a life in your shape - averysoftno (2024)

Chapter 1: i picture it, soft (and i ache)

Chapter Text

five years earlier

“Hey, Benny!” Dean calls out from under the hood of a Mazda. “Do you have the manual for this thing? It might be a damn computer thing after all.” When no one answers, Dean straightens and drags his gaze across the empty garage. “Benny?” Nothing. As a last resort, he calls out for the new guy. “. . .Garth?”

Then, the door to the front opens and Benny leans out. “Hey, Dean?” He sticks his thumb over his shoulder. “The kid’s here for you.”

Dean drags his greasy hand over his forehead with a frustrated sigh. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to four,” Benny answers. “You want me to—”

“No,” Dean says before Benny can finish the question. He doesn’t f*cking care where his father is. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”

“Sure thing, Chief.” Then, Benny disappears into the front reception area.

Dean grabs an old rag off the cart behind him and tries to calm the hurricane storming in his chest, taking a deep breath so he won’t get pissed at Sammy. It’s not his fault Dean’ll miss the tail end of another shift, and Bobby always gets it. It just can’t stop him from docking him the hours, and Dean’s paycheques keep getting smaller the more of John’s messes he has to clean up. He wipes at his hands as he heads towards the door, and when he enters the waiting area, Sammy looks so small. He may have a good couple inches on Dean, but the way he looks at him now with those wide puppy dog eyes, Dean doesn’t feel like enough to fill the empty space.

“Didn’t show?” Dean asks.

Sam shrugs, just one shoulder, just a little, his backpack hanging off the motionless one. “Miller Time shift, I guess.”

Dean keeps his expression neutral. “All right. Meet me at the car. I gotta wash up.”

Sam smiles, like he wasn’t sure what Dean would do, and that always hits him square in the chest in a way he can’t explain. Sam swipes his hand over his forehead, his bangs tangling in his fingers, and says, “You got a little—” He smiles a little wider when Dean throws him the bird and leaves him in favour of the washing station.

Dean washes up with the special grease-cutting soap, scrubbing at his black-stained fingertips that’ll never get clean again. Long after the water runs clear and his hands burn scarlet, Dean scrubs, furious he has to keep his game face on instead of his father. When his skin finally cracks, and he can’t ignore the pink circling the drain, Dean grabs a paper towel and kicks over the trash on his way out, knowing it’s another mess he’ll have to clean up.

But at least this one is his.

---

The engine rolls noisily as Dean pulls the Impala into one of the far parking spaces, and Sam grumbles half-heartedly about the long walk to the recruitment-fair-slash-air-show since Dean always parks where Baby is least likely to get dinged. He’s still sweaty from the garage, but even though Sam apologized for not giving him more notice, he couldn’t blame his little brother for holding out for their dad as long as possible. Sammy’d had his heart set on going to the air show with their war-hero old man and all of them knew it.

“Listen,” Sam says for the third time since they’ve left the garage, “I just need to turn the application in at the booth. Then we can go, okay?”

“I told you to stop worrying about it, Sammy.” Dean says with a wave, though sweat is already beading at the nape of his neck. “We’re here. We can look at the planes and junk.”

Sam’s lips disappear into a single line, unsure whether to continue pushing, but then a fighter jet rockets overhead and his eyes light up.

“I mean, maybe just for a little bit?” he says with a half smile.

Dean’s gaze follows the jet across the field, lined up with the long landing strip, but it seems too fast to be landing. Just as he’s about to turn back to his brother, the jet shoots straight up into the sky with a loud crack, flips upside down, and on righting itself, touches its tires to the tarmac with a screech.

“Jesus,” Dean says in a whisper.

“That’s called an overhead break,” Sam says. “They do it to space out the landing, give more time to clear the runway and stuff.”

Dean glances at his brother with pinched brows. “Who does?”

“The controllers,” Sam says, pointing towards the tall tower lined with windows in the field. “They’re the ones that keep all the planes away from each other.”

“You gonna be okay with being told what to do like that?” Dean says, punching his brother in the shoulder.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. It’s not quite like that.”

Dean wipes the sweat from his neck with the rough of his palm. “All right, let’s get that application in, okay? Being late isn’t going to give a good impression.”

They walk through the gates of the airshow and Sam dips his head. “Thanks, Dean.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean says, clapping his hand on his shoulder. “Just go kick ass, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam says quietly, head still dipped, and Dean ruffles his hair roughly.

“Where’re we going?”

Sam points to the right, still gripping his backpack strap, and veers that way. Dean follows, his boots heavy against the hot asphalt. Sam and Dean used to hang out at airports as kids, and Dean never got used to how the smell of jet fuel and tar never leaves the air, no matter whether they were trudging through the snow or, like now, with the summer heat radiating off the black apron. Their dad never actually got to fly anything, flunking out of flight school every chance they gave him, but they kept him around as a mechanic for the ground vehicles. Being good with his hands was one of the only worthwhile things his father passed down to Dean. Sammy gives him sh*t sometimes for sticking by their dad, but Dean knows he’s doing his best. He’s always tried his best. But when life deals you a sh*tty hand, sometimes you can only make so much of it.

Dean knows that better than anyone.

He doesn’t blame Sammy for both condemning and idolizing their father. Dean bears the brunt so his little brother never has to, but it means he gets less time with the man. He usually only gives Sam the time of day on days like this, days where John can peaco*ck and act proud of his boys, and Sammy drinks it all in. Most days, Dean’s convinced Sam only wants to be a pilot because he wants to do the thing their dad never could. But then there are days like this, when Sam’s eyes light up so bright in the thick, noisy air, surrounded by the buzzing of engines and the whipping wind, where Dean can almost believe Sam wants this for real.

Sam shrugs his backpack further up onto his shoulder. “There they are.”

Dean follows Sam’s look to a bunch of jacko*ffs in flight suits sitting behind a long table, their combat boots laced tightly and stupid hats fitted onto their heads. “Well,” Dean says, nudging his brother with his elbow. “Go on then.”

“You’re not gonna come?” Sam asks, eyes wide.

“Nah,” Dean says. “You gotta fly the coup if you’re gonna be a Top Gun. Might as well start now, huh?” He flashes his brother a brazen smile and Sammy’s shoulders settle.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “Yeah.” Then, with a tap with the back of his hand to Dean’s shoulder, Sam’s off to talk to the air force recruiters and Dean tries not to throw up.

He’s basically crawling out of his skin watching his brother talk to people who want him to risk life and limb for the privilege of an education their father never cared to think about. Hell, he could barely keep them housed and fed, let alone plan for a fancy university degree. Didn’t matter much for Dean—Sam got the balance of the brains between them—but this might be the only way Sam could get out of here. Dean’s body is already half wrecked from living in and under cars. He pops his shoulders, rolling them back, and starts scouting out the other booths to waste the time.

Dean walks past table after table of folks trying to tempt young vulnerable idiots into signing their lives away in various capacities. Medics. Training officers. Even f*cking musicians. Then, he comes across a proper booth—not just some white plastic table—with a curtained off area. Curiosity appropriately piqued, Dean approaches the booth just as a dude in dress blues and a triangle hat comes out from behind the curtain.

Part of him wants to laugh at the sight of this clean-cut guy with dark, slicked-back hair and broad enough shoulders to strain his dress shirt wearing that ridiculous cap, but when he shakes the hand of the other guy coming out, the muscles in his forearm ripple with the force of his grip even as he claps the kid’s shoulder in apology. Dean has to force his eyes back up and away from those hands, and then the strong lines of his neck, before anyone here catches him checking out another guy in public like some kind of freak. But before he can move his eyes away completely, the dude’s gaze catches his, and the shocking blue of his eyes almost causes Dean to stumble back. They’re at once the dark blue of his cap and the bright sky blue of his shirt, and Dean’s brain can’t quite settle on how that works before he calls out to him.

“Captain,” he says, tapping the stripes on his shoulder, and Dean realizes they guy thinks Dean was looking at his rank. The guy’s eyes narrow when he adds, “Where’s yours?”

“My what?” Dean calls back. They’re a little too far apart for normal volume, but he doesn’t come closer. He just crosses his arms across his chest, his own coveralls rolled to the elbows.

The man points near his sternum. “Rank.”

Dean’s eyes narrow a bit just for a moment before someone emerges from behind one of the banners and he realizes his dark coveralls aren’t that unlike the flight suits some folks are walking around in. On those, there’s a symbol attached to a lapel low on their chest, and this captain guy obviously thinks Dean’s ditched his.

“I don’t got one,” Dean says. “I’m a civilian.” He lets his arms drop to show him the rest of his get up. “See?”

The captain’s eyebrows jump, then he gestures for him to come over with a two fingered wave. He says something to the guy in the flight suit behind him with two chevrons on his chest instead of stripes while Dean hesitates, then relents.

When Dean gets to the table, the captain asks, “Where did you serve?”

It’s Dean’s turn for surprise, but he just chuckles and slips his hands into the pockets of his coveralls, the way that makes his dad furious. “Nowhere, man. Never been enlisted.”

“Really?” The captain doesn’t seem to believe him, but Dean takes a moment to glance down at his breast pocket and the navy placard that reads NOVAK in bright white font. “You hold yourself like a soldier.”

Dean shifts uncomfortably under his intense scrutiny. He doesn’t usually talk about his father, especially not to strangers, but this guy doesn’t seem like he’s going to let anything go. “My old man. He was a war hero.” War hero is far more generous than John Winchester deserves, but when you’re the only kid in your small town to come back, that’s what they call you.

“Would I know him?” Novak asks.

Dean can’t tell if it’s genuine curiosity or fact-checking, but Dean resists the urge to squirm. “Doubt it. It was a long time ago.”

Novak nods like he understands, so before he can get too chummy, Dean adds, “I’m just here ‘cause my baby brother is stupid enough to try to enlist, that’s all.”

Something flashes in Captain Novak’s eyes, and Dean would almost call it amusem*nt except for what he actually replies. “You call serving your country and protecting it from threats foreign and domestic stupid?”

Dean smirks. “I do if it’s just ‘cause you’re poor and ain’t got no other options, yeah.” He rocks back on his heals. “Stupid for the kids, f*cked up for the country.”

Captain Novak moves his hands to his hips. He’s not allowed to cross them lest they wrinkle his precious uniform and no hands-in-pockets either. Novak seems used to having to avoid both. “Well, that’s certainly an opinion you’re allowed to hold.” His index finger taps at the belt buckle coming untucked from its hiding place. “I’m sure that will keep our boys overseas warm at night.”

“And girls,” Dean adds with a fingergun. “Don’t forget you let them in now too.”

“Hmm.” That’s all Novak seems to want to offer back, but by the way his lips thin, Dean could swear he’s holding back a grin.

“What’d the kid do back there?” Dean asks, shoving his thumb over his shoulder at the guy wandering the other booths.

“A simulation,” he answers simply. “Just an evaluation of suitability.”

Dean’s eyes drop to Novak’s chest again, looking for the wings that show he’s a pilot, but the ones his gaze settles on aren’t like any he’s seen before. It’s a single wing instead of two with a shepherd’s crook where his technician designation goes. “Of. . . sheepherding?”

“Shepherds of the sky,” he says, pointing up to the clouds with the other hand remaining on his hip. “I suppose it was poetic once.”

“Buddy, that does not clear things up.” Dean’s arms find their way across his chest again, suddenly feeling like he needs the space.

“It’s Captain, or Captain Novak, if you’re feeling familiar.” He leans down a little and taps a brochure, a wedding ring glinting in the summer sun. “Air traffic control. The one back there is tower control specifically.”

“You mean the people looking out all those windows?” Dean asks, genuinely curious and thinking back to the overhead break Sam pointed out earlier.

“Yes, I suppose that’s it.” Novak’s hands join at the small of his back, and Dean huffs out a breath at the memory of his old man snapping Dean to like that. “What’s so funny?” Novak asks, mistaking Dean’s meaning. But he isn’t about to explain being made to stand at-ease for hours as a kid by his dishonourably discharged father for some random mistake he doesn’t even remember anymore.

They all kind of run together now.

That familiar prickle of antagonism crawls up Dean’s spine. The entertainment value of trying to break Novak’s straightlaced pretense fades pretty quick after Dean’s reminded of all the things he stands for in his stiff dress blues and stupid chapped lips he definitely shouldn’t be noticing, and not just because he’s got a ring. “Just that you get people to play a video game before you give them the privilege of signing their lives away.”

“Air traffic control is a very complex profession,” Novak says, his hands still firmly behind him, which just makes Dean more twitchy. “We like to give people a chance to see what it’s like and if they have the aptitude before they commit to the very long, rigorous training.”

Dean scoffs. “How hard can it be telling the planes where to fly?”

“Very difficult.” Novak raises an eyebrow, like he’s considering how much weight to put into Dean’s statement. Like he’s trying to figure out if Dean’s worth it. “Not only does it require highly specialized knowledge and study, but also the ability to plan many steps into the future and predict possible conflicts, all within a dynamic 3D-model of the airspace in your head.”

Dean grips his biceps harder as Novak lists off all the things you have to be, each one making him feel smaller and smaller. He knows he’s not smart like Sammy, but he always had the better memory and Sam can’t draw for sh*t compared to Dean. Sometimes Dean has to picture things 3D in his head so he can figure out how to slot a part into an unseen section of an engine. But the way Novak looks at him while flinging all those fancy terms around just makes his fists itchier.

“I dunno, man.” Dean feels the shoe dropping before he even clocks what he’s doing. “Doesn’t seem that complicated to me.”

Whatever Novak was regarding Dean with before falls away, his features hardening and turning blank. His gaze drops to Dean’s hands, then back up. “It would probably be difficult for a mechanic to understand, yes.”

There it is. Dean dips his head, licks his lips. The inevitable shoe smacking the pavement is deafening. When he meets Novak’s too blue eyes again, Dean swallows hard at what he can only interpret as the distain he finds there.

“All right,” Dean says, starting to unbutton his coveralls. Novak looks startled and Dean reveals in surprising him. “Lemme in there. Let’s see what a knucklehead mechanic can do in your little video game.” Dean shrugs out of the top of his coveralls, trying to ignore Novak staring at the sweat and grease-stained t-shirt he has underneath, and ties the sleeves in front.

“This activity is really for those who are interested in the air force,” Novak says, his eyes still passing along his worn and dirty clothes and the callused and stained hands he uses to secure his coveralls along his waist. Novak may look at him like he’s trash, but lots of guys have made the same mistake and regretted it. Just this time, for Sam’s sake, he won’t use his fists about it.

“Maybe you’ve changed my mind, Cap. Ever think of that?” Dean plasters on the co*cky smirk that got him out of a dozen situations—and into three dozen more. If Dean’s anything, he’s adaptable.

“Whatever you say, Mr. . .” Novak says, opening the curtain but realizing too late he never actually got Dean’s name.

Dean hesitates for a moment. His name’s uncommon enough that if Novak wanted to be a prick, John Winchester would be an easy enough find among military records, and Dean has John Winchester’s legacy heavy enough on his shoulders. Besides, he doesn’t want his fat mouth hurting Sammy’s chances at anything.

“It’s Dean,” he says as he steps around the table and under Novak’s arm to the simulator beyond. He gets why the curtain is necessary now. Back here, there are screens surrounding a simple office chair for a hundred-and-eighty degrees around, with a few extra monitors on the desk the chair faces. The large screens are lit up with the model of an airport—landing strips and asphalt litter the landscape as if you’re a couple hundred feet above, looking out. Dean’s heart squeezes, though he’s not sure why. He’d say it was beautiful if that wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d ever thought. But growing up, he’d always been down there among the rubber and the tar and the noise. Seeing it from this perspective makes his gut tumble in a way he can’t place.

“Welcome to Sabre Airport,” Novak says, pushing a few buttons on the keyboard in front of the monitors. They light up, displaying the more typical radar Dean expected, the concentric circles with the little icons he always sees on television. “It’ll just be a moment to get set up.” Then, Novak puts on a headset and a long cable which has some sort of switch. He presses at it and speaks some instructions to a guy Dean can’t see. “Let’s do simulation Delta Niner.” Novak releases the switch in a gesture Dean isn’t sure is habit or for show the way his fingers spring back as he listens, then he grips tightly again. “Yeah, let’s just start it off there.”

Suddenly, planes start to appear on the large displays—a small single-engined plane on the tarmac closest to their fictional tower, a large cargo plane at the far end of the airport, and five fighter jets in a V-formation flying high in the clouds. Then, Novak motions Dean over and swivels the chair for him to take a seat. Refusing to betray either his nerves or that he’s impressed, Dean cracks his knuckles and drops into the chair like this is all one big inconvenience.

“All right, hotshot. What’do I gotta do?”

Novak hands Dean another headset and waits for him to put it on. Once Dean returns his thumbs up, Novak speaks. “This headset connects you to the driver who’s in the vestibule behind us. He’s going to be playing the role of all your pilots today, so when you hit your switch like this—” Novak demonstrates with a few clicks, which Dean can hear as small pops over the headset “—you’ll be talking to one of these aircraft.” Novak gestures along the screen. “Give it a try. Ask him how he reads you.”

Dean feels a little silly but complies. When he hits the switch, he understands why Novak’s gestures are so pronounced: It’s actually pretty stiff. “Uh, hey dude, how do you read?”

“Read you five-by-five,” the voice replies simply.

Dean glances up at Novak. “That good?”

“Yes,” Novak says, seemingly a little irritated. “That means he hears you clearly.”

“Cool.” Dean spins the switch a little in his hand, surprised at how natural it seems to fit.

“You won’t be calling anyone ‘dude’ over the radio, though,” Novak says as he leans over Dean to input a few numbers into the computer. Dean tries not to notice he doesn’t smell anything like tar and jet fuel. “If you’re not willing to take this seriously—”

“Hey,” Dean interjects. He might’ve started this because he has something to prove, even to a stranger he’s never going to see again, but now he’s mesmerized. He didn’t know something like this even existed. “I’m here, all right? I don’t do things I don’t wanna do and I don’t do ‘em by halves. If I’m here, I’m here.”

Novak narrows his eyes, and Dean is familiar with the look. Novak’s trying to puzzle him out, figure out what his f*cking deal is, but just like everyone else, he’s going to guess wrong. The heat rising up Dean’s neck only stokes the fire burning in his ribcage. Because, for the first time in a while, Dean doesn’t want Novak to guess wrong, and he refuses to pick at why.

“All right,” Novak says with less edge. Then, he takes Dean through how the simulation is going to work. There’s a lot of technical stuff they’re not going to bother with, the kind of stuff you’re only going to know after you’ve gone through the training, but the basics are: each plane has an identifier to use when you give instructions and the general goal is to get the planes on the ground into the sky and the planes in the sky onto the ground.

“That seems okay,” Dean says after Novak gives him a breakdown of procedure.

“Remember,” Novak says, maybe trying to be reassuring, “we aren’t asking for the perfect wording or tactics. We’re just looking to see how you’d take to this.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Dean says. “Let’s do it.”

Novak hesitates for a moment, tapping the switch with his wedding ring several times before opening the line. “Okay, we’re good to go.”

“Wilco,” the driver says over the radio. Then, he radios in as the first plane wanting to take off.

Novak gestures to the map of the airport on one of the smaller monitors. “Tell him how to get there using the taxiways in green.”

Dean nods and studies the map for a moment before giving instructions for the plane to go from Delta to Bravo to Alpha until he makes it to runway zero-niner. He wants to resist looking up at Novak for confirmation—or perhaps praise—but he can’t help himself. Novak probably isn’t surprised a military kid knows the phonetic alphabet, but the look he gives Dean when he looks up isn’t one he can place. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Novak looks sad.

It goes on like that for a bit. Dean and the pilots talking back and forth, kind of like adding more and more puzzle pieces until the picture becomes clear. Dean’s just getting into the groove of things once he gets the formation of jets on the ground without incident and lines up the last plane—a Herc on troop transport—to take off the crossing runway, when the pilot crackles over the radio with a new id Dean doesn’t know.

“Mayday mayday mayday, Sabre airport, this is United 4653, reporting an emergency. I say again, United 4653, mayday mayday mayday.”

“Wait, what the f*ck?” Dean says, mostly to himself. “I didn’t know—” He glances up again at Novak, finding a total wall, then back down at his radar. He finds the UA4653 box on his screen, but it doesn’t have any of the information he’d need to do anything with it—no altitude, no aircraft type, not even a direction. “What—” His shoulders tense, and he doesn’t even bother looking to Novak again. He’s probably giddy at Dean’s panic.

Dean hits the switch and starts shooting questions at the pilot who dutifully answers, but the simulation obviously has distorted the radio and Dean only gets every other word. The 3D puzzle Dean had constructed in his mind of all the planes in the air and on the ground starts to fall away as he tries to slot in this new emergency. He’s got a few planes in the area doing training, one who’s waiting to land but is obviously going to get skipped, and of course that Herc idling on the crossing runway waiting for the go ahead. But it’s way too slow to get off before that emergency comes in—

Dean jerks roughly when something taps his shoulder, and Novak just gestures to his watch. “You’re almost at the end of your time. What’s next?”

He steals his jaw. f*ck this guy, Dean can get this plane down, and he won’t even need his help. Dean quickly spits a few instructions into the mic, redirecting the plane already wanting to land to go around and, even though he has to repeat it a few times, he gets the United flight on the ground just as an engine bursts into flames on the screen. Dean huffs a breath of surprise, a strange victory surging in his chest.

“Holy f*ck,” he breathes, then Novak reaches over and pauses the sim.

“Thank you, Corporal Tran,” Novak says with a last click, then he pulls his headset off.

Dean follows suit and gingerly lays it on the table in front of him, nervous in a way that scares him. This was cool. Really cool. Even that last wrench in the works was the most interesting thing to happen to Dean in months. Hell, years. And in that way, he doesn’t actually want to hear what Novak has to tell him. Dean can feel this disappointment is going to dig at him in a different way than all the others. Novak didn’t think he was good enough from the outset; Dean barely getting a plane on the ground before it blows up won’t change that.

“The Herc burned most of its fuel waiting its turn.” Novak says, leaning back against the table. “It’s going to have to taxi back for refueling now.” Before Dean can even respond, Novak continues. “And that plane you redirected is on its way to its alternate since you’ve rendered your active runway unusable.”

Dean’s eyebrows bounce in understanding. Yep, just one great big failure after the other. “Ah well,” he says, burying the disappointment deep in his ribs where he can ignore it with the rest of his worthlessness until he can punch or drink it away. “You’d think a mechanic would remember better about gas, huh?” Dean stands, but Novak doesn’t move.

“I wasn’t done,” Novak says, folding his hands in front of him. “You also saved the lives of all the people on that aircraft.” Novak tilts his head towards the plane, paused mid-fire on the runway. It’s not a military plane, it’s a civilian one. “We can always refill fuel tanks. Pilots plan alternates for a reason. But you can’t bring people back from the dead.”

Dean’s breath catches in his lungs, and he keeps Novak’s unwavering gaze. They stand like that for a moment too long, then Novak straightens up and claps Dean’s shoulder quickly. He jerks away before he can catch himself, and Novak stops for a split moment before, mercifully, sailing right past it.

“Maybe we should target more mechanics if they can all route a map like you,” Novak says finally, guiding him back out into the fair.

“It’s really not that hard—” Dean starts to explain when the corporal he was talking to emerges from the back.

“This the guy?” he asks Novak. When he nods curtly, the corporal holds out his hand to shake Dean’s. “Really nice run. You sure this is your first time?”

“Yeah,” Dean says with a chuckle, accepting the handshake. “It really wasn’t that big a deal.”

“Pfft,” Corporal Tran says, then apologizes quickly when he gets a stern look from Novak. “Sorry. But, I mean, the captain already gave you the hardest sim. Most folks don’t even make it to the mayday, let alone land it.”

Dean’s gaze shoots to Novak, who gives him a casual shrug. “It’s still going to cost an awful lot of money to refuel that Herc.”

Corporal Tran waves Novak off. “Don’t worry about him. That’s high praise. You would’ve aced it if that redirected flight was gonna make it to it’s alternate.”

Dean’s eyebrows pull together. “What?”

Novak deflates a little. “While flights take the possibility of having to reroute to an alternate airport into account, you had that one in a circuit long enough that it will likely run out of fuel before it reaches it.”

Dean’s jaw steals. “So I still f*cked over a plane.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the corporal says. “There are more airports between here and there. Or a highway in a pinch.”

“He’s right, Dean,” Novak says. “The flight you got down has hundreds of people. Your jet has a better chance.” When Dean doesn’t answer, Novak adds, “You wouldn’t have known to check the fuel levels with the pilot.”

“Totally. You rocked it.” Corporal Tran turns sideways to get past the two of them and back into the simulator. On his way, he turns to Novak. “I’ll get everything reset. Make sure he signs the roster!”

“The roster?” Dean asks.

Novak opens a binder on the far side of the table. “It’ll expedite your application if I sign it.” He pulls a sheet out. “Which I will do if you’d like me to.”

Dean takes the paper and scans it. The number of digits in the salary alone is enough to send shivers across his tense shoulders. His mind is moving too fast to really figure it all out. The garage. Their house. What Bobby would think, and the guys, how they’re depending on him. His dad too.

“Hey, Dean!”

Dean’s head snaps around to find Sam approaching to booth, wide smile on his face. Sammy. What is he thinking? Sam’s the one who makes it. Dean’s already exactly where he should be. With the cards he’s been dealt, he’s been lucky to get this much.

“Thanks, but no thanks.” Dean balls the form in his fist, Novak’s elegant signature disappearing between the creases. “You’ll just have to find some other sucker.”

“If that’s what you want.” Novak fixes his hands on his hips again, and Dean’s eyes can’t help but catch on his ring again. This guy has f*cking everything. Who is he to judge Dean for needing to protect the little he has? As if he has the luxury of just blowing his life up on a whim because some f*cking jacko*ff with too-knowing eyes tells him he did good once.

“That’s what I want,” Dean replies, tossing the balled-up paper into the waste basket. “Have a nice life shepherding and sh*t.” Then, he shoots a two-fingered salute he hopes comes off as sarcastic and returns to his little brother and the only life he can let himself hope for.

Chapter 2: the fear (that nothing survives)

Chapter Text

present day

-

How much can you change
and get away with it, before you turn into someone
else, before it’s some kind of murder?
Richard Siken, “Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light”, War of the Foxes

-

“Welcome to Kansas City Tower, Dean Winchester,” says Rufus Turner, the shift supervisor on Dean’s first day of his final leg of training: actually working the job. He sits across the desk from Rufus in the shift supervisor’s office in the basem*nt, going over all the final details. “You know,” he continues, “these scores could’ve gotten you to a bigger spot than MCI. What’re you doing here instead of Atlanta or O’Hare?”

Dean shifts in his seat. “You know how it is,” he says, slapping on the casual nonchalance that took years to master. Dean recalls the conversation he had with his lead instructor when they were wrapping up basic training, how his stomach tightened into knots so tight he barely ate all week no matter how much food Bobby shoved at him, trying to find a way to explain why he couldn’t leave Kansas. In the top of his class, they wanted to send Dean to one of the big hubs where all the action is, and honestly, he wanted to go, but he owes it to his family to stay, to be useful. Missouri was a compromise. “Sometimes it’s better to be the big fish in a small pond, right?”

Rufus lets out a one note laugh. “Well, we need the bodies, so you’re welcome here. But—“ Rufus gives Dean a quick scan up and down “—you might want to cool it with the attitude. Us guppies might take some offence.”

Dean chuckles. “Yeah, ‘course.” He throws his elbow over the back of the chair to stop himself from picking his hands clean. Even though he’s been out of the garage full time for a year or more now, his fingertips are still stained a chalky grey, his skin a little too calloused to pass. It didn’t win him many friends back at the training unit. But then neither did being nearly a decade older than any of them. And even though Dean isn’t stupid enough to believe he’d even remember him, there’s always this brief tug in his gut—first when he got his acceptance and then every time he passed a check ride—where he wishes he could tell Novak. So, just like he did growing up and bouncing from school to school to school every couple months, Dean had to act like he had as much right to be there as anyone else, even if he doesn’t believe a word of it. “I’ll try to keep it on lock.”

“Appreciate it,” Rufus says after giving Dean a hard stare. He’s an older Black guy with a goatee that isn’t quite the right size for his face and an earring dangling from only one ear. A memory flashes of John saying some f*cked up thing about men who had single earrings: that they were advertising, asking for it, deserved what was coming to those kinds of perverts. Dean shoves it down quickly, but not fast enough to skip the nausea.

He clears his throat, shaking the memory away. “So am I ready to go?”

Rufus takes a deep breath before pushing himself out of the chair. “As you’ll ever be, I s’pose.” He circles around the desk as Dean rises to follow him back out into the hallway of the tower. “We’ve only got the one on-job instructor here, and I’ve got to tell you, Castiel is a hard ass. Great controller, but he didn’t return the stick when he left the military.” He opens the door to the stairwell that leads to the cab. “It’s still up his ass.”

“Castiel?” Dean asks.

“Yeah, his parents were the religious type, I guess.” They climb the stairs two at a time, even though they’re steep. “Honestly, he’s a little weird about it.” Rufus chuckles to himself. “Well, he’s a little weird generally, actually. But he grows on you.”

“Sounds great,” Dean says. If this Castiel guy is the only qualified OJI at the tower, they’ll be working together until Dean checks out in several months, and he wonders, not for the first time, if he made a mistake coming to Kansas City. Maybe he should’ve gone to Wichita or someplace, even if it is too far from Lawrence to commute.

Finally, they emerge from the stairwell into the cab of the tower. It’s bigger than Dean expected, and his gaze scans the huge room, punctuated with hard angles so the straight glass can still give a 360-degree view. There are a few controllers on shift, either sitting in front of the radar screens or watching the aircraft through binoculars.

“You get settled in,” Rufus says, gesturing to an empty spot on the edge of the room. “I’ll go see where Castiel is.”

Dean nods, suddenly humbled to be here at all. He knows even getting accepted was a miracle, since all he had to back him up was a GED and a give ‘em hell attitude. But he’s here, so he better not prove them wrong. He steps tentatively up to the slanted window, the shade pulled down to protect them from the UV rays on the sunny day, and the Kansas City airport buzzes below them. Sam was right—it’s a different world up here, completely separated from the nauseating smell of asphalt and jet fuel and the deafening engine blasts. From up here, it’s like looking down from heaven, protecting all the souls passing through, getting them to their homes and their families and they never even know.

Dean breathes in deep, finally feeling calm like he hasn’t felt in a while. Years. Dean can’t place it, but something about being in this cab, hundreds of feet above the airfield, loosens the tension in his shoulders. Like he finally belongs somewhere and, maybe, he doesn’t have to live waiting for the next shoe to drop.

It’s not like anything important ever happens in a place like Kansas City.

———

“And here’s the man of the hour,” Dean hears from behind him. He’s not sure how much time has passed, but he didn’t even get to unpacking his gear, instead getting lost in the view and his thoughts. Usually, he avoids those.

“This is the rookie?”

That strange tug pangs in Dean’s gut. He’s sure he’s heard that voice before, deep and raw like his Impala’s tires over a loose gravel road. As he turns to face Rufus with who he assumes is Castiel, his fear is confirmed.

“Novak?” Dean says, tightening the arms he has crossed over his chest. The shock in the other man’s wide sky blue eyes reflect what’s brewing in Dean’s gut. “Captain Novak?”

“It’s just Castiel Novak now,” he says blandly, gesturing to his civilian clothes—roughed up jeans and a white polo. “I didn’t realize your last name was Winchester.”

Dean returns the lack of enthusiasm as if this isn’t the guy he has to thank he’s even standing here. “In the flesh.”

“I take it you’ve met?” Rufus asks tentatively.

“Briefly,” Castiel says. “About, what? Five years ago?”

Dean clears his throat. Five years, two months, three days, but who’s counting. “Yeah, about that, I guess.”

“Your brother must be coming up on his renewal then?” Castiel asks.

Dean’s eyebrows pull together. “What about my brother?”

“Wasn’t he one of those dumb kids who enlist for a free college education?” Castiel tips his head to the side. “He should be coming on his five years then.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean says. Sam’s situation isn’t exactly one he wanted to get into on his first day. “He was lucky enough to get tossed. Too tall for the jets, apparently.” He shrugs a shoulder. “You know how it is.”

“Obviously not,” Rufus says, making an exaggerated point of clapping a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. It’s not by much, but Castiel’s the shortest of the three of them.

Castiel shoots him a small, amused smile and lets his arms open, then fall. “You got me. The military kicked me out for reasons entirely unrelated to my height.”

Dean lets out a short laugh before he thinks better of it, but cuts himself off quickly, trying to cover it up as a cough.

“It’s fine,” Castiel says. “It’s been a few years.” He rests his hands on his hips in that old habit, and Dean’s eye can’t help but catch on his bare ring finger. “I suppose this means you changed your mind about air traffic control.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Dean says, keeping his arms tight across his chest.

“Why?” Castiel asks, eyes narrowed, and Dean finds he can’t read him any better now than he could five years ago.

“The chicks, mostly,” he replies, deciding to go for the easy joke as to avoid letting anyone in on the reality of his situation. Desperation doesn’t look good on anyone, let alone the guy here to prove himself.

Whatever amusem*nt that may or may not have been dancing on Castiel’s mouth earlier disappears into the frown deepening his face. He taps his index finger against the leather of his belt, and Dean tries to ignore the way Castiel bends his ring finger inwards. “Well, I suppose that is one way to find your calling.”

Dean scoffs. “Dude, who said anything about a calling?”

“All right!” Rufus says, clapping his hands together. “I can see you two are going to get along famously, just as I expected.” He shifts towards Castiel. “You good to take it from here?”

Castiel’s gaze never leaves Dean’s even as he answers Rufus. “Of course.”

“Great.” Rufus looks between the two of them, locked in a staring contest. “I’ll be in my office if you need anything.” Then, he’s off, through the door to the stairwell and gone.

Dean doesn’t want to give Castiel the satisfaction of breaking eye contact first, so he takes the opportunity to examine the way the edges of his irises stop so suddenly against the whites of his eyes and how whatever light making it through the lowered blinds casts streaks of aquamarine across the sky blue.

Castiel doesn’t seem so studious. Instead, he’s a statue. Unmoving and unyielding, his pupils not even flitting between Dean’s. Soon Dean’s breathing shortens, the weight of Castiel’s scrutiny pushing too heavily on his shoulders. So, as expected, Dean is the first to look away. He doesn’t even bother to confirm Castiel’s self-satisfied smirk he’s convinced is there.

“Listen,” Castiel says, “I hear you’re a bit of a hotshot. And I can imagine you did fairly well in basic training based on the skills I observed in the simulator.”

Dean scoffs. “Yeah, before I sent a plane to its doom.”

He notices Castiel’s hesitation before he continues, like he wants to remind Dean what he told him all those years ago. About how the deck was stacked against him in that sim run. About how only skilled controllers could’ve landed that plane. Instead, Castiel takes a step forward into Dean’s space. “You still have to prove you can work in the real world. Your classroom work may be over, but there aren’t any more sims to blow through. Only real planes and real people and real consequences.”

Dean shifts on his heels, but before he can say anything else, Castiel takes another step forward and whatever snappy comeback that was brewing in Dean’s head evaporates, replaced with the campfire smoke of Castiel’s cologne. “As your instructor, I’m taking a chance on you, putting my own licence on the line while you learn the ropes.” Castiel’s eyes drop briefly, then meet Dean’s again. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I will prioritize whatever this smartass act is over my job.” Castiel pauses for effect. “Got it?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, his mouth suddenly bone dry. “Got it.”

“Good.” Castiel shifts, and Dean freezes, unsure why he’s leaning around him like this. His eyes fall to a chapped pair of pink lips before he quickly steps back, stumbling over a chair. Castiel seems to enjoy Dean’s discomfort, even if he probably misunderstands it, when he holds up a pair of headsets. “I guess we can get started then.”

———

Dean slams his palm against the steering wheel of the Impala as he crosses the state line between Missouri and Kansas. He barely got a chance to do anything by the time his shift got started with Castiel. Dean had built up Captain Novak so much in his head, how he would be proud of him, like he might get another clap on the shoulder and smiling eyes. Turns out Rufus was right. Castiel should’ve returned the stick when he left the forces, because now it’s going to be Dean’s problem. He’s got four phases to get through at MCI, plus daily evals, and this guy seems a little too eager to eat him alive.

The hour drive between Kansas City’s airport and Lawrence at least gives Dean some time to clear his head. He knows the airport layout by heart, he knows the kinds of planes that fly in and out. He’s got the frequencies and the bedposts and waypoints down. He knows the arrival and departure procedures. All the things he had to know before he even started. Sam had even made him flash cards to help with the rote memorization he was never so hot at. But f*cking Castiel got him when Dean didn’t know one of the taxiways was closed off for repainting, which he should’ve known from the NOTAMs Rufus had him review before shift. Typical that Dean would fumble the ball in the final yards.

He’s not the kind of guy who gets a lot of touchdowns.

Dean’s well into his rumination spiral by the time he pulls in behind Bobby’s garage, where he has a shoebox apartment on the second floor. Bobby’s being generous by letting Dean stay even though he doesn’t work there anymore. Dean’s sure he could use the space better than putting a too-cheap roof over his head, but Bobby won’t hear anything about it. Considering how much of his trainee paycheck goes to Sam every month—and occasionally his dad, though Sammy and Bobby don’t know about that—Dean isn’t really in a position to object.

He puts the Impala in park, cutting the engine, and rests his forehead against his steering wheel, letting out a long sigh. He taps his head roughly a few times, cursing himself. Why did he even put himself in this situation? Once Sam was settled in California, it took Bobby another three years to convince Dean it was his turn for a new life, but Dean had never even let himself consider the possibility of something else, something better. Sam had always known what he wanted, and even when that door closed, he was quick to know exactly where to pivot, and they were eager to help. But Dean always understood the cards he was dealt, and he was stupid to let Bobby convince him it could be any different.

Dean jumps straight again at the rapping on his driver’s side window. Once he calms his heart, he notices the ratty baseball cap over badly cut blond hair reading “Singer’s Auto Salvage” in cursive font. Dean told Bobby he should hire someone to do a better logo, but Bobby said people were here for the scrap, not the branding.

Dean climbs out of the car, careful to not hit Bobby on the way out, and accepts a squeeze on the shoulder by way of greeting.

“How was the first day?” Bobby asks, trying hard not to beam too hard but failing, which just makes Dean feel like an even bigger disappointment.

“Fine,” he mumbles. “It was whatever.”

“That good, huh?” Bobby asks after dropping his hand.

Dean rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, my on-job instructor kind of hates me already so. . .” Dean trails off with a shrug. “What’re you gonna do?”

Bobby rolls his eyes in that way that tells Dean that Bobby thinks he’s being too sh*t on himself again, but he doesn’t pry. “Show up tomorrow, I guess.” Before Dean can tell Bobby he doesn’t want to waste his time on something that’s never going to work out, Bobby continues. “Benny and Garth have been waiting for you to get back. They wanna take you out for a drink.”

Dean lets out another breath. He told the guys he didn’t want to make a big deal of anything, but he should have known they’d ignore him when they made sure he isn’t working tomorrow. They weren’t super impressed to learn that controllers can’t drink in the eight hours before their next shift. “I dunno, Bobby,” Dean says finally. “It’s been a long day, and—”

“And your friends want to celebrate with you,” Bobby finishes. “So you buck up and you let them do something nice, all right? Pretend you’re doin’ them a favour if you have to.”

Dean opens his mouth to object again, but Bobby raises his eyebrows. It makes it look like he’s innocently questioning, but Dean knows better by now than to challenge him when he pushes his care onto Dean so aggressively.

“All right, then,” Bobby says. “They’re just closing the place up. You got thirty minutes to wash up and get back down here. I’ll tell ‘em you’re coming.”

Dean stares at the ground, but thanks him reluctantly. As Dean moves to walk by Bobby to the rickety fire escape that leads to his apartment, Bobby catches him by the elbow.

“I’m sure you did just fine for your first day, Dean.” He’s quiet about it, like neither of them want to acknowledge the affection. “You’re doing just fine.” Then, with a final quick squeeze, Bobby heads back to the garage.

Dean licks his lips, then takes the stairs two at a time, pressing his shoulder into the door when it sticks again. Being social after a day like today seems like too big a task, but after everything that Benny and Garth have done at the shop to make up for Dean taking off, he owes them a beer. He sighs deeply when he dumps his wallet and keys in the bowl by the door, the one Sammy gave him for his birthday a couple years back after Dean lost them too many times.

One beer. One beer and then he can come home and sulk some more. Probably with more beer. But at least he won’t have an audience to his misery.

———

After Dean gets showered and into a fresh Henley and pair of jeans, he heads back down to the garage where Benny and Garth are already waiting for him. Benny breathes in a deep pull of the cigarette between fingertips as black as Dean’s once were as Garth sits awkwardly on Benny’s truck’s tailgate, one leg bent up beside him. Both their heads swing around when Dean drops from the last step of the fire escape, the rusted iron screeching in protest.

“Heya, Chief,” Benny says, pulling on the lip of his usual newsboy cap. “How’s the big time feel, huh?”

Dean rolls his eyes, plucking the cigarette from his unsuspecting friend’s fingers. He takes his own long drag, the tip flaring bright orange, before blowing out what feels like a lung’s worth of smoke. Dean had quit smoking years ago, not even a full year after he’d picked it up. It was expensive and there weren’t many places left you could, but ultimately it was because Sam’d asked him to. He saw those public health commercials and told Dean he couldn’t bear watching him waste away like that for nothing. So, he’d stopped, but it seems old habits die hard, because despite the smoke burning its way down Dean’s chest, he doesn’t cough when he answers Benny’s question.

“Peachy.”

Dean flashes a toothy smile when Benny snatches the cigarette back. “These things’ll kill ya, you know,” he tells Dean before hooking it back between his lips. “Andrea’s been on me for ages to give ‘em up but—” He clicks his tongue. “That’s how they get ya.” He takes a quick drag, and on the outbreath adds, “Leave the demons in the past, where they belong.”

Garth chuckles, like Benny’s comment was a joke and not a warning. “I don’t think Dean has too much to worry about, now that he works in the sky.”

That breaks a smile loose from Dean. It took a hot minute for Garth to grow on him, on all of them, but very much like a burr or maybe a tapeworm, once he wiggles his way in, Garth is pretty impossible to shake. “I don’t think that’s the way I’d put it,” Dean says.

“Well, how’d you put it, then?” Garth asks, all curiosity and no judgement.

Dean opens his mouth to answer, then stops. He wants to make some sh*t eating remark about how they’re just in a really tall building, about how there’s nothing special about what he’s doing, but he can’t form the lie. It is like working in the sky. He feels like they aren’t actually high enough for it, but there were clouds just outside the cab windows in the light of the early dawn. For once, Dean doesn’t want to lessen that memory.

“f*ck off,” he finally grunts, pushing Garth’s leg off the tailgate so he doesn’t have to witness his self-satisfied smirk. “Aren’t you assholes supposed to be getting me drunk?”

“Whatever you say, buddy,” Benny says, snuffing out his cigarette and circling around to the driver’s side. Dean huffs a relieved laugh, like maybe he can just wash this false start off with a few cold ones and good company.

When the three of them pile into the bench seat of the old truck, Dean leans heavy against the passenger side door. Even though it was a lifetime ago, and even though Garth is in the middle seat, the truck’s sh*tty shocks never fail to rattle loose the memory of what stale cigarette smoke tastes like as cracked leather and sharp stubble burns against bare skin.

———

Benny and Garth let Dean spend the drive quizzing them about the goings on at the shop and how Bobby’s doing—really doing. They answer his questions about inventory and scheduling, but once they pull into the parking lot, Benny tells him to shut up with the shop talk.

“You ain’t a mechanic anymore, Dean,” Benny says as he slams the door hard to make sure it sticks. “You’re gonna have to let this stuff go ‘fore long.”

Dean rubs his hand over his hair. He never lets it get this long, though that’s a generous description of its length. But he hasn’t had to worry about it getting caught or burnt or greased up in a while, so he kind of forgets. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” Dean says. “Bobby’s keeping that spot open for when I wash out, remember?”

Benny just grunts as they shoulder through the swinging door of Rocky’s Bar. Garth claps his hands together like they’re joining a f*cking party instead of some dive bar on a stretch in the middle-of-nowhere-Kansas. Benny gestures to the bartender for a pitcher on their way to their table in the corner, then pulls out a chair theatrically. “Here we are, brother. First day of the rest of your life!” He sits with a thump and Dean tries not to take it like a rock to the bottom of a river.

Garth slips in like the stick man he is and folds his hands in front of him, grinning with a mouth too big for his face, and Dean’s shoulders settle again. “So,” he says with so much sincerity, it would seem fake from anyone but this doofus. “Tell us all about your first day.”

Dean huffs another laugh. “f*ck off.” But he’s smiling again, able to melt back into the chair easier already. “I’m telling you guys,” Dean starts, flashing a smile and a wink at Jo, the skinny blonde bartender, when she drops off the beer and a couple pint glasses. “Doing it live ain’t like anything I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t seem like it’s supposed to work, and yet.”

“And yet,” Benny says, raising a full pint glass as a cheers, having filled up everyone’s while Dean talked.

Dean’s smile widens again as he picks up his beer, tapping against Benny and Garth’s glasses. “Who f*cking knew, huh?”

When Garth answers, “We all did”, Dean tries to sit in that sentiment, just for a minute, but just like every other time he’s confronted with warmth, it slips through his fist like hot white sand. So, instead of ruining the moment like always, Dean takes a long drag of his beer, and tries to let his friends do something nice for him.

Before either of them are able to get their next question out, Dean’s pocket vibrates loudly against the chair. He shoots the guys an apologetic grimace as he digs it out of his pocket. “Sorry, I meant to turn this thing off. . .” His voice trails off at the end when his father’s name lights up the display. He licks his lips and briefly considers silencing it, making him leave a voicemail like the countless ones Dean leaves him without reply, but raises a finger to the guys before rising from the table to find a quiet corner. Maybe his dad remembered what day it is. Maybe John Winchester wants to hear how his first day went.

Dean’s already shaking his head at his stupidity when he lifts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Is this Dean Winchester?” an unfamiliar voice asks on the other end of the line.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean stutters out. “Yeah, I’m Dean.”

“This is Dr. Bacic at the KU Medical Center.” The man paused as if that’s supposed to mean something to Dean. When he doesn’t respond, the doctor continues. “I’m calling about your father.”

“Obviously,” Dean cuts in impatiently. “You’re using his phone.” He digs his fingertips into his eyes. “Did something happen?”

“Your father was admitted here a few hours ago. He was unresponsive, so we had to use his phone to call his emergency contact.”

Dean ignores the pang in his gut at being his father’s emergency contact as if that wasn’t the only option for someone like John Winchester. “What happened?” he asks, trying real hard not to yell at this guy to get to the point.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Bacic says, hesitant. “I had assumed you would recognize my name. I’ve been treating your father’s liver disease. After he collapsed, we discovered it’s more advanced than we expected a few weeks ago.” Ringing pierces Dean’s ears, and he struggles to hear what the doctor says next. “Mr. Winchester? Are you there?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” Dean realizes he’s slumped against the edge of the bar, only holding on by chance. “So, uh. My dad has liver disease?”

“Your father is John Winchester? Is that right?”

Dean nods before he realizes the doctor can’t see him. “Yeah, that’s him. John. My dad, John Winchester.” Dean squeezes his eyes shut. “Sorry. Just—he never told us he was sick.”

“We were just finishing up the tests,” the doctor tries to hedge. “Perhaps he wanted to wait until we were sure about what we’re looking at.”

Dean’s mouth suddenly fills with cotton, his throat closing to the size of a straw. “And what are we looking at, Doc?”

The line is silent for longer than Dean likes. “I think it’s best you come to Kansas City. This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have over the phone.”

Dean glances over at his friends sitting around the table, Jo leaning on her hip as she and Benny exchange barbs and Garth looking like he’s at the best comedy show in town. Biting down on his bottom lip, Dean tries to come back to reality, remember where he is, why he’s here at all. He was so stupid to let Bobby let him think—

“Yeah,” Dean finally answers, turning away from the laughter in the corner. “Yeah, of course. I’ll be there tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 3: the greater fear (that something does)

Chapter Text

And I’ve been meaning to tell you
I think your house is haunted
Your dad is always mad and that must be why

Taylor Swift, “seven”, folklore

-

Dean stands at the end of the hospital bed, the shrill beeping of his sleeping father’s heart monitor the only sound filling the cavernous space between them. Each beat hits Dean square in the chest, bouncing back and forth between anger and grief, doubt and fear. According to the doctor, his father’s dying. They found that the liver disease was end-stage, too far along to do much about other than make him comfortable until the inevitable.

For the first time in his whole life, Dean’s father looks so small.

“Mr. Winchester?” a deep voice says from outside the curtain.

“Yeah,” Dean croaks. “Yeah, c’mon in.”

Dr. Bacic moves the curtain aside gently and steps into the small enclosure around his father’s bed. The doctor gave him the highlights already. John came in the other night doubled over, retching after throwing up everything that might’ve been in his stomach. He punched a few guys for good measure before the cops finally dropped him at the medical centre. A scan confirmed the worst. His liver is basically just a lump of scar tissue.

“He’s stable for now,” the doctor begins, and Dean fights against focusing on how yellow his father’s skin is around the cuts on his knuckles. “We’ll have to talk about next steps.”

“I thought you said he’s as good as dead,” Dean says, his voice low and even.

The doctor sighs. “The prognosis is difficult for conditions like this, but without a liver transplant, your father won’t survive, no.”

Dean swallows past the closing of his throat. “And they ain’t gonna give a guy like John Winchester a new one, huh?”

“He’s on the transplant list,” the doctor says. His dark hair drops into his face when he tips his eyes down to the chart. “But I’m afraid the chances with his lifestyle aren’t good.”

Dean can’t stop the laugh that comes from him, bitter and short. “His lifestyle, yeah.” He shoves his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. “You mean deadbeat alcoholics.”

The doctor doesn’t respond, and he doesn’t need to. Dean knows exactly who John Winchester is and how he ended up in this hospital bed. Dean’s been waiting for this day since he was four years old, clutching his baby brother and staring up at flames billowing from a shattered window, wondering which parent was going to make it out alive.

“sh*t,” Dean mutters. “Sammy.”

“What’s that?” the doctor asks.

“Sam. My brother. I need—I guess I gotta call him.” Dean presses his fingertips into his eye hard enough to see spots. “He’s in California.”

“It would be beneficial for your father to be surrounded by his loved ones in the coming months.” The doctor adjusts his clipboard in his hands as if he’s being reverent.

Dean laughs again. “Yeah, then maybe Sammy should stay in California.” Then, the doctor’s words hit him. “Wait, months?”

“Like I said, it’s difficult to say.” Dr. Bacic returns his father’s chart to its place at the end of the bed. “The prognosis for cirrhosis is highly variable. The trajectory of functional decline may be erratic and unpredictable, and many patients remain in a constant state of poor health interspersed by intermittent exacerbations and hospitalizations. Death is usually quite sudden.”

“What does that mean?” Dean asks, unable to keep the cracks out of his voice.

“Your father is going to continue to get sicker and sicker inconsistently for an unknown amount of time until he dies.” Dr. Bacic meets Dean’s gaze and continues after he doesn’t interject. “It could be days or years. We just don’t know.”

Suddenly, the room is impossibly small, and Dean can’t breathe deep enough in the claustrophobia of it all. Years. His father could be like this for years. And all at once, Dean watches all his hopes and dreams fall to pieces as the doctor hands him a pamphlet on caring for terminally ill relatives at home.

The doctor leaves as Dean’s grip wrinkles the pamphlet. He was naïve to believe his life could be anything else. People like him don’t get lives like the one he glimpsed out the window of the air traffic control tower. He’s such an idiot. Shame slams into Dean like a tsunami wave. Who did he think he was kidding?

He was always going to end up here.

———

Dean’s thumb glides across the glass surface of his phone, moving his list of contacts up and down so the screen doesn’t go to sleep while he sits at his father’s bedside. The list is centred on Sam’s name, but all Dean can do is stare at the circle of his picture. It’s too small to see clearly, but Dean knows it anyway. The toothy grin of a kid without a care in the world.

He wouldn’t know what that’s like, but he worked his ass off to make sure Sam could.

Dean breathes deep. His thumb hovers millimetres from the screen, but the distance seems impossible to cross. He steals his jaw, about to just suck it up and f*cking do it already, when he hears a stir from the bed in front of him, half-groan, half-his name.

“Dad?” Dean says, sitting straighter, the phone abandoned.

He groans again. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital,” Dean says. “Because your liver conked out and you never told anyone about it.”

John tries to roll over. “Don’t be so dramatic, Dean.”

“I’m not.” For a moment, the two men stare at each other intently. “Dad. I talked to your doctor. Why didn’t you tell me?”

John scoffs. “Why would I think you care?”

“Why would I—” Dean stops himself and clicks the joint of his jaw so he won’t say something he’ll regret to his literal dying father. “Of course I care that you’re dying, Dad.”

“This is why I didn’t tell you,” John says, turning his eyes to the ceiling. “Everything is the end of the world to you. Dr. Bacic doesn’t even know for sure if—”

“He knows now,” Dean interrupts. “I just spent two hours with Dr. Bacic being sure, okay? Your liver’s toast and tough luck getting a new one.” Dean’s face is numb except for the pinpricks of panic he gets whenever he confronts his father. “It’s over. That’s it.”

To his very small credit, John’s face blanches slightly. “That’s it?”

All the fight drains out of Dean, and he nods solemnly. “Yeah, Dad.” He takes a deep breath. “That’s it. No more deals or second chances.”

“How long?” His father croaks.

Dean’s lips thin. “They can’t say. Could be days, could be years.”

John just nods firmly, his thick eyebrows joining together, and they sit in the silence for a moment until Dean’s cell phone rings. He grabs it, thankful for the excuse to leave his father to process the news, and answers without thinking to check who it is.

“Dean?” It takes him a second to place the voice. “It’s Rufus. I got your message.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dean squeezes the bridge of his nose. He’d just assumed it would be Sam on the other side of the line. Work wasn’t exactly at the forefront at the moment. “Yeah, sorry. I—” He realizes too late he doesn’t know how to finish that sentence.

“It’s all right,” Rufus says. “It’s your dad?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says. He hasn’t even told Sam, let alone figured out how to actually talk about it. “He’s in the hospital.”

Rufus makes a sympathetic noise on the other end. “You need a couple days? You usually need to finish up your probation period first but I’m sure we can—”

“No,” Dean says quickly. “I mean—I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back. It was dumb of me to even—” He lets out a rough breath. “I’m sorry if this f*cks things up for you. I shouldn’t’ve—”

“Take a few days,” Rufus says, cutting him off. “You don’t make any big decisions when you get this kind of news.” Dean makes a noise as if to contradict him, but Rufus presses on. “I’ll call back in a week, and we’ll figure it out. Got it?”

Dean’s quiet for a moment, unsure how to respond. He wants to say yes, to believe Rufus when he tells him they’ll figure something out, that this can still work. More than anything, Dean wants to believe the last year of his life wasn’t spent chasing some dumb pipe dream he was too stupid to realize wasn’t for him. But Dean also understands how dangerous hope is, and he’s not going to keep making the same mistakes over and over. He at least understands that definition of insanity: Hoping and hoping for a life other than this one and never getting a different result.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, Rufus, but—”

“I’ll talk to you in a week. Take care of yourself.” And then, Rufus hangs up on him, and Dean’s left with nothing to do but stare at the blank phone screen.

He barely has time to process the conversation when the phone rings in his hand again, this time the toothy grin of his brother reflects back at him. Dean takes another deep breath as if this is the one that’ll actually make it into his lungs and hits the green button. “Heya, Sammy.”

“Hey Dean.” His brother sounds distracted on the other end of the phone, papers shuffling. “What’s up? Sorry I didn’t call back sooner, class went long.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” Despite Sam having lived in California for four years now, Dean never adjusted to the kid being two hours behind him. “Forgot about your evening class.”

“Is everything all right? You sounded—“ Dean lets the comment hang, not bothering to finish the sentence and put his brother out of his misery. “Distracted,” is what Sam lands on.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Dean says, mostly to himself. “It’s about Dad.”

“Dad?” Sam repeats, the sounds of movement silenced all at once. “What about Dad?”

“He’s in the hospital,” Dean says, the lump in his throat turning to stone.

Sam breathes out, and the shuffling resumes. “Who’d he punch now? Did he make that ‘you should see the other guy’ joke again?”

“Not this time.” Dean tries to clear his throat, but it’s just as tight. “It’s different this time.”

“It’s different every time, Dean.” A zipper closes, a chair scraping against the floor. “He just needs to sleep it off and—“

“Sammy,” Dean says, and he winces at the way his voice cracks. The line is quiet again, Sam finally getting it. “You might want to sit back down.”

A heavy thud sounds on the other side. “Dean. What’s wrong?”

———

After a few more days in the hospital, Dr. Bacic agrees to let Dean’s father come home with him, though he suspects that has more to do with getting him off the doctor’s service than with John Winchester’s vastly improved condition. The small apartment above Bobby’s garage wasn’t going to cut it if Dean was gonna play nurse to his dying father, but he thanked whatever God may be out there that Bobby kept his seething quiet, even if it was written all over his face as he helped Dean open up the old house again.

Dean can’t remember the last time he was here. When John was just the right level of whiskey-drunk, his dad would say the house still smelled too much of smoke even though the insurance had long since replaced the top floor after the fire, but Dean understood what his dad meant.

Sometimes he swore he smelt it too.

So the house stayed boarded up, closed off, and Dean always assumed the next time he stepped foot here, it’d be to sell it off. Instead, Dean and Bobby spent the days cleaning and prepping the house in near silence, and Dean did his best to keep Sam in California. Sam insisted the beginning of the semester was the best time to come home while Dean argued the opposite. John had used the same logic in pulling Dean into the garage during his senior year and Dean was damned if he was going to let their father be the reason both his kids ended up drop outs. Sam deserves a better shot than what Dean got, and a J.D. is the way for him to get one. ‘Sides, the reserves’ll only pay for his education if he’s actually getting educated.

Dean looks up from setting up the weird medical equipment the nurse tried to teach him how to use when he hears Bobby come in the front entrance. “In here!” Dean calls from the living room. They all figured setting it up in front of the TV was the best option to actually get John to use the thing.

Bobby walks in, hands full of grocery bags, and Dean tries not to let his face betray the relief he feels at the sight of it. “I got supplies,” Bobby says, lifting them slightly though they must be heavy. “I figured you wouldn’t have time before you have to go get him.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Dean says, head still buried down by the old recliner they got off a Buy Nothing group a town over. It’s one of those with a motor that helps you get out of them. “I hadn’t gotten a chance. The nurse just left.”

Bobby huffs as he walks past Dean and into the kitchen, putting the food away louder than necessary, and Dean does his best to ignore his tantrum. They’ve gotten through nearly a week like this. They can get through one more afternoon.

Then, the noise stops, and Dean swears to himself as Bobby reappears through the archway.

“You don’t owe him nothing, Dean.” It’s not often that Dean sees Bobby angry, like, chase-a-guy-out-of-the-house-with-a-shotgun angry, but when he does, it’s usually to do with John Winchester. “You just got your life on track. The finish line is right there!” Bobby punctuates the air with his raised hand on the last two words. “Hasn’t your daddy done enough?”

“I have to bring him home, Bobby,” Dean says numbly, grateful for something to do with his hands. “He’s got nowhere else to go.”

“Didn’t that care home call back? Or your insurance?” Bobby sighs. “There has to be something better than you moving him back here.”

“No, there’s nothing.” Dean spent the whole week he wasn’t working on the house making calls all over. The long-term care homes have waiting lists a mile long. John can’t go in hospice if he’s got more than six months to live. Dean’s insurance barely covers any of it anyway since he’s not done his probation, and Sam’s is worse than his. Best they could do was give him a couple hours of home nursing a week, and frankly, he was grateful even for that. Who knew dying was so damn complicated? “I’m it.”

“You’re not responsible for John’s mistakes.” Bobby adjusts his cap, like he’s uncomfortable he doesn’t have a better argument. “He’s the one who drank himself to death.”

Dean stands calmly, flicking the last of the switches to make sure there’s power—and back up power. “What do you expect me to do, Bobby? Let him rot?”

“Yes!” Bobby closes the gap between them and Dean fights the urge to walk out. “Your father is a coward. Isn’t that what he left for you and your brother? Rot? You’re a better man than your father ever was.”

Dean’s eyes burn with the tears he hasn’t let himself cry yet. Won’t. If he crosses that bridge, there’s no going back for him. “Then how can I just let him die alone?”

Bobby chokes out a sigh that’s almost a sob, then holds Dean’s face in his hand like he would when Dean was a punk kid doing his level best to get himself killed. “You’re a better son than he deserves.”

Dean scoffs and pats Bobby’s hand. “Only thanks to you.” Then, he lowers Bobby’s hand again when he looks like he might actually go grab that shotgun and breaks the moment. “I gotta go pick him up now.” He claps Bobby quickly on the shoulder. “Thanks for the groceries.”

“Yeah,” Bobby says, not even bothering to hide the crack in his voice. “Yeah, anytime.”

“I know,” Dean says, leaving him to put the rest of the groceries away while Dean drives out to the medical centre in Kansas City to take his father off Dr. Bacic’s hands. At least for now. He’ll be back for whatever kinds of tests and treatments folks whose livers don’t work anymore need. The rest of the time, they’ll be in the house he grew up in.

———

John sleeps most of the way back to Lawrence, and Dean’s grateful for it. He has no idea how to make small talk with a dying man, or how to explain any of this to him. Dean’s gaze flicks to the passenger side more than necessary as they drive. He seems too normal to be dying, only the yellowing of his eyes really betraying what’s happening inside him.

Dr. Bacic warned them this isn’t always going to be the case, and Dean straightens back up, ready to return to war in the place it started.

Dean’s surprised to see Bobby still at the house when he pulls up, standing with his arms crossed in the open door. Dean prays he’s not going to make this more difficult than it has to be, then wakes his father.

“Hey, Dad?” Dean says, shaking his shoulder. “Dad, we’re here. We’re home.”

John groans and stretches his shoulders. “The old house?”

“We opened it up,” Dean says, tensing for the explosion he’s been avoiding all week.

His father stares at the house, quiet. Dean follows his gaze to the second-floor window where Dean watched the flames swallow their mother with his infant brother in his arms all those years ago. Finally, John seems to rouse. “What’s Singer doing here?”

“He helped,” Dean says, shutting off the car and grabbing the bag Dr. Bacic sent home with John from the hospital. “C’mon. You need help?”

“No,” John grumbles. “I’m fine.”

Dean scoffs. “Yeah, I can tell.” Then he climbs out of the Impala and hikes the bag over his shoulder, pausing to make sure his dad can actually make it out himself without looking like that’s what he’s doing. Dean raises a hand to greet Bobby, who just tips his chin a little in acknowledgment.

“This is gonna be a sh*t show,” Dean says under his breath, then follows his father slowly making his way up to the door.

“John,” Bobby says flatly.

“Bobby,” John replies, though Bobby’s better at not making it sound like acid between his teeth. “Dean said you helped get this place back together?”

“Yep,” Bobby says, his arms still crossed resolutely across his chest as if he has no qualms about keeping Dean’s father out of the house by force if he decides it’s necessary.

