He didn't exactly condone Castiel skipping school to come see him at the shop, but the boy kept insisting that whatever it was he needed to tell him wasn't something that they couldn't talk about on the phone. When Bobby saw the bruising and the busted lip on the Novak boy's face he just knew. It's funny how your memories sneak up on you sometimes, but seeing the other boy's eyes fill wordlessly with tears as Bobby held his chin and tilted his head towards the light was like looking at a younger version of himself trying to explain to the cops why it was really better for everyone that Edgar Singer had gotten shot during a home invasion.
"What happened?" Bobby asked gruffly, letting go of Castiel and folding his arms sternly over his chest.
"John...Mr. Winchester, he...he found Dean and I...together," the younger man stuttered out around increasingly harsh sounding breaths. "I-he and Dean are gone and Dean's not answering his phone and I...I just left him there Bobby. I left him there hurt with that psycho and now he's gone. I can't...I don't...Bobby, what if he's-"
"Alrigh'" Bobby interrupted gruffly, scooping the boy who had somehow worked himself into their makeshift family into a tight hug. "Calm down. Yer panickin' is not gonna help Dean."
Castiel managed to reign in his sobs long enough for Bobby to corral the younger man into the house, settling him on the couch in the living room before quickly going to place the 'Out For Lunch' sign in the window of the salvage yard's small shop. By the time he got back Cas was taking measured breaths with his head in his hands and the boy seemed much calmer in general.
That didn't stop the older man from pouring himself a few fingers of whiskey from a bottle of the good stuff that he kept in his desk before going to sit in his favorite armchair because Bobby had the feeling that he was definitely going to need it.
"Now tell me th' whole story, from th' beginnin', Cas. Don't leave nothin' out," Bobby said, leaning forward in his seat to hand the younger boy a bandana that he's had tucked into his pocket while he had been working on the transmission in Mrs, Bass's old Deville; it was a little grease stained, but Castiel accepted it and dutifully wiped away his tears.
And then the younger boy spoke.
Every single acid word was like a vicious hand twisting the knife of guilt that had been embedded in his chest ever since Mary left. All of this was his fault, John being crazy and Dean having to suffer for his father's sins. If he and John had never...well it was too late to fix those particular regrets, but it may not be too late to fix this before it became another one.
"Okay," Bobby said fighting to keep his voice even because all he wanted to do was shout and yell at Castiel for not coming to him sooner, but the tear-streaked expression on the boy's face was just so heart wrenchingly familiar that he could only think about keeping anyone else from getting hurt by all of this. "First things first, yer gonna talk to Sam. No arguments, Dean's his brother John's his father; he deserves to know what's goin' on."
"And then what?" Cas asked, his voice small and defeated sounding as he nodded miserably along with everything that Bobby was telling him to do.
"Then yer gonna sit tight while I drag John and Dean back here by their bootstraps to fix all this nonsense," Bobby answered with much more certainty than he actually felt.
The younger man let out a scoff of disbelief that had Bobby just lifting an eyebrow at Cas once the boy realized that he had actually made the noise out loud, his red-shot blue eyes widening in terror before he shook his head quickly.
"It's not that I don't think you can find them," his nephew's boyfriend explained quickly. "I mean if anyone understands what's going on in John's head its probably his best friend, right? I just...Dean's been fighting off John for ages so why are you so concerned all of a sudden? Why didn't you stop it before?"
Bobby let out a heavy sigh and ran his hand over his face, wishing that he had a better answer for Castiel than the real one: he'd been worrying about the wrong Winchester for so long that he didn't know how to stop. Caring too much about John was practically programmed into his DNA, but god help that miserable bastard when he caught up to him.
"It's a long story," the older man grumbled, rising to his feet and giving Cas a pat on the shoulder before moving towards the stairs so that he could pack a hasty duffel bag to take with him. Hopefully John hadn't gotten any further than the next county, but Bobby wasn't holding out too much hope; the moron had run as far as Kansas once before after all. "Maybe I'll tell ya all about it someday, if it ever starts being funny."
