Take Me Home -Part 22
Title: Take Me Home
Summary: The Trickster decides to have some fun with Sam. Wackiness ensues, with a healthy helping of whump, because it's me and I can't leave the boys intact.
Spoilers: All aired episodes up to 5.10
Word Count: 1,992 for this chapter
Disclaimer: Luckily for them, I own nothing. Otherwise they'd be in for a world of hurt.
Warning: Utter crack. Language that is definitely not workplace-appropriate.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: No beta, written in such a hurry I'm amazed my fingers managed to connect with the keyboard.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #2:I take NO responsibility for this, because it's cracktastic and weird and I can't believe it came out of of my brain. If you are scarred for life after reading it, it's NOT my fault!
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #3: It's basically "Lassie Come-Home," Winchester-style. I dunno. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!
Master Post
Part 21
Back to Dean! Castiel fans ought to be pleased, because he's going to be a lot more present from now on. Not in every single chapter, but he certainly features a lot. He kind of lodged himself in my brain and refused to budge from this fic. *shrug* I dunno, I find it best not to argue too much with him, it gives me headache. ;)
Hey, we're past the 2/3 mark, folks! Isn't that exciting?
*****
“Boy, I can hear you thinking from over here. Would you quit it already? It ain't like brooding over this is going to make any difference.”
Bobby is surly, probably because it's early in the morning and the coffee isn't ready yet. If it were anyone other than Bobby, Dean would already have told him to cut him some slack because it's damned hard to get around with only one working leg. Of course, that shit doesn't fly with Bobby. So instead he glares at the coffee pot in the hopes that it'll motivate it to percolate faster, hobbles toward the stove, leaning heavily on his crutches. At least he's out of the cast now, is down to one of those things that looks like a space boot, all plastic and velcro and fucking terrible to walk around in, even with forearm crutches. He very definitely does not hit the counter with his fist in frustration: it's more of a determined thump.
“It's been weeks, Bobby,” he says, keeping his voice quiet. Just to prove how not upset he is. Totally not upset. Absolutely in control of his emotions.
“I know. But we ain't giving up yet. We'll find him, no matter how long it takes.”
“I just feel so goddamned useless,” he breaks several eggs savagely into a bowl, and when the yolks burst and leak yellow he grabs a fork to beat them, figures scrambled eggs are just as good as anything. “I can barely move, and the only person who's helping me on this aside from you is Cas. Three of us to find Sam, who's basically unrecognizable, and Cas is the only one who can reliably make it out the front door.” He pours the egg mixture into a pan and stabs viciously at it while it sizzles.
Bobby doesn't say anything, and really, what is there to say? The Winchesters have never exactly been popular among the hunting crowd. God knows their father was a prickly son of a bitch, quick to take offense and even quicker to give it in his single-minded pursuit of the yellow-eyed demon, and of the few friends he made when he was alive, only Bobby and Missouri are left. Daniel Elkins is gone -although whether he'd have helped is anyone's guess- as are Ellen and Pastor Jim. Sam and Dean weren't exactly high on the popularity charts even before they unleashed the apocalypse, and now they can count their allies on the fingers of one hand. Chuck, who's crawled into a bottle and refuses to come out until the apocalypse is over. Rufus, who's God knows where. The rest of their friends are gone: Ellen (she was their friend too, maybe moreso than their father's) and Jo, Pamela and Ash... it seems like wherever he goes, there's a trail of bodies.
“You're brooding again. I swear, you're gettin' louder at it than that brother of yours.”
He scowls. “Eat your breakfast.”
“I know we ain't exactly overwhelmed with offers of support, boy, but you can't let that get you down. Missouri's still keeping an eye out -so to speak- to see if she can figure where Sam might be, and Chuck promised he'd call if he gets anything on the Prophecy Channel he's got going in his head.”
He doesn't answer, but the words hang in the air between them as loudly as if he'd screamed at the top of his lungs. What if he's already dead? He doesn't bother to hide the fact that he doesn't touch his eggs.
