Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

From the Journal of Robert Singer

November 5th, 1977

Looking back on it now, what do I say? How do I start?

The words are there, but I don’t know that I’ll be able to put them down in a way that they will really be heard. 

I think that’s about the closest to fully understanding how Dean always felt that I’ll ever get. 

For now, I’ll say this: 

It all changed in ‘67, sometime in mid-September, back when Thurgood Marshall had just been sworn in, when Ironside had just premiered, when the war in Vietnam was in full swing, and love could be grasped within a hand, if only one were brave enough to try to reach… 

***

September 15th, 1967

Clanging bells and the vibration of metal on wood pierced the depths of Dean’s subconscious, dragging him forth to face the day—or rather, evening. 

His alarm clock soared across the room and hit the wall, its trilling abruptly quieting down as it thunked to the floor. Dean let out a near-soundless yawn as he sat in a slump on his daybed, glaring at the stubborn thing. His dream had been so good in the moment, but it was so distant now that he couldn’t remember any of it; it had been erased into a fuzzy smear in just a few seconds time. 

He put a record on his portable player and pulled back his curtains to expose the bustle of the city below him. While most people were coming home from work, going out to dinner, and unwinding from the day, Dean was about to get ready for his. 

He bounced his shoulders along to the music as he fried up a few eggs on his tiny stovetop, prepping it to top a hamburger patty for his usual breakfast/lunch combo sandwich. He lipsynced along, pretending Ray Davies’ voice was his own.

"'Cause his world is built round punctuality, it never fails.”

He grabbed the only plate on his drying rack and assembled an extra burger to take across the hall to Bobby. 

He didn’t need to knock or use a key; Bobby knew him well enough by now that he left the door open for him. His guard dog McNamara, who was drooling in the entryway, didn’t even raise his head at the intrusion. Dean scooped up the neglected newspaper and Time magazine deliveries off the welcome mat as he went in, setting them on Bobby’s cluttered desk. As he navigated the maze of milk crates full of scrap and neat stacks of books, he shook his head. Bobby’s apartment always made Dean’s look Spartan in comparison. 

The man in question looked to be several hours deep into fixing a radio, if the state of his coffee-slash-work table said anything. He didn’t even look up as Dean set the plate by his knee, one eye squinted shut and the other comically magnified by the lens of a loupe strapped to his head. 

On the TV, ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings played quietly. Dean knocked on the table, doing a heel click when the noise didn’t catch his attention.

“Huh?” Bobby popped his head up. 

“You were far away,” Dean signed, letting out an amused huff.

“I was busy,” he said, taking the loupe off; what was left of his hair creased in an indent from the headband. Bobby absently ran a hand through it. A bite muffled his fond words, “Good evening to you too, idjit.” 

Dean smiled. Bobby would probably have let his dinner go cold without him. Too many times had he walked in to find Bobby had let a bowl of stew grow inedible from attending to client calls. Although Bobby was technically retired, people from all over town sought him out for antique and appliance repairs.

Dean pointed to the TV, where reporters were discussing something about what Mac’s namesake had announced earlier in the month. 

“Yeah, I know. McNamara claims that electric fence line of his will be inexpensive, but I say why wait until now to announce it? There’s somethin’ fishy ‘bout it. Somethin’ tells me it’ll be about as useful as this mutt,” Bobby’s skeptical tone turned affectionate as he turned toward Mac, who had finally woken up to sit expectantly at his feet. 

Dean shook his head. “Star T-R-E-K,” he reminded, raising hopeful brows. Charlie had gotten Dean hooked on the show with all her passionate recaps after it premiered last year, and with the second season airing that evening just after the start of his shift, he wanted to try to keep up. 

“Yes, I won’t forget. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you in the morning,” Bobby said, even as his attention drifted back to the radio. 

Dean rolled his eyes and went back across the hall, his shuffle shifting to a dance when the sound of Bobby’s TV ebbed into the sound of his record echoing through the open floor plan of his apartment. 

“‘Cause he’s oh so good, ‘cause he’s oh so fine, and he’s oh so healthy in his body and his mind,” he mouthed as he started the shower. 

When he had the time, he liked to take a bath and dip his head under the water so he could hear how it muffled the sounds of his music and the honking and people outside, and hear the sound of his heartbeat slowing down with it. He always felt calm, taking a moment to himself like that. 

But he usually didn’t have the time and so he had to settle for jacking off, which was far quicker but had the same calming effect. 

When he was clean, he shut the water off and dried himself off, wrapping a towel around his waist. He brushed his teeth and flossed, and only after spitting into the sink did he wipe the steam from the mirror, confronting his reflection. Whatever fine features he might have had were always overshadowed by where his eyes were drawn. He ran his fingertips over the thin keloidal slashes on either side of his neck, even more noticeable by the way they reddened from the heat of the shower. 

Every morning he did this, as if he hoped that getting clean would wipe him fresh of the scars, too. 

The way Dad had told it, when Dean had been old enough to understand he was different and had been able to scrawl out the word “Why,” Dad was the one who found him abandoned by the river. Dean had no longer been able to cry aloud, meaning it was likely no one would have found him if John hadn’t decided to go fishing that morning. He was lucky he had—another hour or so, doctors at the hospital told a horrified John and Mary, and he would have died from exposure. Though police investigated the area and questioned neighbors, and at one point posters with a sketch of his face had been plastered all over Lawrence, no one ever stepped forward and claimed him. Certainly, no one had ever fessed up to trying to kill him. 

Mary used to say he was a gift from God, placed there by angels for John to find. 

Dean sometimes wondered if he was a gift from something else entirely. It would explain how some people reacted to him, at least. 

A honk outside cut through the silence, slapping Dean out of his thoughts.  

He closed his record player and got dressed in record time, eager for the colder days of October that would give him a reason to wear a scarf to hide his scars. He grabbed his sack lunch, locked his door, and dashed down the stairs, exiting the movie theater his apartment rested on. 

“Dean!” the owner’s voice called out from the balcony, where he was replacing the marquee letters. Dean paused, turning around, and bouncing slightly on his heels. He raised a brow in question. “When you come by with rent, let me show you our new reels– we’ve got a new double feature coming in!” 

Dean gave a thumbs up in response, before running to catch the bus. He pulled up his collar over his neck as he waded through the incoming stream of people on the sidewalk, going against the current. 

What he wouldn’t give to have a car— but he was barred from getting a license despite knowing how to drive better than most assholes in the city. He doubted the Men of Letters would give someone like him a parking pass, anyway. He had to fight just to get his job, and he was sure half the reason they hired him was because Sam probably did something bullheaded and sacrificial like threaten to turn down the position they’d headhunted him for if they didn’t give his big brother a job, too. 

At least riding the bus gave him an hour and some change to catch a few extra Z’s, falling asleep to the sounds of the city as they left. 

When the bus finally arrived outside the Men of Letters’ Research Institute far from the outskirts of Baltimore proper, he was the last one on the bus, with the only incoming occupants being the dayshift cleaners. The route was by design, meant to keep the location private from civilians. 

On the outside, the austere building looked like it had been built during the First World War to withstand anything, and hadn’t let its guard down since.  

At least the interior showed some willingness to change– in the people they accepted, at least. 

After showing his ID to the front entrance security, he walked past the hallway of presidents, founders, and current generals. He caught a glance of Henry Winchester’s face as he passed, his adopted grandfather’s precocious smile immortalized on the wall. It had been a surprise to Sam and Dean both when they first arrived about a decade earlier. “Must’ve been why they sought me out. Couldn’t find Dad, but now that he’s gone, they tracked me down,” Sam had theorized, a little sadly. Dean privately thought they probably didn’t want a stubborn ‘grunt’ like Dad working for them. Military aside, it was hard to imagine Dad following the orders of someone else. Sam, however, as stubborn as he could be, was a little more cooperative—and definitely had the brains for the Men of Letters’ mission. 

Dean ran past the throng of suits and secretaries, rushing to where Eileen was waiting at the front of the line full of night shift workers waiting to clock in—a lot of whom were visibly angry about the holdup. 

“Dean!” she waved him over. “I waited for you.”

“Thank you,” he signed as he punched his timecard. Eileen followed suit, and they slid the cards back into their cubby holes. 

“Hey!” a woman behind them yelled. “You can’t just cut the line— and you shouldn’t hold it for him!” 

Dean rolled his eyes, “She’s mad at us,” he signed to Eileen, pointing to the woman behind her. 

Eileen turned around. “I’m sorry, were you saying something? ‘Cause I couldn’t hear you,” she said, signing ‘I-Deaf’ as she talked. She turned back to Dean and winked. 

Sometimes it felt like Eileen was the only one who really understood him, though people like Sammy, Bobby, and Charlie tried. They may have understood his words— what he managed to convey through writing and facial expressions, and the pidgin sign he used before Eileen taught him what she knew of ASL; what they learned together after they first met. But they didn’t know what it felt like to have people make assumptions about their capabilities, and refuse to give them the chance. 

Meeting Eileen had opened up a whole new world for him. He owed a lot to her—and so did everyone else, Dean thought, as they passed men in suits and lab coats. They didn’t know Eileen had been cleaning up their mess in more ways than one. 

Once, Dean caught her changing numbers on a data sheet. Alarmed, he’d run over to her, looking for more liquid paper, wondering if he could believably forge a new one with the old numbers. 

“What? I fixed it,” she had explained, shrugging. 

“Fix?” 

She’d spent the next half hour giving him a crash course on advanced statistics and the scientific method, pointing out where they’d fucked their math. Sometimes Eileen fixed small mistakes, and other times, critical ones: mistakes that would have meant broken tanks or underfilled ones, too much or not enough oxygen (and injured specimens as a result), mistakes that would have scrapped several months of work, problems they’d been working on for years. 

Eileen walked in front of him, head held high, uncaring that she was being judged—or worse, ignored—by men who owed her more than they knew. Eileen should be the running them, and could be, if only people were as willing to see her language for the open door it was rather than a barrier.

The two of them took the elevator down, moving away from the warm light and glory of the ground floor and upper levels, and down to the depths of the basement.  

They separated at the locker rooms, getting dressed into their respective uniforms. When he rejoined Eileen, they gave each other twin looks of disdain—he hated the custodial jumpsuit for the way it left no room to hide his scars, and she hated the skirt she was forced to wear. 

“You ready?” he asked. 

“Does shit stink?” she retorted. 

***

Aside from Eileen, the highlights of his evening usually came in the form of his midnight lunch break. 

Hello, beautiful. He gave his warmed-up burger an appreciative look before biting into it, fitting as much as he could so the ingredients were distributed evenly in the bite. 

Sam gave him a half-amused, half-grossed-out look as egg yolk dripped from the other end. Their schedules didn’t always overlap enough that they ended up on the same break, let alone in the evening, but it had been happening more and more recently. 

“Dude, you’re enjoying that way too much for someone who eats the same thing every day.” 

It’s a treasure, he thought, but both his hands were busy so he settled for giving an exaggerated look of bliss, closing his eyes as if he were humming in contentment. 

When he swallowed, he wiped his hands and pointed at Sam’s salad, raising a judgemental brow. 

Sam conceded. “Yeah, okay, I’m a hypocrite,” he said, setting his fork down and sipping from his mug of coffee. Based on the rings around the top and the bags under Sam’s eyes, it was far from his first of the night. 

“You sleep any time?” Dean signed when he finished his food. 

“Yeah, when I can,” he said. 

Dean gave him a look—

"Don’t give me the look,” Sam complained. “I can take care of myself, alright? You don’t have to worry.”

Dean gave him another look. Really? Who do you think you’re talking to?

“You’ll always worry,” Sam translated. “I know. It’ll be okay, it’s just the project prep I’ve been working on. They’re asking me to pull things I didn’t even know we had in our archives, and half of it isn’t properly filed, so it’s been a headache, to say the least. And you know how communication is around here— no one says anything unless it’s absolutely necessary. If I just knew what they were working on beforehand it would be easier, but Adler’s been breathing down my neck about waiting until everyone’s clearance has been approved.”

“Wish I could help,” Dean offered, though at most all his limited clearance would give him was the chance to dust, not actually help. He’d only been recently selected and approved with Eileen to be the sole cleaners to work at one of the highly-guarded subterranean labs soon, lab T-4. 

“I wish you could, too,” Sam murmured, stabbing the last of his salad. He ate slowly, his eyes checking the clock periodically like he was trying to drag out the time before he had to go back. 

Dean used up every remaining minute of his lunch break to commiserate with him. 

***

When Dean returned home in the pre-dawn light, he checked on Bobby. He found him conked out on the couch, the TV long since having faded to static. Dean switched it off, shook the blanket off from the back of the couch, and placed it over Bobby. He carefully pried the loupe off of Bobby’s head and set it on the work table. 

In the trickling light coming in through the windows, he could see the half-scribbled notes on a pad that read, “Pointy-eared one was acting strange—something called ’pon far’?’” 

Dean huffed. Charlie would probably give him a blow-by-blow recap during their weekly game night and fill in the gaps for him. 

As he moved to leave, Dean tiptoed over the snoring lump that was Mac on the floor, stumbled, and stubbed his toe on the corner of a heavy box. A gust of air escaped his lips in pain, but when he looked back, both Bobby and his dog were still sleeping. Dean sighed as he looked around at all the things Bobby had been neglecting lately, and decided to stay a little longer to clean up a little. 

It was funny—cleaning was such a drudge at work, when he was being paid to do it, but cleaning up for friends for free never felt like work. He didn’t blame Bobby for being distracted— it was coming up on the anniversary of Karen’s death, and this time of year marked as many years since he moved from Sioux Falls. Sometimes Dean wished he didn’t work the night shift, and could spend more time with him during the day so Bobby wouldn’t be alone all the time. 

He straightened up the stacks of books on Bobby’s desk—poetry and letters by Robert Browning, Shakespeare plays, texts in languages Dean wasn’t familiar with— and paused to pick up a picture of Bobby and Karen. 

He’d never met Karen, but he knew from the way Bobby talked about her that she was the light of his life. 

As he tidied up, he found a trove of letters addressed to a Rufus Turner, someone else Dean had never met. Bobby’s best friend or worst enemy, from the way he talked about him. From what he gathered, they’d had a falling out after Karen died, before he left Sioux Falls, and each year that passed, Bobby felt a little more shame about it, about not calling or reaching out. Dean picked up and flattened out letters that had been crumpled under the desk and shoved to the back of the overstuffed drawers, some of them dated back as far as ‘57, when Bobby moved in, about the same time that Dean did. Each of them had been reeling from their own losses. 

To use one of Bobby’s own terms against him, the idjit had been writing to Rufus since he left, and just hadn't sent them. 

Dean stacked them, looking back at Bobby’s form once more, considering. 

From everything Bobby had told Dean about Rufus, if Bobby ever got the courage to send them, Rufus would probably just call Bobby a stubborn fool and forgive him for not staying in touch over a bottle of whiskey.

But Dean knew how loneliness could be further isolating, and how the longer one went without being listened to, the harder it was to try.   

He thought of Eileen as he tucked the letters inside his pocket. Sometimes, all it took was someone who understood to reach out a helping hand. 

***

Sunday night, a few hours before Dean’s normal shift, he woke up early—not to the sound of his unbreakable clock, but to Charlie banging on his door, asking to be let in for their weekly game night. 

“Finally, geez,” Charlie complained as he opened the door. “My arms were about to fall off. I think it’s getting to the point that I might just start leaving all this here instead of lugging it back and forth. But…” her eyes trailed skyward, where water stains colored the ceiling. “Maybe not.”

It took a while to set up the made-up roleplaying dice game based on the Lord of the Rings books that she had spent the better part of the last ten years beta developing with him in his apartment. As she did, Charlie gave him the Star Trek episode recap. 

