn’t,” Saph said, and Dean blinked.

“Can we see more pictures?” Dani asked.

Dean handed his phone over the back of the couch to her. “Have at it,” he said. She could probably use it better than he could, and if Saph hadn’t turned up anything they shouldn’t see then Dean figured whatever was on there was safe.

While Dani started poking through the Thanksgiving pictures, Dean flashed the piece of paper Saph had come back with in Castiel’s direction. Needs more rice? he mouthed.

Cas just shrugged, and Dean shook his head. This whole family was weird.

At least the kids had a good time with the pictures. Dani seemed to like the ones of Sam best, which Dean figured meant she had good taste. Saph found one he’d taken of the TV and wanted to know why. When he explained that a football score like that didn’t happen every day, she wanted to know why again, and hey, that was something he wouldn’t mind her watching.

He didn't know what it meant that he was hoping his elementary schoolers would watch football instead of Project Fear, but he did know that it was a decent alternative to sword fighting. Maybe that was why he let her watch Project Fear in the first place. Except he was a little worried that maybe she was getting inspiration from it. Was it worse to let kids watch shows they might use in real life? What if it was to save their own lives?

He asked Castiel about it later, after midnight had come and gone and the kids had all obediently vanished from the living room. Some of them more literally than others. Maribel and Adamel seemed to be practicing their human skills, and they had left the same way they came: on foot. Wildfire and Maia had flown off together, which might have had something to do with the way they were tangled up in the chair: he didn't know if wings or legs were easier to pull apart, but he missed the flurry of colored light that might have answered the question.

The little kids had all hugged him before leaving, even Maru, which was kind of nice even if he wouldn't admit it. The thing about being psychically connected to all of them was that they probably knew anyway. Dani disappeared in a swirl of green wings while Maru and Saph walked. Imitating their older siblings, he wondered? He tried not to approve, because they would know that too, but he had an ingrained belief that younger siblings should follow older.

Not from his own life, of course. Sam was better off doing his own thing, always had been. But maybe he did what Dean told him to when it mattered, and Dean tried to return the favor when Sam was trying to keep him alive.

"Their entire existence should not be about preserving it," Castiel said softly, and Dean blinked.

They were both on the sofa now, Dean having flopped onto it when the kids left and Cas sitting next to him the moment he closed his eyes. Close enough to feel his warmth, far enough to squint at when Dean looked again. "Sorry?"

"Do they watch too much TV," Castiel said. "Is it all right to teach them terrible things if it is in the service of their own survival. What does it mean that the smaller children imitate the older."

Dean stared at him. "Are you repeating what I'm thinking back to me?"

"You said the part about TV out loud," Castiel reminded him.

So, yes. The answer was yes, but it wasn't like it was the first time. Cas did it constantly, even before Dean had known he could read minds, and it was weird but he noticed less and less as time went by.

"Okay," Dean said. "So what's the answer?"

"They should know something other than survival," Castiel said. "We've talked about this."

They had. Or rather, Dean had yelled about it and Cas had looked sad and knowing and Dean had stalked off because he didn't want to hear any more about his own family issues. They'd actually repeated that fight twice since he'd started working here, and it always ended with him making the kids breakfast the next morning while he and Cas pretended nothing had happened.

It made the kids nervous when they yelled at each other. Well, when one of them yelled at the other, because they usually managed not to do it at the same time. Either Cas thought he deserved it, or Cas thought Dean was being unreasonable, or more rarely, Dean was aware that Cas was freaking the kids out.

"Yeah, no argument here," Dean said, but carefully because there probably would be one. They never got through this conversation without someone being pissed off. Without him being pissed off.

Cas knew it, too, because he raised an eyebrow at Dean and Dean actually smiled and neither of them said anything because it typically went downhill from here.

"Is this later?" Cas asked after a moment.

Dean stared back at him. Later enough that they could talk about it without fighting? "Later than what?" he asked, because sometimes the kids said that and he thought maybe they'd gotten it from Cas.

"Later than when it's inappropriate to talk about missing each other," Castiel said.

Dean kept staring, because wow, that wasn't what he'd expected at all. "I…" And he'd started too soon, because he still had no idea what he was going to say. "I said it wasn't, uh, inappropriate," he said. "Right?"

He thought he'd said that. They were talking about the phone call, at Sam's. Probably. Sam's seemed like a long time ago now, even though they'd just been looking at the pictures. Maybe because they'd been looking at the pictures. Maybe because he'd had baby angels crawling all over him, and they made him forget a lot of things.

"You also asked if we could talk about it later," Castiel said, and Dean understood that he wasn't going to get out of it as easily as he'd thought when Sam was hanging over his shoulder and Cas was being all angelic over the phone.

"Fine," Dean said. "What about it?"

Castiel was still sitting at the other end of the couch, which meant that Dean was giving off "don't touch me" vibes. It was sad that he could read his own body language in Cas better than he could recognize it in himself. But Cas always sat as close as he could, at least since he'd figured out that Dean craved contact like he wanted food, and Cas said both desires were foreign to angels but he seemed to get something out of it, so. Dean wasn't going to complain.

"Nothing," Castiel said.

"Damn it," Dean said without thinking. "I'm rubbing off on you." And that wasn't supposed to come out so dirty; why didn't he think before he said stupid stuff like that? Even if it didn't mean anything, his mind always went there, and the kids knew what he was thinking. He had no idea what had made his brother think he would be a good guardian for a bunch of human child wannabes.

Cas tilted his head, and some days he was no better because he didn't get sex at all. He didn't get the feeling of it, the wanting of it, or the jokes about it. Which sucked, because he came on to Dean all the time. On purpose, Dean was almost positive. Most days he was positive, but then sometimes Cas just looked so lost that Dean couldn't snap at him for it.

"We could make out," Cas offered carefully, and finally Dean figured out what he was doing. He must be tired, because Cas was distracting him from things he didn't want to talk about. Repeatedly.

Dean was almost ready to let him. He'd been letting him without realizing it, and if Cas was this good at knowing which topics to avoid and when, then maybe Dean should just go with it. He definitely wanted to spend some of the weekend lying on top of Cas and kissing a little happiness back into him, and now was probably one of the few plausible times for it to happen.

"It would make me happy," Cas agreed, and he even smiled which made Dean feel like a jerk. Cas wasn't tiptoeing around him because he wanted something. He was doing it because he thought Dean should be--

"Yeah," Dean said abruptly. "It'd make me happy too. But look, Cas, I'm not…"

He wasn't the guy Cas should be trying to make happy. He was just the guy Cas paid to look after his kids, and yeah, he was the human they all had the most contact with right now so of course he was the most interesting. But eventually their war would be over, or Dean would have to go fight some other monster, or both.

"I think you are," Castiel said.

Dean couldn't tell what he was responding to, how much he'd heard, any of it, because Cas said Dean was hard to read. The kids said it too, that the whole mind thing wasn't a cure-all, that it was basically as confusing to them as it was to him. He certainly didn't know what they were thinking all the time. And even when he did, he didn't know what most of it meant.

Cas took a deep breath, and the one thing Dean did know was that he was trying not to sigh.

Dean gave up. "Hey," he said, sitting up the rest of the way. "You all right? C'mere."

Cas didn't edge down the couch toward him, he just pulled his knees up and crawled over the cushions toward Dean. Which made Dean laugh, because he knew he'd done that to Cas at least once. Probably more. Because crawling on top of someone was--

Exactly what Cas was doing now. He knelt next to Dean, put his hands on either side of Dean's shoulders, and leaned in. Dean had to tip his head back to be kissed and he didn't even care. And Cas didn't keep his distance, crowding him against the cushions until it was fall back or be crushed into a really uncomfortable position.

Dean twisted enough that he could slide down, easing toward the nearest arm, and maybe that was a mistake because Cas didn't hesitate. He climbed on top of Dean and pushed, sending him into an undignified sprawl that didn't even pretend to be sitting up. And then Cas kissed him harder, knees braced on either side of Dean's hips, and Dean arched up into the desire to be closer.

"If I lie on top of you," Cas whispered into his mouth, "will you push me off?"

"No," Dean gasped. "Fuck, no, please just come here."

Cas pressed down onto him, slow and heavy and Dean could feel him giving up control by increments. Because Cas was a soldier first, a father second, and a lover, boyfriend, sexual experiment or hug buddy--whatever they were--a distant third. If it was third at all, hell, maybe this was sixth or tenth or fifty-ninth on Cas' list of priorities, but he did everything carefully if he did it at all.

Cas' hands were up by his face, elbows still pressed into the couch in case he needed to push himself up at a moment's notice. Dean didn't even care because Cas' body was flush against his. His arms were pinned but he could get his hands on Cas' legs, firm and tense and untouchable in the stupid business suit he always wore. Then those legs were moving, one slipping off the couch entirely as Cas melted into him, and they were--

God, they were really fucking close, and Dean was still wound up and shoving into a body that was pressing back. He was grinding against Cas and all Cas had wanted to do was kiss. He shouldn't be this turned on. He shouldn't want Cas like fire, like warmth in the cold, but Cas didn't even get it and it was driving Dean out of his mind.

"I frustrate you," Cas murmured. The fact that he could talk at all reminded Dean what he was, and this wasn't safe. Nothing about what they were doing was safe.

Dean groaned when one of Cas' hands slid behind his head, easy under his weight and the sinking cushions and he was with an angel. He was with a monster, heavenly though it might be, and Cas could kill him with a touch. But Cas was holding him, keeping him where he was like Dean might run if he let go, even for a second - like Cas couldn't stand a thought like that. Like he could hear it and he could stop it with his own unearthly strength.

"Tell me what I have to do," Castiel whispered. "Tell me what you need."

He had his hands on Cas' hips, and pushing didn't do a damned thing but he had to try. "Get off," Dean gasped. "I can't."

He heard it, clear as day, Cas thinking, You said you wouldn't push me off. How often did Cas hear him thinking like that, words like he was talking out loud, giving away everything he tried so hard not to say?

But Cas was sitting up, wringing a whimper out of Dean when he did it in the least considerate way possible. Dean had only said "get off." He'd meant "stop turning me on so much I can't think," but Cas sat up, hard on Dean and pinning him more securely before he swung away, and Dean curled in on himself and tried to breathe.

"Dean," Castiel said quietly. He was too far away and nowhere near far enough. "I'm sorry if I took advantage. Sometimes it's easier for you to speak when you stop thinking, and I thought--"

I thought this would free you.

"I can hear you." Dean forced the words out in case Cas didn't know. He didn't press a hand to his crotch because he had some kind of pride, but sitting up was bad and he knew Cas heard the hitch in his breath.

"I'm very focused right now," Cas replied. Dean knew what he meant, that he was thinking clearly enough for Dean to understand because he was only thinking about one thing, and it was only because of the family connection that Dean understood him at all.

Cas kept all of his children hidden from the rest of the angelic host by psychically shielding them. The shield allowed them access to each other's thoughts, but no one else's, and putting Dean behind the shield had been imperative if they were going to keep other angels from rifling through his mind. A fun side effect was that Cas' ability to know what he was thinking now went both ways, and Dean thought it was typical that what made him a part of this little family was the same thing that kept them all out of their own.

I wish you would not think yourself separate from us, Castiel thought. You are more one of us than most of the brothers and sisters I've known.

"Because I have to be," Dean muttered. "Because no one else can keep your kids--"

He stopped, because he still couldn't breathe and he was uncomfortable and he hated to remind Cas of how much danger the kids were in. Cas lived that battle every day; he didn't need to hear about it from Dean too. And when it came right down to it, what was Dean doing? He was just the angel decoy, following the kids around to make Cas' enemies think they had more protection than they did.

"No one can keep them safe," Cas whispered. Like maybe Dean wouldn't notice that he was talking now if he kept it quiet. "But you make them happy."

Or like Cas wanted him to think he was really talking about the kids when he wasn't at all. And that, of all things, made Dean smile. "I'm not going anywhere," he said, just as quietly, in case admitting it meant it all got taken away somehow.

Cas lifted his gaze to Dean's, and in that instant Dean knew that Cas got it. You're afraid that saying you miss me will give me power over you, Cas thought. If I know what you want, I can hurt you by taking it away.

Dean sucked in a sharp breath. It all felt like nothing. Like shock. Which was stupid; they were just words. Cas probably hadn't even meant him to hear.

Except Cas wasn't looking away. He wasn't talking. He wasn't thinking. All of a sudden, just like that, there was nothing coming from Cas at all and Dean knew it was deliberate. And if this was deliberate, than everything he'd thought before had been intentional too.

He didn't want to hear it out loud. Cas didn't say it, but he thought Cas knew it, even without the words. They were on thin ice, and Cas thought that maybe, if he held very still, Dean wouldn't break and leave.

"It's not just leaving," Dean said out loud. Because if he said it, he could control it. Right? "You think I'm going to shout at you and storm off? Maybe slam some doors while I'm at it?"

Cas didn't say anything. Didn't think anything. He didn't have to: Dean had done it before, and Cas had said it himself: I'm afraid that anything I say will come out wrong.

Dean looked away. Sam was right, and that sucked. Because when Dean had been growing up, he'd wanted to be like his dad so much it hurt.

It was a hard habit to break.

He wondered what Cas would do if Dean said he wanted to kiss some more. He'd missed that boat, and Cas had only been doing it to make him talk anyway. So maybe he should keep his damn promise for once.

"I missed you," Dean said abruptly. "Okay? I miss you whenever I'm not here. Whatever I do, I think about telling you later. What it was, whether you'd have liked it. Whether you'd even get it, or care."

That was more than he'd thought he could say and he had no idea where to go from there. So he stared at Cas and wondered why he always fell for the weird ones. Why did he always end up in relationships with people who weren't human, when his entire day job was hunting down non-humans and ending them?

"Maybe you don't feel like you can admit who you really are to humans," Castiel said, and Dean stiffened.

"Okay, cut it out," he said. "If we're gonna talk, then talk. Stop snooping around in my head."

Castiel's eyes narrowed. "I'm not snooping."

Just like that, Dean knew he'd hit the wall. He could push Cas a long way, farther than he could even understand, but it didn't last forever. Dean tried not to smile when he offered, "Sorry?"

"You're not," Castiel said, frowning. "Do you want me to be less accommodating?"

"I want you to be you," Dean said, surprised into honesty. "I don't care if you shout at me or not. I just want what you say to be true."

"Everything I say is true," Castiel said.

"Right," Dean said. "Obviously."

"Everything you… hear me say," Castiel amended. "Is true. I can't lie to you, Dean. This is the nature of the bond we share."

This time he did try to smile and didn't quite make it. "That's gonna suck for the kids."

Cas gave him a strange look.

"Part of being a teenager is lying to your parents," Dean said.

"You've mentioned that," Castiel said slowly.

"Can we talk about something else?" Dean asked, a little desperately. "What else am I, uh." He swallowed, but Cas was still waiting, so he managed, "Something else you want to know?"

"Yes." Castiel frowned, and Dean had half a second to regret making the offer before the question came. "Why won't you let yourself orgasm when we sleep together?"

If he thought the breath had been punched out of him before, it was nothing compared to now. "What?" he blurted out.

"Just now," Castiel said. "Did you push me away because I was too distracting, or not distracting enough?"

Dean stared at him, because how the fuck did he answer something like that? And what were they even--what was this conversation even about? "Back up," he said, because if he didn't figure out what was going on then Cas was going to look all sad and probably give up and then it would be on Dean to restart the conversation.

He didn't have to know what it was about to know that he really didn't want to start this over. Whatever it was. "We don't sleep together," Dean said, because he was very clear on that. He didn't sleep with people who were paying him. Except when he did, but whatever. He had a new rule.

"We do," Castiel said. "You fall asleep with me on this couch at least once a week."

Dean relaxed a little, and he shouldn't because it wasn't going to be this easy, but that. That didn't even count. He should have known Cas was being literal.

"Right," Dean agreed. "Okay, yeah, that's true. Is that what we're talking about?"

"No." Cas looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, which was almost funny enough not to be insulting. Like Dean was the dense one here. "We're talking about why you'll kiss me until you can't control yourself anymore, and then you push me away."

"Uh-uh," Dean said. "No. That's not what happened; you were trying to talk to me and I couldn't concentrate so I--it sounded important, Cas. That's all. I just wanted to hear what you were saying."

"Not this time," Cas said firmly. "Every time. You think I don't know what's happening, but I do. You think it's funny when I use your euphemism to describe the literal act of sleeping together, but I wouldn't have to if we actually had sex. Why don't we have sex?"

"I don't know," Dean snapped. "Maybe because you're an angel who wouldn't know what to do with a human body if it came with an instruction manual."

And oh, he hadn't know what that would sound like, shit, that wasn't what he meant. "I didn't," he blurted out. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded; I meant yours, you don't get--you turn me on, you know that, right?

"Of course you do," like he could miss that, jesus. "I just meant, you don't. I mean, I don't--you don't react to me like that." Which was so unbelievably bad for his ego, but he told himself Cas was an angel and that was all there was to it. No use crying over interspecies differences.

He was more used to killing over interspecies differences, but come on. Why did he think of things like that at the worst possible times? He had zero mental discipline. According to Cas, who would know. He tried to think of something good, something all-encompassing to distract himself, and wow. Right now that didn't help at all.

Cas was smiling at him. Not quite what he'd expected.

"I appreciate that you're unwilling to hurt my feelings," Castiel said.

Dean blinked at him. "That's what you got out of that?" he demanded. "Are you sure you're really a mindreader?"

"I've told you on several occasions that I'm not," Castiel replied. "Why is my physical response vital to your gratification?"

"Why are we talking about this?" Dean said. "Seriously, this is more embarrassing than the conversation with Sam about my feelings. And I never thought I'd say that."

"I thought you would be more interested in sex than in discussing your feelings," Castiel said.

"I would be," Dean told him, "but this isn't sex. This is talking about sex. It's like talking about feelings, except worse."

"Why?" Castiel wanted to know.

"Because it's embarrassing," Dean said. Except that was a circular argument, and he was sure Cas was about to point it out to him. "Because you don't get it, okay? Because you say the words, but you don't… you don't feel them. I don't know."

It wasn't enough, but he couldn't explain it. "I don't know," Dean repeated. "Okay?"

"If it's difficult for you to talk about it," Castiel said, "would you consider… thinking about it?"

"What else do I do?" Dean retorted. "All I do is think about sex with you, Cas! But you don't even want it, and I'm not going to force some stupid human thing on you just because you say you'd be okay with it!"

Castiel bristled and Dean could see it and he tried not to stare. Cas' wings were awesome when he was pissed and the colors around him spiked orange and fiery. "Do you not believe that I mean what I say?"

"Of course I believe you," Dean said impatiently. He totally wanted to put his hand in one of those wings. He'd only found out that he could feel them by accident, and Cas had warned him off of experimenting. It was an endless temptation.

"Then believe that you can't force me into anything," Castiel told him. "It's physically impossible for you to make me do something I'm not, as you say, okay with."

The "as you say" was adorable and aggravating all at once, because Cas only used it when he wanted to mock someone. The rest of the time he either mimicked or he didn't, and either way he could be unexpectedly convincing. He wasn't human. But he wasn't totally foreign, either.

"Let's overlook the fact that there are other ways to force someone into something," Dean said. "The point is--" He was going to have to say it, and Sam was going to laugh at him, but there it was. "The point is, whatever we do--it's not about me. It's about us."

"You are part of us," Cas interrupted. "Therefore it is, by definition, about you."

"Yeah, well, it's also about you," Dean snapped. "I think you want to have sex because you think I want it, and I happen to think that's a lousy reason!"

"Is that why you never asked me?" Cas was staring at him, piercing and impatient and hey, weren't they a great combination. "You don't ask why I want sex because you think you already know? Or are you too afraid to hear the answer?"

He threw up his hands. "Fine, Cas. Tell me why you want to have sex!"

"Because I'm lonely," Castiel said, angry and honest and what if they never got past this? What if Cas told him too much? Dean couldn't be the thing he wanted because he couldn't have anything else, and he wouldn't let Cas give him everything because no one else would take it.

"Listen to me," Castiel said, louder. "Stop thinking or I'll make you."

Dean sneered, because Cas needed some company that wasn't five years old. "I'm not your freakin' kid, Cas."

Cas glared at him, orange spiking into red, and those were fighting colors. Or so the kids thought. "You make me very angry," Cas told him, precise words and everything else completely still.

And maybe it was the fact that he could be so calm about it, or maybe it was remembering that the kids were upstairs and they might be out of sight but they were never really out of mind, but something made Dean take a deep breath. Something made him breathe in again when Cas still didn't move, because Cas probably could make him stop thinking, but he wouldn't.

He wouldn't because he knew Dean would never trust force. He'd never give himself over to the anger that had consumed his family, to the violence that threatened to destroy Castiel's. Not because it wasn't in him, but because it was. Dean used it, and he hated it, and he saw it in Cas more often than he wanted to.

"Join the club," Dean muttered at last.

The light around Cas flooded with gold and green, and Dean felt his eyes flick to those wings against his will. "You're wearing a fucking mood ring," he said, because there was nothing else that didn't feel like too much. "I hope you know that."

"You delight in reminding me," Castiel said.

Dean wouldn't deny that. "Let me try again," he said, staring at the side of the sofa in an effort to keep from reaching for Cas' wings. "Why do you want to have sex, Cas?"

Cas didn't answer right away, and Dean switched to his eyes. "I want to have sex," Dean told him. "You're right about that. I think you're hot. The thing you do, with the… you know. Protecting everyone. I like it."

Cas was looking at him like he'd never seen him before, and that wasn't unheard of. He managed to surprise Cas into that kind of stare several times a week. But there were usually other people around, so maybe he didn't notice the full force of it or something.

Right now it made him want to keep talking. Not how being stared at usually made him feel. More like how Cas made him feel, though. He'd probably talked more to Cas since they met than he talked to most people he knew… ever.

"I don't know why you think you want me," Dean said, and he looked away when Cas opened his mouth. "It's not--look, I know I'm awesome, okay? I'm a good-looking guy. I'm capable. It's not like I don't know what people see when they look at me."

"That's not what I see." Castiel interrupted him anyway, and Dean rolled his eyes. Of course it wasn't. Because Dean took care of Cas' kids. No one lusted after hired help unless they wanted to be sued.

"I suppose that's not relevant," Castiel said after a moment. He was frowning when Dean looked back at him, and Dean wondered what he'd heard. "I want to have sex with you because I'm lonely, and you're lonely, and I think we're less lonely when we're together. Sex is an activity I believe you enjoy, and I would like to enjoy it with you. I don't understand why there seems to be so much more to it than that."

"There's not," Dean said, because what was happening? When had he ended up on the side against fuckbuddies?

"There clearly is," Castiel said. "I recognize that, and if understanding the significance would make my actions more tolerable to you, than I am very interested in learning."

"Cas," Dean began, and Cas must have read way more into that word than he'd meant, because he got another impatient glare in return.

"Dean," Castiel said. It was a precise mimic, and it made Dean slump against the back of the couch and stare at the ceiling. "Tell me why you don't want to have sex with me," Castiel said.

Dean rolled his head against the back of the cushions to look at him. Cas looked perfectly serious, if with a little of the attitude that had probably made him heaven's most rebellious angel. "I do want to have sex with you," Dean said.

