Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a long-standing debate in biology, psychology, and a whole host of other ‘ologies’ about what weight to place on nature versus nurture when it comes to human behavior. 

Do genetics play a bigger part in personality, or is it the environment? 

The question becomes even more complex when siblings are factored into the mix. How could two people who share the same DNA and upbringing be so thoroughly different?

It’s something Dean’s considered a lot over the years regarding himself and his younger brother, Sam. Often, the answer is a laughed-off, ‘must’ve been the milkman, Sammy’, because in passing, the differences are easier to gloss over, but it’s times like this, when Dean is truly faced with how the other half lives, that his cognitive dissonance is in danger of being outweighed in favor of introspection. 

Which is too much like self-awareness, and that means realizing life choices and making changes; all of that hippy, self-help shit. 

Nope. Nuh-uh.

“Don’t pee in the pool,” Sam says as he leads Dean around the heated, Olympic-sized swimming pool that very obviously never gets used. Except for show during Sam’s lawyers-and-their-twin-set-and-pearls-wives parties, where everyone discusses super exciting things like tax inversions and mergers and shit. 

“Dean?” Sam halts so suddenly that Dean very nearly careens into the back of him; his aversion to paying Sam’s dry-cleaning bill the only thing that stops him from smushing his face into his sasquatch brother’s priceless, cologne-soaked suit.

Who the fuck wears a suit when they’re about to go on vacation? 

“Yeah?” Dean responds, glancing off into the distance beyond the bounds of Sam and Jess’ expansive property. It’s essentially a wild forest, one that Dean has absolutely no interest in venturing into. 

Sam’s turned on him now, waiting for Dean to say something, so Dean spools back through the strained conversation so far. “Uhhh, pee in the pool,” he says, just to be a jerk, “got it.”

Because Dean’s such a bum that this is the kind of thing that requires stating out loud.

Sam’s face doesn’t turn the interesting shade of puce Dean had been aiming for, but he does manage a pissy, “You’re not funny,” and it’s these tiny moments wedged between all the stilted voicemails and signed-by-the-secretary Christmas cards that Dean enjoys them being brothers. 

“Sure I am, Sammy,” Dean says once they resume walking again, Dean trailing Sam back inside the house via the glass sliding door. It’s camouflaged in the middle of an entire wall of glass that runs from one end of the oversized house to the other. A distance of about three normal-sized houses.

In comparison, Dean’s place is, what an enterprising real-estate agent might refer to as, cozy. Twenty-five feet square, a single bedroom, with a kitchenette, and a cramped shower that is barely big enough for one body, let alone two (and Dean has definitely tried). From the living room (literally just a couch and TV), and if the bathroom and bedroom doors are open, Dean can see every door and window in the apartment. And also, hear every single sound. 

It’s like being in a prison cell, except with consensual anal sex. 

Jess is waiting for them just inside the pristine foyer, dressed like the wife of a president on a daytime excursion. She’s always been kind to Dean in that sort of ‘aw, look at that rag-eared mutt in the shelter, gingerly pet it on the head’ way, and funnily enough, it always makes Dean’s skin itch like he’s got fleas, so maybe there’s something in the analogy. 

As he and Sam approach her, Dean can see impatience in the crinkles next to her eyes, even though she’s smiling brightly, with teeth so straight and Hollywood-white that she looks more like a failed-actress-slash-waitress than an artist with her own expensive gallery and list of clients longer than the gravel driveway they paid the equivalent of an entire year’s worth of Dean’s wages for. 

(And it’ll keep on costing them too, ‘cause those little stones kicked up by their tires have to be scratching the absolute shit out of their small, but outrageously expensive collection of cars. Not that they would blink at the cost to have them touched up anyways.)

“We’d better get going,” she tells Sam. The bag on her arm is monogrammed. “We don’t want to miss brunch with the Bradys.”

Dean doesn’t bother to hide his smirk, because the only brunch he’s ever been to is one after the night before, with drag queens in full immaculate makeup, telling the dirtiest fucking jokes he’s ever heard. 

“Oh, yes,” Dean agrees, facetious, but genuine enough that it doesn’t ping on Jess’ radar, only Sam’s, who treats Dean to a lil’ bitchface, just for old times’ sake. “Can’t have you missing that, can we?” He doesn’t cover his mouth, all ‘quite the scandal at the tearooms’, but that’s only ‘cause he wants them gone rather than another lecture about taking this house-sitting shit seriously. “You kids go on and get outta here, I’ll be fine holding down the fort for a couple of weeks.”

And he will. His job is simple: make the house look ‘lived in’ (Jess’ words) for the next eighteen days, so that it’ll be less of a target for burglars and especially before the new extensive alarm system is fitted, which is set to occur on the tenth day of Dean’s stay. 

Neither Sam nor Jess will say what was wrong with the old, now defunct system, just that it “wasn’t enough of a deterrent”. Dean quietly suspects that this whole arrangement is nothing more than another one of Jess’ thrown bones for her poor brother-in-law, so that he can know at least some luxury in his sad little life. 

Dean hates being pitied, but he doesn’t hate being given the opportunity to fuck about in a mansion, so he had simply smiled through his teeth when Jess had turned up at the shop (while she was just ‘in town’ a thousand or so miles away from home) to suggest it. He’d been elbows deep in the guts of a Camry at the time, and had mostly said yes to get her the fuck out of there without grease or motor oil finding its way onto her pretty blouse. 

Afterward, when the conversation had fully sunk in, Dean couldn’t bring himself to be mad about agreeing to it. He’d take some time off work, fly out, kick back, drink some beers, do some drugs, fuck around, and enjoy the peace and quiet. 

He’s already swiped right on a couple of promising Californian hookups, and he plans to take full advantage of the super king-sized bed in the master bedroom. Sam warned him away from it during the ‘Don’t Touch This, Don’t Use That’ tour, but yeahhh, there’s no way Dean ain’t gonna get himself some on a memory foam mattress that’s bigger than his entire apartment's floor plan. 

As Dean herds his brother and wife out the door, they keep talking at him like parents in an 80s teen movie — “don’t drink the good bourbon”, “no parties”, “make sure you lock all the doors when you go to bed — in the guest room, Dean”, yadda yadda.

He nods along, says “yep, yeahuh, sure, okay, gotcha” to every one of their instructions that he has no intention of obeying, until they’re safely ensconced in their car. Standing on the porch, Dean waves them off with a smile that he doesn’t need to fake. If he had an embroidered handkerchief, he’d wave that too, just for the full beloved-going-off-to-war effect. He locks eyes with his brother as Sam backs the Beemer up the long driveway to the road, the warning there obvious in the blue-hazel glare.

The very instant they’re out of sight, Dean celebrates his newfound freedom by stripping down to his black boxer briefs with very firm plans to go all Risky Business on the hardwood flooring. However, instead of Bob Seger, Dean hooks his cracked-screen-and-therefore-temperamental phone up to the speaker system and bangs his head to Metallica’s Seek and Destroy.

By the time Spotify has shuffled through over half of Kill ‘Em All, Dean decides that he’s been sober long enough, so he bounces along to the kitchen to make himself an Old Fashioned cocktail, stopping off to pick up a bottle of bourbon from the swanky liquor cabinet on the way.

(Because they really shouldn’t have mentioned the good bourbon if they didn’t want Dean to drink it.) 

In the kitchen, Dean haphazardly pours the amber liquid into one of Sam and Jess’ crystal wedding tumblers as he growls along with Hetfield about horsemen on leather steeds, causing the aged-in-a-cask-made-of-white-oak-lined-with-the-blood-of-virgins-and-eighteen-carat-gold bourbon to slosh over the edge and onto the countertop. He doesn’t even think twice before planting his mouth to the cold marble and slurping it right up.

It’s expensive shit, after all. 

He throws open kitchen cupboard doors and drawers, ostensibly searching for the rest of the ingredients for his cocktail, but he’s already downed half of the full glass of bourbon, so he figures that the sugar cube and orange slice might be as belated as condoms at an obstetrician’s. Still, he has a good poke through Sam and Jess’ neatly stacked cans of fancy people shit like ratatouille. 

They have a salad spinner, for fuck’s sake. A salad spinner. 

By the time he’s discovered a family-sized (families of one absolutely count) bag of Cheetos, Dean’s already two and a half glasses into the bourbon. Which is the point he decides to do away with the façade of a glass, and just takes the entire bottle — along with the chips — out to the terrace. 

He spends most of the morning and early afternoon relaxing on one of the loungers next to the pool, listening to loud music and getting quietly toasted in between naps and mouthfuls of Cheetos. Under the searing midday sun, he loosely considers going for a cool-down swim, but he’s not really in the market for a fucked up alcohol-related drowning death. 

Dean’s too pretty to end up face-down and bloated in a rich person’s pool.

He wouldn’t dare give Sam the satisfaction, either. 

All-in-all, it’s not a bad way to spend a lazy day, but at around five, Dean’s stomach starts to rebel against all the booze and cheese-flavored air, and so he decides to order a pizza.

He’s only a little surprised to find that Sam and Jess haven’t left him money in keeping with the kid-whose-parents-have-gone-out-of-town theme, but mostly disappointed. He’ll have to actually spend his own cash.

(That’s how rich people stay rich, y’know. By clinging onto their money, while it’s the poor fuckers who have to keep spending to stimulate the economy. Dean saw a Youtube video on it once.)

During the call to the one and only pizza place that delivers this far out in the sticks, Dean asks if they accept potpourri bowls as payment, but he’s informed by a squeaky-voiced youth, that “no sir, we can’t accept dried flowers in lieu of legal tender” in the kind of tired tone that makes Dean think this isn’t the first time he’s been asked.

Eh. It was worth a try. 

Call made, and price agreed upon in US dollars, Dean switches the music back on and continues his one-man party. 

***

Dean’s loudly singing along to Motherfucker when the doorbell goes, playing its jaunty little tune, cutting right through Patton’s super-aggressive “—Get that motherfucker on the phone—”

Skip-stumbling to the door, Dean fumbles with the fiddly chain thing for an excruciating amount of time. Just as it seems that he might be outsmarted by a silver-plated nobody, he manages to solve the puzzle a kindergartener would have the dexterity and intelligence to figure out, before he moves onto the key, twisting it in the lock and yanking the door open. 

It sweeps dramatically toward him, the warmer, stickier air outside rushing in.

What. the. fuck.

On the porch stands a painfully familiar figure; one Dean would recognize even if he was blind. Or dead. The guy has one hand holding the meat feast Dean ordered and the other one raised, either reaching for him or the doorbell again. 

Dean is what he would politely call “fucking hammered” and so it takes him a cartoonish eye rub and a quick pinch to the thin skin of his upper arm flesh to believe that this isn’t some weird trick his brain is playing on him.

Nope.

“Cas?” Dean breathes on a sharp intake of breath like he’s seeing a ghost. He kind of is.

In a dorky little baseball cap and ill-fitting, retina-burning red shirt, Castiel Novak is a sight for Dean’s sore and bloodshot eyes. 

The latent part of his brain, the entire half-inch currently not on a loop of whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck, is busy playing funky 70s porno music, ‘cause Dean’s definitely seen a skin flick or twelve that starts like this. 

Sadly, Dean doesn’t have a babysitter outfit handy. 

“Dean?” Cas rumbles in that twenty-a-day habit of his. His slack-jawed, ‘holy shit’ expression is no doubt a mirror of Dean’s own dopey face right now, and sure, they could probably both go for a bit of decorum, but fuck . What’s it been? A year since they last spoke? Longer? 

Fourteen months, eight days, and… a handful of hours. 

Yeah, ‘cause it’s not like Dean’s been counting time in the beats of his heart A.C. (After Cas). 

“The fuck are you doing here?” Dean blurts while Cas does an admirable job at trying to pretend that his attention isn’t falling south of Dean’s face and continuing to plummet.

Maybe there’s hope for that porno turn of events yet. 

It’s cool, Dean’s a damn fine piece of ass. And it’s not like he’s not looking his fill either, cataloging every little change in Cas’ appearance, from the nearly-closed piercing in the middle of his lower lip, to the new nose ring in his right nostril, to the smattering of new tattoos squeezed in the scant space between the existing ones that Dean saw getting inked under Cas’ skin one-by-one over the decades.

“Uh,” Cas says after a long moment of him staring at the swirls of colored ink that peek out above the waistband of Dean’s boxer briefs and fan out over the costal angle of his ribs. His eyes dart back up, a couple of shades darker than a moment ago. “Your pizza?” The words sound cracked, snapped in half over the three short syllables, like the two of them didn’t used to talk to each other day and night in their own nerdy made-up language (they weren’t the most creative of kids, and so it was just normal words but with a Sean-Connery-esque ‘ish’ at the end of every word). Dredging some composure from the depths of his soul, Cas tries again. "I’m delivering a pizza to a mansion apparently," he says, visibly straightening his emotional armor in front of Dean’s eyes. "Which can’t be yours; there aren't enough naked people."

“Something I plan to rectify,” Dean half-jokes, automatically taking the pizza Cas shoves at him. Out of several-pizzas-a-week habit, he goes to fish in his pocket for a crumpled twenty, and then remembers he’s not wearing any pants. 

Shit. Scrape it together, Winchester. 

Dean scratches nervously at the back of his neck, aiming for nonchalance, but missing by several orders of a magnitude and crashing right through the barriers of discomposure. A sick kind of hopefulness swells inside of him, despite the stilted awkwardness — despite the silence that is far from the comfortable one that used to exist only between the two of them. 

Cas is here, we can fix this.  

In the face of Cas’ shuttered expression, Dean’s weak laugh is bruised and bloody. His best friend always was much better at closing himself off emotionally than Dean. “Er, right. Of course. You’ll be wanting the money. That part always comes after the food handover.”

Wow. Slow clap for the fucking idiot. 

And sure, Dean could blame it on the drink — usually does, in fact — but seeing Cas again after all this time, when he’s spent the last year and a bit not knowing if the dude was dead or alive, he’s abruptly stone-cold sober, like someone showed him a picture of Thatcher naked. 

“I’m just gonna…” Hiking a thumb over his shoulder, Dean turns away from Cas, and wanders back into the house, gesturing loosely for his (ex)friend to follow. He finds his wallet on a little end table next to an unnecessary chair, and, with hands shaking like he’s got DTs, he fumbles a couple of bills out. “So you moved out here, huh? To be a pizza guy?”

Moving states to get away from Dean is some pretty extreme, forget-I-ever-existed ghosting. And Dean would never rag on anyone else’s ambitions, but there were plenty of pizza places back home looking for drivers — Cas didn’t need to up sticks over a thousand miles to find himself a job. 

Cas is still standing on the porch, channeling an apathetic vampire who needs permission to enter the home, but is totally over the whole immortality-feasting-off-the-living thing. “I’m not supposed to,” he says eventually, his expression relentlessly neutral.

The Cas Dean used to know had no concept of personal space and enjoyed finding new ways to freak people out with his ability to pop up the most inconvenient of places. He also didn’t give much of a shit about rules and what he wasn’t supposed to do. Though, Dean suspects that in this case, obeying the rules is an easy excuse to hide behind. 

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that this is Cas 2.0; the stand-offish version that Dean has absolutely no idea how to deal with. 

“Just come and get it, Cas,” Dean says, holding the money out, like he’s trying to entice a stripper to come closer and perform Warrant’s Cherry Pie just for him. 

Cas wavers on the threshold. Dean waits, lets Cas fight it out internally with whatever it is that’s stopping him from behaving like a human being. 

Dean watches as Cas takes a deep, steadying breath, like he’s about to be parachuted in a warzone. After another handful of seconds, he takes a halting step inside, then two, one foot in front of the other, all Bambi on ice, and when he’s at arm’s length, he snatches the money (tip and all) Dean proffers, and tucks it into his work slacks. “Planet Pizza thanks you for your patronage,” he recites in a flat, hollow voice. 

Job done, Cas is walking (practically running) away — again — long strides carrying him further and further away, and Dean’s never been great with people leaving. The least of it is separation anxiety, the most of it is him being unable to leave his bed for days ‘cause his best friend of twenty-plus years left him like a dad going to the corner store for smokes.

“Hey. You wanna hang around here for a bit?” Dean asks in a sudden fit of desperation dressed up as benevolence. “There’s, errr booze, pot, music, a swimming pool…” he trails off, voice ticking up in space notes until Cas finally stops halfway between Dean and the door.

There’s a long moment where nothing happens, where Dean’s heart is beating in his throat instead of his chest where it belongs, caged safely in the confines of his ribs where nobody can get to it. 

When Cas turns around, something inscrutable skitters across his expression before it smoothes out into neutrality again. “I can’t,” he says, after a beat.

It’s not an “I don’t want to”.

Dean’s smile is forced, but the sentiment behind it isn’t. “I just wanna catch up, y’know. See how you’re doing, what you’ve been up to. It’s been a long time.”

“I should get back to work.”

“Please,” Dean begs, deciding that it’s now or never to show his hand. “Cas, please. I’ve been so worried about you, I—” he hesitates, not ‘cause what he’s about to say isn’t true, but because he genuinely can’t tell through Cas’ meticulously pieced together indifference whether the son of a bitch wants to hear it or not. “You’re my best friend. I miss you, man.” Shit’s getting a little too real and emotional up in here, so he lets the silence settle atop the sentiment. Cas is busy looking at something absolutely fascinating just beyond Dean’s shoulder, or he’s faking to avoid looking at Dean. 

Dean watches his eyes.

Gotcha.

With a thick swallow, a lopsided grin, and a lifetime of knowledge he’s not afraid to weaponize, Dean goes for broke. “Jess has got a fancy silk kimono upstairs, I’ll totally let you wear it.”

Dean’s been eyeing it up for himself, but he’ll settle for Sam’s boring black robe if it gets him a sit-down conversation with his best friend. 

Cas’ focus lands somewhere around Dean’s perky, pierced nipples. “Okay,” he agrees on a solemn nod as if he’s trying to gear himself up for the full Guantanamo Bay experience rather than a joint and some beers with the man who used to share his PB&J sandwiches. Looking back up at Dean’s face, he adds, “I fucking hate this job anyway.”

***

Here’s the thing about Castiel Novak: he’s the most intense stoner Dean’s ever encountered. 

The first time they met, Dean was busy vandalizing a local strawberry farm sign, because the woman who owned it was homophobic AF. He was shaking up a can of luminous green paint halfway through spraying “BLESSED BE THE FRUITS (FAGS)” in huge letters, when the shy kid from his chemistry class sidled up to him, all wild-haired and owl-eyed. He’d blinked those baby blues at Dean, and, in a voice far too deep for a twelve-year-old, said, “You spelled ‘blessed’ wrong. I’d hate for your point to be undermined by incorrect grammar.”

They’ve been best friends ever since; joined at the hip throughout high school, the two of them not-quite-outcasts with their DIY piercings and brightly colored hair. 

In tenth grade, Dean pushed a thumbtack through the cartilage at the top of Cas’ right ear. The piercing got infected and the two of them got yelled at by their mostly absent-except-for-when-they-got-into-trouble parents. 

In eleventh grade, Cas — eager to try out his new eBay purchase — had done a crappy little stick and poke tattoo of the north star just above Dean’s left knee. It’s still there, right where he painstakingly needled it, because while patches of the original lines have dropped out over time, Dean’s been able to persuade Cas to fill the delicate black outline back in every year. Like a ritual. It’s still Dean’s favorite piece, even though every single tattoo that he’s gotten since is — at the very basic level — a million times more artistically competent.

From his lounger and behind the borrowed pair of shades (Jess has quite the collection and Cas has no qualms about wearing rose-tinted, heart-shaped glasses), Dean’s (ex)friend keeps sneaking glances at Dean’s naked knee, at the points of the star he inked under Dean’s skin half a lifetime ago. 

“It needs touching up,” Dean mutters, side-eyeing Cas. He’s not wearing shades ‘cause, 1) the sun has long since sunk behind the horizon, meaning the only light is that of the artificial glow pouring out of the house behind them, and 2) he doesn’t need the layer of protection like Cas does; he’s got nothing to hide, nothing he’s worried about giving away in the deep blue of his soul. “You were gonna do it before we, uh, fell out.”

Dean’s still not even sure if that’s what actually happened. Cas was gone so suddenly from his life that it felt like he’d fucking died. 

(Hence Dean’s mourning widow period in his bed, surrounded by a graveyard of Cracker Jacks boxes and more crumbs than a PTA bake sale.)

“Yeah,” Cas says, looking away and out to the forest beyond the pool. He’s wearing the coveted thigh-length blue silk kimono over his boxer briefs, and together with the shades and tattoos, he could easily pass for a coked-up 80s rockstar. 

Just without the Peruvian marching powder, ‘cause Cas ain’t into anything heavier than weed. Or, well, he wasn’t the last time they talked, at least. Dude could be into all sorts by now, but judging by the shape he keeps himself in — toned and lithely muscular — he’s probably still running every morning without a snorting addiction slowing him down.

Objectively, Dean’s always known that Cas is a good-looking guy. With or without the body mods. It’s just one of those things he’s always inherently accepted, yanno? Like, the sky is blue, water is wet, and Castiel Novak is a dreamboat. 

It is what it is. 

And what it is, is pretty unfortunate, ‘cause here’s the thing about Dean Winchester: he will fuck anybody, absolutely anybody, except for his friends. 

Except for his very best friend, because Dean has the emotional range of a toaster and compartmentalizing fucks from feelings has been working out pretty well for him so far. In his mind, losing Cas was never an option, and so it was easier to keep Cas firmly in his own little compartment, labeled ‘BFF 4EVS’, and then on no account have to reconsider that label ever again.

It worked. Up until Cas pulled his disappearing act.

“Are we ever gonna talk about it?” Dean asks tentatively, watching as Cas’ clever fingers begin to assemble a joint. His hair has changed color since the last time they saw each other, from seaweed-green to a more natural hue. Probably a few other shades in between that he got someone else to dye for him; a messy process no doubt resulting in his hair coming up a perfect Capri Blue, and their hands semi-permanently appearing as though they’d fisted a smurf.

“Talk about what?” Cas mumbles, before bringing the paper up to his mouth, the pink point of his tongue licking along the edge to seal the good stuff inside. He rolls the whole thing between thumb and forefinger, smoothing out the crinkles. Pinching one end of the perfectly-made joint between his lips, he lights the opposite end with the silver zippo Dean gave him for graduation, and sucks in a lungful of smoke. “Your tattoo?”

Facetious little fucker.

Their fingertips bump as Cas hands off the joint to Dean, the brief contact making his stomach swoop like the first drop on a rollercoaster. Dean brings the paper up to his mouth, the tip slightly wet from Cas’ saliva, his taste, and with no hesitation, he pulls a long drag down into his lungs, breathes it in, and then out on a thick gray curl of smoke. 

The warm, familiar buzz settles into his bones, pulling him down so that he’s sinking like he’s hypnotized. He feels heavy and weightless and tethered and free. 

Beside him, Cas tilts his head back to look up at the night sky, exposing the long line of his throat, the grayscale ink outlining his carotid. It’s a hammer-horror moon tonight, full and bright, and laying a dazzling silver path across the still surface of the swimming pool. The tops of the forest trees look as if they’ve been misted with silver spray paint. 

“Why you left,” Dean responds, passing back the joint. 

Cas pauses for a moment, considering something. He releases the breath held deep. Smoke spills out between his words. “It was just time.”

Well, that’s a fucking non-answer. 

Glancing over at Dean, Cas tilts his head a little, his expression all at once pinched and resigned and tender. “I had to move on, Dean.”

“From what?” Dean blurts, confusion and anger slicing right through the mellow high he’s been building to. “ Me? ” 

A muscle tics in Cas’ jaw, and in the middle of a heartbeat, he’s turning away from Dean, getting to his feet, Jess’ kimono flaring out dramatically behind him, reminding Dean of the time Cas said that he’d rather be the Robin to Dean’s Batman, than Superman himself.

Everyone wants to be Superman.

“This was a bad idea,” Cas mutters, stubbing the joint out in the empty pizza box near the foot of his lounger. “I should go.”

“Cas, wait!” Dean scrambles for coherency, trying to persuade all his limbs to cooperate even though he’s sunk enough alcohol to take down Mickey Rourke. It takes him a couple of attempts, especially with Sam’s long robe to contend with, but eventually he’s upright (like how the leaning tower of Pisa is upright) and he chases after Cas. 

By the time Dean catches up, Cas already has Jess’ kimono off and is dragging his ill-fitting work pants up his crush-a-watermelon thighs. 

“Cas, please, look, we’re supposed to be having fun—”

“—Yeah, and that’s all it ever is to you, isn’t it?”

Dean’s sharp inhale catches in his throat. Blindsided by the venom in Cas’ tone, he watches on wordlessly, uselessly, as Cas buttons up his slacks and zips up the fly. 

Needing some kind of protection, something between his skin and the barbs, he pulls Sam’s robe tighter around himself, belting it. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Cas’ jerky motions are making Dean sea-sick and he wants to reach out and touch Cas on the forearm, but — and call him clairvoyant — he has a feeling it’ll earn him a punch in the face.

Yanking the garish shirt on over his head — and Jess’ glasses, which end up getting caught in the fabric, lessening the impact of Cas’ little temper tantrum somewhat — Cas bites out, “It means that you don’t give a shit about anyone else.” He tosses the shades onto the ugly tub chair next to the discarded kimono. “You never have and you never will, and I came to terms with that a long time ago. I don’t know why I expected you to have changed. I should’ve asked though and that’s on me.”

Rude.

The sting of it is acute, and Dean’s never been particularly mature or erudite when one of his five feelings is hurt. “Oh fuck you, Cas.”

“And there it is.” Cas starts stalking off towards the front door, dorky hat in hand.

“Just because you had a crush on Benny—” Dean calls out after him, partly ‘cause it’s one of two reasons Dean can come up with for why Cas dipped fourteen months ago without so much as a by-your-leave, and partly ‘cause he knows out of those two possible reasons, whether he’s right or wrong, it’s the one most likely to garner a reaction. 

And garner a reaction it does. Cas turns slowly, creepily slowly, almost Exorcist style, y’know, the whole 360, possessed, cross-masturbating dealio. “What did you just say?” His voice is the calm before the storm, the eye of a hurricane as the most dangerous winds on earth close in on you. 

Maybe don’t—

“I said,” Dean announces loudly and stupidly, “that just ‘cause you wanted in Benny’s pants and I beat you to it, there’s no need to take it out on me.”

Cas gapes at him, fish slapped. He points the peak of the Planet Pizza baseball cap at Dean. “You think that I walked out on twenty-one years of friendship because I secretly wanted to fuck Benny ?”

Ruh-roh.

Prima facie (that’s lawyer-speak for ‘well, duh’), it’s a perfectly plausible explanation, but the murderous, they-will-never-find-your-body expression on Cas’ face warns Dean away from voicing that opinion aloud. Instead, he squeaks out an, “I don’t know?”

Just as Cas is about to respond, possibly to ask Dean if he has any final words, they’re interrupted (in Dean’s case, saved) by the landline ringing, its harsh clamor jangling throughout the whole house. In the twenty-first century and the age of cell phones and drones, Dean’s not entirely certain what purpose a landline serves, but he supposes he’s about to find out.

“Hold that thought,” he tells Cas with the kind of shit-eating grin that’ll be on his Missing Person photo and every News at Five from here to LA, and picks up the nearest receiver. “Hello?”

Cas dramatically throws his hands up in the air and pivots away from Dean on the ball of his foot, but he doesn’t make another move toward the door.

