Cas walked into the hotel lobby with his computer bag over his shoulder and a suitcase in his hand. It was a nice place, nicer than he expected in Tulsa. He went to the front desk and a young blond looked up from her computer with a smile.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'm check in. Cas Novak," he said.

Her eyes went wide for a second before her smile became firm again. "Cas Novak?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I just read Stalemate," she said. "I loved it so much."

He smiled and despite the pain in his chest, it was genuine.

"Thank you. I really appreciate it."

She turned back to her computer and in a few moments he had his key. "Enjoy your stay, Mr. Novak. Let us know if you need anything."

"Hold on, could you tell me if Dean Winchester has checked in yet?"

She clicked a few more keys before nodding. "Yes, sir. He's in room 514."

"Thanks."

He turned from the desk and went to the elevator. The lights above the door lit in turn as he watched. When it reached seven it halted and he stepped out and went down the hall, over thin ornate patterned carpet. When he reached his door, the plastic card slid in smoothly and he turned the handle.

The room was clean and simple, blue carpet, white walls. A small balcony faced the interstate. He stepped in and closed the door. There were two double beds made in white. He went to the first and sat, looking out the sliding glass door. Gray clouds obscured the flat horizon. He needed to text Dean and let him know he was there. He already had five texts from him asking if he'd made it yet.

He didn't want to. He wanted to go back down the elevator and leave. His phone vibrated in his hand as anxiety tightened in his throat. Dean's name flashed on the screen.

"Hello," he answered.

"Don't you hello me, Mr. Novak," Dean's warm voice came over the phone. "Are you almost here?"

"Is that Cas?" someone yelled in the background, Steve.

"Tell him to get his ass here!" Another called, Ashton.

"Yeah, I'm almost there," he said, laughing slightly at hearing their voices. Hearing Dean's made his throat pound.

"You're already here, aren't you?" Dean asked.

"Yeah."

"What room?"

"712."

He could hear the excitement in Dean's voice as he answered. "I'll be there in a second."

When the line went dead, he tossed the phone on the bed. He watched as lightening flashed in the gray thunderheads coming toward the city. In less than five minutes, a knock came on his door. He sighed before standing and going toward it. He touched the door handle, pulling in a deep breath before opening it.

Dean stood there in a deep red t-shirt, Levis and a camouflage hat.

"Hey, Dee," he said.

Dean was looking him over like he had just done. The normal smile was gone from his face and when he finally met Cas's eyes, he forced it back into place.

"What the fuck am I doing? Come here," Dean said, hugging him.

Cas tried to just pat his back, but Dean pulled him in more firmly with a hand pressed on his shoulders and another on his lower back. After a moment, Cas exhaled and pulled him in just as close, tucking his face against Dean's neck. He felt his throat constricting and his eyes burning. When Dean's hand tracked its familiar path up his neck and into his hair at the base of his skull he wound his fingers into Dean's shirt.

"Bud," Dean said softly in his rough accent. It sounded no more a term to a friend than the tenderest endearment.

Cas pulled back and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. "Come in. I have to find my room key and go to the bathroom."

He didn't look at Dean again as he stepped back inside and went to the bathroom. He shut the door and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were wet and bloodshot. After a few moments and a quick piss, he went back out.

Dean was sitting on one of the beds with his hat in his hands. His hair was messed up from running his hands through it. Cas grabbed his room key off the bedside table and slipped it into his wallet then grabbed his phone.

"Ready?" he asked.

Dean looked up at him from the bed. Cas's chest throbbed when he saw how red his eyes were.

"You didn't have to say okay. It was mean of me to ask," Dean said.

"Was it meant to be mean?"

"God no," Dean said. He sniffed and wiped his nose. "You're my best friend. It's your spot."

"I'm not your best friend anymore. It's been five years, Dean."

"It doesn't matter."

Cas shook his head. "Whatever. It's fine. I'm your best man. I'm happy to do it."

"She's a good woman. She's an English teacher. She loves what you write."

Cas looked at him and shook his head. "Don't do that to me."

"You'll like her," Dean said weakly and dropped his eyes.

