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"...as of an hour ago, four Humans and two Variants were injured." The newsreader intoned sadly before suddenly smiling broadly. "In other news, it's the second centennial anniversary of the Unity Accord brokered between all species! President Jefferson Rooney is heading up the celebrations in Washington DC! Over to our correspondent, Bruce, at the White House…"

The image switched from the gorgeous blonde in the studio to a tall guy standing in front of the White House. As usual, he didn't say anything for a moment then sprang to life to report.

"Thanks, Veronica. I'm here at the White House waiting for President Rooney to make his address."

The camera panned sideways and zoomed in past the news casters head to see President Rooney standing in front of a podium covered in microphones. A pretty brunette stood under a large parasol beside him with a blonde toddler on her hip.

"Good morning to the good citizens of the United States of America." He raised his hand to both acknowledge and lower the applause so he could continue.

"Today is a very important celebration of the amnesty between all Americans." He smiled broadly as he turned to his wife and she smiled back. Her incisors were apparent even from across the White House veranda and she held the child's hand to wave it at the cheering crowd to a cacophony of 'awwwws'.

"It is my great honor to have found my beloved soulmate and my great sorrow that previous to Unity, we may never have had the opportunity to find our song and love one another." President Rooney gestured to his small family.

"Of course, this could never have happened if not for the tireless research of Dr. Henry Wu and his soulpartner, Miles Dyson."

Two men stood and took a short bow and waved. Despite having been responsible for the nutritional breakthroughs that facilitated the peace between species two centuries ago, they looked no older than seventy and as bonded as ever. Of course, the benefit of both being non-human (or Variants) was the extended lifespans, especially as those very men discovered a formula for a healthy blood substitute and it reduced the drawbacks of being born a Vampire to nearly none.

"In honour of their contribution, I, again, dedicate this year's parade to them and all those who support them." President Rooney concluded and the crowd erupted enthusiastically. The shaded areas were quieter (as is the general nature of Vamps), the Were's howled their approval, and various other people of all shapes and forms celebrated wholeheartedly.

The news footage showed the First Family leaving the veranda and reappearing on an upper balcony to watch the parade then refocused on the correspondent.

"Well, there you have it. Of course, First Lady Kelly looking fantastic as usual and little Jack sharing the qualities of both Human and Vampire, further cementing the peace of our great nation."

Dean snorted and flicked off the snowy television. Yeah, there may be 'Unity between Species' but what about between neighbours? He'd hunted too many bail jumpers and detainment escapees to have any faith in people in general. His mom had been around for the accord and as far as her hunting stories went, nothing had changed much.

After he'd checked over his bag one last time and skimmed the latest Runner's info again, he handed in his room keys and, after tossing his duffle of meagre belongings in the trunk, he drove West.

She had been hiding as a military spouse under a fake name. Her mistake had been writing to her son, Samandriel—poor kid—and revealing where she was. To his credit, he had never written back but Dean knew enough to head over to the base.

Several hours of driving later had Dean thanking his ancient spine that it was so resilient, yet on the other hand, the sliver of silver he'd never been able to fish out of his kneecap was an absolute bastard.

There was a gorgeously tattooed djinn behind the reception desk of the motel he eventually settled for but Dean bit back the off-color jokes about whether dreams with happy endings were included in the room. He would be the first to admit he'd gotten around a bit in his many years but he was middle aged now and wanted to settle down a bit (preferably with his soulmate, his treacherous chick-flick loving heart added).

Jesus, if his brother could hear him now he would laugh his ass off.

Room acquired, he opened the bathroom window a crack for later, got naked, then shifted. After a big stretch he trotted out, headbutting the door closed after him, and headed for the nearby base.

Out of habit, he stuck to back roads and ended up against a chain link perimeter fence. He could see military personal guarding, marching, sneaking a smoke, all that army shit and he followed the fence around, looking for anything suspicious and gathering intel before he came back later as a humanoid.

Not for the first time, Dean wished he didn't have such a good sense of smell as he was investigating a storm drain with a broken grill. The edges of the iron were fairly neat and hadn't rusted so someone had cut it recently. The snap of a stick underfoot echoed around the concrete drain and raised voices followed it.

Dean tucked himself into a nook and watched as a blonde woman dragged a teenaged boy into the mouth of the drain. Passing through a shaft of moonlight breaking through the trees threw light across them and Dean recognised the blonde 'I want to speak to the manager' haircut as belonging to his Runner.

