Given to Fly - MittenWraith (2024)

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

🛥️

Dean had stopped for coffee and donuts on his way from his day job to his side gig, and he regretted it the second he pulled into the lot outside the hangar. Maybe if he’d been ten minutes earlier, he wouldn’t have had to park at the farthest end of the lot, almost into the neighboring hangar’s allotted parking. Those creepy bastards had had unauthorized vehicles towed in the past, and he didn’t put it past them calling and giving him sh*t about it, at the very least. At least their front desk secretary recognized his car and would give him a heads up if one of the bigwigs gave her the order to have it removed. He gave Hannah a little grimace and a friendly wave, juggled the box of donuts and tray of coffee cups as he pointed to his car and set out for the front office at the Civil Air Patrol.

Since he wasn’t aware of any full-scale mobilization-worthy natural disaster befalling the region in the last few hours, a full house meant it was either a testing day for the kids or an orientation day for a new crop of future pilots. Either way, it meant his afternoon was about to get a lot busier. Not with actual work, at least. No, he’d be expected to make small talk with parents, answer questions he usually didn’t have good answers for, and generally be available to herd cats and keep any overenthusiastic parents from f*cking with his planes.

It was hot even for early September and he’d pulled off his uniform jacket when he’d left work. By all accounts he should be wearing it now, especially if he’d be expected to make at least a decent impression on the new recruits. But he could always run back out and grab it after he set down all the confections he’d brought along. It would give him an excuse to make sure the neighbors weren’t trying anything funny with his car. The blue t-shirt he had on was still technically part of his uniform. Mostly.

Dean really loved this job, though. Even if it wasn’t really a job, per se, since they didn’t pay him anything for it. And he wouldn’t have a career at all if it hadn’t been for the gruff but encouraging support of his Uncle Bobby pushing him half his life to join the Air Force, to the eternal disappointment of his father who’d always pushed for him to join the Marines. So Dean struck a compromise, and joined the Navy instead.

While Dean had less than zero desire to actually get in an airplane, his dad’s friend Bobby gave him an in to learn everything he’d need to know for a career in avionics. If other people insisted on flying planes, then they damn well needed people back on the ground who knew how to keep them from falling out of the sky. And after nineteen years, Dean was all but in charge of a vast number and variety of aircraft. At least that experience had finally gotten him to a point where he could have his pick of command.

Hilariously, Bobby had encouraged him to join the Civil Air Patrol as a teen because he thought learning everything that made planes tick might help Dean get over his fear of flying. Funny thing was, learning how to keep them aloft also taught him in minute detail just how many things could possibly go wrong, too. The three months he spent in flight school were great, until they actually made him fly a plane. So while that plan backfired, at least Dean had found a place for himself in the world that he could live with.

When he’d earned a promotion the previous year and his choice of a handful of postings, Dean chose to stay in Norfolk, just across the river from where Bobby was stationed at Langley and only an hour from where Sam had settled down as a professor of anthropology at William and Mary. In his spare time he’d also been single-handedly keeping the Civil Air Patrol’s small fleet skyworthy. It was the least he could do for Bobby. The fact that the majority of their pilots in training were kids about the same age he was when he’d first found his own calling didn’t hurt, either. It was a great life, by all accounts.

Except when some idiot stole his reserved parking spot.

“Of course it’s some rich asshole, probably signing up their idiot kid to learn to fly on our nickel,” Dean grumbled as he passed by the shiny new Range Rover parked in his spot. “Too bad they can’t even read.”

He glared at the little sign posted on the wall in front of the space that read RESERVED FOR CHIEF OF AVIONICS, and grumbled about why they even had the sign in the first place as he pushed open the door to the front office.

So, orientation day it was. Half a dozen teenagers stood around Bobby as he laid out the Civil Air Patrol’s history and mission. Dean only caught the end of the speech, but he knew it well. He’d been hearing it since he was a kid, after all. He knew Bobby always started with his own history with the organization, the career that had grown from it, and finished up with a list of expectations for new cadets. That was typically where it became obvious if any of the new crop might be happier working in the hangar with Dean than up in the air, but so far this group at least seemed eager to earn their wings.

Dean sighed and strolled over to the front desk where a young woman in a sage green Navy flight uniform leaned against it watching the proceedings. He grabbed his coffee from the tray and offered her a cup as well. She raised an eyebrow at him, and leaned in to whisper at him so as not to distract from Bobby’s speech.

“You didn’t put anything weird in these, did you?”

“If a PSL is considered weird now, then yes, yes I did,” Dean replied.

She snorted and accepted the offering with a grin. “I always knew you were a basic bitch underneath all the flannel and denim.”

Dean grumbled back, “It’s fall. Nothing basic about being seasonally appropriate.” After a moment’s consideration and a glance down at his blue camo uniform, he grinned. “And I ain’t got an inch of flannel or denim on anyway. Figured you probably weren’t able to get through a drive through in your bird, at any rate.”

“That’s actually thoughtful of you, Dean.”

“Why do you always say that like you’re surprised?” Dean asked, but it wasn’t really a question. He and Claire had been talking to each other like that for a decade now. What had started as a reluctant and rebellious teenager joining the Civil Air Patrol to spite her parents’ expectation for her to join their family business had quickly developed into a friendship that had helped her blossom into the competent young woman she was today. She’d laughed her ass off when Dean had explained why a sailor was working for the CAP, but it had also guided her own career down a similar path. And the absolute f*ck you attitude that had set them on their chosen career paths and then brought them both back to Bobby had definitely served them both well in the Navy.

It had served Claire doubly well, when her estranged uncle had been convinced to write her a letter of recommendation to the Naval Academy, and the rest was history.

“I’m assuming the third cup is for the boss man,” Claire said, with a nod to it as Dean set the final cup on the desk and tossed the paper tray in the trash.

“Yeah, forgot it was orientation day.”

The woman rolled her eyes as Bobby turned the entire group’s attention to them.

“And that over there is Lieutenant Commander Claire Novak, one of our flight instructors,” Bobby said as Claire put her coffee down and stood at attention. “And beside her is Chief Petty Officer Dean Winchester, though you couldn’t tell from looking at him.”

“Sorry, Colonel. I came straight from the day job and haven’t had a chance to buff and polish yet,” he said, giving Bobby a formal salute and then leaning back against the desk to resume enjoying his coffee.

Bobby turned back to the group after shooting him a withering look. “He maintains all our equipment, and is the guy you want if you’ve got any questions or concerns about it. Does anyone have any questions for any of us?”

One of the kids asked Bobby something about how long it would be before they’d be allowed to fly, while one of the parents casually drifted over to where Dean and Claire were waiting. Dean could guess just by looking at the guy’s expensively tailored suit and matching pocket square that he was probably the owner of the Range Rover currently occupying his parking spot. Before Dean could even put his coffee down, he noticed a second man— this one more of a henchman-looking dude— closely following Mr. Corporate.

“Dean Winchester,” the man said, holding out a hand for Dean to shake. Dean just stood at attention, and assumed the guy had never served in any branch of the military. He glanced at Claire when no return of that handshake seemed forthcoming, and finally dropped it to his side. His smarmy grin never faded, though. “ And Claire Novak. So what are a couple of Navy officers doing at an Air Force adjacent organization? A little interagency cooperation?”

“We’re just a couple volunteers who owe as much to Bobby Singer as we do to the Navy,” Dean replied, letting the officer comment slide. He was just an enlisted dude, even if he had close to two decades of service under his belt. “So, which one’s yours?” Dean asked, pointing to the teens.

The man glanced over at them, still getting their questions answered by Bobby, with a slightly unsettled look before turning back to Dean and pasting the winning smile back on his face. “None of them, I’m afraid. My company just opened a new branch here at the airport, and we wanted to meet the neighbors. Of course we fully support our armed services, and feel like we can form a lucrative partnership with your organization.”

Dean snorted, but relaxed a little. He didn’t need to put on a show for the suit. Especially when it was looking more and more likely this was the asshat who’d stolen his parking space anyway. “You got the wrong idea here, pal. This is an all volunteer service. We aren’t in this for the money.”

The man’s eyes twinkled, and his grin turned predatory. “I’m fully aware, Chief Petty Officer Winchester. But we would like to offer any financial and other support that we can in the development and training of tomorrow’s aviation specialists. My company is expanding, and looking to the future is a core value at Richard Roman Enterprises.”

He said this last bit like it was supposed to be a surprising revelation to Dean and Claire. Of course they knew who Richard Roman was. It was impossible to be even tangentially involved with the aerospace industry in any capacity and not be aware of him. He’d been pursuing contracts with the DoD for years, and was pushing the technological boundaries of military and civilian aircraft. By all personal accounts, if the U.S. Government hadn’t partnered with him, he could’ve easily outfitted his own military branch himself. Within two minutes of meeting the guy, Dean had already realized that those rumors were probably true. He just exuded an aura of oily smarm that Dean had taken an instant dislike to, in an entirely self-preservational way.

Dean pasted on a smile of his own and nodded thoughtfully. He wasn’t about to let on that he’d ever even heard of the guy, or made assumptions about who he was or why he might be interested in training up a private military incentivized to work for him when they completed their training. That was just way too shady for him to touch with a ten foot pole. He glanced at Claire, who awaited his reply with a raised eyebrow. She was technically the ranking officer between them, and if Roman knew anything at all he would’ve been addressing her instead of him. Then again, maybe they were all just playing a game of trading minor insults. Dean didn’t have the energy to participate in that game, though. He picked up his coffee, took a long drag of it, and then leaned back on the desk.

“Well, you’ll have to talk with the Colonel about that, Mr. Roman,” Dean replied. “As they say, we just work here.”

Roman’s grin drooped just a little, but he persisted, handing Dean and Claire each a business card. “It's Dick. Please." He stood there grinning at Dean until he accepted his card, and then glanced back at Bobby. "Then I should probably come back when he’s not quite so busy,” he said, proving he understood military ranks just fine with a tilt of his head toward the crowd around Bobby. The grin reappeared in time to slip into his sleazy sales pitch persona that had probably earned him most of his big time deals. It just skeeved Dean out, but he played professional. What else was twenty years in the military good for if not maintaining a straight face through the most tedious bullsh*t?

“Our new division here is more focused on the civilian and commercial market, but we wanted to extend our friendship and resources to your program. If there’s anything we can do to support you, or any resources we can offer you think might be beneficial to your recruits, we are absolutely open to a corporate partnership that could potentially be mutually rewarding.”

“Any sort of corporate sponsorship,” Claire said, finally exerting her seniority, “would have to be cleared through legal channels, but we have your card, which I’ll pass along to Colonel Singer if you’re not interested in waiting. Orientation usually only lasts an hour or two…” she added, waving Roman’s business card between them and then deliberately setting it on top of Dean’s still-untouched box of donuts.

It was obvious by his reaction that Dick Roman had fully expected Dean and Claire to pull Bobby away to talk with him on the spot. He stared in disbelief for just a moment, and then put his winning smile back in place like this was of course entirely understandable.

“Of course. I’ll be back in my office just down the road at Roman Enterprises bright and early tomorrow morning when Colonel Singer is free to schedule a meeting.”

He’d said it like he fully expected Bobby to be on the edge of his seat excited about making that call. Meanwhile, Dean was picturing Bobby tearing his business card in half and tossing it in the trash. Then again, no matter how slimy the guy was, he was richer than god and had resources and tech the Civil Air Patrol could only dream of. How much more effective could search and rescue missions be if they were outfitted with Roman’s latest generation LiDAR equipment? Or hell, even if the dude wanted to make a large financial contribution. That was a reality of running a nonprofit organization. You couldn’t really afford to ignore a potential donor. Even if they were a dick.

Roman nodded at his henchman, who started toward the door. Roman himself held back, leaning in confidentially to Dean and Claire.

“You two should hang on to those cards yourselves anyway. My R&D team is looking for a few knowledgeable consultants to call on when they’ve got exciting new gadgets to test. It really could be to your advantage to bear that in mind for the future.”

He gave them a final winning smile that looked just short of predatory, and walked swiftly to where his lackey was already holding the door for him. The silent lackey just gave them both a long look like he was daring them to do something that he could hold against them personally, and then let the door swing shut.

“Well that was weird,” Dean said, knocking the business card off his box of donuts and pulling out a chocolate one with rainbow sprinkles on it. He took one bite of the donut and then checked his watch. Dean bobbed his head back and forth through half a dozen ticks of the second hand and then pushed off the desk, heading toward the door. “He’s probably gone by now. I’m gonna go move my car.”

Claire didn’t even have time to respond before he was out the door. She’d been too busy perusing the remaining donuts. Dean had been right, however. Roman was already gone. Sort of. Dean was just in time to watch him and his driver get out of the car at the building next door as he finished his donut and licked the frosting from his fingers.

“Huh, he wasn’t joking about making the rounds and meeting the neighbors,” Dean muttered to himself as he got in his car.

Before he could back out, though, he saw Hannah hand Roman a stack of messages as he casually strolled through the lobby into the back offices like he owned the place. He considered just how strange that was, knowing the jerk who’d run the place for years would’ve had anyone just casually strolling into his offices like that ejected from the building, billionaire or not. It wasn’t any of Dean’s business, so he finished moving his car, grabbed his jacket, and finally gave himself the buff and polish he’d promised Bobby and made his way back inside. It was still gonna be a long evening.

It was well over an hour later, after he’d given a tour of the hangar, a general overview of the Cessna-182 planes the CAP used, and then segued into a tour of the Sea Ranger helicopter Claire had flown in for that purpose, that he’d been able to hand over the rest of the program to her. He left the still-eager crowd of kids in her capable hands and trudged back to the office to see if Bobby had left him any of his own donuts.

He found Bobby sitting at the front desk eating a jelly donut and flipping Dick Roman’s business card over and over between his fingers, thoughtfully frowning at the wall.

“That guy leaves quite an impression,” Bobby said, finally turning to Dean when he grabbed the last donut for himself. “Even when I was trying not to pay him any mind.”

Dean snorted and dragged a chair over from their small waiting area to sit across the desk from Bobby. He kicked his feet up on the desk with a groan and nodded in agreement.

“Dick Roman,” Dean said around a bite. “CEO of Roman Enterprises, and slipperier than a hagfish.”

“I heard stories over the years,” Bobby replied, shaking his head and setting the card on the desk before leaning his elbows on it. “He could talk his way into or out of anything. And unfortunately he makes some top of the line equipment, too. So what did he want with us?”

Dean shrugged, dropping his feet back to the floor. “Said he opened a new branch of his company here and was extending a hand of friendship, or whatever. Community outreach, get to know the neighbors, who even knows what a dude like that keeps up his fancy Armani sleeves?”

Bobby snorted at that.

“Said he was looking for some sort of partnership with us. Mutually beneficial was the term he used. No idea what he thinks he can get out of it, other than good PR.”

“Probably got some charity quota he’s gotta fulfill for the accounting department, and we lucked out by proximity. You know,” Bobby said, leaning in and dropping his voice a little. “Rufus gave me a heads up on the guy skulkin’ around lately. He’s got it on good authority that Wellman Air next door is just a subsidiary of one Roman’s side businesses anyway. Apparently he’s really looking to spread his wings all over this town.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, go figure. How many military bases we got in a twenty mile radius of here? This whole town is one big, ripe nest of government eggs for him to fry up for himself.”

“That’s the thing, though, isn’t it?” Bobby replied, looking extremely discontented with that line of thinking. “He’s already got more government contracts than any ten other companies right now. He’s got more money than any thousand people could spend in a lifetime, and runs in all the world power broker circles already. So why does he give even half a crap about us? Or bother with a penny-ante charter company based out of a second-tier airport?”

Dean sat back and let that mull around for a second. “He went in Wellman after he left here, so that part of it I buy. I figured he was giving them the same welcoming himself to the neighborhood spiel he gave us, but he walked right in to Edgar’s office like he owned the place. If anyone else tried that, they’d most likely to end up with their ass on a platter, so he probably does own the place.”

Dean let this new scenario play out in his mind, of cranky-ass Edgar ready to bite the head off anyone who dared stroll into his office uninvited only to get smacked down by his actual boss. His face went on a voyage through a series of little grins and frowns as he imagined how that would go. By the end, he wasn’t even sure which of the two he was rooting for. Roman really hadn’t impressed him much, and he had a long and antagonistic history with Edgar. Maybe they’d both just devour each other and spare everyone else having to clean up the mess. Dean finally shook himself and got back to the point, and Bobby was still sitting there not paying him a whit of attention, deep in thought.

Dean sighed.

“So what’s a guy with a fleet of jets at the ready and connections to every branch of the military need a rinky dink charter company for? That’s what I wanna know.”

“Tax write off, hobby, under the radar escape hatch if his business goes sideways or he pisses off the wrong politician? Who even knows what motivates the obscenely wealthy to do anything?” Bobby replied, and then sighed as he tossed the card to the desk and stood up. “But I guarantee if HQ gets word that I turned down a meeting with a potential donor that big, they’d have my ass. I guess I’ll call him in the morning and see what he wants.”

Dean stood up as well, and stretched as the new cadets filtered back into the office. He leaned in as Bobby walked by to give his little closing address to them.

“Just take everything he offers with a huge sack of salt.”

Bobby snorted. “Yeah, we’ll need that to clean up the oil slick he leaves in his wake.”

He grinned at Dean, patted him on the shoulder and made his way over to the kids. Dean finally headed out into the hangar to see if any of the planes needed his attention, but he was beginning to think the night was turning into a wash. It was only a part-time gig after all. It was just a run of the mill Thursday, and he’d already handled most of his inspection duties while introducing the kids to the planes. The only out of place thing he found on his final walkthrough was one wayward helicopter pilot, sitting at his workbench typing intently on her phone.

“You’re still here,” Dean said as he signed off on his inspection forms and hung the clipboard from the peg above the desk. “When the cadets came back inside without you, I figured you’d taken off for home like some sort of grand finale at a fireworks show.”

Claire shrugged, but didn’t stop her typing. “I took them up for a short ride and brought them back. They didn’t need to see that from the ground to figure out how it worked.”

Dean frowned at her back. He’d been all ready to call it a night and head home, and he didn’t want to pry, but this was still really uncharacteristic for Claire and he was concerned. His long-repressed parental gene reared its ugly head, clicking itself on before he even had a chance to consider ignoring it.

“Everything okay with you?”

Claire’s shoulders tensed up, like she was debating just throwing all her shields up, and just like Dean himself usually did, had to fight against that instinct even after years of friendship with him. She sighed, slowly turning around on the shop stool and waggling her phone in his direction.

“Yeah, I think so. I just got some messages I wanted to reply to before I took off again. Figured I’d get more privacy out here than in there with Bobby.” She gave Dean a pointed look, but then shook her head and smiled at him. “You know my cool uncle? The one who got me into Annapolis?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, kiddo. You got yourself into Annapolis. Your uncle just put in a good word.”

Claire snorted. “Yeah, a good word from a past valedictorian is practically a golden ticket, though.”

Dean shook his head. “And he’s supposed to be your cool uncle?”

Claire rolled her eyes at him, and Dean quit his teasing. From what he knew of the guy, he really did sound pretty cool. For one, he was the only member of Claire’s family who supported her chosen career path.

“Cas, right?”

Claire nodded. “He’s been stationed at Pax River my entire adult life, but apparently, surprise, guess where he’s just been transferred to?”

Dean put a finger to each temple and squeezed his eyes closed. “Don’t tell me, it’s coming to me…. just give it a second…” He opened one eye and looked at her, waiting for her to spit it out, just in time to see her hand reach out and smack his hands away from his face. It did have the intended effect of getting her to smile, at least, so for Dean it was already a win.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, then paused to send one last message before pocketing her phone.

“So is he moving to Norfolk just to step on your toes personally, or is that just a fun little side benefit for him?” Dean asked, actually genuinely curious about the guy he’d heard so much about over the years. If he was moving to the base, it was almost a guarantee that Dean would finally meet the mysterious test pilot instructor. It was in his own self-interest to be prepared for that eventuality.

Claire rolled her eyes, as predicted, and started heading toward the door out to the field where her ride was waiting for her. “He got promoted, and decided he was down for something a little more laid back than training test pilots. They’re putting him in charge of flight operations at Chambers.”

Dean nodded, understanding. “Yeah, I heard Rufus is finally retiring.”

“I still can’t get over the fact you’ve never been dressed down for calling Admiral Turner by his first name, even when you’re on duty.”

Dean squirmed a little at that. “Yeah, well, I’ve known the guy since I was a kid, same as Bobby. And I never call him Rufus when anyone who doesn’t know that is around.” A grin spread across his face. “Just you wait, you’ll have the same trouble with Captain Uncle Cas, too.”

Claire made a face at that. “That just sounds wrong, yeah.”

“So when do I get to meet him?”

“First thing in the morning,” Claire said, checking her phone again, but there were no more messages so she finally stood up to leave. “He’s flying down now, and if I don’t hurry back to base, he’s gonna beat me there.”

Dean made a patronizing noise of concern. “Better hurry then. I gotta take the long way home and hope there’s no traffic.”

She was almost to the door, and then turned back to him. “Oh, and just so you know, your brother was on the local news tonight. I caught the tail end of it right before I headed over here. Forgot to mention it when Dick showed up.”

“They didn’t arrest him for something did they? Is being a nerd a criminal offense now?”

“Nah, something about some archaeological dig somewhere in the middle east. Apparently some of the artifacts they’re uncovering are getting shipped to his department. Cool sh*t, sounds like. But maybe you wanna call him and make fun of him for being a super nerd again.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get on it eventually. We were supposed to meet for dinner tomorrow night anyway. Thanks for the fresh material to use against him.”

Claire gave him a friendly wave, and then headed out. Dean packed it in, too. Everything was as ship shape as it ever was, and there really was nothing else for him to do. Barring some sort of emergency, he wouldn’t even need to come back until Tuesday at the earliest. That was probably for the best. Claire was glad her uncle was coming to town, but the news made Dean’s skin prickle. It was always tough breaking in a new boss. But probably especially one who’d spent his career dealing with top in their class pilots and pushing them to their limits.

He shut off the lights and made his way out to his car for the long ride home.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

🛥️

Dean arrived at work bright and early the next morning, expecting to have a little time to get ready before Captain Novak was due to make a general inspection with Rufus in advance of handing over the reins to him. Unfortunately for Dean, he was a little too late for that. He walked into his office to find Rufus sitting in his chair, having a cup of his coffee. That in itself wasn’t surprising, but the fact he was sharing a cup while having a chat with the illustrious and storied Captain Novak was. Dean was so entirely caught off guard he almost forgot to salute as Rufus got to his feet.

“Chief Winchester, we weren’t expecting you in for another half hour or so,” Rufus said as Captain Novak stood up and turned around to be introduced and saluted. Dean was grateful to Rufus for babbling on for a bit before getting to business, because the second Dean saw the man’s face he lost the power of speech. “Captain Novak wanted to know where to get the best cup of coffee on base, so of course I led him straight to your office. Captain Novak, this is Chief Petty Officer Dean Winchester, mechanic extraordinaire and keeper of primo coffee beans.”

Dean managed another salute, which Novak returned.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Chief Winchester,” Cas said, looking just as knocked off balance as he shook himself off as Dean felt. “I understand we’ll be working closely together.”

Since Dean was standing there rather dumbly nodding back at him, Rufus broke the tension by clearing his throat and sitting back down at Dean’s desk.

“Captain Novak will be shadowing me for the next few days, and then taking over full time by the end of next week,” Rufus said. “Though I’m sure you don’t need me teaching you the ropes on how an airfield runs.”

Novak let out a little huff of a laugh at that. “Hopefully not. Though it is a new working environment, and the transition can be difficult for everyone involved. It’s well known you’re a beloved leader to your crew, and filling those shoes is never easy. Though the excellent coffee doesn’t hurt,” he added, taking his seat and toasting Dean with his cup.

Dean just stood there looking at Novak’s shoes before finally shaking himself off and noticing the apologetic smile on his new boss’s face falter just a little. Novak glanced at Rufus before looking back at Dean.

“I hope we haven’t overstepped, invading your space like this…”

“No, sir. My door is always open for anyone who needs it,” Dean finally managed, starting to feel like a human being and not a walking x-ray scan. Novak was still staring at him, though, and he knew he must be making a terrible impression. He pulled himself together and stood up a little straighter. “Even if they just need a decent cup of joe.”

“Well, Winchester, since you’re here, would you mind going through morning inspection with the Captain?” Rufus asked, after it was clear that Dean and Cas would otherwise just continue to stare at each other if left to their own devices.

Dean was doubly grateful that he’d already stopped for breakfast on his way in and hadn’t brought it with him to eat at his desk. He dropped his gear bag beside his desk and grabbed the inspection roster off the shelf beside the door.

“Ready when you are, Captain. One fifty cent tour, coming right up.”

Rufus grinned at him, and Dean smirked back at him.

“Chief Winchester is the very model of efficiency, Captain.”

Dean even managed another salute as they stood up, and Rufus laughed at him for it and patted him on the shoulder as he headed for the door.

“You got this, right Dean?” Rufus said, turning back in the doorway. “Captain Novak knows I’ve got a teleconference with Bobby in about fifteen minutes, and I figured I could leave him in your capable hands for an hour or so.”

“Since when has calling Bobby evolved into teleconferencing?”

Rufus grumbled out a sigh. “Since Dick Roman’s riding both our asses… I’m sure he’ll fill you in on all the gory details. But we want to make sure all our mutual bases— literally— are covered.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “That guy crashed our cadet orientation meeting last night. He’s slipperier than a barrel of vaseline.”

Rufus nodded approvingly at that assessment. “Then you’re already more up to speed on the situation than I am. Other than knowing that he’s been trying to recruit me to come work for him as soon as I blow this popsicle stand.”

Dean sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a relaxing retirement.”

Rufus laughed and turned around to head back to his own office. “No it really does not. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Yes, sir,” Dean replied and watched him walk down the hall for a moment before remembering there was still someone in his office. A superior officer who just watched him and Rufus chatting like old pals instead of officer and subordinate. Once again, Dean was caught just standing and staring dumbly at Captain Novak as he finished his coffee and tossed the cup in the trash.

“Thank you for the coffee, Chief Winchester. It was excellent. I suppose we should be getting on with that inspection now?”

Once again, Dean was taken aback by his new boss’s casual address. And by the fact that he was now standing right in front of him, looking right into his eyes. And Novak had eyes that would make a summer sky jealous. At least Novak seemed to recognize his discomfort, and almost immediately smiled and relaxed a bit.

“You should know that Rufus was my first training officer, and I’m very much looking forward to stepping into a role where I can adopt his… let’s call it a refreshing approach to leadership. Training test pilots required a level of rigor and intense professionalism that I’m rather relieved to finally leave behind. And I hope you’ll bear with me until it again feels natural to address those under my command as if they’re people and not just their rank.”

“Yeah, well, sure. Probably for the best to keep test pilot trainees on their toes, but around here we do important work, but we’re also family. Rufus keeps us on our toes when we need it, but he also trusts us to do our jobs,” Dean said.

And then for no reason at all, he started talking to Novak like a long-trusted confidant, and not as the new boss he met not ten minutes earlier. It was almost unsettling to Dean how quickly he’d assessed this man as safe and just begun yammering at him. To his credit, Novak listened intently, nodding along seriously at all the right moments. It affirmed Dean’s gut reactions about him.

“I’ve known Rufus since I was a kid,” Dean started. “Since my dad had me calling him Uncle Rufus. I’m only here today because of him and Bobby Singer, who’s currently stationed up at Langley. The two of them ganged up on me to join the Civil Air Patrol thinking it would help me get over my fear of flying.” Dean snorted out a laugh at that and shook his head. “Dumb bastards didn’t realize that learning the intricate details of how many ways a plane could f*ck up might make me twice as paranoid about it. But it did make me want to learn everything I could to keep anyone nuts enough to want to leave the ground as safe as they possibly could be.”

Dean waved the clipboard in his hand with all the safety checklists for that morning’s inspections for Novak to see.

“No offense, sir.”

Novak gave him an understanding smile. “None taken. I’ve been regularly informed throughout my career that I might be just a little nuts.”

Dean snorted, pulling up short, and shaking his head at his boss. He was beginning to realize that he could probably stand there all day trading quips with Novak, but they had a full day of work to tackle, and it wasn’t gonna go any quicker having to explain everything to Novak on top of actually getting the work done.

“Rufus trusts me without question, because he knows I would never let anything stand in front of doing the job right, not even if we’re just shooting the sh*t about our family.”

Novak nodded seriously, as if he somehow recognized the level of trust that Dean had extended to him by sharing that with him. Like he wanted to make sure Dean understood that he got it, and intended to work with him and not just play boss to him.

“I agree that care for our fellow sailors is our first priority,” Novak replied. “Every pilot we send out is entrusting their lives to us, and we owe them the highest regard for that.”

He considered what Dean had said for another moment, and then relaxed into the same posture Dean had taken with him.

“You know, you and Rufus are a big part of the reason I was relieved when my niece was stationed here. And the entire reason I asked for this command myself.”

“Claire Novak, right?” Dean asked. “Yeah, she’s a great kid. Met her back when she just started at the CAP, and was kinda hoping she’d decide to take the ground crew route for purely selfish reasons.”

Novak actually laughed at that, and then shook his head fondly. “I tried to convince her that was just as noble a calling as being a flight instructor, but unfortunately that lesson never stuck with her. She has always wanted to fly.”

“And she’s one of the few pilots I’d let take me up in the air,” Dean replied, turning toward the door and hoping Novak would just follow him out to the hangar. “But maybe don’t tell her I said that, or I’ll never hear the end of it until I actually do, and that just ain’t gonna happen.”

Novak just shook his head, stunned. “You mean all these years working with aircraft, sending countless pilots up, you’ve never been up in the air yourself? Never got over that fear of flying?”

Dean stopped in the hallway just outside his door and turned back. “Uh, look, I got a ‘67 Impala I really don’t get to drive enough as it is. Where the hell do I need to get that fast anyway? Last flight I took was in Afghanistan, and I really don’t need to relive that experience. I’ll stick to big boats and big cars, thanks.” After a moment he tacked on, “No offense, Captain.”

“None taken,” Novak replied, and Dean nodded and led him out into the hangar.

Dean opened the door for him and waved Novak through, watching his reaction to the space that Dean considered his own. It’s where he spent the vast majority of his time, after all, and did some of his most important work. He was mildly relieved when the Captain apparently found it up to snuff. The man’s shoulders relaxed as he looked around, contented like he was pleased with everything he saw. He ran a hand over the Sea Dragon Dean had started working on the day before like he was concerned for a sick child in his care, and nothing could’ve endeared Dean to him more in that moment. At least until Novak expressed what was probably just idle curiosity, even if Dean had no idea what to do with it.

“I suppose we’re lucky, then, that you didn’t take your obvious skill and care for your work and apply it to marine mechanics, or a motor pool somewhere.” Novak made a fist with the hand he’d been touching the helicopter with and turned back to Dean with an apologetic smile.

Dean was left blinking at him, as if those options had never even occurred to him. “Yeah, well, I guess I just know and care about enough pilots it seemed the thing to do, you know? Car breaks down, you can get out and tow it. Boat breaks down, you can just float there until it’s fixed. But this baby breaks down?” Dean said, pointing at the Sea Dragon, an absolute beast of a helicopter, and then shooting a smirk back at Novak. “Well let’s just say your options are pretty much reduced to burial at sea and cleaning up the debris field. And it’s my job to keep that from happening at all.”

Dean didn’t wait to see Novak’s response to that and just started down his morning inspection checklist. If a pilot couldn’t reckon with a thought like that after more than twenty years of flying then there was nothing more Dean could say anyway. He headed down to the far end of the hangar and the F18 that had been brought in the night before that was next on his service list after he finished with the Sea Dragon. Eventually Novak caught up with him as he was reading off the list of required maintenance and planning out the rest of his day.

Dean had almost forgotten he was supposed to be playing host to his new boss, too. At least until Novak cleared his throat and sent Dean practically jumping out of his boots.

“Dude, we’re gonna have to get you a bell or something,” Dean said, awkwardly trying to cover up his even more awkward startle response. Novak was just staring at him like he was the most fascinating piece of equipment in the building, and Dean had absolutely no idea what to do with that feeling, so as usual he just shoved it down to be examined in the event of a catastrophic engine failure over open water.

“Yes, well,” Novak replied, looking just as out of sorts as Dean felt. “Considering that I don’t currently have an official command at the moment, and I mostly feel like I’m simply underfoot for you until Rufus is finished with his meeting, perhaps I could be useful to you somehow?”

Dean blinked at him a few times, and a series of increasingly inappropriate thoughts on just how Captain Novak could make himself useful to him in that moment played out inside his mind. He shook himself off and mentally stomped on that line of thinking before it could actually get him into trouble. This is your new boss, dumbass, not goddamn fantasy fodder. Keep it together, Winchester.

“I mean,” Novak said, looking far more casual than any boss Dean had ever had, including Rufus. “If there’s anything I can do to be of assistance more directly, rather than just being a burden for you to entertain for the next hour or two?”

“Uhhh,” was all Dean could manage to reply as he tore his eyes from Captain Novak’s and headed over to set his clipboard down on top of his tool cart.

Novak followed him, though, trying to explain himself better and not having much more luck with words than Dean had.

“I just meant that just because I’m a pilot, I’m not totally useless in the hangar. I’d be happy to play mechanic’s assistant.” After a moment’s pause as Dean pointedly opened a few drawers in the tool chest idly looking for the right wrench that had already been conveniently set on top of the cart the night before. “Whatever you need, handing you tools, even. So you don’t feel like this is an inspection or my presence here isn’t any more intrusive than it has to be.”

Dean finally looked back up at the man, who looked entirely out of sorts, like he firmly believed that he was invading Dean’s space or somehow interfering in his work. It was honestly refreshing, if not a little bit baffling in a superior officer.

“Huh. Gotta say, you’re my first commanding officer in nearly two decades in the Navy to ever admit he was trying to step on my toes.”

Novak looked horrified at that, and held up both hands. “No! Actually, I’m doing my best— and apparently failing— to do the opposite! You know far better than I ever will how to do your own job. I think you’ll find, once I am actually your boss, that I put my entire faith in the people who report to me. And I can only hope that they would do the same for me.”

Dean studied the man for a moment, and knew he was telling the truth. It boded very well indeed for their future working relationship. Because once again, Dean had to remind himself that however desperate he might be to strike up any other sort of relationship with Captain Novak, the man was still technically his boss, and could still have him booted for insubordination, or worse. Yeah, it was definitely best to get all those weird feelings bottled up and stowed in the deep freeze before they got out of hand.

