37. Getting Into Knives

Digging in his pocket for his keys, Balthazar stomps his feet to knock off the ice and lets himself in the door without announcing himself. He knows Cassie won’t mind. He doesn’t often ring the bell, after all – the last time he’d visited, he’d done so only for the kid’s benefit. 

There was a time where Cassie’s door was revolving, for how often he was coming and going. The alpha had given him a key after just a few days of his initial stay in this house, and he’d never asked for it back, even after he’d moved out. Balthazar had also never offered. It has become one of many silent understandings between them, one of a million unspoken exchanges of trust. 

The domestic sounds of someone cooking breakfast are familiar enough that he is thrown back, for a moment. He remembers many mornings like this, where he’d wander out of his bedroom and sleepily accept whatever insomniatic creation his odd landlord had whipped up in the early hours of the morning. Those meals, too, had been mostly silent; Cassie was even less adept at small talk and idle conversation than he is now. When he’d finally accepted that the alpha truly didn’t expect much of anything from him, it had been a welcome relief to realize he did not constantly have to perform for an audience. 

He sheds his jacket and scarf and moves through the den quietly, not sure whether the kid is still sleeping upstairs – and it’s a good thing he does, because as soon as he rounds the corner he realizes Dean is knocked out cold on the couch instead. The only thing visible is the top of his head, peeking out from under his blanket. He doesn’t stir when Balthazar moves past, and he suspects that has a lot to do with the emotional whiplash the kid must have gone through yesterday. 

It’s nice, though, that he’s downstairs, rather than barricaded in his bedroom. Obviously, he’ll have to do less damage control than he thought – he dismisses the little speech he’d prepared about Cassie’s innocence with relief. Now, he’ll just have to see if Cassie needs his head pulled from his ass. 

Cassie has his back to him when he finally sidles into the kitchen, but he gestures vaguely to a familiar, empty mug near the full pot of coffee. Balthazar fills up what had become his cup, all those years ago, and sits down at the table quietly, content to watch the alpha nudge at the sizzling sausage and stir little fried potatoes. 

“You’ve gotten better at that,” he comments idly, sipping from his steaming mug. 

The alpha hums. “Low bar,” he muses, tone mild. 

Considering he’d managed to burn water when he’d first attempted to cook Balthazar a meal, he can’t disagree. Still, it’s nice to see growth. 

When the food is cooked, he looks back at Balthazar questioningly, covering the pan and nudging it away from the burner when he shakes his head. Yawning, he fills up a cup of his own and joins him at the table, falling into his customary seat. The bags under his eyes could be sold by Prada. 

“Long night?”

Cassie looks up at him blearily, rubbing sleep – or lack thereof – out of his eyes. “Yes. Though, not as long as I’d feared.”

Balthazar jerks his head toward the sleeping omega in the other room meaningfully. “He came around?”

His friend’s eyes linger in that direction for a long while. “He doesn’t blame me at all.” The alpha’s voice is quietly stunned. “I don’t think he ever did.”

Balthazar can’t help but be relieved by that. He’s long since forgiven Cassie for his perceived sins – long since realized that there wasn’t much to forgive in the first place. He’s glad that the kid seems to have skipped right over the period of cynical suspicion he’d struggled with when he’d discovered the man’s origins. 

“That surprises you,” he observes, struggling valiantly not to say I told you so. 

Cassie makes a small, helpless noise, his hands tightening around his coffee cup. “I thought he’d hate me, Bal. I just kept thinking about how often he ran – how often he got caught.” His friend’s face is pale. Sick. “I’ve got no doubt he could have escaped, if not for the Morningstar chip.”

Balthazar shrugs. “If your sire hadn’t invented it, someone else would have. And it’s got nothing to do with you, as I’ve said approximately one million times.”

“Still.” He sighs, sipping his coffee. 

Balthazar lets them both sit in silence for a good while, until the alpha seems a little more awake. “Does he often do that?” he asks, throwing a thumb over his shoulder. 

“What? Sleep there?” Cassie frowns. “It’s happened a few times, now.” 

“Is he not nesting in his room?”

The alpha frowns harder. “I… I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem comfortable on the bed. I moved the mattress to the floor,” he continues, a distant look in his eyes as he thinks about it, “but I’m not sure it helped much.”