"Then why," Castiel said, with a lot more of that attitude, "will you not do it?"

"Because you can't get it up!" Dean glared at him, mostly in self-defense. "Where I come from, if someone's not into it then you don't do it!"

He heard Castiel's irritable, I'm perfectly into it, who wouldn't be into it, all I want is your affection, echoing in his head and it hurt to shake it off but he had to because Cas didn't mean for him to hear that. Cas didn't admit to wanting things any more than Dean did, and he definitely didn't want Dean to think he was that desperate for attention.

"To get it up," Castiel repeated out loud. "You refer to my lack of an erection in intimate moments?"

It was a question, and Dean closed his eyes. This was actually his life. He was having the sex talk with an angel who'd hired him to babysit his seven half-breed children. How did that even work? Who had seven kids and no other parents in sight?

How did someone who didn't know a damn thing about sex have any children at all?

"I know more about sex than you do," Castiel snapped, obviously overhearing, and since when was Dean thinking clearly enough for Cas to get anything from his head? "What I don't know is anything about sex with you. If you are determined that it remain a mystery, I wish you would just tell me so that I may try to behave differently around you."

Cas had sex with women. It wasn't the first time Dean had thought it, but it was the first time it occurred to him that maybe the problem wasn't an angel thing at all. Maybe it was, very simply, the fact that Dean was a man.

"Dean," Castiel said, and the frustration in his tone wasn't covered by his careful words. "I am capable of acquiring and sustaining an erection whenever and for however long you desire. If this is in fact the problem, then we could have resolved this issue some time ago."

Dean opened his eyes. "Is this conversation actually getting worse?" he asked the ceiling. "Is that even possible?"

"Is that not the problem?" Castiel insisted. "Do I misunderstand the phrase 'get it up'?"

Dean turned his head to look at him and the words died in his throat with his mouth hanging open. Cas had his hand between his legs. Just resting there, casually, giving the rise in his pants an idle rub while Dean watched. His face was unchanged. His breathing was normal. But if he hadn't popped a boner then there was something else in there that wasn't supposed to be.

"Better?" Castiel asked, watching him intently.

"What are you doing?" Dean blurted out. Shit, he wanted to--this was bad. This was really bad. He could already feel the blood going south. He could feel his skin starting to throb. He could feel everything his body had given up on a few minutes ago come rushing back, and nothing was happening.

Cas wasn't even doing anything. Cas was touching himself through his pants, and it was obviously doing nothing for him, and Dean's body didn't even care. He wanted to reach out and put his hand over the one that was already there--hell, he wanted to shove Cas' hand aside, he wanted to push his pants down, he wanted to feel and squeeze and suck.

"I do want you," Castiel said quietly. Dean couldn't even look up to see if Cas had taken his eyes off of him. "Please don't misunderstand this."

There shouldn't be anything to misunderstand. Cas was looking at him, touching himself, and it looked like he was hard. He never had been before. It was either a really messed up joke or the world's worst tease, because how did he get off on his own hand when nothing Dean did made him anything but pleasantly content?

"Cas," he began. His voice sounded weird in his ears, and he knew what that meant: too loud, too nervous, too sensitive to something that wasn't even real.

Cas shifted, wedging his knee into the back of the couch and spreading his weight more evenly… pulling the fabric of his pants tight. The rise under his hand was unmistakable. He pushed against it while Dean watched, and the shape under his fingers gave and swelled and maybe pressed a little harder against his pants.

Dean dragged his gaze back to Cas' face. He didn't know when he'd sat up, but he wasn't braced against the cushions anymore. He wasn't exactly vertical either, tilting hard toward Cas without even realizing what he was doing.

Cas was still watching him. Only now his mouth was open, and maybe it wasn't completely made up after all? He was breathing more obviously. The way he was half-kneeling on the couch made everything easy to see but it couldn't be very comfortable, and Cas shifted again like it actually mattered.

"You look like you're--" Dean's voice broke, and he stopped talking which was probably a blessing. This was so nothing that he got to comment on.

"I want you," Castiel said softly. It made him sound almost breathless. "I won't manipulate you, but I'm happy to translate what I feel into something that's more familiar to you if it helps."

"What?" It made Dean take a breath, but it didn't stop him from reaching out. Maybe it made him want to more, because Cas was still talking and that meant they were still them and if Dean messed up then Cas would tell him. "Can I--"

Cas moved his hand. "Please."

Dean reached out and squeezed and Cas didn't so much as hiss. Dean pushed him backwards and Cas let him, squirming a little so that the leg he'd had under him was propped up again the back of the couch. They'd done this before. Dean had climbed on top of him just like this, kissing and petting until he couldn't take it anymore and he had to roll away just to catch his breath.

This time Dean yanked Cas' shirt free without asking. Cas lifted his hips and it made the shirt give more than it should have, exposing his stomach and incidentally making the waistband of his pants looser. Dean pressed his fingers underneath and watched carefully for any reaction, but Cas just stared back at him.

Dean was about to pull away when both of Cas' hands joined his. "Look," Cas whispered. He got his fingers around the button, into the zipper, under the band of his briefs. He struggled to push them down, to move his hips and his hands at the same time, all uncoordinated human limbs and desperation that looked real on his face.

"Wait," Dean said, but the word was choked off when Cas groaned.

"Don't," Cas begged. "Dean, just--this is--"

He was fucked. His jeans were too tight and his hands were pulling on Cas' pants and he was listening to an angel beg for his attention. He couldn't pretend that this was anything other than exactly what he wanted.

And it shouldn't be. This was Cas, who didn't know sarcasm from pig latin on a bad day, and on a good day he couldn't even remember to grope Dean in the kitchen. No way did Cas want this the way he did.

Then Cas arched his back, high and hard and why the fuck were angels so flexible? Dean felt the brush of something, anything against his groin and he ground down without thinking. Cas cried out, breathless and happy and desperate.

Dean shoved his hand between Cas' legs and yeah, there it was. He didn't bother with his own, hot discomfort and too much pressure keeping him from getting lost in this fantasy. Happy. Cas was happy, not lusting, and no matter how much Dean wanted to go down on him there was a difference. And it mattered.

"Cas," Dean growled. He had a handful of heat and hardness that throbbed under his fingers, blood filling and rushing so close to the surface that he could feel Cas' heartbeat. Cas' human heart.

Not the one he'd been born with. Created with. Whatever.

"Dean!" Cas writhed underneath him, and he was good. He was really convincing. Dean almost said screw it, put a hand in his own jeans, and rode it out.

But he didn't, because what the hell. "Cas," he grunted, and he tried to squeeze enough to hurt but even if it wasn't real he couldn't do that to another guy. He only made Cas gasp, and that was so unfair that Dean snapped, "Cut it out."

Cas went very still. His skin stayed hot and throbbing under Dean but the tiny thrusts stopped, and Dean felt the fingers of his free hand clench on Cas'. He hadn't even noticed that Cas was doing that, that Cas was imitating his rhythm… that his fingers had a death grip on Cas' fingers, tangled against their thighs.

"This is not a lie," Cas whispered, and he was breathing through his mouth--just the way Dean did when they stopped making out long enough to discuss whatever Dean was using as a distraction that time.

"This isn't you," Dean said, and he couldn't make it as sharp as he wanted to because he was shaking and he couldn't let go of Cas' hand. He pulled his other hand out of Cas' pants, though, and his body was so not on board with this plan.

"This is as much me as anything else you see." Castiel still didn't move, but he was calm and the flush was fading from his body as Dean watched. "I'm not human, Dean. But I can translate my feelings into human skin as much as you'll let me."

"It feels wrong," Dean gritted out. It didn't, it felt right, and that was what killed him. It shouldn't feel right. He'd been with a fucking siren for a year; he knew better than anyone that just because you felt it didn't make it true.

"It doesn't have to," Castiel said. He looked lost again, wrung out, and that goddamned hard-on was still there.

It started to soften, then, and Dean couldn't take his eyes off of it. No, he wanted to say. You're right, we can do this. I'll show you what it's supposed to be like.

"Just tell me what you need," Castiel murmured.

Dean sat back on his heels, and the shift of jeans over sensitive flesh was a drag of pain that he felt like he deserved. They were on the couch in front of the TV. What was wrong with them? Making out was one thing, but this--

When clothes started coming off, Dean decided, they needed to relocate. New rule. Not that any of his other new rules were working out well for him. Maybe he should stop making rules.

"You," Dean blurted out. "Just you."

"I'm an angel," Castiel said. "Just me would burn your eyes out of your head."

"It didn't before," Dean said. "Your wings don't, even now. I can still see them."

"You had an archangel in you before." Castiel was frowning, lying still and thoughtful under Dean like the position didn't bother him at all. Like he could have a conversation with his clothes rucked up and Dean's hand clutching and releasing his fingers--trying to get some feeling back into his own--as though nothing else mattered.

"Why can't I touch your wings," Dean said. He didn't bother to make it a question; he'd asked before and Cas always said the same thing.

"Because everyone will know," Castiel told him.

"So what," Dean said, squeezing Cas' hand hard against his leg. If this turned into a thing, it wasn't going to work out well for any of them.

It was probably already a thing. He couldn't be around Cas without staring at them, and Cas got all weird when Dean reached for him and touched a wing by accident. But Cas held them in his way on purpose, sometimes, he was sure of it. And the kids didn't seem to think it was weird at all.

Cas actually closed his eyes. "So I can't let them," he said, which barely made sense and wouldn't have gotten through to Dean at all if he didn't think the "so" thing was kind of cute.

"Cas," he said. He didn't want to ask, why not, because it would sound whiny and rude. Not that he cared, most of the time, but he had some standards. He made an effort not to sound more whiny than the kids on any given day.

"I rely on the ignorance of my brothers and sisters to maintain the hierarchy of my forces and to ensure my children's safety." Castiel didn't open his eyes, and the words tumbled out like they were practiced. Like he was reciting something that he'd said before.

Dean hadn't heard him say it, and it wasn't phrased in a way that would have been directed at the kids. Cas had friends, he knew, but they didn't spend a lot of time at the house. On the other hand, Cas was gone most days himself, so who knew what he was saying when he was out there with them.

"Okay," Dean said, because he knew a back off vibe when he heard one. So they failed at sex. So what. Dean had two hands and he knew how to use them.

"I don't want you to say that," Castiel whispered.

Sitting on Cas' legs with his pants open was starting to be awkward. He figured if he was only noticing now then it couldn't be too bad, and Cas still had his eyes shut so it wasn't like he was thinking about it. "Say what," Dean said. Shifting still wasn't comfortable, but it was getting better and maybe by the time they were done with this stupid conversation he'd be able to stand up without wincing.

"I want you to press the issue," Castiel said, more strongly this time. It was his turn to squeeze Dean's hand, and ow, holy shit, no wonder Cas hadn't done that before. His version of "hey, I'm here" was numbing.

Warmth flooded his hand in the time it took to open his mouth, and instead of complaining he gasped. He didn't mean to. But damn, he really--it felt so good on the edge of something so harsh that he wondered if Cas had done it on purpose. If Dean wanted the pressure in his pants to ease off, that wasn't going to help.

"What issue?" he managed. Because yeah, he could talk.

"The part of me you can feel," Castiel said, opening his eyes. They were silver and bright and glowing like his fucking wings. "The part you can perceive. I want you to know it."

Dean swallowed hard. His mouth was dry enough that it hurt, but he couldn't get the words out otherwise. "Is that what that was?"

Cas lifted his other hand, resting it on Dean's hip, fingers sliding under his t-shirt. Dean caught his breath as another pulse of warmth spread across his skin, tingling like goosebumps after the cold. "Yes," Castiel said. "Is it pleasant?"

"Yeah," Dean said, and it was an effort to keep his voice steady. Cas was handsy. Dean was hard. It wouldn't take much for this to turn into something very different.

Maybe something like what Dean was looking for, after all.

"May I continue?" Cas asked. He still sounded calm, which Dean didn't like--how was Cas using his angel parts to turn Dean on any different than him using his human parts if it didn't do anything for Cas in return?

But Cas' eyes were lit from the inside. If Dean was the kind of guy to freak about about glowing monster eyes than he wouldn't be sitting on top of him, trying not to move while Cas pulled his hand away and hovered. That hand played with the hem of Dean's t-shirt while Cas waited for him to decide.

"I'm, uh," Dean began, darting a glance from Cas' eyes to his hand and back again. "I'm open to experimentation?"

"Good," Cas said, and he slid his hand under Dean's shirt again. His fingers landed high on Dean's heart and then, without warning, bit into his skin and scratched a trail all the way down his chest.

Dean jerked in surprise but didn't pull away. So Cas was rough, so what? He was a fucking--

Cas lifted his hand again, and Dean braced himself but not hard enough. Because this time when Cas' fingers came down, the sting disappeared in a tingling wash of warmth that made Dean moan. Everything tingled; he could feel it in his toes, and what was he supposed to do with that?

"I see that I was in error," Castiel murmured. "There is a reason you spend your life looking for non-humans, then."

Dean opened his eyes, only realizing as he did so that they were closed. Cas' were pure white, light spilling out like the sun shining up at him, and how could he even tell Cas was looking at him like that? Cas was definitely looking at him.

"Quit psychoanalyzing me," Dean told him. Nick had done it too, but at least he'd kept it to himself.

"I don't like Nick," Castiel said out of nowhere. "You've been thinking about him less lately. Why has he returned to your thoughts now?"

Dean shoved himself away, falling over Cas' knees but at least managing to stay on the sofa when he landed. "What the--you seriously have no boundaries; do you even hear yourself?" he demanded. "What the hell happened to 'you're hard to read, Dean' and 'it's not as helpful as you'd think, Dean'? Did you just make that up?"

"If I had," Castiel said, propping himself up on his elbows to stare at Dean, "we wouldn't be having the same arguments over and over. I would simply read your mind, manipulate you into doing whatever I want, and leave you none the wiser."

Dean scoffed. "That's what you'd do, huh?" Cas was strong and scary and certainly not the politest guy on the block, but he wasn't bad. He probably could have won his war in heaven by being a little less scrupulous, yet here they were. Trying to make out on a couch in a mansion after midnight, because that was when the kids were all in bed.

"No," Cas admitted. "But you don't even realize how much you're getting from me. You only notice the things I accidentally overhear in your head."

"What am I getting from you?" Dean wanted to know, pulling his legs back when Cas shifted on his way to sitting up. Cas eased his clothes back into place with a lack of self-consciousness that was made more obvious by the fact that he didn't actually do up his pants. He just moved them around until it they weren't hanging open anymore and left it at that.

"If I let you touch my wings," Castiel said, "will you try to see what everyone else will see when they look at them?"

Dean wanted that a lot, and it was almost enough. That was what made him suspicious. "What does that have to do with anything?" he demanded.

"I don't know yet," Castiel said. "But it's important to you, and I worry that I'm missing something."

Dean frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"That's possible," Castiel agreed. "Or perhaps the thing I'm missing is the part that makes it seem logical. We should try to find out what it is, regardless."

"The thing you're missing?" Dean repeated.

Castiel just nodded.

Dean took him in all at once: bright eyes fading back to silver, disheveled hair, wrinkled clothes than hung off of him in all the right places. He took into account his own body, buzzing and cold and hurting from the contradiction. He pushed himself up off the couch, and he only flinched a little as everything straightened out.

"Fine," Dean said. "You want me to mess with your wings, you can stay right where you are."

Castiel watched him edge around the couch, silent and knowing and Dean tried to adjust his jeans in a way that was at least a little bit subtle and failed. "Don't move," Dean said again, when he was standing directly behind Cas.

He reached out and pressed a hand against Cas' right wing without warning, without even looking at it first, because this was a test. Nothing more, nothing less. He got to touch Cas' wings for the sake of science, and that was it.

Except that Cas stiffened the second Dean's fingers encountered warm resistance. The colors that lit up the angel grace he flew on plummeted from gold and orange to green and blue so fast Dean thought he'd done something wrong. He paused, keeping his hand where it was but not moving. "Cas?"

"I assume you can see that," Castiel said. His voice didn't sound any different.

Dean studied the light in front of him, but nothing else about it seemed to change. "The colors, right?"

"The colors," Cas agreed, but he sounded weird about it now and Dean put his other hand against the place where he could see Cas' left wing. If there was something going on, he wanted to know what it was. And this was the best chance he'd ever get to touch and stare and try to figure it out.

Cas' wings went abruptly dark blue.

"Huh," Dean said, watching the curls of color make patterns against the back of the couch. The longer he looked, the more they were almost… feather-like. Wild and unruly and moving in a breeze he couldn't feel, but definitely something that could have been feathers.

If it were solid. Which it wasn't; he could put his hand through any angel wing that got in his way and that seemed to be expected. He could feel the kids' wings sometimes, a little shift of temperature or buzz of electricity, but Cas' were the only ones that actually resisted. Like there was something there that didn't appreciate his efforts to pretend there wasn't.

"Cas," he said, because why not. "Do you have feathers?"

"Inasmuch as I have wings," Castiel said, and his voice was low and deliberate now, "I have something that is the equivalent of feathers."

"Dude, you have wings," Dean told him. "I'm looking right at them."

He ran his hand over the back of Castiel's "inasmuch as I have" wings, and the little twists of light curled over his fingers. Intrigued, he moved his other hand the same way. The light moved with him.

"Look closer," Castiel said. The words sounded forced out.

Dean didn't want to look closer. He wanted to keep patting the space behind Castiel, the space filled with color and light and little curls of warmth that kissed his fingers. He dragged his hands through it again.

"Dean," Castiel growled. "Please pay attention."

"I am paying attention," Dean told him. "I'm watching your feathers make love to my hands. It's awesome."

Castiel didn't answer, and Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "I'm looking. What am I looking for?"

The feathers weren't just following his fingers, he realized on his third pass. They were leaning after his hands and they were staying that way. He picked a new spot and dragged his fingers through the chaotic swirls of dark blue and purple, and yeah. He was leaving streaks of perfectly aligned feathers everywhere he touched.

"Your feathers are lining up," he said. "Like they're… I dunno. Neater? Or something? Is that supposed to happen?"

There was no reply.

"Cas," Dean said. The light was pretty and flatteringly attentive under his fingers, and it felt warm and soft in a weird way that light shouldn't. But if he'd made this a thing after all then he had to stop. "Tell me you didn't just ask me to to do something horrible and violating."

He felt Cas take a deep breath. He saw his shoulders move. The wings under his hands arched and pushed, easing his hands back like they were physical things--and they were, maybe, but the fact that Dean got to feel them was… awesome.

Dean pulled his hands away. "Cas," he repeated.

Cas wasn't pissed at him. Maybe he was right, then, Dean thought distantly. It really was a two-way street: he'd almost forgotten what it felt like not to know when Cas was angry or confused or afraid. He wished he had more practice with happy and excited and content. Life was hard, but Cas had good things. Maybe they should remind him more.

He put a hand on the near end of the sofa and came around, crouching down in front of Cas when he saw those eyes were closed again. "Hey," Dean said softly. "Cas. You gotta talk to me, here."

"Thank you," Cas whispered, and Dean had no idea what that meant.

"Okay," he said. "You're welcome? Your wings okay?"

"Yes," Castiel hissed, violet flaring close around him. The riot of color was sneaking back in as Dean watched, and it took him too many seconds to realize Cas' wings weren't wrapping around him--they were reaching for Dean.

"Uh, Cas," Dean said. "You seemed… pretty protective of your wings, there. Before."

"They're symbolic of my status." Cas didn't move, didn't do a single thing except talk and stretch his wings and Dean was not going to protest if this was headed where he thought it was headed.

"Great," Dean said. "And they're--"

Cas' wings melted into his arms and Dean stopped talking. He had angel wings draped over his shoulders. He had an angel in front of him and angel wings wrapped around him and these jeans were really not his favorite piece of clothing tonight.

He turned his face into the nearest wing for no real reason except he liked the feeling and he heard Cas groan. He saw Cas' head tip back when he looked, white eyes shooting light toward the ceiling, and Dean tried to decide whether this was bad or very, very good. "Cas," he said, as carefully as he could. "We okay?"

"I am--" Cas' voice sounded harsh, rough, and very human. "Not completely in control of myself."

Dean let his knees hit the floor as he leaned in, bracing his arms against Cas' legs. "Now we're talking," he said. He was staring at Cas' lap and he was fondling Cas' wings and he was pretty sure that Cas was having a better time than he was.

"I am not," Cas gasped, and he was talking but he sounded the way anyone should sound when they were hanging onto dignity by a thread. "Not without inspiration."

"First I've heard of it," Dean said, pressing a kiss into feathers that licked his face in return. He could feel color curling against his skin even where he couldn't see it. "You usually go easy on me 'cause I'm human, or what?"

"Because it's a risk."

Those wings were behind him now, all around him and urging him on, urging him up. He could feel the ghost of their presence at his back, and when he pushed himself up he felt something sharp and suggestive prod him forward. "Can I," Dean began, and then Castiel's hands found his hips and he was falling onto a lap that was all wings and the tingling rush of angelic touch.

Healing, Dean thought dazedly. Cas was healing things that weren't broken; that was where the tingling came from. Wings shouldn't feel this hot and he was pretty sure the light in Cas' eyes was pure angel--it should be enough to fry him where he stood.

But he didn't burn. He straddled Castiel's hips and he stared into a brightness he could almost make sense of: the feathers were just the beginning, there were lines and curves and the leading edge of wings big enough to fly on. In Cas' eyes there was the echo of everyone he'd ever touched, and Dean thought if he looked close enough he could see something of heaven there.

He also thought, wow, Cas was more together than he looked, because there was a hand on the front of his jeans and Dean was pushing forward before he even realized what it meant.

"No," he mumbled, leaning in to press his mouth against Castiel's glowing face. "Don't, you don't have to."

Just want it, Castiel whispered in his mind. I just want you to want it.

"Of course I want it," Dean breathed. The fuck is wrong with you; it was never about me wanting it.

It was always about you wanting it. Castiel was bright and alien under his hands, and they shouldn't be doing this on the couch.

Just like that, the light was everything. Dean didn't even realize it was dark at first. But Cas was falling back against the pillows of Dean's own bed, which was kind of gutsy in all the right ways, and Dean scrambled to brace himself and couldn't. He landed on top of Cas, which might not have been an accident, but it surprised a laugh out of him and he felt those wings around him everywhere.

"Starting to get what you see in that flying thing," Dean whispered, because it was a confession worthy of the darkness.

"As I begin to appreciate your desire for mutual physical pleasure," Castiel said, rolling on top of Dean. His wings were suddenly free, flaring out behind him, and Dean couldn't help but stare.

The colors. They were important; they were the mood ring he'd always teased Cas about, and he wasn't getting anything from them now. The kids had told him, they had guesses about the feelings and the direction and what it all did to their wings, and as far as he could tell they were mostly right on.

He couldn't remember what they'd said about this.

"You gonna tell me what this means?" Dean asked, and his voice was rough but the words were right when he reached out. Those wings trembled when he touched them, lightening, falling, and Cas stared back at him with bright white eyes.

When he spoke, there was a hum behind his words that Dean had heard before. "It means I'm not alone."

