Work Text:
You’re parked under an overpass outside Amarillo when you hear it. Admittedly, you’re not paying attention – your car needs a brake job, or a new tire, or transmission fluid or something Dean never taught you about. The engine stopped working just as the sky began to darken, the promise of rain lingering on the horizon, humidity near suffocating as you look under the hood, not finding anything suspicious. Nothing that would bring you to a grinding halt on Interstate 40 without so much as a warning. Maybe it’s the age of the car, you muse. Ancient, running on its last limb, trying to get through to the next day – just like you.
You’re a mile from town; if you have to, you’ll walk to the Amarillo limits and stay the night, pray someone doesn't try to make off with your car. Not that they would, anyway.
It rings out clear in the southwestern air, a soft voice, shivering with anxieties and transgressions. It’s a conversation, you recognize. You know one of the voices. You hear it every night when you play back the memories for some sense of comfort. You hear it on the phone when he dares to talk to you, just out of reach of his brother’s wandering ears. You hear him when he’s at his lowest, praying to a God he doesn't believe in, that he thinks doesn't care about him, about his wellbeing. You hear him now, talking to a stranger; a man of the cloth, shut within the confines of a confessional in some church in Worcester, halfway across the country, sounding small. Scared. A man on his deathbed.
“What if I said I didn't want to die yet… And that I wasn't ready.”
You bolt upright at the sound, banging your head on the lip of the hood, the dull sting of pain reminding you of your burgeoning humanity. You touch your scalp, fingers coming back bloody. There’s a rag in your glove box, left over from the previous owner, never used; you slide back into the front seat just as thunder rolls overhead, pressing the cloth to the wound, hoping it heals sooner rather than later.
“Are you expecting to?” a man – the priest – chimes in, tone low. Inquiring.
“Always,” the other voice begins again, shockingly brittle. You’ve heard him speak like this before, when he was struggling the hardest, trying to ensure everyone’s survival other than his own. Taking the brunt of the abuse, ignoring his own needs, the way he hurt inside. To this day, you still want to take away his pain, show him that he’s worth more than he thinks. “The life I live, the work I do… I pretty much just figured that's all there was to me, y’know? Tear around, and jam the key in the ignition, haul ass until I run out of gas. Just thought I’d go out the same way I lived, pedal to the metal and that’s it.”
“And now?”
You lean back against the headrest, hand still clutching the rag tight, harder than necessary, unclipped nails digging into your scalp just enough to sting. Dean is confessing, you say to yourself, staring out at the light rain beginning to fall on the barren landscape spread out before you. But why? What would possess him to step into a church again, under his own volition? It must have been a case. Sam had said something about heading to Massachusetts, but didn't list the specifics. Dean must have walked in the room.
Dean begins again, hesitant. “Now… Recent… events have made me think I might be closer to that than I really thought, and…” You stop breathing at that, eyes locked on a sign reading Speed Limit 65. It sways in the oncoming wind, jittering a bit. Cars pass by on the interstate, rushing headlong into the storm. “And… I dunno, man. There's just, there's things… There’s… people, feelings that I want to experience differently than I had before… maybe even for the first time.”
Somewhere in your chest, your heart is beating a rapid rhythm, out of sync with your breathing, still as calm as ever. If it were any other person in the world, you wouldn't care. A small part of you would go out to said sufferer, but you wouldn't necessarily act on it. But this is Dean – whether he knows it or not, you bear witness to his confession. You hear every word he says like you were meant to, like he’s intentionally broadcasting to you the words he can’t bear to say in your presence. What he desires most, the feelings that linger on his tongue, aching to be heard yet unable to break free.
The priest’s words are nearly drowned out by a semi barreling past, horn blasting, startling you out of your temporary stupor. The rain is heavier now, pinging off the bridge above, coming down in sheets. “Go a little deeper, perhaps, than with Gina?”
There’s a pause to that question, a slight hitch of breath. You can see the look on Dean’s face; you wish you didn't know that face of desperation so well. It pulls at your heartstrings, the pain in your skull temporarily forgotten, replaced with the agony of knowing you can’t stop it. “…Yeah, I'm just starting to think that… maybe there's more to it all than I thought.”
There’s nothing you can do but listen, hear the sounds of his delayed breaths, the despair in his voice. This is the one place he can admit to his faults without being judged, knowing no one else will listen in. Knowing that even if he can’t be absolved of his sin, he can at least have some sense that there’s someone out there looking out for him. Watching over him, like you used to do. If you had your wings, you would fly to him. Take him from the confessional, tell him the things he needs to hear. But what can you do when the man you care for the most can’t even dare look you in the eye, even when you’re a thousand miles apart?
Thunder rolls. A car pulls up behind you to escape the storm. Still, the conversation plays on. “Learning there’s more to your universe than your tiny world can be a frightening discovery. …Do you truly believe in God, Agent? ‘Cause that can be a comfort.”
Dean pauses there, words tasting his lips and somehow managing to break free, only to come out in a choked whimper. He’s scared – your heart seizes. “…I believe there is a God.” He stops, breathes.“…But I’m not sure he still believes in us.”
It takes you half a minute to realize the conversation has ceased – Dean is no longer in the confessional, the line between the two of you severed until his next prayer. Another five seconds pass before you rip the bloodied rag off your head and shove it into the worn leather of the steering wheel, veins swelling in your clenched fist, bright blue contrasting against flushed, tanned skin. You want to stomp out of the Continental into the storm and let it take you away; you want to drive to the Atlantic and find him, tell him he’s wrong. That God is looking out for him. That you are, still.
It’s taken Dean this long to come to terms with his mortality, at the brink of his own death. It’s taken him years to confess to his deepest desires, to what he really wants. And you want to be there with him when he acts on it, when he breaks free of the chains binding him to his fate. When he’s human again, rid of his curse, able to go about his own way. And that direction is towards you. At least, you hope.
You need to call someone – a wrecker service, another Angel, Sam. Sam needs to hear about this, needs to know the danger his brother is in, what he’s about to put himself through in the name of pulling himself from the fire, with or without your help. There has to be a solution out there, something capable of removing the Mark without wiping the both of you off the face of the map. And you’ll find it, if it’s the last thing you do.
Above you, through a strip of darkening clouds, you see a sliver of blue peak through, swallowed by black seconds later. This is your decision. This is what you’ll do. Whatever the cost, you’ll save him. Set him free.
Tell him you need him too.