SPN FIC - He's Got To Be Larger Than Life (Part 2 of 2)
Part 1 is here.
HE'S GOT TO BE LARGER THAN LIFE
By Carol Davis
"I - no -"
He's seen that smile so many times on Sam's face. Thinks it's shown up on his own face now and then (although more then than now). It says Gotcha. Says I figured it out. Says I know something and it's so awesome I want to pee my pants.
It's not all that awesome, Dean thinks. It means the bad things are real.
But this kid? He already knew that.
He already knew Life's a bitch and then you die.
"Look," Dean says quietly.
He tries hard, tries really hard, to think of something sensible to say, something that will negate everything he's set out in front of Brendan during the last couple of hours. Something that will reassure this little boy that the world is what the grownups say it is, that there's nothing hiding under the bed or in the closet or out there in the backyard in the dark.
But maybe there's no point to that.
Maybe there's no happy ending, either way.
Brendan lifts a small, pale hand and holds it palm out. He wants to high-five. Wants to celebrate this moment. It takes Dean a little time to feel like there's anything to celebrate, but yeah, there's life, there's now, there's the smile on this little bald kid's face. That's some kind of success, he figures, even though the majority of the population might take issue with it. He slaps Brendan's hand just hard enough to make the sound, make the clap. Then he weaves his fingers with the boy's and holds on for a minute.
"You rock," Brendan says, his voice gone husky and slow.
It's tough to walk away. He doesn't need to say goodbye, because Brendan's drifted off to sleep, for real this time. Out in the corridor, Kathy thanks him, tells him he's gone above and beyond, wishes him success and inspiration and a bunch of other stuff he doesn't really catch because he's not exactly listening. Then she goes back into Brendan's room.
He doesn't want to walk away, but there's no point in staying.
There's somebody waiting for him down at the end of the hall. Somebody in a wrinkled trenchcoat.
"What?" Dean says.
"That was a good thing you did."
"Gee, Mom. It's so nice when you pat me on the head."
"I'm serious."
"Fantastic."
He and Castiel get on the elevator together. It takes so long to go down four floors that Dean begins to think that the angel has zapped them into some alternate dimension or some damn thing, some place where they'll never reach the ground.
"This whole system you got?" Dean sighs. "Seriously, man. What the fuck."
"Which system is that?"
Right now? Dean would sit in a Jacuzzi with six of Chuck Shirley and drink freakin' appletinis in the nude rather than do this. Rather than be stuck in an elevator with somebody who takes "dry" and "humorless" to whole new levels of art. "The one where your boss lets little kids die," he snaps. "That one."
"It's -"
"Shut up, Cas. Okay? Just shut up."
"Life is finite, Dean. You've always been aware of that."
"Have I? You wanna know what else I'm aware of?" Dean thumps himself on the chest. "This. Been around some mirrors lately. I was in a hospital after that thing with Alastair. I was beat all to hell. They had me on fuckin' machines. I remember that, Cas. I remember it like somebody laser-etched it on my brain. But ya know what? I'm fixed. Again! Somebody pushed the ol' reset button and all my boo-boos are mended."
"Yes," Castiel admits.
"You can fix me."
"That -"
"Yes or no?"
"Yes."
"Then?"
"I cannot. Dean." The angel sighs heavily, then turns to look Dean in the eye. "I can't. I've told you that."
The elevator chimes and the doors slide open. But instead of being on the ground floor, they're still on Four.
Looking down the hall toward Room 407.
"You're supposed to be the good guys," Dean rasps.
"Perhaps it would be better not to think in terms of absolutes. Perhaps it would better serve the purpose to think of…shades of gray."
"Serve what purpose? Yours? God's?"
"The grand scheme of things."
The elevator doors stay open. For all Dean knows, they'll stand here all night like this. Or they would if he stuck around. Which he's not going to do. With barely a glance at Castiel, he leaves the elevator, looks around for the stairs, yanks open the door to the stairwell and heads down. He's gone about a flight and a half when the door creaks open again and Castiel appears on the fourth-floor landing. Maybe Cas tweaks things then and maybe he doesn't, but either way, Dean's suddenly out of energy enough that he needs to lean against the handrail.
"You did a good thing, Dean," Castiel says from up above.
"It doesn't change a damn thing."
"You're wrong."
Cas does tweak things then, and poof, they're standing in the corridor outside 407. Dean glares at the angel, gives him a look that by rights ought to fry the flesh right off his bones, but Castiel just stands there poker-faced.
