Chapter Text
There are two art posts with this, drawn by the amazingly talented Leyna, but don't click on them until you've finished the fic as they're spoilery!
Link to art: Master Art Post (Spoilery if you scroll down past the cover art, so be warned) and
Second Master Art Post (Very much not safe for work, unless you work in an interesting and broad-minded place)
~ ~ ~
It all started going wrong when the angel arrived.
Oh, alright, I know. Obviously it all started going wrong long before that. Dean dying, for starters. That’s pretty fucking wrong right there, and Sam crying over him and the blood all over me and everything – not a time I look back on with fondness. And then there was the whole deal of how I went to Hell with him, and yet I stayed behind as well, and if that’s not one royal headfuck I don’t know what is. Jesus, my existence has been seriously weird at times, I’ll admit, but that was about as weird as it can ever get. Well, I hope so, anyway. I don’t really want to think about what’ll happen if ever Dean gets cremated with me. I get the feeling I won’t like it.
No, what I’m trying to say here is that B.C. – Before Castiel, you see what I did there? – life was simple. Dean looked after his brother. That was all there was to it, and it was a valiant mission, and he did it well. He looked after Sammy. And if Sammy grew big and tall and started looking after himself, well, Dean never really noticed, and it wasn’t as though I could tell him. For a grown man, he can be remarkably dense at times. He’s so blinded by the love for his family that he can’t see what’s staring him in the face. Shit, I wish my family had been like that. Bunch of sonsofbitches they were and no mistake. All these years, I still feel sick when I think of them; this horrible sick feeling in my belly, which is stupid because I haven’t even got a fucking belly to start with. Huh.
(It makes me laugh, sometimes, how much I talk like Dean. I mean, you’re around someone for long enough and you start picking up their mannerisms, but I can’t do that ’cause I don’t have a body. So I picked up his speech. The dumb things he says, like “Whoa” and “Holy crap” and, yeah, I won’t deny it, the swearing. He used to swear like a trooper but he toned it down once Sam left for Stanford, mainly because John didn’t like it much. If I had a penny for every time Dean changed something about himself to please his dad, I’d... well, I’d have a lot of pennies. Fat lot of good they’d do me, anyway. No pockets, see. How’d I carry them around?)
So Dean was in Hell and the good Lord above decided that it was time to yank him out of there and bring him back. And shit, don’t think I wasn’t happy about it; I was thrilled. I’d have rented the Playboy Mansion and thrown a party to end all parties if only I could have. Dean – my Dean – was alive again, and I was back where I was supposed to be, where I was meant to be: following the Winchesters around the country, sitting in the back of their car, trailing after them on hunts, watching them sleep every night. (I don’t sleep, of course, because I’m a spirit. And it’s not like I can turn the pages of a book or anything – no hands! – so it can get pretty damn boring. So I just watch them while they snore. It’s relaxing. Don’t go thinking it’s creepy, either: you’d do the same, you know you would, except that you’d be able to get into bed with them if you wanted, and you’d be able to feel them. Feel Dean. And that’s not fair on so many levels, I don’t even wanna go there.)
But that angel. The moment I saw him in Hell, I knew what was gonna happen. Dean doesn’t remember, mostly probably will never remember, to be honest, what with all the trauma and the fact he was almost a fucking demon by the time Castiel showed up. But I do, because I saw it. I had blood in my eyes, true, but I could still see, and when that angel stepped between Dean and the guy he’d been torturing on the rack, it was like time just stopped.
Have you seen West Side Story? If not, you should. It won ten Oscars in 1962, and I remember that night well because that was the ceremony where some hick gatecrashed the stage and hassled Bob Hope. My companion at the time thought it was hilarious and giggled like a loon, but I thought it was just rude. (Oh, and he also wanted The Guns Of Navarone to win Best Picture, so from that you can infer that we did not have the best of relationships.)
Anyway, I digress. I do that a lot, I’m afraid. It’s a side-effect of having had nobody talk back to me in two hundred years – there’s nobody to tell me to shut the hell up, and to get to the point. Sorry. What I’m trying to say here is that there’s a scene in West Side Story where Tony and Maria see each other across a crowded dancefloor and it’s like the world just goes away: they stare at each other, and you know they’ve fallen in love. Just like that. The music quietens, the lights go all blurry, and then they do this adorable little dance and can’t take their freakin’ eyes off each other the whole time... And when Dean and Castiel saw each other in Hell, it was kinda like that.
But without the dancing, obviously.
And neither of ’em was wearing a dress, either.
Okay, this whole ‘analogy’ thing? I pretty much suck at it. Sorry. But you get my drift, don’t you? Dean and Castiel. Like Tony and Maria, they were meant to be together.
So where does that leave me?
~ ~ ~
Sam’s in the shower right now, and Dean’s staring at the computer screen and trying to summon up the energy to hunt for some porn. I can tell. I know him that well. But he’s not going to do it; he’s distracted, and he’s tired, and while his brain is telling him that he needs to relax, which usually means that he needs to see barenaked ladeez doing things barenaked ladeez tend to do on the internet, his heart (or his dick, for that matter) isn’t really up for it (pun intended).
