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.

53. Blackbird

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

It's a three day drive for them from Sioux Falls to Palo Alto, and that's a lot different prospect now than it used to be.

Mary and Jimmy are Winchesters, though. Even if Cas fretted over a long road trip in the Impala with a pair of infants in the back, the road trips are part of these kids' heritage whether they know it or not. They're not much younger than Sam was when John took off with them chasing Mary's ghost, and now at least Dean knows what to do with an infant to calm them, when he was making it up as he went at four years old.

The twins handle it well, between the rumble of the Impala, the soft lullaby versions of Metallica and some modern soundtrack version of the Beatles that Charlie helpfully recorded onto tape for them, and Cas's low, even voice as he reads aloud to entertain Dean and mollify the twins. Bobby cruises along behind them in his Chevelle, another set of hands when they need to pull over and feed the twins and themselves, content to steal their kids whenever they stop, but he leaves the long distances in confined spaces and in-car diaper changes to their parents.

The two cars stick out in front of Sam's tidy lawyerly house with his Prius like a sore thumb, but Jessica quips about feeling like she's hosting a classic car show, trading hugs with Sam's family as Robert bangs his fists on his highchair tray, trying to get out and come see the twins and his uncles and grandfather.

Sam and Jess and Robert came up for Christmas, it's their turn now to make the trip. This is the start of something, another tradition that Dean hopes they'll be able to keep for the rest of their lives, holidays spent together. They're probably going to bicker about who gets dibs on Halloween, but Dean knows Thanksgiving is going to end up in Sioux Falls every year. It will if they all want him to cook, that's for damn sure.

There's no pressing matters, it's just family visiting family, and even if Mary and Jimmy are way too young to ever remember this their parents get a kick out of the way their eyes—already slowly shifting from slate greyish blue to green, much to Dean's disappointment—fix on their older cousin from the moment they come into the house. Chubby little legs kick against the carpet as if they can chase Robert in his toddering stumble from furniture piece to furniture piece, and Jimmy's wuffle of frustration before he shoves a fist in his mouth and glares at them all for laughing at him is so reminiscent of his father's grumbling that Dean has to sock his brother in the shoulder just to get him to stop laughing, and glare at Bobby where he helps Mary 'stand.' Charlie sweeps in and steals Jimmy, and ends up with her hair shoved into their son's mouth and tangled between tiny fingers, and it's all pretty much the Norman Rockwell ideal no matter how unlikely the group of them are for the portrait of domesticity.

For two days, it's family and banter and Easter egg hunts that turn into the Winchesters trying to stump each other and the rest of their family, their kids too young to really participate.

They make it two whole days into the planned four day stay before anything encroaches on this shared moment. On the Monday after Easter, Charlie shows up in a vibrant purple t-shirt and jeans, eyes bright, and she finds them in the living room. She comes bringing trouble in her wake, offering it directly to Dean.

"Wanna go to a protest?"

Charlie seems deceptively mild mannered with the geekier aspects of her personality, but her rebellious streak is a mile wide and so rarely gets to shine where she's squirreled away at the law office. She's probably feeling pent up and looking for someone to break out with her. Damn but Dean knows the feeling.

Dean's not bad at fatherhood. He's actually, despite all his fears, pretty good at it so far. All of the new dad fears that seem to plague Cas and Sam slid off of Dean pretty easily. He knew how to change diapers, convince a baby to take a bottle, how to hold them and soothe them. It's not "Omega Instinct" crap, either, he's done it before and the evidence of that is the overgrown mop-top with the craggy brow looking at Charlie suspiciously as he holds Robert in arms to let him see the twins again without letting him grab for their downy hair.

Now that they're home, now that there isn't a round-the-clock medical team required in case something goes wrong, Dean is kind of unexpectedly awesome at being a father. But he's enough of a Winchester that being mostly out of the line of fire for the past five months is making him restless.

"What kind of protest?"

Dean may as well have gone ahead and said yes, with the way Charlie lights up, Bobby sighs and hoists himself off of the couch to get a refill of coffee, and Cas and Sam swing their gazes to him suspiciously. Dean holds his hands out, palm up, and shakes his head at them both without looking away from Charlie. "Do you guys practice the disapproving stare together over Skype or something? You do the doctor thing, you do the lawyer thing, I do the public crap. That's the deal. This Omega rights stuff, Charlie?"

