Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Come on, Lis,” Dean says, his shoulders slumping in defeat as she reaches for her car keys with one hand, her other already twisting the doorknob. “At least give me a reason! You owe me that much.”

She shoots him a sharp look over her shoulder, her once warm brown eyes, now cold. He just keeps looking at her, a pit opening up in his stomach when he thinks about how they got here. She’s a totally different person standing here in front of him—he doesn’t know her at all.

But then her eyes soften, close. She lets out a heavy sigh and shakes her head. “The reason,” she starts, all resigned and tired, like this has been a long time coming and not a spur of the moment thing she just dropped in Dean’s lap like a bomb. “Is that you don’t know. That’s the problem, Dean—you have no idea what the reason is, because you haven’t been paying attention.”

“That’s not—” he starts, looking around the entrance way of their one-bedroom home, looking for God knows what. Whatever it is, he doesn’t find it, so he looks back at Lisa—beautiful, bendy Lisa, with her perfect body and her laugh that lights up every room. 

“Nine years,” she says, moving again, making her way out the door. “I’ve been waiting for a ring—for a commitment—and you’ve given me nothing.”

Dean’s stomach drops, a thousand words settling on the tip of his tongue. What’s this house, if not a commitment? What’s their joint savings, if not commitment? He could say it all, throw it in her face and maybe talk her off the ledge, but something is stopping him. 

Whether it’s the lump in his throat or that gnawing feeling in the back of his mind telling him to keep your damn mouth shut, he doesn’t know, but he clenches his teeth and doesn’t so much as blink as she gives him one last, sad look, and walks out of his life.

Dean stands there for who knows how long after the doors closes, fighting back the feeling that’s trying to tear its way out of him. He won’t admit it, refuses to feel it, because that would be wrong. After nine years, that would be cruel.

But still, nine years down the drain and all he feels is relief.

“I can’t afford the damn thing anymore,” Dean mutters, cellphone pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he tapes up the last box labeled KITCHEN - UTENSILS before wiping the sweat before it can drip off his nose. It’s been about a month since Lisa left, and things are just… not great. “Shop’s not doing so hot, Sammy.”

“You’re not getting as many hours?” Sam asks, his voice dipping into concerned little brother territory, and Dean hates that more than the bitchy tone he gets when Sam thinks he’s doing something stupid.

“Not getting any hours,” he says, because even now, he can’t lie to the twerp. Not that lying would matter. Dean’s got exactly two weeks to find himself a new job and a new place to live before he’s living in his car and showering under the gutter run-off under his neighbors eavestrough. 

“But Bobby hasn’t… done it yet, right? Things could pick up?”

Dean tosses his packing tape on the bare marble countertop—something Lisa had insisted they needed and would rip his head off for throwing things on—and leans against the stove. “Hasn’t kicked my ass to the curb yet?” 

Sam grunts.

“No, but I’m sure it’s not far off. Haven’t had more the a couple jobs in the last month, and he hasn’t said as much, but they’re pity jobs—things Bobby’d have no trouble doing on his own.” Dean hates that too, but he’d never tell the old man. He needs the money, no matter how desperate and pathetic it makes him feel. “I’ll tell you all the dirty details next weekend.”

“Yeah, about that,” Sam says, and Dean’s stomach sinks to his shoes. Of fucking course. “I’m not going to make it back this weekend—probably not until after midterms.”

Dean closes his eyes, blocking out the early January sunshine. Sam had already missed Christmas, and thanksgiving was a twelve hour deal that left Dean feeling like a cheap pie-making whore with Sam’s hit-it-and-quit-it timing. 

“Yeah, fine,” Dean says, because what else can he say? His brother’s got a life down in Palo Alto, a girlfriend, friends he likes hanging out with—who is Dean to ruin that for him?

“I don’t want to cancel, but school is—”

“Yeah, Sam, I get it,” Dean says, maybe a little harsher than he means it, but he’s got this twisting feeling in gut and he can’t quite swallow properly past the disappointment clogging his throat. “Look, I gotta go.” 

Dean hangs up halfway through Sam’s bye.

“Dean, come in here a sec.”

Dean’s stomach flips and he sets down the wrench he’d been polishing as dread pools low in his gut. 

That’s not what this is about, Dean tells himself as he crosses the empty bay and steps into Bobby’s office. A small fan sits in the corner, oscillating back and forth, ruffling the few papers on his desk. Dean shifts in the doorway, hoping this is a standing kind of talk as he eyes the chair in front of the desk.

“Close the door,” Bobby sighs, taking his dusty old trucker hat off to scratch the top of his balding head. “Have a seat.”

“I know you’re not about to tell me I’m gettin’ a raise,” Dean jokes, kicking the door shut with his heel before dropping into the rickety old chair. “So… employee of the month?”

“Shut up, idjit,” Bobby grunts, but he won’t meet Dean’s gaze as he digs around in his bottom drawer for something before pulling out an unopened bottle of bourbon. The good stuff. Fuck.

“Last day on earth shit,” Dean murmurs, knowing what this means and that there’s nothing he can do about it. He sinks deeper into the chair when Bobby snatches up a couple of glasses from his collection by the office window. 

“Remember what you said when you gave it to me?” Dean does, but he can’t bring himself to say the words, so he shakes his head, not really believing what he’s hearing, and watches as Bobby pours out two fingers worth in each glass. “Uncap this shit on my last day, ‘cause God knows I won’t be making it in the day after.”

Dean nods, taking the glass Bobby nudges his way, and holds it up in a small cheers before tossing that motherfucker back. 

It burns all the way down.

There’s no way half his shit is fitting in here, let alone all of it.

Dean stands in his new shoebox apartment, looking at the bachelor-style layout with misery sinking into his bones. Kansas City sucks on a good day, and today is definitely not a good day.

But the moving truck is downstairs and he only has it for a couple more hours, so he sucks in a deep breath of musty apartment air and gets to work moving his shit.

“My bed is touching my fucking fridge,” Dean snaps, ignoring Charlie’s cackling laughter on the other end of the line. Dean’s got a hardcore pout going on as he tries in vain to shove his bed away from his fridge, but that’s the thing about walls. They’re pretty fucking unmovable. “This isn’t a fucking joke, Charlie.”

“You don’t need a California King,” she chuckles, letting out a snort as Dean flops onto the California King in question, confirming with a soft bounce that yes he fucking does. “I don’t even know why you moved there in the first place,” she says, mirroring Dean’s own damn thoughts.

Truth is, he decided on a whim.

The house sold in no time, leaving him with half of a decent check and no job to go to in the morning. He’d thought about looking into the Lawrence construction scene, but nixed that idea almost immediately when he pictured himself swinging a hammer for some jackass like Alistair.

Then he started imagining working for anyone in Lawrence and decided he couldn’t do any of it. Not one bit of it. Not running into Lisa, not getting pity jobs from Bobby, not seeing Charlie’s puppy dog eyes the next time she has to foot the bill for drinks because he’s fucking broke.

So… Kansas City it is.

“Needed a change,” he says instead of all that, and it’s not a lie. He does need a change. Badly. In a big fucking way.

He can’t sleep. The traffic from the I-70 is too loud, and the lights coming through his third story windows are too bright. The apartment is too hot and he hasn’t figured out the thermostat yet, and really, he’s just fucking miserable.

So, he pulls on his boots and slips into his leather jacket before leaving his apartment. It has to be almost eleven o’clock, traffic thinning as he steps into the crisp night air. Cabs are pretty much all that’s left waiting at the intersection, and Dean’s not really sure what he’s doing out here, except that he can’t stay cooped up any longer.

A bus pulls up to the corner stop, brakes squeaking, and Dean steps on without really thinking about it. He digs some change out of his pockets and drops it in the toll box, not really caring that he dropped in thirty more cents than he needed to.

Dean’s not even in his seat yet before the bus starts to move, bumping along the pock-marked roads at a dangerous speed. Under the harsh aisle lights, a guy in a dirty peacoat leans against the window, his eyes half-closed as he sways to the movement of the bus. At the back of the bus, a woman clings to her bag and stares straight ahead, her hair wet and her eyes a little bloodshot. 

Dean drops into a seat by the door, snatching up the newspaper on the seat beside him.

He should probably keep track of where he is, but figures it shouldn’t be too hard to get back to his apartment, even if he has to call a cab.

He flips open the paper, scanning the black and white ink of the op/ed section until something catches his eye.

Dear reader,

If it feels like a trap, you're already in one.

Did you know your gut is directly connected to your brain? Not in a the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach kind of way, but more of a trust your gut instinct kind of way. Tell me you haven’t felt something in your gut once or twice that ended up being real? Tell me you haven’t ignored that feeling more than once or twice.

Go on. Tell me.

Fact is, we’re all stupid like that. And it’s a can’t-happen-to-me kind of stupid that will suck you in and make you think everything's A-okay. That’s us thinking that we’re smarter than our gut, that’s us feeling that trap while snugly inside of it, already dead but still with a heartbeat.

Funny, that.

So, what is your gut telling you? What are you ignoring right now?

More importantly, what will you do next?

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

Dean peers down at the page, at the words, at the title reading Dear Reader: A Series, and feels something twist deep down in his gut. There’s no telling what it is, though, which is the problem with paying attention.

Dean never knows which way to look when he crosses the street.

Turns out the bus only goes about two blocks before hanging a left. Two more before left again. Another two, then a left. A final two, then one last left. Dean does the loop four times before he realizes he’s been going in circles for the last hour.

Halfway through the fifth circuit, he gets off, the newspaper tucked under his arm as he nods to the driver and peers up at the building in front of him as the bus rumbles away. If the route runs late enough, maybe he can catch a ride back to the apartment, too.

The sign above the door reads Roadhouse and Dean guesses it’s some kind of dive bar by the neon in the windows and the ratty drapes blocking out the view. Dean doesn’t give it much more thought than that before pulling open the rickety old door, hinges squealing, and stepping inside.

The smell of stale booze and greasy burgers smacks him in the face, and as disgusting as it is, he sucks in a deep breath. Fuck, it smells like his childhood—like it did before he wrapped his car around a tree. It smells like Sammy’s too-short ass trying to see over the table top and dad dropping a few extra fries onto their plates after stealing a couple each from them.

Dean slides onto a barstool, dropping his folded hands onto the scuffed surface as he takes a look around at the dark booths and the guys playing pool in the back corner by the bathrooms. Shelves of spirits line the back wall, lit up by low lighting, the bulbs encased in the kind of fixtures you only see in 60s reboots and your grandmother’s house.

“What can I get you?” A deep, rumbling voice, like whiskey and melted honey, floats over to him from down the bar, and Dean glances up to see a guy drying glasses. 

He’s not looking at him, focussing on his task, but there’s no one else within earshot, so Dean answers. “Whiskey neat. Double.”

“You got it,” the man says, stowing the glass under the bar before turning his back to Dean, and Dean takes a second to look him over. From his head of dark, unruly hair, to the broad shoulders stretching a black t-shirt, to the trim waist and tight ass in faded blue jeans.

Dean swallows the thick lump in his throat and looks away, forcing back the interest that spikes at the sight of those runner’s thighs putting the seams of his jeans to the test. He pulls the collar of his shirt away from his neck as heat rises into his chest, shaking off the image of riding those thighs right there on that pool table.

A glass of whiskey drops in front of him, and Dean glances up, startled, to find sharp blue eyes staring back at him, and holy fucking shit, he never knew he had a thing for blue eyes. 

His mouth goes dry, lungs seizing as his eyes roam from the guy’s baby-blues, down the straight line of his nose, to those plush, pink lips, parted and waiting for… something.

“Cash or card?”

Dean clears his throat, shaking himself out of the embarrassing thoughts swirling around inside his head “Open up a tab,” he says, reaching into his pocket for his wallet before slapping his credit card on the bar.

“You got it.”

Dean takes a sip of the whiskey, feeling it burn all the way down. It’s not bad. Not as good as the whiskey he gave Bobby, but decent enough. He takes another swig.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” the bartender says, back to cleaning his glasses, but he’s looking at Dean this time, arms flexing as he twists his wrist inside the glass, cloth swirling around his fingers.

“Just got in,” Dean says, looking around the bar at the other patrons like that’ll distract him from the heat pooling low in his stomach, collecting like rainwater, drip, drip, dripping in slow motion with every word out of the bartender’s mouth. “I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of me.”

“It’s like that, is it?” The bartender raises one dark eyebrow, a hint of a smile playing on his lips, and Dean’s stomach swoops, his dick perking up in his jeans just enough for him to take notice.

“It’s always like that.” Dean’s not about to become a cliché, okay? He doesn’t spill his guts to the bartender like some heartbroken sap, and he sure as shit doesn’t let a man who doesn’t know him from Moses give him life advice.

“I suppose.” The guy comes over, holds out his hand, and Dean takes it without really meaning to. “Castiel,” he says, and Dean’s brain short-circuits, flip-flopping between fuck, his hands are so big and what the fuck is a Castiel?

He sits there with his mouth hanging open for far longer than he should before realizing Castiel is the guy’s name.

“D-Dean,” he stutters, swallowing back his embarrassment as heat rises in his cheeks. He tries to smile, but it’s probably more of a grimace, and Castiel gives his hand a small squeeze before dropping it entirely.

Dean wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans as jittering awareness zips through him. It’s like he touched a livewire, electricity flowing through his veins unchecked, nowhere to go, up and down his spine until he gets it in his head to take another drink.

“Dean,” Castiel repeats, wiping down the bar as he mulls something over. Dean watches as he glances from the paper to him and back again. “You like that?” He jerks his chin at the page Dean was reading—the Dear Reader article.

Dean looks down at the paper and shrugs. “Just started reading it, but yeah, it’s good.” Another shrug and he tips his head back, downing the last of his whiskey. “Mind pouring me another?” He nudges the glass Castiel’s way with a half-hearted smile.

“Where’d you come from, Dean?” Castiel asks, his back to him as he grabs the whiskey, and something about the way he keeps saying his name feels strange. Not bad strange, just… strange. He pours the amber liquid until the bottle cuts him off, and Dean watches the bubbles pop on the surface before he meets Castiel’s eyes. 

“Lawrence,” he says, sliding his fingers around the glass but doesn’t raise it to his lips just yet. “You?”

Castiel’s lips twitch as he slides the bottle away and leans on the bar. “How do you know I’m not from here?”

“No one’s from here.” And if they are, they don’t look like him.

“Fair enough.” Castiel looks down the bar and Dean follows his gaze to the pool table where a game is just wrapping up. “Pontiac, Illinois,” he says, and if that isn’t just the most random ass place on the continental US. 

“Why the hell would you move here?” Dean blurts, not really meaning to, but come on.

“Why the hell would you move here?” Castiel cocks an eyebrow, like he knows Dean won’t answer, before shoving away from the bar with a sigh, his pink lips parting. “Let’s just say I had a little falling out with Jesus.”

Dean sits up a little straighter at that. “Religious?”

A snort slips out of Castiel. “Not in the least.” Then he does that thing only hot guys do, leaning back against the countertop behind him, hands braced against the edge, legs crossed at the heel, and Dean’s whole body goes hot. “What about you? Who’d you have a falling out with?”