Personally, I don’t care that he watches porn. It’s not like real sex, is it? It’s not like he’s cheating on me, as if I had any claim over him, anyway. It’s the same with all the girls he sleeps with. It’s just sex. That’s all: nothing in between. No feelings, no commitment, no bond. In all the years I’ve known Dean – and hey, I was there when he had his first sexual experience, and I have a feeling I’ll be around to watch his last – I’ve never once felt as though he genuinely cared for somebody. Not Cassie, not Lisa, not that Carmen girl who appeared when he was under the Djinn’s spell (I missed that one, being stuck in that miserable warehouse while he went off to dreamland, and that made me sad because it would have been nice to see him happy, if only for a little while). He thought he cared about them, but he didn’t; he never fell deep enough. Not as deep as you fall when you’re in love. Pretty fucking deep.
And he’s just starting to realize that now, even though he doesn’t understand why he’s starting to realize it. Even though he doesn’t know it’s because he’s finally bonded with somebody. Even though he doesn’t recognize ‘love’ unless it’s for a member of his family.
I can tell. Like I said, I know him that well.
He’s looking at the screen, but his eyes aren’t focusing, and I come to stand behind the table so I can get a better look at them. They’re bloodshot because he hasn’t been sleeping (welcome to my world, Dean) and he hasn’t shaved for a few days, though I know he will soon because he doesn’t want Sam to think anything’s wrong. He’s putting on a show, all bravado and quickfire puns, but underneath it all he’s being eaten away.
It’s Hell. Of course it’s Hell. I saw what happened to him down there, and he hasn’t told anybody yet, so it’s eating him alive. The only person who knows is that damn angel, but he’s not said anything to him about it, because he’s an angel and they don’t have feelings, do they? I’d be surprised if Mr Feathers even knows Dean’s in pain. It’s a good job I’m here. I understand what he’s going through. I understand perfectly.
It’s just a shame I can’t do anything about it.
The last time Dean saw the angel, it was when Castiel sent him back in time (and me, of course; I’m always dragged along, whether I want to go or not. That’s my lot in life. Or, uh, death). When Dean got back, he found out what Sam’s been up to with Ruby – he saw his brother exorcising a demon with his mind, and realized that he was being lied to. I wish I could’ve told him. I’ve known all along, of course; I was with Sam while Dean was gone, as much as I was with Dean in the Pit. I saw what Sam went through, and I went through it too, in a way. I may be a spirit, a ghost, a phantom, but I still have feelings. I can mourn.
Sam went through his own kind of Hell after Dean died, and Ruby was there to steer him through it, and Sam came to depend on her. And okay, so Sam’s using his powers now, but he’s using them to do good. Dean was pissed with him, God yeah. He was furious. But Sam’s not evil, and I don’t think he ever will be, and Dean’s got his own guilt to deal with so he projected it onto his brother.
I could be wrong about all this, of course. I can’t see into the future. They said I could, and that’s why they drowned me – well, among other reasons – but I really can’t. I’m not a seer. I’m just a spirit, and a mightily worried one at that.
Dean’s got freckles, and they’re standing out on his nose right now because he’s sitting in the sunlight from the window. That’s kind of how I knew he wasn’t going to look for porn – he doesn’t like watching it during the day. And the computer screen is all washed out from the light, too, and he hasn’t made a move to angle it so he can see it properly. He’s just... staring. Thinking.
“You need to forgive him,” I tell him. “He was in pain, and Ruby was there. He’ll tell you, one day, but until then you gotta go easy on him.”
Dean blinks, but he doesn’t hear me. He never hears me.
I sense something – a shifting; a stirring in the air. No, not so much the air as the plane of existence the air is in, a plane I’m sensitive to because it’s where I live. There are wingbeats and the TV flickers and loses its signal, playing static instead of The View as Castiel materializes behind Dean. It’s a cool sight. Even I have to admit that it’s a cool sight, and every time I see the angel my non-existent heart sinks.
“Dean,” he says in that goddamned deep gravel-pit voice of his, and if I could feel my hair stand on end, I would surely feel it stand upright as he speaks.
Dean closes his eyes and sighs. “What now?” he says, and stands up. He turns to face his visitor and again I’m reminded of the sight of them both in Hell: a broken human soul and a full-blown angel, all glowy light and wings, staring at each other in amazement while blood and misery stained the very air around them.
Huh. I can get damned poetical at times, can’t I?
“You saw what your brother is doing,” Castiel says, shooting a glance at the door to the bathroom. Sam’s humming a song behind it and water’s sloshing. I’ve seen him in the shower enough times to know that he’s getting most of it on the floor instead of down the drain. That’s what happens when you’re nine feet tall and built like the Hulk, and shower cubicles are built for Barbie.