"It wasn't Chuck on the phone, was it?" Dean demands.
"It was not."
"Was the e-mail for real?"
"It was."
There are people walking around: nurses, and orderlies, and patients, and visitors. The whole roster of possibilities. They're not paying much attention to either Dean or Castiel, so maybe, Dean thinks, they're not really here. Maybe he's still on the elevator. Or in the stairwell. Or back in the motel room, sound asleep. He's tempted to reach out and grab somebody so he can find out, but he can't muster up the ambition.
"You read Chuck's e-mail?" he accuses, for lack of something better to say.
The Boylans are inside that room, mother and son. It seems a little dimmer in there now, so Kathy must have doused some of the lights. She's sitting in the chair Dean was using before, has it pulled up close to the bed so she can stroke her son's cheek while he sleeps. It's a sweet scene, except that it's not, at all. They ought to be at home, in their nice little house. Brendan should have hair. And a body that's not betraying the shit out of him.
"What's this for?" Dean mutters.
"If life were a picnic," Castiel observes mildly, "I suspect you would find it boring. Speaking of humans in general."
"Yeah? Have you tried that on anybody?"
"No."
"Then maybe you shouldn't make assumptions."
"Nor should you."
He didn't notice Kathy getting up from her chair, but all of a sudden she's there in front of him, running a hand through her hair. "I didn't know you were still here," she says, and there's a question in her voice.
"I just - I wondered. If there was anything else I could do."
This is my friend, he wants to say. He's a freakin' Angel of the Lord.
She's had a long day. Looks like it's been a day that has no end to it. Like it's been going on forever. She glances into the room, looks at her son, and rubs at her head like it hurts. "When he was diagnosed," she says quietly, "they told us it was a matter of months. A year, at most. That was five years ago." She pauses, takes in everything around her, but doesn't seem much interested in Castiel. Dean isn't entirely sure she even sees him. That's a human body Cas is parading around in, but he can do some weird shit with it. Heal it, for instance.
Like he healed Dean.
Like he won't heal anybody else.
"We've had five years," Kathy says softly. "I suppose that's a miracle."
"It's a matter of perspective," Castiel observes.
Then he does some of his weird shit.
And he's gone.
Kathy stands there for a minute, looking at nothing in particular, then she reaches out slowly and rests a hand on Dean's arm. "I appreciate your coming," she says. "I know you must have come a long way."
"No big deal."
"But it is."
He'd like to go now. Would like to go down to the parking lot and get into the Impala and drive somewhere where he can get a drink. Where he can sit in a booth and listen to whatever kind of noise is going on and sip his drink and forget about the gigantic shitstorm that is his life. He doesn't know where Sam is, and these last few days he's had trouble caring. It didn't used to be that way, he thinks. He used to care. He used to care very much. Maybe he still does, but he's having a lot of trouble finding that part of himself these days.
She's the right kind of height, Kathy. When he gathers her into his arms he can tuck her head into the crook between his jaw and his shoulder and rest his cheek against her hair.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "It's not fair. Ain't none of it fair."
"I had five years," she says against his chest. "I had five years, when they said there wouldn't even be one."
He doesn't hold people like this very much. Just to be a comfort.
Just to take some comfort.
"You're a good man," she says.
"No. 'M not."
She backs up half a step. Swipes quickly at her eyes with the back of one hand. "You came all this way. For strangers. And there's…no publicity. No cameras. What do you call it, if it's not being good? Generous." The wobbly smile comes and goes. Comes back. "Kind."
Kind?
"Felt like driving," he says. "Felt like getting out."
"You could have gone anywhere. Las Vegas? The beach. The Grand Canyon."
"This was closer."
"Do you have children, Mr. Edlund?"
He lets it sink in, then: where he is. Who's in all the beds in the rooms that surround him. It makes him want to freak right the fuck out. He could never do this, he thinks. Do what she's doing. Come to this place and sit in a chair. Yeah, he's sat in a chair beside Sam's bed a few times, but he knew Sam was getting out. That Sam just needed to mend up a little bit and he'd be walking out under his own power.
Except that one time.
"I don't," he says, but he wonders if that's the truth.
People are moving around them. There's a guy pushing a big metal cart, the kind that holds cafeteria trays, so it must be dinnertime. He watches the guy push the cart down the hallway, watches him stop at each room in turn and carry a tray or two inside. Kathy watches too and when the guy is halfway down the hall she says, "There's a Denny's across the street. Let me buy you something to eat. It's not the greatest, I know, but -"
"I should go."