"I'm going to hold you to that, y'know. So when are we leaving?" Castiel asked quickly scrambling off the couch to follow him with none of the usual grace that the younger boy usually had when he moved. "I need to go home and grab some stuff, let Gabe know I'm leav-"
"Yer goin' back ta school," Bobby said sternly, rounding on the younger boy to point a finger at him as he spoke. "I'm not about to put another one of my boys' futures in jeopardy over all of this."
"But I can help you," Cas argued, waving his hands desperately when Bobby's expression remained unconvinced. "Okay, I don't know how, but I can't just stay here and wait on you to call me when you find Dean. I'm already losing it, Bobby."
"Listen if it'll make ya feel any better, I'm gonna call Sheriff Mills and let her know what's goin' on," Bobby acquiesced, the idea coming upon him suddenly when he realized that if John really was having some self-destructive bout of homophobia that maybe it wouldn't be wise for him to go traipsing off after the other man without someone knowing where he was going. Just in case he never name it back. "I'm not runnin' after them half-cocked with an itchy trigger finger, but that doesn't mean that's not what's waitin' for me when I find them. I don't need you gettin' hurt, so here's the best place for ya; there's people here to help ya keep it together."
The younger boy blanched and his voice trembled when he spoke again, " Are there? How can I ever ask Sam to forgive me, Bobby? Dean's all he's got and because of me he may be…he might..."
Bobby shook his head and looped a hand around the back of the younger man's neck in order to drag Castiel in for another hug. Fingers dug into the fabric of the worn denim work shirt that he was wearing and the younger boy let out harsh, wet sounding breaths against his chest as he fought to keep it together.
"Yer Sam's family too," Bobby offered seriously, believing it to be a fact that the young man in his arms was his family just like he knew instinctively that Dean would do whatever it took to get back to Cas because those two idiots had a bigger love than he had ever gotten to know himself. "Yer our family and he'll forgive you because I forgive you."
Castiel let out another racking sob and Bobby resigned himself to the waterworks that he had caused because the younger boy was fragile, not because he was a little misty eyed himself. No sir, not at all.
Later, once he had gotten Castiel dropped back off at his house, but before he stopped by the sheriff's department, Bobby made a phone call.
And it went straight to voice mail.
"John," Bobby began tersely, clearing his throat to combat the sudden urge that he had to fret and fuss over his oldest friend because that's just what he had always done; a stranger would think that he didn't have years of practice at being mad at John Winchester. "John, it's Bobby. I talked ta the Novak boy, Cas. He tol' me...damnit, John! If you've hurt a hair on Dean's head I swear on all that's holy...I'll kill ya myself."
He took a moment to compose himself after he angrily punched the disconnect button on his cell and shoved it deep into his pocket. That probably wasn't the most adult way to handle things, but he'd take a bullet for either of his boys; hopefully with Jodi's help it wouldn't have to come to that.
Saying that Bobby Singer was livid was like saying the sky was blue or the ocean was wet. It was obvious, a given, an inevitability of being associated with the Winchesters and he really should have stopped expecting the world to go easy on him by now. But he was upset about the situation, pissed at John for finally going too far in a vendetta that was essentially against himself, and disappointed that Castiel had made the same mistakes that he had all those years ago.
It was like seeing the past repeat itself, but being powerless to stop it. He'd been too busy being worried about what John might to do Sam to even consider the fact that Dean couldn't take care of himself. The kid had been doing it since he was too young to reach inside an engine without standing on tiptoe and Bobby had been convinced that nothing bad could ever happen to his eldest nephew.
God, he didn't think he had ever been more wrong about anything in his life.
Sam didn't know what this family meeting was about, but he had his suspicions.
