semi hiatus

And because of the love for each other everything would be in balance.

And Sam could live a normal life on earth like he always wanted.

The date’s a bust and Dean gets home early. Everything was wrong with this girl. Her shoulders were too narrow. Her hair was too light. Her eyes weren’t the right shade of blue. She laughed at all of Dean’s pop culture references. She ordered a salad, not a burger.

Cas always orders burgers.

The kitchen’s empty when Dean enters it to throw some trash from his pockets away. He won’t be needing the receipt or that girl’s number. He lifts the lid of the trash bin, fumbles through his pockets for the wads of paper, and then stops. Everything stops.

There’s a rose there with the garbage. Dean didn’t put it there. Had Cas? Cas never mentioned having a date. He never mentioned someone was coming over. And it is a perfectly good rose; if Cas bought it for himself, there was no reason to throw it away.

Dean leaves the kitchen and finds Cas sitting on the edge of his bed in his room. He’s watching tv, but the sound is off. “Hello, Dean,” he says, without looking away from the screen. His face is more blank than usual. Dean wonders what he’s watching.

"Hey, Cas," Dean says and scans the room but there’s no one else. No evidence of anyone else ever being there either. "Everything alright?"

"Fine," Cas says, and Dean frowns. It’s been his experience that fine usually means hell no. “How was your date?”

"Cas," Dean starts but then stops. Cas sounds bitter… Maybe, jealous? But no, no, Dean must have imagined it. "It was - uh, fine."

"That’s fine," Cas says. He changes the channel on the television.

"Yeah," Dean says, watching the remote tremble in Cas’s hands. Apparently, nothing is fine. “Look, Cas, about what you wanted to talk about -“

"I love you," Cas says.

”- earlier,” Dean says, then stops. He blinks once, twice, knowing he must have misheard, before eloquently asking, “Huh?”