“Fuck or die?” Dean wrote out, making a face of incredulity.

“I don’t know what kind of drugs the writers were on, but I want some,” Charlie sighed dreamily. “Anyway, so then when there’s a challenge to the death as part of T’Pring and Spock’s ceremony, T’Pau chooses Kirk, and they make it seem like Spock succeeds in killing him—only for Spock to say later that he lost interest in his claim when he thought he killed Kirk, telling Sponn something like ‘having isn’t as great as wanting,” she made a squeal. “I’m telling you, there’s some… energy, if you know what I mean, between Spock and Kirk, even on the side of the half-Vulcan.”

Dean nodded in agreement as he set his handmaiden character down in the place where they left off—stuck in a dungeon overseen by an evil wizard, while one of Charlie’s knights was trying to roll a high enough number to get him out. 

“You know, sometimes I wish this could be real life,” she said, gazing at the handpainted model of her elf queen character. “Dragons and creatures, and magic… save the world… get the girl,” she said sheepishly, but Dean smiled. “I wish I could be a hero.”

Dean scrunched his face. “You are a hero,” he signed. 

“Please. I write code and chug coffee all day, and help men who don’t understand that I’m not their secretary print things. I’m no hero.”

“Hero,” Dean insisted. 

“Still doubtful. Especially now that my schedule means I’m going to be getting even less time even to play a fantasy hero.”

Dean raised a brow in question. 

“I have to go in early today, the boss men have me and Ash on overlapping shifts for the foreseeable future,” she said, slumping. “But on the plus side, I might be seeing more of you,” she poked him. 

Dean smiled at that, and enjoyed the next few hours they had before he had to start getting ready, letting Charlie pack up as he was in the shower. 

“Want a ride?” she offered when he was ready. 

Duh.

Like its owner, Charlie’s ‘62 Yukon Yellow Volkswagen stood out among the darker cars on the street, but it was easier to shake off any stares with her by his side. Being a little weird together was always better than being different alone. 

When they got to the facility, Charlie hugged him apologetically before they entered through the garage entrance. “We might not get our weekly game nights in a while. Tell Bobby that he now has two people relying on him, ‘cause I’m going to need all the recaps from you, ” she said. 

“I’ll try,” Dean winked. 

As they parted, and Dean made his way to the usual entrance so he could punch in, he could tell in the air that something was different. There were more people than usual, and a tense energy stretched out across the din of their chatter. 

When he reached the line to clock in, Eileen whirled around from where she’d been nervously looking toward the front entrance. “I clocked in for you,” she signed, tapping her wrist and gesturing to the cubbies. “Something big coming here,” she blew her hands out, puffing out her cheeks. “They want everything clean.” She hooked her arm through his elbow and took fast strides with him toward the locker rooms, and it was down to business. 

When midnight rolled around and Dean took his lunch break, Sam never joined him. Dean even waited an extra ten minutes, tapping his foot and wondering if the automat pie felt as congealed as it looked. He was a little miffed, but more so out of concern than anything—it wasn’t unheard of for Sam to be so busy or stressed that he couldn’t stop to take his break too, but Dean had instituted it to make sure Sam wasn’t running himself into the ground on days they worked him into the night, too—and he knew for sure Sam was still around, as he’d seen his mop sticking out among the passing researchers when Eileen clocked him in. 

As they were in the middle of one of their usual rounds mopping the halls, a personnel member grabbed them and gestured for them to follow them to a research wing, where a whole mess of people were bustling in and out of a room; one of the wet labs he and Eileen had been cleared for access a few weeks earlier. 

He and Eileen stood on the sidelines of the doors to let people through, sharing a confused look. A tank that was being rolled by stopped in front of Dean as two scientists argued over each other. Curious, Dean looked down into the circular window of the tank, placing a hand on the glass as he leaned forward to get a better look—jumping back when something equally hand-shaped slapped against it. 

“Gather round!” Mr. Adler called, as the tank was wheeled away to the back of the room. Dean caught Sam among the group of people gathering, and Sam gave a stiff smile and wave. 

“Everyone, this is Mr. Arthur Ketch,” he gestured to a man standing at the center of the lab whose eyes gleamed as he scrutinized everyone, “and researcher Michael Davies—” 

“Oh, Mick’ll do just fine,” another man in a suit and lab coat behind Ketch interjected, waving a polite hand at everyone. 

“Mick Davies,” Mr. Adler corrected, stifling an eye-roll. “They hail all the way from our sister facility in Britain. As this asset is their acquisition, you will defer to them on this project. Please show them respect and make them feel welcome while they’re here.” 

Eileen looked to Dean; there were too many people around and the light was too dim at the center of the room for her to read Mr. Adler’s lips clearly. 

“M-I-C-K,” he pointed at the Brit in the lab coat. “Egghead,” he signed, making the sign for 'egg' over his forehead. “K-E-T-C-H,” he pointed at the guard dog wannabe, “Head police officer,” he explained, moving his hands from his head to his mouth to the rifle-hold position. Eileen understood what he meant, nodding. “They’re from B-M-O-L,” he added. “Sister building in Britain.”

“What’s that?” Eileen asked, pointing to the tank that a few scientists were arguing over. 

Dean shook his head, “I don’t know,” though he wanted to know as much as she did. “A-S-S-E-T,” he said, adding quotation marks after. 

They continued going through team introductions and roles, but Dean’s gaze kept drifting to where some of the labcoats were settling the tank, more intrigued by the dark shape moving behind the tiny windows than he was by anything else around.

Chapter Text

It was a surprise when Bobby was in the hallway when he came home from work, dressed and looking peppy. 

“Do you want to go get breakfast? Let’s go to the new place down the block, I heard they have pie,” he offered as he locked up. 

“Pie for breakfast?” Dean asked skeptically when Bobby looked back up. 

“Yes, pie for breakfast. The radio I fixed fetched a pretty penny, it’s my treat. You do love pie, don’t you? I seem to recall a certain someone begging me to bake the one from Karen’s recipe card collection for his birthday.” 

Dean’s cheeks heated in memory as they walked, his mouth watering at the thought of Karen’s apple pie. Bobby had given in and made it for him, and even though Bobby cried in memory after taking his first bite, it had still been one of the best birthdays he’d had in the years since Mary died. 

He eyed the kitschy signage of the new chain diner; its curly red letters proclaiming ‘Biggerson’s’. 

Bobby looked at him from the door, expectant. “Well?”

Dean turned up the collar of his jacket as they went inside. When they sat down, Dean noticed that Bobby wasn’t wearing his usual shabby hat, but had combed his hair, and that his button-up shirt was clean and pressed— far from his usual home uniform. He narrowed his eyes, feeling like something was off, when a cheery woman around Bobby’s age came by the table. 

“Why, Bobby, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you weren’t just here for my peach cobbler,” she exclaimed, her voice distinctly, almost falsely, Southern. 

Ah—this wasn’t a treat, this was Bobby needing an excuse to come back.

“Naw, I’m just here with my boy,” Bobby smiled, gesturing to Dean. “He loves pie and I told him he should try yours.” 

Dean gave her a polite wave. 

She hadn’t noticed his scars yet, and his not talking didn’t seem to bother her, as she bowled right past him and kept her body angled to Bobby. 

“I see that radio’s working just fine,” he continued, nodding his forehead to the corner of the register counter, where the radio Dean had seen him working on was playing swing music.

“Yes! Thank you so much, it’s running like a charm– and it was so sweet of you to offer to fix it up for us for free!” 

Bobby’s grin stiffened as he glanced at Dean, who folded his hands and gave him a ‘Really ?’ look. “It was no problem.”

“Well, hon, would you like to try our cobbler, or we have key lime pie available this morning,” she turned to him, pulling out her notepad. 

“Pie,” Dean signed to Bobby. 

She hesitated for a second, looking to Bobby in question. “What was that?”

“We’ll take one of each,” Bobby answered. 

“Oh! Well, I’ll get that right out for you, as soon as they’re fresh from the oven,” the waitress said, leaving. 

“Don’t you start—” Bobby started, but Dean was already off, hands flying. 

“Free radio? You should’ve asked for payment for your work. You’re just using me! I’m not the best person to help you get a date.” 

“Okay, first off, I decide what jobs I get paid for and what I do for free. This was… pro bono work. An investment,” he insisted. “And it’s not like that, Dean, it was more… hitting two birds with one stone. And what’s to say you’re not the best person?”

"Pshh," Dean huffed. “Only person. You wouldn’t have to do this if Rufus were around.”

“What does Rufus have to do with this?” Bobby scowled.

“You need better friends than me and a waitress,” Dean insisted. 

“Maybe I do,” Bobby snarked.

The waitress came back, setting down their plates and topping off their coffee. Dean didn’t want to be up all day, so he mostly took a few occasional sips to wash away the taste of the bitter, metallic key lime. 

“That’s not pie, that’s an affront to my tastebuds,” Dean said, then added a ‘yuck’ sign, sticking out his tongue. 

“Behave,” Bobby whispered, watching as the waitress passed by to fill someone else’s cup. 

When she came back to ask how everything was going, Dean just flashed a fake smile, wrapping up the pie to go. 

***

That evening, Dean met Mr. Ketch a little more up close and personal than he wanted to while cleaning one of the men’s restrooms. 

He had been in the middle of dancing to a song stuck in his head, one from a debut album from a band called The Doors that Sam had actually stood in line for as a birthday gift earlier in the year, trying to distract himself from his surroundings. The music in his head always helped make tedious tasks go by faster when Eileen wasn’t around to joke with. 

He refilled the soap dispensers and grimaced. Between the sticky counters and the ammonia stains on the floor, Dean sometimes thought that of all the varied animals he’d had to clean around, men were the messiest. 

The door opened, and one of the men whom Mr. Adler had introduced the previous evening walked in. 

“As you were,” Mr. Ketch said as Dean stood aside to let him pass. 

Ketch set a metal rod-looking thing down, dirtying the countertop Dean had just finished cleaning, and began to wash his hands. 

He whistled as he walked over to the urinals, unzipping and putting his hands on his hips as he urinated. 

Dean pulled a face as he turned away from Ketch to grab a fresh stack of hand towels.  

“Look, don’t touch,” Ketch warned, proudly glancing at the rod that Dean gingerly worked around, placing a few hand towels between each sink. “That right there is what you Americans call an ‘Alabama Howdy-Do’,” he said, his posh accent dropping to mimic a Southern drawl. “Molded grip handle, low voltage, high-current electric cattle prod. Not the most refined of instruments, but it does the job.”

Dean raised his brows, pretending to make an impressed face. 

“Ketch. Security,” he said as he zipped up. 

Short of being able to verbally respond, he held out a stack of towels, offering Ketch the topmost one. 

Ketch gave it a dubious look, scoffing. “Oh, no. A man washes his hands either before or after he tends to his needs. If he does it both times, it points to a certain weakness in character.”

He picked up his cattle prod. “Ta-ta,” he said in goodbye and paused at the door. “It was very pleasant chatting with you.” 

When the door closed again Dean made a bewildered face to himself in the mirror and turned the faucet on so he could wash his hands of the interaction. His movements slowed when he saw that the prod left drops of blood behind, scarlet intermingling with the water. 

He hated to think of who or what the blood came from. 

***

A few hours after his midnight break, Dean and Eileen were cleaning the hallway by lab T-4 when a loud, cracking sound startled him. He looked down at where he’d dropped his mop, thinking somehow he’d cracked the handle before he dropped it, but it was intact— then the sound happened again. 

Hollow, not too far away. A sound he’d heard coming from the range in the basement, a sound he knew up close from having been there before with Sam, practicing what their Dad had shown them once. 

“What’s wrong?” Eileen asked, as Dean stilled.  

“Gunshot,” Dean signed, popping a finger gun and mouthing “ pow .” Another pop went off. He held up three fingers, pointing with his other hand down the hall. “Three.” 

The doors of T-4 opened, a raucous sound making him step back. 

Mr. Ketch staggered into the hall, turning to look at them. He held his hand to his chest, and Dean watched in shock as blood spread and stained his shirt. That’s going to be a bitch to get out , he thought. An MP ran out after Ketch, slamming the emergency button next to the room, flooding the floors for decontamination, and sounding the alarms. Ketch dropped to his knees before two MPs hauled him up, presumably taking him to medical. 

“You two!” Mr. Adler followed, spotting Dean and Eileen and pointing at them. “Grab your carts, come here,” he ordered, making a ‘come along’ movement with his hand. 

They abandoned the hallway, following Mr. Adler to the lab, where blood and water bled together on the floor. A steel operating table with leather straps lay in the center of the room, with the vertical cylindrical tank on the far left of the back wall, and a pump connecting it to the dark tile pool next to it. 

“You will have exactly twenty minutes to render the lab spotless,” Mr. Adler explained, leaving Dean to translate for Eileen. 

When Mr. Adler was gone, Dean stepped through the draining water to get closer to the tank, where a low noise drew him in. 

The dark shape he’d seen the previous evening became clearer with each step; the glass of this tank offered more than just a circular window, spanning the length of its body. The silhouette was humanoid, with broad shoulders and a height that matched Dean’s own, if not a few inches taller with the way it floated in the water it was submerged in.

Large gills fanned out as Dean approached, swirling the blood coming in thin rivulets from its sculpted shoulder and chest as it did and coloring the water with streaks of crimson. Dean placed a hand against the tank over the area, wishing he could help it. The creature made direct eye contact with him as he did, and Dean breathed out in awe— 

“Dean!” Eileen called, making him turn around. She pointed to the floor in disgust. He went back and knelt to look where she was pointing. 

Two of Ketch’s fingers were on the ground. A wedding ring fell off of one as he gingerly picked the finger up, floating in the draining water. When he looked up, Eileen’s face mirrored his own. 

“Ew,” she said, looking like she was about to hurl. They’d cleaned up a lot of shit the last few years— sometimes literally— but human fingers was a new one. 

“We should get that to them,” Eileen suggested, speaking out loud as Dean turned back to pick up the other one. Dean emptied his paper lunch bag from its slot on his cleaning cart, lamenting the loss of his lunch as he gingerly wrapped the fingers in the brown sack. 

A guard ran in. “Where—?” 

Dean held out the bag, and the guard took it without thanking him, rushing off. 

As they got to cleaning, Dean glanced at the tank every once in a while, but the creature never resurfaced. 

He found Ketch’s wedding ring just as they were finishing up. Dean picked it up, pocketing it for safekeeping. He reasoned it was probably cleaner, covered in water and blood, than it had ever been on Ketch’s hand. 

***

“A mermaid,” Bobby said skeptically, as he examined the ring Dean had brought him to clean. “Are you sure? One time I took Karen to one of those PT Barnum shows, and he claimed to have a mermaid from Fiji, but when we got there, it was just the skeleton of a monkey and a fish poorly glued together.” He laughed. “Oh, we made fun of it for days.” His smile faded. 

Dean looked around for paper, tearing a page from the back of Bobby’s open journal. ‘Fish/person hybrid,’ he wrote, thrusting the sheet forth with insistence.

Bobby read it, “Huh,” not having much more to say, already lost in the old bruise of grief. Dean knew it well. 

As Dean took the journal back to the writing desk, he eyed a new letter to Rufus that he knew Bobby would let gather dust before it ended up crumpled in the trash. After making sure Bobby wasn’t looking, he slipped the letter up his sleeve and into his pocket. 

“Look— this is the remake, did you ever see it?” Bobby busied himself, turning to the TV as he began to clean the ring. He’d restored plenty of pieces of antique jewelry in the past; Dean hoped Ketch’s ring wouldn’t be too much work. 

