Chapter 1:
"My name is Castiel Novak. I believe your brother referred me?"
It was not exactly what he expected, though he'd made sure to lower his expectations a little while before ever agreeing to the interview. And though he'd been as meticulous as usual – dressing in his tie and jacket and khaki overcoat that was just a little too large – he'd entered the kennel with hands in his pockets and a quizzical look upon his brow.
Winchester Kennel was just about everything you could assume a kennel would be; loud, homey, filled with odd smells and nothing really reminiscent of any other prior job entry objects. The closest thing to technology so happened to be a beat up PC sitting on a green paint-chipped front desk strewn with more papers than he'd care to sort, though he supposed that was the work expected of him if he'd manage to find employment. Though the place was charming in a way that only a run-down, small-town, private-owed business could possibly depict, it was enough to sway the older man into a false sense of incompetency. If he'd been aware of the state of the kennel, he may have chosen something a little less over his head.
Even still, the place did hold a certain amount of back country charm, what with the cracked open windows with holes in the screens and hanging lamp-lights that buzzed a soft white noise. Even the floors were a mess of scuffed up, raised hardwood that creaked with each step signaling years of use and very little upkeep. Not that he was surprised much. The place could use some work.
It only seemed to be amplified by the lilting bookshelves filled with dog-training manuals and specific breeds for dummies. The floor had wicker baskets filled with squeaky toys and tennis balls left untouched. Though he assumed they were there for a certain homely look, the aesthetic was a well-used one.
Of course, it wasn't really the front room that made him feel so out of sorts. Not really, when compared with the two figures lurking about the room, one being of the four-legged variety. A fluffy Australian Shepherd with orange and grey and white tufts of fur seeming to blend together over its medium sized body. And it sat, quite content, next to its slouching master, watching the blue-eyed man with a weathered eye and a long tongue lapping listlessly at air.
The other was something of a more intimidating perspective.
"My brother says you're a tax accountant?" Sam Winchester asked, looking up from a stack of papers he'd been reading. And he was fascinating to behold, with his legs propelled up against the desktop, all too large for the wooden chair he'd managed to not break. "Not much work 'round here for corporate types. I need a trainer, not a desk jockey."
"Bookkeeper," Cas corrected, though he was sure this was most likely an inappropriate answer. He continued anyway. "And I am a patient study."
"Are you now?"
There was a pleasant tone to the younger man's voice. A slight southern twang that made it warmer, less demanding, though his demeanor stated otherwise. When he looked up, there was a harshness in his brow that warranted respect.
"Give me work and I will not fail you," Cas stated plainly. He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince. Sam or himself. "Just give me a chance."
The other looked at Cas suspiciously, lips pulled taut as if the information didn't sit well, and Cas supposed this was what he deserved. After all, it wasn't everyday a high-powered executive-type decided to throw in the towel and start shoveling shit at a dog ranch in the middle of Fairhope Alabama. At least, not as far as anyone had assumed probable what with the townspeople knowing each other on first name basis. Everyone but him, that was.
"If I wasn't in need of someone so badly, I wouldn't usually be this quick to trust," he said, standing then. And it seemed a much more fluid motion than the other assumed him capable of, what with his gaunt legs and heavily muscular upper body. "But I'm going to go against my better judgment and trust you, Castiel Novak. I don't want nor like to be disappointed."
Castiel merely nodded, computing this information with a certain amount of incredulity. He was attuned to the other man now, keeping closely to the way he walked about the room, limber and sure-footed. Sam had drifted towards one of the baskets, grabbing an armful of toys in the curve of his thick forearms.
When the young Winchester pulled back up he had that questioning look about his features again, brow arched. "So when can you start?"
"Whenever is most convenient for you."
He seemed to like this answer, the edges of his lips raising as he let out an amused puff of air from his heavy chest. "Good. Come meet the dogs then."
It wasn't as if he'd woken that day assuming he would quit his job.
Castiel had been working finances for longer than he cared to remember, though he supposed tenure was what made him come so highly regarded in the residential community. Not much for corporate work, he'd managed his side-business whilst the rest of his prestigious family worked on bigger, more engrossing job opportunities with mass corporations. His preference came from work with families. Young couples with lots of money and no consensus on what to do with it, or elderly couples who still purchased everything in cash.
He most liked his work with struggling middle-class well-to-do people, but those were rare when the fees predetermined by his siblings/bosses were exorbitant to a fault. This left him not much to be desired, but the work was something he knew well, and a job was a job. His family was content, and he was content making sure they were just that.