Dean and Cas had been fighting all weekend or at least he thought they were since when he saw his brother's boyfriend on Monday in the hallways at school the older boy looked like he had done nothing but cry for a week. Plus Dean wasn't answering his phone, which was normal when his brother had his panties in a twist about something. He figured Dean was taking out his aggression on junkers at Bobby's or maybe Ash or Jo were commiserating with him and getting him shitfaced.
Either way, if Dean had fucked things up with Cas over something stupid, Sam was gonna be ticked. Because it was clear to everyone that Cas was the best thing that could ever happen to his idiot brother, but the serious expression on Castiel's face when he sat him and Gabriel down after dinner was not giving him much hope. They had probably broken up and he was going to have to help Dean figure out some way to fix it, on fucking Valentine's Day of all days.
But when Cas finally drew in a shaky breath and started talking, Sam had a hard time believing that all of this wasn't some sick joke. The only thing that was keeping him from flying apart into a million dagger-sharp pieces was Gabriel's hand clamped vise-like on his knee, pushing him down into the cushions of the sofa with a gentle insistent pressure as the older man's face got more and more grim.
How had he been so stupidly complacent to just let Dean deal with John alone? When had he gotten so wrapped up in Gabe that he had become blind to what was going on with the rest of his family? Why had Cas waited so long to tell them about all of this?
Sam didn't realize he had voiced that question aloud until he looked down to see Gabriel's shocked expression when he felt a sharp tug on his wrist. Apparently he had gotten to his feet and some point and started shouting, which was weird because all he could hear was the blood pounding in his ears.
"I'm sorry, Sam," Castiel gasped, tears tracking down his face as he collapsed inward on himself in the overstuffed armchair that he was sitting in; looking small and fragile in a way that the muscled ROTC cadet hadn't ever looked to Sam. "I-I-I didn't know what else to do. I...fucked up because I was scared. I co-couldn't let you get hurt too."
"You should have let me decide if it was worth the risk, Cas!" Sam screamed, trying desperately to clutch onto his anger at the other man even as Castiel nodded contritely and wrapped his arms even tighter about his shaking frame. "Dammit! He's my fucking brother, I should've been there for him."
"Bobby's looking for him," Castiel offered weakly causing Gabriel to be up and off his feet with his cell phone pressed to his ear before Sam could so much as argue that it was a fat lot of good to have the other grumpy old man in their lives looking for John and Dean on his own. "He said he was going to get the sheriff to help him find them."
Sam scoffed disbelievingly, as far as he was concerned the only people qualified to be searching for his brother were family because they all knew how John thought; Bobby would probably be better off looking for them on his own.
"Sam," Cas practically whispered, making him falter in his pacing around the living room as he strained his ears to try to hear what Gabe was saying on the phone to Bobby out in the hallway. "I really am sorry."
"Fuck," the taller boy groaned, pushing the heels of his hands hard into his eyes before raking his fingers through his hair. "I know you are, Cas. Just...fucking let me process for a bit, okay? I just found out my brother's been kidnapped so...give me a minute before we talk feelings."
The older boy let out a pained choking sound, wiping at his face and shaking his head when Sam gave him a concerned look or at least he hoped it seemed concerned because it felt like all of the rest of his emotions were buried under layer upon layer of hurt and anger and fear. But he also didn't want Cas to have a panic attack and do something drastic, especially not so soon after the trial.
"You sound just like him," Castiel explained hollowly, looking down at his lap as he spoke. "Dean, not John."
"Never John," Sam bit out, stopping sharply when Gabriel came rushing back into the room only; the two men bumping into each other as they met at the doorway. "What did Bobby say?"
"He said that John didn't turn up at the job he was supposed to be working in Eudora," Gabriel explained, looking apologetically at Cas who had let out an unconscious noise of despair at the news. "But he talked to a couple of guys who were working the same job and they said that John also picked up construction work in Topeka and Kansas City sometimes. Sheriff Mills is trying to trace some sort of paper trail, but she's not having much luck apparently."
