Work Text:
“Um…it’s the women, Father. Where do I begin?” Dean started nervously. This was stupid. Part of him was convinced Sam was doing this just to watch him suffer and laugh, because there were a million other ways they could take care of this ghost. But, whatever.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, is usual,” Father Delaney said from the other booth. Right. There were procedures and policies. God, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d been in a church when it wasn’t a job. They used to go as a family… before Mary-
Before their mom died. But after that John had given up. There was nothing at church for them.
“Right. Good. Yeah. So, that,” Dean muttered. Why was this so hard? It wasn’t like he had to lie. “And, um…so the women. Uh, and this is not something that I’m proud of, but I let them think that we have more of a future than we do, you know? Ah, Gina.” He’d never known a Gina. Why was that what he went with? Why did his mind jump to-
No. He couldn’t think about that now. Not here.
“Gina?”
“Well, now, don’t get me wrong. I mean, she was – it was good times. I mean, you know how it is – the sex, the lasagna – but I was not honest with her. And sometimes, I was seeing two, maybe three girls at the same time, sometimes in the same day.” He added in a chuckle for effect and then went on, “You get the picture. And it wasn’t just Gina. It was endless. It’s making me sick.” He spat out the last line with an eye roll. The sooner he could get out of this damn booth, the walls closing in on him, begging him to give them his secrets, the better.
“And you wish to be forgiven, my son?” Father Delaney sounded bored too. At least they had that in common. But this had to seem somewhat real, if this ridiculous plan was going to work.
“I do. I need to clean up my act.” The words rang a distant bell. His father pulling him from the Impala by the cover of his shirt, his eyes looking darkly on the figure still inside. Spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed at Dean. Told him he better clean up his act or “he would fucking kill him.”
Why hadn’t he made Sam do this?
“As penance, you shall say five “Hail Mary’s” two “Our Father’s”, and reflect on your transgression.”
Of course that’s all it was. Church was bullshit. “And then, that’s it? then I’m good to go?”
“One would hope some…inner exploration might occur. The prayers are just the beginning to some serious soul-searching.”
Dean snorted. Soul-searching. Right. The cure all to inner problems. If that were true, he would have cured himself a long time ago.
“Is there anything else on your mind, Agent Allman?”
Dean paused. He could walk out. Right here. They could salt and burn the damn bones and leave this town in the rearview mirror. But something stopped him. He laughed nervously, then took a plunge. “What if I said I…I didn’t want to die…yet, you know, that I wasn’t ready?”
“Are you expecting to?” the priest asked. He sounded a little taken aback, which was only fair. Dean forgot sometimes that not everyone walked around with a target taped to their back.
“Always,” he said truthfully. “You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it.”
“But now?”
Jesus, why hadn’t he just left? This was ridiculous. He was talking to a priest who was probably a hypocrite about a life he would never understand. And if he was in here any longer Sam would get suspicious.
Then he shrugged. He’d gotten this far. “Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things,” he paused for a minute. He shouldn’t do this. They were dangerously close to the truth now. And this wasn’t the place for that. But he went on anyway. “There’s…people,” he banished Cas’ blue eyes from his mind the minute they showed up and went on, “feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time.”
“Go a little deeper, perhaps, than with Gina.”
There hadn’t been a Gina. There had been a Greyson. In the back of a bar when Sam had decided to stay home one night. When he was sure no one else would see them, would let anyone know how disgusting, how wrong he was. Which was the problem of course, it wasn’t wrong. But Winchesters… His mind went back to the car again. To Lee and him in the backseat. To his father’s angry pounding on the door.
Winchesters are not fags.
He didn’t answer the priest. Just pushed out of the confessional, slamming the door in anger behind him. He left the memories there, too. There wasn’t any place for them here. They were working. And Sam would know if something was wrong. So he told himself there was nothing. No new feelings, new people, new whatever the hell he’d been spouting off about in there. Lee had been his friend, Greyson had been Gina, and Cas was nothing to him but a brother.
“So, you think you had an eavesdropper in there?” Sam asked as he came up to the pew his brother had been waiting on.
“Hope so,” he responded tightly.
They beat the ghost, came out on top, just like they always did. And just like always, as soon as they were off the clock, Sam wanted to talk feelings.
“You know… you were in that confessional a long time,” Dean looked up from the bag he was packing and rolled his eyes. “Look, man, I’m just saying, I’m your brother, Dean. If you ever need to talk about anything with anybody, you got somebody right here next to you.”
For just a brief second, he was tempted. He was tempted to just come out with it. He was sure Sam already knew, was just giving him time or some bullshit. But he couldn’t. John’s voice was too loud in his ears. So it would have to stay his dirty little secret.
So he muttered, “Okay.”
Because it was easier this way. He was dying soon anyway. No one ever needed to know.