Chapter Text
The ancient motel microwave somehow, after much prodding, manages to produce a perfect bowl of melted butter. Dean had grabbed a few fistfuls of butter pats at the diner just for this occasion. It had taken him a full five minutes to unwarp each individual packet and scrape the butter out into the little plastic takeaway container, but hey, every cent counts when you're on the road. Even when you're celebrating avoiding horrific death and dismemberment.
Speaking of death, a hiss of steam and the sound of the lid being removed from the steamer on the hotplate alerts him to some shenanigans going on. Turning around he finds Cas elbow deep in boiling water, one slightly glowing lobster in his off hand. The other hand is removed from the pot with a twin lobster, now returning from bright red to deep brick color with a flare of healing grace. Cas fixes him with a scathing look.
"Dean, these lobsters were near death."
"Uh...yeah?" He finally responds. Steam rolls off the soaked trench coat sleeves as Cas stares at Dean in dismay.
"You were aware of their plight and did nothing?"
Dean doesn't know how to respond to that one. He's never had to explain to Cas where their food came from, and he knows they aren't vegetarians, despite Sam's best hippie efforts.
They were celebrating the end of a four day long rugaru hunt, and when Dean saw the half off special on lobster at the grocery store across from their motel, he figured they'd earned a little treat. Barely $8 for the last two in the tank. Cheaper than a cheese steak. Besides, he's in this 'trying new things' phase. Sorta.
"I mean...I…" he gestures to the pot bubbling away on the hotplate.
"You were the one boiling them alive?" Cas asks, stone faced.
"Yes?"
"That seems like a cruel death."
"Yeah well the 9mm seemed excessive." Dean jokes.
Cas eyes the boiling pot, then the creatures in his hands with a calculating look. Having reached a conclusion he sighs.
"Very well. What were their crimes?"
"Who?" Dean's confused.
Cas holds up the lobsters. Dean isn't sure if this is a joke. This has to be a joke.
"Them? Being delicious I guess." He shrugs.
Cas's eyes widen in horror. He looks down into the faces of the crustaceans like he can understand their thoughts. The lobsters slowly flex their tails, long spider-like legs clicking gently against each other.
Dean, suddenly remembering he's holding a bowl of rapidly cooling butter, puts it down on the table and hesitantly approaches.
"You okay?" He asks tentatively.
"Are you asking me or them?" Cas holds the lobsters up at eye level and turns them so that their tiny black eyes and antenna are focused on Dean. He takes a quick step back, making sure he's well out of pinching range. The claws click quietly as three sets of cold eyes regard him.
They form a bizarre trio of creatures from worlds beyond his, united in their disdain.
He struggles to find his voice, finally feeling out a weak "I'm sorry?" Cas turns the lobsters to regard each other, then himself, then back to Dean, expression still hard.
"I'm very sorry?" Dean tries again.
Cas's face falls in disappointment. Christ, how does he manage to look dangerous one moment and like a kicked puppy the next? Dean can't stand it.
He squares up, addressing the lobsters more directly. "I'm sorry, I was wrong. I should never have tried to eat you." Hoping that would be the end of it.
Cas looks away, his face unreadable. He still holds the lobsters up to watch Dean grovel.
The disappointment sits heavy in his stomach. So what if this costs him his dinner? Maybe Cas will stop ignoring him if he gets this right. "I'm sorry for chucking you in a boiling pot and trying to eat you?"
Cas still pointedly ignores him. That won't do.
"I'll make this right. I'll…" he casts about for something he could offer these weird clanky spiders. He doesn't know what they eat, or what would be a delicacy for a lobster, so he can't offer them that. He doubts they want money either.
"I'll get you home." Is what he settles on, surprising himself.
That finally gets Cas's attention, and he turns back to Dean with a cautious expression. He looks like he is about to say something when he suddenly freezes and turns to stare at the lobster in his right hand. He nods seriously, then turns to the one in his left hand and nods to that one as well. His gaze is resolute when he locks eyes with Dean again.
"You are not forgiven, but the offer is accepted." Cas tells him.
