You don't know me but I'm your brother
I was raised here in this living hell
You don't know my kind in your world
Fairly soon the time will tell
You telling me the things you're gonna do for me
I ain't blind and I don't like what I think I see

- "Takin' it to the Streets," The Doobie Brothers

"You gotta stop letting it rattle you." Dean's voice is somewhere between a reassuring rumble and a terse command, kept low enough to be concealed by the chatter of the refilling courtroom. "I've heard it all before, and getting pissed isn't going to help. Just shake it off, hold it together, and don't. . ."

"Don't screw up. I know." Blowing out a breath that moves his hair away from his face, Sam's displeasure shows in his features. Dean's brotherly advice has been a mainstay in his life, but in these circumstances it strikes him as wrong. He'd been less conflicted about it even as a mutinous teenager, because at least then he'd been contrary just to be contrary. Now he wants to argue with Dean because he knows what this really is.

Dean may call Sam out on his bitchfaces, but there are times Sam really wants to call his brother out on the smirking, the carefully maintained façade that he cultivates, trying to prove to the world that this kind of thing doesn't bother him. He wants to point out that his brother can hide it however he wants, but Dean's put himself aside for others Sam's entire life, and that he deserves better than this. Mentioning it at the best of times just gets him snarked at for 'chick flick' moments, and on the worst days wins a him a quietly bitter quip about which one of them really should have been born the 'bitch.' Sam doesn't want to go down that road today. He can tell Dean's bottling things, shoving everything messing with his head someplace dark and distant so that he can focus on being there for Cas, and for Sam.

"Nah. I know you're not going to screw up." Clasping a hand to his brother's shoulder, Dean glances at the front where the bailiff is coming back and the jury is filing in, and then makes himself meet Sam's eyes. For just a moment Dean is so much older than he seems, more a father to Sam than John ever had been. "Just remember who you're actually here to defend, Sam."

There's no use trying to defend Dean from this crap any more. It's already happened. It can't be undone. The only thing that can be gained in this courtroom is Castiel's freedom; and with it, maybe some happiness for his brother in the future.

Slapping Sam on the shoulder as he releases him, Dean turns to briefly interrupt the conversation between Cas and Gabriel. Snagging his lover by the tie, Dean reels him in to press a kiss to his forehead, the creased and furrowed brow beneath his lips unknitting with the touch as Dean deliberately tests his own 'chick flick' boundaries, more tender than he'd usually let himself be in public. He doesn't linger to reassure Cas again verbally; everything he has to say to Cas, he's already said, or would rather not do here with an audience. Meeting Cas's upturned eyes, Dean waits a beat with his thumb resting on the cleft Cas's his chin and his fingers curled along Cas's cheek, until the Alpha nods his silent understanding and cups his hand over Dean's briefly, grazing his lips over the inside of Dean's wrist, his breath warm against the sensitive skin.

Achievement unlocked: chick flick moment in front of his family and the world at large.

"Yeah, yeah." Dean points an admonishing finger at Jo and Ellen without turning to face them fully, before Jo's sudden irrepressible smile can become words. "Shut it, brat. You can wait to talk about my relationship behind my back, like everyone else here." Turning to Charlie, Dean jerks his chin towards the empty chair beside Sam, thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks. "You stay here and make sure they don't get thrown into jail. I'm good."

Dean doesn't wait for a confirmation, or more chattering from the group of them, he just slips his babysitter and down the aisle as the Judge enters the room. The bailiff begins calling them to order, and the shuffle of everyone rising to their feet at once is loud enough to block out the sound of his footsteps in the opposite direction, and silence any objection that could be thrown at him. He steps aside, politely holding open the heavy wooden door for a hawk-nosed woman with steel grey hair.

It's not until he sees the contempt painting her features that he looks at her closely and places her face, digging back in his memories of this town. Mrs. Hardey had never been one of his favorites in school, but in dozens of instances of her sending him looks of disappointment at missing homework because he was busy taking care of his little brother's dinner and upbringing, or her concern over him falling asleep in class out of sheer exhaustion, pity when he sat in the classroom alone during parent-teacher nights waiting when John never showed, she'd never looked at him in hate.

"Omega whore."

It's a momentary thing. A breath of a word, their eyes meeting as she parades past him haughtily, raising her hawkish nose into the air, the hiss of breath between her teeth lost to the rest of the room. He's heard it countless times before, but never from the mouth of the woman who'd loaned him books that he had quietly coveted, and left him a sandwich once when he was out of cash in his lunch account, and used the last of the bread for Sam's.

Then again, he hadn't accused her precious Alpha son of rape yet.

He hadn't presented as an Omega.