"If I do it'll only make me hate her more."

Dean messed with his hat some more. "I like Ethan."

"Bullshit."

Dean nodded, sniffing again. "You're right. I'd put a fucking bullet between his eyes if I ever got the chance."

"Yeah well, he doesn't like you either."

"I don't blame him."

Cas sighed and squeezed his nose between his fingers. "Who's all here?"

"Steve and Ashton right now. Sam'll be here in a few hours."

"Can we just go? I don't want to talk anymore," he said.

Dean looked at the floor. "Don't want to talk to me?"

"Everything's already been said, Dee. Let's just go down and see the boys."

Dean nodded and Cas heard the first boom of thunder. The sky outside was turning the air yellow.

Cas stood with Dean just outside Dean's hotel room. Dean slid his key in and turned the knob. The voices of his friends echoed down the hall before Dean pulled the door shut. Cas smiled and it didn't feel completely false.

"What's up? It's been forever," Ashton said, taking his hand and pulling him into a half-hug.

"Yeah it has," Cas said. When he pulled away he greeted Steve the same.

"You would wait until a fucking bachelor party to come back. You know we aren't going to a gay bar, right?" Steve grinned.

"He could probably talk Dean into it," Ashton said.

"He can't talk me into it," Steve said.

"Come on, Steve. Some big bear in a tight pink speedo. We wouldn't be able to get you off him," Cas said. He laughed when Steve grimaced.

"Dean said you might bring your guy," Ashton said.

"Nah, he had to work," Cas said. "With the whole bachelor's party thing, I thought it'd be best to leave him at home."

"Good plan," Dean said, slamming down a glass on the mini bar too hard as he poured a shot of whiskey from a large bottle by the ice bucket.

"When is Sam going to get here?" Ashton asked Dean.

"Should be anytime. He's going to meet us down at the bar," Dean said.

"Let's go then. I want a drink and that shit's disgusting," Steve said, looking at the bottle of Evan Williams. Then grabbing a hoodie off the back of a chair.

Cas smiled when he saw the logo, "Can I see that?"

"Yeah," Steve said, handing over the hoodie.

Cas took it and held it in front of him. It was from their high school. A large eagle was printed on the front with Redland Eagles lettered across the bottom. Their high school was small and the quality of the fabric and screening showed it.

"That's bad ass," he said, handing it back.

"Yeah my niece was selling them for some fundraiser," Steve said. "Speaking of, are you coming to the reunion in June?"

"Maybe." He wouldn't. "Let's go get something to drink."

He walked with Ashton when they left the room, avoiding Dean's gaze and his touch.

Cas sat in a booth in the hotel bar with his friends. The booth was circular and he sat on the far side from Dean. As they talked, catching up on everyone's lives that Cas had only known about through Facebook updates, Dean kept trying to talk to him. He hadn't talked to Dean in over a year until he called him a month ago. Hearing his voice so often now hurt, so he drank. By the third shot and first beer, he wasn't caring as much.

They were only in the bar for half an hour before a man a few years older than him came to the table. He squeezed Dean's shoulder roughly before smiling at Cas.

"I didn't think you'd actually show," Sam said, "Get up here."

Cas stood and hugged Dean's older brother. Sam clapped him on his back and he smelled that scent of machine oil from the place that Sam and Dean worked. Sam almost smelled like Dean, almost.

"I couldn't leave him hanging on a best man," Cas said, when he stepped back and sat down.

"Scoot," Sam said, and sat beside him. "And hey," Sam said to the rest of the guys. They said it back.

Cas saw Dean frown. His expressive eyes and heart on his sleeve, pumping out jealously, so thick Cas could taste it. Sam saw it too, because when Cas looked at him again, he was just turning from Dean with a small smile.

"Aw, did I take your place?" Sam asked Dean.

"Nah, Cas doesn't like me anymore," Dean said.

"Who could blame him?" Sam asked. His tone was joking, but Dean dropped his eyes. No one else seemed to notice. Then Sam turned back to Cas. "How've you been?"