Balthazar sighs. “I’m sure he’s got a million and one issues with sleeping in a bed.” Cassie just looks sad at that, so he changes the subject. “Good that he’s sleeping on the furniture at all, though. I know kids like him tend to take longer with that part.”

For some reason, that causes Cassie to blush. Balthazar raises an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. 

“I, um. He usually… falls asleep elsewhere,” the alpha mumbles, quickly taking a sip of coffee. 

A grin creeps over Balthazar’s face. “You carry him?” he asks gleefully, stopping just short of rubbing his hands together like a supervillain. 

Behind his mug, Cassie’s face is bright red. He mutters some inaudible defense, but Balthazar ignores it. “That’s adorable,” he coos, dropping his cheek into his hand as he teases. “Positively disgusting.”

Cassie gives him a dirty look over the top of his cup, but he’s saved from being terrorized any further by a rustling in the den. Winchester has decided to join the living, apparently. The way that the alpha’s entire attention is focused on him, instantly, is enough ammunition to last Balthazar several weeks. 

“Cas?” 

Dean’s sleep-rough voice is a little unsure. He’s probably already noticed the addition of a new person’s scent in his space. Balthazar certainly remembers the hyper-aware state of being he’d maintained for the first few years after he’d been freed. 

“In the kitchen, Dean,” Cassie says. His voice has taken on a subtle, soothing tone. “Balthazar is here, too.”

“Oh. Okay,” he mumbles, clearly still half asleep. “I’mma go shower.” 

“Breakfast is ready when you’re done,” the alpha says, smoothly granting Dean’s not-quite-request. This, too, Balthazar remembers – the tentative space between understanding that he can do what he wants without permission, and working to actually believe it. It isn’t long before they hear him traipse up the stairs. 

“He has got you wrapped around his finger,” Balthazar teases, laughing when Cassie glares at him. The alpha, tellingly, doesn’t disagree. Snickering, he leans back in his chair. “Alright, alright. I’ll hold off on the teasing till later.”

“How magnanimous of you,” Cassie says flatly. After a moment, though, he relents, sighing. “I’m worried about him.”

“Why’s that? Seems like he’s handling things pretty well.”

The alpha’s eyes linger on the cup between his hands. “He doesn’t seem keen on the idea of freedom, Bal. More like he understands that he’s supposed to want it… but I don’t think he really does.” 

He settles back into his chair, blowing a long stream of air out of his mouth. “That’s not all that uncommon, with cases like his,” he points out. He knows Cassie knows that, but it can’t hurt to remind him. 

“Yes, but…” He chews on his lip. “I don’t want to force him into it. If he does it just to please me, it sort of defeats the purpose…”

“You want me to talk to him?” he offers. It’s what he’d been planning to do anyway, but there’s nothing wrong with letting the alpha think it’s his idea. It’ll make him feel proactive, he figures. 

Relieved, Cassie nods. “Would you mind? I’m just not sure how to…” 

“Level with him?”

The alpha nods again. “I think I’ve convinced him he won’t be kicked to the curb as soon as he’s decollared, so to speak. But I don’t know how to convince him that he… deserves his freedom.” He rubs at his face, betraying his exhaustion. “It’s obvious to me that he does. But Dean doesn’t see it that way.”

Balthazar understands, to an extent. He can’t say he ever wanted to serve, but there is a degree of security in it. A degree of purpose. “He’ll come around.”

“You think so?” Cassie says hopefully, letting his hand fall into his lap. 

“Yes. I don’t know him as well as you do, obviously, but he seems a little too spirited to want to stay in this limbo forever.” He suspects that there are some complications – some suitcases of guilt that the omega is carrying around. Suitcases of guilt that are convincing him he deserves this. Once he susses those out and sets him straight, he’s confident they’ll be able to start nudging Dean in the right direction. 

Now, it’s just a matter of actually doing that... 

Dean does not quite manage to sit at the table during breakfast, but he doesn’t camp out on the floor either. Instead, he finds a nice middle ground, leaning back on the counter as he holds the plate in one hand and eats with the other. All in all, it’s a very good attempt at hiding his fear of the furniture. Balthazar would applaud him for it, but that would ruin the illusion. 

He makes small talk about the center with Cassie to fill the silence, watching out of the corner of his eye as Dean follows the conversation. He hasn’t asked any questions, thus far, but Balthazar can tell that he’s curious. It bodes well. 