“Thanks.” John’s eyes rest firmly on Bobby’s shoes, but at least they’re not throwing punches. Yet.

Bobby softens, just a little, and lets his arms drop. “Well, I didn’t do it for you. I did it for the boys.”

John huffs. “Good, ‘cause don’t expect anything from me when I croak.” He pushes through the door past Bobby, and he lets him go, but Dean can see it pains Bobby to do it.

Dean steps up into the space his father just vacated. “Thanks, Bobby. Seriously.” Dean watches John creep into the house, ignoring the staircase completely, instead casting his eyes over where the pictures used to hang. “I don’t know if I could’ve handled—”

“It’s all right, Dean,” Bobby says, hand clapping him firmly on the back. “Despite what you might think, I’m not here to make your life harder.”

The knot tied tight behind Dean’s sternum loosens ever so slightly, and all he can manage is a small smile in Bobby’s direction. He walks past him too and heads straight to the recliner so he can get all Dr. Bacic’s supplies organized.

“Sam was hoping we could call him when you got home,” Dean calls out to John who’s still in the hallway. “I can set up the laptop, have some face-to-face family time.”

Dean ignores his father’s scoff. “We wouldn’t need a laptop if he came home.”

“He’s gonna visit during his break, like usual,” Dean says, trying to make sense of all the labels. “It’s important he stays in California.”

“More important than his father dying?”

Dean lets out a breath. “Yeah, Dad. He’s in school, and you’re doing all right so far.”

“Hmm,” John says as he wanders into the living room. His movements are stiff and halting, and Dean starts digging for the pill bottle that he’s pretty sure has his pain meds. “So far,” his dad says, suddenly beside the recliner. “What’s all this?”

Dean looks down at his hands. “Dr. Bacic sent some stuff over to get you set up. We’ve got a nurse who’ll come for the big stuff, but—”

“No,” John says firmly. “I’m not some invalid. I can take care of myself.”

“Dad,” Dean says, already frustrated and shaking the pills in his hand. “This is the stuff that’s gonna keep you alive, okay? But I can’t—”

“I don’t want strangers in this house, Dean.” John’s eyes flash briefly towards where Bobby is standing at the other side of the living room. “Maybe if your brother—”

“Sam is in school,” Dean says again. “Sam is going to finish school.”

John shakes his head. “He always thought he was better than this family. And now I come home to, what? A sh*tty chair and strangers?”

Shame snakes down Dean’s spine. He wanted to get something better, something new, but he couldn’t manage it. Not in time to get John home. He lets the pill bottle hang from his fingers as he really takes in the set-up, how his dad must see it. It seemed so much more impressive this morning when the nurse smiled at how well he understood where all the wires went.

“The nurse is—” Dean starts.

“Dean,” John says again, low and level. “I said no.”

Dean works his jaw as he tries to figure out what to do. He licks his lips and captures the bottom one between his teeth as he chews. An old childhood habit he never could quite kick. “Maybe if I got fewer hours, I could get her to teach—”

“No,” Bobby all but shouts from where he stayed close to the door. “Dean, you are not sacrificing your career and Sam is not quitting school.” Bobby takes a few quick steps to close the gap between them. “And you,” he says to John, pointing in his face, “you are going to be grateful for what you get. This boy has spent the last week killing himself to spruce this place up for you, against my advice and what should be his better judgment, so you better believe you are living under his roof now, not the other way around.”

Dean’s eyes might as well fall out of his skull based on how wide they are as he stares at Bobby, but he doesn’t back down. Bobby and John just stand staring at each other, and Dean stops breathing.

“Got it?” Bobby says, finally, after John hasn’t moved.

John’s nostrils flare, then his eyes dart to meet Dean’s. “This is why I don’t want strangers in this house, Dean. They get an outsized sense of importance.”

Bobby’s hands flex, like he’s trying to convince them not to punch John flat, and Dean squeezes his elbow, grateful for both the restraint and backbone Dean so clearly lacks.

“Bobby’s not a stranger, Dad,” Dean says. “And I have to work if we’re gonna keep the house, right? So, maybe we can just. . . try?”

John’s jaw flexes. “Yeah, well, I’m tired anyway. Where am I sleeping?”

Dean sighs and gestures to the staircase. “My old room at the top of the stairs. It’s already made up.” Dean decided to take the nursery where the fire started and give Sam the old master for when he visited. It seemed to be the kindest arrangement for all involved. “But this is Sam’s only free night for a while, so we should really—”

“What part of ‘I’m tired’ don’t you understand, Dean?” He glances at the staircase, pointedly ignoring Bobby in the process. “It had to be upstairs?”

“You selfish bastard!” Bobby bursts out, apparently having reached his last straw. “You sit your ass down in the chair your son fixed up so you could be comfortable and talk to your kids like they aren’t some soldiers who washed out of basic training, huh? ‘Cause only one Winchester’s done that so far.”

John opens his mouth to speak, his eyes and edges of his skin somehow taking on an even more yellow hue, but Bobby stops him. “Sit. Now.” He points at the chair. “Dean, come help me get Sam on the horn.”

John doesn’t move, and Dean sighs. “Dad? Please. Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” he grumbles, then throws the paperwork Dean had set on the recliner towards the coffee table, and Dean sends up a prayer, grateful all he’s gonna have to clean up after all this is some paper.

Dean follows Bobby to the kitchen, and he grips the back of one of the chairs, dipping his head low. “This is a disaster, Bobby. I can’t do any of it right.”

“Don’t listen to your daddy,” Bobby says, almost growling. “He don’t know how good he’s got it, all right? Any father would be so lucky.”

“I don’t know, Bobby…” Dean’s mind swims with all the information he’s had to learn the last few days, all the names of medications that sit like spilled Scrabble tiles in his head and all the schedules and treatments and people he has to get to know. He stretches his back, still gripping the chair like it’s the only tangible thing within arm’s reach. Like Bobby wouldn’t hug him back if he wasn’t too much of a coward to ask him to. “Who knows how long he’s gonna—” Dean can’t even make himself say it.

“We’ll talk to Sam, get everyone updated, and we’ll take it one day at a time, okay?” Dean doesn’t answer, still staring at a spot under the table he must’ve missed when he was sweeping this morning. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to do anything right.

“Dean!” Bobby says again, and Dean bolts up straight. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, wiping his hands over his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” Then, his pocket starts vibrating, and KANSAS CITY TOWER blinks back at him in bold letters. “sh*t, Bobby, it’s work.” He hasn’t spoken to Rufus since the hospital, and now he doesn’t know what to say.

“You’re keeping your job, kid, all right?” Bobby says, as if he can read his mind. “Take it. I’ll get Sam on the line and set up with John.”

“You know how to do that?” Dean asks even though Bobby was probably the one to teach Dean how to set it up, but he needs to inject some levity back into their conversation. He needs Bobby to show him it’s all going to be okay.

“Get out of here and save your damn job,” Bobby says with a wave, but Dean doesn’t miss the smile he gets either and the knot loosens again, just a little.

“Hello?” Dean says, answering and walking out into the hallway for a little privacy. He’s not sure if he’s more anxious that Rufus will be pissed or if Rufus will be kind.

“Hello, Dean,” answers a voice that definitely does not belong to Rufus, and Dean’s stomach knots up tight remembering all the times that voice got him through the rough spots in training. You also saved the lives of all the people on that aircraft. He tries to keep from throwing up.

“How’s your father?” Castiel continues, completely ignorant of the breakdown Dean’s having on the other side of the line.

“He’s, uh—” Dean glances into the living room where Bobby has the laptop set up on the TV tray so John and Sam can be at the right height. Sam laughs, and Dean turns his attention back to his phone call. “He’s home now.”

“That’s good news,” Castiel says as if he actually believes it.

“I guess, yeah.” Dean tries to keep his voice from shaking. “Where’s Rufus? I was expecting him to call.”

Castiel makes a vague sound of agreement. “Well, since I have no trainee on the boards, I’ve been taking a few of his supervisor shifts so he can keep current.”

Dean nods. He remembers the day they went over all the rules for getting—and keeping—your licence. Not only can you not drink eight hours before your shift, you have to have a certain number of operational hours every thirty days or you have to do a requal. With an OJI. The idea of Rufus having to pass a requal check under Castiel’s guidance pulls a smile from Dean.

“Rufus tells me this situation with your father may impact your ability to continue training.” Castiel says it all matter of fact, almost like he’s bored with the situation Dean’s found himself in. “Is that still the case?”

Dean takes a deep breath. “Um, yeah, maybe?” He rubs his hands over his eyes again. “He’s gonna need me a lot more than I was expecting when I signed up.” Dean’s throat starts to close, and he fights against his voice shutting down again like it always does when it’s important. “I don’t know how long he’s gonna—” Dean breathes again, feeling like an idiot who can’t even talk right. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” Castiel says in that same bored tone. “Well, it’s your choice, of course. Like you said, we can always find ‘some other sucker’, I believe is how you put it.”

Dean’s stomach drops, and he couldn’t throw up now even if he wanted to. He almost wishes he had Rufus’ unfounded kindness to contend with than Castiel’s aggressive indifference. He’s searching for something to say when Castiel continues.

“I thought it might be helpful to outline what would happen to your training if you were to choose to drop out now.”

Dean’s taken aback. “Really? You’re gonna quote regs to me right now?”

Castiel continues as if Dean didn’t say a word. “You will have a one year cooling off period, during which you cannot reapply to any job postings or training opportunities. Once that year has elapsed, you may reapply. However, you are not guaranteed the same position you have now. You will have to go through, at minimum, your airport-specific training again, which may not be here at Kansas City. Then, once you are placed with an OJI, you will have to begin again from where you are now. Do you understand?”

Dean huffs a breath. “Yeah, yeah. It’s either now or three years from now, I got it.”

“I just want you to understand since it seems to have taken you five years to get here the first time,” Castiel says, and Dean might be making things up, but he swears the cold indifference might actually be a kindness disguised. “You won’t be getting any younger for those hot chicks you’re after.”

Dean rolls his eyes, knowing Castiel can’t see him. “That was a joke.” But still, Dean’s breath comes easier. “I’m doing it because I like it.”

“And you don’t do things by halves,” Castiel confirms, and a different kind of knot forms in Dean’s gut. A little lower. “For the record,” Castiel adds, quieter. Almost shy. “I was trying to make a joke as well.”

Dean laughs. It’s short and one note, but it’s a laugh. The first one anyone’s been able to push from him the whole week. “It wasn’t bad,” Dean says. “You’ll get there.”

“So?” Castiel asks. “Are we going to see you on Monday or bank on three years from now?”

Dean sighs heavy. “Honest, it’s not that I don’t want to be there, but like you said, I don’t do things by halves. And with my dad here, he needs me, and I want to give my all. To all of it. But the math don’t work out, you know?”

“I do know,” Castiel says, almost whimsical. “What I also know is that it isn’t that black and white. It never is.”

Dean looks back into the living room again, the three most important men in his life gathered in one spot, and he knows he should want to be there too. But somehow, even though this is the exact same living room it was this morning, it feels too heavy, too constricting. Like if he chooses to walk back in there, he’ll never see the sky again.

“My spot at the garage is still open. Once a mechanic, always a mechanic, right?” Dean asks, trying to sound light and not devastated. “Juggling it all, it’s gonna be—” Dean stops himself again, cursing his f*cking throat. “What’s another three years?”

“Dean,” Castiel says, and this time, he says it like he’s got the blade that will sever the chains keeping him back in that living room, like he’s his path back to the sky. “A simpler three years is still three years. The time will pass anyway.”

Dean feels a jolt, like ice water spilled down his back, and he shivers around it. Somehow, everything slots into place in his head, like the elastic band that’d kept him from seeing things clearly snaps clean. Maybe he can take his own advice that he asked of his father. Maybe he can just try. The time will pass anyway.

“All right,” Dean says, though his chest isn't any looser. “I’ll see you on Monday then.”

Castiel is quiet for a moment. “I’ll see you on Monday, Dean.” He’s about to hang up when he hears Castiel add one last thing. “And don’t forget to review the NOTAMs.”

Dean breathes a laugh into the receiver. “Asshole.” Then, he does hang up for real.

Bobby looks up the moment Dean lowers the phone, and he should have known he would be keeping a watchful eye. Bobby’s eyebrows raise in that inquisitive way, and Dean shrugs, then nods, and Bobby’s smile turns soft. He waves Dean over to his dad’s chair where he’s still talking to Sammy.

Sammy lights up when Dean enters the frame, leaning a little over his father’s shoulder, and waves to his brother. “Hey, Sam.”

“Pretty sweet set-up you got there, Dean,” he says, that half-smile that tells Dean he knows exactly what he’s saying. “Can’t wait to see it at break.”

“Same,” Dean says simply. Then, he glances over to Bobby, then back at Sam. “I can pick you up when you fly into Kansas City. I’m sure I can be on shift.”

Bobby pats Dean on the shoulder as Sam’s smile finishes making its way across his face. As for John, Dean’s not sure he’s even listening when he notices the pain pills Dean had out earlier tucked under his thigh.

Chapter 4: tell me (what’s so wrong with being alone)

Chapter Text

Some nights I wake and everything hurts a little.
It is amazing how long a ruined thing will burn.

Paul Guest, “1987”

-

When Dr. Bacic explained to Dean that his father was going to have an “unpredictable rate of decline”, he didn’t expect that John Winchester would be exactly like his old self but without the option of alcohol to take the edge off. He’d forgotten the way his father’s demons filled up all the empty spaces and split the cracks he forgot were there, like water on concrete, flash freezing after a rainstorm.

He’d been too nervous the whole weekend to take his eye off his father too long, which pretty much resulted in the most time he and Dean had spent together since Bobby brought Dean on at the yard. After John lost the garage that had been in his family for generations, he f*cked off to who-knows-where for the next decade, coming and going as he pleased, and left Sam to Dean and the garage to Bobby.

So, by the time Monday rolled around, Dean was actually grateful for the excuse to leave John by himself. A whole weekend of being reminded what it’s actually like to live with his father was enough to erase any nerves he had of returning to MCI until he hit the state line.

Then it was like all the anxiety he’d left in Missouri two weeks ago was just waiting for him to pick it up again.

—

Rock music rattles the Impala’s windows as Dean rolls into the control tower’s parking lot. Ramble On by Led Zeppelin blasts through the speakers while he tries to work up his nerve to just go to work. He squeezes the wheel until his knuckles are white, and then squeezes some more, mouthing along to the words he knows better than anything. Just as the chorus is about to break, he jumps at a gentle tap on his window.

He gulps some air, turning to see Novak’s tight face reflected back.

Castiel. Not Novak. He was never whoever the Novak was that Dean had made up in his head. It’s only Castiel, the guy who’s going to do his best to make sure Dean washes out.

Dean rolls down the window. “Yeah?” he yells over the music.

“Are you. . .” Castiel takes the opportunity to take a look inside Dean’s car, not that he’s going to find anything. It’s like the more stressed Dean gets, the cleaner everything around him is. “. . .all right?”

“Peachy,” Dean says, only just noticing that he still has his death grip on the steering wheel. He drops his hands quickly, embarrassed. “Just peachy.”

Castiel narrows his eyes but doesn’t press. “All right.” He straightens up. “I’ll see you in there.” Castiel even taps Baby lightly above the door before turning towards the building.

Dean lets out all the breath he was holding in his lungs, then drops his forehead to the steering wheel. “Great. Good second impression.” Third, he corrects himself. “This is gonna go so good.” After tapping his forehead against the steering wheel a few more times for good measure, Dean finally gets out of the Impala and heads into the tower.

He buzzes himself in and the ritual of it almost makes him breathe a little easier, like it’s proof he actually belongs here. The lobby looks like it could be anywhere. There’s a bulletin board strewn with flyers about local events and fundraisers and reminders about deadlines for boring work sh*t. Dean stands in the middle of it all, and he can almost convince himself he’s normal.

Almost.

He rushes through the lobby to the staff room, making sure he clocks in on time. He already made a fool of himself in the parking lot. He doesn’t need to give anyone any more reasons to think he’s a loser. So, when he gets to the sign in tablet, he taps in his operating initials—DS—and carefully reviews all the day’s NOTAMs. He scrolls through the ones that default up every day, like closed airspace in war zones worlds away, as if Dean is ever going to have to worry about flying a plane through Libya, and makes sure he’s not going to make any more rookie mistakes. He made friends with some of the airport maintenance guys, so he knows the taxiway’s been reopened. It’s easier to get the news from the horse’s mouth anyway.

“You made it!”

Dean jumps. He hadn’t heard Rufus come in.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Castiel called, and. . .”

“Convincing little asshole, ain’t he?” Rufus asks with a smile on his face.

Dean breathes out. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Good,” Rufus says, grabbing a coffee mug from one of the cupboards. “I know it must be tough with your dad being sick and all, so I’m gonna need you to ask for help when you need it, huh?” Dean’s stomach twists at the idea while Rufus pours himself a coffee. “We may be a rough and tumble bunch, but we wanna see you check out. Pamela’s got her next vacation all planned out.”

Dean scoffs. “You might wanna tell Castiel that. He might not be on the same page.”

“Well,” Rufus says with a smirk and raising his mug to his lips, “you are two minutes late to start your shift in the cab, so he might not be completely wrong.”

“sh*t!” Dean scrambles to gather his papers and head to the cab, leaving the sound of Rufus chuckling into his coffee behind.

He takes the stairs two at a time, and by the time he opens the door to the cab, Castiel is already hooked up to one of the stations. Dean takes a calming breath at the door of the stairwell, but it doesn’t help as much as he hoped and the heavy closing of the fire door catches Castiel’s attention anyway. He meets Dean’s eye, and for a moment, Dean’s not sure what Castiel is gonna do. The eye contact lasts just a beat too long, then Castiel raises his wrist, taps his watch, and turns back to his station.

“sh*t,” Dean says again, then fits his own headset as he walks over to the spare chair beside Castiel. He drops into it just as Castiel finishes rattling off a take off clearance, then plugs himself in to the console.

“You decided to join us, I see,” Castiel says, his eyes still on the airfield.

“Sorry,” Dean mumbles. “I was down in the break room, lookin’ over the NOTAMs, and Rufus caught me, and I guess—”

“You’re sober?”

“What!” Dean has to grip the arms of the chair to prevent himself from jumping out of it. “Yes, obviously I’m sober. What kind of question is that?”

Castiel leans back in his chair, things calm for the moment, but still not looking at him. “It’s my job to ask. You seemed a bit out of it in the parking lot, and any laws you break or incidents you have on my license are just the same as if I’d done them.” He finally turns to Dean. “Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean says, his grip easing slightly. “We already went over that.”

Castiel nods once. “I thought the reminder would be helpful, given your tardiness also means throwing schedules off.” Just then, someone appears to grip the back of Castiel’s chair, and Dean jumps even as Castiel smiles. “Pamela can get hangry if she misses her break.”

“And you wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry,” the women, presumably Pamela, says. Her unchipped nails are painted a slick black which matches her distressed AC/DC tour t-shirt that looks like she might’ve actually got it on a live tour. She smiles wide and teasingly, holding out a hand. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Pamela.”

“Dean,” he says, taking her hand and being secretly impressed at the handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Dean,” she says, dropping his hand. “Good luck on checking out here. We need some warm bodies, but obviously not all bodies are created equal.” When Dean’s eyebrows shoot up, she laughs triumphantly.

“All right, thank you, Pamela.” Castiel is clearly trying to be a scold, but even Dean can hear the fondness in it. “We’ve got some instruction to do.”

“Hmm,” Pamela says, “of course. Let me get out of your hair.” As she turns to go, Pamela tangles her hands in the hair at the back of Castiel’s head and trails her fingertips down his neck and shoulder in the kind of intimate movement Dean’s not sure he’s ever actually experienced.

The realization washes over him like a bucket of ice water. Castiel might not be married anymore, but he doesn’t know why he never considered that might be nothing more complicated than people getting divorced for normal, everyday reasons.

Like falling in love with a woman at work.

“You all right with your girlfriend flirting with other guys like that?” Dean asks, trying to lighten the awkwardness and distract from his disappointment.

“I don’t think Pamela is the type of woman you can reasonably expect to ever reel that kind of thing in,” Castiel says, not betraying any emotion, which makes Dean feel worse. “Anyway. We have some instruction time to catch up on, so we should probably get started.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, gripping his mic controls in his hand. He’s grateful for the weight of it and the way it fits in his grip. It’s an easy way to ground himself, feel something real, or fidget with while trying to pay attention to all the little details he needs to keep track of. “Let’s do it.”

—

Dean grabs his lunch bag out of the fridge in the break room. Rufus must’ve stuck it in there when he sprinted off earlier in the morning. Castiel had to take a phone call during their first break of the morning, but now he’s sitting at one of the tables, eating some heated-up rice dish. Dean could sit at another one of the empty tables, but that’s a little anti-social, even for him. So he takes the seat across from Castiel, unpacks his sad ham and cheese sandwich and pop, and tries to ignore the way Castiel stares.

He picks at the cling wrap and doesn’t let the twisting of his stomach make the way he’s lost his appetite too obvious. “So, how am I doing so far?” Dean asks before taking a bite.

“Admirably,” Castiel says, returning his attention to his own lunch.

Dean nods a few times, considering. “That’s better than I expected you to say, I’m not going to lie.”

Castiel looks up from his Tupperware. “Oh?” He narrows his eyes, tips his head a little. “Why do you say that?”

Dean’s a bit taken aback. Castiel’s signals are mixed at best, weighted towards the negative, if Dean has any radar at all. “I didn’t think you were a fan of me, is all.”

“Whatever my opinion of you as a person, Dean, it has little bearing on your skill as a controller.” He takes another bite of his chicken and rice. “I would think the fact I was ready to give you my recommendation five years ago proved that.”

“Oh please,” Dean says, popping the top of his drink and taking a long swig to loosen the stone lodged in his throat. “You had a whole stack of those pre-filled.”

“That doesn’t mean they get handed out easily.”

Dean meets Castiel’s eyes for a moment and they seem too clueless to be anything but sincere. “All right,” Dean finally says with a shrug. He wants to ask more, about whether Castiel is proud he got this far without him or what he thought was so special about him five years ago, but he decides not to press his luck. Dean’s of the school of thought that not knowing the answer is better than getting one that’ll crush him. “I can’t help but think going from an Air Force captain to hanging around here is a bit of a step down in the world, ain’t it?”

This pulls a breath of a laugh from Castiel, like he’s too surprised by the comment to stamp it down. “You’d be surprised,” he says, a small smile on his face. “Also, I got promoted before I left, so I was actually Major Novak.” Dean laughs at that. Right out loud, not even minding he still has sandwich in his mouth, and Castiel’s smile widens. “I’m glad that my fall from grace is entertaining for you.”

“I mean, you’re a major something, that’s for sure.” Dean laughs again. “I feel like majors are pretty important, aren’t they? They just let you leave? Just like that?”

Castiel’s smile falters. “Well, no. It was a little more complicated than just walking out the door.” He places the fork on the table, straightens it so it’s parallel to his Tupperware. “But your brother would know that too, wouldn’t he?”

Dean sucks his teeth. He had to admit, turning it back on him like that was fair. sh*tty, but fair. “Yeah, they didn’t want my sasquatch of a brother to fly their fighter jets.”

“He really is quite remarkably tall,” Castiel says as if he doesn’t realize that whole statement is a bit batsh*t by itself.

“Apparently it ain’t safe when you’re that tall. Something about the ejector seats and sh*t.” Dean balls up the cling wrap now that he’s finished his sandwich. “But a mechanic salary wasn’t gonna get him through Stanford, no matter how many scholarships he got.” He tosses the cling wrap ball at the garbage and raises his arms in victory when it goes in. “Three pointer!” When he turns back, Castiel has a weird lopsided grin on his face that makes his eyes go all soft—the complete opposite of the look he got when Castiel threatened to wash Dean out—and heat rises from his shoulders, up his neck, to his ears before he lowers his arms and Castiel fixes his face.

Castiel clears his throat, as if to break the moment—if you could be sad enough to call it that. “So he signed up to do something else?” he continues, smoothing out his paper napkin.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, draining the last of his pop. “Well, kind of. The reserves. They taught him to fly the troop transports and sh*t.” He flicks at the pop top of the empty can. “Apparently you can be as tall as you want for that.”

“That makes sense,” Castiel says solemnly. “Is he still in California?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Dean says. “He’s in his first year of his law degree. I’ve never seen someone have to study that much.”

“Oh. I suppose I assumed he might have come home after the news about your father,” Castiel says, finishing the last of his meal.

“He’ll come home for his break, as usual,” Dean says, brought back to earth. He’d been grateful for the brief reprieve, however awkward, but it always circles back to John Winchester, doesn’t it? “I didn’t want him to mess up his sh*t.”

Castiel lets out a breath through his nose, smiling lightly as he reseals his Tupperware.

“What?” Dean asks, suddenly self-conscious, like he said too much somehow.

“Well,” Castiel says, slipping everything back into his lunch bag. “It seems you were more than ready to let it mess up your sh*t, that’s all.”

Dean opens his mouth, then closes it again. This guy isn’t the first to point out the hypocrisy of Dean’s plan, and he knows it’s true. But trying to explain it seems too dangerous, like he’ll accidently let Castiel convince him how much of an assbutt he is. He thinks about Rufus making him promise to ask for help and his skin crawls. He just needs to power through this one last thing. If he can keep his head down, not rock the boat too much, he can get to the other side.

“Yeah, well,” Dean says. “He’s just a kid.”

“In law school?” Castiel asks, too genuine to be sarcastic.

Dean sighs and stands, throwing his pop can in the recycling. “Figuratively speaking, I guess.” He looks back and tries not to notice the way his instructor has raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. “We gonna get back to controlling planes or what?”

He glances at his watch. “Yes, well, we can get started on your daily report, I suppose.”

Tightness seizes Dean’s chest, even though he knows he just got told he’s doing fine. “Cool. That sounds fine.”

“You’re doing well, Dean. It’s only day one.”

They put their lunch bags on the counter and head towards the cab. Dean opens the door to the stairwell and steps aside to let the other man through first. “Thanks, Cas.”

He looks to the open stairwell, then to Dean, then to the stairwell again, startled, like no one’s ever held a door open for the guy before. “Cas?” he asks before stepping through.

“Listen, buddy,” Dean starts as he follows him in and lets the door fall closed behind them. “Castiel’s got too many weird syllables all together for so short a name. You gotta throw me a bone here.”

Dean hears Cas’s short breath out through his nose, which he’s settled on being the closest he’s gonna get to a laugh out of him anytime soon. “All right. Just this once.”

Dean’s smile widens across his face as he slows to take two steps to Cas’s every one.

Just this once.

—

Dean actually feels like things might be okay by the time he rolls into the parking lot of Bobby’s garage. He signed his first daily report, passing with flying colours. Maybe it shouldn’t be that big a deal, given he’s got hundreds more to do, but still. Dean feels weirdly, distantly proud. Like maybe things aren’t gonna be that bad after all.

Which should have been his first clue that the next shoe was about to drop.

When Dean heads into the shop and slips behind the counter, the first thing he notices is a new toolbox in his old stall. He’d brought his own to the house when they were setting up to bring John home, but he’d figured he’d bring it back eventually. He walks over and wipes a hand over it, a large placard with the name DONNA in big swirly letters.

“Who the hell is Donna?” Dean mutters to himself.

“That’d be me!” a woman says cheerfully. She basically bounces onto the garage floor from around the corner, an impossibly bright smile on her face. Her blonde hair is tied back in a bun that’s starting to come loose and her coveralls are a little too big, but there’s no mistaking the Bobby Singer’s Auto Salvage patch with her name on it. “You must be Dean!”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, taking her outstretched hand. “That’s me.”

She shakes it too fast and too long. “Oh, it’s so nice to finally meet you! Bobby talks about you nonstop. It’s like I already know you!”

“Oh,” Dean says as he drops her hand. “Really?”

“You betcha!” she says, and Dean wonders how so much pep can be contained in such a small body. “Jody and I moved here from Sioux Falls a couple months back. I think you were off doing some fancy schooling?”

The connections start to fall together. Dean had met Jody a few times. She was an old friend of Bobby’s from when he lived back in South Dakota. The sheriff, he thinks faintly. Bobby had invited her down after Dean and Benny had started doing whatever they were doing. While he knew the timing of Bobby inviting his lesbian friend to talk about her amazing wife and brood of adopted kids wasn’t a coincidence, Dean was still grateful he didn’t have to do the whole coming out thing. Bobby and Sam had never outright asked Dean about it, and he never really said the word “bisexual” out loud, but somehow, they made it so he never had to.

He vaguely remembers now Bobby telling him Jody was moving out here for a new job, but he never much thought about it beyond that. “Basic training,” Dean says distantly, then quickly corrects. “For air traffic control, not the military or anything.”

“Oh!” Donna exclaims, laughing lightly. “That is fancy!”

“Not as much as you’d think,” Dean says, trying to stay friendly while he wonders what her toolbox is doing in his stall then. “Um, you know where Bobby is?”

“In the back office,” she says, pointing behind her like Dean hasn’t spent too many all nighters in there, trying to organize the place. She leans in a little, like she’s spilling a secret. “I just signed my contract. Can you believe it?” She leans back and makes an exaggerated surprised face.

“I sure can’t,” Dean says, tamping down all the boiling anger to save it for Bobby. “It was nice to meet you.”

“See you soon!” she calls out after him as Dean stomps off to the back office.

He raps lightly on the door before opening it without waiting for Bobby’s response. “Hey, Bobby,” he says, stepping in and closing the door behind him.

“Dean!” Bobby says from behind his desk, piled high with papers, and Dean’s head’s already spinning at how his filing system is probably beyond f*cked. “How was your first day, take two?”

“Good,” Dean says, lowering himself into one of the chairs facing the desk. “Passed. Made friends. You know.”

“That’s great, Dean,” Bobby says, resting his hands on the papers in front of him, some invoices as far as Dean can tell from here. “I knew you’d be fine.”

“Is that why you hired Donna?” Dean asks, keep his voice as low as possible with the fire stoking behind his ribs.

“Ah,” Bobby says.

“Yeah, ‘ah’.” Dean leans forward in his chair. “You were gonna keep my stall open for me, for when I wash out. So I got a ‘soft place to land’, is I think how you put it.”

“I did say that,” Bobby says, moving a few papers between piles.

“So why is Donna in my stall then?” Dean has to grip his hands together to keep from vibrating out of his skin.

Bobby stops and looks him dead in the eye. “’Cause it stopped being a safety net and started looking like the better option.” He leans forward too. “So now it ain’t an option at all.”

“What the f*ck, Bobby!” Dean shoots out of his chair and starts pacing the room. “I’m back at the job, ain’t I? You see me trying, don’t you?”

Bobby leans back, the chair screeching with him. “You just said ‘when I wash out’, Dean. Not ‘if’. ‘When’. That don’t give me a lot of confidence in you giving this your best go.”

Dean throws his hands in the air. “C’mon, Bobby! You know it’s just a matter of time! So now what am I supposed to do?”

“No, Dean, I don’t know.” Bobby’s too calm, and it just makes Dean’s skin itch worse. “You’re the only one who seems to think you failing is some inevitability. And it ain’t! Not unless you make it one.”

“You don’t know what you’re—”

Bobby cuts him off. “What I’m talkin’ about? Don’t I?” He stands too, leans over his desk. “I heard you talking to your instructor. I heard you say you were gonna come back here. Well, now you can’t.” Bobby stands straight again and crosses his arms. “It’s sink or swim now, Dean. Seems to be the only way you know how to live.”

The back of Dean’s neck feels like it’s on fire and he’d probably throw up if he had more than a ham sandwich in his stomach. “Who do you think you are?” Dean yells.

“I’m a business owner, Dean!” Bobby takes a deep breath. “We’ve been turning away work ‘cause we’re understaffed. This thing with your dad and with Donna lookin’ for work. . .seemed a good a time as any.”

“You can’t just—” Dean doesn’t know how he was going to finish that sentence. His mind spins too fast, panic building in his gut. He’s got Sammy to think of, his dad too. And now when he f*cks it all up like usual, more lives are gonna get ruined than his own. “Just—”

Bobby comes around from behind his desk and grips Dean by the shoulders. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but I’m doing this for you. Because I believe in you, Dean.”

All at once, the fire consumes him, and he shoves Bobby’s hands off him. “Then you’re way more of a f*cking fool than everyone pegs you to be.”

Dean only lets himself look at Bobby’s face crumble for a second before he storms out, slamming the door for good measure, and peels out of the parking lot as Benny and Garth look on from the open doors.

Chapter 5: i will die in the house that i grew up in (i’m homesick)

Chapter Text

what is home if not the first place
we learn how to run from?

Clementine von Radics, “courtney love”

-

Dean wakes up on Saturday morning with the sun leaking through the thinned curtains. He blinks through the hazy confusion of remembering where he is. He’s still not used to waking up someplace different than Bobby’s. After all the years on the road with his dad, the first time he ever got to stay in one spot longer than the couple of months John’s job lasted was that little matchbox above Bobby’s garage. Now he wakes up and bites down the panic, reminding himself those curtains can’t be the same ones his mom picked out for Sammy. She never touched them, because everything she ever touched has long since turned to ash.

“One week down,” he mumbles, popping his shoulders as he stretches wide. “Forever to go, I guess.” He rubs at his eyes with the heals of his hands. It’s his first day off since going back to the tower. His regular Monday to Friday schedule is only going to last through the first phase of training. Once he proves to Cas he’s got the basics down, he’s gotta do shift work like everyone else and practice during busier times of day and at night. He takes a deep breath to loosen the tightness in his chest.

He’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

It’s still early, but this is the only time of day guaranteed to give him some time to himself, so he throws off his comforter, hauls on a t-shirt and jeans from the pile he hopes is the clean one, and heads downstairs to brew some coffee. His legs are always too tight in the morning, so he hobbles around the kitchen until they stretch out. He got told once that physical therapy as a kid would’ve helped his muscles accommodate the bow in his legs, but that was never going to be a thing his father would tolerate, let alone facilitate. Dean pushes it out of his mind, and he’s walking mostly normal by the time the coffee starts to drip through the filter.

He leans against the counter, breathing in the aroma of cheap coffee and hoping it’ll clear his mind too, when there’s a rustling by the front door. He makes it to the stoop just in time to see a woman with short, dark, grey-speckled hair in a sheriff’s uniform turn back down the steps.

“Can I help you?” Dean asks, glancing down at the cardboard box with bread, cereal, apples, and a few other staples poking out of it.

She pauses halfway down a step, like she’s steeling herself for the conversation, then turns back. “Dean!” she exclaims with exaggerated cheer. “It’s so good to see you again!” She mistakes Dean’s quiet for not recognizing her, so she presses her hands to her chest. “It’s Jody! Bobby’s friend! We met a few times a couple years back?”

“I remember,” Dean says, still gripping the doorknob and refusing to look at the groceries again. “Bobby said you and your wife moved down here recently.”

“Yes!” she says with a breath of relief. “That’s me. The new sheriff in town.” She polishes the badge on her chest. “Well, acting sheriff.”

“You been looking forward to using that one?” Dean asks, knowing he also wouldn’t be able to stop using that joke for as long as it’d last.

Jody raises one shoulder in apologetic agreement. “What can I say? There are only so many chances in life for a good movie quote to apply, and I’d rather it not be the one about shooting me.”

Dean lets out a surprised laugh through his nose. “Yeah, I can get behind that.”

“So, um,” Jody claps her hands, “I hear you met my wife. Donna?”

“Uh, yeah.” Dean’s grip on the doorknob tightens again, the fight with Bobby coming back in echoes. It’s sink or swim now, Dean. Heat climbs up his collar remembering the way Bobby’s face broke when he called him an old fool. “She seems. . . cheerful.”

Jody laughs. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” The smile that crosses her face is so fond, Dean looks away, like he’s interrupting a private moment. “Anyway! I was on my way to the station, and you’re. . . you know, on my way, so I volunteered to bring this over to you. . .” Jody gestures uselessly to the unacknowledged box of groceries, obviously trying to avoid the implication that Bobby didn’t want to come himself. “Just some stuff to, uh, tide you over for a bit.”

Dean stares down at the box again. He wants to be stubborn and send it back, but he also knows he’s not going to have anything to eat with the black coffee he’s currently brewing if he doesn’t take it. And if his dad wakes up while he’s on a grocery run. . .

“Thanks.” Dean takes a deep breath as if he could physically swallow his pride and picks up the box, propping the door open with his foot. “And thank Bobby for me,” he adds quietly as he moves to head back in the house.

Jody opens her mouth as if to deny how the groceries got there, but she decides against it. Instead, she smiles softly and says, “I will.” Then, she heads back down the walk and Dean brings the groceries into the kitchen where the coffeemaker is sputtering its last dregs.

He drops the box on the counter, gripping the edge until his knuckles strain. Dean digs at the very bottom of his gut for the gratefulness he knows he’s supposed to feel, but he finds it being strangled by his anger. He swallows hard, dangling his head, unsure how to balance against all the conflicting emotions at war within him. The coffeemaker struggles to spit out more water that’s already drained, and Dean swats at the power button hard enough to spill a cup’s worth of coffee all over the counter, soaking into the box.

“f*ck,” he mutters, grabbing the dish towel off the oven handle and mopping up the mess. “f*cking typical.” He pushes the spill over the counter and over the cabinets. “Jesus. Why can’t you do one goddamn thing right?” He throws the dish towel towards the stairs for the inevitable laundry and pours himself some coffee, black. John stirs upstairs and Dean ignores the way his hand shakes as he raises the mug to his lips.

—

John had a good day as these things go, but Dean mostly suspects that’s because the day nurse wasn’t there. He keeps insisting she’s hiding something, telling Dean they can’t trust her. Sometimes a new nurse would do, but most times, John demands Dean abandons the idea of home care completely. He insists he’s not sick, and even if he was, it’s Dean’s duty to honour his father and not leave it up to strangers.

So Dean decides to accept Benny and Garth’s invitation for a beer. Or three.

He takes the Impala over to the garage, arriving a little earlier than agreed to meet the guys, and drums his thumbs on the steering wheel before he finally gets up the nerve to head in. He makes a beeline for Bobby’s office, only offering a small wave to the folks who greet him on the way in. If he stops, he’s going to lose his nerve, and he needs to get this over with.

Dean raps lightly on Bobby’s half-cracked office door and steps in before he gets permission. “Hey, Bobby.”

Bobby’s head shoots up, that same ratty ball cap pulled low. His red-lined eyes are wide with surprise to see Dean in his office, and Dean’s gut pulls at being the cause of his sleepless nights.

“Dean,” Bobby says. “Uh, come in.”

“Thanks,” Dean says, swinging the door closed again behind him, but he doesn’t sit down. He just shoves his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket that’s not in much better shape than Bobby’s cap and tips back on his heels, not sure how to start.

“How’s work been going?” Bobby asks, his chin high in that hopeful way that just reminds Dean how misplaced Bobby’s faith in him is.

“Good, good.” Dean shifts inside the too-big jacket, like he could disappear inside it. “First week officially in the can.”

Bobby smiles. “Good. That’s good.”

“Listen,” Dean starts, unable to look right at Bobby. “I ran into Jody this morning.”

Bobby’s eyebrows jump. Obviously Jody didn’t debrief him. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Dean continues. “On my front step, as it were.” He coughs when Bobby doesn’t respond. “She was dropping off some groceries.”

“That was nice of her,” Bobby says as if it’s not obvious that the gig is up.

Dean clears his throat again, rubbing his hand over his chin. “Yeah. She seems great.” Then, he digs in his pocket for a wad of bills that should cover the groceries, probably plus some, and tosses it on Bobby’s desk. “Anyway, here.”

Bobby looks at the money like Dean gave him a flaming bag of sh*t instead. “What’s this?”

“It’s for the groceries.” Dean steps back again. “Should be more than enough.”

The softness that lined Bobby’s face when Dean first entered gains its sharp edges again. “What makes you think I want this?”

Dean shrugs, trying to act casual. “I just don’t want to owe anybody anything, that’s all.”

“Owe anybody anything,” Bobby repeats quietly. “Right. ‘Course.” He picks up the bills, straightens them out. “I’ll make sure this gets to Jody.”

“Right, Jody,” Dean says, nodding. There’s a heavy silence between them, and Dean can’t let more settle on his shoulders. “Well, I’m gonna go meet Benny and Garth. Get a few beers.”

“Sure,” Bobby says. “Thanks for stopping by.”

Dean attempts a smile but fails. “Yeah. Okay. See ya, Bobby.” And he’s out the door before he can hear Bobby’s reply, if he even makes one at all.

Benny and Garth are standing at the open garage door, waiting for Dean to come out of Bobby’s office. Whatever conversation they were having dries up as Dean gets closer, and Benny straightens from leaning against the post.

“Everything squared, Chief?” Benny hooks his thumbs into his coveralls, never knowing what to do with his hands when there isn’t a smoke in one.

“Yeah,” Dean says, resisting a glance over his shoulder. “Yeah. Let’s go get trashed.”

“Sounds like a time,” Benny agrees, wrapping his heavy arm around Dean and squeezing at his neck in that reassuring way that meant something else once. “C’mon, Garth. You’re drivin’.”

—

It takes two beer before the knot between Dean’s shoulder blades loosens, and he kicks back in their regular booth in the back corner of Rocky’s Bar, nursing his third. Benny and Garth are careful to dance around how the garage is doing without him, but they can’t hide their enthusiasm about how much smoother the work goes with Donna in his stall. Dean doesn’t begrudge them enjoying a less chaotic workplace; he does resent a little that it’s without him, though.

“She’s a cool chick,” Garth says, in a too sincere way that makes “chick” sound like a misnomer. “Really knows her stuff for someone who used to be a cop.”

Dean’s ears perk up. “She was a cop?”

“Yeah, apparently that’s how she met her wife, on a joint task force,” Garth continues. “She said you guys met a while back.”

Dean pointedly doesn’t look at Benny, who he suspects is pointedly looking at his beer. “Yeah, she visited Bobby for a few days once a few years back.”

Garth nods, missing or ignoring the subtext at the table. “Anyway, Jody got the acting sheriff job here and Donna had apparently been helping out at Bobby’s old garage in Sioux Falls. Seemed to all come together real easy.” He takes a drink of his beer, still on his first.

“Hmm,” Dean grunts. “Real easy.” He swirls his beer a little to catch some of the foam clinging to the glass, and Garth happily chatters on about the kids they have who stayed back in South Dakota. One’s training as a mechanic at the same garage while her girlfriend is studying at the university. Another’s a nurse at the hospital. Garth says he can’t remember what the latest to join their brood is doing.

“Apparently she had a falling out with her dad, finished high school up with them.” It seems like Garth somehow knows their entire life stories already and is only too happy to relay every detail. “I think her grandmother died or something—”

“All right, Garth,” Benny drawls. “How ‘bout you leave something for Donna and Jody to tell Dean when they finally see him again, huh?”

Garth chuckles, like he was so silly to forget himself. “Oh, yeah, yeah, ‘course.” He turns to Dean, that wide grin on his face. “Just pretend you don’t know any of that. Then you’ll seem like you were listening real hard.” Garth winks, and it pulls a stifled laugh out of Dean.

“I’m not gonna remember half of that anyway, Garth, but good tip.” He downs the rest of his beer. “Don’t have another shift ‘till Monday, and I’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Let’s take it slow, huh, brother?” Benny says, though he refills Dean’s glass from the pitcher anyway. “We’ve got all night.”

Dean raises his glass in thanks, then takes a long drink.

“So, how was the first official week, anyway?” Garth asks. “Your boss still a stick in the mud?”

“He’s not my boss,” Dean grumbles.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” Benny says with a laugh, draining the last of his own pint.

Dean sighs, drawing lines down the condensation gathering on his glass. “Nah, he’s—” Dean considers what to say about Cas. After the initial shock of the Captain Novak/Castiel switcharoo wore off, Cas has kind of started to grow on him. He gets what Rufus meant about him being a weird little guy, but it’s more endearing than he was expecting. And he’s a more attentive teacher than their initial meeting let on.

“Oh,” Benny says, a smile creeping across his face. “It’s like that.”

“Like what?” Garth says, sitting up straighter in his seat. “What’d I miss?”

Benny chuckles. “Dean-o here’s hot for teacher.”

Garth’s eyebrows shoot up as Dean rolls his eyes. “I am not.” Still, Dean’s shoulders rise up to his ears involuntarily. “He’s just maybe not as bad as I thought, is all.”

Before anyone else can get a quip in, Jo arrives at the table with a fresh pitcher. “What’re you boys giggling about over here?” she asks as she swaps it for the empty one.

“Dean’s got a crush,” Benny says.

“Oh my God,” Dean says, shielding his face behind a hand.

“Oh, really?” Jo says. “What’s their name? When we get to meet them?”

“Jesus,” Dean mutters when the guys laugh, downing most of his pint.

“He’s Dean’s boss,” Garth says cheerfully.

“He’s not my boss,” Dean corrects again before turning his attention to Jo. “And I do not have a crush on him.” He punches Benny in the shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m just saying I’ve seen that look before,” Benny says before refilling his glass, and the table is quiet briefly.

“Still,” Jo says, “I wanna meet the new boss!”

“Not my boss!” Dean says again, exasperated.

“You never did tell us his name,” Garth says. “Maybe then we can stop calling him your boss all the time.”

Dean sighs. “Castiel,” he says reluctantly. “His name is Castiel.” He shrugs a little. “Cas.”

Jo puts her hand on Benny’s shoulder. “Damn, you called it.”

“Okay, thank you, I think we’re good,” Dean says. “We’ve all had our fun.”

“I just got here!” Jo protests before her mom calls for her from the bar.

Dean points. “See? That’s a boss.”

Jo makes a jerking off motion at him before she grabs her tray and heads back to work, even though her smirk hasn’t faded.

Dean drops his head as she walks off, and Benny elbows him in the ribs.

“C’mon, Chief. It’s not that bad, is it?” When Dean doesn’t respond right away, he pokes him again, harder.

“Ow!” Dean says, finally sitting up and covering his ribs with his free hand.

“Well? Is it?” Benny asks.

“I mean, kind of!” Dean says, and Garth laughs triumphantly. “Yeah, okay, whatever. It’s not like it matters. He’s divorced, got a girlfriend at the tower already.” The guys nod sympathetically, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut. He knows it’s going to get out eventually, so it might as well be now. Rip the band aid off. “It actually turns out that—” Dean swallows hard. “His name is Castiel Novak.”

The guys stop drinking and look at Dean. Having assumed he would never actually see Captain Novak again, Dean might’ve told a few people about the dreamy military officer who offered him a whole new life. He never saw the harm in talking about something that was never going to happen and someone he would never see again. ‘Course, he does now, and the shame eats at him from the inside out.

“You mean Novak like—” Garth starts.

“Captain Novak, yeah.” Dean drains the rest of his pint and doesn’t bother to try to remember what number he’s at when he pours another. “The Captain f*cking Novak.”

“Well, sh*t,” Benny says. “What’re the chances?”

Dean scoffs but taps his glass to Benny’s. “In my life, a hundred per cent, apparently.”

“That’s good though, ain’t it?” Garth says, ever the optimist. “You said he liked you, thought you’d make a good controller.”

“Yeah,” Dean groans, trying to come up with something to shut him down, but he can’t. Garth’s right. If anyone is gonna give him a break, it’s gonna be Cas. But when it’s a slow day at the tower, or they’re eating their lunch across from each other, or Cas is going over Dean’s daily training report, sometimes his mind can’t help but wander to all the nights Dean spent picturing what the life Captain Novak offered him would be like, what it would be like to be with Captain Novak. To have someone around who looks at you like they actually see you standing there instead of whatever act you’ve got on or, worse, straight through you, like you barely even exist. Then the shame curdles in his stomach, turns distracting, and he can swear Cas sees it written all over his face.

“Maybe it’s better that he’s got himself a girl then,” Benny says with a supportive clap to Dean’s shoulder. “Keeps it firmly in the fantasy camp.”

Dean chuckles a little, considering the notion. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“Can’t want what you can’t have, brother.” Then, Benny drains his pint, and they let the topic die when Garth cheers at the goal happening in the sports match on the television behind them.

—

Monday comes faster than Dean hoped. While John spent most of Sunday in the recliner he claims to hate so much watching football, Dean set to getting the house organized for the week ahead. Clean laundry, clean dishes. He even stocked the kitchen so he wouldn’t have another Bobby Incident. He hid his father’s medication refills and texted the home aide where everything was for her visit that day, then left for his hour drive to the airport before his father was even out of bed. John hadn’t even been home that long, and Dean still wondered which of them his father’s liver disease was going to kill first.

The morning passes easily enough. The morning rush of departures clears without any problems, and then there’s the usual lull between the commercial traffic and the rec pilots getting their slots for the day. By the time Pamela comes to relieve them for their lunch break, Dean’s pretty much climbing the walls.

“You two be good now,” Pamela says, throwing a wink Cas’s way as Dean unplugs his headset from the console. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Cas laughs, a small smile crinkling his eyes, and Dean wants to learn how to do that. “I think we’ll be safe in the break room, Pamela.”

“Hmm,” she says as she plugs in and fits her headset over her ears. “You boys lack imagination.”

Cas’s smile creeps a little further up one side of his face, and he waves her off as he makes sure Dean is following him down the stairwell. “Don’t mind her,” he says once the door closes behind them. “She enjoys the shock factor.”

“Obviously.” Dean resists the urge to pass Cas on the stairs and just run this spare energy out of his body, but he’s worried that might look a little on the wrong side of crazy for this kind of job. “I wouldn’t have pegged you two working out.”

“Pamela’s an interesting woman. She likes to say she contains multitudes, but mostly I think she likes to think she keeps people guessing.”

Dean doesn’t love the affection undertowing Cas’s description, and it twists something deep in his chest he can’t quite put a finger on. It’s not the first time he’s wondered how other people describe him when he’s not around, let alone by someone who could make his name sound like it does in Cas’s mouth.

“Sounds like she’s good at it,” Dean says.

Cas hums his agreement as they exit the basem*nt-level doors and head towards the break room. Dean grabs his cell first out of the lockers lining the walls since they can’t bring them into the cab, and his heart freezes at the notifications covering his screen. He has a bunch of missed calls and texts from the home nurse and even a few from Sam. He taps the most recent message from the nurse first, but he can’t make much of it out through the yelling and her tears. The text just notes their contract with his family is terminated for cause effective immediately and that he’d receive a more formal communication in the next one to two business days. Dean’s ears burn, his throat closing, as he opens Sam’s conversation. There isn’t any other information there, other than him asking Dean what’s going on and why John is demanding he come home.

“Everything all right?” Cas asks.

Dean looks up to see that Cas has already pulled both their lunches from the fridge and put them in their usual spots. Dean swallows hard. “Uh, yeah. I just have to—” His mind spins through everything that could’ve happened, through everything he had to do to get that home nurse set up in the first place. If he can even finish his shifts this week if he can’t get someone else in soon. “Sorry, I’m just gonna make a call.”

Cas nods, and Dean ducks out into the concrete hallway to call his father. The phone rings too many times, and Dean’s about to hang up to call again when John finally answers.

“Hello?” His voice is deep, the kind of hollowed out scratch that Dean recognizes far too easily as the whiskey-slick roughness after the screaming dies down.

“Dad, it’s Dean.” He realizes the scenarios that had flipped through his mind were probably too tame. “What’s going on? I have like a hundred messages on my phone right now.”

John hums. “Your nurse quit.”

Dean pinches the bridge of his nose until black spots dot his vision. “Yeah, I gathered that from her messages about never coming back. Why did she quit?”

“I don’t appreciate being told what to do in my own home, Dean.”

“What the f*ck does that mean?” Dean asks, his stomach dropping through his feet. Dean always gives his father too much credit, he knows that, but whatever his father was capable of with him or Sam, it never occurred to him that Dean might be putting someone in danger by leaving them in the house alone with him. The horror of it crashes over him in waves. When John still hasn’t answered, Dean asks again. “Dad, what did you do to her?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he replies. “She just surprised me.” John coughs, wet and loud, and it confirms to Dean that a month sober was too good to be true for John Winchester. “These people are always making a federal case out of nothin’—”

“Dad,” Dean cuts in. “I have work, okay? I can’t get into this right now.”

“Well, maybe you should be here, then, huh? None of this would’ve happened if you’d just do what you should’ve in the first place and not let that bitch—”

“Dad!” Dean says. “We’ll talk about this later. Go—” He takes a breath, wondering what he’s even gonna do. “Go sleep it off or something. Take a shower. Just—stop drinking and don’t talk to anybody else.” Dean’s about to hang up, but then remembers. “And stop texting Sam.”

Dean ends the call and scans the hallway, desperate for something to punch that won’t also destroy his hand, but there’s nothing. Just corkboards and grey concrete and red-painted steel doors. So, instead, he kicks the rubber baseboard with his boot and dials the home care company. The woman who answers is curt and blunt. Dean apologies, says he understands why they won’t send any nurses back, but manages to eke out a referral or two for places with experience with “high-need patients”. It’ll run him more, maybe way more, but it could work. He apologies again, asks her to pass it on to their regular nurse too, but even though the manager’s voice softens on her goodbye, the guilt eating at his stomach doesn’t ease.

Dean sends off a quick taking care of it text to Sam as he shoulders back into the break room. Cas has already started eating, scrolling through his own phone absentmindedly. When the door shuts, Cas’s attention swings over to Dean, his blue eyes wide with curiosity and concern. Dean’s mouth falls open, but nothing manages to come out. Instead, he just lets his eyes fall to his phone.

“You need the afternoon?” Cas asks without judgment.

Dean shakes his head harder than necessary. “No.” He takes a deep breath that still somehow doesn’t make it all the way into his lungs. “No, I gotta stay. Just—” He holds his phone up like an explanation. “Trouble at home I’ll have to figure out.”

Cas nods sympathetically, then gestures to his lunch. “Well, if you’re going to stay, you better eat. You still need to stay sharp for the rest of your shift.”

“Right,” Dean says, even though his appetite has long evaporated. He pulls out the plastic chair across from Cas and slowly unpacks his sad little ham and cheese sandwich. Bobby’s grocery run had included those yogurt cups he hasn’t had since he was a kid, so he tossed a few of those in there too. He avoids Cas’s eye as he opens one and drains it.

“Is there anything I can do?” Cas asks, his phone sitting abandoned.

“Know a good home nurse who doesn’t mind verbal abuse from an old drunk?” Dean asks while he unwraps his sandwich, a little startled that he said it at all. “’Cause looks like I could use one.”

“Oh,” Cas says solemnly.

“Yeah,” Dean says, taking a bite out of his sandwich. “Oh.”

Cas pokes at his rice and chicken dish, the same one he had every day last week. This one has a different sauce, though. A weird green that should look unnatural but smells clean somehow. “I’m sorry you have to deal with that. I knew your father was ill, but I didn’t—”

“It’s all right,” Dean says, cutting him off. There’s a reason Dean doesn’t talk about his dad much. He hates the way it changes how people look at him, like all the cuts and burns and bruises he collected over the years all rise to the surface at once and the whole world can see what Dean actually is on the inside. Battered and broken beyond repair. Beyond hope. To be honest, the rolled eyes and write offs are easier to take than the pity. “The place that just fired him has some leads.” He takes another bite. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Still,” Cas says carefully, “that’s a lot to take on while you’re training.”

Dean stares resolutely at the last of his sandwich. “Well, the time will pass anyway. That’s what they say, right?” He stuffs the rest of his sandwich in his mouth in one go, but he can see the way Cas’s hand relaxes around his fork.

“They do say that, yes.” Cas rustles around in his lunch bag and produces two Tupperwares. “My ex-wife was over on the weekend, and she brought over one of her famous apple pies.” Dean’s eyes shoot up at that, and Cas chuckles a little. “I know, but the split was very mutual and very amicable.” He opens one of the containers, and the room instantly smells of cinnamon and apples. “I thought you might like a slice since, you know, you officially clocked in a full week.”

Dean’s eyebrows jump in surprise. “Oh, wow.” He’s never been one to turn down a free slice of pie, but he can’t help being taken aback. It would be one thing if Cas was bringing food for the break room or something, but he sees the masking tape on the lid of the Tupperware that Cas tried to quickly tuck away: DEAN in big letters. And, as far as Dean can tell from Cas’s daily training reports, not in his handwriting either. “It, uh—” He’s a little embarrassed at the way his throat burns from the sentiment, even though this is just basic human kindness from an instructor to his trainee. “It smells amazing.”

“It’s better when it’s warm, and you’ve got some fresh ice cream, but even like this it’s better than most pies I’ve had.” Cas slides the container over along with a second fork he’d packed. “Congrats. You earned it.”

Dean doesn’t meet Cas’s eyes when he pulls the pie the rest of the way to him, but he waits until Cas opens his own Tupperware before he tastes it.

“Oh my God,” he says after the first bite. “This is—” He spears a piece of apple that got loose. “This is the best apple pie I’ve ever had.”

Cas smiles triumphantly. “I’ll pass on your compliments.”

“f*ck yeah, pass on my compliments.” Dean takes another bite. “This is awesome.”

Cas laughs and delicately takes his own first bite, and Dean resists the urge to check if his eyes crinkle the way they did with Pamela in the cab. Instead, he reminds himself of what Benny said a couple nights earlier: You can’t want what you can’t have.

Chapter 6: hope (was a letter i never could send)

Chapter Text

When I want something
with my whole being, and the universe withholds it
from me, I hope the universe thinks to herself,

Silly girl. She thinks this is what she wants,
but she does not understand how it will hurt.

Blythe Baird, “Theories About the Universe”, If My Body Could Speak

-

The next couple weeks go by without much to mark them. Dean does his regular shifts with Cas at the tower and John’s health stays stable enough that Dean doesn’t bother looking into another nurse just yet, even though it strains his conversations with his brother because he’s not interested in having a philosophical discussion about the morality of keeping a person alive who doesn’t seem to have much interest in participating in the endeavour. Dean just knows that he’s not going to let his father drink himself to death alone, and he isn’t going to invite someone to become John’s new punching bag.

Dean’s still on the phone with his brother when he pulls into the parking lot of the tower.

“I’m just saying, Dean.” His brother’s voice is hoarse with sleep, but he wanted to talk before class. With the time difference, one of them is usually calling from bed these days. “It would be easier to dry Dad out if the both of us can keep an eye on him.”

Dean scoffs. “As if anyone can come between John Winchester and his whiskey.” He turns off the car but doesn’t get out yet. “Listen, Sam. Dad just needs some time to adjust to the idea, that’s all. Dying is a lot to wrap your head around. I’d probably need some alcohol to wash it down too.”

“Even if that’s what’s killing you?”

Dean sighs. “I don’t know what to tell you, man.” He wants to tell Sam that by the time someone’s basically drunk themselves to death, they probably aren’t all that interested in slowing the process down, but he still wants to save his little brother from the worst of it. Honestly, he’s glad it’s not the kind of thing that would occur to Sam. “His doctors aren’t worried.”

Sam breathes into the receiver, angry. “How can they not be concerned?”

“They see this stuff all the time, Sammy, okay?” Dean opens his door, hoping the ambient noise of the airport will get Sam off the phone. “When they say we gotta worry, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I just—” He cuts himself off when a jet flies low over the parking lot. “You’ve gotta go to work.”

“I’ve gotta go to work,” Dean repeats, climbing out of the car and locking up. He’s actually early, leaving before John came downstairs. He didn’t want to risk ending up late if his father decided to make another scene. “Don’t worry, okay? Focus on your lawyer sh*t and we’ll see each other at Christmas like usual. If you don’t like what you see then, we can have another conversation.” Dean crosses the parking lot as he waits for Sam to answer. “Deal?”

“Yeah,” Sam says finally. “Yeah, deal.”

Dean passes his ID badge over the reader and hauls the heavy door open. “Okay. Good. I gotta lose my phone now, but text me if you need me. I’ll see it on my breaks. And ignore any bullsh*t Dad sends.”

“I have his number silenced, actually,” Sam says, a little conspiratorial. Then, he’s quiet for a moment, and Dean almost hangs up. “Thanks, Dean. For all this. For everything.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He walks down the hallway towards the lockers to put his sh*t away. “What’re big brothers for, huh?”

“Not this, Dean,” Sam says, and Dean’s throat tightens to the point of pain. “A lot of big brothers wouldn’t do this.”

“I’m at the lockers, Sammy.” Dean barely manages to get the sentence out. “I’ll talk to you soon, all right?” He hangs up before Sam can respond and tosses his phone and jacket in the locker before shutting the door too loudly. Thankfully, he’s the only one here. Even Cas hasn’t clocked in yet.

He figures he’ll review the day’s NOTAMs up in the cab. He likes it there. Dean’s not sure why, but it’s like the constant weight he carries in his chest can’t cross the threshold once he’s up there. Dean always assumed that pressure is all that keeps him together; that without something pressing down on him, he would fall apart—all his broken pieces hurdling in a thousand directions. But here, sitting in a room in the clouds, seeing more of the world than most people ever do, makes him wonder if that’s true. That maybe the absence of it wouldn’t shatter him. It might let it all settle together instead.

He heads up the stairs, and when he enters the cab, he notices Pamela and Crowley crowded on one side of the console. There are several positions spread out across the console that line the windows facing the airfield and most times there are a few free at any given time since MCI isn’t exactly a bustling hub. Pamela looks over her shoulder when the door closes behind Dean and rolls her eyes at him as she tries to give her departure clearance over Crowley’s British brogue. She gestures to a pair of legs poking out from under the far end of the console before turning her attention back to the board.

Dean wanders over to find skinny legs clad in coveralls and ending in Chucks. He tucks his iPad under his arm, NOTAMs temporarily abandoned, and crouches down to see what’s going on underneath. A woman glances back at him with a wide smile and bright red hair in braids. She waggles her eyebrows and mouths, “Watch this” before plugging a large circuit back in. The familiar hum of radio frequencies returns to the cab, and Pamela immediately exclaims, “Thank God!” She’s not going to be able to switch stations until Cas gets here, but Dean laughs anyway, moving out of the way while the tech crawls out from the cabinet.

Dean straightens, then offers his hand to help her up. She takes it, but hardly needs it, easily bouncing to her feet and brushing her hands down the front of her uniform. The name tag reads CHARLIE, and her coveralls are the telltale blue of the TechOps folks who keep the communications and navigation equipment running at the airport.

“Impressive,” Dean says without an ounce of sarcasm. “I think you could probably ask Pamela for the moon right now and she’d get it for you.”

Charlie laughs. “Yeah, well, all in a day’s work, I guess.” She smiles up at him, and Dean wonders at how easily it hangs there. “You’re new though. I haven’t seen you around.”

“Yeah, I’m training here. Just started last month.” Dean holds out a hand again. “Dean Winchester.”

“Ah, Dean Winchester, yes.” She takes his hand and shakes it clumsily. “I’m Charlie Bradbury, TechOps. Obviously.” She laughs again. “We had the main frequency go down for a sec, but we should be back up now. I’ll let Rufus know.”

“One last thing for me to remember,” Dean says, gesturing with the iPad he still hasn’t signed in with yet.

Charlie gives a little two-finger salute. “You’re welcome.” She closes up the cabinet doors that gave her access to the console wiring. “You’re training under Castiel, I guess?”

“Yep,” Dean says, instinctively checking over his shoulder at their usual position.

