Hold Me While My World Falls

Chapter Four

Life settled back into its usual routine after Castiel's visit. The activities of Dean were reduced to keeping himself and Jo satisfied. But that was all that they really were. Usually, Jo could sense Dean's loneliness and jumped into the chair with him while he watched tv with a bored look. Dean allowed it, especially since the husky was the only thing keeping him sane.

"I gotta marry someone, huh, Jo? Get a wife to keep after my ass, help with housework, make better food. Yeah, I'm a little loner, hmm?" He said out loud, ruffling the back of her ear, causing Jo to tilt her head into his magical fingers. She growled low in her throat, and Dean took it as confirmation to her question. He sighed.

He was twenty-seven and he still hadn't found anyone to marry. He figured the One probably wasn't real, but he hadn't wanted to spend his life with anyone he'd dated regardless. He had tried eHarmony, giving in to the claim of "more marriages than any other dating website," but it never went longer than a few months, and then Dean was back to his big, lonely house. He had wondered what was wrong with him, why he couldn't keep a steady relationship with a girl, but eventually he'd just given up completely. He was probably doomed to a life of solitude, and the only waist he'd wrap his arms around at breakfast time would be his own, as he flipped a half burnt pancake. And that would just be weird, though Dean couldn't say he'd never done it when he felt extraordinarily alone, ending up even more depressed. It wasn't someone smiling on his shoulder, it wasn't real. He might never have someone to wake up for, somebody to love so unconditionally it hurt.

He sighed, putting the recliner down on his black leather Lay-Z-Boy with a loud bang. Jo startled, but didn't leap off the chair until Dean went to stand up. He shuffled into the kitchen and grabbed the Doritos from his top cupboard, taking the cheese out of the fridge beside it. He sang loudly along with Me, Myself, and I on his iPhone, digging himself deeper into the hole that was his loneliness.

Castiel glared at his younger brother. And glared. And glared until Gabriel thought his face would melt from his older brother's laser beam eyes.

"What?" Gabriel finally asked in a shout, slamming the tv remote down on Castiel's coffee table.

"You ate all my food, you watched all my porn several times, you brought your boyfriend in here to screw in my bed, and you know damn well those crab meat rangoons were supposed to last at least two nights!" Castiel yelled furiously.

Gabriel shrugged. "You're a good cook."

"That still doesn't excuse the porn watching or the boyfriend fucking!"

Again, Gabriel shrugged. "If you're not going to use your bed, then I will." He smirked, satisfied with himself.

Castiel glared harder, now trying to melt the other boy. "I do use it! I sleep in it, every damn night!"

For the third time in a row, Gabriel shrugged. And stayed silent, aimlessly looking for a television channel that didn't suck.

Castiel wondered how high the punishment was for strangling a sibling.

"You need a man." Gabriel told him pointedly, unaware Castiel was plotting his "accidental" suffocation.

"I do not."

"Do too."

"No, Gabriel, I don't."

"Do!"

"Don't!

"Do!"

"For fuck's sake, brother, would you quit being such an... assbutt?" Castiel demanded, immediately ashamed of his weak insult.

Gabriel smirked. "Assbutt? Really?"

Castiel glared once again. "I'm going out!"

"Get yourself a man!" Gabriel shouted to him as Castiel left the house. In his hurry to slam the front door, however, he'd left his winter coat inside.