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"There's a tiny dude with wings living in a bucket at the end of my yard," Dean tells Sam and, despite the hour long lecture he gets in reply about maybe talking to someone, and maybe getting help, and maybe he's not handling things so well, Dean knows he's not crazy.
*
"I thought you were a demon or something when I first saw you," Dean tells the tiny dude that evening. He's hanging out where he always hangs out; perched on the rim of the bucket with his feet in the water like he's constantly waiting for something to freak him out enough to dive in, hide himself away below the surface. The water is murky and kind of gross and it's impossible to see anything past an inch of its depth. Dean doesn't know how the little guy can stand it.
The little dude gives Dean a disgusted scowl.
"Well how was I supposed to know what you were?" Dean defends himself. "I've spent my whole life fighting supernatural creatures and not once did I come across any that were nice."
He frowns down at his fingers, remembers the little guy biting him when he'd tried to pick him up once. "You're not nice."
The look Dean gets in reply to that somehow manages to convey very clearly, "I never said I was," and, "Neither are you." It's impressive, Dean thinks, how expressive a scowl can be. For a second he wonders if maybe he has gone a little insane after all, but then the little guy shakes out his wings and Dean is transfixed.
For the three months Dean has known about his bucket-residing visitor he's only seen the wings fully outstretched a handful of times, and only once has he seen him fly, and every time all Dean can think is how cool they are; all black and leathery like a bat's, arched in a way that looks to Dean like they're made for speed.
Apart from the tininess, the wings are Dean's only clue to what the hell the little guy might actually be. Not that the knowledge has helped him at all. He's gone through pretty much every single book Bobby left him- piled high in his cellar, dusty and smelling of old ladies- and he's found nothing even close.
"You're sure you're not, like, a reformed fairy or something?" he asks, mostly because Dean knows how much it pisses the little guy off when he calls him a fairy. Unsurprisingly, he lifts up his wings, arching them over his head in what would have been an aggressive manner if they weren't Barbie-sized, as if to say, "Do I look like a freaking fairy?"
The miniature guy looks down at his bucket of water and Dean allows, "Fine, fine. Not a fairy."
He might be small, but he's got a really shitty temper and has a habit of disappearing into his watery hideout if Dean pisses him off too much. And it's a nice night- not too warm, not too cold- and Dean really kind of wants the company. It says a lot about Dean's life now that he actively wants to hang out with a mute, winged, seven-inch tall man of indeterminate origin who wears a tiny trench coat and despite living in a bucket of water manages to never look wet.
"My brother thinks I'm mad," Dean tells him instead. "I told him you were living in that damned bucket and now he thinks I'm hallucinating."
The little guy nods in reply, like he understands. Maybe he does. There's no way for Dean to know, because for all the time Dean might sit around talking to him, telling him about his crappy string of pointless jobs, or Sam or Bobby or how he's always screwing everything up, his tiny visitor has never once even tried to speak. He listens, and he doesn't seem to mind listening, and sometimes he'll go so far as to sit on the arm of Dean's chair, watching Dean closely as he talks like what he has to say actually matters. It's weird though, how much the guy can say without actually saying anything.
He points to the newspaper in Dean's hand.
"Yeah," Dean nods. "I lost another job."
The little guy draws his wings tightly against his back and looks stern.
"My boss was a dick, okay? He wanted me to work extra hours for no money. And I really didn't get paid enough for that shit."
It 's something else, Dean decides, when he's getting the fish-eye from tiny supernatural creatures who free-load in his garden and have probably never had to work a day in their life. But then, Dean guesses that being so small probably isn't that much fun either.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter. It was a shitty job. I'll find something better." He doesn't think he will, but Sam is always telling him to be more positive; that he’s never going to get anywhere if he doesn’t at least pretend like he’s a normal person who wants a normal job. Dean isn't convinced he even knows what normal is anymore. He has a fairy dude living in his garden, for fucks sake.
