One of the Chief Princes
"Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king."
Daniel 10:13
"Please wear a tie."
“I don’t need a tie to order a damn Bloomin’ Onion, Cas.”
“It’s the principle.”
“I’m wearing slacks. Slacks. Do you have any idea what that means? Other than funerals and Sammy’s graduation, I haven’t touched these things.”
Cas sighed and leaned over the banister. “Sam!” he bellowed up to the second floor, where the younger Winchester had installed himself in the guestroom for Dean’s “Sober-as-Shit-Superbowl-Celebration,” set for Sunday.
Sam poked his head over the top railing. “What?”
“Please get your brother to wear a tie.”
“Don’t you pull him into this,” Dean snapped. Sam just smiled.
“Cas, I hate to take his side, but I don’t think he even owns a tie.”
“I do so,” Dean sulked. “I’ve got the one you gave me.”
“When did I give you a tie?”
“That Christmas.”
“Are you serious? You kept that?”
“Of course I did. It was my baby bro’s first shoplifting success.”
“I was twelve, Dean. And it’s from a Wal-Mart. I can’t believe the stitches are still holding.”
“Just make him put it on,” Cas pleaded.
“I pick my battles,” Sam grinned, and disappeared.
“See? Sammy agrees.”
“He agrees you’re a stubborn, irritating, underdressed, uncouth pain in my-”
“Do I look okay?” the younger Winchester asked, barreling down the stairs two at a time. His slacks, suit-jacket, and shirt were a little loose, and he maintained his anxious slouch, but other than that, he looked very close to the handsome, healthy, happy young man Cas had first met. He glanced to his boyfriend to find Dean beaming.
“You’re a friggin’ vision,” the elder Winchester declared.
“I weigh as much as Jess on a ‘fat’ day, but do I look like a junkie?”
Cas started-he’d never heard Sam so casually mention his deceased girlfriend. But Dean took it all in stride.
“You look dashing. Scarlett O’Hara would leap into your arms and plead with you to whisk her up the staircase.”
“Shutup and put on a tie, Dean.”
“Don’t you dare jump in his boat. I’m your big brother.”
“Go. If you hate what I gave you-which you should, because I was twelve and it’s from Wal-Mart-you can borrow one of mine or one of Cas’. But you can’t go like that.”
“You two are the same fussy, snobby, nagging-” Dean’s tirade was lost as he stomped up the stairs. Cas smiled at Sam.
“You look very nice.”
The younger Winchesters anxiously tugged at his trousers and shirt. “You really didn’t have to invite me, Cas. I won’t be offended if you wanted me to stay home.”
“Sam, please. I need you to help me reel Dean into a mildly acceptable form.”
“But...I know your brother’s some big-time surgeon, and you’re nervous, and I’m-” his voice wavered. “It would be fine if you didn’t want me to go, I swear.”
Cas looked at the younger man’s earnest face. “Michael has no business judging you, Sam. He said he wanted to meet my new family. You’re a part of that. I would very much appreciate you being there. I would certainly feel your absence if you weren’t.”
Sam eyed him, then nodded, gravely. If there was anything the Winchesters valued, above all personal qualms, it was family.
“So,” Dean grumbled, bounding down the stairs two at a time, in a way he’d undoubtedly taught his younger brother, “do I still look as devastating with this goddamn noose around my neck as I did without it?”
***
Cas had really believed he’d passed some magic check-point where he was no longer required to report to his family.
His father, after all, had never said anything about his decision to move west, or his failure to return for a visit since. Gabe was out doing whatever Gabe did. Michael was entrenched in his career. Ralph and Lou were off conquering corporate America. His mother called on holidays. And out here in the Midwest, no one had even heard of the “Millionaire Morgans.”
Cas was free. Cas was safe. Safe, in a new life, with two new friends he loved, an established career in a friendly hospital, and a home of his own. It was everything he’d dreamt of when he left the East Coast.
