fic: A third event to me

[glovered]

title: A third event to me
words: 4.5k
characters: Team Free Will
summary: Sam and Dean see signs but ignore them.
a/n: This fic falls into current canon and was written for peachpai for helpsomalia. I failed at the "fluff" part of her prompt, but otherwise she asked for "TFW gen, light snow, h/c, and nothing on TV." Thanks to riyku for an awesome beta job!
Title from an E Dickinson poem that goes: My life closed twice before its close- / It yet remains to see / If Immortality unveil / A third event to me



The four of them are sitting in a bar: two hunters, a reverend, and a bottle of Jack. In a way, this makes sense. It's like the beginning of a joke you listen to, curious to see if it will be funny, unsurprised when you find that it's not.

"He was wearing a trenchcoat and he was angry," the reverend says. "He made me choke on my tongue, in front of the entire parish."

Dean fills up the father's tumbler along with his own, a slosh of whiskey to tide them over.

"Are you the praying type?" the reverend asks.

"Can't say that I am."

And although Dean has this gut feeling not to like the guy - not just because Cas apparently gave him the stamp of disapproval a few months back, but because he's a real whiner - he might as well lay down everything they know. It's not like they're in a rush to get any place else.

"Listen," he says. "What you saw wasn't God. His name was Cas."

"Cas?" The reverend tries the name.

"Yeah. God walked out a long time ago. Son of a bitch is hiding out somewhere on earth and he doesn't want to be found. Millions of people pandering to him, begging him for help, but not a peep, except to tell us to back off."

The reverend doesn't look like he believes Dean, but is just drunk enough to listen to this sort of blather. "Us?"

"Yeah." Dean jerks a thumb to his left, where Sam's slouched out with his legs stretched under the table, a beer dangling half-finished in the crook of his thumb and forefinger. "Yeah, me and him."

"I have to say, that is comforting to hear."

"How so?"

"This man performed acts and said untruths that I can't even...he said homosexuality was not something abhorrent." The reverend shudders. "That is no God of mine. And he replaced Jesus on my stained glass window. And the pews! You saw what he did to those!"

Dean pours out a few more slugs, thinking sardonically about how after all the shit they've seen, he and Sam had still held on to a hope that recent signs of Cas could mean something. But of course they've merely been stumbling on the wreckage of Cas's short stint as a god, aftermath in the wake of everything.

The reverend is three drinks in and getting seriously mopey about his charred benches. Dean catches Sam's eye and they share a look.

Suddenly, as if invoked or called like a prayer at the mention of his name, into the bar steps Cas. Holy. Shit.

He walks like a cowboy or maybe a mobster, yeah, a mobster, through the doors that swing shut behind him. Dean feels the hairs raise on the back of his neck.

He turns away slowly, shaking his head. He's less sober than he thought, the bottle on the table glinting and near empty. He reprimands himself, because there's wishful thinking, and then there's a hope so pathetic it actually alters the perception. This "Cas" is probably just some other white dude with dark hair, and Dean's state of mind is firmly set to delusional. Or crazy. Could be that.

He throws back his tenth drink and sneaks another glance, and yeah, still looks like Cas. But the guy's back is to them, where he's now standing by the bar. And besides, although he's wearing black pants and a white button-up, that's where the similarities end. There's the blatant lack of a trenchcoat, for one. And the shirt, which is rolled up at the elbow, displays pale forearms that Dean only ever caught the barest glimpse of when Cas folded his sleeves up to stick his hand in someone.

Dean downs the rest of his whiskey in one and says, "Sam, I think your hallucination's rubbing off on me, man."

Sam's gaze darts to an empty chair at their table almost guiltily, and then back to Dean. Dean raises his eyebrows as if to say, Oh really, now? Because that's not unsettling or anything. Last week Dean was having a hard time not feeling offended that Lucifer was apparently brushing his teeth alongside them, and now he's sharing drinks at happy hour? Not cool.

But more pressing is: "I was talking about the dude by the bar. I could of sworn it was- well."

It doesn't bear repeating, even in his head, because it's obviously not Cas. Although on third glance, there's still a likeness.

"Woah," says Sam, which is not what Dean was expecting. He notices how Sam's hand dips under the table, maybe to press at the unhealing wound, a reality check.

Dean's thinking ruefully, "I need me one of those," right before there's a sharp crack that is his head hitting the bar floor. Then, oblivion.

