Warnings: swearing, language, mention and reference of threats, mention and reference of homophobic violence, mention and reference of physical violence, implied slight alcohol abuse, mention and reference of memory loss due to drunkenness, mention and reference of rape/non-con, mention and reference of past abusive relationship, mention and reference of past domestic abuse, mention and reference of lack of self-esteem, mention and reference of past suicidal thoughts, mention of past underage, mention of past character death
Chapiter 23: What is and What should never be
"If someone had broken my heart a lil' more
If I had to find what was worth fighting for
Maybe I'd feel like I deserve this
That thing that is
While others will never be."
Castiel was exhausted. Curiously, he liked it. Often, fatigue came from illness, treatments, it was accompanied by a wave of terror to once again end up in hospital. This time, it was a logical and natural exhaustion. He spent his days at work handing over balance sheets and keeping his intern away. He had a calendar taped in a drawer where he checked the days before her leaving. He hated the way she looked and observed him as if he were a tabloid on his own. Gradually, the rumor of his relationship was spreading in the office and he heard whispers on his way. His evenings were spent in the band's studio or with Dean and between he prepared a file for Crowley. His fatigue implied that he lived faster and stronger than he had ever done and it made him happy.
That Friday, he could barely keep his eyes open despite having drank more coffee in a week than all his life, and Crowley was leafing through the file he had carefully prepared for the group. Beside him, Sam was biting his nails, looking anxious and Dean feigned a relaxed pose that could have fooled a journalist, but none of the people in the room. The producer put the folder on his desk and stared at Castiel.
"You really take fans for fools."
Castiel shrugged. "Fans are fools, I know what I'm talking about. They are willing to pay what it takes for a quality product or of mediocre quality as long as it's well sold. They will buy the CD for the code that there will be inside, giving them access to a special part of the website containing exclusive glimpses of the recording of the album."
"What will prevent them from cracking the code, or uploading the "exclusive" contents on other media?"
"Nothing." Castiel replied calmly. "That's why the hidden part of the site will include another code, randomly generated and entitling to discounts on downloads of a future acoustic album."
"Album which will therefore be in illegal downloading ten minutes after getting the first code."
"That's the idea." The accountant smiled. "The group's responsibility is to do something excellent, word of mouth will do the rest, and during the release of the acoustic album you can make a new edition of the previous, and a double collector with exclusive content. You and me both known that it'll attract fans and collectors without making them cringe and the acoustic part will only increase the public of the group by attracting people that rock doesn't interest at first glance. If it's good, people buy even if they have already downloaded and you know it."
Crowley stared at him for a while with a tiny tip of respect in his look that indicated Castiel that he had won. "And how much will this cost me?"
"Kevin and Charlie are ready to take care of the site and they are crafty enough to secure it almost correctly. The acoustic material is being recorded. The production of both albums won't require much more time or investment than a single one since we make all at once."
"I want numbers Castiel."
"A lot. With a possibility of return on investment of around 30-50%."
Sam and Dean hadn't uttered a word, Crowley nodded slowly.
"I cover you for a year. No, eight months, in eight months I want at least one product finished and enough to start a promotional campaign."
They all three shook their heads and it was Castiel who leaned over the desk, hand outstretched to shake Crowley's. The Winchester stood up and saying their good-byes to their producer before leaving without realizing that Crowley was still holding the hand of the accountant, forcing him to sit down a minute longer.
"I have to talk to you about something." He said, his hands flat on his desk. Castiel found the attitude strange, Crowley had this unpleasant habit of always crossing his hands or fingers as if to signify that his interlocutors would get nothing from him. The young man waited for Crowley to decide himself wordlessly and eventually took the paper that the businessman was handing him. He frowned while deciphering the letter and his face changed of expression and color.
"It arrived before or after my aggression?"
"After." Crowley answered.
"Were there others?"
"This is the last one."
Castiel glanced at the door behind which Dean and Sam were certainly waiting for him, in a few seconds one of them would knock on the door and ask why he wasn't coming out.
"Why showing that to me?"
"For you to be warned. The Winchester father is dangerous."
"I noticed, thank you." Castiel replied coldly.
"They don't know about it, and they won't before the release of the album. I need you to watch over them."
Castiel cocked his head to the side with a rictus. "And how am I supposed to do that? In case you didn't notice, I'm an accountant, I'm not even thirty years old and I spend a significant number of days in the hospital lately."
But Crowley didn't need to answer, Castiel knew exactly what he had to do. Give the letter back, not mention it to Dean, and act as usual. Protect himself, protect Dean, be there for him, and Dean would take care of the other group members.
"It was useless to show this to me." He grumbled, standing up.
