Fic: "When Play Turns Bitter - Chapter Five: Fitter Happier" [SPN]

[nanoochka]

TITLE: "When Play Turns Bitter - Chapter Five: Fitter Happier"
AUTHOR: nanoochka
RATING: NC-17 for language, violence and graphic descriptions of sex.
PAIRING: Dean/Castiel, Dean/OMC, Sam/OFC, mentions of Dean/Lisa and Cas/Balthazar
SUMMARY: “You’re happy with your world/ But there is something small in the back of your head/ Your concerns are still free/ You fall into the trap/ Without knowing what you want/ And there’s nothing left but a foolish idea/ Everything goes back into place.” Remember that play turns sour when playing with a fire; but Dean is as tired of pretending like his life hasn’t begun, as he is waiting for Castiel to notice.
WARNINGS: OMC slash
SPOILERS: General S6
WORDCOUNT: WIP
DISCLAIMER: Supernatural and all associated content is the property of The CW and Eric Kripke. No infringement intended.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been wanting to write a Dean/Cas epic in the frame of Dean/OMC for a while-there’s so much fic out there that situates their relationship within Dean’s involvement with Lisa, which is obviously all very well and good (and canon); but I’m more curious about how Dean would handle getting involved with another man. There are a lot of fun implications not only for his sexual identity, but how Castiel might respond to such a thing, so I figured to just forge ahead and see how things work out. The title is from the traditional Welsh standard written and sung by Caryl Parry-Jones, “Chwarae'n Troi'n Chwerw” (“When Play Turns Bitter” or, “When Play Turns Sour” - lyrics here); chapter title from Radiohead. Thanks to sansday for taking point as head cheerleader/alpha, and shane_mayhem for the incisive beta and Portland-related cultural-geographical coaching.

Part Four

“When Play Turns Bitter” by nanoochka

Chapter Five: Fitter Happier

True to Kurt’s word, the party carried on into the dim hours of the morning, revellers chased away like vampires by the coming dawn. Though they didn’t have sex, Dean and Kurt kissed until their lips were too sore to continue and their eyes were too heavy to stay open. Somehow Kurt knew not to take it any further than that, reading Dean’s hesitation as clearly as if he’d confessed his fears out loud and with the kind of honesty reserved for stronger men than he. Had it been left up to Dean, he probably would have pushed himself too hard, freaked out, and never spoken to Kurt again. Instead he went to sleep feeling strangely in control of the situation, and woke in Kurt’s bed a few hours later. He was rumpled and hungover and maybe wearing a few less articles of clothing than when he’d started, but calm. Kurt mumbled a sleepy goodbye and pulled him down for a farewell kiss, and in that moment Dean knew that he wanted to see him again.

Without quite knowing how it happened, over the next few weeks they fell into a pattern of seeing each other with something resembling regularity. There wasn’t much change from his usual routine; they still hung out after Kurt’s sets on Tuesday nights, sometimes alone and increasingly with the other guys in the band, whom Dean was beginning to enjoy spending time with. He liked how weirdly in-tune they were with each other, the way Chris and Jake sometimes finished each other’s sentences, the way Joey and Kurt seemed to communicate a lot more with looks than they did speaking. They were more close-knit than a bunch of old friends getting together for drinks once and a while, but not so involved that they lost perspective on the rest of their lives. It reminded Dean a little bit of the neighbourhood football league he’d played in while living at Lisa’s, which for a lot of the guys was a sacred time away from wives and kids and desk jobs. There was more intensity amongst the band members, true, but Dean was a little surprised to learn that Joey, at least, was happily married with two kids. He still flirted with the regulars at the bar, but Chris and Jake seemed to generate the band’s reputation for womanizing all on their own.

Kurt’s reassuringly steady sights seemed to be set exclusively upon Dean.

Not surprisingly, Jessie picked up on the change almost immediately following Nadia’s birthday. Of course Dean’s newfound familiarity with the band-with Kurt-was a new development, but he didn’t think that he and Kurt behaved any differently together, aside from the fact that they went from being complete strangers to people who actually knew things about one another. Other than the odd shoulder-rub or touch to the small of Dean’s back, Kurt wasn’t much inclined towards possessiveness, and neither was Dean. Still, after the third week in a row of seeing them like this, Jessie called him on it as soon as they had a moment alone. Part of Dean wondered what had taken her this long.

