"In prison, you get the chance to see who really loves you."

[decadency]

"Novak! Visitor."

Novak. This is a name he hates. But then it could be worse. Just like everything. For four days a new man inhabited their four-person cell: white, short, skinny, hyperactive with long, stringy hair that when clean must have been similar in colour to Dean's hair. He made it his habit to invent as many ridiculous variants as possible on the name James: Jim, Jimmy Two Shoes, Jim-Jim-Jiminiy, and completing the catalog with current favourite, Slim Jim.

Slim is not an inaccurate description of this body, Cas will grant. His ribs protrude, dips between the bones that hollow into deep trenches when he stretches his arms above his head. Muscles stretch sickly across his shoulders, snaking into thin cords to make his biceps and triceps. In the four months since he awoke in Louisville, his body has collapsed into itself. His cheeks are sharp and his hip bones sharper, painful. All sorts of new, sore pressure points have erupted in the last few months. Human bodies apparently require fat and muscles. Without it, they become distinctly uncomfortable to inhabit.

Ae shows signs of the same deprivation, though in her the lack of regular food and sleep does not mean a decrease in body mass. Archeopteryxes, Cas assumes, or perhaps daemons in general, do not suffer starvation as a problem of mass. Rather her scales have dulled, and she has molted some of her feathers from her head, back and tail. At night, suppressed in the silence of their bunk, he massages circles into the bald spot on the side of her head, Ae croaking the soft, scratchy caw of sympathy on his chest.

Slim, then, is an acceptable nickname. Anything else pertaining to James Novak sends shudders through him. How unfortunate that the name listed on the left breast of his orange uniform reads Novak and that is all the guards can be moved to care about.

He exits from the common room, leaving the noises of television and card games behind, and shuffles behind the guard to one of the ante chambers that leads to the less secured rooms of the prison. Inside the chamber, he holds his wrists together to accept the cuffs and the leather belt around his waist. The guard's monkey daemon clips the metal chain trailing off the centre of the belt to Ae's harness. She fidgets under his arm, disliking the close proximity of touch by even another daemon, but remains silent.

That's good. It's rare that they're allowed into this area of the prison, and Cas is curious. The one and only visitor they had was the social worker weeks ago. Her questions were invasive and impossible to answer, but her demeanor had been kindly, her daemon a panting, smiling golden retriever who wagged his tail every time he caught a glimpse of Ae. If she's come back, Cas would like to speak to her, if only to have someone with whom to converse. It's been several days since he said a word at all.

The chains jingle-jangle with each step as the guard leads him out of the ante chamber's second door and down the corridor to the visitation room. The thin elastic on his uniform pants achieves little compared to the skeletal nature of his hips. They slide further down with each drag of the heavy chains. When the guard pauses to key in the code to unlock the door to the visitation room, Cas clears his throat.

"Uh. Hey." It takes the guard time to realise Cas did, in fact, say something, and the guard turns to him a second later with a look of surprise on his bloated, pasty face. "Hey," he says again, and ignores how his throat feels like he swallowed gravel. "Can you pull up my pants? I don't want to commit indecent exposure." The too-wide smile he gives the guard in good will has the opposite effect, but after a pause to scowl and finish the code, the guard reaches around to hike up the waistband above Cas's ass with a sharp tug.

It's better than nothing. And the man's bizarre discomfort is somehow entertaining. Humans are strange and fascinating, no matter the circumstances.

The visitation room is empty when the door swings open, all cubbies unoccupied but for one in the middle. The shadow of the visitor hovers on the metal divider between cubbies. Cas passes the guard, clink-clanging to the seat opposite the occupied chair and shifts Ae from his arms to his lap before he lifts his head to view who sits across from him.

It is not the social worker.

This person has—green eyes, short, sandy hair, delicate, graceful bone structure atop broad shoulders and flannel. This person has a soul the shines like sunlight through a dirty window, tarnished but not dampened, iridescent with imperfection. Beautiful.

Dean has always been beautiful.

Right now, Dean is smiling at him. That smile when Dean is nervous—or sad. Not a happy smile. Not a peaceful smile. Those smiles are extraordinarily rare. Those smiles died with Sam. But it is a smile all the same, and upon seeing it, something in Cas's chest stretches and strains, the most painful sense of longing. His upper body bows slightly towards the glass, seeking out Dean instinctively, despite all the years he's trained himself to stop. Ae gives a soft, thin cry. At Dean's thigh, there's Farb, study and steadfast as always, his wet nose twitching like he could smell Ae beneath all the disinfectant and sterilized air.

Cas must take too long with his staring because Dean starts gesturing pointedly. In her hand she holds a phone. She holds it out and mouths the word, eyes wide and green and intent and alive. Dean is alive.

On the divider next to him hangs on identical black phone. Hands suddenly gone numb and clumsy in the cuffs, fingers buzzing, Cas reaches for it, balancing Ae carefully on his thighs. He holds it to his ear with both hands, watching Dean mirror him.

With a suffocating wheeze he forces out the greeting he has not had cause to say in months. "Hello—Dean."