"I wanted someone other than Bobby and I knows..."
Castiel regarded him for a moment. "You worry... You worry about them."
"I worry about my investment." Crowley corrected, opening the door behind which Sam was lighting a cigarette. He glared at the young man, hitting him behind the head, and closed the door.
"What did he want to talk about?"
"Return on investment." Castiel lied.
##
In the month that followed, the rhythm of recordings decreased because Sam was taken by his hours of community service. Castiel suspected Crowley of bribing the judge because it was quite unlikely that for a charge of assault and battery, Sam was sentenced to work one hundred hours in an animal shelter. Yet this was the case to the delight of Charlie and journalists who had finally discovered the thing. For a week the tabloids had only talked about it. A drummer beating up his girlfriend's ex. And then a drummer making adopt puppies. Kevin and Charlie had taken bets on the time it would take for Sam to adopt one himself.
The Intern (Castiel didn't even bother anymore to call her by her name) voluntarily left magazines laying around in the office and Castiel had a hard time to keep from flipping through them while grinding his teeth. He no longer had illusions, since she spread her rumors, everyone in the company had necessarily sought to verify if he really banged a rockstar, some even had the courage to come and ask him to his face and he held them in higher esteem than the others. He even did an online search to see if their secret was as well kept as they thought. That wasn't the case and in retrospect, he felt stupid for believing that his relative tranquility was the confirmation of their discretion.
He wasn't however, prepared to tell about his life to anyone, no matter that his lover is known, or one of his friends is on the front cover of all the tabloids with three puppies in the arms.
He bought the magazines on the way back home and threw them on the coffee table distractedly, wondering if he wanted a cup of tea or a shower. The desire to read articles on Sam had left him on his way. His phone vibrated in the pocket of the old trench coat he had gotten out of the closet since the temperature had dropped.
"Hey." Dean said."You're at your place?"
"I just got home." Answered Castiel, finally opting for tea.
"Remember the discussion you had with your mother? About the children we won't have?"
Castiel frowned. "What are you talking about?"
Someone knocked on the door and he heard the echo in the phone he was holding tight against his ear. Dean was standing in the hallway with a big smile and his own phone in hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you remember? This discussion."
The young man nodded and stepped aside to let his lover in. Dean put the phone on the dessert trolley and began to half-open his jacket. "Remember, you told her that with my habit of retrieving stray cats it wasn't impossible that we end up with a brat?"
"I am sure of not having formulated it like this." Castiel smiled, leaning against the door he had just closed.
Dean reached into his jacket as he finished unzipping it and pulled out a small ball of fur crumpled and meowing which tried to paw him in passing.
"It lacked a home and I'm sure you lack something to decorate the rug."
Castiel widened his eyes and instinctively reached for the kitten that was struggling between Dean's fingers. The animal stopped hissing a second and sniffed his fingertips before viewing him for a moment with its large blue eyes, whiskers quaking with fear.
"I thought it'd look good in the background." Dean said again, placing the kitten in the outstretched hand of Castiel. The animal planted its little claws in his palm as if afraid of falling, and tried to chew his thumb. It was all white and soft like a cuddly toy. Castiel smiled.
"You saw a white kitten with blue eyes and you thought I needed a few more clichés in my life?" He said while the kitten clung to the sleeve of his sweater and began a perilous ascent up to his chest where it nestled into the crook of his arm with a sigh of contentment.
"Stop bitching, you already love it!" Dean replied, standing up on tiptoe to kiss his lover on the forehead. "It was all alone in the kittens cage at Sam' shelter, it was breaking my heart." Castiel nodded and finally dropped the kitten on the floor. He watched it discover its environment a moment before finally remembering he wanted tea before being interrupted.
"I have something to show you." He said, immersing the bag in the cup. He led Dean to his computer, followed by the kitten which began to complain of hunger. "I don't have the slightest desire to go out again to buy food for it."
"I'll take care of that." Dean replied. "It'll be good for my image."
Castiel had an approving face and sat down at the computer, installing the cat on his lap where it immediately began to lose its white fur on his black pants. He displayed two pictures of Kevin on the computer. The left one showed a smiling young man wrapped in his favorite purple hooded sweatshirt, head slightly down. From this angle, his labret piercing had reflected the flash and those on his ears weren't visible. Castiel had altered the contrast and saturation until he seems very pale under the intense color of his hood. The second photo was a wide shot, still of Kevin, this time in black and white, the only touch of purple color came from the hoodie he was still wearing, but this time he was sitting alone in a large amphitheater, his cello against him, playing.
"The color photo for the normal album. The black and white for the acoustic."