Dean sucks in a deep breath, pushing back the want building inside him the longer he looks at this man, and tips his face to the gloomy ceiling. “The whole damn world, apparently.”

Chapter Text

Turns out moving to the city doesn’t mean getting a job on the first go. Hell, Dean’s been scanning this fucking paper for the last week and a half, looking for anything worth his while. The black and white ink blurs together, swirling into an unreadable mess, and Dean drops the paper back into his lap.

The orange glow of the fading sun seeps between the blinds, slashing across his coffee table in a sharp line. It warms his bare toes, his feet crossed and resting on the scuffed wood, just in the line of light. Dean watches it for a moment before puffing his cheeks out. There’s not enough energy in the world to get him to cook right now, but he’s fucking hungry.

Does the Roadhouse serve food? He thinks, because apparently he’s got enough energy to take the bus around five blocks. Even if it doesn’t, he wouldn’t mind a drink and a chat with the hot as sin bartender.

With that thought in mind, Dean drops his feet off the table and stands, filled with new energy as he scurries around for socks and boots, a clean flannel to go over his white tee, and his wallet and keys. 

At the last moment, he snatches up the paper and tucked it under his arm before heading out the door.

“Got burgers?” Dean asks, feeling an excited buzz move through him when he steps through the door of the Roadhouse and Castiel glances up from behind the bar.

“Dean,” he says, sorting through what looks like a stack of cash. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” He turns back to the money, flopping it in the till before straightening up, pressing both palms to the polished wood and staring at him with a raised eyebrow and a pointed look.

Dean rolls his eyes, dropping onto a barstool with a grin. “I’m great like that, aren’t I?” He’s not sure why he’s being such a little shit—it’s not like he really knows the guy—but something about Castiel makes him feel comfortable. Like he could say or do almost anything and he’d just shake his head and look away with a wry little smile.

Like he’s doing right now.

“To answer the question you so rudely hurled at me,” Castiel says, grabbing a beer from the bar fridge under the counter before uncapping it and sliding it down the bar at him. “Yes, we have burgers. Bacon-cheese burgers and onion rings are the best, but whatever you want.” Castiel shrugs, tying an apron around his waist like he’s just starting his shift, and maybe he is? Maybe Dean’s just being that annoying customer that pops in as soon as the sign is flipped over?

Eh, whatever.

“I’ll get one of those with extra onions,” Dean says, leaning against the bar before taking a swig of his beer.

“Not planning on kissing anyone tonight, I hope,” Castiel says, scribbling down Dean’s order before shoving up the partition in a little window Dean hadn’t noticed before now. A hand reaches through and grabs the slip of paper before disappearing again.

“I wasn’t,” Dean says, raising an eyebrow at Castiel’s back as he stocks the bar fridge. “But the night is still young. Who knows what’ll walk through those doors.”

“I do. The construction workers from down the street, Marv, and maybe Ellen if she feels like checking on us.” Castiel spins back around, drumming his fingers on the bar as he gives Dean a challenging look. 

“Meh,” Dean says with an unbothered shrug. “Construction workers might give me something to look at.” He watches Castiel, waiting for his reaction as his heart does a nervous little flip-flop in his chest, but the man is unreadable. He looks Dean up and down with a quick flick of his eyes, but says nothing, and Dean’s not sure what to make of that.

“Sure,” Castiel says after a minute has passed. “If you’re into balding perverts in their fifties that can’t hold their liquor and haven’t made a successful pick-up in all the years they’ve been coming here.”

Dean makes a face, and the laugh that bursts out of Castiel feels like a prize. 

“I’ve got some stuff to do in the back. Will you be alright up here?” Castiel shoots a thumb over his shoulder, backing toward the kitchen door, and Dean shoos him away with his newspaper.

“Yeah, I’m good. The job search isn’t going anywhere.” He shrugs, dropping the paper onto the bar as Castiel shoots him a thumbs up.

“Hey, maybe the construction workers will show up tonight and you can get in with them.” Castiel shrugs, all faux-helpful, and Dean throws him the fingers before the asshole disappears into the kitchen, laughter filling the space he leaves behind.

Dear reader,

Get out your map, pick somewhere and just run.

Seriously, grab your passport, pack a bag, and get outta dodge. Nothing good comes from staying in one place too long, as we can see from retirement homes and my third-grade classroom teacher who has yet to un-lodge the stick from his ass.

Look at your life right now, at all the shitty things in it, and think… think for a second, about disappearing into the blue lagoon and leaving it all behind. 

Sounds pretty good right?

I recently went through some change-your-life, fuck-the-whole-world, kill-your-neighbour’s-puppy-to-feel-the-pain kind of shit, and guess what I did? 

You got it. Dart and a map.

Fuck everyone in your life, fuck your job, fuck your friends, fuck you wife or husband, or anyone else you’re fucking.

Just do it; you’ll thank me later.

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

The words stick in Dean’s mind, tacky and warm, like something about them just feels right. Dean reads them over again, letting them sink into his bones, because it puts to words exactly why he did what he did. It makes it okay.

“How’s Dear Reader today?” Castiel asks, dropping a plate on the bar in front of him with a fresh beer and a new coaster.

“Insightful,” Dean says, sarcasm dripping from his voice as he flips the paper closed and pulls his plate closer. “Didn’t know you could swear in a newspaper.”

Castiel grunts, but doesn’t comment, dropping condiments next to Dean’s plate before heading down the bar to serve a squat old man with a weaselly face and short, curly hair on the top of his head Dean assumes is Marv.

Dean picks at his onion rings, eating them more slowly than he’d like, but they’re fucking hot. He blows into the end of one, the batter from the section he bit hanging off the steaming onion, and heat plumes from the other side. 

He drops the onion rings back to his plate with a pout and takes a swig of his beer, cursing his own impatience as the inside of his mouth burns. 

As he waits for his food to cool, he watches Castiel.

He’s on the other side of the bar, listening intently to whatever Marv is saying, hands waving in the air in a few near misses with Castiel’s head. Castiel just listens, like he’s done it all before and gladly does it again, and something about that just fits so well with the bartender look. The unbiased ear, offering advice to anyone who walks through the door. 

Is that something all bartenders do, or is it just Castiel? Is he just the kind of person to give anyone he’s talking to one-hundred percent of his attention? Dean likes to think so.

The crowd inside The Roadhouse swells as the night goes on, a mix of construction workers and ladies’ night parties, alongside a few groups of underage college kids that don’t realize Castiel’s a fucking whore for ID-ing people. Dean’s surprised the guy didn’t card him the first time he walked through that door.

No matter how busy it gets, though, Dean always has a cold beer in front of him, dropped off with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

Dean spends his time sipping beer and looking through the paper. He re-reads Dear Reader and decides he wants to keep this one in his wallet. He looks over the job postings and once again decides there’s jack shit in there for him. He peels the label off his beer. He watches Castiel.

And watches Castiel.

Watches Castiel.

Dean’s about eighty-five percent sure that’s what the raised eyebrows are about, and one-hundred percent sure he’s being fucking creepy, but he’s got a good buzz going on and Castiel’s ass looks amazing in those jeans. He’s got the kind of thighs that Dean would happily wear as earmuffs, and an ass he could dig his nails into. Not to mention the man has some serious shoulders going on. Fuck, Dean’s drooling just thinking about sinking his teeth into all that muscle.

“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” Castiel asks after most of the crowd has dispersed and he has a moment to lean against the bar right in front of Dean’s bleary-eyed stare. 

“Nope,” he says, popping the P as he bites his lower lip and grins. “Got no one waitin’ on me, got nowhere to be but here.”

“Alright…” Castiel says, pinching the top of Dean’s beer bottle between his finger and thumb before pulling it behind the bar. Dean thinks about protesting, but he’s not feeling so hot, so he lets it slide. This time. “Why don’t I call you a cab?”

“Don’t got cash for a cab,” Dean murmurs, slumping over the bar as the room starts to shift and blur. “Don’t got no job, Cas. The interview was a bust.”

“That’s why you’ve been here all night, huh?” Castiel says, and his voice is kind of far away, then right up close again. “Drink away all those sorrows?”

An arm wraps around his shoulders, a hand clings to his wrist, and everything smells so nice—like beer and cologne and honey shampoo.

“Nah,” Dean says, stumbling along and not really sure where he’s going. “All m’sorrows are right ‘ere.” He thumps his chest, then lets his arm drop to his side as Castiel shouts something over his shoulder before his breath is back in Dean’s ear. “What’s your address?”

Dean slurs it out, but that’s not right. He’s not in Kansas anymore—heh, Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. But he is in Kansas, just not… not in… “We’re not in Lawrence anymore!” Dean laughs, and it’s so sloppy, but he tries again, and manages to get out his Kansas City address.

“Come on, let’s get you home.”

“Wait—” Dean tries to pull away, to turn back. “My paper.”

“I’ll get you a new paper,” Castiel huffs, surprisingly strong as he hauls Dean around. 

“It’s not the same,” he says, panic settling into his chest. “It’s never the same one twice. Cas, I need that paper—”

“Why?” Castiel huffs, and even in his drunken state, Dean can hear the annoyance seeping into his tone.

Somehow, through the haze of alcohol and the spinning street, Dean manages to look Castiel dead in the eye. A hot Kansas wind blows through, ruffling his hair, and Dean wraps his fingers around the front of Castiel’s shirt. 

“Get out your map, pick somewhere and just run,” he says, because that’s all he can remember, and he needs to remember all of it. He needs to know what to do next.

It might just be the alcohol, but something in Castiel’s face changes. It’s subtle, so small it’s probably not even there, but Dean swears he sees it. A kind of meaning-making he can’t hope to understand.

But it’s something.

“I’ll drive you home,” Castiel says, and Dean doesn’t bring up the paper again. He lets it go, lets it fall away into the night like another lost dream.

He lets himself just be here. In this moment, in Castiel’s passenger seat, on this street, in Kansas City.

Tomorrow he will get out his map.

Tomorrow he will pick somewhere.

Tomorrow he will run.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow…

Tomorrow—

Chapter Text

“Answer your phone, bitch!”

Dean hangs up, deleting the voicemail as a lump forms in his throat. He’s a shitty friend, but what’s he supposed to do? Escaping Lawrence means leaving everything behind—everything.

He needs to do this for himself; Charlie will understand eventually.

Dean shoves his phone in his pocket and pushes his cart closer to the check out. His cart is embarrassingly empty, only a loaf of bread, a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, some mayo, and a six pack of beer fill the bottom, but he needs to make rent next week, and things are already tight.

 Dean is scanning the tabloids, tapping his fingers on the cart, when today’s paper catches his eye. He’d bet one of those beers there’s a new Dear Reader in there today, and before he can think better of it, Dean snatches the paper up and starts flipping through it.

Page six, front and center, the words Dear reader clear as day at the top of the page. Dean folds the paper over itself until it stops flopping around and reads the column with the kind of excitement he hasn’t felt in nearly a month.

Dear reader,

Burn all the files, desert all your past lives, and if you don't recognize yourself, that means you did it right. Disappear into the wilderness, sink into the sea, do whatever it takes to remake yourself, but just remake yourself better.

Chances are, you’ll fail at that, too, just like I did, because guess what? We’re creatures of habit, us humans, and change isn’t really something we do well. Just ask my parents, who’ve eaten the same boiled egg and just-this-side-of-burnt rye toast for breakfast everyday for the last sixty years.

And before you ask, yeah, their values are just as outdated as their meal choices.

But even if you’re not remaking yourself new, at least you can say you tried. At least you can say you did something with your crappy, pathetic life instead of wasting away with thoughts of what might have been, what could’ve been, what should’ve been. Chances are it wouldn’t have been, but now at least you know for sure.

And hey, maybe you’ll be different. Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. Time to leave it all behind and see for yourself.

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

“I heard the guy that writes those plays with dolls.”

Dean jumps, but the sound of that voice has a smile curling on his lips almost immediately as he flips the paper closed and tosses it in his cart. “They’re called action figures,” Dean retorts, because he’s had this argument a thousand times with the bullies at school. “And what do you know about this guy, anyway?”

Dean twists around to see Castiel’s face, just catching the raised eyebrow before it disappears. “Apologies,” Castiel murmurs, his eyes flicking back and forth between Dean’s as Dean’s heart flip-flops in his chest. “I had no idea you were so sensitive about your ‘action figure.’” The guy does actual fucking finger quotes.

“Shut up,” Dean says, shaking his head as he starts loading his stuff onto the conveyor belt. “You work tonight?” Dean doesn’t look at him when he asks, hoping the question sounded casual, calm, unbothered—not at all like he’s hoping to see him again later.

“No.” Castiel starts loading his groceries behind Dean’s crammed up close to his sweating beer, and Dean huffs, snatching up a divider to drop between their things. Castiel doesn’t seem to notice. “Grocery day is always reserved for my day off.”

Bummer, so Dean’s got no reason to drink tonight. You know, other than the fact that he has no job, no money, his friends are pissed at him, his brother wants nothing to do with him, and his girlfriend is already engaged to someone new. 

The thought sinks into his stomach, a weight that feels like a ton of bricks. “Any plans for the night?” Dean asks, nodding at the grocery clerk that, yes, I do need a bag.

“Mmm,” Castiel hums, his brows furrowing as he slides a honey ham onto the conveyor belt. What single guy buys a honey ham for himself? Wait, is Castiel single? Has Dean been flirting with a taken man? Hold up, has Dean been flirting with Castiel at all? “I have a documentary DVRed for tonight; it’s about the disappearance of pollinators.”

“Pollinators,” Dean repeats, his back to the hotter than hell man he can’t believe likes pollinators. “Interesting.”

“It is,” Castiel says, all defensive and cute, and Dean shoots a look over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of what that looks like. 

Castiel’s face is scrunched up, his forehead wrinkled and his mouth pursed, and all Dean can do is raise an eyebrow at that look. What can he say? He’s sure he’d listen to anything Castiel has to say in that deep, made-for-porn voice.

“Shut up,” Castiel grumbles, a flush rising in his cheeks as he looks down at the conveyor belt. 

“I didn’t say anything!” Dean laughs, sliding his card into the reader while sending up a prayer that it goes through. If he can’t find a mechanic job soon, he’s going to have to start applying to anything that comes along. Otherwise, he’ll be out on his ass by the end of next month.

Castiel grumbles, but doesn’t appear to have a decent comeback, so he keeps quiet as Dean grabs his bags. He hovers at the end of the checkout, not ready to say goodbye just yet. 

“Did you drive here?” Dean asks, even if it’s a long shot. He shifts back on his heels as he waits for Castiel to dig out his wallet, the brown paper bag filled with his groceries tucked under one arm.

“No,” Castiel says, a deep sigh in the words as he glances Dean’s way before turning to pay the cashier. “My car is broken, so it’s the bus for me.”

“I can drive you,” Dean blurts, the words spilling out of him before he can think better of it, but what’s the harm, really? Castiel got Dean home safe from the bar, so he’ll just be paying him back.

Castiel’s head snaps up, his eyes wide and blue in the gray light pouring in through the front windows. “Really?” He says, before punching in his PIN number and taking his receipt.