Sam let out a derisive snort and shook his head in disgust before speaking. "Most of the jobs John did were under the table. He wasn't a licensed contractor or part of any union or anything so his foremen usually paid him cash under the table. I think he has like one credit card, maybe, but that one might be maxed out just like all the other ones Dean paid off before cutting up. They're not gonna find my dad checking into any five star resorts with a hostage in tow."
"Dean was…"Castiel started, his voice quaking as he spoke with one hand tucked up against his throat and the other clenched tightly onto armrest of the chair he was sitting in. He looked worse than Sam felt, split lip that made a lot more sense now and dark circles of worry under his eyes making him look like death warmed twice over. "H-he was fighting John pretty hard. I'm sure he looks way worse than I do. Wouldn't someone call the cops if they saw him out like that? Or if he asked for help?"
"You'd be surprised by how many people are lacking the good Samaritan gene," Gabriel told his brother softly, moving to sit close to the younger boy to gently pry his hand off of the chair; looking at Sam pleadingly as he continued to pace before the younger Winchester dropped heavily into the seat beside him. "We'll find him, Cassie. I promise."
Castiel nodded robotically, his face expressionless as tears began to track silently down his cheeks again. Sam felt useless because he couldn't even begin to think of how to help any of them, Gabe wasn't going to let him go after Dean himself and Bobby would kill him if he found out that he did it anyway. No, the only thing that Sam could do was wait and it was the worst kind of torture.
Gabriel made both him and Sam go to school the next day, which Castiel sort of appreciated because he knew that his older brother was just trying to keep their minds off of everything that was going on with Dean. But he mostly didn't appreciate it. Because walking the empty hallways without his boyfriend cracking silly jokes beside him or sitting in English class with an empty spot in the seat next to him instead of Dean's warm, comforting presence was just making the aching hole in his heart feel bigger and bigger.
From the glimpses that he caught of Sam towering over the rest of his classmates in the hallway that held the lockers for the juniors, it didn't look like the younger Winchester was faring any better. Sam was barely speaking to him at home, but when he did the words had finally stopped feeling like stinging rain against his skin when they fell from the younger boys lips so maybe that was an improvement.
Despite the fact that Sam had finally stopped glaring at him, Castiel still couldn't sleep, could barely eat or force himself to fake like he was okay in the face of Jo's smothering concern and Meg's unexplained irritation. It was like he could already feel Dean's looming specter haunting him and each hour that passed without the other boy's return made him more and more certain that he would never see Dean again. But he decided that he would put on a brave face, dole out smiles that he hoped didn't look as painful as they felt, and simply shrugged when everyone asked him what had happened with him and Dean.
He and Gabriel and Sam had decided that it would be best to stick with the story that Cas had already told everyone, that he and Dean had argued. It was less likely to induce a panic amongst their assortment of friends and the Sheriff had agreed with Bobby when they told her about their plan for explaining Dean's absence from school. According to her the last thing she needed was a whole slew of high school students getting in her way while she searched for a homophobic drunk and his eldest son who were probably just off doing some father-son bonding in a tent on a mountain somewhere.
As much as Castiel didn't share her optimism, the original sentiment of not wanting anyone else to get hurt because of him still lingered so he kept his mouth shut and trudged through his classes on Tuesday and Wednesday with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, which wasn't much. Bobby kept them updated regularly as he hunted down the loose assortment of Lawrence's other shady contract workers who apparently all knew each other by at least name and reputation if not personally. None of them had seen John or heard about him taking a job anywhere that they knew about.
He was exhausted from worry and felt sick with guilt every time one of his friends rallied against Dean on his behalf when their 'argument' was brought up. They were all 'on his side' and Castiel wanted desperately to tell them that they really really shouldn't be. Needless to say when Mr. Sanz stopped him at his locker at the end of school on Wednesday, the last thing that Castiel wanted was to talk to the ROTC instructor who he had been avoiding ever since he had ditched practice Monday afternoon with no explanation. He just wanted to take enough Tylenol PM to help him get rid of the near constant throb throb throbbing at the back of his skull where his head had collided with the bathroom door and maybe also force him to sleep.