Cas' breathing had evened out, which was a shame. It wasn't just his eyes that were glowing, though, and that made up for a lot. Everywhere his wings touched was limned in silver, in white, bright like a beacon that couldn't be less human if it tried. Except that the shape was there, that was still Cas' body in the center of it all, and if it wasn't the body he had in heaven then at least it gave Dean a reference point.

Dean took it. He put his hands under those wings, up against a chest that was sheathed in a wrinkled shirt Dean could barely see in the white, and he pulled. It shouldn't have worked, he didn't even know what he was pulling on, but light swirled around his hands and Cas was an anchor that he held himself against: sitting, leaning, sliding his arms behind and burying his face in a neck that might as well be part of Cas' wing.

Dean. He could hear Cas' voice in his head, could feel his body completely still beneath Dean's hands. But warmth was rushing over him in waves, surrounding him, and when he closed his eyes he could feel wings against his back, petting him, sinking into him, lighting him up from the inside. He glowed now, the way Cas did, and he could feel the awe racing through them both.

Keep your fucking awe to yourself, he thought, and the light shivered against him. He could feel his body, and he could feel Cas, but the human body Cas walked around in was breathless and insubstantial next to the heat that enfolded his own. The heat was Cas, the light, the wings against his back… the arms that embraced him in return.

Angel Cas had a shape, he thought, and then suddenly it was hard and cold as Cas' body came alive under his touch. "Dean," he said urgently, and it wasn't happy and it wasn't sexy but it was very desperate. "Don't let me--"

Dean laughed, shoving him back, knocking him upside-down on the bed because he could. "You need to let go," he said, pressing his face into Cas' chest while he forced the rest of his body into a more manageable position. "Live a little, Cas."

"No." It was mostly a gasp, but it made Dean pause when he lifted his head. He was staring at Cas without looking, memorizing every feather by feel, and Cas looked terrified. "Don't open your eyes."

His eyes weren't closed. When he opened them, he saw an angel. Grace trying to force itself into the limitations humanity required, love and despair spilling out of corner, every piece of Castiel he couldn't hide or contain.

"I see you," he whispered.

No! Castiel surged against him.

Dean fell into him and held on, instinct overriding all common sense in the face of an angry supernatural being, but this was Cas. This was the youngest angel in all of heaven, wiser than any who had come before, trying so hard and feeling so much. This was the most human angel Dean had ever known.

"Dean." Castiel's mind was shrinking back from him--from him!--and his voice was afraid and Dean knew, finally and with a crashing certainty that he'd only been able to guess at before, just what Castiel was terrified of.

Dean let him go. He held up his hands, sitting back as carefully as he could while Cas struggled to disentangle himself. The wings were the worst: reluctant to give up, to tear away, and Dean could feel the drag of them go across every inch of his skin.

Now Cas was breathing again, hard, eyes wide as he searched Dean from head to toe. He stared wildly around the room, found nothing, came back and looked Dean over again. And again.

"Hey," Dean said softly. He wasn't sure Cas was even listening, but it seemed worse not to say anything. That was what had gotten them into this, right? "It's just me."

Castiel froze, eyeing him with a suspicion that made Dean want to laugh. Which was probably the worst thing he could do, but the fact that he knew that had to count for something. What did Cas think, anyway: that he had the most thorough case of amnesia in human history?

"I'm not sure it was ever just you," Castiel said at last, but at least he sounded more wary than terrified now.

"Pretty sure it was," Dean said. "I remember my whole life, you know. Well, most of it," he added as an afterthought. "Maybe we should we talk to the kids about drinking."

"A human life is nothing to an archangel," Castiel said. "I remember eating breakfast three days ago; it hardly changes my identity."

Dean glared at him. "Are you trying to piss me off, or what? If humans are nothing, what are the kids?"

"They're everything," Castiel said harshly. "Heaven can't have them."

"Heaven doesn't want them," Dean snapped. "Heaven wants everything to go back to the way it was, and that means all of you dead. You, the kids, and everyone you lead or got help from or inspired along the way."

"Heaven wants a lot of things it won't admit to," Castiel said. His silver eyes were almost blue again and the color had drained from his wings until only a pale green was left. "Things it will never have."

He was still lit up in the dimness, but he shouldn't be. Dean blinked at him, vision wavering just enough that Cas blurred in the shadows. "Hey," he said, reaching out without thinking. "You okay?"

He missed Cas' arm entirely, and he thought Cas was watching him stumble in the dark. "Uh, can I turn on a light? If I do it, you know--" He waved in what he thought was the direction away from Cas. "Back there?"

There was a whisper of movement before the beside lamp came on. It lit the room in shades of orange and yellow, and Cas was still sitting there in front of him. Well, sort of slumped there in front of him, looking too human at the end of the bed and somehow more tired than afraid.

"Hi," Dean said, frowning at him. "You don't glow anymore."

Castiel stared at him. "You don't sleep as much as you used to," he said, and Dean wasn't the king of non sequiturs but he could recognize a good one when he heard it.

"Okay," he said. He looked at the clock for lack of anything better to do, and yeah, waking up wasn't going to be fun. The kids never slept in because they didn't sleep. "Well. Whose fault is that, I guess."

"Mine," Castiel said softly. Like it was an actual question.

So Dean made it one. "Ours," he said. "What we do together is on both of us, Cas."

Cas looked at him like the words were hard to hear, and Dean had no idea what had happened. One minute they'd been fooling around in the dark--actually on Dean's bed for once, instead of necking on the couch like a couple of teenagers--and the next Cas was hunched in on himself with a weight on his shoulders that Dean felt like he should recognize. He had no idea what he'd done, or what to do now.

"Come on," he said, because he had to try. "Don't look like that. It's not the end of the world."

"Isn't it?" Cas sounded exhausted, and Dean wondered why they weren't at least holding on to each other. "You don't even remember what you said, do you."

"When?" Great, he thought. Fun memory games. Always his favorite part of a relationship. "Cas, talk to me. I can't help if I don't know what's going on."

"I don't want you to know what's going on!" Cas shouted. "I want you to be human! I want you to be the person I thought was taking care of our children!"

Okay. Cas was freaking out. Not the first time, Dean thought, but at least this time he was vocal about it. Dean could work with that.

"Our children," Dean said carefully, because it was probably the nicest thing Cas had ever said to him and he wasn't going to ignore it, "are safe. That's the most important thing, right?"

"I put you in charge of them," Castiel said. "I put you in charge of keeping nephilim safe."

"And I've done a damn good job of it," Dean snapped, before he remembered to take a breath. "Cas," he said. More gently. The guy had been running for his life; he was entitled to a little forgiveness. "They're safe. You're safe. I'm not gonna go all sleeper assassin on you. Pretty sure, anyway."

He shouldn't have added the last part. It was honest, but it wasn't reassuring. Except maybe to Cas, who seemed to like it.

"You're pretty sure," Cas repeated.

"You think I'm Michael," Dean said.

Instead of pulling away, Castiel sat up straighter. "You remember."

"Remember what?" he demanded, exasperated. "You keep saying that. What do you think I don't remember?"

"You talk like him," Cas said warily. "And then afterwards you brush it off."

"I talk like Michael?" Dean gave him his best skeptical look. "Maribel says that too. So you're telling me you don't even know where Michael is, but you know what he sounds like?"

Castiel's wings shook themselves out of their slump, which was adorable and heartening and Dean just wanted to touch them again. "You speak to Maribel about Michael?"

He didn't want to have this conversation. Unfortunately, he knew from experience that trying to gloss over anything to do with the kids was a bad idea. "When angels come here, and I talk to them, sometimes she listens. She tells me later whether it worked or not."

"Which angels?" Castiel demanded.

"I dunno, whoever she feels like spying on I guess." Dean had thought Cas knew that, but maybe he was getting Maribel in trouble without even knowing it. "Your friends. The other ones, sometimes. When Gabriel's not here."

"The other ones?" Castiel echoed. "Not the pilgrims."

"Yeah, them." Dean wasn't going to call them pilgrims. Gabriel sent random angels to him sometimes: to see Dean, to talk to him, to receive the word of Michael or whatever. It was a little hilarious and a lot terrifying, so he mostly yelled at them, told them to play nice and love each other more, and then he sent them on their way.

"Maribel should not be listening to your conversations with them." Cas did sound upset, but he felt afraid, and Dean had had enough.

"Cas, I won't let her get hurt." He wanted to reach out, to offer some kind of touch because usually Cas welcomed it. Right now, Dean couldn't forget Cas scrambling away from him like he was on fire. "You know I won't let anything happen to her."

Cas just eyed him, and that hurt as much as anything.

"Or maybe you don't," Dean said with a sigh. "Okay. So. What do we do about it? You want me to leave?"

"No," Castiel said quickly. Then he stopped.

"You don't want me to leave," Dean said. "You think I might be an archangel lying in wait to smite your entire family, and you want me to stay?"

Castiel shifted, and when his wings sparked golden Dean felt it too. The kids had gathered in the hallway. Why hadn't he noticed that before? Cas had yelled, he'd been afraid, and the kids were attuned to him like no one else.

"Are you?" Castiel asked at last. "Gabriel thinks it's funny that I called you something that night that we now pretend you are. Are you indeed Michael? Or is it just another one of Gabriel's tricks?"

Everyone knew when "that night" was; he didn't even have to ask. Castiel's war had come all the way to earth, and his entire family had almost paid the price. Dean had bought him five extra seconds by calling himself Michael and standing up with an angel sword, and Gabriel had ridden that declaration all the way to heaven. They'd had a truce in writing, or whatever passed for it with angels, by the next day.

"Cas." Dean did reach out this time, because he couldn't help it. He put a hand on Cas' ankle, and Cas looked down but he didn't move. "You said it yourself: we pretend I'm someone I'm not. I'm doing it on purpose. I'm trying to sound like an angel. If it keeps you guys alive a little longer, I'll do whatever you need me to. You got that?"

Cas didn't look up, but Dean could feel him trying to be calm. Trying to reassure the kids without having to admit they were there. "Sometimes," he said quietly, "I don't think you know how convincing you are."

Dean squeezed his ankle. "I know what I said," he told Cas. "I'm sorry if the thing about heaven wanting to kill you pissed you off. I got a little carried away when you freaked about the Michael thing. I shouldn't have said that."

"It wasn't that," Castiel said, still staring at his hand.

When he didn't say anything else, Dean tried to pretend he was at least as calm as they guy who thought his kids' bodyguard might kill him in his sleep. "Fine," he said. "What was it?"

Cas looked up, frowning, searching his expression. "You knew," he said. "You pulled away. You let me go; you knew I was upset."

"Did I say something then?" Dean honestly couldn't remember, but he thought having a touch-starved angel panting underneath him was a more likely explanation for not remembering than having a crazed killer angel inside of him. "I backed off 'cause you said no. That's not the angel in me, Cas; that's basic human decency."

"You knew," Castiel insisted. "You knew, and then you didn't."

"I knew you thought I was Michael," Dean said bluntly. "Yeah. You were screaming it in my head; it wasn't a big mystery to me."

Cas was staring at him with eyes that were wide and dark and Dean told himself it was the light. He told himself the knock on the door was totally understandable; the kids couldn't make it without their dad and hey, he was their dad. Of course they were worried.

Of course the whole family needed to be a part of this conversation.

"Come in," Dean called, and they didn't.

Come in, Cas added.

The outer door didn't make any sound, but the inner one made a quiet shush of moving air when Maribel pushed it open. "Is it dangerous?" she asked. She waited in the doorway while Cas looked at him, and Dean looked at Cas, and they could both feel all of the other kids hovering behind Maribel.

"Perhaps no more so than usual," Castiel said after a moment. He sounded more like himself--like he belonged to all of them again, instead of just to Dean, and Dean tried not to be disappointed about that--but it was hard to say if that convinced the kids or not.

They came in anyway. Maribel held the door for them and Wildfire was the first one through, Adamel the last. Dean suddenly realized that Cas, at least, looked like he'd been rolling around with an actual lover and hadn't taken the time to put his clothes on right afterwards.

"Um, hey," Dean muttered, jerking his head away from the kids. Cas turned without question, even now, and Dean reached out to tug his shirt back into place. "You want to--" Dean gestured in the general direction of his lap.

Cas leaned forward and Dean couldn't help glancing down. His pants were done up and neat, magic angel mending apparently enough to do what Dean wouldn't in front of the kids. But Cas was pulling on Dean's shirt, too, settling the flannel back into place over his shoulders and smoothing the t-shirt with his hand.

Dean cleared his throat. "Thanks," he managed.

None of the kids said a word.

Dani was standing next to the bed when he looked again, and he waved her up without waiting for her to ask. She didn't look to Cas first, and that made him feel a little better. "Everyone okay?" Dean asked the silence.

"We're worried about you," Maribel said. "We heard Father shouting at you."

"Yeah, well." Dean's gaze flicked to Cas again. "He had a good reason."

"Did I?" Castiel's voice was quiet, but he was watching Dean. Not Dani, curled up against Dean's side like a cat. Just Dean. "You think I'm wrong."

"I didn't say that." Dean patted Dani's shoulder, watching the little feathers of her wing curl toward his hand the same way Cas' did. Why hadn't he noticed that before? They were gonna have to talk about that.

Maybe not with the kids in the same room, though.

"Are you Michael?" Castiel asked.

Dean looked at him, but he didn't look afraid. "Would I know?"

Castiel frowned, as though he'd never considered that before. "I'm not sure."

"Then I don't know," Dean told him. "Okay? That's as much as I've got. I know what you're afraid of. I even kind of know why. But I don't have any answers."

Maru climbed up on the bed without asking, and Dean tried not to smile. Cas was raising a bunch of rebel kids. "Hey," he said, because it was safer than ignoring a kid who looked like that.

"Hey," Maru echoed. "How can you be Michael if you're human?"

Dean raised his eyes to look at Cas again. "I dunno," he said, when Cas didn't look like he was going to answer. "Cas here seems to think I forgot being an angel."

Cas stared back at him, unimpressed. You do forget, he thought.

"I don't," Dean said, exasperated. "I know what I said, Cas. I don't know what I did. You flipped out and I have no idea why!"

Dani's arms tightened around his. She was holding onto his right arm, pressed up against his side. Her eyes were closed, and she was listening just as closely as any of them.

"It's fine," Dean added. Calmly. He could totally do calm. "I'm sorry I scared you. I wish I knew what I did. So I could… you know. Not do it again."

"You were glowing," Cas said. His voice was flat. "You were bright. Your eyes were white when you looked at me, and--you looked at me. You can still see."

"I look at you all the time," Dean told him. "Sue me, you're easy on the eyes."

"You look at my human form," Castiel countered. "Looking at an angel is dangerous for human eyes."

"Your human form? What, the wings don't count? I see angels all the time! I see what you see; I thought that was the point of the--" He waved at his head. "The psychic thing, the shield, whatever."

It made Cas hesitate, and he knew he'd scored a point. "Isn't what I see filtered through you anyway?" Dean pressed. "Or what you see is on me, or something like that? I can hear you in the next town. I can see you through the wall. I have angel powers, Cas, but they don't come from me. They come from you."

"I don't make your eyes glow," Castiel said. "I can, perhaps, cause you to see things you wouldn't otherwise--"

Dean scoffed at that, because yeah, understatement.

Cas didn't stop. "But I don't make you look like me, Dean. I increase your ability to tolerate angels. I don't turn you into one."

"Well, Gabriel does," Dean said. "My eyes probably glow then, right? Not like it's never happened before. Maybe some of it gets left over."

Maybe some of it was reflected. He wanted to point out that whatever Cas had seen, Dean had been surrounded by angel at the time and probably hadn't looked all that human anyway. He'd probably looked like he was wrapped in angel glow because he was.

"You shouldn't be able to contain Gabriel," Cas said. He looked mutinous, and what the hell was that? "No ordinary human can withstand the power of an archangel for as long as you have."

"But he has us," Wildfire interrupted. "He's around us all the time. What if he's not an ordinary human anymore?"

"I do soak up a lot of grace," Dean said, trying not to smirk. Wildfire had just interrupted them. Good for her. "Maybe I'm just that awesome."

"I think you're that awesome," Saph offered, and he grinned at her.

"I think you do things you shouldn't be able to," Castiel said.

"And the logical explanation for that is that I'm Michael?" Dean asked. "Come on, Cas. There's gotta be other options."

"None so catastrophic," Castiel said.

Dean would give him that. They all had reason to be scared--

Then he frowned, because wait. "Are we sure about that?"

"About Michael being catastrophic?" Castiel looked at him like he might not have been paying attention ever.

"About me being Michael being catastrophic," Dean said, then he played it back in his head. Was that too many of the same words? Did it matter? "About it being bad," he said. "Whatever. Dude, I love you. So if I'm Michael, isn't that, like--"

Shit. It caught up with him a couple of seconds too late. He'd meant all of them. He loved the kids, and he even loved Cas in a "he's a great guy" kind of way. But he'd been staring right at Cas when he said it, and he'd definitely used the "l" word in a serious way to mean serious things.

"Does that mean Michael loves us?" Saph asked. "Because if you're Michael, then I love Michael too."

He had to smile, because kids were hard and angel kids were harder, but he would totally take that distraction. "That's where I was going with that," he told her. "Yeah."

"Father says he thinks you forgot," Maia said. She had pulled one of the pillows off of the top of the bed and was leaning against it with her head resting on the comforter. It was cute and kind of weird at the same time. "What if you forget us?"

"What if Michael doesn't remember why we're hunted," Castiel said. "And when he remembers, he won't love us anymore."

The whole room was very quiet. Dean never noticed their little angel-whispers until they went away, but they were gone now. Nothing moved: their wings, maybe, colors curling downward, or their shoulders as they breathed, but he couldn't tell. They could have been statues for all he knew.

Way to bring it down, he thought, but he didn't say it because this was Cas' life. This was his family's life, and he thought it was his job to make them aware of the danger. If Dean thought they could do with a little more ignorance and a little less fighting, well. No one had asked him.

"Hey," he said instead. As quietly and as kindly as he could, which wasn't very in a room full of angels. His voice came out weird, and he swallowed but it didn't help. "I can't promise that I'm Michael, okay? And I guess I can't promise I'm not, 'cause apparently I wouldn't know.

"But I do know that you're my favorite kids. You're the best. Cas says heaven's after you because you're different, and you know I think that's bull. I'll always think that. No matter who I am, or what's going on, I'm gonna love you guys, because you're the best kids in the world."

Saph was the first one to move, but Maia pushed herself the rest of the way onto the bed while Dean was watching Saph. Saph, who crawled over to Cas and laid her head on his arm the same way Dani was hanging onto Dean. "I think you're the best dads in the world," she said. "Is that okay?"

Dean tried to tell himself that she hadn't made that plural, he was just hearing things, but she beamed at him when he didn't say anything. "Okay," she repeated. "I just wanted to make sure, because sometimes we're not supposed to say bad things about God."

He stared at her, but then he felt Maia ducking under his other arm, and the older kids were coming around the other side of the bed to lean against it like they were waiting to be warned away. He watched Cas tell Saph, "Just because one person is good, that doesn't mean another person has to be bad," because to angels God was "people" and sometimes Dean thought that religion didn't get everything wrong.

Adamel scooted over to sit next to Maia, and Wildfire sat cross-legged between him and Saph. When Dean looked over his shoulder, he saw Maribel leaning up against the headboard, ankles crossed and a pillow behind her shoulders. "What," he said, "you don't want to be in the circle too?"

"There isn't room," she said, ever practical.

"There's always room," Dean told her. "Come sit next to Dani."

To his surprise, she did. Dani crawled into his lap to make room, and Maribel scrunched up between Dean and Maru. She didn't make it painless, though, because when she'd pulled her knees up to her chest the first thing she asked was, "How much do you love Father, Dean?"

"A lot," he said, careful not to look at Cas.

She made a face at him, and Dean almost smiled, because Maribel wasn't expressive the way the rest of the kids were. She and Adamel and even Wildfire had their dad's deadpan delivery, and he didn't know if it was an angel thing or if they'd just been around Cas longer. To see Maribel roll her eyes was to see someone else's influence, and he would never not think it was funny.

Even when she was asking him pointed personal questions that he didn't want to answer himself, let alone share with the rest of the family.

"We don't need to quantify love," Castiel said, and Dean wasn't going to contradict him. Not when he was doing one of his rare teaching moments. The kids seemed to learn mostly by instinct and example, which was weird and a little creepy, like they had some kind of race memory--or programming--but sometimes Cas told them things. Sometimes he instructed them, and they took it instantly to heart.

"There's nothing bigger than love," he added, "so there is no value to be put on it. Do you understand?"

All of the kids nodded. Even Dani, her face pressed against Dean's side, and Saph, who had flopped over so she was lying with her head on Cas' leg. Wildfire and Adamel looked fine, but Maribel was a little slow with her agreement.

An angel's version of reluctance, Dean was sure.

"Uh," he said, and that was it. Now he was committed. Cas didn't glare at him, just gave him a curious look, and Dean said, "There's… different kinds of love, though?"

"No, Dean." Now Cas looked amused, and hey, at least that was better than freaked out. "There are not."

Annoying, Dean told himself, but still better than freaked out. "Well, humans believe there are," he said. "So maybe that's confusing when you, I don't know. Go to a human school?"

Cas considered that. "I suppose humans might love differently than angels," he said at last, and Dean didn't move. That wasn't what he'd been expecting. Not that he wanted to fight; he hadn't meant to start an argument or anything.

But did he want Cas teaching them that angels and humans had different kinds of love?

What if they did?

"I didn't," Dean began. "That's not… exactly what I meant."

"Will you tell us about human love?" Castiel asked. "I'm sure it would be valuable for the children to have your insight."

Dean narrowed his eyes at Cas. Are you fucking with me? He didn't even care if the kids could hear him at this point, because Cas was being very… something. There was something off about him, something… deliberate.

Cas smiled at him.

Something cute, Dean realized abruptly. Cas was being fucking cute with him. If that didn't take the cake.

"You know what," he said aloud. "I will. 'Cause I'm such a nice and extremely knowledgable guy, I'm gonna teach you everything you'll ever need to know about human love."

"Do you know everything about love?" Wildfire asked curiously. He was pretty sure the older kids, at least, had picked up on the sarcasm.

"Nope," he said. "Just everything I need to know. Humans have to prioritize, see; we can only learn so much. So once you know everything you need to, you stop."

He was mostly teasing, but Wildfire gave him an assessing look that probably meant she'd read more into it than he meant. "Angels don't learn," she said. "We just know."

"Everything?" he guessed.

She hesitated, though, so she must have seen the trap coming. "Everything we need to," she said at last.

He grinned at her, proud that she'd gotten around it with his own words. "Good for you," he said. "So here's something new. Humans say they love all kinds of things, but mostly they just mean they like them. When they really mean love, and they're talking about people, they either want to be like it, they want to protect it, or they want to--"

He broke off, because Cas didn't seem to care if he swore but he'd asked Dean not to do it in front of the kids. At least out loud. If he was suddenly as focused for them as he seemed to be for Cas, they probably knew he was about to say fuck it.

