Chapter Text
Solitary confinement is worse torture than hell.
In hell at least Dean had something to do, pain to feel and to administer. After just a few days in solitary confinement, with nothing to do but sleep and stare at the concrete walls, Dean considers hurting himself in order to feel something. He has a stubborn will, though, and instead chooses to talk.
In his head, mostly, he talks to himself each morning to keep track of the days just like he would be writing in his journal at home. Then he prays. He prays to God and spends a lot of time cursing him, then he prays to Amara and tells her whatever is on his mind and recounts his favorite memories of her. Last, he prays to Castiel.
Cas, I hope you’re looking for us, he thinks, his lips moving with his silent words. I don’t have a clue where we are, so I’m sorry I can’t really help you. I hope you called Charlie, though, because I bet she could track us. I know I told you to handle that kid, so it’s fine if you’re prioritizing that over finding us. More important anyway.
As the time passes, Dean’s prayers to Cas grow more ridiculous.
I don’t know why I’m doing this. Not like you can hear me.
I miss you. I miss Sam and Mom and everybody else, but today I miss you the most.
You know I’m a miserable son of a bitch, but I really think this is the most miserable I’ve ever felt. I keep thinking about Amara, about us taking care of her, to remember a time when I felt genuinely good. I was really happy doing that with you.
I miss you.
After one week, Dean feels like dying.
He thinks that dying might be the only way out of this, and that he probably has a better chance in the afterlife than he does in his cell.
“Billie,” he says out loud, barely above a whisper.
She doesn’t come, and he doesn’t call her again.
It isn’t until he’s asleep that night that she comes to him in his dreams.
“I can’t find you,” she says by way of greeting.
He’s driving in the Impala, down a road with nothing ahead. Billie sits in the passenger seat. Even in his sleep, Dean is so happy to see a friendly face that he feels like he might cry.
“They’ve probably got warding up,” Dean replies. “It’s the government. I don’t know what they know.”
“Mm,” Billie hums. “Were you calling me for my help?”
“Yeah. Was hoping you’d kill me and Sam and then bring us back to life once we’re out of there.”
Billie laughs lightly. “Fun idea, but I can’t.”
“Because you can’t find us.”
“And I can’t really kill, which I know you know. I can only reap what’s already destined to die.”
Dean stares at the darkness ahead, thinking.
“Stop thinking about suicide,” Billie says. “You can’t kill yourself to solve your problems.”
“I’m not gonna kill myself,” Dean says petulantly. “But if you have any other better ideas, I’m all ears.”
“Castiel is working on it.”
Dean swallows. “Oh. That’s—OK, good.”
“Dean.”
He looks over at her, not even bothering to pretend to drive the car anymore.
She raises her eyebrows at him and tilts her chin down. “Whatever he does, you’re not gonna like it.”
He wakes up.
Another five weeks pass.
Dean doesn’t see Billie again. Or anybody else.
He doesn't eat much, not just because the food is bad but because his body loses motivation to function properly. He tries to stop thinking, to stop being. Every minute that passes, he thinks it must be the last. It has to be the last. It's never the last.
And then, one night he falls asleep on his shitty little mattress against the wall and the next morning he wakes up in the middle of a cornfield with the sun shining in his eyes and a spider crawling across his face.
He rolls over with a groan, swiping the spider from his face, and blinks as he sees a little girl crouching down in the soil and pressing the end of a stick against the ground. She turns toward him and smiles. It’s Amara. She runs away from him and dissolves like a mirage against the sky.
“Sam?” Dean croaks, his voice hoarse. “Sammy?”
“I’m here,” Sam responds from several feet away. “I don’t know where ‘here’ is, but I’m here.”
Dean winces and forces himself to his feet, popping his knees and cracking his back in the process. “Cas!” he shouts.
“You think he’s the one who got us out?” Sam asks, still on the ground but propped up on his elbows now.
“Yeah,” Dean replies, distracted as he looks around the giant field. “Where the hell is he?”
