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Cas doesn't really understand humans' relationship with their own nakedness. He understands the vulnerability of it. He can understand protecting the body from the sun, the cold, insects, from abrasive surfaces. But the need to hide the body from the eyes of others, the way Dean is fiercely protective of his own nakedness, that he’s never quite understood though.
However, here freshly human in a communal shower in a shelter, Cas is vividly aware that his naked body is being stared at. He doesn't understand shame, not really, but he wonders in the burning sick feeling in his throat is something like it.
He turns his back to the other men in the shower, tries to wash quickly.
No one follows him from the showers but a heavy set man with a towel wrapped around his waist sits at the end of the row and watches Cas intently. He scrubs his body dry quickly in the little locker room. He gets the towel wet in a puddle on the scuffed blue tile but he doesn't dare grab another dry towel for himself. He dresses quickly, heart racing, feeling urgently like he needs to run, aware of the man still staring at him. He wonders if fear is always like this, a skittery, shaky thing that makes him feel like a hunted animal. How do the Winchesters deal with it, being scared all the time?
That evening, as he's preparing for bed someone calls, "Hey, Steve? Steve!" It takes him a moment to remember that's his name now. He looks up to find Marlene, the woman who helped him sign into the shelter.
"Come with me, Steve," she commands. His stomach drops but he follows dutifully behind.
"Steve, look I'm sorry but you will need to leave tomorrow." Marlene tells him once they’re sequestered in her tiny office.
"I don't understand. You said I could stay for several days."
"I'm sorry. Things have changed. You can stay for the night but we can't offer you a bed tomorrow."
"I'm," his voice catches, "I'm not sure where I'll go." He admits.
Marlene, who looked so open and friendly this morning, is holding herself stiffly now. Standoffish Cas thinks, though he can't understand why. Maybe he offended someone? Maybe the showers. He knows his body is not like the bodies of other men, he knows that men who look like this, men like Jimmy and Dean, are not always treated well, but is he really being denied a bed for this? He doesn't dare ask.
"Here, uh, there's a center in town. It's not a shelter but they will be able to help you better than we can." She rummages around her desk, then hands him a crumpled flier. He examines the cover.
Pathways, it reads in big letters across the top. There's a rainbow underneath and then a little description reading Rexford LGBTQA+ Center. It's not open tomorrow.
"Thank you, Marlene."
Cas leaves early the next morning after poor sleep. He was worrying too much about where he would sleep tomorrow, where he would go. He's already discovered that jobs require things like driver's licenses and social security numbers and home addresses and all kinds of things Cas has never had need of before and has frankly no idea how to get. He had been planning to ask around at the shelter but he hadn't felt welcome to ask any questions when he woke in the morning. He left without speaking to anyone.
With nothing better to do, he goes to the center. He's hungry but he already knows he can make his remaining money stretch longer if he skips more meals, so he ignores it.
Sure enough, the center is closed. The lights are off. He shakes the handle all the same, then stands there, unsure what to do. He sits on the step. It's as good a place as any to wait until they're open tomorrow.
A few minutes later, the door behind him cracks open.
"Hello?"
There's a young blond person standing in the doorway. They're chubby with two nose rings and big wire frame glasses.
"I'm sorry we're not open today," they say.
"I know. The shelter told me to come here and I wasn't sure where else to go."
"Shit," they sigh, "Come on in."
They hold the door open for him. He heaves his bag up and walks in. It's dark inside but once he gets around the privacy wall he can see light on in a back room.
"Come on back."
In the back, there’s a profusion of couches and a little kitchenette and a television and shelves and shelves of books, some of them half blocked by the couches.
"Was it the Guiding Hand Shelter?"
"Yes. They told me I could stay for a few days but then they amended their position and I was only allowed to stay one night."
They blow out a breath.
"Yeah, we've had problems with them before. I'm sorry about that. I'm Marin by the way, they them pronouns."
He blinks.
"Steve, he him." he says as they shake hands.
"Well, Steve, I've got a few things to do before we can talk but you can sit here. Feel free to watch TV or read any of the books. There are some snacks in the kitchen and I think there might be brownies from yesterday in the fridge. You're welcome to them."
"Thank you, Marin."