Charlie nods. “That’s cool.” Then, she leans forward mischievously. “He’s pretty dreamy, isn’t he?”

Dean’s ears instantly light on fire. “What?” His first instinct is to run out of the tower, but he manages not to, only letting one of his feet step back to hit the power bar behind him.

Charlie giggles. “Oh, c’mon. Those eyes?” She shakes her head. “I’m telling you, if I was into dudes, I’d be into that dude.”

“You’re—” Dean can’t quite get the words out. He’s out to everyone important, and it’s not like he’s ashamed, per se. It just never really comes up, and the queer community isn’t exactly jumping in Lawrence.

“Gay?” she finishes. “Yeah, I am.” He swallows hard as Charlie gives him that oh, you sweet summer child look. “And my gaydar has been honed over many, many years of being the only one in crappy little backwater towns so. . .” She raises her eyebrows.

Dean lets out a breath, kind of like a laugh. “Guilty,” he says, finally, eyes on his shoes.

“Good,” Charlie says, slapping her hand on his shoulder. “I’ve got to keep my batting average up.” Just then, the heavy door from the stairwell opens, and Castiel walks in. “Speak of the devil!”

“Hello, Charlie,” Cas says as he joins them. “I hear we’ve had some excitement already this morning.”

“Sure did,” she says. “But it means I got to meet your newest trainee.” Charlie taps Dean with the back of her hand again. “They let anyone in these days, huh?”

“Hey!” Dean says with false offence.

Cas smiles. “Yes, well, we have to do the best with what we have, don’t we?”

“Okay, f*ck you guys,” Dean says, matching the smiles reflected back at him from Charlie and Cas. “I’m awesome.”

Cas tips his head playfully. “Let’s not get carried away. We’ll say above average for now. Save awesome for when you check out.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, the heat returning to the tips of his ears. “Don’t hurt yourself, Cas.”

“Cas?” Charlie says, catching Dean’s eyes with a significant look. “We’re going with Cas now?”

Cas lets out a breath through his nose and rolls his eyes, and Dean tries to ignore the flush that dusts his cheekbones. “Fewer syllables to remember, I’m told.”

Charlie hmms, and Dean breaks the moment. “Well, we should probably hop on. Pamela might actually murder Crowley this time if we leave them alone too long.”

“Yeah, go ahead. All the stations should be up now. Rufus will be glad to hear it’s all back online.” Charlie throws up the Vulcan salute. “Don’t break anything else, losers.” Then she’s off towards the stairwell and Dean watches her go with the ghost of a smile on his face.

“She’s a character,” Cas says as he heads towards an open station with two hook ups. He raises a hand to get Pamela’s attention, and she returns a thumbs up. “You ready to go?”

“I still gotta sign in and review the NOTAMs,” Dean says, sitting in the chair beside Cas. “But should only take a second.”

“Okay, you do that,” Cas says. “I’ll take the hand off from Pamela.”

Dean nods and turns his attention to the iPad. He logs in, then signs off his initials on all the NOTAMs he reads through. Then he does the same on the timesheet, and by the time he’s done, Cas has a stack of strips in front of him, and he’s already giving a clearance when Dean plugs in. Cas turns his head as he speaks, flashing a thumbs up. Dean returns it, and they settle into their shift easy as Baby drives down the highway after a fresh oil change.

—

“So,” Cas says when they’re settled in for lunch again. “You’re coming to the end of the first phase.” He removes the lid of his usual lunch, and the sauce is an unnatural purple this time. Dean would turn his nose up at it except it smells amazing, inexplicably like spring. “How are you feeling?”

Once again, Dean feels entirely inadequate unwrapping his own lunch. This time, he’s got a poor man’s Winchester Surprise with bologna and American cheese. “Good, I think,” he replies. “I mean, I think I’ve got a lot of the basics covered.”

Cas nods, folding his rice over the peculiar sauce. “I agree.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”

“It means you should probably expect to be on shift work the next time the schedule comes out.” Cas scoops some food into his mouth after making sure he has rice, chicken, and sauce all on the fork. “In case you need to make arrangements.”

A smile cracks Dean’s lips, letting his brain skip across Cas’s meaning, at least for now. He’d rather the moment be his, just this once. “Cool,” he says, nodding a few times.

“We still have to do the evaluation,” Cas says, glancing up at Dean through his eyelashes, “but I expect that will largely be a formality.”

“No pressure,” Dean says with a laugh.

“Not from me,” Cas says without missing a beat, and a lump quickly forms in Dean’s throat he has to force his sandwich past. “Very few people wash out in phase one,” Cas continues. “I think your brain power would probably be put to better use planning your celebration rather than worrying about passing.”

Dean coughs. “My celebration?”

“You owe us all drinks.” Cas delivers it like it’s legitimately bad news. “It’s tradition, I’m afraid.”

“That right?” Dean asks.

Cas nods gravely. “Yes. It’s an enormous inconvenience, but it must be done.”

“Because it’s tradition,” Dean says, his smile creeping back, finally catching on to Cas’s deadpan delivery.

“Yes. Tradition is very important to everyone here.” Cas takes another bite, this time staring right at Dean. “I would hate to see you get on everyone’s bad side so early.”

Dean lets out a one-note laugh. “Yeah, yeah, okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Can I ask you something?” Cas asks. “You don’t have to answer if you’re uncomfortable.”

“That bodes well.” Dean takes a bite of his Winchester Surprise. “Shoot,” he says with his mouth full.

Cas digs in his lunch a little. “Why did you decide to use the operating initials DS? There wasn’t anything stopping you from using DW.”

Dean works the muscles in his jaw, considering his answer. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Cas puts a hand up. “I understand. It’s no problem.”

They go back to eating their lunch, the awkward silence hanging between them. Dean finishes his sandwich, brushes the crumbs off his fingers, and doesn’t want to leave it like this. He doesn’t want to tell Cas about his dad, not yet. Dean’s still kind of hoping to trick Cas into thinking he’s a decent guy before revealing the bait and switch. Still, he doesn’t want to seem dodgy, or like he doesn’t trust him. Because, somehow, Dean does. He knows Cas is straight and he’s in a relationship and that there’s zero chance for anything vaguely resembling the fantasy life with Captain Novak he’d built up in his head over the last five years. But if Dean is good at anything, it’s breaking his own heart, and it’s never been easier to be whoever he is under all this. . .whatever than when he’s with Cas.

“What’s with the lunch anyway?” Dean asks finally.

Cas looks up, narrowing his eyes and tipping his head like a German Shepherd. Dean would tease him about it if he wasn’t worried he’d stop.

“You have the same thing every day, but then you have, like, what? Purple or green or orange sauce? I’ve never seen food that colour before.”

“Oh,” Cas says with a light, almost embarrassed, smile. “It’s curry.”

“Really?” Dean pulls the almost empty container towards him. “No it isn’t. Curry’s hot.”

“Not always.” Cas cleans his fork off on a napkin and hands it to Dean to take the last bite. “Try it.”

“Oh, dude, I’m not going to eat your lunch out from under you,” Dean says, sliding it back.

Cas smiles. “It’s fine. I’m done.” He pushes it forwards. “Really.”

Dean takes the fork and scoops up the last bite. “What’s in it?”

“This one is hibiscus and beetroot,” Cas answers, and Dean groans when he tastes it. The earthiness of the flower and the beetroot mix with the flavour he expects of a typical curry. There’s a light heat to it still, but it tastes like it smells—a warm spring day. “It’s good, right?”

“It’s awesome,” Dean says, still chewing. “You made this?”

Cas shrugs a little. “I like routine. Curry’s easy to make, similar enough that it’s comforting, customizable enough that you don’t have to get sick of it.”

“That’s f*cking smart.” Dean stares sadly at the empty container. “Better than figuring out what lunch meat you have in the fridge in the morning.”

“I suppose.” Cas looks at his watch. “It’s just about time to relieve Crowley. You need to do anything before we go back up?”

Dean shakes his head, watching as Cas organizes his lunch back into his bag. Dean gathers up his own trash and tosses it.

“I chose Delta Sierra because of the guy who’s been more of a father to me than my real dad,” Dean admits. It’s easier to say out loud when he’s facing the trash can. “Besides, the phonetic W felt a little too on the nose.”

When he turns back, Cas is finishing putting his lunch bag in his locker, a new softness around the edges of his too blue eyes. “Whiskey?”

Dean nods, suddenly not sure what to do with his hands.

“That makes sense.” Cas closes the locker and motions to head out the door. “Coming?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says, hurrying through the door Cas holds open. “Thanks.”

They head back to the cab in a far more companionable silence. Dean’s still waiting for the way Cas looks at him to change—turn hard or suspicious or, worse, sad—but when they reach the top of the stairwell, Cas pauses with his hand on the handle. Dean’s heart stops beating, his rib cage completely deflating.

“Thank you for telling me,” Cas says simply, staring at the door handle. “Whoever this Mr. Sierra is, he’s fortunate to have you.”

Before Dean can process his words, Cas is already through the door, and Dean’s grateful for it. The unexpected warmth wets his eyes before he can pull the mask on again. It takes a moment, but by the time Dean joins Cas in the cab, his usual performance is back up, but a seed of something he’s never allowed the opportunity to sprout attaches itself under Dean’s ribs, putting down roots.

—

A couple weeks later, Dean drains the last dregs of his coffee before his shift as the stairs creak under John’s weight. He takes a deep breath, expanding his ribs, trying to loosen the muscles that tighten without his permission before adding more bread to the toaster. His father enters the kitchen, and Dean ignores the way his footfalls are heavy with sleep—or a lingering hangover.

“There’s one more mug of coffee in the pot if you want it,” Dean says as he piles the last of the breakfast dishes in the sink for later.

John just grunts in the affirmative, so Dean takes down a fresh mug and fills it up. His father sits at the small table in the corner, practically hanging off the chair, and Dean chews on his lip as he places the black coffee in front of him. His brain runs over last night, trying to remember if his dad had even been drinking. They’d had their fight over what happened with the nurse, John had promised to try harder, but Dean hadn’t actually bothered to take him at his word. Now he wonders if the sunken eyes staring at his mug like it’s too heavy to lift means they need to schedule an appointment with Dr. Bacic.

“You feeling all right, Dad?” The toast pops behind him, and Dean moves to open the refrigerator to grab the butter.

“Fine,” John mumbles as he finally lifts the mug to his lips.

Dean puts the toast on a plate and starts buttering them. “You look it.”

John grunts again, the chair creaking as he leans back, and Dean’s muscles tense painfully. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times he reminds himself he’s not a kid anymore, that it’s been a while that Dean has had the advantage on his father, he still can’t stop preparing to fight back, or watch for Sam, or just brace for impact.

“I’m gonna be out late tonight,” Dean says, finishing up the toast. “Probably won’t be back until you’re in bed.”

“Why’s that?” John asks, his voice still heavy with sleep.

Dean puts the plate in front of him. “I have my evaluation for the first phase of my training today. If I pass, I start on the more advanced stuff next week.”

“Hmm.” John picks up a slice of toast, then drops it again and leans back in his chair. “What makes that a late night?”

“They’re gonna take me out for drinks after.” Dean sits in the chair across from his father. “You sure you’re doing okay?”

“Dean, I’m fine.” He shoves the toast away, the plate clattering when Dean saves it from going over the edge. “It’s not my fault you can’t even make toast appetizing.”

Dean glances at the plate. The toast is fine, he knows that. In his head, he knows it’s his dad who’s being unreasonable. He sighs and rises from the chair. “Do you want something else?”

John runs his hand down his face, his knuckles wrinkled and nails peeling. Dean wracks his brain for what that’s a symptom of, if that means his liver is getting worse.

“Don’t bother,” his father says. “Go. I’ll figure it out myself.”

“Dad, you don’t—”

“I said go!” John yells, and Dean’s shoulders rise to his ears.

The familiar shame creeps up his spine, and it ignites something in his gut. He grabs the plate of toast and tosses it in the sink rough enough to crack the dish. “Make your own damn breakfast then if you’re so fine.”

Dean storms out, grabbing his jacket and keys on his way through the living room, and John stalks after him.

“Don’t walk away from me,” John growls. “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m your son, Dad!” Dean flinches at the way his voice breaks, so he just shoves his arms into his jacket. “And today is kind of a big deal for me, so maybe you can just lay off for one f*cking day.”

Dean opens the door, but John grabs his arm roughly before he can walk through. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”

“Why not?” Dean wrenches his arm out of his father’s grip, the leather creaking like the boards of a haunted house. He regrets it instantly when darkness shadows his father’s eyes.

John closes the gap between them, using the couple inches he still has on Dean to his advantage, but his father forgets that he’s not a scared kid anymore with a little brother to protect. His father’s voice almost rumbles next time he talks. “Do you want to try that again?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Dean says, refusing to betray the way his heart pounds painfully in his throat. “I have to go to work.”

John scoffs. “Yeah, work.” Dean moves to leave, and John grabs his shoulder, shoving him back into the door. “You’re fooling yourself if you think they’ll let someone like you do anything worth doing.”

Dean’s entire body is board straight as he listens to his father throw his deepest fear in his face. Like it’s a neon sign flashing over his head, telling anyone who’s looking that Dean knows he doesn’t belong.

“I gotta go to work,” Dean says again and pushes his way out the door. He pulls the Impala roughly out onto the street as John watches from the open door, refusing to look back even as his shoulders burn.

—

Dean’s almost late by the time he finally pulls into the parking lot, the hour drive to Kansas City taking longer than usual after he didn’t pay enough attention and got detoured. He takes a few breaths to try and loosen the tension clinging to him since Lawrence, but he finds it doesn’t shake until he makes it to the cab. Cas leans on the corner of the console, arms crossed and chatting with Pamela between clearances. His smile grows when he notices Dean, and the memory of breakfast melts away like the night’s frost when the morning sun finds it.

“You ready to go?” Cas asks while Pamela turns in her chair to flash him a smile and a double thumbs up.

Dean lets out a long breath. “As I’ll ever be.”

Cas crosses the short distance between the console and where Dean stands. “You’re ready for this, Dean.” Cas claps a hand on his shoulder, the same one his father used earlier that morning to slam him into their front door, and there’s no way Cas doesn’t feel the start of a flinch before Dean shuts it down. But Cas doesn’t shy away; he just squeezes a tiny bit harder. “I know you’re ready, okay?”

Dean swallows hard but manages a smile. “Thanks, Cas.” He means for more than just the encouragement, but he doesn’t know how else to say it. He means for not treating him like a broken pane of glass that’s been hastily taped together. He means for not looking away when Dean manages to drop his act for the briefest of moments.

He means for not letting go.

“Let’s get it done,” Cas says with another encouraging squeeze.

They set up at their usual station, but this time Dean takes the primary radio position. It’s not the first time Dean’s been in it, and he’ll probably be in it for the rest of his career now if he doesn’t become an instructor like Cas. He plugs in his headset, and Cas does the same for the hook up directly below, and if Dean didn’t know better, he’d say the small smile Cas wears might even be pride.

Dean’s evaluation will last most of the day, or at least until Cas determines he’s had the opportunity to mark him on all the necessary categories, so Cas’s headset will only work to override Dean’s in an emergency. Dean clears his throat, preparing to take the handoff from Crowley and start his shift, and thinking about all the ways this could go wrong. All the ways his father will crow so high when he’s proven right. Dean’s gotten too big for his britches, his dreams too big for the cards he got dealt.

Cas writes the date at the top of the eval he balances on his thigh. “Ready when you are,” he says, and Dean takes one last calming breath before he gives Crowley the okay to begin their handoff. One by one, Crowley hands Dean strip blocks, briefing him on the latest status of each of the flights, and before long, Dean’s strip board is stacked with the morning ahead.

“Break a leg, mate,” Crowley says after Dean acknowledges taking over his position and heads down to the break room. Dean’s eyes drift over his board, then quickly over the radar screen beside it, then finally, he scans the skies outside the window in front of him. His dad can say whatever he likes. Maybe Dean is just delaying the inevitability of his failure, but he’s going to enjoy this view while he does.

Cas makes a few notes on the handoff and nods encouragingly as Dean tries not to notice the soft crow’s feet that appear in the corners of Cas’s eyes. He doesn’t need to try that hard because his first contact crackles over the radio almost immediately, and Dean searches the board for the callsign. He moves the strip to its new position, readies his pencil over the arrivals box, and opens the frequency.

“Kansas City Approach, Delta 2826, go ahead.”

—

Dean leans against the cold concrete wall outside the shift supervisor’s office, massaging his trap muscle. He probably pulled it this morning with all the sudden movements, but it’s not until now, when he’s waiting to hear his fate like a kid who’s been sent to the principal’s office, that he really registers the pain. He presses hard where the muscle meets his shoulder, grimacing at the knot that screams pain back at him. He rolls his shoulder, slipping his flannel back into place, and tries to shove it all down with the rest of the things he doesn’t feel anymore.

The door creaks open, and Cas pokes his head out. “C’mon in, Dean.” He disappears again, and Dean follows him into Rufus’s office. He’s sitting behind a peeling desk littered with papers, leaning back and hands knitted together over his stomach. Dean swallows hard but drops into the chair across the desk when Cas gestures to it, opting to lean against the filing cabinets instead. He crosses his arms, but his face doesn’t betray any clues to Dean.

“Well. Dean Winchester.” Rufus pulls the eval form up in front of him, and it crosses Dean’s mind that he’s being overly dramatic for effect. “Phase One Eval. Your first hurdle.”

Dean’s eyes shoot between the two men, and he’s not sure where this is going, if he should be keeping his guard up or not. “Uh, yeah. How’d I do?”

Rufus tosses the paper down and folds his hands again. “I think you should probably clear out your locker.”

Dean’s heart drops through his feet, and he’s convinced he might actually throw up if he hadn’t skipped lunch today. His sandwich is probably still sitting on the kitchen counter where he forgot it after he stormed out. “What?” he asks. “Really?”

Rufus gestures to the eval on the desk with his chin, and Dean reaches for it, trying not to let it show how his hands shake. When he turns it to face him, a heavy stamp reading PASS shows grainy at the bottom, like it’s a photocopy of a photocopy.

Dean’s eyebrows collide in confusion, then he looks at Rufus, then Cas, whose sh*t-eating grin is enough to make the room stop spinning.

“You’re gonna need your stuff,” Cas says, straightening up. “I don’t think you’ll be swinging back here after your celebration drinks.”

Dean huffs a laugh, then looks at his eval form again. Beside each item, Cas’s small, neat tick marks put him mostly in the “advanced” or “outstanding” categories, except for a few “average” marks he guesses he’ll have to live with. There’s a remarks area Cas has filled out, his careful block letters filling the box. Dean’s eyes catch the beginning: “Dean’s skills as a controller are—” but he won’t let himself read on. He folds the paper up, stuffing it in his pocket.

“I gotta come clean,” Dean says, standing. “I didn’t set anything up. Didn’t wanna jinx it, I guess.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. Truthfully, Dean’s been avoiding socializing with everyone. This isn’t the first time he’s been invited out for drinks after work, but alcohol loosens the lips too much sometimes, making it too easy for the performance to slip, so he mostly saves that for Benny and Garth who don’t have any better options anyway.

“Don’t worry about that!” Rufus rises from his chair with a grunt. “Pamela’s got that all taken care of. You and Cas can head out now. We’ll all join at the shift changes.” Rufus comes around the desk and holds out his hand to Dean. “I have to admit, I had my doubts about you, Winchester. But you earned this.”

Dean swallows hard again and ducks his head but shakes Rufus’s hand anyway. “Thanks.”

“Crowley’s even offered to pull a double so Ash can make it,” he says, pulling the door open. “Just don’t let them drink you out of your next paycheque, all right?”

“Yeah, okay.” Dean smiles. “Thanks.” He walks through the door and waits for Cas to finish saying something to Rufus. The weird weight Dean wears still clings at his chest, a reminder he’s not sure he’s ever going to shake, but it seems easier to bear when Cas looks at him like he’s daring him to look away first. Which he does. Of course he does.

“Well,” Cas says, the door falling closed behind him. “Your car or mine?”

Dean scoffs. “Mine. Obviously.”

—

Dean and Cas don’t have a lot of time to talk once they get into the Impala. The bar Pamela chose isn’t far from the airport and Cas spends most of the drive taking in the car, which ends up making Dean feel like he’s the one under a microscope. But he doesn’t complain about the Zeppelin that was already blasting from the speakers when they got in, which is more credit than Dean can give Sammy.

Eventually, Cas points at a run-down pub with a sign flickering with its last attempt at life, and Dean pulls the car into the parking lot. Dean shuts the car off in the middle of Good Times Bad Times just as Robert Plant sings about knowing what it means to be alone and almost doesn’t catch that Cas was talking.

“Hmm?” Dean says, turning to face Cas who’s wearing a vaguely amused expression.

“I said you don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.” Cas’s gaze is steady on Dean’s, and for the hundredth time, Dean wonders how he’s always so f*cking calm. “Honestly, most of the folks in there are only going to be there for the free drinks. They might not even notice.”

“Comforting,” Dean says with a chuckle.

Cas shrugs a little. “Like I said, most people do fine in Phase One. They’ll be grateful to get some day shifts back in the rotation.”

Dean lets his fingers hang on the steering wheel. “You sure know how to make a guy feel special, Cas.”

“You don’t seem to enjoy it,” Cas responds simply, and Dean grimaces. After having to explain things his whole life that he doesn’t even understand himself, he’s not sure how to feel about Cas pulling at strings he didn’t even know were there in the first place.

Dean works his jaw. “I’ve never been very good at being the centre of attention.” It’s the best he can admit. There’s more to it than that niggling at the edges of his thoughts—it’s not like Dean’s a shy guy, after all—but that’s all that comes out.

“Well,” Cas says, slapping his palm to Dean’s chest as he opens the door. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Pamela that. She’ll eat you alive in front of everyone.”

With that, Cas is out of the car and heading into the pub, pausing at the door as if to ask, “you coming?” Dean stares after him—to the pub, to the people already inside, to the rest of his life—and he thinks about how all he has to do is put one foot in front of the other. It’s all laid out in front of him, and all he has to do is keep moving forward. It should be the easiest thing in the world, but Dean can hardly breathe past the boulder in his chest. Like the chorus of every voice who told Dean he’d never be worth a single good thing calcified to his ribs, taking up all the space he might be foolish enough to try to fill with something pointless, like hope.

Still, he breathes deep, feels where he presses up against the bars in his ribcage, and gets out of the car.

The smile that spreads across Cas’s face is very nearly worth it.

“Let’s get it over with,” Dean says, slipping into his bravado as easy as the hand-me-down jacket from his father it’s long been obvious he’ll never grow into.

He brushes past Cas, and when he walks into the bar area, cheers erupt. Cas appears beside Dean as folks finish their applause.

“I’m glad they wouldn’t even have noticed,” Dean says, eyes still on the crowd. It’s small yet. Pamela, Charlie, Ash, and a few other folks who work at the tower.

Cas laughs and claps his hand between Dean’s shoulder blades. “I would’ve made your excuses to everyone.” Then, his hand slips down his back, and Cas wanders towards Pamela. She throws her hands in the air, letting out a small squeal, and takes Cas’s face in her hands.

Dean looks away before he can witness any more of their intimate moment, but Charlie is already dancing her way over to the Carly Rae Jepsen song on the jukebox.

“Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean!” she calls. “You did it!” She wraps her arms around him, and despite being a little taken aback, Dean returns the hug. “I knew you would!”

Dean’s smile comes easier. “Thanks, Charlie.” He holds her back by the shoulders. “Did you get a head start?”

Charlie gives Dean a “duh!” look. “Your shifts end soooo much later than ours. What was I supposed to do?”

“In fairness, you’re at the airport before I even wake up,” Dean says.

“True,” Charlie says, pointing at Dean with the hand holding her drink. It seems to remind her why they’re here. “We have to get you one of these!”

Before Dean can say anything, Charlie’s grabbed his hand and drags him towards the bar. He passes Cas on the way and he just shrugs at his raised eyebrow. The bartender asks what’s his poison, and knowing that he’s both gotta cover this bar tab at the end of the night and drive himself home, he just grabs their house beer.

The bartender gives him a smile when he passes over the pint. Dean raises it in thanks before he takes a sip, and Charlie kicks him in the shin when the bartender moves on to the next customer.

“Dean!” she exclaims. “Oh my god!”

“What?” he asks, suddenly too aware of himself and if there are eyes on him.

Charlie rolls her eyes. “Flirting with the bartender?” She opens her mouth wide. “I’m so proud of you!” She glances at him over her shoulder and not subtly. “Is he attractive? I can never really tell with the generic white blonds.”

Dean’s ears burn and he resists the urge to pop his collar high and hide behind it. “I wasn’t flirting, Charlie.” When his eyes flit back towards the bartender, he’s still looking Dean’s way, and his smile goes more crooked when he notices him looking back. “And he’s all right, I guess.” Dean straightens on his stool so he’s facing more out to the crowd than the bar.

“Hmm,” she says, taking a sip of her own slightly fruity drink. “Your type more tall, dark, and handsome?”

Dean nods along, more focused on the crowd than Charlie’s teasing.

“The kind with piercing eyes and a voice like Johnny Cash?”

“Yeah, that’d do it,” Dean agrees absentmindedly until Charlie’s eyes go wide. “Wait, what? What did I say?”

Charlie shrugs with false innocence as she takes another drink. Dean opens his mouth to press her again, but Pamela pushes through the crowd with her arms raised high.

“Dean!” She wraps her arms around him in a tight hug, rocking him back and forth. “I’m so happy for you!” She takes a step back and takes his face in her hands like she did with Cas. He almost jerks back, but her grip is too tight. “One down, three to go, huh?” Pamela drops her hands and signals to the bartender she wants a beer.

Dean clears his throat. “Uh, yeah. Cas said this was the easy one, so.” He takes a long drink of his own beer.

“Oh, Castiel said you rocked it.” Pamela leans over Dean, basically pressing up against him, to grab her beer from the bar. “Says you’re the best trainee he’s ever had.”

“Oh really?” Charlie says, shooting Dean a look.

“And that’s high praise from Cas, as you call him.” She takes a drink. “That is not a man who doles out compliments. Believe me.”

“Pamela!” Ash calls from the other side of the pub by the jukebox.

“Oh, duty calls!” she says, tapping her glass against Dean’s. “You enjoy yourself, okay?” Then, she’s snaking through the crowd and around the tables on her way to pick the music.

“Favourite trainee ever, huh?” Charlie says.

“Shut up,” Dean says into his beer.

Charlie just takes a drink from her own, and they both head into the crowd. Charlie breaks off to some of the other TechOps guys. There’s Alan Corbett, a trainee himself, and the head tech, Donatello. Even one of the young airfield maintenance guys showed. Dean thinks his name’s Adam. Charlie probably dragged him along to fill out the crowd since Dean’s not sure he can actually drink yet.

Dean settles at one of the tables and lets the scene play out around him. He prefers it that way. He can provide the reason for a good time, he’ll pay for it, and everyone will remember well of him in the morning even if no one can really remember much about him specifically. He sips at his beer, doubting he’ll get another after what Charlie said. Then, Cas joins him.

“Not so bad so far, huh?” he asks, nursing his own beer.

“So far,” Dean echoes. He feels awkward sitting here with Cas. In the tower, at lunch, hell even during evals, at least Dean knows why Cas is there and what the score is. Without the pretense of work and obligation, Dean doesn’t know how to act around him. Like one wrong move and he’ll shatter the carefully constructed picture of himself in Cas’s mind. For him to say that to Pamela—Dean resists from picturing it as pillow talk—he’s had to have done a pretty stand up job of tricking him so far.

“You should take off your jacket,” Cas says. “You know, stay a while.”

Dean looks down, and he’s not really sure he remembered he was wearing it. “Oh, yeah.” He slips it off and hangs it on the back of the chair beside him. His purple flannel shirt is rolled up to the elbows, and the table is cold when he puts his arms back. “It’s my good luck charm,” Dean says, trying to lighten Cas up. “Figured I’d need all the help I could get today.”

“Well, it worked.” Cas drags a thumb down the condensation of the glass. “Wasn’t much luck to it, but whatever helps.”

Dean takes another drink. “I’m kind of surprised Donatello came out, to be honest.”

Cas glances over towards the TechOps crowd. “Why? Personally, if you asked me if I was named after a giant comic book reptile, I think I’d try to get as many free drinks out of you as possible.”

Dean laughs, really laughs, for the first time all night. “One, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a classic, okay? Not reptiles. Defining literature of my childhood, so it’s a compliment, really. And two,” Dean pauses, struggling to think of a second. Then, he just shrugs in Cas’s general direction. “That’s a good point.” Dean soaks in the laugh that bursts out of Cas, and he knows he wants to do it again. “I mean, at least the other Turtles are named after famous artists.” Dean starts to count off on his fingers. “Leonardo? Obvious, da Vinci, super important. Raphael? Awesome. Painted all those dragons, kick ass fiery stuff.” Cas tries to cover up his laughter, but he's bouncing in his chair. “And Michelangelo? Forget it. Painted the most famous ceiling in the whole world.” Dean settles back to his beer. “Hell, I’d be pissy if I was named after the worst ninja turtle too.”

“You’re an asshole, Winchester,” Cas says between another wave of laughter.

Dean shrugs in false modesty. “I call it like I see it.”

They sit like that a little while longer, trying to outdo each other and Dean always winning. People come to the table every so often to congratulate Dean and thank him for the drinks. Rufus even gets there eventually, and Cas takes him to go get a drink and refresh his and Dean’s. Once they’re at the bar, Charlie collapses in the chair beside him, the one with his jacket on it.

“You two seemed pretty comfy over here,” she says, leaning over the back.

“Yeah, I guess,” Dean says watching Cas and Rufus chat while the bartender gets their drinks. “Rufus was right. He kind of grows on you.”

Charlie rests her chin on the back of the chair. “So are you gonna go for it?”

Dean glances at her. “Go for what?”

Charlie tips her head towards the bar.

“The bartender?” Dean shakes his head. “He’s a little too young for me, I think.”

“No!” Charlie scolds. “The dreamboat with the eyes and the voice.” When Dean continues to stare, she sighs. “Cas! Obviously!”

Dean scoffs and starts picking at his damp coaster. “Cas is not interested.”

“He’s literally buying you a drink!” Charlie says, stretching out her hand.

“Technically, I’m buying the drinks,” Dean says. “And besides, he’s grabbing one for Rufus too, isn’t he?”

Charlie huffs. “You two were really cute over here. You should’ve seen you.”

“Even if that were true, which it’s not,” Dean says, “Cas can’t be interested in me because he’s not—” gay. Dean swallows, realizing he can barely even say it about someone else. “—interested in dudes.”

“Dean,” Charlie says, leveling a look at him from under her bangs. “Dean-o. Remember how I told you my perfect batting average gaydar? That man over there with the eyes you can absolutely drown in sets off gaydar DEFCON 5, all right?”

Dean scoffs. “What are you talking about?” Dean shifts in his seat, sitting straighter. “No, you’re crazy. Cas? Divorced, former major in the air force, currently has a girlfriend Castiel Novak?” He shakes his head. “Sorry, looks like you finally struck out.”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Charlie asks, not as an accusation, but in surprise. “Why do you think he left the military?” Dean stares back at Charlie, not really able to process the implications of her question. “And who is it you think he’s dating?”

“Now who doesn’t know anything?” Dean shoots back before gesturing in Pamela’s direction. “Pamela. They’re all over each other.”

Charlie cackles. “Pamela? Pamela’s all over everybody. She’s not with Cas, believe me.”

“I asked if he was dating her, and he said he was!”

Charlie raises an eyebrow. “Did he say he was dating her, or did he just not deny it?”

Dean opens his mouth to contradict her once and for all, but he realizes she’s right. Cas never said he’s with Pamela; he just didn’t correct him. He closes his mouth again and Charlie crosses her arms in triumph.

“See? Finely honed.” As Cas and Rufus make their way back, Charlie rises out of her chair and pats Dean on the shoulder. “Go get ‘em, cowboy.”

Dean doesn’t have a chance to reply before Rufus and Cas are sitting back down and Cas passes a fresh beer over to Dean. He takes it, and Rufus proposes a toast to their newest Phase Two trainee. Dean smiles and takes the praise gracefully as he can manage, but he can’t help but feel Cas’s eyes on him differently now. Rufus and Cas start chattering about some improvements coming to the airport, but Dean doesn’t take much of it in. His mind spins too fast, and Cas’s gaze settles on him too heavy. It’s easy to write off kindnesses and stolen glances as meaningless when there’s no reason to think—or hope—there can be anything else behind them. But if Cas isn’t into chicks, or at least not exclusively into chicks, that means he could’ve been into Dean, but Dean was too busy indulging in his stupid, foolish crush to notice. Heat rushes up his back and he wants nothing more than to bolt out the door right now.

God. What Cas must think of him.

He runs his hand down his face and wonders how much longer he has to stay before he can make his excuses. He glances at his watch and feels a shoe bump against his. When he looks up, Cas is looking at him with raised eyebrows even though he’s continuing his conversation with Rufus, and Dean wants to throw up for an entirely different reason.

—

Finally, people start making their excuses, and Dean wanders up to the bar to settle the tab. He dreads what the total is going to be, but he finds himself glad he came. He checks his phone in case his dad has been trying to contact him as the bartender pulls up the party tab, and Dean doesn’t notice when Cas takes the stool beside him.

“There,” Cas says, leaning back against the bar. “You made it.”

Dean breathes deep, savouring the familiar pain. “If you say so.”

Cas doesn’t respond. He just waits with Dean, laying his jacket across the bar from where Dean left it on the chair.

“You don’t have to wait,” Dean says. “I’ve got it.”

“I do actually,” Cas says. When Dean doesn’t catch on right away, Cas continues. “You’re my ride?”

“Oh,” Dean says, scolding himself for forgetting he and Cas drove here together. “Yeah, right. Of course.”

“I can take a cab back to the airport if it’s a problem,” Cas offers. “I just assumed—”

“No, no. Don’t be stupid.” Dean checks where the bartender is. “It’s like down the street.” Someone finally reappears from behind the bar, but it’s a woman, probably ten years older than Dean, and he stops tapping his card. “Is there a problem?” he asks the woman.

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” she says. “Brayden just wanted to double check with me because it said the tab is already paid.”

“No, there must be a mistake,” Dean says.

The woman pulls something up on the small bar tablet computer. “Not for us. We’ve got a credit card on file for the party.” She smiles to herself. “Oh, yeah. I remember this guy. Said he called four bars before us to find out where you were having your party. Sweet old guy.”

“What?” Dean asks. “I don’t get it.”

She turns the tablet towards him. “He wanted to cover the tab for your celebration. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Dean’s eyes drop to the name on the credit card on file. Robert Singer. Dean’s stomach drops, but he’s not really sure from dread or gratitude. He didn’t tell anyone back home they were having a party if he checked out, but Dean guesses he shouldn’t be surprised that Bobby figured it out. They’re over an hour from Lawrence. It seemed a waste to invite anyone, at least to his first phase.

“Thanks,” Dean says, forcing a smile. “I’m glad we’re all settled up.”

“No problem,” she says. “Congrats on your thing. Your dad seems really proud of you.” Then, she turns the tablet off and heads to the back again before Dean can correct her. Though, if he’s being honest with himself, he probably could’ve. She wasn’t that fast.

Dean pulls his jacket back on and slips his credit card back in his wallet before he lets himself look at Cas. “Is that against the rules of the tradition?” Dean asks finally.

Cas smiles gently. “Probably, but I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

“Thanks,” Dean says quietly. “You ready to go?”

They head out to the car, and the Led Zeppelin song from before continues all the way back to the parking lot, too loud to talk over. Cas points out his car—a blue Honda, which Dean tries hard not to judge too much—and Dean parks in the spot next to it. He doesn’t turn the car off, but he does lower the volume.

“Mr. Sierra?” Cas asks.

Dean just nods. “Singer. Bobby Singer.”

Cas smiles again. “He’s right to be proud of you.” He pops the door open, careful not to let the Impala’s long doors ding his Honda. Dean has a sick satisfaction knowing Baby would win if it ever needed to go up against Cas’s car for some idiot reason. “Well, rest up. It’s gonna be your first swing shift.” He gets out, then leans down through the window. “See you in a few days.”

“I’ll be there,” Dean says, watching Cas climb into his own car. Then, to himself, he adds, “Can’t wait.”

Chapter 7: hunger hurts (but starving works)

Chapter Text

my father is a dying man.
dying, meaning, helpless.
man, meaning, violent.
and what do you do with a helpless violence
except fetch it its glasses?

Ollie Schminkey, “He Yells For Me, And I Go To Him”, Dead Dad Jokes

-

Dean crosses back into Lawrence late. He turns the car off and lets Baby drift in neutral for several houses before he pulls into their driveway so the rolling engine doesn’t wake his father. Tipping his head back against the headrest, Dean forces breath into his lungs and strains his shoulders until they pop. For the first time, he wishes he was the kind of guy who got massages. He climbs out of the car, wincing at the creak of the door, and makes a metal note to see if Sam left that chin up bar he used to hook up to random doorframes. Maybe his own body weight will do the trick to ease some of the tension that sits on his shoulders.

The front door is already unlocked, and Dean tries not to let the frustration get to him, he really does. The streetlight filtering through the thin curtains paints strange shadows on the wall. When he passes a hand over them, his fingers catch on a half-moon dent, fresh enough for drywall dust to hang on his fingertips. He swallows hard, working his jaw. The dent lines up with the doorknob when Dean swings the door towards the wall, though the stopper on the baseboard doesn’t let him push it flush. A perverse curiosity comes over him, and he tests how much force it would take to get the spring to bend.

It won’t.

—

The next day, Dean heads to Rocky’s with Benny and Garth. He’s been neglecting them, he knows that, so he’s looking forward to having some too greasy food he doesn’t have to make himself and a couple beers with people he doesn’t have to worry about impressing.

They’re settled at their usual booth, debating whether to share cheese nachos or cheese nachos with bacon bits, when Jody and Donna walk in. They stand at the hostess stand with their hands in the back pocket of each other’s jeans while they wait for Jo to come seat them. Jody seems to have a sixth sense and catches Dean staring their way. She smiles and raises a hand in a wave before Jo finally makes it, grabs two menus, and guides them to a table on the dining side.

Dean’s attention returns to the question at hand, but their presence itches at the back of his mind like a bad case of lice.

“Okay,” Benny says with a finality that’s not to be argued with. “How about we get a plate with bacon and without, hmm?”

Garth narrows his focus, like he believes he still has any say in what’s about to be ordered. “Yeah, okay. Bess won’t be too upset if I skip the bacon bits.” He turns to Dean, who should have been the deciding vote but honestly doesn’t care either way, and stage whispers, “She’s pretty convinced there isn’t any actual bacon in there.” Benny glares at Garth from under his eyebrows. “Not sure there’s meat in there, period.”

“All right!” Benny says, slapping the plastic menu down, and Dean laughs with his whole chest. “You done?”

“Okay, big guys, calm down.” Dean places his palms flat on the table. “How about I go put in an order for those nachos so you can have some privacy for your dick measuring contest?”

Benny pushes Dean as he stands, and Dean pretends it puts him off balance. “Oh, f*ck off, Winchester. The nachos are on you now.”

“Extra salsa for mine,” Garth pipes up as Dean frees himself from the booth. “I’ll tell Bess I had some vegetables.”

“You got it,” Dean says as he heads towards the bar. As he walks away, he can hear Benny and Garth start to discuss whether salsa can be considered a salad or if it’s more of a jam.

“When do you think it becomes a soup?” Garth says as Benny roars a laugh, like he’s too ridiculous to even warrant an answer.

Dean hangs off the bar and waits for someone to see him while he casually searches for Jody and Donna. His finger traces an envelope in his pocket, the one he wrote out for Bobby this morning. He might not get another chance for a while to send it on its way.

“What can I get for ya, Dean?” Ellen asks as she saddles up on the other side of the bar. She crosses her wrists as she holds an order pad. “Y’all seemed to be undecided there for a bit.”

“Bess is apparently concerned about Garth’s cholesterol,” Dean says, flashing a smile and leaving out the part about the bacon bits not having real bacon. “So Garth’ll have the nachos without bacon, and Benny wants a plate with ‘em.”

Ellen dutifully writes down the order. “Does Garth really think his cholesterol’s gonna ignore all the melted cheese, or?”

Dean laughs and raises his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m only the messenger.”

“What about you?” Her pen hovers over the pad, and Dean remembers too late he didn’t decide on anything.

“I’m just gonna stick to the beer for now,” he says, ignoring the way Ellen’s eyes meet his from under her eyelashes. “Had a big lunch.”

“Mmhmm,” she says, tucking the order pad into her apron. “At least you ain’t lying about my bacon bits.”

Dean huffs a laugh. “I promise I will steal nachos from Benny and Garth equally.”

Ellen smiles. “That’s my boy.” Then, she notices Dean glancing back into the dining area. “You lookin’ for somebody?”

“Um, yeah,” Dean says, his hand instinctively going to his pocket. “I saw Jody and Donna come in, and I was hoping I could get Donna to give something to Bobby.”

“Oh yeah?” Ellen crosses her arms across her chest and Dean realizes too late he’s walked into a minefield. “What’s that?”

“Well, I passed my first phase of training, and the other guys threw me a party—”

“I swear to everything that is holy, Dean Winchester, and a few things that aren’t, if you try to pay Bobby back, I will skin you myself.”

“Woah, woah,” Dean says, straightening up again. “I wasn’t gonna—”

“What you are doing to that man is not fair.” Ellen presses her mouth into a thin line, like she’s trying to hold back on really telling Dean what she thinks. “After everything he’s done for you and for your brother?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ellen,” Dean says, putting more space between him and the bar. “I’m not doing anything to Bobby.”

Ellen scoffs. “Well, ain’t that the truth.” She shakes her head. “I just don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t.”

Ellen’s eyes snap up to meet Dean’s, surprised at the coldness in his voice. Dean wants to explain that he doesn’t either, not really. He wants to tell Ellen about how Bobby lives in every part of him that a father should be—where John should be—that he knows Bobby is his father in every way that matters. But if Dean keeps Bobby there, he doesn’t know what would become of John, and he doesn’t think he could live with it. He can’t explain it. Like speaking the words out loud would tempt the universe, and Dean has enough to carry without adding his father’s death.

Ellen looks at Dean like she wants to say more, but perhaps understands how far she’s stepped over the line. She pulls her mouth inwards, the thin line making an approximation of a smile, and says, “I’ll get those nachos started.” She turns to walk into the back but pauses. “Jody and Donna are over behind the coat racks.”

Dean nods his head quickly, then they both head off. He shifts uncomfortably in his flannel, trying to rub away the feeling of ants crawling beneath his skin, like they’re feasting on the dead thing inside him. Better than empty, he tells himself.

Better a walking corpse than nothing at all.

Dean hears Donna’s laughter before he sees them as he rounds the corner. Even though there can’t be that many more windows on this side, the place seems brighter with the two of them in it. Jody’s rolling her eyes at something Donna’s explaining with wide hand gestures, but her smile widens when she sees Dean approach.

“Dean!” Jody calls out, waving him over. “How the hell are you?”

“All right,” he says, flashing a smile to settle himself. If you don’t count the awkward meeting on his front step the other day, the last time Dean and Jody talked was that dinner at Bobby’s, and Dean tries to think about that as little as possible. “What about you guys?”

“Can’t complain,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Well, that’s not strictly true. I could, but I shouldn’t.”

Donna tips towards Dean. “I think Jody is getting more wildlife-mistaken-for-home-invasion calls than she’s used to.”

Jody’s smile grows. “What can I say? The folks in Sioux Falls were a lot of things, but at least they could tell the difference between a stranger with a gun and something rummaging through their poorly sealed trash bins.”

“I guess you can’t be too careful here in the bustling metropolis of Lawrence, Kansas.” Dean laughs and the ladies join him. “Other than that, you’re settling in okay?”

They both nod. “It’s been real welcoming,” Donna says. “At least with the folks we’ve been around. Bobby’s been showing us the ropes.”

“We saw someone in a full-on parka the other day when it dropped below forty, so it’s gonna take some getting used to,” Jody adds with a grin. “But I don’t think I’ll miss shoveling.”

“I’m sure life is different in South Dakota than here in Kansas,” Dean agrees. “I happen to like it here, though, so.” He shrugs clumsily, flashing another charmer of a smile.

“Eh,” Donna says, playing off Dean’s casual humour. “It’s all right. It’s no Minnesota.”

Dean plays mock-hurt while Jody whoops a laugh. “It’s like that, huh?” Dean asks, smile turning less practiced and more natural.

Donna just shrugs, like she can’t help it. “I don’t make the rules.”

“Except that one,” Jody adds, and more laughter fills the empty space. “Speaking of,” she continues. “You technically work in Missouri, right?”

Dean nods. “Indeed I do. My taxes are gonna suck this year.”

“You’re liking it though?” Jody asks.

“Yeah,” Dean says, trying not to call attention to the way Donna won’t meet his eyes. “It’s been—” Dean suddenly realizes he doesn’t really have the words for what it is. How much it’s meant. “It’s more fun than burying your head under a hood all day.”

They both laugh, but Donna’s seems considerably more relieved than Jody’s.

“Bobby said you passed some sort of exam?” Jody says, her eyes soft and without judgement. “He bought everyone at the garage a drink, apparently.”

Dean’s ears go hot, but Donna nods to confirm it. Benny and Garth never said anything about it, but he should’ve expected that. It’s not like Bobby was doing explicitly for Dean, and Bobby probably wouldn’t want the credit even if he was.

Dean clears his throat. “Actually, that’s what I came over for.” He pulls a plain white envelope out of his pocket that he stole from the office supply room at work. It’s got the FAA logo in the top corner and BOBBY where Dean wrote out his name in the cleanest block letters he could manage with his hands shaking like they were. “I was hoping you could deliver something to him for me.”

He holds out the envelope to Donna, but then folds it double again so it stops trembling too. She stares at it, hesitant, then to Jody.

“I’m not sure—”

Jody cuts in. “Dean, I get you and Bobby are having some troubles, but I don’t think Donna and I should get in the middle.”

“It’s not money,” Dean blurts out, and the two women’s eyes widen. “I mean—” Dean takes a deep breath and tries again. “I mean, I’m not trying to pay him back for anything again. It’s just—I passed. My eval, I passed it.” Dean gestures with the envelope, still locked between his two first fingers. “I got a copy of it.”

“And you want Bobby to have it?” Donna asks, slowly taking the envelope.

Dean shrugs a little, stuffing his hands in his pockets so his shoulders don’t rise up to his ears. “You know, so he can see what he’s paying for.”

Jody’s sigh is audible from where Dean stands, but he won’t look at her. He just keeps staring at Donna, silently pleading for her to do this for him.

“I think he’d appreciate getting it from you more,” she finally manages.

Dean chews on his bottom lip, still pointedly avoiding Jody’s gaze. He has a feeling where Donna is being gentle, Jody would be able to change his mind. “Could you just make sure he gets it? It’d mean a lot.”

Donna looks to Jody again but is already slipping it into her purse. “All right,” she says. “I’ll get it to him. This time.”

Dean breathes out. “Thanks, Donna. Seriously.”

“You can pay me back by swinging by the garage sometime,” she says with a smile. “Jody brings donuts on Fridays.”

“The bakery kind too,” Jody adds. “Not the coffee shop frozen stuff.”

Dean nods, rocking back on his heels. “Yeah. Yeah, I got it.” He pauses for another moment before tapping his fingers on the table. “I’ll talk to y’all later then.”

Donna and Jody wave him off in tandem, and Dean slinks back to Garth and Benny with his tail between his legs. He gets why everyone is on Bobby’s side—it’s the right side to be on—and he knows he’s being an ungrateful little brat. Still, he wishes he had someone who would be on his side in all this. Besides Bobby, that is. If Bobby wasn’t on his side here, like he always is, there’d be no sides to pick. He’d have done the smart thing, the thing everyone does eventually, and leave Dean to destroy himself in peace.

He really is a goddamn fool.

By the time Dean gets back to the table, Benny and Garth have their nachos, and the only plate with anything left is the one without bacon. Garth shoots Dean a guilty grimace as he settles back into the booth, but Dean just drags the plate over in front of him.

“Hey, more for me,” Dean says, shoving a tortilla chip with tendrils of cheese and green onion rings in his mouth. “And you got plausible deniability with Bess. Wins all around!”

The guys laugh as Dean tries to clean his face of strings of melted cheese and grease, then go back to the conversation they were having before Dean got back, the one where he has nothing to add. The kinds of conversations people with partners and lives and responsibilities and futures have, where the needs and considerations of other people have to enter into the calculus of everyday decisions. For those who have people who will care—or even notice—if they come home at night.

So Dean keeps making them laugh. He adds enough anecdotes about Sam and the random people and kids in their lives to avoid scrutiny. He performs his best sleight of hand, the magician’s trick of looking at the right hand so they don’t see how his left hand is broken and bleeding. Pulling on his own puppet strings so no one even has the chance to notice how he collapses into a pile of meaningless parts when there’s no one there to see.

Dean’s already endured too many things, but he’s not sure he could survive asking someone to see him without his strings and have them let him fall anyway.

—

Dean pulls into the airport parking lot earlier than usual. The swing shift starts at two in the afternoon, so the morning traffic that usually slows Dean down on the way in wasn’t an issue. He jerks the car into park, letting the radio play as he leans his head back against the seat. It’s the first time he’s been alone in days, and it might be the last time for a bit, so he figures he should take the opportunities as they come.

Sleep bites at the edges of Dean’s awareness as he feels more than hears the tape switching to the B-side. Distantly, he knows he should worry that he’ll sleep through the beginning of his shift, but he can’t fight the heaviness in his limbs or the feeling like there isn’t another nightmare waiting for him. It’s been so long since his sleep was uninterrupted by ghosts.

A tentative knock on his window jerks him awake, his knee slamming into the dashboard. “f*ck.” When he glances over, Cas grimaces, his eyebrows joined apologetically. Dean scrubs his hand over his eyes as he cranks the window down with the other.

“Sorry about that,” Cas says before Dean can explain why he’s sleeping in the parking lot. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No worries,” Dean says, coughing the sleep out of his voice. “I was early. I didn’t mean to drift off.”

“Why’re you doing it in your car?” Cas asks, a glint of humour in his eye.

“Um,” Dean straightens up, not really sure what’s funny. “The chairs in the lunchroom are kinda stiff, you know, comparatively.”

Cas’s smile tips up almost imperceptibly as he jerks his head towards the tower. “C’mon.”

By the time Dean scrambles to turn off the car and grab his stuff, Cas is already buzzing himself into the tower, and Dean has to jog to catch up. He just barely catches the door, and he follows Cas down a hallway he didn’t know about before.

“Hey, wait up,” Dean says, double timing until he’s matched Cas’s strides. “Where’re we going? How come I’ve never been here?”

“Phase one trainees don’t need this area,” Cas says. Dean hasn’t known Cas long, but the air is charged with something he’s tempted to call excitement. “But now that we’ll be doing shifts at odd hours, it’s important to make sure we’re well-rested.”

Needles pinch Dean’s spine. Is he really about to get in trouble for sleeping in the parking lot before his shift? They don’t even need to clock in for another twenty minutes. If he knew he was gonna get sh*t, he’d’ve found another parking lot to sleep in. Practice has taught him how to pick out the ones the police won’t bother with.

Then, Cas stops abruptly in front of one of the doors in the hallway that reads QUIET ROOM, and Dean glances at the man beside him. “Uh, Cas. Is there something you wanna tell me? I know I’m a bit of a loudmouth but—”

He glances at the door and chuckles lightly. “Oh. I can see your confusion.” He turns the knob and swings the door open to a darkened room with a single bed, a recliner, a television set, and a small table. “It’s a quiet room for rest. I’m not sending you to timeout.”

“Wait, what?” Dean steps instead and looks around. “We’ve got a hallway full of mancaves? Seriously?”

“Well, no,” Cas says, leaning against the doorframe with crossed arms. “These are for recharging on breaks. Especially when we start doing night shifts, it can be difficult to stay alert. So we have these quiet rooms to get some rest.”

Dean drops into the recliner and tosses his feet back. “Dude, this is awesome.”

“I thought it might be more comfortable than your Impala.” Cas is just a silhouette against the bright hallway, but the halo spreads a warmth over Dean that catches him off guard. Cas bounces off the doorframe and reaches to close the door. “We’ve still got a shift in twenty, though, huh? So,” he gestures with his chin towards the table, “make sure you set the alarm.”

“Oh,” Dean lets slip before he stops himself. Obviously Cas wasn’t going to join him in here, and now that Dean realizes he was half expecting him to, his ears feel like they might spontaneously combust. Cas hesitates at the door, and Dean can’t think of what to say. Charlie’s extremely heavy-handed hint floats at the edges of his consciousness. That Cas is gay too. That Cas isn’t untouchable. He is, in fact, very touchable. Dean closes the recliner and swallows hard.

“Is there something wrong?” Cas asks, his hand still on the doorknob.

Dean chuckles to himself, thinking about how f*cking cheesy it would be to suggest he get some “rest” here with Dean like they’re some horny interns from Dr. Sexy. But they’re not—or at least Cas isn’t—and they’re grown ass men. They’re supposed to be professionals.

“Nah,” Dean says finally. “I just didn’t think you were literally going to let me nap in here right now.”

Cas shrugs, just one shoulder moving through the light. “We’re very serious about fatigue management around here.” He starts to swing the door closed. “You’ve got eighteen minutes now, so better make the most of them.”

The door closes, and Dean is bathed in pitch black. There’s a red light in the corner so he can at least make out the objects in the room without destroying his night vision. It reminds him of the flashlight John kept from the stuff the forces issued him and he was supposed to return: a heavy, green L-shaped monstrosity where you could change out the lenses, flitering the light white or red or yellow. He and Sam made a code out of it, like a traffic light. Like a warning.

Dean fiddles with the small alarm clock on the table, setting it for thirteen minutes, just to be safe. He can see how time can get lost in here.

He settles back into the chair, crossing his arms over his chest and popping up his legs again to get comfortable. He tucks his jacket around himself and tries not to imagine them as Cas’s arms instead.

—

They spend most of the swing shift covering breaks for everyone else, so Dean doesn’t spend much time in any one position. Mostly he’s bouncing from departures to arrivals and back again, and the constant handoffs are more challenging than working just the one position. But Cas talks him through it, giving him tips about how to remember what clearances you’re giving who, and breathes easier when they relieve Ash from the ground position. At least if you make one of the airport maintenance vehicles crash, there aren’t hundreds of people on board.

“Hey, Dad, I’m home,” Dean calls out as he walks through the front door after his shift. When he doesn’t receive a response, Dean’s spine straightens as every other thought in his mind evaporates. “Dad?” he continues to call out as he traces the bottom floor. “Dad, you here?”

“I’m here, Dean,” his dad grumbles, the only visible evidence are his fingers gripping the door frame of the half-bath. “I’m here, I’m fine.”

Dean quickens his pace to find his father half-slumped against the vanity, his sweatpants bunched at his knees. “Dad, what happened?”

“I said I’m fine, damnit,” he growls, and Dean knows better than to push him when he gets like this. John Winchester never did take well to being infirm, and even though his illness hasn’t progressed to the point of incapacity yet, he’s been grasping at every branch on the way down.

Dean takes in the state of his father. He obviously didn’t make it to the washroom in time by the looks of the large patch of dark grey on the inner thigh of his sweats, and Dean’s stomach swoops. He was hoping to have more time, but he probably can’t put off going back to Dr. Bacic much longer. And finding a new nurse.

“Turns out my on-job instructor is a bit of a hardass,” Dean starts as he approaches his father. Sometimes this works, Dean not acknowledging what they were doing, acting like they were just a father and son updating each other on their days. “He used to be a major in the Air Force, but now he’s controlling out in Kansas City. Can you believe that?” John stays quiet, trembling against the vanity as Dean adjusts his shirt and pulls his sweats up to his hips. “The shift supervisor said he forgot to return the stick up his ass before he left them.”

John chuckles slightly. “Yeah, that sounds like them Air Force jacko*ffs.”

Dean loops his arm around his father’s, gripping under his armpit, then they shift off the vanity together. “Yeah. I got to the airport too early for my shift and ended up falling asleep in the Impala. Of course, he walked by and saw me.”

“You’re going to have to pay more attention if you’re gonna stick to all this,” John says, leaning heavily on Dean as they turn towards the stairs.

“Call it first day jitters. Never been off day shift before,” Dean says, something he can’t identify stirring at the bottom of his stomach. Listing off his failures to his father isn’t something he makes a habit of, but it’s easier to justify when trying to distract John from his own. “I’m sure I’ll win him over in no time.”

John grunts as they move slowly up the stairs, Dean steadying them both several times before they reach the landing. “If Bobby’s gonna act like he owns my shop, the least he can do is give you your old job back. He’s probably sentimental enough to do it.”

Dean forces a laugh. As if John didn’t put Bobby in the position of buying the garage from John and coming down here from Sioux Falls so Sam and Dean didn’t lose everything they had in one swoop. Just their dad.

“Well, Sammy’s not gonna get to be some Ivy League lawyer on a mechanic’s salary.” He doesn’t add that it actually might’ve worked out if the father Dean was currently dragging to the shower hadn’t spent the last several years literally drinking himself to death.

“Maybe Sam should be home with his family anyway,” John grumbles as Dean leads him into the bathroom and down onto the toilet so he can run a bath.

“Nah,” Dean says casually as he turns the tap to slightly-more-than-lukewarm. “Let the kid get his fancy degree. Then we can all retire when he comes back and sets up shop.” Dean shoves the stopper into the drain and then turns to help his father undress, but he stops short at the sight of his father staring at his hands limp in his lap. “Hey,” Dean says quietly, and when John looks up, his eyes are glassy. “It’ll be easier getting the bath out of the way before dinner anyway, right? I think we have leftover shepherd’s pie and then call it an early night.” Dean forces a smile. “I’ve apparently got more studying to do anyway.”

John just nods a few times, returning his eyes to his calloused and stained hands, not so unlike Dean’s own. It makes the air swirling in his chest burn too hot, tightening his ribs to cracking. They don’t speak as Dean helps his father out his wet clothes and then into the bath. He leaves his father to clean himself up, the door cracked slightly so Dean can come when John needs help to get out.

Once he’s out in the hall, Dean lets himself collapse. He falls back against the wall opposite and slides down until his tailbone hits the worn carpet. Leaning his head back against the peeling wallpaper, he doesn’t let the tears gathering behind his eyes or the scream brewing in his lungs free. He can do this. Dean has to be able to do this.

Then, just as Dean thinks he might lose his grip on his last tendril of reality, his phone buzzes in his pocket. He didn’t realize he hadn’t taken off his jacket yet. When he pulls out his cell, Sam’s goofy grin reflects back at him, and Dean hauls himself off the floor to take the call on his way back downstairs.

“Hey, Sammy,” he says, mustering as much cheer as he can. “What’s shakin’?”

“Nothing,” his brother says in that shy way Dean pretends he doesn’t notice. Sam acts exasperated when Dean uses his nickname for him, but secretly, he likes it. Dean knows it’s true, even if it is really deep, deep down. “I’m just calling to see how things are going. You started your second phase today, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean says as he turns the banister and heads towards their small kitchen. “It was all right. I didn’t figure the job would be so different based on your shifts, honestly.” He considers the way Cas pointed out where Dean was letting the details slip, noting them all in his daily report so they can keep working on them. But Sam doesn’t need to know about the quiet rooms. “My instructor seems to be enjoying my floundering a bit too much.”

Sam chuckles. “Yeah, those aviation types are kind of assbutts, right?”

“Yeah, f*ck off,” Dean says, but there’s a smile on his lips. He gets what Sam’s teasing. No one in a million years thought that Dean’d be the one who got into planes and sh*t. That was always his dad’s, and then Sam’s. Dean wouldn’t have even considered it if it wasn’t for Captain Novak. Castiel, he reminds himself. He’s gotta separate whoever Dean put up on that pedestal and the guy he works with now. Captain Novak’s whole job was to get people to sign their life away. Of course he was kind to him. As Castiel, he has far from the same incentives for Dean to do well, or even just pass. “But honestly,” Dean continues, “seems okay so far.”

“Yeah?” Sam sounds hopeful but unsure. “Kansas City’s not too far?”

“Nah,” Dean says, pulling open the fridge door. “It’s a nice drive. Calming.”

“Uh oh. You need a calming drive home already?”

Dean locates the wrapped-up shepherd’s pie before answering his brother. “I don’t need a reason to want to spend time with Baby. She knows exactly what I need.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Sam says, letting Dean have his deflection. “How’s Dad?”

Dean closes the fridge again with his hip, then sets the pie down on the counter. “He’s okay too. We’re all okay, Sammy. You don’t have to worry about us.”

“I’m not worried, Dean,” Sam says, slightly annoyed. “It’s just a lot. You’re doing a lot.”

“It’s fine,” Dean answers absentmindedly. Suddenly, the kitchen is too hot, too claustrophobic, and he peels off his jacket while keeping the phone to his ear. “You just focus on lawyer school.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sam says, the lightness falling from his voice a little. “I got a letter today. From the Air Force Reserve Command.”

Dean drops the fork he was using to pierce the potato layer of the shepherd’s pie so nothing explodes. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know yet,” Sam says. “I’ve got my training weekend coming up, and I’m supposed to report to a different base than usual.”

Dean takes a breath and holds it. “Oh, okay then. That doesn’t sound too bad, huh?”

“Maybe.” Sam’s quiet for a second, and Dean can’t bring himself to release his breath. “But Brady got an assignment last week.”

And there it is. Dean can almost feel the earth shake from the force of the shoe finally dropping. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sam sighs. “Because it didn’t mean anything to me until now. Jess was sure that because Brady was on ready reserve, it wouldn’t affect me.”

“So why does it?” Dean asks. Sam was able to get an exemption: As long as he was taking a full course load, he didn’t have to do the monthly training and yearly deployments. Just occasional refreshers to keep his licence current.

“I don’t know that it does, Dean,” Sam says. “It could be anything. They could’ve closed the runway at our usual base or something.”

“You think I wouldn’t have seen that? I read the NOTAMs every day, Sam.”

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Sam says, exasperated. “I don’t have any information yet, okay? You’ll be the first to know when I do.”

Dean presses a few buttons on the stove. “Yeah, you’re right.” He releases the breath that was still burning his lungs, but he doesn’t feel any better. “Maybe you’re getting a promotion.”

“Har har,” Sam replies, sounding more relieved. “Seriously, Dean. It’s gonna be fine.”

“Sure,” Dean says, but he can’t help the nagging feeling that, if his past experience is any indication, good things aren’t usually what happens.

They talk for a few more minutes about Sam’s classes and how Jess wants to change her major again. Dean nods along as he pokes at reheating the old shepherd’s pie, the dark rot in his gut eating at the edges of their conversation. Sam starts to talk about winter break, but before Dean can ask how long he’s going to be here, his father calls out for him.

“Sorry, Sammy,” Dean says with a sigh. “Dad’s finished with his bath, I’m gonna go help him out.”

“It’s early for that, isn’t it?” Sam asks without accusation.

Dean finishes fiddling with the oven timer, and it lets out a shrill beep. “He had an accident earlier, it was nothing.”

Sam says his name in his ear the same time his father yells it out, more frustrated than the first time. Dean calls back that he’s on his way.

