I really appreciate all of your feedback, guys. It really does mean a lot to me.

Some of this chapter may feel forced, I apologize for that.

Dean's point of view.
Enjoy! ~


Manning Up and Desperation

Cas and I are sitting in my living room (him sprawled out on the floor scribbling something for his English paper and me on the sofa flipping through the channels), when it hits me that I barely know anything about him. What I do know mainly comes from putting the tiny pieces he drops together and hoping they fit. Actually, now that I think about it, the only thing he's told me is that he's from New York and that his dad is a lawyer. Since then, he's been even more closed off than before. Like every movement he makes has to be carefully calculated or the world will explode. It's weird.

Just as I'm about to ask him about it, a loud knock stops me before I can spit anything out. "I'll get it." I announce out of habit. Before I even reach it, the door opens and reveals a familiar man. "Bobby!"

"No. The ghost of Christmas past. Are you gonna help me with these or just stand there?" Just noticing the bags in his hands, I take them from him and make my way to the kitchen. "There's more in my car. Get off your ass and help too, Sam." Cas picks his head up, as if just now realizing there's company, slightly confused.

"Oh, Bobby, this is Castiel. He just moved here." I say, feeling a bit awkward referring to Cas by his actual name.

It's too formal—too extravagant—to fit him properly. Instead it hangs over his lackluster body, like an over-sized jacket passed down from his father expected to fit because they share the same genes. His arms are still too short to fill the extra five inches, his torso is still too frail and tiny to fill the extra space, but it's alright. He's his father's son. He'll grown into it. There's too much pressure on him for him not to grow into it.

"What's a guy named after an angel doing with Dean, here?" Bobby asks, jokingly.

I can't help but to agree with Bobby. What is he doing hanging out with me? I might as well be the anti-Christ compared to him. But when I glance over at Cas, I don't see anything resembling agreement on his face. In fact, there's only confusion showing. That 'five-year-old in a room full of vulgar drunks' look. As if he has no idea why Bobby would ask that.

"I'm doing my English homework." He states, in monotone voice, completely serious. I avoid laughing at his reply in order to spare his feelings.

"Well then, you continue on doing that. I'm gonna borrow Dean here for a moment though." Bobby replies after a moment's hesitation.

"Actually, I should be going home soon anyway." Cas says, putting his stuff back into his bag.

"Do you want me to drive you?"

"No thank you. I can walk it. You seem busy anyway."

I want to tell him that I'm not busy. That I didn't even want to be in the same room as Bobby without Sam so the excuse to leave would be appreciated. But I don't. Mainly because I don't feel like verbalizing anything, in general. So I just mutter an almost inaudible 'okay' and wait for him to leave before looking at Bobby.

"Where's Sam?" He asks while walking out of the door, hinting that I should follow.

"You know that already. He moved in with Jo months ago." I try to act like it doesn't burn coming up my throat but at the end I feel as if I failed miserably.

"But he's usually hanging out here after school with Jo." He hands me five bags and grabs the remainder of them, obviously in a hurry to get back inside.

"We got in an argument, I guess. Nothing new." Nonchalance is my goal but I still feel as if I failed again.

"What was it about this time?" He asks, setting the last bag down onto the counter.

"I just said some really stupid stuff about him leaving. It's no big deal, he'll un-bunch his panties soon enough." I start to put away the groceries in order to avoid his glare. I'd rather not look at him. Not now. Not during this conversation.

"You always say stupid shit, boy. How long ago was it?"

"Three—maybe four weeks. I'm not sure."

"He's used to you putting your foot in your mouth. If it's been this long and he still hasn't talked to you then you should try to talk to him."

"He'll get over it. That's the way it goes."

"How long are you going to let this go on? Another month? All because you don't wanna man up to your feelings?"

"Because I don't want to screw things up even more. You said it yourself, Bobby. I always say stupid shit. I always put my foot in my mouth. Why fuck it up? He needs to get over it by himself. Me hanging around and pestering him and asking for forgiveness isn't going to help. It's just not." I slump my shoulders and face him, exhaustion obvious on my face. "I don't wanna talk about this. It's between Sam and me. We'll figure it sooner or later. We just gotta give it time."

