I was only twenty-two, everyone told me I was nuts, of course I was, twentyyear old kids haven't lived yet, why would they run away and join the Army? They didn't understand, of course they didn't. I was all alone in the world and I needed a reason to keep on going, I needed a leader, in all truth. I had followed my dad like a good little soldier from the age of four, when my mom died and he went off the rails. I did everything he wanted me to every day of my life, I didn't have relationships because we never stayed in one place long enough and I hardly went to school. Everything I learned, I learned from him. So when he died I did what I thought he would want; I enlisted in the Army. He was a marine but I never did too well on water so I did the next best thing.

I decided that if I was going then I would take one last look around, the old sentimental crap that you get when you know you're leaving some place. Lawrence wasn't so bad but I never seen much of it. I never realised that I had an attachment to it until that morning when I was putting on my uniform, I was folding up my usual clothes since I wasn't going to need them for a while. Old boots, denim pants, old t-shirt and a khaki green shirt. I laughed at how what I usually wore wasn't that much different really, having been raised by a marine I guess I never thought about it but folding up those pieces and laying them on my bed for when I came back I realised that they couldn't be more different and more alike. I put them on a bed in my old room - I had gone home for a few weeks before shipping out. I didn't really have a home, I guess, except my car so I needed somewhere solid to come back to. There was one thing I completely forgot, my necklace. Well, maybe I forgot it on purpose, who knows, but I walked out that door, cap stuffed in my pocket and bag over my shoulder with that necklace tucked under my shirt. Knowing I was going to have to take it off made me need it more than usual, I was so aware of it as I locked up.

I had a slow walk around town, looking at all the places I had spent the little time I had around here before we had hit the road. I was only four so it was silly things like daycare and the park but the one place I wanted to be the last was the old diner.

It was just a crappy little diner that didn't mean anything to anybody. Except me. Ellen was still working behind the counter and had done since I was a kid, I saw her the other day when I came back. I had introduced myself when she'd asked about where I was staying, said the house used to belong to a friend of hers, a John Winchester. I told her I was his son, one of his sons, Dean I said when she asked if I was Sam. Her face lit up all kinds of gentle and relieved. We talked, she introduced me to her daughter, Jo, she looked like a sweet kid. Then, of course, she shot me right down to size for calling her a kid and I laughed. I think Ellen understood, I was home but not for long. She made me promise to come back before I went, give her one last chance at changing my mind. So I promised and, after packing that morning, there I was.

Bobby had taken the car, he was an old friend of my dad's that I still saw every few months when dad needed a part for, what was now my baby, he lived on the outskirts of Lawrence at his garage so I never had reason to go back into town but I dropped the car off at his and told him to keep her for me. He told me he would keep her running and put a sheet over her, his way of telling me that nobody else was ever going to drive her. I told him thanks, had a few beers and headed on out, to the diner.

When I walked into the diner heads turned and Ellen appeared out of the kitchen. I got the odd respected nod for the greens and sad smile for the orphan thing. Everyone around here seemed to know my dad or my mom in some way, even some of the roadies who passed through every few months.

"I have been waiting for you all day!" She smiled, a tear in her eye. "Every time that door opened I come running out." I leaned on the counter, bag still over my shoulder and she smiled before she hit me across the head. "Trying to kill me, boy?"

I closed my eyes to it and then smiled. I deserved that one I guess. She started talking to me about how I shouldn't be going and how I should just sit down a while, I'd see eventually. I nodded and listened then I inhaled, ready to argue but I didn't have to.

"You're going no matter what I say, huh?" She smiled and I shrugged. My mind was made up, no matter the amount of people who argued, I was going. I knew in my heart it was what I wanted, what I needed. "Well, go on and sit down, I will get you some pie at least. And if I even see you reaching for that wallet I will do that again."

I smiled and turned towards a booth near the end. I sat so I could look out at the people and cars going by to the bus stop across the road, where I would get picked up. Where it would begin.

"Pecan pie and coffee, black." I looked up to the waiter and smiled before mumbling a thanks. I swear I was caught off guard, I expected Jo or Ellen but the rough voice got my attention quicker than any recruitment officer. I just stared, to this day I guess I'm embarrassed by that but halfway through my thanks I stopped and stared. The dark hair and pink lips, cupid's bow I think I've heard it described as and you'd think he was wearing some kind of chapstick it was unreal. "What?" He smiled, widening the bow as if about to shoot, looking to the side.

"Nothin'." I felt the blush spread over my cheeks and I looked to the pie. "Just uh, expected one of the girls."

"I'm sorry to disappoint." He shifted on his feet.

"Not at all." I said it before I had a chance to check myself. He paused and I tried to find something to say. "I guess I was ready for some more hard sell from Ellen or for Jo to bat her eyelashes at me."

