58. Chapter 58

When Dean opens his eyes to the sunlight slanting in through the curtains, he’s cold. 

For a moment, he just grumpily fumbles around for his blanket, wondering why he’s curled up without even a sheet over him in his bed. When he finds it, he tugs it over his shoulders, and snuggles back into the mattress with a content sigh. 

Then his eyes pop back open. 

He’s cold. 

“Oh, thank God,” he mumbles, letting out a huge, relieved sigh. He’s not sweating. He doesn’t feel empty, or disoriented, or dizzy. He’s not horny. There’s no strange fog in his brain, clouding his judgment, fucking up his thoughts and making him needy and pathetic. He’s just… normal. 

His heat is over.

“Good morning, Dean.” 

Cas’s voice behind him is amused and rough with sleep. Dean smiles, flopping over in bed so he can face him – the alpha’s resting his head on his hand, looking at Dean like he’s a painting in a museum. His hair is pointing in a million directions and there’s a red mark on his face from the crease of his pillowcase. He smells all soft and safe, like coffee and honey and sweet summer rain. And Dean’s so happy to see him, to be here, that he forgets to be scared for once in his life. 

I want to kiss you, he thinks, in the privacy of his own head.  

“I want to kiss you,” he says, out loud, because he can.

Cas blinks at him. Surprise quickly shifts to something closer to alarm as he looks Dean up and down, and Dean can’t help but laugh. 

“Heat’s over, Cas,” he says, grinning. “But I still wanna kiss you. In case you were wondering.” 

The corners of Cas’s mouth twitch like he’s suppressing a smile, the concern fading. “It's truly worrying how well you’ve come to know me.”

“Well someone’s gotta,” Dean says, shrugging. He’s just so friggin’ relieved to be back to normal – he wants to get up and do some goddamn cartwheels. “Plus, you know me. So fair’s fair.” 

Cas’s smile blooms across his face like a flower. “I do. And, to be perfectly clear, I’d like to kiss you too, Dean,” he says, eyes soft. “Very much.” 

“We’re not gonna, though,” Dean says with a sigh, a half smile lingering on his face regardless. “Are we.” 

Cas’s expression doesn’t even waver. He doesn’t look disappointed, or disheartened. And that makes Dean feel better, for some reason – the reminder that Cas is still happy, even if he has to wait. It’s not like he thinks Cas only wants him for his body, at this point, but the reminder is always good. “Unfortunately, no, I don’t think that would be a very good idea” he confirms, squinting. “However…”

The alpha leans in until he’s just inches away, nose to nose with Dean, and he can feel his heart rate ticking up at the sudden proximity. His eyes widen a little. He feels a longing inside of him that has nothing to do with his hormones and everything to do with Cas himself – his gaze is serious, and dark, and Dean has no idea what’s about to happen –

And then, with a sudden sparkle of mischief in his eyes, Cas pulls him in for a bear hug, rolling them both until Dean is on top of him.  

“You fucking tease!” Dean protests, wriggling to try and escape the man’s grip even as he laughs. Cas laughs too, hearty and raspy and perfect, and when the alpha presses a soft, chaste kiss to Dean’s brow, he’s not even surprised. 

It feels right. Familiar. It makes him warm in the most pleasant way possible, liquid gold in his veins. 

“You gave me a lot of forehead kisses while I was being a loony toon, didn’t you?” he teases, smiling shyly against the alpha’s chest. He already knows the answer – he can remember them, just a little. Little bursts of pleasure and happiness, stars in the sky. 

As if he’s only just realized what he’d done, Cas sort of freezes. “I. I apologize, that probably wasn’t appropriate–”

“Relax, Cas,” Dean laughs. “I’m cool with it, okay? I kinda like ‘em.”

Cas does relax – it’s nice that, for once, he’s taking Dean at his word. His tone is even a little teasing when he says, “Well, you certainly seemed to enjoy them. They made you purr.”

Aghast, Dean pushes away from him, staring at his face. “I did not purr,” he sputters – but Cas looks entirely serious, and more than a little amused. “Oh my God, I did. Like a fucking cat,” he moans, dropping his forehead against Cas’s chest. “Just bury me now.” 