Dean sat down next to him on the couch, recognizing the background set from a movie Dad took him and Sam to see once at the drive-in before he had to go on deployment. “C-A-S-A-B-L-A-N-C-A?” he asked, tapping Bobby and resigning the word when he hadn’t looked the first time. 

“New stories, but they used the same set, and it was set in the same world, even had some of the same actors. None of them could ever match up to Bogart, though.”

Dean stayed to watch, soundlessly humming and tapping his feet to As Time Goes By in memory, remembering how much Dad loved the song—and how much he lamented that Mom never got to hear it. 

“You sure this is a real wedding ring? Sure feels light for gold,” Bobby said, knocking it against the wood. “Hear that dull sound it makes?” 

Dean shrugged. 

“Gold doesn’t do that. And there ain’t an inscription on it either,” Bobby passed the cleaned ring over, angling it so that Dean could see the bare inner surface. 

As Dean passed it back, his eyes caught the only spotless part of Bobby’s place: the case where he kept his and Karen’s rings on a bookshelf, nestled between wedding pictures. He knew for a fact they were inscribed with a coupled line from one of Bobby’s favorite poems; “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” on one, “Or what’s a Heaven for?” on the other. 

He stayed until the morning light burst through Bobby’s window so strongly it cast a glare on the TV. 

Bobby caught the glare, suddenly realizing what time it was. “Heavens, Dean, it’s late. You should be in bed, not staying up wasting your time with me. I look that lonely to you?” Bobby asked. 

Dean turned around, making a hand-wavy gesture with one hand. 

“Alright, okay, smart-ass. I’ll see you tonight, and then you can tell me all about your mermaid. Don’t forget your leftover pie in the fridge,” Bobby said, giving him the cleaned ring and pointing to the remainder of another failed pie “date” from the morning before. “You should give it another try, everything deserves a second chance.”

Dean held the plate in his hand, the weight of it giving him an idea. 

***

During his lunch break the next evening, rather than spend it in the breakroom staring at an empty chair, Dean took the opportunity to sneak back into the lab. 

The overhead lights were sparse, and most of the energy in the room was conserved to the machines around the perimeter and the tank. Notably, it was empty. Instead, bubbles rose from beneath the surface of the black tile swimming pool. The sound of a clinking chain occasionally followed the movement. 

Dean sat at the edge of the pool, trying to see underneath the dark surface of the water. 

Maybe the creature didn’t like being watched— Dean understood the feeling. 

He turned his back, unwrapping the burger he’d made that evening. 

Dean smiled when he heard the water gurgle closer behind him. 

Cautiously, Dean turned, breaking apart a piece of his hamburger and putting it on a dry edge of the ledge that surrounded the creature’s pool. Its head broke the surface of the water, only revealing enough of its big blue eyes to peer at him curiously. Dean gestured him closer, hands open to show he wasn’t going to hurt it. 

It’s okay, he mouthed. He pointed to the sandwich. Burger, he signed, holding an invisible burger up to his mouth. Burger, he repeated. 

The creature cocked its head, the slits of its nostrils peeking out over the water, fluttering open and closed in curiosity. 

Smells good, don’t it? Dean thought proudly, staying still as the creature swam over. 

He held his breath when it was inches away from his elbow, holding back the urge to touch it. 

He wondered what its skin felt like– slimy? Smooth, like a stingray? Back when they were both starting out, one night when Sam’s break overlapped with Dean’s, Sam gave him a tour, explaining what he’d been cleaning around, and showed him the touch tank in one of the wetlabs. He remembered how the different animals felt– velvety smooth for sting rays, rough for certain species of small sharks, hard like plastic for crabs and snails. Their big hope back then, as Sam had excitedly explained while Dean cleaned, was in training dolphins and octopodes, as they showed intelligence that was higher than other marine animals. 

Turned out all the dolphins were too horny and the octopodes were too stubborn to train the way the Men of Letters were aiming to, and they were eventually transferred to local museums and some amusement park in San Diego, but it was still a cool experience. (Cleaning up after them had not been). 

A splash brought Dean out of his thoughts, and he watched as the creature snatched the burger and darted back under the black water and deeper into the pool, away from Dean. A few moments later, the top of its head popped back up over the surface, a bubble of air popping as it burped in appreciation. 

A soundless exhale of laughter escaped Dean’s mouth. He set his sandwich down to wryly sign, “You’re welcome,” and continued to eat his midnight lunch while the creature swam the perimeter of the pool, seemingly trusting Dean enough to go back to its preferred activities. 

Every few minutes, the sound of the chain connected from its collar to the other end of the pool rattled, souring the taste of the food in his mouth.

***

“Mr. Piss Hands wants to talk to us,” Eileen greeted him as she knocked on the door of the west wing’s men’s rooms a few hours before the end of their shift. 

Dean bit his lip, hiding his laugh as a man who had been using one of the stalls stepped out

“Why?” Dean asked, arching his brow in question. 

“I don’t know. You can finish later, they want us now.”

Dean cleaned his hands, tucking away his cart before following Eileen through the halls and up to where the main offices and war rooms were. As they walked, the uniforms of passersby grew increasingly more decorated, and the looks he and Eileen got grew increasingly more judgemental. Dean tried to turn up the collar of his coveralls on instinct, feeling a little exposed. 

Ketch’s secretary let them into his office, where he was leaning against his desk, arms crossed and legs spread obnoxiously in a domineering pose. Two chairs were directly in front of him. 

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. 

Dean moved his chair away from Ketch so that he was angled to face Eileen. 

Ketch furrowed a brow, his lips pursed in protest. He gave a constipated blink before smoothing his face out. He picked up files off his desk, flipping through them. “Eileen Leahy– Leahy, that Irish?” 

Dean interpreted; Ketch’s lips were partially obscured by the folder as he looked down, and it was harder for Eileen to make out his words. 

“Yes, sir, my parents are from County Cork,” she answered. 

Ketch’s head twitched at her accent, looking back at Dean’s hands. He flicked through the files with his non-bandaged hand. “Oh,” he intoned. “So you can’t hear, but you can speak,” Ketch said, gesturing to Eileen. “And you’re—mute, is that it? You can hear but you can’t talk?”

Dean did his best in interpreting for Eileen. “I’m hearing, you’re Deaf. You’re speaking, I’m mute. He’s hearing-speaking, he’s an asshole. Say yes.”

“Yes sir,” Eileen confirmed, smiling up at him. 

Ketch peered at Dean. “So you can’t speak at all? Must have something to do with those scars, yes?” 

Dean nodded.

“He’s had them since he was a baby,” Eileen said, gathering from Ketch’s intent peering at Dean’s neck what the subject of discussion was.

Dean always felt that their stories were similar—she’d been born hearing, and as far as Dean knew he’d been able to produce vocalizations--until they both had separate accidents (well, Dean’s was pretty intentional– a baby didn’t end up with its neck slashed and abandoned by accident) that gave them their unique disabilities. But neither one of them had been old enough to ever remember anything different, so they didn’t feel like they were missing much of anything until people like Ketch made them feel like they were.

“Dean Winchester— Winchester, you’re related to Sam Winchester, of founding member Henry Winchester? Though, reading this, I suppose you’re not real brothers, you just grew up together,” he talked to himself. Why he hadn’t just read the goddamn files before they arrived, Dean didn’t know, but Ketch sort of looked like the kind of guy who didn’t normally bother with the minutiae of things. Shoot first, ask later, Dean clenched his fist at the thought of the creature’s now-healed bullet holes. Real brothers, he fumed. As if just because they weren't related by blood made everything else they'd been through together irrelevant. Ketch was one to talk, his ring wasn't real. 

“Sam is my brother,” Dean said vehemently. Eileen shot him a sympathetic look. 

Ketch continued on, not having caught the movement. “You two were the cleaning crew outside T-4 yesterday, correct?” 

“Yes,” Eileen answered after Dean signed. “We have clearance,” she added. 

Ketch looked between the two of them. 

“I do suppose if it’s harder to sink ships if the help can’t have loose lips.” He looked between their hands, his bandaged one twitching. “Loose hands, maybe, but you may as well be talking in code. I’ve got to hand it to the Americans sometimes to think of such… ingenuity,” he said, hanging a lot of condescension off the word.

“Fuck you,” Eileen signed, making Dean hide a smile. To others, it probably just looked like she was scratching her chin. 

“I’m told you were the one who found my fingers?”

Dean nodded.

“They had mustard on them,” he said flatly. 

Dean signed sheepishly to Eileen, who pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. 

“The best you could do, I assume,” he looked at them in dismay. “Alright. Let me be clear: you two go in, you clean, and you get out. It’s for your safety as much as it is for the security of the asset. That thing is an affront. Do you know what an affront is?”

“Yes, sir,” Eileen responded tightly. Dean knew what she was thinking— just ‘cause they weren’t researchers didn’t mean they were stupid. “Something offensive, sir.”

“That’s correct. I dragged that horrid thing from the filth of the Amazon river, and along the way, we didn’t get to like each other very much.” He held up his bandaged hand while Dean interpreted. “I know it may stand on two legs, it might even look human to you. But it is not. We’re created in God’s image. God and country. You don’t think that thing looks like God, do you?”

Dean made a bewildered face, “Do you know what God looks like?” he signed. 

“We wouldn’t know, sir,” Eileen responded. 

“He looks like us. Well. Adam more so than Eve, I think, but nevertheless—”

The phone rang, and Ketch picked it up, answering, and waving them away dismissively. “General Michael, sir! Yes, I am all healed up. I’m pleased to report I still have my trigger finger, ready to fire as needed sir. And my—”

They left, Eileen signing in the hallway outside Ketch’s monitor-lined office. “What the hell was the point of that?” she signed, her face an exclamation. 

Dean agreed, grimacing. “To tell us to get in and get out?” 

Eileen laughed. “I saw your face. Are you going to listen?”

“Hell no.”

Chapter Text

Now that he knew the creature liked burgers, Dean had a plan. When he got ready for work, he made a little extra, packing some of the raw meat into a plastic baggie in case it had preferences. After some thought, he packed some of the leftover pie before he trashed it, and selected one of his portable records and player in its case, protective of it on the bus ride to work. 

During the first half of his shift, he was so eager to see the creature again that Eileen noticed it.

“You’re anxious,” she commented before erasing a number on the chalkboard of a research lab they were in and replacing it. 

“I’m excited,” he corrected. “You need to stop doing that, you’re going to get caught one of these days,” he warned. 

“So? Their math is wrong,”

“They’re taking all the credit that belongs to you,” he insisted. “Just want you safe.” 

Sam knew someone had been fixing his coworkers’ math for years, and wanted to know who their rogue corrector was because they could really use someone who wasn’t careless on the staff. Dean always shrugged, feigning cluelessness and keeping Eileen’s secret. He didn’t think that Sam would narc on her on purpose, but there was a real possibility that even if Sam found out and went to the board vouching for her with good intentions, Eileen could get fired for tampering with government research. Or worse.

When they got to the creature’s lab to do their round before breaking for lunch, Eileen understood when Dean lingered, washing his hands at a wash station in the room and pulling out his portable carrier and lunch sack, that he wanted to have lunch here alone. She winked and zipped her lips before leaving. 

He placed a bit of cooked and raw hamburger on the ledge. 

“Burger,” he reminded, pointing to the cooked part and signing. “Meat,” he signed for the raw meat. “You eat,” he signed, then bit into his own burger. 

Dean almost choked as the creature rose from the water in one fluid movement, exposing all its muscular, strange glory. It lifted its hands, its long, webbed fingers stretching to copy the movements– just as fluid as the rest of itself– before taking the food and dipping below the water again. 

When it came back up, Dean subtly checked its junk— it didn’t seem to have any, but the ab-like segments running up its torso were interesting. He still wanted to know what its skin felt like. 

Instead, he took out his player, setting up the record and letting the needle drop.

“Music,” Dean signed, then picked up his food again. The creature pointed at the burger in Dean’s hand. “Burger,” it copied.

It lingered at the edge of the water, cocking its head. It pointed to the player. 

“Music,” it signed, copying Dean’s movements from earlier.  

Dean smiled, nodding. It lingered for a few moments more, its soulful eyes widening. He guessed it didn’t hate the tunes, as it didn’t cover its earflaps– tympanic membranes, Eileen had explained once when they cleaned out a tank of frogs. Though it had frilly skin in the space where ears would be on a human, Dean wasn’t sure if they were for decoration or function. 

Dean tore off a piece of egg, placing it on the ledge. “Egg,” he signed. The creature copied his crossed finger movements, then took it. 

You’re welcome, Dean thought wryly. 

The creature went back to swimming laps, though if it was just Dean’s imagination, it seemed to stay a little closer to him as he finished his lunch. 

“Friend,” Dean signed, pointing at himself as the record ended. “Friend.” 

***

The whole morning after he went home, Dean had a hard time falling asleep, thinking about his interactions with the creature; the piercing humanoid eyes haunting him. Had it really understood him, or was it just copying the movements he’d made?

That evening during his lunch break, Dean laid out bits of sandwich ingredients out of order, trying to test it. 

“Egg,” he signed, pointing to the meat. 

“Meat,” the creature signed, its brow ridges furrowed and head cocked. It blinked, its nictitating membrane closing over its eyes for a moment. As if waiting for Dean to fess up to lying. 

Dean held his hands up in an ‘ Okay, you got me,’ look, and agreed, “Meat.” He nudged it forth, and it was gone in a few seconds. 

“Egg,” the creature signed, pointing at the bit of egg. Dean nodded, and the creature took it. 

When all the items were gone– lettuce and tomato left behind with a vehement ‘no’, which Dean agreed with— the creature surprised him by signing, “Thank you.”

Dean’s brows flew to his hairline. “Where’d you learn that?” he wanted to ask, realizing it must have watched him and Eileen signing to each other before and connected the gestures somehow. 

“You’re welcome,” he returned, wondering how much else it had picked up on already. 

“Music,” it signed to where Dean had left the player but hadn’t yet set it up. 

Dean wiped his hands, setting it up. As Presley filled the room, the creature listened intently, its head cocked. 

Dean held up the album he played before, explaining it, and then pointed to the one playing. 

“My brother Sam likes it,” he said, fingerspelling S-A-M before following it up with the ‘tall’ and ‘moose’ horns to gesture Sam’s sign name, given to him by Eileen. 

The creature seemed to think for a moment, nodding in what seemed like a neutral assent. “Egghead,” it said, making Dean let out a soundless laugh. It must have remembered Sam from earlier interactions. 

“Yeah, that’s Sammy alright,” Dean agreed, using the pidgin sign for ‘baby’ that he’d used for Sammy most of his life—to Sam’s annoyance as he got older—as he sat back down by the ledge. 

It occurred to him they’d never had formal introductions. 

“I’m D-E-A-N,” he said, following it up with his sign name. The creature’s long, webbed fingers copied the movement. “D-E-A-N you” he returned, making Dean smile. He nodded. He just wished he knew the creature’s name. 

Before he could ask, the creature pointed to the player. “What music D-E-A-N like?” 

Dean grinned, happily signing about how he swore The Yardbirds were going to be big one day. Whether the creature understood every word or not, he didn’t care, because the creature seemed to be content to watch his hands (or watch him), anyway. 

Being listened to, even if he wasn’t heard, was always a freeing experience. 

***

Day after day, visiting with the creature became the best part of Dean’s night. 

He taught it the fingerspell alphabet, all the basic signs he knew. Eileen began coming by around midnight too, gesturing excitedly with it. 

“It’s going to need a sign name soon,” she commented, and Dean smiled at the thought.  

The next day while he cleaned, he brought a different record. The creature was in the cylinder tank this time, which it didn’t seem to like as much. It pointed to the player. 

