Cas is still struggling to deal with his past and Dean is worried about him. How can he help his angel? By going shopping?

Chapter 31

"I'm fine, Dean." Cas pulled his fork out of the dirt and stuck it back in again, pushing down hard with his boot and levering out a big clod of earth. "Okay, I'm not fine - but this is the best I can do."

"Cas, you don't have to-"

"I know!" Cas stuck his fork savagely through the lump of dirt, shattering it into fragments. Then he stopped and closed his eyes, his lips tightly pressed together. "I know, Dean." He looked up and wiped a dirty glove across his damp forehead, leaving a smear. "I know I don't have to pretend. I know I can talk to you. I know you're there for me." He sighed. "I also know I'm being a bit of a dick about this-"

"You're not-"

"I am, Dean. I know I am. And I'm not even blaming myself for that, although it's hardly fair on you. Why shouldn't I be a dick? Why wouldn't I be snappy and shitty? What - am I supposed to polite? To be nice? To keep to some kind of bland, acceptable standard so that I can suffer without upsetting anyone?" He sagged, leaning against the fork. "I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. I just…"

He sighed again. And shrugged. And carried on digging the dirt - dark brown clumps, still heavy from the rain.

Dean hadn't ever dug to make vegetable beds but he'd shovelled dirt out of plenty of graves. The ground was too wet. Cas'd end up making a mud bath. He'd squash it all down and then it'd dry like concrete and nothing would grow.

"I'm going into town," Dean said.

Cas turned over another lump of dirt.

"I won't be long."

The fork was a weapon, stabbing the earth, anger and bitterness in the harsh scrape of grit against its metal tines.

"Do you want anything?"

"Just go, Dean."

Dean winced at a sharp pain in his palm. His car keys clinked as he slackened his tight grip.

"Okay. See you later."

He parked on the main street. There was plenty of space for Baby. Lebanon was a small town even by small town standards and there were few stores to attract shoppers from the surrounding area.

They didn't need any supplies. But Dean had needed to be out, moving, doing something. And for a change, killing time in the local stores beat spooling out a few miles of blacktop; or a few hundred.

The driver's door creaked open and creaked shut - part of Baby's voice, as familiar as Sammy's throat-clearing or Cas's, "Hello, Dean."

Cas would be okay. He was just processing. Dean knew how that went. You got hit by a truckload of grief or rage or guilt - or all three and more besides - and to begin with it was like being hit by a truck - you just lay there, stunned. And then you got up and did the things you normally did. You ate and you slept and you straightened up the motel room - or the bunker, or the house now - and you took out the trash. And you carried on. And if your head was still full of crap and your heart hurt - well, that's life, isn't it? You've got a choice. To live it. Or not. Dean always chose to live.

Anyway, it was a thing you went through. There was probably a name for it - stages of dealing with shit, or something. Sammy would know. Cas would deal with his shit and Dean would do what he could to help. Maybe he'd find something in this ghost town. Fuck knows what, but he'd keep an open mind.

He pulled his jacket around him against the few spattering raindrops and scanned the storefronts. The mild breeze ruffled his hair and he brushed it back out of his face. February was trying hard to make Spring weather, and succeeding some days.

The hot-fat scent of frying drifted across the street. He could check out the diner, but he wasn't hungry. Dean shoved his keys in his pocket and headed for the hardware store.

An old-fashioned bell jangled as he entered.

It wasn't the usual guy behind the counter. An old woman sat there, knitting with two colours of yarn - blue and green. She smiled and nodded.

Dean smiled and nodded back and kept walking until he was hidden in the shelves.

It wasn't a big store, but they packed a lot in. And not just all the usual hardware stuff, but other things too - a few kids' toys, some office supplies - stuff that kept a small town afloat when you couldn't get to the bigger out-of-town stores.

Dean liked hardware. He liked the rows of tools and the tins of paint and varnish and woodstain. He liked that you could buy a couple of metres of wire off a roll, or a length of chain, or a few feet of electric cable. He liked the tubs of nails and screws that you could pick and choose from like penny candy. He liked the smell of the place - clean like pinewood, dry like sand, warm like leather.