Dean nodded slowly, leaning against the desk. On Castiel's lap, the kitten yawned.
"Can you do the same for each of us?"
"Yes, and superimpose some song lyrics. This isn't an innovative concept, but it can look something good."
"It will look good." Dean corrected with confidence. Castiel didn't answer, focused on his first sip of tea that warmed his hands. "You don't believe me." Dean realized.
"Yes, I do."
"Liar."
Castiel put down the cup thoughtfully. "I'm doing my best Dean, but art is your thing, not mine! I align numbers. I know you love me and you love my pictures, but you put the project in jeopardy by entrusting the visual part of the album to me... Nepotism doesn't work, and you know it."
"That's not the issue." Dean retorted quietly. "I know you're not a photographer, even I can see the amateurism in your pictures. The important is that you know us. Unlike a professional photographer, when I ask you to show two sides of us, you know what I mean."
Castiel nodded slowly.
"What do you consider doing for Sam and Charlie?"
Castiel smiled. "You don't ask what I consider doing for you?"
"I'll know soon enough."
"I just had to hold on a little,
A few years of pain and I found shelter
It's deeply unfair, for the small amount of time I suffered"
##
Channing was bouncing up and down with excitement, clapping her hands.
"You would agree?"
Kevin nodded with a broad smile. "That's what we had planned anyway." He said, earning a puzzled look from his friend. "When we were in high school, before I receive the letter from Princeton, we said that if we were going to college together we would share an apartment."
The girl's face lit up. "We said that if necessary we'd eat potatoes three times a week."
"And soup."
"And we had drawn the plan of the living room with a double desk for exam periods."
Kevin nodded. "I still have the drawing somewhere."
"If I land a job in LA, we won't need a double desk."
Kevin mentally went around his living room where Channing had spent a week, time for the recording of the album violin lines. It was small and cluttered. The unique bookcase was too full, books piled next to the sofa bed, and they hadn't done the dishes for so long that the bacteria in the bottom of cups were beginning to raise civilizations in coffee remains. They knew each other for so long that it had seemed perfectly natural for them to live together for a week until Castiel informs Channing that a post would be unfilled a few months later in his firm and she could probably submit an application.
"There is no room for a double desk." Kevin said. "But at worst, if we halve the rent we may be able to find something bigger."
"As if we had gone to college together."
Kevin nodded. "As if we had followed the plan, just with a few years late."
"That would be... fantastic."
"You just have to be the best and crush all the others during this interview!"
Channing nodded. "Being the best, that I can do."
Kevin smiled.
In the other part of the studio, Charlie and Sam were recording a new song. It was rather sweet and tender in the lyrics and curiously the very sustained pace that they were imposing to themselves would suit it perfectly. Charlie's back and shoulders hurt, by dint of carrying her bass, and her hands were painful of tightening on the handle of the instrument or her pick. Sam's shoulders were burning. On the other side of the perspex wall, Bobby raised his thumbs up, indicating he had the sound he needed. Sometimes Sam and Charlie needed to play together for the song's backdrop to be consistent. More and more often these days they recorded together and when Kevin and Dean returned the next day, they had to adapt to the new melody or a rhythm invented offhand by Sam. This annoyed deeply the cellist who loved notes well calibrated on their staves. Dean contented himself with adapting.
On the surface nothing had changed, they all spent too much time together, and when Dean was at Castiel's, Charlie brought her extra controller and challenged Sam to war games until the upstairs neighbor comes and asks them to stop their row.
They also drank together, always with the vague feeling or slight fear that if Dean caught them they would both go through hell. And they didn't talk about the girls. Neither contravened this unwritten rule because they had already said all there was to say on the subject.
"I won't make the same mistake with her that I did with Dirk."
"If she prefers freedom to me, too bad for her."
It was a bit dark, deep down not as liberating nor as serene as they would have wished, but it allowed them to slowly forget about this story, about Vegas, and about a piece of their life they would have thought longer and more pleasant.
But something was wrong and they all felt it but never dared broach the subject. Sam and Charlie had lost the ease they had with each other. They no longer exchanged their clothes or jewelry, no longer understood each other with a nod like this had been the case previously and talked to each other only for small talk or through music. Their compositions were improving gradually with the recording sessions and they found through the rhythm the communication they had lost at speaking.
"Do you think we should do something?" Kevin inquired to Dean after a few weeks of this climate. The singer shook his head, seated very straight in the recording studio couch, watching Charlie and Sam leaned over a recalcitrant tablature on the other side of the transparent wall.
"No. Let them settle that themselves."
"It's.. sick."
Dean nodded. "One way or another, they will eventually address the problem, we'll see at that moment if it's make or break."