“What exactly is going on with you and Herr Hottie lately?” she asked, leaning over the bar with her aquamarine eyes sharp and curious, but no trace of playfulness in her voice.

Swirling his drink around in his glass, Dean enjoyed the fresh clink of the ice together while he pretended to consider the question. He deliberately drained the scotch before answering, knowing it would probably just drive her crazy. “Nothing’s been going on,” he said smoothly.

“Don’t bullshit me,” Jessie warned with mock-severity. “No complaints on my end, but a month ago you rarely spoke to a single person besides me when you came in. Now you’re all chummy-chummy with the jazz cats?”

“They’re good guys,” Dean told her. It was a bit of a pointless deflection, because arguably Jessie had known them better and for much longer than Dean, but she chose not to point out this flaw in his argument. “I went to a party they played at a little while ago,” he eventually admitted. “We got talking. Turns out we have a lot in common.”

“Like Kurt?” she said, pointed.

“Amongst other things.”

A pained groan escaped Jessie’s throat and for a moment Dean thought she might actually bang her head against the bar top. “Come on, Dean,” she sighed dramatically. “I’m a freaking bartender; I know a goddamn mating dance when I see one. You guys have been eye-fucking each other since you met, so don’t try to tell me you’re fishing buddies or some shit.” When Dean didn’t say anything, she arched an eyebrow and crowded closer, clearly taking his silence as an admission of guilt. “Can I just say, if you’ve been boning that very fine piece of ass, I might have to promote you to the rank of ‘Personal Hero’.”

Dean rolled his eyes but couldn’t quite keep the smile from his face. “No one’s been boning anyone,” he said. She stared him down until he chose to elaborate. “Seriously.”

This, in fact, wasn’t far from the truth. Apart from the amount of time Dean and Kurt had spent making out like teenagers in every available dark corner, by adolescent terms they’d barely made it to third base. It was a definite change to go about the business of seeing someone-Dean supposed that was the word for it-without having started off in bed. At some point Dean had caught himself subtly rearranging his schedule in order to accommodate spending more time with Kurt, which he honestly enjoyed and marked a change in his social life for the better.

They went to various music gigs around the city and had beers and did normal things like watch baseball on Nadia’s stupidly enormous television, which Kurt admitted he was kind of embarrassed by. In university Kurt had divided his extracurriculars between soccer and swimming, for which he said he’d qualified for the American national team, and it seemed like there was no end to the number of sports events he could happily watch. Dean had drawn the line at fencing, but found that Kurt had no objections to necking while foils clashed and a judge yelled, “En garde!” in the background. Love-bites notwithstanding, it wasn’t unlike hanging out with a buddy the way Dean used to do with Syd in Cicero. Sometimes they played impromptu games of soccer in Couch Park when the weather was right, but that was the closest they’d gotten to being naked together-literally, at least-Dean overcompensating in his competitiveness for how distracted he was by Kurt shirtless and sweaty. Apparently he’d started to date an underwear model without realizing it.

With the exception of the constant making out, he found himself wondering exactly where this crazy train was even headed, until one dinner date that culminated in the messiest and most gratifying blowjob of Dean’s adult life. Kurt had followed him into a bathroom stall with a determination that proved that he could be pushy when he wanted to be, and kissed Dean’s protests away before dropping to his knees. Even if he didn’t say so, apparently there was a limit to how much of Dean’s knee-jerk phobia of gay sex Kurt could stand. In between trying to hold himself upright and making some downright embarrassing noises, Dean was sure that he could feel Kurt’s unfulfilled longing in every swipe of his tongue and expert graze of teeth.

Dean thought that his inability to qualify a normal adult relationship-the word used in a purely descriptive sense, of course-was his own failing, just as he knew that Kurt wasn’t the one who kept hitting the brakes every time they came close to crossing that final bridge. Not coincidentally, it did resemble full-on relationship territory, regardless of semantics. Considering that there were no females involved, Dean was being quite the pussy about it. He actually felt himself itch when Kurt was around, fingers twitchy and restless with the need to touch and stroke and remove every bit of clothing left in the way, but he froze up worse than a choirgirl at a kegger as soon as Kurt’s hands drifted to his belt. His damage, as Sam would say, was not to scale. Not that Sam had the first idea that anything was going on.