“It was cute,” Cas says unhelpfully, sounding way too cheerful. “It made me very happy to hear it.” 

“I bet,” Dean grumbles. “Stroked your alpha ego, is what it did.” 

“You are entirely correct,” he agrees, and it makes Dean laugh again. 

For a while, they just rest against each other, enjoying the ease and the familiarity of an embrace without the added pressure of Dean’s heat. It’s comfortable in a way that Dean didn’t know even existed. Doing this – laying down on top of Castiel, their bodies pressed together with no expectations and no urgency – he’s content. He likes this.  

“Thank you,” he mumbles, a little shy. 

“For what?”

“For all the stuff you did to make me feel safe,” Dean elaborates. “For…” He swallows. “For making me feel loved.”

Cas is quiet for a while at that. Moving his hand almost idly, he traces patterns up and down Dean’s back. 

“You are loved,” he finally says, his voice rough. “And it’s past time for you to feel that way.”

They decide that the day would best be spent doing nothing at all. 

Dean is desperate for fresh air, and he says so – Cas agrees. They both need to get out of the house, and so they decide to walk down to the lake for a late breakfast when they finally bother to roll out of their nest. Dean finds that he’s a little more tired and jelly-legged than he expected, so they have to move slowly, but Cas doesn’t seem to mind. 

They end up sitting on the end of the pier with their legs dangling over the edge, shoes and socks abandoned behind them in a pile. At first, they don’t touch, leaving a few inches of distance between themselves as though they both think they’re supposed to. Then Dean realizes how idiotic it is to be self-conscious, considering what they’ve been through, and leans against Cas like he wants to.  

The alpha hums, wrapping his arm around Dean and resting it there. For a while, they just sit in silence, idly moving their feet through the chilly water, their pants rolled up to their knees like they’re kids at the beach. The sunshine feels amazing on Dean’s skin, bright and warm and cleansing. How could he ever go back to a life without this? 

“Feels real good to get some fresh air,” he says eventually, breathing in deeply. “Not that I don’t like the way you smell, Cas, but goddamn.” Cas chuckles, and Dean grins at him. “I bet you were getting stir crazy, huh?”

Cas shrugs, gazing at the water. “Not really.”

“Come on,” Dean nudges him, the barest hint of self conscious embarrassment rearing its head. “You can’t tell me it was the most exciting thing in the world. You basically watched me sleep for five days in a row.”

The corner of Cas’s mouth quirks up, like he’s got a private little joke in his head that he won’t be sharing, but he doesn’t laugh. “It may surprise you,” he says seriously, looking at Dean out of the corner of his eye, “but ‘watching you sleep,’ as you put it, is one of the most exciting and rewarding things that has ever happened to me.” 

Dean wraps his hand around Cas’s, tugging down his air quotes on principle. He knows his cheeks are burning red and he knows there’s not a thing he can do to hide it. “Well, that's–” he struggles, trying to come up with a suitable insult that will make him stop feeling like he’s going to have to dive in the lake to escape the embarrassment. 

Sad, is what he means to say. It’s sad that Dean’s heat, of all things, makes Cas’s top ten list of experiences, or whatever. But he can’t say it, because he doesn’t mean it. He’s too busy being grateful – and too busy agreeing, to be honest. “That’s just. Shit.”

Cas does laugh then, bright and loud. “I’m not saying I’d like to repeat that experience any time soon,” he reassures Dean, shaking his head. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking it was an inconvenience to me. It wasn’t.”

“How couldn’t it have been?” Dean asks. He tries to keep his voice light, though he’s not sure he’s succeeding. “I mean…” 

God, his face is going to be stuck looking like a stop sign. “Did I– did you,” he tries, the words sticking in his throat. “Did you actually feed me?” he rushes out. “Or – was that another fever dream?” 

Cas is actually biting his lip. To keep from smiling. Oh, God. Dean’s going to die right here on the pier. “For fuck’s sake,” he moans, burying his face into Cas’s shoulder. “I’m the neediest loser on the planet.” 