“Why do you think it was—”
“Billie told me. Did nobody come talk to you? What’d you do all that time in that place?”
Sam clears his throat and makes a noncommittal noise. “Uh, I had someone to talk to.”
“Your imaginary friend, huh? What was his name? Sully?”
Sam finally gets to his feet and flips Dean the bird. “Yeah, my imaginary friend. Sure.”
“Cas!” Dean shouts again. “Castiel! Show yourself, you son of a bitch!”
“Yeah, ‘cause being mean to him always works,” Sam mutters.
A figure appears in the distance, materializing out of nothing, and it only takes Dean half a second to recognize that it isn’t Cas.
It’s Chuck.
“What the hell do you want?” Dean asks.
“Well, I would’ve preferred a ‘thank you,’ but I know that’s not your style,” Chuck replies, smiling at Dean and then at Sam. “Truthfully, when I took Lucifer from you guys, I should've considered taking Castiel, too. Could've straightened them both out at the same time."
“What?”
“He and I…We came to an agreement. You won’t see him for a while.”
“A deal?” Dean says. “He made some bullshit deal with you?”
Chuck shrugs. “You wanted to get out of that box. If it makes you feel any better, I was his last resort.”
“What are you gonna do with him?” Sam asks.
“Castiel needs some…He needs some redirection, so to speak. Don’t worry, I’ll return him to you good as new. It will just take some time.”
“How much time, Chuck?”
Chuck smiles, snaps his fingers and disappears.
Dean runs a hand down his face and curses.
“So, uh. How are we gonna get home?” Sam asks.
Dean turns to Sam, looks at him, really looks at him, and says, “C’mere, Sammy,” and yanks him down for a hug.
Sam melts into him, holding Dean’s back tight and burying his face in his neck. He has a beard now, and his hair is past his shoulders.
“I’m so damn glad to see you,” Dean whispers.
Sam squeezes him then lets him go, straightening back up. He pats his shoulder twice. “Worse than hell?”
“Yeah.”
Sam brushes a finger along Dean’s beard. “You need a shave.”
“Do I, Castaway?”
They hug again, desperately, before walking out toward a road and hitchhiking.
It takes them two days to make it to the bunker.
Neither of them ate much during solitary, so they’re easily able to live off of gas station snacks until they get home.
Their mom is asleep in a chair at the war room table, her arms crossed over her middle and her chin dropped to her chest. Dean gently rouses her awake and gives her a smile to keep from startling her.
She startles anyway. “Oh, honey,” she says, standing and pulling him in for a hug. “Goodness, you look terrible. Both of you.”
She releases Dean quickly and goes to Sam, fretting over him and hugging him tight.
“We’re OK, Mom,” Sam says.
“You’re skin and bones. And hair. Go on, get cleaned up and I’ll order takeout,” she says. “You probably can’t handle much because you’re starved, but I’ll try to get something you won’t hurl back up.”
They listen to her and head toward their rooms, both of them bent with exhaustion.
“She’s treating us like we’re kids,” Sam mumbles.
“Yeah, well, this might be her only chance to get away with it without feeling weird about it.” Dean grabs the handle of his door and stops Sam, making eye contact with him. “Let her, please.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Dean doesn’t look at himself in the mirror in his room. He gathers clothes and linens and trudges down the hall to the bathroom, and it isn’t until he’s under the spray and washing the grime from his body that he assesses himself.
He can see his rib cage and his collarbones beneath his taut skin. His stomach curves inward, hip bones jutting out dramatically. He’s lost muscle mass in his arms and legs, but he doesn’t really look as bad as he feels. Just too thin, stretched out.
When he does look at himself in the mirror, it’s to shave his face and cut his hair. He looks shaggy and ridiculous, like a bear coming out of hibernation, and he starts with clipping his hair until his entire head is nearly shaved. As he works on his beard, he realizes how gaunt and hollow his face is, so he keeps some facial hair to hide it. The bags under his eyes are a deep purple, and there’s gray near his sideburns.