He said "have sex with it" instead. He felt kind of bad saying that in front of kids too but Cas had forced the issue by bringing it up in the kitchen one morning. It was a memory Dean didn't want to relive, but Cas had made it very clear that sex was not to be treated as a taboo topic.

"That's a Greek concept," Castiel remarked, out of nowhere. "The three types of love. The three that were in common use are the three that are referenced today, but there were at least five."

"It's a playground concept," Dean corrected. "Your waldorf school doesn't have one; it's no wonder you missed it."

Castiel tilted his head, and Dean smirked. "Human kids call it liking, like-liking, and marrying."

"None of which includes the word love," Castiel said.

"Kids don't say love," Dean told him. "Love is scary."

"You don't say love," Castiel said. "I think perhaps your upbringing was flawed."

Dean stared at him, startled, and Cas' smile faded. "That was more rude than I meant it to be," he said. "I think? I apologize."

"You think you apologize?" Dean said. Damn. Cas had just slammed his dad without even realizing it, and Dean… wasn't angry. Really? He should be angry. He got angry about everything else. This was what he was going to let go?

"I do apologize," Cas said firmly. "I never mean to evoke memories of your childhood."

Because Dean got upset whenever he did. So. That was fair.

"I'm okay with it," Dean said, and he thought maybe he was. "You're, uh." He patted Dani's back absently when her wings uncurled a little, warmth ghosting against his arm. "Probably right, anyway."

Castiel raised his eyebrows, and Dean felt Maribel and Saph both look at him. They weren't the only ones. They were just the most obvious about it.

"Yeah," Dean said, looking around at the rest of the kids. "So. We gonna have ice cream, or what?"

Now they were all looking at Castiel, and he tried to take a breath. It felt totally normal. He really wasn't angry, and that was a weird feeling.

"It's past their bedtime," Castiel said.

Dean huffed something that was almost a laugh. "How do you even know to say stuff like that?" he wanted to know. "They don't have a bedtime, Cas. They don't go to bed."

"They go to their bedrooms." Cas was strict about this, and Dean wouldn't have asked if he thought Cas would cave. Like he wanted to entertain anyone 24 hours a day. "It is important to have a period of rejuvenation in any cycle, and the concept of 'bedtime' is sufficient."

"Right," Dean said, just to make it clear he wasn't arguing. "Great. I like it, I agree, whatever. But here's the thing: we interrupted their period of rejuvenation. That's not cool. We can't just send them back to bed like nothing happened."

Cas looked around at the circle of angel children on Dean's giant bed. "This does not seem to be consistent with nothing happening," he said.

"Nope," Dean agreed. "This is fixing stuff after something bad happens. It goes down better with sugar."

One thing he'd say for the psychic shield or whatever: Cas seemed to get when he was serious about things. So all of the kids got up, and Dean didn't give them ice cream after all, but he made them hot chocolate and even Cas had some. There weren't any marshmallows, but there was fluff, so Dean added milk and fluff to all the little kids' cocoa. Which just meant that everyone else had to have it too, and at the end of the day, he probably should have stuck with ice cream.

He'd given Sam ice cream a lot when they were younger. When Sam woke up from nightmares, or something broke in the middle of the night and there was crashing and noise and they were in a strange place all alone. It helped, maybe. A little. But it was always too cold.

Dean wished he could go back now and give Sam a warm mug to hold onto instead, with something hot to drink inside.

"We should get marshmallows," he said to Cas. Cas handed him the grocery list and Dean mimed writing until Cas gave him the pen, too.

Sam was grown up, now, and he could make his own hot chocolate. He'd found a way to move on. Dean knew that if he called, right now, Sam would answer the phone and climb out of bed to keep himself awake and tell Dean that it was his turn now.

Dean had to move on too. Or all of these kids would grow up thinking that you told people you loved them by saying "I like like you," and that it was okay to sit on someone else's bed in the middle of the night and yell at them.

"Hey," he said, passing the list back to Cas. "So. I told you about human love. Tell me about angel love."

Castiel paused, mug to his mouth, and there was a tiny froth of chocolate on his upper lip. Dean smiled. Castiel swallowed, lowering the mug, and Dean reached out to rub his thumb across Cas' lip.

"You had some chocolate," he offered by way of explanation.

Castiel stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. "I think I like human love better," he said.

It wasn't an answer, except for how it kind of was. Dean let him get away with it, either way. And when they finally sent the kids back to bed, or their rooms, or whatever, leaving nine brown coffee mugs on the counter behind them and a half-empty jar of fluff in the refrigerator, Dean thought he might not have as big a problem with human love as he'd thought he did.

Cas stopped him at the bottom of the stairs, and Dean changed his mind. Love was bad. Love screwed up everything; he shouldn't have said it. Cas was going to want answers.

"This was not," Castiel said quietly, searching his expression, "I think, the welcome home you deserved."

Dean just stood there, waiting for it.

"I'm glad to have you back," Castiel said. "I only hope that we have not become too much trouble for you to…" There was a word he couldn't find, a pause that was too long, and Dean knew.

"Too much trouble for you," Cas finished.

Maybe it was the way he'd given up, or maybe it was the way he didn't even try. It wasn't just the kids Dean wanted to see smile. So he put his hands in his pockets, and he braced himself, and he said, "Too much to love?"

Cas didn't flinch. "Are we?"

"Nope," Dean said. He smiled, because he didn't do anything halfway. "Nothing bigger than love, Cas."

It did make Cas smile. It made him smile for real, something bright and happy that wasn't just amusement or fondness or a token look for the purpose of blending it. He wasn't even mirroring Dean, he was just… smiling.

"I like that," Dean added. What could he say, he was feeling braver all of a sudden. "You should do it more."

Cas tilted his head, and Dean didn't even wait for him to ask.

"Smile," he said, reaching out to tap Cas' chin. He dragged his thumb across that bottom lip, and he just barely remembered to ask first. "Can I have a kiss?"

"Just one?" Cas hadn't stopped smiling.

"I gotta sleep," Dean told him. "C'mere."

It occurred to him after he'd said it that this was how he got into trouble, every time. And Cas didn't disappoint: he stepped into Dean with his hands on Dean's waist, and when he leaned in to push their mouths together Dean felt hands under his shirt, sliding warmly up his chest.

"Smooth," Dean murmured, kissing him again. "You've got some moves, there."

"Sleep with me." Cas said it like he said everything, obvious and unquestioned. But something must have made him hesitate, because he added, "You can. I want you to. If you do."

Dean chuckled at the sudden backtracking, because where did that even come from? "Never took you so many words to say it before," he said, kissing the corner of Cas' mouth, putting his tongue against skin and then pulling away. "Did I scare you off?"

"I am scared," Cas said, and it was too honest. Dean had been joking. Cas was not. "But I've always been scared; I was just too driven to realize it. If you've let me relax long enough to--to feel this, then I don't want to stop."

Being alive, enjoying it, doing more than just getting from one day to the next. Thinking of something more than survival. Having something to show for it. It was a jumble of understanding that could have come from either one of them, and that was why Dean kissed him again. He didn't get it, but he knew the feeling.

"I won't… 'freak out' this time," Cas murmured.

Dean closed his eyes, resting his forehead against Cas', and he felt Cas sigh. It was answer enough, and he felt bad about it. He felt bad that Cas might feel bad, but he was really fucking exhausted. He would fall asleep on Cas, and that would just be embarrassing for everyone.

"If you're thinking," Cas said, sounding pretty gentle himself, "then I don't understand it."

It made Dean smile. "Yeah, neither do I," he muttered. "I'm tired, Cas. It's not you."

"You still haven't tried my bed," Cas told him.

"Man, what is it with the bed?" Dean tried to open his eyes, but Cas was too close and he didn't want to pull away. He closed his eyes again and tried not to breathe too hard on Cas' face. "Why do you even care if I sleep in your bed or not?"

"It's not the bed," Castiel said quietly. "It's just being where you are."

Dean tried to pull that apart, tried to make it weird or romantic or dangerous in any way, but his brain must have turned off. He couldn't decide what it meant, so he gave up. "Can sleep in mine if you want."

Cas didn't move. "I'm sorry?"

"You can sleep in mine," Dean said, lifting his head so he could actually see Cas' face. "If you want."

He felt Cas' fingers press harder against his skin, almost believable as an involuntary reaction except that, first, he was an angel, and second, the tingling wash of grace against his bones was definitely not an accident. "Yes," Castiel said, covering the sound of Dean's gasp. "I do. Want that."

"Just," Dean said, catching his arms and trying to ease those hands out from under his shirt. "Sleep. Rest. Whatever you do. You can do it in my bed, but I need to sleep."

"All right," Cas agreed.

Which meant that Dean somehow found himself towing Cas up the stairs, hands tangled together like it was some kind of romantic stroll. It was so strange that he tried to stay half a step ahead so that it was more like he was leading Cas somewhere. Cas didn't complain, but when they reached the landing Dean had to stop and wait, and the half-second was long enough for him to realize what he was doing.

Hand-holding, he told himself. Perfectly normal. Well. Gay, really, or childish, but normal. For people who were, you know. In love.

"Hey," Dean said out loud. "I can't be in love with my boss."

Cas frowned at him. "I disagree."

Dean sighed, because he wasn't up for this right now. "Okay. Later."

"Which part?" Cas asked. He stayed where he was when Dean tried to keep walking, and that was when Dean remembered that he only "led" Cas where Cas was willing to go. Instead of letting go, Dean let Cas drag him to a stop. "The boss part, or the love part?"

"The boss part," Dean said.

"Oh." Cas' fingers loosened on Dean's, but he didn't let go either. "All right," he repeated.

They went the rest of the way side-by-side, and Dean remembered how to fall into stride with someone, and letting Cas back into his room wasn't as weird as it could have been. Cas didn't come into his room on a regular basis. Even the kids mostly stayed out of it, although they were all allowed. Nominally, at least.

It hadn't been an issue, so Dean hadn't bothered with rules. He wondered if he should have some now. They had knocked, after they heard Cas yell. But what if Dean hadn't heard it? What if neither of them had answered?

He wasn't comfortable with the whole kid connection. It was useful, yeah, and he got why Cas thought it was necessary. But having the kids in his head, being aware of them all the time… He could mostly tune them out. Cas was teaching him to focus, which wasn't the disaster he'd thought it would be, but still.

Making out with Cas was one thing. Having sex where the kids could hear was something else. And having sex when they could walk in and--?

He kept his bedroom door, the inner one, shut whenever he was inside. He wasn't inside very often. It was still open when he came out of the bathroom, and Cas had turned on a light inside so he flipped off the one in the outer room.

Dean got his phone out of his duffel bag, sent Sam a belated text saying he was home and thanks for the turkey, and set his phone on the table beside the bed. Cas was on top of the covers, so Dean yanked on his side of them and glared until he moved. "No sitting on top of the covers while I'm trying to sleep," Dean said, just to clarify.

The "no shoes in the house" battle had been hard-fought, and he still wasn't sure why he'd won. But it meant that Cas was almost always in socks, and when he climbed awkwardly under the comforter Dean held up for him, he was only wearing pants and a button-down. Dean wasn't even going to have that discussion with him. The kids had pajamas now, and that would have to be enough.

"Stay on your side," Dean said, falling back on his pillow with a sigh of relief. It almost wasn't worth it to pull the covers up. He didn't even want to move to turn out the light.

"Is this my side?" Castiel asked. He was propped up against the headboard, pillow behind his shoulders in an eerie echo of Maribel. Dean didn't want to analyze that too closely. "The left side?"

"The inside," Dean muttered, because he hadn't even realized he'd done it. Cas had been in the middle when he came in, and Dean had taken the side closest to the door out of habit. "No more talking."

He braced himself on his elbow long enough to snap the light off, and he grabbed the comforter on his way back down. It was so good to just lie there that he almost didn't care that Cas was with him. Almost. It wasn't bad to have someone else in the room. Someone he trusted. Someone who would watch the door.

The door. Dean didn't realize he'd closed his eyes until he opened them again. He hadn't closed the door.

He felt a brush of warmth against his shoulder--a warning, he thought--and then the quiet click of the door. It should have been spooky, or at least a little weird, but he was too tired to care. "Thanks," he muttered, closing his eyes again.

His phone buzzed against the wood of the nightstand.

He hated Sam.

He felt that warmth against his shoulder again, this time with a distinctly curious feel. A question, maybe. May I?

Dean grunted, which was supposed to mean yes please but probably just sounded like fuck off. If Cas was in his head, maybe he got it anyway. Dean didn't know how he was going to reach the phone and he really didn't care.

There was movement in the silence. Light behind his eyes, probably from the screen. It wasn't locked; Cas wouldn't have to pretend not to know his code. Then the soft, almost inaudible padding of fingers against the touchscreen.

He heard the phone click against the table again a moment later, and he smiled into his pillow. Angels and their superpowers.

He didn't wonder what Cas had said to Sam until the next morning, when he rolled over and found Cas still sitting against the headboard. With Dean's phone in his hands again. Typing.

"Hey." Dean forced his head up, squinting in the darkness of a dawn that hadn't arrived yet. The kids were up at six. He tried to be too, just as a general rule. "What're you doing?"

"Hello, Dean." Cas looked up long enough to smile at him, and Dean couldn't help it. There was basically no reason to smile before six-thirty, but Cas with his awkward almost-human courtesies was as close as it came.

"I'm exchanging text messages with Jessica," Castiel continued, and that made Dean sit up. "She says she has taken Sam's phone to the kitchen where it won't bother him while she makes coffee."

There were a lot of questions he should probably ask, but he could only figure out the words for one of them. "What are you telling her?"

"That drinking coffee first thing in the morning will cause her body to develop a tolerance," Castiel said, "and she would be better off to wait a few hours if she wants the caffeine to have maximum efficacy."

He looked up again, giving Dean a look that probably said something not-so-flattering about humans. "The same thing I tell you," he added. "I'm testing it on her to see if she can be reasoned with, meaning that you are unique in your convictions, or if this incorrect belief is commonly held among humanity."

Dean flopped over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. He put his hand over his eyes, but when he looked again, the room was still dark. "You're using me and Jess as your sample of humanity?" he asked at last. It was possible he slurred a couple of the words.

Castiel lowered the phone and peered more closely at him. "Are you still tired?" he asked. "You do not sound as alert as I have come to expect."

"It's the lack of coffee," Dean muttered. He put his hand over his eyes again, for whatever good it would do.

"Do you need more sleep?" Castiel asked. "The children don't have school today. You don't need to get up now."

"I'm fine," Dean said, even though going back to sleep sounded like the best thing ever. He didn't have time to go back to sleep. He'd told the kids they were getting a tree.

He opened his eyes behind his hand and smiled, involuntary and pleased. "We're getting a tree," he said out loud. "We're gonna have a Christmas tree."

"Right now we're in bed," Castiel said. "Your statement is incongruous. Are you sure you don't want to sleep?"

He pulled his hand away and fumbled for the light. "I want a tree," he said. "You know the last time I had an actual Christmas tree?" And then he had to stop and think, because he didn't know. He remembered, but it was long enough that he had to count back.

"Long enough that you miss it," Castiel said.

Dean rolled his head to the side in surprise. "Yeah," he said, his train of thought derailed. "I guess that sums it up."

Castiel smiled at him. "You could still sleep. Another hour, at least. I am capable of guarding the children in your absence."

Dean wanted to take him up on it. Enough that he thought about it, enough that he didn't just say something rude and push himself out of bed. He couldn't, though: he was awake, or he would be in a few minutes, and he would just lie there staring at the ceiling if he didn't get up.

Still. It wasn't a bad offer.

"Thanks," Dean said, getting his elbows under him and levering himself all the way up. "I'm okay. You here all night?"

Castiel raised his eyebrows. "If you're asking if I've been here since you fell asleep, then yes."

"Huh," Dean said.

"You find that strange," Castiel said.

Dean ran a hand through his hair, yawned, and decided there were better things he could be explaining to Cas. "Not really," he said. "Relatively speaking. S'pretty normal around here."

Cas looked down when Dean's phone vibrated again, and Dean asked, "Jess?"

"She informs me that the effect of the coffee is as much psychological as it is physical," Castiel said. "I think I'll ask her if it's like drinking hot chocolate before going to bed."

He paused long enough for Dean to say something. Dean had decided that watching Cas and Jess text was actually pretty entertaining, so he kept his mouth shut. Cas tapped away, and Dean wondered if Sam had even gotten his message from the night before. Jess getting it was basically the same thing, though, so he figured it wasn't important.

"I'm gonna get dressed," Dean said. "You want a clean shirt or anything?"

He didn't know why he offered. Cas wasn't wrong; they'd woken up on the couch together before. Every time, Dean's clothes were pretty much the way they'd been when he fell asleep. And every time, Cas' clothes were wrinkled beyond recognition--until he stood up, or sat up, or tilted his head for all Dean knew, and the wrinkles fell away. Whatever that power was, it must be good for more than just fixing clothes.

"Yes," Castiel said. "Thank you."

"Right," Dean said, getting to his feet and stopping. "Wait. What?"

"I would like a clean shirt," Castiel said. "Thank you for offering."

Dean blinked. "Uh, sure," he said. "I don't… have anything like what you wear?"

"A t-shirt would be fine." Cas was typing again, and Dean wondered how long it took to explain the hot chocolate thing. Caffeine when you couldn't feel it, sugar when you were trying to sleep--he wouldn't have made the connection if he didn't know Cas so well. If Jess was lost, he didn't blame her.

He had some old band shirts that he didn't dare wear to school. But Cas had asked, and they were probably pretty safe on the weekends, so he pulled one on and grabbed another one for Cas. He tossed it on the bed before he headed for the bathroom.

When he came back, Cas' button down was neatly folded beside him and he was wearing the first t-shirt Dean had ever seen him in. Dean's t-shirt, and that shouldn't be so significant. But damned if it didn't make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

"That's a good look for you," Dean said. He was going for casual. He probably landed somewhere in the vicinity of "not a possessive asshole," so he thought he could call it a win.

"I do enjoy the feeling of it," Castiel admitted. This time when he tapped the phone the screen went dark and he smiled up at Dean. "Will you have breakfast now?"

"Uh," Dean said.

Castiel didn't move. He was there on Dean's bed, in Dean's t-shirt, holding Dean's phone. And Dean was fine with it. He was more than fine with it. He was kind of looking forward to seeing it again.

Jesus, he really did love this guy.

"You know how you said," Dean began, circling the bed, "that maybe we didn't have to go downstairs right away?" He sat down, penning Cas in before he could try to stand. "That maybe I should just stay in bed for another hour or so?"

The look Castiel was giving him was not at all confused. "I remember saying some of that, yes. The rest is not… untrue."

"Yeah?" Dean grinned at him. "I wasn't kidding about the t-shirt."

Cas looked amused as he moved closer. "If I'd known all it would take was a shirt, I would have borrowed your clothes before now."

"I'm gonna kiss you," Dean warned, and Cas opened his mouth.

Dean didn't let him get a word out, pressing minty freshness into soft warmth, and of course Cas didn't have morning breath. Didn't eat, didn't sleep, probably didn't get off. Unless that light show last night meant otherwise, which Dean was totally willing to investigate.

Cas mumbled something into his mouth.

"Mmm." Dean let up when curiosity won out, even if it didn't come out quite as questioningly as he'd meant it to. "You--"

But Cas was kissing him, insistent even when Dean backed off, and Dean was on board with that. You were saying? he thought as clearly as he could. It probably wasn't very clear. Cas' mouth was a lot more interesting than any words, and the hand stroking his arm was just another happy distraction.

"You didn't," Cas mumbled, and the words twisted around Dean's tongue. "Always ask." Whether it was all right to kiss or not.

"You didn't always--" No, it was definitely more fun to kiss. You didn't always know what I was doing.

"You think I…" Cas had some kind of sense, some magical ability to find the rhythm of it and fit the conversation into the spaces. "Need the label?"

"Think I do," Dean murmured. He put his free hand on Cas' knee, leaning ever closer, but Cas wasn't letting himself be pushed. "Can't--you ask, and--" It kills the mood, he thought. Rather get it over with at the beginning.

"Mm." It was Cas' turn to give up on words, but Dean got a sort of acceptance from him and that was all he really needed. That and the way Cas kissed, the soft t-shirt bunching under his hand, and a bed he didn't plan to make anytime soon.

His phone vibrated again.

Cas didn't so much as twitch; it wasn't his fault. It was Dean's that he couldn't keep from laughing. "Really?" he asked, resting his head against Cas' shoulder to stay close, to hide his smile, to keep from pushing harder until Cas was spread out underneath him and breakfast was a distant thing.

"Apparently." Cas' voice above his ear was uncertain but not upset. "Paper chains, popcorn strands, folded snowflakes and tinsel."

Dean lifted his head and he meant to stare but he ended up kissing Cas' jaw instead. "What?" he asked, kissing a little higher. And then a little higher after that.

"Jess' message," Castiel said.

Good to know, Dean thought. Adamel wasn't the only one who could read phones without looking at them. Or, hey, they were all reading phones without looking at them, instead of only knowing who was on the other end. He should remember that.

"I asked her how to decorate a tree," Cas added, tipping his head so that Dean could continue to kiss his neck. Cas had great priorities. "Those are her suggestions."

They were good suggestions. Better than car fresheners and mailing string. Dean was going to thank her. It was just dawning on him that he didn't know a thing about celebrating Christmas like a normal person, and it sounded like Jess could help.

"Like 'em," Dean mumbled. He flicked his tongue against Cas' ear, breathing in the scent of his hair, and he wondered when he'd gotten so lucky.

"Is it," Cas began, and one of his wings curved distractingly close over his shoulder. "Important that you are the one to obtain the tree?"

"S'important that you are." Dean pressed closer, trying not to reach for the glow. He lowered his head over Cas' shoulder, curling around behind him, and he smiled when he felt warmth wash over the top of his head. Oh, hey, look at that. He'd bumped into one of those wings completely by accident.

"So," Castiel said, and heat rushed down his back in a way that made Dean gasp. He didn't have to look to know: Cas had just wrapped that wing all the way around him. "If there were a tree--"

Dean had no idea why they were still talking, but it was obviously important, so he breathed into Cas' neck and concentrated on the skin under his mouth instead of the flush of everything against his back. Just skin, just normal warmth, just a human feeling of… just this. He could focus on what Cas was saying.

"In the hall," Cas said, "the atrium, such that the children are--"

He squeezed his eyes shut, fingers fisting in the sheets, but it did no good. He put a hand on Cas' chest instead, forcing himself back. Angelic warmth tingled through his entire body and he realized, too late, that pulling away meant dragging his entire body through the wing Cas had covered him with.

It felt good, fantastic, and not even half as amazing as watching Cas stutter. The guy who didn't have to breathe swallowed hard, words choked off in the middle of a sentence and his eyes wide as he stared at Dean.

"I knew it," Dean breathed. "You are making me walk through your wings on purpose."

Cas didn't flinch, but he didn't speak above a whisper, either. Dean couldn't tell if he was doing it because Dean had, or if he was actually afraid to admit it. "They're not as affected if the contact is accidental," he said softly.

"But it's not accidental," Dean said. "Can I touch your wings or not?"

This time it was Cas who closed his eyes. "You may," he said.

