There were a lot of names for what she did: call-girl, exotic dancer (though she didn't do much dancing, just enough to attract potential customers), lady of the night, working girl, hooker. Some of them were much more offensive than that, but she preferred escort, simply because it didn't leave that lingering taste of strange men in her mouth that she always struggled to brush away before falling into her own bed in the early hours of the morning. And she wasn't too terribly ashamed to call herself that, it was something that if she still spoke to her mother, she might be able to tell her about without collapsing into a heap of neuroses on a therapists' couch somewhere.

I mean, the profession had been around longer than any other and flesh would probably be the only currency to survive the inevitable economic collapse that Abbie kept ominously predicting. Her firey red-headed coworker said that she was in it for that reason alone, to hone her skills so that when the end finally did come (whether it was from zombie apocalypse, severely misguided leadership, or from nuclear fallout Abbie never bothered to explain) she could ply her wares for top dollar and be the most well respected whore out of all of them.

Her coworker called them all whores, men and women alike because she said there was no point in sugarcoating it. Eve told her to shut the hell up and get back to work, sending her off with another client because Abbie's special talents made her a particular favorite amongst those who frequented Eden. The clients only had one name, no matter what their gender was or what they asked to be called in the private rooms that each of the workers had in the sprawling complex that sat on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas; they were always Johns.

But she had found her out, it was the only way really that Eve would ever let her break her contract early without being so fucked up as to sue her about it. She had seen other girls get out the same way, only she was pretty sure that they hadn't been doing it on purpose like she was doing. The trick was to make it until Eve tested them all again; once every three months a special doctor came in to make sure that everyone was clean and everyone was taking their meds so that nothing could blow back on their intrepid employer. She just had to get her timing right, make it look like an accident or she had no doubt that Eve would have her killed just to prove a point to all the other girls who hated working for the dead-eyed brunette.

She had started taking more shifts so that she had more options, someone who wasn't a complete creep. Someone who didn't make her feel like she wanted to peel her skin off after she had sex with them, there had only been a couple that fit that description so far.

One had been sweet, gentle, asked what a girl like her was doing in a place like this and then had just wanted to know her name the first time he came to see her; unable to hide the disappointment that had flittered across his blue eyes when she had told him that her name was whatever he wanted it to be. It had been the first time in a long time that she wished she could still be that wide-eyed, innocent girl from Battle Creek, Michigan who had just been looking for some way to save herself for once when she had left her hometown for the furthest away she could get with the money she had. He had visited her three times since then and called her Andrea every single time.

The other had been older, had asked her to call him Jim and had just smiled benevolently at her when she said her name was Lexi, it was the name she always gave when the whole 'its whatever you want it to be' speil didn't seem like it was working. He hadn't been back to see her, but she thought that that was more of a guilt thing than anything else because she had seen his clerical collar and rosary shoved into the pocket of his coat plus she was young enough to be his daughter so she didn't take it personal when she didn't see him again.

And she was making an inordinately large amount of house calls, something that had been Eve's idea when business had started to slow down over the holidays and people were less inclined to spend time in a brothel as opposed to with their families; those had been some interesting clients. The paraplegic who had just wanted to make her come, had gotten off on just touching her and holding her and making her feel unashamed about how she made a living like she usually did. The girl that had gotten her as a Christmas present for her boyfriend, to be the third to their threesome that ended up with her watching more than participating because they got off on voyeurism more than anything else.

She didn't expect this house call to be any different, Valentine's Day was in a couple of days and people always got lonely during the holidays; she knew that she did. So when the call had come (the man had just been asking for a girl, any girl), she had jumped at the chance to go. Because they were slow and she needed the money and her last at home test that afternoon had come up negative so she needed to try harder. Her and her coworkers' meeting with the doctor was just about a month away and if this didn't work then her only way out of Eden was killing herself; she already had bought the things she needed for that, the straight razor, but she really really did not want to have to use it.