“Another,” he signed, so Dean put a different one back on, even trading a few with Ash during his break to see if the creature preferred Ash’s heavier taste in music. 

“You running an experiment of your own?” Ash asked, smelling of skunk. 

“Maybe,” Dean shrugged. 

“Party on, brother,” Ash said, giving him a knowing look and passing over a few records that he’d stashed in the computer room. 

Some nights the creature looked hopefully at Dean’s burger, asking for more, and Dean always surprised it by bringing out some extra meat, noting it seemed to prefer the raw stuff first. Dean got a little Coleman ice box that he had to fight to stuff in his locker to keep the raw meat cool so it wouldn’t stink up the place. He ate away a little more of his paycheck buying more eggs and ground chuck, but Dean didn’t care. 

If this was the rest of his life— going to work at a thankless job, with the highlight of his day being the highlight of this fish person’s day, then he’d gladly dance the rat race for as long as life would let them both. 

***

He took the long way out of work one day after clocking out, dressed back in his jacket and plaid shirt, and headed back by the lab to say goodbye for the day.

When he heard voices through the thick doors of the lab, he ducked by the water fountain, pretending to get a drink. The voices continued, and he placed them in an instant: Ketch— smarmy and pompous enough that no matter where he was he made his voice heard— and Mick, so angry that his normally meek voice was raised to a shout. 

“This being is intelligent; if you would just listen to me and use less forceful methods, perhaps you could get the information you were looking for!” Mick argued. 

Ketch laughed, the sound echoing as the doors slid open. 

Dean turned around, wiping his mouth, holding his key card like he was just on his way out and not at all hanging around after hours. 

Ketch caught eyes with Dean as he emerged from the darkness of the lab. “Some things just need to be shown a little force before they’ll give you what you want,” he said casually to Mick, straightening his pants. Dean held off a look of disgust, instead focusing on how the bandages of Ketch’s left hand were spotted with red. 

Mick shot a glance at Dean with something like concern. Dean swore Mick flicked his brows between him and the open door of the lab as he passed, as if he was encouraging him to go in. 

He waited until they rounded the corner before rushing in, the doors sliding shut behind him. 

The tank the creature was locked in again glowed in the dimness of the room, highlighting his form. 

He lifted his portable player, setting it down on a nearby table, next to where some files had been left behind. “Play you a song?” he signed. “I leave soon.”

The creature nodded, seeming desperate for something good. 

Maybe I’ll play the whole album, Dean thought. He wished he didn’t have to leave at all. 

After he set up the player, dropping the needle on a softer song, the kind the creature seemed to enjoy the most, he curiously picked up the file when he saw a picture paperclipped to it of the creature in a muddy river. 

Asset No.: 401

Dates of Reconnaissance: June 4, 1965 (first sighting by BMOL officiant); January 2 — April 16, 1966 (confirmation study); May 18 – August 27, 1967 (field study)

Date of Acquisition: September 16, 1967 

Location Acquired: Arequipa Region, Peru 

Project Head: Arthur Ketch, Tactical Development, British Men of Letters

Report Author: Michael Davies, Researcher, British Men of Letters

Dean took it over to the creature, reading it and mouthing along as he did. “This is about you,” Dean over-formed the words with his lips as he looked up, gesturing the file toward him.

He skimmed through the document, more interested in the various pictures of what the creature looked like in the wild, until one paragraph, in particular, caught his eye. 

“Locals had been calling the asset by a nickname, an acronym for what they labeled as ‘Creatura del Agua Sudamericano’: CAS, or as it was written in a drawing made for me by a child in the nearby village, ‘Cas’. It could not be determined outside the rigor of a lab setting at the time of reconnaissance if the asset demonstrates any real understanding of local linguistic patterns and conventions when called, or if it is simply a conditioned response to the presence of food that usually accompanies the specific tonal patterns of its nickname—a mere recognition of soundwaves.”

Dean set the file down, excited. 

“You’re C-A-S ?” Dean asked, fingerspelling his name.  

The creature nodded, looking surprised, his gills fanning out and vibrating. Not scared or angry, like it seemed to be before, but… happy? “C-A-S,” he affirmed. “You D-E-A-N.” 

Dean grinned. Fuck the report— anyone who had spent more than an hour with Cas, on Cas’ level, would know that Cas could understand a world of things– if only they’d let him. Dean couldn’t produce any “tonal patterns” for Cas to recognize, but Cas knew his name anyway. 

His smile dropped as he walked closer to the tight, enclosed tank. You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, buddy? 

As if Cas could hear his thoughts, he pressed himself up against the glass, his face downtrodden. 

Dean felt a pang of sadness, feeling for him. This beautiful, magnificent being, one who had once been free, and the Men of Letters had the gall to have him locked up, shocking him day after day, like Cas needed to be punished just for being himself — like he needed to be punished for not communicating in a way they understood. 

He pressed his palm to the glass, wishing there wasn’t anything separating them— whether it be glass, or chains, or Dean’s schedule, or the prejudice of others. His face was so close that Dean could tell Cas wished the same thing. Their eyes connected through the glass, hands edging close.

It wasn’t fair.

Chapter Text

When he passed by Charlie and Ash’s computer room on his way out of the facility, they invited him to join them for their smoke break. 

“Come on, I haven’t been able to spend time with my favorite handmaiden,” Charlie pleaded.

Dean agreed. He didn’t usually partake, but Charlie looked stressed—and he was, too— so he joined her for the company. It would be a while before the next bus that could take him back to town arrived, anyway; he’d spent so long in the lab after Ketch left that he missed the one he usually took. Bobby was probably wondering where he was by now.

Dean followed Charlie, thinking they’d go out to the rooftop, or even the employee smoking lounge, but was confused when they began leading the way out through the service tunnels, where every Thursday morning before he left work, he and Eileen loaded up the piles of dirty laundry onto the laundry service vans. 

Ash ushered them over to where a few of the cooks were standing around and chatting, swapping a ten-dollar bill with one of them in exchange for a plastic baggie. Dean widened his eyes, looking back at where a camera was nearby. 

“Ah, don’t worry, man, we’re in a blind spot. Big Brother won’t see,” Ash said, waving a hand and lighting one of the pre-rolled joints, inhaling deeply. He exhaled, passing it over to Charlie, who took a puff and started coughing. 

“Rats,” she choked, waving the smoke away from her face. She passed it to Dean, who shrugged and inhaled, the smoke burning his lungs. He coughed in distaste, his lungs spasming at the invasion, wrinkling his face and handing it back to Ash, who took to it like a fish to water. 

“Blind spot?” Dean asked Charlie, who steeled herself before taking another hit. She managed it better this time, offering it to Dean who shook his head ‘no.’ 

She gasped an exhale, looking marginally looser. “There’s tons of ‘em,” she sniffed. “You’d think a government facility with a ton of ‘top secret’ projects would have more cameras or better security, but apparently not.” 

“Well,” Ash started conspiratorially, “It helps if we can create our own holes in security,” he chuckled as he breathed a particularly large plume of smoke out. 

It sure did, Dean thought, looking out past the garage, and back to the facility where Cas was contained.

When the joint came his way again, Dean took another drag hoping it would help. It did nothing to stop the sense of foreboding building in his chest. 

***

The sense of foreboding proved accurate the next evening when he headed to Cas’ room for lunch. 

His paper sack fell to the ground with a thunk when he walked in to find Cas chained to a small platform on the ground, shaking and making terrible moaning sounds. 

He rushed over, his hands hovering over him, trying to find where he was hurt and how to make it better, when a clanging outside alerted him to someone else coming in. He apologized to Cas, grabbed his smushed lunch, and ducked behind a tile column in the corner.

“Miss me?” Ketch’s haughty voice rang out when the doors opened. Cas mustered a growl in response, which turned into a low moan as Ketch shocked him. 

Dean curled his lip in a snarl. 

“What is that godawful noise? Is that you crying? Is it fear? I hope it is, because you certainly don’t seem to respond to anything else.”

Another zap from the cattle prod, and a pleading noise followed. Dean ached for Cas, every nerve in his body fighting not to expose himself and run over to him. 

“Whatever it is, it’s just about the worst sound I’ve ever heard.”

Dean risked peeking around the corner, watching as Cas fanned his frills out, the calming blue color shifting to a vibrant red as he hissed. 

“Oh, are you angry, is that it? Want to take another bite out of me? You’re not—”

Dean held his breath as Ketch noticed a smudge of mustard and grease on the floor. Dean ducked back behind the column, covering his nose and mouth so that his breath didn’t make any noise. 

“Hm.”

Ketch’s shoes echoed against the floor as he walked around the room, edging closer to where Dean was hiding before the doors opened. 

“Sir!” Ketch greeted. Dean heard several sets of footsteps and chattering people come in. 

Dean’s heart skipped when he heard Sammy’s voice among the group. “As you can see, sir, we—”

“So this is the asset?” a man’s voice asked, bowling over Sam. Authoritative, no-nonsense. From his demeanor, Dean reasoned the voice must have belonged to General Michael, who he’d heard Ketch talking on the phone with before. 

“Yes, sir,” Ketch confirmed proudly. “Everything’s prepped and ready for you, sir.”

“Bigger than I thought,” General Michael commented. 

“Ugly as sin, isn’t it? We found it in the Amazon, where the locals were worshipping it as some sort of god.”

“Doesn’t look like much of a god. I hesitate to even call this part of God’s creation,” Michael’s voice echoed and bounced as he walked around Cas, observing him from all angles. 

“He’s bleeding,” Mick cut in, disappointed. “You can’t keep doing this, Ketch—”

“It’s an animal, Davies. Just doing my duty and keeping it tame.”

There was a sound of paper as General Michael flipped through a few reports. “‘Oxygen osmosis, dioxide exchange…’ what am I looking at here?”

“This creature is unlike anything we’ve ever seen, before, sir, it’s remarkable. It can alternate between two different respiration mechanisms—”

“A mudskipper can do that,” Ketch commented drolly, bored. 

“Not like this. And analogous studies can only go so far. But this is the first humanoid creature with the capability of switching from oxygen-concentrated environments to hydrogen-concentrated ones,” Mick finished.

“How long can it breathe outside the water?”

“Only about thirty minutes. It’s been about…” Ketch trailed off. “Twenty-eight minutes, so we should begin to see the effects shortly.”

Seconds ticked by, gathering into a painful bubble behind Dean's sternum. Cas began gasping and wheezing on the floor. Dean clenched his fist, fighting not to bang it against the column in frustration. He wanted everyone to just get the hell out and leave Cas alone, so he could go make sure he was okay. 

Mick spoke up again. 

“We’re dropping Agent Orange overseas, sir… and it’s no secret here that it’s not just crops that it’s destroying. Some of your American soldiers are getting caught in the crossfire. So are civilians. Imagine if we could take the same kind of mechanism this creature has and apply it to any molecule, apply it to any of our soldiers, make it en masse, and distribute it to civilians we rescue. Your officers are trained— imagine what thirty extra minutes of breathability would buy! Imagine a world with far fewer casualties, with increased survivability against chemical weapons—”

“And if the enemy gets hands on it? If they’re capable of replicating the same? Hm? Then any weapon we drop on them will be pointless. A handful of American and civilian casualties is the price we pay for neutralizing the Viet Cong. Besides, my men know what they’re signing up for, everyone knows the cost of serving one’s country. It’s an honor to die. Now tell me what the hell the asset can offer that is useful. ”

Ketch spoke again. “The reality, sir, is we don’t know much about the thing—”

Cas continued wheezing and choking on the floor. 

“Sir,” Mick said, “we should get him back into the water.”

“Why not go over the thirty-minute mark on this one? What is it you call it, a new trial? Keep going, see how long we can push it.”

Dean took the chance and eyed around the corner, desperation filling his body when Cas began to convulse. He wanted to run over to help, but Mick caught his eyes, and gave the tiniest shake of the head, urging him to stay back. 

Ketch spoke again, “You know, we’ve exhausted all our resources attempting to extract information out of it the old-fashioned way. If we really want to get to know everything we can about it, we should dissect it. You’ve known me since Pusan, sir— real men like you and I know sometimes what is ugly is what is necessary.” 

Sam scoffed, objecting. “With all due respect, sir, we’re a research institution. Our focus should remain on preserving the creature as-is and finding everything we can out about it. And what Dr. Davies—” 

“When I approved funding for this project, I was promised a weapon! Something that would win the war and the favor of the public. If this thing can’t provide anything useful to me alive, then maybe it can provide some sort of use in death.” 

Dean’s heart clenched. 

“Sir, he’s passed out, please?” Mick pleaded, making Dean peek around the column where Cas had fallen limp to the ground.  

General Michael gave an exasperated sigh and gestured to the pool, and Sam and Mick helped get Cas back into the water, where he slowly started to regain consciousness. 

“Sir, please, we cannot, under any circumstances, kill this creature. We may never get the chance to study something like him alive again, and if we dissect it, we may be ridding the earth of a unique species,” Mick urged. 

“Some species need to be gotten rid of,” General Michael said darkly. “And may I remind you, though this may be your project, you’re on American soil, which means you follow my orders. I don’t bend to your whims.”

Mick looked down, his jaw clenching. 

General Michael assessed Cas for another moment before nodding. “Alright. Get Dr. Naomi, we’ll be doing a vivisection. I half agree with you– we need it alive to study as much as we can about it. Added bonus of not wasting another penny on euthanasia. Set it a week from today.”

The bubble burst, cracking Dean's chest in two. 

“Sir—” Sam began to plead.

“You question me again and you’re fired, Winchester.”

The doors opened and the crew left, leaving Dean in silence. Finally, he let a few tears fall, coming out from behind the column to go check on Cas. Cas seemed to be sleeping below the surface of the water, no doubt exhausted by the ordeal of being goddamn tortured. Dean sniffed, watching his tears join the mild salinity of the water below.

He couldn’t bear the thought of Cas going through more pain than he’d already been in. To go out like that—it was monstrous. He could feel the cavern that Cas’ absence would create beginning to carve itself into Dean’s chest, hollow and empty and aching. Was this how Bobby felt, without Karen in his life? Was this how Dad felt, after Mom? It was more than Dean had ever felt for any of the other creatures that came through the lab; it was different than the pain he felt after Mom passed, and then Dad, over two decades later. Cas wasn’t just some lab rat to him—he’d never felt this way after any other creature had left the institute. The way he felt about Cas… he was more than just a friend. 

The doors opened behind him, followed by the sound of squeaking wheels unsteadily coming in—Eileen’s cart. 

Dean wiped his face, turning toward her. 

“I was outside waiting for you,” she said. “What’s wrong?” she asked, leaving her cart and rushing toward him, raising a hand to his shoulder in comfort when she saw the expression on his face.

Dean shook his head, frustrated when more tears fell. 

He picked up his lunch from where it was abandoned on the ground, heading over to the pool where Cas was still readjusting. He laid out the food, trying to coax him close, his stomach churning too much to want any of it. He shook with anger. 

“They’re going to vivisect him in a week.” 

Eileen’s brows raised, shock and sympathy coloring her face. Rather than clean, she crossed the room and sat angled to him. 

“So what do you want to do?” she signed. 

***

“You want to what?” Bobby asked in disbelief as he smoothed his hair in the hallway mirror– off to choke down another terrible piece of cobbler from that waitress in the diner, no doubt. 

“Free Cas,” Dean signed behind him, slapping his thighs in frustration. He had a hard time focusing on the rest of his shift, wanting only to take Cas right then and there out of the facility. But with the General and security around, he knew it would be impossible to do by himself. 

Bobby turned around. “This feels illegal even to talk about.”

Dean blew air past his lips in a snort. Since when had Bobby ever been such a goody-two-shoes?