“Hi,” a smarmy voice at the other end oozes, and Dean makes a face. This particular phone is one of those fancy-schmancy ones Sam most likely obtained from his office so he could take super-duper important calls at home. With very little searching, Dean finds the speakerphone button and presses it. 

“How can I help you?” Dean asks, carefully replacing the handset in the cradle. Both he and Cas stand motionless, waiting.

“I’m coming for you, Winchester.”

Dean exchanges a raised-eyebrow glance with Cas whose face journey from angry fish-wife to irritated concern is far more entertaining than some vaguely threatening asshole calling from a withheld number, like this is thirty years ago, and apps that allow you to find out caller ID don’t exist. “Well, that’s very flattering, but I don’t even know you.” 

Cas rolls his eyes.

“You might be laughing now,” the voice says, and whoa, this dude is serious. “But when I’m carving out your kidneys, we both know who’ll have the last laugh.”

“The coroner, because you’ll have done such a pisspoor job?”

Cas tilts his head back on a sigh, like he’s asking the ceiling for divine intervention, but Dean knows that move; that’s Cas’ ‘fucking hell, this guy’s an idiot, but he’s my idiot’ disguised as frustration. That’s Cas’ fondness bleeding through the anger, the resentment. 

They’re going to be okay and the relief is such an overwhelming rush of endorphins, such a profound sense of a burden being lifted, that Dean foolishly gets ahead of himself, interrupting the voice explaining precisely how much he’s going to enjoy carving Dean up like a steer. “You know, this kind of idiotic, breathe-down-the-line phone call wasn’t even original in the nineties. Here we are, what, twenty-six years after Scream, forty-seven after Black Christmas and you’re tryna make the creepy phone call happen. Now if your opening gambit had been ‘what’s your favorite scary movie?’ or you’d made sex noises at me, then at least I’d have known straight away that you were a fucking loser, but as it is, you’ve wasted a whole—” he checks the little display on the phone “—forty-eight seconds of my life. That’s forty-eight seconds I’ll never get back.” Channeling his younger brother, Dean adds, “I’ll bill you for ‘em.”

The serious line of Cas’ mouth twitches. Dean grins, triumphant.

Everything’s really quiet for a long moment. If the seconds weren’t still ticking by on the display, Dean would assume that the creeper had hung up. 

No such luck though, ‘cause just as Dean’s about to both hammer the point home and the final nail in his coffin, the voice drops lower, right into the Stygian marsh of the fifth circle of Hell. 

“I’ll see you real soon.”

Chapter Text

When Dean was twenty-seven, his father died. 

He doesn’t remember much of the funeral aside from the over-abundance of pot roasts and chicken casseroles brought over by middle-aged women with nose-tickling perfume, the coffin spray of red carnations (the cheapest flower) slung over John’s casket like those flower blankets for winning racehorses, and Cas. 

He remembers Cas. 

He remembers how Cas gripped his hand through the whole day, never letting go, not even when mourners pointedly glared at Cas’ tattooed knuckles clasped around Dean's, when they spoke about what a wonderful man John Winchester was, when they gossiped about his successful soon-to-be-lawyer son, and his failure mechanic son. 

Cas never let go. 

And afterward, when they’d thrown all the Home Association staple foods away, the two of them took the stern-faced Marine Corps personnel photo of John — enlarged to poster size and resting on an easel — out to the woods behind Cas’ place, and smashed and burned the whole fucking thing, frame and all, until it was nothing but a glob of twisted metal, fractured glass, and over-exposed halide.

“Fuck John fucking Winchester,” Cas had said with such vehemence that Dean found himself smiling for the first time since the call from the hospital. And then they’d lit a joint with the same flame that had devoured John’s funeral photo and gotten high together. “It’s just the two of us,” Cas had murmured, while Dean sprawled over him, head in his lap. “Us against everyone else.”

Teenage sentiments in adult words, but something Dean had taken to heart. (And let his insecurities twist into something else.)

If he could pinpoint the beginning of the end for their friendship, a cognizant Dean might suspect that night. Because codependency comes with the same risks as other intimacies that Dean never let himself tiptoe within breathing distance of. 

He’s known that he loved Cas since the time he accused a jock of being so dumb that he “thought hepatitis C was a vitamin", but realizing that he was in love with Cas? 

Fuck, that shit is scary.

Dean’s neat little filing system? Fucked, in an instant. 

So, over the course of the next five years, Dean subconsciously began tearing it all down in the friendship equivalent of lingchi. Little tiny cuts here and there that hurt them both enough to sting, but barely enough to notice at the time. Stupid shit, like Dean dipping out on Cas at the last minute, taking his latest fuck buddy to a show instead of his best friend, inviting Cas to parties and then going off with other people.

Real asshole behavior. 

All because Dean couldn’t risk Cas not feeling the same. It seems fucking obvious now, doesn’t it — Dean should’ve just talked to him, but instead Dean pushed him away and then was all surprised Pikachu face when Cas actually fucked off. 

The one person who promised it would always be the two of them had been systematically elbowed to Dean Winchester breaking point, and actually, he lasted a lot longer than most others did. Longer than John, longer than Sammy; the only other significant relationships in his life. 

Dean has few technicolor memories. The day he discovered Cas gone is one of them. The stuff Cas couldn’t even give away had been left out on the lawn of his apartment building, just waiting for someone to call the cops on a moldy couch, and when Dean used his spare key on Cas’ door, the apartment was bare inside, scrubbed clean and bleach-scented like a murder scene, ready for the new residents to move in. 

Cas had gone and left him with nothing. No forwarding address, no working phone number ( your call cannot be connected as dialed, please check and try again ), no best friend. 

Cue the Sarah McLachlan music. 

In fairness (and hindsight), Cas selling everything he had and going off-grid is pretty fucking punk rock. 

Punk rock and soul-destroying.

So, yeah. Dean’s not about to let that shit happen again. Cas is here, Cas is queer, and Dean is still a fucking asshole, but now he’s an asshole with a 0.5% better grip on his emotions.

Cas ain’t leaving him again. No way, no how. 

The fucker still gives a damn, and if he didn’t, it might be a different story, Dean might’ve considered letting Cas and his apathy go, but the dumbass still cares about Dean, about them, and maybe they need to bloodlet this pus-filled wound before they can start to heal. 

Luckily, Dean’s an expert at ripping the scab off of these things. 

"So where were we?" Dean asks Cas, who’s hovering near the door indecisively, glancing that way as if weighing up his chances for escape versus the chances of Dean’s survival if that phone call turns out not to be a crank with too much time on his sausage-fingered hands. Dean’s happy to umpire Cas’ decision-making in the only way he knows how: The Power of Aggravate. He clicks his fingers. "Your temper tantrum, right. Please," he makes a dramatic sweeping gesture — the floor is yours. "Continue."

Cas levels him with a withering look. 

Nailed it.

But Dean’s riding the hot rush of stupid decisions, and so, bolstered by something — determination to be in an early grave by the end of the night, perhaps — he needles at Cas again. “Benny,” he says, just to watch Cas’ pissy expression tighten further. “He wasn’t even that good, man. He had a thick cock, but he didn’t scratch that itch, yanno?”

Dean needs the reaction that comes, ‘cause there’s nobody in this world who reacts wildly to shit unless they care about it on some level. “How can you even remember him from the blur of one body to another?” Cas asks, all venom and bitchiness, and yeahhhh, that’s the good stuff. 

Here. We. Go.

“That’s it, Cas, slut-shame me.”

Cas arches an eyebrow, all challenge accepted. “You’re easier than the eighth-grade English test you had to take three times, even though the answers were the same each time.”

Ouch.

Dean’s not going to be the one to tell Cas that he kept retaking the test ‘cause it meant Cas tutoring him, spending time with him, when Cas should’ve been on cutesy milkshake-sharing dates with the popular, and therefore perfectly uninteresting Hannah, who’d probably asked him out as part of some ‘She’s All That’ scheme. 

He’s about to open his mouth to defend his non-existent honor, but Cas ain’t done, and it’s a glorious thing, watching Castiel Novak slowly descend into finger-pointing, less-than-mellow, Dean-Winchester-induced madness. Dean’s the only one who’s ever been able to coax this side out of Cas, and he treasures it for what it is. 

“You’d sleep with anything that remained motionless long enough. I’d qualify that by adding ‘anything with a pulse’—” the finger quotes are always hilarious, but especially when Cas is losing his shit, “—but I’m pretty sure that’s optional too.”

Oof. 

“Anybody who wants the full Dean Winchester experience only needs to smile in your general direction, possibly offer you a drink, or a smoke, or if all else fails, a slice of pie. You have absolutely zero standards when it comes to who you fuck. There are parasitic wasps out there who are more discerning about their mating partner than you.”

Strong words from the man who once held an orgy in his father’s living room out of spite. 

“No, Cas, tell me how you really feel.”

Chest heaving, eyes bright, Cas is a sight to behold. Realizing (too late) that he’s been successfully antagonized, he slants Dean a flat look, one that communicates just how unimpressed he is with both Dean and this situation he’s found himself in. “I’m leaving.”

Dean’ll football tackle him to Sam’s expensive flooring before he’ll let Cas leave again. But first. A last-ditch attempt at earning himself a fist to the solar plexus and maybe just maybe while Cas is in that general area, he can release the death grip he has on Dean’s heart. 

Or squeeze tighter. Maybe tonight will be the night they finally bury each other.

“Didn’t fuck you, though, did I?” Dean asks evenly, once Cas is at the front door. 

Cas stops. Stays perfectly still for a long moment that passes by measured in awkward seconds, which always take three times as long as the standard ones. Dean’s all the way convinced that Cas must be stuck in some kind of .exe not found loop, his broad shoulders stiffer than Dean’s dick the time that Cas dared him to take three of the little blue tablets he lifted from his dad’s nightstand. 

But then Cas is reaching for the door, and no no no no — “Goodbye, Dean.”

“Cas, wait—”

As if on cue — Dean literally could not have timed it better himself — the lights go out, plunging the entire house into darkness. 

What the…?

Breath held in his lungs until it burns, Dean listens.

Nothing. No maniacal cackles or suspiciously creaky floorboards confirm that it’s anything more sinister than a remarkably convenient power cut. 

“Must’ve blown a fuse,” Dean murmurs, just for something to say while his eyes adjust and the two of them stand stock still in an unfamiliar living room. 

“Or maybe that weirdo you insulted over the phone is here to chop you into little pieces and feed you to the fishes in the Pacific Ocean,” Cas says, a little too gleefully. 

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it,” Dean pouts, walking forward with his palms out, patting at the air like a mime trapped in an invisible box. 

“Oh, but I do.” Cas sounds closer than a moment ago, closer than the distance Dean’s moved with his shuffling steps. Cas is trying to find him too, terminally drawn to each other as they are, even in the dark and across state lines. “I would say that it was nice knowing you, but—”

“—but it’s been amazing knowing me? It’s cool, Cas. I know. No need to get all emotional on me.”

Despite his flippancy, something about this is making Dean more than a little uneasy. That phone call and then the lights… if it is a coincidence, it’s really testing the upper limits of the word. 

“It’s not a rolling blackout,” Cas muses aloud, deliberately ignoring Dean in favor of being practical, which, fine, if they must.

“The AC is still going,” Dean agrees, catching his knee on the edge of what he’s going to go ahead and assume is a pointless piece of furniture like a teak side table exclusively for marble candle holders or some shit. “Sonofa — Shit. Ow.” Dean rubs blindly at his knee. “Which means two things: we still have electricity and we have some thoughtful movie-style killers, because really, they could turn off everything, seal us up, and wait a couple of hours until we’re reduced to a fucking puddle.”

“Us?” Cas echoes the pronoun like Dean’s just uttered Cas’ least favorite word. Some people have an aversion to ‘moist’, Cas’ irrational, batshit hatred is for ‘crevice’ — “It’s just gross, okay? It sounds weird” — “There’s no ‘us’, Dean, I have a job to get back to.”

Yeah, a job you hate.

“So you’re leaving me again,” Dean says, not needing to fake his bitter disappointment. “Awesome. Well, at least this time I get to say goodbye. Even if I still don’t get to see your face when you break my heart.”

Oh, that’s good. A+ Guilt-trip. Cas better have his bags packed.

There’s no response for a beat, then two. Two barges into three, then four, five, and Dean’s beginning to think that he’s missed the emotional mark. That is, until Cas breathes out on a sigh, says, “Fuck, you’re melodramatic. Fine. I’ll stay until we can get the lights back on.”

Huh. A compromise Dean wasn’t expecting to reach. He would fist pump in victory, but knowing his luck, he’d elbow a platinum-plated frame off its little display table or waft dust particles onto an heirloom sextant. “So, flashlight, then, I guess?”

Between here and the kitchen (where Dean knows there’s a flashlight thanks to his earlier exploration) is a long journey with windows all along the way — the aforementioned wall and sliding door of glass — every individual pane facing the pool area and the woods. With the curtains open (as Dean has of course left them, because what’s the point, huh? You close ‘em, then open ‘em again the next day; a nonsensical adult exercise), it’s almost as if the house doesn’t have a rear wall at all. Like being in a fucking aquarium.

“What’s the plan?” Cas asks, his steps careful and coming closer. He has his cell phone in hand now, the glow from the screen lighting his features up in interesting ways. Dean gets momentarily distracted as Cas muscles right into Dean’s personal space, smelling faintly like the pot that clings to the strands of his hair, and a strong cologne that doesn’t belong on Cas’ skin at all. 

Fighting back a shiver from both the bad vibes of the situation and the close proximity of Cas; the firm press of Cas’ side brushing Dean’s arm, the line of Cas’ body against his, Dean answers, “Uh, so if we can get to the kitchen without braining ourselves on the furniture or breaking some priceless artifact, then I think there’s a flashlight in a cupboard near the side door. Then we can find the circuit box and hopefully see enough to turn the lights back on.”

“Okay,” Cas agrees easily, leaning in even closer to Dean like two neanderthals sharing fire, except it's an unlocked iPhone — huh, that’s an interesting picture of Cas at a park with his arm around a dude. “Which direction?”

“That way,” Dean points his finger over the dude’s smug face. And then ‘cause he hates himself, he asks, “Who’s the guy?”

“Nobody,” Cas says, managing to sound both cagy and self-satisfied. He moves his phone out from underneath Dean’s nose.

“Uh-huh.” Dean can’t help himself. “A nobody, huh? Doesn’t look like a nobody, Cas. It looks like someone you have picnics with and make daisy chains for and skip through fields of… whatever the fuck people skip through fields of, with.”

“Grow up,” Cas mutters, but there’s no heat behind it. 

“Coming from you, a thirty-four-year-old pizza boy, that’s fucking hilarious.” Something ugly twists in his gut, and Dean knows what it is, but refuses to acknowledge it, because that would mean something more than what’s allowed to be going on here and he’s not jealous, he’s not. “Gotta say though, man, you could do better. He’s kinda twinky looking.”

“Brave words for someone with knees wider than his hips.”

Dean’s laugh is a mangled approximation of one. 

Admittedly, he hasn’t exactly been on his A-game since Cas turned up today, but it genuinely never occurred to Dean that Cas might have a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife. Cas has always been unattached as long as Dean’s known him. He’s had flings, sure, dude’s not a monk, but he never had someone in his life steady enough to take cute photos with and use them as his freakin’ phone wallpaper. 

Not until now anyways. 

“Maybe we should go and find the flashlight,” Cas suggests, faux-magnanimous and real asshole. Without waiting for a response, he starts to move in the direction of the kitchen, and Dean — preoccupied with less-than-charitable thoughts towards a stranger who did nothing more egregious than have that haircut past the nineties (and touch Cas) — automatically follows. 

The two of them walk in single file past the huge window where the silvery moonlight is shining in, highlighting nearby pieces of extravagance in an ethereal, mausoleum-ish glow. Cas is a couple of steps ahead, almost at the dining room when something outside snags Dean’s attention. He stops and stares, hoping that he’s wrong, that his eyes are playing tricks on him. 

“Hold up, Cas,” he says, uselessly wafting his hand in Cas’ direction, but Cas either doesn’t hear him or decides that he’s not going to listen (obviously, it’s the latter). Either way, the result is the same; Cas disappearing into the shadows of the dining room, out of sight and reach. 

Dick.

Edging closer to the nearest pane of glass, Dean peers outside. Thanks to the moonlight, the concrete around the edge of the pool looks like dirty snow, but beyond that, the woods are almost completely black. 

Dean’s breath fogs up the glass. Every couple of exhales, a milky white cloud ruins his view. He has to sway to one side or another, or crouch in order to find some clear glass.

Was that…?

He side-steps left, to the patio door still open from when Cas had his hissy fit and Dean traipsed in after him, stumbling over his own feet. 

Before Dean even takes a single step outside, he spies someone skirting the blackness at the edge of the woods. 

What the fucking fuck?

Holding his breath, staying absolutely motionless except for his right arm, Dean slowly reaches sideways and finds the door handle. He pulls slowly, easing the door along its tracks. It makes a soft rumbling sound, which the interloper doesn’t seem to hear. 

As Dean slides the door shut in front of him, he keeps his eyes locked on the fucker.

If they’ve noticed Dean, they’re not giving any sign of it, though it’s hard to tell; the full moon lights their hair and shoulders, but not their face. Most of their front is vague with shadow, but as they move, turning their head this way and that, glancing over their shoulder, Dean’s pretty sure they’re a dude.

A dude who’s come sneaking out of the woods and is making his way closer and closer to the house. He’s carrying something in his right hand. 

Is that… a fucking chainsaw?

Dean fastens the lock on the patio door. Like that’ll make a fucking difference if this guy decides to prune something around here other than the rose bushes. 

“Cas!” he whisper-shouts, backing away from the glass in careful inches.

Nothing.

Shit.

Refusing to lose sight of the intruder, like he’s keeping an eye on a fast-moving spider, Dean box steps toward the phone the creeper called on earlier, groping around blindly until he manages to pick up the receiver. He lifts it to his ear. 

There’s no dial tone. 

Well, that’s not good. 

His own cell phone is out of commission, ‘cause it died blasting metal (a warrior’s death) somewhere between Dean not-at-all-closely watching Cas strip out of his pizza man clothes, and when they were out by the pool making small talk about the fucking weather before Dean had the insane urge to yank back the autopsy sheet on their friendship. 

Dean quietly returns the phone to its cradle. The guy outside is still stealthily approaching the house, not in any obvious hurry, and there’s something assured in his lazy swagger, like he knows something Dean doesn’t (and it’s probably more sinister than Dean’s perpetual confusion RE: what the fuck the periodic table is all about). With the way the moonlight highlights him, his eyes may just be dim smudges, but Dean can feel the hooded arrogance in them.

Sam doesn’t believe in guns — which hasn’t stopped them from ceasing to exist anywhere except for this fuckin’ house — so it’s safe to say that there won’t be a big selection of weapons to choose from. 

Probably a knife or several in the kitchen. Hopefully, Cas’ll have the good sense and caution to grab the biggest butcher knife he can find along with the flashlight.

Or maybe just out of random spite, he'll come back with an avocado slicer or some shit.

Fucking stubborn jackass.

Dean told him to wait, but of course, following simple instructions and obeying orders has never really been Cas’ forte — just like it’s never been Dean’s, so he’s not in a position to criticize, but on this occasion? Well, at least Cas has fucked off with the only light source this time instead of half of Dean’s soul. So it doesn’t suck as bad, but it’s still super fucking inconvenient. 

Okay, so. Dean’s got three options: 

1. Stay put and see what this prick does. 
2. Go find Cas.
3. Go find a weapon.

He tears his eyes away from the intruder and glances around the room, squinting as he tries to pick out anything that could potentially be useful against a chainsaw. 

An ugly vase, books, some fucking expensive-ass elephant ornament… 

Then Dean suddenly remembers Sam’s sword. The one that’s hanging on hooks above the fireplace in Sam’s study next to a framed certificate of his doctorate. 

The simply fascinating legend goes that Jess ‘jokingly’ bought it for Sam when he graduated from law school with his JD, ‘cause apparently, doctoral candidates in Finland are rewarded with one when they pass their thesis, and Sam thinks it’s a bum deal that they don’t get them in the US, even though the work is the same, wah wah, blah blah. Dean kind of tuned out the whole whiny story when his interest got caught on a penis-shaped paperweight masquerading as a Murano glass pear. 

At four feet long, and sharper than Cas when confronted with school bullies, it’s a promising chainsaw-defeating weapon, actually. 

(The sword, not the glass dildo.)

Curtain number three it is, Monty.

Decision made, Dean steps backward, turning away from the glass door and taking a second to orient himself in the darkness. He doesn't want to rush to the sword and end up getting himself clotheslined by an unnecessarily high table in the process.

Reasonably confident that he’s got this, Dean crosses the living room carefully, making it to the study without incident, letting himself in and leaving the door ajar enough that he can still see a small sliver of the glass wall facing the pool area. From this angle, he hasn’t got eyes on the intruder, but he’s more concerned about being able to see Cas come back and stop him from walking right into potential danger. 

Not that the asshole deserves the consideration.

Dean’s too busy stewing in his own juices about Cas and his casual nonchalance apropos of abandoning Dean again — probably because of that floppy-haired, nobody-slash-boyfriend — to fully pay attention to his surroundings. As a result, his bare left foot kicks the edge of Sam’s huge desk. It makes a dull thud, like a hammer falling to a carpeted floor, and Dean’s toes crumple as pain rushes up his leg. He barely manages to get a hold on the “MOTHERFUCKER” that would probably rattle the window panes if he let it out; only does so through hastily shoving a fist in his mouth, like a stripper with a party trick. 

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. 

He hobbles sideways and falls backward into Sam’s chair positioned behind the toe-murdering desk. The chair scoots on the hardwood with Dean’s weight, and bumps against the wall next to the window. Flinging his leg up, Dean clutches his destroyed foot. 

His toes feel tender and possibly broken, but after a couple of seconds of prodding and wiggling, it becomes apparent that he hasn’t maimed himself. The pain subsides into a much more manageable muted throb and Dean relaxes a little. Just enough that his heart rate spikes right back up like Nixon taking a lie detector when he remembers to wonder what the creeper is up to now.

Dean can’t bring himself to get up and go look. He’d rather stay here and simply wait for the fucker to come to him.

What about Cas?

Aw, fuck.

It’d just about be Dean’s luck, wouldn’t it, that the day he and Cas find each other again, some psychopath disembowels the stubborn dick. 

Again, it’s not like he wouldn’t deserve it, but all the same. It’s probably a bad omen or something, letting your best friend get murdered by a whack job with a chainsaw. 

Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Best friend murdered in the morning, consider it a warning.

Or something.

It’s quiet in here. Too fucking quiet. Even the sound of Dean’s breathing seems loud. 

The intruder could break in anywhere. Just ‘cause he was approaching from the woods, doesn’t mean that he won’t try any of the other numerous doors or windows that are open. It’s such a huge house that he could make any kind of noise at the other end and Dean would be none the wiser. 

The air conditioning seems louder in the silence as well. In Sam’s study, there are a couple of air vents and an intake. The steady, breathy sound of it running is increasingly working up to a fucking tornado in Dean’s ears.

Should he turn off the air? 

The control panel is mounted on the hallway wall. Dean had been closer to it when he was gawking out the window than he is feeling up his toes and hiding in the study. 

Either way, Dean should probably collect the sword and go find Cas. Before ol’ Leatherface does and Cas is forced to play jump-rope with his own small intestine.

Dean pushes himself out of Sam’s chair and stands up. His toes ache. But not badly. He barely limps at all over to the wall with the sword. Reaching up with both hands, he lifts the sword off its hooks above the fireplace.

It feels good and heavy.

With a sweaty-palmed grip on the handle, Dean raises the sword high. “Come at me, fucker.” He swings the blade, bringing it down so that it digs a v-shaped chunk out of Sam’s desk. 

Whoops.

Eh. It’s the least of Dean’s problems tonight. He’s got 99, and Sam’s stupid expensive shit ain’t one of ‘em. 

He takes a couple of extra swings, getting used to the weight of it in his hands, making sure that if he’s gonna be lopping off heads like a seventeenth-century executioner, he’s going to be doing it right. 

Feeling powerful and not at all like a dumbass with a ceremonial sword, Dean makes his way to the study door, checking both ways before slipping back into the main living room. 

From here, he’s got a clear view of the pool. There’s no sign of the chainsaw-wielding intruder. 

Still no sign of Cas either. 

Pain of stubbing his toe fresh in his mind, Dean’s extra careful re-crossing the living room. Not taking his eyes off the pool area, he moves as quickly as he can towards the sliding door. 

Nothing shows on the other side of the glass wall, but there’s a dim reflection of Dean in the glass. Left tit out, right leg flashing long and bare like Sam’s robe is an exotic gown with a thigh-high slit, and with sword in hand, Dean looks like a tattooed, badass heroine from a gothic romance. 

(Or the titular lunatic from a horror movie. Either way.)

As he nears the windows, he puts out his free left hand. Soon, his fingertips touch cool glass. 

He eases closer, peering outside. The metal ring through his exposed nipple clinks against the glass. The chill from the surface seeps through the robe. Dean can taste the flutter of his heartbeat in his throat. 

Nothing. There’s nobody out there.

Fuck.

Either the shit in that pot was stronger than Dean thought or Cas is currently getting Leatherfaced to death in the kitchen. 

Okay. Okay, don’t panic.  

Some nutter who makes prank phone calls after midnight and follows them up with a visit and chainsaw has suddenly disappeared from view. Not panicking doesn’t really seem like an option. 

Especially when Cas could be—

“What are we looking at?” a deep voice far too fucking close to his ear asks, and Dean jumps like a dead body getting hit with the shock paddles. Heart seizing in his chest, he peels himself away from the glass. 

Standing there, half-silhouetted by moonlight, is Cas with a switched-off flashlight, a kitchen knife, and a smug smirk. 

“You’re an asshole,” Dean tells him, and means it wholeheartedly. “You could’ve killed me.”

“Hope springs eternal,” Cas replies sweetly. His smile fades when he sees the weapon in Dean’s hand. "Wait. You have a sword? Why do you get a sword and I get a shitty knife?”

This is exactly like the time Cas tried to steal Dean’s Mimikyu card, ‘cause it was his favorite Pokémon, even though it was in the pack Dean bought. 

Not even bothering to fight the childish urge to pull the shiny out of Cas’ sticky-fingered reach, Dean responds as any reasonable, Pokémon-collecting adult would. "Because I found the sword and you found the shitty knife. Finders keepers, losers whittlers.”

(Of course, Dean caved and let Cas have the dumb card. Because Mimikyu isn’t even that cool. Not like Lapras anyways.)

Before Cas can even think about a cutting comeback to Dean’s excellent joke, Dean jerks his chin at the flashlight. “I’m not tryna mansplain how those things work or anythin’, Cas, but I’m pretty sure, in order to get the full effect of being able to, y’know, fucking see, you need to switch it on.”

Cas’ eyes narrow. “There are no batteries in it, smartass.”

“You didn’t think to get any batteries?”

“Sure I did. Let me just get out my map of a mansion that I’ve never been in before. Hold these.” He piles the flashlight and knife into Dean’s free hand and begins patting himself down as if searching.

The intruder could literally be sneaking up behind him right now, but Dean’s far too entertained by Cas’ theatrics to give a fuck. 

He’s missed this. Missed him. 

“Oh, here we are,” Cas says, reaching into his back pocket and coming up with a tattooed middle finger. 