Without breaking eye contact, Dean handed him a wrench and the new oil filter for the helicopter.

“Just hand me these when I ask for them, I guess.” Dean picked up the big socket wrench and spun it in his hand like a party noisemaker and raised an eyebrow at Novak. “Unless you wanna give it a go yourself?”

Novak laughed at that, a low and dark sound that went right to the core of Dean’s being. He repressed a shudder and turned sharply on his heel just in case his face was doing something inappropriate. Yeah, his new boss might be as chill and easygoing as Rufus ever was, but that in no way meant that it was gonna make Dean’s life any easier.

“I believe I’ll leave the actual work in your capable hands, Chief Winchester.”

Dean sighed and set to work. It was gonna be a long, trying day.

Chapter 3

Chapter Text

✈️

It was mercifully less than an hour before Rufus returned to retrieve him. Dean had been a gracious and welcoming host, and Cas felt he’d already burdened the man enough. He was also unfortunately captivating and charming, and almost impossibly attractive, none of which were qualities that a superior officer should be concerned with in his subordinates.

As he watched Dean work, mesmerized by his skill and ability to carry on an amusing conversation without letting it interfere with the job he was doing, Cas occasionally found himself just staring dumbly at him. He also had no idea if the friendly glances that Dean was casting at him revealed the fact Dean had caught him staring, or if the familiar warmth he projected was just a general personality trait of Dean’s. Chief Winchester, Cas repeatedly had to mentally correct himself just to remind himself that Dean was his subordinate, his employee, and not a social acquaintance.

It wasn’t an easy task.

“Castiel, there you are,” Rufus said, strolling into the hangar like it was his domain, which it still technically was for a few more days. He pointed at the wrench that Cas had all but forgotten he was still holding. “Has Dean already put you to work? You gotta be careful, or he’ll sweet talk you into spending half the afternoon in here.”

“Not like anyone ever complained about having to endure my sparkling charm,” Dean replied without even pulling his head out of the engine compartment he was working in. He emerged a moment later and saluted Rufus with a greasy hand, leaving an oddly adorable black smudge on his forehead. “Castiel?” Dean added, looking a little confused as he glanced between Cas and Rufus.

“That’s my name,” Cas replied. “I think Rufus is the only person on the planet who actually uses it.”

Dean snorted. “Claire only ever calls you Uncle Cas. So apologies in advance if I ever do the same.”

“Wash your hands before you salute next time, Winchester,” Rufus said, tossing him a shop rag to wipe his face as he walked past Dean with a sigh. “And do not refer to Captain Novak as Uncle Cas. At least not anywhere I can hear you.”

“So did Bobby ever figure out what Dick Roman wanted from him?” Dean asked as he wiped the grease from his forehead and hands.

Rufus turned back to him with a little eye roll in Cas’s direction along the way. “He apparently already filled in your brother on everything before he called me. And since the two of you have Winchester family bonding hour tonight, that’ll give you something to talk about over dinner, right?”

All of this was news to Cas. Dean had talked practically nonstop for the last hour and mentioned his brother a couple of times, but not in the context of military matters. The fact that Bobby had shared information about military business with him before even meeting with Rufus about it was certainly interesting. Cas supposed he was about to get filled in on everything shortly, at any rate.

Dean just laughed. “Yeah, like I can ever get the sasquatch to shut up as it is. Remind me to thank Bobby for giving him even more to hold over me when he already has his little research project making the six o’clock news.”

Cas just stood there feeling mildly confused while Rufus laughed and Dean grumbled his way back to work. Rufus didn’t make him wait long, though.

“Come on, Cas. Let me show you to your office and I’ll get you up to speed on how the rest of this place runs day to day. I think we’ve bothered Dean enough for now.”

“It’s never a bother, sir,” Dean replied, though Cas was weirdly convinced that Dean was looking at him instead of at Rufus.

“That’s good to know,” Cas said. “And thank you for the coffee this morning.”

Dean smirked at that. “My coffee maker is always open for business, Captain.”

“He really means that, Castiel. He’s not just saying it to be polite. Still not sure he knows the meaning of the word polite,” Rufus said, turning back toward the door. “I suppose we should get down to business. I swear you will get used to Winchester eventually.”

Cas just nodded sort of dumbly at Chief Winchester as he waved one hand absently back in their direction and then dove back into his work. When the hangar door shut behind them and Cas finally caught back up to Rufus, he’d had just enough time to recover from whatever strange spell Dean had cast over him. He truly hoped Rufus was right, that it was even possible to get used to Dean Winchester at all.

“So what I gather from my morning experiences is that your unit doesn’t stand on formality and protocol.”

Rufus stopped dead in his tracks and turned on his heel so fast that Cas almost bumped into him. “I know you aren’t familiar with our routines around here yet, Captain, but this unit’s safety record is above reproach. My team is second to none, and every last one of them cares about nothing more than every pilot who takes off from this base returning in the same condition they left in. I trust every member of this team with my life, and so does every pilot who flies in or out of here, every single day. That is not something we take lightly. I’d rather never be saluted or yes sir’ed for the rest of my career than force Dean to drop what he’s doing and perform some pointless ritual. Maybe that wouldn’t fly in most of the Navy, but in my hangar, the job comes first. Always.”

“Yes, sir,” Cas replied reflexively, but then gave Rufus an apologetic smile. “Habit, sorry.”

Rufus grinned at him and then broke into laughter, slapping Cas on the shoulder and pushing him toward his new office. “Don’t worry, there’s still a time and place for it. Don’t lose the hang of sucking up to whoever needs sucking up to. Which reminds me. You should be aware of what’s going down with Roman Enterprises. Apologies in advance, because you’re not gonna like it one bit.”

🛥️

After work, Dean swung by his place and got cleaned up before heading out toward Williamsburg for his dinner with Sam. As tempted as he was to stop by Bobby’s to get the update on whatever Dick Roman was so bothered to talk to him about, he knew from Rufus’s tone that he was supposed to get this particular bit of info from Sam. For some reason he had yet to understand. He probably would’ve spent more time trying to figure it out for himself if he hadn’t been so completely distracted thinking about his new boss.

It wasn’t Claire’s fault that she never bothered to mention her uncle would be one of the most attractive people Dean had ever laid eyes on. Or that he was quietly hilarious and genuinely one of the nicest people Dean had met in ages. Or most importantly, that as his commanding officer he’d be entirely off limits socially, outside of whatever interactions he’d allow at work. It was both exhilarating and depressing, and Dean couldn’t stop playing what if scenarios in his imagination, if they had met under any other circ*mstances.

He sighed and cranked up the radio as he pulled into town and headed for the restaurant where Sam had wanted to meet. At least they had a satisfactory selection of pie on the menu for him to console himself with. Luckily, by the time he’d fought through traffic and found a parking spot, Sam had already gotten them a table.

“Sorry I’m late, I guess tourist season is in full swing here, huh?” Dean said, waving a finger around the crowded dining room.

Sam gave a little shrug and glanced up from the menu. “It’s always tourist season here, Dean. And you’re not late. I just figured it would be easier to get through dinner and get back to my place.” He gave a shifty glance around the room and then leaned across the table toward Dean and dropped his voice. “I gotta tell you what Bobby told me this afternoon, and I don’t think it needs an audience.”

“Aw, sh*t,” Dean said, squirming in his seat a little and picking up his own menu. “Knew I shoulda swung by Bobby’s on the way here.”

Sam shook his head and gave a little laugh. “I’m sure you’ll survive another hour of not knowing.”

Dean grumbled, but accepted his fate. He had other things to talk about anyway. “Speaking of not knowing things, you gotta tell me what you were doing on the local news last night. I had to hear about that one from Claire. Between all the drama last night and trying to make a good impression on my new boss today, I haven’t had a chance to go digging for it.”

Sam opened his mouth to answer when the waitress came over to take their order. By the time she left them, Sam was already trying to redirect.

“New boss, Claire’s uncle, right? The flight instructor dude who got her into Annapolis?”

“Yeah,” Dean started, but he was absolutely not prepared to discuss anything about Captain Castiel Novak with his brother yet. He had a lot of increasingly complicated feelings about the guy that were only compounded by an hour worth of quality fantasizing about him over the drive to Williamsburg. He took a sip of his beer and adjusted himself in the seat and was more than a little grateful that Sam had them seated in a booth. He cleared his throat and redirected again. “Don’t try to change the subject. So what did you do that was local news worthy? I assume it wasn’t criminal since you’re still out walking around.”

Sam blushed and looked down at the table as he nervously arranged his silverware. “It was the national news, actually. I did the round at the morning shows today. Guess it was a slow news day?” he added with an awkward laugh.

Dean, however, practically beamed at him. Not just because Sam had finally succeeded in shoving the mental image of inquisitive blue eyes and strong, capable hands to the back of his mind.

“So you finally got to the bottom of human history? Find the missing link?”

Sam rolled his eyes at the long-running and not at all funny bit that Dean had been using since Sam first announced his intent to study anthropology instead of joining the military like pretty much everyone else in the family. Dean was inordinately proud of him for that, for standing up to their father in ways he himself had never even dared to. Sure, Dean chose the Navy over his father’s beloved Marines, but it still fell under the broad umbrella of acceptable Winchester family career paths. Sam had just up and chosen to do his own thing from the start, and then soared right to the top of his field.

Sam just ignored Dean, and as usual was encouraged to stop trying to minimize his achievements. He just laid it all out plain for Dean, without all the wishy-washy self-deprecation he had a tendency to wallow in if Dean let him.

“Remember when I went to Iraq last year to consult with an archaeologist excavating at Ur?”

Dean nodded, not willing to derail with a joke about Sam still not being able to remember the name of the place he’d visited now that he’d gotten his brother talking.

“Well, my input apparently helped uncover the location of a buried library containing thousands of stone tablets and other artifacts. It’s a pretty exciting discovery, possibly some of the earliest samples of written language ever discovered. Some of them are so obscure that we’re not even sure they’re possible to decipher, but they’ve called on me to help.”

“Of course they did,” Dean replied, entirely unsurprised. Sam was really getting into it now, and couldn’t contain his excitement if he tried.

“One of my grad students, Kevin Tran, is escorting the largest display of archaic Sumerian tablets, and a wealth of other discoveries back to my lab. We’re going to scan them all with the new equipment the university was given this year to create perfect 3D models to study, and then the entire exhibit is going on a thirteen city tour of the US, and then on to Europe, while a suitable museum can be built in Baghdad for their permanent home. It’s, uh…” Sam finally tapered off, rubbing the back of his neck with a return of the bashful smile. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

Dean just nodded with a satisfied grin. “So maybe you did find some sort of missing link. The beginning of written language is a pretty big deal. I mean, what would album liner notes be without it?”

Their food arrived shortly after that, while their conversation stayed largely on the details of Sam’s new project. Dean had to reluctantly admit it was all pretty fascinating stuff. Until Sam started dodging questions about what exactly he was scanning everything with, and looking around uneasily at the neighboring tables. Dean could take a hint. When Dean had finished his pie and they’d paid the bill, he followed Sam back to his house to settle in for the real meat of their discussion.

He really wanted to know what Sam himself was holding back about his big achievement in international diplomacy and his high tech archaeology machine. So there was more than one big mystery for Dean to get to the bottom of now that they weren’t sitting in a crowded restaurant. Since Dean was off for the weekend and figured he’d just be crashing at Sam’s that night and not driving all the way back to base, he accepted Sam’s offer of another beer and made himself comfortable on the sofa.

“So, what weren’t you telling me back there?” Dean asked before Sam could even sit down in his favorite chair.

Sam grimaced at him as he kicked his shoes off and finally sat. He took a long sip of his drink, and then shook his head.

“There’s a hell of a lot going on with Dick Roman in my life all of a sudden,” Sam started off with, earning a look of surprise from Dean.

“I figured you’d start with your chicken scratch rocks, but whatever floats your boat—”

Sam cut him off, leaning forward in his chair. “I’m talking about my chicken scratch rocks, actually.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead and down his face. “I guess I need to start from the beginning here.”

“Just so you know, I have never been on the edge of my seat waiting for you to tell me about Dick before.”

Sam rolled his eyes and otherwise pretended Dean hadn’t said anything, and got right into his story.

“I met with Dick Roman about a month ago, actually. All very hush-hush, the university insisted on my cooperation with him, and on my silence about it all. His company is developing new scanning tech and he wanted my department to experiment with the prototype.”

Dean’s eyebrows went up. “Not sure whether to be proud of you for that, or worried for you after I met the guy last night.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “He’s like a slug in human form.”

Dean nodded agreement. “But with sharp teeth. Maybe claws. The guy is just f*cking wrong somehow.”

“I’m glad it’s not just me,” Sam said, finally slumping back in his chair and taking another drink before going on. “So my boss insists I have to work with him, because it could be extremely lucrative for the department over the long term, and might lead to breakthroughs in how we study the development of language. Roman had also been in touch with the crew on the ground in Iraq, and it was through him that we landed the exchange program deal that’s bringing that whole cache of antiquities to the states in the first place. When I talked to my contact there to thank him for the opportunity to examine everything in my lab, he gave me the impression that he also hadn’t really had a choice in the matter. Apparently his entire dig’s funding had come through a grant made by Dick Roman, too.”

“Is there anything that guy isn’t trying to leave his fingerprints all over?”

Sam shrugged. “Apparently not. Roman had been insisting on flying the artifacts here in his private jet, but that’s where the American consulate in Iraq put his foot down. Everything’s being brought in on a Navy cargo vessel instead.” Sam snorted and laughed with a considering look of admiration. “Apparently that was the one thing Khalil, my colleague on site, was able to leverage against Roman. He gave a tour of the dig site to the culture minister in Baghdad, and short of creating an international incident, Roman had to back off and cede transport to more official channels.”

“Huh,” Dean said. “Surprised he hasn’t come poking around Norfolk yet, then. I assume that’s where the delivery will happen. And he seems to have his nose in all over the air force already.”

“Oh, he’s tried,” Sam said. “He heard Rufus was retiring and offered up a personal list of recommendations for his replacement. Far as I know, the Secretary of the Navy politely just appointed the best qualified candidate anyway. But Roman, he’s apparently been trying to hire Rufus as a consultant.”

“Yeah, he mentioned something about that today, but he didn’t seem to think it was that serious an offer,” Dean said, feeling strangely disappointed in that fact his brother got that bit of news before he did.

“Hey, I only heard about it from Bobby this morning. Apparently Rufus laughed in Roman’s face and told him he was retiring, which meant not working anymore.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Rufus.”

“But when Roman poked his head in at the Civil Air Patrol to generously offer his support to Bobby last night, turns out what he really wanted was to try and recruit Bobby himself,” Sam said, baffled. “So why is he suddenly desperate to have every high ranking military member in my personal orbit on his payroll?”

“Wait, you think this is all about you?” Dean asked, raising a critical eyebrow at his brother. “The dude’s been practically building his entire business around the military for decades. You could probably find a dozen people at Norfolk and Langley he’s tried to recruit. Probably more.”

“He’s also been buying up every aviation company in the area he can get his hands on, and every shipyard too. It’s like he’s setting up a shadow navy for his own purposes.” Sam cringed a little at that. “Or maybe I’ve just been reading too much sci fi lately. Whatever.”

Dean sat back and considered all that for a minute, and finished his beer.

“Okay, then, but none of it explains why he’s suddenly interested in secretly funding a bunch of archaeological studies in Iraq.”

Sam actually shrugged. “I just assumed he was using all of that as cover to smuggle something out of the country. High profile international delivery of incredibly valuable archaeological treasures? If he’d brought it in on his own plane, it’s not like customs was gonna pull the whole thing apart looking for contraband, you know?”

“Sure, but it’s all coming courtesy of the U.S. Navy now, and he lost his access.”

Sam waved a hand as Dean arrived at the end of the equation. “It’s the only thing that makes any sense, which is completely infuriating. Because it also doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s starting to sound like a concise summary of Dick Roman overall,” Dean added, getting up to grab himself another beer.

Dean handed a bottle to Sam on his way back to his spot on the sofa, and this time he stretched out and made himself comfortable. They drank in companionable silence for a moment, before Sam came back with more curious information.

“You know he also tried to hire Claire’s uncle right before he took the promotion to Rufus’s old job. Bobby shared that with me, too.”

“Huh, guess Novak was shy of his twenty for the full pension.”

Sam snorted. “He’s been in longer than you have, Dean.”

“Guess he just lives to serve, then.”

Dean mostly just wanted to turn the topic of conversation from his new boss. The last thing he needed was for Sam to start poking around that before Dean even managed to shove all his weird conflicting feelings for the guy down into the lead lined lockbox where he kept most of his inconvenient feelings, so he turned the subject back on Roman.

“Did Bobby say what he wanted with the Civil Air Patrol, or was it just cover for his recruitment effort on Bobby himself?”

“Oh, no, he offered a bunch of cutting edge equipment to Bobby, apparently no strings attached. Bobby said he might need your help tomorrow to sort through the delivery Roman told him to be expecting.”

Dean snorted at that and pushed himself until he was sitting up far enough to take another swig of his drink.

“Guess I’m not really getting a day off tomorrow, then. Probably should go easy on these.” He finished the drink and set the empty bottle on the side table behind him and settled back down on the sofa.

“Not that I don’t appreciate him supporting the CAP, but it kinda makes you wonder. He apparently bought out Edgar next door, too. And I’d be shocked if he didn’t have his own fleet of planes at his disposal for whatever purposes he wanted to use them. Why bother sending all this equipment to us in some show of good will or whatever? What does he actually expect to gain from this? Because trust me, that guy doesn’t sneeze if he doesn’t think he can make bank on it.”

“That was Bobby’s assessment of him, too,” Sam replied, and then after another moment. “And mine, too. Why give me the prototype of his latest scanning tech, go through so much trouble to ensure it led to a specific trove of artifacts coming into my possession in a few weeks, and then try so hard to micromanage the entire delivery operation? It’s just… it feels shady, somehow.”

“Either he’s incapable of coming across like an actual human being who’s desperate to do a little philanthropy, or he wants something from that dig with a passion, and knows he can’t just buy it outright.”

Sam’s mouth dropped open and he shuddered at the thought. “They’re national treasures of the Iraqi people, and all of humanity. No one person should just get to own them.”

“Yeah, well, there’s no telling the obscenely wealthy that they can’t have something they want,” Dean countered. “And if he wants something bad enough to go to all this trouble, I don’t know if there’s anything we can do about it.”

Sam frowned. “You think he’s gonna try to sabotage the delivery? Or interfere just enough to snatch something out of it for himself?”

Dean just shrugged. It didn’t make any sense at all to him. Then again, to him it was just a pile of old rocks. To people like Sam who understood their significance and could spend a career learning all their secrets, it was a mission for the betterment of humanity. And Dean could at least appreciate that.

“I can’t really see him out there hiring pirates to hijack a naval vessel, so you’re probably safe on that front.”

Sam just rolled his eyes and took another sip of his drink. He didn’t have to get up and drag himself in to work tomorrow, even if work was just helping Bobby sort electronic equipment.

“He’s trying to plan some sort of press conference for when it all arrives at my lab. I think he’s expecting a grand tour, like it was some sort of influencer’s unboxing video.”

Dean made a disgusted noise at that. “Gotta keep his face in the public eye, doing good deeds or whatever. Just make sure you’ve got extra security on hand that day. You got one of your dig buddies coming to supervise everything?”

“Khalil’s traveling with the crates, along with my grad student, Kevin, and some admin type from the university. They’ll never be unsupervised. It was all part of the deal. They’ll also be here with me for the scanning, and then accompany the entire collection on tour. Along with a secret service escort, courtesy of the president. But that detail isn’t public, obviously. It’s gonna be a stressful few weeks dealing with all of that. You know my entire department had to pass a security clearance background check for it?”

Once again, Dean’s eyebrows went up. “That is some pretty intense security for a bunch of old rocks.”

“Well, I guess you get the cultural and historical significance of this find, now.”

“Right,” Dean said, leaning back on the sofa as the events of his very long day started catching up with him. “Super important and special rocks.” Before Sam could cut in with a correction, Dean corrected himself as he let his eyes slip shut. “I know, origins of written language, new information about one of the first great human civilizations, treasures of our shared history and possibly entirely unique in existence. I ain’t kidding, super important and special rocks. You impress the hell outta me, Sam. Of all the old rock readers in the world, they picked you to read these rocks.”

Sam just sat there quietly finishing his drink while Dean started to drift off. Just when Dean thought he was just going to silently haul himself off to bed, Sam spoke again.

“You’ll have to tell me about your new boss in the morning. Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook on that one just because we’ve got bigger problems to deal with first.”

And with that, Sam got up, turned out the light, and left Dean to tuck himself in on the couch.

Chapter 4

Chapter Text

🛥️

Mercifully, Dean got up before Sam did. He’d somehow gotten out of having to tell Sam all about Captain Novak, and he was happy to keep that streak going for at least another day. If his dreams had been any indication, he had a lot of crap to deal with adjusting to Novak’s presence in his life before he’d be able to repress hard enough to be objective about his new boss. At least they had a bigger mystery to focus on for a little while.

Dean left a note that he was headed out to the CAP, in case Sam was interested in coming out to shoot the sh*t with Bobby. Maybe the three of them together could figure out the enigma that was Dick Roman.

Since he’d spent the night at Sam’s, Dean wasn’t in uniform. It wasn’t a big deal to Bobby, and everyone else at the CAP was used to seeing him in jeans and flannel on weekends. It certainly didn’t affect the work he did, mostly alone in the hangar anyway. Only today, it was apparently a big deal.

Dean pulled into the lot at the CAP office and wasn’t surprised to see a handful of cars there on a Saturday morning. A lot of their volunteer pilots were in and out all weekend, especially with a new group of recruits all wanting to get a little air time in. At least Dean didn’t have to put on a show for any of them, and most of them were probably already gone out the air side of the building anyway.

On his way to the hangar, Dean knocked on Bobby’s door, and opened it when he heard the shouted yeah from inside. He was taken aback to find Bobby already entertaining a very grumpy looking Rufus as well as a disconcertingly concerned looking Captain Novak.

“Oh, hey, sorry to interrupt,” Dean said, looking between the men. “Just wanted you to know I was here.”

He started to back out of the room when Bobby waved him inside.

“Dean, just in time. Shut the door and take a seat.”

He did as he was told, but for just a minute he was concerned.

“Uh, am I in some sort of trouble here?”

“We all might be,” Bobby replied with a grimace. “Or not us, specifically, but us in general.”

Dean frowned, sitting uneasily, now even more confused. “Okay, that sounds ominous.”

“You talked to Sam?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah, I just came from his place.”

Bobby nodded, taking a deep breath and sitting back in his chair. “Roman wants you to sign a confidentiality agreement before you’re allowed to install any of his new equipment in our planes.”

Dean’s eyes went wide. “You mean he’s not satisfied with my navy security clearance? Is he trying to give us double super top secret prototype sh*t or something?” After a moment’s consideration, Dean shook his head and let all the confusion he was experiencing show plainly on his face. “He does know that civilians have access to all our equipment, too, right? That if he wants us to use some top secret proprietary tech, it’s gonna get used by all our volunteers, including the high school kids. Does he expect them to just pretend they didn’t see it? Is everyone who walks through the door gonna have to sign the same contract?”

Bobby shook his head, then shrugged. “I don’t know if he’s thought it through that far, or if he expected us to turn down his generous gift rather than sign on the dotted line, but unfortunately we’re gonna have to decline it. We’re only loosely connected to the military, and we can’t be held liable for what the general public might learn about his equipment.”

“So then why did he even make the offer if he knew we wouldn’t accept it?”

It was Novak who answered, finally looking directly at Dean. At least his new boss seemed to look pleased with him for figuring out their problem so quickly.

“He’s been trying to recruit all three of us for some time now. And that offer might technically have been extended to you if you were to sign that confidentiality agreement. I believe he was just trying to maintain lines of communication with all of us, since each of us have already repeatedly declined the fantastic employment opportunities he’s been trying to lure us in with.”

“I might be retiring from the navy,” Rufus tossed in grumpily, “but I’m staying on with the CAP. Someone’s gotta keep your ass in line over here,” he added, waving a finger up and down Dean’s casual Saturday attire.

“Don’t judge my flannel,” Dean replied, pulling his shirt closer across his chest. He then looked over to note what Novak was wearing. Jeans and a blue button-down that really brought out his eyes. Dean scolded himself mentally, but muddled through to his point. “At least not when the captain’s in civvies too.”

“Yeah, well, Cas wasn’t expecting to get dragged in here like this today,” Bobby replied for him. “You don’t got an excuse.”

Dean frowned at that, and then caught Novak smiling at him and he knew he wasn’t in any real trouble. When the other man realized Dean was just staring at him, he awkwardly shifted in his seat, cleared his throat, and looked nothing like the competent commanding officer Dean had met the day before. He looked like a guy lost in an Ikea. That thought did absolutely nothing for tempering Dean’s feelings about the man, either.

Novak shook his head and waved one hand in a futile attempt to erase the awkwardness, and Dean finally was able to tear his gaze away.

“So before Dean arrived, you were saying you believe that whatever Roman wants all of us on board his team for has something to do with Sam’s archaeological pursuits?” Novak asked. “But why? And how?”

Bobby shrugged. “Your guess is as good as ours, Cas. But Sam’s pretty sure he’s interested in something from that dig. He jumped over some pretty fancy red tape to have it all delivered right to his doorstep, and he’s sure doing a hell of a job trying to convince the four of us to sign on to Team Roman with iron clad confidentiality contracts. I forwarded one to Sam for his legal department to comb through, at any rate.”

Dean snorted at that, and then looked around at the others when they all stared at him.

“Well, have any of you talked to the sailors actually bringing the loot in?”

When they all just continued staring at him, Dean stood up and started pacing.

“I mean, if he’s been talking to you three, and now he’s trying a sneaky back door end around to loop me into his weird plans, don’t you think he might have tried to make a similar arrangement with the guys on the actual ship with the actual stuff you think he wants?”

They all just sat silently for a moment, before Rufus grumbled, “Ah, sh*t.”

“Well, I’m air force,” Bobby replied. “Air force ain’t got boats. That’s your department.”

Rufus laughed. “I got a eighteen foot bass fishing boat.”

Novak added, shifting uncomfortably again, “I don’t care for boats.”

Dean stopped his pacing and just stared, open mouthed at his new boss. “You been in the navy for two decades, and you don’t care for boats?”

Novak shrugged awkwardly. “I get seasick. That’s why I fly planes instead.”

Dean couldn’t help the delighted grin that spread across his face. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.”

“Yeah, well, this one joined the navy because he didn’t like to fly,” Rufus said, hooking a thumb in Dean’s direction. “So don’t let him give you any sh*t about boats until you get him up in a plane first.”

“Yes, he mentioned that to me yesterday,” Novak replied.

Bobby and Rufus exchanged a surprised glance at one another, and then Bobby leveled a critical look at Dean, holding firm while he spoke.

“Dean just up and told you about that?”

Novak nodded, clearly baffled by their surprise. “Yes, while we were working in the hangar…”

He looked over at Dean, narrowing his eyes as if trying to read his mind for clues about what was happening. Dean almost didn’t notice as he was too busy squirming under Bobby’s direct glare.

“Huh,” Bobby finally said, when no additional information from Dean was evidently forthcoming. He still didn’t take his eyes off him, though. “How long did it take for you to say that out loud to anyone on base, Dean? And here you are blabbing all your innermost fears to your new C.O. on day one?”

Bobby finally turned back to Novak, and Dean felt relieved, like a pressure front had rolled past him. Dean still wasn’t delighted by Bobby peeling all his layers back and poking them in front of the guy he’d met yesterday and was still having a raging case of inappropriate thoughts about, even if Dean had already inflicted most of the damage on himself by telling Novak in the first place.

“If Dean here’s opening up like a secondhand paperback for you, either he took a nasty blow to the head, or he actually likes you. You should take that as a win, Cas.”

Before Novak could even turn his surprised look back on him, Dean grunted and slumped back down in his chair. “Well, it’s a good thing to like your new boss,” he grumbled out, barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

Novak still smiled at him. “Claire told me I’d enjoy working here, and aside from this Roman Enterprises situation, I’d have to agree with her so far.”

“Yeah, well, we got to get ears to the ground on Roman,” Bobby said.

“And at sea,” Rufus added. “I’ll look into that as soon as I get back to base. If I know anyone aboard ship with that gear, I’ll have them take a look around and make sure everything’s secure. Other than that, I don’t know if there’s much else we can do until it reaches Norfolk, other than keeping Roman at arm’s length.”

“Well that won’t be a problem for me,” Dean replied. “Outside of running into him here last night, I’m not sure he even knows I exist. Or cares, for that matter.”

“Probably not,” Bobby agreed. “But he knows your brother, so there’s no telling what kind of dirt he’s been digging through on you.”

Dean just shook his head and stood up. “Imagine that. Two decades working on classified military equipment, and I finally get drawn into some weird espionage sh*t because of Sam’s nerd rocks instead. Go figure.”

“They’re pretty important nerd rocks, Dean,” Bobby scolded gently.

Dean waved a dismissive hand. Of course he knew that. “So if I’m not getting put to work today, I’m gonna hit up Guidry’s for breakfast on my way home. Anyone else hungry?”

“I was on my way to run some errands, but I haven’t eaten yet today,” Novak said, and then considered it for a moment. “I’m not entirely sure where all the good diners are in town yet, either, and that seems like important information to have.”

Since Dean couldn’t agree more with that sentiment, he took it as a moral responsibility to share his knowledge with his Captain.

“Well, if you like pie, Elizabeth makes the best pecan in the state.”

“Pie?” Cas asked, his head tilting inquisitively as he stood up. “For breakfast?”

“For any time,” Dean replied, slightly offended on behalf of pies everywhere.

Novak just nodded, as if that had been an acceptable answer. “Lead the way, then.” He turned back briefly to Bobby and Rufus. “Are you joining us?”

Bobby just smiled and shook his head, sitting back in his chair. “Nah, I got a training session in an hour. Next time.”

Rufus stood up, as well. “I gotta get back to the office and see who’s ferrying back Sam’s magic rocks.” He pointed a finger at Dean, who’d frozen in the doorway realizing he’d effectively just invited his boss out for breakfast, alone, and short of looking like an idiot there probably wasn’t a way to politely get out of it now. “I’ll give you a call as soon as I know what’s what, in case it’s one of your people.”

Dean just nodded grimly and turned back toward the door. “You comin’, Captain?”

“You can call me Cas when we’re not acting in an official capacity,” he replied, following after him.

He almost ran into Dean in the hallway outside the door when Dean froze in his tracks and turned back to him.

“You sure about that?”

Cas just shrugged. “You call Bobby and Rufus by their first names, and it doesn’t seem to be an issue.”

“Well, yeah, ‘cause I’ve known them since I was old enough to know anyone, and not old enough to know any better.”

Cas considered that for a second, and then shrugged again. “I don’t mind, either way.”

Dean sized him up for a minute, and then finally nodded. “Okay, then. Cas it is. But if we’re on a first name basis, you can call me Dean.”

He finally turned and led the way out to the parking lot, with Cas on his heels.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I already do.”

While he walked, Dean thought back over all their interactions, and realized that it was true, and he’d never even noticed it. Maybe it wasn’t just him that was having trouble with that line between them. If nothing else, it would make breakfast a hell of a lot more interesting.

“So where is Guidry’s from here?” Cas asked as he walked toward a big old pickup truck in the parking lot. “I’m not as familiar as I’d like to be with the area.”

Dean stood there staring from the driver’s side of his Impala for a second, taking in the sight of Cas with his truck.

“That’s yours?”

Cas glanced at the truck, and then back at Dean, ready to be defensive over his ride. “Yes?”

“Huh, I guess I kinda took you for more of a sports car guy. Or maybe some weird futuristic sh*t full of batteries or solar cells or something.”

Cas made a sour face at that. “I get my fill of speed and weird futuristic sh*t at work. But I understand what you mean. A lot of people who are drawn to test pilot training are of a certain personality type.”

“But not you,” Dean muttered, feeling strangely relieved about that. Louder, he added, “It ain’t far to Guidry’s. Just down by the waterfront. You can follow me.”

He slapped the roof of his car as Cas nodded his approval of that plan, and then climbed inside.

✈️

Cas probably should’ve realized that Dean Winchester wasn’t going to be just another person under his command when Rufus led him down to Dean’s office, let himself inside and made himself at home. Or at the very least when Dean walked in on them and, even caught off guard like he had been, adapted to the situation with ease. And now seeing Rufus and Bobby both bring him easily into their confidence, treating him not just as a subordinate or even just as a friend, but as an equal whose thoughts they valued. Not only that, but seeing Bobby’s surprise that Dean had revealed something about himself, something so apparently deeply personal to him on their first meeting, confirmed that Dean was someone he was going to be grateful to have come into his life.

That was, if Cas could figure out what to do about the entirely inappropriate feelings he was rapidly developing for the man.

Now that he was following Dean through Saturday morning traffic to have breakfast with him, maybe it would give him a chance to develop those feelings into a firm friendship. If he could just shove them all under that umbrella instead of letting them congeal into anything else, then maybe in time they could develop the sort of relationship that Bobby and Rufus had cultivated with him over the years. Or at least, that’s what he’d keep trying to tell himself.

Dean turned back and waved at him at a stoplight, and then made a left turn when the light turned green. It took Cas a few more seconds to find a gap in traffic big enough to turn through, but Dean had slowed down to let him catch up. It was a ridiculous thing to find endearing, and yet Cas couldn’t stop himself.

He sighed, watching Dean signal and then turn into a narrow road leading right down to the river’s edge, ending at a building that resembled a fishing shack more than a diner. The parking lot was crowded though, and Cas’s grumbling stomach was intrigued and grateful— whatever mental hoops he’d climbed through to get there— that he’d allowed himself to accept Dean’s offer. After all, he really did need to venture out around town more, and finding a decent diner off base had been a top priority.

Cas found a spot and parked, giving himself a moment to mentally prepare for facing Dean alone again. Now that he’d extended an offer of friendship— or at least invited Dean to use his name— he wasn’t sure if that would make this easier or only that much more awkward. The only way to find out was to get out of his truck and go inside.

He met up with Dean just outside the door, and Dean waved him through first. The delicious aroma that hit him as soon as he was inside left him temporarily incapable of speech, but luckily Dean was right behind him to say what he couldn’t yet. Dean took a deep breath and grinned at him.