"Novak," Virgil said softly as Castiel glanced up from the older man's highly polished dress shoes to meet the eyes of the first teacher who had managed to corner him since Chuck had told him about Dean dropping out. "A word, please."
"I've really got to go, Mr. Sanz," Cas began, shifting on his feet guilty as he shoved the last of his textbooks into his overstuffed backpack. "My brother is waiting for me."
"Miss another meeting I'm going to have to give you a demerit," the ex-military man cautioned, his voice carrying the order that Castiel knew the other man was reluctant to give. He was honestly surprised Virgil had called him on already missing Monday's ROTC meeting after school. "Three demerits and I'll have to ask you to turn in your uniform, cadet."
Cas's stomach twisted sourly at the thought of losing another thing that had come to mean so much to him, something that had always meant so much to him. But he was already expending so much time and energy worrying about Dean that he couldn't even begin to picture himself of falling back into his former routine of working out and running and practicing his shooting.
Before he had met the other boy those activities had been his safe haven, the ache in his muscles being one that was familiar and comforting because it meant he was still alive in spite of everything that life had already thrown at him. Without Dean it felt like he was slowly atrophying, if Bobby didn't find his boyfriend soon there may end up being nothing left of him but a dried up husk and Cas wasn't entirely certain that that wasn't exactly the fate he deserved.
"I have to go, Mr. Sanz," Cas said in reply, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the precise Eldredge knot of the teacher's tie. "My brother will be worried if I keep him waiting too long."
"Castiel," the teacher said, using his first name for maybe the second time ever as the younger man made to brush past him towards the exit. "If you ever need to talk about it or want to blow something up...well, I'll do my best to help you."
He didn't turn around to let Virgil know that he already had more help than he knew what to do with. Cas didn't tell his commanding officer that he was literally drowning in the concern and good intentions of all of his friends who thought that by being mad at Dean they were somehow making his burden lighter. The Spanish teacher didn't need to know that he had been having dreams about wrestling John's gun out of his hands and shooting his boyfriend's father or that he didn't consider those dreams nightmares.
Cas just nodded his head and cleared his throat, tossing "I'll be at the meeting on Friday, Mr. Sanz." over his shoulder before he continued towards the exit.
It was going to take some convincing to get Gabriel to let him out of his or Sam's sight, but Cas pretty desperately needed to feel like he still had some sort of grip on his life and shooting a bunch of holes into something may just be the start of that.
By Friday Dean had stopped hoping that someone was going to come for him and was only half-heartedly trying to think of a way to get away.
It's not that he didn't want to get back to Cas or if Cas didn't want him after he told the other boy about Lexi, then just back to somewhere familiar. He did. In fact, he dreamed about the reunion that he and the other boy would have though the actual content of the dreams varied depending on how deeply John slept and therefore how safe he felt about sleeping himself. Most nights he fell into a fitful doze that he was snapped out of anytime he inadvertently tugged on the handcuff attached to his wrist in his sleep; John hadn't stopped doing that yet, but he had finally stopped waving his gun around every other minute, so that had to be an improvement.
His cellphone hadn't emerged again since Monday and Dean was pretty sure that it was dead by now anyway, but he could imagine the kind of frantic voice mails that his family was leaving for him. Jo was probably madder than a snake in a boot, Sam was probably pairing up with Ash to track him down via satellite triangulation or something else dorky, and Bobby was most definitely earning a few more gray hairs over this, but Dean couldn't even begin to picture how Cas was reacting to him not having returned yet.