“Cas has no one else,” Dean pleaded, following Bobby into his bedroom closet, walking backward so Bobby could continue to see him as he signed. 

Bobby stopped, fixing the tie around his neck. “We’re all alone.” Dean slapped his thighs again. “What are you going to do? If I took you to a pet store or a fancy restaurant, would you want to free every fish and lobster, too?”

Dean shrugged angrily. Maybe he would, he didn’t know.

“When did you become an animal rights activist?” 

“Doesn’t everything deserve a second chance?” Dean signed, repeating Bobby’s words back to him.

“That’s not what I meant. And look– there, you called it a ‘thing’!”

A spike of anger went through him when Bobby turned again. 

“You’re not hearing me!” Dean signed, blocking the doorway. “Speak as I sign.” Dean wanted to make sure there was nothing lost in translation.

“Okay,” Bobby sighed, nodding for him to go on. 

Whenever Dean did this—like when he talked to Sam about how great Mom was instead of refusing to move his hands; when he told Sam how proud he was of him when he graduated college; when Dad died and Sam translated for Dean as he delivered the eulogy at his funeral—he felt vulnerable. Like he was spreading apart his ribcage and handing out his heart, hoping that the action would be understood. 

“You look at me, and what am I? My lips move, but no sound comes out. Does that make me less human?-- Dean …” Bobby broke off, but Dean stopped him, continuing. “I see him– him? —, and same thing. Just because we’re different, or we talk in our own way, doesn’t mean we deserve to be heard less—I know that Dean—”

“Stop talking over me!” Dean signed. “Let me finish, please.”

“Sorry,” Bobby said as he rubbed his chest in apology. “Continue.”

“I see the way Cas looks at me… I know he sees me for everything I am… the way I see myself… and he sees past that. I see him, and he sees me, and we’re the best part of each other’s day. I see him for him, and I can’t stand the thought of letting his light go out. I have to save him now, or I let him die—and part of me dies with him,” Bobby repeated. 

Dean nodded, exhaling in relief. “Please!”

Bobby gave him a deeply sympathetic look. “How can you tell all that from him? I’m sorry, Dean, but… it’s not even human.”

Dean shook with fury. “If we don’t do anything to help, neither are we,” he signed, and stalked off, leaving Bobby behind.

Chapter Text

From the journal of Robert Singer

November 5, 1977

When I watched the only family I had left in my life at that point walk away from me, I knew I’d messed up. But I’d been so blinded that day, so bullheaded. 

I’d been on my way out the door to go see a woman I’d been seeing and talking to every day, only to soon realize that we hadn’t really been seeing or talking to each other at all. Turns out talking ain’t the same as being heard, and looking at someone ain’t the same as being seen. 

I think a part of me said all of that out of worry, or fear. It hurts enough when you take a chance with a human, and even more when you lose them. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to take a chance with something that, at the time, I just viewed as an animal. And I feared even more what would happen if Dean took a chance, and lost him. It would’ve been a mercy to let the government cut Dean’s losses for him. 

Karen would say I was just being stubborn. 

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss Karen and regret what we never got to have. 

I think she’d have liked Dean. 

I think she’d have been proud of what we did, after. 

***

Dean came home after a long night at work, tired and sulking. He’d spent as much time as he could with Cas, trying not to think about the death sentence looming over Cas’ head. He took his sweet time scrubbing every speck off every inch of the lab as Ketch, General Michael and his technicians lingered, but Dean hadn’t been able to spend his lunch break with him alone. 

He just wanted to roll into bed and forget the world existed. 

As he headed up the stairs, his stomach grumbled and sat up with interest when the scent of Karen’s apple pie wafted down the hall. 

Dean scowled. Did Bobby think he could forgiven through his stomach? An apology would mean nothing unless he helped—or at least showed that he cared. 

He walked down the hallway, his steps slowing when he heard music and… laughter. Did Bobby have a date over, had he finally landed a date with that woman from the diner? Good for Bobby, he thought bitterly, but not insincerely, thinking how soon his love would be gone from the world. At least one of them got to be happy. 

Yet when Dean got to his door, glancing over through Bobby’s open doorway, he saw a man he’d only ever seen in a picture before, nudging Bobby and pointing to the door, a glass of whiskey in hand. 

He stopped, looking at Rufus Turner in awe. 

“You Dean?” Rufus asked, “You’re the one who sent me this idjit’s letters.” 

Dean nodded, holding out his hand to shake. He’d put his upset with Bobby aside; he’d heard too much about Rufus to just walk out now. To his surprise, Rufus not only gave his hand a firm shake, but he pulled him in for a stiff hug. “Thank you,” he whispered as they were close, “from us both, we’re all too stubborn for our own good”, and clapped Dean’s back once before letting him go. 

Dean looked at Bobby in surprise. “What happened?” he asked. 

“What happened is that you took all the letters I never sent off my desk and sent them to Rufus without my permission, and despite it all, he still decided to come here.”

“You ain’t getting rid of me that easy, Bobby,” Rufus said, sitting back down on Bobby’s couch and sipping from his glass. “Family doesn’t give up on each other.”

Dean shifted, ready to excuse himself and head to his apartment before Bobby pulled the pie out from where it was being kept warm in the oven, showing him that the vents in the crust had been cut to spell S-O-R-R-Y. 

“I realized as soon as you left that I’d made a mistake. But I’ve felt like I’d made a mistake for the last ten years of my life. When you grow used to the feeling, it’s easy to keep living in it. I was stubborn, and I let you go, and I kept going— down to that diner, where it didn’t pan out, and I happened to run into Rufus on my way out.” He sighed, smiling at his old friend. “Like he said, family doesn’t give up.”

Bobby set the pie down, handing a plate and pie spatula to Dean, who immediately cut into the letters, serving himself the ‘Y’.

Rufus turned to him. “So what’s this I hear about tryin’ to rescue a fish person?” 

“His name is Cas,” Bobby corrected, looking at Dean, who was in the middle of taking an enthusiastic bite. “You want to give Rufus the rundown?” he asked. “I’ll interpret.” 

***

Instead of entering through the front with Eileen like he usually did, he went around through the garage entrance, walking down to the loading docks where they usually helped load the washateria vans. 

He saw the camera Ash had mentioned had a blind spot and subtly looked around for others, noting if he’d need to find a way to move more of them out of the way. 

He saw a parked van, taking down the make and model, sketching the logo in the journal that Bobby gave to him to borrow (he’d be in charge of getting the van, after all). He counted the number of cameras and the number of guards at the guard booth, drawing a quick sketch of the guardrail. He stood in the blind spot and finished writing down his notes, slipping the journal back into his jacket pocket. 

As he started to walk in, he spotted a gorgeous new black Impala. For a while, Dad had a similar model growing up. This was a four-door, hard top, silver rims. He went to check it out, bending down to see himself in the gleam of her shell as he admired it. 

“Like my car? It’s new,” Ketch’s smug voice said above him.

Dean straightened out, schooling his face. Of course, Ketch would be the owner, the bastard. It was unfair that such a beauty had to go to a dick like him. He probably didn’t even know what he bought, he just picked the shiniest car in the storeroom or let someone talk him into it, and signed over for it full price. Ketch was the type of person to not appreciate what he had like that. 

“Four-door, hard-top Chevy Impala. Almost four thousand pounds of pure muscle. It’s so hot off the line it’s practically still warm. You know it was the one-millionth vehicle to come off the line at the GM plant it came from?” Dean could hear the lie in his voice, wondering who he was trying to impress more– Dean, or himself. “People fought over it, but,” he shrugged, visibly flexing his arms in his suit, and Dean had to cross his arms and cover his mouth, feigning surprise to cover the fact that he was trying not to laugh. Eileen would get a real kick out of this later when he told her. “Only the right man can handle a car like this,” he said, looking back at the Impala. He leaned against it, his stance widening a little. “But you’re welcome for a ride anytime, Dean,” he offered. 

Dean’s face said ‘thank you’ while his hands said ‘fuck you.’ 

When his back was turned, he grimaced as he headed toward the back entrance to clock in. 

***

“I’m glad we got to do this, it’s been a while. I know I haven’t been able to be around as much, but you know how it is,” Sam apologized, tearing into his chicken salad as he sat across Dean in the cafeteria. 

It was a little past midnight, and Dean had taken the time he usually spent with Cas to have his lunch break with Sam, like the good old days. 

“It’s fine,” Dean signed, waving a hand. His stomach squirmed— less from his usual disgust at Sam’s choice of the cafeteria salad, and more so at himself. 

To save Cas without jeopardizing Sam, he had to do this, though.

There was a part of him that, after he managed to bring Rufus up to speed and get both him and Bobby on board, wanted to come to Sam and ask him for help outright. Yet, there was no one else who remained in the world who knew how hard Sam had worked to get to where he was, and how much this job meant to him. If Sam got caught as an accomplice in smuggling what was technically government property, he could not only jeopardize his entire career but his whole way of life. 

“I’ve got less to lose,” Bobby had promised Dean when he pointed out the same of Bobby and Rufus, starting to feel hopeless— it was a no-win scenario, no matter who got involved.  

“So how’ve you been, really? Any good movies show at the theater recently?” Sam asked.

Dean set his untouched sandwich down to sign, explaining about the double feature the theater was planning to have the following week, while underneath the table, he pinched Sam’s briefcase between the tips of his boots, slowly inching it across the floor toward himself. When Sam spoke, he leaned down, feigning scratching an itch as he swiped the badge clipped to the outside, slipping it inside his boot before he sat up. With any luck, if Sam happened to notice its absence before Dean’s shift the next day, he’d just think it had fallen off somewhere, and then Dean could pretend to have found it for him if he didn’t get a chance to clip it back during their next break together. 

“You?” Dean asked Sam. “You look tired again.” 

Sam stabbed at the leaves on his plate like they’d personally offended him, giving up and throwing his fork down. “More like defeated.” 

Dean offered part of his sandwich, raising a brow in question. Sam took a piece, indulging him. 

“Management,” he said as he chewed. “This place… I know it was founded back in World War 1, but our grandfather–”

“You,” Dean signed. Your grandfather. 

Sam huffed, gesturing between them, signing ‘Us’. “Our grandfather,” he continued, “was part of the founding class for a reason. I’ve read his journals, Dean. He thought that knowledge was a weapon, yes, but more so in the sense that he held hope for a future where if we knew enough, then we could cut down on conflict.” 

“Human nature,” Dean signed, rolling his eyes. “People can have what they need and still want more.”

“I’m more in the ‘nurture’ camp,” Sam argued wryly. “I mean, look at us– two different sets of genetics, but… I don’t know. Despite what happened to you, you took after what Mom showed you, and when Dad wasn’t there, you showed that same care and love, to me. Maybe people are only aggressive because they feel scared—like animals.” 

Dean wrinkled his face, “You sap,” he teased, making Sam let out an exasperated noise.

“Whatever.” He sighed. “I love it here, mostly. I like a lot of the people I work with,” Sam said, nudging him under the table. For a second, Dean thought he was about to get caught before Sam continued. “And I love the people I don’t get to work with as much even more. But I wish we could actually change things.” 

Dean raised a brow. “Do you think change should start at home?”

“Yeah, but how?” 

***

Dean’s heart beat nervously as he paced Bobby’s apartment, occasionally stopping to peer over Bobby’s shoulder, where he was bent over his desklamp with the loupe on his head. 

“Would you stop that? You’d think I never made a fake ID before.”

Dean turned, raising a brow at Rufus, who just chuckled from where he was on the couch, stripping copper wire from one of Bobby’s milk crates full of junk. 

“What’s that?” Dean signed. It was a simple enough gesture that Rufus understood what he meant. 

“Plan ‘B’,” Rufus said. 

“Oh ye of little faith,” Bobby retorted, turning around to hold up two badges. “Glue still has to set, but it should be ready by tomorrow morning. What do you think?”

Dean scrutinized them. Sam’s dorky-looking face on the right, and to the left, an identical badge with the necessary parking garage and security clearance, with only a few details changed to make it belong to Bobby. Dean had worked at the Men of Letters’ facility for ten years, and he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the official and the fraud. 

Well, almost— 

Dean looked between the picture and Bobby. “Thirty-two?” he signed. 

“What? You don’t think I look thirty-two?” he joked. “Sam’s says thirty-two, and I didn’t want to stay at the copy center longer than I had to,” he explained. “I’ll see if I can get away with changing it to a five with some fine-bristled brushes.”

Dean shrugged, nodding. The guard at the garage had looked half asleep when he was there that evening before Ketch crept up on him; he probably wouldn’t notice. 

Bobby set them back down, touching them up before giving him Sam’s badge back and letting his dry. “Alright. Now let’s walk through this again.”

***

As suspected, Sam thought he’d lost his badge. 

Dean saw him in the halls, and not knowing if he’d get the chance to have a break with him again, he just tapped him on the shoulder, holding his badge out between his fingers. 

“I’ve been looking for that! Thanks,” Sam signed, accidentally signing, ‘fuck you’ as he looked down at it. 

Dean tapped him again, straightening his hand. “Thank you,” he mouthed, showing him the correct sign. “That,” he pointed, repeating the move that Sam made with curled fingers. “F-U-C-K you,” he explained.

Sam froze. “Are you serious?”

Dean furrowed his brow, nodding. Yeah…

Sam scrubbed his face, looking around before leaning closer. “Are you telling me that for the past few years, I’ve accidentally been telling Eileen ‘fuck you’ every time we passed each other? Dean!"

Dean laughed, slapping his shoulder. “Classy, Sammy.”

“No! You don’t— It’s not funny, Dean!” Sam panicked. “I need to tell her I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing ‘sorry’ into his chest. He looked genuinely worried. 

“Hey,” Dean tapped him again. “She thinks it’s funny. Remember when you first met?” 

When Eileen came aboard the Men of Letters, Dean, by nature of spending more time with her, picked up on ASL faster than Sam did. Sam only knew the rare few phrases that Eileen taught him when they passed, and what he learned from Dean. 

Dean quickly learned that Eileen liked playing pranks on Sam as much as he had when they were growing up. Sam, in an effort to make her feel welcome, asked her how to say ‘How are you’ in sign. For weeks, Sam greeted Eileen with ‘I smell like bullcrap’ every time they passed, a beaming grin on his face when Eileen gave him a resounding thumbs up; Dean and Eileen always cracked up after he left. 

“Are you ever going to tell him?” Dean had asked one day.  

“He can figure it out when he learns more,” Eileen had responded with a wink.  

Sam smiled fondly at the shared memory. “Yeah,” he smiled, looking down. 

Dean felt for him. 

“Are you ever going to tell her?” he asked Sam when he looked back up. 

Sam sighed, his face taking on a more wistful tone. “I don’t know.”

Dean nudged him. “Be brave. You’ll never know if you don’t try. Better to try and fail than go through your life regretting that you didn’t do anything about it.”

***

The first half of his shift went agonizingly slow, and the second half seemed to go too fast to keep up. 

Dean kept a close eye on the clocks.

On cue, a nervous-looking secretary came and found him. 

“Are you Dean?”

Dean nodded. 

“Mr. Ketch is requesting that you come to his office immediately, there’s a mess— the tech girl spilled coffee all over his carpet when helping him with—oh, can you just come?” she begged. 

Dean grabbed his cart and took the elevator with her upstairs, eyeing the lack of cameras inside with some relief. 

On their latest game night, sensing Dean was distracted, Charlie had bullied a reluctant Dean to tell her what was going on. 

“Are you saying you’re trying to rescue a handsome dragon from the clutches of an evil knight? Dude, this is totally our chance to be real-life heroes!” she’d squealed.

It helped, having Charlie (and by consequence Ash, who despite working at a government agency seemed all too happy to jump at the chance to cause some havoc) to help out. 

