Fic: The Road Refuses Strangers
Seven days!
I think I'm confusing people with this count. I'm including The Thursday Itself as a day, because we are going to have to wait through most of it. (And also I have to write a fic for it.) Six and a half days, maybe? That's awkward.
Anyway, LESS THAN A WEEK! Previous ficlets here.
Title: The Road Refuses Strangers
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Dean & Castiel (Dean/Castiel if you squint, and I do)
Spoilers: Apocalyptic AU written before S4 finished airing, so pretty safe.
Length: ~3,100 words
Summary: Dean is walking across the border from Lawrence, Kansas, into Lawrence, Kansas, when a black 1967 Chevy Impala nearly runs him off the road.
Note: Title from “White As Snow” by U2.
The Road Refuses Strangers
Dean is walking across the border from Lawrence, Kansas, into Lawrence, Kansas, when a black 1967 Chevy Impala nearly runs him off the road.
The driver doesn’t stop. Dean, regaining his balance on a scraggly scrap of shoulder, is secretly relieved. These days, not a moment goes by when he’s not braced for a confrontation, but this literally blindsided him. If it had been a real attack and not merely an accident-which, judging by the fact that he is still standing, is all it was-he would have been completely unprepared. Scratch that: he would be completely dead.
He’s slipping. He can’t afford even a waver, a tremble.
He adjusts the straps of his rucksack and the angle of his chin and starts walking again. He passes the first imploring sign-YOU ARE NOW LEAVING LAWRENCE ~ COME BACK SOON!-followed by the second, much more matter-of-fact: WELCOME TO LAWRENCE, KANSAS, POP. 53,789. This juxtaposition initially struck Dean as creepy, but compared to everything else, the feeling soon faded. For a couple of months, then, it was sort of funny, the way most types of hunters’ humor was funny. Now it’s just scenery, same as the road, the trees, the eternally clear, endlessly blue sky.
As Dean nears the center of town and starts seeing more and more people, he knows it’s time to steel himself and put his game face on. The smile makes his jaw ache. He passes the campus, the incongruous but by now familiar red tile roofs glinting in the sunlight. A couple of Jesses and a Madison, standing and chatting in the shade of a Mission Revival arch, turn and wave at him. Dean wades deep into his Stepford headspace and manages a parody of a wave back.
Downtown is a mishmash of bold ’80s colors, ads for Chicken McNuggets and Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola and Always feminine hygiene products. Every movie theater he passes is playing The Dead Zone. (Creepy. Then funny. Then nothing at all.) How does he even remember this stuff? Dean wonders, not for the first time. And as usual he settles on the same answer: he always was a know-it-all. The brains of the operation.
On his own, Dean has to admit he doesn’t have much of a strategy. All he knows is that he can’t do it the same way every time: he’d go crazy. Crazier than he’s already going, walking street after street of identical lawns, identical houses, identical trees reaching up toward the master bedroom. He still has a photo in his pocket, of him and Mom and Dad-of all of them-standing outside.
He decides to hit up a bar this time. Maybe he can find out what he needs to know quickly and move on. There’s a stretch of road outside of town, between the two signs, and it’s become Dean’s favorite place to hunker down for the night.
The first bar he comes to is called The Replay Lounge. The bartender is an Ellen-the bartender is always an Ellen, though the bars themselves are never The Roadhouse. Dean settles himself on a stool beside a pair of Bobbys. Smiling, carefully smiling, he scans the room. There’s a John by the jukebox, and another playing darts with a Jim. There are also several of him, two playing pool and one by himself in a booth in the corner. Dean smiles smiles smiles, but avoids eye contact with them.
The Ellen gives him his favorite brand of beer without having to ask his pleasure. He takes a sip: yup, that’s the stuff, just as crisp and refreshing as it’s always been. Too bad he can’t afford to enjoy it, the bottle in his hand no more than a prop. Just like the expression on his face: I’m normal, it says. I don’t stand out.