“Cas,” he says out loud to the mirror. “I don’t know what you did, but I wouldn’t have lasted much longer in there without aging another hundred years. Wherever you are, I hope you’re alright. And thank you.”
He immediately regrets the thanks, because he’s certain that Billie was telling the truth and that Dean will be angry with Cas for whatever he did to get them out. But in the meantime, he feels nothing but relief.
On his way out of the bathroom, Dean passes by Sam going in.
“Whoa, you’re skinny,” Sam says. “Is that what I look like?”
Dean pats his arm. “No, it looks like you did at least a few push-ups while we were in there.”
“Hey.” Sam grabs his hand to stop him. “We lost six weeks, and now Cas is gone.”
Dean looks at him, waiting for the point. He doesn't want to talk about Cas, doesn't want to even think about how hollow and empty the bunker feels without him here.
Sam continues, “We have to find Kelly Kline.”
“Right. Yeah.” Dean shakes his head. He had nearly forgotten about the unborn devil.
Finding her is easier said than done. They spend nearly a week in the bunker just trying to reacclimate and gain strength and energy back. Dean sleeps harder than he’s ever slept in his life, and he feels so incredibly hungry but can only stomach a few bites of food before he feels sick.
It’s a different type of sick than what he used to feel when Amara was around. It’s a sick that feels like it will get better as his body heals.
His mom acts like his mom for the entire week.
For both him and Sam, she cooks or orders food for each meal, does their laundry, cleans the kitchen and the library, and offers them comfort in kind words and gentle touches. She doesn’t bring up anything hunter-related and bows out of the conversations whenever they discuss Kelly Kline or how to find Cas.
It feels surreal, going from literal torture to coming home to no responsibilities besides recovery. Dean is so used to taking care of everything around the bunker that he spends a lot of time wondering what to do with himself.
On day six, Dean wakes up late and finds a cup of coffee and peanut butter toast sitting on his nightstand.
He stares at it. Then he curls in on himself and cries.
There’s a knock on his door, followed by his mom sitting on the bed next to him and rubbing his back.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” he says pathetically against the sheets.
“For what, sweetheart?”
“For growing up.” He shifts and looks up at her. “I haven’t, uh. Nobody’s babied me or taken care of me since I was 4. I can’t—it’s hard for me. This week has been…I don’t know. I feel like a kid for the first time in my life, and I’m nearly an old man.”
“Everybody needs to be taken care of sometimes, Dean,” his mom says. “I wish someone had taught you that when you were a boy.”
It takes Dean a long time to answer. Eventually he says, “I was too busy taking care of everybody else.”
Mary doesn’t say anything, but she keeps rubbing his back like she used to do when he was 4 and couldn’t fall asleep at night.
“Does it, uh—” Dean cuts himself off, clears his throat. Then, “Does it feel like you’ve got your kids back?”
“It’s been nice.” She pauses and squeezes his shoulder before removing her hand completely. “I’ve felt like your mother this week.”
Dean nearly corrects her, reminds her that she is their mother, but he understands what she means. So instead, he thanks her and lets her leave him to his coffee and toast.
On day seven, Claire shows up at the top of the stairs covered in blood and guts and immediately stalks off to the bathroom without an explanation.
Sam and Dean sit and wait for her in the library. She comes out with a towel wrapped around her head and a flannel pajama set on.
“It’s 10 in the morning, Claire,” Dean says.
“Yeah, and I’m about to pass the fuck out in your guest room,” she replies, dropping into a chair next to Sam. “Have you found Cas?”
“What?” they ask in unison.
“You know, the angel you guys used to hang out with all the time?”
Dean impatiently gestures for Claire to get to the point.
“He said when you got back that you’d be looking for him, and he told me to come here and tell you not to worry about it,” she continues.
“Not to worry about what? About him?” Dean asks. “Has he met me?”