They smile brightly and wander farther back into the building. It takes a few minutes before Cas dares poke around in the kitchen. There are indeed brownies in the fridge. He finds a knife and dishes himself two slices.
After that he wanders, looking at the titles. There's a small collection of poems: Whitman, Corral, Vuong, Waites, Sappho, Lorde, Hughs. There were children's books, fiction books, romance novels with well muscled young men in cowboy hats and assless chaps on the cover. There’s even a section on spirituality and religion with titles like Lesbian Rabbis and Sexuality in Islam.
He pulls out a brightly colored book called Taproot. The cover proclaims it a graphic novel. It's a story of a ghost and the man who loves him. In the back of Cas's mind he, notes the inaccuracies in the way the text represents hauntings and the afterlife. It doesn't take long to read but he reads it again when he's done. The drawings are so bright and the love between the men so gentle and patient. He aches for them and rejoices at their happy ending. He absorbs the book hungrily. He is in awe, always, of human minds and human hands. Thank you, he thinks, for loving this story so much that I might read it.
"Steve?" he looks up to see Marin standing next to a tall man with curly dyed green hair.
"Hey, Steve. I'm Diran. I'm Marin's supervisor. I heard you got kicked out of Guiding Hand?"
Cas shook his hand, nodding mutely.
"I'm sorry to hear that. They're not very queer friendly but most people don't know that."
Cas nods.
"Have you had something to eat?" he asks. Cas blinks.
"I had some of the brownies in the fridge," he admits.
"Ok, we'll order some lunch later. So listen Steve, I already called the shelter we usually send people to, but they're out of beds unfortunately. We're really not supposed to do this, but we can let you stay here tonight if you want. I'd be staying with you, just to be safe."
Cas nods mutely.
"Ok, well, why don't you tell me a little bit about what's going on and we'll see what we can do."
What can Cas say? 'I caused my whole family to fall from heaven and my only human friends turned me out for no reason I can understand.' 'I am afraid and hungry and I do not understand this world, nor how to navigate it.'
"I'm not sure how to get a job," he admits.
They talk. Eventually, Marin orders them a pizza. It’s greasy, heavy, filling and the smell alone makes his mouth water. It’s maybe the best thing he’s ever tasted.
“Never had pizza before?” Diran asks, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a smile as he watches Cas start his second slice.
“No.”
Diran regards him for a long silent moment before turning back to his food. Cas has no idea what that look means.
After the pizza box has been thrown in the dumpster out back and the napkins cleared away Diran says, “Ok, Steve.I know a few people who might be willing to hire you. Let me make a few calls.”
Crossroads has a pullout couch that Diran insists Cas take. It's clean and warm, though smells faintly of dust and many years of use. Cas doesn't mind. He doesn't mind the bar digging into his back or the way the mattress slopes down at the bottom. He's just grateful, always so grateful to humans for their many kindnesses.
"Hey, hey Steve." He comes awake as if swimming up towards consciousness through soup.
"Diran," he croaks out, surprised how wrecked his voice sounds. "what's wrong?"
"Hey, you were making some noise. Didn’t sound good. You alright?"
Cas's pillow is wet and his heart is racing and feels too big for his chest, like it might fill up his whole chest if he's not careful.
"No, I don't think so," he admits.
The guy sets a gentle hand on his shoulder. Cas's next breath is a heaving sob.
He'd been dreaming about Dean. About sitting on the impala on the top of a great hill looking down on Dean going about his life. Watching the familiar creases around his eyes as he laughed, the charming quirk of his mouth when he's trying to be humorous, the gentleness of his hands as he helps someone away from danger and the ruthlessness of them as he kills.
In the background, the sky had been lit with his siblings falling, falling, falling. And he'd been yelling for Dean, trying to get his attention but he'd been yelling to his siblings too, yelling his apologies, his grief. Or maybe he'd been howling his grief at Dean who was going about his life, unaffected, too far away to hear Cas at all.
Diran doesn't leave; this too makes him cry.
The next morning Diran shows him a cabinet full of brightly colored pre-packaged cups of cereal. He picks out a little cup of fruitloops. He eats in silence, watching Diran brew coffee for them both.
"You got any family?" he asks as he sets the coffee down in front of Cas.
"Yes," Cas answers.