Her only thought when she climbed out of her Volvo in front of the large apartment complex near the University of Kansas campus was about how fucking cold it was and how whoever this was better take into account how short her skirt was when he was determining her tip. That's a lie, she had two thoughts. The first was about how cold it was and the second was about how she needed to be more careful or Eve was going to start asking why she was caring around condoms when she was supposed to be on birth control like everyone at work who needed it. It was a precaution of course, in case whatever John she was seeing was entirely not worth risking her uterus for.

There was a checklist about it all; that had been one of the first things that she had set for herself when she decided to do this, standards. Looks didn't play into it, neither did age or any kind wealth that she could have observed. Eve's girls and boys didn't come cheap, but she didn't have any intention of asking for help from whoever ended up being the one, so the fact that they had phonied up the dough to be with her only had relevance on her pocketbook and nothing more. The whole thing had to do with health, mental stability, and the overall probability that whatever guy it ended up being wasn't a fucking asshole.

She took great care to make the assholes wear condoms, citing policies that didn't exist as a reason for being overly cautious.

She glanced down at the scrawled apartment number that Eve had written down on the super ironic guest check tickets that she had picked up to write down the information for house calls. They looked like the ones that the all-night diner that she sometimes went to after her shift ended used and she made a point to pay before the sweet, older woman who waited on her brought her ticket so that she wouldn't throw up everything she had just eaten. It was close to around here, probably within walking distance. Maybe if this was quick she could go get a milkshake or something before heading back to Eden.

"Two thirty-seven," she muttered, hustling into the building that was mostly quiet since it was so late, almost two in the morning.

The elevator was quick and fuck at least it was warm, but it gave her enough time to try to rub some feeling back into her legs and arms as she rode up to the second floor and the short walk to the apartment was just long enough that she could fluff up her hair and put herself into the mindset of Lexi that she had let slip on the car ride over. When Bob Dylan had been playing on the local night radio station and she had been singing along like the twenty one year old she should be, instead of the jaded, bitter escort that she had to be every night. Was it any wonder that she was desperate to get out?

She knocked on the door and something that sounded like a bit of an argument on the other side was all that she heard before it was opened by a grizzled, bleary eyed looking man in his late forties. He looked vaguely familiar, maybe he was a regular for someone else? Ambyr maybe? Her coworker tended to draw those giving daddy-types since she was all fragile and innocent looking, like someone who guys just wanted to take care of and provide for. Why didn't she get guys like that? Except for the guy who called her Andrea, most of them were wham, bam, thank you ma'am before they were out the door and back to their happy little housewives.

"You'll do," he said gruffly, waving her into the darkened apartment.

Gee, thanks, she thought keeping her forced, coy smile on her face as she stepped inside with a seductive sway of her hips and fingertips trailed across the older man's chest. Might as well get this over with. I totally deserve a milkshake.

"So, how are we doing this?" She asked, making her way towards the couch that she could make out in the dimly lit living room.

The only lights were coming from the kitchen, illuminating enough of the apartment that when she spun around with a flip of her long brown hair to perch alluringly on the armrest of the sofa the light glinting off the handgun on the table was the first thing to catch her eye. It also made her heart skip more than a few beats and made her curse Eve for ever thinking it was a good idea to meet a John in their own home where there were no metal detectors lining the front doors to keep the psychopaths out and no security to keep her safe like there were at Eden.

Great, if I was going to die anyway I should've just stayed in Battle Creek.

"Don't worry, lady," The man said, running a hand tiredly over his face as he moved past her to pick up a broken lamp that she hadn't seem laying on the floor next to the couch until he carefully set it onto the coffee table in front of the sofa with a resigned sigh. "That's not for you, it's just...incentive to make my son do what he's told."

His knuckles were torn, bloody. When he bent down he had let out a soft, pained sounding wheeze that made her reach out abortedly to help him before she remembered, Oh yea, there's a fucking gun right there. She crossed her arms over her chest instead, mostly to keep the older man from seeing how badly her hands were shaking, but maybe she wasn't the one who really needed her help right now.

