Chapter Text
“What’s better than having a vase of roses on your piano?”
“Cas. Stop trying to distract me.” Dean flexed his aching wrist and then curled his fingers back around the neck of his guitar. The riff at the beginning of Black Dog was a knotty, twisty little bastard, but he was getting it… slowly.
The recliner jolted as Cas flopped down next to him, blocking out the bright sunlight and the view of the red and yellow tulips that had taken over from the daffodils. Actually, the two had fought it out for a couple of weeks until the daffodils had all crumpled up and faded away. Then the tulips had bloomed extra hard, like posing wrestlers showing off their muscles after a victory.
“Dean. Come on. What’s better than roses on the piano?”
Dean huffed. “If you want me to practise somewhere else so you can watch a movie, just say.”
“No! I don’t want you to go!”
“Then let me practise.” He circled his wrist again, wincing.
“You’ve practised enough for now.”
“No, I haven’t. I’m way behind.” He’d been getting pretty good, at least by his own standards – having a ball with the pumping riffs and gentler acoustics bits of his favourite Zepp songs. But now he was back to playing like shit.
Cas just breathed and said nothing. He was working up to it, though. Dean tried the riff again, ignoring the shooting pain in his arm, forcing his clumsy fingers into the right shapes and willing the strength back into them. It still sounded like shit.
“You need to rest your arm or you’ll make it worse,” said Cas, in a rush, like he knew Dean was going to be pissed but he was damn well saying it anyway.
Dean was pissed.
He strummed a loud, snapping chord, the notes flattened and dull because he wasn’t strong enough to hold the strings down properly.
“Fuck.”
“Dean-”
“No, Cas. You don’t need to say it. You’re right.” He let the guitar rest in his lap and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re fucking right and I fucking know it.”
Cas leant toward him, his arm sliding around Dean’s back and then rubbing up and down between his shoulder blades. “You have to give it time,” he said. “Do the exercises you were given.”
“Not push it. Yeah, I know. I know. Fuck.”
“And maybe not blame yourself?”
Dean huffed a soft, bitter laugh. “It was my fault.”
“It was the ghost’s fault. And not even that, really. She couldn’t help going vengeful.”
“No, which puts it back at my fault.”
“Dean.”
“I should never have gone hunting.”
“Maybe not, but you don’t need to act like you deserve this, like it’s a punishment.”
“It might as well be.”
“It’s not. You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve to be punished. You don’t deserve to be hurt, Dean.”
Your fault. Your failure. Suck it up, Dean. Take your punishment like a man. Take what you deserve.
Why did it always come back? Just when he was feeling low. Just when Dean thought he’d never hear it again, there it was, his Dad’s voice, spewing out all that shit that Dean had believed for years and years. And maybe he still believed it, deep down. Maybe he’d never really be free.
A touch to his chin drew his head around, to meet with the blue searchlights, twin beams shining right down inside him, lighting up all those dark corners.
“You don’t deserve it, Dean. Do you?”
There was no place to hide when Cas looked at him like that. The ghost of John Winchester dissolved into salt-and-burn smoke and drifted away.
Dean licked his dry lips. “No.”
The searchlights shone and shone – with warmth and also with quite a bit of affectionate exasperation.
“No,” Dean said louder. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve to be hurt.”
Cas’s beautiful lips relaxed and the corners began to stretch toward a smile. “And what are you going to get, whether you deserve it or not?”
Dean twanged his high E string and watched as it fuzzed with vibrations and then cleared into one string again.
“Dean?” Cas’s voice held laughter, but he wouldn’t laugh at Dean’s embarrassment. Not yet, anyway.
“Love,” Dean mumbled.
“Yes,” said Cas. “That is the right answer.”
He was almost laughing, but not quite.
“And now, Dean Winchester, tell me…”
Dean looked up at the serious tone, but the laughter was still there, in those twin blue pools, the searchlights turned off for now.
“What’s better than a fine, gilt-edged, bone china vase of roses, placed carefully atop a lace doily in order to protect the shining veneer of your concert grand piano?”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Very seriously. Tell me. Or don’t you know?”
“Oh, I know,” said Dean. “And you know that I know.”
Cas smirked. “I know and you know. But you’re going to say it.”
Dean narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “Fine. What’s better than roses on your piano? Tulips on your organ. Happy?”
Cas beamed and barked with laughter. “Tulips on your organ! Two lips on your organ! Ha!”
“Yeah, I know, Cas. You’ve told that joke, what… a couple hundred times before?”
“But it’s so funny, Dean. Two lips! Tulips! And it’s not just funny…” Cas’s broad beam narrowed to a suggestive smirk and his shining eyes disappeared into shadow beneath lowered brows. “It’s a good idea.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Put your guitar away, Dean.”
Dean sniggered. “What. right now?”
“Right. Now. Unless you have other plans? Or perhaps you’re expecting visitors?”
“No plans. No visitors.” He stood up and placed the guitar carefully in its hanger on the wall. And when he turned around, Cas was kneeling on the floor, in front of the recliner. He stroked the leather seat with one hand.
“Sit down, Dean.”
“Okay,” Dean husked.