“Jody,” he continues, dipping a potato in a puddle of ketchup, “thinks she’s found a potential pick up. Young girl, only been in the trade for about six months. Paperwork says her name is Kaia.” 

“And she’s already back at auction?” Cassie asks, concern deepening his voice. 

“Apparently she bit her last owner. Hard enough for stitches.” 

The alpha winces, but Balthazar knows better than to think he’s expressing sympathy for the alpha in question. More likely, he’s thinking of the harsh correction that the kid would have gone through after that. “Do we have room?”

“Yes. That brother-sister pair from the private auction just hung their tags. But Jody’s toying with the idea of taking her home to foster. She thinks Claire could use the company.”

Dean speaks up, finally. “That kid’s a pistol,” he comments. At Balthazar’s raised eyebrow, he shrugs. “I met her after my appointment with Pam. She was…” 

“Prickly,” Balthazar finishes. “Yes, I’m familiar. She verbally filleted me when I tried to interest her in an appointment with Benjamin. Tough nut to crack.” 

He brings up the topic casually, wondering how Dean will react. Predictably, the younger omega scowls a little at the mention of the therapist – though he keeps his opinions to himself. He just shrugs, retreating back to silence. 

Balthazar suppresses a sigh. He lets it go for now, not keen on putting him on the spot with Cassie hovering. The last thing he needs is the two of them starting an angst filled feedback loop. 

“Reminds me,” he says to Cassie, intentionally mild. “Jody said she needed you to go over the paperwork. She’s got a few things she needs you to sign – I’d check your email, if I were you.”

Cassie, of course, immediately understands what he’s getting at. He glances at Dean. “Would you mind, Dean? It won’t take me long.” 

Dean blinks. “Sure, Cas. That’s fine,” he says slowly, confusion creeping over his face. 

He flicks his eyes toward Balthazar. The omega catches that he’s being set up faster than Balthazar anticipated – he can see the exact moment he gets it, his expression clearing into something a little cooler than before. “I’m sure Bal and I can find something to talk about while we wait for yah.”

Cassie smiles at Dean, and instantly, his hostility fades. The smile he gives back is small, but genuine – the first one he’s caught from the kid, now that he thinks about it. 

It occurs to him, belatedly, that Dean might be as wrapped around Castiel’s finger as the alpha is around the omega’s. He’s not sure why that surprises him. 

When they’re alone in the kitchen, he cocks his head back and stares at the younger omega appraisingly. “Nice to see you haven’t run for the hills.” 

Dean scoffs, turning toward the sink. He starts washing his plate. “Why would I run?”

“Oh, you know. Could be the fact that your alpha in there is blood related to a couple of real life supervillains.” 

Dean stiffens. He turns around, already glaring, and Balthazar has to suppress a grin. “That’s got nothing to do with Cas,” he snaps. 

Balthazar cocks his head to the side. “It doesn’t?”

“No,” he says vehemently, narrowing his eyes. “He’s not like them.” 

“How do you know?” he pushes. If he’s honest, he’s a little curious. 

Dean sputters. “Be– Because! He’d never hurt me,” he says confidently. There’s not a hint of fear in his scent. Not a hint of doubt. 

“Yet you thought he’d throw you to the wolves the instant you were no longer under contract,” Balthazar points out. “That, I think, would be considered hurting you.” 

Dean balks. “How did you –” 

“Not hard to guess,” he interrupts, his tone bored. He suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, because he understands the fear the kid had been feeling. “Cassie would never have done that, kid. He knows exactly what can happen to a slave that gets turned loose before he’s ready.”

“How?” Dean demands, crossing his arms. It’s clear he’s feeling a little too exposed. A little too vulnerable. “How the fuck would he know?”

“Me.” 

Balthazar says it flatly, nearly no emotion in his tone. But Dean looks up anyway – keen as he is, there’s no way he’s going to miss what that implies. “You?”

He does roll his eyes, now. Flicks a thumb over the jagged scar around his neck. “You know I used to be collared, Winchester.”

“Yeah, but…” Dean trails off, obviously feeling a little wrong-footed. “I thought you freed yourself.”

Balthazar scoffs, ignoring the savage wish inside of himself that he actually could have. “I certainly tried. Not precisely a well thought out plan, but I did try. Unfortunately, escaping from a Morningstar estate takes more than a pair of nicked tin-snips.”