It was a Wednesday evening like any other. Like usual, Dean got home from work to find Sam in the middle of waiting for Dean to rescue him from making dinner. Vegetables he’d picked up that day were washed and already chopped, resting on the countertop alongside a couple of steaks ready to be fried up. Dean had to admit he was impressed that Sam had gotten that far without him.

Spread out on the kitchen table were a number of newspapers and Sam’s trusty MacBook, proof that he was busy looking for a new job for them. Sam had gone to take care of a poltergeist in Salem the previous weekend, which probably meant that it was Dean’s turn to pull himself away from the business of not getting laid and rustle up some ghosts. But first, dinner.

“You’d make a horrible doctor’s wife,” Dean said as he pulled a beer from the fridge, and washed his hands at the sink, referring to Sam’s failure-or refusal-to transform into a passable cook.

Sam just grunted and flipped to another page of the newspaper. The routine of their Wednesdays was almost creepy in its consistency, but Dean had no complaints. During his lunch break he’d contemplated driving across the river to Kurt’s firm, struck by the sudden desire and resolve to show up and blow Kurt’s mind by way of a handjob in the office restroom; but the shop had been too busy for him to sneak away. What he needed right now was some excellent fucking steak and his brother’s quiet reminder that some aspects of his life, at least, were still perfectly normal. As normal as it could get for a semi-retired, sexually confused hunter and a thirty-year-old who couldn’t even fry an egg, anyway. He got to work on the steaks without another thought, heating up the grill pan to smoking and carefully oiling and seasoning the meat before dropping it in to sizzle satisfyingly for a couple minutes on each side. The vegetables were left to steam away in the double boiler.

After hearing about how Dean was the resident chef of Casa de Winchester, Kurt had invited him over for a home-cooked meal that coming Saturday, ostensibly to spare Dean an evening at the stove. They could rent a movie, he said, since Nadia usually spent the weekends with her boyfriend and wouldn’t be there to disturb them. The offer was very tempting, but Dean was a guy-he knew all about the ‘movie rental’ play, which he’d used plenty of times in the past for dates with girls. It essentially translated to, “Let’s put Die Hard on mute and fuck ourselves silly on the couch.” There wasn’t a single reason he could think of why that was a bad thing, aside from the feeling of running towards the edge of the cliff at full speed. On ice. Dean had yet to respond to the offer, but it was closer to a ‘yes’ than a ‘maybe’.

A piece of discarded broccoli stem from the trash bowl bounced off his temple and tore Dean away from his thoughts. He glanced at Sam, who was staring back at him with his eyebrows pushed as far towards his hairline as they could go. “Are you listening to me, dude?” he demanded, bitchfacing like crazy.

“No,” Dean admitted. To his annoyance, he realized that daydreaming about Kurt had caused him to miss half of what Sam had just said and over-grill the steaks on one side. “Something wrong, Samantha?”

“Apart from the balance of your brain chemistry, yeah-it looks like there might be a job coming up.” Sam got up from the table with the paper held out in front of him so that Dean could glance at the headline and watch the meat at the same time.

It took about thirty seconds for Dean to diagnose the problem. All men, mostly single, all of them dried to husks. Done. “Succubus?”

Shrugging, Sam re-folded the paper as Dean went to flip the steaks. “Looks like. You’ve got this weekend off, right? Maybe this is something you could get Cas in on.” Dean shifted uncomfortably, thinking about how to bring up his potential Saturday plans without making it painfully obvious that he had any stake in the outcome. Sam, however, beat him to it, reading Dean’s hesitation the way only an overbearing little brother could. “What, did you have more important plans than saving some poor schmuck’s life?”

“Actually, yes.”

Dean ignored Sam’s look of interest as unflinchingly as he could, but it was surprisingly difficult. Thinking about Kurt and Cas at the same time made him want to punch things. He felt guilty and didn’t know why, or in what order, but he got the feeling that it was severely misplaced. Cas wasn’t the one who’d been paying him undeserved amounts of attention in the past three weeks; arguably, Dean’s first impulse should have been to blow off the job in favour of just blowing Kurt, but instead he froze up.

“I guess it could wait,” he amended, and immediately regretted it. His loyalties were seriously fucked up if Cas was getting his vote even in absentia.

Predictably, Sam picked up on his reluctance despite Dean’s best effort to play it off and busy himself with plating the steaks. Sam did what he could to be unobtrusive in his concern as he took the vegetables out of the steamer-just when had he started influencing Dean to eat so healthy?-but Dean could feel his worried eyes following his back around the kitchen, couched beneath that sad-puppy brow like he was afraid Dean might burst into tears any second.

