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English
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Published:
2025-02-12
Completed:
2025-03-15
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3,644
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8/8
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Slander, Libel, Every Word I Never Heard in the Bible

Summary:

Dean is totally, 100 percent, NOT into his best friend *that way*, no matter what his little brother thinks.

Chapter 1: Siblings

Notes:

Title from Simon and Garfunkel's 'Keep the Customer Satisfied'

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Okay listen up because there ain’t no way I’m gonna pussyfoot round this subject.

Sam thinks

Sam says

Look. I ain’t got a thing for Cas, okay?

Can’t believe he’d think somethin like that, after everything we been through together.

Aces.

 

“I’m not – what – what the fuck, Sam,” stated Dean sniffily.

Sam shrugged, bowl of cornflakes tiny in his gigantic hands.

“Dunno, man, you guys just seem, tight, yknow,” said Sam, totally oblivious to his brother’s pain, red in the face and steam coming out of his ears like a teapot.

“Oh, and, so, like, you can’t, you ain’t, like, what’s best friends for, Sam?” Dean asked desperately.

Sam’s gaze climbed up Dean from where he was seated innocuously and very irritatingly at the kitchen table. Yep. Just. Eatin his Cheerios or whatever the fuck.

“You tell me,” said Sam. “You wouldn’t let me have a best friend. So. You tell me.”

“I wouldn’t let you have a – damn it, Sam, we’re monster hunters!” Dean said. “Monsters woulda et up any best friend you cared to mention, les they were a hunter like us or, or. Another monster.”

“Kinda like Cas,” said Sam, and that was just. “He’s kinda a monster.”

“You. Hey. How. How dare you! Cas is our friend,” said Dean.

“Yep. And so is Garth. And he’s a monster,” said Sam. “Now willya let me eat my cornflakes in peace. Fuck’s sake.”

“All right, you just – you. Get some better ideas into that giant head.”

Flustered, wrongfooted, and just – brothers!

Dean wandered off down the hallway to find something to shoot, or something.

 

Unfortunately instead he ran into a solid wall of beige trenchcoat.

This did nothing for his peace of mind because he really meant wall, oof, and that tie was – well, kinda doin’ things for him, or to him, or –

“Damnit, Sam!” he growled aloud.

Dumbass kid puttin’ dumbass ideas in my head –

“Hello, Dean,” said Castiel like the bottom of a whisky barrel sweetened with dark red wine. “Are you and Sam fighting again.”

“Yeah. No! I mean,” Dean spluttered, searching now for the whisky he now had in mind like a little exclamation point over his head. “It don’t matter none, don’t fuss about it.”

“I will ‘fuss’ over whatever I damn well please,” Castiel growled, and oh great now the angel’s swearing and that went to Dean’s nethers like nobody’s business.

But not because it was Castiel! Because, angels and swearing, and.

“Back off, Chachi,” grumbled Dean, searching the bookshelves – aha!

Hand around the Hunter’s Helper, he scrammed.

 

Okay. So. This slander, it’s gotta stop.

Let’s look at it practical-like.

Dude’s handsome, anybody can see that. So’m I if I do say so myself. Sam too I guess if you’re into that overgrown puppy thing. Coulda been a ladykiller if he ever listened to me, ever. But this ain’t complimenting Sam time.

Cas. Best friend, loyal mostly, honest…uh, mostly. Warrior.

Those wings, man. Just shadows, always did wonder if he could bring ‘em into reality.

Bright eyes, really incredible blue, but that’s probably his grace. Ain’t never seen nobody with eyes like that before.

What does he really look like, I wonder? Ain’t just this dude in a trenchcoat, I guess.

Anyway. All normal shit. Kinds of things a man wonders about another man - man-shaped monster.

Ah, great. Now I’m callin’ him a monster, too.

 

“See,” said Dean to himself, aloud, triumphant. “Nothin’ doin’. Best friends forever n stuff. Total slander, or libel, or whatever the fuck it – whatever that’s called. Ain’t like I’m sketchin’ DW plus CW in my diary, after all. Red blooded American man.”

And so was Neal Cassady, came a sneaky-ass thought, which Dean parried like a game of Pong.

“Nothin’ to see here at all.”

Notes:

Neal Cassady, 'Adonis of the Road', a very real drifter, was the inspiration for Dean Moriarty in On the Road, and very much bisexual. He is also the originator of the quote 'carry on, my brother'.

