34. Where Do We Begin?

Ending Credits: One Foot in Front of the Other – Emilie Autumn

Where Do We Begin?

“The cops have been in and out of the house for a few days,” Dean says, and presses the edge of his fingernail into the customary Styrofoam cup of hot cocoa that Benny offers at their appointments. He shifts on Benny’s loveseat, feet kicked up over the arm, and goes on, “Victor had to get our statements. He says we’re not getting arrested but it just feels like the possibility’s still there, you know?”

“And about what happened,” Benny says, “Alastair’s death. That’s not something light, Dean. You took a man’s life. I’m not saying it wasn’t absolutely justified, but I am saying that it’s not something that you can just move past. There are emotions rooted in what happened, and I want you to tell me about them.”

Dean doesn’t answer right away. He tips what remains of the cocoa down his throat. It burns like acid in his stomach, and he keeps fiddling with the cup, tearing at the rim. Benny’s right. A tangle of emotions squirms through him, but hell if he knows what he’s supposed to make of it.

“Thing is,” Dean finally says, “I don’t know what I’m feeling about what happened. I’m a mess, man, even if I know that son of a bitch isn’t around to fuck me up anymore. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he’s gone…but for a long-ass time, Alastair was the only person that spoke to me. I guess outside of the alpha clients. Not that they said much.”

Dean shifts to sit up, uncomfortable now in his own skin. He thinks about throwing the cup away, but it’s the only thing keeping him from biting up his fingernails the way he’s been doing since he stomped Alastair’s head into the curb outside of the pizza parlor.

“Alastair was a mean son of a gun,” Dean says, “but sometimes he was all I had.”

Dean isn’t sure when that changed. Maybe it started in earnest when Kevin came and got locked up in the compound, and maybe getting knocked up with Mary catalyzed it.

“And brother, that’s okay. It ain’t easy to fight that.”

The Styrofoam cup crumples in Dean’s clenched fist. He stares down at the floor and asks, “I have a mate, a pup. Why aren’t they enough to fix me?”

“Because love don’t fix everything,” Benny replies, “and that’s okay, too. You think about it – you’ve only known your mate for a year. Alastair, you knew the man for seven years. Finding a mate and starting a family isn’t a magic cure-all for the suffering that you’ve done. It takes real work to dig yourself outta the place you’ve been for so dang long.”

“What if I don’t have it in me to do any digging?”

Benny levels a stare at Dean and folds his hands in his lap. He says, “I think you know that’s a pail and a half of crap. Hell, look at how far you’ve come already. You told me that when Castiel picked you up off the side of the road, you were scared so straight that you didn’t even talk, and that you just guessed that he wanted you around just to knot you. And how do you think Cas feels about you now?”

“He loves me,” Dean gruffly says.

“Exactly. And just in the time that we’ve been talking, you’ve kept so steady. Through all a’ the bullshit that you’ve been going through these past couple of months, you stuck it out,” Benny says, and then glances up at the clock, “Looks like our time is up, but I want you to keep practicing the breathing exercises we discussed when you feel an episode coming on. All right?”

“Yeah, all right,” Dean says, and stands up. He tosses the crushed cup into the plastic trashcan beside the door to Benny’s office, and lets Benny walk him out to the lobby.

There, Benny gives him a hearty pat on the back and says, “You take care, brother.”

“Same to you, man,” Dean replies.

The drive home by himself is cathartic, the soft roll of guitar riffs stringed together filling the interior of the Impala while gentle rainfall crawls over the windshield. With each stroke of the windshield wipers he can see that the mountains are getting greener again, that the wildflowers will start to come in droves the way that they did just after Cas brought him home for the first time.

Benny’s right. Things are way friggin’ different than they used to be. Hell, even breaking outdoors was a shock initially; the scents surrounded Dean on every side, old scents that he knew but hadn’t smelled in years. Rain. Wet soil. Tree sap.

Home…that was even stranger. He remembers how weird he felt about feeling safe enveloped in Cas’ scent and being scared that Cas would throw him and Mary out on their asses when Dean stopped being amusing.

All that strangeness, all that fear, all the anger and all of the nightmares – they all happened because of one man. And Dean killed that man. He’s gone. Forever. There’s no more Alastair, no more looking over his shoulder and praying that he wouldn’t be found and pulled back into the compound just as he found something like happiness.

