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Dean still dreams sometimes that he’ll wake up and Cas will be gone. Not that Cas just isn’t lying there beside him in bed as usual, with haphazard arms thrown over Dean’s chest. Not that Cas is dead, walking through the bunker’s halls as a wandering ghost; not just out of reach, lost to Dean somewhere between heaven and hell, but just gone: he dreams of Cas slipping through the cracks and out of sight until there’s nothing left to say that Cas had ever existed, beyond an unaccountable depression in the pillow by Dean’s head, or the lingering warmth still there in the sheets of his bed.
Sometimes Dean dreams of a world with no Cas in it, a world where he’s still searching for something - someone? who is he searching for so desperately?- but there’s no one there for him to find; he’s forgotten who was so essential, who he was supposed to find, or if he hasn’t forgotten then it’s because that essential someone was never there at all.
He’ll wake up fighting with the sheets twisted around his chest, choking with loss and a grief so deep he thinks he might’ve clawed his own heart out in his sleep, so certain he’s missing something of vast importance but unable to remember just what -who?- he’s lost.
But then, just as always, he’ll feel Cas’s breathy sighs on the back of his neck, and he’ll think: Oh, oh, this is it.
And those are the nights when he’ll roll over and kiss Cas until he feels those soft eyelashes brushing up against his cheek, kissing him until Cas is awake enough to kiss Dean back, praying over and over, Don’t let me forget this, don’t let me forget him; whatever else you take from me, don’t let me forget this.
Tonight is one of those nights. Dean breathes deep and lies still, because Cas’s hip is digging into his thigh and Cas’s arm is the uncomfortable lump wedged underneath Dean’s pillow and Cas’s nose is tucked just underneath his arm, and he thinks, over and over, I found it, i found it, and this is it, chanting those words like a mantra until he drifts back to sleep.
He goes back to the shore at dawn. He knows it’s stupid, the pearl’s long gone by now, but he figures what the hell, it’s not like he can sleep anyway.
He walks up and down the beach and thinks: I am so fucking stupid. Cas hadn’t said anything like that, but Dean figures he must’ve been thinking something like that at least, because Cas had spend the entire evening squinting at him with something like irate incredulousness.
He doesn’t have to wonder what Sam thought about it. Sam had thrown his arms up in the air and said, “This is so fucking stupid, Dean.” Though Sam might’ve been talking about the way they were all crawling on their hands and knees in the sand, ruining their new clothes and scouring the shoreline for a big ass pearl that Dean could’ve sworn had just been right fucking there, safely tucked away in his pocket.
They had searched for the pearl until it was too dark to see much anymore, and then trailed miserably back to the motel.
“You’re sure you had it with you?” Cas asked doubtfully in their room, Dean rummaging frantically through the clothes on the floor and feeling around under the bed.
“Fuck, yes, I’m sure,” Dean snapped at him, “it was right there, I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if it fell out or if something got it but it’s gone, Cas, worth two million dollars at least and it’s gone.”
He’d looked up from the floor, and Cas was just standing there in the doorway, arms dangling at his sides, covered in sand and looking undecided Like he didn’t know whether to brave Dean’s wrath and help him search the room, or to disappear tactfully until Dean gave up and admitted defeat. Dean made the decision for him.
“If you’re not going to help,” he’d snarled at Cas, “then go. Get out of here. Bug out like you always do.”
Cas’s shoulders had made a jerky movement. His mouth had fallen open slightly, and Dean hadn’t been able to stop himself from seeing the surprise, then hurt, flickering across Cas’s face. “Dean-”
“Get lost,” Dean had said, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Cas had drawn his shoulders up with one quick movement and stalked out of the room without another word.
Okay, so Dean loses things. That’s just what he does. He gets a shot at something good, and he’ll try for a while to keep up with it, but then he’ll get careless and forget to pay attention and whatever good thing he’d had going for him will flutter to his feet like a tower of cards, and he’ll be left to pick up the pieces and wonder why the hell he can’t keep anything good, why he can’t handle having anything worth having, why he has to fuck things up just to maintain the status quo.
He walks a good two miles up the shoreline, but it’s a fucking useless exercise, because the sea or the ghost or some lucky beachcomber has probably already claimed it, but he can’t bear to head back to the motel because Cas will be there, maybe still asleep in bed and still curled up around the rumpled sheets where Dean had been sleeping.
He’d come back to the room sometime after Dean had laid down in bed, and either Dean was forgiven for snapping earlier or Cas was just cold because when he’d woken up in the night, there had been Cas pressed right up against him and snoring softly into Dean’s hair. Just like Dean had never said those things. Just like Dean had never yelled at him, or told him to get lost, or thrown a boot after him as Cas had grimly marched out of the room.
Dean doesn’t know which one it means, but he’d been thankful for it anyway.
He’d never thought about the money. Yeah, okay, so he had, but not very much. He’d always gotten as far as selling the pearl for a couple million bucks and then his imagination had sort of fizzled out. He didn’t really have any idea what to do after that. Set up a bank account in Switzerland with Charlie’s help, transfer the funds? He wasn’t really sure about how they’d handle the money. But when he let himself dream about it a little, he’d thought about what he could do with it, after.
They’d split it evenly, Sam and Dean and Cas, and maybe cut Kevin in too since dude doesn’t have much of anything else left, and Charlie too for managing it for them. And even divided by five, that’s still more money than Dean’s ever honestly dreamed about, and when he’d first started thinking about it, he didn’t even know where to begin.