Dean blinks. Blinks again, his mouth dropping open as the realization dawns. Damn, does the kid look young. Him and Cassie both do, these days. Balthazar is getting old.

“I can see he didn’t tell you,” he observes needlessly. He doesn’t know if he’s irritated with his friend, or pleased. On the one hand, the tale could have been a good way to earn the kid’s trust – on the other, he’s grateful his life story isn’t being paraded around without his permission. 

“I…” Dean shakes himself. “No. He didn’t. You were… owned? By them?”

He rolls his shoulders, fighting through the wave of nausea that always tries to creep up on him when he thinks of those days. He knows that Dean senses his discomfort – though Balthazar is very adept at hiding his scent, he isn’t quite managing to do so now. “Yes, I was. First by his so-called father, and then by his brothers.”

Dean is staring at him like a bloody deer in traffic, so he sighs, and clarifies. “Not by Cassie, though. He grew up away from the rest of those bastards, lucky for him. I didn’t even really know he existed. Not till I was already cut loose.” 

Dean lets out a breath, nerves dissipating. “Oh. So, then, uh. How did you…”

Balthazar is quiet, for a while. Then he shakes his head, cracking his knuckles as though he is getting ready for a fight. 

“I was… passed along. When his sire died. And after my ill-conceived escape attempt, the twins weren’t really interested in keeping a flight risk. I was foisted onto Gabriel, who also turned out to be... uninterested.” He grimaces. “Only, Gabriel didn’t have the guts to sell me on when he tired of me. He freed me instead.”

Dean’s eyes go even wider than before. “He just freed you? Just like that?”

Balthazar scoffs. Snaps his fingers. “Just like that. Well, sort of. Unlocked my collar and turned me loose with a couple hundred bucks for my trouble. Didn't go to the trouble of doing the paperwork."

In fact, Cassie had done that, much, much later. The alpha had made some tense phone calls, bribed a few folks, they’d made a tense visit to the correct bureaucratic offices, and that was it. Balthazar had officially been a free man.

He gives Dean a side eye. “If it weren’t for your alpha in there, I’d probably have been back on the auction block within a couple of years.” Theft, prostitution, drug charges – you name it, and it could have gotten Balthazar plopped right back into the slave trade had he been caught. And he has no doubt, in hindsight, that he’d have been caught. 

Dean’s face clears in sudden understanding. “Oh. He saved you, too?”

As hard as Balthazar considers his heart to be, that hits him like a rugby player. He’s not too big of a man to admit to himself that he’s jealous of this kid’s ability to trust. Of his ability to hope. 

He laughs, and says, “Sure. And I nearly killed him as thanks.”

He can scent it before he can see it – Dean gets instantly protective. His eyes harden, his muscles tense, and even though Balthazar is obviously no longer interested in doing so, he knows without a doubt that Dean would do anything he could to protect the alpha in the other room.

Birds of a feather, him and Cassie are. 

He raises a hand. “Relax, Winchester. He proved pretty quickly that he was nothing like his brothers. No stabby-stabby necessary.”

There’s a million things he isn’t telling Dean. Castiel had saved him, sure – in a way. Not quite as dramatically as he’d saved this kid, but still. An offer of food and shelter to a whore he didn’t even know, and didn’t even want, counted for a lot. 

Of course, when he’d found out who Castiel was… 

A million tendrils of hatred that had lived inside of him, festering and spreading until they had been all he could feel, all he could see, all he could breathe – they’d sprung to life all at once. Blinded him, goaded him, screamed in his ear until he’d picked up the closest sharp object he could find and held it against the alpha’s throat. 

It had taken him about thirty seconds to realize he couldn’t do it. To realize that killing Castiel – a truly kind man, one who was trying his damnedest to do the right thing – would have been a horrible miscarriage of justice. 

So, he hadn’t. He’d swallowed his pride, worked to push aside his distrust, and had befriended the man instead. And, God, is he thankful he had. 

He doesn’t say any of that, but he thinks Dean understands it anyway. The kid really is quite smart. “Sorry. Guess we both have some trust issues, huh?” he jokes, apologetically rubbing the back of his neck as his hackles lower.

Balthazar laughs at that, waving aside his apology. “I’d say so. Though I’d like to say that mine, at least in regards to Cassie, have been resolved. And yours?”

