fic: come out the hero
So, this is the long-waited (*snort*) entry for spn_solstice's 1-5k oneshot challenge \o/! I'm kind of absurdly in love with this fic, which means, bad, bad things in general, judging from past history. WHAT CAN YA DO, I ASK. WHAT CAN YA DO.
Also, I'm such a lemming, ahaha, it's not funny. I'm oddly terrified I'm posting too early (although on the other hand, NO. Right? >ugh< Indecsion is an ugly, ugly thing, my friends).
OMGWTF: ~3,000+ words; unbeta'd; gen; Dean-POV and Dean-centric; post s5 AU; major character death and/or possession; apocafic (soft of); ANGST!
come out the hero
The sky boils.
Dean's standing right out in the middle of nowhere, some gray in-between state full of pavement and dirty, dead fields. His eyes have been burning for days, now, shooting off random sparks along the edges of his sight, so he's not sure at first if he's seeing it clearly. He had stopped to take a leak, and suddenly there were massive, undulating clouds creeping in from the sides of his vision, twisting and twirling, tendrils converging above his head. The result is a large purple, splotchy mess that warps and weaves in the air, higher than the treeline, but only slightly.
Maybe, he thinks, it's a massive brain tumor making him hallucinate this shit.
His phone rings. "Bobby," he says into the receiver. Only Bobby'd call him now. No one else; no Lisa, who he made run him out the second week into his stay, and everyone else is gone or dead.
"Take it you're seein this, then." Bobby's voice is dry as ever, but it crackles with distance, another squirming, red hot layer of guilt. Dean closes his eyes.
"What is it?" Because it's apparently not a tumor. Goddammit.
"Well," and there's rustling on the other end. A long, awkward pause. "Somethin's tellin me the big players are back in town."
**
Dean doesn't run.
There's nowhere to run to. Not a place; not a person. Dean's not stupid - his family's been through this too many times.
He steers clear of the big omens, the important things. He points the Impala west and he doesn't think any further than that.
He's at a little diner in Kentucky when he hears about the earthquake threatening to dislodge California into the Pacific.
Dean thinks about Stanford and Jess and two years where his little brother was a geeky college kid.
He smiles.
**
Tidal waves stretch inward, surprising weathermen the nation over with how far they reach.
Nothing like it, one says. The man shifts uneasily across the t.v., bright colored maps changing and swirling behind him. Dean can see the sweat at his hairline, along the ridge of upper lip. His suit clumps around the arms, making stiff peaks at the shoulder whenever the man raises an arm. It's going to be an interesting season for the coast. That's for sure.
He clicks the news off. The room is dark, damp smelling. Light drifts in from the parking lot but it only highlights Dean's thigh, a wedge of pillow.
The room's a single, and his feet kick over a duffel when he goes to lay down.
**
He doesn't run, but he doesn't stop moving, either. The world ended as soon as that damn hole sealed itself back up. Fuck Sam and fuck the life his little brother tried plotting out for him.
Dean's here, right here where no one else is. Where no one is going to be.
Dean knows. One time too many, and Dean gets it. Sam's not coming back.
**
He keeps replaying that moment. Watching Sam reach out, drag Michael into the ground with him, and Dean knows that's why he should have said yes. He can almost feel the phantom tug of his brother's hands against his shoulders.
He's been a hunter all his life. A lot of things scare him. Only twice has he ever been broken, shattering so completely he could feel it like a physical thing.
Or, okay. Make it three.
**
He catches a glimpse of Sam's body in Nevada. The hair's shaggy as ever, the body tall and massive.
Not Sam, he thinks, and it's easy - even at this distance - to see the differences.
Sam. Lucifer. Michael.
There's still two out of three to choose from. Because Adam might be a vessel, but he wasn't ever as strong as Sam and Dean, wasn't ever a hunter, hadn't ever really known what loss could do. Michael wouldn't stay in that meatsuit, given a choice. Maybe he would've thought Sam was a better option, even with a devil as a companion.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Dean knows he's being watched. This wasn't coincidence. He still can't make himself hurry as he slides the keys into the Impala's door.
**
It's like he broke down some invisible wall. He spies the outline of his brother everywhere he goes now. It doesn't bother him, because he knows it's not Sam, but he kind of wishes he could put some barrier up, ignore the looming shadow that stays just inside his eyeline.