He sat. Outside, the red and yellow tulips danced in the breeze. And in front of him, two lips got to work.
Cas stirred a pot on the stove.
“Smells good,” said Dean, sliding his arms around his angel’s waist. “I’m starving.”
“We skipped lunch.”
“Yeah.” Dean pressed his lips to the back of Cas’s neck, hair tickling his nose. “Mmm.”
“You’d better sit down or we’ll be missing dinner too.”
“Tempting,” murmured Dean, nibbling the soft edge of Cas’s earlobe. “But I really need to eat.” He backed off to a safe distance, perching on the edge of the table. “We having bread with that? You want me to cut some?”
“No, rice.”
“Oh.”
“It’s Thai curry.”
“I thought it was soup.”
“It’s soupy, but not soup.”
“Okay.”
Dean closed his eyes. The kitchen, Cas, the warmth, the scent – which now he came to think about it was spicy and had that sharp, citrus edge balanced by coconut softness that went with Thai food; all these familiar things spelled home and safety and belonging. So that even though the continuing ache and weakness in his wrist and arm dragged at the edges of his happiness, he was at heart, happy. Maybe he couldn’t play his guitar very well, and he couldn’t do any more work on Queenie, but at least he could still go and help out with the kids at the elementary school.
Cas lifted the lid of the rice pan and disappeared in a cloud of steam.
And Dean’s eyes strayed to the window and across the dirt, where he’d worn a bare track through the grass, going to and from Baby’s garage.
The garage now had an extension housing a 1965 Dodge Coronet which Cas had named Queenie. Coronet, crown, queen – Queenie. Cas had looked innocently pleased with himself and Dean had given in. And it did kinda suit the beat-up old car – an ageing monarch, worn down by many battles but refusing to give up on her dignity.
Dean had a lot of work ahead of him to get her fixed up – a lot of heavy work that you couldn’t – or at least shouldn’t – do with a weak arm. He’d get there in the end, though, and one day he’d drive her out into the sunshine, and the light would reveal the richness of her burgundy bodywork and strike sparks off her silver trim.
“It’s ready, Dean.”
“Awesome.”
Cas ate with Piggly Wiggly perched on his shoulder, the guinea pig curled into his neck, her eyes closed but her nose twitching at the scent of the curry. She squeaked, close to Cas’s ear.
“No,” he replied. “You wouldn’t like it.”
The guinea pig squeaked again, but settled down.
The curry was just the right level of spiciness – hot, but not so hot you couldn’t taste all the flavours, sweet, sour, salty, savoury blended together, and the bland warmth of the rice as a contrast.
“Angel, this is delicious.”
“Thank you, Dean.”
Dean concentrated on his food until Cas hummed thoughtfully and his spoon clinked against his bowl as he put it down.
“I was talking to Christine,” he said.
Christine. Oh – Christine from the airfield, who ran the little on-sight diner and gift shop. “Yeah?”
“Did I tell you she plays in an orchestra? The Hays Symphony. She plays the clarinet.”
Dean made an acknowledging noise through his mouthful.
“They have a concert coming up. I bought tickets.”
There was a bit of lemongrass stuck between Dean’s teeth. He fished it out and perched it on the edge of his bowl.
“Dean, are you listening?”
“Yeah, I’m listening. You bought tickets to an orchestra concert.” He poked at the bit of lemongrass. It fell down the side of the bowl, back into the swimmy bit of his curry and sank. “Uh… for us?”
“Yes, of course for us.”
“I just thought maybe they were for Sam. That’s more his kind of thing. I don’t know about that kind of music.”
A new experience – just the kind of thing he should be running toward, with open arms and grabby hands. Hmm.
“You don’t have to know, you just have to listen,” said Cas.
The lemongrass popped up again and floated lazily around a chunk of red bell pepper. If he looked up, Cas'd see right through his eyes and into the edgy uncertainty. “You have to dress up though, right?”
“Not particularly.”
“I thought those things were black tie. Or at least Fed suit.”
“No,” Cas insisted. “Even your old jeans with the holes and the oil stains wouldn’t get you escorted off the premises, Dean. You’re there to enjoy the music, not set a fashion trend.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Did Cas have that right? Probably not. The place’d be full of stiffs in suits and society chicks in tight cocktail dresses. They’d sneer at Dean unless he wore his Fed suit and put on an act. Which he could do, if he had to. He’d pull out the Fed act and mix it up with that stunt Zachariah had pulled, when Dean was Dean Smith – all slicked-down hair, striped shirts and health drinks, for fuck’s sake. But he could remember enough of what it felt like to be that guy – enough to fake it. Dean Smith would fit right in with a bunch of stick-up-their-collective-ass, classical music concertgoers.
“Dean?”
“Yeah.”
“Dean, look at me.”
He looked up.
“Give it a chance. You might enjoy it.”
Or he might not. Dean Winchester, going to a classical music concert, pretending he was someone who could appreciate things like that, pretending all those educated, well-dressed concert-goers wouldn’t reel away from him in disgust if they could see some of the things he’d done, if they could see the kind of man he’d been, and maybe still was.
“Dean?”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”