"Oh. I'm - all right."
Kathy's husband bailed, according to Brendan. There's no ring on her finger. She's tired and strung out and if he were King Ass of Ass World he could turn her offer of dinner into something more. She's pretty. And she keeps looking at him. She touched him, let him hold her. He's made a few detours into Ass World before, took comfort where he could find it and gave some back. Shit is what it is, he thinks.
And he is what he is.
"Is it -" he says. "You know. Bad."
Brendan, he means. She knows that. She shrugs.
He's got business cards that say all kinds of things. Claim that he's FBI, or Homeland Security, or that he does pest control or private investigating or whatever. But he doesn't have any that claim he's Carver Edlund. Or, God help him, Chuck Shirley. So he pokes around in his pockets until he finds a scrap of paper, raids the nurses' desk for a pen, and scribbles down his cell phone number. "You can call," he says. "If he needs - if you need somebody to tell him a story. Okay? I can't always come. I probably can't come again. But I can call."
"That's - thank you."
"Not a big deal."
This time, after he says goodbye for the second time, the elevator car goes down to the lobby like it's supposed to. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket and walks across the windy parking lot to the Impala, parked in the row farthest from the building, up against the guardrail. It's gonna rain soon, he thinks; the wind smells of it. But that's okay. He's never minded driving in the rain.
All he needs to do is decide where he's driving to.
When he slides into the driver's seat, he's no longer alone. Cas is there, aiming to ride shotgun, apparently.
"You did a good thing," Cas says.
"Yeah," Dean grumbles. "You said that. Maybe you should get it on a t-shirt, and save your air."
"And yet you doubt your own motivations."
"There a point to this? 'Cause I need to drive."
Castiel sits silent, gazing at the parking lot, and seems to have no intention of continuing the conversation. Dean knows better than to believe that, but he shrugs it off and starts the car. They're maybe half a mile down the road when Castiel finally picks up the ball. "We needed a champion," he says.
"Yeah. The righteous man. I got all that. But it ain't like - I mean, I'm in this position because I fucked up. That don't say 'champion' where I'm from."
"It's a matter of perspective."
It's like that for more than an hour. Dean says something, and Cas says something inscrutable - or just annoying - in return. The rest of the time the angel is silent, and Dean expects him to vanish any time.
It's like that veni, vidi, vici thing, Dean thinks. I came, I was a dick, I vanished.
Come to think of it, that sounds like his life.
"It's what I do," Dean says.
Castiel smiles slightly, absently, as if he's watching a rerun of some sitcom inside his head. "Saving people. Hunting things. The family business."
"You get that from Chuck?"
"I'm aware of a lot of things, Dean."
"And that's not intrusive at all."
"Would it help you to know that he's resting comfortably? That he's dreaming of playing with his dogs?"
"Cas -"
"I wish I could do it. I do. But I cannot."
"Bust loose," Dean snaps. "Break the damn rules."
"For one child? What about all the others?"
"That's what I want to know, dammit. Why are there 'all the others'? Why are there any? What's right about that? What's fair about that? They're little kids, damn you. They're little kids, and they didn't do anything to anybody."
Castiel turns to look out the window, at things along the roadside that the car is leaving behind. "If you can find the strength within yourself to do this," he says after a minute, "to do the work you're destined to do - you will preserve the world for them. For those for whom five years is precious. Or five days. Or five minutes."
"I told Zachariah," Dean says heavily. "I'm not that guy."
"And yet you told that boy the truth." Cas lifts his hand in imitation of the high five Dean exchanged with Brendan. "You celebrated your life with him." He pauses, then goes on, "Large victories are composed of many small parts, Dean. You will not be alone on the battlefield. We ask only that you play your part. That you turn one key."
"Which is?"
"You'll know. In time."
"Damn it, Cas."
For a moment Cas rests his hand against the window as if he's trying to puzzle out what glass is. Then he says, "Don't ignore the journey, Dean. It's the journey that's important, not the destination." He shifts in the seat, which seems to say that he's getting ready to pop out. At least, Dean thinks, this time he's giving a little bit of warning. Cas seriously needs to do that, because if he keeps up with the popping, one day Dean's gonna run right the hell off the road.
Cas seems to hear that. He smiles again, a small flicker. "You will not be disappointed, Dean," he says cryptically.
"In what?"
The response is only a whisper. "In the destination."
Then, of course, he's gone.
And from the depths of Dean's jacket pocket, his phone rings.