"Come again?"
"You may still have judgment cast against you, but they will advocate on your behalf if you are willing to see that they are returned to their nesting grounds."
"Judgment from who?"
Cas squints at him, like Dean is the one missing the obvious answer here.
"From the council?" Cas says with a tone that just says 'duh'. Dean's lost the plot somewhere in this conversation.
"The council?"
"It's informal, but judgment among crustaceans tends to be absolute." Cas shrugs one shoulder.
Dean nods, biting back a sarcastic response. Because of fucking course he's gone and made another stupid deal. At least this one will only cost him his dignity. Probably. He's still not convinced Cas isn't pulling his leg, but the dude isn't that funny.
So now he's agreed to throw his dinner back on the off chance that Cas didn't wake up today and chose to play the weirdest prank of all time. Dean sighs in defeat.
"Okay, so back to the ocean? I think we're only an hour and a half from Atlantic City. Can't get more ocean-y than that" Dean grabs his coat.
The motel door opens, and Sam lumbers in, a takeout bag in hand. Cas pivots so the lobster in each hand could better observe the scene.
"Alright, I got the biscuits, your coupon was only good for one free soda, and I put in the work so I'm drinking it but…" he trails off, staring at the scene before him.
"Hey Cas."
Cas looks thunderous.
"I should have known you would have a hand in this." He all but growls the words, voice dripping in disdain.
"What the hell did I do?!" Sam blurts out. His gaze flickers from Cas, to Dean, to the lobsters. "Okaaaay." he drags the word out as he slowly puts the bag of biscuits down on the nearest bed. "Why don't you tell me what I've done wrong this time?"
Cas perks up, and Dean's not sure if the malicious flash of his eyes is a trick of the light or something more. "Gladly, I know -"
"Okay, okay!" Dean cuts in. It's best to keep Sam out of the line of fire in case Cas decides to be mad about more than just lobsters. "Let's just go chuck 'em back in the ocean. No harm, no foul." Dean offers.
"You promised to return them to their ancestral waters." Cas states flatly.
"Fuck." Dean forgot that. "Okay, and where would that be?"
The corner of Cas' mouth tugs up into a smug look. Always a bad sign for Dean. "I'll find out." And Cas plants himself down at the table, gently placing the lobsters before him as if they were going to have a chat. Which they are, actually. Cas murmurs softly to the crustaceans, as he removes the remaining rubber bands from their claws.
Dean groans as he and Sam move to the far side of the room. "Cinderella here pulled out dinner right out of the pot and started chatting with it. Now they're all mad at me."
"So what, are they his friends?"
"They're from the fucking grocery store. All I know is that I'm gonna get pinched by one of those things."
Sam sucks on the straw of his soda with a grating sound. "Oh yeah, definitely."
Dean rolls his eyes. "You're not safe either. Twenty bucks says Cas drops one in your bubble bath tonight."
"You don't have twenty bucks."
"Neither do you. You know what, that's not the point. What if Sebastian and Mr Krabs over there are from the middle of the fucking ocean? How the fuck do I drive there?"
Sam shrugs again. Dean glares at him.
"You gonna say anything helpful?"
Sam holds out the takeout bag.
"Biscuit?"
Dean ends up dipping the biscuits into the now mostly congealed butter while he studies Cas where he's bent over plotting with the lobsters. The light from the table makes him glow, and he looks soft as he quietly asks questions to the lobsters now scuttling back and forth on the table. A real life Disney princess, sitting in Dean's motel room. He wonders how the lobsters see him, if they can tell his eyes are ocean blue. Dean hadn't spent much time looking at the real ocean, but he had had plenty of time to study the way the light hit Cas' eyes. Couldn't look anywhere else when the dude spent so much time in his personal space. Dean wonders if it was just the color that made you feel like you were falling into it, if the ocean made you feel the same way.
Cas leans back in his seat and runs a hand through his hair. The neon lights outside the motel window wash him in shades of blue and yellow.
Dean still has about half a biscuit left. He ambles over to the table and holds it out awkwardly.
