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When she lets him in, he has to leave his coat, shoes, and overshirt in the hall. Mia even goes so far as to put on gloves and give him a perfunctory pat down. He feels naked. The only thing she had allowed him to keep was the small pocket knife (steel) clipped in his pocket. It digs into his thigh as he sits in the crisp white chair with the best view of the door.

“Was it your brother?” Mia hesitates, “Or Jack?”

“Sam’s fine. Jack – well, you remember getting a weird feeling, couple weeks ago? Like, uh, like you blinked and a year passed but you didn’t even know it?” Dean asks, “That was Jack, taking over for God. The kid’s around, but seems like he’s got bigger issues than my problems to deal with.”

Mia, to her credit, doesn’t miss a beat, “Do you miss him?”

“Yeah. I do. But at least he’s alive.” Dean swallows harshly – he might as well leave all his cards on the table. “I’m not here to talk about Jack, though.”

“Who are you here to talk about, Dean? Your mother?” Mia hedges when he doesn’t continue, her face softening into something like real sympathy. “The loss of a par-”

“Not about my mom. I’m here because– because–” Dean can’t bring himself to say the words – he hasn’t been able to at all, yet. The silence stretches between them. He’s not sure why he’s here – to appease Sam, sure, but he could have driven anywhere, dicked around for a couple days, gone fishing, but he hadn’t. He drove to Wisconsin, eight hours straight through, to knock on Mia’s door.

“You don’t have to say it, Dean.” Mia’s voice is soft. The kind of tone that would have him lashing out at Sam, but with Mia it seems right – like this is how she should be speaking to him. “Why don’t you tell me about this person? Whatever comes to mind.”

Dean can do that. He can.

“He, uh, he was the best person I ever knew. Weird, dorky little guy, but the best.” Now that he’s started talking, it flows out easily. Mia doesn’t interrupt him – she lets him stammer and repeat himself and recount dumb little moments and memories for nearly an hour. He hasn’t talked this much in months. His throat feels raw, he knows he’s starting to sound hoarse – but there’s just this last bit. The reason he’s here. The reason he didn’t go to Lake Mac, the reason he didn’t call Jesse and Cesar and go see the horses, the reason he isn’t staring at the world’s biggest ball of twine right now, or going to every restaurant in Kansas that has ever been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

“And he - he believed in me, you know? Like no one ever has before. I don’t know why. Never got that, that faith. He, uh, you know, he loved me. And I love–” He’s said the words so many times in his head, so many times to himself, in prayer, in anguish, but never out loud, never to someone else. Never to the person who deserved to hear them. “I loved him. More than he knew. And now he’s– now he’s gone, and I’m here and I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.”

“Losing a partner is always difficult.” Partner. The word rattles around his head for a minute, feeling too much and also not enough. There’s no judgement or derision in Mia’s face, none of the disgust he’s always feared would come of him admitting that he loves a man. The word feels unearned, but he doesn’t correct her. After all, they loved each other, they went out just the two of them, they had inside jokes and meaningful conversations and a– how had Cas put it? A profound bond. Maybe that is what they were. Partners, and not in the cowboy sense. Maybe they had been in a relationship – maybe Dean can acknowledge it now, to make up for all the time he didn’t.

“This isn’t the first time, you know? He usually manages to find his way back, but this time-” Dean stops, tears spilling over onto his cheeks, to pull a tissue from the box beside him. “This time, I think he’s really gone. I think our luck ran out. So I guess what I’m here to ask is, what now, Doc?”

“For most of my patients, this is where I would shift for them, let them say goodbye – but I don’t think that’s what you need, or want.” Mia’s still wearing that soft expression, still looking at him like he’s going to break, and he feels like he already has. He just wishes she knew how to pick up the pieces. “I’m the first person you’ve told all of this to, aren’t I?”

Dean nods, swallowing against the sobs he can feel trying to burst out of his chest.

“I think, Dean, what you need is to talk about him. To stop living your life in fear, and to celebrate the life of the man you loved.” He must look alarmed, because she backtracks. “I don’t mean you have to wear a sign for the general public, but maybe talking to your brother would help? Tell him what you’ve told me, the little ways that you remember your partner during the day – communicate with the people in your life, use your support system.”

Mia refuses his payment, says he can pay her back by ‘doing the work’ (whatever that means), and calling ahead next time. If there is a next time. Judging by the lack of fear in her eyes as he collects his things, there might be. He feels better, lighter, now, with all of that off his back – the grief is still heavy in his bones, but the tight band of it around his chest has loosened, and it feels like he can breathe again.

For the last few months, Dean’s evenings have all involved getting kicked out of bars or falling down the neck of a bottle of Jim Beam alone in his room – this evening he does neither. He treats himself to Texas Roadhouse and calls it an early night at the motel in town. He sleeps sober for the first time in a long time.

The drive home is a quiet affair as Dean rolls Mia’s words around in his mind – sets his resolve to talk to Sam. He knows, on the surface, that his brother isn’t going to sneer, isn’t going to lash out with the words their father would have, words he’s had slung at him in back-water bars in every state – but the fear is still there. He’s still got a hot ball of nerves in his stomach, there’s still that voice in the back of his head telling him what it takes to be a man, a real man. But Mia’s voice is louder, for now, and she’s right – Cas deserves to be remembered, to be spoken about, and the least Dean can do is tell the truth. The least Dean can do is love him.

Sam is in the library reading when he gets home, laptop open in front of him. When Dean takes the seat opposite him, Sam closes the book on his finger. It’s fiction, not research, a sight that’s become increasingly more common – it reminds Dean of the years when Sam’s head was always in a book. When he was a high-school kid with his nose permanently stuck in some story or another. All at once, he reconciles the man in front of him with the kid he raised, and a little of the fear melts away.

