war heroes
Title: War heroes
Author: creepylicious/alles_luege
Pairing: Dean/Lisa, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Summary: Heavy canon based 'read between the lines' look at Dean's and Castiel's relationship during seasons six and seven.
“No,” Dean says, “it isn't us that are doing this.” Castiel can feel his breath on his lips, they're so close. He can taste the desperation on the air every time Dean exhales. “It's you who's burning everything down to the ground.”
His hand digs into Dean's shoulder too hard, he registers it just in the moment Dean makes a soft noise and steps back.
“You don't understand-”
Dean cuts him off, his fingers are like a vice around Castiel's arm. “You don't understand. You are about to lose everything, Cas.”
“I've already lost everything,” Castiel answers, stepping back. “But I'm going to get it back,” he adds and disappears.
Warning(s): canon violence, mentions of sex, spoilers up to S7E17.
Author’s Notes: This is a sequel to Undisclosed desires, but it can be read on its own. Art by dosymedia. I love this art so hard, you guys. It has just the right air of pointlessness of hope. <3
Quotes from SPN season 6/7.
Word Count: 22.195
Beta: skylar_matthews, C.
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real
I. Playing house
~1~
Sometimes Dean remembers. He can't help it. Things are engraved so deep into his skin and bones and brain; his whole body, really. Sometimes he dreams about the things that seemed once important.
He's staring at the road and not at Cas, he doesn't know if it was like this in reality.
Probably, he always sucked at this part. “What are you gonna do now?”
“Return to Heaven, I suppose.”
“Heaven?” And the word still sounds so wrong in his mind, feels bitter on his tongue.
“With Michael in the Cage, I'm sure it's total anarchy up there,” Castiel answers, calmly.
“So, what, you're the new sheriff in town?”
“Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I suppose I am,” Cas says and now, in hindsight he can feel something else seeing that moment. Not all the loss he was feeling at the time, not the anger that wanted out, that was threatening to eat him alive.
“Wow. god gives you a brand-new, shiny set of wings, and suddenly you're his bitch again,” he bites out.
“I don't know what God wants. I don't know if he'll even return. It just... seems like the right thing to do.” Sometimes Dean admires that blind faith Castiel has. Dean lost his faith in the powers that be a long time ago and not even Cas could bring that back.
“Well, if you do see him, you tell him I'm coming for him next,” he replies. Even now in the dream he can feel the hot, blind anger inside him.
“You're angry.”
“That's an understatement.”
“He helped. Maybe even more than we realize,” Castiel answers and he sounds like he's thinking of something just out of his reach. Just there in the corner of his eye, at the tip of his tongue. Dream Dean is too angry to see it, but Dean, now Dean, can. He's had this dream so many times already, that he doesn't even listen to the words anymore. He takes every little detail in instead. Things that he didn't pay attention to at the time. Things that he couldn't even see back then.
“That's easy for you to say. He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where's my grand prize? All I got is my brother in a hole!”
“You got what you asked for, Dean. No paradise. No hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?” Castiel asks. Dean doesn't know. He would like some peace from time to time. Now he has peace, but the things that go bump in the night are still out there. They don't go away because he isn't hunting them anymore. They don't go away because he saved the freaking world and there is no one left who knows about it on earth, except Bobby.
“Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that?” He means it too. He didn't know how to say the right words.
There is so much he didn't say at the time. Don't go, was pretty high on that list. That imaginary list that he keeps inside his head and no one except him has access to. But what would've Castiel done on earth anyway? There were things to do in heaven, if Dean liked it or not. And Cas was the one who volunteered for that job. Took it on, which - same freaking difference.
~+~
Dean wakes up at seven from Monday to Friday (at nine on the weekends) and looks over at Lisa and doesn't think much of anything. He just feels. This is his life now and it's a good life and he loves her. He didn't think, back when she was only a one- night-stand, a notch in his bedpost, (not that he ever could call a bed his own before, not since the day of the fire and Dad taking them, ripping them away from all the rules of humanity), that she would turn out to be the one. On the other hand, he didn't even dream about having a thing for an angel either, but that - well, that isn't something he thinks about much anymore. Too much to do. Lisa and work and Ben. Like Sid said, he is practically respectable. He wonders sometimes when he's sitting in the living room and the TV is on, Ben mugging around and Lisa doing stuff in the kitchen or mugging around with Ben too, if this is what his mom, what Mary, wanted for them. She certainly wanted it for herself at some point. Had it too for a short time.
Dean isn't going further than that. It leads to unpleasant questions, to feelings he'll rather not explore.
~+~
He remembers the day he showed up at her doorstep. All messed up and grieving and still trying to do what he promised Sam he'll do.
She looked beautiful. She looked like an angel. She looked like someone who could save people. Someone who could save him.
It doesn't mean that she really can, just because something looks like something, it doesn't mean it is that said something. He of all people knows that.
“Hey, Lisa.”
“Oh, thank god. Are you all right?” He wasn't, was the thing, he wasn't, but couldn't tell her that. Didn't want to tell her the truth.
“Yeah. Uh, if it's not too late, I... think I'd like to take you up on that beer.” And he didn't have much hope for it either, because she was way too good for him and he knew it.
“It's never too late. It's okay. It's gonna be okay,” she said, letting him in into her life, Ben's life, their life and home and he wanted so desperately to believe every word she just said. So he followed her and then he stayed, because she didn't make him leave, because she wanted him there.
Because he wanted to be with her too.
~2~
Dean isn't stupid. He has instincts and mechanisms that are so deep in his blood he couldn't ever wash them out if he tried. And he isn't trying. He needs this, he knows it. It doesn't matter that he's living an apple pie life like Sam made him promise.
It shouldn't be a surprise that something is coming after him. Something is always coming. This year, this one year with Lisa and Ben was like a vacation, like taking a deep breath before shit hits the fan and it seems - well, it seems things are changing for the worst again.
Dean wants to punch something. Really fucking hard.
~+~
It doesn't help that they don't know shit. It doesn't help that Sam is back a fucking year and that he didn't try to contact Dean until he got fucking poisoned. That he hooked up with people who aren't - well, they are family, but they don't know Sam like Dean does.
~+~
If there is one safe place on the whole freaking planet it's Bobby's. That's where they geared up for the apocalypse, that's where they trapped demons, and Sam. That's where Cas- Dean can't be thinking about Castiel now or what kind of madness they jumped into because the world was fucking ending.
As soon as Sam enters Dean knows. He knows and he is fucking pissed off.
“You knew? You knew Sam was alive.”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Look -” Bobby tries, but Dean isn't fucking interested is the thing. He was expecting better from the person who freaking raised him, them, when Dad was off somewhere hunting things and trying not to get killed.
“How long?!” he says louder.
“All year,” Bobby admits, he isn't quite able to look Dean in the eyes and that in itself speaks freaking volumes, he thinks.
“Oh, you got to be kidding me.”
“And I'd do it again.” Bobby sounds determined.
“Why?!” Because fucking why.
“Because you got out, Dean! You walked away from the life. And I was so damn grateful, you got no idea,” Bobby answers. There's something stubborn in his voice. Something that is a tender worry for them, something Dean doesn't want to hear. Something he doesn't want to hear now.
“Do you have any clue what walking away meant for me?” Everything. Losing everything, starting over and not knowing who he was, because all his life he was Sam's older brother. His brother's keeper.
“Yeah - a woman and a kid and not getting your guts ripped out at age 30. That's what it meant.” Bobby crosses his arms over his chest. It's his no-nonsense voice and posture.
“That woman and that kid - I went to them because you asked me to.” Here he looks at Sam. Who didn't say a freaking word the whole time.
“Good. “
“Good for who? I showed up on their doorstep half out of my head with grief. God knows why they even let me in. I drank too much. I had nightmares. I looked everywhere. I collected hundreds of books, trying to find anything to bust you out.” Another glance at Sam.
“You promised you'd leave it alone,” Sam answers and his voice is too even, Dean thinks.
Like hell he would. In his place Sam would've done the same. Hell, in his place Sam did the freaking same.
“Of course I didn't leave it alone! Sue me! A damn year? You couldn't put me out of my misery?”
“Look, I get it wasn't easy. But that's life! And it's as close to happiness as I've ever seen a hunter get. It ain't like I wanted to lie to you, son. But you were out, Dean,” Bobby says, looking at him. Dean takes a deep breath. All the freaking things they do for each other. All the lies and didn't they do enough already?
“Do I look 'out' to you?” he asks, because if it's coming down to it, that is the question and everyone in this room knows the answer.
This will never be over. Never, because not even death is putting an end to this shit, he thinks bitterly.
~+~
Dean has to take responsibility for his actions. He was raised that way. Dad hammered it into his head at a young age. It was never forgotten.
He waits for her at the end of the stairs. A quiet moment at Bobby's with the woman he loves, and isn't it ironic that the day he makes them meet, he's going to break up with her?
“How's he doing?” he asks.
“He's okay. How are you?” She looks concerned and a part of him still thinks she could save him. Or she could die trying, and that's okay for Sam and him, that's what they do, but he doesn't want that for Lisa or Ben.
“Look, I know Bobby's a little crotchety, but he's great. He's gonna look after you guys. Me and Sam, we're gonna head out.”
“For how long?” She sits down on the stairs, looking up at him.
“I'm so sorry, Lisa.”
“For what?” She asks, like she really doesn't know.
“Those things were coming for me. And I should've known.”
“How could you know a monster was gonna show up?”
He wonders if she only says it to make him feel better. “I should've known. I should've known that if I stayed with you that something would come, because something always does. But I was stupid and reckless and...” he stops, he can't say it, hopes she does know, “You can't outrun your past,” he finishes.
“You're saying goodbye,” she realizes.
Jesus, he used to be so much better at breaking up with woman. He sits down next to her. Soaking up her body heat. “I'm saying I'm sorry... For everything. Everything.”
“You're an idiot. I mean, I know it wasn't greeting-card perfect, but we were in it together.”
“I was a wreck half the time,” he throws in.