He looked to Ellen who nodded and he turned back. "May I sit?"

I looked up. "Course." I gestured to the seat across from me. He took a step and slid into the booth. "Aren't you working?"

"Yes, but we are not too busy." He smiled and settled back.

"I get it." I picked up a fork and started to attack the pie. "You're the underdog. Ellen sent you over here?"

"Of course." He smiled and I exhaled a laugh. He shifted and I looked up as I chewed. "She asked me to talk to you about enlisting, but I'm not going to." I raised my eyebrows. "You're Dean, right?" I nodded. "Cas." He held out his hand and I shook it, it was only then that I realised my palms were a little sweaty, or that his were cold; I couldn't decide which. "I don't know you from Adam but I know what Ellen and Jo have told me." He smirked. "And a little that they have not." I twitched my head to the side, not having a clue what he meant. "If you want to join the Army then you join the Army, no one here has the right to tell you otherwise."

I nodded. "Thanks." I used the napkin to wipe my fork and turned it towards him. "You like pie?"

He leaned forward and took the fork from me. "Yes."

He ate a bit and I drank some of my coffee. All of a sudden I felt like an idiot, I was leaving and yet here I was getting all hot and bothered by a stranger. "I uh, I'm going to a training camp for a few weeks and then it looks like I might get shipped out."

"You're going to the East?" He held out his hand and I passed him the cup, I felt his fingers touch mine, hard and deliberate and I knew he was doing it on purpose, had to be.

"Yeah, just waiting on my bus." I felt ridiculous, he swallowed the coffee, licked his lips and I watched every delightful second. The whole point of going to the Army was to escape the world that had screwed me over, but he wasn't trying to talk me out of it and he wasn't telling me what to do. He was just sitting, eating my pie and drinking my joe. And I let him. He smiled and then shuffled out of the booth. "I will get you more coffee."

"Get yourself some too." I muttered, reached for the nearly empty cup and downed it. He then lowered his head before walking away.

He walked back over with one refilled cup and put it down, I looked up and then got the message before I looked back to it. "I finish in an hour, what time does your bus depart?"

I looked up again. "It pulls in at five, leaves at six." It was already just nearly three.

He hit the pads of his fingers on the table before looking to the clock. "Would you have time for a walk?" I smiled and slowly nodded. "And more pie." He wasn't asking about that, he just walked away. It was Ellen that brought over my pie and I was a little disappointed, she sat and spoke to me for a while.

"I was telling your Dad," she looked to the side, "hi honey," then back to me, "I said to him," I looked up when Jo walked over and sat down beside her mom who had spoken to her there, "I told him driving around the country would bite him in the ass, but did he listen?" She looked to the counter when someone cleared their throat. "You off, Cas?"

I turned my head to see Cas putting his trench coat on and rounding the counter. I was surprised, I would never have pegged him for a trench coat, ever. "Yes, I have plans." He smiled at her.

"Thanks, Ellen." I zipped up my bag and went to shuffle out the booth. "I'll call when I can."

"Where are you going?" She looked to me and Jo looked between me and Cas, her smile falling.

I threw the bag over my shoulder. "Well, later I'm boarding a bus to the Army camp, but first? First I got plans." I smiled and Cas turned to walk away so I followed him. I turned when we got to the door and raised my hand in goodbye.

We stepped out into the cold air and looked around for a second. "I know somewhere beautiful." He sighed and turned before slowly walking away. I followed him as we walked along the sidewalk towards the pier, it was beautiful out there, from what I remembered anyway. "Tell me something, why is everyone so adamant on changing your mind?"

"I don't know. My dad was a marine and when my mom died he just flipped, he started this one man crusade to find her killer. He took on gangs and criminals trying to find answers that everyone told him never existed for him to find. Maybe they think I'm doing the same." I took a step before I spoke again. "Our house went up in flames one night, electrical fault, I still remember it actually."

"How old were you?" He tucked his hands in his coat pockets and we walked side by side along the pier.

"I was four, my brother was barely six months. Dad handed him to me and told me to get out, the three of us did but he couldn't save my mom and that's what I think drove him crazy." I could see it all that day. "I don't think the fire ever left his vision right to his death." I shook my head as I dropped my bag on the bench. We kept on walking to the end of the pier and leaned down to sit. Cas flicked his coat out before lowering himself all of the way. We dangled our legs off the end and looked at the water. The place was empty and silent. "It is beautiful here."

"Told you. Where's your brother now?"

"Stanford. He wanted to be a lawyer, and he will be. A damn good one too. But following orders and having targets to chase is all I know. It's all I want to know." I sighed. "Everyone thinks they know me, even Ellen and Jo. Especially Sam. They think they have me down, they don't know the half of it."

"Yes. I can see that." I looked to him as he let the sun lie on his face with his eyes closed.