“It was nothing,” Dean says again to Sam. “We can talk about it later. Give Jess a hug from me. Tell her I said she’s too talented to give up on art altogether, okay?”

Then, Dean hangs up before Sam can say anything else, tucking his phone in his back pocket. He stands briefly at the bottom of the stairs, up towards where that helpless man is lying in the tub and tries not to think about all the times he called out for help without anyone to answer.

Chapter 8: i fell in love with a war (nobody told me it ended)

Chapter Text

You know, I guess somebody died? And it's stupid, I realize, but I'm not over it.
I guess, maybe, something happened that gutted me like a carp you hack apart to catch worthier fish.
I guess, I haven't slept in months because, silly me, the roof tore off, and I have swallowed so much rain, lying on my back, taking it.

I'm sorry. You probably don't mean to hear this.
“Messy grief girl, can't keep her mouth shut.”
It's just the way it always is, yeah? My fault.

Tatyana Brown, "Gaslit"

-

When Dean wakes up that morning, he finds himself staring at the back of his own hands raised over his face, crossed at the wrists. The traces of whatever he was preparing to defend himself from is already fading from his consciousness, leaving only the tendrils of the fear gripping at the edges. He supposes it might have something to do with who sleeps down the hall from him for the first time in decades, but that wasn’t exactly a requirement for the nightmares in the first place. He doesn’t really remember a time before he had them.

Dean drops his hands to his sides, his heart beating wildly, not quite finding the right rhythm again yet. He breathes as deep as he can, which is not very, as if his individual ribs would snap clean in two if he could get a full breath in. The clock tells him it’s just past five in the morning, and he digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. There’s no point in trying to get more sleep. He’s just going to drop into that same impossibly large house with too many wings and stairwells and hallways where he’s always running from something. Always running but never getting anywhere. Being chased but never escaping. Saving Sammy—or Jo, or Benny, or Bobby, or his mom—but never making it out himself.

He rips the too hot comforter off and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress. Gripping the sheets, he notices they’re damp, and he squeezes his eyes shut until his heart stops stuttering enough for him to trust his feet. It takes longer than he’s used to, so when he finally gets annoyed at himself and forces himself to his feet, he just ends up falling back onto the sweat-damp mattress. He briefly considers calling someone. Sam. Bobby. Benny, even. A tether to keep him from sinking below the waves of his nightmares lapping at his shoulders, something to hold onto to make all this treading water even just briefly less impossible, but he hears his father stir and call out for him, and he pushes himself up. He pulls a t-shirt over his head. He tells his dad he’s on his way. And he puts one foot in front of the other, ignoring the sea salt caking his nostrils.

———

Dean’s able to get his father settled back in bed without too much trouble, but he ends up getting a start on his day anyway. It’s the middle of the night back in California, and there’s no way Dean is gonna wake Sam up for some stupid bullsh*t like it’d be nice to hear his voice. Instead, he gathers up all the towels and odd socks that have found their way in the corners of the hallways and starts a new load of laundry. He twists the knob to the harshest cycle—the only one that lets Dean believe the towels are actually clean—and presses start just as his phone buzzes with a text. He pulls it out as the washer starts pouring scalding water into the tub and sees it’s Benny texting to let Dean know he left his sunglasses in his truck the other day.

I’ll grab them from you next time, he responds. Then, before he thinks better of it, he adds, What’re you up so early for?

Some of us work for a living, Winchester, he responds, and Dean rolls his eyes at himself. Of course. He still gets his weekends, they just don’t always fall on Saturdays and Sundays anymore. Dean’s got the day off, but Benny doesn’t. Most people don’t.

Dean stares at the screen for a bit, not sure how—or if—to continue the conversation. He doesn’t have to spend much time on it, though, because Benny texts again.

What about you? I thought you were on afternoons for a while.

Dean clicks his jaw. Benny could always see right through him. That was kinda the whole problem in the end. He lets out his breath.

Couldn’t sleep, is all he responds. Then, he shoves his phone into his back pocket and focuses on the next thing he can clean. It’s not that Dean would consider himself particularly neat, but his father is another level of careless, and nothing kicks Dean’s near-compulsive need to get everything into its proper spot like needing to shut his brain up.

After about twenty minutes, he gives in and checks his phone again, and there’s a message from Benny. Bring me some lunch.

Dean drags his bottom lip between his teeth and chews. He doesn’t answer Benny, but he’s already trying to decide what he’s going to pick up on his way to the garage as he shoves his phone away again. He starts putting the fridge back in order, bringing all the oldest items to the front so his dad’ll grab it first and he can keep track of anything going bad. He doesn’t notice he’s still got his lip between his teeth until the soft lining tastes suddenly of heat and copper.

———

Dean pulls up to the garage but doesn’t pull in. He’d stopped by Rocky’s Bar on the way, picked up some cheeseburgers and fries for him and Benny, but he’s not sure how to approach the garage. He’s sure Donna gave Bobby his eval by now, but Dean feels like a teenager again, nervous about what his dad’s gonna say about his grades, and he can’t really do that right now. He digs out his phone, thinking he’ll text Benny, get him to come out, but once again, he’s one step ahead of Dean.

I’m at the truck, he says, so Dean leaves the Impala on the road and heads down the long driveway to where employees can park their cars. Benny’s tan truck is parked in the far corner, but Dean doesn’t see him as he approaches.

“Benny?” Dean calls out. “You here?”

Benny’s newsboy cap pops over the edge of the truck bed, followed by his toothy smile. “Hey, Chief.” He’s wearing Dean’s sunglasses, the ones he forgot the other night, but they don’t fit him. They’re too narrow for his square face, and Dean can’t stop the laugh that escapes. “What?” Benny asks, all false hurt. “You don’t think they suit me?”

Dean climbs onto the tailgate, shoves the food at Benny, then sits on one of the wheel wells. “Nah, I think they’re very becoming.”

Benny laughs again, taking the glasses off by the bridge and tossing them at Dean, who catches them awkwardly. “Hey, they’re your glasses, pretty lady.” He straightens and leans against the opposite wheel. There are tools and oddly cut planks all over the bed of the truck, but there’s also still blankets. A rolled up sleeping bag. And something pulls deep in Dean’s gut. “Not my fault you’ve got them green eyes, all sensitive to the light and sh*t.”

“Whatever, asshole,” Dean says, kicking Benny’s boot. Still, he tucks them into his shirt pocket instead of slipping them on. It’s mostly cloudy today anyway.

Benny rips open the paper bag. “What’d you get us?”

Dean’s chest tightens around the way Benny says “us”like it’s stupid to even stop to ask if Dean is staying for lunch. “Burgers,” Dean says dumbly.

Benny tips his head to meet Dean’s eyes, and he hates the way he feels the cracks crumbling under his consideration. Dean’s not sure if Benny ever really found his way beyond Dean’s walls, but the plaster Dean used to fill the gaps he left doesn’t seem to be as strong as he’d hoped. He swallows hard before Benny returns his gaze to the bag of food.

“There better be fries with them burgers.”

“’Course,” Dean answers. “And there’s no tomatoes, but extra onions on yours.”

“You hate when I eat onions,” Benny says, pulling out one of the Styrofoam boxes.

Dean huffs a laugh. “Well, your breath is Andrea’s problem now.”

The silence that follows is awkward and heavy, and Dean winces internally at crossing that unspoken line they settled on just to be able to be in the same space for the first couple months after. He sighs, then grabs the bag from Benny to take the other take-out box from him. When he opens it, he sees its Benny’s.

“Here,” Dean says, holding it out to him with one hand and reaching for the box with his other. “This one’s yours. I got extra pickles.”

Benny lets him switch off without much protest. “Yeah, you can have your damn pickles. Too much garlic in those anyway.”

“Only freaks don’t like garlic,” Dean says, popping the top open and crunching on the dill pickle Ellen stuck in there for him.

Benny laughs a little. “I think we covered that.” He opens the top of his burger and picks the few pickles off before tossing them on top of Dean’s fries. “Go nuts, Chief.”

“Thanks,” Dean mutters, feeling chastised but not sure why. He picks a pickle off his fries and pops it in his mouth. “So how is Andrea?”

“Good, good,” Benny says, biting the top off a handful of fries. “She’s gettin’ ready to go home to Greece again soon. Make sure they’re making those yachts right.”

“That’s good.” Dean pokes at his fries. He hasn’t eaten today, so he should be starving, but he can’t shake the nausea left in his stomach from whatever he was running from in his dreams. “When is it you get one of those yourself again?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Benny adjusts his cap, embarrassed he’s married to the type of woman who even knows what a yacht looks like, much less owns several. That’s what happens when you marry an heiress when you’ve barely been out of the South yourself. But Benny always loved the water, loved Louisiana and the fishing boats and the culture of New Orleans, so it never surprised Dean that he would marry someone who could bring that back to him.

Benny keeps his eyes on his food. “So, which nightmare was it this time?” he asks, then takes a bite of his burger.

Dean clicks his tongue. “I don’t even remember, to be honest.”

“But it was a bad one?”

Dean concentrates on the glob of ketchup in the corner of Benny’s mouth he hasn’t noticed yet. “Yeah.”

Benny nods a few times as he surveys the burger in his hands, like he’s evaluating the least messy way to take his next bite. “The house?”

“I think so.” Dean eats the last pickle Benny dumped on his fries before it makes them soggy. Benny’s the only person who’s witnessed Dean’s nightmares—the really bad ones. The ones where he’s out of bed and half-dressed before he even realizes he’s still sleeping. The nights where he finds himself in the middle of the living room, pacing like a caged animal because he can’t figure out where—or when—he is, and Benny has to dodge the inevitable punch when Dean’s too disoriented to hear reason.

Dean hasn’t fallen asleep around another person since that one.

“You gonna eat, or am I supposed to have lunch alone?”

“You’re not alone, I’m right here.” Dean kicks the wheel well with his heel to make his point, the hollow sound echoing between them.

“Right there letting this f*cking fantastic example of culinary artistry get cold.” Benny kicks the wheel well between Dean’s knees, and the vibrations travel up his spine. “C’mon. You throw out more than half, I’m telling Ellen on you. You know how she feels about waste.”

Dean rolls his eyes but takes a bite of the burger anyway. He’ll never admit it, but his stomach grumbles the second the beef hits his tongue. “Happy?” he asks, purposefully making sure his half-chewed food is as visible as possible.

“Ecstatic,” Benny says with a crooked smile. It makes him realize the spot of ketchup, and his tongue pokes out to clear it as he searches for a napkin.

Dean looks away and swallows hard. “f*cking narc.”

Benny laughs, then jerks his head. “Whatever gets you fed, buddy.” He takes another large bite and his burger’s already mostly gone.

Dean goes for his fries, suddenly shy he was so obvious. “Whatever,” he mutters.

“Don’t they have rules about you sleepin’ when you’re up in those towers?” Benny asks, and Dean doesn’t miss the implication. He can’t keep going like this. Not if he wants to actually pass his evals and get his own license so he doesn’t have to risk losing Cas’s when he f*cks up. It’s hard enough keeping everything straight when you’ve got eight hours under you.

Dean eats more of his burger to keep from answering right away, and Benny sits patiently opposite him in the truck bed. He knows Dean needs time sometimes, but he’s got a bone and he won’t let go. Dean swallows.

“I mean, technically it’s just rest time. How many hours between shifts and sh*t.” Dean stuffs a few fries in his mouth. “They can’t tell you what to do with ‘em.”

“They can tell you what not to do though, apparently.” Benny pops the last of his burger in his mouth and dusts his hands. “Maybe some substances would help with the sleeping.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, so my liver can rot in my gut until someone’s gotta drag me outta the can too.” Suddenly, he’s not hungry anymore, and he closes his takeout container.

“He’s getting worse, huh?” Benny’s voice turns soft, dropping the teasing he uses to dress up his awkward attempts at care.

Dean just nods, dropping the container at his feet so he can twist his hands together. Benny’s quiet for a few moments, then he pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Dean’s eyes stay focused on the way his fingers twist together, none of them very straight after being busted under car hoods and on drunks’ noses and door frames and once a particularly well-aimed hammer after breaking curfew. That seems easier to relive than the way Benny’s lips close around the cigarette as he lights it and breathes in the first drag.

“You wanna talk about it?” Benny asks before bringing the cigarette back to his lips.

Dean scoffs. “f*ck no.”

Benny closes his own container and puts it aside, then stretches his arm over the top of the wheel well he leans on. They’re quiet, but he doesn’t have to say anything for Dean to recognize the invitation. He doesn’t accept it right away. Mostly he keeps his attention on his hands and the smoke from Benny’s True Blues filling his nostrils until he knows he’s going to shake apart if someone doesn’t hold him together.

Wordlessly, he lowers himself off the wheel well and slots himself next to Benny in the trunk bed. He stretches his legs out until the toe of his boot hits the side of Benny’s and neither of them acknowledge when Benny’s arm curls tighter. They don’t talk about it when their hips touch, thighs pressing close, or how Dean’s shoulder slots perfectly into the space Benny’s opened for him. Not even when Dean’s thumb traces the stubble on Benny’s cheek when he pulls the cigarette from his mouth to drag his own breath of smoke, so he can act like it’s the nicotine that’s slowed his heart and the smoke burning his lungs and eyes. Especially not when Benny’s fingers trail down Dean’s palm when he steals it back.

They don’t say anything when Garth comes out of the garage to yell out for Benny, his lunch break having ended a half hour ago. Benny puts out his cigarette on one of the wood slats littering the truck bed, leaving a black scorch, then holds the nape of Dean’s neck in his thick hand for a moment. Squeezes, and they don’t say anything when Dean’s breath catches. Just a stray bit of tobacco that made it through the filter. Benny doesn’t brush his lips against Dean’s temple as he gets to his feet, or at least neither would cop to it.

“Thanks for lunch, Chief,” Benny says as he climbs down off the tailgate. He gestures to the trash they’ve left behind. “Dishes are up to you, huh?”

“Yeah, I got it.” Dean tries to echo the smile Benny manages, but he just feels cold every place Benny had just been, and the empty spaces feel more obvious than ever.

———

Dean walks in and dumps his keys in the bowl by the door, and he already feels dread settling into the knots in his shoulders. He takes a moment to stare at the bowl, a misshapen lump that Sam did in a pottery class he took to satisfy a mandatory arts requirement. It’s generous to call it a bowl, but it is bowl-shaped, which is all that’s necessary to hold his keys. Embarrassed, Sam painted it bright pink, thinking that would discourage his brother from displaying it, but Sam always underestimates how proud Dean is of his little brother—and how willing he is to embarrass him without any concern for Dean’s own reputation.

He fixes it, spins it about forty-five degrees to the left, not because it’s wrong, but to remind himself where he is. That he’s a grown man with his own life, making his own money and his own decisions. He’s not a kid without any other options anymore.

He hears movement in the kitchen, so he shrugs off his jacket, hanging it on the hook by the door and the still-busted-up wall, and heads in to find his father nursing a coffee at the table and reading the paper.

“Hey, Dad,” Dean says, filling a glass with water so he can clear some of the cotton-feeling from his mouth.

“You weren’t here when I woke up,” he answers simply.

Dean takes a long drink. “I went out for lunch.” He pulls out a chair from the far side of the table. “I stuck a note on the fridge.”

“I saw it.” John doesn’t take his eyes off the paper. He just slowly drinks more of his coffee.

Dean clicks his tongue. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for an impossible conversation. “Listen, Dad, I think it might be time—”

“No,” John says, eyes still scanning the newsprint.

Dean splays out his hands. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”

Finally, his father’s gaze meets his, flitting his eyes up without moving his head. Dean can’t stop looking at the yellow tint where it should be white. “I don’t really care what you were going to say. I’m not doing it.”

Dean rubs a hand over his head, still not used to having so much hair to force his hand through. “Dr. Bacic said that things could be unpredictable. We should see what he has to say about everything. Maybe there’s a treatment—”

“Dean.” John’s voice is dark and even. “I’m not seeing Dr. Bacic.”

“Okay, well, I have some numbers for other nurses I could call. See if they’re available.”

John stands roughly, the chair shooting into the wall behind him, and he sways on his feet. “Jesus Christ, Dean, what the f*ck is wrong with you? I told you, I’m fine!”

“You’re dying, Dad!” Dean stands too. “And I don’t know how to do this!”

“f*cking figure it out!” his dad roars, knocking the coffee mug off the table where it smashes into the cupboard. Coffee spills down the wood-panel, and Dean’s suddenly unsteady on his own feet when the smell of something else hits him too strong.

“Are you drinking right now?” Dean asks, embarrassed by the way his voice cracks.

John scoffs, waving at Dean like he’s the one being ridiculous. “There’s nothing wrong with a little Irish coffee with breakfast.”

A lump forms in Dean’s throat and it’s almost impossible to get the words past it. “Did you even eat breakfast?”

John gestures to the brown liquid pooling on the kitchen floor. “You’re looking at it.”

Dean’s gaze follows his father’s hand, and he clicks his jaw, his mind spinning through what he’s supposed to do next. He could gather up the shards of another broken cup and mop up the coffee and whiskey, or he could push back against this father and make him see reason, make him see how hard Dean is trying. Neither seem like particularly attractive options. He doesn’t want to keep fighting. He’s so tired. But there’s no option where Dean wins.

“Okay,” Dean says. He counts the drops of the coffee still dripping onto the floor. “Okay.” He looks to his father again, his face pinched and furious and exhausted. Dean raises and drops his arms in defeat. “Okay.” Then, he moves to walk past his father out the kitchen, but John catches his arm. The smell of whiskey and coffee attacks Dean’s senses, and it takes everything he has not to give away his urge to vomit.

“You smell like cigarettes,” John says, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Dean just stares back, blank. “Yeah. Probably.”

John’s eyes glide up and down Dean’s face. “Since when do you smoke?” Dean scoffs, and his father’s face crumples, his hand tightening around Dean’s bicep. “I asked you a question.”

Dean rips his arm away. “I don’t.” He doesn’t move away. “Sammy asked me to stop. Because it was going to kill me, and he asked me to stop. For him.” Dean’s gaze follows the same analytical path his father’s just did. “You wouldn’t get it.”

John raises his hand as if to backhand Dean, but pauses, like it’s a warning.

“Do it,” Dean says, too tired to even yell the challenge. “Go ahead. Nothing stopped you before.” He turns to face his father more squarely. “So go ahead. Do it already.”

They stand for a moment, deadlocked, as John’s hand shakes in the air. The tremors are getting worse, and there’s a distant part of Dean’s mind that thinks it must be terrifying for a man who has made his living with his hands, but he can’t dredge up the empathy he knows is supposed to be there.

Finally, John grunts and lowers his hand. “You’re not worth hurting my hand over.” He shoulders past Dean, towards the kitchen sink. “Get out of my sight.”

“Gladly.” Dean marches out into the living room, the energy still buzzing through his chest and down his arms, numbing his hands and tingling his fingers, and he doesn’t know what to do with it all. He paces for a moment, then heads to the laundry, but when he gets to the machines, he’s overwhelmed. He collapses, leaning on the washer, his fingers unable to grip it tight enough, despite his knuckles turning white. He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe.

Still, he wants to scream. He wants to hurt someone. He wants to feel something.

He shakes the machine once, then turns and punches the wall. His fist passes through the weak drywall easily, and Dean comes to his senses as the pain radiates up his wrist to his elbow.

“f*ck,” he mutters, hanging his hand off the newly-created hole and pressing his forehead beside it. He’d just installed this with Bobby. It was a quick-fix to keep the exposed wiring safe, and now he’s put another item on his never-ending to-do list.

But his breath comes easier. And he can feel his hands again.

He tells himself maybe that was worth the pain as he ignores the thin trickle of blood snaking its way down his forearm.

———

Dean’s next shift is an evening, and it’s a different feeling being in the tower when it’s pitch-black outside with the airport all lit up. From here, the airfield looks just like his surface radar. The taxiways are lit up blue, the runways lined with white, red or green where they intersect to let pilots know where to hold short. The instrument landing system lights trail far into the distance, farther than Dean’s eyes can follow them, guiding the planes to a safe landing. Even though his eyes itch from failing to get used to the shift schedule, the swoop in his chest never goes away every time a plane’s wheels safely touch asphalt because of him.

“American 0296, cleared to land runway oh-one left, wind 260 degrees at 22 knots.”

Dean closes the line again after giving the arrival clearance. It’s late, so he’s doing both arrivals and departures. He admits in some ways it’s easier since there’s no coordination needed between him and the other controllers. It’s just him and the sky.

Well, and Cas.

Cas, who is sitting very close considering they’re in a mostly empty cab, with just Crowley on ground control handing him strips as he lines the planes up at the hold short line of the active runway, ready for Dean to let them fly. Cas balances his clipboard on his knee, balancing one foot on the side of his other, and he wonders how he thought a guy who somehow can’t manage to sit normally was straight. He wishes their proximity was less stressful, though. Right now, he feels more like Cas is trying to intimidate him rather than just a dude doing his job.

Dean rubs at his stinging eyes and tries not to let the latest disagreement with his dad cloud his thinking. He ignores the side eye Cas gives him. Instead, he pulls out AA0296 from his strip bay and hands it to Crowley.

“American 0296, landing on runway oh-one left to ground control.”

Crowley takes the strip without looking but acknowledges the handoff. “American 0296, runway oh-one left, ground control.”

Dean leans back, observes the strip bay in front of him, seeing if he has anything in need of his immediate attention, but there’s a brief lull. There are some aircraft lined up, but he can’t do anything until Crowley gives him back control of the active runway, and the planes in the circuit aren’t on final yet. He can breathe for a second.

Cas taps him with his pen cap, and when Dean turns to look, his dark eyebrows are high on his forehead. “What’s next?”

Dean swallows. That’s usually Cas’s way of prompting him that he’s missed something or some plane has ended up forgotten at the bottom of his strip bay. Dean scans his strips again and checks the surface radar, but nothing is pinging in his brain, and that familiar tightness in his throat creeps up again.

“Um,” Dean hesitates, and Cas writes something on his clipboard. Dean squeezes his fists tight, the stretch of his skin over his knuckles helping him stay here, in this tower, in this chair. “C’mon, man, throw me a bone. What’d I miss?”

Cas smiles gently, but points at the ASR display of the aerodrome layout. “You tell me.”

Dean’s gaze flits over the diagram of the aerodrome layout, all light in green or red, telling Dean and Crowley what surfaces are open and closed, which are available for use and not, but despite his thoughts spinning like a hamster on a wheel, he can’t see it. He can’t see it.

“I—” Dean swallows hard again, tries to concentrate harder. “I don’t know.”

“Think about the last action you took,” Cas says. He’s not angry, and he’s not judgmental, and Dean is a trainee. He’s supposed to make these mistakes when someone like Cas is there to point them out to him. Even though he knows all this—he knows—Dean hears the accusation in Cas’s instruction.

You just did something. You’re far too stupid to do this. Why can’t you see it? You’re wasting my time by pretending you have any business being here.

“I made a handoff to Crowley,” Dean says numbly.

Cas nods encouragingly. “Right. And what does that mean for you?”

Dean’s eyes flit over the diagram again, and his brain starts to slot things together. “The active runway is under his control.”

“And?” Cas prods him to keep going towards the right answer, but he’s taking too long. “Does the ASR say that?”

It falls into place in Dean’s mind. The active runway on his radar is still green. He should have made it red on his display so that it turned green on Crowley’s as part of the hand off. No two displays are supposed to have the same control surface lit green at the same time.

Dean takes a deep breath. “No.” He touches the runway on the screen so that control goes to Crowley, and it’s outlined in red again. He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and bites gently. “Sorry. Forgot.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Cas says, then writes another note on Dean’s training report. “We’ll work on it.”

Dean breathes out roughly just as Crowley tells him AA0296 has cleared the runway, so it’s his again, and the runway on his ASR turns green almost immediately. Thankfully, he doesn’t have time to beat himself up over it too much because he’s gotta get the line of planes at his hold short line off to their destinations, maybe even sending a few people home.

———

“I hope you’re not dwelling on missing transferring control to Crowley earlier,” Cas says as he and Dean sit in the break room. It’s past ten at night, but they’re eating what can only be called their lunch.

Dean’s attention comes back to Cas and the present moment. “What? No.” Cas’s eyes drop to Dean’s uneaten lunch and back up. “Okay, maybe a little.”

Cas takes a bite of his curry—always that damn curry—before continuing. “You’re still in training, Dean. You’re going to make mistakes like that.” He stabs a piece of chicken breast. The sauce is yellow tonight, like the petals of a sunflower. “You need to make them now so you don’t make them when you check out and are on your own.”

Dean sighs. “I know.” He pokes at his sandwich. Nothing could be less appetizing at the moment. Cas doesn’t seem convinced. “I do! I promise. I’m just—” He gives up and shoves his sandwich back in his bag. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

Cas nods like he knows what Dean’s talking about. “You don’t have to worry about checking out on top of it, then.”

Dean’s eyebrows knit. “Of course I do. If anything, it should be the only thing I’m worrying about, don’t you think?”

Cas rises from his seat and heads to the cupboards, pulling out a bowl. “I would maybe agree if you were in any danger of washing out, but I can’t say that’s the case yet.” He sits back down and scoops half of what’s left of his curry into the bowl. “You’re doing well. But you’re not even halfway through. Give yourself a break.” He pushes the curry towards Dean with a fork sticking out.

“What’re you doing?” Dean asks, almost recoiling from the dish.

Cas has already picked up his own fork and resumed eating. “It’s important that you eat.” He points his fork at the bowl. “There’s more protein in that than your sandwich anyway.” He stabs another piece of chicken, then shovels some rice on top. “It’ll keep you sharp.”

Dean tucks in and leans over the bowl to sniff it. “What’s the flavour today?”

“I’m told it’s a Thai recipe. Quite mild for a curry, I think.” Cas gestures with his fork again. “Try it, you’ll like it.”

“How do you know?” Dean asks, though he does as he’s told.

Cas shrugs, bringing his left ear down to his shoulder instead of the other way around. “I’ve got a feeling.”

Dean tries to get a little bit of everything on his fork—chicken, rice, the sauce and whatever chunks are in it—and takes a bite. He’s surprised to find it tastes more sweet than hot, but there’s still a kick to it. It actually hits the spot pretty nicely, but he’s reluctant to admit it.

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” He ducks his head down so he doesn’t have to look at Cas’s smug smile as he shovels more into his mouth.

“I thought so,” Cas says, and they finish their lunch in a peaceable silence before heading back up to finish the back half of their shift.

———

It’s nearly the end of the evening shift, and Dean’s just trying to make it to the end. Thankfully, it’s slow. There aren’t many flights coming in and out of Kansas City in the middle of the night. Ash has replaced Crowley for the midnight shift, and Dean and Cas are just waiting for Becky to get here for the handoff. Dean hasn’t spent much time with Becky, but he knows she’s smart, if a little excitable. Perfect for the midnight shift, honestly.

Cas writes his daily training report summary as Dean wraps up the last strips on his board. There’s a departure waiting at the hold short line of the active runway, and it’s the last one in the bay, so Dean figures he can clear it off before Becky gets here. That way, he doesn’t have to worry about an overly complicated handoff.

“Delta 564, runway one-niner right cleared for takeoff, direct wildcat six, report when airborne.” Dean closes the line and begins to jot the clearance on the strip when he hears a click on the frequency before the pilot can do his readback.

“Delta 564, cancel departure clearance, hold short runway one-niner right, I say again, cancel take-off, Delta 564 confirm,” Cas dictates quickly over the frequency, and Dean’s eyes immediately go to the ASR. The runway is his, he’s not sure what—

The pilot of the Delta flight radios back. “WILCO, disregard, holding short runway one-niner right.”

Cas stares at Dean with wide eyes, then points at the strip that’s flat on the desk in front of him. It’s an arrival strip of an aircraft on descent from final, and just as Cas is about to open his mouth, the plane’s landing lights catch Dean’s eye, and his head jerks to his right. He’d taken the strip out of the bay to handoff to Ash when the wheels touched, but he must’ve forgot and lost track of it. And if Cas hadn’t stopped the Delta flight from rolling out, there would’ve been a plane in the way.

Sparks fly up as the plane makes contact with the runway, and Dean can’t help but imagine the flaming engine of the plane in the simulation all those years ago. In front of his eyes, the small sparks become flames, an explosive collision with hundreds dead because he forgot he put a f*cking piece of paper on his desk.

Dean is distantly aware of Cas talking over the radio, leaning over him to handoff the plane and the runway to Ash, then unplugging Dean’s headset completely. He pushes Dean out of the way, his rolling chair giving way easily, and it’s only moments before Becky’s on Cas’s other side to relieve them both.

He rips his headset off and sends his rolling chair into the console. He’s not even sure where to go, but he grabs the clicker of his headset just to feel something solid. Before he has a chance to make too much of a scene, Cas is in front of him.

“Dean,” he says, trying to catch his wild gaze. “Dean!”

The volume startles Dean out of his fugue, and his eyes meet Cas’s. They’re dark and solid and real and Dean opens his mouth to apologize. “I—Cas, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“C’mon,” Cas says, gesturing with his head towards the stairwell.

Dean follows him down the stairs and towards the quiet rooms, Cas taking even but firm steps, his clipboard tucked under his arm. Dean tries to catalogue what he sees: Cas’s sensible but vaguely skater-style sneakers, the way his jeans are faded on his left thigh and under the right kneecap, the way his white polo is stuck tucked in over the centre beltloop of his pants flashing a braided black belt. The hallway smells musty and like concrete and cleaning fluid, but all Dean can concentrate on is Cas’s beltloop.

Cas stops without slowing down and opens the door, gesturing for Dean to go inside. He doesn’t meet Cas’s eye, he just slinks into the room and stands awkwardly in the corner away from the bed and recliner. Cas joins him, closes the door behind him, then leans against the desk.

“If I’m gonna get fired, shouldn’t we do this in one of the meeting rooms?” Dean asks, almost bouncing on the balls of his feet he’s so wound up.

Cas doesn’t say anything for a moment, just taps his thumb against the desktop, watching him. Dean doesn’t feel like he can stand up under the scrutiny, so he cracks his knuckles just to break the silence.

“You’re not fired,” Cas says finally. “My comments from earlier still apply.”

Dean scoffs. “What? All your trainees almost cause a runway collision killing hundreds of people?” He can’t get out of his head what would’ve happened if Cas didn’t stop him. How much blood he would have on his hands. He doesn’t even notice the way he’s scrubbing them together until Cas’s eyes drop to the movement. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

“Yes,” Cas says simply, lifting his gaze again to Dean’s. “It would be a first for me to have a trainee who I don’t take comms from at least once.”

“Okay, but those people could have died,” Dean says, stepping forward. “I could have killed them! And then what? You lose your license because I’m a f*ck up?” Cas doesn’t react, and somehow that bothers Dean more. “C’mon, Cas, just chew me out. Let’s get it over with.”

“Are you done?” he asks.

Dean swallows hard, taken aback by the question. “Um.” The fight drains out of him, like water rushing down his arms and dripping out his fingertips. “Yes?”

“You wanna sit down?” Cas remains against the desk, but he crosses his arms over his chest, the completed daily training report on the surface beside him. Dean notices Cas has already signed it. He must have already completed it before he took comms.

Dean sighs. “Not really.”

Cas gestures with his chin to the recliner. “Have a seat, Dean. It’ll help.”

“With what?” Dean snaps.

“With the grounding.”

Blood rushes to Dean’s face and ears, burning them hot, rushing so fast he can’t hear anything else Cas says, if anything at all. Dean doesn’t move for a long moment, and neither does Cas, until Dean finally seems to regain control of his limbs and he drops into the recliner. Immediately, it’s like all the tension that was holding him together melts from between his joints, and he lets himself sink into the chair.

“Better?” Cas asks, and Dean just lets himself nod with his head against the seat. “You’re here with me now?”

“Wasn’t anywhere else,” Dean half-mumbles, suddenly sleepier than he’s been in weeks.

Cas takes a deep breath, like he’s about to let Dean down easy, and Dean feels the tension start to creep back. A ping in his shoulders, needles up his neck, a twitch in his eye. He sits up straighter.

“A big part of being a controller is dealing with stress,” Cas says, slow, like he’s choosing his words carefully. “For some people, that’s what washes them out, not their skills or intelligence or aptitude.” He stares Dean down, like he’s waiting for something to click, but Dean’s not getting it. “Stress can break down the best of us, Dean. In the air force, I saw it firsthand, and—”

“Wait,” Dean says, sitting up off the chair back. “You think I can’t handle the stress?”

Cas lets out a breath. “I know you’re dealing with quite a lot at home at the moment. Perhaps I underestimated that when I gave you my advice.” He uncrosses his arms to rest on the desk again. “I’m trying to tell you that your reaction to your mistakes is even more important than not making them in the first place. And you—”

Dean stands. “I’m fine.”

Cas’s eyes fall to Dean’s hand, the one he sent through the wall and looks it. He flexes it self-consciously, and Cas tips his head. “That so?”

“I can handle it,” Dean says, but even he can hear the cracks in his voice where the lie lives. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Look,” Cas says, straightening and picking up his clipboard. “The report is done. I’ve already signed it, so I don’t have to add anything, and we’ll keep working on task management. That’s already in some of your other reports.”

Dean struggles to listen to what Cas is telling him. He knows Cas is throwing him a life preserver, a way for him to stay in the program and save face from having his freak out in his permanent records, but he’s trembling.

“You can sign this, and we can just move on, but Dean.” Cas turns the clipboard towards him for him to take, and Dean sees that Cas has noted in the summary that an area for improvement is “resilience”. “I don’t know what happened to you, either to your hand or more broadly, but you can’t avoid your way into the life you want.” He gestures with the clipboard again. “Believe me. I tried harder than anyone.”

Dean takes the report, but his eyes can’t focus on anything else. He pulls his pen out of his pocket and scribbles his name on the line labelled “OJT” that he’s read it and agrees.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean chokes out. He shoves the clipboard back at Cas. “I can handle it.”

Cas’s eyes soften around the edges like they did when Dean told him about his operating initials, and it just stirs up the anger and fight that had settled in his stomach. He wants to storm out, but he’s technically still on shift. He’s still gotta clock out and get his gear, and Cas is his supervisor for all intents and purposes. So he just waits. He squares his shoulders, his arms twitching to grip behind his back like his dad taught him. Instead he just straightens his back, lifts his chin, settles his feet, and waits to be dismissed. As Cas watches the transformation, his face does something that Dean can’t quite peg. That softness turns almost sad, but his face twists up like he swallowed something bitter.

“I hope you can,” Cas finally says. “Because while I do think you have a real shot at this, Dean, I also still mean what I said on your first day of training.” Dean’s stance doesn’t change. He keeps himself still and blank, like he’ll fade to the background, unnoticed. When Cas doesn’t see a reaction, he repeats what he told Dean that day. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I will prioritize whatever this act is over my job.”

With that, Cas walks out with the signed report, leaving Dean alone in the quiet room. When the door shuts behind him, Dean falls to his knees and retches into the garbage can.

Nothing comes out.

Chapter 9: if i walk away (then who’s going to carry you home)

Chapter Text

& then the
man playing my father hugs me, & he is again just a man, offering me
a tenderness stranger than fiction.

Kevin Kantor, “The Man Playing My Father”, Please Come Off-Book

-

Dean barely remembers how he gets home. He walks in the front door—unlocked again—drops his keys in Sam’s Barbie bowl, and heads straight up to bed. The grandfather clock in the hallway ticks loudly, echoing in his ears, and he tries not to remember the glass face cracked and blackened by smoke. His hand is already trembling when he grips the knob, the adrenaline from the near miss and conversation with Cas still cycling through his veins. Distantly, he thinks about whether his own liver is already too f*cked to filter it all out. That this is gonna be Sam’s future: cleaning up Dean’s piss and dodging his punches until he has the courtesy to die already.

He takes a deep breath to try and clear the thought from his head. He knows he’d never let it get like that for Sam. He’d die first. And it’s not like he’s ever going to have a son to subject to this kind of thing. He just needs a good night’s sleep and—

When Dean swings the door open, John is sprawled on his bed, tangled up in the covers, though still technically on top. The feeling of ice water pours down Dean’s back, all the feeling draining from him, and his shoulders tuck up to his ears. He grips the doorknob so tightly, it shakes in his hand, like it’s going to crack the door open, and that’s what wakes John.

“Dean?” he groans. John looks around the room, seemingly confused about where he is, then back to his son. “What’s happening? Where’s Mary?”

“She’s dead, Dad.” Dean can’t seem to let the doorknob go as nausea swims in his stomach. “She’s been dead for thirty years.”

John groans and tries to turn over. “No. No, she’s not—she was right here. I saw her.” In his confusion, John tumbles off the bed, and Dean sees the patch of sick that John must have thrown up before he passed out. “She was here,” he mumbles again. “I swear, she—”

Dean sighs, trying to gather the strength to haul his father back to bed, ease him to sleep and calm his nightmares like no one has ever done for Dean. To find the base-level energy required to strip his own bed so he can slip into his own broken sleep. He breathes, trying to extinguish the flames spreading through his rib cage, burning through the jacket he spent his life trying to grow into. But he can’t bring himself to let go of the doorknob even as his knuckles strain. It might be the only thing keeping him on his feet.

“She wasn’t here, Dad.” The ticking of the grandfather clock is like a mallet drum in Dean’s brain. He knows his uncle got it fixed when he bought his mom’s tombstone, before Bobby was able to get someone to take over his garage for a few weeks. But all he can see are the spiderwebbed cracks from where the heat shattered it and the blackened soot where the flames slipped through. “She’s never going to be here.”

“You don’t know that,” John says from the floor. He grips the edge of the mattress, but he can’t haul himself up. “You don’t know that! She said she just needed some time. But I know—” John grunts, struggling against his own weakness. “I know she loves us. She was coming to tell me that.” John points to a spot right next to where Dean is standing, where his crib stood, then Sammy’s, under the shelf with the angel statues that shattered in the flames. “She was right there, and I wanted to tell her I’m sorry, I’m so—” His voice breaks off in something resembling a sob. “God, you look just like her. How can you—how does that work? She was so beautiful, and you—” He tries again to stand, but falls hard into the side table, and Dean feels like an idiot just standing there, watching. “And you’re—” He can’t finish his thought. He stares at the side table like it’s the first time he’s ever seen it.

The clock’s heavy hands settle at the top of the hour. It’s the middle of the night, so the chimes don’t sound, but the solid clunk of the mechanism snaps Dean back to the present moment, to the fact this is his bedroom now, and he’s a grown man, and he’s not waiting for his father to hand him his infant brother so they can run for their lives.

“Okay, Dad,” Dean says, releasing the doorknob and stepping into the room. “That’s enough. Let’s just get you to bed, all right? Your own bed.”

John shrinks away from Dean, and his guts twist up. His dad isn’t afraid. He isn’t a coward. He’s Dean’s hero. He’s the whole reason Dean is who he is. And he doesn’t know what to do with this small, sick man crying in the corner of a bedroom that smells of sick, cowering like Dean would ever hurt him.

“Dad,” Dean repeats, kneeling down to his father’s level. “It’s late, okay? Let’s get some sleep.” He holds out his hand. “I’ve been working all night.”

John’s forehead knits in confusion. “Working? What’re you—” Then, his father’s face changes as understanding blooms across it. The fear and sorrow that filled his dark eyes evaporates as fast as his tears, and it’s replaced with a look Dean is much more familiar with. Rage. “What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?”

“Dad,” Dean says again, more in his element with his father’s fury than his grief. “You fell asleep in the wrong bed and had a nightmare. It’s fine.” He drops his hand and stands. “C’mon. Let’s get you back to sleep. I’ll grab you some water and Advil so tomorrow won’t be so bad.” Dean steps out of the path between John and the door, figuring the more he can pretend this is his idea, the faster Dean’s gonna get to sleep himself. “It’s late and we’re both tired.”

John’s gaze flits quickly to where he pointed earlier, where he was convinced his dead wife was listening to yet another one of his useless apologies, then back to Dean, and his jaw hardens to stone. “You’re tired? From what? Sitting on your ass all day, looking out a goddamn window?” Finally, he’s able to climb to his feet on his own.

“Yes, exactly,” Dean says flatly. “It’s pretty taxing for someone as lazy as I am, so. . .” Dean trails off, gesturing into the hallway for his father.

John’s eyes narrow, but he follows Dean’s gesture anyway. He doesn’t make it very far before he stumbles, and Dean catches him under his armpits before he hits the wall.

“Woah,” Dean says. “Careful, the carpet can get pretty uneven in places.”

John jerks out of Dean’s grip and spins around. “Don’t f*cking patronize me, boy.” He sticks a finger in Dean’s face. “I am still your father.”

And the apple never falls far from the tree, Dean thinks automatically, but he shakes it out of his head. He’s just tired. He just needs one f*cking good night’s sleep, maybe even eight hours all in a row, and he can still turn this all around. If he could just f*cking sleep—

“I think you’re getting too close to forgetting that,” John says, close enough that Dean can smell that he didn’t even bother having coffee with his whiskey this time. “I am in charge.”

The coal that’s always stuck deep in Dean’s throat, the one burning ember orange, bursts into flames with the fresh oxygen of his father’s hatred. Fighting he can do, the anger and the screaming. He can take the hits and weather the insults and the criticisms, be the punching bag and the scapegoat. That he knows how to do. He’s good at something at least.

Dean takes a step forwards, even more into his father’s space, until his finger is a blur in his peripheral vision. “Then change your own piss-soaked sheets.”

The brief moment of surprise on John’s face is almost worth the punch that follows. Dean stumbles back and presses the back of his hand to his lip. It comes away bright red, and Dean can feel the hot blood dripping from his chin before he tastes the copper from where his tooth cut the inside of his mouth. Sweat beads at Dean’s hairline, and he’s not actually sure he thought this through. His father blocks his path to the stairs, and even though he’s swaying on his feet, Dean has to admit that punch was better than he was expecting.

He wipes at the cut on his lip with the tip of his tongue as his father shakes out his hand. “So is that a no?”

His father growls like a trapped rabid dog with too few options. He clicks his jaw, and the way Dean sees himself in the gesture hurts more than the way his cheek burns. Instead of going to his room, John turns and heads downstairs.

Dean follows, and by the time he sees how John can’t grip the lock strong enough to twist it, all the fight drains out of him. Maybe it’s that he’s running on basically no sleep, or maybe it’s that it’s four o’clock in the morning, or Cas’s words about trying harder than anyone to avoid his way into a life he wanted, but Dean’s able to see his father as the sad, lonely man he is, too miserable to give up the thing that’s spent thirty plus years killing him.

Not even for the only person on this planet stupid enough to still love him.

“Dad, please.” Dean says it quiet and careful. He tries to make it sound like love, but it comes out too much like begging. “Let’s just go to bed. We’ll figure it out in the morning, okay? I promise.” Bobby used to say to Dean that the rule about never going to bed angry was horse sh*t. So, he tells his dad what Bobby used to tell him when things got too much for him to see past the red. “It’ll all be clearer in the morning’s light.”

Apparently, that was a mistake.

“What kind of puss* new age bullsh*t is that?” His father turns away from the door to face Dean and the whites of his eyes are so yellow, Dean wonders if he’s the one seeing things now. “I didn’t raise you to be some kind of hippy-dippy queer.”

The accusation slices Dean deeper than it should. He stands in front of his father still wearing his hand-me-down leather jacket, with his classic Chevy in the driveway, its original tape deck holding one of the seventies rock bands his father got him hooked on. Dean trembles. His hands brush the sleeves of his jacket across his knuckles when it should hit his wrists, and he hears the disgust in his dad’s voice when John mused on his resemblance to the mother he never got to know, and he wonders if the shell he desperately built of all the parts of his father he’s spent his life inside is more transparent than he realized.

“Where did you even hear that fairy bullsh*t?” John’s voice booms through the living room, and Dean is twelve years old again, telling his father he had to hustle pool to feed Sammy because he was gone so long their teachers were asking questions. “That why you’re trying to play nursemaid?” His father starts pacing the foyer. “Don’t have a wife to do it. Never made enough of a name for yourself. So you think you can be man of this house instead?” John picks up the small pink bowl with the Impala’s keys in it. “You think you’re better than me? Is that it?” He turns the bowl in his hands a few times, and the rage builds in Dean’s chest. His father says he’s not doing enough for him, except when he’s doing too much—and all of it wrong. John catches the initials on the bottom of the bowl—S.W.—and he holds it in his palm. “You think you’re a better father than me?”

“Put the bowl down,” Dean says. His voice cracks, but he doesn’t care. His father can say anything he wants about him, but he doesn’t get Sam. After all the mistakes Dean has made in his life, and after all the ways he failed, his father doesn’t get to take the only thing he ever did right. “You don’t get to touch that.”

“That right?” John asks, a threat glinting in his eye. “You think you get to just waltz in here and be the big man, make all the rules.” His fingers curl around the bowl, and he dumps the keys into his other hand. “You know, I gave you this for a reason. This car—it was supposed to mean something.” His father’s gaze turns on him, and it traces him up and down, like he’s evaluating him on a test Dean didn’t know he was taking, but still failed. “I wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known—well.” He shrugs. “Should’ve known better.” Then, John pockets the keys.

Dean swallows hard, trying to dislodge the lump in his throat, but it’s like it cauterized itself to his vocal cords, and he’s frozen. He holds out his hand for the bowl, and the grin on his father’s face turns sour. Dean just failed another test, choosing Sam’s hideous bowl over his father’s Impala, but he doesn’t care. He can’t even bring himself to pretend it was a hard choice. Dean’s spent his life trying to be what his dad wants him to be, only to be told he’s lazy and stupid, built wrong and not worth any inconvenience. That his father would’ve loved him, if only. If only everything about him was different. And now, he stands in front of Dean with his razor trying to carve out the only things that make him even vaguely decent: Sammy, the boy he raised, and Bobby, the man who raised him.

And Dean isn’t going to let him have them.

He gestures with his hand again. “Give me the bowl.” His voice sounds like he just swallowed a handful of gravel. “We’ll figure the rest out tomorrow.”

It seems his father won’t let him have them either.

He licks his lips, then throws the bowl at the door, seeming to aim for the lock, but instead smashing through the window, the glass shattering into the foyer and out onto the step.

Dean snaps.

“You son of a bitch!” He charges at his father, pressing his right shoulder square into his chest until he feels the give of the wall behind his father. John lets out a burst of breath, something between a surprised yell and a muffled whine. Dean pulls back and holds him firm with his arm as a bar across his shoulders. Before, when this was less a big fight and more a Tuesday night, Dean would never be able to get this leverage on his father. He’s taller, heavier, with a higher centre of gravity and dozens more bar fights behind him. John had every physical advantage on Dean, and he exploited them. That, and the fact that Dean loves his father. “You don’t get to touch that!”

“Dean,” his dad says, wheezing. “I can’t breathe.”

Tears blur Dean’s vision as he presses his elbow into his father’s shoulder. “I haven’t been able to breathe for thirty years, you selfish bastard!” A sob escapes, and he’s too riled up to be embarrassed about it. “I lost Mom too! I lost Mom, then I lost you. I was the one who had to take care of this family.” He pushes into his father one more time, and his cough smells too sweet. It jolts Dean out of his own rage. “I’m just trying to take care of you, Dad.” He loosens his grip but doesn’t drop his arm altogether. “I don’t want you to die alone because I love you.”

They stand like that for a moment, just staring at each other, and Dean can’t read whatever emotions are shuttering through John’s eyes. He wants to believe he finally gets it, but he was never very big on faith.

John opens his mouth, about to respond, when blue and red lights flash outside the house. Dean drops his arm and leans back, and John stares through Dean. Whatever calm might’ve passed over him before is gone, and he pushes his finger in Dean’s face again.

“That’s the last time you get to talk to me like that.”

Dean watches his father for a long beat, even after he hears the footsteps in the glass and the firm knock at the front door.

His dad goes on staring right back.

———

Dean swallows hard before he opens the door, sending one last look over his shoulder to his father in the recliner where he sent him. It’s been a long time since Dean had to deal with the police in the middle of the night. He hopes he’s not out of practice.

He swings the door open, and the words are out of his mouth before he realizes. “Jody. What’re you—” She stands on the step much like she did the morning Dean caught her dropping off the groceries from Bobby, but this time the guilt on her face is replaced with a look of patient vindication, like this visit was inevitable.

“’Morning, Dean,” she says, her thumbs tucked into her tactical belt. She shifts on her feet, letting the glass crunch under her feet. “Something you’d like to tell me about?”

“It’s okay, Jody,” Dean says, leaning a little against the door. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Yeah, looks it,” she says, tapping her lip where Dean’s still got a slow trickle of blood every time he stretches it too tight.

Suddenly, he feels the injury full force, and heat spreads across his chin and up into his cheek. He presses his tongue into the cut inside his lip, and it surprises him how deep it is.

Still, he wipes at his chin, trying to get the blood off. “It was nothing.”

“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take your word for it.” She steps over the threshold without asking Dean if she can come in, and he’s about to object when Jody addresses John. “Mr. Winchester! Good morning!”

John doesn’t move in the chair. He’s used to Dean getting the cops out of there by now, and he wonders if his dad is even awake.

“Mr. Winchester?” Jody approaches slowly. Her thumbs are still tucked in her belt, but Dean notices how she tucks her elbows in, clearing the path for her to quickly grab her gun. “I’m Sheriff Mills. I don’t think we’ve met.”

John keeps his gaze on the empty television, and Dean swallows hard. Jody glances back at him with raised eyebrows, and Dean keeps his expression blank.

“Dad, Jody’s good people, okay?” He remains in the foyer. The last thing he wants to do is startle anyone and give Jody a reason to do what she’s obviously prepared to do. “Just talk to her, and then we can go to bed.”

His father scoffs. “Good people. Right.”

“He lives!” Jody says cheerfully, and Dean’s gut churns. He’s sure this works for Jody in most situations, but John Winchester is not most people. “Do you want to tell me how that window got broke over there?”

“I missed,” is John’s only response, and Dean squeezes his eyes tight.

“What were you aiming at?” Jody asks.

Dean says, “The lock” at the same time his father says, “Him” and Dean’s stomach drops through his feet. He stumbles back a bit to the banister and sinks down to sit on the stairs.

“You mean your son, Mr. Winchester?” Jody asks, still slowly approaching his father like she’s waiting for him to lash out at any moment.

John laughs once, bitter with a crack of phlegm. “If you can call him that.”

Dean knows Jody is looking over at him, but he keeps staring at his hands. His father always said that real work shows up on your hands: calluses and scars and missing fingernails and never quite getting your skin back to the right colour. His father’s hands are calloused bright white with thick patches of burnt skin and black over his fingers. His nails grow in strange ridges where his cuticles got busted up. Dean used to be proud at how much his hands reflected the life he led. Like he could prove his worth by how disfigured he made himself. And then when nobody bothered to look deeper than his brash smiles and co*cky bravado, he could say it was because his hands told them the truth about him. But as he examines them now, he notes how they’ve softened. The only significant calluses are where he holds his radio trigger. Even the grease he never thought would wash away no longer lines his nails and has lightened to a dim grey over his skin. Something that might disappear with enough scrubbing. Like he could erase the evidence completely.

Jody’s still talking to John, but Dean isn’t really paying attention. Him plays like a broken cassette in his mind, stuck on a loop against a fraying tape.

Him.

Your son?

If you can call him that.

Him. Him. I missed him.

Finally, Jody’s lowering herself to kneel in front of Dean. Distantly, he can hear her saying his name, but it’s not until she covers his hands with hers that he jerks back into reality.

“Dean, hey.” Her smile is gentle and patient, and Dean pulls his hands back towards his chest. She only falters for a moment before she presses on. “I’m going to have my deputies take your dad out to the car for some more questions, okay? And I’ve got some EMTs enroute—”

“Please don’t tell Bobby.” Dean doesn’t mean it to come out so fast and desperate, but he can’t even let Jody finish. “Don’t tell him.” He swallows hard. “I’ll take care of it. Bobby doesn’t—”

He stops himself when Jody’s eyebrows fall together. “Dean—”

“You already called him,” Dean says, the situation dawning on him.

She nods, and it’s all pity and sympathy and Dean doesn’t want any of it. “I had dispatch ping me if this address ever got called in. Bobby asked me to. I promised to let him know if I got a call.”

Dean looks away, and some deputies come in the door, Jody having apparently already radioed for them to take his dad. “Listen, you don’t need to arrest him, okay? I’m not going to press charges. He just needs to sleep it off.”

“It’s not your call, Dean.” Jody squeezes his knee, and he stops himself from standing quick enough to knock her to the floor. That’s certainly not going to change her mind. John yells at one of the deputies when they try to stand him up. “He’s—” She pauses. “We don’t need you to.”

“Dean!” John yells as his father is dragged through the living room. “Dean, will you tell these assholes to get out of here?” One of the deputies grabs his bicep, and something stirs deep in Dean’s gut when he sees they’ve handcuffed him. “Are you just going to stare like some slack-jawed idiot? Tell them!”

Dean stands carefully then, and Jody mirrors him. He’s up one step, so he’s even taller than her than usual, and he sees there are three squad cars in the street, lights flashing, and an ambulance pulls up behind them. The whole street is going to be talking about this tomorrow.

“Jody, please.” Dean looks down at her, and she just squeezes his forearm. “You can’t take him to jail. He’s sick!” Dean gestures at his father as they load him into the back and the EMTs join the deputies. But as he pleads with her, he pulls at his lip again, and the hot trail of blood burns down his chin before he can wipe it away. “C’mon, Jody. It’s not that big a deal.”

“Let’s get you to the ambulance for when they’re done with your dad.” Jody gently tries to lead Dean through the door by his elbow, but he rips it away. His ears ring, the blood rushing through, dulling anything else, and he briefly considers that he might throw up. “Dean.”

“Are you gonna arrest me?” Dean asks, stepping down into the foyer with Jody. If the intimidation works, Jody doesn’t let it show.

“Not if I don’t have to,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you going to give me a reason?”

Dean works the muscles in his jaw, considering. He almost calls her bluff. Either she’s serious and then at least Dean will be with his father in county until he can get someone to bail them out, or she’s posturing and she loses the upper hand. But then his eyes catch on his ID badge, hanging from the hook by the door—the airplane disappearing behind a tower with the FAA logo embossed in shining blue—and he swallows hard. The government doesn’t hire felons.

Are you just going to sit there like a slack-jawed idiot?

The glass twinkles on the foyer carpet like a field of stars, like the ones he gets to see on his midnight shifts, and the half-circle doorknob dent in the wall hangs like a waning moon.

Him? If you can call him that.

He’s never had another frame of reference for them before. Never had someone to hold his hand or cuff his father’s. He toes his boot into the glass, and the crunch is sharp and solid, and something starts to fall together.

“Dean?” The voice echoes on the street, but it doesn’t bring tension to his shoulders. Jody waves out the door when the voice calls his name again, and the back of Dean’s throat burns. Jody walks out to join her deputies, and Dean’s eyes already feel raw.

“Dean,” the voice says as it finally arrives in front of him, and all the air tumbles out of his chest in one long breath.

“Hey, Bobby.” Somewhere in the back of mind, Dean wonders why the shame doesn’t come when he hears the way his voice cracks on Bobby’s name, or when he realizes he’s trembling, his breath coming out like a Gatling gun. He raises his eyes. “Fancy meetin’ you here, huh?”

Bobby sighs when he sees the cut on Dean’s lip. Dean can’t watch as Bobby’s gaze scans his face, not willing to think about what he must look like: thick crusted rust smeared over his chin and cheek, the thin line of fresh blood cutting through it, the way the bruises must be starting to mark their territory. The apple of his cheek is already tender enough to make his eye water.

Bobby’s face crumples, and Dean won’t be able to take it if he cries. He opens his mouth to apologize, to tell Bobby he was right and Dean was a stupid sentimental asshole, that he didn’t think he could have both of them and he chose wrong. Before Dean can form the words, Bobby brings his hand up to Dean’s face, and he flinches away, squeezing his eyes tight, before he even realizes what he’s doing.

A short sob escapes from Bobby, just as he lays his palm to Dean’s jaw, his thumb hooked where the blood still runs fresh over his chin. “I ain’t gonna hit you, boy.” Bobby sweeps the blood away, and his voice shakes, his fingertips pressing behind his ear like he can hold Dean up through sheer force of will. “I’m never gonna hit you.”

“I know, Bobby, I’m sorry,” Dean says, swallowing down the nausea as his adrenaline drains away at every spot Bobby holds him. “I didn’t mean to—” He takes a deep shuddering breath, relaxing into Bobby’s hand. “I’m sorry, I swear I know. I’m so sorry.”

Bobby pulls him in for a bruising hug, but he doesn’t mind the pain this time. “It ain’t your fault.” Bobby presses his palms into Dean’s shoulders, soothes the back of his head, and Dean grips his flannel like it’s a toddler’s favourite blanket. The worn, threadbare fabric might as well be silk between Dean’s fingers, and he leans heavy on the old man—his old man. “You’re okay now. You didn’t do anything wrong, Dean. You’re all right.”

Dean buries his face into Bobby’s shoulder and breathes in the scent of motor oil and Old Spice and microwave dinners, and he tries to believe him.

———

After Dean gets cleared by the EMTs, Bobby drives him to the hospital where they’ve taken his father to get checked out before they book him. They don’t talk, but Dean feels chastened like he’s been sent to the principal’s office. He picks at a hangnail as Bobby’s diesel truck coughs and sputters down the too-early empty road.

“I think you’ve bled enough for tonight,” Bobby says, not taking his eyes off the road, when Dean hisses through his teeth. “Stop makin’ it worse.”

Dean sticks his nail in his mouth, pouting. “I’m fine,” he says around it. Bobby hums in acknowledgment, if not agreement, and Dean shakes his hand out. Honestly, the fresh throbbing heat helps keep him awake. He can’t quite seem to remember when the last time he slept was. The memory slips too easy past him. “’M just tired,” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. “I had a late shift yesterday. Today?” He sighs, dropping his head back against the headrest. “I don’t even f*cking know.”

“We’ll get things sorted with Jody at the hospital, and then you can come home with me.” Bobby turns the truck smoothly onto the access road behind the hospital, where they can get to the emergency room where his dad is being treated. “You can get some rest.”

Dean shakes his head. “I’m fine at the house, Bobby. The place is a mess now anyway, and I’ve got to get it sorted before—“

“Dammit, Dean,” Bobby growls before jerking the truck to a stop. “Haven’t you learned anything?” When Dean’s only response is a confused look, Bobby huffs and presses the gas again. “There’s too much sh*t at that house. You’ll stay with me so you can get some sleep, and then we’ll figure it out.” He turns to Dean to emphasize an addition: “Together.” Bobby pulls them into a spot close to the ambulance bay. “Is that clear?”

Dean swallows hard, but the lump he finds there is different from earlier. Burning less like a wildfire and more like a hearth. “Yeah.” Bobby looks at Dean with raised eyebrows, as if to really hammer home that this isn’t a negotiation. “Yeah, Bobby,” Dean says again, this time with a breath of a laugh. “I got it, okay? I’ll stay at your place for a bit.” Bobby turns off the truck and puts it in park, but Dean doesn’t stop looking. “Thanks.”

Bobby huffs. “Don’t thank me yet, kid.” The door swings open with a sharp groan. “The night’s not over yet, and you might not like how it ends.”

Dean ignores the ominous stirring in his gut and follows Bobby into the emergency bay. Jody is already out waiting for them, and she leads them through a back hallway to a door with a deputy stationed outside.

“He’s in there,” she says, gesturing to the closed door with her head. “We’re just waiting for him to be cleared by the doctor.”

Dean crosses his arms tight. “And you have to? Arrest him, that is?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jody says, sighing deep. Before Dean can interject, she continues. “It’s out of my hands, Dean.” She raises her hands in surrender. “He’s got a warrant out. I can’t ignore that, not without risking my job.”

“Wait—” Dean looks at Bobby, who shrugs, then back at Jody. “A warrant? For what?”

Jody’s eyes widen. “Oh—I’m sorry, Dean, I assumed you knew.”

Dean steps back, like he’s absorbing a physical blow. “A warrant? Like, for a crime?” He turns to Bobby. “Did you know about this?” Bobby shakes his head, looking as shell-shocked as Dean feels. He turns back to Jody. “What’d he do?”

“I don’t actually know,” Jody says. “It seems to be under military jurisdiction.”

“What?” Dean’s mind spins. “That doesn’t make any sense. He hasn’t been enlisted for decades. What could they possibly want with him?”

A woman dressed in an air force uniform appears through the doorway. Her dark blonde hair is slicked back in a tight bun, and she wears a dark blue pencil skirt to match her blazer and smart black heels. There are two thick silver bars on her shoulders and her nameplate reads TALBOT. “Malingering and drunkenness, originally,” she says, closing the door behind her and tucking her hands neatly in front of her. “Now he’s added escape from custody and desertion on top of that.”

“Desertion?” Dean huffs a laugh of disbelief. “I don’t understand. He was discharged when I was a kid. We left after he lost his mechanic cert—” Dean cuts himself off, the pieces falling together embarrassingly slowly, and Captain Talbot waits patiently for him to understand that his father has spent his life lying to his sons and running from the military police. “He never got discharged, did he? He just took off.”

Captain Talbot nods. “Yes, he did.” A man in fatigues appears behind her and hands her some papers, a black band reading “MP” around his bicep and a series of chevrons with a star in the middle and topped by a reverse chevron on his chest. “He was caught drunk on duty, and then feigned an illness to avoid his duties.” She flips to the next page. “He seemed to be able to desert based on the help of a fellow NCM, a—” She flips a few more pages. “A Corporal William Harvelle.” She closes the files and hands then to Jody, who takes them carefully. “He served two years before a dishonourable discharge for helping your father.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Bobby says in a hushed tone. “Bill never did say why he hated your daddy so much. But yeah.” He settles back into his thoughtful silence. “That’ll do it.”

“Isn’t there some kind of, I don’t know, statute of limitations on these things?” Jody asks, skimming the file that’s thicker than it should be, and shame burns at Dean’s ears.

“Not in the eyes of the United States Air Force.” Captain Talbot seems too satisfied delivering this news. “The military doesn’t look kindly upon cowards and traitors.”

Dean drops his hands to his sides, already in fists, but Bobby grips his jacket. His eyes meet Dean’s, hot with warning. Don’t you dare, they say. Don’t you throw your life away ‘cause she’s telling you the truth.

Dean swallows hard, shoving down everything he wants to spit at Captain Talbot’s smug smile, victorious without any actual effort. “Well,” Dean says finally. “He’s dying so, I feel like that’s punishment enough, don’t you think?”

Her smile falters briefly, then tips up at the side. “That’s for JAG to decide.” She holds her hand out for the file Jody is still perusing, and Jody hands it back, aiming high eyebrows at Dean. “Master Sergeant Hendrikson here will keep an eye on him for now.”

Dean’s gaze flicks to the MP who handed Captain Talbot the file, and his smug smile matches his superior’s, but lacking the malice. He seems like he just has the satisfaction of getting his man and seeing justice done, but it doesn’t ease the fire in Dean’s gut from it all.

“We’ll be in touch,” she says before turning on her heel and sauntering down the hallway.

Dean stares after her, his mouth half-open, speechless. Master Sergeant Hendrikson heads over to the deputy in front of the door and slaps him on the shoulder. “I’ll take it from here.” As he takes the newly evacuated space, he turns to Dean, leaning in conspiratorially. “Don’t take it personally. She’s just like that.”