But that morning, like every morning for the past two months, he opened the door to his office feeling a certain amount of dread in his sinews. A weight that hadn't been there before, and though it sung in a very low, near inaudible tone, it was still always playing at the back of his head. Leaving him distracted when he needed to focus.
He knew he wouldn't have done it if it were predetermined. Not after dropping the fountain pen he'd been tapping restlessly against the polished mahogany desk's edge, having not really listened to the divorcee from Long Island talking in great detail about her rather expounded and completely frivolous spending. She'd looked up from the small mirror she'd been staring in, well-manicured nails stalling from the plucking motion as she'd picked at her overly painted lashes.
"If you'll excuse my departure, miss," he said, tilting his head to her once. He'd slipped his overcoat on, grabbed the suitcase from below his desk and headed out the doors of that office for the last time without so much as another word.
Yes, it hadn't been something he planned. And though Gabriel had attempted to call him nonstop since his little episode, he'd avoided any contact with his family at all costs. Discontenting the Novak's and the Milton's was not something he'd chanced before, so quitting them cold turkey seemed the only likely option. If he was going to let the weight go, he had to cut it off completely, and if that meant connection with his family then that was how things were to be.
But, of course, this left him with a rather interesting dilemma. Now jobless, and somewhat homeless what with his having roomed with Gabriel in a beautiful flat he'd even cosigned the lease on, Cas had found himself staring down a road he'd never chanced to look before. One where he'd have to do something that was so unaccustomed to his being he feared it the moment it was too late to turn back.
Which was why he ended up at the bar that night, beer in hand, waiting for the one person who he believed had spurned the change in him.
"Cas, buddy," the man said, slumping down in a seat next to him, hand grasping his shoulder pleasantly. "What's going on? You seemed pretty out of it when you called me this afternoon."
The older man looked up from the counter just in time to catch the quick look of concern edging it's way across the younger man's brow. And he was as breathtaking as usual, with pleasant hazel-green eyes peering out from below a thick sheen of lashes. Dean Winchester sat next to him, legs splayed in that comfortable sitting position, elbows resting against the countertop as he gestured for the nearest bartender. Quick, easy. A revelation in a leather jacket.
"Now what could be so important you called me out to Queen's on a Thursday night?" he asked then when the pint of Bud had been placed in front of him. A crooked smile was plastered across his perfect face, jaw firm and brow unwrinkled. God, was he ever beautiful.
"I quit my job," Cas stated plainly. No hint of remorse.
Dean, who'd been taking long draught from the glass in front of him, nearly choked when the words had been said, sputtering when he turned fully towards the man in question. His eyes were impossibly wide.
"You did what?"
"I went to work this morning, realized I wanted more and quit," he said, taking his own beer in hand. A bottle of Corona. If it hadn't been for the aforementioned statement, he was sure he would've gotten jested over the choice. "And I don't know what to do."
Dean was lost for words, mouth gapping open for a few short seconds before closing and swallowing back a draught of air. "Well hell, Cas."
There was a long silence then, Cas letting the other take in the information given. It was the kind of duration that made his skin crawl in that uncomfortably tight manner, having had so few times to compare it with. He was not an impulsive type, and to feel the desperation that started to well within his joints, replacing out the heavy weight prior, was not a welcome distraction.
"I need to get out of New York," he stated finally, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know whereto, or how, but I have to get out."
"Then I'll help," Dean said.
As it turned out, the older Winchester had a brother quite far from the hustle and bustle of New York City. One that could give him work if he needed, though it was nothing grand like the office position he'd had in his own section of the business. And though Castiel had been sad to leave without word, he was glad the moment he boarded the train the next day with a rucksack of clothes he'd managed to smuggle out of his share of the apartment. Everything else would stay, fixtures for Gabriel to toss away or sell. It was none of his concern anymore.
It was surprisingly easier to let go of New York and his family then he'd initially thought possible. The difficult part was Dean.
"I've got an old plantation house next to the bay," he was saying as the drove towards Grand Central. Cas had ridden in the Impala only twice in his life, and though both times had been equally significant, this may have been the most. "It's a real fixer-upper, but she still stands and you're welcome to stay as long as you want."
"I appreciate it, Dean."
"You'll have to try the Dairy Freeze when you're down there, too," he added, smiling quickly. There was a ghost of a laugh bubbling up behind his lips. An awkward, knee-jerk reaction. "And real southern cooking. Grits and chicken-friend steak. Ma used to make fresh squeezed lemonade and it was the best you'd ever taste."
"I will."
He jutted his eyes over quickly, shuffling in his seat, hands gripping the steering wheel spasmodically. He had the look of concern about him, and it was palpable in the jauntiness of the statements prior. Just, Cas didn't know how to say whatever it was that needed to be said. It wasn't as if they were really ending anything. A flicker, maybe, but holding on to burnt out wicks was not something he found himself willing to do. At least, not until he was alone, on that train, where he could reminisce in silence.