“Yeah, and I could, uh…” Dean scratches the back of his head, not sure why his heart is thumping so fast. “I could take a look at your car. See if I can figure it out.”

Castiel drops his groceries into his cart and shakes his head. “No, I couldn’t ask you to—”

“Dude,” Dean says, cutting him off as they make their way out of the store. “You didn’t. I offered.”

“Yes, but I don’t have the money—”

“A favor.” Dean waves him off, leading him to the Impala as the oppressive Kansas heat beats down on them. “Cook me dinner and we’ll call it even.”

Dean’s not looking at Castiel, too busy trying to balance his groceries while getting his keys out of his pocket, so it takes him a minute to notice the frowning head tilt he’s getting from across the room of his Baby.

“What?” Dean asks, shooting Castiel a frown of his own, but Castiel just shakes his head, loading his groceries into the trunk when Dean pops it open.

“You have a deal,” Castiel says at last, and they leave it at that.

“Dude, when’s the last time you took this thing in for an oil change?” Dean shouts from under Castiel’s old beater, covered in grease and driveway dust. It’s clear that Castiel knows nothing about cars, and an honest to God miracle that it hasn’t died long before now.

“Uh…” Castiel starts, and Dean closes his eyes on a long sigh. That tone tells him all he needs to know.

“Don’t bother,” Dean says, a warm, fond kind of exasperation bubbling up inside him as he shimmies out from under the car. “You need an oil change.” He takes the rag Castiel passes his way, wiping the sweat beading on his forehead and dripping down the back of his neck before wiping off his hands. “Good thing you didn’t bother with the shop.”

“Why?” Castiel stands a little too close, his eyes a deep blue under the Kansas sun, and now Dean’s sweating for a whole new reason. 

“Uh,” Dean says, feeling all kinds of awkward and horny as he steps into the shade of Castiel’s open garage. “You said they quoted you almost a thousand bucks?”

“Yes.” Castiel gives him a sharp nod. “I trusted their judgment.”

“Oil change costs about sixty.”

Castiel scowls, his brow furrowing in the most adorable confusion. “That can’t be right,” he says, lowering himself into his chair like nothing about the world makes sense anymore. “They said—”

“Buddy,” Dean says, trying his best not to laugh. “They were trying to scam you.” He loses it at the crestfallen look on Castiel’s face, though, laughter bubbling out of him. “Clueless thing like you walked in there and all they saw was a big, fat payout.”

“That’s horrible,” Castiel says, sounding truly horrified by the idea.

“Yeah, so,” Dean says, a little uncomfortable with the look on Castiel’s face. “I can get you a list of supplies to pick up, or I can go with you to get them if you want.”

“I—yes, thank you.” The smile that gets him is nothing short of life-changing. That’s how it feels, anyway, like Dean’s whole world shifts around a little, and he thinks maybe he wants to put that smile there again.

“Pizza?” Castiel asks, handing Dean a beer over his shoulder as from where he sits on the couch as Dean walks back from the bathroom. Dean takes it, dropping onto the other end of the couch as Castiel hits play on the fucking pollinators documentary.

“Meat lovers?” Dean shoots him a hopeful look, and it takes him a little more than half a second to understand why Castiel looks him up and down with a half-smirk.

“Sure am,” he says, and it’s fucking corny as hell. Dean shoves Castiel’s shoulder, ignoring his laughter as he takes a swig of his beer and shakes his head. 

A thrill runs through him, though, starting at the base of his spine and spreading upward at the thought of Castiel being attracted to him. The heat he sees in the other man’s eyes does funny things to his insides, and Dean has to turn his attention back to the Ruby-throated hummingbird on screen before he pops a boner on Castiel’s couch.

“Meat lovers is fine,” Castiel says, tapping away at his phone before he lifts it to his ear. He orders a couple large pizzas, hot wings, and those warm cinnarolls that Dean’s always wanted to try, but his dad never ordered and Lisa always said would make her fat.

“Drink?” Castiel asks, raising both eyebrows with the phone to his ear.

Dean holds up his beer in answer.

“No drinks,” Castiel tells the person on the other end of the line, and something about the whole thing feels so domestic. Like they’ve done this a thousand times, like it’s a normal thing for Dean to fix his car, and for Castiel to order their pizza. 

The domesticity of it all should scare Dean, because he’s not that guy. But… it doesn’t. Not in the slightest. In fact, Dean’s starting to think he could do this for a while longer. A lot longer.

Forever, maybe.

“What do you mean, you’ve never watched Star Wars?” Up to this point, Dean’s had his socked feet up on Castiel’s coffee table, relaxed as a stoner four joints deep, but he drops his feet to the floor and sits up straight to look his new friend dead in the eye, because he just can’t fucking believe it.

“I told you,” Castiel says, fighting back a smile and failing miserably. “My parents are very religious; the only movies I watched as a child were the VeggieTales Sunday school specials.”

“But Harrison Ford,” Dean says, both hands open in front of him like he’s begging Castiel to get it. “I jerked off to more Han Solo posters than I ever did Princess Leia in a bikini posters.”

“I don’t understand that reference.”

Dean flops back on Castiel’s couch, staring up at the ceiling like it’ll answer all his questions and solve all his problems. “Movie marathon,” he says, because that is the only option. “Pick a time, Cas, because we’re doing it.”

“I’m not off again until next week,” Castiel says, draining his third beer before collecting their dirty plates and the empty pizza box. “We could do it then if you’re free.”

“I’m an unemployed bum,” Dean sighs, trying not to let the shame creep in as the words tumble out of him. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Speaking of being an unemployed bum,” Castiel says, his voice drifting in from the open concept kitchen, only the island separating them.

Dean huffs, but Castiel ignores him.

“I know it’s probably not what you’re looking for, but the Roadhouse is looking for a busboy. I can put in a good word with Ellen if you want.” Castiel says all this while pretending that rinsing the dishes is the most interesting thing he’s done all day. 

Honestly, Dean kind of appreciates that. At least he doesn’t have to deal with Castiel’s piercing eyes while feeling like the biggest failure in the world.

Because really? Who is a busboy at thirty-two? Who fails so hard that they have to clean up tables at a bar? Dean, apparently, because he’s also seriously considering it.

He needs the cash, okay?

“Uh, yeah. Thanks, man,” he says, and leaves it at that, deciding that if he keeps talking, he’ll just make the whole thing more awkward.

Castiel doesn’t say anything, puttering around in the kitchen for a while longer, and Dean is so buried inside his own head that he doesn’t think to offer to help out until Castiel is rounding the island with two plates of steaming cinnarolls in hand.

“I can’t believe you have gone your entire adult life without having one of these,” Castiel says, and Dean takes the out for what it is with a grateful smile.

“My ex would’ve skinned me alive if I’d brought these home,” Dean says, taking one of the plates from Castiel as he drops onto the couch beside him, a little closer than before. 

“How long were you together?” Castiel asks, looking down at the melty icing as Dean studies his profile. He doesn’t want to talk about Lisa. It’s been just over a month since she left him, and some part of him still isn’t over how it ended. A knot twists in his stomach at the thought of her, of how unhappy he’s realizing he was—how unhappy he is now.

Has anything really changed, then?

“Nine years,” he says, and it’s at that moment that the weight of all those years chooses to crash down on him. His heart clenches, and he’s not even sure that it’s for Lisa so much as it is for all that time. “We met in my uncle Bobby’s shop.”

Castiel doesn’t comment, so Dean yammers on, filling the dead air with his pathetic love life.

“I fixed her car and asked for her number, not thinking it’d be more than a one night thing. Took her out on a date, went back to her place, and found out that I actually really liked her.” Dean throws his hands up in the air before letting them drop to his sides. He stares down at the cinnaroll as shame curls in his gut. “She, uh… she left a ton of hints about marriage, and I want to say I just didn’t see them, but I did.”

“You don’t want to get married?” Castiel asks, his voice all rough and low, and it sends a shiver through Dean.

“I don’t know,” he says, because he really doesn’t. Maybe to the right person someday, but at the time he couldn’t say for sure that she was it. “Not to her.”

“Is that why she left?” Castiel asks, his cinnaroll as forgotten as Dean’s, steam rising from his plate between them.

“That’s what she told me.” Dean shrugs, but he’s not so sure now. Her engagement not two months after they broke up tells a different story, one that Dean has no desire to hear. “I heard through the grapevine that she’s engaged, so…”

“Shit,” Castiel murmurs, setting his plate aside to twist toward Dean, one leg up on the couch with his arm on the back. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh,” Dean says with a shrug, forcing himself to cut a hunk off his cinnaroll and shove it between his teeth. “It’s for the best. She’s happy, I’m…” He trails off, gaze unfocussed, the coffee table blurring as he licks some icing off his bottom lip. “You?” He asks after way too much awkward silence. “Anyone special roaming ‘round this place?”

“Nope,” Castiel says, reaching for his plate as he turns away from Dean. “Nothing serious in a while, anyway.” He shoves a giant bite of dessert between his lips, smiling around the sticky icing in a way Dean should not find totally adorable. “Just me,” he says, his words a garbled mess that Dean barely makes sense of.

Dean doesn’t say anything as he takes a bite of his own dessert, but something in his chest settles a little. The pressure behind his ribs eases, and he relaxes into the couch cushion.

Maybe things are starting to turn around for him.

The minute Dean steps inside his apartment, his phone chimes with a new email. Not a text, or a voicemail, but an actual fucking email. Probably spam mail from that one time Dean bought a t-shirt at Hot Topic and he couldn’t bring himself to look the tattooed, pierced teen in the eye and tell her he, a thirty-two year old man, doesn’t have an email.

He’s still riding high from his evening with Cas, his skin all tingly and his heart light as air, so what’s a silly spam email? They’ve got to do their advertising somehow.

With an absentminded smile, Dean pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens his email as he kicks off his boots, scanning his inbox for the unopened mail.

Dean stops.

One boot still on, half balanced on his heel, teetering, tipping. His shoulder hits the wall beside the door.

His smile falls away as he opens the email.

Dear Dean Winchester,

You are cordially invited to witness the nuptials of Lisa Braeden and Matt—

Dean stops reading. He deletes the email, then hits undo. He reads it again, his heart clawing up his throat to perch on the edge of his windpipe. 

She’s inviting me to her wedding.

They broke up not even two months ago and she’s inviting him to her wedding. What the actual fucking fuck?

In the dim light of his empty apartment, Dean’s not sure what to do. He stands there, shoulder digging into the drywall, one boot on, one off, waiting for the answer to spring out from behind the curtains.

A mix of confusion and hurt swirl inside him, rising up faster than he knows what to do with before morphing into anger. He throws his phone at the back of the couch, feeling himself start to spiral. Panic wells up in his chest as the anger grows hotter, because how fucking dare she? It’s a bitch slap to the face, a fuck you to the nine years they spent together, and even if Dean never really loved her like that, he did love her, and he thought she loved him.

So why the hell would she invite him to her wedding so soon after they broke up?

Why is she getting married so soon after they broke up?

It’s something Dean has been keeping in a carefully labeled, locked, and land-mined box in the dusty corners of his mind, refusing to touch the possibility until he absolutely has to.

Until now, when just beyond his lock screen is that, and he can’t figure out why, and his heart is thumping against his chest wall in a horrific beat, so hard it might crack a rib.

What if she didn’t move on quickly? What if she’d moved on long before they ended?

What if she wanted to get married, just not to him?

“Fuck—fuck,” Dean gasps, panic sliding fast and hot through him, every breath tearing out of his lungs like a ripcord, springing back in just as fast. He doesn’t know what to do. What is he supposed to do?

There’s no answer. No way out of the shitshow that is his life. No way to fix whatever cosmic fuckup he made in a past life to wind up here.

“Dear Reader,” Dean pants, a spark of something in his chest when he remembers the paper. Remembers the advice, the reasoning.

Dean stumbles across the small space, shaky fingers reaching for the old shoebox full of newspaper cutouts he keeps on top of the fridge.

The box slips from his hands, tumbling to the stained linoleum, papers scattering the floor. Dean drops to his knees, sweeping the articles toward him with frantic, clawing hands. 

There’s gotta be answers here somewhere, he just needs to find them.

“No, no, no, no,” Dean murmurs, hours later, the last of the Dear Reader articles falling onto the floor beside him. An empty bottle of bourbon rolls on the floor beside him, drip-dripping its last-ditch efforts to send Dean to oblivion onto the tile.

Defeat settles in Dean’s stomach, burning with a sour sickness as he slumps sideways against the cupboard doors.

There’s nothing.

No answers for what to do, and Dean’s too tired, too drunk, to try to find some anywhere else. 

He lets his eyes close, lets his muscles sink into the unyielding wood, and tries not to dwell on what a fool he was for thinking he was actually getting his shit together.

Turns out, Dean’s just ninety percent crap.

Chapter Text

Somewhere between waking up on the kitchen floor and narrowly making it over the toilet before he throws up, Dean decides he’s going to figure out who the fuck this CJN guy is. He’s got a few choice words for the advice aficionado, and he wants to know what the fuck is up with the lack of any useful advice.

By the time Dean’s done wiping his mouth and has stumbled his drunken ass to the couch, he’s starting to think he actually just wants to meet the poor motherfucker who’s gone through all that shit and come out the other side. 

Maybe he can offer Dean a little bit of hope, if nothing else.

The problem is, he doesn’t exactly know where to start looking. Obviously, they don’t want to be found, ‘cause there’s no info on the paper’s website, no full name or photo connecting Dear Reader to a writer, and Dean doubts he’ll get anywhere by calling them up and asking.

The only other option he’s got is to get his stalker on, and he’s not sure he’s ready to stoop that low just yet.

So he does the next best thing; he asks Cas.

“You wouldn’t happen to know the person who writes Dear Reader, would you?” He asks one night over his third beer and second bowl of Chex Mix.

Castiel stops what he’s doing to look over at him, a beer half-poured under the tap. He just stares, blue eyes boring into Dean like he doesn’t quite understand the question. Like Dean is over here spouting nonsense. 

Castiel scrutinizes him some more before he turns back to the beer. “Why do you want to know?” He says, answering a question with a question like the infuriating asshole he is, because Dean’s not about to tell him why. Not a chance in hell.

“No reason,” he says, about as convincing as low sugar, fat free chocolate pudding. “Just curious.”

Castiel takes the answer for what it is, but doesn’t give one of his own. He turns away from Dean, heading for the other side of the bar with the beers, leaving Dean to stew in just how unhelpful that was. 

Fine, stalking it is, then.

“It’s just not the right fit.”

Dean sags into Baby’s bench seat, his fragile hope shattering in the footwell as he stares, unseeing, at the Jiffy Lube across the street. “Mind telling me why?” Dean asks, because there’s no way he didn’t kill that interview, and it’s not like he doesn’t have the experience.

The guy sighs, not like Dean’s a pain in the ass, but like he’s just tired to the fucking core. “Look, you’re a great candidate, were in our top five, but you’ve got classic car experience, not modern shit, and that’s what we’re looking for.”

Dean opens his mouth to argue, to shout that it shouldn’t fucking matter—an engine’s an engine—but he stops himself before the words slip out. It’s not the same, and even if he does have experience with modern cars, it’s not what he wants.

