Chapter Text
Dean’s made a lot of errors in his twenty-eight years on Earth.
There was the time when he was eight and thought he could beat Lee Webb in a pissing contest, though everybody at the schoolhouse told him that Lee was the undefeated long-distance urinating champion in all of western Kansas. (Dean knows now that such an honor doesn’t actually exist. But at age eight, he sure didn’t.)
Or that time when he was fourteen and thought it was a good idea to chase after Bela Talbot’s skirt, only to find himself broken-hearted and left in the dust by Lee Webb again. He tried not to connect the latter incident to the earlier one.
But his gravest error, his absolute most colossal blunder, was letting a tousle-haired, blue-eyed, devastatingly handsome son of a preacher talk him into helping with the search for his father.
If he hadn’t done that abysmally foolish thing, he wouldn’t currently be finding himself at the bottom of a rocky outcropping, staring down the barrel of a six-shooter belonging to, of all people, Lee Webb.
Lee grins at him, like he’s a house cat and Dean’s the finest canary he ever saw. “Dean Winchester,” he says. “I’ll be damned.”
***
If Dean were still traveling with Sam, things might have turned out very differently. But the night Dean meets the preacher’s son, he’s all alone.
His first impression of Cas is that of an idiot who’s camped in plain view of a trail in northwest Oklahoma, sleeping the sleep of the righteous next to a fire that’s still burning high and could easily ignite his blanket if he turns the wrong way.
If Sam were around, he’d likely tell Dean that they need to send this clueless stranger back home where he belongs. (The small-town hamlet of Eden, Illinois, Dean will learn later.)
But damnation only knows where Sam is (and Dean tries not to think about how he might still be with Ruby, passed out in some backroom), so Dean can do whatever the hell he pleases.
What he pleases is to walk right up to this stranger’s camp and give him a piece of his mind.
“Hey,” he barks, dealing the man a kick to the shin. “You tryna get yourself killed?”
With a yelp, the man scrambles upright in his blanket roll, just barely missing the lick of the flames. His hat, which he’d used to cover his face, slides right off, revealing a mess of dark hair. Startlingly blue eyes are narrowed to slits, the better to glare up at Dean.
“Certainly not,” he growls, in a voice deeper than any canyon Dean’s ever traveled. “Why would I try to get myself killed?”
“You might as well be,” Dean tells him as he starts to kick dirt onto the flames, trying to douse them. “Makin’ camp in plain view of the trail? Falling asleep next to a roaring fire like that?”
“I was cold,” the man says, with all the dignity in the world, like Dean’s the one in the wrong here. Truth be told, it makes Dean admire him, just a little. There ain’t many men who would stand up to a disagreeable stranger like that, especially when that stranger’s busy dismantling their camp.
“Hang being cold,” he grunts, ‘cause he can’t think of a damned thing else to say. He can be quick on his feet in a fight, but in conversation? That’s a different story.
“What are you proposing to do, now that you’ve extinguished my fire? Kill me just to prove a point?” Sarcasm drips off the stranger’s every word.
Dean hadn’t thought that far, if he’s being entirely honest.
“You’ll come with me to make a better camp,” he decides on the spot, wondering if he’ll live to regret sharing camp with a man he met all of five minutes ago. He’s never done it before, and for good reason: unlike the stranger, he’s not trying to get himself killed.
“I will not.” The man finally gets to his feet, and damned if he ain’t almost as tall as Dean himself. Dean thought he’d be smaller, somehow. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Dean Winchester. Pleased to meet you,” Dean growls, and what the hell is wrong with him, giving out his real name? For all he knows, this stranger is a notorious outlaw who’s heard of the Winchesters and will be gunning for Dean’s head as soon as his head is turned. (Smart money says he probably ain’t, but it won’t do to make assumptions.)
Expression thoroughly resentful, the man grumbles, “I wish I could say the same.”
“You gonna tell me yours?” Dean demands. At a challengingly raised eyebrow, he amends a reluctant, “If it ain’t too much to ask.”