"They supportive?"
"Not particularly.” There are many things that can be said of the angels but supportive is not one of them.
"I get that, man. Wait are you a man? Sorry, I've been assuming this whole time. Shoulda asked."
Is he a man? He's never really considered his gender before. He's been comfortable in this vessel, comfortable with the way humans respond to him while in this vessel. Mostly. The way Dean responds to him, pulling him close and then pushing him away when Cas steps too close is not his favorite. The way he so willingly touches women, touched Anna, but so rarely touches Cas, no matter how he earns for it. And the way the men in the shower responded to him, the new awareness of his own otherness, even now away from them, settles in his stomach like lead. What is he? He’s human now, but he lacks the context to understand what that means. He is in a man’s body, a body that was made to be a man, but does that mean he too is a man?
"I-- Yes, I am a man."
"Cool. Me too! You, uh, do you need help getting T or anything?" he asks.
This Cas has some context for. The regular injections Dean takes, the gel Jimmy rubbed on his skin regularly. Does he need T? He has held this vessel in statis for years now, healing its injuries, preventing its aging, interrupting its need for things like T. He probably does need T, he guesses, but he needs a job and a bed more urgently.
"It's not important right now."
Diran looks at him consideringly.
"Look, if you need some help getting a prescription for cheap, I can send you in the right direction."
"Thank you, Diran. I cannot tell you how much your kindness means to me."
The job at the gas-n-sip keeps him afloat, once he finally starts getting money. He hadn’t realized, at first, that it would take time before he got paid. He hadn’t realized that money would be taken off for taxes. He knows so little about the minutiae of daily human life these days.
He doesn’t call Dean. He doesn’t text Sam. He does check in regularly with Diran. He talks with Nora regularly. He meets up with Marin at a local pay as you will cafe in town for coffee. He starts sleeping in the the back of the gas-n-sip, once the queer friendly shelter ran out of space again. He had no idea college towns had such problems with homelessness.
He thinks often of Diran’s question: is he a man? Can he be a man when he’s not even really human?
He thinks of it as he rings up people’s orders, and fixes the lights and talks to Nora. Does it mean something different that he is a man speaking to Nora? Does a man fix a lightbulb differently than a woman? Than a genderless angel? Is this still just his vessel? This vessel cannot be an accident, Jimmy worked hard to make this vessel into his own body. And Cas, well, he’d just rebuilt a man who built himself first, after his own image, and Cas felt a kinship. A kinship to Dean and Jimmy in turn.
He looks at his face in the mirror some evenings wondering, does he feel a kinship with this body?
Crossroads holds weekly meetings for trans adults. Cas is usually working or too tired to bother going. But, one day Marin texts him before the meeting and he decides to drag his tired body downtown.
It’s loud when he walks in, full of unfamiliar people who don’t stare at him when he enters. Unsure what to do with himself and feeling awkward he examines the paintings on the wall. The canvases are covered in shakey rainbows and glitter and flowers and awkward little figures. Each one has a name and age beside it. Alice 8, titled My Family, John 12, Flowers. It goes on.
"Steve!" he turns to find Diran there, smiling brightly at him. "So, happy you could make it. How are you doing? How's Nora treating you?"
Small talk. He's never had much use for it before but he's found it's not just idle chatter. Diran is checking in on him. He may even feel a genuine desire to know how Cas feels, he’s not sure though. Cas has found he doesn't make the emotional leaps between the words people say and the sentiment they wish to convey very easily.
Being human is an endless slog of learning something new about himself every day.
At least, he can trust that Dean's actions, Dean kicking him out of the bunker and his profound silence afterwards, are an unambiguous rejection. A solid statement that no matter what affection he feels for Cas, he is still disposable to Dean. He might as well be a barn cat, he reflects, useful to kill the mice but not welcome in the house. Now that he's lost his claws he's not welcome at all.
Diran doesn't need him to have claws. He smiles. “She’s treating me well.”
They chat. Cas asks after Diran's kids, all well, the youngest has fallen in love with a kid's movie called Frozen. They talk about Nora and Cas's struggles with work, the way he's going around the store reading all the packages to understand what they are really selling. For some reason this makes Diran laugh.
