Fic: The Weight of the World
Title: The Weight of the World
Author: q79vx6pr10
Rating: R, for language
Characters: Dean, Castiel
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Eric Kripke, et al
Warning: Spoilers through 4.10
Summary: Drunk-dialing an angel.
Words: Approximately 3,500
Sitting at the bar of the Silver Dollar Saloon, Dean gave the blonde next to him another once-over, which would actually make it a twice-over, or maybe it was a thrice-over…he’d lost count. She was definitely his type - petite, buxom, and slutty if her roaming hands were any indication. It was just what he needed since Sammy had once again abandoned him to go off cavorting with his demon girlfriend. What he didn’t understand was why he found he had no interest in the girl in front of him no matter how many times he looked her over. The more attention she gave him, the less interested he became, which aggravated him even more. He wanted to forget the day he had, the life he had. The demons, the angels, God’s mysterious plan for him, and, oh yeah, hell.
It was a little too much to deal with and he wanted to forget it all, just for a little while. Since slutty obviously wasn’t doing it for him, he realized he’d just have to turn to the next best thing - alcohol.
Dean had started out with beer but quickly moved on to shots, every annoying giggle from Boobs McLaughsalot prompting him to order another round. When she crawled into his lap and stuck her tongue down his throat he gave it one last effort to lose himself in her more than willing arms, but he just couldn’t do it. He politely extricated her from his tonsils and deposited her in the chair next to him.
“Ga pee,” he mumbled, heading off in the direction of the restrooms.
He steadied himself against the wall as he emptied the contents of his bladder, the most relief he had all day. Moving to the sinks to wash his hands, he glanced into the mirror and was struck by the reflection he saw there.
He looked beaten and tired and…he didn’t know what. Didn’t want to think about it. That’s what the drinking was for, wasn’t it? No thinking.
He made his way out of the bar, avoiding his drinking companion, which wasn’t difficult considering she was just as trashed as he was. He stumbled over to the Impala and tripped the last step, sending him sprawling across the hood of the car.
“Guess driving be bad idea,” he slurred.
He lay his head there for a minute with his eyes shut, enjoying the cool metal against his cheek.
As much as he loved the Impala, it did not make for a good mattress. Raising himself and taking a deep breath, he started down the road in the direction of the motel, which thankfully wasn’t too far away. His path was a little less than straight and when one swaying step positioned him a little too close to the road, a passing driver lay on his horn, startling Dean.
“Christ!” he yelled after the car. “Drunk man walking here!”
The walk did nothing to sober him up so when he finally made it back to the room, he dropped gracelessly onto the bed face first, grunting when his chest hit the remote control that he’d thrown there earlier. He twisted onto his side, grabbing the offending article from underneath him. Using it to turn on the TV, he then dropped back onto his stomach, ignoring the discomfort in his ribs.
There was nothing on. He scanned through the channels three times before settling on the only program that held any interest for him. It was an old episode of Matlock. He liked Andy Griffith. He always seemed to have his shit together. Even so, after a few minutes Dean turned off the TV and lay quietly again, before his day abruptly came back to him.
They didn’t even really have to drive to find them anymore. They just seemed to pop up all over the place. Here a demon, there a demon, everywhere a fucking demon. But even after destroying a truckload of the bastards, what was there to feel good about?
‘God damn it, Sammy,’ he thought. ‘Why the fuck do you keep leaving me?’
That’s what it came down to, Sam, his brother who he’d practically raised himself, worked his ass off to keep safe, and, oh yeah, went to hell for, now chose to pal around with Ruby, a fucking demon, rather than him. It just sucked.
Suddenly wanting to verbalize just how much it sucked, Dean sat up and grabbed his cell phone, hitting the speed-dial button for his brother. He held it to his ear to hear it ring once before immediately closing his phone to end the call. He gritted his teeth and stared at the room, struggling with what to do.
Sam would probably see that he called and call back anyway, right? He’d just wait.
One minute passed and there was no call. Dean got up and began pacing unsteadily, anger building with each passing minute.
Sam wasn’t calling back.
“God damn it!”
Dean whipped the phone against the wall, watching with immediate regret as it hit and broke into pieces.