"Saman—" Naomi started but was interrupted by the cracked voice of a boy mid pubescence.

"My name is Alfie! Let go!" He yanked at her grip but she was strong and he was scared. She swiped at him, nicking his neck with a switchblade and Dean could smell the pungent aroma of silver and belladonna coming from it.

"What was that? Where are you taking me!?" The kid shouted, panicked and slurring already, he stumbled and she grabbed him roughly, her knife at his throat.

All the hair along Dean's back stood on end and he had to hold back the low growl that could rumble along the drain.

Dean couldn't risk attacking her while she had a knife to the kids neck so he followed them silently through the iron grate.

They continued along the drain until reaching an access tunnel set into the side where concrete steps led to a heavy metal door that was propped open with a fire extinguisher. Alfie was getting hard to manage and Naomi struggled to get him through the narrow gap in the door. Dean took advantage of her distraction, managing to get close enough to stop it from shutting behind her, and nosed his way after them.

More concrete stairs, another tunnel and a dark gray hallway led to an industrial laboratory. State of the art equipment lined the walls and a row of stainless steel tables housed glass beakers and bunsen burners.

As soon as Naomi had dropped the now completely unconscious Alfie to the floor, Dean growled loudly and placed himself between Naomi and the exit, his hackles raised and his teeth bared. She backed away, her hands raised before screeching.

"You can't do this! You're not allowed!"

Dean rolled his eyes internally and wished he could point out all the things she wasn't allowed to do either.

"I knew someone was watching me, I knew it!" She hissed, half crazed and waving the knife about. "I should have known the little sneak would betray me." She shot a nasty look at her son lying on the floor a few feet away. For Alfie's sake, Dean wished again that he could speak, just to clear his name, although it probably wouldn't do any good. This bitch was fucking insane.

Suddenly, Dean got an odd feeling in his feet. The floor felt like it was vibrating slightly and it traveled up his legs, sore over his bad knee and into his chest.

His quarry didn't seem to notice and she was still cornered, but the vibrations grew quickly until she gasped, dropping the knife and clinging to a table to steady herself on the now violently rocking floor. The lights went out leaving them in the glow of emergency lighting and Dean shifted his centre of balance low to army crawl over to Alfie. He got a grip on his jacket with his teeth and dragged him under one of the metal tables, positioning himself over his head to protect him from the worst of the flying glass. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Naomi run to another door and disappear.

A huge slab of reinforced concrete dropped from the ceiling and clipped the edge of the table, bending it almost in half and Dean hunkered down as best he could around Alfie. He felt a sharp pain in his side as another tremor hit, heard the tumbling clamour of stone on stone then nothing.

~

Much to his siblings' amusement, and his parents' disappointment, Castiel was a CRO. A combat rescue officer within a Guardian Angel recovery team. Not only was he named after an angel—along with all his many brothers and sisters—his alter form was a large corvid. The fact he was a raven and not a crow didn't seem to matter to those morons and they spent most of their little time together making jokes about his oh so hilarious aptonym.

Despite having to defend his choices at every family gathering, Castiel loved his job. He'd been doing it for decades because he enjoyed flying, he liked helping people and his team were like the family he wished he had.

He usually worked night shifts but, because he didn't sleep much anyway, he often hung around the barracks on-call, accruing extra hours and Paid Time Off that he'd probably be forced to use one day.

The next call came in at 7:06pm, just after shift change when Castiel wasn't even supposed to be there. The team on shift—and Cas—were on their feet instantly, then suited up and ready to go in under a minute.

When Castiel got to the huge hangar, his Osprey helicopter was surrounded by tech personnel and he dodged them expertly as he made his way to the cabin door, running a hand along the painted 'Grace' on her side as he went.

Hana and Ion, fully kitted up in their dark combat gear, met him in the main cabin, rattling off details of an aid extraction on home turf. Apparently a quake in Medford, C.A, had left civilians and military personnel buried under the rubble of a large army base.

Once airborne, the flight didn't take long but when they arrived, the darkness was almost impenetrable. The emergency lighting did very little this high up, and Cas peered through the smoke rising from the fallen buildings.

A pleasant hum drifted up from somewhere nearby and he wondered who the hell would be singing at a time like this? He wouldn't put it past their pilot Baal to break out into song in the middle of a rescue mission but he was busy frowning deeply at the control panel and, even with Cas' enhanced hearing, he wouldn't have been able to hear him over the roaring of the engines.