Eventually, Diran calls them all to order. They sit, and go around the circle introducing themselves. There's a couple of young college students who are relaxed, comfortable in their skin. A couple of adults who say their names and pronouns with halting hesitance, a couple people who say their gender like a challenge to the world. Cas doesn't really know where he fits in.
The group is nothing like he expected. It's just a talk. A woman with bright red braids talks about her struggles in the workplace and everyone chips in offering support and advice. There’s talk of supportive parents, supportive parents, hormones, surgery, happy trans moments, moments of fear and crushing uncertainty.
A college student, Wren, talks about their struggles understanding what being nonbinary means, what nonbinary looks like, what nonbinary sounds like.
Mick, a tiny dark haired guy across the room from Cas steps up to answer."How do you want to be nonbinary? I mean, look there's no rules, even if you were binary, you are the one who gets to decide what that means. You know, I really struggled with the idea of being a guy, of being part of a group of people who had visited so much violence upon me, sorry I know this isn't relevant to you--"
"No, keep going," Wren nods.
"I started thinking about the men in my life and thinking, what parts of them do I admire. I like the way my dad gardens and is humble. I had a teacher in high school who wore lots of jewelry and I always thought that was cool. I like how gentle my cousin is with children. My neighbor makes food for me and our other roommates when someone is sick. I mean, maybe you don't know that many nonbinary people, but you can still look at the people that I admire in your life, the people you evny and try to emulate that. You're not inventing a new gender, Wren, you're just figuring yourself out."
Wren nods. "Yeah, I think that makes sense."
The meeting goes on. There's laughter and someone gets out a speaker at some point and people get up to dance. It's happy and a little overwhelming. Cas sits back and takes it all in.
When it's over, some people leave and some wander out to bring back takeout and others go into the back room, the room where Cas slept. Cas helps put all the chairs away, stacking them carefully with the help of Lenora, a woman with a lip piercing a streak of pink in her hair.
"Anything you want from the takeout place?" she asks when they're done.
"No, thank you. Did you see where Mick went?" he asks.
"They're probably out back."
Sure enough, Mick is out back, joint in hand, deep in conversation with Sky.
"Sorry," he says, turning to go back inside.
"No, it's cool," Sky says, gesturing him over.
"I wanted to thank you, Mick. Your words on what it means to be a man illuminated many things to me. Thank you for that."
"Yeah, man. You get to decide what it means. If it doesn't fit, you can decide that you're something else. Don't let anyone trick you into thinking you need to be a certain kind of person to be a man." Mick says.
"I think it does fit," Cas admits. They're both smiling at him.
"Yeah? What does being a man mean to you?"
"It means I'm not an accident."
Mick holds up a hand. Cas stares at them.
"It's a high-five," Mick offers after an awkward moment.
Cas narrows his eyes at them, then, with concentration, slaps their hands together.
Mick doubles over laughing.
"You're a cool dude, Steve."
"Thank you. You are a cool person too."
"Thanks. You want some?" Mick offers the joint.
He takes the joint.
The laundromat never stops feeling terribly vulnerable. On one of his first trips, a wild haired young woman had taken one look at his chest and gone to mutter to the attendant. He couldn’t hear the words, human hearing is severely lacking, but the looks they’d been casting at him had made his hands sweat. This is the only laundromat within comfortable walking distance of the gas-n-sip. He doesn't want to lose this.
Today though, he finds Mick and Sky there bent low over a phone, sharing a pair of headphones.
"Steve!" Mick says brightly.
"Hello, Mick."
"Oh man, we missed you last week! It's so good to see you. Can I give you a hug?" he nods a little dumbfounded that someone missed him.
"You work at the gas-n-sip up the block right?" Sky asks.
"Yes, I do."
"Cool. My buddy Rhea works there too."
Steve knows Rhea. She's easy to work with, very quiet, sometimes follows Cas around like she's lost.
"I know her. Would you like me to pass on my regards."
"Yeah, that'd be awesome."
There is small talk again, but perhaps it is not so small this time. Cas learns that they are together, that they have a cat, and a small garden of potted beans and tomatoes. He learns that Sky dropped out of school and was homeless until Mick picked them up. He learns that Mick works at a local warehouse and is active in the union. He asks what a union is.