Cas comes back on a Thursday.

Before this, it's the week since Bobby....and it's been overtime. They're always working. They're not thinking. They've wasted three spirits, two ghouls, and a snake man in a pear tree. Well, maple, but it's nearing the holidays, and everywhere they damn go there are Christmas carols being yodeled over loudspeakers.

There are cardboard angel cut-outs in the current shopping center, which are innocent and inaccurate as Hell in a way that offends Dean on a fundamental level. He kicks one over and none of the passersby say anything. He stares down another, willing Sam to get back with the coffee already so they can escape the infernal rendition of Silent Night that underlies the crowd noise, and the families passing in matching smiles who have holiday plans that don't include cleaning an arsenal and toasting to fallen companions.

"Do you feel a rage inside you? Do you feel anger that no act of violence or lust can quench?"

Dean pivots to address the speaker, feeling gritty. It's a middle-aged woman in a Christmas sweater onto which are pinned a multitude of buttons with motivational slogans. You can do it and This is your turning point.

"No," he baldly replies.

She smiles in a way that makes him feel like if there's anyone used to fielding punches, it's her. She knows he's lying.

"I'm not interested," he says.

She launches into a prepared spiel. "Sometimes we must look at our lives and hold ourselves accountable for our emotions. Only then can we make positive strides and have fulfilling, healthy relationships."

He sees Sam emerge from the coffee shop with two paper cups and gets that accompanying welling of relief. He frowns at the woman, who is still wasting her time. "Look sister, don't you have a pulpit or something? A conference hall with a bunch of yuppies just dying to improve their lives?"

Her face falls, and her eyes fill with tears. "We did."

Oh, Jesus, Dean thinks, but at least she doesn't actually start crying. And there's a story here. He kicks himself but asks anyway, "And?"

"It was called the Center for Vibrational Enlightenment. The building was struck by lightning in September."

"It happens."

"But other centers for motivational speaking were struck by lightning on the same day. And it's just...I was late to the lecture and I saw a man just outside."

Despite his being wholly uninterested, Dean's spidey senses are tingly, saying there's a case here, or at least something he's supposed to be taking note of.

"A man?" he asks. Sam arrives and silently hands him a paper cup.

The woman is caught up in her story, rolling her fliers between worried hands. "Yes. He looked angry, and when he pointed at the building, that's when the lightning struck."

When they've offered proper condolences and well-wishes, they back away, and Dean mutters, "Well, what do you think about that?"

Sam takes a sip of his peppermint mocha situation and says, "There are bound to be vestiges of Cas everywhere, Dean. He pulled a lot of shit."

There's whipped cream on Sam's nose and a tired expression on his face.

"You're right," Dean says. "It's not like it's a sign or anything."

They're in a liquor store soon after. It's two weeks since Bobby was shot, mid-December in Kansas City, and Dean's loading what feels like the whole shelf of Slim Jims into his basket while Sam walks the aisles, grabbing bottles.

There's been no sign of Dick or the rest of the Leviathan for two weeks. They're going to barricade themselves in their motel room and watch a few westerns. It feels like they're holing up for the winter. Sam takes a six pack of Sam Adams winter lager out of a fridge, and one Calvaderos off a shelf, and two dusty handles of whiskey by the neck.

"This all for you?" Dean hears the clerk ask when Sam clunks them onto the counter.

"Nah," Sam says. "Me and my brother."

"Sure it is."

Dean can hear Sam's incredulity. "Dude, I could not drink this by myself."

Dean makes his way to the front and snags three bags of Funyons while he's at it.

"This your brother?" the guy asks. He starts ringing them up. One Slim Jim after the next.

Sam says, "Yeah."

"Huh. Even between the two of you- Well, never mind. Used to be a time I'd tell you to watch the amount you drink, around the holidays especially-"

"Hey!" says Dean. "What's it to you?"

"-but I've seen some pretty weird shit since then, so no comment."

Sam hands over a card, frowning. The man runs it. It's a new one.

They're almost out the door when Sam turns. "Wait," he says. "I gotta know. You said 'weird shit.' What's that supposed to mean?"

"About two years back, guy comes in and starts pulling bottles off shelves," the clerk says. "One by one, he drinks them, like they're water. I say hey, you gotta pay for those. Know what he did? He comes right up to me and pokes me in the forehead. Next thing I know, it's two hours later, I'm waking up behind the counter and I stand up, and he's gone."