Comments

[whatrhymeswith]

The call from Bobby came during lunch rush. She was juggling three burger orders and one non-regular who wanted unsalted fries, and wouldn't even have picked up if Bobby hadn't called the diner line, the one they usually take orders on. Bobby delivered the short version of the news, but she still burned two of the burgers and habitually dumped the fries in the salt-covered bowl--Farb tried to stop her with panicked squeaks, but to no avail--before Benny came in and told her to stop touching things. She went out back and returned Bobby's call to get the details, the few that there were. Bobby had had a visit from the sheriff informing him that some guy in Oklahoma County Jail had given Singer Salvage as his home address. The guy's name was Jimmy Novak. Ring any bells?

She burned rubber down I-29 only to have an indifferent late-shift guard tell her that she had to schedule a visit if she wanted to see an inmate outside of open visiting hours. She wishes she could claim to have wanted to punch him, but after ten hours of anxious uncertainty twisting the muscles in her neck and shoulders, she felt more like crying at the prospect of having to wait another 24 hours. She'd been waiting for weeks--months, even; she'd performed the summoning ritual in late July--but never with much expectation that her ramshackle, DIY, cross-dimensional voodoo spell would actually work. Hearing Bobby say the name of Cas' vessel over the phone was like a punch to the gut, and the guard telling her she had to wait even longer was like getting headbutted for good measure.

But of course, a prison's a prison's a prison, and they don't make exceptions no matter what. So she made an appointment for Thursday and spent a restless night in a motel, hugging Farb to her chest and petting the bristly fuzz on his forehead. And now she's here, trying to fit her butt on the uncomfortable seat in the visitor's booth, Farb's front hooves digging into her thigh as he's straining to see down the aisle behind the glass leading back into the prison. Her hand is resting on his back, both comforting and drawing comfort.

Farb's small squeak and shuffle is what first alerts her of someone approaching. She looks up to spot an orange jumpsuit, hanging off the thin frame of a man. An inmate. Dark, messy hair, and a daemon that's not quite a bird and not quite a lizard, strapped into an inmate's daemon harness. She swallows against a dry throat and tries to ignore her heartbeat that's suddenly pulsing in her throat. She reaches out to grab the phone that will let her talk to Cas. Because that is Cas. Not the Cas who died two years ago, but still a Cas she knows. Still a Cas who gives her a tight, happy-sad-anxious feeling in her chest when she looks at him. Especially right now.

"Pick up the phone." She gestures, not breaking eye contact. Cas' eyes are wide, and he's not moving. She wishes she could've told him she was coming. "We have to talk over the phone."

He seems to get it; reaches out and picks up the receiver. The voice in her ear is rough, thin and out of breath, and she's not sure if there's actually a muted echo through the glass pane or if she's imagining it. For the moment, it doesn't matter. Cas said "hello, Dean". He hasn't said to her in two years, and only now she realizes how categorically wrong that is. For a few moments, the pang of realization renders her silent. Then her smile widens, the feeling in her chest not anxious now but happy, relieved. Overjoyed? She's not sure. A visitor booth in jail isn't exactly how she imagined seeing Cas again, but the fact that they're both here at all is incredible. She shifts closer, pulling Farb up into her lap to stop him from tap-dancing his hind hooves on the floor in an excited shuffle.

"Cas. Hey, Cas." Her smile softens, but stays. "It's really good to see you, man."

[decadency]

Dean is—.

Anyway. He swallows. Belatedly nods, once, jerkily around the yawing ache in his chest. It's good to see him. Yes. Perhaps. Possibly. Human pleasantries. They're rudimentary.

Except the return greeting bunches into a hard ball in his throat, blocking his windpipe. Off and on, he has thought of things he might say to Dean one day. "I'm hungry" is a common phrase. "I'm sorry" is another. But now that the time has come, nothing springs to mind. There is nothing he can express to Dean in this moment. Any raw sound of his vocal cords threatens to tarnish the ringing reality of this meeting, like a bell has been struck next to his head, vibrations thundering through his bones, scraping him clean.

Dean is here. Alive. And not Dean as he once was. Not Dean from a ruined war, a ruined world, stony and distant. This is Dean . . . This Dean is younger, and—female. This Dean is perhaps closer in some ways to the Dean that sometimes lingers in his dreams, with warm smiles and kind eyes, faith and hope softening all of Dean's rough edges into a presence of home.

He knows Dream Dean does not exist—could not exist—but even with the small physical changes, he yearns for this Dean to be like him. To be the friend he never had. That he lost long ago.

"Hello," he says again, soft, and small, voice like an echo from his chest.

Staring at Dean across from him is like standing too close to the sun. The heat threatens to peel the skin from his body and makes his eyes water. He would look away or shield himself only if Dean did not consume the entire horizon.

[whatrhymeswith]

Dean has always wondered if Cas' eyes reflect his grace. The sharp blue reminds her of the ethereal glow of an angel's grace, and meeting Cas' eyes always makes her feel like she's actually catching a glimpse of Cas, not just looking at his vessel. Of course, this Cas has a daemon. Ae--that's her name; Dean remembers from the last time they met in the other world--is uniquely Cas', a reflection of his soul or grace or whatever essence holds the core of who Cas is. Ae is tucked away on Cas' lap, though, trapped in her harness, while Cas' eyes are right there, staring at Dean. Sending a chill down her spine. The phrase "touched by an angel" steals through her mind, and she hates it because it's corny and cheesy, but if she had to name this feeling, that's still the best description she can think of.