“A classic,” Dean grins, handing Cas back the useless flashlight (could be a bludgeon, maybe, it’s pretty heavy) and knife. “Okay, you’ve made your point. We might be able to make it work with the flashlight on your cell, I suppose…?”

Cas shakes his head. “The LED’s cracked. All we’ve got to work with is the screen.” He casts a glance out to the pool area. “And the moon? Could be bright enough.”

Ah. Yeah. About that. “The box is on the other side of the house. In shadow. Aaaaand there’s the teensy matter of the dude creeping around outside with a chainsaw—”

“—a what now? Did you just say…?” Cas goes all big-blue-bug-eyes on him. “Don't you think you should've led with that?"

"Before or after you gave me a heart attack?"

"It's not my fault you're," Cas gestures loosely at Dean, "of a delicate disposition."

"Yeah, you're right. I'm being sensitive. 'Cause I wasn't at all looking for a chainsaw-wielding maniac who'd just pulled a fucking Houdini when you snuck up on me!" 

"Actually, Houdini only pulled one disappearing act off in his lifetime and that was with an elephant."

Dean blue screens with the little sad smiley and everything. It takes him a New York minute to reboot and then process Cas’ apropos-of-fucking-nothing-except-the-desire-to-be-a-smartass comment. "That’s super relevant to the situation, thanks Cas."

Cas’ features have rearranged themselves into that scrunched-up, constipated-looking face he pulls when he’s about to suggest something Dean won’t like. “Look, I think it’s time we called the police,” he says, breaking the news gently, all surgical-doctor-from-behind-a-mask-’despite-ten-hours-of-surgery-we-couldn't-save-your-sister's-foot’. He’s already got his cell out and in his free hand.

Dean watches without comment as Cas dials 911. He’s no fan of the cops, but on the grand scale of Shit Dean Winchester Dislikes, getting a chainsaw to the neck is probably a little higher than law enforcement. 

Cas scowls at his phone. He lifts it to his ear and then away again in a pantomime of ‘Confused Ape’ or ‘Technophobe Dad’.

“Shit,” he hisses, exasperated. “No signal.”

Ah. Because of course. 

Dean knows for a fact he had a signal earlier, ‘cause this afternoon he’d been texting a hot surfer named Orman ( yes, really ) about coming over tomorrow and getting his board waxed. “Evil Ash out there must be using some kind of jammer. They're like thirty bucks on eBay."

“I assume you’ve already tried the landline?”

“Yup. Dead.”

Cas blows out a frustrated breath. Then he turns his squinty ire on Dean. “‘Come in’, he said, ‘it’ll be fun,’ he said.”

“I don’t recall ever saying that it would be fun,” Dean points out. “But I did promise you a slinky kimono, and I delivered, so I don’t know what you’re bitching about.”

Other than their impending murders, obvs.

“Your head and asshole are completely interchangeable aren’t they?” Cas says, and then the doorbell rings. Its jaunty little tune plays in the silence and darkness of the house, obtrusive and intrusive.

Dean’s stomach lurches. Sweat prickles on the back of his neck. His whole body goes corpse-cold. 

Normally, he’d be happy to be saved by the bell, but firstly, after midnight? Nah, that’s some creepy-ass horror movie shit, and secondly, it’s followed up by the soothing sound of a chainsaw revving to life. 

Dean’s not going to lie, he’s less than enthused about this development. 

Judging by Cas’ incredulous muttering — “I’m not even supposed to be here. I was enticed into the house by a shiny thing” — he’s not taking it well either.

Dean’s fingers bleed white around the sword’s grip. His heart is throwing itself against the cage of his ribs. He’s in very real danger of forcibly ejecting the contents of his stomach from one of two orifices.

The chainsaw buzzes louder, ripping right through the stillness of the night. 

Ah, fuck.

Chapter Text

In another universe, Dean might be useful with a weapon in his hand, but as it stands, in this one, he’s less competent, and more optimistic. 

There’s nothing wrong with blind optimism in a lot of situations — the orange care bear has made a career out of it — but Dean would argue that there’s a time and a place to hope your never-tried-and-tested (lack of) skill is going to be enough. When there’s a maniac with a chainsaw in the vicinity probably ain’t it. 

Dean’s always hoped that when faced with an armed intruder, he wouldn’t chicken out and run for the fucking hills, even though it’s undoubtedly the most sensible thing to do. Thing is though, you never know how you’re going to react in a situation until you’re actually in it. 

As it turns out, he’s standing his ground, and the flickering impulse to fight rather than freeze or flee is the best he could’ve hoped for. The sword helps; bolstering his confidence enough that a chainsaw doesn’t feel like an insurmountable obstruction to them surviving the night, just an almost insurmountable obstruction to them surviving the night.

Yay.

Cas, for his part, has gone the color of a body left in the woods; a sickly sort of puke-green-tinted ashen white, and Dean really wants to comment, wants to tease and poke fun, but instead, he puts a pin in it, figuring he can use it to wind Cas up once they’ve survived. Because really, what is there to live for if you can’t give your best friend some shit?

The crappy knife he liberated from a kitchen drawer shakes in Cas’ right hand, and he holds the empty flashlight up like a stubby baton in his left. Something like pride inflates Dean’s battered heart. Stupid, brave idiot. 

Because that’s what bravery is, isn’t it? It’s not being fearless and willing to face death with a quip and heroic grin, it’s being fucking terrified and having the cajones to do what’s required anyways. 

Cas’ eyes lift to Dean’s. His throat works like he wants to say something, probably to be a sarcastic little smartass, but Dean’s got it covered. “I’ll protect you,” he jokes, but his voice is low, and he reaches across the space between them to curl his free hand over Cas’ fist blanching white around the knife handle. 

Dean runs his thumb over the back of Cas’ wrist. His chest is tight, his throat full of things unsaid, and it’s fucking stupid to want to blurt it all out now, after all this time and distance, and especially when the romantic music is less string accompaniment and more Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but Dean fucking loves him. Always has, always will, and all it’s taken for him to finally want to utter the dreaded three words aloud is them not speaking for over a year and their impending doom. 

Nice, Winchester. Impeccable timing as always.

“You protecting me?” Cas repeats, his voice pitched at that unnervingly calm, even timbre reserved for when he’s either about to verbally tear someone apart or puke up his guts. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the friendly neighborhood chainsaw enthusiast.”

In the grand scheme of cutting remarks, it’s barely a papercut, but Dean treasures the attempt all the same.

Something — could be a shoulder or a boot — hits the front door, startling them both. Dean releases Cas’ hand. Recalibrating his focus, he modifies his stance to something a little closer to (what he hopes is) either an Arthurian knight, Geralt of Rivia, or at the very least Jeff the accountant at his fifth HEMA sword fighting class. 

‘Cause Dean’s got a plan like the residents of Perfection had a plan. As in, it’s not a very good one, subject to change, and will result in body parts everywhere.

Basically, it’s this: If the cunt currently outside gets inside, then Dean’s going chop him in half with the fucking sword.

Simple, right? As all the best plans are.

Thud.

If Dean’s fast, then he’s got this. Chainsaws are designed to cut down trees, not as a combat weapon. They’re slow and cumbersome and a pretty fucking stupid thing to pick unless you're a cannibalistic manchild who wears people's faces as a fashion accessory.

Still. If things go south for Dean, then he doesn’t fancy Mr.-cheese-knife-and-empty-flashlight’s chances. “Maybe you should get behind me,” he tells Cas. “Just to be on the safe side.”

“Maybe you should suck my dick,” Cas replies mildly, reflexively, and there he is.

“Nah,” Dean grins, though it’s a little shaky. “You can keep it to yourself. I’ve seen more meat on a dirty fork.”

“Nice,” Cas says with a hint of admiration, because neither of them are so dedicated to the actual sentiment of their banter that they can’t appreciate a good burn. 

Thud. 

A winded voice shouts through the door. “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in!” 

It could be the same guy who did his mouth-breather routine down the phone earlier, it’s hard to tell. Though the lack of originality does seem to be a theme. 

“No, not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!” Dean yells back, because really, how often is he going to get the chance?

Cas shoots him a look that would be enough to kill if the chainsaw doesn’t get him first, but Dean is too busy creeping closer to the door—

Thud. 

—even though every instinct is telling him to do the opposite. He places himself right next to the sidelight, keeping himself ducked low underneath the little window so that he doesn’t give his position away. He adjusts his damp grip on the sword.

Dean’s willing to concede that maybe just this once, Sam might’ve had a point about keeping the doors and windows locked. And yeah, okay, Cas was right to lock the deadbolt after he agreed to come inside for the ultimate kimono experience, despite Dean communicating his amusement for this new-and- not -improved Cas’ concern for safety through a teasing, “Thank you, Howard Stambler.”

It’s bought them enough time to do literally anything other than stand there with a resting failure face while someone hacks strips off them like a kebab on a vertical rotisserie, so if they get out of this alive, Dean will consider admitting the error of his careless ways.

Thud.

Though, that’s a big if.

This close, Dean can see the wood around the lock starting to splinter and crack. Shit. One more kick, and then the only thing between them and total annihilation will be the shitty Home Depot chain on the door. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

Dean’s eyes find Cas’ again in the darkness. He pushes a shaky breath out through his nose. 

Someone wants to hurt them, but what the person on the other side of the door doesn't know is that it’s Cas and Dean’s job to hurt each other. It’s like when you’re complaining about your family to a friend, and they’re all “oh yeah, your mom’s a bitch”. No. Nobody’s allowed to talk shit about your family, but you. 

Nobody’s allowed to blight Cas’ existence, but Dean. It’s just how it is. 

Thud.

Dean holds Cas’ determined gaze before falling away. 

Because the universe has a fucked sense of humor and seems to actively revel in Dean’s misfortune, both the door and the flimsy chain buckle on the very next hit, and the copyright claim waiting to happen boots the door open, flinging it wide. 

And that’s it. Dean springs into action, taking a panicked sword-swing at the intruder. It’s far from the best first attempt, but it is enough to send the fucker staggering backward to avoid the blade. 

The upswing misses him by a whisker, sailing right past his shoulder, but he keeps stumbling backward, missing his footing on the porch steps. He falls, landing on the gravel. A heavy breath explodes out of him. The unaccompanied chainsaw sails out of his hand and ends up out of his reach, the engine whirring then dying. 

Like a madman, Dean leaps after him, crossing the porch in a couple of strides, and hopping down onto the drive. The pain of his bare feet on pointy stones barely registers; his adrenaline is too high, his focus too narrow. 

He could stop here, could at least pray for his immortal soul before he kills a man.

Could. But he doesn’t.

A foot planted on either side of the intruder’s hips, Dean raises the sword high with both hands and brings it down as hard as he can.

It chops the intruder's head down the middle, cleaving his face in fucking half and splitting his head open most of the way to his neck, until his jaw stops the blade. 

He thrashes and gurgles between Dean’s feet, choking to death on his own ichor.

Ew. Gross.

Fascinated, Dean tilts his head a little, watching as blood spills out of the wound that used to be the dude’s… cheek? nose? and loosely wonders who the hell is going to clean it up, ‘cause like fuck is Dean getting out the marigolds and Lysol. 

“An ex-boyfriend of yours?” Cas asks dryly from behind him, right around the time Dean gags on the thick, slippery scent of copper, and has to bury his face in the thin sleeve of Sam’s robe to stop himself from bringing up the contents of his stomach. It’s not exactly his coolest moment, and his dream of making an Arnie-style quip ( “I’ve cut you down to size” ) after doing something as badass as chopping someone down the middle is dissipating faster than the one he had about him and Cas actually talking about it instead of fighting about it. 

When Dean's a good 73% sure he isn't going to puke, he removes his nose from his elbow. “A man is dead, Cas,” he grunts thickly. Wrapping his hand around the handle of the sword again, he attempts to pull the blade free, but it’s fucking stuck — either between a couple of the dead man’s lower front teeth or in the bone of his jaw. Shaking and tugging at it doesn’t loosen it; just jerks the dude’s head this way and that. He plants his foot on the dead guy's neck and tries to yank the sword out by brute (super duper manly) force. “Show some fucking respect." 

In the mania and exertion of the moment, Sam’s (Dean’s now, because he doubts his little brother will want it back) robe has come undone and without context, it might appear as though Dean is flashing a dead man while attempting to remove a ceremonial sword…

In fact, with context, that’s exactly what it looks like too. 

Behind him, he hears the crunch of stones underfoot as Cas saunters down onto the driveway, making a beeline for the chainsaw. 

Needing a breather, Dean decides to give up on the sword for now. Crouching beside the body, he begins rifling through its pockets. 

In the right front, he discovers a comb and a wallet. Dean tosses the former and flicks through the latter. “Duke Kahn,” he squint-reads off the driver’s license. He waits a beat for Cas to comment. When he doesn’t, Dean decides that this is a shitshow requiring his narration. “Nope, means nothing to me. Sounds like a fucking wrestling name or something though.” He nabs the thirty-eight dollars and the two foil-wrapped condoms, and slips them into the pocket of the robe, before flipping the wallet shut and laying it on dead Duke’s chest.

He’s about to search through the rest of the pockets — which promise to be just as thoroughly fascinating — when Cas makes a strangled noise. “There’s someone else out here,” he says. “We need to get back inside.”

Because, of course.

Dean looks up at Cas. “What about your car? Can we not just get the fuck outta here now?”

“Way ahead of you,” Cas mutters, jaw clenched and eyes focused on something up the driveway.

Rising to his feet, Dean follows Cas’ line of sight. 

Oh, shit.

Near the end of the drive, there’s a dark-clothed lunatic wielding a machete, circling a brightly colored, haphazardly parked Planet Pizza car. He’s making short work of slashing through each one of the tires in turn as if they cheated on him with his best friend, left him for said best friend, and they got pregnant instantly, even though they swore they’d wait until they were financially stable, and fuck, was it all just lies?  

Sensing eyes on him, Inferior!Jason looks up. He waves at Dean and Cas with his fingers and a grin that doesn’t scream psychopath, more gently whispers it in your ear while you’re in the shower.

Fucking hell.

“Guess we won’t be getting out of here then,” Dean states the obvious, because, honestly? It’s actually quite hard to be witty when you’ve got your brother’s PhD sword embedded in somebody’s face and your heart is on the verge of catapulting itself out of your chest like a Looney Tunes cartoon. Though Dean’s not so traumatized by the entire situation that he can’t take a second to rag on Cas’ driving (or lack thereof) skills. “Still can’t park for shit, huh, Cas?” 

His friend doesn’t tell him to get fucked. Not verbally at least, but it’s most likely there in the depths of his eyes as he plants himself between Machete Man and Dean, dead chainsaw in his hand, while Dean resumes his attempts to remove the sword from Dukey Boy's face, not at all panicking or wondering what the fuck the universe’s problem is.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting to stick around,” Cas explains after a few seconds of squelchy noises as Dean fights with a corpse to reclaim a sword. It’s like the Arthurian legend as told by Clive Barker. “I thought I’d be delivering a pizza, I didn’t realize that I’d end up dragged into the quagmire that is Dean Winchester Drama.”

Dean Winchester Drama?

There’s a beat, then, “Also, if you could hurry up before we both get murdered, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Do you wanna do this?” Dean snipes, frustration boiling his blood. He’s having hot flashes like a Golden Girl, and any second now the psycho with a machete is going to realize that as fun as rubber is, his real passion is puncturing humans. “Because it ain’t as easy as it looks, Cas.” 

Cas doesn’t answer him.

“Yeah,” Dean grits, giving the sword a couple more pretty violent, desperate yanks. “‘s’what I thought.” 

Mercifully, and with a shiiiiing-slurp sound, the weapon comes free.

Praise Jesus.

“Got it,” Dean pants. “Let’s go.”

Sure, between them, a chainsaw, a knife, and a sword, they could (probably) pretty easily take the guy, but how many more of these fuckers are there? They could be mid-murder when another fuckwit sneaks up on them and blam! The world would lose two of its premier stoner philosophers. 

A strategic retreat it is then. 

Backing up steps ain’t as easy as it looks. Especially with a sword. Machete Man is sitting on the hood of Cas’ car now, watching them escape, completely impassive. Just staring. Like that creepy uncle at a family gathering, who puts his hand on the knees of all the girls under the age of eighteen. 

Ugh. Heebie fucking jeebies.

Once they’re back inside the house, Dean slams the door closed. The lock is fucked thanks to the dead man’s less-than-subtle, jackbooted tactics, so Dean doesn’t even concern himself with it. But he does have something else to concern himself with. “The hell do you mean—” he adopts Cas’ lower timbre for full effect, “—’ Dean Winchester Drama ’?”

“Everywhere you go, drama follows,” Cas replies, unscrewing the fuel cap on the chainsaw. He props it up on the handguard, so that the fuel can pour out onto Sam’s fancy runner mat, rendering both the weapon and the ugly mat (hopefully) useless. He glances over at Dean. “Have you forgotten the time a man showed up at my door, under the impression that I was you, thanks to it being my address you used to fuck his girlfriend? It took weeks for the personal defense dye he sprayed in my face to finally wash off.”

“Yeah,” Dean grins, because he’d been sorry for Cas on the receiving end of the dude’s (righteous and fair) ire, of course, but it was hi-larious. “Red totally suits you though.” 

It doesn’t look like Cas is finding the same humor in the memory, not with his face all frownypants and squinty, so Dean schools his own features into something resembling solemnity. “So, what, you’re saying this is my fault? Someone’s sitting on your car and only turned up here after you did, and this is another Dean Winchester special is it?”

“Oh yeah, because the pizza delivery business is renowned the world over for the risky nature of it. People getting shot in the street over slices of pepperoni, the low-fat versus full-fat mozzarella wars of the early aughts left a scar on many a community.”

“You joke, but I remember reading that in Scotland there were literal rival gangs of ice cream vans.”

Cas’ lips twitch against a smile. A-ha! “Are you going to help me secure the house or should we just keep bickering until the man out there decides to come in here and murder us?”

Tough decision it may be — they do love a good bicker — but Dean still dutifully follows Cas semi-blindly along the same wall as the door until they reach a piece of furniture that might be able to serve as a flimsy barrier. He grips the opposite end of the shrink couch — chaise lounge, if you’re la-di-da — and lifts at the same time as Cas. “I just need to be faster than you,” Dean tells him, as the two of them take slow, coordinated steps in the near darkness. They shove the chaise lounge in front of the door lengthways. “And lucky for me, I am.”

Cas' chest rises and falls with labored breaths. He looks pointedly at Dean’s bare and blood-crusted feet. “I’m willing to take that risk.” 

Ah. yeah. shit.

“New plan,” Dean says, instead of ‘please don’t let the nasty man with the big murder stick get me’ . “Sam’s got at least a handful of eye-wateringly expensive cars in the garage. I’m under strict instructions to not even look at them, but firstly, I think that this constitutes enough of an emergency to get risk the paintwork on a Porsche, and secondly, fuck Sam.”

Cas agrees, particularly with the second sentiment, and so they gather up the flashlight, sword, and knife, and together they start the arduous, dark journey through the living room, the dining room, then the kitchen, to the utility room that’s bigger than Dean’s entire apartment. The whole way, Dean’s heart is ka-thumping in his chest and ears so loud that he’s convinced the jack-rabbit pound of it is going to give them away, but they make it to the interior garage door without getting Jason’d.

Crouched behind Dean who, in turn, is crouched beside the washing machine, Cas fists a hand in the soft fabric of Dean’s robe, tugging the belt knotted around Dean’s stomach tighter, pulling it taut under his chest. Dean absolutely isn’t thinking kinky thoughts, because it would be inappropriate, and if Speed 2 taught him anything, it’s that relationships founded in high-stress situations rarely last long enough for the sequel.

Dean doesn’t want to be the Keanu Reeves to Cas’ Sandra Bullock.

Switching the sword into his left hand, Dean reaches up with his right, pulling down on the handle and shouldering the door open in a single smooth move that he’s pretty proud of. It’s completely soundless too, which only adds to the impressiveness of the feat. 

The two of them stagger to their feet in the garage and quickly shut the door behind themselves. 

The garage is completely self-contained with no windows or exit points other than the rolling shutter at the front, and the door that they’ve just come through, which means two things: firstly, it’s probably the safest room in the whole house, and secondly, there’s no moonlight, so it’s pitch-fucking-blank in here. 

“You okay?” Dean whispers in the general direction of where he thinks Cas is standing.

A shushing sound comes from behind his left ear. Then Cas’ hissed breath is ghosting over his skin, and Dean has to fight down his shiver. “Where did you learn to whisper, a fucking helicopter?"

Dean grins in the darkness. “Your mom taught me as I was sneaking out of her bedroom.”

Cas’ mom has been dead almost as long as Dean’s. They’ve been making jokes about it for about the same length of time. 

Cas doesn’t respond in so many words, but he gives himself away with a little choked-off sound that Dean recognizes as Cas’ ‘mustn't-laugh-at-Dean’ noise. 

The ache in Dean’s chest is familiar and old-bruise-like. He’d resigned himself to never seeing Cas again, and now here they are. Against all odds, and far too convenient, like a romcom; one with Ryan Reynolds pre-Deadpool or Channing Tatum. The mindfuck of it all is making Dean want to be reckless and stupid, but he reins it in. Once they’re as far away from here as possible, then they can continue whatever this is. “Let’s find a car,” he manages to squeeze out instead of a declaration of undying love.

Cas is suddenly illuminated by his phone screen again before he points it outwards. The light doesn’t provide much insight, but it does allow them to see the nearest car to them; a super ugly Bentley that proves money can’t buy taste or class. 

Eh. It’ll do in a pinch. 

“Keys?” Cas whispers.

“Oh, yeah.” Dean grabs for Cas’ wrist out of muscle-memory-habit, the pad of his thumb bumping clumsily over Cas’ knuckles. Dean pulls him in the direction of the keys, Cas’ hand twisting in Dean’s grip, half-turning, his pinky grazing over Dean’s pulse. 

Shit.

Dean clears his throat, and doesn’t quite throw Cas’ hand away like a hot potato, rather he sort of drops it like his last clingy hookup as they reach the cupboard built into the wall of a garage. It’s a mini valet station — as if this house could get any more pretentious.

Laying the sword down on top of the cupboard, Dean opens the glass doors. Cas shines the feeble light inside. 

All the little hooks are empty.

Fucking Sam. 

“Son of a bitch!”

Cas doesn’t scold him into keeping quiet, just peers at Dean with an arched eyebrow. “Are you telling me that your brother thinks so little of you that he hid all the keys to the cars?”

Sure seems that way, don’t it?

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. He felt the need to warn me not to piss in the pool, so that’s the level of trust we’re working with here.”

“Your brother’s a tactless fuckrag,” Cas says with all the vehemence of someone denying sexual relations with that woman. 

Yeah.

Shit. They were so close. They could’ve been out of here and somewhere safe within ten minutes. 

Again: Fucking Sam. 

“Come on,” Cas says, grabbing the sleeve of Dean’s robe. When Dean doesn’t move, he tries again, pressing down hard on Dean’s shiny PETTY REVENGE button. “Let’s have a smoke in one of these cars, really infuse the scent into the interior while we regroup and figure out what to do.”

It sounds like a terrible idea in theory. Getting high when there’s a dude wandering around with a machete? But then weed (sort of) saved the day in The Cabin in the Woods, and there haven’t been any more ominous noises from outside, no voices, no chainsaws. 

Maybe Machete Man is taking a well-earned break.

“Okay,” Dean agrees, collecting the sword and letting Cas lead him past the Bentley, the Porsche, the Ferrari, the two of them checking each car for an alarm as they go. Just when it’s looking like they won’t have the opportunity to hotbox in one of Sam’s cars, Cas spots a shape in the far corner of the garage. The two of them wind their way toward it.

Holy shit.

It’s the classic muscle car that Dean fucking adored as a kid: John’s ‘67 Impala. The one Sam was bequeathed in the will, even though he didn’t have any real emotion or attachment to it. Which is very apparent by virtue of the fact that Sam cares so little about her that she doesn’t even have an alarm.

It’s a spite thing, Dean knows. Giving Sam the car was John’s final fuck you to Dean, and Sam leaving her to rust at the back of his fancy garage rather than letting Dean have her, is his brother driving that message home with all the nuance of an Olsen Twin movie. 

Well, fuck you both right back.

At Dean’s nod, and using the base of the flashlight, Cas busts in the driver’s window. The sound of glass breaking is loud in the quiet, like an Anthrax gig in the dead of night at a freakin’ morgue. The two of them listen with bated breath for any signs that it’s been heard beyond the garage. 

Nothing.

Cas opens the door for him with a flourish, temporarily placing the flashlight and knife on the car roof in order to do so. He sweeps out the glass onto the floor, using the Planet Pizza ballcap that somehow has miraculously survived the night so far in the back of his pocket. Glass cleared, he stretches across the seat in order to open the passenger side door from the inside, and Dean doesn’t even bother to try not looking at Cas’ ass. 

Once Cas is out and standing again, Dean slips in behind the wheel, bringing his forehead to the leather, frustration and anger and fear finally getting the better of him. Cas climbs in the other side.

They sit there in the quiet for a little while, the soft light from Cas’ cell the only source of illumination. All the while, Dean is getting increasingly angry with himself, with his brother, their situation. He closes his eyes and takes slow breaths against the wheel, grounding himself with the quiet, efficient way Cas rolls a smoke, trying not to think about his nimble fingers working with every tiny rasp of thin paper.

The keys to the cars that Sam loves more than his own flesh and blood are most likely in the safe. A safe that Dean obviously doesn’t have the combination to, because then it wouldn’t be safe, would it, Dean?

Asshole.

Sam didn’t always hate him. No, his particular brand of disdain was the result of Dean’s knee-jerk, fuck-the-world-reaction to their father’s revulsion for his less than straight son. Something, John felt, was a direct consequence of Dean’s friendship with ‘that faggy Novak kid’. 

Unfair? Absolutely. True? Yeah. 

Hindsight is always 20/20, and it occurs to Dean now that his sexual awakening didn’t arise (heh) with David Lee Roth, but with the blue-eyed weirdo he called a best friend. At the time, he just thought that everyone was attracted to attractive people. It makes sense, right?

Right.

Cas’ voice is sudden and loud in the quiet, dragging Dean’s attention away from the past and into the present. "You kissed me," he says matter-of-fact, all just-putting-this-life-changing-information-out-there. When Dean looks up at him sharply, Cas elaborates. "At the same party you hooked up with Benny, you kissed me." Joint pinched between his lips, he shelters the lighter flame with the cup of his palm.

Wait, what?

Dean doesn’t remember a whole lot about that night. Not only ‘cause it was over a year ago, but also because he was absolutely fucked. He’d been really determined to give his liver some trauma that night, drinking whiskey like it was water, and that’s even before Cas had shown up.

Dean deliberately hadn’t invited him, ‘cause of dumb fucking reasons, but there he was anyways, and so unbearably fucking beautiful too, in his favorite black-sweater-and-black-jeans combo, chewing on his lip ring and looking nervous in a way he rarely did, blue eyes searching the grind of bodies crammed into the repurposed living room. 

After that, it’s a blank. Right up until the end of the night when Benny was pressing Dean up against a wall with his tongue down Dean’s throat, and Dean was staring directly into heartbreak over Benny’s broad shoulder. 

Cas was gone two days after that.

“Was I that bad a kisser?” Dean jokes, but his throat is too tight and his skin feels several sizes too small. 

“You puked on my boots,” Cas answers dryly, passing over the joint.

“In some cultures, that’s considered romantic,” Dean says, though admittedly, he’s struggling to think of any at the moment. He pulls a deep hit down into his lungs.

