Dean felt like shit when he woke up, but he wasn't hung over. He was pissed at himself for getting so angry. Cas hadn't made any promises to him. He had acted like a spoiled child told no for the first time, and that was on him.

It was Thursday, and he knew he shouldn't, but he called in. The idea of having to deal with all the joking and questions that was working with a bunch of guys at an auto shop was just too much for him to deal with at the moment. So he pleaded sick and lay in bed for another hour unable to sleep before he resigned himself to his day.

A shower and breakfast only improved his outlook a little bit.

He had never been a big cleaner. He liked things neat, but he mostly only maintained it by not having a lot of crap. His raging last night had managed to break almost every bit of aforementioned crap in the apartment.

After stepping on three separate pieces of broken glass, he pulled on his boots and started painstakingly taking care of it all, music playing in the background.

Dean was pulling a sliver out of his finger as he walked back into his apartment. One of his three chairs had been busted beyond repair, so he'd brought it down to the dumpster. Damn thing apparently didn't appreciate being thrown away. The door had shut behind him when his phone went off.

Once the sliver was satisfactorily taken care of, he snagged his phone and opened the text before his mind processed what his eyes had seen.

Cas had sent him a text.

Cas: It will be the death of me before I let you get the best of me.
Received: 2:47PM

He laughed, the sound loud and humorless before cracking and getting too close to a sob. It was just his luck that he'd drink all of his alcohol and then Cas would go and make him need more.

Dean decided that there was no way he could decode that text, so he ignored his phone, leaving it resting on his kitchen table. He was aware of it, though, no matter how long he stared at TV shows he couldn't recall three seconds into commercials. He stopped himself from thinking about the text, but his brain wouldn't think of anything else, so he just started at pixels on a screen until they lost meaning and he finally dragged himself to bed at midnight.

The text haunted him. He kept questioning it. What did it mean? Did Dean somehow have this previously undiscovered ability to get the best of Cas? Was Cas saying that everything was over? Dean hadn't thought that there was much of a chance that things were even started, but the idea that it was over was enough to set his stomach to roiling.

Three in the morning found Dean in his underwear, smoking cigarettes that he dropped into an empty pop can while reruns played on the TV. Liberal applications of caffeine and nicotine took him the rest of the day through work until he could take a two hour nap.

Then he was at the Roadhouse, ready and willing to embrace any forgetting the place had to give out.

His eyes caught on a woman at the end of the bar. Her name was Lisa and she was alone because her friends had already paired off. She didn't want to bring a man home because she had a two year old son there that she didn't want to wake up to a stranger.

They had sex in his bed, though neither seemed too impressed. She had no trouble leaving afterwards and he didn't bother to get her number. He just poured himself a drink and had it half gone before he realized that the sweet, floral scent that clung to his skin was making it hard to forget and he didn't know why.

A shower and the clean scent of soap went a little way to making him feel better. Another glass of whiskey had him even further.

The bottle was half-empty by the time he realized Cas had the power to get the best of him.

Lisa hadn't been gone an hour before he'd obliterated the scent of her on him. Dean had only convinced himself into the shower the day after Dean had left, when he knew that any cinnamon he still smelled was a product of a neighbors cooking and he really just smelled like sweat and stale sex and it really wasn't attractive.

What was so fucking special about Cas?

In high school, he'd been calm and centered. Sometimes he took things too seriously, but most of the time he was willing to admit if he had made a mistake.

The first time Dean had noticed him as more than just a nerdy kid was sophomore year. It was that most awkward of high school years, some kids stuck halfway in puberty and others out. Boys were tall and gangly and pimply with cracking voices.

Cas hadn't been, though.

There was an unfinished quality to his body, but it was only there if you looked really close. Mostly he was graceful limbs and a deep voice and a smile that had threatened to trip Dean.

Dean didn't realize that he was looking at Cas like he usually looked at girls until he'd gotten one of those random boners he was plagued with. It wasn't the first one that had tipped him off, or even the third. It'd happened for two weeks before Dean realized he hadn't been subconsciously thinking of a woman, but Cas. He'd been thinking of Cas, a guy he only sort of knew, touching him and…

His dad would have kicked his ass, though. So Dean didn't act on it and only sometimes fantasized about it – when no one was home and he knew he didn't have to deal with seeing his dad and wondering if he could tell if he'd just jerked it to thoughts of a blue eyed, leggy boy with lips that looked soft and skin that was…

Senior year he'd been smoking behind the back fence, keeping an eye out for teachers. Cas had sidled up next to him without him noticing, causing him to start and suck too much smoke into his lungs. While he hacked and tears gathered in his eyes, Cas had given a chuckle. "I did not intend to scare you, Dean."

"What the hell were you doing, then?" He'd asked when his voice had finally felt less like fire.

"I wanted a cigarette." Cas had said it so calmly, as if it wasn't the weirdest thing ever for the best behaved kid in school to break the rules a month and a half before graduation. But Dean had always been a sucker for women that broke the rules and apparently for boys too. He'd handed Cas a cigarette and had felt blood rush through his body when he lit it and pulled a drag in without flinching.

He'd made his excuses and gone back to class, but he'd been aware of Cas every day right up until that night before graduation.

Dean had thought through all the reasons Cas was enough to break him. All the reasons he was amazing and that Dean really wanted him with him. And he pulled out his phone and he sent a text to the man in question.

Me: Don't point the blame when you can't find nothing. Look to yourself and you might find something. It's time that we sorted out all of the things we complain about.

Where the Wild Things Are – Anorbor
[It will be the death of me before I let you get the best of me.]

Roger Rabbit - Sleeping With Sirens
[Don't point the blame when you can't find nothing. Look to yourself and you might find something. It's time that we sorted out all of the things we complain about.]