Fic: Watching Over Me
Happy 2010, everyone!! I'm still meaning to do one of those New Year's memes going around, or at least come up with a New Year's resolution or twelve, but in the meantime, what better way to ring in the new decade than with some good old-fashioned angsty fic in a fandom only a few of you care about?
(Don't ask me where this came from, because I've got no idea. I swear my muse comes up with these things on her own. Not to mention she's completely bipolar.)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG (higher if you don't like reading about the emotional trauma of small children. But blame Kripke for that, not me.)
Word Count: 811
Pairings: none (though some Dean/Castiel, if you squint)
Spoilers: Through 5.01
Summary: Dean Winchester has a long and complicated history with angels.
“Angels are watching over us, Dean,” his mother would whisper to him before tucking him every night. It was a comforting thought that helped him get to sleep every night, a sort of nightlight that kept the shadows and scary thoughts at bay.
Ultimately, it also turns out to be the last thing she ever says to him.
When she dies in that fire in Sammy’s nursery, she becomes another angel watching over him, one Dean wishes he couldn’t see. Her blonde hair is fanned out across the ceiling in a jagged halo, white dress stained with her own blood, eyes blankly staring down at him while he tries to get some sleep. For weeks after her death, Dean can see her whenever he closes his eyes. He cries silently in fear while his dad does the same out of grief in the bed next to him in this dingy motel room, and he wishes and prays that his mom was still there to hold and comfort him. Baby Sammy sleeps soundly in his folding crib, and Dean envies him. He wishes he were too little to understand what was happening to their family.
He’s only four, so it takes Dean a while to understand that Mommy’s really gone, that she’s tucked him in for the last time, that she’ll never again whisper to him about the angels that protect him in the darkness. He keeps moving to all these new, unfamiliar places, all with scratchy sheets and damp smells, and his mom’s been taken away and no one can tell him why, not even his dad.
Oh, Dad explains the what -- once he stops stinking of alcohol, he takes Dean onto his lap and tells him everything he’s learned from this stranger Dean’s supposed to call Uncle Bobby. Monsters are real, he tells his son, telling him about demons and ghosts and monsters as matter-of-factly as his mom had once talked about angels. They're real, and they killed Mommy. There are things lurking in the darkness you can’t even imagine. But you and me and Sammy, we’re going to fight them. Hunt them all down. Make them pay for what they did to your mom.
Dad never explains the why. He probably doesn’t know why the demons came after Mom. Dean knows the why doesn’t matter to Dad when all he wants is revenge.
But Dean slowly figures it out on his own: his mom had lied. The angels aren’t looking out for him. They’ve abandoned him, left him to fend for himself against the monsters under his bed and the frightening reality of this new world. They don’t care about him. Maybe they’re not even real.
Dean’s only four years old, and he’s already stopped being a kid.
---
Years later, when he’s an adult who’s spent most of his life fighting a losing battle against the darkness, an angel pulls him out of literal hell, saving him from an eternity of anguish and torture at the hands of all the demons he'd sent back there over the years.
Dean thanks Castiel by trying to kill him. Why would the angels bother to show up now, after all the horrible things that had happened to him and his family? Where were they when his mom died, or his dad, or even Sam? It had been much easier for him to believe they didn’t exist, rather than think they let bad things happen to good people.
Castiel is nothing like he imagined angels to be: he doesn’t have a halo, or wear robes or carry a harp. But Dean saw his wings once, and even though it takes Dean a while to acknowledge this, Castiel keeps a close watch over Dean and his brother, keeping them safe from monsters and demons and even, eventually, the other angels. (Once Dean finally accepted the existence of angels, it didn’t take him long to figure out most of them weren’t quite as good as his mother had led them to believe.) His mother had told him about guardian angels, that God had long ago picked out one angel to keep a special close eye on him; and Dean supposes Cas might fit that bill, even though he’ll never admit that out loud.
When Dean asks him why he was taken out of hell, Castiel’s answer is simple, assured. God commanded this. We have work for you.
He’s maddeningly vague as to what that work is, though. Dean probably should have expected that.
He waits for the angels to present him with a catch, some sort of caveat that will prove he doesn’t deserve the second chance at life they’ve given him. The things he did while he was in hell are unforgivable, he thinks. The angels’ interest in him is completely undeserved, after the things he’s done. They’ve got to have some ulterior motive for saving his life.
