Chapter Text
There’s a pulsing in Sam’s head. A pounding, like a heart pumping, but it’s not his heart. A roar, like blood rushing in his ears, but it’s not his blood.
Sam downs another aspirin and squints to refocus on the rows of dark words glowing on his computer screen, but they keep blurring in and out of focus, no matter how many times he blinks and rubs his eyes, no matter how many times he tells the ridiculous banging in his head to just shut up and leave him alone.
He and Dean have slowly been losing track of an extensive demon operation, and Sam’s been pretending he’s perfectly fine being around demons again.
Their leads have been growing cold because it’s much easier to trace a trail of bodies than a trail of sold souls, and whatever these demons are planning, they’re doing everything they can to stay off the radar. The last demon-related death that was even in the vicinity of the group he and Dean are tracking through North Dakota was two weeks ago.
Sam closes his laptop and sits back in his chair. Dean left him alone in their motel room. He probably won’t be back for another hour or two. Checking government paper records for stuff that doesn’t hit the news is always tediously slow. Which means Dean wouldn’t know if Sam left. With all the demons they’ve seen lately, the ones they’ve tortured in order to keep following the crossroads demons, it shouldn’t be too hard to track one down on his own….
Sam sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He has to fight this. It’s been weeks now, but he still remembers like it was yesterday. The dark, hot taste of demon blood, the power seeping into his veins, the relief. He’s tried everything to ignore the craving, he’s downed whole bottles of meds and slept longer hours, but nothing has worked to lessen the need that gnaws at him day and night since his relapse. It’s driving him insane.
He looks towards the door. It won’t take more than thirty minutes. He’ll bleed the first demon he finds and save their blood, and he’ll only drink it when he’s desperate, when he needs it, like right now. He would do anything to have it right now.
Sam folds his hands over his laptop and presses his forehead against them. He can’t do this again. He won’t. Not of his own choice. He just has to breathe and keep fighting.
He takes a deep breath in and lets it out, urging the knot of dark want thrumming in his chest to dissipate.
There’s a sudden stir in the air, this shift he sometimes notices when angels appear.
He sits up and sees Castiel standing on the motel room carpet, looking slightly displaced, like he hadn’t thought through coming here.
He focuses on Sam, and his tone is urgent. “I need your help.”
Sam stands, feeling just as displaced. “With what?”
Cas clears his throat to speak, but he just keeps coughing. He doubles over, one hand over his chest and the other over his mouth.
Sam bursts forward and grips his shoulder. “Cas!”
Cas coughs hard into his hand, one last time, and when he pulls his hand away, Sam sees blood and little green stems and… “Flower petals?”
Cas looks up at him.
Whatever’s happening to Cas, it’s serious.
“Cas, what’s going on?”
Cas turns away and rinses his hands in the sink, red blood and golden petals swirling down the drain. Sam watches him pick stalky green stems out of the mess and toss them in the trash, but he doesn’t answer Sam’s question.
Sam sits back down and waits. After another minute, Cas dries his hands and sits at the table, a shiny yellow petal pinched between his fingers. He sets it in the center of the table like a peace offering and looks up at Sam. “I’m suffering from a supernatural sickness. I need your help in resolving it.”
“Okay,” he says, eyeing the innocent velvety petal that tried to choke Cas. “What is it?”
Cas folds his fingers together and shifts in his chair. Takes a breath and says, “It’s a Japanese urban legend, called Hanahaki disease.”
“Hanahaki… I feel like I’ve heard that before.”
“You likely have.”
“Okay, so, how’d you get it? How do we stop it?”
“Hanahaki consists of the growth of flowers in the lungs. It can happen due to….” Cas rubs the back of his neck, his eyes glued to the table. “…unrequited love.”
“Hold on, unrequited love? You’re in love with someone?”
“…yes.”
“Who?”
Cas mumbles, “I would rather not say.”
Sam shakes his head. “Cas, you know how this works. We need as much information as possible if we’re going to help you.”
Castiel looks up at him. He licks his lips as if he’s trying to find some way to lie, some way to avoid the truth. Eventually he says, “It’s Dean.”
For a moment, Sam doesn’t know what to say. Then he blurts out, “You’re in love with Dean?”
“Yes.”
“Hold on, and he doesn’t love you back?” He’s suspected for a while now that Dean might like Cas a lot more than he lets on, but Sam thought Dean would be the one getting his heart broken, not the cold-as-stone angel.
“Evidently not. Sam, this disease is deadly. Without Heaven’s power, I won’t survive it. Either I find a way to remove my feelings, or… or we find a way to change Dean’s. Do you think that’s even a possibility?”
“I uh, yeah. He won’t talk about it with me, of course, but I’m pretty sure.”
“That’s a start.”
It is. But if Sam remembers correctly, vomiting a handful of petals like Cas just did, especially with those stems, is a sign of a late stage in the disease. “Cas, why did you bring this to me if Dean is the only one who can heal you?”
“This needs to be handled carefully,” he says, his eyes boring into Sam’s. “You can’t tell Dean anything about my sickness.”
“Woah, woah, hold on, I’m not keeping this whole thing a secret from my brother-”
“Please, Sam, you have to understand. If he knows what he must do, it could make it even more difficult. We don’t have the time to complicate this.”
Sam narrows his eyes and tilts his head. “How long have you had Hanahaki?”
Cas’s eyes drop to his hands on the table.
“Cas.”
He closes his eyes and says, “Six months.”
“Six months?!” If there’s one thing Sam knows about supernatural sicknesses, it’s that the longer it goes on, the exponentially worse it gets, and a week is the kind of timeframe considered too long.
Cas shakes his head. “It started mildly. I tried to handle it myself. I attempted to eradicate my feelings. When that didn’t work, I spent more time around Dean in the hopes our relationship might change. I’m afraid that’s only accelerated the progress.”
Sam drops his head in his hands. “Great.”
“Dean is struggling with something.”
“Isn’t he always? Aren’t we always?”
“This is different. You remember the Horseman Famine?”
The memory of biting into that possessed woman’s neck and drinking out that demon’s blood surges back, threatens to fracture his control. He clenches his jaw and glares at the petal in the center of the table. “Believe me, I’m not forgetting anytime soon.”
“The curse of his hunger affected both of us. But not Dean.”
Sam frowns. “I asked him about that. He said it must’ve had something to do with carrying the other Horseman ring.”
“He lied. The only way he could have resisted Famine’s hunger is if he hungered for nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Sam sits back. This is bad. He thought Dean was getting better, but if that’s the real reason he was unaffected by Famine… he needs help. Someone to push him back on the right path. Isn’t that what I need? he thinks bitterly. Who am I to say he’s further off the deep end than I am?
