This chapter might be a little ramble-y. Hopefully no one minds the way I wrote Dean's musical taste. I don't necessarily agree with him, it just kind of happened that way.
Dean felt like an idiot. He knew it was irrational, that he hadn't fucked up in any way, and had in fact been doing great in all areas of his life, for once. He wasn't drunk, he didn't hate his job, he hadn't taken any girls (or guys) home and subsequently forgotten their name so that he had to flee town in shame and fear of shotgun retribution. He realized he had friends. He wanted to see what happened next in the stories of Jo, Bobby, Lisa, that weird mullet guy at the Roadhouse. He didn't even care that in less than six months he was going to turn thirty, because Ben thought he was the coolest grown up ever.
Of course, to that he'd blurted something like, "What about uncle Cas?"
Ben had snorted and said uncle Cas was the weirdest ever, like it was even better to be weird than cool.
Dean even kind of liked that old probably-racist-and-homophobic guy who always smoked cigars outside the hardware store and made his living mowing the grass and chopping the kudzu on the side of the highway. He always pulled Dean aside to complain about cell phones and give him seriously unsolicited tips on jungle survival that he'd learned in 'Nam. Small town living was awesome.
Honestly, what did he care that he hadn't gotten Cas' number? That he was too chicken to ask Bobby or Jo about him, or that he still hadn't managed to cross that fine line between staring at Cas' address (which was written in Lisa's loopy writing and pinned on her fridge next to Ben's report card) and showing up at his front door like the really pathetic stalker he was? Who cared? Who would want to mess up the sweet setup he had going for him?
But seriously, this guy. How could he look so plain, frumpy, stoic, boring, nerdy, and dispassionate, yet manage to turn on a stupid, smug little grin that blocked out all other light in the room and was about the hottest thing Dean had ever seen? How could that stupid fucking smirk show up in Dean's head every twenty minutes, interrupting whatever song he had stuck in there, whatever sentence he was in the middle of formulating, and flooding his face with heat? Seriously, he wasn't a fourteen year old boy. It wasn't natural to get turned on by a dude's expression, which really wasn't even more than a memory of an expression. No, he was more like a sixteen year old girl, too stupid and shy to just ask the dude's freakin' sister for his number and invite him out for a drink.
No, instead he ignored the whole thing, except for the part where he went out to the pawn shop in the next town over and bought a radio and a crappy old phone. The phone was so he could talk to Sam without crawling onto the roof to get a signal, but actually just to make himself feel like it wasn't just about being able to listen to Cas' show every day in the privacy of his own home. Really, it was just about being able to listen to Cas' show. Every day. In private.
God, Cas' taste in music was embarrassing, though. Dean spent most of the four hours groaning at every girly selection of Bad Company power ballad, Bob Dylan crooner or the fact that the only Rush song ever played was Closer to the Heart. It was obvious Cas knew music, but his taste in it made Dean feel a little second hand shame. At first, he was okay with it, shrugged it off because of the way Cas gruffly explained himself between songs. After less than two days, though, he was already talking back to him as if the guy could actually hear him through the speaker.
"No, Cas, no! REO Speedwagon is not under appreciated. Over appreciated. You know what's under appreciated? Neil Peart. Just talk to me about how epic Neil Peart is one time and I swear I will beg Lisa for your number, you hot-sounding son of a bitch."
Of course, that didn't happen, but Dean counted his blessings each time Cas didn't tell his listeners how much he preferred John Bonham, or god forbid, talked about Keith Moon first. No, it was chick rock, so he always got to listen to Pete Townshend songs being sung by Pete Townshend. What would Daltrey do?
Obviously, the answer to all his troubles was to stay up way too late watching old horror movies, his only companions a collection of empty glass Nehi soda bottles. He wished he had someone around to force him to socialize, or get drunk or laid, like Sam usually would in his bitchy, emotional brother way. But, he didn't. It was just him, two AM, and the sudden sound of Jo's jeep engine, pulling up outside his front door. He was on his feet, TV off, sprinting toward the driveway with the haste of a desperate, foolish man.