She swallows. I've missed you so much.

"Hey." Her reply is soft, her voice rough from emotions. "Are you okay? Are they treating you okay? I'm sorry you're in here, if I'd known-- but you're getting out soon. Day after tomorrow, they told me. I've got a motel room, like, ten minutes from here, or we can drive up to Sioux Falls right away-- that's where I live these days. I live in Sioux Falls." The words come pouring out of her mouth, and she can tell that it's too much--Cas' eyes are wide, a little glassy; she's not sure he's processing anything. She puts her hand against the glass, fingers splayed out to press against the hard material. The gesture is as corny and cheesy as the description of how Cas looking at her makes her feel, but she doesn't care. "I'm here. I'm gonna make sure you're okay. You're not gonna be on your own."

[decadency]

There are questions, of course. He should have expected that. These questions are the kind that are both less and more difficult to answer. To brief Dean on what happened—his whereabouts, his choices, his observations and assumptions for future problems—that he can find the words for. Those answers are concrete, impersonal. He knows how to respond to Dean impersonally. Personal questions—that is harder. Those answers are vague, nebulous, and he is never fully certain he speaks the truth when he answers them.

But there is still something comforting in being asked. How strange.

Dean does not wait for an answer. She presses on in a rush, a torrent of words and emotions flooding the space between them. It makes the air feel thick, molecules heavy against his shoulders, compressing the space he takes up as though Dean could force him back into something solid and real with her voice alone. He takes a deep breath, sighing into the phone, soaking it up.

It takes far longer to separate meaning from the cacophony of vocabulary.

Dean lives in Sioux Falls. He meant to go to Sioux Falls. Without anyone to reach out to or any place else to go, Bobby's house seemed like the best destination. Even if Bobby was—dead, the house abandoned—at least it would be someplace.

He can't place a hand on the glass to mirror Dean thanks to the handcuffs. Both hands need to hold the phone. But he can think of what might happen if there was no glass. Would Dean touch him? Would Dean hug him? Would Dean still say things like that? That he won't be alone. That Dean will take care of him. The concept makes him itch, his skin prickling against the scratchy fabric of his uniform, hyper-aware and discomforted. Dean has no obligation to care for him.

"All right."

He doesn't know what he's agreeing to. To Sioux Falls, perhaps? As a response to the anxiety in Dean's voice? To Dean, period.

He drags in another long breath, ragged. He wants little else than permission to go lie down in his bunk, knees curled up to his chest, and to bring Dean with him. He can't look away from her.

[whatrhymeswith]

Her hand pressed to the glass starts to feel silly after a few moments. They can't do a Wrath of Khan moment because of Cas' handcuffs, and doing it on her own makes it feel more like Titanic than Star Trek. But she doesn't want to pull back. So eventually, she curls her fingers, turning her hand around to rest her knuckles against the glass instead, her thumb stroking over the smooth surface. She wishes they weren't in a stupid visiting booth in jail. It sucks as a location for emotional reunions.

She nods when Cas agrees, and gives him a soft smile, the emotions in her chest vacillating back and forth between laughing and crying. She's going to take Cas home. Saturday morning 6 am, she's going to pick Cas up and they're going to go home. She has a home to take him to. The thought makes her throat constrict, and she has to cover a hitch in her breathing by swallowing hard. "Everything's gonna be okay. I have a house in Sioux Falls. It's a little ramshackle, but it's big enough for two. Or-- four." She smiles and glances down at Ae who's still tucked away in Cas' lap. "Hello, Ae. How's everything going with you?"

[decadency]

A house in Sioux Falls makes it seem as though Dean doesn't live with Bobby. Dean lives—alone? How? Dean should be in the middle of fighting the Apocalypse. With the gates to Heaven shut, there is no time to waste to try to prevent more damage from Lucifer. But Dean doesn't seem to realise that. Remember that.

Dean is female. Maybe there is more than—one change that has happened without his awareness.

He glances down at Ae in his lap when Dean says her name. Ae has her head tucked against his chest, not looking at either Dean or Farb. She tries to burrow in closer, making herself smaller from the weight of the attention. He wishes he had a hand free to scratch her head in reassurance.

"Ae is—fine." For the most part. He thinks. They're alive. He raises his eyes back to Dean's. "I am too." Dean had asked. If he was okay. "I'm okay."

That's far too simplified to be a useful answer. But it's the best he has.

A line forms between his brows as he pinches them together. "Are—you?"

[whatrhymeswith]

It's heartbreaking to watch Ae scurry closer against Cas' chest, like she's trying to disappear inside of him. Dean glances up when Cas says she's fine, half a mind to point out that Cas has an odd definition of fine. She doesn't, though. She doesn't want to rebuke Cas when Cas seems to be having trouble bringing himself to string more than two syllables together. She meets Cas' eyes when he says he's okay. He seems to mean it--and maybe there's some truth to it. Cas is not okay in the sense that he's doing well; he's too skinny and too quiet, and of course, there's the small issue of him being in jail. But maybe he's still okay. He's surviving. He's hanging in there. She gives him a small nod and a smile in response. That's good to hear.

