35

Some Unique Tribulations:

Another

Lisa seemed to be in shock for most of the evening. She spoke frugally to some of the boys she'd known way back, before everyone had come into the rebellion and separated, and watched her ex cavorting with the reason they were all here in the first place. He and Kas were like a married couple. It was amazing none of the men had noticed, and yet it didn't surprise her; if you didn't want to know, there was a wide variety of truths you deprived yourself of.

The couple chatted, Kas refusing to eat as long as it saved rations, Dean coaxing him to try some with that charming smile of his. The rebel leader was radiant. Seeing Dean so happy was like a marine biologist raising normal gray dolphin all her life, and one day she comes in to see it's turned completely purple and grown a unicorn horn. It was hard not to stare. He sat close by Kas, joking for most of the meal before the two of them volunteered to get more kindling for the bonfire as if everything was platonic.

Lisa's water glass swirled in her hand while she tried to distract herself with a kid who had been pretty young when she'd first met him. Alex was his name. He was slung across a tattered lawn chair alongside hers, grinning as he spoke. The glow of the flames made his blonde hair look like it was on fire, too, the spark in his eyes youthful and strong. He spoke mostly of his work and the long trip they'd taken. Honestly, Lisa felt like she'd had enough of traveling herself. Tracking down these people had been a goddamn nightmare. She only wished the liquid in her glass was scotch right now.

Sipping her drink, she sighed. It was tough to accept. Dean, in love. Really in love. His eyes sang with it, and his smile, and was that a stain on his collar from earlier sexual relations? A pang of jealousy in her heart into an old wound made her wince. She shouldn't feel like this when he was finally settled in his emotional affairs, but it was hard. She'd tried for so long to be the best she could be so that he might eventually just fall in love with her. But there was just no competing with Jimmy then – everyone had known that, even her - and he was sold on Kas now. The danger of the latter was something debatable, but unavoidable. Love didn't care who was who. Or what, for that matter.

It shouldn't make her feel this bad. But it kinda did. She had a strong affection for his happiness, but a girl's jealousy liked to get away with her sometimes. Old flames always seemed to lick at one's heart. Even ages after they seem to have gone out. Instead of dwelling she turned back to her company.

"These folks are my family," Alex said quietly, as she tuned back in to what he was saying. "I've never felt more at home anyplace except surrounded by them. When my dad died, I was too old for a foster home. I never had anything like this."

Lisa stared at him, then glanced over the congregation circling a giant bonfire in an abandoned town. They were warmly opening their few possessions and company to her - some big wig from the city who used to bang their boss - and saved their asses legally. "You know, I don't think there is anything like this anywhere but here." She offered. Her eyes followed Dean as he watched Kas's lips move in question, his dark eyebrows furrowed while the rebel leader bobbed his head as if he were listening.

"Without the Winchesters on the front, nothing would ever be like this, ever." She drained her water glass. "Let's hope that never changes."

Some Unique Tribulations:

The Other

"I won't tell anyone."

Dean looked up in surprise to see Lisa in the doorway to his bedroom. He was shirtless, in monumental need for sleep as he poised on the end of their bed, and it was almost as if she were an apparition. But there she was. Even Kas looked up from where he was sifting through his shirts. Dean blinked a lot. " 'Scuse me? Sorry, I'm not sure I heard that."

Lisa looked weary. Hopefully the guest bed downstairs would be ok for her. She smiled a tight smile, soaking up his shirtless self, and glanced at Kas warmly. "I said I won't tell anyone. If you don't want them to know, I'm all right with keeping it to myself."

"Oh. Well, thanks, Lisa. That means a lot."

"Yes," Kas piped up, closing the drawer and turning. "That is incredibly generous to us emotionally. Thank you for your discretion."

Laughing gently, Lisa nodded. "Anything for a favor to an old friend and a new one." She winked at them. "Goodnight, boys." Then she turned and glided downstairs without another word, and they heard her bedroom door creak shut a few minutes later.

The couple exchanged mutual surprise and admiration. Dean kicked off his jeans, going to shut the door as Kas did the same. Worry over her reaction had kept them both pretty tense all evening. Even through the fraternizing at dinner they'd been exchanging worries about it. Dean fell back on the bed sheets with a heavy sigh, shutting his eyes. "That was random."

"Maybe she just needed time to think." Kas smiled to himself as he sat down alongside Dean. "I remember Sam saying something similar upon my own arrival."

Dean shrugged. "Maybe. Hell, I'm just glad everything seems to be going smoothly. Today, dinner, Lisa… After this morning, I didn't think we'd…" He trailed off as memories returned to the both of them. The emotional mood swing; Dean's flood of insecurities; Kas running off.

A silence fell that was suffocating and heavy. Kas looked down at his hands. He was rolling the edge of the sheet in his hand anxiously. Dean let his gaze drift off. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of last night's fight but he didn't know how to break the silence without reiterating the subject. He clamped his jaw shut. He'd do anything to keep this relationship afloat. Anything. "Kas," he tried. "Do you… do you want to talk about what happened?"

"No." The Android's voice quivered, and it hurt Dean's heart. "You already adequately explained your emotional dilemma."

Dean glanced over at him. "You were upset about the things I said, though."

"Of course I was upset." Kas refused to look at him. "We'd just had satisfyingly intimate intercourse and you morphed before my eyes into a man that I didn't know – a man I still am unaware of."

Swallowing, Dean sat up as slow as he could. The guilt he felt could not be bolstered into words. "I know." He managed. "But I have something to explain." Shifting to face Kas, he took his hands away from the sheet, lacing their fingers together. "Can I explain?"