And then, out of the blue, the doorbell had rung, and Dean had hollered up the stairs that he needed to “get his ass down here,” and Cas had stumbled down the steps, still half-asleep after a night-shift, to find Michael, in a full suit, looking disapprovingly around the living room while an oil-coated Dean attempted to scrub his hands clean on a rag.
“Mikey here says he’s expected,” Dean had said, voice dripping with sarcasm. Cas’ stomach clenched.
“I’ve come,” Michael had said, cold green eyes drifting between the two, “to invite my brother and his new family to dinner this evening.”
Cas had wished he’d had on anything but a frumpy sleep-shirt and pajamas. He wished Dean had had on anything but greasy jeans and a wrecked shirt. He wished to God Sam wasn’t napping upstairs.
“Michael,” Cas had managed. “I didn’t realize you’d be in town.”
“It was, as many of my engagements are, quite hurried.” He had given Dean a deliberately disapproving once-over. Dean rolled his eyes. Cas wanted to die. “But of course, the family is eager for news of you, since it’s been some time. Shall I meet you at eight?”
“Sammy’s group doesn’t end until eight,” Dean had reminded Cas. A condition of Sam’s weekend away from the group home he lived was attending his daily meeting. Michael raised his eyebrows.
“And ‘Sammy’ would be?”
“My brother.”
“And ‘group’ would be?”
“Nar-anon.”
“Ah,” Michael had turned his piercing gaze to Cas. Cas swallowed, hard. “And ‘Sammy’ can’t go a night without Nar-anon?”
“Sam can clear his schedule, if required,” Dean had said, mimicking Michael’s overly-proper tone. Cas had sent up an extra special prayer that Sam wasn’t secretly listening.
“Lovely. So, shall we meet at eight?”
Cas had stared into his brother’s cool green eyes and briefly believed hell was staring back.
***
“Dean, slow down,” Cas warned.
“Turn down the music before my ears start bleeding!” Sam bellowed from the backseat.
“And touch the brake on occasion.”
“And roll the windows up!”
“Goddamnit, it’s like driving two Miss Daisy’s!” Dean roared, taking a curve so fast Sam and Cas tumbled slightly sideways. “Should I have called the restaurant and told them to puree your meat so you two can gum it down?” Cas hit ‘stop’ on the tape deck. Sam was trying to reel in his hair, which was flying around his head in part halo/part Mohawk affect. “Seriously, Sammy, I could French braid that mane of yours. If you don’t go to the barber’s I’m cutting your hair in your sleep.”
“Screw you,” Sam pouted. “You just did fifty-five in a school zone!”
“It’s a Saturday night, they’re not there.”
“You’re going to get us pulled over,” Cas cautioned.
“You’re going to make Cas and I carsick!”
“Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the friggin’ angels-look, we’re here.” Dean barreled into the parking lot and whirled them into a parking space, slamming on the brakes seconds before they could collide with the curb. Cas realized he was gripping the door handle, knuckles white. Sam was trying to get his hair to calm down. “Now hold on while I get your friggin’ walkers and double-check we’ve made it in time for the senior-discount.”
“You’re a riot,” Sam said sarcastically.
“Seriously, dude. Your hair is ridiculous.” Dean slammed his own door and made an attempt to get his hands on his brother’s head as Sam closed his side. The younger Winchester ducked and took a swipe at Dean, and Dean looked fully prepared to commence a wrestling match in the parking lot, Saturday Evening Restaurant Crowd be damned, when Cas intervened, unceremoniously grabbing Dean’s tie and straightening it. Dean could be unbearably hyper and goofy when he was nervous. Cas had never been able to decide if Sam’s tendency to draw into himself and go silent was a counterbalance to Dean’s anxious chatter, or if Dean’s incessant monologues had caused him to quit trying to get a word in when they were both facing a potential threat.
“It won’t be long,” Cas assured them.
“He’ll be fine, Cas,” Sam said, smacking his brother so hard on the back Dean flinched and retaliated with an elbow to his brother’s ribs. It was such a perfect imitation of the rough-and-tumble affection they had shared when he’d first met them that, for a moment, he could almost believe they’d be meeting Jessica, or maybe even Madison.