“Yes,” Dean snaps. “Also? Way to break the news to me, Cas. Next time, give me some warning, okay? A little heads-up? That was one shitty night for me. I got to watch my grandparents die, and then wham!, you have me walkin’ in on Sam using his powers. What’re you, a sadist?”
“You needed to know.”
“Damn right I did, but I don’t appreciate you playing me like a puppet!” Dean is furious. I like him like this, these days. I’d rather see him angry than worn down and tired. “Look, I know you angels think he’s evil. I know you think he’s on the path to the Dark Side, but...”
“His path is not determined.” And oooh, angel or not – my nemesis or not – he does sound hot when he growls.
(What? I might not have a body, but I still have a mind that remembers how a body would react to a sound like that. He’s not exactly bad-looking, either, which personally I think was a totally deliberate choice on his part. I know that if ever I had the chance to inhabit a body again, though, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck what it looked like. Just to touch something again, to feel air in my lungs and the sun on my face... Oh well, a ghost can dream.)
“His path is none of your goddamn business,” Dean tells the angel, and if I could’ve waved pom-poms of support in the air behind him, I would have. “He’s my brother, and nothing to do with you. You need to quit meddling in our lives.”
Castiel regards him with absolutely no expression on his face at all. Nothing. “Everything is our business, Dean,” he says. “The fate of the world is at stake. You must trust me on this.”
Dean snickers. “Trust you? You threatened to throw me back into Hell. How could I ever trust you after that?”
The sound of the shower stops. Sam coughs in the bathroom. Dean flicks his eyes over to the door, and when he flicks them back, Castiel is gone. Damn, that angel’s fast; even I didn’t see him leave.
“Son of a bitch,” Dean mutters under his breath, and leans on the table, lowering his head. I see his jaw go tight, his forehead furrow, and I see the fight go out of him like air leaving a balloon. He stands like that for a few minutes and then stalks over to his bed, flinging himself down on the mattress. By the time Sam walks out of the bathroom without the merest clue that anything’s happened in his absence, Dean is lying there with an arm thrown over his face, pretending to sleep.
I watch as Sam stares at him thoughtfully, trying to gauge if he should be worried that his brother is, yet again, sleeping during daylight hours. And then I wonder when Dean will realize that Castiel had no need to stop by today at all; the angel just turned up because he wanted to see him. It’s funny how two souls can meet and have a connection in one place and then one of them completely forgets about it somewhere else. I suppose it’s the only way Dean’s brain can cope with all the memories – some of them get buried, and while there’s still a gravestone on display, a granite-hard, cold reminder, the majority of them lie hidden.
I wonder how long it will be before he digs this one up. I hope he never finds a shovel.
~ ~ ~
I’m not corporeal. I haven’t been since 1799, and yeah, it still bugs me I never lived to see the turn of the century, although obviously I saw in the 19th century as a spirit. I just couldn’t get drunk to celebrate. I’m sure my corporeal bones are dissolved by now, too, little chips of calcium at the bottom of my woeful, unloved, unmarked grave outside that overgrown and ruined churchyard in Oregon. I’m just a wisp, really – a thing that floats through the world, pulled along by my companion, whoever he or she may be at the time, forced to go wherever they go with no choice in the matter. And the kicker is that none of them know I’m there. Not a single one. Not even Dean, who deals with the paranormal every day. That’s a real gutpunch, you know?
I sit in the back of the Impala, feeling no leather under my form, because my form isn’t really a form as much as it is a representation. If someone could see me (which happened once, in the 1920s, at a club in London frequented by a group of spiritualists, although the person who saw me was as drunk as a skunk and nobody believed them) they’d see a shape, a body, but no real face. Just a suggestion of one.
I’ve been a spirit for so long I’ve forgotten what I used to look like. I think I had brown hair, but I could be wrong. I was only 17 when I died, and I’ve been a ghost for far longer than I was ever alive. That makes me sad. Frankly, if I hadn’t had such varied, interesting and diverting companions over the decades, I’d probably be insane by now. Which, in this line of existence, means poltergeist. Those dudes are fucking psycho, man. I’d hate to end up like that. I’ve seen enough of them try to kill the Winchesters – and Bobby, of course – to make me think I’d rather spend eternity shut in a locked drawer than go that way. And I did that for three months, actually, when Bobby first became my companion, so I know how boring it is to see nothing but blackness when someone’s not wearing you.
Dear old Bobby. Out of everybody I’ve been with over the years, he was the person I was most fond of until Dean came along. Wait, did I not mention he was my last companion? I was with him from a few months after he lost his wife to a demon and I learned the tricks of the hunting trade as he did.
S’funny, before him I used to think I was a one-off: a ghost haunting a cursed object, what a cliche now, but back then I really thought I was amazing. Through Bobby I figured out that there’s a big old world out there, and a fucking scary one at that. I’ve seen things, both with him and the Winchesters, that would make me shit a brick if I was human. Probably a good job I’m not.
