I spend Sunday with Charlie at the coffee shop, reading more of Cas' articles and bothering her as she makes coffee and polite chit-chat with the regulars.
"So, you two are what? Like friends now?" She asks, her body leaning over the side counter that faces the back set of couches.
"He was pretty clear that was definitely not what we are." I say with a strained grin.
"Dating then?" She has a hopeful expression and I hate to dash it away.
"Not really, no."
She groans from behind the counter but sees a customer approach and fixes her attitude quickly. I hear her greet the older woman and take her order with a smile on her lips.
I didn't give Charlie all the details of the previous night, just a basic rundown, which didn't seem to please her. She begged me for details, but the most she got out of me is that, yes I do know the texture of Cas' tongue, although I can't describe it in detail yet.
She giggled for a full minute over that one, before I shut up for good and refused to answer any more questions.
I let myself get lost in Castiel's words about speciesism, and the opinions of philosophers like Tom Regan. I find plenty of people who share Cas' view point and read quite a lot from people who disagree completely. No matter what side I read from though, there seems to be a running theme of how poorly so many animals are treated.
It doesn't seem fair, to let completely innocent beings with thoughts and emotions of their own, go through such horrible things. Even the ones who are treated "humanely" are still stuck in a cage, no matter how far the walls are away from each other.
"You really getting into it huh?" Charlie calls to me from behind the counter.
"Uh, yeah." I say back slowly. "I guess so. I mean, to be honest, I have never really given much thought to this stuff...but he makes a good point, and so do a lot of other people."
"Yeah, Cas is...passionate, that's for sure." She says it carefully, and I take notice that she is holding something back.
"You're big on animal rights too right?" I ask, a slight blush to my face because I'm bringing up a story she shared during AA, which is kind of uncool, but I take a chance that she won't mind. "With the whole thing about your foster brother and the cosmetic lab?"
There is a quick flash of caution on her face but it evens out quickly. "Yeah, I used to do a lot of stuff like that." She shrugs, "Now I'm pretty passive."
Charlie is staring at me pretty hard now, and I get the feeling I am supposed to be saying something but nothing comes until-
"Oh!" I say, hitting my forehead like the idiot I am. "Cas is the foster brother! The one you-"
"Took you long enough there." She interrupts, but smiles kindly. "Sorry I didn't just say so, but Cas is pretty private and if he didn't tell you-"
"I get it." I nod and wave her off. "I just feel stupid for not figuring it out sooner."
She laughs and heads back to the register to take another order and I'm left with thoughts of Charlie and Cas growing up in foster care together. Cas is probably right around my age, maybe a year or two younger, and Charlie is most likely in her late twenties. I guess the big brother image was pretty on point, although I can't really picture Cas pulling her pigtails or intimidating Charlie's first date.
A sweet smile curves my lips as I imagine a much younger version of Charlie, being awesome and proud on the playground. I can just make out the faint lines of an equally younger Cas, but the image is pushed away quickly when Charlie returns.
"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you, do you have Thanksgiving plans?"
"Oh, um..." I only hesitate because I completely forgot that Thanksgiving was in a few weeks and I need to make sure the boxes in my house are in the storage room before the renters come in. "No, actually."
"Great! I mean, not great that you don't have plans ,but great that you can come to our Friendsgiving."
"Friendsgiving?"
"Yeah, the girls and I have been doing it for the last couple years. We just get a bunch of our friends together and have a proper Thanksgiving dinner. Most of us don't have families of our own, or don't like our families enough to return home."
"Oh, cool." I shrug. "Sounds good to me." I shift in my seat a little too lean closer to the counter. "Actually, do you know of a decent place to stay around here? That weekend is the last group of renters at my beach house and I couldn't get out of it."
Charlie scrunches her face. "You mean like a hotel?"
"Yeah, or a motel. I'm not picky- as long as there are no roaches."
"You're an idiot Dean." She shakes her head and picks up the cloth on the counter to begin wiping it down.
"Uh- so does that mean you don't know of a place or...?"
"You're staying with me, stupid." She rolls her eyes and turns to the espresso machine to give it a proper wipe down as well.
"I am?" I ask more out of amusement than confusion, because of course Charlie would let me stay with her.
Once again, I am an idiot.
"Yes." She smiles over her shoulder. "Now don't you have some things to do other than stalk my brother? Like say...maybe go see my brother?"
"Subtle, Charlie. Real subtle."
She just shrugs and gives me a coy smile.
"Well, I actually do have some things to do around the house, to prepare it for renters."
"You mean, overnight guests?" There is a wiggle in her eyebrows and I roll my eyes.
"You have like, zero cool."
"I'm the coolest and you know it." She flicks the wash cloth at me even though I am out of distance.
"Right." I pack up my laptop and make my way over to the counter to say goodbye.
"You coming back for the meeting tonight?" She says it casually, like my answer isn't that big of a deal, which I appreciate.
"Yeah, I'll be here."
Her face brightens noticeably. "Awesome."
"See ya Charlie." I say it over my shoulder and head for the exit. I don't turn around when Charlie yells after me.
"Say hello to Cas for me!"
Going through the boxes of stuff I shared with Lisa isn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. There were a few times I stopped to linger over a photo album or shed a few tears at a memory a particular knick-knack brought up, but overall it wasn't an awful experience.
