Work Text:
Somewhere along the way, Dean lost control of his facial expressions.
He realizes it on the drive back, blood caking on his face and neck, glass shards sliding across the floor every time he brakes, both his body and his baby’s making occasional noises of protest. They’ve been driving through the night to get back to the bunker, and they’re still not quite there come morning.
As Dean reaches to switch to a different tape, Sam wakes just enough to complain about it.
“Dude, c’mon,” Sam says, swatting blearily at Dean’s hand. “I’ve heard every one of these a million times. Can’t we turn on the radio?”
Dean must be pretty damn tired, because he rolls his eyes and says, “Fine.”
Problem is, there’s nothing on, the only music they can pick up here in the middle of Nowhere, Nebraska faint and statickey. Which is how they end up listening to NPR at the crack of freaking dawn.
“What are we, eighty?” Dean asks, but when he looks over to see Sam’s reaction, he’s ignoring Dean completely. He’s sitting with his head stuck out the window, watching the sunrise with a small smile on his face.
So Dean leaves it be, and that’s how he ends up engrossed in the 6:30 AM programming on NPR. He’s watching Sam smile at the horizon and listening to a couple of people discuss, in soothing tones, the science of facial expressions. One of them is droning on about how even though conventional wisdom says facial expressions are the result of emotions, apparently the reverse is also true. Supposedly, the mental association between, say, frowning and being sad or grumpy or just generally displeased is so strong that you can generate those feelings in yourself just by making that expression. A “fake it til you make it” kinda thing, basically.
The whole thing makes sense to Dean, actually. Not in any kind of earth-shattering way, but in the same calm, “Yeah, that sounds about right” kind of way that Dean has come to accept things like, in no particular order, the end of the world and his own shortcomings and the fact that sooner or later, on every road trip, Sam’s gonna make him regret letting him order that burrito.
Anyway. Dean is sitting there listening to NPR like an octogenarian, musing about the implications as he lets his mind wander, when Sam shifts back to sit normally in his seat. Dean can see, out of the corner of his eye, that Sam is watching him.
“What?” he says, accusing.
Sam shrugs. He says, “You were smiling.”
He hadn’t even realized, and for a moment, it gives him pause. Over the years, Dean has gotten so used to carefully schooling his facial expressions, wearing whatever mask he needs to in order to get the job done. Especially recently, with the Mark, because it wanted so badly to dictate his emotions. It always wanted white hot rage at the forefront, and even trying his best to tamp it down only made it subside into dull anger or annoyance or frustration, at himself or at everyone. It had been a struggle to look like he wasn’t struggling. He had forced smiles for Sam’s sake, for Cas’, for the sake of the job and his own sanity, but it sure as hell hadn’t made him happy, NPR programming be damned.
Then again, Dean supposes he’s always been good at the “fake it” part. It’s the “make it” part he’s never quite gotten the hang of.
But now apparently he’s been smiling and he hadn’t realized.
“So?” Dean says.
Sam shrugs. “It’s just...you look happy.”
He pauses for a moment to think about it, and when he does, he decides, yeah, at this precise moment, he’s happy. He’s happy, so he’s smiling. Or he’s happy because he’s smiling. He isn’t quite sure which it is.
The latter would make more sense, surely, because by all accounts, he shouldn’t be happy. His limbs are aching and his baby is in desperate need of some tender loving care and the darkness is still a threat looming on the horizon. But here he is. Smiling. Happy. Both at the same time.
Dean shrugs, too. “We did good,” he says.
“Yeah,” Sam agrees. “We did.”
They lapse into companionable silence, Sam still smiling faintly as he slumps down in his seat, head resting against the door. Dean glances over at him before looking back to the road, and he thinks, yeah, this was a win, but that’s not why he’s happy. Or not all of it, at least. He’s smiling because he’s himself and Sam is himself and Cas is himself, and they’re united, together, against this thing threatening the world. Because they can still save small groups of people on the side and have it feel like a big victory, even if they get beat all to hell in the process. Because Cas has been a comforting presence on the phone throughout this whole ordeal. Because the frequent calls and texts have been a constant reminder that Cas is there and he’s family even though he isn’t physically present.
There’s this vague warmth seeping through him, this sense of comfort that feels like home. It’s the feeling he gets when he has his domestic dreams, when he wakes up in his own bed, when he’s driving and remembers that even though this car will, in one way or another, always be his home, he has another home waiting for him, too.
Because hey, cabin fever’s not all it’s cracked up to be, and having something real and solid to return to after a hunt? Yeah, that’s a feeling he could definitely get used to.
Or maybe he’s already used to it, he thinks a few hours later, pulling into the bunker’s garage. He realizes, absently, that he’s still smiling as he parks the car, grabs his stuff, and heads inside.
He finds Cas sitting in Sam’s room, watching Netflix, as he expected. Or as he hoped. Whatever. Point is, he’s still smiling as he says, “Hey, Cas, did ya miss us?”
