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Sam turns in early for the night, maybe with the impression that Dean and Cas want to talk alone, but neither of them say a word when Sam shuffles from the room with a one-worded excuse. Dean stays on one side of the table, Cas the other, the distance a physical presence. Dean can feel the weight of Cas' eyes, gently settling on him and fastening there, but Dean can't look back. Not yet.
Raising two probing fingers, Dean massages the tender knot he can feel forming on the bolt of his jaw; he opens his mouth just a little to feel the sharp twinge of pain resounding on the side of his skull, and closes it again, clenching his teeth to feel it throb.
"Dean," Cas says, soft, pained. He's watching him. "Please—"
"Don't," Dean says, and his voice sounds parched and gruff, even to his own ears. "Don't."
The silence is thick between them, palpable; Dean can hear the ragged hush of his own breath, hitching in and out of his lungs, can feel the measured exhalations from Cas on the other side, methodical almost. Formulaic. Cas doesn't need to breathe, not anymore, but he does anyway. Maybe out of habit, maybe just to feel the rhythm.
"I'm gonna turn in," Dean says a moment's later without any preamble, and stands from the table.
Cas follows. "Me too."
Dean doesn't look back over his shoulder as Cas trails him quietly down the hallway, but he can feel his own heartbeat thudding in his chest hollowly like a bass drum. They haven't shared a bed for months, maybe years—there'd never been the time for it after a certain point, never the occasion, never the mutual possibility. It seems natural now, Dean thinks, to imagine pulling Cas into bed with him, tugging a blanket around him, offering warmth to him like a hearth he's willing to share, but he's too terrified to ask. Too terrified of the soft, weary rejection in Cas' eyes, the hesitant "Dean" he knows will fall between them like an incoming sucker punch. He isn't ready for that, not tonight.
Dean pauses in the open doorway to his room anyway, and Cas stops with him, his coat swaying slightly with his movements. For a moment, they stare at each other, unbroken, waiting with breath held for the inevitable farewell.
Instead, without a word, Cas gently raises two fingers and presses them to Dean's forehead, a silent request for permission, but Dean closes his eyes and shakes his head. Just as gingerly, he reaches up to curl a hand loosely around Cas' fingers, and they remain there for a moment—Cas, the power to heal coiled in the pads of his fingertips, and Dean, waiting, refusing to receive.
Dean keeps his eyes closed and with his hand still encircled around Cas' fingers, he lowers their hands. Cas doesn't try to move away, and when Dean opens his eyes, Cas is wearing the expression Dean was afraid he would be, the weary sadness fitting his features like an old familiar sweater, softening them. His mouth curves up sadly in a small twitch when Dean meets his eyes, and this—this part of their relationship has always been freaky, to Dean. He's never questioned it out loud, never had the stones to, but their ability to conduct a conversation through some sort of shared invisible electric current is….well. Not normal. Painful. The magnetism of it draws him in like a moth to a lit match.
"Can I come in?" Cas asks, which he didn't have to ask—Dean could read the quiet request in the resigned slope of his shoulders and in the deepening hollows under his eyes. Cas needs this, maybe as much as Dean does. Maybe more.
Dean steps aside and half-raises one hand, then drops it back against his jean-leg. His face is still stinging, the bruises under his skin hardening into concentrated points of pain.
Cas shrugs off his coat with a roll of his shoulders when he steps inside, and Dean watches as he shuts the door behind him, watches Cas undress like they're coming home from a hard day at the office and not staggering on the return-trip from hell. He watches Cas peel off his armor, layer by layer, like a warrior retiring, even though he's not sure Cas is anymore—a warrior, he means. Cas is a fighter, though. That, Dean knows.
Cas turns to look at Dean when he undoes his belt and slips it through the loops, pausing when he reads the expression on Dean's face. His hands still.
"Is this okay?" he asks, his tie hanging askew from his collar.
Dean nods, swallowing back the strange, building ache in his chest at the sight of Cas unkempt, out of sorts, just disheveled enough for Dean to feel a pang of wistful possessiveness. This Cas is the one no one else gets to see—this Cas is his and his alone.
Cas angles his head toward the bathroom. "Come here for a second."
Dean frowns, wary. "Why?"
"I want to show you something," Cas says, already heading for the bathroom door. "To give you something."
"Aw, shucks, Cas," Dean says, not quite wry enough to sell the weak sarcasm. "You shouldn't have."
Cas almost smiles.
Dean follows him into the bathroom, on edge but playing it cool—his uncertainty must show through, though, because Cas gently slides two hands over his shoulders and guides him to the toilet, sitting him down on the closed lid.
"Seriously, what's going on?" Dean asks suspiciously while Cas rustles around under the sink, dark head of hair temporarily disappearing before he resurfaces a moment later.
"You can say no," Cas says, turning a small bin over in his hands. "But I thought I'd offer."
"Cas," Dean says flatly while Cas fills the basin with warm water. "What are you doing."
"Shoes and socks off," Cas answers, and Dean's throat closes up because he suddenly knows, he knows what this is—he almost refuses, protests, but he does what he's told anyway, for some reason he can't say, toes off his shoes and strips off his socks and waits, his shoulders curved inward.
"You and your bible stuff," Dean says in a shaky voice when Cas kneels at his feet. Cas' mouth tilts in a small smile as he dips the rag in the warm, soapy water and wrings it out. Dean waits, feeling his shoulders trembling.