“No, you aren’t,” Cas disagrees pleasantly. “I enjoy doing things for you, Dean.”

“Like I’m a friggin’ toddler,” he mutters, but he’s secretly – or maybe not so secretly, considering how smug Cas smells – pleased. He bites his lip. 

“Is it. Is it weird that I kinda…” he trails off, unsure if he even wants to say it. When Cas leans back and looks at him searchingly, he forces himself to go on. “Look. I never thought I’d want to have a heat again, you know? Like, I was always so sure that I’d get rid of them in a heartbeat if I ever got the chance. I was so glad to be on suppressants, back in the day – you got no idea.” 

Cas hums. “I don’t personally, no. But Balthazar has explained how difficult heats can be for omegas without a partner. I can’t say I’d enjoy being indisposed three or four times a year in that manner.” 

Dean blows out a breath, his cheeks puffing. “Right. I mean. It does suck. ‘Cause you have to watch your back all the time, or figure out a way to hide, and it’s…” He swallows. “It’s scary, to not have full control of yourself, to constantly be on high alert. So, you know. I thought, if I ever got the chance – sayonara, sucker.” He swallows. “I don’t know what it says about me that I’d. I mean. That if I could do it with you, every time. I’d maybe want to, um. Do it again. Someday.” 

The warmth that suffuses Cas’s scent is instant and potent, and for a moment Dean wonders if he’s still in heat – he wants to lean into Cas’s neck and soak up as much as he can. But he isn’t, so he doesn’t. He just bites his bottom lip, butterflies in his stomach. “Does that make me fucked up?”

Cas considers his words carefully. “No. I don’t think so,” he says slowly. “In… in relationships,” he tries, stumbling over the word a little – it’s Dean’s turn to feel smug when Cas blushes. “Or, uh. Partnerships. That are healthy… heats, from what I understand, are supposed to be a positive experience. For both parties.” 

Sighing, Dean turns his head a little and rests his temple on Cas’s shoulder. He’s still so tired. Cas feels warm and solid under him, like always, and Dean blames this clingy crap on the fact that he’s still recovering from his heat. Even as he thinks it, he’s hard pressed to remember a time that he wasn’t okay with touching Cas like this. “Never thought that’d be the case for me.” 

Cas squeezes him gently. “I’m… I’m glad that you can see a future in which we might... Well. When things between us are different. Perhaps we could... do it properly.” 

Dean can’t resist – he pulls back, waggling his eyebrows at Cas suggestively. Maybe he’s messing with him just to be a jerk, or maybe it’s to take the spotlight off his own vulnerability, but he can’t quite let go of the chance to tease. “Do it, huh? Tell me more about that, Cas.” 

The alpha sputters, his cheeks darkening further. “Dean,” he scolds, though there’s no real weight to it. More like he’s mortified by being caught having some not-so-saintly thoughts. 

Grinning, Dean pushes playfully at his shoulder. “Nah, come on. You can’t tell me you didn’t think about it,” he goads. And if he’s blushing too, so what? He’s come on his own fingers to thoughts of Cas enough times that he’s got no room to talk, but he doesn’t care. Plus, he’d been able to smell it – most of the time, when Dean had come to find him after he’d been done in the shower, Cas had smelled all dark and musky and sated.  

“Or… maybe not,” he amends, when Cas doesn’t say anything, his lips pressing together in something that looks a lot like irritation. Dean lets his eyes drop, rubs at his arms, suddenly embarrassed. He’s pushing it. Like always. 

Cas glowers at him. “Of course I did, Dean. That cannot possibly surprise you.” And, yeah, he sounds kinda annoyed. But, not a second later, he squints at Dean’s hands around his arms. “Are you cold?”

The answer doesn’t seem to matter much; Dean shakes his head, but Cas ignores him in favor of shrugging off his jacket. No doubt to give it to Dean – his life is such a chick flick, these days. 