The days stretch into weeks, autumn into winter, and soon there's a thick crust of snow accumulating outside that neither of them can get out to shovel. He gets better slowly, excruciatingly slowly, keeps coming down with low-grade fevers that leave him weak and shivering on Bobby's sofa. Still, even those eventually all but cease, and he's able to limp around, first with a pair of forearm crutches that Bobby had stashed away in his basement, and then with a cane as long as it's over short distances. His leg aches and throbs almost constantly as the weather turns colder and damper, but the pain is a welcome distraction from thinking constantly about how he can't even manage to get out the door, let alone look for Sam.
Castiel comes and goes at odd intervals, his erratic presence both reassuring and maddening. He puts up with Dean's mood swings with a lot more patience than Bobby does, and a lot more patience than Dean knows he deserves. Sam would have punched him by now, or forced him to talk about his feelings or whatever touchy-feely shit he'd been reading about lately, and thinking about Sam just makes his chest ache, and thinking about how shittily he's treating Castiel does nothing to improve his temper, either.
“There is no need to apologize,” the angel says to him one evening after he's chased his painkillers with maybe a couple of beers too many and none of it has done anything to dull the ache in his leg. He's snapped and apologized three times already, and his stomach is going sour and he's not nearly buzzed enough for any of this to be worth it. “I understand that you are overwrought.”
“Of course I need to fucking apologize!” he snarls, hanging onto his bottle instead of hurling it across the room the way he wants to. He bets it would smash in a really satisfying way before Bobby rips him a new one for ruining the paint on the far wall. He's sitting on the sofa that's been doubling as his bed, since stairs have been a pretty tricky proposition up until recently and until now hasn't seen a reason to switch. “I'm being an asshole, and I know it and I really wish I had a better handle on all the shit that's coming out of my mouth these days, because it's all landing on you and you're the only person who gives a shit about me anymore and it's not fair. Fuck. I'm not close to drunk enough to be saying shit like this, which just goes to show.”
“I don't understand what you mean.”
“Neither do I, Cas, don't worry about it.” He closes his eyes briefly, but it doesn't help to shut anything out, so he opens them again, finds Castiel looking intently at him, as though he can see right through to his soul. Maybe he can, but the thought isn't a reassuring one.
“I am not worried about it. I am worried about you.”
He laughs bitterly. “Yeah, well, you should worry about Sam.”
“I worry also about Samuel. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“Cas, are you making fun of me?”
Castiel surprises him by smiling, and it's an odd sight, because before he fell the angel never so much as twitched an eyebrow. It's a small, beautiful thing, which makes his blue eyes dance. “Perhaps a little bit. My intention was not to cause offense.”
“None taken.”
“I know that Samuel's absence is painful for you -and for Bobby.” Cas seems to be searching for words, which isn't like him. “I... miss him too. I will keep looking until I find him. I have already promised you this, and I intend to keep my promise.” He moves to sit beside Dean on the sofa. “You should sleep. Are you in much pain?”
He's asking if he should help, as if Dean isn't feeling guilty enough as it is. “No, it's okay. Nothing I can't handle.”
Cas sighs, which is another thing he never used to do. “Dean...” The inflection on that one word makes him sound so much like Sam that it's like someone sucker-punched him in the solar plexus, and Dean has to choke back a sob that comes at him out of left field. Castiel places a hand on his forearm, gentle, undemanding. “If you do not wish it, then that is all right,” he says, mercifully sounding like himself again, “but I wish you would let me help, in what small ways I still can.”
It's then that he realizes that this might not be entirely about him. Sure, he's been going stir-crazy, stuck in Bobby's house while he recovers from three different surgeries and more infections than you can shake a stick at, hobbling painfully on a broken leg that's taking its sweet time to mend, but he's not the only one here. Not the only one who cares about Sam. Bobby loves the kid like a son (and you too, a quiet voice in his mind supplies), and even Cas has surprised him with the intensity of his feelings. Up until a couple of months ago, Dean was pretty sure that the angel wasn't Sam Winchester's biggest fan, what with the whole demon blood thing and being Lucifer's vessel and... yeah, everything. But lately, Cas' single-minded search to the exclusion of all else, including his search for God, has him reconsidering that opinion.
