A Hole in the World

by anneliese-michel

Dean Winchester never wanted to go home again. Going back to Lawrence meant people who knew what he was, who didn't buy into the lie. But with a tragic accident, he's back and dealing with the death of his father, the social stigma and objectification of being an out Omega, and the lingering aftermath of a long-ago crime.

34. Who'll Stop The Rain?

Long as I remember the rain been comin' down
Clouds of mystery pourin' confusion on the ground.
Good men through the ages tryin' to find the sun.
And I wonder still I wonder who'll stop the rain.

- "Who'll Stop The Rain," Creedence Clearwater Revival

"Second breakfast." Dean elbows Castiel in the side, smirking the moment they ignore the closed sign and step through the door, pointing at Gabriel where he sits with a plate of food flanked by Jo with a cup of coffee on one side stealing his bacon, and Charlie comparing computers with Ash on the other. "Your brother's a hobbit."

"He certainly has the appetite. Not far from the right height." Castiel concedes wryly, pocketing the keys to the Impala. The drive over has convinced him that Dean should either never drink and thus always be allowed to drive, or drink until he's unconscious so he can't dictate how Castiel drives. As much as he enjoys their usual banter, he's not entirely comfortable behind the wheel of a car, and Dean's overprotectiveness of it complicates that.

"You get that reference, at least."

"Everyone knows that reference, Dean. And I spent all the time I wasn't watching 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'" the title rolls off his tongue with an air of complete incredulity, deliberately feeding into Dean's teasing ". . .reading books."

Cas is genuinely making an effort to change the tone, to set aside what happened and to put aside his own lingering problems and anger and fear. Dean's nervous and he's hurting, Castiel overstepped boundaries, and Dean lashed out. They've admitted it and they've apologized, and they're trying to move past it. Intellectually, Cas understands that. Emotionally, he's still reeling. He's been wearing his heart on his sleeve too often around Dean, and he's fallen out of the habit of keeping himself entirely composed.

It was always harder when it came to family, too. Gabriel is watching him from bend of the table, scrutinizing Castiel's expression with a level stare that belies his usual smart-assed demeanor. After eight years of only email and mail contact, Gabriel's first days back around Castiel have been less than an ideal representation of their relationship. Cas shakes his head slightly, warning his brother off from asking questions. He doesn't want to play to the guilt he knows Dean already feels, and he silently begs Gabriel to let it go.

Gabriel has always been more perceptive about social cues than Castiel. His lips twist faintly, but he stabs his eggs like they personally insulted him then shovels them into his mouth. He speaks around the food so he doesn't have to try to fool anyone with his tone as he picks up Castiel's dropped conversational thread for him, smoothing things over for his little brother in his own way.

"He spent all of his time he wasn't doing anything reading books. And not doing anyone for that matter." He jabs his fork in the direction of Sam where he stands removed from them on the phone, his hand covering his other ear. "And if I'm a hobbit, your brother's a wookie."

"Makes me Han Solo. I'm cool with that." Dean shrugs, and steps to the side, waiting for Castiel to slide into the booth seat before him. Putting Dean on the outside, rather than in the more protected (penned in) seat.

Cas isn't sure what's a deliberate gesture any more—he can't tell if Dean is trying to convey a message with these choices, or if it's just preference. He's afraid of offending Dean, of doing something inadvertently to widen a gap between them, and it's making him anxiously over-analyze things, playing into his own social discomfort in a way Castiel hasn't felt about him since the first days of their relationship, when he was afraid Dean would disappear.

His split-second hesitation goes unnoticed and unremarked by Dean, and Cas slides into the bench seat and folds his hands on top of the table carefully. When Dean drops an arm along his shoulders as soon as he settles, it's reassuring enough for him to ignore Gabriel's eyeroll of disgust, particularly when Jo grins at him and drives an elbow into his side, cheerful and clearly not clued into what they're going to be getting up to. "You guys are adorable." She pauses, brown eyes narrowing slightly, and blows a curl out of her face. "You okay? You look a little pale."

