How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

- "Wish You Were Here," Pink Floyd

"Just. . . whatever you're about to say, Ellen. . . don't. Please." Slamming the trunk of the Impala, Dean tosses his bag into the back of Ellen's old Explorer and drops the tarp down around his car again to hide the vandalism, brushing past Ellen to the passenger's seat of the SUV and climbing in and wishing he could hide the bruises as easily.

She lingers outside the Explorer, out of his view, but Dean doesn't turn even when she slides into the driver's seat. There's a long moment of silence from the other side of the car before the key turns in the ignition, and she reaches out a hand to Dean, rumpling a hand over his hair comfortingly before shifting gears.

Resting his head against the window, Dean closes his eyes and tries to ignore the sympathy rolling off of her. He's more comfortable with a chastising slap to the back of the head, or a teasing comeback, or a beer slid to him in commiseration than he ever will be accepting her pity, and he can't imagine it being anything else. "I'll have the car running smoother when I give it back to you than when you leant it to me."

"I know you will, honey."

He leaves his Impala behind, with the intention of returning to get it once the day's errands are done and he can take her back to the garage and fix her up. Once it won't be his brother in the passenger seat, having to live with what tore his already crappy childhood apart even further. Sammy has enough to deal with, without living through Dean's shit again.

Dean can't decide if he's going to regret having to go back to Castiel's apartment complex to retrieve her. He doesn't know if he's going to man up and knock on the door, or slink in and drive her away without bothering Cas again.

He can't think that far ahead yet. He needs to be there for Sam, first. They're all the other has left any more.

xXx

He leaves Ellen at the Roadhouse by her request, comforted by the fact that if she needs to she can crash in the upstairs bedroom for a couple of hours, or get Ash or Jo to bring the truck around for her. For an hour, he has nothing to distract him from his thoughts but driving, the stretch of I-70 that takes him alongside the winding Kansas River for a ways, up 435 north and over the Missouri River into Kansas City.

It's always comforted him in the past, tires rumbling along on blacktop roads, hills and plains and rivers rolling past, but it feels wrong this time. He's too high up off of the road, the turning radius is off, and when he turns on Ellen's radio every song on the radio is wrong. He can't handle the power ballads on the oldies station this morning, the mix station is apparently being DJed by the most spitefully cheerful bastard in the world, and he would rather shoot himself than listen to the crap on the pop station. Ellen has Fleetwood Mac in the CD player, and dear God does Dean not want their big damned breakup album right now even if it's the right era for his usual music.

By the time he gets to the airport he just wants to see his brother. He's rocking on his heels, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans, watching the new arrivals spill out into the lobby when he spots his brother towering above the rest of the queue. It's strange, but even when Sam decided to outgrow him by half a foot, he never felt small when the Samsquatch engulfed in him one of his long-armed hugs: he's a pillar of support, giving as good as he gets, propping him up and letting Sam lean on him.

"Hey, Dean." Sam's voice is thick with bottled up pain and relief at having his brother back, and Dean can read him, understands perfectly.

He can do this. He can be the big brother, and keep his shit together for Sam, because while they may not have always gotten along, John was Sam's father too. It's Sam's loss as much as it is his. And for all of a minute, arms locked around his brother until the thump on the back they give each other, signaling the end of the welcome, he's ready to swing at whatever the hell the day throws at him.

Until Sam turns, and extends his arm and draws a beautiful blonde forward, coiling one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist, a broad palm resting over her hand on her belly, tucking her up against his chest like a barrier between he and his brother, chin resting on her head as she extends her other hand with wide, sympathetic eyes. "I've heard so much about you, Dean. I'm so sorry for your loss, and I wish. . . we weren't meeting this way."

Beautiful, blonde, kind, supportive, pregnant girlfriend Jessica.

Dean fixes on his most winning smile, the one that gets him out of the shit he perpetually digs himself into, and wraps both his hands around her small palm, and the ring that presses into the swell of his thumb. "You're Jess? He didn't tell me you were gorgeous. Explains why he was keeping you to himself."