In a room full of familiar faces, it can be dangerous to appear a stranger.
One last big swig, then, for courage. And then he turns and grins stiffly at the Bobbys. Small talk time. Which means car talk time-it’s what they still have in common, what Dean can blather on about without having to think too much. Hell, in some other universe, maybe this would have been it. Automotive repair: the family business.
But of course Dean doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether either Bobby has seen anything sweet come into the yard lately. (“The other day I got a ’67 Impala in prime condition.” “What do you know, so did I!”) There’s only one thing he wants to know. So when he feels the lead up has been sufficient (he was never the one who could whip out the lost puppy expression, either), he just slips it in there: “Has there been any sign of him?”
Something like awe creeps into the Bobbys’ eyes. “Not yet,” one of them says.
“But soon, we’ve heard.”
“Yes. Soon.”
Dean nods and takes another sip of beer: half reward, half a way to keep what he’s feeling off his face. Figures. Town after town, it’s like everyone’s living in a sick version of that stupid play they made him read in high school. (Twice, actually-one of the many joys of moving around so much.) The whole world’s primed and waiting, twisted in on itself to be ready. But Dean doesn’t have it in him to sit still. He tosses a polite goodbye the Bobbys’ way, leaves a tip for the Ellen, and prepares to move on.
He’s walking across the darkened parking lot when he hears footsteps behind him: someone stealthy, someone good and soft on his feet. But not good enough. Dean spins around and it’s like turning to face a mirror. The one from the corner booth, Dean thinks: he’d felt him watching him. All right then. He’s ready.
“Hey there, handsome,” he says.
“Dad says he saw you on the road outside of town. You were walking.”
“Exercise is good for you,” Dean says. This is boring. He doesn’t want to banter; he wants to shake this asshole off or fight him off-he just wants to get out of here. He’d known this wasn’t his day, known this Lawrence wouldn’t be the one, right from the moment he almost got up close and personal with that John’s bumper out on the road.
“What happened to your car, Dean? Dad wouldn’t have given it to you if he thought you were gonna ruin it.”
Dean grits his teeth. “Maybe I just couldn’t stand the sight of the damn thing anymore.”
The walking inconvenience clenches his fists and starts forward. “You’re not Dean Winchester,” he says.
Creepy. Then funny. Then nothing. He feels nothing as he stares himself in the face and says, “That’s where you’re wrong.”
The first punch, though: he feels that. Tastes blood in his mouth. It’s all he needs to find what he needs to fight back. He knows these moves and he can move around them. Land a satisfying crack, fist to nose. Blood spurts. He pushes his advantage, slamming the side of his hand into his opponent’s kidney, trying to force him down. “What is it with you people?” he says. “Just because you were once told to pick on someone your own size doesn’t mean you had to take it literally.” He feels a rib crack under his fist. Maybe he does want to banter a little.
Then, so sudden he can’t even feel the tide turn: a sharp pain in his side. He thinks, Where did that knife come from? and then he doesn’t care, he’s just worried about keeping it away from him. But he’s lost his footing, he’s down on the ground. The face above his is knotted up in fury and concentration and what Dean thinks is it’s an ugly face. He hates it; he wants to pound it into the asphalt-should have, when he had the chance. Instead the knife catches him again, on the arm this time, and Dean knows that face is going to be the last thing he sees.
But, “Close your eyes, Dean,” a voice whispers, and Dean feels a shiver in the air, down his spine, racing up his arm like a heart attack. He closes his eyes, and the he hears a scream he recognizes, though it is not, this time, his own.
He lies still for a moment, then slowly pushes himself up into a crouch.
“How’d you know it was me?” he asks.
“I’ll always know you, Dean,” says Castiel.
Dean shakes his head and glances away: it is so damn good to see him that he can hardly stand to look. “Funny. I don’t, sometimes.”
Cas makes a little hmm sound in the back of his throat. “Can you walk?” he asks.