Having a supernatural being so close all the time should bother him more, Dean thinks sometimes, but there's something about the little guy that makes Dean believe he's not so bad; that maybe he's hiding from the world as much as Dean is. It helps that Dean's tried ever incantation and sigil he knows on the guy, spilt holy water and iron filings into his bucket and all he's ever gotten in response is a pissed scowl, like Dean had just walked all over his carpet with muddy shoes or something. Which Dean thinks is ridiculous because the water in that bucket is so dirty it's almost black, thick with decaying leaves and pondweed. It's kind of disgusting. It's also a way to steer the conversation away from Dean's depressingly pathetic career prospects.
"You know, I could change the water in your bucket. Fill it with clean water. Get rid of the dead bugs."
The little dude tilts his head curiously, asking a question.
"Because it's gross! I don't know how you can stand to live in that crap."
It's definitely the wrong thing to say because his tiny, apparently dirt-loving squatter, throws Dean an offended look and stretches out his wings. They catch the late afternoon sun, making Dean think of polished stone. Then he's balanced on the edge of his bucket, his arms folded, glaring at Dean in warning.
"But it's got, like, a film across the surface. And I don't even wanna think about what the bottom of that bucket is like." Dean tries to argue. The little guy's scowl deepens, his eyes narrowing, but Dean feels it's necessary to point out, "It freaking smells," because it does.
In defense of his bucket, the little guy turns away from Dean with one last sour look before disappearing into the murky depths with a small splashing sound.
For a long moment Dean stares at the bucket, waiting to see if the dude reappears. He doesn’t.
Maybe that didn't go over as well as Dean had hoped.
*
Dean wakes up sweating, panting, clawing under his pillow for his knife and it’s nothing new; it’s pretty much just a regular night when he comes to himself and he’s dizzy from the adrenaline and his hands are cramping around the handle and the room is cold and empty. He breathes a sigh of relief. Or disappointment. He doesn't even know any more. He has an interview in the morning for a job as a security guard at an office block. Dean doesn't go back to sleep.
*
“Sam set it up,” Dean tells the little bucket dude. “He’s gonna kill me.”
The little guy rolls his eyes; actually rolls his eyes.
They're in the kitchen and Dean is cutting up tomatoes and ignoring the red-tinted water on the chopping board. It's not even close to blood. Nothing like it. It’s the first time the little guy’s come inside the house and he looks around curiously. He seems to like the coffee but won't touch any of the food Dean offers.
“Look, I have a shitty record and I have no money and it's fine if all you need in life is a dirty-ass bucket but I can’t even freaking support myself and I don't know what to do.”
He slams the knife down because it’s always knives. It’s always fucking knives. He can’t look at one without thinking of all the times he slid a blade into some monster’s gut and how much he liked it. It shouldn’t be this hard, Dean thinks. It’s not this hard for Sam.
When he finally opens his eyes, when he can finally breathe again, the little guy is sitting on the counter-top, watching Dean but unafraid, looking for all the world like he doesn't give a shit Dean just had a freak-out; like it happens every day and it's nothing. Dean doesn’t get him at all.
“How can you just sit there?” Dean asks. “You know I’m a… was a hunter. I killed things like you.”
The little guy just shakes his head.
Dean grits his teeth. “What, you think I couldn’t kill you?”
And the little guy actually shrugs, like he doesn't really care either way. Somehow, that makes Dean feels like an asshole. Because he feels like that too half the time.
“Fuck,” Dean says, and puts his head in his hands. He can hear the little guy slurping up coffee and he kind of wants to laugh. It’s better than crying like a freaking baby anyway.
*
Outside, in the world, you can still see the scars the war left behind if you look. People try not to, and they scrub at sigils, burned in blood on glass; black stains on the road that won't go away even when they’re concreted over; cold, haunted houses stand empty and everyone turns their eyes away from the faces looking out at them. No one wants to remember. Dean can't forget.
*
“Did you fight?” Dean asks one night, when the moon is high and fills his garden with weird silver light. It makes the water in the little dude’s bucket look even more gross than usual. It’s cold out but Dean doesn’t care.
The little dude looks up at him and stares for a long time; he’s always staring. It's another thing that should be weird but Dean’s just kind of gotten used to.
But there’s something in that look, Dean thinks. Something he sees in himself sometimes. Something a little like madness; like having seen too much. Like having lost everything.
“I always tell you stuff,” Dean goes on. “But I don’t know anything about you.”
Not where he came from or why he’s there or what the fuck is with the bucket.