“Yeah, the ones created in a petri dish.”

Dean sits back in the seat and leans his head against the leather, breathing out on a thick curl of smoke that looks blue in the meager light. “I’m sorry I kissed you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean sees Cas flinch.

He rolls his head to the side to look at his friend. He licks his dry lips, trying to formulate a thought that doesn’t start with ‘want to’ and end with ‘try again?’ “I mean, you getting accosted by the village slut and then puked on. Not exactly anybody’s good idea of a night out, is it?”

Cas reaches to take back the joint. “Village slut?”

Dean's leg is jiggling. “Hey, man, you’re the one who said it.”

"I never said you were a slut."

Not exactly, no. But Dean does distinctly remember coming out unfavorably in comparison to wasps, which is maybe worse? "Yeah, but you wouldn't rub it off a toilet wall if you saw it Sharpied on, would you?"

“I’d probably correct their spelling,” Cas agrees after a moment and Dean knows his fondness is written all over his own face, can’t help it. “Everyone always gets apostrophes wrong. As soon as there’s an s, people toss in an apostrophe just in case.”

Dean shifts in the seat, moving his whole body and turning so that he’s facing Cas properly. Heavy-lidded, he watches as Cas brings the joint up to his pursed lips. “Not everyone can be spelling bee champion,” he teases, cataloging Cas’ features: the pin-prick scars of his closed piercings, the curl of dark hair at his temples, the pink, plush curve of his mouth.

“Mm,” Cas agrees, mirroring Dean’s position. It feels… intimate, the two of them sharing each other’s space, jokes, weed. It’s like old times. “A dizzying height the likes of which I shall never know again.”

“Employee of the month at Planet Pizza not give you the same buzz?”

Cas’ little huff of laughter releases smoke into the scant space between them. Dean breathes it in, wishing that the two of them were high enough to shotgun kiss. Or even just kiss. Either-or, he’s not fussy. “Pretty sure I haven’t earned it. And even if we survive the night, I can’t see myself having a job to go back to. They’re probably not big on their employees skipping out to smoke weed and get murdered.”

Darn capitalism.

For a while, there’s no sound between them but the distant hum of the A/C, because Dean’s brother is just that rich that he can afford to keep his cars cool, while Dean has to make do with a freestanding fan and a prayer to Helios. 

They pass the joint back and forth until it’s nothing but a glowing red cherry in the darkness. Cas drops it into the footwell of the passenger seat, and they both watch on with a gleeful sort of apathy as it burns a hole in the rubber mat, and — if they’re lucky — right through to John’s own personal Hell where he’s getting Clockwork-Oranged until the end of time with pictures of gay couples.

Dean’s painfully aware that it’s been far too long since he spoke, but it’s barely twenty minutes since he murdered someone, and now he’s sitting in their teenage ride, stoned, talking to his best friend about the time they apparently kissed, and Dean doesn’t know what to do with his fucking hands. It takes him another handful of seconds to work up the nerve to ask, “You’re not gonna be homeless without a job, are you? I mean, you’ve got someone you can stay with or…?”

The curve of Cas’ smile is sharp-edged. “You’re not subtle.”

No. Dean’s not. Twenty-odd years of subtlety has got them precisely nowhere. 

“The dude in the photo. Is he… are you…?” Fuck’s sake. “Is he your boyfriend?” Dean finally manages to splutter out, feeling all of thirteen years old and like he’s passing a ‘Do you like me? Yes/No’ note in third period Math.

Cas tilts his head, studying him. “Why?”

Asshole. 

Dean’s shrug is more an involuntary muscle spasm than a gesture of nonchalance, but his voice comes out steady. “I just wanna make sure that you’ll be okay after this, man.”

It helps that it’s the truth. Even if all he wants Cas to be okay with him.

“Maybe we should focus on making sure that we have an ‘after this’,” Cas says, and Dean doesn’t miss the way his eyes flick to Dean’s mouth and away. Or the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows hard. "Let's survive first and then we can talk."

It seems like a fair compromise. Survive first, talk next, cap the night off with an action-movie smooch. Or porn-movie fuck. Either way, Dean’s game. “Alright, deal.” Pushing himself to think through the metaphorical and literal pot haze, he starts piecing together what they’ll have to do to get the fuck out of here. “So, we need to get the car up and running. I can hotwire it, but for that, I need light.” He glances forlornly at the flashlight on the dashboard.

“Can you do it with my phone?”

“If the flashlight was working on it, maybe, but there’s no way I’ll be able to see with just the screen. Even I'm not that good, Cas."

Cas grimaces. “So, we’ve got to go back out there?”

“Just to the kitchen for batteries,” Dean says. “And we both don’t have to go. In fact, it’s probably easier if only one of us makes the trip.”

“Please explain that terrible idea to me; a sane person.”

“Well, firstly, two of us getting around without being seen is twice as difficult, and if only one of us goes and the worst happens, then the other can go for help. There’s still a chance.”

“But if we both go, then we’ve got twice the manpower. We’ll have each other’s backs.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean agrees. “Of course. On that note, can I just take this opportunity to thank you for your invaluable help with the chainsaw guy.”

“You had it handled,” Cas says. “And what help could I possibly have been? Did you want me to kick him in the shins while you were chopping his face in half?”

Dean doesn’t dignify that with an answer. “Look, I know that — despite your protestations to the contrary — you are not a sane person, and so genuinely want to put yourself in harm’s way armed with nothing more than a cheese knife and charming smile, but maybe, maaaayyyybe, you should think this one through and just wait in the fucking car.”

“I have thought it through—”

“—No you haven’t, you’ve thought it through about as thoroughly as the Greeks did when they saw a giant wooden horse.”

Cas narrows his eyes. “So you want me to just sit in here and wait for someone to come along and stove my head in?”

“As opposed to you being out there and increasing the chances of it happening?” Dean asks. “Yeah. Any day of the fucking week, man.” To sweeten the deal, he adds, “I’ll even leave you the sword.”

Cas thaws in the middle. “Really?” 

“Yeah, it’ll only slow me down. We’ll swap. Give me the flashlight and knife. How much battery you got on your cell?” 

Cas checks. “Not much. 29%.”

“‘Kay, you keep that,” Dean tells his best friend, and they swap weapons. “Stay here. Promise me, Cas?”

“Yeah,” Cas agrees, though his face is all bitter-lemon-puckered about it, and Dean wonders how badly it would fuck things up if he just kissed him now when they can both remember. If the guy he’s got waiting for him would understand, would back off in the face of what is obviously true love. “Look—” Cas catches Dean’s elbow to hold him still. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” Dean says and he can feel the cocksure grin faltering on his face. “I’ll be fine, Cas.”

Cas’ grip tightens momentarily before he releases Dean and drops back into his seat. “If you’re not back in ten minutes—”

“—just wait longer,” Dean finishes, climbing out of the car and ducking his head to look at Cas through the space where the window used to be. “I…” his mouth rounds on nothing. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“You’d better be,” Cas threatens, but his expression is openly concerned; brows furrowed and eyes round in the dark. 

"Don't worry," Dean winks. "Only the good die young."

Chapter Text

Who the fuck doesn’t keep batteries in a flashlight?

The same type of person who has a know-it-all answer for why raspberry flavor is blue, that’s who. The same type of person who hides their fucking car keys in case their older, infinitely cooler brother urgently needs a vehicle to escape some murderous maniacs. The same type of person who very nearly calls the cops on the aforementioned awesome brother and his weed stash when he threatens to spoil the ending of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Somehow though, the flashlight thing is just a smidge more galling.

As Dean fumbles around in the dark like a teenager trying to unhook his girlfriend’s bra for the first time, he can very helpfully hear Sam’s boy scout response in his head: “batteries that are left inside a flashlight can corrode and destroy the metal contacts, rendering the flashlight unusable,” and yeah fucking yeah, whatever. 

If Dean and Cas die ‘cause Sam’s worried about corroding a freaking flashlight, Dean’s gonna haunt his ass. That over-stretched, floppy-haired sasquatch will never know one second of peace. Jess will leave him and he’ll have to grow old with some nameless, faceless woman, and his hair will all fall out, and then he’ll die, and Dean will be there waiting to annoy him for the rest of his afterlife too. 

Fucking Sam.  

In his more reasonable moments (which do not take place when he’s hunting down fucking batteries), Dean knows that Sam isn’t a total asshole; he’s just got a stick up his ass the size of a redwood and a complex about being the ‘responsible one’. Dean perhaps, possibly, maybe earned Sam’s mistrust through a series of stupid teenage fight-the-homophobic-man stunts which incurred them both some pretty strict rules during middle and high school. 

There’s a chance, however small, that Sam’s rightly concerned about Dean’s irresponsibility. How he chooses to express that makes him a rampant dickhead, but the concern itself is — and this is Dean growing and learning here, however reluctantly — justified.

If they live to see the sunrise, Dean might have to reconsider his annoy-Sam-at-all-costs policy. Reduce it to annoy-Sam-at-some-cost. 

But first. Survival. 

Dean’s fingertips map out the kitchen cabinets, drawers, countertops. He knows that the batteries are in a container in a drawer nearest the far wall. It’s only through dumb luck that he knows this; earlier, when he was making a mess under the pretense of an Old Fashioned cocktail, he opened the ‘random crap’ drawer when he was searching for a spoon.

Staying low, Dean inches forward. The robe drags behind him on the floor. 

Wait, was that—? 

He pauses, ears pricked. 

A door. He can hear the quiet yawn of a door being opened. 

Oh, shit.

The darkness is disorientating, so he can’t quite make out exactly which door it is, but it’s one close enough for him to hear, despite the stealthy attempt at keeping quiet. 

Dean grips the handle of the cheese knife tighter. It slips a little in sweat and the nervous tremble in his bones. 

Scanning the kitchen with his measly carrotless-diet human vision, he can’t make out anything but the dark shapes of various appliances: a juicer, some kind of fancy mandolin thing that bears a closer resemblance to a Medieval torture device than something used to chip potatoes, a coffee machine, breadmaker…

All things Dean could happily use to brain someone in a crisis if the first slash with a shitty blade doesn’t deter them. 

Behind him, Dean hears footsteps. Quick ones. 

Getting gutted by a knife made exclusively for after-dinner nibbles is probably not a very dignified way to go, but Dean promised he’d make it back to Cas, and he’s never broken a promise to him before, he’s not about to start now. 

The person moves in closer, their breaths quick and panicked like Dean’s, and they’re in the kitchen now, shining a weak light in Dean’s direction—

“Dean?” Cas whispers. “Is that you down there by the trash can?” He makes a little humored sound. “Have you made a friend?”

By the time Dean’s stopped choking on his own pounding heart, Cas has crouched down beside him and is holding up his phone two inches in front of Dean’s face so that they can both see the… interestingly-shaped trash can right in front of him.

Ah. Okay, so yeah, admittedly, it may appear to the average person that Dean had been cowering in the dark, having a conflab with an Emperor penguin. 

He blames the pot. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s made friends with an inanimate object while high. Though, perhaps the stupidest thing he ever did was try and text Cas using a lava lamp and then spent most of the night wondering why the asshole — who was sitting right next to him on the couch, watching him — didn’t text back. 

“Why the fuck are you here?” Dean snaps instead of answering Cas’ ridiculous question. “I told you to wait in the car.”

Cas sticks his bottom lip out in a pissy little pout that Dean’s hated since the fucker used it to con him out of his favorite D20. “Because fuck you, that’s why. Turns out, I’m an adult capable of actually helping, rather than sitting out there waiting for an ax to the face.”

(Read: “I’m a dumbass who can’t do anything I’m told even when it’s for my own good. Especially then, in fact.”)

Dean doesn’t bounce either his own or Cas’ head off of the nearest surface (probably the penguin trash can), but it’s a close thing. “There’s a word for people like you, y’know.”

“There are several for you,” Cas replies coolly. “Have you found the batteries yet?”

“Yeah,” Dean smarts. “That’s why I’m just hanging out here, talking to Chilly Willy. It’s not at all because I can’t see and have no idea where I am, or where there might be a homicidal fuckwit lurking.”

“Just as well I showed up with a light source, then isn’t it?” Cas responds, all smug and self-satisfied, and unbearably handsome. “Here, I’ll even let you carry the torch now.” It’s a very deliberate choice of otherwise unusual words, and Dean knows that Cas is saying it to get a rise (heh) out of Dean, but all Dean’s left with is the dumb Van Morrison song about unrequited love on repeat in his brain.

Choosing to ignore his best friend’s emotional warfare tactics, Dean swaps the cheese knife and flashlight into his left hand in order to be able to accept the cell in his right. “Just… stay quiet,” he mutters needlessly, pointlessly, and moves off toward the drawer he can now see 0.1 of a lumen better thanks to Cas’ cell phone screen. 

Cas shuffles behind him, a little noisier than Dean would like on a stealth mission like this one, where being fucking quiet is kind of the name of the don’t-get-murdered game, but at least they’re together again. Dean has to admit that there’s strength in numbers, and if the Van Damme classic Double Impact taught him anything, it’s that ‘One packs a punch. One packs a piece. Together they deliver.’

Dean’s thighs burn with the effort of maintaining the duck walk. Sneaking about in the dark ain’t as cool or easy as the movies make it look. In fact, this whole experience is like a choose-your-own-adventure game, but for once, you can’t flip to the back of the book to find out the best course of action ahead of time. You just have to trust that you’re not going to end up fighting a mouse after eating the purple peanut butter that makes you shrink. 

Finally, after what feels like an actual pilgrimage, they reach the holy drawer. On trembling, Bambi-on-ice legs, Dean struggles to his feet, using the edge of the counter for leverage, while Cas, the fucker, stands effortlessly as if this is just another day at the gym for him. 

Cas wordlessly takes over the torch-carrying duties while Dean ransacks the drawer as quietly as anyone frantically searching for a tub of carefully organized batteries is able to.

(So it’s more like a badger digging out earthworms before winter.)

His mostly-blind scrabble pays off after a couple of excruciating seconds — during which Cas sighs like a mom-of-four who’s had it up to here with her useless husband because he forgot the damn coupons again — and he extracts the tub. 

He’s just peeling off the lid when all the lights come back on abruptly, throwing the whole situation into stark relief. 

Fuck’s sake. Really? REALLY?!?

It’s jarring having proper illumination after the last forty-or-so minutes of making like moles and scurrying around in the dark. Dean feels exposed, pupils probably shrinking to the tell-tale drug addict pinpoint, his skin crawling and fear knocking against his ribcage. 

“Oh, that’s not good,” Cas murmurs, squinting up at the recessed pot lights in the kitchen ceiling. He sets down the now-useless cell on the countertop in front of Dean, who deliberately doesn’t look at that fucking wallpaper photo of Cas and his boy-band-boy-friend before the screen goes dark and locks.

“No, it is not,” Dean agrees. He finishes removing the lid from the container completely and fishes a couple of batteries out. In his periphery, he sees Cas moving to the kitchen door and slapping the light off, plunging them into semi-darkness this time; the rest of the house providing enough light that Dean’s not going to start having pow-wows with inanimate objects. Again.

Some might say that Dean is wasteful with electricity, going from room to room and leaving lights on, movies playing, coffee makers making, but Dean would argue that, firstly, this is Sam’s house and fuck Sam and his electric bill that he can certainly afford, and secondly, in this very specific instance, it’s nice ambient mood lighting for Dean and Cas’ inevitable deaths. 

“Dean,” Cas says as Dean twists the flashlight apart. It may seem like a dumb thing to do now that the lights are back on, maybe it is, but it won’t do any harm to be prepared for the next maniac-induced outage. He pops one battery in, followed by another, and then he screws the flashlight back together. “Dean.”

“What?” 

And it’s then that Dean hears it. A horrible scraping noise. If he didn’t know any better, he’d assume that it’s the exact sound of a chaise lounge hastily barricaded against a front door, being slowly pushed across a hardwood floor. 

“They’re in the house,” Cas says.

Of course they are. Because Dean knows better like Charlie Chaplin did when he said that cinema was a fad. “How many?” 

“Two,” Cas answers. “No, wait, three. Four.”

Shit.

“Can I just say how happy I am for you finally getting a grip on kindergarten math. If we get out of here alive, I’m gonna treat you to a slap-up meal at Chuck E Cheese’s.”

Dean gets the finger for that, but Cas keeps on watching at the kitchen door. There’s the open-plan dining room between them and the bad guys, so they’ll have a bit of a head start if they get seen lurking. 

Unless they’ve got a gun. Or a bow and arrow. Or a javelin. 

Determined to find a better weapon than a fucking cheese knife, Dean begins quietly rooting through the drawer next to the one with batteries and comes up with—

Yahtzee!

—a motherfucking meat tenderizer. 

Hell yeah. Between this and the sword, they might stand a chance of not dying like a soccer mom playing Call of Duty for the first time.

Again: unless they’ve got a gun. Or a bow and arrow. Or a javelin. 

As long as they use every part of Dean once he’s been murdered. Maybe mount his head on the wall next to an ugly art piece, make jerky out of his legs, send Sam an ear. 

Smoothly as one of Fagin’s kids, Dean pockets Cas’ cell and adds it to his stolen stash of dead man condoms and dollar dollar bills, y’all. He’s optimistic that all three will prove to be useful by the end of the night. Though, the way things are going, his vague hope that he and Cas will not only live but bone, will no doubt get monkey-pawed into some kind of hellish nightmare where a hell priest tears his soul apart. 

He leaves the flashlight and knife on the countertop and tiptoes like a fucking water boatman over to where Cas is standing. Pressing himself along Cas’ spine under the pretense of peering over his shoulder, Dean grins at his best friend when he turns his head just enough to catch Dean’s eye. “Dean,” Cas whispers, his breath warm on Dean’s lips. “Personal space.”

“Coming from you, that’s hilarious,” Dean says, resolutely not watching the way Cas’ inky eyelashes dip against the sweep of his cheekbone. 

How could Dean not remember kissing him? How could he not remember how he smelled, how he felt, how he tasted? How he looked after? Were his cheeks flushed and his pupils dilated? Was he turned on? Was he turned off? Did he regret it? Did he want Dean to kiss him again? 

Fuck, Dean’s brain has pulled a lot of cruel shit on him over the years, but this has to be the worst. Despite the real-time threat to their lives that the four (Cas’ math is correct, gold star for him) criminals gathering in the living room poses, Dean can’t help but stare at the tiny hole beneath Cas’ plump bottom lip. 

He got that piercing on one of the many days that two of them skipped school. They stole the Impala and cruised around aimlessly until shadows lengthened the buildings and Cas announced that he wanted his lip pierced. A half-hour, a big ass needle, and thirty dollars later, Cas had a flat back barbell underneath his swollen lip. Dean bought them a cherry Slurpee to share on the way home, but he let Cas have most of it. 

Despite catching hell from his dick of a father, the only time Cas removed that piercing was to replace it with the ring he wore for nigh on twenty years. 

Until after he kissed Dean. 

Oh.

Well, fuck.

So Dean’s an asshole. It’s not a revelation, but it is the first time the realization feels like his soul is being hollowed out with a rusty spoon. 

Fortunately, there’s not much time for him to dwell on it right now, because a shout from the living room snatches their collective attention.  

Instinctively, Dean closes his hand around Cas’ bicep.

“... let this happen?” A female voice asks tersely, and Dean and Cas catch sight of their first home invader. The woman is standing with her back to them in slinky jeans, heels, and a leather jacket. It’s more of a night-on-the-town ensemble than it is break-and-enter-and-murder attire, but Dean’s dressed like a slouchy Chippendale waiting for his cue to go on stage, so he’s in no position to judge. 

In front of leather jacket woman, seated on the eye-sore of a corner sofa is a pair of dudes who look like they’d lose a battle of wits with a taxidermied squirrel. “Duke’s dead!” the one on the left shouts, visibly spooked. His single eyebrow dips inwards. “We didn’t sign up for this shit!”

“A hazard of the job,” the fourth person in the room — Dean can’t see them from this angle, but he strongly suspects it’s their pal with the machete from outside — says. His tone of voice is decidedly less friendly than Leather Jacket. Possibly because he actually saw his colleague murdered by an amateur. “Though, not one our boss anticipated, admittedly.” 

Tweedledee’s disbelieving stare jumps between Leather Jacket and where Machete Man must be standing. “You cannot be serious! We—” he gestures between himself and the mute Tweedledum, “—were hired to break into a house, not to get murdered!”

“Duke did come to the door with a chainsaw,” Leather Jacket says, with the shrug of someone who is out of fucks to give. “It’s not exactly subtle, is it? Nor what was agreed. You were supposed to gain entry quickly and quietly, not announce it with the rev of a chainsaw engine.”

Chastised, Tweedledee sniffs. “Yeah, well, Duke always did have a thing for theatrics.”

“And it got him killed,” Leather Jacket points out, empathetic as a pool noodle. “So now, we need to find the—” she turns to check with Machete Man, “two men?” at what Dean assumes is his nod, she continues, “who killed Duke, before our boss gets here, otherwise you’ll be meeting the same fate as him. Understand?”

Tweedledee’s eyes widen comically. “No fuckin’ way! We’re outta here! Have you seen Duke’s body? It was literally chopped in half! If you think that I’m goin’ up against that, then you’re insane!”

Dean seizes the moment to feel irrationally proud of himself. Sure, he’s going to be seeing the mess he made of that corpse in his dreams for the rest of his natural-born, but apparently, he looked badass as fuck, which seems like a mostly fair trade-off. 

Leather Jacket stares Tweedledee down with cool indifference. “I will put a bullet in your brain right now if you don’t start searching.”

Tweedledee rocks backward, shocked, as if the threat came completely out of left field. As if honor-among-thieves-who-come-at-people-with-chainsaws is actually a thing. 

“We’ve already wasted enough time,” Leather Jacket says, glancing around. With cat-like reflexes, Dean yanks Cas back into the shadows of the kitchen before she looks in their direction. He shoves Cas up against the wall next to the hanging calendar, squeezing in close to keep them both hidden from sight.

After a heart-attack-inducing pause, Leather Jacket resumes talking evenly. “They could be anywhere by now. You two take downstairs, Tom and I will go upstairs. If you find them, do not kill them. Luke wants them alive. One of them might know where Sam Winchester is.”

Sam? The fuck? 

Any schadenfreude Dean may experience about Sam being the fuck up for a change is quickly eclipsed by the realization that this role reversal means that Dean (and Cas) are the collateral damage.

Yeah, so maybe Sam’s right to be a little bitch about the fallout from the shit Dean’s pulled over the years, ‘cause this sucks. 

A new person speaks for the first time. By process of elimination, it has to be Tweedledum. His voice is deep and slow. Exactly how you’d expect Tiny Firefly to sound. “Can we play with them a little bit?”

Dean barely contains a shudder. It’s always the quiet ones. 

“Of course,” Leather Jacket says, her tone pleasant for the first time since they commenced this meeting of minds. “In fact, we encourage it.”

Nice. 

Dean and Cas couldn’t have encountered run-of-the-mill criminals, could they? Oh no, they had to get involved with sadists who want to string the two of them up by their nipples.

And Dean already has handy little connectors in the form of his piercings.

Yikes.  

Dean’s not one to kink shame, but he is one to kink askwhatthefuckiswrongwithyou. 

Heel of his tenderizer-holding hand braced on the wall next to Cas’ messy splay of hair, Dean leans back and out from their not-completely-inconspicuous hiding place, watching as the four baddies break up like The Beatles. Leather Jacket and ‘Tom’ — who Dean now sees is Machete Man for certain — move toward the stairs, while Tweedledum and Dee stand listless in the living room, as if they’re waiting for a bus in the rain.

Drawing Dean’s attention, Cas murmurs, “Shit.” 

Yeah. That’s probably a fair summary.

Head reeling, heart pounding, and lungs burning with the breath he’s been holding, Dean exhales. The rise of his rib cage falls and the barely-there space between them becomes non-existent. They’re crushed together from chests to knees, pressed so close that Dean can feel Cas’ anticipatory inhale, can feel the warmth of Cas’ body bleeding through his work shirt, can feel the kick-thump of his racing heart. 

Dean’s hand is still on Cas’ arm and when Cas’ fingers twist in Dean’s robe, he feels the pull of muscle shifting beneath tattooed skin.

“How long will it take you to hotwire the car?” Cas whispers. His eyes glitter in the semi-darkness. 

Fuck. Dean wants to touch him properly, wants to slip his palm underneath the ugly red shirt and get at warm skin. He wants to watch Cas’ pretty pink mouth part when he strokes a thumb over his nipple. He wants to drop to his knees and suck Cas’ dick, wants to look up with his mouth stuffed full and tears pulled to the corners of his eyes, and see his naked desire reflected back in the black shine of Cas’ dilated pupils.

Goddammit.

Dean reluctantly steps away from Cas before he does something dumb like sucking a bruise into the inked skin of Cas’ neck, digging in with the fine points of his canines. His answer of “five minutes, maybe,” comes out rougher than a night on the town with Al Pacino, and so to cover, he goes to retrieve the flashlight. He clears his throat. “Problem is, if they come searching for us in the garage while I’m busy with the car, then we’re trapped. They can keep us there until the big bad turns up and tortures us with a feather duster and some nipple clamps.”

He turns back around and Cas is watching him, his mouth tilting up into a conspiratorial smile.

Dean’s heart squeezes. Fuck, but he loves the stupid, infuriating, beautiful asshole.

Some of the heartsickness must show on Dean’s face, ‘cause Cas’ amused expression softens into fondness. “What do you want to do?”

The answer to that one is self-evident. But probably not very helpful right now.

“I… er,” Dean pauses, tries to push past the panic and the emotion and the strong desire for a fucking time machine. Survive now. Sex later. “I think that we’ve got a better chance of survival if we leave the house. Maybe hide somewhere out of reach of the cell jammer and call the cops.”

“Huh,” Cas says, clearly surprised and not bothering to hide it. “That’s actually a good idea.”

“I’m full of ‘em,” Dean says, proud.

“Yeah,” Cas says wryly. “You’re full of something, all right.”

It’s Dean’s turn to flip Cas the bird. “Dick.”

“Mm,” Cas agrees. “So we just need a good hiding place.”

No better place than a bunch of trees. Just ask a hobbit. “The forest?”

Cas’ gaze drops down Dean’s body. There’s a glimmer of appreciation in it that heats Dean’s blood. “You’re hardly dressed for a hike.”

“Thank you, Coco Chanel. But I’ll be fine if I can just get my boots which are in the living room, next to the patio doors. All we have to do is wait for Tweedledum and Tweedledee to fuck off to another room and then we can go out there, grab ‘em and dash off into the woods.”

Eyebrow arched, Cas says, “Oh, it’s that simple, is it?”

“Or we can stay here and get brutally murdered by a male-female tag-team who make Bernardo and Homolka seem like amateurs, while a pair of who look like they should be carrying torches and pitchforks in a village somewhere about to storm Frankenstein's castle stick forks in our orifices. Your choice.”

Cas takes a quick sip of air. “You’ve got the cell phone?”

Dean pats the pocket of the robe. “It’d be a pretty crappy plan without it.”

Cas shoots him a flat look. He doesn’t elaborate, but he does follow Dean when he — meat tenderizer in his right hand and the flashlight in his left — goes back to the kitchen door to check up on Tweedledum and Dee. 

Shit. “Okay, so I can’t see them anywhere.”

Because turnabout is fair play and Cas is pettier than the Gallagher brothers (and for no other reason, Dean’s sure), he molds himself to Dean’s spine, his body a solid line at Dean’s back. His breath is warm along Dean’s neck, and Dean’s tempted to lean back into him, just to really get the gay chicken party started, but he refrains, standing his ground all tense and sentry-like instead. 