Dean inspects himself: the cut on his arm is nothing; the one in his side could turn nasty. It also hurts like a bitch. But he pulls himself to his feet. “Yeah.”
“Good. It’s not safe here.”
“Thanks for the newsflash, Cas.”
The angel looks at him: the bright blue eyes, the dark spikes of hair, the whole Holy Tax Accountant package. It’s the only unique face Dean’s seen in weeks and even it comes second hand.
Dean rubs at the underside of his chin, where there used to be a scar (14 years old. Kelpie) and now there isn’t. Well, it’s not like he’s working with original material here, either.
He looks back at Cas, who’s watching him like he’s expecting Dean to thread their elbows together, follow him down the yellow brick road. Yeah, they’re off to see the wizard: Dean’s sure got some questions about the wonderful things he’s done.
They start walking. It’s what they do.
They stand between the two signs, where it’s safer, a little safer-or at least that’s what Dean tells himself, or else he’d never get any sleep. Dean, having glared away Castiel’s attempts to help, is patching himself up. Cleaned and taped, the wound doesn’t look so bad. He’ll probably live.
“So,” he says, “tell me you have good news.”
“I’m afraid not,” Castiel says, which Dean already knew. “He’s too well shielded. I think you may have been right: our best chance lies in tracking him on the ground. Have you heard anything?”
Dean pulls a bottle of water out of his backpack and takes a swig. “Nope. They all just say he’s coming, he’s coming, like they’re a bunch of twelve-year-old girls and he’s some boy band they’re dying to see.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know the sick bit?” He pauses, not sure he actually wants to say. But Cas doesn’t push: he just stands there, as nonjudgmental as an angel can possibly be. In the scrub brush behind him, crickets chirp softly in the dark.
“The sick thing is,” says Dean, “half the time I’m right there with them. I just want to see him.”
“It’s our mission to find him,” says Cas, matter-of-fact.
Dean shakes his head. “I just want to see him,” he repeats. Knowing Cas won’t get it.
Dean’s sure he doesn’t. Castiel frowns; then Dean feels the air shift around him, like giant wings are being spread. “I’ll see you soon,” the angel says.
Dean doesn’t ask him to stay. It feels dangerous, now: the thought of getting what you want.
Dean stops to eat at Jay Bird’s Diner in Lawrence, Kansas. He eats quickly. He wouldn’t have come in at all if he’d known that five minutes after he sat down, a John and a Mary and a him would come in for a leisurely Sunday brunch. The pointless things they talk about, the sound of their laughter, the plastic smiles on their faces-it makes Dean sick. And the fact that only one side of the booth is full…Dean stares at the spot. He can’t believe he did this. But even more, he can’t believe he couldn’t even get it right.
Always winter and never Christmas. Dean’s head has been full of lines from children’s stories lately, the ones he used to read aloud when they were stuck in a motel room and there was nothing on TV and it was hard to get to sleep. Sometimes when Dad went to the library to do research, he’d take them along and Dean would borrow (or often, “borrow”) ones he thought…that he thought would be appreciated. Fantasies, fairytales to send him off to sleep: stories in which the witch melted, the witch was crushed, the witch fell to her doom. Evil was defeated; good triumphed. Dean tried to get into it, do different voices and stuff, even though it all seemed faintly ridiculous. They never meant much to him, those stories; he’s surprised he remembers them at all.
But now he finds himself thinking about wizards and tin woodmen and fields of swaying poppies. About fauns and wardrobes and magical horns. He thinks about getting the fuck out of Kansas.
And he wonders if he made it this way on purpose, all these people in all these towns, forced to wear their faces and live their lives. Always Winchesters and never…
Never Sam.
God may have created man in His image (yeah, nice job there), but Dean’s brother created the apocalypse in his.
Dean finds a parking lot full of Impalas and slashes the tires on each one. Then he waits, whistling, for all the men bearing his face and that of his father to come find him there.
Instead, Castiel shows up, rather sooner than expected.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” The angel’s jaw is set; he sounds dangerously close to wrathful.