Cas reaches for one of his feet and Dean whispers, suddenly terrified, "Don't."
Cas looks up at him, still kneeling, his eyes seeming darker than usual, sadder, like a storm out on the ocean.
"If you don't want me to, I won't," Cas says in a hushed voice, one of his thumbs gently rubbing against the arch of Dean's foot. Dean's toes curl and he drops his head, unable to speak for a moment. It's easier not to talk, with Cas—somehow, words seem to get in the way, to cross wrong wires, to stilt and misconstrue. He thinks Cas might understand this, though; Cas has always gotten him beyond language.
"I can't," Dean whispers, closing his eyes. He doesn't even know why he can't—it's just feet-washing, for fuck's sake, nothing to read into. It's not like he's some religious freak. Maybe it's because he knows what this means to Cas—maybe because he understands the gravity of what Cas is giving to him.
"Please let me," Cas says, leaning forward to brush his lips over Dean's kneecap. Dean hesitates, then nods, his throat tightening like a closed fist. He just nods twice again, doesn't say a word.
Cas lifts one of his feet and drags the warm washcloth under his heel first, then along the arch of his foot, along his toes. Dean keeps his eyes shut, allowing the rhythmic sensation to roll through him, the image of Cas' downward expression, eyelashes hooded against his cheekbones, branded behind his eyes.
Cas murmurs something in a foreign language, hushed cadence almost like it's habit, dipping the rag back into the basin to collect more water. Dean bites down on his lower lip, keeping his eyes shut so he won't have to see the way Cas is looking at him, awed and fond and a mix of other things Dean doesn't want to put names to.
Cas moves to the other foot, his voice dropping to a low whisper, and Dean swallows, a sting prickling behind his eyes. He doesn't deserve this, not any of this, doesn't deserve to have the caked blood cleaned from his hands and feet, from under his fingernails.
Cas seems to read his thoughts, or maybe just his expression, because he stops the litany for a moment and says, with just as much conviction, "You're worthy of this."
Dean shakes his head in denial, unable to even word his protest, but Cas simply murmurs, "Yes," and kisses the inside of his thigh, running a hand along the underside of his kneecap.
He resumes the washing process while Dean sits there on a cold toilet bowl and tries not to lose it, and after a few moments, Cas speaks, in this broken, cracked voice that seems to splinter the silence of the empty bathroom. "Forgive me."
Dean's eyes snap open in his surprise, and he says, before he can even think about it, "There's nothing to forgive, Cas."
"Then you understand," Cas says, and Dean's jaw clicks shut.
"What I did…" Dean begins, his voice tight with loathing, and Cas interrupts him gently, "—is nothing more than what I've already done in turn to you. If you forgive me, then you understand how strongly I feel the same."
"But I—"
Cas shakes his head and runs the rag along his toes, taking care to massage each one individually. "There's nothing to forgive. Absolutely nothing."
Dean drops his head into his hands, his shoulders bowing inward, and Cas drops the rag in the basin and stands, steeling either hand to Dean's shoulders again.
"I need to go—" Dean says, standing, not even trying to shrug away from Cas' grip, already turning into it, and Cas doesn't call him out on his bluff, just tucks his chin on the top of Dean's head and rocks with him for a moment in silence, swaying with Dean's heavy, jagged breaths. Dean hates how loudly his hitched breathing fills the bathroom, echoing back mockingly at him, but Cas just shushes him in the hollow behind his ear, into his hair, and Dean lets himself be held.
"It's over," Cas keeps whispering, through the white noise filling Dean's head like static. "It's over, Dean. You're back, you're here, I'm here."
After another moment of this, or maybe several moments, Dean pulls away, keeping his hands locked behind Cas' back.
"What about you?" he whispers, searching Cas' face anxiously.
"What about me?"
"You were….the spell," Dean says, swallowing, the visions of Cas convulsing swimming sickeningly in his mind's eye. "You were…."
"I'm fine," Cas says, seeming uncomfortable for the first time. He shifts, his eyes cast down to the tile floor. "It's over."
Dean nods and pulls Cas back into him, needing the shared body heat, the familiar press of Cas' shape against him. Gently, he slips his hands into Cas' waistband and untucks his shirt, sliding his hands up to palm the skin underneath.
"Thank you," Dean says, his voice muffled by Cas' shirt, and Cas doesn't respond, just fondly presses a kiss to his temple.
Dean pulls Cas toward bed with him, stopping at the armchair on the way to pick up the woolly blanket draped over the back. He wraps it around Cas' shoulders like a cocoon and pulls him with his steps, Cas' breath huffing with quiet laughter, until the backs of Dean's knees hit the mattress and he sits, nearly sending Cas toppling on top of him.
Dean allows himself one brief moment of weakness, of reprieve, as he presses his forehead against Cas' stomach and closes his eyes, breathing into the warm darkness. "I've missed you."
"You don't even know," Cas says quietly in agreement, sliding his fingers through Dean's hair. Dean tugs him down, pulling him in by the blanket so he's curled close before he switches off the lamp.
Tomorrow, Dean thinks, as Cas shifts against him, they'll return to war. Don the battle-gear and head back into the bloody fray, guns first.
Tonight, though—Cas curves into him, intertwining their hands—tonight, he rests.