* * * * *
HE'S GOT TO BE LARGER THAN LIFE
By Carol Davis
"I - no -"
He's seen that smile so many times on Sam's face. Thinks it's shown up on his own face now and then (although more then than now). It says Gotcha. Says I figured it out. Says I know something and it's so awesome I want to pee my pants.
It's not all that awesome, Dean thinks. It means the bad things are real.
But this kid? He already knew that.
He already knew Life's a bitch and then you die.
"Look," Dean says quietly.
He tries hard, tries really hard, to think of something sensible to say, something that will negate everything he's set out in front of Brendan during the last couple of hours. Something that will reassure this little boy that the world is what the grownups say it is, that there's nothing hiding under the bed or in the closet or out there in the backyard in the dark.
But maybe there's no point to that.
Maybe there's no happy ending, either way.
Brendan lifts a small, pale hand and holds it palm out. He wants to high-five. Wants to celebrate this moment. It takes Dean a little time to feel like there's anything to celebrate, but yeah, there's life, there's now, there's the smile on this little bald kid's face. That's some kind of success, he figures, even though the majority of the population might take issue with it. He slaps Brendan's hand just hard enough to make the sound, make the clap. Then he weaves his fingers with the boy's and holds on for a minute.
"You rock," Brendan says, his voice gone husky and slow.
It's tough to walk away. He doesn't need to say goodbye, because Brendan's drifted off to sleep, for real this time. Out in the corridor, Kathy thanks him, tells him he's gone above and beyond, wishes him success and inspiration and a bunch of other stuff he doesn't really catch because he's not exactly listening. Then she goes back into Brendan's room.
He doesn't want to walk away, but there's no point in staying.
There's somebody waiting for him down at the end of the hall. Somebody in a wrinkled trenchcoat.
"What?" Dean says.
"That was a good thing you did."
"Gee, Mom. It's so nice when you pat me on the head."
"I'm serious."
"Fantastic."
He and Castiel get on the elevator together. It takes so long to go down four floors that Dean begins to think that the angel has zapped them into some alternate dimension or some damn thing, some place where they'll never reach the ground.
"This whole system you got?" Dean sighs. "Seriously, man. What the fuck."
"Which system is that?"
Right now? Dean would sit in a Jacuzzi with six of Chuck Shirley and drink freakin' appletinis in the nude rather than do this. Rather than be stuck in an elevator with somebody who takes "dry" and "humorless" to whole new levels of art. "The one where your boss lets little kids die," he snaps. "That one."
"It's -"
"Shut up, Cas. Okay? Just shut up."
"Life is finite, Dean. You've always been aware of that."
"Have I? You wanna know what else I'm aware of?" Dean thumps himself on the chest. "This. Been around some mirrors lately. I was in a hospital after that thing with Alastair. I was beat all to hell. They had me on fuckin' machines. I remember that, Cas. I remember it like somebody laser-etched it on my brain. But ya know what? I'm fixed. Again! Somebody pushed the ol' reset button and all my boo-boos are mended."
"Yes," Castiel admits.
"You can fix me."
"That -"
"Yes or no?"
"Yes."
"Then?"
"I cannot. Dean." The angel sighs heavily, then turns to look Dean in the eye. "I can't. I've told you that."
The elevator chimes and the doors slide open. But instead of being on the ground floor, they're still on Four.
Looking down the hall toward Room 407.
"You're supposed to be the good guys," Dean rasps.
"Perhaps it would be better not to think in terms of absolutes. Perhaps it would better serve the purpose to think of…shades of gray."
"Serve what purpose? Yours? God's?"
"The grand scheme of things."
The elevator doors stay open. For all Dean knows, they'll stand here all night like this. Or they would if he stuck around. Which he's not going to do. With barely a glance at Castiel, he leaves the elevator, looks around for the stairs, yanks open the door to the stairwell and heads down. He's gone about a flight and a half when the door creaks open again and Castiel appears on the fourth-floor landing. Maybe Cas tweaks things then and maybe he doesn't, but either way, Dean's suddenly out of energy enough that he needs to lean against the handrail.
"You did a good thing, Dean," Castiel says from up above.
"It doesn't change a damn thing."
"You're wrong."
Cas does tweak things then, and poof, they're standing in the corridor outside 407. Dean glares at the angel, gives him a look that by rights ought to fry the flesh right off his bones, but Castiel just stands there poker-faced.
"It wasn't Chuck on the phone, was it?" Dean demands.
