I meant to get this out sooner but I watched too much British TV and so Cas and Dean had weird British accents in my head and it made it really hard to write. I apologize now if Dean starts sounding like the artful dodger halfway through.

All rights belong to Supernatural and any other respective companies,

Reviews are always appreciated,

Enjoy!

"Wow, way to be depressing." Rachel says.

"How is that at all depressing? He survived didn't he?"

"Yes, but all your stories seem to be sad."

"Sweetheart, I've got some bad news for you..."

"Oh I don't care how tough your life has been! Tell me a happy story, tell me something that makes me believe that at some point your life wasn't a giant shit pile." Dean laughs and thinks for a minute.

"Well, I've got one. It fits into the timeline actually, but I don't know how 'happy' it is."

"Ugh, just get on with it before I find someone else to write a book about! A book that won't make people feel terrible after reading it!"

October 9, 1978

Someone told me there's a girl out there, with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair.

"This is both too cliché and not at all fitting that it's actually angering me right now, Cas. Seriously, don't make a tape if you can't make a decent road trip playlist." Dean grumbles and reaches to turn the radio off but Cas slaps his hand away.

"Leave it, Dean. This isn't about the music, Sam thinks you're working too hard and this weekend away will be the break you need so your next album doesn't suck." Cas looks stung by Dean's reaction but tries to cover it up.

"Right, he's one to talk...And how am I supposed to not worry about music when you've made the sappiest, most unbelievably - "

"DEAN!"

"Alright, alright, I'll can it. But on the condition that I'm never going to have to do this ever again." It had been Charlie's idea actually, and the whole band had backed her up. They had collectively, and without Dean's knowledge, decided that he needed a vacation to make up for the one he had to miss with Lisa. Unfortunately, Lisa was busy with work and the others had various other engagements, so the only person available to go with him was Cas. Not that Dean minds, he just wishes that Cas had let him pick the music instead. Driver picks the music, after all.

"Please tell me you've packed enough beer to get me through the weekend." Dean grumbles and Cas grips the armrest tightly. He's looking a sight better than when he was discharged but Dean can still see a hollowness around his eyes, as though he's not entirely letting himself recover, still unable to let go of the addiction that nearly destroyed him.

"Dean, you don't need anymore alcohol. Your drinking is getting..."

"Getting what, Cas? Are you really gonna sit here and lecture me about my vices after all that you've down.?" He's hit a nerve now and the rest of the drive is passed in dead silence. He knows he's being an asshole, but he'd much rather be at home watching a football game with a beer in hand instead of ruining the paint job on his car by driving down endless gravel roads to get to some cabin of Bobby's that is probably at least thirty miles away from any sort of liquor store. He hates it already.

As soon as they've pulled up, Dean bites his tongue to stop himself from making a crack about the state of their living quarters for the next couple days; the lawn is overgrown and full of weeds, the house itself is sagging, barely held up by some invisible force keen on keeping the whole thing together. It's a sad sight, to be sure. Cas, however, seems to have no problems with appearances and is staring up at the house with a mix of relief and hope on his face. Dean does notice that he's taking extra care to slam the car door as hard as he can though.

After he's thrown his suitcase into the master bedroom, claiming it as his own and therefore dooming Cas to the less appealing spare bedroom, Dean heads over to the kitchen and starts rifling through the lower cabinet. He's positive Bobby keeps a bottle of rum under there.

"Finding room for the groceries?" Cas asks as he starts bringing in the rest of their stuff from the car.

"Finding something to keep my mind off of being stuck in this place with you for three days." Dean retorts before standing back upright, wincing slightly at the crack in his knees.

"Hilarious."

"No really though, Bobby always kept a bottle of rum in here and now it's gone." After a moments contemplation, he rounds on Cas. "You took it."

"Yes, Dean, I took a bottle of alcohol that I didn't know existed from a cabin that I've never been to before. And you call me paranoid..." Cas walks back out to the car, shaking his head as he goes.

"Well what are we supposed to do for entertainment?" Dean shouts after him.

"Anything that doesn't involve drinking!"

This ends up involving the first night being passed in utter boredom; they complete three puzzles and halfheartedly work their way through a game of monopoly before retiring to their respective rooms for the night. Dean tosses and turns for the majority of it, wishing he was in his own bed with Lisa under the comfortable buzz of a few beers. The sun's almost up by the time he manages to doze off and he wakes up feeling worse than what any hangover has ever done. By the look of Cas, he fared no better.

"I have something for us to do." Dean announces over breakfast.

"What? Make moonshine in the bathtub?" Cas snorts at his own joke.

"No, we're going to build a bench."

"I was kidding about the moonshine..."

"I know, and I'm serious about the bench." Cas looks at him as though he's lost his mind.

"I bring you out here to relax and you want to build a bench? Is this gonna be some show of your masculinity, because if that's the case then that moonshine is starting to look preferable."