“It’s great, right? Just wait, it tastes even better.”

Dean glanced around, finding a woman behind the counter and getting her attention with a wave. She looked pleased to see him, and pointed out an empty table across the room. Dean gave her a thumbs up, and led Cas over to it. Before he could even sit, Dean was handing him one of the menus jammed between the salt and pepper shakers.

“The specials change all the time,” Dean said, before Cas could even begin reading it. “It’s usually just what Elizabeth felt like making for herself this morning, but honestly everything’s fantastic so you can’t really go wrong.”

At the sound of her name, the woman herself appeared with a pot of coffee in one hand.

“Hey, Dean. I take it you want coffee,” she said, turning over the cup in front of him and filling it without waiting for a reply. “I wasn’t sure about your friend here. What can I get you, sugar?”

Cas turned his cup over for her. “Coffee would be wonderful, thank you.”

Almost as if Dean was using it as an excuse to test out his name, Dean smiled up at the woman and introduced him.

“Elizabeth, this is Cas. He’s new in town, and I told him you got the best pie in the state. You got pecan today, right?”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Cas, and I hope Dean didn’t talk us up too much. He can get real enthusiastic about his pie.” She thought about that for a second and then added, “Food in general, really. Boy don’t like to go hungry. So, are y’all just here for pie, or are you saving that for dessert?”

Cas was still blinking and marveling at the sound of his name in Dean’s voice, but he shook himself off long enough to answer. “I think I’ll have the Sunrise Special,” Cas said, setting aside his menu. “And I’ll see about the pie when I’m finished.”

“Fair enough,” Elizabeth told him, turning her smile on Dean.

“Pancakes and a side of sausage,” Dean said, picking up his coffee cup and toasting her with it.

“I’ll have that out in a jiffy for you.” She turned to walk back to the kitchen and then stopped. “I talked to Benny this morning, and he said if you stopped in, I should tell you he’s planning on going out fishing this afternoon if you’re interested in joining him.”

“That sounds like a plan, thanks Elizabeth.” Dean grinned at her, and she finally headed back to put in their order.

Cas sat there feeling slightly wrong-footed, as if he’d intruded on some private meeting between Dean and Elizabeth. He wasn’t sure if the strange swooping feeling constituted a low-key jealousy, but there was clearly something more to their relationship than just Dean being a regular customer. After a few moments of silence, watching Dean sip his coffee and look around the room like he was expecting to see someone else he knew, Cas broke the silence between them.

“It sounds like you’ve known Elizabeth for a long time.”

“Yeah, she’s a buddy of mine’s sister. We went through basic training together. Soon as she was out of high school, she moved up here to be near him, and started working here. She bought the place a few years back when the original owner retired.”

“And Benny?” Cas prompted, nodding along to Dean’s quick explanation.

Dean grinned at the mention of his friend, and suddenly he didn’t know who to be jealous of anymore. He mentally scolded himself for the ridiculous feeling and waited for Dean to reply.

“Her brother. He’s a technical and salvage diver, but on his days off we still can’t get him to stay on dry land. Though around here, knowing a guy who knows all the inlets and channels where the fish like to hide out makes for some great fishing, if you’re into that kind of thing.” Dean leaned an elbow on the table, and then jerked it back off like it had shocked him. “Unless you really don’t like boats. Then, uh… I guess if you’re still into fishing, there’s plenty of piers up river and out on the ocean side.”

Cas appreciated the fact that Dean had even bothered to remember that detail, even if it hadn’t been entirely truthful. Not that the truth was much less uncomfortable to admit to, but he was beginning to think that the truth was the very least he owed Dean.

“It’s not boats, so much as it’s deep water I don’t enjoy. I’ve had several near misses landing on aircraft carriers, and there’s nothing more distressing than having mechanical issues in a plane while hundreds of miles from the nearest safe landing site. Not to mention most of the naval ships I have been aboard have been… let’s call it slow, and confining.”

Dean just nodded knowingly back at him and leaned back on the table again, like he was imparting secret knowledge. “I get why you drive the truck now, too.”

Cas had never really connected those two concepts in his mind, but now that Dean had done it for him, it made perfect sense. He had no idea how to express that to Dean in a way that didn’t sound slightly insane inside his own head, though. Luckily Dean kept talking and he didn’t have to worry about it.

“I get all the space I need out in the hangar. Even with my head stuck up in an engine.” Dean gave him a commiserating smile, and Cas knew what he meant from watching him work the day before. “When I’m not working on aircraft, I still prefer my Baby. A long drive is the same thing for me that flying is for you, I guess. That feeling like the world is yours and you can go anywhere on the open road. Or in the open sky. But I still prefer solid ground.”

“Fair enough,” Cas replied, raising his hands in surrender. “I won’t ask you to fly if you don’t ask me to sail.”

“Deal,” Dean replied, grinning at him like they’d come to an important understanding.

Cas honestly didn’t care why Dean was smiling at him, as long as he could continue to bear witness to it. It was one of the most pleasing and warming things he’d seen in a very long time, and he had to remind himself yet again that he was absolutely not supposed to be thinking such thoughts about a man under his command.

Unlike their conversation in the hangar the previous day, or even their commiseration session in Bobby’s office that morning, they talked easily over breakfast, with the camaraderie of old friends who’d just found each other again. Like Dean had already shared confidences about himself that he usually kept close to the chest, Cas found that Dean’s presence had a similar effect on him.

He found himself telling Dean why he’d joined the navy, as an act of rebellion from his staunchly air force family. Even if he’d still become a highly decorated pilot in his own right, it was his small way of distinguishing himself from the rest of his family. When Claire had wanted to follow in his footsteps, he’d done everything he could to make her path easier than his own had been.

“Well I certainly appreciate it. Glad the kid stuck around here,” Dean said, finishing up the pie he’d ordered after breakfast.

“I haven’t mentioned it, because I have no intention of actually taking the job, but several of my family members are encouraging me to accept Roman’s offer. Family members that I haven’t spoken to in years, in fact. I believe Roman may have asked them to contact me on his behalf. They’re intrigued by the financial and political potential of having a family member in such a position.”

Dean grunted. “So one of them can go work for that slimebag if they’re so in love with the idea. I don’t even wanna be in the same room with the guy, let alone on his payroll.”

“Hmm, yeah, there’s that,” Cas said. “But my family has a penchant for turning military service into a business opportunity at every possible turn. It may look like I’m a black sheep for joining the navy, but truly I’ve made myself a pariah for still serving instead of having moved to the private sector or politics instead.”

“Ugh, sorry about that,” Dean replied. “Closest my family got to political sh*t was Sam. He was all ready to study law until he took an anthropology elective freshman year. Changed his whole outlook on life.”

“And he clearly excels in his field,” Cas replied, finishing the last bite of the pecan pie that Dean had talked him into ordering.

Dean practically beamed at him. “Yeah, that kid doesn’t do anything halfway. If he’d gone into law, he’d probably be a senator by now. Or the president.”

They’d already paid their bill, but Cas wasn’t in any hurry to leave. Dean had proven to be the most enjoyable company he’d shared in years, and it was likely the next time they saw one another it would be on base. Yes, it was a more friendly environment than he was accustomed to working in, but it was still a far cry from the casual atmosphere they’d cultivated in the diner. Dean had already finished before Cas did, and yet he also didn’t seem to be in a rush to leave. Once again, they just found themselves sitting in contented silence, just staring across the table at one another. Until Cas began to wonder if he may have missed some signal, or if somehow Dean was waiting to be dismissed by him.

“I hope I’m not keeping you from anything,” Cas said after another minute or two.

“What?” Dean asked, sitting more at attention as if he was shaking himself out of some daydream. “Nah, it’s Saturday. I don’t have anything planned, other than probably laundry and maybe hitting the exchange on my way home.”

Cas frowned at him. “Were you supposed to go fishing with your friend Benny?” Even if it pained him to think about Dean spending the afternoon with someone else, probably not even thinking about their breakfast together again, Cas didn’t want to be the cause of Dean disappointing someone else. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from that.”

Dean frowned and glanced at his watch, and then sighed. “He’s probably already taken off by now anyway,” he said, as a slightly sad and apologetic look crossed his face. “Unless this is just your polite way of excusing yourself now. I guess I can take a hint.”

Dean stood up with a groan and stretched his back, and Cas got the distinct impression that he’d said the wrong thing. He also had no idea what else he could say to fix it, and instead just stood up, feeling a little shaky as Dean gave him a sad smile.

“I enjoyed our breakfast, Dean. Thank you again for allowing me to tag along with you.”

Dean looked a little more genuinely pleased at that, but that didn’t really stop Cas from feeling like he’d somehow ruined a perfectly nice morning.

“Glad to be of service, then,” Dean replied, leading the way to the door and giving Elizabeth a little wave as they left. “I got a list of at least a dozen spots around town any newcomer should know about. Next time I run into you off base, we can hit up the next one.”

“That sounds like a plan. Though I never would’ve even run into you today at all if Rufus hadn’t asked me to meet with Bobby.”

Dean headed toward his car, but then stopped. “Yeah, well, now you know Bobby, so if you plan on volunteering over at the CAP, we’re bound to run into each other there again.”

Cas nodded, hoping he looked eager and not desperate. “Oh, definitely. I submitted an official application this morning before you arrived. So contingent on my acceptance, I should be there on a regular basis.”

Dean snorted out a laugh, but that huge smile that Cas knew was just for him had returned.

“Dude, consider yourself accepted. Claire’s been talking you up for years, and if Bobby’s already calling you by your first name, I don’t think he’s gotta do a deep dive on your resume to decide if you’re qualified.”

“I suppose I may be overqualified. It’s been a few years since I’ve taken one up, but I do believe I remember how to handle a Cessna.”

They once again found themselves just standing and smiling at one another. It wasn’t awkward this time, at least. Eventually, a car pulled into the lot looking for a parking spot, and that seemed to shake Dean out of their current trance.

“Uh, yeah, I guess we should go and free up Elizabeth’s lot here for hungry customers,” he said, and then pointed a finger at Cas. “You got your errands to run still, too. Whatever Bobby interrupted this morning.”

Cas shrugged. “Grocery shopping, and then probably sitting in my empty house waiting for my belongings to arrive from Pax River. They shoved me on a cargo transport without my cargo.”

Dean laughed at that. “Yeah, leave it to an airline to lose your luggage.”

“It’s worse when said luggage is all my earthly possessions, aside from my truck and the few things I’d stuffed in it. At least they let me take that as carry on baggage.”

Dean nodded knowingly. “Yeah, that’s the one benefit of flying military class. They don’t charge extra for an oversized carry on.”

“It was my one condition for accepting the transfer here.”

“You must really like that truck,” Dean said, sounding almost fond about it. “I know how you feel. I wouldn’t go anywhere I couldn’t bring my baby here,” he added, patting the roof of his car, and then sighed. “Well, if you need anything, including help moving furniture or whatever when it arrives, you know where to find me.”

Cas nodded, genuinely appreciative of the offer.

“Thank you, Dean. I mean that. This is the first time I’ve moved in more than two decades, and I’m finding it a little unsettling.”

“Well, then I’m gonna make it my job to make sure you feel settled here,” Dean said.

Cas wasn’t sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light, but it almost looked like Dean actually blushed when he said that.

“Okay, then, I guess I’ll head out,” Dean finally said. “You good getting back to base on your own?”

“I might wander around town a bit, and if any of the very large signs pointing the way to Norfolk Naval Base aren’t specific enough to navigate by, I am familiar with several other navigation techniques that may prove useful.”

“You got GPS in the truck?” Dean asked, grinning at him like a loon.

“On my phone, even,” Cas replied.

Dean sighed. “Well, then I guess I’ll see you bright and early Monday morning, unless you need anything else…”

“No, Dean. Not right now. Thank you again, for everything.”

Dean smiled at him, fiddling with his keys. “You have a good weekend then, Cas.”

With that, he got in his car and drove off. Cas stood there watching his car disappear into traffic before climbing into his truck and heading for home. He only remembered as he drove through base security that it hardly counted as a home yet.

Chapter 5

Chapter Text

🛥️

Dean pulled out of the lot at Guidry’s and had three whole blocks to attempt to process anything that had happened in the last few hours. He was apparently on a friendly first-name basis with his CO only a day after meeting him. And all that happened before he’d even come to grips with his earth shattering first meeting with the man the day before. He was just beginning to feel relieved that he had the rest of the weekend to give himself a little perspective on the whole situation, if not figure out how to completely bury the steadily growing feelings he was developing on top of the shock and awe attraction he felt to the man at first sight.

Unfortunately he didn’t have time to deal with any of that before his phone rang. Luckily he was stopped at a red light, or he might’ve steered into oncoming traffic jumping out of his skin when Born on the Bayou blared from his pocket. He allowed himself a couple deep breaths to calm down before answering.

“Hey, Benny, what’s up?”

“Elizabeth just called, said you left her diner, but you might’ve been a little distracted by your company.” Benny’s voice held a little note of mirth in it, and Dean groaned, remembering yet again that he’d been invited to go out fishing that afternoon. “You still up for a little fishing, or do you have other big plans later this evening?”

Dean rolled his eyes, but only because Benny wasn’t there to see him doing it. “I had breakfast with my new CO, Benny.”

Benny was quiet for a moment, like he was deciding whether or not to tease Dean about it anyway, and blessedly settled for neutral to start with. “That’s Claire’s illustrious uncle, right?”

“Sure is,” Dean replied. “Cas is a good dude, everything Claire ever talked him up as. He was up at Bobby’s this morning, and I offered to show him the best breakfast spot in a fifty mile radius. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

“Hmm,” Benny replied, and Dean could picture him looking down his nose at him and stroking his beard knowingly. “Elizabeth said the two of you looked mighty friendly. Like… mighty friendly.”

“We were friendly,” Dean replied gruffly, almost defensively. “You want me to treat my new CO like sh*t on day two?”

“That’s not what I meant, Dean, and you know it.”

“Yeah, well, he’s my CO, so friendly’s all that’s gonna come of it, okay? Just, drop it already.”

Benny clearly heard the frustration in Dean’s voice and took pity on him.

“Well, I didn’t call to torment you, anyway. If you’re up for it, I was about to take off and wondered if you were fit for company for the rest of the afternoon.”

Dean let out a defeated little laugh as the light turned green and he headed up the interstate on ramp. It was easy enough to deflect back to the first part of that offer and completely ignore the second. He was pretty sure he wasn’t fit company for anyone.

“Where were you thinking of heading?”

“Well, brother, that’s a good question. I was thinking up river by Hog Island, but if you’re looking for a little more excitement we could head up the Chesapeake or out around Cape Henry offshore. I hadn’t decided yet. Figured I’d give you a vote if you wanted to come with.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, you just wanna be out on the water and you want me to pick a direction for you to go.”

“Somethin’ like that,” Benny replied. “But no pressure. If you had other plans, I’ll probably just meander around the bay for a few hours and see if anything bites. It’s too nice a day to sit on dry land.”

“Yeah, well, you got me there,” Dean said, getting his last glimpse of the bright blue sky and glorious midday sunshine glittering off the river before disappearing into the tunnel beneath it. “Just drove into the Hampton tunnel, and the view is definitely better from above the water.”

“So are you headed over to the docks, or should I take off without you?”

Dean sighed, gripping the steering wheel tighter and focusing only on the road directly in front of him. “Much as I’d love to just forget the last couple days and head out to sea instead, I gotta feeling I should really stick close to home today.”

“Huh,” Benny replied. “That was one of your more cryptic answers in a good long while. This have anything to do with why you took your CO out to breakfast, because just from the tone of your voice, this sounds like something more than that. Everything okay with your brother?”

“What?” Dean asked as he emerged from the tunnel into the now blinding glare of sunlight. “Yeah, Sam’s fine.”

Dean was about to brag about his brother’s latest achievement, before he remembered how it connected back to everything else that had been troubling him over the last two days. Instead of regaling Benny with a tale of Sam’s diplomatic and scholarly feats, he just sighed, rubbing his temple as he felt a headache coming on. At least he was turning off the highway and almost back to base.

“It’s a really long story, though.”

“And I’m guessing it’s not one you want to tell at sea,” Benny said, understanding completely. “So if you wanna talk about it on shore, I’ll go out and snag us a rockfish big enough to feed a family of four or one Dean Winchester, and I’ll bring it over tonight and we’ll fry it up and you can tell me all about it.”

Dean felt the relief flood through him. Much as a day on Benny’s boat could cure almost any ill, his current situation was more of the brooding in his cave variety. Just hashing it all out over a couple beers and a huge meal felt like the best approach.

“Yeah man, that sounds perfect. I’m headed to the Exchange right now. I’ll get what I need to start a pot of gumbo and some rice. You just give a yell when you’re on the way.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Dean heard the engine of Benny’s boat start up. “I should be back in a few hours.”

“Thanks, Benny,” Dean replied as he turned into the Exchange parking lot and hung up.

He parked, shut off the engine, and then sat there for a minute. Dean closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the headrest, making a low, pained noise, mentally adding aspirin to his shopping list. It was bad enough he was gonna have to make sense enough of the whole situation with Sam and Dick Roman just to convey the depths of f*ckery he was still trying to figure out. Benny was certainly gonna want to know everything about Captain Novak, too. And if Dean could help it, there was no way he was gonna accidentally slip and refer to him as Cas, even if Cas had insisted on it all morning.

He groaned and trudged into the store. It was gonna be a long night. Again.

A few hours later, Benny finally called, letting him know he was ten minutes out and making sure Dean was ready for him. In the intervening hours, Dean had set a pot of gumbo simmering, tidied up the place a bit, and done about half his laundry. Staying busy hadn’t kept his mind from wandering back to Cas and everything he’d learned about the man that morning.

He’d had an eventful career in the Navy, which Dean had already heard about in broad strokes from Claire over the years, but his personal life was another story. Mostly, he didn’t really seem to have much of one, and it had made Dean’s heart hurt to hear him dismiss it so casually as no big deal. Cas had never really had occasion to worry about it, and after hearing a few tales about his social climbing, power hungry family, Dean really couldn’t blame the guy for keeping his distance from all that.

When he hung up with Benny, Dean realized he was still wearing the same clothes he’d slept in at Sam’s the night before, tossed them in the laundry pile yet to be washed and jumped in the shower. Five minutes later, he was back in the kitchen getting the rice started. Benny let himself in a few minutes after that and set his cooler down on the kitchen table. Dean handed him a beer and a filet knife, and without a word he set to work preparing the fish.

“That’s a good looking catch you got there,” Dean said, leaning back against the counter and watching his friend work.

“I thought so,” Benny replied, grinning at him and then going back to his work. “So you wanna tell me what’s got that look on your face, or wait until you get a couple more of those in you first?” he asked, pointing to Dean’s drink.

Dean stood back, giving Benny space at the stove to check everything he’d already made and start frying up the fish. Once Benny gave his stamp of approval to Dean’s gumbo, Dean grabbed another beer and slumped down in a chair. Benny gave him a considering look and then turned back to the stove.

“So this is a sittin’ down conversation. I gotta say, the curiosity has been eating at me.”

Dean let out a joyless little laugh. “Yeah, well, this whole bizarre situation has been eating at me since Thursday.”

“Do tell,” Benny replied.

Dean took a deep breath and dove in. It wasn’t the sort of story he could tell in a straight line, so he meandered around a bit. Of course he started with Sam’s exciting news, because it was the easiest and most straightforward bit to convey. Benny beamed his approval at it all.

“Well, good for him.”

Dean snorted as he and Benny fixed their plates and finally sat down to eat. He waited until Benny had tasted his gumbo and given him his seal of approval before he moved on to the trickier bits of the story.

“Yeah, but right there is where all the trouble with Dick starts.”

Benny nearly choked on his gumbo, and had to cough and clear his throat before he could speak.

“Brother, as an unqualified statement, that is a hell of a thing to say out loud.”

Dean shrugged, feeling ever so slightly better, and waded in to the Dick Roman portion of the evening’s entertainment. By the time they’d finished eating and Dean was getting the leftovers sorted and put away, he’d pretty much exhausted everything to the best of his understanding.

“So you think Dick Roman is up to something dirty with Sam’s archaeology work, that’s somehow related to his sudden desire to get pretty much every military man Sam’s acquainted with on his payroll,” Benny concluded, summing it up as tidily as possible.

Dean shoved the last of the leftovers in the fridge and got out two more beers. He handed one to Benny with a nod toward the sofa. Benny followed, asking the inevitable next question that Dean had been psyching himself up for all evening.

“So how does Captain Novak tie in to all of this? I mean, I assume you didn’t just detour to Guidry’s with him for a pleasant diversion…”

Dean was glad he hadn’t sat down yet, because he froze like a deer in headlights at that, but was able to get himself moving again before Benny had noticed. At least he had a relevant segue that might stave off his actual issues for a little longer. Corporate intrigue and secret government shenanigans were usually good for at least a few minutes’ worth of diversion.

“Yeah, I told you Rufus has been fending off Dick’s advances for a while, and yesterday when he and Bobby were having a little phone conference about it all I got to babysit Novak for a few hours.”

“Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?” Benny asked, giving him a cheeky glance before taking a swig of beer.

Dean wasn’t sure if he’d revealed too much of his other thoughts about Cas in the tone of his voice, or his body language, or if maybe Benny was just messing with him, but he pressed on regardless.

“Apparently after Rufus got the download from Bobby about everything Roman had been up to, he mentioned it to Novak, who was like hey, that guy’s been trying to get me on his payroll too. So he got looped into this whole mess just in case it’s all part of some bigger plan. At the very least, Rufus wanted him to be aware of it all since he’s taking over next week.”

Benny shook his head, and Dean took the reprieve from Benny’s teasing about his disaster of a personal life.

“Now that is a messed up situation to walk into on day one of your new command. How’s he taking it?”

Dean gave a considering bob of his head. “Pretty well, all things considered. They guy seems chill, like nothing ruffles his feathers.”

“Well, that is a quality prized in test pilots. Seems only natural.” After a moment’s pause to let that sink in a bit, Benny turned back to Dean. “That still don’t explain how you ended up taking the man to breakfast, you do realize that.”

“Did you not listen to anything else I said over the last hour?” Dean sputtered out. “I spent the night up at Sam’s, showed up at the CAP expecting to do a full day’s work, only to walk in on their little secret conference. Got invited in, told there was nothing for me to do after all, because we all agreed I’d be an idiot signing a confidentiality agreement with Dick. So when the meeting broke up I asked who wanted to get breakfast. Cas accepted before Bobby and Rufus declined, so what was I supposed to do? Tell my new boss he was uninvited? So we went and had pancakes and pie, okay?”

At the end of his breathless rant, Benny stared at him for a moment or two, and then blinked.

“Cas, eh? First name basis with the new CO on day two? That’s gotta be some kinda record, even for you, Dean.”

Dean made a wounded sound of frustration and slapped his own thigh just a little too hard. At least Benny wasn’t also calling him out on the sheer volume of emotions he’d just dumped out over the guy. If poking at him for using the man’s name was the worst Benny could muster, then Dean would take it, gratefully. Of course he was never that lucky.

“And why do you keep referring to the president of Richard Roman Enterprises as Dick, while we’re on the subject…”

“Dude, that’s his name. That’s what he apparently prefers to be called, and honestly it’s the name he deserves. Dude’s a f*cking eel in a designer suit.”

Benny held up a hand in surrender. “Okay, I get it. He does seem to be up to something, even if I can’t imagine what that might be. Even if it’s just more access to the local bases since he seems to be shifting a lot of his business to the area. Might just be trying to make nice with the locals expecting it to be good PR or whatever with the folks who make big purchase decisions.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain his supposedly generous offer to the CAP, or what the hell he’s doing financing major archaeology expeditions in Iraq. Or why he’s suddenly spending all his free time hanging out at a little charter company at a small airport with like half a dozen commercial flights a day. It’s not like Newport News is a major aviation hub, so why put his business there? Why not Atlanta or Dallas or Chicago, or even Charlotte? Why here? Why now?”

“And why, in the middle of all that, is he throwing himself in the path of everyone Winchester-adjacent with handfuls of contracts and confidentiality clauses? I see your point.” Benny took a long drink and then sighed and stared right at Dean. “Even if that still doesn’t explain the whole Cas thing.”

Dean shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second. He really wasn’t getting out of any of it, even if it was his own damn fault for slipping up and calling him Cas in the first place. Dean polished off his beer and pushed himself up off the sofa, wiggling the empty bottle in Benny’s direction.

“You want another while I’m up?”

Benny examined his still half-full bottle and shook his head. “Long as you’re not just trying to avoid answering the question, I think I’m good for now. Unless the answer is gonna drive me to drinking, that is.”

Dean rolled his eyes and headed for the kitchen. When he returned with two more bottles, Benny raised an eyebrow at him before accepting the offered bottle.

“That bad, is it?”

“I’d switch to whiskey, but it’s already getting kinda late. Plus you’re probably gonna want that sooner or later. Just saves me the trip.”

Benny took the offered bottle and set it on the table beside him while he finished his current drink.

“All right, brother. Lay it on me then.”

Dean took a fortifying swallow and then rubbed one hand over his eyes.

“I’ve never been more glad that Andrea was deployed than I am right now,” Dean muttered under his breath, “Or you’d probably be spilling all this to her before I even figured out what the hell it all means. Just… when you talk to her next, leave my sh*t out of it.”

“Dean, I haven’t talked to her for a week. Don’t you think we got more pressing things to discuss than your sordid affairs?”

“Don’t… say it that way,” Dean protested. “My affairs aren’t sordid, and I don’t have any sort of affair at all with Cas. He’s my commanding officer, for f*ck’s sake.”

“But you do call him Cas,” Benny replied, pointing a finger and grinning at him.

Dean slumped back into the pillows, pouting like a grounded teenager. But Benny really wasn’t wrong, and it was petulant and silly for Dean to keep protesting it. He had to unburden it all to someone, and even if Dean had whined about Benny spilling his secrets to his wife, she was currently on a hospital ship on the other side of the Atlantic. It’s not like she had anyone to tell, either.

“Fine, you really wanna know? Because I sure as hell can’t figure it out.”

“Two heads are better than one, brother,” Benny said.

“Again, Benny, please just… don’t say it that way.”

Benny tapped the lip of his bottle to his temple. “You know what I mean. This ain’t just a display case for my rugged good looks, you know.”

Dean groaned. “Why did I ever tell you I was bisexual?”

“Because I figured it out the third day after we met?” Benny replied, sounding confused before getting back to the point. “You know you’ll feel better if you talk it out.”

Dean sighed, glaring at Benny for another minute before finally getting down to the tangled mess of his own feelings.

“Well for starters, he’s just a weird, dorky little guy,” Dean said, trying to come up with descriptors other than the hottest dude I’ve ever seen.

“That’s pretty much your type, all the way,” Benny said.

Dean chucked the nearest cushion at Benny’s head, and he laughed as he gently tossed it back to Dean.

“I’m just trying to keep it light, Dean. There’s no need for violence.”

“Sorry, man,” Dean said with a sigh. “It’s just, there’s not a lot of people I have that reaction to when I first meet them, you know? And then ten seconds after I lose the power of speech over the guy just from the way he looked at me, Rufus tells me who he is and I just know I gotta crush all that bullsh*t down hard and be a professional. That sucked bad enough.”

Dean paused to take a drink, and Benny took the opportunity to help him clarify. At least, that’s how Benny would’ve put it back when they’d first met. Lucky him, Andrea had been working through her psych rotation at the time, and was practicing all her therapy-speak on Benny. If Dean was truly exhibiting the clarity that Benny had helped him find over the years, he knew he would’ve been grateful for it. But he was still in the murky depths of this conundrum that he just knew didn’t have a satisfying answer for him.

“Sounds like you know exactly what the problem is, then. So what’s got you in this state?”

Dean ran his free hand through his hair and sighed. “Because I could deal with just a hot guy. I was doing fine with it at first. But it’s like he’s got x-ray vision. When he looks at you, it’s like he’s seeing right through you. And even worse, he’s just… f*cking nice. Like a really decent human being. Kinda like a sad, lost puppy who needs a friend.” He paused to take another drink, and sighed again, looking right at Benny. “It’s just a lot to take from one person who’s entirely off limits.”

Benny nodded, finally understanding the depths of Dean’s dilemma. “Because he’s your commanding officer, and you couldn’t do anything about it even if you wanted to.”

Dean just held his hands out helplessly. That was exactly his problem.

“How is this my luck? What god did I piss off in a former life to deserve this, huh?”

Benny snorted out a laugh at that. “No idea, Dean, but I feel for you anyway.”

They continued talking for a few more hours, and Benny had been right. Despite not actually having progressed his understanding of any of his issues, he did feel better having mentally sorted through it all with a trusted friend. Plus, as long as Andrea was at sea, it made Dean feel good to keep Benny company as much as he could. By the time Benny bid him a good night and headed home, they both were in a pretty good mood.

Dean spent most of Sunday just being lazy, eating leftovers and watching whatever happened to be on tv. He was doing his best to follow Benny’s advice to try and just put all of it out of his mind instead of obsessing over it all weekend. It had been a largely successful endeavor, aside from the continual breakthrough thoughts about his beguiling blue eyed boss, but Dean considered that to be exposure therapy and perfectly acceptable. He’s not sure Benny would’ve agreed, but there wasn’t really much he could do about it.

At least, he’d been mostly coasting along like that, finding himself repeatedly obsessing about Cas only to have to crush the impulse to play what-if with it. And then Bobby called early Sunday evening. When his phone rang, Dean had assumed it was Sam just calling to chat, but was equally unsurprised to hear from Bobby. Talking to him would at least hopefully give him a break from constantly having to force himself to stop thinking about Cas.

“Rufus found out whose ship is bringing over Sam’s cargo,” Bobby said without preamble, sounding too delighted about it to bother with the usual pleasantries. “Couldn’t ask for a better captain than that paranoid old coot,” he added with a chuckle.

“Who, Frank Devereaux?” Dean asked, feeling weirdly relieved if he was right.

“Yup. He’s the last guy who’d ever sign up to be on Dick Roman’s payroll, and now that Rufus gave him the heads up to expect the unexpected, he’s on double high alert for shenanigans.”

“Wow,” Dean said, sounding impressed. “Considering Frank’s baseline state is high alert.”

Bobby snorted. “Yeah, he’s sending Rufus hourly briefings with their coordinates, weather conditions, and updates about any weird behavior in his crew. If nothing else, we’ll know the second anything out of the ordinary happens, but so far it looks like business as usual. They haven’t even left the Mediterranean yet, so it’ll be a while before they can chug across the Atlantic and become our concern.”

“Well, I hope his crew doesn’t consider mutiny before that.”

“Nah,” Bobby said. “Most of them adore the guy. They know he’d throw down for every last one of them, he’s got all their backs, and just expects the same from them in return.”

Dean just made a noise of approval. Frank was not an easy person to get to know, but once he had your measure, he was a loyal, decent, if deeply weird guy. But Bobby was also right. There was no one better suited for helping them dodge whatever scheme Dick Roman was cooking up.

“You know Bradbury’s serving as his communications officer now, right?”

“What, Charlie left Rota? I thought she loved Spain.”

Bobby sighed, grumbling under his breath. “I figured you of all people would know that, since you talk to her all the time. But yeah, she was doing three months with Frank, and then coming back here. Though with Sam’s delivery, it looks like she’ll be here a lot sooner than that.”

Dean was silent for a moment, wondering why one of his best friends wouldn’t have told him she was coming back stateside and he had to find out in an offhand comment from Bobby. “I talked to her a couple days ago, and she didn’t say sh*t about it to me.”

“Well I only learned it from Rufus five minutes ago, and he only learned it from Frank. He was kinda sore you didn’t tell him yourself, but it looks like there’s a good reason for that.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, rolling his eyes as he cracked open a beer. “If Rufus was sore, imagine how I feel?”

“Dean, don’t you dare call up Charlie just to bite her head off. First off, it’s like two in the morning where she is. And second, if she didn’t tell you, she’s got a real good reason. Either it’s national security, or last minute.”

Dean snorted. “Last minute what… two weeks ago? At least? Yeah… that ship has sailed.”

“And it’s still sailing,” Bobby reminded him. “With Sam’s ancient treasures and a couple of innocent bystander archaeologists aboard. So go easy on her. She’s got an important mission.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean relented, sighing and rubbing his eyes. “She could’ve told me. But if anyone tries anything shady on that ship, between Charlie and Frank they’re in for a world of hurt. So I guess there’s that.”

Bobby laughed, and if Dean didn’t know him so well, he’d think it sounded menacing. “There is that.”

After they hung up, Dean stood leaning against the kitchen counter staring at his phone for a minute. Bobby told him not to call Charlie and harass her, but he didn’t say anything about not texting her. So Dean did.

<<Hey Red. Just found out from Bobby, who heard from Rufus, that you’re on Frank’s boat now. Did the whole picking up your entire life thing just slip your mind?

Much to Dean’s surprise, Charlie actually messaged him back almost immediately.

>>WHAT?! DAMMIT. Frank was supposed to keep that secret!

<<You do know that Frank hates secrets.

>>IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A SURPRISE, DEAN. SURPRISE I GUESS.

Dean stared down at his phone, grinning. Charlie rearranged her entire life, pulled up all her roots, and jumped on a ship to show up in Norfolk just to surprise him. Well, he couldn’t really be mad about that. It was just such a weirdly Charlie thing to do.

<<Well the only thing Frank hates more than secrets is surprises.

>>I am finding that out the hard way.

<<I don’t know if there’s an easy way with Frank.

They chatted back and forth for an hour or so, but at least they were finally caught up on the situation on both sides of the Atlantic. Charlie loved Spain, but she’d always known it wouldn’t be a permanent move. When Frank requested her specifically, she jumped at the chance to spend a few months at sea, knowing eventually he’d be landing back in Norfolk. Dean nearly spit out his beer when he read that, but finally just called her instead of yelling in his kitchen to himself.

“MONTHS, Charlie? When did you leave Spain?”

“Uh… June?” She replied meekly.

“Charlie, it’s September now. You were just gonna let me think you were still in Spain all that time?”

“I mean, technically, I already did that. But if I told you, then it wouldn’t be a surprise when I knocked on your door bearing gifts next week.”

“Wait, gifts?”

“Knew that would get you,” Charlie said, and Dean could hear the grin in her voice. “Yes, gifts. I’ve got like four years worth of souvenirs I’ve been collecting for you. Though maybe I should save them for Christmas, I mean, you waited this long for them, what’s another few months? It would save me having to shop for you again—”

“Fine, okay,” Dean said, finally cutting her off. Her point was made, though. “Yeah, you’re the only gift I need, okay? Just get home safe. And sorry your surprise got ruined right before you could spring it.”