“That’s less than ideal,” Cas says, his hips settled firmly against Dean’s ass. 

Yep. Just like getting a boner right now would be.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, his voice hoarse. “‘Cause the whole situation is a trip to the beach. Mmm, I can just taste Malibu and coke now, feel the sand between my toes. Oh, look at that hot girl in a bikini—”

“What if they’ve got firearms?”

“Nah,” Dean dismisses. “Did you see how pale Tweedledee’s face went when the Leather Jacket woman threatened him? There’s no way he’s carrying.”

Cas makes a small noise of assent. 

“We can’t wait here forever,” Dean surmises after a few seconds of him sweeping the area for glimpses of bad guy. “Let’s just make a break for it. If we encounter them, we’ll just have to politely request that they let us go. Using a sword.”

“Wow,” Cas deadpans. “Such plan. Many smart.”

“If you’ve got a better one, then please share it.”

Cas is silent for a couple of beats. “We’ll go on the count of three. One.”

Yeah, that’s what Dean thought. “Two.”

“Three.”

Together they set off, cautiously entering the brightly lit dining room. They keep to the walls, so that nobody can sneak up behind them, and so that they’re harder to spot if someone happens to look in here. 

Something smashes upstairs in one of the far bedrooms right as Dean and Cas reach the edge of the dining room. The faintness of the sound means that Leather Jacket and Machete Man are about as far away as they can be. This is Dean and Cas’ time.

Feeling like they might actually have a snowball’s chance in hell here, Dean peeks around the corner of the living room…

… and straight into the unfortunate face of Tweedledum.

“Ah, fuck,” Dean says. He wishes he had some keys to jangle. 

Tweedledum’s wide-eyed surprise fades quickly. It’s replaced with a devious grin and suddenly, Tweedledee is right there behind his partner, getting in the way and blocking Cas and Dean’s route out of here. 

Godfuckingdammit. They were so close.

“Uh, hi,” Dean says, waving the hand holding the meat tenderizer. Two sets of eyes watch it like a dog watching a treat. “So, we were kind of hoping to be able to escape undetected, y’know, just get out of your hair…”

There’s no response.

But it doesn’t matter, ‘cause Dean’s crazy train has left the station and there’s no derailing it for anything. “Errr, so I’m sorry about your friend, relative, lover, whoever, but he just surprised me that’s all, and, I’ve never killed anyone before. Not like The Hills Have Eyes over here." He jerks his chin at Tweedledum, whose expression could perhaps be best described as the editor-in-chief of a magazine, when the printers have fucked up again. “Chicks love a bad boy though, amiright? Bet you’re a stud, aren’t you, big guy? All the ladies flock to you, wanting to climb on that face just so they don’t have to look at it. No shame in being a double-bagger, man.”

“Dean,” Cas says quietly and it’s a warning.

“I’ve banged a few in my time,” Dean continues, not really sure where this ramble is gonna end, except with maybe his own epitaph. “There was this two o’clock beauty queen, who really knew her way around a cock and—”

“Jesus,” Tweedledee says, cutting Dean off. “Don’t you ever shut the fuck up?”

“Unfortunately not,” Cas replies dryly. “Look,” he says, standing shoulder to shoulder with Dean. Between them — a pizza guy and a dude wearing nothing but boxers and a robe — they’re probably not the most intimidating of foes, but God loves a trier, and Cas is channeling his inner stern parent. They’re giving peace a chance. Paul Mccartney would be proud. “We overheard you before. You don’t want to be here. You just came to rob the place, didn’t you? Well, what about if we told you that there are some really expensive cars in the garage? Take them and let us go.”

Tweedledum and Dee exchange a wordless glance. 

Tweedledee says, “But your friend just admitted to killing our brother.”

Yeahhhh, okay, Dean can see where mistakes were made. “I say we just let bygones be bygones,” he suggests, which is perfectly fair. Cas slants him a look as though he’s considering wringing Dean’s neck like a wet rag. 

“I say,” Tweedledum growls — grunts — “we pluck your pretty eyes out and make him eat them.”

So this hasn’t gone quite as well as Dean had hoped. Still, this is merely a communication error and bribery is the universal language. “I have…” Dean swaps the flashlight into the same hand as the tenderizer and uses his free hand to delve into the pocket of the robe, coming up with a crumpled fistful of notes. “Thirty-eight dollars.”

He doesn’t mention that the money used to belong to their two-faced sibling, because that would be dumb. 

Beside him, Cas isn’t physically face-palming, but that might only be because any sudden movement will set these two — who, without hair, would resemble one single sausage — off like a landmine during a tap-dancing competition. 

(He is pulling the face of someone who is seriously considering switching sides for the tactical advantage though.)

Tweedledum and Dee are either waiting for Dean’s next bid or for him to state his last words. 

Unfortunately, Dean has entered panic mode, which, even at the best of times, sees him both physically and mentally incapable of being anything other than the actual embodiment of ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try try try again.’

These are not the best of times. 

Dean keeps refreshing his brain. Nope. Same thing again. He waves the tantalizing amount which would barely cover the gas back to the nuclear power plant the Tweedles spawned from. “Thirty-eight dollars,” he repeats, a time-delayed echo of himself. Then adds, “and two condoms,” ‘cause he ain’t no Karen haggling for a used Wii on Facebook marketplace; he knows how to sweeten a deal. 

“How about this,” Tweedledum snarls. “We pluck your pretty eyes out and make him eat them. And then we pluck his even prettier eyes out and make you eat them?”

Psht. As if Cas has prettier eyes than him. 

There’s no reasoning with some people, so Dean stuffs the money back in the robe pocket. Looks like they’re left with one choice, two options: fight or die.

Shit.

Here’s the thing: Cas and Dean are lovers, not fighters. That’s not to say that when backed into a corner, they won’t go down without a fight (something a member of the football team learned the hard way in eleventh grade, when the would-be-rapist tried to force Cas to his knees to suck his pathetic dick, and Cas grabbed himself a handful of steroid-shrunken nutsack so forcefully that the jock ended up with testicular rupture instead of a blow job), but by and large, their collective experience is less streets-of-New-York and more kindergarten altercations over pink crayons.

Which means this is going to go super well. 

Standing there, adrenaline pumping and heart slugging, Dean’s beginning to realize that actually knowing when to start a fight is hard. It’s not like a Tarantino movie where it’s all smooth choreography and punches that connect, it’s this . A weird Mexican stand-off, because for a long moment after Tweedledum’s second eye-plucking declaration, the four of them stand there like they’re all waiting for a bell to ring or something.

But then, Tweedledum reaches into his pocket and comes back with a folded blade that he flicks open with an ominous-sounding click, all West Side Story but without the gay undertones, and ding ding ding they’re off. Tweedledum goes straight for Dean, jabbing at his stomach with the knife. Dean reacts just in time, sort of hopping backward with an embarrassing little squeak that he’ll deny to his dying day (which, if he’s [un]lucky may just be today). Not one to be discouraged, Tweedledum tries again, and Dean uses the flashlight to block the next slash aimed at his abdomen. 

The violence of Tweedledum’s move knocks the flashlight clean out of Dean’s sweat-slip grip, sending it winging through the living room. Mercifully, it lands with a low thump on any one of the unnecessary seating options, rather than going through the glass coffee table or one of the other smashable things in here that would make a noise and therefore alert the ones with the real weapons upstairs.

In the time it takes Dean to glance over to check his best friend is still alive (and might actually have the upper hand in his fight with Tweedledee), Tweedledum has gone for him again, stabbing like this is San Quentin and Dean stole his pudding cup. The jab scarcely misses his bare stomach as he flinches away, slicing through the robe and tearing the fabric from his nipple to his hip.

Motherfucker.

Dean’s grown to like this robe.

In retaliation (and to defend the robe’s honor), Dean swings the meat tenderizer at Tweedledum’s left arm, with the intent to really make him feel it. Tweedledum tries to dodge the incoming weapon, half twisting his body awkwardly right before the blow connects. The tenderizer strikes his ribs, and because he’s partly turned away, it’s more of a glancing blow than a serious injury. He barely makes a noise, just comes straight back at Dean — at his fucking face — with the knife. It almost misses, but not quite, nicking Dean’s cheekbone and cutting a hot path all the way back to his ear. Dean stays on his feet, but staggers a little and drops the meat tenderizer. He flings his right arm up to block the next attack, and the blade slices through the robe and bites into his forearm. 

Desperate and hurting, Dean kicks out at Tweedledum’s knee — a little Swayze-in-Roadhouse wisdom — ‘take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee and he'll drop like a stone’ — and it works. Tweedledum goes down, dropping the knife in the process. It spins away across the hardwood and hits the empty chainsaw Cas so helpfully left in here earlier. 

Dean goes to kick him in the balls, but Tweedledum’s hand shoots out and catches Dean’s ankle. He yanks backward, and Dean almost loses his balance, but then he figures fuck it , and pivots, dropping down onto Tweedledum, driving his knees down into Tweedledum’s stomach. 

Dude obviously works out, ‘cause he’s got strong stomach muscles, but not strong enough for 190 pounds of Dean Winchester. The moment Dean’s knees hit him, he lets go of Dean’s ankle, his mouth forming a perfect O as all the air in his body is squeezed out of him. His eyes bug out and his head and shoulders come up off the floor. 

A quick glance to Dean’s left sees Cas grappling with Tweedledee for the sword on the kitchen table, the two of them tangled together and grunting, like some kind of really niche porno. 

Dean doesn’t get much of an opportunity to worry about it though, ‘cause kneeling on the abs of someone who does their crunches is like kneeling on a raft shooting the rapids: he doesn’t have a hope in hell of staying upright. 

There’s not much Dean can do as he falls forward, other than try to aim in the direction of the meat tenderizer and hope that he doesn’t faceplant the hardwood. But of course, because his luck is on a par with that dude who was in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the bombs hit, he doesn’t get anywhere near the tenderizer and only very narrowly misses braining himself on the fancy little table housing a pointless bowl of potpourri. 

Pain shoots up his forearms as his palms bear the brunt of his fall, but he doesn’t waste any time, just keeps his weight braced on his right hand, and scrabbles around with his left for the nearest thing that could feasibly be a weapon. 

Something, anything.

Unfortunately, the only thing within immediate grasp is the aforementioned bowl of potpourri. The damn thing is surprisingly light, and all Dean succeeds in doing when he plucks it off its high table is flinging bits of dried perfumed flowers over himself and Tweedledum like crap confetti. 

God-fucking-dammit. 

With one palm still on the floor, Dean swipes the now-empty bowl behind him a couple of times, grinning when it connects with Tweedledum’s chin with a gratifying thwack. Satisfied that he’s bought himself a few precious seconds, Dean drops the bowl and starts to crawl toward the tenderizer, but Tweedledum is too fast and grabs him right behind his knee and starts hauling him backward. 

Fuck. Fuckity fuck. 

There’s not much traction to be had on a hardwood floor, and the robe provides just enough of a friction-free experience that pretty soon, Tweedledum is hugging Dean around the waist, with his face jammed sideways in Dean’s rib cage. 

Dean struggles, of-freaking-course he does. He kicks and slaps and flails like Naomi Watts against King Kong in the remake, but it does about as much good, ‘cause this dude will just. not. quit. It’s not even a strength or determination thing, it’s a holy-fuck-this-guy-can-withstand-anything thing. The ugly motherfucker can just take it. His breath is still knocked out from the 90s wrestling move Dean pulled, so he’s wheezing and gagging, but his hold doesn’t slacken, even as Dean is, in increasingly frustrated turn, punching him and shoving perfumed crunchy rose petals into his eyes.

By sheer dumb (hah) luck, during the scuffle, Dean manages to knee Tweedledum in the nuts. It’s enough to have him loosen his hold, and the very instant Dean has enough wiggle room to escape, he attempts to flop away like a mermaid on the shore who has yet to trade her voice to a sea witch. The tenderizer feels like it’s a water-in-the-desert crawl away, but he perseveres, reaching high with his right hand, the tips of his fingers slipping and not-quite-gripping the tenderizer’s handle. He goes to roll off of Tweedledum to get closer to the weapon, but the fucker’s managed to regain his hold. He rolls with Dean, ending up on top of him, his face planted between Dean’s tits, his breath hot and wet against Dean’s skin.

The robe gets tangled around them with the roll, tightening on Dean’s biceps and restricting his movement, which of course is perfect for this life and death situation, where Dean needs to be able to operate all of his limbs. Still, he’s not one to be defeated, and he blindly — and with the range of a T-Rex — slaps the floor for the tenderizer. He finally (halle-fucking-lujah) locates the weapon, and, clutching it where he grabs it — on the business end — he pounds the top of Tweedledum’s head with the handle. The little spikes hurt his palm, and Tweedledum’s hands come up to claw at Dean’s, but he just keeps on going until Tweedledum’s grunts and flinches stop. 

Out cold or possibly dead, blood pours from his torn scalp. Dean bucks and twists, throwing Tweedledum off of him. 

Fucking hell.  

Dean’s not sure if the blood he’s coated in is his own or Tweedledum’s. 

Doesn’t care. 

Pushing himself up on trembling hands and knees, Dean begins to crawl away, dragging the tenderizer along for the ride. He wants to help Cas, needs to help Cas. His vision shimmers in and out, and the iron-rich scent of blood is thick in his nostrils. He could go for a spell of unconsciousness right about now, but sheer determination has him pushing right on through. 

And then his naked knee slips against the hardwood when something tugs on the robe. 

Dean looks over his shoulder and Tweedledum is there, abruptly conscious, his hair black and matted down with blood. Teeth bared, he attempts to drag Dean back again, yanking at the robe, fist over fist like he’s climbing rope. 

Is this guy the fucking Terminator or something?

“Oh, fuck this,” Dean mutters aloud and begins digging one-handed into the belt’s tightened knot. In front and above him, Cas is about to win his battle, and Dean watches on as his best friend swings the sword right into the torso of Tweedledee. 

The blade gets him just below the rib cage, and when Cas see-saws the sword back out, Tweedledee’s intestines come with it, slopping out onto the floor right in front of Dean’s face. The smell is unreal; uniquely disgusting and Dean isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or throw up.

As if there’s time to do either. 

Dean’s just managed to free himself from the robe, and therefore Tweedledum’s final attempt to murder him, when Cas strides over, bloody and furious. He plunges the sword into Tweedledum’s neck once, twice, three, four times before the determined fucker finally gives up the ghost and dies. 

Still on all fours, Dean swallows hard. Manages a mangled approximation of, “Nice.”

“Yeah,” Cas pants. His chest heaves. He holds out a hand, and with a strength that definitely doesn’t make Dean swoon, hauls Dean to his feet. 

They stand there for a moment, breathing hard in the silence. 

What the fuck.

Cas just murdered two people. It’s pretty far removed from his usual MO of accusing free-range assholes of having the IQ of an amoeba. Maybe a little more impressive.

Jeez. 

There’s noise right above them: the sound of footsteps, a muted conversation, something like a bed shoved across expensive flooring.

Leather Jacket and Machete Man are getting closer.

Cas is still holding Dean’s hand. Dean can feel Cas’ thudding pulse under his fingertips. Looking up at the ceiling, the long line of his tattooed neck exposed, Cas says, “We need to go.” 

Yeah.  

Dean breathes out. He flexes his grip on the tenderizer. His cheek itches. 

“Now,” Cas emphasizes. 

Get it the fuck together. C’mon, Winchester. 

Right. Yes. No time to reflect on past events, because future events are about to become present events. “Okay,” Dean says, putting one foot in front of the other. It’s surprisingly difficult on legs that feel as though they’ve liquified. He and Cas cling to each other, holding one another up as they stagger toward the sliding glass door leading out to the pool. 

Everything’s gonna be okay. They’ve got their plan. They’ve got each other. 

They’ve got this. 

Chapter Text

Outside, they round the edge of the pool, breaking into a run and sprinting over the dewy grass. The woods are dark and foreboding, and it suddenly seems like the worst possible idea for survival, but Dean really doesn’t fancy their chances inside the house or out on the deserted road. At least in the woods they can hide, regroup, and get out of range of the cell jammer to call the cops. 

Except… except Cas is running the wrong fucking way. Cas is galloping toward the driveway like an errant racehorse who’s just seen a Crystal Sugar factory, and Dean’s super fucking confused, ‘cause this is not the plan they agreed on. Again.  

Fuck’s sake.

“Cas!” Dean hisses at his best friend’s departing back. He glances over towards the patio door, half-expecting to see ol’ Machete Man come bursting out like Jason Vorhees in Jason Takes Manhattan, but there’s nobody there. 

Shitshitshit.

It’ll probably amount to suicide by maniac, but Dean follows Cas. Of course he does. 

The crunch of Cas’ sneakers on the driveway is loud in the dead of the night. Dean stops under the eaves at the corner of the house to hastily shove his feet into the boots he’s clutching close to his chest like his firstborn. Like fuck is he going on that gravel in bare feet again. He’s not a complete moron. 

(Some important parts are missing.) 

Cas darts ahead to his unattended car, while Dean hangs back in the shadows, keeping an eye out for Leather Jacket and Machete Man (who Dean flat out refuses to call something as mundane as Tom ). 

Dean deliberately doesn’t look across to the area in front of the porch where Duke’s body is.

At his car, Cas eases the driver’s side door open with the hand not holding Sam’s sword. He ducks inside and after a couple of beats of silence, breathes out a not-so-quiet, “Fuck!”

Ruh-roh.

“What?” Dean whisper-yells. It’s not warm out here, especially as the temperatures dip into Devil’s hour. He crosses his arms over his naked chest.

“I thought I’d left a spare work shirt in here, but I can’t find it.”

“Maybe the dude with the machete took it,” Dean says through the grit of his starting-to-chatter teeth. “He probably thinks he looks good in red. What does it matter anyways? This ain’t the time for a wardrobe change.”

Cas straightens up. He scowls at his car like it’s personally responsible for tonight’s events. “It was for you. So that you’re not hiking into the woods in nothing but boxer shorts and boots.”

Oh. That’s… strangely touching. Thoughtful.

But of course, Dean can’t say that, can he? So instead, he peeks around the corner at the pool area. Leather Jacket and Machete Man must have discovered Tweedledum and Dee by now, and Dean really doesn’t want to push his luck in an encounter with people who might actually be competent. 

Dean moves closer to his friend, stopping about ten feet away on the gravel and extending his free hand uselessly. “Cas, man, we gotta go.”

“Yeah,” Cas agrees on a heavy exhale. Then he looks at Dean properly for the first time since before their big showdown with Tweedledum and Dee. The light out here is still minimal, but between the house and the moon, they can see each other okay. “You look like an extra from a Romero movie.” He dips back into the car again, and Dean totally ogles his ass as he stretches for the glove compartment. It’s a good ass and Dean can’t believe how close he came to losing it because he and Cas make worse decisions than the people who thought they’d light up in the Library of Alexandria. 

“Here,” Cas says, coming up with a packet of baby wipes. “Catch.” He tosses them to Dean. They sail toward Dean’s shoulder, an easy catch, but he’s too preoccupied with the implication of Cas having baby wipes in his car. If he hadn’t considered that Cas might have a partner, he certainly hadn’t considered that Cas might be a freaking dad.

The pack of wipes smacks Dean below his left shoulder, slides down over his nipple, and falls to the gravel.

“Nice catch,” Cas says dryly. 

Dean’s still staring at his best friend. His best fucking friend who might be a dad and Dean didn’t even know. He wants to cry. 

Cas’ expression slides from amusement into confusion. “Are you stuck? Have you malfunctioned?”

“What’s with the wipes, Cas?”

“What?” Cas squints at him. “People are fucking disgusting and hand sanitizer isn’t good for the longevity of tattoos.” Dean can’t tell what his own face is doing, but based on Cas’ scowly defensiveness, he can make a pretty good guess. “You’re not allowed to judge me for carrying wipes when you used to freak out about dirt under fingernails.”

Rightly so. There’s nothing wrong with getting your hands dirty — literally, metaphorically, spiritually — but there’s no reason to be gross about it. Have a word with yourself, scrub the dirt with soap, figure it out, yanno?

“So… you’re not a dad?” Dean hazards.

“What?” Cas repeats. “No. No, I’m not a dad.”

Relief rushes through Dean and makes him a bit (more) stupid. “Are you seeing anyone?”

Cas’ attention swings from Dean to the house. There’s a commotion coming from that direction, but Dean can’t — won’t — start running again until he’s got an answer. 

“No,” Cas says. “There’s nobody else.” For a long moment, it seems as though there’s something else he wants to say, but what comes out is, “We really should get moving. Bring the wipes.”

***

By the time they breach the first line of trees, Dean’s legs feel heavy, like they’re loaded with granite, his lungs are aching, and his heart is racing like crazy. Twigs snap beneath his unlaced boots, and the damp smell of the earth is thick and overpowering. 

In front of him, Cas slows to a determined walk. The only noise is the sound of them breathing and the rustling of leaves and undergrowth as they push on and on. 

About five minutes into their frog march into the unknown, it’s Dean's turn with the wipes, while Cas carries both of the weapons. Admittedly, Dean does feel a little better smelling faintly of chamomile and not covered in the sticky itch of someone else’s blood. Every thirty or so feet, he tosses a used wipe to the ground to create a trail, figuring that he might be forgiven for littering in this instance if it saves their lives later when they try and find their way back once they’ve called the cops. 

They keep on trudging. The moisture from the wipes dries on Dean’s skin. He tosses the empty packet. 

“Cas,” he gasps after another couple of minutes. “Can we just take a breather?”

Cas stops and turns. He looks over Dean’s shoulder into the darkness. Apparently satisfied that they’re not about to be immediately accosted, he sags against a tree trunk. Dean looks into the trees himself to double-check that they’re safe. Except for a few shreds of moonlight, the woods are as dark as the mind of a Republican. Dean follows Cas’ lead and steps close to the tree next to Cas’. He leans back against it. The bark feels rough against his bare skin, and it reminds him of how badly (un)dressed for this little excursion he is.

Boots and boxer-briefs do not a survivalist make.

At least if he was still wearing the robe, he’d have some protection against the cold. As it is, he might as well be fucking naked. Dean rubs at his biceps in a pretty crappy tempt to warm himself up.

“Cold?” Cas asks as he places the tenderizer and balances the sword on the trunk of a nearby fallen tree, its dead limbs pointing back the way they just came like witches' fingers. His voice sounds kind of weird. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, trying not to focus on the chilled ache in his nipples. “If you say that you told me so, I will personally feed you to Machete Man.”

There’s the crunch of shoes on dead leaves and detritus, and then Cas is there, caging Dean in against the tree, molding his front to Dean’s and sharing body heat.

The reaction of Dean’s dick is both involuntary and inevitable.

Uhhhh. 

“This better?” Cas asks, the ghost of his breath on Dean’s neck. He’s solid and warm and everything Dean realized too late that he wanted. They haven’t hugged like this in years; with proper contact and a complete disregard for what it might mean. Dean’s missed it more than he can fully articulate: the broad strength of Cas’ shoulders, the firmness of his arms and chest, the scent of his skin mingled with chamomile and their surroundings; rich and deep, like dirt and trees, overlaid with the thick, unfamiliar tang of iron.

Which only serves as a heady reminder that Cas killed someone for him. 

It shouldn’t be turning Dean on more, but it is.

Not ‘cause he’s hot for murderers or anything, but ‘cause it was fucking badass. 

“Uh.” For something to say that isn’t, ‘please stop — between you and the adrenaline, I’m getting hard’ , Dean decides on, “You saved my life back there.”

Cas’ “mm,” rumbles through Dean’s chest. “You would’ve done the same for me.”

Any second of any hour of any day. 

“Nah,” Dean says, his fingers flexing nervously in the small of Cas’ back. “I’d’ve left you there. Let Tweedledum unhinge his jaw and swallow you whole like a snake.”

He can hear the smile in Cas’ voice. “Kinky.”

Yeah, okay. Poor choice of words considering Dean’s current pre-dick-a-ment. 

It’s hard (boy is it ever) to know whether Cas is doing this on purpose or whether he’s taking tree-hugging to a new dimension and Dean just happens to be in the way. He’s not saying that Cas is a vindictive little shit that would be doing the former out of some misguided revenge, except for the part where he totally is. 

But the longer the hug goes on, the more Dean realizes that this isn’t a game, this is relief. They’re both alive, they’re together, they’re okay. Cas’ love language has always been touch, and it isn’t until now that Dean registers how much he’s needed Cas touching him on the shoulder, or holding his hand, or sitting close when they play games or watch movies. 

The acute longing for something he’s been missing for the last fourteen months, it snags his breath, makes him go all knee-knock nervous. Dean doesn’t have a map for this journey. He doesn’t know how to deal with all these feelings that are bigger than him. Which has always been the problem, really. 

So, of course, Dean has to go ahead and assassinate the peaceful moment like it’s got progressive policies and a motorcade. “Did you like it?” he asks, looking up at the underside of the tree canopy, ‘cause the alternative is sniffing Cas’ hair, and even he’s not creepily gone enough to be doing that. “When I kissed you?”

Cas’ response is muffled in Dean’s skin. “I really don’t think this is the time or the place.”

Probably not, but Dean’s gotta know. “Cas, please.”

“It wasn’t totally repulsive,” Cas says at last, his lips grazing Dean’s clavicle. 

“High praise indeed,” Dean half-jokes, but his heart is pounding against his ribs and not just from the exertion of the run. “Would you… Would you ever wanna do it again? For science or whatever.”

“I don’t remember that on any biology test.”

“Nah, this one’s all chemistry, baby.”

Dean knows he’s got him when he hears a choke of laughter. Cas lifts his head and looks at Dean, into him, his eyes shining bright and wet in the dark. He goes to say something, but then his gaze stutters over the bloody, hot itch on Dean’s cheek. Bringing his palm up to cup Dean’s jaw, he runs his thumb gingerly over the wound from Tweedledum’s knife. “You’re a stupid asshole,” he tells Dean, and it’s fond, but with a genuinely frustrated edge. “You could’ve gotten seriously hurt.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, too busy watching Cas’ face to pay attention to precisely what he’s saying. “But I’m okay, Cas.”

Cas grazes the pad of his thumb lower, across Dean’s jaw. His focus is entirely on Dean, deconstructing him with his stare, as he turns his wrist, skimming the backs of his tattooed knuckles over the thudding pulse in Dean’s neck, along the line of his collarbone. Dean’s skin goes all goosefleshy, the fine hairs lifting in response to Cas’ touch rather than the cold. 

The edge of Cas’ pinky brushes the bare skin over Dean’s heart; the expanse he’s yet to fill with ink. It catches Dean’s breath, his lungs burning with the effort of holding still as Cas feels him up.

Cas’ smile is faint, smokey-soft, when he touches Dean’s nipple. He tugs gently on the piercing, and Dean’s voice is strangled when he adds, “Still in one piece.”

(Just barely though, because it feels like he could fly apart at any second.) 

It’s dark out here, sure, but there’s no way Cas can’t tell, can’t feel how hard Dean is in his boxer shorts. It would be embarrassing, but as previously established, Dean’s the easiest thing since Monopoly when you’ve got all the rail stations and Park Place and Boardwalk, so of course he’s gonna get his jollies from being touched. He can’t help it, it’s compulsive.

Except for where he can, and nah, it’s Cas. 

Dean’s self-esteem isn’t quite low enough to believe that if it were anyone else in the world touching him right now he wouldn’t be shoving them off and demanding they rethink their priorities. 