He shook his head, hoping it was an anomaly, as hearing random music was a concept heavy with meaning and expectations that he couldn't afford to entertain while he geared up and readied himself to repel blindly into the debris below.

Grace's blades cleared up a lot of the smoke but also threw up plenty of dust that Cas slid through on kevlar rope, the hiss of it passing through the pulleys sounded like tearing silk and got his large, slow, heart pumping.

With a graceful whump, Cas landed on a small patch of clear ground and looked around, releasing the ropes to be pulled back up.

As every individual was accounted for at the base entrances and exits, the device that looked like a calculator strapped to his wrist received a manifest that kept a live count of the people that were on base today and each name and number was ticked off when they were found, alive or dead.

What felt like hours later, Castiel finished up his field medic duties on a woman with a nasty head wound and waved her off on an air lift, then marking her off the list.

The device declared everyone found and the team all slumped on the closest hunk of debris to rest.

Once Grace was piloted away carefully with the last of the casualties, Castiel heard the humming again. The deep, raspy hum of a large man sounded over the general chaos surrounding Cas. Following it, he tilted his head, straining to hear where it was coming from, as he picked his way through piles of rubble.

Hana, obviously noticing their captain's distraction, approached him carefully.

"Castiel? What's up?" They asked, raising their voice over the roar of another Osprey passing over.

"Can you hear that?" Cas yelled back. "Humming? A voice, not a machine."

His second in command stopped to listen with wide eyes then shook their head. Cas continued to search around, pausing occasionally to listen.

"I'm gonna shift. I'll hear better. Cover for me?" Castiel asked and Hana nodded tightly. Shifting while on the clock was prohibited, except in extreme circumstances, as there were just too many variables to consider for insurance and adaptations. Castiel determined this to be an appropriate occasion and started stripping while Hana surveyed the area for any command personnel.

Once naked, besides his dog tags, Cas stretched and with a crack, transformed into a large bird with inky black wings that shone like an oil slick in the beam of the torch he'd discarded with his clothes. He hopped and glided across bricks and pipes, occasionally tipping his head from side to side, listening for anything out of the ordinary and scanning the area with his improved eyesight.

He made his way through a vent to a lower part of the building and the humming never stopped but it got louder and quieter as he moved around the enclosed space he'd found himself in. The basement held scientific equipment that was scattered irreparably and piles of detritus sat below holes in the ceiling. He approached one and began pressing himself against them to listen.

There! The humming was at its loudest here and he could hear breathing! Two heart beats, one strong, one weak and he let out a triumphant caw. Hana had found a way to follow him down and they spoke into their radio as they approached at a run, carrying as much of his clothing and gear as they could.

Cas transformed back, threw on his clothes, boots and gloves then started to lift large bricks and rubble from the pile. They went slowly and carefully, as they were trained to, and eventually Cas could see something covered in fur. Upon further clearing, he could tell it was a large canine, positioned over the top of an unconscious young man, and curled around him protectively.

The humming was louder than ever and, while Cas didn't recognise the melody, he knew what it meant. Either Castiel was soulmated to a very young man—a boy really—or to a dog?

"You always had awful timing, Cassie!" Baal declared loudly from behind him, having come down to watch the drama unfold after Hana's radio report. "Meeting your soulmate in a disaster zone." He peered into the cavity made by the dog and rubble. "Aw and he's a baby!" Baal teased and Castiel frowned.

"Not now, Roche. I'll grab the dog. You two…"he gestured at Ion and Hana, "...grab the kid on the litter, and Baal, set up and take vitals." Castiel ordered and they responded quickly and efficiently.

The dog's fur was too dusty to determine its color and smelled bloody so Castiel very carefully lifted it to lay it on the first aid mat. He was vaguely aware that the boy was being checked over and administered to but all he could think about was the tune in his head and finding out why the dog was unresponsive.

Swapping his work gloves for surgical ones, he stroked through the deep fur and encountered something warm and sticky on the dog's flank, tracking it to a wound on its ribs where blood oozed slowly around a short length of protruding rebar. Castiel suspected a bump on the head had knocked it out rather than blood loss and he pulled back an eyelid to check responsiveness. He wasn't wholly surprised to find the dog's eyes were bright green surrounded by an ample, white, sclera. Humanoid eyes.

"Baal? How's the kid?" Castiel called out as he investigated the rib injury.

"Barely a scratch on him. Not sure why he's out cold." Baal answered.