Talking to Benny lifted the heaviness on his shoulders, though only by a little. As soon as Dean woke on the morning after Alastair’s death, what he had done sunk in. Without adrenaline and impulse and the instinct to protect his family flushing through his body, he wondered if he’d done something terrible that he’d come to regret. Wondering shifted to fear when Victor knocked on the door and asked for a statement, but a statement was all that happened.

He feels like he’s standing on the edge of some cliff with one big question pounding through his brain.

Well now what?

He’s spent so much time fighting that he doesn’t know another way to live.

Dean tries to shake the cycle of thoughts from his mind as he drives along the dirt road up to the house, but fails miserably. By the time that he parks the Impala outside of the house, he feels weird all over again – not good or bad, just kind of itchy all over and like something just isn’t quite right.

When Dean opens the door, damp from the drizzle, he sees Cas and Mary sprawled out on the living room floor, furniture pushed back to make way for some kind of nest of blankets and pillows. It looks damn nice, cozy and inviting. Dean kicks off his boots and sheds his coat, leaving both on the floor, and crawls up alongside his mate and little Mary, where Cas is speaking to her as though she’s an adult instead of puppy-talking like most normal-ass parents do.

Castiel turns his head and brings Dean in for a kiss.

“How did it go?”

“Good, I think,” Dean says.

Cas lowers Mary so that she rests belly-down on his chest. She babbles something at them and Castiel says, “Yes, I see your perspective now. Very insightful,” but then turns his face to Dean, with his old, narrow-eyed stare that makes Dean feel like he’s being looked at through a microscope. Cas asks, “How are you feeling?”

Dean breaks his gaze and stares up at the ceiling before he answers: “Honestly, I don’t know.”

X

“Dean!” Kevin says.

Dean blinks back from the television and says, “What?”

“Your pup is trying to go up the stairs again,” Kevin says.

“Aw, Jesus,” Dean mutters, and gets up off of the couch.

He finds Mary two steps up on her way to the study. At a mobile nine months, she’s more trouble than she’s ever been before. The crawling makes it easy for her to get into shit everywhere, the first event having been Mary’s daring escape from her blanket in the living room to the master bathroom, where she unrolled an entire thing of toilet paper and played in it with unadulterated glee. Who knew that toilet paper and unloading the DVD shelves to chew on the cases could be so fun?

“Hey, you,” Dean says, and plucks her off of the stairs. She makes a whining noise, to which he responds, “Yeah, no. Remember last time you crawled up there?” Mary managed to make it halfway through the second section of the staircase, only to realize that she didn’t know how to crawl back down, and promptly started to cry.

Dean leans down to kiss her chubby cheek and hefts her back over to the living room, where he swears he heard the news anchor on TV the name Lucifer Novak.

Turns out avoiding his work on the table that Bobby and Ellen asked him to build for them to channel surf may have been a good decision. He parks his ass back down on the couch, this time with Mary in his arms so that she’s snuggled against him and out of trouble. She reaches up to grab at him with her tiny, fat hands, but Dean is occupied.

“Up Next: Remember Lucifer Novak? He’s free again! More after the commercial break.”

Dean twists around to call to Cas up in the kitchen, “Hey, you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Castiel says back, but doesn’t turn around. He has his heart set on making some kind of elaborate meal that they’ve never tried in one of his weirder-looking cookbooks. It has freaking squash in it.

“Your brother’s on the news,” Dean says back.

Cas does pay attention then, putting down his kitchen knife and wiping his hands on the front of his t-shirt before he steps down into the living room and hovers over Dean’s shoulder. He says, “This is an advertisement for shaving cream, and I don’t see any of my brothers anywhere.”

“It’s a commercial break, dummy,” Dean says, “Just wait a second.”

The TV cycles through a couple more ads before the made-up face of the news anchor splashes across the screen. She says, “Today we received confirmation that Lucifer Novak, after being arrested and charged with solicitation of a prostitute, is back out on the street again. Just months ago, the allegations that lawyer Elle Abaddon made in the courtroom during Alastair Locke’s trial could not be confirmed due to insufficient evidence, and all charges were dropped but one. Almost four months later, and prison staff and police say that Novak is a model prisoner.”

A police man appears on screen and says, “He’s done his time. We have him on parole and under watch, but honestly, I don’t think the man is dangerous.”