That didn't look like an unconditional "yes" to Dean. "I'm gonna take that as a 'no,'" he said. "Until you tell me why it's a problem."

"Deliberate contact strengthens our grace," Castiel said without opening his eyes. "The heavenly host is a multitude; we are none of us made to be alone. Close communion is akin to the human concept of the laying on of hands: it's faith healing, both mental and physical. Insofar as we have a physical form."

It took a couple of sentences before Dean even realized that Cas was answering his question, and then he had to scramble to catch up. "It makes you feel better," he said.

Cas didn't move. "It makes us whole."

"You need it?" Dean guessed. "You have to touch each other--other angels, I mean? To survive?"

"I don't know," Castiel said. "No one knows what happens to angels who are lost. So far I live… I exist without the support of the host. So perhaps not."

"You're not alone," Dean said. "You have the kids, right? You have… you know, Rachel. And Balthazar. Doesn't that count?"

For some reason it was this, of everything, that seemed to affect Cas the most. He put his head down and turned so that even if his eyes were open he wouldn't see Dean. "I am responsible for their isolation," he whispered. "I have inflicted upon them whatever fate awaits me."

Okay, so no, Dean thought. It didn't count, and this was an awful conversation. But if he didn't know why, he wouldn't be able to avoid it in the future. "Why does it matter that I touch your wings," he said, as gently as he could. He wasn't good at gentle, but if anyone was worth the effort, it was Cas.

"It mimics the action of angels." Castiel sat frozen and bowed, and Dean wanted to move him, to slide the hand on his chest up to his face and turn him back, but he wouldn't risk making things worse. "Your touch brings order and healing to my grace. You must sense it, on some level. That my wings are less troubled in your wake."

"Your feathers straighten out," Dean said.

Something that was almost a smile touched the edges of Cas' expression. "If you like," he said.

"I do," Dean told him bluntly. "I like it a lot. Why can't I do it all the time?"

Castiel only shook his head, and Dean wondered what he'd done to reach the end of Cas' patience with words. He wasn't good at them either, so at least he knew where the feeling came from. He gave in and put a hand on Cas' face, just enough pressure that Cas would know what he wanted without actually having to ask for it.

Cas lifted his head and opened his eyes immediately. His gaze found Dean, and for a long moment Dean just stared at him. He wanted to kiss Cas. He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to see Cas hurt.

"Are you punishing yourself?" The words sounded terrible so close, too harsh for an angel in a t-shirt, tangled up in the sheets on his bed. "By letting your wings--" Dean gestured with his free hand, trying to make it mean something. "They're weaker, right? Me touching them makes them stronger?"

Castiel was totally unreadable. "Something like that."

"So." Dean had no idea if it was okay to push or not. "Are you punishing yourself? Or are you hiding? Does letting them get all…" He waved his hand again, aimless. "Wild? Does that help you… blend in, or something? Get respect? From your… your rebels?"

Castiel stared back at him. "How do you know that?"

"What?" He frowned. "I mean, which part? Any of it, I mean--I don't."

"You do," Castiel said. "Those are reasons an angel would give."

"Yeah, well." Dean barely kept himself from rolling his eyes, because who knew how Cas would take that. "Magical mental connection, and all that. I'm great at worst-case scenarios."

There was a knock on his door. An actual knock, and Dean was torn between pulling away and pulling Cas closer. Come on, like his crazy angel enemies could get this deep in the house. Right?

He settled for running his thumb over Cas' cheek before he pulled away. "I still want to know," he said. "Why I can't touch them." But he stood up before Cas answered and went around the bed, heading for the door.

"I'll tell you," Cas said.

When Dean looked back, Cas had swung his legs off the bed and was looking at Dean over his shoulder. "I will," he said. "Later."

"Uh-huh," Dean agreed, because what else was he gonna say?

It was Saph standing outside the bedroom door, looking adorable and wide-eyed and it was possible she was taking lessons from human children to look that innocent. "Good morning," she said. "Maribel said I should ask you because you like me best."

Dean sighed. It wasn't the first time this had come up. "I like all of you best," he said. "What did you do now?"

She brightened, if that was even possible, and her wings did a funny ruffling thing over her shoulders. "We got a tree! Is that okay? Father thought you might have wanted to get it yourself."

He could feel them all, collectively and figuratively, holding their breath. So he didn't ask how, or why, or what the hell. He just said, "Yeah, of course that's okay. That's great. We gonna decorate it today?"

She beamed at him, and he wanted to tell her to stop before she sprained something. "Yes please!"

"Okay," Dean said. He was trying not to but he couldn't help smiling when there was a kid that genuinely happy in front of him. "So, what, are we late or something? Did you guys get breakfast?"

"No," she said. "We were getting the tree. Maribel wants to know what you think of it, but she said you'd tell her to go away if she asked."

This time, Dean rolled his eyes and he didn't feel at all bad about it. "Maribel," he said. "Come here."

Maribel appeared in the outer room, just behind Saph. "Hello, Dean," she said, and he gave her a look that she had to recognize. She just tilted her head, loose hair sliding against her face.

"I would've told you to go away because your dad's here," Dean told her, "and we're talking, and it's important. Don't use the kids to do your dirty work."

Saph looked from him to Maribel and back. "Should I not have interrupted?" she asked. "Maribel said you wouldn't mind." As long as it was me, she didn't say, but Dean heard it anyway.

"It's fine," Dean said, because he had to. Because if he told them it wasn't, they would all flip out and this would be a terrible day. "I'm glad there's a tree--" What the hell, he thought, why is there a tree. He was picturing the kids sneaking around a dark tree lot at three in the morning. "And I'm glad you told me about it. You maybe could have waited five more minutes for us to come downstairs."

Maribel didn't say anything, and that was great. He'd managed to embarrass her. A teen warrior angel with sensitive feelings. He knew exactly nothing about girls sometimes, and it showed.

"We were worried you wouldn't like it," Saph told him. "We could have put it back before you saw it."

Of course they could have. They'd probably plucked a live tree out of the forest. They probably had plans to return it when they were done. Or maybe it would just grow inside the house all year, like Maia's out-of-control terrarium.

"If there's one thing Dean has demonstrated," Castiel said, coming up behind him at last, "it's that he likes everything you do. I am uncertain why this one thing would be different."

"We're changing," Maribel said unexpectedly. "Angels are constant. We're not. What if we change into something you don't like?"

She was looking at him, and Dean thought he should have seen that coming. Growing up was hard enough when you weren't cut off from everything that told you who to be. At least the little kids had the older ones. Who did the older ones have?

"If you do something I don't like then I'll deal with it," Dean told her. Telling them he'd like them no matter what obviously wasn't working, so he tried something different. "You don't like everything about me, right? There's things you wish I didn't do. Or did differently. Whatever. But you handle it, and you mostly like me.

"I like you too," he said, and hey, he might not be able to say he missed Cas but at least he could say he liked the kids. They were at least as good for him as he was for them. "I promise you, just because you do things a little different, that's not gonna change."

Maribel eyed him, and her response wasn't quite what he'd been expecting. If he'd been expecting anything. Most of the time, he just hoped he got through conversations with them without making them hate either him or themselves.

"I wish you would decide whether we're kids or adults," Maribel said.

Dean raised his eyebrows at her, because wow. Weird. But also kind of normal. That was a weirdly normal teenager-ish complaint.

"Refrain of teenagers everywhere," he told her. Not comforting, but there it was. "You're more adults than the kids, and you're more kids than the adults. That's how it works for humans, anyway."

"That is not how it works for angels," Castiel said.

He tried really hard not to think, that's what you get for having half-breeds, because it was mean and tactless and so obvious. He probably mostly managed to keep it to himself. Unfortunately, he managed to keep it to himself by thinking about how Cas looked standing next to him in his t-shirt, and that led to how Cas looked to lying in his bed in his t-shirt, and Dean squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at his face with a sigh.

"Your ability to control your focus leaves something to be desired," Castiel told him. He sounded amused, which was at least better than resigned.

"Maybe I need a better teacher," Dean muttered.

"Maybe you need more practice," Castiel said.

“I think we need decorations,” Saph said. “On the tree. Can we do that now, or do you want to talk to Father some more?”

He wanted to do both. They weren’t looking for breakfast--of course they weren’t--but he wanted it, and he wanted to talk to Cas, and he wanted to watch the kids decorate the tree. He wanted to help the kids decorate the tree, because left to their own devices who knew what they would decide was appropriate.

“Yes,” Dean said. Because eventually they were going to have to learn some non-literal English that wasn’t sarcasm, and other kids weren’t his number one choice for teachers. Sam would say Dean wasn’t his number one choice, but Sam wasn’t here. “Let’s do it. Everyone okay? Maribel? Cas?”

“I’m okay,” Maribel said. They’d at least learned that much: when he asked how they were, he wanted an answer.

“I’m much as I was before,” Castiel said, and Dean looked at him sharply.

Cas smiled, though, and it didn’t look forced. When Dean tried to figure out his expression, he felt vaguely fond and more mischievous than curious. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that that was probably Cas, not him. That was what Cas’ expression meant.

“Okay,” Dean repeated. “Good. Saph?” He was trying to get better at including everyone. There were so many of them, it was easier to pick the ones that needed attention. But it never seemed to be that simple, and picking any of them over the others just backfired on him in the end.

“I’m okay!” she chirped. She was easy, and he ruffled her hair as he passed.

“Let’s go see this tree,” Dean said.

He mostly wanted to see breakfast before anything else, but he did have a kind of morbid curiosity about what seven partially angelic children had chosen as a Christmas tree. He thought as many good and encouraging thoughts about it as he could, figuring maybe that would prime his brain to react positively no matter what. Funny that he’d worried about brainwashing when he’d first met them: he was pretty sure that by now he was doing it to himself. On purpose.

Cas was walking very close to him. He didn’t even notice until they followed the kids into the hall and Cas’ hand brushed against his. It must say something that Dean turned his hand over and grabbed for Cas’ fingers before they could slip away. He didn’t even think until after he’d done it.

“Sometimes I think you think too much,” Cas murmured, and Dean almost laughed.

“Yeah, coming from you,” Dean said, and he couldn’t not smile. “That means a lot. Someday I’ll get you to just enjoy yourself without worrying for a few hours.”

Cas sounded amused when he replied, “That is my goal for you as well.”

“Then I guess Sammy was right,” Dean said, slowing down as the magnitude of the tree he was looking at became clear. “We do deserve each other. Maribel, where the hell did you get a tree that big?”

“Don’t swear around the children,” Castiel said, even as Dean winced.

Sorry, he thought, and he felt Cas’ hand squeeze his. He tried not to do that. Jess was a bad influence.

“Is it too big?” Saph was asking. She sounded less worried than usual, so maybe some of his mental exercises were working.

“No,” he said anyway. “It’s great.”

It was, too. The tree was huge and it didn’t even look too big in the giant atrium. They could stand on the balcony where they were and still be looking out at it instead of down. He had no idea where it had come from and even less idea how they’d gotten it in there, but he wasn’t complaining.

“How’s it standing up?” Dean asked after a moment. Cas didn’t seem at all surprised, and Saph and Maribel were obviously waiting for his reaction. He looked down, but he didn’t see any of the other kids downstairs.

“We got a tree stand,” Maribel said. “Apparently that’s the human way.”

Apparently, Dean thought, but he didn’t say it out loud. It wasn’t like he knew. He wanted to ask who had told her that, where they’d gotten it, and when they’d put it up, but he also didn’t want to care. He wanted it to just be magic and have that be okay.

“I like it,” Saph said. “It’s like magic.”

Dean tried not to smile. “I like it too,” he said. “Where’s everyone else?” He could sort of tell, but it seemed right to ask. If he was going to accidentally model bad behavior for them, he might as well try to give them some good examples too.

“In the kitchen,” Saph said confidently. “Father asked Jess about decorations, and she says you can use lots of different kinds of food.”

“Really?” Dean said. He wasn’t talking to her, but he saw her look up out of the corner of his eye when he turned to Cas. “You were reading them Jess’ text messages while you were still in bed?”

Cas shrugged. “It saved me from having to get out of bed,” he pointed out.

It was hard to argue with that.

“After Christmas,” Saph said, “do we eat the food that’s on the tree?”

“No,” Dean told her. “It’s decoration only.”

“At school,” Maribel said, “we let the birds eat it.”

“You put food on a tree that’s outdoors?” Dean asked. He was thinking bears, not birds.

“Yes,” she said. “Most of it is specifically for the birds, though, so I’m not sure how universally decorative it is. Jess did mention popcorn strings, but not suet balls or seed malts.”

Dean didn’t ask. “Do we have popcorn?” he wanted to know. “Or string? How do we even make popcorn strings?”

“We used glue at school,” Maribel said. “Jess suggested a needle and thread, but she was talking to Father. It’s possible she wouldn’t have told one of us to do that.”

“What, because there’s a needle involved?” Dean thought that was both perceptive and hilarious. “You use swords; I think you can handle a needle and thread.” Jess knew perfectly well who Sam’s reintegration projects were, especially when they involved other members of Sam’s family.

Even if the other members of the family hadn’t signed up to be involved in reintegration. Sam’s policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was both annoying and useful by turns--mostly depending on whether or not the thing they weren’t talking about had anything to do with Dean. And whether or not Dean needed information about it.

“I don’t know how,” Maribel said.

It almost didn’t register. He looked at her and repeated, “You don’t know how to use a sewing needle?”

She shook her head wordlessly.

“Neither do I,” Saph offered. “Can you teach us?”

“Do you have needles?” he countered. Making popcorn strands sounded like one of those things that would go faster with seven people working on it at once. Most things did, but too many of them were over as soon as they'd begun. He was pretty sure they could keep everyone busy on a project like that for at least long enough to teach all of them how to do it.

"Kelly's getting some," Saph said confidently. "And cranberries. She told Maru that people string cranberries the same way they string popcorn. Can we do that?"

"Kelly said that, huh?" He'd heard more from Kelly in the last two days than he had in the entire time he'd been here. "Well, I'm not gonna argue with the invisible housekeeper. Bring on the cranberries. We'll figure it out."

"Tell Kelly she's welcome to join us, please." Cas had always had better manners than he did, which was saying something considering he wasn't even human.

"Right," Dean said. "Yeah, anytime. The more the merrier, and all that."

He would regret saying that when they walked into the kitchen and found Gabriel there, surrounded by five children and a ridiculous amount of decorating supplies. Or maybe not so ridiculous, given the size of the tree. It definitely would have been helpful to have another adult. And Gabriel didn't count.

By the end of the day, Dean wished he'd invited Sam and anyone he could think of to come and help turn the kids' fifteen-foot tree into the gaudiest symbol of Christmas outside New York City. They should have invited the kids' friends, if only because Dean was weirdly proud that they did actually have friends now. But he couldn't see any good coming of combining more small hands with needles and scissors, so in retrospect, it probably wasn’t a loss.

He took a lot of pictures. Maru started to copy him after the picture of Adamel and Wildfire throwing cranberries at each other made Dean laugh more than the exchange itself. He should have guessed their phones took pictures; he didn't know why he hadn't thought of that. They seemed interested enough in his, but he'd never seen them use their own phones the same way until today.

He also hadn't seen them do crafts at home. He hadn't realized how much time they spent making stuff at school until they were doing it on the couch, the kitchen counter, the floor. Threading popcorn, yeah, but also drawing designs on their paper chains and cutting snowflakes into ever more intricate patterns. Like the feathers on Dani's turkey, they did things with scissors that shouldn't even be possible.

Castiel helped, to a certain extent. He mostly made sure Dean looked the other way when the kids were doing something particularly implausible, or dangerous, or otherwise disturbing, but he contributed some snowflakes of his own. Mostly filled with funny shapes that Maia said were their names in some special angel language.

Gabriel did not help. He also didn't disappear, and by lunch time Dean had resigned himself to the presence of an archangel with a maturity level way lower than any of the kids. The one good thing about having him was that he tended to multiply whatever someone was doing: instead of one paper chain, they had twenty. Instead of a dozen snowflakes, there were five dozen. He didn't seem to have much use for the popcorn or cranberries--on strands, anyway; he ate a lot of the ingredients--but he did supply endless amounts of tinsel.

Dean gave up trying to control any of them before an hour was out. When he left the room to eat breakfast without the endless freakout that watching them threatened, and no one stabbed, fell, or otherwise injured themselves in his absence, he made a heroic effort to step back. They wanted his opinion. They didn't want his warnings or his safety instructions, except in the way that they were interested in all quaint human customs.

So he let Cas distract him. He enjoyed the tree, which looked like a slow-motion explosion of craft supplies. He took a lot of pictures. He texted Sam several times, snickering at Sam's too-innocent replies--if only he knew--and tried to ignore what Gabriel was doing at any given time.

By the end of the day, Dean had fallen asleep in front of the television, which at least wasn’t on, and been woken twice by someone bumping into the chair or yelling to someone else. Since he knew perfectly well none of the kids needed to yell--or were clumsy enough to run into furniture by accident--he assumed they were trying to make him get up. Every time they did, though, Cas would shoo them off and tell Dean to go back to sleep.

He felt a little bad about it. Not bad enough that he didn’t take advantage of the nap, though. Things around Cas and his family went to shit often enough that Dean took what downtime he could get.

He was pretty sure he was still asleep when he heard Gabriel tell Cas about Hael. Which was a bad sign, because he only heard them in his sleep when they were doing the weird angel thing that meant endless trouble for the rest of the family. Usually on the weekend, but occasionally after school, Gabriel would appear and demand an audience with Michael. Not for himself, but for whatever random angel had been harassing him the most that day.

At least, that was how Dean thought he decided. They’d agreed early on that Dean could pretend to be the voice of heaven on earth as long as he didn’t leave the wards of the house to do it. So every week or so Gabriel would bring an angel to ask Dean questions, and Dean would pretend to be someone who actually had answers for them. If “Michael” treated all the angels like the kids he shepherded back and forth to school every day, well. Dean figured that’s what older brothers were for.

Plus it gave him an excuse to yell at people who’d been causing Cas grief, and to say thanks to the people who hadn’t, so that was kind of fun. After he got over the terror of facing down the holy host without any kind of divine intervention.

What wasn’t fun was the way it put Cas on edge. He didn’t like it when Dean talked to angels, and Dean couldn’t blame him. Dean wasn’t too fond of it himself. But so far no one had died, and Cas’ angelic enemies hadn’t made it past the front door in weeks, so maybe Gabriel knew what he was doing.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Castiel said. He was speaking in a low voice, which probably meant there weren’t any kids around, and Dean could feel a wing pressed up against his shoulder. He was sure he was still in the armchair where he’d fallen asleep.

“Oh, please.” That was definitely Gabriel, and Dean felt like he should be able to see him but he couldn’t. “I don’t even know what’s happening, let alone what I’m doing. And neither does anyone else. Your precious lover boy included.”

“Fuck off,” Dean muttered, because no way was Gabriel talking about anyone but him.

“Heyyyy,” Gabriel said, in a long, wary, and vaguely sing-song kind of voice. “Michael.” He sounded like it was a question, but he didn’t wait for an answer. “Got someone else to see you. Remember Hael?”

“He’s never met Hael,” Castiel said.

“The chick who dug the Grand Canyon,” Dean said. “You told me about her.”

“And yet, he knows who she is.” Gabriel made it sound like nothing else mattered. “She’s getting pretty uppity. They all like her, because she’s cute and she talks a lot about love and beauty and things our Father liked to praise.”

“Do not speak of him in the past tense,” Castiel said.

“Don’t interrupt me,” Gabriel snapped.

“Shut up!” Dean was standing up, staring at Castiel as he leaned against the armchair and Gabriel perched on the end of the sofa. “We’re not arguing over someone who isn’t even here! Hael doesn’t like you, so she’s probably gonna try to kill me. She won’t be able to, because the wards are better than they used to be, and Gabriel still won’t be able to prove to himself that it wasn’t a coincidence. This isn’t gonna change anything.”

They were both staring back at him, which wasn’t unusual but he did find it kind of annoying since Cas had been guarding his sleep all afternoon. “What?” he demanded. “Why are talking about this? Gabriel, get Hael, and Cas, let me borrow your sword. We’re going out to dinner afterwards, so tell the kids they need to clean up.”

“You got it,” Gabriel said. He beat a strategic retreat in a flash of wings and light.

“Dean,” Castiel said. “Are you awake?”

He blinked, but the world stayed pretty much the way it had been. Usually people who had their eyes open were awake. “Yes?” he said. “Is that a trick question?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel said carefully. “Why… why do you need my sword?”

“So that I can use it to pretend I’m not using Michael’s,” Dean told him. He liked confusing Gabriel. They should try to do it more often. “Mostly to piss Gabriel off. He won’t be able to tell what happened if your sword’s in the room with me.”

“What’s going to happen?” Castiel asked.

Dean held out his hand. “I’m gonna defend myself,” he said. “You okay?”

Castiel didn’t move, and his sword didn’t appear. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know who I’m talking to.”

Dean sat down hard. The chair wasn’t behind him, but he was sitting in it anyway. So more likely awake than not, but not exactly a guarantee. “Okay,” he said. “I feel like you’re talking to me, and you don’t. Is this, I dunno… one of those times when you freak out about Michael?”

“Should it be?” Cas countered.

“No,” Dean said. “I don’t think so. Maybe? You tell me.”

“Gabriel believes,” Cas said. “He pretends he doesn’t, but he does.”

Dean frowned. He could feel Cas’ wing pressed against him again, and it was more comforting than it had been before. “I thought he pretended he did.”

“To them,” Castiel said. “To the host, he says he does. To us, he pretends he doesn’t. He can’t be lying to everyone.”

“Sure he can,” Dean said. “He’s worked for you for how long? And it’s not like he was around in heaven before that. Gabriel’s a master liar."

"Hey," Gabriel said. "Stop taking my name in vain."

Dean looked up. He was definitely awake, because he saw Adamel scoop Dani out of Hael's way and keep walking like there was nothing strange happening at all. Castiel stepped past him, pressing something into Dean's hand as he went. And Gabriel folded his arms as though he planned to stand there and supervise Hael until they were done.

Castiel's wings flared in front of him, momentarily blocking Dean from view before he disappeared, and Dean stood up and stuck his sword into the back corner of the chair at the same time. It was sad that he knew it would work, but it was easy and perfectly hidden and it wasn't like he'd never done it before. The kids had disappeared too, and he trusted Cas to keep them out of the way.

"Michael," Gabriel said. "Hael. Hael, Michael. She has a question for you."

Dean just looked at her. He wasn't the one with the problem; he didn't see why he had to make nice. The fact that she didn't look much older than Maribel would have made him more sympathetic, if he didn't know she was just here to swing a sword at him and see what happened.

"Michael," Hael repeated, her head bowed in what was definitely not real respect. On the other hand, he didn't actually deserve respect, so he was all right with that. "Will I have an audience with two archangels at the same time?"

He caught Gabriel's eye and nodded. Gabriel made a face but he took off, and Dean looked back at Hael. "Ask your question," he told her.

She lifted her head, eyes meeting his with a look that was lost and angry at the same time. "What are we supposed to do now?"

He felt her blade crash down on his before he saw her move. He smiled at her horrified expression, tilting his arm just enough that her sword lost all traction and slid free. He spun his over his wrist and smacked hers out of her hand, striding forward as she fell back.