“No kidding,” Dean says in disbelief. “Any way to get her off our backs, you think?”

“Nope,” he says, straightening back up. “Once she’s got the scent of something, she’s like a hellhound. Absolutely ruthless.”

“Great.” Dean gestures to Bobby and Jody. “What’re we supposed to do now?”

“I say let ‘em take him,” Bobby says simply, and Dean gapes at him. “What? He dies here making you miserable or dies there making them miserable. I’d rather it be them.” Bobby turns to the sergeant. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he says with a long drawl.

“I don’t think I have any pull here,” Jody adds. “Military courts are totally separate. They can have some really bizarre ideas of justice.” Jody winces. “No offense.”

Master Sergeant Hendrikson smiles, less smug this time and more entertained. “None at all.”

Dean rubs his hands down over his face, frustrated. “They’re really going to lock up a dying guy for some stupid thing he did, like, twenty years ago? Don’t they have better things to be doing with their time? Like whatever reason the Yemeni airspace is always f*cking closed?”

All three of them look over to the military police officer at the edge of their circle and say all at once, “No offense.”

This time it pulls a laugh from the sergeant. “Just pretend I ain’t even here.” He stands up a little straighter. Dean thinks it’s a weird attempt at military decorum, but it turns out he’s checking down the hallway to see where Captain Talbot is. “You didn’t hear this from me, but Veteran’s Affairs isn’t much interested in treating the problems the military caused, including whatever your father’s dying from.” He eases back into a more relaxed stature. “If someone were to make a case for a compassionate release with a guilty plea and a discharge, I have a feeling the government would be amiable to a chat in service of our taxpayers.”

Dean stares at Master Sergeant Hendrikson like he just handed him the moon. “That’ll be a hard sell for Dad, but it’s the best news I’ve heard all day.” Dean looks to Jody and Bobby, who both nod in agreement, like it’s a good plan. “All right. I’ll go see if I can sweet talk the captain into giving us a break.” Dean taps Hendrikson on the shoulder. “Thanks, Sarge.”

Hendrikson winks, then returns his gaze to the opposite wall, becoming the poster child of military discipline once again, and Dean takes off down the hallway before he can think too hard about it.

———

Dean sits in the chair by his father’s hospital bed, with his elbows on his knees, spinning a pair of business cards between his index finger and thumb. One is for Captain Talbot, so he can get in touch with the final paperwork, and another is for a home nurse aide who works with the VA named Megan Masters. Talbot said she has “experience with patients like Corporal Winchester” and Dean didn’t need to ask what that means. He spins them faster and faster as his father dozes, trying to figure out the best way to get him to sign the papers on the nightstand, the ones that will allow him a dishonourable discharge and a conditional compassionate release under Jody’s supervision. Dean doubts his father will take any of it particularly well, but John has to agree it’s better than spending what would effectively be the rest of his life in Leavenworth.

John stirs, and Dean straightens up, taking a breath to prepare for the inevitable fight. “Hey,” he says, ignoring the way his lip pulls. “Welcome back.”

His father groans. “Where am I?”

“The hospital,” Dean says. “They had to sedate you.”

“Christ,” he mutters. He tries to raise his hand to his face, but it’s caught by handcuffs. “Is this really necessary?”

“Not my call.” Dean flicks at the business cards and runs his tongue over the single stitch on the inside of his cheek, thinking about how Jody explained that Dean can’t save John from his mistakes anymore, not if his father won’t try too.

His father rolls his eyes. “Well, get ‘em off so we can get outta here.”

Dean scoffs. “Also not my call.”

“What does that mean?” His father’s thick eyebrows stitch his forehead in a frown, then flick quickly to the doorway where Master Sergeant Henrikson still stands guard. “What’s going on?”

“You lied to me. To both Sam and me.” Dean points over his shoulder with his thumb. “Turns out there isn’t a statute of limitations of desertion. The air force takes it real personal.”

John’s eyes widen, and Dean wonders in some distant part of himself if it’s the first time he’s seen his father afraid. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares unseeing at the insignia on Hendrikson’s arm.

“Is that the real reason we had to keep moving?” Dean asks. “You were a fugitive who let your best friend rot in prison for it?”

After the moment stretches too long, John says, “You’ve gotta get me outta here.”

Dean leans back in his chair. “It’s not my call.”

“Is that all you’ve got to f*cking say?” John snaps. “Jesus. Whose call is it then?”

Dean takes the papers from the nightstand and drops them in his father’s lap. “Yours.”

John flips the folder open and scans through the paperwork, his face tightening the longer he reads, and the papers tremble in his hands. “What is this?”

“Your Get Out of Jail Free card,” Dean says. “You agree to this, you come home.”

“If I sign this, I’m agreeing with their bullsh*t lies,” John says, shutting the folder and tossing it to the foot of the bed. “I sign that, and I walk out of here a disgrace.”

Bobby enters the room holding two coffees. “Well, I think that’s gonna happen either way,” he says. He hands Dean one of the coffees, and he’s grateful for the way the heat spreads across his fingers. “The only difference is if you walk out on your own or in handcuffs with that guy.”

Bobby sips his coffee as John’s face transforms into something monstrous. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you, Singer?”

“What can I say? I’m not as a good a man as your son.” Bobby shrugs. “I voted to let you rot.” He sips his coffee, and John’s expression darkens further.

Dean waves a hand at Bobby to stand down and refocuses on his father. “Look. This is the only way that guy out there is gonna let you walk out of here.” Dean catches Henrikson out of the corner of his eye tip his head slightly to listen better. “Personally, I wouldn’t mess with him.” Dean swears he sees him smirk. “And it looks like I’m the only one here who doesn’t want to see you dragged off to die in the brig.”

John works his jaw. “You always were too stupid to do the smart thing.”

Dean laughs at that and buries his chin in his chest. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” He takes a breath and stares at his hands. “But no one deserves to die all alone. And I won’t be able to li—” He cuts himself off before emotion overpowers him and makes all this worse.

John shifts in his bed, and when Dean looks up, his father is holding out his hand. “Well?” he asks, ignoring the tremors and staring at Dean with glassy eyes. “Do you have a pen or what?”

Dean digs in his jacket and hands him one, and his father scribbles quickly on the paper before tossing it down again. “I hope you know what you’re f*cking doing.”

Dean’s shoulders relax, his chest loosening and deflating. Me too, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. He just tucks the business cards into his inner pocket and looks to Bobby. He keeps quiet, still drinking his coffee, but he smiles softly at Dean, and he hopes that means he did good.

———

Dean called out for his next shift so they could get his dad home and he could get some rest at Bobby’s place. He took over keeping an eye on John until he had to go back to work, assuring Dean it was just so he could fix the drywall in the laundry. But when he came back to get ready before his next shift, Bobby had also replaced the window and the section of wall by the door where the doorknob had gone through it. Out of habit, he dropped his keys in Sam’s Barbie bowl before he realized it shouldn’t be there. But sure enough, there it was, the cracks clumsily filled with the mud they use at the garage to seal ceramic parts. Bobby had to pull him back into reality after that when he found Dean standing in the living room, tracing the cracks in a daze.

Dean checks himself in his rearview mirror one last time before he climbs out. The cut is healing fine—easy to do when you barely talk—but the bruising’s gotten to its ugly phase: a brutal mix of yellow and purple and green and blue. He steals himself for the inevitable comments and walks through the security gates.

He keeps his head down as he makes his way to the break room and the lockers, grabbing the iPad to sign in and sitting at a table. It doesn’t take long to hear a chair scrape across from him as Cas drops into the seat.

“Feeling better?” he asks casually.

“Hmm?” Dean looks up, and Cas’s face drops. “Oh, yeah. All good.”

Cas settles into the chair, all his casual familiarity having evaporated. “Is it?” He leans forwards, clasping his hands in front of him. Dean can’t take his eyes off how long they are, easily wrapping past the opposite knuckle, and he has to force himself not to wonder what they would feel like running through his hair.

“Yeah, of course,” Dean says, saddling the plastic chair. “Why wouldn’t it be?” Cas raises his eyebrows, challenging Dean to double down on his forced obliviousness. “What, this?” Dean gestures to his face, scoffing. “You should see the other guy.”

Just then, Rufus walks in and stops short. “Who was the other guy? Andre the f*cking Giant?”

Dean smirks, lifting his hands like he can’t possibly gossip. “Who’s to say.”

Rufus huffs a laugh. “Whatever you want, Winchester.” Then, he moves around them to get to the coffee. “I ain’t your daddy.”

Dean stiffens before he can catch himself, and Cas is already staring at him with those sad f*cking puppy eyes, and he can’t stand the pity dripping from them. “Thank God for small miracles,” he says, trying to shake off the discomfort of being scrutinized like this.

“Yeah, f*ck you too,” Rufus says, lifting his mug to his lips as he moves to walk out the door. “Just remember what I told you before, huh? You need something, all you gotta do is ask. Before we can’t do anything about it, hmm?” Then, he’s off again, and all that’s left is Cas’s knowing gaze.

“Don’t,” Dean says, pressing the final few selections on the tablet in front of him to finish his check in.

“I didn’t say anything,” Cas says, and Dean hates him a little bit.

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

Cas opens his hands. “Okay.”

Dean hands him the iPad for him to do his own check in. “I’m serious.”

“Noted.” Cas takes the tablet and starts poking at it, and the hill of ants under Dean’s skin starts to march in earnest.

Dean tongues at the stitch still in his cheek. It’s supposed to dissolve on its own, but he’s already had to get another one put in because he can’t f*cking leave it alone.

“I was thinking we could do some NCD training today,” Cas says, not looking up from the tablet. “Rufus needs a shift anyway, and I don’t mind being supervisor while you do some tabletop exercises.” The tablet sounds as it registers Cas’s entry. “We’re overdue.”

Dean sighs, frustrated. “I don’t need to be taken off the boards, Cas. I said I’m fine.”

“And I believe you.” He lays the tablet down, finally looking at Dean. “Non-coverage duties are part of the job too. You’re not being punished.”

Dean leans back and crosses his arms. “It kind of feels like I’m being punished.”

“Only if you act like a baby about it.”

Dean’s eyes shoot up to meet Cas’s, and the self-satisfied smirk on his face somehow eases the tension from Dean’s shoulders, threatening to tip his lips into a smile. “I’m not being a baby.”

“Well, you know who whines?” Cas asks, leaning forward on his elbows. “Babies.”

Dean lets out a breath of a laugh. “All right, fine. I’ll do the stupid exercises.”

“Good.” Cas stands, resting his fingers on the table. “I’ll inform Rufus of the changes and meet you in the training room. Sound good?”

Dean’s eyes focus on the way his fingertips press into the linoleum until he’s startled by his phone buzzing with a text from the VA nurse. Her name flashes on the screen, and Cas’s face blanches. Dean swallows, his stomach tightening thinking Cas might get the wrong idea, even though Dean’s love life is probably not vaguely on his radar. “Oh, that’s no one. She’s just—”

“My ex-wife,” Cas finishes, and Dean chokes on his own spit.

“Your what?” Dean asks, still coughing.

“My ex-wife,” Cas repeats, still staring at the screen. “Meg.” His knuckles whiten. “I’m assuming you’ve hired her to work with your father?”

“Uh, yeah. Is that—” Dean pauses. “—okay?” Cas looks like he’s seen a ghost, so Dean presses on. “’Cause I didn’t know who she was when they recommended her. If it’ll be weird or anything—”

“No, no,” Cas says, straightening up. “She’s an excellent nurse, and something tells me she will be able to hold her own just fine against your Andre the Giant.”

Dean wants to melt into the floor, and honestly, he might as well with Cas being able to read every goddamn thing all over his face. “Well, I’m talkin’ to her tomorrow before shift so, we’ll see if she agrees, I guess.”

“Good.” Cas taps his fingers against his thighs. “That’s good.” He stands motionless for a moment before he seems to realize Dean’s waiting for him to go make the switch with Rufus. “I’ll see you in the training room.”

Dean watches Cas bolt out of the break room, then buries his face in his hand. Just when he thought things were going to get less complicated, the universe throws another wrench in the gears. Dean knows getting his personal life tangled up with his instructor’s—you know, the one he has a massive embarrassing crush on—is one of the poorer decisions he could make, which is saying a lot based on recent events, but it seems like fate has a different opinion on the matter.

Dean has to admit, he thinks fate could have worse plans.

Chapter 10: i was ready for the down slide (but not for spring to well up)

Chapter Text

When you’re dumb

enough for long enough, you’re gonna meet someone
too smart to love you, and they’re gonna love you

anyway, and it’s gonna go so poorly.

Neil Hilborn, “Ballad of the Bruised Lung”, Our Numbered Days

-

Bobby insists on being there with Dean when he meets with the nurse from the VA. Since Dean has an afternoon shift, she agreed to come early, but it also means John is still in bed. He’s been sleeping a lot since he came home from the hospital, but Dean has been trying not to think about it much.

“You sure about this?” Bobby asks Dean over a coffee. “No one’d blame you for leaving him for the state to figure out.”

Dean sighs and spins his mug between his hands. “I’d blame me, Bobby.” Dean stares down at the black liquid. “I know he hasn’t been the best father in the world—”

Bobby scoffs. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

“—but he’s still my dad. And I still love him.” Dean raises the mug to his lips. “I know that makes me an idiot and naïve and a hundred variations on crazy, but—” He shrugs, then takes a sip. “I can’t let him die alone.”

Bobby clicks his tongue, shaking his head as he takes his own sip. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Dean struggles to smile because he can’t get out what he wants to say: That’s only because of you. Dean’s not stupid. He knows how easily he could have become his father in more than just his clothes and car and taste in music and beer. He knows the only reason Dean didn’t drown in his grief and anger, taking everyone else along with him, is because Bobby wouldn’t let him. He dragged Dean kicking and screaming into the life he has, and he’ll do everything he can to prove to Bobby he was worth it.

A firm, rhythmic knock on the front door saves him from having to respond. “Right on time,” Dean says, letting out a breath. “Let’s get this over with.”

Dean and Bobby both rise from their chairs and make their way through the living room, and Dean struggles to hide his surprise when he opens the door to find a small woman with dark curls and sharp eyebrows, one already co*cked to match her grin. She wears light blue scrubs with an I.D. badge that reads Megan Masters, R.N. and adjusts a messenger bag on her shoulder. Based on the way Captain Talbot described her experience, Dean was expecting someone a little more imposing, or at least taller.

“Mr. and Mr. Winchester, I presume?” she asks, her eyebrow somehow climbing higher.

Dean clears his throat. “Um, I’m Mr. Win—Dean,” he corrects himself quickly. “I’m Dean Winchester. This is Bobby Singer.” He steps back to allow her into the foyer. “My dad’s upstairs asleep for now. You’re Megan Masters?”

She steps over the threshold with a decided swagger to her hips. “You can call me Meg.” She nods at the both of them. “Nice to meet you two.”

“Likewise,” Bobby drawls.

She grips the strap of her messenger bag, pulling it forward a little. “I hear you’ve got a difficult case for me.”

Bobby laughs, but Dean shoots him a look. “I guess you could say that.” He leads them all into the living room where they can talk more comfortably. “My dad’s liver gave out. He’s terminal, but the doc can’t really say about the prognosis.”

“And he’s a miserable son of a bitch,” Bobby adds, and Meg chuckles.

“There it is,” she says, winking at Bobby. She turns to Dean and taps her lip. “His liver make him do that too?”

Dean’s hands tighten to fists at his side, but Bobby just slaps his arm with the back of his hand, laughing. “I like her.”

“You would,” Dean mumbles, but presses on before Bobby can ask for clarification. “Basically, I work full time and need someone to take on what I can’t. We had a home nurse before, but she barely lasted the week—”

“Because he’s a miserable son of a bitch,” Bobby finishes, even though that wasn’t exactly how Dean was going to put it.

“Thank you, Bobby,” Dean says in a tone that means the very opposite, and Bobby flashes a beaming smile at him. He turns back to Meg. “Captain Talbot said you have a lot of experience with difficult patients.”

Meg nods. “I do. I spent most of my career in VA hospitals doing psychiatric nursing, so I doubt your father is anything I haven’t already seen.”

“But you’re not with the VA anymore?” Dean asks, unable to help himself from trying to uncover some of Cas’s mysterious history.

Meg smiles at him like she knows exactly what he’s doing and not like it’s a perfectly normal question to ask someone they’re looking to hire, but that might be all in his head. “I used to live on base, so it made sense. Now I mostly work with private clients, civilian and otherwise.”

Dean nods like that answered his question perfectly, which it would have if he had asked it because he was curious about work history and experience. Which he absolutely is. “Do you have a lot of clients at the moment?”

“I have room to take on your father, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Meg says, infuriatingly aware of how little personal information she’s giving up. “I can even start right away.”

“Great!” Bobby says, clapping his hands.

“Wait, wait,” Dean says. “We’re not even sure if she gets along with Dad.”

“She seems to have the right attitude for it,” Bobby says, gesturing to her. “I’m not sure I’d cross her.”

“She’s like half his size,” Dean says. “What if—”

“I can handle him,” Meg says, then raises her scrub shirt to display a quote tattooed above her hip. “’Though she be but little she is fierce’ and all that.”

Bobby’s eyebrows jump. “I like her.”

“Yeah, you said that already,” Dean says, uncomfortable but not really sure why. It’s not like Dean knows what Cas’s type is, but Meg is certainly not what he pictured. “Listen, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. We can’t afford you if you’re not covered by insurance, and if it’s private homecare—”

“You’re covered,” Meg says, pulling a folder of papers out of her bag. “Just get his doctor to fill these out, confirm he’s terminal and your dependant and all that.” She closes the bag as she holds the papers out to Dean. “That’ll give your insurance company everything they need to put the claim through.”

Dean stares down at the papers, then back up to Meg who gestures again for him to take them. “How do you know that?”

Bobby takes them and gives Dean a what is up with you look. “This is her job, Dean.”

“And I’m familiar with your insurance.” When the two men look back at her, she shrugs. “What? It’s the same as Clarence and every other federal government employee. You’re not special or whatever.”

“Who’s Clarence?” Bobby asks.

“Cas,” Dean says at the same time as Meg says, “My ex-husband.”

“Wait,” Bobby says, pointing to Meg and then to Dean. “Your ex-husband is your instructor?”

Dean sighs. “Yeah, it was news to me too. Cas only told me last night when he saw her name pop up on my phone.”

“Huh,” Bobby says, trying to fit all the pieces together in his mind. “No sh*t. Good for Cas.”

Meg eyes Dean suspiciously. “You call him Cas?”

“I guess.” Dean shrugs, suddenly feeling like he’s revealed something he didn’t mean to. “So what? You call him Clarence apparently.”

“Only because he won’t let me call him Cas,” she shoots back.

“Okay, okay,” Bobby says, interrupting their back and forth. “All this looks in order, Dean. I don’t see why we can’t give it a go.”

Meg crosses her arms, as if to challenge Dean to contradict Bobby’s statement. “Do you have any concerns with me working with your father, Dean? I can address them, if you’d like.”

Dean looks down at Meg, then over to Bobby, and he can’t think of one single thing that doesn’t have to do with his embarrassing crush on his instructor, who just happens to also be Meg’s ex-husband.

“Nope,” Dean says, letting his hands rise and fall in defeat. “I guess you’re hired.”

———

Sam calls just as Dean pulls into the parking lot of the tower, and Dean swears to himself. He only gave Sam a barebones update on their dad, but he should have known better than to expect his baby brother to let it go.

He pulls the Impala into a space and answers before it rings too many times. “Hey, Sammy.”

“Hey,” Sam says, a weird echo to his voice. “How’s it going?”

“Just about to head into work,” he says. “Where are you?”

The brief pause is just enough for Dean to catch Sam’s hesitation. “I’m at the base. I got called in for a meeting before my weekend training.”

Fear tightens Dean’s chest. “What do they want?”

“Don’t know yet.” Sam’s quiet, and Dean wants to batter him with questions to quell the anxiety twisting his guts up, but Sam’s never quiet.

“I bet it’s nothing,” Dean says with his brightest voice. “They probably wanna give you a citation or something for all those classes you’ve been acing.”

Sam lets out a breath. “Brody’s being sent to Niger.”

“sh*t.” They’re quiet on the line for a moment, sitting in the implication that Sam might be following his friend to Africa. “When’s your meeting?”

“In about half an hour.” Dean hears Sam shifting on the other side of the line, the way he does when he’s trying to flatten his tunic because he’s too tall for it to lie flat.

“sh*t,” Dean says again.

“How’s Dad?” Sam asks, changing the subject before they can spiral about it too much.

Dean doesn’t feel much better about this one. “I hired a nurse this morning.”

“Yeah?” Sam doesn’t bother hiding the relief in his voice. “She gonna be okay with Dad? He drove the last one off pretty quick.”

Dean chuckles a little. “Yeah, she seems pretty capable. Bobby said he wouldn’t mess with her.”

“Oh sh*t,” Sam says. “She must be a piece of work.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” Dean traces the stitching of the leather of the steering wheel. It’s not even that he disagrees. He just has this ominous swirling in his stomach that Meg is just gonna make things more complicated for him and Cas. Not that there is a “him and Cas” and after meeting his ex, he’s not sure there can be. Meg and Dean seem like oil and water, and Dean was an idiot to entertain the fantasy that someone like Cas would be interested in someone like him as anything more than that: a fiction. “She starts next week so. We’ll see how it goes.”

“How’s your face?” Sam laughs at Dean’s frustrated grunt. “Yeah, Bobby filled me in. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean rolls his eyes at the empty car. “People are making a way bigger deal of this than it has to be.” He rubs at his forehead. “It wasn’t anything. He was just confused.”

“How long are you going to defend the man, Dean?” Dean hears the squeak of Sam’s dress shoes on the polished floor. “I respect the hell out of what you’re doing, okay? I’m not sure I’d be able to do it. It’s just one of the ways you’re a better man than me.” Dean scoffs, but Sam presses on. “Shut up, you are. You’re the only one who doesn’t believe that. But you can’t keep doing this strong, stoic, solitary soldier bullsh*t. Especially not with me, okay? You have to talk to me, or this isn’t going to work.”

The lump blocks up Dean’s throat again, and he can’t even swallow past it. “He broke your bowl,” is all he manages. Sam’s silence lets Dean pretend he’s not even there. He’s just talking to a cold brick instead of a phone broadcasting to California. “That godawful Barbie pottery monstrosity you made in high school. He took the keys to Baby and the bowl and told me to choose, and he thought I chose wrong.”

“You chose the bowl over your car?” The surprise in Sam’s voice hurts more than the memory of the disgust in his father’s eyes.

Dean clears his throat unsuccessfully. “It was more symbolic than that, I think.” He organizes the crap in the cup holder to give himself something to do with his hands. “He can’t actually take the car back. I changed the title as soon as it was legal.”

“Dean—” Sam can’t seem to decide what he wants to say. “That’s—”

“It’s whatever, okay?” Dean says, eager to wade out of this emotional bog that’s sucking at his ankles. “This Meg chick will help, and I’m taking him to see Dr. Bacic in a couple days. Maybe I can get him to dope him up or something.”

“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says finally.

Dean sniffles, then wipes at his nose. “Whatever. You’d do the same for me.”

Sam lets out a breath, and Dean can picture the small incredulous smile on his face. “See? That’s why you’re a better guy than me. You don’t even doubt that about me.”

“Should I?” Dean asks, knowing he’s fishing but also knowing that Sam set it up that way on purpose.

“No,” Sam says, quiet again. “Never.”

Dean finds his voice gone again. He didn’t expect something so sincere, and he kicks himself for letting Sam lead him straight to it. He clears his throat again. “Well, I’m gonna be late for work so I should go.”

“Yeah,” Sam says with a sigh. “I’m gonna get called in any minute.”

“Text me as soon as you know something,” Dean says. “I’ll check my phone on my break.”

“Yeah.”

Dean’s gut twists again. “We’re gonna figure it out together, all right?” Dean tries not to think about Bobby insisting the same thing just last week. “Whatever happens. We got it.”

“We got it,” Sam repeats. “Thanks, jerk.”

“Any time, bitch.” They hang up, and Dean drops his head back against the seat. He won’t be able to calm down until he hears from Sam. He fiddles with his phone case, the tactile click, click, click helping him stop his breathing from running away from him before he has to go do his shift. It’ll be at least an hour before he can get back to his phone, so he’s gonna have to find a way to put it out of his mind. Be resilient as Cas said in his daily eval.

He breathes deeply a few more times before reaching for the door release, only to nearly jump out of his seat from rapid knocks on the opposite window. Cas flashes his apologetic grimace again, raising his hands, and Dean reaches over the bench seat to roll the window down.

“Hey, sorry, my brother called. I’m on my way in now.”

“Actually,” Cas says, glancing at the tower, then back at Dean. “I was hoping to catch you out here for a few minutes. Do you mind?”

Dean’s confused, but shrugs, and pulls the release to let Cas slip into the passenger seat. He tries not to think too hard about the last time he was in there, when he’d passed his first phase and Cas was trying to convince him to actually celebrate it.

It already feels like a lifetime ago.

Cas tips himself in, remembering too late it’s a bench seat, and ends up jostling Dean’s shoulder. He’s so startled he overcorrects and ends up jammed up beside the door, and Dean holds out his hands like he’s trying to calm one of Bobby’s junkyard dogs.

“Hey, Cas.” Dean puts his hands down and leans back to give him space, and Cas’s face is already redder than Dean has ever seen him. In fact, this might be the first time he’s seen Cas anything but entirely composed. “You doin’ all right there, buddy?”

“Yes, of course, my apologies.” Cas straightens up and tries to smooth his hair without Dean noticing, but he does a poor job of it. “I just wanted to talk to you about yesterday.”

Dean tucks his lip between his teeth self-consciously. He doesn’t want to talk about his dad anymore, especially not to Cas: the one person wholly unconnected to his past and his bullsh*t, who doesn’t have to see him as someone who needs rescuing or rebuilding or to be handled with kid gloves. He’s the only one who doesn’t treat him like a shattered China plate held together with evaporated milk and the best of intentions. And he doesn’t like how Cas has been looking at him different, with wide piercing eyes and the pity that’s always curdled in Dean’s stomach.

“It’s taken care of,” Dean says quickly, before Cas can get out his Do You Need to Talk Speech that everyone gives but no one means, not when they see how deep it goes. “You don’t have to worry about me calling in again or anything like that.” Dean sweeps his hand over his cheek before he realizes he’s just calling attention to it. “I got it covered.”

“Yes, I spoke to Meg earlier,” Cas says, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to figure out the best way to word what comes next. “She told me about your conversation.”

Dean sighs and straightens so he’s facing the windshield again. “Isn’t there some kind of patient confidentiality with nurses?” He smooths his thumb over the steering wheel. He really should’ve asked about that. “’Cause I don’t really think she should be talking to you about my dad or anything.”

“It wasn’t about your father,” Cas clarifies. “It was about me.” His eyes drop to the lunch bag dangling from his fingers between his legs and picks at a string that’s come loose from the stitching. “And you.”

Dean’s not sure what’s got Cas so spooked. “What, the Clarence thing?” Cas finally meets his eyes and tilts his head. “No worries, man, your secret’s safe with me.”

“And it’s not going to—” Cas pauses for a moment and licks his lips, which is definitely the only reason Dean is looking at them when he realizes Cas is speaking again. “—change anything? You’re comfortable continuing to work together?”

Dean taps Cas on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “What? Of course. It’s not your fault your ex-wife gave you a terrible nickname.” He smiles all charm and nonchalance, but it doesn’t seem to put Cas at ease. “Cas is better, I will admit. Not sure why you’d go with something like Clarence instead anyway.”

“It’s the angel from It’s a Wonderful Life.” Cas looks down at his hands again, and the string he was fiddling with pulls free. “I guess you could say it was an inside joke.”

“Well, she seemed surprised I could get away with Cas, so I guess that’s some growth right there, huh?” Dean puts his elbow on the seat so he can face Cas a little better, and Cas is smiling shyly to himself.

“That’s all she told you?” Cas looks over at him, the tension smoothed out of his forehead so his eyes tip down again. It makes him look soft, like there aren’t any sharp edges Dean could cut himself on, even if he tried. “About my nickname, that’s it?”

“I mean, unless I missed it?” Suddenly, the uncertainty that seemed to drain from Cas has stirred itself up in Dean’s ribcage. “Did I miss something?”

“I suspect not,” Cas says. “I think that I may have been misinformed.”

Cas laughs to himself, and Dean shifts in his seat. “You, uh, wanna let me in on the joke?”

“I very much do not,” Cas says, still shaking his head to himself. “My ex-wife can be a bit of what one might call a chaotic good. She has good intentions but I’m not sure her methods are always the most sound.”

“Sure,” Dean says, nodding like he knows what Cas is on about. Sam picked up Dungeons and Dragons when he was a kid, but it never stuck. He moved on pretty quickly to the next nerdy thing while Dean read all the books cover-to-cover behind his back. “Thanks for the heads up, then, I guess. I’m sure my dad’s going to have a great time with that.”

“I’m sorry for wasting your time before shift.” Cas’s hand waves for the door release but can’t seem to land. “I’m sure you had better plans for it than to listen to me try to uselessly clear the air.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean says, his chest still tight with the unanswered questions. “It was nice to be distracted, actually. I’m waiting on some news about—” Dean cuts himself off.

“Your father?” Cas asks, his hand returning to his lap.

Dean shakes his head. “My brother.” He tips up his phone to see if he has a message, but it’s empty. “Sorry, I guess just more personal stuff. Nothing you’ve gotta worry about.”

“Is he all right?” Cas asks, worry etching back into the lines on his forehead.

“For now.” Dean brushes off his jeans, like there’s some invisible dirt to clean. “But he’s in a meeting now that might change that.”

Cas turns to face Dean better on the bench seat, and Dean straightens up a little, surprised that Cas seems to want more information instead of moving the conversation along. “Is he having trouble in school?”

“What? No, not Sam.” Dean looks up again from his phone. “Once we got him through his bachelor’s degree, the f*cking genius got himself into Stanford Law of all places. And a mechanic’s salary ain’t going to make much of a dent in that. So, I’m here and Sam got trained up as a pilot in the reserves, and they’re paying his tuition and sh*t as long as he’s on call, and I do my best to fill the gap, but—”

“His meeting is about a deployment,” Cas says, finishing the thought that Dean can’t quite say out loud.

“Maybe,” Dean says quietly. “We’ll know soon, I guess. His buddy just got an assignment to go to Niger, but he was on active reserve, so I don’t know if Sam’s gonna—” He still can’t even put the thought out into the universe. He can’t.

Cas nods solemnly. “I recently had a friend in regular service ship out for his second tour in Syria. It’s about that time to refresh some of those already stationed there.”

Dean sniffles, then wipes his hand over his face before Cas can see the emotion there. He doesn’t know if he can handle the thought of his baby brother in a warzone like that. Even if he is just a transport pilot. It’s a war. They shoot transports down all the time.

“You said he was trained as a pilot?” Cas asks.

Dean nods. “Yeah. Hercs, I think he said. Mostly troop transport, cargo and sh*t.” He takes a deep breath. “The stuff that ain’t supposed to get you killed.”

“Well,” Cas says, “they will have to get those new troops around somehow. He may not get deployed outside of the United States.”

Dean’s gaze shoots to Cas, whose eyes look back, crinkling at the corners. “What does that mean?”

Cas brings his arm up to match the way Dean’s hangs off the edge of the bench, and their hands hover a mere inch from each other. “I can’t say what their plans are for Sam, but I would be surprised if they sent a reserve pilot to transport troops and equipment when they need to send pilots over there anyway. What’s difficult is moving those troops and equipment to a central place stateside, and that’s where reserve pilots are most helpful.”

“So, they might just need Sam to fly sh*t between bases here in the States?” Dean asks, his heart in his throat, like it would be too much to ask for it to be true.

“It’s possible,” Cas says. “I don’t want to dismiss the possibility of a tour for your brother out of hand, but in my experience, I think it’s likely that—”

Dean cuts Cas’s hedging off when he dives over to hug him. “Jesus, Cas.” Dean holds on tight, not even noticing that Cas isn’t returning the hug. “You’re f*cking saving my life here. I thought I was going to throw up.”

“I, um—” Cas stumbles over his words, then slowly wraps the arm that was hanging off the bench around Dean’s shoulders. “I hope that’s the case for Sam.”

“f*ck, me too.” Dean slaps his back, then pulls away. “Christ.” He laughs at his relief as he wipes his hands over his eyes. He’s not crying, but he’s misty. “I’ll tell you, man, maybe you are an angel. f*ck.”

Cas smiles that shy smile again, and something twists up in Dean’s guts. “You’re welcome.”

“Are you sure you don’t wanna tell me what Meg said she said?” Dean asks, desperate to return the favour Cas just did him. “Maybe it’ll be a laugh.”

Cas shakes his head. “No, I’d really rather not.” This time, his hand finds the door release just fine. “But thank you.”

Dean watches Cas climb out of the car, and suddenly, he doesn’t want their moment to end. So, he jumps out and meets Cas as he rounds Baby’s trunk on his way to the tower. “Does that mean that I don’t have to keep the Clarence thing to myself then? Because I can think of a few folks who could have a field day with that one.”

Cas huffs a laugh, and Dean feels like he accomplished something important. “I would appreciate it if you kept that between us.” They stroll lazily through the parking lot, neither seeming too eager to walk through the doors where they transform into instructor and trainee again. “And I won’t tell anyone you keep your keys in a bright pink lump of clay.”

Dean laughs and claps Cas on the back, letting his hand linger a little longer than necessary. The tips of Cas’s ears redden, but Dean tells himself it’s from the fall chill. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

———

Dean has to stop himself from running down the stairwell on their first break to check his phone and see if Sam got out of his meeting. Cas has the decency to pretend he doesn’t notice how Dean extends his strides as they get closer to the lockers, and he goes straight to the fridge to grab a drink and ignores Dean as he struggles to open his lock.

Cas pops open a drink and leans against the counter, but Dean’s too focused on his notifications to care what he looks like. There’s a voicemail and a text from Sam and Dean’s thumbs shake as he tries to type in his passcode, and he gets it wrong twice.

I’m not going overseas. Left a voicemail with more info but nothing to freak out about. Thanks for the talk, jerk.

Dean lets out a long breath, and he looks over his shoulder to Cas who seems like he’s desperately trying not to ask what Sam said.

“He’s not going overseas,” Dean says, still staring at his phone. “He left a voicemail. You mind if I—” Dean gestures to the hallway with a thumb over his shoulder.

“Go, go,” Cas says, waving him off, but the way his shoulders ease doesn’t escape Dean’s attention. But that’s for future Dean.

The phone is already at his ear before the door closes behind him.

“Hey, Dean,” his brother says as the voicemail clicks on. “Turns out there’s nothing too serious to worry about. I’m gonna have to spend a few weeks doing some transport flights at the end of the semester, but all stateside. It looks like it’s gonna be tight between the holidays and exams and the start of next semester, but I’ll take it if I don’t have to go to Africa. Anyway, we’ll talk more about it later, but I wanted to make sure you knew you could relax. Mostly, at least. I don’t think anyone’s gonna get me over the Midwest. So. That’s it. See ya.”

Dean closes the call and leans back heavy against the concrete wall. “Son of a bitch was right.” He stares at his phone and laughs lightly. “Thank f*ck.” He takes another moment to catch his breath, then slips back into the break room.

Cas hasn’t moved, and Dean grabs a drink from the fridge and leans beside him, popping the top and taking a long drink. They stand in silence for a moment, and Dean appreciates more than anything that Cas lets him be quiet and take his time. Like Cas is sure that Dean’ll share whenever he’s ready to and he’s willing to wait for it.

“You were right about Sam’s assignment,” Dean says before taking a long drink.

Cas peaks at him through the corner of his eye. “I’m glad of it.”

Dean holds his can out, and Cas stares for a moment before he seems to realize what to do. He taps his own drink against Dean’s, and they both drink to hide their smiles. Neither of them move. All the tension that’s been stored up in Dean’s shoulders and back releases, like he’s dropped a backpack he forgot he was even carrying.

Dean leans over and knocks Cas’s shoulder with his own. “Thanks.”

Cas smiles back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Dean’s eyes wander over Cas’s face, trying to figure out where he went wrong. But whatever pity or concern that lined his face is gone, replaced with a kind of melancholy that makes Dean think of stained-glass windows.

Cas finishes his drink and tosses it in the recycling. “I’ll see you up there,” he says without meeting Dean’s eye and heads to the quiet rooms, leaving Dean confused and alone.

Chapter 11: never thought i’d meet you here (it could be love)

Chapter Text

You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart take root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t even have a name for.

Richard Siken, “You Are Jeff”, Crush

-

Dean picks at the hem of his jeans as he waits in the empty hospital room for his father to finish getting his blood drawn. Dr. Bacic visited only long enough to send John for the tests he never told Dean he wasn’t keeping up. So, now a check-up appointment has turned into a full work-up and it’s not really how Dean was planning to spend his day off.

He drums his thumb on the side of his boot, and he’s about to go find something to do already, when Dr. Bacic walks back into the room, and Dean shoots out of his chair.

“Mr. Winchester,” the doctor says, flipping the chart open.

“Call me Dean,” he says with a distracted wave. “That’s weird when we’re here for my dad.”

Dr. Bacic tips his eyes up to meet Dean’s, his stringy black hair slipping out from behind his ears, and Dean understands why the nurses call him “Dr. Sexy” behind his back. “Sure,” he says with a faint smile. “Dean it is.” He returns his eyes to his notes, and the amusem*nt fades from his smile. He clicks his tongue, and Dean’s mouth turns to cotton. “I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”

Dean scoffs. “When is it ever?”

Dr. Bacic forces a smile, but it quickly fades. “Unfortunately, the results of your father’s tests indicate his cirrhosis has advanced quite quickly. His bilirubin and creatinine levels are much higher than we like to see.” He closes the chart and folds his hands over it. “We call this status decompensated cirrhosis, which makes his prognosis on the shorter end of the possible timeline.”

Heat crawls up Dean’s neck until his ears burn and he can’t quite feel his face. “Which is?”

“The average prognosis for patients like your father is two years.” Dr. Bacic pauses for a moment. “However, the fluid building up in his abdomen and his persistent jaundice points to the higher possibility of complications in addition to the cirrhosis. I would not expect him to beat the average. Or perhaps even meet it.”

Dean’s ears ring as he swallows a few times to clear the lump that’s taken up residence in his throat. “So. Less than two years.” Dr. Bacic nods, and Dean rubs his hand over the back of his neck over and over. “Have you told him?”

“I let him know of the progression of his disease and the worsening prognosis.” He pushes his hair behind his ear. “He took that better than me reminding him that he needs to sober up for any of this to matter.”

Dean laughs bitterly. “Yeah, that sounds right.”

“If you’re having trouble with taking care of him yourself,” Dr. Bacic begins, wiping at his own lip absentmindedly, “I can give you some recommendations for aides. We’ll continue our follow ups, but until his prognosis is significantly worse, I’m afraid I can’t sign off on a palliative care centre.”

Dean clears his throat. “Oh, right. Yeah.” He grabs the paperwork Meg gave him from his bag. “We had a nurse recommended by Veterans Affairs. She gave us some forms for you to fill out so we can go through insurance—“ Dean’s still trying to straighten out the folder with shaking hands when the doctor eases it from his grip.

“It’s no problem.” Dr. Bacic quickly skims the papers. “I can fill these out and get them back to you soon.”

Dean nods a few times, glancing around the room to make sure they have everything. “Thanks.” He breathes deep. “Thanks.”

Dr. Bacic claps his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “Good luck.” He squeezes quickly before adding, “In some ways, this might be good news.”

Dean can’t meet his eyes, so Dr. Bacic drops his hand and continues out the door. Dean grabs his bag and follows him out just in time to see a nurse wheel his father around the corner.

John sits in the wheelchair, hands on his knees, shoulders slumped forward, as he stares into the middle distance. His father looks haunted, and it stops Dean in his tracks. The nurse continues pushing his chair down the hall, and it takes John another few moments to notice Dean standing there. They pause at the nurse’s station to grab some paperwork, and Dean and his father’s eyes meet. They stare at each other, the moment stretching long, and a heavy understanding settles between them. He really is dying. There really isn’t anything they can do.

And now, they don’t even have much time left.

—

Dean’s not sure how he does it, but he makes it through his evening shift that night. He chats with Charlie in the break room while he packs up his stuff and she downs an energy drink to get through the night—one of the navaids went down while Dean was on shift and it shut down whole SID and STAR procedures and backed up arrivals and departures until they could reissue all their clearances. Thankfully, it happened after the big evening push, but TechOps has got to get it back up before the morning.

“They’ve really gotta invest in getting these DMEs upgraded,” Charlie says after taking a long drink. “Or else they’re gonna just keep causing chaos.”

Dean chuckles. “Yeah, good luck with that.” The FAA never recovered from the wildcat strikes in the eighties. They can barely staff the towers let alone get the technology out of the fifties. “I’m kind of impressed it’s all worked as long as it has.”

“Yeah, that’s because we’re all twenty-first century experts in Second World War technology.” Charlie crumples the can and tosses it into the recycling. “I admit it’s kind of fun, though. Better than sitting behind a desk, typing lines of code and hoping for the best.”

Dean threads his arms through his jacket and adjusts it when it hangs awkwardly on his shoulders. “Well, I have no doubt that when I come in for my shift tomorrow, it’ll be good as new.”

“Like it was built in the Cold War,” Charlie says, giving Dean a high five on her way out.

Dean smiles, then closes the locker and heads out. There aren’t many cars in the parking lot, basically just his and the folks on the midnight shift. He checks the time on his phone—just past 1:30 in the morning—and makes a beeline for Baby. He’s exhausted, but his dad has been, if not cooperative, at least not actively difficult, and he picked up the forms from Dr. Bacic on his way in. If he can get it through the insurance—

“Cas?” Dean catches Cas hitting his head against the steering wheel of his Honda. Cas’s head shoots up and finds Dean leaning on his own car. “Having some troubles there, buddy?”

Cas drops his head against the steering wheel again, and Dean laughs. He heads over just as Cas is climbing out of his seat. “It won’t start.”

“You filled her up lately?” Dean asks, crossing his arms and grinning. “She needs gas to run.”

“Yes, the car has gas,” Cas huffs, clearly annoyed at Dean’s delight. “And oil and all the other fluids necessary to run the engine.”

“Shame it’s so late,” Dean teases. “No way you’re gonna get a tow ‘till morning.”

“I’m aware.” Cas shoots him a dark look, but Dean’s enjoying himself too much to care.

He sighs theatrically. “If only there were a mechanic around to help.” Dean looks off towards the airfield. “But they’re really too dumb for this airplane stuff, you know?”

Understanding breaks across Cas’s face and his annoyance melts into embarrassment. “Dean—” Cas stutters around what to say, suddenly remembering the way he goaded him into trying the simulator all those years ago. “I was just—” He breathes out, long and tired. “I’m surprised you even remember that, to be honest.”

“True.” Dean uncrosses his arms and stuffs them in his pockets. “I get called a dumb grease monkey often enough, it really should all run together.”

Cas presses his mouth into a firm line, and Dean regrets even bringing it up. He didn’t mean to turn it dark, but damned if it doesn’t always turn out that way. Now he just feels like a dick.

“Don’t worry about it, I was just f*cking with you.” Dean walks around to the hood. “Pop it. I’ll take a look so you can get home.”

Cas reaches back into the driver’s side to pull the latch, and Dean raises the hood and hooks the lever underneath to hold it up. Cas moves around beside him and crosses his arms. “It looks fine to me.”

“You’ve gotta let her talk to you,” Dean says, shrugging off his jacket and handing it to a surprised Cas. He rolls the sleeves of his flannel up to the elbow while he looks over the engine. When he glances over, Cas averts his eyes quickly, and Dean is suddenly very aware of the scars and burns over his forearms from a lifetime of being elbow-deep in engines. Mostly. He puts it out of his mind, then leans into the engine. “When was your last tune up?”

“I’m not sure,” Cas admits, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to another. “Admittedly, Meg was the one who took care of most of that.”

Dean looks over his shoulder and grins. “No sh*t.” He laughs under his breath as he turns back. “Maybe she’s not all bad.”

“She’s not any bad,” Cas mutters. Before Dean can apologize, Cas continues. “Anyway, it wasn’t giving me any trouble on the way in.”

Dean hmms absentmindedly as he pokes around in the engine. “I used to get a Honda every now and then coming in with a power issue. These new-fangled cars can’t do anything without a computer.” He straightens up and brushes his hands on his jeans. “I’ve got a kit in my trunk—” Dean pauses when he catches Cas averting his eyes again. “You all right?”

“Of course,” Cas says. “My apologies. I just—” He takes a deep breath. “I suppose I’m tired. It’s been a big week.”

“You’re telling me,” Dean says. “Stay here. I’m gonna go grab something from my car.”

He heads back towards his car to grab his roadside repair kit, and he tries not to focus too hard on the way Cas grips Dean’s jacket to his chest like a security blanket. Cas doesn’t seem to realize what he’s doing, his gaze focused on something Dean can’t see.

“I got it,” Dean says as he approaches Cas again, worried that he’ll startle him. He shakes the kit in his hand. “This’ll let us see if it’s what I suspect.” Dean slots himself between Cas and the car again and unfolds the kit on the engine block. “You should check and see if yours is covered under a recall. They had to fix up the wiring on some models.”

“Really?” Cas seems too far away to get what Dean is trying to say. “Okay.”

Dean pulls out two pens with metal pins sticking out the end to check the voltage. “Something up with you?”

“You’re currently buried in the engine of my broken down car,” Cas says simply but without humour.

It lodges something in Dean’s throat. Cas can be a dick and a hardass and formal in a way that’s borderline off-putting, but he’s never been cold or rude. There’s always been the feeling that he is the way he is because he cares too much, and Dean misses the warmth he always felt underneath. He wonders what he did wrong, what it is that Cas is punishing him for.

“Other than that, I mean,” Dean says with equal flatness. He doesn’t know how to play these games. He always seems to pull back when he’s supposed to be pushing forward or pushing forward when he should be getting the hint to back off, and it always ends in him alone. “You seem pretty distracted.”

Cas sighs. “Sorry.”

Dean touches the pen tips to a connection and his meter lights up which means the computer is at least getting the power it needs from the battery. “You don’t have to apologise. Nobody wants to be out in the parking lot at two in the morning f*cking around with their car.”

“You’re here.” The flat surprise in Cas’s voice makes Dean look back again, and this time Cas doesn’t look away. “You don’t have to be.”

Dean scoffs and turns back, testing the next connection and the meter lights up. “I’m gonna leave you to, what? Wake your ex up? Sleep in your car? Pay five times the price to get someone out this late?”

“No one would blame you,” Cas says quietly.

“Yeah, I’m getting that a lot lately.” Dean mutters. People must really think poorly of him if everyone is so surprised he’s halfway decent. He presses his pens to the fuel pump connection and the meter doesn’t react. “Found your problem.” Dean straightens, putting the meter back into its sleeve. “There’s no power going to your fuel pump.”

Cas holds his arms tighter around himself, gripping Dean’s jacket closer in the process. “That sounds bad.”

“Well, it’s certainly not great.” Dean unrolls his sleeves, finally noticing the fall chill. “And it means you’re not going anywhere tonight.”

Cas drops his head as if this was the last straw his back could hold. “Wonderful.”

“Hey,” Dean says, pushing Cas’s shoulder lightly. “It would be a problem if I’d left you in the parking lot, but thankfully, not only do I have a working car, but I have a whole garage full of fuel pumps to replace these faulty ones in Lawrence.”

Cas squints his eyes at Dean, tipping his head like he’s speaking a foreign language.

Dean sighs and pulls his jacket out of Cas’s arms. “You need your car before our shift tomorrow?” His jacket is still warm when Dean pulls it on, and he tries not to think about it being Cas’s arms instead of just the ghosts of them. “’Cause if not, I can drop you at your place and I can bring the part with me and fix ‘er up, get you back on the road after shift.”

Cas is still quiet. “I can call Meg if I need to.”

“sh*t.” Dean presses his fingertips into his eyes. “I’m gonna have to deal with the insurance company tomorrow too.” Dean waves for Cas to follow him to his own car before Cas tries to apologize again. “It’s whatever. Paperwork. Just c’mon.”

Cas quickly grabs a few things from his car, locks up, and then scrambles after Dean. “Are you sure? I can call a cab. It’ll be cheaper than a tow.”

“f*ck off,” Dean says, climbing into the driver’s side. When Cas is in too, he continues. “I already live an hour away. What’s an extra fifteen minutes.”

Cas’s eyebrows pull together again. “How do you know where I live?”

“I don’t,” Dean says, starting the engine, letting the initial rumble drown everything else out. “You mentioned the area once. Said you were glad the commute was easy.”

Cas pulls the seatbelt over his lap. “Huh.”

“What’s ‘huh’ mean?” Dean tries not to snap, but it is late, and the whole “I had no idea you were a good person” act is getting a little old.

Cas shakes his head, like he’s clearing away a cobweb. “You just have a very good memory.”

Dean pulls out of the parking lot with an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. “For the important stuff, yeah.” He heads in the general direction of Cas’s neighbourhood. “’Sides, it’s kind of a job requirement, isn’t it?”

“You’d be surprised.” Cas doesn’t look at him. He just continues to watch the road.

They don’t say much else except for Cas pointing out where to turn. Eventually, Dean pulls up in front of a low apartment building that can’t be more than three stories. He dips his head to look at it through the passenger side window, and it’s not that it’s run down. It’s just that Dean knows what Cas makes—a hell of a lot more than Dean until he checks out—and he wasn’t expecting such a literal bachelor pad.

“This you?” Dean asks, just to make sure.

“It is.” Cas finds the door latch easily this time. “Thank you for the ride. And the diagnosis.” He sighs. “I’m sure I can have the car brought to a shop tomorrow morning.”

“Seriously, don’t bother,” Dean says, waving at him like he’s talking nonsense. “Those places will bleed you dry.”

Cas levels a dry look at him. “I thought your—” Cas stumbles over the word “—friend owns the garage where you worked.”

“So I’d know, wouldn’t I?” he says with a smirk, and finally—finally—Cas smiles.

“I suppose that’s true.” Still, he seems to be trying to find an excuse to get out of it. “I don’t want you to inconvenience yourself, that’s all.”

Dean scoffs like Cas just told him Ramble On isn’t Led Zeppelin’s best song. “Believe me, I don’t get my hands on engines half as much as I’d like with you keeping me so busy.” He taps Cas with the back of his hand. “You’d be doing me a favour. Keeping me sharp. I promise.”

Cas takes a deep breath, like he’s run out of excuses. “Well. You certainly make an excellent case.” A whisper of a smile pulls at the corner of his lips. “I suppose I could do you this favour.”

“That’s the spirit!” Dean says, relieved that he managed to lift Cas’s mood, even if it was him who f*cked it up in the first place. “You gonna need a ride in?”

Cas shakes his head quickly. “I’ve got it. I need to go in a little earlier anyway.” He opens the door release but doesn’t step out yet. “I’ve got to get the paperwork together for someone’s phase two evaluations. Once again, surpassing expectations.”

The smug smile slips off Dean’s face, and he tucks his chin to his chest. “I thought I had another couple months at least.”

“On average,” Cas says with a tip of his head. “But you’ve been flying through the check boxes. No reason to prolong it if we don’t need to.”

“That mean I’m resilient now?” Dean asks, flashing a grin he hopes isn’t as desperate as he feels.

Cas lets out a short breath through his nose. “There’s still phase three.”

Dean picks at the stitching on his steering wheel. “Awesome.”

“Dean,” Cas says, trying to pull his attention. “The aim isn’t perfection. You should know that by now.” When Dean still doesn’t look at him, Cas adds, “You’re not a machine. You’re human.”

Dean clears his throat. “Well, you should go get a good night’s rest then. You’ll have your work cut out for you if you’re gonna pass me.”

“Yeah,” Cas says with a chuckle. “I think you might be right.”

He opens the door with a creak, climbs out, then waves through the window after he shuts it. Dean waves him off with two fingers and spends the rest of the ride back to Lawrence wondering why he always seems to wind up wanting the things he can’t have.

—

By the time Dean gets off the phone with the insurance company, it’s been two hours and a headache has grown steadily behind his right eye. It pounds until Dean wishes he could dig the eyeball out completely just to relieve the pressure, but it’s submitted, and all Dean can do now is wait for some random claim adjusters to determine how the next few months—or years—of his life is gonna go.

Which always works out just fine for him, right?

Dean presses his fingertips into his right eye and grabs his keys so he can stop by Bobby’s garage before he heads into work. Thankfully, they’re on the afternoon shift, so it’ll be mostly covering positions for breaks and Dean can hide in the quiet rooms in between. If it wouldn’t be leaving Cas high and dry, he might consider taking a sick day instead, but he can’t leave the poor guy without a fuel pump.

By the time he rolls up to the garage, his eye is leaking like the time he bawled at the performance of Sam’s one and only attempt at being in a school play. That kid is a terrible actor, but Dean was so damn proud of him. Besides, it turns out he was right about extracurriculars tipping the scales for scholarships. And thank God for that.

When he walks into the garage, Benny yells out to him. “There a dog in a little outfit out there or did you just miss me that much?”

“f*ck off, Benny,” Dean says, wiping at his eye and nose. Still, it pulls a smile from him for the first time today. “I just got a headache. I was on with the insurance guys all morning.”

“sh*t,” he says, turning down the music they play loud enough to hear over the machines. “They gonna approve the chick?”

“I guess we’ll see.” Dean slips past him into the back room where they keep all the spare parts. “They have like thirty days to get back to me, so.” He shuffles through the fuel pumps on the shelves until he finds the right one for a Honda Civic.

“What do ya need a Civic fuel pump for?” Benny asks, leaning against the door post. “You got another car lying around that no one knows about?”

“Nah,” Dean says with a chuckle. Benny knows Dean would never be caught dead driving something made after 1975. “The fuel pump on my buddy’s Civic finally blew. Never paid attention to the recalls, I guess.” Dean turns to head back out into the shop, but Benny doesn’t move from the door. “What?”

Benny’s eyes drop to the parts ledger on the table by the door. “You better log that. Bobby’ll have an aneurysm if we’re short for a paying customer.”

Dean levels a look at him but obeys. He signs the part out and puts a little note beside it with his name that he’ll owe Bobby. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Benny says as he moves out of Dean’s way. “So who is it that’s got you resorting to petty theft?”

Dean rolls his eyes even though it hurts. “I wasn’t going to steal it, Benny. Cas’s car is a brick in the parking lot right now. I was gonna tell Bobby later.”

“Ah, so it’s Cas then.” Benny smiles at him with a too-knowing look in his eyes. “I was right. You are hot for teacher.”

“I am not,” Dean says. Almost whines, he’d admit if he were more self-aware. He grabs a few of the tools he’ll need to make the switch. “But what am I supposed to do? Just leave him to his own devices?”

“I think they have mechanics in Kansas City, Dean.” That teasing smile keeps dancing on Benny’s lips. “You aren’t the only one who can get his car runnin’ again.”

“I know that.” Benny just stares at Dean. “What? I know that!” Dean sighs as he closes the small toolbox he’s taking with him. “Whatever. Maybe I just want to, okay?”

Benny shrugs, his arms still crossed over his broad chest. “As long as we’re clear on what’s going on here. That’s all.”

Dean pulls the toolbox off the counter and pushes through the small half door to the customer’s area. “You can tell yourself whatever you want, Benny.”

“You too, Dean!” He calls after him as he walks into the parking lot, and Dean flips him the finger over his shoulder.

Dean’s loading everything into Baby’s back seat when he catches sight of Bobby walking out of one of the open garage doors. “I owe you for a part!” Dean calls out to him. “Don’t listen to Benny.”

Bobby stops and stares over to Dean. “I never do!” he calls back.

Dean laughs loudly, and Bobby’s smile turns warm. “I’ll tell you about it later.” Bobby waves to him as Dean climbs into the car and it’s not until he’s well on his way to Kansas City that Dean realizes his eye isn’t watering anymore.

—

Dean parks next to Cas’s Honda, still sitting in the same spot as last night, looking like it hasn’t been touched. He grabs his lunch and leaves the rest for after shift, but on his way in, a car pulling up to the curb catches his attention.

Cas climbs out of an actual honest-to-God Volkswagen Beetle convertible, and Dean can’t help the way his mouth hangs open. Cas says something to Meg in the driver’s seat and stops dead in his tracks when he finally notices Dean staring.

“Really?” Dean asks, pointing to the car. “A VW Bug. A soft top Volkswagen Beetle.”

Cas shrugs, almost apologetically. “She thought it was cute.”

“And I was right!” Meg calls from the car. Dean screws up his face, and Meg laughs. “What’s the matter, Dean-o? Can’t handle a real car?”

“A real car?” Dean starts walking towards Meg, but Cas meets him in the middle and stops him with a hand to the chest.

“She’s just trying to wind you up,” Cas says, his smile more affectionate than Dean would expect between exes. Cas drops his hand then turns to Meg. “Can we play nice, please?”

Meg shrugs, like it’s not up to her, and Cas huffs a laugh. “Just be gentle with him, Dean.” Meg puts the car into gear. “Clarence here is a sensitive soul.”

“Meg, I swear—” Cas says, equal parts annoyed and fond.

Dean looks between them, feeling distinctly like he’s missing the joke. “Don’t you have to respect your employer?”

“I haven’t signed anything yet,” Meg says, then drives up to where the two men are standing, making Dean stumble back onto the sidewalk. “Besides, your father is my client, not you.”

“Aren’t I the one signing your cheques?” Dean asks, leaning down to look through the window.

“Nope,” she says. “That’s the insurance. Only connection between you and me is our Clarence over there.”

Dean hears Cas shift on his feet, and something about the way Meg said “our” scratches at the part of his brain he hasn’t let himself pay attention to since Benny left. “I don’t know that the insurance is gonna pay you yet.”

Meg’s smile tips. “I don’t know, I got a call earlier. Seems like I’ll be seeing you Monday.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks, suddenly not caring about the subtext he won’t let himself think about too hard. “They approved it?”

Meg nods. “You’re stuck with me now, I’m afraid.” With that, she revs the sad little engine under the hood and takes off, and Cas clears his throat behind him.

“Sorry about that,” Cas says with a grimace. “Like I said. Chaotic good.” He readjusts his bag over his shoulder. “She means well.”

Dean hums like he believes him. “Well, I got the part you need in my car. We can switch it out after shift so you don’t have to ride home in that godawful yellow monstrosity.”

Cas laughs. “Dean. It’s honestly not that bad.”

“People punch each other when they see one,” Dean says, turning to head into the tower. “It’s literally called a Punch Buggy.” He shakes his head. “No one’s happy to see one of those.” From behind him, Cas punches him in the shoulder. “Hey! What the f*ck was that?”

Cas just grins and walks past him, scanning his card first. “Yellow Punch Buggy.”

He heads in and leaves Dean rubbing at his shoulder, trying to remain stubborn enough not to let the smile itching at his lips spread across his face.

—

Their shift is uneventful, and before Dean knows it, he’s elbows deep in Cas’s engine. He seems in a better mood than last night, and the dread itching at the edge of Dean’s consciousness returns to its usual dull hum.

“You really should let me pay you back for this,” Cas says, leaning against the car by the wheel well watching Dean work. “I’m sure this would cost a fortune if I had to take it into the shop.”

“I’m not taking your money,” Dean says as he braids the cables together so they won’t get tangled in any of the other engine parts. “’Sides, you don’t pay for a recall.”

Cas scoffs with a disbelief that makes Dean poke his head back up. “You’re still saving me the time to take it in, to be without transportation, any labour that might be incurred, avoiding the inevitable upselling of an alignment or rustproofing without them loosening a lug nut or something—”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. Jesus.” He ducks back under the hood to fasten the connectors. “You really have a sh*t opinion of mechanics, don’t you?”

“Not particularly.” Dean’s at the wrong angle to see what Cas is doing, so he just continues his work. “Margins are slim in a lot of businesses like that. There’s a reason airport parking is basically highway robbery. Hard to make money when your main customers are multi-billion-dollar corporations.”

Dean straightens up so he can get out the power meter and check his work. “So you’re saying your sh*t opinion is for how they decide to pad their margins?”

Cas’s smile is soft when Dean looks over, but fades quickly, like he was caught. “No,” he says, far away. He takes a deep breath, then turns back to Dean with a more determined look. “My sh*t opinion is for why they have to do it in the first place.” His eye contact is so intense, Dean has to look away, and he dips back under the hood. “I don’t think people are inherently greedy or cruel, but this world can provide ample motivation to be anyway.”

The power meter lights up when Dean tests the various connections as he listens to Cas wax poetic about capitalism, and Dean pretends he’s following the line of thought. After he’s satisfied everything’s connected properly, he stands and tucks the meter back into its sleeve.

“Listen, buddy, all I did was replace your fuel pump. I didn’t broker world peace or whatever.” Dean gestures to the driver’s seat. “Why don’t you give her a try?”

Wordlessly, Cas turns and climbs into the car, leaving the door open, and turns the ignition. It takes a moment, but the engine eventually turns over and rumbles to life. Dean smiles to himself, then unhooks the prop rod and lets the hood fall closed. When he sees Cas through the windshield, he raises his arms in victory.

“See? Fuel pump!” Dean wipes his hands with a handkerchief from his back pocket as he takes inventory of all his tools, making sure he’s not leaving anything behind, and he doesn’t notice that Cas is standing again, crossed arms leaning on the open driver’s door.

“I’m going to have to insist you let me pay you.” Cas’s hand grips his other forearm, and Dean’s eyes trace the way his fingers wrap all the way underneath. “We wouldn’t want any appearance of impropriety when I recommend you progress to phase three, right?”

Dean rolls his eyes. There’s no way to bribe his way through training, let alone with a dumb engine part anyone with opposable thumbs could replace. He has to pass an eval and have, like, three other people sign off on him before he moves forward.

“Tell you what,” Dean says, distracted. “Buy me a beer and we’ll call it even.”

Cas’s eyebrows rise up his forehead before Dean realizes what he just said, but before he can take it back or apologize or explain, Cas says, “Done.” He shuts the car off and grabs his coat before Dean knows what hit him. “You can drive,” Cas says, reaching for the passenger door of the Impala still parked in the next spot.

Dean laughs to himself as he gathers his tools and Cas climbs into the passenger seat. “All right then.” He puts everything away in the trunk then slides into the driver’s seat. “Where to?”

—

They end up at the same bar where Pamela set up his phase one party, and Cas insists on Dean grabbing a booth while he gets the first round. He hangs his jacket on the hook attached to the back of the booth, slides in, and tries not to let his racing heart escape out his throat. Dean sends a quick text to Bobby that he’s gonna be home late in case his dad needs him, and Bobby replies instantly telling Dean not to worry and have some fun.

It doesn’t take long for Cas to return with a pitcher and two pint glasses, and he fills them before he settles on the other side of the booth.

“I think this is more than one beer, Cas,” Dean says even as he lifts the glass to tap it to Cas’s.

Cas huffs a laugh but meets him in the middle. “Well, I might have looked up how much the part costs while I was waiting and got the bartender to make it a pitcher instead.”