Dean shrugs. “Don’t get all bent out of shape about it.” He tilts his head toward the bar. “There are half a dozen replacements in there alone.”
Castiel takes a step forward, his fist clenched, and for a crazy second Dean thinks Cas is going to hit him. But at the last second his fingers uncurl; he touches Dean’s forehead, and then Dean is lying by the side of the road outside of town, the twin signs rearing up on either side of him like a pair of hands.
“I hate it when you do that,” he says.
Cas says nothing. Then he says, “I don’t like it when you are needlessly reckless.”
Dean sits up. The grass is dewy, wet, seeping through his jeans and making them stick to his thighs and ankles. The Deans who are not him all have clean clothes and, he’s sure, regular showers, and the longer he keeps at this, the less long he’s going to be able to pass for one of them.
“What is the point of all of this?” he asks. “I’m not getting anywhere, I’m not doing anything. If he can be found, why can’t you find him?”
“It has to be you, Dean.” Castiel still looks like he believes it.
“Oh yeah? And if I ever do find him, what do you think I’m going to be able to do? Do you think I’ll just be able to say, ‘Hey Sammy, maybe molding the world to your sick little fantasy and then high-tailing it out of here ’cause you’re too high and mighty to even stay and play with your toys-maybe you oughta rethink that’? Do you think he’ll take one look at me and be like, ‘Whoops, my bad’? ’Cause that’s obviously not happening, Cas! He can see me any time he wants. He can have any of us any time he wants,” Dean spits, throwing an arm out in the direction of the sign, WELCOME TO LAWRENCE, KANSAS, POP. 53,789, “but apparently he can’t even be bothered.” He lets out a dark grumble of a laugh and turns away, running a hand through his hair. “Sound familiar? Just like the man upstairs.”
Castiel doesn’t speak for a long time, and even though he is silent as a sigh, Dean knows he is still there. “You’re going to tell me I have to have faith,” Dean says.
“No.”
Dean turns, mouth and eyebrow quirking up. “No, I can be faith-free?”
“No, I wasn’t going to tell you.” The angel looks down at his shoes. “You know, Dean.”
Dean kicks a pebble over the city line, back the way he came. “Are we done now? I’m tired. It’s chilly sleeping bag on wet grass time.”
Silently, Castiel crouches and touches a hand to the dirt. His eyes lock on Dean’s as he does what he does; then he stands and puts his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t put yourself out,” Dean says, but the edge in his voice has dulled.
He spreads his sleeping bag on the soft, dry grass and lies down. He feels awkward: Castiel hasn’t left, and while he couldn’t ask him to stay, before, it’s equally impossible-inconceivable-that he will ask him now to go.
“You gonna stand there and watch me sleep?” Dean asks, curling onto his side, trying to get warm. “I have to say, you make a piss-poor guardian angel.”
“I am not a guard,” Cas says in a low voice. “At best I am a guide. And right now I wish to direct your gaze toward the heavens.”
“Am I gonna see a big hand waving down at me?” Dean asks sarcastically, even as he shifts his shoulders, stares up.
“You mistake my meaning. I want you to look at the stars.”
“Cas, I don’t know where you picked up these moves-”
“Look at them,” Castiel insists. “Look every night. They still move. They still shift. If you walk far, you’ll find them changed. Over every version of Lawrence, they are not the same.”
Dean swallows. He can see Orion, the Big Dipper, a bunch of constellations he doesn’t know the names of. (That Sam would have.) “Do you think he forgot…?”
“Or found them to be outside his reach. He is not all-powerful, Dean.” And thus Castiel guides him wordlessly to the unspoken message, the one that drives him onward: He’s still your brother. You can still save him.
Dean lets out a breath. He feels the earth underneath him, warm and dry, and the blankets tight around him. The crickets’ buzz is soft and lulling, like a television set left on in the dark.
Dean closes his eyes. “Thanks for the bedtime story, Cas.”