Anyone but Michael.
For a moment, his constant vigilance over the wellbeing of the Winchesters left him completely. Sure, they knew he came from a privileged background-his Harvard Medical degree announced that-and that his father tended to drink a little too heavily, and that his older brothers fought constantly. Dean knew a few more details, but for the most part, Cas kept himself focused on his current life, his current work.
He hated to say it-but he was ashamed. Deeply so. Ashamed of his own brothers, his dysfunctional parents. Ashamed of his last name, and the weight it carried.
“Dude,” Dean griped, “get the lead out.”
Sam paused, turned and smiled warmly. “Don’t worry, Cas. You won’t be the only one with a jerk big brother at the table.”
“Get a room you two,” Dean snorted, and held the door. “On you go, princesses.”
And just like that, the Winchesters had righted the world.
***
Sam clearing his schedule, had, of course, been anything but easy.
First, there was explaining the sudden appearance of Michael, which immediately set off his fragile nerves.
“You and Dean should go,” he’d said. “It should be about you. Not me.”
What he meant, of course, was if you tell him you’re supporting Dean’s drug-addicted brother, navigating the ‘here’s my boyfriend’ conversation will be the absolute least of your problems.
“It’s a family dinner, Sammy,” Dean had said. The Winchesters had one of those intense conversations with their eyes, and Sam agreed.
Then, they had to phone Alan, Missouri, the group-leader, the halfway house leader, and a couple of Sam’s group mates to insure that there wouldn’t be any repercussions for missing a meeting. After a flurry of phone calls and Cas vouching on the younger man’s behalf, he had faced a far more foreboding task: wrangling Dean into anything that wasn’t jeans and a work shirt.
“I’m a mechanic. You knew it when you married me,” Dean grumbled.
“Can you try, for one night, not to be insecure and self-hating?” Cas had snapped right back.
“You’re becoming abusive. Emotionally and psychologically abusive.”
“You’re a prick.”
“See?” Dean’s green eyes had sparkled. “Here I thought I’d be bringing a home a nice doctor. Instead-”
“I hate you.”
“You’re sounding more and more like Sammy every damn day.”
Finally, there was the business of Cas showering. And re-showering. And changing. He’d tried on a dark blue suit, the one he’d worn to a job interview, before realizing Michael had been wearing a navy one far too similar. Then he tried a dark green one with stripes, but Dean made a face, so he tried on a black one, which looked too somber. He tried tan-too country club-and another navy-too Presidential-and finally black with a bright tie-too Jehovah’s Witness-and, finally, after Dean threatened to cut the hot water off, settled on the black.
“You look good for a man preparing to ride in a hearse,” Dean had smirked.
“Gallows humor is all too called for.”
Dean had said nothing, but his hand rested briefly in the small of Cas’ back, and Cas smiled appreciatively in the mirror, and then broken the peace with “you need a tie.”
***
Michael was already seated, conversing on his cell phone while making notes on a pad in front of him. He gave a curt nod as the three took their seats surrounding the table, Dean giving an eye roll strong enough to turn the globe as he dropped into his chair across from the older Morgan brother.
“Thank you very much. I’ll speak with you soon. Alright.” Michael glanced up. “My apologies.”
“No you’re-saving lives, right?” Sam said, with a small grin, quickly lowering his hands out of sight to hide their shaking.
“Well, technically I’m the Chief Administrator now, so it’s less brain surgeries and more overseeing the progress of everyone else’s.”
“When were you promoted?” Cas asked.
“Several months ago. Had you been present at Christmas, you would have been told.” Dean’s nostrils flared. Cas breathed long and deep to keep his own temper down. Michael turned to Sam. “You must be ‘Sammy.’”
“It’s Sam,” the three said in unison.
“Sam,” Michael extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Michael Morgan.”
