The cool plastic under his body was uncomfortable and lumpy. He wished he could use it as an excuse to leave, but there was no way Sam would take such a flimsy reason to leave the celebration. Gabriel had decided that they should all go get dinner to celebrate. Dean could find no reason to back out that wouldn't put a whole different perspective on the night for everyone. And he couldn't really have that, now could he? So, instead, he was here with these people celebrating something he really had no reason to be happy about.

At three o clock this afternoon, Meredith Angel Novak was born.

Of course, he wasn't enough of a dick to actually be mad at the baby. What kind of a shitty person would get mad at a baby for being born? No, he was angry because Cas was there and he wouldn't be coming back for at least a few weeks.

Balthazar pulled out his phone and turned a blinding smile onto it. "Precious." Was all he said as he passed the thing around. Dean couldn't very well say that he didn't want to look at his lover's child, so when it came to him he looked at it.

A red little scrap of humanity with dark hair was tucked under Meg's chin, looking at the camera with big blue eyes. He forced a smile before he passed it back, wondering if she'd grow into Meg's brown eyes or would there be a little girl running around with Cas's beautiful blue ones. The thought hit like a knife in his stomach.

He slammed the last of his beer and ignored the look that Jess and Sam gave him when he asked if anyone else wanted more. Balthazar and Gabriel didn't realize that they were trying to lessen his drinking, so Balthazar called for a round of shots and beers in celebration. Dean clinked his shot against theirs and dropped it down his throat, barely registering the burn.

Three more empty beer bottles sat at his elbow when Balthazar and Gabriel went to go find music and Jess went to the bathroom. "Dean, you need to cool it." Dean just raised his brows and took another drink. This one would be empty soon, so he'd have to get another soon. Maybe he should switch to liquor since that would give him the numbness that he truly desired right now. "I'm serious. I'm worried about you. After what happened to Dad, I can't believe you'd drink so much."

A chuckle left his mouth. "I can see why Dad did it, though." He finished the beer and held his hand up. When the waitress came over, he ordered a whiskey.

Sam huffed in indignation, but waited until she left before he spoke. "You didn't exactly have the love of your life die in a car accident. Have you even found the love of your life?"

Dean gave him a look, knowing that there was pain in the back of his eyes and that his brother would see. Sammy always saw. He was confused, but Dean didn't bother trying to clear it up. He was smart; he'd connect dots sooner or later. Instead, he took a drink of the amber liquid in front of him. Dean looked up just in time to see the confusion be replaced by shock. "Cas?"

He didn't know why he'd let the conversation come here. Sam wouldn't let it go and then he'd probably go into a spiel about how Cas was married and Dean had no business loving him and then he'd realize that they spent a lot of weekends together with him staying at Dean's house. Then there would be the whole, why was a wonderful man like Cas cheating on his wife with the lowly mechanic? Of course, those wouldn't be the words he'd use, but Dean knew that he was a shitty person and so the idea that his brother would be able to tell wasn't all that impossible for him to understand.

Jess came back to the table as Sam was still working through his thoughts. "Can you make sure they don't put on something horrible?" Jess gave him an odd look, and Dean knew that Sam had tilted his head at Dean before she got up and left them alone again. "How long?"

"Since I loved him?" Dean asked and then shrugged. "Started sleeping together when he came to town before the wedding." He ignored the look that Sam always got when he talked about his sexual conquests. Dude was too easy.

"Uh…" Sam kept starting speaking but ending it before getting out much more than that. "I don't know what to say."

"Keep my hands to myself? End it, because he's obviously happy with his wife? Move on? Find someone else? That's already crossed my mind. But he can't be that happy if he's the one that comes here." Dean finished his drink and signaled for another. Sam barely even registered it because he was looking at Dean, his eyes sad and his eyebrows drawn together.

"You really love him."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Thought I said that." When he went to take a sip of his new drink, Sam stopped him. He got the waitress to bring him a drink as well and then he tapped their drinks together.

"I know it sucks. You can't have what you want and it hurts so you drink to make it numb." Dean nodded but couldn't look at Sam. He didn't like Sam knowing exactly how bad of a person he was, and he even cared that Sam probably thought less of Cas now. "You can't kill yourself slowly like Dad, though, Dean. You're all the family I have left."

He could only look him in the eye and shrug. "I'll try." He knew that it wasn't the best answer to give, but it was all he was going to get out of him since everyone else was sitting down again, bringing more drinks. He couldn't explain that it had started to be that even with Cas around he wanted to drink, because he wanted that floating numbness he got. He wanted to live in a fantasy world where things were funny and he could pick at Cas and Cas would get irritated but smile and kiss him and there was no Meg.

Sam and Jess brought him home that night and helped him stumble into his room. Sam set out a glass of water and some aspirin, leaving with only one more admonition to be careful.

Dean didn't fall asleep, even though the room was spinning around him and he felt vaguely nauseous. Instead, he thought about Cas. After the party, things had been different. Meg was apparently a very angry pregnant woman because she wanted to be alone a lot. She kept telling Cas to go away. Almost every weekend from that party until last week Cas had been in Dean's bed. Dean had almost convinced himself that they were going in a different direction, but then Cas had called over the weekend saying he thought it was going to be soon.

He'd seen Cas more but known him less. They tiptoed around things, both of them afraid to bring up anything too serious for fear of breaking the fragile balance they'd achieved. They acted like friends during the day, sharing the couch but never touching. They never touched each other, except accidentally and they both seemed to jump away from the sensation. Only at night would things seem anything close to normal. They would make love and cuddle and whisper secrets to each other when it was dark and there were no sounds to hear but each other's breath.

Even that was going to change, now. How often would Cas really come down when he had a baby at home?