Despite what Dean’s sure are his best efforts, Sam looks surprised when Dean says he’s been to see Mia. He covers it, dog-earing his page and typing something before closing the laptop, giving Dean all of his attention, asking follow up questions. Dean tells Sam what Mia said about losing partners being difficult for everyone, about how he should have been using his “support system” instead of closing everyone off, and Sam’s expression doesn’t waver. For all that Dean had worried about Sam’s reaction to the word, him calling Cas his partner doesn’t garner any. Not an eyebrow raised, not a question, nothing. He just rolls with it. Dean lets out the breath he had been holding.

The next few weeks are better than the last few. Eileen comes to stay, and the three of them take a cut and dry ghost case in Michigan. Sam, for all his athleticism, is the only one that pulls a muscle digging.

After it’s all said and done, they hit the Applebee’s across the street from the motel. They get spectacularly, rip-roaringly drunk ordering the fruity little shots the bartenders keep mixing for a bachelorette party on the other end of the bar. They talk about Cas. He and Eileen take turns looking horrified whenever Sam recounts one of his and Cas’ hang outs. It helps. Talking about this stuff, remembering the weird little quirks, learning about the things Cas did when Dean wasn’t around.

When they’re kicked out at closing, he and Eileen practically have to carry Sam across the street and up the motel stairs to drop him on the bed. Eileen steps out onto the balcony with him while he smokes. They’re both still drunk – the light, easy, fun kind of drunk that Dean remembers from years gone by, the kind of drunk that has you giggling and giddy. Before the cigarette has burnt out, she has him in stitches with her impression of drunk Sam. They stay out there, looking over the parking lot, laughing and talking until someone yells at them from another room to “shut the fuck up, already!” Dean hollers back something ill-advised and quite profane before waving Eileen back through the glass doors.

Sam is snoring loudly, face down in the center of the bed, feet hanging off the edge, boots still on. Before Dean uses the adjoining door to go to his own room, Eileen wraps her arms around him, and tells him she loves him. It takes everything in him not to cry, and when they pull apart he signs it back to her. And he means it – she’s become a part of their family in so many ways, and if there’s one thing he’s resolved to do, it’s telling the people in his life what they mean to him – before it’s too late.

Standing in a gas station parking lot just outside of who-gives-a-fuck, Wisconsin, Dean calls Mia and thanks her. She asks if he’d like to come for another session. He almost says no. But then he thinks about the way his brother doesn’t look at him with concern every second of the day, or the way Garth has stopped opening conversations with “You doing okay, bud?” and reconsiders. He tells her that if she can fit him in tonight, he’ll be there.

Life goes on. Dean goes on. The cases are fewer and farther between – the world seems to settle around him, and he figures it’s about time he tried to settle, too. Kansas feels too familiar and achingly, heartbreakingly foreign. As long as he’s here, there won’t be peace. And he knows that.

He takes to the road – to the only real constant in his life, the back roads of America – and it’s a comfort now in a way they’ve never been before. If he tries, he can almost imagine that he’s meeting someone, that he is travelling towards a person, not a place. He goes to the west coast, sits with his toes in the sand and smokes a joint as the sun sets over the Pacific. It’s less fun without Lee to giggle with, without Cassie dramatically reading from her latest article, without, without, without– He hands most of it off to a tall, skinny guy whose frisbee lands at his feet.

The blue, blue waters lap at the shore in front of him – the vast expanse of it, stretching forward to the blazing horizon, almost crushing in its completeness. The next day he drives through Death Valley and the sensation is the same – dwarfed by the world, more so now than ever, his decisions no longer on the verge of tipping the cosmic scales.

He calls Mia from Phoenix, from Albuquerque, from Houston. He makes it to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras, loses himself in the showmanship, the crowd, the community. He prays every night, even with no one on the other line. It brings him comfort. Mia says this is healthy, that most people do it, only most people have a grave to visit. She says it’s helping him emotionally process, helping him to heal.

He sends Sam a picture of the Impala parked next to the Broward County sign in Florida. Sam replies with a gif of someone flipping the bird. And a picture of himself and Eileen by one of those ‘YOU’RE GOING TO HELL’ billboards in Ohio. They’re on the trail of a vampire nest with some green hunter, and Dean tells them to be safe. Sam reminds him to stay the hell away from any damn mystery spots.

Claire calls as he’s crossing into Georgia, asks if he’d be willing to play FBI for a case where the sheriff is, to quote, “a misogynistic douchebag.” She’s in Charleston and he’s there by morning. It takes them a week to figure it out. They grab a beer and a burger at some shitty joint before heading their separate ways. He tells Claire he loves her. She doesn’t say it back, but instead pulls a face that’s clearly a thin mask for what she’s feeling and tells him he’s getting sentimental in his old age.

Dean calls Mia from Myrtle Beach, from Nag’s Head, from Norfolk. He stays a week in Virginia Beach, watches the ships set off full of young Naval officers. He walks barefoot on the beach at dawn and watches for a second set of footprints. Before leaving town, he gets the words you deserve to be saved tattooed on the inside of his left bicep. He tells the artist that it’s a tribute to his late partner. He stops on Chincoteague Island to see the ponies. In Rehoboth, Delaware, he drinks coffee surrounded by rainbow flags while young men walk hand in hand along the boardwalk. He tells Mia he doesn’t have words for how that makes him feel. It’s a lie, there are too many words – he just can’t say them.