“I’m Sam. I mean-I know you’re Michael. Morgan. Doctor.” Sam blushed and quickly withdrew his hand.
“I heard you had scheduling difficulties.”
“I told you he could clear it, and we cleared it,” Dean said coldly.
“Sam, you will be alright without an evening meeting?”
Sam sat up straighter. “I’m clean. Dry. Sober. Five months.”
“Wonderful.”
A waiter arrived and asked for drink orders. Sam stared at the table, clearly shamed. Dean nearly barked out a demand for water for everyone. Michael raised an eyebrow.
“Would you like me to purchase wine for the table?”
“We’re good with water.”
“A whiskey, perhaps?” Cas didn’t miss the low hiss in the ‘whis’ sound. “Scotch? Vodka?”
Dean locked in on him. “Water. Agua. L’eau. Sammy, what’s Latin for water?”
“Water’s fine,” Cas told the clearly uncomfortable waiter.
“And I would like a scotch on the rocks,” Michael said, smiling. Dean’s eyes cut sharply to Sam, giving him a small, encouraging nod when his brother glanced his way.
“So,” Michael said, eyeing Sam, “you don’t drink either?”
“We don’t drink,” Dean reiterated.
“I trust my indulging won’t burden you.”
Sam shook his head. Dean just stared daggers. Cas cleared his throat.
“Mom told me she was planning a trip to Rome.”
“Rome, Florence, Milan, and the Tuscan countryside.” He smiled at the Winchesters. “Our father paid for her and her sisters to have a chance to truly immerse themselves in the Italian culture. Our mother taught sculpture at the Sorbonne, and now that the nest is empty, she’s eager to revisit her artistic roots.”
“Hey, I hear you. Sam’s twenty-first birthday I insisted he take in the magnificent dust clouds of Wichita,” Dean snorted. Michael smiled.
“I’m sure he appreciated that, even with your limited means, you attempted to broaden his horizons.”
“One of my friends in college studied at the Sorbonne,” Sam interjected. “I mean...not professionally. She went there on a summer program. She-” his voice shook, “she won a grant.”
Dean and Cas stared, awestruck, at the younger man: he was talking about Jessica. Like Cas, she’d come from a privileged background-though nothing of his magnitude-but what he said was true: the grant had been hers and hers alone.
“Did she,” Michael said, accepting his scotch.
“She was double-majoring in art history and education, but her minor was painting. That was her real passion, but she was very practical, and she wanted to make sure she could support herself and any family she had. She wanted a lot of kids and she always said they shouldn’t have to go hungry while she painted them.”
Cas felt his eyes sting sharply, because she’d told him and Dean, over their very first meeting, exactly that. And when she’d won the grant, he and Dean and driven over to their apartment with a bottle of expensive champagne and a box of incredibly cheap pizza, and the four of them had eaten and easily drank down the bottle and switched to beers. Then they’d sat laughing and talking, for hours, and gone off tiredly to work and class in the morning.
“But it wasn’t just painting. She liked drawing too. She talked about how fun it would be to illustrate a book. Especially a children’s one, because she loved kids. She said if she had to teach she’d want to teach kids.” Sam faltered, and Cas watched Michael make his move.
“Sam, you speak so very fondly of her, yet I can’t help noting you speak of her in the past tense.” He took a long, deliberate, sip of his drink. Cas saw envy in the eyes of both Winchesters as he did so. The conversation had gone too intense, far too fast.
“She passed away,” Cas interjected, sparing Sam. There was a lot he couldn’t do for his friend, but delivering bad news in a rock-solid voice was one of his areas of expertise. “An accident, unfortunately.”
“I trust she didn’t suffer?”
Sam stared at the table. Cas could tell, just by looking, that Dean was wracking his brains for a way to get Sammy out of this.
“Not at all.”
“So, Sam. I understand you’ve halted your studies. Will you resume them soon?”
“He will when he’s ready,” Dean snapped.
“I’m glad. And you, Dean. What did you study?”