"Is he human?" Cas asked as he gently pulled out the rebar, quickly sluiced the wound with antibiotics, and watched the skin knit itself together. Baal gave him a quick, curious, glance before refocusing on the young man.

"Far as I can tell…? Yes."

"Alright, get them evacuated with the others.”

~

When Dean woke up he didn't know where he was and both sides of him hated that. He tried sniffing the air but all he could smell in this form was antiseptic and industrial laundry detergent. He was in some kind of medical clinic, lying on a flat padded bench rather than a hospital bed and covered only by a thin sheet. He was drawing a blank on the last few hours but it seemed like he was brought back as an animal and the lack of restraints or sedation suggested they knew what he was.

Dean looked around and spotted a large pitcher of water, a hospital cup, and about fifty large energy bars stacked neatly on a nearby table. He was fucking starving so he wrapped the sheet around himself and, on slightly wobbly legs, limped to the stool beneath and started in on the bars.

He'd actually lost count of how many he'd had when a soft knock on the door had him raising his post-change hackles.

"Yeah?" he called gruffly.

"May I come in?" A deep voice asked from the other side, oddly accompanied by a deep rhythmic beat as if he were still knocking on the door.

"Yeah."

The door swung inward and a man about Dean's height with dark hair and broad shoulders, strode in, stone faced and hot as hell.

The thudding continued and Dean couldn't say for certain that it wasn't his own heart beating out of his chest. As the man got closer a melody joined in and got louder until they were a hairbreadth apart. It stopped altogether when their hands brushed as they instinctively reached out to one another.

"Hello, Dean." The man said calmly with a dip of his head and Dean couldn't believe the guy could be so stoic in the face of his newly found soulmate.

"Hi..." Dean breathed. "Who are you?"

"My name is Castiel."

Dean stared into deeply blue eyes for a moment until he realised Castiel had the angular and otherworldly impassive features of a vampire.

"You're a Vamp."

"And you're a Were." Castiel shot back fondly with the very slightest lift of one side of his mouth and Dean grinned. If he was in wolf form his tail would be wagging madly at the soft way Castiel was looking at him.

"That's a nice tune we were playing together there, huh, Cas?" Dean pointed out and Castiel hummed in agreement, not taking his eyes off Dean's for a moment.

"I agree. It also saved your life." Castiel noted with a sincere bob of his head, not smug or bashful, just honest. "I heard you over the chaos and followed the melody."

"Well, thanks for that." Dean answered playfully, brushing aside the gravity of that statement and earning a half hearted eyeroll in response.

"Why were you even in there? And who is the boy?"

"Alfie! Is he okay?" Dean asked, suddenly remembering what happened just before the quake.

"He's fine." Cas laid a hand on Dean's knee, making soothing circles with his thumb. "He was inexplicably unconscious for a while until his toxicology report showed a sedative in his system and they administered the antidote."

"Yeah, belladonna. His mom is a real piece of work." Dean frowned. "She's got a price on her head so she'd been hiding out there under a different name."

Not wanting to witness any disappointment on the beautiful face of his soulmate, Dean recounted events to his bare toes peeking out from under the sheet.

"At birth, he was named Samandriel, which I prob'ly shoulda arrested her for that alone, huh?"

"As a person named 'Castiel', I can only agree with you." Cas noted.

"Heh, yeah. Anyway, he went to live with his dad, called himself Alfie. His most recent address was near here and that was enough of a start." Dean sighed heavily.

"I musta triggered an alert or something because next thing I know, when I shifted and poked around the perimeter a bit I saw her arguing with Alfie. She nicked him with something and dragged him through a storm drain. Her rap sheet is white collar shit like insider trading and embezzlement! Bit of a leap to abduction and assault!" Dean flapped a hand around, annoyed with himself for reading the perp all wrong and Cas grabbed it in his large hand, wrapping long fingers around Dean's to calm him down.

"It's okay. I get it. People are…surprising sometimes."

They sat in silence for a while, Castiel's breaths coming inhumanly slow, especially compared to Dean's usual quick pace. It was comforting in a way, normal for their respective species but abnormal for 75% of the general population. Their fast growing bond felt like a meeting in the middle in more ways than one.

"I followed them to some kinda lab but I got distracted by a weird vibration. I guess it was the quake? I don't remember what happened next but, far as I know, she got away. Shit really hit the fan on this one. I'm glad he's okay, it's my fault he was even there."

