Unexpected Destinies Chapter 71
Title: Unexpected Destinies
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 2,287
Summary: Dean fulfils his Christmas promise to Cas.
PAST
"Okay, here we are," Dean said, turning off the engine and turning to look at his lover.
Castiel looked petrified, or as petrified as Dean had ever seen him including that time he'd taken his angel to the brothel before facing Raphael. The expression nearly made him laugh, but he managed to bite it back just in time, not wanting to discourage his lover. This was going to be Castiel's first time driving after all and he got that angels didn't generally have to learn how to do things even if this particular angel had some experience with that as of late.
"Maybe this is not such a good idea," Castiel stated, turning worried eyes towards him.
"Nonsense, this is an awesome idea!"
"But your car."
As Castiel said it, his angel looked down and practically stroked the Impala's dashboard in a way that made Dean smile.
"She'll be fine," Dean stated confidently. "Look around, we're in the middle of an empty parking lot with nothing to hit and no other cars around."
"Except the lampposts."
"Castiel."
The use of his lover's full name worked as his angel looked back up at him with wide eyes. The genuine worry he could detect in those blue depths gave Dean pause.
"Hey," Dean said, sliding across the bench so he could take Castiel's face in his hands. "It's okay."
Dean gave his lover a quick kiss and he decided to change tactics. He'd try a different type of reason first and if that didn't work, he wasn't above being a bit sneaky and manipulative about it, not when he knew for sure that Castiel really wanted to learn how to drive. His angel had been excited about it at all other times like whenever he'd explained things.
"Look, I taught Sam how to drive in the Impala and trust me, when it came to driving, the Sasquatch used to have two left feet," Dean said and caught the frown of confusion on his lover's face. "It means he was really bad at it."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yeah, he nearly gave me a heart attack on more then one occasion, but everything worked out in the end. Now, if Sam can do it with nothing, then I know that you can do it with everything you grabbed from my mind."
"There is a difference between knowing and doing," Castiel argued.
"Sure, but you already know more then any human would in this kind of scenario."
That seemed to reach Castiel and Dean smiled encouragingly when his angel looked at him closely.
"Very well, I shall give it a try."
"Great, now I've got something for you that I made last night when you got called away," Dean stated as he reached into his pocket. "Here you go, your very own driver's license."
Castiel took the card Dean handed him and looked at it with a confused frown. He had used the double of the photo he'd taken of his lover when he'd made him his FBI badge way back when. Luckily for them, Castiel hadn't aged a day since then.
"Is something wrong?" Dean asked. "If you're going to drive, then you need to have a license just in case you get pulled over by the cops for any reason."
"I would not break any laws of the road."
"Oh we'll see about that, but you still need one as they just sometimes stop people randomly to check that they're wearing their seatbelts or possess a valid license."
"I would not possess such a one."
"That's okay, they'll never be able to tell this one's a fake. I've had a lot of practice forging these."
"Can we not simply get me a real one?"
"Nope, absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"'Cause in order to do that, you'd need identification that you don't have and a home address which you don't have and all kinds of other things that we just don't have. Well, not unless I forge them, but that would just be defeating the whole point."
"I see."
Dean frowned as he observed his lover. Something else was going on here as well. "Cas, what is it?"
"You put down Novak after my name."
"Well, yeah, humans have at least two names and I figured Novak was something you'd remember easily if you ever needed to use it."
"Then why did you not use Winchester?"
"Winchester?" Dean repeated in surprise. "You want my name?"
"It would have been made more sense."
"Yeah, except for the part where it would have caused nothing but trouble. Look, Cas, I don't know how much of my past you're aware of, but Sam and I have gotten into much more then our fair share of legal trouble over the years. This peaked shortly before I went to Hell and while it's true that the FBI now think that Sam and I are dead, it'd just be asking for trouble to put Winchester on your driver's license when the only car you'd be driving is the Impala. You never know if we'd run across the one cop who remembers the old wanted posters or sketches of me."