So Dean isn't the only one who feels fucking useless and helpless. Castiel is slowly but surely becoming tied to the earth. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing as far as Dean is concerned -all the other angels are A-class douchebags, so becoming more human can't be anything but good in his books- but Cas is showing signs of wear and tear, of frustration. It reminds him a little too much of when Sam was trying to carry all the weight of trying to kill Lilith and avert the apocalypse on his own, his shoulders sagging under an artificial burden. Dean sometimes finds himself wondering just how much more the angel is going to change, how long until he becomes the unrecognizable, broken mess that he met in the future. If that's even going to happen now. He leans back against the sofa, wishes his head was clearer and that he was ten years younger and wasn't able to tell the weather by how much he hurts on a given day.
“You do help, Cas,” he says, knowing it's weak, as reassurances go. He presses his beer bottle against the side of his head, not caring that it's sweating and getting his hair wet. “You're the only one who does.”
“Then let me do so now. Please.”
Castiel doesn't wait for him to say anything -apart from Sam and Bobby, the angel is the only one who's ever managed to figure out stuff about him without his ever having to say a word, never mind that he's always ragging on Cas for being oblivious. So he stays silent and Castiel takes away the bottle he's been holding, gently lifts his legs until he's lying on the sofa, and places a hand on his head. A moment later and the pain is fading, the same way it did that first night when he was in the hospital, half out of his mind with fever and worry for Sam. He doesn't let himself sleep, though.
“It's going to be Christmas soon.”
“Yes.” Cas sounds as though he doesn't understand where he's going with this.
“I haven't spent Christmas without Sam since he was at Stanford.”
Cas' hand moves slightly, smoothing his thumb over his forehead in an oddly soothing motion. “There is still time. We may find him before then.”
“It's nice of you to lie to me.”
“I am not lying. The fact that it is improbable does not make it impossible. You should sleep.”
“I'm not-” he doesn't manage finish his sentence before he feels Cas touch two fingers to his forehead, and barely has time to think sneaky angel before everything goes dark.
*****
Part 23
Summary: The Trickster decides to have some fun with Sam. Wackiness ensues, with a healthy helping of whump, because it's me and I can't leave the boys intact.
Spoilers: All aired episodes up to 5.10
Word Count: 1,992 for this chapter
Disclaimer: Luckily for them, I own nothing. Otherwise they'd be in for a world of hurt.
Warning: Utter crack. Language that is definitely not workplace-appropriate.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer: No beta, written in such a hurry I'm amazed my fingers managed to connect with the keyboard.
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #2:I take NO responsibility for this, because it's cracktastic and weird and I can't believe it came out of of my brain. If you are scarred for life after reading it, it's NOT my fault!
Neurotic Authorial Disclaimer #3: It's basically "Lassie Come-Home," Winchester-style. I dunno. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!
Master Post
Part 21
Back to Dean! Castiel fans ought to be pleased, because he's going to be a lot more present from now on. Not in every single chapter, but he certainly features a lot. He kind of lodged himself in my brain and refused to budge from this fic. *shrug* I dunno, I find it best not to argue too much with him, it gives me headache. ;)
Hey, we're past the 2/3 mark, folks! Isn't that exciting?
*****
“Boy, I can hear you thinking from over here. Would you quit it already? It ain't like brooding over this is going to make any difference.”
Bobby is surly, probably because it's early in the morning and the coffee isn't ready yet. If it were anyone other than Bobby, Dean would already have told him to cut him some slack because it's damned hard to get around with only one working leg. Of course, that shit doesn't fly with Bobby. So instead he glares at the coffee pot in the hopes that it'll motivate it to percolate faster, hobbles toward the stove, leaning heavily on his crutches. At least he's out of the cast now, is down to one of those things that looks like a space boot, all plastic and velcro and fucking terrible to walk around in, even with forearm crutches. He very definitely does not hit the counter with his fist in frustration: it's more of a determined thump.
“It's been weeks, Bobby,” he says, keeping his voice quiet. Just to prove how not upset he is. Totally not upset. Absolutely in control of his emotions.