"We wouldn't have known he was there if you hadn't been with him. You protected Alfie with your own body and, as far as I am aware, even Were can't cause earthquakes." Cas pointed out, wryly. "We can compare your intel to the manifest and see if she was taken with the other survivors to the military hospital. Even if she did make it out, she can't get to him here. This is a black site."

"Black site, huh?" Dean smirked. "Can you tell me where I am or is it classified?" Judging by Cas' imperiously raised eyebrow, he wasn't buying Dean's deflective bullshit but he humored him, placing the tip of a long, graceful, finger on his full bottom lip thoughtfully, then leaned closer to murmur.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

Then Cas smiled, enough to reveal his pretty pointed incisors, making Dean's heart tumble over in his chest.

The intercom buzzed, breaking the moment and requested Captain Novak. He backed away with a sigh and after providing Dean with a pair of airforce issue sweatpants, gray t-shirt and sneakers, Castiel excused himself to attend another debrief but he promised to return as soon as he could.

~

'As soon as he could' turned out to be a long and boring two hours. He was itching to get somewhere dark and open where he could stretch his wings with Dean and maybe show him around the nearby woods.

"-vak…Captain Novak…?!"

"Yes?" Cas looked up from where he had been staring blankly at the polished surface of the conference table he was sitting at with his team and their commanding officer. "My apologies. It's been a long da-…night."

"He's just distracted because Dog the Bounty Hunter is his soulmate, ma'am." Baal snorted and Castiel shot him a warning look.

"He's not a dog, lieutenant." Cas reminded him with a threat clear in his voice.

Hana spread their hand out toward Cas on the table, not making contact but clearly trying to calm him down.

"Dog the Bounty Hunter is a TV show about a bail bondsman nicknamed 'Dog'. It's a bad joke but he didn't mean anything by it. Right, Baal?" Hana gave him a pointed look and he murmured an apology.

"If you're all quite finished with the pissing contest, I'll continue. As I was saying, Captain, you have too much PTO accrued and now seems to be the perfect time to take it. Get to know your 'mate and we'll see you when you get back. Dismissed."

The group stood and filed out.

"Oh, Captai-Castiel?" Major Dumas called and smiled softly. "Congratulations."

"Thank you, ma'am." Castiel nodded politely and hurried back to the medbay.

Dean was exactly where he left him but now he was reading a book he'd managed to scrounge from somewhere. He looked up as Cas knocked on the doorframe and grinned. It lit up his whole face, turning him from a grizzled bounty hunter to the soft young man he appeared to be (but very likely wasn't).

Castiel; battle hardened, centuries old warrior, felt like he was floating across the room on a cloud of moths as he approached Dean.

Humans often compared vampires and werewolves to cats and dogs. It was usually in good humor and, to be honest, they weren't wrong. Castiel was aware that he came off as aloof and his emotions didn't play out on his face the way Dean's did but, in this case, it didn't seem to matter. Dean looked at him the way he probably looked at good food and when Cas gave him the tiniest tilt of his lips, he responded like a sunrise.

"Hello, Dean."

"Hey, Cas."

"I'm sorry that took so long. Fortunately, I've been granted my PTO, effective immediately." Cas told him, head ducked, uncharacteristically shy.

"Yeah? Awesome. So, you gonna show me 'round?" Dean waggled his eyebrows. "We could slip into something a little more comfortable?"

At a loss, Cas tilted his head questioningly and Dean chuckled fondly.

"Our alters, sunshine." he clarified and Castiel nodded slowly.

"Of course. Yes, I would like that. We can eat first though."

If Castiel thought Dean was a sunrise before, now he was a supernova.

Dean scrunched up the paper wrapping of his burger and 'Teen Wolfed it into the trash. Nothing but net!' (Cas didn't understand the reference). Then started in on another as Cas sipped his egg albumen smoothie placidly.

The stack of burgers were decimated now but at first Dean had been bashful about how he was eating. Huge bites, barely chewed, one after the other as Cas watched, entranced. He had never eaten anything before—had never really wanted to—but seeing the joy Dean seemed to take from a simple beef patty between bread did tempt him.

Finally, after the last wrapper was disposed of, apparently via a layup against the wall, Dean stifled a belch and pressed a fist to his chest, looking at Cas apologetically.

"Don't worry about it, Dean. I know you need all that for the change and if you ate politely, we'd be here all night." Cas said, kindly, then punctuated it with a horribly noisy slurp through his straw, and a neat little burp. With an internal sigh, Castiel realised that this was apparently the beginning of doing anything to make Dean smile.