Claire smiles, a small and genuine thing. “Yeah, so, um, he rounded up everybody to help get you out of there, and I mean everybody. And I don’t really know exactly what he did, but he knew it was going to cost him, so he told me to tell you not to look for him and that he’ll be back in some amount of time.”
Dean glowers at her.
Sam says, “No offense, Claire, but why did he ask you? Was there a specific reason to make you the messenger?”
“He said you’d listen to me over anybody else because I have no stakes here.” She looks from Sam to Dean. “Also because everybody else was really pissed at him.”
Dean closes his eyes in frustration and says in a slow monotone, “Jesus, just tell me what he did. Please.”
“I don’t know, dude. That’s what I’m telling you. He purposely kept me out of it because he knew you’d be like this.”
“Did he also tell you to be a week late?”
“I got caught up doing my job, you know, hunting monsters and helping people? Kind of took priority over coddling the Winchesters.”
Dean gets up from the table and paces around for a second before putting his hands on the back of a chair and leaning forward. “I’m gonna kill him when he gets back.”
Claire winces. “Yeah, um, he told me to tell you that he knows that, too, and that it’s fine.”
Sam laughs.
Dean grips the chair tighter. “What the hell is this? Can he see the future?”
“No, he just knows you,” Claire answers. “I mean, isn’t he, like, your best friend? Doesn’t he basically live here with you?”
Dean starts to leave, muttering, “I’m still gonna fucking kill him,” as he goes.
When Dean gets to his room and closes the door, he can still hear Sam and Claire talking, so he puts on his headphones and angrily stares at the wall while listening to music.
After a few minutes, there’s a knock on his door. Sam doesn’t wait for an answer before coming in.
“What,” Dean says, taking his headphones off but pointedly not looking at Sam.
“You should save your energy and be mad whenever you actually know what he did,” Sam says.
“Oh trust me, I’ll have plenty of leftover anger whenever he gets here. That’s my secret, Cap.”
Sam huffs an awkward laugh and leans against the door jamb. “I guess I just don’t see the point of being mad when you don’t have any—”
“Not why I’m mad, Sam.”
“OK. Then. Why are you mad?”
Dean glares at him. “Because he’s not here.” He drops his head and squeezes his headphones in his hands. “He’s not fucking here. Haven’t seen him in—goddamn it, two months.”
“Oh.”
Silence fills the room, the kind of silence that always accompanies them when Dean accidentally says something too honest about Cas. Every time they’ve come close to a conversation about why Dean’s relationship with Cas is so different and more volatile than Cas’ relationship with Sam, Sam goes quiet.
“I told him to take care of that kid. Rosemary’s baby,” Dean says. “He wasted six weeks.”
“Dean.”
Sam doesn’t say anything else, but he doesn’t have to. Of course he knows that Dean is lying. Dean doesn’t give a shit that Cas looked for them instead of finding Kelly Kline, but he can pretend. Sam will let him pretend.
“We’ll find her,” Sam continues. “And we’ll, uh, do what needs to be done. Whatever that is.”
“Yeah.”
“And can you just try to—I don’t know, can you chill out? Cas is gonna come back.”
Dean rolls his eyes and puts his headphones back on.
Claire stays for two days and spends most of her time researching cases with Mary and swapping hunter stories. Dean eavesdrops a little bit, if only because it seems like they’re speaking a different language. They both talk about hunting like it’s their life passion, like there’s nothing else in the world they would rather do, like they enjoy it. Dean can’t relate.
On the morning that Claire is supposed to leave, Dean wakes up early to the sound of her moving around in the hall. He has to piss, so he groggily stumbles out of his room and is stopped short.
“You’re not Claire,” he says to Rowena.
“No, darling, I’m not,” Rowena replies sweetly. “Now go back to sleep and it will be like I was never here.”
“Wait, but why—what are you doing here? When did you get here?”
Rowena slips past him and waves over her shoulder as she heads toward the war room. “Like I was never here.”