He stays in Delaware as the weather warms – it’s as good a place as any. He rents a room above a bar on the south end of the beach from a woman old enough to be his mother, paying a reduced rate in exchange for carrying kegs and washing dishes.

In the mornings, he walks ten blocks up the near-empty boardwalk to get breakfast at a french cafe. In the afternoons he naps in the warmth of his room, sea breeze filtering in through an open window. On Sunday evenings, he and Ruth shut the place down early and she kicks his ass at darts. Sometimes, if the numbers for the week have been good, she pulls bottles off the shelf and teaches him how to mix drinks and shots he’d get kicked out of his usual establishments for ordering.

Time passes. The last weekend of May brings vacationers, and life speeds up. The cafe is full of moms in yoga pants and sandals and sunglasses that dwarf their faces, the beach fills up with college-age boys and girls. Young families dominate the town and the boardwalk proper. The sleepy town he’d settled into becomes a snarled mass of traffic and sun-burn.

“You’re not sticking around for the busy season, are you?”

“Ruth, I–”

“Don’t try to feed me bullshit and tell me it’s caviar. I know this town isn’t for you. You’re not a beach person, Dean. You like it here when it’s just the locals, sure, but deep down, you know it isn’t where you want to be.”

“It’s– it’s not that I don’t want to be here, it’s just–” He flips the filter tip of his cigarette around his index finger as a pair of young people stumble past, giggling and hanging off each other. They’re just boys, but they look freer than Dean has ever felt. He watches them go, pressing kisses to each other’s shoulders and cheeks and necks.

“I get it.” Ruth’s face illuminates orange as she takes a drag. The cloying scent of menthol surrounds him when she exhales. “You loved him, and now he’s gone. It’s been almost ten years since I lost Allie, and I still think about her every morning, still reach for her in my sleep at night. Don’t matter where you go, kid. The hurt’s still the same.”

Dean leaves Rehoboth by the end of the month. He goes north, skirting beach towns and cities, cutting into the mountains. He spends one miserable night in western Maryland trying to convince himself he likes camping. It isn’t until he’s in a motel in Pennsylvania, waking from nightmares of Purgatory, that he realizes just why he had hated it so much.

He calls Mia from Altoona, from Erie, from Buffalo. He takes the Maid of the Mist in Niagara and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, there is beauty still left in the world. He sends Eileen a picture of himself in the stupid yellow souvenier poncho. He sends Sam a picture of himself with the sign for Lebanon, New Hampshire. Mia says he should talk to them more often, he tells her he’s trying.

He crosses into Maine and cuts East. He eats lobster by the coast and watches the boats in the mouth of the Penobscot. He marvels at how different the ocean looks here. It’s hard to believe this is the same Atlantic he’d spent months beside, the same waters he’d watched horseshoe crabs crawling through the surf of, the same salt sticking to his skin.

Dean settles into an old logging town off of US1. He lives out of the motel for the first week, finds someone to take him on in a small engine repair shop. He never feels better than when he’s working with his hands, when he’s figuring out how to make something old new again, when he can put the pieces of something broken together and have it work again. Sometimes he wishes he understood himself half as well as he understands a machine.

Roy pays him in cash for the four days a week Dean spends taking apart lawn mowers and boat engines. It’s not much, but it’s enough to rent a small, furnished room in town. He settles in.

Every Sunday night Roy's wife, Margie, insists he come for dinner - she tries to set him up with their niece the third week in. Dean tells her he's sure Vera's lovely, but that he's still mourning his deceased partner. There's a moment after the words leave his mouth where he wants to reach out and grab them, pull them back and away, but of course it's too late.

Dean braces, worried he's about to be out of a job and a meal - instead he's met with an armful of Margie, all five foot four inches of her. It should be jarring - he's gone so long without any form of affection. It's only when she pulls away that he realizes just how much he'd missed it. Roy, for his part, claps Dean on the shoulder with a somber nod and a promise to see him tomorrow.

The next Sunday, Margie's sister is in the living room when he arrives. Where Margie is short and sturdy, made beautiful by her warm, open nature, Angela is tall and slim, her face too gaunt to be called pretty. Dean sits across from her, on the floral loveseat, runs his hands along the threadbare fabric as she avoids his gaze.

A few awkward minutes pass before Margie comes bustling into the room, handing out tall glasses of iced tea and encouraging conversation. It comes out that Angela has been recently widowed, and Dean realizes why the look on her face has felt so familiar - it’s one he’s seen in the mirror.

Angela’s wife died of cancer six weeks ago. Dean can’t imagine the pain that comes with watching someone waste away in front of your eyes, but he understands the feeling of helplessness as the person you love is taken away from you by a force you can’t even attempt to control. Long after Margie and Roy go up to bed, Dean and Angela sit on the porch talking. Frogs and insects sing in the night around them as the humidity presses in, closing them off in a small world of shared grief.

Dean’s putting snow chains on the Impala on a chill October morning when he gets the call. The line crackles with the static sound of the incoming snow, but Dean makes out just enough of what Sam is saying to know it’s time to go home. The sun sets and rises and sets again. He stops for nothing except gas and coffee. It takes him thirty-four hours to get to Lebanon, driven straight through.

By the time he’s unlocking the door to the bunker, he’s halfway to delirious, afraid that he’d dreamed the conversation – or that he’d misunderstood. The bunker is quiet, and the dread of emptiness that he’s been running from rushes in all at once. He wishes he had called Mia. The small, scared voice in the back of his head says he should leave. That it was stupid to get his hopes up, that of course he’s wrong, that he should get back in the car and hightail it back to Maine, back to Ohio, back to Delaware, back to nowhere, to anywhere, as long there isn’t here.