Tension eased from the back of Dean's neck and his shoulders dropped when he hadn't realised they were up around his ears. A change of scene, a different perspective - it was what he needed. And this certainly beat tapping into the grapevine and joining the nearest hunt.

The racks of clean, new tools sang a siren song to Dean - sharp edged and gleaming, not a scratch or a dent or a smear of engine oil in sight, they hung in graduated rows like fruit ripe for harvest. He picked up a claw hammer and weighed it in his hand, the metal heavy and solid and reliable, the rubber grip firm, filling his hand. He put it back and picked up another - small and light, for delicate work. Next he looked at the rows of screwdrivers, their coloured handles like jewels, their metal shafts straight and true - from the tiny sets of precision tools to the chunky six-and-a-half mil size, like the one he'd used when he was putting together the wooden frame for the stud walls.

Dean scratched the back of his neck and yawned. Maybe he should've got coffee from the diner. By his feet there was a stack of dust sheets for decorating. He felt like pulling them out, making a nest and curling up in it. He'd be like a dragon, wrapped around a hoard of hardware.

He yawned again. The old woman would be wondering what happened to him.

Dean took a three-sixteenths flathead from the rack - not because it had a shiny red translucent grip like a cherry flavour Jolly Rancher, but because he couldn't find his, and suspected it'd fallen between the cracks in the porch and was lost down in the crawl space. Then he treated himself to a penny-candy selection of screws and nails, dropping them into a brown paper bag. And finally he admitted to himself that there was no point trying to resist the pristine softness of the chamois leather cloths. He held one to his nose and inhaled the rich, animally scent. Maybe he had enough cloths back at Sunrise. But Baby deserved a new one.

He hadn't found anything for Cas yet.

Dean prowled the aisles until he came to a selection of gardening stuff. He picked out a new pair of gloves - green with yellow flowers on. He looked through the seeds. Cas probably had loads of seeds. There was a flower that Dean didn't recognise but looked pretty cool, like an alien daisy.

"Mesambree… Mee-sam-bree-an-the-mum." Jeez, what a mouthful. Anyway, he'd get a packet for Cas.

What else? The hand tools were shiny and appealing, but Cas didn't need any more. Dean grabbed a pack of flat wooden pegs. They came with a pen so you could write plant names on them and stick them in the ground - because the flowers might be secret, but Cas wouldn't want to lose track of where he'd planted his veg, would he? Secret carrots. Dean smirked.

The seed packet slipped out of his hand and he bent down to pick it up. Then he dropped the screwdriver and it rolled away and he had to dive to stop it going under one of the shelves. He should've got one of those wire baskets on the way in. Anyway, that was enough. He made his way to the counter where the old lady was still knitting.

Dean let his treasure fall in a pile next to the cash register.

"Did you find everything you wanted, dear?"

"Yes, Ma'am." She seemed like a ma'am. Friendly, but due a certain amount of respect. She probably had a wooden spoon beneath the counter to rap the knuckles of anyone not minding his ps and qs.

She wasn't ringing up the stuff, though. The knitting needles carried on wiggling.

"Yarn is on offer. Buy one get one free." She nodded toward the display on the far side of the cash register - a pot of different sized knitting needles and a neat stack of colourful balls of yarn.

"Uh, I'm not much of a knitter."

The needles stopped. Two bright, sharp eyes fastened on Dean's. "Have you ever tried, young man? It's very therapeutic, knitting. Very relaxing."

Young man. He supposed if you were on the wrong side of seventy, a forty-something was young, And maybe she knew what she was talking about. Cas hadn't done any knitting lately. Maybe some new yarn would help cheer him up. And he might have some happy knitting memories to distract him from all the bad stuff, mightn't he? Probably he remembered something from when people first discovered knitting - in Ancient Egypt. Or Ancient Mesopotamia. Dean didn't know where Mesopotamia had been - or where it still was, for all he knew - but lots of things had happened there, according to Cas.

"Go on. Have a look."