He was baiting them. Cas had officially flipped off his nervous switch and flipped on one almost rusted over with disuses-the one of anger, the one of resentment, the one of sheer horror, that he shared a last name with others who were not only economically above most of the society, but somehow believed that made them morally, ethically, and Godly above society as well.
“Mechanical engineering,” Dean said smoothly.
“And you work...where?”
“At good ol’ John and Jay’s Auto Mechanics. C’mon down for a discount on all oil changes, break pad replacements, transmission adjustments and general tune-ups.”
“I wasn’t aware garages employed engineers.”
“I wasn’t aware hospitals employed walking dicks.”
Michael smiled and took a long sip of his drink once more.
“Listen,” Cas pleaded to his older brother. “I don’t appreciate you-”
“No, brother, I understand. You’ve taken up with the All-American-Auto-Mechanic. Quite an exotic breed, considering our usual introductions. And of course, he brings along with him, a slightly disturbed brother who, if it weren’t for the generous leftism of our legal system, would have a substantial criminal record.”
Sam went white, then red, so fast in any other situation it would have been comical. Dean’s fists hit the table, and it was all too clear he was seconds away from launching himself at the elder Morgan.
"So, from what I’ve gathered," Michael continued, "my brother is a very successful doctor, who paid out of pocket for his high-school drop-out-boyfriend's-drug-addict-brother's-rehab."
"Michael, please don't-"
"No, Cas, I understand. You want to help people. Even those beneath you. Dean, I at least can understand despite your working-class background and....attitude, that you do work. Quite hard. And maybe one day you'll upgrade from mechanic to Master of the other Grease Monkeys." Dean's look was murderous. Cas' face burned. "But as for you, Sam....from what I understand, you threw away your own future and are now dead-set on monopolizing our brothers'. So, I would like to hear what work-release program you've been accepted to, and how long it will take before you move, permanently, out of my brother’s guest room."
"That's enough," Cas pleaded. Sam and Dean were already on their feet: Sam's eyes were damp, but Dean was ready to come to blows.
“Sammy,” he said, far too calmly, “go wait in car.”
“Dean, I can handle this.”
“Go outside and get in the car.”
Sam glanced between Michael, then to Cas, then slowly backed away. Dean looked down at the table, then locked in on Cas’ brother’s eyes.
“The only reason I haven’t slugged you,” he said through gritted teeth, “is my brother needs me available to him, at all times, and I’m not risking a prison sentence over your ignorant, obnoxious little pissant mouth. But I guarantee, you set foot in my home again, and insult my family, and I will put you on your own operating table. Consequences be damned.”
With that, he stalked off. Michael turned his gaze to his younger brother.
“I’m amazed, Cas. I truly believed you had better judgment.”
“Have you any compassion?” he managed.
“I have compassion for those in circumstances beyond their control. That is not those two. They’ve chosen to indulge in this lifestyle and seem untroubled that it has ended badly.”
“You have no idea what they’ve been through. How strong they are to have endured.”
“I have a far clearer idea than you may believe.”
Cas got to his feet, reaching into his pocket for a twenty to cast on the table for the drinks and the waitress. “You’re a monster,” he managed, before turning and fleeing out the front door.
The Impala was gone. The Winchesters with it.
***
It wasn’t a long walk, really. If he had felt up to it, he could have made it within twenty minutes. But Cas felt sluggish and self-pitying and abandoned, and he took his time, trying to regain his focus. For the first time in ages, he fiercely missed Gabriel, who had always been his favorite of his older brothers. Gabe did a nearly pitch-perfect Michael imitation and often had Cas laughing despite himself at the train-wreck their family had become. And, unlike everyone else, his relationship with Cas hadn’t appeared to suffer. He still called, and often sent photos of himself with various women in various bars, and text messages so foul they’d give Dean a run for his money, but in Gabriel’s world, these were all signs of friendship, and his idea of brotherly bonding.