Dean is holding a beer in his hand but he hasn’t drank a single drop. He’s not hungry. He’s tired but he knows he won’t sleep.
Then the little dude stands up on the edge of the bucket, spreads his wings, and Dean watches, transfixed, as he flies, lands gracefully on the table beside him. There’s a newspaper there and a pen Dean was using to half-heartedly circle possible impossible jobs.
The little guy picks up the pen, carefully writes across the top of the paper, “Castiel”. He points to the words. Points to himself.
Dean blinks.
“Is that your name?” he guesses, and the dude- Castiel- smiles.
Dean grins back. “Cool.”
*
When it was over, when they realized they’d actually won, they’d laughed and drank and celebrated like it was the end of the world. Except it wasn’t the end any more. It was the beginning. It wasn’t until the next day when he’d woken up with the worst freaking headache in the history of probably the universe that Dean had realized he was alive.
*
“Cas,” Dean calls from the kitchen; he’s made coffee and he’s even put it in the fancy little coffee cup Sam bought him last Christmas and Cas has claimed for his own. He’s not worried when Cas doesn't immediately fly in through the open window like the little coffee addict he’s become, Dean tells himself. Everyone has slow mornings.
But it’s turned cold; there’s snow on the ground and around the rim of the bucket; Dean can see it from the kitchen window. The water could be frozen, he thinks. Cas could be trapped under the ice or frozen solid or something equally crap and cold. The kitchen tiles under Dean’s bare toes are fucking freezing.
Before he’s even realized what he’s doing Dean finds himself half way up the backyard, marching towards the bucket. He’s not worrying, he tells himself. It’s not stupid. He’s just checking up on a friend and maybe seeing if he wants some coffee and it’s not weird that this particular friend – okay, so his only friend- lives in a bucket and has wings. He doesn’t judge.
“Cas?” Dean calls again when he’s closer. He peers into the bucket; the water isn’t frozen but there’s some kind of weird silver layer on the surface that Dean hasn’t seen before. It’s not like the usual mess of dead leaves and mold. It shines, reflects like mercury but more clear, almost shining.
That’s when Dean sees Cas, or at least, the top of his head. And for the first time since Dean first came across Cas in his bucket all those months ago and nearly had a heart attack he looks sodden. His hair is wet, spiked up in all directions, and the silvery stuff is clinging to the side of Cas’s head.
“Hey.”
He knows Cas doesn’t like it when he gets too near his water but fuck it the little dude isn’t answering and he’s never ignored Dean before. And Dean has a bad feeling about the silver stuff.
Dean doesn’t touch him at first, just kind of waves his fingers vaguely in front of Cas. His eyes look closed but he can’t really tell because they’re half underwater. Dean wishes he’d ignored Cas’s hissy fits and cleaned out the fucking water. He can’t see anything.
“If you don’t wake up, Cas,” he threatens, “I’m gonna upend this freaking bucket.”
Nothing.
“Dude, I’m not kidding.”
And he’s not, he decides, and reaches in and gently prods the side of Cas’s head that isn’t covered in weird, glowy liquid.
Shit, he thinks as Cas kind of sinks, his limbs loose, and his head tilts upwards. His eyes are definitely closed. Fuck, Dean thinks, because Cas looks dead.
In all those years of the war he’s seen death enough times; lived with the dead, bodies piled up around him, seen the blank paleness, come to understand the weight of the dead as they fall or float or lie still. Dean’s never understood people who say the dead look like they’re sleeping. They don’t. They look like there’s nothing left; like they’ll never move again. It’s all Dean can think about as he carefully lifts Cas from the water and he lies limply in his hands and Dean can’t even tell if he’s breathing.
Maybe he should call Sam. Maybe he’d know what to do. But Sam had called him crazy when he’d told him about Cas and Dean can’t be sure how he’ll react to finding out his tiny winged guy is a real thing. Sam became paranoid in the war; saw demon deals and vampire blood in pretty much everything and everyone by the end. He’s gotten better, but this is not the time to test just how much.
It’s the silvery stuff that freaks him out the most. It’s thick and slippery and Dean is pretty sure it’s blood. There’s a wide hole and a silver stain on Cas’s shirt and the silver stuff on the side of his head is definitely coming from a cut in the skin.