The main characters of On the Road are Dean, Sal, and Carlo.

The character of Dean Winchester, in turn, was inspired by Dean Moriarty.

You may find something hauntingly familiar about Neal Cassady's mug shot.

Chapter 2: Chupacabra

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Hoots matoots, dude, like,” argued Dean expansively, including hand gestures like an Italian Guido type guy from the NYC.

“Whatever it is you’re tryin’ to communicate is lost in translation here, dude,” Sam replied, who had at least dropped that fancy-schmancy college accent he’d picked up so the other kids wouldn’t give him crap about his learnin’.

Then again, dumbfucks also gave him crap about his learnin’, so Sammy had it both comin and goin, which was just unfortunate all round.

“That pendejo better be comin’ back with cheeseburgers,” Dean groused decidedly.

Castiel chose that very moment to appear.

“Eh, ese, where’s the damned cheeseburgers,” Dean commented lightly, upon seeing the angel empty-handed.

“Don’t be an asshole, Dean,” said Sam, and suddenly Castiel handed him a salad, which he got from who knows where. “Miigwetch, Cas.”

“Pleasure,” said Castiel.

“Hey! I – how come he gets a salad and I get squat?”

“Because you are very rude.”

“I’m polite as fuck, excuse you.”

Castiel just held his gaze.

“Yeah, well, takk for nada, dude,” Dean complained, and wandered off, wondering why every interaction with Castiel lately made him feel like a hedgehog that had got up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

 

He had a dream. A weird dream.

About Cas. Or the real Cas-Cas not the dude in the suit.

Tentacles n -

Well – just –

You know what, never mind.

“Morning sunshine,” said Sam to Dean. “You want we should talk about a case, or about your burgeoning love affair with your guardian angel?”

“The shit says burgeoning,” muttered Dean, “that ain’t even no word, you fuckin weirdo.”

“Yes it is,” said Sam primly. “An’ if you’re gonna be all pissed in your Cheerios I’m gonna lay it all on the line for ya.”

“Hit me,” said Dean.

“Chupacabra,” said Sam.

“And?”

“Gots a pink barbiemobile.”

“Is that…a problem?” asked Dean slowly. “Y’know, I mean, I’m all for a man’s…uh. Choices. Or what the fuck ever. Is there any actual murder involved here or just, uh. Fashion police type stuff.”

“Well, I at least wanna see it.”

“You an’ me go there, dude, it’s gonna be OK Corral time, not jawin’ with the native, uh, chupacabras with bad taste in cars.”

“You’re telling me you don’t want to see a chupacabra in a pink corvette?”

“I’m tellin you that the minute we clap eyes on the motherfucker all hells gonna break loose and you know it.”

“Hell,” said Sam wistfully, and Dean arrowed a look at him.

“You miss hell?”

“I miss when the work mattered,” said Sam. “Lately it’s all just…boring and weird.”

“Hey. I’ll take a damn lifetime of boring an weird over the clusterfuck of … oh. Hey. Cas.”

Castiel was just standing there in the middle of the room like he wasn’t sure how he’d got there nor how to extricate himself from the situation all polite-like.

“Um. Hello,” said Castiel. “I am given to understand you have a case.”

“Not sure chupacabra corvette is a case, dude, but you’re welcome to ride shotgun,” said Dean.

“Not literally,” Sam helpfully supplied.

 

So with their big loud car and their guns and rock n roll they went to see if they ought to murder (or not) the local chupacabra.

Notes:

1. If everybody can decide their own out of character projections on these characters are acceptable, I decided I'd make them talk even more like drifters. Even when I write in our vernacular I try to keep it pretty middle of the road so it's still recognizable, so I'm not used to writing as I speak. If they become completely incomprehensible to non-drifters my work here is done.

2. 'You know what gets my goat? El chupacabra' never fails to make me laugh.

Chapter 3: Learnin'

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

There was, in fact, a chupacabra.

It did, in fact, drive a hot pink corvette.

“The shit is this Saved by the Bell Outrun vaporwave crap,” Dean complained. “fuckin trapperkeeper ass lookin thing.”

“Ain’t gon kamsamnida your way outta dodge compadre,” Sam replied, and well didn’t that just take the damned biscuit an the rest of the tin.

“Fine,” said Dean. “You straight wanna look inna this shit? Dude’s a fuckin realass chupacabra all up in the grill of lit every, what the fuck you spec gon 'cur here son?”

“Fuck if I know,” Sam replied. “Job’s job right?”