Then, suddenly, he’s got an armful of Eileen. Followed immediately by Sam wrapping his arms around both of them and Dean realizes that, no matter how this turns out, he’s glad to be home. The hug lingers a little longer than it ordinarily might, the three of them huddled together in the entryway, but when they pull apart the weight of empty space feels lighter.

Dean stops short of asking after the third member of his welcome crew, as he follows them down the stairs. When Sam presses a finger over his lips, Dean half-expects him to go full librarian, loud shush and all – but he doesn’t make a sound. Just claps a hand softly on Dean’s shoulder and leads him down the dormitory hallway to the room that used to be his. The door is ajar. The light falls in a single line down the foot of the bed that used to be his. It’s not empty.

It’s not empty.

Dean thinks his knees might give out. He can’t move. He thinks he might throw up. His eyes burn, and he knows he’s probably crying. There’s a warm, buzzing feeling under his skin. Sam might be saying something as he pushes the door the rest of the way open, but he doesn't hear it.

Dean lets out the breath that he’s been holding since Maine. He drops to his knees at the side of the bed. Distantly, Dean’s aware of Sam pulling the door closed, of the light dimming, of the rough, broken sound of his own breathing.

Cas is snoring lightly, soft, high-pitched little inhales, so unlike his voice, and yet so very Cas in some intangible way. The cover is pulled up over his shoulders, bunched under his chin like he’s clutching them there in his sleep. He’s here. He’s back.

Dean stays, kneeling at his bedside, long after his eyes have adjusted to the dark, long after his feet begin to fall asleep and his left knee starts to protest. He studies the way Cas breathes, the exact position and fall of the slight shadow cast by his eyelashes, the way he purses his lips and furrows his brow in his sleep. He’s not sure how long it is before he climbs onto the bed himself.

This time, he promises himself, this time I will be the person he deserves. This time I’ll say it.

Laying atop the covers opposite Cas is exhilarating. If not for the last twenty-five hours catching up with him, he could wait and watch Cas wake up. Dean’s breathing in tandem with him now, as though he can draw in the very air that Castiel breathes out.

Dean wakes covered and alone. He fists his hand in the sheet, closes his eyes against the grief. The hollow feeling that he's been living with, that gaping maw in his chest feels as though it has been flayed back wide and raw for one heartbreaking minute before the door opens.

Cas enters in sweatpants and a plain tee, carrying two cups of coffee. He's moving with care, whether because he thinks Dean is still asleep or to avoid a spill. Maybe both. He stops short when Dean sits up, meeting his eyes over the foot of the bed. Dark brown rivulets of coffee run down the side of the mugs, drip onto the floor.

With an incredulous laugh, Sam answers, “Dude, I don’t think you need it!“

“I might actually have to marry the guy!” Dean hisses. “I didn’t think I’d have to marry the guy! They haven’t even let us meet him yet, I can’t marry a complete stranger.”

Still seconds away from laughter, Sam says, “Too bad you signed that contract then! Man. Man.”

“I wasn’t supposed to get this far!”

“Dean. Breathe. All you have to do is fuck up the date portion and you’re out. This is... I mean, it’s amazing, but the prince is still the one with the veto power okay?”

“You want me to make an ass out of myself on national TV.”

“What? No. You tell him you came to represent your background and you don’t think you can hack it as prince consort. You did what you came to do.”

Dean tries more of that breathing stuff.

“Right?“ Sam prompts.

“Yeah,“ Dean has to admit, even according to his own high standards. “Somehow lasted longer than the prison reform guy, and I’m the one with a record.”

“People even seem to like you for it. More relatable. Plus, it being a juvenile record doesn’t hurt. I think you’re starting to become this ‘scared straight’ poster boy.”

“I wasn’t scared-”

“I know, I know,” Sam says over him. “I’m telling you what I’ve been hearing, that’s all. Kid gets arrested for stealing, gets put into a boys’ home, grows up to co-run the boys’ home and cut down on rescindivism.”

“You left out the part about ‘kid gets his own father arrested.’“

“‘Other son grows up to be lawyer to prosecute own father for neglect,’“ Sam adds, tacitly leaving off the “and child abuse” they’ve spent too long arguing over. “Point is, Dean, you came in to yell at anyone who would listen that we need more help for homeless kids, justice reform, the whole list.”

“The home’s been getting a lot of donations,” Dean mutters, head bowed, not too embarrassed to say it, but close.

“Sonny’s kept the press from interviewing the kids,“ Sam says. “I’ve seen him on the news a couple times over reporters trying to get the scoop on you from them.“

Dean groans. “They’re gonna get hassled over me so much when I come back. Fuck. This is not the kind of attention they need.”

“They’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. Just blow the date portion and you’ll go down to local celebrity in a year and using it to pull in donations. You get to plan the date, right? They gave you a budget and all?”

“I’m gonna...” Dean stares at the beautifully draped curtains framing the crystal clear windowpanes, overlooking the backyard pool and sprawling garden. No one out there tonight, not when everyone has just the weekend to plan. “Where do you even invite a prince to go?”

“See, you’re already failing. It’ll go great.“

“Bitch.“

“Jerk.”

Dean breathes a bit more. “Fuck it. I’m gonna do a normal person date. Probably can’t take him to a bar without it being weird and fancy. I’ll make burgers, we’ll do a movie on the couch, and he’ll be so disappointed with my pleb ways, he’ll never look back.”

“If he has to watch you eat, he’ll leave before the movie.”

“Sam.“

“I’m helping!”

.

.