There’s a soft look in the kids eyes when he glances toward where the alpha is not-so-subtly hiding – soft enough that Balthazar is fairly sure that a certain alpha’s supposedly unrequited love may not be as unrequited as he thinks. “Yeah, uh,” Dean mumbles, like he can hear Balthazar’s thoughts, “All good here.”

“Good,” he says shortly. “You’d have broken his heart, if not.”

Dean blinks. A blush creeps across his face, and he drops his eyes. Balthazar decides to have mercy. “You know, he blames himself,” he says mildly, sipping his coffee. “For what happened to me.” 

The omega sighs. “Yeah. That doesn't really surprise me,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Never met a guy who takes responsibility for so much that ain’t his fault.” 

Balthazar resists the urge to make a quip about the omega looking in a mirror, sometime, and tries to be a little more subtle. “It makes him hesitant, that guilt. Makes it difficult for him to act freely. He’s always concerned that he’s going to make the wrong decision.” 

Dean nods slowly. “Yeah… I’ve noticed that. He gets all…” Dean makes a face, gesturing vaguely. “Twisted up. Any time he goes alpha, even if it’s just a little.” 

Balthazar hums. “Almost like some unresolved issues are keeping him from moving forward, or trusting his own judgement.”

Dean opens his mouth, likely to agree again, but it snaps shut like a rat trap. He narrows his eyes suspiciously. Crosses his arms.  

Balthazar grins, pleased that the omega connected the dots so quickly. “You know what I think would help him? Therapy. I’ve been bugging him to try it out for years, but it’s as though he thinks he can’t be helped… like his issues are unsolvable. Or, worse, like he doesn’t think they’re bad enough to even warrant therapy... Silly, right?”

A muscle in the kid’s jaw twitches. “Alright, I get it,” he growls. “You can cut the crap.”

“What crap?” Balthazar asks innocently, raising his eyebrows. “All that stuff about Cassie is absolutely true. Just because it might apply to certain other people in the room…”

Fed up with him, Dean pushes off the counter. He snatches Balthazar’s empty plate and whirls around to begin washing it aggressively. “I don’t need therapy.”

“The fact that you’re still scared shitless of being free says differently, kiddo,” he says. Dean flinches. “Not trying to be harsh, or anything, but you’re gonna keep running in circles instead of running forward if you don’t get some help.”

Dean doesn’t turn around, his head ducked low. His movements slow until he’s standing still, the running water the only break in the silence. 

“And what happens,” he says roughly, “if it doesn’t help? What happens if I stay as fucked up as I am? How am I ever supposed to…” 

He trails off. 

“You can’t know until you try,” Balthazar finally says, his voice far softer than it had been. He knows that he probably pushed too hard, just now – he’s never been good at being gentle. 

Dean doesn’t respond. He recognizes that he’s probably done all he can to convince him, at least for now, but he can’t help but push a little more. “You got a family, Winchester? One you give a damn about?”

He’s as stiff as a board when he replies. “Why does that matter?”

“Because if you do, then you’re not just recovering for you,” he says. “You’re doing it for them, too. Don’t forget that.” 

He knows he’s struck oil when Dean’s guilt clouds the room, rotten and unpleasant. “I ain’t even tried to reach out to them,” he admits softly, hardly audible over the sound of the water still gushing into the sink. “They probably don’t want anything to do with me. Not like this.”

Balthazar finds that extremely hard to believe. Unless he was pressured by that family to go under contract – and it’s been known to happen – there’s no way that he hasn’t left a hole in somebody’s life. A kid like Dean, with a savior complex a mile tall… he’s willing to bet it was the kid’s choice to sell himself. And he’s willing to bet that he’s been missed every day since. 

“Again, kid,” he says softly. “You can’t know until you try.”

Dean laughs. The sound is bitter. He finally knocks the tap down so water turns off, but he still doesn’t turn around. “You probably think I’m a fucking coward.” The way he says it makes it clear that he certainly believes so. 

“Nope,” Balthazar disagrees cheerfully. “I think you’ve spent a long time being braver than anyone should have to be. You’re entitled to take your time,” he reminds the kid, shaking his head. “Entitled to move slowly. Just so long as you’re moving.”  