The stranger lets him squirm another few moments before he says, “Castiel.”
Dean gapes at him. “The hell kind of name is that? First or last?”
The man — Castiel — crosses his arms over his chest, which Dean could’ve told him is the worst possible idea when you think you might be getting in a fight. Makes it that much harder to reach the six-shooter strapped to Castiel’s hip. Even by the handle of the gun, Dean can tell it’s an old-timer — war relic, probably. “My first name. It’s the name of an angel,” Castiel says. “My father is a preacher.”
“Jesus Christ,” Dean swears, and Castiel’s mouth drops open in offense. Dean refuses to take it back though. Far as he can tell, the Almighty was never on his side, not since Mom passed all those years ago.
And really, Dean’s not in the mood for any more talking than they’ve already done. He’s tired from all the hard riding he did earlier that day to bring in Kubrick Massee, a dumb-as-a-brick individual who earned a modest bounty on his head by participating in a recent railroad job. So he says, “I’m calling you Cas. Now pack up your things. We’re ridin’ another couple of miles.” Then he turns away to discourage further argument.
Soon as Cas is packed up, Dean gets back on his horse and rides off, away from the trail and towards the shelter of a nearby rock formation. He figures it’s about an even chance of Cas riding off the other way. But soon enough, he hears the sound of a second horse’s hooves beating a muffled tattoo against the dusty ground.
He smiles to himself, just a little smug in his triumph.
All the while they’re riding, Cas scowls at him from under the brim of his hat. The shapeless duster he’s wearing won’t sit properly on his shoulders, and Dean thinks perhaps it’s because Cas had to get himself together rather hurriedly to follow Dean’s instructions. (Later on, he’ll discover that the coat’s poor fit is a permanent, irremediable state of affairs.)
About twenty minutes later, once they’re far enough away from the trail that Dean’s satisfied they won’t be robbed blind, he pulls his and Cas’ blanket rolls into a secluded spot behind a sizable boulder, unsaddles and waters their horses, and tells Cas to go the fuck to sleep.
***
The very next day, at breakfast, Dean catches on to the fact that Cas has nothing left to eat but a bit of stale bread and two strips of dried meat.
“I may have… slightly underestimated the distance between towns, or the amount of food I would need,” Cas admits. His tone suggests pronounced resentment at being caught out, even as he eyes Dean’s freshly heated can of pork and beans with a fervor that ought to be reserved for beautiful women. (Or handsome men. Dean’s never been one to judge.)
“Jesus Christ, Cas,” he says, ignoring the disgruntled huff and squint that any instance of blasphemy seems to earn him. “What possessed you to go riding west if you don’t know the first thing about living on the trail?”
“I’m looking for my father,” Cas says, with another longing glance at Dean’s food, and Dean rolls his eyes as he hands over the can, which Cas takes eagerly, spooning beans into his mouth like a starving man. Around his food, he says, “He disappeared about a month ago, without a word.”
“What makes you think he came here?” Dean asks, leaning back against a nearby rock and pulling down the brim of his hat against the growing sting of the morning sun. “We’re a long way from Illinois.” He nods meaningfully at the dusty expanse that surrounds them, at the mesas rising in the far distance, blushing a flaming red in the fresh light. The Oklahoma panhandle isn’t generally Dean’s idea of a good time, but it has its moments.
Cas sighs heavily, setting down the newly empty can of food. “I’m afraid it has to do with our rather sordid family history. You see, along with my father, a very sizable sum disappeared from his congregation’s accounts. It had been set aside for the repair of the church roof.” He hesitates a moment, until Dean motions for him to continue. “And, well, my older brother is… he’s rather notorious for his lawbreaking ways and he never made a secret of his resentfulness toward our Christian upbringing. As a matter of fact, the night he left home, he promised he’d avenge himself for every injustice he believes our father has done to him. So I’m certain he’s the one who took both the money and our father.”
“Brother, huh?” Dean says, perking up. If Cas’ brother is even remotely like him, he ought to be easy to track. Maybe not a sizable bounty, but an easy job at least.