After a second of standing in confused sleepiness, Dean goes to Sam’s room and knocks on the door. Sam doesn’t answer, so Dean peeks in and finds him sound asleep.
Dean decides not to worry about it.
In the morning, Claire tells them she’s found a hunt a few hours away and asks if they want to join her.
They do.
Mary stays back, claiming that she might have a lead in another town that she can check out while they’re gone.
Claire speeds down the highway, Sam and Dean following behind her in the Impala. They’re trying to make it to the city in time for a high school football game so Claire can pose as a student from the visiting team’s school and try to talk to some kids about a student that recently went missing. Sam and Dean make a plan to talk to parents, too, with Dean acting as a dad to one of the kids on the other team and Sam the kid’s uncle.
At halftime, they meet up with Claire by the concession stand.
“Anything?” she asks before taking a bite out of a hot dog.
“Other than a couple of milfs hitting on me, no,” Dean says.
Sam adds, “What about you, Claire?”
“Yeah, um, I don’t know how useful my info is.” Claire grimaces before continuing. “The kid who disappeared, there’s, like, all these rumors about him. Apparently the only people that might know what happened to him are, uh, some guys that work at a gay bar in town.”
“What?” Dean asks.
“Yeah, I don’t know. Some of these jackasses seem pretty homophobic, so I don’t really know how truthful they were being. But it’s worth checking out I guess.” Claire looks hopefully up at Dean. “Can you go?”
“Go where?” Dean looks from Claire to Sam then back to Claire. “To the gay bar? You want me to go to the gay bar?”
“Well, yeah, I mean, I can go with you, but it’ll just make you look suspicious. I think it’ll be better if you go in alone. We gotta get you a change of clothes, though, because the kids were saying it’s a real slutty joint and I don’t think army surplus clothes will fly.”
Dean’s brain short circuits. When he comes back online, he says, “Why does it have to be me? Why not Sam?”
Sam laughs and shifts awkwardly next to Dean.
Claire says, “Um, because? I’m pretty sure you can hit on dudes better than Sam can. No offense, Sam.”
“None taken,” Sam replies.
“What? I’ve never—I don’t—it’s not like I would have any clue what I’m doing!”
“Yeah, you would,” Sam says easily. “Remember that case when we first met Charlie, and you hit on that security guard for her?”
“What?” Claire asks.
Dean makes a “stop” gesture with his hands toward both of them. “OK, OK, Jesus. I’ll fucking do it if it gets you two to shut the hell up.”
“Perfect. Let’s go,” Claire says, and throws her hot dog wrapper in the trash as she walks past them. “You guys head back to the motel, I’ll pick up some clothes for Dean.”
“Nothing too outlandish, please,” Dean says grumpily while he and Sam follow her out to the parking lot. “I don’t need any fruity sequin shit, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t need the frills anyway to be believably, you know...” Claire finishes her sentence by angling her wrist down in a limp gesture.
“Excuse me, what the fuck are you—”
“Relax, Dean,” Claire interrupts, waving him off with her limp wrist as she gets in her car.
In the Impala, Sam says, “So, um—”
“No. We’re not talking about this.”
Sam sighs. “OK.”
An hour later, Dean walks into the gay bar and runs a hand through his short hair as he looks around.
When Claire came back with an outfit for him, he took the bag out of her hands and stalked out to his car, shouting over his shoulder at her and Sam to call him if he wasn’t back in an hour. He changed in the backseat and was pleasantly surprised to find that Claire didn’t do so bad. The jeans fit him better than his old, worn-out ones, but they were so tight around the ankle that he tucked them into his boots. The thin, white t-shirt was somewhat see-through, but she also got him a silky blue button-down to go over it. He rolled up the sleeves, loosely tucked it in, and only buttoned half the buttons.
He’s still a bit skinny and is sporting a patchy beard, but he doesn’t look bad.
The bar is loud and dark but also brightly washed in fluorescent lights, and everyone is dancing to some club mix of pop music Dean’s never heard before.