"It was not."
"Was the e-mail for real?"
"It was."
There are people walking around: nurses, and orderlies, and patients, and visitors. The whole roster of possibilities. They're not paying much attention to either Dean or Castiel, so maybe, Dean thinks, they're not really here. Maybe he's still on the elevator. Or in the stairwell. Or back in the motel room, sound asleep. He's tempted to reach out and grab somebody so he can find out, but he can't muster up the ambition.
"You read Chuck's e-mail?" he accuses, for lack of something better to say.
The Boylans are inside that room, mother and son. It seems a little dimmer in there now, so Kathy must have doused some of the lights. She's sitting in the chair Dean was using before, has it pulled up close to the bed so she can stroke her son's cheek while he sleeps. It's a sweet scene, except that it's not, at all. They ought to be at home, in their nice little house. Brendan should have hair. And a body that's not betraying the shit out of him.
"What's this for?" Dean mutters.
"If life were a picnic," Castiel observes mildly, "I suspect you would find it boring. Speaking of humans in general."
"Yeah? Have you tried that on anybody?"
"No."
"Then maybe you shouldn't make assumptions."
"Nor should you."
He didn't notice Kathy getting up from her chair, but all of a sudden she's there in front of him, running a hand through her hair. "I didn't know you were still here," she says, and there's a question in her voice.
"I just - I wondered. If there was anything else I could do."
This is my friend, he wants to say. He's a freakin' Angel of the Lord.
She's had a long day. Looks like it's been a day that has no end to it. Like it's been going on forever. She glances into the room, looks at her son, and rubs at her head like it hurts. "When he was diagnosed," she says quietly, "they told us it was a matter of months. A year, at most. That was five years ago." She pauses, takes in everything around her, but doesn't seem much interested in Castiel. Dean isn't entirely sure she even sees him. That's a human body Cas is parading around in, but he can do some weird shit with it. Heal it, for instance.
Like he healed Dean.
Like he won't heal anybody else.
"We've had five years," Kathy says softly. "I suppose that's a miracle."
"It's a matter of perspective," Castiel observes.
Then he does some of his weird shit.
And he's gone.
Kathy stands there for a minute, looking at nothing in particular, then she reaches out slowly and rests a hand on Dean's arm. "I appreciate your coming," she says. "I know you must have come a long way."
"No big deal."
"But it is."
He'd like to go now. Would like to go down to the parking lot and get into the Impala and drive somewhere where he can get a drink. Where he can sit in a booth and listen to whatever kind of noise is going on and sip his drink and forget about the gigantic shitstorm that is his life. He doesn't know where Sam is, and these last few days he's had trouble caring. It didn't used to be that way, he thinks. He used to care. He used to care very much. Maybe he still does, but he's having a lot of trouble finding that part of himself these days.
She's the right kind of height, Kathy. When he gathers her into his arms he can tuck her head into the crook between his jaw and his shoulder and rest his cheek against her hair.
"I'm sorry," he murmurs. "It's not fair. Ain't none of it fair."
"I had five years," she says against his chest. "I had five years, when they said there wouldn't even be one."
He doesn't hold people like this very much. Just to be a comfort.
Just to take some comfort.
"You're a good man," she says.
"No. 'M not."
She backs up half a step. Swipes quickly at her eyes with the back of one hand. "You came all this way. For strangers. And there's…no publicity. No cameras. What do you call it, if it's not being good? Generous." The wobbly smile comes and goes. Comes back. "Kind."
Kind?
"Felt like driving," he says. "Felt like getting out."
"You could have gone anywhere. Las Vegas? The beach. The Grand Canyon."
"This was closer."
"Do you have children, Mr. Edlund?"
He lets it sink in, then: where he is. Who's in all the beds in the rooms that surround him. It makes him want to freak right the fuck out. He could never do this, he thinks. Do what she's doing. Come to this place and sit in a chair. Yeah, he's sat in a chair beside Sam's bed a few times, but he knew Sam was getting out. That Sam just needed to mend up a little bit and he'd be walking out under his own power.
Except that one time.
"I don't," he says, but he wonders if that's the truth.
People are moving around them. There's a guy pushing a big metal cart, the kind that holds cafeteria trays, so it must be dinnertime. He watches the guy push the cart down the hallway, watches him stop at each room in turn and carry a tray or two inside. Kathy watches too and when the guy is halfway down the hall she says, "There's a Denny's across the street. Let me buy you something to eat. It's not the greatest, I know, but -"
"I should go."