The show airs every weeknight, and while some of the contestants have gotten solo portions before, this is the first week everyone gets a solo night. Of the many, many entrants, only twelve even made it to the mansion. Dean’s pretty face and sob story somehow got him in. Those, and how getting arrested as a teenager had apparently filled him with that big requirement for the nation-wide contest: a deep and abiding passion for the good works of their country.

Anytime someone phrases it like that, Dean desperately controls his expression.

It had started with a dozen people from across the country. It had gathered singles from across the nobility and the upper class, dipped its toes into middle class, and then slummed it with Dean. Here a lawyer, there a doctor. There went the architect, there goes the civil servant.

Getting through the quiz rounds had been a Slumdog Millionaire-esque stroke of luck. Roadtripping across the country with their dad had taught Dean everything about maps, and, apparently, an absurd amount of geography. Dragging multiple kids through multiple school years drilled in the staples of national history. And no one else present for those quizzes had any personal experience in the nitty gritty details of life.

When they were all tested on how “in touch” with the common people voting for them they were, Dean had somehow been the only person to ask crucial follow-up questions. What are the average prices of different groceries? “Store brand, name brand, or organic?” should be the obvious response, not just the reaction that gets a consistent laugh from the studio audience of those nights. When the topic turned to education or crime, Dean ponied up the same kind of statistics he’s been waving in front of kid’s faces for the better part of a decade now.

Then there’d been the more socially focused rounds. Dean had coasted through the event planning competition as part of a team before sweet talking all their guests. When they’d all been partnered up with a foreign dignitary to cut their teeth on that kind of schmoozing, Dean had been given the absolute easiest partner: a nerd with scifi figurines on her desk.

The last couple of rounds had been a two-part challenge that failed to live up to its name. Come up with a community project with low costs and high impact? Dean had ticked over from an At Risk Youth and into adulthood on a farm. All he had to put together is what he knows works: community gardening. Give a thirteen year old boy a hoe, let him snicker it out, and then have him beat the ground until his anger runs out. Involve neighbors, get the kids interacting with real people, get more people invested in the kids. So, yeah: a couple of tweaks to that, and Dean’s proposal had been a piece of cake. Implementing it this past week went pretty smoothly too.

And now he’s here.

Final four.

All set and ready to date a prince.

Jesus fuck, who let this happen.

.

.

On Saturday, they draw straws. Given that each show airs on a weeknight and needs a day of frantic editing, someone has to have their date Sunday night, in time for Monday.

Through an overly elaborate ceremony (recorded as a promo for this week’s shows), Dean draws Friday night (which actually means Thursday). The host wishes them all luck, the two remaining nobles split away from each other, and the investment banker starts asking the host a bunch of questions Dean doesn’t need the answers to.

With the most time to prepare, Dean... doesn’t. He swims in the pool. He enjoys the seriously awesome food. He browses through the movie catalogue available to them. He takes advantage of a completely absurd bathroom and continues to plot out how he’s going to steal his bathrobe.

Each morning, the final four have to socialize with each other over breakfast in front of the cameras. It’s the same kind of debrief they’ve been doing for, shit, two entire months at this point. The only difference this time is that this time, one of them has first hand experience with Prince Castiel.

A lot of strategizing clearly goes into how much everyone reveals on their morning. Praise the prince’s good looks in front of the camera? Check. List all of the wonderful activities they did together so no one can copy them? Check. Mention a single one of the prince’s likes or hobbies? No check. Anti-check. Cross that question off the entire list. No one spills any beans there, absolutely nothing that could be helpful to anyone going next. 

Thursday drags its way from morning and into afternoon with multiple consultants asking Dean if he’s sure about what he has planned. For his part, Dean confirms and confirms until he’s a hairs breadth from losing his temper.

Yes, he’s sure. No, he doesn’t need anything else beyond that grocery list. Yes, he’s wearing this. No, he doesn’t need a last minute shopping trip. Yes, he is absolutely wearing this, because these are his own clothes. Now go away: he needs time to cook.

Given the seemingly limitless options and budget they have at their disposal, Dean’s the only one who opted to invite the prince to the mansion. Maybe the others were too leery of a rival butting in, or even just spying the prince early. Maybe they’d had some show they’d desperately wanted to see and chose to cash in with this. Hell, Dean had had half a mind to do that, until facing facts and admitting that this could lead to an actually interesting date.

Instead, he sucks it up. He’s had more fine dining and gourmet food in two months than he’s had the entire rest of his life. He’s met celebrities and even given a shit about a couple of them. But now it’s getting too real, and that means it’s time to go.

.

.

Having a camera crew in tow somehow fails to be the most surreal part of answering the door. The bell sets off an impressive melody through the foyer. Already stationed in place, Dean lets the noise die before taking the final few steps and hauling open the door for the prince he has technically agreed to marry (results of the competition pending).

With his own cameraman behind him, Prince Castiel nods politely at him across the threshold, and Dean is immediately in over his head.

They’d said he was handsome. Gossip rags call him anything from pretty to breathtaking. Countless photos depict how, beneath those suits, there hides a body well-toned from the luxury of the best personal trainers.

All that’s true.

But mostly, this guy just looks tired.

It’s in those deep baby blues, already partially glazed over. It’s in how the man reflexively straightens his posture that extra inch. This far into a televised life, Dean can easily spot makeup, even expertly applied, and there are bags under those eyes.

“Hey,” Dean says, instead of whatever the hell he’d planned to say. Unless that’s what he’d planned to say. He has no idea. He tightens his grip on the side of the door, the better to hold it open wide. The better to hold onto something. “Thanks for coming over, Your Highness.” Holy shit, that’s weird to say. Is he supposed to call Prince Castiel that? Somebody briefed him on this and now he has no idea.