"Shall we?"

Castiel led Dean to a secluded spot outside an emergency exit and began to strip. Once Dean had stopped staring he did the same and Cas' gaze may have lingered briefly on a constellation of freckles.

"There's a perimeter fence due north. There and back again?" Cas suggested and Dean nodded. "Come along then, 'spidermonkey'."

Dean gaped at him and Cas struggled to keep a straight face.

"You did not just say that." Dean demanded. Squinting incredulously with his lips pulled into a pout he was adorable and Castiel couldn't help but chuckle.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist!"

Dean hummed grumpily but he was smiling now too.

Standing naked together in the moonlight, they each took a deep breath and transformed fluidly.

Cas fanned his wings out a few times and Dean stretched in a downward dog before sticking his ass in the air and wagging his tail in the universal sign for 'play with me.'

Cas hopped forward then gestured to the woods with his beak, pointing then dipping as if poised to take flight, then repeating. Dean nodded and tapped the floor three times, on the third beat he was off, galloping expertly between the trees and Cas flew into the air, just barely skimming the oak leaf canopy below with the tips of his large wings.

They both knew it wasn't really a fair race so when Cas got to the fence, and it's additional warding against flying creatures, he swooped to and fro, as close as he could. Apparently Dean brought out his playful side so he landed, picked up an acorn and as soon as he spotted Dean emerge from the tree line he dived at him and dropped it on his furry head before ascending again with a loud caw.

From what he could tell, Dean squinted at him and instead of carrying on to the fence, he turned tail and headed back, gaining a small advantage. It wasn't enough to keep Castiel from flying ahead, transforming hurriedly and getting dressed quickly enough to be leaning nonchalantly against the wall pretending not to be out of breath when Dean got there though.

When Dean finally arrived, he transformed in the shadows and swaggered out humanoid, completely naked and unashamed, smirking like he'd actually won.

He wordlessly began to pull on his borrowed clothes and only when he was dressed did he speak.

"So…not a bat then?" He said carefully and Cas rolled his eyes.

"Yes. I've heard all the jokes so don't bother." Cas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose when he heard Dean take a breath.

"...but I don't know any raven jokes."

Cas' head snapped up and he stared at the guileless expression staring back at him.

"A raven. You…" Not knowing what else to do with the sudden surge of emotion, Castiel strode forward and kissed Dean square on the mouth. It was quick and artless but he'd been wanting to do it since their song joined and it was perfect.

Seemingly too surprised at first, Dean didn't kiss back but when Cas tried to step away he was pulled back in by his dog tags and kissed to within an inch of his long life.

~

Being led by a silent operative of a black site through a freezing cold room of bodies was not on Dean's bingo card but, a couple of days after the quake, here he was. 

After sharing intel with Castiel's contact in the investigative branch of the airforce, he discovered that Naomi had quite a few aliases' and their records definitely revealed her nasty side. Turned out she was a slippery one so when she had been identified as one of the deceased, strings were pulled for heavily decorated officer Captain Castiel Novak's soulmate to be allowed to check for himself.

They stopped at a bed that looked just like the others and the operative pulled back the sheet. Naomi Carter, (aka Samantha Tapping, aka Amanda Magnus aka many others), lay there, eyes open eerily with a hastily sutured wound on her forehead. A quick peek at her toe tag noted blunt force trauma as cause of death.

Satisfied, Dean nodded at his chaperone and was led back the way they came. Cas was waiting for him outside, leaning against a nondescript black jeep, wearing particularly dark aviators and looking unfairly gorgeous.

Dean leaned next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and turned to look at his perfect profile. Jesus, was he in deep.

"Was it her?" Cas asked, looking out at the dusky landscape

"Yep." Dean popped the 'p'. "Must have taken something to the head as she ran away."

"I hope you're not blaming yourself for that, Dean." Cas rumbled, still facing away but no doubt side eyeing him from behind his dark glasses.

"Nah. Might've once but not anymore."

Cas finally turned his head to look at Dean and pulled off his glasses. He always had to squint, even in evening, sunlight but, frankly, it just made him more adorable and Dean grinned.

"Hey, Cas." He greeted him playfully as if Cas had just popped in out of nowhere.

"Hello, Dean?"

Thrilled to receive the squint and head tilt combo, Dean grabbed Cas by the cheeks and kissed him.

"Come on, Sunshine, let's go enjoy our honeymoon."

And they lived happily ever after and after and after…