Dean left his treasure and slid along the counter, feeling like a kid who'd been left at Grandma's house for the afternoon and wasn't sure whether he really had to be on his best behaviour or if actually Grandma was a soft touch. Not that he'd ever known his grandparents when he was a kid.

He took a fat ball of yarn from the stack. It was soft and gave easily under his grip, his fingers sinking in between the fluffy strands which were all shades of blue. Like Cas's eyes.

"That's a beautiful colour mix, isn't it? So many shades."

"Yeah."

"You'd need size eight needles for that yarn."

"It's for my friend. He already has needles." Friend. Should he have said boyfriend? Partner? Suddenly he wanted to say it. He wanted to stand up and stand out for what he was to Cas and what Cas was to him. "My boyfriend," he said, looking the old lady dead in the eye.

The busy needles paused again. She looked down at the pile of things on the counter and then back at Dean, her bright eyes narrowed. "Well then, I hope you'll forgive a nosy old lady for asking, but might some of these be in the nature of apology gifts? Have you and your boy had a tiff?"

Dean snorted a surprised laugh and shook his head. "No." She was right, labelling herself nosy, but the enquiry was completely without judgement and he was grateful for that. "Cas - my boyfriend - he's a bit down. He's going through some sh- some stuff at the moment. I'm just trying to cheer him up."

"Oh. Well. I'm sure you'll succeed." Her face softened, her brows drew together in sympathy. "I'm Doris." She put down her knitting and stuck out her hand.

Dean shook it - small and bony, cool and dry. Her hand felt fragile, but there'd be some strength in it. Wiry old ladies were like that - all smiles and afternoon tea until they caught you in the wrong - helping yourself to fruit from their garden - and then you'd discover just how much strength, as well as accuracy they could get behind a swipe from a walking cane.

"Dean," he introduced himself.

"And your boy's name is… Cas?"

"Castiel."

"Oh, that's pretty. Very unusual."

Dean laughed. "You got him right there - pretty and very unusual."

"You love him very much."

A smile curled up the corners of Dean's lips and heat spread over his cheeks and all the way to the tips of his ears. "Yeah, I do."

"And he's having a hard time?"

Dean sighed. "I don't know what to do for him. I don't know how to help." The words fell from his lips easily, like maybe Doris was a witch and had put a spill-your-guts spell on Dean. Would it have been like this if he'd grown up around his grandparents? Would he have confided in Deanna while helping her fill salt rounds? Would he have spent long afternoons in Millie's kitchen, eating pie and talking about the Men of Letters?

"I'm sure just having you around helps," said Doris. "Cas knows you care. And if he's a keen knitter, he'll appreciate the yarn. Are you going to get two of the blue mix? There's some other real nice ones here."

She sorted through the display, picking out a ball in muted rainbow colours - a soft turquoise blue, running through olive green to peach to a pastel terracotta. Pastel terracotta? A tiny John Winchester voice sneered at the back of Dean's mind and Dean almost snorted out loud at it. Were 'real men' only allowed colours like blood red or jet black or maybe denim blue? Could only 'pansy-ass fags' recognise a pastel terracotta? Well, if that was so, Dean would be sure and ask Cas to grow pansies, so that when they bloomed, Dean could lie face down and let his boyfriend make a pretty arrangement on his bare cheeks. So stick that where the sun don't shine, John.

"I'll take one of those. Thank you, Doris."

"You're welcome, Dean."

She began ringing up the items on the cash register and packing them into a bag.

"You should drop into the library. Is your Castiel a reader?"

"Sometimes. He reads about bees. He's setting up a few hives."

"Well, I don't know if they have anything on bees." She leant over the counter and hissed in a loud stage whisper. "Talk to the librarian, Serenity Jones. Tell her Doris said to show you the special collection. I guarantee there'll be something there to bring a smile to Castiel's face."

"Uh. Okay." Dean paid and picked up the bag. "So… thanks, Doris. I guess I'll see you around."

"I'll be here," she said. "You be sure to visit the library now, dear. It's that way," - she pointed with a knitting needle - "just past the doctor's clinic."

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll do that now." He wouldn't dare not go - her button-bright eyes could probably see through walls. She'd know if he disobeyed orders.