“Yes.” Cas sighs, so heavy with it that Dean would almost believe he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, on top of that ill-fitting duster. “Luke Novak.”
It’s a good thing Dean already finished his breakfast, but even so, he manages to choke on his own spit. He doubles over coughing, Cas clapping him on the back with an expression of frank concern.
“Your brother,” Dean wheezes, when he’s sufficiently recovered his breath, “is Luke Novak. Most notorious outlaw west of the Mississippi.”
Cas sighs again. “I’m afraid that’s the truth of the matter, yes.”
“And your plan is to… what? Stop in every town between here and California and ask nicely if anybody’s spotted him?”
“I was going to hire a bounty hunter,” Cas says, with great dignity. “Except. Well, I haven’t found anyone willing to be hired by a stranger without a sizable advance, and my funds are rather meager.”
Now, up until that point, Dean still could’ve turned back. He could’ve wished Cas luck with his future endeavors and ridden off in the opposite direction after they packed up their things for the day.
Instead, he gets to thinking about how Luke Novak has a $10,000 bounty on his head. That’s ten times the amount Massee fetched, and more than twice anything Dean’s ever earned on a job in all his years doing this. There’ve been plenty of lean times when he and Sam had to join a cattle drive or cheat at poker to keep their bellies full.
Of course, they were always alright in the end, so, sure: he could pass up a chance to go after Luke Novak with somebody who has inside knowledge of him. But Cas looks so miserably downtrodden, so disappointed in himself at his failure to hire a bounty hunter to go after his brother, that Dean just can’t find it in him to say anything but: “I’ll help you out.”
Watching the way Cas perks up at that is like watching the sun rise all over again. “You will?” Cas leans closer, like he’s about to whisper a secret. “Are you qualified?”
“Sure,” Dean says, easy as anything. “Just brought in Kubrick Massee, who so happens to be a notorious train robber ‘round these parts.”
Cas looks suitably impressed at that. “Alright,” he says, nodding solemnly, like they’ve already struck the bargain. “But you understand that I can’t actually pay you. The bounty will have to be sufficient compensation.”
“You’d really turn in your own brother, huh?” Dean asks as he scrambles up onto his feet and gets started cleaning up the campsite. “Ain’t a very Christian thing to do, now is it?”
Cas’ expression darkens at that, all God’s wrath and an-eye-for-an-eye. “My brother is not a very Christian man.”
And well, given everything Dean’s heard about Luke Novak — how he likes to kill just for the fun of it, how he sometimes lights people’s houses on fire after he robs them blind — that’s probably the understatement of the century.
***
“Do you always ride alone?” Cas wants to know a few days later.
They’re traveling past the Oklahoma border and into Kansas, because, in the last town they passed through, Dean saw a bulletin saying Luke Novak and his gang recently robbed a stagecoach just south of Dodge City.
Dean’s hands tighten on the reins. Impala, his faithful, black-coated Missouri Fox Trotter, tosses her head skittishly, sensing her rider’s darkening mood.
“No,” he says curtly, hoping it’s enough to discourage conversation, but no such luck.
“Who’s usually with you?” Cas asks, tipping his head to the side as if it helps him listen better. Even his Palomino horse, Continental (who seems a fine-tempered horse and not at all to blame for the stupid, pompous name she’s been given), pricks up her ears, like she wants to know too.
Dean doesn’t answer right away. The quiet, rhythmic thud of the horses’ hooves hitting the dusty trail fills the silence. He takes a deep breath. He really ought to just tell Cas to go to hell, because Cas evidently doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.
Lord knows why he says instead, “My brother.” Cas opens his mouth, but he doesn’t get a single word out before Dean interrupts him. “And ‘fore you ask, I ain’t telling you about him.”
“Oh.” Cas appears a little dejected at that, like he thinks they’re getting to be friends and he asked a reasonable question, when neither of those things are true, so far as Dean’s concerned.