Charlie looks up from her computer, focused on Castiel's answer at the expense of finishing her own excitable chattering with Ash over their technology, and Sam is hanging up the phone and joining the table, apparently also waiting for a response. Even if Castiel were comfortable being under such focused attention he'd be unnerved by it. He understands that Gabriel, Charlie and Sam are concerned about him because of his silence at the hotel, and the others because of potential aftermath of his trial, but he's not prepared for this misplaced attention.

"I'm fine." It's a terse dismissal, and Dean's hand squeezes his shoulder, his stance widening on the seat to press their legs together beneath the edge of the table, anchoring him. Ellen plunks a mug of coffee in front of each of them as she slides in to sit beside Ash, and Cas is grateful for something to do with his hands as Dean clears his throat and points at his little brother, directing everyone's attention where it should be.

"So we're suing the government."

Sam tucks his phone away before grabbing a chair from one of the tables and pulling it over to face them all on the open area of the round table. "Well. No. I mean, we're not. The only person in this room who has a case for it is you, Dean. The rest of us, we would just be helping in different ways."

"Uh-huh." Dean's skepticism is blatant. "So break it down for me. What's my 'case'? I mean, I know things are shitty for Omegas. . . trust me, I know . . . but who do you even sue for that?"

Nodding, Sam gathers himself, sits forward, and braces his forearms on the table between them, giving the entire situation an air of a pre-game huddle with his size and stature looming in on them. "Suing the government's tricky. You can't go after the entire government, you have to go after departments. And some of them, they're pretty much protected against lawsuits. You have to go after the vulnerable parts, and know we can't fix everything all at once, so we have to hit them where it hurts most. I think, if you do this. . ." He knows it's still an 'if,' that the choice is in Dean's hands ". . . You need to go after this in two ways to make an impact and really force a change."

Sam has a rapt audience—rapt apart from his own brother, of course, who stares impatiently at him. He doesn't want flowery speeches, he's not in this for a lecture or a pep talk: to Dean, this is a war council, and Sam needs to spit it out already. "We go after their pocket book, and we go after health and human services." Sam summarizes, so that Dean doesn't kick him for being a geek and dragging this out.

Dean snorts, looking away finally and lifting his coffee to his lips, suddenly dismissive. That clearly wasn't what he'd hoped to hear. "I don't give a shit if I make money off this, Sam. I'm not in it for a paycheck."

Charlie clears her throat, closing her laptop slowly as Dean raises his eyebrow at her questioningly. "The point is they make money on it. I saw the check stub from Alastair, Dean. Between the federal taxes, state taxes, and Detroit's city tax. . . government entities made about ten grand, Dean. And that's just off of you. That's just four months, and one person."

"And because of all the population-scare saber rattling, they help subsidize farms and crèches for 'reproductive purposes.' They have for decades, and they don't verify personal consent of the people in them." Sam draws Dean's stare away from Charlie, reasoned and factual—he's not going to beg Dean into this, or guilt him. For the moment everyone else at this table is irrelevant to the two men who banded them together. "They take money from victims, and put it towards creating more victims. That's why we go after them for the taxes, and we go after them for the treatment of the Omegas in the places they pour money into. Exposing that is the best way I know to start tearing the system apart, Dean."

Castiel, for his part, narrows his eyes and cants his head, trying to keep even his breathing quiet, otherwise still beneath Dean's arm. He is living proof of how long the crèches have been in action. Of how many years the government has had to reap the financial benefits of captive Omegas on both sides of the transactions: for his Alpha father's purchase of him, and his Omega sire's 'pay' for captivity.

For all of his faults, no one could ever accuse Dean of being a coward. There isn't a lengthy consideration—he dives in head-first, righteous anger flash boiling the way it did the first night Castiel saw him in this bar.

"So how do we do this."

Someday, Castiel hopes he will look back on this as the moment the world began to change for the better. Not a moment of agonizing over a decision, of worrying about the potential reprisals, of seeking personal gain or planning revenge, but the determination of two brothers finding common cause from different perspectives, and then banding others together to follow them.