He relaxes, feeling a little silly for thinking that Cas would be mad at him, and then feeling guilty about teasing Cas at all. He knows the man is sensitive about it – he probably shouldn’t be poking fun. “I’m sure I smelled all kinds of sickly sweet,” Dean relents, giving Cas a way out of the conversation. “Heats do that, I hear.” 

“You smell like apples,” Cas says lightly. Dean freezes. “Fresh baked apples, specifically. And pastries.” 

Dean probably looks like a deer in headlights, because Cas’s brow furrows. “Did you not know that?”

“I–” He falters. “Are you tellin’ me I smell like apple pie, Cas?”

“Yes,” the alpha says evenly. He shakes out his jacket so that the sleeves are right side out. “Very much so. It’s quite a comforting scent–” he breaks off with alarm. “Dean?”

Blinking hard, Dean swallows the sudden lump in his throat and swipes at his eyes, horrified that he’s crying, bewildered as to why. “I– did I say something wrong?” Cas pleads, putting a hand on his shoulder so he can turn Dean and search him, like there’s some kind of physical injury he’ll be able to patch up. 

“My mom. She – um,” Dean blurts, feeling the burning in his eyes increase. “She smelled like that. To me. That’s how I remember her, anyway. She used to make it on my birthday. I didn’t know I– ” His throat closes. He doesn’t know why it matters so much. Scents are familial, right? Makes sense that he’d inherit something of his mom’s. But somehow it doesn’t feel that simple. 

Cas’s brow furrows. “That seems fitting,” he points out, and Dean nods, because he doesn’t trust himself to speak. 

Cas keeps talking, his voice as measured and methodical as the way he drapes his trench coat over Dean’s shoulders and starts to guide his arms into the sleeves. Dean just lets him, too distracted to put up even a token protest. “She was your mother, after all,” he says, and Dean closes his eyes, starts to numbly agree that the biology of it is all that matters, that it’s just a fluke of the genetic lottery that he doesn’t smell of his dad’s leather and whiskey. 

But Cas isn’t done. “And, of course, you were a mother, in a manner of speaking.”

Dean nearly chokes. “What?”

As though he’s confused by Dean’s confusion, Cas cocks his head to the side. He situates the jacket around Dean a little more firmly, glancing at the zipper like he’s considering doing it up for him too. “To Sam, Dean. You raised him, after all. It makes perfect sense to me that your scent would be one of maternal, or at least parental, comfort.” 

Dean opens his mouth to deny it. To tell Cas that he’s nothing like his mom, and never will be – to explain all the ways he fucked up the kid’s life, all the ways he failed. To remind him that Dean will never be anyone’s parent, thanks to the lovely scar clawed into his abdomen.

But. 

He thinks about Sammy, sleeping sound in his lap in the back seat of the Impala for the first time since they drove away from their smouldering home. Thinks about picking him up off the dirt when he fell and patching him up, soothing him and pressing kisses to his injuries, real or imagined. Remembers reading to him under the covers, flashlight in hand. Remembers picking him up from the library and cooking for him and making him laugh, doing his laundry and laying out his outfits for school and packing his lunches and hugging him until the kid squirmed and giggled in his arms. 

Fuck it. He was Sam’s mom. The only one Sam ever knew. And maybe he wasn’t great at it, maybe he messed some things up along the way – God knows he’d left the kid on his own way too soon. But he’d done his best. He really had. 

Dean doesn’t say any of that out loud. But when he looks up into Cas’s eyes, the alpha’s expression is full of raw sympathy and love, so strong it nearly makes him start crying for real. He feels his lip tremble dangerously, his throat so tight he can’t believe he’s still breathing. 

“Oh, Dean,” Cas murmurs. “How could you not already know that?”

Dean swipes at his eyes, sniffing. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a little slow on the uptake.” 

“Only when it comes to recognizing your own worth,” Cas agrees solemnly. It startles a laugh out of Dean. “I am not joking,” he adds with a frown. 

“I know,” Dean reassures him, knocking his shoulder into Cas’s. He rests his head on the man’s shoulder, snuggling a little deeper into his jacket and sighing contentedly at the smell and warmth of familiar comfort. “I know, Cas.” 