Charlie promised to cause a distraction so that Ketch wouldn’t be looking when Ash moved the security cameras in the garage during his smoke break. Ketch would probably call in either him or Eileen, and with Ketch’s apparent fascination with Dean, their guess was right. 

Charlie winked at Dean as they passed in the doorway to Ketch’s office. 

“Oh, good—someone who is at least somewhat competent,” Ketch said sarcastically when Dean came in. “She spilled her sugar and milk monstrosity on this carpet while she was talking my ear off, and I need it spotless before the General returns. Cleanliness is next to godliness, after all,” he said, gesturing to where coffee was soaking into his carpet. 

Dean grabbed a bucket of warmed-up water and a rag, kneeling to start blotting the stain. 

“This is why I don’t trust women—they like to talk too much. I prefer it when people know their place.”

As he cleaned, Ketch loomed above him uncomfortably, complaining about everything from the music he swore he heard echoing in the labs, to the lengths of Sam’s hair and his attitude. Dean didn’t acknowledge him, unless it was to periodically glance behind Ketch at the camera monitors to check if Ash had moved the cameras to the right place yet. 

“Your adopted brother isn’t one of those hippies, is he?”

Dean looked up and shook his head, relieved when he saw the corner of Ash’s hand tap the loading bay cameras into position. 

He did as quickly a job as he could, not wanting to spend another second with Ketch. 

“I bet I could make you squawk a little,” Ketch leered when Dean was still on his hands and knees. 

Dean hurried the fuck out, almost bumping into Mick on his way out, eager to get him and Cas out of there and away from the Men of Letters and men like Ketch. 

***

As it got closer to daybreak, Dean’s nerves lit up. 

He tried to cover it, acting as normal as possible, before getting the laundry basket ready with wet towels, and running to T-4. 

Cas stood in the pool, his gills fanning when he saw Dean. 

“Hello, Dean,” he greeted. “Where have you been?” Cas signed. 

“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “We’ve been planning. It’s time to get you out of here.” 

Cas’ eyes widened, and he stood up, eagerly yanking on the chain he was connected to. Dean dug the kit Rufus had put together for him out of his pocket to pick the lock. 

As his tools were inside the lock, the door opened, and Dean’s heart dropped. 

The doors closed behind Mick. 

They stared at each other for a beat, Dean swallowing and praying that he’d just leave and turn around, when Mick asked, quietly, “Did you move the camera, on the loading dock?” 

If someone was going to get in trouble, Dean would rather he take the fall. He nodded, his heart sinking as he prepared for Mick to take him back upstairs for disciplinary action. 

“Are you taking him through the service tunnels?” Mick asked. 

Dean studied him; at the bags under his eyes and the way he looked at Dean like he was a beacon of hope. Dean nodded again. 

“Good idea, that’s smart.” 

Mick surprised him by handing him the keys. “There’s some things you should know—water temperature, salinity preferences, his diet,” he said. “You’re not doing this alone, are you? God , I hope not–” 

Dean shook his head, as the collar around Cas’ neck dropped to the water, splashing to the bottom of the pool. Cas ran a hand against his neck in relief. 

“He’s a freshwater creature, but you still need some salinity in whatever you’re going to keep him in the meantime—You are planning to release him?”

Dean hadn’t thought that far ahead, but nodded to get Mick to hurry up and help him get Cas into the laundry bin, which was lined with damp clothes and towels. 

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Mick said to Cas before Dean put the top over the cart. 

“Godspeed,” Mick told Dean, and Dean saluted, rushing to push the cart out through the service tunnels toward the garage.

Eileen met him halfway. “I punched us out so it’ll look like we both left for the bus early,” she explained, looking around and helping to push the cart to the loading docks, where Bobby had backed up a laundry van. The real one would come soon enough, and Eileen would hide the last of the evidence. 

“Come on, Dean,” Bobby urged, as Eileen and Dean helped Cas out of the bin. Rufus threw open the backdoors from the inside—"Huh, it sure is a fish person!”— and Cas gripped Dean’s shoulders as they got onto the van, his claws leaving indents in his skin. 

Eileen gave them both a sure nod before slamming the van door behind them. 

As soon as the door shut, Bobby peeled off, The Animals loud on the radio. 

“It was a close call getting in, Rufus’ ‘Plan B’ came in handy,” he explained breathlessly as they passed a smoldering extendable rail arm and a passed-out guard at the guard booth. 

Rufus chuckled as he climbed over into the passenger side. “You’re welcome!”

Bobby looked in the rearview mirror. “My goodness, it–he’s… he’s gorgeous,” he said, sounding wonderstruck. 

Dean wrapped his arms around Cas, settling him in a sopping wet towel, uncaring that his front was soaked as he got to hold Cas in his arms fully for the first time. He agreed. 

Chapter Text

Bringing Cas home was surreal. Dean kept wanting to pinch himself and make sure it wasn’t another dream he’d end up forgetting. 

Rufus helped Dean thread Cas’ arms through a long raincoat they’d bought during preparation, covering his face with one of Bobby’s hats and one of Dean’s scarves. While Bobby went to dump the van, Dean and Rufus sandwiched Cas between them and made it out like they were just bringing a drunken Bobby in.

“He’s just getting his sea legs back,” Rufus said as they hustled past their landlord, and Dean prayed that he didn’t look down at Cas’ feet.

They made it to Dean’s apartment with a sigh, stripping Cas of the foreign clothes and settling him into the bath that Bobby had drawn before leaving. 

Cas was sluggish, making the strained noises that Dean had heard a week earlier when Ketch had him out for too long. 

“Is he breathing—does he even need to breathe?” Rufus asked, like he just realized they hadn’t planned anything beyond getting Cas out. “Dean, we don’t know the first thing—”

“Salt,” Dean signed, remembering what Mick told him as Cas still struggled to acclimate. 

“What?”

Dean ran and got his salt shaker from the stove, emptying it into the tub. “Salt,” he signed again, mixing the water with his hand. 

“Hang on,” Rufus went across the hall and came back with the canister from Bobby’s apartment, dumping it in as well. “They oughta make you the new Morton girl,” he teased, chuckling as Cas became more lively, splashing water onto the floor. The beautiful vibrance Dean was used to seeing in him spread through his body again. 

They all let out an exhale of relief.

After a few moments, Cas turned to them and signed, “Thank you.” 

Dean smiled, watching in disbelief and relief that Cas was alive and safely home with him. Finally free. 

***

Dean met Eileen off the bus outside of the Men of Letters facility, and after a tight, grateful hug, they walked in as a united front.

“We know nothing,” Eileen signed, firm. 

Dean mimed zipping his lips, signing “ Who me ?” and making Eileen slap his shoulder in exasperation. 

“You’re too casual about this– how do you really feel?”

“Happy!” Dean responded, beaming.

They headed in, arms linked, marching over to the clock-in line, where security guards were double-checking everyone’s timecards and badges. 

They made it through with little scrutiny, and after getting into his uniform, Dean made a beeline for the breakroom to chug a cup of coffee. He hadn’t slept outside the hour on the bus to work, and he began to understand the way people mainlined the stuff like it was water. 

Dean turned around as he drained his styrofoam cup, and Ash winked as he was chatting with another worker, “Yeah, whoever it was managed to take out all the cameras too.”

He set about his normal evening, the place feeling weirdly empty with the knowledge that Cas wasn’t around. At least the reason for it was because Dean and his friends and family had taken him, and not because men utilized him as a weapon in war. 

Dean wheeled his cart in to clean lab T-4 as normal, plastering on a look of surprise and confusion as he saw the lab flooded with groups of personnel.  

Mr. Adler looked like he’d been tearing out the hair he had left, and was trying to get a word in with a broody-faced Ketch about the General. Sam trailed behind a group of technicians who were studying the tank and broken chains, a clipboard in hand. 

“Based on our preliminary intel, the leading theory is that whoever they were, it was likely a highly-trained, efficient group. Infiltration took less than five minutes.” Sam said as he caught Dean’s eye, looking between him and Eileen. “Fearless precision,” he added, the corner of his mouth lifting into a small smile. 

***

As they were making their rounds, in between one of the basement floors and research levels, Mick cornered Eileen and Dean in the service elevator. He glanced at the corners, checking for cameras before Dean signed, “Big Brother isn’t watching.”

“Right,” Mick said after Eileen translated. “Is he safe?” he asked lowly, 

Dean nodded, crossing his heart. 

“Good,” he breathed out in relief. “When are you planning on releasing him?”

Dean’s chest skipped a beat. He’d known he would have to eventually, if he wanted Cas to have the best chances of being safe and happy, and far away from Ketch’s clutches– but he hadn’t thought that far ahead, not in concrete terms. Not even after Mick had mentioned it the day before.

Inexplicably, a lump formed in his throat. The backs of his eyes burned as he signed, “Soon.” 

“Good,” Mick said again. “Good lad. And woman– you both, you’re– thank you,” he stuttered, arms moving like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to reach out for a handshake before he pulled them both in for a hug. Dean patted his back stiffly, before relaxing– without Mick’s help, things could have gone south. 

Mick straightened out his coat, handing them a business card before the elevator came to a rest. “Give me a ring if anything goes wrong,” he said, then winced when they gave him a look. He left as soon as the doors opened. 

Dean and Eileen shared a knowing look as the doors closed again. For smart people, the people who worked around them could be a little clueless sometimes. 

***

As he got off the bus, instead of going straight home, Dean walked a few blocks to pick up some groceries as the store opened. He went through the perimeter, stocking up on salt, meat, fish, eggs, and anything he thought Cas would like. 

He passed by a woman doing some early morning shopping, a wedding ring glinting on her finger as she reached for a box of hot cereal. He wondered if this was how normal people felt, buying groceries after work, going home to where they knew someone they loved was waiting for them. His chest warmed as he lost half his paycheck to the higher grocery bill, and he walked home with hurried steps, shoving thoughts of the inevitable moment when he and Cas would have to part out of his mind.

***

When Dean returned home, the sound of Mac barking and the sight of both his and Bobby’s front doors thrown open gave him a bad feeling. 

Dean dropped the grocery bags, spilling canisters of salt and cracking eggs on the floor.

He skidded to a stop at the threshold of Bobby’s apartment and rushed over when he found Bobby kneeling and holding his arm. He ran and grabbed a clean dish towel, giving it to Bobby to hold down against the slash. 

“What happened? Where is Cas?” he asked, alarmed. 

“It was my fault, I fell asleep in the middle of reading him Browning, and I guess he woke up hungry. Is he diurnal?” Bobby sighed, nodding at the kitchen, which was in disarray—which said something, given it was Bobby’s place. “While I was out, he made a mess of both our places, and I woke up in time to see him looking at Mac like he was one of your burgers. I might’ve… scared him when I shooed him away.” 

Dean pressed the rag down, fussing for a first aid kit, wanting to ask where Rufus had been— but it wasn’t either of their responsibilities to watch Cas all the time. 

“It’s just a scratch, I’m fine. Go, go find him. I think he went downstairs.” 

Dean left, stepping over his cracked eggs, following the wet long footprints and trail of water droplets down to the movie theater, where the early morning matinee of The Jungle Book was thankfully empty, save for a snoozing usher. 

Cas stood under a leak in the theater’s ceiling, his form illuminated by the backdrop of the silver screen as he watched a cartoon bear and panther argue over whether or not to take the human boy back to the village or to keep him as their own. Dean felt another pang of guilt and wondered what Cas thought of it all. 

Dean came up to him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Cas turned, his startled expression melting when he saw it was Dean. Apology filled his eyes. 

“Come, it’s okay,” he signed. “Let’s get you back in the tub, I’ll make dinner.”

Dean admired his strong form, standing free like he always should, highlighted by the projector lights. 

“Maybe dessert.”

Cas took his hand and followed, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

***

After picking up the groceries and unloading them inside—Cas happily helped clean by slurping up the broken egg remains in the hall—Bobby came over to visit and pick up his books, Mac trailing behind him curiously. 

“Mac is a friend, not food,” Dean signed, pointing to Mac. Cas reached out a cautious hand, patting him. 

Cas’ face changed when he saw the blood clotting on Bobby’s arm. 

“Oh, I’ll be alright,” Bobby assured, patting Cas’ hand. “I guess we scared each other, huh?”

Cas placed a hand on Bobby’s bald spot, bowing. 

“Yes, I guess we are alike,” Bobby conceded, making Dean smile. He left the bathroom to pin Mick’s business card above his desk, the surface covered with Charlie’s game logs. 

“Though… Are there ‘haired’ creatures like you, where you’re from? It might not be the same thing,” he heard Bobby chatter to Cas as he started on dinner-for-breakfast and put on a record.

Otis Redding felt right. 

When he came back, he was surprised to see Cas’ skin glowing in a pattern— bioluminescence, he’d had explained to him once, when the Men of Letters had been studying Portuguese Man o’ War for its venom— seeming to concentrate as he had his hands placed on Bobby’s head and arm. Cas removed his hands, nodding to himself as the beautiful light faded from his skin. Dean almost missed it. 

“That was nice, thank you,” Bobby said, sounding just as surprised as Dean felt.

The cut on Bobby’s arm began to knit itself back together, leaving no trace of a wound, not even a scar. 

He hit the counter to get Bobby’s attention, pointing, “Look!”

Bobby’s mouth fell open. “Well aren’t you an angel,” he said in thanks, holding up his smooth skin. 

Dean turned the phrase over in his head as Cas got back into the empty tub.

An angel, his angel— it sounded right. 

Bobby bid them goodnight, running a curious hand over his head.

“Goodnight,” Dean signed to Bobby’s back, waiting for the sound of the front door to close before turning back to Cas. 

As he leaned over to start the water, he lingered to admire his gorgeous miracle of a man, who looked at him with what seemed like love. 

It hit him– Cas had seen his scars before. Saw them every day. He’d slashed Ketch’s fingers off on purpose, leaving them to fester, but had healed the cut he gave Bobby. At any point that Cas had been free to touch him, he could have healed Dean’s scars, could have healed whatever damage had been done to his vocal cords as a baby; he could’ve even healed Eileen, but he didn’t. 

Because he didn’t see them as broken, the way most did. Like he told Bobby, Cas saw him for who he was. Saw him for who he was, every day. And still, Cas looked at him like that, like— 

“These arms of mine, they are wanting, wanting to hold you.”

Cas brought up a webbed, wet hand to caress Dean’s face, and Dean leaned into it shamelessly. He studied Cas’ face, holding the hand that held him, and never wanted to let go. 

Cas held out his other hand, inviting him into the tub. 

Dean quickly kicked off his boots, stepped out of his pants, and stripped himself of all his layers, tossing them behind him with abandon. When he was naked, he stood before Cas, as Cas had first stood, and laid himself bare to Dean. 

Cas chittered in appreciation. 

When Cas’ lips finally met his, Dean sunk into it, and Cas wrapped his strong arms around him. 

Like a body of water welcoming him home.

***

Going into work that evening, Dean felt like he was gliding on a cloud. 

He beamed, tipping his nonexistent hat to passersby on his way to the bus, skipping over cracks on the sidewalk. 

Eileen peered at him suspiciously as he clocked in on time by himself for once, studying the flush Dean could feel on his cheeks, at the smile he was unable to keep off his face. 

“You had sex with him!” she gasped, nudging his shoulder on the elevator. 

Dean waggled his brows. 

“How?” she cocked her head, raising a brow in question. “Flat,” she signed to her crotch area— at first glance, Cas didn’t seem to have any parts at all, smooth as a crabshell. 

Dean’s hands stalled in the air as he decided how to express it. 

“Door,” he decided, his hands two door flaps in front of them, one of them opening back and forth. “Penis,” he pushed the hand sign for ‘penis’ through the open door. 