"And if it doesn't make it?"
Dean sighed. "I prefer not to think about it."
A week passed, then two. Even Castiel began to feel the growing tension between Sam and Charlie. The young man had finished his hours of community service and now he had no excuse to get away from the group. He no longer hid the liquor bottles that were heaped up in a basket under the kitchen table, waiting to be taken to the recycling center, something Dean refused to do.
One night, without any of them knows why, everything exploded. In retrospect, neither Charlie nor Sam could say what had sparked the argument. They just remembered the growing unease and that he had just won against her in a car racing game.
"Dammit, it messed you up this much to wake up beside me in Vegas?" Sam shouted, throwing a cushion from the couch to the face of the bassist.
She caught the object and put it away from her, looking surprised, her controller abandoned on the ground automatically paused the game when she walked on it.
"It disgusts you so much to imagine having touched me?" Sam shouted again.
From Dean's bedroom, Castiel heard them arguing and got up to intervene. His lover held him by the arm and shook his head.
"I'll go if that gets worse, but they need that right now."
In the living room Charlie shook her head. "No, of course not!" But it was a lie and they both knew it. Sam sat down with a weary sigh.
"I don't want to criticize, Charlie, but if you have something to reproach me, at least do it clearly!"
"Dammit Sam, I don't even know what we did!"
He let out a cold laugh. "You think I'm capable of that? You really think I'm this awful?"
"I don't even know what you're talking about." Charlie grumbled, sitting down next to him.
"We were smashed, you more than me. Sleeping with a drunk girl, in my language it's how you spell "rape". And I'm not a rapist. I'm not a good guy, I'm not... But that, even drunk, even beside myself I wouldn't do that."
Charlie said nothing for a moment.
"We don't play in the same team anyway." She said quietly.
"That, princess, doesn't stop some." Sam said with a rictus. "But even if we were playing on the same team, I like when my partners are consenting. And given how you avoid me since then, you clearly aren't."
"I don't avoid you! We spend our life together!"
"One doesn't cancel the other out. You can be distant even being right beside me." Sam replied. "In the bus, in the morning when I woke up, you were the first I saw, and I knew in advance wether you'd be in a good mood or not just by watching you sleep just before your alarm rings. Now, I don't see anything."
"I don't sleep much." Charlie acquiesced.
"I know." A silence. "You miss Dorothy?"
Charlie nodded. "It should pass, it should decrease, but I miss her every day a little more."
"Love is awful, huh?"
The young woman nodded gravely, then reached out to her friend whom she briefly hugged before placing a kiss on his cheek. "And it was even worse lately. I missed you too."
"Yet I was right here."
She nodded with a shrug. "Apparently, we can avoid and miss each other even being next to each other."
"How did we get here?"
Charlie shrugged again. "I don't know. Apparently, we're two idiots who don't know very well how to handle heartaches."
"But we can try to manage this one like intelligent adults."
When Dean entered the living room half an hour later they were piling the empty bottles in a box that Sam took down to the garbage chute. Nobody mentioned it, but for a long time thereafter, there was no longer any alcohol at the Winchesters's or at Charlie's. That night, Castiel took the photo of the bassist that would be on the acoustic album. Asleep on the couch, face half buried in one of the cushions, curled-up on herself and wrapped in a blanket Sam had pulled up to her shoulders. Later, he would retouch the photo so the tartan rug appears of the same pink as the old umbrella under which Dean had sheltered her the day they met. Charlie found nothing wrong with the picture.
They gave interviews in the months that followed, while they were recording. Excerpts from their words, sometimes more or less misrepresented, began to adorn the walls of the studio.
Castiel's favorite had a tendency to fall off from its location and lie around until someone steps on it and hangs it up, each time a little more wrinkled or dirty.
"That's what's expected of a rock star. You wear leather, you get a tattoo, you seduce people, you put on make-up to get yourself talked about. And when the show is over, you work harder than anyone else to try to live of the small talent you were gifted with. And no one will everever realize it. They will all keep thinking we have an easy life. This is what's expected of us so that's what I do. That's how I make my living."
Thanksgiving passed and the albums were recording slowly. All their studio sessions began with an acoustic version of a popular title that served to warm up Dean's voice. They had a very long list pinned to the door of the studio in which they picked one or more songs every day. All the recordings weren't necessarily exploitable, and Charlie put online on their official website their biggest fits of giggles. On Christmas Day they uploaded a cover version of "Last christmas" which had some success. Or maybe Sam's much improved eggnog had made them a bit too much light-headed and they were mistakening.
It was the very day after that Castiel took the two last pictures of the double CD cover, those that posed problem to him from the beginning and of which he kept putting the execution off until later. Sam's presented itself in the afternoon of Christmas after a too short night and the gifts opening.