Dean glances back. A blank expression graces Cas’ face, one that has Dean asking, “Hey, what’s on your mind?”

“Lucifer is skilled at slipping out of trouble,” is all that Cas replies at first, but then adds, “but I don’t think that he isn’t going to bother us. He’s out for himself, not cruel for the fun of it, like Alastair. You should put on a movie.”

Dean takes the hint and picks out Earth Girls Are Easy, because he’s in the mood for something lighthearted that doesn’t require him to think. He lets Mary back down on the ground but keeps a trained eye on her this time around, until it’s time for them to flick the television off and move to the kitchen table for Cas’ experimental dinner.

Dean slides Mary into her highchair and rummages in the cabinet drawers to find her a clean bib, fastening it around her neck. She casts him an offended look and pulls at the bib with a chubby hand, unable to undo the velcro and take it off.

Cas serves Mary first, doling out some soft-looking cooked vegetables onto her highchair tray. She picks up a piece of squash and stares at it before sticking it in her mouth.

The food doesn’t turn out to be as crappy as Dean thought it was gonna be. It’s not his ideal meal. He still much prefers the meat and potatoes kind of dinner, the type of food that’ll sit on your stomach and make you feel full and sleepy and satisfied. But it doesn’t taste half-bad, and he thinks it makes Cas happy to see Dean eat it. And if there’s one thing that Dean likes, it’s making Cas happy.

“It’s really good,” Kevin says, after swallowing a bite, “Thanks for cooking, Cas.”

“My pleasure.”

Kevin shifts the food around on his plate with his fork. He has a look on his face, the one he gets when he has something weighing on his mind. Sometimes Dean asks about it, but Kevin doesn’t really like to speak up when he’s feeling something – he just likes to work it out for himself.

“I’ve been thinking,” Kevin says. He scratches the back of his neck.

“Yeah? ‘Bout what?” asks Dean.

“I mean…it’s just that I’m kind of cooped up in the house all day and I guess maybe I would have to borrow somebody’s car but I thought – I thought maybe I could get a job.”

“No shit,” Dean says. He sets his fork down and asks, “You really good on doing that?”

“I think so,” Kevin says, “Maybe not someplace loud. Or like. That one restaurant where the omegas wear booty shorts and serve chicken wings to greasy alphas.” Wet Willy’s. Classy establishment.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea for you to have a job,” Castiel says, “And I’d like to extend an offer for a job at the clinic. I know it won’t be running for another month, but –”

“You’d let me work at the clinic?” Kevin says.

“Well, it would be mainly administrative work,” Castiel replies, “Data entry and possibly front desk attendance for the first few weeks.”

Kevin is quiet for a moment. He slides his gaze from Cas to Dean and back again, folding his hands in his lap before he says, “I’d love that.”

“I don’t want you to feel pressured if you don’t think that you would like the job,” Castiel says.

“No, no,” responds Kevin, “I think it would be perfect. I can’t believe – just. Thank you, Cas. This, uh. It means a lot to me, you know? I think maybe someday I’ll get a place of my own and everything and I know I’d need a job for that too. I mean, I don’t want to leave now. I like it here. It’s safe. But I think maybe I could get used to being out more on my own.”

“And you would always have me there while you work,” Castiel mentions.

A ghost of a smile touches Kevin’s lips and he agrees, “Yeah. That’ll be good.”

From her highchair, Mary makes some kind of unholy screeching noise and bangs her fists on the highchair tray, smearing some of the squash around on it. Dean laughs and reaches over to ruffle up her soft hair and say, “Let Uncle Kevin have his moment, sweet girl,” before he leans over and kisses her forehead, where she has another smear of a different, unidentified vegetable on her skin.

Man, things are really looking up around here. The look that Cas got on his face when the restoration of his medical license was officially approved will count among Dean’s favorite memories for the rest of his life. Castiel had hugged him so tight that he almost couldn’t breathe from the vice grip of overjoyed alpha strength. The victory sex later will also count in favorite memories, although perhaps in a more private file in Dean’s mind.

Cas has done so much to get his career up and running again. They took out a loan to renovate the empty unit next to Benny’s office, making a convenient location for medical care both mental and physical. It’s been a hell of an effort, especially since Dean didn’t want to hire any damn contractors and just wanted to do it himself (though he did enlist the help of trusted-friends-but-also-Gabriel). It looks amazing on the inside now, just needs the finishing touches and they’ll be ready to go.