Michael...he didn’t really have any fond memories of him. He had always been cool, aloof, though unquestionably brilliant. He had helped Cas edit all his school papers and advised on his career decisions and medical school applications, but he’d never suggested they have a drink together, or arranged a visit, or even forwarded an e-mail. More than anything, Michael appeared to be his father’s attorney and policeforce, ensuring his younger brothers received good educations and maintained the Morgan Family reputation. Cas knew he had risked rebelling when he’d moved out West, but it still seemed bizarre that, after all this time, now was the moment his brother chose to reappear.
When Cas arrived home, the porchlight was on, and various houselights. He hesitated at the front door, then opted to stay on the porch and have a few more minutes of quiet and calm before having to face the music. He stared out over the yard. He felt weak, tired, and deeply ashamed. Everything he and Dean had worked on with Sam, and everything he'd try to reassure Dean, was gone with Michael's heartless words. He'd wanted, so much, for his family to be happy for him, to embrace Sam and Dean, even if they could never fully embrace one another.
He'd been an idiot. He never should have allowed his brothers anywhere near the Winchesters.
The screen door opened. Cas closed his eyes, wishing Dean would come up behind him and hold him. After tonight, he could hardly hope for it. He couldn't hope for anything, really, but a fight without too much yelling.
Dean's stepped close and nudged him affectionately with his elbow. "So," he says casually, "Your brother's a bigger dick than you told me."
Cas fights the tears. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.
"Shove it. You didn't do anything." He laid a hand between his shoulder blades. “I’m sorry I left like that. I would have come back to pick you up. I just...I was gonna hit him, Cas. I needed to get the energy out.”
"I shouldn't have even tried to introduce you. I should've just-"
"What? Pretended you weren't part of a new family? That you don't have people that matter to you, with problems outside of theirs? That might be BIGGER than their stupid little cat-fights?"
“Jess,” Cas said softly. “Sam never talks about Jessica."
"Nope. But he did. Missouri will puff up like a peacock."
"Why? After all this time-he won't say a word about her, but to Michael he suddenly unloads?"
"Oh for-" Dean ran a hand through his hair. "Now who's self-hating?"
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"Look-he was trying, for both our sakes, to get into the 'in' crowd, okay? Sam and I have barely been outside the state. We can’t keep up with all that high-society stuff he was going on about. He was just trying to show you didn’t marry into total white trash."
“Stop it. He was trying to provoke you. I was stupid to think they'd ever be happy for me."
"No," Dean murmured. "Of course you want them to be. I wanted my Dad to be. Sammy wanted that too."
Cas managed a small, grateful smile. "How is he?"
"Would you believe worried about you?"
"What?"
"He sent me down to here to check on you. Said he'd put in his ear plugs and wouldn't slice himself to bits if we woke him up with our 'exercise routines.'"
Cas chuckled. "He's a good friend."
"So are you." Dean tossed an arm around his shoulders and squeezed gently. "Listen, man-Sammy and me both know you're out of our league."
"Dean-"
"No-listen. We get it. We've got miles of issues. We're dropouts. You could be living a very different life if you weren't saddled with us. And if you ever want to go after it, we'll support you without complaint. You're family now, and that doesn't have an expiration date as far as we're concerned."
Cas was very, very close to losing his battle with tears. "That's all I want," he managed. “A real family.”
"Dude, after seeing him? I can see why," Dean smiled, rubbing his boyfriend's back in gentle circles. "You wanna crash?"
Cas pulled back and smiled. "Actually...if you’re up for it...how about we watch a movie?"
“Dude, Jaws 4 is on. Twenty minutes. Sammy did whatever he does to find out.”
“It’s called Internet, Dean. You’ll have to try it one day.”
“Whatever. You change, I’ll make popcorn, Sammy can make us that non-alcoholic punch crap he guzzles. Be there before it starts, because I’m not catching your lazy ass up during the opening.”
“Cas.”
Michael spoke from shadow. Cas jumped and nearly sent Dean into the wall. His boyfriend let him go like he’d touched a branding iron.
“Michael,” he managed. His brother approached the stairs.