Cas’ hangdog expression is a pain to look at, so Dean doesn’t. Still, it puts him in mind of a time when he was nine and Dad had taken him and Sammy along to a market day in Lawrence, on top of their rickety old cart. Just as they were getting ready to pack up for the day, this little puppy came trotting up to them, sniffing at their hands like it was looking for food. Sammy fell in love with it right away, cooing at it like it was a baby, and Dean… well, to be entirely honest, Dean liked it too.
But Dad didn’t, and his was the only opinion that mattered. “Get that mangy cur outta here, Dean,” he snapped. “Don’t need another mouth to feed.”
So, with a heavy heart, Dean yelled and hollered at the dog until it ran off, Sam’s distressed wails ringing in his ears.
It ain’t Cas’ fault that his expression reminds Dean of all that, but Dean decides to resent him for it anyway. Cas has only himself to blame anyway, for broaching what he should’ve guessed might be a sore subject.
They ride on in silence until they hit the next town (Jubilee, Pop. 46). Ain’t much to it — just a small collection of rickety cabins, held together by nothing but a lick and a promise, lined up along a single, dusty street. Dean turns to Cas and says, “Small place like this, they’ll be wary of strangers. We’d better pose as lawmen.”
“We’re going to lie?” Cas’ eyes are wide as he asks the question, but he doesn’t look disapproving, that’s for sure. Excited, more like.
Dean’s never had a problem holding on to his grudges before, but at the sight of that excitement, it’s easy to forget that he’s meant to be irritated with Cas.
“Sure,” Dean agrees. “You wanna find a notorious outlaw, you ain’t gonna get him by staying on the straight and narrow.”
“Why?” Cas cocks his head again, like Dean is a riddle he’s working to puzzle out.
The answer to that question should be obvious, but Dean can’t seem to think what it ought to be just now. So he says, “Because that’s how you become President.”
Cas thinks this over as they make their way to the center of town. There’s no one out and about in this sleepy place, except for an old-timer sweeping the walkway in front of his general store. He eyes them suspiciously, apparently not eager for business if it comes at the cost of speaking to strangers. “I’ve never met President Grant, of course,” Cas says, “but I suppose it stands to reason that he’s told his share of untruths.”
Dean snorts his agreement. Grant talks a good game about making peace with the tribes, but far as Dean can tell, he’s never much bothered to get their thoughts on his plan of “civilizing and Christianizing” the natives. They say bounty hunting’s a dirty business, but damned if it doesn’t seem like politics is the dirtier one.
Halfway down the town’s main street, they find a hitching post with a water trough that’s still half full, so they tie up their horses and Dean gets to digging in the saddle bags until he comes up with two tin badges: one for a sheriff and one for a deputy.
Cas takes his deputy badge carefully from Dean’s fingers, handling it like it’s treasure as he pins it on. Dean almost doesn’t have the heart to tell him that it’s upside down. Still, he can’t have Cas compromising their investigation. So, with a put-upon sigh, he steps right up to Cas and takes off the badge, then pins it back onto Cas’ vest, carefully so as not to prick him.
When he looks up, he’s much closer to Cas than he’d bargained for. Cas’ eyes, blue as a desert sky in the heat of the day, stare at him from inches away with a strange, dark-eyed eagerness. Dean has the errant thought that it’d be dangerously easy to lose himself in those eyes; to follow them off the precipice of a passionate mistake.
Dean clears his throat and steps back, covering the awkwardness of the moment by trying to rearrange Cas’ duster so it sits properly on his shoulders.
His efforts don’t do a damned bit of good: it sits just as crooked as ever by the time he’s done.
***
When they locate the sheriff’s office, they find the jail cell empty and the lawman tossing playing cards into his hat, which is sitting upside down on a chair across the room. A couple of Wanted posters are tacked up on the wall, edges curling up in slow rebellion where the glue’s gone too dry to hold them.
“Afternoon,” Dean says, with a nod and a tip of his finger against his hat brim. “Slow day?”
The sheriff shrugs, unperturbed at having been caught slacking off. “Every day’s a slow day ‘round here, brother.”