Okay, first thing he’d do is get Cas some more new clothes. Maybe get him fitted for a pair of boots, instead of just buying him second-hand boots at thrift stores. And maybe he’d take Cas to a men’s warehouse or something, let him go crazy. See what Cas actually liked to wear, not just what he thought was appropriate for playing dress-up. Maybe Cas would like wearing those classic khaki pants and short-sleeved button-downs like the old men Dean’s seen playing chess in parks on Tuesday mornings.
And after that, maybe he’d take Cas somewhere, some place Cas had never been. Maybe that’s impossible. Cas has already been everywhere in the entire universe, probably. But Dean thinks Cas has never been taken to see the world’s largest ball of twine. Probably. Okay, so maybe Dean would take Cas somewhere Dean’s never been, and it would still be new to Cas because he hasn’t been very many places as a human before.
After that, Dean thinks he might buy another car. Not another Impala - his baby is one of a kind- and not even necessarily another classic car. Something safe that Cas could drive. Something with fucking airbags, Dean thinks. Something with a warranty.
And after that, Dean thinks he’d ask Charlie about savings accounts. Maybe. Life insurance plans. Sometimes he thinks about what’s going to happen to Cas if Dean goes first. What would happen to Cas if there wasn’t anybody around who knew what he was, what he’d been, someone to explain to him about string cheese and convince him not to buy every fucking item he sees in the As Seen on TV store at the mall. Cas doesn’t have a real birth certificate or any really marketable skills beyond a deadly expertise with sharp objects; he’s not going to be able to just go out and get a job if Dean croaks suddenly.
Dean’s been thinking lately that he needs to start saving, and fast. Get some money in the bank. Purchase some kind of stock options. Get some witnesses and draw up a will and make sure that Cas is going to have enough money to live off of, to buy a house or rent an apartment and purchase groceries and afford health insurance, that Cas is going to have enough money to get by, because Cas didn’t ask to be part of this world and Dean’s got to make sure Cas will be taken care of, if he’s not around to do it. If Cas doesn’t end up leaving him, that is.
Dean keeps walking, even though he’s sort of stopped actually searching for the pearl, and he’s walked farther than he and Cas and Sam had managed to get the night before before he even notices.
He sees the opening to a cave in the rocky cliffs along the shore, and he knows the pearl can’t be there, he knows it’s stupid, but he ducks inside anyway. Better to continue this useless expedition than going back to face Cas in the light of day.
He kind of pokes around in the cave for a few minutes, but there isn’t much light inside and anyway there doesn’t seem to be anything worth seeing. But, hey- he thinks he sees some kind of light further down inside the cave, which ought to be impossible. Right? He doesn’t know much about caves, but he thinks he maybe ought to check it out anyway.
It’s the stupidest idea he’s had in a day of stupid ideas. He stumbles around in the darkness towards the light, and then something touches him. He stops dead in his tracks.
"You have found us," murmurs a voice in his ear, sounding amused. Fuck.
"Lady," he snaps, "I haven’t been looking for anyone.” He reaches for the knife in his belt slowly. He can’t see a thing.
"Yes, you have," says the voice. Still amused. "Aren’t you looking for me?"
Dean can see her now. She’s gorgeous, but in a creepy way. The way marble statues in old cemeteries look. Ancient and stone-cold and pale and secretive. She’s holding the pearl in her hand.
"Huh," he says. "You’rethe sea monster?” Dean feels kind of disappointed as she reaches out for him. He’d wanted tentacles, damn it, he’s thinking, and he hadn’t thought the world could get darker than it was already, but even that little bit of light he’d been looking for is starting to fade away.
He isn’t really sure what’s happening. He thinks he might be dreaming. He feels like he’s about to float away, so he hangs on tightly to whoever has him in their arms. He thinks it might be Cas, but he’s not sure.
Dean thinks, I am dying. He thinks, I am dying but Cas is here, so he’s okay with that. Cas is here, he thinks from somewhere far away, and he remembers waking up last night, with Cas at his side.
He remembers covering Cas, touching as much of Cas’s body as he can manage. He remembers placing his palms on Cas’s head, fingers smoothing down those wilder strands of dark hair; placing his forehead in the hollow of Cas’s throat, his chest against Cas’s chest, his heart aligned with the one that beats in Cas’s chest. His thighs against Cas’s thighs, his knees against Cas’s knees, Cas’s ankles hooked around his and holding him steady; their legs pressed together.
He remembers dropping a kiss into Cas’s neck, leaving a trail of them down Cas’s chest. He remembers covering Cas’s cheek with its slight whisper of stubble with his own. He remembers Cas whispering Dean, breathing his name into the hair by Dean’s ear, making him shiver, Dean, Dean.
But he couldn’t explain, couldn’t bring himself to say any of the shit that’s been running through his head, couldn’t say I want to do this with you a million fucking times, I want to do this with you ‘til I know for sure that I won’t forget how this feels, so instead he swept his fingers up and down Cas’s face, tracing over those eyes, that nose, the line of his neck, and Cas had murmured his name again and Dean has to remember that, too. He has to tuck the way that word feels when Cas whispers it against his hairline deep inside his heart, somewhere so far inside himself that he’ll never have to worry about misplacing that memory.
He remembers letting his fingers drift down Cas’s shoulders, down to his waist, and he remembers feeling Cas’s half-whispers in his ear as Cas murmured over and over, I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want to lose you, and all he knew to say in return was, Don’t let me forget, don’t let me forget, Cas, don’t let me forget that I’ve always got to find you.