He also didn't tell Dean that she was coming with him. Or that she was pregnant, though by the look of it not for too long, just enough that her slim frame makes it apparent in the clinging t-shirt the stifling summer weather necessitates. Sam has the good grace to look a little sheepish, a little guilty, but Dean extends that smile to his brother and he means his next words. "Congrats. Both of you. I'm happy for you."

Sam's getting the life Dean always wanted for him, that he scraped cash together for college to try and ensure. The Stanford education, the job at the law firm, the girlfriend he's heard about every phone call and over Christmas is becoming a permanent fixture in his life, and this is the apple pie life in living color.

Sam has Jess to buoy him along in this mess too.

Dean's not jealous, and he's not bitter. But he realizes with crushing certainty that he needs Sam a hell of a lot more than Sam needs him anymore. It leaves him a little nauseated, a lot off-balance, and disoriented. He was holding it together for Sam, has been since he was four.

"What happened to your face?" Sam's hazel eyes have narrowed on the bruise painting the line of Dean's jaw. He can see when Sam starts looking for other signs of injury and he straightens slightly, shrugging his sore shoulder in negligent casualness.

"Blowing off some steam at the Roadhouse. You know how it is."

Jess takes him at face value. Sam doesn't but he lets it drop for now, and Dean resolves to just shove it all to the side.

xXx

"Where's the Impala?" Sam's shrewd gaze swings to his brother as Dean unlocks Ellen's Explorer, and he cordially holds the passenger door open for his fiancée, and that's wrong too. Since he was sixteen and got his learner's permit, pretty much the only person to ever ride shotgun with him was Sam.

"Gotta do some repairs before she's road-ready for the drive back to South Dakota. Ellen's giving us a loaner, figured it was easier . . ." Dean meets Sam's gaze across the hood of the Explorer, unflinching in the face of his little brother's blatant disbelief that he'd let the Impala become undriveable and completely secure in the fact that every word he just said was true after a fashion. "Just as well, though. This thing is probably safer for Jess. . ." Swinging himself into the driver's seat, Dean flashes Jess his grin again. ". . . And my nephew. Or is it niece? Okay, when do we know and when do I get to start buying annoying gifts for the rug-rat? Because I think finger paints and a drum set are in order. . ."

Dean can feel Sam's suspicious stare on him, and he casually adjusts the rearview to keep himself from having to see it as he engages Jess in conversation. Eventually talk of the kid and the impending nuptials and the obligatory stories of Sam as he was growing up, all his best embarrassing material carefully edited to keep the topic away from the gaping chasm that is John's presence in their upbringing, sucks his brother in as well.

Good.

xXx

When the funeral director asks if they have a minister or priest they would prefer to officiate the small funeral, Dean remains completely silent.

It's a quarter of the cost of a casket and funeral to cremate John, the funeral director tells them with a carefully practiced look of sympathy, explaining in simple terms what the process entails, and the benefits of feeding John's body into the fire. They'll place his urn next to Mary Winchester's, and add her husband's name to her memorial. Dean's fine. He's fine, and answers questions posed to him, keeping his head in the game.

And then he calmly excuses himself from the conversation, walks to the restroom with its stupid plastic flowers and potpourri in an urn on the counter, and throws up every bit of the French toast and coffee he had at Cas's

John outlived Mary, but he's going to burn anyway.

Sam cuts a check while Dean's out of the room, not giving his brother the opportunity to assume responsibility for this, too, and he watches the pallid older Winchester resume his place by Jess's side, considerate and charming as he insists they need to get her lunch and take a break before the next stop at the hospital.

xXx

When they go to the hospital to sign off on the paperwork to release John to the crematorium and gather their copy of the official death certificate, he almost expects to see Castiel. It's his signature scrawled across the bottom, and the paperwork all bears the same careful block lettering as the phone number Dean left behind. They're on the wrong floor and he shouldn't want to see him anyway, and definitely not with his brother and Jess in tow.