There's a fierce satisfaction in Sam's eyes as he drags his briefcase out from beneath the table and snaps it open, but there's no back-slapping and patronizing pride out of this family. "With all of us, if you guy's'll help. The first thing is obvious. . . it's the court case. That's you and me, Dean. I think I have a few other people already onboard who would be named clients in the class action suit if you started it, we just need to get them all together." Sam looks up at Dean, as if waiting to see if his brother's going to call him out on discussing other Omegas' stories, after his reaction at the hotel. Dean grimaces, but gestures slightly. The notepad Sam tugs out of the briefcase is clearly not his official legal documents: he hasn't been hired yet, there are no clients whose privacy he could be violating, and there is no case until Dean makes it one. Instead, Sam has personal notes penned across pages: names, information gathered during his searches, people who he's contacted over the years who could help, dry bare-bones information and phone numbers.

"The first one's out of Michigan, actually. His mother contacted a couple of years ago, when he went missing for a little while—she was searching for him, and contacted me because the missing person's searches I did. He'd been a really promising student, top of his class, he was on his way to take his SATs. I watched her tear up the check the guy, Dick Roman, tried to buy her off with after we got him back. Kevin Tran. . . I think you'll like him. His mom's a little scary though."

"All moms are a little scary." Dean mutters, and Castiel inadvertently agrees with a slight nod, earning them all a piercing stare from Ellen across the table that only serves to prove the point. Sam continues quickly, before she can chastise them all, suddenly twelve again for as long as it takes to direct attention away from that slip. Castiel is fairly certain he sees Ellen laugh at their scrambling, before she hides it behind her coffee mug.

"Then there's Gilda Fey. . ."

"The asshole kept her hooded any time they went anywhere. Thought he owned her, didn't want anyone looking at her but him." There's a disgust and anger in Charlie's face that seems out of place on her open features. "She's still in, but she's a little flighty, Sam. I've talked to her about it some over the last couple months . . ."

Jo has an eyebrow arched, leaned forward to see Charlie around Gabriel between them, and Charlie flushes slightly and widens her eyes at Jo. "It helps her to have an Alpha around, sometimes, even if it's just me." For her heats, if Charlie's sudden spike of awkwardness is any indication. "Just a friend. I mean, mostly."

"Wow, talking about the girlfriend to the girl you've been flirting with. Smooth." Gabriel drawls, earning him a punch in the shoulder from Charlie.

"Keep it up. I was going to help you to break into your brother's office to screw him over, too, asshole." Sam's bitchface isn't reserved just for responses to Dean, if the look he shoots Charlie across the table is any indication. ". . .Which Sam by law knows absolutely nothing about. Sorry. Right. Um. Forget I said that part."

"No, I really don't want to forget that part." Gabriel is still eagerly paying attention to this conversation, and Dean's not sure what his angle on this is that he's been invested in the conversation even before the idea of spiting his brother added a savage glee to his interest. "We talking Q to my Bond 'help,' red?"

"The last time you and Lucifer came into conflict we all nearly were arrested, and it took Michael separating you two for you not to end up in the hospital." Castiel interjects with a worried frown that only deepens when Gabriel waves him off.

"Don't try to pin the blame on me for that, you threw the first punch. And if we were getting into another fist fight, champ, I'd stand back and let you do it. But if we're talking breaking in, that's subtlety, Cassie." Which Castiel is clearly not well known for, but Dean questions Gabriel being even remotely subtle, even in their short acquaintance.

Sam seizes the opportunity to snatch the conversation back from the part he can't let himself be party to, Charlie's complete disregard for privacy laws when it comes to her moral stands and hacking. "I have something else I hope we can get you involved in, Castiel. Basically, we need a consult."

Castiel's hands drop to his lap from the table, and something in his posture shifts; he might have been a priest more than a soldier, but there's something about the angle of his jaw, the stiff way he holds himself when addressed like this, that still seems crisply militaristic.

"You want me available to examine the people within the crèches and farms." It's half a question, but mostly a logical conclusion, confirmed by Sam's slight nod. "Sam, I think it's safe to say that I make a terrible witness . . ."