Cas pipes up from next to Dean with a breathless, “It’s an honor to meet an esteemed colleague. Being a man of the law myself, I mean to say. It’s an honorable profession, albeit a—”
“He’s new,” Dean says, desperate to cut off Cas’ nervous rambling before it rouses even this sleepy small-town lawman’s suspicions.
The sheriff emits an acknowledging grunt, eyeing Cas dubiously. “Name’s Lafitte. How can I help y’all ‘esteemed colleagues’?” He grins at them, sun glinting off a gold tooth.
Dean arranges his face into an expression of pained concern. “Our town’s preacher went missing some weeks back and we’ve reason to believe the outlaw Luke Novak is the one who took him.”
Lafitte’s eyes flick back and forth between them. “Where did y’all say you were from? Gotta be a mighty big place, to be able to spare both the sheriff and a deputy so’s they can chase after a preacher.”
Damn it all. Lafitte is much more shrewd than Dean expected a small-town lawman to be. “Hatsville, Missouri,” he improvises. “New town. Lots of railroad money.” Cas seems inclined to weigh in as well, perhaps to expound on the various attractive qualities of the fictitious Hatsville, so Dean hurriedly changes the subject. “About Novak. Heard he mighta passed near here recently. That true?”
The sheriff weighs him with a lengthy glance before he allows, “True enough. Didn’t come through Jubilee, but they say he robbed a train no more’n three miles from here. Most excitement we had in town was that no-account drunk Walt, claimin’ he met Novak on the trail and got his poker winnings taken. You ask me, it’s likely as not Walt stole the money in the first place. Wouldn’t be the—”
“Where can this Walt be found?” Cas asks, with the eagerness of a man who’s new to the hunt and getting a taste for it. Dean bites down on a smile.
Lafitte regards Cas with some disfavor, obviously not best pleased at having had his account interrupted. “Chances are, he’s at the saloon, trying to talk his way into a bottle of whiskey on credit he ain’t got.”
A man with information they need, desperate for a drink — hard to do better than that.
“Much obliged,” Dean tells the sheriff and, with another tip of his hat, leads the way back outside. Somewhere down the street, high above the low-slung rooftops, the town clock strikes two.
The saloon ain’t hard to find, small as the town is, and nor is Walt, once they’ve walked in through the swing doors. Inside, the smell of stale spirits and chewing tobacco mingles with the more pleasant scent of sun-warmed wood. There are naught but three patrons around, and the sorriest-looking, most suspect of them all is happy to describe in exhaustive detail his two-day-old encounter with Luke Novak, once whiskey has been offered and produced.
“There’s a demon in that man,” Walt tells them, shaking a finger in warning and widening bloodshot eyes as he downs another shot of the cheap rotgut Dean bought him. “I looked in his eyes when he took my money bag, and I tell you: they were cold.” The man gives a theatrical shiver, then adds for good measure, “Cold as hellfire.”
“Was there an older man with him?” Cas asks, obviously impatient with Walt’s more dramatic flourishes. “About fifty years. Small in stature, thin, bearded, inclined to nerves, perhaps wearing a black tailcoat?”
Walt rubs his chin, eyeing the bottle speculatively. Dean pours him another drink. Walt tips it back immediately. “Couldn’t rightly say,” Walt muses, voice roughened by his recent swallow. “He rides with a gang, Novak does, and I didn’t get a look at ‘em all. The sun were awful bright that day, see. Brighter than the flames—”
“Of hell,” Cas finishes wearily. “Yes, yes, I’m sure. This man would have been a prisoner, not a member of the gang. Did they seem to have a prisoner?”
For the second time that day, Cas finds himself at the receiving end of a dark look, courtesy of a man who’s had the flow of his tale disrupted. Walt settles when Dean lifts the bottle again, preparing to pour yet another drink.
"Not so's I remember," Walt mutters, watching the whiskey in Dean's hand like a man spellbound. Dean has the errant thought that Walt's memory is probably about as reliable as a broken pocket watch.