“Huh,” Eileen verbalized, looking fascinated. “Was he good?” she signed.

Dean grinned. “Best.” 

***

Dean found himself back in Ketch’s office with Eileen for yet another asinine meeting. 

Though this time, any semblance of polish and control that Ketch may have once had was gone. It was a marked change from the first time they had ever stepped foot in his office. 

“Sir? Here they are,” Zachariah said, knocking on the door to Ketch’s office, where Ketch was leaning over his desk, comparing everyone’s timecards. 

“Mmmhmm,” he waved them in, sorting out their card. “Looks like you two punched out before the incident,” he said, still facing his desk. 

“He said it looks like we punched out before ‘the incident,’” Dean signed to Eileen. 

“Yes, sir,” Eileen confirmed aloud. 

“Be that as it may, if you know anything about what transpired, it is your obligation to report it, no matter how small or trivial the detail may seem— ‘trivial’ means unimportant, by the way. Maybe you heard something but didn’t have the means to say anything about it,” he said as he turned to Dean, “Or perhaps you saw something, but without hearing the context clues you weren’t sure of its significance,” he said, looking at Eileen. “So I’m asking you two, together, do you know anything regarding the incident?” 

“Pretend to think,” Dean signed to Eileen after he finished interpreting. 

Eileen kept her face pensive. “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary,” she said. “Or trivial,” she snarked. 

“What about you?” Ketch pointed at Dean. 

Me? Dean placed a hand on his chest in faux surprise. He shook his head no. 

“He didn’t see anything,” Eileen interpreted. 

Ketch growled a hum, crossing his arms pensively, and walking over to the windows overlooking the bullpen in the war room, where researchers walked around, conferring with each other’s data sets. He tilted his head down at Mick. “What about Dr. Davies, did either of you see him coming in or out of the lab?”

“He asked if we saw Mick in or out of the lab.”

“I mean, he works there…?” Eileen responded, pretending to be confused. 

Ketch made an exasperated noise, the tiredness raw and evident in his voice. “I mean in a different way, a suspicious way, did you see him doing anything different!”

“T-R-I-V-I-A-L?” Dean asked.

“Trivial?” Eileen verbalized. Dean shook his head. “No, sir.”

Ketch’s arms moved as he scrubbed his face, his injured hand shaking with the movement. Dean winced as he saw the way the skin was almost purple at the reattachment site. Ketch muttered to himself. “What on earth am I doing, interviewing the bloody help?” He turned around, laughing to himself, running a tired hand through his disheveled hair. “You clean piss and shit for a living, why would you hold the key to knowing who broke into a secure lab and absconded with over two years’ worth of my life?” he asked. Dean started to sign, but Ketch hissed. “Oh, don’t bother. Just leave, you’re of no use.”

Eileen started to leave, having read enough of his lips and body language to get the picture, but Dean stayed rooted in place, waiting for Ketch to lift his head at them again. 

“What?”

“F-U-C-K Y-O-U,” Dean signed, slowly, hoping somehow he’d get the sentiment. 

“What are you saying to me? Hey–! Bring…” he snapped, making Ketch’s secretary point and turn Eileen around. 

“What did he say?” he demanded. 

“F-U-C-K Y-O-U,” Dean fingerspelled again.  

“He says ‘thank you’!” Eileen said, repeating ‘fuck you’ with one hand, urging Dean out with the other. 

Ketch’s face darkened, the heat of his eyes hot on Dean’s back as he moved to leave. “You know, Dean? For a mute, you talk too much.” 

***

Grains of salt dug into Dean’s feet, but he didn’t care. 

Dean had been so glad to see Cas—and Cas him, it seemed—that he didn’t hesitate to strip out his clothes and get into the tub to wash off the day with him. As Dean traced the lines of Cas’ chest and shoulders, his skin glowed again, brightening and fading as Dean’s fingertips moved along. Dean smiled up at Cas. 

“You’re beautiful,” he mouthed, not wanting to take his hands away. 

“You,” Cas pointed, his face softening and his claws lightly running along the silhouette of Dean’s body like he had something just as special to offer. Dean shivered, and Cas turned the water temperature up a little. 

Dean wrapped appreciative hands around Cas’ arms, palpating the flex of dense muscle shifting under his scaly skin, like a snake. Cas’ unique penis-like appendage emerged between his legs from some unseen fold, and Dean let the shower water beat against his back as he prepped himself. 

When they were ready, Cas lifted him up, and Dean felt his butt hit the stopper for the tub as he moved, but he had more important things to focus on—-like kissing Cas hungrily and wrapping his legs around Cas' waist so he could sink down on him. 

He’d heard it said before that shower sex was complicated, but sex with Cas was easy. Their bodies glided over and flowed into each other as easily as water that began to spill over the edge of the tub; the ebb and flow as they rocked back and forth like the rocking of waves. 

Cas' skin glowed again, striations of dotted blue all up and down his body, highlighting the patterns of his scales and chitinous planes. Dean gently ran a finger down the tip of Cas’ dorsal fin as Cas held him against the tile wall, the feathery, spikey shape of it shivering, Cas trilling as he did. Cas growled lowly as he held Dean tighter, almost… purring.  The smooth skin of his palms and the strength of his hand squeezing in just the right way made Dean breathe heavily, climbing up Cas as the water rose to meet them. 

As Dean came, Cas’ glow was at its most intense. With his wing-like fins drifting in the rising water behind him, Dean thought he looked like an angel. Cas held him close in the now chest-high water, letting him collapse against him as his feet hit the ground again. 

Distantly, Dean was aware that his toiletries were floating by him, and that Bobby was banging at the door. 

The door cracked and opened, letting a deluge of water out into Dean’s apartment, and leaving a soaked Bobby to stare at them, stunned, for a moment. Cas shielded him from view as Dean panted and hid his face. 

Bobby chuckled as he closed the door. “Idjits.”

Chapter Text

From the Journal of Robert Singer 

November 5th, 1977

The morning I woke up after Cas healed my arm, I found that he’d done much more. My hair looked darker, fuller— and the pain that had become commonplace in my back and legs was gone. I spent the morning walking up and down the fire escape just because I could. 

On one of my trips downstairs, I was stopped by our landlord, who looked ready to throw a fit and asked if I could go check on Dean’s pipes since there was water dripping down into the jungle movie. I went upstairs, ready to come back and snark that it was the damned ceilings that we’d been begging him to fix for years. 

But when I went, water wasn’t just dripping from underneath his sink, it was coming from under his bathroom door and spilling out into his living room floor. When I banged on the door, the sound was odd–dull instead of hollow. The door nearly broke open, and a flood of water drenched me and Dean’s few belongings. 

There, at the center of the bathroom, Dean was naked as the day he was born, and Cas was trying to protect his modesty. It was such a ridiculous moment I laughed. It reminded me of me and Karen, those first few nights she moved into my childhood home with me. The way she’d painted over all my bad memories as she painted the walls and put down new wallpaper, remaking it in her image. The way she made me feel young and hopeful and free and light again… 

We’d sunbathed naked, once. I had so much open space in the yard, which once upon a time had only been covered in grass that I actually mowed. My nearest neighbors had been so far away, but it never occurred to me that that was something I could just… do. 

But Karen made me feel free like that. And I could see the way Cas made Dean feel the same, see it reflected in the glint in his eye, in the smile he tried to hide in the crook of Cas’ neck. 

As I left them to go squeegee some of the water off the floors as best I could, I prayed the feeling would last for Dean—and I’m not much of a prayerful person. Not anymore. 

It’s hard, having to swallow the bitter truth, trying not to choke on hope. 

But love and loss are funny like that. 

***

In the space of time that Dean usually reserved for playing board games with Charlie when she came by; in the few hours that he and Cas had to themselves between when Dean squeezed in a few hours of sleep and when he had to go back to a Cas-less work, it began to rain. 

The sound, a rattling patter, roused them both— Cas from where he’d been in the tub, almost in stasis, and Dean, from where he’d given up on sleeping on his daybed and had fallen asleep on the floor, using the last few dry towels he had borrowed from Bobby as a pillow. 

Cas looked up, following the sound with an eagerness, a wistfulness— like he heard a choir calling him home. 

Soon, Dean knew, the water would start dripping through on the cracks on the ceiling. Normally, the sound of rain prompted him to groan and start gathering pots and pans and any receptacle he could find, placing them around his apartment to try to keep himself from inevitably slipping on wet floor. 

But as he pulled the curtain back, rationalizing his apartment was high enough and everyone down below was busy enough that it would be safe for Cas to peek through, he held off on reaching for the pots and pans and watched Cas stand under a leak to watch the rain fall. 

When he touched Cas’ shoulder to bring him away from the window as it started to grow too dark, Cas made a pained grunting noise as Dean’s hand lifted away. He was horrified to see that he left a palm-shaped imprint of missing scales on Cas’ shoulder, the scales coming off on his hand. 

“Sorry,” Dean signed with his clean hand, his stomach sinking, meaning it in more ways than one. 

Cas just gave a wan grin, and placed his webbed hand on Dean’s shoulder in reciprocation, over the fading little claw marks. 

For better or for worse, they had left their mark on each other. At least this way, at least for now, Cas was alive to leave it. 

But Dean began to feel like his apartment was just another cage for Cas. He couldn’t keep him here, with him, as nice as the idea was. 

***

After another hour, it had been raining consistently enough that the water began coming in at a steady trickle through the various cracks in the ceiling. While waiting for dinner, Cas stood under a particularly large leak, absorbing the water. Dean cooked what he needed to and then put out the remaining pots, pans, and random bowls and receptacles that he borrowed from Bobby, trying to catch the water, hoping if he could gather enough that adding it to Cas’ bath water would help his shedding. 

Droplets tapped out a staccato on copper and iron, a chorus of water.

Dean lit a few candles on his small table, and served up raw eggs and raw hamburger meat to Cas, alongside a rare steak for himself; that half and half of preference.

He put on one of his surviving records for some mood music. Pat Boone wasn’t his favorite, but he had been one of Dad’s (something Sam, an avid Presley fan, resented, to Dean’s amusement). After Dad passed, Dean kept all his music and added onto it: things he thought Mom would’ve liked, like Judy Collins and The Beatles, albums Bobby smiled at or that Sam liked, new artists he enjoyed.

Music, regardless of the words, felt like a universal language. The words didn’t always need to be understood or even make sense to be felt. 

Dean stared across the table at Cas, who was content and busy eating, and was hit with such a strong pulse of love as the violins swelled. With the symphony all around him, he found himself swaying with the beat. 

With each note, another piece of his furniture disappeared, and the color of his vision switched to the black and white of Bobby’s pre-technicolor TV, a foggy quality softening the edges, until nothing but the floor and Cas remained, standing tall with his hand outstretched toward him. 

Dean took his hand, his clothes now replaced with a smart white suit and a formal hat, like Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca. 

They didn’t need words, they only needed the language of their hands and bodies to understand each other; the way their hearts beat in tune, their movements fluid as they danced across the living room. 

The record needle skipped as the song ended, bringing him back to reality.  

Across the table, Cas paused, looking up and offering a soft smile as he chittered. 

Dean gave a sad smile back. 

***

After the incident with the sloughed-off scales, that evening at work, Dean searched the facility up and down for Mick. He took more meandering breaks than usual, hoping to catch a glimpse of him by the coffee pots or to corner him as he went to the elevator, a mini notebook sat in his pocket so he could talk to him if Eileen wasn’t with him. Eileen even searched the women’s restrooms and locker rooms for any sign of him, with no luck. 

“No, I haven’t seen him all day,” Sam replied when Dean asked him, consternation written across his face. “Or yesterday either. Why do you ask?” 

Dean shook his head, shrugging. “Have you tried calling him?” Dean asked. 

“No, not yet. I uh… I don’t even have his phone number, to be honest.”

Dean sucked his teeth as he sheepishly pulled the business card he’d taken from home and handed it over. 

Sam let out a breath as he studied out. “Fake being sick to Mr. Adler, and I’ll offer to take you home,” he said under his breath. “I think it’s time we talked for real.”

***

Sam was quiet for a while as he drove toward a payphone a little ways away from the facility; there was nothing but the squeak of the windshield wipers. 

Just as Dean was about to turn on some tunes, he spoke: “I knew you and Mick and Eileen had to have had something to do with it somehow, you guys are in that lab the most, but… this is getting dangerous, now, Dean. Ketch has been on the warpath. What are you going to do if he finds out you were responsible for getting his asset out?”

Dean hit him on the shoulder. 

“Not an asset,” he signed in the rearview mirror. “C-A-S.”

“Cas,” Sam repeated. “Alright.” He swallowed. “But–” he shook his head. “What are you going to do? Where is he––in your apartment?”

Dean gave him a look. 

“He can’t live in your bathtub forever!” 

“You think I don’t know that? I’m not stupid!” Dean signed angrily. 

“I know. I don’t think you are, I’m just… I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t have to worry.”

Sam gave him a look, one that Dean’s muscles twitched in sympathy with from having given so many times himself. 

He raised his hands. “I know, you’ll always worry. That’s what family does.”

When they pulled over to the payphone, Dean dug through his pockets for change. The usual ka-chink-clunk from the dime dropping to the bottom of the coin slot was drowned out by the steady patter of rain against the phone booth. Sam dialed the number and Dean pushed in close, an ear to the other end of the receiver and a finger in the other ear so he could hear better. 

But all they heard was the endless dial tone of a call waiting to connect. 

Dean knew with one look at Sam that he had the same sense of foreboding that he did. 

“You know… I don’t think I saw him after he left yesterday,” Sam said. 

***

At home, Bobby and Sam helped Dean get Cas outside onto the rooftop so he could soak up the rain, hoping it would ease some of the pain he felt. Dean watched as Cas stood with his arms out, his gills fanning out in relief. 

Sam stood next to him as he looked at Cas’ back, the rain plastering his hair against his forehead. “Remember when we were kids, what Dad would always say, whenever he took us fishing?”

Dean smiled a little, huffing. 

It was Dean’s favorite memory of Dad: how calm the both of them got just sitting by the water. Dad would always look over and ruffle his hair, ever grateful that fishing was what had saved him and brought them together. Dad never even cared if they actually caught anything. He was just content to sit out there and drink a beer while enjoying the peace of nature. “There’s nothing like it,” he’d say. 

When they did catch something though, Dad would reel it in, admire it for a moment, and throw it back.

Dean hadn’t understood the point at first. He’d tried dangling worms over the edge of the surface, hoping to lure a fish without using a hook, and would throw fistfuls of bait into the water as an apology when they did catch something. Dad explained that for a lot of people, it wasn’t about keeping what they caught, it was about the thrill of the catch itself. The ephemeral beauty of it. The bigger the catch, the better. 

Maybe that was what Ketch felt, reeling in Cas—pride over the biggest catch. 

Well, Dean hadn’t needed hooks to reel Cas in.  

But Dean knew Sam wasn’t telling him to remind him of how to catch; he was reminding him of the importance of release.

Bobby placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “If you love him, I think it’s time to start talking about letting him go, son.” 

Dean watched Cas’ back, nodding, his tears hidden by the rain that fell.

***

While Cas chilled in Bobby’s bathtub for a change, Dean, Bobby, Rufus, and Sam sat around discussing options. 

“Closest option is the docks; the rain’s been makin’ the water level rise throughout the week, it wouldn’t be too far a drive to get him there. You said he can make it thirty minutes completely outside of the water?” Bobby asked. 

Dean and Sam nodded in unison, unconsciously. 

“The Patapsco dumps into the Chesapeake Bay. How do we know we don’t run the risk of someone else finding Cas and catching him again? The average depth isn’t that deep and boats pass through all the time, fishing is too popular for someone not to notice him eventually,” Sam said. 