He's a fucking coward, and he knows it.

There are a couple of hours left until Cas's shift would end. "You guys want me to drop you off at the hotel to get settled in?"

Sam is definitely suspicious, but Dean would expect no less. His baby brother is the brains of the family, and Dean didn't raise him to be an idiot either. That doesn't mean he's going to let himself be cornered.

xXx

Sam corners him outside the motel anyway.

As they haul Jessica and Sam's bags out of the back of the Explorer, Dean is stopped by a hand on his shoulder, keeping him from following the blonde into the lobby. They've planned it; she doesn't hesitate to keep going, and he can just imagine the silent conversation that she and Sam had when he got out of the car, because they worked that kind of communication out decades ago. He feels cornered by it immediately.

"Dean, what's going on with you?" Dean has his mouth open, a biting sarcastic retort planned, and Sam cuts through the air with a dismissive hand, and the big puppy dog eyes are just painful for Dean to try and face down, as he pleads for Dean to confide in him. "Look, I get it okay? Dad's gone, and there's nothing we can do to bring him back, and I'm sorry I wasn't here, I am, but. . ."

"You think this is about you? You think I'm. . . what, pissed at you or something?" Dropping the bag back onto the floorboard, Dean scrapes his nails through his hair, rolling his head back to stare up at the blue Kansas sky. "Look, it's not about you, okay? He's gone. I'm coping. . ."

"Yeah, and how's that?" For the first time, there's a bite to Sam's voice that is more than just concern. There's fear, and a bit of anger, and Dean lowers his chin to look his brother in the eye, raising a brow and challenging him to spit out whatever it is on his mind. "Where's the car, Dean? Why are you covered in bruises. . ."

Dean scowls, and thrusts the bag into Sam's hands, turning to close the hatch of the Explorer. "Leave it alone, Sam."

"Dean. . ." Sam moves fast for a guy who looks like his legs should need a whole five extra minutes to get instructions from his brain, and the too-long floppy hair has half fallen into his eyes, eyes that are wide and worried as he blocks his way. "Just. . . look. I know how you cope. I've known how you cope since you were thirteen. The car is gone and you're covered in bruises, Dean, and I just. . ."

And their father just died drunk driving.

Dean deflates, his anger draining away, and he slumps against the side of the Explorer and shakes his head. "It's not like that, Sam. I didn't wreck her, I . . . look, I just ran into some problems with the locals, and I didn't want to make an issue out of it around Jessica."

Anyone who buys Sam as a harmless oversized puppy he appears to be at times has never seen him go from pleading little brother to protective Alpha in less than three seconds. "Who was it?"

"We took care of it, Sam." He has questions about who 'we' entails, but Dean's not ready to go there yet. Reaching out, he punches Sam in the shoulder—probably a bit more roughly than is strictly 'friendly,' but affectionately nonetheless. "Your girl's inside, man, and we've been dragging her around all morning. Your pregnant fiancée." There's a pointed commentary there. He's not letting Sam off the hook entirely about that.

The sheepish look leaves Sam staring down at his boat-sized sneakers. "I'm sorry, Dean. I wanted to tell you in person, and it just. . ."

Rolling his eyes, Dean shakes his head. "Next time, just pick up the goddamn phone. We don't see each other often enough, I'd have made a trip for this Sammy. Look, I got a couple things to take care of, and one of us needs to get to Dad's, make it look a bit less psychotic to the random outsider, and I don't think we want Jess in that."

Sam frowns, looking away at the motel, and Dean knows he won that point. "Go take care of Jess. I'll come crash your fancy continental breakfast tomorrow. Make sure they save me some of the waffle batter." Dean's halfway back in the car, before bracing his arms on the door, calling out to his brother as he ambles across the parking lot with his bags. "Hey! I'm best man, though, right?"