“I get it,” Dean says, even if he doesn’t. No use burning bridges before he’s got a gig. 

“Look,” the guy says, the sound of a door closing traveling down the line. “I like you, man. You’re a good guy, so I’ll tell you something.”

Dean waits, a crease forming between his brows. A car pulls out of the Jiffy Lube shop across the way—a beat up old civic. 

“A buddy of mine is selling his shop. It’s on the DL, but I can put in a good word if you’re looking for a place of your own.”

Dean’s heart leaps, skittering inside his chest as his stomach flips on its head. “For real? Man, that’d be awesome.”His own shop. Dean’s thought about it, of course, but it was never the right time, never the right price, and he always had Bobby’s place. Now, though, he’s got nothing to lose, so why the fuck not? He’ll need a pretty hefty bank loan, but that’s a problem for future Dean to sort out. “I’d love to meet your buddy.”

“Done.”

Dean steps into the Roadhouse with a swagger and a grin, feeling hopeful for the first time in a while. Things are finally looking up—he’s got a meeting with Dick Roman, the car shop owner, he’s got an interview at the Roadhouse for some extra cash, and he’s got Cas.

Okay, so he doesn’t really have Cas, but hopefully by tonight he will.

“Winchester,” Castiel says the moment the bell above the door chimes, and Dean can’t help his stupid grin. “You’re late.”

“I’m ten minutes early, jackass,” he says, flipping the asshole off as he drops onto a stool. Castiel’s not looking at him, too damn busy tying his apron, but Dean can see that smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“Ellen’s not here yet,” Castiel says, glancing his way with those fucking gorgeous blue eyes, like he’s looking right through him all the damn time. “Here.” He tosses a newspaper at Dean, still folded, unread. “There’s a new one.”

Dean catches it, flipping the paper open to the op-ed section and the new Dear Reader. He scans the longer-than-normal article before dropping his elbows onto the bar and holding it up to his face to read.

Dear reader,

Bend when you can, snap when you have to.

The weight of the world is a funny thing when it’s sitting on your shoulders. It’ll tear you down, crush you like a bug, without ever showing itself. What a fickle thing, life is, tearing you down, building you up, breaking every little thing you’ve ever cared about.

When I was six years old, my parents thought I could try conversion therapy on for size. Apparently I had taken too much of a liking to my sister's dolls, and they didn’t like the way I combed my hair. Apparently it all screamed gay, and we couldn’t have that.

I was six years old the first time I broke. 

Do you know what they do at conversion therapy? Do you know what they do to a six year old to make sure to nip it in the bud? The gayness, that is. Like a disease, they treat it, and to a six year old, there’s no bending, there’s only breaking.

I was fourteen years old the first time I tested out my parents’ theory, and holy shit, guess what! I’m fucking gay, and the conversion therapy didn’t work, so all that pain, all that humiliation, all that fucking trauma, was for nothing. It wasn’t beautiful, or poetic, or insightful; it just fucking hurt.

I’m thirty-five now, and everything hurts. It’s never stopped hurting, and I don’t think it ever will. 

So, take it from me: bend. Bend as far as you can, but don’t break unless you have to. Don’t break unless there’s no other choice, because there’s no way you’ll ever put yourself back together again. 

And if you do figure out how to do it, let me know, because I’m still fucked.

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

Dean scans the article again, his heart aching for a six year old kid. He can’t imagine what that must’ve been like, and he has to close his eyes, take a few breaths before he throws up, because… shit. The Dear Reader series is barely a sliver of this guy’s life, and if the sliver is this bad, he can’t imagine what the rest of it was like.

“That bad, huh?” Castiel says, sliding a beer Dean’s way, crisp and cold and perfect. Fuck, Castiel is good. The best.

“Worse,” he says, folded the paper back up haphazardly before taking a swig of his beer. It bubbles all the way down his throat, not helping with the whole nausea thing.

“Hmm,” Castiel hums, but doesn’t ask for further details. Dean doesn’t really expect him to; he doesn’t usually. “Ellen just came in the back.”

For a second, Dean doesn’t understand the words coming out of Castiel’s mouth. Until he does. And now he’s sweating. Profusely.

“Okay,” Dean breathes, trying to calm himself down. “Okay.”

“She’s in the back,” Castiel tells him, just standing there, watching with a little grin.

“Okay.”

“I’ll show you where to go.” The grin gets bigger, and one eyebrow goes up over laughing blues.

“Okay.” He doesn’t move.

“Dean.”

Dean blinks, swallows hard, and tries to pull himself together. It’s just an interview. Just a random job in some random bar. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t.

That thought gets Dean off the stool, and he manages to follow Castiel around the bar without passing out. The view he’s got of Castiel’s ass in those tight jeans sure as fuck doesn’t hurt, so he focusses on that.

“Ellen,” Castiel says, poking his head through the open door at the end of the hall. “I have Dean here.”

“Send him in,” a rough, older voice says, and when Dean looks past Castiel into the poorly lit office, he finds a woman sitting behind a desk, her light brown hair tied into a knot with pencil, the chewed end sticking straight up from the back of her head.

“Hi,” Dean says, pouring on the patented Winchester charm as he holds out his hand. “Dean.”

Ellen arches an eyebrow, but shakes his hand with a firm grip. “Nice to meet ya, Dean. Sit.” Dean does as he’s told, not daring to look over his shoulder when the door clicks shut at his back. 

“So, you want a job,” Ellen says, shuffling some paperwork around, and Dean gets the feeling she’s trying to make him nervous. Fuck, if it ain’t working, too. “Why?”

“Uh…” Dean says, blue screening like the fucking self-sabotaging idiot he is. “I need the money.”

Another brow-raise, higher this time, and Dean’s stomach drops. 

“That the only reason?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He swallows hard, holding his chin high and forcing himself to make eye contact. You know, go down with the ship, and all that.

She watches him for a while, studies him, and Dean’s just about to sink right through the floor from the scrutiny when she finally speaks.

“Good. The job’s yours.”

“Really?” That’s it? No what are your qualifications? No what kind of experience do you have? Dean’s been to enough interviews in the last month to know this ain’t one.

“When can you start?” Ellen pulls open the bottom drawer of her desk and takes out a folder. She flips it open and hands Dean one of the stapled packets, the words Employment Information on the front in bold letters.

“Uh, tomorrow?” Is this really happening? He’s been busting his ass for a job, and this one just fell into his lap, no question. It’s almost too good to be true.

“Be here at noon. I’ll get Castiel in early to give you the rundown.” Then she gets back down to work, and Dean’s dismissed. 

He stands, the chair scraping loud and obnoxious against the scuffed hardwood. “Thanks,” he says, and she throws up a hand to wave him off. He takes that as his cue to leave, and hurries out of her office.

Castiel is waiting for him at the end of the hall, leaning against the pool table, arms folded, biceps bulging, over his broad chest. Fuck, Dean would sink his teeth into those arms any day of the week. Heat buzzes through his veins, a shiver working its way through him at the look in Castiel’s eyes—like Dean’s the only person in the whole fucking world worth looking at.

“Well?” Castiel says, his voice a low growl as his eyes travel up from Dean’s bow-legged gate to his mouth, then finally to his eyes—fuck.

“You’re looking at your new coworker,” Dean says, spreading his arms wide with a grin. “ And the reason you’re coming in early tomorrow.”

Castiel’s smile drops away, a scowl replacing it as he straightens up from the wall. “Well, fuck you too.”

Dean grins, a laugh bubbling up in his chest, and he slaps Castiel’s shoulder on his way back into the front of the bar. “Get me a beer, would you?”

“Bite me,” Castiel grumbles, but swings behind the bar as Dean drops onto his regular bar stool. And ain’t that just fucking depressing—he’s got a regular stool like every other alcoholic in the world.

“How hard?” He shoots Castiel a wink and a charming grin, which Castiel chooses to ignore as he bends to grab a beer from the fridge. 

Like a dog with a fucking bone, Dean’s eyes latch onto the curve of his ass and those goddamn runner’s thighs. 

Fuck, what was it Dear Reader said about bending? ‘Cause sure as hell likes the way it looks on Castiel.

“Fuck yes,” Dean murmurs as the eight ball sinks into the far left pocket. Another win, which gets him a free beer on whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is and a spot in the next game if he wants. He looks up at the guy who just won’t quit. “Just in time, man,” Dean says before draining his beer. “Was afraid I’d have to buy my own.”

“I swear to God, Winchester,” a low, gravelly, made-for-sex voice says in his ear, “If you show up hungover tomorrow, I’m making you scrub the fucking toilets.” 

Dean shivers, swaying toward the whisper of breath against his ear. He can practically feel Castiel’s body heat against his back, seeping into his bones, and all Dean wants to do is lean into him.

“Damn, Cas,” he says, already halfway in the bag as he spins to face his new supervisor. “Bet you’re real fun at parties.”

Castiel arches on eyebrow, clearly unimpressed, and takes the empty bottle from Dean’s hand. “I’m cutting you off.”

“Aw, c’mon, man!” Pool game forgotten, Dean follows Castiel back to the bar, hot on his heels, so close he’s just about bags himself on the swinging, hip-height door Castiel slams behind him to block Dean from stepping behind the bar.

Dean finds his stool and drops onto it, ignoring the watchful eyes of the other drunks as Castiel plunks a glass of ice water down in front of him. “Bottoms up.”

“Good thing you’re so fucking hot, man,” Dean says, sipping his water as he watches Castiel work. “‘Cause otherwise, I might just fucking hate your guts.”

“Hmm,” Castiel hums, and the sound does something strange to Dean’s insides. Twists them all up in knots. “You keep telling yourself that.”

“‘m serious. You got this whole,” he starts, waving a palm at Castiel as he looks him up and down, “dark and brooding thing going on. It’s hot as fuck.” When did he decide he could flirt with Castiel, anyway? He hasn’t had that much to drink, but holy shit, it’s like verbal vomit over here. “But you’re funny as hell, man, and God knows why you hang out with my messed up ass, but…” Dean trails off with a shrug.

“You’re not messed up, Dean,” Castiel murmurs, kind of quiet, not looking at him, and it kind of looks like he’s being shy. Huh.

Dean snorts. “You don’t know the half of it.”

Then Castiel’s eyes are on him, pinning him down, holding him to the spot. Dean’s breath catches in his lungs, and he swears that, for half a second, his heart stops beating. Just quits, no more, finite-o, nada. Like the earth grinds to a halt.

“Maybe not,” Castiel says, and something about the way he’s looking at Dean makes him think there’s more on Castiel’s mind than what he’s saying.

“Go out with me.” The words fall out of Dean’s mouth before he can stop them. Before he can think about what they are and what they mean. About what they might do to him.

Because who is he kidding? Castiel’s way too fucking good for him, and there’s no way he doesn’t see that. But, fuck, it’s worth a shot, right?

Castiel just stares at him. Stares and stares and stares. He breathes in, sucking in so much air, Dean thinks he might burst. Might swallow up the whole world.

“Yes.”

“What?” Dean asks, because there’s no way he heard that right. He leans closer, angling one ear toward the hot-as-sin bartender, just in case. “Come again? Don’t think I heard that let him down easy quite right. Wanna give it another go?”

Castiel grins. Shakes his head. Leans in. Breathes deep one more time.

“Yes.”

Chapter Text

The problem with working with the guy he asked out on a date the night before is that everything is just a little bit awkward. 

There’s all this anticipation bubbling up in Dean’s chest, all these expectations and hopes and fear, but right now he’s gotta push that all aside, try not to stare at Castiel’s ass for eight hours, and actually listen when he explains the proper way to scrape gum off the bottom of the tables.

“Are you even listening to me?” Castiel snaps, all faux-angry and unfairly hot. He’s scowling at Dean, trowel in hand, and his hair a tangled mess like he didn’t do much more than roll out of bed and throw on some pants.

Dean snaps his gaze back to Castiel’s face. “Course I’m listenin’,” he says, shooting Castiel a playful little grin, but he only half feels it. “Parallel blade, try not to chip the paint, don’t eat the gum I find—got it.”

Castiel shoots him a dirty look, but hands over the trowel. “Your turn, smart ass,” he says, before turning on his heel and walking his fine ass back behind the bar. And, damn, if Dean doesn’t watch him the whole way there.

It’s been exactly forty-two minutes and thirteen seconds since either of them has said anything, and Dean is kicking his own ass for asking Castiel out the day before starting his new job. How fucking dumb can a person get? Either way, with a yes or a no, this was going to be awkward, and fuck if that doesn’t kill the mood before anything happens.

Just breathe close to Dean’s self-destruct button and it goes off, for fuck’s sake.

“I’m going on break,” Castiel says, a whole forty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds after the last time he spoke. “Don’t burn the place down while I’m gone.”

“I’ll burn it down with myself inside,” Dean grumbles, still scraping fucking gum like he isn’t a talented mechanic whose hands could be put to much better used inside an engine.

Castiel doesn’t acknowledge his grumbling as he pushes through the kitchen door and disappears inside, taking his perfect ass with him.

Dean drops into the chair at his back, all the air escaping his lungs in one big whoosh. God, this is the worst, and he doesn’t know how to make it any less awkward without fucking the whole thing up. Should he bring up the date? Should he wait until after his shift? Would that be weird?

Done with the gum, Dean tosses the trowel and bucket aside, looking around the dark bar for something else to do to keep his mind off of Castiel.

What he finds is a newspaper, unfolded, worn at the edges, read and read and read again. He wanders to the table where it rests, back by the hallway to the offices and bathrooms, and drops onto the high stool closest to him. He flips it open, going immediately to the op-eds, the habit ingrained in him now.

The Dear Reader is one he hasn’t read before, but a quick flip to the front of the paper tells him it’s not new. One from before he moved to Kansas City, then.

Dear reader,

You don't have to answer just ‘cause they asked you.

In the years after The Incident, my parents would hound me with questions—what are you doing? Where are you going? Why do you spend so much time with him? I would always answer, and I was always honest, because I always thought they already knew.

They knew I was gay, so why wouldn’t they know I was fucking Inias Cooper in the old portable between third and fourth period?

No, that’s not his real name. Give me a break.

This great and terrible thing I had done would come out eventually, so why not tell them sooner rather than later, right? If they ask, I’ll tell them. If they ask, I’ll tell them. If they ask, I’ll tell them.

They never asked.

Not about the first time, or the next time, or the last time, and them not knowing, not asking, became this thing that I could hold up and say, “If you’d asked, I would’ve told you, but you didn’t!”

I was about fourteen then, when I realized they’d stopped caring.

It was like a pit of waiting, of nothing, of every little thing I’ve ever wanted to tell them burning through me, stuck inside me. I kept waiting for it, but my parents would pass through the rooms of the stately fucking manor I grew up in, glassy-eyed, nose in a book, in a newspaper, up the reverends ass, and they wouldn’t see me.

That’s when my life ended. That’s when it began again.

That’s when I learned I didn’t have to answer just ‘cause they asked me.

And neither do you.

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

Dean drops the paper back onto the table, something hollow thumping in his chest, an echoing rattle that doesn’t feel quite right. His parents weren’t perfect, his mom gone before he could really know her, but despite his dad’s many fuck ups, Dean doesn’t doubt he loved him and Sam. 