"Yeah." Tucking her hair behind her ear, Charlie chews her lip under the scrutiny, and nods. "Stanford's cops haven't done anything about the increasing sexual assaults on campus against the Omega students. They're acting like it's because they've got more Omega students than ever before, not putting the blame on whatever assholes are responsible. There's even some of the board talking about changing the qualifications, keeping Omegas out or segregating the classes, not just the dorms like they already did. It took too long to get them to even let Omegas attend to give ground on it now. So a few of the student organizations are getting involved, and it's gone out into the community too. There's an Alpha Females group that meets on campus, and is throwing in too because of recent attacks on campus of us too. There aren't many of us, but…" Charlie shrugs, trying to play it off, but she's excited at the prospect. This is a joint protest, one that doesn't sweep her gender designation under the rug and is going to look at both sides of the gender inequality issue. No wonder she's practically vibrating.

She had Dean at the cops ignoring assaults on Omegas, though, and everyone in the room knows it before Dean even presses a kiss to the top of Jimmy's head, pushes a dark tuft of a curl off of Mary's forehead to do the same for her, and rises to his feet.

"Dean, I don't like this." Castiel is pretty much the definition of an overly protective Alpha sometimes, and Dean long ago accepted that. Just like Cas long ago accepted that Dean does what he wants. He frowns as Dean ruffles his hair, but he doesn't rise to his feet to try and keep Dean from going.

"Stay with Mary and Jimmy, okay? I'll be back tonight, and I'll keep my phone on me." They tried to keep it from him during the pregnancy, but he knows the few times the news touched on Omega rights over the past few months, his name was thrown around: he settled down, learned his place, assumed his role by having children and furthering the population like a good little Omega. He needs to be back out there, and this is an Omega protest: Dean has no intention of walking out there with his Alpha mate trying to play bodyguard for him. He loves Cas, but that would undermine him with a bunch of liberal college students immediately.

Sam, though, has already passed Robert off to Jess and exchanged a kiss with her, and rising to his feet he meets his brother's stare head-on, unyielding, a stubborn jut to his jaw and hazel eyes hard.

"I'm the Stanford alum, Dean. I'm going."

There's no arguing with Sam once he gets an idea in his head… well, not successfully … which is how Sam in an old Stanford shirt under his canvas jacket ends up shotgun in the Impala, Dean popping out the Metallica Lullabies to drop the real thing into the tape deck while Charlie wedges herself between car seat bases in the back and rattles off what else they need to know. "I was talking to a friend on campus, and it's looking like there may be a few hundred people protesting today already at Encina Hall, between the Omegas on campus and the civil rights groups."

"You got an in with the kids who were assaulted? Where are they at?" From the passenger seat, Sam shoots Dean a warm, proud look that he'd rather not analyze so he ignores it as Charlie waits for a text back, summarizing off the screen for them.

"Dorothy says a few of them are on the balcony at Encina leading the rally. If you want to talk to them, or to the crowd, that's where we're going. She says they all know who you are, and she can get you in through the crowd. Only news people on campus so far are the university news, so if you want to talk you're talking to the students…"

Dean nods, filing that information away. So often he has to choose his words for an audience of television viewers, a country full of people who don't even know about the kind of civil rights abuses going on. But now he's going to be talking to a bunch of politicized college kids in the thick of it, some of them victims themselves, and for once he may not have to explain the problem before he can even address it.

He didn't count on the wall of campus cops, Santa Clara county deputies in their khaki uniforms keeping a watchful eye on the milling crowds, waiting for the call to intervene. Sam watches them warily as they trek from the parking garage to the protest, and Charlie sticks close to Dean's side, directing him with a touch and a look whenever she has to, over the din of students chanting and waving signs, past a wall turned into a bulletin board of their complaints, and some Omega students of both genders wearing next to nothing letting the world know they're still not asking for it, even dressed like that. Among them are a random scattering of men and women dressed normally for class, holding signs saying THIS is what I was wearing. Did I ask for it? Someone there is in Heat or close to it, Dean can tell by the way Sam's jaw bunches and he speeds up walking, and how Charlie swallows thickly and presses her fingers into Dean's arm, keeping up with the long-legged Winchesters with a half-trot. Which, of course, only proves the point: Sam and Charlie are Alpha, and they control themselves.