"Oh. I'm - all right."
Kathy's husband bailed, according to Brendan. There's no ring on her finger. She's tired and strung out and if he were King Ass of Ass World he could turn her offer of dinner into something more. She's pretty. And she keeps looking at him. She touched him, let him hold her. He's made a few detours into Ass World before, took comfort where he could find it and gave some back. Shit is what it is, he thinks.
And he is what he is.
"Is it -" he says. "You know. Bad."
Brendan, he means. She knows that. She shrugs.
He's got business cards that say all kinds of things. Claim that he's FBI, or Homeland Security, or that he does pest control or private investigating or whatever. But he doesn't have any that claim he's Carver Edlund. Or, God help him, Chuck Shirley. So he pokes around in his pockets until he finds a scrap of paper, raids the nurses' desk for a pen, and scribbles down his cell phone number. "You can call," he says. "If he needs - if you need somebody to tell him a story. Okay? I can't always come. I probably can't come again. But I can call."
"That's - thank you."
"Not a big deal."
This time, after he says goodbye for the second time, the elevator car goes down to the lobby like it's supposed to. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket and walks across the windy parking lot to the Impala, parked in the row farthest from the building, up against the guardrail. It's gonna rain soon, he thinks; the wind smells of it. But that's okay. He's never minded driving in the rain.
All he needs to do is decide where he's driving to.
When he slides into the driver's seat, he's no longer alone. Cas is there, aiming to ride shotgun, apparently.
"You did a good thing," Cas says.
"Yeah," Dean grumbles. "You said that. Maybe you should get it on a t-shirt, and save your air."
"And yet you doubt your own motivations."
"There a point to this? 'Cause I need to drive."
Castiel sits silent, gazing at the parking lot, and seems to have no intention of continuing the conversation. Dean knows better than to believe that, but he shrugs it off and starts the car. They're maybe half a mile down the road when Castiel finally picks up the ball. "We needed a champion," he says.
"Yeah. The righteous man. I got all that. But it ain't like - I mean, I'm in this position because I fucked up. That don't say 'champion' where I'm from."
"It's a matter of perspective."
It's like that for more than an hour. Dean says something, and Cas says something inscrutable - or just annoying - in return. The rest of the time the angel is silent, and Dean expects him to vanish any time.
It's like that veni, vidi, vici thing, Dean thinks. I came, I was a dick, I vanished.
Come to think of it, that sounds like his life.
"It's what I do," Dean says.
Castiel smiles slightly, absently, as if he's watching a rerun of some sitcom inside his head. "Saving people. Hunting things. The family business."
"You get that from Chuck?"
"I'm aware of a lot of things, Dean."
"And that's not intrusive at all."
"Would it help you to know that he's resting comfortably? That he's dreaming of playing with his dogs?"
"Cas -"
"I wish I could do it. I do. But I cannot."
"Bust loose," Dean snaps. "Break the damn rules."
"For one child? What about all the others?"
"That's what I want to know, dammit. Why are there 'all the others'? Why are there any? What's right about that? What's fair about that? They're little kids, damn you. They're little kids, and they didn't do anything to anybody."
Castiel turns to look out the window, at things along the roadside that the car is leaving behind. "If you can find the strength within yourself to do this," he says after a minute, "to do the work you're destined to do - you will preserve the world for them. For those for whom five years is precious. Or five days. Or five minutes."
"I told Zachariah," Dean says heavily. "I'm not that guy."
"And yet you told that boy the truth." Cas lifts his hand in imitation of the high five Dean exchanged with Brendan. "You celebrated your life with him." He pauses, then goes on, "Large victories are composed of many small parts, Dean. You will not be alone on the battlefield. We ask only that you play your part. That you turn one key."
"Which is?"
"You'll know. In time."
"Damn it, Cas."
For a moment Cas rests his hand against the window as if he's trying to puzzle out what glass is. Then he says, "Don't ignore the journey, Dean. It's the journey that's important, not the destination." He shifts in the seat, which seems to say that he's getting ready to pop out. At least, Dean thinks, this time he's giving a little bit of warning. Cas seriously needs to do that, because if he keeps up with the popping, one day Dean's gonna run right the hell off the road.
Cas seems to hear that. He smiles again, a small flicker. "You will not be disappointed, Dean," he says cryptically.
"In what?"
The response is only a whisper. "In the destination."
Then, of course, he's gone.
And from the depths of Dean's jacket pocket, his phone rings.
* * * * *