“Yeah, well, the guy that basically just saved the world shows up at your door, you expect him to have a couple of issues. And you're always so amazing with Ben. You know what I wanted, more than anything was a guy that Ben could look up to,” she says, “like a dad. So, you're saying it's all bad, Dean? 'Cause it was the best year of my life.”
And what can he say to that?
She isn't going to give up on him yet. Maybe he shouldn't give up on them either.
~+~
“You, uh, you coming with me?” Sam asks after the job is done.
There will be always forces to pull him in different directions. The only thing is to trust his guts and his guts are telling him-
“No. No, I'm going back for Lisa and Ben.”
“I thought you said -”
Dean nods, interrupts: “I did. I changed my mind.”
“Look, I practically shoved you at them.”
“That's a funny way to put it, but alright,” he answers, waiting his brother out.
“I'm just saying, I really wanted that for you. And when I told you to go, I-I thought... You could have it, you know? But now I'm not so sure. I mean, you got to consider the fact that you'll be putting them in danger if you go back.”
“So, what, it's better to leave them alone, unprotected, and then they're not in danger? I did this to them. I made them vulnerable the moment I knocked on their door, and I can't undo that. But what I can do is go with the best option,” he believes it too. As long as Ben and Lisa are going to put up with this crap, put up with him, he's going to stay.
“I hear you. I guess I just, wish you were coming, that's all.”
“Why?”
“Don't be stupid,” Sam answers.
“No, I mean it. I mean, you know plenty of good hunters. I'm rusty. I did something seriously stupid going out there. I almost got us both killed.” Facing up to this shit, he thinks, maybe he can only do that with Sam.
“And that's exactly why I want you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You just went. You didn't hesitate. Because you care, and that's who you are. Me? I wouldn't even think to try.”
“Yes, you would.” Between the two of them Sam's always been the one with the bleeding heart.
“No, Dean. I'm telling you, it's just better with you around. That's all.”
And the way how he says it, Dean thinks, the way. It makes a tinny bell ring in the back of his mind. It's not loud enough to do anything about it and Sam's just freshly out of Hell and Dean remembers everything he's done too. It never goes away. His fingers are itching to hug Sam, but he doesn't. He's sure this wasn't the last thing he's seen of his brother.
After all that's not how they work.
~3~
Moving isn't much fun for Ben, but Lisa just rolls with it. The thing is that Dean is being paranoid and he would like to just lock them up or leave them with Bobby when he isn't there, so no one can get to them.
Lisa of course, because she knows him, because she is smart, calls him on his bullshit.
“What happened? Ben's been locked in his room for hours. Says you yelled at him. What did he do?”
“Nothing,” he answers. It wasn't Ben's fault. Dean just doesn't want this life for Ben, for Lisa. He doesn't want Ben to know how to shoot things that go bump in the night at an age- well, to be honest he doesn't want him to know ever.
“What did you do?” she asks.
“He got into my tools. I shouldn't have got mad,” he admits. He doesn't want to be that kind of father. He doesn't want to be Dad.
“You want to talk about this?”
“About?”
Lisa gives him a look. She isn't buying whatever he's trying to sell her. “Yelling at Ben? Keeping us in the house?”
“I'm trying to keep us safe, here.”
She sighs, or breathes out, it's kind of the same sound. “I'm not arguing, okay. You're the expert. I'm just asking. You said that you and your brother killed whatever was after us. And then we moved just to be sure! So what is it, Dean? A monster? Or monsters in general?”
“I don't know. Something might come,” he says, which is pretty fucking vague and he knows it. Realizes he's going a bit insane here. He just can't stop. He cares for them so much. And he can't turn back time to assure their safety again.
“What?”
Something, anything. It might be just around the corner waiting. “I don't know, I can't predict what's going to come after me.” But he's sure something will. That is something she doesn't get, he thinks.
“Well, I'm going to need some parameters. We have to live our lives here. I mean, at some point I have to work. Ben has school!”
“But if something happens on my watch...” he tries, she cuts him off.
“I know you're trying to protect us, but you're kind of scaring me a little, too.”
He doesn't know how to answer her. Sometimes he scares himself too. He knows she makes him better, but he isn't so sure anymore that he can do the same for her and Ben.
~+~
There is no way in hell he's going on a job involving creepy baby kidnapping creeps and leaving Lisa unprotected. And the best way to make sure she's safe is to make her able to protect herself and Ben. He makes her load and unload the freaking thing a thousand times.
“I've got it. We've been over this.”
“Humor me,” he answers, nodding in the gun's direction.
She gives him a look, but does as he says. “Load clip. Pull slide. Safety off. Safety on.”
“And salt the windows and the doors,” he says again.
“Of course,” she replies.
“Maybe I shouldn't go.”
“It's okay. You want to go, so go,” she answers, putting the gun away.
“You know what, Sam can handle this.” Sam can and he can stay here and look after the woman he's living with and Ben.
“Dean, no offence, but if you don't walk out that door, I'm going to shoot you,” she says.
Dean grabs his duffle bag and zips it closed before throwing the strap over his shoulder.
“I bet you're missing your ex right about now. The uh, the boring one?,” he says.
“God, shut up. Just be careful, okay?”
He nods and then kisses her with all he has to tell her without telling her all the things, all the things between them and how much she means. He thinks she knows, but it's okay to make sure from time to time. He lets go of her and walks out.
He'll be back as soon as he can and in the meantime she'll be fine.
~+~
It's funny, Dean thinks, as he looks at Bobby John, that his first thought as they had to come up with a name on the spot was Bobby, but that Sam's was John, like their father.He puts the baby down and it falls asleep nearly the second his head touches the pillow.
“Huh,” Sam says.
“What?” It never is very good when Sam says 'huh', it's like Velma saying 'Jinkies!'.
“You're just, uh, actually, not awful at that.”
“Dude, I'm barely keeping that thing alive,” Dean says.
“No, no, no, seriously. You've got a whole Dr. Huxtable vibe coming off of you. You're like... father material.” Sam sounds surprised by it. Dean thinks he really shouldn't. He raised Sam with Bobby's help, and he thinks Sam turned out alright. Most of the time he thinks that, that is.
“Yeah, well I kind of had to be lately, you know. Sink or swim, right?” He shrugs.
“You mean with Ben,” Sam says and there's something in his voice Dean doesn't like. He lets it slide.
“Yeah, I mean Ben. I mean, I know he's not my kid, but I don't know, I'm starting to feel like yeah, he is. Then I think about the way we grew up, I don't know, I kind of feel like I have a chance to do something different with Ben, you know?” He didn't have that chance with Sam.
“You sure about that?”
“What do you mean?” he gives back a bit too sharp.
“Look, you clearly care about the kid-”
Dean cuts him off. “But?”
“But moving them around? Keeping them on lockdown? I mean, you do have them on lockdown, right? How is any of that different from how we were raised?”
“So you're saying...” he stops and starts again, because he has no idea where he was going with that anyway. “I'm not shoving anybody into this life, okay? This is temporary,” he settles on.
“Dad always said it was temporary, Dean. He said it for 22 years. Look, I get it. You want to watch out for them. That's great. I'm just asking, how do you do that and not turn into Dad?”
And it's a fucking good question Dean thinks. He doesn't like it, though. He has no answer to it. Yet, he thinks. Maybe he can make it work, maybe they can make it work together.
Dean stays quiet and Sam looks at the papers on the table in front of him again.
~+~
Great Dean thinks, with a look at Bobby John. He kinda likes the little guy, is the thing. He isn't a thing, okay, he is a thing, but it's not - oh hell he has no idea where he’s going with this. Sam interrupts his thoughts and he's grateful for it.
“I didn't even know they had babies. I thought they were just freaks of nature, like X-Men style.”
“You learn something new everyday, huh?”
“I've never seen a baby monster before,” Sam muses.
“Of course it's not really a monster. I mean, it's still just a baby. It's not its fault its dad's a shifter,“ Dean says, he doesn't like where Sam's thoughts are going. He doesn't like it at all. He misses the times when things used to be black and white, good and evil, humans and monsters.
“Right, but it's a shifter, too,” Sam points out, because he's just that kind of pain in the ass.
“Still doesn't change the fact that we've got to look after this thing. I mean, what the hell are we going to do with it? We can't actually drop it off at an orphanage. They might get upset when it turns Asian.”
“Samuel.”
“What?”
“Samuel. He'll know what to do.”
“You want to bring it to a bunch of hunters?” Dean asks. Sam has to be fucking crazy for even suggesting it.
“Not just hunters, Dean. They're our family.”
It's beyond Dean how Sam can even think that. They aren't family, they are just a bunch of strangers who share the same freaking last name. “We don't know them.”
“I do. Not every hunter is a headcase. I mean, Samuel is actually a lot like you.”
“I'm a freaking headcase,” Dean says.
“Well, pitch a better idea then.” Thing is he doesn't have one right now and they are running out of time so he stays silent. “Great! Samuel it is.”
~+~
He should've said Bobby, he thinks after the whole clusterfuck is over. Bobby's would've been a safe place to ride it out. On the plus side he is glad that Christian isn't fucking going to raise an innocent shifter kid to be a hunter and kill his own kind, on the other hand: he's back with his shifter family. And they have an Alpha and Dean is freaking pissed off that they kept him in the dark all the time. He is so done with this shit.
And the worst thing is that he isn't sure anymore he can trust Sam. Sam might have used the baby as bait and the Sam he knows, the Sam he knew, wouldn't ever have done something like that. Shifter kid or not. Something is rotten in Sam-town.
~4~
He wakes up in the Impala and needs a moment to orient himself. He misses Lisa, suddenly, but it passes, because everything always does. She said she's willing to try, said he doesn't want to be with them, that he needs to be out here, hunting things, too. And it's true, he is going to try. He is going to hunt and he's going to go home to her and try to have a life besides bloody monster parts. Cops keep their jobs out of their homes, he can do that.
It's worth a shot. It's worth more than that, to be honest. She is worth it.
~+~
He meets up with Sam, who is becoming pretty bossy and while Sam is looking through crap about the new case he dug up, Dean takes the call from Ben.
“Ben...” he says, “I know you're lying. Because I lie professionally, that's how. Now tell your mom that you broke the damn thing and take it like a man. Okay? Ok-- okay.” He hangs up and Sam gives him a look. One of the: I can't believe this looks.