We’re heading to Bobby’s now, and I’m happy. I love our trips to South Dakota; it feels like going home. Dean’s still pissed with Sam, of course, because that boy can hold a grudge, but he had some fun in Pennsylvania on that crazy vampire shapeshifter job and I think he’s easing off a little. He’s not letting on so much, anyway, and their relationship seems a bit better. Dean’s drinking, though, and Sam hasn’t really noticed how much yet, so there’s an explosion waiting to happen; and Dean’s not sleeping, either, only snatches here and there during the day, or short stretches at night which usually end in a nightmare. Sam’s noticed that.
What Sam hasn’t noticed, what neither of them have noticed, in fact, is that every night an angel stops by and watches over Dean for the few hours he does manage to sleep.
Which is all well and good, but that’s my fucking job!
I have to say, though, that Castiel seems to be the reason Dean gets any sleep at all, because on the nights he doesn’t turn up, Dean tosses and turns and eventually gets out of bed and drinks. And I’ve noticed he’ll always have a nightmare after the angel’s gone, as though the bastard’s keeping them at bay for him.
It makes me angry, because I want to hate Castiel so much, and yet I can’t. He’s in love, just like me, only he’s an angel and he doesn’t know what to do with the feeling. And he’s helping Dean as much as he can, which isn’t really much, to be honest, but it’s a start. It’s ridiculous really: I’ve got a love rival, and he doesn’t even know I exist, and neither does the man we’re both in love with, and this is some fucking messed-up triangle that I can’t even see ever being acknowledged.
That’s the other thing. The thing that keeps me instinctively disliking the angel, even though I know he’s in love with Dean, and he’s better for him than I ever would be. How come he can’t see me? He’s an angel. He moves around the same plane as I do, and yet he’s never given either me or the amulet so much as a glance; as far as he’s concerned, the necklace around Dean’s neck is just a necklace, and I’m invisible.
All I can think is: am I really that unimportant?
And that hurts.
~ ~ ~
Bobby cheers me up. Bobby always cheers me up. I kinda want him to be my Pa, seeing as my own Pa was such a bastard, and it amuses me to picture him having kids and just being the best father ever, although it also saddens me because he never did. I also get the feeling that if Bobby ever saw me he’d do his damnedest to help me, although obviously we’d have to get past the whole “shooting me with rock salt” thing first.
“So have you heard any more from the angel?” he asks Dean, who’s got his mouth full. (Tacos... I’ve never tried tacos. They look great. Fuck, I miss food, which rather cruelly has been getting steadily more interesting since the turn of the 19th century. I haven’t got a clue what Skittles would taste like on a tongue but I could stare at them for hours. Why is some food so pretty?)
Dean tries to answer but nearly spits across the table, so Sam smirks and answers for him. “Castiel’s stopped by to see Dean a few times, but I haven’t met him yet,” he says, and I think to myself, If only you knew he was sitting on your bed last night, watching your brother snore. “I get the feeling he’ll just pop up one day and ask us to save a Seal or something, and we’ll have to jump like good little soldiers.”
“Yeah,” Dean grunts, wiping his mouth. “It’s like he’s that shouty Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket, only without the shouting. He’s more of an ‘icy stare’ kinda guy.” He pauses, crinkling his forehead in that way he does when he’s about to make a joke. “Does that make me Gomer Pyle? Man, that’s not a happy thought.”
“You gonna follow his orders, then?” Bobby queries.
Dean shrugs. “I dunno. I guess so, up to a point. Cas is an angel, after all – he’s one of the good guys, even if he is a jerk. I mean, he’s tryin’ to do the right thing, even if he’s driving us nuts to do it. You can’t really blame him for that.”
“Yeah, you can’t blame him for making you watch our grandparents die in front of your eyes,” Sam says quietly. It’s so unexpected that I stare at him, surprised, and Dean does the same.
“He doesn’t think like us,” Dean says hesitantly, after a moment or two. “He’s an angel... I don’t know if they’ve got feelings, or whatever, but I don’t think he knew what that would be like for me. He was just tryin’ to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Find out what Azazel was up to. I don’t think it was... malicious, or anything.” He sighs. “He’s just a soldier like us, Sam. He’s trying to win a war.”
It happens so suddenly I don’t even realize it’s me at first.
I think to myself, “Dean’s defending him.” And then I think to myself, “Why?”
Dean hated that the angel took him back in time. He was furious. Why would he try to excuse him for it now? Why would he disagree with Sam, of all people, over Castiel’s actions?
That’s when I realize that Dean’s starting to buckle. It’s actually going to happen. They’re actually going to end up together. This? This is the first sign.
The mug on the counter next to Bobby, the one that says “Arkansas: The Best State To Be In”, the one half-full of cold coffee with a cracked rim and a handle I’ve noticed is too small for Sam’s fingers to fit through, the mug that was sitting there minding its own business right up until Dean said, “He’s just a soldier like us”... that mug suddenly slides across the surface of the countertop and smashes to the floor.
The men stare at it, shocked.
“What the Hell?” Bobby grunts, looking around him. “Did that just move by itself?”
Dean’s on his feet, closely followed by Sam. “The room’s gone cold,” he observes, his voice all business. “Can you feel it?”