The three of them let the chaos buoy them along until Dean's pushed out in front of them, and he's half-tugged through a window onto a balcony once occupied for Vietnam protest. It's not meant for this… hell, there are no doors onto it, no railing to block the space, and it's crowded enough with bodies that Dean's nervous about someone falling, but there's no time to question it and no one would hear anyway. Kneeling down he exchanges a few words with a nineteen year old kid with fading bruises on her tearstained face and ringing her neck, clutching a torn protest poster in her hand where she sits against the wall of the building, and tries to absorb what's going on here despite the din of the crowd. It's not long before a megaphone is shoved into his hands by a brash Alpha Female that Charlie seems to mentally be drawing hearts and flowers around. A couple of students have their phones out, held towards him like microphones or up in front of them as cameras, and whether they're university paper or just social media junkies he knows anything he says today is going to go a lot farther than just this campus.

The protests don't die down entirely when he takes the megaphone, and the leering, jeering outskirts of the audience, what looks like three full fraternities and a bunch of asshole Alphas, only get louder. The crowd is a hostile mess, competing factions and the threat of police action over them all, roiling unrest and the feedback loop of Alphas and Omegas angry and anxious and afraid.

"I'm Dean Winchester, and I'm an Omega …" Half of Dean's words have disappeared beneath a roar of recognition. If nothing else since filing that first lawsuit his name's gotten out there, even if pushing the message is an uphill battle. There seems to be a lot more than a couple hundred students here by now, and Dean tries to pick out faces from the crowd, to read the people in front of him, and impart that purpose to them. "Right now, the Supreme Court is stewing over whether or not what happened to me, and what's happening to your classmates, is legal. But I promise you, no matter what they come out and say in a few months, it's sure as hell not right."

There's something so different about speaking in front of an audience than in front of a camera. The attention digs at him, eyes on him from all sides leaving him flush with embarrassment and overheated. Dean can feel their energy, the stares of the Omega kids nearest him… and god they're all such kids. And this was Sam when he was searching for Dean, when Dean was locked up in Alastair's 'employ'—Sam started a manhunt and got the idea for a civil rights campaign, and these kids are starting a movement.

"I never got to go to college. Seeing you guys here, you've already gotten a hell of a lot farther than I ever did. How many times did they tell you to drop out, give up because there's no point to you getting an education …? And you're at Stanford." Dean jabs a finger in Sam's direction, pacing his direction a few steps without looking away from the crowd. "My brother went here, I know know that's not easy, and I know it's not cheap. If you came here, it's because you have something you want to do with your life and you're willing to work your ass off and pay for it. Now you get here, and they act like you're an inconvenience? Fuck that."

The hooting, the cheers, they don't falter at the cussing. He doesn't have to pull himself back, or censor himself. For the first time in a long time, Dean can say exactly what he thinks of the shitty situation in the world. He's found his pacing, now, and he knows what they need to hear. "Supreme Court or Board of Trustees, the question isn't what rights they can grant you. Nobody gets to tell you when you're allowed to be safe, if you're going to be treated the same as any Alpha Male or any Beta student here." Turning Dean glances at Charlie, wringing her hands beside Dorothy, and he knows this message resonates, that it's not just the Omegas that have been given this crappy lot by the system. "They don't get to treat you like crap, chase you out, or look down on you just because you're different, or because you're not their stupid backassed ideal."

Charlie's smile is tremulous, her eyes bright, and after a moment she nods slightly and gives him a surreptitious thumbs up, far too thankful for just being included. She never felt safe to go to classes here, never felt accepted. Her degree may say Stanford on paper, but this is really the first time she's ever been folded into it all. Now, when they're talking behind closed doors about throwing out the victims, instead of addressing the aggressors.

The crowd is roaring, and for now Dean roars back, though he can see Sam tensing beside him, the push of the fraternity crowd, the first few thrown beer cans, the grab at one of the pretty Omegas in her bra and cut-offs, holding a sign. From the other side, the khaki uniformed deputies are moving, too, pushing into the crowd, though whether they're going after the Alpha agitators or the mixed crowd of protesters is unclear in the chaos.

"The question isn't how long they're going to take to give us the right to live like normal. Nobody gives you the right to do crap. Those rights are yours. The question is, how long are you going to let them take those rights from you?"

As Dean sidesteps the first bottle thrown at him, aware of Sam yelling for him to get back from the edge of the balcony as the projectile shatters a window, sending shards at them all, the clearest thought going through his head is that Cas, Jess and Bobby are going to be pissed at them.

Because really, Dean probably should have expected the riot.

xXx

"Dean!"