“Wow.”
“What?” Dean's on the freaking defensive far too much these days with Sam.
“You - molding the minds of tomorrow. Who knew?”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“How'd it go?” Sam asks.
“With?”
“You and Lisa. How'd she take it when you bailed?”
Dean doesn't like how Sam puts it, but whatever. Lately he doesn't like a lot of stuff. “Shockingly cool, actually.”
“Better for everybody,” Sam says.
“Yeah, I suppose,” Dean answers, but it's not. Sam has to know that. “Still driving the plastic piece of crap, huh?”
“What's your mileage, again?” Sam shoots back.
“Shut up.”
~+~
Dean has to admit he doesn't have a better theory either. He might just go with the avenging angel thing here. After all, the cops in question were dirty and they got what they had coming to them, but still there is something out there, or someone who is taking matters in their own hands and it's a heavenly problem, so.
Dean opens a beer and says: “We should call Cas.” It's the only logical move at this stage of the game and he really thinks he can handle it now too.
“You're kidding, right?” Sam answers, scoffing. “Dean, I tried. It was the first and second and third thing I did, soon as I got topside. Son of a bitch won't answer the phone.”
Dean sits down on the bed and looks at Sam. He knows things Sam doesn't. “Well, let's give it a shot. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here.” Maybe this will get his attention, Dean remembers well how Castiel liked, maybe still likes, to watch him sleep.
“You're an idiot,” Sam says.
“Stay positive,” Dean answers with a grin. He is pretty sure Castiel will answer him.
“Oh, I am positive,” Sam says and every word is dripping with sarcasm.
“Come on, Cas! Don't be a dick. We got ourselves a... plague-like situation down here, and... do you...do you copy?” he asks, something like hopeful anger creeping into his voice.
“Like I said... “ Sam says, “son of a bitch doesn't answer-.” He stops suddenly. “He's right behind me, isn't he?”
He fucking is, Dean thinks.
“Hello,” Castiel says and Dean maybe wants to kiss him. Because here they are again in a crappy hotel room and he didn't see a freaking feather of Cas' in over a year. He missed the nerdy angel. He missed his nerdy angel.
“Hello?” Sam asks, unbelievingly.
“Y-yes.” There is a slightly unsure note in his voice. Dean missed that too.
“Hello. Hello?” Sam says mockingly and a bit angrily maybe. Dean finds the whole thing hilarious.
“Uh, that is still the term?” Cas asks.
“I spent all that time trying to get through to you. Dean calls once, and now it's 'Hello'?!” Sam asks again. It doesn't get less funny, Dean thinks.
“Yes,” Castiel says.
“So, what, you - you like him better or something?” Sam asks, scoffing.
Dean sits up a bit straighter.
“Dean and I do share a more profound bond,” Castiel says and then turns to Dean: “I wasn't going mention it.”
Dean feels something tender creeping up inside him. Fuck, but he really did miss Castiel, how he just said things, how everything was new to him, how his lips felt - but he isn't going to go there. Even if Castiel admitting to liking him more brings all of the things back he shared with Cas, what they shared in Bobby's backyard and behind holes in the wall bars and crappy motel-rooms. Maybe Castiel feels the same, maybe he can see what Dean is thinking of. He shakes it off.
“Cas, I think what he's trying to say is that... he went to Hell for us. I mean, he really took one for the team. You remember that? And then he comes back without a clue, and you can't take five friggin' minutes to give him some answers?”
“If I had any answers, I might have responded. But I don't know, Sam. We have no idea who brought you back from the cage... or why,” he answers strongly; if he didn't know better, he would have said Cas was frustrated, or pissed off, but Cas didn't really do pissed off.
“So... it wasn't God?” Sam asks and he sounds a bit disappointed to Dean.
“No one's even seen God. The whole thing remains mysterious,” Castiel answers calmly.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sam asks again.
“What part of 'I don't know' escapes your understanding?” There is definitely a note of frustration in his voice, Dean thinks.
“Cas, look, if Sam calls, you answer. Okay? You wing your ass down here, and you tell him, 'I don't know.' Just because we have some sort of a - a bond or whatever-” and maybe he didn't have to put it like that, maybe he didn't have to side with Sam because it used to be that way from the day Sam was born. Sam wasn't there when Dean needed someone, Lisa wasn't there either (truth is Lisa couldn't have handled it), but Cas was and Cas could and Cas did. And Dean knows he messed him up, knows he messed them up, but he can't bring himself to regret it - much.
Castiel turns and looks at Dean, Dean doesn't like that look. Not one bit. He has to make it up to Cas later, somehow.
“You think I came because you called? I came because of this.” He walks over to the files spread out all over.
“Oh, well, it's nice to know what matters,” Dean says, a bit pissed off himself now with Cas, because - just freaking because. Sometimes shit between them is too hard to handle.
“It does help one to focus,” Castiel answers calmly. There's so much freaking subtext here. Castiel is the master of subtext, if he wants to be. Dean wants to hit him or push him against the nearest wall and- no, he thinks, taking a breath.
“Wait, so - so you and the Halo Patrol, you guys aren't the cause of these killings?” Sam breaks in. Good thing too, Dean thinks.
Castiel looks at Sam now and Dean can breathe again. “No. But they were committed with one of our weapons. There's only one thing that could have brought this into existence. You call it the Staff of Moses.”
“The Staff?” Sam asks.
“It was used in a dominance display against the Egyptians, as I recall,” Castiel says, playing with a jar.
Dean scoffs. “Yeah. That one made the papers.”
“B-but I thought the Staff turned, like, a - a river into blood, not one dude,” Sam says, which is an excellent objection.
“The weapon isn't being used at full capacity. I think we can rule Moses out as a suspect,” Castiel answers.
No shit, Dean thinks. “Okay, but... what is - what is Chuck Heston's disco stick doing down here, anyway? I mean, don't you guys put away your toys?”
“Before the apocalypse, Heaven may have been corrupt, but it was stable. The staff was safely contained,” he sighs and Dean thinks he looks worse for wear at the moment, like all of this is just too much and maybe he should've packed his things and gone to Cuba or something. “It's been chaos up there since the war ended. In that confusion, a number of... powerful weapons were... stolen,” he admits.
“Wait, you - you're saying your nukes are loose?” Because, freaking fantastic. Couldn't be better. He has no time for this shit between Sam being funny, his grandfather being back from the dead and the Alphas coming out to play. And now heavenly weapons. Just to make his day.
“Yeah, I'm afraid so. But you've stumbled onto one of them. We must find the weapon that did this.” He indicates the jar. “I need your help,” he adds.
“That's rich. Really,” Sam scoffs. Dean gets that he thinks Cas has screwed them over, but there's shit going on in Heaven, obviously. So Dean is going to cut Castiel some slack.
Castiel makes a noise that Dean remembers, a bit differently, yeah, but he remembers it.
“Sam, Dean, my 'people skills' are 'rusty',” he says making air-quotes with the words. “Pardon me, but I have spent the last 'year' as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. But believe me, you do not want that weapon down here. Help me find it. Or more people will die.”
“All right. Okay. Well, if the angels didn't pull the trigger, then that brings us back to motive,” Dean says.
“What?” Castiel does look calmer now.
“Back to the case. Right now, we got three dead cops. Only thing linking them... is this,” Dean hands Sam the clippings of newspapers. "Father of slain suspect calls for investigation."
It's as good a place to start as any he thinks.
~+~
There's definitely something wrong with Sam. He gets that Castiel doesn't have the luxury to play around, but that Sam just watches while a kid is basically being tortured, well, that isn't right. Dean's guts do all kinds of unpleasant things.
~+~
When shit is going down it's going down hard. Dean really doesn't know why the hell he's still surprised by all the things that are just finding him.
“It is simple: Raphael and his followers, they want him to rule Heaven. For me - and many others - the last thing we want is to let him take over. It would be catastrophic,” Castiel says eventually.
“You're talking civil war,” Sam says.
“Technically, yes. Which is why we have to find Balthazar and his weapons before Raphael does. Whoever has the weapons wins the war,” Castiel answers. It's always been like that, Dean thinks. Since the beginning of freaking time. Nothing ever changes and good men are dying left and right.
“And what happens if Raphael wins? What - what does he want?” Dean asks while he watches Castiel pulling out the bag with the weapons.
“What he's always wanted - to end the story the way it was written.”
“You mean the Apocalypse, the one that we derailed?”
“Yes. That one. Raphael wants to put it back on the rails,” Castiel says, getting out the holy water.
“Why?” Dean wants to know, it might be a stupid question, but seriously, they stopped it once and they're going to do it again if they have to. Raphael has to know that.
“I need myrrh,” Castiel says and disappears in the next second. .
“Freakin' angels,” Dean mumbles just as Cas reappears behind him. He is drawing on the kitchen table with chalk now and Dean is watching his fingers. “Why does Raphael want to bring back all this crap?”
“He's a traditionalist,” Cas answers.
“Cas, why didn't you tell us this?” Dean asks.
“I was ashamed. I expected more from my brothers. I'm sorry. Now I need your blood.” He grabs Dean's hand and slices his palm. Dean doesn't even have five seconds to register what the hell is happening, it's the first time Cas touched him for over a year and it ends in pain. It should be a sign, he thinks.
“Whoa, whoa! Hey! Ahh! Why don't you use your own?” he asks
“It wouldn't work. I'm not human,” Castiel answers and there is subtext here too, but Dean doesn't have the time. He never has the time, is the thing.
Dean squeezes his hand shut, watches his blood drip into the bowl and Castiel adding myrrh and holy water before he intones. Sometimes it's just too easy to forget that Castiel isn't a human being. But he isn't and Dean needs to remember.
~Interlude~
When everything is over and Cas is gone, or they think he is, Sam is off somewhere to do something and Dean sits down on the hood of the Impala, opens a beer and - well, says a little prayer. He doesn't really think Cas will answer what with him fighting a civil war in Heaven.
“Dean,” Cas says beside him and Dean nearly jumps out of his freaking skin.
“Cas, for fuck's sake.” He puts the bottle of beer down on the ground and then looks at Castiel.
