Archive of Our Own

His family thinks he's nuts. So do most of his friends, Cas suspects, although they're not quite as upfront about it. A highly decorated Air Force pilot, landing himself a dishonorable discharge and retreating to a small town in central California to open a coffee shop? Well. Had someone told him seven years ago that's the turn things were going to take, he'd probably have called them nuts too.

Money is a problem – he did a few tours and has something saved, but it's not nearly enough. Anna helps him cover the rest. She's always out to piss off their father, and taking a loan on behalf of her little brother so he can cut all ties to Dad and his beloved military is as welcome an opportunity for a dig at the old man as any, Cas guesses. Besides, she always did say he wasn't meant to serve, wasn't the type to go to war. At the time, he took that as an offense; it was before he came out to his family and close friends at least, and he interpreted it as a comment on his behavior, his sexual orientation.

Now that he's been to war, though, he sees her point. It's not what he's meant to be doing. It made him numb, and ache inside, and even though he didn't chose to leave he's relieved now that it happened. His relief is more than enough to outweigh the shame.

His life can begin anew now, and he feels free. What he wants is to put as much distance between himself and the base as possible, and the town of Vernalis – one of the oldest towns in the San Joaquin Valley – is as far from everything as it gets. A total population of about 2,000 people, with a train station, a post office and a shopping promenade that barely deserves the name, all surrounded by farms and fields and a whole lot of nothing.

The best thing about it is the old-fashioned, abandoned two-story-house smack in the middle of aforementioned shopping promenade. It has been wilting away unused for years, and the former owner is willing to sell it for such a low price that he might as well be giving it away for free. Opening up a coffee shop in such a small town is either a really good or a very bad idea, but Cas doesn't even have to think twice; he's in love as soon as he lays eyes on the house. It's about a century old, reminiscent of the old colonial style with a side-gabled roof, a portico, large pedimented windows and lots of little details like cornices and pendants. He'll have to put some work in, renovate on his own, but he's never been afraid to get his hands dirty.

He calls Anna that evening, the bank the next morning, and a few days later he's a Vernalis resident with real estate to his name.

***

Cas tackles the ground floor first, the coffee shop. Reasonable arguments could probably be made for renovating the second floor first, since that's where he's going to live. But he's eager to get business going and doesn't mind sleeping on a mattress in the living room in one of the two apartments up there for now. Besides, the shop is what's supposed to support him, what he wants to make a living with. The faster that happens, the less money he's going to have to ask from Anna.

When it was last in use, the house was used as a bakery with enclosed café, but it has to be almost completely gutted. Nobody took care of it while it wasn't used: there are rats in the main area, the counter has started to rot, and the benches and tables and chairs must've already been threadbare when business closed. The only part that's still salvageable is the kitchen. Cas is grateful for this, because a new professional kitchen might've very well made his budget explode.

He probably didn't think this through well enough. But it's too late to back out now, and also, he wants this to work. He can't recall ever wanting something so much in his life.

The first few weeks in Vernalis consist of cleaning out the shop, painting it, and laying out a new floor. Unfortunately, that's where Cas' expertise in renovation hits a dead end. But the sanitary installations still need an overhaul, he wants to put decorative panels up in the main area, put up his own counter, maybe do some decorations on the walls and ceiling that mix with the style of the building... In short, he needs help. Or advice, at the very least.

That's how he ends up a regular costumer in the bookstore right across the street. He buys books on everything: carpeting, piping, wood carving; huge tomes that go into every detail as well as DIY-for-Dummies. Jo, the owner, gives him deals after a while, gets him some of them second-hand.

She built her business under her own steam as well, she says, against the advice of her mother Ellen, who has a bar in town. She understands that sometimes, you have to get creative and take things into your own two hands to make your dreams come true. They become friends. Jo's also the first victim for the new blends and roasts he tries on the fancy, traditional coffee maker he buys on eBay. And, well. Experiments usually involve failures.

“This tastes...interesting.” Jo's face scrunches up, mouth curved down in disgust and eyes pinching together. She licks her lips, and Cas half-expects her to shudder. “I wouldn't bother writing it down, though.”

One of the things Cas likes about her is that she's honest. Always. No barrels held. “I thought about using it as the base for a flavored mix –“

“No. Trust me. Don't.”

To produce blends on a larger scale, made for public consumption and from scratch, is marginally different than spicing up your daily morning coffee, Cas finds out. Not too much of a surprise, he's not stupid and didn't expect it to be the same, but sometimes he's overwhelmed with it all. The renovations, the recipes... it's a lot.

Jo's been quick to learn how to read his moods, and she catches this one too. “Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it. Most of the things you have me taste are really awesome.” She grins. “I'm just pushing you to do your best. This is all gonna work out fine, you'll see.”

“From your lips to God's ears,” Cas says, and sets out to make another blend.

***

Opening day happens a month later than Cas had planned. He still doesn't have a bed, the oven he bought for the kitchenette upstairs is about his age and his meals consist of ramen noodles and buttered rolls more often than not, but the shop is everything he wanted it to be. He did make the counter himself, fitted perfectly in the corner by the kitchen, with a display for cakes and cookies and a special, elevated place for the coffee bar. There are showcases with old tools and vintage metal boxes between the benches. The benches are mint green and white, matching the colors of the walls and the floor, and he worked with light-colored timber and darker accents for the furniture.

It couldn't be more perfect if he'd dreamed it.

Jo sits with him during the first hour after he opens, nursing him through an existential crisis, but around 10 AM the shop gets crowded. People trickle in, he gets handshakes and pats on the back and welcome-in-town's and congratulations, and that evening he falls into bed exhausted but happy.

The opening day is no one-off, either. The shop isn't what you'd call crowded, but most days it's busy enough. After the first month, when he's done with the books and has calculated everything through meticulously, Cas comes up with a little surplus. He won't make a fortune if things carry on like this, but he'll able to pay his bills, pay Anna back, and live somewhat comfortably.

He has a few regulars, mostly people who work downtown or other shopkeepers, and some of the kids hang around after getting out of school. That's his favorite time; the entire mood in the room changes when there's kids around, chattering over each other and crowding together to do homework or plan out the rest of their day.

On one of the last days of the school year, a bright, hot afternoon in early June about three months after Cas opened the shop, a class comes over early, with their teacher. It's a younger guy, maybe in his mid-twenties, short light-brown hair and piercing green eyes that catch on Cas' when he takes the first sip of his coffee and lifts his eyebrows appreciatively.

They don't talk much beyond the order being placed and the usual, polite chit-chat he has with many of his costumers, but for Cas, it's love at first sight. For a couple of days, the guy is all he can think about. He doesn't tell anyone, not even Jo, because he's too old for stupid crushes and anyway, it's going to fade soon, surely.

So when he strolls into the coffee-shop three days later, sits down at a table in the corner and produces a laptop like he intends to spend some time there, Cas' heart nearly stops. He's so embarrassed that he feels his ears burn, and he's certain that it's written all over his face when he approaches the table to take his order. Good lord, he feels pathetic. And strangely excited, almost dizzy with that fluttery feeling in his stomach he last had when he was about fifteen and crushing hard on the boy next door. Who he then caught making out with Anna, so yeah, so much for his gaydar.

Cas would take bets that the guy's straight as a lamp post. He probably has a wife and kids, a cute little house, the whole nine yards. Before he can stop himself, Cas' eyes fall to the guy's hands; no ring, at least.

After he takes the order – simple, non-flavored coffee with nothing else than cream and a tiny shot of almond syrup added – Cas points at the laptop. “Work to do?”

“Yes and no,” says the guy and smiles, and goddamn, that smile does nothing to makes the flock of butterflies in Cas' stomach calm down. “During break, it's not work, it's fun.” He turns the machine around so Cas can see the screen; there's a folder with photos, three or four of them opened and with text on them that looks like notes on composition from the bits Cas can read.

“You're a photographer?”

“Teaching an afternoon class for photography at the local High School. But once school's out for the year, I try to work a bit on, ya know, some portfolio work. Maybe catch a few gigs. Weddings and the like, family portraits.”

“Any luck so far?”

“Nah. But that's okay, we don't really need the money. I just don't like to sit around with my hands in my lap over the summer.”

There it is: we. Not married, but not single either. Cas isn't a teenager anymore, manages to keep the disappointment out of his voice when he replies, “Good luck, then, uh...”

“Dean.” That smile again. “Name's Dean.”

“Ah. I'm Casey, Cas for short,” says Cas and turns to let him go back to his work. There are new costumers lined up for their to-gos at the counter, too; he's not here to make small talk.

But if he allows himself to steal a glance now and then, while both of them mind their own business, no one will ever have to know.

***

Over the coming weeks, Dean spends an hour or two at the coffee shop almost every day, curled over his laptop and sorting through his photos. They talk a little every time; nothing personal, but Cas tells him anecdotes from the few months he's had the shop now, and Dean talks about his students. He seems to love his work, and he's popular with the kids too; if one of them happens to be around when he's there, they always stop by to say hello, wave or exchange a few words. “His kids”, as Dean calls them, were the ones to suggest a visit the coffee shop on the last day of the term in the first place.

Dean shows Cas the photos he's taken some days, when it's quiet and he has the time to spare. Some of them are artistic, abstract. Others – the paid gigs Dean mentioned on the first day – are plain and simple, just people smiling into the camera.

There's one series of pictures Cas particularly likes, although it sends shivers down his spine. It shows a deserted farm, and the pictures are eerie and powerful in the way they show the emptiness that emerges whenever people create a space to live in and then abandon it later. He's seen places like that during his tours, homes void of human life, and it makes him vaguely uncomfortable to see something so similar back here, where everything's supposed to be peaceful and safe.

Dean seems to sense the impact the pictures have on Cas. He looks at the screen, then at Cas, his forehead creasing. “It's a farm just out of town. Dunno what happened, already was like that when I was little. It's not far from the area my Dad took me hunting back then, and, what can I say, it made an impression. I think it's peaceful.” He smiles a little, faraway and like he's conjuring up the feeling the place gives him. “Weird and creepy, maybe, but peaceful. No one else for miles, you can explore, get lost.”

“I love them. They're wonderful.”

“Wonderful wasn't quite what I've been aiming for,” Dean says, but there's no disapproval in his voice; he sounds amused.

Maybe he mistook the compliment for flirting, maybe he doesn't and just thinks Cas is flattering him, but either way, Cas wants to clarify. “No, I mean, they're good. The atmosphere you created is impressive.”

Dean lowers his eyes. “Dude, that's the place, not me.”

Instead of disagreeing and make him feel even more embarrassed, Cas changes the subject. “You know, you should take pictures of the shop sometime. I was thinking to maybe make a new menu card, and a leaflet to hand out at the counter. I'd pay for them, of course.”

“Yeah, sure, cool,” Dean agrees. He looks around the room, as if he's seeing it for the first time, already seizes it up for angles and motifs. “With all the time I spend here lately, I might as well make good use of it. And I don't want to hear anything about money, I'll do it for free.”

“No, I couldn't accept –“

“Sure you can. Consider it a compensation for my poor tips,” Dean says. It sounds stilted, overly accentuated – like he was going to say something else but corrected himself – and he swallows. “Okay?”

Dean looks at him then, focused and intensive and with his eyebrows raised and his green eyes all zeroed in on Cas, and Cas couldn't have said no to him even if he'd asked for fifty bucks per picture instead of doing it gratis. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“That's settled then. I'll bring my camera with me sometime next week, when I got a bit more time, and we'll get it done”.

***

The next Monday, Dean shows up earlier than usual with his camera. It's a calm morning, the shop almost empty now that the rush of customers who come in before working hours to get their coffee-to-go has passed. He walks around the shop, snaps a picture here or there of guests drinking their coffee, having a piece of cake, or just talking.

And he photographs Cas. While he serves, while he manages the coffee machine, behind the counter. It makes Cas want to squirm and hide; being the center of attention has never been his favorite place, and the way Dean smiles at him from behind the lens sends a shiver down his spine.

It also makes him hope for things he's still pretty sure he can't have.

Dean rounds his session up with a few pictures of the interior, and the shop from the outside. By the time he decides he's done, it's early afternoon. He comes up to the counter, where Cas is busy taking orders from an older couple, waits a little off to the side and waves with the camera when they're gone. “All done. And I really gotta go. I'll develop the pictures and burn you a CD with the digital copies. Gonna take a day or two.”

“No hurry. Whenever you get to them.”

“Ah, I'll make sure I'll get to them soon,” Dean says, winks at Cas before he turns.

***

Dean's second favorite thing about photography is the process in the darkroom. Picking motifs and taking the pictures is the most creative part of it, where the difference between a random snapshot and a photograph is made; composition and style and exposure and angles and all that fun. But he likes the time he spends in here – calm and quiet, with an absolute focus on the repetitive motions of developing his pictures – just as much. He's got an old-fashioned cassette deck in here, listens to some of his favorite tapes while he works, then waits, rinse and repeat until a couple of blank sheets of paper come to life under his hands.

Usually, he's not all too comfortable with being alone with his thoughts, but in here, it's somehow okay.

Al's been out on a seminar for the past two days, and Dean used the time to prepare the photos he took at the coffee shop. He started last night, but there were too many to develop them all in one go, and so he got up early today to finish the set. The plan is to be done before Al gets here; he's not much of a fan of waiting on Dean while he works and, yeah. Their relationship tends to be easier when Al gets what he wants.

After he's got all pictures up to dry, he has a quick breakfast and debates with himself whether he'll go see Cas until noon, but Al coming back to an empty house won't go over well. It's a good decision; Dean hears the telltale creak of the front door around ten, and Al cheerfully calls out his name before he's even pushed it closed.

Dean's stomach churns. It's not that he's not glad that Al's back, but there's a different atmosphere in the house when he's around, lately. Thicker, in a way. Tense. Either Al's fuse has gotten shorter, or Dean has gotten more nervous since he's carved out a little space for himself with the visits to the coffee shop. It's been awhile since he tried something like that, and he's counting down the days until Al will have had enough and take it away.

But he saunters down the stairs anyway, broad smile on his face. “Hey, Al. How's the seminar been? Did ya have a good trip?”

“You, Dean,” Al chides him, sounding exasperated. “I'm gone for two days and you already regress back to talking like a dock worker? You're a teacher now, you can't babble like that.”

A response forms in the back of Dean's throat, garnished with more slang and a few choice curse words, but he learned to bite those back a long time ago. “We're at home. I'm not babbling that way at school, and you know it.” He points at Al's bag. “Give me that, I'll take it upstairs, okay?”

Al frowns, but he holds the bag out to him and chucks out of his coat once Dean takes it and heads off to their bedroom to unpack it. When he comes back down, Al's sitting at the kitchen table, take-out menu open in front of him.

He stretches back on the chair. “What do you say, celebratory Chinese?”

Dean nods. He's not hungry, but he didn't avoid an argument earlier just to get into one about food choices now, and forty-five minutes later, they're settled on the couch with their takeout containers and Dean's up for report.

“So,” Al starts. “What have you been up to while I was gone?”

“Not much,” Dean replies, as casual as he can manage while he feels like he's being interrogated. How these conversations go depends on Al's mood – what may or may not tick him off is impossible to predict – and Dean knows his answer is going to put him onto thin ice. “Took my camera with me to the coffee shop yesterday, for a few photos, but that's it, really.”

“That shop again, hm?” The disapproval is unconcealed. Dean's aware Al doesn't like him spending so much time there, but until he gets an outright ban to go he's damn well going to do so as much as he pleases. “I never knew you were into fancy coffee.”

“And I'm not. Dunno – I don't know, I guess I like it there. It's nice, something different.”

Al's eyebrows go up. “Have you developed the photos yet? Can I see them?”

“Of course you can. I finished them this morning, they're in the basement to dry.”

And yep, shit, Al's on his feet before Dean finishes that sentence. He makes Dean go first with a wave of his hand, and they walk downstairs to the darkroom in silence. Down there, while Al looks at the pictures, rips one or two of them off the cord so harshly the paper rips, Dean can feel the air between them change to something dark and ugly. He expects the backhanded slap when it comes, is braced for its impact and manages not to sway on his feet, but that doesn't make it hurt any less.

Al waves one of the photos in Dean's face. “Who's that guy?”

“The owner of the coffee shop.” Short, precise answers usually serve Dean best in situations like this. No use in saying too much, lengthy explanations just look suspicious.

“Pretty photogenic.”

“The pictures are for a leaflet. As the owner, he ought to be in them.”

“You're lying,” Al says, head tilted to the side, tone low and threatening.

“I'm not! He's the guy who serves coffee, we got to talking a little, I offered to take the photos. Nothing else happened.”

Dean might as well not have answered for all the attention Al pays to his words. “You stupid, ungrateful little maggot. I should've known.”

“Al. Nothing happened,” Dean pleads.

All he gets in reply is a snarl, and on his way out of the darkroom, Al pushes past him roughly, almost knocks him off balance.

Dean knows better than to think that's the end of this.

***

For the rest of the week, Dean doesn't come back, and when he does show up on Friday he's not alone.

Cas sees them both before they enter the shop, Dean and an older guy. Not that much older than Dean or Cas, maybe five years, ten tops, and he looks a little like King Hagard from that movie with the unicorns Anna loved so much when they were kids; slender, long face, beard. And he's furious. Dean stays behind him, hands moving in a placating gesture while the older guy pushes the door open. When Dean follows, he turns around, holds up a hand.

“You'll fucking stay here,” the guy spits, and Cas decides he finds him unpleasant.

Dean scowls, but he obeys, hangs back by the door while the other guy strides up to the counter. He pushes away the customer waiting for his coffee in front of him, and chucks a couple of photographs across the counter. They're from Monday's photo session, and all of them picture Cas.

“Feel like explaining these to me? Because he” – the guy nods his head towards Dean, who looks down, away from both of them – “doesn't want to come out with the truth.”

“Uh.” Cas blinks, gazes at the pictures, back up. “They're for a leaflet for the coffee-shop.”

“Well, of course they are.”

And okay, Cas isn't much of a people person and spent most of his adult life in the cocoon of the military, but he's beginning to piece this together. He makes his voice be lower, more like the authoritative tone he used with recruits. “Yes. They are. Nothing more going on. He's a regular, we talked about his work and my idea with the leaflet, and he offered to take some pictures I could use. That's all.”

The guy narrows his eyes. “He won't be a regular anymore, and you better stay the hell away from him.” He doesn't wait for a reply before he gathers the pictures, tears them down the middle, throws them back at Cas and turns to march out of the shop.

Dean shoots Cas a quick glance, mouths a silent sorry, and then they're gone.