“We must change his mind,” Cas says.
Sam raises his eyebrows. “So I’m just supposed to set you two up on a date and hope Dean falls for you?”
To his surprise, Cas looks away and blushes. Well, Sam reasons, if Cas’s Hanahaki is this bad, he must be seriously in love.
Cas lifts the petal off the table and says, “We must heal Dean before he can heal me.”
——
The first thing Dean notices when he gets back is that Sam isn’t alone.
Cas is sitting with him at the undersized dining table, pouring over the contents of manila files. They both look up when he enters.
“Cas,” Dean says, hoping this surprise visit doesn’t mean bad news, “what are you doing here?”
Cas says, “I’m here to help,” as if that clarifies things.
Dean looks to Sam, who smiles sheepishly and says, “I’m… going back to Bobby’s.”
"What?”
Sam sighs. “I need a break.”
“We said we were gonna stick together.”
Sam looks up at him with a mix of resignation and shame. “My craving’s getting worse.”
Dean shakes his head and opens the fridge for a beer. He doesn’t want to hear this whole speech again. “You’re fine, Sammy.”
“No. I’m not. It’s only a matter of time; I need to stay as far away from demons as I can. See if I can get ahold of this.”
Dean pops the cap and takes a drink. He looks at Sammy and pleads him to see the danger in this. “I don’t want us to split up.”
“I don’t either. But it’ll only be for a few days, four tops. I promise. That’s all I need.”
Sam watches him with hopeful eyes. Dean looks down at the beer bottle in his hand, tilts it before taking another drink. Sam’s still giving him those puppy dog eyes.
Dean rolls his eyes. “Okay. Fine.” He pulls out a chair at the table and sits. “I’m fresh out of leads on our case.”
“Cas might’ve just got us a new one,” Sam says, digging a newspaper out of the heaps of paper and passing it to Dean.
It’s folded to the fourth page, on an article titled Small Town Success. He skims the paragraphs underneath. A nobody indie artist just got signed on for three albums by a major record label, an art gallery in town received an anonymous donation of a million dollars, and a small restaurant expanded threefold with a complete refurbishing, all in the same week in a small town in Nebraska: Falls City.
“Sounds like soul selling to me,” he says, setting the newspaper on the table. “Where’d you get that?” he asks Cas. He thought they’d already cleaned out any potential leads in public news.
“Local newspaper,” he says. “They don’t have a website.”
“Well, that’s great and all,” Dean says, looking to Sam, “but I’m not gonna follow this up without you.”
Castiel speaks up, echoing what he said earlier. “Which is why I’m here to help.”
Dean tilts his head at Cas. Something about this isn’t sitting right with him. He comes back and suddenly Sam’s packing and Cas is here to stay? “You have the time for it?” he challenges.
Cas doesn’t blink. “Yes.”
Dean looks at Sam, who’s waiting for him to say yes. Whatever’s going on, he’ll figure it out later. “Okay then. Let’s get going.”
——
Cas checks in with his generals while Dean drives Sam to Bobby’s.
He flies to one of his training bases in Nevada and is met with the sound of scuffling shoes and the ring of clashing blades.
Not all angels are warriors. Not all of them need to be. But this repurposed warehouse is a place where anyone who wants to learn or improve can do so.
Cas finds Rhea overseeing the thirty or so angels sparring.
“Castiel! We weren’t expecting you.”
Cas’s followers don’t need much direction from him – he’s made sure they can function on their own at times when Cas leaves to assist Sam and Dean – but they’ve needed a bit more direction as of late.
“How are the newer converts?”
With the defection of the hero Ezekiel, thousands more angels have joined Cas’s ranks.
Rhea looks them over. “They’re doing well. Most of them are warriors, since they revere Ezekiel.” Rhea looks to him. “They revere you as well. They believe you’ve been resurrected to lead us, as I do.”
Castiel hasn’t lied about what happened to him. He was smited by Raphael. And he was brought back to life, a task that could only have been performed by the most powerful, by God himself.
“I’m only acting as I would if I’d survived.”
Cas believes God resurrected him, but for what purpose, he isn’t yet sure. To help the Winchesters? To lead the angels in reforming Heaven? Maybe both. Maybe he has another role yet to play, one he can’t see from where he now is.
But he’s certain God didn’t bring him back to take His place. Even if that were Cas’s purpose, he wouldn’t accept it. He’s not flawless as God is; he wouldn’t make a false claim to that throne. He wouldn’t choose to become like God’s wayward firstborns, to become the ultimate power he’s loathed for so much of his life. He wouldn’t choose to rule over his sisters and brothers as he’s been ruled over by them.
“Are you staying?” Rhea asks him. “There are many here who would benefit from your teachings.”
“Perhaps another time. I’ve agreed to assist the Winchesters.”
Rhea nods. “Then good luck, Castiel.”
——
Dean watches the sun set on the interstate, the grass and trees whizzing by. The rumble of the engine, the hum of the tires on the road, and the sound of the radio fills the silence left by the empty seat beside him.
Dean’s okay. He’s fine.
Him and Sammy separating won’t be like last time, when Sam quit hunting a few days after accidentally freeing Lucifer from the cage, the cage that locked him away since pretty much the beginning of everything.
Dean hated those weeks, hunting all on his own again.
Hunting is in his blood – there’s nothing he’d rather do – but he’d rather not do it alone. It means so much less, when he doesn’t have someone to talk to and work the case with, when he doesn’t have someone to tease and joke around with, someone to back him up when things go bad because they always go bad.
He doesn’t have Sam right now, but at least he’ll have Cas soon. Working with him is different, but… good. Their first real case together was when they hunted Raphael down, just the two of them. It was a bit fruitless, interrogating a ninja turtle about God’s whereabouts, but still worthwhile.
Cas might not have hunter smarts, but he’s got angel smarts, and powerful mojo.
Dean smiles. And it was fun trying to taint an angel with alcohol and prostitution. It was pretty damn entertaining.
A new song starts on the radio, and the melody catches his attention, the fast-paced beat of a drum and the warm tang of an acoustic guitar. Jaded Little Love Song by Terramara.
He turns it up. It’s the little things he has to appreciate, in order to stay sane.
He bounces his left foot and taps his thumb on the steering wheel to the beat of the song. The lyrics start and he sings them by heart.
Now there's a flash in the distance
Storm clouds are spreading their fingers
And I can feel your resistance
Just like a cold slap lingers
And as we pause in the shadows
Rain fills the empty silence
And in the back of my mind
I've seen the ending way too many times
He’s ready for the chorus when he sees out of the corner of his eye that he’s no longer alone. He jumps half out of his skin, barely managing to keep his grip on the wheel steady. He reaches for the volume and turns it down, glaring at the newcomer sitting in the passenger seat as his heart pounds. “Jesus Christ, Cas.”