I think I'm confusing people with this count. I'm including The Thursday Itself as a day, because we are going to have to wait through most of it. (And also I have to write a fic for it.) Six and a half days, maybe? That's awkward.
Anyway, LESS THAN A WEEK! Previous ficlets here.
Title: The Road Refuses Strangers
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairing: Dean & Castiel (Dean/Castiel if you squint, and I do)
Spoilers: Apocalyptic AU written before S4 finished airing, so pretty safe.
Length: ~3,100 words
Summary: Dean is walking across the border from Lawrence, Kansas, into Lawrence, Kansas, when a black 1967 Chevy Impala nearly runs him off the road.
Note: Title from “White As Snow” by U2.
The Road Refuses Strangers
Dean is walking across the border from Lawrence, Kansas, into Lawrence, Kansas, when a black 1967 Chevy Impala nearly runs him off the road.
The driver doesn’t stop. Dean, regaining his balance on a scraggly scrap of shoulder, is secretly relieved. These days, not a moment goes by when he’s not braced for a confrontation, but this literally blindsided him. If it had been a real attack and not merely an accident-which, judging by the fact that he is still standing, is all it was-he would have been completely unprepared. Scratch that: he would be completely dead.
He’s slipping. He can’t afford even a waver, a tremble.
He adjusts the straps of his rucksack and the angle of his chin and starts walking again. He passes the first imploring sign-YOU ARE NOW LEAVING LAWRENCE ~ COME BACK SOON!-followed by the second, much more matter-of-fact: WELCOME TO LAWRENCE, KANSAS, POP. 53,789. This juxtaposition initially struck Dean as creepy, but compared to everything else, the feeling soon faded. For a couple of months, then, it was sort of funny, the way most types of hunters’ humor was funny. Now it’s just scenery, same as the road, the trees, the eternally clear, endlessly blue sky.
As Dean nears the center of town and starts seeing more and more people, he knows it’s time to steel himself and put his game face on. The smile makes his jaw ache. He passes the campus, the incongruous but by now familiar red tile roofs glinting in the sunlight. A couple of Jesses and a Madison, standing and chatting in the shade of a Mission Revival arch, turn and wave at him. Dean wades deep into his Stepford headspace and manages a parody of a wave back.
Downtown is a mishmash of bold ’80s colors, ads for Chicken McNuggets and Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola and Always feminine hygiene products. Every movie theater he passes is playing The Dead Zone. (Creepy. Then funny. Then nothing at all.) How does he even remember this stuff? Dean wonders, not for the first time. And as usual he settles on the same answer: he always was a know-it-all. The brains of the operation.
On his own, Dean has to admit he doesn’t have much of a strategy. All he knows is that he can’t do it the same way every time: he’d go crazy. Crazier than he’s already going, walking street after street of identical lawns, identical houses, identical trees reaching up toward the master bedroom. He still has a photo in his pocket, of him and Mom and Dad-of all of them-standing outside.
He decides to hit up a bar this time. Maybe he can find out what he needs to know quickly and move on. There’s a stretch of road outside of town, between the two signs, and it’s become Dean’s favorite place to hunker down for the night.
The first bar he comes to is called The Replay Lounge. The bartender is an Ellen-the bartender is always an Ellen, though the bars themselves are never The Roadhouse. Dean settles himself on a stool beside a pair of Bobbys. Smiling, carefully smiling, he scans the room. There’s a John by the jukebox, and another playing darts with a Jim. There are also several of him, two playing pool and one by himself in a booth in the corner. Dean smiles smiles smiles, but avoids eye contact with them.
The Ellen gives him his favorite brand of beer without having to ask his pleasure. He takes a sip: yup, that’s the stuff, just as crisp and refreshing as it’s always been. Too bad he can’t afford to enjoy it, the bottle in his hand no more than a prop. Just like the expression on his face: I’m normal, it says. I don’t stand out.
In a room full of familiar faces, it can be dangerous to appear a stranger.