"Michael," she gasped, going to her knees when her wings hit the wall. "Forgive me."

"Here's a tip," he told her. The point of his sword at her throat: she'd be fine if she didn't move. "There's no point in asking questions if you don't want to know the answer."

She stared up at him, silver in her eyes. She didn't say a word.

"Do you want to know the answer?" he demanded.

"Yes," Hael breathed.

"Forgive," Dean told her, pulling the sword away. "That's what we're supposed to do now."

She didn't move, and he tossed his blade to join hers on the floor. "Get up, Hael. There's nothing you can do about anything from down there."

She stood, so he counted that as a victory. The anger was gone, as far as he could see, but she didn't look any less lost when she asked, "What am I supposed to do?"

"Have a little faith," he said. "Gabriel says you're popular in heaven. You ever noticed that?"

She shook her head no, and he thought she was probably telling the truth.

"That matters," he said. "People look to you because you make them feel something, something positive. Don't throw that away just because you don't feel it too."

"What good am I?" she asked. "What good is anything positive if it's based on nothing?"

"What good is good?" he countered. "That's all you're asking. It's a circular argument, and it doesn't have any answer except faith. Good things are good. If you can do good, then you can be good. So do good."

She searched his expression, and he had no idea why threatening someone with a sword was so convincing, but she sounded sincere when she asked, "How do I help people?"

"You talk about love," he said. "You appreciate beauty. You have faith, and you let other people know it. You're doing good things, Hael. You just have to believe it."

Mostly good things. He wasn't excited about her trying to run him through with a sword, but everyone tested their faith once in a while. Or all the time. It was the only reason he let Gabriel bring angels by to see him: it seemed to make them feel better, and if that was something he could do then maybe he owed Cas' family that much.

Hael finally looked down. She actually nodded, so he watched her wings rise as she slipped past him and he hoped she found some kind of peace. This was one of Gabriel's easier angels. Usually they sniped or yelled or whined more like human children than heavenly soldiers. He wondered if he could skip all of that by swinging a sword at every one of them and get this kind of acquiescence.

The floor was bare behind Hael's wisping grace, and Dean frowned. She was gone. Her sword was gone with her. But she shouldn't have been able to touch Cas' blade without it doing angry things to her. Noticeable things, at least.

"That was fast," Gabriel said. He had Maru and Wildfire behind him, not that he was paying any attention to them. "You're getting better at this."

"I'm getting better with a sword," Dean said, and Gabriel gave him an amused look.

"You gonna fight them into submission one angel at a time?"

"Did you fight Hael?" Wildfire asked.

"No," Dean said. "We had a small disagreement, and now we… don't disagree anymore."

"I also try not to disagree with swords," Gabriel said. "Great policy. Very life-preserving."

"Dean," Castiel said from the chair. He was holding his sword, and Dean blinked.

"Huh," he said, when no one else did. "So that's where that went."

Gabriel gave him an odd look. "It doesn't stay where you put it?"

Dean shrugged. "It's Cas' sword; what do I know about it. How's the clean-up going?"

"We're done," Maru offered.

"Where are we going to dinner?" Wildfire added.

Dean saw Cas and Gabriel giving each other a look that he didn't want to interpret. On the other hand, perfect time to sneak this by them. "Chuck E Cheese's," he said, watching for Cas' reaction out of the corner of his eyes. "It's a childhood rite of passage. Everyone should go at least once."

It was Gabriel who laughed, which made sense: Cas probably hadn't even heard of it. "Good luck with that," he said, clapping Cas on the shoulder. But hey, if it made Gabriel stop looking weird, Dean would take it. Cas had enough to worry about already.

"Hey, there's pizza," Dean said. "And games. What else do you want?"

"Alcohol," Gabriel said. "Bye, kids. Have a good time!"

"This is a pizza restaurant?" Castiel said, looking back at Dean when Gabriel disappeared. His sword had gone as well, but they were invisible when they weren't in use so Dean didn't ask.

"Sure is," Dean agreed. The rest of the kids were circling--like sharks, he thought; seriously, did they have endless energy?--and he wondered how much of it he would have to explain before they got there.

"We like pizza," Saph volunteered. "I like plain pizza."

"I like pizza with vegetables," Maru said.

"You can get any kind of pizza you want," Dean told them. "And there's games and stuff to do when you're done. It's a little loud," he warned Cas over their heads.

Cas nodded solemnly, like this was important information he was filing away.

Dean cast an eye over the kids. They didn't look the slightest bit tired. "Anyone too tired to go out?" he asked anyway. Someday, one of them would say yes, and he'd have to figure out how to split them up.

Adamel, Wildfire, and Saph all said "no" out loud. The rest of them shook their heads, and he figured he was making some kind of impression on them if they all answered. "Great," Dean said. "Let's admire the tree first."

The tree looked unreasonably amazing. Maybe he was biased; he couldn't even remember the last time he'd had a real tree. But there was tinsel everywhere, chaotic strings of white and red, paper chains in colors he didn't even know existed in construction paper, and paper snowflakes on every other branch.

It was totally cool.

"Okay," Dean said, and he knew they were all waiting even though they must be able to tell he liked it. "That's totally cool. That tree rocks. It's the best Christmas tree I've ever seen."

The younger kids preened. The older kids seemed to take this as their due, and he didn't begrudge them their pride. He grinned at Cas' thoughtful expression. "We're gonna need a picture," he said.

"I took a picture of it," Maru said.

"Of you," Dean said. "All of you in front of the tree. Everybody, go." He waved at them and they didn't seem to get it, so he added, "Go stand in front of the tree so I can take your picture."

The kids shuffled over to the base of their giant tree, but Cas didn't move.

"You too," Dean told him. He took a picture of the kids anyway. There was no way he'd fit the entire tree in the picture, but it didn't really matter. It was just a background for the kids' faces.

Cas stood next to them and Dean took another picture before he said, "Behind them, Cas. Tall people in the back, short people in the front. That's how pictures work." He obviously hadn't taken enough pictures of them if they didn't know that.

"You should come stand in the back," Maia said. "Right? Because the tree is for you."

"I'm taking the picture," Dean said, so that he didn't have to think too much about that. "We'll get one of all of us later."

"Have you taken the picture?" Castiel asked. "Don't put your camera away."

"Uh, yeah." Dean took another one, just in case, then looked at Cas. "Why?"

"Stay there," Cas said, stepping out from behind the children. Walking over to Dean, he held out his hand. "May I?"

"Sure," Dean said, passing his phone over. "Yeah. Go for it."

"Go stand behind the children," Castiel said.

Dean had to smile. "Yeah," he said again. "Right. I see what you did there."

He did it anyway, because Cas stared at him until he moved. Maribel stood on one side of him and Wildfire on the other. Saph reached back to hold his hand, turning to look up at him when she couldn't find it. When she realized he had his arms over the older kids' shoulders, she turned around and did the same thing to Dani and Maru.

Dean smiled. "You know," he told them, "the person taking the picture is supposed to give us a countdown. So we all know when to smile. And we say all say something, like 'cheese' or 'merry Christmas' or something."

"Why?" Adamel asked.

"I don't know," Dean said. "You just do."

"What should we say?" Maribel asked.

"How about 'hi Dad,'" Dean said with a grin. "Cas? That work for you?"

"Tell me when to take the picture," Cas replied.

"I'll count down from three," Dean said. "Then everyone says, 'hi Dad!' and Cas will take the picture. Ready?"

This got mostly nods, so hey, they really were learning.

"Okay," Dean said. "Three. Two. One--"

They took him very seriously. As soon as he'd finished "one" every single kid chorused, "Hi Dad," and Dean was too busy laughing to say "Hi Cas" himself. "That was great," he said, grinning at Cas' amused look when he lowered the phone. "Nice job. Let's go get some food."

No one said it, but Dean was counting this as their almost weekly date night. Ever since the first Friday he and Cas had tried to go out and the house had caught on fire instead, they'd tried to take the kids out as a group once a week. Mostly on Fridays, which, between vacation and an early weekend, he'd missed pretty thoroughly this week. So Saturday it was.

Saturday at Chuck E Cheese's was pure chaos. Even the weekend of Thanksgiving… maybe especially the weekend of Thanksgiving, since kids were suddenly thrust upon family members who had no idea what to do with them and largely cooped up away from their regular schedules. But if there was one thing Dean had learned about Cas' kids, it was that they had a remarkably high tolerance for things that would drive anyone else insane.

They ordered pizza as soon as they got there. Dean told the kids to scram with the promise that he and Cas would call them when it arrived. They'd been to an amusement park a month back, and an arcade a week ago, and between the two he figured they had some concept of acceptable behavior.

That was all it took. The older kids weren't human enough to know they were supposed to be above all this, and the younger kids were as entertained by the noise and flashing lights as their human peers. They melted into the crowd while Dean and Cas sat next to each other at a party table and tried to look like they were talking over the music.

"Pretty sure all the other adults here are as miserable as we look," Dean said, loud in Cas' ear. "I don't think we have to worry about acting normal."

I'm not miserable, Cas thought, and Dean smiled.

You have to talk a little, though. He tried to separate the words, to make them clear and verbal instead of just an impressionistic blur. Mental enunciation. Who knew he'd ever care?

"Why?" Cas asked, leaning as close as Dean had to make himself heard. "The other parents appear resigned to their phones."

That was true. As Dean looked around, almost everyone in the restaurant area was either trying to keep a child from running with silverware or staring at their phone. I like that you said other parents, he thought, because it was hard not to be honest like this. Even though I'm not.

"You are as much their guardian as I am," Cas said, still speaking directly into his ear. And yeah, that was why Cas should keep talking. Because it gave them an excuse to sit stupidly close to each other.

I do my best, Dean thought. He couldn't not think it. But I never want you to think I'm trying to take them away from you.

"I don't think that," Cas said. "I don't think you can. But it is kind of you to reassure me."

It was nice that Cas had that kind of confidence in them. Most people with teenage kids probably felt like they'd already lost them. Dean didn't know whether that was the angel in them, or if it was just being on the same side in a literal war.

Maybe it was the same thing, he thought with a sigh.

"You worry about us," Castiel said.

"Pretty much all the time," Dean agreed, turning his head so that he could speak out loud with some hope of being heard. At least they didn't have to worry about eavesdroppers. Cas was right there, and he didn't pull back when Dean moved. "But Sam would tell you that's what I do, so."

"You must do it very well," Cas said. His eyes flickered across Dean's face, catching his mouth before lifting again.

Dean smiled. "We can't kiss here," he said. He said it out loud because he couldn't think it, not convincingly, and also because saying it meant that they weren't just sitting there staring into each other's eyes. "Not that I don't want to."

"I think we can," Castiel said. "But I will follow your example if you feel strongly about it."

Dean pulled away from him, leaning over to pick up his water. I don't, he admitted. But we can't. It's not that kind of restaurant.

I understand what you said, Castiel thought. But I don't understand what you mean.

There was only an idle curiosity behind the words, and Dean knew he didn't have to answer. Cas was chit-chatting with him, making conversation while they waited for their food. It was weirdly normal and normally weird at the same time, since Dean had never expected to be one of those dads sitting at a play spot on Saturday night. He definitely hadn't expected to a hunter talking telepathically to a monster dad at a play spot on Saturday night.

"It's about the kids," Dean said aloud. "Adults don't really kiss around kids." The fact that they were both men was something he didn't really want to get into, though he knew Cas was peripherally aware of it.

"I think they should," Cas said, but there was no force behind it. He was offering an opinion, nothing more. "How do children learn how to show affection if it's not modeled for them?"

"They pick it up from TV," Dean said. "Like everything else."

I'm mostly joking, he added silently.

Cas was watching him when Dean looked over to see if he'd heard. I don't think you are, Castiel observed.

Dean shrugged, but he wasn't really, so score one for Cas. It's kind of a messed up world, he thought. And he didn't know many things truer than that.

"I think you don't give your world enough credit," Castiel said. "It did produce you."

It was so unexpected that Dean didn't know how to react. He was caught by the compliment in the middle of a restaurant with screaming kids and arcade noise from all directions, sitting next to a man he was trying desperately not to kiss. "Uh," he said at last. "Yeah. I mean… I don't think that's… well. It’s not really a selling point."

"I think it is," Castiel told him. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. Tell me if you visited this place as a child."

Dean tried to smile. "Um. Too much, yeah. We, uh. We got left here a few times while whoever was taking care of us… took care of other things."

"So it's not a good memory," Castiel said, studying him.

Dean shrugged. "I have worse," he said.

"Yet you wanted to bring the children here." Cas had pressed their shoulders together, giving Dean enough space to drink his water if he wanted to and no more. "Do you expect them to enjoy it?"

"I have worse," Dean repeated, more firmly this time. "It's not a bad thing, Cas. It's not a bad place. It's fun. It's loud, it's bright, and it's cool if kids run around and hit things in the name of tickets. Kids can be kids. Sometimes I think there aren't enough places like this."

"Even though you spent too much time in them when you were younger," Castiel said.

"It wasn't being here," Dean said. "It was getting left here. It was where we had to go afterwards. We weren't like the other kids, you know? I didn't like that part."

"Our children are not like the other kids either," Castiel said.

"Sure they are," Dean said, leaning into Cas for calling them "ours" and hoping he didn't notice. "They have family. They have a place to go home to. That's the most important part."

Cas pressed up against him in return, and Dean decided he didn't mind him noticing after all.

It was almost a minute before Cas told him, You also have those things, Dean.

Yeah, he thought. I know.

"I mean us," Castiel said. "You have us."

"Yeah?" Dean repeated. He smiled a little, because he had to be able to say he was joking if that meant something else. "You my family now, Cas?"

"Yes." Cas didn't hesitate. "If you'll let us be."

"You're paying me," Dean said. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

"Yes," Castiel said. And that was all, just an acknowledgement that Dean had spoken. Dean didn't get any sense of understanding from Cas, nothing to say he knew why that was weird.

"I shouldn't be dating my employer," Dean said bluntly. "That's weird, Cas. It's not cool."

Cas didn't move, and Dean didn't move, and probably the way they were leaning against each other told Cas that it wasn't a big problem for him. "I don't know why that is," Castiel said at last. "Is there something you'd like me to do about it?"

Dean tapped a finger against his glass. There weren't a lot of choices, unfortunately. "You should probably stop paying me," he said. "I'm gonna stick with you guys as long as you need me, you know that. It's not about the money."

"But you need money," Castiel said. "And I have money. It seems reasonable that I should share it with you."

"No, it doesn't," Dean told him. "I'm no one, Cas. I'm just a guy off the street, and you like me, and your kids like me, but we just met. You don't have to adopt me like some stray cat."

Castiel put one of his hands on the table, imitating Dean's tapping gesture until Dean stopped. "I fear this conversation will not go well for me," Castiel said at last. "I will say the wrong thing, you'll get upset, and it's too early for you to leave. You haven't even eaten yet. Can we postpone this discussion until a later time?"

"We already did that," Dean said. He should have said yes. Cas was giving him an out; why didn't he just take it? What was the answer, anyway? Cas was right; he needed the money and he couldn't work anywhere else if he was watching the kids eighteen hours a day.

"You are providing a service," Castiel said with a sigh. "Whether you do it out of love or financial interest, I wish to provide an equivalent recompense."

That's what I don't like. It was involuntary and unusually clear, which probably meant that Cas' training was working. Right now it just made him hyperaware that Cas could--and probably did--read his every thought.

Cas didn't respond, though, and Dean managed to say, "I don't want you to help me out because you owe me."

Which was stupid; why else did people do things for other people? Of course Cas owed him. Dean owed him back. He just didn't like thinking that that was the point. That maybe that was all it was.

"Do you think that one day I will not owe you?" Castiel asked, when he couldn't say anything else. They definitely should have had this conversation later. Or never. "That this ends when we're even?"

He couldn't say it. He couldn't even admit it to himself. But hearing Cas put it into words made him think, Yeah.

"That," Castiel said slowly, "is not the definition of family with which I am familiar."

He wasn't Cas' family. Cas' family sucked. He couldn't say that, and he hoped Cas didn't hear any of it. Cas' kids were great and there were days when Dean didn't hate all of his brothers and sisters. But most of the time, he thought the isolated group of rebel hybrids Cas was sheltering in a heavily warded mansion was the only thing that kept him sane. And Dean couldn't be a part of that. Not really.

You are part of our family, Cas told him. The good part. Whichever part you value, that's what you are to us. We would not lose you, given the choice.

Dean didn't know what made him say it. He was staring at Cas' hand, now still on the table. "Even if I'm Michael?" he asked. Probably too quiet for anyone to hear.

"Yes," Castiel said. Loud and impossible to mistake. "Even if."

There was nothing he could say to that.

Castiel didn't say anything either, and they were still sitting there, leaning against each other, by the time their pizza arrived. Dean managed to thank their waitress before Castiel did. The minor victory made him feel a little better.

"Wait," Castiel said, when Dean looked around for the kids.

"We should--" he began.

"Wait," Castiel repeated. "You're troubled that I'm paying you. I can stop. You can simply use my money as though it's your own; would that--"

"No," Dean said sharply. He closed his eyes when Cas stopped as quickly as he'd started. "I mean--" He swallowed. "Thank you."

"That was inappropriate," Castiel guessed.

"That's worse," Dean said. He could barely hear himself think over the music and the sirens from the games in the next room. He didn't know how Cas was following him at all.

"I see," Castiel said. In a way that Dean knew meant he didn't see at all. But that was okay; Cas was an angel. What did he even know about making your own way, about getting there on your own? About not being a burden on others?

"If there were something I needed," Castiel said at last. "And it were in your power to give… would you?"

"Yeah," Dean said. Even if it was a terrible thing to say. Even if that was a promise he never made. Not without more information, and usually not even then. He either gave something or he didn't; there was no point in promising.

"Whether you owed me or not?" Castiel asked.

"Yeah," Dean said, even though he could see where this was going.

The reason I didn't want you to touch my wings, Castiel said. It's not because it would be dangerous. It's because I fear what will happen if I become accustomed to it.

Dean opened his eyes.

And then I lose it again, Castiel thought, very small. Quiet and careful in a way his thoughts rarely were, making Dean think that maybe he sounded this way to Cas. Faint, vague, a little hard to track.

Dean turned to look at him. Castiel met his gaze, but he didn't look confident. He looked… embarrassed. It was an expression Dean didn't see on him often.

"It'll make you stronger," he said.

"After a fashion," Castiel agreed.

Dean had to smile, even if it wasn't funny. "It'll make you stronger and you won't let me do it?"

"I had to learn to do without it once," Castiel told him. "I adjusted. But I don't wish to do so again."

So don't, Dean wanted to tell him. But it wasn't up to him. Just because Cas thought Dean would leave, it wasn't like Dean didn't think the same thing. This wouldn't last forever. He couldn't promise anything else, and neither could Cas.

"Dean?" Maru had slid into the chair beside him and Dean hadn't even seen him arrive. It wasn't the first time one of the kids had asked for him instead of Cas. Usually when they were in some kind of uniquely human situation, so it wasn't that strange.

"Hey, kiddo," he muttered, and then realized how quiet his voice was under the music. He tried again. "Pizza's here."

"Vegetarian?" Maru asked. He was already scanning the table, and Dean saw Maribel across the room. She had Maia with her, but they'd both paused just inside the doorway. Dean waved them over.

Maru had found the pizza he wanted, so Dean reached down and patted Cas' nearest hand. We're talking about this later, he said.

Yes. Cas sounded sort of amused, and Dean wondered if it was bad that he seemed to elicit that response from Cas a lot. That was my suggestion as well.

"Yeah, whatever." Dean had to smile at his tone--his mental tone, and when had that stopped being strange? "You were right. Don't let it go to your head."

Maribel and Maia took seats on the other side of the table. He saw Adamel towing both Dani and Saph along with him. He wasn't sure where Wildfire had gotten to, but what one of them knew, the others knew, so she had to know the pizza was ready.

"Wildfire's playing a game," Adamel offered as he sat down. "She won't give up her turn until she's won her tickets."

"You all collecting tickets?" Dean asked, passing the cheese pizza toward Saph.

"I'm not!" Saph exclaimed. "I don't like carrying them around."

"You're supposed to trade them in," Dean told her. "So you don't have to carry them."

"But then I'd have to carry whatever I traded them for," Saph said.

"Or you could just bring it back here," Dean pointed out. "Me and Cas can watch it for you."

Saph shrugged it off. "I like climbing better," she said, winding cheese around her finger as she tried to pull a piece of pizza free.

I'm collecting tickets, Dani said silently. Maru gave me the ones he won in the raisin game.

"That was nice of you," Dean told Maru. "What are you gonna get, Dani?"

It was enough to remind her to speak aloud. "A rainbow slinky," she said. He could barely hear her, but who didn't love a rainbow slinky?

"Good choice," he said. "I'll play some skeeball with you later; see if we can get some extra tickets. For whoever wants them," he added, when he realized that could be seen as favoritism.

"That's what Wildfire's playing," Maribel said, passing him the meat lover's pizza. She'd taken a piece for herself already, which was one of the things that was awesome about her. Maribel knew what other girls did. She just didn't copy it.

"Is she good?" Dean asked.

Maribel shrugged. "She's better than the boy playing next to her."

Dean grinned. "Girls usually are. Anyone else want this? Cas?"

"Yes," Castiel said. "Thank you." He took a slice of pizza for himself, and Dean set the rest of it down in the middle of the table.

Wildfire joined them before anyone had finished their first slice, which was saying something given how fast Dean inhaled his. He'd learned not to take food for granted around Cas' family: there was plenty of it, which was a first for him, but chances to actually eat it were few and far between. Wildfire waved her tickets at him when she sat down across the table, and he pushed the vegetarian pizza in her direction.

"You win?" Dean asked.

Wildfire nodded. "Some of the tables are tilted," she said. "In order to learn the force needed for any given throw, it's more efficient to stick with a particular set of lanes than it is to try them all."

Dean was pretty sure she hadn't extrapolated that from nothing. "Did you try them all?" he wanted to know.

"Yes," she said.

"For science," Dean agreed, and she frowned at him.

"Never mind," he said. Then he thought better of it. "No, you know what? That's important; high schoolers might say that. 'For science' means you did it for the sake of learning what it would teach you. Not necessarily because it was a good idea.

"Most people say it as a joke," he added, because they would use anything he taught them in the most serious way possible.

"I understand," Wildfire said, too solemn, so he saluted her before glancing around the table to make sure the kids were all okay. Doing normal kid things was a secondary concern, but definitely a bonus.

They actually were. To the point where Dean nudged Cas and nodded at the table, even if he probably wouldn't understand why it was cool. "Hey, look," he said, speaking into Cas' ear again so he could pretend the kids wouldn't overhear. "They look--"

Dean stopped just before he would have said human. They did look human, surprisingly. They looked like any other group of kids called back from their games to eat pizza, surrounded by noise and distracted by each other. Fiddling with their straws and not using napkins and reaching over each other for more food.

"Happy," he said instead. Because maybe that was more true: they looked unconcerned. Not worried about war or who was going to die or attack next. They just looked like they were out for pizza on a Saturday night.