The return question surprises her. Cas' expression is suddenly a lot more focused, eyes fixated on her in what seems like close scrutiny. It makes her straighten up a little. She nods in response, brushing her fingers through her hair as she tries to figure out what to say. "Yeah. Yes. I'm-- good." She meets Cas' eyes and smiles. "Still kinda figuring stuff out, but-- it's good."

She knows it's kind of a vague, unhelpful answer. But so much has changed in her life that she doesn't know where to start, and doesn't know if she even should right now. Cas has enough to process as it is.

[decadency]

He follows the path of Dean's fingers through her hair. There are some physical differences. Besides being the same colour and cut in a similar shape, Dean's hair is longer by an inch or two. Her jaw seems narrower, her shoulders perhaps as broad but less muscled. Dean has always been masculine in build, and feminine in facial structure and physical expression. That is still true now with minor differences.

It's strange. Like someone traced over Dean and got some of the lines wrong. This Dean should be a stranger but she's not. The speech patterns are the same. Her gestures and posture are the same. The sheepish discomfort from personal scrutiny is the same.

And charming. It's—charming. It raises one side of his mouth into a small, helpless, fond smile.

"Good." He wants Dean to be happy. He wants Dean to be safe, however that's possible. "You look—" Good, and Dean does, but the word catches before it comes out, throat swelling around it until he chokes and swallows out a few wet clicks. Heat suffuses his face.

It's not appropriate to tell Dean that Dean looks good. That Dean looks attractive and healthy and whole for once. That's not his place. That's not his place, and it makes Dean uncomfortable.

He drops his eyes to his lap, abashed. Ae trills quietly, summing up the fluttery squirming in his stomach. He can keep his smile to himself. After all, he's still glad. He's still—relieved, maybe. Dean deserves to have everything Dean wants, after the sacrifices Dean has made.

[whatrhymeswith]

She watches Cas, happy to see a slight smile spreading on his face. It's followed immediately by Cas falling silent and blushing, like he's ashamed. Of smiling? She tilts her head a little in a subconscious attempt to catch Cas' eyes again. She's not sure what to make of Cas' reaction, but it gives her the urge to reassure him. With the glass between them, a friendly slap on the back or shoulder is out of question, of course. Stupid glass.

Something cold and wet brushes against her hand that's holding the phone, and she glances down. Farb is pressing his snout against her wrist, beady eyes wide and nose twitching. She lowers the receiver to Farb's mouth, using her other hand to scratch the bristles in his neck.

"We want you to come home with us." Farb's a pig, but his voice isn't squeaky or uneven. It's soft and pleasant, and usually tinged with an earnest or anxious undertone. Right now it's more the former than the latter. "We want to show you the house. The upstairs isn't nice yet, but there's a lot of space downstairs. We'll buy you a bed at the Goodwill, and you can pick out sheets. And curtains, if you like. We don't have curtains yet."

Dean's ears grow warm as Farb speaks, but she can't help smiling a little. She glances up at Cas. "He gets really excited about home decorating."

[decadency]

His awkward faux-pas lasts only a few seconds. Farb's voice enthuses over the line suddenly. Cas glances up, surprised.

He never knows how to speak to Farb. Through his observations as an angel, he was aware that people spoke to people, and daemons to daemons, with some crossover when the situation warranted it and/or if two humans had a close bond. But as an angel, with no daemon but the limp rabbit form that had once been Jimmy's, he hadn't made much distinction between Dean and Farb. Farb is part of Dean's soul, a reflection in animal form. While Farb has an intellect and a personality, Farb always struck him as an extension of Dean. If Farb leaned into his vessel's legs, it meant Dean was seeking comfort or expressing gratitude or otherwise relating to Cas as a divine source of protection rather than a person.

Once he fell—once Ae appeared—Farb became a much more confusing matter. He understands better through Ae how Farb both is Dean and is separate from Dean. How Farb is a pseudo-independent entity in his own right, connected to Dean and representative of Dean, but not necessarily a duplicate of Dean. He and Ae do not always agree. Ae's reactions are not always his own. She is a cosmic balance for him, something internal and once-private now expressed externally. How Farb relates to Ae may or may not express how Dean relates to Cas. How Farb relates to him is even more complex and obscure to him. For the last year or so, he rarely saw Farb at all.

He blinks once at Farb, noting the scar demarcating Farb's left eye, and the missing half of his ear. Whatever this version of Dean has been through it has left damage. Once the only scar Farb possessed was the handprint, identical to the one on Dean's shoulder. Yet still this Farb is—excitable. Earnest and open. With a passion for home decorating.

Oh, he thinks, at a loss for any other kind of response or reply. Ae has turned her head to stare at Farb as well, head twisted to one side in curiousity, her remaining feathers fluffed up to demonstrate both warning and interest.

Licking his lips, it takes him a few moments to think up a suitable return to the conversation. "When . . . when did you buy—a house?"