Cas told him. He said more to Sam than he had to Dean in two hours. Sam was like his big brother and he was the only one who knew about him and Dean. After he left Redland five years ago, Cas would stay in contact with Sam when he couldn't stand to speak to Dean. He knew that Sam passed along the information, but that was fine. Sam kept him up to date on Dean too. It was Sam who told him Dean was engaged. It kept him from breaking down when Dean changed his relationship status.

He still remember it, though. Even though he'd known it was coming, when he saw the update on Dean's profile, he cried. There hadn't been any engagement pictures. Not linked on Dean's account. No save the dates. There weren't even pictures of her on his profile. Just the same profile picture Dean had had for years. Everything was the same, but that relationship said engaged. He'd looked at his computer screen in his office in New York, and he had sat in the silence and let the water work down his face without brushing it away.

Thinking of it now, he finished his beer and ordered another.

"You guys ready to go somewhere else?" Dean asked, while Sam talked to Cas and Cas finished his second beer. He was getting more and more pissed off and the more pissed off he got the more he drank.

Sam looked away from Cas to look across the table at him. "Your party. Just tell us when."

"Then let's go," he said, standing.

He walked toward the hotel lobby, his gate was stiff and his jaw clenched. When he reached the sidewalk, he looked up at the sky. The wind was blowing, but it was blocked by the buildings. In Redland, about forty-five minutes south, the wind would come across the flat expanse of the fields surround his house. The dried corn stalks would sway with the coming storm and he would sit out on the back porch with a beer. Now the scent of car exhaust filtered into his nose.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" Ashton asked, coming out of the building behind him.

"It was hot in there," Dean said.

"Not really, pussy," Steve said, coming out to stand beside him. "Whose car are we taking?"

"I think my Excursion is the only thing that will hold us all," Sam said. "Cas, you can ride shotgun."

"Sounds good," Cas said, walking beside Sam toward the parking lot.

Dean thought about tackling Sam on the sidewalk. The urge was so strong, he almost did. He clenched his hands in his pockets as he walked with Ashton and Steve behind Sam and Cas. He tried not to look down Cas's body to his ass and failed. Those jeans fit him so well. He had nice long legs and arms.

Remembering his bed and Cas under him, his long limbs wrapped around him, Dean bit the inside of his cheek.

Dean rode in the SUV, looking out the windows at the freeway passing. The cars' headlights that were being turned on, the wet streets as the first of the rain started falling. His friends and brother talked around him. Steve laughed so goddamn loud and Ashton too. By the time Sam pulled into the bar downtown, Dean's head was starting to pound.

"You guys go on in, I've got something to give Sam," Dean said as he got out.

His friends went in and Sam climbed out of the driver's seat on the same side as Dean. They looked at each other in the blue green of the security lights while a few people straggled here and there in the small parking lot, hearing the music already coming from the small building.

"What's up?" Sam asked.

"You know what's up," Dean said.

Sam put his hands in his coat pockets before rocking back slightly to be on the balls of his feet. "What me talking to Cas?"

"Yeah you fucking talking to Cas."

"Is it pissing you off?"

"You know it is," Dean said through his teeth.

Sam clenched his jaw and Dean recognized the expression as the one he wore so often. "Yeah and how do you think he feels being here, Dean? It was a dick move of you to invite him."

"It would've been worse not to," he said. He had the same argument with himself so many times, he almost believed it.

"You aren't stupid, don't act like it."

He clenched his jaw harder. It made his head pound.

"You think he would've showed up if he didn't still love you?" Sam asked. "He should've wrote you off as soon as you wouldn't do what you needed to. All this, it's your fucking fault and I hope you know that. Every time you laugh, he looks like he's about to come apart. You're a selfish prick."

Dean bit the inside of his cheek. "That's what you think?"

"I haven't made it a secret. You were the one that wanted to fuck around with him, Dean. You were the one who convinced him to move back to Redland. He was gone, he was fucking safe, away from you. You told him it was okay to do what you two were doing. He knew it could end badly. You told him it wouldn't. And he fucking believed you. He believed you because he loves you that fucking much. Do you understand that?"

Dean was biting his cheek hard enough to bring blood and sting his eyes. "Yeah I'm a real shit person."