But this guy? To know, deep down inside you, that your parents just don’t care, that’s gotta be…

Fuck, that just really sucks.

But he got through it, and something about that, specifically, gives Dean hope that he can get through all of his shit, too.

“Got a meeting at the bank,” Dean says, untying his apron as his four-hour inventory shift winds to a close. The bar’s still not open yet, still a few hours away, but Dean wants to be gone before anyone else shows up for their shift.

“Really?” Castiel asks, all surprised, like Dean’s not the kind of guy he’d expect to deal with banks. “What for?”

“Uh,” Dean starts, a little distracted by the way Castiel worries his bottom lip between his teeth. Fuck, he wants to do that. “Gettin’ a loan for my own shop.”

“Really?”

Dean gives him a look. “S’that the only word in your vocabulary?” He says, and tries not to smirk when Castiel throws him the finger. “Something came up, and if I can get this loan, I can do what I’ve always wanted to do.” He shrugs, excited just by the thought, and backs towards the door. “See you,” he says, and throws up a hand in an awkward wave before turning around to leave.

“Dean—” Castiel cuts himself off, still behind the counter. Still too far away to be anything but awkward. 

Dean stops. He looks at him in the dim lights, he waits.

“Our date,” he says, stopping and starting a dozen times, one hand in the air, hovering like he can stop Dean from leaving with the sheer force of his will. “Tonight?”

Dean’s heart leaps. Skips a beat. Stops altogether. “What time?”

“Meet me here at seven.”

“Don’t be late,” he says, shooting Castiel a stupid little wink as his back hits the door. He watches Castiel all the way out, nearly tripping over his own damn feet and the curb on his way to his car.

Castiel slides into the front seat of Baby, his work shirt stained with gravy and smelling like warm beer, hair a mess and his eyes bloodshot. Exhaustion sits on his skin like a fine sheen of sweat, clinging to every inch of him.

“We don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Castiel says, cutting him off with a tired smile. “Take me somewhere I don’t have to look nice.”

You always look nice, Dean thinks, then kicks himself for the chick-flick thought. “You got it,” he says instead, starting the car and peeling away from the curb before he can second-guess himself.

Dean ends up driving around in circles for about twenty minutes before Castiel directs him to a diner near the highway that apparently has the second best burger in town, behind the Roadhouse, of course.

It’s this little fifties style diner with the quarter jukebox at every table and the waitresses in bubblegum pink dress, and it’s tacky as hell, with the milkshake cups and the black and white tile floors, but Castiel holds the door for him, and he sits across the booth, and they smile at each other as the streetlights come on outside.

Sweat beads on Dean’s brow, the sticky afternoon heat clinging on for dear life as the wall clock ticks over to seven-thirty. He’s nervous as hell, sweaty-palms and all, but before he can say something embarrassing to break the tension, Castiel speaks.

“How’d the bank interview go?” He asks, and something about how normal that sounds pulls Dean back from his spiral. Castiel leans over the table, elbows digging into the turquoise surface as he locks eyes with Dean.

“Uh, not sure,” he says, not wanting to hope too much. Honestly, he thinks it went well, and with the way his luck’s been going, he’s bound to get it, but best not to jinx anything. “They were a bit concerned about the fact that I just started a new job today, but I don’t think it’ll matter.”

“That’s great,” Castiel says, still looking at him—into him—like he can read all his hidden little thoughts, see all his well kept secrets.

“So, if all goes well, I’ll be a shoe-in for the fastest busboy turn around in Roadhouse history.” And ain’t that something to put on a resume? Work history: Roadhouse - Thursday-Monday.

“Nah,” Castiel says, waving him off as the bubblegum waitress drops a couple waters off before disappearing back behind the counter. “Alfie’s got you beat for that one; the poor kid didn’t make it through forty-five minutes before he snapped under the pressure.”

“Sounds like you’re a bit of a hard-ass,” Dean says, tacking on a with a nice ass in his head because he just can’t help himself. He looks Castiel up and down, a steady buzz rising under his skin as he takes in Castiel’s broad shoulders stretching the thin cotton of his work shirt, his stubbled jaw, and those blue, blue eyes, staring right through him as he smirks… Fuck, Dean could just lick him all over, bend over this table and let Castiel pound his—

What were they talking about again?

“I guess you had better watch yourself, then,” Castiel murmurs, all low and gravelly, and so fucking hot Dean actually has to hold back a delighted little huff.

“Where’s the fun in that?” He says, leaning close, giving Castiel the kind of look he reserves for the bedroom. He sinks his teeth into his lower lip, loving the way Castiel’s eyes go all smoky, his mouth popping open on a breath as a flush rises in his cheeks. 

Castiel opens his mouth to respond, but the waitress chooses that moment to interrupt, a pad of paper and bright pink pom-pom topped pen in her hands.

Dean sits back in his chair, feeling every inch of his body that Castiel’s gaze tracks over, before he pulls up the menu for the first time and takes a look. “What do you have for burgers?”

“You weren’t fucking joking,” Dean says, licking his fingers as the last of his burger fills his cheeks. He’s sure he looks disgusting, but that burger was damn good, and he just can’t bring himself to care.

“I never joke about my meat, Dean.”

“Ha-ha,” Dean says, too full to feel sexy or flirty or whatever. Fuck, he might just have to undo the button on his jeans. “Your meat second best, too?” Dean raises an eyebrow, swallowing down the food kind of meat in his mouth, before he snatches up a napkin and wipes his face.

“Would you like to find out?” That smirk is back, all sexy and terrifying. Dean hasn’t been with a guy since Benny way back in college, and fuck if that ain’t making him all kinds of nervous.

“Don’t fuck on the first date,” he says instead, like a goddamn idiot, because not Castiel’s raising his brows, looking at him like he’s got something to say about that.

“You haven’t been on a first date in nine years.” And yeah, that’s true, but it’s also true that there’s no way Dean would say no to Castiel if he asked to fuck him. He’d have to say please, though—Dean’s not that easy.

“Did you grow up in the city? Country?” Dean says, changing the subject like he changed into Rhonda Hurley’s pink satiny panties when she offered ‘em up with a pretty little grin—fucking fast and furious.

“No.” Castiel doesn’t look away from him, eyes locked on his, a not-quite smile on his face, and Dean would be lying if he said it doesn’t make him a little nervous.

When Castiel doesn’t elaborate, Dean presses. “So you dropped out of the sky? C’mon, man, I feel like I barely know you.”

“Could say the same for you,” Castiel retorts, all logical sense and shit. Fuck him.

“Fine.” Dean crosses his arms over his chest, his skin prickling, stomach flip-flopping, because this is all getting very real, very fast. He doesn’t want to talk about himself or where he came from. It’s not exactly rainbows and butterflies; he’s got more baggage than the underbelly of a Boeing 747-8. “Born in Lawrence, my dad moved us around a lot, but I went back there when he died.”

“How’d he die?” Castiel asks, finger-tapping the edge of the table, off-beat and too hot for Dean to think straight—fuck, he needs to get laid.

“Nope—your turn.” Not a chance he’s letting Cas slip one by on him, even with those fingers playing tricks, all strong and nimble.

Castiel lets out a sigh that puts Sam to shame, that finger still tap-tap-tapping away as he glances up at the ceiling, looking for all the world like he’d rather not talk about it. “Illinois,” he says, and Castiel thinks he’s not going to elaborate again, but he does, if just a little bit. “I left long after I should’ve.”

Dean doesn’t push, sitting back in the booth as the bubblegum waitress comes around to clean up their plates. There’s this feeling settling in his gut that he can’t quite name, dark and heavy, nagging at him to look closer, but he shoves it off.

“Anything else you want to enlighten me with?” Dean says, injecting some humor into his words when the whole thing starts feeling a little too much like a chick-flick moment.

Castiel grins, and even if it’s only half-hearted, it’s still nice to look at. “I’m not an only child?” Castiel says, more like a question than anything, and why the hell is he being so cagey?

“Neither am I,” Dean says, injecting some wryness into his tone as he raises his eyebrows and gives Castiel a look.

Castiel sighs. “I don’t like talking about it.”

“What?”

“Me.”

“Damn, and here I was thinking you were full of yourself.”

“Fuck off,” Castiel snaps, but he’s smiling now, and this one is real. “You’re not exactly forthcoming, either.”

Dean throws his arms out at his sides, holding them wide. “I’m an open book.”

“With blank pages.”

“You calling me shallow?” Dean mocks offence, slapping a hand to his chest like Castiel has cut him deep. “Rude.”

Castiel rolls his eyes, obviously choosing to ignore him. “When are you going to fix my car?” He says instead, dropping his chin onto his propped up hand, elbow wobbling on the table’s surface. 

“Uh, never, asshole.” Dean flicks a stray piece of bun at his date, but it flies wide, landing on the seat beside him.

“You are such a sweet-talker, Dean Winchester. Just makes my southern-boy heart melt.” Castiel presses a hand over his heart, all fluttering lashes and biting sarcasm.

“You’re not southern.” And Dean is a sweet-talker when he wants to be. “But you are a pain in my ass.”

Before Castiel can get a word out between his parted lips, Dean lets the toe of his boot slide up his ankle, lifting the hem of Castiel’s dark-wash jeans. His heart is pounding, hands just this side of shaking, and he’s not sure if it’s giddiness or nerves that’s got his skin prickling all over. He toes off his boot to get a socked toe on Castiel’s calf.

Castiel’s eye twitches, and Dean just about loses his composure right then and there. Fuck, is it fun to mess with him, even if Dean’s own heart is beating out of his chest, and he’s hard as a rock in his jeans. 

Okay, so maybe he’s messing with himself, too.

“Have you read the newest Dear Reader?” Castiel asks, an obvious and desperate attempt to pull himself together, and Dean raises an eyebrow as Castiel gulps. “S’pretty neat.”

“Didn’t know you were such a fan,” Dean murmurs, letting his toes slide up the outside of Castiel’s jeans, stroking his calf and the bend of his knee. “Did I tell you I’m tryna figure out who it is?”

“What?” Castiel snaps, all sexual-frustration-fuelled desperation gone in the half second it takes Dean to drop his elbows onto the table. “Why?”

Dean clams up, leaning back again as he looks out the window at the dark parking lot. He shrugs. “Might help me through my shit.” He shrugs again, humiliation bubbling up his throat.

“You think someone that fucked up could help you?” It’s a genuine question; Dean hears the sincerity in his voice, but there’s also skepticism there, and it catches Dean’s attention.

“They went through all that shit,” Dean says, feeling all this righteous… he doesn’t even know, boiling inside him as he leans over the table. “And got through it. They give advice—damn good advice, Cas, and maybe if I could just talk to them, I could—”

He stops himself, shaking his head as he fixates on something just over Castiel’s left shoulder. He doesn’t know what he was going to say, really. It’s just a feeling, no words marching in behind to describe it. There’s this burning, sinking pit in his stomach, this ache that he hasn’t been able to categorize, but it’s been there for weeks, months—hell, fucking years. 

This hopelessness, this hatred. It lives inside him.

“Talk to me,” Castiel says, simple. 

“What?” What is he saying? Dean is talking to him.

“Talk to me, Dean. Forget him. Talk to me.” Castiel leans forward, and before Dean can figure out what he’s doing, Castiel snatches up his hand, staring into his fucking soul with those piercing blue eyes. “Please.”

No. No, Dean can’t do that. He won’t, because if Castiel knew all the tiny little fucked up parts of him; all the stupid shit he’s done, he’d leave. He’d turn his back and walk out without a second thought, and Dean can’t have that. Castiel is something good in his life right now—real fucking good—and he can’t risk throwing it all away.

So, instead, Dean pulls out his wallet, throws a couple bills on the table, and stands. “C’mon,” he says, picking Castiel’s hand up off the table on his way past, and Castiel hurries to follow, swinging out of the booth with a muted grunt. 

“Dean—”

Dean doesn’t stop, his fingers tightening on Castiel’s, convulsing around them like Cas might pull away. They step out into the balmy night air, cicadas rattling in the trees, bats dipping and diving in the blue lagoon sky, and Dean in front of Cas, hurrying across day-baked asphalt to the Impala.

It sits in a pool of yellow lamp light, too bright for what Dean’s about to do next. 

He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

Dean pulls Castiel around by the hand, spinning him, pressing him against the polished surface of his Baby. Panic rattles around in his bones, pressing against his lungs, his windpipe, right down to his aching hands that grab and hold on.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Hands on Castiel’s neck, his jaw, his hair, his hip—Dean kisses him. He leans in close, presses himself right up tight, and kisses Castiel until the pain, the panic, melts away.

Until there’s nothing inside but the kind of warmth he’s been looking for all his life.

Until there’s nothing but him and Castiel. 

Castiel, Castiel, Castiel, kissing him back with every ounce, every inch, every breath inside him.

Castiel’s hands travel up his sides, strong and sure, tucking under his shirt as he spreads his legs and lets one of Dean’s knees press between them.

“Thought,” Castiel pants, pulling himself away for half a second before nipping at Dean’s bottom lip. “You didn’t fuck on the first date?”

Dean snorts, digging his fingers into Castiel’s thick hair as the kiss slows. “This your idea of fuckin’?” He grinds his hips into Castiel’s thigh, a breathy moan stuttering out of him as his stiff cock twitches in his jeans.

“It’s not not fucking,” Castiel murmurs, half slurred by the tongue in his mouth, and then he’s not saying anything at all as Dean leans his full weight against him. God, it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Pleasure like nothing else rockets through him, and when he starts, he can’t stop, grinding into Castiel’s leg like a fucking dog with its favourite toy.

“In the car,” Dean huffs, fumbling for his keys, his fingers all stiff and shaky, and it takes him far longer than it should, but he gets the doors unlocked. 

It takes some maneuvering, since Castiel isn’t exactly accommodating, but eventually Dean gets the back door open and they tumble onto the bench seat.

“Oof,” Castiel grunts, and Dean lifts his weight off of him just long enough for Castiel to catch his breath and scoot back until his head bumps the far door. “Still not fucking?”

“No,” Dean grunts, leaning back to pull the door shut, his knees digging into the leather seat on either side of Castiel’s hips. He punches the lock for good measure before twisting back around and diving into another kiss. “Not fucking, just—” He cups Castiel’s face in both hands, kissing him deep and filthy, slow and carnal, like he’ll die if he stops.

“Yeah,” Castiel pants, but the word is smushed between their lips, mangled and bitten off as Dean grinds against Castiel’s hips, their erections rubbing against each other with delicious friction.

They don’t speak again, not in any intelligible way, anyway. Dean doesn’t waste any time undoing Castiel’s fly and getting a hand on him, all slick sliding of pre-come and sweat, and it has Cas’s head tipping back, bumping against the door as he bucks his hips.

“F-fuck, Dean,” he whimpers, fingers digging bruises into Dean’s hips as he grinds him down harder, and it almost hurts, but he loves the pain. Needs it.

Castiel manages to get his hands on Dean’s zipper, pulling it down with clumsy hands before shoving his pants and boxers around his thighs. Castiel wraps a hand around Dean’s cock, jerking him hard and fast, and it pulls a stuttering breath from Dean’s lungs.