"Bobby," the connection pops with interference, and Dean doesn't know how to say anything else, just wants to sit here, hear Bobby growl and snap into the phone.
"I know, boy." Gruff, grouchy. No matter what, the man doesn't change.
Dean presses his phone harder to his ear, feels the heat and pain radiating outward, making the plastic sweaty and difficult to hold onto.
**
He hates the fuckin booths in diners. They're always squeaky and sticky, usually have a jagged rip right where his thigh goes that has edges sharp enough to poke him through the denim of his jeans. He sits up at the counter or at the bar mostly, now, when it's not full of life's bums and throwaways.
The woman behind this diner's counter plops his plate down; cockroaches and rat droppings spill over the side. She starts walking away.
"Miss," he says, "more coffee?" The woman turns back, and her face is empty. Literally empty - no eyes, no mouth, no nose. There's just a cross, stamped high on her forehead. New, from the look of irritated, red skin, the blood smudged around the burn.
He hears, "say no, Dean." The voice is deep and comes from nowhere. Castiel's voice, Dean thinks, except more powerful and more at peace. "Michael is lost, and his grief is the only reason our Father will ever deem worthy of His attention."
Dean looks down, and once the fattest cockroach scurries off his plate, he sees the amulet Sam gave him. He picks it up, stunned at the lightness of it. He can barely feel where it rests against his palm.
He drops it back onto the plate. "Check, please."
**
When he wakes up, his right hand hurts. It's curled into a tight fist, and it takes a moment to convince his fingers to unfurl.
Like the woman in the dream, he has an image stamped into the smooth skin of his hand. The amulet - a perfect branding of the amulet Sam gave him - the one Dean threw away.
The mark is hot, painful, and Dean makes a fist again, not stopping until he can feel his own ragged nails biting into the wound. Say no, he thinks, and imagines just how angry Michael (Michael, but maybe not only Michael) will be. What that anger will do to...people. The world.
Say no, he thinks again. Then: there's a price. He smiles.
There's always a price.
**
The first time, after the dream (vision, whatever. Sam was always the weirdo psychic, not Dean, but now Dean squeezes his eyes shut, wants the headache, the pain because it'll be that much more of Sam. Not Sam's body, not some stupid, empty shell, but Sam, his brother, his blood), he tries to help the man.
He talks to the grizzled mechanic for an hour about classic cars and rebuilding engines. He's just turning away when he hears a shriek, rusty and gurgled and coming from a throat that maybe never made a sound like that before. Spinning around, he gets sprayed in the face by a shower of blood. Then the man's sinking to his knees, eyes wide and bulging, throat convulsing as he chokes on the blood pouring out of his mouth.
"What - what," Dean sinks down beside him, tries tipping the guy's head any way he can think of to get the blood to stop, to get the guy some air. There's no wound, no nothing that can explain whatever the hell's happening. "Hey!" Dean screams, but they're alone, Dean knows that. Of course they're alone. "We need some help in here!"
Nothing. He gets one blood soaked hand into the pocket of his jacket, fumbles out his cell phone. When he dials 911 and puts the receiver to his ear, it's quiet. There's nothing on the line except for empty air.
He drops the phone, mumbles words that have no effect, things like "it's okay. God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know."
But he did. He didn't know when, but he did know, and he just didn't - care. Didn't think beyond the abstract.
The body in his arms stills, all the blood the man possessed pooling on the oil stained concrete floor, drying on Dean's face and clothes. On his hands.
He looks up, sees a tall shadow flitting in the corner of the door outside.
**
He's seen what can happen, now, and it makes him careful for a time.
Bobby calls, and Dean's phone goes to voicemail. Dean texts him later, says, stop. Says, it's dangerous.
Bobby replies, why? What's going on?
Michael. That's it, that's all Dean can think of to say. Maybe that's all that needs to be said. Not even, in Sam's body. Useless, stupid information, because it's not affecting Dean. In any way.
It's an hour before Dean gets another text. Dean, it says, and Dean's still amazed Bobby can do his worried, irritated silence even through messaging. The black letters glare up at Dean, and it makes him want to roll his eyes.
He's already killed people.
The phone rings again, and this time the accusation is too loud. Dean picks up.