They end up playing cards while they wait for Cas’s clothes to dry.
"Look, Steve, if you ever need anything just call me," Mick says as they're heading out with their laundry. "You need a ride, or someone to talk to or help with anything, call me."
With that, Cas adds another number to his phone.
He could use help, he thinks, one evening alone in the gas-n-sip. His shoulder and hip ache from sleeping on the floor and he feels terribly heavy, all the time. He's not sure what to call this feeling. He's discovering that human emotions are large and he feels them in his whole body. His hands sweat when he's nervous, his neck gets hot when he's embarrassed, shame makes him feel like he's swallowed a hot coal. Fear makes his stomach drop. It really feels like it physically moves. It hurts. He's always amazed how much being human hurts, even gratitude, love, happiness, feel so big they hurt sometimes.
What could he possibly say to Mick, or Diran or Nora even. He feels tired all the time, in a way sleep cannot reach. He will probably still feel so tired when his circumstances are not so dire. He's just heavy and he has nowhere to set himself down.
He ends up not having to ask, because Mick texts him that night, "You should Come to the bookstore tonight! There's a poetry reading! It's free"
He doesn't answer immediately, not sure what to say. He's tired, he wants to curl up alone somewhere, but he will probably just end up sitting in the pay as you will cafe in town anyway until he can't anymore. At which point, we will wait in the park until the gas-n-sip closes and then he will sleep, and be awake again in time to open.
"Ok. When is it?" he sends an hour later, after much deliberation.
He sits in the back at the reading. An older man with a brilliant smile and an oversized suit jacket opens the night by telling everyone the rules. No more than five minutes of reading, no apologizing, be polite. With that they're off. It's not really a performance. Really it's a group of friends reading each other their favorite poems. Mick reads in a low sonorous voice that people learn forward in their seats to listen to. Wren reads a poem about turning into a deer which Cas adores immediately. There are silly little poems about birds and flowers and puddles and children, and chilling poems about the loss of a child, and poems about the beloved, and poems about being high on the roof of a building and being in love--in love with everything. One person, reads a few evokative poems about sex and tying someone up and Cas thinks of Dean the whole time, much as he would prefer not to.
Poets like Rumi and Mary Oliver and Ocean Vuong get read. Cas reflects on the span of human history that he has witnessed, the poems through time. The poems of the Neanderthals that he loved so well, the epics of the Greeks, the poems of the Sufi's, the poems by the greatest poets who were never known by anyone but their mother and him, the terrible poems that were so earnest he could not help but love them.
The branching tree of history and language and reading and moments like this that have happened over and over throughout history that bring humans back, again and again to this place, sharing the music of the mouth.
Another poet comes up, saying, "Hi, I'm Ezra. My pronouns are they/them." Mick calls "Hey, Ez!" They smile.
"I'm not reading anything of mine today, but I wanted to share a couple poems I've read recently with you all,"
There is a poem about a boy who hungers for the touch of other boys, through violence. Cas thinks of Dean. There is a poem on the endless human quest towards God and humanity's petty failures and endless toil nonetheless.
They read:
I never wanted
the flesh.
How it never fails
to fail
so accurately.
But what if I broke through
the skin's thin page
anyway
& found the heart
not the size of a fist
but your mouth opening
to the width
of Jerusalem. What then?
He thinks of Dean; he is always thinking of Dean. He has broken through the skin’s thin page, Dean’s skin, touched his heart, seen every bit of him. He still knows where every vein lies, where he remade every freckle, the exact size of Dean’s beating heart. He ran his angelic fingers over all of it, knitting him back into his body. He has never understood the subsequent distance Dean insists on putting between them. Cas wishes, with sudden violence, that he were close enough to break through to Dean, to leave a bruise, to share this heavy aching he feels all the time.
"Hey, let's take a break!" Mick calls then pops down beside Cas, handing him a tissue. Cas wipes at his eyes.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry," Ezra’s wringing their hands.
"It's alright," Cas says. "You have a beautiful reading voice."
Ezra smiles at him gently. "Thank you."
"I'm gonna get you some water. Hang on.” Mick scurries off.
The old man wanders over, Aaron.
"It happens to the best of us," he promises.
"What do you mean?"
"Someone always cries, every week."