“Yeah,” breathes Bobby, and he reaches for his shotgun.
I’m stunned.
It was me.
I did that.
I moved something with my mind, and I made the temperature drop.
I actually interacted with the world.
“Hello?” I say, wondering if they can hear me, but they don’t react.
“You got a spirit in here, Bobby?” Sam asks, and all I can do is stare at the smashed cup and think, Yes. Yes, you fucking do.
~ ~ ~
It’s a pain in the ass, being tied to something physical.
I have a bit of leeway, true; I can probably move around ten, sometimes fifteen feet away from Dean (or Sam, or Bobby, or whoever’s wearing me) before I feel myself stretched too tightly and I have to return. It’s like I’m on an elastic band: go too far and then SNAP! I’m back where I belong. It used to drive me nuts but I’ve become used to it, over time, and it’s not as though it hurts.
That’s one thing I’ve always been grateful for: that it doesn’t hurt. I was lucky, in a weird way. The warlock who did this to me could’ve been so cruel, but he wasn’t. I guess he still had some feelings for me. I’d like to think so, anyway, but he probably didn’t because he cursed me regardless. And he took the side of the rest of the villagers against me quickly enough, although I suppose he had no choice because he was protecting himself. Of course, they’d had no idea he was a warlock. As far as they were concerned, I was the one casting the spells and ruining their crops, not to mention tickling kitty cats under the chin, so I was the one they punished.
I was drowned. People say it’s a good way to die, as long as you assume there actually is a good way to die in the first place. Well, I’m telling you this right now: being tied to a wooden beam and forced to gulp down lungfuls of muddy pond water is not a good way to die. It fucking sucks. Although I’m glad they never hung me, at least – those poor Salem folk, a century before my time, had it real bad. I wasn’t jailed, either. The whole thing was over with in the space of a day. No time to sit around and worry over my fate; I was tried, sentenced and executed from sun-up to sundown.
Sometimes I see Sam and Dean exorcising a spirit or killing some kind of monster (Jeez, ‘some kind of monster’? Could Dean’s love of Metallica influence me any more if it tried?) and I wonder at what it’s thinking – is the spirit like me, stuck on Earth and unable to communicate its real feelings? Is the wendigo or the werewolf or the rougarou any more deserving of death than I was? I suppose I should find it ironic that I ended up accompanying two hunters on their travels around the country, but I don’t. That’s probably a bad thing, really, but I guess I’m so in love with Dean I can’t look at our relationship objectively.
Funny how you can still love, even though you’re dead. I wonder, sometimes, if Thomas made sure of that even as he cast the spell that cursed me.
Bastard.
I’ve not been able to move anything since we left Bobby’s. I’ve tried – God knows I’ve tried – but it seems it was a one-off incident. I keep thinking back to the time when Dean and Sam met Max Miller, one of the first special kids, and Sam managed to break out of the closet he was locked inside using the first stirrings of his powers. He’d told Dean he’d moved the cabinet shoved in front of the door involuntarily, like it was a punch or something. That’s how it felt with me. Involuntary. The killer thing is... it happened at the very moment I realized I was losing Dean. It happened when I was angry, and lost, and full of despair, but it happened before I’d even noticed those emotions forming inside me.
The fact that I unconsciously took those feelings and started smashing things?
Poltergeist.
Yeah.
“No,” I say, staring down at Dean. “I’m not going to wind up like that. I’m better than that. If I lose you, I’ll cope. Castiel’s not evil. He’s a servant of God, isn’t he? He’s an angel, and he’s a fighter, and he’ll protect you. It’s going to be hard, giving you up, but I don’t have any choice, do I?”
Dean sleeps on. I can see in the dark – I can see well all the time, because I don’t have eyes to be affected by changes in the light – and I lean down to gaze at his face. I’ve done this so many times, right from the Christmas night when Dean unwrapped me and placed me round his neck until now, when Dean’s a grown man who’s suffered so much in his lifetime. He died, for fuck’s sake. Died and went to Hell. And yet he’s still here, and he’s still fighting, and doesn’t he deserve someone to love him after all that? Someone he can actually touch, and talk to; someone warm and powerful and his?
“You deserve it,” I tell him. “You deserve... him.” But my voice, which I’m fairly certain isn’t real because I don’t have a throat or lungs or a voicebox to produce it – though it sounds real enough when I hear myself – is suddenly cracking. “Dean,” I say. “Dean. How am I going to let you go? I can’t, I really can’t... you’re mine, Dean. You’ve been mine for so long, and it’s not fair that he should just come in and do this. It’s not fair! Why did it have to be an angel? And a man? Why couldn’t it have been a woman? I could’ve watched you grow old with her, could’ve watched you play with your kids, could’ve felt that pull when you handed me over to one of them and told them to look after me because I’ll keep them safe...”
I have to stop, because I can’t cry but it sounds like I am, and it’s weird. And just as I do, Castiel arrives. The air does that weird rippling thing and then he’s there, at the very moment Dean’s eyes start to move under his eyelids, right as his nightmare begins. I want to reach out and wake him, to save him from the horrors in his mind, but the angel gets there first.