“Aw, thanks Dean. Though I think I need to kick Frank’s ass, at least a little for this one.”

Dean snorted. “Sure, but wait until you make port so I can help. And so he doesn’t chuck your presents overboard just out of spite.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Charlie said, then paused to consider that for a moment. “Would he really do that?”

Dean shrugged, taking his drink back to the sofa. “I heard he jettisoned some dude’s laptop in the Black Sea once. Never got a straight answer as to why, but I wouldn’t risk pissing him off aboard his own ship.”

“Fine. It can wait. But he’s gonna feel like a real jerk when I hand him a present he’s gonna love and then toss it overboard in port.” After another second, she groaned. “No, I can’t do it. He can have the stupid candy I bought for him in Basra.”

“You’re a gem, Charlie.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I also don’t have an ETA on Norfolk yet. We’re apparently making good time, but our location and heading is classified, so all you get is a vague soonish.”

“I get it. Just keep an eye out for anything weird or suspicious, I guess. And keep Frank in the loop on it all. He’s truly your partner in paranoia.”

“So I’ve learned,” Charlie replied. “He’s doing daily meetings with the entire crew. Everyone’s on high alert. And unless someone’s throwing messages in bottles overboard, all communications on or off have to go through me. So if someone is planning some elaborate heist on the high seas, I’ll hear about it.”

“Thanks, Charlie. Sam’ll be relieved his crates full of old rocks are in such good hands.” After a moment’s consideration, Dean tacked on, “And his grad student, too.”

Charlie snorted. “Kevin? Yeah, he’s a smart cookie. I’ve been trying to lure him to join my D&D campaign. He sits in and watches us play, but he brings his laptop and spends the whole session working on his thesis instead of actually participating. But at least he’s being semi social and not locking himself in his quarters. That’s the fastest way to turn yourself a little strange at sea.”

“Yeah, been there, done that,” Dean replied, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Worst case scenario, sit him up on deck for at least an hour a day of sunlight and fresh air.”

“Heh, will do,” Charlie replied, and then yawned.“Take care, Dean, and see you real soon.”

“Can’t wait. Night, Charles.”

After he hung up, Dean realized he’d been so overwhelmed by their entire conversation, he hadn’t even thought about Cas for over an hour. Probably because he was very careful not to bring him up to Charlie in the first place. It only hit him as he got up to toss his empty bottle and get ready for bed. Charlie would be back soon enough, and he hoped by then he would’ve gotten his infatuation with Cas out of his system.

Until that happened, there wasn’t anything else he could do but suffer through the redoubling of his mind’s efforts to torment him about it in his dreams all night long. And it was a very long night. Though the chances he’d be stuck spending the entire day with Cas were really slim to none, and that thought buoyed him when he finally let himself get out of bed after tossing and turning most of the night. There really wasn’t anything else he could do about it, other than hoping for the best. Maybe in the cold light of day when they were both busy with their respective work, he’d find a way to just be normal about the man.

Yeah, that was about as likely as Dick Roman offering him a million dollars a year to retire.

✈️

Cas eventually found his way back to base after watching Dean drive away from the diner. He meandered around town for a while, letting himself get lost a few times just to learn his way around. He parked in front of his empty little house and dragged the few bags of groceries he’d bought inside, wondering if he should call Claire and see if she was busy for dinner. He didn’t really have a way to cook any of the things he’d bought, other than the microwave dinners, since his pots and pans were all still in transit, but it would be nice not to just sit alone with his feelings for the rest of the weekend.

As he was putting his things away, trying to decide which cupboard to store his new jar of peanut butter in, his phone rang. For one slightly insane moment he hoped it might be Dean, until he remembered he hadn’t even given the man his number. Though he could’ve gotten it from Claire, he assumed as he searched the kitchen for where he’d put the phone down. By the time he found it behind the box of corn flakes he’d shoved to the corner of the counter, he answered it without even looking to see who was calling, and nearly dropped the phone when it wasn’t Dean’s voice he was greeted with.

“Castiel, I hope you’re settling in,” Rufus said. “Thought you should know, your earthly possessions should be arriving Tuesday, and the crate should be in your driveway by 1400 hours. I arranged for them to bring the keys to your office, or my office… our office for the next week. So if you need a day off to get unpacked, or any manpower to help you move furniture or whatever, let me know and I’ll arrange it for you.”

“Thank you, Rufus,” Cas replied. “I don’t have much, but help would be greatly appreciated. It’ll be nice not to have to sleep on the floor.”

Rufus snorted. “You know you could sleep on my couch. Pretty sure Winchester’s got a pull out bed for when his brother visits, too. I don’t think he’d mind a temporary house guest. Hell, the sofa in the office ain’t bad, either. At least let me loan you an air mattress. Sleeping on the floor is not a requirement.”

Cas laughed, only a little nervously at the prospect of calling Dean and asking to camp out in his home for a few days, but mostly at Rufus’s apparent horror at his sleeping situation.

“I do have an air mattress, which is also serving as my sofa and dining room table for now. Claire has also asked if I needed a place to stay until my possessions arrive. If I get truly desperate, I’ll just check in to the nearest motel for a night. I think I can survive until Tuesday.”

Rufus made a noncommittal noise. “If you’re sure…”

“Yes, thank you, I’m sure.”

While he put everything away and picked out a frozen lasagna to microwave for dinner, Rufus caught him up on the rest of the afternoon’s developments. It was a quantity of information overwhelming enough to help him forget the momentary horror of actually asking Dean to spend a few nights on his sofa. That could prove to be too awkward for his career to survive.

It was going to be difficult enough having to work with Dean every day, and unfortunately the rest of the weekend didn’t make it any easier for him to work through his shockingly overwhelming feelings.

Chapter 6

Chapter Text

🛥️

With their Dick Roman issues temporarily tabled and Frank and his classified delivery estimate still out in the vaguely unforeseeable future, Dean was able to enjoy a relatively easy Monday at work. Yeah, Cas was there and they had to interact several times— including Cas meekly knocking on his office door at 0700 sharp to ask for a cup of coffee— but they kept it both professional and cordial, by Dean’s estimation. Maybe he just wasn’t awake enough for anything else. Tuesday morning was another story.

Cas showed up at his office again, looking even more bedraggled and exhausted than he had the previous morning. When his boss struggled with the stack of paper cups beside his coffee pot, Dean got up and dug a big travel mug out of the cupboard and dumped half the pot of coffee in it for Cas.

“I’ll put on a fresh pot if that’s not enough,” Dean told him, handing the mug to Cas. “Just wash it and bring it back when you’re done. Gotta keep it handy for emergencies just like this,” he said with a sympathetic grin.

Cas just sighed, closing his eyes as he took a long sip. “I swear I’m not usually this useless in the morning. It hasn’t been easy settling in here when the only furniture in my house was designed for camping.”

Dean stared at him for a second, blinking in horror. “Wait, you mean you don’t even have a decent bed to sleep in?”

Cas shrugged. “Nor a chair to sit on, or a table to eat at. But everything is supposed to arrive today.”

“Well, okay, then. Soon as I can get through with inspections today, we’re gonna get you set up right,” Dean said before his brain could override his impulse to be helpful. “I can probably snare Benny into helping, too. Get all your stuff outta whatever shipping container they probably parked on your front lawn so you can at least get a decent night’s sleep tonight. I know it’s not really my place, but uh… you’re looking a little rough.”

Cas laughed, a miserable little sound. “You shouldn’t have to do that, Dean. You’ve already done a lot for me. And Benny, your fishing buddy? He doesn’t even know me at all. I couldn’t ask that of him.”

Dean made a dismissive sound and waved a hand as he turned back to his desk. Cas didn’t have to know how much Benny was already aware of him. And Benny certainly wouldn’t say anything to Cas about it, either. But if he wasn’t busy with something else, he wouldn’t be opposed to giving them a hand.

“If he’s not on duty today, he won’t mind. His wife’s still deployed, so he gets a little lonely and weird if I don’t find new and interesting ways to keep him distracted.”

Cas just stood there drinking his coffee for a moment while thinking over Dean’s offer. Eventually he sighed, as if defeated.

“I guess I don’t really have the luxury of declining your assistance. I was able to pack up some of my things, but the rest was all cleared out of my former house after I left. I doubt I’d be able to move some of my furniture alone.”

“Dude, there’s no way you can move a whole-ass bed by yourself. Just take the help. Consider it a housewarming gift, or a thanks for not being a jerk of a boss gift, or whatever.”

Cas laughed at that, looking relaxed for the first time in days. “Well, thank you, Dean. I guess you can come find me when you’re free, and we’ll see how many of my earthly possessions have been damaged in transit.”

Dean choked out a laugh at that. “Yeah, I guess I’m pretty lucky. I was stationed here right out of basic training and moved in with two duffel bags and a couple boxes. It all fit in my car. I didn’t even own a bed yet. I’ve never had to move actual stuff before. I’m really not looking forward to retirement. Might just leave everything behind and start over instead of trying to pack it all up.”

“I honestly considered it when I was told I was being transferred here. It just seemed like less hassle to let them move everything for me than having to go shopping for furniture while trying to deal with everything else.”

Dean just nodded at that. He might joke, but he loved his bed and wouldn’t willingly part with it. The longer he stood there staring at Cas, the more he realized there were a lot of things in his life he wouldn’t willingly part with. He loved his work, his friends, and he was just comfortable with the life he’d built for himself. And now Cas was in it, and maybe they really could just be friends too, even if the thought of that hurt his heart just a little bit.

He sighed, slumping down in his chair and picking up his own forgotten coffee. “Okay, then. I got a few reports to fill out here, and an osprey that needs a full inspection. Then I’m all yours for the rest of the day.”

Dean cringed as soon as the words had left his mouth, but forced what he hoped didn’t look like a pained smile.

Cas sighed. “Thank you, Dean. Rufus assured me the delivery would be there shortly after midday, so take your time. There’s no rush.”

“Yeah, as long as we get all your stuff indoors by sundown, you can worry about everything else after a decent night’s sleep.”

“I’m genuinely looking forward to it,” Cas said, turning to leave with this coffee.

Dean let himself stare at his doorway for a few minutes after Cas left, then finally shook himself off and got to work. The rest of the day went far too quickly, and he hadn’t even bothered to stop for a break yet when Cas wandered into the hangar to find him finishing up and signing off on the osprey’s inspection report.

“Rufus just handed me a key to the shipping container on my front lawn and told me to vacate the premises until I had suitably reassembled my life,” Cas said, making finger quotes.

Dean looked up from his work, blinked at Cas a few times, and then glanced up at the clock on the wall.

“Damn, is it already after three? I haven’t even eaten lunch yet.”

He caught Cas frowning at him as he dropped everything on his workbench and pulled on his jacket.

“Well, I’m going to head home. If you’re still willing to help, you can meet me there when you’re ready. Or else I can order pizza. I do believe that’s the traditional payment for moving assistance, at any rate.”

“That it is,” Dean agreed. “And it’s fine with me. I just need your address, or I guess I could follow you if you’re going right home from here.”

“I, uh… actually walked in this morning,” Cas said, looking contrite. “It’s not far, and I couldn’t sleep for obvious reasons, and I guess I wasn’t really thinking. I was hoping maybe you wouldn’t mind driving me back.”

Dean stared at him for a second and then laughed. “You walked all the way here? Dude, at least get yourself a scooter or something if you don’t want to drive around base.”

Cas grumbled out, “That has been entered on my to do list.”

“Then let’s get this show on the road. I can already smell Tony’s pepperoni.”

Cas wasn’t wrong. It was only a two minute drive to his little bungalow, only a few blocks from Dean’s place. But walking around base when he didn’t have to seemed like an unnecessary hassle to Dean anyway. Dean pulled up on the street behind Cas’s truck, since the shipping container took up his entire small driveway. Dean looked at it warily, and then shut off the engine and turned to Cas.

“Please don’t tell me that entire thing is full.”

Even Cas was giving it a look of horrified surprise, and shook his head slowly as he turned toward Dean.

“I don’t think that’s possible, unless it’s completely stuffed with packing peanuts or those little air pillows they fill shipping boxes with. I definitely do not own that much stuff.”

“Huh,” Dean said, staring at the full-size shipping container. “Maybe they were out of small boxes.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” Cas muttered under his breath as he opened the door and got out of the car.

Dean stood beside him as Cas unlocked the big doors at the back of the container, making a comment that Cas was probably lucky they loaded it in the driveway with the doors pointed at the house.

“Buddy of mine transferred here from San Diego a few years back, and they dropped his with the doors facing the street. Had to carry everything he owned around the whole container to get it in the house.”

“Small favors, I guess,” Cas said as he wrestled the big doors open and they swung back, revealing the container was barely half full.

“Well, this is a better situation than I’d been imagining,” Dean said, strolling down half the length of the container and working a couple of dividing bars free and setting them aside. “You got an order of preference, or just start at the front and work our way to the back?”

“That does seem most practical,” Cas said, picking up the top box and noticing it was labeled “KITCHEN” in black marker. He turned it around to show Dean. “And rather conveniently self-explanatory.”

Dean grabbed another box marked KITCHEN and tested the weight of it. “Probably dishes and stuff, huh?”

Cas grinned at him, set his box down, and pulled out his phone, handing it to Dean. “Uh, speaking of dishes, you probably know the local pizza places better than I do, if you’d like to place the order.”

Dean set his box down and pulled out his own phone. “Yeah, and I got Tony’s on speed dial.”

By the time they’d made it through the kitchen stuff and moved on to the boxes labeled BOOKS, their pizza had arrived. Seeing as how they hadn’t quite reached the furniture, they sat out on the front steps of the house enjoying the late summer afternoon while they ate. As they were finishing up, Dean’s phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket while trying not to fumble his last slice of pizza and only just managed to answer it before it went to voicemail.

“Bobby, what’s up?”

Bobby sighed on the other end of the line, and Dean could picture him in his office rubbing his temple just from the tone of that sigh. “I take it you’re not coming in to the CAP tonight?”

Dean checked his watch, remembered it was Tuesday, and grimaced at Cas.

“Uh, I guess not. Was there something urgent that needed doing?”

“No, not tonight, but in the next day or two, if your social calendar ain’t too full. We got an official request for an escort patrol, the details of which I’m not at liberty to divulge over the phone, is all. I just assumed I’d see you in person. Hell, even your brother made a trip down for this news,” he added, which told Dean pretty much all he needed to know about the nature of the escort they’d been asked to provide.

“Hey, Dean,” Sam said, sounding like he was halfway across the room from the phone.

“Yeah, Sam says hey,” Bobby repeated, in case Dean had missed it.

“Hey to you too, Sam,” Dean said, now giving a very confused looking Cas an almost equally bewildered frown. “Sounds like I’m missing a major family event.”

Bobby sighed again. “Just be sure you stop in tomorrow, at least. I guess I should make a courtesy call to Rufus and Cas, too. They might wanna hear about it, and it’ll be easier just to have to say it all once.”

“I don’t know about Rufus, but Cas is sitting right here,” Dean said, and then to Cas added, “You think you can swing by the Civil Air Patrol tomorrow afternoon? Bobby’s got something to share.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Cas said.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Dean repeated for Bobby.

“Does your new boss have you working this late?” Bobby asked Dean.

“In a manner of speaking,” Dean replied, and then sighed. “I’m helping him move in and you caught us during the obligatory pizza break.”

Bobby was silent for a moment, and then in a much quieter voice said, “You sure you should be getting so friendly with your C.O.?”

Dean made a scoffing noise, but gave Cas an awkward glance before shuffling his plate off his lap and standing up. He walked out toward the street, holding up a finger toward Cas letting him know he’d be right back and making like he was going to grab something out of his car. It was the only way he could think of to get out of accidentally saying something regrettable where Cas could hear him. Once he’d reached the street, he turned back to see Cas collecting their plates and taking them into the house, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Bobby, you know I’d help Rufus move without him having to ask, too, right?”

“Uh huh,” Bobby replied. “So I take it the two of you had a nice time at breakfast the other day, too?”

Dean let out a frustrated grumble and tugged at his hair as he paced back and forth along the length of his car. He knew he wasn’t fooling Bobby, but he at least had to try to get past his own damn wayward feelings.

“The guy’s been here for all of what… five days? He knows a grand total of four people in town and I’m the only one who showed up to help him. So, yeah, it’s probably a good idea to be a decent human being to my C.O.”

“Hmm,” Bobby replied completely unhelpfully. “Just… don’t do anything stupid, Dean.”

“And that, as always, is excellent advice,” Dean replied grumpily. But after a moment of letting himself feel completely grumpy about it, he took a deep breath and blew it out. He stopped his frenetic pacing and leaned against the back of his car, his forehead in his hand. “I’m doing my damnedest, Bobby. I really am.”

On the other end of the line, Bobby softened and sighed. “I know you are. At least try to hold out on any career ending idiocy until the end of the week. We got too much sh*t going down as it is.”

Dean laughed at that, feeling invigorated after yet another bout of self-flagellation. “Yeah, hopefully.”

“All right then, I’m gonna go see where Sam wandered off to, and I’ll see you tomorrow. And Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Lift with your legs,” Bobby said, and then hung up.

Dean stood there for a second, then stared at his phone for another. He finally snorted, shoved it in his pocket and headed in to find Cas. They had a lot of work to do.

Claire showed up just a few minutes later, just in time to handle all the throw pillows while Dean and Cas struggled to get the sofa through the front door. While Claire watched on, directing and critiquing their interior decorating.

“Maybe you should put it over under the window so you can put the tv up against the other wall?”

“Maybe you should be grateful it’s all the way indoors,” Dean replied, standing up and rubbing his aching back.

“I’m grateful that the living room is directly inside the front door, and not down a hall and around another corner or two,” Cas added, flopping down on the sofa with a groan.

“Up and at ‘em, buddy,” Dean said, slapping Cas’s shoulder as he headed back toward the door. “We still gotta wrangle the mattress through the front door.”

Cas heaved himself up with a groan. “Can we just throw it on the floor in front of the sofa? I can sleep here tonight.”

Claire snorted at that. “Uncle Cas, I respect your lack of interior design skills, but we’re not gonna let that happen.”

She patted Cas on the back more gently as they got back to work. It took some doing, and Benny showing up an hour later to help with the rest of the furniture, but eventually they got Cas’s place into some semblance of order. Claire eventually convinced them all to rearrange the living room to her liking, mostly because it was also the only way all of Cas’s bookshelves would fit in the space without having to completely block the front window with them.

“The feng shui of this place isn’t bad,” Claire said, standing back and admiring her work as she shelved books.

“It does feel cozy enough,” Benny added in agreement. “Might need a houseplant or two, but it’s livable.”

Cas came out from the kitchen with drinks for all of them, and handed them out before dropping back onto the sofa and rubbing his own beer bottle across his forehead a few times.

“I can’t thank all of you enough,” he said, looking to each of them in turn. “Especially you, Benny. Claire is family, Dean’s just sucking up to his new boss,” he said while rolling his eyes at Dean. “But you’ve never even met me before today. Dean asked for your help, and here you are. You’re an excellent friend.”

Benny squirmed a bit at being called out. “Well, shucks. Dean said you were a quality guy, and Elizabeth confirmed it for me. And Claire’s been talking you up for years. That’s all I needed to know.”

“Yeah, that and Andrea won’t be back home for what, another week? You like keeping busy.”

“It was certainly better than sitting home alone,” Benny confirmed, raising his bottle in a toast. “I’ll drink to that.”

Claire leaned in toward Cas, with a nod at Benny. “We all take turns keeping him occupied while his wife’s off saving lives.”

Cas squinted at that. “All I’ve managed to learn about you is that you’ve known Dean for years, and you’re fishing buddies.”

Benny grinned at Cas, and then at Dean, and then settled back in his chair. “Long story short, I train salvage divers, so I don’t venture far from home anymore. Andrea’s afloat as often as she’s home. She’s a surgeon on the Solace, and currently en route home.”

“Yeah, and he gets worse when he knows she’s getting close,” Dean added. “The anticipation is a bitch.”

“She’s been gone six months, Dean,” Benny replied in a huff. “I got a right to miss my wife.”

Claire grinned at him. “I’d miss my wife, too.”

“Yeah, but your girlfriend works on base. You don’t gotta miss her much.”

“I miss her right now,” Claire said, getting to her feet. “I told her I’d be home before nine.”

“First off, I’m surprised you didn’t bring her with,” Dean said. “And b, you just wanted an excuse to get home to watch your weird demon hunter show, didn’t you?”

Claire picked up her jacket and walked toward the door. Before she could open it, she turned back to Dean.

“Cas hasn’t even met Kaia yet. Forced manual labor didn’t seem like a great way for their first introduction to go. And my weird demon hunter show? Since you always seem to have an opinion about what those boys have gotten themselves into on the latest episode, I don’t think you have a lot of room to stand there and judge, Dean.”

Cas got to his feet to see Claire out. “I am looking forward to meeting Kaia. Once I get everything unpacked,” he gestured around at the stacks of boxes cluttering every available flat surface, “I’d like to have you over for dinner.”

“We’d love that, Uncle Cas,” Claire replied, smiling fondly at him. “I can come back tomorrow and help you get things sorted some more, if you’d like.”

Dean actually answered, “Don’t forget we gotta head up to the CAP tomorrow afternoon, Cas.” He only felt weird about his interruption when he realized Benny was giving him a funny look. “Or, uh, I guess I could tell Bobby you had a family thing, if you’d rather hang back here. He’d understand.”

Cas sighed. “Dean’s right. I did make a promise already.”

Claire took all this in stride. “Thursday, then, if you still need help. Just give me a call when you know what’s what.” She gave him a quick hug and then let herself out.

“I should probably get going too,” Benny said, getting slowly to his feet. “I gotta take six divers out for deepwater maneuvers, and we leave at oh four hundred.”

“Can’t have you dragging ass in front of the kids,” Dean replied, and Benny ignored him completely.

“If you all got your schedule fixed up for tomorrow, I think I’ll offer to cook for my sister.”

Before Dean could even open his mouth, Benny rounded on him like he knew what Dean was going to say from long experience. “And I’ll bring you back a slice of pecan pie.”

Dean just sighed. “Thanks, Benny.”

When he was gone, Dean sat there finishing off his beer and looking around at everything they’d accomplished, and everything still left to do. He shoved down the impetuous urge to offer to help Cas unpack. It still felt wrong to leave him there alone in a sea of boxes, but it also was definitely not even in the neighborhood of appropriate to just insert himself into Cas’s life that deep. He kept reminding himself that while he was undeniably on friendly terms with Cas, they weren’t really friends. At least, not yet. And if his feelings for the guy happened to spill out, he could land himself in a much larger pickle than just damaging a potential friendship.

He sighed, and then pushed himself to his feet, setting his empty bottle down beside Claire’s and Benny’s.

“I guess I should be heading out, too,” he said, as Cas just stood there staring at him again.

“Oh, yes, right,” Cas stammered out. “I suppose it is getting late. Thank you again, Dean. I sincerely appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

Dean smiled at him and hoped it didn’t look as crazed as he felt on the inside. “Any time, Cas. If you need anything at all, you know where to find me.”

“I suppose I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

Dean had a moment of panic trying to parse what he meant, and then realized he was talking about work and not some breakfast date. Because they weren’t dating, even if they’d already shared more morning coffee than the last dozen people he’d actually dated. “Right, coffee. See you then.”

He gave Cas an awkward wave and then practically bolted out of the house before remembering he’d left his uniform jacket draped over a stack of boxes in the kitchen. Dean physically ran into Cas turning back so quickly and had to catch him by the shoulder to keep him from stumbling backward over the stack of boxes that Claire had emptied already. That unfortunately left them all but pressed up against each other, staring at each other in shock as they caught their breath.

“Uh, sorry about that,” Dean muttered as soon as his higher brain functions kicked back online. A nervous laugh escaped in the wake of it.

“No, no, it’s fine. You didn’t know I was behind you.” Cas squinted at him, like he was trying to figure out exactly how they’d wound up like this, standing breathless face to face.

Neither one of them moved.

For just one insane sliver of a second, Dean thought he was about to lean in the last two inches and plant a kiss on Cas. Or maybe Cas was about to plant a kiss on him. Either way, it was a terrible, wonderful, absolutely horrible idea, and also as good as dumping a bucket of ice water over Dean’s head.

“I forgot my jacket,” he said lamely, releasing Cas’s shoulder to gesture vaguely toward the kitchen.

“Can’t have you out of uniform,” Cas replied, equally vaguely, and then shook himself off enough to get his feet moving.

Dean just stood there watching him go, and was still standing there when Cas returned with his jacket. He couldn’t be sure, but it had felt like an excruciatingly long time to just stand there. It was definitely more than past time to leave.

“Here you are,” Cas said, holding out his coat at arm’s length and doing his finest impersonation of a smile.

Dean blinked at it for a second, and then reached out and took it. He looked back up at Cas, wringing the stiff fabric between his hands.

“Heh, thanks. I guess I’ll just go now,” he said, as if trying to convince himself of that fact and kick himself into actually doing it.

Dean turned on his heel and headed back toward the still open door. As he made his way across the front lawn, he could’ve sworn he heard Cas sigh just before the door clicked shut behind him. He stopped before walking around his car and looked back at the house for a minute, then sighed himself and shook his head, muttering see you tomorrow under his breath as he climbed behind the wheel and headed for home.

✈️

Cas paced around his house, half-heartedly poking through boxes while mostly feeling shaky and detached. He was supposed to be settling in, but he’d never felt more unsettled, including the time the single engine in his old Cessna stuttered to a halt twenty miles offshore. At least he knew what to do in the air. When it came to Dean Winchester, he was apparently far more than twenty miles out of his element.

Had Dean actually been about to kiss him? Worse yet, had he actually been about to kiss Dean? He had to be mistaken, right? They definitely got along well, which Cas also acknowledged as the understatement of the decade. If only his most persistent thought about Dean hadn’t been if only I wasn’t his commanding officer…

Cas found himself standing in the kitchen staring at the pile of boxes he’d retrieved Dean’s jacket from, resisting the urge to see if he could still pick up Dean’s scent from the cardboard. It was definitely embarrassingly uncalled for that he’d actually paused in the kitchen for a moment to hold the jacket up to his face and take a few deep breaths before taking it back to Dean. He'd picked up the grease and metal scent of the hangar where Dean had been working all day, the old sun-warmed leather scent of Dean’s car, and the spicy, woody smell that was Dean himself.

I am his commanding officer, dammit.

Cas switched off the light and headed toward his bedroom. At least his bed was assembled already, even if he hadn’t unpacked any of the other boxes enough to locate sheets and pillows and blankets. They’d been helpfully labeled, but it almost seemed like more trouble than it was worth to actually unpack it all that late at night. He only bothered to dig out his pillows and a blanket that he wrapped around himself like a cozy burrito before flopping down on the mattress. It was a definite step up from his temporary air mattress, at least. He’d be able to toss and turn in relative comfort while attempting to banish his obsessive thoughts about Dean.

He’d nearly drifted off when he sat bolt upright upon remembering that he’d promised to go with Dean the following afternoon to meet with Bobby. He wasn’t sure he could cope with the half hour drive each way, alone with Dean. And he wasn’t sure he had a reasonable objection to give Dean for refusing to drive together.

Cas slumped back down into his pillows, hoping he’d at least be able to get a decent night’s sleep before having to deal with any of it. Despite the exhaustion of a very long day topped off with the intense six hour workout of moving everything he owned, it didn’t really seem to be in the cards.

Chapter 7

Chapter Text

🛥️

Cas was already in his office making a cup of coffee when Dean got there the next morning. He hesitated in the doorway for a second before taking a deep breath and facing his fate. Unfortunately he was gonna need coffee to cope with it. He’d slept terribly, and from the looks of him, Cas hadn’t done much better.

“Morning,” Dean muttered as he moved up beside Cas and reached for the coffee pot.

There were a lot of things he could say, but none of them sounded even remotely appropriate. Even the most innocuous, like sleep well? or did you get settled in all right last night? felt uncomfortably personal. He just couldn’t disconnect any of them from the awkwardly bewildering and inappropriately arousing last few minutes before he’d fled Cas’s house. Luckily Cas spared him having to come up with a topic of conversation.

“Good morning, Dean. I was wondering if you had any aspirin. I haven’t been able to find mine yet.”

Dean just grunted around the sip of coffee and then swallowed. “Figured you’d have a first aid kit handy, but yeah, hang on.”

He rummaged around in his desk drawer and came up with a bottle. He tossed it to Cas, who gratefully swallowed a couple before setting the bottle back on Dean’s desk.

“I believe I overexerted myself last night,” he said with a pained smile.

“Yeah, same. But at least now you can take it easy with the rest of the unpacking,” Dean replied. “All the hard sh*t’s done.”

“No, all the large sh*t’s done. The hard sh*t is figuring out how to arrange everything in my new cupboards, versus just leaving everything in boxes until I need something and then desperately trying to find it.”

Dean snorted. “Yeah, I get that. I’ve been here almost nineteen years and I still got a couple boxes shoved in the back of my closet with ancient crap in ‘em. I should just take it all to Sam and have him excavate it like one of his archaeology digs at this point.”

Cas actually laughed at that, and Dean just stood there and watched him. It was like the rest of the world just stopped completely for a few seconds, and the only thing happening was Cas’s quiet laughter. He cleared his throat and shook himself off, forcing himself to strangle the warm feeling in his chest before it had a chance to spread. Dean still had to get some work done before they had to leave for the CAP. Which reminded him, he needed to hammer out those plans with Cas, too. He’d been dreading it all night.

It was one thing to drive for a couple of minutes from the hangar to his house. It was something entirely different to be stuck in the same car for half an hour each way, with no means of escape and nothing to do but share each other’s company. But it would be rude to just go without him, especially without even talking to Cas about it. There was also every chance Cas would let him off the hook.

“So I was thinking of leaving around 4:30 for Bobby’s.”

Cas narrowed his eyes for a second, and then nodded slowly when he figured out what Dean was talking about. “That sounds reasonable.”

“Yeah, figured I’d ask if you wanted to ride with me. I might have to stay for an hour or two if Bobby needs me for anything. Might stop at a burger joint I like up that way afterward.”

Dean once again forced himself to stop talking. He wasn’t supposed to be making it more enticing for Cas to want to join him. He definitely wasn’t supposed to be turning the entire drive into some sort of weird date, or not-date. Definitely not a date. Just two friends getting burgers. Because it’s completely okay and normal to be friends with your commanding officer. There’s nothing inherently inappropriate about having dinner together. He’d had dinner with Rufus more times than he could count, after all.

Only after standing there having a panic attack about all of that did Cas finally respond. If Dean hadn’t been too busy with his own conflicted thoughts, he might’ve noticed that Cas seemed just as nervous. But by the time he spoke, he’d also pulled himself together, just a little.

“That also sounds reasonable. There’s no reason to take two cars if we don’t have to, and I do enjoy a good burger.”

“Okay then,” Dean said, dropping into his desk chair like his knees had given out on him. “I guess I’ll see you around 4:30. I’ll probably be in the hangar finishing up.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Cas replied, still standing there like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to leave. He sprang into action a moment later, topping off his coffee mug and then giving Dean an awkward little toast with it as he hurried for the door.

Dean completely deflated the moment he was gone. It was like his brain could function properly again while not distracted by Cas’s presence. It didn’t really do much to stop the cavalcade of untoward thoughts and feelings, but at least the threat of saying something completely stupid out loud to him had been temporarily averted.

Dean shook his head at himself, then gathered up the day’s work orders and his coffee and set off to get it all done.

He spent most of the day anxiously watching the clock. After lunch, he threw himself into his work to avoid obsessing over Cas, but while waiting for the oil to drain out of an engine or sorting the parts he needed for his next task, Dean still repeatedly caught himself drifting back toward those dangerous thoughts. As the time drew nearer and he’d finished up for the day, he spent the last ten minutes scrubbing his hands clean and psyching himself up for the long drive in the mirror above the sink.

“Just put on some tunes, chill, and then by the time you get to 50’s Burgers you’ll have whatever Bobby wants to see us about in person to talk about anyway,” he muttered at his reflection while leaning on the sink.

When that didn’t work to calm his nerves, he leaned forward, hands braced on the counter, stretching out his back and shoulders, groaning as his spine cracked. Of course, that’s the moment Cas chose to walk in.

“I’m not interrupting anything,” he asked, hesitating in the doorway.

Dean finished his stretch, pushing backward with one foot, and then the other. Somehow it felt less weird to make it look like some sort of organized exercise routine to Cas than to awkwardly attempt to come up with another explanation. He finished by stretching out his shoulders, clasping his hands behind his back and then swinging his arms around. It didn’t do much for the tension, but it did give him another minute to pull himself together.

“Nah, I’m ready to go. Just didn’t want to sit and drive for half an hour without moving around a little first.”

Cas frowned at him as Dean walked past him toward the door. “Don’t you move around all day long?”

Dean turned back and snorted from the doorway. “Different kind of moving, Cas.”

Cas thought about it for a second, and then nodded. “Like stretching after a five mile run.”

Dean banged one hand against the door frame and then pointed at Cas. “Exactly like that. Though good luck trying to catch me running. Come on, let’s get going.”

Cas followed him out to the car and climbed into the passenger seat. Dean popped in a Zeppelin tape and let it play quietly enough so Cas wouldn’t think he was trying to avoid talking to him, but loud enough to fill up the silence just in case. They were already headed toward the highway before Cas spoke again.

“So were you implying that you’re too fast a runner for anyone to catch?”

“What?” Dean asked, glancing briefly at Cas before merging into traffic.

“You said good luck trying to catch me running. Was that some sort of challenge?”

Dean snorted, and gave Cas a longer glance, grinning this time.

“I hold my own in a foot race, but if you actually see me running, you should probably run too, because it means the building’s on fire or something is about to explode,” Dean clarified.

Cas sat there with that information for a few moments, and when Dean glanced at him again he looked like he was struggling to process that information. Eventually he got there.

“So you don’t enjoy running.”

“Does anyone?”

Cas shrugged. “I do. It’s relaxing.”

Dean shook his head, merging into the next lane over and speeding up. “My knees said running wasn’t relaxing anymore about ten years back, and I listened to them.”

“Condolences on your knees, then,” Cas replied, and when Dean looked back at him again, he was stifling a laugh.

Dean just shook his head, shoving down the urge to grin at Cas. “Man, you got one weird-ass sense of humor.”

“It’s been said, yes.”