***

Cas keeps staring at the door until the next costumer in line brings his attention back to his work. As soon as the flow calms down a little, he calls Jo, tells her what happened and all but begs her to ask around and find out more about Dean and what he assumes is his boyfriend. They arrange to meet after closing time, and for the rest of the day Cas' thoughts keep wandering to Dean.

He keeps replaying the scene in his head, wonders if he read too much into it. So Dean's got a jealous boyfriend. That doesn't mean anything else is happening. He never showed up in the shop with bruises, and he just doesn't seem the type? Then again, Cas has had enough conversations with Anna about people in her congregation to know that there's no such thing: no obvious victims, very few certain tells, and some people hide their pain so well that no one ever catches a clue until it's too late. But in the end, Cas can't be certain that there's anything to hide here, and he's hardly the right person to judge. He barely knows Dean, after all. Surely there are people closer to him who'd have pulled a stop if something was going on, wouldn't there? Family, friends, someone at school. It's not Cas' place to make a fuss about this, at least not until he knows more. Until he can be sure that his suspicions are justified.

Jo knocks at the front door about 10 minutes after Cas closed up, just when he put water into the sink in the kitchen to clean up and hand-wash the last of the dirty dishes from the afternoon. He goes to let her in, gestures for her to follow him into the back. She looks around, grabs a towel while he starts putting cups and plates into the hot water.

“Okay, so. Your photography teacher. I talked to a few people to find out more about him, and you owe me just for the fact that half of them probably think I'm the one with a crush on him,” she says, leaning back on the counter while she waits for Cas to start handing her wet dishes.

“He's not my photography teacher. We talked a few times, I'm worried he got into trouble at home because he did me a favor.”

Jo grins. “But you do have a crush on him?”

Denial has been Cas' first instinct when faced with inquiries about his sexual orientation for so long that he can't quite fold right away, not even when there's nothing at stake anymore. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Oh, come on. Cas, give me some credit. We might've only known each other for a few months, but I've seen the way you look at men, and I've seen the way you look at women. It's not terribly obvious, but you're not being too sneaky about it either.”

He sighs, hands her a dripping cup. “Well then, yes. I might be interested in him, but I knew right from the start that he was in a relationship. I wasn't going to do anything about it. It's not the reason why I asked you to find out more about him.”

“I know.” Her face turns serious as she towels the cup dry and sets it down. “Do you really think he's in trouble?”

“To be honest, I'm not sure. My sister works for the congregation in my hometown, and she often encounters battered wives and abused children who seek the shelter of the church. There are warning signs, and controlling behavior is one of them.”

“Like what happened this morning?”

“Yes, exactly like that,” he says. Another cup changes hands.

“Okay. Dean – Winchester, by the way – and his family are originally from Kansas. Him, his little brother and their dad moved here after their mother died when he was four. Tragic story, a house fire or something? The dad uprooted them, moved around for a few years, until he settled here when Dean was, hm, about ten I think.” She pauses when she catches Cas' arched eyebrows, sets the second cup down as well. “What?”

He smiles, although she won't see much of it from where he's bent over the sink. “You're thorough.”

“Yes, I am.” She grins again, mock-offended, and swats at him with the towel. “Plus, it's a small town and people like to gossip. It's like tapping an oil well, I tell you. Anyway, doesn't sound like the dad was a pleasant person, and he died when Dean was eighteen. Drank himself to death, pretty much. Dean managed to keep custody of Sam, the brother. Around that time, he also met Alastair Byrne.”

“The boyfriend?”

“Yes. They didn't get together right away, but now they've been dating for six or seven years, moved in together when Sam went to college.” She reaches for the plate Cas is done scrubbing. “That's when the well dies up. He's a math teacher, got Dean the teaching gig three years ago, but that's about the extent of what I found out. They keep to themselves, people say.”

“Very thorough indeed.” Cas turns, abandoning the dishes for a moment, and Jo rolls her eyes.

“So, what are you going to do?”

And the thing is, Cas still isn't sure. “I don't know. It could be something's wrong, it could be I'd just make a ruckus for no reason. Maybe I'll call my sister and talk to her about it.”

Jo nods, and they go back to cleaning up together.

***

It's not like this all the time. Al's not beating the shit out of him on a regular basis; in fact, he hardly ever raises a hand. Just, well. He's rough sometimes. They're guys, of course they get physical, right? And Dean's no chick, he can take a clout here or a slap there. What the hell ever. He had it worse under Dad, this isn't so bad. Al's a bit strict sometimes and he gets jealous, but he's also generous and supportive, smart and funny. He loves Dean a lot and he's a good guy, most of the time.

Except for when he isn't.

Having made a show of them in the shop doesn't calm Al down. He's far from done. For days on end, he alternately treats Dean like shit or like he's invisible. Al doesn't leave the house, and Dean doesn't have to ask to know that means he's not allowed to either. He's under supervision, trapped in a minefield twenty-four hours a day, and the fact that they're on summer break from school makes it worse.

On Monday, after they run out of milk and happen to be on their last roll of toilet paper, Al grudgingly announces they're going to go grocery shopping. Together. As if he needs to point that out. They played a toned-down version of this game when a new history teacher started working at the school a few months ago and Al decided he was making eyes at Dean.

Said teacher married his girlfriend last February, so there's that.

Truth to be told, Dean's missing the coffee shop. Maybe he's missing Cas, too, talking to him – it may have something to do with why Dean kept going back there even though he knew it might get him in trouble – but that doesn't mean he'd fling himself at the guy first chance he gets. He still loves Al and he's not the type to cheat, but that doesn't seem to matter. It never did.

As it is, he halfheartedly trails after Al in the mall two towns over, and Dean suspects they drove all the way here to make extra sure they don't run into Cas on accident. That's what finally makes his blood boil, on top of everything; as if Dean's a tomcat in heat that can't control himself and must be led far, far away from temptation. He picks a fight on the way home. It's nothing important, some bullshit about how Al ignored a red light that Dean thinks he still could have made, but by the time they get home they're yelling at each other loud enough that elderly Mrs. Snider from next door stops plucking weeds from her rose bed and beats a hasty retreat into her house.

Al's expression has settled somewhere between disbelief and seething rage when he throws the door closed behind them. “You'll shut the hell up if you value your life,” he says, voice cold and thin with barely contained anger.

And Dean knows he's playing with fire, setting a match to a powder keg, but he can't stop. “Oh, I do value my life. It's a fuckin' miracle you didn't get us killed yet!”

“Really, Dean. I'd be careful what you say, wouldn't want you to get yourself hurt.”

“Oh, by running into your fist or something? No, Al. You're –“

Dean doesn't get any further, because that's when Al comes at him. It's no surprise, really; Dean's been banking on a slap or a shove, and he had every intention to fight back this time. But he doesn't get the chance. The force of Al's hit – right hook to the jaw, hard enough Dean instantly tastes blood – throws him off his feet, makes him land flat on his ass in the middle of the hallway.

He's still not quite clear on what's happening, ears ringing a little, when Al bends down to pull him up by the collar of his jacket. More punches follow, two, three, before he lets go and Dean falls back onto the floor like a sack of spuds. He begins to lever himself up, but Al kicks his arms out from under him with a growl and he doesn't dare try again, rolls onto his back instead.

For another moment or two, Al doesn't do anything, simply stares down at him like he's a bug under the microscope. “I don't know why I still bother with you, when you're not even able to gather up your two brain cells and realize it's in your best interest to shut your mouth and leave things be. This is your fault. You're making me do this.”

Dean stares back, licking blood from his lip. “Yeah. You keep telling yourself that.”

The next kick makes him see stars.

***

When Dean comes to, Al's nowhere to be seen. He sits up, wincing, experimentally prods at his chest. It fucking hurts. His head's swimming, and he can't quite see straight, his legs almost give in when he heaves himself into a standing position with the help of a sideboard he had to crawl towards first.

He takes a minute, just standing there, both waiting for the fog to clear and to decide what he's going to do next. One thing's for sure: he won't wait around for Al to come back and hand out seconds. With considerable effort, he manages to climb up the stairs and quickly packs a bag with a few clothes, the weathered old album with Dad's old photos from his time in Vietnam and his toiletries. He thinks about taking a shower, but that'd take too much time. A quick wash to get the blood off his face and a fresh shirt will have to do.

Dad's old house, that's where he's going to go. It's technically Sam's now, but since Sam's away at college, Dean's got a key to check things over once in a while, let some air in, make sure nothing goes haywire. He can stay there until he’s regrouped, decided what to do. Talked to Al on neutral ground, maybe.

He almost forgets to take his camera with him. If Al's still in a mood when he gets back and finds Dean gone, then that'd be the first thing he'd do: destroy the thing that means the most to Dean, aside from the car. The dark room might be next on the list, but there isn't anything Dean can do about that now. It's not like he can pack it up, too.

The way down the stairs with the bag isn't much more fun than the way up. Dean has to stop halfway through, take a few deep breaths and gear himself up for the rest. It's not until he's reached the door that he remembers the Impala's in the garage and he'll have a problem if Al walked out on foot, but he's lucky. The sedan isn't in the driveway.

Dean's cell phone rings for the first time when he takes the turn for the old house. He stares at it as if it might jump up from the passenger seat and bite him, then turns it off and stuffs it into the glove box.

***

It takes Dean almost a day before he caves and calls Sam. Pride has something to do with it, and shame, but the only alternative to having Sam here while he's nursing what feels one hell of a lot like a cracked rib or two and maybe a concussion on top is to go to the hospital, and yeah, well. That's not going to happen. But he spends the evening after Al mistook him for a punching bag bowled over the toilet – puking his guts out while pressing a hand to his side to keep his ribs from getting jarred too much – and he's neither stupid nor stubborn enough not to realize he needs help.

Sam's voice comes light and relaxed but muffled, with the background noise of a busy cafeteria or break room or something. “Hey, Dean. What's up?”

“Can you come home for a few days? A week maybe? I had some, ah. Cracked my ribs, and I need someone here.”

Dean hears a door being closed, and when Sam speaks again it's better to hear and a lot more serious. “Is Alastair not around? Have you been to the hospital?”

“No, and no. Sam, can we skip the interview until you're here? Please?”

But Sam wouldn't be Dean's little brother if it'd be that easy to sidetrack him. “Why no hospital? Did you get into a bar fight or something?”

It'd be so easy to lie. Take the out. Dean's been in a number of those in his late teens, it'd be an easy sell to pretend he'd revisited an old habit. But... “No.”

“Then what happened?”

“Al and I had a fight, and –“

“Alastair did that?”

Dean can picture the Sam-face to go with that tone perfectly, open-mouthed and a perfect poster child for bafflement. God, he can't wait to have him here. He misses the kid at the best of days, but right now he wants nothing more than to have him around. To not be alone, talk to him, be their screwed-up mini-version of a family. “Sam, please. I'll tell you all about it once you're, here, but, just –“

“Yes. Sure. Of course. Gotta get some things sorted first, but I'll borrow Jess' car and drive down this evening. Please tell me you're not still with him?”

“I'm home. Dad's house.”

“Good. That's good. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

***

Sam arrives after nightfall in his girlfriend's dented old VW beetle. She loves that damn old thing almost as much as Dean loves his car, he knows, and he's going to thank her for letting Sam borrow it the next time they see each other.

When Dean opens the door, Sam's busy heaving a bag out of the backseat that looks like he packed for a few months, not for a week, but Sam always liked to come prepared. “I asked you to come home for a coupla days, not move back here.”

“Shut up.” Sam extracts himself from the small car just to bitchface at him, but his expression turns shocked when his eyes fall on Dean's face. “Holy shit.”

Dean looks away, turns back towards the house. “I prepared your old room, mine too. Ready for a trip to the past, Sammy?”

“Yeah,” Sam deadpans. “Complete with someone beating the shit out of you, I see.”

Wrong moment for jokes or nostalgia, then. “I'll go back in, let me know when you've settled in.”

He can hear Sam heave a long-suffering sigh, but neither says anything else. Predictably, it doesn't take long until Sam comes to find him in the dusty living room. Dean’s turned on the TV in the meantime, but he hasn't paid attention to what's on.

Sam sits down on the far side of the sofa. “How are you?”

“In pain, that's how I am. Haven't puked for a while though, so I'll count that one as a win.” The worry lines on Sam's face deepen, and he doesn't have to ask for Dean to know what he's thinking. “Concussion, I guess. Some hurling last night, but it's better now.”

“He hit you hard enough to crack a few of your ribs and give you a concussion? Dean...”

Dean makes a demonstrative grab for the remote, ups the volume and starts zapping, which shuts Sam up for about five minutes. He fidgets around before he picks the conversation back up, and Dean knows it's coming long before Sam actually opens his mouth.

“Was it the first time that happened?”

“That what happened?”

“Don't play dumb with me. The first time he hit you.”

Eyes steady on the TV screen, Dean tells him the same thing he's been telling himself for years. “It's no big deal. Two guys in a relationship. Sometimes things get rough.”

“Did you get rough too?” Sam's voice is thick with sarcasm, the tone he resorts to when he's sad or shocked and doesn't want to let on how much. “Or was it just him?”

Dean swallows. “What are you gettin' at?”

“Did you hit back, or was that not allowed?”

It's the allowed that drives it all home. This conversation is precisely why Dean never wanted his brother to know. Or anyone, really. Said out loud it sounds much more serious than it is. “Fuck you, Sam.”

“Ah. The latter, then,” Sam spits and runs a hand through his hair. For the next question he abandons the vile tone, talks soft and low under his breath, and fuck if that doesn't make things worse. “Jesus Christ, Dean, why didn't you ever tell me?”

“There was nothing to tell! I'm not some poor battered housewife. It wasn't like that.”

Sam cuts his gaze away, and Dean can see him ball his hand into a fist where it lies next to his thigh. “I'm gonna fucking kill him.”

“Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong. Not your problem.”

“You're my brother. Of course it's my problem!” Sam's eyes fly back up to meet Dean's, and Dean can see how much of an effort it is for him to simmer back down. Him and dad are more alike than the kid'll ever know. “Are you gonna report him?”

“What? No.”

“Dean, it might be good if this is on record, you –“

”Really, Sam, no. Just so everyone can point fingers? I'd be a joke at school, and... No way.”

The look on Sam's face is one of frustration and disappointment, but he gives in, slumps into the cushions on the sofa and points vaguely at the kitchen. “Gonna drive into town first thing tomorrow, get us some stuff. I'm not gonna life off canned ravioli and microwave meals the whole time I'm here. Anything I can get you?”

“Nah.” Dean stands, they say a quick good night, and then he heads upstairs.

While he's in the bathroom – evening routine, brushing his teeth, all on autopilot – he stops and stares at his own face in the mirror. It's the first time he's letting himself look, really look, at his state. His left eye his almost swollen shut, angry red and purple bruising all around the socket. He has a split lip. More bruises on the other side of his face, along the jawline, and a cut where the skin gave from the impact. He rolls his shirt up, quickly lets it fall back down when all that greets him are more colorful bruises all over his chest and sides, decorated with abrasions where Al's foot connected.

The rational part of his brain – the one that agrees with Sam and grasps the reasons why Sam would want this documented for later – makes him consider getting his brother to at least snap a few photos. Evidence. He might need it later. But the part that's too ashamed to admit what this all means, what it makes him, doesn't want any keepsakes.

***

When Dean comes down stairs for coffee the next morning, Sam's already up. Has been for a while, as it seems, judging from the bags on the counter and the way he's rummaging about to put things away.

“Mornin',” Dean slurs. His head is fucking killing him, raging headache that gives he worst of his hangovers a run for their money, and he didn't even have a drop of booze. It's unfair.

“Hey.” Sam stops to turn around and point at the counter. “Got us some food, and somewhere in there is a bag from the drug store. Painkillers, and there are some breathing exercises I'm gonna show you later.”

“Breathing exercises? You studying med now?”

“No, but I got a friend who does. He told me it's important to breathe right so you don't catch pneumonia as a complication from the cracked ribs.”

“You didn't tell him –“

“Of course not. Told him my stupid ass of a brother got into a brawl. You don't wanna go to the hospital, and I get that, but I'm not just gonna sit around doing nothing either.” He pauses, takes a breath. “Do you want me to go back to your place and get your stuff? I could call a few of my old friends –“

“Whoa, wait. What? Get my stuff?”

Sam narrows his eyes as if Dean just suggested to take a trip to outer space next summer. “You're not gonna go back there, right? I thought you could move back in here, for the time being, and then we'll see how it goes from there.”

“You're not calling anyone, I can get my own damn stuff. Besides, I haven't decided yet if I'm gonna move out, or... I dunno.”

The look of utter disbelief on Sam's face persists. “You're shitting me, right?”

“I love him. He's not some monster. He's not all bad. And don't you remember what he did for us, when I first met him? After Dad died, to make sure you wouldn't be taken away?”

“As it turned out, he did that to get into your pants,” Sam says. He grabs one of the bags from the counter, starts taking out the food and cramming it into the cupboards with way more force than strictly necessary.

Sam had never liked Al much. Too old for Dean, too controlling, a bit creepy, and he didn't approve of the way he went from their freelance social worker to Dean's boyfriend either. When they met, Dad had just died, child protective services were about to take Sam away and stick him with some uncle in Illinois they’d never even heard of, and Dean turned to a youth center in town for help. Alastair had already been teaching at the time, and he was a volunteer there in his free time.

They’d starting dating about a year later – long after the state granted Dean custody of Sam – but Sam still found it weird and never hesitated to tell Dean so.

“I don't know what I'll do, okay? I need a few days to think.”

“You can't be serious.” Sam throws the bag of pasta he was stuffing away onto the counter. “What, you'll go back so he can beat you to death next time?”

“Don't be dramatic.”

“I'm not... Wow. Dean, you're no idiot. He is going to do it again, and you know it.”

Yeah, Dean knows. He’d hoped things would get better when Al had started forbidding him things, stuck his nose into where Dean went and who he was friends with. He’d talked himself into believing it was a one-off the first time Al backhanded him. Each time, he’d eventually realized he was kidding himself. This is no different. Another line crossed and if Dean gives him the chance, Al will march past it again.

But it's not that simple. Dean means what he said; he does love Al, still, after everything, and there are other things to think about before he walks away from him. “Oh, and what am I gonna do on my own? I'd have to give up teaching, 'cause it doesn't pay enough. And who knows if I'll even find another gig? Half the town is looking for a job right now, and I have zero skills other than photography and cars.”

What he doesn't mention is that their shared bank account and their savings account are both in Al's name, too, which means he doesn't have any reserves to fall back on, doesn't own anything else than the clothes in his bag, the camera and the car. In hindsight, that kind of mistake makes him feel monumentally stupid, but there's no way he'll go and demand any of that money from Al like Sam would be sure to suggest.