Cas blinks at him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Dean raises his eyebrows and looks back at the road. “Clearly.”
Cas looks at the radio and tilts his head. After a moment, he says, “I like this song.”
Dean grips the steering wheel tighter. Reaches over and turns the air conditioning up a few notches. “Do you have any new leads? Or were you busy with angel civil war stuff?”
“I have nothing new.”
Dean shifts in his seat. “…okay.” He glances at Cas. He’s just… looking out the window. Watching the view pass by. After a few minutes, Dean asks, “Are you gonna… stay here for the drive?”
Cas looks at him. “I would teleport us there, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t like that.”
“Nope.”
They sit in silence for a few minutes.
Something about this is weird. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but it’s something. Was Cas hurt recently? Is he scared of something, running from something? Is he struggling with a decision he has to make? Is he trying to figure out how to say something, maybe how to tell Dean something? The way his mouth is set, and the way his blue eyes wander…. He’s thinking about something.
Cas speaks up before Dean can, asks, “How are you, Dean?” He looks at Dean, his chin tilted up.
“How am I? Good. Fine.” He can’t even convince himself, let alone Cas.
There’s this sadness in Cas’s eyes, a sadness all for Dean. Dean doesn’t know how to react to it, and so he focuses on the road. As he takes a curve in the road, the slanting rays of sunlight shift through the windows, casting Dean in cool shadow and Cas in streaks of light, his profile and the dark ends of his hair haloed in gold.
The look Cas gives him is worlds different than the look Sammy gives him. Sam’s always trying to help, trying to fix. That’s great and all, but so much of what Dean has can’t be fixed, so he and Sam just go around in circles.
But Cas… Cas gets it. That you just leave some things alone. That you let them sit, change, become something else, maybe, someday. Cas isn’t interested in fixing. He’s just interested in knowing.
Maybe that’s why Dean trudges up what’s been bothering him, the words that have been echoing endlessly in his mind, sapping away his fight, the one thing he never imagined he’d lose. “How much do you believe in fate, Cas?”
“Fate?” Cas pauses like he’s waiting for Dean to say something more, but when Dean doesn’t, Cas goes on. “I believe it exists. That it influences us.”
“So you don’t think it controls us. You think free will is real?”
Cas tilts his head. “Why are you asking this, Dean?”
“You’re an angel,” he says. “You’d know, right? What strings get pulled upstairs. About prophets and all that.”
“As I’ve said before, they don’t tell me much-”
“So you don’t know. For all we know, we could all just be a bunch of puppets.”
Cas gets quiet.
Even if he doesn’t know everything he has to know something. He knew enough to be able to tell Dean that Chuck is a prophet, that he doesn’t speak for God, he just channels what’s said. He knew enough to tell Dean that archangels protect prophets.
Cas says, “You’ve never believed in God, in His design. What’s changed?”
A lot, Dean thinks. He’s had a lot of dangerous supernatural encounters. Their recent encounter with Lucifer just hit the top of his list. But his even more recent encounter, with another of the archangels – the one that’s supposed to ride around in his skin – affected him entirely differently.
“I saw Michael,” he admits. “When you sent us back in time. He told me free will is an illusion. That everything that’s happened to me and Sam has brought us right here, right where we’re supposed to be, and no matter what we try to do, Sammy and I will end up saying yes. Killing each other and ending the world.”
He hasn’t talked about this with Sam because he knows what Sam will say. He’ll tell Dean that Michael was just lying, that he just wants Dean to think that choices are an illusion. But Dean’s starting to believe Michael’s right, so what good does it do for Sam to just tell him not to believe?
Dean glances at Cas, and he’s still cast in the fading golden light, waiting because he knows Dean has something more to say.
“Me and Sam have won a lot of fights. Even when things got shitty, I still thought… I don’t know. I still thought that what I did mattered. That I could make the right choice, even if I ended up making the wrong one. But this… saying no to archangels… me and Sam are just hunters. The bigger this gets, the clearer it is that this is so far out of our league. It just feels like delaying the inevitable. You know what I mean?”
Cas sits up straighter. “You’re more than just a hunter, Dean, both you and Sam. You’re incredible at what you do. I mean that. As far as whether or not we can choose our paths… I believe we can. Unconditionally. Why else would Heaven use a system of brainwashing if angels were fated never to disobey? If I broke free from that, the system that’s controlled me since… eternity, then you’re free too. Your choices are your own.”
He has to admit Cas has a point. If Heaven were so perfect, this whole civil war wouldn’t be happening.
He still doesn’t know the details of what those dicks with wings did to Cas, but he saw the periphery of that struggle. Cas being demoted and put under Uriel’s command for getting too close to Dean. Cas being dragged back to Heaven and mind-wiped the first time he tried to escape, to tell Dean that Zachariah and Raphael weren’t really fighting the apocalypse but letting the demons win.
If Cas believes in free will, without a doubt, then maybe Dean should believe in it too, at least a little.
It’s dark by the time they pull into town, nine p.m.
Cas rode in the passenger seat the whole time. For about an hour, he watched the scenery pass by the windows and listened to the radio with Dean.
And then for the last thirty minutes, Cas leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. Dean couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or not. He suspected Cas might be elsewhere, like when he sometimes visits Dean in his dreams. Does it knock Cas out to do something like that? He has no idea how that works.
Dean reaches over and nudges his shoulder. “Hey. Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.”
Cas stirs and opens his eyes. He sits up and glances at Dean, says, “Angels don’t sleep,” as Dean eases off the gas and slows to the 25 mph speed limit.
“Right.”
Cas clears his throat, furrows his eyebrows and coughs into his fist once, two more times. That doesn’t sound good.
Dean gives him a look. “Angels don’t sleep, but they get colds?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
Dean shakes his head. “Alright, well, we’re here,” he says, pulling into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant and shutting off the engine.
Cas looks around at the rows of parked cars. “Where is here, precisely?”
Dean climbs out of the car and Cas does the same. “Since it’s a little late, I thought we’d check out the music artist. Bosha. That article you found said she usually plays at a local restaurant around this time.” He points at the stucco building with big cursive lettering over the front doors, Salvador’s Spaghetti. “This one.”
——
Salvador’s is different from the other restaurants Cas has seen Dean and Sam go to.
The interior has neat rows of tables swathed in plaid red tablecloths with small candles flickering in the centers. The walls are painted a butter yellow around framed art and antique light fixtures, and the menus people are reading from are soft leather folders instead of flimsy sheets of plastic.
While there’s a buzz of noise from a nearly full room, people eating and talking and servers flowing through the room, there’s something calm about it, organized.