Dean half turns, looking at him over his shoulder. His eyes are tellingly wet. “I just want you to know that, when you’re ready,” Balthazar continues, meeting the omega’s fragile gaze, “you’ve got the support you need. Alright?”

The kid sniffs, turning back around. He leans forward on the counter, his palms supporting his weight as he tries to collect himself. And, after a moment, he does. 

“Yeah. Alright.” 

Dean makes it without breaking right up until he realizes that he’s going to have to go to sleep all by himself. The thought, for some reason, is enough to drive him out of his room and back downstairs. 

Cas is still watching television, just as he’d been when Dean had gone up to bed. When he gets downstairs, the alpha is sitting right in the middle of the couch, idly scrolling on his phone. “Oh. Hello, Dean. Were you having trouble sleeping, or…”

He goes quiet when Dean kneels down in front of him. And Dean feels bad about it – he really does. He knows that they’ve just spent half last night and most of the morning talking about his freedom, knows that Cas doesn’t want this. Knows that he’s pathetic for wanting it. But he can’t help the urge. Can’t help that a shaky breath finally escapes him when he presses his head against Cas’s knee, can’t help that he feels instantly better when the alpha’s hand comes to rest on his head.

He’s trembling. He’d love to stop. 

“I’m sorry I left you alone, this morning,” the alpha says softly. “I knew Balthazar wanted to speak with you, but…” 

Dean just shakes his head. He doesn’t blame Cas for his own inability to handle a simple conversation. And he knows, as much as he hates it, that it’s one he needed to have. “It’s fine,” he says weakly, speaking directly into the alpha’s leg because he’s too much of a pussy to meet his eyes. “I get it.”

Cas is quiet. After a while, he gently cards his fingers through Dean’s hair. “Can I come down there with you?”

Dean, with a burst of intensity that frightens him, briefly and fervently finds himself wishing that he wouldn’t. But he knows he can’t say that, knows that what he’s feeling is fucked up. So he just shrugs. 

Cas slides down next to him with a small grunt. He lifts one arm, tips back his chin, and Dean ends up curled around the alpha with his nose buried in the crook of his shoulder. It’s a position that is starting to feel as natural as kneeling. Maybe even more so.

The alpha runs a warm hand up and down his back, quiet. Waiting for Dean to break the silence, probably. Cas, he’s learned, is patient like that. But Dean is just so friggin’ tired that he doesn’t want to. He just wants to sit here, and be held. Wants things to not be so goddamn complicated.  

Eventually, Cas does break the silence, probably sensing that Dean isn’t going to any time soon. “You know,” he says slowly, “I wouldn’t want to impose. But, if you’re having trouble sleeping and would like some company, you will always have it.” He takes a deep breath. “I know it’s been a… difficult few days.”

Dean blinks, sure he didn’t hear that right. After a moment, he leans back, staring at the alpha incredulously. “You think you would be imposing if I asked you to stay with me while I fall asleep?” 

The look on Cas’s face says, yeah. He pretty much did. He seems almost nervous, as though he’s afraid Dean is going to turn him down. As if he would ever be strong enough to do that. 

He shakes his head, a breathless laugh escaping him. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Cas smiles uncertainly. “Is that a yes?”

Dean feels something sprout and bloom in his chest. It's love, he decides - not much else it could be, with how giddy it makes him feel. Like he could take on the world.

He bites back the urge to dismiss Cas's offer, pulls away from the knee-jerk denial that he wants to be cared for. Cas already knows better, after all.

“Yeah, Cas,” he finally says, trying his absolute hardest to keep it together because he’s cried enough. “Fuck, I mean. Yeah. If it won’t bother you. I never seem to have any… I mean, I sleep better. When you’re there.” He flushes, tempted to say something light to cover up the power of that statement. But he doesn’t. They both know it’s true, anyway. 

Cas gives him a real smile. “I can make use of the armchair in your room. It will be a nice built-in time to catch up on my reading, I think.” He hesitates for a second, and then adds, “And, truthfully… I’d be glad for the company as well.”

Dean can’t do anything except hug him a little tighter. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?” he says, going for playful and landing squarely on choked up instead. 

When Dean finally disentangles himself and heads to bed, Cas gives him a few minutes to get ready before he joins him upstairs. He’s clearly doing his best not to make it awkward, slowly carrying a full cup of tea for them both into the room, a book under one arm. Dean sits on his little mattress on the floor and wrestles with shame. 