"Bit busy right now, Sammy!" They finally pushed their way back out of the building and onto the first floor, moving towards the chaos, always, because that's just the sort of stupid John Winchester raised his boys to be. They have to fight their way out of the building, push and shove their way to open air. God it feels like forever since that last bar fight, with Cas at his side. Even when other people's protests got rowdy around Dean, he was never really in it, just getting into the courthouse to do his part. They've had crap thrown at them before, but no one's gotten close enough to really take a swing at him since that first 'date,' on their way to Illinois. He's always been depressingly good at taking a hit, and then turning it around.

Throwing a punch at Charlie though, just for being near him? That pisses him off.

He feels the hit all the way down his arm when he goes to deflect it for her, pushing the ninety-pound redhead behind him, where Dorothy has her back. He's not sure why Charlie's not fighting back, but he loves the redhead like a little sister, so he doesn't really care. It just pisses him off that some drunken jackass frat boy threw a swing at her. It's a short step back from his comfortable life to having to fight off every grabby Alpha who wanted a piece of him, furious and bitter and violent, lashing out at the memories of the people who he couldn't fight off and determined it would never happen again. He is not entirely present, dragged in by the past. He's eighteen and there are two truckers who saw him waiting for John and didn't expect the 'Omega twink' to kick their asses. He's twenty two and some Alpha caught his scent despite the soaps and cologne, calling him a bitch and pawing at him. He's the pissed-off, rage fueled fighter who he was before Cas and Mary and Jimmy, before he figured out a direction for his life and found a way to channel everything that happened to him before.

Whoever this asshole is, he wasn't expecting resistance. His off-hand swing at Dean as he tries to wrench his right arm back from Dean's grip is a glancing blow at best, splitting his lip and not much else, but Dean has him now, arm trapped as he sweeps the legs out from the guy and follows him down, twisting his arm up into the small of his back. Though he can still hear fighting and shattering glass, the crowd has broken around them finally, no longer a press of bodies, and Dean figures that's probably Sam. His little brother is big, and tends to be a crowd-clearer.

When he follows the guy down to pin and subdue him, though, Dean sees a very different scene than expected.

Knee on the small of the guy's back, hand holding his arm trapped, Dean looks up into the eyes of the officer standing in front of him and then past him to where Sam is zip-tie restrained and not resisting, kneeling against the nearby wall. Dean narrows his eyes at the scene, a silent understanding passing between brothers, glances at Charlie and Dorothy to make sure they're okay, and wipes the blood off of his mouth before offering a smartass smirk to the cop that stings with the cut on his face, but not enough to stop him.

"… Citizen's arrest? I got one for you."

Two minutes later Charlie is arguing with the officer, phone still up as she continues recording every minute, as she apparently has since the first bottle was thrown. They'll get out of this. Charlie's got the evidence, and she's making noise about the law, and the officer hasn't just cuffed her and stopped the recording yet, so chances are as soon as this mess is done they'll be cut loose. It doesn't stop Dean from leaning in to bump shoulders with his brother, sitting back on his heels, hands zip-tied behind his back.

"Hey, Sammy… You know any good lawyers?"

Sam's exasperated sigh barely manages to disguise his grudging amusement, and is well worth the quip. A few feet away, drunken asshole frat boy groans, apparently hurt by Dean taking him down and straining against the zip ties on him where Dean dropped him, and Dean snorts quietly. "Oh, shut up. Nobody asked you."

They're lining up protesters along the wall with them, a petite brunette in a purple bra and leather pants is dropped to her knees next to Dean, and she spits at the feet of the police officer who puts her there. There seem to be more Omegas than Alphas arrested, and Dean and Sam watch it unfold through narrowed eyes, Charlie recording everything she can.

"Dean!"

"Ah, shit…" Dean mutters, ducking his head down; this time Sam laughs outright at Dean's expression, earning him a stilted kick in the shin where they both kneel. "Shut up, Sam."

Cas looks half wild, hair completely tousled in the dash to reach him, blue eyes too wide as he pushes past the police officer watching over them until they can transport them to the police department or cut them loose. He takes a knee in front of his mate and brother-in-law, thumb immediately sweeping over the split of Dean's lip and finds the small cuts from the glass on his neck, the ghost of a touch, as if he can simply wish the injuries away. "Are you hurt?"

"Tell me you guys didn't bring the kids here." Dean counters, comforted by the annoyed look Cas shoots him at the very idea that he'd endanger their children, the same way Cas is comforted by Dean's immediately diverting the topic, proving he's clearly not terribly injured.