The last the other boy had seen of him he had been about to get his face bashed in by a lamp and still...there hadn't been a peep from his boyfriend. Logically, Dean knew that Cas had to have called him, probably an obscene amount of times, and that the other boy had gone and gotten help because Cas was smart like that, but Dean still felt like Cas could and should take this opportunity to untangle himself from the mess that was the Winchesters. The other boy had just gotten his life back on track and now this? It was too much to ask any person to deal with.
Dean might have already accepted the fact that Cas wouldn't want what was left of him if he made it back to Lawrence, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't always want the other boy. If anything, all of this just made Dean even more certain that Cas was the love of his life. Hell, he'd jump in front of a gun for the other boy a thousand times over if it meant he'd be alive, even if they weren't together. He tried not to think too much about a future where he and Cas weren't together, even if it was looking more and more like that was going to be the future he ended up having.
Instead he focused on not fucking up too much at the abysmal construction job that John had managed to find for them in a rapidly growing suburb on the outskirts of Denver. He knew next to nothing about construction apart from the few bits of mechanic know-how that he could adapt to fit his current circumstances which honestly wasn't much. But at least he spoke enough Spanish to be able to ask for help from the other unlicensed workers like he and John who were working with them on the street of cookie cutter houses they were slapping together.
He'd almost worked up enough courage to ask one of the guys that they were working with to help him, but then Edgar pulled out a picture of his family during their lunch break and proceeded to tell Dean with more gestures than words about how much he loved his kids and wife. John had eyed them suspiciously from where he was eating with their sleazy foreman, Dick, and Dean had swallowed down his plea for help before he dragged someone else into the mess that was his life.
So Dean decided that he would only take the chance to get help if he found a way to do so where no one could possibly get hurt, maybe if he bumped into a couple of cops or John let his guard down enough that Dean could escape with enough of a head start to make it back to Kansas before the older man did. Lucky for him, John's new found sobriety hadn't stuck and the older man had taken to drinking himself to sleep each night; all Dean needed was one night where John forgot to cuff him to the bed and he would have his out.
It hadn't happened yet. In fact, Dean hadn't seen much of Colorado besides the sides of the roads that John drove them to and from work on and the scraggly grass that abutted their hotel that was right off of I-70. He vaguely knew that he needed to head east to get to Lawrence, but besides that he figured he would have to rely solely on kindly cashiers to give him directions back home and that's if he managed to steal John's truck when he ran. Worst comes to worst he could always hitchhike, but Dean wasn't sure how much more of himself he was prepared to give away in order to get back home.
When would he know that he had given enough?
Dean knew that most of ideas for escape were half-baked and likely to fail, which is why he hadn't followed through on any of them yet. But outside of watching John drink himself into a stupor, working, and flipping through channels on the television in their hotel room while he was chained to the bed he didn't have much else to do. Okay, that wasn't completely true. But Dean wasn't trying to draw attention to the one thing that he did have that was giving him hope, the one thing of Cas's that he had kept when John had ordered him to cleanse their apartment of all things blue-eyed and Novak shaped.
The first time he dared to pull the moleskine out of his backpack was well after John drifted off into an alcohol induced slumber, snoring thunderously enough that Dean was unconcerned when he let out a grunt of pain as he stretched his leg off of the side of the bed in order to hook his foot through the strap of his bag so that he could drag it closer. The older man had locked Dean to the bed early on Tuesday night, returning already halfway drunk with a brown bagged bottle of alcohol tucked under his arm and a mean set to his mouth.
Slanderous words that he wasn't sure were meant for him were mumbled under John's breath as he stormed into the bathroom of their small room and didn't emerge until he stumbled back to his bed next to the door and collapsed face first into it with a pained groan. Dean waited until the other man's breathing evened out and then some before retrieving Cas's journal from his backpack, skipping over the first half of the book that was filled with the familiar clear and careful cursive of his boyfriend's writing.