He looks fond as he says it. Cas thinks, how strange, to gather weekly to cry together. He thinks, how beautiful, to gather weekly to cry together.
In Mick’s car, after the reading, he asks to be taken to the gas-n-sip.
"It's it closed by now?" he asks.
Cas looks down at the book he’s got cradled in his hands. Ezra gave him a copy of Anne Sexton, apologizing all the while that they still needed the Vuong for class, or else they would have handed it over no questions asked.
"I think so. It's close to where I'm staying."
Mick looks at him for a minute.
"You got somewhere to sleep?" he asks quietly.
"Yes." No matter it's on the floor. It's a place to sleep.
He look at Cas for a long minute, wavering.
"Ok, cool." He starts up the car.
It's an old white Ford pickup. The windshield has a dramatic crack spanning half the glass and Cas wonders if Dean could fix that. Probably, given the time. The cab smells like cigarettes and incense.
On the drive, Mick asks, "Cas, are you on the run? From an ex or something?"
"In a way, I am on the run from my family. Why do you ask?"
"I dunno man, a few years back I had to help a friend out of an abusive situation. You remind me of him."
"You are concerned for my safety," he guesses. "Please, rest assured I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"Yeah, man, but you don't have to. We can help."
Cas doesn't argue, doesn't say anything at all. He can't explain that he can't ask for help. He cannot ask a small human with a partner and a cat and a garden with no knowledge of the supernatural to help protect him from the wrath of his family. He cannot do such a thing to their lives.
"Thank you," he says simply.
Mick hugs him across the front seat before dropping him off.
Cas can’t sleep. He thought sleep was supposed to be easy, come upon humans unnoticed. But Cas often can’t stop thinking, or his heart beats so hard he can feel it in his whole body, or he just lies awake in quiet misery, hoping for unconsciousness, feeling more tense by the minute.
Today, he has been thinking of his body. It had been a slow quiet day at work and when he could no longer focus on the package labels he’s been reading or the magazines or his phone, he had taken to examining his hands. He has a mole on one knuckle he’d never noticed before. There are scars left over from when this was still Jimmy’s body. His nails are ragged. He knew this before, from the way t hey scrape along his skin uncomfortably when he scratches an itch. He itches now. There are fragile little veins in his wrist, carrying blood back to his heart, to his lungs, evidence of the constant tide of blood coursing through his body.
Now, in the dark, he sits on the floor, on his sleeping bag, and runs his fingers over his skin. He feels the fine texture of hair on his arms. Has hazy memories from Jimmy of his pride at his body hair. Farther up his biceps there’s less hair. There’s muscles there, in his arms. He presses his fingers into the meat until it aches a little. There’s the soft sensitive underside of his bicep. He reaches under his shirt, touching his chest, the hair there, the scars, the mostly numb nipples. He lays his palm flat, feels his heart beating through his sternum. Not Jimmy’s heart. His heart. He rests a hand on his side, feels his ribs expand and contract as he breathes. What a miracle, the human body.
His stomach, his belly, the organs under them. He can feel his organs working sometimes, hear them too. And certainly he hates the endless slog of it. Constantly need to feed himself only to do it again hours later, and water, and then needing pee and brush his teeth and wash his hands, and wash his body and figure out where he can do those things, when he doesn’t have a house or even a motel room to call his own.
He touches his belly, tries to be grateful for these petty difficult organs for keeping him alive, even when he’s hungry, even when he dreads getting up off the floor in the morning.
He keeps cataloguing himself. The thicker hair on his thighs, how sensitive his scalp is, the rough stubble on his face. He’s shaved but he’s never taken the time to really feel what his facial hair is like under his fingers. He takes a long minute touching it, lost in the scrape of it against his palm.
There are his feet, the vulnerable arch, the tough soles, the hard bone of his ankle. The machinery of his body.
Jimmy built this body, Cas took it, his brother destroyed it and, something rebuilt it while bringing him back to life. That he’s in Jimmy’s body cannot be an accident, that Jimmy spent such time and money and effort to build this body only to give it to Cas, cannot mean nothing. Becoming human was not intended and Cas aches to be an angel again, but he is also presented with the rare chance to know himself, away from the garrison, away from the orders of the host, away, even, from the Winchesters. He lays back on his side. He tries to be grateful.
