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Cas and Dean are driving back from a case that took them pretty far away from the bunker, they've been taking turns driving so Dean can sleep, it's one of those times when Cas is behind the wheel, alert and serious and basking in the trust and domesticity of Dean allowing himself to fall asleep not only in Cas's presence but in the car that is an extension of his hands. Eventually, Dean wakes up, it's mid afternoon, it usually takes a minute or ten for him to start getting antsy in the passenger seat, before he's suggesting they pull into the next gas station so they can swap, Cas doesn't mind, he likes watching Dean drive. There's grunting and yawning and stretching and then rustling in the glove box, Cas steadily keeps his eyes on the road, waiting for the command. They pass a gas station and Dean says nothing. They pass an intersection where baby could pull over and Dean says nothing. They pass the blurred scenery of the American Midwest for half an hour, forty minutes, an hour more, in sun soaked, comfortable silence, the occasional rustle of paper and the scratch of a pen. Cas settles into the anticipation with pleasant surprise; Dean gets bored in the passenger seat, too much to think about he once said, or too little, gets anxious with someone else driving too long, doesn't like the lack of control, the lack of response between baby and himself. Dean doesn't turn on his music to drown the silence, doesn't begin to tap his fingers to a rhythm Cas still hasn't told him is the exact frenetic pulse of his soul, doesn't clear his throat or clap Cas's shoulder. Dean reclines and moves his pen and Cas drives and drives and drives. Cas could count the milliseconds if he wanted, could immerse himself in the steady crawl of the passing of time, he chooses, rather, to indulge the hazy unknowing of a warm afternoon and the road before him, easy and syrupy and good. When Dean finally makes a noise, a quiet huff of something, not laughter but satisfaction almost, Cas slides back into time with a blink, minutely adjusting his hands on the wheel. Dean begins to fidget. Cas hides his smile in concentration. Dean pokes his arm with the pen. Cas remains fixed to the road, tilting his head only slightly in acknowledgement. Dean huffs again, the tiniest hint of exasperation smothered in fond amusement. Cas languishes in it, selfishly, sinks himself into the milliseconds shamelessly. Dean pokes his arm again and clears his throat.
"Hey, pull over at the next gas station, will you?" His voice is soft and scratchy from disuse.
"Yes, Dean." He does smile then, he likes watching Dean drive.
Cas eases baby to a halt in front of the run down pumps an indeterminate time later, he'd let the minutes go syrupy again, even as the tapping of Dean's pen against paper had gained a distinctly nervous air. Once she's parked safely and turned off, Cas turns to find Dean grimacing into the glare of the sun through the windshield, absently kneading at his neck with one hand, the other curled possessively over a notebook and pen.
He flicks a look at Cas through golden eyelashes, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth, half self-deprecation, half quiet wonder, he says, "Can't believe I'm getting too old to fall asleep in the car."
Cas does not say that every new mark of time, of life, on Dean is a gift he catalogues with selfish satisfaction. Instead he reaches his hand to hover over Dean's shoulder and says, "Let me."
It does not matter how many times Cas has offered to heal Dean, he still softens, nods minutely, bashful, like he doesn't think he deserves it. Like he's surprised that comfort is so easily offered to him. Cas does not say that at the height of his power, he wanted to offer Dean every millisecond of the world that had ever dared to pass without his being in it, from the very first conception of time to the moment Dean came to existence, that all Cas can offer him is the tiny wisp of grace he has left of what we once was, diminished, embodied, real, alive. He doesn't say it, he just lays his hand on Dean's shoulder and slowly heals the ache out of him. Dean blossoms into it like he always does, and Cas takes another secret indulgence in drawing it out, although his grace strains to sink into a body as familiar as its own, he takes his time. He let's himself know greed.
Dean sighs and loosens and is at once younger and also the perfect capturing of every year he has survived. He rolls his head to the side and Cas pays close mind to the delicate exposure of his neck. Close enough that the notebook abruptly shoved into his chest even startles him a little. He looks down at it, his free hand reflexively clutching it to himself even as his other continues to trickle grace into Dean.
"Made you something." This time his voice isn't rough from disuse but probably the same thing that Cas can feel in his heartbeat, a little fast, a little warm. Cas holds the notebook tighter to himself.
"Thank you."
"No, it's not— look inside it, Cas. The something is on the inside."