"Uh, I don't know what they eat, but would they like any?" Dean asks. He starts to lean against the table and jumps when he sees how close those pinchers are to his soft underbelly.
"Christ." Sam groans as he flops down onto his bed on the far side of the room. Dean ignores it.
Cas smiles up at him and accepts the biscuit.
"Thank you Dean. Their metabolism has slowed down a little from being stored in cold conditions, and they have not complained of hunger, but it is a polite offer." He places the biscuit in front of the larger lobster, who reaches out with one terrifying claw to pinch off a small piece.
"Least I could do for trying to eat em, I guess. You guys figure out where they're from?"
Cas nods. "Yes, actually. We believe they were abducted from near the Stellwagen Bank."
"What, were they tunneling in to rob the place?"
Cas narrows his eyes at him, the warm expression gone from the deep blue. At least this felt less like drowning. "I was referring to an oceanic bank. It's a geographic feature, much like a plateau."
"Ah, gotcha." Dean says, getting nothing. He's never given much thought to the ocean beyond what could be pulled from its depths and deep fried. He just kind of assumed it was all like Finding Nemo down there.
Cas squints at him like he can tell what Dean was thinking about. Maybe he can, maybe that's why he looks so pissed and confused all the time. Hell, Dean's mind makes him pissed and confused. It would be nice to have someone else take a look under the hood and diagnose the problem. He wonders why, when Cas rebuilt him, he didn't make Dean better. Maybe only the physical wounds were fixable. Maybe Heaven liked him stupid and broken.
Maybe Cas doesn't care. After all, what is he but a giant, terrifying force wearing a human suit like a finger puppet. Dean is just some ant to him. The lobsters are just as consequential to him as humans in the grand scheme of things.
He almost feels it sometimes. The weight of thousands of eyes on him. It's why the way Cas looks at him feels different than the way anyone else looks at him.
Right now that gaze is going straight through him.
"So get this," Sam cuts in. "The Stellwagen Bank is located at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay, between Cape Cod and Cape Ann. It is known as an excellent whale watching site, and is-"
"Are you reading straight off Wikipedia?" Dean snaps. Sam looks caught out over the top of his laptop.
"Oh my god, how did I think you were the smart one? You're just repeating the computer." Dean scolds.
"You're the one who always makes me do the research! What do you think I do?"
"I don't know! College shit! Citing sources and footing notes!"
"Wikipedia does cite their sources, that's the whole point!" Sam argues, gesturing to his computer in annoyance.
"I'll cite your sources!" Dean shoots back.
"I'll foot your notes!"
"Dean." Cas cuts in. Dean pivots back, a moth to the flame, his argument with Sam dropped without a thought. Cas looks up at him mildly, his big hands folded neatly on the table. The light from the window plays across his features rather than over him from this perspective. Dean waits for him to speak.
"The lobsters are tired and would like it if you could cease your arguments for the night."
"Oh, sorry." Dean apologizes to the lobsters. "So are we leaving tonight, or…?" He trails off, his gaze flickering between the two little xenomorphs and the angel.
"We can leave in the morning."
The greasy guy behind the counter in the motel office gives him a look as Dean puts a third coffee pod into the machine. Dean just flashes a practiced grin as the machine sputters and struggles to turn out a lukewarm cup of something that could pass for coffee. The important part is that it's free. Unlike the stolen towels he has rolled up in his duffle bag.
Cas is sitting in the backseat of the Impala when he returns, the lobsters resting on the seat next to him. They had spent the night in the bathtub, skittering around making all sorts of creepy sounds and watching Dean when he got up to pee. They're lucky Cas likes them, because Dean's still not sold.
Without comment, Dean passes both Sam and Cas's coffee cups in through the window, then slides into the driver's seat with his own in hand. Sam has a paper bag resting on the seat between them open to reveal a mix of sugar packets and coffee creamers collected from motels like this one. Dean digs a fistful of pink paper packets out of one pocket and drops them into the open bag.
"Here you go, weirdo. They only had your Sweet N Low crap." Sam snags two and tears them open with a grin dumping them in his drink.
