Dean was going stir crazy. A broken leg was the worst thing ever. It gave him too much time to think.
Dean didn't like thinking. He preferred to leave that up to his brother. Dean prided himself on being a doer. He'd rather physically fight against the worst the supernatural world had to offer than think.
Especially about feelings.
It was bad enough to think about other people's feelings. Dean would rather go back to Hell and be under Alastair's knife again than deal with his own feelings.
He found the remote and turned up the volume as the Spanish soap he was watching became more melodramatic.
But for some reason the noise didn't drown out the things going through his mind. Well, if he was going to be thinking about his own feelings, he needed some Jack to help him through.
Dean used the crutch to get him from the sofa to the tiny cabinet in the kitchenette and grabbed the bottle of Jack sitting on the shelf there. Eschewing a tumbler since he planned on getting roaring drunk and there was no one he was going to share his feelings with, floppy haired brother notwithstanding, he headed back to the couch that had become his base for the last two weeks and counting.
Taking a hefty swallow of the Jack, he considered where to begin.
Really, it had been a truly horrible year.
First, leaving Ben and Lisa. Then dealing with a soulless Sam. Then dealing with a Sam who now had his soul back but was also being tormented by Lucifer. Then dealing with Castiel and his backstabbing.
Dean'd thought that finally things were looking up when out of nowhere leviathan-stuffed-Castiel had taken the plunge into the water reservoir.
For some reason, he'd kept the trenchcoat. He'd gotten weird looks from both Sam and Bobby. He'd frowned ferociously back at them and Sam'd stepped back. Bobby, though, kept giving him these creepy looks, like he'd seen more than Dean had meant to show.
There really wasn't much to see. Dean had, for once in his life, thought he'd found someone bigger than him, bigger than Sam or Bobby. Someone he could trust with his very soul. Hell, Castiel had rescued his soul from hell and rebuilt his body from the few remaining fragments the worms hadn't consumed yet.
Who better to trust to be there for him? It's not like there was anything out there that could beat an Angel of the Lord. He was Hulk and Chewie and Batman all rolled into one. Dean didn't have to worry about protecting him, about making sure he didn't get killed.
Well, that worked out well.
Dean took another big swallow of the Jack.
For the first time in a long time, he hadn't been alone. He'd had someone who stood by him. He'd had someone to turn to. Castiel hadn't really understood him but Dean knew to his very bones that he had someone, who for once, was on his side. Someone who had tried his very best to be the kind of support Dean needed.
They didn't have to talk things through like Sam always wanted to. They didn't have to fight each other like Dad and Sam used to. Or Dean didn't have to capitulate like he used to, to Dad's demands.
They may never have understood each other but they were steadfast in their support of each other.
And that is something Dean had never had.
Now, he didn't have squat and he missed the bastard. He wanted to hope that by some miracle of God or the angels or anyone really, he wasn't picky, Castiel would just come back to him and he would give him back his trenchcoat and they could go back to being each other's support.
Fuck, his life was now a song by Kansas.
Dean swallowed another mouthful of Jack and decided it was time to get serious about getting roaring drunk.