But it’s Cas. Touching Dean with reverence and concern and the kind of wonderment people usually reserve for religion or a really good piece of pie. 

“We should call the cops,” Cas declares in the loaded silence, distracted by the path his own hand is taking down Dean’s sternum. 

Is Dean supposed to respond to that when Cas’ fingertips are skirting the waistband of his boxers? “Uh, yeah,” he manages, his throat going all tight when the backs of Cas’ knuckles graze the head of his dick through thin cotton. “Cops. Good idea, yeah.” He clears his throat as Cas steps back and arches an eyebrow expectantly. “Yep. Yep. Cops, so we can continue living and breathing, and…” whatever that was. Foreplay-ing?

There’s amusement in Cas’ voice. “We’ll need the phone.”

Dean’s brain is stuck on an endless loop of ‘Cas touched my dick, Cas touched my dick’, so he can probably be forgiven for being a little slow on the uptake. “Yeah. Yes, that’s right.”

“So…” Cas trails off, waiting for Dean to provide something.

“911,” Dean says, proud of himself. “It’s a pretty straightforward number, Cas. Would’ve thought you’d have it memorized by now.”

“Don’t be an ass. You have the phone .”

Dean’s surprise makes his voice go an octave higher. “Oh yeah, where?” He holds his arms out to the side, demonstrating his lack of pockets on a par with standard women’s fashion. “Stashed in my ass with a couple grams of coke?”

Cas’ expression loses all its mirth. “You said you had the phone. In the kitchen.”

That may be true, but… Oh no, wait. Yep. Definitely true.

Aw, fuck.

Dean sucks in a breath through his teeth. “It’s in the robe.”

Cas’ face does that thing where he sort of looks like he’s simultaneously getting groped by an angry alligator and also told that Nightmare on Elm Street 2 had zero homoeroticism. “The robe that’s back at the house?” 

“No, the invisible one I’m wearing right now,” Dean smarts, annoyed with himself, with Cas, with the entire fucking universe. 

“So you’re telling me that my cell — our lifeline and only way out of here — is in the robe, which you left in the house?”

Cas is supposed to be the smart one. Doesn’t really fill Dean with confidence if he’s struggling to come to terms with such a basic concept as ‘PHONE STILL WITH BAD GUYS. WE DUN GOOFED.’

“Yeahh.”

“Fuck!” 

“Yeahh.”

For lack of a better target (trees do not a good sparring partner make), Cas turns on Dean. “Well, that’s just my luck, isn’t it? We’re in a life-or-death situation and oh, yay me, I get to try and make it through the night with you — someone who has the self-preservation of a grape!”

As if Dean’s gonna take that lying down. If anything, he’s a pineapple. Acidic and eats you right back. “Oh, that is fantastic coming from the man who felt the need to make a diversion to his fucking car in the middle of the classic horror movie running-away-from-the-villain scene!”

“Would you rather be covered in blood right now? I don’t think so!”

“You know what, Cas, you’re right! The wipes were vitally important to our mission of staying alive!”

“Almost as vital as my phone!” Cas shoots back. “God!” He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I can’t believe I nearly—” he cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. Then two, three. Finally, he removes his hands and blinks up at Dean. Eerily calm, he says, “We need to find a way out of here.”

“Nearly what, Cas?” Dean demands hotly, bypassing Cas’ sensible suggestion entirely, ‘cause this stupid, pointless argument is heating his blood, and if they’re not gonna fuck Dean warm, then they’re gonna fight Dean warm. “Stopped acting like an imperious asshole?”

“Big word for someone who came this close—” he measures out the space with his thumb and forefinger “—to failing remedial English!”

Ah.

“I was fucking that stupid test up on purpose,” Dean bites back, punctured by the barb and oh-so-ready to spill the secret he’s held onto for the past couple of decades. “Because you were helping me and I wanted an excuse to spend time with you! Fuck knows why!”

That takes the wind out of Cas’ category-four hissy. “What?”

Dean sighs. He drags a hand through his hair. “I… There was a girl, okay, and she liked you, and you were supposed to go on a date with her, and I didn’t want you to.” The confession comes out in a garbled rush, but Cas seems to pick through it just fine, and strings the narrative together.

“You… you pretended to fail?”

“Yeah.”

“You almost did fail.”

“Yeah.”

“I spent most of eighth grade believing that you were smooth-brained. Like an egg.”

“Eggs don’t have brains.”

Cas’ smile is small and wry. “So scientists say. Yet here you are. Against all the odds.” 

Dean smiles too, though it’s against his will. “Yeah, well, you're a virgin who can't drive," he replies, channeling a perfect Brittany Murphy. 

It’s only half-true. He’s not sure who’s responsible for passing Cas, whether it was the result of a bribe or a blowjob, but it certainly wasn’t skill. 

Feeling defeated by the situation, and stupid by proxy, Dean decides that yeah, he can be the magnanimous one here and apologize for, well, everything. It’s been a long time coming and Cas has every right to be furious with him about the past, at least some of the present, and maybe even the future too. 

“Look, Cas, I’m sor—”

But before he can finish the thought or sentence, Cas’ mouth is on his. For a second, Dean does nothing, just stands there, arms useless at his sides, but then he remembers that he’s been wanting this for years, so he pushes into Cas, getting a hand round the back of Cas’ neck, and a fist curled in the front of his shirt. 

Dean breathes him in deep, needing Cas crushed in tighter so that he can feel him everywhere, so he hauls Cas in closer, closer, until he can feel the weight of Cas’ body shoving in, until their hips are flush and Dean can feel that Cas is as hard as he is. Nothing between them but warm skin and the rough fabric of Cas’ shirt, Dean kisses his best friend like his life depends on it, like this isn’t an astronomically stupid idea.

Cas’ mouth opens on a shallow breath and then they’re really kissing, the hot slide of their tongues together, slick and wet, both of them making hungry little noises as they devour each other. Cas kisses like he wants to crawl inside him, and Dean has to clutch at him for balance, ‘cause his head is spinning with the zero-to-sixty of it all. 

Cas is hard against Dean’s hip, his breathing wild and unsteady. "Your mouth," he pants when they break apart, tilting his forehead against Dean’s. "Your fucking mouth," and then he's dipping back in to kiss Dean’s mouth open, sucking at his lower lip. 

Dean shivers, moaning low and hungry into the kiss. Fuck, how could he have forgotten this?

Cas sinks his fingers into Dean’s hair, thumbs digging in under the hollow of Dean’s jaw, and Dean arches into it, gives in to it. They kiss and kiss, each one more urgent, more insistent than the last, and Dean’s rocking down onto the firm thigh that Cas forces between Dean’s own, inching towards losing his mind with every minute roll of their bodies together. 

Dean wants him so intensely that he feels sick with it. A battered whine works its way out of his throat when Cas’ palms skate down Dean’s body to curve under the waistband of his boxer-briefs and over the swell of his bare ass. Fingers clenching and bunching the fabric at Cas’ lower back, Dean grinds his hard dick against Cas’. 

This is the single hottest experience of Dean’s life, and he hasn’t even touched Cas’ cock yet. Something he plans to rectify immediately, and so he slips his free hand between the tight crush of their bodies, unbuttoning Cas' pants and yanking the fly open, palming the thick length of his cock, squeezing gently through dark cotton. 

“Fuck,” Cas bites against Dean’s mouth, briefly releasing his hold on Dean to shove his own pants and boxers halfway down his ass, just far enough for Dean to get a hand properly around Cas’ cock, acquainting himself with the blood-rich heft of it, the ridges of veins, thick and long and oh so goddamn hot. “Fuck, Dean. ”

Dean’s wholly onboard with Cas’ two-word sentiment, but they’re in the middle of nowhere without lube, condoms, and an assured life expectancy. Going ass up doesn’t seem like the best course of action, even to Dean’s lust-addled brain. 

“Just like this, Cas,” Dean murmurs, as he slowly jacks Cas’ gorgeous dick in the open V of his pants, smearing his thumb through the wetness gathered at the slit. “Just like this for now. ‘Cause we're gonna get out of here, and you're gonna fuck me, and I'm gonna be so good for you, Cas—"

Cas is breathing ragged, snatching air in between frantic kisses. “Oh, Dean — Fuck.” His palm leaves Dean’s ass and curls around his dick, and it’s Dean’s turn to whine high in his throat, all the pent-up arousal burning him from the inside out. 

Oh, fuck. This is so stupid. So good. “Cas,” he manages, dropping his damp forehead to the curve of Cas’ collarbone, burying his face in Cas’ pulse.

“Tell me what you want,” Cas gasps, his mouth a wet smear against Dean’s heated skin.

“You,” Dean manages. “You. I just fucking want you, Cas.” 

Then, now, forever. 

Cas pushes Dean’s underwear just below the curve of his ass, exposing his cock and pushing the elastic waistband under his balls. As soon as Cas gets a decent grip on Dean’s dick, Dean makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat. Fuck, fuck, it’s dirty as hell; nothing but the wet, nasty sound of skin-on-skin, of their rushed breathing, all hot and humid as they fuck desperately into each other’s fists. Helplessly turned on and feverish with it, Dean shudders as his dick blurts out another drop of precome, which Cas thumbs through, smearing it down the length and back up again. 

It’s far from the best handjob he’s received — galaxies away from the best handjob he’s given — it’s graceless, rushed, and needy, but oh so fucking good. Dean’s knuckles graze against the firm expanse of Cas’ stomach, his arm cramping as he works fiercely to bring his best friend off. 

And Cas really is his best friend; he’s the dude Dean went through puberty with, the guy he uselessly tried to hide the sickly stench of weed from their fathers with, the man he became an adult with, except Cas did it a little better, fully transforming into someone self-assured, intelligent, and worth so much more than anyone knows, more than Dean fully appreciated until it was almost too late. But Dean — with the emotional intelligence of a Beanie Baby (and not even one of the high-value ones) — doesn’t know how to vocalize all that into the words he needs to make Cas understand, so he does the only thing that makes sense in the moment.

He licks a line up the length of Cas’ throat before sucking a bruise into the hollow of his jaw, teeth digging right into the soft, tattooed skin, marking Cas out as belonging to Dean. Forever. The bruise will fade, but Cas will always remember, and unlike the lip ring, there’s nothing he can do about it. Cas’ hips stutter and he makes a noise that would have Dean creaming himself while waiting in line at the post office, let alone with Cas jacking him off with rushed yet firm strokes, as he watches Dean through heavy-lidded eyes. 

“Dean,” he says, and fuck, his voice is wrecked, rougher than usual. “Please— please, fuck—”

The uneasy rhythm they’ve built begins to break down into them fucking each other’s loose fists, breathing air into each other as they kiss and then fall away to taste salty skin, before coming back together, lips brushing and tongues teasing. 

“God, Cas,” Dean barely manages around the building heat, the need to come. “Fuckin’ need you, man.” He’s close enough, slick enough that his dick is slipping through Cas’ palm with a minimal amount of friction that feels like the best-worst thing ever.

Cas is melded to him, crushing Dean to the rough bark of the tree trunk, and his back is gonna look like one of those rubbings teachers used to make the kids do in grade school, but it’s hard to care when Cas’ teeth are in his throat, bringing blood to the surface of Dean’s skin, and he’s about to come so hard that his ancestors will feel it.

“Cas, oh — Cas, fuck— I’m—”

It’s the only warning he manages to get out before he comes, his hips jerking wildly, spurting jaggedly over Cas' fist, grinding up into it, and he hooks an arm around Cas' neck, sinking his teeth into Cas’ swollen bottom lip. 

Any potential fuel to tease Dean with about his sexual stamina is swiftly burned away, when Cas follows Dean right over the edge seconds later, his cock growing impossibly harder in Dean’s hand, right before he comes in long wet streaks, his mouth smeared against Dean’s, growling low in his throat.

Jeez-us.

As they stand there, holding each other up and breathing loudly in the otherwise deathly silence of their surroundings, Dean can already feel the insecurity and regret building up to a lump in his throat and a pit in his stomach. It's accompanied by the kind of clarity that usually only manifests in the seconds after a particularly excellent jerk-off session. You’re there, fucking your own fist to some terrible porno, your hormones are swimming, all the blood in your body is rushing to your dick, and you’re (not) thinking, 'goddamn, I could call my high school girlfriend, I could fuck her, holy shit, yeah, it would be amazing'. And then you come, and it's like a summoning spell for rationality — what the fuck?

Shit. What if they’ve fucked it all up? Again? Things are just gonna be awkward, and they live states away, and maybe this was too much too soon, even though by anyone’s standards, twenty years of mutual pining is positively fucking glacial—

But then, Cas lifts his head up from Dean’s shoulder, eyes dark, cheeks flushed. “Bet some wipes would come in real handy now, huh?” 

—yeah. They’re going to be just fine. 

***

Once they’ve got themselves cleaned up by wiping their hands off on various leaves that Dean desperately hopes ain’t poison ivy, and Cas very chivalrously gives Dean his work shirt so at least he can be partially warm (“Aw, Cas. This is like you’re giving me your letterman jacket, are we going steady? Can we go to prom?” “Fine, freeze to death.”), they decide that another game plan is needed. Their current kill count is 3-0 and it seems as good a place as any to quit while they’re not dead, but these woods are dark and cold, and of all the ways Dean thought he might die, freezing his almost naked (save for his boxers and Cas’ shirt, ‘cause despite the back and forth, of course Cas insisted Dean have it) ass off in the middle of some poxy woods, didn’t even crack the top fifty. 

“I think we should go back to the house,” Cas says, completely unaware (or uncaring) of how fucking insane he sounds. The paper between his fingers crinkles as he rolls out a joint.

Dean’s not sure he heard him right. “In the quiet words of the virgin Mary, come again?”

“If we go back and—”

“Sure, sure,” Dean interrupts. “Because why Choose Life, huh? What did George Michael know about anything?”

Cas scowls at him. “Can I just explain my plan?” 

“I mean, you can,” Dean says. “But I’m not listening to you. You’re a crazy person.”

“Shut up," Cas tells him as earnestly as he’s ever said anything. He breezes right on past risky and straight on into suicidal, “So, they don’t want to kill us on sight—”

“—As far as we know.”

“ As far as we know. But we also know that they’ve broken in for something specific to do with Sam. Maybe one of us can create a diversion by getting caught, even pretending to help them, while the other goes for the cell and runs back out here to call the police.”

Dean lets everything Cas has said really sink in for the full-strength stupidity. “That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard,” he declares after two minutes of silence for Cas’ sanity. “And I mean, THEE, capital letters, two e’s, the whole shebang. Like the time that lawyer bombed the sky to make it rain.”

Cas eyes him, the pink point of his tongue licking along the edge of the paper. “And I suppose you have a better plan?”

It’s kind of nice to know that this shit isn’t going to change, just ‘cause they’ve touched each other’s dangly bits now. 

“Okay, yeah. Here’s my plan: how about we just don’t do your plan? That’s already infinitely better than running headlong into the barrel of a gun.”

“The word ‘plan’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting there,” Cas says, neatly placing the finished joint into the slim packet of papers. Along with the small baggie of weed, he slips it into his back pocket. “We’re going to have to come up with something, and soon, because we’re miles away from anywhere and between us we’re wearing one pizza man outfit.”

That’s an unfortunately good point. 

The woods that surround them span miles and miles. Even if they do manage to wait until the morning, their chances of finding a way back to civilization remain in the low ‘fuck you, you’re gonna die and get eaten by wolves’ numbers. The road is a no-go, ‘cause being out in the open like that for miles and miles? Well, that’s just asking to be buried in the desert without even a marker for your final resting place.

“Shit,” Dean breathes. Now he gets that Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place isn’t just the name of a particularly ambitious Greek-inspired porno. “This sucks. There’s gotta be a better way though. I mean, how’d they get out here? They must have some transport, right?”

“Unless they were dropped off,” Cas says. “Because when I was at my car earlier, I couldn’t see any other vehicles out on the road.”

“The jammer’s gotta be somewhere nearby then.”

“Looking for it will be just as risky as grabbing the phone and running. Perhaps more so as it may take longer.”

Fuck. Cas is right, isn’t he? 

Dean sighs. “Okay. So who’s gonna be the distraction?”

Cas holds out his closed fist. “Rock, paper, scissors?”

Fuck it. “Fine. On three. One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

Cas keeps his fist clenched, while Dean sticks out his index and middle fingers to make a V shape. Cas’ rock crushes Dean’s scissors.

Grinning at him, Cas says, “You’re so predictable.”

Dean brings his fingers up to his mouth and waggles his tongue in the space. 

“And obscene,” Cas adds thickly. He clears his throat and looks away. “So that means—”

“—Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” Dean says, making to retrieve the meat tenderizer from the tree trunk. He’s not particularly excited about the prospect of seeing Leather Jacket and Machete Man again, especially not if their scary boss is in tow this time, but who knows? Maybe they’ve gone, or maybe they’re actually a really friendly bunch who won’t shoot Dean on sight because he and his friend — lover — partner? have killed three of their men. 

And maybe the Catholic Church will stop shielding pedophiles.

Cas’ broad palm on Dean’s forearm stops him. “No, it means I get to choose. And I choose to be the diversion while you get my phone.”

Dean blinks. His brain stutters over the information. It takes him a hot minute to compute. “Oh, no. No fuckin’ way.”

“It’s not up for discussion. This is not a democracy.”

The fear in Dean’s chest swells, ballooning until it’s pushing up up up, creating a lump in his throat. “I’m not letting you go in there. No chance. Over my dead body.”

Cas tilts his head, and there’s a tiny tremor in the smile he tries to pass off as self-assured. “Unconventional, but not impossible.”

Fucking hell.

Dean inhales again. He exhales slowly, the breath shaking out of his lungs. “Fine,” he snaps after a beat. “Sure, y’know what? Go ahead, Bronson.”

“Fine,” Cas agrees, grabbing the sword. “I will.” He turns away from Dean and begins walking back the way they came in great big ‘I’ll-show-you’ strides. Dean follows, keeping an eye out for the scrunched-up wipes on the ground, but the trail he left isn’t exactly a reliable one. Not unless they start crawling back through the undergrowth. 

He spends the long, winding journey back to the house’s grounds silently plotting how to talk Cas out of his suicide mission, but the asshole is quite possibly the most stubborn person Dean’s ever met. Once he’s got his mind on something, he sticks to it. Unless it’s a hair color. 

They lose their way in the woods a couple of times. At one point, Dean gets scraped across his calf by a jutting stub of branch. Cas almost breaks his ankle when his foot finds a small ditch. But eventually, the still-illuminated house comes into sight beyond the trees, and Dean’s heart rate kicks into high gear.

Shit. 

Cas drops down into a crouch right at the boundary of the property, where they’re still concealed by the forest at their back. Dean joins him. 

“So,” Cas says lowly, “I’m going to go in through the front door and make as much noise as I possibly can. Then you go in through the patio door and grab the phone. Come straight back out here and keep trying to call the police until you get through.”

Dean’s said it before, he’ll say it again. This is a fucking stupid plan. No point in antagonizing Cas further though, despite the unease rolling Dean’s stomach. “How will I know when to come in?” he asks instead. 

“I’ll shout…” Cas trails off, glancing around. His eyes fall on Dean’s face. “Freckles?”

Yep, okay. Dean can’t bite his tongue anymore. The metaphorical blood is soaking his borrowed shirt.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Because you yelling out a random word for no reason at all? That won’t be a fucking neon arrow pointing saying ‘THIS IS A DISTRACTION; PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN ENTERING THE LIVING ROOM!’”

Cas sighs like Dean’s the problem here, not his ill-thought-out ‘plan’. “Okay, so I’ll just make a lot of noise to lure them away. You’ll hear it.”

“Yeah, gunshots aren’t renowned for being quiet.”

“What would you rather do?” Cas asks, pivoting on the ball of his foot to look at Dean properly. “Wait it out until we both die of exposure? And not the kind Instagram models attempt to exchange actual products and services for.”

The silence stretches out, taffy-like. Dean considers all the ways he could say this gently and without resorting to bitten-out insults and immature name-calling. He settles on the fundamental truth, because after all this time, it’s the very least he owes his best friend. 

“I know you’re right,” Dean says quietly, eventually. “But that doesn’t mean I like this.” He hates being this exposed and vulnerable; there’s a reason he’s avoided facing up to his feelings for a long time and it’s this, right here. The fear of losing someone. Especially now that he’s just got Cas back. “I don’t wanna lose you, man. Not again. It nearly destroyed me the first time, I’m not sure I could live through it again. I’m not sure I’d want to.” 

Cas opens his mouth to say something, but Dean pushes on, ‘cause if he doesn’t say this now, he’ll be able to write it off later. He grabs Cas’ free hand and places it on his knee, over the raised bumps of the terrible tattoo Cas inked under his skin years ago. “You’re my north star, dude. You’re my way home.”

Dean wears the uncertainty of his declaration expertly, shifting underneath the bleeding warmth of Cas’ palm on his knee. Cas’ thumb twitches over Dean’s skin. The night is totally still all around them. 

And then Cas is reaching for Dean, dragging him in by the wrist. Dean has no choice but to shuffle awkwardly on his haunches until he crashes into the kiss that Cas initiates. Dean makes a helpless sound against Cas’ mouth, fumbling to touch Cas’ bare skin now that he can, now that he’s allowed. He holds on tight, his heart going so fast that he feels lightheaded. They kiss again and again, clumsy and inelegant, until Dean’s lips are numb and his toes curl in his boots, but Dean thinks that maybe if they could do this forever then they won’t have to do the inevitable. 

Breaking apart for some much-needed oxygen, Cas touches his forehead to Dean’s, the two of them so close that they’re sharing just-hitched breath. “That’s the gayest thing you’ve ever said,” Cas murmurs after a beat. "And I'm including thirty minutes ago, when I had your cock in my hand and you were all," he adopts a higher — verging on falsetto — breathier pitch, " Cas, oh — Cas, fuck—” 

“You’re an asshole,” Dean tells him instead of recreating Cas’ own less-than-dignified mid-coitus declaration. Which he could totally do, ‘cause it was no less embarrassing. 

Cas presses his mouth to Dean’s again. “Yeah, but I’m the asshole at the center of your universe.” He hums to himself, amused. “There’s a joke in there somewhere about Uranus.”

“Shame you can’t find it,” Dean mutters. He goes to pull away, but Cas fists his hand in the front of Dean’s borrowed shirt. 

“I found you again though, didn’t I?” Cas says, abruptly serious. His eyes linger on Dean’s face in an intense, yet soft way. “I’ll always find you, Dean. Because whether I like it or not, my entire universe has always revolved around you too.”

Chapter Text

A few years ago, after a particularly nasty fight with his father, Dean found himself at a ye olde English pub, downing enough booze to put Ernest Hemmingway — an individual who once said that “a man does not exist until he is drunk” — to shame. Fights with John always sent Dean into a tailspin, no matter how many times he resolved to not give a fuck, and this instance was no different, ‘cause Dean’s always been the type of person to lash inward rather than outward. 

Which is why, at five past seven on a quiet Tuesday evening, Dean had been allowing himself to be propositioned by a man who thought that Tia Maria neat was the height of sophistication. His straight-out-of-the-store-packaging shirt was dusted in dandruff, which was pretty impressive considering his hair was so thin that Dean could see right through the wispy strands to the pub’s flock wallpaper. 

Dean had been sort of considering taking the guy out back for a quick mutual handjob, but then Cas was there, cutting right in between Dean and the dude’s leer. Dean had watched his best friend with watery, tired eyes, shame registering somewhere low on the scale, but still enough to make his cheeks burn. Cas drove the guy off with a series of cutting comebacks and threats of harassment charges, until Dean’s potential conquest took one look at Dean and then sneered, “Eh, he’s not even worth it.”

Cas’ lucky punch knocked ol’ spirit hair right the fuck out. Chaos had ensued and the three of them were barred — no big loss; Guinness is a fucking abomination. Back at Cas’ apartment, Dean held a pack of frozen chicken nuggets (no peas, what are they, French?) on Cas’ fight-bruised knuckles. Cas smiled at him, this small, genuine thing, and helpless, Dean had smiled right back. Standing there in Cas’ crappy little kitchen, the world felt right. 

It was a moment among millions that they’d shared over the years. 

And then Cas had swayed minutely closer to Dean, his breath heavy with the taste of the pepperoni pizza he’d abandoned in favor of rushing out to answer Dean’s drunken SOS text (“giys hsir is thiner tha the plot of dr srxy”). 

Dean’s lungs had forgotten to work. His heart had been hammering away like a sewing machine in a sweatshop. He’d thought maybe, just maybe. But the moment passed, and Cas had muttered something about if Dean wanted to fuck old gross men, he could at least do himself the service of getting paid for it. 

Which, yeah. A good point, well made. 

What Dean thinks he’s getting at here is that sometimes people need saving from themselves. (And that maybe he and Cas should’ve been fucking each other’s fists a lot sooner.)

Which is why Dean decides to formulate his own plan. It follows the same beats as Cas’, but with one major difference: Cas probably (hopefully) won’t get shot in the face. Or, if he does, Dean’s vengeance will be swift and thorough. 

He watches from his position at the edge of the woods, still crouched low, as Cas tears across the grass, sword in hand, looking like a way more attractive, way less racist Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Before he disappears around the side of the house, and with his free hand splayed on the rough stucco, Cas pauses and looks back at Dean, who catches his best friend’s gaze without trying. 

Dean’s chest swells with a long inhale. He might puke. 

Then Cas is gone, and Dean waits. 

He lasts maybe ten seconds before he leaves his hiding place, and, hunkered low, he follows the boundary line of the property. He keeps moving, sparing glances towards the house as he gets closer and closer. Once he reaches the apron of the pool, he slows right down, ears pricked for any Cas-related noises. 

He’s crouched behind one of the pool loungers, still with the empty pizza box on the end, when there’s a shout and a crash. He jumps, his heart-rate spiking wildly and then he can hear Cas’ rapid-fire belligerence coming from the other end of the house; him swearing at his captors, probably throwing fists and kicking for good measure, because suicidal plan or not, Cas won’t make it easy for them.

Problem is, Cas might be scrappier than a terrier in a barn full of rats, but he's also only human. And like all humans, he has one major weakness: death. 

It would be awfully convenient for Cas, wouldn’t it, if he died before he and Dean got the chance to figure out their shit. There’s no better way to (literally) ghost someone than by peacing out and dying. 

So yeah, it’s not happening. Dean’ll just have to be the hero and pull off a daring rescue mission with his own wits and a meat tenderizer.

Carefully, he enters the living room through the still-open patio door, and, staying crouched down behind various pieces of pretentious furniture, Dean makes quick work of finding Cas’ cell still in the pocket of the robe, and he stores it safely in his right boot. The Tweedle Brothers’ lifeless bodies are nearby, undisturbed from where Cas and Dean left them over an hour ago, their corpses bloody, and eyes glassy; corneas already turning cloudy.

Dean fights back a shudder and continues onward, slowly making his way towards where the voices are loudest. He skirts the edge of the living room, crab-walking past the study, and army crawls toward the open-plan dining room. 

James Bond, eat your heart out.  

“...the other one?” a familiar female voice demands, and Dean peeks around the corner. Leather Jacket’s there, standing pretty casually with her back to Dean and a hand resting on her cocked hip. She’s holding a 9mm pistol where Dean’s eyes can find it. 