He pulls a reluctant laugh out of Sam, and that's three quarters of his job when things are shit, so he counts it as a win.

xXx

Cas doesn't come out of the hospital doors when Dean figured he would. The bus pulls away without him on it, and Dean drums his fingers on the steering wheel, frowning. He needs to fix this, give the guy some explanation, because he earned that. Because Dean's issues shouldn't be everyone else's. Because he shouldn't come home to that paper and end up feeling even more rejected than Dean knows he must have made him when he went from practically humping the guy's leg, to locking himself in the bathroom.

Dean doesn't have Castiel's number, but a quick search gets him the information desk of the hospital. Three rings, and he asks for Doctor Novak. The hold is interminably long, and he braces himself for Cas's voice on the line, trying to figure out how to start.

"I'm sorry, sir, but Doctor Novak is on administrative leave. I can connect you to someone else in long-term care if you. . ."

Shit.

Shit.

He clicks the disconnect button, shifts into drive, and floors it.

xXx

Cas isn't at his apartment. Pounding on the door doesn't produce any response except to piss off his neighbor, who yells to shut the fuck up from where he's planted in front of his own television next door. Dean curses under his breath and rests his forehead against the forest green door, before pushing off of it and moving to the side, shielding his eyes with one hand and flattening his nose against the glass, peering through the miniblinds as best he's able.

Castiel's crumpled trench coat and suit jacket are tossed across the arm of the couch.

Dean can't see the white square of paper he left there in the morning on the table any longer.

Goddamnit.

Dean's leaving victims in his own wake now, like his father did, careless and reckless and too absorbed in his own fucked up mess to see what he does to the people around him. He knows 'administrative leave' is code for anything from suspension to being outright fired, and the timing is too coincidental for him to think it's anything but related to what happened yesterday. Cas had spent all night up worrying about it, and still tried to comfort Dean when he expressed any concern.

Whatever happens today isn't your fault his ass. One day and he's managed to fuck up this guy's life.

Pulling his phone out, he tries the one last thing he really knows about Cas at all. The only other place he can think of that Cas would be.

"Roadhouse, this is Jo, what do you want?"

"Aren't you cheery." Turning to plant his back to Cas's door, eyes closed, Dean doesn't let Jo fall into the usual banter. "Look, this is a long shot, but the guy who bought me drinks the other day, he there tonight? 'Bout my height, dark hair. . ."

"Oh, blue eyed hot professor looking guy. No, haven't seen him. Why, did you two hook up? Or are you trying to cadge more drinks out of him first. Honest, you're family, I'll take your money for booze like anyone else's Dean. . ."

Thumping his head slowly against the door, Dean sighs. "Jo, just. . . do me a favor and text me if he shows up, okay?"

He disconnects at her curious affirmative, and leans over the railing to look down at the apartment complex. His car remains covered where he left it. The pool is empty of people. Cas is a regular pedestrian, if the open parking space and the bus rides are any indicator, so he can't be too far.

(He could have gotten on a bus and gone anywhere, but Dean needs to set some parameters first or he'll cast his net too wide to start with. His father obsessively searched for a psychopath for twenty years, Dean knows some of how this works.)

Where the hell would someone like Cas go after a day like today, if not the bar he goes to?

It seems obvious, once he thinks about it. Fixing his eyes on the spire in the distance, Dean lets his breath out in a sigh.

xXx

Saint John's is the largest Catholic Church in Lawrence; a red-brick behemoth that takes up two blocks of the town, backing onto the city park. The Lutheran church is barely visible on the other side of the park, through the trees, and the County Courthouse and Sheriff's Office serve as the other boundaries of the park. The lot at the church is empty so parking is easy, and he takes the steps two at a time, certain that he's right.

It's a Saturday evening in June, so the city park still has people in it even as the sun begins to sink, but the church seems empty at first glance. White arches to catch the light from the dozens of stained glass windows, and though the single chandelier is turned off there's light enough to see from the inset bulbs by every alcove holding statues, in candles that flicker and gutter as the door booms closed behind him, and pooled in colors and shapes across the pews, stretching images painted on wood and fabric in light and glass. It's peaceful and quiet and soothing and he doesn't even subscribe to their religion, but he could see the appeal of coming here after the shit day Cas has had. Dean has a moment of panic that he's going to have to start over, figure something else out, his footsteps too loud in the empty church as he stands in the middle of it and turns in a circle.