Showing the drummer on his public face was easy, all it had taken was to place him on the material crates of his drums, shirtless and sticking his pierced tongue out. It was easy, with a character like Sam to show what he wanted people to see. Showing the Sam Castiel knew was much more difficult, mainly because the subject moved over at the slightest approach like a kitten in the rain. It was exactly what inspired Castiel when he found Sam on his couch, writing in their old leather journal, hair disheveled, wearing a sweater and threadbare jeans. Castiel's kitten still fit in the large free hand of the drummer where she had fallen asleep, curled up, probably shortly before. He quietly retrieved his camera before neither of them could actually become aware of his presence and centered just when Sam raised his hand to his face and kissed the tip of the muzzle of the kitten who began to yawn, stretched out, and went back to sleep, claws firmly planted in his sleeve.
Much later that day, Castiel took the last picture, the one that was closest to his heart and would therefore be the most difficult to let reproduce in thousands of copies that everyone would see. Dean was getting out of the shower and Castiel prevented him to get dressed, forcing him to stand in the living room a few seconds the time to take the photo he wanted.
"You're aware that this is going somewhere on the cover of the new album?" Dean grumbled, shivering. "And that making me pose naked is nearly prostitution?"
"You're aware that you asked me to do this because you trust me? Now shut up and do as I say."
"I get all tingly when you take control like that." Dean teased. He had crossed his arms as if to shield himself and Castiel thought to himself that his lover would have as much difficulty to accept the picture as him to show it.
He decided to change the angle, moved behind Dean, which earned him a curious and a bit worried look. From there he saw the tattooed flaming lily of which few people knew the meaning, the line of his shoulders, the small of his back with the revolvers crossed on a flowerbed of roses. He approached his lover to make him turn a little more towards the light from the window and put his wrist behind his back, placing a soft kiss on his shoulder in passing. "Don't move." He murmured. This session would have to be completed in record time because Castiel wasn't sure to stay focused on his idea much longer. Moreover, Dean wasn't a very cooperative model. He seemed more able than his brother to stay still but it was an illusion given the trouble he had to hold the position in which Castiel had put him, he could almost see the muscles tense to not move as he took time to center what he wanted.
"You done?" Dean grouched.
"Almost."
Click. Click.
The shutter of the camera clicked again a few times before Castiel picks it up from its tripod and comes to place himself face to his lover.
"I never should have asked you something like that." Dean sighed, not daring to move even if Castiel was facing him now. The young man raised the camera and quickly snapped a picture of his face without actually centering.
"You can move. I'm done." He said, moving up on tiptoe to kiss him. Dean wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his lover with a sigh of relief stifled by the lips of Castiel.
"It was a very bad idea." He said.
"Wait to see the result." Castiel smiled, holding him in his turn. The cool metal of the camera against his bare back made Dean shiver as he cuddled up more tightly to his lover.
"I already have a result here." He said.
Castiel rolled his eyes. "Your pick up lines get worse every day, you know that?"
"They're still workin'?"
Castiel nodded. "You have no idea, really no idea." He muttered hoarsely, pushing his lover to the bed. The photos Castiel took during the next few hours were exclusively for private use. The kind of pictures that need to be hidden in the depths of an external hard drive protected by six passwords and complicated file paths.
Or to be printed in 4x3 and displayed above the entrance telephone.
(No matter how Dean stormed, begged and tried to take down himself the black and white photography of his very naked and very recognizable body among the crumpled sheets, the picture remained in place.)
When Dean left the room to get a drink of water it took him some seconds before noticing the small ball of crumpled fur who had settled and fallen asleep against the door until they open to her. The kitten whom Castiel had renamed Chevy emitted a vague protest to be pushed into the hallway and then followed him, waddling into the kitchen and back to the bedroom. Dean slipped into bed again, naturally snuggling up to Castiel while the kitten was sitting beside the bed, whining.
"Climb up, idiot!" Castiel grumbled, straightening up to retrieve the glass Dean had just placed on the nightstand. But the animal didn't appear to move as if she knew she would just look ridiculous if she tried to cling to the blanket to climb on the bed. She began to mew of her little baby pitched voice until Dean, annoyed, brings an arm out of bed to raise her onto it and secure her on the blanket between them. Castiel had resettled, head between the pillows, Dean's arm across his stomach, the hand of the singer resting on his hip. Chevy began an almost subtle crawling movement in search of a more comfortable place to sleep while from Castiel's phone raised the first notes of "Stairway to Heaven".