The problem with questions is that once he starts to think of them there are too many. Much too many. Questions like what happened to the Apocalypse? What is happening in the outside world? Why is Dean female? Why is Farb injured? How did Dean find him? What happened to the version of him that should be here instead? Presuming he did not time travel, as he once thought, there are several alternatives to explain where he is and what has happened. Except he can't imagine the details of any of them.

One distinct possibility implies that perhaps he never existed at all. Perhaps Dean—was always female, and his memories and very existence are purely a creation of Zachariah to taunt Dean. He doesn't know how else to explain bizarre circumstances such as the gender difference or the fact that, once fallen, he produced a daemon. Angels do not have souls. Yet Ae's existence suggests he should have one.

The wealth of questions and possibilities is overwhelming. It makes it hard to track any of Dean's response, his attention focused inwardly. Only vaguely can he hear Ae's soft cry and feel her head nuzzling into his chest.

If he was a figment created by Zachariah, that would explain the sense of unreality he carries everywhere with him since he fell. Maybe he is only an extrapolation of real events that happened, the real Castiel that existed as an angel. A story someone told with enough belief to turn it into a living creation. Such power exists. Humans can make such things possible, with the right spells. Angels can most certainly do so.

Perhaps the Fall killed the real Castiel. Perhaps he is only the afterthought of a memory. There is something comforting in that. The things he and Dean lived together would have never happened then. The suffering he witnessed in Dean would be proven false, along with everything else.

There is peace in the idea of already being dead. Though it makes it hard to care at all about Dean's house, or Dean's life in Sioux Falls. It makes it hard to care about anything at all. He wishes he still had access to drugs. They did help with these moments of dislocation.

Ae helps by biting him. A sharp pinch just above his left nipple has him looking down at her. Her golden eyes are flat disks that reflect his expression: dazed, his skin pasty and sallow, hair too short and combed flat over one side of his head in a side part. It makes his head seem too square and enunciates the sunken planes of his face, but before his hair had grown too long and tangled, covering his ears. He was appreciative of the fact that the jail had a barber, despite the unflattering results.

He glances up at Dean, mouth slanted down in remorseful apology. He doesn't know how much time has passed or what Dean said during the interim. Sometimes he loses track for hours. Sometimes days. He takes a deep breath and clears his throat, resolute to focus solely on Dean and the here and now. Maybe, just by chance, Dean didn't notice that he slipped away at all.

[whatrhymeswith]

Cas seems surprised by Farb speaking to him. Cas generally seems a little out of it, eyes wide and responses sluggish. It worries her. She lifts the receiver back up to reply to Cas' question about the house--not that long ago, just a few months, she's still working on getting it all sorted out--but it doesn't seem to register. She tilts her head, tries to catch Cas' eyes which are dull and distant. Farb lets out a concerned squeak.

"Cas? Buddy?"

No response. She drops her eyes to Ae, who is pressing her head into Cas' chest. She can hear her faint chirps through the glass. Cas doesn't seem to be noticing his daemon, either--until Ae juts her beak against Cas' chest in a sharp jab for response. That seems to help. Cas raises his head and Dean meets his eyes, which seem slightly more focused now.

"Hey there." She strokes her fingers through the bristles at the back of Farb's neck to soothe his worried squeaks. She wants to ask Cas if he's okay, if he's feeling all right. If he needs her to get someone. She knows the answers to those questions, though. Cas is hanging in there, he's probably feeling as well as can be under the circumstances, and he doesn't need anyone. Anyone else, anyway. She swallows and gives Cas a soft smile. "It's all a lot to take in, huh? That's okay. Take your time." She shifts and glances down at Ae for a brief moment, trying to give her a smile as well. "D'you wanna tell me what happened to you? How you got here, I mean."

[decadency]

The way Dean so magnanimously forgives him for not being able to take everything in makes the back of his neck prickle with shame. It is not too much to take in. In fact, there is nothing to take in besides Dean sitting across from him. The jail has very little stimuli at all, and the visitation room reflects that. Its bare concrete walls and concrete floor mean little.

His jaw aches from the way it's tensed. But he still endeavors to answer Dean's question. "I was arrested."

That's usually how people end up in jail. Dean might mean how he wound up in Oklahoma City or perhaps how he came into existence in the first place. But Dean didn't specify and he doesn't have answers for both questions besides the even-more-painfully obvious.

[whatrhymeswith]

Talking doesn't seem to be Cas' thing today. It's not in general--she knew that; it's not exactly a surprise. But it still worries her how much Cas seems to struggle to get any words out. She doesn't let it show, though, just strokes her fingers through Farb's bristles to soothe his anxious tension.

"Petty theft, right? The guard told me. I don't think he was supposed to." There has to be some kind of inmate-guard confidentiality thing. Or maybe not; it's not like prisons are known for treating their inmates like actual people. She glances around the room, then back at Cas. "These places all look the same. My dad got booked for breaking and entering once, somewhere down near Santa Fe. The visitation room looked exactly the same. They don't exactly design them with kids in mind, do they? Sam was nine at the time, and he was barely able to reach the receiver."