“You called,” Cas says and then softer, “you prayed,” as if that makes a difference. Maybe it does. Dean isn't sure. He never was really good at the praying thing. His first prayer was more of a demand. This last one, this one was something else.
“Guess I did,” he answers.
Castiel sighs and leans against the car. Dean can nearly feel his body heat, Jimmy's body heat. “What do you want?” Castiel asks eventually.
Dean doesn't have an answer. “I didn't think you would show up,” he says.
“I did, I did before too. I always do even if I have other things, more important things to do.”
Dean wants to grab his hand and pull him closer and maybe just feel for a bit in the darkness of the night. Pretend they're still the people they were a year and some back.
“You didn't say goodbye,” Dean says. He isn't sure whether he means today or a year ago.
“Because I knew I would be back,” Cas answers. “Both times,” he adds.
Dean has no guide for this. He never was in a monogamous relationship before Lisa, or maybe the thing with Cas, maybe that was a first try, but he was so messed up back then from all the things he's done and seen. Maybe this thing has a whole new set of rules, maybe now that he doesn't really live with Lisa and Ben anymore, maybe it's okay to be, to do stuff with Cas. He shakes his head. He doesn't know. He doesn't know how to play that game anymore. He was out of it too long maybe.
“Well, I didn't,” he shoots back. He's on the defensive again, because maybe he wouldn't have started anything with Lisa if Cas had stayed, maybe Cas is the one, because he's stronger and he doesn't have to worry all the freaking time about Cas being eaten by things that go bump in the night. He knows it's bullshit, he would still worry, because he cares.
“It's not my fault. They needed me, they needed someone and I was there. I fought beside you to stop the apocalypse and you-” Castiel cuts himself off and it's all too human for Dean to go unnoticed.
“I what?”
“You,” Castiel says, a bit too softly, a bit too raw, looking at Dean and Dean can't look away. Couldn't if his freaking life would depend on it. A part of him is glad that isn't the case. “You,” Castiel repeats, making sure he has all of Dean's attention and he does, god help Dean, he does, “didn't ask me to stay.”
“I didn't,” Dean admits. Would you have stayed, he wonders in the privacy of his head.
“And now we'll never know,” Castiel says.
So, Dean thinks, Castiel doesn't know either, doesn't have an answer to this, like Dean doesn't. Just another missed opportunity - lost in time, in blood and war. And orphan of faith.
“I-” shouldn't have called, he thinks, but even if it's maybe the right thing to say, it isn't the truth and he's so sick of lying and being lied to. “Am glad you answered my prayer,” he settles on.
“I'll always answer your prayers if I can make it, however unorthodox they might be,” Castiel says and Dean laughs.
He can't help it and he loves to see the little smile on Cas' face that means he's glad he made Dean happy even if only for a moment. He bumps his arm against Cas' and soaks up his heat and stays there as long as Castiel lets him, has the time to spend down here with Dean on the hood of his car in the middle of the night.
This is enough for now. He can't have more right now anyway. Every second they are here people are in danger, every second is a stolen one. Maybe even costs lives, but Dean thinks, he deserves it, they deserve a pause to breathe before the storm will hit and Dean knows it will hit.
It always does.
~5~
Despite what Samuel and Sam think, Dean is trying to make things work with Lisa and Ben. This is the closest to a family life he's ever going to get and he knows it. He knows all the risks and he knows that he wouldn't try for anyone else.
Dean is pretty freaking sure she wouldn't try for anyone else either. He is determined to not take shit home with him when he's going to visit, but sometimes it's easier said than done.
~+~
There are worse things than dying. Dean knows that from freaking experience. Being torn to shreds was by no means fun, but being tortured for years in hell and then breaking down and doing all these things he's done, that was worse. That was definitely worse than dying. Becoming a vampire is in the top five on his greatest hits list of 'things that are worse than death'. And it's kind of sad and messed up that he even has such a list. No matter that it only exists in his head.
Realizing that he is becoming a vampire in a crappy motel room, well, let's say it doesn't make things better. And everything is making him crazy. The noises, Sam's freaking heartbeat.
“Dean...you should sit down...” Sam says.
“YOU sit down.” He's sitting on the edge of a bed in a freaking hotel and his head is going to explode and Sam tells him to sit down and what? What? He's going to die because some stupid vamp got to him. “Of all the ways to die, I never thought I'd be going out like this,” he says a bit more in control now.
“Dean, nobody is 'going out'.”
He ignores Sam. “It's THAT...” Freaking noise. He rips out the clock's cord and suddenly it's so much less noisy in the room, in his head. In his freaking blood, or whatever. “Samuel is gonna kill me when he gets here,” he adds. He's pretty sure of it too. If he were Samuel, he would do it. Maybe he should be glad that Sam doesn't have to put him out of his misery.
“No, Dean, he's not!” Sam says. Which is predictable. If it were Sam Dean would fight for him too. Hell, Dead did fight for him. All his life.
“Yes he is, 'cause I'm gonna ask him to because you won't do it.”
“Okay, just hold on a second-”
Dean cuts him off. No point in talking about it. “For what, huh? Look at me!”
“We can figure this out!”
“How?!” Sam stays quiet. Dean can hear his heartbeat again and it's the only thing if he concentrates on it enough and the funny thing is, it's steady, as if nothing unusual is happening at all. “Why aren't you freaked out?”
“Of course I am!” Sam says.
“Really? ‘Cause I can hear your heartbeat, and it's pretty damned steady,” Dean answers. He wonders if he would have such a steady heartbeat in a situation like this, probably not. Maybe it's a good thing he can't hear his own.
“That's 'cause I'm...I'm TRYING to remain calm. Dean, look - Samuel will know what to do.”
Dean isn't so sure. Hell, Samuel might have some aces up his sleeve, but there's no cure for vampirism Dean has heard of. “C'mon, man, I'm a monster, okay? This is NOT a problem that you spit-ball. We gotta deal with this before I hurt somebody.” When it comes down to it, that's all that matters. There is more silence from Sam and Dean buries his head in his hands again. This shit is going to kill him before Samuel can and maybe that's a good thing too.
“How's it feel?” Sam asks eventually.
What the fuck, Dean thinks. “NOW? Now you wanna talk about my feelings?”
“No, I mean...physically.”
“How do you THINK it feels? Not good!” Dean answers a bit too sharply maybe, but what the all loving fuck? He needs to get away from Sam and his all too steady heartbeat for a bit. He gets up and goes over to the bathroom.
“Where you going?”
“Bathroom, okay? News flash, Mr. Wizard : vampires pee!” he answers, slamming the door behind him. He has a reflection too, he finds out pretty soon. His fangs look evil and he wants to smash shit into pieces, but - there are things he needs to do before Samuel can finish him off. He splashes some water in his face, but it doesn't help, because this stuff never really helps anyway. He has no idea why people do that in the first place.
Sam will be so pissed, he thinks in the split second before the decision is made. He needs to see Lisa and Ben before he's a monster. He needs to say goodbye first.
Because no matter what he likes to tell himself, what he liked to tell himself when Cas left without a freaking word, it matters. Saying goodbye to the people you love and have to leave behind.
It matters.
~+~
He's being a creep and he knows he's being a creep, but the thing is: she just looks so peaceful like this and maybe there's something to this whole watching her sleep thing after all. Maybe the fascination can only be understood by supernatural beings (like Cas). Or maybe he's turning into a sappy vampire from a bad written YA novel.
“Dean.” She blinks awake and - he has never seen anything more adorable.
“Hey,” he says.
She turns the night-lamp on and it's blinding. He can hear her heartbeat like he could with Sam.
“Hey. I wasn't expecting you for a couple of days.”
The sound of her heart is really distracting. “Yeah, yeah... I wanted to see you.” He gets out, sitting down on the bed beside her.
“What's up? Are you okay?” she asks, she sounds concerned, but he would be too. She has good instincts he thinks.
“Listen...”
“What's going on?”
“It doesn't matter. But I need you to know. You and Ben...just, uh... Thanks. Okay? For everything,” he says. God he's just so freaking crappy at this feelings stuff.
She slides closer to him and her heartbeat quickens. It's almost like he can feel it inside him.
“Dean, you're scaring me.”
She's too close and he can smell her blood and this is all so messed up and-
“Oh, God, I'm Pattinson,” he says.
“What?”
“Nothing. I...I gotta go.” He needs to get out of here and fast. This was a spectacularly stupid idea. What was he even thinking? He should have sent her a text or called. Now he's going to hurt her, because he's a monster.
“No, you can't just show up here like this and -”
He cuts her off. “Believe me, I wish it was different.”
“Just stop, and explain to me what's going on out there,” she says. He can hear the note of frustration in her voice.
“Lisa, I can't bring this crap home to you.”
“You're talking about your work?”
“I'm talking about my LIFE. It's ugly and it's violent, and I'm gonna die - soon.” There, he thinks, it's out there and he said it and he wishes, he didn't.
“Just tell me. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”
And she's so close and he can't. Her scent and her skin and the blood rushing in her veins, he can hear her heartbeat and how it spikes up and all he wants to do it kiss her and lick her throat and bite that pretty skin and drink her dry. He presses her against the wall and - just a sip he thinks just- he lets go and steps back nearly shaking with the desire to just rip her open.
“Dean?” And she sounds frightened? now. He never wanted that.
“I gotta go.”
~+~
There are worse things than death he thinks. Pushing Ben, hurting Ben, just made it to Number One on that not so very short list.
~+~
Sometimes he thinks it's not worth it, all of it. It's not worth surviving all of the shit he has to deal with every freaking day of his life.
Sometimes he wonders what is wrong with him, on other days he wonders what the hell is wrong with Sam. Again.
~+~
Truth is, he doesn't think he can patch up things with Lisa again. He hurt her son, the only person in the world she would do anything for and he gets it.
He was playing house and he should've known that it wouldn't last. The second he laid his eyes on Sam he should have packed his stuff and left her to live a life where he wasn't a part of it.
Samuel warned him.
But he just wanted it so badly. Wanted to make it work for her and Ben and Sam.
