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Bread Without Sorrow

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"It's not a time for celebration," he tells her, lips in a tight line.

"You nuts? Sure it is." And, OK, maybe things are a little rough and half the Midwest got levelled, but—they won. Whatever Sam did to Lilith, she's not coming back. Ruby's human now, walking around running her fingertips over stuff, putting all kinds of things in her mouth (apple juice, table salt, blades of grass), because apparently everything feels and tastes a little different when the body is actually yours instead of borrowed.

And then there's Castiel.

Dinah hasn't asked, but she's pretty sure that, wherever he came from, he's not going back, at least not until he gets old or gets sick and dies like everybody else. But it's not the kind of thing you ask somebody: "Hey, so, you human or what?"

"Come on, I'm hungry," Dinah tells him. "And you've got to eat food now, too, remember?"

"I feel…uncomfortable if I do not," Castiel admits.

"Yeah, it's called being hungry. It's gonna happen pretty often if you're, uh, down here for the long haul."

Castiel just nods.

Sam's sitting with Ruby on the front steps of the farmhouse Missouri pointed them to. It belongs to some people she knows, who fled when the plagues swept across the plains but who are now on their way back. That's how they know they won, Dinah thinks. Because people can come back. And then Sam and Dinah and Ruby and Castiel will go, well, wherever they go. No one's exactly worked that part out yet.

Ruby's eating ice cream. Dinah's got no idea where it came from—it's going to be a while before stores around here have even the basics again—but maybe it was left over from before the people who lived here left. Ruby and Sam are sitting close, but she's focused completely on the ice cream, nibbling tiny bites of it, licking the underside of the spoon, holding the open container to her face and smelling cold chocolate. She remembers Sam, and holds a spoonful out to him. He takes it, smiling.

"What do you want?" Dinah asks once she and Castiel are in the kitchen.

He just stares at the yellowing wallpaper and the old white refrigerator as if he's never seen anything like them before. Which, Dinah thinks, maybe he hasn't, at least not through eyes that belonged to him.

She shepherds him over to the fridge and opens it. "Pickings are a little slim. Looks like you're getting introduced to the wonder of PB and J."

Castiel tilts his head like the same angel who hadn't seen Earth for three thousand years.

"It's good, trust me," Dinah says. She takes out a jar of blackberry jam, then closes the fridge and turns to find bread and peanut butter.

Castiel doesn't follow her, and she turns back. He's still standing in front of the refrigerator, staring at the closed door. She puts the jam down and goes to stand next to him. "Hey," she says, not knowing why her voice is gentle but somehow feeling like it should be. "You wanna come eat?"

"I do not think I am returning. To—to my kind." He sounds not sad or angry or scared so much as simply confused.

She settles an arm around him, and humanity must already be taking over a little, because he puts one around her, too, and leans against her like she leans against him. He's solid, warm, like Sam, like any man.

"Come on, Cas," she says after a bit. "You'll feel better if you eat."

"Perhaps," he agrees. "Will you eat as well?"

"You know me. I can always eat."

His smile is bright, tentative, and completely genuine. If it makes her heart turn over—not that much, just enough that she moves over to the counter and starts making the sandwiches so that her hands have somewhere to go besides him—she doesn't have to admit that to anybody.

Later, in the quiet of the kitchen, their empty plates in the sink, he'll taste like blackberries and peanut butter. The hands that once burned her will be careful, reverent, on her face.