Dean doesn't really expect Cas to answer. She has a bunch of prison stories, and then other stories about everything and anything that she can tell without needing much input. If Cas doesn't feel like talking, he shouldn't have to talk. She segues into the story about how, with Farb already having settled into his pig form, she passed for 16 at age 13 in order to get herself and Sammy into the visitation room without parental supervision. She keeps her voice and demeanor calm and friendly and casual in the hopes that Cas will relax eventually. He seemed to like her just babbling at him before. If there's one thing she can do for hours, it's talk.

[decadency]

They don't let visitors stay past 8PM. Already the first and second call for dinner would have come, leaving available whatever remains for Cas to eat. But that hardship matters little when the alternative meant less time with Dean. It's rare that Dean tells stories about his childhood—her childhood—but Cas always finds them fascinating. Dean rolled from one story to the next to the next, some about her father, and some about her and Sam as children and the petty, entertaining challenges imposed on them due to Sam's height or Dean's age. Even if Cas can't think of much to say in return, he likes simply listening. He likes watching Dean's face animate itself into new contortions of expression, the way she lights up over good memories, the way she laughs first at her own jokes before she tells them.

He hasn't heard Dean laugh in years, even that soft, self-deprecating laugh. Hearing it now makes his throat ache—but in a good way. His chest swells up with warmth. A full dinner could never compete.

Dean promises to return the next day, and Cas acknowledges the plan. It's not as though he can affect in any way whether Dean keeps to it. But something in Dean's behaviour means he trusts her despite his intention not to invest either way. Maybe it's that he wants Dean to come back. Even if they're technically sitting in a jail talking through phones, today was the longest conversation he's had with Dean in a while. The longest and most pleasant. It stays in his head all night, Dean's face and Dean's smile and Dean's effortless, lackadaisical warmth, and it doesn't feel at all like a dream.

The problem is that he doesn't know when Dean will return. Much of the next day gets lost to restless anticipation of the guard calling his name for a visitor. He watches the clock more than he should, tracking time in fifteen minute increments, holding himself still with resolute focus. An hour after breakfast, two hours, four; lunch.

Out in the yard that afternoon, he does something strange and abandons his usual post on the bench for the chance to stretch his legs around the track. The burn in his lungs and legs centers him inside his body. Ae has to cling to the back of his uniform shirt as first to keep pace, but after some time, he feels her claws loosen and give way, and then she's gliding behind him, using small pockets of the hot, dry October air to keep herself afloat.

It means he doesn't hear the guard the first time he calls his name. He has to circle half the track again, and shows up puffing and panting, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead and sticking his shirt to his back. Ae nearly collides with his head when she comes in to land on his shoulders. The guard's only comment is a look before he leads them back inside to repeat yesterday's ritual.

He's still slightly out of breath when he sits down before Dean in the chair, Ae hopping up onto the narrow desk between them to air out and groom her wings.

It's good to see Dean. This time he can give her a smile, relaxed and true.

Dean has brought magazines—or as Dean calls it, "entertainment". After the first quiz, he is not sure that's the best label for it, but Dean's enthusiasm is difficult to deny. The second quiz, geared to discover if it's taker is intimidating, apparently, also strikes him as odd. Dean reads the first question—presuming he received a "promotion" at work but his "friend" just lost their "job", how would he tell them the news?—and the reads the potential answers for him to choose.

"I . . . wouldn't." He supposes. That's the only answer that seems to make sense. He makes scare quotes around the words he finds dubious. "If my 'friend' lost their 'job', it would mean they'd been killed. Heaven kills dissenters. Or sends them to reintegration. So there would not be the opportunity to share any news."

He stares at Dean, waiting to see if she'll accept that as an appropriate response. "What is your answer, Dean?"

[whatrhymeswith]

Going back to the motel after spending the afternoon talking to Cas is hard. Cas said very little in the time they spent together, but his mere presence, his wide-eyed, earnest attention, and the fact that he was right there, existing a mere two feet from Dean with no indication of dying or disappearing ... it made her feel like finding a part of herself she thought she had lost. It takes a while for Farb to quiet down after they leave the jail, his anxious squeaks and grunts tapering off only when they get to the motel and she puts a plate of Chinese take-away in front of him.

Later that night, he's tucked close against her chest, the blanket drawn up over both of them while Dean drifts in and out of a restless doze. She falls asleep properly in the morning hours and wakes up late--still several hours before her scheduled visit at the prison, but thankfully late enough to make the wait bearable.

She uses the time she does have to stop by a Gas'n'Sip. The shelves are stocked with all the usual convenience items, but she heads straight for the magazine rack. Telling stories is all nice and well, but it'd be nicer if she and Cas had something to talk about. Lifestyle magazines are not her thing at all--the garish color accents on white, the large fonts and the headlines about seasonal make-up actively discomfort her--but she grabs a bunch of them anyway and takes them up to the counter. They're meant to be mindlessly entertaining, and that's exactly what she's looking for right now.

The prison is more familiar now, but the pat-down still makes Farb's neck bristles stand up straight. They let her take the magazines inside, though. The visitor's chair is no more comfortable than it was the day before, but when she finally spots Cas coming up to the booth, she forgets all about it. It's so good to see him, and it's even better to see the smile he's giving her. She returns it, and gives Ae a small wave as she hops up on the ledge in front of Cas, much to Farb's delight who presses his nose against the glass and squeaks happily.