“Yeah, I just said it,” Dean replied, finally losing the battle against grinning. And it was so worth it watching Cas bust out a full-on belly laugh.

The rest of the ride was both better and worse. Better because the tension he’d been holding in finally dissipated. There was nothing awkward about their conversation. They just allowed themselves to have fun in the little private bubble of Dean’s car. He always knew she was a little bit magical like that. But it was also worse, because they both let that careful construct of commanding officer and subordinate completely dissolve. Dean may have been grateful not to revisit the dangerous situation he’d found himself in the previous night, but he could clearly see how easy it would be to just drift over that line they’d found themselves perched on in that frozen moment if he were to let his guard down completely. He just really liked Cas far too much.

Before they knew it, they’d arrived at the CAP, still laughing at the last round of silly comments they’d made. Dean had been once again teasing Cas about his dislike of boats, and the irony of a Navy Captain avoiding sailing at all cost, while Cas got in a few good-natured comments about Dean’s adamant refusal to board any of the aircraft he worked on all day long.

“Well at least we can both appreciate a good car,” Dean said, patting a hand on Baby’s roof as they climbed out.

He grinned at Cas across the roof and was unfortunately pulled away from fully enjoying Cas’s return smile by a commotion across the parking lot outside Wellman Air next door. It looked like Edgar was about to slug some guy, and the only thing keeping them both from going for the world heavyweight title right there on the spot was the receptionist Hannah leaving for the day. The guy Dean didn’t recognize stared Edgar down for a moment before turning on his heel and then storming off toward his car. Edgar watched him go with a disgruntled sort of satisfaction, and then turned to notice both Dean and Cas staring back at him. Dean gave him a little wave of acknowledgement, and then he and Cas exchanged a glance and they both made a beeline for the door. There was a silent, mutual agreement that whatever had gone down next door was none of their damn business.

Dean stood outside the door for just another moment to make sure Hannah had made it to her car unscathed, and she gave him a grateful little nod as she backed out of her spot. She looked out for him often enough, it was the least he could do to return the favor. He returned her nod, and then followed Cas inside.

“You boys see a ghost?” Bobby asked as they hurried through the door.

“Nah, just Edgar having a screaming match with some asshole in a mid-level suit in the parking lot,” Dean said. “If the dude decides to commit attempted vehicular homicide, I don’t need to be a witness to that.”

Bobby grunted, then turned toward his office. “Good, because we got enough problems as it is without adopting the neighbors’.” He turned back for a moment and nodded at Cas. “Good to see you again, Captain.”

The title threw both Dean and Cas for a second, after Bobby had been using his actual name the other day. Dean took it as the warning Bobby intended it to be when Bobby gave him a pointed look before heading into his office.

“Shut the door behind you and take a seat,” Bobby said, bypassing all other pleasantries. “You both got security clearances for this, but nobody else in the building does.”

“There’s someone else in the building?” Dean asked, stopping to shut and lock the door behind him.

“Front door’s unlocked, so yeah, we got a few kids working through the Cessna course in one of the classrooms.” Bobby thought about it for just a second and then made a face at Dean. “Just sit your ass down already so we can get this over with before that ship pulls into port.”

Dean had just dropped into a chair and slumped back, and then sat bolt upright at that.

“Wait, the ship with Sam’s junk on it? It’s almost to port?”

Bobby sighed and sat heavily back in his own chair. “Not due until Friday, but they’re getting close enough Rufus and I have been doing regular patrols to keep an eye on the area around them. Strictly off the books.”

“I take it there’s been nothing untoward?” Cas asked, casting a concerned glance at Dean.

“Not that we could see, and that’s the problem.”

“So, what, you think Dick’s got a stealth submarine or something waiting to attack?”

“I wish,” Bobby replied. “Got a couple weird messages from Frank yesterday, and one a lot less weird, but still weird enough to be worrisome, from Charlie this morning.”

“Start with Frank, then,” Dean replied. “It’s always good to start at wackadoo and then get actual facts later.”

“Frank’s not wackadoo,” Bobby replied, reconsidering. “At least not in this case. One thing we got in common is a healthy sense of paranoia, even if Frank doesn’t always get it right the first time around.”

“That’s an understatement,” Dean replied, then explained for Cas. “Dude’s absolutely convinced the March of Dimes is a front for some huge government conspiracy.”

“Will you just shut up and let me get through this?”

Dean clamped his mouth shut and gave Cas a conspiratorial glance, like they were naughty school children sent to the principal for misbehaving. Only Cas still looked bewildered. Dean figured he’d understand once he met Frank, and had to let it go for now.

“A couple sailors seemed off on Sunday night. Frank thought maybe they’d somehow gotten contraband aboard and they’d missed it in the sweeps they’d been doing of the whole ship.”

“Contraband?” Cas asked. “Like alcohol?”

Bobby shrugged. “Or drugs, Frank didn’t seem to know. He just knew they weren’t acting like themselves. Listless, mostly. One of his men went so agro they locked him in his quarters until he calmed down.”

“And they never found anything?” Dean asked. “Seems kinda improbable, considering Frank’s standard paranoia level for that sort of sh*t.”

Bobby shook his head. “Everyone was fine by sunup, passed their piss tests and everything.”

“And knowing Frank, he went to DEFCON 1 about it.”

“Everyone on that ship now has a partner keeping track of everything they do, on and off duty. Failure to report in gets an automatic review.”

“Yeah, sounds like Frank.”

Bobby snorted. “He was convinced that something oozed its way out of the ocean and possessed his crew for a few hours, and then slunk back into the water before they could catch it. Gave ‘em all blood type tests to confirm their identity, in case his crew had been swapped out with replicants. He went on about the Bermuda triangle for a while before I got him back to talking sense.”

Dean let out a quiet laugh. “I’m sure Charlie has a more measured view of what happened?”

“She thinks it was some kinda food poisoning,” Bobby replied. “She didn’t mention that to Frank out of concern he’d lock the ship’s cook in the brig until they made port, and she was sure the crew would mutiny if they cut off food service for three entire days.”

“And that’s it?” Dean asked. “I mean, that could happen on any boat. It has happened on a lot of boats. Couple bad cans of beans and everyone’s gone paranoid about it? What gives?”

“Charlie’s worried it was just a test run,” Bobby replied. “Or maybe a failed attempt.”

“Attempt at what?” Dean and Cas said in unison, and then glanced at one another before turning grimly back to Bobby, who sighed heavily.

“They had another round of odd behavior out of a different group of sailors last night. Same deal, though. Just shirking their duties and acting stoned. Hit ‘em all while they’d been on duty for a couple hours, so it’s not like they could’ve sneaked off to get high, and it was an hour before dinner so none of them had eaten recently. If it’s food poisoning, it’s nothing I’ve ever heard of before.”

“I assume Charlie’s made spreadsheets about it though,” Dean replied with a smirk. “Figured out where they were, who they were with, what they ate and touched.”

“Yeah, and none of it’s giving her any answers. They didn’t eat together, hadn’t interacted with the same people, in some cases were on different decks. It’s like someone is deliberately infecting them with something, and Charlie can’t figure out how.”

“No way Frank’s got a mole on his ship. He woulda figured that out in five minutes flat.”-

“Would he, though?” Cas replied. “I mean, Dick Roman has been extending his reach far wider than any of us had known about before the last few days. It seems everyone suddenly has a story about how they were approached for recruitment into Roman Enterprises. Perhaps one of Frank’s crew thought it was an offer too good to refuse.”

Dean snorted and sat up, thinking he was about to explain how Frank would’ve seen right through that, but he stopped himself and turned to Bobby.

“Who exactly is on that ship? The crew, yeah. But there’s civilians on board too, right? Some archaeologist, and Sam’s nerdy little sidekick, at least?”

“Several,” Bobby replied. “There’s Kevin Tran, the grad student who works for Sam, and their Iraqi colleague Sam’s been working with on this for like a decade now. Plus they got someone from the university overseeing it all. Some busybody type who mostly keeps everyone else from messing with the cargo, according to Charlie.”

“And none of them have been hit with the munchies yet?” Dean asked.

“Until today, it was only enlisted sailors who went down. Charlie’s been surviving off her hoard of candy she picked up in Istanbul a couple weeks back, and that much sugar is not doing her any favors, even if she thinks she’s protecting herself from whatever’s going on.”

Dean shook his head imagining Charlie working through a constant sugar rush and feeling a little glad he wasn’t there to witness it. Or deal with her like that. He leaned back in his chair to really think about it. “Sounds like someone onboard is running psyops on them. Are they sure they’re not in some f*cked up simulation experiment?”

“Charlie hasn’t written it off as a possibility.”

“Frank I expect it from, but Charlie?”

“Charlie sent a message about an hour ago that they had another outbreak. Half the crew is down with it now, with several repeat performances. One of Sam’s colleagues went down with it, too. The university’s representative and general busybody. She’s making a minor stink about it, too. And another sailor went batsh*t and got in a shouting match with a porthole. Threatened to punch it so hard its mother would feel it.”

“Imagine giving birth to a porthole,” Dean replied, shuddering, which earned him a couple of rightfully judgmental glares from Cas and Bobby. “Right, not the point,” he added, clearing his throat. “Maybe one of Sam’s funky rocks is cursed?”

“The entire crew and cargo should be quarantined,” Cas said, not exactly dismissing Dean’s latest suggestion, but redirecting it into something they could actually work with. “Just in case whatever is happening on board is contagious.”

Bobby grunted. “Right now, that’s the plan. The Solace is en route to rendezvous with them offshore to evaluate the situation. But since the cargo is already an international news story on its own, even if the vessel and route are classified, it’s not like we can just keep a whole-ass military cargo ship quarantined off Norfolk very long before someone starts asking questions.”

“So they’re gonna need to work quick,” Dean replied. “And until then, there’s not really much we can do, is there.”

Bobby nodded. “Sam’s pretty shaken up. The university rep on board is the button pusher who makes the money go for his department, and if this minor international incident turns into a major political debacle, the fallout ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Dude, it’s not like Sam’s a sick mastermind behind some biological terrorism thing here,” Dean argued. “It’s just his name on the shipping labels. That’s like my mailman blaming me for giving him the clap just because he happened to have my mail in his truck.”

Once again, Bobby and Cas both stared at Dean, and he squirmed in his seat.

“I ain’t got the clap, okay? And neither does my mail. And far as I know, my mailman’s fine too. That’s why the metaphor works,” he grumbled.

“Okay, then,” Bobby replied, dismissing all of that like he was trying to unhear it too. “You two now have all the information I do. I was gonna take a pass out over the S. S. Disaster Zone and see what I can see if either of you would care to join me, but aside from that there’s really not much more I can tell you for now. And nothing I told you leaves these four walls. I technically wasn’t even supposed to tell you anything. Figured you deserved to know.”

“Thanks, Bobby,” Dean said. “Sam shouldn’t have to stress over all this on his own.”

“Yeah, he’s relieved to know you know about it all. But you still probably shouldn’t talk to him about it over an unsecured line.”

Dean nodded. “Got it. We’ll just use code. And I’m definitely taking a pass on a three hour tour of a potential hot zone, so if Cas wants to play lookout for you at five thousand feet, I’m gonna head on over to 50’s Burgers to pass the time until you get back or meet your untimely demise.”

“Another rousing show of confidence from my chief of avionics,” Bobby muttered. Louder, he said, “Didn’t expect anything else from you, Dean.”

“If Dean’s going for dinner, then I think I’ll join him,” Cas said, slowly standing up. “I don’t like to fly on an empty stomach, and I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Yeah, we can’t let you starve, Cas,” Bobby said. “I’m just waiting for Claire to get back to report in, and then I’m heading out. You all go and enjoy the food,” he added, glaring at Dean as he got to his feet, as if to remind him not to enjoy it too much.

Dean froze halfway to his feet, took a deep breath, and then stood and turned to find Cas waiting patiently, if not a little confused by that exchange.

“I’d bring you something back, but it’ll probably just congeal waiting for you. Nobody likes cold french fries.”

Dean grinned at Bobby, and then gave him a terse nod to say message received. Received, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep having less fun than he’d like to be having with Cas. It wasn’t entirely in his control, and that thought in itself was enough to hold him in check, at least for now.

Chapter 8

Chapter Text

🛥️

“Okay, get it outta your system now,” Dean said once he and Cas were back in the car.

Cas just looked at him, still a bit bewildered, and Dean sighed, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s not like we can sit in public chatting about any of that,” he said, pointing back at the hangar door as if Cas could’ve forgotten the last half hour of their lives already. “So if you got urgent commentary, you got about ten minutes to let it out.”

Cas sat silent for a moment, and then added, “We could always talk about it after we eat, as well. It honestly might take that long for it all to assimilate and make any sense.”

Dean snorted and started the engine. “Soon as you meet Frank, it might start making a little more sense.”

“Does he often encounter such unusual problems?” Cas asked as Dean backed out.

Dean paused before shifting into drive and just gave Cas an amused look before proceeding. “If he didn’t, he’d invent them for himself. He’s a pretty creative guy.”

Cas was quiet again for a few minutes while Dean drove. Eventually, he’d evidently processed enough to come up with something that nobody else seemed to have hit on yet.

“What if the entire episode is a diversion?”

Dean had become complacent driving in silence, and for just a second he had no idea what Cas was even talking about. “Episode” unfortunately triggered the part of his brain that was secretly obsessed with Dr. Sexy MD, and yeah, he was sure the latest episode had been a diversion to put the brakes on a relationship that was getting too hot and heavy too fast, but he was equally sure that was not what Cas was trying to discuss with him. He just frowned at Cas and grunted. Cas shifted in his seat and elaborated for him.

“What if the suspected food poisoning incidents are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. If Dick Roman really is trying to meddle with something, what if the only way he could do that was to detain the ship in quarantine offshore until a medical team could clear them to come into port?”

Dean considered that. “You think he wants the delivery delayed for some reason? Wasn’t this supposed to be some sort of big deal for him? Why would he want to put on the brakes now?”

“Publicly, yes, it’s a big deal for him,” Cas replied. “A grand altruistic gesture he can capitalize on. But what is he trying to gain from this personally?”

Dean thought back to his first chat with Sam about it all. They both thought Roman’s sudden interest in archaeology and his high profile dealings to not only bring that entire shipment of goods right to his backyard, but right into the lab of someone he’d just made that extremely generous and highly public donation to. At the same time, he seemed to be attempting to recruit anyone in the Air Force or Navy that had even the loosest connection to Sam or Dean himself. It was an awful lot of suspicious timing. Dean didn’t get to say any of that before Cas spoke again.

“He makes his fortune from the military, from acts of war, and yet his public face is always using that money and power for what appear to be altruistic acts. Yet if you look closely enough, he always seems to have his own reasons for the money he spends. Like the offer he made to Bobby. It seemed so generous on the surface, but in making that grand gesture, he intended to buy Bobby’s silence, and yours as well.”

Dean nodded as he turned into the restaurant’s lot and found a spot to park. He turned off the engine and then turned to Cas. They definitely needed to finish this conversation before getting out of the car and walking out in public.

“We’re thinking about this backwards,” Dean said. “We assumed he was trying to win us over, to recruit all of us, but that’s just a distraction, too. He wants something in one of those crates, and he wants to get his hands on it before Sam can.”

Cas nodded slowly. “That is a possibility that seems dangerous to overlook, yes.”

Dean took a deep breath. “Probably too late to run back and give Bobby the heads up on it since he’s probably out over the ocean already, and there’s not really anything Sam can do about it, so we’re gonna have to take it to Rufus.”

Cas glanced forlornly over his shoulder at the restaurant. The smell of burgers and fries had permeated the car, and Dean’s stomach growled at him to do something about that. He smirked at Cas and then opened his door.

“Which we’ll do as soon as we’re done eating. Nobody should have to deal with this sh*t on an empty stomach.”

“I’m sure it’ll keep for an hour or two,” Cas agreed, getting out of the car.

It probably wouldn’t have been an issue for them to keep talking about Dick Roman since it was seven o’clock on a Wednesday night and the restaurant was deserted. They sat alone at an outdoor table and enjoyed the crisp evening air and a couple of fantastic bacon cheeseburgers. Instead of Dick, they talked about a hundred other little things that had nothing to do with anything other than resuming their now familiar dance around their feelings.

Dean talked more about his childhood with Sam, and Cas answered with stories of his life growing up in his power and status obsessed family where Dick Roman would’ve fit in better than he ever did. They diverged into the topic of what they each did for fun, and Dean was shocked to discover that Cas also had a mildly unhealthy obsession with Dr. Sexy MD. Dean laughed his ass off when Cas admitted it, and Cas was momentarily offended.

“Human drama is endlessly fascinating,” he argued while Dean cackled. “Especially the contrived intensity they manage to exceed in each successive season.”

Dean wiped his eyes and shook his head. “Dude, I’m not laughing at you. Just, in the car when you said something about the episode being a diversion, all I could think about was Dr. Meganopolis faking the cancer test results to try to win back Dr. Sexy from the nurse of the week. It all felt like a diversion to keep their relationship on the back burner while they push this dumb face transplant arc. Took me a second to remember you weren’t talking about Dr. Sexy.”

Cas just blinked at him and then laughed. “Well, maybe that is what I was talking about.”

Dean sat there finishing off his fries and just enjoying listening to Cas vent about the latest run of episodes. It only added to his problems, though. As enjoyable as it was, it was just more evidence to throw on the growing mountain of proof that he was falling way too hard and far too fast for Cas. As much as he wanted to just let that happen, to just let himself have that, he realized he was finally beginning to settle into the acceptance that this was all he was allowed to have with Cas. This friendship would just have to be enough for him.

The weirdest thing was that despite their undeniable chemistry, Dean was already growing to value their blossoming friendship too much to want to put that at risk in pursuit of anything more. It wasn’t easy to resign himself to that, but Dean’s imagination was more than enough to sustain him, especially now with this renewed sense of hope that maybe eventually he’d be able to get over his longing for something more with Cas.

None of that stopped Dean from longing for it, though. Quite the contrary. The more he learned about Cas, the more he wished things could be different between them, but also the more he valued the fact he was able to know Cas at all. And it was both wonderful and the worst thing in the world.

When they were finished eating, Dean pulled out his phone and called Rufus as they walked back to the car.

“What do you want?” Rufus asked when he answered, and Dean caught the surprised look on Cas’s face and did his best to hide his grin.

“You at home?” Dean replied.

“No, I’m in Monte Carlo playing baccarat. Of course I’m at home.”

“Cas and I will be there in twenty,” Dean said, and hung up as he climbed behind the wheel.

Cas was still standing outside the car staring down at Dean. Dean leaned over until he could see Cas’s stunned face.

“You getting in, or would you rather walk?”

Dean started the engine as Cas sat and shut his door, giving Dean a funny look he only noticed when he turned to back out.

“What?” Dean asked absently as he focused on driving.

“You just issued an order to your commanding officer like it was nothing.”

“You gonna write me up for insubordination?” Dean asked, teasing Cas, but there was a thread of tension there like maybe he finally did cross a line that Cas couldn’t abide. “Because Rufus ain’t gonna do it.”

Cas just slowly shook his head, and when they pulled up at a red light Dean finally realized that Cas was doing everything in his power not to start laughing out loud. Dean rolled his eyes and sighed.

“I told you I’ve known Rufus since I was a kid. Trust me, he prefers the no bullsh*t approach.”

“I believe that’s evident now, yes,” Cas replied.

They pulled in to Rufus’s driveway just over twenty minutes later, and Rufus was on his porch waiting for them.

“You’re late,” he said, and went into the house leaving the door open for them. “So what’s so urgent it couldn’t wait for tomorrow?”

He sat down at his kitchen table and waited for Dean and Cas to sit across from him.

“And is this gonna require whiskey to swallow?”

“Probably not,” Dean replied. “We just came from the CAP.”

Rufus nodded. “Bobby filled you in on all the bullsh*t then. You sure this wouldn’t go better with whiskey?”

“Maybe by the time we’re done,” Dean said. “We were wondering what Dick Roman’s involvement in… like… everything lately is really about.”

“He’s taken an interest in all of our lives lately, and we all assumed he was trying to recruit us specifically for some reason, but what if all of that is a distraction?” Cas asked. “What if he really wants access to the cargo on that ship before Sam can take delivery of it?”

Rufus nodded. “Yeah, we wondered if maybe he’d managed to get some sort of contraband packed into those crates. Smuggle something in under the guise of it being just another innocuous old rock from an archaeological dig. But the crew that packed the crates swears up and down there’s nothing unaccounted for in any of them. And they had eyes on them from both the Iraqi culture minister and someone from the State Department. They didn’t want any misunderstandings about what was leaving the country on an American military vessel.”

“No, maybe he’s not smuggling anything. What if he just wants something in one of those crates for himself?”

Rufus stared at Dean for a second. “Are you accusing Dick Roman of international antiquities theft?”

“Well he ain’t technically stolen anything yet,” Dean replied, and then laid out all the details he and Cas had put together, from the fact he’d financed the entire expedition, to the scanning equipment he’d generously donated to Sam’s department, to pressing all of them with either outright offers of recruitment to work for him or otherwise attempting to secure their silence through other legal means. It was a rather compelling pile of evidence.

“So you think he’s trying to cover all his bases?” Rufus asked. “And when none of us took the bait to join Team Dick, he’s somehow resorting to poisoning the crew by telepathy or something?”

Dean slumped back in his chair while Cas answered.

“We haven’t exactly figured out that part yet.”

“Yeah, and telling Frank he might have a Dick Roman sleeper agent on his ship ain’t gonna help anyone.”

Rufus nodded solemnly. “Yeah, that’s definitely for the best. But one way or another, we need to find out if anyone on that ship is on Roman’s payroll.”

“Yeah, creating a mild panic aboard ship, just enough to get it quarantined, keep it out at sea for a few days, is all they’d need to do,” Dean said. “They might not even know what Dick has planned.”

“If we’re not prepared to interrogate Frank’s crew,” Cas said after the three of them had sat there grumbling about it for a few minutes, “then what about the crew of the hospital ship scheduled to rendezvous with them? If Dick really is behind all of this, it’s possible that someone onboard is prepared to steal whatever it is Dick wants.”

“Yeah, who better to do that unnoticed than someone going aboard with a bunch of bulky medical gear supposedly scanning for contamination or germs or whatever they do,” Dean replied. “I mean, they must at least carry those little doctor bags they could cram a rock or two into.”

Rufus gave him a level look. “You been watching too much Doctor Sexy again, haven’t you, boy. That sh*t will rot your brain, son.”

Dean was afraid to glance at Cas for fear he’d break out laughing, and pushed on. “Maybe, but if Roman couldn’t get one of his lackeys past Frank, and couldn’t get someone here on base to do his dirty work either, then maybe this was his plan C.”

“He still would’ve technically had to get at least one lackey past Frank,” Cas replied. “Someone on that ship is drugging the crew with something.”

“Or someone with a connection to Dick that everyone’s been overlooking,” Dean replied, pulling out his phone and calling Sam.

“Hey, Dean, how’s it going?” Sam asked.

“Don’t say anything you can’t over an open line,” Dean replied. “But what’s the name of the bean counter traveling with your cargo?”

“What? Uh, why?”

“Just the name, Sam.”

“Gloria Jane.”

“Thanks, Sam. I gotta go, but I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Sure thing. Just make it less weird next time,” Sam replied.

Dean snorted. “Here’s hoping.”

“How do we find out if Gloria Jane is somehow on Dick’s payroll?” Dean asked. “I mean, at minimum, she’s the one who accepted his generous donation and is holding all the purse strings on Sam’s department. At the least, she might be getting a nice fat kickback from all of that.”

“Not to mention what the publicity around it all could do for her career,” Cas added. “She stands to gain a lot from the success of the whole project regardless of whether Dick is writing checks to her.”

“Or setting up a nice Swiss bank account for her,” Dean grumbled out. “Probably wouldn’t take much for her to spike a few drinks under the guise of delaying delivery for a few days to hype it up even more in the media, or for the logistics of making sure everything’s in place to transfer it all securely back to the university,” Dean added.

Cas gave him an approving nod, like he was impressed that Dean had come up with such a tidy solution.

“She may not have any idea what Dick is actually planning,” Cas added.

“You two do know that we don’t have any idea if he’s planning anything at all either. For all we know, we’re just concocting wild and unfounded conspiracy theories about the man,” Rufus said. standing up. “I think I need that drink now.”

He poured himself a shot of whiskey and didn’t even offer any to Dean or Cas. Neither of them complained. Drinking didn’t seem like it would make it any easier to come to terms with the fact that there might not actually be anything weird going on at all.

“Either the two of you got yourselves wound up tighter than Frank, or you’re closing in on stopping a major international incident. And honestly, I’m not sure which is worse.”

Dean and Cas looked at each other in mild panic. Had they really invented this entire scheme just because Dick Roman is that big of a douchebag? Dean momentarily wondered if it was some sort of psychological break from the double whammy of meeting Dick and Cas both within twelve hours of each other. Maybe his little mind couldn’t handle that sort of overload and generated this entire conspiracy to keep him distracted. No, he waved one hand to cancel out that line of thinking.

“Something ain’t adding up with that guy, Rufus,” Dean insisted. “He wants access to whatever’s in those boxes bad enough that he’s already spent a few mil to bring it all stateside. If it was really an international goodwill gesture, he could’ve just donated all that lab equipment to the team in Iraq instead of moving the whole haul into his backyard.”

“He wouldn’t get to be the smiling face of all this groundbreaking discovery if he did that,” Cas argued.

“Don’t play devil’s advocate with me,” Dean replied. “I thought you were on my side here.”

“I thought you were on my side,” Cas replied. “Since it was my idea in the first place.”

Dean closed his eyes and took a deep breath before replying. “Yeah, you’re right, sorry.”

Cas didn’t let him wallow in that too long, at least.

“But if we’re attempting to accuse a well known and powerfully connected private citizen of this sort of crime, then it seems prudent to be sure that an actual crime is being committed, and not just imagined.”

Dean shrugged. He couldn’t really argue with that.

“But regardless,” Rufus said, interrupting their latest round of just staring at one another, “it would be stupid not to at least quietly do a little background check on the folks who will be boarding Frank’s ship tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Dean asked. “I thought it wasn’t due here until Friday?”

“You are familiar with how boats work, right? They move around the ocean and do their business way out there. The Solace is set to rendezvous with Frank tomorrow evening.”

“Huh, well first off, Benny will be happy to know his wife’s that close to home,” Dean said. “And B, that don’t leave us a lot of time.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have stopped for burgers,” Cas muttered.

“You stop it with that crazy talk,” Dean muttered back, and Cas grinned at him. Dean turned back to Rufus. “You got someone who can do a quick and dirty background check on that crew?”

“Yup,” Rufus replied, picking up his phone and sending a series of texts. After a few minutes, he set his phone down, folded his hands on the table, and then looked back and forth between them as if he was waiting for them to share additional information. “We done here?”

Dean and Cas exchanged a nervous glance. There really wasn’t anything else they could do.

“I don’t suppose you’ll give us a heads up if your top secret source uncovers a vast conspiracy of Roman moles on the Solace,” Dean muttered, and Rufus just raised an eyebrow at him and took another sip of his drink. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“All this is interfering with my easy retirement,” Rufus said after another moment. “I will tell you that I’ve been ordered to remain in my post until further notice, so someone up the chain is taking this seriously.”

“I suppose that’s as much as we could ask for,” Cas replied, knowing that if all of this had happened just a few days later it would’ve fallen squarely in his lap instead of landing on Rufus. Somehow, he couldn’t regret being one rung removed from the official chain of command yet. “I don’t envy the position this has put you in, but I’m grateful for your help now.”

Rufus sighed and set his glass on the table. “Off the record, I’m positive the two of you are on to something here. I’ve been side-eyeing Roman for a while now, and if this is the thing that finally takes him down, the Navy will be better off for it.”

“Feels a little like getting Al Capone for tax evasion, but after meeting the guy, I’ll take it,” Dean replied. “I kinda had the urge to mop the floor when he left.”

Rufus snorted and grinned at Dean approvingly.

“So that’s where we are, then,” Cas said, and then sighed as he got to his feet.

Dean patted one hand on the table and then stood as well. “Guess I should get you back to your truck, eh? It’s getting kinda late.”

Cas glanced at the clock hanging above Rufus’s back door and frowned. “It has been a very long day, yes.”

“I trust you can see yourselves out?” Rufus said, picking up his phone again. “I got a couple more calls to make to follow up on this mess.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dean replied, reaching into his pocket for his keys. “See you tomorrow. And thanks for hearing us out and not just writing the whole thing off.”

“You just gave me an excuse to do what I’d been wanting to for months. Actionable intelligence, even if the intelligence part of it is up for debate,” Rufus replied. “Now get out of my house.”

Dean stood up straight and gave Rufus a proper salute before turning on his heel and heading to the front door. Cas followed behind a moment later, and as soon as the door clicked shut behind them, Dean made him an incredibly impulsive offer.

“If you want, I can just drop you at home, and then pick you up again tomorrow morning before work if you’d rather not bother picking up your truck tonight.”

Cas watched him for a moment as they walked down the sidewalk to Dean’s car, and then nodded. “That works for me, if it’s not too much of an inconvenience for you.”

Dean grinned at him. “Not a bit.”

And that’s where Dean went from incredibly impulsive and tipped over the line into flat-out idiotic territory. In his defense, he wasn’t entirely sure what came over him. Maybe it was just the calm smile Cas was giving him across the roof of his car, or the consequence of too much intensive speculation— or borderline conspiracy— that pushed him into recklessness. Maybe he just wasn’t done trying to mentally hash it all out, either. He opened the door, but before he could slide behind the wheel, he stopped and his mouth started working before his brain could fully engage.

“If you want, we could swing by my place on the way. It’s only a couple blocks from here, and I could offer you the drink that Rufus didn’t. Plus I got half a pie in the fridge if you’re a late night snack kinda guy.”

When Cas just stared at him, unblinking, Dean felt his cheeks going warm and mentally beat himself over the head as he quickly climbed in the car and shut the door. Unfortunately Cas was also climbing inside, and that temporary escape from complete humiliation wasn’t destined to last. They just sat there, both staring straight ahead, even though Dean still hadn’t started the engine.

Dean was finally about to break the suddenly uncomfortable silence when Cas turned to him looking resolved.

“All of that sounds pleasant, and would be most welcome.”

Dean heaved a relieved sigh that almost immediately rebounded into panic territory when it fully registered what Cas had actually agreed to. It wasn’t like he could back out now, so he girded himself and started the engine.

“One shot of whiskey, and one slice of pecan pie coming right up,” he muttered, shooting Cas a nervous glance before resolutely heading for home.

Chapter 9

Chapter Text

🛥️

There really wasn’t anything else for them to discuss. They’d had the last four hours to squeeze every bit of theorizing out of their systems, and even if they did suddenly stumble over new information, Dean recognized that he was just too tired to dive back into all of it anyway.

An unmercifully short time later, he pulled up in front of his home and shut off the engine. The tension inside the car was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw, and he glanced over to see Cas looking equally at a loss and at least as nervous as he felt. Weirdly, it sort of helped. At least Dean wasn’t alone in the feeling.

“This is my place,” Dean said dumbly, pointing at the little townhouse he’d lived in for the vast majority of his adult life.

“I assumed so,” Cas replied, nodding absently and staring at the front door instead of looking at Dean.

Dean was mildly relieved by that. Like it was a short reprieve from having to actually look at Cas again. Or worse, for Cas to look at him again. He took the opportunity to get out of the car while he could, leaving Cas to follow behind him a moment later.

He flipped on lights as he trudged through to the kitchen, and called out to Cas to make himself comfortable on the couch. Dean returned a moment later with the whole pie pan, a couple forks, a bottle of whiskey and two glasses with ice. He set it all out on the coffee table, and then sat heavily down beside Cas with a nervous grin.

“I can get plates if you want, but honestly I feel like this is the exact right amount of effort to put in to this after the day we had.”

Cas snorted and picked up a fork. “This is fine with me.” He took a bite and groaned at the taste, and then noticed the pie was baked in a proper ceramic plate. When he was done swallowing, he looked up at Dean pouring them drinks. “Did you make this? Because it’s just as good as Elizabeth’s was.”

“Yeah, because I gave her my grandmother’s recipe,” Dean replied with a smirk as he handed Cas a glass. “I stress bake.”

“Did you make this last night?” Cas asked, taking another bite and then looking directly at Dean, like he knew the answer. “I’m surprised you had the energy for it.”

Dean’s heart pounded as he froze with a bit of pie halfway to his face. “Uh, yeah… yeah I did. I guess I stress eat, too. Breakfast of champions, right?”

“You ate half a pie on your own,” Cas absently said, cutting another bite out with his fork. “I’m concerned for your nutritional intake.”

Dean was left staring at the bit of pie on his fork feeling entirely too exposed. As far as he knew there wasn’t an easy way to go back in time five seconds and just be normal about serving the pie and keep his mouth shut. He definitely couldn’t go back to before he impulsively asked Cas over. Or worse still, all the way back to last week before he’d ever met Cas and could just abstractly think of him as Claire’s weird uncle he’d likely never meet. The realization that things were balanced on the precipice of already being slightly awkward but tolerably normal between them and precariously close to falling face first into the land of no take backsies. His heart was pounding for no reason at all, and he was pretty sure he should find some reason to get up off the sofa as soon as possible without looking as spooked and panicky as he felt.

Dean slowly looked over to Cas, who looked suspiciously relaxed sipping his whiskey. Cas watched him carefully, and Dean could see it in his eyes. There was a strange and timid hope behind the calm exterior it was clear was taking all his effort to maintain. Dean dropped his fork into the pan, pie uneaten, and it was like the trap was sprung.

Cas was on him faster than he could blink. The tension that had been all that was holding Dean together since they’d sat down shattered in a rush of hands and lips and tongues in a desperate dash to outrun their impossible circ*mstance. As if they could go fast enough that maybe reality wouldn’t be able to catch up with them just this once. When they finally broke apart for air, they both just stared at each other gasping, half mortified and still thrumming with need. Dean swallowed hard and caught his breath, trying not to break out in hysterical laughter.

He’d dashed home the night before after coming a hair’s breadth from kissing Cas on the mouth with enough awkward tension electrifying his nervous system that he’d stayed up for hours baking and then eating pie. If an almost-kiss had done that to him, then what would happen next?

“So this is arguably worse than last night, right?” Dean asked as Cas stared wide-eyed at him and bit his lip. Neither of them let the other go, though. Nobody tried to bolt, so Dean figured he also wasn’t about to earn his discharge papers.