Balthazar is staring at him. “You’re Sam, right? Sam Winchester?”

As abruptly as it had appeared, Sam’s rage vanishes. He feels fear, real fear, seize him around the throat and squeeze instead, because... Balthazar knows. He knows, and that means Dean is in danger. It means they’re going to figure out that Dean managed to contact him. 

Balthazar is already reaching for his phone, his eyes wide and shocked as he stares at Sam like he’s some kind of ghost, and the fact that they know about him – what did they do to Dean, that they know about him? What could they have done to Dean for him to tell them about Sam? His heart stutters in his chest, terror so strong it’s painful lancing through him. 

“I–” Sam starts, then feels fear stop the words, and he could scream because he has to fix this, has to stop that man before he calls Novak, because if he doesn’t– 

“God, Cassie told me you were a lawyer. I should have known you’d show up here eventually, I should have known–” 

“I’m not – I don’t know who that–” 

Balthazar looks up at him like he’s insane. “Please. You know you smell half like him? And you smell – fuck,” he swears, eyes widening. “Scared. You smell – Oh, bloody fucking hell, I just convinced you that we’re–” 

“Please,” Sam chokes, and he doesn’t know how things went wrong so quickly. He misses his brother so badly that he feels like someone is reaching inside of his chest and pulling his heart out of him, and at the same time, he wishes with everything he has that he’d never even come to Washington. Because if Sam gets Dean hurt after years of searching for him, if this all comes to nothing because he was unable to hold himself together, he is never going to forgive himself. 

Balthazar’s eyes flick from Sam to the door, as if he’s only just realized that Sam is going to try and make a break for it. Slowly, he brings his hands up, palms out. “Alright. Alright, just – calm down.” 

Sam doesn’t say anything. He can’t. His chest is heaving and he’s terrified, so sure that any moment now he’s going to be the cause of something awful happening to Dean – Dean, who has apparently been claimed by Novak, because the man has taken a shine to him. 

“I realize,” the omega starts, and then pauses, smoothing a nervous hand back through his hair. “I realize that I just spent a great deal of time convincing you of the opposite, but please understand. We do not sell omegas here.” 

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of Sam. “You– you just told me–” 

“Yes, goddammit, I know,” Balthazar curses. “I thought you were some random alpha hot-head. We get them every once in a while – looky-loos who might find out what we do here. If we don’t catch them early and convince them otherwise, they spread the word that we’re freeing people, and that – that’d be bad,” he says distractedly, still staring at Sam like he’s not sure if he’s real. “I’ve always convinced them that we’re just another auction house.” He looks pained. “And, in my defense – the few times I’ve had to do it, it’s worked.”

Then his eyes narrow. “And to be fair,” he continues, “you did act as though you wanted to purchase someone here, you know–” 

“Well I don’t!” 

“I know that now,” Balthazar says, throwing up his hands. “But a moment ago, I thought I’d need to convince you like I did the ones before!” 

Sam backs up a step, closer to the door. If he goes fast enough, he knows the Impala could make it through that stupid bar. “Oh, yeah? And how did you convince them, huh? You send home one of your residents with them, to seal the deal?”

Balthazar scowls at him, as though he has the audacity to be irritated that Sam would imply such a thing. “Of course not. The next part of the script, if you’d been paying attention, is that I regretfully inform the alpha in question that we have no one who will work for them – and if that doesn’t work, I shout ridiculous prices or paperwork complications at them until they leave.” 

Sam makes a strangled, incredulous noise. Balthazar glares at him, though there’s not so much anger in the expression as there is blatant frustration, and maybe… concern. “Christ, you still don’t believe me. Look.” 

He twists his monitor abruptly so that Sam can see what he’s been typing. It is not, in fact, search parameters based on what Sam had requested in an omega, as he’d assumed it would be. Instead, it’s a string of direct messages to someone named Meg_M.

So, what’s the deal with Tall, Fake, and Handsome? 

The man doesn’t look more than 25 and I’m pretty sure he could bench-press two of me. 

u were right. 

hes here 2 buy.