"So? Guy goes off the wagon and knocks you out. Wrong place, wrong time." Dean is eager to get back to the motel.

"Thing is," the clerk says. "All the bottles were still there, but they were empty. Completely empty. Like he drank the whole place. Never heard of anything like it."

It's funny, so they laugh.

"Freaking angel," Dean says.

It's five hours before Cas returns, three weeks since Bobby's death, and Sam and Dean are at Lady of Serenity Church. They are down to using their last set of fakes, no thanks to Frank, who burnt their constructed identities right along with their badges. It's five hours before Cas returns, and the reverend won't meet Dean's eye as he says, "He made a lot of false claims and frightened my congregation."

This job is so lame, some guy complaining about a man who interrupted church service. He is the kind of person they come across on this job who Dean feels loath to help, just on sight.

Dean says, "What good is the American way if you can't just sue the bastard?"

Sam shrugs, agreeing, "My partner has a point. If you think he was a phony, why not just go down to the station and have them put out an APB."

"It's the pews," the reverend says, and when he leads them to the back closet they see that there are two pews shoved in on their sides. There are glowing hand prints burnt into the wood. "The damn things won't go out. They're not hot to the touch. I'm worried that if I dispose of them, I'll incur the wrath of God."

Now they're onto something, and although it's definitely supernatural, it's not shaping up to be a case. It's more of a hit and run, with no apparent danger of this happening again.

"Can you tell us what this man looks like?"

By way of answer, the reverend turns and points to the far wall. There is a row of stained glass windows, and at first Dean is going to ask his question again, but then he sees it.

He grips a pew himself. "Well I'll be a whore in-"

It's like the final straw - figure of speech; as far as Sam and Dean have experienced, the straws will just keep piling - because there is St. Peter, and there is a saintly rendition of the angel Gabriel that makes Dean want to laugh in a hollow sort of despair...and then, at the very end like he's been hiding there in plain sight, for the idle examination of churched-out youth and for the pious to look upon with respect, is Cas.

By this point, Sam has whirled to see what Dean's gawping at.

"Holy-" he starts.

It's Cas, clear as day - a real, live, verisimilitude of Cas, wrought of colored glass and iron piping. The image is glowing gold with the bright sunlight of winter which filters in something coy.

"Tell me I'm not seeing things."

Sam says, "Oh, we're seeing something, all right."

Dean steps right up to the wall so he's staring at Cas's trenchcoat and the cell phone gripped in his hand. He can't say it. His voice would come out broken, like a prayer. Nothing would happen, no flutter of wings or billow of trenchcoat. He hasn't said Cas's name since the lake.

They keep stumbling on shit like this, and Dean has watched the news report on YouTube fifty times by now so that he's starting to feel like that lady, saying, "He was young...he had a raincoat." He's felt like putting an APB out himself, but it's all BS; law enforcement don't know their heads from their asses, not when it's not written down in the book.

He's still standing there, and he notes the reverend saying something behind him, something more or less asking, "Is he okay?"

Sam takes the reins on this one, his voice shaken but firm. "Father, would you join my brother and I for a drink?"

Two hunters, a reverend, and a bottle of Jack are soon sitting at a bar. The reverend claims God exists and he walks the earth, he's maybe seen him once himself. One hunter lays out all the evidence to the contrary on the sticky bar table, the bitter taste of whiskey between his teeth, while the second shares a beer with the devil.

You can't tell if the joke's good or bad or a lazy attempt until the punchline.

Cas comes back on a Thursday. Relatedly, Dean gets punched in the face.

They've returned to the motel. This much is clear from the smell and light of the place, whatever Dean can tell with his eyes closed. By his measure, he is stretched out in the sinky bed whose springs went out a long time ago, and the sounds in the room are about as far from the boisterous clash of bar conversation as can be. He is woozy and dipping in and out of consciousness while Sam and Cas's voices murmur like the best ambient noise.

He can't focus on them enough to hear what's being said, but his whole standard for happiness lowered a long time ago to whether or not the voices exist in the first place, so he's good. He wiggles his toes just to make sure they move and, when he's got an affirmative on that, he burrows his face into the stiff pillowcase and gives up on listening, just sinking into the warmth of the existence of a bed.

Yeah, he's good.

When he wakes up again it feels like a few hours later. Everything hurts only minimally, but the area around his jaw is a doozy. A hand comes to brush his hair off his forehead, and then he's out again.