“Either worse or better, I can’t really tell yet,” Cas replied.

Dean nodded, his nose almost bumping Cas’s. He wanted nothing more than to dive back in, to stretch Cas out beneath him and climb on top and press him down into the cushions so he couldn’t leave and forget everything else. But that wouldn’t really be fair to either of them. At the very least, they had to understand what they were actually doing here.

“You know we really, really shouldn’t be doing this, right?” Dean asked, as if he really, really wanted Cas to contradict him.

“Dean,” Cas grumbled out, and Dean could feel his name vibrate across his skin. “You should stop talking before I realize you’re absolutely right.”

Dean just nodded again. If Cas wanted to do this and then somehow pretend they weren’t doing this, he could probably live with that. At least, he hoped he could.

“Well if this is all we get, then…” he said, and then pulled Cas back in for another kiss.

The next few minutes were a bewildering jumble of passion, bliss, and the desperate hint of lingering regret Dean knew at the back of his mind wouldn’t hit with full force until they stopped. So he decided they just wouldn’t stop. As long as they kept going, then reality couldn’t crash back in on them.

When Cas started pulling at the buttons on Dean’s jacket, because yes they were both implausibly still in full uniform, Dean pulled him to his feet. They only broke apart long enough to stand up without toppling over, but suddenly had much better access to all those buttons.

“Do you have a larger flat surface than this sofa?” Cas asked breathlessly as he pushed Dean’s jacket over his shoulders.

“The floor?” Dean asked as he reluctantly let his hands fall away from Cas long enough to shake his jacket to the floor.

“Maybe something more comfortable than the floor?”

The little light clicked on in Dean’s head and he shook himself off, grabbed Cas’s hand, and dragged him upstairs to his bedroom. They only stumbled a little bit racing up the stairs, and Cas even managed to shuck off his own jacket along the way. Dean dropped to the bed and began unlacing his boots, while Cas merely bent over where he stood and did the same. Something broke in Dean’s brain again watching Cas so frantically peel himself out of his uniform like it was burning him and he needed it gone.

When he’d tossed his boots aside, Dean stood up and crowded right up in Cas’s space and pulled him toward the bed. “You wanted soft and horizontal. What else do you want?”

“Don’t make me think about anything, Dean, just do something.”

Dean knew he was right. He always wanted to please his lovers, find out what they liked and give it to them. But right now, if either of them thought too hard about this, they’d come to their senses and stop altogether. If this was gonna be limited to one night only, Dean was gonna throw his entire mind and body into it like he never had before. He had to totally make it count, if it was gonna have to sustain him for years to come. He reached for Cas’s belt, pulled him in close, and planted a searing kiss on him as he ground his hips against him.

Cas reached around and grabbed his ass, grinding them together again, and Dean groaned into his mouth before pulling back to get Cas’s belt undone.

“This isn’t how I usually do things,” Dean said. “I make a whole deal out of this part. Getting you naked, exploring your body. Learning what makes you scream.”

“I will scream if you stop,” Cas said.

Dean couldn’t help but laugh at that as Cas’s hands slid around to his belt buckle. He definitely couldn’t complain about that.

“I just didn’t want you to think this was the standard Dean Winchester experience.”

“Not thinking, remember?”

Dean nodded, and kissed him again as he got Cas’s pants unzipped and pushed them down over his hips. They made quick, silent work of removing the rest of each other’s clothes, and then stood there staring at one another again for a long minute, catching their breath.

“The only thing I’m thinking about right now is what I’d like you to do to me,” Cas said.

“What’s that?” Dean asked, pulling him to the side of the bed and pushing him down.

“This is a good start,” Cas replied as Dean crawled up over him.

He started with another kiss, letting himself drop down on top of all that warm, naked skin. If Cas didn’t want to think, Dean knew just how to make that happen. He gave one teasing roll of his hips, sliding their erections together just enough to leave Cas groaning and panting and chasing his mouth as Dean slid down. He trailed kisses from Cas’s jaw all the way down to his hip. He’d been so distracted before, and trying so hard not to really think about what they were doing before, it was only when Cas’s erection bumped his shoulder that Dean really stopped long enough to get a good look at what he was working with. He had to close his eyes for a moment before psyching himself up to do what he wanted to do next.

Dean opened his eyes and glanced up at Cas to see him watching impatiently. His hair was even more disheveled than usual from Dean’s own hands, and his lips were parted, pink and spit slick from kissing, chest heaving with hastily gulped breaths. Dean winked at him, and then licked a line from the base of his co*ck to the tip that had Cas shuddering and moaning beneath him. Before he could process his enjoyment of the entire situation through, Dean grabbed his co*ck in one hand and swallowed him down.

Cas bucked beneath him, but Dean pressed his hip back down to the mattress and set himself to the task of making Cas forget what words even were. Now that he had Cas right where he’d wanted him since they first met, Dean wasn’t about to give up his one and only chance to give Cas the night of a lifetime. If they never got to do this again, he was determined to create a greatest hits highlight reel for both of them.

Cas reached down and grabbed a handful of his hair, and Dean moaned around him as he swallowed Cas down all the way. He took the chance to reach down and run a finger across Cas’s rim, and Cas’s reaction had him immediately regretting that he hadn’t reached for the lube earlier. Cas moaned and parted his legs even further in invitation, and then gasped when Dean pulled off and crawled over him, frantically reaching for the nightstand drawer. As soon as he had what he wanted, Dean waved the bottle of lube for Cas to see, and then leaned in for a passionate kiss. When he pulled back, Cas groaned, pulling at his shoulder like he didn’t want to let Dean go quite yet. Dean had other plans for him, though, and sat back on his heels and opened up the lube.

“Yes, Dean, yes,” Cas said, and Dean took him at his word.

He’d been planning on teasing Cas open slowly, but this wasn’t about taking their time. He’d be gentle, but they weren’t gonna think too hard about any of this. He squeezed out a generous helping of lube and then wrapped his hand around his own neglected co*ck, already dripping and eager to be of use at long last.

Cas glanced up at Dean’s face, and then nodded once before letting his eyes drop to Dean’s hands. Dean allowed himself a few slow strokes with his hand while he took in Cas spread out beneath him. When Cas raised his hips in anticipation, Dean leaned in, lined himself up, and slowly pushed his way inside. Cas gasped, and Dean used his lube soaked hand to stroke Cas’s co*ck as he watched Cas’s reactions to everything he did.

It was so tight, he knew this was the one bit he really needed to take his time with, no matter how hard Cas was prodding him to get on with it already. Cas wrapped his legs around Dean, digging his heels into his ass to pull him in faster, and Dean finally caved, sinking all the way inside with a groan as he bit down on his lower lip. He had to close his eyes again for a second against the sound of Cas’s desperate little gasps, but as soon as Cas’s grip on him loosened, he opened his eyes and looked down into Cas’s eager face.

“Move, Dean. Please just move.”

Dean was more than happy to oblige. He pulled out slowly, almost all the way, and Cas whimpered, like he was afraid Dean was about to leave him there hanging forever. Dean grinned at him, and then plowed back into him as Cas arched up off the bed with a wail. He hadn’t been expecting quite that strong a reaction to his dick filling Cas so completely, but he’d clearly done something right, so he did it again. And again. Cas had thrown himself completely over to the experience, allowing himself to fully embody the ecstasy of every touch, every thrust. The sight of it, the feel of Cas around him as he clenched down around him with the pleasure of it drove Dean completely out of his own mind, too.

He pulled Cas’s leg up over his shoulder, bending him in half both to keep hitting Cas’s prostate with every thrust, but also so he could lean down far enough to grab the back of Cas’s head, get a handful of his hair, and hold him right where he wanted him. He’d intended to give him a fiery kiss, to shove his tongue down Cas’s throat as he shoved his co*ck up Cas’s ass, but the frantic and wild look in Cas’s eyes stopped him, mesmerized him. Suddenly it was far more important to look into his eyes as Dean brought him to the height of pleasure. He reached down blindly and found Cas’s co*ck, still blessedly slippery from the lube, and matched the pace of his own thrusts as Cas’s fingertips dug into his shoulders.

Dean was close. He knew he couldn’t maintain that pace forever, no matter how long he’d wanted to drag it out for. He could feel the org*sm building, and was desperate to make Cas come first. His hips stuttered, and so did his hand, and that was apparently all the prodding Cas needed.

“Come for me,” Dean told him, and Cas did, seconds before Dean spilled inside him. He moaned out his pleasure as he milked Cas through the last of his org*sm, and then collapsed in the mess between their stomachs, his nose resting in the crook of Cas’s neck.

A few minutes later, when they both caught their breaths, Dean realized that Cas was idly dragging his fingertips up and down his spine. He let out a contented hum, and then planted a few gentle kisses along Cas’s neck and collarbone.

“Thank you,” Dean said, and then felt a little dumb about it. “Uh, I mean, I hope that was okay.”

Cas made a pleased noise and then nodded, turning his head to kiss Dean’s forehead. He nuzzled against Dean’s hair for a moment and then sighed, raising his free hand up to tug through his own hair.

“I suspect that none of what just happened was truly okay.” He rolled over to face Dean, sliding right up to look into his eyes. “But I wouldn’t give a second of it back.”

Dean blinked, and then forced himself to maintain that eye contact. “Yeah,” he cleared his throat to cover how much effort it was taking to strangle his emotions. “Yeah, same. So I guess we’re gonna have to pretend it never happened then.”

This time, Cas blinked. “Not until morning, at least. I think maybe there’s still time for a shower that we can also pretend never happened.”

Dean let out a tense breath and then planted another kiss on Cas, since he was right there and they were still inside their window of things that absolutely would not count.

“Yeah, come on, I can arrange that for you.”

Dean led Cas into the bathroom and had fully intended to let him shower alone, but Cas dragged him in and pushed him under the spray. They cleaned up quickly, not to wash away the evidence of what they had done, but to seal it into their skin with gentle touches and all the exploration Dean had skipped over in their rush to outrun their better judgment. It made the entire evening a thousand times better and several orders of magnitude worse.

They worshiped and anointed one another in silence, committing each other to memory while knowing it was something they were entirely forbidden from having. When they were done and dry again, Dean led Cas back to bed. Cas hesitated for a moment, and Dean held a hand out for him.

“Look, this all ends when we walk back into work in the morning. If you really want, I can take you home now. But it’s already late, and you could just stay.”

Cas took a deep breath, and then nodded slowly as he climbed in beside Dean. He tried to make himself comfortable as Dean turned out the light, but it was no use. As soon as it was dark, they both found their way back into each other’s arms, settling into a comfortable embrace. After a few moments, before they could drift off, Dean spoke quietly.

“This is gonna sound pathetic, but this has probably been the best date I’ve ever been on, and it wasn’t even a date.”

Cas laughed against his shoulder. “I think this is where I am supposed to reply, same.”

“Sorry your love life has been as disappointing as mine, then,” Dean replied. “Unless you’re just humoring me.”

“No, Dean. I just never had the occasion to engage in a busy social life.”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, sorry if that’s still true, then.”

“Mostly I was running from my family’s social circles and the sorts of people they expected me to court. It was easier to forgo a love life entirely than to try to explain to them that I didn’t want a relationship just to further my political or corporate ambitions. Even after I made it clear that the Navy was my career and not just a stepping stone to something else, I’d already settled into the routine of not really having anyone in my life.”

Dean reflexively squeezed him tight. “Yeah, that sucks. Sorry.”

After another quiet moment, Cas asked, “That explains me, but why haven’t you settled down into a comfortable domestic life? You didn’t have an overly ambitious family pushing you into arranged relationships of convenience, and yet here you are.”

Dean snorted. “Well for the first half of my life, I was raising Sam since my dad couldn’t be bothered to stick around long enough to do it. By the time I got him through college and out on his own, I guess I was also used to just being on my own. Enjoying a little bit of freedom, not having to worry about anyone else for a while.”

“And now?” Cas asked, tensing in his arms like he needed to gird himself against whatever Dean would answer to that.

“Now I’m just grateful to be right here for tonight,” was all he could honestly reply. That would have to be good enough for now, inside their little bubble of time that was destined to pop forever as soon as the sun rose.

Chapter 10

Chapter Text

✈️

Cas woke up the next morning still entwined with Dean. He didn’t even want to move enough to check on the time. As far as he knew, Dean hadn’t set an alarm and they were both already late for work. He decided he didn’t even care. They were still inside the window they’d carved out for themselves, even if it was rapidly closing. There’d be time enough to think about that later, but right then Cas was determined to enjoy every second he had left in Dean’s bed.

He clung to Dean and reveled in the warmth of his body. At some point, he’d absently begun rubbing little patterns into Dean’s back, and he froze when Dean made a pleased humming noise. Cas still hadn’t dared to open his eyes, in case that was what shattered the dream and he woke up back in his own bed, alone. But clearly it was all real, and now Dean was awake because he couldn’t just lie there and hold still. As soon as he tensed up, Dean pulled him in closer.

“You don’t have to stop,” Dean said. “Feels nice.”

Without even thinking, Cas resumed his exploration of Dean’s back, finally allowing himself to open his eyes. He was greeted with the sight of Dean watching him, a sleepy soft smile lighting up his face.

“Sorry if I woke you,” Cas said.

Dean shrugged. “I’ve been up for like twenty minutes. You’re in the clear.”

“What?” Cas said, trying to sit up and looking around until he saw the clock.

“Don’t worry, it’s still early,” Dean replied, still loosely holding on to Cas so he could get away if that’s what he truly wanted, “I wasn’t gonna let you sleep in too long.”

Cas flopped back down on the pillow and let Dean hold him. “You didn’t have to just lie here with me if you were awake.”

Dean shrugged again. “I was just enjoying it while I can. I figure once we get up, it’s over, right?”

“I suppose so,” Cas said, lying there now afraid to move.

They’d both been impulsive last night, even though they knew nothing could come of it. It had been the best date he’d probably ever been on. Perhaps that was because it was forbidden, or maybe he really liked Dean that much. It was impossible to tell now, and Cas worried for a moment that they’d officially screwed any chance they might ever have had at an actual relationship, should circ*mstances change for them someday. He sighed, knowing it was a fool’s hope to imagine it in the first place, and began the slow, painful process of packing it all away.

After a few more minutes just quietly lying there together, Dean sighed, kissed his shoulder, and then rolled away to get out of bed. He bent over and began sorting through their scattered clothes, laying Cas’s out on the bed and pulling his own back on.

“I can get you a clean t-shirt, some socks, even some boxers if you want, but you’re on your own with the rest of your uniform,” Dean said, watching him as he still lay sprawled out in his bed.

“That would be appreciated, Dean. I’d rather not have to have you swing by my house just for that.”

He reluctantly left the warmth of the blankets and began getting dressed. Dean rifled through a couple drawers and pulled out clean things for both of them. They both watched each other as they dressed, and even though the fiery heat that had driven them last night had been banked back, it definitely hadn’t been extinguished.

“You got any requests for breakfast?” Dean asked. “I was thinking french toast. Maybe a side of bacon.”

“You don’t have to go to that sort of trouble, Dean.”

“No trouble. Even if you weren’t here, I’d be making it for myself.”

Cas blinked up at him while he finished tying his boots. “You make yourself that sort of breakfast every morning?”

“I don’t sleep much, and I like to cook. Plus it’s the most important meal of the day, right?”

“I suppose so,” Cas replied, and then followed Dean out of the bedroom, glancing around and patting down his pockets to make sure he hadn’t left anything important behind. He took one last look back at the bed, still rumpled and unmade, sighed, and then followed Dean down.

He’d already started the coffee maker and was busy pulling things from the fridge when Cas sat down at the table. Everything was comfortable still, but he couldn’t imagine it would stay like that for long. They couldn’t drag it out forever, and the minute they walked out the front door it would be back to business. For the first time, Cas wasn’t really sure if he could manage that.

They fell right back into the pleasant companionship they’d shared before their unscheduled fling, so maybe they at least wouldn’t be painfully awkward around each other. Dean at least seemed comfortable enough with everything that had happened. Either that, or he was the undisputed grand international champion of repression, which Cas also wasn’t prepared to discount as a possibility.

They lingered over breakfast, then lingered some more over tidying up again, finishing up their coffee, and then just standing there in the kitchen staring at each other as the clock ticked its way toward their inevitable deadline. Cas felt like Cinderella as he stood there, ignoring the passage of time with everything he had. He had no idea how long it had been when Dean sighed, pushed off the counter he’d been leaning against, and strode resolutely over to him. Without a word, Dean threw his arms around Cas and kissed him, pouring himself into it. It tasted of gratitude, desperation, and loss, and Cas drank it all down.

When Dean finally pulled away, he gave a sad smile and muttered, “One for the road,” and let his hand slide from Cas’s shoulder to his elbow before pulling himself together and heading for the front door.

Cas stood dumbstruck for a full minute watching Dean walk away, wondering if he’d made the worst mistake of his life. It wasn’t like he really had a choice, though, so he followed Dean outside and let the dream he’d just lived through shatter behind him.

🛥️

Dean did his best to carry on as if nothing earth shattering had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours. He wasn’t doing all that bad of a job of it, either. He’d seen Cas a few times, and Cas seemed to be holding up well, too. In any normal situation, that would’ve been encouraging, but for Dean, it was just another reminder that maybe the imaginary life he could’ve had, the one he’d been constructing inside his own mind since he’d met Cas, really was just an impossible dream. Dean Winchester just didn’t get to have nice things, and that’s just how life was.

It shouldn’t have felt so awful to remind himself of that fact. It was a sentiment that had gotten him through a lot of truly horrible sh*t over the years, but it was no longer a comfort. Dean wondered if it hurt so much now to think that maybe Cas wasn’t feeling as bereft and adrift as he was, only because he’d stupidly and irresponsibly allowed himself to actually care about him. But the world marched on, and Dean had a lot of work to keep him distracted.

It was an hour after he’d come back from lunch and he was elbow deep in an engine when his phone rang. He figured it would go to voice mail, and he could check his messages as soon as he was finished. It started ringing again almost immediately, and Dean sighed and walked over to where he’d laid his jacket down while wiping the grease off his hands as best he could before retrieving his phone just as it stopped ringing again. He didn’t even have a chance to check who’d called twice already before it rang again, and he answered it without even bothering to see who was calling.

“You better not be about to tell me my car’s warranty is about to expire,” he said.

“Dude, do I sound like a lousy scammer?” Charlie asked on the other end of the line.

“Why are you blowing up my phone, Charles? You know I’m on duty, right?”

“I figured you’d answer eventually, and it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do for the time being anyway.”

“What, you’re that bored and thought you’d revert to your preteen years?”

“Shut up and listen, okay? And if I hang up suddenly, don’t call me, I’ll call you when I’m clear.”

That got Dean’s attention. He’d been so up inside his own head over Cas, he'd completely forgotten about the even weirder situation Charlie was currently living through.

“You sure you should be talking to me like this?” Dean asked, looking around the hangar and making sure he wasn’t being overheard, either. Just in case, he slowly began making his way back to his office where he could shut the door, at least, and hope nobody popped in for a mug of coffee or a chat.

“Frank said you were in the loop. I know, not officially, but I honestly don’t know who else I can trust.”

“Is Frank rubbing off on you, or are you having a real situation?” Dean asked as he headed down the blessedly empty hall to his office.

Charlie sighed. “It’s a real situation, unfortunately. And something I was probably not supposed to notice. If Frank hadn’t been making me do a visual inventory six times a day, I never would’ve realized there was a problem.”

Dean shut his office door, and then locked it for good measure. While he was there, he poured himself some coffee and then slumped down in his chair. He figured he would need it to get through this conversation.

“Okay, what’s up?”

Charlie took a deep breath and then launched into an explanation.

“We’ve been anchored since last night, and the crew from the Solace boarded at sunup. We were all evaluated, had blood drawn, peed in cups, the whole nine. And their security team took environmental samples from around the entire ship, just in case. They packed up and left about an hour ago, and Frank ordered me to do another full inventory.”

“Don’t tell me, something important came up short.”

“That’s the thing. According to the official manifest, everything is present and accounted for. Only there’s now one item missing from the official manifest that was there last night. And its corresponding crate that I saw with my own eyes last night is also gone.”

“So, what, you think someone aboard the Solace stole it?”

“No way. I watched them all pack up their gear and carry it back aboard. No way they could’ve hidden a three foot long wooden crate in there.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, leaning back and rubbing his forehead. He refused to let himself develop a headache over this yet. “That’s not something someone could’ve slipped in a pocket.”

“No,” Charlie agreed, and then blew out a breath. “But it is something someone could’ve pitched overboard while we were all being detained in quarters awaiting our physical exams. Anyone from their security team could’ve had access and could’ve just tossed it in the ocean. I asked Frank how deep it is where we’re still anchored, and he said only about 40 or 50 meters.”

Dean was about to ask if Frank had been made aware of the discrepancy on the manifest, when Charlie answered his question for him.

“Don’t worry, he has no clue why I was suddenly interested in how much water was directly underneath us. I’m paranoid, not a moron. But see, the crate going missing is one thing. Nobody ever would’ve known it was gone since it was wiped from the official records like it had never existed.”

“But you know it existed,” Dean replied. “And you don’t know if you can trust whoever it was onboard drugging the crew if they knew you knew it was gone now.”

“Yeah, exactly. All of that.”

“Okay, so what do you want me to do with this information, Charlie?”

“We’re about to weigh anchor, since we’ve apparently been cleared to sail for Norfolk.”

“That was fast,” Dean said. “I’m betting all evidence that the crew had been drugged or poisoned or whatever is also conveniently gone from the ship.”

“Most likely, yeah, but if they thought I had evidence of their crimes, I wouldn’t trust them not to just throw me overboard, too.”

“Yeah, better safe than soaked.”

“Dude, we’re like a hundred miles out from port still. I would be a lot worse than soaked.”

“Okay, again, what do you want me to do about any of this?”

Charlie took a deep breath, and Dean could tell she was pacing in her quarters like a caged animal.

“Like I was saying, we’re weighing anchor as soon as we get the official call with the all clear. I’m texting you our current coordinates.”

“You want me to pass them along to Rufus? Get a crew out there to search and see if they can find that crate?”

“No, I already talked to Rufus. He wants to try to avoid an international incident. And sending out an official mission would be something he couldn’t keep hush hush. He said your friend Benny has a boat equipped for that sort of operation.”

“I don’t know,” Dean said, still wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with any of this. “We only ever go fishing in it.”

“Dude is a trained salvage diver, and you think he just goes fishing in his spare time?” Charlie asked, like Dean wasn’t being very bright about it all.

“I don’t—” he started, and then Charlie cut him off.

“Listen, I don’t have much time, but Rufus wanted me to convey to you the seriousness of this situation, and let you know you have forty-eight hours leave to fix it, however you can manage to get it done. Because even after we make port tomorrow morning, we’re still in quarantine for twenty four hours. We have until then to make sure that everything from that shipment makes it to Sam’s lab, and the less said about any of the details about how it all gets there, the better.”

“O… kay?” Dean said eventually, and Charlie sighed with relief.

“Good. Rufus has been officially un-retired by the Navy, by the way. He’s been ordered to retain his command until further notice. And he told me to tell you that Captain Novak is also being given forty-eight hours of leave and instructions that I don’t even have access to. So you probably need to talk to him like right now.”

“Like… right now immediately? Can I finish my coffee first, or should I put it in a travel mug?”

“Dude, tick tock. International incident aversion time.”

“Okay, gotcha,” Dean said, and then drained his mug as Charlie hung up on him. “You stay safe, Charlie,” he muttered to the phone anyway before shoving it back in his pocket and heading out double time to find Cas. This was certainly not going to cause any sort of awkward tension to develop between them. Surely.

Dean swung back by the hangar to grab his jacket before heading out in search of Cas, and stopped in his tracks when he found the man in question standing beside his workbench.

“I just got word,” Dean said as his phone dinged. He assumed it was the coordinates from Charlie. “So what’s the plan?”

“We should discuss this elsewhere,” Cas replied, and then swiftly walked toward the door.

“Whoa, wait…” Dean started as he tried to catch up to Cas.

Cas turned on his heel and Dean nearly ran into him yet again. Cas just held up a finger to his lips to silence Dean, and then turned and walked out to the parking lot with Dean in his wake.

“Would you prefer to take my truck or your car,” Cas finally asked as they exited the hangar. He sounded terse, tense even.

“Does it matter?” Dean asked, following as Cas mechanically headed to his truck. “I don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Not far,” Cas replied as they climbed in and he cranked the engine. He turned to back out and said nothing else until they were out on the road. His first reaction that showed he was operating on any level other than mission critical was a huge sigh as his shoulders slumped.

“You okay there, Cas?” Dean asked.

“Not in the least,” Cas replied. “In the last fifteen minutes I’ve been unceremoniously un-promoted, forcibly given two days leave, and told I would be spending all of that time on a boat. When I protested that this mission could benefit from air support, if for no other reason than speed and efficiency, I was told that could threaten national security. So no, I’m not at all okay.”

Cas rolled his eyes toward Dean and then snapped them back to the road in front of them.

“Benny is meeting us at the dock with his boat. I have to say, I’m grateful you talked me into a change of underwear, considering we’re likely to be wearing these clothes for the foreseeable future.”

“I thought we weren’t gonna talk about that,” Dean replied, too bewildered to comment on any of the rest of what Cas had said.

At least Cas found that amusing, and snorted as he turned into the parking lot by the docks. Benny pulled in a moment later, looking prepared for a mission but also not entirely pleased with it. He was carrying two large grocery bags, though, which didn’t bode well for a quick, three hour tour. They got out of the truck and Dean had been about to greet Benny, but he got right to the point.

“We can chat on the water. Just get on the boat so we can get gone.”

Dean jumped aboard after Benny and they both went about preparing to leave from long practiced habit. Cas just stood on the dock staring at both of them, until Benny turned to Dean and pointed up at Cas.

“Why don’t you give him something to do. Take his mind off this. I got a couple coolers in the back of my truck that need to come with, and a great big box. Just go grab all that, and I’ll get everything else ready to go.”

Dean glanced up at the look of dread on Cas’s face, and then gave Benny a terse nod before jumping back to the dock. He dropped a bracing hand on Cas’s shoulder and then led him back to Benny’s truck. They each grabbed a cooler, and exchanged a glance after taking in the other large crate.

“We’ll come back for it,” Dean assured him, and Cas looked slightly relieved at the additional reprieve on land that second trip represented.

They dropped off the coolers on the edge of the dock for Benny to load aboard, and then headed back for the massive crate.

“Holy sh*t, what’s in this thing?” Dean asked no one in particular.

“Something heavy,” Cas replied helpfully as they carried it gently to the dock just in case it was a torpedo. It was roughly torpedo-shaped, and Dean wouldn’t put it past Benny to just have one lying around in case of emergency.

“Careful with that,” Benny said, coming out of the cabin to help lower the heavy crate to the deck. “That’s sensitive equipment.”

“Sensitive like kablooie sensitive?” Dean asked, and Benny just grinned at him.

“You better hope not, brother. Now make yourself useful and take care of the mooring lines. We’re going as soon as you cut us free.”

With that, Benny headed back to the bridge. Cas still stood up on the dock like he was still hoping to be told to stay on shore. No such luck, though. Dean held out a hand to him, and Cas ignored it to reluctantly jump down on deck. Dean then set to work untying the mooring lines tethering them to dry land.

“We’re floating free,” Dean called out to Benny, and the engines kicked to life and they slowly motored out of the harbor.

Dean stood on the deck winding the mooring lines and stowing them away, as Cas dropped down onto one of the cushioned bench seats lining the edge of the deck, looking a little green.

“This is a pretty big boat. I swear it’s seaworthy, and better equipped than any other charter fishing luxury yacht out there,” Dean told him. “And if you really need it, Benny keeps some dramamine in the galley. Plus he’s usually got ginger ale and pepto, if you’re still feeling sick.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Cas replied blankly. “Eventually. This just isn’t how I would ever choose to spend a long weekend of leave.”

“Dean, get your ass over here,” Benny finally called out as they headed out toward the open water of the lower Chesapeake.

Dean gave Cas a concerned look. “You need anything, or will you be okay for a few?”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Cas replied again robotically, staring off toward the horizon like that would cure him.

Dean gave his shoulder another fortifying pat and then headed up to the bridge.

“Yes sir,” Dean said, reporting for duty. “Now you gonna tell me what the f*ck we’re doing? I got a confusing call from Charlie, and now I’m here with you and my C.O. who’s a white knuckling landlubber.”

“You got coordinates for me, I’m told,” Benny replied, tapping the GPS unit beside the wheel.

Dean shook his head, pulled out his phone, and entered the numbers Charlie had sent him so Benny could point their boat in the right direction. Once the computer processed their target and set a course, Benny groaned.

“What, did I do something wrong?” Dean asked, looking down at the heading the GPS had given them.

“Nah, it’s just gonna be a long day,” Benny replied. “You should grab your buddy a drink and keep him focused on the horizon. Hopefully we can get him to grow a pair of sea legs before long.”

“Okay,” Dean replied, still not entirely sure what they were supposed to be doing, other than the vague avoiding an international incident.

Benny sighed as he motored out toward open water. He glanced back at Cas, now stretched out on the deck with his eyes closed and his face turned up to the sun, sucking down deep gulps of the salt air battering his face. For just a second Dean thought he looked good like that, like some supermodel posing in a wind storm. He shook himself off, forcing himself not to worry about Cas for the moment when Benny started talking.

“I suspect we’re far enough out now that nobody else is listening in, but let’s just say that someone with a far higher pay grade than I got is highly concerned that Dick Roman does not have the best interests of the U.S. Government at heart.”

Dean snorted. “Ya think?”

Benny ignored him and kept going. “Pretty sure Cas got the official download from Rufus even before I did, but since you’re here too, you should know what the plan is.”

“Would this be the kind of thing that goes faster if I tell you what I already know?”

Benny ceded to him with a wave of his hand as they steered out into the open waters of the Atlantic. Dean laid out the choppy details Charlie had given him as best he could, while Benny nodded along.

“Huh, I didn’t even know the half of that, but that’s some messed up sh*t right there,” he agreed. “All I knew was the details of what we still gotta do.”

“I take it we’re going out to retrieve the mystery box that might or might not exist from the bottom of the ocean,” Dean replied.

“You saying you don’t trust Charlie’s word?”

“No, no, I absolutely believe there was a crate and then there wasn’t,” Dean replied. “I just don’t know that it got tossed overboard. And if it did, who’s to say Roman Enterprises didn’t already have a crew on standby to move in and scoop it up as soon as Frank pulled up stakes on that spot.”

“That is always a possibility,” Benny agreed. “But between the naval radar station in Norfolk and constant civil air patrol flights over the area, there’s no evidence of any other vessel in a twenty mile radius of that spot. So unless he’s got a private submarine—”

Dean butted in with, “I wouldn’t put it past him,” and Benny gave him a raised eyebrow.

“With the ability to retrieve cargo that large, it seems unlikely that he can beat us out there now,” Benny added. “And the mysterious yet highly ranked issuer of this little mission to us seems to believe that Roman would wait until any possible controversy about a missing crate blew over before sending anyone out to fetch it.”

Dean nodded slowly, watching Fort Story disappear behind them as they slowly rounded the point and headed south along the coast.

“Makes sense. He can plead that he has no idea what anyone is talking about a missing crate. They’re all present and accounted for, and any heat would fall on either the crew of Frank’s ship or the people accompanying the cargo. As long as he doesn’t have whatever it is in his possession, Dick would be in the clear.”

Benny grinned at him again. “You sure are fond of calling him Dick.”

Dean grunted. “Dude looks you right in the eye with a smirk and insists on you calling him Dick? I take him at his word.”

“Fair,” Benny replied.

“So, what, the Navy’s sending us out like a bunch of mercenaries to find the box and deliver it to Sam and pretend it never went missing in the first place? Before the Iraqi government can realize their pockets got picked?”

“Nah,” Benny said, and then corrected himself. “Well, yeah, that, but even more important is the room full of people with fancy titles and final say in who the entire military buys their gear from waiting for enough reason to ditch Roman Enterprises for good.”

Dean’s eyes went wide, and Benny smirked at him before explaining.

“From what Rufus said, when he reported what we’d been seeing from Roman lately to his superiors, they told him it had been an increasing pattern over the last few years. Like he really was building his own private network of people in positions of power who owed their loyalty to him.”

“And Uncle Sam ain’t the type to share,” Dean replied, finally beginning to understand the magnitude of the problem they’d accidentally stumbled across.

“Neither, apparently, is Sam’s employer.”

“What, Roman was trying to buy off a whole university, too? For what?”

Benny shrugged. “Prestige, maybe? Resources? Who knows what goes through the minds of billionaires.”

“Nothing worth thinking too hard about,” Cas said from the doorway to the bridge, surprising both Dean and Benny.

He still looked a little green around the gills, but he was upright under his own power, and looked more lively than he had since they’d left the dock.

“Hey, you feeling any better?” Dean asked, and Cas nodded, and then swallowed hard like he regretted the sudden movement.

“Sort of, but I’ll be fine eventually.”

Dean reached down into the cooler at the back of the bridge and pulled out a can of soda, offering it to Cas, who accepted it gratefully.

“And we’re just plausible deniability for the Navy,” Dean said after it was clear that Cas was gonna keep the soda down.

“For the entire U.S. Government,” Benny replied. “We’re just a few guys out doing a little deep sea fishing.” He rolled his eyes between Dean and Cas. “The two of you are up for a little fishing while I’m indisposed down on the sea floor, right?”

“Fishing I can handle,” Cas replied, swiping the ice cold can across his forehead and letting out a relieved sounding belch. He took a few more deep breaths, and then finally began looking a little more like himself.

“Good,” Benny replied, looking them both over. “You should probably at least ditch the uniforms, then. We’re supposed to be on a pleasure cruise here.”

“You’ll forgive me, but I didn’t have a chance to pack a change of clothes,” Cas replied.

“Just take off your jacket, Cas,” Dean suggested, already removing his own and stowing it in a cupboard. “But unless Benny’s got a secret closet we can raid, that’s about the best we can do.”

“I got a couple windbreakers in the first hatch on the left downstairs, neither of which is navy issue.”

“I’ll take it,” Dean replied, pushing past Cas and bounding down the stairs into the lower cabin area.