“I could always go with Cas instead,” he offered tentatively, when Dean said nothing. “We’re usually pretty well-staffed on Saturday nights and I’ve got Sunday free; I could take the weekend off no problem.”

“No, it’s okay.”

Trying to reassure them both while he mentally stuck the knife in Kurt’s back, Dean sat down at the kitchen table and dug into his meal. The job was just a few hours up the coast in Washington, and it would be great to get out into the mountain air for a few days with Cas full of stories from India and beyond. If there’d been a way to explain all that to Kurt, Dean told himself he’d understand. It’s not like they were a couple, anyway.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to buy his own bullshit.

Later that night, Dean settled himself out on the back balcony with a beer and his cellphone in hand, having evaded the rest of Sam’s questions about why he’d been so distracted and cheerful in the last little while. Because he knew Sam wouldn’t approve of Dean ditching an actual, present, interested party in favour of some unrequited horseshit that had been carrying on for far too long, the subject was best left untouched. It was a really beautiful night out, though, and hardly a chore to enjoy the mild May weather while also running avoidance.

The first message he sent to Cas, reading, Succubus in WA this weekend-U game? Satisfied that the answer was a probable yes, it took him a while longer to figure out what to say to Kurt. From the look in his eyes when he’d asked Dean over for dinner, it was clear that he’d anticipated some alone time that didn’t include his band or a soccer ball or a case of beer between them like a shield. Work was always a reliable excuse, and Dean didn’t feel bad about turning down a date in order to save a few people; but he knew he’d be disappointing Kurt by doing so. The thought bothered him, which was inconvenient enough, but when Dean told himself that Kurt surely was seeing other people and probably had backup plans, that didn’t do much by way of reassurance. Deep down, he knew this was the kind of behaviour that made him an asshole and proved that he had no concept of how not to be one. In the end, Dean put it off and spent the rest of the evening brooding and absolutely not checking his phone for a response. He fell asleep under a beautiful clear night filled with Northern hemisphere stars.

Much to his surprise, his reply came in person sometime around two in the morning, according to his watch. Woken by the quick tingle of electricity he got whenever Cas appeared, he still gave a start upon snuffling awake and finding the angel seated across from him. He wore a long linen tunic that made him look strikingly like the stoner version of himself from 2014, whom Dean had to admit he sometimes missed. Unlike this Cas, the love guru of the future had had no compunctions about discussing how fondly he remembered Dean’s cock, even so many years into their troubled reality. Junkie or not, he’d done wonders for the ego, and for a while afterwards Dean had held on to the knowledge that maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d been affected after his night with Cas.

Uncomfortable with the memory, Dean sighed in annoyance. He rubbed a hand over his face for the dual purpose of waking himself up and making sure he hadn’t drooled in his sleep. To his relief, he hadn’t. “Y’know, a text would have been just fine,” he snapped at Cas.

Appearing untroubled by Dean’s testiness as usual, Cas just smiled. “It is reaching a very hot time of day in Assam,” he said, like that had anything to do with his ability to call ahead. “My guide wished to rest for a while, so it seemed a good opportunity to respond in person.”

That was a positive sign, Dean thought in spite of himself. Kind of like he was about to do to Kurt, people tended to use texts to deliver bad news rather than good. “What are you doing down there, anyway?” he asked.

“The Kamakhya Temple is located in the city of Guwahati,” Cas explained, and Dean, having maybe understood fifty percent of that sentence, sincerely hoped he would elaborate. “It is one of the oldest temples in India dedicated to the goddess Kali,” he added, catching Dean’s look of confusion. “Given her past relationship with Gabriel, she has been the focus of my research for some time.”

“Huh.” Mention of India made Dean think of Kurt again-not that he needed much help-and although he wasn’t Hindu, Dean knew that his mother was. He wondered how she’d respond to finding out that Kali was not only real, but that Dean had met her in the flesh, flaming arms and all. Curiosity getting the better of him, Dean asked, “What’s it like?”

“Sweltering, but beautiful,” answered Castiel. “I am not affected by the heat, but I don’t imagine you would find it very pleasant.” He was still smiling at Dean in that enigmatic way he had, but Dean could tell he was pleased by Dean’s interest in his work. It was a hell of a lot more interesting than Dean’s day-to-day life, sure, but a few brownie points in his favour never hurt, either. “You mentioned a succubus?” Cas prompted, after a moment.