One last big swig, then, for courage. And then he turns and grins stiffly at the Bobbys. Small talk time. Which means car talk time-it’s what they still have in common, what Dean can blather on about without having to think too much. Hell, in some other universe, maybe this would have been it. Automotive repair: the family business.
But of course Dean doesn’t give a rat’s ass whether either Bobby has seen anything sweet come into the yard lately. (“The other day I got a ’67 Impala in prime condition.” “What do you know, so did I!”) There’s only one thing he wants to know. So when he feels the lead up has been sufficient (he was never the one who could whip out the lost puppy expression, either), he just slips it in there: “Has there been any sign of him?”
Something like awe creeps into the Bobbys’ eyes. “Not yet,” one of them says.
“But soon, we’ve heard.”
“Yes. Soon.”
Dean nods and takes another sip of beer: half reward, half a way to keep what he’s feeling off his face. Figures. Town after town, it’s like everyone’s living in a sick version of that stupid play they made him read in high school. (Twice, actually-one of the many joys of moving around so much.) The whole world’s primed and waiting, twisted in on itself to be ready. But Dean doesn’t have it in him to sit still. He tosses a polite goodbye the Bobbys’ way, leaves a tip for the Ellen, and prepares to move on.
He’s walking across the darkened parking lot when he hears footsteps behind him: someone stealthy, someone good and soft on his feet. But not good enough. Dean spins around and it’s like turning to face a mirror. The one from the corner booth, Dean thinks: he’d felt him watching him. All right then. He’s ready.
“Hey there, handsome,” he says.
“Dad says he saw you on the road outside of town. You were walking.”
“Exercise is good for you,” Dean says. This is boring. He doesn’t want to banter; he wants to shake this asshole off or fight him off-he just wants to get out of here. He’d known this wasn’t his day, known this Lawrence wouldn’t be the one, right from the moment he almost got up close and personal with that John’s bumper out on the road.
“What happened to your car, Dean? Dad wouldn’t have given it to you if he thought you were gonna ruin it.”
Dean grits his teeth. “Maybe I just couldn’t stand the sight of the damn thing anymore.”
The walking inconvenience clenches his fists and starts forward. “You’re not Dean Winchester,” he says.
Creepy. Then funny. Then nothing. He feels nothing as he stares himself in the face and says, “That’s where you’re wrong.”
The first punch, though: he feels that. Tastes blood in his mouth. It’s all he needs to find what he needs to fight back. He knows these moves and he can move around them. Land a satisfying crack, fist to nose. Blood spurts. He pushes his advantage, slamming the side of his hand into his opponent’s kidney, trying to force him down. “What is it with you people?” he says. “Just because you were once told to pick on someone your own size doesn’t mean you had to take it literally.” He feels a rib crack under his fist. Maybe he does want to banter a little.
Then, so sudden he can’t even feel the tide turn: a sharp pain in his side. He thinks, Where did that knife come from? and then he doesn’t care, he’s just worried about keeping it away from him. But he’s lost his footing, he’s down on the ground. The face above his is knotted up in fury and concentration and what Dean thinks is it’s an ugly face. He hates it; he wants to pound it into the asphalt-should have, when he had the chance. Instead the knife catches him again, on the arm this time, and Dean knows that face is going to be the last thing he sees.
But, “Close your eyes, Dean,” a voice whispers, and Dean feels a shiver in the air, down his spine, racing up his arm like a heart attack. He closes his eyes, and the he hears a scream he recognizes, though it is not, this time, his own.
He lies still for a moment, then slowly pushes himself up into a crouch.
“How’d you know it was me?” he asks.
“I’ll always know you, Dean,” says Castiel.
Dean shakes his head and glances away: it is so damn good to see him that he can hardly stand to look. “Funny. I don’t, sometimes.”
Cas makes a little hmm sound in the back of his throat. “Can you walk?” he asks.