Dean’s visit is both welcome and not. He’s wanted to see Dean for weeks, but being near him makes Cas’s chest ache, now especially, watching Dean handle Tanya.
He settles the crying child easy on his hip, no awkwardness in his movement.
“Heya, kiddo. Not feeling good, huh? C’mon, let’s get you settled in,” he coos to her and Cas follows behind, helpless to resist the chance to be near Dean.
He rocks with the girl, rifling through the medicine cabinet looking for Tylenol.
“Here,” he says, gruffly, handing Cas a first aid kit, “get yourself cleaned up.”
Cas stays in the bathroom, dressing his wound, rather than follow Dean to the crib where he is putting Tanya down. He wishes he could watch. Dean’s hands are so gentle. He is so full of kindness and he doesn’t even know.
Dean pops back in, watching Cas struggle to tape down the bandage one handed for a moment.
“Give me that,” he eventually says, taking the tape from Cas’s hand.
He sits on the edge of the tub, Cas’s hand on his knee. He gets a gets a new bandage, smoothes it down, then tapes it in place with practiced motions. Cas suppresses a shiver. Other than Mick’s hugs and holding baby Tanya, hardly anyone has touched him since Dean kicked him out. He wants more.
Dean examines his work. “That should do it. You gonna be ok while I deal with the body?” He’s not looking Cas in the eye. He wonders what he’s done wrong this time.
“I’ll be ok,” he promises.
“Text me when Nora gets back. I’ll pick you up.” And with that, he’s gone again.
Things don’t get easier with Dean at the motel room. There had been smiles in the car but after Dean had burst out “Damn it, Cas! Just let me take you back to the motel!” things have been tense. So, as soon as they get into the room, Cas flees for the showers.
“I-- Cas…” Dean starts when he walks out.
He doesn’t finish. He’s staring at Cas, paused halfway to the bed, an extra shirt hanging loosely in his hand.
Cas feels again like he’s back in that shower at the first shelter, caught out, exposed, nervous. Cas has learned that he moves in certain ways when he’s nervous. He shifts his weight, he might even fidget. His hands will sweat, an annoying little biological tick that sometimes is his only cue that he is nervous at all.
He shifts now. He’s wearing only boxers, his hair is wet. He’s tired. Whatever Dean is about to say, Cas doesn’t know that he has the energy to hear.
Dean seems to shake himself. He tosses the shirt to Cas. “To sleep in,” he says, now not looking at Cas.
“Didn’t know Jimmy was trans,” he comments with familiar forced calm, as Cas pulls the shirt on. It smells like the impala, like Dean, like leather and the inside of his duffle bag and gun oil.
“Yes, he was,” Cas answers shortly.
Dean’s turned his back to Cas, kneeling and shuffling through his bag, looking for something.
“Are you--” he doesn’t finish, casting a quick glance at Cas, where he’s now seated on bed.
“It would be accurate to say I am also trans,” Cas offers. His voice is steady but for some reason, his heart is racing.
Dean exhales noisily.
“I wasn’t-- I thought angels were, y’know, junkless. Didn’t go for that gender stuff.” He’s stopped shuffling through the bag. He’s resting on his heels on the floor, half-turned, looking at Cas.
“We don’t. I am a poor example of an angel. Especially now. But I choose Jimmy for a reason, though, I am still unsure what that reason was.”
Dean stands, sits heavily beside Cas. “S’not really a choice though, is it. Just feels right.”
Cas doesn’t know how to respond to that.
“I had not considered that before,” he finally admits.
Dean frowns at him, “What?”
“Dean, why are you a man?” he asks instead of answering.
“That way lies madness, dude.”
“Dean,”
“I dunno. I am. Took a long time to realize that all this,” he gestures at himself “it helps but I just am.”
“I am struggling to understand,” who I am, he doesn’t say. “Who says I am a man?” Who says he is Cas? Who says he is anything at all? He’s not an angel anymore. He doesn’t have a family anymore. He doesn’t have Dean or Sam. There is no mission. He was cast out, then cast out again and now he’s supposed to do what? Learn to live? Live as what? And for who?
“You do, Cas.”
They sit in silence then.
“I’m tired,” Cas finally says.