“Yeah.” Dean shrugged. “Papers said that three men have gotten the kiss of death so far,” he explained. “Doesn’t sound like this bitch is in any danger of taking off anytime soon, so I figure if we show up now we can get in and get out without much trouble.” He thought back to his own past experiences with succubi, and added, “You’ve gotta be impervious to their poison, right Cas? Best thing in these types of situations is a good decoy.”

A smile quirked Castiel’s lips. “Is that why you want me to come? So that I can be used as bait?”

Dean smirked. “You know how those succubi are,” he said with a lazy edge to his voice, relaxing into the apparent comfort of Castiel’s acquiescence. “They like ‘em pretty and innocent-looking.”

“I have never considered myself to be particularly innocent,” Cas answered in full seriousness, though he didn’t bother to contradict the remark about his prettiness.

At this, Dean choked on a mouthful of beer. He couldn’t help but applaud the angel for managing to incur an actual spit-take. Certainly Cas had regained a modicum of his old humanity since resigning from the position of command in Heaven and was acting a lot less like a prude these days; but Dean’s mind unhelpfully supplied a quick comparison between Cas’s definition of innocence and the memory of Kurt whispering, ‘I want to feel you fuck my mouth,’ as his hands undid Dean’s belt buckle inside that washroom stall. He kind of had to admit that there was no agreeing with Cas on that one, because to Cas, the difference between innocent, and not, probably came down to understanding sarcasm. He still didn’t recognize double entendres, and one time that Dean had quipped about a woman’s breasts not being real, Cas had remarked that he detected no sorcery present in the room.

“Close enough,” he replied instead, feeling his face grow hot and red at the image of Kurt’s dark head of hair bobbing back and forth from his knees. Was he really serious about turning down “dinner” in favour of a goddamned succubus, even with Cas attached? If yes, Dean’s priorities were more in the toilet than he’d originally thought. The feel of Kurt’s mouth was all but seared into his brain. Cas saved him the trouble of having to think that one through, but not without shooting Dean a funny look over his sudden sense of distraction.

“I should go,” he told Dean suddenly. “I apologize that I cannot stay longer, but Manaar will begin to wonder where I am if I do not return soon. He and his wife are under the impression that I am just another clueless American in need of guidance. There is no shortage of them in India, it seems.”

“I don’t think I’m offended,” Dean mumbled.

He was afforded a laugh, little more than a chuckle by most standards but practically a guffaw, coming from Cas. “When do you wish to leave for Washington?” he asked.

“Be here around eight on Saturday morning, if you can swing it,” Dean said, after a moment’s deliberation. “Or Saturday night, India-time. Should give us enough time to drive up the coast and show up just in time for happy hour.”

“Very well.” Cas stood up to leave, which was unnecessary considering he could have just zapped himself away from any position, but Dean took it as a courteous gesture, especially when Cas nodded in farewell. “Thank you for letting me know about this.”

Before he left, Dean reached out to catch his wrist. It had been entirely too long since he and Cas had had skin-to-skin contact, and a slight widening of the angel’s blue eyes was the only proof he got that they were both aware of this fact. Not knowing why he’d been struck by the boldness to do so, Dean could only think that maybe his recent dalliances with Kurt had put him back in touch with the part of him that had once seduced Johns with nothing more than a smile and a coy touch of the hand.

“I’m glad you’re coming with me,” Dean said, looking up at Castiel’s sombre face. “It probably don’t seem like much, but it means a lot.”

“I will see you in a couple of days, Dean,” Cas answered. “I look forward to it.” With that, he was gone, but the warmth of his promise was enough to prevent Dean from feeling too touchy about his abrupt exit.

Smiling to himself a little, Dean tapped out a quick text to Kurt telling him that he had to go out of town for work over the weekend. Sry, he said, and found that, anticipation of the trip notwithstanding, he genuinely regretted letting Kurt down. Make it up 2 u ltr? There was no immediate answer, which was probably reasonable for 2AM, and Dean tried not to envision Kurt’s reaction as he went inside and decided that going to sleep was probably the best cure for phone-stalking.

Even with thoughts of Kurt still on his mind, Dean went to bed with a smile upon his face that night.