"Goddammit, boy. What the hell are - "
"Bobby." Even Dean can recognize that specific wrecked voice. It's the same one that slipped out when Sam was up and walking when he had no right to be. The same voice that begged Bobby to stop, to let Dean just have this. "What am I going to do?"
Bobby says, "tell me everything," but Dean hears I don't know and all the other words Bobby won't say.
**
He doesn't think about the fact that all he has is Cas, dream voice murky and fading, guiding him on. Go, go, go. He doesn't think that maybe it wasn't real, that his brain was just telling him what he wanted to hear.
He doesn't think. Not when the world is so clearly going down the shitter that it's leaving skidmarks. Doesn't think about giving in, because it's already too late; too many dead, dying and going to die. Marked by angels and demons to fuckin burn at the end of the world.
There's nothing to do, he thinks. That's what he thinks, nothing to do. Nothing. Zip.
Going to hell in a handbasket (hole in the ground) and the Impala's making tracks all over the continental US. His days are filled with backroads and tire marks. Haunted faces and the threat of blood.
Cas. Cas. It's a mumble, half-hearted and for a moment he doesn't think he's even saying anything out loud. "Cas."
He practically stands on the gas.
**
Late night, head in his hands. Glare of the tv in the corner, sound muted.
Easy to classify things, categorize them and discard them.
He said yes. Gave in, completely and totally.
Discard.
Sam said yes, lying through his teeth, fighting all the way.
Some days, weak days, Dean thinks, it shouldn't have happened. It wasn't meant to be this way, wasn't meant to be real. They always take turns doing the dumb shit. Always have. This shouldn't have been the exception.
Discard, discard.
**
There are a lot of things he knows. Kind of hard to forget, actually, and when he remembers them, an hour, a week, a state away from the last five second glance, he wonders if the reasons were more about seeing the results of something, rather than living almost completely in the theoretical.
It is six months since the man at the garage. Six months of skirting everybody he could possibly come in contact with for more than a brief moment.
A double, non smoking. A single, non. Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee. No. No no no.
Easy until it isn't. Until he can hear voices in his head, conversations, phantom touches. Hours on a blacktop; the only color in some states is the broken white and yellow marking out boundaries on the chipped pavement.
Easy until it wasn't, and he knows it was a mistake, but she had been warm and inviting. She'd had no problems with pulling a stranger into her bed and keeping him there.
When she starts gurgling and choking behind him, he still has her smell on him. The remains of her sweat and her breath.
He can feel the spasms of her body against his back. Cut off cries wet and thick and almost indistinguishable from the beat of his heart.
He gets up, gathers his clothes. He can make Iowa by nightfall.
**
A month. He's pale, shaky, starving. He sleeps and he dreams of driving through oceans of blood and wakes up with his hand burning hot and painful. The bull's head always marred by dried rust-colored streaks.
Cas's voice urges him on. "Go, go, have faith." Dean laughs, eyes stinging. He laughs, not bothering to say anything at all.
**
A month and two weeks. He calls Bobby. It rings and rings until Dean shuts off his phone, throws it into the backseat of the Impala.
He drives.
**
Dean doesn't even need to open the door to know Bobby's dead; the smell seeping out is enough of a warning. Things are still, too calm. There's the hint of wind at Dean's back and that's it.
He thinks he owes it to the man to go in, put his body to rights. Something clogs his throat, though, lays dirty trails on the skin of his face. Makes him hesitate.
Salt and burn, Dean thinks. Same as it's always been, for any job. Except this time it's a whole house, body hiding away behind wood and plaster and peeling paint.
The flames are sun hot and bright orange. Dean can almost feel the heat charring the clothes on his back when he turns away from the fire.
**
Michael catches him in Texas.
Dean's not angry, not wrathful or any of that shit. He's tired, exhausted, waiting for dreams and Cas's voice to tell him when to stop, when to turn around and fight again.
It never comes.
He's making a new home out of a bar outside of San Antonio, not even really trying to hide. Dean knows pain and loss - the homicidal tendencies of the guys upstairs haven't surprised him for a long, long time. Anyone they touch now, Dean's jaded enough to feel bad and move on. If he's honest, when Sam's body came back without his brother in the driver's seat - that's when Dean went numb. Nothing much mattered after that.