Sam's eyes softened slightly, but his mouth stayed firm. "You're the best little brother in the world, but you're the shittiest friend I've ever seen."

Cas leaned against the bar, watching Dean laughing with Steve and Sam. His chest ached dully. The alcohol wasn't helping. It was on the edge of making things worse instead of better. It made things easier to remember and harder to suppress. Like the small bar in Redland. The rough press of Dean's lips against his in the nasty bathroom. Seeing himself in the cracked, soap scum mirror above the sink as Dean went to his knees on the dirty linoleum floor and blew him.

The last time he'd been there, not with Dean, and everything falling to pieces around them.

"I really didn't expect you to come," Ashton said beside him.

Cas looked over and smiled slightly. Ashton was short, only coming to his brow. He was cute, though. He'd always been really cute and always looked a lot younger than he was.

"Sure I came. Why wouldn't I have?"

Ashton shifted on his feet then looked back. "Because, well, just the stuff that happened, with Dean. He was really glad you came though. He wouldn't stop talking about it."

"What'd you mean?" Cas asked, watching Dean and taking another drink of his beer. The cool tinges of anxiety stirred in his chest. He fought to keep his color under control.

"What do you mean, what do I mean?" Ashton asked.

"The stuff with Dean? What stuff with Dean?" Cas asked, making himself look at Ashton without showing anything. Hoping he wasn't showing anything.

Ashton shrugged, looking down at here he fidgeted with the edge of his flannel. "Everyone knew. I mean, not everyone, but a lot of us did. The people that hung out with you guys."

Cas looked at him for a moment. "Nothing happened between me and him."

Ashton frowned toward the pool tables. The crack of the pool balls came back from the dim walls. "So you just left for no reason?"

"It didn't have anything to do with him."

"You don't have to lie, that's what I'm trying to say. You guys weren't subtle, at all, especially not him. There was that time we were out night fishing and he walked up and grabbed you from behind. He, uh, he kissed your neck."

"He was drunk. It didn't mean anything."

"But you two were together."

His eyes suddenly burned and he hated Ashton for them, but he hated Dean more. "We weren't."

And they weren't then. That was after Dean had broken it off with him after seven months. It was when Dean couldn't decided what he wanted, but before Cas made the decision for them. The hallow ache in his chest intensified.

"I need to go to the bathroom," he said, and walked away.

Cas looked at himself in the mirror. The well-lit tiles, the clean sink, the smell of cleaner coming up around him. It made it easier to breath. He could almost fool himself into believing that Dean wasn't outside and he wasn't here for the reason he'd been asked to. He could almost convince himself the redness of his eyes was completely due to the beer.

Then there was a soft knock on the door.

"Give me a minute," he said.

"Cas."

He closed his eyes and braced himself over the sink. He breathing wasn't even, but he wasn't crying. Rubbing his eyes again, he went to the door and unlocked it. Dean stood in the dark short hallway.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

His voice was too quiet. It hit Cas in the chest so hard, in his tear ducts, in his stomach. Cas brushed passed him.

"It's all yours."

Dean grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Cas pulled away, but stayed turned back to him.

"What, Cas? What did I do to you to make you so pissed off right now?"

Cas laughed, "Are you kidding?"

"I don't know why you said you'd come if this is how it was going to be," Dean said with his eyes and jaw hard. "You won't fucking talk to me, you look at me like I fucking beat you. Did you just come here to make me feel like shit?"

"Can you feel like shit?"

Dean frowned, the knot at the back of his jaw still there. "You know I feel like Hell about it. Don't you act like that. I thought we could get passed it. We have a lot of history, so much more than just that."

"I thought we could get passed it too," Cas said.

"Then let's just try, Cas. Come on."

"I thought we could until seeing you was like drowning in cement," Cas said. He meant it to come out bitter, but his throat betrayed him and his voice broke. All the beer was such a bad idea.

A guy stepped into the hallway and Cas turned away from Dean.

"Cas," Dean said.

Cas ignored him and went back toward the bar, leaving Dean in the dark as he wiped the burning out of his eyes and put on a smile.