Chapter Text
Dean wanted to talk to the bees, but obviously, he couldn’t carry the pup in the carrier, not yet. So while Michael had wanted to call Gabriel about his Jimmy sighting, he put his phone away to carry the pup over for Dean, who didn’t take the full weight of baby and carrier, but did put his hand on top of Michael’s on carry handle. His skin on top of Michael’s hand was warm, Dean’s hand feeling firm, strong. He was recovering quickly and would soon be back to full strength, Michael was sure. Michael stood shoulder to shoulder with Dean, heart filled to bursting and aching like it never had before.
Something had become clear to him over the last several days spent in the hospital with Dean after the birth of little Ben. He was in love. Something he thought would never happen to him.
He’d spent many hours with Mia, his therapist, discussing if he was aromantic as well as asexual. He’d not come to any conclusions but it was something that she had convinced him was less important than he thought, that it was more important to heal his heart to receive love of all kinds.
And here they were. They looked, on the surface, like any new family coming home from the hospital, scent-bonded Alpha and Omega with a newborn pup. Nothing unusual. Not at all like they were his brother’s widower and pup and a lonely old Alpha who had never thought to find so much as companionship in his life, much less love. It was wrong of him or perhaps some kind of cosmic joke that the thing he thought would never find had come to him in a situation that he could never follow through with. He could never pursue Dean. It wasn’t fair to Dean to even be thinking about him in anyway but brotherly.
Yet, the heart was an unruly beast. It yearned where it shouldn’t and ached and mocked him. All while Dean told the bees about Castiel’s pup.
“Hey, can we go on up now?” Dean asked after a moment of silence, once he’d made the introduction. “Be nice to sit down again. Still feeling kind of like I was run over by a truck.”
So they went up to the cosy home Dean had made in the carriage house, Michael wondering with every step if his place was still here or if it made sense for him to start sleeping in his own bed again. While Dean had been recovering in the hospital, they had by necessity, sleep apart, Dean in his hospital bed, Michael mostly on the recliner in the room, but also some nights, stretched out as best he could on a sofa in one of the waiting rooms. He’d gotten a hotel room near the hospital, but that had only been to have a place to shower and make some calls that were best made in private. He’d tried to sleep there one night, but found he couldn’t settle away from his new found family.
But the habit of bed sharing that had started the night Dean had come to the house on Joy was broken. Perhaps it should stay broken.
The carriage house apartment smelled kind of stale. He’d thought it seemed intrusive to have someone come and clean and air it out while they’d been at the hospital. The lilacs that had been left on the table the day before they’d left for the Kite Day up north were still there, dead, brown and faded, florets dropped all over the warm wood of the table. Dean seemed to think it needed fresh air as well and while Michael walked through the kitchen to the sitting room, Dean wandered from window to window, opening them. The atmosphere of the house soon changed, lightening, even seeming sunnier. Michael set the pup carrier on the coffee table and started unbuckling Ben from it. He wondered where Dean would want to set up to rest, whether he would go back to bed or want to sit up in one of the armchairs. As Michael pulled Ben out of the carrier, Dean was fussing with the pickle caster of dead lilacs, throwing out the spent blooms, taking it to the sink to empty of swamp water. He filled it up with fresh water to soak away the ring of slime left behind, but didn’t wash it. Michael decided he would make sure there were always flowers for Dean’s kitchen.
Michael should have at least asked there be fresh flowers waiting for their return home when he’d had the other things dropped off.
“Hey, so you’ve got your appointment with Mia in a bit, right?” Dean asked.
“I was thinking of cancelling,” Michael said. He gingerly, carefully rested Ben against his chest, so that the pup’s little head was supported. It was not his first rodeo, so to speak, but it still felt nerve wracking to carry the tiny life around, one that depended so much on them, a life that could still not even lift their head up or support that head’s weight on a thin neck. The pup groused for a little while then settled, a heavy, warm weight in Michael’s arms. He didn’t want to leave Dean and the little one alone, but he needed this time too. He told himself he would be gone for two hours if he included some essential errands. No more than that.
“I didn’t want to leave you alone,” Michael added.
“You should go. You’re going to have to leave me alone sometime, aren’t you?” Dean asked. “You gotta get back to work. And Cas’s dig.”
Michael debating telling Dean. The news from the dig was mixed. On one hand, it more or less guaranteed that there would be no construction on the site for a good long while. Federal law more or less took over here for a while. On the other, it meant that none of his team, even himself or Gabriel had access for now.
“We’re on a break for digging. At least for now. The Federal Museum has taken over the site,” Michael admitted.
“You found more bodies?” Dean asked.
Michael nodded. He wasn’t there when the gristly sight had been revealed, but he’d seen the photos. He was glad he hadn’t been there and that it had been taken out of his hands, put into the capable hands of the Federal Museum team. The sacrifice pits were ghastly, a foul testament to how much of a monster human beings could be. Yes, it was so long ago that nothing was left but the bones, mostly. But there were so many, so young and dead in horrific ways. Michael shouldn’t have been surprised that a sacrifice pit had been found at the site, and yet, he was.
