A Destiel Au
Chapter Six: Alexandria
Castiel hadn’t been in the dating pool for quite some time, so he wasn’t sure if taking someone to buy a suit constituted as flirting.
“Don’t you have to be with Jack?” he asked as they got off the metro in Alexandria.
Dean shook his head. “He headed back to school today, said he wanted to feel normal. So I let Benny and them take care of security. Sam said he’d kill me if I didn’t take a bit of a break.”
He took the steps up into the sunlight two at a time, so Castiel had to double his pace to follow him. The streets were slightly less crowded here than they were in the heart of the city. Cas took his first full breath in what felt like months.
He refocused on the conversation and nodded. “Your brother.”
“And the weirdest mother hen roommate you’ve ever met. You’d think he was the one to raise me.”
Cas paused. “Raise?”
Instantly, he kicked himself. This was what Meg meant when she called him socially inept, however affectionately. He always put his foot directly in his mouth.
Dean didn’t seem bothered. “Yeah. Mom died when I was eighteen, so I fought to get custody of Sammy. He was a snot nosed little brat, but I wasn’t about to let somebody else take him. Family, you know?”
Cas nodded. Even a week ago, he wouldn’t have realized what that meant. But thinking about Jack’s face—
“He’s only four years younger than me, so we were pretty much looking after each other, but I still tease him all the time about it.”
His face darkened slightly. Cas tried to imagine him at eighteen, the five o’clock shadow coming in far patchier, with a kid brother by his side. He certainly couldn’t have done the same at eighteen. He’d been buried in college applications, worried about how he was going to survive the interview portion of his science fair entry (answer: he hadn’t).
“That’s why I worry about Jack. I know what it feels like to just—be adrift.” Dean waved his hand vaguely. “And yeah, he won’t have to worry about money or anything, but he’s got the eyes of the world on him. It’s going to be so hard.”
Cas tugged at his collar. “I want to help him. I need to—to make it up to Kelly. I mean, I want to help him, too, it’s not just because I’m guilty, but I need you to know where I’m coming from.”
The hand that brushed his wrist as Dean answered, “I know.”—was that flirting, too? Or was it just Dean trying to seem like he understood?
Either way, it wasn’t exactly something he had the energy to dwell on right now.
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