Sam's face softens, hands falling to his sides. “That's what you're worried about? We'll come up with something. It's gonna be fine.”

“I need few days, okay? Haven't even talked to him yet, and, just... I gotta think this through.”

“Okay. I'll be here, whatever you decide. Don't forget that,” Sam says. His pinched expression goes a long way to show his opinions on the matter, but this isn't about what Sam thinks. For once in their lives this is about Dean – something he has to figure out for himself – and that scares the shit out of him.

***

Cas doesn't call Anna. He has every intention to, he really does, but the bakery he buys some of his pastries from has trouble with their delivery service, he has to drive out to Manteca every morning to get the goods himself, and on top of that there are reservations for a birthday party on Sunday, which means extra work. Before he knows it another week has flown past, and on Tuesday morning he finds Dean standing in the middle of the shop, looking around awkwardly and as if he can't decide whether he wants to stay or turn right around and run off. He smiles when his eyes find Cas', though, and that hasn't lose any of the effect it has on Cas.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean's posture relaxes a little. “Hey, Cas. I wasn't sure you still want me here, after what happened with...well. We split, though. He ain't gonna show up here. At least I hope he won't, I –“

“It's okay. If he shows up and makes another scene, I'll see to it that knows he's unwelcome.” Cas points at the coffeemaker. “Do you want a cup? Your usual?”

“Yeah,” Dean says and nods. “Yeah, that'd be great.” He walks up to the counter to sit on one of the stools there. It's early – Cas has just opened up for the day – and they're almost alone in the shop.

They sit in silence while Cas prepares Dean's coffee and Dean takes his first few sips. Now that Cas gets a good look at him he sees faded, yellowed bruises on his jaw and around one eye, and he turns away, hides his face so Dean doesn't notice that he saw them. Guilt settles in his belly like a lead weight. It's probably irrational, but that doesn't make it better.

“I'm glad you open up early,” Dean says eventually. “I couldn't sleep, and my brother's here right now. I love the kid, but I just had to get away for a while. He can be smothering.”

“Ah, my sister is the same way. She means well, but sometimes it's too much.”

“She older or younger, your sister?”

“Older, but not much. Anna. We were seven kids, with her and me being the youngest, so it's almost like we're the same age.”

“Wow, seven? That's quite the bunch.”

“My parents are religious. They don't believe in birth control.”

“Ah,” Dean says. “My mom was too. Told me angels were watching over me and crap like that.” He pauses. “Sorry, no offense. But I don't believe in any of the stuff. If anyone's watchin' over me, he's doing a shit job of it.”

“None taken. I do believe, but not in the same way my parents taught me. My concept of religion is, ah. A tad more liberal.”

Another costumer enters the shop, and their conversation is broken up until Cas is done making her latte and handing her a piece of fruit cake. By then Dean's done with his coffee, and Cas pours him another. He catches Dean's eye flicking from the cup from to the cash register and back. “On the house, okay?”

“Uh, thanks.” Dean averts his eyes, embarrassed. “It's just, money's gonna be real tight now that I'm alone. Assistant teachers don't exactly make a fortune. If I spend too much here today, I can't come back tomorrow. Or the day after that.”

He looks back up on that, straight into Cas' eyes and with another hint of that smile, and that's maybe part of the reason for what Cas says next. “What a coincidence, I'm on the lookout for someone to help me around here. Take orders while I'm on the counter, take turns opening, closing and cleaning up, running some errands if need be. The job is yours if you want it? I can't pay you that much, but it'll be part time and we can work around your teaching job once school has started up again.”

It's not even a lie; Cas really needs someone to help out. He's glad the shop is running so well, but doing it all alone has started to become exhausting and nearly impossible. Jo's taking over for him sometimes – during noon or in the evenings when her store is closed – and Mindy from the bakery down the street has offered to help out if he's in a pinch or gets sick, but that's not much of a relief.

“Oh. That's a great offer, and I'd take it on the spot, but I don't have any experience with waitin' tables or coffee or, uh. Anything, really.”

“Neither did I, before I opened the shop. You'll learn. If you'd like, you can start as early as tomorrow morning.”

Dean's face lights up. “Okay. In that case, yeah, sure! Thanks. You won't regret this, I promise.”

It doesn't take them long to agree on schedule and conditions – Cas pretty much offers what he can afford, and Dean's quick to agree – and at quarter to seven the next morning on the dot, Dean's knocking at the door of the shop. Cas adds getting him a key to his mental to-do-list while he lets him in.

“Good morning.”

Dean rubs his hands on his jeans, looks around the room, then to Cas. “So. Uh. I'm here.”

“Yes, you are. I thought, for starters, you could look over my shoulder with the regular duties to get everything ready for the day, and ask if you have questions or want something explained? Then we'll do it together for a few days, and then we can take turns with opening. I'll take the weekdays, you do it when you're off school?”

With every word Cas said, Dean's face gradually works itself up to a smile, and by the time Cas finishes he's outright grinning. “You've got a plan.”

“Yes, of course I do. I'm your new employer,” Cas replies, trying to play it straight, but he can't quite keep the amusement out of his voice.

He shows Dean around first, shows him the back room and the kitchen, how to unlock the register and to prepare the display. The bakery is still having troubles but he got the pastries this morning, and explains the guidelines for sanitary treatment of food to Dean while he lays them out. Next, they get the dishes from the kitchen and prepare them, and soon an hour has passed and it's time to get the coffee machine going and then open up.

There's not much to do for Dean during the first wave of customers that are out to get their coffee before work, so he hangs back and watches, but after that Cas walks him through the basics of busing – the system Cas has gotten used to when it comes to how he takes his orders, where Dean's supposed to put the notes so Cas can work through them – and the rest is pretty much learning by doing.

They get through their first day of work together without problems – not like Cas expected anything else – and Dean gets the hang of it all quickly. He's nice and polite to the costumers and a little bit flirty, and Cas sometimes catches himself watching him out of the corner of his eye.

They don't talk much about themselves. There's not a lot of time to sit down for a chat, and if they have a quiet moment, Dean's quick to interject with questions about work-related things whenever Cas attempts to lead up to a more serious conversation.

Cas tries not to take it personally. After all, they still hardly know each other, and Dean doesn't owe him any explanations.

***

No matter how charismatic and open Dean appears to be at first glance, with the easy smiles and the flirty attitude, Cas is quick to learn that that's nothing more than a front. When he thinks no one's looking – nobody to perform for, if you will – Dean seems to falter, becomes sad and withdrawn, and Cas is sure there's more to it than being troubled about the break-up.

A week passes, and Dean's still doesn't talk a lot. Which Cas makes up for by talking too much.

He babbles. He knows he does. He chatters about all kinds of crap just to fill the void, to keep Dean from slipping away. And while Dean still keeps a lid on anything that might give more insight into him, he seems to be interested in what Cas has to say, engages in the conversations, asks questions and gives commentary. Maybe he's just polite and secretly annoyed as heck, but Cas doesn't care; it's better than watching Dean stare out of the big shop windows in silence.

They talk about Cas' family on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, about Anna and her work, and eventually land on the topic of his brothers. Anna and now Cas are the only members of the Milton family that aren't serving one way or another, even their mother works part time as a nurse in a military hospital.

“So there's a handful of soldiers, there's Anna-the-church-employee, and then there's you,” Dean recaps. “The odd one out with a coffee-shop in the middle of nowhere, being all rebellious? That's kinda adorable.”

“Well, yes and no. I didn't break ranks until recently. For most of my life, I served as well. Air Force.” He pauses, tries to ignore the way it still stings, even though he's happier here in Vernalis than he's ever been in the military. “But that's over.”

“Oh,” Dean says, sounding surprised. “How come? Did your contract run out and you decided it's time for a change or something?”

“Not really. I got discharged, because, well. Did you ever hear about Don't Ask, Don't Tell?”

Dean's face scrunches up for only a moment before his features relax into a knowing smile. “The guideline for LGBT people in the force? You're gay? Huh. And here I thought you're just a liberal, non-judgmental hetero guy that didn't give a crap about what the people around him are into.”

“That's partly true. I don't care what the people around me do in their private lives, but I'm very much not hetero.”

“Now look at that. I can't imagine you as a solider at all,” Dean says and reaches forward to run a finger through the hair above Cas' ear. “Or with a buzz-cut.”

The touch catches Cas by surprise, so much so he almost flinches back when all he wants to do is lean into it. “Oh, I have plenty of pictures to offer proof.”

“Gotta show me some time. Although I'm pretty sure I'll prefer the way you're looking now. Never did have a thing for guys in uniform.” The way Dean says it is casual, no flirt or insinuation.

Nothing going on here, Cas reminds himself. Friendly conversation. Dean being Dean, not Dean making a move on him. He nods. “I think I like it better myself.”

“Is that so?” Dean's eyebrows shoot up in amusement, but before Cas can make even more of an idiot of himself the bell above the door rings and announces the arrival of a new costumer to be taken care of.

***

Two weeks after the incident and ten days after Dean called Al – left him a message on his mailbox, actually, at 3 AM when he knew his phone would be turned off – to inform him that it's over, he and Sam drive over to Al's house to get the rest of Dean's stuff. Sam had called Al a few days earlier to agree on a time and made him promise to be gone while they're there.

Dean left the room after Sam started shouting into the speaker.

Which, not to be misunderstood here. He doesn't need his little brother to fight his battles. He's not afraid of fucking talking to the man he spent seven years of his life with. Sam kept pushing and insisting and Dean sort of got tired of arguing, is all.

It's not that big a surprise to Dean when Al shows up halfway into clearing out Dean's space in the bedroom closet. He doesn't bother to be sneaky about it, throws the door closed loudly, rumbles up the stairs and marches into the room with an obnoxious grin on his face. “Oh. I thought you'd be gone by now. My mistake.”

Sam whips around with a growl – the kid can be scary if he wants to – but Dean's got a hand on his forearm, squeezing it, before he can get a word out. “Don't, Sammy. It's okay.”

“That's right, Sammy-boy. Listen to your big brother. Besides, we'll see each other anyway, at school, without you there to protect his pretty little ass.”

“Al, don't be a jackass.” Dean's skin's crawling and he squeezes his eyes closed, takes a deep breath. It still hurts to do that, his ribs are far from healed, and when he looks at Al again he knows Al noticed it. His gaze has fallen to Dean's chest, and he looks satisfied.

Sam has gone tense, evaporating rage out of every pore, and he made a step forward and to the side. That positions him between Al and Dean, and Dean's torn between falling back to let him handle this, get away, and pushing him to the side because that's still the kid he helped raise and there's no way he'll ever not want to get him out of the line of fire.

“You don't get to call me that,” Sam says, addressing Al. “And I suggest you get out of here right the fuck now, or I'll call the police.”

It's an empty threat and all three of them know that, but Al still shrugs and turns to leave. Before he's out of sight, though, he stops, throws Dean a look over his shoulder. “See you when classes start up again.”

Sam lets go another animal noise Dean wouldn't have thought him capable of, and Al throws his head back with a laugh as he walks away.

***

The next day is a Saturday, and it's Dean's turn to open the coffee shop. He likes to work here, and there's a certain atmosphere to being the first there in the morning, while everything's still quiet and idle. He turns on the old analog radio in the back, selects a station he likes and then goes about his tasks. The delivery service for pastries has finally fixed its shit and shows about twenty minutes later, while Dean's setting the coffee maker up, and he's busy unpacking them when Cas comes down from his apartment upstairs.

“Good morning,” he says and yawns heartily. His hair's still sticking up every which way and he's wearing a threadbare T-shirt and track pants instead of the dress shirts and pants he usually prefers, eyes bleary with sleep.

It's quite the sight, and if Dean's honest, not one that leaves him unaffected. “Late night yesterday?”

“A friend took me to a meeting for local businessmen and shopkeepers. Apparently that's code for getting drunk with complete strangers while talking about anything but business.”

Dean grins at the mental image that a shitfaced Cas prompts. “Somehow I can't picture you drunk off your ass and making dirty jokes with Hank from the hardware store.”

“Oh, good Lord, no.” Cas shudders with the thought, and Dean has to bite down on a laugh. It's downright adorable. “But Jo was quite insistent that I should at least stay awhile and acquaint myself.”

“Jo?”

“She owns the bookstore across the street. We became friends shortly after I started renovating the shop.”

Dean didn't realize he was holding his breath for what kind of friend that Jo might be until he feels relief washing through him. And seriously, what the fuck? He's in the middle of a messy break-up, now's not the time to cast an eye at the guy who just became his new boss.

Then again, Vernalis is a small town and not overflowing with queers, and he did like Cas even before he knew he was an option. Sort of. Not like that. As a person. Completely platonic.

Dean bites his lip, shakes his head the slightest bit to stop that train of thought in its tracks. He doesn't miss the way Cas' gaze flies down to his mouth, then back up, and how a hint of a blush creeps into Cas' cheeks when their eyes meet.

Okay, so the feeling's mutual. Good to know.

Cas clears his throat, points at the counter and the open bags of pastries. “You're taking care of that?”

Dean nods. “Yep, got it.”

“Okay. I'll go upstairs then. Shower and change and, uh. Be right back,” Cas says. He doesn't wait for an answer before he turns and disappears up the stairs. Dean busies himself with the display and setting up the tables for the day until he comes back down, now in his usual in his usual getup. It's almost time to open up, and when customers start trickling in things become too hectic to think about anything else than work.

During the day, Dean catches Cas looking at him more than once. It's nothing new; Cas has been doing that the whole time, but it's been flying under Dean's radar. Before he knew Cas was gay it didn't mean anything, but now – and after this morning – it suddenly does.

Every now and then, Dean looks back just to have Cas hurriedly lower his eyes. The whole maneuver makes him feel like a teenager back in high school, when he was still unsure about his sexual orientation and made out with as many girls as he could to cover up the fact that he got the hots for boys as well. It's kind of fun, though, especially since Cas is clearly way more awkward and nervous about it than Dean. He almost drops a plate the first time Dean holds his stare instead of politely cutting his eyes away.

And then Dean thinks about Al, about how him accusing Dean of the exact thing that's happening right now got all this started. Dean feels a pinch of remorse – he's not sure he sees himself as single yet – but at the same time, that thought makes him want Cas even more. He already took the fall for this, now he might as well go ahead and do it.

Weekends are the time for families and lovebirds on dates, and they close up later than usual. It's almost 9:30 PM when the last couple has moved on and all the nighthawks relocated to clubs and bars. Dean's the one yawning now, up since six and not sleeping well at the moment anyway. He aches, too much running around and bending and stretching for his ribs, and of course Cas is observant enough to notice that Dean's moving gingerly when they clean up the shop and the kitchen.

“Are you alright?”

Dean hasn't told him about the injuries – it's bad enough that Dean's pretty sure he caught the remnants of the shiner on the day he gave him the job – and so he smiles weakly. “Yeah. Long day is all.”

Cas eyebrows crease together. “I can finish up alone, you can go home now if you want.”

“Nah.” As tempting an offer as that is, Dean doesn't want to go home yet. He's got other plans. Although, okay. Calling it a plan might be overstating it. He's going with the flow here, making shit up as he goes, like he hasn't in a long time. “I'm good.”

Head inclined, Cas narrows his eyes at him, creasing his forehead. And jeez, he really is cute. A little out-of-this-world and weird, but in a way that's kind of endearing. Maybe it's the military, maybe it's his upbringing, but Dean likes it. It's so very much not like Al, and the opposite of that is exactly what he needs right now.

“If you say so,” Cas says after a moment – clearly unconvinced – and pushes a tray with dirty dishes at Dean.

Dean takes it, carries it to the kitchen and checks the dishwasher. It's almost full, so he puts the cups and plates from his tray in there too, then shouts into the shop to ask Cas if those are the last or if he should wait before turning it on.

“One more,” Cas answers.

His voice is closer than Dean thought he'd be and he turns to see Cas approach him, another tray in hand. Once he's there he bends half around Dean to set it aside on the counter next to the dishwasher, and yeah, that's it. Now or never. Dean pushes back into him, just enough to make him go rigid and catch his breath. Extending a hand behind himself to grip his flank and keep him in place, Dean shifts them around so they're face to face. Cas eyes are flicking nervously back and forth between Dean's eyes, his mouth, and a point somewhere above Dean's head, but they focus when Dean leans in and presses his lips to Cas'. He's frozen against Dean at first – like a small animal caught in the hold of a predator – and it takes him a moment to get with the program, but then his hands fly up to the sides of Dean's face and he kisses back enthusiastically, gives as good as he takes.

“I never thought you –“ Cas starts, but seems to abandon that thought in favor of a more important one. His hands dive underneath Dean's clothes, right to skin, across his stomach and then reach around to rest in the small of Dean's back and push them closer together. He dives back in to pick the kissing up again, licks into Dean's mouth with more skill than Dean would've guessed judging by his quiet and nerdy exterior.

Then again, Cas used to be a soldier, which is about the least nerdy job anyone can have, and what do they say? It's the quiet ones you should be wary of.

Dean loses himself in it all for a while, the kissing, the closeness, the desperation and need Cas gives off and that Dean, in turn, soaks up like a sponge. It makes him breathless, panting like he's just run a mile, and that's when his ribs remind him of their tender state with a sharp jolt of pain. He draws back, muttering a curse.

Cas inclines his head and pushes Dean a little farther away, probably to get a better look at him. “Are you sure you're okay?”

Doing his best to leer despite the pain that accompanies each intake of breath, Dean nods towards the door to the stairs. “Never better. Maybe we should” – he illustrates his point with an upward wave of his hand – “relocate?”

Lying down. That's a good idea. He'll also have time to slow his breathing and heart rate down a little, maybe that'll help with his ribs.

“Yes. Yes, we should,” Cas replies. He takes Dean's hand in a death grip, not hard enough to hurt but not gentle or tender either; not hand-holding, but to show Dean the way without too many words. Not like there's much of an opportunity to get lost in the staircase of a two-story-house, but Dean can appreciate the sentiment.

Cas doesn't let go of him until they're upstairs and he has to, in order to fish his keys out of his pockets. It takes multiple attempts before Cas gets the door open, herds Dean through it with a hand to his back and throws it closed with his foot after they're both inside. He immediately backs Dean up against the wall of a narrow hallway, tugging at Dean's T-shirt, stops dead when Dean lets out a pained hiss.

“You're hurting,” he states, moves away to reach for the light switch.

Dean blinks when light floods the room, a naked light bulb in his direct line of sight. He neither denies nor confirms, but holds still when Cas pushes the T-shirt up to reveal his stomach and chest and the faded yellow bruises that still decorate it.

Cas eyes go wide, mouth hanging open slightly, a perfect O-face. “What happened?”