"Your son?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain calm even though all she could think about was how stupid she was for letting her prepaid phone run out of minutes, but it had been that or not eating this month and survival had seemed to hinge more on her not starving than being shot. Or at least it had at the time.

"Yea, you're here for him." The other man said gruffly, pointing dismissively down the hallway and causing her to turn her head to follow the gesture. "Second bedroom, just ignore the bathroom door. I'll have it fixed by the time you get done, if you need it afterwards."

"What am I supposed to do to him?" she asked, what a dumb question? Wasn't there only one thing she was good for, isn't that her uncle had said?

"Fix him." The man said tersely, waving an impatient hand at her. "Go on now. Second bedroom, the one with the light on."

She nodded quickly and walked slowly towards the hallway, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the gun on the table to make sure that the older man wasn't planning on shooting her once her back had turned. There were all kinds of weird kinks that Eve had assured her that she wouldn't have to engage in while working for her, those had been the only things that she had been worried about before she had signed the contract. Things like necrophilia or vampirism, things that involved her getting hurt or scarred or killed, but there was a different kind of scarring that came with this kind of work.

And the guy was a regular, she had remembered when she saw his hands. Carlos had said that his favorite regular had just the best hands, broad and strong even though they were weathered because the guy had told her coworker that he did construction. She had seen those hands one Wednesday when she was on her way out the door after Eve had let her go early, holding the door open for her as she left and he came in like he usually did once every couple of months

He wasn't going to shoot her or at least she was pretty sure that he wasn't. The gun wasn't for her, it was for someone else; she just needed to make sure that she was far far away when the John decided that he needed to use it. But that didn't stop her from clutching at her chest when she saw that the bathroom door had been torn off its hinges as she passed it or from missing the hole that had been punched into the wall of the hallway she was going down or the dried bloody fingerprints that were smeared on the door knob of the second bedroom, the one with the light on.

Things had just gone so wrong and Castiel was still reeling from how sudden and violent it had been to act on all of his instincts that were screaming at him to go for help.

The problem was if he went for help, he didn't know what John would do. Not with how he had been waving that fucking gun around like he had any idea what he was doing with it; Castiel knew that Dean's father had been clueless about his own handgun because he had been handling it way too flippantly for a firearm that already had a round chambered and the safety off. His own experience with guns in the ROTC had taught him that you didn't point a loaded weapon at anything unless you meant to use it and yea, John had been mad, livid even, but he was pretty sure that the older man had no intention of shooting his own son.

No matter what he had or hadn't seen or heard during the time that he had been in the apartment and they hadn't been aware of it. God, how long had he been in the apartment with them?

Dean had said that his father would be gone for a month and even with his boyfriend's impromptu road trip to Chicago to support him at the trial that had effectively locked away his eldest brother, Raphael, and his father for a long time, John had only been gone about a week. A week did not equal a month, not even on the most fucked-up misprinted calendars in the universe.

They had gotten home late the night before, driving into the early hours of the morning with Castiel dozing with his head in Dean's lap until they reached the street that his boyfriend's apartment complex was on and the other boy roused him enough for them to stumble out of the Impala and up to their bedroom. Chicago and everything there that had hurt him was behind him now and he fell asleep in Dean's arms thinking only of the future and how bright it had looked for the two of them; together against anything.

It had been early afternoon when he woke up and he probably would've slept longer if it hadn't been for Dean trailing light kisses across his chest as the other boy mused aloud to himself about whether or not it was too late to make breakfast. Cas remembered murmuring something along the lines of it never was too late for breakfast before rolling over onto his stomach and burying his face back into his pillows with a muffled groan.

