Playing for Keeps
Annaleise Marie
cross-posted from livejournal
username: girlgotagun

Part Three

X

Cas didn't venture out of Dean's bedroom until early the next morning. Dean had checked on him a few times, standing close to the door and listening, making sure that there was movement on the other side before returning to the living room. Or the fire escape. The building didn't allow smoking, and so a few times a day Dean climbed out the window onto the rickety contraption, one leg bent to brace his foot on the sill as he perched there, the other on the metal grated floor. He was more of a boredom smoker than anything. And nothing was more boring than sitting alone with a hostage. Especially one like Cas, who wouldn't come out of his damned room. But Dean had no important stuff in there, no weapons, and the fire escape didn't extend to that window. So it worked. Whatever.

It was during his early-morning trip onto the fire escape that Cas finally appeared, looking half-asleep and cranky. His already-messy black hair was sticking out at odd angles, and a decent five o'clock shadow that Dean hadn't expected on the baby face had appeared.

"Bathroom?" the man grumbled when Dean stuck his head inside.

Dean shot him a confused look. "You mean to tell me that you've been in there for—" Dean looked at the clock. 7:53. "—nearly eighteen hours, and you haven't even come out to use the bathroom yet?"

Cas just stared at him for a moment before answering dryly. "I have considerable bladder control. Now where is it?"

Dean pointed at the door off of the living room and watched the man shuffle towards it and then disappear inside. The kid better not have been pissing in his room or something. But he really doubted that, somehow. Didn't seem like the kid's style.

"You know, man, holding it that long really isn't good for you," he said when the man reappeared, looking considerably less grumpy and more awake. Honestly, Dean was a little concerned about the whole thing.

Cas sighed and flopped down on the couch by the window. "It's my dad's thing—absolute control. When I was younger, he'd lock me and my brothers in our rooms, and we could only come out when he let us. You learn to hold it, or you learn to like the smell of piss." Dean was alarmed, to say the least, and Cas took in the expression on his face before shrugging. "Not the worst he ever did."

Dean coughed uncomfortably. "I thought you didn't want to talk about it?"

Cas shrugged. "Changed my mind. I figure, who are you gonna tell? Like you're gonna go out with your friends and tell them, 'Oh, I kidnapped Castiel Novak the other day and you'll never guess what he told me'?" Cas's eyes flicked to Dean's, narrowed in suspicion. "I mean, I'm assuming your friends aren't in on this."

"Don't have many friends." Dean noticed his cigarette burning down to the filter, forgotten as Cas had been speaking, and ducked back out to the fire escape. He jerked his head for the man to follow, surprised when he clamored onto the fire escape a moment later. He hadn't really expected him to do it. "But yeah, my closest friend, Charlie…she's in on it."

Cas laughed. "What, are you Bonnie and Clyde or something?"

"Nothing that crazy." But that was all Dean offered. He shouldn't have even let Charlie's name pass his lips. He hadn't called her yet, and he was beginning to consider not doing so, with how badly this job had been botched. And now, if Cas did decide to try to press charges—he could certainly identify him accurately at this point—he had implicated Charlie as well. Awesome. "So your dad…just how completely nutty is he?"

Cas shrugged. "Never had anything to compare him to, really. He's not normal, that's for sure. My older brother Michael, though… He swears it's not that bad; that Dad's just a bit unconventional, but that he's raised us strong."

"I don't think keeping you financially dependent and making you hold your piss for the better part of a day does more for your strength of character."

"Probably not," Cas agreed easily. "I'm beginning to think most of the Novak men are a bit off, honestly."

"Well, you don't seem much like them."

Cas didn't answer him right away, fixing those unnervingly blue eyes on Dean for a few moments as though trying to figure something out. "Maybe not. Maybe I'm just an entirely different kind of crazy."

Dean laughed. "Well, you are kind of just making idle conversation with your kidnapper."

"Man, this is the first time this summer I haven't woken up in my dad's house, wishing I hadn't." Cas shook his head. "Sad to say, it's a marked improvement."

The thought made Dean a little sad.

X

The day slipped by, and still Dean didn't call Charlie. Didn't call and make the ransom demand. He figured after what he was putting the kid through, the least he could do was give the poor guy a day out from under his dad. He checked the news in the morning, at noon, and again at seven. There were no reports of Cas missing. And that didn't strike Dean as particularly odd, given what Cas had told him about the man, other than the fact that the man was obviously a control freak—he was surprised that he would let Cas out from under his thumb that long.

Maybe he had written Cas off as a runaway; didn't care enough to check up. Maybe there was a hold up in reporting because Cas was an adult. Dean thought he had heard something about there being a requisite forty-eight hours before an adult could be reported missing. But he wasn't sure if stuff like that applied to people with Cas's father's power and wealth.

