I told myself I'm tired of holding up your backup plans.
Go down your list and be satisfied, it's all you have.
And until that day,
I'll steal you flowers from the cemetery, red roses.
Red rose of the dead.
"Besitos" by Pierce the Veil
One Year Previously...
Castiel didn't like their home. Balthazar said it was perfect, it was theirs, it was everything they could have asked for. But all it was to Castiel was an empty house filled with empty things.
He loved Balthazar–or at the very least, he had loved him, for some undetermined span of time–and he tried very hard to love his life with Balthazar. But it was getting harder every day.
"Goddammit, Cassie!" Balthazar grumbled, rubbing a hand through his short blond hair. "It's not my fault. This isn't my bloody fault!"
Castiel sat across from him at the shiny, barely used dining table in the shiny, barely used kitchen. In his hands he held a coffee cup, but he couldn't bring himself to sip the contents. The sugar was too sweet, the grinds too bitter. A melancholy taste of his own miserable state.
"I never said it was," he snarled back. "I just said it was a pointlessly redundant expenditure."
"It's a business trip! It's supposed to be a fucking waste of time!" Balthazar looked almost shocked at himself for the outburst, but he screwed his features into a frown. "And what, now you're all anti-Heaven? Do I have to remind you that your own brother joined government? And your father, too? You should be freaking proud of me, Cassie!"
Castiel resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He stared down at his reflection in the shine of the table, fingering aimlessly with an expensive place mat. The threads unraveled crookedly under his pale fingers.
"Don't talk about Gabriel," he said darkly, deeply. "And don't you ever mention Father again,"
He took a deep breath, and turned to face Balthazar. His boyfriend was fuming, pacing, shaking his wrists and grinding his teeth.
"Gabriel's probably dead because of your daddy issues," Balthazar snapped back, suddenly loud. The sound slammed violently into the bare cream of the walls, and bounced back at Castiel in a shock-wave of echoes.
It was too much. He stood abruptly, scraping his chair back across the tile he'd paid a foreign cleaner two-hundred dollars to scrub free of nothing. The coffee cup wobbled dangerously on the edge of the table, then fell to the ground with a delicately angry CRASH of shards.
But Castiel didn't care. He turned on his heel, and stalked away. Out the door and onto the porch of a house he hated more every second. Into the car that was just another pointless, materialistic jab at perfection.
The last thing he heard before he drove away was the sound of Balthazar apologizing, quietly, on the polished green of their front lawn.
...
Present Day...
Sam saw her everywhere. He saw her in the sludgy water that ran like mud from the faucets of motel sinks. Saw her face in the reflection of the Impala, the crowded oblivion of the forests they passed on the road, the dirty pools of oil and rainwater.
He saw Jessica everywhere, and everywhere he saw her, he missed her more.
"Sam," Cass had asked him hesitantly once, in a diner. "What is bothering you? You look...unnerved."
Sam didn't really want to explain that his dead girlfriend was staring at him in the reflection of Cass' eyes, or that she watched him wordlessly from his coffee mug, his spoon, the napkin dispenser.
"Nothing, man," he said instead. "Just...thinking about someone."
Castiel had nodded solemnly, folding his hand underneath his cheek so he could stare across the table at Dean as he flirted with the red-head waitress.
"Me too, Sam Winchester," he sighed. "Me too."
Jessica blinked in the shade of the greasy window.
"You really like Dean, huh Cass?" Sam forced himself to pick up his fork and slide a piece of arugula down his throat. He flicked hair from his face. Normality restored (it hurt, God did it hurt).
Cass looked up almost guiltily, a pink color creeping up his face. It wasn't exactly a good look for him, and Sam smiled a little at the sight of it.
"Yes. Dean is..." he squinted and bit his lip, as if pondering the meaning of life, or a particularly tricky polynomial. "Amusing."
"Amusing? That's all you can come up with? Man, you're hilarious," Sam laughed, patting Cass on the back as he was shot a confused look.
Jessica had been funny, too.
But Sam didn't want to think of that.
"He likes you too, y'know," he said instead. A kind smile. A sincere nod. "And believe me, Dean's a stubborn ass sometimes. He only lets certain people in. You and me?" He motioned towards Cass with a fork (blonde hair dead eyes). "We're special."
Cass quirked the corners of his mouth into an almost smirk, and looked down at his own startlingly clean plate.
"Yes," he sighed, a little mournfully. "Yes Sam, we are."
And in that instant, Sam could have sworn Cass was seeing a face in his reflection, too.
...
One Year Previously...