Dean had just chuckled and said that he knew he had made the right choice by picking a smart guy, earning another groan from Castiel that turned into a pleased hum when the larger boy started kissing at his neck and back instead, causing him to stretch all the way down to his toes as he arched into his boyfriend's touch. The other boy had just kept kissing though, tracing down his scars like he did every time he thought that Castiel needed the reassurance and mouthing along the curve of his ribs until Cas tried to wriggle away from how the light touches were almost ticklish only to be caught by Dean's arms caging him and pining him down to the mattress. He loved it when Dean did that.

"You have no idea, Cas," Dean had muttered into his ear, running his callused hands along Castiel's biceps and down to his fingertips before going back to kissing down his spine. "No idea what you do to me. How amazing and strong and gorgeous you are. You don't know at all, its just...perfect. You're perfect."

"They warned me you were a sweet talker, Winchester." Castiel had teased, smiling into the mattress because no one had warned him. The other boy's charm was just another one of the many things that he loved about Dean Winchester, that he would never stop loving about Dean Winchester.

"Mmmm," his boyfriend had hummed against the small of his back, pulling the fabric of Castiel's boxers over the swell of his backside before nibbling at the newly revealed flesh. Cas could feel the cupid's bow smile against his skin even as he gasped from the not really painful sting of Dean's teeth. "What else did they warn you about me?"

"Well this girl in my Calc class said you're a shit lay." That was a big fucking lie, it felt like an eon ago not hours that Dean had proved to him just how much of a lie that was.

Long enough that his lip didn't hurt any more from the one pot shot that John had gotten at him when he had opened the bathroom door to find Dean's father standing there looking thoroughly horrified and disgusted to see his eldest son in the bathroom with Castiel. Long enough that Gabe had texted him about the outcome of the custody hearing, it had gone just as they had thought it would; Anna was safe from their father, Uncle Zach had been caught up with the whole restraining order business with their father, and Aunt Gail hadn't even had to testify in front of her husband so he would never know her part in keeping their niece out of Illinois at all.

Long enough for it to get dark and for his grip on his cell phone to become painful as Cas waited for Dean to call him, he just needed Dean to call him. Tell him that he was okay, that John hadn't killed him, that they were okay. He sat in the Impala for as long as he could before it got so cold that he couldn't feel his feet anymore. Oh yea, the world was still turning. It hadn't ended just because John had caught him and Dean together, so why wasn't Dean calling him?

His own house felt empty, big and scary in comparison to the haven that he and Dean had created for themselves in the apartment; in the royal blue bedroom that Dean had called 'ours' when he had asked for Cas to go and get him a clean shirt after their shower together. The shower that had—NO. He didn't want to associate the breathless, beautiful gift that Dean had given to him in the shower with the pain and fear that had come afterwards at the hands of the other boy's father.

So he sat on the couch in the living room of his house, ignoring the texts and calls that weren't from Dean because they weren't from Dean and trying very hard to keep it together by not dwelling on how the other boy had just looked so frightened as he had jumped across Cas when John's punch had knocked him back into the bathroom door, making it crack off its frame and sending him to the floor. He tried not to think about how John's fist had sounded connecting with Dean's nose that already had a bump in it from being broken once before and he really really tried to not hyperventilate when he remembered how Dean's eyes had pleaded with him to stay, even when he had been yelling at him to go when his and John's fight had moved into the living room of the apartment.

He should call someone, the police probably and tell them what was going on. But the one text he had gotten from Dean less than an hour after he had left the apartment, shoeless and clutching the keys to the Impala like the lifeline they were had just said "No cops." If there was one thing that he owed the other boy, one thing that Dean deserved for sacrificing himself to save Castiel then it was the smaller boy doing what was asked of him. So he wouldn't call the cops and he couldn't call anyone else because they would no matter what texts he might show them from Dean.