Dean takes a long drink to mask the way his cheeks flush, but Cas keeps on looking over the rim of his own glass. “In my defense, we get the manufacturer’s price and a discount for buying bulk so, you know, it’s way less than what you’d find on a website.”

“Still,” Cas says, setting down his beer. “It’s a lot more than one beer.”

Dean smiles. “Hey, if you wanna get me drunk, who am I to stop you.” He takes another long drink, trying to figure out why everything he says sounds like it has some innuendo attached.

Cas seems to have the same thought and is quick to change the subject. “How’s Sam?”

“Good, good,” Dean says, tracing the precipitation on his glass. “Stressed, but he’s pretty sure he can handle it. His assignment is going to make the start of his new semester a nightmare, but he promised to make it home for Christmas.”

“That’s good. It’s been a while since you’ve seen each other, I take it?”

Dean’s hesitant to answer. Cas’s eyes are warm and open, his smile shy yet curious, and Dean struggles to find the motive underneath them. He understands how to perform with people who want something from him or are trying to manipulate or trick him into giving something away, but he can’t figure out why Cas is here. It makes him uncomfortable. He can’t settle on who to be for Cas, how to be what he would want, and he feels like a newborn foal on shaking legs.

“Yeah.” Dean spins the glass between his hands. “He had to do some longer training during the summer, so it’s been a while. Since before we found out about Dad.”

Cas’s face falls, but the warmth never falters. “He never came home?”

“Not for lack of trying.” Dean scoffs. “I wouldn’t let him. I was afraid he wouldn’t go back, and he’d drop out for Dad or something.” He takes another drink. “I already filled the dumb dropout per family quota, so.”

“You seem to be doing just fine,” Cas says. “For a dumb dropout.” He takes a drink from his own pint, the amusem*nt dancing in his eyes.

“Yeah, well.” Dean chews on his lip to stop himself from trying to contradict him. “Seems I’m not the only dropout at this table.” Cas swallows his beer hard enough that Dean’s eyes catch on the way his Adam’s apple bobs under the dark stubble of his neck. “C’mon. There’s gotta be a story there.”

“I’m afraid it’s not very interesting,” Cas says, his eyes suddenly darting away.

“I don’t believe you.” Dean leans back in the booth. “If you don’t wanna spill, Meg seems like she’d be happy to share.” He doubts that actually. She seems infuriatingly protective of Cas and his secrets, but Cas doesn’t have to know that.

He lets out a big breath. “It’s a long story.”

“And we’ve got all night,” Dean says, tapping his knuckle to the pitcher still half full of beer.

Cas empties the rest of his pint glass and brings it down onto the table. “Then fill me up.”

Dean laughs. “All right.” He takes the glass from Cas’s iron grip and tips it as he pours the beer in. “You know, I’m only teasing. If you don’t want to talk about it, I get it. I don’t mind—”

“I’m gay,” Cas interrupts. He takes back his now-full glass and drinks again, waiting for Dean to respond, but he doesn’t. “I told you it wasn’t very interesting.”

“Hate to break it to you, buddy, but that’s also not very long.” He finishes his own pint and reaches for the pitcher. “Besides, that’s not exactly news to me.”

Cas’s eyebrows pull together. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I mean, it didn’t take me that long to figure that out.” Dean leaves out the part where Charlie had to tell him he wasn’t dating Pamela because apparently he’s the only queer in the vicinity whose gaydar is so bad, he missed it entirely. “I’ll admit it took me a little bit to figure it out, but—”

“And you don’t care?” Cas’s eyes are wide, and it’s only now that Dean realizes that Cas’s gaydar might also suck. A lot.

He pauses for a moment replacing the empty pitcher on the table. “Should I?”

Cas swallows again, suddenly looking ashamed of himself. “I guess it seemed to me that you were the kind of man who would mind.”

Dean laughs out loud, a little incredulous. “You thought I was a hom*ophobe or something?” When Cas doesn’t immediately contradict him, Dean goes quiet. “Wait, but actually?”

“Have you seen your car?” Cas asks.

Dean straightens up and hardens his jaw. “It was my dad’s car. He gave it to me.”

“Dean, I—” Cas tries to backpedal, obviously noticing too late that he’s entered a minefield he’s not prepared for. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to assume—”

“Forget it,” Dean says, downing half his pint in one go. “I was mostly joking about the low opinion of me thing, but. . .” He trails off, and Cas grimaces.

“I don’t have a low opinion of you, Dean.” Cas rips at a napkin. “I wouldn’t blame you if it was awkward for you, that’s all. Once you knew.”

Dean clicks his jaw, feeling like more of an idiot than he has in a long time, and he just got socked in the face by his drunk estranged father. “But I already knew, Cas.”

“I didn’t know that, though!” Cas lets out a hard breath. “It’s not a reflection on you, it’s a reflection on me.” He rubs his hands over his face. “God, none of this is coming out right.”

“Listen, I appreciate the beers.” Dean tips his glass, debating whether he can finish the last of it and still drive home all right. “But it really wasn’t necessary. And my dad’s at home—”

Cas grunts. “It’s why I’m out of the military. It’s why I have an ex-wife and a bachelor apartment in a low-rise walk-up and I’m controlling planes in Kansas f*cking City of all places.” He plays with his glass, making the beer swirl around the edges. “I was great at my job, but you can’t be great at your job and gay when you’re an officer, and I had to choose.” He licks his lips. “And staying in the closet for the rest of my life wasn’t fair to me or to Meg. So.” He shrugs, like all the bullsh*t was inevitable. “That’s it. That’s why I assumed.”

Dean’s quiet for a moment. “You know, maybe you missed the memo, but they got rid of the whole Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell thing a couple years back.”

Cas huffs a laugh, the tension easing out of his shoulders some. “Yeah, that’s the official party line, but when I got my Major stripe and I was gonna be leading ten times as many men, it became too obvious that there isn’t a place for gay men at the top.”

Cas takes another drink, and Dean can’t help himself. The joke is right there. “Well, Cas, I’m no expert, but I think the problem is that there’s gay men to top at all.”

Cas is so startled by the joke, he spits his drink all over the table, and Dean tips over in the booth, holding his stomach as he laughs harder than he has in a long time. Cas scrambles to grab some napkins, but his face is simultaneously bright red and split in a wide smile.

Dean finally recovers and waves Cas off. “No, no, don’t bother, it’s fine.” He grabs the empty pitcher and scoots out of the booth. “Next one’s on me. I’ll grab a cloth from the bar.”

He leaves Cas to uselessly mop up the beer with sopping napkins and tries to process what he’s just learned. He still doesn’t get Meg and how Cas got to the point where he’s ditching his whole life in his mid-thirties, but they’ve got another pitcher to get to all that.

Cas has a bunch of wet napkins lined up in front of him when Dean returns, and he tosses the bar rag towards him before he catches his eye, but Cas grabs it midair anyway.

Dean slides in the booth and sets the pitcher down. “Still got those razor-sharp military reflexes, though, I see.”

Cas breathes a laugh. “Yeah, well. I don’t think those are the kind that go away.”

“Fair,” Dean says, topping off both their pints even though they weren’t quite empty. “You ever do a tour?”

“One,” Cas replies, taking his refilled pint with a tip of thanks. “Afghanistan.” He takes a sip, like his mouth went dry suddenly. “Didn’t really see combat per se. We set up the mobile control towers at the airfields, mostly. Not many firefights in that.”

Dean clicks his tongue. “Does sound like a prime military target, though. Firefights or no.”

Cas just nods at that, his head bouncing like he’s considering Dean’s point, but mostly his smile is small but grateful. Dean suspects he has to have that conversation a lot, to convince folks that even though he wasn’t down in the sandstorms with a rifle strapped to his chest, he was still doing something worth his scars.

“Now I’m in cozy Kansas City,” Cas says with a laugh.

Dean raises his glass to cheers Cas. “Here’s to only having to deal with dust storms because of climate change, not war.”

Cas’s smile jumps across his face, his eyes bright and narrow with surprise. “Yeah, I’ll drink to that.” He taps his pint to Dean’s and they both take a long drink.

Dean’s quiet for a moment. He wants to ask more about what got him here, about how he was married to a woman and rose in an organization famous for excluding people like him, but he doesn’t know how. Maybe Cas will tell him when he’s ready, and Dean won’t have to pry, or maybe his lack of follow up questions will seem like disinterest. The uncertainty builds up in his chest like rising steam with nowhere to go, and he doesn’t understand why this feels so fraught.

“You wanna know about me and Meg,” Cas says. A statement, not a question, like it’s the obvious next topic, but Dean’s still startled by his frankness.

“I mean, I’m not gonna act like I’m not curious,” Dean says, grinning to try to cover his nosiness. “I’m not sure I would’ve thought you two would get along. You know, even setting the sexuality thing aside.”

“Yeah, a lot of people say that about me and Meg.” Cas spins his glass between his thumbs, but his smile is fond, crinkling all the way to his eyes. “But she’s not as harsh as she seems on the outside. She puts up a lot of walls—”

“And spikes, and barbed wire, and maybe even a minefield or two,” Dean adds with a laugh, and Cas nods along.

“Yes, and all of that as well. But despite everything, she’s smart and funny and she loves harder than any person I’ve ever known.” Cas stops spinning his drink, but he doesn’t pick it up. “She was there for me during a difficult time in my life, and I wanted more than anything to do right by her, you know?” This time, Cas does drink, but Dean just listens. It seems like something Cas has needed to get out for a long time. “I did love her—do love her—but I was living a lie, and it wasn’t fair. We stayed together for a while after I finally couldn’t ignore it anymore—” Cas’s eyes flick up to Dean’s, then down at his pint again “—but being a beard doesn’t suit Meg, I think. Breaking up meant giving up our housing on the base, and my promotion had just been announced, and I don’t know. It seemed like the right time to just—” Cas takes a deep breath. “Start over, I guess. More authentically, or whatever.” He brings his pint to his lips but can’t meet Dean’s eye.

“Huh.” Dean drinks himself while Cas fiddles nervously with the bar rag. “Okay, that was an interesting enough story for the pitcher.”

Cas’s shoulders loosen again. There’s still some tension in there, but Dean suspects that has more to do with a lifetime of military drills than any leftover doubt in Dean’s acceptance. “Thanks, I guess.”

“My dad—” Dean’s throat closes unexpectedly, and he coughs to cover it. “Well, I think you know he’s ex-military.”

Cas nods. “I remember. I pegged you as a veteran the first time we met.”

“Yeah,” Dean croaks. “Anyway, we moved around a lot when we were kids, and I always thought that was why. That Dad was doing his service, you know? It at least made it feel worth it.” Now that he’s older and lets himself actually look at the memories head on, it wouldn’t have made any sense for a mechanic with the Air Force to be bouncing around the country in a Chevy Impala, let alone just a corporal. “But I just found out he deserted. Left his best friend in the brig and just took off, and we spent the rest of our lives running.”

“Holy sh*t,” Cas says. “That’s—wow.”

Dean drains his pint before he continues. “Anyway, it all caught up to him—that’s how we found Meg, when JAG came—and he accepted a dishonourable discharge so they’d drop the charges. He’s dying, so—” Dean swallows hard. “He did that for me. So I could bring him home.”

“That was very decent of him.” Then, Cas’s eyebrows pull together. “That’s how you got Meg’s number?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “What’d she tell you?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing so specific.”

Dean waves him off. “Doesn’t matter anyway. She seems like she’s got the stuff to handle him.” He tucks his lip into his teeth by habit.

“Oh, yes,” Cas says, laughing lightly. “I don’t have any doubts there.”

“I still don’t get you two,” Dean says, the three-and-a-bit pints loosening his inhibitions. “You’re so—” Dean waves him up and down “and she’s so—” He pauses. “Well. Not.”

Cas just stares at him. “I don’t know what that means.”

“I don’t know.” Dean shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable with the topic he brought up himself. “You’re, like, a baby in a trench coat compared to her. Even if she isn’t as much of a hardass as she puts on.”

Cas laughs. “Have you heard of the idea that you dislike the qualities in others that you dislike in yourself?”

“What?” Dean leans back in the bench. “You think me and Meg are the same?”

“Aren’t you?” Cas levels a look at Dean. “Hard, spiky shell with a soft, gooey centre? Smart, funny, co*cky, caustic.” Dean just blinks back at Cas who’s wearing a self-satisfied grin. “Am I wrong?”

Dean tongues at the cut on his lip. It’s nearly healed, but it still tastes of copper when he hits it. “Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re wrong.”

Cas just smiles. “Okay. Sure.” He drains the rest of his pint.

Dean scoffs. “Whatever, buddy.” He’s not going to admit that Cas can see through him like a film of cellophane. He raises the pitcher. “Refill?”

—

After another pint and a whole lot of carbs to soak up the alcohol, Dean and Cas head out of the bar and into the cold night air. Dean breathes it in, savouring the way the crispness bites at his lungs on the way in, and he catches Cas staring.

“What?” Dean asks, flipping up his collar to hide the way the flush creeps up his neck. “I got something on my face?”

Cas shakes his head, hiding a smile. “No, your face is fine.”

Dean tucks his lip in again, then climbs into Baby. Cas follows, and Dean tries not to think about how comfortable he already is just getting into his car, making himself at home. He doesn’t understand how Cas does it. How he just walks through the world like he has this unwavering belief that he belongs in it and that everyone else believes it too.

“Are you going to be all right to drive home?” Cas asks. His face is warm and loose from his own drinking, and Dean grips the wheel to stop himself from reaching out to brush the cowlick from Cas’s forehead.

“Are you?” Dean asks, turning the ignition roughly. “We drank about the same amount. You might’ve actually got me beat, if we’re being honest.”

“Yes,” Cas answers, settling into the bench seat. “But you have a considerably farther distance to drive down empty highways. I have a few streetlights and I’m home.” He tips his head over to face Dean. “Such as it is.”

Dean pulls out of the parking lot and turns in the direction of the control tower where they left Cas’s car. “You don’t like your place?”

Cas shrugs lazily. “It’s not that. I just miss having a yard.” He straightens up so he can see out of the windows better. “We didn’t have much of one on the base either, but I had a small plot I could plant a few things in. A spot for us to have a morning coffee outside. You know.”

Dean thinks of the yard at the house. It’d fallen into disuse and disrepair even before the house burned. He thinks there’s even one of those small plastic cars out there he used to drive around as a kid under all the overgrowth. “Yeah, I get that.” He grips the wheel harder. “That sounds nice, honestly.”

Cas just hums, focusing on the streetlights as they fly past the windows. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Dean asks, gruffer than necessary.

“I don’t know,” Cas says with a shrug. “You haven’t mentioned if you’re married or have a girlfriend or kids or what you’d do with a yard.”

Dean clears his throat. “I have a yard. Technically.” He drums his thumbs on the steering wheel. The fact that dating Benny outed him to his family by default is something Dean’s always taken for granted because he still doesn’t really know how to come out to random people. It’s not that he’s ashamed, it’s the opposite. It’s dumb that straight’s the default and anyone different has to have a whole f*cking conversation every time it comes up. Straight people should have to come out too, see what it’s like to have to flash your vulnerable underbelly every time someone asks you if you’ve got a girl back home.

Cas looks at him expectantly, like he knows that Dean knows that’s not what he asked him. He takes a deep breath. “And I’m single too. I was dating someone a while back, but, uh, we broke up.” Dean coughs past the lump in his throat. “He’s married now. Got himself a Greek heiress.”

Cas stiffens immediately, his lazy, relaxed gaze darting away from Dean and out the opposite window. He grips at his hands in his lap, and before Dean can say anything, Cas asks, “Your last partner was a man?”

“Yeah.” Dean keeps his eyes on the road and hopes that’ll help him ignore the way Cas’s entire demeanor towards him has changed. “Benny. He’s a mechanic at my old garage.”

“A mechanic.” Cas’s knee starts to bounce. “Who is a man. Who you dated. Romantically.”

Dean shifts in his seat as they pull to a stop at the last light before getting back to the tower. “Is that a problem?” He risks a glance to Cas, who has his chin in his chest. “I’ve been with chicks too, if that’s better.”

Cas’s head shoots up. “You’re bisexual?”

“I mean—” Dean shrugs, then steps on the gas as the light turns green. “I don’t really like using labels and junk, but yeah. I guess I am.”

“Oh.” Cas already has his hand on the door release when Dean passes his ID card over the gate to get into the parking lot. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, you did think I was a hom*ophobe earlier, so I assumed maybe your gaydar is as bad as mine apparently is.” Dean pulls Baby into the same spot beside Cas’s car. “I’ll admit, Charlie was the one who had to tell me you weren’t going with Pamela. I swear to God, these kids have it all figured out, but when you’re in your thirties—” Cas opens the door and bolts from the car. “Hey, whoa, Cas!” Dean climbs out of the car and stares at Cas from over the roof. “What’s happening, are you okay?”

Cas pauses with his hand on the handle of his car’s half-open door and breathes out roughly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“And does it change things?” Cas just stares at Dean. “I thought you were afraid I’d be weird about it, but I have to say, Cas, I think you might’ve gotten it backwards.”

Cas swallows and Dean stops himself from letting his eyes drop their eye contact to Cas’s dark stubbled Adam’s apple. “It changes some things.”

Dean’s taken aback. “What? Why?” His father’s jacket suddenly feels heavier than it ever has and he runs his hand over the polished black surface of Baby’s roof. “Is it—” A boulder forms in his chest, pressing against all his important organs. He tries to breathe to steady his heart, but there’s no room for the air to get in. He picks at some dirt that flew up from the road with his fingernail. “Am I not queer enough or something?” He can’t bring himself to raise his eyes to see Cas’s expression. “Am I doing it wrong?”

He asks so quiet, he’s a little surprised that Cas hears Dean at all. He’s still trying to breathe deep, move the boulder out of the way so he can shake the feeling like he’s gonna pass out, when he hears a door slam. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting to hear the Civic’s engine turn over and Cas peel out of the parking lot, getting as far away from him and his crumbling armour as he can. But it doesn’t come.

Instead, when Dean finally risks raising his eyes, Cas is leaning on the other side of the Impala, his arms crossed over the passenger side door, just looking.

“There is nothing wrong with you, Dean.” The panic on Cas’s face is gone, and it’s replaced with a calm softness that cuts Dean off at the knees. “Not with who you are, or your queerness, or anything else. None of it is wrong or bad.”

The backs of Dean’s eyes burn and suddenly, he’s the one who desperately wants to peel out of the parking lot. “Okay, cool,” he says, swallowing hard. “Good to know.”

“Dean, I—”

“Get home safe, Cas,” Dean says, slipping back into the driver’s seat before Cas can say anything else. He white knuckles the steering wheel trying to make his hands stop trembling, but he’s not quick enough to put the car in drive, because Cas has already opened the door and dipped his head in.

“Can I come in?” he asks, all nonchalance, like he didn’t just tell Dean the thing he’s been waiting his whole life to hear someone say.

“Do I have a choice?” Dean asks, still staring at the cracked leather of the steering wheel.

“Of course,” Cas says. “You can always say no.”

Dean swears to himself. “C’mon, then. Get in already.”

“Thank you,” Cas says simply. He settles onto the bench seat, but he doesn’t close the door, like he knows Dean needs a quick exit available. “I’m sorry,” he says after a long moment.

“For what?” Dean asks, his eyebrows colliding.

“For my reaction,” Cas says, staring at his own hands. “I didn’t know that you were interested in men. I would not have behaved as I have been if I had. I didn’t mean to make you feel that your disclosure was the issue.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Dean returns his gaze to the steering wheel. He really needs to patch some of this up before it gets too bad and needs replacing instead. “You haven’t done anything wrong either.”

Cas takes a deep breath. “I’ve wanted to.” He presses on before Dean can react. “It’s easier to be more flirtatious as a gay man with someone you know—or, you assume, I suppose—couldn’t be interested.” Cas smiles to himself. “And who might even be a little uncomfortable with it.”

Dean glances over at Cas, and he’s still staring at his lap. “You were trying to make me uncomfortable? Because you thought I’m straight?”

Cas shrugs. “Can you blame me? You walk into the tower like you own the place, and after our first encounter, I didn’t think your co*ckiness had diminished after finishing so close to the top of your class. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He meets Dean’s eye. “I mean, you basically tripped over your chair that first day to avoid touching me.”

Dean lets out a breath of a laugh. “Yeah, that wasn’t gay panic, man.” He flexes his hands over the wheel to relax his knuckles. “Or, at least not straight gay panic.”

“Oh,” Cas says quietly, and his ears tint red. “Well. I definitely misunderstood that then.”

“Yeah, obviously.”

They sit in silence for a few long moments, and Dean’s head spins with the implications of what Cas is admitting to him. Cas has been flirting with him, but only as some weird power play. He supposes that must be refreshing after getting out of the Air Force where the same play would probably just get you beaten with bars of soap in the middle of the night. He can’t help but feel a little disappointed. Dean knows that the Cas sitting in his passenger seat isn’t the Captain Novak he’d created a life around in his fantasies during the long nights he spent alone, but the man he’d put up on a pedestal all those years ago has slowly been replaced by the real thing—the better thing. Someone made of flesh and blood and bone, something tangible and present and possible. But, as usual, turns out he was just kidding himself. Of course someone like Cas would never want someone like him. And it’s Dean’s own fault. Even the hint of a promise to fill the emptiness inside him with something is enough to fool Dean into anything.

Dean startles at the weight of Cas’s hand on his upper arm.

“Dean, are you okay?” Cas’s eyes are narrow with worry. “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging Cas’s hand off his arm. “I’m just tired. I should get home while I still can.”

Cas takes his hand back, looking stung. “Yes, of course. My apologies for keeping you so late.” He swings one leg out the door, planting his foot on the ground, but he doesn’t get out. “When I said I wanted to do wrong things,” he starts, not quite turning around, but enough to see the warmth is still painted all over Cas’s face. “I wasn’t talking about baiting you that first day.” His fingers tighten around the door handle to help get out of the car. “I was talking about every day after that, when I saw how much more there is than bravado under that jacket, every day the want to actually cross the line got harder to resist.” Cas stands and grips the top of the door. “And like I said. It’s easier with straight guys, so. If you wanted to know what I meant by it changing some things, that’s what it changes.” With that, Cas swings the door closed and turns to his own car.

Dean chews on his lip, trying not to let the burning behind his eyes break through even if it means his cut reopens. He watches Cas open the door to the Civic, and he jumps to roll down the Impala’s passenger window. “Wait, Cas!”

Cas pauses, half in and half out of the driver’s side, and looks expectedly at Dean sprawled across the bench seat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Dean swallows hard. He doesn’t know how else to tell Cas all the things bubbling up behind his ribs he doesn’t even have a name for. All he knows is that the boulder is gone, crumbled to dust the second Cas’s hand settled. “We’ve got the late shift and you’ve gotta show me how to stop messing up those handoffs, right?”

It takes a moment for it to register on Cas’s face, but eventually, he smiles and ducks his chin to his chest. “Yeah,” he says, easing himself into the driver’s seat. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chapter 12: if i’m not what you need (i promise i’ll play the part)

Chapter Text

You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.

Chuck Palahnuik, Invisible Monsters

-

On Meg’s first day, she’s right on time. Dean opens the door, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes despite the cup and a half of coffee he’s already thrown back and struggles to hold back a grin when he sees that Meg’s parked her VW Beetle directly in front of the house.

“Meg,” Dean says. “Welcome to Casa Winchester.” He steps back from the door to make space to let her through.

“Charming,” she says, her smile half co*cked already. “I hope you know I’m never going to call it that.”

Dean smiles, closing the door and following her into the living room. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“So,” she says, spinning around and dumping her bag on the love seat. “Where’s my patient?”

“Still sleeping,” Dean says, gesturing to the stairs with his chin. “He sleeps pretty late these days. You talk to Dr. Bacic?”

“Yeah.” Meg takes a turn around the living room, and Dean shifts on his feet, like she’s going to disapprove of the work he’s put in to make it comfortable for his dad. “He decompensated pretty fast for a man of his age.”

Heat rushes up Dean’s neck, his ears burning. “I guess? I mean, I feel like we caught it kind of late, and it hasn’t exactly been easy to make sure he’s keeping up with his treatment plan—”

“Calm down, Dean-o, it wasn’t a judgement on you. Just an observation.” She moves around the recliner to the machines the first nurse helped him set up, kneeling to check a few things. “Honestly, your whole setup is pretty impressive.” She peeks out to meet Dean’s eyes. “He’s lucky to have you.”

Dean’s ears light on fire. He’s about to correct Meg, tell her that he hasn’t been able to give his father as much time as he needs, that he spends too much time in that chair and Dean can’t keep up with all the new hiding spots he has for the alcohol and the pills, but Meg presses on.

“Most families are totally unprepared by the time they get to me.” She presses a few buttons and makes a satisfied hum when it seems to do what she was expecting. “For some reason, they think palliative home care is more like an extended holiday or the opportunity to catch up on their Netflix queue.” She stands and presses another button. “But then, I don’t think anyone is quite prepared for what it means to die.”

Dean tucks in his lip just to taste the copper bloom across his tongue. It would probably be farther along in its healing if he’d stop chewing on it, but old habits are hard to break. A quote flashes through his mind that he read in a Chuck Palahniuk book when he burned through all the Vonnegut at the library. It was about how you’ll always step back when the pool of blood comes too close, no matter how much you love someone, and Dean wonders why he never thought to step back from John’s. Not even once.

And now he’s covered in it.

Meg sighs, then looks back up at Dean, and her face changes, like she just realized who she’s talking to. “Anyway, since we have some time before proper introductions, I hear you took my husband on a date the other night.”

Dean almost chokes on his own spit. “Excuse me, what?”

The smirk that crawls across Meg’s face makes it clear she got the response she was aiming for. “A date. With Clarence.” She folds her arms across her chest. “Beers? A little car ride? Ringing any bells?”

“Obviously,” Dean says, stepping back, startled when his heel hits the baseboard. “But it wasn’t a date. It was just a couple beers.”

“After you so gallantly fixed his car? Like such a gentleman?” Meg’s gaze drags up and down Dean, like she can see his every individual thought. “Most people would’ve just called a tow.”

“Most people aren’t kick ass mechanics, now are they?” Dean hears his father stir upstairs, and his heart jumps into his throat. “Besides, Cas knows that. He basically begged me to let him call a truck or a taxi. I think he just felt guilty, but now we’re square.”

“Hmm,” Meg says, her eyes flashing towards the upstairs, clearly hearing the movement too. “That wasn’t the story I got from Clarence.”

“Bullsh*t,” Dean says, heading towards the stairs. “And last I checked, that’s not what you’re here for.” He looks up to see if his father’s bedroom door is open. “It’s a bit creepy the way you’re trying to get your ex laid.”

Meg lets out a laugh. “I didn’t say anything about getting him laid. You got there all by yourself.” She saunters over to where her bag lays. “But speaking of getting paid. . .” She pulls out a small book with tabbed pages. “I keep my time in here, then I’ll bill you every month.”

“I thought you didn’t work for me,” Dean says, leaning an arm against the banister.

Meg shrugs. “I don’t. But I don’t care where the money comes from as long as it comes.” She opens the book and scribbles a few things down. “Starting. . .” She taps her pen firmly on the page. “Now.”

“Thank God,” Dean says, turning back to the stairs. “Now we can stop with you being Cas’s wingman. It’s weird.” Dean looks at her. “You’re weird.”

Meg smiles again. “I’ve been called worse.” She tosses her book back in her bag. “And I can multitask.”

“Not with John Winchester, you can’t.” Dean calls up the stairs for his father. “Dad! Your new day nurse is here. C’mon down before I head to work.” He looks back at Meg. “You’ll see what I mean.” There’s a loud bang and some rustling, and Dean breathes a deep sigh. “One sec, I’ll get him.”

“No, no. Don’t bother.” Meg slips past Dean before he can object. “I’m on the clock, after all.” She jogs up the stairs, and Dean’s stomach sinks to his knees. But it’s a good a test as any. “Mr. Winchester!” Meg calls cheerfully as she knocks quickly on the door she correctly guessed to be his. “I’m Meg! How the hell are ya?” She swings open the door to a loud yell of surprise, but she just presses on.

“Dean?” John calls out, but it’s quickly followed by Meg correcting him, “No, it’s Meg, actually. I’m a little on the short side to be your son, don’t you think?”

Dean would laugh at that if he wasn’t terrified his father’s gonna hurt her. Turns out, he doesn’t have much to worry about when soon, John stumbles out into the hallway in a stained t-shirt and grey sweatpants. He glances down the stairs at Dean, then flicks his eyes away quickly, like he’s embarrassed at being corralled so fast, and by a woman no less.

“Let’s get you showered and ready for the day, hmm?” Meg winks at Dean as she follows John out into the hallway and towards the bathroom.

He heads in, but blocks Meg from following. “If you think I’m lettin’ in here with me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Meg chuckles. “Well, if you break your hip, that’s on you.”

“I’ll take my chances,” John growls, then slams the door in Meg’s face, and she doesn’t even flinch. Dean’s face burns hot when his shoulder twinges in pain from his own recoil at the sudden noise.

“See? There’s no problem.” Meg comes back down the stairs and stands in front of Dean, arms crossed over her chest. “Now stop worrying and go on to work. Clarence won’t be happy if you’re late for your big day.”

“He told you about that?” Dean asks, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, though he’s not sure why. He tells himself it’s just the leftover adrenaline from dealing with his father.

Meg shrugs. “Finishing your second phase is a big deal. He’s proud of his baby trainee.”

Nausea stirs at the bottom of Dean’s stomach. “Yeah, okay.” He grabs a folder from beside Sam’s patched-up bowl. “These are all the numbers you might need, including mine and Dr. Bacic’s office. It’s got his latest labs and a list of his medications and—”

Meg takes the folder without letting Dean finish. “I got it, Dean-o. This isn’t my first rodeo, okay? The whole point of this is for you to breathe a bit.” She flips through the papers. “Get that stick outta your ass for two seconds.”

“Excuse me?” Dean asks. “I have a stick up my ass?”

Meg doesn’t look up from the papers, just tips her eyes to his. “Don’t you? Not to be too on the nose, but I think you’ve got a bit of a control issue there, buck-o.”

Dean scoffs but starts gathering his sh*t anyway. “My name’s just Dean, by the way. You don’t have to find new and wildly bizarre ways to say it.”

“Oh, but your nose goes all screwy when I do it, and it’s so cute.” She closes the folder and looks up again, her eyebrow raised like a challenge. “And I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

Dean pauses halfway through getting his jacket on. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a smart guy, Dean-Bean.” Meg hands Dean his lunch as he finishes hauling on his jacket. “I’m sure you can figure it out.”

Dean tries not to let himself be flattered that Meg says he’s smart and just grabs the shopping bag that holds his usual sad excuse for a lunch. “I don’t know why you talk like a troll whose riddles I need to solve to get across a bridge,” he says, taking his keys and opening the door, “but it’s f*cking annoying as sh*t.”

He heads out, and Meg stands in the open door as he makes his way to Baby. “Have a nice day at work, Big Strong Man!”

Dean climbs in, flips her the bird, and watches as she lets out a laugh he can’t hear over the Impala’s engine before she closes the door behind her, and Dean peels out more aggressively than necessary to get on his way to Kansas City.

—

Dean sticks his phone back in his locker, having just started their last extended break of the shift. The first part of his eval has been going well. He’s skilled enough at it now to know when things are going smoothly because he’s doing it right and when things are going smoothly because they’re not giving him all the planes he should be getting. It helps that it’s the evening shift and there aren’t any other controllers to pass a plane off to because Dean’s too bogged down. Meg even texted him a picture of a garbage bag half-full of liquor bottles in various stages of empty. She really must be the Drunk Whisperer.

Still, he refuses to tempt fate by thinking that things might be finally turning around. He breathes deep, his chest expanding without pain for the first time in recent memory, and he hopes for it to be true anyway.

He heads towards the hallway with the quiet rooms. He swings open the door to the first one with a green VACANT sign over the handle, but when he moves to walk into the room, Dean jumps at a figure already in the recliner. The looseness of his chest quickly tightens again to its usual vice grip.

“Oh, f*ck, sorry!” But it’s just Cas, staring at him like he somehow magicked Dean here himself. Dean’s breath is still coming fast and shallow, but it doesn’t take long for his ribs to relax enough to at least let his chest expand. “The sign said vacant.” He reaches around the door to the deadbolt and twists it. “You’ve gotta lock it or else it doesn’t show as occupied.”

“It’s okay, I just forgot,” Cas says, easing back down into the recliner. “Sorry.” He gestures to the door and winces. “My fault, obviously.”

“It’s all right.” A sharp pain stabs right over Dean’s sternum as it dawns on him that he doesn’t want to move to the next room over, but he doesn’t know how to ask Cas if he can stay. He could play it off, make a joke, maybe pretend it’s some callback to Cas thinking he hates gays, but Dean’s tired. He’s so tired. The brave face he puts on just to get through the day is starting to feel less like a shield and more like an albatross, and he’s losing his grip on the fifteen layers of sarcasm and faux confidence he hides in like some pathetic Russian nesting doll. And he hates it. He hates how the words won’t form in his throat even as Cas lets him take all the time he needs.

Which is worse somehow.

“Was there something you needed?” Cas asks, finally prompting Dean to either say something or leave him alone.

“No, nothing,” Dean says, flashing a smirk. “I was gonna grill you for some inside information on the rest of the eval, but I’ll let you get some rest.”

Cas hesitates, and Dean waits hopefully at the open door, like maybe Cas actually can read his mind. “I can’t tell you what’s left to do,” he starts, “or how much you’ve gotten through so far, but you’re doing quite well.” He rubs his hand over his hair a few times, like he’s trying to brush out all his exhaustion. “You can rest easy.”

Dean forces a smile. “Good to know. Thanks.” He starts to pull the door closed, and he tells himself he’ll try again tomorrow. Maybe the words won’t die on his tongue then. Maybe tomorrow will be one of the rare days where he can brush off all the burning doubts and ugly reminders of why it’s pointless to even try. It’s unlikely, but today the voice in his head is winning, the one that sounds suspiciously like his father telling him to stop kidding himself.

“Dean?”

He freezes in the doorway, like Dean might’ve just hallucinated Cas saying his name purely from wanting it too badly. But there it is again.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Cas asks, and now when Dean looks, Cas is leaning forward in the recliner, his hands knitted together in front of him. “Like I said, you’re doing fine, but you seem less. . .” Cas seems to be searching for the right word.

“Irritating?” Dean offers, trying to hedge against whatever Cas is going to say with yet another self-deprecating joke, like it’ll hurt less if Dean beats him to the punch.

Cas deflates a little. “I was going to say ‘animated’, actually.” He makes a gesture with his hand, his fingers spread wide and then pinching together, like something big collapsing. “Less bright, I guess.”

Dean scoffs a little, embarrassed at the description. Honestly, he probably would’ve preferred “irritating”. “I’ve been called dim before, but never quite like that.”

“Don’t do that,” Cas says, leaning back again, like he knew he shouldn’t have even bothered.

“Do what?” Dean counters, widening the door again and straightening up, preparing for a fight.

“Turn what I said around like that.” Cas drops his eyes from Dean’s, glancing into the dark corner. “Not everyone can talk to people as easily as you do. Some people wouldn’t mind being so magnetic even when they’re as dim as you claim.”

Dean swallows hard. Tries to force air into his lungs before he passes right out. He must be quiet for too long because Cas sighs and climbs out of the chair.

“You can have the room, if you want. I should probably get some paperwork together for the last of your eval anyway.”

He moves to walk past Dean, but he catches Cas by the elbow on his way by. Cas drops his gaze to Dean’s three fingers tucked into the crook of his arm, firm but not so much that Cas couldn’t keep walking if he wanted to. Just enough that neither of them can mistake it.

Cas tips his head up to look at him, and Dean swallows hard again. If he was going to say anything, now would be the time. But even though he has all the words laid out in his head, even though he’s pictured this very thing while drifting off to sleep more times than he’d like to admit, the words dissolve on his tongue like spun sugar.

His eyes flit between Cas’s and he wishes he could say his breathing eases or the coal stops burning through his vocal cords, but it doesn’t. He drops his hand and grips the door handle until his knuckles strain, the pain stopping him from floating away like he does sometimes, outside himself like a movie some cruel, capricious god watches for funsies.

But Cas doesn’t walk away like Dean’s expecting. He stands there for another moment, staring, and Dean wants to puff himself up again until he takes up so much space that he becomes invisible. He wants to melt through the concrete and into the bedrock below. He wants to push Cas out into the hallway and slam the door.

He doesn’t do any of those things. He swallows and waits, squeezing his eyes tight so he doesn’t have to see the pity that settles into Cas’s features the moment it clicks how broken and hollow Dean really is.

He’s not sure he can come back from that one.

“You know,” Cas starts, quiet, like he’s as unsure of where his sentence is going as Dean is, “we’d save several minutes of our break if we didn’t have to find each other before we go up to the cab.”

Dean still can’t risk looking right at him, he just tips his eyes up to peek at Cas under his eyelashes, not totally sure where Cas is going.

Cas licks his lips, then turns back into the room. “If you wanna take the bed, it’ll make finding you a lot easier.” He drops into the recliner, lying in it like he’s made of putty, eyes closed. “I don’t know about you, but I can use all the rest I can get tonight.”

“Yeah.” Dean clears his throat. “Yeah, me too.” He steps into the room and closes the door gently behind him. He tosses the lock to make sure no one else in the tower is gonna make the same mistake he did and jump to any incorrect conclusions, then crosses the room to the bed. He sits, bouncing a little to test the give, then swings his legs up, his boots settling on the footboard. It’s quiet enough in here that he can hear Cas breathe, slow and steady and deep. He slips his hands under his head, staring at the pockmarked cement ceiling, the red light casting strange shadows that Dean’s eyes try to trace into constellations by habit. “Thanks, Cas.”

Cas makes a sound of acknowledgement but doesn’t say anything. He just settles into the chair and lets out that familiar breath of finding just the right spot. “See you in twenty-seven minutes.”

Dean snorts at Cas’s precision, but the coals burning behind his ribcage ease to embers at the same time, and he’s no longer convinced he’s going to shake apart at the slightest breeze.

“Just for that, we’re making it twenty-six.” Cas tries to put on his authoritative voice, but even Dean can hear the smile in it.

“’Night, Cas.”

“Rest well, Dean.”

—

Dean passes with flying colours.

Well, maybe not flying colours. Rufus and Cas sat him down to go over some of the things he’ll have to work on in his third phase, and they both did their damnedest to dance around using the phrase “lack of confidence”. He’s got all the fundamentals down. He’s made steady improvements on his mechanics and coordination. But if Dean doesn’t believe he can do this, if he keeps letting his vision tunnel on expected mistakes until they become too big to fix, the rest of it won’t make a difference. They keep reminding him: Everyone makes mistakes on this job, but it’s only the ones that don’t get caught and corrected that kill people.

It’s nearly Thanksgiving, and Dean’s thrilled to agree when they propose skipping the big party. Phase two isn’t as big a deal as the others, and scheduling is hard enough as it is right now. Dean made a deal with almost every controller he could so that he can take more of Christmas week off. He’s lowest in seniority, which means he’s still stuck on shift for Christmas Day, which means Cas is also stuck on Christmas Day, but it’ll fill in more experience he needs towards checking out. But, also, Sam’s coming home, and Dean wants to spend as much time with him as he can, especially since he won’t be home for Thanksgiving. Dean’s dying to see him, wrap his arms around the sasquatch that is his baby brother, but he’s got school and training and the short time he could manage is hardly worth it, and John will remind him every single chance he can. Even Jess is staying behind in California to help Sam out.

So Dean’s happy to forgo seeing his brother this time and to skip the inevitable screaming matches and manipulations to pressure Sam to stay. Besides, Sammy promised to make up for it by extending his Christmas visit, which is what’s got Dean laying out more cheques than he can even cash at the moment. He thinks folks’ll forgive him, though. They usually do.

Eventually.

Just like now, when Bobby’s grumbling about having to square Dean’s unexpected repair job that unbalanced his inventory—and his accounting.

“You know, Dean,” Bobby says, typing the information from Dean’s cheque he brought in that afternoon to cover the part, pecking at the keys with his index fingers. “The least you could’ve done was make a fake invoice or somethin’. Now everything’s gotta get all shuffled around. . .” He trails off when he notices that Dean hasn’t cut off his bitching with some quip to make the old man smile. “What’re you? Sick?”

“Hmm?” Dean lifts his head, suddenly brought back to the conversation. “What? No. Why?”

“You haven’t told me off in ten solid minutes,” Bobby says, leaning over the desk as if he was going to put his hand to Dean’s forehead. “You gotta be sick.”

Dean leans back and bats Bobby’s hand away. “f*ck off, I’m not sick.”

Bobby settles back with a smirk on his face. “Sure.” He crosses his arms over his stomach. “You’re fine.” His gaze settles too heavy on Dean, and he has to look away. “Spill it.”

Dean sighs. “I am fine.” He scratches at his cheek to buy himself some time, but it just makes him realize that he hasn’t shaved. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

Bobby lets out a laugh. “Yeah, I wonder why that might be.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Dean rolls his eyes but has to stifle a yawn too. “It’s fine.”

“Entirely.”

“Completely.”

“Totally under control.”

“Yes,” Dean says firmly. “It is.”

Bobby just nods, then presses the enter key hard and the printer spins up. “Good. Good talk.”

Dean sighs. “Bobby—”

“So Thanksgiving’s kind of a bust, huh?” He spins in his chair to grab the papers from the printer behind him. “With Sam in California and Jody and Donna headin’ back up to Sioux Falls to see their girls, we’ve got a bit of an empty table.”

Dean and Bobby haven’t talked about what happened before the night John got arrested. They just kind of fell back into their usual routine and relationship, which has been good, don’t get him wrong, but there’s an elephant in every room. And every time they walk into it, they just turn around and pretend that’s what they wanted to do in the first place.

“Doesn’t really matter,” Dean says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m workin’ Thanksgiving Day anyway.”

Bobby swings back, but he’s not quick enough to wipe the hurt off his face before Dean can see it. “Huh. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the rookie.”

Dean winces, adding Bobby’s sting to his pile of mistakes. “Sorry, Bobby. I didn’t think about—”

Bobby waves him off. “Nah, it’s fine. I know things are different this year.”

Dean sighs, his mind spinning. His father was never a guy that liked to mark holidays. When they were kids, he and Sam didn’t even really know they existed until Dean got to be old enough to understand what all the decorations and television specials were about. He tried to do at least something for Sammy, trick him into thinking their dad was off doing something big and important for other families, but Sammy caught on soon enough, just like he figured out that the tooth fairy and Easter Bunny and every other supernatural gift giver was Dean.

But not Bobby.

Bobby always made a big deal out of the holidays. For the first few years, Dean always assumed it was for him and Sam, but once Sam was out of high school, Bobby kept rolling out the carpet, insisting the boys come home, and Dean understood then it was just as much for Bobby as them. Maybe more.

He should’ve known better. He should’ve known that John coming home wouldn’t change anything for Bobby. He could punch himself for being so selfish and stupid and—

“Dean?”

Bobby looks at him like he’s waiting for an answer to something.

“Sorry, what?”

“Where’d you go?” Bobby asks, not bothering to repeat whatever question Dean missed.

“Just thinking.” Dean shakes his head. “I guess I forgot to tell you. I’ve just had a lot—” He sighs. All the bullsh*t he’s been dealing with still isn’t a good enough reason to hurt Bobby, to forget about him like this. After everything. “I was trading schedules so I could get as much time off during Christmas as I could, you know, when Sam’s here. Dad’s gonna be Dad, and—” He swallows hard. “Anyway, people don’t usually have to work Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it got me the stretch ‘till New Years, and Cas is cool with it. So—” Dean’s hands just rise and fall as if that’s all the energy he has left in him. “I dunno, I know I should've kept you in the loop.”

Bobby’s eyes are wide, eyebrows so high they’re hidden under his ballcap. “That sounds complicated.”

Dean breathes a laugh. “Yeah. I guess there’re a lot more rules to staffing a control tower than a garage.”

“Which I get to just close for two weeks and send everyone home.” Bobby adjusts his cap, pulling at the bill. “I’m gonna be blunt here. You’re takin’ too much on yourself. It’s gonna run you into the ground, and for what? For who? You’re starting to worry me, Dean.”

Dean scoffs and wipes at his eyes, stinging from lack of sleep. It doesn’t seem to matter where or when he sleeps, the nightmares follow him everywhere, and he dreads having to sleep at all. “Just starting?”

Bobby lets out a breath, then gets up and joins Dean in a chair on the other side of the desk. He faces him, leaning forward on his elbows. “I’m not good at this whole talkin’ thing.” Bobby clears his throat but doesn’t drop Dean’s gaze. He doesn’t let Dean look away either. “But the hole you dug yourself out of when your daddy left. . . There ain’t many people who coulda done that. Not with a baby brother in tow, not with all the ways he left your brain pan scrambled and full of bullsh*t.”

Dean drops his eyes to Bobby’s hands, the conviction in his aging eyes too much to hold, but he’s not letting him go that easy.

“Hey! I’m not done.” He doesn’t continue until Dean meets his eyes again, which takes a solid minute of Dean forcing himself to breathe deep enough to calm his heart and keep his lunch down. “You got a GED by yourself. You got Sam into Stanford f*cking Law by yourself. You kept this garage running near single-handed a lot longer than you shoulda. And now you’re telling planes where to fly.” Bobby pauses, but Dean can’t move. “f*cking planes, Dean! They barely let your daddy touch ‘em, and look at you. Look at what you did.”

Dean sniffles. “Not all by myself, Bobby.” The words burn on their way out his throat, but he forces them out anyway. Bobby deserves that much. “I couldn’t’ve if it were just me.”

Bobby reaches out and closes a hand over Dean’s, clenched into fists. “The hard parts were. All I had to do was watch.”

The burning behind Dean’s eyes turns from exhaustion to something else entirely, and he can’t find the strength buried in him to stop the tsunami that pours out of him. “I’m so tired, Bobby.” He lets out a single sob, like it’s all he has the energy for. “I’m trying so goddamn hard, but I can’t get any of it right. And the harder I try and the longer this goes on, the worse it’s all gonna get when it all falls apart, and I’m just so—” The words die in his throat, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already wrapped up in Bobby’s arms, his face buried in the down of the stupid puffer vest Dean and Sam got him for Christmas but still never stopped teasing him about when Bobby wore it every day that winter. “I’m sorry, Bobby, I’m so sorry.”

Bobby wraps his arms tighter around Dean, and he’s not even sure how his old body can manage the angle, but Dean doesn’t care. He just holds on, rides it out, and tries to believe all the encouragement Bobby whispers into his hair about how they’re going to figure all this out.

—

“It’s slow today.”

Dean and Cas lean against the counter of the break room’s kitchenette, sipping coffee on the first break of the morning shift on Thanksgiving Day.

Cas nods. “Not many people travelling. Most fly the day before the holiday, not the day of.” He takes another long sip, like it’s possible to absorb the energy from the caffeine directly into his bloodstream. “Spend the day with the family and such, I suppose.”

“Hmm.” Dean sips his own coffee, but it never does much good in the keeping awake department, but people are weird if you don’t have a cup too. “You having a late dinner then?” Cas was quick to agree to working more of the holidays, and Dean didn’t question it because that’s what he wanted. But after his breakdown with Bobby, it feels like it was more of a manipulation than a kindness now.

“Who, me?” Cas doesn’t look over, but Dean can see half of his smile in profile, and it’s bitter. “No.”

“What? Meg’s no cook?”

Cas clicks his tongue. “No, no, we managed fine.” His gaze drops to the brown liquid in his mug as he shifts it around the sides. “She’s got other plans this year, that’s all.”

“That’s sh*tty,” Dean says, draining the rest of his mug. “You ain’t got other family?”

“Not in Missouri,” Cas says. “We’re from Illinois. Most of us are still up there.”

Dean deflates. “And you stayed because I wanted more time off at Christmas instead of going up?”

Cas tips his mug to finish his own, then drops it in the sink. “I wasn’t going up either way.” He turns to Dean and shrugs. “Might as well get paid time and a half instead of watching the Macy’s parade on every channel, right?”

He claps Dean on the shoulder and smiles as he passes by him towards the lockers, but Dean recognizes that smile. He saw that smile reflected back at him in the mirror every time he tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter his dad was gone, that he didn’t want to see him anyway.

“Yeah, I guess.” Dean digs his thumbnail into the small chip on the lip of the mug he still has in his hands. “Speaking of, are we allowed to let people in here without a badge?”

“No. I’m afraid that’s quite illegal.” He shuts his locker again. “Why? Do you have a visitor?”

Dean winces. “Yeah, kind of. My—” He waves his hand in the air “—friend or whatever. You know, Mr. Sierra. He’s bringing Thanksgiving dinner up at my lunch break since Sam and everyone’s not gonna be around this year.”

“Oh.” Cas’s eyes soften, and Dean recognizes that look too. It’s the look all the other kids got when they’d see their parents in the crowd at a game. “I wish you would have mentioned it earlier. We could have arranged a visitor pass.”

“It was pretty last minute.” Dean doesn’t want to think about the aftermath of him sobbing into Bobby’s dumb vest until the wet spot took up most of his shoulder or the way Dean asked with snot on his chin whether it was even worth making a turkey for just him. “He said he was gonna do all the fixin’s anyway.”

Cas tips the corner of his lip up apologetically. “Well, we’ll get him on the roster for next time. No one’s around for that right now.”

“No worries,” Dean says, waving him off. “We were kinda expecting to have to do a parking lot picnic anyway.”

Cas smiles at that, as if Dean was telling him a fairy tale or something. “That does seem appropriate given the holiday, I suppose.”

Dean frowns. “I don’t get it.”

“You know, the pilgrims and the Native Americans coming together and ‘sharing’ their bounty.” Cas spins his hand in the air like he’s trying to jog Dean’s memory. “With the maize and the squash. . .” Cas gives up when Dean doesn’t make a sign of catching on. “I’m quite sure they were outdoors when the Native Americans saved the ‘settlers’ from starvation.”

“Huh.” Dean sets the mug in the sink beside Cas’s. “When you put it like that, I guess we’re just being traditional.”

“There you go.” He ducks his head, then turns to head out of the break room. “Enjoy your meal. I’ll have coverage so if you’re a little late—”

“Wait.” Dean’s smile grows as Cas’s fades, confused. “Cas, it would be rude for you not to join us. Bobby made a whole f*cking turkey for just the two of us.”

Cas stares at Dean for a moment, not reacting, but the way his eyes flit between nothing tells Dean his mind is spinning. “I brought some curry—”

“Of course you did, and you can have it tomorrow.” Dean crosses the room to lean against the lockers. “You really gonna turn down freshly mashed potatoes? ‘Sides, I made the cranberry sauce last night, and it’s always better the next day.” He slaps Cas’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Trick is to really let the sugar soak in.”

Dean knows he’s laying it on thick, but he’s kind of addicted to the way Cas’s face changes with every invitation. He has to stop himself from smoothing out the confusion creasing his forehead with his fingertips or tipping up his face from where he buries his chin in his chest, hiding the flush of his cheeks. Dean likes being the person who can make Cas’s face do that. Mostly because he knows he can never have more than that, and not even because Cas is his instructor. It’s because the kind of guy who blushes at cranberry sauce will always be too good for someone like him.

“Anyway, I’ll text him to let him know when to get here,” Dean says, pulling his phone out of his back pocket. “Tell him to expect a third.” He looks up at Cas from under his eyebrows, suddenly losing his confidence. “Yeah? I mean, I don’t force ya if you’d rather—”

“I’ll bring the pie,” Cas answers with the ghost of a smile, gesturing to the fridge. “Meg might’ve left some pumpkin pie behind for the occasion.”

The tension drains from Dean’s shoulders. “Sweet.” He presses send on his text to Bobby. “All set, then.”

He shoves his phone back in his jeans, and when he meets Cas’s gaze, it’s morphed again into something less shy and uncertain and more like a determination to discover every mystery Dean’s got buried in him. He knows he should shrink from it or fortify all the cracks Cas has weakened, but he doesn’t do either.

For once, Dean just lets him look.

—

“I can’t believe you brought an entire f*cking pie,” Dean says as he leads Cas out into the parking lot.

Cas laughs, balancing the pie tin in his hand as he skirts past the turnstile. “Well, I was going to leave the rest out for the afternoon shift. It’s not like it was all for us.”

“Too bad.” He shakes the can of whipped cream Cas also brought. “We could’ve finished it.”

“Probably.” Cas snatches the can from Dean’s hand before he can dump any in his mouth. “Save it for the pie. That’s unsanitary.”

“Party pooper.” Bobby had texted that he was out in the unprotected part of the parking lot, and Dean’s eyes find the old pickup with the fading Singer’s Auto Salvage logo on the side. He points towards it. “Over there.”

Bobby sits in the driver’s seat, his head tipped back against the headrest, probably catching a quick nap after the long drive. A small smile pulls at Dean’s lips as he and Cas make their way over. He doesn’t even bother trying to hide it from Cas or when he taps his knuckle once, hard, on the window to startle Bobby awake.

He rolls the window down, jerky and slow. “Now was that really necessary?”

“Always,” Dean says, widening his smile into something closer to his usual smartass grin. “C’mon, we gonna break bread or what?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bobby says, pushing the door open and not even apologizing when it hits Dean in the process. “It’s all in the back.”

Dean peeks into the bed of the truck, leaning over the cab, and sees Bobby’s got a red and white tablecloth held down by coolers, no doubt filled to the brim with Thanksgiving food. “Damn, Bobby, you went fancy.”

“f*ck off,” he replies, but Dean doesn’t miss the satisfied smirk, and he knows he’s proud of the spread. “You got an hour?”

“Thereabouts.” Dean steps back to let Bobby out and also gestures to Cas, who’s been quiet behind him. “And I brought pie.” Cas shoots him a look that’s a mix of terrified and offended, and Dean can’t help but laugh. “Okay, whatever, Cas brought pie and I brought Cas.” He raises his eyebrows at him. “Happy?”

“Yes.” Cas turns his attention to Bobby and raises the pie like he would miss the huge tin in his hands. “I hope you like pumpkin.”

“I like anything with pastry.” Then, he glances at Dean as if to remind him they haven’t actually been introduced.

“Oh, right, yeah.” Dean claps a hand on Bobby’s shoulder. “Cas, this is Bobby Singer. Bobby, this is my instructor, Castiel Novak.”

“I’d shake your hand but—” Cas gestures at his full hands.

“If Dean remembered any of the manners I taught him, he’d’ve made sure you had a free hand.” Bobby takes the pie from Cas and turns to open up the tailgate. Dean opens his mouth to protest, but Bobby drops the gate loudly before he can. “We only got an hour. You can tell me your excuses after we carve the turkey, hmm?”

Dean laughs, and when he turns to Cas to take the whipped cream from him, rightly chastised, he finds Cas already staring back. Despite the way Dean could nail all the emotions passing over Cas’s face this morning, he can’t peg what’s going on with his bright eyes or the way he’s not smiling even though his eyes are crinkled at the corners anyway. He’s not sure anyone’s looked at him like that before.

“What?” Dean asks. “You’re the one who took the whipped cream back.” He snatches it from Cas’s grip, but he taps his shoulder with his own on the way past. “C’mon. I can’t wait to find out if you’re a breast or leg guy.”

Cas coughs, a surprised laugh really, and follows Dean’s smooth climb onto the tailgate. They settle on opposite sides of the tablecloth and help Bobby unpack the coolers. Dean won’t let Bobby finish apologizing for the food being lukewarm at best, and both Dean and Bobby laugh too hard at Cas’s comment that it’s better that it’s cold in terms of salmonella risk and even harder when Cas asks what’s funny.

Bobby carves up the turkey—Dean notes that Cas is, in fact, a leg man—and Dean piles Cas’s plate with mashed potatoes and buttered corn and roasted carrots and more cranberry sauce than anyone would eat on purpose, and he eats every bit of it. Even though Dean’s probably eaten half the spread himself, he’s never felt lighter. He hasn’t told Bobby much about Cas, or vice versa, really, but they get on better than he expected. Bobby appreciates that Cas doesn’t seem to have the ability or good sense to lie and Cas seems charmed by Bobby’s gruff exterior and aggressive kindness. Dean finds himself picturing this around a real table in a house that’s theirs with Sam and Jess on their way over, late because of some important lawyer sh*t.

“I suppose it’s the moment of truth,” Cas says, pulling the cover off the pumpkin pie and Dean’s attention back to the moment. The pie’s already cut into eighths, and somehow this is what impresses Bobby most. “Dig in.”

“Yes, finally!” Dean says, lifting a slice from the tin and loading it up with whipped cream. “Anyone else?”

Bobby stares at him with raised eyebrows but holds out his plate. “If there’s any left.”

Dean shakes the can again and makes a few fancy rosettes on Bobby’s slice. “There.” He sweeps a hand over it like he’s some big chef. “Lots left.”

“Well, ain’t that a pretty picture,” Bobby says, lifting one of the rosettes straight off and popping it in his mouth. Dean replaces it without having to be asked.

“What about you, Cas?” Dean holds the can out, angled slightly, ready to deploy, but Cas seemed distracted. “I don’t have to be artful.” He gestures at his own. “I contain multitudes.”

This pulls a laugh from Cas, and he holds his pie out. “I’ll leave it to you.”

Dean bites his lip, like he’s trying to gauge the size of canvas, and ends up doing a zigzag thing over the slice that turns out better than Dean expected, then a giant rosette on the side. “There, how’s that?”

Cas smiles. “That’s great. Meg would be very impressed.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean asks. “How ‘bout that.” Then, he empties the rest of the can into his mouth.

“Aaaaaaaaaand you had to ruin it.” Cas laughs but scoops half the rosette into his mouth too.

“I think I might’ve been slightly misled about the hardass instructor out to fail you,” Bobby says, tipping the bill of his ballcap down in that knowing way Dean hates.

Cas’s eyebrows spring up. “Is that right?”

Bobby hums around a forkful of pie. “According to this one here, he’s been fighting for his life not to wash out.”

“No!” Dean calls out, looking between Cas and Bobby. “Hey, no! That’s not—” Bobby levels a look at him again. “Okay, I might’ve given that impression at first but I—”

“Never bothered to adjust it?” Cas asks with more amusem*nt than anger.

“I—” Dean’s mouth stays wide, like he’s been accused of murdering some puppies. “I’ve had a lot going on!”

Bobby shrugs and eats more of his pie, and Cas follows suit.

“Hey, c’mon, guys!” Dean settles back, pouting. “You can’t pretend you didn’t hate me at first, Cas.”

Cas doesn’t look up from this pie. “I’m not pretending.”

Bobby lets out his biggest laugh yet, and even though Dean continues to pout, he’s fighting back a smile.

“Well, I’m glad you two have kissed and made up,” Bobby says, pretending not to notice the way Dean’s ears burn. Dean doesn’t even look at Cas. “That first evaluation you got Donna to give me gave the game away anyway, Dean. Ain’t no one out to get you who writes something like that.”

Suddenly, it’s Cas who’s paying too much attention to his pie, and Dean who’s sitting straighter. “What are you talking about?”

Bobby tips his head towards Cas. “His final comments.” When Dean’s face doesn’t betray any recognition, Bobby swears to himself. “Didn’t you read your own evaluation?”

Cas’s eyes lift to Dean’s face, but he keeps looking at Bobby. “I mean. No, I guess not. Only what me and Rufus went over in the office.”

“Dean,” Bobby groans.

“We actually should get back to the cab,” Cas says, almost apologetically. “We have to relieve Pamela for her lunch.” He stands in the bed of the truck, a little unsteady. “Thank you for the meal, Mr. Singer. I’m grateful for the invitation.”

“It’s Bobby, and you’re always welcome,” he says as Dean scrambles to his feet too, and Bobby waves him off. “Now go on, git. You boys gotta make sure none of them planes fall outta the sky.”

Cas drops to the asphalt of the parking lot, and Dean pats Bobby on the shoulder. “Thanks, Bobby.”

Bobby nods, then calls after Cas as Dean drops out of the truck too. “You should gimme that recipe. Best pumpkin pie I ever ate.”

“My ex-wife made it, actually,” Cas says as he waits for Dean. “I believe you two have met? Meg Masters?”

“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Bobby says, adjusting his cap. “I knew I liked her for a reason.”

“All right, Bobby, calm down. I’ll see you tonight.” He waves as Bobby starts putting everything back in their containers and Dean and Cas start their walk back to the tower.

“You really never read my evaluation?” Cas asks, hands in his pockets again the November chill. “Any of it?”

Dean shrugs. “I mean, I passed. You and Rufus told me what I needed to work on and next steps and stuff.” He shoves his hands in his pockets too. “I guess I didn’t think there was anything to read.”

Cas nods thoughtfully. “Well, I think there’s something there for you to read.”

Dean bites his lip. “Good or bad?”

Cas smiles, just a little, like he expected the question but still can’t believe Dean asked it. “Based on what Bobby said, what do you think?”

Cas’s gaze lingers on Dean for a beat too long, then he scans into the tower first and doesn’t wait for Dean to follow.

Chapter 13: there's a draft coming from underneath (a door i swore I painted shut)

Chapter Text

Every scar a reminder of my ability to hold on
long after the let-go became the logical choice. I don’t mind
becoming all the things my hands have held. This is the point
of callouses. To be tool-sharp, hard,
and still human.

Jared Singer, “My Hands”, Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Self-Destruction

-

Dean feels like a kid on Christmas morning. Or, at least, how he imagines a kid feels on Christmas morning if he ever got that sort of thing. It was Christmas Eve Eve, or Christmas Adam as Pamela keeps saying, though Dean doesn’t get the joke. Either way, he’s on the last stretch of his shift and he feels like he’s going to burst out of his skin because Sammy’s finally on his way home. Cas lounges in his rolling chair, leg co*cked as he swings back and forth, with a vaguely amused smirk that Dean would wipe off his face if he didn’t also want to preserve it in amber or something. Paint it like one of the Dutch masters and stick it on his wall.

Whatever.

Dean bounces his knee under the console to try to tamp down his excitement, but then the call he’s been waiting all shift for comes in.

“Kansas City Tower, United 5299, flight level one-niner-zero, heading two-six-niner.”

Dean rattles off the standard weather and traffic information for the initial contact with an aircraft, their position in the line to land, and the runway they can expect to land on.

“Is that Sam’s flight?” Cas asks.

Dean nods as he scribbles the arrival instructions he just relayed. “That’s Sammy.” He stares off in the direction of the plane, even though he can’t quite see it yet. He made sure Sam flew into MCI when he was on shift. There’re closer airports, but c’mon. He has to show off a little. That Dean’s on arrivals at the same time is pure coincidence.

It’s a hazy winter’s night, one of the rare ones where you can see your breath, so visibility is less than ideal. But he’ll make it in. Dean’ll make sure of that.

“Are you going to head over to the airport after your shift?”

Dean feels like Cas has been spending most of the shift hanging out with Dean instead of evaluating him, and it makes Dean even more vigilant than usual. Cas is supposed to be the guy who stops Dean’s mistakes, and here, on one of the busiest air traffic days of the year, it’s like he’s taking a goddamned break. Like he’s not even worried.

Granted, the third phase is both the most chill and the most important. It’s like how Sam used to freak out about his junior year in high school, insisting it was way more important than his senior year. Considering Dean never got that far, he had to take his word for it. More controllers wash out in the third phase than they do in any of the others; it also tends to be the longest. Most times, you only get to the last phase if they’re sure you’re gonna check out and it’s pretty short—like a practice test before the big exam.