He decided he'd wait another day or two and see. It was a risky gamble—if the man was only waiting out a forty-eight hour mandated period, then Dean was guaranteeing police involvement. But he couldn't help it. For some reason, he really, really wanted to know.

In the meantime, he and Cas lived in uneasy sometimes-silence. Occasionally Cas would ask questions about him, which Dean would answer vaguely. He felt bad that Cas had been so open with him, but he was holding so much back. But then, Cas wasn't the one risking prison time if he told too much.

At the end of the second day, Cas finally asked him.

"Has my dad responded to the ransom demand?" He didn't look at Dean as he said this. They were out on the fire escape again, and Dean whipped his head around quickly, checking for open window and others out on the fire escape. Thankfully, they seemed to be alone and out of earshot of anyone who might be nearby.

Dean shook his head. He didn't tell Cas that he hadn't made the demand yet. Didn't tell him that he was waiting, testing out Cas's claims of how horrible his father was. Didn't tell him of the building hesitance he was feeling when he thought about sending the younger man back to that.

Cas sighed, sliding down the metal rail support to sit on the grate. "Sorry he's being an ass. I'm sure you don't want to be stuck with me any longer than you have to."

Dean scoffed. "What's gotten into you?" The younger man was weird, that was for sure, but all that day he had been pretty…normal. Not this self-depreciating, mopey persona that had suddenly come out.

"I think a lot of the stuff that my dad did…sort of socially crippled me. I almost forgot that we're not friends; that I'm just a job to you. And I'm sure you're not thrilled about it taking this long." Cas was looking out over the city through the railing supports, not turning towards Dean as he spoke, as though embarrassed by his behavior.

Dean shifted uncomfortably. He wanted to tell the other man that that wasn't it; that he hadn't even made the demand yet, and that of course Dean didn't mind him talking to him, that he even sort of liked it. Instead he said, "I don't have anywhere else to be, really."

Cas turned to him then, his expression unreadable. "It must be like being stuck at work every second of the day."

Dean shrugged. "I work in an auto shop with two grumpy old men. This is like a vacation." He nearly bit his own tongue trying to stop the words from spilling out. Dammit, he needed to stop telling Cas things about himself.

Fuck it, he thought grumpily. If Cas was going to turn him in when this was all over, he had plenty information to do so already. Dean's ass was pretty solidly in the fire. No point trying to be careful now.

"You mean you have an actual day job?" Cas looked genuinely shocked. "Then why the hell are you doing this?"

Dean laughed and tossed his cigarette butt off the fire escape without thinking about it; he wasn't used to being on the eighth floor of a building. "I know you grew up in the lap of luxury, Cas, but nine-to-five labor jobs at little family businesses—they don't pay well. And college is expensive. Especially Stanford Law."

Cas looked even more surprised, and for a minute Dean couldn't figure out why. Then it hit him, and he wanted to hurl himself off of the fire escape. Well, that was the last of it. He had now thrown Sammy into the mix.

"You're in school? To be a lawyer?" Cas looked like this was extremely funny, and Dean supposed that, looking at it like that, it sort of was.

He shook his head. "My brother. He's crazy smart; driven… Never wanted the life that our dad wanted for him. He wants to finish school, settle down, have kids and all that, and work at saving the world at his nine-to-five."

Cas was quiet for a moment as he took this in. "You're doing all of this…for your brother?"

Dean shrugged. It wasn't like it was a completely selfless act. He and Charlie benefitted, after all. If it were strictly for Sammy, the first job would've been enough.

"That's actually very…sweet, Dean." Cas was smiling at him, the expression so freaking genuine and admiring that it made Dean's gut twist with guilt.

"Dude, I kidnap people. Trust me, there's no sweet way to look at that."

Cas was quiet again, this time looking as though he were trying to work out how to phrase something. After a moment he sighed. "I guess I've just never known of anyone who would go to such lengths for someone else. Everyone in my life is constantly trying to put themselves ahead; do what's most beneficial to them." He smiled again, but this time it was half-assed, not reaching his eyes. "I sort of wish someone had ever cared about me like that."

"Enough to kidnap someone for you?" Dean laughed. The sad look didn't leave Cas's eyes as the younger man shrugged amicably, and it stopped Dean's laughter immediately. "What if I cared enough to not give you back?" Dean didn't know what made him say it, what he was even thinking of when he said it. But it rang strangely true in his own ears—he didn't want to send the kid back to his dad, to that life that brought so much sadness and pain into those bright blue eyes.

Cas's smile got a little warmer. "I'd like nothing more than to never go back."

Dean didn't answer him, and Cas didn't ask anymore questions. After awhile they went back inside, and despite the part of his mind that was still on the job raging at him, Dean didn't object when Cas sat close to him on the couch as they watched the ten o'clock news.

There was still no report that Cas was missing. Dean looked at the clock. It had been fifty-seven hours since Cas had gotten in his car.