There probably was a time when they didn't regularly fall asleep during the eight minute song. But they kept coming back to it. It was a comfortable habit, not really ritualized. Rather a kind of code between them, a way of saying goodnight without a word, even when they settled only for a nap. The kitten finally settled on one of the pillows, her nose buried in the neck of Castiel, rolled into a small purring ball. Between her and the singer who had rested his head against his ribs, the young man had the impression of being a pillow. He smiled, feeling suddenly Dean's shoulders relax under his fingers, a sign that the singer was beginning to fall asleep.
As he slid himself into sleep, he thought to himself that he was incredibly happy. Few things could change this because unlike most people, Castiel honestly believed that nothing could prevent him from loving Dean, nor from being loved by him in return. No matter what life would bring them, they were an objective fact that wouldn't change, as a founding pillar of their little universe.
It was a practical certainty a little helped by fatigue and the cat's purring that evolved gradually into will.
When the phone ringing woke them two hours later, Castiel had a new project in mind.
"There is what is
And what should never be
What made my past now only is
The long road leading me where I'm supposed to be"
##
Dorothy and Madison had spent much time together due to the circumstances, and seen a lot of bad movies out of boredom. But they agreed to decree that Green Lantern was the worst. And by far.
The hotel's lounge where roadies had gathered for their day off after Christmas was suddenly populated by people criticizing the film and some who were trying to defend it, passing around cinnamon donuts boxes.
"After this tour I can never eat any one of those things again!" Madison commented, biting in her fourth donut of the afternoon.
"After this tour, you and I do a salad binge." Dorothy replied, handing her a cup of coffee.
Madison nodded while someone switched the screen on the TV function. Neither of them paid attention to the program, too busy to plot the next day's route and to examine the plan of the room where they would have to settle for the evening.
"Hey, isn't that your boyfriend?"
Madison only looked up when she was called out with a pat on the shoulder. The roadie repeated his question, pointing the TV. Someone had the questionable delicacy to turn up the volume.
"Sam Winchester, drummer of the group Free Will is ending these days a sentence of community work in an animal shelter. He refused to answer our questions about the rumors of his girlfriend's disappearance after the fight that led him in court two months ago."
"Wow." Dorothy uttered. "Give them another month and they'll accuse him of having strangled you with his bare hands."
"He looks capable of it." Someone commented in the lounge. A long silence followed while Dorothy was sweeping the room with her eyes. Madison said nothing, staring at the screen, ignoring the still full cup of coffee that was beginning to burn her hands.
On the screen Sam was displaying a tense smile, evading questions from journalists before disappearing as discreetly as possible given his stature. Dorothy put a comforting hand on the shoulder of Madison who finally took her first sip of coffee.
"I get why you left him, no celebrity is worth being roughed up by this."
Madison threw a look both puzzled and murderous to the woman who had talked and she felt herself physically bare her teeth.
"I'd like to know where you saw that he roughed me up?"
"It's in all the newspapers hon! Since his sentencing everybody knows what happened, that he beat the crap out of your ex and that you left because of this, that after he was sentenced to one hundred hours of work of community service and now he's free to start all over again."
Madison addressed a curious glance to Dorothy who shrugged.
"I may have hidden all the tabloids this last two months... and put a filter on your tablet so those informations don't arrive in your inbox."
"And you never told them the truth?"
Dorothy shook her head. "I never tell the lives of the others, if you want to tell them it's your problem, not mine."
Madison sighed once again, conscious of being the center of attention. She could remain discreet, keeping the secret as much as possible about her life, about her relationship with Kurt, the one with Sam. But it meant avoiding reality once more. It meant being a coward and she didn't like it.
"My ex used to beat me." She said without taking her eyes off the screen. Another report had started, but she was already struggling to tell her story, she didn't have the courage to do it while looking directly at her audience. The sip of coffee she took only did her little good. It wasn't the first time she talked about it, and it was always unpleasant, as if somewhere she admitted a weakness that she shouldn't have felt guilty for. "That's why I left him, and Sam knew, he knew from the start and he never laid a hand on me."
"He could have." Someone replied.
"Yeah. He could have." By saying it she realized something that made her smile. "That'd be his style, hitting before talking. But he never did. He hit Kurt because he was starting to harass me again. I think he was afraid for me."
She turned on the couch to face her audience, which made Dorothy smile.
"I left him because I didn't want to expose myself to any form of violence. But Sam Winchester is the best man I know, and unless you have something else than gossips to support your remarks, I forbid you to speak evil of him before me!"
"The best man in the world didn't try to hold you back yet, it could be that he didn't like you that much."