The door closes behind him with a hollow thud, and in the hall he finally lets the nonchalant air he'd adopted for his mate and his brother slip, shoulders tensed, chin high, defensive as he strides towards the main hall.

Back in the courtroom, everyone takes their seats but those at the defense table. Hazel eyes fixed on the jury, Sam considers them carefully, noting the faces of those who watched Dean's interaction with Cas, trying to get a read of their thoughts on the affectionate display. It takes him a moment to pay attention to the redhead at his side, before Charlie's alarmed look and continued presence at his elbow really catches his attention. It's true that she should be here, if she's going to be at the courthouse anyway, and if Sam and Cas are already struggling not to be thrown out of the courtroom.

But Dean ditched them in a building where he knows his assailants are gathered.

Cas's shoulders are tense, and despite himself he's twisted in his chair, looking out over the gallery of people and watching the door swing shut behind his mate as he disappears behind the last of the stragglers; his worry is a tangible thing, obvious to everyone around him. The last thing they need is the jury to think he isn't paying attention to the trial. Charlie has her lower lip caught between her teeth as she jerks her head towards the door, asking Sam if she should follow Dean as planned instead of stay.

With a put-upon sigh, Gabriel rolls his eyes as he comes to a command decision, stretching in his seat (Jo ducks his arm and glares at him as he rises to his feet) before addressing the group around him, his low voice still earning him a glare from Judge Turner. "Falling asleep in here. Going to get some air."

Castiel's expression at his older brother's transparent ploy is deeply thankful, and earns him a wink as Gabriel leans over the half-wall between them to speak.

"Repay me by keeping your ass in the seat by yourself." He cuffs his brother upside the head irreverently as he slips past Dean's gathered family on the bench, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans beneath his luggage-rumpled olive blazer, ambling down the aisle as Henriksen addresses Turner.

"The prosecution calls Roy Etheridge to the stand."

As the second of Dean's assailants takes the stand against him, Castiel forces himself to face the front again, to live up to that promise.

xXx

The sink smells like someone used it as an ashtray while nervously waiting for their trial, but the water from the tap is cold and blessedly clear. Dean shoves his tie into his pocket to keep from watermarking the silk, then ducks his head to splash his face, top of his head grazing the mirror.

It's been too long since he's had a moment on his own, now: too long of people staring at him, keeping tabs on him. He loves his brother, and he realizes now that he loves Cas too, and Charlie is endearing as hell and was helpful, and he knows his family's just trying to look out for him. . . but sometimes a man needs a moment to think without being stared at like a bug in a box.

Bracing his hands on either side of the sink, he raises his head and looks himself in the eyes, as if to force self-reflection he has to be able to face himself literally.

John Winchester died friendless, alone, and cut off from his sons because Alastair took a look at Dean in a bar and decided he had 'the best cocksucking lips he'd ever seen on a bitch.' Dean was the dumbass who didn't keep a close enough eye on his own drink, and it all ended with John drinking himself to death.

His fathered murdered Alastair for him.

And he still has no idea what he thinks of that.

"Fuck." The word is emphatic, echoing off the tile around him, and he isn't surprised by the immediate response.

"Offering that in public bathrooms, now, too? You really are such a slut." Raising his head, he meets Hardey's eyes in the mirror unflinchingly. When Dean ducked out of the courtroom, he did it braced for a fight. Hell, he almost relished a fight. He can see the slight smirk curling his lips, the way he shifts posture, ready to throw down if needs be.

Maybe his fight-or-flight instinct has been fucked up for years. Especially for an Omega.

"Nice croak you got going there, Nate." Turning, Dean leans with a false casual air against the sink behind him as the door he'd pinned Cas against swings closed behind Hardey. "And I hear chicks dig scars. At this rate, maybe someday you'll be able to find someone who'll fuck you willingly."

Hardey snarls hoarsely, stepping further into the bathroom, and Dean tenses as his hands go to his fly, but doesn't flinch away as his assailant steps towards the urinals. The entire room smells like aroused and violent Alpha, and Dean rolls his eyes, pushing away from the sink and moving towards the door, done with the bullshit attempts to demean him.

"You smell fucked out all the time now, bitch. He make you wet? Tell me, you bend over for the doc in the parking lot, or did you wait until you got back to that shitty apartment of his?" Dean stops with his hand on the door, shoulders tense, jaw clenching.

Cas's apartment. His books, his stuff, the complete invasion of his life. Hardey did that; and now Dean knows it for sure. He's not afraid of Hardey: not in the bar, and not here where they're one-on-one and Hardey can't do anything without bringing a half dozen cops into the room in a moment. Their locale means checking his own fury as well, though, and his voice is tight with forced control.

This is bait. He's baiting Dean, trying to get a rise out of him, trying to get him to ruin the court case going on down the hall somehow.

