Part 5
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The next time he opens his eyes, its late afternoon, the sun high in the sky, and it dances on his skin, still, he shudders. He’s not sure he’ll ever feel warm again.
Slowly, he blinks his eyes open, finds his head on a familiar chest and looks up, right into Dean’s smiling eyes, the hand that he hadn’t noticed was there, curled around his back squeezing tighter, he leans into it.
They’re no longer on the lifeboat, but on the deck of a ship, people curled in blankets and officers with clipboards strewn everywhere, and someone has found them some dry clothes. He can see a fresh bandage peeking out of the edge of Balthazar’s. They all look like they’ve survived a war. And maybe they have, he supposes, maybe they have.
He sits up a little and his eyes fall on the blonde leaning his head against Dean’s other shoulder, huddled in a blanket of his own, and they flit back up to Dean’s in question and the other chuckles a little, careful not to move too much.
“We both passed out after we got on board,” he murmurs , “Carried your heavy ass up here too, at that. This” He jerks his head carefully towards Balth, “Happened unconsciously, but I think we could all use as much comfort as we can get right now. “ He laughs a little, his voice serious but light. “And it’s kinda hard to hold grudges after something like this.”
Cas nods quietly and pauses for a second before surging up to kiss Dean, hard. Kisses him until the other breaks away, panting, and still laughing.
“Babe,” he says, squeezing his waist gently. “I think there’ll be plenty of time for that later.”
Yes, he decides, leaning back and closing his eyes, there will, he’s going to make certain of that.
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It’s raining when they finally make it to New York, someone’s sense of humor, he supposes, and Balthazar frowns up at it, grimacing, but Dean doesn’t mind. It’s warm, spring rain, gentle and comforting, and it feels nothing like the ocean water that haunts his dreams. It’s not like he can cringe away from everything that has water in it for the rest of his life, though he’ll be damned if he’s going on a ship again.
“So, I’ll uh, be going I guess,” He says as they walk out of the dock, onto the busy street where life is going on as usual. It never stopped for them, he thinks, for all these people, not even for a moment. They don’t even have any idea how cold the water was, how lonely and empty an ocean filled with the dea- he shakes his head, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he made it, that they made it, and that he can go find Sam now, hug his brother for the first time in years.
Of course, he doesn’t really have any money or anything at all, but he’ll figure it out, he always does. And he’s not fool enough to think that now that they’ve more or less reached reality again, he’s going to be allowed to stick around. It’d been a nice few days on the ship, it really had, and leaving Cas now, is probably going to hurt more than anything else that’s happened in the last week, but he’s not a fool. He knows how the world works.
He turns away as Balth, no not Balth, Balthazar, maybe, sir probably preferred, and Cas exchange looks and then the blonde’s voice stops him. “Going? Going where exactly?”
A shrug, he stops, still facing away. “I’ll find Sammy and then figure it out.” He doesn’t mean to sound wistful, but it comes out that way anyway. “Everything can just go back to normal.”
He hears the smirk in the other’s voice without even needing to turn around.
“No,” Balthazar says slowly, “No, I don’t thinks so.”
“Oh, you don’t do you?” He spins around then , blinking the raindrops out of his eyes, looking back at the pair of them, standing close, looking fantastic even in their current bedraggled state. He doesn’t belong there, he knows that. “And why is that?”
“Well, for starters, I happen to know for a fact that you don’t even have a dollar to your name, that’s one, two, if you go, I guarantee that Rachel will reach your Sammy first. Do you really want him to have to go through the heartache of thinking you’re dead?”
Dean’s mouth opens to protest the unfairness of that particular point, but Balthazar gets there faster.
“And lastly, Cassy seems to have fallen into a habit of pouting, rather pathetically, whenever you leave his presence for longer than an hour, and I for one, do not have the patience to deal with that.” He meets Dean’s eyes. “So you are going to get those stupid thoughts of yours out of your head, hard as that is for you, and you’re going to come with us.”
It sounds tempting, a warm bed, a phone to call Sammy with, more food then he’ll know what to do with… and Cas, sounds much better than a night on the street - but still he’s not going to be anyone’s pet. “I’ll manage,” He answers stiffly and Balthazar makes an oh for heaven’s sake gesture, and raises his eyebrow in Cas’s direction.
The blue-eyed man steps forward and reaches out, wrapping his fingers around Dean’s wrist. “Dean?” He says, and Dean can hear the question there, the one that says, what happened to these past few days? I thought everything was perfect.
He feels himself relenting under the touch, even before his brain has given its express approval, and he’s turning towards the shorter man, who’s on him in a second wrapping him up in a hug. “Please, Dean. This… This is what I want, what we all want. I know it’s… different, but - ”
Dean cuts off his words with a kiss and then pulls away. “I’m getting a job,” he warns and Cas chuckles.
“You can do whatever you want.”
Behind him, Balthazar snorts and Dean gently eases away from Cas to go stand in front of the other man. “And you, you’re okay with this?” He crosses his arms across his chest. “You don’t get to offer this and then decide you’ve changed your mind in three hours.”
“Wow, you have really got some trust issues on you, hrm?” He chuckles as Dean’s eyes narrow slightly, and then his face grows more serious. “I wouldn’t have offered you my home, if I didn’t mean it. And at this point, there’s really no other way is there? Much too late for that.” He shrugs. “Worse things have happened.”
Dean nods slowly, he supposes that’s an acceptable answer, for now, anyway. “But won’t this make you like,” he smirks, “The number one scandal? Living with not one but two men, can you imagine how many women will faint - it’ll be an epidemic.”
Cas chuckles from behind him, moves to take his hand again, and Balthazar rolls his eyes . “Yes, well I suppose we’ll just have to live with ourselves,” he smirks a little, “Or give them something to talk about.” He winks, and then he’s turning around, hailing a cab, and Cas is laughing at the astounded expression on Dean’s face, squeezing his hand lightly and reaching up to lay a quick kiss on his cheek.
“Come on, Dean, let’s go.”
Cas pulls away and moves towards the cab, following Balthazar into the car, and Dean hesitates for one more moment and then follows too. Hell, he figures, enough things have gone wrong already. Maybe, just maybe, this will go right.
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