Cas studiously adds 4 packets of raw sugar from the bag to his coffee before taking a sip. He grimaces at the taste.
"This coffee contains a large quantity of bacteria. I would advise against consuming any." He takes another sip from his cup. Sam frowns down at his cup before opening his door to dump it out when Cas grabs his shoulder.
"I'll take it Sam. It shouldn't affect me. Dean you too." He says it casually. Suspiciously.
"No way." Dean pulls out of reach. "You just want to steal our coffee." Cas leans over the seat, stretching for the cup in Dean's hand.
"Stop being ridiculous, it's for your own safety."
"No!" Dean sinks as low in the seat as he can get, twisting away from Cas' hand. He quickly guzzles half the cup and licks the top of the lid for good measure. It is disgusting. He gags a little against the taste.
"Christ, did they use toilet bowl water for this? Don't tell me." He hastily adds, looking up from his position half in the foot well. Cas scowls at him over the seat back.
"It will make you sick."
"Yeah, and are you gonna refuse to heal me if I don't give you the rest of my crappy coffee?" Dean asked. Cas narrows his eyes even more, letting the tension stretch on a few extra moments. Something in it makes Dean's breath catch.
"I'll keep you from dying, anything short of that is on you." Cas finally decides.
"Sounds peachy." Dean grins, straightening up in his seat and shaking off whatever that was. He turns the ignition and the Impala rumbles to life with a joyous thrill.
"New England, here we come."
An hour south of the Connecticut border Sam gets a message on his phone that he responds to in a flurry. Dean and Cas's eyes meet in the rearview mirror, both suspicious of the excitement on Sam's face. Sam taps out another sentence before putting his phone down.
"What was that?" Dean inquires. Sam sighs in annoyance like the overgrown teenager he is, immediately copping an attitude.
"Seriously, don't you have anything better to do than give me shit for having friends?"
"Oh so you're texting a friend?" Dean reaches out to snatch the phone. Sam jerks away.
"Eyes on the road!"
"Come on, who is it? You looked all excited."
Sam refuses to answer right away. He stares out at the ugly crowded urban sprawl of the Northeast corridor as he turns his phone over in his hand.
"It was a buddy from Stanford." Sam finally answers. "He's at Yale. I told him I was going to be driving through New Haven."
"Sammy, we don't have time to stop." Dean's eyes flickered back to the lobsters riding on the backseat. He hates them sitting right on Baby's upholstery but he doesn't want to piss Cas off again. He's taken to healing the lobsters every couple of hours from the effects of being out of the ocean so long.
Right now Cas was watching him through the rearview mirror, a small smile on his face. Dean smiles back.
"Hey how's everybody riding back there? Everything going swimmingly?"
"Dean!" Sam cut in. "Eyes on the road."
"Shaddup." Dean mutters. In the mirror one corner of Cas' mouth twists up further into a grin. Maybe the angel has a sense of humor after all?
Cas clears his throat. "We're fine back here, thank you Dean."
"Yeah dude, of course. Anything."
Sam sighs loudly.
"I was gonna say you can drop me off in New Haven. My friend offered to get me into the Skull and Bones archives. It's a once in a lifetime chance."
"The who's and what's society?"
"Oh my god, stop fucking around. You know what the Skull and Bones Society is."
"No I don't." Dean scoffs, bluffing.
"Then how'd you know it was a society?" Sam points out.
"Aw shit." Dean groans. "Fine. But I thought that was just some frou frou frat club dressing up in robes? Nothing that would be useful to us?"
"I mean yeah, it's definitely just a club for legacies and douchebags, but the founders bought up all these old occult books for like, the aesthetics, you know? They thought having the books would make them seem legit. They're just hoarding it all with no idea how useful, or dangerous, some of it is."
"So this is like the nerd version of getting a free pass to the champagne room at the strip club?"
Sam rolls his eyes.
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
Dean lays on the horn, flipping off a guy in a Lexus who cut him off. Sam looks out the window.
“So how did this friend know you like occult literature?” Dean prods.