Dean inspects himself: the cut on his arm is nothing; the one in his side could turn nasty. It also hurts like a bitch. But he pulls himself to his feet. “Yeah.”
“Good. It’s not safe here.”
“Thanks for the newsflash, Cas.”
The angel looks at him: the bright blue eyes, the dark spikes of hair, the whole Holy Tax Accountant package. It’s the only unique face Dean’s seen in weeks and even it comes second hand.
Dean rubs at the underside of his chin, where there used to be a scar (14 years old. Kelpie) and now there isn’t. Well, it’s not like he’s working with original material here, either.
He looks back at Cas, who’s watching him like he’s expecting Dean to thread their elbows together, follow him down the yellow brick road. Yeah, they’re off to see the wizard: Dean’s sure got some questions about the wonderful things he’s done.
They start walking. It’s what they do.
They stand between the two signs, where it’s safer, a little safer-or at least that’s what Dean tells himself, or else he’d never get any sleep. Dean, having glared away Castiel’s attempts to help, is patching himself up. Cleaned and taped, the wound doesn’t look so bad. He’ll probably live.
“So,” he says, “tell me you have good news.”
“I’m afraid not,” Castiel says, which Dean already knew. “He’s too well shielded. I think you may have been right: our best chance lies in tracking him on the ground. Have you heard anything?”
Dean pulls a bottle of water out of his backpack and takes a swig. “Nope. They all just say he’s coming, he’s coming, like they’re a bunch of twelve-year-old girls and he’s some boy band they’re dying to see.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know the sick bit?” He pauses, not sure he actually wants to say. But Cas doesn’t push: he just stands there, as nonjudgmental as an angel can possibly be. In the scrub brush behind him, crickets chirp softly in the dark.
“The sick thing is,” says Dean, “half the time I’m right there with them. I just want to see him.”
“It’s our mission to find him,” says Cas, matter-of-fact.
Dean shakes his head. “I just want to see him,” he repeats. Knowing Cas won’t get it.
Dean’s sure he doesn’t. Castiel frowns; then Dean feels the air shift around him, like giant wings are being spread. “I’ll see you soon,” the angel says.
Dean doesn’t ask him to stay. It feels dangerous, now: the thought of getting what you want.
Dean stops to eat at Jay Bird’s Diner in Lawrence, Kansas. He eats quickly. He wouldn’t have come in at all if he’d known that five minutes after he sat down, a John and a Mary and a him would come in for a leisurely Sunday brunch. The pointless things they talk about, the sound of their laughter, the plastic smiles on their faces-it makes Dean sick. And the fact that only one side of the booth is full…Dean stares at the spot. He can’t believe he did this. But even more, he can’t believe he couldn’t even get it right.
Always winter and never Christmas. Dean’s head has been full of lines from children’s stories lately, the ones he used to read aloud when they were stuck in a motel room and there was nothing on TV and it was hard to get to sleep. Sometimes when Dad went to the library to do research, he’d take them along and Dean would borrow (or often, “borrow”) ones he thought…that he thought would be appreciated. Fantasies, fairytales to send him off to sleep: stories in which the witch melted, the witch was crushed, the witch fell to her doom. Evil was defeated; good triumphed. Dean tried to get into it, do different voices and stuff, even though it all seemed faintly ridiculous. They never meant much to him, those stories; he’s surprised he remembers them at all.
But now he finds himself thinking about wizards and tin woodmen and fields of swaying poppies. About fauns and wardrobes and magical horns. He thinks about getting the fuck out of Kansas.
And he wonders if he made it this way on purpose, all these people in all these towns, forced to wear their faces and live their lives. Always Winchesters and never…
Never Sam.
God may have created man in His image (yeah, nice job there), but Dean’s brother created the apocalypse in his.
Dean finds a parking lot full of Impalas and slashes the tires on each one. Then he waits, whistling, for all the men bearing his face and that of his father to come find him there.
Instead, Castiel shows up, rather sooner than expected.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” The angel’s jaw is set; he sounds dangerously close to wrathful.