Saturday arrived, and Dean had the Impala gassed up and ready to go before dawn, hours ahead of when Castiel was due to arrive. Considering they were going to go rescue some poor assholes from having their lives drained away via their dicks, Dean was aware that he was probably being worse than a little kid on Christmas morning. Rain had started up sometime overnight and showed no signs of stopping, but despite the less-than-ideal weather Dean was in the mindset for a perfect weekend. Provided that no one else died on his watch, he had every reason to feel good about the next couple of days.

His thoughts were interrupted by his cellphone vibrating noisily from the kitchen table, buzzing its way across the surface as though making a bid for freedom. Patting himself down for his keys and buck knife one last time, Dean distractedly wandered into the kitchen and picked it up.

A sinking feeling grew in his stomach as he flipped open the phone and saw a series of text messages from Cas, all written in his impeccable grammar and failure to grasp the concept of shorthand.

‘I am unable to accompany you at this time, Dean,’ they read, confirming his suspicions. ‘Manaar tells me that he will be unable to continue as my guide after this weekend because of the coming rains. If I abandon my research now, I will likely not be able to return to it until after the monsoon season passes. It is nearly June, and Assam will soon be under over a foot of water. The temples will be inaccessible under such conditions, even to me. I am sorry.’

Anger rose swiftly and Dean tried to force it down, but his emotions won and resulted in him whipping his cellphone against the nearest wall. Protected by its flexible rubber case, purchased by Sam after several such incidents, the phone did little more than bounce off the paint and hit the floor tiles with a dull thwok. For a few minutes Dean did nothing more than stare at the offending object, challenging Cas to punch out another goddamned message, but the apartment remained silent except for the rain outside and Sam’s quiet snores from down the hall. Dean pretended that he didn’t notice his hand shaking in outrage, and then collected his phone off the ground. However much he wanted to act surprised at Castiel’s hasty cancellation, he wasn’t at all. This was the way it had been for months, and Dean saw no danger of that changing, not in the foreseeable future. There was always somewhere more important for Cas to be, something more important to do than waste his time with Dean. Profound bonds just weren’t what they used to be.

Too tired to stay angry for long, Dean shuffled over to the couch and sat down heavily, feeling indifference begin to take the place of indignation. He knew he should get over the disappointment and drive to Washington, but rationally he knew there was no chance of him taking out a succubus alone. Most likely it was too late for Sam to take the day off work, but maybe if Dean put the call in to Bobby the old hunter could get a hold of Rufus instead, and Dean would just owe him one. Any desire to make the trip had vanished, sucked away to nothingness like it had never existed at all.

Kurt answered the phone in a sleepy, sexy rumble before Dean even registered that he’d dialed his number instead of Bobby’s. A couple of seconds passed-Kurt said, “Hello? Dean?” again-and eventually Dean blurted out, “Hey, baby,” the endearment catching him completely off-guard as much as it did Kurt.

Presumably since they hadn’t done much more than grope like inexperienced teenagers, pet names were a little premature. Either way, Dean heard Kurt go from half-conscious to alert in about a millisecond, as though a sign of affection might be a harbinger of the apocalypse. If only Kurt knew.

“Um, is everything okay?” he asked, after a pause.

“Yeah,” Dean answered gruffly. It wasn’t really, though. Maybe guilt was capable of making him do stupid things, like calling his gay maybe-lover out of the blue too early on a Saturday morning, after having only just passed him over for a better offer. The realization that Kurt probably deserved a lot better left him feeling cowed. Dean didn’t enjoy the feeing any more than he liked being let down by Cas, so he did something almost unheard of for him, and apologized. “I feel shitty about blowing you off,” he admitted.

“Well, don’t,” Kurt said slowly. It was obvious from his voice that he couldn’t place why this warranted a 7AM wake-up call on his day off. “Work happens, I know how it is.” Teasingly he added, “And you said you’d make it up to me, so I fully expect to have my mind blown sometime soon.”

“Fuck work,” Dean grunted.

The decision was pathetically simple, when Dean thought about it calmly and without consideration for Castiel. Fuck you twice, Cas, Dean projected, hoping the message made its way down the wire to motherfucking India. I’m through waiting.

“They don’t appreciate me there anyway,” he assured Kurt, who chuckled knowingly in response. Dean could hear his interest over the phone, and he felt immediately reassured that he was doing the right thing, focusing for once on the right person.

“How bout I make it up to you tonight?”

Chapter Six