Castiel got a call two days later. The motel had a pay phone up front, and the sleazy looking woman at the front desk had given him the receiver with a predatory glare.
He answered violently, with a snarl, expecting the tell-tale curl of Balthazar's accent among the static.
It wasn't Balthazar.
It was Raphael.
"Hello, Castiel Novak? This is you, is it not?"
A yes, a yes he didn't remember saying. The woman filed her nails, and the room smelled like cigarettes and vodka.
"Your...boyfriend...has been reported missing. We are going to need you to come in for questioning."
Castiel felt the hard plastic of the receiver, scuffed with age, slip from his hands. He felt the drag of sudden tears on his cheek, the filmy grit of the carpeting as he fell to the floor.
He almost screamed. Instead, he stared unseeing at the concerned face of the woman, listened without hearing to her garbled questions and "sirs" and "help yous".
Seven minutes later, Heaven had arrived in four black cars, impeccably shined. Out of the first stepped Raphael, his small eyes serious and dark. Behind him came a pale, thin woman with red hair curled up against her neck. She looked cold and uncaring, as did Raphael.
Castiel was escorted from the motel lobby without registering anything, his mind stuck in some sort of dull equilibrium. Vaguely, he remembered being told he wasn't so much of a suspect, more of an obligatory person of interest, but he could sense the threat behind Raphael's smooth voice, could feel the hard grip one of the lesser agents had on his arm. He was going to be arrested on suspicion of murder, and he hadn't even seen Balthazar in forty-eight hours.
They took him to a small, plain building on an industrial street. It was at least twenty blocks from Castiel and Balthazar's house, and he didn't recognize the pallid gray cement of the structure, the dirty sidewalk, the scrawny trees. There wasn't even a sign to claim the building as Heaven's property.
Raphael motioned for the lesser agent to lead Castiel from the car. The red-headed woman followed behind (always behind, and he really had to wonder what her purpose was).
"When did you last see Balthazar, Mr. Novak?" Raphael was leaning across the plain brown table, his eyes fixed solemnly on Castiel's. The room was small, situated at the back of the building. The air conditioning swirled around them at oddly low temperatures, the cold making Castiel wish he had a coat with him.
"Two days ago. We live together." He had to fight to keep the sudden sarcasm from his voice. What were they thinking? These lying liars. Balthazar wasn't dead. He couldn't be missing. He was probably just out drinking, losing his head over a stupid argument Castiel had started anyway.
He shifted in his chair.
"I don't like your tone, Mr. Novak," Raphael sighed, leaning in again until he was uncomfortably close. "And I think you're forgetting who you're talking to."
...
Present Day...
Dean watched Sam and Cass from the corner of his eye. They were talking comfortably, both taking calm sips from their drinks. Sam was waving his arms and lecturing about something, Cass nodding and adding thoughts every word or so. it was...nice. Dean found himself smiling. It had been a long time since Sam had gotten all nerded-out like he used to.
He drummed his fingers on the Formica table-top. They'd missed the case, but he'd given Bobby a call and apparently Jo had taken care of it. The old hunter had even spared a rare chuckle.
"You boys doin' alright? Feedin' yourselves good?"
"Yeah, Bobby. Yeah."
"Good. You come out and visit me, you hear? I'm workin' a salt-and-burn near the Bay."
Dean had checked his map, noting that they were nearly in California now. That made it almost five weeks since he had met Cass, three or so since Jess...
They were coping. The Winchester's always coped.
"Right. We'll be there. Any leads on...y'know..."
A sigh.
"No, boy. I keep tellin' you, let it go. You ain't ever gonna catch the sonuvabitch that set those fires."
"See you later, Bobby."
Dean continued to watch his brother and his friend. Was that even really what Cass was? Dean bit his lip nervously. If he was attracted to Cass...it was never a good thing. All my friends, they tend to die. So what was the consequence of a "not-friend"? He shuddered to think.
And yet, as Cass turned and caught his eye, sending him a small smile, Dean felt his heart flit restlessly against his ribcage.
He turned away abruptly, distracted by the ringing in his ears. Shoving a bite of hamburger down his throat, he re-directed is attention out the diner window, wondering idly how far San Francisco was from here, and how good the food was there. He'd only been once on a wolf hunt with his dad, and that hadn't really been the touristy wonderland of the year.
Dean glanced at the near-empty parking lot, and nearly choked on his red meat and American cheddar.
He'd caught a glimpse of long red hair and a tailored suit.
Anna.
...
A/N: Flashbacks to be continued next chapter.