They exchange a few words--Cas is sweaty, and she asks if he's been working out--but then she's able to put the magazines to good use. The quizzes are quite entertaining--she has to admit, she wants to know if Cosmo would consider Cas intimidating. Cas' first answer immediately demonstrates that the journalist who wrote the quiz didn't take into account the idea that a fallen angel might take it. She huffs a dry breath at Cas' explanation for why he wouldn't tell his "friend" about the new job, and checks his answer in the little box. When Cas asks her about her own answer, she has to think about it for a moment.

"I don't really know. I don't really have a lot of gainfully employed friends. Or any." She purses her lips and tilts her head. "I suppose I'd just tell them, if they're still around to tell. If I'm doing better myself, I might even be able to get them a job. So they wouldn't really have a reason to be offended." She gives Cas a smile and circles her own answer, then moves on to the next.

"You and your friend meet a cute guy at a party that you both seem to like. You:
a) talk to him and give your friend opportunity to, too. It's his choice in the end.
b) corner him and get his number while making sure he knows you are the far better catch.
c) step aside and let her have him. There are plenty of other fish in the sea."

She can't help but grin as she reads out the question, then glances up. "Are you a sharer, Cas?"

[decadency]

Dean's answer—sounds like Dean: open, and desirous to help. It makes one side of his mouth tick up in a smile. The magazine quizzes aren't something he would have ever considered doing before but he does enjoy the small insights into Dean. His chin propped in his hand, with his elbow on the desk, he waits for Dean to read the next question.

And then scowls.

"That's—irrelevant. And unrealistic." Though he's beginning to understand that all questions in these quizzes fulfill those two descriptors. "Why would anyone care about—romantic social patterns to determine if you're intimidating or not?"

It makes absolutely no sense. Moodily, he huffs out a breath and mutters, "The second one."

If he wants something he doesn't see the point in beating around the bush, and if it's a competition with others, then he wants to win. He glances at Dean to hear her answer.

[whatrhymeswith]

Dean has to press her lips together to suppress an inappropriately loud laugh when at hearing the question, Cas' expression suddenly collapses into a frown. Of course Cas would question the psychological principles of a Cosmo personality test.

She smirks and shrugs one shoulder. "I think it's supposed to show how determined you are to get what you want, or something." She checks the second answer when Cas picks it, her smirk widening. "Not a sharer, then."

Thinking about it, Cas picking that answer makes sense. She can't really picture him letting someone else have something he wants just to be polite. She has to think about her own answer for a few moments, tilting her head and frowning as she does. "I think I'm picking b), too. If my friend wants the opportunity to talk to the guy, it's not up to me to give it to her, is it? Unless she's super shy." Dean glances up and meets Cas' eyes. "It depends on who this friend is, doesn't it? If she's super shy and never gets any phone numbers, sidelining her seems kinda mean. But if she's decent at hooking up, we'd be on equal footing."

[decadency]

So that's what Dean meant by "sharer". "I share." It comes out maybe a little defensively or mullishly. But he would share, if need be. If—the other person didn't want that level of commitment or investment, then he would accept what was offered. Dean had many other responsibilities in the camp—social responsibilities, and the physical need for sex. He never said anything if he found Dean's cabin vacant in the middle of the night. He'd return to his own, and content himself with Ae for company and touch.

Dean's answer, once laid out, makes little sense to him. "That should be—the first choice then." He tilts his head at Dean; shouldn't it? "You would give your friend an equal chance, and let the man decide in whom his interests lies. Otherwise, you would do to last choice and remove yourself from competition if you regarded your friend as less adept than you. B would not be at all what you described."

Does that not make more sense? It does to him.

[whatrhymeswith]

Dean frowns down at the magazine as she listens to Cas talk. Cas thinks she would do a) or c), but not b). Hm.

"I can't really picture it." She glances up and looks at Cas, brow creased as she's thinking. "Like. If I'm out with a friend-- I'm out with a friend, right? Why would I take a friend with me if I'm planning to hook up? I'd have to ditch her eventually. Or him. So I might as well head out on my own in the first place."

She pauses and reads over the answers again. "I thought b) because it'd be a game, then. Like. Neither my friend nor I are planning to actually leave with the guy, it's more a thing of, like. Who gets his phone number first. But assuming I actually want to hook up-- I dunno." She shakes her head. This question is stupid. They're not listing enough details. "C), I suppose. I'd rather have to get myself home on my own than worry about whether my friend made it home okay."

[decadency]

The question seems overly complicated the more Dean describes it. The third answer, though, sounds like something Dean would do. Her own needs would become secondary to that of a friend, and Dean has survived a lifetime thanks to her ability to adjust to abandonment.

There's something sad in that. Wistful. He wishes things hadn't been that way for Dean.

"I don't think it's meant to imply certain social circumstances. It seems more plausible that it's designed to do as you said: to discover how willing you are to take what you want. To—pursue goals. Perhaps to the detriment of others. I thought B suggested not only—pursuing the man, but actively preventing your 'friend' from engaging in the same pursuit." That's why he chose B, at least. "If in order to win, someone must lose, then . . . that is the nature of life. However fair or unfair it may be. There are always casualties in war."