“Dean. I’d like a moment with my brother.”
“Mikey, you’re standing on my porch.”
“Our porch,” Cas said softly. Dean glanced at him.
“Our porch.”
“Cas. Please ask your friend, to step away from the shared porch long enough so two brothers may have a frank word.”
Dean looked to Cas. Cas kept his eyes somewhere slightly beyond Michael’s shoulder.
“Dean...could you excuse us please?” he asked.
Dean snorted. “Majesties,” he said with a mock bow, and slammed the door on his way in.
“He has a temper,” Michael noted.
“What do you want?” Cas snapped. Michael sighed.
“Hear me out, little brother. I didn’t just come here on business. I had some friends look into those two.”
“Detectives?”
“Private Investigators,” Michael corrected. “Our mother is worried about you. And, though he doesn’t speak of it, I know our father is too.”
“Our father doesn’t worry about any of us.”
Michael shook his head. “His work is what has given us all we have, Cas. Our schooling, our homes, and one another. That is his gift, and all he knows how to give.”
“What is it you want?”
Michael straightened. “I want you to return to the East with me.” Cas clenched his jaw and looked away. “I’ll get you a high-paying consultation job at the hospital. We’ll pay outright, for an apartment of your choosing.”
“You’ll get me a few rooms and give me a part-time job,” Cas said bitterly. “And in exchange?”
“I need your help, Cas.” Michael gave a long-suffering sigh. “Our parents are aging. Our father is standing astride several hundred million dollars, in all sorts of accounts and trusts and a foundation. I have Gabriel determined to live a life that would embarrass the Hefners and two brothers determined to take as much as they can for their personal enterprises. I need assistance managing our parents’ estates to the benefit of the family.”
“You want me,” Cas said slowly, “to leave my partner, and his struggling brother, who I regard as my own, and return to act as your...accountant?”
“I’m asking you to seriously consider the future of your family, and yourself. We Morgans have the power, influence, and finances to truly do good on a large scale. I understand your little...sojurn into a more simple life, and, if you wish to take up with men, I can facilitate introductions with those of your same dispositions, and privilege.”
“I’m happy with what I have, Michael,” Cas managed, fighting the lump in his throat, the rage in his belly. “I love what I have.”
“Do you truly understand those you ‘have,’ brother?” Michael said. “I’m assuming Dean has told you about his suspected criminal activities?”
“He has,” Cas snapped.
“So-insurance fraud, credit fraud, shoplifting, robbery-that’s all well and good? And Sam-he was, at least for several weeks, a homeless man. And not due to any tragedy save for that of dependence of several substances so severe he was willing to steal from you, assault his own brother, and sign himself out, against medical orders, in order to maintain access to a supply of narcotics?”
“That’s enough!”
“It is. I understand this...infatuation with someone so very different from you. But it’s gone on too long, brother. It’s time to regain yourself.”
Cas was too angry, too hurt, and too flustered to speak. The front door opened and Dean stepped out, face unnaturally calm, in the way it only assumed when he was furious.
“You two can speak ill of me and one another all you want,” he said, voice low and enraged, “but no one speaks against my brother in my house.”
“Dean, as I’ve said. Despite your substantial criminal charges, recorded or not, I understand you now make an honest living, which I can respect. Unfortunately, I fear your brother is forever unable to do the same.”
“Michael-”
“Cas-Dean,” Sam said, suddenly appearing behind his elder brother. “I...have something I want to say.”
“Sammy-” Dean began.
“No, Dean-please. Just-listen,” Sam said, a shaking hand gripping the porch railing. “You’re right. I threw away my scholarships. I drove Dean and Cas into debt. I’m in a minimum wage job. I live with addicts. I threw away everything given to me in order to bargain in slums for hits and never had anyone in my family who went to college and threw away the chance I had to be the first. “I’m-” his voice hitched-“I’m a junkie. And I know what that means, for me and for them. And what it may mean coming from me to you. But you-” Sam set his jaw, determination in his face. ”You listen.