So when Michael slinks up to him right outside the bar he's leaving, Dean just glances at him. Takes in the pained lines of Sam's face, the awareness behind the eyes that's nothing of his brother.
He walks down the street, willing to leave the body behind, willing to walk with it.
The question, when it comes, surprises him. "So, this is your grief?"
He doesn't even think, though, just laughs at Michael's incredulity. "No. It's not. Ours never commands this much attention." He shrugs, stops. It's easy to face the angel. Because it's not Sam, not even close. Not even. "I say no."
"Now. How much of the world are you willing to destroy?"
The lines deepen around Sam's eyes (and they're the same tilted, clear-hazel eyes Dean's seen for Sam's whole life. Nothing's changed except for how everything has). "All of it," he says simply, and starts walking again. Michael doesn't match his steps. "Is Lucifer in there with you?" The question's tossed over Dean's shoulder and he sees Michael nod before Dean turns back to the vacant street in front of him. He loses that uncomfortable, itching sensation the farther away he gets. He sighs when the feeling disappears entirely, when a look back reveals dim street lights and emptiness.
Dean thinks, they really are waiting. There's something to be said for angelic patience, he guesses.
**
The whole town. There are buildings - Maggie's Diner, franchise autoshops, Kingston's Unisex Barbershop - old maybe, but standing and clean. Open for business amid empty lots and blood-red dirt.
Empty.
Dean knows how to research. He's never liked it, not really and not with Sam mostly there to play the part of geekboy, but Dean knows how.
He also knows math.
18,443 towns, thank you, census data.
18, 442 after tonight. For now.
There's a heavy, clash-of-the-titans tension around him. He thinks, three two one. "I need my vessel!" Michael roars. "This isn't over because you run away." The angel's face - Sam's face - is twisting, fury and age morphing into a tight rictus of pain. "I will kill everyone, Dean Winchester, and when you are alone, I will still be here, and I will still use you. This war will happen, and there is nothing that can stop it. Destiny cannot be changed."
"Yes," Dean says, "it can."
He walks down the rickety steps of a home-run accountant's office, angel and demon and unseen corpses getting left behind. He doesn't look back, walks and walks and walks to the dim outline of the Impala against the horizon, feeling the red dust swirl and settle with each step he takes.
Behind him, Michael screams. It's a thousand voices. It's death and agony, promises of pain to come.
Dean doesn't stop.
Also, I'm such a lemming, ahaha, it's not funny. I'm oddly terrified I'm posting too early (although on the other hand, NO. Right? >ugh< Indecsion is an ugly, ugly thing, my friends).
OMGWTF: ~3,000+ words; unbeta'd; gen; Dean-POV and Dean-centric; post s5 AU; major character death and/or possession; apocafic (soft of); ANGST!
come out the hero
The sky boils.
Dean's standing right out in the middle of nowhere, some gray in-between state full of pavement and dirty, dead fields. His eyes have been burning for days, now, shooting off random sparks along the edges of his sight, so he's not sure at first if he's seeing it clearly. He had stopped to take a leak, and suddenly there were massive, undulating clouds creeping in from the sides of his vision, twisting and twirling, tendrils converging above his head. The result is a large purple, splotchy mess that warps and weaves in the air, higher than the treeline, but only slightly.
Maybe, he thinks, it's a massive brain tumor making him hallucinate this shit.
His phone rings. "Bobby," he says into the receiver. Only Bobby'd call him now. No one else; no Lisa, who he made run him out the second week into his stay, and everyone else is gone or dead.
"Take it you're seein this, then." Bobby's voice is dry as ever, but it crackles with distance, another squirming, red hot layer of guilt. Dean closes his eyes.
"What is it?" Because it's apparently not a tumor. Goddammit.
"Well," and there's rustling on the other end. A long, awkward pause. "Somethin's tellin me the big players are back in town."
**
Dean doesn't run.
There's nowhere to run to. Not a place; not a person. Dean's not stupid - his family's been through this too many times.
He steers clear of the big omens, the important things. He points the Impala west and he doesn't think any further than that.
He's at a little diner in Kentucky when he hears about the earthquake threatening to dislodge California into the Pacific.
Dean thinks about Stanford and Jess and two years where his little brother was a geeky college kid.
He smiles.
**
Tidal waves stretch inward, surprising weathermen the nation over with how far they reach.