“Fucking genius,” he sighed heavily, running his hand over his face. His anger quickly vanished and all he was left with was exhaustion. He was drunk and he was tired and there was no one to care. He dropped to a knee and then flipped over onto his back on the carpet.
Staring blindly at the ceiling, he considered staying in that position for the night. But just as he was thinking that at least the worst of the day was over, the room suddenly turned into Tilt-A-Whirl.
“Oh God,” groaned Dean, turning over and struggling to stand up and get to the bathroom. Using the walls for stability, he just made it to the toilet before exorcising his stomach of the liquor he had consumed.
“Ugh,” he moaned between convulsions.
After heaving several times, he rested his head on his arms and waited to see if his stomach was done with its ‘everything must go’ sale. He wanted to just curl up next to the toilet but then remembered he was in a dingy motel that had roach traps in too many corners to count.
When he finally felt well enough to move, Dean got to his feet again and leaned against the counter in order to rinse out his mouth. This time he avoided his reflection in the mirror.
He turned off the bathroom light and slowly walked back to the bed. He dropped to sit at its edge, grunting when his ribs took the opportunity to remind him of his injuries. The alcohol had numbed him up to that point. He hadn’t exactly barf himself sober but a large portion of the alcohol he consumed was now heading toward a waste water treatment facility, so he wasn’t quite a drunk as before, allowing him to register the demon-sized bruises that lined his abdomen. He knew no matter what it felt like now, it was going to feel ten times worse in the morning. Not much of an incentive for going to bed but he figured it was time. He didn’t bother to take his clothes off. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He just turned off the light and lay on his back again, trying to avoid his ribs. He had his eyes closed for a good four minutes before he realized he was staring at the ceiling, wide awake. He felt like crying. God, can’t anything be easy?
“Fuck this,” he gritted out, blinking away the tears he refused to let fall. He turned the light back on and sat back on the edge of the bed, his head dropping into his hands.
Screw trying to sleep. Sleeping was overrated. Morning would come soon enough. He just needed a distraction.
He turned the TV back on and started scanning the channels again - Matlock had ended, there was an infomercial for ShamWow, and a late-night showing of High School Musical 2, to which he flipped the channel very quickly from to just catch the end of a 1-900# commercial.
“Damn it,” he said, flipping further through the channels to see if he could catch another one. There were none to be found but he suddenly realized that there was another option - the yellow pages. He was just one small step away from one of his favorite kind of distractions, but upon opening the drawer to the nightstand next to the bed, instead of the phonebook, he found the bible. Of course.
Dean chuckled tiredly as he stared at it. And then suddenly had an idea.
“Castiel!” he called to the room.
He waited a minute, wondering if it could possibly be that easy. Nothing happened but he felt compelled to try again, suddenly feeling anxious to see the angel.
“Castiel!”
Several more minutes passed with no response and his anticipation deflated. His head dropped in disappointment.
“Guess it doesn’t work like that,” he mumbled to himself.
“What’s wrong?”
Dean’s head shot up at the familiar voice, filled with concern. The angel stood there in all his middle-management-looking glory.
“Cas!” said Dean, suddenly feeling better than he had all day.
Castiel quickly took in the messy room and the broken phone then looked back at Dean obviously recognizing that something was off.
“Are you hurt?” he asked in confusion.
“No. I’m fine,” Dean replied casually. Had they ever had a casual conversation? “Well, I’m a little drunk but… Um, how are you?
Castiel was relieved to see that nothing appeared to be wrong but he struggled to understand why he had been called by Dean.
”Where’s Sam?” asked the angel.
“Sammy? Oh, you know,” Dean responded, his tone turning bitter. “He and Ruby had some demon team-building retreat and I wasn’t invited.”
Castiel stared at him, slowly trying to put together the pieces of the human puzzle that was Dean Winchester. He suddenly had a revelation.
“You’re lonely,” he stated, proud to have figured it out.
“What? No!” replied Dean adamantly, getting up from the bed to pace the room. “Lonely? God, no. I’ve been on my own thousands of times before. And, believe me, if you could’ve seen the tail I could’ve brought home tonight…” Realizing whom he was talking to, he decided not to finish his statement. “I mean… Let’s just say, I chose my current situation.”
Castiel wasn’t convinced.
“You called me.”
Dean was a little embarrassed by the truth of the situation.