Dean pitches forward, slamming their mouths together in a clash of teeth, biting and sucking and kissing as he grinds against Castiel’s hand. Sweat beads on his forehead and the small of his back, and somewhere in his periphery, he can see condensation building up on the windows as their rough, panting breaths fill the car.

It’s quick and dirty, all fumbling hands and grinding hips, Dean’s mouth on Castiel’s neck, sucking bruises along his throat, Castiel’s free hand in his hair, pulling him closer, closer, closer.

Pleasure rips through Dean, pressure building at the base of his spine, tingling through his limbs until—

“Fuck!” He shouts, coming all over Castiel’s work shirt in thick spurts. He jerks his hips in a stuttering rhythm, slapping his free hand on the window for balance and pulling on Castiel’s cock as he watches Cas’s neck muscles strain as he grinds his teeth. 

Castiel comes with a strangled moan, his semen joining Dean’s in the mess between them, mixing together as Dean lets his weight settle over Castiel.

For a long time, they don’t move, staying just like that as they come down from the delirious high.

“Still not fucking?” Castiel asks after a while, his voice all gravelly and hoarse as he pulls his hand out from between them and settles it on Dean’s bare ass.

Dean lets out a breathy laugh, still a little winded as he nips at Castiel’s jaw. “Nah,” he says, nuzzling deeper into the warmth of Castiel’s neck.

“Why not?” Castiel murmurs, his fingers tightening on his ass, squeezing tight enough to leave a mark. Dean would be lying if he said he doesn’t like the idea of that—makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

“‘Cause,” he says, that warm feeling growing as he meets Castiel’s eyes, a smirk lifting one side of his mouth. “I don’t fuck on the first date.”

Chapter Text

Today is the day.

He’s got the realtor on speed dial, his check book at the ready, and his phone plugged in to charge.

The bank opens at nine, and the final bids for the the shop are due by the end of the say, all that’s left is for Dean to get that loan.

He’s been trying not to think about it too hard since there’s nothing he can do but wait, but in the week since his first date with Castiel, he’s been feeling hopeful. His first pay check comes out in a week, and he’s got another date with Cas at the end of the week.

Things are looking up for him, and he’s got a good feeling about this, too.

It’s his day off from the bar, but he’s up early to make the call. The agent he spoke to last week said they’d call in a few days to let him know, but a few days has come and gone, so he figures a Monday morning, nine o’clock call is warranted.

His coffee sits on the kitchen counter, steam rising from the black liquid, just about forgotten as the clock on the far wall ticks over to the hour. The second his home screen lights up with the nine, colon, zero, zero, he snatches it up and dials the bank.

One ring, two. Three and four. Five—

The woman on the other end barely gets through her greeting before Dean interrupts her. “Name’s Dean Winchester—I’m calling about a loan application.”

“I will just need some verifying information from you, Mr. Winchester,” she says, and they run through the gambit of making sure he really is who he says he is. Every time she calls him Mr. Winchester, he cringes, reminded too much of his father for his liking, but he tries to ignore the anxious feeling it stirs inside him.

After five minutes of verification, three transfers, and a combined twenty minutes on hold, a man picks up, his British accent thick and smarmy.

“Dean,” the man says, like they’re old friends, and suddenly Dean misses Mr. Winchester. “Fergus Crowley,” he adds, like Dean gives a fuck about his name. “You were on my list to call today, but since I have you now.”

“Okay,” he says, waving a hand in a move it along gesture that nobody but himself can see. “What’s the news on my loan?”

“We went over you financials—assets, debt, etcetera—and we found that you have a substantial loan already in place, with a balance that supersedes our maximum loan allowance,” Crowley says, all of which Dean already knows. Sam’s school loan has been hanging over his head for years, but he’s been making steady payments, which has got to be good for his credit score, right?

“Student loan, yeah,” he says, is nerves making him impatient. “It’s my brothers.”

“Well, that is neither here nor there,” Crowley says, and Dean can practically see the smirk on his face. Like this is how he gets his kicks. “The loan is in your name, unpaid, which leads me to the reason you rushed to make this early morning call.”

Something twists in Dean’s stomach, acid and burning.

“Due to this outstanding loan, we are unable grant you another. Now, if that is all, I have other clients to ring.” Crowley hangs up.

“Motherfucker!” Dean shouts, flinging his phone across the room, charger and all, as his hopes die away. His phone bounces off the couch and hits the floor, undamaged, but he can’t bring himself to care. This was his last shot, his best shot at getting his shit together, at doing something right for a change, and it’s gone. Up in smoke like the rest of his fucking life.

Dean bracing his hands against the counter and bows his head, feeling the anger rising in his throat, aching in his chest. Bitterness leaps up to match it, a dark, ugly thought coming right alongside it.

If Sam had just gone to a cheaper school… If he’d just let his brother pay his own way instead of helping…

Maybe he’d have his own shop, and his own dreams, and his own fucking life.

“Hi, I’m calling about the commercial property you have for sale,” Dean says when a man answers the phone with a tired hello. “I’m interested, but I’ll need a bit more time to scrape a down payment together.” It’s his last-ditch attempt at getting the place, a shot in the dark if there ever was one.

“Don’t have one for sale,” the man grunts, springs creaking in the background like he’s rolling out of bed. “It closed this morning.”

“It wasn’t supposed to close until the end of the day!” This can’t be happening. Even with the loan, he’d be fucked, and isn’t that just the kicker? Either way, he loses.

“They paid in full, in cash, now if you don’t mind, I’ve got a few more Zs to catch—goodbye.” He hands up, and once again, Dean’s left with nothing but the dial tone to keep him company.

He doesn’t even bother getting angry this time; there’s no one to be mad at but himself.

Dean’s sour mood doesn’t dissipate as the day wears on. He sinks into his bitterness, letting it consume him as he lies flat on his back on the couch, staring up at the dark ceiling, curtains drawn and lights off.

There’s nowhere for him to go, nothing for him to. He doesn’t even have the energy to look into who CJN really is. He’s hit a wall with that anyway, not having found a single person from conversion therapy states with the same initials from a religious family. Not in the phonebook, anyway, or any of the high school year books.

So he sits in the dark and spirals, lost for what to do next, his whole life falling apart around him.

After a while, feeling sorry for himself gets old, too, so he goes back to Dear Reader to get his mind off the shit show of his life. There’s a new one today, dropped off on his doorstep with a rubber band holding all the pages together.

Rubber band now flung behind his bed somewhere, he sits on the floor with the rest of the papers spread out around him, the new Dear Reader front and centre. 

With the curtains still closed, Dean uses the flashlight on his phone to read the article.

Dear reader,

The greatest of luxuries is your secrets. There’s nothing I held dearer than the truths that were my own as a child, and that, it seems, has carried into my adulthood. As it turns out, secrets can end up saving your life. Well, if they’re kept secret, anyway. My secrets made not secret would have been what killed me.

When I was seventeen, my parents had their heads so far in the sand that they actually accused me of getting a girl pregnant. Her parents went to our church, and the girl and I were close friends, so her parents made a reasonable leap to that conclusion.

My parents believed them wholeheartedly, wanted me to marry her; she, of course, said nothing to the contrary and everyone was decided that we would have a spring wedding and a premature baby.

Me? Rock and a hard place.

Being gay was not only the worst thing in the world in my parents eyes, it also meant that all their prayers had gone unanswered; their God had failed them, humiliated them, and that would have been my fault.

So, we married. She wore a loose white dress to hide her belly, it was a small ceremony with her parents and mine as witnesses. We said our vows before God, murmured our I dos, and shared the most pathetic kiss possible.

When it came time to file our marriage license at the courthouse, I offered to take it down.

Bags packed, lighter in hand, the marriage was over before it started and I was gone, secrets still tucked close to my heart.

If you insist on taking any advice from me, let it be this: never let your secrets stray too far, and if you absolutely must, burn everything down around you if it means keeping them safe.

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

Something occurs to Dean about halfway through the article, and the moment he reaches the bottom of the page, he reads it again, the nagging thought solidifying in his mind.

What if C.J.N. didn’t live in a conversion therapy state? What if their parents travelled? It’s not exactly a lead, and it’s a long shot at best, but it’s something. 

Before he can do anything about it, his phone rings, and he answers without bothering to check the caller ID.

“Yeah,” he says, pushing off the floor with a wince as his knees ache and pop. He’s getting too old to be kneeling on the hardwood.

There’s a long pause on the other end, then— “Dean?”

Dean’s stops dead in his tracks, halfway across the room, heading for the fridge, when his blood goes cold. “Lisa,” he says, suddenly wary, like if he moves too fast, speaks too loudly, she’ll pop out of the corners and get him.

“I, um—how are you?”

“Fine.” What does she want? Like she hasn’t fucked up his life enough. Sure, he’s got Cas now, and he doesn’t care about her in that way, but she’s getting married for fuck’s sake, so again, what does she want?

“I hadn’t… I didn’t get your RSVP,” she says, all hesitant now, like she’s just realizing how badf of an idea calling is. “I know this all seems fast, but when you know, you know, right?” She lets out a nervous, squeaky laugh as Dean’s stomach drops out of his ass and he feels a whole new kind of shitty. “Anyway, since you and I were friends, I just thought… well, I’d love it if you could come to the wedding.” Another pause, then, “Maybe even give me away?”

“You can’t be serious,” he says, anger and disbelief surging up in equal measure, but she can’t actually be serious, right? This is a joke. It has to be. “Tell me you’re fucking joking.”

Another laugh, and this one sounds a little like she thinks he’s stupid. “No? Look, I know things didn’t work out the way you wanted with us, but we both saw the end coming—”

“How long were you cheating before you left me?” He snaps, at the end of his rope now. Dean stares at the fridge magnets, doing his best Homelander impression with the laser eyes through the fucking wall, but the lack of actual lasers kills the satisfaction.

Lisa huffs and puffs, trying, and failing, to sound indignant, but they both know the truth. No one gets married two months after breaking up with a longterm boyfriend if the hubby-to-be wasn’t already in the picture. 

“Couple months?” Dean says, goading her now as he finally makes it to the fridge. The interior light hasn’t worked in weeks, so he just stares into the dark fridge, the lonely jar of mayonnaise staring right back at him. “Couple of years?”

“Look, if you’re coming to the wedding, send in the RSVP, if not—”

“Goodbye, Lisa,” Dean says, hanging up on her mid-sentence before jamming his phone into his back pocket. Anger simmers in his gut, mixing with the earlier bitterness, with the sadness, until he can’t stand it anymore. 

And God knows Dean’s only got one cure for that.

Dean shakes the rain out of his hair as he steps through the doors of the Roadhouse, his leather jacket dripping water onto the scuffed wood floors as the scent of booze and grease waft over him. He takes a second to look around at the meagre crowd before making his way to his barstool and Cas.

Castiel hasn’t looked his way yet, but there’s no question that he knows he’s here. That damned smirk is in place as the asshole pours a beer, giving the frothy head all his attention as Dean peels his jacket off and drops onto the barstool.

“Winchester,” he says, all what are you doing here? Like this isn’t a free country and he can’t come to his place of work on his day off for a drink or five.

“Hey, baby,” Dean murmurs, leaning forward with his arms on the bar, and that gets Castiel’s attention. Those startling blues snap up to his, catching and holding his gaze as he plunks the beer onto the bar for some guy Dean’s never seen before. “Got one of those for me?”

“That depends,” Castiel murmurs, leaning over the bar in a move that matches Dean’s, his half smirk firmly in place.

Dean arches an eyebrow, a tiny thrill shooting through him. “On?”

“If you plan on calling me Baby again.”

“Not a fan?” Dean leans closer, only a breath away. He licks his lips, wanting to badly to lean forward and kiss the cranky bastard, but not sure if Castiel would be okay with that just yet.

“You call your car Baby.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean’s eyes snag on Castiel’s plush bottom lip, and he wants nothing more than to sink his teeth into it. A rush of arousal floods him, sending his heart racing as Castiel’s eyes burn into him.

“Pick something else.” Castiel pushes himself away, hands still on the bar, but his arms locked at the elbows, showing off his thick, muscled arms in a way that makes Dean’s mouth water.

“How ‘bout jackass?” He says, because if nothing else, it’s the most accurate.

“How about single?” He counters, but he’s pouring Dean’s beer, and that smirk is still there, and as Dean wraps his fingers around the cold glass, Castiel just keeps holding on. “How about kiss me?” He murmurs, leaning close, so Dean does.

Oh God, he does.

Dean’s eyes close as he sinks into the kiss, leaning across the bar as far as he can manage while Castiel does the same. Shivers run through him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, setting with a fuzzy kind of warmth in his chest.

He’d be lying if he said it doesn’t feel a little bit like heaven.

“How was your day?” Castiel asks when he pulls away, leaving Dean all dazed and lovestruck like a fucking teenager.

“Kind of shit, actually,” he says, the events of the day rushing back in to sour his recently won good mood. He chugs half his beer in one go, hoping the alcohol will do something for him. “Don’t want to talk about it.”

Castiel stares at him, lips pressed in a thin line of clear displeasure as his eyes burn into him. Dean doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that look, not in a million years. It makes his insides squirm, like Castiel’s in his head, rooting around in all his secrets.

Castiel opens his mouth to say something, but Dean’s phone rings, and he pops off the stool, already bringing it to his ear when he sees the caller ID. He hasn’t heard from Sam in months, and he’s not expecting to now, but some part of him feels like picking a fight he knows he can win.

“Sam,” he says, tucking himself into the quiet hallway to the bathroom. “Run out of beer money or something?”

“What?” Sam says, that bitchy tone in his voice that Dean had been hoping for. “No, I—I’m just checking in, Dean, God.”

The bitterness from earlier is creeping back in, eating away at any good feelings he might have had after seeing Cas. He’s fucking pissed at his brother, at his bank, as his dad for the situation he’s in, but more than all that, he’s pissed at his damn self for getting into this situation in the first place.

“I don’t need you checking in on me,” Dean snaps, staring into the middle ground as some guy comes out of the bathroom, wiping his hands dry on his pants as he squeezes by in the narrow hallway. “I’m a big boy; I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, I know, but if you need some money—”

“It’s my fucking money, Sammy!” God, he can’t believe this! His pride roars up to match his bitterness, both pounding out a steady pulse at his temples. “Don’t act like you’re doing me any favours by paying me back.”

Sam’s deep inhale carries over the line, and Dean can just about picture the look on his face as he collects himself. “Look,” he starts, but Dean’s barely listening. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass, but don’t put it on me.”

All at once, Dean can’t take it anymore. He loves his brother, and he’d do anything for him, but his life is falling apart and he doesn’t know what to do. It all spills out, all of his self-hating, self-destructive bullshit, and he can’t stop it if he wanted to.

“It is on you!” He shouts, startling the couple at the pool table. “You know I was gonna buy my own shop?”

“I—”

“Can’t though, ‘cause I’ve already got a loan big enough to buy out the US fucking military.” Sam’s attempt at whatever he was trying to say cuts off with an audible click of his teeth, but Dean’s not done. “And you know, I get it, school is expensive, and I was happy to help you out, but now my dreams are in the shitter ‘cause of this fucking debt.”