Outside the main dining room, there’s more seating on the patio outside, metal chairs and tables set out on pale beige bricks, lit by yellow orbs of light strung above in zigzags.
There’s a small stage on the far side, where a woman with gray hair is tuning a guitar, the sound produced by the strokes of her fingers lost under the din. She must be Bosha.
Cas follows Dean’s path to her.
As they near Bosha, Cas notices two lumps of fur there by Bosha’s feet, dogs. One of them rises and paces up to Dean, but the other lays still, blinking slowly. The one trying to greet Dean is an Australian Shepard with beautiful white, brown, black, and gray stripes in her fur. Dean skirts around the dog and says, “Bosha?”
She looks up from her work. “That’s me.” She looks at them both. “What can I do for you boys?”
The Australian Shepard is intent on getting Dean’s attention, so Cas kneels and pets the dog, sinking his fingers into the soft fur at her neck. When Cas scratches behind her ear, she tilts her head into his hand, seemingly deciding that Cas’s attention is adequate. He checks the round metal tag linked to her collar; her name is Bella.
Dean says, “We’re with a newspaper, the Vine Daily. Was wondering if you had the time to answer a few questions?”
“Shoot.”
Bella goes over to Bosha’s feet and lays beside her furry friend, so Cas stands.
Dean says, “I heard you got a contract to produce three albums. That’s pretty amazing for a new artist. How’d that happen?”
“I’ve been playing for well on fifty years. My talent has finally been recognized, and that’s that.”
She picks up a stool and moves it closer to the center of the stage. Dean glances at Cas. Cas is still new at interpreting cues, but Bosha’s response did seem unnecessarily harsh.
Dean says, “Was there someone who uh, helped your talent be recognized?”
“I was approached by an agent in a local bar, the Lazy Jewel. Name’s Ally Dawson, you can’t miss her platinum blonde hair. Now I’ve got a show to put on, so go talk to her if you’re so curious.”
“Right. Thanks.”
Cas and Dean exit out a side gate while Bosha finishes setting up.
They pass a man on the sidewalk wearing a light blue plaid shirt with a tie and slacks, an ID badge attached to a lanyard around his neck. He stops and asks, “Do you happen to know who’s playing tonight?”
Dean answers. “It’s Bosha.”
The man makes a face. “Again?” He shakes his head, looking towards the stage, but it’s just out of view. “I can’t believe Sal is giving her another chance.”
Cas says, “What do you mean?”
He pauses before lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I wasn’t here, but apparently two days ago, she got in a pretty heated yelling match with a customer. I’ve seen her play here about once a week for the past three years or so. She’s always been friendly, but not since she got signed for those albums. It’s like a switch flipped.”
Dean says, “Weird.”
“Yeah, really weird. Anyway, you guys have a good evening.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Stepping off the sidewalk and into the parking lot, back towards the Impala, Dean says, “Well Bosha’s definitely off.”
“She was strangely cold. It seems her behavior has changed drastically.”
“Yeah. Usually people who sell their souls for what they want aren’t so cranky about it. At least, not until their last few years.” Dean breaks from Cas’s side when they reach the car, standing by the driver’s side.
Cas approaches the passenger side and says over the hood of the car, “Are you thinking she didn’t sell her soul?” He doesn’t know what else it would be.
“She definitely did… but something’s not right. Let’s go check out this Lazy Jewel.”
——
“Why is there no parking in this town?” Dean grumbles. He gives up going around the block looking for an open space and parks two streets down from the Lazy Jewel.
On the walk there, passing by the night crowd lingering on the sidewalks and the lights illuminating the streets and glowing out of the windows of businesses still open, Cas asks, “Do you like dogs?”
Dean wants to sigh. Cas noticed. Of course he noticed; nothing gets by him. This is about Dean avoiding Bosha’s mutt. “Not very much,” he answers. He gives Cas a lopsided, half-assed smile. “Especially since a hellhound used me as a chew toy.”
It did a hell of a lot more than that. It killed Dean, tore his chest into blood-gushing ribbons before dragging his soul down to eternal damnation. He knows Cas knows how bad it was. Cas fixed every molecule of the damage.
“Hellhounds and dogs are so different-”
Dean shrugs. “Same family.” He looks at Cas. “What, you like dogs?”
“They’re some of the friendliest creatures I’ve met. I like animals. Especially bees. The way they produce honey is fascinating.”
It makes Dean laugh, thinking of Cas watching a hive of bees with that laser focus of his, taking the time to learn how bees make honey when there’s so much more he doesn’t know, about the world, about humans. It’s… cute. “What are you, a hippie?” he teases.
Cas tilts his head, confused, and asks, “What’s a hippie?” but he’s smiling too, just a little bit, the corners of his lips curled up and this brightness shining in his eyes.
It makes Dean wonder what it would take to make Cas smile wider, to make him laugh. “A hippie’s someone who likes nature way too much,” he explains.
Cas keeps his eyes on Dean. “I think I like nature a reasonable amount.”
——
The Lazy Jewel is Dean’s kind of place.
Most of the tables are full, but he and Cas manage to find seats at the end of the bar.
The first thing Dean asks the bartender is, “You know a girl named Ally Dawson?”
“Yeah. Rolled into town about a week ago. Chatty, that one. She spends a lot of time here; I wouldn’t be surprised if she shows up in another half hour or so.”
“Awesome. Do you-”
Dean’s interrupted by a young woman approaching the counter who nearly loses her balance, falling against Dean’s arm.
“Woah there, sweetheart,” he says, catching her arm and steadying her, and Cas feels this lump in his throat that won’t go away even when he tries to swallow it down.
The woman sweeps long brown hair out of her face and looks up at Dean with icy blue eyes. “I’m so sorry! Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed.”
Dean gives her a smile made of the warmest sunshine. “Don’t be.” He lets go of her arm, slowly, but Cas doesn’t miss the way his hand lingers, or this beautiful new darkness surfacing in his golden green eyes. “Too much to drink?”
“Not enough,” she says with a smile, and Cas feels like he’s witnessing an exchange that’s happened a million times before. “Nerves. Crowded place.”
“Hm,” Dean says, and Cas can see his mind inching elsewhere, and Cas still doesn’t know much about these things, but he knows enough.
He imagines Dean taking this girl out to the Impala. Driving her somewhere, to her place or to a motel or just somewhere dark and private, somewhere they can climb in the backseat and explore in the dark.
Cas knows a little about that exploring. He’s never done it, but he’s seen it. He can imagine it, Dean smiling, tugging his shirt over his head, pale threads of light falling over his bare chest. Cas knows exactly what Dean looks like underneath those layers, but knowing and seeing, feeling, are two different things.