“Ok, ok. I’m gonna shower. You just, I’ll try to be quiet, stay on my side of the bed and all that. Kick me if I snore too loud.”
Cas lays down. The bed feels like a marshmallow.
He wakes in the dark with Dean at his back. They aren’t quite touching but Cas can feel his warmth. The closeness makes him jittery. All the hurt from that first night wells up in his belly, a huge burning thing. Cas considers grabbing his bag and leaving the motel. He thinks about calling Mick to come pick him up and staying the night on their couch instead.
He gets up, pulls on his jeans, slips on his shoes, grabs the keys on the bedside table.
He closes the door as quietly as possible.
The air outside is cool and damp and refreshing. The motel sign, Blue Hill Motel lights the parking lot with a dull glow. He can see dead flies inside the lights.
He calls Mick.
“Steve, hey, you ok?” they ask.
“Yes, Mick, I am fine,” he lies.
“Steve, man, don’t you have work tomorrow? Why are you awake?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admits. “A friend of mine, from before, is here.”
Mick’s voice goes quiet and intense, “You safe? You need me to come get you? I just got home but I can head back out and pick you up. Where are you?”
Part of Cas is amused at the image of tiny Mick ready to protect him from Dean at the drop of a hat. But the amusement fades as his breath catches in his chest.
“I’m safe,” he promises. “I just wanted--” what does he want?
“How would you describe me, Mick? To someone else,” he asks after a long pause.
Mick snorts, “You getting high with your buddy?”
“No,” he answers seriously.
Mick makes a considering noise.
“I dunno man. You take spiders outside instead of killing them. You cry at poems every week. You know so much shit, I still can’t believe you’ve never been to college. You sat outside with Lenora for an hour when she got upset last week. You’re weird as fuck. You’re always at work on time. You’re kind and hardworking and you’ve got this air around you, I dunno, earnest, serious, intense, I guess. You’re Steve.”
Cas thinks about that for a moment. Does crying at poems make him a person? Does kindness to insects make him a person? Does any of it make him whole? How can he be a whole person when hardly anyone knows his name?
“It’s Cas,” he admits.
“What?”
“My name, it’s Cas. It’s not safe right now, for me to use that name, but it is Cas.”
“Thank you for telling me, Cas,” Mick says quietly, voice solemn. Cas swallows. “You’re Cas. You’re just Cas.”
“Thank you, Mick,” he says after a moment’s silence.
“Of course. You’re a really cool dude and I love having you around.”
“Thank you Mick. I enjoy being around also,” he’s surprised to find it’s true. “Can you read that poem from last week? About the mint plants?”
“‘Course, gimme a minute.”
Dean’s sitting propped up against the headboard scrolling on his phone when Cas comes back inside.
“You ok?” he asks quietly.
“M-hmm,” Cas confirms.
“Thought you might have run off again.”
Cas bites his tongue. Run off again, as if Dean didn’t turn him out.
“I would not turn down the chance to sleep in a bed tonight, no matter how upset I might be with you.” Cas can’t see his expression in the dark but he hopes that hit landed.
Dean hisses out a breath.
“Go back to sleep, Cas.”
“Gladly,” Cas says, shuffling back under the covers. He falls back asleep surprisingly quickly.
“Cas, I’m sorry, if I had known,” Dean’s speaking to him through the open bathroom door as Cas carefully shaves in the mirror. It’s been a trial, learning how to shave by himself. It still requires a considerable amount of concentration on his part.
Dean doesn’t continue.
“If you had known what?” he asks, tilting his head to the side.
“You taking T?” he asks instead.
Cas pauses to stare at him.
“No, Dean. I would not know where to start.”
Dean winces at that. It makes something clench in Cas’s belly.
“I could help you,” Dean offers.
“No thank you, Dean,” he says.
“Yeah, ok. At least let me take you to breakfast.”
Cas doesn’t answer, busy rinsing his face, drying it.
He looks at Dean, who for some reason is still here. He didn’t take off last night, insisted Cas come back to the motel room with him, shared a bed with him, and now, is offering to take him to breakfast. Cas has no idea what Dean wants. Cas wants to spend more time with Dean, even if it hurts.
“I would like that,” he offers.
Dean smiles.