#... adjacent

After, Cas keeps showing up on cases. Saving their ass last second, and always pissy about it, like it's their fault. Sometimes he's two steps ahead, already on scene. Dean starts complaining to Sam about having their very own stray. There's an equal mix of, you know, reluctant gratitude (he did save Dean's life) and annoyance when it comes to Cas, especially because Sam is so awestruck by him. They don't really HAVE friends at this point in canon, so Dean's super resistant to Cas at first, but eventually he earns his trust and starts tagging along in earnest with them.

Cas is livid when Dean makes the deal to damn himself to save Sam in s3. But Dean's accepted his fate and just wants to live out his last year YOLO'ing, which means his walls are down and he's having fun getting all sorts of flirty and frisky with Cas, who reacts at first like a cat falling into a bathtub full of water before he realizes he's got some feelings of his own.

Dean still goes to hell and Cas is still the one to rescue him, but now his claim when he pulls Dean from the pit is personal... And in direct defiance of an entire garrison of angels, against Heaven's orders.

So there's fall out from that, where Cas has to protect Dean and Sam from the angels (helmed by Uriel) with a reputation as a disgraced angel that very much precedes him. On top of that, Dean comes back a different Dean--he's got hell trauma, and for all the ways Dean and Cas got close before, now Dean's pushing him away and shutting him out. And it doesn't help that Cas is fighting a literal army of angels on his own, to protect Dean.

whap whap am i right

lines and close-ups under the cut