He can imagine Dean kissing, touching, humming like he just did now, that low, sweet rumble, and at this point, Cas has cut the girl out entirely. There’s no girl. Just Dean. Dean with his golden skin and his faded freckles and his swept hair and his bowed lips and his gorgeous smile and his eyes the color of bright green apples, apples that represent sin, that represent falling from grace, but Cas has already fallen for Dean, and he’s still falling, he’ll never stop falling, he never wants to stop falling.
Cas turns his head aside and coughs into his hand, catching stems and flowers. He hopes the chatter of the bar will bury the sound, but he’s not so lucky.
He feels Dean’s hand set against his shoulder. “Cas, buddy, you okay?”
Cas stuffs his handful into the pocket of his trench coat. “Fine. Sorry.”
Dean doesn’t look convinced. But he remembers the girl still standing there, and looks between them and says, “This is my best friend, Castiel. And… I’m Dean,” he says, smiling because he’s just realized, “I don’t even know your name.”
“Alice,” she answers with a smile, looking between them both.
Dean’s hand slips off Cas’s shoulder and he drifts a little closer to her. “Alice,” he says with a smile, testing the name in his mouth, and Cas can’t bury the want that bubbles up, his want for Dean to test his name in his mouth. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Alice.”
“Would you two be interested in playing a game of pool? Those are my friends over there.” She turns and points at one of the green felt tables dotted with colorful balls in the back, a couple people milling around with beers and long poles in hand.
Dean says, “I’d love to. Cas? Just while we’re waiting for our… friend?”
He’d just get in the way. “I’m okay. I’ll stay here.”
Dean sets his hand against Cas’s forearm. “You sure?”
There’s so much to say he can’t even start. He wants to tell Dean he doesn’t know how to play pool, wants to ask if Dean would teach him. He wants to ask why Dean doesn’t want to get out of here with him, why he doesn’t want to touch and kiss him. He wants to tell Dean he has Hanahaki for him, that he’s so hopelessly in love he doesn’t know what to do about it other than drift closer, other than to hope that Dean catches him instead of letting him fall forever because Dean is the sun and he’s burning Cas’s wings away and Cas is still falling, endlessly falling.
Instead of saying all that, or any of it, he just says, “I’ll stay here.”
Alice leans closer over the bar and says, “Cas, you can change your mind anytime.”
He nods. Alice is sweet. Cas has felt jealousy before, he felt it just now, but jealousy has never been a feeling tied to anger or hate for him. It’s always tied to sadness. Squashed hopes about unspoken words and misunderstandings. Cas likes Alice, even if it feels like she’s taking something from him. Someone.
Cas watches Dean and Alice join Alice’s friends across the room. Cas takes the stool farthest to the edge and tucks his chin in his palm and just watches. Because no matter how much has changed, no matter how much he’s connected to humans, he’s still doing the same thing. Spectating. Never making an impact. Never being the focus.
“You need a drink?” Someone asks.
Cas drops his hand and turns, sees it’s the bartender. He’s a tall guy, maybe an inch or two taller than Dean. He has hair the color of deep orange, eyelashes too. Brown eyes, a handsomely chiseled face. A voice with a nice rumble.
“No, I’m fine,” he answers.
“You sure about that?” He asks, pouring a clear liquid into a wide cup and swirling it, passing it to someone sitting a few chairs over. He follows the path of Cas’s attention and sees Dean and Alice. She’s just said something to make Dean laugh, and he tilts his head back as it bubbles out of him, wild and beautiful. Cas can hear it from here, even above the noise.
The bartender says, “You came in with the green-eyed fella, didn’t you? Are you wishing that girl would pay attention to you?”
Cas’s eyes drift to the bartender’s name tag. Oliver. His eyes drift back to Dean and he watches Dean pick up one of those poles and lean over the table, lining up and knocking one of the balls with a practiced strike, creating a satisfying crash when it hits the others.
“Not so much,” Cas answers.
“Your friend then,” Oliver says casually. “You like him more than you pretend, but he’s oblivious.”
Cas looks at him, narrows his eyes a little. “How do you know that?”
Oliver shrugs and leans against the counter. “I’m used to the look. People come in to drink for a lot of reasons. Most of them sad, unfortunately.”
“And I… seem sad to you?”
Oliver tilts his head, reading something in Cas. “Bittersweet. Love is the most amazing thing in the world… until it hurts.”
Now Cas tilts his head. “It sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience.”
“Well,” he says, pushing off the counter, “you’d be right.” Someone comes up and orders three beers and Oliver fills three large mugs with golden bubbly liquid. He says to Cas, “My advice? Don’t wait. Don’t watch every chance slip through your fingers. It’s better to try and fail than never try at all.”
Cas says, “I’ll keep that in mind.” He can see himself waiting a long time. A very, very long time.
“And buy a drink?” He says, giving Cas a charming smile that carves little dimples in his cheeks, and maybe if Cas were the type of person who found flirting with strangers and going home with them appealing, he’d do it now, with Oliver.
Instead he just smiles and glances at Dean again. “Sure.”
——
Dean’s very good at multitasking.
For example, playing pool, drinking beer, and chatting with a handful of strangers while also on the lookout for a crossroads demon.
He comes back over to Cas after a good twenty minutes of socializing. He sets his elbows against the counter and says, “You see anyone?”
Cas has a half-empty beer bottle cupped in one hand. “Not yet.”
“You could come over. I mean-” He adjusts his position against the counter, moving a little closer to Cas. “I know it’s not really your thing, but Alice has this friend, Layla, and uh,” he nudges Cas and winks, “handsome dorks are kinda her thing.”
Cas looks completely flustered and it makes Dean feel absolutely mischievous.
Cas ducks his head and asks, “Am I what you’d call a ‘handsome dork’?”
Dean grins and leans back. “Totally! If you knew anything about flirting, you’d be killer, Cas. I’m serious. With your jawline? Blue eyes for days? And when your hair’s just a little….” Something possesses him to reach out and sift his hand through Cas’s dark hair, make it stick up a little wilder. “There. Come on. You’ve just gotta practice.”
Cas looks down at his beer and picks at the label while he chews his lip, like he’s considering Dean’s offer.
It’s been a long time, years, since Dean hooked up with a guy, but Cas is the type he used to choose. That he would choose. The quiet type. Something so mysterious about them. You know you’re one of a handful for them, not one of dozens. Dean likes that feeling, knowing you’re special to someone, that you’ll always be special to someone. Knowing there’s no one else out there who can replace you.
“Three minutes,” Cas says, his hand circling around the cold bottle.
Dean smiles at him and says, “Liquid courage? Smart,” before heading back.