Dean carries Cas inside, lays him down on the counter and tries to think what the hell to do next.
Cas is cold to the touch –freezing- but he has no clue if that’s normal for Cas or not. They’ve never really touched; not more than a brush or maybe Cas sitting on his shoulder or Dean prodding Cas’s leg to get his attention. And there’s so much of the silver stuff and Cas is so tiny. It can’t be good.
Still, Cas had liked hot coffee and Dean’s sofa and he’d never been actually wet before so Dean grabs a clean towel from his laundry basket and wraps Cas up gently. Dean rubs at Cas’s chest with the tips of his fingers, trying to see some sign of life and doesn’t let him think that he’s lost this too; this one new good thing in his life in longer than he can remember.
He waits, and he doesn’t pray because he knows how fucking pointless that is. So Dean just waits.
*
The little guy had just appeared one day, sitting on the edge of the bucket at the end of the backyard like it was nothing weird. It was an old bucket; it had been there when Dean had bought the house. He wonders sometimes how long Cas had lived there. If he’d always lived there.
*
By the time night came Dean was at least certain that Cas was still alive. He opened his mouth sometimes, almost like he was gasping for air, before settling back down into the towel. The silvery bleeding has more or less stopped.
Dean lights the fire because it’s even colder than the morning, sets Cas carefully in front of it on a pillow, not too close to be too hot, not too far to be cold. He tries to fix something for dinner and ends up eating yesterday’s heated up takeout because he burns the mince he’d been trying to fry and the water he’d set to boil spills over and evaporates while he’s repositioning Cas closer to the fire because the little guy has started shivering.
Then, hours later when he’s cleared up and checked the locks and the wards and closed the blinds, Dean starts to get the idea that something is wrong. Yeah, something is wrong because Cas still hasn’t once opened his eyes and is still as pale as a sheet, but it’s more a feeling –an instinct- like those he’d come to rely on when they’d been on the run, hiding from the bad things in the night. He trusts it now too.
It’s gone midnight and there’s no moon. He wants to check the wards again but doesn’t want to leave Cas alone. Dean gathers salt from the kitchen cabinet where it’s normal to keep it. It’s less normal that he has maybe twenty bags but whatever. His shotgun is in the cupboard under the stairs, locked away and warded too. Dean plays with the keys in his hand. He keeps them in his pocket.
There’s a knife in the waistband of his jeans made of ancient obsidian and blessed or cursed or something that kills supernatural things anyway. Sam would frown disapprovingly if he knew Dean carried it everywhere. He’d tell him the war’s over now; that it’s safe. That the demons and the werewolves and the monsters are all gone. But Dean knows he’s a hypocritical little shit. Dean knows Sam keeps a loaded gun in his bedside table and a bottle of holy water under the kitchen sink.
The house is too quiet, Dean decides, so he draws the knife and moves closer to Cas.
Maybe he should have called Sam after all.
The light seems to dim the way it does sometimes when there are ghosts in the room, like light bending away from bad memories. But this feels colder, darker than any dead spirit.
That’s when he notices Cas’s eyes, bright and clear in the firelight. Open. He’s looking at Dean. He doesn’t blink.
Dean moves enough that Cas can see the obsidian knife in his hand but no more and Cas nods slowly, carefully before looking up, over Dean’s left shoulder. There’s something there. Or more like there’s nothing there. No sound, no heat, no movement. It’s space defined by absence. A void. And it’s creeping closer. Cas sees something though. Dean can see something like a reflection in his eyes but it’s too small to make out; too dark and formless to recognize. There isn’t anything he knows of though that should be able to get through the wards. Nothing that should be left on earth, anyway.
There is no fear on Cas’s face though. There is determination, and Dean wonders if this is the thing that hurt him. If it’s come back to finish him off.
There’s no freaking way Dean’s going to let it, whatever the fuck it is.
He doesn’t wait for it to attack.
Dean stands and turns, lashing out with the knife without really knowing where to cut. He meets resistance, knows he hit something when there’s an inhuman howl; a scream that makes Dean’s head ache, sets his teeth on edge. He lashes out again but the creature is fast and invisible and something slams into him sending him crashing across the room. Dean rolls away, muscle memory kicking in. He’s out of shape, he realizes. It takes too long to stand. Everything aches. His hands and chest burn with cold.
