A/Ns: So many reviews on that last chapter! Thank you so much! I am so glad to hear so many people saying they like Charlie and Jo in this. If you want to see more of either/both, I am more than willing to give it to you. That being said, those are only two of who I am calling the terrible trio. I never heard back on it, so I hope no one minds slow builds.
Also, as of this moment, I am going to do my best to stick to a weekly update on Thursdays. I might post a day early depending on my beta, Dorian_is_a_dick on AO3.
PANduhPANDA: TBH, I thought this was going to be a complete flop myself, and almost gave up on the idea.
Queen Beanie: That's the fastest I've ever gotten a review! I didn't even get the notification that the chapter was up before that!
Many thanks to my best friend and the wonderful Holligenet on Tumblr for the story cover!
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"What's Game Night?" Castiel asks curiously as he stares off to where the strange red head retreated off to.
Dean uses his hands to slide his tray away before letting his head thump hard against the table surface. He groans at the fact Charlie finally managed to get something on Dean and use it coerce Dean into joining her Game Night. She's been pushing him on the matter for the past year, and he's always found a way to weasel out of it.
Until now.
Damn Jo. He can already tell those two are up to no good, and while Charlie seems to have gotten what she wanted, he's not sure what Jo gets out of this, aside from more juicy gossip with Charlie that is. The girls were bad enough separately, but the thought of them teaming up against Dean together actually frightens him. It could be worse though. There's no telling what mayhem those two can come up with should they ever decide to team up with that weird Becky girl down in the staffing office. Dean's only met her once, but that was certainly enough for Dean. Eccentric doesn't even begin to start describing the girl, and he's heard the stories of when Sam comes down to the office when he has to consult with the managers.
"Dean? Are you alright?" Castiel pushes softly, edging on concern at Dean's sudden change in attitude. He's not sure if it's due to what happened, or if Dean is sick and needs medical attention. When Dean doesn't respond Castiel's worry builds and he not so much rushes as more glides over to Dean's side.
Castiel kneels beside Dean and places a hand on his shoulder carefully gauging Dean's reactions. "Dean. Talk to me. Are you alright?"
This seems to get a response, and Dean lifts his head realizing he's not alone. Dean sees that the doctor is staring very intensely at him and so close Dean can pick up the scent of the other man's aftershave and the faint traces of the sanitizers and rubbing alcohols they use to wash up with. He finds himself unable to move and staring back oddly enough.
Castiel's inner worries fade away when Dean raises his head to look at him and is about to say something only to be cut off by a loud bang on the table.
Dean startles at the sound, breaking eye contact to spin around and glare at whoever caused it. The anger quickly fades away when he realizes that it's his younger brother Sam who is sporting one of his best 'bitch faces' at Dean.
"Heya, Sammy. What's got you all riled up this time?"
"You actually." Sam lets the nickname slide this time as there are more important matters at hand. "You and-" he pauses and sees Castiel kneeling what he considers freakishly close to his brother. Sam blinks a few times in confusion, but quickly recovers and points in the doctor's direction. "I'm assuming this is Doctor Novak?"
Castiel stands up looking curiously at Sam before things start to fall in place in his mind. "You're Dean's brother."
Sam stutters a few times feeling slightly embarrassed for the scene he's causing in front of a doctor he's never met not to mention everyone in the cafeteria who may be watching.
"Uh, yeah. Sorry, um." Sam sticks out his hand awkwardly to shake hands. His hand slowly drops when Castiel doesn't make a move to return the gesture and continues staring at Sam instead.
"Anyway. Do you two have a moment?" Sam looks around the cafeteria as if worried about any audience they might be attracting.
The doctor turns to look at Dean who shrugs and then grabs his tray. Castiel grabs his own tray as Dean begins making his way to the kitchen conveyor belt with his brother,
"Yeah, I think so. Me an' Cas were just finishing up."
Sam looks at his older brother as if he had grown a second head. He's never heard of Dean making friends with any of the doctors, and especially not ones he could be so casual with to be on a first name basis so quickly. He assumes it's quickly because Sam's never heard of the guy until now, and Dean's making it sound like they're the best friends. Not only that, but this is a doctor from a different care center and Dean's hardly been outside his own. He's starting to think that this whole may have something to do with Dean's assignment, which is bad enough as it is.
Once the three grab their belongings and find an empty office, Sam has them both sit down and decides to jump right into the problem at hand.
"I don't know the whole story yet, so maybe you two can fill me in. What in the world happened with the Hiserly family today?"
Some kind of nerve must have been struck because both Dean and Castiel are sitting up tall in their seats. Sam's not familiar with Castiel, but he can read Dean like a book. His body's tense, his jaw is twitching as his teeth clench tightly together, and his eyes darken. Sam's seen this happen one other time and it ended badly. "Okay, so I can tell you don't like the family, but can you just place nice so they don't file any more complaints?"
"You don't know these people, Sam." Dean can't help but snarl and his voice is deep and resentful, "They're more monster than human."
Sam sighs knowing that this is going just the same as last time. Dean emotionally attaches himself to every patient he has, and in some cases the families of the patients are more desperate to be rid of them than they are to save them. Needless to say, Dean despises every one of them he comes across not than Sam is any different, but at least he's better at hiding it. Dean doesn't even try to hide his disgust sometimes and the last time a complaint was filed, Dean lost it and ended up getting into a huge argument with the family, which in turn almost cost him his job.