“Fell down the stairs.” It's an obvious lie, and Dean hopes Cas will get the hint and let it rest.

He doesn't. “Was that... Did your ex do that?”

Instead of answering, Dean lets his gaze fall, turns his head to the side. He can't admit that, not to Cas, not here and now, not out loud.

For a moment, they stand like that, Cas staring at him and Dean avoiding his eyes, before Dean decides to sound out his chances of still getting laid tonight. “So,” he says, and his voice sounds too loud in the silence of the apartment. “We still doin' this, or...?”

He never claimed subtlety was one of his strong suits.

Briefly, Cas looks torn, probably wondering if he's taking advantage or if doing this will endanger his Good Guy status, but then he leans forward for another kiss. It's decidedly more gentle, almost careful, exploring rather than claiming, and it doesn't last long. Cas breaks it to step back and unbutton his shirt, letting it fall to the ground where he stands when that's done, and Dean follows suit, pulls his own T-shirt up and over his head.

Cas lean body is trained but not all that bulky, the wiry kind of fit. He reaches for Dean's hand again, this time waiting for Dean to lace their fingers together instead of just taking it, and turns to lead him down the hallway and into a room to the left as soon as Dean does.

There's a tattoo on his back, high up on his shoulder blades, a stark, boldly textured pair of wings.

Well. Military, Dean figures. But it's well done, not a backroom scribble like the tats his Dad had from his time as a marine. And yeah, it's kinda sexy, the way it contrasts with Cas' pale skin, the way the contours change when he moves.

Dean reaches out to touch it once they come to a stand, runs his thumb over the inked area. “I like it. What does it mean?”

“I had it made after my first tour, and after I came out to Anna,” Cas replies, hesitant and uncertain, and Dean hopes he didn't poke at a sore spot. “My sister.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“It was, well. To thank the Lord for leading me through that first deployment unharmed, and for granting me a sister like her. I had to be careful around the rest of my family, my parents couldn't know who I was, but I could be certain that she'd be by my side. Always. Through everything. And I was right, on both accounts.” He huffs. “My turn to put a damper on the mood, hm?”

Dean steps closer to him, close enough to lean in and mouth at his neck from behind, thumb still massaging the tattoo. “Nah. You didn't.”

He snakes his hand around Cas' hips, further down, into his dress pants. When his fingers close around the hard line of Cas' dick in his boxers, Cas sucks in a breath, lets his head fall back so it rests on Dean's shoulder. He stays like that while Dean works his way beneath the last pesky layer of fabric and starts to jack Cas, light and teasing, barely any pressure at all. Cas lets out a groan, moves his hips in rhythm with Dean's movements, a clear demand for more friction.

But Dean can't hold he position for long, as much as he may want to. It puts too much of Cas' weight onto his chest, makes him hurt. “Hey,” he whispers into Cas' ear, gives it a quick nibble, grins to himself when it's rewarded with another moan. “Bed?”

Dean looks past Cas and the around the room that's only lit from the light still on in the hallway and the streetlights outside to find that in this case, bed means a bare mattress on the floor, but he can work with that. He's made do with less.

He gives Cas' dick another, sharper tug to make sure he has his attention – not a very productive move, on second thought – and begins to maneuver them forward. Cas reacts to the nudge, extracts himself from Dean and starts to work open his zipper, shedding his pants as he walks over to the mattress. He looks from it to Dean and back, a bit embarrassed.

“Ah hey, it's the most comfortable part of a bed anyway, ain't it? I'd say you got the basics covered here,” Dean says and makes to get rid of his own jeans, pulling them down in one go with his boxers. He bends down to remove socks and boots, and comes back up to Cas staring at him.

The look of pure hunger in his gaze tells Dean that this time, he's seeing right past the bruises and the implications that come with them. He watches as Cas' eyes travel south, take in his cock, standing up straight and ready.

“Get on the bed. Lie down on your back,” Cas commands, and Dean hurries to comply. Lowering himself down so far with his injured ribs is a bit of a struggle, but he manages, pain instantly forgotten once he's in position and can remain still, just for a moment.

Cas made good use of the time; when he crawls to kneel on top of Dean, he's naked too. His legs bracket Dean's hips, and when he leans down for a long, languid kiss, their cocks move against each other. It's delicious, and Dean reaches down between their bodies, takes them both in hand and jerks them in slow, twisting strokes.

Above him, Cas gasps, breaks the kiss to touch their foreheads together instead. They breathe together for a stretch of time Dean's not coherent enough to make a good guess about, until Cas sits up on his haunches, thereby shifting away from the hold Dean had on their dicks. He inches backwards until he's kneeling between Dean's legs, grins lewdly, and Dean closes his eyes in anticipation.

Cas doesn't disappoint, and Dean fists the sheets around him at the first lick to his hot, leaking cockhead. Just a lick, nothing more, tongue prodding at the slit, then another, one more, and Dean's about to call him names and suggest he stop being a tease, no one likes those anyway, when he sucks in just the head. His tongue plays at the string of skin just below it, presses there, and while Dean's still busy processing just how good that feels, Cas takes him deeper, so deep that Dean can feel the movements of his throat when he swallows.

It takes all his self control not to fuck up into that, fuck Cas' throat good and hard, but he's been the delivering player in deep-throating and knows that the term gagging on it is far from an exaggeration so he stays still, lets Cas do the work, move up and down as he pleases.

He could come like this, just from the most expert blowjob he received in goddamn ages, but then Cas stops and the noise Dean gives off is not a whine. He feels fingers explore down lower, behind his balls and brushing over his hole, and yeah, he's up for that, braces for a finger to breach him, but instead the bed dips and Cas is gone.

Dean cranes his head to see where he went, and Cas smiles at him from halfway across the room. “Stay where you are. I'll be back in a minute.”

He goes into the hallway to switch off the light, leaving the room illuminated by only the streetlights, and then goes to putter around in the bathroom. Dean uses the time to get up – as painful a mission as lying down – and dig his cellphone out of his jeans. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he sends a text to Sam, gone overnight, found company that's prettier than you and your shaggy mop, don't stay up and don't worry.

Cas emerges from the bathroom with a tube and a sachet that Dean identifies as lube and a condom. He gently pushes Dean to lie down, pressure on his shoulder not his chest. “Up,” he says.

Dean scoots up the mattress, suppressing a hiss, until Cas stops him with a hand on his flank. He expects him to take things up where they left off, but that's not what happens. Cas does hand Dean the condom and squirt lube into his palm, rubs it to heat it up a little, but then he doesn't reach down to finger Dean. He sits up on his haunches, one hand behind his back to work himself and the other lazily stroking his cock, head lolling back and moaning like it's his job, and goddammit if that's not hottest sight Dean's ever had the good luck to set eyes on.

When he's done with that, Cas crawls back up on top of Dean, takes the condom from him, puts it on Dean's dick and positions himself in line with it, sinks down ever-so-slowly. Down a fraction of an inch, stop, another one, and Dean's all but ready to go off by the time he's all the way in.

Then Cas starts to move.

Dean looses track of time right there, fisting the sheets and trying not to come yet, hold it in, draw this out, while he moves his hips in tandem with the rhythm Cas is setting, and he hopes it's not way too soon for Cas when he looses that battle, fucks up a little harder and comes.

Cas is there when he floats back to himself. He moved off Dean's spent dick to bend down and kiss him, and the stripes of slick that are cooling on his stomach let Dean know he's held on long enough.

***

Dean wakes early the next morning to Cas still asleep. He's lying halfway to the other side of the mattress, on his stomach, but he has an arm flung out high over Dean's chest, beneath his collar bone. Slowly, Dean pushes it off, careful not to disturb him, and swings his legs to the side. He goes fishing for his jeans to unearth his phone and then heads for the bathroom. After he's taken a piss he sits down on the closed toilet lid and dials Sam's number.

Sam answers immediately. So much for not waiting up and not being worried. “Okay, spill. What'd you do?”

“Uhm.” It will never not be awkward to discuss his sex life with his little brother. Not like it happens often, but even once every few years would be too much. “I kinda fucked my boss last night.”

“You... Kinda?” Sam's voice is a little squeaky, the tone he gets when he's mortified, like the one time when he was nine and came up with the idea to bring their Dad breakfast in bed just to find an unknown, naked and still very drunk woman in there.

“Yeah, well. Alright. I definitely fucked my boss last night.”

The pause on the other end of the line lasts long enough that Dean's beginning to worry he might have to repeat that. “Wow. You. Huh, okay. You coming home now, or are you gonna stay there?”

“What time's it?”

“Quarter past five.”

“Nah. Weekends are busy, and I'm scheduled to work the whole day on both days until school starts up. I'll just stay here, I guess.” No use in driving back home just to shower, have breakfast, and hurry back.

They end the call, and Dean stands up, opens the bathroom door a bit and peers back into the bedroom. He's not sure what to do now; go back to sleep and rely on Cas to wake them up in time, rise Cas, go shower, stay up until Cas wakes on his own... Casual sex is so damn complicated. If this was casual sex, and not something more. He's not clear on that either.

What the hell was he thinking?

In the bedroom, Cas rolls around onto his other side. Dean holds his breath, but he settles again, doesn't wake up, and Dean decides he'll set the alarm on his cell and lie back down. He's groggy and still tired, and falls asleep almost immediately.

When the alarm rings, Cas is up and busy getting dressed. He shifts and smiles at Dean, bright and happy, when he notices that he woke. “Good morning. I'll go downstairs first, get the shop ready. You can take your time, shower if you want. I laid out towels for you.”

Dean blinks at him. “Yeah, okay. Cool. I'll do that, thanks.”

“Do you want breakfast?” Cas gets up, steps into his pants. His hair is still damp but combed, he didn't do up the buttons on his shirt yet, and Dean resists the urge to pull him back down.

“Huh?”

“Breakfast. I can fix you something before I –“

“Nah, a coffee downstairs will do.” Dean sits up, smiles back, but he waits until Cas has left to pull the blanket back and go to the bathroom.

The first customers have already arrived when he goes downstairs, and Cas acts perfectly normal. They touch a little more than usual, a quick stroke down Dean's arm here, a brush of fingers when Cas hands him an order, but that's it. When Cas makes him the offer to leave early that evening, Dean takes it.

He finds Sam in front of the TV. When Dean lovers himself onto the armchair opposite of him, a hand pressed to his chest, he winces in sympathy.

“Still hurts?”

“Yeah. More so after today and yesterday.” Sam's eyes go wide, and Dean holds up a hand. “I mean work, you little pervert.”

“Sure you did,” Sam says and grimaces. “So, uh. Are the two of you, like, a thing now?”

“I have no idea. We had no time to talk. It just sorta happened last night, and today, well, we worked. Then I came home, and here I am.”

Sam leans forward on the sofa, one of the things he likes to do when trying to underline his point. “You should talk about it, see what either of you wants. He's your boss, you two work together. If you don't decide what you're going to do about this it'll get difficult.”

Dean groans. “What is this, Sex and the City?”

“I'm just saying. And maybe it'll do you good, to have someone new in your life.”

The first impulse Dean has in response to that is another quip, but he bites it back. “Maybe. Listen, I'm knackered. Gonna hit the hay.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Sam settles deeper into his seat again and turns his attention back to the program on the screen. “Night!”

Dean takes a shower before he goes to bed, stands there under the spray with his head bent for as long as there's hot water left. The pipes in the old house creak and grate as much as they ever did, bringing back memories of the time before Stanford when he and Sam shared it last. They're probably years overdue for replacement, but after Sam went away, no one cared enough anymore to shell out the money for that. Sam and he stopped talking for a while there, Sam disapproving of his decision to move in with Al, but what was he supposed to do? Sit here in an empty, too-big house that was rotting away under his ass and that he didn't have the means to fix?

It's no fun to think about, but still better than mulling over the present.

***

Cas calls Jo just as soon as he's locked the door behind the last costumer. She sounds tired and a little annoyed. “This better be important, Cas.”

“I slept with Dean last night.”

“You did what?” Her voice rises a little on the last word, and Cas isn't sure if it's curiosity or disapproval. “I'll be right there.”

He gets the answer to that when she marches into the shop fifteen minutes later. Before he can get a word in, she's already steamrolling him, voice raised slightly above her usual volume. “Cas, what the fuck. Have your lost your mind? Do you really think that's a good idea?”

“It wasn't my idea. I didn't initiate, I mean... He kissed me. And then, we. You know. I didn't plan for it to happen.”

“Fine. Do you want it to happen again?” She rolls her eyes, answers her own question before he can. “Of course you do, smitten little fool that you are.”

Cas sits on one of the bar stools and looks down at his feet. “Yes. I'd very much like –“

“Okay.” Jo says, calmer than before, her tone more sympathetic. “You got a thing for him. I get it. But he's just coming out of a relationship that lasted for years, with a man that, for all we know, abused him physically and psychologically. He's probably a nice guy, and he's cute and so on, but... Are you sure you want to do this? He's in a bad place right now. I have no experience with that kinda thing, but I imagine it won't be easy to deal with.”

And she's got a point, of course. All of that is true, and Cas only has one real counterargument. The weakest, stupidest, most idiotic argument there is. “You're right. But I love him.”

Sitting down on the stool next to him, Jo takes his hand and squeezes it. “Yeah. I know you do. I just don't want to see you get hurt.”

“If I promise you I'll be careful, would you believe me?”

“No, Cas. I wouldn't.” She laughs, leans over to flick his ear. “I don't think you'd know how to love with the brakes on. Part of the reason I like you so much, to be honest.”

***

Monday morning doesn't pass fast enough. Cas is up early, done with all other preparations long before the delivery service from the bakery arrives. He turns Jo's words over in his head time and time again, but in the end, it's simple: he wants Dean, baggage included. They'll make it work.

If that's what Dean wants, too, of course.

Business is slow today, and there's plenty of time to worry about exactly that. Cas isn't going to push him. If Dean tells him that it's too early and that he doesn't want this then Cas will accept it without protest or discussion, but he hopes to God that won't be the case.

Dean arrives early, but when Cas is in the middle of helping a bunch of primary school pupils with their mothers that have come by the shop to up the morals before a sports event of some sort. They're screaming over each other, two of them start a fight while no one's paying attention, and in a cruel turn of fate things continue to be hectic even after they're gone.

It's almost closing time – the shop emptied out except for a few people sipping the last of their coffee in the booths – before there's a few minute's time to talk.

Cas has already begun to clean up the counter, wipe it down behind the display where the customers can't see, and Dean stands on the other side of it, back leaned onto the wood.

“About Saturday night,” he starts, but trails off.

Cas hearts leaps into his throat. “Yeah?”

“I thought about it – a lot actually, the past two days – and, uhm. I'd like to give it a go? I mean, if you want to. It's okay if you don't, I'd understand. I know it's weird, so soon after the brea –“

“Yes. I want to. We won't know until we try, right?”

Dean pushes himself off the counter, rounds it to join Cas behind it. He takes hold of the collar of Cas shirt, gently pulls him in for a kiss. It's brief, both of them aware that they're in full sight of the remaining customers, but Cas decides to take the way Dean winks at him while he wipes some spit out of the corners of his mouth with his thumb as a promise.

****

On the next Sunday evening, Cas takes Dean out to dinner. He's possibly a little overexcited, it's the first time he can be with someone without fear he might be seen or gotten caught and it's Dean and Cas still can't quite believe that. He wants to do this right. He asks Jo to take over for the last two hours so they can both leave early, he makes reservations, the whole nine yard.

Needless to say, it doesn't go over well.

Dean's tense from the moment they settle at the table, keeps sending glances around the room. He behaves like a fish out of water, no doubt that this is less of a good time for him and more like running the gauntlet. When a teenage girl that gets seated with her parents two tables over calls out to him and waves, the tips of Dean's ears turn beet-red and he actually squirms a little on his chair.

While the waiter takes the plates away, he leans over to Cas, whispers, “Next time I'll pick the location, yeah?”

A fortnight later, he makes good on that.

Shortly after 3 PM, Jo saunters into the coffee-shop, such an intensely innocent and casual expression on her face that Cas knows without a doubt she's up to something.

“Hey.” She smiles at him, looks around the shop until she spots Dean coming out of the kitchen, and yeah. Cas has a theory as to what's happening here.

Dean sets the tray with clean cups he carried in down on the counter, comes up behind Cas and puts his hands on Cas' shoulders. Then he addresses Jo. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course. He's earned himself an afternoon off.”

Cas turns around to stare at Dean, then back at Jo. “Afternoon off?”

“Yeah,” Jo says. “Your boyfriend asked me to help out today so the two of you can spend some quality time.”

“Quality time?” Apparently Cas part in this conversation is to ask stupid questions.

Jo holds her hands up. “Oh, believe me, I didn't ask for details.” She nods at Dean. “Ask him if you want to know more.”

Cas turns to do exactly that, but Dean just grins at him. “You'll see when we get there.”

He herds Cas out of the shop, into the Impala, and resists every one of Cas' attempts to coax their destination out of him. They drive out of town, take some dirt roads, and when they pass an old farm gate, ajar, broken in places and surrounded by a fence that's in a similar state, Cas understands.

“This is the farm. From the photos you showed me.”

“Yep.” Dean kills the engine a little way from the fence. He kneads the back of his neck with his hand, as if he's suddenly unsure he did the right thing. “It's no fancy restaurant, but I have a cooler in the back with some food and drinks, and... I dunno. You seemed to like the pictures. I wanted to show you.”

Cas leans over, takes Dean's hand away from his neck and lays it out on his thigh, then gently turns Dean's face his way with a finger to his jaw and kisses him. When they part, he says, “It's perfect. Thank you.”

Dean turns away to get out of the car, but Cas catches his grin. “Come on. I'll show you around.”

The place is just as gorgeous as the photos suggest, like a location from an end-time movie. It looks like the former owners just up and left; there are tools and machines standing around in what used to be a shed but is now only a skeleton of wooden panels, light streaming in from all directions and dust dancing in its gleam when they walk around in it. Several times Cas reaches out to touch a sickle here or a plow there, but he stops mid-motion each time, hears Dean chuckle beside him.

The door to the main house is mostly missing and does nothing to hinder their access. It's still fully furnished, solid wooden wardrobes and tables and chairs and cupboards covered with a thick layer of dust. Everyday things stand around in the rooms randomly. Cas recognizes some of them from Dean's photos, like a baby stroller with the rotten remnants of an old-fashioned doll in it.

“Awesome, isn't it?”

All Cas can do in reply is nod, still too taken with their surroundings for anything else. He doesn't resist when Dean reaches out for his hand, drags him up the dangerously creaking stairs.