"I don't believe that, Castiel. I don't know anything about pheromones, but I understood your medical stuff pretty well. I think if you weren't the one on trial, you'd do just fine." Ellen reassures him, and there's something strangely soothing to a mother's level-headed comfort, particularly for a man who has never had the experience. Jo bumps shoulders with him, seconding her mother's opinion, more accepting than he expected from a girl who had been sharpening knives when they met. Dean's family is making him family, and the proof of it is at this table—it's a warm feeling, a sense of permanence to their relationship, but it's also a camaraderie of its own. Castiel hesitantly knocks his shoulder to Jo's in return, winning him a brilliant smile, until Gabriel leans in around Jo to address Castiel in a conspiratorial carrying whisper.

"Novel idea: don't get arrested again, and we don't have to worry about you being neurotic crazy-person in your own defense, bro." He's had eight years to forget what it's like being around family, but Gabriel's quick teasing helps continue unknotting the tightly coiled tension, despite the seriousness of their current conversation. "You can have a pulpit to publicly yammer about pheromones and ants or whatever it was you got obsessed with when we were kids . . ."

"Bees, Gabriel. It was bees." Magnificent creatures, with an entire pheromone language that seemed almost magical, like God's unseen little miracles. Then it was a sign of something larger than them, some guiding hand in creation to put so much work into something so small. Now that his faith has shifted, some part of Castiel on reflection still finds them fascinating-so much more attuned than humans and so much more complex than any other creature in their way.

Castiel's fairly certain defending a long-forgotten childhood obsession will only deepen their belief in his instability, though, so he looks back to Sam with as much dignity as he can muster.

"I presume I'd be checking to ensure they weren't being forced into heat . . ." Dean's tense beside him, and Castiel lets his hand rest on Dean's knee, instinctively trying to offer him comfort, but keeping his gaze focused on Sam so his mate's discomfort won't be highlighted to the table. "And ensure their medical condition and treatment. How would you get me in to see them, legally?"

Sam shrugs slightly, his plan still in progress but solidifying through their conversations. "Working on it. I've got a couple connections, and if we could get inspections going I think you could be the representative for us. We need someone who knows the medical and biological aspects, cares about the people there, and wouldn't be swayed by being in that kind of place."

They need a physician who can sense the heats, but not be manipulated with offers of taking advantage of the Omegas, or drawn by the biological pull of them. Even if Castiel had been left with a positive outlook on large portions of Alphas in society in their treatment of Omegas, he understands the dilemma there, and exactly why he's ideal. Finding physicians with the right medical background isn't the difficult part. It's finding an Omega-mated Alpha doctor who supports their cause, and whom they can trust for control. Even denying the sociological negatives to the term, biologically Dean and Castiel are mated. They are a closed pheromone loop, past the point of no return for Castiel.

Castiel darts a glance at Dean, noting the furrows in his brow, the concentration and discontent on his features as he mulls over some other aspect of this, and he answers Sam with an eye to the man at his side. "I don't foresee that being a problem for me."

He would need to control his temper though, when faced with whatever he came across. That would be the difficult aspect of it, reminding himself of the greater good served by behaving rationally rather than instinctively. A bridge they can cross when they get there.

While he hasn't said anything in some time, Castiel turns to Dean as he hitches a breath and drops his arm from around Castiel's shoulder finally, bracing his elbow on the table and raking his other hand through his hair. "Look. I appreciate this, all of you. I do. But . . . this isn't your fight."

"Yes it is." Castiel contradicts, but he falls silent again with a look from Dean.

"No, it's my fight Cas. You guys want to help make the world a little less shitty for people like me . . . I appreciate it. But that doesn't make it any less my fight." Turning slightly, he involves Sam in that, and by extension the rest of the table before them. "You're not doing this for me. You're doing it with me. I'm not gonna just be some frikkin' symbol for the cause."