"Time ain't gonna fix anything, idjit. What you do during the time you're given can fix things. If Sam is still this bent out of shape, then he's obviously waiting for you to man up and talk to him. You think it's okay to leave him to bottle everything up just so that you two can be in the same room again?"

"That's not what I do. He's smart. He figures things out faster than I can spit out an apology."

"That's because you always have a mouth full of alcohol. You can't apologize like that." He lets out a heavy sigh, probably feeling as if he's talking to a brick wall. "Do what you want. You're a grown man; you can make your own mistakes. All I'm saying is that you can't just sit on your ass and do nothing to mend whatever you fucked up. You can't just do that to Sam. He needs an actual man in his life. And you've always been the man in his life, even when John was still here. Now that he's gone you're trying to put on shoes that aren't yours. You're trying to be someone you aren't."

"Dad was the man of the house. He never backed down when it came to protecting us. Never. I have to be him. You don't get it, Bobby."

"Damn right, I don't get it. Your dad was a coward. He'd rather push Sam away than reach out to him. You are a better man than your daddy ever was. So do us both a favor and don't be him."

"Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything you've done; I really do, but this just isn't your territory. This is between me and Sam. We'll work it out. I don't need someone telling me that I'm doing everything I was raised to do wrong. Not now."

It's an obvious lie. That's exactly what I need. I need someone to tell me that my dad was a dick. That he wasn't a man. That destroying my liver isn't manly. That I'm imitating the wrong person. I really do need that.

A part of me even wants it. I desperately want it to be true. I want to be reassured that everything I feel towards him is justified and understandable. I want to be told that I can go back to how I was. Regardless of how fucked up I was. At least then I wasn't killing myself slowly and painfully.

Bobby knows this—he'd have to be blind to not know it—but he doesn't drag the conversation any further. Just mutters something under his breath and walks out; leaving me alone to dwell on the truth of his words.


It's not until I'm half drunk and decide that I have nothing left to lose that I finally decide to drag myself to the Roadhouse. I'm still not quite sure why I'm doing it on the drive there and still unsure of it when I force myself through the doors of the bar and ask for Sam.

"Are you drunk again, Dean?" Jo asks forcefully.

"No; but I guess you could say that I've been drinking. Oh well. Is he in his room?"

"I'm not letting you go up there when you're drunk!"

"I'm not drunk, first of all, and, secondly, I'm too prideful to talk to him when I'm sober so just move aside." By now I'm frustrated to all hell. She wants me to talk to him but I have to be stark fucking sober to do so? She should be happy that I'm even here in the first place.

"This is between them. If Dean wants to go in there with one foot in his mouth already, then that's up to him. You, however, have work to do." Ellen chimes in from behind the counter. Jo huffs in protest but backs down and walks back into the kitchen without too much trouble. With nothing left in my way, I let out a heavy sigh and maneuver my way through the crowd of loud drunks to get to Sam's room.

"Here goes nothing." I mutter to myself as I tap my knuckles onto the hard wooden door. Sam mutters something in, what seems to be, frustration before telling me to come in. When I walk in, it's obvious that he wasn't expecting me. There's confusion in his eyes as he looks me over and I can't spit anything out to prove to him that I'm really here. I'm too busy mentally screaming at myself. I shouldn't be here. He doesn't want to talk to me. Why would he?

His expression softens and something like a grin tugs at his lips before he takes it upon himself to end the awkward silence between us.

"Hey, what's up?" He stammers out. I finally stop trying to figure out what's running through his mind and shrug my shoulders in response.

"I guess, I wanted to talk to you or something. I dunno."

"Okay, what'd you wanna talk about?" He's not going to make this easy, I can tell. I knew he wouldn't but damn. This is annoying.

"You know what." I state, aggravation rising quickly. "I said some stupid stuff."

"A lot of stupid stuff."

