A/N: The next couple of chapters should come around daily, least another two chapters will be posted before Thursday!

My reading list is the most horribly immense thing on the planet, and I flew from Sydney to London (home) in the time between the last update and this one, so sorry for inactivity!

I hope you enjoy this chapter, as always. Please leave comments!

Chapter 25 - I'm Tired

Dean's throat is dry, so dry that it feels almost sharp and jagged along its insides. He stares at Castiel, who stares back at him.

It is Cas who speaks first, of course.

"I didn't know you remembered our nicknames..."

Dean swallows. It's like pouring sand down his throat. He winces.

"I—of course I do, Cas," He tries.

Is this it?

Is this the time he hints to Cas how much the dark-haired man has always meant to him?

Of course not.

"Here's my little sister!"

Mara troops back over, carrying, rather clumsily, an infant of little under a year in her arms.

"Oh," Dean tries, voice faltering, just as Mara plomps the baby into Dean's arms. "Oh—"

Castiel sighs sharply from above him.

"You don't have to hold her—"

The child, obviously sensing Dean's clear discomfort, has begun to cry.

Baby's tears have always made a pulsing heat come on at Dean's temples, made him redden, made him panic, however good he may be with kids when they're happy.

It seems as though all the eyes in the room have flashed pointedly over to him, sullen at Dean for disrupting the quiet of the room. His face flushes, and, of all thoughts to whistle through his head, the one that causes Dean the most distress is the thought that Castiel will look at Dean, now, and think that this means Dean must be shitty with kids. Which is totally unfair, actually—kids are just about the only things or people in the world Dean gets.

He also really fucking hates himself for thinking like this.

But he laughs nervously and shifts the baby in his arms and holds her so that she is standing on his lap, and pulls a face at her. He bounces her gently.

"Hey, buddy," He says, and the baby's tears falter momentarily. "Hey," He coos, gentler this time. He pulls another face. The baby doesn't laugh, or even smile at it, but she does stop crying. And on the bright side, Mara does laugh at the the expression. Dean flashes a grin over at her. "Her name's Beth?" He asks, moving the baby so that she lies on his lap, kicking occasionally, and reaching up to grab at Dean's fingers. He trails them over her cheeks and the infant's eyes droop minutely at the touch, caught between interest in the stranger holding her, and sleepiness at the pads of Dean's fingers tracing gentle paths over her tiny, chubby face.

And as usual when holding or interacting with little kids, a thrill unparalleled rushes through Dean, and not for the first time, he wishes that in some way, shape or form, children this young and this innocent and this unblemished by the world could be a part of his life.

"Yep," Mara nods in confirmation. She sits down beside Dean. "She's my sister."

Dean chuckles.

"You've said."

"She likes you," Mara says, beaming down at the infant on Dean's lap, whose enormous eyes are fixed on Dean, fascinated.

"You think so?" Dean asks, with a smile in Mara's direction. She nods emphatically.

"Yeah. Normally she cries forever when new people hold her. But she stopped, like, right away for you."

"Right," Dean chuckles. "Well, thanks for dropping me in it, I guess. Was it meant to be a prank?"

"Kinda…" Mara answers with a shrug. Dean grins and shakes his head.

"Sorry I ruined it."

Mara giggles.

"That's okay."

Dean swallows and looks down at the baby. He can't see Cas, and wonders if the man has moved away, if he is still watching Dean interact with his family, if he even cares that Dean really, really, loves kids. If anything like that would ever make Cas think the words boyfriend material.

"She's a real cutie," He comments, brushing at the many thin, silky hairs on top of Beth's head.

"Daddy says she's gonna have hair just like Castiel," Mara answers, looking up to the doorway, where, perhaps, Castiel stands.

Dean nearly chokes when the man in question comes and sits down in front of them.

"I think my hair was a little thicker than Beth's, even at that age."

"Did you ever see Castiel when he was a baby?" Mara asks Dean.

Dean flushes, then blushes even darker at the look Cas is giving him, with the baby in his arms.

"Uh—I only ever saw pictures of him as a baby. We met when we were four—Cas was very nearly five."

Dean can remember the day, the month, the hour, exactly.

"Was Castiel a cute baby?"

Dean nearly chokes again.

"Oh, well, I'm probably a little biased," He stammers, "but—the photos I've seen—he's very sweet—"

Honest to god, you could probably fry meat on Dean's face, it's so hot right now.

"Not as cute as Beth, though," Mara says, matter-of-factly. "She's the cutest."

"I'm sure she is," Dean nods, avoiding Castiel's gaze. His heart is trembling.

"I'm gonna go find Anna. Do you know Anna?"

"I've known Anna since she was just about as old as Beth," Dean chuckles, gesturing down at the baby in his arms.

"She's the best ever," Mara says candidly. "She's so funny and pretty."

Dean's lips twitch upward, and he watches Mara get up and leave, before realising—shit. He's been left alone with Castiel again.

He looks up from the baby to his ex-best friend. Castiel watches him with wary eyes. He seems almost confused.

"Thank you for the honey," He says, finally. His eyes are as far removed by the distance of Scotland to Kansas as they are by the nine years that have separated the pair, so alien and foreign they seem, now. But they shimmer with the same familiar intensity, a light shining between two oceans. "That was very kind of you."

Dean's throat contracts.

"It really wasn't," he shakes his head, "I just—"

He can't finish his sentence.

"Just what?" Castiel asks with a frown. His head, like it always used to, inclines minutely to the side as he speaks. Dean wants to kiss him, wants to hug him, embrace him, cry, cry, cry on Castiel's shoulder—but he doesn't: he can't.

His answer grates against his throat.

"Just wanted to be a good friend to you."

Whatever Dean could have said, it seems as though this was the wrong thing.

Cas's eyes narrow, he, visibly, withdraws himself and rebuilds hundreds of interior walls in a matter of seconds—walls that have taken this long just to begin to break down. Dean's heart all but fractures in an instant.

"A friend?" He repeats. Dean shrinks away.

"I mean—"

"We haven't spoken in what, nine years? You keep on saying things—things that mess with my head, Dean, things that make me think I never understood you—what're you doing here? Why did you come here, today? Is this your way of making yourself feel better? Because in case you hadn't realised, Dean, it's not you you need to patch things over with. What's wrong with you? How can you be so self-absorbed?"

Dean flushes, deep and fierce, then glowers at Castiel.

No. Fuck no. He's had enough. And he's not gonna be blamed for this, of all things.

"Stop assuming you know shit, Cas. You don't. You're an ass. I'm—" He gestures vaguely, and for a moment his throat closes up completely and he fails to get any sound out of it, but then it comes out again, louder, perhaps, than it would be wise to be. "I'm trying so hard—I'm hurting so much—so much, Cas—and every time I walk into a room, you look at me like I've taken a shit on your grave," A weird fucking way of putting it, Dean realises, but it'll have to do, Cas is the writer after all, "and then, other times, you look at me like—like no time has passed, and we're friends, again. What am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to do? I'm—I'm—"

But he really can't finish the sentence this time. So he just stops, and hands the baby in his lap over to Cas, where she immediately begins crying, again, and Dean—not ridden at least with guilt about this—stalks out the house. He could just head across the street, and find his mom in the green house opposite this one, but of course he doesn't do that. That house isn't his home, any more—nowhere is—and it would kill him to confide in his mother, after everything, after everything she did to Dean that hurt him, broke him, just like everything else in this life.

So he goes and slumps down beside Ellen's car, until, whether an minute or an hour later, Ellen comes and sits softly down, next to him.