“There's something else you need to see. Come on.” He leads him to a bedroom, complete with four-poster-bed, laughs when Cas' eyes go wide in silent question. “That's not what I meant. Look,” he says and swipes a wide stripe of dust off the wardrobe that takes up the entire right side of the room. “Check out the carvings and patterns. Handmade. The thing musta been worth a fortune when it was still in good condition. Makes you wonder why someone'd leave all this behind, doesn't it?”

“Yeah,” Cas has time to whisper before Dean closes the distance between them, takes his face in both of his hands and kisses him gently. It deepens gradually and unhurried; they've got all the time they want out here, alone and removed from the rest of the world. He shifts them around more by accident than with any kind of intent, but when he feels Dean's body underneath him hit the wood of the wardrobe he knows what he wants to do. What he needs to do, arousal humming under his skin and settling in his groin, making him harden so fast it's almost painful.

Dean smiles against his mouth. “Hey there, careful with the merchandise,” he says, lets his head fall back onto the wood, back arched and hips jutted forward. He's circling them, too, which causes his upper thighs to rub against Cas erection every now and then.

It's maddening, slight touch and pressure for just a moment before it's gone again, and it's all Cas can do not to chase after it and hump Dean's leg like a teenager. He lays a hand flat on Dean's stomach instead, to still him, and Dean immediately goes lax. He's grinning at Cas, a challenge as well as an invitation, and Cas isn't going to refuse either. His fingers wiggle their way underneath Dean's shirt and T-shirt, find their way to Dean's belt buckle, slowly, taking the time to caress every bit of skin they brush past.

When Cas has the buckle open and goes to work on the zipper, Dean moans. A quick detour to press the heel of his palm to Dean's crotch tells him Dean's hard, too, and Cas knows how it feels to be touched through the rough, rigid denim. Done right it's just this side of uncomfortable, intense but shallow, never enough because of the unyielding fabric. He lets his fingers glide up and down the outline of Dean's dick, presses gently from both sides, and Dean pushes up into the touch.

“C'mon,” he demands. “Don't play around.”

“So impatient,” Cas says, but complies. He pulls Dean's zipper down the rest of the way, wrestles his jeans past his hips with eager help from Dean who's quick to step out of them and get rid of his boxers and footwear as well.

Cas takes a step back to admire the view, but doesn't like the way Dean's shirts fall over his dick. They obstruct the sight of it, flushed red and leaking already, beads of pre-come smearing at the hem of the fabric. “Take that off.”

Dean doesn't reply, just pulls both layers off over his head in one go so that he stands there, naked and once again leaning back on the wardrobe. His mouth is hanging open just a little, breath coming in pants, glancing back at Cas expectantly. “You just gonna stand there and stare?”

“Certainly not.” Suddenly impatient, Cas closes the distance between them, backs Dean up against the wardrobe to kiss him again while he works a hand between their bodies and starts to jack Dean for real, nothing to hinder his access this time. Dean sucks in a breath between his teeth, shuts his eyes. He braces himself against the sturdy wooden surface with one hand and snakes the other around Cas shoulders, holding on tight while his hips follow the rhythm Cas is setting.

He whines when Cas stops and withdraws his hand, but before he can complain, Cas runs two fingers across his lips. Dean's eyes open again, flicking from Cas' face to his hand and back until he gets it and opens his mouth to lick them, get them wet.

His grip on Cas' shoulders tightens with the first contact to his hole, and Cas pauses. “I'll go slow. I won't hurt you, don't worry.”

“Not worried,” Dean breathes out. “Go for it, man, c'mon.”

Cas is still gentle, works him open bit by bit, eyes on Dean's face the whole time ensure he'll notice if he'd cause him any pain. He takes Dean's cock into his free hand, stroking it slowly, intends to bring him off like that.

But apparently, Dean has other plans. He leans in, uses his hold on Cas' shoulders to pull himself close enough to whisper into his ear. “That's not what I meant. I want you to fuck me. Right here.”

“I don't have any –“

“Condoms are in my wallet, back pocket of my jeans, and I can go without lube. Just, fuck. Do it.”

And that he doesn't have to be told twice. He abandons Dean long enough to reach around for his discarded jeans. Dean's heavy breathing is joined by the sounds of him jerking himself after barely a moment, and Cas' quest to extract the wallet from said back pocket turns frantic. He shoots a glance behind him, to watch the red, swollen head of Dean's cock disappear and reappear in Dean's hand, and to say that's distracting would be an understatement. The only thing that convinces him to cut his eyes away is the prospect of more, of what's going to happen once he's found what he's looking for.

He awkwardly holds the wallet out to Dean when he's got it, who grins at him fondly and stills. “You really are adorable.”

Cas waits for him to fish a condom out, rip the wrapper, and uses the time to unzip his own pants. He doesn't bother undressing, pulls them down just enough to free his cock and puts the condom on. Dean gives a surprised hiss when Cas hefts him up, probably didn't expect him to be able to. There's some shuffling to get the right position, Dean once again holding on to the wardrobe and Cas' shoulders at the same time, but then Cas lines up just right.

Dean groans, deep and throaty, when Cas breaches him, and digs his fingers into the flesh of Cas shoulder blade. There's sweat beading high on his forehead, his eyes screwed shut once again. It's got to hurt, at least a little, the burn of the intrusion worse when it's not slicked, and Cas pushes in deeper carefully to give Dean's body the opportunity to adjust without any additional pain. He leans in for a kiss when he's all the way in, even though it's difficult to manage in this position. The muscles in his arms scream at him from the effort of holding most of Dean's weight, but that's not important right now, even less so when Cas actually starts to move. Shallow thrusts is all he can manage in this position, pulling out just a little and then all the way back in, but it seems to work for Dean; he comes without a hand to his dick, spills messily between them, and the muscle contractions of his climax tease Cas to his own orgasm.

They disentangle themselves, and Dean pulls Cas in for another long, deep kiss before he pushes off the wardrobe. He winces and swats at his back, looks down at his hands and the mixture of sweat and dust on them with disgust. “I'll call dips on the shower as soon as we're home, yeah? Ugh.”

Cas wraps the condom in a handkerchief, stashes it in his pant pocket and zips up, watches Dean while he gets dressed – muttering expletives as he swipes his back and cleans himself up with his over shirt – and silently follows him back out of the room.

He listens while Dean resumes his tour around the house, shows him a children's bedroom that has books and toys covered by a thick layer of dust, almost colorless after decades of decay and bleaching in the sun that falls through the ragged curtains. Dean chatters about things he found out about possible causes for the former owners to abandon the farm in such a hurry, nothing definitive, just theories he's cooked up, and Cas is sure every one of them is wildly exaggerated.

***

Sam left after three weeks. Dean's not disappointed he's gone back; he gets it. The kid's life isn't around here anymore, it's at Stanford. There's Jess too, and Dean's doing better. He doesn't need anyone to be around, he can manage alone.

Except for how he totally can't. See, it's not like he's lonely all the time. He works two jobs, he's got Cas. What really bugs him are the nights and the hours in between, when Cas is at his place or with Jo and Dean has the whole house to himself. It's still too big for one person, still rotting and still filled to the brim with memories of him and Sam and Dad. Staying there on his own is like he's living in a museum, and not the cutesy kind either.

Most nights, Dean stays in Cas' tiny apartment above the coffee shop, but the problem with that is, well... Cas is still sleeping on the mattress on the floor, uses camping hot plates that can be plugged in and a microwave instead of a working stove, the place is messy as fuck and he has more boxes lying around than actual furniture. Which is nice and sort of charming at first, but gets old pretty fast.

Dean curses as he stubs his toe on one of the aforementioned boxes on his way to what Cas calls kitchen. He takes the milk container out of the fridge, wrinkles his nose at the sour smell that greets him when he opens it and pours it into the sink. That's another problem. Cas is either working or with him ninety percent of the time, and mostly lives on coffee, takeout and leftover pastries from the shop. Grocery shopping isn't high on the list of his priorities. Now, Dean could go downstairs and get something from there, but it's half past seven, he's still in his boxers and doesn't particularly feel like getting dressed yet. He digs for a glass – of course they're stored in a box and not a cupboard – and fills it with water from the faucet, makes a face at the metallic taste.

His shift officially begins at nine today, and he's not going to wait it out here. He won't sit under a naked light bulb, surrounded by those goddamn boxes, and watch some crappy morning program on the old-fashioned TV set – with an antenna, for crying out loud, and occasionally, the static drowns out the voices. He won't. Not going to happen.

Dean's not fussy, but enough is fucking enough.

He gets dressed after all, thunders down the stairs, informs a stunned Cas that he's gonna be back for the shift but needs to spend some time not here and drives. His camera is in the trunk of the car – because neither the old house nor Cas' place feel enough like home yet to keep it there, he'd forget where he left it all the time – and yeah. It's been awhile since he went out to look for new motifs. He stops at the edge of town, at a playground in the developing area. At this hour no one's going to be there, and anyway, Versalis isn't exactly booming and most of the building grounds aren't sold yet. Won't ever be, probably.

He tests the lighting, gives the empty swing a shove and sits back on his haunches in a little distance to snap a picture of it on the upswing, another one on its way down. He discovers a forgotten beanie that lies next to the slide, takes a snapshot of a cat that balances on a pole on the other side of the playground, and then he sits down next to the swing set to browse through his photos.

It feels good, centers him, calms him down. He should've done something like this earlier, didn't realize how much he needed to. The last time he went out like this, without a plan and not as a paid gig or to prepare for a lesson at school was before. When he was still with Al.

His hand flies to his ribcage and it might be stupid to think that, but he misses his old life. Not all of it, he can do without the violence and the controlling, the rebukes and the shouting, but he misses home. Knowing where he belonged, a life that has a certain, practiced rhythm to it. Coming home to the same place every day, not needing to look around and identify his whereabouts first thing after he wakes up in the morning. Sometimes he also misses Al, it's been too long and too deep a love to fade completely within a few weeks, but Dean's going to shove that down. It's over, he choose so himself. He's better off now, and he'll settle into his new life eventually. The first step to that, maybe, is to determine which place really is going to be his home now, to stop living in two places at once while not really belonging to either.

A glance to his watch tells him he needs to get going if he wants to be back at the shop in time for his shift, and he rises to a stand, pats his jeans down with one hand to clear of the dirt from the ground and gets into the car. Back at the shop, he doesn't have much time to think on anything further. It's a busy day, and there's no opportunity to talk to Cas until after close, but by then he's come up with a concrete idea.

They're cleaning out the display for the pastries together, and Dean decides to seize the moment and bring it up. “Hey, Cas, I've been thinkin' about something.”

Cas pauses, looks up with a tray of marzipan eclairs in one hand and a cleaning rag in the other. “Okay. Tell me?”

“Your apartment upstairs. There's more rooms, right? The barricaded door opposite of yours?”

“Yes. It was a bigger apartment originally, then got separated into two. I didn't see a reason to do anything about it, seeing as the current space was enough for just me.”

Dean has to suppress an eye roll. Typical, if not all that surprising line of thought for a guy who spent half his life in the military and is likely used to sharing small spaces. His dad was the same. “See, that's my point. It's not just you anymore.”

“Oh,” Cas says. “But you're living at your dad's house, I didn't think –“

“Temporary solution. I was gonna look for my own place eventually, but... Ya know, maybe I don't have to look that far?”

“Yes. No. I mean, isn't it a bit early for that?” Cas looks a little trapped, like he doesn't want to say no but isn't sure saying yes is a good idea either.

Which, hey. Maybe it's not. But it's the most obvious solution to the problem at hand, so, whatever. “We wouldn't have to, like. Officially move in together or something. It's a separate space, you say? Cool. Let's get it inhabitable, I move in there, you keep your apartment. I'll be here and not here, at the same time. Gonna pay you rent for it, too. Perfect, right?”

Cas is still squirming, Dean can tell from the way his gaze darts across the room, but he nods. “Yes. You're probably right. We can go up there after we're finished here, see what needs to be done?”

They do exactly that, and the situation up there isn't half as bad as Dean expected. There are no lights at the moment, so he trails after Cas in the light of a flashlight, but the place is free except for the leftovers from a dismantled wall unit to one side of the main room and an unplugged fridge that stands in the middle of what Dean assumes used to be the kitchenette. The bathroom is small and perfunctory, but that's okay, he can use Cas'. It looks like this used to be a spacious living room when the whole thing was still one bigger apartment, and now it's a loft with said bathroom and kitchenette as well as a storeroom that Dean can probably turn into a half-decent dark room later.

He has a hard time keeping his enthusiasm at bay once they're back in Cas apartment. Cas appears doubtful at first, worried about the costs of getting the second apartment ready and furnished, but Dean soothes him with the suggestion to take some of the unused furniture from his Dad's house.

“They're just collecting dust, and Sam doesn't need the whole house when he visits during summer. I'm sure he won't mind. We can do the painting and all that crap ourselves, you did it downstairs and can show me how, and we won't need to use the kitchenette. You got a perfectly good kitchen here, all that it needs is a decent stove, and I'm guessing we'll eat together most of the time anyway, right?” He smirks, eyebrows raised, as close to begging as he'll come.

“Fine,” Cas eventually agrees, tentative smile on his face. “Alright. Let's do it.”

It takes a little while to get the second apartment ready, what with the shop to be taken care of and both of them working. Dean doesn't have the heart to beat it upstairs while Cas is rotating downstairs, so he stays and helps Cas with the customers until closing time, and then they go and do some painting or refurbish the floor together.

Sam gives him full reign over the old furniture from the house – he spouts some bullshit about how they might sell it in the long run anyway, which Dean doesn't want to hear because it means he won't be coming back home after college – and alongside with a bed, a sofa, a table, chairs and some smaller things for himself, Dean manages to smuggle in a few cupboards and shelves for Cas' place too, reduce the boxes over there. He snags the TV set as well, although Sam will bitch about that, but hey. He gave Dean free choice, shouldn't have done that if he didn't mean it. Dean finds a used bed and a cheap second-hand stove for Cas' kitchen in the papers, so they're set there too.

It's a random collection of old or cheap furniture, some things are still missing and will be for a while, but it's a home. A place that's his. Or theirs. It doesn't really matter.

***

Summer's over too soon. Normally, for the past few years, Dean would be excited for school to start up again and look forward to the new students he'd get after the summer break, but not this time.

He hasn't seen Al in months, but at school it'll be inevitable that they meet.

In the days leading up to the first day of the new term, Dean's irritable and snappy. He knows that himself, but can't help it either, spends half his time fighting with Cas for no reason and the other half apologizing, no matter how often Cas assures him that it's okay and that he understands. At times, that behavior sets him off even more; Dean doesn't want understanding. He doesn't want pity.

On the morning of the first school day, Dean oversleeps on purpose, stays in bed long enough to be sure he'll be a bit late to the initial staff meeting that takes place before classes start. His class takes place in the afternoon and so he plans to show up late for the meeting, go back to the shop, and return just before he has to in order to prepare and set up the classroom. Al tries to catch up to him after the meeting's over, but he gets distracted by another teacher pulling him into a conversation. It gives Dean the chance to bail for the moment.

In the afternoon, he's not so lucky.

While Dean writes some notes for today's lesson – light stuff, to ease the new additions to the class into things – onto the whiteboard, Al strolls into the room, makes himself known by loudly clearing his throat.

Dean whips around and stands up straight, cursing himself for the instant reaction just as soon as he realizes he's done it. Like a goddamn trained dog, brought to heel with nothing but a blow on a whistle.

Al flashes him a cocksure, self-satisfied grin. “There you are. Got held up this morning, but I think this is better, anyway. Just the two of us, hm?”

“Fuck off, Al.” Dean considers to ignore him and just go to back to writing, but that'd mean he'd have to turn his back to Al, which...yeah. No.

“Nah, Dean,” Al says, tsks at him like he's a petulant child. “There's no reason for swearing. I'm just trying to be friendly. How's your summer been?”

“Actually, Al, my summer has been awesome. Dunno if you've heard, but I'm datin' Cas. The guy from the coffee-shop?”

Whether it's because he didn't hear – Al doesn't have an expansive circle of friends in town, gossip neither reaches nor interests him – or didn't expect Dean throw it at him like that, Dean doesn't know, but Al pales. It's anger as much as surprise, and Dean's familiar with that look. He knows he's stepped into dangerous territory, but like usual, he can't stop running his mouth.

“He's great. Attentive, big heart, and man” – he pauses to suck in breath between his teeth – “what a great lay.”

Al takes two more steps into the room. He's glaring, fists clenching and unclenching by his sides, and Dean resists the instinctive urge to match each of Al's steps forward with a step back to keep him at a distance.

And of course, he has to plow on, consequences be damned. Besides, Al's hardly going to do anything, right? Not here, at school, where someone could see them. “So yeah, I'm good. Moved on and all. How've you been? Missed me?”

“Dean, Dean.” Al shakes his head. “I knew you're dense, but I never pegged you to be that stupid. I made you who you are today. You would have been nothing without me, never could have dreamt of photography or teaching. You're kidding yourself if you think you can get by alone. But you'll see. You need me.”

It should be ridiculous, but the way he says it – cold and absolutely, one-hundred-percent sure that he's right – makes Dean's blood run cold. He finally does turn back to the whiteboard, picks the chalk back up but doesn't start writing yet. “No, Al. I don't. I'm much better off without you, shoulda done this years ago.”

Al barks a laugh, equally cold and devoid of humor. “Oh, sure. You keep telling yourself that.”

***

Dean lets his students off five minutes early – under the promise they snap a picture on their way home as their first homework for the year – but he forces himself not to rush and flee to the car as fast as he can. He gets his things from the teacher's lounge without running into Al again, and the more distance he brings between himself and the school, the more pissed he gets. At Al, at himself for acting like the helpless victim he goddamn fucking isn't, at the whole damn situation. He's still jittery with adrenaline and something else, can't make himself calm down.

All summer, he's lived in a bubble. Now reality is flooding back in with a vengeance.

He won't be able to avoid Al forever. They'll meet, time and time again, and at some point they'll have to interact as part of the teaching staff. Dean'd never give up teaching, but keeping the job comes with a price, and that price is to be within Al's reach. Every day. For hours straight.

It scares him more than he's ready to admit, and so he settles for anger instead. By time he arrives at the coffee shop, he's downright livid.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets him with a smile that does nothing to distract Dean from the soft, worried expression that accompanies it.

And yeah. More pity. That's exactly what Dean needs right now. “Stuff it, Cas. I'll go and change, be back down in a few.”

He can feel Cas' eyes boring into his back until he's through the door that connects the shop and the stairwell. When he comes back downstairs, Cas eyes him from behind the counter with that same concerned look for a few minutes, while Dean busies himself with picking up dirty dishes onto a tray. It doesn't take him long to have another go at the topic, voice all low and sympathetic. “Did something happen at school?”