"This is my idea of relaxing. So you can either shut up and help me or shut up and stay the fuck out of my way." And so it was settled, by midday they had managed to gather most of what they needed and would pick up the rest the next day. John had taught Dean the basics of construction so he had a fairly decent grasp on what was expected, Cas on the other hand, had clearly not spent a day in a workshop in his life.

"Dean, these planks of wood look the same, how are we supposed to know which ones go where?" Cas is holding up two obviously differently sized pieces of wood.

"Didnt you do wood shop in school at all? You know, building a bird cage and all that?"

"No, I faked a medical condition and never went. Pointlessly testosterone-fueled classes were never my thing. Are you sure we have enough screws?"

"Yes, for the fourth time, I double counted everything. Don't worry so much about it, you're over thinking the steps. The wood is cut down to size, we have everything we need to actually put it together, and that will just leave the finishing touches for tomorrow." Dean wipes the sweat off his brow as he drops the last board onto the pile. He feels better now that he's actually doing something productive, it gets his mind off the fact he hasn't had a drink in over 24 hours.

"I just don't see how this is going to work out." Cas isn't wrong; by late evening they've only succeeded in putting the actual seat together but for some reason the legs aren't working out. Dean is following every step to a T, but it seems that whenever he asks Cas to do something, parts of the bench end up nailed to the wrong ends.

"I think you have this backwards..." Dean laughs as the armrest somehow gets attached to the left leg.

"That has to be the first time you've laughed since we got out here. You found that rum, didn't you?"

"You think I'd still be building this bench if I had? "

"Are we just gonna keep answering questions with questions?"

Dean laughs again. "Why do I always forget how weird you are?"

"Two years away will do that to you." Cas replies in a neutral voice but Dean frowns all the same.

"Listen, I'm sorry, it was a rough patch of time for me and I didn't know how to handle you. You had all these new ideas and were always trying to find the next big thing. I just needed the world to slow down for a bit, and I couldn't really get that spending time with you."

"Two years is what it takes to finally get an explanation out of you. You know, I thought about that party a lot after you stopped talking to me, what I did wrong, how I shouldnt have even shown up. I hated myself for ruining the best friendship I'd ever had. I couldn't bring myself to show up to help with gigs and part of me wanted you to call and ask where I was, but you never did. And then I thought I hated you for that, I actually managed to convince myself for a little while that I did. But then as I started getting heavier into the, uh, drugs, I realized a lot of my need to escape was because I didn't hate you, I hated what I had lost. For the first time in my life, I really belonged, not just with you but the whole crew as well. We were a family, plain and simple." Cas admits, keeping his eyes to the ground.

"Buddy, we still are a family. That doesn't just go away because one of us makes a mistake. Your back now, it's okay. Everything's okay." Dean places a a hand on his shoulder and Cas looks up to meet his gaze.

"Just don't be an assbutt again."

"I promise not to be an 'assbutt' if you promise never to take the brown acid again."

"I never took the brown acid..."

"It was a joke, Cas. Now let's get the rest of this put together before it gets too dark and you impale yourself on a two-by-four." They manage to finish up just before Cas has the chance to accidentally impale himself, and Dean doesn't really just how exhausted he is until his head hits the pillow and he's out like a light. It's the best sleep he's had in years.

All the next morning they sand down the bench's edges and fix any last problems that they've missed. Then comes the issue of just where to set it up, Dean wants it on the porch but Cas fights for it to go down by the lake's edge. They compromise and place it on the ledge that overlooks the whole area. When it comes to the final, and most important, test, it passes with flying colours; they can both sit on it without it breaking.

"Look at that! We did it, we successfully made a bench that can withstand the weight of both of us. If the band doesn't work out, we always have a back up plan." Dean raises his arms in triumph.

"And now there will always be a place to sit out here. At least until the wood decays."

"Ever the optimist. Just think, one day you'll bring your kids out here and say 'your uncle Dean and I built this thing years ago! And you can still see where I nearly put my foot through the back'."

"And where will you be?"

"Aww, the good die young, Cas. Everyone knows that."

"Not you, Dean. Not if I can help it."

"Okay, we entering dangerous chick flick territory here. I'm gonna go barbeque something and get some of my manhood back that you've just robbed me of." Dean gets up and starts to head back inside, pausing to make sure Cas would follow him. As usual, he did.

Getting ready to leave on Monday morning went a lot smoother than Dean was expecting, partially due to Cas' insistence on packing most of their stuff the night before. There was still bit of running around (also Cas' fault, he lost the keys to the car), but they made it onto the road with plenty of time to get back before the sun went down. Absent mindedly, Dean puts Cas' mix tape back into the radio.

"We don't have to listen to this, you can choose something else." Cas says bashfully.

"Nah, this is good. This works." He smiles at him and leans back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, humming softly.

Standing on a hill in my mountain of dreams

Telling myself it's not as hard, hard, hard as it seems.