“Sleep,” he says, and touches Dean gently on the forehead. Dean’s eyes stop moving and he sighs in contentment as Castiel steps back.
I hate him.
“That isn’t even your body,” I snap, and retreat into the bathroom where I don’t have to see the way he looks at Dean.
My Dean.
I stare in the mirror for hours, seeing absolutely nothing reflected back at me, and wonder what I used to look like. Was I Dean’s type?
My eyes were brown, I think. Not blue.
Dammit.
~ ~ ~
There’s a moment of hope. A sick, twisted feeling of hope, true, but hope nevertheless. Dean defied both Uriel and Castiel to keep a fallen angel named Anna safe. He chose her over him and it gladdened me, even when the rational part of my mind knew it was just his crazy sense of honor that made him do it. Dean’s a white knight, a protector, a champion; he’s the guy all the princesses would run to when they’re being chased by the dragon. It’s his thing, after all.
(Actually, Sam is too; I don’t want to sell him short. If anything, he’s more of a knight than Dean is these days, despite his dubious pastimes. I’m fairly certain I know what he’s been getting up to with Ruby, even if I’ve not seen it with my own eyes... or whatever counts as eyes with me, anyway. I saw enough of their dealings together in the months Dean was in Hell to understand their relationship. I know he has a yearning for blood in more ways than one, and I know she needs him for whatever reason, and I know they’re bound up with each other now whether Sam likes it or not. But he’s getting stronger, there’s no denying it, and he has to get stronger because Lilith killed Dean and wants to destroy the world, and there are two great reasons right there for him to tear her to pieces. I wish he would. For Dean’s sake, I wish he would, because then Dean could be free.)
Afterwards, it doesn’t surprise me when Dean and Anna have sex. It never surprises me when Dean has sex. That boy has sex a lot. I know, because I’ve been there for every one of his conquests; I’ve even had women fondle me, or slip me in their mouths, which always makes me laugh because they have no idea what they’re dealing with. I may look like an ordinary – if somewhat ugly – amulet but there’s a whole lot more bundled up inside that metal than they realize.
I can’t feel it, of course. The amulet might be the physical object I’m tied to, and after all these years I think of it as part of myself, which is why I call it ‘me’, but it’s no more capable of feeling sensation than I am. The only time I ever felt anything from it, through our connection, was when Dean was electrocuted in the cellar of some miserable shack as he fought a rawhead. It sounds like I’m making fun of the whole busines when I call it ‘shocking’, but it was; I could sense the charge running through the metal, and I could feel it burning a small mark on his skin as it heated up, and for a moment... just a tiny, fleeting moment, I could feel the electricity join the three of us, human-amulet-me. And then it was over, and Dean was half-dead, and I spent the next few days contemplating a life with Sammy while Dean rotted in a box somewhere.
Luckily that didn’t happen. Not for a few years, anyway.
Dean’s good at sex, just in case you were wondering. I might not have had sex myself since the year George Washington died (and shit, that’s a depressing thought – you need to stop reading this and have sex right the hell now, you lucky bastard, because you won’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone) but I have memories, and I had a lot of it in my short lifespan, and I know a master when I see one. Dean’s a master. For a guy who spends his life killing things, he’s surprisingly gentle when he’s being intimate with someone. He’s not one for dominating his partner, or being violent, or even bondage or anything kinky like that.
He’s... look, I can’t believe I’m saying this because it sounds so lame, but he’s sweet. Don’t tell anyone. If word gets out that Dean Winchester is sweet in the sack, his name would be mud.
But he is, and at times I find it heartbreaking to watch. All those girls, all those big eyes with different colors of eyeshadow, the nails with their rainbow varnishes, the lips with their gloss and their liners... so many of them, an endless parade of nameless, faceless women, and Dean treats them all like they’re the princesses and he’s the handsome knight. He wants them to need him, to feel wanted and special, and they fulfill that purpose for however long they’re in bed with him. They call him silly names, they talk filth, they tell him what they want him to do to them and he does. He rarely, if ever, asks them to do anything to him. For him. They’re doing that just by being there. By wanting him.
That’s the heartbreak, right there: Dean needing to be wanted. Even when he’s drunk on tequila after shooting pool in a skanky bar somewhere hell-knows-where, even after going back to the waitress’s apartment and waking up her roommate, who’s not best pleased; even after a catfight and being dragged into the stairwell outside the waitress’s door, even fucking the girl against the banisters while she tries to keep from crying out in case she wakes the neighbors, even then, Dean needs to be wanted, and it’s why he doesn’t leave. It’s a sickness, really. He needs to talk to a shrink, or a sex therapist, but he can’t. Instead he takes what he can take from the willing females he meets on his travels, and he thinks that it’s enough.
It’s not.