——
Perhaps it would be smart, if alcohol had more than the most minuscule effect on Cas’s angelic metabolism.
He can barely handle watching Dean and Alice from across the room. The last thing he wants is to hear what they’re saying to each other, to watch in excruciating detail how Alice keeps inching closer and closer to Dean, how she keeps surfacing that darkness in Dean’s eyes. When Alice finally kisses Dean, hooking her hand around his neck and pulling him down, Dean’s hands coming up to rest against her hips, Cas can’t breathe.
The itch scraping up his throat, he can feel it’s bad this time. He gets up, but the bathroom is just past Dean; he won’t make it. He spots a back door twenty feet away and heads for it as that itch turns into a sharp and rising scrape.
He pushes the door open and walks down the alley, trying to get as much distance as he can from the crowd he’s left behind, but he doesn’t get far. Flowers bloom up his throat and he braces his hand against a wall of brick, leaning over and coughing up a flow of flowers and blood. It splatters messily on the dark pavement beside a dumpster. His Hanahaki is coming back full force. Whether he likes it or not, his time is running short. He’s going to have to change something with Dean, and soon.
Even if he can see himself waiting years to confess his feelings to Dean, his Hanahaki won’t let him.
He coughs the last of this bit out and drags in a ragged breath.
A voice a few feet away says, “Ooooo. That doesn’t look good, Castiel.”
Cas straightens and drops his blade into his hand in one swift move.
Six feet away stands a pale-skinned woman with harsh cheekbones and hair dyed platinum blonde. He can see her true face.
“You’re a demon. One of the crossroads demons who’s been making deals in town.” She must be Ally.
Ally smiles and flashes black eyes. “The one and only.”
Cas steps closer, pointing the tip of his blade at her. “Except you’re not the only one. And you’re doing something to the people you’ve made contracts with. You’ve changed the terms.”
Ally shrugs and spreads her hands. “No one notices a few additional clauses. You’d be surprised how much I weasel out of these greedy, filthy, mouth-breathing apes.”
Cas glares at her. “You disgust me.”
Angels might not be as pure and good as they’re meant to be, but demons are ugly, twisted, unholy creatures. Their capacity for empathy is buried under their hate and cynicism, hate too often directed at the thing Cas loves most in the world his Father created. Humanity.
“Hellooo? Demon?” she taunts. “That’s kind of what I do.”
He almost doesn’t see it coming, the silver flash of a blade out of the corner of his eye, a weapon surging towards his back. He turns and parries the blow with a sharp ring of metal. It’s another demon.
This is an ambush.
——
Dean likes kissing Alice, he really does, but he’s not here for her, for this, and he can’t work with her arms looped around his neck and her chest pressed against his.
He leans back and breaks their lips apart, shifting her back half a step with his hands on her hips. “Alice-”
“Why don’t we get out of here, huh?” she says. She can tell she’s losing Dean.
“I can’t tonight.”
“Why not?” She moves to kiss him again and Dean wonders if she’s a lightweight, if she’s actually pretty drunk right now.
He steps out of her reach. “It’s not you, believe me. I’ve got work, uh, tomorrow. And my friend-” He looks towards the bar where he left Cas, but his seat is empty.
She follows his gaze. “Looks like your friend left.” She sways on her feet and yep, she’s definitely too drunk for this.
“I’m gonna go find him.”
She takes his arm. “Dean-”
Dean pries her fingers away and squeezes her hand. “I’m sorry, really. You have fun. Stick with Layla.”
He comes up to Cas’s empty seat and catches the bartender’s attention. “Did you see where Cas-”
“Out back,” he answers, throwing a thumb over his shoulder.
“Thanks.”
Dean heads for the door, but the bartender says, “His tab is still open.”
“Right.” He digs his wallet out and leaves a folded twenty on the counter before stepping out the back door.
Dean barely has time to process what he’s seeing.
He sees a flash of beige on the ground, a trench coat, Cas. There’s a dark figure standing over Cas, back to Dean, arms raised with a line of silver caught in their hands. Dean surges forward, drawing his demon blade out of his jacket and plunging it into the shadow’s back, shoving him aside where he falls sputtering orange and then lifeless on the pavement.
Cas looks up at him, eyes wide. “Dean!”
There’s surprise in his voice, but also, he realizes too late, warning.
An arm comes around Dean and a blade sets against his neck, but he doesn’t give the demon time to get comfortable. He elbows them in the stomach and twists free, ignoring the nick the blade leaves at his neck.
Cas gets back on his feet and with a sharp singing of metal, Dean notices another shadow attacking Cas, a third demon with hair so blonde it looks white. They’re just coming out of the woodwork.
The one that attacked Dean comes at him again with a swipe aimed for his stomach, but Dean steps out of the way and punches him in the face, kicking him in the chest, and when he goes down, Dean goes down with him, flipping his demon blade and sinking it down to the hilt in the demon’s heart. The demon gasps and flashes orange before falling still.
He rises and hears Cas behind him, growling at the demon, “Stay down.”
He turns and sees Cas has the demon on her knees, his angel blade held against her neck. She grins up at him, blood in her teeth. “Whatever you say, daddy.”
Dean rolls his eyes and comes over. “How many of you are there, working this cross-country soul-fundraising?”
“Enough to take even the two of you out. We were so close to getting feathers here. That would’ve been a headliner. Heaven’s biggest disgrace, Civil War Leader, dead.” She laughs. “I would’ve liked to be responsible for that.”
Dean steps in and clocks her in the face, sending a stripe of blood down her nose.
“Ow!”
Dean glances at Cas. He could’ve been killed if Dean hadn’t noticed he was gone. “Why didn’t you tell me you spotted her?”
“You seemed preoccupied,” he says sharply, and yeah, okay, Dean deserves that. “I didn’t know she’d bring backup.”
“Please!” she yells, sharp, exasperated. She glares up at them both. “I didn’t come here to listen to domestic bickering.”
Dean leans closer and Cas digs his blade in deeper, drawing a bead of dark red blood.
Dean says, “You’re going to tell us everything we need to know about your whole operation. You know us. We’re not going to stop carving until we get answers.”
Fear glints in her eyes. She opens her mouth and black smoke pours out, surging towards the sky, but Cas reaches out with his other hand and stops the smoke, and suddenly his eyes are glowing like twin pearls. There’s a sharp hum of angelic power as Cas stuffs the demon back into the meat suit it’s possessing.
Dean tears the demon’s jacket open and starts carving below her collarbone, and by the time Cas has sealed the demon back in, Dean has finished the sigil in her chest, one that will keep her from smoking out.
Dean drags her to her feet and says, “Let’s go.” He doesn’t have time to protest before Cas takes ahold of them both and flies them off somewhere.