Within 30 seconds of walking in, a small man with brown skin, purple hair and a neon blue romper walks up to Dean and says, “Well, hello, daddy.”
“Hi—hello,” Dean stutters, blinking down at the man. He has a pretty face, pretty enough that Dean would know how to flirt if the face were on a woman. “I’m looking for, uh, some people.”
The man laughs and twirls the tip of his finger around Dean’s chest. “A big shy teddy bear, aren’t you? I can be ‘some people’ for you.”
Dean blushes and drops his head, then takes a small step back from the man. “No, really, I’m looking for, uh, a bartender here. Gerry? Do you know him?”
The man flutters his fake eyelashes. “Of course. Follow me, papi.”
Gerry is a gruff-looking white man with a thick beard and a tattoo on his neck. He’s wearing a flannel shirt. Dean is going to kill Claire.
“You’re new,” Gerry says in a monotone, barely glancing at Dean before pouring a drink.
“Yeah, um, I’m wondering if you know a kid that comes here, his name’s Kyle,” Dean replies.
The bar is packed, so Dean has to squeeze his way up to the counter to get closer to Gerry, and the guys sitting on barstools don’t make any room for him. He can feel sweaty bodies rubbing up against him, but he tries to keep his eyes on Gerry.
“What, are you a cop?” Gerry asks.
“No, I’m, uh.” Dean blanks. Faced with a dude as regular as Gerry, Dean forgot he was supposed to be playing a role here.
“I’m just fucking with you, sweetie.” Gerry smiles, revealing brilliantly white teeth under his facial hair. “Kyle’s always in some kind of trouble, so I wouldn’t be too worried about him if I were you. If you need some stuff—” He makes a smoking gesture, “—I can find you somebody else until he gets back.”
“Right, uh, yeah. So, no clue as to where he could be? When was he here last?”
The pretty man from earlier appears next to Dean and laughs loudly. “Ger, ten cuidado. I think this guy might really be a cop.” He looks suggestively at Dean. “You know, usually Kyle goes for guys closer to his age. You’re not really his type.”
Dean momentarily panics, but then he looks down at the pretty man and tries to imagine what he would do in this scenario if it were a woman standing next to him. He thinks to himself, nobody has to know, and then puts on his most wolfish smile and says, “I’m everybody’s type, sweetheart.”
The man’s mouth drops open in mock surprise. “Oh, I’m sure you are.”
“See, I’m one of Kyle’s...clients from out of town, and I’m just worried because he never goes this long without responding to my texts. I’m just a concerned friend, alright?”
There’s a hand on Dean’s waist, strong and solid, squeezing his skinny hip bone. “I’m sure I can help you find your friend. What’s your name, honey?”
“Dean.” He immediately curses at himself for saying his real name, but he’s too distracted by the hand on his hip pulling him forward, closer.
The man smiles up at him, revealing perfect dimples in his cheeks. “I’m Angel.”
Dean blinks, tenses. “I, uh. I gotta—I’m sorry. I can’t—I need to—”
He stumbles and runs his way out of the bar, ignoring Angel’s voice behind him.
Once Dean is out on the street, he leans back against a wall and catches his breath. He pulls out his phone and impulsively clicks on Cas’ number.
“...Make your voice a mail.”
“Cas, you better be OK, I swear to god,” Dean says. “I need you to come back, man. I really need you to come back. I miss you.”
He hangs up before he can say anything else dumb, then he closes his eyes and holds his hand against his forehead to stop his head from pounding. When he feels somewhat calm, he opens his eyes and sees Angel standing several feet from him, smoking a cigarette and looking right at Dean. After a few seconds of staring at each other, Angel flicks his cigarette away and walks up to Dean and stands directly in front of him.
“So, you’re missing Kyle, you’re missing Cas,” Angel says softly. “While you wait for them, why not take what’s right in front of you?”
Dean just looks at him with wide eyes.