“Mentioned it in passing.” Sam says, deliberately obtuse.
“Oh, just in passing?” Dean ribs. “You didn't get drunk at a party and spill your guts, did you?”
“No, Dean,” Sam snaps. “We took Latin together. He was impressed that I could recite the exorcism ritual off the top of my head."
Dean stares at Sam open mouthed. “You took Latin?!”
“I needed credits and I was already familiar with it.” Sam shrugs. Dean feels bad. He hadn’t even considered Sam having to worry about something as mundane as a language requirement. Feels bad that Sam had to grow up familiar with exorcism rituals, that Dean hadn’t sheltered him enough. That Sam is turning down a beach trip to hole up in some stuffy library.
Sam will be fine for a day or two. Dean reasons with himself. Don't want to smother the kid.
Besides, the prospect of a beach trip with just Cas is... compelling. He likes the idea of it in a hazy daydream quality. Daydreams about playing beach volleyball, like that scene in Top Gun. Cas without his shirt, sunscreen on his nose. Maybe a mustache. Yeah.
Dean could use a vacation.
"Alright, where in New Haven am I dropping you off?"
"Really?" Sam sounds surprised.
"If you're fine missing out on the beach." Dean shrugs.
"You remember I spent four years in California? I've seen the beach."
"Right. Yeah." Dean fiddles with the radio. The one good thing about the northeast was the excess of radio stations. Not like some areas of the country where you got a single channel of gospel music or worse: pop country. All he was getting here was top forty. He's indulged Cas's affinity for pop divas as long as he can stand, and finally pops Led Zeppelin II into the tape deck.
"Tell me where we're going. Also I'm bringing you back the worst souvenir I can find."
Sam grins and reads off the directions.
Two hours later Dean and Cas merge back onto 95 North without Sam. Dean hates leaving him behind, but seeing Cas sprawled in the passenger seat is a decent consolation.
He's driven a lot of bad roads, but New Haven is some special hell. Everyone is a bad driver and they've been in bumper to bumper traffic going 75 through construction zones since they passed New York. Being on a major highway is making Dean itchy. But it's nearly summer and the road is packed with snowbirds flocking home. His out of state plates aren't nearly as suspicious as some of these old folks driving cars adorned with weird bumper stickers. Maybe someday he'll take Cas to South of the Border.
Still, it's nice with Cas in the passenger seat. Nice not to worry about a real case for a minute. If an escort mission to get two crustaceans home is important to an angel, who is Dean to deny him that?
Cas reads the list Sam had left for them.
"What's that?" Dean asks.
"Some directions and a suggested itinerary. The name of a whale watching service?" Cas drops the list to his lap, head tilted as he considers the idea. "I had no idea one could run a business watching cetaceans. I wonder how else this could be applied." He looked genuinely thoughtful. Dean laughs.
"Dude it's a boat charter. You take the boat, cruise around, pay too much for cheap booze, and then tell everyone you were out looking at the wildlife."
"Oh." Cas looks disappointed.
"So what's the route? Sam said Cape Cod? I thought that was just a place rich people made up."
"Yes. Sam's route has us driving the length of Cape Cod."
"Do we pass by Plymouth Rock? I could stand to see the birthplace of America."
"Birthplace? The continents were formed by tectonic plate activity- likely Gabriel bashing things around when he was still allowed to do that. I wasn't paying attention- but humans have been here for tens of thousands of years."
"Whatever, I could stand to stretch my legs. Let's be tourists."
Plymouth Rock is the worst roadside attraction Dean's seen in his life, and that's saying something. He's found greater inspiration in the world's largest frying pan. At least that conjured up the idea of fried eggs and bacon. Plymouth Rock is a rock in a hole in a cage. It could be any rock, and it's distance from shore further solidifies Dean's belief that they picked this rock at random. An empty Dunkin Donuts coffee cup sits amongst the cigarette butts on the sand around the rock. Cas is frowning.
"Why is this stone important?"
"It was probably the easiest one to build a pavilion around." Dean sighs heavily. "Let's go."