Still. Dean feels like Cas should probably be paying more attention.

“Yeah,” Dean says. The control tower needs to have the widest view of the airport, so it’s actually back by all the airline hangers and equipment storage. So, despite technically working there, the only way is to drive out and pick Sam up outside the terminal like a normal person. “He said he’s just gonna chill groundside ‘till I’m done our shift. There’s a coffee place. I’m sure he’s got some emails to catch up on and sh*t.”

Cas nods thoughtfully. “He must be pretty impressed that his brother is bringing his flight in.”

Dean’s neck goes hot, but he ignores it. “Eh, it’s whatever.” He rubs at his eyebrow, a nervous habit he thought he’d ditched after Bobby pulled him out of his spirals, but he catches himself at it again every so often. Enough that now half his eyebrow on one side is thin enough to disappear into his forehead from the constant rubbing when he doesn’t notice. “Somebody needed to pick him up from the airport. This seemed the most convenient.”

Cas tips his wrist up to check the time, and Dean knows it’s for dramatic effect. Cas doesn’t need his watch to know the time. There’s a huge digital clock above them in red LEDs that has Kansas City and universal time down to the millisecond right above their heads. “At nearly ten o’clock at night?”

Dean shrugs one of his shoulders before giving the next flight their landing clearance and passing control of the runway and strip off to Becky, who’s their ground controller tonight. Pamala’s down on break, ready to relieve Dean and Cas and start her midnight.

“It’s nearly Christmas. Bobby has better things to do.”

“There’s no shame in being proud of yourself, Dean.”

Dean keeps his eyes on his stripboard, reviewing all the incoming and outgoing flights represented by the strips of paper, telling himself it’s just good safety management, like checking your rearview mirror even though the road’s empty. He confirms which flight should be calling in next, tips his eyes to the weather radar to watch the rain that’s passing by north of them, mixed shades of green and yellow, the blue and purple even more north for the places getting snow for the holidays. Lucky bastards.

“In fact,” Cas continues, pushing at Dean’s chair with his foot so he swivels a little too, “I think it’s a good thing. It’s a sign of faith.”

Dean scoffs before he can stop himself, then accepts the active runway back from Becky when the plane that just landed gets onto the taxiway. He sends off the lone flight waiting to takeoff, but even when it’s wheels-up, the next flight in line to land isn’t close enough to get its clearance yet. He taps the eraser of his pencil on the tabletop, annoyed with himself that he didn’t slip another plane in there. It’s a busy night; he doesn’t really have time for stupid mistakes with all the planes waiting to land behind it. He can’t figure out why he’d even do it this way. It’s a heavy, so it’s never gonna have to worry about wake turbulence, but he had to space out the medium behind it so the ride won’t get bumpy. If he’d switched them, if he'd paid more attention to how fast they were flying, the medium would be on the ground before the heavy even got to the last waypoint, so now they just have to—

“Dean?” Cas asks, sitting up straight again. Finally f*cking paying attention. “What are you thinking about right now?”

Dean swallows, his eyes fliting over his stripboard. “It’s nothing, I just—” He breathes deeply. “I could’ve gotten that Southwest flight on the ground instead of waiting for the American to make it to the waypoint.” He scratches at his eyebrow again.

“Right. And why did you do that?”

Cas’s patience just gets Dean’s back up worse. “If I knew, I wouldn’t be staring at my board like this, now would I?”

Cas doesn’t even flinch at Dean’s unnecessary—and, frankly, undeserved—hostility. He just holds eye contact for a moment that stretches too long, but it slows Dean’s thought spiral long enough for him to clue into why he made a space in the arrivals queue.

“The maintenance vehicles need to cross the runway.”

Cas nods encouragingly. “There are maintenance vehicles who have been waiting to cross the runway.” A small smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “You made the break in your queue on purpose.”

Dean breathes out and returns control of the active runway to Becky so she can get the vehicles across. He doesn’t look at Cas. “Thanks.”

Cas takes the brief lull in Dean’s need to pay attention to the boards to spin him in his chair so that he faces him, even if Dean still won’t tip his eyes up. “This one was on me, all right?” Dean’s eyes shoot up. “Yeah, that’s right, I’m apologizing. Don’t get used to it.” Dean’s shoulders relax a bit, but the confusion still tightens his face. “I shouldn’t be talking to you about personal topics while you need your full concentration. That was an understandable loss of focus.” Dean still doesn’t say anything, so Cas dips his chin to really get in Dean’s face. “Okay?”

It takes Dean a moment to realize that Cas wants confirmation, but he licks his lips quickly, straightening up in the chair again. “Yeah, okay.” Cas might just be taking the blame so that Dean doesn’t spiral again, get too focused on how he fumbled another handoff because he forgot something important, but he grips onto it tight like the life preserver Cas meant it to be. Dean twists the chair back towards the console when Becky gets his attention again, the vehicles having crossed safely. “If you say so.”

He takes back control of the runway and gives the American heavy flight its arrival clearance, right on time, and the whole picture quickly builds back in Dean’s mind. He can see where all the planes are in the sky and the surface radar reminds him there’s a plane on its way to his hold short line, lining up to take off. Sammy’s flight isn’t too far. He should be landing not long before Pamela’ll be up to take the midnight from them. When Dean shuffles the board around for the aircraft on taxi and hands the runway back to Becky as the American flight lowers its landing gear, Cas leans back into his chair, bringing his foot back up like he hasn’t a care in the world.

“Yeah,” he says, absentmindedly and almost too late to connect to their conversation. “I do say so.”

—

Sam texted when he landed, but, of course, Dean already knows he made it in safe. His shoulders were up near his ears until he saw the aircraft’s wheels make contact with the runway. Or, at least, that’s what Cas told him. Dean reads the text Sam sent about twenty minutes ago that he’d camp out at the Dunkin’ near baggage claim until Dean was done his shift while Cas empties out his own locker to head home.

“Do you have any big plans for while your brother’s here?” Cas asks as he pulls on his coat. It’s an absurdly long tan trench coat that Dean figures he probably needed for the wind and rain of Illinois, though he must find little use for all that in Kansas City.

Dean shoves his phone in his pocket. “Some. But mostly family stuff, I think.” Dean grabs his jacket, and somehow the tension in his shoulders returns when his fingers brush the leather. “Bobby’s got a huge Christmas dinner planned since we’re working the early shift. Everyone who was gone for Thanksgiving is here for Christmas, plus some, so.” He pulls on his jacket and closes the locker. “But everyone’s gonna be glad to see him.”

Cas does that thing where he smiles without his mouth. His whole face just brightens incrementally without moving a muscle. “That’s good. You deserve some quality time.”

Dean laughs. “Let’s not get too crazy here. That’ll last the drive to Lawrence and then him and Dad are gonna—” He stops himself. He’s been trying to avoid thinking about Sam and his dad seeing each other again and probably fighting and how then Sam’s gonna come down on Dean for keeping so much from him just to distract himself. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. It’ll be nice to have him around for a while.”

Cas nods thoughtfully, then turns to head out, and Dean follows, jogging a little to catch up so they can walk down the hall side-by-side. They walk in silence, and Dean’s never really met someone before where that was a comfortable thing. Usually, silence meant something bad, something he did or said wrong, and he’d spend the whole time running through scenarios about how he was going to have to fix it, make it right. But it’s not like that with Cas. If anything, this is a rare moment when Dean’s mind isn’t running a mile a minute.

Cas leads the way out the doors, and they’re about to say good night and go their separate ways when Dean hears his name being called from the gate.

“Hey Dean!” They both turn, and Sam, the giant that he is, waves over the fence that surrounds the protected part of the lot. “Dean, over here!”

“Yeah, I see you, dumbass!” he calls out, rolling his eyes as an attempted apology to Cas. “Why am I seeing you here?”

“They won’t let me in!” he calls back, pointing to the gate radio. It’s connected to a central security office way out in a building God knows where designed for exactly this situation: keeping randos out of the protected parking lot leading to an airport control tower.

“That’s why you’re supposed to wait for me at the airport!”

Sam stands on his tiptoes and funnels his hands around his mouth. “I wanted to surprise you!”

Dean opens his mouth to shout back, but Cas stops him with a hand to his elbow. “Perhaps you can walk over and let him in instead?”

“Oh,” Dean says, embarrassed that he didn’t even notice they were causing a ruckus. “Yeah, good idea.” He walks the length of the lot to the door in the fence and scans his card. “C’mon, get in here quick before someone sees you.”

“sh*t, Dean, this is the real thing, huh?” He wraps his arms around him before Dean can clock him over the head for being an idiot, and Dean melts into it. They squeeze each other hard, then Dean claps Sam on the back a few times before they let each other go. His smile is wide and dimpled as he keeps his grip firm on Dean’s shoulder. “My brother, an air traffic controller.”

“Not yet,” Dean says. “And not ever if you expect me to keep breaking you into secure facilities like this.” But he knows Sam can see the smile on Dean’s face, plain as day, and they both know he could never be angry at Sam for surprising him like this. “C’mon, get in the car.”

Dean grabs Sam’s bag and heads towards Baby. They’re halfway there before Dean realizes that Cas is leaning against the trunk of his own car with his hands in the pockets of his coat, staring at his shoes. “Cas!” Dean calls out from the half dozen spaces away that they parked. “Everything all right?”

His head shoots up, eyes wide as if he’s surprised to see Dean there. “Oh, yes. Everything’s fine.” He bounces off the trunk and moves towards the driver’s door. “I just wanted to make sure Sam got in okay.”

“This is Cas?” Sam asks excitedly. When Dean nods, Sam continues walking past the Impala towards Cas’s Civic. “I wasn’t sure he’d be here.”

“He’s always here, Sam. That’s kind of the point.” Still, Dean follows behind, secretly loving Cas’s deer-in-headlights silent pleading at Dean as Sam approaches.

“I’ve heard so much about you, sir,” Sam says, stretching out his hand to shake Cas’s as he stops abruptly in front of him.

Dean arrives moments after, having stopped to drop Sam’s bag in the truck. “Stop. No you haven’t.”

Cas straightens up, squaring his shoulders like he must’ve in front of a lot of enlisted men, and shakes Sam’s hand. “And I you, Second Lieutenant Winchester.”

Sam smiles wide and shakes Cas’s hand a little too long. “That’s kind of you to say, sir.”

“You’ll notice Dean didn’t correct me like he did you,” Cas says as he drops Sam’s hand. “And, please, Castiel is fine. Or Cas,” he adds, gesturing to Dean. “I haven’t been ‘sir’ in quite some time.”

“God, yeah, please don’t give this guy a reason for a bigger ego.” Cas glares at Dean, but he just flashes his best smile back. “He can barely make it through doorways as it is.”

“Dean,” Sam says with a tone of warning.

“Hey,” he raises his hands in surrender. “You might have a military hardon for the guy, but I don’t gotta do any of that ‘yes sir, no sir’ bullsh*t.”

“Dean,” Cas echoes, less as a warning and more of an exasperation. “Please.”

Dean drops his hands in mock defeat. “Whatever, my dudes. I’m just trying to spread the nightmare around here.”

“Stop being a dick, Dean,” Sam says. “I just wanted to meet the guy who got you inter—”

“Okay!” Dean says, clapping his hands loudly. “We should head home! It’s late and some of us still have to work tomorrow.”

Sam’s forehead furrows. “I thought you said you were working Christmas morning?”

“That too, Sammy boy.” Dean claps his hand to his brother’s shoulder, pointedly avoiding Cas’s equally curious stare after he cut Sam off. “I had to make a lotta demon deals to get the time off between Christmas and New Year’s, huh? So. C’mon. Let’s go.”

“So you’re working tomorrow too, Cas? And Christmas?” Sam asks, and Cas’s face flickers through a series of emotions at Sam’s use of the nickname, but too quick for Dean to clock any of them.

“I am,” Cas says, nodding. “I’m working a few shifts while your brother is off as well. I have to keep my license current if he’s going to keep using it.”

“How come I keep ending up in the middle of this?” Dean crosses his arms. He’s not mad, far from it, in fact. But he still doesn’t like what this is stirring up in his ribcage.

Sam seems to finally get the hint. “Well, I hope Dean is making it up to you for taking you away from your family like that.” He smiles shyly. “I know me and Bobby are grateful for it.”

“Dean’s company is a reward all its own,” Cas says, his own smile too soft for Dean to keep looking at.

“Yeah, okay, that’s enough.” Dean shoves Sam in the direction of Baby, then shoots one more look to Cas as they head off. “See you tomorrow, Major Asshole.”

Cas huffs a laugh, that surprised escape of breath that lets Dean know he really got him this time and he’s not just humouring him. “Good night, Dean.”

This time, he does cuff Sam over the head. “Ow! What was that for?”

“For embarrassing me.” They head to their respective seats, like no time has passed at all, and climb into the car. “Why you gotta tell Cas that he inspired me and sh*t, huh?”

“Because I thought he knew!” Sam settles into the seat and Dean pulls out of the mostly empty parking lot, two short honks to acknowledge Cas. “Why wouldn’t you tell him that?”

“You know, the whole ‘changing the course of my life’ thing never really came up.” Dean guns it down the empty roads by the tower until they reach the highway out of Missouri.

Sam snorts, then tucks down into the seat so his head can rest on the back. “I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that comes up in casual conversation, Dean. You might have to actually bring it up. You know, talk about your feelings.”

“Now why would I do that?” Dean asks, refusing to look at his brother. He knows there’s some truth to what Sam’s saying. And maybe one day he will tell Cas about what that day at the airshow meant to him. He’s not sure there’s much point to it, but hell. Maybe when they’re colleagues—friends, even—he’ll make it come up, but not while he’s still using the guy’s license for practice. He slaps his hand to his brother’s chest, and Sam’s knees slam into the dashboard. “Don’t fall asleep, bitch. You gotta keep me awake until we hit Lawrence.”

—

Dean warned Sam that their father would already be asleep when they got home. Meg took the afternoon shift that day and she usually gets John into bed before Dean’s home from his later shifts. They both walk in loose and relaxed from the drive, but there’s John, sitting in the dark, lit only by the rerun flickering across the television screen.

“Hey, Dad,” Dean says, a hint of caution in his voice that has Sam pinching Dean’s sleeve like he did when back when he’d have to reach up for it. “What’re you doing up?”

John smiles as he eases himself out of the chair. “I couldn’t go to bed without welcoming Sammy home.” He limps a little at first, like he’d been sitting in one position too long and needs to stretch out his legs, but by the time he makes it across the living room, he’s walking fine. “Sammy!” He pulls him into his embrace, and Sam pats him on the back a few times, glancing at Dean. John holds him out by his shoulders. “How was your flight?”

“Good,” Sam answers tentatively. “Dean got me on the ground like a pro.”

Dean cracks a smile, trying to tamp down his pride, but failing anyway. “Well, the pilot did most of the work.”

John scoffs. “Yeah, you can say that again.” He pulls Sam towards the living room. “C’mon, let your brother take care of your luggage. Tell me about what’s going on in California.”

Sam shoots Dean a confused look over his shoulder. Neither of them has ever heard John care at all about Sam’s life in California except for when it was going to end. When Dean reaches for Sam’s bag, he pulls it to him forcefully. “Actually, Dad. I’m super wiped from the flight. I’m probably gonna head in.”

“Huh,” John says. “Well. I suppose it is late.” He pats Sam on the shoulder again. “Dean was so insistent on being the one to pick you up, but I could’ve—”

“Dad,” Dean groans. “C’mon. Dr. Bacic has already revoked your license. You can’t drive.”

John waves Dean off with a huff. “That was bullsh*t.”

“If you pass out behind the wheel—”

“Enough, Dean.” John wipes his hand under his nose. “You think your father’s an invalid. You’ve made your point for your brother. Thank you.”

Dean sighs. “It’s late.” He reaches down and takes Sam’s bag. “C’mon, Sam. I’ll show you to your room.”

“I think he remembers where his f*cking room is, Dean.” John grabs the glass sitting by his recliner, and Dean’s stomach clenches painfully.

“Actually,” Sam starts, and John spins to face him, but Dean doesn’t smell alcohol. Sam licks his lips and glances quickly at Dean, like he’s not sure how much to say. “I don’t.”

John scoffs and takes a long drink. “Then go on, get some rest. We got all week, right?”

Sam’s shoulders relax, his jacket no longer bunched at his waist. “Right.” Dean moves towards the stairs and Sam follows behind. “‘Night, Dad.”

“‘Night, Sam.” Then, John falls back into his recliner, and Dean tries not to take the slight personally. Neither of them say a word on their way up the stairs.

“You got the master,” Dean says as he swings the door open. “Seemed like the best idea to switch the rooms up.”

“Thanks, Dean,” Sam says, almost shyly. “Dad seems. . .” He searches for the word, then settles on not sugarcoating it. “Worse.”

Dean huffs a laugh and drops Sam’s bag on the bed. “Didn’t think it was possible, huh?” He flashes a smile but presses on. “If you need more blankets or pillows or whatever, we’ve got a linen closet now. Right across the hall. And the bathroom’s right beside it.”

Sam sighs. “All right, we’ll talk about it later then.” He crosses the room and pulls out his hygiene bag.

“Whatever makes you feel better, Sammy.” Dean claps his hand on his bicep and squeezes. “It’s good to have you home, man.” He gives him a gentle shake before letting go. “Sleep well.”

“You too, Dean.”

He closes the door behind his brother and heads down the hall towards the smaller bedroom that was once his brother’s nursery. He barely shrugs his jacket and boots off before he tips himself onto the bed. He doesn’t even have the energy for battling for the bathroom so he can brush his teeth or even the strength to get out of his street clothes. He falls asleep easily, and a couple hours later, when the light he never turned off wakes him, he shuffles to the bathroom. He brushes his teeth and splashes some cold water on his face and tries to ignore the low hum of the television still playing downstairs.

—

The Christmas Eve shift was both busier and slower than Dean expected. Him and Cas were on swing, so they were mostly just covering for the others, bouncing between hanging out in the break room or a quiet room—ever since Dean stayed that one time, it seems to be an unspoken agreement that they just use the same one—and shuffling through whoever was due for a break. Still, Dean was exhausted, and he was looking forward to a quiet night with his brother at Rocky’s—or whatever passed for a quiet night at their local neighbourhood watering hole. One more day and he was gonna be off for nearly two weeks. It’s the longest break he’s had since he started training—maybe even since he stopped having summer vacation in school.

When Dean pulls the Impala into the driveway, he’s surprised to see Meg’s VW Bug still parked on the street. She was doing a half day, just showing Sam anything important he might need to know while alone with their dad, so she should’ve been gone by now. Cas said she was gonna spend the holidays with family; he told Dean that personally, he was looking forward to sleeping in.

Dean pushes the door open to see his father napping in the recliner, the back lowered all the way and his feet up. Dean’s eyes quickly jump to his chest, which rises and falls easily, and his heart stops trying to escape out his throat.

He tosses his keys in the Barbie bowl and shrugs off his jacket, hanging it on the bannister since he and Sam were supposed to head straight out. He creeps past the living room, trying to make his footfalls as quiet as possible still wearing his boots, and looks for signs for Sam or Meg. When he makes it to the kitchen, he sees the porch door open and hears voices carrying in through the screen.

“Honestly, I don’t blame your girl for going to her own folks’ place for Christmas,” Meg says, her voice lighter than Dean’s ever heard it. “I have a feeling this place is gonna be a gong show tomorrow.”

Sam’s laugh carries into the kitchen, and Dean stops near the fridge to listen. Maybe he shouldn’t eavesdrop, but his brother has never been the kind of guy that’s honest with Dean, as much as he lectures him about feelings and talking it out. Of course, Sam knows exactly how much to say without giving the whole game away, so, yeah, maybe Dean wants to hear what his baby brother’s got to say when he doesn’t think anyone else is listening.

“Yeah,” Sam says, more a breath than a word. “I dunno. I think it’s okay. Dean’s trying his best and Jess missed Thanksgiving to help out, so.” There’s a pause, like he’s taking a drink. “She said she’d come later, if I wanted her to. I wanted to scope out how Dad really is first.”

Meg chuckles. “You don’t trust your brother?”

“No, no, it’s not that. I trust him completely, but I also know him well enough to know he’s gonna hide the worst of it from me.” Sam sighs roughly. “He’s always doing that. Acting like I can’t handle it.”

Meg hums, like she’s considering the comment. “I don’t think that’s it. Dean seems like the kind of protective that’s self-destructive, not patronizing.”

“What does that mean?” Sam’s voice tips up, like he’s genuinely confused at the comment, and Dean shifts uncomfortably on his feet. He wants to barge in before Meg has a chance to armchair psychoanalyse him to his brother, but his own curiosity stops him.

“Like.” Meg clicks her tongue, like she’s searching for the best way to phrase it. “It’s not about you. Your capacity to ‘handle it’ doesn’t enter into the equation. He’s not even really protecting you, he’s protecting himself. He doesn’t want you to know how bad things are here, not for your dad’s sake, or even for your sake, but for his. He finds it easier to bear the burden himself.”

“So you’re saying he’s not patronizing, he’s a martyr.” Sam scoffs. “As if that’s better.”

“If that’s how you wanna see it, sure.”

Dean’s ears start to ring, like he can hear every single beat of his heart as the blood rushes through his head. A martyr? That’s how Meg sees him? His fingers twitch, itching to connect with something, to get the vibrations out of his body, but then Sam speaks again.

“How else is there to see it?”

Something clinks against the rusty folding chair, and Dean realizes they must have a couple beers. He grips the cold fridge handle, just to remind himself where he is.

“Your brother doesn’t value his life as much as he does yours.”

They’re both quiet for a minute until a clicking brings Dean back into the kitchen, his grip on the fridge handle shaking the door. He releases it, ready to turn and stalk out of the kitchen. He doesn’t have to listen to this bullsh*t. Of course Sam’s life is worth more than his. He’s at Stanford f*cking Law. He’s going to be a lawyer and change lives, maybe even the whole country. His life is the kind that could end up in the history books. And Dean? Dean can barely get through a shift landing planes without nearly shaking apart.

“I never thought about it that way before,” Sam says, almost too quiet for Dean to hear over the buzzing in his ears. “Why do you think that? You barely know him.”

There’s a pause, and Dean can see Meg shrug nonchalantly in his mind’s eye. “I know the type.”

It’s quiet. He’s imagining Sam doing that thing where he lets the silence lie until the other person feels compelled to continue, just to end it, and it gives Dean a chance to come back to himself.

“I don’t know if Dean told you my history, but I used to be a psychiatric nurse at the VA.” She clears her throat. “Every other guy there was a carbon copy of your brother.” She clicks her tongue again. “It was half the reason they ended up there in the first place.”

Sam clears his throat. “You think Dean’s all right?”

Meg chuckles lightly. “Oh yeah, don’t worry. He’s not the type to end up there.”

“Why’s that?”

A bottle clinks against the metal chair a few times. “He has people who love him.”

“And the people in the VA didn’t?”

The clinking continues. “Some did. But there’s a difference between loving someone and loving someone enough to save them from themselves.”

Dean shakes himself out of his trance and takes a few steps towards the porch door. He’s had enough. He doesn’t need saving—from himself or otherwise—and he’s gonna let Meg know it. But then he hears a name that stops him in his tracks.

“Is that where you met Cas?” Sam’s voice is careful, like he realizes the boundary he’s pushing at and wants to see if it gives.

“Yes,” Meg says quickly, like she was expecting the question, “but not the way you think.”

“So not a patient then?”

“No, a visitor.” The chair squeals against Meg’s adjustment. “His brother, Gabriel.” When Sam lets out an amused breath, Meg adds, “Yeah, they had a thing with biblical names. I don’t know why. But anyway, there’s a pretty big age gap between them. Castiel’s the youngest. An unplanned surprise, though you’d never get his folks to admit it. So Gabriel was already rising the ranks in the army when Castiel got old enough to join up. Then, when he was at basic, they got word that Gabriel was MIA.” Meg starts clinking her bottle again. “He was missing for a long while. Castiel was already getting ready for his own deployment when they found him in a POW camp. By then, he was pretty much mute. Near catatonic. So he ended up with me.”

“Holy sh*t,” Sam says. “That’s—wow. I didn’t know.”

“He doesn’t like to talk about it.” Then, Meg adds quickly, as an afterthought. “Don’t tell anyone, especially your brother. Castiel wouldn’t want him to know.”

“Why not?”

“He’s protective of his brother. His family were—” She breathes deep. “His family was really garbage about it. They haven’t spoken since Gabe passed away.” Another pause. “Then leaving the Air Force and giving up the part of his identity that linked him to Gabe. . .” Another sigh. “It was hard. It changed him.”

“Man,” Sam says, still bewildered.

“Yep.”

Suddenly, guilt rushes over Dean all in a wave. He shouldn’t have listened. He should’ve just let Sam and Meg have their bonding moment in peace, and now he knows things Cas doesn’t want him to. He feels like he cheated, like he skipped over the part where Cas could trust him enough to let him in, and now he’s got all his backstory he didn’t even earn. Dean doesn’t know what he’d do if Sam ended up like that. He doubts he’d be strong enough to even keep going, let alone start his whole life over. He’d rather let the whole world burn.

“That’s a lot for one guy to take on,” Sam says finally.

“Yeah,” Meg says. “Your brother and Castiel have more in common than they realize.”

Sam chuckles. “Yeah. Dean seems to be doing really well with Cas as his instructor.”

“Well, if anyone can work miracles, it’s Clarence.”

“You have a pretty high opinion of him for an ex-wife.”

More clinking. “Well, he’s my soulmate. I can’t help it if I’m not his.”

“Ouch,” Sam says with an awkward laugh.

“If Jess is your unicorn, you better hold on tight,” Meg says. “Castiel is a good man, and he wanted to do right by me and by Gabe, and he just—” she sighs. “—misunderstood how to do that.” There’s a sniffle, and Dean takes the hint to start backing out of the kitchen. “And I let him, so. Whose fault is it really?”

Dean leaves before he can hear anything else, his head spinning with far too much new information and unsure what to do with any of it. As soon as he makes it back to the stairs, his father snorts awake.

“Dean?” He asks, his voice laced with sleep. “What time is it?”

“It’s a little past three,” Dean says, fixing his jacket on the bannister like he just walked in the door. “Where is everybody?”

*—*

“Dude, when you said Christmas was the slowest day of the year, you were not kidding.” Dean sits back in his chair in the cab, staring out at a sleepy airfield and an empty strip board.

Cas breathes a laugh. “It’s certainly a challenging shift to cover.” His feet are up on the console, shifting back and forth as he swings his chair. “The morning is particularly bad.”

“Challenging?” Dean asks, barking a laugh. “Nothing’s happening.”

“Exactly,” Pamela says from her position across the cab. She’s got the combo arrival/departure position while Dean’s covering ground. It’s not going to be busy enough to have all four positions open, which conveniently allows more folks to be home with their families. “At least when things are busy, you’ve always got something to pay attention to. When things are this quiet, it’s easy to let your attention drift off.”

Cas’s uncrosses then recrosses his legs. “Yep. It’s why no one works midnights alone.”

“Because you’re so annoying, no one can drift off?” Dean teases, and he’s rewarded with a small smile and the twitch of an eyebrow.

“Absolutely,” Cas answers, slumping down more in his chair.

A call comes in from one of the aprons, and Dean quickly tunes in. He picks through the strips in his standby pile to find the plane looking to taxi to the active runway for departure, and Dean rattles off a routing through the mess of taxiways to Pamela’s hold short line.

When Dean releases frequency, Cas shakes his head a little. “I still don’t know how you’re so quick at taxiing.” He jots a few notes down on Dean’s daily training report. It’s pretty sparse today, but he figures that’s to be expected. “I feel like I need to draw it out before I can issue directions. You must be amazing at Pac-Man.”

Dean’s eyebrows jump at the compliment. “Now that you mention it,” he offers. When he and Sam would go to an arcade or something, waiting for their dad to finish whatever job he was up to, Dean could always hustle some older kids for their allowance on the Pac-Man machine. He bets his initials are still on a couple high score lists around the country. “Pac-Man was my game of choice once upon a time.”

“Figures,” Cas says, dropping his feet and curling over his clipboard to finish his final comments. “You have excellent spatial-temporal awareness.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess.” Dean watches as the plane turns onto the taxiway leading to the runway and gestures at Pamela to expect a handoff in a second. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment.”

“Good,” he says, tucking the pen into the clipboard. “It was supposed to be one.”

Dean’s throat tightens, and he swallows hard, handing the plane off to Pamela a little earlier than he should. The rule is to wait until the nose wheel is on the hold short line and the pilot’s confirmed it, just in case they decide to blow past it and enter the runway without permission. Then there’s a f*ckton of paperwork reporting a safety event and proving it was on the pilot.

But Cas has finished his report, and their shift is nearly done, and it’s f*cking Christmas, and Dean just wants to go home—actual home, to Bobby’s—and stuff himself so full of turkey he’ll actually sleep through the night.

But neither Cas or Pamela even mention it, and there’s basically nothing to handoff when Ash comes up to start his shift.

“Nice hat,” Dean says as he unplugs his headset and Ash drops into the chair Dean just vacated. Barely. “Very festive.”

Ash tosses the pompom on his too-long Santa hat over his shoulder like he’s a swimsuit model on a beach. “Thanks, my man. Gotta keep the spirits up around here, you know?”

“My spirits are just fine, thank you very much,” Pamela says, disconnecting from sending the plane on its way. “You sure you gotta go home?” Her eyes are bright with a mix of playfulness and pleading. “I’m not sure I’ll survive this one plus Cranky MacCrankipants downstairs.”

Dean laughs. “Crowley’s not so bad. You just gotta get on his good side.”

“Hmm,” Pamela says, twisting towards him. “Howling at the moon and all that, I suppose.”

“Or something like that,” Dean says. He and Cas head towards the stairwell and they both wish Pamela and Ash a merry Christmas.

“You two have fun!” Pamela calls out behind them. “Watch out for any mistletoe! You never know when you might find yourselves under some.”

“Thank you, Pamela,” Cas says as he closes the fire door behind him, and Dean’s stomach still tightens at the fondness in his exasperation.

They head to the training room in silence, Cas walking a little ahead as usual, the clipboard tucked under his arm, and Dean’s skin itches everywhere. He’s been through this debrief dozens of times by now, but this is the longest Sam’s been alone with his dad basically since Dean can remember, and he has a dread he can’t shake that he’s gonna get home to a double homicide. Cas holds the door open for Dean and they settle at the table.

“How’d I do, sir?” Dean says, smirking when Cas rolls his eyes with that full body shift.

“Perfectly adequate,” Cas says, checking off a few boxes about what they covered today.

A laugh punches out of Dean. “Don’t hurt yourself there, Cas.”

Cas tips his focus back up to Dean, and the laughter bouncing in his ribcage gets replaced by something far more dangerous. “You’ve reached your compliment quota for the day.” He returns his attention to the training report. “Your head still needs to fit in the cab.”

Dean rubs at his hair, even though he knows Cas is being metaphorical about a big head. “Whatever.” He drums his thumbs on the tabletop while Cas finishes his comments and signing. “What’re you doing the rest of the day?”

Cas ignores him at first, still writing in his neat block lettering. Dean’s about to ask something else, when Cas finally answers after a quick scribble at the bottom for his signature. “As little as possible.” He turns the clipboard towards Dean for his signature. “You?”

“Goin’ to Bobby’s,” he says, grabbing the pen and signing. “Pretty much everyone we know is coming over for turkey. And ham. And every other fixin’ Bobby can scrounge up or guilt people into bringing.”

“You’re supposed to read that first, you know.” Cas takes the clipboard back. “I could’ve written anything. I could’ve said you came to work in women’s panties or something.”

Dean’s stomach flips with nerves, but he puts on his usual bravado to cover the way he wants to shake out of his skin. “That’s something you think about a lot?”

Cas rolls his eyes again. “Nice try, Winchester.” He taps his pen against the clipboard. “This has important information for your training and your career. Are you not interested at all in how you’re progressing?”

Dean waves Cas off. “I know you’ll tell me when I f*ck up. I trust you.”

Cas sighs. “Fine.” He initials in the little box, then stands. “At least we’ve cleared another hurdle in your training. Minimal traffic.”

A familiar chill runs up Dean’s spine at Cas’s dismissal. “Why are you pissed?”

He pauses at the door. “I’m not angry.” His hand grips the door handle, like he’s not sure if he’s going to walk out or keep talking. “But people put thought and effort into these things. They’re important whether you bother to acknowledge that or not.” Then, Cas is out the door and on his way to Rufus’ office to file the report.

Dean picks at the calluses on his hands, knowing he deserved every ounce of that from Cas. He peels off a particularly thick piece of skin. It’s f*cking Christmas and Cas is alone and Dean still can’t see past all his own bullsh*t and throw the guy a bone. Especially after what Dean overheard yesterday. He’s pissed at himself now. Sam’s in town and he’s so caught up in getting home and his own family bullsh*t that it didn’t even enter Dean’s head what Cas must be feeling. That Dean gets to spend Christmas with Sammy and Cas is facing reruns and leftovers under his duvet because his brother is f*cking dead.

Jesus. He really is a piece of sh*t.

He pulls his hand back, pain ripping up his arm. He went at a callus too hard, and how there’s blood seeping from the bend in his middle finger. He stands quickly, sticking his finger sidelong in his mouth to catch the blood, and heads to the break room. He startles to find Cas already there and almost runs him over on his way to the first aid kit.

“sh*t, sorry, Cas,” Dean says around his finger. He drops his hand as soon as he realizes it was still in his mouth and continues to the cupboard where they keep the bandaids.

“What happened?” Cas asks, and Dean wonders at the lack of anger or acid in his voice. He really isn’t mad, but Dean’s sure he could handle that better than the disappointment.

“I just—” Dean struggles to open the kit. It’s old and plastic and hard enough to navigate with two functioning hands. “Nothing, it’s one of those tiny things that bleeds like nuts.” He swears.

“Let me,” Cas says, already behind him. He reaches past and takes the kit off the counter and sits at their usual table. “Sit.”

Dean huffs but agrees. It’s either that or get blood everywhere, and he’s not interested in trying to get stains out of leather. “Thanks,” he mumbles as he takes the seat closest to Cas.

Cas opens the kit easily and gestures for Dean to hold out his hand. He doesn’t want to. The skin of his finger is raw all around from his picking, not just where he struck blood, and he isn’t sure how to answer the questions Cas’ll have about it.

“C’mon,” Cas says. “I can’t put a bandaid on it if I can’t see it.” Dean works the muscles of his jaw, rubbing at his hand, and Cas sighs. He pulls out one of the standard bandaids, opens the wrapper most of the way, and drops it on the table. “Here. Hardest part’s done.” He closes the kit and is about to stand up when Dean opens his hand and lays it on the table beside the bandaid.

Dean swallows hard, unable to meet Cas’s eyes. Instead, his eyes pass over all the scars on his palm and crooked fingers, the battlefield of his forearm that peeks out of his flannel, and the burning raw skin of the tip of his middle finger, smeared with drying blood. Most of the scars aren’t Dean’s own doing. It’s not like that. Most of them aren’t even obvious enough to see for the casual glance, so Dean never lets people see long enough to really look. Maybe it’s because he feels like he betrayed Cas by learning things he doesn’t want him to know, even if it was by accident, but Dean needs to make it up to him.

So he waits.

Cas sets the kit back on the table and pulls out an alcohol wipe. He rips open the small packet and smooths it over Dean’s finger and says nothing about any of it. Dean jumps at the sting of it but doesn’t move. It only takes a few swipes and Cas is done, barely even touching him at all, and Dean finds himself disappointed. Cas folds the wipe over to the unused side and wipes the blades of the small scissors that come in the pack.

“What’re you doing with those?” Dean asks. “You don’t think I can keep the finger?”

Cas’s eyes lighten, the only sign of amusem*nt on his otherwise determined face. “I’m trimming the bandage so you can still bend your knuckle without it coming loose.”

“Huh,” Dean says as he watches Cas turn the straight bandaid into something with more triangles to it. “I don’t think I’ll get gangrene from a dusty first aid kit.”

“Old habits die hard, I guess.” Cas peels back the film of the bandaid, careful not to touch the sterile pad, and wraps it around Dean’s finger. “But I think you’ll live.”

“Thank goodness,” Dean says with false relief. “If I died, Bobby’d kill me for missing dinner.”

Cas balls up the trash he made and closes up the kit again. “You should probably get going if you don’t want to miss the food.”

“If you think Bobby made too much for Thanksgiving, you have no idea what awaits me at his place.” Dean flexes his hand a few times, a little amazed that it doesn’t feel like he’s wearing a bandaid at all. “Honestly, we could use as many stomachs as possible so we’re not drowning in leftovers for the next three weeks.”

Cas hums, acknowledging Dean’s comment as he stows the kit again. Then, he turns towards the lockers without answering.

Dean coughs. “That was me inviting you to Christmas dinner, by the way.”

Cas turns to face him, startled. “You were—” His eyes stay wide. “Oh.”

“You don’t have to,” Dean covers quickly, opening up his own locker to get going. “Like I said, everyone’s gonna be there. I figure what’s one more?” He pulls on his leather jacket, popping his collar pre-emptively against the chill. “But it’s no pressure. It’s last minute and everything and I don’t wanna make things weird—”

“Dinner would be great,” Cas interrupts, saving Dean from making an even bigger ass of himself. “I was just surprised.”

“Yeah, well.” He doesn’t know how he was planning to end that sentence. “You can ride with me if you want. I don’t mind driving you back.”

Cas closes his locker, shrugging on his usual trench coat, which looks ridiculous over his jeans and polo shirt. “It’s probably better if I take my own car. I don’t want to take you away from your time with your family.”

Dean is about to object, say it’s not a big deal, but then he remembers Meg’s comment to Sam yesterday about expecting it to be a gong show and he realizes Cas probably would rather not be trapped in a strange town an hour away.

“Your loss,” he plays off, for both their sakes. “Baby’s smooth as butter down the highway.”

Cas smiles and tucks his chin to his chest. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Chapter 14: archers never made good kings (fly headfirst into everything)

Chapter Text

My father saw and warned he’d break my arm, leaving me to wonder if my arm was mine or his.
There’s more but if I translated all he said, it would sound
sweeter.

Jennifer Huang, “Customs”, Return Flight

-

Cas’s Civic stays in Dean’s rearview mirror the whole trip back to Lawrence, and even though they’re in separate cars, the ever-present tension in the set of Dean’s shoulders eases enough for him not to strangle the steering wheel the entire way home. In fact, when he pulls into the long driveway leading up to Bobby’s place, he realizes his hand’s dangling out the open window.

There’re half a dozen cars there already, but Cas finds a spot that won’t block him in. He smooths his trench coat and shirt down as he meets Dean heading to Bobby’s large ranch house. His backyard has all the overflow scrap, and Dean only just realizes what it must look like to a stranger.

“Bobby keeps some of the scrap cars here until there’s room at the shop,” Dean explains as they head up to the door together. “I promise I’m not bringing you to some abandoned house to axe murder you or something.”

“It hadn’t crossed my mind you were,” Cas says, self-consciously picking at a spot on his jeans. “It has now.”

Dean barks a laugh, clapping his hand to Cas’s shoulder blade. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t think about what this must look like.”

Cas shakes his head. “It looks loved.” His voice is small, not nearly as commanding as it usually is when he’s talking to Dean and a lump forms at the back of Dean’s throat. “I just wish I would’ve dressed in something more appropriate.”

Dean drops his hand quickly as they arrive at the door. “Nah, don’t worry about it.” He swings the door open, and Cas goes pale. “It looks loved.”

Dean walks in first, if only to ignore the way Cas’s mouth twists to avoid smiling, and shouts out, “Hey! We have arrived!”

A low cheer answers him as he drops his raised hands, and Bobby pops out of the kitchen. “We?” He’s drying his hands on a towel as his eyebrows fly up when he notices Cas at the door. “Cas. Merry Christmas. I hope you’re hungry, we’ve got lots to get through.” Then, he locks eyes with Dean and tips his head towards the kitchen.

“Here,” Dean says, pulling at Cas’s trench coat. “I’ll be right back, okay? Make yourself at home.” Cas barely finishes shrugging out of his coat by the time Dean’s walking off with it. He takes his own jacket off and tosses them over his arm so he can dump them somewhere. When he walks into the kitchen, he finds Bobby brushing glaze over the ham. Sam stands a little off to the side, arms crossed and head down, like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible, which is not easy for someone like Sam.

“So you brought Cas to Christmas dinner, huh?” Bobby doesn’t even look up to see if it’s Dean. He just keeps his attention on the food.

“Uh, yeah.” Dean hangs the coats on the back of one of the kitchen chairs, straightening them as he talks. “It was kind of a last-minute thing. He hasn’t got any family around so. . .” Dean trails off, knowing it’s not exactly a foolproof explanation for bringing your colleague home.

Bobby turns his head towards Sam and gives him a tip of the head, that little, “I need to talk to your brother” look Sam and Dean have gotten so used to over the years. Sam complies, shoulders slaking at not having to stay and witness whatever this is. He pats Dean’s shoulder as he walks past, which does little to settle Dean’s stomach.

Once Sam’s gone, Bobby continues. “That the only reason?”

He rubs at his eyebrow, as if the guilt scratching its way out can be silenced with enough pressure. “Ain’t that reason enough? ‘Tis the season and all that?”

Bobby scoffs. “You saw your daddy on the way in, right?”

“Yes,” Dean whispers.

Bobby puts the brush on the plate on the stove and briefly squeezes the counter before turning around. “There’s nothing I won’t do for you, Dean. You gotta know that by now. And there ain’t nothing you can do that’ll drive me off, even caring for your daddy.” He breathes a laugh and crosses his arms. “Hell, that should be obvious enough by the fact he’s sitting on my couch right now and ain’t bleedin’.”

“I do know that, Bobby,” Dean says, still fiddling with the coats on the chair, Cas’s trench coat peeking out from underneath Dean’s leather jacket.

Dean jumps when Bobby’s hand squeezes his shoulder, and he grips the leather jacket harder. “This is your life to live the way you wanna live it. No matter what.” Dean swallows hard, unable to shift the lump stopping his voice. “Your daddy don’t get a vote. Okay?”

Dean just nods, eyes still lowered.

“Good,” Bobby says, sliding his hand up to Dean’s neck and patting him a few times. “Good.” Then, before he returns to put the ham back in the oven, he puts his hand over Dean’s and moves it off the jacket. “Cas is probably waitin’ for you. Don’t leave him alone too long. Donna and Garth’ll eat ‘em alive.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Dean manages and finally meets his eyes, aching to double over from the gut punch of seeing them glassy and red.

“I’m glad you brought him. Cas seems like a good kid, and he seems to like you. For some reason.” He pats Dean’s cheek. “Don’t ruin it.” Dean breathes a laugh, like all the tension he’d been stuffing into his chest needed out all at once. “Now get out of my kitchen before this ham gets too dry to eat. Go on. Git.”

Dean slips shyly into the main room and immediately finds Garth shaking Cas’s hand with a vigour that might tip Cas over. He finds Dean’s eyes, and Dean’s smile grows at the wide-eyed pleading painted across his face. He’s about to go save Cas, but then his brother clears his throat, hiding in the small alcove between the kitchen and library.

“Everything okay with Bobby?” Sam asks, his forehead knit into lines too deep for a kid of his age.

“Yeah,” Dean says too quickly. “Why? Did he say something to you?”

“No,” Sam says just as quickly. “Nothing like that. Just—” He clears his throat. “Seemed kind of serious, that’s all.”

“It’s fine.” Dean’s eyes find Cas again in the crowd and somehow, Garth’s still gripping his hand, utterly clueless.

“So are you and Cas. . .” Sam trails off, but Dean just keeps on staring until he gives up. “I don’t know. Dating or something?”

Dean lets out a breath. Sam was young when he and Benny were together, but it wasn’t a secret. Sammy saw them out together like any other couple would be and he never treated either of them any different. Still, they’d never actually said the words to each other. Dean continues to stare at the tall man with the piercing blue eyes and permanently mussed dark hair and finds himself wishing he could say yes. “Nah, not dating or something.”

“But you want to be?” Sam’s eyebrows are high even as his head is dipped, like they’re sharing a secret that Sam wants to emphasize he’s very okay with.

Dean shrugs a little. “I mean, yeah. Maybe.” When Sam’s face doesn’t move, Dean wonders if he’d read his brother all wrong. Maybe he does have a problem with this. With him. “I don’t know. It’s whatever. He’s my instructor, it’s weird. Why?”

Finally, it all slots together when Sam flashes a look behind him to their father sitting in the overstuffed chair in Bobby’s library. “Do you really think that’s a good idea right now?”

Bile rises in Dean’s throat as his mind cycles through all the places this conversation could be going. He straightens his spine, squares his shoulders, tightens his fists. He morphs back into the man Captain Novak mistook for a soldier all those years ago, with war still dripping off his skin.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Sam huffs, like Dean’s being his usual hair-trigger, obstinate self. “You know.” He gestures vaguely with his hands, but Dean’s not going to save him this time. “With everything that’s going on? Don’t you think—” Sam’s trying to lead Dean to his conclusion without having to be the one to say it, and Dean swallows hard. He knows what his brother’s getting at. Their father’s here for the first time in years. And he’s dying. Who knows how much time he even has left. Asking if this is worth doing while he’s still breathing isn’t an entirely unreasonable question.

Sam sighs. “Dean, you know I care about you. And you know that won’t change if it’s Cas or Cassie you’re dating. It’s just—” He drops his hands, like there’s no more steam to drive him. “It’s Dad, you know? We don’t want his last months with us to be—”

“What?” Dean barks, making Sam jump. “Ruined? Sullied? Poisoned?”

“Hey, no,” Sam says, hands raised in surrender. “Dean, no way, okay?”

“Then what, Sam?” Dean hisses under his breath. “You’re off in California with Jess living your dream and, I don’t know, doing f*cking lawyer sh*t.” He can barely get the air past the boulder in his throat. “And you’re telling me I can’t do one thing to make this more bearable?”

Sam’s face goes blank, shutting down just like he always does when things get hard. “That’s not fair, Dean. I wanted to come back—”

“So John Winchester can ruin both his son’s lives? C’mon, Sam!” Dean looks around the ground floor to see if anyone is witnessing their little tiff, but mercifully, everyone seems otherwise occupied. “And that’s not my point, okay? That’s where I want you to be. But—” He takes a deep breath. “—that doesn’t make it any easier.”

“And Cas does,” Sam says simply, and for the first time, Dean realizes it’s true.

He clears his throat, another kind of heat replacing the acid burn of bile, and he tries to swallow again. “Yeah. Yeah, he does.”

Garth’s hearty laugh draws Dean’s attention away from his brother and back to where Cas has been ambushed by Garth’s golden retriever welcoming instincts. The edges of his mouth pull up involuntarily.

“I gotta go save the poor guy,” Dean says, gesturing over his shoulder towards Cas and Garth. “Keep an eye on Dad, all right?” He leaves before Sam can answer and he lets himself get pulled to saving Cas from Garth’s overenthusiastic questions.

“I see you’ve met Cas,” he says as he walks over to the two men, putting his conversations with both Bobby and Sam out of his mind. “And his hand.”

Garth laughs, like he hadn’t even noticed he was still shaking it. “Gosh, yeah, sorry there, Cas.” He drops his hand and rubs at the back of his neck. “We’ve all just heard so much about you ‘round here and we didn’t know you were comin’.”

Cas’s face doesn’t relax. If anything, the fear grows. “It was a last-minute invitation,” he says to Garth. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, though.”

Garth shoots Dean a theatrically hurt look. “Dean! Are you sayin’ you haven’t told Cas about your best buds?” He places a hand on his chest. “Well, I never.”

Dean rolls his eyes, more for Cas’s sake than Garth’s, and introduces them. “Cas, this is Garth. Garth, this is Castiel Novak. As you know.”

Garth plasters the biggest sh*t-eating grin he can manage. “Garth Fitzgerald the Fourth, at your service.” He scans the crowd for a moment before he finds his wife. “And that’s my wife, Bess, with our daughter, Gertie.”

Cas’s gaze follows Garth’s gesture to a smiling blonde woman with a toddler on her hip, laughing with Andrea. Dean hasn’t seen Benny yet, but he must be here if Andrea is. As much as he appreciates Bobby’s pre-emptive pep talk about Dean bringing a boy home for Christmas dinner, it’s really starting to sink in how little he thought this through.

Cas smiles, or tries to. Even Garth must see it’s forced, but he’s also the nicest person in this room, maybe even in Lawrence, so he lets Cas get away with it. “It’s nice to meet one of Dean’s friends.”

“Ha! He hiding us away?” Garth slaps a hand to Dean’s chest and Dean dutifully pretends it hurt. “That doesn’t sound like our Dean!”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough for now,” Dean says, reaching across Garth to guide Cas further into the living room. “Let’s mingle a bit before we get to the embarrassment, huh?”

“I’ll tell Benny to catch you later, then!” Garth half-shouts to Dean’s back, and he tries not to flinch.

“Benny?” Cas asks quietly.

“Yep,” Dean says, not letting his voice shake as bad as his nerves. “That’s his wife talkin’ to Bess.” His eyes scan the room. “I don’t see him, though. And he’s hard to miss.”

Cas clears his throat. “I see.” He pulls at the bottom of his polo like he’s suddenly hyper-aware of the way it hangs. Dean doesn’t see any problem with it. It’s tight in the sleeves and his broad shoulders make a crease where his shoulder blades must be, which, yeah, means the shirt rides a little higher on the belt than it’s probably made to, but Dean also can’t say he has any complaints about the view.

Dean can’t say the same about his jean-and-Henley combo. The hem of the sleeves are fraying and the top button has been gone longer than he cares to admit, but it’s been washed so much, all the natural starch is gone, and it feels more like a second skin than a shirt. And this is the kind of day he’s going to need some thicker skin to keep all his insides where they’re supposed to be.

“Hey,” Dean says, getting Cas’s attention. “Don’t worry about it, huh? You look great.” Dean crosses his arms and ignores the flush by Cas’s ears. “I just mean Benny’s a big guy. Burly. Cajun. Always wears a newsboy cap.” Dean can’t help the way his own jaw flushes. “You know. Distinctive, that’s all. Hard to miss.”

Cas shoves his hands into his jean’s pockets. “Okay.”

“Dean!” Jody calls out as she weaves her way through the crowd, and Dean has never been more grateful to see her. “I heard you were around here someplace!”

“Hey Jody,” he says, the smile forming on his lips easily. He returns her hug, letting her hold on a little longer than usual without wondering why. “Donna here too?”

“She is!” She leans back, glances quickly at Cas, then back at Dean. “She’s in the yard with the girls.” Her smile both grows and softens as she talks about them. “They made it down for Christmas, all four of them. I can’t wait to introduce you.”

“I can’t wait to meet them,” Dean says, and he’s not even lying. Donna’s already talked his and Bobby’s ears off about their horde of wayward girls, women now. They all sound badass in their own special ways. “Speaking of.” He steps a little to the side to fully reveal Cas beside him. “This is Castiel Novak, my instructor over at the tower.”

“Oh, this is Cas?” Jody’s level of enthusiasm just burns his ears hotter, but she’s already talking before Dean can feel the embarrassment too keenly. “I’ve heard so much about you!” Jody hugs Cas, and he’s so surprised, he doesn’t even wrap his hands around her before she’s pulled away again. “I didn’t know you were coming!”

“It was a last-minute invitation,” Cas says, dumbly repeating his response to Garth.

“Well, there’s way too much food, so I hope you’re hungry!”

Cas’s lip tips a little at the corner, and Dean’s stomach relaxes a little. Jody may not realize it, but Dean knows that’s a more sincere smile than Garth got. “So I hear.” He glances at Dean quickly. “And I am. We haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“Dean!” Jody scolds, hitting him in much the same way Garth did, but this time Dean doesn’t have to feign the pain.

“Ow! Hey! What gives?”

“What kind of host are you? Get the man something to drink!” She rolls her eyes for Cas’s benefit and starts to walk off, throwing back a wink only Dean can see.

Dean keeps rubbing at his chest as he watches Jody disappear into the kitchen, avoiding the way Cas’s gaze bores into the side of his face.

“I could go for a drink,” Cas ventures. “Perhaps if I hold something, people will stop hitting you.”

Dean glances over, and Cas’s eyes crinkle a little at the corners. He feels like an idiot and embarrassment washes over him like a tide coming in, but Cas is smiling at him, and he wants a drink which means he wants to stay in this house full of crazy, and suddenly Dean is rubbing at his chest for an entirely different reason.

“Yeah, ‘course.” Dean claps Cas on the shoulder again. “Let’s get you liquored up.”

“It’s not quite what I had in mind, but—” Cas leans into Dean’s hand like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. “We can start there.”

—

Cas accepts the beer Dean offers without comment and follows him to one of the couches in the main room. Despite it being a three-seat couch, Dean and Cas gravitate to sitting next to each other, and Dean doesn’t say a word about it even though he’s vibrating through his skin. Cas just drinks his beer and surveys the room as if something momentous isn’t currently taking place.

A whoop of laughter draws their attention, and Gertie toddles away with a cookie held high over her head as Garth pretends he can’t quite catch her. It stirs something deep in Dean’s chest, something he never lets himself think about. The way his life’s been, there wasn’t ever a point in thinking about whether kids would enter in. The more stable things get, the more aware he is of all the things he never even got the chance to decide. He’s not saying he wants kids as if he’s got a biological clock ticking like a nuke in his chest, but the awareness that he never got the opportunity to even think about it always kicks him in the gut. And who knows. Maybe he’d’ve made a good dad. He takes a long drink, ignoring the way Cas is staring at him and not Gertie collapsing into giggles as Garth scoops her up in his arms.

Too bad he’ll never know.

“You’ve collected quite the cast of characters,” Cas says, leaning in close like he’s telling a secret. Like the place isn’t too loud to hear any one conversation from more than two feet away.

Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Cas just smiles. Or, rather, his eyes do. The rest of him remains as unreadable as ever.

Dean’s eyes drop to Cas’s lips as he takes another pull from his beer. He’s unpracticed, Dean notices. His lips don’t quite make the seal required to avoid spills, and he doesn’t realize he’s licking his own lips until Cas swipes his knuckles over his mouth to catch a stray drop.

He clears his throat and looks away, but he can feel the heat creeping up to his ears, and even Cas can’t be so clueless as to have missed that. “So how’s work treating you?”

Dean winces at the idiotic question, but it was the best he could manage with all the blood either flowing to the embarrassment of his neck or downwards where it is most certainly not doing anyone any favours.

“Well,” Cas starts as if it’s a completely normal question to ask the guy you work with every day. “I have this one coworker who’s a real pain in my ass.” When Dean sneaks a peek, Cas is fighting back a smile like he’s telling the best joke in the world. “But he feeds me occasionally, so it works out.”

Dean breaks out in a wide grin he can’t control. Damn. Maybe it was a pretty good joke. And because he’s nothing if not starved, he can’t help himself to just leave it there. “Yeah, that Rufus is a son of a bitch, huh?”

“He is,” Cas says, smirking like an asshole who knows exactly what Dean is doing. “But he’s never delivered an entire Thanksgiving dinner nearly to my door, so.” He lifts one shoulder and takes another pull, and Dean would jump him here and now if every single person who knows and loves him wasn’t also in the room.

Instead, he settles for letting out a laugh and slapping Cas’s knee. “Yeah. Bobby really knows how to roll out the red carpet.”

This is where he should take his hand back. He knows that. Cas must know that. And yet, Dean’s hand feels like it was made to rest on Cas’s knee, the obvious realness of him, and Dean can’t pull himself away. He can’t look at Cas either. They just sit in easy silence as the kids use Bobby’s bookshelves as a maze and Jody and Donna stand almost on top of each other in the corner and pans and plates ring out from the kitchen as Bobby pulls the last few fixin’s out of the oven. Dean’s chest tightens as he risks shifting a bit, using his fingertip to trace the folds of Cas’s jeans. He swears the way his heart is beating in his throat must be a neon sign flashing his feelings above his head, telling anyone who cares to look that Dean is crazy about the nerdy little guy to his right. Even if he isn’t crazy about Dean back. Even if his dying father is in the next room and doesn’t know he’s into dudes. Even if that fact would probably be the thing to kill him once and for all.

Dean just breathes and lets his whole world centre on the feeling of denim under his palm, the sturdiness of Cas’s leg, the warmth that previews the skin and muscle and bone underneath. He focuses on the fact that Cas hasn’t brushed his hand off or moved away. If anything, he’s just as still as Dean. Just as unwilling to make the move or take the breath that means this ends.

Neither of them have to worry about that, because Benny drops heavily into the empty seat beside Dean and lays his arm over the back of the couch, sighing loudly, and Dean quickly puts his hand on his own thigh instead.

“Well!” he exclaims as he settles into the lumpy sofa. “I ‘spose this is the famous Castiel Novak Dean’s always talkin’ about.” Benny pronounces every syllable in Cas’s name—Cas-TEE-elle—in his heavy, unmistakable drawl.

“f*ck off, Benny. I am not.” Dean takes a long pull on his beer, gathering his courage. “But yes, this is Cas.” He turns his head to his right. “Cas, this is Benny Lafitte.”

“Yes, Dean has mentioned you as well,” Cas says, reaching across Dean to shake Benny’s hand, and it’s a miracle Dean doesn’t melt straight through the couch cushions.

“Has he now?” Benny says, shaking Cas’s hand firm but brisk. “Well then, I’m flattered. Garth told me Dean here has been keeping mum on all us trash here in Lawrence.” He taps Dean’s chest with the back of his hand as he leans back into his own space and Dean doesn’t bother putting on the show he did for Garth.

“C’mon, Benny. It’s not like that.” Dean crosses his legs higher, like it’s actually a wall he can build to keep them all out. “It just doesn’t come up much when we’re working.”

“It’s true,” Cas says with a firm nod. “Dean isn’t very good at multitasking.”

“Hey!” Dean says in mock offence until he looks at Cas and he doesn’t seem like he’s joking. “Cas. That’s not—Are you serious?”

Cas just shrugs, raising his beer to his lips again as Dean stares slack-jawed.

“That’s not f*cking fair,” he mumbles, straightening again, and Benny chuckles.

“Well, I’m glad you chose the right guy to become a criminal for.” He smiles that wide smile that still gets Dean a little weak in the knees, the one that kind of disappears into the trim of his beard. “Would hate for you to go dark side for nothin’.”

“Criminal?” Cas asks, shifting in his seat until his knee is folded under him and he’s facing Dean and Benny. His blue eyes dance, clearly enjoying seeing Dean’s friends tease him mercilessly far too much. “What crimes have you committed lately?”

“None!” Dean exclaims, throwing up his hands. His ears burn and he wants to get into the Impala and drive to Canada or some place no one would ever go looking, but Cas is just staring at him, his head resting in his hand, and he never wants him to stop looking. “You guys are such f*cking assholes.”

“He stole a fuel pump from Bobby,” Benny tells Cas, leaning around Dean like he’s telling a secret not for Dean’s ears. “After everything that man’s done for our boy here, and this is how he repays him.” Benny musses with Dean’s hair, and he bats him away. “Robs him right under his nose for the first pair of baby blues who bat his eyelashes at him.”

“Not the first!” Dean protests without thinking, and Benny freezes. Dean swallows hard, tries to figure out a way to walk it back. Benny’s eyes aren’t the same blue as Cas’s: Benny’s are bright and striking, almost tricking you into thinking you can see right through them, while Cas’s are shifting, mesmerizing, deep enough to drown in but never quite letting you.

Benny lets out a short breath. “True.” His eyes scan the crowd and fall on Andrea helping Jody and Garth set the buffet table. “I ‘spose I should be offended you didn’t commit any felonies for me, eh?”

“I didn’t commit any felonies for anybody,” Dean says dumbly, too terrified to look at Cas or look away from Benny. “’Cept maybe Sammy. There might’ve been a few for him.”

“That settles it, then!” Benny says, slapping Dean’s boot as he rises off the couch. “Ain’t nobody gonna come before the baby brother.” Benny wipes a knuckle under his nose the way he does when he’s buying himself a moment. “At least you’ll know that going into it, Cas, buddy.” He pats Cas on the shoulder as he passes by him on his way to his wife. “Nice to finally meet you. Hope you’re hungry.”

Then, he’s gone, wrapping his arms around Andrea from behind as she straightens the tablecloth, and Dean swallows hard.

“I’m starting to get a little nervous about how much food your friend has made,” Cas says, his head still supported by his hand and elbow on the back of the couch. “Or perhaps just how much your friends are expecting me to eat.”

Dean huffs a grateful laugh. “Don’t worry. This is kind of a thing.” He glances at the table being loaded up, and there are so many feelings swirling together in his chest, he’s not even sure where to start untangling it all. “I’m sure Bobby’s gonna send you home with enough leftovers to last you the holidays.”

Cas’s face softens a bit. “I appreciate having the option to not cook.”

“Listen, Cas,” Dean starts, not quite sure where he’s going. “About what Benny said—”

“I get it,” Cas cuts in, like he thinks he’s saving Dean from himself. “You bring someone to Christmas dinner, people are going to assume things. Or try to move things along. It’s fine.” Cas drops his arm and Dean’s heart goes with it. “You don’t have to explain.”

Dean sighs. “That’s not—”

“Soup’s on!” Bobby calls from the far side of the room, ringing a triangle like he’s calling the cows in from pasture. “Come fill your plates ‘fore it all gets cold.”

Cas rises to his feet and watches everyone form a line in front of the small side table where all the plates and utensils are. The buffet table has a whole turkey and a glazed ham, every kind of potato and yam and whatever other root vegetables Bobby could pull together, corn on the cob and not on the cob, bread, pumpkins, and more pie than anyone needs—except Dean—and Cas’s eyes grow wide.

“You weren’t kidding,” he says with more awe than a family dinner should stir up.

Dean drags Cas over into line behind who he can only assume is a couple of Jody and Donna’s girls. One seems shy, letting herself hide behind her big black curls as she leans into the other girl, taller, with her long blonde hair mixed loose with a dozen complicated braids.

Dean decides not to break their moment and wait for Jody to do the introductions. “Bobby never kids when it comes to feeding folks.”

Cas cranes his neck to get a better look at the spread, and Dean takes the interruption as a sign from the universe to not go charging into the disappointment he can see clear on the horizon.

—

“Wow,” Cas says as he mops up the last of the gravy on his plate with a torn piece of bun. “That was amazing.”

Dean beams. He’s long learned how to eat off a plate balanced on a crossed leg, but Cas spent the whole meal cross-legged on the couch, hunched over his plate piled high with just about everything as if it was gonna tip any minute. Which, honestly, it might’ve, if Cas wasn’t so damn methodical about making sure he ate everything according to its weight distribution. Frankly, Dean’s embarrassed at how charmed he was about it, smiling fondly at the built-like-a-brick-house man hunched over his own lap, spinning the plate this way and that like he could do the physics of it in his head.

f*ck, Dean chuckles to himself. He probably can do the physics of it in his head.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Cas is still chewing on the fresh bun. Dean had kneaded and set the dough all day yesterday after shift so Bobby just had to toss it in the oven this morning. “Do you think I had enough to satisfy your friends?”