"Was trashing Cas's place your idea, or your lawyer's?"

Hardey doesn't answer him directly, but Dean didn't expect it. "Almost popped a knot just walking in there. . . If I were the doc, I'd keep you plugged up all the time. . . "

"Yeah, yeah. Heard it before." He's done with this shit, and the longer Hardey lingers the more clear it becomes that the jackass is probably planning to jerk off in the middle of a public bathroom just to fuck with Dean. He's on-edge, tired, worried, and done being treated like shit. The words spill out, vitriolic, turning Hardey's own weapon back on him. Though it makes Dean sick to do so, he knows the insult that will cut the deepest, that will enrage him. "Enjoy being someone else's 'bitch' in prison, asshole. Saw your mother in the courtroom, you might wanna ask her to send you some soap on a rope. Given how she looks at 'bitches,' I'd find someone else to beg for lube though, when you start getting pounded yourself. . ."

Wrenching open the door, he storms out into the main hall, and he can hear Hardey behind him, snarling out a retort and following him, and he's ready for it. All he needs is Hardey to throw the first punch in front of the cops at the end of the hall. Fifteen years this has been festering, and it wasn't even him to put the asshole in the hospital. If he can get Hardey to take a swing, though, he can put him in jail.

It's a hand on his shoulder outside of the bathroom that surprises him, making him feint to the side, suddenly expecting one of the other attackers to make an appearance and blinking at what he finds instead.

With Dean out of the way, the swinging door smashes into Nathan Hardey, setting him back on his ass on the bathroom tile with the force of the impact.

"Woah. Guess I didn't see you there, champ." Gabriel tucks his foot against the door to keep it open, a smirk creasing one cheek as he stoops his compact frame, eyes leonine in color and predatory slant belying the affable humor in his tones. "Guess that's proof you should always watch your step. Hell, you never know who'll be behind the next door right? Not even safe taking a piss in public, I guess." The words are perfectly innocent, but for a runt of an Alpha, Gabriel is scary. Every syllable is infused with a hidden threat, and his smile widens.

"Your fly's down. And you seem to have a little problem going on there. Might wanna fix that carefully; I hear injuries there hurt like a bitch."

Unfolding himself, Gabriel steps back to the opposite wall, settling himself against the bench facing the bathroom without waiting to see if Dean's going to join him, reaching into his jacket when the door swings open to admit Hardey into the hall again. He tenses until Gabriel draws out a slightly melted candy bar from his pocket, winks, and finger-guns at the Alpha.

Dean snorts in amusement despite himself, pushing away from his defensive posture against the wall to join Castiel's brother on the bench.

"You my new babysitter, then?" Resting his head against the wall behind him Dean closes his eyes, forcing himself back down from his readiness to fight. "I had it. I didn't need the assist."

Gabriel shrugs, taking a bite that crunches on the nougat of the candy bar. "I got bored."

"And Cas is freaking out about keeping an eye on me." Dean counters, and Gabriel doesn't deny it. His silence lingers as he finishes his candy bar slowly, and Dean opens his eyes and glances at him. With a languid shrug, blowing off the seriousness of his words, Gabriel finally answers.

"Yeah, well, we learned paranoia early."

Dean's questioning look is left unanswered. That isn't Gabriel's story to tell, and not every family secret need come out in the first month of knowing one another.

xXx

Juror #5 is nodding along.

Charlie's note is simple, but foreboding. Roy Etheridge shifts in the witness seat, his face a bruise, his hands tangled in his lap, and every word of his, every nod of that juror, is another blow to their attempts to get Castiel out of this trial declared innocent.

"When we met up with Winchester in the parking lot, I didn't know a thing about Doctor Novak's claim." Nate Hardey was easy to dismiss, easy to see the inherent bigotry he learned at home. But Roy either believes every word he's saying or he's wasting himself in Lawrence when he could be making a killing as an actor. "I've never laid a hand on another man's property. I never would."

Because in the eyes of this man, of that juror, and aspects of the law, Dean doesn't belong to himself.

He is a possession of his Alpha. First John as his father, now Castiel as his mate.

"Can you describe for me the defendant's behavior, when he approached you?" Henriksen is dangerous to their case, now, his tone reasonable, coaxing, and he can tell that this witness is resonating better with the jury.

"I didn't get to see much." Etheridge instinctively touches his fingers to the bridge of his obviously broken nose. "First thing I knew he was there, he was putting his knee in my face. Didn't say word one, just came up behind me and took me down." As if to defend Castiel, to make sure he isn't coming across overly harsh, Etheridge continues stumblingly. "It's not that I blame him. I remember when we were kids how bad it hits you, first time an Omega's got you hooked. You'd do anything. I hear Doctor Novak was a priest first, I know what it's like, first time feeling that."