He found the cupboard quickly, and sorted through the variety of foul weather gear inside. Short of cosplaying as the Gorton’s fisherman in full yellow rain gear, his options were limited to a couple windbreakers, a single pair of black nylon track pants, and a green plaid flannel that Dean was pretty sure was actually his. Which meant he’d probably accidentally abandoned it on the boat at some point in the past. That sealed the deal for him. He quickly stripped out of his uniform pants and carefully folded them up, pulling his phone out of his pocket and sliding it into one of the zippered pockets of the track pants. He pulled on the flannel shirt, grabbed one of the windbreakers, and dashed back up the stairs to the bridge. Cas’s eyes went wide when they fell on Dean.

“Uh, yeah, apparently I left this shirt on the boat a while back,” Dean said, plucking at the collar. “And Benny, I borrowed these pants just so we’re not so matchy-matchy.”

Benny snorted. “Yeah, someone else left those behind. No idea who at this point. But you’re welcome to whatever.”

Dean stuck out the hand holding the folded up windbreaker in a deep royal blue. “At least this’ll match the pants,” Dean replied. “Figured it was better than a yellow rain slicker.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas replied, taking the lightweight jacket and pulling it on.

Dean couldn’t help noticing how the deep blue jacket brought out the blue in Cas’s eyes. For an idiotic minute, he considered how lucky it was that Cas chose to join the Navy, since he looked so incredible in blue. He banished the thought from his brain, and the three of them went over their plans in detail. According to the GPS, they were halfway to their destination by the time they were all in agreement.

“So, what’s for dinner?” Dean asked, rubbing his hands together when they’d plotted out their course of action.

“Depends on what you can throw together with what I got in the galley,” Benny replied.

A few hours later, after Dean and Cas had taken care of companionably assembling dinner and then cleaning up afterward, Benny finally throttled down the engines and announced they’d arrived at their destination. He came down from the bridge and used the last of their daylight to unlatch the huge crate they’d loaded onboard while Dean and Cas watched on with interest.

“So it’s not a torpedo?” he asked on seeing the little yellow submersible and all the tracking equipment to go with it.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Benny replied, hefting out the submersible and setting it gently on the deck.

He quickly set up all the computer tracking equipment and made sure everything was functioning properly. This was the one side of Benny’s job that Dean had never really had a chance to see in action. The sailing, diving, and general knowledge of the ocean, sure. But this technical stuff was his area of special expertise that Dean supposed had qualified him for this mission in the first place. For the first time since they’d come aboard, Dean felt sort of superfluous. He could only imagine how Cas felt, as the ranking officer on a mission that had him entirely out of his depth.

Benny input the coordinates for a complete scan of the sea floor over a mile radius, confirmed the submersible had processed the instructions properly, and then turned to Dean. The two of them lifted the sub and then set it in the water off the back dive platform of the boat. It sank beneath the waves and then disappeared, off on its mission to scan the entire sea floor around them.

“So what now?” Cas asked as Benny began monitoring the data the remote vehicle was sending back.

“Now we look for a box-shaped thing just sitting in the sand down there,” Benny replied, pointing at the computer screen displaying a bunch of orange-hued wavy lines that made less than zero sense to Dean and Cas.

“Good thing you know what you’re looking at, because that means nothing to me,” Dean said, watching with interest as the screen displayed more and more indecipherable patterns.

“That resembles the wallpaper that used to hang in my uncle’s rumpus room when I was a child,” Cas muttered. When he noticed Dean and Benny just staring at him, he shrugged. “My uncle had terrible taste in decor.”

“He had a rumpus room,” Dean replied, as if that had already explained everything.

The three of them sat transfixed, until Benny finally exclaimed that he’d spotted something, and pressed a few keys to capture a close up and log the exact coordinates where the object lay.

“Only a few feet off Charlie’s coordinates,” Benny replied, impressed. “Your girl did good.”

When he zoomed in on the image that had caught his attention, even Dean and Cas could see what Benny was talking about. Amid all the random wavy lines stood a roughly rectangular anomaly.

“Okay, so how do we bring it up? Your little yellow submarine ain’t got a grappling hook that I could tell, and I might be a decent fisherman but I’m more likely to snag an old boot out here than get a line on that.”

Benny pressed a button to bring the submersible back to the surface, and then stood up and looked at Dean.

“I’ll go get it in the morning, unless one of you is up for a little night diving.”

Dean and Cas looked at each other for a second.

“I’m guessing you’re not dive certified,” Dean asked him, and Cas shook his head. “And Benny knows I’m not.”

Benny shook his head at Dean and then headed to the side of the boat with a long pole, waiting to fish the ROV out of the water when it appeared.

“I been trying to get you in the water for what, near twenty years now? I figure you’re a lost cause at this point.”

“Getting in the water is for when your boat’s sinking,” Dean said, and Benny laughed.

“So what are we supposed to do until sunrise?” Cas asked as Dean and Benny hauled the sub back on deck and got it nestled back in its crate.

“Sleep?” Benny suggested, then waved a hand at the crystal clear night sky above them. “Stargaze? Whatever strikes your fancy.”

“It ain’t so bad,” Dean said, hauling one of the long cushions down from the bench seats lining one side of the deck and dropping it at his feet. “At least it’s not raining.”

Cas frowned at Dean.

“Only got one proper bunk in the cabin, but if the two of you don’t mind getting cozy, the galley table folds up and the benches slide together into a passable sleeping surface.”

Dean nodded, explaining to Cas. “It’s the boat version of a pull out couch, and about as comfortable.”

“I didn’t say it was the Ritz,” Benny retorted. “But it is sheltered from the wind, and it can get cold way out here overnight.”

Dean looked at Cas, and Cas stared back at him. Benny gave up on getting an answer from either of them and just took his computer back to the bridge to prepare for the morning’s dive. When they were as alone as it was possible to be on the boat, Dean cautiously spoke just loud enough for Cas to hear.

“It’s your call, really. If you don’t mind sharing the bed, I’m okay with that. I mean, it wasn’t supposed to happen, but it ain’t like we’re spoiled for choice, here.”

Cas nodded slowly, looking weirdly relieved from what Dean could see of his face in the growing darkness.

“I would prefer not to sleep on deck, yes. I… I don’t mind sharing it with you,” he said, almost too quietly for Dean to hear.

Dean nodded far too quickly, his heart racing at the thought of going back to how they’d woken up that morning already. He thought it would be relegated to an eternal replay loop in his mind, and now he had to face it again before he’d even had a chance to fully process last night. The universe was either a cruel bitch, or it had an entirely inappropriate sense of humor. Dean wasn’t exactly sure which.

“Sure, fine… uh, good,” he said, and then sprang into action, nearly tripping over the cushion he’d dropped to the ground. He laughed nervously as he hastily slid it back onto the bench where it belonged, and gave Cas an apologetic smile before dashing down into the cabin. “I know there’s a couple pillows and some blankets around here somewhere.”

Dean should’ve known that no matter what his imagination had been tormenting him with while he and Cas assembled their bed for the night, the reality of it would be so, so much worse. The sleeping surface was honestly fine. It wasn’t much smaller than Dean’s bed back at his house, even if the stiff cushions were no match for his memory foam.

Benny came down while the two of them stood there staring at their makeshift bed like it was some sort of death trap. He stopped on the stairs and cleared his throat before continuing down and sliding between them on his way to the stateroom.

“You two gonna be okay out here?” he asked, sounding sincerely unsure of that.

“Yeah, thanks Benny,” Dean replied absently, pasting on a smile for him.

Benny just nodded. “Okay then. I got an alarm set for zero four thirty to prep. That’s when I’ll be up and about, just for your general information.”

He gave Dean a grin, and then added, “Good luck,” before disappearing into his room and shutting the door.

Dean laughed nervously and glanced at Cas.

“After you, I guess,” he said, waving a hand at their bunk.

They’d dug out a couple of pillows and a single slightly too small blanket, and Dean was already regretting ever having been born, let alone having found himself in this circ*mstance. Cas slowly sat down on the edge of the bunk and began unlacing his boots. Dean joined him a moment later and did the same. When they were done, they sat there staring at one another yet again, until Cas finally spoke, so quietly that Dean found himself leaning in closer just to hear him.

“We can be adults about this,” Cas said, almost as if he was trying to convince himself of that. “It’s not like anything can happen here anyway.”

Dean nodded, and swallowed the lump of regret that had been growing as he’d forced himself to remember that detail, and to forget everything they’d been doing twenty-four hours earlier. Cas took that nod as agreement, though, and crawled to the far side of the bunk and slid under the blanket. He did his best to fluff up his pillow, and rolled up on his side to leave Dean as much room as was possible. Dean slowly swung his legs up and shimmied under his edge of the blanket, doing his best to get comfortable fully clothed and crammed in beside a fully clothed Cas.

They lay there in the semi-dark, with only the soft glow of a nightlight in the galley to light their way should they need to get up quickly during the night. It was almost a physical ache to just reach out and pull Cas in close again, and yet they lay there less than a foot apart and entirely unable to even touch. They’d both agreed to that, right? One and done, got it out of their systems and moving on. Only Dean’s system had had a taste of Cas, and resolutely refused to let it go.

Dean guessed they’d probably been laying there in silence for twenty minutes or so, when Cas finally whispered his name. He turned his head to find Cas watching him carefully. After another minute or two, Cas whispered again.

“Come here.”

Dean hesitated for a second, and then asked, “You sure?”

Cas just nodded, lifting the blanket so Dean could roll closer. They shuffled around for a moment. It wasn’t as easy to slide together fully clothed and under the scratchy wool blanket, but eventually they managed a rough approximation of the position they’d awakened in that morning. Cas sighed, and Dean felt the tension drain from Cas’s shoulders as he finally began to relax into sleep. When he was pretty sure Cas had drifted off, he planted a long, soft kiss on his forehead, and then let himself drift off too.

When Dean woke up again, it was still dark. He instantly knew he was on Benny’s boat, just from the way the whole thing was rocking and swaying with the waves. The smell wasn’t quite right, though, and that’s what threw him enough to get his eyes open. His face was smooshed right up against Cas’s shoulder, and Dean took a long, slow breath to savor the scent he’d resigned himself to never smell again. He wanted to lie there as long as he could, but he couldn’t ignore what woke him up much longer. Lying on the hard bench cushion all night was absolutely wrecking his shoulder, and if he didn’t move soon, he’d regret it for the rest of the day.

Not to mention, he had no idea what time it was and there was no way in hell he was risking Benny finding them all cuddled up together. Much as it might pain him in every way other than his aching shoulder, Dean carefully extricated himself from Cas’s embrace and slipped out from under the blanket. The boat pitched a little harder than he was expecting the second he’d gotten to his feet, and he had to brace himself on the bulkhead to keep from landing back on top of Cas.

He stood there, hunched and hovering a foot over Cas’s head, breathing deeply while he got his balance back. And even then, he didn’t move. He just watched Cas for another few minutes, wishing more than anything that everything could be different. Of course, that’s when Cas opened his eyes and blinked sleepily up at him.

For a split second, a fond smile touched his lips before Cas had awakened enough to remember that wasn’t the appropriate reaction to finding Dean perched above him. Cas’s smile turned into a frown as he remembered where they were and he tried to get his bearings.

Cas slowly propped himself up on one elbow, looking around for a clock. “Is it time to get up already?” he asked Dean.

“No idea,” Dean muttered softly. “My shoulder was screaming at me and woke me up.”

Cas’s brow pinched up as he regarded Dean, still balanced precariously above him.

“Is that why you’re stretching like that? Are you in pain?”

The genuine concern in Cas’s voice hurt more than standing up had, and Dean finally pushed himself to standing. Of course he had to brush it all off.

“A wave broadsided us and almost knocked me off my feet. Figured it was better than using you to break my fall.”

“I would’ve caught you,” Cas muttered, scooting to the edge of their makeshift bunk.

Dean snorted. “You were asleep, dumbass. It wouldn’t have been a fun way to wake up.”

“It already wasn’t a fun way to wake up,” Cas said, so softly that Dean wasn’t even sure he’d heard it properly.

He didn’t have time or headspace to devote to parsing that out right then, so he distracted himself with practicalities. Dean fished out his phone while Cas stretched and yawned, and then bent down to put his boots back on.

“Benny’s alarm goes off in six minutes,” Dean told Cas, heading to the galley to get the coffee maker started.

“Benny turned his alarm off when he woke up five minutes ago,” Benny said, emerging from his cabin. He glanced around at Dean, flipped the main cabin light on, and then nodded his approval at the impending coffee.

Dean put on his boots and he and Cas reassembled their bunk into a dining area while Benny made up a quick breakfast of eggs, toast, and ham. They ate in silence while Benny began detailing what he needed from them. By the time they had breakfast cleared away, they were all clear on their respective jobs.

The sun rose as Benny finished readying all his gear. Dean and Cas were readying their own gear of a very different kind. They had a cooler full of beer that was more of a prop in case anyone approached them and questioned what they were doing in the area. Their other cooler was full of bait, and Dean readied a couple of massive fishing rods and set them into a bracket on deck. Benny interrupted his work tying a huge hook to one of the lines to hand him a discreet little radio earpiece.

“Do not take that off until I’m topside again,” Benny warned him. “It’s got a direct connection to the radio in my helmet. If you lose my signal, you got a problem. I got no backup on this dive.”

“Regretting not bringing someone else certified yet?” Dean asked.

Benny shook his head. “Just telling you the worst case scenario.”

“Okay, then, with that cheerful bit of knowledge in the bank, let’s get this show on the road,” Dean replied.

They’d drifted some during the night, intentionally floating out of their target dive zone. Benny motored slowly back over it while Dean tracked the exact coordinates of the sunken crate and Cas threw a shot line attached to a small buoy by a long rope. Benny once again shut down the engines and quickly finished pulling on his helmet and fins. He and Dean tested out their radio communications, and after confirming that everything was working, Benny gave them a thumbs up, grabbed the grappling hook and a net attached to the deck winch, and let himself fall off the back of the boat.

“This won’t take long,” Benny said over the radio as he swam quickly back to their shot line buoy and then disappeared beneath the waves.

“Good luck,” Dean said, and then turned to stare at Cas. “So let’s get some fishing on,” he said, handing Cas one of the rods and bending to select some bait from the cooler.

After a few minutes with no updates from Benny, Cas asked how long it would take for him to even reach the bottom. Dean shrugged.

“Probably should’ve asked him that,” Dean said.

Benny came over the radio. “Sun’s up enough now that I can see the bottom. Gettin’ close, but visibility ain’t the best.”

Dean absently reeled in his fishing line a bit, and Cas did the same a moment later.

“Shame we haven’t even had a nibble on the lines yet,” Dean said to him, since he couldn’t say any of the things he truly wanted to and it was better than sitting in agonized silence. “Woulda been nice to fry up some tuna steaks for lunch.”

“Worst case scenario, we can park under the bridge for a while on the way back to base and see if we can catch ourselves a couple of rockfish.”

Dean had almost forgotten that Benny was also listening in on everything they were saying, and he jumped when Benny had spoken. Cas looked at him funny, but Dean just replied to Benny.

“If it was up to you, we’d never eat anything other than rockfish,” Dean taunted.

“They’re good eatin’,” Benny replied, then added, “I hit bottom, and you’ll never guess what’s just sitting here three feet from the end of this perfectly dropped shot line.”

Dean made a face of approval at Cas, and then explained. “You dropped that line almost on top of the crate. Benny found it.”

Cas’s look of surprise was almost enough to distract Dean, but they snapped into action as soon as Benny interrupted their staring again.

“I need about five minutes to set up the net and make sure it’s all secured,” Benny said through the radio. Be ready for my signal to reel it in.”

Dean snapped into action, securing his fishing rod and clearing the deck enough to bring up their cargo. The coolers got shoved to the side, and per their plan, Cas continued fishing like nothing was happening around him. It was only a few moments later when Benny gave the signal they’d been waiting for.

“Okay, hit the winch. we’re ready to go. Slow and steady, now.”

Dean turned on the motor and slowly began reeling in the line. He could tell when it snapped taut and knew it was pulling up something extremely heavy.

“It’s all good, keep going,” Benny said from below. “You drifted a bit, but it’s going up now.”

“At least we know we caught one thing today,” Dean said to Cas, who gave him a withering look before turning back to his own fishing reel, which also chose that moment to snap taut.

“Dean, I think I caught something,” he said.

“You hooked something, for sure,” Dean agreed, watching Cas struggle against what must’ve been a powerful fish. “You think you can reel it in?”

Cas backed up the deck to get a bit more leverage on it, fighting for his life against whatever was on his line. If all that wasn’t excitement enough, Dean heard a noise off in the distance that he would recognize anywhere. It was a plane, but it wasn’t just any plane. It was the Cessna that Bobby favored, that he’d been maintaining for a decade now. If it wasn’t Bobby himself, then it was someone Bobby sent to check on them.

Dean turned, giving a wave as the small plane cruised overhead. He went back to monitoring his winch while the plane tipped a wing at them and continued on south.

“I’m taking a decompression break,” Benny said in his ear, almost making Dean jump again. “Cargo’s still on the way up to you, but I’m following the shot line up to the buoy. You think you can get that box up on deck on your own?”

“We’ll do our best,” Dean said. You got a guess on what it weighs?”

“More than I was expecting, but less than the worst case scenario I imagined.”

“Well that’s helpful,” Dean muttered, and went back to alternately watching Cas in his epic struggle against a fish and the slow, steady progress of the line reeling back up around the winch.

What felt like an eternity later, the net and then the crate slowly came into view. Dean slowed the winch down, and then shut it down completely as soon as the top of the net broke the surface. He was about to ask Cas for a hand hauling it aboard, but he finally got his first good look at Cas in a few minutes. Sweat had broken out across his brow, and he looked like he was barely holding on.

“You doing all right there, Cas?” Dean asked.

“I refuse to let him go, Dean,” Cas gasped out, winning another few feet of line from the fish. “Refuse.”

“Okay, then,” Dean said, figuring they had time to deal with the crate at their leisure now.

He kept one eye on Cas while he picked up his abandoned rod and fully reeled in his own line, only to discover that his bait was long gone anyway. He stowed his rod, and then turned all his focus to Cas.

“This is the big one, Dean. I can feel it.”

“I can see that,” Dean replied. “Slow and steady, you got him. Just hang on.”

He leaned out over the back of the boat to see if Cas was close to landing the thing, and almost caught a faceful of mahi mahi as the massive fish broke the surface and practically came flying up on deck. Cas stumbled backward and landed on his ass six feet away now that the tension on his line had gone completely slack. Meanwhile, three feet of supremely pissed off fish flung itself around the deck until Dean tackled it and wrangled it into the livewell. When he finally looked back at Cas, he still looked entirely stunned, clutching the fishing rod like his muscles still refused to unclench.

They both lay on the deck, catching their breath, and staring at each other again. When Dean was able to speak again, he grinned at Cas.

“Well, that’s even better than tuna. Nice work with that.”

Cas struggled to his feet, set the fishing rod back in the bracket on deck and shook out his arms, letting the feeling fully return to his hands.

“I believe we both caught something,” he said, walking to the stern and looking down at the catch they still needed to pull out of the water. “Do you think we should wait for Benny before trying to get it aboard?”

Dean walked up beside him, finally getting a chance to properly size up their haul. It wasn’t too terribly large, even if being completely waterlogged likely added a bit to its weight. If Charlie’s theory was right, then someone had been able to carry it out of their cargo hold and toss it overboard without being caught in the act. It couldn’t be too hard to scoop it out of the drink and drag it up on deck.

“I think we at least gotta give it a shot,” Dean said, bending down to give the top of the net a tug. “You wanna grab on to the other side?”

Cas crouched down and got a firm hold of the netting, and Dean counted down from three. When he hit one, they both heaved, and the crate came up a hell of a lot easier than Cas’s fish had. They were still hauling it out when Benny spoke through the radio again.

“I’m coming up now,” he warned. “You get that box up yet?”

“Working on it,” Dean gasped out as they wrestled the soggy netting up on deck.

Water poured out of the crate as he and Cas began disentangling it from the netting and then dragged it back toward the cabin. When it was safely onboard, Dean quickly folded up the net and stowed it away.

“So what do we do with this?” he asked, finally getting a good look at the crate that Cas was already studying.

“You can still see the label on it with its manifest number, origin, and destination,” Cas said, running his fingers over it.

“So it’s definitely supposed to be going to Sam,” Dean said, crouching down to see for himself. “Which means it definitely came off that boat.”

Cas nodded solemnly. “Which means there was definitely someone aboard one or both of those ships who committed a serious crime. Destruction of property and the theft of antiquities to start with.”

“The things some people are willing to do for a paycheck,” Dean said, standing back up and sighing. “But that also means whoever dumped it will be coming back to find it sooner or later. We should probably get it below deck.”

Cas sighed and grabbed the rope handle on one side of the crate, glancing up at Dean.

“Lift with your knees, now.”

Dean groaned as they hefted it up and carefully brought it down the steps into the cabin. There wasn’t a lot of space to stow something that large, so it ended up on the galley table.

“Hopefully we won’t have to spend another night out here,” Dean said. “Cause we just lost our bed to a box of rocks.”

Cas snorted, and Dean headed back out on deck to look out for Benny. He surfaced at the buoy a few minutes later and swam the few hundred yards back to the boat. Dean helped him back up on deck, and shared all the good news with him as Benny peeled out of his dive gear.

“Crate secured, gear stowed, and there’s a three foot mahi in the livewell.”

Benny gave Dean an impressed look. “You caught us lunch?”

“Cas did,” Dean replied, hooking his thumb at the man in question. “While I was dealing with the winch.”

In the distance Dean heard the same Cessna engine approaching again, probably on its way back to the CAP. Dean waved again, the plane tipped a wing again, circling around them once before heading back north again. If the pilot had known what they were looking for, then hopefully they realized that they’d accomplished their mission.

“So does this mean we can head home now?” Dean asked as Benny got to his feet and headed toward the cabin.

“Not yet, unfortunately,” Cas replied. “We’re to remove the target to a secure location and await further orders.”

“A secure location? What, on land somewhere?”

Cas just looked at him with a frustrated frown. “As far as we can get from this location.”

Dean let that process through, and then nodded. “Now the multiple grocery bags Benny brought aboard make sense. So our forty-eight hour leave?”

“Can be extended at the whim of the United States Navy should the situation require it,” Cas confirmed.

Dean sighed, picking at his damp and slightly fish-scented shirt. “Now I really wish I’d swung by the house for a change of clothes or two.”

Benny emerged from the cabin wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and rubbing his hair dry with a small towel. “Well before we can do anything else, we need to retrieve that buoy. You two prepared to haul one last thing outta the ocean today?”

He didn’t even wait for a response before heading to the bridge, cranking the engine, and motoring over to the buoy. Dean reached over and grabbed it, and he and Cas got it reeled in and stowed away while Benny took them vaguely back in the direction of home.

Chapter 11

Chapter Text

🛥️

“So how long you think they’re gonna keep us out here?” Dean asked late that night as the three of them lounged on deck, finally getting to enjoy the beer they’d brought along as a decoy.

They’d also enjoyed Cas’s fish, pan seared with roasted potatoes and a tangy garlic sauce that Benny had whipped up for the occasion. As long as they were stuck at sea, at least they were eating well. Dean had teased Cas that it was just one more point in favor of boats over airplanes.

“Can’t catch your dinner from an Osprey and then kick back with a cold one to watch the sun set.”

Cas reluctantly conceded the point, but it was obvious that he’d at least become comfortable aboard the boat, if still not entirely thrilled with it. Dean tried not to let himself believe that part of the reason may have been the way they’d slept the previous night. At least not with the potential for another similar night looming directly on the horizon.

Benny had dropped anchor about twenty miles off Virginia Beach, and Cas had reported their success to Rufus. Their only orders were to stay exactly where they were to await further orders.

“Well, Frank made port, but they won’t unload the cargo until tomorrow because of the quarantine,” Cas reminded him. “Rufus said the big public welcoming ceremony event was called off in light of the quarantine, as well.”

Dean snorted. “So Dick supposedly did all this to sweep in and claim credit for the cameras, and now there won’t even be cameras at all. So if he was behind this whole bizarre scheme, he shot himself in the damn foot.”

“If he was ever after publicity in the first place,” Cas said.

“That guy loves publicity,” Dean said. “Eats it for breakfast. I can’t imagine he’d toss the chance to make international headlines like this.”

“I suppose it depends on the value he might place on whatever is in that crate,” Cas replied.

Dean took a long sip of his drink, and Benny added, “Sure wish we knew what was in there. You think whatever government official who authorized all this knows?”

Dean shrugged. “Maybe? The guys on Frank’s ship who packed the crates probably do. And Sam definitely will.”

“So what exactly are we waiting for?” Benny asked. “I mean, is there some advantage to their investigation in keeping us at sea versus actually bringing the evidence back to them?”

Cas sighed, leaning back and taking a healthy gulp of his drink before leaning forward and looking each of them in the eye in turn.

“This is classified information, which you did not hear from me. But tomorrow morning, the crew and their cargo will be processed off the ship. A representative from the university will be there, along with NCIS agents who are prepared to detain the suspected accomplice aboard the Port Huron. They’ve apparently discerned the identity of the sailor aboard the Solace who they believe colluded to jettison the crate we retrieved. He’s a member of the security team, and he’s also being taken into custody for questioning. Depending on the results of those interviews, they’re preparing an arrest warrant for Dick Roman.”

“Hoowee,” Benny replied. “Who knew NCIS could work even faster than the Postal Service cops?”

Dean ignored that, despite appreciating the additional humiliation if they could convince the mail cops to drag Dick in in shackles. Was there anything more embarrassing than being arrested by the mailman? He was sure he’d get to laugh about it eventually, but right then, he had slightly more relevant questions.

“So what does this mean for Dick, really? He’s one of the biggest military contractors in the country, and that’s just counting his businesses I know about. I mean, who knew he owned Wellman? The charter company next door to the CAP,” he added for Benny’s benefit, “until this week even? What else has he got his sticky fingers all over?”

Cas shrugged. “That is above my pay grade, but I assume there will be government seizures of his assets. This wasn’t just a crime against the U.S. Navy. This is potentially United Nations treaty violating crime. And the Iraqi ministry of antiquities will surely have things to say on the matter, if they’re ever even told about it.”

“Huh, right. Avoiding international incidents is probably a priority,” Dean replied. “I guess at the very least he’s about to lose every military contract he ever had.”

“I believe it’s safe to say he’ll never work in a defense-related industry again,” Cas confirmed. And then he hesitated a second before laying out the rest of what he knew. “I’ve been requested to go to Washington to assist the investigation.”

“What?” Dean asked, not fully understanding. “Why just you? I mean there’s three of us out here?”

“Because technically all of this happened under my command. I assume I’m either being given the credit for it, or potentially the blame if they’re unable to actually convict him of anything.”

“Dude, what? They can’t lay it all on you if they can’t make a case against him. You did your part. More than your part. You hadn’t even technically taken the command yet.”

Cas sighed, staring out into the darkness over the waves. “Maybe not, but we only stumbled across a very small fringe of a much larger case they’ve been assembling against him for months now. Apparently this isn’t the only near catastrophe he’s been linked to, but it is the one they have a singular piece of physical evidence from.”

“Sam’s box of rocks,” Dean replied quietly.

Cas nodded, giving him a sad smile. “This is why I was so reluctant to come aboard yesterday, and why I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t find anything.”

“But we did,” Benny said, and Cas grumbled.

“They’re hoping we have enough evidence to serve search warrants on his home and all his known businesses to uncover a large collection of stolen antiquities that have disappeared from regions where the U.S. Military has been active. They expect it to lead to a large number of people within the armed services who are also on Roman’s payroll. It’s… a scandal in the making, the likes of which we haven’t seen before.”

Dean tried to grasp the potential scope of such an operation, and failed. The only thing that was hitting him fully was the fact that Cas was leaving. He’d only known him a week, but what a week it had been. The three of them sat there silently finishing their drinks, and then Benny excused himself to head to bed. Dean and Cas stayed out a few minutes longer.

“You got any idea how long you’ll be gone?” Dean finally asked.

Cas shrugged. “I was told it was an open-ended assignment.”

Dean nodded slowly, picking at the label on his empty bottle. They still weren’t talking about what happened between them. If Cas was leaving, Dean thought that was probably for the best, even if it felt a little like getting stabbed in the heart. Maybe Cas just took pity on him, or maybe he was feeling just as much regret as Dean was, but he offered him just a shred of hope.

“I wasn’t ordered to move again, at least, so I assume I’ll be back eventually.”

Dean took that as the tiny bit of comfort it was and gave Cas a sad smile. “That’s something, at least.”

What went unsaid between them was that it still wouldn’t change anything between them. Even if Cas was back by the end of the week, he’d still be Dean’s commanding officer, and any potential for a relationship beyond that would be off the table. It really was a no win situation no matter how they sliced it. He could blame Dick Roman for that if he wanted, but even if Dick had never even existed he’d still be in the same boat.

Dean had lost all hope for anything beyond friendship with Cas even before this, but that was when he knew Cas would at least be around to be friends with at all. Now he wasn’t sure at all that Cas would really ever come back.

Worrying too hard about it right then was more than Dean could bear, so he sighed and stood up.

“Guess we should figure out where to stow that box, if we got any hope of sleeping on anything that even resembles a bed tonight.”

Cas reluctantly followed him down into the cabin to spend one last night holding on to Dean while they both adamantly refused to comment on it at all.

The next morning, a few hours after sunrise, they finally got the call they’d been waiting for. They’d been ordered to sail north to Langley Air Force Base, where they’d be met by Bobby, Sam, and a contingent from NCIS to escort the crate back to Sam’s lab. At least one thing was ending up right where it belonged.

Benny motored up to the dock, and Dean jumped out to tie off the mooring lines as Sam and Bobby walked up to greet them.

“Dude, you look like you need a shower and a shave,” Sam said.

“Yeah, well I’ve been trapped on that tub for the last two days, and I didn’t exactly get a chance to pack for a weekend getaway in advance,” Dean replied, rubbing his scruffy cheek as Cas and Benny carefully lifted Sam’s crate up on to the dock.

“Don’t disparage my boat, Dean,” Benny retorted, before looking up at Sam. “Got you a little present.”

Sam dropped to his knees and checked the label on the crate, shaking his head. “I can’t believe anyone thought they could get away with this. Do you know what’s in here?”

“We were kinda hoping you did,” Benny replied.

Sam laughed. “Yeah, well, it’s a stone tablet encased in clay. From everything we’ve been able to tell so far, it contains some sort of ancient record of a creation myth. It might be the earliest known record of human writing ever found, and someone just tossed it into the ocean.”

“Your very own Rosetta Stone to decipher,” Dean replied, and Sam just stared at him. Dean squirmed, and tacked on, “What, I read. And you used to keep a lot of really interesting books lying around when you were a kid.”

“Whatever, Dean, but you’re right,” Sam replied, looking more relieved than Dean had seen him in ages.

Behind him, Cas climbed up on the dock, too, and Sam peered around him with an anticipatory look. He held out a hand for Cas to shake.

“You must be Captain Novak,” Sam said. “I’m Dean’s brother.”

Cas just stared at Sam’s hand for a moment, clearly struggling to get his land legs back after so long at sea. Eventually he recovered enough to take Sam’s hand.

“Yes, I gathered. It’s nice to finally meet you, Sam.”

“You too,” Sam replied, as Cas wandered off toward the cluster of NCIS agents waiting further down the dock.

Dean watched him go with a growing sense of dread. They’d reached the end of their mission, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he had with Cas before he’d be gone from his life again. It felt stupid to stand around shooting the sh*t with Bobby and Sam when he could be spending every last moment with Cas. Even if he and Cas weren’t really talking about anything.

Cas returned a few minutes later looking supremely disgruntled. He pulled Dean aside and spoke quickly and quietly as he reached into his pocket.

“I’m apparently being escorted to Washington now,” he said, handing his keys to Dean. “I was hoping I’d at least be allowed to shower and change first, but sometimes the wheels of bureaucracy turn fast enough to crush you in the gears. Would you mind taking my truck back to my house for me? I know it’s an inconvenience, but I’d sincerely appreciate not just abandoning it at the Norfolk pier.”

Dean nodded and accepted the keys, feeling like Cas had just kicked him in the chest. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Yeah, I can do that for you.”

Cas gave him a fond smile, reached out and laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder with a look in his eyes that Dean took as a sort of promise that he’d be back, even if neither of them knew when that might be. They couldn’t really say anything else, so Cas took a deep breath and one sharp step back before giving Dean a formal salute. Dean found himself returning it on instinct, despite feeling like he was about to start sobbing and hauling Cas bodily back into Benny’s boat. Maybe they could escape out into international waters and begin a life of piracy. As soon as the thought had come to him, Cas turned on his heel and marched off to meet up with his official escort.

“He’ll be back, son,” Bobby muttered to him with a reassuring nod before heading off behind Sam and his security detail transporting their crate.

All of a sudden, Dean and Benny were left there alone, with nothing to do but head home with even less than they’d set out with. All Dean had left of Cas was the keys in his hand, clutched tight enough to hurt.

“You good to go?” Benny asked after a few minutes.

Dean sighed and jammed Cas’s keys into his pocket before jumping back down onto the boat. “Not at all. He didn’t even get to enjoy the rest of his fish,” Dean muttered while Benny freed the mooring lines from the dock and left Dean to his moping.

It was getting late by the time they made it back to Norfolk. Benny quietly began unloading all his gear while Dean still sat on deck staring at nothing. He was startled when Benny finally dropped into the seat beside him and handed him a cold beer.

“I assume you don’t wanna talk about it,” Benny assured him. “But let me just say I know how you feel, brother.”

It was only in that moment, after mindlessly chugging down half the beer in his hand, that Dean remembered that Benny’s wife was at home waiting for him for the first time in more than a month.

“Dude, you should be with Andrea instead of sitting here with me.”

“She knows I’m on the way. I just don’t like leaving you here like this.”

Dean snorted. “I ain’t good company right now.”

“Agreed,” Benny replied cheerfully. “But you’ve been good company to me through a lot of long stretches where I was probably terrible company.”

Dean shook his head and drained the rest of his drink. “Yeah, I’ll be fine tomorrow,” Dean replied. “It’s just been a long few days.”

“You sure you’re gonna be all right?” Benny asked, plucking the empty bottle from Dean’s hand and standing up.

Dean just nodded, but then shrugged. “It is what it is, man. That’s just life.”

Benny started climbing up onto the dock, but then turned back. “Just so you know, I put a cooler with the rest of the fish and potatoes in the front seat of his truck. You should go home, have some food, and get yourself to bed.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks mom,” Dean replied, getting to his feet and stretching out the kinks in his back. “I’ll get on it. You say hi to Andrea for me. Tell her thanks for letting me borrow you for a bit.”