"Bobby and Jess have the children, and she got on the phone with Sam's office immediately. I took a cab, but it wouldn't get me close enough." He had to run the rest of the way, pushing through the riot to them, but it was still faster than trying to park first. Cas had to have been listening to the campus radio and left in a panic as soon as the first bottle was thrown, as soon as it turned to rioting. He had no idea if Dean had been arrested, hurt, or was in the thick of the fighting. Resting his forehead against Dean's, he lets out a ragged breath and closes his eyes, offering a silent prayer of thanks that Dean's okay, and continuing flatly. "Bobby told me that I'm supposed to call you idiots."

"Idjits." The Winchesters chorus the correction, and Cas narrows his eyes at them, unsure why they're both so amused by that despite being under arrest. He tenses when the cop slaps a hand onto his shoulder.

"You've got no business being here, unless you want to be arrested too." The officer chastises him, and Cas's jaw bunches. Dean shakes his head, catching Cas's attention before he can do something stupid, or protective, or stupidly protective, his voice low in warning.

"Don't. You leave us here. We're doing our thing, Cas." And if Cas is going to stay, he should be doing his part of their plan. There's at least an one Omega in heat and plenty of students probably hurt in the ongoing riot. "Go help. Be safe. When it's time, you pull Sam out first and he can take care of everything." The conflict plays across Cas's face, how hard it is leaving Dean there to do his job, but after a long moment and a slow breath he rises to his feet again and turns to address the officer.

"I'm a physician, and this is my mate. I can treat the Omegas here safely until you can get the ambulances in past the riot." Cas lets the officers lead him away, shooting one last torn glance at Dean, and beside Dean in the line the brunette whistles and laughs.

"He's got it bad. Why the hell didn't you let him get you out of here?"

Dean and Sam exchange a glance, another silent conversation, before Sam leans his tall frame forward to look at her past Dean, his voice low. "We could have gotten out of here as soon as they cuffed us."

Zip ties. If John Winchester's boys had been easy enough to subdue that zip ties would work, they'd have been complete failures in their father's eyes. A single tiny square of plastic holds the whole thing together and the right pressure, or using anything around them as a simple shim, would have them free. Dean knew as soon as he saw Sam on his knees, hands fisted behind his back, that he'd calculated the risks and benefits and they were letting themselves be arrested without resisting.

Nothing quite makes a splash like wrongfully imprisoning nationally recognized civil rights advocates. As long as Dean doesn't do anything stupid now that they're cuffed, this is going to blow up in the media.

Charlie darts around getting it on tape until they arrest her too on principle, leading them past the Winchesters with her hands behind her back, Dorothy pushed along before her similarly cuffed. Dean nods genially to the redhead, and Charlie shoots Sam a wink that lets him know she's already sent enough video on to their news contacts.

Dean settles in for a long afternoon, watching everything around them, learning the stories of the Omegas around him and their Beta supporters. He keeps an eye on the tumultuous activity across the way, seeking out Cas whenever he can to make sure he's staying back from the fighting, to make sure he hasn't gotten himself arrested, and each ambulance to show up and pull away again gives him a look at his husband at work, scrutinizing each EMT paranoidly. The sirens are sobering, more than even than being personally arrested. These are kids being hurt and assaulted because they dared to speak up about being hurt and assaulted.

Indignation and righteous fury puts Dean's teeth on edge. He knows by tonight he and Sam and Charlie and anyone else with the right contacts will be out of here, home with a slap on the wrist or a warning, but they have to be up to eighty arrests now. How many of them will be carted to jail? Will they all make it back to their dorms and apartments? Will they be safe even if they do make it back?

It's not the first time Dean's seen the inside of a holding cell, when he is pushed into the one with the Omegas, Sam shoved in among the Alpha frat boys down the way. Actually this is all very familiar. He hopes to god Sam keeps a grip on his temper until Cas can come post the bail for his brother-in-law. He's got faith his little brother can hold his own, but sticking him in among a bunch of entitled asshole would-be rapists… He's pretty sure Sam could do more damage even than Cas, if he got his mind set to it.

The Omegas are a ragtag group, and all look worse for wear from the riot. A few of the others around him take Dean's lead in draping their jackets and shirts over the shivering protesters shoved into a cold cell in their underwear. Dean's jacket ends up with a blonde in a ripped lace bra, who huddles into it in the corner of the cell silently staring off, the brash brunette wrapped around her protectively.