“I know. But we ain't giving up yet. We'll find him, no matter how long it takes.”
“I just feel so goddamned useless,” he breaks several eggs savagely into a bowl, and when the yolks burst and leak yellow he grabs a fork to beat them, figures scrambled eggs are just as good as anything. “I can barely move, and the only person who's helping me on this aside from you is Cas. Three of us to find Sam, who's basically unrecognizable, and Cas is the only one who can reliably make it out the front door.” He pours the egg mixture into a pan and stabs viciously at it while it sizzles.
Bobby doesn't say anything, and really, what is there to say? The Winchesters have never exactly been popular among the hunting crowd. God knows their father was a prickly son of a bitch, quick to take offense and even quicker to give it in his single-minded pursuit of the yellow-eyed demon, and of the few friends he made when he was alive, only Bobby and Missouri are left. Daniel Elkins is gone -although whether he'd have helped is anyone's guess- as are Ellen and Pastor Jim. Sam and Dean weren't exactly high on the popularity charts even before they unleashed the apocalypse, and now they can count their allies on the fingers of one hand. Chuck, who's crawled into a bottle and refuses to come out until the apocalypse is over. Rufus, who's God knows where. The rest of their friends are gone: Ellen (she was their friend too, maybe moreso than their father's) and Jo, Pamela and Ash... it seems like wherever he goes, there's a trail of bodies.
“You're brooding again. I swear, you're gettin' louder at it than that brother of yours.”
He scowls. “Eat your breakfast.”
“I know we ain't exactly overwhelmed with offers of support, boy, but you can't let that get you down. Missouri's still keeping an eye out -so to speak- to see if she can figure where Sam might be, and Chuck promised he'd call if he gets anything on the Prophecy Channel he's got going in his head.”
He doesn't answer, but the words hang in the air between them as loudly as if he'd screamed at the top of his lungs. What if he's already dead? He doesn't bother to hide the fact that he doesn't touch his eggs.
The days stretch into weeks, autumn into winter, and soon there's a thick crust of snow accumulating outside that neither of them can get out to shovel. He gets better slowly, excruciatingly slowly, keeps coming down with low-grade fevers that leave him weak and shivering on Bobby's sofa. Still, even those eventually all but cease, and he's able to limp around, first with a pair of forearm crutches that Bobby had stashed away in his basement, and then with a cane as long as it's over short distances. His leg aches and throbs almost constantly as the weather turns colder and damper, but the pain is a welcome distraction from thinking constantly about how he can't even manage to get out the door, let alone look for Sam.
Castiel comes and goes at odd intervals, his erratic presence both reassuring and maddening. He puts up with Dean's mood swings with a lot more patience than Bobby does, and a lot more patience than Dean knows he deserves. Sam would have punched him by now, or forced him to talk about his feelings or whatever touchy-feely shit he'd been reading about lately, and thinking about Sam just makes his chest ache, and thinking about how shittily he's treating Castiel does nothing to improve his temper, either.
“There is no need to apologize,” the angel says to him one evening after he's chased his painkillers with maybe a couple of beers too many and none of it has done anything to dull the ache in his leg. He's snapped and apologized three times already, and his stomach is going sour and he's not nearly buzzed enough for any of this to be worth it. “I understand that you are overwrought.”
“Of course I need to fucking apologize!” he snarls, hanging onto his bottle instead of hurling it across the room the way he wants to. He bets it would smash in a really satisfying way before Bobby rips him a new one for ruining the paint on the far wall. He's sitting on the sofa that's been doubling as his bed, since stairs have been a pretty tricky proposition up until recently and until now hasn't seen a reason to switch. “I'm being an asshole, and I know it and I really wish I had a better handle on all the shit that's coming out of my mouth these days, because it's all landing on you and you're the only person who gives a shit about me anymore and it's not fair. Fuck. I'm not close to drunk enough to be saying shit like this, which just goes to show.”
“I don't understand what you mean.”
“Neither do I, Cas, don't worry about it.” He closes his eyes briefly, but it doesn't help to shut anything out, so he opens them again, finds Castiel looking intently at him, as though he can see right through to his soul. Maybe he can, but the thought isn't a reassuring one.