As had happened with Michael just the other day, Castiel's mood darkened at the mention of cops being after him and Dean smiled a little. To him it was kind of a given that he was seen as being on the wrong side of the law by cops and agents, that was just part and parcel of being a hunter, but for the angels in his life it was clearly an affront to the natural order of things. If only the world worked the way they sometimes thought it should. Although, on second thought, given some of the assumptions and opinions he'd heard angels confess to, perhaps it was actually a really, really, really good thing that it didn't.
"I see," Castiel said tightly. "Then Novak will suffice as I have no wish to endanger you in any way."
"Okay, great," Dean replied, not letting himself think too deeply on exactly why his lover's desire to be called Winchester had affected him so deeply. "Let's get started then. First off, we need to exchange places," he continued, reaching past his angel for the door handle.
Before he could touch it, however, Castiel disappeared in a flutter of wings and Dean didn't need to turn around to know that his lover was now seated before the wheel. "Or we could do it your way," he stated with a smile.
While Castiel familiarized himself with the various parts of the Impala needed to actually drive her, Dean shifted around so he was sitting with his back against the passenger side door. He hadn't been kidding with what he'd said earlier and he didn't truly anticipate needing to react quickly to intervene with something his lover did, unlike what had happened so frequently when Sam had been learning how to drive. His hardheaded brother had been absolutely convinced that he knew how to do everything better just because he and Dad disobeyed the rules of the road so often. God, his little brother really had been a know-it-all and a goody-too-shoes back then, hadn't he? And the worst thing as far as he was concerned was that Sam still truly believed himself to be that righteous and just even now after everything that he'd done. It was enough to make him feel sick these days. Self-righteous was more like it and he kinda hated how long it had taken him to come to see that. It was a failing of his own that he was determined to correct.
It had taken Dean a painfully long time to come to that decision even after he'd come to see Sam as he really was instead of as how he'd always wanted his little brother to be, but he knew that it was the right one for him. Castiel had been correct when he'd said that part of the reason why Sam was able to hurt him over and over again was because he let his brother do that to him. He was constantly forgiving Sam far too easily and allowing him close again without ever demanding that his brother prove that he'd actually changed and thus he left himself wide open for the next betrayal whenever the mood or situation struck Sam as calling for it. Well that ended now. He didn't deserve that, not after everything he'd done for his brother over the years and most definitely not after everything that he'd sacrificed for Sam. He'd sold his fucking soul for Heaven's sake, surely that deserved some recognition and loyalty of his own at the very least!
But no, not from Sam Winchester, holiest of the holy. Hell, though his brother had bitched and moaned about what Dean had done in the year leading up to his stint in Hell, his brother had practically treated it as his due afterwards, hardly even noticing that he was back at times. Instead Sam had followed his chosen path of revenge with a vengeance. And revenge for what? Not for him, he was now sure of that, because if it had been, then his brother would have eased off of it when he'd returned and been less enthused about the whole thing then Sam. What exactly had been driving his brother back then, he still wasn't fully sure, but he had the nasty feeling that that particular revelation was kept only just out of his reach by his own inability to fully accept it just yet. If that really was the case, then it would come on its own when the time was right, but he wasn't going to waste precious time chasing after it now, not when he had far better things to focus his attention on.
The soft, caring look Castiel was giving him told Dean that his angel had at least guessed the nature of his preoccupation if not more. He shook his head slightly to indicate that he wasn't ready to talk about it and, not surprisingly with his lover but a miracle compared to the reaction he'd have gotten from Sam, Castiel dropped the issue for now.
"Ready to give it a go?" Dean asked instead.
The sudden return of nervousness told Dean that Castiel still wasn't as confident in his own abilities as he himself was, but he let it slide for now. Only experience would cure his lover of that and since Castiel was pulling out the key he'd given his angel at Christmas, he knew that his lover was about to get just that.
"Talk me through it, Cas."
"First I need to insert the key into the ignition while depressing the brake with my right foot," Castiel began. "Then I need to turn the key to start the engine."
"Good so far."
"Once that has been accomplished, I am required to put the Impala into drive from park, ensure that I have a good grip on the wheel and slowly ease my foot off of the brake."
"Yep, excellent," Dean praised easily. "Why don't you try exactly that and get a feel for how she moves on her own without you touching the gas pedal just yet."