“What do you think, huh?”

Cas face darkens, something wild and angry flicking across it that makes a cold shiver run down Dean's back. He takes a clipped breath and angles his body away despite the distance between them – some sort of instinctive response to the anger that isn't even directed at him – before he can remind himself that Cas is no threat, won't hurt him like that, and tries to cover it up with a smile and a shrug in Cas' general direction while he moves on to the next table.

But Cas must've seen it – overly observant fucker – because when Dean looks up at him again his expression has fallen back onto worry. “Alastair? Did he do somethi–“

Dean feels shame rising to his cheeks, acutely aware of the costumers that are witnessing this and may or may not be in earshot. “Yes. No. Don't wanna talk about it.”

“Okay,” Cas says. “I understand. Not here, and not now, but at some point you should talk about it. About him.”

“Am I speaking Spanish?” Dean crosses the distance between the table he was cleaning and the counter. Under his breath, he adds, “It happened, it sucked, it's over. I'm fine. Stop bugging me about it.”

Cas is wearing that pinched expression, the one he gets when he doesn't want to let on how upset he is by something Dean does or says, and fails completely. It's unnerving. “Just know that if you want to talk – “

“Yeah, yeah. If I feel like pouring my heart out to someone, you'll be my first choice,” Dean snaps and turns to carry his half-full tray into the kitchen.

***

Cas leaves Dean alone for the rest of the afternoon. They work around each other, when they do talk it's about nothing more than work and orders and meanwhile, Cas worries himself sick.

It's not even about the incident that surely occurred at school earlier today; Cas doubts it was that serious. From what he knows about Alastair – which, admittedly, isn't much – he doesn't take him for the kind of reckless idiot that'd exhibit violent behavior in public. And that? Is what makes Dean's strong reaction so worrisome.

He calls himself Dean's boyfriend, but he doesn't have the first idea what's going on in his head.

They go about their evening as if nothing happened; late dinner, as usual, shower, early night because one of them will have to be up early to open the shop. All throughout Dean is silent, withdrawn, but at least his anger seems to have evaporated. Now he just looks tired.

Cas almost expects him to leave after they ate and he showered, to sleep next door, but he stays. It's been a long day, and Cas is halfway asleep when he hears Dean clear his throat behind him. He opens his eyes and lies still, doesn't yet turn.

“The first time it happened was almost three years after we got together,” Dean starts after a few moments of loaded silence. “He didn't...he wasn't always like that. He's been possessive and a little jealous from the get-go, but I guess I kinda didn't mind. Blamed it on the age difference, ya know? But he wasn't violent. He pushed me – not like that, I mean, he encouraged me to give up the car mechanic gig and make something out of the photography thing. He gave me my first real, expensive camera.”

Dean trails off, and Cas waits. He considers reaching behind himself, to offer Dean his hand, something. But he thinks twice of it.

“Anyway. Yeah. First time. We've been to a fair or something, and we ran across a friend of his from the Youth Center where we first met. I remembered him, and we joked around; I think I was a little trashed by the time we left. And Al, he...during the drive home, he was in this weird mood, not quite pissed but something more sinister, and when we got home he began to yell at me. What I was thinking to behave like a five-dollar-whore right in front of him, if I thought he wouldn't notice, and he's still got the guy's phone number lying around somewhere, do I want it? Next thing I know, he backhands me. Just, like. Whack, out of the blue, and then he went upstairs, slamming doors and all, and I spent the night on the couch.”

Another pause, and Cas is dying to turn around to see Dean's face. But he also thinks that this setup is deliberate, that Dean wouldn't be able to say any of this with Cas eyes on him, so he doesn't move.

“Guess I shoulda booked it right then. Clocked him one in retaliation and walked out the door. But I was too shocked, and then I thought, hey, whatever. Just a slap, nothing to get upset about.” Dean snorts, and Cas can feel the bed dip a little when he moves to sit up. “Guess that was pretty stupid, huh?”

Finally, Cas does turn, and finds Dean staring at him. His expression is unreadable, detached and emotionless as if he'd been reading a scene out of a book instead of retelling something that happened to him. “You're not stupid, Dean. A lot of people believe their abuser if they promise that it won't –“

“Oh hey, stop.” Dean narrows his eyes, then shrugs, and Cas realizes that he went with the worst possible response; he can practically watch Dean slipping away and closing himself off again. “I'm not a lot of people, and it's not...abuser? Cas, what the fuck. Do I look like a battered wife to you?”

“I didn't mean to offend you. I'm just saying that others have been through similar experiences, and there are patterns. There's help. You don't have to deal with it all on your own.”

“Help, huh? What, are you suggesting I go see a shrink?”

That's exactly what Cas was going to suggest, but the way Dean glares his way tells him how bad an idea that'd be. “I'm not. No shrink. But there's help if you want it, better equipped to help you than I am.”

Dean's features smooth out, then morph into a grin. “Nah. I'm actually rather happy with your equipment.”

It takes Cas a moment to follow Dean's line of thought, and when he catches up Dean's already lying back down and inching closer. Cas puts a hand on his chest to stop him. “Dean. I'm serious. You –“

“I don't want to talk about this anymore,” Dean replies. He removes Cas' hand, lays it onto his hip instead and leans in to nuzzle at Cas' neck.

And goddamn him, but Cas can't resist that.

***

Halfway through September, Dean's car breaks down. It's nothing serious, Dean determines by a quick look under the hood, he just needs to replace a few things. A few days pass, and the following weekend Cas is treated to the sight of a sweaty Dean in an old, threadbare T-shirt bent over the car while he works to do just that. It's downright indecent.

There's some sort of summer fair going on that drags business away from the shop, and so Cas allows himself to go out a few times and linger after he brings Dean an iced coffee or a soda.

He leans onto the sun-heated metal of the car's doorframe. “How is it going?”

Dean emerges from under the hood, quirks an eyebrow at him. “You really interested in what I'm doin' here?”

“I'm interested in how you look while you're doing it,” Cas admits, grinning. He's not a total idiot in regards to mechanics and would probably manage to keep up if Dean were to explain it to him, but the engine isn't what he wants to pay attention to. “You used to do this for a living, didn't you?”

“Yeah.” Dean wipes the back of his hand across his forehead and gestures for Cas to hand him the glass of iced coffee. “Two things I inherited from my dad, the knack for cars and the knack for photos.”

Cas steps forward to hand over the glass, then falls back again, enjoying the warmth at his back. “I didn't know your dad was a photographer too.”

“He wasn't, not really. It was a hobby of his until he got sent to 'nam, and I have an album with pics he made during his first year in the war. But after that he just stopped. Never touched his camera again, and when I found it as a teen he let me have it.”

“Were they good? Those photos?”

“Damn good,” Dean replies, admiration clear in his voice. “I have the album in a drawer upstairs, gotta remind me to show you later.”

Cas won't – the last thing he wants to do is look at photos of yet another war, he saw plenty of those at home and then later with his own two eyes – but he isn't going to tell Dean that. “He'd be proud of you, doing something he loved.”

“No,” Dean says, taking another sip of the coffee before putting the glass down next to the car. His tone is sarcastic when he adds, “the last thing he'd be if he could see me now is proud.”

“I am,” Cas says. It's the truth, he really is proud of Dean's talent and how good he is with his students, not to mention that he managed to escape the kind of relationship that traps some people until it costs them their lives, but one look at Dean's face tells him Dean doesn't buy that. He stares at Cas, almost hurt, then cuts his eyes away and clears his throat.

“How about you stop bullshitting me and get your ass back inside,” he mumbles, nudges the glass with his foot. “We both got work to do.”

***

One thing that's almost impossible with Dean is having a constructive discussion. They rarely fight, but there are disagreements, and even though Dean won't hold back on things that piss him off or don't agree with him, there usually comes a point when he simply folds.

Their biggest quarrel to date starts small, something about money – a constant source of disagreement for them, and also a topic that Cas doesn't care for as much as he probably should but which Dean is especially adamant about. They're out grocery shopping, it's late, after they closed up the shop, and Cas runs out of patience when Dean meticulously sorts the items to make sure each of them pays what they picked out for themselves.

He unpacks the rest of the cart without attention to what's his and what's Deans, then turns to the cashier and informs him he'll pay for everything.

Dean gapes at him in disbelief, but doesn't say anything until they're in the car. “What was that, Cas? Huh? I can pay for my own fucking stuff.”

Cas groans, leans back in the seat and refrains from putting the key into the ignition. They usually use his car for shopping and errands, simply because it's more practical and cheaper to fuel. “I'm tired, I'd like to go home, and I didn't want to spend ten minutes picking our shopping apart.”

“But that's what we agreed to do. I pay for what I want to buy, you pay for what you want.”

“And this one time, we didn't. I can afford to pay for your tarts and toothpaste once in a while, Dean. It's not going to ruin me.”

“This isn't about whether or not you'll go destitute if you shell out money for my stuff. Not the fuckin' point.”

Cas has no doubt that Dean will inform him what, exactly, he thinks the point is, but he'd prefer for him to do that at home, preferably on the sofa or in bed, and so he cuts the conversation off by starting the car after all, and decidedly devoting his attention to backing out of their parking spot. Dean gets the hint, and shuts up until they're in Cas apartment. They unpack their bags in silence, and once they're done with that, Dean grabs the receipt out of the bottom of the bag, finds himself a pen, and sits down at the kitchen table.

Round two, it seems. Cas sighs and looks over his shoulder, sees Dean scribbling on the slip of paper. “What are you doing?”

Dean doesn't look up. “Dividing our shopping, so I can pay you back what I owe you.”

“Don't be ridiculous, you don't owe me anything. Just forget it. If you want you can pay next time, and we're good. Okay?”

“No,” Dean snarls. “It's not okay. We agreed on this, so we're damn well going to do it. I don't need you to pay jack shit for me.”

It's too late for this conversation, and all Cas really wants is to shower and head off to bed. “Stop. Let's go to sleep and talk about this tomorrow?”

Dean glares up at him. “You go to bed. I'm gonna finish this.”

Any other day, Cas would have sat this out, talked about it right then and there and made sure it was solved and out of their minds. He doesn't like to go to bed angry. But he's tired and exhausted, has no desire to delay his well-earned bedtime because of a stupid fight, and so he shrugs and gets up.

It's Dean's turn to open the shop the next morning, and Cas finds the receipt and a few bills pinned underneath a coffee cup in the middle of the kitchen table.

He doesn't take it. He didn't sleep well, he's irritable, and he still thinks this is utterly ridiculous.

Round three of that fight happens the same evening, when Dean finds the money untouched. There's some yelling on both side, arguments that get more stupid the longer the whole thing lasts, and that night, Dean sleeps in his own apartment.

The morning after that, he's kissing Cas awake.

Cas blinks at him when they part, not remembering for a second or two while this isn't supposed to happen. “Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, pushes gently at Cas side – presumably so he makes room for him – and Cas grabs Dean's wrist.

“Stop. You can't just... What about last night?”

“I changed my mind. Whatever, you're right, I don't care.”

It'd be awfully tempting to let him crawl under the covers and forget they ever fought in the first place, but this isn't the first time Dean ended a disagreement by putting up a white flag out of the blue. Cas doesn't want to win like this. It makes him feel horrible. He sits up, rubs at his eyes.

Dean looks at him expectantly. “We good?”

“So you say it's alright that I paid for both of us without asking you first?” The topic isn't any less stupid in Cas' eyes, but it meant something to Dean, and now it doesn't, and Cas can't just let that sit. “If I were to do it again, you wouldn't mind?”

“Yes. No. Come on, how about we, you know,” Dean says and winks. “Kiss and make up?”

He dives back in, but Cas stops him by taking hold of his shoulders. He doesn't do anything else, doesn't even grab him hard, but Dean flinches under his grip and goes stock-still.

Just like that, Cas doesn't care about money and groceries, about who's right or wrong or whether or not their fights are constructive. What he cares about is that Dean's still looking straight at him, but it's not leery or suggestive anymore. For a moment there's real fear on his face, terror almost, before he cuts away his eyes, fights Cas off and gets up.

Cas follows and tries to hold him back, get him to stay and talk about this, but Dean evades him and throws the bedroom door in his face on the way out.

***

They don't exchange a single sentence that doesn't involve the words “coffee” or “order” until after work that evening. Cas has had more than enough time to decide that he doesn't care about how this started or why who's angry with whom; he just wants it to be over. He'll apologize, admit he broke a rule they'd set and won't do it again, and then things might finally go back to normal.

He doesn't get a chance to do so. Dean beats him to it.

Once upstairs, Dean excuses himself to the bathroom while Cas starts to go through their fridge to get the rest of a casserole they'd had the other day and some salad he was going to prepare as a side. When Dean steps into the kitchen, he's smiling, no trace of the hostile mood he nursed all day.

“You're just like Sam sometimes, with your rabbit food days and those odd healthy shakes,” he says, nodding at the bowl of lettuce leaves on the counter and the cucumber Cas was cutting before he turned to look Dean's way.

“One of us has to make sure we eat something fresh every now and then, Lord knows it doesn't happen often enough,” Cas says, ignoring the fact that Dean's the one who got him off convenience foods in the first place. He's not sure Dean's eating habits are necessarily healthier, though, they're just not quite as lazy. “Dying of heart failure at forty-five isn't part of my retirement plan.”

Dean's smile grows broader, and he closes the distance between them. “Actually, Cas, a heart attack in your forties would render a retirement plan obsolete.”

And Cas wants to be relieved; no more fighting, back to normal, that's what he wanted too. But there's something off about Dean, like this. The ways he's talking, measured and with emphasis on every word, like he's playing a part and reciting dialog. There's a slight quaver in his voice as well, and he can't hold Cas' gaze. He's nervous.

While Cas is still busy making sense of that, Dean clears this throat. “Hey, man, I'm sorry. About the stupid fight, and about this morning and everything. Okay? We good?”

“Why would you be sorry for this morning?”

Dean's eyebrows furrow. “What? I just am, alright? I'm sorry. Can we move on now?”

“You didn't do anything wrong,” Cas tries to clarify. “All you did was to get scared, and that's nothing you need to apologize for.”

“Cas, fuck no. I wasn't scared. I just –“ Dean starts, but he doesn't continue. He looks up, confused and frustrated, at a loss.

And Cas wants to discuss this, clear it up, make Dean get why it's not solely on him to calm the waves, but he simply doesn't know how. He's not good with words, especially not when it comes to Dean, and half the time he tries he ends up making things worse.

“Yes, Dean,” he says instead, attention back on the cucumber and the cutting board so he doesn't have to look Dean in the eye. “We're good. Don't worry.”

***

Dean's brother comes home from college for Thanksgiving with his girlfriend Jess in tow – a radiant blonde with bright smiles and a contagious good mood – and Cas gives Dean a few days off while they're around. He's gotten an invitation from his own family, but while he misses Anna a lot, he's not yet ready to face their father. He didn't react well to Cas’ discharge and the reason behind it, and a holiday spent at the Winchester's is by far preferable to another lecture about how he's fallen from grace, how much of a disappointment he is, and how wrong it is to love who he loves, be who he is.

He closes up the shop at 4 PM that day. Jess and Dean have announced they'll join forces to make a Thanksgiving dinner for the four of them, and Cas and Sam are banned from the kitchen for the duration of their cooking.

Cas has only met Sam once before, and he hasn't seen either of them much the past few days – Dean slept here, and Cas has stayed at his apartment as not to disturb anyone in the mornings – and so it's odd at first, two strangers penned in together while their relative others chatter and joke around in the other room. Dean talks about his little brother all the time and Cas knows a lot about him, but that can't make up for the lack of interaction they had so far.

“So, the shop,” Sam starts. “Business going okay?”

“Yes, it is. Thank you.”

A few moments of silence, then: “You're good for him, you know. Dean. He's happier than I've seen him in years.”

In comparison to Dean, Sam is an open book. His face reflects his emotions like a neon sign, genuine concern written all over it, and something about it makes Cas want to respond in kind. “That's mutual. I can't remember the last time I felt like this. Maybe I never have before.”

“Do you know about...”, Sam says, trails off. He clears his throat. “Did he tell you? About what happened with Alastair?”

“Yes. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he told me enough to give me an impression.”

“Good. That's good. Because he won't talk to me about it, no matter how often I ask, and, I mean. I get that. From the very start, every other conversation we had about Alastair resulted in yelling. I wouldn't want to talk to myself about that either, if I were him. But he's dealing with it?”

And that's an excellent question; Cas isn't sure about that himself. They buried the topic, for the most part, and if it does come up again Dean continues to stubbornly insist that he's fine, nothing's wrong, it's all in the past. “We're trying. But he's reluctant to admit it's something that has to be dealt with in the first place.”

“Yeah, sounds like Dean. He's good at hiding what hurts him.” Sam glances towards the door to the kitchen, face soft with fondness. “But I dunno, Cas. I guess I should've seen it earlier. Known something's off with him. How could it go on for so long, and I never noticed?”

Cas doesn't get to answer, because that's when the door flies open and Jess' head peeks out, accompanied by an array of delicious smells. “Dinner's ready in ten. Sam, how about you set the table? Since we're doing all the other work?“

She's grinning, eyebrows raised in mock-accusation. Dean shouts something from behind her that Cas can't hear, but it makes her giggle.

Sam plays along, throws up his hands and gets up like it's a chore. “Anything for you, honey.”

***

After years of military service, Cas can sleep everywhere. Give him a bit of space to lie or sit and he's out like a light within ten minutes, even if the world's literally exploding all around him. It's a learned skill; in the beginning of his first tour, he was taut as a bowstring and didn't manage to fall asleep at all unless he was so sleep-deprived that keeping his eyes open became impossible and his body just took what it needed. Even when he came back, he would shoot up in bed several times a night, woken by phantom noises or bad dreams. But it got better, and after a while, it became routine. In the end Cas could snore straight through the sounds of gunfire at any time of the day, and now there's very little that can disturb him at night.

That's why it takes him weeks to gather that Dean hardly sleeps at all.

Of course he notices the frequent yawning, the dark rings under Dean's eyes some mornings. He's not blind. But their lives are busy, and Dean's dividing his time between the school and the shop, sometimes grading papers and photo essays or preparing lessons until way past midnight even though they'll be up shortly after six again. And that's another thing; no matter who's opening up downstairs, Dean stays up. He doesn't go back to bed if it's Cas turn.

One night in early December, Cas gets awoken by his bladder. He went out for a drink or two with Jo after closing up the night before, and alcohol always had a tendency to throw his digestive system out of balance.