And when he’s proven right, he’s a little surprised at how disappointed he is.
(Don't ask me where this came from, because I've got no idea. I swear my muse comes up with these things on her own. Not to mention she's completely bipolar.)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG (higher if you don't like reading about the emotional trauma of small children. But blame Kripke for that, not me.)
Word Count: 811
Pairings: none (though some Dean/Castiel, if you squint)
Spoilers: Through 5.01
Summary: Dean Winchester has a long and complicated history with angels.
“Angels are watching over us, Dean,” his mother would whisper to him before tucking him every night. It was a comforting thought that helped him get to sleep every night, a sort of nightlight that kept the shadows and scary thoughts at bay.
Ultimately, it also turns out to be the last thing she ever says to him.
When she dies in that fire in Sammy’s nursery, she becomes another angel watching over him, one Dean wishes he couldn’t see. Her blonde hair is fanned out across the ceiling in a jagged halo, white dress stained with her own blood, eyes blankly staring down at him while he tries to get some sleep. For weeks after her death, Dean can see her whenever he closes his eyes. He cries silently in fear while his dad does the same out of grief in the bed next to him in this dingy motel room, and he wishes and prays that his mom was still there to hold and comfort him. Baby Sammy sleeps soundly in his folding crib, and Dean envies him. He wishes he were too little to understand what was happening to their family.
He’s only four, so it takes Dean a while to understand that Mommy’s really gone, that she’s tucked him in for the last time, that she’ll never again whisper to him about the angels that protect him in the darkness. He keeps moving to all these new, unfamiliar places, all with scratchy sheets and damp smells, and his mom’s been taken away and no one can tell him why, not even his dad.
Oh, Dad explains the what -- once he stops stinking of alcohol, he takes Dean onto his lap and tells him everything he’s learned from this stranger Dean’s supposed to call Uncle Bobby. Monsters are real, he tells his son, telling him about demons and ghosts and monsters as matter-of-factly as his mom had once talked about angels. They're real, and they killed Mommy. There are things lurking in the darkness you can’t even imagine. But you and me and Sammy, we’re going to fight them. Hunt them all down. Make them pay for what they did to your mom.
Dad never explains the why. He probably doesn’t know why the demons came after Mom. Dean knows the why doesn’t matter to Dad when all he wants is revenge.
But Dean slowly figures it out on his own: his mom had lied. The angels aren’t looking out for him. They’ve abandoned him, left him to fend for himself against the monsters under his bed and the frightening reality of this new world. They don’t care about him. Maybe they’re not even real.
Dean’s only four years old, and he’s already stopped being a kid.
---
Years later, when he’s an adult who’s spent most of his life fighting a losing battle against the darkness, an angel pulls him out of literal hell, saving him from an eternity of anguish and torture at the hands of all the demons he'd sent back there over the years.
Dean thanks Castiel by trying to kill him. Why would the angels bother to show up now, after all the horrible things that had happened to him and his family? Where were they when his mom died, or his dad, or even Sam? It had been much easier for him to believe they didn’t exist, rather than think they let bad things happen to good people.
Castiel is nothing like he imagined angels to be: he doesn’t have a halo, or wear robes or carry a harp. But Dean saw his wings once, and even though it takes Dean a while to acknowledge this, Castiel keeps a close watch over Dean and his brother, keeping them safe from monsters and demons and even, eventually, the other angels. (Once Dean finally accepted the existence of angels, it didn’t take him long to figure out most of them weren’t quite as good as his mother had led them to believe.) His mother had told him about guardian angels, that God had long ago picked out one angel to keep a special close eye on him; and Dean supposes Cas might fit that bill, even though he’ll never admit that out loud.
When Dean asks him why he was taken out of hell, Castiel’s answer is simple, assured. God commanded this. We have work for you.
He’s maddeningly vague as to what that work is, though. Dean probably should have expected that.
He waits for the angels to present him with a catch, some sort of caveat that will prove he doesn’t deserve the second chance at life they’ve given him. The things he did while he was in hell are unforgivable, he thinks. The angels’ interest in him is completely undeserved, after the things he’s done. They’ve got to have some ulterior motive for saving his life.
And when he’s proven right, he’s a little surprised at how disappointed he is.