The bell jangled on his way out, and Dean made a sharp left turn as indicated.

The library matched this smallest of small towns. It was no imposing civic building, but just a standard-sized store, squashed between the doctor's office and a funeral parlour. But it was bright and welcoming inside, and as soon as Dean stepped over the threshold, a pair of inquiring eyes appeared around the edge of a well-filled shelf, closely followed by a mass of colourful drapery and a broad smile.

"Well, hello there! You're not one of my regulars." A ringed hand thrust its way out of the red and orange fabric. "Serenity Jones - librarian."

He shook. "Dean Winchester."

"Nice to meet you Dean." Her smile grew even broader, red lipstick around more white teeth than seemed realistic. But then Dean had grown up around hunters, who tended not to smile much at all. "How can I help you?"

Dean scratched the back of his neck. In his other hand, the plastic shopping bag rustled. "Doris at the hardware store said something about a special collection? I don't really know…" He shrugged.

"Oh, I see." She shrunk down into the multiple floaty scarves wrapped around her neck and whispered, "Come through here." Then she pantomimed an exaggerated tiptoe through a beaded curtain and into a tiny room, little more than a cupboard, lined with more closely-packed shelves.

She turned around to face him and Dean flattened himself against the shelves to avoid getting his toes stood on.

"Sorry, it's a bit cramped," she said. "We don't keep these books on display. Some of the townsfolk can be a little narrow-minded, sadly." She gestured at the shelves. "Doris and I set up this collection because we never had anything to read, growing up, that was about people like us. This side," - she waved at the shelves Dean was leaning against - "we have the young adult section. The top shelf is instruction manuals, and the rest is romances. They're good stories, but pretty tame. You know - 'fade to black' just as things are getting interesting? Whereas these," - she patted a shelf on the opposite wall - "well, let's just say, they're not tame."

"Okay."

"I'll leave you to browse."

Serenity pushed her way back through the beaded curtain.

Dean put his shopping bag down on the floor and rotated slowly in place, taking in a few of the titles - How to understand your gender, in the teen section. Huh. Imagine if Dad had caught him reading that one. Dean guessed the book didn't recommend having the correct gender beaten into you. On the top shelf Gay Sex for beginners - a comprehensive guide caught Dean's eye. It might have been useful a few months ago. But he and Cas didn't count as beginners any more, he decided, not without a certain smugness.

He turned to the opposite shelves and ran his finger along the titles. The Hired Hand stood out, red, Western-style font against a yellow cover. He pulled it out. Oh yeah. Dean drank in the lurid picture - the bare-chested hired hand, his sweaty muscles shining, leant against a hay fork while another, equally handsome, but sharply-dressed man leant down from his saddle, white teeth gleaming in a smile that told you exactly where his interest lay. Dean turned the book over to read the back.

"Matt Carnarvon, owner of Thunder Ridge Ranch, lost the love of his life to the influenza epidemic and has decided he will never love again. He agrees to a marriage of convenience with the daughter of a neighbouring rancher, but then he hires Ned Golding - Ned, who gentles the meanest horse on the ranch with a touch and a soft word, who refuses to rise to the taunts of the town roughnecks - and who has the softest brown eyes, a smile to light up the world and lips that give Matt thoughts a man shouldn't have… Oh, Matt. You're in trouble now." Dean flicked through to the centre of the paperback.

His eyes darted left and right over the lines as he read silently.

"Ned! Oh, Ned, don't stop! Don't you dare stop!"

"I ain't gonna stop, darlin' I'll take care of you."

Ned's hands gripped Matt's hips, his fingers digging in with bruising strength while he thrust forward again and again, his huge cock spearing…

"Whoa!" Dean slapped the book closed as his face flooded with heat. He glanced at the beaded curtain.

"Are you okay in there, Dean? Finding what you want?"

…huge cock…

"Yes. Yeah. Yup. Finding… everything. Thanks."

The little paperback was like a grenade in his hand. He should hurl it back on the shelf. And then run. He should definitely run. Dean couldn't read shit like that - not that kind of stuff, set down in black and white. No way.