“My grad students did,” Michael said. “On the day we were up at the Lodge.”
He didn’t mention that it was also the night that Dean had gone into labor. Michael hadn’t heard until the day after Ben had been born. They hadn’t wanted to disturb him, but Gabriel and his research assistants had handled everything between themselves, alerting the federal authorities, setting up for cooperative work sharing once the Federal museum arrived.
“Everything will be handled,” Michael assured Dean. “Gabriel is splitting his time between the dig and searching for Jimmy. Samandriel and Kevin are working on the tablet. My time is for you and Ben. Should I get you and the pup to bed?”
Dean held his arms out for the pup, so Michael surrendered Ben. Dean wandered down the hall, heading to the bedroom that he’d shared so briefly with Michael. Dean stopped at the open door to the nursery. Other than the fresh, pale green paint, new green and white print curtains and the old rocking chair, it was still unfurnished. There’d been no time. Yes, necessities like clothes and diapers had been bought, but not much else. There was still plenty of time for that. The pup wouldn’t be sleeping in the nursery for a while, they’d agreed. Yet still, it was a wrenching reminder of all that had been taken Dean, unnecessarily, in anger and greed. They could furnish the room later, but even Balthazar was beginning to admit it was increasingly unlikely they’d get back the things Dean and Castiel had bought together for their pup.
Dean turned away, seemingly disappointed, as if he’d been hoping against hope that the crib and other things had reappeared while he’d been gone.
The bedroom was like they’d left it, bed made neatly, except on Dean’s side of the bed, Michael had had a bassinet delivered and set up within arms reach of the bed. It was simple, clean white, the safest rated on the market. Inside was one of the sleep sacks they’d been told the pup should sleep in rather than loose blankets. Things were different than when Michael and the nannies had been raising his siblings. They’d all sleep with quilts back then, with stuffed things in the bed, soft furnishings. Sleeping in the old nursery furniture, used for generations, since Amara’s days, that’d he’d now been told was nothing more than a death trap.
Dean didn’t say much, just let Michael take care of him and the pup, get them all set for a nap, Dean in the bed, pup in the bassinet. He set up the next bottle for the pup, so all Dean would need to do would be to set it in the bottle warmer.
“I’ll have my phone with me and I’ll keep it on,” Michael said as he fussed with the last small things, making sure Dean had water near to hand and the remote to the TV he’d insisted on in the bedroom. “Mia will understand. Call me if you need anything, no matter how small. I’ll come back right after, though I’m stopping at the pie shop. Your Benny wanted me to pick up some meals he made for you.”
Dean smiled at that. “Pie. Make sure he sends pie home with you.”
As if Michael would ever forget Dean’s pie.
Once downstairs again and in his car, Michael finally called Gabriel.
“Come home from River City,” Michael said. “Jimmy isn’t there. I spotted him here in Augustine. Not far from home.”
“You’re sure?” Gabriel asked.
“Certain,” Michael said, thinking of the brief encounter. Hardly an encounter even. He’d laid eyes on Jimmy on the street and Jimmy looked back. Or someone had looked back. It hadn’t seemed like Jimmy somehow, but something else. He explained what had happened to Gabriel, which street and when, in case that helped any. Jimmy could be anywhere in the city by now, but somehow, Michael felt like he would be lingering near the house on Joy, the place where Jimmy’s curse began and the place where Dean was now with the pup.
“I’ll come back,” Gabriel said. “I’ll keep the professionals looking here, but I’m not getting any help from the curse house anyway. They won’t take my calls anymore. I don’t know what happened there. I thought they promised us care for the rest of his life. God knows you donated enough to them.”
“Dr. Winchester took leave to go visit his grandson on the coast,” Michael explained. “Someone else is in charge of St. Charles at the moment.”
“Speaking of leave, has Alfie told you where he and Kevin are?”
“No, and I asked him not to tell me,” Michael said. “They’re fine. He’s called and texted me several times. Let them work on the tablet in peace.”
Michael couldn’t explain his certainty that Alfie and Kevin, especially Kevin, were in danger. It was something that had hit him in the gut and he still felt it anytime he thought of either of them. It had something to do with the tablet, but it was more than that.
“I have my therapist’s appointment in a few minutes,” Michael explained.
As he’d been talking, he’d been driving to Mia’s office, hoping against hope that he might see Jimmy again on the streets, that he could be rescued somehow. St. Charles might not take Jimmy back, but there would be a private hospital that would take Jimmy in and keep him safe and keep others safe from him. That had been the agreement with the authorities, that one way or another Jimmy would never be a free man. He should never have been released to his own custody and just let loose on the streets. That was in the contract with St. Charles, that should they decide he no longer needed their particular kind of care, there would be a step down to a psychiatric hospital. Only after that would there be the possibility of home care with attendants and staff, Michael supervising, of course.
The look he’d seen in Jimmy’s eyes though. The darkness he had seen in them. Jimmy was still cursed. Of that much, Michael was utterly certain.