"I'll come down as soon as I can get time off work," Dean said finally, voice an octave lower. A little less high-strung. "And we'll talk. Really talk."
Castiel smiled. "I would like that, Dean."
But here he was, two days on a train and countless miles spent remembering what it was to feel something alive in his core for the first time in a long time, now standing in the middle of a hall filled with cages and barking dogs.
"These rows here are our permanent residents," Sam Winchester said, patting the tops of each cage with a heavy open palm. The dogs seemed to get louder when he got near, making the whole experience all the more overwhelming. "Bailey, Princess, Mr. Rogers, and Periwinkle. Their owners check up on 'em once a month at best so we spend plenty of time making sure they're good n' happy."
Sam gestured for him to follow, then, leading along the right-hand side where the more inhabited cages sat. And boy was it a strange sight to behold. The hall itself was wide, and high. Almost stable-like, though the floor was linoleum and the little bit you could see of the walls themselves were painted a faded baby blue. Though there must have been over fifty cages, stacked in sections of two, there appeared to be only thirteen dogs in total, not counting the permanent residents, as the younger Winchester had called them.
"Over here we've got our part-timers. These guys get dropped off during business hours or for weekend parties and vacationing. On a busy week, we can get up to thirty, so you best be patient with them. It's not easy work."
Castiel merely nodded, watching as the other unclasped the latches to the last five cages with that one free hand. Each dog scuttled out in sequence, heading towards the large door at the end of the hall, all tails and barking and hopping about with far too much excitement. The Australian Shepherd followed closely beside Sam's ankles, disciplined as it seemed to be.
"You comin', New York?"
Next on the tour was the fenced in backyard. And by backyard, it was more a mass couple acre plot of land bordered by trees and sectioned into three separate picket fenced in masses. The grass was well-kept in the right-hand slot, neatly trimmed and surprisingly green what with the state the building had been in. The left one had an obstacle course that Castiel could only assume was for training purposes.
"We take the dogs out three times a day minimum," Sam said, opening the rusted gate to the middle section. It was the most empty of the lots, what with the patchy weeds and the browning areas. There were a few trees too, that had never been torn up, growing strong and partial across the expanse. "I run 'em in the morning too, and sometimes at night if it don't get too hot. I'd suggest something a little lighter than a suit and tie."
Castiel looked down at his thick overcoat, feeling suddenly and unbearably burdened by it under the hot slick of sun now beating down on him. It'd felt this way ever since he got off that train, what with the thick Alabama air making it hard to breathe, and harder to think. Everything sort of slowed down to a snail pace in his head, too stuffed up with the scent of a blooming, ninety-degree spring.
It would have been the perfect outfit for April in New York.
"I will consider my apparel next time," he said, delving his hands into his pockets. "Though I do not have much in the way of casual clothing."
Sam didn't even appear to be somewhat surprised by this. He'd been wearing a red and white flannelled button-down, sleeves rolled all the way up his tanned forearms. That paired with holey jeans that held to his hips by what appeared to be some sort of magic made the whole ensemble that of comfort. Sam Winchester looked at home in his clothes.
"There's a store down on Main," he said, eyeing Castiel with what appeared to be feigned interest, eyes dropping down for just a second before dragging back up coolly. It was something the older man ignored, indignant to the suggestion it held. "Though I'd suppose you'd best be getting out to Mobile if you're looking to sort out your wardrobe, New York. I wouldn't want you getting that nice suit of yours all covered in mud."
It wasn't a terribly nice suit to begin with, but Castiel wasn't about to tell him otherwise.
Instead, he watched as the younger man turned back towards the fence, tossing each toy out where the dogs scooped them up in sequence. When he'd finished this, he wiped his hands on his jeans, clasped the gate tightly, then turned back towards Cas. He had a grin now plastered across his cheeks, palms resting against his hips in a way that made it even more obvious how significant the ratio between his chest and his waist was.
"So," he said, lip quirking just a little bit further on the left side. "Any questions?"
"Only one. When do I start?"
It was decided that Cas would begin his trial-run the next morning, bright and early. Seven on the dot, as Sam had put it mildly. The convenience of a kennel was that it was always open when you needed it. So Cas, begrudgingly, agreed to start as soon as was absolutely necessary. After discussing a few particulars about employment, Sam offered to drive him over to the old plantation he'd be staying at, seeing as it'd been only a good five minute drive away. Twenty minute walk if he walked quickly.