After a moment's hesitation, his lover began to do just that with a nervous flutter of his feathers. The movement instantly drew Dean's eyes back to Castiel's wings and he winced once more at the sight of them protruding from the Impala's seats and out her sides. It wasn't that he was concerned for his baby, but rather that it looked uncomfortable as hell for his angel. Castiel had assured him earlier that it wasn't, that it felt like there was nothing there as far as his wings were concerned, but he couldn't help his instinctive reaction. Clearly it was going to take a while for him to get used to the incorporeal nature of angel wings when it came to anything other then his hands or another angel, even if he had first hand experience with the complete lack of sensation from them when really they should have told him that they were being brushed up against furniture and other things.
Pretty much as Dean had predicted, his lover gained confidence in his own driving skills quickly as he walked Castiel through a variety of exercises of increasing complexity. All too soon they were moving around the empty parking lot in complicated maneuvers and after a quick check that his lover had the most important rules of the road at the top of his mind, he told Castiel to hit the road. Half an hour after that, he felt confident enough to pull out his box of cassette tapes knowing that music wouldn't be too much of a distraction.
"What do you want to listen to?" Dean asked, intensely curious for once about the answer to this particular question.
Whenever he'd allowed Sam to drive, Dean had always dreaded this moment or outright avoided it as he just knew what kind of crap he'd be subjected to. Heck, the mere act of pulling out the box had always been a desperate ploy to get Sam to chose something that he actually liked enough to own a tape of instead of having the radio turned on to some shitty pop rock station. Now, however, he really didn't have the first clue as to what to expect and it excited him. What was his lover's taste in music like?
"What was the one you were playing last month when we hunted the wendigo?"
"Led Zeppelin," Dean replied with a smile as he dug the tape in question out. "Good choice!"
A.N.: Just a quick note to all you anonymous reviewers. Obviously I have no problem with you chosing to comment that way as I enabled the option, but I just wanted to point out that I reply to all comments, so if you leave a question for me, you might want to check back for my answer.
Also, does anyone know what happened to LJ yesterday? It simply wasn't there when I wanted to post this chapter.
Chapter 72
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including Exile on Main St., AU from the end of season 5
Warnings: AU, slash
Word Count: 2,287
Summary: Dean fulfils his Christmas promise to Cas.
PAST
"Okay, here we are," Dean said, turning off the engine and turning to look at his lover.
Castiel looked petrified, or as petrified as Dean had ever seen him including that time he'd taken his angel to the brothel before facing Raphael. The expression nearly made him laugh, but he managed to bite it back just in time, not wanting to discourage his lover. This was going to be Castiel's first time driving after all and he got that angels didn't generally have to learn how to do things even if this particular angel had some experience with that as of late.
"Maybe this is not such a good idea," Castiel stated, turning worried eyes towards him.
"Nonsense, this is an awesome idea!"
"But your car."
As Castiel said it, his angel looked down and practically stroked the Impala's dashboard in a way that made Dean smile.
"She'll be fine," Dean stated confidently. "Look around, we're in the middle of an empty parking lot with nothing to hit and no other cars around."
"Except the lampposts."
"Castiel."
The use of his lover's full name worked as his angel looked back up at him with wide eyes. The genuine worry he could detect in those blue depths gave Dean pause.
"Hey," Dean said, sliding across the bench so he could take Castiel's face in his hands. "It's okay."
Dean gave his lover a quick kiss and he decided to change tactics. He'd try a different type of reason first and if that didn't work, he wasn't above being a bit sneaky and manipulative about it, not when he knew for sure that Castiel really wanted to learn how to drive. His angel had been excited about it at all other times like whenever he'd explained things.
"Look, I taught Sam how to drive in the Impala and trust me, when it came to driving, the Sasquatch used to have two left feet," Dean said and caught the frown of confusion on his lover's face. "It means he was really bad at it."
"Oh. Really?"
"Yeah, he nearly gave me a heart attack on more then one occasion, but everything worked out in the end. Now, if Sam can do it with nothing, then I know that you can do it with everything you grabbed from my mind."
"There is a difference between knowing and doing," Castiel argued.
"Sure, but you already know more then any human would in this kind of scenario."