He didn't think he could read anything that Cas might have written about him without crying so Dean decided that he would try to distract himself by writing something, maybe try to pick up their short story from where he remembered leaving it off at. But he couldn't. He tried, snapping the tip of the pencil that he had found in his bag off in frustration from where he was pressing it hard into the journal as he willed himself to write about something, anything that wasn't just loss and pain and death.
All he could think of was how he and Cas would never be able to come back from this. That this would be the thing that ended them and how unfair it was that they had never even really gotten a chance. There was really no other way things could play out, Dean could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror so how could he expect the other boy to still love him after finding out how passively he had gone along with John's insane plan to 'fix him'?
Cas deserved so much better than him. He always had.
Unable to think of anything positive to write, Dean just wrote about all the ways he expected things to change. Not just with Cas, but with everyone. Because it was all going to change, he just wouldn't get to know how much until he somehow made it back to Lawrence.
John could admit that he had made some not-so-intelligent decisions in his life. Foremost of which was probably when he had tried to forget himself in another person, but reinvention is a lot harder than it looks. Old habits die hard and there is a perverse sort of comfort in the familiar. Or that's how he had rationalized the affair that had lost him his wife all those years ago and it was how he rationalized his desperate, rambling searches for meaning that always and forever would bring him right back to the one person who couldn't stand the sight of him.
The fear and disappointment in Bobby Singer's eyes when he had looked at him over the still warm body of his father was what had driven John out of Sioux Falls and the mere sound of that same fear in the other man's voice over the phone was what drove him back to drinking; desperate to silence the small, hopeful part of him that still argued that Bobby loved him. A few drunken kisses and half-conscious fumblings under the cover of darkness couldn't even begin to fix the wounds that had festered between them for so long and what had happened at Christmas had pretty much driven home the point that Bobby was sick and tired of being sick and tired over one John Winchester.
The mechanic had told him that on no uncertain terms he was through. Through being a crutch and an enabler for someone who refused to get help, through being cursed at because he wasn't ashamed of what he was like John was, and through standing idly by while John drove his family into the ground with hatred and denial. Hearing Bobby say that he would kill him if he hurt Dean didn't scare John because part of him had been dead ever since he had pulled the trigger on Edgar Singer. That part had been rotting when he had gone out and slept with a too-sweet waitress in an effort to make himself into someone who could never kill another man.
He'd never told Mary what kind of man she was climbing into bed with night after night, even when it became just about sleeping and closeness and comfort when Bobby came to Lawrence and opened up the salvage yard and John jumped at his first chance to stray. Dean hadn't even been a year old yet and it wasn't supposed to have happened more than once, but he was like an addict. Looking for kisses that bruised and hands that pushed and moved him where they wanted him to be, flesh that was hard and rough that could take all of his anger instead of soft and yielding like Mary's was.
It wasn't supposed to ruin his life and go on for years until Bobby suddenly said he couldn't anymore. Stupid, self-righteous, wonderful bastard. And just like that John had been abandoned again, torn open and road hauled until his insides were so mixed up with his outsides that even Mary told him she knew something was wrong, known the whole time in fact and been fine with it because she was just happy being a mother even if her family was a bit unconventional.
That's probably about the time John started hating her, which was a whole new emotion despite the fact that he'd been practicing hating himself for years.
John thought all of this as they worked on Friday morning, glancing over at his son who was holding up a piece of dry-wall for one of the other workers to nail into place. He didn't trust the little faggot, but he wasn't entirely sure that he hated him either. Dean had lied to him for months about that Novak boy; at least Sam had the balls to come out and say that he liked sucking dick, John could almost respect that even if it did make him see green with envy at times.
Sam was just so like Mary, had so much of his wife in him that sometimes John wasn't even sure if the boy was his, but Dean...that one was completely his fault. He'd let the boys have too much freedom, been too focused on being less of a monster that he'd forgotten to be a parent and it had turned them both into exactly what he had been running from for as long as he could remember.