Cas had visited the old plot before heading over to the Winchester Kennel in the first place, stopping only to drop his things off before taking the long, though much needed, stroll along the old, overgrown lane. And it seemed a perfect little stretch, thanks to the residence being purchased in a time where he assumed Dean considered staying in the south. Why he hadn't sold it was a story Cas would most likely never hear, though he wanted to. He wanted to know everything when it came to Dean.
Which was why, when he hopped out of Sam's old Chevy pick-up, he'd taken to rolling up his sleeves and heading in for battle.
The property itself was more than just a fixer-upper, though Cas assumed it may have been in a better state the last time Dean had seen it, what with overgrowth seeming to be completely uncontrollable. The paint job on the place was spotty at best, and there were climbing hydrangea's nearly blacking out the Doric columns along the front of the building.
Not only that but there were windows that were shattered most likely from squall season, and the porch sagged in the middle thanks to its rotting foundation. Aesthetically, the place was a complete wreck.
Cas could deal with wrecks though. He'd seen ruin and fought ruin. He'd pulled people from the brink of bankruptcy and worse. There was nothing he wouldn't be able to repair, and the plantation, he decided, would be his first real project.
Fortunately, though the house itself had very little available in regards to a strong structure, it did come fully stocked. At least, as fully stocked as could be imagined when it came to blankets and towels, dishes and cutlery. It was a mess, to be quite frank, what with the furniture itself being almost insufferably covered in a thick coat of dust, the carpets stained grey and the creaky wood floors cloudy and stained. But the place still had electricity and, surprisingly enough, running water. He could make due with what he had.
That first night, he spent his time clearing out the master bedroom, washing the sheets by hand in the bathtub which was, by far, his favourite fixture of the house so far. A mass body with copper handles that could shine like new pennies if given the right kind of treatment. He'd also unmasked some of Dean's old clothes from the old walk-in closet, though most had been damaged from moth holes. After rummaging through it long enough he found himself a few pairs of jeans and a couple shirts easily wearable till he could get himself out to Mobile, as was Sam's suggestion.
He hung everything out to dry on the rusty old clothesline out back, jury-rigging his own pins with pens and elastic bands he had stashed in his briefcase.
There was surprisingly quite a bit of canned food too, of which he took full advantage of. He cooked up a bowl of beans that he scarfed down mechanically after finishing the first round of laundry, enough to satiate the hunger but also enough to make him miss the ease and convenience of take-out menus and public transportation.
When he went to bed that night, for the first time in a long time, he slept like a baby.
The morning was wrought with the sounds of an overly peppy pre-set ringtone he'd used as his alarm. The cellphone, of which he'd ignored, now had over forty missed calls, and an additional set of nearly the same amount of text messages, all ranging from each sibling. Even Luke had sent him a brief 'where are you' email which made the severity of his disappearance a little more widely known. He turned his phone off anyways, not particularly ready to make known that he was no longer in the state.
After a quick shower, he dressed in an old AC/DC t-shirt and pair of well-worn Levi's. On a second inspection, though, in the cloudy door-mirror, he tossed on a blue flannel button-down. Something similar to what Sam had been wearing, though this one he left open and hung loose on his shoulders.
He ate a can of fruit-cocktail and headed to Winchester Kennel.
Arriving early was something Cas had done prudently and without fail. In regards to his newly acquired work, he showed promptly at 6:35, knocking at the front door of the building – which was pleasantly shaped like a barn had sprouted out of the back of a brick house. No one had answered, which wasn't altogether surprising. Not after the specific instructions he'd been given. So he waited, instead, on the front step, resting elbows against his kneecaps and his chin against the backs of his hands.
It wasn't until 6:47 rolled around that he noticed a figure curving around the winding lane, surrounded by seven or eight smaller bodies. It took another three to discern Sam coming around the corner, and that the smaller figures were dogs, all leashed up around the lower half of the young Winchester's torso.
It had to have been one of the sexiest things Castiel had ever witnessed, not that he had much to compare it with, what with his sex-life being pretty well nonexistent. But he was sure even someone experienced could appreciate the visual stimulation put before him.
Sam was fit, but not just the average, run-of-the-mill athletic sort of fit. Sam was fit in the way that he'd only imagined professional athletes could be with his perfectly sculpted chest and arms thick with heavy chords, glistening with perspiration. Not like Dean, who had that plump flesh around his lower half due to his relentless love of pie.
But boy did the younger Winchester know how to wear it, bare chested and hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. His sweatpants were low-slung, once again proving that even gravity had no grasp on his body. It accentuated how unrealistically tall he was. Moose-like in stature, he was a giant among men.
He had headphones in, gliding into the graveled parking in a few short strides.