——
Cas takes Dean and the crossroads demon to one of his interrogation rooms. He has a couple buildings like this one across the country, with secure rooms dedicated to the interrogation of angels, monsters, and demons alike.
Dean, focused on the task at hand, doesn’t ask where they are. He lifts a length of rope from the table beside the door and sits Ally in the metal chair sitting in the middle of the room, tying down her wrists and ankles with harsh tugs.
She has a hard, cold look in her eyes. Cas has seen that look before, many times. She thinks she can’t be broken, that she’ll die before turning traitor. How wrong she is. Cas has never seen anyone as talented at torture as Sam and Dean Winchester, most especially Dean.
Dean holds the tip of his demon blade under her chin. “How many of you are there?”
“Millions.”
Dean slashes a line into her cheek. She sucks in a breath and he asks again, “How many of you are working this operation?”
She doesn’t answer.
Dean stabs the blade into the bend of her elbow, tearing towards her wrist, setting her screaming and blood gushing to the floor. “A lot, okay! There’s a lot of us!”
Cas crosses his arms. “Give us a number.”
“I don’t know!”
Dean tears the blade free. It’s bright with blood. “Then estimate!”
“Twenty!”
Dean steps back, paces around the demon. “What are you doing to the contracts?”
Ally looks at Dean, then at Cas. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cas steps forward. “Don’t lie. You know exactly what we’re talking about. You’re taking more than souls.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you.”
Dean says, “Well, you’re going to.” He carves deep into her shoulder, creating a new gash for blood to flow onto the floor.
Ally grits her teeth. Dean comes back around and cuts her again. And again. “Nothing?”
Cas says, “This will go on for days, or you can tell us what we want to know, and we’ll end your suffering.”
She glares at Cas. “You think that makes me want to talk? I’m dead either way.”
Dean gives her a cold smile and says, “Believe me, if you don’t talk, you’ll wish you were dead. So at a certain point here, you’ll want me to stick you with this blade.”
Ally glares up at Dean. “We’ll just have to see who’s right.”
Dean makes the demon bleed. He never slows down, never shows any doubt. He keeps his back to Cas, for the most part. He never looks at Cas.
Cas watches Dean cut line after line into the demon’s flesh, and he wonders what it costs Dean to do this. To channel what he was forced to do to innocent souls in Hell.
Does it surface those feelings of hate? Guilt? Twisted pleasure?
There’s still so much Cas doesn’t understand about humans, but he understands that they are beyond complex. He understands that what they feel doesn’t always line up with what they believe, what they want to be. He understands that Dean is often haunted by this mismatch, terrified by it.
He sees fear beneath Dean’s anger. Fear that the demon doesn’t as she falls into desperate screaming from his torture.
——
It takes a while to break the demon.
Dean shuts out everything else. He ignores the fresh smell of blood tainting the air, the rising pulse of his heart. He ignores the memories that try to surface, one’s he’s buried from Hell and more recent ones, when they had Alastair strung up. He ignores Cas standing behind him, still and quiet but there; Dean can feel the weight of his gaze.
He only stops torturing the demon when she can’t take the pain anymore.
“Stop! Please, I’ll talk! Just kill me when you’re done.” She’s panting, bleeding all over, and the floor is stained with so much red.
Dean steps back, knife still in hand. “What changed in the contracts for the soul deals? What else are you taking?”
The demon closes her eyes, white hair stained pink falling forward. “We’re not taking anything else. We’re just taking it early.”
Cas says, “You’re taking the soul early?”
“Parts of it, pieces, usually half. Sometimes less than half, sometimes more. Depends on the deal.”
Dean says, “Why would you do that? Why take half when you could take a whole one?”
“A whole soul is an investment. Can’t collect until ten years down the line. Half a soul, that’s credit.”
“What’s the rush? What do you need souls for?”
“I don’t know. It’s our job.”
Dean paces around her. “Bosha. You handled her contract.” This demon used the name Ally Dawson to scam Bosha. “You’re tellin’ me she’s walking around with half a soul?”
“Yes.”
Cas steps closer, into Dean’s line of sight, but Dean keeps his eyes on the demon. Cas asks, “How?”
“We…” the demon starts, glancing between them both, “we just rewrote the terms-”
“No,” Cas says, and his blade is drawn too. “You’d need something special to do this. A spell, or someone very powerful.”
Ally shakes her head. “You’re wrong-”
Cas steps in and nicks another sharp line over her collarbone. She grits her teeth and groans her pain and frustration. “We have a specialist,” she grits out.
“What kind of specialist?” Cas asks, setting the tip of his blade against her shoulder, a warning.
“You think I know?! I do what I’m told. I just follow orders.”
Dean says, “Well that’d be a first.”
She sighs and drops her head. “I don’t know, okay? I’ve never seen her.”
“Her?”
“The specialist.”
“Alright, well, if you don’t know anything, who does?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Cas cuts in and says, “You will talk.”
“And turn traitor?!”
Dean leans forward and sets the tip of his blade under her chin. “Whether you like it or not, you’re already a traitor. And unless you’ve forgotten the situation here,” he says, adding enough pressure to break skin and send a small line of her blood down the jagged rides of his stained blade, “you talk, or we carve.”
She glares at them. “You two are regular psychopaths.”
Dean leans back. “Says the demon who steals people’s souls. Who would know where this specialist is?”
She looks between their blades and says, “We’re supposed to meet tomorrow. Regroup, probably because of you two clowns.”
Cas narrows his eyes and says, “Where? When?”
“There’s an old farm west of here. The Sanderson Estate. It’s a ways from town, remote, abandoned.”
Dean waves his blade. “And when are they meeting?”
The demon wrinkles her nose. “Nine a.m. The specialist runs things… differently.”
Dean rolls his eyes. Demons always work at night, if they can help it. They’re twisted, backstabbing thrill seekers more often than they’re soldiers, but they can still be damn scary with a blade and a want to kill.
Cas bores into her. “Is that everything you know?”
“Yes.”
Cas glances at Dean. Dean nods the barest bit, and Cas jams his blade through Ally’s heart, and with one last scream of pain, she falls silent.
Dean looks around and for the first time since they got here, he wonders where they are.
He doesn’t have time to ask. Cas takes his shoulder and they’re zapped back into the alley beside the bar.
The demon’s bodies are gone. Dean’s too tired to ask. He starts back towards the Impala. The sky is still dark enough to cloak the blood stained in Dean’s clothes, but he has a feeling it won’t stay dark much longer.
“Dean-” Cas starts.
Dean knows that careful tone, and he doesn’t have the energy for it right now. “Are you buying what that demon was saying? I mean, how is that even possible? To cut off pieces of someone’s soul?”