"Yes," Castiel agreed, and Dean figured he was responding to both. The fact that "human" didn't bother Cas was reassuring enough to make Dean smile, even aside from how easily entertained the kids were right now.

"Thank you," Castiel added. Dean knew what he meant, but it wasn't like he'd done anything. Or at least, no more than Cas had.

So he squeezed Cas' hand under the table and thought, Back at you.

Cas returned the gesture, and if it was sappier than Dean usually tried to look, at least no one else could see it. Even the kids, for once, ignored his discomfort and Cas' smile together and continued to harass each other about passing pizza and bargaining for tickets. It was worth going out to see that, Dean thought.

The kids didn't stay at the table any longer than human kids would have--maybe less, even, since they didn't need to eat. They all had something, which was a nice concession to the human-centric environment, but they took off as soon as they got bored. Cas waited for Dean to finish eating before asking whether it was appropriate to follow, and Dean shrugged.

"There's plenty of parents out there," he said. "Most people don't like kids as little as Dani and Saph to be alone for too long. So we won't look weird if we lurk conspicuously around the games."

"I believe you offered to play," Castiel said.

There was something behind the words, and Dean looked at him in surprise. "You want to learn?"

"Yes," Castiel said. "If that's acceptable."

"Sure," Dean said. "Come on, what else are we gonna do? Watch the kids the whole time?"

"That does seem to be the most common adult activity." Cas sounded like he was willing to be convinced. Even hoping to be convinced. And hey, Dean was totally on board with teaching him skeeball, or watching him try to hit raisins on the head with a plastic mallet.

"That's 'cause adults are boring," Dean told him. "Let's go."

He only let Cas try the raisin game on the condition that he promise not to break anything. It went better than Dean had expected. Cas was, predictably, too good at skeeball to be believable, and suddenly Dean wished he'd seen that kid's face when he was watching Wildfire before dinner. It took longer for Cas to get good at basketball. Dean figured there wasn't enough force involved.

He did draw the line at climbing into the kids' tunnels and funhouse, but no one seemed to have an issue with adults playing the games. They only picked ones that were empty, and they gave them up to whoever came along. They racked up some more goodwill by distributing all of their tickets to kids: mostly theirs, and a few random ones who came after them at skeeball.

Their kids didn't gravitate toward them on the floor, which Dean thought was pretty cool. They didn't avoid either him or Cas, but they seemed okay with some measure of independence. Even in a mostly foreign environment.

"You've taught them well," Cas said at one point.

Dean shrugged. "They have a good role model," he said.

The older kids came back first. Dean didn't know enough about regular families to know if that was normal or not: older kids might get bored before younger kids, but they probably had more stamina, too. Maru and Dani were the last ones to give up their games and join everyone else by the foosball tables.

Dean had taught Adamel to play, and apparently the rules magically transmitted themselves down the line, because Maribel and Wildfire teamed up against Saph and Maia. It could have been wildly unbalanced, except that Saph and Maia had more room to move without bumping into each other. And as far as Dean could tell, they all had about the same level of hand-eye coordination: strange but unmistakable when they were so evenly matched.

Can we play? Dani asked, standing right next to Dean.

He let go of one of his sticks and put his free hand on her shoulder, pulling her in. "You take those two," he told her. "You're controlling all the players on those sticks, so if the ball comes down this end of the table, try to knock it away."

"Wanna play?" Adamel asked. Maru snuck in under his arm on the other side, and Adamel yielded half of his players too. Because Maru and Dani were on opposite sides of Dean and Adamel, it basically left them playing defense against each other while Dean and Adamel faced off offensively.

It was easily the most fun game of foosball Dean had ever played.

They left too late, if the fact that Dani was the youngest kid in the building by the time they took off was any indication. But it wasn't a school night, and she obviously wasn't tired, so Dean figured maybe the other parents would give them a break. For all they knew, she'd slept all day. Maybe she had jet lag.

"Thank you for letting me stay up so late," Dani said, once they were in the parking lot. She had her hand in his while they followed Cas and the older kids to the car.

"Your father sets your bedtime," Dean said. "I'm not gonna argue with that."

"You notice what… other people think of it, though." She sounded thoughtful and much older than five. "Father doesn't. So it matters more to you."

He didn't know how to answer that, so he didn't. She didn't seem to mind, holding his hand the rest of the way to the car and letting him help her up into the back even though she didn't need it. "Everyone in?" Dean asked.

They clearly were, but Adamel gave him a thumbs-up anyway, and Dean nodded at him.

Wildfire's bag caught his eye before he closed the door. It seemed to live in the car, the only backpack stuffed permanently under the seat, and none of the kids mentioned it. Dean let it go, but he did wonder what kind of homework they all did so faithfully that didn't require school supplies.

Cas was in the passenger seat when Dean climbed in behind the wheel. "Time to go home," Dean said. Unnecessary but nice, and Cas smiled at him when he said it.

"Anybody want Christmas music?" he asked as an afterthought. There were bound to be some Christmas stations on the air by now. He didn't usually want to hear it, but after a day spent watching the kids decorate, he thought it wouldn't be so bad.

"I do," Maia said from the backseat.

Dean smiled. She might only be saying that because she thought he wanted her to, but he'd take it. Learn by mimicking, and all that.

"Great," he said. "You got it."

They'd forgotten this while they were decorating, he thought. They should have had Christmas music playing while they were putting up the tree. But he'd figured out how Cas' entertainment system worked only to a certain degree: he could play his own music, but not the radio. Ironically. The radio should be the easiest thing, right?

He didn't have much use for it most of the time, so he hadn't bothered. Now he thought maybe he should. When they got back. They'd probably decorate something else eventually.

Pop Christmas carols and a tinny DJ followed them all the way home.

When they got back, most of the kids headed for the stairs. Dean raised an eyebrow but he wasn't about to protest. Chuck E Cheese's was exhausting no matter when one went or what they were doing there, and he was all for falling down on the couch and doing nothing. Maybe staring at the Christmas tree. The tree made him smile every time he saw it.

Still, there were two and a half hours until midnight. It was a little unusual for everyone to disappear so quickly. Adamel often lurked downstairs, typing on his phone, and Saph liked to watch TV. Dani and Maru sometimes played games they'd learned at school, either with each other or with him.

Tonight Dani told him, "I have to go do my homework again," and he looked at her in surprise.

"Again?" he said. "You mean you already did it?" They did their homework conscientiously every day, so that wasn't the strange part. They did it on weekends too, but usually by Sunday they were done. He'd figured a holiday weekend meant extra days of being "done," whatever done was for a waldorf school.

"Yes," she said. "But it's different now. I have to do it again."

"Me too," Saph agreed. "I have to change mine now that Dean's here."

He probably shouldn't ask why he was important to their homework. He'd gone this long without finding out what their homework was, other than "something they worked on every day and only handed in once a week." But if it involved him, maybe it was time to find out.

"Okay," he said. "So what's your homework, exactly?"

"Mine is writing about Thanksgiving," Dani said.

"Mine is making something about our family," Saph said.

They were in the same class. "Why are they different?" Dean asked. He wasn't sure he'd ever heard their teacher use the word "homework," but all the kids said it. They couldn't have gotten it from Cas, could they?

"We make our own homework," Saph said. "We're supposed to decide what we're interested in and then think of something that will help us explore it."

"We don't have to learn more about it," Maru offered, like he knew what Dean's next question was going to be. "We just have to do something that's related to the topic we chose."

I always learn more about mine, Dani said. She didn't sound proud of herself. She sounded like she wasn't sure that was okay, and she was checking to see if any of them were going to correct her.

"That's cool," Dean said automatically. Because they needed to hear it, way more than he was used to saying it, and what business was it of his what they were doing in school anyway? "Uh, thanks for telling me?"

"You're welcome!" Saph said. "Good night, Dean."

"Good night," Maru echoed.

The older kids were already on the stairs, and Dean wasn't even going to ask if they were doing their homework over again too. He told the younger kids "good night," he waved to the older kids when Maribel turned back, and he smiled down at Dani when she squeezed his hand. She smiled back at him before following the others.

It was only when he turned around to see Cas watching him that it occurred to him. "How come they don't say good night to you?" Dean wanted to know. They didn't usually say good night to him either, but when one of them got it into their head to do it, Cas was rarely around. This time he was, yet the words were still directed at Dean.

"There's no need," Castiel said. "There's no interruption in our communication. They have no need to wish me well while we're apart."

Dean considered that. It wasn't a bad explanation, but it still felt wrong. "Don't you sometimes say hello to people you haven't been separated from?" he asked at last. "Like, 'hey there, I'm paying attention to you now'?"

Castiel looked at him oddly. "I'm always paying attention to my children."

"Yeah," Dean said, giving up. "Okay. If it doesn't bother you, it doesn't bother me."

This made Cas smile. "That is clearly untrue," he said.

"It doesn't bother me much," Dean corrected, smiling back at him. "And I'm willing to let it go."

Castiel nodded. "That seems more likely, yes."

"Okay," Dean repeated. "So… it's been kind of a long day. I'm thinking I might just crash. You, uh. Okay? I mean… good?"

He meant, would Cas come with him if he went upstairs, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. He would try to lure Cas to the couch again, except that it had gone too far the night before and he didn't want to have to kill the mood if they ended up there again. It was still early, at least as far as kid bedtimes went, but six o'clock wasn't going to be any later than it ever was.

"We were going to have a conversation," Castiel said.

Dean winced. "Yeah," he said, because Cas had let it go this long. The later it got, the less Dean wanted to talk about that. If that was even fair, given that he never wanted to talk about it.

"I mean," Cas said quietly, "about my wings."

Dean looked back at him. "Oh," he said. "Yeah. We should definitely talk about that."

Cas smiled, and Dean knew he was amused by Dean's abrupt turnaround. "It's not unrelated," he said. "I think. To your reluctance to accept payment."

"I'm not reluctant," Dean protested. "Look, you've been paying me all this time, right? And I appreciate it. I just feel weird, like… I dunno. Maybe you're influenced, or biased, or… whatever. By other things."

"Things other than the skills for which I am compensating you?" Castiel asked.

"You're just paying me to watch the kids," Dean said. "Right?"

"Yes," Castiel said firmly. "I'm paying you to stay with them. I need someone to watch over them, and you need money, and it seems like a more than fair exchange to me. I still don't understand what you don't like about it."

"So the whole…" Dean gestured back and forth between them. "This, the thing with us. That's totally separate."

Cas tilted his head, and Dean knew he was suddenly afraid to answer. Which was fair; to an angel it probably looked like Dean was upset about nothing. Wanting to stay out of someone's debt, or someone's control… but that couldn't be entirely a human thing. Could it?

"Do you want me to say yes?" Castiel asked at last. "Or no?"

Dean sighed. "I want you to say yes," he said, because at some point he should try just telling Cas and see what happened. It wasn't like Cas didn't care what he thought. That much was obvious.

"Yes," Cas said without hesitation. "It's totally separate."

"Okay." Dean let out his breath in a huff, and it was almost a laugh. He wanted that to be enough, and when he was with Cas, he didn't know why he was making such a big deal of it in the first place. "Let's go with that, then."

"Yes," Cas repeated. He sounded mostly relieved.

Dean eyed him. "So, we gonna talk about your wings, now?"

Castiel sighed. "If that is the price I must pay," he said, but he didn't sound completely against it. "I imagine it to be a similar issue of owing and dependency."

"Huh," Dean said. He probably should try at least as hard as Cas had not to mess this up, then. "Should I… guess, or is that--uh, rude?"

"I will not ask you to," Castiel said. "My wings should not respond to you the way they do. But they do, and dramatically so. The strength of the response makes me desire it tremendously and fear its loss at the same time."

It seemed unfair that Cas could be so good at saying things like that, sharing stuff that Dean didn't even want to think about, let alone say out loud. And he had the words for it. Just like that. English wasn't even his language, and he just… said it.

"Uh," Dean said. "What should I… say, here?"

"I've already decided to invite your intervention," Castiel said. "But I would ask that you not--" And here he stopped. He finally seemed to run out of words.

"Not what?" Dean prompted.

"You seem very interested in the idea that… interacting… with my wings," Cas said carefully, "will--help me. I would ask that you not--do it for that reason."

"You don't want me to help you," Dean said.

Castiel sighed. "I don't want you to think you have to help me," he said.

"I want to," Dean told him, and Cas just glared at him.

"I want to help you too, and that doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on you," he said. "You still don't want me giving you money for no reason except that you need it."

He felt like he should be able to figure that out--Cas obviously had--but he couldn't. There was something in his brain that wouldn't make the connection, and he didn't want Cas to walk away all mysteriously sad and upset. "I don't know what to say," Dean told him.

You're the one who figures these things out, he thought. He knew it was unfair and he hoped Cas didn't hear it. Tell me what to do.

Cas gave him an annoyed look that probably meant he'd heard every word, or at least understood Dean's vast confusion on the subject. But he still said, "Tell me you like my wings and want to fix them whether I like it or not."

"No," Dean said. Fix them? "Of course I don't want to do it if you don't like it. That's stupid. I want to do it because you like it."

Castiel looked thoroughly exasperated, so Dean added, "I'm never not gonna like it, okay? It's awesome. I don't get it, but your wings are like… they're awesome. Even if you never let me touch them I'd still think that. But I wouldn't want to do it if you didn't like it. That would be a crappy thing to want, right? I'm not into that."

"I don't understand your codes," Castiel told him. "You seem to have a complicated series of motivations that dictate your behavior, and I don't understand any of them."

He didn't seem angry with Dean, just irritated in general, and Dean chanced a smile. "Glad to hear you say that," he said. "'Cause man, I don't get you either."

Castiel stared at him for a long moment, and Dean didn't back down. Finally, Castiel said, "Yet here we are."

Dean was pretty sure he'd said something like that before. Probably to Cas. "We're doing okay," he said. "I think."

"I think so too," Castiel said slowly. "At least… you still seem to respond positively toward me."

Dean thought his smile was more relieved than he wanted it to be. "Yeah, you seem to like me too. God knows why."

"I doubt that," Castiel said.

Dean's smile widened. "Nah," he agreed. "Probably not."

"Not that God wouldn't like you," Castiel said quickly. "I didn't mean to imply--"

Dean laughed. "No, stop," he said. “You are not gonna tell me that your dad would like me."

"He would," Castiel insisted. "He must."

"Cut it out," Dean told him, clapping an affectionate hand on his shoulder. "We're not talking about parents, okay? Are you coming upstairs with me, or not?"

"I--" Castiel stared at him, and now he just looked surprised. "Do you not wish to… watch television?"

"You mean make out on the couch?" Dean grinned at him. "Can we make out on your bed instead? You've been inviting me there since we met."

"Of course," Castiel said. "That would be… I would like that."

Dean squeezed his shoulder, applying just enough pressure to see if Cas would turn. Cas' wings rose instead, and Dean watched, transfixed, as they arched over his shoulders. Cas stared at him until Dean realized he was waiting.

Dean nodded, not even sure what he was agreeing to. Cas seemed to get that, because only one of his wings slid forward, wrapping gingerly behind Dean in a way that made the whole room brighten. He was only surrounded on one side, but the light of Cas' other wing crept over the rest of his vision and everything was so bright.

"I worry about that too," Castiel said quietly. Still watching him.

"Yeah?" Dean said, realizing as he did so that he was allowed to touch now. He held out his hand, brushing it against the edge of the light. His hand warmed. Cas' wing sparkled. And wow, that was the prettiest power trip ever, because Cas smiled involuntarily and Dean wanted to step into him and kiss that look into his face forever.

"My grace," Castiel said. "If you're… human, if you're…" Not Michael, Dean heard, and Cas nodded.

"It hurts me," Dean guessed.

Cas' eyes widened, and Dean said quickly. "I mean, no. It doesn't. I just figured that's what you were saying. If I'm human, your grace is gonna hurt me somehow."

This time, Cas nodded.

"Like when you were bleeding," Dean continued, stroking his hand up Cas' wing again. "And you told me not to touch you."

Cas nodded again, eyes flicking to Dean's hand. His wing shimmered, and Dean could only see part of it but he could feel more. He could feel it flexing and resettling against his back.

"That didn't hurt me," Dean reminded him.

"Your amulet protected you," Castiel said.

Dean shrugged, trailing his fingers deeper into the light. Cas didn't protest. "I'm still wearing it," he said. "Maybe it'll protect me again."

"We don't know why it worked in the first place." Cas wasn't looking at his hand anymore, and Dean really wanted to take his other hand off Cas' shoulder and push it forward. "It isn't safe."

"It doesn't hurt now," Dean told him.

He couldn't be sure, but he thought Cas came very close to rolling his eyes. "I'm in control of myself now," he said.

Dean tried not to smirk, but it was a losing battle. "That's what I'm trying to change," he said, curling his fingers and combing them deeper into the wing Cas was pressing against his shoulder.

"Hence my concern," Castiel said, very deliberately. He might be annoyed. Or he might be turned on. Dean was willing to push harder to find out which it was.

"You thought it would mess me up last night, right?" He stepped into Cas after all, pressing their chests together and letting the hand on Cas' shoulder slide over his back. He knew when it hit the juncture of Cas' wing because Cas looked up, a warning on his lips.

Dean kissed him before he could say it. It didn't, he thought, laying another gentle kiss on Cas' mouth. Then another. I'm fine. Let's not mess this up until we actually mess it up, okay?

He thought he got some kind of agreement from Cas, but it wasn't nearly as verbal as it usually was. So maybe that was good, and maybe it was his imagination. Dean couldn't leave it to chance.

He pulled away, only realizing as he did so that his fingers had been digging into Cas' back. He let them relax, landing on Cas' arm instead, but the glazed look Cas was giving him didn't seem so bad after all. "You all right?" Dean asked softly.

"I am," Cas said, but he paused for breath like he wasn't done. "Somewhat overwhelmed," he finished. "I wish you would stop making everything about me."

He was definitely in Cas' head, because he got that on the first try. "Cas, I am gonna mess you up six ways to Sunday," Dean told him. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting to find something that makes you look like that."

Cas made a different face at him then, and it occurred to Dean that a challenge issued was--occasionally, just sometimes, very infrequently--a challenge lost. "If you think I will not use this to my advantage," Castiel said, "you are sadly mistaken."

Dean raised his eyebrows, and he could feel the smirk on his face. "You're on," he said. "Bring it."

Cas held out his right hand, probably intentionally knocking Dean's fingers out of his feathers at the same time. "Shall we?" he said.

Dean wasn't sure whether this meant flying or not, but he was pretty much game for anything at this point. So he took Cas' hand, and that was how they ended up walking up the stairs together. It was, he had to admit, more appropriate than anything else they could have been doing on the stairs.

"You have many implausible fantasies," Cas remarked, before they even reached the second floor.

Dean had to laugh. "You have no idea," he said.

They made a circuit of the kids' room without actually checking in, just making sure the wards were in place and no one seemed to be in distress. Saph and Maru's rooms were lit but empty, and there was enough noise coming from Dani's that Dean figured the youngest kids were all doing their homework--or whatever--together. For once, both Maia and Wildfire's rooms were quiet, but he heard a low murmur from Adamel's room that was too regular to be real conversation. TV, Dean figured, maybe on his phone. Without earbuds?

Maribel came out of her room just as they were passing, but she nodded to them and kept going. Dean's fingers twitched, but Cas didn't let go of his hand and Dean didn't insist. The kids apparently knew way more than he was comfortable with, and all Cas said was that if he didn't think about it then they wouldn't either.

Dean thought about it all the time. He had no idea how he was supposed to follow instructions like that, but Cas just seemed amused by how much it freaked him out. Cas was amused by a lot of inappropriate things, of course, but there was only so much Dean could worry about at any given time.

Castiel pushed his door open and paused, hand still in Dean's. "Please come in," he said, smiling a little.

Dean tried to roll his eyes, but he couldn't quite do it with that expression on Cas' face. He dragged Cas inside after him, glancing around the balcony outside before he kicked the door shut behind him. "Please come in," he mimicked, grabbing for Cas' other hand as he backed him up against the door. "Funny, Cas."

"It wasn't intended to--" Cas didn't even mumble as Dean cut him off with a mouth pressed to his. Like he'd seen it coming. Like he'd rather kiss than talk too. Like he'd been waiting for this, thinking about it too much, too often, too deeply.

Like he was as relieved as Dean felt to press their hips together while they kissed, without wondering how many seconds they had before the illusion fell apart.

Cas' wings were spread bright and inviting against the wall behind him, and normally Dean would clutch his fingers harder and try to ignore them. This time he lifted Cas' hands in his own and pressed them against the wall. Into his wings. Under the wash of light and warmth and he saw Cas' eyes close.

Neither of them had turned on a light. Dean didn't need it, not with the flashes of color that followed their joined hands. Cas wasn't looking anyway. "You want to do this in bed?" Dean murmured, watching Cas tip his head back and fight the luminescent shudder that ran through his wings.

"I believe that is the customary location," Castiel said breathlessly. And that was great, that was awesome, Cas didn't even need to--

The room spun, gravity not where it should be in the darkness, and Dean felt the breath go out of him in turn. He didn't hit the bed hard, but there hadn't been anything behind him a second ago and now there was. He blinked rapidly, clinging to Cas for balance as he tried to find some kind of reference point, and those were… pillows?

Dean wanted to laugh, had to gasp instead because there wasn't any air in his lungs. "Cas," he panted, grinning as his wrists were forced into downy softness and his fingers strained for more. "There's something to--" He tried to catch his breath and couldn't. "To be said for…"

Those wings were rising, brilliant and hot and untouchable behind Cas' back. Dean groaned, hands grasping for what he couldn't reach with Cas holding him down. "The anticipation," he gasped. "Of walking." Or stumbling across the bedroom. "You don't have to--"

"I have anticipated long enough," Cas informed him. The bubbling impatience was gone, replaced by something confident and unafraid. "This is what I want. Short of your refusal, nothing will stop me."

Not space, Dean thought, a little wild with the realization that Cas could have landed them literally anywhere. Or time. They'd never been horizontal before midnight, though maybe that was a meaningless distinction given some of the ways they'd kissed while upright on the couch. Nor light of day will stop me now.

"I think you're joking," Cas murmured, straddling him and leaning down in one smooth motion. "You're amused. That is not the reaction I intend to elicit."

When Cas' mouth covered his and warm energy tingled through his arms and up his sides, Dean thought he was in trouble. His hips jerked involuntarily and Cas ground down, pressing him into the bed, satisfying every urge to hold and be held without even letting him move. Cas thrust again, fully clothed, humping him exactly the way Dean would have on the couch, and he knew.

He wasn't just in trouble. He was gone, totally lost, and that was how Cas wanted it. Cas had admitted it himself: he wanted Dean to get off, he wanted Dean to let go, and now--

"Stop thinking," Cas growled, and it startled a laugh out of Dean. Choked and breathless under the onslaught, but a laugh nonetheless, because it was such a human complaint. Cas wanted him, wanted his attention, and he was going to do whatever it took to get it.

"Take my clothes off," Dean gasped, "and--" He felt a groan wrung out of him when Cas' wings slid under his back. Into his back. He didn't know how they did that, but he could feel it. They were there, and it made him arch into heavier heat above. "And I'll consider it," he managed, with his eyes shut tight against the sensation.

