Fading

      The bunker had always been home for Dean. Ever since he and Sam had moved in, it had been his place to unwind and relax. He always felt safe there. But now... Now it felt constricting, like when he had woken up in the coffin after Cas rescued his ass from hell. Even his room, with his magazines and music and guns, felt like a giant stone crypt, trapping him.                                

     Maybe it was because Dean knew that it was only a matter of time until they were all dead. Chuck was.. sorry, God was toying with them, dragging it out for His own entertainment. Dean should have known, all along. Hell, Motorhead had warned them. Nothing ever worked out for them. Now Jack was dead. Even though the kid had gone off the rails Dean knew Jack didn't deserve that. Dean was never going to have killed the kid. He had wormed his way into Dean's heart. 

     Mom was still gone. Sam was hurt; he had gotten the worst of the zombie beating. Dean hadn't seen Sam since they had gotten back to the bunker, but since he wasn't dying Dean was too tired to care. 

     So there Dean was, sitting on his bed in the room that used to be his sanctuary. He felt claustrophobic and hated God even more for taking away the one place he had always felt safe in. 

     His thoughts turned to Cas. Cas, who had just watched his Father kill his son, who had just learned that his absentee dad wasn't just apathetic, but the actual big bad, the worst of the sons-of-bitches that they killed every day. But they couldn't kill this one. Dean wondered what Cas was thinking. He hadn't said anything since Jack was killed, and had disappeared as soon as they reached the bunker. 

     Dean stood slowly. He suddenly needed to find Cas, to see if he was okay. The urge came from deep within him, from a place that he had been ignoring since before Purgatory. It all seemed pointless now, his stubborn determination not to show emotion, not to show that he cared more than he should for a man, an angel, that he had called his brother once. 

     And maybe Cas had been at one point his brother, but Dean knew now that whatever it was that he felt for Cas wasn't brotherly. He'd known it since that time several years ago when he had touched himself in the shower and his fantasy nurse's voice had dropped. At that time he'd been able to handle it, lust for a man wasn't anything new to Dean, although he made sure that no one ever knew that fact; John's military training stuck with a person. 

     But then Dean started noticing other things; the way Cas got confused about simple human things, the way he would tilt his head and squint his eyes when something didn't make sense, the way that either of these actions would make Dean feel an unexplainable rush of affection. Once Dean noticed that he noticed everything. Everything Cas did, everything Cas was, just seemed to piece Dean back together. When Cas was there he could face anything, and when Cas wasn't, well, he pined. Even Cas's betrayal hadn't been able to burn out the... feeeeelllliiiiinnngggsss... that Dean felt, even though he refused to label them or acknowledge them. 

    Now it all seemed stupid. He'd been at the verge of telling Cas once, been planning it actually, once they got out of Purgatory. But then, well. That didn't happen. Dean was a coward, he knew it, but he had never been able to spit it out. Maybe it was because he knew that he didn't deserve Cas, that there was no way that Cas reciprocated his misplaced feelings, even though occasionally, when Cas stared at him or offered to watch over him and not Sam, he let himself fantasize. 

     Now it was too late. Too late for confessions, they were all gonna die pretty soon anyway. But it was also too late for shame to hold him back from honesty. Who gave a fuck? So what if he embarrassed himself forever in front of Cas if he was just gonna die tomorrow anyway? So with this idea, Dean left his room, navigating the bunker's mazelike hallways in search of his angel.