I can't help it, you guys. I just want to post everything. Exciting stuff starts happening really quickly after this and I just want to get to it! Ugh. Anyways, much love and happiness and hugs I send to you my readers, followers, and reviewers. You're the best.

The week after Sam breaks his leg, Cas visits his apartment after work almost every day. Sam is, of course, practically useless on his crutches for the first couple days (and his leg freaking hurts) and he is more than happy to let Cas and Dean take care of him. Dean dances around himself to avoid Cas when he comes over, shifting whatever he's doing into another room or taking ridiculously long smoke breaks out on the porch. Cas knows why he's doing it, but at least they aren't fighting.

Until Friday, that is. Cas is about to push open the door that night when Dean throws the door open, grabs his elbow, and drags him around the corner to the tiny alley between Sam's building and the next one. They wrestle for a minute, but Dean is bigger than Cas and when Cas gets his foot hooked around Dean's ankle, Dean's elbow somehow connects with his face, and it's just really not a pleasant experience.

"What the hell!" Cas shouts when Dean slams his back against the wall. It's not as much a question as an exclamation, and it's a lot wheezier than he would have hoped.

"Did you tell Sam I was drinking?"

Dean's got his arm across Cas's chest and he struggles against it. "What?!"

Dean shoves him again. "Sam and I had a fight about it this morning," he growls, "so someone told him."

Cas goes still and stares at him incredulously. "Why would you think I told him?"

"Because I know you wish I was gone – "

"Are you crazy?!" Cas shouts, and well, that must be the magic word, because Dean suddenly drops his hand like he's been burned and jolts back a step. Geez. "I never told Sam anything." Cas yanks his coat back into place. "I'm not out to get you, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Dean is still standing two feet away, his arms hanging loosely by his sides, and looking like a deer in the headlights.

"Well?" Cas demands, and the sound makes Dean twitch back again.

"I'm not," he says, roughly. "I'm not crazy."

"What?" Cas just wants to go inside. Where it's safe.

"I'm not crazy," Dean says again, and then louder, "I'm not like my dad!" He moves to threaten Cas again and Cas raises his hand reflexively. Dean stops when he sees it and Cas sees his eyes widen in fear. "I'm not crazy," Dean says again, backing away, "I'm not, I'm not."

Cas is scared, too, watching this, and he doesn't know how to respond. "Dean…" he says quietly, and puts his hand out, reaching for Dean's shoulder. He jerks away at the touch.

"He doesn't believe me," Dean says, his voice breaking. "Sam doesn't think I'm okay." He drags the heel of his palm roughly across his eyes while he speaks. "I'm not crazy. It's not my fault."

A door slams open and shut somewhere above them and Cas stands still, staring at Dean, and trying to process whatever confession he unwittingly just dragged out of the other man. There's a niggling in the back of his mind that Sam probably warned him about this – that when Sam would say his dad was crazy, he actually meant his dad was crazy – and he's somehow intensely more uncomfortable knowing that Sam thinks Dean is crazy than that he thinks Dean might be crazy.

"Ninety-four percent of psychotics think they're perfectly sane," he blurts out, and then mentally slaps himself. Dean's eyebrows furrow and Cas blunders on, "So I guess we have to ask ourselves, what is sane? Are you sane because you know you are or because you think you might not be?"

"I don't understand," Dean says.

Cas doesn't really either. "I'm saying I don't think you're crazy," he says. "I mean, you just – you don't seem like you are. When you're not assaulting me." This probably isn't how you're supposed to comfort the violent guy who's possibly having a mental breakdown in front of you. Oh well. Dean doesn't look like he's got the energy to do much else but stare. He doesn't move for a few seconds, but then he huffs half-heartedly and slumps against the wall behind him. He presses his palms into his eyes again.

"I'm a drunk who can't pay his bills, and I'm twenty-nine years old and I have to live with my brother, and I've got a schizo dad who's who-the-hell-knows where."

"But you're not crazy," Cas says. "You're not your father."

There's a quiet intensity in the air between them, Cas looking over at Dean and Dean looking down at the ground. Dean doesn't look up when he speaks again. "No one's ever told me that," he says, and Cas feels his heart break just a little bit for the guy he's still not sure he even likes. Dean pushes himself off the wall and glances over at Cas, but doesn't meet his eyes. "So thanks," he says, after a pause, "but I don't deserve it."

Cas doesn't respond. He watches Dean walk out of the alley and presses his fingers to the bruise forming on his cheekbone.