Pity

Don’t bite too hard, chief

I’m gonna try and get his number when he leaves all sad and lonely  

I could eat him up for lunch. 

u horrify me  

kids buying it hook line and sinker  

if he’s not on his way out in the next 20 min I’LL owe u lunch

Sam scans his eyes over it about a dozen times before it starts to make any sense at all. “Meg,” Balthazar explains, still agitated, “was the woman at the guard booth who gave you the third degree. You know, the one with the taser and the crazed look in her eye?”

Sam’s throat is dry. He flicks his eyes back and forth from the messages to Balthazar, thrown off balance. “So, what? All that shit about Novak having some kinda – some kinda fucked up claim over my brother, that was fake too?”

The flicker of panic on Balthazar’s face is enough for Sam’s rage to rekindle, though it’s doused by fear just as fast. One phone call, and this Novak man could disappear forever, could probably even prosecute Sam for the snooping he and Charlie have done, if they’ve noticed it... 

“Please,” he begs, stepping forward instead of back. He’s stuck – as much as he’d like to threaten this man into helping him, he’s got nothing to hold over him or Novak. Brute force and blackmail will get him nowhere, so he’ll have to bargain. “Please. I’ll buy him off you, I don’t care what the price is. Fuck, I’ll – I’ll do anything. Anything.” 

Balthazar grits his teeth. “A familial trait, it seems,” he mutters. “Self-sacrifice.” 

Sam can barely hear him over the pounding in his ears. “Please,” he repeats, his voice sounding broken even to him. “I just want to see my brother.” 

The omega huffs out a sharp breath, his eyes flicking back and forth between Sam’s. “Sit down, kid,” he finally says, shaking his head as he does so as well. “Jesus. You’re going to get the whole damn facility going if you don’t calm yourself down.” 

Slowly, unsure that he shouldn’t be bum rushing this guy and driving to Novak’s house as fast as he can, Sam forces himself back into his chair. The omega looks at him for a long few seconds and then shakes his head. 

“Sam,” he says carefully. “I realize that you have no real reason to trust me. But I swear to you that Dean is safe. He is not being harmed, and he is not being held captive.” 

He doesn’t exactly feel better at any of that. Gripping the armrests, he tries to keep his voice even and calm. “Is he here?” Balthazar doesn’t answer, but he presses his lips together in a terse sort of way. “So where is he?” 

Balthazar directs his gaze up at the ceiling for a moment, as if he is praying. “I know how this sounds,” he explains, sounding a lot like he’s gritting his teeth, “But he’s… He’s at Castiel Novak’s home. He has been since he was purchased in January.” 

Sam feels like he’s been sucker punched. He stares at Balthazar, his heart crawling back into his throat as if it has decided that it's going to live there from this point forward. But the omega looks more apologetic and worried than smug – gone is the casual cruelty that he’d worn like a mask. 

“He is about as safe as he could be,” Balthazar continues quickly. “Normally, he’d be here, just like all the other omegas you saw on the way in. But we didn’t have the legal room when we picked him up, and we had to make some…” He taps his foot on the ground a few times, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He sighs sharply. “Some unusual choices, as far as where he’d go.”

“He’s not on your list of purchases at all,” Sam says woodenly. “He’s not–” 

Balthazar looks at him sharply. “So you have been nosing around in our records. Ash said he thought there’d been someone in the system…” He blinks, as if what Sam has said has only just caught up with him. “Ah. No, Dean was not… purchased by the organization. As I said, we didn’t have the space to house him, so…” 

Some of Sam’s fear is starting to retreat again – and in the cracks and crevices that are exposed, the anger seeps right back in. “So Novak owns him,” he finishes bluntly. Balthazar winces. “Do I have that right?”

“... Unfortunately,” the omega agrees, after hesitating. Sam’s jaw cocks. “Kid, I know how that sounds. But Castiel is a good man. He himself was not thrilled with the idea, either. He purchased your brother only because the alternative was him staying right where he was.” 

Sam feels like he’s about to explode. He doesn’t know what to feel – grief or anger or something that’s way too close to hope for him to breathe. “Does he –” he swallows. “How well do you know him?”