“Yeah yeah yeah okay.”

Dean walked straight up to the local fuzz and looked cockeyed over some gleaming shades right at em like the cat’s pajamas.

“Hello there officer,” he said in clear tones. “I see you have a – a – ”

Joe Law stared right on back.

“What seems to be the problem, officer?” he asked, and well that was just a 180 of every kind unexpected.

Dean, however, rolled with the punches as usual.

“The shit is that?” he said, enunciating clearly.

Joe Law looked where he was pointing.

Swung back the old caboodle like Dean was a horse’s caboose.

“It’s a chupacabra, son,” he said. “You feelin’ all right?”

“Uh. Chupacabra,” Dean repeated. “And you’re…okay with this?”

Joe Law now gave him the beyond thunderdome.

“We don’t welcome prejjadiss round these parts,” drawled the officer. “Doodles is a part of the community.”

He peered at Dean even harder.

“Doodles?”

“You prejjadisssed, son?”

“Me? No, no,” said Dean, hands up bo n luke duke, skeedaddled off back to Impala like he got shot in the ass an was eager to make friends with it. “Totally, openminded! Just curious.”

“Hm,” Joe Law said. “You just make sure that curiosidad stays that way.”

Dean tossed a look at Sam like he wasn’t too comfortable with Joe Law talking drifter speak.

Sam, ever the clever, started.

“That ain’t no cop, dude,” he said. “That’s a hunter.”

“Hey!” bawled Dean. “You can’t pretend to be a cop! That’s what we do!”

“I was here first,” sniffed Joe Law.

 

His name was Trevor, for some ungodly reason, and he was the chupacabra’s best bud.

Totally not weird.

Castiel chose this moment to arrive in a mess of wings and feathers.

“Hello,” he intoned like it was the most important word invented.

Hell, maybe it was. Dean didn’t have the straight line to the Heavenly reasoning, not that any of it made a lick of sense to anybody in his considered opinion.

Cause well the chupacabra was…

Kinda hot.

“You sure you’re just buds with this … uh. Dude?” Dean ventured, staring at them staring at each other.

“Yeah why,” said the chupacabra, who along with his questionable taste in vehicular arrangements was also improbably named Nate (nickname Doodles).

“You’re kinda. Uh. Starin at each other all…cozy-like,” Dean pointed out.

“That’s not important right now,” said Sam, flicking open a tiny notebook that looked even more tiny in his gigantor paws.

He gave em the old eyeball.

“What’s important right now,” said Sam, clappin back on the smartypants voice, “is how you encourage someone to make that first move.”

“What move?” asked Nate, Dean, and Castiel, and Joe Law, who was also somewhat improbably named Trevor Ashley Snorglewafer, a candidate for a name change if Dean ever heard one.

Sam darted a look at every single individual there and it was very clear that in his considered and lawyerly opinion everyone present, apart from Sam, was a complete idiot.

“Sam is very displeased,” he announced.

Dean’s ears pricked up like he was a mutt with a mission.

“Great. Awesome. Third-person Sam’s always a delight,” he muttered. “What the hell’s goin on here, man? Thought you just wanted to see the car.”

“Oh!” brightened Nate, and the entire, the sheer physics of a chupacabra driving a corvette, none of that mattered because here was something Dean could understand. “I’d love to show you my car! Her name’s Becky.”

“Becky,” said Dean flatly.

“Sam would love to see her,” Sam said.

“Is something wrong with your brother?” Castiel inquired.

“What isn’t,” said Dean, and followed the little circus right out into the parking lot.

If there was one thing Dean could sink his teeth into, man or monster, it was passionate love for an inanimate animate object.

There was no love like the love between car and man.

Or car and monster.

What the fuck ever.

Dean was on board.

Notes:

boy this is real dumb but I'm enjoying the attempt to get deep into drifter speak while writing, I hope it is completely incomprehensible, enjoy

Chapter 4: The Parking Lot

Chapter Text

Outside, everyone was uncomfortably crowding around Becky the Corvette, Barbie pink as promised.

“So, what’s a hunter n chupacabra doin’ pallin’ up?” asked Dean.

“What’s a hunter n angel doin’ pallin’ up?” Joe Law (Trevor) retorted.

“Angel ain’t a monster.”

“Sure is.”

“Why’s everybody always sayin’ that?”

Doodles, at this point, chose the moment to get down on one knee.

Everyone’s eyes goggled, most of all Trevor’s.