Dean shrugs. “Don’t get all bent out of shape about it.” He tilts his head toward the bar. “There are half a dozen replacements in there alone.”
Castiel takes a step forward, his fist clenched, and for a crazy second Dean thinks Cas is going to hit him. But at the last second his fingers uncurl; he touches Dean’s forehead, and then Dean is lying by the side of the road outside of town, the twin signs rearing up on either side of him like a pair of hands.
“I hate it when you do that,” he says.
Cas says nothing. Then he says, “I don’t like it when you are needlessly reckless.”
Dean sits up. The grass is dewy, wet, seeping through his jeans and making them stick to his thighs and ankles. The Deans who are not him all have clean clothes and, he’s sure, regular showers, and the longer he keeps at this, the less long he’s going to be able to pass for one of them.
“What is the point of all of this?” he asks. “I’m not getting anywhere, I’m not doing anything. If he can be found, why can’t you find him?”
“It has to be you, Dean.” Castiel still looks like he believes it.
“Oh yeah? And if I ever do find him, what do you think I’m going to be able to do? Do you think I’ll just be able to say, ‘Hey Sammy, maybe molding the world to your sick little fantasy and then high-tailing it out of here ’cause you’re too high and mighty to even stay and play with your toys-maybe you oughta rethink that’? Do you think he’ll take one look at me and be like, ‘Whoops, my bad’? ’Cause that’s obviously not happening, Cas! He can see me any time he wants. He can have any of us any time he wants,” Dean spits, throwing an arm out in the direction of the sign, WELCOME TO LAWRENCE, KANSAS, POP. 53,789, “but apparently he can’t even be bothered.” He lets out a dark grumble of a laugh and turns away, running a hand through his hair. “Sound familiar? Just like the man upstairs.”
Castiel doesn’t speak for a long time, and even though he is silent as a sigh, Dean knows he is still there. “You’re going to tell me I have to have faith,” Dean says.
“No.”
Dean turns, mouth and eyebrow quirking up. “No, I can be faith-free?”
“No, I wasn’t going to tell you.” The angel looks down at his shoes. “You know, Dean.”
Dean kicks a pebble over the city line, back the way he came. “Are we done now? I’m tired. It’s chilly sleeping bag on wet grass time.”
Silently, Castiel crouches and touches a hand to the dirt. His eyes lock on Dean’s as he does what he does; then he stands and puts his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t put yourself out,” Dean says, but the edge in his voice has dulled.
He spreads his sleeping bag on the soft, dry grass and lies down. He feels awkward: Castiel hasn’t left, and while he couldn’t ask him to stay, before, it’s equally impossible-inconceivable-that he will ask him now to go.
“You gonna stand there and watch me sleep?” Dean asks, curling onto his side, trying to get warm. “I have to say, you make a piss-poor guardian angel.”
“I am not a guard,” Cas says in a low voice. “At best I am a guide. And right now I wish to direct your gaze toward the heavens.”
“Am I gonna see a big hand waving down at me?” Dean asks sarcastically, even as he shifts his shoulders, stares up.
“You mistake my meaning. I want you to look at the stars.”
“Cas, I don’t know where you picked up these moves-”
“Look at them,” Castiel insists. “Look every night. They still move. They still shift. If you walk far, you’ll find them changed. Over every version of Lawrence, they are not the same.”
Dean swallows. He can see Orion, the Big Dipper, a bunch of constellations he doesn’t know the names of. (That Sam would have.) “Do you think he forgot…?”
“Or found them to be outside his reach. He is not all-powerful, Dean.” And thus Castiel guides him wordlessly to the unspoken message, the one that drives him onward: He’s still your brother. You can still save him.
Dean lets out a breath. He feels the earth underneath him, warm and dry, and the blankets tight around him. The crickets’ buzz is soft and lulling, like a television set left on in the dark.
Dean closes his eyes. “Thanks for the bedtime story, Cas.”