Balthazar studies him. “Your brother, or Castiel?”

“Both. Castiel. I don’t know,” Sam says. He feels like he’s getting farther and farther away from his body. 

“I’ve only spoken in person to your brother a few times,” he says slowly. “So I don’t know him all that well. But Castiel does, and he tells me enough. And you know what one of the few things I do know about Dean is?”

Sam braces himself. “What?”

“He’s got a brother that he loves, and misses like mad,” Balthazar says bluntly.

Against his will, Sam feels something hot and sharp press against the backs of his eyes. He bites the inside of his cheek. It’s not like he’d thought Dean had forgotten about him, but…

“I also know,” Balthazar says with a sigh, “that he would absolutely murder me if I made you leave here without saying anything to him or Cassie. So.” Sam holds his breath. “I think it would be a good idea if I called Castiel. Let him know what’s going on. I’ll even leave it on speaker, since I know you probably have the same suspicious mind that your brother does.”

Sam swallows. “I want to talk to Dean.” 

Balthazar grimaces. “I’m sure you do, mate. But he might not want to talk to you, just yet.” 

Sam starts to stand up before he even knows what he’s doing, a protest at the edge of his mouth, but Balthazar holds up a hand. “I’m not about to spread Dean’s business before he’s ready for it to be spread,” he says sharply. “But, considering what your brother has been through… you’ll need to forgive him for his hesitance.” His eyes harden. “And if you don’t think you’re going to be able to respect his boundaries, I’ll have you escorted off the premises without calling anyone.” 

Feeling like the rug has been pulled out from under him for the sixth time today, Sam forces himself to sit back. “Does he know I’m…” 

“Alive? Okay? Yes,” Balthazar says, a little distracted as he stares down at his phone and taps something in. Probably a message to Castiel. “He knows.” 

“But he–” Sam feels pathetic. Feels small. “I think he. Uh. Tried to call our uncle. But not me. Why wouldn’t he try and…” 

“Sam,” Balthazar says. When Sam looks up, the omega’s eyes are surprisingly sympathetic. “One thing at a time. Your brother loves you. He misses you. Anyone who’s talked to him for more than five minutes can figure that out. But he is also in recovery,” he adds, a layer of steel creeping back into his tone. “And you seem like a smart kid. I’m sure you can reason out why he might have wanted to wait to make contact with you.” 

Sam’s not sure he can, actually. But if he thinks about it too long, he thinks he might start crying, or punching something, or both. So he just tightens his hands around his kneecaps and takes a breath. 

Balthazar is kind enough to give him a second. He waits until Sam looks back at him to hold up the phone. 

“Ladies and gents,” he says wryly, “On with the show.”

When Cas’s phone rings, Dean doesn’t think anything of it. They’re still curled comfortably together on the dock, Dean snuggling into Cas’s jacket; he’d started to actually get a little chilly since Cas had insisted on dropping it over his shoulders, and so he hasn’t taken it off. 

He laughs at Cas when he automatically reaches into a pocket that isn’t there and makes a face. “I’ve got it, Cas,” he says with a grin, fishing it out and glancing at the screen. It’s Balthazar, big shocker. “Your boyfriend’s callin’.”

Cas stares at him, something like concern appearing on his face. Probably for Dean’s sanity. “Who?”

Dean just laughs, elbowing him gently as he answers the phone and holds it up to his ear. “What’s up, Bal?” he asks, grinning. The concern on Cas’s face is replaced by a good-natured eye roll and a badly suppressed smile. 

He half expects Bal to give him shit about answering Cas’s phone, or drop some smug comment about how he’s finally not in heat anymore, or something, but Balthazar… doesn’t say anything. Dean pulls the phone away from himself for a moment, glancing at the bars – they have plenty of service. Frowning, he puts it back to his ear. “You there?”

There’s something like a choking noise over the line, and Dean frowns. “Dude? Are you good?”

Balthazar’s voice sounds a little strangled when he finally speaks. “Kid, I really need you to give the phone to Cast–”

“Dean?”