As I watch Dean and Anna squeeze into his car and pull off each other’s clothes I can’t help but hope that Dean falls for Anna as hard as Anna fell for humanity. I feel mean and cruel, but I can’t help it. Jealousy is irrational like that. I’d rather Dean had this woman than that man; this ex-angel than that angel.
Castiel is perfect for him, and I’m starting to suspect, from the look I see in the angel’s eyes every time he watches Dean sleep, that Dean is perfect for Castiel. But I don’t want them to be together, because I want Dean all for myself.
I’m a bad person. Maybe I really will become a poltergeist, and it will be my punishment for thoughts like this. It’s a depressing idea, and I hate myself more than I’ve ever hated myself in both my life and my death.
I watch them until Dean comes, making that soft, sighing noise I’ve heard so many times over the years, and I wait until Dean lowers his head between two pale legs to coax a similar noise from Anna. Then I turn my back on the both of them, because I sense their sadness, only to see Castiel standing a few dozen feet away, staring at the car with a stricken look on his face.
“You’re not supposed to know where we are,” I scold him.
Castiel says nothing, just stares at Dean sharing himself with another soul. He doesn’t seem to be breathing, and I wonder if he needs to.
“So you’ve known we’re here all along but you’ve not told your brothers,” I say. “You’re a regular double agent, you know that?”
“Dean...” Castiel whispers, and then he’s gone.
I try very hard not to notice quite how much pain there was in that word.
~ ~ ~
Castiel stays away from Dean after the Anna incident, not even turning up to watch him sleep (which means Dean’s nightmares get worse, and so does his drinking, natch). However, I can’t help but wonder if the angel found hope in the fact that Dean tried to save him from Alastair. Dean knew that a crowbar to the face wouldn’t stop a demon, but he did it anyway. What does that say about him? And how he feels about Castiel?
Hell if I know. I think he was just trying to get revenge, but Dean’s motivations are starting to puzzle me. I’ve known him for so long; I watched him grow up, and I watched him die, and I watched him after death, and yet he’s acting so closed-off and weird these days I can’t figure him out. Plus he’s so tired. He’s lost his edge. His thirst for Lilith, and all that is right and good in the world. Gone.
Poor Dean.
And oh, Alastair. There’s a story. Like I’ve said before, I was with Dean in Hell, and I spent all forty years watching that sick fuck of a demon fucking with Dean until he couldn’t fuck with him any more. If it was possible for me to hate anybody more than I hate my family and the folk of the now-empty village of Tavistock, Oregon, then I hate Alastair to the very depths of my spirit. What he did to Dean was beyond belief. What he made Dean do to others is even worse.
Which is why I was so surprised when Dean told Sam. Okay, so he revealed to his brother that he’d become a torturer – leaving out the fact he almost turned into a demon, though I’m not sure he remembers that far. But telling him that he enjoyed it?
I guess hearing Dean say the words out loud was the final proof I needed that something’s wrong with him. Dean would never admit such a thing to Sam. His little brother, the guy he’d spent his life protecting? What would possess him to demean himself like that? To show him how twisted he got? The fact he did tell him just proves he’s seeking something from Sam. Affirmation. Forgiveness. Understanding. I dunno, maybe even faith. And Sam can’t give him any of that, because it’s not his place to. Sam can only think of Lilith these days (and good luck to him!) but he’s not the shoulder to lean on Dean needs right now.
Which leaves Castiel.
The angel fucking knows it, too. It’s no coincidence that he turns up the next night. Dean’s still thinking about the two feral kids locked up in that creepy old house and how they became animals over the years, clearly putting himself in their place and agonizing over it, despite the fact he and Sam managed to save that nice family from them and, really, that’s a happy ending and he should be relieved. Castiel waits until Sam’s fast asleep at the motel and Dean’s gone for a drive, alone, as he sometimes does when he can’t sleep, and he pops into existence as Dean’s leaning on the hood of the Impala with a forgotten beer in his hand and the air frosty in his lungs.
“Dean,” Castiel says, and Dean sighs as he registers his presence. I study his expression as hard as I can; he’s angry. Good.
“Great,” he snaps, and the growl in his voice is really rather disturbing. “When are you going to get it through your thick skull that I want nothing to do with you sonsofbitches?”
“You’re not like them, Dean.”
“Like who?”
Castiel takes a step closer to him. I want to put myself between them but I know it’ll do no good. I want this road to be busier, the streetlamps brighter, the stars to shine more – anything to make this situation less private. Instead all that happens is Castiel comes to stand far too close to Dean, making him back up a little with a frown marking his forehead. Dean throws his beer bottle to the floor and sniffs, trying to look casual, but I can see he’s intimidated. Jesus, even I can be intimidated by the angel – I can sense the power radiating out from his human host, trying to find a way out of his eyes and ears and mouth and nose, anxious to resume its angelic form. I can even, sometimes, hear the wings rustling and I’m sure Dean can’t. This creature’s so much more than its earthly form, and yet it’s bound to it by magic stronger than any I know. It’s humbling. It really is.
At times, I’m glad he can’t see me.