Dean can’t wipe the dumb smile off his dumb face because he can’t tell if Cas is earnest in his concern or not, and that stirs up the fondness even worse. “I think you did fine, buddy.” He takes Cas’s plate and slides it under his own, collecting their utensils. “Still probably won’t avoid leftovers, but you held your own.”

Cas’s face lights up like that was the best compliment Dean could’ve possibly given him, and his stomach flips despite it being full enough to make Dean wish he could unbutton his jeans or change into some of the sweatpants he keeps upstairs for when he stays over unexpectedly.

Dean’s up to stow the dishes and grab more beers, leaving Cas on the couch to stretch out and digest, when he hears his name coming from the library.

“Anyone know where Dean is?” Sam’s voice is strained, but calm. Dean doesn’t start to panic until it’s bracketed by his father’s wet hacking cough. “Can someone go get him?”

“I’m here,” Dean says loudly, almost certainly loud enough for Cas to hear. “I’m coming.” He slides around a few people, steadying Jody by the shoulders when it cuts too close, and he makes it into the library just as John straightens up, catching his breath.

“Dean.” Sam exhales long and hard. “Hey. It’s not bad, we just—”

“Your brother can’t get these f*cking socks on,” John interrupts. “They’re useless anyway. I don’t even know why we have to f*cking bother, but Mr. Stanford Law can’t let it f*cking go.”

Dean sighs, heading towards the chair his father slouches in, holding his hand out to his brother for the compression stockings. “You can skip wearing them if you want, but you’ll have to find someone else to drag you around when you lose your legs from the water retention.”

John scoffs and turns his head away from Dean as he lowers himself to his knees, but he extends his legs out just the same. Dean rolls one of the socks up in preparation of getting them on, and he tips his head to Sam, silently instructing him to pay attention to what Dean’s doing.

His stomach flips for a very different reason when he pushes John’s sweatpants up to his knee. It’s long been pointless to try and get him into jeans or anything more structured than the grey cotton elastic. Dean swallows hard, starting with his father’s foot, twice as big as it should be and too football-shaped to be natural. His calf is less obviously bloated with all the water his liver can no longer flush out, but the dark blue veins stand out against his red, chafed skin, and he tries to ignore the way his dad jerks away as Dean rolls the stocking over his foot. He knows this hurts. Dr. Bacic gave him the rundown about the nerve pain and intense internal pressure. Meg had long taken this over, and Dean knows that if it hurt less, John would be swearing up a storm, making everyone in the vicinity nervous and uncomfortable. Instead he’s taking it quiet, a fist between his teeth, and that guts Dean worse.

Once Dean gets it above the ankle, John lets out a rough breath, his hand falling to the arm of the chair. “Jesus, Dean. Are you trying to take the leg off yourself? Christ.”

“Worst of it’s over, Dad,” Dean says, rolling the stocking up his calf, pressing in the heels of his hands as he goes. “Sam can get your right leg. He could use the practice.”

“Right, ‘cause that’s such a life skill he’ll need when he’s in California.”

“Dad!” Sam pinches his mouth, working the muscles in his jaw, like he’s stopping himself from saying anything more.

“You don’t know,” Dean continues. “California’s full of cougars and you know our Sammy boy here is a magnet for all those rich widows. He’ll set us up for life and it’ll all be because you taught him how to use compression stockings.”

Sam turns his face from John, unable to contain his laughter, while his father opens his mouth for a rebuttal, but Dean doesn’t let him get there.

“He’ll be off on those fancy yachts sipping champagne—the real stuff—shooting those puppy dog eyes at all the ladies who just want some company and conversation.” Dean straightens his father’s pant leg down over the secured stocking. “His Ivy League learning’ll do him good there.” He rolls up his other pant leg as he turns to Sam and adds, “I bet Benny and Andrea could get you a real good deal on some of those yachts too. Like some commission deal—”

“Dean, enough!” John yells, and even Dean jumps at the sudden noise. “Jesus, enough with your f*cking nattering.”

Dean clears his throat as he prepares the second stocking. A muscle in his back shoots pain across his ribs, and he already knows he’s going to be stiff the rest of the week from the strain.

He starts to roll the stocking over John’s toes, but he pulls his foot back. “f*ck, don’t f*cking—” He breathes deep, and Dean tries to tell himself it’s from the pain. Nerves get frayed easy when the pain is so close to the surface. “f*ck. Just—Get your brother to do it. Why are you even down there anyway.”

“Because I was doing it wrong,” Sam cuts in, but Dean waves him off.

“Nah, it’s good.” Dean rises to his feet and gestures for Sam to replace him. “We gotta get you set up for those golden oldies. Jess can’t get mad if you end up in a will.” He taps him on the shoulder to hand him the stocking, already rolled up, and before he can say anything else to Sam, movement in the doorway catches his eye. Cas stands, staring wide-eyed and wishing he was quicker to escape before Dean got to his feet.

Dean swallows hard as his mouth turns drier than the Sahara. He has to stop himself from shouting across the room for Cas to get out of here. Resist his urge to stumble behind the desk and empty his stomach down to the bile. Instead, he does what he always does. He shoves down the devastation burrowing in his gut at Cas’s blanched expression and expands to fill all his empty space.

“Cas! Hey!” He bends over to Sam kneeling on the floor at his feet. “You got this covered?” Sam nods and jerks his head, knowing it’s better to get Cas out of here than supervise Sam’s skills at compression stockings. He straightens again and turns towards the door. “You got room for some pie yet?”

“Who’s that?” John grumbles, lurching for any distraction as Sam struggles to get the stocking over the bulge of his arch.

“Oh, um.” Dean turns to face his father again, trying to block his view to the door. “That’s Cas. He’s my instructor over at the tower. Brought him with me after shift for some home cooking.”

“Hello, Mr. Winchester.” Dean almost jumps out of his skin when he realizes Cas has moved from the doorway to directly beside him. “It’s good to put a face to the name.”

John grunts, then swears, pulling his foot back when Sam gets caught at the heel. “Goddamnit, Sam! Will you pay attention to what you’re doing?”

“Sorry, Dad.” Sam unrolls the stocking and tries again, but his eyes beg Dean to help him get this over with.

“Sam, how about you get Cas some pie while I finish up with Dad?” He pushes him playfully out of the way. “I think you were the one who helped Bobby with ‘em this year anyway.”

“No,” John says, his eyes glassy from either the pain or the meds or both. “No, I wanna talk to this guy. Dean said you’re ex-Air Force.”

Dean gives Sam a significant look he hopes says, Keep this under control, while he sets himself up to get the second sock on.

“I am,” Cas says. “I understand you served as well.”

John grunts in the affirmative as Dean shimmies the stocking over most of his foot all in one go. His father forfeited gentleness for the speed Dean needs to get Cas out of his conversation.

“Dean has been doing extremely well during his time at Kansas City,” Cas continues. “We’ve been very lucky to have him.”

Dean gets the stocking around his father’s heel before the weight of Cas’s words hit him. He pauses a moment at the ankle, the hardest part done, wishing he could stop time here and only have Cas’s words to replay and not what his father’s response to them will be.

“Dean was always best at following orders,” John grunts out, and Dean starts to unroll the tight fabric up his leg.

Cas takes a moment. “I think you misunderstand the job, Mr. Winchester. Dean is the one who issues the orders at MCI.”

“That right?” John tries to laugh, but it comes out as a wet cough. “Can’t write a simple goddamn note, but he’s off giving orders.” He coughs again and Dean pushes his hands into the deadened muscle of his calf. “Typical. Never did know what his place was.”

“And what place is that—” Cas starts before Sam interrupts.

“Dad, c’mon. You know that’s not fair.”

Dean barely hears the rest. He just finishes getting the stocking up, smoothing the cuff just under John’s knee so it won’t rub wrong and give him rash and the bending won’t make it fall. He gets his fingers under the ankle elastic of his sweatpants and lets the rest of the room fade off like they’re all under water. He slides the pant back down over his stocking, smooths out the wrinkles, and tries to breathe in some oxygen from the water he’s drowning in. Faintly, he hears his name. Not to him, but in the conversation. The single syllable: hard, sudden, barely even there at all. He gropes for his father’s slippers and hooks them on without even checking if he was wearing them before.

He stands suddenly and the conversation stops, all eyes falling on him, and his heart jumps into his throat. “Well, if none of y’all want pie, it’s just more for me.” And then Dean does what Dean does best.

He runs.

—

The sun had set a while back, but Dean doesn’t bother turning on the porch light. He doesn’t want to deal with the lady bugs attracted to the light or chasing off the crickets. He closes his eyes and listens to the quiet, even chirps from their homes in the tall grass and tangles of metal. He can’t see the entire driveway from here, but the tail of Cas’s Civic peeks out enough that Dean knows he hasn’t taken off yet.

God knows why.

Dean just lets his eyes rest. He counts the chirps, tries to get his heart to settle and breathing to match. Fails. The porch swing screeches as he stretches his legs out in front of him, slouching enough for his head to rest on the rusted back rail. The cushions are long past needing replacing, but since Dean’s the only one who’s ever back here, he never bothered to bring it up.

He's not entirely surprised to hear someone pass through the screen door, but he is surprised to hear it’s Cas.

“May I sit?” he asks, and Dean decides not to move. That maybe the storm tearing him up inside won’t be obvious if he keeps his eyes closed and arms crossed, if he can make himself as small and invisible as possible.

He tips his heel so the swing starts to move, then shrugs. “It’s a free country.”

“That is what they keep telling us,” Cas says as his sneakers creak over the wood porch. The swing studders as he sits, and Dean considers briefly it might not hold two grown men. But soon Cas settles and takes over swinging duty, and Dean tries not to cry like a f*cking baby.

Dean can’t say how long they sit like that, the only noise between them the swing’s springs struggling through the rust and debris and the crickets’ protests. He listens to Cas’s steady breathing and the predictable pattern of the swinging back and forth. Soon, he finds the muscles in his arms untangling and his joints loosening as his brain starts to figure out that he doesn’t have to be on high alert right now.

“Sorry about that,” Dean says eventually, when he finally starts to feel the cold air on his bare arms.

“About what?” Cas asks like he’s been at a completely normal family dinner.

Then again, after what Dean overheard Meg tell Sam, maybe it is pretty par for the course for him. “That whole thing with my dad.” Dean finally opens his eyes and straightens up, ignoring the impending collapse of the swing. “I was hoping to avoid all that.”

“You don’t have to apologize for your father’s behaviour,” Cas says. “You didn’t provoke his anger and you bore it better than I would have.”

Dean doesn’t respond. He just tightens his arms over his chest, like it’s possible to curl in on himself until he collapses into the black hole consuming his ribcage.

Cas pulls some paper out of his back pocket. “Bobby asked me to give you this. He said you had asked him for it.”

Cas holds out the FAA-branded envelope, folded so all Dean can see is BOB from when he scribbled Bobby’s name on his phase one eval at Rocky’s to give to Donna. Dean takes it gingerly, like it’s made of something breakable. “Thanks.” He twists it between his fingers, too afraid of what it might contain to open it in front of Cas, even though he already knows. He wrote the damn thing.

“Also, Sam said he was expecting you to come out here eventually.” Cas speaks slow and purposeful, examining Dean’s face like he’s making sure it’s all going through. “So he told me to make sure we looked up.”

“What the f*ck does that mean,” Dean wonders aloud as he and Cas both tip their heads up towards the sky. Hanging from the centre of the patchy canopy is a spring of green leaves with red and white berries, tied together with a red ribbon. A tag with Dean’s name on it in Sam’s quick chicken scratch hangs from the middle. Dean stretches up and pulls at it, and the plant falls in Cas’s lap while the tag stays with Dean.

“It appears to be mistletoe,” Cas says, holding the spring of evergreen up by its stem, not noticing how heat rises up Dean’s neck to his ears.

He flips the tag over.

It’s not an olive branch technically, but it is made of tree. Sam.

Dean wants to sigh, but it comes out more like a laugh. “Remind me to kick my brother’s ass later.”

Cas continues to spin the spring. “You know. Mistletoe was once associated with male fertility because the white berries resemble sperm.” Cas pulls one off the cluster. “These appear to be fake, though.”

“Christ, Cas,” Dean says, his chest loosening incrementally. “That’s a helluva trivia fact to pull out at a time like this.”

Cas quickly meets Dean’s eye. “A time like what?”

“Are you telling me right now that you know about mistletoe lookin’ like sperm but not about the tradition to kiss someone under it?”

“That,” Cas says, pointing the bunch of berries at Dean, “only applies to women.” He brings the mistletoe back into his lap. “It was never very scandalous for men to be promiscuous in the eighteenth century, but it could ruin a woman. So, the tradition that a woman could be kissed under what was a very common Christmas decoration at the time became a way for women to have a little more freedom.” Cas notices the way that Dean is staring at him, and he blushes, suddenly shy. “Traditionally, that is.”

Dean nods a few times, but his smile doesn’t fade as he looks to his lap. “I don’t think Sam knew about the girls-only thing when he stuck that up there.”

“He probably didn’t consider it,” Cas agrees.

“That, or Pamela’s a psychic,” Dean says, remembering her teasing them to stay away from any mistletoe as they left her to finish her shift.

Cas bounces, chuckling. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Dean picks at the envelope in his hand, sliding the sharp corners under his short nails until it stings before moving on to the next. He wishes he knew what to say, but he never does. He’s tired of making everything into a joke, covering up his soft vulnerable parts with the plausible deniability of sarcasm and teasing. So instead of trying to come up with something to say that won’t set off the minefield laid out between him and Cas, he makes his thumbnail bleed.

He jerks his hand back from the sudden pain and sticks his thumb in his mouth. Dean can’t look at Cas, but he doesn’t seem surprised. He doesn’t even startle.

“What’s in the envelope?” Cas asks, mercifully moving the conversation along without Dean’s input.

Dean pulls his thumb out, and the blood pools in a line under his nail. “My phase one eval.” He unfolds it, careful not to get blood on it. “I gave it to Bobby. We were kind of on the outs at the time and—” Dean shrugs, not sure how to finish the sentence. “Anyway, you were right earlier, about me not reading your comments.” Blood starts to well up and Dean presses it into the bottom of his Henley, embarrassed.

Cas nods, suddenly serious. “I appreciate that.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though,” Cas says, his eyes still on the envelope. “To me, anyway.”

“Well, yeah. That was the point, I guess.” Dean folds it again in his free hand and moves to put it in his back pocket.

“I thought you were going to read it.” Cas’s gaze moves from the envelope to Dean’s thumb buried in the hem of his shirt, then to Dean’s face. His eyes are so deep, even darker with the lack of light, Dean would drown in them with a smile on his face.

“Well,” Dean starts, then clears his throat. “It’s a little weird with you watching.”

Wordlessly, Cas reaches over and slips the envelope out of Dean’s hand, and Dean doesn’t stop him. His voice wouldn’t work even if he tried. It’s blocked off by that same boulder, just like it always is when it’s important.

Cas unfolds the eval carefully, and it doesn’t escape Dean’s notice that the paper is already wearing at the creases. He swallows hard, thinking of Bobby reading this stupid eval and putting it away over and over when Dean was ignoring him. He aches with it.

Cas looks over at Dean quickly, like he’s still not sure if this is okay, then refocuses on the small paragraphs in his neat, all caps handwriting in front of him and begins to read.

“Dean’s skills as a controller are impressive. He is quick to pick up on technical procedures and adapt to unexpected situations while being patient and friendly with the pilots under his control. This attitude extends to his fellow controllers, who find him enjoyable to have on shift. He is extremely proficient at the basic skills required to progress to the next phase of his training, and I have confidence his skills and habits will continue to improve as he is exposed to new situations.

“The areas where Dean requires improvement have little to do with his skills, knowledge, or competence and instead lie in his trust in them. Dean takes too long to recover from errors which leaves him vulnerable to these expected or minor mistakes leading to an operational irregularity—or worse. I have no doubt that Dean will make an outstanding controller once he believes the same.

“Congratulations, Dean,” Cas says, finishing off the note where it’s addressed directly to him. “I look forward to shepherding you through your next phase.”

Dean swallows, but nothing happens. He can’t get anything past that boulder blocking this throat, even as radio static teases behind his eyes.

Cas folds the eval again and slips it back into the envelope. He smooths it over his thigh, not saying anything. Letting Dean take his time.

Dean stares at Cas’s hand moving over his own hurried, sloppy letters. His wide palm and long fingers and neat nails. The blue veins lining the bones flexing around his knuckles, moving like there’s an ocean under his skin.

“I know the pun was bad,” Cas says quietly. He stops moving his hand when he notices Dean looking, his whole body freezing up. “I figured when you hadn’t mentioned it, you didn’t understand the reference.” Cas starts to talk faster, his rambling becoming less like musing and more like panic. “But when we first met at the career fair, you asked why the Air Force’s technician badge for ATC was a shepherd’s crook, and I suppose what I’m doing is similar in some ways, so I just—”

“Cas,” Dean manages, and Cas looks at him, his dark blue eyes lined with more anxiety than it was before. “I get it. It’s funny.” Dean tries to smile, to be reassuring, but Cas’s words are still playing pinball in his brain. That he thinks he can do this. Not only that, but he thinks he could be good. If he can only get out of his own goddamn way. “It was a good joke.”

Cas returns the shaky smile. “Good.” He folds the envelope again and hands it to Dean. “Rufus didn’t think so.”

Dean’s chest lets out a burst of air. “Yeah, well, I think we already established he’s a bit of a son of a bitch.”

“That we did.”

They sit in silence for a minute, and the longer it stretches on, the harder it’s gonna be, so Dean finally just asks the question he’s been holding on to for too long.

“Do you really think all that?” He holds the envelope up, a smudge of blood from his thumb on the side. “After everything, you still believe all this?”

“Yes.” Cas answers immediately, without hesitation or consideration. “Every word. Plus some.”

Cas meets his eyes, even as he tries to dart them away, and squints a little, tipping his head like he can actually see through to all the ugly, rotten, scarred, broken parts inside Dean that he tries to hide. So no one can see there’s nothing left to save in there. The pressure in his chest presses hard against Dean’s heart and lungs and gut, like they can get pushed out through the narrow spaces between his ribs. It makes Dean want to run.

It makes him want to let Cas see it all.

Cas spins the spring of mistletoe he still has in his lap. “You know, despite its rather heteronormative origins, it is bad luck not to kiss someone when you find yourself under some mistletoe.”

“That so?” Dean’s already staring at Cas’s hopelessly chapped lips, the party going on inside long since forgotten.

Somehow, Cas closed most of the gap between them while Dean was melting down. “If you believe in that sort of thing.”

Dean presses his arm against Cas’s, their body heat mixing even through two layers of clothes. “Seems like a dumb idea to tempt fate for no reason.”

They drift closer, like two magnets who have finally entered the other’s field. Dean licks his lips, and the anticipation thrums through his body. He might shake apart right here.

Mere inches away, Cas raises his hand to reach for Dean’s shoulder or neck or face, and Dean freezes. Cas’s hand remains midair, his eyes flitting across Dean’s face like he’ll find the answer there. But Dean doesn’t even have it himself.

He swallows hard.

“Why?” he whispers. Cas probably wouldn’t be able to hear it if they weren’t basically breathing the same air. “After what you just saw. After all the ways I’ve f*cked up since you wrote that.” Dean’s eyes keep focused on the dip of Cas’s collarbone, where it disappears under his polo. He’s gonna ruin this eventually. Might as well get on with it. “What’re you still doing here?”

Cas lowers his hand to rest on Dean’s, the one he made bleed earlier. “Because he’s wrong, Dean.” Cas loops his long fingers around Dean’s hand, and Dean shuts his eyes tight. He doesn’t have to ask who Cas is talking about. “And you don’t deserve this.” He raises Dean’s thumb to his lips and kisses it gently.

The swing, the porch, all the physics keeping Dean on the ground fails and he’s floating in free space. He should feel embarrassed to have his f*cking boo-boo kissed by another grown ass man, but he can’t find it. He feels motion sick, that cold clammy warning before throwing up, but he doesn’t. He just wraps the rest of his hand around Cas’s, moving it out of the way so when he surges forward, he can catch those lips with his.

Cas breathes in sharply, surprised, but only for a second. His grip on Dean’s hand tightens and he presses into him, getting the angle to work better than side-by-side. He slides his free hand up Dean’s forearm, hooking his thumb and fingers around his elbow to anchor them together, bring them closer still. Dean pulls back, barely, to take in a lungful of air, then meets Cas again open-mouthed, eager. Their stubble scrapes against each other’s chins and cheeks and for once the pain doesn’t feel like a punishment. Their tongues slide past each other, hot and slick and tasting vaguely of cheap beer and turkey seasonings. When their teeth knock together, they smile into each other’s lips, letting themselves laugh easy at their clumsiness. Cas smooths his hand past Dean’s arm to settle on his waist as Dean lets go of Cas’s hand and sweeps his hand up his neck, burying his fingers in the short hair at the nape of his neck. Dean wonders briefly at the back of his mind if Cas still cuts his hair like this to match military standards, but soon all his thoughts burn away when Cas nips at his bottom lip and pulls a sigh from the back of his throat.

The hinge of Cas’s jaw fits perfectly in the dip of Dean’s palm, and he sweeps his thumb over the stubble of his cheek. Cas’s fingers dig into Dean’s waist when he returns the favour and takes Cas’s lip between his teeth and sucks. Dean smiles when he feels Cas’s hard breath over his cheek, and he wants to make him do it again. And again and again. He never wants to stop making Cas pull Dean to him by his Henley, like there’s no way they can get close enough.

He's about to find out what Cas’s skin tastes like, right at the joint of his jaw and neck that Dean can’t stop staring at when there’s a lull in traffic and Cas is telling some stupid joke that’s three paragraphs long, but right then, the screen door thumps with a warning someone’s coming through the mud room, and they both jump back just in time for Sam to open the door to the porch.

“There you are,” he says before he takes in the scene he’s interrupted.

“Damnit, Sam,” Dean mutters, shoving his hand through his hair while Cas tries to fix his polo without being too obvious. “What is it?”

Sam clears his throat. “Um, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Get on with it,” Dean snaps, if only to distract from the way his face burns, embarrassment replacing any flush from other things.

Sam smiles like the sh*t of a little brother he is but continues. “Dad was looking for you. Says he’s tried and wants to head home.”
“Yeah, okay,” Dean says. “I’ll be right in, I guess.”

“You might wanna—” Sam gestures to his lip, clearly enjoying it far too much.

“That’s great! Thank you!” Dean points towards the house. “I’ll be right in!”

Sam flashes one more sh*t-eating grin before he slips back into the house, adding a last minute, “You’re welcome!” to really seal it.

“f*ck,” Dean says into his hands, rubbing them over his face. “Sorry about that.”

“It happens,” Cas says, his eyes dipped to his own lap. “I shouldn’t have—” He breathes deep. “With your father inside and everything going on, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t, Cas.” He lays his hand on Cas’s forearm, sweeping his thumb in a gesture he hopes is comforting. “Don’t apologize. Takes two, right?” He swallows hard. “I do have to go—” he coughs, taking his hand back and shifting uncomfortably on the swing, the evidence of their make out session not quite drained away. “Go take care of my dad.” He can’t meet Cas’s eye when he says it.

“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to—” Cas cuts himself off, taking a deep breath himself. “Of course.” He stands carefully as to not disturb the swing too much and adjusts his polo again. “I’ll see you in the new year.” He smiles stiffly, looking towards the driveway. “Thank you for the meal.”

Dean sighs. “Cas, wait.” He stops him from leaving with a touch to his elbow, just like that day in the quiet room. He stands, gently turns Cas to face him, but doesn’t know what he wants to say. Guilt over what Dean overheard about Cas still eats at him like acid through steel, and damn if Sam wasn’t right about the timing. It is bad. Couldn’t be worse, really. And he’s not sure if he can balance anything else on his plate right now, even something that feels as good as Cas’s lips under his. Not feeling like his father is staring over his shoulder, waiting for another reason. As if he needs one.

Cas stares at him expectantly, and Dean wishes he had some great, grand speech at the ready to make all this better, but he just licks his lips and waits to drown.

“It’s okay, Dean. I understand.” Cas smiles that fake smile he used on Garth’s ramblings. “Have a good night.”

“Cas, c’mon, just—” Dean grabs his hand, his fingertips settling in the deep lines of his palm, like he can find a way to disappear into those life and love lines. “Thanks for coming.” He traces over Cas’s palm, hoping against hope that he’ll get it. That it’s not no, and it’s definitely not goodbye, it’s just—he doesn’t even know. “I’m really glad you came.”

Cas’s smile fades from the polite one he’s clearly honed over the years to the small, shy tip at the corners Dean knows is the real one. Cas closes his hand around Dean’s and squeezes gently, careful to avoid his thumb that’s going to hurt now for weeks. “So am I.”

A loud noise startles them back to reality, and Cas looks up. “I should get home anyway. It’s getting late and I’m on shift tomorrow.”

“Drive safe,” Dean says as he reluctantly drops Cas’s hand. It feels like he’s letting go of something so much bigger than just a hand. “Text me when you get home?”

Blush dusts the apples of Cas’s cheeks, and he drops his eyes to his shoes. “Sure. I’ll text you.” This time when he turns to leave, Dean doesn’t stop him. “Good night, Dean.”

He watches him head down the porch steps to the driveway, and he waves one more time before he climbs into his Civic. When Dean walks back into the house, the black cloud he’d managed to escape out on the porch descends again, the pressure change wrapping around his ribs and squeezing too tight.

“Dean!” his father calls out. “Where the f*ck is he?” Sam’s voice is quiet comparatively, and Dean can’t make out what he says. “Well get him in here! What good is he if he can’t do one simple f*cking thing?”

Dean stands in the mud room, motionless, and wonders the exact same thing.

Chapter 15: God free me (from the burden of my thoughts)

Chapter Text

When you left I walked
into the ocean. Not to
drown but to be held

by something
reluctant
to let go.

Lelia Chatti, “Postcard from Gone”, Wildness, Issue No. 11

-

By the time they say goodbye to everyone, bundle their dad in the car, get him home and in bed, it’s technically not even Christmas anymore, and Dean can feel it in his bones. The bottom of his feet pulse when he takes off his boots, and he wonders where he’s going to find the strength to finish getting ready to sleep.

He lays back on the bed and stares at the ceiling. The whole place used to have patterns of swirls and arcs covering the ceilings, the designs carved into the plaster. Now, they’re dotted with nubs like popcorn. Whatever was cheapest to get the place in one piece again. Dean misses the way he could map a maze across the room, getting from one corner to the other only through the groves. He’d cheat sometimes, obviously. He was four. But it sure beat trying to count sheep the nights when his parents tried to be quiet while they fought downstairs. They were never very good at it.

The fighting or the hiding.

Dean breathes in deep, trying to reclaim the space in his chest that kissing Cas opened up. He’s terrified it’s gone—or worse, that it never existed in the first place, and that he’s kidding himself to think there’s an After in all this. Like there won’t be some other shoe that drops and Dean can’t dodge. His chest gets even tighter, squeezing his heart into this throat, and he forces himself to stop thinking before he chokes on it.

He sits up just as his phone pings quietly beside him, and he’s surprised to see it’s Bobby. He’s not a texter; he always says if he’s gonna talk to somebody, he’s gonna talk to them, but he makes exceptions sometimes.

Your friend forgot his coat at the house. And his leftovers. Come get ‘em tomorrow before someone else does.

Dean smiles to himself. None of them have been the kind of people who say “I love you” easy. They have to go digging in the double meanings and the way they do things for each other. Sam’s can be a little confusing and misplaced, but it’s always right under the surface, and Dean never quite figured out the code to his father’s. Always having to take a guess and usually guessing wrong. But not Bobby. Bobby’s “I love you” is baked in to everything he does, impossible to miss. It’s so much a part of him that saying the words would almost seem like a step down.

I’ll be over first thing.

Bobby sends a thumbs up emoji like the Boomer he is, and Dean switches over to a new conversation window. He and Cas have never texted before, never really talked outside of work functions at all really. Except for that one time when Dean accidentally came out to him only because he assumed Cas already knew. But he should’ve been home by now, and Dean’s anxiety over him being stuck in some ditch along the highway back to Missouri overcomes his embarrassment at texting first.

Hey, you make it alive there, buddy?

The woosh of the text message sending does little to calm Dean’s nerves, but the fresh adrenaline does give him the energy to head to the washroom so he can brush his teeth and all that before bed. He leaves his phone so he can do his routine without eyeing the screen every five seconds, and when he gets back, there’s a single notification waiting for him from Cas.

I did, yes.

Dean stares at it. He knows Cas is abrupt and formal and sometimes too literal for his own good, but he can’t stop thinking that Cas’s hour plus drive home gave him the time to change his mind about Dean now that he’s witnessed his f*cked up life first hand. And God, what if the kiss was bad? Dean’s never really questioned whether he was a good f*ck—it’s really his one redeeming quality—but kissing a guy is different than f*cking one, and Jesus, what if—

Just as Dean’s spiral is about to tunnel into a full-on tornado, another text pops up in their new conversation.

It was a better Christmas than I had planned for myself.

Dean swallows hard, and he doesn’t know what to say back. He can’t just leave it like an asshole, but that’s a hard sentiment to follow. He strips out of his shirt and jeans and slips under the covers in just his boxers. He brings the comforter up to his chin and stares at Cas’s message until his phone starts to get too heavy in his hand.

Eventually, he shoots off, Me too, and drops his phone on the nightstand before falling into a fitful sleep.

—

By the time he wakes up the next day, the sun is already pouring through the thin curtains, and he shoots to standing so quick, he sways a little getting his shirt on. He comes to reality slowly, remembering where and when he is, hearing his brother and dad laughing downstairs, the television too low to hear what prompted it.

Dean stands in his room for a moment, trying to swallow the panic of missing his alarm, of failing to be there for his father. He’s fine. It’s fine. His breath shakes as he rubs at his eyebrow. It’s basically only peach fuzz left now, so he moves to picking at one of the bumps near his ear. He needs something for his hands to do, and when he finally gets himself to the bathroom, his nail is lined with blood. He doesn’t bother turning the light on to really inspect the damage. Instead, he washes his hands until it hurts to make fists. The only way to really be sure. Then, he brushes his teeth and showers in record time, taking the towel with him so Sam doesn’t see the streaks of blood and worry for nothing.

He tosses it in the laundry basket and gets dressed, ignoring all the bruises and groups of circular scabs in various stages of healing, and tells himself over and over it really is nothing.

Because he’s fine.

—

Dean heads down the stairs, avoiding the one with the creak and trying not to let his boots fall on their heels the way his father hates. Another jolt of laughter hits him before he even rounds the corner, and he finds Sam and their dad in front of the television, John in his recliner and Sam over on the loveseat, the IV light flashing steadily as it feeds medication into John’s failing veins.

“Uh, hey,” Dean says as he walks into the living room. “Sorry, I guess I slept through my alarm.”

Sam turns to him, throwing his arm over the back of the loveseat and smiling wide. “Oh, no, I turned that off. You looked like you needed some sleep.”

“Seems like that West Coast schooling did your brother some good,” John says, his gaze not leaving the television set. “Got all this goin’ in no time. Didn’t even need some stranger in here to do the poking.”

Dean works his jaw, eating the words he wants to yell but knows won’t do any good. John knows Meg gave Sam the run down on all this when he first got here. They both know that wasn’t the reason he said it.

“Well, then I guess you won’t mind if I head over to Bobby’s,” Dean says, already backing up towards the foyer. “I forgot some stuff over there and I said I’d pick it up first thing.”

John huffs, “of course you did,” under his breath, but the brothers ignore him.

“I left some breakfast for you,” Sam says, moving to get up, but Dean waves him off.

His stomach rumbles, but he can’t face it. He doesn’t have the energy to go through all the hurdles and map out the eggshells required for him to eat the breakfast Sam made for their father without ending up feeling like a failure for it.

“Nah, it’s fine.” He pats his stomach theatrically. “I think I’m still full from all that pie last night.” Dean didn’t end up getting any after the whole scene with John’s compression stockings, but no one needs to know that. “You did good on that, Sam.”

Sam’s smile softens. “Thanks, Dean.” He pushes some hair out of his face. “I mean, Bobby did most of it, but—”

“Don’t trip over yourself too much there, Sam,” John says, finally looking at something other than the TV. “Dean isn’t much picky about what he stuffs his face with. That pie could’ve been at the bottom of a dumpster and he’d’ve polished it off.”

Dean’s stomach roils as Sam protests. “Dad, c’mon, that’s not fair—”

“I better get to Bobby’s and finish the rest off then,” Dean cuts in. He opens the front door, only barely remembering to grab his keys on the way out. “Breakfast of champions, am I right?”

He doesn’t make it out the door fast enough to miss his father’s scoff.

—

Dean takes the long way to Bobby’s place. Something about driving always clears his head: the long stretches of nothing, playing his music as loud as he pleases, the wind blowing hard through the open windows. A place where his thoughts can’t break through until he has to do some stupid sh*t to make it stop like usual. Like why his legs are dotted with scabs and his thumb still throbs and he’s got a hole in one of his eyebrows and Baby is almost too spotless for the kind of cred he’s going for. Like why he has to do the laundry again on the hottest setting when he forgets about it for more than an hour or he organizes the food in the fridge by best before date and tosses anything that he didn’t put away fast enough and wastes so much f*cking food and—

He presses his foot down harder on the accelerator, getting Baby up past even a generous interpretation of the speed limit, and starts scream singing to Led Zeppelin. His brain can’t spin if his mouth is moving. Something his father regularly reminds him aren’t connected to each other anyway, which is what lets him run his mouth long after a normal person would get the hint to shut the f*ck up.

The tape deck clicks over to CCR just as Dean passes a gap in the road. He sees the sirens light up before he hears them.

“f*ck,” he mutters to himself. One of the downsides of having such a distinctive car is that even if you lose the cops, they’ll just show up at your door not long after. His ‘67 Impala’s the only one in town and God knows everyone’ll say it’s his.

Dean waves his hand out the window to let ‘em know he’s pulling over and slows down before he gets onto the gravel shoulder and kicks up rocks and dust that’ll just dent Baby and piss off the cop behind him. He puts her in park and then grips the wheel, keeping his hands where the cop can see them. A lesson he learned the very, very hard way.

“Dean! Imagine that!”

Dean lets out a breath and unlocks his elbows, even though he leaves his hands where they are. He’s just not strangling the wheel anymore.

“Jody,” he says, the relief in his voice sounding like a balloon deflating. “I’m usually better at remembering the speed trap there.”

She leans down and crosses her arms on the open window. “You’re lucky it was me and not some deputy. The speed I clocked you at would end up with your car here spending the night in impound.”

Dean winces. He can just imagine all the dings he’d have to hammer out after a night of careless storage and presumable joyrides. “Does that mean you’re letting me off with a warning?” He flashes his best smile, but even he can feel it falter. He usually doesn’t even notice the energy it takes to keep his armour up and play-act the guy everyone wants him to be, but he’s tired. He’s so goddamned tired.

“Maybe,” she says, glancing around the car. Jody tries to hide it, but Dean knows what a scan for drinks and drugs looks like. Besides, he knows she won’t find anything. “Where are you headed?”

“To Bobby’s. Cas forgot his coat, so I’m gonna grab it for the next time I see him.”

Jody nods a few times, glancing up and down the road. “Bobby’s is the other way.”

Dean works his jaw. He’ll give credit where credit is due, not much gets past Acting Sheriff Mills. “It is. I was taking the long way. Stretching Baby’s legs.” He taps his hand on the steering wheel a couple times. “She’s not getting out as much nowadays.”

“You’ve got a lot going on,” Jody says, like she’s actually agreeing with the sentiment. “Anybody would need to blow off some steam.”

“I really am going to Bobby’s, Jody.” He points at his pocket but doesn’t go for his phone. “You wanna see the texts? Won’t even make you get a warrant this time. First one’s on the house.”

Jody laughs. “Yeah, okay, hotshot.” She taps the door and straightens up. “Just keep Baby here at a light jog, all right?”

Dean smiles, genuinely this time. “You got it.”

“And Dean—” Jody cuts herself off even as she turns back from returning to her car. She seems to be thinking about her next words carefully. “If you ever want to talk, Donna and I are here. Any time.”

“Sure, Jody,” Dean says, throwing Baby back in drive. “Thanks.”

“I’m serious,” she says, leaning down again into Dean’s blind spot. “I think you and Donna might have more in common than you expect.”

Dean pauses a moment, just looking at Jody over his shoulder. Something heavy settles, but he can’t put a finger on what. “Yeah,” he says, slowly. “Yeah, okay.”

Jody just nods and double taps on his door again, and then she’s gone. She climbs back in her cruiser, and Dean decides not to wait for Jody to change her mind about that ticket. He pulls out onto the road, this time backtracking towards Bobby’s, and honks a goodbye.

—

When Dean gets to Bobby’s place, Cas’s jacket is already hanging by the door like it belongs there, and that heaviness from Jody’s traffic stop solidifies at the bottom of his stomach. Even if he was hungry after skipping breakfast, his appetite has well and truly evaporated now. He grabs the trench coat off the hook and wanders in to find Bobby.

“Bobby? You here?”

“Out back!” Bobby calls, and Dean follows his voice to the side garage where the latest scrap gets piled up for sorting.

“Hey,” Dean says as he walks out. He raises up the coat. “Thanks for this.”

“I’m assuming your friend’ll need that sooner rather than later,” Bobby says, not looking up from the clipboard in his hands. “It might be Kansas, but it’s still winter.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean shifts the coat further up his arm. “I don’t see him again for a couple weeks, so. He’ll have to get a sweater or something.”

This gets Bobby’s attention, his gaze whipping around to meet Dean’s eye. “What’d’ya mean a couple weeks?”

Dean feels guilty, but that’s not entirely strange. He usually feels guilty about something. “I don’t go back to work until the new year.”

Bobby continues to stare. “And?”

“So I won’t see him until I go back to work?”

Bobby lowers his clipboard, staring at the sky as if it has some answers for him. “Don’t you do this again,” he finally says. His voice sounds stretched too thin, and Dean’s heart starts to beat hard and fast in his throat, panicked. He doesn’t know what he did. He knows he did something, but he doesn’t know how to fix it if—

“Dean.” Bobby’s quiet, firm call for him breaks his spiral. “You like that boy. And I’ll eat my hat right here if he don’t like you right back.” His fingers drum at the clipboard.

Dean thinks about the kiss on the porch swing. There’s a feeling you get sometimes when you meet someone that you can’t explain. The first time you look them in the eye, you just know they’re going to mean something to you, that something’s gonna happen between you. There’s no evidence to back up that feeling, but even when you brush it off, it turns out to be true. Before, Dean had only had that feeling with one other person: Cassie. The girl he dated while she was in college, and he was pretending not to be some drifter. The first love of his life, until she wasn’t. The one he tried to avoid but fate kept intervening. As important as Benny was—is—to Dean, he never needed that feeling when they fell together. Dean had wondered if that was the feeling soulmates got so he was just sh*t outta luck now. But then there was the employment fair and Captain Novak’s stupid hat and deep blue eyes and smile that made him feel like he wasn’t some ghost caught between worlds and that goddamn feeling again.

Then that kiss turned it into a knowing: something is going to happen with Castiel Novak.

“What does that matter?” Dean asks after waiting long enough to realize Bobby isn’t going to let him avoid his way out of this conversation.

“Dean.”

Dean imitates the scolding tone. “Bobby.”

“You’ve gotta stop doing this to yourself.” He slots the clipboard under his arm, takes off his ball cap and scratches at his patchy blond hair. “You don’t have to wait ‘till the man is dead before you can at least try and find some peace.”

“Peace?” Dean asks, pretending like he doesn’t know what Bobby is talking about. “I’m plenty peaceful.”

Bobby works his jaw as he pulls his cap back on, like he’s trying to decide if he has time to get into this or not, like if there’s even a point in bothering. “You’re not, Dean. And I’m not sure if you ever have been, but to the extent you found any at all, it vanished the second you got that call about your daddy dyin’.”

“I’m not throwing him out, Bobby,” Dean says, bracing himself for a conversation he feels like they’ve had half a dozen times already. “I know you don’t approve. I know you hate him for whatever reason, but I’m not letting him die alone in some alleyway, buried in some pauper’s grave. I’m not gonna do that, I—”

“I know,” Bobby says quickly, interjecting before Dean works himself up enough to walk out the door again and only communicate through tin cans constructed of townsfolk. “Dean, I know. I’m not askin’ you to.” Bobby moves to close the gap between them, and Dean’s legs twitch with the urge to run. “But I can’t ignore what it’s doing to you anymore, son. You worked so hard to get you and Sam out from under your daddy’s legacy, and now—”

“What?” Dean says, too harshly. “I’m failing again? f*cking everything up? ‘Cause Sam’s gonna drop outta school and I’m gonna wash out of training, all because I can’t keep my f*cking head on straight?”

Bobby’s mouth forms a firm line, and he just stares up at Dean. “After what your daddy filled your head with, it’s no wonder some screws get loose up there every now and then.” The heart beating in Dean’s throat stops; the boulder crushes it and turns the whole thing to stone. “All I’m sayin’ is that he’s taken enough from you. Don’t let him take anything else.” Tears sting at the backs of Dean’s eyes, and Bobby looks down at the clipboard again, taps his pencil a few times. “I set aside some leftovers for Cas in the fridge. You should take ‘em. They won’t last ‘till the new year, but I’m sure Sam and John won’t turn down extras.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Dean manages. It comes out broken and sharp.

Bobby turns back to the scrap piled up at the end of the driveway and scribbles something down on the paper. “I ain’t gonna tell you how to live your life,” he says, his eyes still on the scrap yard. “But I haven’t heard you laugh that much in too long.” With that, he sets off between the cars, pretending to find a VIN on a windshield, but Dean knows better.

His eyes are wet too.

—

With Cas’s trench coat and stack of Tupperware filled with Christmas dinner leftovers safely in the backseat of the Impala, Dean dials the tower.

“Rufus?” Dean asks when someone identifying as the shift supervisor answers the phone.

“Winchester? Aren’t you on vacation? Why am I talkin’ to you?”

“Yeah, nice to hear your voice too.” Dean stops at the crossroad—left is towards Kansas City and right will take him back home. He lets Baby idle.

“You being on vacation is just as much a break for me as it is for you, kid. Now, why are you calling me?”

“Technically, I’m just calling the shift supervisor. Not my fault that turned out to be you.” Baby’s engine rolls over loudly, and Dean keeps talking over Rufus’s objections. “Besides, I’m just looking to know what shift Cas is on today so I can catch him.”

“You got a gift for him?” Rufus asks, his faux annoyance starting to peel away to the sh*t disturbing really underneath. “Is it one of those #1 Teacher mugs for preschoolers?”

“Why, you jealous you never got one?”

Rufus finally laughs. “Okay, smart ass. Castiel was on the early shift. He went home about an hour ago. He’s got an evening tomorrow, though, if you think the mug can wait.”

“Thanks, Rufus.”

“You’re welcome. Maybe you can fill it with some Bailey’s or something. Seemed like he needed it this morning.”

“Classy,” Dean says, revving Baby up and getting ready to go left.

“I don’t know what you Christians do on Christmas, man. Y’all seem to really like it.”

“Fair enough,” Dean says, setting off towards Kansas City. “Happy belated Hanukkah, Rufus.”

“Chag sameach.”

—

Dean cranks Led Zeppelin all the way to Missouri and to the apartment building where he dropped Cas off when they went drinking. Sam gave him some digital remastered versions of all of Zeppelin’s albums, and while he’d never admit it, they’re pretty good. It’s not like he can play them on vinyl in the car, so this is the next best thing.

He pulls Baby to the curb in front of the building, realizing too late that Cas never told him which apartment he lives in, which definitely puts a damper on his planned grand entrance. Pulling out his phone, Dean texts Cas, the conversation dead since last night’s response.

Hey. What are you up to right now?

Dean waits, suddenly nervous that Cas isn’t even home. Just because he worked this morning doesn’t mean he went straight home, right? He probably has people. Maybe he and Meg are hanging out since they didn’t do the Christmas thing. Besides, just because they kissed last night, it’s pretty presumptuous to think he wants to see him again, especially so soon. What was Dean thinking? He’s so dumb. He’s always so stupid. He should just go—

Watching my favourite Christmas movie.

Dean’s thought spiral evaporates, snapping clean like a rubber band pulled too tight, leaving no evidence it was even there.

Die Hard?

A pause. No. In Bruges.

Gesundheit?

It’s an Irish movie. What are you doing?

Dean breathes, trying to work up the balls not to chicken out. I’m actually outside your building.

The three little dots dance at the bottom of the screen for a moment, then disappear, then reappear, then disappear again. Every time they wiggle, Dean’s heart jumps higher into his throat and beats harder.

You forgot your coat at Bobby’s, he adds after a moment, giving Cas the out he’s obviously desperately grasping for. Figured you’d need it. I can just drop it off. Sam and John won’t notice they got more leftovers than usual. Dean won’t have to explain anything. No one even has to know.

The answer finally comes. Thank you.

Dean sighs, the disappointment like a green wood fire in his chest: all smoke, no flame. Just as he gathers the coat and gets ready to get out, his phone pings again.

I was just tidying up quickly. I wasn’t expecting company this week.

Dean cracks a smile. Okay. That’s a decent reason. Maybe he didn’t misread all this too entirely. That an invitation?

I’m in apartment 204, Cas responds.

Dean takes that as a “yes”, so he grabs the leftovers Bobby marked for Cas as well. He only has to press the intercom button, and Cas lets him through without comment. As Dean climbs the stairs of the walk up, he tries to plan what he’s going to say, how this is gonna go. He thinks of Bobby’s talk, about not letting John take anything else away from him. About how he hasn’t been with anyone since Benny left. The gap in his dating history feels more like a chasm, something uncrossable and inexplicable.

But he’s getting ahead of himself.

Just because Cas kissed him last night, doesn’t mean he’s going to want to kiss him today. Or do anything more than that. And Dean was technically the initiator in that kiss, if you don’t count his thumb. Suddenly, it throbs worse than it has all day, and when he finally stands in front of the door reading “204”, he’s too frozen to do much else.

Before he can get himself together enough to knock, the door swings open. Cas stands in the doorway, hair ruffled beyond repair in a worn t-shirt for some band Dean’s never heard of and jeans with that tell-tale wear at one knee. It shouldn’t take his breath away, but it kind of does anyway.

“I heard you stop in the hall,” Cas says shyly. “It felt strange both of us just standing on either side of a closed door.”

Dean huffs a laugh, a little grateful that Cas seems just as nervous as him. “That’s true.”

Cas steps to the side. “Would you like to come in?”

“Sure,” Dean says as he steps over the threshold, hyperaware of his grimy boots and torn up jeans. He wasn’t planning on going anywhere other than Bobby’s, and he suddenly wishes he was more presentable. “Um. Sorry about the boots.” He goes to bend and unlace them but realizes too late his hands are full. “Here’s your coat. And Bobby sent leftovers.” He shoves it all at Cas before the door is even closed behind him.

“Thank you,” Cas says, a little startled as he tries to juggle it all. “I’ll put it in the fridge.” Cas wanders farther into the apartment, and Dean stands on the welcome mat. “You can come too!” Cas calls behind him after a moment, and Dean hurries at shucking his boots off.

“It was very kind of Bobby to send food along,” Cas says, inspecting the contents of the various Tupperware before putting them safely into the fridge.

“Not really,” Dean says with a chuckle. The apartment is wide open and sparsely furnished with old, beat-up décor. He supposes it makes sense given Cas’s recent return to bachelorhood, but somehow it still feels like him. “Bobby tries to unload as many leftovers as he possibly can. Otherwise he’s eating turkey until Easter.”

“Still,” Cas says, closing the fridge. “It’s nice to be thought of sometimes.”

Dean just nods, rubbing the back of his neck. “So, uh. Nice place you’ve got here.”

Cas smiles, like he assumes Dean is just trying to be nice. “It’s home, such as it is. At least for now.” Cas shuffles a few dishes around on the counter, stacked in such a way that Dean suspects this was part of the surreptitious cleaning.

“You planning on going somewhere?” Dean asks.

Cas stops. “I hope so.” He takes a deep breath and looks around. “This isn’t how I had hoped my life would pan out.”

“Really?” Dean gets the feeling. He’s old enough to have his own family, be well established in a career, have his own house and life without his father haunting every nook and cranny. But Cas’s life doesn’t seem that bad, outside looking in. Lots of guys get divorced at their age. Fewer get to keep the family they made out of it. At least Cas has an ex-anything. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

Cas looks at him with his head co*cked and eyes narrowed, like he’s trying to put together a puzzle he can’t quite figure out. “Are you being sarcastic?”

“No!” Dean scoffs. “I just—I dunno. I guess it doesn’t seem so bad from here.”

Cas nods, then gestures for them to move into the living area. “I think I might’ve said the same about you before yesterday.”

“Ha!” Dean follows Cas carefully, like he might step on a landmine any minute. “Now I know you’re yanking my chain.”

“Why’s that?” Cas asks as he drops onto a couch that was clearly secondhand—or a dumpster dive.

Dean stares at the man in a rumpled lump on a distressed couch, and he’s a little mad that he’s so, so into him. Still, he doesn’t know what to say to that. Doesn’t Cas have eyes? Can’t he see the swirling darkness where his insides should be, ready to consume anything that gets too close?

So Dean just shrugs and stares out the window into the cornflower blue sky that shouldn’t remind him of Cas’s eyes, but here he is. f*cking smitten.

“Do you want to sit?”

Dean shakes out of his thoughts and realizes he’s just been standing at the edge of the living room like a freak. “Oh, yeah, for sure.”

Cas’s eyes follow him as Dean carefully assesses the best place to sit. Not too close to Cas, he doesn’t want to seem presumptuous, but not so far that he would close off the possibility. Dean chooses the far side of the couch, not quite sitting fully on the cushion, still feeling a little too unsure of himself for it.

“Is everything all right?” Cas asks, resting his elbow on the back of the couch.

“Peachy,” Dean says, desperately trying to stop himself from attacking his cuticles or one of the various extremely normal bumps over his skin he can scratch to bleeding until his mind shuts up for five seconds. He settles for straightening the blanket Cas has tossed over the arm.

Cas nods a few times. “Okay.”

Dean swallows. “Sorry.”

“For?”

Dean glances over, and Cas’s eyes are wide and curious and so goddamn genuine, it takes his breath away. Surely Cas sees how Dean is shaking apart right beside him in all the ways his dad scolds him for, the way he has to constantly apologize for the way he is, for the space he takes up by simply existing.

He takes a breath. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Thanks again for returning my coat. I didn’t even realize I’d left it, and it’s going to rain later this week.” Cas toes at the mismatched coffee table. “Rufus even noticed I forgot it.”

“If you catch pneumonia or something, I’m stuck doing table tops, so.” Dean eases back a little into the couch, feeling more comfortable with the mask back on. “It’s not a big deal.”

“You drove an hour to return it,” Cas says with that sincerity that makes Dean’s teeth ache. “That’s a pretty big deal. More than a lot of people would do.”

“A lot of people are assholes,” Dean mumbles.

“Well. That’s also true.”

They quiet for a moment in a way they’re usually able to avoid. It’s not awkward exactly, but heavy and unfamiliar where it was once easy and clear.

“How’s things at home? Are you enjoying your time with Sam?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “It’s been really good to see the kid.” Dean lets out a breath as he reflects on seeing Sam for the first time in so long. “It’s like he’s a whole ass adult now. It’s—I don’t even know.”

Cas smiles, a gentle and sentimental kind of pull of the lips. “Yeah. Little brothers will do that to you.”

Dean’s stomach tightens. It’s weird to think of Cas as the younger brother in this situation, Gabriel being in Dean’s position of watching his dorky little brother turn into a person with their own dreams and needs and thoughts and goals. To watch them leave.

“You have a little brother too?” Dean knows he doesn’t, but he doesn’t know how to tell Cas he overheard his whole tragic backstory and skipped out the part where Cas trusted him enough to share it. The guilt at missing the hard part eats at him.

Cas shakes his head. “No. I’m the little brother.” He looks off to the distance, as if he’s remembering something. “By a lot. I don’t think I was expected.”

“Huh.” Dean nods a few times. “Were you close?”

Cas’s smile fades, and he tips his head to the side. “I think so. He always took a special interest in me even though he was grown by the time I came along.” His eyebrows knit together, like something is dawning on him. “Wait—Did I tell you he passed?”

Dean’s stomach drops. “Oh, um—”

“It’s okay,” Cas says right away. “I expected that you would have looked me up.”

“Wait, what?” Dean straightens up, finally sitting full on the couch, his trepidation forgotten. “Looked you up where?”

Cas shrugs. “I don’t know. The internet? Gabriel’s return to the United States was well publicised and the Air Force used our connection for some public relations.”

“They used bringing your brother home for good PR?” Dean’s stomach roils, his panic replaced with vicarious anger.

“It’s a good story. I was a lieutenant at the time.” Cas pauses for a moment, like he needs to charge himself up with the strength to tell the story. “High command asked me to be part of the team who would perform the prisoner transfer, like it was some metaphor for the older generation to the younger.” His jaw tightens. “I thought it was a good idea. I thought I could be a hero and save Gabe like all the times he saved me when I was a kid.” He swallows hard. “Instead, I went to the desert to find a shell of the man I knew before they lost him. Despite the. . . photographic evidence, I never got my brother back.” He pauses, and Dean can’t help himself. He reaches out and takes Cas’s hand in his, squeezing like he can transfer strength to him. “Gabe died in that desert, not the hospital back stateside.” Cas grips Dean’s hand tighter. “I wish I could’ve remembered him like that instead.”

“Cas, Jesus.” Dean shifts towards him on the couch. “I’m so sorry. That’s—beyond messed up.” He fits his hand so he can lace his fingers with Cas’s. “You shouldn’t have ever been put in that position.”

Cas stares at their joined hands, like he can’t quite understand the sequence of events that led them to this point. “Thank you.”

“Yeah.” Dean squeezes harder, so Cas can’t convince himself that this was some accident or something. “Of course.”

They sit there for a moment, and Dean settles back into the couch. This he can do, this is familiar. He knows how to make people feel better, to feel good even. As long as it’s not about him, he can do anything.

“Does this mean it would be okay to kiss you again?” Cas asks, still staring at their hands.

“Hell yeah,” Dean says. He traces his thumb over Cas’s, a decidedly less horny gesture than his response, but he doesn’t care. He never wants Cas to hurt ever again.

Cas’s face smooths out again, and his lips pull up in a shy smile, like even the idea of someone wanting to kiss him is a thrill in and of itself. “Yeah?”

Dean can’t help but smile right back, but it hardly has time to finish its way across his face because he leans forward and catches Cas’s lips against his. Cas’s hand is on Dean’s jaw immediately, dragging his fingertips over his arm and up his neck, avoiding his mistake from yesterday of entering Dean’s peripheral. He relaxes into it immediately, his mind deciding to catch on more pleasant thoughts this time. Like how easy this is, how natural it feels. Cas responds immediately to every change in Dean’s position, eager to have more contact, deepening the kiss and hauling Dean on top of him. Dean slots his knee between Cas’s legs, balancing over him on all fours as Cas’s hands thread under his flannel. As he pushes it over Dean’s shoulders, he straightens up to shuck it off properly, and Cas pulls him back down by his belt loops.

Dean balances himself on one elbow to free one hand to explore Cas. His hand smooths up his waist to his chest, Cas’s heart beats fast and hard underneath the palm of his hand. He traces Cas’s sternum up to his neck, and he presses his thumb under his chin to tip it up, giving Dean access to the long line of Cas’s throat, so he can drag his lips and tongue and teeth over his pulse points, his Adam’s apple, until his stubble burns his lips and then he keeps on going. Cas gasps, dragging in air until their chests press together and pulling Dean’s hips down by the belt loops still hooked by his fingers.

Dean’s exploration falters as Cas’s firm co*ck finds the hollow of his hip, his breath a hot burst over Cas’s collarbone. “sh*t.”

Cas freezes for a moment, his grip on Dean’s hips loosening. “Are you—was that okay?”

Dean smiles into Cas’s shoulder before answering with a hoarse, “Yeah, Cas. Yeah, that was really, really okay.”

“Yeah?” The hesitant hope in Cas’s voice digs at something deep in Dean’s stomach, and he wants to hold him and kiss him silly, all at the same time.

Dean pulls himself back up, so that his weight is on his elbows again and he can look Cas in those bright blue eyes. “Yeah.”

Cas smiles so wide, like it was the best thing Dean could’ve said. His lips are pink and swollen from Dean’s nips and stubble, and it stirs something in Dean way lower than his stomach. They’re both breathing fast, and the way Cas’s smile fades a little at the corners, less happiness, more lust, tells Dean that Cas feels it too. Probably both figuratively and literally, given how Dean is pressing up against his jeans, the zipper almost painful.

Dean dives back in, and Cas grips his t-shirt in fists over his shoulder blades. He lets his tongue slide against Dean’s easy as anything before moving to his bottom lip, then his jaw and using his nose to allow him access to Dean’s neck. He breathes in Cas’s shampoo, some default drugstore brand probably, but the ruffled mess tickles his nose and it might as well be the most expensive cologne around the way it sends shivers down Dean’s spine.

All at once, it becomes too much. This make out is hot—beyond hot—but Dean’s not sure if he can go for the button of Cas’s jeans or if that’s too fast, if Cas would want that or if he wants to take it slow. But Dean can’t keep this up. He’s either gotta go further or stop right now, and he doesn’t know if he can do either.

A moan slips out his throat, and he squeezes his eyes shut. It’s too much to be the one making noise, not when Cas is apparently just fine. Still, his next breath is too shuddering to pretend like he didn’t do it, and Dean moves to climb away, maybe to run, but Cas’s hands run down his back to keep him here. Then, even lower, Cas grabs Dean by the asschecks and presses them together, rocking their hips to some beat only Cas can hear, their co*cks dragging side-by-side through their jeans.

“Jesus,” Dean says, directly into Cas’s hair. “Cas, I—” Sound escapes him as Cas guides his hips through a particularly good grind, his dick finding just the right friction to set fireworks off behind his eyes.

“Dean,” Cas groans in response, his voice so deep, Dean wonders if they’ll have to dig it out of the ground later. He lets out a hard breath. “Can we—”

“Stop?”

“—move to the bedroom?”

They both stop moving, and Cas releases Dean’s ass immediately. Dean sighs, dropping his forehead to the couch pillow Cas’s head rests on. Their chests still brush as they take deep breaths, trying to slow down, and Cas lies under Dean, motionless, his arms outstretched as if to emphasize that Dean can move away at anytime.

“Sorry,” Dean says, finally sitting back up and off Cas, not bothering to try to hide the erection that’s pulling at his jeans. He sighs again. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Cas says. “You get to change your mind.”

Dean looks away, too entranced by the man laying just a few feet in front of him with hair tousled beyond repair, shirt rucked up so that his treasure trail is on full display, disappearing under his jeans to a firm line Dean doesn’t want to think too much about. “It’s not that.”

Cas shifts, sitting up to face Dean and pulling his shirt down again. “Then what is it?”

“I was worried it might be too fast, that’s all.” Dean settles the rest of the way onto the couch. “I thought you wanted to stop.”

“Oh.” Cas fiddles with a stray thread from one of the couch cushions. “I didn’t.”

Dean laughs to himself. “Yeah, obviously.”

“It doesn’t really matter what I want, though, if you didn’t feel right about it.”

“It’s not that.” Dean breathes, or tries to anyway. “It felt really, really right.”

Cas smiles that smile again, like Dean’s hitting a jackpot every time. “I had hoped the feeling was mutual.” He looks up at Dean through his eyelashes. “But you don’t have to do something just for me, you know. There are two of us.”

Dean swallows hard. “Yeah, I know. It’s just easier when the focus is on you, you know?”

Cas chuckles. “No, I don’t.”

Dean doesn’t know what to do, so he just shoves him lightly in the shoulder like they’re clumsy teenagers trying to figure this thing out. “Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Cas says back, taking Dean’s hand from his shoulder and holding it again.

They sit for a moment, just holding hands and letting the blood drain to more useful parts of their bodies. Dean smooths his thumb over Cas’s knuckles again, and all the panic swirling in his chest starts to subside. They shift so they’re sitting side-by-side again, their heads leaning back against the couch, just soaking in each other’s company.

Eventually, Cas speaks. “So, if you didn’t look me up, how did you know about Gabriel?”

“Oh.” Dean’s heart sinks again. He just fixed it, and now it’s gonna get f*cked again. sh*t.

“Did Meg let you know?”

Dean turns his head and Cas’s face is neutral, like it was something he just expected to happen. It does little to settle the guilt swirling in his stomach. “Not exactly.” Cas’s eyebrows rise a little, as if to prompt Dean forward. “She told Sam, actually. I just overheard.”

“Oh,” Cas says, letting out a breath. “I was starting to worry you did something horrible like hire a private investigator or something.”

Dean let out a surprised breath. “What? No! I just—I still shouldn’t’ve heard it.”

Cas shrugs. “It’s public information. I gave interviews, signed disclosure agreements. It’s not like I didn’t think it was a possibility.”

Dean releases Cas’s hand, feeling a little like he’s no longer earned the privilege. “But you didn’t tell me.”

“What are you talking about?” Cas shifts again, turning to face Dean with one leg crossed over the couch. “I just told you.”

Dean huffs, frustrated. “I know, but I already knew.”

“I didn’t know you knew.”

“You assumed I did.” Dean sits up too, leaning over his knees, his hands squeezed tight between them. “I cheated. I skipped the hard part where you decided I deserved to hear it.”

Cas leans back into the couch like a puppet whose strings were all released at once. “Dean.” When he doesn’t react, Cas says his name again. “Dean.” Dean finally falls back onto the couch so he can look at Cas again. “That’s not how trust works.”

Dean shrugs dramatically. He knows he looks like an obstinate child; he feels like one. But he can’t make the words come out right. He wants Cas to trust him, he wants to prove to Cas that he’s worth something, that he deserves to hold a truth that important. Not that he overheard it or read it in some newspaper or radio show. He wants to hear it from Cas.

Cas changes tactics. He slides closer, until his knee is up against Dean’s hip, and he places a hand on Dean’s knee. “I already trust you. I could’ve asked Meg to keep all that to herself. I didn’t, because I already knew I wanted you to know. It doesn’t matter to me how.” He squeezes a little, just enough to remind Dean he’s there. “I didn’t know it mattered so much to you, though. And, as strange as it sounds, that means a lot to me.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks, trying to avoid the way his eyes mist up at Cas’s words.

Cas smiles, a little sly. “Yeah. It really, really does.”

Dean’s smile spreads across his face, his hand dropping from crossed over his chest to rest on Cas’s hand. “You’re a smartass.”

Cas shrugs, an attempt at playfulness. “You knew what you were getting when you came.”

“Touché.” Dean leans up and captures Cas’s lips with his.

This time it’s slow and without heat, just a soft agreement that maybe this is gonna be a thing. Maybe this can go somewhere. When they part, they stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment before Dean finally asks the question that’s been haunting him since he texted outside.

“So what the hell is In Bruges?”

Cas laughs. “Would you like to see?”

“Hell yeah.” Dean lifts his arm, and Cas slips into it. Dean hands Cas the remote from the side table so he can restart the movie for Dean’s benefit, and they settle in, tangled in each other with nowhere else they’d rather be.