So he waited, watching the clock above the mantel of the fireplace and staring at the picture that Gabe had framed of him and Dean headed out to the winter ball in their hilariously unusual tuxes. He wasn't above praying, though he had told his boyfriend on more than one occasion that he wasn't sure if anyone was listening, so he did. Cas prayed that Dean would be okay. He prayed that John would see reason and get help, counseling or something for the hatred that he had for how both of his sons were choosing to live their lives. He prayed for the strength to make it through all of this without doing something that would get both he and Dean killed. He prayed.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Dean said emptily to the slender brunette woman standing in his bedroom door, looking at him with her brown eyes as round as saucers and her hand covering her mouth to stifle the gasp that had come out as soon as he had turned to fully face her. "Might as well come in. Sit down or something."

His mind felt fuzzy and numb, detached from what John had told him this girl was here to see him for. It could be partially due to the painkillers his father had given him to try to dull the throbbing mess of tender skin and blossoming bruises that the left side of his face was, but the fact that John had given him a beer to wash it all down with probably hadn't helped. Cas had gotten out though, while John was distracted from Dean punching him in the ribs and that was all that mattered.

He watched her nod quickly and take a quick step into the room, shutting the door behind herself and hesitating for just a second before walking to where he was sitting on the edge of his bed to reach out a shaky hand towards his face. She stopped before she touched him though, her eyes wide and concerned and so very scared that he felt bad for her. Maybe he should explain, none of this was her fault after all. It was him and his stupidity that had kept him from making sure his dad wasn't home yet as soon as he and Cas had gotten into the apartment.

It was the relief that he hadn't had to sit on the hard wooden benches of the Illinois courtroom anymore, watching the love of his life relive every painful, agonizing second that had led up to Castiel thinking that suicide could be his only possible out that had made him blind to the fact that there had been lights on in the apartment when he and Cas had gotten there, even though Dean was pretty certain he had turned them all off before heading over to housesit for the Novaks while they were in Chicago.

The elation that Dean had had feeling how alive his boyfriend was as he thrust into him and held him close and shaking while they both came down from their post-orgasmic high before Cas had made the muffled suggestion that they take a shower that had finally made Dean brave enough to ask the other boy how much it hurt and Cas had offered to explain it in the only way he could. He shook his head, leaning away from the woman's outstretched hand because how could be explain how things had gotten so fucked up without going all the way back to the beginning?

"Did he, your dad, did he do this?" She asked quietly, shaking her head disbelievingly and turning her back on him when he nodded.

He could hear how high-pitched and hysterical her voice was and okay, he needed to focus so that he could try to calm her down before she had a panic attack; because of Cas he knew what the beginnings of one looked like now. Her breathing had gotten faster when she saw him and she had started clutching at her chest in that way that Cas did when he was trying to make his lungs work like they should, the last thing he needed was her fainting or screaming or something and just drawing this out more than it needed to be.

"Hey, lady," he began thickly, wincing when he ran a hand through his hair and his battered knuckles brushed through his sweat spiked hair. "Don't freak out or anything, its fine. I'm gonna be fine, just try to calm down."

"Why?"

"Because if you don't then you're going to pass out probably," Dean answered, clearing his throat in an effort to fight against the way his vision was graying out around the edges; he hoped he didn't have a concussion or anything.

His dad had hit him over the head with a lamp after all, to make him stop fighting once Cas had gotten away. Dean thought that maybe a small part of his dad had wanted Cas to get away, but then again Dean had never fought for anything harder in his life than he had fought for his boyfriend's safety so maybe there were no small, sane parts of John Winchester left. He just hoped Cas stayed away long enough for the cops to do their actual jobs and come arrest his dad who must have had a mental break or something over the whole Sam thing, finding out that Dean was with a guy too had probably just been the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

John had taken his phone, but he knew that the other boy wasn't stupid. He just needed to stay alive for Cas, do whatever he had to do so that he could hold the other boy in his arms again and hopefully his boyfriend would forgive him for whatever he ended up having to do so they could see each other one more time.