“It was just a test,” said Dean. “Now that I know what kind of response time I can get I’ll be more particular about when I send up the bat signal.”
“You can call me any time,” said Castiel. “For any reason.”
Castiel saw no reason to add that he would only be able to come if he wasn’t needed elsewhere. Because he knew that nothing would be as important, and he would find Dean if he so much as whispered his name. The vehemence of this thought surprised him but he reasoned it was because it was the task that had been given to him. Dean was important. God had declared it.
“I’m not…” Dean suddenly realized that there was no point in lying to an angel. He looked at the floor. “Okay, so maybe I am a little lonely. I think I have a right.” He glanced at the angel sideways. “Don’t you ever get lonely?”
Castiel knew what lonely meant by definition, of course. But he had never experienced emotions in the way that humans experienced them. That is, until recently. But he didn’t have the words to describe what he had begun experiencing since he had come to earth, or even understand why he was experiencing what he was experiencing. And he wanted very much to understand.
“I…”
“’Course you don’t,” interrupted Dean, oblivious to the angel’s thoughts. “What am I thinking? You’re a super bad-ass angel. Running around smiting and doing God’s will and all. Which reminds me. What’s the deal between you and Uriel? I mean how come you tend toward the two-finger ninja move while he goes all Kimbo Slice?”
Castiel opened his mouth to respond but was immediately interrupted again.
“It’s not that I’m not grateful. You’ve had more than one opportunity to do me some permanent damage and I appreciate that you’ve left me, for the most part, intact. Sammy, too. Although, sometimes, just sometimes, like right about now, I wouldn’t mind watching him get a little ass-kicking. Ever since Ruby…”
As Castiel patiently listened to Dean ramble, he was hit with a new revelation. Maybe this was what Dean needed. He needed to talk. He didn’t need someone to talk back. He just needed someone to be there, to hear him. It gave him comfort. If that was the case, then he could be that person. He wanted to be that person. That was the revelation.
He finally tuned back into Dean’s voice when he heard it falter and turn from casual to strained.
“He’s all I’ve got,” Dean said, swallowing back the tears that threatened again to fall.
Hearing the pained emotion in Dean’s voice, Castiel automatically drew closer to him. Dean caught the movement in his peripheral vision and waited warily to see what the angel was going to do.
Castiel had once before rested a comforting hand on Dean’s shoulder, and he lifted his right arm to do it again.
Perhaps due to a combination of the alcohol and the unimaginable amount of stress he was under, Dean mistook the action and turned, throwing his arms around the angel in an embrace.
Castiel was completely stunned. His arms hung useless, one still at his side, the other in mid-air, halfway to its destination. He didn’t know what to do. He had never before been this close to another human body when violence wasn’t involved. He had no frame of reference. Dean only pulled tighter in a desperate attempt to elicit a response rather than the feeling of rejection that was growing within him.
Castiel tentatively brought his arms to Dean’s waist and curled his hands experimentally into his shirt. In that small contact, he felt the tension leave Dean’s body with a deep sigh. Motivated by this reaction, he snaked his arms further around Dean’s back and tugged him closer, slowly transforming his own tension into a healing warmth.
Castiel was overwhelmed by the feeling of the embrace. The feeling of comfort offered and accepted. The physical feeling of the contact itself. He never imagined he would know these things, and that they would feel so good.
Dean’s body sagged against Castiel as he let go of all that weighed him down. He had never felt he could allow anyone else to take that weight for him, until that moment. And Castiel took it, with a joy he had never known before. Helping Dean to heal. To go on. To continue to fight. This was his true purpose. And he rejoiced in it.
Dean trembled in his arms, his body not knowing what to do without its burden.
Castiel recognized Dean’s mental and physical exhaustion, and knew that he could give one more offering of relief.
He brought two fingers up to the back of Dean’s neck and tightened his arms as he caught Dean’s unconscious body.
He gently placed him on the bed and stood back to look at him.
Castiel had never felt so blessed.
He thanked God for choosing him to pull Dean from the pit.
He thanked God for Dean Winchester.
And he prayed for God’s protection over Dean, so that whatever he needed, God would provide, using Castiel as his instrument.
He draped a blanket over Dean and stood back.