He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when he sees a familiar mess of brown hair bowed in the last pew of the second story balcony. He mounts the steps slowly, his feet heavy, and then makes his way down the aisle.

Cas doesn't look up as he approaches.

"Hello, Dean."

Whatever Dean expected to find, it wasn't this. Shirtsleeves rolled up, elbows resting on his knees, shirt half unbuttoned to the undershirt below and tie missing, Castiel sits in the last pew of the church, hands clasped together not in prayer, but around the bottle of Johnnie Walker hidden behind the rise of the pew before him. Eyes fixed on the crucifix on the opposite side of the church, he raises the bottle again and pauses with it there, the glass lip of the bottle resting against his own lip. "It's not as sacrilegious as it seems, whatever you're thinking of me right now. I don't do it often, but the first time I ever got drunk, it was at a church. It's likely true of many of us." Tipping the bottle, Castiel takes a deep pull from the whiskey, and Dean watches his Adam's apple bob before he breaks away with a rough gasp at the burn, red-rimmed eyes watering, and Dean's not entirely certain he's not in tears.

"Cas. . ." He doesn't know what to say, and after a moment's silence, waiting for him speak, Castiel snorts bitterly and continues as if he had never been interrupted, as if he hadn't desperately wanted Dean to go on, to say anything at all after addressing him.

"The Evangelical churches and many of the Protestants do enjoy their grape juice, but the Catholics. . . we know our wines. There was a case donated to the Seminary while I was there. . . most of our alcohol was given to us, people can be very generous in the least useful ways. . ." Cas's voice is clear, his words crisp and unslurred, but as he interrupts himself Dean can tell he's drunker than he appears. "Preservatives. Unsuitable for Communion. We had to dispose of it all of course. Waste not, want not." Holding his bottle up to the light, Castiel squints through the two inches left of the bottle. "I think more people would attend Mass if they had whiskey instead."

"Might've had a chance of actually getting me in the doors, if they did." Dean finally sighs, and settles beside Cas on the pew. There's a stretch of two feet between then, and Dean feels that distance keenly. He did this, he should be able to help somehow. Maybe Sam doesn't need him, but Cas clearly does right now.

"Mm. The Church is conflicted about your existence, and the Church doesn't like conflict. They'd rather alienate than revise their concepts." Cas corrects him, with a distasteful twist to his lips, and he raises the bottle in mock toast to the altar. "Me, though, they're completely decided on . . . did you know I'm still a priest? I quit, left, defrocked myself, but none of us ever get to really 'quit.' It's the one job that can't get rid of me, not completely. I could murder someone on the altar, and I would still be a priest. I 'gave my soul unto God' and there's no expiration date on that. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, I will be a priest until I die, and then a priest in Heaven or Hell, because it creates an. . . an 'indelible mark on the soul.' Communion is the same way. Accept it once, and you're a Catholic forever. Even Hitler was still a Catholic, just excommunicated and nonpracticing obviously. I think they'd likely censure me again, though." Rolling the edge of the bottle against his lip again, staring consideringly off into space, he has dragged himself into a tangent again. "For the murder on the altar. Not that I'm considering it. I can't. . ." Something twists in Castiel's face, a deep fissure of pain and guilt in his careful mask, and Dean waits until Cas takes a breath again before reaching out across the space between them, and somehow it feels natural to lay is arm across the back of the pew, his hand barely resting on Cas's shoulder, prepared for him to shrug it off.