Dean expects the thing to be on him, to tear him to pieces, and all he can think is that he fucking failed; he failed to get rid of shit like this. He failed to protect his friend. After everything he’d done and left behind and lost he didn’t deserve this.
But then there is a blinding light, the flash of a blade, and Cas is there in front of him, wings spread wide and tiny and silent and somehow –impossibly- holding back the creature. Dean still can’t see it, but he can see the void of it, the way the air around it shies away like the flickering, guttering heat on a desert road.
For an instant Cas looks back at him, tilts his head, just long enough that Dean understands what he needs to do. And Dean surges forward, plunging the knife into what must be the beast’s head because it screams again and it’s worse than before and Dean thinks that this time he can see it’s eyes. He kind of wishes he hadn’t.
He plunges his knife in again. There’s no blood but the void diminishes, life and air seeping back into the world. Again. He strikes again, and beside him he sees Cas is still pinning the creature down somehow, a blade in his hand embedded deep in nothingness and his teeth gritted in exertion.
Slowly, slowly, the room brightens, warmth filling the spaces around them, the shrieking and gurgling sounds dying away to sound like nothing more than the floorboards creaking, the central heating kicking in. Then there is nothing to stab; air is just air; Cas falls to the floor.
“Shit.” Dean is next to him in an instant, hooking a finger under Cas’s arm and calling his name.
“You better open your eyes you little bastard.”
It’s like being able to breathe again after drowning when Cas opens his eyes and blinks up at Dean. He’s scowling.
“Yeah, you're a little fucking bastard. You scared the crap out of me.” Dean doesn’t care if Cas gets pissy because he insulted him. All he knows is that they’re both alive.
Also, the little shit deserves it.
Cas rolls his eyes and Dean laughs.
*
He walked a long way and had long since forgotten what day if the week it was, or what month it was, or what season it was. Every day was night. Every step was another one away from all the people he could –would- hurt and another one towards the end. He’d die. He knew that. And Dean didn't care.
*
“You fought in the war,” Dean says. It’s not a question because he knows it’s true even before Cas nods solemnly. He’s still moving slowly, wincing when he stands up. He hasn’t unfurled his wings in two days and Dean wants to ask him about it; if there’s anything he can do, but he doesn’t know how. So he offers Cas a small coffee cup of beer instead and watches as Cas sniffs at it suspiciously, takes a sip and pulls a face like Dean’s just fed him something disgusting.
“Not a fan, huh?”
He takes a swig from his own bottle, savoring the bitter taste on his tongue. His back hurts still but it’s not so bad.
They’re sitting out in the yard even though it’s a cold afternoon. Dean’s thinking about moving out, declaring this place haunted and finding somewhere new to start again. But he looks at Cas’s bucket, and he looks at Cas –peering into his peer with something close to horror- and knows that he won’t leave without him.
“Maybe we should take a holiday,” Dean decides instead. “Go to Mexico. Get some sun.” Dean raises his eyebrows at Cas. “Dude, you need some sun.”
Cas blinks and shrugs.
“Okay, fine,” Dean says. “Not Mexico.”
He can’t go now, anyway. Not when he can’t be sure the creature they fought two nights ago is really gone for good. Not when he doesn’t even know what it was. That there aren’t any more.
It came for Cas, Dean’s sure of it.
Maybe he was hiding out in that bucket, Dean thinks. Lying low, cleverly disguised as a frog or something. Maybe Dean’s been hiding too, behind bad bosses and crappy jobs and Sam’s fussing. He’s a hunter –was a hunter- and that’s all he’d ever been. He doesn’t know how to do anything else. But Dean isn’t so far gone that he can’t learn.
The sun is low, inching towards dark. Dean shivers.
Finishing off the rest of his beer he stands. He’ll light the fire again, switch on the TV, drink another beer. Maybe even cook something.
He turns to Cas.
“You coming inside?”
Cas looks at him –does that staring thing- and for a second Dean thinks he’s going to go hide in his bucket like he has every other time Dean has asked him inside. But this time he nods and Dean can’t help but grin.
“Cool.”
.End.