His head is pounding, chest tight, and there’s all this fucking anger that just won’t quit. It sits on his shoulders, weighs him down, and he doesn’t know where to put it all. 

“I didn’t ask you for the money,” Sam says in that deathly calm that means jack shit too Dean. He practically raised the kid for fuck’s sake.

“You sure as shit had no problem accepting it.”

“Fuck you.”

Dean lets out a bitter laugh and looks back at the front of the bar. He needs a drink. “Get in line, there’s about a thousand others waiting to fuck me over first.”

With that, Dean hangs up, tucking his phone away before he has time to think about what he’s just done.

He heads back to the bar, dropping onto his stool, and doesn’t bother meeting Castiel’s eyes when he says, “Get me a drink, Cas, and make it strong.”

“I just…” Dean starts, but the sentence gets away from him, wandering through the bar as Castiel’s face swims in front of him. “Nothing’s right.”

His brain feels heavy in his head, pulling him down until he’s teetering on the edge of lying on the bar. It’s very possible that that last drink was a mistake, and maybe he shouldn’t’ve snuck it from Ash when he came out to deliver some food to his barstool neighbour, but you know what they say about hindsight.

“Who gave you this?” Castiel snaps, snatching his empty glass away with a kind of anger Dean’s never seen before. “For fuck’s sake, Dean.”

“Sammy’s pissed, and my friends found friends who care.” There’s a lump in his throat that feels a whole lot like he’s gonna cry, and he does his best to swallow it back as his stomach burns, but tears well in his eyes anyway. “Now you’re angry.”

“Damn right I’m angry, come on.” Castiel leaves his field of—blurry—vision for a moment before hands slide under his arms, strong and warm, pulling up all his weight like it’s nothing, and Dean leans into him, because he might just collapse if he doesn’t.

The bar tilts this way and that, lights flashing, blurring, music a little muffled as his knees wobble all the way to the door. “Where’re we goin’?”

“You’re getting in a cab and going home,” Castiel says, all hard and gruff as they burst through the door and into the orange glow of the street light. “I’m going back to work.”

A pout pulls at Dean’s lips as disappointment settles in his gut. He doesn’t want to go home, and he sure as hell doesn’t want Castiel to stay here. “C’mon, Cas,” he whines, doing his best to twist into Castiel’s arms, but Cas is distracted, waving a hand in the air as he looks out into the street. The streetlight makes his eyes an electric blue, blazing with the kind of exasperation that both feels familiar and makes Dean’s stomach turn.

Won’t be long now.

“Come on,” Castiel grumbles, nudging him toward the back seat of the cab that pulls to a stop just off the dusty curb. “Get in.”

“Come with me,” Dean says, stumbling and fumbling his way into the back seat. He gives Castiel his very best pleading eyes, and he must still have it ‘cause Castiel lets out a huffing sigh and crawls in beside him.

“Gonna get fired for this,” he says, but he still pulls Dean close, tucking an arm around his shoulders as he tells the cabby Dean’s address. “What am I going to do with you?”

The words are quiet, like he’s not really talking to Dean, but he hears them anyway, and with his eyes closed, nausea burning in his stomach, and his heart pounding a panicked beat against his ribcage, he murmurs, “Break my heart, probably.”

Dean doesn’t remember much after that.

Chapter Text

As it turns out, hangovers are infinitely worse in your thirties than they are in your twenties. Source: Dean Winchester’s pounding head.

With a pitiful groan, Dean buries his face in his pillows, his stomach rolling as the back of his throat burns. God, tequila’s never as good on the second go-round, and worse than that; he’s fucking alone.

Castiel is gone. He’s not sure when that happened, or if he’d stayed at all last night, but what he does know is that he wishes he had someone to hold him while he feels sorry for himself.

God, he hates being alone.

The sun peeks through the curtains, warming a strip of skin on his calf. He’s glad he had the forethought to close the curtains yesterday, if nothing else. 

When Dean dredges up the courage to crack an eye open, his blurred, shifting vision eventually lands on a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass half full of water.

He definitely didn’t do that.

Dean slaps a hand out, his muscles aching, fingers weak, but he manages to fling the bottle close enough that he doesn’t have to do anything more than twist off the lid against his chest. He fingers two pills between his lips, feeling decidedly unsexy, before swallowing them dry because there’s no way he’s flinging the glass of water across the bed. He chokes on the pills and nearly loses his dinner, lunch, and breakfast from the day before, but just barely manages to hold it back.

Panting for breath with an achy chest and limbs like jelly, Dean takes stock of his body. He’s not wearing a shirt, and either his socks disappeared into the sheets, or he kicked them off before getting into bed. He’s pretty sure he’s in nothing but his boxers since those are definitely his jeans on the kitchen counter with a jar of pickles holding them down.

“Ughh,” Dean moans, hating his life, his whole fucking life, in that moment. In all the moments before this one, too. He just fucking hates himself.

And the worst of it, the absolute worst of it; he’s still horribly, undeniably alone.

It’s around dinner time when Dean finally surfaces from his nest of blankets.

He drags his feet to the bathroom, not bothering to close the door behind him as he drops his drawers and his naked ass on the chilly porcelain seat to pee. He sways back and forth as he releases his bladder, only solidifying his decision to sit rather than stand.

His eyes droop, chin dropping to his chest as exhaustion sneaks up on him. He’ll just rest here for a little bit longer…

“Dean?”

The voice registers somewhere just outside of his unconscious mind, distant and muffled.

“Dean, are you here?”

Closer now, clearer to his pounding head. Fuck, he feels like roadkill, grilled on the asphalt and run over by a dump truck. 

“Hey. Dean.” 

Dean wakes with a godawful snort, his eyes snapping open to the dark room, and for one terrifying moment, he just about falls right off the shitter onto the cold tile floor of his bathroom.

“Rise and shine, jackass,” Castiel grunts, patting his cheek with a grin that makes Dean want to punch him right in his smug face. Except, y’know, he’s gotta throw up first.

Dean just manages to drop off the toilet and get his head over the bowl before it all comes up. His stomach heaves, emptying out all his bad decisions until his gut aches and he’s shivering with cold sweats.

He doesn’t even want to know the sight he makes; boxers around his ankles, hair a mess, vomit dripping from his chin. If this doesn’t kill the magic, he doesn’t know what will.

“That’s right, dickhead,” Castiel says, still by the door, “let it all out.”

“Fuck,” Dean pants between dry heaves, “you.”

“Maybe later.” Out of the corner of his eye, Dean watches Castiel straighten up from his lean on the doorframe and turn for the rest of the apartment, leaving Dean to his misery. “Coffee?”

Dean moans, clinging to the toilet for dear life as another shiver wracks his aching body. God, he hasn’t felt this bad since prom night when he downed a bottle of sour puss, three buttered nipples, and drank two-thirds of Charlie’s peppermint schnapps on a dare.

“Hmm,” Castiel hums, his voice carrying through the shoebox apartment. “With a shot of… Irish cream?”

Dean closes his eyes, picturing Castiel in his kitchen holding up Dean’s guilty pleasure with a scowl and that perplexed head tilt. So he likes a little kick in his coffee on slow start, sue him.

Castiel putters around in the kitchen for a while, and Dean leaves him to it, still bent over the bowl, but maybe done spilling his guts for now.

After a while longer, Dean lowers himself to the floor, back resting against the wall beside the toilet with his legs spread out in front of him. For now, it seems, his stomach has settled. He still feels like hot garbage, don’t get him wrong, but more exhausted and sore than nauseated and feverish.

He closes his eyes and rests his head back against the wall, boxers still around his ankles, but he can’t bring himself to care. Not even when Castiel comes in with two mugs of steaming coffee, gives him a once over, then sits beside him on the bathroom floor.

They’re pressed together shoulder to thighs, Castiel dressed in loose jeans and a ripped t-shirt, smelling like heaven with shower-wet hair. He sets both mugs beside him when Dean drops his temple to Castiel’s shoulder.

“I don’t feel sorry for you, y’know,” Castiel says as he wraps an arm around Dean’s shoulders. “This is all self-inflicted.”

“I know,” Dean murmurs, too pitiful to argue. He feels defeated to his core, rundown and run over. Apparently, the world just likes to fuck him over, and he’s tired of trying to make the best of it.

“Ellen reamed me out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” Castiel says, running his fingers through Dean’s hair in a way he’ll never admit is soothing. 

“No,” he says, snuggling closer, “I’m not.”

Castiel sighs, taking a sip of his coffee, but never letting go of Dean, and something about the way that feels—to be held onto no matter what—makes his delicate, fragile heart feel safe. So safe, like as long as Castiel is here, nothing will ever be that bad.

And holy shit, that’s fucking terrifying.

That fear sticks with him into the evening, settling in his gut like a rotting fish. Alongside it is the panic, welling up sharp and hot any time he thinks about Castiel, who putters around in front of the stove, cooking bacon and eggs like it’s their place, not just Dean’s.

Dean sinks into the corner of his couch, losing himself in thought. When he really thinks about it, what does he know about Cas? He was born in Illinois and… he’s got a great ass? That’s about it. Sure, there are a few odds and ends, but nothing substantial, not to hold onto.

And now the fear is double, tripling, making him feel all antsy with the need to get out before he gets hurt. Because Castiel doesn’t really know him, either, and what’s to say he won’t leave him just like everyone else did when he does know him?

“Here,” Castiel says, tossing a brand-new newspaper onto the cushion beside Dean’s hip, snapping him out of his thoughts to the here and now. “New Dear Reader.”

“You read it already?” Dean asks, absentmindedly pulling off the elastic holding the paper in its neat little roll.

“Yeah, this morning.” Castiel busies himself with breakfast, his back to Dean, bare feet tapping on the scuffed kitchen floor as he waits for the bacon to finish. Dean licks his lips, distracted from his panic for half a second by the low rise of Castiel’s jeans and the way his bare feet give him butterflies.

I’m so fucked, he thinks, then shoves the thought away as he opens the paper to the article in question. 

“Bacon’s almost done,” Castiel says, but Dean’s not listening anymore, already sucked into the words of Dear Reader and the mysterious C.J.N.

Dear reader,

When you aim at the devil make sure you don't miss.

I lied to you before. I didn’t just up and leave after the wedding. I meant to, I wanted to, but at seventeen years old, I was still bound by a sense of duty, to a strict moral obligation that a deity I didn’t believe in, enforced with an iron will.

And I was afraid. Fucking terrified that the world would chew me up and spit me out. Which it did, of course, but what I found was that being under my parents’ thumb was much, much worse.

Have you ever looked your parents in the eye and told them their God has turned his back on them? That they, above anyone else, are the greatest of sinners?

I did.

See, I was willing to go along with the marriage, to support my wife and raise her son as if he were my own. I liked her, and she cared for me in the same way I did for her; as an indifferent maybe-friend. We could have lived our own, separate lives together, happy in our secrecy.

I was prepared for that, wanted it, even.

Until the night of my wedding came and instead of secluding myself to the bedroom I would now share with my wife, my mother found me in the kitchen, drinking scotch straight from the bottle.

That was my first mistake that night; assuming my parents would be asleep.

Evidently, she did care about me enough to wonder why I wasn’t with my wife, and when I told her, too drunk to keep my secrets tucked close any longer, that the thought of touching that woman made me want to crawl out of my skin, I had opened the floodgates on her religious paranoia.

It all came pouring out of her, so long and so loud that my father joined us, and then he, too, started yelling. In that moment, there was nothing Christian about them. They were the devil incarnate, wanting me to suffer, hating me for everything that I am. Somewhere deep down in their twisted minds, I’m sure they thought it was out of love, but I knew better.

I know better.

Their love was for appearances sake, and standing there in that Victorian era kitchen, bottle of scotch a third gone and anger burning in every fiber of my being, I told them exactly what I thought.

That night, when I was not quite passed out on the living room floor, my parents tried to drag me back to that place. 

Seventeen years old and going to conversion therapy for the second time in my life because my parents love a fictitious God more than their own children.

To this day, I’m not sure how I managed to escape the back seat of my mom’s Cadillac, or snatch the marriage certificate from my father’s desk. I have no idea how I managed to pack a bag and escape into the trees surrounding my parents’ house without waking my pregnant wife.

If there is a God, and I am still not convinced, I would swear on my boarding school blowjobs that he was with me that night.

After all, God knows who the real devils are.

- C.J.N.

P.S. You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

Dean throws the paper aside when he’s done, even more confused now than he was before. Sure, he knows there’s nothing about Dear Reader that actually reflects his life, but what is art for if not to help interpret… things?

C.J.N. ran before he could get hurt, so what’s to say Dean shouldn’t do the same? He did it once, and yet, here he is, on the cusp of more pain, so why not do it again until he gets it right?

“That bad?” Castiel asks, all nervous and hesitant like it actually matters to him what Dean thinks of some random fucking article. 

Dean just grunts, looking out the window at the dark sky. He could disappear now; tell Castiel he’s going for a walk, hop into the Impala and never look back. It wouldn’t even be that hard, and Castiel would never be the wiser to where he went. The perfect solution, really.

Except it’s not, because the guilt would haunt Dean forever. 

His skin itches, too tight around his bones. It suffocates him, holds him down and makes him panic. He needs out before his fragile heart can break.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Dean says, maybe a little more harsh than he needs to, but whatever.

“What?” Castiel twists around, looking at him over his shoulder like he’s lost his damn mind. And maybe he has. “You know lots about me.” Castiel turns back to the stove, a clear dismissal, but Dean’s not having it.

“Yeah, right, because working at the Roadhouse and not having a car encompasses your entire life.” He huffs, getting off the couch as his restlessness grows. “My apologies, Mr. Open Book.”

“I don’t want to,” Castiel says, like that’s it. Like his word is law and Dean gets no say. And yeah, maybe Dean’s looking for a fight, but maybe they need one.

“Not a choice, buddy,” Dean snaps, crossing the kitchen until he can pull Castiel around to face him. “That’s how relationships work.”

Castiel closes off, eyes going cold, jaw locking tight. “No,” he grates, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans back against the counter. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know you!” Dean shouts, actually losing it now. All that anger and fear and panic surge to the surface, spilling out in a wave. “My life is a fucking mess, Cas, and I can’t trust a thing you say because who the fuck even are you?”

“You do,” he says, but it’s a weak defense, and he looks at the floor when he says it. “You know me.”

“Tell me one thing, Cas. Tell me, something, or I swear to God—”

Castiel’s eyes snap up to his with the kind of anger he’s only ever seen on his father. “What? What will you do?”

A laugh spills out of him, harsh and bitter, and he throws his arms out to his sides. “You’ll never see me again,” he says, on the edge of a ledge, looking over into nothing. “I’ll pack up my shit, take a note from good ol’ Dear Reader, pick somewhere and fucking go.”

Somehow, Castiel’s laugh is even more bitter—tainted and sick, like the thought of anything to do with Dear Reader sends him over the edge. “Never take advice from someone who's falling apart.”

“You don’t know anything about him,” Dean says, low and dangerous, strangely protective of C.J.N., like he would actually care.