“Did Novak happen to give any sign of where he was proposing to go?” Dean asks, bottle still suspended in mid-air.
Walt continues to eye the bottle greedily, swallowing hard. “Rode off that-a way,” he says, waving a vague hand towards the right. “Northbound.”
“Anything else?” Dean asks, tipping the bottle down and starting to pour. Walt motions for him to keep going until the glass is full to the brim.
“Might be there is.” Walt studies Dean and Cas with a drunken man’s ill-disguised calculation.
A storm cloud of impatience gathers on Cas’ forehead. Dean can tell Cas is about to say something decidedly ill-advised, so before he can think better of it, he rests a hand on Cas’ thigh underneath the table to hold him back. Cas’ mouth snaps shut and he freezes. Dean hurriedly withdraws his hand.
Clearing his throat, he asks, “And what might it take for you to divulge that particular piece of information to us?”
“‘Nother bottle?” Walt asks hopefully. “For the road, you see. Traveling’s a dusty business ‘round these parts.”
Dean grunts his agreement, then looks back and forth between Cas and their informant, wondering how best to accomplish this. He’s reluctant to leave the two of them together, lest Cas lose his temper and scare off this skittish individual. But at the same time, he ain’t keen to pull out his money bag and pass a handful of coins to Cas in plain view of a saloon’s patrons, even if they amount to just three men at the moment.
“Be pleasant, will you?” he tells Cas, clapping a hand on Cas’ shoulder and jostling him for emphasis as he gets up to make his way back over to the bar, where he finds the bartender spitting into a glass before he rubs it with a grimy dish towel in a doomed attempt at making the dull surface shine.
Dean slaps a couple of coins onto the bartop and receives another bottle of rotgut in return. Back at the table, he finds Cas and Walt locked in a resentful staring match, but their informant’s face rearranges itself into eagerness and hunger when he spots the arrival of more whiskey.
It’s easy after that.
“Novak hit me over the head afore he left,” Walt says, licking his lips between sips, careful not to spill a drop. “Probably thought I was out. Overheard him say something to one of his associates about how they needed a place to lay low for a while. Said Hell’s Bend seemed as good a spot as any.”
“Hell’s Bend,” Dean repeats thoughtfully. “Name of a little place near Baxter Springs, ain’t it?”
Walt nods distractedly, his bloodshot eyes clouded with the effect of the whiskey as he takes gulps of his latest drink. They’ve gotten as much from him as they’re likely to.
“Well, much obliged,” Dean says, touching the brim of his hat as he rises to his feet.
Cas follows him out the door with an air of excitement, the wooden boards of the walkway outside the saloon creaking as he hurries to catch up with Dean. “How far is it?” he asks.
“Could be there by midday on Thursday. Two days from now.”
“Good,” says Cas, looking eminently satisfied, and Dean tries to look the same. If they’re getting closer to Novak, it’s a good thing. Dean’s in this for the bounty, and Cas is in this to find his father. That’s all there is to their arrangement, no matter how easy it’d be to fool himself that the look Cas gave him earlier, after Dean fixed his badge for him, portends an interest in something more.
In any case, once Cas is gone again, Dean’ll be safe from prying questions about Sam or his whereabouts.
That’s a good thing.
***
“I do hope you don’t think too poorly of me,” Cas says on the afternoon of the next day as they’re riding past a long stretch of wheat fields, the sky above them obscured by a blanket of impenetrable gray. “For wanting to surrender my own brother to the law, I mean.”
Dean looks over at Cas, surprised. They’ve been riding in silence for at least an hour, so there’s nothing in particular that could’ve prompted the remark. He can’t work out Cas’ expression either, obscured as it is by the brim of his hat.
“I don’t,” Dean says, truthfully. He might, under other circumstances, but Cas is… well, he’s Cas. Despite his awkward ways and lack of self-preservation, his intentions are good. Dean can see that a mile away.
“You see,” Cas continues nonetheless, “our mother died when we were quite young, and our father was always… distant. I did my best to obey and please him. In fact, I dedicated my life to being… of use to him.”