“Will you marry me?” asked Doodles, eyes huge and afraid.

There was a pregnant pause.

Then Joe Law was kissin’ the chupacabra within an inch of his life.

The ring got lost somewhere under the car.

“Sam thinks Sam should be somewhere else,” chirped Sam.

Dean and Castiel did not look at each other.

 

Leaving the celebration in the parking lot behind, Dean resolutely drove the Impala down the road like a dude.

His angry silence and clenched jaw, he was sure, also made him look like a dude’s dude, dangerous and whatnot.

Thing was, well. Impala or not, he wasn’t exactly as tattooed and scarred as he really ought to have been, and delicate features for a hunter, well, what could he do about his mug? Nada, obviously.

Sam, ever the hulking monstrosity, hulked away in his corner of the car.

Castiel sat in the back for some reason, unnecessary because he was an angel and could fly and shit.

He also was built like a brick shithouse.

All of which in Dean’s considered opinion was totally unfair.

 

Back at the bunker, Dean wrote in his journal again.

Saw a dude make out with a chupacabra today, which is an all-new sentence.

Cas was there and he didn’t say a thing.

Sam was there too and he’s back to talking about himself in the third person, so we’re gonna have to put up with that again.

Can’t say I see what Joe Law saw in Hotwheels there but maybe it ain’t about the outfit but the dude inside, I guess.

An’ if that’s the case, if I did want Cas – not sayin’ I want Cas, y’see, but say I did –

Under the hood ain’t pretty, an’ that’s the honest truth of it.

What would an angel want with me?

Dean set down his pen, and passed a hand over his face.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he heard that long-ago echo, you don’t think you deserve…

“Damn straight I don’t,” Dean muttered, and flumped across the bed, raising dust and probably an entire civilization of dust mites that had recently invented weaponry and math, only to be destroyed just prior to their own industrial revolution by an angsty hunter.

There were times in the lives of drifters and hunters in which the agony and anguish of the soul produced a singing form of poetry.

Sometimes, it was also done for comedic effect.

Dean knew, in his heart of hearts, that his situation really called for both sides of that particular artistic coin.

Chapter 5: Candygram

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

There was a knock at the door.

"Candygram," said Sam's voice through the wood, and when the door opened, Dean already knew what was about to hit him before it even began.

"Oh no," he said, just as his brother started to speak.

 

The Song of Sam (a song by Sam, Sam’s song)

 

Now I don’t always sing that’s my brother’s thing

Although he really can’t sing at all

But Sam’s been watching this too long so Sam decided to write a song and Sam has had enough

Anyone watching can see what Sam sees

These idiots think they’re both the bees knees

Sam don’t want details Sam don’t want to know

But Sam is done watching this show

Sam sees these idiots locked in a stare

In a liplock flintlock angel’s nightmare

Both think they’re worthless and think they’re alone

And both have a heart against a heart made of stone

But Sam sees it all and Sam has a brain

And Sam knows the end of this story’s the same

But it has been years now I’m sure you’ll agree

We’d all like to see, but you know, NOT ACTUALLY SEE

The ultimate ending of this UST!

So Dean will you finally get your head out your ass

Go down the hall and go and kiss Cas!

 

Sam bowed, with a great flourish.

“Thanks a lot, Land Shark,” groaned Dean, dropping his forehead to his folded arms, and grumping, “What was that, Willy Wonka? I’m sure I’m adopted. That sucked.”

“But Sam is right,” roared Sam in triumph, punching the air.

"What the hell does the United States Treasury have to do with anything?"

Sam goggled at him.

"Oh my GOD Dean," he said, and huffed off.

Dean looked up and at the now-empty door frame where his brother’s little ill-advised performance had rattled him to his core.

Sam never recited drifter poetry. It was a very particular kind of talent, a little easier when drunk, but some just did not have the gift and Sam was one of those.

For him to go on the assault with drifter poetry, his brother must be fed up indeed.

Dean evaluated himself, his life, his everything. The wrinkles he’d noticed this morning. New ones, just around his eyes.

He was tired.

He was getting older.

He got up.

He walked out the door, and down the hall.

Notes:

this is very stupid but I do miss Candygram/Land Shark, absurdist humor is my favorite

Chapter 6: Hallway

Chapter Text

Castiel was standing in the doorway.

Like he was expecting him, or some shit.