Narrowing those striking eyes and tilting his head, the future king looks Dean over from flannel to worn jeans to work boots. With a faint quirk to his lips, he extends his hand. “Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Winchester.”

Dean takes it. Shakes it. Gives as good of a hold as he teaches the boys to, looks him square in the eyes, and shows him that Dean’s not remotely as piss-pants scared as he feels. “Dean.”

“Castiel.” With one last squeeze, Castiel lets go.

Dean clears his throat. “Right. Come on in.” He takes a step back, and Castiel enters.

In his overcoat and tailored suit, Castiel doesn’t move like anyone Dean knows. It’s too polished to be a prowl, too intent to be casual. His motions carry purpose and weight, though the meaning remains illusive. He holds himself apart.

“Take your coat?”

“Thank you.”

Dean hangs the overcoat in the foyer closet, and his hands are absolutely not shaking. “I hope you came hungry. This place has an awesome kitchen.”

The smooth, nigh-emotionless facade wavers with a blink. “You cooked?”

“Yup.” He ducks his head. “Well, still cooking. Just finishing up, though, didn’t want anything to get cold.” Dean gestures the way, although the camera backing through the appropriate doorway is a bit of a hint already.

Dean leads him through the empty dining room, the long table devoid of place settings, and into the kitchen. “What’s your style? Rare, medium, dry brick?”

“I-” Another waver of persona, another moment of confusion. No sense of humor, or too tired to use it? “Medium rare, typically.”

“Awesome, coming right up.”

The kitchen island sports a pair of place settings, one corner framed by a pair of stools. Already set out are the condiments, the jar of pickle slices, washed lettuce, tomato slices, the works. Plus, a bowl of fresh fries.

“I used the air fryer on those,” Dean says, pointing them out while moving to the sleek stove. “Sounds ridiculous, but I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to try one of those bad boys out.”

Visibly quizzical, Castiel claims one of the stools while the cameras do their thing, circling around them on the shoulders of operators they’re meant to ignore. “You’re making burgers,” Castiel says, somehow making this a question.

“Yeah, nothing fancy.” Except for the quality of ingredients. Taking the beef out of the packaging, Dean had died inside, but mostly in a good way. He flashes a smile over his shoulder. “Hope that’s okay. I’m normally cooking for a pack of kids. Refined palates are very much not a thing.”

He’s pulled out the big guns for seasoning tonight: there’s no way he’ll be able to afford to ever again. As he gets the meat sizzling in the pan, he pops a pair of absurdly artisan buns into the oven with a lick of butter across each. On muscle memory, he opens the fridge and catches himself mid-reach. “Beer while you wait? They brought in a bunch of different kinds.” 

“Whatever you’re having.”

Pale ales, it is.

Six minutes of small talk pass in a haze, but that haze gets a lot slower when the prince gets up and comes over to take a look. “That smells very good,” he says, as stiff and composed as a cardboard cutout not quite propped up all the way.

“Heck yeah,” Dean agrees on autopilot. “Do you want to do up yours, or are you okay with me taking the wheel?”

Castiel looks at him with absolute incomprehension.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Dean decides. Somewhere between Dean getting the buns out and laying the lettuce on, Castiel realizes what he’d meant, but by then, Dean’s almost done. He moves both plates back to the kitchen island, laughing awkwardly as they shuffle around each other, laughing in relief when he doesn’t toss both burgers into Castiel’s suit.

Proving that he’s not a complete alien, Castiel does know what to do when it comes to condiments and loading his own tomato and pickle slices. “I haven’t had a burger in... I’m not sure how long,” Castiel confesses, not without hunger, his deep voice rumbling in lieu of his stomach.

Dean swallows hard. “Not a fan?“ he half-jokes.

Castiel levels a Look at him.

Dean laughs. From nerves.

“Synthetic meat substitutes are an important advancement,” Castiel says, as if by rote. 

Dean shakes his head disparagingly. “Man, you swap out my ground beef for ground turkey, and I notice. My brother’s crazy about, what is it, tofu-point-oh, but I can’t hack it.”

“Sustainability doesn’t always account for personal preference,” Castiel answers, which Dean translates to “Yeah, it sucks.”

“You said it. Well. Bon appétit?”

“Mm.”

With that, they heft their burgers, angle their approaches, and bite in.

Castiel makes a porn noise.

Juices come out.

Bits of bun crumb and lettuce fall onto his plate as he leans forward over it, chasing the bulging burger into his own hands.

Castiel sets the burger down, chews vigorously, and uses his napkin while Dean stares like a rube.

“That,” Castiel says, “is very good.”

Dean grins. “Yeah?”

“Mm,” Castiel confirms, going back in.

They don’t talk so much after that. A couple times, Castiel has to turn a hand for a quick lick at his own wrist, rescuing his sleeve from the juices. Dean stares a little too hard until one of the cameras passes into his line of sight to do the same. Then he pulls his shit together.

“So,“ Dean says faux-conversationally, “what do you actually do?”

Castiel takes his time chewing and swallowing. “I flag issues in Parliament for my father’s review.“

“Like a big flag, or one of those little toothpick ones?”

Again, there’s that moment of lag behind those eyes. No less compelling for it, but a little worrying. “That does depend on the size of the issue. My team and I read as many of the proposed laws as possible once the Houses have argued them into shape. We try to close loopholes.”

“Huh.”

“There’s also public relations,” Castiel adds, somehow sounding more interested in thwarting legalese.

“Like this,“ Dean says, breaking one of the rules to gesture at the cameras.

“Like this,“ Castiel agrees.

“Are you cool with it?” Dean asks, because why the fuck not. If he’s gonna pack his bags, he might as well load them with answers on his way out.