Nothing like it, one says. The man shifts uneasily across the t.v., bright colored maps changing and swirling behind him. Dean can see the sweat at his hairline, along the ridge of upper lip. His suit clumps around the arms, making stiff peaks at the shoulder whenever the man raises an arm. It's going to be an interesting season for the coast. That's for sure.
He clicks the news off. The room is dark, damp smelling. Light drifts in from the parking lot but it only highlights Dean's thigh, a wedge of pillow.
The room's a single, and his feet kick over a duffel when he goes to lay down.
**
He doesn't run, but he doesn't stop moving, either. The world ended as soon as that damn hole sealed itself back up. Fuck Sam and fuck the life his little brother tried plotting out for him.
Dean's here, right here where no one else is. Where no one is going to be.
Dean knows. One time too many, and Dean gets it. Sam's not coming back.
**
He keeps replaying that moment. Watching Sam reach out, drag Michael into the ground with him, and Dean knows that's why he should have said yes. He can almost feel the phantom tug of his brother's hands against his shoulders.
He's been a hunter all his life. A lot of things scare him. Only twice has he ever been broken, shattering so completely he could feel it like a physical thing.
Or, okay. Make it three.
**
He catches a glimpse of Sam's body in Nevada. The hair's shaggy as ever, the body tall and massive.
Not Sam, he thinks, and it's easy - even at this distance - to see the differences.
Sam. Lucifer. Michael.
There's still two out of three to choose from. Because Adam might be a vessel, but he wasn't ever as strong as Sam and Dean, wasn't ever a hunter, hadn't ever really known what loss could do. Michael wouldn't stay in that meatsuit, given a choice. Maybe he would've thought Sam was a better option, even with a devil as a companion.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Dean knows he's being watched. This wasn't coincidence. He still can't make himself hurry as he slides the keys into the Impala's door.
**
It's like he broke down some invisible wall. He spies the outline of his brother everywhere he goes now. It doesn't bother him, because he knows it's not Sam, but he kind of wishes he could put some barrier up, ignore the looming shadow that stays just inside his eyeline.
"Bobby," the connection pops with interference, and Dean doesn't know how to say anything else, just wants to sit here, hear Bobby growl and snap into the phone.
"I know, boy." Gruff, grouchy. No matter what, the man doesn't change.
Dean presses his phone harder to his ear, feels the heat and pain radiating outward, making the plastic sweaty and difficult to hold onto.
**
He hates the fuckin booths in diners. They're always squeaky and sticky, usually have a jagged rip right where his thigh goes that has edges sharp enough to poke him through the denim of his jeans. He sits up at the counter or at the bar mostly, now, when it's not full of life's bums and throwaways.
The woman behind this diner's counter plops his plate down; cockroaches and rat droppings spill over the side. She starts walking away.
"Miss," he says, "more coffee?" The woman turns back, and her face is empty. Literally empty - no eyes, no mouth, no nose. There's just a cross, stamped high on her forehead. New, from the look of irritated, red skin, the blood smudged around the burn.
He hears, "say no, Dean." The voice is deep and comes from nowhere. Castiel's voice, Dean thinks, except more powerful and more at peace. "Michael is lost, and his grief is the only reason our Father will ever deem worthy of His attention."
Dean looks down, and once the fattest cockroach scurries off his plate, he sees the amulet Sam gave him. He picks it up, stunned at the lightness of it. He can barely feel where it rests against his palm.
He drops it back onto the plate. "Check, please."
**
When he wakes up, his right hand hurts. It's curled into a tight fist, and it takes a moment to convince his fingers to unfurl.
Like the woman in the dream, he has an image stamped into the smooth skin of his hand. The amulet - a perfect branding of the amulet Sam gave him - the one Dean threw away.
The mark is hot, painful, and Dean makes a fist again, not stopping until he can feel his own ragged nails biting into the wound. Say no, he thinks, and imagines just how angry Michael (Michael, but maybe not only Michael) will be. What that anger will do to...people. The world.
Say no, he thinks again. Then: there's a price. He smiles.
There's always a price.
**
The first time, after the dream (vision, whatever. Sam was always the weirdo psychic, not Dean, but now Dean squeezes his eyes shut, wants the headache, the pain because it'll be that much more of Sam. Not Sam's body, not some stupid, empty shell, but Sam, his brother, his blood), he tries to help the man.