He shuts the phone. He can't blame her. He wouldn't pick up either.
next
Author: creepylicious/alles_luege
Pairing: Dean/Lisa, Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Summary: Heavy canon based 'read between the lines' look at Dean's and Castiel's relationship during seasons six and seven.
“No,” Dean says, “it isn't us that are doing this.” Castiel can feel his breath on his lips, they're so close. He can taste the desperation on the air every time Dean exhales. “It's you who's burning everything down to the ground.”
His hand digs into Dean's shoulder too hard, he registers it just in the moment Dean makes a soft noise and steps back.
“You don't understand-”
Dean cuts him off, his fingers are like a vice around Castiel's arm. “You don't understand. You are about to lose everything, Cas.”
“I've already lost everything,” Castiel answers, stepping back. “But I'm going to get it back,” he adds and disappears.
Warning(s): canon violence, mentions of sex, spoilers up to S7E17.
Author’s Notes: This is a sequel to Undisclosed desires, but it can be read on its own. Art by dosymedia. I love this art so hard, you guys. It has just the right air of pointlessness of hope. <3
Quotes from SPN season 6/7.
Word Count: 22.195
Beta: skylar_matthews, C.
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real
I. Playing house
~1~
Sometimes Dean remembers. He can't help it. Things are engraved so deep into his skin and bones and brain; his whole body, really. Sometimes he dreams about the things that seemed once important.
He's staring at the road and not at Cas, he doesn't know if it was like this in reality.
Probably, he always sucked at this part. “What are you gonna do now?”
“Return to Heaven, I suppose.”
“Heaven?” And the word still sounds so wrong in his mind, feels bitter on his tongue.
“With Michael in the Cage, I'm sure it's total anarchy up there,” Castiel answers, calmly.
“So, what, you're the new sheriff in town?”
“Yeah. I like that. Yeah. I suppose I am,” Cas says and now, in hindsight he can feel something else seeing that moment. Not all the loss he was feeling at the time, not the anger that wanted out, that was threatening to eat him alive.
“Wow. god gives you a brand-new, shiny set of wings, and suddenly you're his bitch again,” he bites out.
“I don't know what God wants. I don't know if he'll even return. It just... seems like the right thing to do.” Sometimes Dean admires that blind faith Castiel has. Dean lost his faith in the powers that be a long time ago and not even Cas could bring that back.
“Well, if you do see him, you tell him I'm coming for him next,” he replies. Even now in the dream he can feel the hot, blind anger inside him.
“You're angry.”
“That's an understatement.”
“He helped. Maybe even more than we realize,” Castiel answers and he sounds like he's thinking of something just out of his reach. Just there in the corner of his eye, at the tip of his tongue. Dream Dean is too angry to see it, but Dean, now Dean, can. He's had this dream so many times already, that he doesn't even listen to the words anymore. He takes every little detail in instead. Things that he didn't pay attention to at the time. Things that he couldn't even see back then.
“That's easy for you to say. He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where's my grand prize? All I got is my brother in a hole!”
“You got what you asked for, Dean. No paradise. No hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?” Castiel asks. Dean doesn't know. He would like some peace from time to time. Now he has peace, but the things that go bump in the night are still out there. They don't go away because he isn't hunting them anymore. They don't go away because he saved the freaking world and there is no one left who knows about it on earth, except Bobby.
“Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that?” He means it too. He didn't know how to say the right words.
There is so much he didn't say at the time. Don't go, was pretty high on that list. That imaginary list that he keeps inside his head and no one except him has access to. But what would've Castiel done on earth anyway? There were things to do in heaven, if Dean liked it or not. And Cas was the one who volunteered for that job. Took it on, which - same freaking difference.
~+~
Dean wakes up at seven from Monday to Friday (at nine on the weekends) and looks over at Lisa and doesn't think much of anything. He just feels. This is his life now and it's a good life and he loves her. He didn't think, back when she was only a one- night-stand, a notch in his bedpost, (not that he ever could call a bed his own before, not since the day of the fire and Dad taking them, ripping them away from all the rules of humanity), that she would turn out to be the one. On the other hand, he didn't even dream about having a thing for an angel either, but that - well, that isn't something he thinks about much anymore. Too much to do. Lisa and work and Ben. Like Sid said, he is practically respectable. He wonders sometimes when he's sitting in the living room and the TV is on, Ben mugging around and Lisa doing stuff in the kitchen or mugging around with Ben too, if this is what his mom, what Mary, wanted for them. She certainly wanted it for herself at some point. Had it too for a short time.
Dean isn't going further than that. It leads to unpleasant questions, to feelings he'll rather not explore.
~+~
He remembers the day he showed up at her doorstep. All messed up and grieving and still trying to do what he promised Sam he'll do.
She looked beautiful. She looked like an angel. She looked like someone who could save people. Someone who could save him.
It doesn't mean that she really can, just because something looks like something, it doesn't mean it is that said something. He of all people knows that.
“Hey, Lisa.”
“Oh, thank god. Are you all right?” He wasn't, was the thing, he wasn't, but couldn't tell her that. Didn't want to tell her the truth.
“Yeah. Uh, if it's not too late, I... think I'd like to take you up on that beer.” And he didn't have much hope for it either, because she was way too good for him and he knew it.
“It's never too late. It's okay. It's gonna be okay,” she said, letting him in into her life, Ben's life, their life and home and he wanted so desperately to believe every word she just said. So he followed her and then he stayed, because she didn't make him leave, because she wanted him there.
Because he wanted to be with her too.
~2~
Dean isn't stupid. He has instincts and mechanisms that are so deep in his blood he couldn't ever wash them out if he tried. And he isn't trying. He needs this, he knows it. It doesn't matter that he's living an apple pie life like Sam made him promise.
It shouldn't be a surprise that something is coming after him. Something is always coming. This year, this one year with Lisa and Ben was like a vacation, like taking a deep breath before shit hits the fan and it seems - well, it seems things are changing for the worst again.
Dean wants to punch something. Really fucking hard.
~+~
It doesn't help that they don't know shit. It doesn't help that Sam is back a fucking year and that he didn't try to contact Dean until he got fucking poisoned. That he hooked up with people who aren't - well, they are family, but they don't know Sam like Dean does.
~+~
If there is one safe place on the whole freaking planet it's Bobby's. That's where they geared up for the apocalypse, that's where they trapped demons, and Sam. That's where Cas- Dean can't be thinking about Castiel now or what kind of madness they jumped into because the world was fucking ending.
As soon as Sam enters Dean knows. He knows and he is fucking pissed off.
“You knew? You knew Sam was alive.”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Look -” Bobby tries, but Dean isn't fucking interested is the thing. He was expecting better from the person who freaking raised him, them, when Dad was off somewhere hunting things and trying not to get killed.
“How long?!” he says louder.
“All year,” Bobby admits, he isn't quite able to look Dean in the eyes and that in itself speaks freaking volumes, he thinks.
“Oh, you got to be kidding me.”
“And I'd do it again.” Bobby sounds determined.
“Why?!” Because fucking why.
“Because you got out, Dean! You walked away from the life. And I was so damn grateful, you got no idea,” Bobby answers. There's something stubborn in his voice. Something that is a tender worry for them, something Dean doesn't want to hear. Something he doesn't want to hear now.
“Do you have any clue what walking away meant for me?” Everything. Losing everything, starting over and not knowing who he was, because all his life he was Sam's older brother. His brother's keeper.
“Yeah - a woman and a kid and not getting your guts ripped out at age 30. That's what it meant.” Bobby crosses his arms over his chest. It's his no-nonsense voice and posture.
“That woman and that kid - I went to them because you asked me to.” Here he looks at Sam. Who didn't say a freaking word the whole time.
“Good. “
“Good for who? I showed up on their doorstep half out of my head with grief. God knows why they even let me in. I drank too much. I had nightmares. I looked everywhere. I collected hundreds of books, trying to find anything to bust you out.” Another glance at Sam.
“You promised you'd leave it alone,” Sam answers and his voice is too even, Dean thinks.
Like hell he would. In his place Sam would've done the same. Hell, in his place Sam did the freaking same.
“Of course I didn't leave it alone! Sue me! A damn year? You couldn't put me out of my misery?”
“Look, I get it wasn't easy. But that's life! And it's as close to happiness as I've ever seen a hunter get. It ain't like I wanted to lie to you, son. But you were out, Dean,” Bobby says, looking at him. Dean takes a deep breath. All the freaking things they do for each other. All the lies and didn't they do enough already?
“Do I look 'out' to you?” he asks, because if it's coming down to it, that is the question and everyone in this room knows the answer.
This will never be over. Never, because not even death is putting an end to this shit, he thinks bitterly.
~+~
Dean has to take responsibility for his actions. He was raised that way. Dad hammered it into his head at a young age. It was never forgotten.
He waits for her at the end of the stairs. A quiet moment at Bobby's with the woman he loves, and isn't it ironic that the day he makes them meet, he's going to break up with her?
“How's he doing?” he asks.
“He's okay. How are you?” She looks concerned and a part of him still thinks she could save him. Or she could die trying, and that's okay for Sam and him, that's what they do, but he doesn't want that for Lisa or Ben.
“Look, I know Bobby's a little crotchety, but he's great. He's gonna look after you guys. Me and Sam, we're gonna head out.”
“For how long?” She sits down on the stairs, looking up at him.
“I'm so sorry, Lisa.”
“For what?” She asks, like she really doesn't know.
“Those things were coming for me. And I should've known.”
“How could you know a monster was gonna show up?”
He wonders if she only says it to make him feel better. “I should've known. I should've known that if I stayed with you that something would come, because something always does. But I was stupid and reckless and...” he stops, he can't say it, hopes she does know, “You can't outrun your past,” he finishes.
“You're saying goodbye,” she realizes.
Jesus, he used to be so much better at breaking up with woman. He sits down next to her. Soaking up her body heat. “I'm saying I'm sorry... For everything. Everything.”
“You're an idiot. I mean, I know it wasn't greeting-card perfect, but we were in it together.”
“I was a wreck half the time,” he throws in.