Benny snorted, and then waved as he headed back to his truck. There was nothing left to do but for Dean to do his best to follow Benny’s advice. He drove Cas’s truck home. Dean didn’t have the brainpower to figure out the logistics of dropping it at Cas’s house.

He nearly broke down and cried over the fish and then again in the shower. When he climbed into bed a short while later, he realized it was the first time he’d lain in his own bed since Cas had woken up with him there a few days ago. He could still smell him on his pillow. Dean hugged it tight and lay there in the dark.

Of course he’d already known that whatever had been going on between them wasn’t sustainable. They would never be allowed to continue their relationship if they both wanted to keep their jobs. Dean had already gone through at least half the stages of grief over it. But now alone in the dark, not having a clue when he might ever see Cas again at all, it was like a hard reset on that entire grieving process. Instead of at least knowing he had a friend in Cas, he had nothing at all.

Sunday, Dean finished off Cas’s fish and completely failed to avoid thinking too much about him. He ignored his phone, he ignored his chores, and couldn’t tell you how he spent most of the day if he tried. All he knew was that he had to pull himself together enough to function, which he’d mostly accomplished by the time he crawled back into bed Sunday night.

The next morning at work, he felt the empty place that he’d grown accustomed to Cas filling for the first few minutes of the day. He missed Cas’s grumpy presence at his coffee machine, missed him popping into the hangar to see how he was doing, missed just knowing he was in the building at all.

On his lunch break, Dean dropped Cas’s truck in the driveway at his house and hiked back to the hangar. He held on to his keys, though. He wasn’t sure if Cas had another key to his house anywhere, and didn’t want to lock the poor guy out. Cas would surely figure out where to find his keys when he got back. It was at least something tangible Dean could hold on to to prove that Cas had really been in his life, even for such a short time. He clutched the keys in his pocket all the way back to work.

Rufus stopped by to discuss their off the books mission, but even he didn’t have any further information on what was going on with Cas, or with Dick Roman

When he swung by the CAP after work, Bobby had a similar lack of new information to share with him. He was also kind enough not to mention that Dean had ignored his calls all weekend. At least Bobby was good for commiserating with about it all, even if Dean wasn’t really able to articulate anything he was feeling about any of it. Bobby seemed to understand anyway, and poured him a drink and let him ramble on for a while and not really saying a thing at all. He didn’t even give Dean a probably well deserved I told you so about it.

“Was that you flying laps over us the other day?” Dean asked eventually. “I thought I recognized your engine noise.”

Bobby laughed, but nodded. “Never met anyone so against flying who knew planes so completely inside out as you, Dean. But it looked like Cas was fighting a battle royale with something out there. Did he win?”

Dean laughed, thinking about their tag team fish wrestling. “Yeah, probably a 25 pound mahi. It was good eating.”

Bobby nodded his approval. “You know, when he gets back, you’re probably gonna owe him at least a tourist flight after putting him through all that.”

Dean almost choked on his drink, and then set the empty glass down on Bobby’s desk. “Dude, talk about the fastest way to get me over missing the guy.”

He shook his head and then got up while Bobby laughed.

“I’m gonna go see how much air time you put on that poor old beast out in the hangar over the last few days.”

Bobby nodded. “Yeah, it’s been a long week.”

“And it’s only Monday,” Dean replied with a sigh as he left.

He was almost done with his check of Bobby’s plane when Claire rolled into the hangar in another of the CAP’s planes. She climbed out and wandered over to the desk to complete her post-flight report, waving at Dean as she went. He went over to join her.

“You have a nice flight?” he asked her, and she shrugged.

“We’ve been flying regular routes over the drop site hoping to catch someone out there looking for that crate,” Claire told him. “Nothing yet, but there’s a chance whoever was gonna retrieve it got spooked.”

“Or they’re waiting until they think the coast is clear,” Dean said. “Benny’s gonna take his dive team out that way tomorrow, too. Close enough to keep an eye out, but not close enough that it looks fishy.”

“Like you and Uncle Cas?” she replied, smirking at him before going back to her paperwork. “Yeah, he told me about the huge fish,” she said, infusing those last two words with all the sarcasm usually reserved only for the fishiest of fish stories.

“Dude, that fish fed three of us for two and a half days. It was damn impressive, actually.”

“You got a picture?” Claire replied, and Dean frowned.

He did actually take a picture when they hauled the fish back out to prepare it for dinner. Benny had jokingly suggested they capture the moment for posterity, and Dean had snapped a quick photo with Cas holding his catch. He hadn’t even looked at it when he’d taken the picture, mostly doing it to humor Benny. Now he pulled out his phone and found it, and he almost didn’t want to show it to Claire. But if anyone on the planet could appreciate the fond, proud smile Cas had given him in that moment as much as Dean could, it would be Claire. He handed her the phone, and she took it, giving him an impressed nod at the size of the fish before taking in the rest of the picture. When she handed it back, she had a warm, knowing smile.

“He told me he left for DC,” Claire said softly. “He sounded really unhappy about it, if that makes it any better.”

Dean sighed. “Nothing is really gonna make it better for a while.”

Claire reached out and held his arm until Dean looked up at her. “You wanna come over for dinner tonight? Kaia and I are making chili, and we thought maybe we could throw on a movie.”

Dean shook his head. “Maybe another night. But thanks.”

Claire nodded at him. “I’ll let you know when I hear from him again. I know he can’t really say much about what he’s doing, but I also know he’d really rather be here. I can’t remember actually seeing him as happy as he’s been since he got here.”

Dean gave her a weak smile, and then headed out. Across the parking lot, he saw Hannah leaving for the day. It was late for her to have still been in the office, and she had a huge file box in her arms she was struggling with. He was once again grateful that he didn’t work for the kind of monster that would send her home with that much work. He almost ran over to help her, but she had the box stashed in her trunk before he could get his feet moving. Dean gave her a little wave, and she nodded back grimly before getting in her car and driving off.

Dean sighed, and did the same. He’d thought about stopping off for a burger, but he couldn’t even bring himself to do that again yet. Instead, he drove on autopilot, pulling up in front of his house before he could convince himself to do anything else. He spent most of the week on autopilot.

Friday after work, he went up to visit Sam. It was an excellent decision for so many reasons. First off, Sam was over the moon about what their preliminary tests were beginning to reveal about the artifacts they’d already begun to study. The crate that Dean had helped recover was still in lockdown, keeping it secret from the woman suspected of drugging Frank’s crew and being on Roman’s payroll. But the university was onboard with Sam, and was fully cooperating with the investigation into Gloria Jane. In service to that, they’d assigned a lawyer to serve as the liaison between Sam’s department and the government investigation.

“She’s amazing, Dean,” Sam told him over pizza and beer in his living room. “Her name’s Eileen Leahy, and she’s brilliant and honestly hilarious. She walked in knowing her sh*t about the archaeology, but also arguing rings around even the government lawyers. I’ve never met anyone like her, Dean.”

“So have you proposed to her yet? Offered to have her babies?”

“Ugh, Dean,” Sam replied, as Dean smirked at him.

“Maybe you should at least ask her out,” Dean suggested once he’d gotten the obligatory big brother teasing out of the way.

Sam deflated, but nodded. “Yeah, I’m working up to it. We got a meeting scheduled for Monday, and I was gonna invite her to lunch afterward to test the waters. But I think she’ll say yes.”

Despite his own romantic hard luck, Dean was happy for his brother. At least one of them deserved to be happy.

“Well, I can’t wait to meet her. She sounds like a keeper.”

Sam laughed. “I mean, I’ve only known her a few days, but… yeah, honestly. I think she might be.”

Dean returned home, giving himself the weekend to pull himself together. He still hadn’t heard from Cas, which wasn’t entirely surprising. He couldn’t even imagine what they’d say to each other. Hallmark definitely didn’t make cards for this situation. Unsurprisingly, the weekend wasn’t near enough time to get over it.

Monday at work, Rufus stopped by his office for a cup of coffee and shut the door, helping himself to a seat and staring Dean down across his desk.

“Just thought you’d like to know that harbor patrol picked up a fishing boat registered to one of Dick’s shell companies circling around that dive site with an ROV last week. They had the drop coordinates programmed into their GPS, and the entire crew was detained. Not surprisingly, they all flipped on one of Roman’s proxy CEO’s. That Edgar guy who runs Wellman Air. And yesterday, I heard he flipped on Roman. So parking’s about to get easier at the CAP now that the Navy seized Wellman.”

Dean heaved a sigh of relief. So everything was out in the open now. That was good news for Sam. He could finally open that last crate, especially if the woman responsible for the mass poisoning of the crew of a US Naval vessel had been apprehended. He still refused to let that give him any sort of hope that it could mean Cas would be coming home any time soon. And Rufus was in a perfect position to sympathize with him on that front.

“So they still got you unretired for a while anyway?” Dean asked.

Rufus nodded, and then sighed. “I was supposed to be sitting on a beach in the Bahamas drinking mai tais out of a coconut this week, and instead I’m here in this cave drinking your coffee out of a novelty mug.”

“Sorry for your loss,” Dean replied.

“Yeah, yeah, well they can’t keep me here forever,” Rufus said. “Even if it seems like they’re gonna try.”

Dean dragged himself through yet another week barely going through the motions of daily life. It felt wrong trying to just go back to how things were before he’d met Cas, but thanks to two decades in the Navy it was a routine he could practically do in his sleep. Days stretched into weeks, and he eventually did take everyone else up on their offers to go to dinner or see a movie, or even once to go out fishing with Benny as long as they went up the river instead of out into open water. Dean didn’t think he could handle catching another mahi mahi just yet, and Benny was nice enough not to tease him about it.

Charlie was back, at least, and once she got settled in she sat Dean down and forced the whole story out of him. It went a lot easier with the bottle of Spanish wine and the assortment of candies from across the Mediterranean she plied him with. She sympathized, but there was still nothing either of them could do to really make it any better. At least Dean didn’t feel so completely alone with his loss anymore.

Claire and Kaia watched a few movies with him, and he even brought himself to let Bobby take him to 50’s Burgers after about a month. Possibly best of all, Sam and Eileen had become a hot item, and Dean had to entirely agree with Sam’s original assessment of her when they finally met. The woman was so far out of Sam’s league he told his brother to make sure he never, ever screwed that up, because he would never meet anyone else like her again.

Everyone else, though, had moved on with their lives, and most of them probably assumed that Dean had, too. Rufus still hadn’t been given official permission to retire again, but that was honestly par for the course for the Navy. Paperwork always took more time than anything else.

The only thing Dean had changed in his usual pre-Cas routine was a daily drive past Cas’s house. Just to keep an eye on the place for him, Dean had told himself at first. He still had Cas’s keys in his pocket, and eventually he started dropping by at least every few days to start up Cas’s truck. He even drove it around a few times, especially once the weather started to turn colder. He didn’t want Cas to come home to a stalled engine and four flat tires. It was just the neighborly thing to do, Dean convinced himself. He wasn’t just trying to comfort himself by lingering in Cas’s space. He rationalized that he also had Cas’s house keys, and he hadn’t gone in and slept in Cas’s bed or rifled through his closets or anything. Not that the thought hadn’t occurred to him in some of his lower moments, but he managed to squash the impulse before actually following through on it.

When Cas left him so suddenly, Dean had felt like he’d been stuck, frozen in place and unable to move. And after six weeks, Dean still hadn’t begun to feel like he’d been unfrozen yet. He was beginning to wonder if he ever would, or even if he wanted to. Because if he started moving again, he’d have to feel the loss of Cas, and everything they could’ve had in a better universe than the one where they lived.

Chapter 12

Chapter Text

🛥️

It was the last Saturday in October, almost two months since he first met Cas. The truck was a little low on oil, and Dean had decided to just go ahead and give it a full oil change. He had everything spread out on Cas’s driveway, the pan beneath the truck filling with drained oil as he checked everything else under the hood. He’d slid underneath to replace the drain cap, and nearly hit his head on the bumper when he slid back out and realized he was no longer alone.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas said, standing over him looking mildly bewildered.

Two months of unprocessed feelings broke out in an instant melee in Dean’s chest at the sound of his voice and the sight of his face. He’d been starting to wonder if he’d exaggerated how attractive Cas was in his own memories, but no. Standing there, blinking at him, Dean realized his memory version of Cas in no way did the man justice, and he was smacked in the face with it all over again. Suddenly, two months felt like far too short a time to have come up with anything at all to say in this situation. He was relieved that Cas had at least one thing to say.

“What are you doing?”

Dean scrambled to his feet, wiping his greasy hands on a rag and grabbing the bottle of oil he’d been about to pour into the engine.

“Oil change,” Dean replied. “Figured it’s been sitting here too long.”

Cas nodded slowly, and Dean snapped back into action, filling the oil, making sure everything else was ship shape and squared away, and then letting the hood slam shut.

“I appreciate it, Dean,” Cas said when Dean eventually remembered to hand the man his keys.

Dean stood there for a second, holding them in his hand one last time. They’d been a talisman that had gotten him through the last few months, and it was hard to part with them, even though Cas was standing right there again. Until he was sure that Cas hadn’t come back just to pack up his life and leave again, Dean didn’t really want to let go of the one tangible thing that Cas had left in his care.

Even though Dean was just standing there, clearly clutching Cas’s keys, Cas wasn’t making any move to claim them. He stood there looking just as frozen, just as completely unprepared for this moment as Dean felt. Eventually, Dean convinced his hand to unclench enough to dangle the keychain out for Cas, and Cas smiled as he reached for his keys.

“So did you manage to take down Dick?” Dean asked, and Cas grinned at him.

“There’s going to be a formal press conference tomorrow detailing his arrest and the seizure of all of his assets. I was invited to stay for that, but after two months fully immersed in it, I have even less interest in the political circus of DC than I did before.”

Dean laughed at that, partly because he knew how much Cas hated political gamesmanship, and partly just out of pure relief that he truly had been unaffected by his time at the center of a political power struggle. “Yeah, but was it worth it?”

Cas tilted his head, a gesture that Dean had almost forgotten he did, and it sent a warm zing through him to see it again now.

“What do you mean?”

“Taking down Dick. Was it worth everything you went through to make it happen?”

Cas fiddled with his keys, absently flipping his way through them in his hand, much the way Dean had been doing with them for the last two months. He experienced a bizarre pang of nostalgia watching Cas’s hands, and startled when Cas finally spoke again.

“Most of the time, it didn’t feel like it would be. There was an ongoing uncertainty that the case we’d built against Roman wouldn’t be enough, that it would fall apart, or be torn to shreds by his lawyers. He has a lot of allies, or at least a lot of people in positions of power he’d secured in his bottomless pockets.”

Dean snorted, folding his arms and leaning back against the front of Cas’s truck. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but considering how carefully Cas was picking his words, Dean wanted to brace himself, or at least not allow himself to hope that Cas was really back to stay.

“Dick’s had years to bribe and wheedle his way into all sorts of dark corners,” Dean replied.

“There’s a team of investigators who will likely spend years scouring them all out,” Cas said. “A team I was asked to join, for what it’s worth.”

Dean tensed, waiting for the blow to come. “What, a transfer to DC?”

“And a promotion.” Cas added, and then laughed. “They just gave me a promotion six months ago, but someone wanted to make an offer too good for me to refuse.” He smirked at Dean, and then shook his head. “I suspect someone in my family was behind that push. Honestly, sometimes I think some of them are even worse than Dick Roman. And none of them would appreciate what I might do with that sort of commission.”

“Wait, what? So you didn’t take the job?”

Cas smiled at him. “Dean, did you not hear anything I’ve told you about my family? I have no interest in pursuing the political ambitions they keep pushing on me. Half the time I was gone, I wondered if they’d somehow arranged the whole thing, setting up Dick Roman for a fall just to pull me back into the family business and force me into the limelight. That’s the kind of politics they’re involved with, and I don’t want any part of it.”

Dean shook his head, finally beginning to relax just a little bit. “So you’d rather stick around here supervising a big drafty hangar than rubbing elbows with the back room power brokers?”

Cas sighed, once again looking down at the keys in his hand, and pretty pointedly not looking at Dean.

“There’s still a few technical details to work out, but I had a lot of time to think about what I want while I was gone.”

“And… you don’t want to stick around in a big drafty hangar…” Dean said, trying to get out ahead of the feeling of his heart breaking. So he was shocked when Cas burst out laughing.

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Cas said, eventually, finally looking back up at Dean with a grin.

“Okay…” Dean replied, bewildered, and hoping Cas was about to let him in on the joke.

Cas took a few steps closer, and sighed.

“Dean, I’ve been in the Navy more than two decades. In all that time, I’ve lived on base, never really spent much money on myself, and that’s on top of the trust my father set up for me when I was born, which was supposed to fund my ascension to power and prestige. I’m not sure what anyone in my family would think of what I’ve chosen to do with it, but I honestly couldn’t care less. It’s not their money to spend.”

Dean raised an eyebrow at him, and Cas looked like he was trying to work out how to say the next words. He wasn’t about to interrupt, and Dean truly had no idea what to say anyway.

“I spent the last couple of months compiling a survey of Roman Enterprises shell companies and subsidiaries, and over and over again I kept coming back to one in particular. Wellman Air.”

Dean blinked. “Wellman? The little charter company next door to the CAP?”

“You know Hannah there, right? At the front desk?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied. “She saved me from getting my car towed by her asshole boss on more than one occasion. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her in a while. I was kinda getting worried Edgar fired her.”

“Well you probably didn’t know that her asshole boss was mostly useless, and Hannah all but kept the company running single handedly,” Cas replied as Dean’s eyebrow raised in surprise. “When the warrant was served on Wellman during the investigation, she handed over everything and then closely assisted us with uncovering a far-reaching web of corruption within Roman Enterprises.”

“Huh,” Dean replied. Suddenly her late night departure with a big file box made perfect sense. She wasn’t fired, she was blowing the whistle. “And to think I assumed she just sat at the front desk to save my ass twice a week. I probably should send a fruit basket to Wellman Air for her.”

Cas nodded, then took a deep breath. “It’s not Wellman Air, anymore. Or at least it won’t be once all the proper paperwork goes through. Some of Roman’s assets are being liquidated, and Wellman was considered superfluous to the government’s needs. I was given an incredibly fair price for it, and after a lot of sleepless nights wondering if I was doing the right thing, I realized that the benefits far outweighed the risks. Hannah has agreed to stay on as Chief Operating Officer, which will make this a lot easier. As soon as I get final approval, and wait for my official retirement paperwork to go through, I’ll be giving up one drafty hangar for another.”

“You’re retiring too?” Dean asked, then shook his head. “Poor Rufus is never gonna be allowed to leave here, is he?”

Cas laughed at that. “No, I’ve been told a replacement has already been chosen, and will take over for me by the end of the year. Rufus will be retiring officially by the end of next week.”

“So at least we get to have you around for a little while,” Dean said, feeling a little shaky about it, but that just meant he could keep kicking those feelings down the road for a little while longer.

Cas looked down at his feet, jingling his keys in his hand, and after a moment he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and looked right in Dean’s eyes.

“I was hoping… I mean, this is a lot to ask, but I think I have to… when I formally take over at Wellman, I will need a qualified avionics chief. And I know you love your job here, and it would be asking you a lot to give it up, but I trust you and your mechanical skills, and would like to offer you the job.”

Dean’s heart climbed right up into his throat. He wasn’t sure what was worse, having Cas as his commanding officer in the Navy or as his boss out in the civilian world. Either way, the same rules might apply to any hope that Cas might want something resembling a real relationship. For all Dean knew, he was just one fun night for Cas, but a much better mechanic for the long haul. It was weirdly flattering and insulting at the same time. But this might be his only real chance to even find out, so he had to at least give it a shot. He psyched himself up, took a step closer to Cas and set the greasy rag he’d been twisting through his fingers down on the truck’s hood.

“When you said you were putting in for retirement and still staying local, I thought maybe I’d actually be able to see you. You know, like, socially,” Dean said, the words completely inadequate to the task.

Cas frowned at him, but he looked genuinely surprised, if not a little bit hopeful, too. “Would you like that? I mean, to pick up where we…” his frown deepened. “I don’t even know how to finish that sentence.”

Dean laughed. “Yeah. I was thinking maybe we could start at the beginning again. Once you’re officially not my CO anymore, I mean.”

Cas took a breath, looking relieved, and nodded. “I think I’d like that very much, Dean. Once I’m no longer your CO, of course.”

Dean nodded. “Good. And for the record, I’d love to come work for you, too, but not if it meant we couldn’t have any sort of relationship outside of that, you know? I think I’d rather have you than any job. Even if you’ve been an amazing boss.”

“I don’t believe that would be an issue, Dean. If I’m the boss, I would get to make the rules.”

“Are you sure? I mean, you might be the boss, but would Hannah approve?”

“When I was away, I had a lot of time to think. I did talk with Hannah about you, and yes she approves,” Cas said, and then sighed. “Much of the time, I realized I’d rather be here. Not because of the work, but because of you.”

Dean licked his lips, processing all of that through. He’d been in the navy more than half his life, most of that right on that very base. He’d never really thought about leaving. He'd always intended to stay on until he got too old to manage the work. For the first time, he was actually seriously considering leaving. If it meant being able to have everything he’d always wanted with Cas, then leaping into the unknown might be worth it. At least he’d have Cas by his side to jump with him.

“You know, I’m not quite to my 20 years yet…” Dean said, and Cas blinked and looked concerned.

“I couldn’t ask you to give up your retirement benefits, then, but you should know the job is still yours, whenever you’re ready to take it.” He paused for a moment, and then turned serious. “How long will I have to wait?”

Dean shrugged, and then grinned at him. “Until January 24. I got my GED and enlisted on my 18th birthday. Never thought I’d be putting in retirement papers exactly twenty years later.”

Cas blinked at him. “But that’s less than three months from now. I likely won’t even get the new company up and running by then.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, and you’re gonna be busy. If you’re retiring, you’re gonna have to move again, too. You got a place picked out yet?”

Cas looked horror struck at the idea. “I… honestly hadn’t even thought of that. I still haven’t finished unpacking here yet.”

“Well, then you can save yourself some time and just move those boxes again.”

“That’s not a comforting thought, Dean.”

“I didn’t say it was,” Dean replied. “I mean, I’m kinda in the same boat here.”

Cas grumbled and frowned. “Don’t bring boats into this.”

“Aw, come on, you gotta admit that fishing trip was kinda fun,” Dean replied.

Cas shrugged. “I did catch a pretty amazing fish.”

Dean couldn’t wipe the smile off his face if he tried, even if he still had months to wait until they were both finally free. When he’d gotten up that morning, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see Cas again, and suddenly they had their whole lives to look forward to, together. He took a careful step closer to Cas, right up in his personal space. They were standing right out on the driveway, and anyone could see them, after all.

“So, what are we supposed to do for the next few months, Captain Novak?”

Cas tensed up, and his eyes went wide, before he glanced nervously up and down the street.

“I believe we should discuss that somewhere more private, Chief Winchester.”

He grabbed Dean’s wrist and dragged him up toward the front door of his house. While he fumbled with his keys, he glanced back at his truck, and then at Dean.

“I’m not pulling you away from something, am I?”

“Nothing that can’t wait,” Dean replied.

Cas just nodded and got the door unlocked. As soon as it was open, he dragged Dean inside and then pushed him up against the door with one hand.

“So are we finally gonna talk about that night?” Dean asked when Cas just stood there studying him.

“Let’s just be grateful that we can talk about it if we wanted to, but right now I’d rather defer it to later. We have until Monday morning to talk about it, but I think we’ve waited long enough for this,” Cas said, and then leaned in and kissed Dean, long and slow.

The kiss was everything their one night of desperate passion hadn’t been. Dean grabbed on to him like he knew he didn’t have to let go again and gave himself over to it completely. They explored each other slowly, running hands over each other’s bodies and taking all the time they wanted.

Eventually Cas broke away for air, and without a word led Dean to his bedroom. He began slowly peeling off Dean’s clothes, running his hands and mouth over every inch of newly revealed skin as he went. Dean stood there and let him, groaning when Cas lingered on a particularly sensitive bit of skin. When Cas got down to his hip, Dean pulled him up and began the same procedure on Cas. They took it in turns to finish undressing each other, and Dean was about to lay Cas out on the bed when he froze.

“Oh, no,” Cas said, and Dean’s first impulse was to apologize, flee the house, and maybe run away to Nepal. That was probably far enough to bury his humiliation. Luckily he wouldn’t need to be quite so melodramatic. “Lube. I never unpacked it,” he clarified, waving a hand at half a dozen boxes labeled Bedroom dresser drawers. “It’s in there somewhere.”

“Well that’s some poor planning there, Cas,” Dean replied. “We can save it for later and do something else for now,” he added, grabbing his co*ck and running his hand down the shaft. “There’s lots of things we can do without it.”

Cas watched him, and then shuddered. “I fully intended to lay you out on the mattress and take you apart piece by piece. I was going to open you up with my tongue and then slide inside and make love to you almost painfully slowly, for as long as I possibly can.”

Dean groaned, and a pang of pure need shot through him. “Well if you keep talking like that, it’s not gonna last very long at all.”

Cas nodded. “Though I suspect the search for the lube would have a chilling effect on the mood,” he grumbled out.

Dean spent just another moment imagining it, and then waved a hand. “We got all weekend. Hell, we got forever if we want. Right now I just want you. I think we waited long enough.”

Cas sighed, only looking slightly disappointed. “I can still take my time with you.”

“I really hope so,” Dean replied, and pulled Cas down on the bed.

Late that evening, when they’d fully exhausted themselves after finally having bothered to excavate the lube, they lay in bed once again contentedly tangled together and finally talking about everything.

“I’m glad we at least got some use out of this bed, after everything we went through to get it here,” Cas said, and Dean laughed.

“Yeah, not looking forward to reversing that whole procedure so soon. So really, have you thought about where you’re gonna move to?”

Cas shrugged, leaning up on one elbow to better look down at Dean. “I still don’t really know the area that well, but I assume it would be practical to live closer to Wellman, since I’ll be going there every day.”

“Dude, you gotta stop calling it Wellman. What are you gonna call it, anyway? Novak Air?”

“Absolutely not,” Cas said. “I don’t want anyone thinking it’s somehow affiliated with my family.”

“Okay, then, what were you thinking?”

Cas frowned. “I hadn’t really thought that far.”

“You could just call it Cas Air.”

Cas’s frown deepened. “I’ll figure it out, I’m sure. Whatever it’s called, I’ll probably start looking for a house nearby next week.”

“Ooh, find someplace near Elizabeth’s restaurant,” Dean suggested.

“I know you haven’t had as long to think about it, but what are you planning to do, Dean?”

“I haven’t got a clue, man. I guess I’ll tag along with you when you go house hunting.”

Cas looked at him funny for a second. “Would you want to live with me?”

Dean thought back over what he’d said, and how it had sounded out loud. When he’d said it, he only meant he’d look for a place of his own while Cas was looking around, too. He hadn’t meant to imply that he would live with him, but the idea definitely didn’t sound terrible.

“Are you asking me to live with you, Cas?” he asked, feeling like he needed to sit up for this discussion all of a sudden, and sliding up to lean back against the headboard. “Because it feels kinda sudden…”

Cas considered that for a minute, and then sat up beside him. Dean wasn’t sure what to do. It felt awkward not to drape his arm over Cas’s shoulders, but he wanted to give Cas space to figure this out for himself. It was too important to push.

“Maybe it would’ve felt sudden two months ago,” he started, and then turned his head to look at Dean. “But all I could think about when I was gone was coming home to you. I didn’t even know if you would want me, but I had to at least try. And now that I’m here, that we’re here,” he added, waving a hand between them, “I don’t want to lose this again. Maybe it’s sudden, but it also feels right. So yes, I suppose I am asking you to live with me. If that’s something you want, too.”

Dean nodded slowly. “What if we end up hating it?”

Cas laughed, and then smiled fondly at him. “Do you really think that will be the case?”

“I don’t know, dude. Maybe you got terrible habits I just can’t live with. I mean, you run, for fun. What if that’s just the tip of the iceberg?”

“Dean,” Cas scolded.

Dean frowned at him, but then turned serious. He took a deep breath and figured he really didn’t have anything to lose.

“You know watching you walk away back on that dock was one of the worst things I’ve lived through. I didn’t know if you were ever coming back, and all I had to prove the entire thing hadn’t been some sort of hallucination was a set of keys and half a fish. When I thought about what would happen if you did come back, I figured best case scenario you’d be my boss and maybe friendly enough to get a beer or a burger with now and then. I assumed we’d never talk about what happened again, that you’d just gotten it out of your system and had moved on already.”

Cas made a pained noise and shifted right up against him. “I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything else to you back then. I’ve regretted it for the last two months, but I wasn’t permitted to contact you while the investigation was still ongoing.”

Dean finally did relent and wrap an arm around Cas, pulling him in tight.

“I figured. I get it, but it still sucked,” Dean replied. “Point is, I don’t ever wanna lose this again, either. I didn’t know it back then, but now I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.” He laughed. “Everyone who watched me go through all the stages of grief would probably agree.”

“Dean, I love you, too.”

They once again sat there staring at each other, letting the warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing for certain that they felt the same way about each other fill them completely. They had so much more to talk about, but at least they were certain that they had the rest of their lives to figure it all out.

Chapter 13

Chapter Text

Four Months Later

They’d taken the month of February to settle into their new home, and now it was the morning of the official grand opening of Free Will Air. Cas had finally settled on the name after a long conversation with Dean shortly before his discharge paperwork had come through. They were both shedding that last bit of the past expectations of their respective families and choosing their own destiny for themselves. It was both liberating and just a little bit terrifying. But not nearly as terrifying for Dean as Cas’s last flight as a Navy Captain had been.

On his last official day as his commanding officer, Dean had walked into Cas’s office, stood at attention, and asked Cas which plane he’d like to take Dean up in. Cas had stopped looking over the paperwork he’d been reading and stared up at Dean like he’d been possessed. When he recovered from the shock of that question, Cas pushed his chair back and stood up so he could look Dean in the eye.

“Are you seriously asking me to fly you in an airplane?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean replied tersely, which was about the only way he could force those words out of his mouth. It might have been his stupid idea, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dying on the inside about it.

After having carried on their clandestine relationship for several months at that point, Cas knew Dean inside and out. As a result, he stepped around his desk so he could stand close enough to Dean to see how much he was trembling.

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, Dean,” Cas replied gently. “I know you trust me completely, and I know you trust your aircraft. Sometimes that isn’t enough.”

Dean relaxed, knowing he didn’t have to put on a show for Cas. He took a deep breath, and tried his best to smile. “I know, Cas. But I want to. I really do. How many times have I dragged you out on the water now? It’s only fair, and this is the last shot I got at flying in anything other than civilian aircraft. So, how about it? You got time for a joyride before you hang up your wings?” Dean asked, reaching out and flicking the eagle pinned to his uniform shirt.

Cas considered that for a moment, and then raised an eyebrow at Dean. “Okay, then, if you’re sure?”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“So what are we flying?” Cas asked, leading the way out of his office and down the hall toward the hangar.

“I, uh. I hadn’t really thought that through,” Dean said, once he’d gotten his feet unstuck from the floor and jogged to catch up with Cas. “I figured you’re the expert. What do you want to fly, seeing as it might be your last flight in one of these beasts, too.”

Cas stopped in the hallway outside the hangar door and blinked back at Dean with a stunned expression on his face.

“You just realized that, too, huh?” Dean asked, unable to stop the genuine grin on his face.

“I’d like to fly a Super Hornet one last time, then, I think,” Cas replied.

“Nostalgic for the good old days or something?” Dean asked, and Cas shook his head.

“Not particularly, but the F-35 only has one seat, so if you’re coming with, you’ll need a seat, as well.”

By the time they landed a few hours later, even Dean was slightly in awe of the experience, despite his knees having turned to jelly when Cas hit the afterburner out over open water.

“So you agree that flying can be exhilarating,” Cas said as Dean wobbled back to his hangar.

“That’s one word for it,” Dean replied. “Though I will argue forever that human bodies are not designed to break the sound barrier.”

Cas just laughed at him, and gave him a look of quiet pride. “But you did it anyway. And now I will never make you do it again.”

Dean stopped on the tarmac just short of the door to the hangar and looked into Cas’s eyes. “I’d do it again for you, Cas.”

Cas grinned at him, and they went back to work.

And now they were about to go back to work together again, even if their uniforms were a little different now. Cas and Hannah had redesigned the company logo and chosen a design of bright blue on a deep green background. Which meant for the first time in his life, Dean was wearing something other than navy blue or khaki to work. Cas had insisted that the emerald green work shirt looked great on him, but Dean still had his doubts. When Cas had stood back and smiled fondly at him when he’d modeled his new look that morning, before pulling him in for a joyous kiss, Dean had finally been convinced.

“You picked this shirt out just because it brought out my eyes?” Dean asked, plucking at the fabric, and Cas had shrugged.

“Can you blame me?”

“I’m gonna miss seeing you in blue, though.”

“Technically I can wear whatever I want,” Cas replied. “And so can you. We won’t be having formal uniform inspections. You can wear hot pink overalls, for all I care.”

Dean gave him a look like he was actually considering it for a second, and Cas looked slightly panicked that he might actually do it. Dean grinned at him.

“I think I’ll still take the green, thanks.”

Half an hour later, Dean grabbed their coffee and practically had to drag Cas out the door. He was still fussing over the box of things he needed to bring in to the office.

“Come on, Cas. It’s not like we can’t come back if you forget something. And if we don’t leave now, we won’t be able to stop at Elizabeth’s for breakfast. You do want a slice of pecan pie to celebrate, right?”

Cas sighed as Dean took the box from his hands and loaded it in the trunk of the Impala.

“Yes, Dean, I do,” he replied.

They stood in their driveway, just smiling at one another. It still felt new and thrilling to be able to be so casual about their relationship in public, and not have to sneak around. Cas reached out and laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean still felt that surge of warmth and comfort from the touch.

“Thank you for being here with me, Dean.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. You ready to head off into the wild blue yonder?”

Cas frowned at him. “That’s an Air Force thing.”

Dean laughed and pulled him into a quick kiss without thinking twice about it.

“Yeah, but Anchors Aweigh doesn’t really fit with the whole airplane business, does it?”

Cas shrugged and conceded the point. “We need a better song, I suppose.”

Dean considered that for a second as they walked around and got in the car. He reached into the back seat and rummaged around until he found the tape he’d been looking for. He popped it into the tape deck and started the car with a grin at Cas as the new soundtrack to their lives played them off into their future.