When he finally opens his eyes, Sam and Cas are across the room, talking in low voices still, the TV now on.

He groans, rubbing his temple, replaying the last thing he remembers: the bar, Cas inexplicably in his shirtsleeves. "Tell me I did not faint."

Cas obliges. "You did not faint."

"Are you lying? Sam, is he lying?" Dean Winchester does not faint. Except that one time.

Sam's got an ankle crossed over one knee and he looks relaxed, like he hasn't since Bobby. "No, man. The good reverend freaked when he saw Cas and decked you. Maybe he thought we were pulling one over on him, seeing as Cas is the one who almost killed him."

"Right hook from a man of the lord. Something you don't expect every day." Dean lifts a hand and fingers his jaw, gingerly, feeling the bruise that's bloomed out under his stubble. "So it was you who burnt the padre's benches?"

"I stand by my actions," Cas says. "He was a hypocrite."

Dean looks him over. He doesn't even want to hope. He moves to sit up, but Sam's next to him real quick. He doesn't let Dean get out of bed, but Dean is allowed to lean up against the headboard. Cas sits on the bed opposite as well and Dean looks at him, feeling inexplicably betrayed.

"Cas," he says.

"Dean."

"Well, what are you waiting for, can't zap it better?"

"That would not be wise. I'd prefer to only heal you when it's a matter of you dying, or if you have massive internal bleeding."

"This the same bullshit you told me when Sam was sick a couple years back?"

Cas inclines his head. "It's as I said before. The common cold gives the body exercise in fighting to survive, building up immunity. It's a necessary experience."

"And concussions?"

"Were I a doctor I'd prescribe a hot drink and bed rest. But I don't believe you have a concussion."

The conversation is so pedestrian Dean thinks, this is probably a dream. But then, it never is, not when he thinks it might be.

"How many fingers am I holding up," Sam asks. He's got both hands tying his shoelaces.

"Shaddup." Dean is tentatively feeling better by the second. It's something he can't even begrudge himself, it's like he wants to get up and smell the roses, rather than lie here and hope for the next day. Cas looks placidly at his own hands and Dean asks, "Where the hell have you been, Cas?"

"Traveling the country's waterways, presumably."

"You sunk into the water like a monster in an 80s horror movie." When he says the words it's like seeing it on the back of his eyelids all over again, like he's been doing, on replay. Even though Cas is sitting right here, that doesn't seem to matter, like Dean's mind has yet to catch up to what he's seeing. He hasn't even finished mourning yet. "Sam and I, we'd given up."

Cas inclines his head.

Birds chirp outside and there is the sound of honking because they're near the main drag, in the middle of a city that's strung out at the edge of the holidays. Cas is bathed in blue snow light as he says, "It's good to see you too, Dean."

Suddenly it's really hot inside and if they're out of drinks, which they are, Dean at least needs fresh air.

He swings his legs out of the bed and waves off Sam's noise of outrage. "Man's gotta eat, Sammy."

His brother sighs. "Well, we're in Chicago, right? Let's get some pizza."

"Now we're talking."

The car's parked in front of their room, which reminds him. He pulls his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the passenger door, and reaches in to open the glove compartment.

"Here," he says, and hands Cas the bundle of his trenchcoat, laundered so it didn't stink up the car with the muck of lake water and squid monsters.

"Oh." Cas's expression isn't nostalgic as he shrugs it on. Sam looks pleased, though, and Dean feels like some wrong in the world has been righted.

The chill outside is bracing. The three of them trudge down the wet sidewalk, skirting pathetic piles of snow from that morning, when the sky had let forth a half inch that froze where it fell.

Sam is doing that thing where he's excited and doesn't know how to let it out, so he's babbling and then shutting up completely, at intervals. Sometimes he asks Cas about how he feels, whether he remembers anything about the Leviathan. Cas is answering like it's no big thing.

"Do you happen to know what the Leviathan are planning?"

"No."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember sinking into the lake. After that, it was nothing. And then, I awoke. And then I knew where you were."

"We did say your name. So, you don't know who brought you back?"

"I can only assume that God willed it. I admit, it is surprising, given how sorely mistaken I was about Purgatory."