Still, he doesn’t go so far as bringing up how Castiel’s disowned older brother and former crown prince didn’t manage to hack being paired up via TV show and popular vote. The former prince having an affair with his secretary and popping out an heir is, after all, a strange silver lining that opens up Castiel’s union to less procreative options. And the royal family does seem to love tiny Jack as much as they now loathe the prince-formerly-known-as-a-prince.

“I spend much of my life in front of cameras,” Castiel says.

Dean shakes his head, then holds up a finger as he chews. After a swallow, he says, “Having everybody vote on who you’ll marry. You’re okay with it?”

“Arranged marriages are a longstanding part of our history. The populace having control instead of my parents serves as a check on the monarchy.”

“That’s the party line, yeah, but that’s not what I asked.” It occurs to Dean that Castiel probably isn’t allowed to say, but screw it. “You. You the person. You’re okay with it?”

Slowly, Castiel nods. “I do have some amount of input, Dean.”

The chills spiraling out from his spine to curl up in his toes have nothing to do with the heat from the long-cold stove, but Dean can pretend. “I know the veto rules. You can save someone from being voted out... twice? Yeah.”

Castiel reaches for his beer only to hold it, not drink. “When the entrants are narrowed down to five hundred, an allotment of those go to my family members or friends. Then there are a hundred. As a group, we half that number. Then I pick twelve from that fifty.”

Dean’s eyes widen as his stomach drops. He leans his arm on the kitchen island to keep his balance on the stool. “You...”

“Picked you. Yes.” Castiel glances down and clears his throat. “And the rest of the house.”

“You already swiped right on all of us.”

“You could call it that.“

“Oh,” Dean says, and it comes out way too small. “I, um. Didn’t know that.”

Castiel nods. “They’ll edit this out for the show. It might be in a Behind the Scenes feature, though.“

“That is crazy surreal, you know that, right?”

This time when Castiel looks at him with those deep blue eyes and that tiny quirk to his lips, it’s the expression of a man who knows life is insane and has chosen to go ahead anyway.

“Yes,” Castiel says simply.

They finish eating in relative silence. Castiel seems content enough to help himself to homemade fries and ponder why ketchup is legally a vegetable if tomatoes are technically fruit.

“I was thinking,” Dean says by way of transition, “you’ve kind of had a packed week, right? Art show, concert, play, right?”

Still intent on chasing down the ketchup with the last of the fries, Castiel nods. “It’s been very nice having a night in.”

“Well. Uh. Good.” Dean clears his throat. “’Cause we’ve got some comfy couches and a couple of those seriously awesome recliners. And movies.”

Castiel smiles at him, and all of those little chills that have taken root in Dean abruptly blossom and melt. It’s bad. Real bad. But a kind of train wreck bad, because Dean can’t look away from his own oncoming Demise Via Handsome. “What did you have in mind?” Castiel asks.

What Dean had in mind is not being mocked on national TV for any of his completely awesome, completely normal movie preferences. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess you don’t get out to the movies a lot, right?”

“I do occasionally attend a premier,” Castiel admits, “but not as often as I’d like.”

“Cool,” Dean says, because what else can he say to that. “Yeah, whatever you missed in theaters, let’s do it. Another beer?” Because Dean’s gonna need another beer.

Another round of beers, and another awkward transition through the mansion. Castiel’s stiffness has lessened slightly, but only slightly. The veneer of polish holding his exhaustion at bay cracks a bit further.

Confusing the camera crew, they set up shop in two adjacent recliners instead of braving the couch or even the loveseat. There’s a long pause for everyone to adjust the lighting for both movie-viewing and show-filming.

“What about you?” Castiel asks.

Dean looks down at the controls on his chair. He looks at his beer in the cup holder. He looks back to Castiel, who wields the remote but doesn’t scroll through the options on the screen. “What about me, what?”

“How are you adjusting to all of this?”

“Is it weird that the cameras are starting to feel normal?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“Touche.” Dean leans back, reclining the chair with him and putting on that nice heated seat function. “Honestly?”

Similarly reclined, Castiel nods, the side of his face against the headrest.

“This is way more fun than I thought it would be,” Dean admits. “Figured I’d be stressed out of my mind, but...“ He shrugs. It’s that old, amazing freedom of giving up. The abrupt lifting of expectations. “This is the first vacation I’ve had in... Shit, I don’t even know.”

“Vacation,“ Castiel echoes. “In the past fortnight, you designed and implemented a community garden.”

“And I was responsible for none of the kids there,” Dean says with maybe a bit too much glee. “Man, that felt good.” Then, remembering the cameras, he quickly adds, “Not that I don’t miss the boys. It’s just nice to not have to take care of everyone in earshot sometimes.“

Castiel keeps looking at him. Long and steady, the kind of slow gaze that makes words stumble out to meet it.

Dean resists as best he can, but he still keeps going, just a little. “I got this brother, Sam. Not a foster brother, the brother I came with. When he went off to college, he kept joking about how it was a good thing I had five kids to look after instead of just him.”

“Was it?”

“Was it what?“

“Good,“ Castiel says. “For you.”

Dean takes a moment to think about it, which is long enough to know he’d need way longer than a moment. He looks to the immense TV instead. “Looks like they got the lighting figured out. See anything good?”

Castiel doesn’t press the issue, and yet Dean can feel those eyes on him even as Castiel resumes scrolling. “I remember this receiving multiple awards last year, but I never watched it.”

Dean recognizes the title enough to know that it’s artsy and boring as shit. “Awesome, go for it.”