In front of Leather Jacket, bound to one of Sammy’s expensive if-you-break-one-of-these-you’ll-be-paying-for-it-for-the-rest-of-your-life chairs, is Cas. His arms are pulled tight behind his back, tied with black zip ties to the stile, and there’s a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth. His eyes are blazing with defiance though, the stubborn ass, and Dean’s skin prickles with the need to just blunder over there and save him.

“Do you have a name?” the man seated just Cas’ left and Dean’s right, says. He’s calm, stroking at his temple, like he’s asking about whether the place has underfloor heating. But there’s an air of menace about him that has bile burning hot at the back of Dean’s throat. He’s pretty sure it’s the guy from the other end of the phone call earlier, and that alone means he’s both unoriginal and a wildcard. The sword that’s been wrestled from Cas’ klepto hands (and probably with the difficulty of prising an illicit toy from a sticky-fingered toddler) is at his feet; a back up to the gun resting on the arm of the bucket chair he must’ve dragged in from the living room.

“No, actually I’m one of those people who isn’t that lucky,” Cas smarts, and Dean wants to kill him. Wants to rescue him, kiss him, tell him that he’s an asshole (again), and then fucking strangle him. 

Leather Jacket’s cauldron-cackle grates against Dean’s nerves. “Handsome and funny. Where have you been all my life?”

Cas’ contemptuous, withering glare lets everyone in the room know precisely what he thinks about that terrible line and it’s nothing positive. Chair Guy — the long-awaited bossman Luke, Dean presumes — side-eyes Leather Jacket. Nobody says anything for a long, airless moment.

And then, good old Machete Man — someone who looks like he would deliver the fuck of a stiff ironing board — breaks the silence with a villain classic, “I think I’m going to have fun making you talk.”

Cas’ expression doesn’t change. 

Warmth spawls in Dean’s chest. Cas is an idiot, absolutely, but he’s a brave idiot. 

Luke uncrosses his legs and sits forward with his elbows on his knees and fingers loosely interlocked. It’s a move straight out of the mob boss manual and Dean’s concern for Cas’ fragile mortality spikes off the charts. “Where’s your friend?”

“What friend?” Cas asks, faux-innocently.

For that, he receives a backhander from Leather Jacket. The sharp crack of it sends Cas’ head to the side and fresh blood blooms at the corner of his mouth. Slanting her a nasty look, Cas spits out a thick combination of blood and saliva onto the floor.

Sam is going to be pissed. 

Good.

Completely unaffected by the violence and bodily fluids, Luke says, “We’re here for Sam Winchester. He—" Luke tilts his head, cracking his neck, and ah, and there it is. The psychosis. The creeping danger lurking just below the surface. “—and I have a special relationship.”

The fuck is Sammy involved in?

“What kind of special relationship?” Cas asks with an arched brow and bloodied teeth. “The kind that forces imperialistic values onto countries with oil, or do you just fuck on the weekends?”

Dean doesn’t give himself away by blurting out a surprised laugh, but it’s a close thing; a disaster only averted by biting into the meat of his palm at the last second. 

Fuck’s sake, Cas. 

“Oh, can we keep him?” Leather Jacket asks Luke, with all the ill-contained glee of a girl who squishes hamsters to death with her bare hands. “I’ll make sure to keep him well-fed and I’ll even walk him regularly.”

“No,” Luke tells her firmly, less amused by Cas’ smart mouth, his irritation spreading by the minute like a suspect rash. “We’re only here for one thing, Meg. A new plaything for you isn’t it.”

She huffs and falls silent. 

Luke turns his attention back to Cas. His expression smooths out, but the burn of his temper is still smoldering behind his eyes. “Sam and I, we crossed paths a while back in a… professional capacity. We had a connection.”

“Oh, so, you're a stalker, then," Cas surmises flatly. He sounds disappointed. Bored. Like all this is just one big cliché and a waste of his time. 

It kind of is.

The 90s called, they want their dime-a-dozen, thriller-starring-Morgan-Freeman motivations back.

“ No ,” Luke corrects, his patience fraying around the edges. Ooh, Danger, Will Robinson. “No, I am not a stalker. He betrayed me during my case that he was working on — where we met and became close — and I, as a result, ended up having to do jail time.”

Yikes on fucking bikes. 

“Betrayed you, how?” Cas asks, and Dean can tell that it’s part stalling tactic, part genuine curiosity. 

Meg sighs overdramatically, like she’s heard all this a thousand times before. 

“We were in love,” Luke says, ignoring Cas’ muttered “does his wife know?” in favor of continuing his fairytale. “He played hard to get at first, of course. He was trying to be professional, which is admirable, but I knew that once the case was over, we would be together without any accusations of conflicts of interest.”

Christ. Admittedly, Dean and his brother aren’t as close as he wishes sometimes, but if Sam suddenly went gay for someone who’s beginning to sound more and more like a less benevolent Al Capone, Dean likes to think that he would’ve at least gotten a hastily typed-out note on headed paper from his secretary. 

“But instead, he sent you to prison,” Cas says. “I don’t think even Dr. Phil could salvage this relationship.” He leans forward against his bindings, the thin strands of plastic cutting into skin and muscle. Whispered like a secret, he adds, “Especially not since you’ve broken into his house and trashed the place. In my experience, that’s not the way to a man’s heart.”

Nope, it’s forest handjobs and snarky insults.

Is that what’s going on here, though? A good, old-fashioned wooing, a la Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams? Dean can’t imagine anyone but the most unhinged of straitjacket-wearers bringing chainsaws and guns to a romantic rendezvous. But then again, Dean’s never been a fully-fledged psychopath, so what does he know? 

A lot, actually, because his mind reels back to the conversation on the phone at the beginning of the night. The one where the pretender to the Ghostface throne threatened to carve Winchester up like a turkey.

Luke ain’t here to romance Sam; he’s here to murder the shit out of him. 

Well, fuck. 

Maybe it’s time for an intervention. As fun as it is watching Cas mouth off to people who are packing enough weapons to carry the Friday 13th franchise, sooner or later the dumbass is going to push his luck and end up with a machete through the chest. 

Dean slinks back, pressing himself up against the wall around the corner from the dining room. 

Think, think, think. 

He can probably take one of them, but all three? Nah.

He needs a distraction. Which might be the irony of the century. A distraction to distract them from Cas’ distraction.

Fuck, they’re a pair of idiots. 

“Maybe you should start being a bit more helpful,” Luke is saying to Cas. “You're only alive because we thought you could be useful.”

"Well, that's really on you then, isn't it?" Cas not-helps. It’s followed up by the dull sound of a punch connecting with flesh, and Dean winces on Cas’ behalf. Stupid, brave, irritating idiot.

Cas makes a helpless, furious sound, and Dean hears a chair creak. When Meg says in a low, sultry voice, “Ooooh, are you tattooed everywhere?” Dean can’t help but peer back around the corner. She’s straddling Cas’ thighs, dragging the muzzle of her gun down Cas’ throat and between his pecs.

Cas isn’t giving her the satisfaction of leaning back as far as he can, or straight out telling her to fuck off or anything like that, but his jaw is clenched and he’s fighting not to move. 

Shit. 

Dean’s both furious and jealous enough to write a country song. 

“Where’s your friend?” Machete Man asks with the geniality of a tiger shark. “We just want a quiet word with him.”

Glaring at him over Meg’s shoulder, Cas says, “‘A quiet word’? Because you’ve been discreet so far?”

Dean turns away from the scene before he barges straight in there, all caveman and hormones. His eyes scan over the living room, searching for something that could be used as a distraction. There’s the empty chainsaw, the gasoline that Cas drained out of it. Dean could set the soaked mat alight? Fire has a tendency to grab most folks’ attention. 

But, it is risky. 

There’s a lot of scope for things to go wrong with fire. Plus, burning Sam’s house down seems a tad melodramatic. The dick deserves Nair in his shampoo, not his home becoming ashes. 

Hmm.

Dean keeps on looking, his panic rising faster than a bad moon, until he sees the fancy speaker system with his own dead phone resting on top. A sudden burst of noise would be enough to maybe have one or two of the bad guys come searching, giving Cas a chance to pull off a Jason Bourne escape. 

It’s the best (only viable) idea he’s got. 

Which isn’t a super positive indicator of this going well, but blind luck and a medium-to-good hustle has worked for them so far. 

Dean sneaks quietly over to the sleek black surround sound speakers, checking over his shoulder every couple of paces, and trying not to think about all the ways Cas is probably being sexually assaulted right now. 

Heart in his throat, he lays the tenderizer down next to the speaker and pulls Cas’ phone out of his boot. He taps the side power button and is greeted with a picture on the lock screen. One that’s different from the one he’s seen as Cas’ wallpaper.

Oh.

It’s a picture of Dean from probably around ten years ago. He’s wearing what used to be his favorite band hoodie and leaning against the smeary window of the greyhound bus they took to a gig in Sioux City, ‘cause neither of them had a car. His hair is longer and a washed-out shade of pink. His wink is over exaggerated and effortlessly flirty. 

He looks young and happy and stupid. 

And Cas has it on his phone. Must’ve transferred it a handful of times since it was taken. 

Dean feels his own face soften, like he’s thinking of smiling at a fucking Apple product when there’s a very real possibility that Cas is gonna end up with a bullet in his stupid sappy stupid brain. 

Simp later, save now.

Swiping up on the screen — no lock, ‘cause Cas likes to live on the dumbass edge — Dean’s greeted with the picture of Cas and the twink, and a sharp flare of jealousy skewers him right underneath the ribs like a prison shank. If the damn phone had more than 21% of battery then Dean would seriously consider changing the picture to one of his cock, but Cas not dying is kind of time-sensitive, so instead, he navigates to Spotify. 

There’s a few recent release punk and metal albums on the main screen that are obviously getting some heavy play from Cas, but there’s also a far less cool 80s playlist. 

Obviously, Dean clicks on the latter. 

The third song down the playlist catches Dean’s eye. There’s absolutely no reason he can’t have fun with this, is there? Continuing the general theme of tonight, which so far has been a panicked, chaotic, clumsy attempt at survival, Dean’s at least going to get a laugh out of it. 

He switches the Bluetooth on, hooking it all up pretty effortlessly. Checking once more over his shoulder, he grabs the tenderizer and speaker remote, and retreats to Sam’s office, hiding behind the open door. 

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, steeling himself for another clusterfuck of a fight. Blood roars in his ears. His pulse is fluttering faster than a hummingbird’s wings, his nerves are a hot rush under his skin, his chest is tight. “Fuck,” he says again and presses play and tosses the remote. There’s a short delay before the song starts playing its jaunty little intro.

‘Not a word, from your lips. You just took for granted that I want to skinny dip…’

Dean holds the meat tenderizer close to his chest and waits. 

‘...A quick hit, that's your game. But I'm not a piece of meat, stimulate my brain…’

He thinks he can hear movement, but he can’t be sure and isn’t about to check. 

‘...The night is young, so are we. Let's just get to know each other, slow and easily…’

Over the music, he hears a roared, “FIND HIM!” Then half a beat later, “AND TURN THE FUCKING MUSIC OFF!”

Oooh. Luke is big mad.

‘...Maybe then you'll score. So come on baby, won't you show some class, why do you want to move so fast?’

Peeping through the open space between the jamb and the door, Dean sees movement in the living room. It’s Machete Man — exactly who he was hoping for. He can’t see Leather Jacket or Luke anywhere, so he’s doing a Bon Jovi and living on a fucking prayer here. 

Dean kicks out at the bookshelf that lines the nearest study wall, until a couple of heavy legal hardbacks fall off, making enough noise that Machete Man will be able to hear. 

‘... We don't have to take our clothes off to have a good time…’

It works. Machete Man’s head jerks toward the study and Dean’s sweaty hands grip the handle of the tenderizer tighter. His stomach swoops like a B-52 bomber.

This was a fucking stupid idea.

‘... We could dance and party all night, and drink some cherry wine…’

The door is shoved open wider by a broad shoulder, and, without hesitation, Dean swings his weapon, hoping to catch Machete Man off guard like he did with Dukey earlier. Unfortunately, MM is a bit more aware and a bit less of a dumbass, so, instead of attempting to use the machete in his right hand — blocked by the door as it is — he steps back at just the right time and throws a weak punch with his left.

Dean gets a closed fist to the chest, and it sends him stumbling, his back colliding with the wall.

‘... Nah nah nah nah nah. Just slow down if you want me; a man wants to be approached cool and romantically…’

Reflexively, Dean swipes out with the meat tenderizer, but it doesn’t quite have the reach of the sword, and so he falls short of doing any damage. He receives another, stronger punch — this time to the center of his abdomen — that has him sinking to his knees, with the unpleasant feeling of not being able to inhale enough, like something is constricting his lungs.  

‘... I've got needs, uh, just like you; gimme conversations, good vibrations, through and through…’

Winded and down, but not out, Dean lunges forward before MM can hack him to pieces with his namesake weapon, blindly reaching for the Murano glass pear on Sam’s desk, using the paperweight-slash-masturbatory aid as a close-range missile, flinging it at MM’s body mass, in the hopes of…? Maiming him with the smooth glass? Distracting him with the shiny thing? Dean’s not quite sure, and of course, it bounces off of MM uselessly, barely even a flicker on that murderous radar. 

Shit. 

It buys Dean a confused scowl, and not much else, so he puts as much power into the next swing as he can, embedding the meat tenderizer in MM’s knee so hard that Dean actually feels the bone splinter. 

MM screams in agony and crumples in on himself like an empty bag of chips.

‘...So come on baby, won't you show some class? Why you want to move so fast?...’

Dean unsteadily pushes to his feet as MM falls, the two of them in perfect counterbalance. Not waiting for the inevitable retaliation, he brings the tenderizer down onto the lowered crown of MM’s head, cracking right through the skull on the first try. 

‘... We don't have to take our clothes off, to have a good time, oh no…’

It’s a bloody, pulverized mess, with brains and scalp and bone everywhere, but Dean doesn’t stop. Not even when MM faceplants the floor; Dean just drops to his knees and keeps on bringing the meat tenderizer down against what’s left of MM’s skull.

‘... We could dance and party all night an — ’

The music cuts out, and abruptly the only sound in the silence is the squishy thud of Dean beating some fucker’s brains into the grain of his brother’s hardwood flooring. 

Stop. Before they find you. STOP.

Breathing hard and covered in more gore than a Brian Yuzna movie, Dean finally stops. His right hand hurts from where he’s gripping the meat tenderizer so hard, blood slicking in the creases of his fingers, the strong coppery scent of it thick in the small space. His stomach aches like cramps from a particularly dodgy takeout, but against all odds, he’s alive and — all things considered — gotten off pretty lucky.

Cas.  

He has to get back to Cas. 

Chest heaving, Dean clambers to his feet, staring down at MM. He picks out an off-white piece of skull from between the little pyramid-shaped blades of the tenderizer and flicks it across the room. 

Okay, so. Think.

To reunite with Cas, he needs to get out of here without crossing paths with either Luke or Meg. Which sounds simple in principle, but if tonight’s proven anything, it’s that home invasions by stalker mobsters have the learning curve of Cuphead; a game infamous for yeeted controllers and broken TV screens. 

There’s a single hung window in this room, and, leaving the unwieldy machete next to MM’s body, Dean rounds Sam’s desk to get a better look at it. Directly underneath the sill outside, is a particularly spiky-looking rose bush.

Hooo, boy. This is gonna hurt. 

Muscles quivering with the effort, Dean manages to throw the resistant sash window open. It makes a loud screech as it gives, and Dean grimaces. 

If the bad guys didn’t know his precise location beforehand, they certainly do now.

There’s no pleasant way to dive into a pile of thorns and floral fragrance. Dean’s legs are bare, so dropping feet first seems like a bad idea, but the alternative is face first, and Dean’s grown quite accustomed to having both eyes.

“We can talk about this,” comes Luke’s voice from the living room. He sounds confident, as though Dean hasn’t just used his underling to redecorate Sam’s study a pretty shade of brain. “But you need to come out where I can see you.”

Oh, yeah, suuuure.

Dean swings a leg over the sill and shifts his center of gravity until he’s straddling the ledge — which is less than comfortable with nothing but a thin layer of cotton protecting his junk. Ducking his head under the lower sash, and bracing his weight on the casing, he lowers his right leg into the bush. 

As predicted, Bret Michaels knew what he was talking about, ‘cause literally every single rose in the bush seems to have a whole entourage of fucking thorns, and they all scratch Dean’s delicate flesh, tearing jagged patterns into the faded ink on his calf. 

“Shit, shit, fuck, shit,” Dean grits out, one eye on the door, in case Luke decides to come and be a part of this shitshow. 

Multitasking has never been a skill Dean’s mastered. It’s an unfortunate truth of his life that manifests in the very next second, when — due to his attention remaining on what the fucker beyond the study door is up to — his blood-slick hand slips, leaving a rust-red smear on the white casing, and he overbalances, resulting in him falling sideways — and with a strangled yelp — into the rose bush. 

There’s no easy way to communicate just how much it hurts. But there’s also no time to wallow in self pity, ‘cause he’s got to go rescue the damsel in distress. 

Ass in the air and protecting the goods as best as he can, Dean half climbs, half crawls out of the rose bush, thankful for Cas’ shirt protecting his nipple rings from getting yanked out by vindictive little fucking thorns. 

Sonofa —

Free from the immediate danger of turning into a Poison Ivy knock-off, he lurches to his feet. Leaning against the stucco like a spy who’s tired of being alive and has decided to be as conspicuous as possible, he takes a handful of seconds to consider his options. He’s got a choice: he can either go the longer, but quieter way around the garage, or the shorter, but noisier and potentially more visible way around the front porch area. 

Dean’s not a patient man, but in this case, he’s willing to rack up the extra steps in order to not get dead.

Decision made, he staggers along the outer front wall of the house. He’s mostly concealed by various conveniently-planted trees and landscaped bushes that must be a bitch to maintain without a minimum-wage workforce the size of a small country.

When he reaches the corner, he stops moving completely, holding his breath and listening for footsteps or voices. Unable to hear anything other than blood roaring in his ears, he peeks around to scan this side of the building for bad guys. 

Mercifully, there’s nobody. In fact, it’s quiet.

Unnaturally fucking quiet. 

Which should be the first clue that his two remaining opponents are up to something, but all Dean can do is keep pushing onward, hoping that he’s not in for a repeat of the Tweedle fiasco. 

Dean moves silently, sticking close to the outside of the garage, impressed with himself for not whimpering when he steps in something soft and squishy or when a creature with more legs than Dean has brain cells crawls up the back of his borrowed shirt. 

Anticipation mounts with every step, Dean’s heart beating wildly as he shuffles along in darkness on his daring rescue mission.

By the time he ducks under the kitchen window, he’s worked up a sweat and is once again cursing the obscene amount of money his younger brother must make in order to afford this ginormous place. 

From here, Dean can see the portion of the dining room that backs onto the terrace area in front of the pool. It’s all glass, like the rest of the patio area, which means that Dean has a perfect view of the carnage inside. Smashed chairs litter the floor in splintered pieces; thousands of dollars reduced to matchwood by someone who means fucking business. The sword is embedded in the dining table, chopped through the near center of it in a blind rage, no doubt as Dean beat their colleague to death with a meat tenderizer to an 80s classic about remaining pure and chaste. 

In the middle of the earthquake ruins is Cas. His body slumped over in the chair he’s been hostage-tied to. Lifeless. 

No. No. Cas. Please, fuck no.

Without thinking at all, let alone: ‘hey, this might be a fucking trap’, Dean bolts from his hiding place, around the near side of the pool, and runs right up to the window. “Cas!” he yells, banging on the glass, heedless of whoever might hear.

Cas’ head lolls to the side. Blood drools from his mouth. 

Nonononono.

Panic spiking, Dean’s remaining strand of rationality snaps, and insanity takes over. He keeps banging on the glass, his fists — one still holding the tenderizer, which would be much more useful for smashing the window, if he could think beyond the wild hysteria — smearing the oxygenated blood of a murdered man everywhere like a shitty modern art piece. He’s desperate for some kind of reaction from Cas: a twitch, a middle finger, anything other than bled-white features and stillness. 

Movement snags in Dean’s periphery. 

Shit. 

Dean knows what’s coming in the stuttered heartbeat before a smug female voice behind him purrs, “So good of you to join us.” He just doesn’t care. 

Dean’s still pressed up against the glass, looking forlornly at the body of his best friend when something pops inside his head, blood flooding his mouth. And then everything’s abruptly black. 

***

It’s warm out and Dean’s straddling Cas on the lounger. He's got the sword resting in the dip of Cas' collarbone, the sharp edge of the blade catching the silver moonlight. Cas is wearing nothing but the kimono again, Dean the robe. 

His eyes look black in this light. His palm rests on Dean’s bare thigh. He bites his lip, pearly white digging into plush pink segmented by a silver ring.

Wait, what?

The dark halo of Cas’ hair is stark against the lounger. 

Something splashes on Dean’s face. The drink in Cas’ hand? No, can’t be. Cas doesn’t drink martinis.

“Come on, handsome,” Cas says, but it’s several octaves higher. Blood greases his words, pink turned red. His hand curls around Dean’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss that Dean doesn’t try to fight, even with the thick tang of iron smeared between their mouths. 

Something wavers in and out of Dean’s sight like a flare. It distracts him, pulling his attention from Cas. He sits up, but there’s nothing there, just the darkness flowing on and on. Like a fallen curtain at the end of a show; no skyline, no trees, no pool.

When he looks back, Cas is gone. Not walked away, just poof not there. 

He succumbs to the urge to close his eyes, the throb in the back of his head a pounding bass like a hangover after a gig. It’s easy to sink into the rhythmic soothe of it. 

“Oh no you don’t,” the voice says again. It’s followed by sharp pain, a cracking sound. Something hurts. “Wake up.”

Nausea hits him in a dizzying wave as he forces his eyes open. He has no idea where he is or what time it is. Everything slides like a capsizing ship, the frame around his field of vision tilting and making Dean’s seasickness worse. 

His breath trembles. The strong scent of chlorine catches at the back of his throat. He’s disoriented and confused, like he’s woken up after taking a long nap in the middle of the day. 

Dean scrabbles for coherency. He’s out by the pool, but where’s Cas? Where’s the sword? He’s got nothing in his hand, and he’s not wearing Sam’s robe, just a red — Cas’ — shirt. 

Oh, fuck. 

As he focuses, Dean realizes that he’s been knocked out cold, and that little horny-slash-fuckin’-weird vignette was a figment of his dying brain cells. 

He’s on his side, in the recovery position — he knows it well with the amount of partying he’s done — and he gets one palm flat on the concrete. He pushes up with a wet-spaghetti-weak arm, wobbling a couple of times as he wrangles himself into a sitting position. Everything lurches back into focus: the trees, the wispy breath of condensation a couple of inches above the pool’s heated water, the regretfully empty loungers, Meg. 

“Hi handsome,” she says, her coral-pink mouth pulled into a cruel grin. “You were gone for a good couple of minutes there. Thought I’d actually killed you.”

Dean warily eyes the gun in her right hand. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because we need you to get to Sam, silly rabbit. How are you feeling?”

“Like there’s a party in my mouth and someone's emptied an ashtray on the carpet,” Dean answers, gently touching the crown of his head. His fingers come back slick with blood. 

Meg makes an amused noise. “You and your delicious friend are so delightfully spunky, aren’t you?”

Cas. 

Spots dance in front of his eyes when he whips his head around to look at the dining room. The debris is still there, littering the room like the aftermath of a natural disaster, but Cas is gone. 

A pathetic whine crawls up Dean’s throat like a beaten dog. 

“It’s a shame he had to die really,” Meg continues, while Dean’s vision swims with unshed tears. “I would’ve loved to have taken him home and shown him a good time.”

“Don’t think you’re really his type,” Dean manages to get out past the tightness in his throat. Something throbs at the back of his eyesight. It pounds like a gunshot. 

“Oh.” A corner of her mouth pulls up into a devious smile. “But he was definitely yours, wasn’t he?”

Yeah. He was Dean’s.

He refuses to blink away the tears, so they spill over, hot on his cheeks, sharpening his lashes into goldspun spikes.

He never told Cas that he loved him. The best he can hope for is that Cas knew, but it’s little comfort when guilt is sitting heavy in his chest, slowly crushing the breath from his lungs. If he’d followed the plan, if he hadn’t lost the phone, if he hadn’t invited Cas in—

Inside the house, something breaks. Some priceless bullshit that Sam and Jess probably commissioned a fingerless Himalayan artist to create out of Yak’s teeth and straw. 

“What the fuck?” Meg says, her gaze lifting off of Dean and swinging in the direction of the patio doors. Dean follows her line of sight, a trickle of hope seeping in between the pieces of his broken heart. 

Maybe, maybe Cas was faking? Like that time he pretended to have broken his leg to get out of gym class, while Dean — who tried the very same thing — was told to stop horsing around and sentenced to detention for the rest of the week.

Yeah. Maybe he’s okay. Cas, please be okay. 

Suddenly, there’s a volley of gunshots; a frantic burst of rounds that are far too loud in the otherwise stillness of the early hours. It’s followed by a pained shout, the sound of furniture crashing about, more expensive shit getting broken.

Cas.  

His vision still fuzzes in and out like the midnight static on an old TV, but Dean gets his hands and knees under him. Just in time for Meg’s kick to his abdomen to knock him back down to the less-than-comfy concrete again. “Stay down!” she yells, her focus frantically darting between him and the partially open door. 

“I’ll tell you,” Dean wheezes, and it’s 50/50 whether it’s a bluff or not, as long as it saves Cas. He can deal with the rest — that being Meg and Luke’s inevitable and messy murders — later. “I’ll tell you what you need to know about Sammy. I’ll take you to him.” 

Meg doesn’t pay him any attention. Every last scrap of it is on the house. The house which is deathly quiet now. 

Cas, please. Please, don’t be dead, you fucking dick. 

“Everything okay in there?” Meg tries, aiming for casual, but there’s genuine concern lurking right behind the voice-crack on the word ‘okay’.

There’s no response from Luke. Or Cas.

Fuck this. Dean’s not just going to lie here. He starts the slow process of forcing his limbs to cooperate.

“Shit,” Meg says. Then shouts, “Luke, give me a sign you’re okay!”

Nothing.

Dean gets his knees and elbows underneath himself, ass in the air. It’s not super dignified, but he is making progress as Meg ignores him in favor of inching closer toward the patio door. 

“Boss?”

A stray rose thorn digs deeper into the flesh behind Dean’s knee, and he stifles a pained groan at the stinging pull of it. 

“Luke?” Meg says uneasily. She raises the gun. “What’s going on?”

Still nothing.

Hope swells in Dean’s chest. C’mon Cas. 

“I am so done with this shit,” Meg blurts, frustrated. “Luke, just let me know you’re okay, pop your head out or something !”

Luke’s head doesn’t pop out. It rolls.

By itself; the rest of Luke isn’t attached.

His head tumbles out of the house like a lopsided, mutant bowling ball. Meg jumps backward on a surprised shriek, nearly falling over the nearest lounger, barely catching herself in time. 

Oh, holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

Dean and Meg both watch on wordlessly as Luke’s head drops to the concrete. As it falls, his tongue is sticking out. The concrete clips him on the chin, and he bites his tongue nearly off. It hangs by a string of flesh as his head rolls a crooked course toward the pool.

He seems to glance at Dean each time his face comes up. The stump of his neck flings blood through the air. His tongue comes off. 

He bounces and rolls all the way toward the pool. By the time he reaches its edge, his nose is flat and his upper front teeth are broken, which adds a cartoonish dimension to the horror and makes him look like a crazy golf obstacle. Luke flashes Dean a quick, awful grin, before sailing off the pool edge and plopping into the water.