A fat man in a Santa suit rings a bell on the street corner, accepting change for the Salvation Army. There are the requisite decorations that spring up in the weeks leading up to Christmas, after the abrupt end of Thanksgiving: metallic wreathes hanging off lamp posts, the odd appliance in the window display, festooned with a bow. Heat puffs out of street gratings and slush crunches beneath Dean's boots. He wonders if Cas notices the wet that's doubtless soaking through his loafers, or if that's a human worry translated into common sense.

They reach a pizzeria named Charlie's. Sam takes one look at Dean and makes a beeline for the counter instead of waiting to be seated. It's fine, Dean just wants some deep dish; he doesn't care how he has it.

They order two large, one pepperoni and one garlic mushroom. Cas stands, unmoved by the smell of fresh dough and melting cheeses, while Dean feels like this might be the undoing of him. Suddenly it is too surreal, with diners around them, and Cas standing in their midst like he never left.

When they've gotten their order to-go in greasy boxes and push out into the brisk world, it's started to snow. It feels like that dream Dean sometimes has, where it's a free Saturday afternoon, only better, because now he is awake.

As he listens to Sam and Cas talk, how their conversation falls, like always, along two different grains that don't really match up, Dean has this desperate urge to grab Cas to him, to nick him with a silver blade. That's not that crazy, except that Sam's already done it, when Dean was out cold. How is Cas even here? Dean wants to make absolutely certain it's him. He can't suffer another blow like the last. He wants to rub salt against Cas's skin and pull off his own shirt right here on the street to bare the hand print which is burned there like a lock, like maybe he'll know for certain if Cas just fits his palm to it.

"What's next, Cas?" Sam is saying, because someone's gotta ask.

"I suppose I'll return to Heaven. Misled though I may have been, it does not change the fact that it is utter chaos upstairs. With Raphael dead, there must be someone to...clean up messes."

Dean knocks their shoulders together at this; yeah, there's no way he can pull the hand print thing. He says, "You know, our jobs aren't that different. We're rounding 'em up, one by one."

"Or by the battalion," says Cas. "As the case may be. But no more smiting."

"That's good, Cas. Real good."

Dean's head has started to ache something fierce and Sam yanks a pill bottle out of Dean's jacket pocket with a scowl, like he's upset to find it there, upset that he's telling Dean to take one pill, even two.

"You're going to lie down the rest of the afternoon," Sam tells him, stern.

"Yes, boss."

He can't wait until they get back to the room. One does not just walk holding a hot pizza like this. Accordingly, he opens the box and grabs a slice, which threatens to fall apart in his hand. He takes a bite but then puts the slice back, trying to breathe out hot steam, freaked by how close he was to burning the top of his mouth, which would have ruined everything. A rookie mistake.

"I used to think freedom was like a rope," Cas tells them later, when they've sat down on beds and Sam's flipped through every channel while taking reasonably sized bites of his second slice. Dean has already finished at least six, and has now broken open a bag of Funyons.

There's nothing on but infomercials selling bath mats and Christmas movies featuring claymation reindeer. Dean is waiting for the hard stuff to hit, now that he's been revived by the bite of winter and a helping of pizza. Most of his concentration is centered on the dull throb at the side of his face and the way his neck has gone stiff. He feels stupid and alive.

"And?" he asks, when it seems Cas might have finished his thought.

"Now I think it's more like a paper bag."

"Oh yeah, Cas?" says Sam, and catches Dean's eye over the dark head between them. He shrugs as if to say, I don't know either, man and Dean smirks, although it's probably overly fond. Angels.

"Yes," Cas says. "There's a certain collapsable quality to freedom. Once you have choice, you have the wrong and the right choice available to you in equal measure."

And all at once it hits him. The pain medication, that is. "Hey," he asks. "Here's a question."

Cas tilts his head.

"All these things we've been seeing over the past few weeks. If they were coincidence, I just don't even know."

"Signs," Sam tells him. "They were signs."

"Oh come on," Dean says.

"God works in mysterious ways."

God's not here, he wants to say again. But his face feels weird and he gets an eerie suspicion and the words don't leave his mouth.

"Yeah, whatever," he says instead, and throws his legs up onto the bed, boots still on, shoving down the feeling.

Sam flips the channel on the TV again, because it's gone to static, and then Dean passes the Funyons to him, over Cas, who has yet to disappear.

It's two days before Christmas. Two men and an angel are hanging out in a run-down motel room, with nothing on TV and enough free will to go around.

The joke is a good one.