Chapter Text
Dean stepped out of the rental car and looked at the old house. He hadn’t been here in over a decade. Not since dad had dragged them off to Sioux Falls when he was 13 so he could go to rehab. And then left them there, because John was considerate like that. It was probably for the best. Sammy was 9, still young enough to be a kid, in every sense of the word. Dean had seen… maybe a little too much. Definitely enough to know they were better off with Bobby when John inevitably relapsed.
It used to be Kate’s house, back then. John had been dating her and moved them in, promising it was just for a couple of weeks until they found their own place. Dean thought back then she would never have allowed it if John hadn’t been living out of his car with two kids. She was a good woman, or at least he’d thought so when he was 13. Of course, she knew John had two kids and was cool with abandoning them in Sioux Falls, so what did he know?
Things got a little fuzzy after that. All he really knew for sure was that it turned out that Kate was pregnant. And John decided that if he was going to have a chance at staying sober and being a real father to Adam, he had to leave his old life behind. Including Dean and Sam. To his credit, he made it work for a few years. Married Kate, found a steady job. Seemed like he was getting it together. Dean couldn’t really remember much because that was around the time he was going off to college in Cali. All he knew for sure was that somewhere around his junior year John had relapsed, and by the time Sammy was headed to Stanford Kate had taken off with Adam. He was too busy licking his wounds after breaking up with Lisa and Sam had just met Jess, so neither one of them had the time or the inclination to come running to John’s rescue.
He really wasn’t sure how John ended up with the house, but apparently it was his at the time of his death. Which was why Dean was back here now. Kate didn’t want anything to do with it, or so her lawyer said. Adam was too young. Sammy wouldn’t be caught dead in Nowheresville, Indiana. So that left Dean to figure out if there was anything worth saving, maybe sell the house and split the money between them.
If he was honest with himself, he was mostly here because he was hoping he’d find Baby in the garage. He didn’t give two shits about John or the stupid house but he’d always loved that car and he’d hoped that someday John would let him buy it. Preferably, before he wrapped it around a telephone pole.
That part hadn’t worked out.
Still, the car had to be somewhere. And if he could get his hands on her, he’d fix her up and treat her like she deserved to be treated.
Dean made his way to the door, taking note of the damaged driveway and the random crap littering the yard. Cleaning up after himself had never been the old man’s forte. If he was going to sell the house for a decent price, he was going to need to do some serious work on it. Clean it, at least. He pushed through the door and found a mess of old junk mail, empty bottles and god knew what else. Awesome.Just what he needed. Was it too late to just - call someone?
Most of the first floor was a disaster area, but he was surprised to find the second floor almost pristine in comparison. It was dusty, but not terribly messy. John must have stayed downstairs, for the most part. The garage was in pretty good shape, but Baby was not in it. He’d have to investigate, see if he could figure out where they’d taken her after the accident. Probably in some impound lot. He’d find her. He had to.
When he stepped out into the back yard, he was expecting another giant mess. Apparently, John had stayed out of the back yard too. It was overgrown, and parts of it were borderline fire hazards, but there was no trash. The old swing was still there, though the weather had done enough damage that Dean wouldn’t trust it with his weight. Some of the old trees needed a trim.
A flash of color between the trees made him stop in his tracks. Was Cas still there? He pushed through the trees far enough to get a good look at the house. The fence still needed fixing, he noted. The neighbor whose back yard bordered John’s was an old man when Dean was here, so he wasn’t surprised. Next door to the old man, though, was a beautifully tended yard, with a well maintained fence and brightly painted house. Cas must have invested in some special paint, or recently had it repainted. The rainbow colors were all still as vibrant as they had been the first time Dean had seen them.
Back then, the sight of the rainbow house in suburban Indiana had been… unexpected, to say the least. John had just about blown a gasket, for one. And from what Dean had seen in the months he’d been here, that was pretty much par for the course in the area. Not a lot of people out at all, much less in your face about it.
He’d been standing in the back yard gawking at it while John mumbled something about those people when Cas had walked out to introduce himself to the new neighbors. He must have been in his mid twenties then. Probably about as old as Dean was now. And Dean had been instantly struck by his blue eyes.
Took him a few weeks to figure out what was going on, though he was pretty sure Cas could tell right away that Dean was about as close to head over heels as any 13 year old could be. It was embarrassing how many times he’d been caught staring, trying to work out if his hair was black or just really dark brown, or what the exact color of his eyes was called. Cas was endlessly fascinating, and not just because he was beautiful and lived in that house.
Dean would see him go about his day, mowing his yard, going to the grocery store or whatever. Just another guy. Probably would have blended seamlessly into the crowd, if there had been a crowd to blend into, even in this place. But then he’d see some kid getting picked on and he would sashay right past all the bullies, all swinging hips and floppy wrists, flinging glitter bombs and drawing all the attention to himself until the kid managed to slink away or fade into the background. Dean was pretty sure he’d harbored a couple of kids from a few blocks over who had been kicked out by their parents too. Kept them off the street until they could get help. He’d definitely distracted John a few times when John had noticed Dean staring a little too long.
It was so unlike Cas to prance around inviting attention that it was the closest thing Dean had ever seen to a real life superhero going into a phone booth to switch to his secret identity, and he had been utterly smitten. Still, he’d done his best to carry his crush with dignity once he’d figured it out. And Cas had done an excellent job of pretending he didn’t notice.
Cas was probably married with 2.4 kids now. Dean should go over and thank the guy for - well, everything. For showing him what a good man looked like. For being respectful and kind to a weird kid trying to navigate awkward feelings from deep inside a closet. For helping Dean figure out who he was, and more importantly, who he wanted to grow into. Yeah, of course a great guy like that would be married by now, even in this backwards place.
And if he wasn’t - well. Maybe Dean would get to keep a promise he had made to himself 12 years ago, when he’d looked at the rainbow house through the back window of the Impala. A promise that if they ever crossed paths again, when they were both grown men and unattached, Dean would ask him out on a date.