“Yeah, well, the guy that basically just saved the world shows up at your door, you expect him to have a couple of issues. And you're always so amazing with Ben. You know what I wanted, more than anything was a guy that Ben could look up to,” she says, “like a dad. So, you're saying it's all bad, Dean? 'Cause it was the best year of my life.”
And what can he say to that?
She isn't going to give up on him yet. Maybe he shouldn't give up on them either.
~+~
“You, uh, you coming with me?” Sam asks after the job is done.
There will be always forces to pull him in different directions. The only thing is to trust his guts and his guts are telling him-
“No. No, I'm going back for Lisa and Ben.”
“I thought you said -”
Dean nods, interrupts: “I did. I changed my mind.”
“Look, I practically shoved you at them.”
“That's a funny way to put it, but alright,” he answers, waiting his brother out.
“I'm just saying, I really wanted that for you. And when I told you to go, I-I thought... You could have it, you know? But now I'm not so sure. I mean, you got to consider the fact that you'll be putting them in danger if you go back.”
“So, what, it's better to leave them alone, unprotected, and then they're not in danger? I did this to them. I made them vulnerable the moment I knocked on their door, and I can't undo that. But what I can do is go with the best option,” he believes it too. As long as Ben and Lisa are going to put up with this crap, put up with him, he's going to stay.
“I hear you. I guess I just, wish you were coming, that's all.”
“Why?”
“Don't be stupid,” Sam answers.
“No, I mean it. I mean, you know plenty of good hunters. I'm rusty. I did something seriously stupid going out there. I almost got us both killed.” Facing up to this shit, he thinks, maybe he can only do that with Sam.
“And that's exactly why I want you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You just went. You didn't hesitate. Because you care, and that's who you are. Me? I wouldn't even think to try.”
“Yes, you would.” Between the two of them Sam's always been the one with the bleeding heart.
“No, Dean. I'm telling you, it's just better with you around. That's all.”
And the way how he says it, Dean thinks, the way. It makes a tinny bell ring in the back of his mind. It's not loud enough to do anything about it and Sam's just freshly out of Hell and Dean remembers everything he's done too. It never goes away. His fingers are itching to hug Sam, but he doesn't. He's sure this wasn't the last thing he's seen of his brother.
After all that's not how they work.
~3~
Moving isn't much fun for Ben, but Lisa just rolls with it. The thing is that Dean is being paranoid and he would like to just lock them up or leave them with Bobby when he isn't there, so no one can get to them.
Lisa of course, because she knows him, because she is smart, calls him on his bullshit.
“What happened? Ben's been locked in his room for hours. Says you yelled at him. What did he do?”
“Nothing,” he answers. It wasn't Ben's fault. Dean just doesn't want this life for Ben, for Lisa. He doesn't want Ben to know how to shoot things that go bump in the night at an age- well, to be honest he doesn't want him to know ever.
“What did you do?” she asks.
“He got into my tools. I shouldn't have got mad,” he admits. He doesn't want to be that kind of father. He doesn't want to be Dad.
“You want to talk about this?”
“About?”
Lisa gives him a look. She isn't buying whatever he's trying to sell her. “Yelling at Ben? Keeping us in the house?”
“I'm trying to keep us safe, here.”
She sighs, or breathes out, it's kind of the same sound. “I'm not arguing, okay. You're the expert. I'm just asking. You said that you and your brother killed whatever was after us. And then we moved just to be sure! So what is it, Dean? A monster? Or monsters in general?”
“I don't know. Something might come,” he says, which is pretty fucking vague and he knows it. Realizes he's going a bit insane here. He just can't stop. He cares for them so much. And he can't turn back time to assure their safety again.
“What?”
Something, anything. It might be just around the corner waiting. “I don't know, I can't predict what's going to come after me.” But he's sure something will. That is something she doesn't get, he thinks.
“Well, I'm going to need some parameters. We have to live our lives here. I mean, at some point I have to work. Ben has school!”
“But if something happens on my watch...” he tries, she cuts him off.
“I know you're trying to protect us, but you're kind of scaring me a little, too.”
He doesn't know how to answer her. Sometimes he scares himself too. He knows she makes him better, but he isn't so sure anymore that he can do the same for her and Ben.
~+~
There is no way in hell he's going on a job involving creepy baby kidnapping creeps and leaving Lisa unprotected. And the best way to make sure she's safe is to make her able to protect herself and Ben. He makes her load and unload the freaking thing a thousand times.
“I've got it. We've been over this.”
“Humor me,” he answers, nodding in the gun's direction.
She gives him a look, but does as he says. “Load clip. Pull slide. Safety off. Safety on.”
“And salt the windows and the doors,” he says again.
“Of course,” she replies.
“Maybe I shouldn't go.”
“It's okay. You want to go, so go,” she answers, putting the gun away.
“You know what, Sam can handle this.” Sam can and he can stay here and look after the woman he's living with and Ben.
“Dean, no offence, but if you don't walk out that door, I'm going to shoot you,” she says.
Dean grabs his duffle bag and zips it closed before throwing the strap over his shoulder.
“I bet you're missing your ex right about now. The uh, the boring one?,” he says.
“God, shut up. Just be careful, okay?”
He nods and then kisses her with all he has to tell her without telling her all the things, all the things between them and how much she means. He thinks she knows, but it's okay to make sure from time to time. He lets go of her and walks out.
He'll be back as soon as he can and in the meantime she'll be fine.
~+~
It's funny, Dean thinks, as he looks at Bobby John, that his first thought as they had to come up with a name on the spot was Bobby, but that Sam's was John, like their father.He puts the baby down and it falls asleep nearly the second his head touches the pillow.
“Huh,” Sam says.
“What?” It never is very good when Sam says 'huh', it's like Velma saying 'Jinkies!'.
“You're just, uh, actually, not awful at that.”
“Dude, I'm barely keeping that thing alive,” Dean says.
“No, no, no, seriously. You've got a whole Dr. Huxtable vibe coming off of you. You're like... father material.” Sam sounds surprised by it. Dean thinks he really shouldn't. He raised Sam with Bobby's help, and he thinks Sam turned out alright. Most of the time he thinks that, that is.
“Yeah, well I kind of had to be lately, you know. Sink or swim, right?” He shrugs.
“You mean with Ben,” Sam says and there's something in his voice Dean doesn't like. He lets it slide.
“Yeah, I mean Ben. I mean, I know he's not my kid, but I don't know, I'm starting to feel like yeah, he is. Then I think about the way we grew up, I don't know, I kind of feel like I have a chance to do something different with Ben, you know?” He didn't have that chance with Sam.
“You sure about that?”
“What do you mean?” he gives back a bit too sharp.
“Look, you clearly care about the kid-”
Dean cuts him off. “But?”
“But moving them around? Keeping them on lockdown? I mean, you do have them on lockdown, right? How is any of that different from how we were raised?”
“So you're saying...” he stops and starts again, because he has no idea where he was going with that anyway. “I'm not shoving anybody into this life, okay? This is temporary,” he settles on.
“Dad always said it was temporary, Dean. He said it for 22 years. Look, I get it. You want to watch out for them. That's great. I'm just asking, how do you do that and not turn into Dad?”
And it's a fucking good question Dean thinks. He doesn't like it, though. He has no answer to it. Yet, he thinks. Maybe he can make it work, maybe they can make it work together.
Dean stays quiet and Sam looks at the papers on the table in front of him again.
~+~
Great Dean thinks, with a look at Bobby John. He kinda likes the little guy, is the thing. He isn't a thing, okay, he is a thing, but it's not - oh hell he has no idea where he’s going with this. Sam interrupts his thoughts and he's grateful for it.
“I didn't even know they had babies. I thought they were just freaks of nature, like X-Men style.”
“You learn something new everyday, huh?”
“I've never seen a baby monster before,” Sam muses.
“Of course it's not really a monster. I mean, it's still just a baby. It's not its fault its dad's a shifter,“ Dean says, he doesn't like where Sam's thoughts are going. He doesn't like it at all. He misses the times when things used to be black and white, good and evil, humans and monsters.
“Right, but it's a shifter, too,” Sam points out, because he's just that kind of pain in the ass.
“Still doesn't change the fact that we've got to look after this thing. I mean, what the hell are we going to do with it? We can't actually drop it off at an orphanage. They might get upset when it turns Asian.”
“Samuel.”
“What?”
“Samuel. He'll know what to do.”
“You want to bring it to a bunch of hunters?” Dean asks. Sam has to be fucking crazy for even suggesting it.
“Not just hunters, Dean. They're our family.”
It's beyond Dean how Sam can even think that. They aren't family, they are just a bunch of strangers who share the same freaking last name. “We don't know them.”
“I do. Not every hunter is a headcase. I mean, Samuel is actually a lot like you.”
“I'm a freaking headcase,” Dean says.
“Well, pitch a better idea then.” Thing is he doesn't have one right now and they are running out of time so he stays silent. “Great! Samuel it is.”
~+~
He should've said Bobby, he thinks after the whole clusterfuck is over. Bobby's would've been a safe place to ride it out. On the plus side he is glad that Christian isn't fucking going to raise an innocent shifter kid to be a hunter and kill his own kind, on the other hand: he's back with his shifter family. And they have an Alpha and Dean is freaking pissed off that they kept him in the dark all the time. He is so done with this shit.
And the worst thing is that he isn't sure anymore he can trust Sam. Sam might have used the baby as bait and the Sam he knows, the Sam he knew, wouldn't ever have done something like that. Shifter kid or not. Something is rotten in Sam-town.
~4~
He wakes up in the Impala and needs a moment to orient himself. He misses Lisa, suddenly, but it passes, because everything always does. She said she's willing to try, said he doesn't want to be with them, that he needs to be out here, hunting things, too. And it's true, he is going to try. He is going to hunt and he's going to go home to her and try to have a life besides bloody monster parts. Cops keep their jobs out of their homes, he can do that.
It's worth a shot. It's worth more than that, to be honest. She is worth it.
~+~
He meets up with Sam, who is becoming pretty bossy and while Sam is looking through crap about the new case he dug up, Dean takes the call from Ben.
“Ben...” he says, “I know you're lying. Because I lie professionally, that's how. Now tell your mom that you broke the damn thing and take it like a man. Okay? Ok-- okay.” He hangs up and Sam gives him a look. One of the: I can't believe this looks.
