Long day. Long week. Long life. His muscles hurt and his head hurts and his eyes hurt and so on - he can’t be bothered to list it all out, even to himself. Too many sprains and breaks and shatterings in too many places. He’s got the words ‘I don’t care anymore’ on the tip of his tongue and he’s very, very afraid to use them. They’re not retractable.
Cas is watching him from across the room. He’s doing the thing, Dean knows. The thing that they do. The staring; the gameplay, high-stakes, no take-backs, no moves that anyone but themselves can really see. They’ve been playing for so long. Dean’s starting to believe that they both already lost, and it was a long time ago.
“Cas,” Dean says, by means of an opening. He’s more tired of silence than talking.
“Dean,” Cas says, his tone flat, an acknowledgement. “How are you?”
“Fine.” Dean thinks he manages to sound convincing.
Cas pulls a face that is not convinced. Dean doesn’t meet his eye.
“Cas, can we - can we not do this tonight? Can we just not -” He snaps off, his hands raising as if grasping helplessly for the loose ends of his lost sentence. Cas tilts his head.
“What do you want to not do?” he says.
Dean looks down at his hands. He’s got a thousand answers and he’s too tired to say any of them. Play this game anymore. Pretend to be OK when we know that’s a lie. Hide what we really mean behind six layers of shit. Keep each other a thousand miles away and wish we were - we were -
Dean looks up, and meets Cas’ eyes.
“Be alone,” he says hoarsely, stupidly, big man hands twisting like little boy hands in his lap. “I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone.”
They lie together that night, in Dean’s bed. They’re not playing the game anymore, Dean knows - but when he looks into Cas’ eyes, he can’t help feeling like he already won.
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