My brother may have stolen. He may have lied, and forged insurance and credit and hustled pool and didn’t graduate high school and never went to college. And yes, he broke into houses, on occasion, to get good shoes without holes so I could run track, and get backpacks so I could carry my books, and get heavy winter coats so I wouldn’t be cold, and no matter what he did, and no matter what...terrible things our father did, the whole time growing up, I never, ever, ever had to question if I was loved.”
Sam turned red at the suggestion, and Dean’s eyes, already wide, grew slightly narrow as his cheeks flushed. “Believe it or not, the only difference between you and Dean is opportunity. If he hadn’t been stuck with me, he could have done more with his life. And what he’s been able to do, given what he’s faced, is so much more than most. You want to ignore that, fine. But don’t you dare ignore that everything’s done, and sacrificed, has been for me, regardless of whether nor not I did anything to earn or deserve it. And given what I know of you, that’s more than any member of your family will ever be able to say.”
Sam was shaking, and breathing, hard. Cas and Dean were transfixed: Dean, struggling against tears: Cas, struggling against the urge to cover his ears and close his eyes and wish none of this was happening. Sam gave a jerky nod and darted back inside, slamming the door as he went. Dean took a slow breath and followed him. Cas looked at the closed screen door, to his eldest brother, to the closed screen door, and back again.
“I would like you to leave,” he said, finally. “And...if we only ever see one another at funerals, that would be alright with me.”
Michael stared, stricken, at the closed front doors. “Cas...” he began.
“Perhaps, one day, Michael, you will have children. And I wish them the best. But if they have difficulty-emotional or legal, please know, they are always welcome in my home, and the home of my family.” He straightened his shoulders and faced his eldest brother, for the first time in his life, without fear. “But you, brother, will never be again.”
***
Cas sat sipping slowly at a glass of red wine. He’d never developed a taste for it, and he found that it made him tired and sadder than ever. Behind him he heard the sound of footsteps, and Dean plopped into the chair across from his.
“You look pathetic,” he said. Cas managed a weak smile.
“See, that’s how you won me. Sweet nothings.”
“Shove it.” Dean took the glass and tossed back a sip like a shot. His face immediately scrunched up in disgust. “Ugh. It’s a bad year.”
“Do you miss it? Drinking?”
“Like the deserts miss the rain.”
“Did you really want to stop?”
Dean frowned. “I did, didn’t I?”
“Sometimes I worry that, if Sam and I were gone, you would go back. That you won’t do things to take care of yourself.”
“Without you and Sammy, who the hell would care what I did?” Dean tried another sip. “Ugh. Oak. I’ve always preferred the slow mull and long finish of Pine.”
Cas chuckled, then leaned tiredly on his hand. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“Shove it. You’ve dealt with enough crap from Sammy and I. We can handle your jackass big brother. Besides-Sober Super Bowl tomorrow. Three learned doctors, four sober grease-monkeys, and five struggling narcotic fiends. Could write a damn song about it.”
Cas shook his head. Dean’s attitude never ceased to amaze him. “How’s Sam?”
“He decided that you’re going to hate him tomorrow and that his wrath will burn the house down, so he took his valium early and went to bed. So you know what that means?”
“That he’ll be waking us up at three in the morning checking the smoke alarms?”
“Yes. But, before that, the baby’s down early, we have nothing to do but eat nachos and watch football tomorrow, we’ve both had a little to drink, and we should go upstairs and try to keep the flame alive.”
Cas really really really wanted to have one of those moments Dean avoided like the plague: one where he told him he adored him and didn’t regret anything about their time together, one where he told him he wanted to grow old right here in their little row-house with Sam never more than fifteen minutes away. He could tell by his boyfriend’s face that he knew and, suddenly, just like Sam and Dean would do, he felt perfectly understood with nothing more than that look. Dean got to his feet and Cas followed, making sure the door was locked, though Sam would inevitably check it again later, and followed his sober grease-monkey up the stairs to their bed.