The fury is simmering, carefully controlled, and they listen to him like he has all the answers, though he's making this shit up as he goes too. More than that, he listens to them—their campus may not want to hear them, the rioters may have wanted to silence them, but Dean has the national stage. Maybe there he can help speak for them, make the world understand. They're looking to him like he's supposed to lead them, so he has to try.

There's more to this civil rights movement than court cases and television interviews. There's more at stake than just a couple of laws to give them on-paper protection, or the veneer of equality. Even after he's led out, the first of the protesting Omegas freed… even after he's photographed in the parking lot wrapping Cas and their children in a hug, face tucked down to bury his nose into Jimmy's hair, hand soothing Mary's piteous little cry proving she missed him, Dean knows that he has to do more somehow. It'd be so easy to climb behind the wheel and get them out of here, to use them as an excuse and take this lure back to safety, but he can't.

When he raises his head, Mary in his arms and Cas before him holding Jimmy, Cas searches his face and steels himself against the resolve he sees there.

"There were fourteen injuries requiring hospitalization. Two police officers suffered minor injury, lacerations from the broken bottles. We believe there are a few unaccounted for Omegas who may have been taken from the area…" Cas lets out a breath and furrows his brow, visibly restraining himself. "We're not leaving, are we?"

Dean's lips quirk ruefully at Cas knowing him too well, and he bounces Mary gently to quiet her, half listening to Sam behind him in front of the news crews he managed to drum up. "Not yet. Your work gonna be okay?"

"I don't know. I still haven't built up as much time as I had for the paternity leave, but I will contact them and try to work something out. They may find a way to loan me to Sam's law office as an expert, or work something out with the local hospital or campus." Cas shrugs, and the fact that he's staying is just a given. Where Dean goes, Cas follows. They'll make this work somehow.

Jimmy is half asleep in Cas's arms, tuckered out from being out after dinner, but Mary is staring at Dean, her hand fisted in his t-shirt, huge green eyes dry now but her lower lip pouched out, flyaway hair still short enough that it's a mess of tufts and curls like Cas's. "Okay, baby girl. I'll be back before morning. Keep an eye on them for me, okay?"

It's nonsense to her, gently spoken and understood only for tone, but Dean kisses her forehead again before taking her to the Impala, buckling her into her car seat as Cas circles the car to do the same for Jimmy. "You get them in bed. We'll catch a cab together after, I'll head from here to the hotel. Don't wait up."

The scathing look of disbelief his husband shoots him at that order wins a bark of laughter from Dean and a brief, chaste kiss that he stretches across the back seat for. Dean knows Cas will be waiting up for him at the hotel, pacing a hole in the floor and watching the news on mute to not bother the twins, but he won't be able to rest until Dean's home safely. Dean would feel the same.

"I love you." Cas rumbles out of nowhere, and it's rarely said enough between them, however inherently understood it is, that Dean knows that's a request for reassurance as much as it is Cas reassuring him. Dean slips out of the back of the car, closing the door gently to not wake Jimmy or startle Mary, and circles to the driver's side to Cas, away from the cameras and reporters around Sam. Cas and Dean both know what needs to be done, and neither of them wants their kids in the middle of this. That doesn't mean Cas has to like being left behind, though.

"C'mere, you." Cas may be the Alpha of them, but he fits neatly in Dean's arms like this, tucking his head down into Dean's neck, Dean resting his chin on Cas's bowed head. Dean could have been hurt or killed, if the riot had gone the wrong way. He ended up in lockup again, and Cas hates the idea of that, how useless it makes him. So Dean lets Cas hold tight for a long moment to ground himself again, and they break apart at some unspoken signal too soon for either of them, Dean pressing a kiss to Cas's forehead, before Cas surges up to kiss him, hard but brief. It's a promise of later, and Cas makes himself duck into the car and turn the ignition before he can second-guess their plan of him leaving. Dean pats the hood of the Impala like gentling a horse, or as if he can ask the car to take care of his family until he can get back to them.

He watches as Cas shifts into drive, hand raising in half a wave, then keeps an eye on them until the scarlet glow of tail lights disappears before raising his chin and striding back towards the crowd to take over from his brother.

He wants to get back to his kids, to his family and his life, but this is important too. Dean can't become his Dad, losing track of family in the face of his mission, but he needs to find a balance that lets him keep fighting, not just making the waves for others to deal with. He set something in motion, and now he needs to be part of it.