“You look like you’re thinking about something,” remarks Cas, “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothin’,” Dean says, “Just proud of you, is all.”

Cas tilts his head and smiles a crooked, flattered smile. He replies, “I am proud of you, too.”

Dean’s not sure why Castiel is proud of him. He’s still a hot mess, and he still has to see Benny to keep himself together, although their appointments have gone down to one every two weeks instead of weekly visits. Sometimes, he still has nightmares. Sometimes he has to go out to the hammock and sit by himself so he doesn’t get so angry that he blows a gasket. There are days that he feels like he's in a sinking rowboat in the middle of sea with no way to bail himself out, and there are days he has to drag himself through the hours and count the things that matter, has to think of his little girl and his mate, to him just so he'll make it to the next dawn alive. He has to remind himself sometimes that he isn't living a nightmare anymore, even if he'll never forget that he did.

But then, he’s not all bad. Hell, after he made that damn desk for Sammy’s new fancy lawyer office, Deam’s got money coming out of his ears from people wanting furniture made by his hand. He was good before, but all this practice has made him even better. He actually likes what he can make, and it’s crazy.

Then again – maybe Cas’ pride isn’t because of any of that. Maybe Cas is proud of him just because he’s Dean. He’s himself, and maybe that is good enough.

X

“You’re taking too damn long,” complains Dean. Christ, he knows this is a big moment for Cas, but he also knows that no matter what Cas does, his hair just isn’t going to sit right. He has chronic bedhead, and he should come to accept that.

“Just another minute,” Castiel calls back from the bathroom, “Take Mary out to the car. I’ll be there shortly.”

“If you say so,” mutters Dean, but he heaves Mary up and heads for the front door. If Cas doesn’t freaking get on it, then they’re going to be late for their own clinic opening, and wouldn’t that be just like them?

At least Mary looks like a million bucks. Cas brought home some superhero fabric from the craft store in Salida, some pink stuff with lady superheroes splashed across it – Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl – and made Mary’s dress for the official clinic opening. How Cas has time to sew is kind of baffling, since he pulls shit like picking over his appearance about two seconds before they need to leave. Hell, Kevin’s already waiting out by the car.

“All right, sweetheart,” Dean says, and opens the back door on the Impala, “Let’s get you into the car.”

“Car!”

Dean snaps his attention back from the car seat to his daughter.

“Wait. What? Say it again. What’s this?” he taps his finger against the Impala.

“Car,” she replies, with the kind of expression on her face that says duh, Dad.

“Holy crap,” Dean says, “We’ve gotta get alpha daddy out here to hear this. Watch the car, Kevin.”

“Car,” says Mary.

Dean jogs back to the front door and says, “Come on, Cas! Mary just said her first word and you missed it because you’re preening in the mirror.”

Cas pokes his head out of the master bedroom and scowls, “I am not preening. And Mary did not say her first word.”

“She sure as shit did,” Dean says, “Come on. Get your alpha ass out here.”

Cas finally gets his butt in gear and follows Dean outside, locking the front door behind himself. At the side of the Impala, Dean stops Cas with a jerk of his hand and bounces Mary in the crook of his arm before he asks, “What’s this, Mary?” and runs his fingers across the top of the Impala.

Mary smiles and says, “Car.”

“See,” Dean says.

When he turns around, Cas has a silly smile on his face. He says, “Her first word is ‘car.’ And here I had been thinking that it would be ‘fuck’ or ‘pie.’”

Dean shoves at Cas and says, “Ha ha, you’re hilarious.”

“Car!”

“That’s right, sweetheart, we do need to get in the car,” Dean says.

At last, he loads her into her car seat beside Kevin and buckles her in before rounding the Impala to the driver’s seat. He tells Cas that he can pick the music – but only for today, since it’s a big day for him. Castiel chooses the classic rock station anyway, and Dean settles into the seat for the drive, pleased.

When they arrive at the clinic, pretty much everyone they invited already loiters in the parking lot – Sam and Amelia, Benny with his mate and pup, Jo and Charlie (reportedly considering getting mated), Bobby and Ellen, and damn, even Gabriel is there, in his dinky little beater car that he bought at a used lot a month or so back.

“Your brother’s on time,” Dean says, “That’s weird.”