And yet, why not? He and Cas did that kind of stuff. Why shouldn't Dean read about it? In fact, why shouldn't he check out a couple of these stories, take them home and read them out loud to Cas? Or they could take turns reading, couldn't they? Or each pick a character and read their dialogue. Cas could be Matt. Dean could be Ned. Ned with the huge cock. Although, for all Dean knew, Matt had a huge cock too. He should read the rest of the book and find out. He would read it.

So fuck you once again, John Winchester. Dad had been more than okay with teenager-Dean poring over Busty Asian Beauties, but when he'd caught Dean lingering over the men's underwear section in an old Sears catalogue, found in the cellar of a derelict house, he'd exploded and smacked his son around the head so hard that Dean had seen stars. The catalogue had swiftly been used as kindling to light a fire on the crumbling hearth.

Anyway, Dean was taking The Hired Hand. And, after a couple of minutes' search, he decided he was taking Love in the Stars too, in which forbidden romance flourished between a Space Cadet and his commanding officer. Then he noticed a book Charlie had recommended once - Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson. It looked a bit too intellectual to contain much in the way of girl-on-girl action, but Dean could be intellectual if he wanted, couldn't he? He was an ex-hunter reinventing himself, so yes, he could.

He pushed his way through the beaded curtain and placed his little stack of books on the counter, firmly meeting Serenity's eyes and determinedly not looking down at the cover of Love in the Stars, where somehow both Space Cadet and CO had lost not only their space suits, but most of the rest of their clothes too. The CO almost certainly had a huge cock. Dean would enjoy finding out.

"You've got some good ones here," said Serenity, with another broad grin. "You come straight back when you've finished them, and tell me what you thought."

"You betcha," said Dean, channelling Donna Hanscum, and matching the librarian's grin.

It was raining again. Dean dropped his books in his bag and scrunched up the top so that the wet wouldn't get in.

At home, the kitchen would be warm and Cas would be making something for lunch - just canned soup and sandwiches, or maybe he'd be whipping up a quick pasta sauce to go with spaghetti. Unless, of course, he was still outside, digging in the rain.

Something tightened in Dean's chest and bitterness crawled up his throat. Was Cas still outside, hacking at the dirt, stabbing his fork into the ground because he couldn't stab the bastards who'd hurt him?

The rain pelted down, sticking Dean's hair to his forehead. He shoved the shopping bag inside his coat. If Cas was still out, Dean would take him in. He'd take him into their home and dry him off and warm him up until he was fluffy-haired and pink-cheeked and then Dean would make the soup and sandwiches. And he'd hover over Cas until he ate them all up.

And then he'd give Cas the things he had bought - maybe even wrap them up first, so it'd be like Christmas again, when Cas had been so happy. Yeah, this was going to work. Or at least, it might distract his angel for a while, even if it couldn't wipe away all the damage that had been done to him or the anguished memories of all the people he hadn't been able to save.

Dean kept his head down as he strode swiftly in the direction of his Baby. Time he was home. Cas needed him. He splashed through a puddle, blinking against the rain that stung his eyes. And then he almost tripped over two kids who were crouched on the sidewalk, a sagging cardboard box between them.

"Whoa! Sorry, kids."

Dean sidestepped and walked on.

"Let's just go, Jimmy. It's raining real hard."

"No. Mom said we can't keep any this time, Katie. They'll just have more babies."

Dean stopped and turned around, his boots scraping on the wet concrete. "Hey! What's in the box?"

Katie opened the flaps. Something inside squeaked. "Have a look, mister. She's the last one."

"You should take her. She's real cute," said Jimmy.

Dean walked back to where the kids were squatting - a red raincoat and a blue, hoods pulled up and drawn tight against the rain. He leant over the box and peered in. Then he smiled and crouched down, put his hand inside and wriggled his fingers.

"How much?"

"Ten dollars."

A twitching nose tickled his fingertips. The gloves, the seeds, the yarn and especially the stories were all nice - they'd bring a smile to Cas's face. But this…

"Sold," said Dean.

Ooh, what's in the box? And will Dean's gifts help to cheer Cas up? Find out in chapter 32!