Dean's not in the bed with him when he gets up. Cas takes care of business, and then sets out to search for him. He finds Dean in the living room, bent over his computer and typing up what looks like a questionnaire for his students, so immersed in it that he flinches violently when Cas lays a hand on his shoulder to make himself known.

Dean mumbles a curse, rubs at his neck. “Fucking hell, Cas. Don't sneak up on me like that.”

“I didn't mean to startle you,” Cas replies and sits down next to him. “I woke up to pee, and saw that you weren't in bed.”

“Yeah. Couldn't sleep, figured I might as well use the time productively.”

Cas reaches out, slowly this time, to lay a hand onto Dean's thigh and stroke it with his thumb. “It's half past three. Come back to bed with me, yes?”

“Nah, not yet. I'll finish this. You go ahead, though, no reason for both of us to be up,” Dean says, barely managing to stifle a yawn. When Cas doesn't move, he adds, “Really. I'm good. Go back to sleep, yeah?”

Cas, who can barely keep his eyes open, tears stinging in his eyes from the bright light of the computer screen in the otherwise pitch-dark room, presses a kiss to Dean's temple that Dean tries to evade and gets up to return to the bedroom.

Dean's there next to him when the alarm clock rings in the morning, but Cas can't stop thinking about it. The following nights, he tries to stay awake for a while when they retire, to see if Dean's sleeping or not.

Night one has him snoring next to Cas after half an hour, and Cas can't keep his eyes open any longer himself. Night two brings a similar result, and Cas has all but decided to call himself paranoid and let this go when Dean heads to bed before him on night three.

Except that, just when Cas is about to fall asleep, he hears Dean's breathing speed up. It becomes ragged as Cas continues to listen, panicked and irregular, and soon Dean startles awake.

It's not a big affair, no shooting up in bed with a gasp, and Dean seems to catch himself quickly. Cas can feel his body weight shifting a few times before the bed dips and Dean gets up and tip-toes out of the room.

He manages to keep himself awake for another hour. Dean's still not back by then.

***

It's not like Cas didn't worry before, but the insomnia and the nightmares give it new fuel. He can't stop thinking about what Jo said – Dean's been through a lot, he's not in a good place and won't be for a while, and Cas has no real clue what to do about it.

Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he's making Dean worse instead of better.

For the upteenth time in the past few months, Cas' finger hovers over Anna's number in his contacts, but an incoming customer distracts him and Cas can't say he minds. He's got no problem with asking his sister for help, but if Dean finds out Cas discussed his troubles with someone else against his will, he'll never forgive him for it.

Because Dean's fine. He can't sleep and he's irritable and he zones off with that haunted expression on is face every other day, but God forbid he admit that anything's wrong.

What they need, Cas decides, is a time-out. Something good and fun, away from all this. He mulls over the where and how for a few days, until he finds an ad in one of the nationwide newspapers he lays out in the shop: a cabin in Washington, high up, near the Canadian border. They pitch it as a Christmas vacation, but what gets Cas' attention are the pictures, the snow-covered forests and frozen lakes, the promise of a unique location off the beaten tracks. He thinks of the photos Dean could take out there, so different from anything he'd find here.

After he's talked to Jo and Mindy to cover the shifts, Cas books them a three-day-vacation the week before the holidays. The reservation isn't cheap, plus Mindy's going to want to be paid, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Dean's eyes narrow with suspicion when Cas tells him the next day, upstairs over a late dinner. “Is that another attempt to lull me into, ya know, talking about my feelings? The whole mess with Al? Now with added snow and firelight?”

“No,” Cas says, although he does hope the change of scenery might make it easier for Dean to open up. But that's not he main reason he's doing this. “We deserve a few days off, don't we?”

“Sure, not arguing with that,” Dean replies, chewing on his last fork full of pasta. “But we could spend those upstairs. Don't have to blow money for a cabin in the woods somewhere, huh?”

“Upstairs of the shop? I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd be able to relax and stay away completely.”

Dean nods. “Yeah, got a point there.”

“And from the pictures I've seen, it's really beautiful. You could take your camera, go on a tour, look for motifs,” Cas argues. He expected some resistance, didn't think Dean would accept the gesture without questioning it. All in all, though, it's going better than he thought.

“Sounds nice? I just, uh.” Dean lowers his eyes, pushes his empty plate away from himself. “I can't chime in. With the costs for that cabin.”

“I didn't expect you to. My idea, my expense. Consider it a Christmas gift?”

Gaze flickering to Cas, Dean's lips curl up the slightest bit. “Guess that means I gotta reconsider my gift for you. Cause it'd look a bit puny compared to a vacation.” He gets up, reaches for Cas' plate over the table to put them both in the sink.

Cas stands as well, and he has a hard time keeping the relief out of his face. He takes the pot from the table and carries it over to the counter. “Well, I have no doubt I'll love it, whatever it is.”

“Oh god, just shut up,” Dean groans and shoves at Cas, but he sounds fond rather than annoyed. “You spout shit straight out of a soap opera sometimes, you sappy idiot.”

***

Dean spends a considerable amount of their vacation alone in the woods. He asks Cas on the first day if it's okay to take a walk by himself, just him and his camera, and he's gone again before Cas wakes up the next day, his whereabouts announced by a slip of paper on the bedside table. Cas tries not to be peeved about it. They spent the evening and half the night busy with each other in bed, so nobody could say Cas doesn't get anything nice out of their stay here. And he booked this vacation for Dean's benefit; if wandering around alone in the woods and snapping pictures is what Dean wants to do, then Cas is going to respect that.

He packed a few books. The TV has a subscription to the Discovery Channel in HD. There's a crossword puzzle in the newspaper. He'll keep himself entertained.

Around noon, Dean wanders back in. Cas looks up from where he's sitting by the window, on one of the tree stumps that serve as chairs and with the newspaper spread out in front of him. “Did you have a nice walk?”

“Jeez, Cas, you make it sound like I'm eighty-five and went for a walk with my arthritic poodle,” Dean says. His face is flushed and he's shivering, rubbing his hands together, but he grins when he peels himself out of his jacket. “But yeah. The scenery around here really is amazing.” He points at Cas with a finger in warning. “If you tell Sam I said that, I'll put your balls through the coffee grinder at home.”

“Oh, don't worry, I wouldn't dare.” Cas folds the newspaper and sets it aside. “Any plans for the rest of the day?”

Dean flops down on the bed to pull of his boots. “Getting warm, for starters. And then...” He stops unlacing them, leans over to grope for his travel bag underneath the bed. “I thought I'd show you your Christmas present.”

“Isn't that a little early?”

“So was yours, right? And we'll be working over the holidays, so I thought doing it here would be, I dunno. More appropriate.” Once he's found the bag, he rummages around in it until he found a plastic folder, and, before Cas can wonder what it might contain, he pulls a sheet of paper out of it and extends his hand. “I didn't bother with gift wrap or bows, but, yeah. Merry Christmas?”

It's a leaflet, simple but neat. The colors are kept much like the furniture and painting in the shop, there are placeholders for text and photos of Cas and the shop, newer ones, not any of those Dean made of him before they got together. Cas turns it over in his hands, twice, not quite getting enough of the sight. “Thank you.”

Dean drops his eyes, goes back to unlacing. “Yeah, well. The other set of pics is gone, and you never got to make your leaflet, so I figured... Student of mine's great at that stuff, she wants to be a graphic designer, and she helped me make it. I have it on the computer at home, as a file. We can put in the text, and make as many copies as you want. You like it, yeah?”

“I do. Yes. Of course I do, I love it,” Cas says, sits down beside him and punctuates that with a kiss. He gestures for Dean to hand him the folder, not wanting to crinkle it or leave fingerprints even though it's only a drafted copy. Then another thought occurs to him. “The other pictures, what happened to them?”

Dean's face falls. “Cas, don't.”

He doesn't want to prod, but there's something he never considered – didn't want to, maybe – and now he needs to know if he's right. “I know you developed them, from when Alastair came by the shop with you. What do you mean, they're gone?”

Dean gets up, throws the folder at the bed by Cas leg. “Al burned the rest of them in the kitchen sink and made me delete the files. Okay? Happy now?”

“When you left him, the day he beat you, was that still about those stupid photos? Did he hurt you because of me?”

“Fucking hell, Cas,” Dean breathes out, eyes flickering across the room, looking anywhere but at Cas. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. Told you he was jealous. What did you think happened, huh?”

Just to keep his hands busy, Cas picks the folder up and puts the paper away. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. Stop it. Stop asking about it, stop feeling sorry for me, just stop.” Dean bends down to lace his boots up anew. When he's done with that he marches over to the door, pulls his jacket back on and takes his camera bag from the coat stand as well. “I'm taking another walk. And seriously, don't follow me or I'll get in the car and drive straight back home. Without you..”

Then he's out, and Cas is left staring at the door. He throws the folder with the drafted leaflet at it in frustration but immediately stands to pick it back up, wondering how he managed to mess this up yet again.

***

The rest of their vacation is strained and awkward after Dean's walkout, but really, it's Cas’ fault. Stubborn bastard, constantly trying to unearth things that Dean neither wants nor needs to talk about. He's worse than Sam, who at least knows when to leave well enough alone.

They make up eventually though, and the holidays are uneventful and busy at work. Before Dean knows it school's started up again and he's back in his classroom. He's happy about that, despite Al's unswerving, well, obsession with him. They haven't had a run-in in weeks, but Dean still catches him staring from across the hallway during breaks or teacher conferences every day. Dean's gotten used to it. He won't quit, Al's not going anywhere either, and as long as he keeps his hands to himself Dean can deal with that.

Three weeks into January the school holds a science fair with added creativity contest, and as every year, Dean and his class are there to document the event. It's a nice practice; Dean usually grades the pictures the kids made of the proceedings and they're added to a collage that'll hang in the auditorium until the next fair. He takes some pictures himself, for fun and as backup in case his class misses one of the items that places later.

The auditorium is stuffed with kids and their projects, displays covering tables and presented for the judges – two teachers and two representatives from the parent council – to inspect and rate them. Families have been invited, too, so there are parents and siblings or grandparents flocking around each table.

After he's made his rounds, made sure each project has been photographed at least once and given some tips to his students, he joins three of his colleagues having a cup of coffee in the back for a chat. He places the camera on the row of seats nearby.

When he turns back around ten minutes later, it's gone.

He searches the room, the seats and underneath, with the help of the colleagues he's been talking to. He checks the office to see if someone picked it up and handed it in. Some of his kids help him looking around school after the event is over. But it's all in vain; the camera is nowhere to be found. Two hours later than anyone else he gives up and heads home.

When Dean enters the shop and strolls over to the counter, it takes Cas one look at him to notice something's wrong. “Dean? What happened?”

Usually that attitude from Cas raises his heels, but for once it's comforting rather than unnerving. He flops down on one of the bar stools and begins to absently play with a wrinkled leaflet a costumer must've left lying around there. “Lost my camera. I think someone stole it.”

“Today?” Cas bends down to pick an eclair out of the display and puts it on a plate. He strikes something off an order note and sets the plate aside; most likely there's a coffee in the works to go with it.

Dean nods. “Yeah. One second it was there, I turned back around, and it was gone.”

“Maybe it'll turn up in a few days.”

“I sure hope it will. Can't afford a new one right now.”

Cas inclines his head. “How much would it cost?”

“The one I had cost three grand, and that's not counting lenses and equipment.”

“Oh,” Cas says, crestfallen. “That's a lot of money, indeed.”

More than either of them can afford, is what he means, Dean's sure. “Yep. I can borrow one of the cameras the school lends to students for work, but they're not anywhere near the same standard. But hey, whatever.” He reaches behind the counter for a tray. Normally he'd change after school, but today he can't be bothered. “I can worry about that later. Maybe you're right, and it'll turn up soon.”

It doesn't. A week passes, and no one hands the camera into the lost-and-found in the school office or approaches him about it. Dean's in the teacher's lounge and just about to cave and Google for area banks that offer loans – even though he has no fucking idea how he's supposed to come up with the money for the monthly installments – when he hears someone clear their throat behind him. He looks up from his laptop, and yeah. Jackpot.

The one staring at him from across the table is Al.

“Fuck off,” Dean growls, anger and frustration overriding the instinctive fear that wants to crawl up his throat.

“Dean, please.” Al's using the same voice he talks in with his students, calm and insistent, a little superior. “I know the way our relationship ended was...far from ideal, but can't we just talk? Like adults?”

Asshat's got some nerve, lecturing Dean about how to behave like adults. “That's rich, coming from you. Last time I checked, regular conversations didn't involve punches and broken ribs.”

“I know.” Al lowers his gaze, stares at his hands as he kneads them in front of his torso, and if Dean didn't know better he'd think Al looks caught. Ashamed. “Dean, I never said it, but I'm sorry.”

And right there, Dean's a little speechless. They went through a honeymoon phase or two after Al screwed up bad, but he never outright apologized. For anything. Not once. “Uh. Thanks?”

“Can I sit down?”

Dean's not really keen on a prolonged chat with him, he'd much rather get up and get the fuck out of the room now, but damn him if he's going to admit that. “Free country and all, so. Sure.”

Al sits down opposite of him, arms folded on the table. They're closer than they've been since the breakup, and the proximity gives Dean goosebumps. Too many sense memories are prompted by it, both good and really fucking bad. “I heard you lost the camera.”

“Got stolen during the science fair, yes.” For some reason it's very important to Dean to point that out, not have Al think he misplaced it, lost it because he's too dumb to keep track of his things.

“Do you have a new one yet?”

“How do you think I'd have ponied up the funds for that?”

“That's what I thought,” Al says, and he holds a hand up to stop Dean in his tracks when he takes in a breath before spitting out a comeback. It works. Of course it does. “No, I don't mean it that way. See, the money in that savings account we had? I put it there for both of us, so I guess some of it is rightfully yours.”

Dean narrows his eyes at him. “I don't need handouts from you.”

“I understand. But Dean, listen. When I heard about the camera I used some of that money and I bought you a new one. Up to par with the old one, and with two additional lenses. It's yours if you want it.”

For the second time within five minutes, Dean doesn't know what to say. He's offended and wants to say no. At the same time, he's aware that it's going to take him months – if not years – to save up for a new camera on is own, and hey, Al's right about one thing: Dean deserves some of that money. He's staring back at Al for so long that it's starting to be embarrassing before his pride wins out. “Stuff it, Al.”

He pushes his chair back, gathers his bag and his laptop, and marches out of the room before he can change his mind.

***

Dean tells Cas about the run-in with Al the same evening. Not because it upset him – it didn't, for fuck's sake, not much anyway – but because he figures that it's common courtesy to tell your current boyfriend about it when your ex offers you costly crap.

He tosses it in after they've settled on the couch for his daily round of channel hopping before bed, while Cas reads beside him. “Al chatted me up today at school.”

Cas lowers the book and turns to face him, expression unreadable. There's concern in there and a hint of anger, although Dean's not sure if it's directed at him or Al. “He didn't harm you, did he? Threaten you?”

“No, Cas. Chill out. He was disturbingly nice, actually,” Dean says, then pauses, trying to gauge Cas' reaction in advance, hesitant to come out with the next bit. He knows Cas isn't going to flip, it's not the same, but some things stick with you. “And he bought a camera for me.”

“He did what?” Cas voice climbs a notch on the last word, but otherwise he sounds stunned, not pissed. Good.

“He said that some of the money he saved while we were living together would be rightfully mine. And he used it to buy a camera.”

“What did you say?”

“Told him to stuff it,” Dean says, shrugging. ”I'm not stupid enough to think there aren't any strings attached.”

Cas nods and resumes his reading, but he keeps glancing at Dean over the edge of the page. Dean pretends not to notice and tries real hard not to think about what's going on in Cas' head right now.

He's pretty sure it's not flattering.

***

The following Monday morning, Dean leaves the coffee shop early. He's found three different banks in the area where he wants to apply for a loan.

Every single one of them turns him down.

He's got no credit. Everything – from mortgage to short-time part payments for furniture or kitchen devices, even Dean's old camera – was in Al's name. The woman at the last bank seems sympathetic, at least, recommends he try a credit card and go from there. It'll be more expensive than a loan, she says, but it's his only option.

Disheartened, Dean drives over to school and settles in the teacher's lounge, on a chair by the window, with his laptop on his knees. He's got some time before his lesson starts, and he figures he might as well look into the credit card thing right away.

There's no shortage of hits when he Googles for credit card applications. He weeds out some of the more suspicious looking sites, and then downloads a couple of forms. Some of the questions are easy – name, address, social security number – but some others are Swahili to him. They ask for his annual income, require him to subtract out taxes and expenses. He's got no clue about any of that.

To add to his frustration, just when he's about to screw it and spend the remaining time he's got to kill browsing for anime, the door of the teacher's lounge opens. And, of course, because this is Dean's lucky day, it's Al who walks through it.

Funny how they hardly met for weeks, and now they keep running into each other every few days. Dean doubts it's a coincidence, but then again, Al couldn't have known he'd already be here. Maybe he's just being paranoid.

“Dean,” Al says. “You're in early.”

“Had a coupla appointments that wrapped up earlier than I thought.”

Dean can see Al's eyebrows knit together briefly at the slang, but instead of the ping of anxiety that expression used to trigger in him he feels satisfied. Nothing Al can do about it now, nagging rights suspended.

“I see.” Al's eyes fall to the computer on Dean's lap. “Busy?”

“Yeah. None of your business.” Turning away demonstratively, Dean gets back to his applications. Al's presence in the room sours the hunt for fun stuff he was going to piss away the next half an hour with, anyway, so whatever. He pulls up the calculator that comes with Windows, punches in a few figures, but he's not at all sure about the results. Try as he might, he doesn't have a clue what he should or shouldn't include, if the amount of income he comes up with is presenting him in a decent light or if it basically screams guaranteed to default, can't pay back anything. Eventually he gives up, closes the laptop with a huff.

Of course, his frustration doesn't go undetected. “Everything okay? You look unhappy.”

“Really, Al. None of your fucking business, leave me alone.”

Al does no such thing. Instead, he gets up from where he sat at the other end of the long table, sipping his coffee, and walks over to Dean. “Anything I could help you with?”

Dean sighs and finally turns around to fix Al with a glare. “No. I don't want your help. Stay outta my stuff.”

Ignoring everything Dean said for the past few minutes, Al reaches for the laptop and tilts it up, dragging it out of reach when Dean tries to stop him. He looks at the screen, then at Dean, and Dean feels his face heat up. “They're for a new camera. Can't get a loan.”

“Ah,” says Al. “Got some trouble filling them out?”

Dean leans forward, claiming the laptop back. “I'll figure it out.”

“I could help you.”

“Or you could, ya know, fuck off. Like I told you to.”

Al isn't deterred. He digs into his bag, produces a worn calculator. “I know what you're making here. Any other income?”