“Wow.”
“What?” Dean's on the freaking defensive far too much these days with Sam.
“You - molding the minds of tomorrow. Who knew?”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“How'd it go?” Sam asks.
“With?”
“You and Lisa. How'd she take it when you bailed?”
Dean doesn't like how Sam puts it, but whatever. Lately he doesn't like a lot of stuff. “Shockingly cool, actually.”
“Better for everybody,” Sam says.
“Yeah, I suppose,” Dean answers, but it's not. Sam has to know that. “Still driving the plastic piece of crap, huh?”
“What's your mileage, again?” Sam shoots back.
“Shut up.”
~+~
Dean has to admit he doesn't have a better theory either. He might just go with the avenging angel thing here. After all, the cops in question were dirty and they got what they had coming to them, but still there is something out there, or someone who is taking matters in their own hands and it's a heavenly problem, so.
Dean opens a beer and says: “We should call Cas.” It's the only logical move at this stage of the game and he really thinks he can handle it now too.
“You're kidding, right?” Sam answers, scoffing. “Dean, I tried. It was the first and second and third thing I did, soon as I got topside. Son of a bitch won't answer the phone.”
Dean sits down on the bed and looks at Sam. He knows things Sam doesn't. “Well, let's give it a shot. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here.” Maybe this will get his attention, Dean remembers well how Castiel liked, maybe still likes, to watch him sleep.
“You're an idiot,” Sam says.
“Stay positive,” Dean answers with a grin. He is pretty sure Castiel will answer him.
“Oh, I am positive,” Sam says and every word is dripping with sarcasm.
“Come on, Cas! Don't be a dick. We got ourselves a... plague-like situation down here, and... do you...do you copy?” he asks, something like hopeful anger creeping into his voice.
“Like I said... “ Sam says, “son of a bitch doesn't answer-.” He stops suddenly. “He's right behind me, isn't he?”
He fucking is, Dean thinks.
“Hello,” Castiel says and Dean maybe wants to kiss him. Because here they are again in a crappy hotel room and he didn't see a freaking feather of Cas' in over a year. He missed the nerdy angel. He missed his nerdy angel.
“Hello?” Sam asks, unbelievingly.
“Y-yes.” There is a slightly unsure note in his voice. Dean missed that too.
“Hello. Hello?” Sam says mockingly and a bit angrily maybe. Dean finds the whole thing hilarious.
“Uh, that is still the term?” Cas asks.
“I spent all that time trying to get through to you. Dean calls once, and now it's 'Hello'?!” Sam asks again. It doesn't get less funny, Dean thinks.
“Yes,” Castiel says.
“So, what, you - you like him better or something?” Sam asks, scoffing.
Dean sits up a bit straighter.
“Dean and I do share a more profound bond,” Castiel says and then turns to Dean: “I wasn't going mention it.”
Dean feels something tender creeping up inside him. Fuck, but he really did miss Castiel, how he just said things, how everything was new to him, how his lips felt - but he isn't going to go there. Even if Castiel admitting to liking him more brings all of the things back he shared with Cas, what they shared in Bobby's backyard and behind holes in the wall bars and crappy motel-rooms. Maybe Castiel feels the same, maybe he can see what Dean is thinking of. He shakes it off.
“Cas, I think what he's trying to say is that... he went to Hell for us. I mean, he really took one for the team. You remember that? And then he comes back without a clue, and you can't take five friggin' minutes to give him some answers?”
“If I had any answers, I might have responded. But I don't know, Sam. We have no idea who brought you back from the cage... or why,” he answers strongly; if he didn't know better, he would have said Cas was frustrated, or pissed off, but Cas didn't really do pissed off.
“So... it wasn't God?” Sam asks and he sounds a bit disappointed to Dean.
“No one's even seen God. The whole thing remains mysterious,” Castiel answers calmly.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sam asks again.
“What part of 'I don't know' escapes your understanding?” There is definitely a note of frustration in his voice, Dean thinks.
“Cas, look, if Sam calls, you answer. Okay? You wing your ass down here, and you tell him, 'I don't know.' Just because we have some sort of a - a bond or whatever-” and maybe he didn't have to put it like that, maybe he didn't have to side with Sam because it used to be that way from the day Sam was born. Sam wasn't there when Dean needed someone, Lisa wasn't there either (truth is Lisa couldn't have handled it), but Cas was and Cas could and Cas did. And Dean knows he messed him up, knows he messed them up, but he can't bring himself to regret it - much.
Castiel turns and looks at Dean, Dean doesn't like that look. Not one bit. He has to make it up to Cas later, somehow.
“You think I came because you called? I came because of this.” He walks over to the files spread out all over.
“Oh, well, it's nice to know what matters,” Dean says, a bit pissed off himself now with Cas, because - just freaking because. Sometimes shit between them is too hard to handle.
“It does help one to focus,” Castiel answers calmly. There's so much freaking subtext here. Castiel is the master of subtext, if he wants to be. Dean wants to hit him or push him against the nearest wall and- no, he thinks, taking a breath.
“Wait, so - so you and the Halo Patrol, you guys aren't the cause of these killings?” Sam breaks in. Good thing too, Dean thinks.
Castiel looks at Sam now and Dean can breathe again. “No. But they were committed with one of our weapons. There's only one thing that could have brought this into existence. You call it the Staff of Moses.”
“The Staff?” Sam asks.
“It was used in a dominance display against the Egyptians, as I recall,” Castiel says, playing with a jar.
Dean scoffs. “Yeah. That one made the papers.”
“B-but I thought the Staff turned, like, a - a river into blood, not one dude,” Sam says, which is an excellent objection.
“The weapon isn't being used at full capacity. I think we can rule Moses out as a suspect,” Castiel answers.
No shit, Dean thinks. “Okay, but... what is - what is Chuck Heston's disco stick doing down here, anyway? I mean, don't you guys put away your toys?”
“Before the apocalypse, Heaven may have been corrupt, but it was stable. The staff was safely contained,” he sighs and Dean thinks he looks worse for wear at the moment, like all of this is just too much and maybe he should've packed his things and gone to Cuba or something. “It's been chaos up there since the war ended. In that confusion, a number of... powerful weapons were... stolen,” he admits.
“Wait, you - you're saying your nukes are loose?” Because, freaking fantastic. Couldn't be better. He has no time for this shit between Sam being funny, his grandfather being back from the dead and the Alphas coming out to play. And now heavenly weapons. Just to make his day.
“Yeah, I'm afraid so. But you've stumbled onto one of them. We must find the weapon that did this.” He indicates the jar. “I need your help,” he adds.
“That's rich. Really,” Sam scoffs. Dean gets that he thinks Cas has screwed them over, but there's shit going on in Heaven, obviously. So Dean is going to cut Castiel some slack.
Castiel makes a noise that Dean remembers, a bit differently, yeah, but he remembers it.
“Sam, Dean, my 'people skills' are 'rusty',” he says making air-quotes with the words. “Pardon me, but I have spent the last 'year' as a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. But believe me, you do not want that weapon down here. Help me find it. Or more people will die.”
“All right. Okay. Well, if the angels didn't pull the trigger, then that brings us back to motive,” Dean says.
“What?” Castiel does look calmer now.
“Back to the case. Right now, we got three dead cops. Only thing linking them... is this,” Dean hands Sam the clippings of newspapers. "Father of slain suspect calls for investigation."
It's as good a place to start as any he thinks.
~+~
There's definitely something wrong with Sam. He gets that Castiel doesn't have the luxury to play around, but that Sam just watches while a kid is basically being tortured, well, that isn't right. Dean's guts do all kinds of unpleasant things.
~+~
When shit is going down it's going down hard. Dean really doesn't know why the hell he's still surprised by all the things that are just finding him.
“It is simple: Raphael and his followers, they want him to rule Heaven. For me - and many others - the last thing we want is to let him take over. It would be catastrophic,” Castiel says eventually.
“You're talking civil war,” Sam says.
“Technically, yes. Which is why we have to find Balthazar and his weapons before Raphael does. Whoever has the weapons wins the war,” Castiel answers. It's always been like that, Dean thinks. Since the beginning of freaking time. Nothing ever changes and good men are dying left and right.
“And what happens if Raphael wins? What - what does he want?” Dean asks while he watches Castiel pulling out the bag with the weapons.
“What he's always wanted - to end the story the way it was written.”
“You mean the Apocalypse, the one that we derailed?”
“Yes. That one. Raphael wants to put it back on the rails,” Castiel says, getting out the holy water.
“Why?” Dean wants to know, it might be a stupid question, but seriously, they stopped it once and they're going to do it again if they have to. Raphael has to know that.
“I need myrrh,” Castiel says and disappears in the next second. .
“Freakin' angels,” Dean mumbles just as Cas reappears behind him. He is drawing on the kitchen table with chalk now and Dean is watching his fingers. “Why does Raphael want to bring back all this crap?”
“He's a traditionalist,” Cas answers.
“Cas, why didn't you tell us this?” Dean asks.
“I was ashamed. I expected more from my brothers. I'm sorry. Now I need your blood.” He grabs Dean's hand and slices his palm. Dean doesn't even have five seconds to register what the hell is happening, it's the first time Cas touched him for over a year and it ends in pain. It should be a sign, he thinks.
“Whoa, whoa! Hey! Ahh! Why don't you use your own?” he asks
“It wouldn't work. I'm not human,” Castiel answers and there is subtext here too, but Dean doesn't have the time. He never has the time, is the thing.
Dean squeezes his hand shut, watches his blood drip into the bowl and Castiel adding myrrh and holy water before he intones. Sometimes it's just too easy to forget that Castiel isn't a human being. But he isn't and Dean needs to remember.
~Interlude~
When everything is over and Cas is gone, or they think he is, Sam is off somewhere to do something and Dean sits down on the hood of the Impala, opens a beer and - well, says a little prayer. He doesn't really think Cas will answer what with him fighting a civil war in Heaven.
“Dean,” Cas says beside him and Dean nearly jumps out of his freaking skin.
“Cas, for fuck's sake.” He puts the bottle of beer down on the ground and then looks at Castiel.
