Smoke

Half an hour later, Cas was still out cold. Dean checked.

From the doorway of his room, a bar of light fell from the hallway over Cas, his shoulders and one arm visible. He was hugging the pillow.

“Cute,” Bela said from just behind Dean. “I can see why you like him.”

Dean yanked the door shut, glaring at the demon, who switched to looking far too innocent.

“What? I thought we were bonding.”

“Not by creeping on Cas, we’re not,” Dean said, taking her arm and steering her back down the hallway.

In the library, he let go of her and dropped into one of the chairs, rubbing a hand over his face. His afternoon nap with Cas hadn’t been enough to make up for being kidnapped, strung up, emotionally wrung out and then thoroughly disabused of the notion that Cas was lacking a clue in the bedroom. Dean shifted a bit just thinking about it.

“Where’s your living room?” Bela asked, taking the seat across from him. “You don’t really sit in here or the kitchen the whole time, do you?”

Dean had to mentally change gears. Home design wasn’t normally his subject of choice.

“Why not? They’ve got chairs.”

Bela pulled a face at him.

“It’s really much for relaxing, though.”

“If we want to relax we have our rooms,” Dean said. “We even watch TV in Sam’s room.”

“What, like you’re at University? In dorm rooms?” Bela asked.

“There some law against it?” Dean shot back, stung.

The Bunker was the closest thing he’d had to a stable home base since Bobby’s went up in smoke, and even before then it wasn’t really Dean’s. This underground lair was larger, warmer and more comfortable than any motel room, and hearing Bela criticize it wasn’t okay.

“I’m just saying,” Bela said, “you could get a couch, a TV you can all sit down to watch. Hell, maybe a throw rug or two. And why only the three of you in such a large space?”

“Two,” Dean corrected, looking away.

There was silence, maybe while Bela thought about what a loser Dean was that he hadn’t even managed to get Cas to move in, despite not being welcome in Heaven.

“I’m pretty sure Castiel will stay if you just ask him outright,” she said. “From what Hannah’s told me, he spent a lot of time telling her how much he wanted a home, and you were always mentioned somewhere in the conversation. Have you ever tried actually asking him?”

Of course not. He hadn’t asked Sam, either. Sam had just moved in when Dean did.

Maybe that hadn’t been the best way to go about it.

“I made him a room up,” Dean said.

“And told him it was his? Specifically?”

“Exactly what makes you such an expert?” Dean asked.

“Oh, I’m not. Believe me. But I spent enough of my life avoiding connections to know how hard it can be when you decide to be connected. I keep thinking Hannah’s going to leave, just walk away without looking back, and every time I think that I find myself pushing her. You and me? We’re not so different.”

Dean opened his mouth to deny it, but with Bela sitting in front of him, with Bela having helped him, and Cas, and not seeming to be about to fleece them for it, it was harder to keep up his old opinions of her. She did have a point.

“I didn’t have a demon kill my parents,” Dean said, unable to stop himself.

He looked at her in time to see the look on her face, an expression of blank hurt before she smoothed it over. A muscle in her jaw clenched.

“You think I did that for fun?”

“For money.”

Bela laughed, a harsh bark of a thing. It made Dean realise how genuine her laughter had been so far.

“Money. Money’s just what I used to keep myself safe once they were gone. It certainly didn’t keep me safe when they were alive. When my father was alive.”

And she looked away, her eyes hard and distant and…

“Oh,” Dean said. “Oh, fuck. I… I didn’t know. You didn’t-”

“Tell you my whole tragic back-story when we met over a cursed rabbit’s foot? No. Silly me. It slipped my mind.”

Fair enough. Not like Dean told everyone he met about his crap.

“You could have mentioned something,” he said, and he didn’t even mean to sound like a dick. “Sam and me, we could have tried to help you.”

“Out of the deal? You couldn’t even help yourself. How could you have helped me?”

“We could have tried.”

Bela sighed.

“Dean, what happened to me when I was a child was appalling. I know that. I know where the blame lies. And trust me, I didn’t deserve to suffer in Hell for wanting out of it. But I wouldn’t have deserved Hell even if that had never happened to me. Most people in Hell don’t deserve Hell.”

She had a point.

“And people shouldn’t need a terrible thing being done to them before you decide they’re worth caring about,” she said. “You don’t have to suddenly pretend you like me now you know, either. I’m a lot more than what my father did to me.”

She paused, narrowing her eyes, before going on in a gentler tone.

“You’re a lot more than what’s been done to you, as well. What your father did, what Alastair did. What you’ve done to yourself.”

Affirmation from demon-Bela. This was not how Dean had expected his week to go.

“Yeah. Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.”

She looked frustrated, but let it go. Instead, she leaned forwards and tapped the table with a finger.

“So, now we’ve got that sorted, where shall we put the couch you’re going to buy?”