Ten minutes pass in aching silence. The TV doesn’t count. Neither does the camera crew.

Neither should Dean turning on the vibrate function of his chair, but Castiel immediately looks at him.

Dean turns the back massage off.

Still looking at Dean, Castiel shifts his hand on the armrest, and the same whirring, vibrating noise comes from his recliner.

Dean turns his own back on.

Castiel smiles at him.

Dean starts rambling. About other movies. About the local theater, before it closed. About herding the kids down to the library for a public screening on an overhead projector, and crossing his fingers it was a superhero movie instead of something they’d whine about being too babyish.

Finally, he rambles his way quiet, but by that point, he’s entirely lost track of the movie. He does his best to focus anyway.

The boredom sets back in, but Castiel doesn’t break the silence.

Dean glances over, then glances over again.

Shit.

The headrest now playing the part of a pillow, Castiel inhales and exhales with the steady rhythm of the deeply asleep. Despite already having been yammering on to an unconscious prince, Dean holds his breath.

He looks at the camera crews.

The camera crews, and the cameras, stare back.

This isn’t how Dean had meant to blow the date, but boring the guy to sleep definitely counts.

Holding back a sigh, Dean returns his recliner to its neutral position and gives up on the movie. He’d made dessert--mostly for himself--and now is definitely time to heat that up. Still, standing there, surrounded by watchers he’s not supposed to notice, he decides to maybe not completely tank his public image by abandoning his royal date.

He takes off his flannel instead, baring his forearms and band t-shirt. With the practice of many years of shepherding little brothers to bed, Dean lays the flannel over Castiel. The prince still has his suit jacket on, though unbuttoned. At some point, he must have relaxed enough to loosen his tie, but Dean can’t be sure of when.

Regardless, he tucks Castiel in before signaling the crew to leave him be. Dean turns off the TV, keeps the lighting dim, and slips back to the kitchen. With only one of the cameras following him in professional silence, Dean puts the pie he’d baked this afternoon back into the oven to heat up. He puts his music on low, gives the camera a good shot of him sighing in dismay, and proceeds to do the dishes.

.

.

Officially, they’re not meant to talk to the camera crew outside of those stupid confessionals everyone has to do, but 1. there’s only so much footage they can get out of Dean and B. he is armed with pie, boredom, and bribery.

Plus this way, they have to use the limited shots Dean already gave them, rather than Dean risking mistake after mistake, take after take. He may be pretty, but he ain’t dumb.

It’s over two hours later before there’s any sounds of movement off in the direction of the home theater. Still, the camera crew springs back into action, turning the equipment back on and scurrying to hide the extra plates out of sight.

Dean’s flannel draped over one arm, Prince Castiel comes shuffling into the kitchen with a glower plain on his face.

“You should have woken me up,“ Castiel grumbles in a tone Dean knows all too well, royalty or not.

“Cas, buddy? You needed that.“ Dean taps the kitchen island twice. “I already put on some coffee, you want some?”

Castiel sits heavily, his sigh weighty enough to bend him forward. Despite the makeup, he rubs at his eyes. “I’m meant to have kept you company, not...“ He trails off and sighs once more.

Dean looks him over.

Looks at the cameras trained on them.

In a clear and steady voice, Dean says, “Fuck.”

Everyone stares at him.

“Fuck, shit, balls, tits, pussy,“ Dean continues, getting between Cas and the cameras. “None of this is usable, shit, goddamn, fuck, and none of it motherfucking will be, titty fucking balls, so go ahead and clear out.“

Through time, persistence, and cussing, all things are possible, even calmly harassing a pair of camera crews into retreating. There’s not much Dean can do from keeping one crew from looping around to the other kitchen entrance, so Dean settles on a compromise: they’ll stay in the doorway and he’ll stop swearing.

When he comes back to Cas, it’s to find him cradling a mug of coffee and looking at the caffeine source with immense fondness.

“Saved you a slice, if you want it,“ Dean says, pulling out the remaining pie from the fridge. He realizes the picture he makes. “I didn’t eat the whole thing. The crew... Yeah.”

“I can see the plates,“ Cas says, nodding. Looking up at Dean, there’s a clear pall of guilt over him. “I apologize. That was very rude of me. You went through a great deal of effort.”

Dean waves it off, pouring himself more coffee as well in the face of Cas’ poorly concealed yawns. “Big meal, dark room, comfy seat. It happens. No big deal.”

“I’ll make it up to you next week,” Cas promises.

Very carefully, Dean swallows his coffee rather than spit it out. “Next week. You mean, the Day Trip week.” Followed by the Overnight week, two days for each of the remaining two contestants. Followed by marriage.

 “I’ll make sure you’re scheduled first,” Cas continues. “You’ll have my full attention.”

Something a lot like terror without the pain rushes through Dean’s veins. Hot? Freezing? He can’t tell. It makes him take a step back, smack his ass against the counter, and let out a noise that immediately necessitates destroying all documentation of said noise. Dean does not giggle like a drunken bubble falling down the stairs. That is not something he does.

Cas seems to be under the unfortunate misconception that Dean does, however, and he smiles softly over the lip of his mug in such a way to prove it.

“Shut up,“ Dean mutters to his coffee. While Cas drinks, Dean rallies. “Besides, I haven’t been voted through to next week yet.”

“You’ll make it through,“ Cas tells him firmly. “I haven’t used any of my veto power yet.“

“Shut up and eat your pie.” Dean thrusts the warmed slice over. “You- shit, fork.“

After two incorrect drawers, Dean finds the forks right where they’ve always been. “Uh, here.”

Standing up, reaching out, Cas wraps his fingers around Dean’s hand rather than the utensil.