"No," the woman snapped, her brown hair fluttering around her shoulders as she spun back to face him. Her expression was more worried than frightened and Dean cursed his dad for dragging her into his fucked-up homophobic vendetta. "I mean, why did he do this do you? What could you have possibly done to deserve this?"

Dean scoffed at her forthrightness, admiring it for what it was: concern. His mind raced with ways that he could explain this to someone without having to go all the way back to him being a kid and how his dad had reacted to him kissing Andy Gallagher at the pool that fateful summer that his mom had left. Literary references raced through his mind, much like they had once when he had thought that he would be alive long enough to write the story of his and Cas's love for everyone who had doubted them. Romeo and Juliet was the only thing that immediately came to mind.

"Have you ever loved someone who your parents just really didn't like?" He asked, trying to sound easy going and joking, but his voice broke on 'loved' and he rushed to get the rest out before he started crying. Months of not being able to say 'I love you' to Cas and now he could say how he truly felt about the other boy? To a fucking stranger?

"God, that's what this is about?" She breathed, gingerly sitting down on the edge of the bed next to him. Keeping enough space so that Dean knew she obviously didn't want to do this just as much as he didn't. "You dad didn't like your fucking girlfriend so he beat the shit out of you? Oh jesus, is she okay? Did he hurt her too? Is she going to the cops?"

"I sure as hell hope so," Dean muttered, wiping angrily at his eyes that were now blurred by tears and cursing under his breath when he pushed the salty, stinging liquid into the cut that he had running across his left cheekbone. "Cas is smart though, he'll know not to try to help me by himself."

"Oh," the woman said softly, nodding in understanding beside him as she rubbed her hands against her bare thighs. "Is he alright, then? Your um, boyfriend? Did your dad catch you two together?"

"I think he's okay," he replied, brushing his fingertips gingerly over the swollen skin around his eye. John hadn't let him look in the mirror, just tossed a damp washcloth in Dean's direction and told him to get cleaned up, that someone was on their way to fix him. "He only got hit once and I guess it could be worse, my dad could have walked in on us instead of just hearing what we were doing. Shit! He wasn't supposed to fucking be here!"

"Hey," she soothed, patting him awkwardly on the knee while trying to tug her skirt down at the same time. "Shit happens. You couldn't have known. Just, um...be thankful that he's safe. That your dad didn't catch him and make him stay to watch because otherwise we'd actually have to...y'know?"

"Did I get the only hooker who can't say the word sex?" Dean joked, mentally squinting to see the silver lining that the other woman was trying to point out for him. "Fuck, lady. You're just as emotionally constipated as me. What's your name?"

"It's whatever you want it to be, baby." She said quickly, blanching as soon as the last word left her mouth and turning apologetically towards Dean. "Shit, I'm sorry. That's just...old habits die hard. You can call me Lexi, if that helps anything."

"Is that really your name?"

"Are you really gay?" Lexi countered, arching an eyebrow at him and looking pointedly at the laptop that John had been playing old Casa Erotica DVDs on since Dean had regained consciousness, saying that until he could get a professional over to help him then his son was going to watch it until he was normal again. "Because all of the evidence is saying otherwise."

"No offense, Lex," Dean began, rubbing at the back of his neck as he got up to shut the laptop, spinning on his heel to lean back against the dresser that Meg and Cas had just moved two weeks ago when they had redecorated his bedroom for his birthday. "I mean you're pretty and all. If you had asked me six months ago, you would have been exactly the kind of girl that I would have jumped at the chance to sleep with, but now..."

"I get it, kid." She said laughing self-consciously. "You can't help who you fall in love with, but what do I know? I'm just a jaded hooker being held at gun point to turn a straight teenager straight again. You're lucky, some of us don't get the luxury of choosing who we fall in love with; the love of my life is a different guy every night."