In excusing Castiel, he has also gotten the jury to excuse the childhood assault on Dean; and the jury is buying it. They're buying that these men's sin is touching another Alpha's property without permission, rather than abusing a human being. That Castiel was pheromone-drugged by some Omega prostitute who claimed the naive Doctor as mate in their first meeting, as if on the very day his father died Dean latched onto the first available moderately successful Alpha and dragged him down.

Castiel looks faintly ill, and Charlie's hand on his elbow is there to comfort more than restrain him, and she hooks the notepad across the table to herself, writing another note to Sam as Henriksen gives them their witness. Glancing at it, jaw flexing, he shakes his head once and rises to his feet, straightening his suit jacket in an unconscious attempt to armor himself.

"What exactly was your interest in Dean in that parking lot?" Sam's voice is cutting, accusatory, but Roy blinks at him owlishly from the stand.

"My wife and I, we've been trying to have a baby five years now. She got the ash sickness bad as a kid, don't know if she'll ever be able to have one. We've talked about using an Omega for a few years now. . ." Etheridge spreads his hands, pleading, meeting Sam's gaze unflinchingly. "We're a good family. . . not as good as Doctor Novak's, maybe, but here in Lawrence people know we're good for our word. I'd have taken care of the Omega, if it took. We'd have made sure the baby was raised up right, and we'd have paid you for the surrogate."

By law, if Castiel hadn't been in the picture Dean would have been Sam's legal responsibility. He could have sold Dean into a farm the way Alastair's lawyers made a judge believe their father did, and it would have been entirely legal.

This is the kind of knowledge that sent him to California. To Stanford.

Teeth grinding, Sam turns away from Etheridge, gathering his next question, and spots Crowley sitting at the end of an aisle. With a wink, he knows: Crowley fed his client this, after the disaster of Hardey on the stand. He probably did it subtly enough that Roy didn't realize this counter was anything but his own thoughts, his own rationalization.

Sam should have listened to Charlie, should have let this witness go without giving him the opportunity to dig them in deeper, but he's been too caught up in confronting them to listen to sense. Just another Alpha overprotective of an Omega they perceive him with claim over, another demonstration for the crowd.

He dismisses Etheridge from the stand curtly, angrily, and Henriksen watches Sam as he moves to stand beside Castiel again. Right now, Henriksen has the upper hand, and knows it. His evidence is fresh in the minds of the jury, with the bruises of the two men Castiel attacked. The longer they drag this out, the more unpredictable the outcome. "The prosecution rests, your Honor."

Knobby hands steepled before him, Rufus Turner eyes the two lawyers in front of him carefully, before, gesturing to Sam. "Ball's in your court, then, Mr. Winchester."

Win or lose, there are only two witnesses that can decide the outcome. Everything else is stalling.

"The defense calls Dean Winchester to the stand."

xXx

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"

God is still in Kansas courtrooms, in the form of a stiff bible that calls to mind for Dean the one destroyed at Castiel's apartment. This one's cover is sweat-stained by the hands of all witnesses before him, including the men who he's here testifying against. His hand is steady and his voice hoarse when he responds, but he can't help but hope maybe God'll take Cas's side in this, finally put in a good showing for his former priest, still quietly searching for him in hospital wards and empty pews and stained glass windows and liquor bottles and curled in bed around a faithless Omega.

"I do."

His feet feel leaden, the short step up to the elevated chair of the witness stand is a mountain, and Dean regrets the candy bar Gabriel tossed him from the vending machine in the hall, now cloying on his tongue and disgusting with the alkaline taste of his own nervousness.

He doesn't show it. Hell, Dean's known how to put on a face for years, but this feels different. He wonders, looking across the courtroom at Castiel where he sits too tensely to be truly stoic, if this is Cas effecting him somehow. If this is the trade-off for oxytocin and dopamine, some kind of feedback of their worry and nervousness.

Cas would just give him some science-geek answer, but it'd be a chance to curl his arm around Cas again, calm him down, maybe take a little comfort in return.

(He's so whipped. Jo's going to give him shit about this for years.)

Dean would like to go ask Cas, and Sam for that matter, what put a bee in their bonnet so soon after he brought them their lunch, but he's stuck in this uncomfortable chair as Charlie gives him a ridiculous surreptitious thumbs up from next to his brother, who hasn't looked up yet. "Can you state your full name for the jury, please?"

He has the urge to say something smartassed in response to Sam asking him for a reminder of his name, his little brother whose first word was Dean's name. He tamps it down on the impulse for the audience and the situation. "Dean Winchester."

Something must have leaked through his tone, because he earns a fleeting very familiar unamused expression from his little brother, and they win a stifled titter from a juror on the end.

He can work with that.