I take out what I want to put around the house, a few pictures of us, the one of my parents, and some of me and Bobby and Ellen. I also pull out some books and put them on the bookshelves. I leave the rest of the stuff in boxes and open up the storage room with the key the realtor gave me.
It takes me a moment to realize what it is I'm seeing inside the room.
There is a single box inside, with my mother's name on it. It is pushed to the back and sitting under an old slab of carpet, so I can see why it was missed the last time I was here, packing stuff up after my parents died.
I bring the boxes I intend to leave in the storage room inside, and pull the one with my mother's name on it out. I don't know why I want to torture myself, but apparently I do, so I take a deep breath and open up the box.
Inside, there are a bunch of medals and trophies that I realize fairly quickly, didn't belong to my mother. I always wondered where they kept Sam's stuff, and here it is, just punching me in the face.
My breath hitches, and I can feel tears beginning to form, but I keep moving things around in the box, getting a better feel for what is inside. There are a few albums I am sure contain nothing but pictures of Sam and I am definitely not feeling suicidal tonight so I save those for another time.
Something at the bottom of the box catches my eye though, and my heart probably stops as I realize what it is.
I immediately recognize the ornately embossed swirls that cover the spine of the journal my mother kept when I was a kid, and it taunts me from the bottom of the box.
I don't know why I pick it up, and I understand even less why I open it to the year I chose to open it to.
I must want to challenge that suicidal theory, or perhaps my sobriety.
My mother's neat script jumps out at me immediately, and I let out a whimper that a lesser man may not admit to.
It's been nearly a year, and I still can't look at him.
I know he is my son, and that I should love him no matter his faults, but this...this is too difficult to look past. The choices he has made, the person he has chosen to be- that's what killed my little boy.
Not the fire, not the alcohol he was drunk on.
It was Dean.
I slam the journal shut and throw it violently into the box.
I don't want to read any more.
I don't want to know anymore.
I don't want to think.
I know what I want, and despite the fact that it's the last thing I need, I go in search for it anyway.
"Where is your whiskey?" I barge into Cas' house the moment he answers the door, pushing past him without a second thought.
"Cabinet next to the fridge." He answers easily, like I just asked him where I could find a box of tissues.
He does follow me into the kitchen though, and I can feel his eyes on me as I pull the bottle from the cabinet and uncork it. I stare down at the bottle for a full second before bringing it to my mouth.
Right before I tip it up, Castiel's voice cuts me off.
"Should I be stopping you?" He says it with a slight note of concern, but his expression is more confused than anything else.
"Probably, but if I wanted someone to stop me I would have gone to Gabe." I turn the bottle up, and let the liquid fall into my throat.
As soon as the sting hits me though, I am spitting it out, and cursing wildly.
"Right." Castiel says, moving towards me and pulling the bottle out of my hands. "Stopping you, then."
"Fuck!" I slam my hand against the fridge because it's the only thing my body is capable of at the moment, and I relish in the pain that shoots up my arm.
"Do you want to elaborate on that?" When I look back at Cas, the bottle of whiskey is nowhere in sight and I am both murderous and grateful for it.
"No." I say immediately, even though I can already feel my lips beginning to spill the secrets I have been desperate to keep.
"I read my mother's diary." The words are almost spit from my mouth, and my hands find the back of my neck. I pull on it, trying desperately to receive some sort of physical release for all the emotion pushing at my edges.
"Scandalous." Cas says it like a joke, but his eyes are hard on me.
I growl but keep going. "She said some shit in it about me...and Sam, and I just...I can't deal."
"Sam." Castiel repeats, no emotion in his voice. "Your brother...Sam."
"Yes."
No point in holding anything back. Shit already hit the fan the moment I walked in here demanding alcohol.
"What did your mother say about Sam that has you...not dealing?"
"How she really felt about everything, how much she blamed me..." I murmur, delaying the inevitable for seconds longer.
Castiel just looks at me a moment, giving me one last moment of living with this secret before probing further. "Why would your mother blame you for Sam's death?"
I start yelling before I know what I'm even saying.
"Because I killed my brother Cas! I killed my brother and my mom wrote all about how much she hated me for it, not that I didn't already know that but reading it is kind of a shotgun to the head you know?"
"You murdered your brother?" He says it as a fact, with only a slight inflection at the end.
"No. Fuck, no Cas- there was a fire. I was drunk, as per usual, and I left him in there to burn when I got out. I forgot he was in there...mom and dad were out for the night. So, yeah I killed him. Murder...whatever, he is dead and it's my fault."
"I see." Cas just stares at me for a long moment before looking down at his shoes that I see are untied. In fact, now that I take a second to look at him without the haze of my mission to drink dulling everything around me, Cas is dressed rather strangely.
He is wearing all black, and his shoes are a pair of industrial black boots. He has a utility belt around his waist and there is a note of fear in his eyes when they look back to mine and see my questioning gaze.
He swallows hard, and bends down to tie his shoes, carefully avoiding my eyes again.
When he looks back up, his expression has lost the caution I saw before, and he takes a step forward. "Let me ask you something Dean."
My mind is reeling, jumping from bank robbing scenarios to being rolled up in an ugly Persian rug and thrown into the bay for having seen Cas like this. I don't know what to say, so I just nod my head a bit.
When he speaks, he tilts his head to the side in a way that I have come to find endearing, but his words make absolutely no sense.
"How important is lipstick to you?"