Dean didn't know what to say to that, I'm sorry? It didn't feel like enough, obviously this job wasn't something that Lexi wanted to be doing, but right now he was so deep in shit himself that he couldn't think about rescuing anyone but him or Cas. She was fine, she was older and even though his dad had been waving that fucking handgun around like a moron Dean knew that he wouldn't shoot her if she didn't manage to 'fix him'. His dad had told him that gun was meant for him, which was fine because the only thing that Dean had to live for had already escaped the apartment; all Dean had to worry about anymore was getting back to Cas alive.

"I'd rather not have sex with you then if you don't mind," Dean explained, holding his hands out at his sides, palms facing the woman in an apologetic way that felt weirdly apt for the situation they were in. "I mean if there is another way that we can convince my dad that we did, then I would much rather do that."

"Jeez, if I can't figure out a way to act you out of this then I must be losing my touch," She said, letting a sly, shaky smile quirk at her mouth as she patted the bed beside her. "Come on kid and tell me, are you normally a screamer?"

John was pretty certain that Dean thought he was stupid. In fact, he was pretty sure that both of his sons didn't think much of his intelligence because those ungrateful brats had taken everything that he had given them, all of the sacrifices he had made trying to raise them after their mother left and chosen to make their lives harder than they had to be.

Sam...he could almost understand Sam; the kid had always been 'sensitive', bookish, kept to himself, and didn't want to play the sports or do the rough and tumble little boy things that Dean had always been so keen on doing. It had almost come as a relief when the little faggot had moved out, with Bobby saying that if John couldn't see that he was doing the same thing to his youngest son that his old friend's father had done to them then he was delusional. John knew though that the only thing he had ever been delusional about was how he had felt about Bobby and about how Bobby had felt about him. It wouldn't have been so easy for the other man to walk away if they had been in love, if Bobby had ever loved him.

Dean though he didn't understand. His eldest son had always been a ladies' man, hell John had seen his son stumbling home more than once, neck stained candy apple red by some little tart's lipstick and reeking of perfume-a smell that stuck out like a sore thumb in the masculine only scents that lingered in the apartment. Sure, there had been that thing with Ellen's nephew when Dean was a kid, but nothing since then. Nothing that had made him worry that his son could have the same confusing urges that he had had at that age for other men, nothing that he didn't think he hadn't taken care of when he had beat the lesson into Dean after that first time.

No, if anything it was those fucking queer Novak boys; poisoning his sons against him. He had had his suspicions about that Cas kid since the first time that he had seen him, but everything with Sam and the older Novak had just been more urgent and obvious and something he had honestly thought he could fix at the time. But his lectures had just driven his youngest son right into the arms of that jailbaiting homo and Dean hadn't been around to hear most of them so how could he have known?

In fact, he never would have if he hadn't gone to that bar in Eudora with his first week's pay from the month-long remodeling job that he was working and seen Dean on the news which had been focusing on some human interest story out of Chicago. It had been about some history-making court case involving assisted suicides and gay rights, what the two had to do with each other John had no fucking clue. But there Dean had been kissing that Novak boy on the courthouse steps in front of god and everyone like it was nothing.

He fell asleep drunk waiting for his son to get home so that he could confront him about the whole thing; have Dean tell him it was all a mistake or a phase and then they could move on. John could still have the grandkids, the ones that he and Bobby had never planned on having when they were teenagers racing against the clock and the odds to be together in the harried, heated moments that they had had before it all came crashing down.

But he had woken up hearing it, something that no parent ever wanted or imagined that they might have to hear from their children. Still he hadn't been able to tear his eyes off the bathroom door, horror struck to find as it was that the gun in his hand wasn't going to be used to protect Dean from anything worse than himself. He was too late, his son was already so far gone and so lost in the twisted, disgusting, familiar things that he was doing with that filthy fucking fairy that the only way John could save him would be to either kill him or try to fix him the same way that John had tried to fix himself before Bobby had turned back up in his life and ruined it all again.