But not for Dean. For Dean, that is unacceptable, unless Dean is the casualty. Shifting his head on his hand, he tries to catch Dean's eyes and holds them. "I like that—you pick C. It's noble."

[whatrhymeswith]

Dean squints up at Cas as he speaks, distantly aware that she's having a Cosmo personality quiz explained to her by a fallen angel. It should be funny, absurd. But somehow it's not. Somehow it just feels normal, like spending time with a friend. A very good friend. It's nice.

She huffs a small breath when Cas points out there's always casualties in war. It's so like Cas to think of finding a date as an act of war. She thinks there's a Shakespeare quote about that. She glances up when Cas says it's noble that she would choose to let her friend go first, heat making the tips of her ears burn. She smiles a little. "Yeah, maybe. Or just stupid."

She doesn't wait for Cas' reply and instead reads out the next question.

"3. A friend who's heavier than you tells you, "You're so thin." How do you reply?
a) Oh, I'm not that thin.
b) Thanks, but you look incredible too!
c) I know, right?"

[decadency]

It may also be stupid, yes, or at least short-sighted. But it is a Dean Winchester sort of stupid, and he has found himself partial to that. He smiles gently back at Dean, but before he can comment on anything, Dean jumps into the next question.

It's as ridiculous as the last.

He huffs a small laugh through his nose and glances down at the surface of the ledge he's leaning against, quiet for a few moments. Why Dean would care about this anecdote, he doesn't know. But he enjoys when Dean shares connected thoughts or assumptions, explaining her interpretation. It provides greater insight. So Dean might benefit from his sharing.

"There is—an inmate here who has given me a, a nickname." He supposes that's what it's called. He glances up for a second to snag Dean's eyes, his tone tirelessly self-deprecating. "Slim." Without the addition of the name Jim, the moniker is not so bad. He doubts the man says it to be cruel in the first place. He shrugs one shoulder and gives a small smile. "It is not—inaccurate." This body is tall and thin. Then he scrunches up his nose. "I don't know why I would tell him he also appears sexually appealing. Should I?"

He asks the question with as much sincerity as possible, hoping to make Dean laugh or at least smile. He knows the answer to it already. In jail, one of the worst things he could do is tell a fellow male that his body is attractive.

And even if he should—"It's not true."

He does not find that man someone he might like to engage in intercourse with.

[whatrhymeswith]

As she reads out the question, she decides it's a particularly stupid one. She doubts Cas has ever invested any effort into losing weight to live up to beauty standards, not that he'd need to. She herself went on a diet once, at 14, and lasted all of two days before they served pizza for school lunch.

Cas seems to agree that the question is dumb, if his laugh is anything to go by. When he says his jail nickname is Slim, she smiles, oddly charmed by the idea that Cas has a prison alias. At his question, she snaps her eyes up, her expression alarmed. "No, Cas, don't-- " She takes in Cas' scrunched-up nose and overly sincere face and realizes that he's messing with her. She exhales in a laugh and shakes her head. "Not if you wanna live."

Cas' comment about the lack of attraction he feels for the guy makes her raise her eyebrows. She makes an acknowledging sound as she registers it. "You could lie to him. People do it all the time. Especially about how attractive they find each other. Like-- don't really tell him. But if you were to tell him, it wouldn't really matter if you thought it was true or not."

[decadency]

If he were to tell the man he thought he was sexually appealing, whether he found the man appealing or not would be irrelevant.

He frowns. That—makes no sense. "That makes no sense, Dean." At all. "Surely the point of telling someone that they're physically appealing is to—communicate to them their level of physical attraction and to open a discussion about the desire to have sex with them."

Otherwise, why would you tell them? In fact, why would you talk to people at all?

[whatrhymeswith]

She nods to concede Cas' point. "That can be the point. But it's, like. When someone tells you, "Jeez, you're so good looking!", then it's, you know. It's polite to return the compliment. Which is what I think they're asking about in this question." She taps the magazine in front of her. "Would you return the compliment or not."

[decadency]

"It's—a compliment?" To tell someone they're thin? When they are? "The question implied it was an observation." At least, that's the only thing that makes sense to him, and therefore influences his answer. "I would select—C."

Acknowledging that the person is correct in their observation seems like the only even vaguely reasonable answer.

"What would you select, Dean? Would you return the 'compliment'?"

[whatrhymeswith]

She has to smile at the surprise in Cas' voice, and is about to explain when Cas picks his answer. She pictures the situation in her head--her imaginary version of Cas' prison buddy who picked the nickname has an uncanny resemblance to Steve Buscemi--and it makes her laugh. "Awesome."

She checks Cas' answer and purses her lips as she thinks about what she would say. "I dunno. I guess I'd be really surprised? Nobody's ever said anything like that to me." She can't remember ever having found herself in a situations where a friend would compliment her on her looks. If that ever happened, the friend was male and less of a friend than a truck-stop acquaintance.

She shrugs one shoulder. "A), I guess. I'm not exactly skinny."