He talks to the grizzled mechanic for an hour about classic cars and rebuilding engines. He's just turning away when he hears a shriek, rusty and gurgled and coming from a throat that maybe never made a sound like that before. Spinning around, he gets sprayed in the face by a shower of blood. Then the man's sinking to his knees, eyes wide and bulging, throat convulsing as he chokes on the blood pouring out of his mouth.
"What - what," Dean sinks down beside him, tries tipping the guy's head any way he can think of to get the blood to stop, to get the guy some air. There's no wound, no nothing that can explain whatever the hell's happening. "Hey!" Dean screams, but they're alone, Dean knows that. Of course they're alone. "We need some help in here!"
Nothing. He gets one blood soaked hand into the pocket of his jacket, fumbles out his cell phone. When he dials 911 and puts the receiver to his ear, it's quiet. There's nothing on the line except for empty air.
He drops the phone, mumbles words that have no effect, things like "it's okay. God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know."
But he did. He didn't know when, but he did know, and he just didn't - care. Didn't think beyond the abstract.
The body in his arms stills, all the blood the man possessed pooling on the oil stained concrete floor, drying on Dean's face and clothes. On his hands.
He looks up, sees a tall shadow flitting in the corner of the door outside.
**
He's seen what can happen, now, and it makes him careful for a time.
Bobby calls, and Dean's phone goes to voicemail. Dean texts him later, says, stop. Says, it's dangerous.
Bobby replies, why? What's going on?
Michael. That's it, that's all Dean can think of to say. Maybe that's all that needs to be said. Not even, in Sam's body. Useless, stupid information, because it's not affecting Dean. In any way.
It's an hour before Dean gets another text. Dean, it says, and Dean's still amazed Bobby can do his worried, irritated silence even through messaging. The black letters glare up at Dean, and it makes him want to roll his eyes.
He's already killed people.
The phone rings again, and this time the accusation is too loud. Dean picks up.
"Goddammit, boy. What the hell are - "
"Bobby." Even Dean can recognize that specific wrecked voice. It's the same one that slipped out when Sam was up and walking when he had no right to be. The same voice that begged Bobby to stop, to let Dean just have this. "What am I going to do?"
Bobby says, "tell me everything," but Dean hears I don't know and all the other words Bobby won't say.
**
He doesn't think about the fact that all he has is Cas, dream voice murky and fading, guiding him on. Go, go, go. He doesn't think that maybe it wasn't real, that his brain was just telling him what he wanted to hear.
He doesn't think. Not when the world is so clearly going down the shitter that it's leaving skidmarks. Doesn't think about giving in, because it's already too late; too many dead, dying and going to die. Marked by angels and demons to fuckin burn at the end of the world.
There's nothing to do, he thinks. That's what he thinks, nothing to do. Nothing. Zip.
Going to hell in a handbasket (hole in the ground) and the Impala's making tracks all over the continental US. His days are filled with backroads and tire marks. Haunted faces and the threat of blood.
Cas. Cas. It's a mumble, half-hearted and for a moment he doesn't think he's even saying anything out loud. "Cas."
He practically stands on the gas.
**
Late night, head in his hands. Glare of the tv in the corner, sound muted.
Easy to classify things, categorize them and discard them.
He said yes. Gave in, completely and totally.
Discard.
Sam said yes, lying through his teeth, fighting all the way.
Some days, weak days, Dean thinks, it shouldn't have happened. It wasn't meant to be this way, wasn't meant to be real. They always take turns doing the dumb shit. Always have. This shouldn't have been the exception.
Discard, discard.
**
There are a lot of things he knows. Kind of hard to forget, actually, and when he remembers them, an hour, a week, a state away from the last five second glance, he wonders if the reasons were more about seeing the results of something, rather than living almost completely in the theoretical.
It is six months since the man at the garage. Six months of skirting everybody he could possibly come in contact with for more than a brief moment.
A double, non smoking. A single, non. Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee. No. No no no.
Easy until it isn't. Until he can hear voices in his head, conversations, phantom touches. Hours on a blacktop; the only color in some states is the broken white and yellow marking out boundaries on the chipped pavement.
Easy until it wasn't, and he knows it was a mistake, but she had been warm and inviting. She'd had no problems with pulling a stranger into her bed and keeping him there.