“I am not worried about it. I am worried about you.”
He laughs bitterly. “Yeah, well, you should worry about Sam.”
“I worry also about Samuel. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
“Cas, are you making fun of me?”
Castiel surprises him by smiling, and it's an odd sight, because before he fell the angel never so much as twitched an eyebrow. It's a small, beautiful thing, which makes his blue eyes dance. “Perhaps a little bit. My intention was not to cause offense.”
“None taken.”
“I know that Samuel's absence is painful for you -and for Bobby.” Cas seems to be searching for words, which isn't like him. “I... miss him too. I will keep looking until I find him. I have already promised you this, and I intend to keep my promise.” He moves to sit beside Dean on the sofa. “You should sleep. Are you in much pain?”
He's asking if he should help, as if Dean isn't feeling guilty enough as it is. “No, it's okay. Nothing I can't handle.”
Cas sighs, which is another thing he never used to do. “Dean...” The inflection on that one word makes him sound so much like Sam that it's like someone sucker-punched him in the solar plexus, and Dean has to choke back a sob that comes at him out of left field. Castiel places a hand on his forearm, gentle, undemanding. “If you do not wish it, then that is all right,” he says, mercifully sounding like himself again, “but I wish you would let me help, in what small ways I still can.”
It's then that he realizes that this might not be entirely about him. Sure, he's been going stir-crazy, stuck in Bobby's house while he recovers from three different surgeries and more infections than you can shake a stick at, hobbling painfully on a broken leg that's taking its sweet time to mend, but he's not the only one here. Not the only one who cares about Sam. Bobby loves the kid like a son (and you too, a quiet voice in his mind supplies), and even Cas has surprised him with the intensity of his feelings. Up until a couple of months ago, Dean was pretty sure that the angel wasn't Sam Winchester's biggest fan, what with the whole demon blood thing and being Lucifer's vessel and... yeah, everything. But lately, Cas' single-minded search to the exclusion of all else, including his search for God, has him reconsidering that opinion.
So Dean isn't the only one who feels fucking useless and helpless. Castiel is slowly but surely becoming tied to the earth. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing as far as Dean is concerned -all the other angels are A-class douchebags, so becoming more human can't be anything but good in his books- but Cas is showing signs of wear and tear, of frustration. It reminds him a little too much of when Sam was trying to carry all the weight of trying to kill Lilith and avert the apocalypse on his own, his shoulders sagging under an artificial burden. Dean sometimes finds himself wondering just how much more the angel is going to change, how long until he becomes the unrecognizable, broken mess that he met in the future. If that's even going to happen now. He leans back against the sofa, wishes his head was clearer and that he was ten years younger and wasn't able to tell the weather by how much he hurts on a given day.
“You do help, Cas,” he says, knowing it's weak, as reassurances go. He presses his beer bottle against the side of his head, not caring that it's sweating and getting his hair wet. “You're the only one who does.”
“Then let me do so now. Please.”
Castiel doesn't wait for him to say anything -apart from Sam and Bobby, the angel is the only one who's ever managed to figure out stuff about him without his ever having to say a word, never mind that he's always ragging on Cas for being oblivious. So he stays silent and Castiel takes away the bottle he's been holding, gently lifts his legs until he's lying on the sofa, and places a hand on his head. A moment later and the pain is fading, the same way it did that first night when he was in the hospital, half out of his mind with fever and worry for Sam. He doesn't let himself sleep, though.
“It's going to be Christmas soon.”
“Yes.” Cas sounds as though he doesn't understand where he's going with this.
“I haven't spent Christmas without Sam since he was at Stanford.”
Cas' hand moves slightly, smoothing his thumb over his forehead in an oddly soothing motion. “There is still time. We may find him before then.”
“It's nice of you to lie to me.”
“I am not lying. The fact that it is improbable does not make it impossible. You should sleep.”
“I'm not-” he doesn't manage finish his sentence before he feels Cas touch two fingers to his forehead, and barely has time to think sneaky angel before everything goes dark.
*****
Part 23