And Dean gives in. He knows Al well enough to predict that, if he keeps refusing, they'll spend the next thirty minutes arguing. Letting Al help is easier, simple as that. The path of least resistance. Dean's pretty damn familiar with that one, but hey. At least he won't have to sit through another round of pity and sympathetic looks from Cas when he asks him for help back home. “Fine. Okay. I'm working at the coffee shop on the side.”

“Your boyfriend's?” The judgment is practically dripping out of Al's voice.

“Yep. He's paying me for the hours I work there, I'm paying him rent for the apartment. Separate finances. I learned a thing or two.” As far as jabs go, it's a weak one, but it doesn't miss its target entirely. Al looks away, points at the screen.

“Well then,” he says. “Let's get started.”

***

When he enters his classroom the next day, the new camera sits on his desk, still boxed. Five minutes later, Dean's in Al's classroom and throws the box onto Al's desk none too gently.

“Careful,” Al says from behind it. “That was expensive.”

“What the fuck, Al. What. The. Fuck. I told you I don't want it.”

Al isn't fazed. He shrugs his shoulders, takes a test from a pile to his right and reaches for a pen. “And I told you, the money's yours anyway. You needed a new one, I got you one. No big deal.”

“No big deal...wow. I don't need you to buy me shit. I don't need your help.”

Shaking his head, Al stands and rounds the desk. “Oh, obviously, you do.”

Dean takes a step back, then stops and forces himself to stand his ground before he can take another one. No reason to back up further. Nothing's going to happen. He's safe here.

Al doesn't miss a beat, closes the distance between them so they stand mere inches apart. “I would say I don't have ulterior motives, but that'd be a lie. I still love you. And I want you to be happy.”

Dean freezes. He stands there, Al so close that Dean can feel his breath hot on his face, breathe in his scent, the expensive old-man's-aftershave he's been wearing since they first met almost eight years ago. He knows what's going to happen, several seconds before it does, and he's not sure if he's powerless to get away or doesn't want to. Al lifts his face up, stares at him with the same glint in his eyes that Dean learned to both crave and fear, that dangerous mix of possessiveness and worship. Their lips touch and Dean's eyes fall closed, but he doesn't kiss back, doesn't even have time to decide if he should. It's over as fast and suddenly as it started.

While Dean's still busy gathering his wits, Al steps away, takes the box with the new camera from his desk and holds it out to him. “Don't forget this. You should always take what's yours, Dean.”

For another moment, Dean stands there, glued to the spot. Then he takes the box, turns and rushes out of the classroom.

***

Dean drives home in a daze. He almost misses two red lights, causes another driver to honk and flip him the bird when he forgets to signal a turn. Once he's parked behind the coffee shop, he sits in the car for a long time, eyes glued to the box on the passenger seat.

He knows what it means, what Al's intentions were for buying it. There's a turmoil of conflicting emotions roaring in his chest, fear and uncertainty as well as shame – he's been played, and he ran right into it – but there's something else too. Some treacherous little part of him feels tickled, is over the moon that he's still loved like that. It's always been one of the things that made it so hard to leave; Al's love is loud and uncompromising, unwavering, like a drug. That's the why he's been so jealous and lost his cool now and then: he wanted Dean so much it made both of them hurt, and he never ceased to.

Running a hand over his face, Dean leans back in his seat. He's so stupid. He can't be in the same room as Al without goosebumps and the pressing urge to get away, and yet here he is, getting excited over the fact that his goddamn fucking violent ex has decided to court him again. What he should do is march in there, tell Cas what happened, and give the camera back first thing tomorrow.

But that's not what he does.

He gets out of the car, puts the box into the trunk, takes a deep breath and walks into the shop as if nothing happened. He goes upstairs to change, as usual, washes his face and neck and puts on aftershave because he's afraid Cas might smell Al on him. He strolls back downstairs, gets to work, drags Cas into the kitchen for a quick blowjob when the string of customers thins out for a moment.

Dean comes back up, wiping his mouth, to see Cas is smiling at him. He's still panting, wears that stupid post-orgasm expression of his, surprised and happy.

Right now, it makes Dean want to crawl into a hole.

“What was that for?”

Dean follows up with yet another kiss, a quick one to let Cas taste himself. “Dunno. Felt like it.”

“Well.” Cas straightens out his tie, which got rumpled a bit during the making out that took place before Dean sunk to his knees. “I wouldn't mind if you felt like that more often.”

Oh, he so would if he knew the reason. “Noted.”

They go back into the shop with their fingers entwined, and Dean can stand that about as long as it takes them to get to the counter, where he's safe to pull his hand back and make a beeline for the elderly couple that sat down in a corner booth while they were in kitchen.

***

The camera sits in the trunk for about a week. Dean feels like he has a flashing neon sign on his forehead that screams cheater at everyone who cares to look, but Cas doesn't seem to notice anything. Al sends a smug grin his way whenever they see each other at school, sometimes accompanied by a wink, making Dean's face heat up every single time. The way he seems so sure about this, not a hint he might even consider to be rejected, should be infuriating. It's not.

On the Sunday after the kiss, they're invited to Jo's birthday party. It takes place at her mom's bar – they don't get along that well, as far as Dean knows, and it's an annual feeble attempt at salvaging their relationship, some sort of tradition Jo doesn't have the heart to break. They take the impala instead of Cas' car because Jo is Cas' friend and Dean's the one who'll stay sober to get them home, and when Cas informs him he's going put her gift in the trunk while Dean's still pulling on his jacket he remembers too late that there's a good reason why Cas shouldn't be anywhere near it at the moment.

It hits him when he follow Cas outside to find him staring into the trunk like he's seeing a ghost roam a round in there. “Cas, what –“ he starts, and then he gets it.

Oh, fuck.

“Where'd you get that?” Cas voice is toneless, detached.

“I can explain,” Dean says, knowing full well he can't even begin to. He hardly understands it himself.

Cas closes his eyes, deflates like he took a physical blow. “It's the one he got you, isn't it?”

Dean won't deny anything. It was hard enough to keep it a secret, he's incapable of lying to Cas' face. “Yeah. It is.”

“Since when do you have it?”

“A week or so. Had it at my desk one morning, and I went over to his classroom to give it back. He...we kissed. It didn't, I mean. Ah, shit. Cas.” It didn't mean anything, was what he wanted to say, but that wouldn't be true.

Cas throws the the trunk closed so hard it makes Dean flinch. His eyes are as empty and cold as his voice when he turns to look at Dean. “I'm going to drive over to Ellen's bar. I promised Jo. But I'd rather you stay here.”

With that, he crosses the parking ground to his own car and leaves Dean standing by the Impala, unable to do anything else than stare after him helplessly.

***

Cas feels numb. It's not just an emotion; his whole body tingles with it, like when the blood flows back into a limb that's gone dead. He's got the radio on in the car, but he can hardly make out the words of the songs that are playing. It could be Portuguese for all the sense it makes to him.

Nothing makes sense.

He finds his way to the bar on autopilot, only realizes when he gets there that he left Jo's gift in the trunk of Dean's car. With the camera. From Alastair. That Dean kept hidden from him. This can't be happening.

“I forgot your gift,” is the first thing he says to Jo, then it occurs to him that birthday gifts are for birthdays and he's supposed to congratulate her. “Oh. I mean. Happy Birthday.”

Jo leads him right back out of the door, one hand gripping his arm so hard it hurts. “Cas, what's wrong? What happened?”

Cas stares at her, needing a few seconds to process the question. “He bought it for him. He hid it from me. In the trunk. They kissed.”

“What? You're scaring me, and I have no idea what you're talking about.” She herds him back to the car, unlocks it with the key she takes out of his hands and makes him sit down in the passenger seat, kneels down before him. “Who did what? Dean?”

Deep breath. He needs to sort himself out. “Alastair bought a new camera. For Dean. And he kissed him. Dean hid the camera from me, after he told me he didn't take it. He...Jo, why would he lie to me about that?”

Jo leans forward, wraps Cas into a hug and presses his face to her shoulder. “Oh honey. I'm so sorry.”

Cas can't say anything to that. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, glad she can't see him, but he can't string words into sentences right now. The last time he felt like this was the evening when a fellow soldier walked into the restroom of a bar they'd all gone to and found Cas bent over for a guy he'd met outside ten minutes prior. It's not quite the same, smaller and bigger than that at the same time, but he remembers the feeling of things being taken out of his hands, helpless to watch while his life falls to pieces in front of him, and he hates it.

But he's not going to go down without a fight, without at least trying to hold on, not this time.

“Jo,” he says, extracts himself from her limps wrapped around him. “Jo. I have to... I need to drive back. I need to talk to him.”

She lets go of him and gets up, looks down at him and sighs. Her fingers play with his keys, still in her hand, like she's not sure she wants to give them back and let him go. “Cas, honey. Are you sure that's a good idea?”

“I need to talk to him,” Cas repeats. “Now.”

Jo doesn't make another attempt to talk him out of it, just holds out the key and steps out of the way so he can round the car and get into the driver's seat. When he backs out of the raw gravel field that serves as the bar's parking lot, he can see her through the rear view mirror, staring after him and only moving to go back in shortly before she'll be out of sight.

Not much registers on the drive back home either, his head completely blank, too much to feel and nothing quite penetrates the haze. He breathes out in both relief and dread when he sees Dean's car still where it stood when he left, hoping Dean himself will be upstairs. Cas isn't sure he could deal with it if he'd had to drive around town looking for him, checking places he could have gone.

It doesn't occur to him until he's climbing the stairs to their apartments that he'll have to say something if Dean is home, start this conversation somehow, and he has no idea what that'd be. All the things that flow around in his head suddenly sound accusatory or whiny, and he discards every single one of them while he unlocks the door to his own apartment. A quick look around kitchen, living room and bedroom tells him Dean's not in here, and so Cas tries Dean's apartment next. He's about to use his key, but thinks better of it, knocks instead.

There's no answer, but after a moment Cas hears footsteps approaching the door.

Dean opens the door, only to turn around and walk back into the big main room of the apartment as soon as he's let Cas in. He stops in the middle of it, suddenly, whirls around with his eyebrows raised and his mouth in a thin line. “Say what you need to. That's why you came back here so fast, isn't it?”

He sticks is chin out, steadying himself, and Cas realizes with a twinge to his heart Dean probably expects a hit, ruined by Al so thoroughly that his instinct tells him to brace for physical violence if someone's mad at him. Any compassion Cas feels is quickly overshadowed by anger, though, because that's the guy Dean's apparently about to chose over him?

“I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain,” he says. “Tell me what happened, clear up misunderstandings.”

Dean's eyes narrow at him. “Ah. That's so reasonable of you.”

It sounds like an accusation, a taunt, not at all like a good thing, and Cas has no idea what to do with that or what Dean even means. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah. I've played tonsil hockey with my ex, and you're being reasonable. I expected you to be pissed, yell, something. But not this.”

Somewhere this conversation took a turn and Cas failed to keep up. “And by this, you mean...?”

“Dunno,” Dean shrugs his shoulders. “Indifferent. Do you even care, Cas? Does this bother you at all? Because it sure as hell doesn't seem so.”

So that's what he gets for trying to do the right thing, be calm and willing to forgive. “Of course I care,” he says, but he's so confused and exhausted by all of this, so empty, that it sounds hollow to his own ears.

Dean must've discerned that too, because the glare he levels at Cas turns a shade darker. “Ohh, is that so? Because it doesn't really look that way from where I'm standing. All you ever do is pity me, like I'm a charity case, damaged goods, someone you want to fix. Is that what this is? Hm? A project?”

“You know it's not. I –“ Cas voice breaks, his throat feeling like sandpaper although he didn't rise his voice once. “I love you.”

“Then why don't you give a crap about any of this?” There's a flicker of a different emotion on Dean's face, something else than the defensive, mocking mask he's been wearing for the past minutes, but it's gone so fast that Cas almost thinks he imagined it. Wishful thinking.

He makes a step forward to close the distance between them, and the toxic combination of anger, disappointment and jealousy – the exact same things Dean accuses him of not feeling – surges higher when Dean flinches. “Then what did you expect me to do? How am I supposed to react? Tell me.”

Dean doesn't answer. His jaw clenches and he looks down at his hands, studies them as if they hold some long-lost secret.

Before he knows what got into him, Cas lunges and strikes him across the face, flat hand, not meant to hurt so much as to startle. “Is that what you wanted? What you need to wrap your head around the fact that I do care about you?”

He regrets it immediately, even more so when Dean's eyes fly back up, find his. He looks so hurt, so betrayed, that all Cas wants to do is wrap him up and apologize until he's running out of words and then some. “I'm sorry. Dean, please, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I –“

Cas falls silent when Dean turns, walking slowly towards the door. He looks back once more before he opens it, then he lowers his head, reaches for the doorknob. The door falls shut behind him with a bang.

***

Alastair shows up in the shop a few days later, swings Dean's key in front of Cas face and informs him that he's here to get Dean's things out of the apartment. There's a travel bag in his hand and a smug, obnoxious grin on is face that Cas can't look at for more than three seconds.

Cas is disgusted by Alastair's gall to show up here in Dean's stead, but he isn't too shocked by the confirmation that Dean's gone back to him; it's what he expected to happen once he realized that Dean wasn't coming back, and he already heard as much from students and regular customers. It's a small town, word travels fast. He tells him to wait and calls Jo to take over, because he sure won't let Alastair up there on his own.

Once in the apartment, Alastair's eyes roam over the old, worn furniture, the empty and unused kitchenette, the bed that's still unmade because Dean never did that and Cas couldn't bring himself to come over and stare at the space that used to be Dean's.

Alastair's face wrinkles up. “I don't get how he held out here for so long. Bit of a shithole, isn't it?”

Cas chooses the high road, doesn't grace that with a reply. He watches as Alastair gathers clothes and gimmicks into the travel bag. There are a few things he picks up and discards, and Cas wants to seize him by the collar and scream at him how he can do that, decide what Dean may or may not want to keep on a moment's notice, before he gets stuck on the thought that that's probably what Alastair's used to. Making decisions for Dean, not caring too much if it is what Dean actually wants.

He balls his hands into fists.

It's over quickly – Dean didn't stay here that long, and he didn't have a lot of personal property to begin with. After little more than half an hour Alastair declares that he's done and throws the key chain with Dean's house and apartment keys at Cas chest.

Alastair waits by the door of the apartment so Cas can lock up, hefts the travel bag up higher on his shoulder. “Anything you want me to tell him?”

Cas isn't dumb enough to think he means that, that it has any other purpose than to drive home the fact that Cas won't be able to communicate with Dean unless Alastair approves of it.

When no answer comes, Alastair shrugs and saunters down the stairs, downright cheerful and humming some old song. Cas stays where he is, looking after him until long after he disappeared into the shop.

*****

The email comes out of nowhere. There's no subject stated, and Cas almost deletes it unread when he sees the name of the sender. He suspects an error, spam or a mass-email that got sent out to all of Sam Winchester's contact list.

It was two summers ago when Cas last thought about Dean or his brother. The main road had been closed for maintenance, and he’d had to use another road into town after an appointment with a supplier, one that led right past the old Winchester house.

There were roses and tulips in the now neatly-kept front garden, and Cas saw a young man that clearly was neither Dean nor Sam playing fetch with a Golden Retriever. He felt a sting that he didn't know it had been sold, but then again, who'd tell him? When Dean and Alastair moved out of Vernalis mere months after Dean broke up with Cas, one of Dean's old students cared enough to take Cas aside and tell him about it. But that was years ago. None of the students who frequent the coffee shop nowadays remember Dean. There are no photography classes at Vernalis High anymore.

He doesn't know what makes him click the email anyway. Curiosity, maybe. And it's no error, no spam: Sam's coming to Vernalis, and he wants to meet him.

Cas replies that, yes, he'd love to, and they set a time to meet in the shop the following weekend.

The Sam who enters his shop that Saturday afternoon isn't anything like the man Cas met when he was with Dean. He's not just older, he's aged beyond his years. His hair is longer, slightly greasy, and his expression is that of someone who has too much on his shoulders to straighten out under the weight.

Cas wonders what happened to him, but there's something else he wants to know more urgently. He doesn't ask, though, doesn't press, waits for Sam to settle in the booth at the edge of the shop and start talking on his own.

“I came here, because... Oh, fuck,” Sam starts. His eyes water, he swipes the back of his hand over them before he continues. “Dean's dead, Cas.”

It's like a hit to the chest, even after all this time, and Cas feels like all the air has been pushed out of his lungs. “How? What happened?” He asks, barely managing to get out the words.

“He fell down the stairs to his darkroom,” Sam says. “Alastair claims it was an accident, the police confirmed that, but I doubt that's how it happened. I tried to get them to reconsider, investigate, but it didn't work. That asshole killed my brother, and he's gonna walk.”

By the end of that, Sam's crying. Not the dramatic, sobbing kind thereof, but a thin trail of tears that runs past his nose as he speaks, and Cas stands to get him a couple of napkins from the counter.

He can't wrap his head around it. Cas often wondered what had happened to Dean after they split, if he stayed with Alastair for good or made another, successful attempt at getting away. To know he's gone is way different than assuming he's out there somewhere without knowing the specifics, though, and it seems unreal, breaks open old wounds that Cas was sure had scabbed over and healed a long time ago. He closes his eyes, asks, “When?”

“The day before I emailed you. I actually...” Sam's voice breaks again. “I'm here to bury him. The service is tomorrow, 10 AM, Southside Cemetery. You can come if you want?”

Cas simply nods. He wants to and he really doesn't, but Sam sounds like he could use a friend. They've never been close, but this, Cas can do for him. For Dean.

Sam nods as well, sniffs. “They moved to Brawley after you guys broke up, some town near the Mexican border. From what I knew, Dean hated it.”

“From what you knew?” Cas remembers the brothers as an inseparable unit, and that Sam would have to guess Dean's opinion on anything doesn't mix with that.

“Yeah. We got into a huge fight when he went back to Alastair. He sometimes drunk-dialed me, later on, but other than that we pretty much stopped talking altogether.” Sam sniffs again, looks out of the shop's window, onto the street. “For as long as I live, I won't regret anything as much as I'm regretting that. He could still be alive, maybe, if I –“

“It's not your fault,” Cas interrupts him. He wants to say more, be more convincing, but can't find the words.

“No. Yeah. I know.” Sam rubs at his forehead, then plants his hands on the surface of the table and pushes himself up. “Whatever, I should get going. I'm keeping you away from your work. See you tomorrow morning?”

“Yes,” Cas says, standing as well. His eyes sting, but he doesn't think he's going to cry. Not for a while yet. “I'll be there.”