“Those poor wretches in the house,” Castiel says smoothly. “Their fate was determined long before they were old enough to know better. As was yours, in Hell. Everybody breaks, Dean. Some do so after a day. Others last centuries. You shouldn’t feel ashamed.”
“What do you know about Hell?” Dean grunts. “You just snuck in, grabbed me by the arm and dumped me in my coffin. You hardly stayed around to watch the fun first, did you? Which reminds me, thanks a lot for the handprint. It’s a real buzzkill when I’m with a chick. Ever tried to explain away something like that?”
“I didn’t just...” Castiel stops, letting out a sigh. He looks away, straight through me at the road, and despite my fear of him I find myself wishing for the hundredth time that he could see me, just so that I had someone to talk to.
“So why are you here?” Dean asks, when it becomes clear that Castiel isn’t going to speak again. “A little angelic pep-talk, is that it? Want to remind me God has plans for me and that I shouldn’t wallow in my misery?”
Castiel looks at him again, and I recognize the gleam in his eyes. That’s how he looks at Dean while he sleeps. I wonder if Dean will even notice. “I’m sorry you’re miserable,” says the angel, and it’s as though he’s poured all the sincerity in his – well, someone else’s – body into the words. “It was not my... our intention to make you suffer. I wish I could help carry your burdens.”
Dean’s expression doesn’t change. “Yeah,” he says sarcastically. “That means a lot, comin’ from you.” It’s clear that it doesn’t, really. For a small moment I wonder if Dean’s hostility will ever die down. Perhaps Castiel will give up and leave him. I indulge the fantasy for as long as I can, but the angel doesn’t seem to want to help me with it.
“Please, Dean,” he snaps, sounding annoyed. “I’m trying. This is new to me, all of it. I don’t understand what you’re going through, but I’m trying to. Stop fighting me.”
I expect Dean to laugh, to make some quip about Castiel being the Tin Man and wanting to know what it’s like to have a heart or something similar, but instead Dean simply stares at him and then lets out a breath. “I enjoyed it, Cas,” he says, his words coming out in a rush. “I told Sam, but I don’t think he knew what to think, because how could he? I enjoyed torturing those souls because they were so weak, and I was so strong, and it felt so good to share the pain. You wonder why I fight you? It’s because you say God has work for me, but why the fuck would He want me to do anything except crawl under a rock and die? I don’t deserve this chance. Not for me, not for Sam, not for the world. It’s wrong, Cas. There are better people out there. I was finished, in Hell. You shouldn’t have bothered with me.”
I can’t believe he just said all that. Well, I can, because I’ve known what’s been going on under the surface with him for all these months. What I can’t believe is that he told Castiel. He really did. It’s like a nightmare is coming to life right in front of my eyes. With every moment they spend together, I can feel my existence becoming more and more meaningless.
I can’t help it; I let out a sob.
“You are important, Dean,” Castiel is saying. “You must leave behind the things you did and look to the future now. You aren’t the sum of those deeds, and you never will be.”
“I am,” Dean replies, and I’m devastated to hear tears in his voice. “I’m a bad thing, Cas, and I always will be.”
What happens next surprises us both, although Dean’s the one who gets the biggest shock. Castiel makes a soft noise in the back of his throat and then it’s as though he just snaps, like I do when my elastic pulls me back. One moment he’s the stiff, somber angel he always is and the next he’s grabbing Dean by the neck and pulling him into the neediest fucking kiss I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like he forgets he’s kissing something human, something that is soft and sensitive and can feel pain – instead he slams their lips together like Dean’s a wall, breathing out through his nose and gulping in a breath through his mouth as though he’s sucking all the air out of Dean’s lungs.
I stare in amazement as he forces himself onto him, so desperate for the touch that he doesn’t stop for a second to think about what Dean’s feeling, and then I start to wonder why Dean isn’t fighting him off. He makes a small sound in his throat – oddly enough, one very similar to the sound the angel just made – but he doesn’t struggle, doesn’t do anything, until the moment Castiel forces his lips open with his tongue and enters him.
And that’s the signal for Dean to shove him away as hard as he can, practically throwing Castiel to the asphalt in disgust.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he spits, and I think, That’s my Dean!
Castiel is breathing heavily, gazing up at him with a dazed expression. I suddenly realize that he hadn’t planned this, not at all, and he’s as stunned by his behavior as Dean is. He doesn’t speak as Dean glowers at him magnificently before climbing into the car and flooring the accelerator as hard as he can.
As the vehicle moves away I turn to wag a finger at the angel. “He’s mine,” I tell him, victoriously. “You see that? You see how he reacted? He doesn’t want you!”
But just as I feel the bonds about me tightening as Dean draws further away, Castiel drops his head in his hands and lets out a thoroughly un-angelic swear word, his voice filled with despair, and I feel a moment’s unwelcome sympathy before I’m snapped back into the car and find myself staring at Dean’s chalk-white face.
“Surprise!” I say weakly. “He’s in love with you. Who knew? Well, other than me, of course.”
~ ~ ~