Welp, Sam only said no pee in the pool, he didn’t say anything about blood or body parts.

The water begins to turn pink around his sinking head, but Dean’s far more interested in the door rumbling the rest of the way open.

Out steps Cas. Shirtless, in just his work pants, he’s holding the sword in his right hand. From face to feet, he’s splattered with blood. Except for his left arm, which is sleeved with it.

Somewhere in Sam and Jess’ house, he must’ve made an awful mess.

Holy Christing fuck. 

Cas is such an intimidating (read: fucking horny) sight, that even though Meg has a gun, she still backs away from him, the sound of her heels on concrete the only noise aside from Cas’ uneven, furious breathing. 

Cas’ eyes meet Dean’s in a brief moment of solidarity. He doesn’t need to say anything; his murderous expression communicates the headline: ‘ you should be in the woods calling the cops, you fucking smooth-like-an-egg brained idiot. ’

“You’re welcome, Cas,” Dean tells him with a relieved grin that probably comes off more as a grimace. Every body part hurts. He’s wearing nothing but Cas’ shirt, on his bloody hands and creaky knees next to a rich bastard’s pool, like a twink who’s aged out of the status, but refuses to stop wearing mesh shirts and popping molly like candy. 

Cas fixes Dean with a severe, narrow-eyed glare, before he turns that ire on Meg, who continues backing away in uncoordinated steps as Cas moves forward. Dean isn’t willing to bet on her not bolting or shooting, nor is he letting Cas have 4-2 bragging rights for the rest of their lives, so just as Meg gets level with him, he dives forward, flopping onto the ground like a walrus out of water, and grabs her ankle. He tugs. 

She flails, her arms pinwheeling, trying in vain to regain her balance. The gun flies out of her hand and pitches muzzle-first into the pool with a neat little plop. Dean yanks her ankle harder. She stumbles backward, falling into the pool with a much bigger splash than the pistol. 

Through the frothy curtain of bubbles, Dean sees her open-mouthed, wet hair in stasis all around her. It’s almost peaceful, beautiful. Serene. And then she starts thrashing underwater, struggling to get back to the surface.

Huh. How the fuck do you live in California and not know how to swim? 

If she had any sense of decency — or any sense at all, really — she’d just drown. 

Dean can help with that. 

(The drowning part, not the sense part.)

Cas’ bloody palm grasps Dean’s left shoulder from above. Dean clings to his best friend’s forearm for the strength Cas still somehow has in his muscles, letting himself be gripped tight and hauled up until he’s standing on jello-legs. 

Together, they watch as Meg almost makes it to the surface near to the pool’s edge, but right before she does, Dean snatches her hope away. He plants his foot on her head, keeping her head below the water. 

The sword clatters to the concrete behind them and Cas’ arms go around Dean’s waist, his body solid and warm and alive at Dean’s back, holding him steady. Meg claws at Dean’s boot frantically, her bulging eyes searching the poolside for anyone who’ll help her. 

Dean grins at her. It isn’t friendly. He imagines her lungs shrinking and burning as she fights to be allowed a single sip of air, the oxygen deprivation making her movements sluggish. He hopes it’s agony. 

One second barges into the next as the fight seeps from her body. Her arms slither back into the water. Her skin is going blue. 

“Fuck you,” Dean tells her with a customer service smile, right before hypoxia sets in and she loses consciousness. 

He maintains his position longer than is probably necessary. Partly it’s to ensure she’s really dead, ‘cause he’s seen enough horror movies to know that only amateurs don’t double-check the body, but also because Cas is holding him up, his breathing a slow, shaky push in Dean’s ear. 

“If I let you go—” Cas starts.

“Don’t,” Dean pleads and the single syllable sounds cracked, broken. 

Wordlessly, Cas supports Dean as he slowly slumps to his knees. Blood swirls in the pool. Under the moving surface, Meg’s body looks distorted. 

Jesus fucking Christ. 

This is the most amount of cardio he’s done in years.

Satisfied that Dean’s not going to pitch over, Cas releases him. Dean doesn’t have long to mourn the loss, ‘cause Cas comes to sit next to him, his clothed legs over the pool edge, his feet in the water. 

Ew.

Dean glances at Luke’s head, mildly concerned that this scene might somehow turn into one from Piranha 3DD, though he doubts Luke’s feeble chompers will be able to get through Cas’ shoes. Or Dean’s boots, for that matter.

Eh, fuck it.  

Dean’s shoulder bumps against his best friend’s as he unsteadily moves to sit. He swings his feet over the side of the pool and into the water. 

Cas lifts his hips up off the concrete, reaching into his rear pocket and coming back with his lighter and the (now) squashed joint he rolled earlier. Joint pinched between his lips, Cas shelters it with one hand, and lights it with the other. 

Dean looks out beyond the pool and toward the forest. The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon, and it shades the sky in watercolor pinks and oranges.

Cas’ forearm nudges Dean’s as he hands off the joint. There’s crimson smeared on the white paper, but Dean accepts the smoke anyway, their fingertips bumping as Cas passes it over. He takes a long drag, feeling the burn in his lungs, reveling in the familiar hit.

“Quite the evening,” Cas murmurs, staring out at the treeline.

“Yeah,” Dean says. 

Cas reaches across to thread his blood-tacky fingers through Dean’s. He rests their joined hands on Dean’s left knee, over the ink. “I suppose I could see about fixing your tattoo up,” he says quietly, gently.

Dean lets his breath out long and slow. “Yeah. Yeah, I s’pose you could. I’ve still got your kit at my place.” He hands off the joint.

They both watch as Luke’s head bobs towards the pool filter. 

“Mm,” Cas says, tilting his head back on an exhale. Gray smoke curls upwards. “I might come ‘round then.”

Dean’s grip on Cas’ hand tightens. “California to Kansas is a long way, man.”

“True,” Cas agrees after a long moment. He passes the joint back to Dean. “Kansas to Kansas not so much though.” His thumb traces over Dean’s knuckles. “I’m thinking that California’s more of a vacation spot.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, and he grins at Cas. “I hear that the mechanics in Kansas are far hotter too. And with the way you fuckin’ drive, you’re gonna need one on call.”

“Know any that might be willing to give me their number?”

“I can think of one,” Dean says, trying not to fixate on the bruised way Cas stares at him. “And by all accounts, he’s easier than an eighth-grade English test. So if you play your cards right, he might even let you pay in kind.”

Cas lifts Dean’s hand to his lips and kisses his pulse-point. One side of his mouth quirks in a sly smile as he looks at Dean through his inky lashes. “Hmm. It may be the munchies, but I have a sudden craving for eggs.”

Chapter Text

*One Year Later*

So, here’s the thing about Castiel Novak, the actual thing. In fact, since Dean’s feeling generous, here’s several actual things about Castiel Novak:

He once puked in a moshpit ‘cause he’d drunk so much straight Malibu that it just came rushing out of him during Davidian like a particularly disgusting and coconut-scented geyser.

Wearing nothing but a pair of swimming trunks and a clown mask, he shot out a street light with a potato gun.

When he was sixteen, he got a tooth knocked out trying to defend a cat from some asshole seniors. The cat escaped unscathed. 

He decided to move to California — a state he previously described as ‘an urbanized natural disaster’ — because weed got legalized. After bouncing around for a while, he ended up in Sam’s locale, ‘cause the dude in the fucking wallpaper picture? Rich as fuck thanks to his parents' deaths, and so straight that he plays the air drums at parties. Yeah. They met at a weed dispensary and he offered to let Cas come and stay for as long as he wanted. Simple as that. 

He fell in love with Dean Winchester months before he was brave enough to approach him with sage grammatical advice. He’s never stopped loving Dean in all the ensuing years, even though in his words, he wanted to “claw your eyes out, you oblivious asshole”.  

Now, here’s the thing about Dean Winchester:

He loves his best friend of twenty-three years (and boyfriend of one year), Castiel Novak. He loves the way Cas sings Bad Religion songs loudly and out of key as he’s making lasagna, the way he calls Freddy Kreuger his ‘comfort villain’ in casual conversation, the way he sniffs one of each candle in the selection at HomeGoods. He’s everything Dean’s ever wanted. And sometimes, getting everything you want is a recipe for disaster. It spoils you, makes you complacent, but for Dean? Nah, if anything, it’s made him more awesome. A near-impossible feat, he knows, and yet.

"Dean, what are you—"

Dean straddles Cas’ hips. Cas’ palm automatically goes to Dean’s thigh under the pretense of holding Dean steady, but if Cas was touchy-feely with Dean before they started fucking on the regular, then it’s nothing compared to now. Cas’ fingerprints are all over Dean’s body, both visible and invisible. Inside and out. Dean’ll be there in their tiny shared bathroom, brushing his morning breath away and Cas will materialize at Dean’s shoulder, just to press a kiss to a small constellation of Dean’s freckles, and disappear again. 

It helps. 

It ain’t an exaggeration to say that the last twelve months have had more bumps in them than Reggie Strickland’s face after a bout. Firstly, there was the issue of getting Sam and Jess to come home early with Dean’s carefully coded voice mail: “Sammy, I’ve got a friend of yours here, and he’s looking a bit peaky” (said as Cas was fishing Luke’s waterlogged and starting-to-putrefy head out of the pool with a mixing bowl duct-taped to a Swiffer mop). Then, once Sam was actually home (and he’d gone a bit green at the sight of Duke’s body in the driveway), he’d surveyed the damage ( “for fuck’s sake, Dean, did you have to destroy the Aubusson rug?” ) and balked at Luke’s bloated head sitting pretty poolside, he made the unilateral decision that cops weren’t needed. Which was more surprising than Heath Ledger’s casting in The Dark Knight. 

Or not actually, ‘cause it turns out Luke was half right; he and Sam certainly had something going on. Like Stacy’s mom. And just as sexually inappropriate, ‘cause Luke made John Hinckley look like an amateur. The fact that Sam didn’t go in for dick — or mass-murdering, tax-dodging criminals that he was sending to jail — hadn’t been a deterrent for love-struck Luke, and he’d pursued Sam with the irrational vehemence of a dude in an Aerosmith video chasing after an underage Alicia Silverstone. Despite several years in the big house to cool off, and a restraining order once parole had been granted ( bribed ), Luke — like a nice guy who sends you cocktail-weenie-dick pics at 3 AM) — had refused to get the fucking message. At least until Sam had played hardball and reported him for the parole-breaking-order-violation combo; an offense that carried an automatic “go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars” penalty for someone of Luke’s criminal caliber. A huge problem for him, ‘cause he’d called in all his favors the first time around. His completely proportionate reaction to the prospect of actually having to serve hard time (and for something as unworthy of punishment as simply loving Sam) was to retaliate with whatever the fuck Cas and Dean put a stop to through the power of murder. 

California isn’t an out and proud ‘stand your ground’ state, but according to the lawyer in the room, it does have precedence. However, there’s quite a difference between something called the ‘castle doctrine’ and lopping someone’s head off with a ceremonial sword. Apparently, the law allows for ‘reasonable’ self-defense, and Sam’s concern was that killing people with a meat tenderizer to the noggin was not wholly reasonable (if entirely understandable). More than that, though (and the part that worried Dean more than a high-profile police investigation into how two amateurs managed to go all John Wick on a bunch of career criminals), Luke was a big cheese down at the gangster factory, and his death would not only spark a gang war, but also have a bunch of Goodfellas wannabes coming after Dean and Cas with brutal vengeance on their mind.

So the four of them (Jess included, though bitching about dirt under her fingernails the entire time), dug six shallow graves in the woods and set about buying enough Lysol, bleach, and trash bags to trigger ‘THIS PERSON JUST COMMITTED MURDER AND IS CLEANING UP THE CRIME SCENE’ bells at the local Walmart. 

Over the several days it took to bury, clean, and recover, Sam and Dean actually talked. Yeah. For the first time in years. Dean bloodlet his emotional wounds, Sam; his. They talked about John, the pressure on Sam’s shoulders to be the responsible, straight son, about Dean the disappointment, the failure. It was cathartic and if Dean had known that all it took to mend bridges in their relationship was him committing murder one, he would’ve been out there cracking skulls a lot sooner. 

Their relationship ain’t perfect, never will be; they’re too different to be the kind of brothers who hug and call to chat about their day, but apologies were heartfelt and meaningful, and Cas and Dean left California with the warm fuzzies and the number of a good therapist. 

A therapist that took a lot of nagging for months on end from Cas to even call. But call Dean did, ‘cause there’s been a few too many times when one or both of them have woken up in the early hours, drenched in sweat, reliving the night they almost lost each other for good. Despite Dean’s aversion to introspection, he has to admit that talking about shit instead of stewing on it in his own head until it becomes a self-loathing mush, is working. He’s still a bit (lot) clingy, and Cas is pretty fucking cautious about home security on their shoebox apartment. But they’re together. And that’s what matters. They’ll figure the rest of their shit out along the way, including what Cas is gonna do once his tattoo apprenticeship is over, and whether Dean’s ever gonna take Sammy up on the reward-money-offer to open his own auto-repair shop.

Cas is all for it. The way he sees it, they did a civic duty that night, a sort of pest control, and while Dean likes the idea of them in boiler suits as Ray Parker Jr. belts out the best movie theme song of the last forty years in the background, he’s still not sure about accepting Sam’s money. If he does, it means he’s got to stop dicking around, and he’s grown quite accustomed to meeting (and even exceeding) the-bar’s-so-low-it’s-a-tavern-in-Hades expectations. 

He’s going to have to try and the problem with that is, what if he fails?

But that’s a concern for future Dean. Present Dean is horny and wants to fuck his boyfriend until the only trauma associated with this place is in the ache of Cas’ thick thighs from Dean riding him so thoroughly. 

The lounger creaks ominously beneath their combined weight, but Dean’s too focused on exacting his vision to care about a little thing like a lounger-induced injury. Sometimes, in his nightmares, his brain replays the reel of his weird concussion dream when he thought Cas was dead, and he needs to replace the stop-motion images of a lifeless Cas with the very much alive version. 

They’re here in California again, a whole year and a couple of days after the sextuple (heh) homicide, to pick up the Impala Sam suggested Dean have now that the two of them have buried the hatchet (and the creepy stalker gangsters). Sam though, being the workaholic who’ll have a stress-induced heart attack in his early fifties that he is, was called into the office for a tax-related emergency and Jess is out of town at some fancy-pants art thing. So, with Dean and Cas having the place to themselves (endorsed by Sam, because any mess they make will pale in comparison to the one he came home to last year), Dean figured that a little bit of sexy sexy therapy might be in order.

He may be deliberately misinterpreting their therapist’s words (he definitely is), but she said to prioritize self-care, and getting some dick is Dean’s very favorite healthy coping mechanism. 

Underneath Dean, Cas looks up at him through those heart-shaped, rose-tinted glasses, with enough weight to bury them both, and it makes Dean’s insides go all squirmy, like a tangle of eels slipping and sliding over each other. He’d be lying if he said that the thought of Cas wielding the very sword Dean’s holding now didn’t fire his blood; the way he used it to cut down three people, the way he stepped out of the patio doors covered in blood, and looking sexy as hell. 

Something about that night has crossed Dean’s wires for good, and although he’s always hard for Cas, he never gets harder than when he remembers Cas’ badassery that night. It’s a tangled mess of lust, and fear, and guilt, and almost-shame up in his rat’s maze of a brain, and often, the same nightmares that he wakes from in a cold sweat, leave him breathing hard for an entirely different reason.

It’s a little fact he’s yet to tell his therapist. 

There’s no time like the present to work through it — when he’s got Cas between his thighs and they’re both only wearing their respective robes (Sam having replaced his like-for-like because there was an entire crime scene on it, and he’s got the imagination of the inside of a toilet roll). The kimono brings out the darkening shade of blue of Cas’ eyes, makes them seem inkier, deeper, and his lips are parted as he watches Dean, the pad of his thumb rubbing back and forth absentmindedly over Dean’s skin. Warmth unfurls in Dean’s chest and his knees clench tighter to Cas’ sides.

Like a fifteenth-century knight (but without the diphtheria and terrible teeth), Dean rests the sharp point of Sam’s sword in the drip of Cas’ collarbone. Right where the kimono has slipped coquettishly off his shoulder. 

Judging by the way he can feel Cas growing hard against the inside of his thigh, Dean’s not the only kinky son of a bitch in this relationship. 

Dexter Holland’s voice fades out to nothing and the next song comes on over the speakers. Mercifully, it’s not Jermaine Stewart’s boner-killer anthem, but some blast-beats-galore metal song that Dean can’t parse out the lyrics to.

Cas reaches out for Dean’s left boob and he tugs at the ring through his nipple. It sends a sharp burst of arousal right through Dean, like a shot of whiskey burning at his nerve endings. “I hope you know what you’re doing with that sword.”

“Not as good as you,” Dean admits with a flirty grin, unbelting his robe with a lot less trouble than he had last time when there was a clinging Tweedle. Smoothly swapping the sword from one hand to the other, Dean shrugs out of the robe one sleeve at a time, and flings it somewhere behind them. 

“Mm,” Cas agrees, his warm palm sliding up over Dean’s chest and curling around the back of his neck, pulling him down. 

Kissing Cas is always the best thing that has happened to Dean. Every single time. There’s nothing like it, and he savors each kiss. The stale-mouth-pecks in the morning, the dirty spit-exchange ones when they’re fucking, the soft, loving ones when they’re crushed together on their tiny couch. 

Dean’s determined never to forget again. 

The noise he makes into his boyfriend’s mouth when their lips meet this time is low and helpless, like Dean may have been the one to initiate this, but Cas is taking the wheel and driving this sucker right along the freeway at five hundred miles an hour. 

He’s desperate enough that he’s not ashamed by the way he’s writhing in Cas’ lap; already lost to the way Cas’ blue eyes have gone wide and dark and the way his pinkie finger grazes the fine hairs on the nape of Dean’s neck. 

Fuck.

Dean pulls away to draw in a deep shuddering breath. Bracing his weight on Cas’ chest, he leans over and neatly lays the sword at the side of the lounger, on the concrete. Fantasies are hot an’ all, but he doesn’t really fancy accidentally murdering his boyfriend. Once the sharp, pointy thing is out of the way, Cas takes Dean’s face in both hands and kisses him again. 

Dean’s clumsy fingers fumble with the belt of Cas’ kimono, desperate to get at his boyfriend’s dick. Cas’ mouth is hot and urgent, his thumbs spanning Dean’s cheeks, and he’s kissing Dean so thoroughly that Dean’s genuinely concerned his heart is gonna pound right out of his chest, all “fuck this, I’m out”. He’s almost lightheaded with it, the way Cas feels underneath him, warm and solid and alive and between Dean’s thighs, like he should’ve been for the last twenty-three years. 

Cas’ hips push up against Dean’s and their mouths break apart, Cas taking an open-mouthed, unsteady breath against Dean’s lips. 

His mouth is pink and wet, his blue eyes blown black and glinting from under dark lashes. Fuck, Dean wants him. Needs him. 

The very second he’s got the belt undone and Cas’ dick free, Dean’s shifting his weight on the lounger, shuffling up on his knees, so that he’s straddling Cas’ sternum. On the little patio table, next to the papers and baggies and booze, is the bottle of lube Dean used to open himself up with in one of the house’s bathrooms, and now he pops off the top and slicks a handful down Cas’ cock. 

Cas watches on, his large hand curving around Dean’s waist, breath stuttering in the back of his throat. Dean’s impatient, can’t even think about being all sexy about this anymore. Tossing the lube, he positions himself above Cas, his palm around the base of Cas’ cock as he sinks down, his other hand braced on Cas’ chest, nails scoring crescent-shaped grooves into the ink there, Cas’ pectoral muscles tensing beneath Dean’s palm.

Sweat beads at Dean’s temple as he impales himself on the last few inches, Cas lifting his hips up to meet him so that their bodies come together with a dull slapping sound, ass to thigh, and Dean’s completely filled, stretched around the shape of Cas, Cas buried in him to the hilt, and Dean’ll never get over how damn good this feels.

Hands splayed over the shallow rise of Cas’ chest, Dean rolls his hips experimentally, the pinch of pain fading away into fuzzy pleasure, body coming to rest flush against Cas’.

Fuck.

Cas’ collarbone glistens in the low light, a sheen of sweat pooling there, and Dean leans forward until just the head of Cas’ dick is inside him, and he licks the salt from Cas’ skin, tongue dipping into Cas’ throat, laving across his tattoo. The one Dean watched him get six years ago and then bitch about for the next four. 

Cas tips his head back against the lounger, and fuck, he’s gorgeous like this. There’s a pink flush on his skin, underneath the ink from chest to jaw. He’s breathing hard and desperate, his hips shifting under Dean, his plush lips parted and kiss-swollen. 

Thighs clenched and shaking against Cas’ ribs, Dean begins to move, fucking himself back on Cas’ cock in a torturously slow, dirty grind. Cas’ hand tightens on his waist, his fingers spanning across Dean’s lower back, the other on Dean’s knee, his thumb digging in behind the tattoo he put there. “Dean,” he grits out, and it’s dangerously close to a whine. 

“Yeah,” Dean slurs deliriously, rolling his body chest to ass, riding the length of Cas’ dick. “Yeah, Cas.” He cranes his neck forward to steal clumsy, wet, clinging kisses, his bottom lip catching and dragging against his boyfriend’s. “Cas,” he pants against Cas’ mouth, riding the motion of Cas’ next thrust, heat rising through him from balls to brain. “God. I fuckin’ love you, you asshole.”

Cas rocks his hips up, sinking hard and fast into Dean, making Dean’s whole body tremble. “You’re not the worst,” he pants, before fitting their mouths together again. 

Heat coils in Dean’s belly and the heels of his palms skid over sweat-damp flesh, until his fingers are splayed across Cas’ collarbone, thumbs pressing at the hollow of Cas’ throat. 

Cas’ next breath is a shallow one, his moan of “Dean, fuck,” between kisses hoarse and barely-there, and Dean hisses out a curse, flushing hot. They move together, Dean canting his hips, rising and falling against Cas, Cas’ pulse a racing thud against Dean’s fingertips.

Goddamn. It’s so good, so intense, just like it always is, and Dean isn’t going to last long like this, watching Cas watch him through half-lidded eyes as Dean grinds his hips in a figure of eight, Cas’ dick pressed right up against his prostate, and seemingly every nerve-ending in his body.

Fuck. The pressure is already building; the smoldering fire in the pit of his stomach stoked every time he cants back onto Cas’ perfect dick. Every breath shudders out of Cas, and Dean can’t ignore it anymore, the searing need to come and paint Cas up as his. 

Muscles wound in knots and toes curling, Dean drives downward, ass smacking against Cas’ thighs as they come together, meeting in the middle of a powerful thrust. Cas’ breath hitches, and Dean cries out as Cas’ cock slams against that sweet spot inside, sending him sprawling against Cas, chests and mouths colliding. 

Cas’ hands slide from Dean’s waist and knee, palms fitting to the curve of his ass, split apart on Cas’ cock, holding him open so that Cas can start thrusting in earnest, giving Dean no choice but to shape himself around Cas, as he digs his heels into the lounger for purchase and nails Dean with every in and out. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Forearms either side of Cas’ head, Dean fists his hands in Cas’ hair, and bites at the curve of his neck, hard enough to bruise and have Cas bucking up wilder, less restrained and more instinctual as he clutches at Dean, trying to get closer, deeper, fucking Dean harder, clinging tighter. Dean mouths at his jaw, dragging his lips over Cas’ skin, panting hot and heavy in his ear. 

“Dean,” Cas’ wrecked voice mangles the single syllable. “Dean, Dean,” he says, buried deep inside Dean, sweating finely, his damp hair curling around his ears.

Trapped between the crush of their bodies, Dean’s aching cock leaks wet against Cas’ inked skin, the ruddy length of it skidding slick with every writhing, upward drive of Cas’ hips. 

Dean sucks in a desperate breath. His stomach clenches, the pleasure rushing up his spine. 

Oh, fuck. 

Breathing hard against Cas’ throat, Dean manages a feeble, “Cas, I’m gonna—” and then he’s coming between their bodies, spurting hot and wet and messy, Cas’ flagging thrusts smearing the evidence of Dean’s orgasm everywhere with the same blatant disregard he treats most crime scenes that he creates.

The hands on Dean’s ass squeeze to the point of pain, clutching frantically and convulsively. Cas’ hips snap upwards, nearly unseating Dean. He moans thickly, “Dean, fuck, fuck, fuck,” and then he’s coming too, shoving deep and pulsing wet and hot inside Dean, nothing but a heartbeat between them.

Cas relaxes his grip on Dean, but only enough that it doesn’t feel as though he’s trying to persuade their very atoms to fuse together. Dean buries his face in Cas’ pulse. Still joined and clinging to each other, chests rising and falling in rhythm, Cas is the first to attempt speech as Dean loosely wonders if he’s even capable anymore.

“How was that?” he asks hoarsely, Dean’s very own sex therapist seeking feedback for a job well done. 

It’s Dean’s turn to be a smart-mouthed douchebag. “Best twenty seconds of my life,” he manages, nosetipping the spot just behind Cas’ ear that makes him shiver. 

Cas’ palm lifts briefly off Dean’s ass, before he brings it back down hard, connecting with a sharp smack. Dean’s whole body jolts, and a mere moment ago he would’ve sworn he couldn’t get hard ever again, but here he is, a modern medical miracle, with his dick twitching, ‘cause Cas knows lovetaps that leave handprints are the way to Dean’s heart (and cock). 

Dean shivers out an airless, “asshole,” and Cas’ soft rumble of laughter reverberates through his chest. Pushing up on his forearms to look his boyfriend in the eye, Dean presses a soft kiss to Cas’ swollen lips, smiling right over his mouth. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” Cas says. “You love me.” He releases Dean’s ass in favor of going for the cheek on Dean's face, his fingers splayed wide over the just-got-fucked heated blush of Dean’s skin. “I love you too. Always have, always will.” And then because he’s a complete and utter fucker, the absolute worst of the worst, he adds with the mocking solemnity of someone who never wants to get laid again, “ ‘You’re my north star, you’re my way home.’ ”

“Okay,” Dean says, beginning to peel himself off of Cas, all gingerly and careful, like he used to be when swapping stickers from his binder in the 90s. “Alright.” The come and sweat are starting to cool and mix and congeal, and Cas is still inside him, going soft, so this is gonna hurt one of them more than the other. Dean’s determined that Cas is going to be the one to have his stomach waxed with the grossest mixture known to man. 

Of course, Cas ain’t gonna take that shit lying down — figuratively or literally — so he and Dean end up in a wrestling match that would make them millionaires on a pay-per-view porno channel livestream. 

Dean’s got Cas in a headlock, Cas is twisting Dean’s nipple rings, when abruptly, the whole house behind them is plunged into darkness. Right as Mustaine is singing over screeching guitars about “their bodies, soulless, a corpse from the grave.” 

Which isn’t creepy at all. 

“What the fuck?” Dean blurts, fear grinding him to a halt, his grip on Cas loosening just enough for his boyfriend to escape. His insides have gone all shivery, even as Cas is talking to him, at him, throwing the robe his way, slipping back into the kimono, heedless of the fact that Jess and Sam will have to burn the damn things now.

The song keeps on playing. Cas grabs for Dean’s wrist, his thumb grazing over Dean’s rapid-fire pulse point as he yanks him to his feet. Dean goes, swallowing hard around nothing, his eyes fixated on the patio doors. 

Inside, the phone rings.