"I get it! I say stupid shit nine times out of ten. I don't need people reminding me every chance they get. I'm bad when it comes to talking and I usually end up digging my own grave but I'm trying to fix what I screwed up. I'm trying and you're just making me feel worse about everything." I take a deep breath before getting to the point of me coming here. "I'm not going to sit here and blame it on being drunk because, quite frankly, I wasn't. I was just angry and you looked like you were in pain even being in the house. I don't know why exactly I said what I said and all the reasons I can think of won't make much sense but do you know how hard it is to be in that house alone almost every single day? And then have your little brother—the same brother that walked out on you—judge your every-"

"I didn't walk out on you, Dean. You always told me that school-"

"Yeah, yeah. School comes first. I get that. But I gave you choices. I told you I'd wake up. I was even going to let you drive yourself to school if I didn't wake up. So don't act like you wouldn't graduate if you didn't leave. You had other options but you just wanted out. That's what it comes down to. You didn't want to deal with what you had in front of you, so you ran."

"No. I didn't want to watch you drink yourself to death. I didn't want to wake up and see you passed out on the floor, surrounded by bottles, every single morning. I didn't want to watch you die and not be able to do anything about it! That's what I ran from. Not the house. Not my responsibilities. None of that. You think it was easy for me to leave? I was terrified to even talk to you about it for months, let alone act on it. You have no idea what it was like for me."

"A hell of a lot easier than what you left me with. But, hey, you don't have to deal with your alcoholic brother anymore. You don't have to be late to school anymore. You don't have to deal with the suffocating house anymore. You're happy. That's fine by me. I'm okay with you moving out. Really, I am. I just wish you didn't lie to me because maybe I could have changed."

"Don't flatter yourself, Dean. You and I both know that you're not going to change. That's not possible for you."

The wind has been knocked out of me. That doesn't keep my thoughts from racing and my legs begging to run. Anywhere. Just far away from here. Away from Sam. Away from everything I never wanted to be true.

Glancing at Sam, I see his eyes wide once again. This time it's from what he's said. From what he's done. A smirk tugs at my mouth in amusement that our roles have been switched. The tables have turned and, from what I can tell, Sam isn't dealing with it any better than I did.

"You're right. Silly me thinking that I could be better for the people I care about." To avoid anymore unwanted comments, I turn as quickly as my feet will allow and leave the room behind me. Jo steps in front of me halfway to the door and asks how it went.

"Get out of my way." As if that answers her question, she steps aside without an argument.

When I make it back to my car I just stay there for a while. I pull out of the parking lot with no idea where I'm going. Actually, it's not until it starts getting dark that I finally admit to myself that I don't have anywhere to go. When I decide to turn the car around to find a better lit street I take one last look around and that's all I need. A familiar house and a sense of utter desperation sends me further down the street and into a driveway. I get out of the car as fast as I can to make sure that I don't try to talk myself out of knocking on the door. I just can't be at home I remind myself while my knuckles fall on the door.

When the door finally opens the Cas I'm familiar with is replaced by a stranger of sorts. His eyes are now puffy, the hair he makes sure is presentable at all times is now a complete mess, and it looks as if he's been awake for days. His trench coat is replaced by an oversized white tee and plaid boxers are taking the place of his normal black slacks.

"Hey, can I come in?" I finally ask after a few moments of awkwardly staring him over.


This chapter was hard to write for a few reasons. I had a plan for this one, I really did, but it just didn't work out that way. I didn't even plan for Bobby making his entrance, to be honest. I also didn't plan for Dean going to Cas' after his talk with Sam. Nor did I think I'd end it where I did. You'll see why I chose to in the next chapter though.

It's long overdue but I truly thank you guys so much for sticking with me and my sporadic updates. I said it before and I'll say it again, I really like this story. I do. So I doubt that I'll randomly stop updating. It just might take a while for some chapters. BUT! I'm hopeful for the next chapter. It's a chapter that I knew I wanted (although because of this one it's not all what I planned) from the very beginning of the story. So that'll be up relatively soon.

Any who. Enough with my rambling.

Reviews would be amazing! Make sure to leave some.