Sooo many updates to write, so few hours in the day.
Castiel is not a morning person.
This is the first thing Dean learns about him from actual experience, and he hordes the information greedily.
Castiel is warm and loose next to him in bed, oblivious and relaxed until the phone starts to ring. He growls into the pillow and waves a hand impotently in the direction of the noise like he's searching for an alarm to smash or his cell to throw. Dean slips out of bed and picks up the phone, going into the living room and sitting on the couch.
"Dean, what the hell?"
Caller ID says Sam, but his voice is several octaves too high to be instantly recognisable. Dean scrubs a hand over his face and remembers the previous day, Lisa and the dull feeling he'd had upon falling asleep that his life was about to get turned inside out and scrubbed raw.
"Sam?"
"Yeah, remember me, your brother? Thought you'd have the sense to call me before I had to hear this crap from Lisa, of all people."
"She called you already then."
"Yeah, woke me up at ten last night to give me the gory details." Dean inwardly sighs, only Sam would think ten was late at night. "Please tell me this is just part of the divorce thing? You catch her cheating, she tells everyone she saw you with a hooker."
"Castiel. His names Castiel." Dean says, by way of confession.
Sam is silent for about thirty seconds.
"It's too early for this." He huffs. "Dean, who is Castiel?"
"He's a...well, he's the escort Lisa was seeing. He's kind of the reason I found out she was cheating." He feels the need to add more, to explain the convoluted mess that led him to this point, to Castiel sleeping in his bed and Dean never wanting him to leave. "He's a good man Sam, better than me anyway."
"How many times have you met him?"
"A few...I guess more than a few."
"Are you...Christ, are you having sex with him, Dean?" Sam gets the question out in blocks, obviously hating that he has to ask.
"Yes. Since the first time we met...Sammy..."
"Your marriage imploded a couple of months ago and now you're seeing a hooker? Like all the time? That's...that's not healthy Dean, you need space to get over Lisa, to get some perspective." He sounds concerned more than angry and it makes Dean happier than it should given the situation. He assembles the parts of the story that he can tell Sam and tries to make sense of them.
"I'm not exactly paying him...anymore." Dean stumbles "I got to like him, and I think he likes me...so we're just...we're together. I think."
"So Lisa just walked in on 'date night'?" Sam's voice is sharp with knowledge. "She was pretty explicit about what she saw you guys doing Dean."
"Which is probably all true, but...I like him Sam...and having him here is good. It's good for both of us."
Sam pauses.
"Do I get to meet him?" his voice is carefully diplomatic.
"If he wants to, then yes." Dean sighs. "Sam...I don't know what to do with this right now...I think I love the guy and...and that...that changes everything for me."
"I'm coming down to see you tomorrow." Sam says gently. "I mean this is...I want to hear it from you, in person."
"Ok...you're ok? we're ok?"
"I'm you brother Dean, pretty much nothing is going to make me hate you." He sighs. "But call Mom and Dad? Please, before Lisa gets a chance."
"Shit."
"Yeah, hang up, deep breath, call them."
Dean says goodbye to Sam and starts dialling his parents number.
He hates Lisa for making him do this, for dragging him out into the open, naked and vulnerable. It's bad enough that she saw him with Cas, saw what he allowed Castiel to do to him, what he was loving even as it happened...now she's transferred the image to everyone he knows. He's essentially underneath Castiel, sweating, hard, so, so close...and in front of his friends, family and colleagues.
All he can think is that he wouldn't have done the same to her.
He hopes he wouldn't have done the same.
His Mom picks up on the second ring.
"Hello, Winchester residence."
"Mom?"
The line crackles in silence, and in the background he hears his Dad curse, a muffled "Is that Dean?" and his Mom shushing him.
They know.
"Hey honey." Her voice is the same as it always is, it's his Mom, soft and warm and pretty much the epitome of all the good things he wants in this life. "Pretty early for you isn't it?"
"Have you heard from Lisa?" He needs to get this out in the open, buried under their conversation it's unbearable.
"She...ummm, sweetie she called last night..." He can almost picture his Mom lowering her head, eyes on the telephone wire twisted around her fingers, his Dad listening in over his morning coffee, boots ready under the kitchen table. "She seemed to think...well, she wanted to tell us that..." Abandoning her attempts at diplomacy she sighs. "Dean, what she told us about that man...please tell me it isn't true."
"She shouldn't have called you...but yes, I guess if she told you she saw me with another man, that's true." His voice is quiet, small and young despite his efforts to hide it.
He doesn't see Castiel, bleary from sleep and wearing wrinkled sweat pants, standing uncertainly in the doorway to the bedroom, unable to walk away now he knows what's being discussed.
"She said he's a prostitute." Mary continues gently, he remembers that tone from his childhood, Are you sure you didn't do something to Sam? Because he seems to think...
"He is."
"You're paying him for being with you?...honey, I thought I raised you better than that." The silence is an accusatory, 'waiting for justification' silence. "Taking advantage of a desperate person, do you know why he does this, how he came to be where he is?"
"It's not like that." Dean sighs. "I...I care about him, Mom, I know that sounds incredibly twisted...I know you must feel like I'm the worst person alive right now...but I think I...I know, that I want to be with him. I just don't know where that leaves me."
"Were you going to tell us?"
"When I'd...I really have no idea, I just wanted to call, since Lisa's decided to tell everyone. I already called Sam."
"You're Father's going to need a little time on this one Dean." His mother sounds tired, but warm, still managing to show affection despite the shitty situation he's landed them in. Dean can tell from this that his Father is no longer in the room. "I'm sorry, but..."
"I know, and just...tell him I'm sorry, I didn't want you to find out this way."
"I know you didn't honey...it's ok." An edge of curiosity creeps into his mother's voice and suddenly it's like having a normal conversation. "So...what's he like?"
"Shorter than me...dark hair, smart, funny and probably the nicest person I know." He closes his eyes. "I kinda feel like I don't deserve him."
"I'm glad you're happy, Dean." And it's genuine. Dean wonders how the hell he ended up with such an awesome family, because they're taking this, for the most part, far better than he expected. "Your Father will be to, eventually."
"Thanks Mom."
Dean hangs up the phone and stares at it.
Castiel coughs a little and comes further into the room.
"Morning." Dean opens his legs slightly, pulling Castiel down to sit between them, hugging him close.
"Good morning." Castiel's voice is scratchy, matching the stubble sprouting along his jaw. "I take it Lisa's threat wasn't an empty one?"
"No, apparently she got everyone last night, 'least the people who matter." Dean rubs his cheek against Castiel's, listening to the rumbling hum of satisfaction that radiates through the other man. "We'll be ok though." Castiel turns into Dean's embrace and holds him back.
"We'll be ok." He agrees.