It's frustrating, trying to explain, because it's a frustrating feeling to begin with and he's always had trouble talking anyway. He doesn't want to come across like an asshole when they're trying to help: he's done that already today, jumped down everyone's throats, and what they're talking about. . . it's good, it needs to happen. But they're still looking at the lawsuit, and in Dean's experience no one gives a shit about following the law anyway. "You want to know what you guys should be doing, if you really want to make a difference? Start looking for us. Even if they don't want to be caught up in the shitstorm this lawsuit crap is going to be. . . whenever anybody falls off the map you look for them."

It's strange, but even the introduction of that list on the table in front of Sam is invigorating for Dean: it makes him not alone in this part, even if he's the only Omega at the table. Those names are all people-breathing, thinking, human beings. Even if he has problems doing this crap for himself, he can do it for a boy snatched away from a bright future, or a woman kept in darkness, or the miserable victims of the farms. But his family and most especially his mate, are all still too removed from this; they're still too fixated on him and not enough on the real problems, the scenarios and what-ifs that haunt his nightmares.

"You can sue all the farms and crèches and assholes like Alastair who cut a check you want, but I only got out of there because someone found me. If peoples' families are selling them off, or someone gets snatched off the street and no one looks, or whatever, someone oughta be looking for them and not assuming they got wind of some knot they wanted to bend over for and wandered off." The contempt for that stereotype drenches Dean's words. Of all the people at the table, it's Ash who speaks on his heels, piping into the conversation for the first time.

"You're talking population-wide biometrics to get an overview of presented Omegas, then a non-parametric statistical model to deal with the variables while keeping it scaleable. . ." The only person at the table with any idea what Ash is taking about is shaking her head slightly, red ponytail swinging as she opens her laptop again.

"You're overcomplicating it. You need to pull existing census data and cross-reference it by police and medical reports. If we connect the. . ."

Charlie and Ash are a study in contrasts, her striped hoodie and t-shirt clashing with his ripped plaid; and with the machines pushed nearly next to each other, the sleek lines of her laptop only highlight how bulky his computer is. For the moment, though, they're on the same page. Dean can't understand a damn thing they're saying but it sounds hopeful, it's two geniuses who could pull off the impossible and create some sort of alert system, until the world begins to change to make it irrelevant. Until they start to see Omegas as people and stop selling them off like cattle for a quick buck or to get rid of an inconvenience.

It's a start, but it's not enough. Turning away from their excited discussion, he finds Jo staring at him from the other side of Cas, leaned forward with her chin on her fist and her eyebrow raised slightly, and she tilts her head to include her mother in the next statement. "If you think we're staying out of this, you're wrong. If 'Doctor Badass' and the 'Queen of Moons' there find people, then what?"

"Then they need someplace to go." Ellen answers, practical as always, hands folded around her coffee mug and her tone thoughtful. "We can't trust the system, some of them can't go back to their families. We can't do much here, but we oughta start looking at figuring out places."

What would Dean have done if he didn't have Bobby to go to? His next suggestion is impulsive, but it feels right. It feels like contribution to the cause, taking ownership of himself in a way far beyond that emancipation paper in Sam's briefcase could do for him. "If you 'inherited' taking care of me, means you got everything, right Sam?"

Sam's expression is cautious with his agreement; there isn't much to inherit, and Dean knows Sam didn't care whose name was on the will, things would have divided where it made sense. Dean would keep the car, and Winchester Automotive.

"Sell the garage. I'll see if Bobby wants some of the tools, but everything else. . . sell it. Or hell, hand the deed to Ellen and let her do it, or let her convert it. Whatever. If any of us knows how to haggle, it's her. It'll get us a little bit to go off of, get some kind of halfway house or something going." Taking over the garage here was never in Dean's future. He can't come back, can't stomach living in a city with so many bad memories. Sure, running his own place somewhere else would have been nice some day in the future . . . but he likes working for Bobby, likes getting to pay attention to the cars and leave the paperwork and making nice with customers to someone else. The next idea to strike him soothes a deep ache, even as he conceives the thought.

"There's a bank, in Detroit. Dad put most of the money from Alastair into it. It's been sitting in savings for five years. . . you bring them a death certificate, take the money, and put it into this. The court case, halfway house, whatever."