"Mornin', New York!" he called when finally catching on to the looming presence on his front step. This triggered the Australian Shepherd to distance itself from the pack, unleashed as it bolted towards the awaiting Castiel. "Riot, get back here!"
"Riot?" Cas asked when the quick-footed dog nearly bounded straight into him. He held his hands out, though, effectively stilling and pacifying the Shepherd in a quick, easy move. "Well don't you have an interesting name."
By the time Sam had gotten in a good couple feet closer, Cas had already ruffled the panting dog's head, smiling with just the corners of his lips.
"Sorry, he's not usually like that with strangers," Sam said, panting. He was resting his hands against his knees, taking in heavy draughts of cooler morning air.
"No harm, no foul, Sam Winchester."
The younger man's lips quirked up at the mentioning of his name, head shaking for a moment as if exasperated. "You always call everyone by their full name?"
Cas merely shrugged, turning his attention back towards the elated Shepherd in front of him. "Beats the city they come from."
This brought the full smile out.
After a minute or two of Sam catching his breath, and another ten spent on caging up the dogs he'd run that morning, the first part of the day began surprisingly different than he'd expected. Maybe because he had assumed he'd be armed with the PC, or filing cabinets which were something the front-room definitely needed. Just, when Sam had handed him the damn near dangerous looking scooper contraption whilst giving explicit instructions on where to find the wheelbarrow and where to dump the dog shit, did he realize just how fucked he was.
It was not exactly the most exciting of tasks either.
Scooping shit had always been something he'd deemed as a pretty unfortunate tasking, but Alabama made it even more so. He wasn't out for more than a good ten minutes before he was stripping layers off, tying the button up around his hips and using the hem of the t-shirt to dab away at the sweat on his brow that had built up from the exertion. The cloth still smelled musty when he put it to his face, but there was a trace there so subtle it was almost completely faded. A scent that was purely and distinctly Dean.
"Damn," he muttered, grimacing.
By the time he'd cleared the only section specified, he'd managed to strip the t-shirt up over his head too, leaving it back on the gate after toweling the rest of his upper body off in the same manner as he had his face. It was not a good look on him, he realized. Not when his upper body had seen just about as much sun as the dusty insides of Dean's plantation house. He felt dusty too, in a way. Stiff-necked and stiff-limbed in ways he never remembered himself being before.
The air seemed to detract him from these thoughts, though. He sucked back big gulps of hot steam rather than the cooler draughts he'd been puffing back home on his cigarette breaks. Which was another thing he'd run surprisingly low on, not that that was probably a bad thing. Cigarettes were something he associated with New York. Here, in backwater, southern comfort, Fairhope Alabama, he couldn't imagine needing one.
At least, not until now, that was.
He dumped the contents of the wheelbarrow in the dumpster along the side of the building before wheeling it back towards the back shed. He grabbed his shirts then, and headed inside for further instruction.
It wasn't altogether surprising, though, that he found himself quiet alone in the long kennel hallway, surrounded by barking dogs and musky smell of a well-used barn. He turned into the front room where he expected he might see Sam at the paint-chipped desk, scanning through papers or waiting on customers, but it had also been abandoned but for the half drank bottle of water left on it's side near the computer. The only thing relatively amiss with the whole look of the place.
"You work fast, New York."
Cas turned around just in time to see the younger man coming through a side-door kitty-corner to the kennel entrance, a set of stairs visible behind him leading up into some unknown area he could only assume was the young Winchester's living quarters. The reason he'd assumed it was merely for the fact that Sam came from it soaking wet, body beaded with small dew-droplets and hair clinging to his cheeks and forehead which he pushed back damply. The only stitch of clothing he happened to be wearing was a towel clinging to those anti-gravity hips.
Holy hell.
It wasn't just a matter of Sam being hot that made it so unintentionally aweing, but the fact that, while the younger man passed around him, bicep nudging the top of his shoulder oh so mildly, it was Dean's little brother who grabbed the water bottle. It was the 'too smart for his own good', chess playing, kind-hearted, animal loving little brother he'd heard countless stories about. Loving stories that made him feel he'd known a stranger when he looked at the creature that moved about, all languid muscle and pure, unaltered sex. It wasn't exactly the picture he expected, and surely not the one he was prepared to deal with.
Even still, it was becoming increasingly more obvious that Sam was either completely oblivious to his own charm or he liked the attention enough to not care who it came from.
"Let's go upstairs," he said, uncapping the water bottle with those long, perfect fingers. The suggestion left Cas aching in ways he hadn't ached in a long time. "I'll make you a real southern breakfast."
Cas merely nodded, knowing full well he was completely in over his head.