"Can you at least try to reason with them, Dean?" Sam's more sympathetic than Dean gives him credit, but he just wishes Dean can see that he's just trying to help Dean avoid getting fired. He knows that it's Dean's life and would be crushed if he ever lost his job. It never seems to stop Dean from trying to, however.
"There's no reasoning with these… things, Sam!" Dean's yelling now and part of Sam is glad he's getting to vent his anger out now instead of later in front of the family. "They're cold and heartless, and it's pretty clear that they're just waiting for this poor guy to die so they can take his money. Sorry, but I'm doing everything I can to do to save this guy because, oh I don't know, it's my damn job!"
Sam sighs again and turns to see if Castiel can do anything to calm his hot-headed brother down, but only finds him staring at Dean again. The way he's watching Dean actually makes Sam feel a bit uncomfortable and causes Sam to shift in his seat.
The movement catches the doctor's attention and he finally turns to look at Sam, and Sam suddenly wishes he hadn't. He's never seen this kind of expression before, and even though he still appears relatively blank, his eyes are dark and something about the man's presence scares the young lawyer right down to his core.
Sam comes to the conclusion that Dean isn't the one the family should be worried about.
Just as quickly as it came, the venomous look fades away into a very small frown as if Castiel realized that it was being directed at the wrong person. Castiel removes his glasses and uses his white doctor's coat to start cleaning them as Dean continues yelling about the Hiserlys.
Once Dean has finished, or rather yelled until he was out of breath, Sam takes the opportunity to get this conversation back where it needs to be.
"I'll agree that they aren't exactly the friendliest people to be around," Dean huffs a laugh indignantly and Sam brushes it aside to continue, "but this could jeopardize both of your jobs. You have to know that, right? Dean, you know I hate playing the bad guy here, but for everyone's sake, including the hospital, you have to play nice with them for the time being."
"Everyone except the patient you mean," Dean's arms are crossed and his face is scrunched up in a scowl. He doesn't appear like he's going to give up this argument any time soon. Sam gets up from his chair and walks over to Dean,
"At least try. Please." He pats Dean's shoulder who shrugs it off, and Sam hovers awkwardly for a moment before he gives up and leaves to give his brother some time to cool down and he nods to Castiel once before he exits the room. The doctor nods back before returning his focus on Dean.
As soon as Sam is gone, Dean bangs his hands on the table in front of him and quickly pushes himself out of his seat causing the chair to tip over and fall to the floor. He runs calloused hands over his face groaning loudly against them and slides them back to run them through his short hair. Dean grabs the closest thing at hand and throws it harshly against the small office wall. Pens and pencils fly in several directions and the plastic cup bounces off the wall and rolls on the floor. He's thankful it wasn't something more breakable. He doesn't even know whose office this is and would feel terrible if he broke someone else's belongings.
Dean runs his hands through his hair again and kneels down to pick up the mess he's just made, but he stops when he hears someone speak up.
"Leave it." It's Castiel. "I can worry about it later."
That's when it hits Dean that this must be Castiel's office. It makes sense because it's not like Sam has keys to all the offices, and when they're not in use they're usually locked tight. He wasn't exactly paying attention when they got to the office because he was too busy thinking of how to get out of Charlie's Game Night. If Dean wasn't embarrassed about throwing his temper tantrum in front of a doctor he hardly knows, he's certainly embarrassed about throwing said doctor's belongings around in his own office in front of him.
"Oh, shit. Man, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking and I kind of lost it," Dean's still picking up what's within his reach before Castiel walks over to stop him. Castiel places his hand on top of Dean's and the nurse pauses,
"It's completely understandable, and I said it was alright."
Dean hasn't known Castiel more than two days, but he knows this man is just as upset as he is and he feels like shit for making it out that he was the only one who cares. "Yeah, but I still feel bad." His mouth keeps running before he can stop it, "Tell you what, how about I buy you a round to make up for it?"
The doctor actually looks a little surprised by the question, but it's only for a moment before his blank, stoic look is back in place,
"I work tomorrow."
"Yeah, well so do I, but one won't kill us, right?" He can't believe he's pushing the matter. Dean didn't even ask Charlie or Jo out for drinks until a week after they started talking to each other and neither of them are his superiors let alone a doctor.
Dean can tell Castiel's hesitant about accepting the offer. Something tells Dean that Castiel isn't the sort of guy who spends a lot of his free time hanging out with friends, which Dean finds a shame because the guy is fun to be around. Then again, doctors don't usually have a lot of free time to do much of anything. "Dude, if you don't want to, I understand. I won't have my feelings hurt if you say no."
"I…" Just when Dean thinks the doctor is going to say no, that not-quite-there smile appears again, "Let me grab my coat."
"Great!" Dean's smiling the most he's had in a long time and he's surprised because all the doctor did was say yes to a drink. "I'll meet you by the West garage entrance. I have to go grab something from my gear in home unit real quick."
Dean hastily makes his way to the elevators not wanting to keep Castiel waiting too long. Instead of taking the elevator he decides to go down the stairwell and his feet squeak loudly when he comes to a sudden halt between floors.
Three started and very familiar faces are staring at Dean and he knows his face is mirroring their own. The very thing he was dreading earlier today is happening and he doesn't know what he can do to wake up from this bad dream.
The three girls smile when they realize who it is and Dean can't stop the words from spilling from his mouth, "Son of a bitch."
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