Back on the road they turn south, funneling into the early season traffic bound for the cape. Dean's glad it's midweek, or he expects the backup before the bridge to cross the Cape Cod canal would be worse.
He hates the bridge to get on to the Cape. It’s too high and too narrow, and the extra high curbs (to keep you from plunging to your death) look like they'd shred Baby's sides up something fierce. He tries to ignore just how high up the bridge climbs, humming loudly along to the Metallica tape now in the deck. Cas is looking out with a smile.
Dean breathes a sigh of relief on the other side. He rolls down the window part way and lets the aroma of salt air fill the stale interior of the car. It's nice to be off a major highway at least. The roads here are hedged with scrubby pines and cedars, and every house seems to have artfully weathered siding and a white picket fence.
They pass an exit sign for a town simply called 'Sandwich' and Dean gets so excited he feels giddy.
"That means there's Sandwich schools. A Sandwich library. Sandwich police." He laughs brightly.
Cas ignores him. That won't do.
"How are you doing?" Dean prods.
Cas hums. "Fine. How's your stomach handling that coffee?"
Dean does feel a bit queasy. A little clammy. Heh. Ocean. Clams.
He's not admitting that to Cas. He'll take anything right up to the edge of food poisoning before admitting he was wrong.
"Fine," He shrugs. "How are Thing One and Thing Two?"
"Fine." Cas shoots back. "And those are not their names."
"They told you that?"
"Approximately. The translation isn't exact. 'Thing One' is um- Bully-Claws, First Daughter of 'Beaut' - that last part is an exact translation." Cas muses. Dean snorts.
"Bully-Claws?"
"Yes Dean, don't insult her. The other lobster's name is...Small Fish?" Cas ponders for a moment, turning back as if to check the translation with the lobster directly. "Ah. Of course. Fry.”
Dean looks over incredulous. "Seriously?"
"Yes. Bully-Claws, First Daughter of 'Beaut', and Fry."
"She sounds pretentious." Dean mutters.
"That's her name."
"Of course you wouldn't think it's weird, Castiel, Angel of the Lord, Warrior of Heaven. That's what you are. I'm just Dean."
Dean looks over just in time to catch Cas rolling his eyes.
"Really? Because ever since we've teamed up, you've been Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man, Hunter Extraordinaire and I've just been 'Cas'."
Huh. Dean squirms a little, suddenly uncomfortable.
"I'm not any of those things."
"Neither am I anymore." Cas looks down at his hands. Dean wants to reach over and hold one of them. Offer some sort of comfort.
He can't, obviously. He keeps his eyes on the road. The further onto the cape they get the more traffic seems to thin out. It's getting late in the day, but they have a few hours before the sun sets.
The light casts everything in a hazy golden hue. He wishes the road went along the water rather than down the middle of the spit of land. All he sees are trees and minivans laden with boogie boards and coolers.
"So how far out are we driving?" Dean asks after a while. The cape has to end somewhere. "Or am I supposed to keep driving until I run out of road?"
"Just keep going until you run out of road."
There's a town before they run out of road. It sneaks up on them until they're driving down crowded little residential streets. It's fucking quaint, even Dean can admit that. The houses have brightly colored shutters and flowers out front.
Lotta brightly colored flags too. Like, way more than normal.
Dean's mouth feels kinda dry.
After passing yet another house with a rainbow flag out front Dean finally asks the question.
"This a uh...like a gay town?" He tries to make it casual, lighthearted. Cas is turned around, checking on the lobsters.
"It's a beach town at the onset of summer. I imagine that makes people happy."
That's not even remotely what Dean means.
Did Sam set this up on purpose? Does he know?
He holds the steering wheel tighter, the fresh sweat making the vinyl squeak under his palms. He fights the urge to roll up the windows and turn down his music.
He feels conspicuous. Why did he go with just the black Tshirt? What does he look like rolling into town?
They drive down main street slowly, Cas still looking relaxed in the passenger seat.
Bully-Claws and Fry ride on the rear bench seat. Grand marshals of a one-float parade.