Dean was trying to make it right though, which was more than Sam could say. That little ingrate didn't care what people were saying about him and by proxy John all over town, didn't care that he had to hear about his youngest boy being seen all over town with that cradle-robbing criminal and Jodi Mills turning a blind eye to the whole damn thing. Hell, John couldn't take a drink in Lawrence without that harpie being all over his ass for it, but candy toting pedophiles could trick sixteen year old boys into living with them without any repercussions.
One thing was for damn certain, John was going to make sure that things changed once he and Dean got done with this job. Maybe Eve could pull some strings with the city council and get that bitch Mills fired, she had connections after all. How else do you keep a brothel open for that long in a god-fearin' city like Lawrence without greasing a few palms?
"I don't know if I can do this anymore," Lexi admitted to the mirror, batting Ambyr's hand away from her bedraggled looking ponytail when the blonde clucked her tongue at her and reached out to fix it.
"You say that like you have a choice," Abbie replied, her mouth open in a wide 'O' as she fixed the edges of her bright red lipstick with the tip of her fingernail. "You've got a contract, same as the rest of us. Think any of us get to just quit whenever we feel like it?"
"Whatever, Abs," Lexi bit out, snatching up the concealer off of the scarred laminate counter top in front of her that housed the collection of Eden's employees' assorted beauty products. "Don't act like you hate getting plugged by the mayor once a week."
"I like power," the redhead said, pursing her lips at her reflection before she winked at Lexi and Ambyr and made her way towards the tiny room's doorway. "Maybe if I rub up on power enough some of it will rub off on me."
Lexi made a face as her co-worker sashayed out of the room, her hips already swaying dangerously and seductively in that trademarked way that made Abbie one of Eve's top earners. Hell, she brought home more in tips and presents from her regulars than the rest of them combined. She turned back to her reflection with a sigh, prodding at the dark circles under her eyes with the concealer in a half-hearted effort to cover up the stress that was showing so clearly on her face.
As predicted Eve had sent her home with one of her monosyllabic goons after all of that shit went down with that kid and his crazy as hell father. Lexi wasn't stupid enough to go running to the cops about it, which Even said she knew, Roy was just going home with her for a few days to 'keep her safe'. Pssssh, yea right. She'd be safer with a pack of rabid wolves guarding her.
"Don't try to run," Ambyr cautioned softly causing Lexi to look up to see the other woman's reflection vacantly watching her in the mirror's reflection. The blonde reached up a hand to unconsciously run the tips of her fingers over the scars that laced almost unseen across her throat, her other hand softly petting Lexi's ponytail in an absentminded sort of way. "It'll be worse if you do."
"I won't, honey," Lexi promised, smiling shakily at the other woman before she moved a hand to pull the rubber band holding her long brown hair out; fidgeting with the dark locks until they looked at least somewhat appealing under the ugly fluorescent lights, she knew it wouldn't matter in the low lighting of Eden's main club floor anyway. "Now, c'mon. Isn't that guy Ed supposed to come and see you today?"
The blonde perked up a little bit, smiling softly at the mention of one of her regulars who was kind and silly and so far hadn't asked for anything other than a hand to hold and someone to talk to. Lexi wasn't about to rain on Ambyr's parade by telling her that they all became johns eventually, even the gentle ones.
"Yea, and you have that Brian guy scheduled right?"
"Yea, but his name's not Brian," Lexi corrected, her mind automatically jumping to her mental countdown of how long she had to wait until the next visit from the doctor that Eve scheduled for the girls. Not much longer...maybe she could get out without having to run. "He goes by Benny, it's kind of adorable."
Author Note: Sorry that this took so long to update, GISHWHES and life and everything got in the way. Also, sorry for the POV being sort of all over the place I hope it's not super confusing. That being said thanks to everyone who has stuck with this fic despite the sporadic updates, let me know what you think and if you read any of my other fics let me know what you'd like for me to update next.
As always you are all welcome to chat fandom or music or really anything with me over on my tumblr. *hearteyes*