And then Cas looks up and smiles at him. He looks proud. As if he thinks Dean is being brave. 

The alpha settles into the armchair after handing Dean his tea and clicks on the lamp sitting on the side table. Dean tries his best to get comfortable on the bed, probably a little too fidgety to fool Cas into thinking he’s relaxed. Sure enough, the alpha is watching him openly, concern plastered across his face. 

“It’s been a minute since I read, Cas, but if I remember right? It helps if you actually open the book.”

The alpha blinks, obviously surprised at the overtly snarky words from Dean. And maybe it’s just because he’s had a stressful couple of days, but he immediately feels sick. “I – Sorry, I just–”

“You’re right,” Cas interrupts with a small smile. He cracks the spine and lays it out flat on his lap, thumbing to his dog-eared page. 

Dean lets loose a breath, glad he’s not making a thing of it – he’s too tired to talk about literally anything right now. But before he settles in and begins reading in earnest, he looks up and studies him. “You don’t mind the lamp?”

Dean has not actually laid down, he’s realizing. In fact, he feels more tense than he had before he’d given up and gone downstairs. He’s not sure why that is, exactly, only that he–  

“Dean?”

He blinks, belatedly realizing that Cas has been waiting for an answer. “Yeah?”

“The lamp will not bother you?”

Dean glances at the offending home appliance. “Oh. Uh, no. No, I sorta… I like to sleep with the light on, actually,” he blurts, face flushing even darker. He snorts at himself, rubbing a harsh hand over his chin. “Fuck, that sounds pathetic, don’t it?”

“I don’t think it sounds pathetic at all,” Cas says instantly, his book apparently forgotten. “In fact, I think it sounds perfectly reasonable. And if nothing else,” he continues, deliberately pretending like he doesn’t notice the flash of gratitude on Dean’s face and in his scent as he picks up the tome once more, “it makes it much easier for me to enjoy my book.”

“Glad my trauma can be of service to you,” Dean replies grumpily, and for a moment Cas balks because he thinks he’s serious – but Dean grins at him, some weird mixture of tentative and mischievous. 

He rolls his eyes, but smiles right back. 

Despite that weak attempt at a joke, though, Dean’s hold on himself is quickly disintegrating. The longer he lays here in bed, the more uncomfortable he gets – and it doesn’t help that he is not at all tired. He’s keyed up, somehow, even though he’s far past exhausted. Sleep seems far away. 

He realizes, abruptly, that he’s clenching the sheets on either side of him in his fists. Letting loose a slow breath, he loosens his hands; but then he has nothing to anchor him to the bed, so he grabs them again. Fuck. Fuck. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to keep his breathing steady. He shouldn’t be scared. He knows he shouldn’t be. He’s safe here – Cas isn’t going to touch him, and neither is anyone else. But he can still feel spiders skittering around inside of his chest, can still feel his throat closing as he thinks about Alastair’s cruel, nasally sneer. His talk with Balthazar has him on edge – has him remembering the shit he’s been through all at once.

God, what the fuck is he doing ? He’s laying here like a little kid, nightlight on, his protector two feet from him, and he still can’t stop thinking about the monsters that he’s convinced himself are under the bed –  

“Odysseus inclines his head. “True. But fame is a strange thing. Some men gain glory after they die, while others fade. What is admired in one generation is abhorred in another." He spreads his broad hands. "We cannot say who will survive the holocaust of memory. Who knows?”

Dean’s spiraling thoughts jump off the track at the sound of Cas’s slow, rumbling voice. He rolls over and stares at the alpha incredulously, momentarily separated from his anxiety by this frankly unbelievable person in front of him. 

“Are you… are you reading to me?”

It’s Cas’s turn to blush. He shuffles the book in his lap, his thumb running over the pages in what Dean would swear is a nervous tick. “I was having trouble concentrating – I thought reading aloud might help. I’ll stop, if it bothers you.”

“No,” he blurts, abruptly desperate that he doesn’t. “No, please don’t. It’s not bothering me.”

He blinks, rolling back over so he’s staring at the ceiling again, and it’s a moment before he adds, “But, uh. Could you maybe start at the beginning?”

Cas smiles, shuffles the pages, and does. 

“My father was a king and the son of kings. He was a short man, as most of us were, and built like a bull, all shoulders…”