Dorothy could have hit the person who had just spoken but Madison's smile stopped her. That wasn't the half-predatory grin she usually displayed, it was quieter and softer, as if Madison was realizing something as she was speaking. She had an expression on her face that Dorothy envied her because it was the expression of a revelation she would have liked to experiment herself.
"Precisely. He let me go. He didn't try to dissuade me from doing it, didn't try to contact me or to look for me. If you think it's romantic to chase after a girl who told you no, you're slipping up. It's terrifying. He didn't look for me, he didn't try to lay what he did on Kurt. He behaved like a decent human being." Madison leaned back into the couch, finishing her coffee, eyes again on the screen. "And it must have cost him a lot." She finished softly as if she was speaking more to the television than to anyone else.
There was a moment of silence and then everybody changed the subject as by common agreement. Dorothy had sat down on the arm of the couch and was wondering if what Madison had said could apply to Charlie?
No. Charlie and Sam were two different people, and knowing that the bassist hadn't looked to reach her implied something quite different. Charlie had tried to hold her back as much as she could, but presented with a fait accompli, she wasn't the type to fight for lost causes.
Dorothy had been avoiding for two months to think about how she had left, getting silently out of Charlie's bed, throwing her things into a bag, before writing a few words of break up on a small paper she had left on the corner of the table. It was cowardly and inelegant, rather disgraceful of her to be honest. But Charlie would have managed to hold her back. Despite all the good reasons that Dorothy had to leave, she would have managed to hold her back and make her change her mind.
But getting up after her… Dorothy could imagine her reaction. First to call her, to look for her and shrug, thinking she would eventually return. Then she had probably found the note on the table, had sat down to read it several times, may be crumple it, throw it away, scream, check her phone, try to contact her before giving up. All this, Dorothy could almost see and hear it in her head. She could even imagine the desolation of Charlie, the feeling of betrayal, the pain, and loneliness. The abandonment.
"What are you thinking about?" Madison asked as if Dorothy was lost in thought for a while.
"I think I understand Sam. By attacking Kurt he became what you feared most, and I did the same with Charlie. I left her alone. What she hates most, I'm subjecting her to it."
"You can change that you know. You can quit work, go back there and tell her everything."
Dorothy had a bitter grin. "Don't you think they have enough problems like that? Dean and Sam will take care of her, once things have subsided, I'll tell her."
"That's just a cop." Madison said through her teeth.
"You think I'm wrong?"
The other nodded. "Lying is always wrong."
"I'm protecting her, that's different."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"We are the thing that should never be,
We don't deserve it, it was too easy,
But there seems to be
Strings between us I cannot see,
Constantly pulling you toward me,
For we are what is,
Even if we should never be"
##
"You asked me to protect him. This should solve the problem." Castiel said, handing a recording to Crowley. "Organize a concert, one or two months before the release of the album, we diffuse it there, the group will benefit from the publicity it will generate, and that should keep them safe."
Crowley regarded the CD thoughtfully. "This is a risky bet. It could ruin the group before even the release of the album."
Castiel smiled and clasped his hands on his lap. "When's the last time a juicy story ruined a group career?"
Crowley sighed and nodded before placing the object in a desk drawer. "Obviously you love risk." He commented. Castiel nodded.
"I am well placed to know that avoiding trouble doesn't stop it of happening."
He was still thinking about the phrase that evening when leaving work. In the office were still lying some remains from the leaving do of the intern whom he wouldn't regret. He hadn't touched it and was starving. The recording of the album was coming to an end, leaving more time to the group to start the promoting phase and have a life of their own. Kevin occupied his time in round trips to Michigan and trying to convince Channing to come and play the strings with him during some special events of the tour, without success. Sam and Charlie spent much of their evenings to put the world to rights around sushi platters of a quality that Castiel found questionable.
That evening, instead of going home, he walked to the garage where Dean had repatriated his father's Impala. He was keen to repair it himself. He had a kind of intuition for mechanics that allowed him to progress gradually, with the help and tools of the mechanics from the garage. Castiel was vaguely beginning to understand how a grease monkey could be sexy, but he suspected himself of being slightly partial on the subject.
"A surprise? And you plan it months in advance?" Dean grouched, hands resting on the hood, trying to locate a leak in… Actually Castiel didn't know in what and he didn't care. "We're not goin' on tour before the end of next year."
"It could be earlier, I talked to Crowley, he thinks like me that giving a brief overview of the live album before it's released in would boost sales."
Dean looked up from the piece of mechanic to stare at Castiel who was carefully avoiding his gaze. "You put Crowley in the swim?"
The young man nodded. "I didn't have much other choice if I wanted to do that before next year."
"What, you gonna propose me?" Dean joked, starting to wipe his hands with a rag. Castiel raised his eyes to heaven.