When she starts gurgling and choking behind him, he still has her smell on him. The remains of her sweat and her breath.
He can feel the spasms of her body against his back. Cut off cries wet and thick and almost indistinguishable from the beat of his heart.
He gets up, gathers his clothes. He can make Iowa by nightfall.
**
A month. He's pale, shaky, starving. He sleeps and he dreams of driving through oceans of blood and wakes up with his hand burning hot and painful. The bull's head always marred by dried rust-colored streaks.
Cas's voice urges him on. "Go, go, have faith." Dean laughs, eyes stinging. He laughs, not bothering to say anything at all.
**
A month and two weeks. He calls Bobby. It rings and rings until Dean shuts off his phone, throws it into the backseat of the Impala.
He drives.
**
Dean doesn't even need to open the door to know Bobby's dead; the smell seeping out is enough of a warning. Things are still, too calm. There's the hint of wind at Dean's back and that's it.
He thinks he owes it to the man to go in, put his body to rights. Something clogs his throat, though, lays dirty trails on the skin of his face. Makes him hesitate.
Salt and burn, Dean thinks. Same as it's always been, for any job. Except this time it's a whole house, body hiding away behind wood and plaster and peeling paint.
The flames are sun hot and bright orange. Dean can almost feel the heat charring the clothes on his back when he turns away from the fire.
**
Michael catches him in Texas.
Dean's not angry, not wrathful or any of that shit. He's tired, exhausted, waiting for dreams and Cas's voice to tell him when to stop, when to turn around and fight again.
It never comes.
He's making a new home out of a bar outside of San Antonio, not even really trying to hide. Dean knows pain and loss - the homicidal tendencies of the guys upstairs haven't surprised him for a long, long time. Anyone they touch now, Dean's jaded enough to feel bad and move on. If he's honest, when Sam's body came back without his brother in the driver's seat - that's when Dean went numb. Nothing much mattered after that.
So when Michael slinks up to him right outside the bar he's leaving, Dean just glances at him. Takes in the pained lines of Sam's face, the awareness behind the eyes that's nothing of his brother.
He walks down the street, willing to leave the body behind, willing to walk with it.
The question, when it comes, surprises him. "So, this is your grief?"
He doesn't even think, though, just laughs at Michael's incredulity. "No. It's not. Ours never commands this much attention." He shrugs, stops. It's easy to face the angel. Because it's not Sam, not even close. Not even. "I say no."
"Now. How much of the world are you willing to destroy?"
The lines deepen around Sam's eyes (and they're the same tilted, clear-hazel eyes Dean's seen for Sam's whole life. Nothing's changed except for how everything has). "All of it," he says simply, and starts walking again. Michael doesn't match his steps. "Is Lucifer in there with you?" The question's tossed over Dean's shoulder and he sees Michael nod before Dean turns back to the vacant street in front of him. He loses that uncomfortable, itching sensation the farther away he gets. He sighs when the feeling disappears entirely, when a look back reveals dim street lights and emptiness.
Dean thinks, they really are waiting. There's something to be said for angelic patience, he guesses.
**
The whole town. There are buildings - Maggie's Diner, franchise autoshops, Kingston's Unisex Barbershop - old maybe, but standing and clean. Open for business amid empty lots and blood-red dirt.
Empty.
Dean knows how to research. He's never liked it, not really and not with Sam mostly there to play the part of geekboy, but Dean knows how.
He also knows math.
18,443 towns, thank you, census data.
18, 442 after tonight. For now.
There's a heavy, clash-of-the-titans tension around him. He thinks, three two one. "I need my vessel!" Michael roars. "This isn't over because you run away." The angel's face - Sam's face - is twisting, fury and age morphing into a tight rictus of pain. "I will kill everyone, Dean Winchester, and when you are alone, I will still be here, and I will still use you. This war will happen, and there is nothing that can stop it. Destiny cannot be changed."
"Yes," Dean says, "it can."
He walks down the rickety steps of a home-run accountant's office, angel and demon and unseen corpses getting left behind. He doesn't look back, walks and walks and walks to the dim outline of the Impala against the horizon, feeling the red dust swirl and settle with each step he takes.
Behind him, Michael screams. It's a thousand voices. It's death and agony, promises of pain to come.
Dean doesn't stop.