“Well, right now, we just need to get him to where he belongs. Without your fancy tanks and facilities, the bathtub and the rain ain’t cuttin’ it. We just need to give him time to heal, and we can think about moving him somewhere where he can be more free. Or at least, more safe.” 

“I guess the question is where—and how,” Sam huffed. 

Dean half listened to the conversation, looking toward the open door of Bobby’s bathroom. Cas was lethargic, but looking slightly better than he had earlier. 

“Where was he found?” Rufus asked curiously. 

“The Amazon,” Dean signed. 

Bobby stood to search through his trove of books, finding one and flipping through it, cracking the spine to set it down on his coffee table. In the middle was a map of the Amazon’s water sources. “Look, the mouth is at the Atlantic. Hypothetically, with enough time, Cas could make it back home if we release him from here.” 

“That’s if some fishing boat don’t sweep him up first,” Rufus pointed out. “What are we going to do, tag him and make sure he makes it? Do you have access to something like that, Sam?”

Dean’s chest constricted at the thought of Cas being so far away. At the thought of never seeing him again. He’d move to the Amazon in a heartbeat, but realistically, it would bring a whole new set of struggles—and that was if he were able to move there in the first place. 

“What about someplace closer, someplace similar?” Sam asked, knowing his brother well enough to raise his concerns. 

“So… we’re looking for somewhere with brackish water, where Cas’ll be left alone…” Bobby thought aloud, flipping through. 

“There’s Elk Creek State Park? It’s nearby, and even though it’s smaller, people might be less likely to mess with something if it’s protected by the state.”

Bobby stopped to look at Sam. “The government is what took Cas in the first place, you think the state won’t just turn around and do the same?”

Across from Dean, Rufus sat with his arms crossed, studying him with a hard-to-place look on his face while Bobby and Sam bickered. Finally, he spoke. 

“Whitefish.” 

They stopped. 

“You don’t mean…” Bobby trailed off, a smile in his eyes. Dean sat up, eager to know. 

“Yep. Still got my cabin up there. And it’s there for you to stay in, Dean, if you want.” 

Dean’s mouth fell open, stunned. He barely knew Rufus beyond who he was in Bobby’s stories—which, to be fair, was a lot— and beyond the silence and one-word letters that answered him any time he sent another packet of Bobby’s letter with a letter of his own explaining why he was the one sending them. 

“Are you sure?” Dean asked, bewildered. Sam translated for him. 

“It’s a family cabin, and any family of mine can stay.” Rufus leaned forward. “For the last ten years, I thought I’d lost the only family I had left. I haven’t been in the best place. So… it was nice to know that someone still cared.”

Dean was touched. He looked down at the floor, evaluating everything. 

“Whitefish isn’t perfect, but you’d be able to be with ‘im. Freshwater, plenty of lakes and rivers to explore, and the area near the cabin is pretty secluded.”

He wanted to stay with Cas. He had to, that much was a given. From the moment their palms had touched across the glass, they’d been bonded. By the same token, he knew he’d miss everyone else. 

As much as he didn’t exactly want to clean crap the rest of his life, the silver lining of his day had always been the people in it. He’d miss passing Ash in the computer room, sharing music. He’d miss seeing Eileen’s expressive face every day, and the way she made him feel. He’d miss his weekly game with Charlie and all her episode recaps, he’d miss watching movies with Bobby and eating terrible pie, and he would miss Sam, who he already missed all the time even though they worked at the same place because their lives and schedules often kept them apart. 

“We’ll write and visit as often as we can, Dean,” Sam promised. 

“I’ll only leave if you tell Eileen you love her,” Dean responded. 

Sam got flustered. “Uh–I–”

“She’s been fixing your partners’ work for years.”

“What?” 

“The only reason she’s not running that place is because people don’t give her a chance. Don’t be another one of those people, Sammy.” 

Sam nodded, a flush on his cheeks. “I won’t.” 

Bobby closed his book, sitting back down next to Dean. “So are we decided?”

Dean looked over at where Cas was chittering with interest, returning his gaze through the open bathroom door. Cas should be the one deciding what happened to him.

“Not yet,” Dean said, and went over to ask Cas. 

***

After Sam left and Bobby and Rufus decided it was time to turn in for the night and get a few hours of shuteye before daybreak, Dean guided Cas back to his apartment, stopping for a break on his daybed, swirling with emotion. 

The plan was in motion; they just had to wait for Bobby and Rufus to acquire a truck and rig a covered flatbed to hold water for the transport up to Whitefish, and in the meantime, they’d keep Cas as healthy as possible with frequent doses of rainwater. Dean would have to start packing soon, and he had a long week of explaining what he was doing, and no doubt tearful goodbyes with Charlie and Eileen, maybe even Ash. 

He was looking forward to quitting, though.  

As he went to pick Cas up from the bed, Cas pulled him down to lay on top of him, hugging him. Dean sunk into his arms and pressed his ear to Cas’ chest. Underneath the strange lung sounds, Cas’ heartbeat, the sound of blood moving through like the whoosh of ocean waves. The sound turned his apartment into the sea. 

He could be happy like this, the two of them under a blanket of water, forever. 

***

Dean was interrupted from his sleep by frantic knocking at the door. 

Dean bolted upright, checking on Cas before opening it to see Bobby, pointing to his apartment. “Your brother’s on the phone,” he said breathlessly. 

He ran, nearly tripping over Mac, and picked up, huffing into the receiver to let Sam know he was there. 

“Dean! I’m so sorry—you need to get Cas outta there right now, Ketch is on his way to you. Mick showed up at my apartment in the employee complexes while Eileen and I were… um, talking— Ketch had— he’d beaten the truth out of him, he’s lost his mind. We’re at the hospital right now, he’s so sorry, but you have to get Cas out of there now!”

Dean numbly handed the phone back to Bobby. “Tell him it’s going to be okay,” Dean signed, running off. 

“What’s going to be okay— Dean ?”

Panic flooded Dean as he stepped back into his apartment. Thoughts of prison, of Ketch dragging Cas away and of Cas being under the knife of some callous doctor flashed through him. 

Focus. Get the hell out of here.

He didn’t even bother putting on shoes as Dean grabbed Cas and urged him out of the tub. 

No more tile prisons. No more chains, or tanks, or prisons of any kind. 

Cas’ eyes crinkled when they saw how worried Dean was, patting his face. 

“We gotta go now,” Dean signed. 

Cas went along, keeping his head down as they went out the fire escape.  

Dean looked around when they were on ground level. He had no real plan, he just knew he had to keep Cas alive and away from Ketch. If he could just get to the docks and get Cas to safety, he could worry about being arrested or getting Cas back later. 

“Hey!” a furious voice roared over the rain behind him. Dean turned to see Ketch had already made it, and was stalking toward them. He must have had a head start, if Mick had to walk to Sam’s. 

Cas growled, his fins fanning out and rattling. 

Dean walked backward with his arm around Cas, the two of them trying to shield each other from the coming threat. 

As he hit the street, Dean saw his salvation, as beautiful as the day he’d first seen her: Ketch’s shiny new Impala, who in his hurry to get to Dean and Cas, had left the driver’s side door open and the keys in the ignition. 

Dean grinned, half running and half dragging Cas toward it. Dean managed to close the door and lock it just as Ketch caught up. 

“Hey! That’s mine, you ignoramus— you will stop taking what belongs to me!” Ketch pounded on the window with his cattle prod, yelling in frustration and dropping it when the swollen, festering fingers that had been reattached to his hand, evidently made worse by whatever he did to Mick, made a cracking sound. 

Blood and a yellowish substance trickled through the stitches. 

Dean turned up the radio to drown him out, Leslie Gore offering a very appropriate rebuttal. 

“You don’t own me, I’m not just another one of your toys.”

He breathed as he stared at the layout in front of him. He hadn’t driven since Dad taught him how to, in case of emergency if he were ever drafted again. 

Dad had impressed upon him the way vehicles could say something, too; the car growled when he started it up, angry, like she’d been pissed Ketch had driven her. 

She gave him no trouble at all as he tore up the roads toward the docks. 

Dean thought he was in the clear until a car behind him began speeding up and tailing a little too close. Dean’s heart dropped when he looked at the rearview mirror. 

Bobby was driving, and Ketch was in the passenger seat, holding his service weapon to Bobby’s side. 

Dean wanted to try to shake Ketch off, but he didn’t want to get Bobby hurt. His heart tore in two at the thought of losing anyone else today, so he maintained full speed ahead, hoping that if he could just get to the docks first, everything would be okay. 

By some miracle, he made it to the docks first, the car screeching to a stop and rumbling as Dean helped Cas out, trying to get him to the water as quickly as he could. He didn’t care if Ketch caught him after, as long as Cas was alive and safe.

Cas made a heartbreaking whimper when Dean pushed him toward the water. 

“Go, alone, without me,” Dean signed fast. “I’m sorry.” 

“We were supposed to go away together,” Cas signed back, his soulful eyes wide. 

Dean bit his lip, the hurt filling his chest. He hadn’t wanted it to end like this, but it was the only way Cas would make it out alive. 

He turned his back to Cas, praying he’d go, that he’d hear the splash of Cas’ dive behind him. 

The car Ketch made Bobby rob screeched to a stop in front of them. 

Dean turned back around, waving Cas off. “Go!” 

Rather than a splash, there was a loud crack. 

Dean stared at Cas, confused, as Cas still stood before him. 

It wasn’t until he heard Bobby’s horrified, broken yell, “No!” and Cas’ absolutely raging hiss; it wasn’t until he saw a small hole blooming red on Cas’ chest that he registered the mirroring pain in his back and chest. 

Ketch had shot through him. 

Dean let out a gasp as he dropped to the ground, his hands shaking to stem the flow. Dean’s heart seized as he watched Ketch march closer. Now that Dean was out of the way, he took a few clear shots at Cas. 

Dean wanted to scream, but his voice never went above a breath—especially now that his strength was quickly leaving him. 

Dean turned his head to avoid choking in the rain that was now coming down full force. He watched through blurred eyes as Cas brought himself to his full height. His body glowed that beautiful ringed blue as the bullets fell from him, ejecting them, and his skin healed on the spot. 

There was another crack, more dull this time, as Bobby found a piece of driftwood and brought it down over Ketch’s head. 

“Ah!” Ketch fell to his knees, backing up as Cas loomed over him now. 

“Fuck, maybe you are a god,” he said, before Cas put two fingers to his neck, making him go limp. 

Vulcan neck pinch? Dean thought fuzzily, wishing he’d gotten the chance to show Cas Star Trek. That Cas had gotten the chance to meet Charlie more, that they’d gotten to do… everything more. 

But at least Cas was alive. 

Cas’ face was determined as he appeared in Dean’s field of vision, leaning down to pick him up. 

Dean flopped against him, struggling to breathe through the pain, but hooked an arm around his neck. 

The last thing Dean saw before they plunged into the water was Bobby’s face; the devastation of a father losing a son written plain as day.

Dean held his breath as the water covered him like a blanket, slowing his frantic heart. The way it always had, his whole life. 

He’d never been this deep before, but even so, as he held onto Cas, he wasn’t scared. He was even more beautiful, the deeper they sunk; the bioluminescent rings glowed like halos, and his fins, no longer confined to the small area of a cylindrical tank or a bathtub or the shallow pool, were allowed to extend to their full length, spreading and drifting in the current behind him like ghostly wings. 

Dean held his breath until his chest burned, and he held onto Cas tighter, not wanting any fear to ruin the moment. 

Cas pressed a tender kiss to his lips as his hands sandwiched Dean’s wounds, carefully knitting the skin back together. 

“Now breathe,” Cas gestured. 

Dean shook his head. He wasn’t ready to let go yet. 

Cas’ hands reverently touched his scars. “Breathe.”

Dean shook, closing his eyes as he did, water rushing in—not in through his nose or mouth, but through the sides of his neck, seamlessly. 

His scars opened, water coming in and out—he was breathing the way Cas did. 

He opened his eyes in shock. 

Cas pressed his forehead to Dean’s, threading his fingers through Dean’s hands, their palms and lips meeting in twine. 

I love you, Dean thought, as his body met Cas’, the two of them forming around each other. 

He knew Cas understood. They’d never needed words. 

***

From the Journal of Robert Singer

November 5th, 1977

Looking back at it now, what would I say? That they lived happily ever after? Do I think they stayed in love, and stayed together? I believe that’s true. 

But mostly when I think of him, of Dean, all that comes to mind is a part of a poem. Written decades ago, made of just a few truthful words, whispered by someone in love—-

A small hand slapped the page Bobby was reading and pushed the journal down. 

Bobby looked over the top of his glasses. “What?”

“Why are you telling it like they died?” DJ asked, his hands moving as he spoke. 

“Well, ya said ya wanted a fairytale, so I was tryin’ to spruce it up! Ever heard of Romeo and Juliet? Or are you a little too young for Shakespeare?” 

DJ huffed, evoking his father. “Everyone knows Shakespeare, silly.” 

“Hmm. Remind me to read you some Browning, then. So I guess you don’t want to hear the ending?”

“I know the ending. When Mom and Dad get back, we’re going out to the lake with Rufus, right?”

Bobby hummed. “Uh-huh, I see how it is. You’re tired of your Uncle Bobby, so now you just want to go see your Uncle Cas and Uncle Dean, huh? Well…”

Peals of shrieking laughter echoed through Sam and Eileen’s house as he tickled his grandson. “Stop!”

“Alright, go brush your teeth and get ready for bed. Your parents should get back from their leadership conference in the morning. You packed for the cabin?” 

“Yep!” DJ promised and ran out of his bedroom. His namesake's influence was strong; among the Lincoln Logs were Spock and Kirk action figures, and a Led Zeppelin poster decorated the wall next to his art.  

Bobby chuckled, standing up and stretching, groaning as he set his journal aside. Hopefully, Cas wouldn’t mind hitting him with his mojo again when they visited. 

As Bobby walked through the house to get ready for some shuteye himself, he smiled as he passed by the hallways covered in Sam and Eileen’s wedding photos, pictures of Dean and Cas had taken on polaroid film both above the surface and underwater, a framed drawing that DJ made of the whole family when he was a toddler. On Sam’s desk, a neat stack of letters from Dean rested, peppered with new pictures. 

Since Bobby had moved back to Sioux Falls with Rufus, and though their little family had been physically more apart, they were emotionally more connected, coming together frequently; through calls, letters, and as many visits as they could manage. With Rufus’ help, Bobby had fixed up the Impala that Dean had driven so beautifully that day on the docks, and rigged a flatbed trailer to hold Cas. With Charlie’s forged license, Dean could go anywhere he wanted now. 

“Hey, Uncle Bobby?” DJ appeared at the guest bathroom doorway. 

“Yeah?” he asked, warmth in his tone. 

“Can you come tuck me in… and maybe finish the story?” 

“Sure,” he said, rinsing out his mouth. 

When DJ was settled, Bobby asked, “You want to know the real ending?” 

“Yeah!” 

Bobby leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, after ‘Project CAS’ was deemed a disaster, and Ketch was taken into custody for the attempted murder of two fellow employees, and threatening others over unfounded accusations of collusion, the government shut that part of the program down—especially given the changing climate of America and rising anti-war sentiments. The Men of Letters as a whole went through some big changes, during which your mom and dad worked together with Mick to direct the Men of Letters as a whole back toward its original goal: research for the betterment of humanity, not for the development of weapons—”

Snores echoed through the room. It worked like a charm. 

Bobby picked up his journal and quietly left his grandson to rest. 

When he went to sleep on the couch in the living room, he did so surrounded by traces of his family.