Gabriel’s transition from spoiled trust fund child to self-sufficient adult has gone more smoothly than Dean expected it would. He only ended up crashing on their couch for a handful of weeks before he secured a job as a cook at the Hammond’s Candy Factory, and shortly thereafter found a tiny apartment that he shares with a couple of sketchy roommates.

Cas says Gabriel is happier than he’s ever been, though, so that’s gotta count for something.

“No, I told him that the opening was an hour earlier than it actually was,” Castiel replies, “and it appears that it worked out exactly as I meant it to.”

Dean parks the car and they pile out, Mary immediately reaching for Gabriel, who makes an ugly face that has her shrieking with laughter. Organizing themselves outside is a task, with the clinic on the second floor of the building. Dean stands next to Cas and can’t wipe the grin off of his face when Cas dips into his suit pocket and extracts a crumpled sheet of notebook paper.

He frowns at the scribble of his handwriting on it, and then sticks the paper back in his pocket. He says, “Thank you all for coming. I had some words prepared but they seem silly now, so I’ll just say that the past year and a half has been a rollercoaster of a ride. Meeting Dean changed my life, and when I thought that I would never again work in my field, we’re standing now in front of the brand new Novak-Winchester Clinic, where I’ll be able to help serve people as I served before. I am flattered that so many people came to be here with us for this. So, ah. Let’s…go see it.”

Dean give a little huff of laughter before they lead the party through the building’s back door and up the familiar set of stairs. Now beside Benny’s office, the door with the blank, faded space from an old nameplate has a shiny new one: Novak-Winchester Clinic: Quality Medical Care.

Inside, the joint is fucking gorgeous. They painted the interior deep gray-blue, and Dean made the front desk and artwork himself – the latter being meticulously carved wood pieces inlaid with metal and found items. He wouldn’t call himself an artist, but he does think that the things he made look pretty damn good.

There’s a waiting area with a corner set up for kids, stacked with toys and painted to look like the Denver skyline (Gabriel’s doing). Hell, it actually looks like the real McCoy, like a place that people might actually go to get treatment.

Shit. It’s awesome.

Dean glances over at Cas and his heart skips a beat. His alpha is watery-eyed and stricken-looking, even though he’s seen the finished product before. Maybe it’s ‘cause it’s open now, ‘cause they made his dream real. He reaches over and rubs between Cas’ shoulder blades, asking, “Hey, you feelin’ okay, little alpha?”

“I am…I am very good,” Cas answers, but his watery eyes go straight to leaking eyes, “I apologize. I just didn’t know that it could be like this. I am so happy.”

Cas wipes his face on the sleeve of his suit coat. In Dean’s arms, Mary reaches out, looking bewildered, and says, “Da?”

A grin splits Cas’ face wide open and he holds out his arms to take her. He lifts Mary up in the air. Mary squirms and laughs, and Dean laughs, too.

“You know what?” Dean says, a sensation like fizzy champagne bubbles crackling in his gut and head and limbs, “Me too…I’m happy too.”

X

Two Years Later

His sore ass wakes him up. Dean shifts with a moan of complaint, and finds his entire right side cold. Freaking Cas, always rolling off to the edge of the mattress. Dean scoots forward to curl into Castiel’s warmth, pressing himself up against his back as he sleeps, his chest moving up and down with contented, long breaths.

That’s when Dean notices it: A weird, sweet smell.

Did they – nah, it couldn’t be.

But still.

Dean pushes back away from Cas, who grunts, and presses his nose against his arm. It could be him. Just in case, he lifts his arm up and gives the pit the ol’ smell test.

“Dean, stop moving around,” Castiel groans, “I am trying to sleep.”

“Cas,” Dean says.

“I am not kidding –”

“Cas, shut up,” Dean says, and grabs Castiel’s shoulder, shaking him, “You smell that?”

Cas makes another frustrated noise, but pushes himself up into a sitting position. His hair is everywhere, sticking straight up on one half of his head, and he’s got that scowl on his face that he’ll get if he thinks he’s been disturbed without a good reason.

But then his expression shifts, jaw going slack and lips parting. He stammers out, “You – you smell wonderful. You – you’re?”

Dean chuckles and rubs at his belly, “Looks like last night worked out, huh? Say hello to pup number two.”

Cas’ eyes crinkle at the corners and he shifts back down to wrap his arms around Dean and press his nose into his stomach.

Castiel applies a tiny kiss there and says, “Hello.”

The End