Cas starts smiling at the sound of Dean’s voice. As he turns away from the TV, Dean has just enough time to wonder if Cas is happy, too, or if he’s a good enough liar, now, to fake it, before his smile fades.
“You’re hurt,” Cas says, instead of answer his question.
Oh, right, Dean thinks. Duh. How could he have forgotten? “Yeah, well,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. “Nothing a little angel mojo won’t fix, right?”
“Of course,” Cas says, standing to walk over to Dean. As he raises his hand toward Dean’s face, he’s smiling again, soft and pleased.
“Wait, uh,” Dean says at the last second, brushing Cas’ hand away. Just like that, Cas is back to frowning. “Why don’t you fix Sam up first, huh?”
Cas’ frown deepens. “Why? You’re right here, and my grace is hardly a finite resource.”
“I--” Dean says, before he sighs and caves. He can’t quite bring himself to say Sometimes I worry about that, actually. “Fine, have at it.”
Cas lifts his arm again, pressing his fingers to Dean’s forehead, and just like that, he feels even better. He feels fucking great, actually. He thinks, Shit, now it’s going to be even harder to keep myself from smiling.
He must already be failing at it, actually, because Cas is smiling wide at him -- the confused, helpless kind of smile you get when someone you care about is happy, when you see them grinning and it’s such a pleasant surprise that you can’t help but smile in return. He does it on a whim, pulls Cas into a hug and squeezes him tight and smiles into his shoulder. He can’t help it. Doesn’t want to help it. He’s happy.
Cas huffs in amusement. “What is this for?”
Dean shrugs without pulling away. “Uh, for all your help on the case?”
“Okay,” Cas says, simply, and hugs him back.
It’s so satisfying, standing like this, that some last bit of tension Dean didn’t realize he had been holding onto melts away. Relief washes over him at the knowledge that they’re all here and alive and at home, at the fact that they were out on the road and Cas could have bailed and he didn’t. Dean may not understand it, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t grateful.
He’s hugging Cas and thinking, after he’s had a chance to sleep off some of his exhaustion, maybe he’ll pull out his laptop and help Cas search for his car. He’s just spent a few days in the Impala and he’s feeling sentimental, so sue him. Besides, if Cas feels towards his Continental even a fraction of the affection Dean feels towards his baby, it’s something worth spending time on.
He’s thinking maybe it’s not something he needs to be scared of, the idea that Cas’ car could be his home. Because it’s dawning on Dean, slowly, that different things can be home to someone in different ways, that home can be a car or a place or a person or all three at once.
“How about later we see if we can get your baby back, huh buddy?” Dean says, as he releases Cas and pulls back.
Cas frowns -- not in displeasure, thankfully, but only in confusion. “What baby?” he asks.
“Your car, man, that ridiculous Continental,” Dean explains, and he can feel it -- he’s been smiling without realizing it again, smiling just because he’s happy, not because he’s trying to fake it.
“I would like that very much,” Cas says. “Thank you.”
Cas looks so absurdly pleased about it that Dean grins at Cas’ back as he tags along to go find Sam. They find him in the library setting up his laptop.
“Sam,” Cas says, immediately moving to stand next to him, reaching out his hand just like he had done for Dean. “Allow me.”
Sam doesn’t respond right away. He glances over at Dean first, assessing.
Dean spreads his hands wide, quirks an eyebrow to say, See? Good as new.
Sam looks back at Cas. “Sure,” he says, sighing in pleased relief as Cas presses his fingers to his forehead. He smiles, after, as he says, “Thanks, Cas.” Then he perks up like an excited puppy, turning the laptop towards Cas. “I have something for you, too. Figured I’d set up Netflix on the computer so I can reclaim my room. You should be able to use this anywhere in the bunker.”
“Thank you, Sam,” Cas says, settling into a chair.
Sam claps Cas on the shoulder. “No problem,” he says, before turning to head down the hall. “I’m beat. See you guys in a few hours.”
“Are you planning on sleeping as well?” Cas asks once Sam leaves the room, fiddling with the touchpad as he makes a valiant attempt at navigating the Netflix menus.
“Yeah,” Dean says, “in a minute. Just gonna clean out the cooler. Who knew severed Nachzehrer heads could make such a mess?”
Cas glances up from the screen. “Perhaps I should add that warning to the ghoulpire lore,” he says, seriously.
There it is, again: Dean’s grinning without having given his face permission. “Ask Sam about it when he wakes up,” Dean says, as he heads to hose off the cooler. “He’s got some great facts about pennies you could add for good measure.”
Dean makes quick work of the mess of blood and viscera in the cooler, grinning in spite of the disgusting task at hand, before leaving it sitting upturned to dry out and heading back inside When he gets back to the library, Cas is right where he left him, sitting there wearing Sam’s headphones and smiling at the computer screen.
“What’re you watching?” Dean asks.