The Android looked at their conjoined hands instead of at him. "I will listen." He answered quietly.

Dean nodded thankfully. "I was… alone. For eight years. You haven't been alive long enough to fathom it yet, so you might not understand, but that was a very long time to me. All my life I'd had someone by my side. First it was my parents, my family. Then it became some girls I cared nothing about, who I used until I got bored, or… one who stuck around with good intentions and tried to make me into something I wasn't." Dean's eyes lingered on the soft frown of Kas's brow, the shadows under his eyes contrasted sharply by the moonlight profiling his face. "When I ruined that relationship with Lisa, after Jimmy, I decided that I would be romantically alone forever. I told you earlier today that I thought it would just be my brother, and my people, and this rebellion. I made it my whole life for that reason."

"Yes. How does this pertain?"

"Because you coming into my life wasn't just a surprise. It nearly gave me a goddamn heart attack, like a billion times over," Dean pressed. Kas finally looked at him with confusion written all over his face. "I never thought I'd feel any kind of attraction for somebody again. I mean I figured I'd feel it, but not that it'd be that hard to deny. You here with me? I would have dreamed about this. In my wildest dreams we'd be sitting right here, where we are right now, and I'd wake up thinking there would be absolutely no reason this might be possible. An angel with a devil's face."

The Android stared at him. It took all his will power not to try to kiss his softly parting lips. Dean squeezed his hands. "You are the most valued thing in my life alongside the lives and safety of my family right now. My whole head is wrapped around keeping you safe and happy. I thought you were safe with us before – and I was wrong. Out here, in the open, with no walls to protect you, and no way to know if someone is gunning for us… I'm going a little nuts." Kas gave him a look. "Ok, a lot nuts," he conceded. "I opened a lot of old wounds in order to be this way with you, and you're healing them up just by being yourself, and… without you I don't think I'd recover."

"Dean." Kas said softly.

"I mean it. I'm screwed up. I'm so sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry for everything I've done, and everything I'm ever going to do that won't be right or fair to you. I've got a lot of shit I need to work out in my head. But until then, I need you. I need you to be here with me while I work it out." Dean's pleading look was heart breaking. "I love you, Kas. You do so much for me and I don't want to ask this of you. But I can't let you go knowing you're in danger without me there, and I can't change what's going on with me. All I can do is what I do now." He bit his lip. "Think you can stick around with me being such a huge asshole until I've got my shit together?"

"It's difficult to see you this way. But I do understand your situation." Kas's grip was iron tight and Dean drowned in the ocean of his eyes. "My affection for you precedes the fear I have for myself."

"I'm gonna do whatever it takes for us to come out on top of this mess – anything and everything, I can promise you that."

"Then I will be with you," the Android nodded, "until we reach a suitable conclusion. Or at least until we are able to function without outside forces disrupting our relations."

Dean laughed suddenly, and grinned at him. "That's never gonna happen, Kas."

"Then… as long as those outside forces aren't lingering death and destruction of your entire lifestyle, we may have a chance at being content."

"No promises there either cowboy; I walk a dangerous line," he teased.

Kas glowered at him thoughtfully. "Then I am with you till the end of the line."

A smile breaking the tension in his face allowed Dean a much needed respite from his growing foreboding that Kas might not say just that, and he pulled him in and kissed him eagerly. "Thank you," he replied, "That's more than I deserve, and I swear I'll make it up to you every time I go bonkers. If I don't you have permission to beat me into a pulp."

"Your face is far too valuable to injure or risk mangling," Kas protested.

"Then find some other way."

"Such as?"

"Starve me for sex or something."

"I'll consider it thoroughly." Pushing him back onto the bed, Kas put a fair amount of his weight into making Dean lay down. "Now for the sake of all those you hold dear," he murmured, "would you please sleep?"

Dean just chuckled and wrapped Kas up in his arms, sighing deeply. "Oh, you don't gotta tell me twice." His body relaxed against the soft sheets. Around them swirled the air of a house echoing with silence; a silence broken by their presence, and warmly so at that. With his lover settled against his chest, Dean was asleep within minutes, soothed by the clattering of dishes a few buildings away and the idle chatter of the boys on perimeter duty. The walls around him slept just as soundly.

Kas followed the rate of Dean's heart and the speed of his breathing as he descended further and further into his subconscious, grasping for the rest he so desperately deserved. It soothed Kas mentally just feeling the relaxation of Dean's weary and unconscious mind. He shut his eyes against the rise and fall of the man's chest, his tension much at ease, and sank into a soothing cycle.

Some Unique Tribulations:

Another

Being able to finally get some sleep, at the right time, was a gift to mankind. Or, at least a gift to the soldiers.

Gentle sunshine sloped in through the window as Sam pulled on his socks and shoes, glancing out over the grounds. He could see half the camp from here. There was a tree with overhanging leaves shading him from the heat of the afternoon, and this bed was ten times better than a sleeping bag. He grunted as he got to his feet. A real, awake morning. He was still fathoming it when he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Leaning over the sink, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Dean and Kas's door was still shut. He looked at his watch. Dean was usually up seriously early, and they were leaving soon for the supply run.

The water was still running as he took two steps and crossed the threshold to their door, knocking on it raptly. "You guys better get up soon, the men will be anxious." He continued brushing. No answer.

Frowning, he turned the knob, and it fell off in his hand. He dropped it as the door squeaked open. The bed was empty in the way a trashcan was empty after a pile of dogs smelled a fresh roast chicken hidden at the bottom; everything was ransacked and overturned.

And there was no Dean - and no Kas.