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"Oh, deer."
Dean cranes his neck over Baby's hood and gives Cas his demon look.
"Seriously?"
Cas is holding back a smile, totally inappropriate for the situation, and Dean is about to lose his cool over it.
"This is Baby!" He shouts so loud that dust rises from the workbench beside him. "She's wounded, and you're making jokes!?"
Cas cracks a grin, then covers his mouth. His features are still when he speaks again.
"It is not a joke, Dean."
Finally.
"It is a pun."
Dean grits his teeth and tries not to rage. "Get. Out. Please."
Cas doesn't stick around after that. He's a smart Angel, and he understands that Dean has limits.
"Oh, deer!" Dean says, mocking Cas' tone. "Fucking deer. Stupid animal just had to end up in my lane. Just had to scratch the paint, and dent the door. Ruin my entire day."
Dean hadn't even seen the road rodent. He heard the slam, and people all around him pulled over to the side once he'd stopped. One lady even came running up to his driver's side window to check on him.
"Are you OK?" she asked, face a little pale.
Dean rolled down the window and looked down at the pavement. He couldn't see anything.
"What happened? I didn't even see it."
Two more people had arrived before he'd gotten out of the car. These women wore matching faces to the first.
"I think it hit that car first," said the second one, pointing down the road behind them. Dean spun around to see red taillights. There was a whole lot of white fluff and black something all over the road.
Dean slowly turned to face Baby, and his stomach sank. There was a long scratch the entire length of the first door, so deep that the metal showed through. On the rear door, the panel was dented, and the handle was completely missing. Her rear quarter panel was covered in blood.
"Oh, no."
"You sure you're OK?" another lady asked. "It looked horrible."
Dean's heart wasn't racing, and his hands weren't shaking or anything. "Yeah. I'm fine."
Like a switch being flipped, all three women began looking at the car, as if Dean were more important than her.
"Ooh, that's a deep scratch," said one.
"Can't believe you weren't hurt," said another.
"You got insurance?" asked the third.
The sympathy was too much, and Dean felt that familiar cut in his chest that meant he was going to cry.
"My — my —"
Baby. My Baby.
"Nice car," said a fourth woman's voice, sounding sad.
Dean blinked at the heat in his eyes and looked up at her.
She was short, wearing flannel and cargo pants, with her hair shaved tight against the back of her head. Her eyes were deep, although he couldn't tell what color they were.
"You got a good mechanic?"
Dean couldn't think. All he could do was stare into this person's eyes and wonder when his life had been reduced to this.
"Uh, y-yeah. It's me. I'm her mechanic."
The fourth woman nodded. While the other three stepped to the side to discuss calling the sheriff, Dean couldn't tear his eyes away from hers.
"Should be able to work the dents out," she offered, sounding confident. "Not sure you'd be able to find two replacement doors, 'specially around here. Do your own paint work, too?"
There was something soothing about the language she used. Something that reassured him that everything would be OK.
"Yeah." He cleared his throat. Couldn't be seen by this tough chick bawling over a car. "Built her from the ground up, coupl'a times. This is nothing."
The woman's mouth had set thin, disapproving. "It's not nothing. She's your pride and joy."
"She is."
Back in the barn, gramps has something to say.
"You shouldn't be so hard on the Angel. It wasn't his fault."
Dean's pulse is still high, so he doesn't look in the ghost's direction. He will not stoop so low as to cuss out a spirit.
Even if he is family.
"It wasn't so long ago," the old, old, old man continues, his rocking chair creaking even though Dean has oiled the damn thing a hundred times. "That he was putting you back together from nothing."
Dean closes his eyes. "If you say, it's just a car —"
"I'm not. I'm saying that you could learn from the parallels. Think about how much you care for Baby. How much time you're spending out here with her. How little time you have left with him."
With a soft pop, the crotchety coward phases out, and Dean rubs a hand over his face.
Then he thinks of something.
"Wait. Did Cas tell you that?"
Gramps reappears again, very faintly. "Yup."
"When?"
The cranky bastard turns cagey. "Whenever you're busy with the car, and he and I are watching the bees."
Then he's gone again.
Dean storms out of the barn and toward the house, intending to chastise Cas for airing their dirty laundry. Yeah, the old man isn't exactly going to tell anyone, but it's the principle of the thing.
About halfway up the walk, Dean trips over something and skids on his hands over the stone path. His nose smashes into gravel, and his knee twists out a groan. Stunned, he eases back on the heels of both hands and looks at his palms.
They're cut open and bleeding.
Just like Baby.
Just like Dean when he was in hell. When heaven decided he was worth saving, and Cas risked his existence to rescue him.
Just like every time he lost someone: a hunter, a friend, a family member.
Just like each and every time he and Sam punched each other's lights out, or when a monster took out his weapon and pummeled his broken body.
And just like the time Dean beat Cas to a bloody pulp in the Bunker.
Oh.
He's so ashamed. So ashamed that he's crying openly, covering his face with both hands, unable to stop the tears or the sobbing.
And just like that, Cas is by his side, cradling him, holding him close. He's shushing into the top of Dean's head, and he's whispering things one would say to a damaged human.
Dean can't let that happen.
"No, stop, Cas, please. You can't say those things. I don't deserve it."
Cas surprises Dean by peeling his hands away by the wrists and lifting him from his stomach on the ground. He sits on his knees and pulls Dean sideways into his lap. Dean hates the sympathetic look on his Angel face.
"You deserve the best, Dean Winchester, and I know you don't believe me. But if you can love that car, when she doesn't feel anything for you, I can convince you that you mean the world to me."
Dean's initial response is to defend his car, but, of course, Cas is right (and so is the eldest Winchester). He has been avoiding Cas lately. He has been spending a lot of time in the garage. He has been struggling with trauma that keeps popping up when he least expects it.
Cas swipes a hand over Dean's face, taking blood away from where it's been smeared by his hands. He does it again, and it's gone: the holes, the impacted gravel, the bump on his nose, and the crick in his knee. The Angel's eyes burn electric blue, and Dean's skin tingles and glows warm. He calms.
His boyfriend is smiling now as he strokes Dean's face.
"That deer didn't do any damage that you cannot fix, My Love." Cas croons. "Perhaps it didn't have any eyes."
Perplexed, Dean frowns up at him. It's a stupid response to their current heart-to-heart.
"What? Why'd you say that?"
Cas puffs up his chest, and his eyes flash with that hint of mischief. He smirks like that cat that got the cream and says, "I have no-eyed-deer."