That goddamn check has been a thorn in his side for years. Poor or not, he can't use that money without feeling like a whore. But like his father used some of the cash from it to murder Alastair and make him disappear, Dean can take that asshole's check and turn it around against the entire system, and it feels right. This way, even the stuff he can't do himself, he's contributing to it.

This is his fight, and he's going to win it.

xXx

They clear out as the bar begins to open around them; Gabriel trailing them into the parking lot having an uncharacteristically quiet conversation on his cell phone, Charlie and Ash disappearing into the back room of the bar to crunch numbers or hack or whatever they do, while Jo passes drinks in to them fondly. Dean's spent long enough with just a coffee in his hand, clearly sober, that Castiel gratefully relinquished the keys to him. Sam and Cas fall into step with Dean without conscious thought as they cross the parking lot toward the Impala, and that's strangely comforting to Dean and he can't explain why.

"I'll ride with you. Figure Charlie can come pick me up in the rental when they're done." Dean smiles faintly to himself as Sam establishes that for this, potentially the last day of their visit, and the first one without a set agenda, Sam's going to stick with Dean. "You want to go over what's going to happen tomorrow? Henriksen has you two scheduled for the morning, and Crowley's going to. . ." Sam's worried reminder is cut off before he can gain much steam, Dean waving him off.

"Crowley's gonna be a prick. It's fine." And it is, strangely. Dean never expected it would be this way, but he feels fine; unafraid, no longer nervous, and lighter than he's been in weeks. The testimony that has loomed over Dean doesn't hold the same weight any more. Cas is free. He's free. They're fighting back and taking control of a situation—acting, rather than reacting. Now it's them holding the power. Whether or not those assholes go to jail, Dean has a plan now, another way to fight back. "I've got this."

Sure he wants to make them pay. But they can't hurt him anymore. He can say whatever the hell he wants on the stand, and as long as he doesn't get thrown in jail for contempt of court, he's still going to win. They just don't know it yet. Dean swears he can almost feel his mood catching, buoying Castiel along with him.

Gabriel catches up with them once he's off his phone, and rests a hand on Castiel's shoulder to draw him to a stop. Dean's enough of a bullshitter himself to know that his cheery tone is covering something. "So, Sammy-boy. I didn't want to say anything in there, but you got room in that notebook for one more name?"

Castiel's expression is faintly puzzled when Gabriel meets his eyes as he continues addressing Sam. "Goes by the name Carver Edlund."

Clearly this doesn't have the significance for Cas that it's meant to. "Claire's 'Mr. Carver'? Who moved in with Amelia?"

Gabriel groans dramatically, dropping his hand off of Castiel's shoulder as if he's giving his little brother up as a hopeless cause. "This is the problem with never answering your mail unless it comes from the kid, Cassie. Eight years. Is this why you never frikkin' go home?" He smacks the flat of his hand against his brother's head even in response to Castiel's earnest denial of that accusation, a gesture that looks even more ridiculous for the fact that Gabriel has to reach up to do it. He speaks right over Cas, not giving him the chance to offer up excuses for his avoidance of his family. "Amelia's not sleeping with him, or trying to replace Jimmy . . ." Rolling his eyes heavenward, as if asking for patience, Gabriel turns to face Sam, interrupting the two Winchester brothers exchanging confused looks as the conversation goes over their heads as well.

"If you're going after the crèches, he's your guy. Sure, he's a twitchy, nervous shut-in, so he'll probably be about as great on the stand as Cas here, but he's got reasons. He's been writing about what happened to him for 'bout six years or so, now, far as I know. He only got out because some asshole lawyer sued the crèche about him having a 'defective' kid and they cut their losses and dumped him with a little cash and no one to help."

"His real name's Chuck Shurley. . ."

This name clearly does have the impact Gabriel expected earlier. Castiel sucks in a breath and goes completely still next to Gabriel, blue eyes wide, staring down at his older brother.

". . .And I told him his jackass runaway son would get his ass around to finally introducing himself, and drop him a line to talk about this court case stuff."