Cas was lying on top of him, easy enough to push his arms over his head. "Stay," he whispered, a request more than a command, and Dean couldn't form any words at all when those hands went to his hips and fumbled, gentle but determined, with the hem of his shirt.

He couldn't not move. He twisted into the touch, letting Cas get a grip before he arched up again. He felt his shirt shoved up under his back. He pressed his hands into the pillows and lifted his shoulders, but it wasn't enough and he laughed again, holding onto Cas when he pulled back. He didn't know if it was arms or wings or sheer willpower that brought them both upright, Dean shucking his shirt and leaning eagerly into the angel in his lap.

He almost didn't bother to kiss, hot breath in his face as Cas gasped at the closeness. It was enough, then, that he could feel Cas shifting awkwardly on his legs and Dean knew what to do with that. He had both hands in Cas' pants, pushing, pressing, making room and curling into the heat between his legs before the light was too bright for him to see.

The light of Cas' wings. It gave him pause, not enough to cool him down, but maybe enough that he could think. Even when Cas whispered desperately, "Please, Dean," like he was scared to talk but didn't dare let Dean look away.

"Hey," Dean muttered, gritting his teeth against the flush of heat that was angel wings against his back. "Stop pretending. I'm--" He pulled his hands up, dragging over skin and bone before pushing them back into the light that swirled around Cas all the time. Those wings were tight to his back now, stretching around him, engulfing Dean, and he thought he could feel individual threads of current tingling through his fingers.

Cas whimpered, and this time when he shifted it was his shoulders he forced back instead of his hips grinding down.

"Yeah," Dean whispered, trying to catch those currents with his fingers. His hands climbed up Cas' back, spreading against skin and into light as they went. "I'm hard enough for both of us, okay." He was, and he didn't care, because Cas could fake it with the best of them but seeing his wings turn cobalt and sparkling was a rush he'd never trade. "Just be real."

He saw Cas swallow, and he remembered it was okay to kiss him so he did. Signs of intimate affection, Cas had said. He wasn't faking it. He was just trying to express what he couldn't say.

What Dean wouldn't let him say, sometimes.

It was still better like this, with Cas' wings brilliant and trembling. With Cas' mouth warm and beautiful under his, like kissing was love, like it was familiarity and comfort and maybe after all this time it was. But the thrill of Cas' angelic grace against his skin, making his arms almost useless and lighting up everything they touched in a way that the rest of his body desperately wanted--that was desire. That was honesty, and revelation, and two people who probably shouldn't be together but found a way to make it work.

That was alien sex, exotic and amazing, and Dean would be lying if he said it didn't do more for him than anything else.

"You should have told me," Cas murmured, and his hands were lower, shifting with Dean's movement, tucking into his jeans. They didn't have nearly as much give as Cas' pants.

"I did," he gasped, pushing a hand up into the join of Cas' wing and shoving him a little farther back when Cas arched into it. He put his other hand over Cas', fumbling with the zipper, hissing when Cas pulled at the button.

"You did not." Cas' fingers were as bright as his face, like the light of his wings was spilling over his body and clinging to every angle.

"Is this gonna--" He should have asked before, but it was too late. Cas' hand slid beneath cloth, and yeah, that was the heat of grace against his--

He felt the sound he made more than he heard it, the whine in his head loud and buzzing even as his throat vibrated in a way that he hoped wasn't audible. He tried to choke it off, tried not to moan, tried to breathe and just panted against Cas' shoulder instead. He was getting a hand job from an angel. He could feel the pressure and the twist of it, and he thrust into it because it was good but he shuddered because it was hot.

It was inhumanly hot. Like he was pushing into more than skin, like the wash of Cas' true form. He was fucking grace and all he could think was, if Cas lit up it would be all over. If he did that thing that tingled against Dean's arms and his back, that dragged hot and cold down his chest… what would it feel like?

"Do you want it to?" Cas was whispering, but his voice hummed. Dean would swear he could hear it in his head.

"I don't know," Dean gasped. He could barely handle it when he knew what to expect, when he felt it coming and could brace himself. Cas was already holding him, he was already drawn tight and too sensitized to stay still. He had to move, he had to know--

"Yeah," he breathed, curling both hands into Cas' back. It only made sense that he could feel wings there, joints as solid as skin under his fingers, and Cas cried out when he bore down on them hard.

It wasn't pain. He had to be sure, he pushed closer into Cas' head, chasing that blaze of pleasure until he knew. He didn't even realize that Cas was squeezing back until the sharp, sparking rush of healing exploded against his skin. Everything was loud and bright, wings shimmering and the air throbbing with his unexpected release.

He felt Cas push back, awareness flooding into his head, looking for the same answer Dean wanted and finding it, somehow. Fine, he said. Awesome. Amazing. I'm okay.

He could swear the room moved, or maybe it was just the air, the sweep of it under Cas' wings. He was sinking, boneless, into the light, watching Cas' wings flare around them. Watching Cas flare. Brilliant and gold in the white, pushing him down, and Dean laughed when his back hit the pillows again.

Something in the flood of grace gave him the strength to push back, tumbling Cas over. Making him roll until Dean was on top of him, climbing his body and clutching at his wings. He wanted to say, Tell me what to do, but somehow it came out as, "I love you."

Cas moaned, and there was nothing human in it at all. It was the whine of light and grace and it made everything in Dean vibrate. He didn't have to reach for Cas' wings anymore, they were all around him and he stretched out inside the heat of that embrace. "I love you," he murmured, pressing his face into what might have been Cas' chest. "I love how much you love us. How you care about everyone, even when you hate them… they matter to you. I love that you let things matter."

He felt it course through him when Cas let go. He heard the song, the voices so long absent and a sense of belonging that made everything turn violet and warm. He saw himself, there above Cas, eyes open and shining white and safe.

He whispered, "Dean," and Dean pushed hard against him until it wasn't him talking but Cas. He didn't go anywhere, but he wasn't Cas anymore. And wow, that was a mindfuck.

Cas' eyes were closed, but his face looked blissful. Dean's grip on his feelings and those feathers eased enough that he could sink down, relaxing onto Cas. The light roiling around them collapsed in as he went, following him into an angelic embrace, and Dean had to smile at Cas' peaceful expression. "I love you," he whispered again.

This time, Cas' eyes flickered open. Dean piled his hands on Cas' chest and rested his chin on top of them while he waited for that gaze to sharpen. It was only a moment before Cas found and focused on him.

"I love you," Cas murmured, and it sounded almost human. Definitely something close to a human voice, anyway. His eyes were still too bright, but Dean could see color in them through the white.

Dean had to ask, "You okay?" Because you didn't just roll around with another species for the first time and not ask if it was good for them. Or if it was bad. Or if there was anything else they needed.

"Yes," Cas said quietly. "But it hurts to talk."

Dean frowned, picking his head up and getting ready to push himself off of Cas. If there was something they should be doing--was that an angel thing? A human thing? Cas hadn't made that much noise; could he be hoarse? Maybe the angel whine was bad for his vocal cords?

Cas' hand touched his cheek before he could sit up, cupping his jaw and then sliding down his neck. Is this all right? he asked. I would not have you move.

Are you okay? Dean pushed the words at him again, his worry eased but not gone. What's wrong?

Hard as it may be to believe, Cas told him, I'm very angelic right now. Trying to force my form back into a human one is… challenging.

It wasn't bad, being in Cas' head. It was great, actually, but it wasn't bad because he could tell Cas meant that literally. It was a challenge. Not even an unpleasant one, not something he disliked except in that it was inconvenient. Not something he regretted.

Okay, Dean said. He carefully put his head down on his hands again. Cas' hand was in his hair, and that felt good. It all felt good. He didn't want to move. Let me know if I can help.

This helps. He could feel Cas smiling, even when he rested his head to the side and closed his eyes. Feeling your body on mine.

There was a pause where Dean realized he could feel Cas breathing, and it wasn't strange that he could feel it, it was strange that Cas was doing it. He liked it. He liked Cas breathing and warm, even when most of the time he was sure angels weren't anything of the sort.

Then Cas asked, Are you… comfortable?

And hey, breathing and warm wasn't everything. Kind and considerate counted for more than he'd ever admit.

Yeah, Dean thought.

You can talk, Cas added. It doesn't hurt to hear.

This is easier, Dean thought, but it wasn't really. It was hard to tell how much Cas was getting, and how clearly. Out loud, he said, "If I fall asleep like this…" His voice was rougher than he'd thought, still, but he couldn't bring himself to work at it. "I'll probably wake up like this."

He didn't realize his eyes were closed until the glow behind them receded enough that it was dark. He opened his eyes and the glow was back, though dimmer than before. Cas was almost human again, just shining and winged and a lot more colorful than any human had a right to be.

Is that a problem? Cas wondered, while at the same time he thought, You're not comfortable.

"Hey," Dean muttered, smiling into Cas' shirt. "I understood that. Even though you did--you know."

Thought too quickly, Castiel said. Not about your observations. Just about what you said out loud. About waking up like this.

Dean totally followed that. "M'comfy now," he said. "Probably won't be if I'm still partly dressed and kind of messy in the morning."

I could change that, Castiel thought.

He knew what that meant, knew what Cas was offering, and he didn't want it but he didn't panic. Cas would feel his refusal, would understand that it wasn't an insult. He hoped.

"I gotta draw the line somewhere," Dean mumbled, and when he spoke he realized he was smiling. So, yeah. Hopefully Cas would be cool. "I can get up and change. You want anything?"

You have yet to show any actual ability or willingness to rise, Cas pointed out, but he sounded like he thought that was funny instead of annoying. He didn't push the whole magicking his partner clean or undressed or asleep for all Dean knew, so that was reassuring. Angel powers were pretty unpredictable. And it wasn't that he was against having them turned on him, but there were limits.

Dean opened his eyes, which reminded him that he'd closed them again, and he was comfortable enough that getting up wasn't very appealing. But Cas would be there when he came back, and that was worth a lot. So he rolled off of him, hands and arms splashed with the light of Cas' wings as he went, and he saw the colors brighten with contact.

"Okay?" he asked carefully, pushing himself to his knees and lifting his hands just in case.

Yes, Cas murmured in his mind. Fine. Beautiful. Very much desired.

Dean cleared his throat, because the time for that kind of confession was over but how was Cas supposed to know that? He had enough hangups about sex without putting them on Cas, too. "Okay," he said, and then he forced himself to add, "Thanks."

Cas just smiled, and Dean could swear one of those wings reached for him. Colors lifting lazily in the dark, swirling higher than those on the other side, and he let his hand trail through them. The light coalesced there, just at the point where his fingers touched something that could have been feathers, and it began to smooth out. The swirls followed his fingers into little lines as he patted them, and Dean smiled too.

"That's pretty awesome," he said out loud.

Please go, Cas told him, even if his wings were saying something else entirely. So that you can come back.

"Right," Dean said. He shifted awkwardly off of Cas' legs, and wow, there was nothing graceful about having to pull his jeans up just to stand. He did it, but then it seemed stupid to push them down again, so he made his way gingerly across a dark floor to…

Not his bathroom. "Um, Cas," he said. "Do you have, like… a toothbrush I could borrow? Or clothes?"

Yes, Castiel said. The light of his wings wasn't helpful at all when Dean was walking away from him. Your clothes are in the bureau. If that's all right.

Of course they were. Dean huffed out a breath that might as well be a laugh, because Cas had offered to do that for him before. It was probably his own toothbrush in the bathroom. But hey, Cas had let him get up and at least pretend to do it the human way, so he wasn't gonna complain.

"Thanks," he said again. Totally worth it.

He pushed the bathroom door most of the way shut before he turned on the light. Cas might be an angel, but habits born of respect were too deep to just let go. He squinted in the glare, and yeah. That was his toothbrush. And his toothpaste. And a glass already filled with water, which made him grin.

You're getting close to creepy, there, he thought fondly. This is like the thing with the sandwich.

You like bacon sandwiches, Cas replied, proving that Dean was still thinking clearly enough to make sense. I fail to comprehend why I may not make you one whenever I like.

"Uh-huh," Dean said, not even bothering. It was a joke by now; he was fine with it and he was pretty sure Cas was fine with it too. Dean didn't get why Cas drew the lines he did either, but they both mostly managed to respect them.

When he came out of the bathroom, the bedroom was impossibly dark. But he couldn't miss Cas, limned in gold and standing by the bureau… looking down. Still wearing the shirt Dean had given him, and wasn't that a rush. Especially with his pants now gone.

Dean smiled in the darkness. "That's a good look for you," he said.

"I thought to change my clothes," Castiel whispered, the words odd in their quiet and outside of his head. "As you do. But I find I wish to continue wearing your shirt."

"You don't have to talk," Dean reminded him. He went over, running his hand over Cas' shoulder and thumbing the soft fabric in appreciation. "Believe me, I've got plenty of t-shirts. You can just borrow another one."

"I'm all right now," Cas said, his voice stronger. Almost normal. "And may I? I think I would enjoy that."

"Please," Dean said, gesturing at the bureau. "Take whatever you want. Try some sweatpants, too, if you want. What you usually wear isn't, uh. Well, it's not as good for sleeping in?"

But Cas just nodded. "No," he agreed. "I thought not. I prefer to dress for your comfort while we're in bed together."

Dean spared a moment to regret practicality. "For the record," he said, "I don't have anything against sleeping naked. But if someone starts screaming, I can't spend time putting clothes on. And you fly out of here at the drop of a hat, so."

"The consideration is a practical one," Castiel said. "I understand."

He offered Dean a shirt, and Dean raised his eyebrows. "This one in particular?" he asked, amused. He took it, but he couldn't recognize it in the dark. A soft one, at least. He could feel a faded decoration on the front, but that didn't narrow it down much.

"If you like it," Castiel said. "I like it on you."

"Then I like it." He liked all his shirts; that's why he still had them. Living out of his car hadn't left much room for hauling stuff he didn't wear.

He still hadn't been asked to dress up for the kids' fancy school, which only surprised him when he thought about it. He didn't blend in by any stretch, but he was starting to think maybe they'd overlook his wardrobe indefinitely. At this rate, his clothes would wear out before anyone called him on them.

"I can't see," Dean said, when Cas didn't move. "You put some sweats in there?"

Cas had been hanging around him too much, because he pulled open the next drawer down and held something else out to Dean. They were soft and still had enough of a tag that Dean could tell back from front, so hey. Who needed light?

"Thanks," Dean said. "Help yourself."

He'd left his jeans unbuttoned and only partially zipped, because there was only so much a guy could take. He pushed them down now, wondered if Cas would care if he left them on the floor, and decided now wasn't the time to find out. He pulled on his makeshift pajamas first, so that at least he wouldn't have to find them again in the dark, and then fumbled around for the clothes he'd discarded.

He got most of them halfway folded and out of the way. He figured the shirt was a lost cause he'd have to look for in the morning. Right now Cas was close enough to press his wing into Dean's back, putting his own shirt on top of the jeans Dean had just folded up. He was also clothed, which was too bad, but he came easily when Dean pulled him in for a kiss.

They were still standing there several minutes later. Dean didn't want to stop kissing, but he was over the whole standing up thing. "Bed," he murmured. "I could--mmm." He let Cas kiss the words back to him.

Tired? Cas asked, gentle with his mouth but warm and wet like an invitation Dean couldn't accept right now.

Tired of standing, Dean thought. Or he tried to think. He was pretty sure Cas heard the yeah that he wouldn't say out loud. Nap or not, he was bone weary.

"Bed," Cas echoed, the whisper light on Dean's skin. "Is it sufficient? You've never…"

Dean wasn't kissing his mouth now, but Cas trailed off at the feeling of lips on his jaw. Or Dean's hand in his wing. Could he kiss Cas' wings? They weren't--they mostly weren't solid, although he had some kind of weird memories from the end of… whatever they'd just done.

"This is your first time," Cas tried again. In his bed, he meant, but Dean smiled at the words anyway. He nosed past Cas' cheek, wondering if he could even reach over his shoulder. "If your own bed is--"

The sound Cas made was startled and pleased and maybe a little more spontaneous than Dean had expected. Cas must have known what he was going for, after all. And yeah… it turned out that he could, in a sort of imaginary way, kiss Cas' wings.

"Preferable," Cas said with a gasp. "We could--move."

"Your bed is good," Dean mumbled into his wings. "Your bed is great." The light washed over him and he jerked, stumbling back a step and sucking in an unsteady breath of his own. "We can walk," he said, more loudly than he'd meant to.

Cas gave him a sad look that barely covered his effort not to laugh. "Of course we can," he said, like he'd never thought of anything else. But Dean knew what he was thinking and he cuffed Cas' wing, his shoulder, cupped his neck and then his face and almost leaned in to kiss him again before Cas smiled.

"You are very forgiving," Cas told him.

"Yeah," Dean said, sliding his thumb across Cas' mouth instead. "That's what they tell me."

So Cas let him steer them toward the bed, which was a terrible idea since Cas was the one who could see in the dark, but the bed took up a lot of space and it was hard to miss. It was friendly enough to bump into. And it was very, very welcoming when the covers were pulled back and the two of them were finally horizontal again.

The kissing was good. Being held was better. And Cas fanned wings of luminescent feathers across his body, coruscating colors making the darkness jump and recede in their wake. Dean watched the play of light when he wasn't more enthralled by the warmth of Cas' skin against his lips, the press of his arms and chest as strong as an unbroken promise.

Finally, though, he whispered, "I'm gonna fall asleep on you, Cas."

There was a moment where Cas just stroked his hip, wing stretched all the way down his leg and warm the whole way through. Then he said, "You would need to actually be on me for me to take that warning seriously."

It was weird and it took him a second, but Dean laughed just enough that he knew Cas heard. "On you," he repeated. "Like, I'm gonna fall asleep. And you're not. Seems rude."

"It's never seemed that way before," Cas pointed out.

"Sure it did," Dean muttered, turning his head into Cas' shoulder. "I just didn't care as much before."

He realized why that was wrong as soon as he said it, but it was late and he barely managed, "About manners. Being polite. I mean, not you… I cared about you. I care about you the same. I care about you a lot," he tried again, and wow, he was terrible at this.

"I know," Cas murmured, his hand coming up to touch Dean's chin. "It's fine."

"It's polite," Dean insisted, but he relaxed a little. If he hadn't managed to piss off Cas yet, a few minor slips probably weren't going to do it. "When you're in bed with someone, to. You know. Take care of them."

Cas' hand slid around behind his neck and down to his shoulder, bringing as much warmth as his wing sliding up Dean's side. "You once told me I wasn't supposed to take care of you."

"I didn't mean me," Dean mumbled. "Now, I mean. It's you. I'm supposed to take care of you."

"I think it must be reciprocal," Castiel told him. "That's the only way it makes sense."

"Well, I say a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense." He was pretty sure they were arguing. He wasn't at all sure he was winning. "If I let you take care of me, will you still do what I say?"

He felt Cas lifting his hand, bringing it to his face, and maybe those were Cas' lips on his fingers. That was kind of romantic. In a dreamy, not at all awake kind of way. He shouldn't have still been talking if he was already asleep.

"I do not think anything will change," Cas was saying softly.

"Everything changes," Dean muttered.

There was a moment where the room got kinder, and everything got a little softer, and he didn't realize how far away he was until he heard Cas say, "Then I'll change with you."

It was easier when he woke up. Even if it wasn't his bed and the room was completely dark. And he still wasn't used to having someone next to him: not when there was a pillow under his head and a blanket over his arm.

"It's all right," Cas whispered, and yeah, that made sense. He would be with Cas. Cas' bedroom? He remembered that part quickly, in a flush of heat and contentment that made him smile.

"I have to leave," Cas said softly.

Dean tried to push himself up on his elbow, and Cas backed away enough that he had some breathing space. "You going?" he managed. It wasn't as coherent as he'd like, but he was alert enough to squint at Cas' wings and see nothing but green and gold. "Need help?"

"Not dangerous," Castiel said, still quiet but closer to normal now that Dean was talking too. "There's a convocation. I'm needed. It's largely a formality."

Dean frowned at him, sure Cas could see it in the dark. "You've said that before."

"I've believed it before," Cas admitted. "But today is Sunday. Heaven will be sacrosanct today."

"I wish I could come with you," Dean muttered.

He felt Cas' hand on his chest, reached up and caught it with his own. "I would ask you to stay with the children," Cas murmured. "Even if you could accompany me."

Dean squeezed his fingers. "You know," he said in the darkness, "weirdly? That makes me feel better."

He could hear Cas' smile in his voice. "I'll be back in time for breakfast."

Dean let go of his hand and watched him disappear into the light. The room was quieter without him, but he left a peace behind that felt almost… warm. Comforting.

Intentional, Dean realized after a moment.

He sighed, thinking about the kids carefully. His glancing awareness reflected off of seven young angels--mostly as a group; he had a hard time picking them out individually unless he thought about them one by one--all calm and content and definitely not in any danger. He let his head fall back onto the pillow, closing his eyes. Safe. Probably secure.

Alone.

A tendril of thought from Cas wound itself into his head. Nothing specific, nothing he would have even noticed if it hadn't been so quiet. But it was kind and close and grateful… and it was with him.

His phone alarm didn't wake him in the morning. True to form, his body defaulted to six-thirty, and he had another moment of confusion when he opened his eyes. Then another moment of smugness when he remembered, followed by the worry that Cas was still gone.

Downstairs. It was Cas' voice, and hey, when was the last time he'd actually been alone? Before he'd come here, probably.

Dean sat up, flipping on the light by the bed and grinning again when he saw his t-shirt on the floor. Downstairs doing what? he wanted to know.

Breakfast, Cas replied.

Ask a stupid question, Dean thought, amused.

It was Sunday morning. The kids were all home, Cas was here, and Dean was pretty sure he'd find something edible in the kitchen when he went downstairs. He also figured there was a good chance Cas would still be wearing pajamas. That was enough to get him out of bed all on its own.

He heard them before he saw them. By the time he made it downstairs it was clear that some of the kids had decided to eat in front of the tree. This meant a fair amount of running back and forth--all on the kids' part, he noticed, and he mentally congratulated Cas on not falling for the "just bring me one more thing" trap--and an unexpected amount of confusion over who had what and where.

Angels, Dean thought, ruffling Maru's hair as he passed. They could fight their way out of hell, but move breakfast out of the kitchen and they were all lost. And that was with the older ones still in the kitchen to supervise.

He stopped in the doorway, smiling when Maribel caught his eye. "Good morning, Dean," she said politely. Then she made up for it by taking Adamel's juice when he wasn't looking, and his smile widened.

"Morning," Dean replied. "Adventurous. Eating out there and everything."

She tilted her head, but Cas had finally turned away from the stove, and hey, big surprise. Pajamas were also a good look for him. Dean grinned at him, and Cas returned it with a smile that was probably too obvious. Dean would be happy to see that smile every morning.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said. "Would you care for some pancakes?"

Not as much as I care for you, he thought.

Cas' smile lingered long enough that Dean closed his eyes, because seriously. He didn't even have to speak to say stupid things. "Sure," he said out loud. "That'd be great, thanks."

Cas waited until he opened his eyes to reply. "I'm glad to hear it," he said.