"Don't be stupid!"
"Then what's the rush?"
"It's just that..." Castiel hesitated an instant before talking. "You know I don't like to waste time. Everything already goes enough slowly or too fast like that... So would you accept that I put a bit extra in your next concert?"
Dean stared at him a moment before nodding. "Is there something you're not telling me? Does what you wanna do involves a recur of... you know?"
"The disease? No. I'm fine. Really fine, I would tell you if that wasn't the case. Just... Trust me okay?"
Dean nodded and leaned against the wrecked car framework. The garage wasn't heated and as soon as he stopped moving, he began to feel cold unlike Castiel, wrapped in his trench coat.
"Ya know," Dean said softly. "Deep down I like it."
"My disease?"
The singer nodded. "It never let me the opportunity to know you by heart, because it makes you change all the time. You put on and drop weight quickly, your skin never has the same texture or color, I even come to love the bruises you get each time you bang into a corner table."
Castiel frowned, clearly annoyed. "You're aware that you're romanticizing my illness and it's definitely not something romantic?"
Dean nodded again. "At first I hated it even more than you do. Because it scared me as hell. What would happen if one day I couldn't find you in the crowd? If you died alone in a hospital bed far from home? Then we got together and I remember..." He paused.
"You remember what?"
"The scar. I really thought for a moment that you had broken your collarbone when you were a kid or something like that. Then I realized this was where was the implantable chamber for chemo. And I hated this disease. I hated all the suffering it inflicted you when you were just a kid because some God had decided you'd be sick. And more than anything, I hated that it made you think that I was the best thing that had ever happened to you."
"But you are the best thing that's ever happened to me! You gave me a purpose in life when I had nothing else."
This time, Dean shook his head.
"That's where you're wrong. You held out until you were fifteen without me. After, maybe my music saved you, maybe it gave you the strength to continue, and yes, I gave my marrow and it saved you. But none of this was a conscious decision on my part. Life has did most of it and you did the rest. If you hadn't wanted to thank me, we would have never met, and I wouldn't matter for anyone but Sam. Everything started with you."
Dean took a deep breath, he would have needed a glass right now, but he had something to say before.
"That's why I began to romanticize your illness, because it brought you to me. It made you the man you are much more than me. It doesn't define you, it formed you until you become the most important person in my life. The only person who can make me believe that I am worthy of something, the only person who can make me understand that love is more than sex or sharing things with someone. I like your sickness because it makes you strong enough to carry me when I cannot bear the weight of the world, and I also like it because it makes you weak enough to let me carry you when you can't take it anymore."
Castiel's face was still hard.
"Wow." He said. "That's really just loads of bullshit."
"Excuse me?"
"Do you hear yourself talking? Cause all that I hear is "blah blah not worthy enough blah blah". Maybe the disease made me stronger, and maybe I made the first move between us. But do not even try to tell me that you think you don't matter to anyone else. It's bullshit. And don't act like you never did anything consciously because I know it's a lie. I remember our first kiss and I could already hear you thinking "that kid isn't even over majority in this state, why am I doing this?" and yet you still did it!"
Dean had a slight grin. "You already knew me well back in time."
"Of course! I already knew the person who skipped school to donate an organ to a stranger, I already knew the man who got his little brother out of trouble after the death of Jess, I already knew the man whose words and music had touched me to the point of giving me the strength to live when everything had become unbearable. You know what form people? Not just their parents or the experiences they have. We form based on the heros we choose. And if you think I am someone good now, it's only because I formed myself watching you, trying to match up to you. What you love about me is what you should love in yourself. Not the disease, it has nothing to do with it."
"I feel like we already had this discussion." Dean smiled.
"That's because you are a dumbass who can't hear when I'm right!" Castiel grumbled.
It wasn't an argument, not really even an overhaul, even if the subject had come out of nowhere. They didn't kiss to reconcile. Dean nodded, closed the hood of the car while Castiel was carefully putting away the tools on the workbench. It was night and one of them was covered with grease. They said nothing during the half hour walk that separated them from the apartment of Castiel where Chevy was waiting for them, meowing behind the door.
"The surprise you're planning. Should I worry?"
Castiel mentally studied the question while pushing the kitten with his foot so she wouldn't run away in the corridor. Whatever he says, it would be half a lie, but he couldn't afford to tell everything to Dean and take the risk that he does something stupid.
"On the form, probably. But you'll like the content."
It was the most honest he could afford to be and Dean didn't ask more.
"It's unfair, to be this happy,
Without even trying,
When others live miserably,
No matter how they're struggling.
We are something that should never be,
And I'm grateful, so see
How kind life can be"