Castiel's father, his Omega father. They'd been in the same building for the first six years of Castiel's life, and he'd been too young to know to ask for him. The idea of family outside of his twins had been so alien until they'd been brought to live under the same roof with Michael and Lucifer and Gabriel and the others. He didn't realize until much later that his childhood was being spent in the shadow of the world's prejudices, so far removed from 'normal.'

"You found him?" Castiel sounds younger in surprise, and it's probably the first time Dean's really recognized him as the baby brother in his own family, the Sam to Gabriel's Dean. There's a note of hope, like Gabriel has just casually confirmed another of Castiel's 'fairytales,' that his persistently lingering albeit now damaged faith still told him God would have had a hand in, that it would turn out in the end: that his other father got away, and went on to live a happy life somewhere.

Dean knows it's not that simple; there's not a happily ever after to life after that, but there's recovery and there's life still, and hell. Where there's life there's hope, or some other overly positive statement Dean's had regurgitated to him over the years.

"Emmanuel found him, Cassie. He started looking after the funeral. Which you'd know if you hadn't ditched us, and ditched him." Gabriel corrects him, and he's not trying to be gentle with him now. Because maybe Emmanuel had Gabriel and Balthazar and Inias who would keep tabs on him, Michael and Lucifer who would send him Christmas cards or answer the phone, Daphne to share his life with-but he lost both of his twins. He lost Jimmy to illness and Castiel to avoidance almost immediately after, and so he set out to find their missing link.

"You should pick up the phone sometimes and call home, bro."

xXx

"Keep that up and you're gonna break it." Castiel glances up at Dean from the back seat, where he has once again settled to allow Sam the space beside his brother in the Impala, the bag beside him crinkling slightly as he pulls his hand out of his pocket once again.

"I'm not. . ." Not taking his phone out of his pocket and turning it in his hands contemplatively every few minutes? Not doing it their entire trip to Walmart for supplies Castiel that barely paid attention to as he pushed the cart? Not going to break the phone? He's not sure which, but Dean's eyes in the rearview are keen and not in the least bit fooled, and Sam turns in his seat to rest his elbow against the back, frowning slightly at Castiel, empathetic and concerned, and all it does is still Castiel's fidgeting completely, setting him straight in his seat again.

"Are you going to be okay with this? Us calling him up on this?"

"That's not really my decision." It's a surprise how quickly that response came, without it being rehearsed, without first considering Dean and his responses when speaking about his Omega father. "If he wants to be part of this court case, I will support him in it just as I will Dean." He just doesn't know him. He knows nothing about him except his name, and even carefully combing his memories of Claire's words he can't draw together a picture of his personality, or guess at features. Would he recognize anything of himself in them? How much did a crèche really take of the Omegas they used as captive human incubators, in creating someone like him? Like them.

It's not Chuck that Castiel is considering calling first, though. The weight of abandoning his twin is sitting heavy on his shoulders today, for not the first time in eight years. But for the first time in eight years he has an excuse to call, something that anchors them both outside of the still painful wound that is the loss of Jimmy.

Running the flat of his hand down his jaw, Castiel stares out the window briefly, aware of Dean's eyes on him in the rearview. He settles on digging into the bags beside him, trying to sort out what it is they're actually up to, keeping himself busy to signify how little he wants to discuss this right now, and the Winchester brothers allow it—he has no doubt they know avoidance when they see it, and they exchange a significant look that he couldn't begin to entirely collect their entire layered silent conversation out of.

Beef jerky. Chips. General road trip food. Sharpies. Packing tape. Labels that Castiel vaguely remembers Dean complaining to Sam about not needing.

"You tackle the kitchen Sam, just load it all up to haul, Ash can eBay it for the cause or whatever. I got enough in Sioux Falls. I'll get the garage, call Bobby so he can chew my ass out for him getting all his updates from Ellen instead of me through this, then distract him by talking tools he might want." Glancing up at the rearview, he meets Castiel's eyes in the mirror again, as they turn towards Winchester automotive. "Cas, you gotta figure out how many books you're taking, man, and leave room in the trunk for the rest of our crap."

"But first. . . maybe you oughta make a phone call."