He realized that he should leave. There were other things to be attended to. And Dean was asleep. There was nothing more he could do for him. But he didn’t want to leave, and this whole evening had started because of Dean’s loneliness. It felt wrong to leave him.
He sat down in a chair next to the window, turning it so that it was facing Dean. And then waited for the sun to rise.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dean awoke at the insistence of his bladder. He had another few minutes before it would become a true emergency so he rolled onto his back to slowly start the day.
Stretching, he checked in with his body to take stock of the damage inflicted upon it from the previous day’s activities and was surprised to find he felt as well as he did. He didn’t even have a headache, which was odd because he distinctly remembered a lot of alcohol. He also remembered slutty, Matlock, and…a hug.
He jolted up to look around the room, only to find it empty.
He felt disappointment? He wasn’t sure. It was probably just his bladder. He decided he might as well get up and take care of that issue.
After taking care of business, he looked at himself in the mirror and was stunned. He looked…good. Well, he knew he looked good, but he actually looked better, healthier. It was then that he realized he hadn’t dreamt the night before, of hell or Sam or any other horror movie that did its regular midnight viewing in his brain. Huh.
He didn’t have much time to contemplate the thought when he heard the door to the motel room open. He hoped it was Sam. Otherwise, he was in trouble because all his weapons were in the other room.
He peeked his head out of the bathroom to find Castiel standing there. He was carrying a McDonald’s bag.
“Hey,” Dean greeted in surprise.
Castiel looked at him as if he hadn’t seen him in days, drinking in the sight of Dean.
“How are you feeling?”
“Um, good,” said Dean. “I actually feel really good.”
“I’m glad.”
They stared at each other some more, the room charged with a thousand things unsaid.
“You got breakfast there?” Dean asked.
Castiel looked as if he forgot he was carrying the bag. He set it down on the table next to Dean.
“Lunch.”
“Lunch? Man, what time is it?” Dean said, looking at the motel provided digital clock. “Holy shit! It’s almost two.”
“You were tired.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Dean, running his hand through his hair. Suddenly very hungry, he looked into the bag.
“Um…is this for both of us or were you going to pig out in front of me?”
“It’s for you. I’m not hungry.”
“Are you sure?” said Dean, shoving a French fry in his mouth. “You got a whole bagful of cholesterol here.”
“I didn’t know what you would want.”
“I’m not real picky actually,” said Dean, suddenly struck by a thought. “Wait. You came in through the door. Did you walk to get this?”
“Yes.”
“Why? When you can pop in and out of places and scare the shit out of people.”
“I wanted to see how it felt.”
“To walk to McDonalds?” asked Dean in disbelief.
“Yes.”
Angels were strange beings.
“And how did it feel?”
“Different. I was able to see things I don’t normally experience.”
“Hmm,” said Dean around the bite of sandwich in his mouth. “Well, thanks for lunch.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You sure you don’t want any?”
Castiel stared at the burger Dean held out to him and realized he was no longer needed.
“I should leave.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Dean, his mood deflating. He set his sandwich to the side, suddenly feeling fidgety. “And, you know, the whole bat signal thing… I promise I won’t like call you constantly for no good reason. I don’t want to be known as the boy who cried woof. Wait, woof? That’s not right. Wolf? Yeah, wolf. God, I’m losing it.”
“You can call me,” stated Castiel firmly, and then dropped his voice when he saw the surprise in Dean’s eyes. “If you need me.”
“Okay,” replied Dean, with equal gravity.
Castiel stayed there staring at him, fighting with the feeling of not wanting to leave. A feeling he didn’t understand. Dean was okay. His work here was done. Dean didn’t need him right now. He was needed elsewhere.
“I guess I’ll see you around then,” said Dean.
The angel looked as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know what to say.
“I should leave,” repeated Castiel.
Dean chuckled quietly, amused by his awkwardness.
“Yeah,” said Dean, surprised by the constriction in his chest when Castiel disappeared before his eyes.
He stared off into the room, replaying everything back in his mind.
The past twelve hours felt like they had lasted a week. It was bizarre. He didn’t really know what to think. But he felt good. He felt…whole somehow. He didn’t understand why and he figured it may well wear off in the next ten minutes but he had something to hold onto. Someone. He was still lonely but he didn’t feel alone. Castiel would only ever be a breath away.
He bit into his sandwich as sighed with contentment.