"You can't see jack with your eyes shut." He laughed and I smiled. It was a calming sound. "How is it that even you think you know me and yet, I don't mind that."

"Because I don't know everything about you and I'm not trying to change any of it."

"This is crazy." I admitted and rubbed my face. He opened his eyes and I turned my head to him. "I believe you, I believe that you know stuff about me that I never told you and that's just crazy."

"No, what's crazy is that you want me to know more."

I tried to talk but I didn't have an answer so I asked a question instead. "What is it that you think you know about me?"

He looked over my whole face. "You think you're a follower when you're more of a leader. You like metal and rock, drive an automatic but you'd rather have a manual and you feel rejected by your brother. Unloved, even." I looked down. "And you've wanted to do this since you first saw me."

"Do what?" I looked back up. He leaned forward and brought his lips slowly to mine, almost touching but not. And I wasn't retreating. Then he whispered. "This." He kissed me and I kissed him back. Sitting on the end of the pier in Lawrence, my Army bag ready to go on the bench two men sat kissing gently for the best part of an hour and a half. Nothing more, just kissing while my left hand rested under his jawline and his right held onto my wrist.

When it got late we stood up and had a slow walk back, I think the both of us reached for each other's hand but it still made us both smile. "Cas, would you mind if I wrote to you?" I blushed. "Silly question, now I feel like a girl." I exhaled a laugh. "It's just I don't have anyone to send letters to and," I sighed, "I guess I need that."

He paused. "Good thing they repealed DADT." I laughed and nodded. "You got paper?" He stopped and I let my bag drop from my shoulder, found a scrap of paper with some old bill on the back and handed him it. He searched in his denim pants and smiled when he found a pen. "Good thing I'm a waiter."

"And a thief." I added and he smiled before twirling his index finger, I turned and he leaned on my back, I felt the pen tickle in between my shoulder blades as he wrote it down. Then it stopped and he clicked the pen before holding out the paper as I turned. I took it and read it to make sure I understood the writing while he put his pen back in his pocket. I pulled my cap out my top pocket and stuffed the paper inside before just holding the cap. "Cas..." I hesitated. "This is so silly, I just met you."

"Yes, but you can ask me anything. You know, I just met you too." He gestured to my pocket and his address.

I nodded, he had trusted me and I could use someone to trust. When his hand dropped and his fingers brushed mine I felt a flutter right to where it rested against my chest and I knew. It felt like it glowed and I swallowed. "My brother gave me this," I pulled it over my head, tightening my grip on the cap so I didn't drop it, "I'm not allowed to take it with me, I have to wear my dog tags. I had to wear it as long as I could." I looked at it in my hands.

I held it out and he slowly took it. "Would you like me to send it to your brother?"

I shook my head. "Would you look after it for me?" He looked up from it to my face. "Until I come back?"

He slowly nodded and we began to walk to the bus. We had five minutes left and the bus was packed so I pulled my cap on. "Do you want me to go?" He looked at all of the people, Ellen and Jo were there too. "You might not want all of them to know that you're..."

He seemed nervous and I didn't care. I stood into his personal space and slowly kissed him. He kissed me back and I felt his left hand come up to hold onto my neck, the charm from the necklace tickling my skin as it dangled from his hand. "Wait for me?" I mumbled against his lips. I knew it was a lot to ask but, Hell, we had already asked so much of each other already, what was one more?

He nodded, his eyes closed for a moment and then they opened again. "As long as it takes."

I pulled back and walked over to Ellen and Jo, who looked as shocked as anything but more focused on saying goodbye.

"You call me as if my number is on speed dial in that head of yours, alright?" Ellen handed me more bits of paper and I agreed, hugging her.

"I feel like I'm only just getting to know you and you're leaving." Jo smiled, I knew what she meant.

"This is something I have to do. I'll still be Dean when I get back." I promised and she understood. It wasn't her, it was who I was and it wouldn't have been fair to pretend otherwise. She hugged me and I mumbled that if she got in any trouble to tell them her brother Dean was in the Army and knew how to hide a body.

Ellen laughed. "You're not in the Army yet." Jo laughed as tears ran down her face and we pulled back from each other.

"I've been training for a long time." I added and glanced to Ellen.

"Alright, all on the bus. Move it!" The sergeant came out of nowhere and all the chumps jumped into line. "Winchester!" He shouted.

"Sir, yes Sir!" I shouted back and smiled to the girls. "I'll call you."

"WINCHESTER!" He yelled and I straightened up. "Don't make me have to say it again. Eighteen hundred hours on the dot."

I turned and jogged onto the bus sitting on the other side. Cas was still standing there but he had the necklace around his neck. I sat at the window, stowing my bag beside my feet and looked out at him.

My dad's death gave me a reason to go to war, and as the bus pulled away and someone plodded down next to me I knew Cas was a reason to come home.