“It shouldn’t be. I’ve never heard of it. Human souls are like nuclear reactors. It’s extremely dangerous to handle them, let alone cut them into pieces.”
“So you think she’s lying.”
Cas shakes his head. “It’s a very specific lie. And Bosha had mild symptoms of someone who’s lost their soul; a lack of empathy and kindness, erratic emotions.”
“So most likely. But still maybe.”
“I could be certain. I could check Bosha’s soul.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.”
They walk in silence for a while, the streets thin now that it’s so late.
They come in sight of the Impala, gleaming black beauty that she is.
Cas says, “Dean,” again in that careful tone, and Dean answers before Cas asks.
“Cas, if you’re gonna ask if I’m fine, yes, I’m fine.”
He knows this is about him torturing that demon. If he’s really honest with himself, then yes, it’s been harder since he got back from Hell. Cas asking him to torture Alastair, and the subsequent shitshow that that was, certainly didn’t help him feel any better about it. But this is his job, this is what he does, and more often than not, climbing back on the horse is the best way to get past whatever the issue is. Fake it till you make it.
Cas is quiet, but eventually he says, “Okay.”
Good. Dean can handle that. They have an early start tomorrow.
They’re going to Home Alone these demonic sons a bitches.
——
Cas knows it’s a lie, when Dean says he’s okay. But he supposes they all do that a lot. Lie about being okay.
Cas drops the subject.
Dean checks in to a motel, and when Cas asks if he can stay too, if he can read some of the books locked in the trunk, Dean’s too tired to say no.
And so Dean burrows into the bed closest to the door and turns his head away from the light emanating from the desk lamp Cas has on its lowest setting.
The book Cas took from the trunk is Dean’s father’s journal. John Winchester’s journal.
Dean’s kept it out of Cas’s hands for the most part – he once took it away when Cas started reading the early chapters – but he’s never said outright that Cas can’t read it.
Cas can’t help if he’s a little curious, very curious, about what secrets it holds about the man he loves.
He starts at the beginning, which is inevitably sad. Mary’s death. That’s what drove John to hunting. Journaling too, even before John learned that hunter journals are a tradition.
Cas sits and reads, and he learns things he never knew.
December 7th, 1983
It’s been five weeks since Mary died.
Sammy still cries for her. He doesn’t understand. Dean does. He hasn’t cried, not once. He hasn’t spoken a word since she passed, and I know he’s like me. If I can’t find the monster who killed her, I know Dean will. I’ll raise them both in the life I’ve chosen, in the life I’ve been forced into.
That yellow-eyed bastard will wish he never crossed the Winchesters. He took away my life. The boys’ lives. Whatever unholy thing he is, I’ll make the son of a bitch pay. If it’s the last thing I do.
—
December 20th, 1983
Dean’s asking about Christmas every day now. He’s still not talking, but he asks in his own way, staring at every Christmas tree we see with empty cardboard boxes wrapped and tucked underneath, every wreath and lit up house.
He looks at me like I’ve taken everything good out of his life. He’ll always remember the way things were before.
Every time he gives me that pleading look, I tell him the same thing I’ve already told him a dozen times this month. It’s not going to happen.
I can’t even think about it. It’s only his fourth Christmas, Sammy’s first, and Mary’s not here to see it. She’ll never be here to see them.
She wanted this life more than I ever did. The house, the car, the kids, the picturesque nuclear family. I said yes to it all for her. I always knew that dream was a lie. I was raised by a single mother. Served in the Marines just like my father, though I never even knew what the bastard looked like.
I can’t raise the boys as anything more than soldiers. Mary knew that. She promised to be what I couldn’t. But she’s gone and I’m saddled with her kids and I still love her and of course I still love her kids, our kids, but all I want to do is fight, and all they do is hold me back.
—
December 24th, 1983
Left the boys in a motel, went for a drink that turned into a dozen. Don’t know how many.
Came back after midnight. Dean was up, watching over Sammy like I told him to. He glared at me, but he didn’t say a word. He still hasn’t.
Maybe I should take him to a doctor. Or a shrink.
I write that as if I care. I can’t bring myself to care about anything anymore. I try, because I know I’m supposed to, because I know Mary would want me to, but the truth is I’m failing.
Every night I see the fire. I feel it, as vividly as I did that night. I see yellow eyes.
I know this is obsessive. I sold our house. Most of our things. We’re living off savings, the money Mary and I put away for the boys’ college. I’ve just been traveling, moving place to place like I might find something to stick around for, tracking and hunting what monsters I can find in the meantime. I’m not sending Dean to school for as long as I can help it.
I’m turning into the guy I’ve seen in horror stories on the news, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t want to stop it, because I see the world for what it is now and I can’t go back. Nothing else matters.
The world is full of monsters. Real monsters, ghosts and vampires and shapeshifters. I know that the thing that killed my wife, that burned her alive on the ceiling of Sammy’s nursery, is one of these monsters.
I don’t care what it costs to find him and put a bullet between his eyes. I don’t care what it costs Sam and Dean.
There was a time, not so long ago, when I did care. When I cared about everything. When I made plans to be the father that mine never was.
But that time is passed, and I can never get it back. I can’t try to get it back, if I truly want my justice, my revenge.
This choice, this mission, might turn me into a cold son of a bitch. I might become one of the worst fathers this world has seen. But my boys will be better for it. They’ll be warriors, the best anyone’s ever seen. They’ll do everything I can’t.
I won’t let them choose a different path. I can’t. There’s a real war out there, one that no one knows about, one that’s fought in the shadows, and I won’t give up any of my soldiers.
Especially not Dean.
Cas takes a breath and leans back in his chair.
He knew that losing Mary tore the family apart. He knew that John raised Sam and Dean as hunters and that he was a controversial figure in their lives.
But reading John’s words? The ones he wrote himself in looping cursive?
It’s devastating. Horrible. How consumed John was by his grief. How he rejected his sons as family and made them his soldiers instead.
Cas has lost before, he’s hurt before, but for the first time he wonders if a loss could be so great that it would change him, twist him into something he wouldn’t recognize. Mary was the love of John’s life. Cas is certain that Dean is his. Would he turn into something else, if he lost Dean? Would he cease to care about Sam, about the whole world?
Just the thought of it makes him feel sick. He closes his eyes and shakes his head and he thinks No. He’d never let himself be twisted by loss. He’d never let himself become something Dean would hate.
Cas closes the journal. He doesn’t need to read it. He knows Dean’s past. He doesn’t need to retread every excruciating detail, every justification John made for the heartless way he raised Sam and Dean. If Dean wants to talk about it, Cas will always listen. But for now, he’d rather focus on the present.
He leaves to find Bosha and determine the state of her soul.