He should have known that Dean would be too smart and too stubborn to actually do what he was told; even when the threat of being shot was held over his head it apparently wasn't enough of a motivator to get his son interested in self-preservation. Because John now knew exactly what his son sounded like during sex, not that he had ever wanted to know, and it was nothing like the sounds that were coming out of the second bedroom at the end of the hall. Fucking stupid, foolhardy, pigheaded asshole. John knew that his son got every single one of those traits from him and him alone.

John didn't knock, because he knew that he wasn't going to walk in on anything that needed to have a warning attached to it so that the parties involved could cover up, preserve their dignity or whatever Eve's girl wanted to call it. So he wasn't surprised in the slightest to find his son and the girl he was paying to fix him fully clothed and just sitting side by side on the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar blue room having a grand old laugh at his expense. Well they weren't laughing when they saw the unamused look on John's face or the gun that he was toting tiredly at his side, feeling like it weighed a million pounds more than it actually did.

"You must think very little of me, Dean." John said to his son, pulling back the hammer until it clicked and rechambered the round that he had been ready to put between that Novak kid's eyes earlier this afternoon. "I wish you could just see that I am trying to help you."

"Oh shit, oh fuck, jesus mister fuck fuck," the girl was muttering hysterically, shrinking back into the mattress of the bed behind Dean and crying silent tears that made her caked on mascara run in rivulets down her pretty olive-skinned face. "Christ we're sorry, fuck. Just don't shoot us."

"I think that Eve would consider it a favor," John sneered at her, feeling his stomach turn over when he thought about how he owed that pimping harpy a visit anyway along with Carlos who was used to seeing him every two months or so when the urge to give into the desires that made him hate himself got too strong to fight anymore. "Putting a useless, lying piece of snatch out of commission for her so that she didn't have to get her hands dirty, but no. I'm not going to shoot you, either of you."

"Well if you're bluffing dad then how about you put the gun away?" Dean asked, putting his body between the older man and the girl's so that he could shield her from any more of the mess that she had gotten roped in to. "Jesus Christ, you're scaring the shit out of her and not getting what you want so what's the point?"

"The point is I want you to see it, Dean." John explained, hefting the gun up from where he was holding it at his side so that he could look at it contemplatively as he realized that he meant every single word he was about to say to his eldest son. He just loved his boys so damn much, pity he hadn't gotten the chance to save Sam too since Bobby had gotten all of his stuff and he hadn't seen the younger boy since before Christmas. "I want you to know that I mean business; now I've paid a lot of money for this lady's time so that she could help you. The least you could do is not throw the gesture in my face."

"I didn't ask for yours or anyone else's help, dad." Dean pleaded, holding his hands up to show John they were empty as he stood up and took a tentative step towards the older man. "There's nothing wrong with me, I love Cas."

"Oh well then that makes this even easier," John mused, pointing the gun swiftly at his son who probably just assumed that the older man was drunk or at least hung over, but that had worn off while he had been waiting for Eve's girl to arrive and he was more sober than he had been in years. Dean took a startled step back and were it anyone else, John probably would've thought that the surprised look on his son's face was funny, but it wasn't anyone else and this wasn't funny. "You'll fuck her or I'll find that faggot and kill him."

"Dad," Dean began, glancing over his shoulder at Lexi who was crying in earnest now, face buried in her hands. "You can't be ser—"

"Do it, Dean." John said seriously, finally remembering the full name of his son's lover that he had thought sounded so fucking sissy the first time he had met him. "Do it or Castiel dies."

Author Note: Alright guys, I know its late, but here is the first chapter to the sequel for Born to Run. Let me warn you and apologize for it now, this is going to get much worse before it gets better. For those of you just now reading this, I suggest you go back and read the first part, Born to Run. It will answer any background questions you might have and probably give you more that you'll want answered, plus it's 30 chapters (200K+ words) of sometimes fluffy, sometimes smutty, sometimes nail-biting angsty goodness (in my opinion, but I'll let you be the judge of that).

Please, stick around. Let me rip your heart out of your chest and feel free to scream at me for doing so.