Instead, Cas sinks into the thin cushion behind him, turning his head slightly so that his breath skates along Dean's arm, raising the fine hairs there in the wake of his shuddering exhale, his eyes closed and his voice thick with a laugh that holds little humor in it. "But I would have to have a Papal decree to officially be free of my vows of celibacy. I can kill a man and confess my sins and be right by God, I could but to sleep with someone else I have to have a seventy-five year old man in Rome pray and ask for me, and then write me a letter. Like a permission slip." Leaning towards Dean's shoulder, Castiel lowers his voice conspiratorially, bitter humor in his tone. "Which is ironic. As I am a 'lay' priest now, and it's a perfect opportunity for a joke and I'm wasting it."

With a sigh, Dean reaches for the bottle, waiting until Cas meets his eyes and places the whiskey in his hands with a faint smirk, as if daring Dean to join him drinking. He never really needed much of a dare for that, and it's not going to leave him clutching his pearls to risk pissing off a religion when he's still pretty ambivalent about the concept of God, but he's got a car outside and Sam's fears were pretty on-point. "You're a chatty drunk, and I only got about half of that. Never been the churchgoing type. So, is this depressed drinking or guilt drinking?" Castiel raises one eyebrow questioningly and turns on the pew to face Dean, legs folded beneath him. He lays his head on the battered wood top of the seat, leaving Dean's hand resting lightly against the top of Cas's head. "About the permission slip thing or something."

Cas's laugh is low, rolling, richly amused and 90% alcohol driven pure sex and Dean weaves his fingers into the soft hair beneath his hand. Three quarters of the job is winning the laugh, and Dean would love to hear Cas laugh again when there wasn't heartbreak behind it. "Oh. No. If the Vatican is ever that interested in my sex life they can send some Bishop as an envoy."

"Yeah, and how would that conversation go?" Dean snorts, and takes a practiced pull from Cas's whiskey; just a sip. He can feel Castiel's drunken interest in how he shifts in the pew at the motion, the weight of his stare, the catch in his breath. When he drops the bottle back into his lap, Cas's hand wraps around his on the glass bottle, fingers dragging along his until it's in his grasp alone, and he brings the bottle to his lips like he can taste Dean there as Dean continues his train of thought. "'Forgive me, padre, for I sinned big. I bought a guy a couple drinks at a bar, kicked ass for him the next day, lost my job because of him, took him home with me, and then. . .'"

"'And then. . .'" Castiel questions blankly before both eyebrows shoot up, red rimmed blue eyes wide. "If you're offering to have sex with me, Dean, I would prefer I was sober enough to remember it. I'd hate to wake up in the morning and . . ."

Wake up in the morning with Dean having bolted without his number again. Wake up in the morning feeling like he'd taken advantage of Dean, or Dean of him. Wake up in the morning and not even remember losing his virginity. Closing his eyes, Dean huffs a quiet laugh and straightens his legs out, pushing himself to his feet and offering a hand down to Cas. "Yeah, okay. Let's just get you home first and . . . and figure out where we're going from there. I want to hear what happened, when you're ready to talk about it."

Cas doesn't look particularly thrilled at that idea. Looking down at his lap, he notices the last dregs of the whiskey and finishes it, and then lets the empty bottle hang by his side in a loose grip as he takes Dean's hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. Swaying forward to lean heavily into Dean, he rests his forehead on Dean's shoulder for a moment, almost but not quite an embrace.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. . . this morning, I was too. . ."

Guilt drinking after all, the dumb self-blaming son of a bitch. Wrapping an arm around Cas's shoulders, Dean pulls him closer, bracing him upright, and shakes his head. "Shut up, Cas. 'Cause I don't think they'd have to ask questions sending an envoy if you make me kiss you again here. We'd probably break something sacred. Be interrupted by nuns. I dunno."

"There aren't any nuns here." Cas corrects into the bend of Dean's neck, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Yeah yeah. That's enough church lessons for the night. Try not to throw up in the car, the woman it belongs to owns a gun and likes to put fear into the hearts of drunks everywhere. And don't pass out, I don't want to carry you down these stairs or up the ones to your apartment."

xXx

For the second night in a row, Dean ends up in Castiel's bed. This time, however, with a former priest turned soldiers' chaplain turned doctor wrapped around him, head resting on his chest.