Angel comes closer, slowly grabs Dean’s hands and pulls them toward his hips. And Dean lets him. He holds him by the waist and finds him soft and small, and if Dean closes his eyes then he can imagine—
“You’re OK, baby,” Angel whispers, and then he leans forward and presses a kiss to the bolt of Dean’s jaw.
It’s been so long since Dean’s been touched with such gentle intimacy that he nearly loses it. He melts against the wall and squeezes Angel’s hips and tries not to think too hard about what he’s doing.
And then, suddenly, there’s a car horn honking at him and Claire and Sam’s voices shouting at him from the road.
Dean stops himself from violently shoving the man away, but only barely. He takes him by the hips and manhandles him to the side with a curse, then he walks off toward the car.
“Hey, cabrón! ¿Qué pasó?” Angel shouts after him. “What’s your problem?”
Without looking back, Dean responds, “I’m sorry! It’s not you, I’m just—I’m sorry. Lo siento, Angelito.”
He gets into the backseat of Claire’s car and slams the door shut behind him. “I didn’t get anything,” he mumbles.
Sam clears his throat.
Claire says, “Yeah, so, we have a good lead and we needed all hands on deck.” She looks at Dean through the rearview mirror. “Sorry for interrupting.”
Dean grunts.
The rest of the night passes in a blur. They break into several houses to track down Kyle, and he’s pretty close to death by the time they find him strung up in someone’s basement djinn-style.
Or something close to a djinn. They don’t leave it alive long enough to get its backstory. Claire gets the kill, and Dean tries not to resent her for it.
It’s early morning by the time they get back to the motel. They all go to their rooms to try to get some sleep, but Dean only lets himself toss and turn for five minutes before he gets up and goes out on the balcony to watch the sunrise.
“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep either,” Claire says from a few feet away from him, in her flannel pajamas, smoking a blunt.
“Where to next, kid?” Dean asks.
“Back to Jody’s probably.”
“You know you could always come stay with us, right? We have a ton of rooms.”
Claire comes closer to him and holds out her blunt. He refuses.
“What was the guy’s name?” she asks.
“Angel.”
Claire laughs. “Angel? Seriously? God, that’s bad.”
Dean shakes his head, keeps his eyes on the horizon. “He was pretty. Like, as pretty as any woman I’ve met. I think he was wearing makeup.”
“In hindsight, I should’ve sent Sam. He probably would’ve actually gotten some info instead of trying to get laid.”
Dean whips his head around to her. “I wasn’t trying to—I’m not—it was just part of the…I was doing what you wanted me to do, I swear. He knew Kyle.”
Claire squints at him in confusion. “Wait, what?”
“What?”
“You’re not…Why are you acting like you weren’t into it? Do you think I’m gonna judge you for being gay?” She points at herself with her blunt. “I’m gay.”
“I’m not gay! Wait, you’re gay? You’re a lesbian?”
She waves him off dismissively. “Yeah. So what are you then? Bi?”
“No!” He white knuckles the handrail. “I’m not…”
“Dean. Jesus Christ.”
He blinks at her. “What?”
“Alright, um, I’m not exactly good at tact, so I’m just gonna be honest and you can get mad if you want to.”
“Claire, I don’t know what the fuck—”
“You’re too old to still be acting like this about your sexuality, dude. I know everybody’s on their own journey or whatever, but, like, get it together maybe? Were you attracted to Angel? Did you enjoy making out with him outside the bar?”
“We didn’t—”
“Dean.”
Dean looks down at his hands and fidgets against the handrail. “I, uh. Yeah, I was attracted to him.”
Claire doesn’t answer right away. She offers Dean the blunt again; he takes it.
Eventually she says, “It’s OK.”
Dean blows smoke into the morning air.
“You don’t have to, like, decide anything about yourself,” she continues. “Or tell anyone. You know, figure it out in your own time I guess. At least do me one favor though, please?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Quit trying to act like you’re straight.”
Dean closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then he opens his eyes to the sunrise and relaxes his shoulders. “Yeah, OK.”