“Uh. Okay. Cas,” said Dean, and just what-the-helled it, grabbin’ the lapels of Castiel’s Dick Tracy getup and just planted one on the motherfucker like he was damned tired of waitin’ in line.

Castiel was stone. A cemetery angel.

Dean…

released him.

His mouth opened, he sure as shit had no idea what woulda come out of it, when –

Castiel lifted him WITH ONE HAND, slammed him into the opposite wall and started giving him a kiss the French wish they’d invented.

After that, it was all bets are off, home-run-hit, every rocket and firework video, and they were still clothed.

Sam, of course, chose this moment to turn into the hallway, because Sam had the kind of timing of moms everywhere when they walk in on THE WORST part of the  movie they could’ve possibly walked in on.

Sam’s anguished bellow was, well, his own fault.

“SAM’S EYES!!!!” he bellowed.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Castiel graveled, and the sudden startling sheer hotness of it all, the swearing, and the sudden show of strength, and the immediate teleportation into Dean’s room and onto Dean’s bed, and his subsequent nakedness, made Dean’s head spin.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” explained Castiel like he was a bored homeroom teacher doing the driver’s ed instruction.

“Uh. Okay,” said Dean.

And so it was.

And so it goes.

And Castiel, giving up all glory, all glory in triumph,

in winning, in this final battle, the wanton whore his heart had yearned for with all its angelic being –

if angels could be said to have hearts.

And his intended, a heart of gold that washed away all iniquity in its warm and bleeding light –

A good man, if a bad one.

Castiel entered, first by gentle and insistent fingers, the sweet myrrh and honey from time out of mind, from a dozen deserts, from the date-palm days of his fine-sandaled past –

And here, upon this marriage-bed, he breached Dean Winchester –

Yes, first with wide, insistent fingers, soft and blunt, preparing the way.

Then, steadying himself against the man crouched in subservient supplication, on his knees and elbows, a perfect sacrifice.

And Castiel entered him, hard and certain, as Dean wept and his mouth wept sounds of great glory, of praise and worship delicious to an angel’s hearing, beautiful, beautiful.

Dean held still, and then moved with him, until Castiel drew him up close, against his chest, beloved and taken, lovely and owned, as he had long desired.

Muscles of his thighs working almost without thought, moved by human instinct, inspired by angelic single-minded obsession:

Target: acquired.

Dean, in a moment, wailed and came all over himself.

Castiel, and the angel of him, rejoiced.

Moments later, he found the pinnacle, and he, too, fell.

But here they were at the ground together –

Not so much crashed, as landed.

Chapter 7: Diary

Chapter Text

So, uh…dear diary. Or whatever the fuck.

Me an’ Cas did the dirty.

It was awesome.

Sam was right.

Unfortunately for Sam.

It’s gonna be a long haul for that kid.

Serves him right.

Anyway.

Happy as a pig in shit. Can’t believe it.

Guess the kid was right all along.

But if we’re bein’ honest here – an’ this is a diary, you gotta be honest –

when is he ever wrong?

 

Sam studiously did not look in their direction as they sat in a diner sharing pie, obnoxiously in love, Dean eating the whipped cream off Castiel’s fingers.

“Sam wishes he was anywhere but here,” Sam said plaintively.

“Oh, you’re still doin’ that?” asked Dean.

“Sam will be doing it forever,” Sam complained.

“Suit yourself. You broke it you bought it, buster,” Dean said with a ridiculous grin, because he was in love and happy and all that good shit.

He knew Sam was happy for him, too, but sibling code meant that he couldn’t be effusive about it because it was against brother law.

Still, he could see the kid smiling.

And big brother law was to harass your kid brother with PDA or general embarrassment, only to be outdone by Dad law in the social level of walk ten steps behind me, I don’t wanna be seen with you family interactions.

So he planted a viciously sloppy kiss on Castiel, leaving the angel with a dazed expression.

“Sam wishes he were adopted,” said Sam.

“Cut the crap, Sam,” said Castiel. “Your brother and I are in love.”

This startled a laugh out of Sam, which was good.

Then Castiel put his hand into Dean’s, which was great.

The sun came out, they had a hunt, and that made it even better.

Slander, libel, and all those other words, well.

They'd led him here.

He'd allow it.

Chapter 8: Author's Note.

Chapter Text

Hi everyone!

This was utterly ridiculous, half in drifter speak, half in regular English. Absurdist humor is the best. Sometimes it's fun to write light, silly stuff.

Hope you enjoyed!

Love,

Dean