Dean swallows past a sudden obstruction. Remains of their recent lunch, most likely, still stuck in his craw. “Yeah, I… I know how that goes,” he admits.
Cas does look up at him then, and the look in his eyes steals Dean’s breath. There’s a plea in it, as though he really gives a damn what Dean thinks about him. Dean can’t recall the last time someone genuinely cared what he thought. Sam certainly didn’t.
“Luke…” Cas’ mouth twists with long-remembered pain. “He went about trying to get our father’s attention another way. He became… angry. Cruel. Towards animals. Other people.” Cas swallows hard, his throat moving with it. The shadows of the racing clouds above streak across his face like the scars left by old wounds. “Me.”
For the second time in their acquaintance, Dean wishes he were quicker on the draw when it comes to finding the right words. He wants to tell Cas that he’s sorry; that he understands being subjected to indifference and cruelty by those meant to love you most. But he’s afraid the words won’t come out just right, so instead, he keeps his eyes on Cas, letting him know he’s listening. Just listening, without judgment.
“But between the two of us, I’m confident we can find him,” Cas continues, and there really is such confidence in his eyes. Such faith that it makes Dean feel unsteady in his saddle. “We’ll make him answer my questions, and we’ll hand him over to the law. Just once,” Cas says darkly, “he’s going to be my little bitch.”
Dean couldn’t say what unsettles him more: the sudden heat of arousal that has him shifting in the saddle in response to Cas’ profanity, or the flutter of something far more delicate in his gut.
***
That night, after they’ve made camp underneath a rocky outcropping to shelter from the wind that picked up at sundown, Dean watches the steady rise and fall of Cas’ chest inside his blanket roll and gets to thinking.
He’s always been careful with his attachments. Bela Talbot was the last time he really let himself hope, back when he was fourteen and still wet behind the ears.
Maybe if a fever hadn’t carried off Dean’s mother a year later, or if their father hadn’t lost the will to work their land after that, he could’ve opened his heart to somebody later on. Could’ve married a nice girl like Lisa Braeden, whose father owned a general store in Omaha, or hired on a ranch hand with pretty eyes like Nick Munroe, who lingered in Dean’s bed for a few days not long after Dean lost his father to an outlaw’s bullet.
But the fever did take Mary Winchester’s life, and when the family was on the brink of starvation, Dad packed up their meager possessions, left behind their homestead outside Lawrence — in a bad state of disrepair by then — and took them on the road. It was the start of a life of chasing bounties, cheating at cards and doing odd jobs on ranches and cattle drives just to keep their bellies full. A life where attachments are nought but a hindrance.
So Dean’s fallen into keeping company wherever it’s freely and readily offered, having his fun, and putting it out of his mind. Ain’t never made him happy, but he’s hardly been miserable either.
The trouble is this: watching Cas snore quietly, his face so guileless and desperately young in sleep, Dean wants to adjust his duster for him where it’s slipped off his shoulder. He wants to pull his blankets up over him so he doesn’t catch a chill in the unforgiving night wind. Worst of all, he wants to cup Cas’ face in his hand and see a look of pleased surprise on Cas’ face when the touch wakes him.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters under his breath and turns over, away from Cas. He shifts until he finds a position where he isn’t bothered by small rocks, poking and prodding into his flesh.
He’ll have to put it out of his mind, that’s all. Even if Cas’ tastes run to men (which is far from certain, though the way Cas’ eyes linger on him tends to give him hope), he deserves a far better man than Dean will ever be. Somebody with a nice home, maybe a bit of land, a few head of cattle. Somebody who could offer Cas more than just a warm body for a night.
Dean’s got a horse to his name, and whatever money he’s got in his saddlebags at any given point. He ain’t fit to touch the ground that someone like Cas walks on.
But during that restless night under the stars, trying and failing to find a bit of peace in sleep, Dean begins to suspect that riding with Cas, helping him, getting to know and like him, is far more dangerous to his heart than Bela Talbot ever was.