That seemed to reach Castiel and Dean smiled encouragingly when his angel looked at him closely.
"Very well, I shall give it a try."
"Great, now I've got something for you that I made last night when you got called away," Dean stated as he reached into his pocket. "Here you go, your very own driver's license."
Castiel took the card Dean handed him and looked at it with a confused frown. He had used the double of the photo he'd taken of his lover when he'd made him his FBI badge way back when. Luckily for them, Castiel hadn't aged a day since then.
"Is something wrong?" Dean asked. "If you're going to drive, then you need to have a license just in case you get pulled over by the cops for any reason."
"I would not break any laws of the road."
"Oh we'll see about that, but you still need one as they just sometimes stop people randomly to check that they're wearing their seatbelts or possess a valid license."
"I would not possess such a one."
"That's okay, they'll never be able to tell this one's a fake. I've had a lot of practice forging these."
"Can we not simply get me a real one?"
"Nope, absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"'Cause in order to do that, you'd need identification that you don't have and a home address which you don't have and all kinds of other things that we just don't have. Well, not unless I forge them, but that would just be defeating the whole point."
"I see."
Dean frowned as he observed his lover. Something else was going on here as well. "Cas, what is it?"
"You put down Novak after my name."
"Well, yeah, humans have at least two names and I figured Novak was something you'd remember easily if you ever needed to use it."
"Then why did you not use Winchester?"
"Winchester?" Dean repeated in surprise. "You want my name?"
"It would have been made more sense."
"Yeah, except for the part where it would have caused nothing but trouble. Look, Cas, I don't know how much of my past you're aware of, but Sam and I have gotten into much more then our fair share of legal trouble over the years. This peaked shortly before I went to Hell and while it's true that the FBI now think that Sam and I are dead, it'd just be asking for trouble to put Winchester on your driver's license when the only car you'd be driving is the Impala. You never know if we'd run across the one cop who remembers the old wanted posters or sketches of me."
As had happened with Michael just the other day, Castiel's mood darkened at the mention of cops being after him and Dean smiled a little. To him it was kind of a given that he was seen as being on the wrong side of the law by cops and agents, that was just part and parcel of being a hunter, but for the angels in his life it was clearly an affront to the natural order of things. If only the world worked the way they sometimes thought it should. Although, on second thought, given some of the assumptions and opinions he'd heard angels confess to, perhaps it was actually a really, really, really good thing that it didn't.
"I see," Castiel said tightly. "Then Novak will suffice as I have no wish to endanger you in any way."
"Okay, great," Dean replied, not letting himself think too deeply on exactly why his lover's desire to be called Winchester had affected him so deeply. "Let's get started then. First off, we need to exchange places," he continued, reaching past his angel for the door handle.
Before he could touch it, however, Castiel disappeared in a flutter of wings and Dean didn't need to turn around to know that his lover was now seated before the wheel. "Or we could do it your way," he stated with a smile.
While Castiel familiarized himself with the various parts of the Impala needed to actually drive her, Dean shifted around so he was sitting with his back against the passenger side door. He hadn't been kidding with what he'd said earlier and he didn't truly anticipate needing to react quickly to intervene with something his lover did, unlike what had happened so frequently when Sam had been learning how to drive. His hardheaded brother had been absolutely convinced that he knew how to do everything better just because he and Dad disobeyed the rules of the road so often. God, his little brother really had been a know-it-all and a goody-too-shoes back then, hadn't he? And the worst thing as far as he was concerned was that Sam still truly believed himself to be that righteous and just even now after everything that he'd done. It was enough to make him feel sick these days. Self-righteous was more like it and he kinda hated how long it had taken him to come to see that. It was a failing of his own that he was determined to correct.
It had taken Dean a painfully long time to come to that decision even after he'd come to see Sam as he really was instead of as how he'd always wanted his little brother to be, but he knew that it was the right one for him. Castiel had been correct when he'd said that part of the reason why Sam was able to hurt him over and over again was because he let his brother do that to him. He was constantly forgiving Sam far too easily and allowing him close again without ever demanding that his brother prove that he'd actually changed and thus he left himself wide open for the next betrayal whenever the mood or situation struck Sam as calling for it. Well that ended now. He didn't deserve that, not after everything he'd done for his brother over the years and most definitely not after everything that he'd sacrificed for Sam. He'd sold his fucking soul for Heaven's sake, surely that deserved some recognition and loyalty of his own at the very least!