Cas lays the notebook carefully on his thigh with one hand and carefully flips open to the first page. There's the beginnings of a grocery list (eggs, butter, Sam's healthnut shit, lasagne sheets, lucky charms) but that quickly trails off into delicately sketched lines, a hand gripping a steering wheel. His hand. Cas turns to the next page and marvels at the curve of his own ear, reproduced by an expert hand in half a dozen different angles across the page. The next shows the rumpled state of his collar and tie and in small, spiky, familiar script the words 'gotta teach him how to put it on properly' hastily crossed out. The next is a series of noses, or just one nose, tilted in different directions, shaded by different sources of light. There's his brow furrowed and relaxed and questioning, there's his hands again, splayed wide, fisted, hanging loose, gripping his angel blade drawn from memory, a delightful page consisting of a cartoon version of himself as a plump bird, sitting on power lines and cawing a predictable 'hello dean'. By the time Cas reaches an entire page dedicated to the shape of his mouth, Dean has begun to squirm under his hand, the silence between them loud but not awkward, charged with waiting. Cas carries on to the next page eagerly, and then he startles still at the image there.
A soft warmth had wormed its way through him as he viewed Dean's work, the components of himself broken down and repeated, jigsaw pieces scattered on a table yet to be made whole. The final image, Castiel in his entirety, intently focused on an unpenned road ahead, confident at the wheel of the car, at ease in his own body, every line rendered with loving familiarity, draws a sharp breath from his lungs. Cas is suddenly on fire.
"Woah, ahh, holy shit." Dean whispers. Cas does not hear him
"Oh." Cas says, or rather it's pulled from him, from that heat that suffuses his body, curls heavy and purring at his core. Dean makes a noise halfway between a breathy giggle and a yelp, all but vibrating against the leather seat. Cas holds him still with firm fingers while he traces himself on the page. He could not look in a mirror and see what Dean has put to paper, because the Castiel in pen is wholly different to how he sees himself, recognisable in features yes but entirely unfamiliar in the set of him, the space he occupies, the love that paints him from another perspective. Dean's perspective.
Dean moans, cutting through the silence and Cas's rapture, his hand snakes around Cas's wrist, the one still channeling grace into his body, and grips it tight. Strong. Almost enough to hurt. Cas jerks his head up and Dean is panting, eyes wide and frantic and glowing. Cas snatches the hungry flow of his grace back into himself, Dean sags against the seat, boneless, entire body faintly shivering with the release of tension. His eyelashes flutter over closed eyes. Cas can hear the thrum of his grace still swirling in Dean's veins, an accompanying melody to the music of his heartbeat. Cas hastily retreats his hand from Dean's shoulder but Dean doesn't let go of his wrist, just follows until Cas stills, their arms suspended, reaching for each other. Lazily Dean's eyes open, vibrant green, lit from the afternoon sun and nothing else, Cas searches him sheepishly, still the occasional strand of silver in the gold of his hair, still the delicate web of laugh lines fanning around his eyes, but his face is flushed, his cheeks full, his lips perfectly hydrated, a shine to him that suggests perfect health, a weightlessness that contradicts a hard life paid for in joints gone stiff and aching muscles. A kind of healed that Cas has always wanted to give Dean but never known how to ask. Panic shatters around the hazy glow that had submerged him because of Dean's gift, he sits tall and controlled in his seat, considers prostration, contrition, flagellation. How does one apologise for healing more than an immediately pain? For taking liberties in a body not one's own? With a man that has fought so hard for free will? Cas doesn't know but he has to find the words. He opens his mouth and—
"You like it." Dean catches his eye and holds it in that way he's always been able to do, a slow, satisfied smile saunters across his face, his swipes his tongue across his lips— Cas is transfixed— and says, "You really really like it."
"That's what you see, when you look at me?" Cas barely recognizes his voice, as divorced from himself as Dean's drawing of him had been.
"Yeah, it is."
"I like it." Cas says. He really really likes it.
Cas has been a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent, a being vaster than skyscrapers as incomprehensible to humanity as the conception of the universe itself, Cas has been infinite and he has also been nothing, he has died and come back and he has been human and he is currently something caught between, not mortal but not angel either, a body rather than a vessel, grace rather than a soul. But he has never been more grounded and alive than right this second with a lap full of Dean Winchester.
Against his lips, Dean smiles, and says, "I like you too." He pulls back and he's beautiful and Cas can taste him still and they both sing with grace, a choir trapped between muscle and bone.
"Alright, scoot over, I'm driving."
Cas smiles and obeys. He likes watching Dean drive but he likes it even more with Dean's hand in his own.