Every fertile inch (3/6)

[whit_merule]

Previous chapter.

Week 3.

6 kalends Septembris (August 27).

Six days after the events of An Acorn Button. This one accidentally got a bit plotty. For those who haven’t read the main story: Castiel’s parents died during the angelic civil war, and his oldest brother (Gabriel) staged his own death, fled, posed as human and set himself up as an

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[whit_merule]

Yes, sometimes Dean is a little bit slow to work out 'oh hey, my woes are not unique, SOMETIMES OTHER PEOPLE HAVE WOES TOO and they might even be ANALOGOUS'. Which does actually make sense in this verse, because he's so very conscious of having to carry the entire Weight of Sam alone, because he had this feeling when they were growing up that if he complained or even asked for help someone would try to take Sam away For His Own Good. Because people kept talking about how 'oh, poor boy[s, not that he heard the s], little children need a mother/parents'. And then increasingly, as they got past that stage and into being teenagers and young adults, that would have given way to a sense of Being Different, which would continue the isolation with different overtones. Even if Castiel wasn't Castiel it's probably easier for Dean to let him in past those walls than someone from the town, who would have been there all along.

He's trying not to think about Gabriel just now, yes, because he knows he's not being fair (look! a flash of maturity!). He's got several Gabriels in his head - the brother-seducing/stealing monster with the future potential of breaking Sam's heart; a few traces of the dangerous just-a-monster angel (because Gabriel still isn't quite safe, even if Dean is pretty sure he has him figured intellectually); Castiel's brother whom Dean kind of owes because he killed Balthazar which is another thing to not-think about and he feels sort of responsible for Gabriel's PTSD as well; and the man he thinks he actually understands fairly well and has a surprisingly easy companionship with, mostly consisting of trading insults, when things are more stable.

All of which means he has to try to avoid seeing Gabriel as much as possible right now because as soon as you factor Gabriel's face into it it all gets more complicated. :( because Gabriel is either insulting him, which is aggravating but sort of fun and he has to respond and not sound sulky or too sharp, or pretending not to stare wistfully at Sam, which is NOT OKAY, or being all sharp and smooth and polished with everyone else in a way that means Gabriel is actually fairly uncomfortable (and Dean's still the only one who's got that figured out - Sam's pretty close, but he's too caught up in his own Gabriel-related thoughts to be objective, and Castiel just doesn't get Gabriel much at all).

And Gabriel quite likes Dean because he's just about the only person Gabriel can relax around now, for various reasons. Relaxing may or may not involve being rude, of course, and 'quite like' doens't mean he's necessarily going to be pleasant, but it means that Gabriel's behaviour to Dean is noticeably less strained than it is with most other people most of the time. And Dean doesn't pick up on that entirely consciously, but he still sort of feels, when confronted with actual!Gabriel, that he can't really glower at him with all the force with which he'd like to glower and a brother-stealing monster.

It is very confusing. :(

(and there may be some hints of that in the next couple - I think Gabriel will be turning up in the fifth.)