“Orange is the New Black,” Cas says. “It’s a show about prison.”
“You’re smiling at a show about prison?” Dean asks skeptically. He moves around the table, placing a hand on Cas’ shoulder so he can lean and take a look at the screen. Somehow, he was expecting something other than what he sees. “At people sitting in a stairwell and crying?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Cas shrugs. “They’re leaning on one another,” he says. “Both physically and emotionally. They’re making the best of a bad situation. It’s...nice.”
“Yeah, guess I know a thing or two about that,” Dean says. “Hell, my entire life is one bad situation after another, but--”
He stops in the middle of his thought as Cas looks up at him, pleased and hopeful. He’s suddenly, acutely aware of the feel of Cas’ shoulder under his hand, the feel of Cas’ eyes on his face. He’s remembering what Sam had said in the car, his vague, tentative optimism. Something. With someone. Like he had thought about it, not just for himself, but for Dean, too.
Wow, Dean thinks, I’ve been a gigantic idiot.
“I uh,” Dean says, pulling his hand back. “Um. I’m gonna take a shower.”
“All right,” Cas says, turning back to his screen as Dean hightails it out of there.
The first thing Dean does, when he gets to the bathroom, is splash cold water on his face. As he lifts his head from the sink, he catches sight of his expression in the mirror, his wide eyes and flushed skin, and tries to figure out what he’s feeling.
He’s done this before, stared himself down when Sam was in the hospital, when he told Cas he had to leave, when he had just taken on the Mark. He had looked at himself looking scared or heartbroken or just plain broken and tried and failed to look like anything else.
Right now, his expression looks a lot like panic. He thinks it’s probably appropriate, given the circumstances.
He drags a hand over his face, forcing himself to turn away from the mirror, and strips out of his filthy clothes. He steps into the shower, and as he stands under the spray, rinsing off the grime of the hunt, he thinks of everything Sam had said over the past couple days. He looks it over in a new light, carefully, hesitantly. He thinks about Sam talking about wanting something else. Not anything so normal or hopeful as marriage, but something more than what he has currently.
Dean remembers he had frowned when Sam was talking about it. That was the appropriate expression, he thought, for what he was feeling about it, for that calm, hopeless acceptance that’s been par for the course whenever he thinks about things he wants but knows he can’t have.
The thing is, though, that isn’t what he wants to feel about it. And he’s not so sure he can’t have this, either. Not if he does what Sam said and finds someone already in the life. Someone who already gets it, so he wouldn’t have to try and fake being normal for them. Someone who already sees through all his bullshit.
He could feel something else, he thinks, if he allowed it. If he moved his face a different way, maybe. If he tried something different, if he stopped fighting so hard against...Well. A lot of things.
When he gets out of the shower, finishes drying off and changing into his pajamas, he does just that. He stands in front of the mirror and makes himself smile into it until his excitement outweighs his panic. Until the smile makes him happy and the happiness makes him smile. Until the whole thing snowballs and his smile looks real.
And then he goes back out into the bunker to find out if maybe part of Cas’ home is in him. If maybe Cas has been waiting for him a lot longer than just these past few days.
“Hey,” Dean says, standing at a respectable distance, shifting from one foot to the other. “I’m gonna lie down. You wanna...Uh. You wanna join me?”
Cas looks up suddenly, and the expression he’s wearing, that one that’s so soft and fond and surprised, well. Dean is pretty sure you can’t fake that.
Cas pulls off his headphones. He says, “I would like that very much.”
Dean’s heart hammers the whole time, as Cas pushes his chair back from the table, as he stands and closes the laptop, as he trails after Dean as he heads to his room. His heart is in his throat and there’s a smile on his face as Cas sheds his coat, his tie, his shoes and slacks, everything besides his t-shirt and boxers, and climbs into Dean’s bed and under the covers. He settles in like he belongs there, resting his head on the pillow and closing his eyes.
“So. You wanna be the little spoon?” Dean manages to say, because he got this far, and he’s not planning on letting Cas lie there on the other side of the bed, just out of reach.
Cas reopens his eyes, turning his head to frown at Dean. “What does cutlery--”
“C’mere,” Dean interrupts, rolling his eyes, and when Dean lifts his arm in invitation, Cas does just that, letting Dean guide him until he’s settled with his back against Dean’s chest. Dean breathes Cas in, smiling into his hair in spite of the fact that his heart is still trying to pound its way out of his chest. “It’s good to be home,” he says.
“Yes,” Cas says, relaxing into Dean’s hold. “It is.”
As he lies there with Cas pressed against him, already starting to drift off but still conscious enough to wonder why his jaw aches, he realizes his face hurts from smiling. God, those muscles must really have fallen into disuse.
Point is, though, he’s smiling. Maybe happy because he’s smiling, or maybe smiling because he’s happy.
The last thing Dean thinks, as he pulls Cas closer and lets himself ease into sleep, is that maybe it doesn’t matter which, any more.