“You called,” Cas says and then softer, “you prayed,” as if that makes a difference. Maybe it does. Dean isn't sure. He never was really good at the praying thing. His first prayer was more of a demand. This last one, this one was something else.
“Guess I did,” he answers.
Castiel sighs and leans against the car. Dean can nearly feel his body heat, Jimmy's body heat. “What do you want?” Castiel asks eventually.
Dean doesn't have an answer. “I didn't think you would show up,” he says.
“I did, I did before too. I always do even if I have other things, more important things to do.”
Dean wants to grab his hand and pull him closer and maybe just feel for a bit in the darkness of the night. Pretend they're still the people they were a year and some back.
“You didn't say goodbye,” Dean says. He isn't sure whether he means today or a year ago.
“Because I knew I would be back,” Cas answers. “Both times,” he adds.
Dean has no guide for this. He never was in a monogamous relationship before Lisa, or maybe the thing with Cas, maybe that was a first try, but he was so messed up back then from all the things he's done and seen. Maybe this thing has a whole new set of rules, maybe now that he doesn't really live with Lisa and Ben anymore, maybe it's okay to be, to do stuff with Cas. He shakes his head. He doesn't know. He doesn't know how to play that game anymore. He was out of it too long maybe.
“Well, I didn't,” he shoots back. He's on the defensive again, because maybe he wouldn't have started anything with Lisa if Cas had stayed, maybe Cas is the one, because he's stronger and he doesn't have to worry all the freaking time about Cas being eaten by things that go bump in the night. He knows it's bullshit, he would still worry, because he cares.
“It's not my fault. They needed me, they needed someone and I was there. I fought beside you to stop the apocalypse and you-” Castiel cuts himself off and it's all too human for Dean to go unnoticed.
“I what?”
“You,” Castiel says, a bit too softly, a bit too raw, looking at Dean and Dean can't look away. Couldn't if his freaking life would depend on it. A part of him is glad that isn't the case. “You,” Castiel repeats, making sure he has all of Dean's attention and he does, god help Dean, he does, “didn't ask me to stay.”
“I didn't,” Dean admits. Would you have stayed, he wonders in the privacy of his head.
“And now we'll never know,” Castiel says.
So, Dean thinks, Castiel doesn't know either, doesn't have an answer to this, like Dean doesn't. Just another missed opportunity - lost in time, in blood and war. And orphan of faith.
“I-” shouldn't have called, he thinks, but even if it's maybe the right thing to say, it isn't the truth and he's so sick of lying and being lied to. “Am glad you answered my prayer,” he settles on.
“I'll always answer your prayers if I can make it, however unorthodox they might be,” Castiel says and Dean laughs.
He can't help it and he loves to see the little smile on Cas' face that means he's glad he made Dean happy even if only for a moment. He bumps his arm against Cas' and soaks up his heat and stays there as long as Castiel lets him, has the time to spend down here with Dean on the hood of his car in the middle of the night.
This is enough for now. He can't have more right now anyway. Every second they are here people are in danger, every second is a stolen one. Maybe even costs lives, but Dean thinks, he deserves it, they deserve a pause to breathe before the storm will hit and Dean knows it will hit.
It always does.
~5~
Despite what Samuel and Sam think, Dean is trying to make things work with Lisa and Ben. This is the closest to a family life he's ever going to get and he knows it. He knows all the risks and he knows that he wouldn't try for anyone else.
Dean is pretty freaking sure she wouldn't try for anyone else either. He is determined to not take shit home with him when he's going to visit, but sometimes it's easier said than done.
~+~
There are worse things than dying. Dean knows that from freaking experience. Being torn to shreds was by no means fun, but being tortured for years in hell and then breaking down and doing all these things he's done, that was worse. That was definitely worse than dying. Becoming a vampire is in the top five on his greatest hits list of 'things that are worse than death'. And it's kind of sad and messed up that he even has such a list. No matter that it only exists in his head.
Realizing that he is becoming a vampire in a crappy motel room, well, let's say it doesn't make things better. And everything is making him crazy. The noises, Sam's freaking heartbeat.
“Dean...you should sit down...” Sam says.
“YOU sit down.” He's sitting on the edge of a bed in a freaking hotel and his head is going to explode and Sam tells him to sit down and what? What? He's going to die because some stupid vamp got to him. “Of all the ways to die, I never thought I'd be going out like this,” he says a bit more in control now.
“Dean, nobody is 'going out'.”
He ignores Sam. “It's THAT...” Freaking noise. He rips out the clock's cord and suddenly it's so much less noisy in the room, in his head. In his freaking blood, or whatever. “Samuel is gonna kill me when he gets here,” he adds. He's pretty sure of it too. If he were Samuel, he would do it. Maybe he should be glad that Sam doesn't have to put him out of his misery.
“No, Dean, he's not!” Sam says. Which is predictable. If it were Sam Dean would fight for him too. Hell, Dead did fight for him. All his life.
“Yes he is, 'cause I'm gonna ask him to because you won't do it.”
“Okay, just hold on a second-”
Dean cuts him off. No point in talking about it. “For what, huh? Look at me!”
“We can figure this out!”
“How?!” Sam stays quiet. Dean can hear his heartbeat again and it's the only thing if he concentrates on it enough and the funny thing is, it's steady, as if nothing unusual is happening at all. “Why aren't you freaked out?”
“Of course I am!” Sam says.
“Really? ‘Cause I can hear your heartbeat, and it's pretty damned steady,” Dean answers. He wonders if he would have such a steady heartbeat in a situation like this, probably not. Maybe it's a good thing he can't hear his own.
“That's 'cause I'm...I'm TRYING to remain calm. Dean, look - Samuel will know what to do.”
Dean isn't so sure. Hell, Samuel might have some aces up his sleeve, but there's no cure for vampirism Dean has heard of. “C'mon, man, I'm a monster, okay? This is NOT a problem that you spit-ball. We gotta deal with this before I hurt somebody.” When it comes down to it, that's all that matters. There is more silence from Sam and Dean buries his head in his hands again. This shit is going to kill him before Samuel can and maybe that's a good thing too.
“How's it feel?” Sam asks eventually.
What the fuck, Dean thinks. “NOW? Now you wanna talk about my feelings?”
“No, I mean...physically.”
“How do you THINK it feels? Not good!” Dean answers a bit too sharply maybe, but what the all loving fuck? He needs to get away from Sam and his all too steady heartbeat for a bit. He gets up and goes over to the bathroom.
“Where you going?”
“Bathroom, okay? News flash, Mr. Wizard : vampires pee!” he answers, slamming the door behind him. He has a reflection too, he finds out pretty soon. His fangs look evil and he wants to smash shit into pieces, but - there are things he needs to do before Samuel can finish him off. He splashes some water in his face, but it doesn't help, because this stuff never really helps anyway. He has no idea why people do that in the first place.
Sam will be so pissed, he thinks in the split second before the decision is made. He needs to see Lisa and Ben before he's a monster. He needs to say goodbye first.
Because no matter what he likes to tell himself, what he liked to tell himself when Cas left without a freaking word, it matters. Saying goodbye to the people you love and have to leave behind.
It matters.
~+~
He's being a creep and he knows he's being a creep, but the thing is: she just looks so peaceful like this and maybe there's something to this whole watching her sleep thing after all. Maybe the fascination can only be understood by supernatural beings (like Cas). Or maybe he's turning into a sappy vampire from a bad written YA novel.
“Dean.” She blinks awake and - he has never seen anything more adorable.
“Hey,” he says.
She turns the night-lamp on and it's blinding. He can hear her heartbeat like he could with Sam.
“Hey. I wasn't expecting you for a couple of days.”
The sound of her heart is really distracting. “Yeah, yeah... I wanted to see you.” He gets out, sitting down on the bed beside her.
“What's up? Are you okay?” she asks, she sounds concerned, but he would be too. She has good instincts he thinks.
“Listen...”
“What's going on?”
“It doesn't matter. But I need you to know. You and Ben...just, uh... Thanks. Okay? For everything,” he says. God he's just so freaking crappy at this feelings stuff.
She slides closer to him and her heartbeat quickens. It's almost like he can feel it inside him.
“Dean, you're scaring me.”
She's too close and he can smell her blood and this is all so messed up and-
“Oh, God, I'm Pattinson,” he says.
“What?”
“Nothing. I...I gotta go.” He needs to get out of here and fast. This was a spectacularly stupid idea. What was he even thinking? He should have sent her a text or called. Now he's going to hurt her, because he's a monster.
“No, you can't just show up here like this and -”
He cuts her off. “Believe me, I wish it was different.”
“Just stop, and explain to me what's going on out there,” she says. He can hear the note of frustration in her voice.
“Lisa, I can't bring this crap home to you.”
“You're talking about your work?”
“I'm talking about my LIFE. It's ugly and it's violent, and I'm gonna die - soon.” There, he thinks, it's out there and he said it and he wishes, he didn't.
“Just tell me. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”
And she's so close and he can't. Her scent and her skin and the blood rushing in her veins, he can hear her heartbeat and how it spikes up and all he wants to do it kiss her and lick her throat and bite that pretty skin and drink her dry. He presses her against the wall and - just a sip he thinks just- he lets go and steps back nearly shaking with the desire to just rip her open.
“Dean?” And she sounds frightened? now. He never wanted that.
“I gotta go.”
~+~
There are worse things than death he thinks. Pushing Ben, hurting Ben, just made it to Number One on that not so very short list.
~+~
Sometimes he thinks it's not worth it, all of it. It's not worth surviving all of the shit he has to deal with every freaking day of his life.
Sometimes he wonders what is wrong with him, on other days he wonders what the hell is wrong with Sam. Again.
~+~
Truth is, he doesn't think he can patch up things with Lisa again. He hurt her son, the only person in the world she would do anything for and he gets it.
He was playing house and he should've known that it wouldn't last. The second he laid his eyes on Sam he should have packed his stuff and left her to live a life where he wasn't a part of it.
Samuel warned him.
But he just wanted it so badly. Wanted to make it work for her and Ben and Sam.
He shuts the phone. He can't blame her. He wouldn't pick up either.
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