“I am him!” Castiel shouts, the words bursting from his lips like he never actually meant to say them. Still, they fill the room. They stop Dean’s heart mid-beat.

“What?” He says, the wind knocked out of him, his blood gone cold.

“You’ve read every single one of those articles,” Castiel says, pleading now. “You’ve read every dark, twisted little secret I have; you know me.”

“You write them?” No, that’s… that’s not possible. Castiel wasn’t—he wasn’t abused. His sweet, fiery, caring boyfriend is not C.J.N. “You’re—”

“Castiel James Novak, yeah.”

Suddenly, all the pieces snap into place. Illinois is not a conversion therapy state. He was right—he was right. He wants to scatter the pieces again, throw them across the floor, forget, forget, forget, because knowing… Fuck, knowing means that all that stuff—all that horrible abuse—happened to Cas.

“Dean—”

Dean holds up a hand, at a loss, confused and aching. He can’t do this right now. He needs to get out of here.

“I can’t,” he says, shaking his head. Backing away. “I can’t.”

He spins on his heel, snatching up the bottle of bourbon on the counter by the sink, stuffs his feet in his boots, and lets the door back shut behind him on his way out.

He doesn’t look back.

Chapter Text

The bottle is a quarter gone by the time Dean realizes he has no idea where he’s going. He walks the streets of Kansas City, rain pounding down on him in sheets. The sidewalks are deserted, everyone having gone home, so Dean just walks. Drinks and walks and tries to sort through the mess in his head.

Castiel is C.J.N. He writes the Dear Reader series.

His Cas has gone through conversion therapy, grew up with parents that hated him, got married, for fuck’s sake. His Cas, mysterious and kind, isn’t perfect, doesn’t have his shit together. 

You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking.

Fuck, he’s just so mad. For months, Dean went on and on about Dear Reader, about finding who the writer is, and Cas said nothing. Why? 

Dean skirts the pools of yellow light from the street lamps, walking the yellow line down the center of a back street, fields on either side of him. He can feel the alcohol warming his blood, settling in his stomach with an acid burn. He knows he shouldn’t be drinking, but what else is he supposed to do when everything is falling apart?

His t-shirt clings to his skin, and he shivers, kicking himself for not grabbing a jacket on the way out, too. He tips the bottle back again, figuring if he's drunk enough, he won’t notice anything else.

So, he wanders—aimless, heart aching, through the still rain, until he’s drunk, his heart pounding against his ribcage, yearning for something broken.

Until he trips, falls, the pressure building in his throat burst out in a muffled sob as his knees crack against the asphalt. Sadness rips through him in waves, a desperate kind of breaking down, because now the pain isn’t just his own.

“Please,” Dean whispers, looking up at the dark sky like there’s anyone there to listen. “Make it stop.” The bottle rolls away, clink-clink-clinking up against the curb as he sinks into the flowing stream of rain water. “I’m begging here; make his pain stop. Whatever wishes I’ve got, give ‘em to him; I can take the hurt, but please—” his voice cracks, breaks, as tears well up and spill over. He’s already cursed, so what the hell does it matter if he takes the hits instead? “Please don’t hurt him.”

The rain just carries on, and Dean gets no answers to his botched prayer. Not that he expects one, but he still feels impossibly heavy as he drags himself off the road and starts making his way back. 

All the while, he can’t help but think about how much easier it was to suffer alone. He can deal with his self-made pain—easy, just shove it down, bury it as deep as it’ll go, and cover it up with sarcasm and bad jokes.

Easy.

After all, no one sees when you lose when you're playing solitaire.

He’s not sure what he expects to find back at his apartment, but when he finally makes it through the unlocked door in the early hours of the morning, he’s not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved to find the lights off and his apartment empty.

This restless, antsy feeling fills his limbs, and he paces back and forth in front of the couch, penned in like a wild animal. What is he supposed to do with all this prickling energy?

He shakes out his hands, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet until he feels like he could scream.

He’s in the dark here, blind to what comes next, and he’s terrified. He needs to find another guiding light, something to show him where to go next. 

Before he can figure it out, he face-plants on the couch, out before his head hits the cushion.

There was one time when Dean was maybe four that he woke to the smell of pancakes cooking in the kitchen. They drifted up the stairs and into his room, lifting him with gentle arms out of sleep. The Mickey Mouse pancakes had chocolate chip eyes, and Dean was in love with his four-year-old life. That was before his mom died. Before his world fell apart, and his dad started drinking, and he stopped getting pancakes at all.

This time, not so great.

His pulse pounds a drumbeat inside his skull, rattling his thoughts, and souring the smell of blueberry pancake wafting over from the stove a few feet away.

Dean moans, rolling onto his back, his damp clothes squeaking against the faux leather and giving him away. He locks eyes with Castiel, those sharp blues settling on his as confusion burns in Dean’s gut. Well, that and the nausea.

Dean pushes himself up, closing his eyes as he drops his head into one hand, letting the room stop spinning before he looks up again. “What’re you doing here?”

After last night, he didn’t think he’d see Castiel again, especially not so soon. But here he is, barefoot, jeans cuffed at the ankles, in the same ratty old t-shirt he was wearing last night.

Castiel flops the pancake on his spatula back into the pan before tossing the spatula on the counter with more force than he needs to. He spins around, fire in his sharp blue eyes, his jaw set, ready for a fight Dean’s not sure he has the strength for.

“Because I love you, you idiot!” He snaps, almost shouts at him as he grabs the plate on the counter stacked high with pancakes and shoves them into Dean’s chest.

Dean takes them, more reflex than anything, as confusion and hope spring up inside him. What is that supposed to mean? “But,” he starts, shaking his head to clear it. “Why are you here?”

Whatever restraint Castiel was clinging to snaps, and Dean just stands there, struck dumb, as he watches. “Because I fucking love you, okay? I love you, and as much as you want to believe otherwise, I’m not leaving.” Pancake to plate, pan to sink full of soapy water with a crackling sizzle. “Yeah, things are shitty, and I’m more of a mess than you are, but you’re not alone anymore, and whether you like it or not, we’re going to figure this shit out together.”

“Okay,” Dean murmurs as something deep inside him sighs. It’s nothing momentous, not a life-altering shift in the universe, or an earth shattering realization. No, his heart just kind of goes oh, okay, then. He lowers himself back onto the couch, taking the fork Castiel jabs in his direction.

“I’m still fucking pissed at you,” Castiel grumbles, arms crossed over his chest, but the tension has bled from his shoulders, and the fire in his eyes has eased.

“Okay.” Dean nods. He can accept that. They are nowhere near good, both of their lives in shambles with nothing figured out, but knowing he’s not alone makes it easier. It gives him something to hope for. He takes a bite of his blueberry pancakes before a thought occurs to him and he shoots a look at Cas. “I’m still pissed at you, by the way.”

That gets him a long, drawn out glare, maintained through every bite of his pancakes, all the way through the glass of milk Castiel grudgingly hands him, but not quite through the kiss Dean presses to his pursed lips when it’s all said and done.

That gets him a small, grudging smile.

Chapter Text

Turns out, life goes a whole lot smoother when you stop counting your days in terms of losses. At least, that’s what Dean’s telling himself as he tosses the keys of his new shop up and down, standing on the cracked pavement of the parking lot. 

Sure, it needs a lot of work; windows and ventilation, a new front desk and updated equipment, but it was cheap, and now it’s his.

Was it easy? No. There was a lot of upset, and even more heartbreaking rejection, and a few times he would’ve thrown in the towel, but now he’s here, and it’s in no small part thanks to Cas.

His Dear Reader, his very best friend.

“Did you call Sam?” Castiel asks, coming up beside him, kicking stones that soar through the parking lot and hit the garage door.

“Not yet,” he says, catching the keys one more time before twirling them around his middle finger. “Wanted to check it out first.”

A few days after his come-to-Jesus with Cas, he’d called his brother, and after a stern what the fuck from him, he called Charlie, who went fucking scorched earth before inviting herself down for the weekend for a night on the town.

So, they’re good now, except he hasn’t called her either…

“Come on,” Castiel says, snagging Dean back from his wandering thoughts. He grabs his hand, giving it a tug as he leads him to the front door, and Dean goes willingly, a mixture of excitement and nerves making him sick, but this is everything he’s ever wanted, so he swallows hard and takes a deep breath, steeling himself—he’s not about to ruin this moment by tossing his cookies before they even get through the door.

With shaking hands, he slides the key into the lock, taking a deep, calming breath before he pushes the door open and steps inside. This isn’t the first time he’s seeing the place, of course, but it’s the first time he’s seeing it as his. There’s tons of work to be done, and it’ll be a while before the place is up and running, but with the shuffling of finances he did with Castiel’s help, Cas assured him he can afford it.

There’s dust coating every surface, and the lights don’t work, but sunlight streams in through the garage doors, lighting up the empty bays and the oil-stained workbenches. Excitement starts to burn low in Dean’s stomach, hope springing up alongside it. This is his. His dream spread out in front of him, ripe for the taking.

He tightens his grip on Castiel’s hand, squeezing hard as it all sinks in. It buzzes in his veins, lighting him up from the inside out as Castiel squeezes right back. Dean’s mind whirls with everything he wants to do, all the changes and fixes he needs to make, but for once, it’s not daunting. Not terrifying like he thought it’d be. He can’t wait.

“So…” Castiel says, kicking a rusty wrench aside, sending up a puff of dust along with it. “What do you want to do first?”

Honestly? Dean feels a little bit like he’s on fire, like there’s electricity pulsing through him, and all he wants is to get it out, let it loose. He smiles, lips twisting into a flirty grin as he tugs on Castiel’s hand and spins him until Dean can grab his hips and guide him backwards through lobby doors and into the garage bays.

“I want,” Dean starts, pressing Castiel against the back counter before leaning in to nip at his bottom lip, “you to fuck me over this bench.”

Castiel’s blues darken, his lashes fluttering as he sucks in a rough breath. “You got it,” he says, before surging forward to press their mouths together in a heated kiss.

Dean gets lost in it, letting his hands roam over Castiel’s back, up his shirt to glide over heated skin. Castiel gives as good as he gets, rolling their hips together, pressing his erection into Dean’s with delicious friction. A moan falls out of him, lough and gravelly in the otherwise quiet space. 

Castiel tugs Dean’s shirt over his head, tossing into a dusty corner before Castiel’s follows. Chest to chest, they press closer, fevered desperation taking over Dean as he digs his nails into the thick muscle of Castiel’s ass. Fuck, he needs this so bad; to feel every part of him all over. 

Castiel’s hands find his face, his jaw, before he nips and sucks a path from his mouth, along his jaw, to that sensitive spot behind his ear. 

“Fuck,” Dean moans, scrambling to get ahold of Castiel’s belt buckle and fly. His hands shake, trembling with the buzzing excitement inside his bones, but he gets Castiel’s belt loose and tugs at his button until it pops free before shoving his pants and boxers down around his thighs.

The moment Dean gets his hands on Castiel’s cock, Castiel loses it. He slams their mouths together, grinding his hips with the full force of his weight, pressing them together, every inch of heated skin sliding, sticking, tugging in the slick heat of the hazy garage door windows. 

Dust swirls under their shuffling feet as Castiel gets Dean’s pants down just below his ass. Dean pulls at his swollen cock-head, swirling his thumb over the weeping hole, and Castiel’s knees just about give out as he tries to get his own hand on Dean’s cock. 

Dean slaps his hands away, too impatient to let him play as he scrambles for his wallet, jammed into the back pocket of his jeans. He knows he’s got one in here somewhere…

“Yes,” Dean hisses, shaking his wallet out onto the oil-stained workbench. A few times and an expired condom falls out alongside the packet of lube, and he tosses the wallet aside in favor of shoving the lube into Castiel’s hand. “Finger me open,” he says, before dipping his chin and sucking on Castiel’s Adam’s apple.

Castiel lets out a strangled moan, his head falling back as Dean has his way with the stubbled skin at the base of his jaw. Somehow, Castiel manages to get his fingers slicked with lube, and then they’re slipping into his ass crack, fingertips pressing, firm and insistent, against his puckered hole. 

Dean gasps, his breath catching as he lets his head fall back and closes his eyes. He rolls his hips, pressing against Castiel’s fingers, searching for the delicious friction he’s missing, until finally, finally, Castiel pushes a finger inside.

“Fuck,” Dean whines, abandoning his grip on Castiel’s cock to cling to his broad shoulders. He can feel his knees dipping, giving under his weight as pleasure ripples through his veins.

Castiel finger fucks him deep and slow, stretching him wide with one digit, then two, then three, and Dean just soaks it in, moaning like a cheap whore right up until Castiel full-body muscles him around.

He just barely gets his hands out to stop himself from eating the workbench, palms slapping on the scuffed metal as he grunts, but Castiel doesn’t give him more than a second to catch his breath before the thick head of his cock is pressing against his stretched hole.

“Shit,” Dean hisses, fingers scrambling for purchase, but there’s nothing to hold onto. “Cas—Cas!”

Castiel doesn’t speak as he thrusts deep, his slick cock gliding in nice and easy, the stretch just this side of too much. He wraps an arm around Dean’s chest, propping him up as his free hand finds Dean’s aching cock. 

“Not gonna last long,” Castiel grunts, his hot breath in Dean’s ear, which is just fucking fine by him. He feels like he’s on fire, the steady buzz of arousal exploding into a blaze, not quite enough to send him over the edge, but close.

“Fuck me,” Dean murmurs, letting himself sink into it. Where they are, who they are.

Then Castiel snaps his hips forward. Again. Again, again, again until Dean’s hip bones ache against the edge of the workbench. Until his cock leaks, his balls draw up. Until he thinks he’ll go crazy.

The rising tide of his orgasm crashes over him. He shakes with it, his vision going white as a shout escapes his lips. Castiel’s fingertips dig into his hips, his slick chest pressing into Dean’s back, and then he’s coming, too, sinking his teeth into Dean’s shoulder, his hips rolling, grinding, hot come filling his hole.

And Dean is lost. Absolutely fucking lost to this man.

“You’re the worst busboy,” Castiel says, shooting Dean a glare from his place by the ice cooler.

“I’m off the clock, jackass,” Dean says, leaning over the bar to snag a glass before pouring himself a foamy-ass beer. Fuck, this is why Cas is the bartender.

Dean drops his ass back onto the stool, sulking over his glass of foam. 

It takes Castiel a moment, but when he notices, he tsks, snatching up the beer before pouring it out and refilling it. “You’re hopeless,” Castiel says, setting the perfect pour on a coaster in front of him.

Months ago, Dean would’ve taken that in, felt it in his bones. Not because Castiel said it, but because he already believed it—he’s hopeless, lifeless, useless.

Now, it just makes him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Dean slides the beer aside, thinking about the first time he sat on this barstool. About the way he couldn’t take his eyes off of Castiel, and how he wanted to kiss him more than anything.

Without a thought, Dean presses up off the barstool, hands braced on the smooth surface of the polished bar, and kisses his boyfriend square on the mouth. Castiel kisses right back, soft and sweet and so damn good he could melt. He kisses him and kisses him and goes right on kissing him.

Because he wants to. 

Because he can.

THE END.