But no, not from Sam Winchester, holiest of the holy. Hell, though his brother had bitched and moaned about what Dean had done in the year leading up to his stint in Hell, his brother had practically treated it as his due afterwards, hardly even noticing that he was back at times. Instead Sam had followed his chosen path of revenge with a vengeance. And revenge for what? Not for him, he was now sure of that, because if it had been, then his brother would have eased off of it when he'd returned and been less enthused about the whole thing then Sam. What exactly had been driving his brother back then, he still wasn't fully sure, but he had the nasty feeling that that particular revelation was kept only just out of his reach by his own inability to fully accept it just yet. If that really was the case, then it would come on its own when the time was right, but he wasn't going to waste precious time chasing after it now, not when he had far better things to focus his attention on.
The soft, caring look Castiel was giving him told Dean that his angel had at least guessed the nature of his preoccupation if not more. He shook his head slightly to indicate that he wasn't ready to talk about it and, not surprisingly with his lover but a miracle compared to the reaction he'd have gotten from Sam, Castiel dropped the issue for now.
"Ready to give it a go?" Dean asked instead.
The sudden return of nervousness told Dean that Castiel still wasn't as confident in his own abilities as he himself was, but he let it slide for now. Only experience would cure his lover of that and since Castiel was pulling out the key he'd given his angel at Christmas, he knew that his lover was about to get just that.
"Talk me through it, Cas."
"First I need to insert the key into the ignition while depressing the brake with my right foot," Castiel began. "Then I need to turn the key to start the engine."
"Good so far."
"Once that has been accomplished, I am required to put the Impala into drive from park, ensure that I have a good grip on the wheel and slowly ease my foot off of the brake."
"Yep, excellent," Dean praised easily. "Why don't you try exactly that and get a feel for how she moves on her own without you touching the gas pedal just yet."
After a moment's hesitation, his lover began to do just that with a nervous flutter of his feathers. The movement instantly drew Dean's eyes back to Castiel's wings and he winced once more at the sight of them protruding from the Impala's seats and out her sides. It wasn't that he was concerned for his baby, but rather that it looked uncomfortable as hell for his angel. Castiel had assured him earlier that it wasn't, that it felt like there was nothing there as far as his wings were concerned, but he couldn't help his instinctive reaction. Clearly it was going to take a while for him to get used to the incorporeal nature of angel wings when it came to anything other then his hands or another angel, even if he had first hand experience with the complete lack of sensation from them when really they should have told him that they were being brushed up against furniture and other things.
Pretty much as Dean had predicted, his lover gained confidence in his own driving skills quickly as he walked Castiel through a variety of exercises of increasing complexity. All too soon they were moving around the empty parking lot in complicated maneuvers and after a quick check that his lover had the most important rules of the road at the top of his mind, he told Castiel to hit the road. Half an hour after that, he felt confident enough to pull out his box of cassette tapes knowing that music wouldn't be too much of a distraction.
"What do you want to listen to?" Dean asked, intensely curious for once about the answer to this particular question.
Whenever he'd allowed Sam to drive, Dean had always dreaded this moment or outright avoided it as he just knew what kind of crap he'd be subjected to. Heck, the mere act of pulling out the box had always been a desperate ploy to get Sam to chose something that he actually liked enough to own a tape of instead of having the radio turned on to some shitty pop rock station. Now, however, he really didn't have the first clue as to what to expect and it excited him. What was his lover's taste in music like?
"What was the one you were playing last month when we hunted the wendigo?"
"Led Zeppelin," Dean replied with a smile as he dug the tape in question out. "Good choice!"
A.N.: Just a quick note to all you anonymous reviewers. Obviously I have no problem with you chosing to comment that way as I enabled the option, but I just wanted to point out that I reply to all comments, so if you leave a question for me, you might want to check back for my answer.
Also, does anyone know what happened to LJ yesterday? It simply wasn't there when I wanted to post this chapter.
Chapter 72